Registering Wrongs Quotes

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.

Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs." - Helen Burns

I can't--I can't think about anything or anyone else," he whispered. A hand drifted up, dragging back through his hair. "I can't think straight when you're around. I can't sleep. It feels like I can't breathe--I just--" "Liam, please," I begged. "You're tired. You're barely over being sick. Let's just... Can we just go back to the others?" "I love you." He turned toward me, that agonized expression still on his face. "I love you every second of everyday, and I don't understand why, or how to make it stop--" He looked wild with pain; it pinned me in place, even before what he had said registered in my mind. "I know it's wrong; I know it down to my damn bones. And I feel like I'm sick. I'm trying to be a good person, but I can't. I can't do this anymore.

Jiang was wrong. She was not dabbling in forces she could not control, for the gods were not dangerous. The gods had no power at all, except what she gave them. The gods could affect the universe only through humans like her. Her destiny had not been written in the stars, or in the registers of the Pantheon. She had made her choices fully and autonomously. And though she called upon the gods to aid her in battle, they were her tools from beginning to end. She was no victim of destiny. She was the last Speerly, commander of the Cike, and a shaman who called the gods to do her bidding. And she would call the gods to do such terrible things.

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. 

Other animals can make sounds, and sounds can indicate pleasure and pain. But language, a distinctly human capacity, isn´t just for registering pleasure and pain. It´s about declaring what is just and what is unjust, and distinguishing right from wrong. We don´t grasp these things silently, and then put words to them; language is the medium through which we discern and deliberate about the good.

Everything looked the same, and that felt wrong, like the world should have registered the events of the last few days, should have changed the way she had changed.

Look,” I began, “I get it. You don’t like me, but—” “I don’t like you?” He let out a low, flat laugh. One fell into the next, and it was awful—not at all him. He was half choking on them as he turned around, shaking his head. It almost sounded like a sob, the way his breath burst out of him. “I don’t like you,” he repeated, his face bleak. “I don’t like you?” “Liam—” I started, alarmed. “I can’t—I can’t think about anything or anyone else,” he whispered. A hand drifted up, dragging back through his hair. “I can’t think straight when you’re around. I can’t sleep. It feels like I can’t breathe—I just—” “Liam, please,” I begged. “You’re tired. You’re barely over being sick. Let’s just… Can we just go back to the others?” “I love you.” He turned toward me, that agonized expression still on his face. “I love you every second of every day, and I don’t understand why, or how to make it stop—” He looked wild with pain; it pinned me in place, even before what he had said registered in my mind. “I know it’s wrong; I know it down to my damn bones. And I feel like I’m sick. I’m trying to be a good person, but I can’t. I can’t do it anymore.

It's just that the times I'm wrong don't register in your memory with as much clarity as the times I'm right.

I don’t know a lot of things. I don’t know why I didn’t hear the door click. Why I didn’t lock the damn door to begin with. Or why it didn’t register that something was wrong, so mercilessy wrong when I felt the mattress shift under his weight. Why I didn’t scream when I opened my eyes and saw him crawling between my sheets. Or why I didn’t to try to fight him when I still stood a chance.

You’re brave, did you know that?’ He must have me mistaken for someone else. ‘You have all these fears, your body endures all this pain and heartache, but you keep going. I think that’s really brave.’ I shake my head. My mind is telling me that he’s wrong. Brave is swords and shields. People who are fearless in the face of adversity. Warriors for social justice. Brave is not me. But my heart registers the way he’s looking at me now, and my shoulders straighten. I feel shiny, normal.

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs. We are, and must be one and all burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh and only the spark of the spirit will remain...

Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited?  Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. 

The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way. Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson’s play, excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, “I won’t count this time!” Well! He may not count it, and a kind Heaven may not count it; but it is being counted none the less. Down among his nerve-cells and fibers the molecules are counting it, registering and storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes. Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out. Of course this has its good side as well as its bad one. As we become permanent drunkards by so many separate drinks, so we become saints in the moral, and authorities and experts in the practical and scientific spheres, by so many separate acts and hours of work. Let no youth have any anxiety about the upshot of his education, whatever the line of it may be. If he keeps faithfully busy each hour of the working-day, he may safely leave the final result to itself. He can with perfect certainty count on waking up some fine morning, to find himself one of the competent ones of his generation, in whatever pursuit he may have singled out.

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain,—the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man—perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph! Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? No; I cannot believe that: I hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest—a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low: I live in calm, looking to the end.

She has been unkind to you, no doubt; because you see, she dislikes your cast of character, as Miss Scatcherd does mine; but how minutely you remember all she has done and said to you! What a singularly deep impression her injustice seems to have made on your heart! No ill-usage so brands its record on my feelings. Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain, - the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man - perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph! ...

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs.

He kissed her slowly, deeply, seized by a slew of contrasting emotions. It was wrong to kiss her, he registered faintly in the back of his mind, but it felt more right than anything else he had done since arriving in Alvair. A fire awakened somewhere within him as their lips met, the heat of it at odds with the chill of the Amulet clutched between their hands.

(Devon) “Cam, what’s wrong?” He cursed and held her tighter. “Help me,” he rasped. Her senses dizzy from the scent and feel of him, it took a few moments for the words to register. She stroked her fingers through his thick, soft hair. “Help you?” His head moved against her hand, as much a show of helpless pleasure as it was a nod. “Help me slow down.” She shook her head. “I don’t want you to slow down—” “I want to be gentle,” he said roughly, his warm breath tickling her neck. “But I’m so fucking turned on right now all I can think about is pounding into you.

One thing of great importance can affect a small number of people. Equally so, a thing of little importance can affect a multitude. Either way, a happening - big or small - can affect an entire string of people. Occurrences can join us all together. You see, we're all made up of the same stuff. When something happens, it triggers something inside us that connects us to a situation, connects us to other people, lighting us up and linking us like little lights on a Christmas tree, twisted and turned but still connected to a wire. Some go out, others flicker, others burn strong and bright, yet we are all on the same line. I said at the beginning of this story that this was about people who find out who they are. About people who are unraveled and whose cores are revealed to all who count. And that all that count are revealed to them. You thought I was talking about Lou Suffern and the Turkey Boy, about Raphie, Jessica, and Ruth, didn't you? Wrong. I was talking about each of us. A lesson finds the common denominatior and links us all together, like a chain. At the end of that chain dangles a clock, and on the face of the clock registers the passing of time. We see it and we hear it, the hushed tick-tock, but often we don't feel it. Each second makes its mark on every single person's life - comes and then goes, quietly disappearing without fanfare, evaporating into air like steam from a piping hot Christmas pudding. Enough time leaves us warm; when our time is gone, it leaves us cold. Time is more precious than gold, more precious than diamonds, more precious than oil or any valuable treasures. It is time of which we do not have enough; it is time that causes the war within our hearts, and so we must spend it wisely. Time cannot be packaged and ribboned and left under trees for Christmas morning. Time can't be given. But it can be shared.

What a singularly deep impression her injustice seems to have made on your heart! No ill-usage so brands its record on my feelings. Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs.

Among these temperamentally unhappy campers are "reactant" personalities, who focus on what they often wrongly perceive as others' attempts to control them. In one experiment, some of these touchy individuals were asked to think of two people they knew: a bossy sort who advocated hard work and a mellow type who preached la dolce vita. Then, one of the names was flashed before the subjects too briefly to register in their conscious awareness. Next, the subjects were given a task to perform. Those who had been exposed to the hard-driving name performed markedly worse than those exposed to the easygoing name. Even this weak, subliminal attention to an emotional cue that suggested control was enough to get their reactant backs up and cause them to act to their own disadvantage. All relationships involve give-and-take and cooperation, so a person who habitually attends to ordinary requests or suggestions like a bull to a red flag is in for big trouble in both home and workplace.

And I would guess there’s a lot more similarity in how we suffer than the way we experience joy. Rejection stays with you, but I don’t think people register it when they’re happy. They don’t say, “I need to remember what this feels like.” It just goes by, and it’s perfect and awesome, and you feel grateful that you get to experience even a fleeting moment of pure, unbridled, unsarcastic bliss. But when we experience pain or trauma, we’re acutely aware that something is wrong. You want answers. “What is this? How do I get rid of this? Why is this happening to me? I don’t want this.” That’s why so much art, and music, in particular, becomes a great commiserating balm for pain. Joy doesn’t need to be audited. We’re just grateful to have had it at all. But pain, goddammit, we demand to know Who’s responsible for this?

Bjartur declared that he had never denied that there was much that was strange in nature. "I consider that there's nothing wrong in believing in elves even though their names aren't on the parish register," he said. "It hurts no one, yes and even does you good rather than harm; but to believe in ghosts and ghouls--that I contend is nothing but the remains of popery and hardly fit for a Christian to give even a moment's consideration." He did his utmost to persuade the women to accept his views on these matters.

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world; but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sun will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain, the impalpable principle of life and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature[.] [...] Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can do sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last; with this creed, revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low. I live in calm, looking to the end.

Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies;6 when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain

dislikes your cast of character, as Miss Scatcherd does mine; but how minutely you remember all she has done and said to you! What a singularly deep impression her injustice seems to have made on your heart! No ill-usage so brands its record on my feelings. Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world:

Men wore business suits and carried briefcases, while their wives, who were attractive but not sexy, stayed home, raised the kids, cleaned the house and had a meal on the table for the whole family when they arrived home. Both husband and wife knew their roles. The wife would only apply face cream after ‘congress’ was completed and the husband was asleep as it was considered that it could be shocking for a man to view his wife this way last thing at night. She would be compliant and forgiving if he suggested some of the more ‘unusual’ sexual practices, although she might register hesitancy by remaining silent. The Hippies rebelled against this, growing their hair long, burning their draft cards, taking hallucinogenic drugs and indulging in ‘free love,’ which in reality was just another term to describe the notion that all the girls were up for it.

Labelling a woman as a hypochondriac is the modern day way of labelling a woman hysterical – the insinuation is that it is all in her mind, she is unstable (mentally and perhaps physically) her opinion and feelings are not to be trusted. Her pain and her concerns are not real. But what if the hypochondriac, the highly sensitive woman, is picking up perfectly on the signs that something is wrong, she is registering the imbalance, that something is wrong, but she mistakes the issue as being in her own body, rather than the body of the world beyond her. She is told to quiet down, that nothing is wrong. But there is, she knows there is. This is why the constant reassurance does little to help her. She is feeling, deep in her bones, in her nerves, in her pulse that something is seriously wrong. Because it is. Her biological system may or may not have gotten sick from it yet, but the signs of a sick world are quickening within her.

Sunday night is my personal weekly Halloween. I walk along slowly and drag my fingertips along the bars of chocolate. Goddamn, you sexy little squares. Dark, milk, white, I do not discriminate. I eat it all. Those fluorescent sour candies that only obnoxious little boys like. I suck candy apples clean. If an envelope seal is sweet, I’ll lick it twice. Growing up, I was that kid who would easily get lured into a van with the promise of a lollipop. Sometimes, I let the retail seduction last for twenty minutes, ignoring Marco and feeling up the merchandise, but I’m so tired of male voices. “Five bags of marshmallows,” Marco says in a resigned tone. “Wine. And a can of cat food.” “Cat food is low carb.” He makes no move to scan anything, so I scan each item myself and unroll a few notes from my tips. “Your job involves selling things. Sell them. Change, please.” “I just don’t know why you do this to yourself.” Marco looks at the register with a moral dilemma in his eyes. “Every week you come and do this.” He hesitates and looks over his shoulder where his sugar book sits under a layer of dust. He knows not to try to slip it into my bag with my purchases. “I don’t know why you care, dude. Just serve me. I don’t need your help.” He’s not entirely wrong about my being an addict. I would lick a line of icing sugar off this counter right now if no one were around. I would walk into a cane plantation and bite right in... “Give me my change or I swear to God …” I squeeze my eyes shut and try to tamp down my temper. “Just treat me like any other customer.” He gives me a few coins’ change and bags my sweet, spongy drugs.

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.  We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain,—the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man—perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph!  Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend?  No; I cannot believe that: I hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest—a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss.  Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low: I live in calm, looking to the end.

I must have a screw loose," she muttered under her breath. Satisfied the counter was clean, she squatted down and put the cleaning supplies away in the cabinet beneath the register. "Yup. There's definitely something wrong with me." "Are you looking for confirmation on that?" Jordan's heart hitched in her chest as Gavin's familiar baritone filled the shop. "Or am I supposed to argue with you?

She has been unkind to you, no doubt, because you see, she dislikes your cast of character, as Miss Scatcherd does mine; but how minutely you remember all she has done and said to you! What a singularly deep impression her injustice seems to have made on your heart! No ill-usage so brands its record on my feelings. Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain – the impalpable principle of life and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature; whence it came it will return, perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man – perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph! Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? No, I cannot believe that: I hold another creed, which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention, but in which I delight, and to which I cling, for it extends hope to all; it makes eternity a rest – a mighty home – not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime, I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last; with this creed, revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low; I live in calm, looking to the end.

Cash register. Army surplus, my son wrapped up in my coat. He was just a baby then. I thought I might be up here on this mountain for no reason. Maybe everything I thought was wrong in the world wasn't wrong at all, Maybe he'd be safe here. Maybe I wasn't just every mother ever, panicked, looking at her child and seeing all the ways he might get hurt. He was mine, and I wanted someone to tell me my son was beautiful, to tell me he'd grow into a man. I didn't wan't to be alone forever, with no one to help me, and no one but me to help him.

Jiang was wrong. She was not dabbling in forces she could not control,for the gods were not dangerous. The gods had no power at all, except whatshe gave them. The gods could affect the universe only through humans likeher. Her destiny had not been written in the stars, or in the registers of thePantheon. She had made her choices fully and autonomously. And thoughshe called upon the gods to aid her in battle, they were her tools frombeginning to end.She was no victim of destiny. She was the last Speerly, commander of theCike, and a shaman who called the gods to do her bidding.And she would call the gods to do such terrible things.

I sat up, woozy and blurry-eyed. I was lying in my old cot in the Me cabin. Sunlight streamed through the windows—morning light? Had I really slept that long? Snuggled up next to me, something warm and furry was growling and snuffling in my pillow. At first glance, I thought it might be a pit bull, though I was fairly sure I did not own a pit bull. Then it looked up, and I realized it was the disembodied head of a leopard. One nanosecond later, I was standing at the opposite end of the cabin, screaming. It was the closest I’d come to teleporting since I’d lost my godly powers. “Oh, you’re awake!” My son Will emerged from the bathroom in a billow of steam, his blond hair dripping wet and a towel around his waist. On his left pectoral was a stylized sun tattoo, which seemed unnecessary to me—as if he could be mistaken for anything but a child of the sun god. He froze when he registered the panic in my eyes. “What’s wrong?” GRR! said the leopard. “Seymour?” Will marched over to my cot and picked up the leopard head—which at some point in the distant past had been taxidermied and stuck on a plaque, then liberated from a garage sale by Dionysus and granted new life. Normally, as I recalled, Seymour resided over the fireplace mantel in the Big House, which did not explain why he had been chewing on my pillow. “What are you doing here?” Will demanded of the leopard. Then, to me: “I swear I did not put him in your bed.” “I did.” Dionysus materialized right next to me. My tortured lungs could not manage another scream, but I leaped back an additional few inches. Dionysus gave me his patented smirk. “I thought you might like some company. I always sleep better with a teddy leopard.” “Very kind.” I tried my best to kill him with eye daggers. “But I prefer to sleep alone.” “As you wish. Seymour, back to the Big House.” Dionysus snapped his fingers and the leopard head vanished from Will’s hands. “Well, then…

Not everyone in the village was happy with the idea of having an Untouchable man's statue put up at the entrance. Particularly not an Untouchable who carried a weapon. They felt it would give out the wrong message, give people ideas. Three weeks after the statue went up, the rifle on its soldier went missing. Sepoy S. Murugesan's family tried to file a complaint, but the police refused to register a case, saying that the rifle must have fallen off or simply disintegrated due to the use of substandard cement- a fairly common malpractice- and that nobody could be blamed. A month later the statue's hands were cut off. Once again the police refused to register a case, although this time they sniggered knowingly and did not even bother to offer a reason. Two weeks after the amputation of its hands, the statue of Sepoy S. Murugesan was beheaded. There were a few days of tension. People from nearby villages who belonged to the same caste as S. Murugesan organized a protest. They began a relay hunger strike at the base of the statue. A local court said it would constitute a magisterial committee to look into the matter. In the meanwhile it ordered a status quo. The hunger strike was discontinued. The magisterial committee was never constituted. In some countries, some soldiers die twice.

Audio of interview - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=... "it's not surprising that in that first group I worked with over 20 years ago I had 2 accounts of Jimmy Savile being an abuser where I did support some people to go to the police but it was seen as something impossible to consider at the time." "We have improved a lot as a society in the last 20 years in accepting the reality of abuse, even though it's still so hard for us." "When we look at adults who were abused in childhood we find that nearly all of them had told somebody..." "The culture of the police has changed dramatically but 20 years ago when even counselors and social workers didn't think the abuse could be so widespread the police were obviously part of that culture too. I mean it's hard to realise that in the 1980s there was a point where it was thought that there were only 486 children on the abuse register. Now the government accepts that 1 in 4 adults will have been abused at some point in their lives. That is a huge change." "This is really different for any survivors listening now if a police officer doesn't listen sympathetically and offer a believing response then something has gone wrong because the police really do have this in their guidelines now." - Dr Valerie Sinason, Clinic for Dissociative Studies, London

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain,—the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man—perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph! Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? No; I cannot believe that: I hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest—a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low: I live in calm, looking to the end.

The words roll off your tongue so smoothly that I almost don't feel the pain. Your voice has soothed me for so long that when you use that same voice to tell me we are over, I initially don't even register you are delivering bad news. It's like you, the love of my life, are standing in front of me with your sweet and sympathetic eyes as if nothing is wrong and then you pull the trigger. So unexpected that I sit there, staring at my wound, misunderstanding the events that have just occurred. "Why am I bleeding? How did this come to be? Did you really just say we ? "Oh. I see." My eyes rest on your mouth, the weapon that has fired against my heart.

I hear footsteps, which is my first indicator that something is off—Dr. Zhang is feather-boned, and her light steps would barely register through the thick metal of her door. Still, I’m staring at where her eyes should be when the door jerks open. Instead of her kind, slightly wrinkled face, I’m met with a bronze wall of rippling abdominal muscles. Washboard isn’t a good descriptor because these abs are so chiseled they seem like they could hurt you, like you could lose a finger to a freak sit-up related accident if you reached out to stroke them at the wrong moment. This is an imminent threat because, clearly, their owner must spontaneously break into abdominal exercises without warning all the time to maintain this physique.

I like new-Jay,” Chelsea finally announced, as though she was making a simple observation rather than trying to pry information out of her friend. “Shut up.” Violet groaned, unable to completely hide her smile at Chelsea’s absurd comment. Still, she didn’t feel inclined to share her problems with Chelsea. “Don’t get me wrong, Vi. I still like old-Jay better; I’m just saying that new-Jay’s not so bad. Plus, at least he had the balls to ask you to the dance. That’s something that old-Jay couldn’t seem to manage.” “He’s not new-Jay,” Violet insisted, stopping at her locker to grab her notebook. “Jay’s just pissed off at me right now. He’ll get over it. Besides, I already told you that we’re just friends.” “Which one? New-Jay or old-Jay?” Violet rolled her eyes as she slammed the metal door shut. “Both.” She turned on her feel and left Chelsea standing alone by the row of lockers. And then she called back over her shoulder. “Besides . . . there is no new-Jay.” It took Violet only a moment to register the fact that Jay was standing right there in the hallway, just a few feet away from her and within earshot of her entire conversation with Chelsea, although she couldn’t be sure how long he’d been standing there. Still, she was mortified that he’d caught her talking about him at all. She ignored the blazing look he flashed in her direction as she hurried past him, escaping to her next class . . . and trying to ignore the fact that he would be sitting right next to her.

He couldn’t have known it, but among the original run of The History of Love, at least one copy was destined to change a life. This particular book was one of the last of the two thousand to be printed, and sat for longer than the rest in a warehouse in the outskirts of Santiago, absorbing the humidity. From there it was finally sent to a bookstore in Buenos Aires. The careless owner hardly noticed it, and for some years it languished on the shelves, acquiring a pattern of mildew across the cover. It was a slim volume, and its position on the shelf wasn’t exactly prime: crowded on the left by an overweight biography of a minor actress, and on the right by the once-bestselling novel of an author that everyone had since forgotten, it hardly left its spine visible to even the most rigorous browser. When the store changed owners it fell victim to a massive clearance, and was trucked off to another warehouse, foul, dingy, crawling with daddy longlegs, where it remained in the dark and damp before finally being sent to a small secondhand bookstore not far from the home of the writer Jorge Luis Borges. The owner took her time unpacking the books she’d bought cheaply and in bulk from the warehouse. One morning, going through the boxes, she discovered the mildewed copy of The History of Love. She’d never heard of it, but the title caught her eye. She put it aside, and during a slow hour in the shop she read the opening chapter, called 'The Age of Silence.' The owner of the secondhand bookstore lowered the volume of the radio. She flipped to the back flap of the book to find out more about the author, but all it said was that Zvi Litvinoff had been born in Poland and moved to Chile in 1941, where he still lived today. There was no photograph. That day, in between helping customers, she finished the book. Before locking up the shop that evening, she placed it in the window, a little wistful about having to part with it. The next morning, the first rays of the rising sun fell across the cover of The History of Love. The first of many flies alighted on its jacket. Its mildewed pages began to dry out in the heat as the blue-gray Persian cat who lorded over the shop brushed past it to lay claim to a pool of sunlight. A few hours later, the first of many passersby gave it a cursory glance as they went by the window. The shop owner did not try to push the book on any of her customers. She knew that in the wrong hands such a book could easily be dismissed or, worse, go unread. Instead she let it sit where it was in the hope that the right reader might discover it. And that’s what happened. One afternoon a tall young man saw the book in the window. He came into the shop, picked it up, read a few pages, and brought it to the register. When he spoke to the owner, she couldn’t place his accent. She asked where he was from, curious about the person who was taking the book away. Israel, he told her, explaining that he’d recently finished his time in the army and was traveling around South America for a few months. The owner was about to put the book in a bag, but the young man said he didn’t need one, and slipped it into his backpack. The door chimes were still tinkling as she watched him disappear, his sandals slapping against the hot, bright street. That night, shirtless in his rented room, under a fan lazily pushing around the hot air, the young man opened the book and, in a flourish he had been fine-tuning for years, signed his name: David Singer. Filled with restlessness and longing, he began to read.

have never come across a coherent notion of bad or good, right or wrong, desirable or undesirable that did not depend upon some change in the experience of conscious creatures. It is not always easy to nail down what we mean by “good” and “bad”—and their definitions may remain perpetually open to revision—but such judgments seem to require, in every instance, that some difference register at the level of experience. Why would it be wrong to murder a billion human beings? Because so much pain and suffering would result. Why would it be wrong to painlessly kill every man, woman, and child in their sleep? Because of all the possibilities for future happiness that would be foreclosed. If you think such actions are wrong primarily because they would anger God or would lead to your punishment after death, you are still worried about perturbations of consciousness—albeit ones that stand a good chance of being wholly imaginary.

In short I tried to think. I failed. My attention veered inexorably back to the specific, to the tangible, to what was generally considered, by everyone I knew then and for that matter have known since, the peripheral. I would try to contemplate the Hegelian dialectic and would find myself concentrating instead on a flowering pear tree outside my window and the particular way the petals fell on my floor. I would try to read linguistic theory and would find myself wondering instead if the lights were on in the bevatron up the hill. When I say that I was wondering if the lights were on in the bevatron you might immediately suspect, if you deal in ideas at all, that I was registering the bevatron as a political symbol, thinking in shorthand about the military-industrial complex and its role in the university community, but you would be wrong. I was only wondering if the lights were on in the bevatron, and how they looked. A physical fact.

There was a moment of stillness before something in him seemed to snap. she pounced on her with a sort of tigerish delight, and clamped his mouth over hers. She squeaked in surprise, wriggling in his hold, but his arms clamped around her easily, his muscles as solid as oak. He kissed her possessively, almost roughly at first, gentling by voluptuous degrees. Her body surrendered without giving her brain a chance to object, applying itself eagerly to every available inch of him. The luxurious male heat and hardness of him satisfied a wrenching hunger she hadn't been aware of until now. It also gave her the close-but-not-close-enough feeling she remembered from before. Oh, how confusing this was, this maddening need to crawl inside his clothes, practically inside his skin. She let her fingertips wander over his cheeks and jaw, the neat shape of his ears, the taut smoothness of his neck. When he offered no objection, she sank her fingers into his thick, vibrant hair and sighed in satisfaction. He searched for her tongue, teased and stroked intimately until her heart pounded in a tumult of longing, and a sweet, empty ache spread all through her. Dimly aware that she was going to lose control, that she was on the verge of swooning, or assaulting him again, she managed to break the kiss and turn her face away with a gasp. "Don't," she said weakly. His lips grazed along her jawline, his breath rushing unsteadily against her skin. "Why? Are you still worried about Australian pox?" Slowly it registered that they were no longer standing. Gabriel was sitting on the ground with his back against the grass-covered mound, and- heaven help her- she was in his lap. She glanced around them in bewilderment. How had this happened? "No," she said, bewildered and perturbed, "but I just remembered that you said I kissed like a pirate." Gabriel looked blank for a moment. "Oh, that. That was a compliment." Pandora scowled. "It would only be a compliment if I had a beard and a peg leg." Setting his mouth sternly against a faint quiver, Gabriel smoothed her hair tenderly. "Forgive my poor choice of words. What I meant to convey was that I found your enthusiasm charming." "Did you?" Pandora turned crimson. Dropping her head to his shoulder, she said in a muffled voice, "Because I've worried for the past three days that I did it wrong." "No, never, darling." Gabriel sat up a little and cradled her more closely to him. Nuzzling her cheek, he whispered, "Isn't it obvious that everything about you gives me pleasure?" "Even when I plunder and pillage like a Viking?" she asked darkly. "Pirate. Yes, especially then." His lips moved softly along the rim of her right ear. "My sweet, there are altogether too many respectable ladies in the world. The supply has far exceeded the demand. But there's an appalling shortage of attractive pirates, and you do seem to have a gift for plundering and ravishing. I think we've found you're true calling." "You're mocking me," Pandora said in resignation, and jumped a little as she felt his teeth gently nip her earlobe. Smiling, Gabriel took her head between his hands and looked into her eyes. "Your kiss thrilled me beyond imagining," he whispered. "Every night for the rest of my life, I'll dream of the afternoon in the holloway, when I was waylaid by a dark-haired beauty who devastated me with the heat of a thousand troubled stars, and left my soul in cinders. Even when I'm an old man, and my brain has fallen to wrack and ruin, I'll remember the sweet fire of your lips under mine, and I'll say to myself, 'Now, that was a kiss.'" Silver-tongued devil, Pandora thought, unable to hold back a crooked grin. Only yesterday, she'd heard Gabriel affectionately mock his father, who was fond of expressing himself with elaborate, almost labyrinthine turns of phrase. Clearly the gift had been passed down to his son.

That trust takes time. But when you love each other, it shouldn't be scary to be vulnerable and it shouldn't be hard to compromise. I'd like to share with you what we like to call SACRED HEALING. We use it every day of our marriage, and it hasn't failed us yet! When you have something you need to communicate, those words are SACRED: 1. STOP when you register something's wrong. 2. ADMIT that you have an issue to discuss. 3. CALMLY express your feelings. 4. REFLECT on why you're feeling this way. 5. ENGAGE with your partner to actively fix the issue. 6. DEVOTE time after conflict to returning to a loving state. And when your partner is saying something SACRED, it's your job to get the leader of the HEALING: 1. HEAR your partner's words. 2. ENGAGE with your questions for clarification and understanding. 3. ACKNOWLEDGE that what they're saying is important. 4. LOOK BACK on your own role in the conflict. 5. INITIATE discussion without anger or defense. 6. NEGOTIATE a solution with pure intentions. 7. GROW as partners and individuals by fixing the problem as a team.

In attunement, it is the infant who leads and the mother who follows. “Where their roles differ is in the timing of their responses,” writes John Bowlby, one of the century’s great psychiatric researchers. The infant initiates the interaction or withdraws from it according to his own rhythms, Bowlby found, while the “mother regulates her behaviour so that it meshes with his... Thus she lets him call the tune and by a skillful interweaving of her own responses with his creates a dialogue.” The tense or depressed mothering adult will not be able to accompany the infant into relaxed, happy spaces. He may also not fully pick up signs of the infant’s emotional distress, or may not be able to respond to them as effectively as he would wish. The ADD child’s difficulty reading social cues likely originates from her relationship cues not being read by the nurturing adult, who was distracted by stress. In the attunement interaction, not only does the mother follow the child, but she also permits the child to temporarily interrupt contact. When the interaction reaches a certain stage of intensity for the infant, he will look away to avoid an uncomfortably high level of arousal. Another interaction will then begin. A mother who is anxious may react with alarm when the infant breaks off contact, may try to stimulate him, to draw him back into the interaction. Then the infant’s nervous system is not allowed to “cool down,” and the attunement relationship is hampered. Infants whose caregivers were too stressed, for whatever reason, to give them the necessary attunement contact will grow up with a chronic tendency to feel alone with their emotions, to have a sense — rightly or wrongly — that no one can share how they feel, that no one can “understand.” Attunement is the quintessential component of a larger process, called attachment. Attachment is simply our need to be close to somebody. It represents the absolute need of the utterly and helplessly vulnerable human infant for secure closeness with at least one nourishing, protective and constantly available parenting figure. Essential for survival, the drive for attachment is part of the very nature of warm-blooded animals in infancy, especially. of mammals. In human beings, attachment is a driving force of behavior for longer than in any other animal. For most of us it is present throughout our lives, although we may transfer our attachment need from one person — our parent — to another — say, a spouse or even a child. We may also attempt to satisfy the lack of the human contact we crave by various other means, such as addictions, for example, or perhaps fanatical religiosity or the virtual reality of the Internet. Much of popular culture, from novels to movies to rock or country music, expresses nothing but the joys or the sorrows flowing from satisfactions or disappointments in our attachment relationships. Most parents extend to their children some mixture of loving and hurtful behavior, of wise parenting and unskillful, clumsy parenting. The proportions vary from family to family, from parent to parent. Those ADD children whose needs for warm parental contact are most frustrated grow up to be adults with the most severe cases of ADD. Already at only a few months of age, an infant will register by facial expression his dejection at the mother’s unconscious emotional withdrawal, despite the mother’s continued physical presence. “(The infant) takes delight in Mommy’s attention,” writes Stanley Greenspan, “and knows when that source of delight is missing. If Mom becomes preoccupied or distracted while playing with the baby, sadness or dismay settles in on the little face.

You fixed the tables?" "Nonsense." Pippa grinned. "With what I know of Digger Knight, I would wager everything you have that these tables were already fixed. I unfixed them." She was mad. And he loved it. His brows rose. "Everything I have?" She shrugged. "I haven't very much, myself." She was wrong, of course. She had more than she knew. More than he'd dreamed. And if she asked, he'd let her wager with everything he owned. God, he wanted her. He looked around them, registering the flushed, excited faces of the gamers nearby, not one of them interested in the trio standing to the side. No one who was not playing was worth the attention. Not when so many were winning so much. She was running the tables at one of the most successful casinos in London. He turned back to her. "How did you..." She smiled. "You taught me about weighted dice, Jasper." He warmed at the name. "I didn't teach you about stacked decks." She feigned insult. "My lord, your lack of confidence in my intelligence wounds me. You think I could not work out the workings of deck stacking myself?" He ignored the jest. Knight would kill them when he discovered this. "And roulette?" She smiled. "Magnets have remarkable uses." She was too smart for her own good. He turned to Temple. "You allowed this?" Temple shrugged one shoulder. "The lady can be very... determined." Lord knew that was true.

Who’s the guy?” “What guy?” “The guy you’re dating.” That’s when I see him. Peter Kavinsky, walking down the hallway. Like magic. Beautiful, dark-haired Peter. He deserves background music, he looks so good. “Peter. Kavinsky. Peter Kavinsky!” The bell rings, and I sail past Josh. “I’ve gotta go! Talk later, Josh!” “Wait!” he calls out. I run up to Peter and launch myself into his arms like a shot out of a cannon. I’ve got my arms around his neck and my legs hooked around his waist, and I don’t even know how my body knows how, because I’ve for sure never touched a boy like this in my life. It’s like we’re in a movie and the music is swelling and waves are crashing around us. Except for the fact that Peter’s expression is registering pure shock and disbelief and maybe a drop of amusement, because Peter likes to be amused. Raising his eyebrows, he says, “Lara Jean? What the--?” I don’t answer. I just kiss him. My first thought is: I have muscle memory of his lips. My second thought is: I hope Josh is watching. He has to be watching or it’s all for nothing. My heart is beating so fast I forget to be afraid of doing it wrong. Because for about three seconds, he’s kissing me back. Peter Kavinsky, the boy of every girl’s dreams, is kissing me back. I haven’t kissed that many boys before. Peter Kavinsky, John Ambrose McClaren, Allie Feldman’s cousin with the weird eye, and now Peter again. I open my eyes and Peter’s staring at me with that same expression on his face. Very sincerely I say, “Thank you.” He replies, “You’re welcome,” and I hop out of his arms and sprint off in the opposite direction.

Inching into the room, it’s clear something is wrong here. There’s a tingling sensation up my legs and back before I can even really focus on the parlor’s details. There are silhouettes of people, but I can see through them. It’s like shadows were cast and left behind to do as they please. Lost in the surreal sight of them for a moment, I inch further into the room without noticing that some were now moving behind me. There is no warning. I’m suddenly in the air, and moving backward rapidly toward the wall. It’s almost a full second before my body registers the actual pain of the blow my stomach just took. Being hit by a car doesn't even compare to this, and I didn't even see it coming. “For a shadow, you hit like a sledgehammer!” The words barely escape before something else slams into the base of my skull embedding most of my upper body in the wall and all but removing my head. These things are like Lucy; the disembodied dead who haven’t moved on. I've never met others that can actually touch things physically, they must be fairly potent. I pull my face out of the hole it had been planted in, letting plaster dust fall, coating my chest and legs like snow. Looking around quickly I try to gauge my surroundings. I can’t see them, but I know they’re there. Is one easy night, without a huge dry-cleaning bill, too much to ask for these days? I only have time to dwell on it a moment before my head is bouncing off the hardwood floor; once, twice, and then a third time in quick succession. Now ‘pick splinters out of my forehead’ can be added to my Saturday night to-do list. Damn it, this is not going as planned.

When the time comes, & I hope it comes soon, to bury this era of moral rot & the defiling of our communal, social, & democratic norms, the perfect epitaph for the gravestone of this age of unreason should be Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley's already infamous quote: "I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing... as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.” Grassley's vision of America, quite frankly, is one I do not recognize. I thought the heart of this great nation was not limited to the ranks of the plutocrats who are whisked through life in chauffeured cars & private jets, whose often inherited riches are passed along to children, many of whom no sacrifice or service is asked. I do not begrudge wealth, but it must come with a humility that money never is completely free of luck. And more importantly, wealth can never be a measure of worth. I have seen the waitress working the overnight shift at a diner to give her children a better life, & yes maybe even take them to a movie once in awhile - and in her, I see America. I have seen the public school teachers spending extra time with students who need help & who get no extra pay for their efforts, & in them I see America. I have seen parents sitting around kitchen tables with stacks of pressing bills & wondering if they can afford a Christmas gift for their children, & in them I see America. I have seen the young diplomat in a distant foreign capital & the young soldier in a battlefield foxhole, & in them I see America. I have seen the brilliant graduates of the best law schools who forgo the riches of a corporate firm for the often thankless slog of a district attorney or public defender's office, & in them I see America. I have seen the librarian reshelving books, the firefighter, police officer, & paramedic in service in trying times, the social worker helping the elderly & infirm, the youth sports coaches, the PTA presidents, & in them I see America. I have seen the immigrants working a cash register at a gas station or trimming hedges in the frost of an early fall morning, or driving a cab through rush hour traffic to make better lives for their families, & in them I see America. I have seen the science students unlocking the mysteries of life late at night in university laboratories for little or no pay, & in them I see America. I have seen the families struggling with a cancer diagnosis, or dementia in a parent or spouse. Amid the struggles of mortality & dignity, in them I see America. These, & so many other Americans, have every bit as much claim to a government working for them as the lobbyists & moneyed classes. And yet, the power brokers in Washington today seem deaf to these voices. It is a national disgrace of historic proportions. And finally, what is so wrong about those who must worry about the cost of a drink with friends, or a date, or a little entertainment, to rephrase Senator Grassley's demeaning phrasings? Those who can't afford not to worry about food, shelter, healthcare, education for their children, & all the other costs of modern life, surely they too deserve to be able to spend some of their “darn pennies” on the simple joys of life. Never mind that almost every reputable economist has called this tax bill a sham of handouts for the rich at the expense of the vast majority of Americans & the future economic health of this nation. Never mind that it is filled with loopholes written by lobbyists. Never mind that the wealthiest already speak with the loudest voices in Washington, & always have. Grassley’s comments open a window to the soul of the current national Republican Party & it it is not pretty. This is not a view of America that I think President Ronald Reagan let alone President Dwight Eisenhower or Teddy Roosevelt would have recognized. This is unadulterated cynicism & a version of top-down class warfare run amok. ~Facebook 12/4/17

I need to check your vitals, hon,” she explained. It had been several hours since I’d given birth. I guess this was the routine. She felt my pulse, palpated my legs, asked if I had pain anywhere, and lightly pressed on my abdomen, the whole while making sure I wasn’t showing signs of a blockage or a blood clot, a fever or a hemorrhage. I stared dreamily at Marlboro Man, who gave me a wink or two. I hoped he would, in time, be able to see past the vomit. The nurse then began a battery of questions. “So, no pain?” “Nope. I feel fine now.” “No chills?” “Not at all.” “Have you been able to pass gas in the past few hours?” *Insert awkward ten-second pause* I couldn’t have heard her right. “What?” I asked, staring at her. “Have you been able to pass gas lightly?” *Another awkward pause* What kind of question is this? “Wait…,” I asked. “What?” “Sweetie, have you been able to pass gas today?” I stared at her blankly. “I don’t…” “…Pass gas? You? Today?” She was unrelenting. I continued my blank, desperate stare, completely incapable of registering her question. Throughout the entire course of my pregnancy, I’d gone to great lengths to maintain a certain level of glamour and vanity. Even during labor, I’d attempted to remain the ever-fresh and vibrant new wife, going so far as to reapply tinted lip balm before the epidural so I wouldn’t look pale. I’d also restrained myself during the pushing stage, afraid I’d lose control of my bowels, which would have been the kiss of death upon my pride and my marriage; I would have had to just divorce my husband and start fresh with someone else. I had never once so much as passed gas in front of Marlboro Man. As far as he was concerned, my body lacked this function altogether. So why was I being forced to answer these questions now? I hadn’t done anything wrong. “I’m sorry…,” I stammered. “I don’t understand the question…” The nurse began again, seemingly unconcerned with my lack of comprehension skills. “Have you…” Marlboro Man, lovingly holding our baby and patiently listening all this time from across the room, couldn’t take it anymore. “Honey! She wants to know if you’ve been able to fart today!” The nurse giggled. “Okay, well maybe that’s a little more clear.” I pulled the covers over my head. I was not having this discussion.

Daoist Ordination – Receiving a valid “Lu” 收录 Register Since returning to the US, and living in Los Angeles, many (ie, truly many) people have come to visit my office and library, asking about Daoist "Lu" 录registers, and whether or not they can be purchased from self declared “Daoist Masters” in the United States. The Daoist Lu register and ordination ritual can only be transmitted in Chinese, after 10+ years of study with a master, learning how to chant Zhengyi or Quanzhen music and liturgy, including the Daoist drum, flute, stringed instruments, and mudra, mantra, and visualization of spirits, where they are stored in the body, how they are summoned forth, for which one must be able to use Tang dynasty pronunciation of classical Chinese texts, ie “Tang wen” 唐文, to be effective and truly transmitted. Daoist meditation and ritual 金录醮，黄录斋 must all be a part of one's daily practice before going to Mt Longhu Shan and passing the test, which qualifies a person for one of the 9 grades of ordination (九品) the lowest of which is 9, highest is 1; grades 6 and above are never taught at Longhu Shan, only recognized in a "test", and awarded an appropriate grade ie rank, or title. Orthodox Longhu Shan Daoists may only pass on this knowledge to one offspring, and one chosen disciple, once in a lifetime, after which they must "pass on" (die) or be "wafted to heaven." Longmen Quanzhen Daoists, on the other hand, allow their knowledge to be transmitted and practiced, in classical Chinese, after living in a monastery and daily practice as a monk or nun. “Dao for $$$” low ranking Daoists at Longhu Shan accept money from foreign (mostly USA) commercial groups, and award illegitimate "licenses" for a large fee. Many (ie truly many) who have suffered from the huge price, and wrongful giving of "documents" have asked me this question, and shown me the documents they received. In all such cases, it is best to observe the warning of Confucius, "respect demonic spirits but keep a distance" 敬鬼神而遠之. One can study from holy nuns at Qingcheng shan, and Wudangshan, but it is best to keep safely away from “for profit” people who ask fees for going to Longhu Shan and receiving poorly translated English documents. It is a rule of Daoism, Laozi Ch 67, to respect all, with compassion, and never put oneself above others. The reason why so many Daoist and Buddhist masters do not come to the US is because of this commercial ie “for profit” instead of spiritual use, made from Daoist practices which must never be sold, or money taken for teaching / practicing, in which case true spiritual systems become ineffective. The ordination manual itself states the strict rule that the highly secret talisman, drawn with the tongue on the hard palate of the true Daoist, must never be drawn out in visible writing, or shown to anyone. Many of the phony Longhu Shan documents shown to me break this rule, and are therefore ineffective as well as law breaking. Respectfully submitted, 敬上 3-28-2015

One day I saw Mary and said, “I’m so proud of you.” “You are?” Her eyes registered surprise. “When abortion is an easy option, I admire your courage to choose life for your baby.” Real love keeps no record of wrongs (1 Corinthians 13:5). Just as in Christ God forgave me, I relinquished my holier-than-thou attitudes to demonstrate kindness and compassion to Mary.

In the fifteen years since it was abandoned, no new road maps had any of the town printed within a ten mile radius. GPS wouldn’t register the place, and the two bridges that lead into the town had been demolished and marked up with roadblocks just in case someone ended up going in the wrong direction. Plus, the county sheriff patrol was under the orders to arrest anyone trespassing within the city limits. Scott knew how to get around these barriers, having lived in the town until the age of ten, committing large portions of the geography to his long term memory.

Would the savage have enough sense of what is right and wrong to allow the learned man to share his knowledge and enrich the savage? Of course not! He would beat the man about the head with his makeshift club and start devouring him. It wouldn’t even register on the mind of the devourer. He would remember the day as any other day; he ate, he walked around looking for other stuff to eat, and he slept. He would not lose any sleep over the thought of taking another human life. To him, it would be no different than taking the life of an insect.

Then it came to him. This was not the diversion, the battle of Gibeah was the diversion. The real goal was to capture Mikael himself, the prince of Israel. Well, he thought, they picked the wrong archangel to mess with. I have a chosen nation to protect. He pulled out his horn to call for help, but Ba’alzebul’s mace smashed it out of his hands. Dagon assaulted him with a barrage of sword slashes and strikes. Mikael kept him at bay, but almost got stung by Asherah’s javelin from the other side. He dodged and kept moving. His Karabu training was his only hope. It was the heavenly battle technique of Yahweh’s archangels developed to protect the Garden of Eden in primordial days. They had taught the human giant killers Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Caleb the Way of Karabu, but now he would need to call upon his training to survive this ordeal. He flipped, spun, and danced around the four attacking gods and their weapons. It frustrated the malevolent beings, which was to Mikael’s advantage. But archangels were still created beings. He began to grow tired. They were wearing him down. Dagon’s sword grazed Mikael’s arm, cutting through his tunic. He was not going to be able to keep it up. He would have to do something drastic. Ba’alzebul moved in on Mikael. The biggest, meanest, mightiest of the gods had been waiting for his opportune moment when Mikael was just weary enough, just worn enough, to be incapable of expecting the unexpected. Ba’alzebul took the lead and pounded Mikael’s sword with his mace and backed him up against the ledge. Mikael looked down to the chasm floor. Saul and his forces made their way through the chasm below after slaughtering the priests of Molech. It wasn’t a fair fight. And neither was this fight. But Saul was safe. He had made it through and went north toward Gibeah. But the gods were not here for Saul. They were here for Mikael. Ba’alzebul suddenly threw down his mace and rushed Mikael like a bull goring its prey. Mikael didn’t register why, until Ba’alzebul hit him. The two of them launched off into space, plummeting toward the chasm floor two hundred feet below. Angels and gods could not die. But they were not mere spirits. They were enfleshed spirits. While it was unique flesh that would heal miraculously, it was still flesh that could be hurt — as Ba’alzebul knew all too well from his own painful experience in the molten earth. They hit the ground with a powerful thud and sank several feet into the dirt. Every bone in Mikael’s body was broken in the fall. He was paralyzed in excruciating pain. Ba’alzebul had been on top of Mikael, so while he too would be somewhat incapacitated, it would not be as bad for him, having used Mikael’s body as a cushion in the fall. As Mikael slipped into a state of delirious pain, he knew that their goal had been to capture him this way. To ambush him and therefore make both Saul and David more vulnerable to human attack. But what did they plan for Mikael? He could not begin to imagine.

Growth-Stock Approach Every investor would like to select the stocks of companies that will do better than the average over a period of years. A growth stock may be defined as one that has done this in the past and is expected to do so in the future.2 Thus it seems only logical that the intelligent investor should concentrate upon the selection of growth stocks. Actually the matter is more complicated, as we shall try to show. It is a mere statistical chore to identify companies that have “out-performed the averages” in the past. The investor can obtain a list of 50 or 100 such enterprises from his broker.† Why, then, should he not merely pick out the 15 or 20 most likely looking issues of this group and lo! he has a guaranteed-successful stock portfolio? There are two catches to this simple idea. The first is that common stocks with good records and apparently good prospects sell at correspondingly high prices. The investor may be right in his judgment of their prospects and still not fare particularly well, merely because he has paid in full (and perhaps overpaid) for the expected prosperity. The second is that his judgment as to the future may prove wrong. Unusually rapid growth cannot keep up forever; when a company has already registered a brilliant expansion, its very increase in size makes a repetition of its achievement more difficult. At some point the growth curve flattens out, and in many cases it turns downward.

Let me get it,” he says, standing much too close for my comfort. It’s downright suffocating. “Not a chance, darlin’,” I drawl, giving him a dose of his own medicine. I hand the youngish sales lady my tags and bury my gaze inside my purse in search of my wallet. When I look up, I find a loopy smile on her face and it’s directed at him. The happy bastard smiles right back. “Are you two done? Can I pay for these, or would you like to go on a date before you ring me up?” They both turn to stare. She’s cherry red and pushing all the wrong buttons on the register while Dane’s busy scowling at me. I hand her my credit card without taking my eyes off of him. “Did I do something to you, Stella?” The thing is, I’m not mad at him. I’m mad at myself. I cannot believe that I allowed myself to fall under his spell. I don’t blame the sales girl either. She never stood a chance under the magnetic force that is Dane Wylder. I fell for it and I’ve been vaccinated against this particular virulent disease. I have Paul Donovan to thank for that. Turning back to the sales person, I take the receipt she hands me. “I’m sorry,” I murmur. “Hormones––they’re wreaking havoc.” “Oh, I get the same way when I get my period,” she replies in the sweetest drawl. “Thanks for your help,” I tell her in an apologetic tone. With that I walk away from the counter, and the two of them. A second later a big hand grabs a hold of my upper arm. I stop and turn, my expression not a happy one. “You didn’t answer me?” “No, Dane. You did nothing. Like I said, it’s the hormones.” He looks pensive, his sexy lips pursed as he’s mulling this over. “We should get you some ice cream.” I don’t know whether to laugh, or cry. He genuinely thinks ice cream is the solution to our problem? Then again he doesn’t have a problem. I’m the one with the urge. I’m the one with the craving. Unless ice cream comes in a flavor called Sweaty Sex With Dane, I don’t want it…and about as smart as jumping out of a plane with no parachute. The ride will be fast and thrilling and most certainly prove painful when I hit bottom. “What does ice cream have to do with it?” “Maybe it’ll make you nicer. You know, take the edge off.” My eyes automatically narrow. “Maybe we need to give each other space.” “No,” he huffs, arms crossed in front of his broad chest, his shirt straining against the swell of his pecs, expression locked in the determined position. “No?” “No. No space. I see what you’re doing here. This is some kinda female mental jujitsu. You say you want space, but you don’t really want it.” I’m seconds from punching him in the nut sac, which is almost directly in my line of sight. There is something to be said about being short. Or for him being grotesquely tall. “I…I’m going to…I can’t.” I flee to the cosmetics department in search of the Holy Grail, a flat iron, before I do or say something I’ll regret. And find one. Thank the Lord. This goes a small way to propping up my mood. I’m almost tempted to purchase two.

In a static society, personal violence will be registered, whereas structural violence may be seen as about as natural as the air around us. Conversely, in a highly dynamic society, personal violence may be seen as wrong and harmful, but still somehow congruent with

In Sweden, a fatal bear attack is a once-in-a-century event. Meanwhile, a woman is killed by her partner every 30 days. This is a 1,300-fold difference in magnitude. And yet one more domestic murder had barely registered, while the hunting death was big news. Despite what the media coverage might make us think, each death was equally tragic and horrendous. Despite what the media might make us think, people who care about saving lives should be much more concerned about domestic violence than about bears.

Lemon-Herb Chicken   This chicken recipe is one of my favorites, and something I’ve eaten more times than I can count in the homes of Italians. You can actually find cellophane bundles in the produce section of Tuscany grocery stores that have all the ingredients pre-packaged together (sans chicken, of course.) This is a flexible recipe and can be made with chicken breasts, thighs, quarters, etc. There’s no right or wrong here.   1 whole chicken, washed and patted dry Extra-virgin olive oil 3-4 cloves fresh garlic, peeled and minced 1 lemon, zested and juiced (you can also substitute an orange, if you’d like, or even do both) 10-12 leafs fresh sage (or around 1 T. dried), chopped 3-4 sprigs fresh rosemary (or around 1 T. dried), chopped   Mix the minced garlic, lemon zest (but NOT the juice), sage and rosemary together. Add enough olive oil to create a nice paste. Slather the paste all over and even inside the whole chicken. Let marinate overnight or at least for several hours. Place the chicken on a backing rack in a pan and roast, uncovered, @ 350 degrees for 1-2 hours until a thermometer in the thigh registers 165 degrees. If the chicken gets too brown on top while cooking, cover with tinfoil. Once done, remove the chicken from the oven and pour the saved lemon juice over the entire chicken. Carve and serve, reserving the lemony pan drippings for drizzling over the chicken.

We kissed once.” She spoke quietly and lowered her gaze. “I esteem you greatly, Joseph Carrington, though I have wondered if my efforts in that kiss were sufficiently unmemorable as to make you regret the occasion.” He was so busy trying to muster the discipline to let go of her hand and take himself off that her words didn’t register immediately in his befuddled mind. She esteemed him greatly? “Louisa, your efforts were not… unmemorable.” He saw her drop frosty politesse over the hint of vulnerability in her eyes, felt her spine stiffen fractionally—and knew he’d said the wrong thing. He could not abide those withdrawals, however subtle. “Louisa, since we kissed, I have thought of little else, and I esteem you greatly, as well. Very greatly.” While Joseph watched, a blush, beautiful and rosy, stole up Louisa Windham’s graceful neck. “I have had occasion to consider that kiss a time or two myself,” she said. He thought her voice might have been just a trifle husky. Hope, an entire Christmas of hope, blossomed in the center of his chest. “Perhaps you would like a small reminder now?” He would adore giving her a reminder. A reminder that took the rest of the afternoon and saw their clothes strewn about the chamber. Twelve days of reminders would work nicely, with a particular part of Joseph’s body promptly appointing itself Lord of Misrule. He would not push her, but he would get a cane, the better to support himself should random insecurity threaten his knees in future. Louisa lifted her gaze to his and seemed to visually inventory his features. After suffering her perusal for an eternity, Joseph let out a breath when she twined her arms slowly around his neck. He would not harry her. It would be a chaste kiss, a kiss to reassure— Louisa Windham did not need any reminders about how to kiss a man. She gently took possession of Joseph’s mouth, plundered his wits, and stole off with his best intentions.

At the outset of the second of these Hong Kong excursions, I noticed an Arab standing in the lobby of the Macau Mandarin Oriental as we moved through it. He was new, not one of Belghazi’s bodyguards. I noted his presence and position, but of course gave no sign that he had even registered in my consciousness. He, however, was not similarly discreet. In the instant in which my gaze moved over his face, I saw he was looking at me intently, almost in concentration. The way a guy might look, in a more innocent setting, at someone he thought but wasn’t entirely sure was a celebrity, so as not to appear foolish asking the wrong person for an autograph. In my world, this look is more commonly seen on the face of the “pedestrian” who peers through the windshield of a car driving through a known checkpoint, his brow furrowed, his eyes hard, his head now nodding slightly in unconscious reflection of the pleasure of recognition, who then radios his compatriots fifty meters beyond that it’s time to move in for the kidnapping, or to open up with their AKs, or to detonate the bomb they’ve placed along the road.

Not everyone in the village was happy with the idea of having an Untouchable man's statue put up at the entrance. Particularly not an Untouchable who carried a weapon. They felt it would give out the wrong message, give people ideas. Three weeks after the statue went up, the rifle on its soldier went missing. Sepoy S. Murugesan's family tried to file a complaint, but the police refused to register a case, saying that the rifle must have fallen off or simply disintegrated due to the use of substandard cement- a fairly common malpractice- and that nobody could be blamed. A month later the statue's hands were cut off. Once again the police refused to register a case, although this time they sniggered knowingly and did not even bother to offer a reason. Two weeks after the amputation of its hands, the statue of Sepoy S. Murugesan was beheaded. There were a few days of tension. People from nearby villages who belonged to the same caste as S. Murugesan organized a protest. They began a relay hunger strike at the base of the statue. A local court said it would constitute a magisterial committee to look into the matter. In the meanwhile it ordered a status quo. The hunger strike was discontinued. The magisterial committee was never constituted. In some countries, some soldiers die twice. The headless statue remained at the entrance of the village. Though it no longer bore any likeness to the man it was supposed to commemorate, it turned out to be a more truthful emblem of the times than it would otherwise have been.

Coming to meet her love Miss Vicks had often had this sense of thwarted will, like when a large insect flies mistakenly into a room through an open window and then keeps flying around and around, attracted to all the wrong things, mirrors or framed photographs, heat registers or—sadder still—a closed window, without ever realizing that all it needs to do is go out the window it came through and it will be guaranteed a blue sky and a fresh breeze and the prospect of a life that won’t be cut short by the angry swat of a rolled newspaper.

Poker players explained to me that there’s a particular moment at which players are extremely vulnerable to an emotional surge. It’s not when they’ve won a huge pot or when they’ve drawn a fantastic hand. It’s when they’ve just lost a lot of money through bad luck (a ‘bad beat’) or bad strategy. The loss can nudge a player into going ‘on tilt’ – making overly aggressive bets in an effort to win back what he wrongly feels is still his money. The brain refuses to register that the money has gone. Acknowledging the loss and recalculating one’s strategy would be the right thing to do, but that is too painful. Instead, the player makes crazy bets to rectify what he unconsciously believes is a temporary situation. It isn’t the initial loss that does for him, but the stupid plays he makes in an effort to deny that the loss has happened. The eat economic psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky summarised the behaviour in their classic analysis of the psychology of risk: ‘a person who has not made peace with his losses is likely to accept gambles that would be unacceptable to him otherwise’. Even those of us who aren’t professional poker players know how it feels to chase a loss.

To assist with the ‘Final Solution to the Jewish problem’, the Germans had set up a department for disputable cases. When someone thought he was wrongly registered as ‘Jewish’, he could lodge an appeal at the Abteilung Innere Verwaltung (General Internal Administration).

Kayden then looked at me. "He said there was nothing wrong. He sensed something in her worth trying for. That he wanted to try and work things out. He told us to pass on his apology to you." Pain, pain, pain, pain, pain... I took a deep breathe and smiled; Even though my heart literally fell as I registered Kayden's words. I wanted to scream. Please make it stop. Please make this pain stop. It's been too fucking long. My life had always been an endless cycle of heartbreak and it wasn't stopping anytime soon. I just wanted to feel happiness, just once...

• Research has found that our brains don’t register much difference between physical pain and psychological pain. • An obsession and over investment in emotion fails us for the simple reason that emotions never last. Whatever makes up happy today will no longer make us happy tomorrow, because our biology always needs something more. • You can’t win if you don’t play. • By what standard do we measure ourselves? Our values determine the metrics by which we measure ourselves and everyone else. • Nobody else is ever responsible for your unhappiness but you. This is because you always get to choose how you see things, how you react to things, how you value things. You always get to choose the metric by which to measure your experiences • Growth is an endlessly iterative process. When we learn something new, we don’t go from “wrong” to “right”. Rather, we go from wrong to slightly less wrong... we are always in the process of approaching truth and perfection without actually ever reaching truth or perfection. • Certainty is the enemy of growth. Nothing is for certain until it has already happened -and even them, it’s still debatable. • There is little that is unique or special about your problems. That’s why letting go is so liberating.

turn somewhere along the line, then to go forward does not get you any nearer to something better. If you are on the wrong road, progress means swinging a swift and sure 180 and traveling back to the right road. Very few register that, as far as realizing mistakes have been made, that it is the person who turns back soonest who is the most progressive person.

Dear friends, gathered again together in a place That has become so familiar to all of us, We might wish to forget the world outside, Might wish to think that here, with our friends, We are the world. Would that were true: The world outside is not the world We would like it to be; I don’t need To enumerate its woes – they are legion, And greet us each time we open a newspaper. But it would be wrong to become cynical, Would be wrong to dismiss the possibility Of making bearable the suffering of so many By acts of love in our own lives, By acts of friendship, by the simple cherishing Of those who daily cross our path, and those who do not. By these acts, I think, are we shown what might be; By these acts can we transform that small corner Of terra firma that is given to us, In our case this little patch of earth That we call Scotland, into a peaceable Kingdom, a place where love and friendship Are writ large not doubted, nor laughed at, But embraced and proclaimed, made the tenor Of our quotidian lives, made the register In which we conduct ourselves. How foolish I once thought I was To believe in all this; how warmly I now return to that earlier belief; How fervently I hope that it is true, How fervently I hope that this is so.

[...] white supremacy and coloniality still form the glue for the institutional and intellectual disciplinarity of western critical thought. Since the ideas of the Black Panther Party are limited to concerns with ethnic racism elsewhere, they do not register as thought qua thought, and can thus be exploited by and elevated to universality only in the hands of European thinkers such as Foucault, albeit without receiving any credit. [Dear reader, if this reminds you of the colonial expropriation of natural resources, you would be neither wrong nor alone in making such an assumption. In the words of Kanye West: that shit cray.]

exhausts himself and falls asleep in our faces. When that happens, Chase puts a blanket over him and we tiptoe out. On this particular day, we decide to grab a snack and screen our video footage. I suggest frozen yogurt at Heaven on Ice—the words are out of my mouth before I remember what happened the last time we were in that place together. He looks worried, so I add, “I promise not to dump anything over your head.” Heaven on Ice is just a few blocks away. We load up sundaes, pick a corner booth, and start to preview the day’s efforts on the flip-cam. It’s good stuff. Mr. Solway is ranting about how the designated hitter has ruined baseball, so we’re both holding back laughter as we watch. We already have enough footage for five videos. I can’t shake the feeling that we keep going back for more just because we don’t want it to end. Chase is having the same thoughts. “I’m going to keep visiting Mr. Solway even after we finish.” “I’ll come with you.” My response is instant, even though I had no idea I was going to say that. “Shosh?” I look up and there’s my mother in line at the register, carrying a small frozen yogurt cake. Suddenly, an expression of utter horror spreads across her face. “Mom? What’s wrong—?” Then I realize that she’s just recognized the person that I’m with, our heads together as we watch the tiny flip-cam screen. I never told anybody in my family who my partner is for the video contest, so I know how this must seem to Mom: that I’m cozied up, practically cheek to cheek, with the horrible bully who made Joel’s life unbearable and forced him out of town. “It’s not what it looks like!” I blurt. Her expression is carved from stone. “The car’s outside. I’ll drive you home.” “But, Mom—” “I said get in the car.” Chase stands up. “Mrs. Weber—” She’s been quiet up to now. But being addressed directly by Chase is too much for her. “How dare you speak to me?” she seethes, her entire body shaking. “Everyone in my family is off-limits to you! If I had my way, you and your filthy friends would be in juvenile hall!” I speak up again. “This is my fault, not his! If you have to blame someone, blame me!” “I am blaming you!” She hustles me out the door, tossing over her shoulder at Chase, “Stay away from my daughter!” “Can’t we talk about this?” I plead. “Oh, we’ll talk about this,” she agrees. “Trust me, by the time we’re through, your ears will be blistered.” We’re halfway home before either of us realizes that she never paid for the frozen yogurt cake.

So much depended upon the daft schedule of Trenitalia and the unions so imbued with whimsy and given to strikes. In theory, Trenitalia, the national corporation responsible for rail travel in Italy, is organized, codified, simple, and comprehensible. In actual lived experience, however, Trenitalia is chaotic, disordered, complex, and arcane. I’m sure there are some who understand the great mysterious force that is Trenitalia; the fascist conduttori, for one, and the persons who wrote Trenitalia’s adulatory Wikipedia entry, for another. To my thinking, the logic of Trenitalia was the worst kind of Italian disregard for rules. Even the Trenitalia website appears to have been created by workers who have a slender understanding of how humans think. It reads like it was written in Cyborg, fed through Google Translate into Italian, and slapped on to a webpage. More than one time, I’ve sat in the wrong Trenitalia car, taken the wrong train, or bought an online ticket for a trip other than the one I’d intended to take. And all this even before the trains mysteriously stop running because of a sciopero bianco, a work-to-rule strike, otherwise known as an “Italian strike,” when workers register protest by doing no more work than is mandated by their employment contracts. A butterfly flaps its wings in Chioggia, and a train running to Siena freezes on its tracks, such is the indescribable strangeness of Trenitalia. It’s a fascist adage: “Say what you like about Mussolini, but at least the trains run on time.” This was true neither in Mussolini’s day nor today. Trains exist and there are many, which makes Italy already superior to the car-logged, rail-beleaguered United States, but don’t set your watch by them. However predictable, Trenitalia’s inconstancy is an issue when you’re planning a perfectly orchestrated murder from 4,000 miles away. I raise the bureaucratic specter of Trenitalia because much of the success of Marco’s murder rested upon it. The remainder hinged on my skill with knives.

The only substantial dispute between North and South, Lincoln asserted, was slavery. “One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes slavery is wrong, and ought not to be extended.” The Fugitive Slave Law and the suppression of the foreign slave trade now struck an imperfect balance, which might only be made worse after separation of the two sections. Physically speaking, said Lincoln, “we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. . . . Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions . . . are again upon you.”18 All the authority of the president, he continued, comes from the people, “and they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the States.” The people themselves can do this if they choose, but the executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the present government and “to transmit it, unimpaired by him, to his successor.” Since the power ultimately rests with the people, if they wish they can turn elected officials out of office “at very short intervals.” No administration, and certainly not his, said Lincoln, “by any extreme wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government, in the short space of four years.” And just as the power to elect and dismiss presidents came from the people, so too did the power to decide the direction of the country. “In your hands, my dissatisfied countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect, and defend’ it.”19 Lincoln

More importantly, I am a lawyer. I understand the importance of being truthful, and I know that providing a false statement to police is against the law. I could be struck off the register for it, I realize, with sudden horror. I could lose my ability to practice law. And for what? Gabe didn’t even do anything wrong!

Until I told the truth to Lisa and Reanne, I don't think I let myself fully absorb how bad all of this really was. I knew my mom was sick and that her behavior was deeply wrong, and I felt like I hated her at times for some of the things she said and did to me. But seeing the faces of these two grown women absolutely crumble as they listened to me talk about what I'd been through - women who were closer to my mom's age than my own and who had surely experienced their own hardships - I finally registered how others perceived my mom's actions.

We cannot be wrong in supposing that at any rate the majority of those who flocked to Bethel, Beer-sheba and Gilgal thought that they were legitimate partakers of the promises of God. Amos and history unite to proclaim that of these the majority was wholly mistaken. In the bitter event they discovered that it was one thing to know a promise but quite another to be an inheritor of it; it was one thing to be around to hear the promise proclaimed but quite another to be able to register a valid claim to possess it for oneself.

If anything can rival for sheer drama the demise of a belief that we have adamantly espoused, it is the demise of a belief so fundamental to our lives that we never even registered its existence.

Bunker Hill proved a Pyrrhic victory, for the British registered more than a thousand casualties. Americans had shown not only pluck and grit but excellent marksmanship as they picked off British officers; firing at officers was then considered a shocking breach of military etiquette. The Americans suffered 450 casualties, including the death of Major General Joseph Warren. Even while it dented British confidence, the Battle of Bunker Hill stirred patriotic spirits, exposing the first chinks in the British fighting machine and suggesting, wrongly, that green American militia troops could outfight British professionals.

It may drive us insane when we see the simple mathematics apparently failing in the system surrounding us: just a handful of wrongdoers oppressing the vast number of the wronged ones! But it’s not the truth, if we have a closer look at it… The unfortunate truth is that the majority of the wronged ones are shackled within their own periphery by fear, greed, egoism and many other trammels, but it’s not that they remain there all the time… They, now and again, come out of their periphery to register themselves among the wrongdoers whenever it suits them and then retreat again inside their periphery after serving their purposes. Once inside the periphery they are once again the innocent wronged ones… They can’t see the transition, as there are masks upon their faces, which restrict their vision: the masks of sanity, behind which they are allowed to commit all the insanities. And at times the mask of sanity appears so dreadful that insanity feels saner before it. The fanaticism, the terrorism, the cast-carnages! Inflicting punishment upon an insane person for his insanity! Beating him black and blue for a crime he isn’t even conscious of having committed! Just to protect honor! The honor, which doesn’t get tarnished by the heinous crimes they commit! But it gets tainted by an insane act from an insane person! What an irony!

Shh,” I murmur, taking care to keep my voice low. “It is only a dream. You’re safe. I’ve got you.” [...] "A dream,” she repeats, pupils dilated as she stares up at me. She licks her lips, and I follow the movement with my eyes, a heat pulsing low at the base of my spine. “It was just a dream.” I nod, trying to angle my hips away from her in a futile attempt to hide my thickening cock. But her body is pressed close to mine, tucked beside me under my and Jadi’s wool traveling blankets. I see the moment she realizes, my preternatural vision able to take in the details of her shock. I see the way her pale eyes go wide, cheeks flushing pink. Hear her breath hitch in surprise. I feel my own cheeks heat in response, a flush of shame tightening in my chest. Shame at how much I want her. At how I’ve treated her. Shame at how jealously I guarded Jadi’s affections. At the way I cruelly tried to drive him away from her. “Asterion?” My name is barely a whisper on her lips, but she doesn’t pull away from me. Instead, her thigh presses against my hardening length. Almost like she’s seeking me out. But of course, that can’t be right. No woman would seek me out. Not after the way I’ve treated her. “Yes?” My voice catches in my throat, but I don’t dare look away. “Do you – are you…” her voice trails off, but she keeps her eyes locked on mine. Guilt tightens its hold behind my ribs, but I nod. There’s no point in denying it. No point in lying to her. Not when she can feel the proof of my attraction to her pressing against her. “I’m sorry,” I grit out, pulling my hand away from her face. “I don’t mean to… Please, just ignore it.” I roll away until I’m lying on my back, my erection almost painful as it pushes against the weight of the blankets. “Because of Jadi?” she asks, her voice thready and uncertain. I furrow my brow, glaring with irritation into the darkness. “Jadi? What does Jadi have to do with it?” “I mean – just that you and Jadi are together. Lovers? I not know word,” she babbles. “And I know that. Respect that. I not want come between you and Jadi. At party, he asked if he could court me,” she confesses. “I sorry if I…” I cut her off with a frustrated hiss, hating myself even more for this proof of how I’ve hurt Jadi. How successfully I have pushed her away from him. “You have nothing to apologize for,” I grind out. “Jadi has every right to court you. Every right. The only one who could deny him that is you.” “But you and Jadi…” “Are lovers? Intertwined as closely as two threads woven into the same cloth? Yes.” I bark out a bitter, mirthless laugh. “Which makes my treatment of him – of you – even worse.” The words are spilling out now, like water into the hull of a ship once the wood has cracked. Now that I’ve started, there is no stopping it. “I’ve known for moon cycles that he cares for you, and I hurt him for it. I was cruel to him and tried to chase you away. Because I was afraid you would steal him away from me, and he’s all I have. He’s everything to me. He’s my heart. My heart.” I clutch my fist against my chest in emphasis, still staring at the ceiling, not daring to turn and meet her eyes with my own. “I was jealous, and it was wrong, and now the gods are probably laughing at me. Because I want you. I want you. After trying to drive Jadi away from you, now I want you for myself. But I don’t deserve you. Not after the way I’ve treated you. And even then, even if I hadn’t…” [...] “I want you too.” Her words are no more than a whisper, and I tense, my first instinct to dismiss them the moment I register what she’s said. “I want you. And Jadi,” she admits, and there’s a raw vulnerability in those simple words that I don’t understand. “I shouldn’t, should I? Want you both, I mean? Like that?” I roll to my side to stare at her in disbelief.

- So what do you want me to do, Adam? I cannot be everywhere at the same time. I already have to be in three places at once, not just two. My Spanish is much better than it was half a year ago, but I am not native, Adam - I am not Catalan, I am not Spanish. - Alright, alright, alright. Jesus. - What do you mean, Boss Jesus? I am Tomas, the king of the Goys, not the Jews. - HAHAHA. Get serious now. This costs me money. - You’re kidding. You don’t even pay me a salary and my girlfriend is crazy about it. How do you want me to make over 10,000 Euros in net traffic a month if you are sending me to the same Estanco stores that never order and barely have any traffic, just wasting my time, Adam? - Mario made a lot of business with Estancos. - Bullshit, Boss. Mario, Mister Jerk Twister made monkey-business with a handful of Estancos. He sold a set of twelve crumble-cards with a free display in 2012 Spring and he never showed up again, they said. Was he even in Spain, Adam? - That’s not the point. - OK. So what is the point? - Mario made a lot of business. - Would you like to show me the total sum of wholesale figures Mario allegedly made in 2012, Boss? - No. - Because Mario didn’t make 10 000 Euros traffic in an entire year, Boss. Monkey-business. - You are spending 140 Euros on these two kids for the two catalogs and wasting time here with Rachel. - So do you want Rachel to stay here all night to laminate all this by herself, or may I help her so that we can give the catalogs to the two kids and we at least triple our potential tomorrow, so they can do sales, Adam, so they could go and visit all the Estancos as you wish? - Yeah, sure. - Thank you. Adam the tiny Estancos are seasonal and some of them don’t even keep our kinds of products they rely soley on tobacco sales, elder Catalan people. Clubs are opening at every corner, Adam and they need us to supply them with products. They won’t be so seasonal, they cannot rely on the tourism by law they cannot register walk-ins. - Cccc. They register anyone, what are you talking about? - No. Which club? - Club Alfalfa. The custom card client, Mario and Tom made in 2012. - Yeah, the marijuana club where there were two Police razzias both found cocaine twice behind the booth, so far. - But they are open again. Selling weed. - For how long Adam? How many times can they re-open after the Police had shut the club down twice already because of cocaine? How many members or employees they arrested, Adam? Would you bail me out if I go inside the wrong door one day, representing you?

Semi-enclosed within a rampart of books, she was reading intensely, oblivious of everything except the volumes she had gathered around her. Freddy tilted his head and read the titles on the bindings, whispering them as he read. He had assumed that her selection would be heavy on fashion, makeup, and “celebrities,” but he was wrong. With her left hand resting possessively on Who’s Who in Zimbabwe, she was deep in Sources and Methods of Hiccup Diagnosis. She had also chosen the Directory of Polish Hydraulic Fluid Wholesalers; the Encyclopaedia of Angels; the Catalogue of Chuvash Books in German Libraries; Aboriginal Science Fiction; The Register of Non-Existent Churches; A Bibliography of Indonesian Military Poetry; Orators Who Possessed Horses; Lloyds’ Survey of Failed Board Games; A Dictionary of the Efik Language; The Picture Book of Albanian Idioms—a list in her handwriting lay next to the latter, beginning with the entry, “I ka duart të prera, ‘to have one’s hands cut off,’ ”—The Language of the French & Indian War, Vol. I, Obscene Expressions; Glossary of Dead Architects (Freddy couldn’t wait to read the latest entries); and, finally, though not least, Nicknames of Popular Fish. “You see,” he told her, “it’s fascinating.” “Yes, I love it. Now go away.” “I have our press.” “I couldn’t care less about our press.” She held up Who’s Who in Zimbabwe. “There’s a whole world out there, Freddy, that has nothing to do with us.

Do not treat this as a time of introspective penitence. To the extent you must clean up, do it with the attitude of someone showering and changing clothes, getting ready for the best banquet you have ever been to. This does not include three weeks of meditating on how you are not worthy to go to banquets. Of course you are not. Haven’t you heard of grace? Celebrate the stuff. Use fudge and eggnog and wine and roast beef. Use presents and wrapping paper. Embedded in many of the common complaints you hear about the holidays (consumerism, shopping, gluttony, etc.) are false assumptions about the point of the celebration. You do not prepare for a real celebration of the Incarnation through thirty days of Advent Gnosticism. At the same time, remembering your Puritan fathers, you must hate the sin while loving the stuff. Sin is not resident in the stuff. Sin is found in the human heart—in the hearts of both true gluttons and true scrooges—both those who drink much wine and those who drink much prune juice. If you are called up to the front of the class, and you get the problem all wrong, it would be bad form to blame the blackboard. That is just where you registered your error. In the same way, we register our sin on the stuff. But—because Jesus was born in this material world, that is where we register our piety as well. If your godliness won’t imprint on fudge, then it is not true godliness. Some may be disturbed by this. It seems a little out of control, as though I am urging you to “go overboard.” But of course I am urging you to go overboard. Think about it—when this world was “in sin and error pining,” did God give us a teaspoon of grace to make our dungeon a tad more pleasant? No. He went overboard.

Finally she took a breath, cringing against the spikes behind her eyes, and turned 180 degrees in the bed to face Alex. And there he was. For a split second, her mind registered only the idea that something was wrong. It may have been the body’s utter stillness, but it may also have been the way she could sense the amphibian cold. But then she saw the blood. She saw the great crimson stain on the pillow, and a slick, still wet pool on the crisp white sheets. He was flat on his back. She saw his neck, the yawning red trench from one side of his jaw to the other, and how the blood had geysered onto his chest and up against the bottom of his chin, smothering the black stubble like honey. Reflexively, despite the pain, she threw off the sheet and leapt from the bed, retreating into those drapes against the window.

the weakening of the discourses constructing political identities in terms of left and right has not meant the disappearance of the need for a we/they distinction. Such a distinction is still very much alive; however, today it is increasingly established through a moral vocabulary. We could say that the distinction between left and right has been replaced by the one between right and wrong. This indicates that the adversarial model of politics is still with us, but the main difference is that now politics is played out in the moral register, using the vocabulary of good and evil to discriminate between 'we the good democrats' and 'they the evil ones'. This can be seen, for instance, in the reactions to the rise of right-wing populist parties, where moral condemnation has generally replaced a properly political type of struggle. Instead of trying to grasp the reasons for the success of right-wing parties, the 'good' democratic parties have often limited themselves to calling for a 'cordon sanitaire' to be established in order to stop the return of what they see as 'the brown plague'. Another example of this moralization of politics is when President George W. Bush opposes the civilized 'us' to the barbarian 'others'. To construct a political antagonism in this way is what I call the 'moralization of politics'. This is something that we can see at work in many different areas nowadays; the inability to formulate the problems facing society in a political way and to envisage political solutions to these problems leads to framing an increasing number of issues in moral terms. This is, of course, not good for democracy because when the opponents are not defined in a political but in a moral way, they cannot be seen as adversaries, but only as enemies. With the evil ones, no agonistic debate is possible. They have to be eliminated.

But then, during the months that I was away from my little colony of apes, I began to see the built-in limitations of empathy. Perhaps because of my relationship with Carol and the rivalry with Zack, and because I am a woman, I came for the first time to believe that even a well-intentioned man, one who truly does empathize with women, is nonetheless incapable of knowing how the relations between men and women feel to a woman. Mainly, he is incapable of knowing how he is perceived by her. And therefore she, despite her likeness to him, remains opaque to him, unknowable. This doesn’t mean that conflict between them is inevitable or inescapable. But there are useful parallels in the relations between men and women, between whites and blacks, between people without disabilities and disabled people, and between human primates and non-human primates. We who have more power in the world, like men with good intentions, try to empathize with those who have less. We try to experience racism as if I who am white were black, to see the world as if I who am sighted were blind, and to reason and communicate as if I who am human were non-human. And thus I dealt with my chimpanzees as if I were one myself. And what was wrong with this? What was ethically and even practically wrong with having empathy towards the other? For a long time, I answered, Nothing. Nothing at all. It’s good politics. I see a blind man about to cross the street and think, He can’t see the whizzing traffic, he needs me to see it for him, to take his arm and escort him over to where he clearly wishes to go. Operating on the assumption that, if I were blind, I’d need me to help me, I grab the man’s arm and pull him panic-stricken into the traffic, terrifying and endangering him. Because I am sighted, I have relied and insisted on using a guidance system that utilizes sight as its main source of data. But the blind man has his own system for crossing the street. The blind man hears what I merely see, isolates bits of information that are lost on me, and coordinates and remembers data that I’ve not even registered. I’m talking here about the difference between empathy and sympathy, between feeling for the other and feeling with the other. The distinction came to matter to me. It still does. When you abandon and betray those with whom you empathize, you’re not abandoning or betraying anyone or anything that’s as real as yourself. Taken to its extreme, perhaps even pathological, form, empathy is narcissism.

In Sweden, a fatal bear attack is a once-in-a-century event. Meanwhile, a woman is killed by her partner every 30 days. This is a 1,300-fold difference in magnitude. And yet one more domestic murder had barely registered, while the hunting death was big news.

We are overeducated pharmacy clerks (with doctorate degrees) answering the phone, running the cash register, ringing up donuts and dish soap while juggling 10 or more drug related issues per minute with our one technician yelling “Override!

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Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs. —Charlotte Brontë

I shou'd not myself have thought [Cato] worth so much notice as I have here taken of him; but that the Men are weak enough in general, to suffer their sense to be led away captive, by such half-thinking retailers of sentences. Among whom, This in particular, was he worth the pains, might be easily proved to have been often grossly in the wrong in other matters as well as in the present case; and therefore, when he happens to be in the right, the merit of it is more to be imputed to blind chance than to his wisdom: Since the greatest fools, when active, may blunder into the right sometimes: And great talkers among many absurdities, must here and there drop a good saying, when they least design it. Of this stamp, are the generality of evidence brought against us. Men avers'd to the labour of thinking; who found reason a drudgery (...); who have gain'd all their reputation by a pretty gimness of expressions, which wou'd no more bear examination than their heads, their hearts, or their faces; and who (to mimic this sage) wou'd rather see common-sense in confusion, than a word misplaced in one of their sentences. Yet these are sages among the Men, and their sentences are so many divine oracles; whereas perhaps, had we lived in their own times, to have heard the many more foolish things they said than sensible ones, we shou'd have found them as oafish as the dupes who revere them. And tho' perhaps we might have been more surprized to hear such dotards talk sometimes rationally, than we now are, to read their sayings; we shou'd have had reason still to think them more fit to extort our admiration than deserve it. Care has been taken to hand down to us the best of their sentences, many of which nevertheless are weak enough: But had the same care been taken to register all their absurdities, how great a share of their present applause wou'd they have lost!

In short I tried to think. I failed. My attention veered inexorably back to the specific, to the tangible, to what was generally considered, by everyone I knew then and for that matter have known since, the peripheral. I would try to contemplate the Hegelian dialectic and would find myself concentrating instead on a flowering pear tree outside my window and the particular way the petals fell on my floor. I would try to read linguistic theory and would find myself wondering instead if the lights were on in the bevatron up the hill. When I say that I was wondering if the lights were on in the bevatron you might immediately suspect, if you deal in ideas at all, that I was registering the bevatron as a political symbol, thinking in shorthand about the military-industrial complex and its role in the university community, but you would be wrong. I was only wondering if the lights were on in the bevatron, and how they looked. A physical fact.

Vic gazed up at Kellan. His mate’s breathing was slow, but steady, and somewhere deep inside Vic believed that Kellan was doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing. The gods would watch over his beautiful swan and keep their egg safe. Soon, Vic’s eyes grew heavy, but he fought against the sleep trying to take him. No, not yet. Just a little longer. He didn’t want Kellan to go through the egg-laying all by himself, not when Vic could be there and offer encouragement, to share in the moment and reassure him if he became scared. The wool blanket was doing its job and Vic had warmed up nicely. His eyelids fluttered, so he tried to keep his focus on Kellan, tried to keep from drifting off. Kellan. My precious mate, my love… The song of a cardinal invaded Vic’s dream and he tried to ignore it in favor of the imaginary outing he was enjoying with Kellan on the lake during some future summer. We can bring the baby. I bet it will be a water baby, same as its daddy. The slow trill of the winter bird cut through Vic’s peaceful world and his eyes flew open, his brain registering it was morning right as his eyes adjusted to the light. He yelped, his arms flailing for a second before he tumbled off the bed and landed with a thump onto the braided rug. Vic lay there for a moment, his heart pounding, trying to work out whether he was still in a dream or truly awake. He sucked in a deep breath, then pushed up from the floor. He peered over the edge of the bed, his eyes widening at the scene before him. A majestic swan, pure white and breathtakingly beautiful, was perched on the blanket nest, its beak tucked under one wing. Vic smiled, relief flooding him as he realized what had happened. Kellan. His mate had shifted. Whatever had been wrong was right again

Over time, I have come to believe that the ultimate objective of most gun control advocates is to gradually eliminate the private ownership of guns.10 Pete Shields, the founder of Handgun Control, Inc., is well known for his statement that: “The first problem is to slow down the number of handguns being produced and sold in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. The final problem is to make possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition—except for the military, police, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors—totally illegal.

Bears and Axes Mari Larsson was 38 years old when she was killed by multiple blows to the head from an axe. It was the night of October 17, 2004. Mari’s former partner had broken into her house in the small town of Piteå in the north of Sweden and was waiting for her to come home. The tragic and brutal murder of a mother of three was barely reported in the national media and even the local newspaper gave it only modest coverage. That same day a 40-year-old father of three, also living in the far north of Sweden, was killed by a bear while out hunting. His name was Johan Vesterlund and he was the first person killed by a bear in Sweden since 1902. This brutal, tragic, and, crucially, rare event received massive coverage throughout Sweden. In Sweden, a fatal bear attack is a once-in-a-century event. Meanwhile, a woman is killed by her partner every 30 days. This is a 1,300-fold difference in magnitude. And yet one more domestic murder had barely registered, while the hunting death was big news. Despite what the media coverage might make us think, each death was equally tragic and horrendous. Despite what the media might make us think, people who care about saving lives should be much more concerned about domestic violence than about bears. It seems obvious when you compare the numbers.