Rifle Love Quotes

What would my first sergeant do if he came across me and another girl getting it on? He'd want pictures. He'd want to join in. He'd want me and this other girl to double-team him right then and there. On the other hand, since most heterosexual men are homophobic and sexist, most straight guys figure gay men will treat them the way they themselves treat women- that is, like sex objects. And this freaks them the fuck out.

She covered his hand with hers over her abdomen. His was so much bigger than hers and had probably fired guns, rifles, and god knew what else, but right here, right now, his tenderness broke down her will as sure as any grenade.

She stepped out of reach. “Go put on a shirt and get your mind out of bed.” “Impossible with you around.” “Pretend I’m holding a rifle. In fact, pretend I have you in the crosshairs.” Janvier sighed, rubbing at a jaw shadowed by morning stubble. “I love it when you talk dirty.

Oh, hell, no. I saw you with the rifle.” He glanced over at her, and his voice went a notch deeper. “It was fucking hot. I love a badass female.

Vietnam, me love you long time. All day, all night, me love you long time. (...) Dropping acid on the Mekong Delta, smoking grass through a rifle barrel, flying on a helicopter with opera blasting out of loudspeakers, tracer-fire and paddy-field scenery, the smell of napalm in the morning. Long time.

Can you fall in love through a rifle scope?

He loves weed like Alaska loves sex," the Colonel said. "This is a man who once constructed a bong using only the barrel of an air rifle, a ripe pear, and an eight-by-ten glossy photograph of Anna Kournikova. Not the brightest gem in the jewelry shop, but you've got to admire his single-minded dedication to drug abuse.

Definition: 'Love' is making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometres away using an Aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope. Statement: This definition, I am told, is subject to interpretation. Obviously, 'love' is a matter of odds. Not many meatbags could make such a shot, and strangely enough, not many meatbags would derive love from it. Yet for me, love is knowing your target, putting them in your targeting reticle, and together, achieving a singular purpose... against statistically long odds...

Antonio, I speak to you from beyond the grave, in seriousness. I have loved you with all my shameful heart, as much as I once loved Francisco, and I have conquered any envy that I might have felt. If a dead man may have a wish, it is that you should find your future with Pelagia. She is beautiful and sweet, there is no one who deserves you more, and no one else worthy of you. I wish that you will have children together, and I wish that once or twice you will tell them about their Uncle Carlo that they never saw. As for me, I hoist my knapsack on my shoulders and buckle the webbing, I put my arm through the sling of my rifle, and I open the veil to march into the unknown as soldiers always will. Remember me. Carlo.

...soft light ate away at the darkness and revealed a rather large room outfitted with a small kitchen, an antique-looking couch, and a… a bed. Nervously, I turned away and folded my arms. The place reminded me more of a love-nest than anything else. Then again, the stockpile of rifles hanging on the wall kind of ruined the cozy feel.

I have a talent for hurting things," Jack perches the rifle on his cocked hip, and it's so insufferably arrogant I want to shove him into the ball pit next to us and slash or furiously make out with him. "But we always knew that, didn't we?

They say that all is fair in love and war. I have built my trench and brought my rifles, and I have no intention of retreating. I will pursue you until you remember who you are. If that means I need to court you, Signa Farrow, I will. Flowers, promenades, even poetry if that’s what you want. Whatever it is you enjoy, I will learn, and eventually you’ll remember the life we once had.

There were two things Chris knew well: his rifle and a woman's body. With either, he could spend hours studying their intracacies, their individual quirks and hots spots...their flaws. He knew when one of them was going to jam up and let him down or to give him the shot of his life. Rifles and women - he loved them both, but not necessarily in that order.

In the old days – or so I’ve heard – you could go round someone’s place and rifle through their record collection, take a look at their bookcases. Now you have to scroll through their iTunes or click on their Kindle.

Captain Christopher Phelan 1st Battalion Rifle Brigade Cape Mapan Crimea June 1855 Dearest Christopher, I can’t write to you again. I’m not who you think I am. I didn’t mean to send love letters, but that is what they became. On their way to you, my words turned into heartbeats on the page. Come back, please come home and find me. --[unsigned]

Shooting with his camera the animals tha they did not allow him to kill with his rifle .

This was the wooing of Keawe; things had gone quickly; but so an arrow goes, and the ball of a rifle swifter still, and yet both may strike the target.

No" she jerked back, stared up at him. Her eyes were like thunderclouds. He'd never seen them like that. Shock and fear filled them. Her face was paper white. Her body shuddering. "Don't you leave me!" She gripped his shirt and tried to shake him, tears falling from her eyes. "Don't you leave Noah." His head lowered. He touched her lips with his and knew this woman held the best part of him. The memories of the husband he had been, the man he had been. He couldn't destroy that. He refuse to. He pushed her to Jordan slowly, loath to let her go. To release her. Knowing that releasing her was the only way to save the memories she held. "Don't you leave!" She screamed the order, eyes blazing, her lips trembling as tears fell and hysteria threatened to overwhelm her. "If you leave me, Noah Blake, if you don't come back when this is over, don't bother coming back at all. He touched her cheek. Ran his thumb over her lips. "You are the best part of me," he whispered. "Always remember that, Sabella. The best part of me." Before she could grab him, hold him to her, he pulled away, grabbed one of the rifles Mike had set on the table across the room. And left.

Sometimes when I felt the eyes crawling on me from all sides, I got scared thinking someone was looking who wasn’t just curious. I knew it was my imagination and I got used to it, learned to shunt it away. But sometimes I held onto it quietly, that feeling that someone behind or beside me in the crowd – some guy leaning on the target booth with a rifle, or some cranky sweating father spending too much on ride tickets to keep his kids away from him – anybody could be looking at me in the sidelong way that norms use to look at freaks, but thinking of me twitching and biting at the dirt while my guts spilled out of the big escape hatch he’d cut for them… a feeling like that is special. Sometimes you hold onto it quietly for a while.

You count the facts and it's so depressing. I can only eat baby food. My best friend screwed my fiancé. My fiancé almost stabbed me to death. I've set fire to a house and been pointing a rifle at innocent people all night. My brother I hate has come back from the dead to upstage me. I'm an invisible monster, and I'm incapable of loving anybody. You don't know which is worse.

We bumped into other silent lines of kids going in the same direction. We looked like we were much younger and our lines were headed to the cafeteria or recess or the carpool line. Or it could’ve been a fire drill. Except for the stone-faced police officers weaving between us with rifles.

she simply wasn’t one of those adrenaline junkies who got all jazzed up over rappelling out of a helicopter, or parachuting into shark-infested waters in the middle of a hurricane, or hiding out in a muddy ditch with a sniper rifle while wearing one of those camouflage helmets with a little bush attached to it.

I never carried a rifle on my shoulder, Nor did I pull a trigger. All I have is a flute’s melody. A brush to paint my dreams, A bottle of ink. All I have is unshakeable faith, And an infinite love for my people in pain. Mahmoud Darwish

You go out into your world, and try and find the things that will be useful to you. Your weapons. Your tools. Your charms. You find a record, or a poem, or a picture of a girl that you pin to the wall and go, "Her. I'll try and be her. I'll try and be her - but here." You observe the way others walk, and talk, and you steal little bits of them - you collage yourself out of whatever you can get your hands on. You are like the robot Johnny 5 in Short Circuit, crying, "More input! More input for Johnny 5! as you rifle through books and watch films and sit in front of the television, trying to guess which of these things that you are watching - Alexis Carrington Colby walking down a marble staircase; Anne of Green Gables holding her shoddy suitcase; Cathy wailing on the moors; Courtney Love wailing in her petticoat; Dorothy Parker gunning people down; Grace Jones singing "Slave to the Rhythm" - you will need when you get out there. What will be useful. What will be, eventually, you? And you will be quite on your own when you do all this. There is no academy where you can learn to be yourself; there is no line manager slowly urging you toward the correct answer. You are midwife to yourself, and will give birth to yourself, over and over, in dark rooms, alone. And some versions of you will end in dismal failure - many prototypes won't even get out the front door, as you suddenly realize that no, you can't style-out an all-in-one gold bodysuit and a massive attitude problem in Wolverhampton. Others will achieve temporary success - hitting new land-speed records, and amazing all around you, and then suddenly, unexpectedly exploding, like the Bluebird on Coniston Water. But one day you'll find a version of you that will get you kissed, or befriended, or inspired, and you will make your notes accordingly, staying up all night to hone and improvise upon a tiny snatch of melody that worked. Until - slowly, slowly - you make a viable version of you, one you can hum every day. You'll find the tiny, right piece of grit you can pearl around, until nature kicks in, and your shell will just quietly fill with magic, even while you're busy doing other things. What your nature began, nature will take over, and start completing, until you stop having to think about who you'll be entirely - as you're too busy doing, now. And ten years will pass without you even noticing. And later, over a glass of wine - because you drink wine now, because you are grown - you will marvel over what you did. Marvel that, at the time, you kept so many secrets. Tried to keep the secret of yourself. Tried to metamorphose in the dark. The loud, drunken, fucking, eyeliner-smeared, laughing, cutting, panicking, unbearably present secret of yourself. When really you were about as secret as the moon. And as luminous, under all those clothes.

He looked around, saw himself mirrored in that man walking back with his rifle. And suddenly, it seemed possible to him that we might love ourselves the most when we are suffering and seen to suffer. The pursuits of men seemed only the more shocking, if this were true.

We stumbled on in the darkness, over big stones and through large puddles, along the one road leading from the camp. The accompanying guards kept shouting at us and driving us with the butts of their rifles. Anyone with very sore feet supported himself on his neighbor's arm. Hardly a word was spoken; the icy wind did not encourage talk. Hiding his mouth behind his upturned collar, the man marching next to me whispered suddenly: "If our wives could see us now! I do hope they are better off in their camps and don't know what is happening to us." That brought thoughts of my own wife to mind. And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and again, dragging one another up and onward, nothing was said, but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife. Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise. A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way—an honorable way—in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.

The naked man had lost hope now; he would never be able to return to the earth's surface;he would never leave the bottom of this shaft, and he would go mad there drinking blood and eating human flesh, without ever being able to die. Up there, against the sky, there were good angels with ropes, and bad angels with grenades and rifles, and a big old man with a white beard who waved his arms but could not save him.

As the rifles were pointed at his chest he wondered if what he had taken for the richness of silence was really the poverty of never being heard. He had thought the possibilities of human silence were endless. But as the bullets tore from the rifles, his body was riddled with the truth. And a small part of him laughed bitterly because, anyway, how could he have forgotten what he had always known: There’s no match for the silence of God.

The woman raised her voice. "I said, what are you doing?" Tommy kept typing and looked up. "Pardon me, I was ignoring you. What did you say?" "What are you doing?" She repeated. "It's a note. Let me read it for you. 'Couldn't anyone else see that they were all slaves of Satan? I had to cleanse the world of their evil. I am the hand of God. Why else would security have let me into the building with an assault rifle in my suitcase? I am a divine instrument.' " Tommy paused and looked up. "That's all I have so far, but I'll guess I end it with an apology to my mom. What do you think?" She smiled as if hiding gas pains and handed him an envelope.

One day about a month ago, I really hit bottom. You know, I just felt that in a Godless universe, I didn't want to go on living. Now I happen to own this rifle, which I loaded, believe it or not, and pressed it to my forehead. And I remember thinking, at the time, I'm gonna kill myself. Then I thought, what if I'm wrong? What if there is a God? I mean, after all, nobody really knows that. But then I thought, no, you know, maybe is not good enough. I want certainty or nothing. And I remember very clearly, the clock was ticking, and I was sitting there frozen with the gun to my head, debating whether to shoot. [The gun fires accidentally, shattering a mirror] All of a sudden, the gun went off. I had been so tense my finger had squeezed the trigger inadvertently. But I was perspiring so much the gun had slid off my forehead and missed me. And suddenly neighbors were, were pounding on the door, and, and I don't know, the whole scene was just pandemonium. And, uh, you know, I-I-I ran to the door, I-I didn't know what to say. You know, I was-I was embarrassed and confused and my-my-my mind was r-r-racing a mile a minute. And I-I just knew one thing. I-I-I had to get out of that house, I had to just get out in the fresh air and-and clear my head. And I remember very clearly, I walked the streets. I walked and I walked. I-I didn't know what was going through my mind. It all seemed so violent and un-unreal to me. And I wandered for a long time on the Upper West Side, you know, and-and it must have been hours. You know, my-my feet hurt, my head was-was pounding, and-and I had to sit down. I went into a movie house. I-I didn't know what was playing or anything. I just, I just needed a moment to gather my thoughts and, and be logical and put the world back into rational perspective. And I went upstairs to the balcony, and I sat down, and, you know, the movie was a-a-a film that I'd seen many times in my life since I was a kid, and-and I always, uh, loved it. And, you know, I'm-I'm watching these people up on the screen and I started getting hooked on the film, you know. And I started to feel, how can you even think of killing yourself. I mean isn't it so stupid? I mean, l-look at all the people up there on the screen. You know, they're real funny, and-and what if the worst is true. What if there's no God, and you only go around once and that's it. Well, you know, don't you want to be part of the experience? You know, what the hell, it's-it's not all a drag. And I'm thinkin' to myself, geez, I should stop ruining my life - searching for answers I'm never gonna get, and just enjoy it while it lasts. And, you know, after, who knows? I mean, you know, maybe there is something. Nobody really knows. I know, I know maybe is a very slim reed to hang your whole life on, but that's the best we have. And then, I started to sit back, and I actually began to enjoy myself.

The war is going on, and I'm singing. But I can't bandage up the wounded like Tala. I can, of course. But so can hundreds of other young women. Let the daring and decisive ones do it, not those like me. No, I'm daring and decisive, too. And I want to sing. It's not my fault that my youth came in time of war! I won't get another youth! And I'm convinced that singing when all around is hatred and death is no less important. Maybe even more important. This is what I believe: If somewhere on earth the wounded are finished off with rifle butts, that means somewhere else people have to be singing and rejoicing in life! The more death there is around, the more important to counter it with life, love, and beauty!

He loved the plasma rifle. He was an artist with it; he could paint pictures of destruction, compose symphonies of demolition, write elegies of annihilation, using that weapon.

I'm like a rifle that's a little out of date but very accurate: when I love, there's a strong recoil, back to childhood, and it hurts.

I pretty much lost all modesty once she rifled through my whiskerwallet and helped stretch out my lovelips. There’s just no coming back from that.

The shrieks were coming from two quite naked girls, who were pursued by a pair of apes snapping at their bottoms. [...] So he now raises his double-barrelled Spanish rifle, fires and kills both apes. 'God be praised, my dear Calambo! I have delivered these two poor creatures from grave peril; if it was a sin to kill an Inquisitor and a Jesuit, I have made ample amends by saving the lives of two girls [...]' He was about to continue, but words failed him when he saw the two girls throw their arms lovingly around the two apes and collapse in tears over their corpses, filling the air with the most pitiful lamentations. 'I was not expecting quite so much tenderness of heart,' he said at last to Cacambo, who replied: 'You've excelled yourself this time, Master; you have just despatched the two lovers of these young ladies.' '-Their lovers! Is it possible? You're making fun of me, Cacambo; how could anyone believe in such a thing?' - 'My dear Master,' retorted Cacambo, 'you are always astounished by everything; why do you find it so strange that in some countries it is apes who enjoy the favours of young ladies? After all, they are one-quarter human, just as I am one-quarter Spanish.

No" she jerked back, stared up at him. Her eyes were like thunderclouds. He'd never seen them like that. Shock and fear filled them. Her face was paper white. Her body shuddering. "Don't you leave me!" She gripped his shirt and tried to shake him, tears falling from her eyes. "Don't you leave Noah." His head lowered. He touched her lips with his and knew this woman held the best part of him. The memories of the husband he had been, the man he had been. He couldn't destroy that. He refuse to. He pushed her to Jordan slowly, loath to let her go. To release her. Knowing that releasing her was the only way to save the memories she held. "Don't you leave me!" She screamed the order, eyes blazing, her lips trembling as tears fell and hysteria threatened to overwhelm her. "If you leave me, Noah Blake, if you don't come back when this is over, don't bother coming back at all. He touched her cheek. Ran his thumb over her lips. "You are the best part of me," he whispered. "Always remember that, Sabella. The very best part of me." Before she could grab him, hold him to her, he pulled away, grabbed one of the rifles Mike had set on the table across the room. And left.” ― Lora Leigh, Wild Card

Somewhere along the line the American love affair with wilderness changed from the thoughtful, sensitive isolationism of Thoreau to the bully, manly, outdoorsman bravado of Teddy Roosevelt. It is not for me, as an outsider, either to bemoan or celebrate this fact, only to observe it. Deep in the male American psyche is a love affair with the backwoods, log-cabin, camping-out life. There is no living creature here that cannot, in its right season, be hunted or trapped. Deer, moose, bear, squirrel, partridge, beaver, otter, possum, raccoon, you name it, there's someone killing one right now. When I say hunted, I mean, of course, shot at with a high-velocity rifle. I have no particular brief for killing animals with dogs or falcons, but when I hear the word 'hunt' I think of something more than a man in a forage cap and tartan shirt armed with a powerful carbine. In America it is different. Hunting means 'man bonding with man, man bonding with son, man bonding with pickup truck, man bonding with wood cabin, man bonding with rifle, man bonding above all with plaid'.

In every part of the legendary Valley of Kashmir, whatever people might be doing—walking, praying, bathing, cracking jokes, shelling walnuts, making love or taking a bus-ride home—they were in the rifle-sights of a soldier. And because they were in the rifle-sights of a soldier, whatever they might be doing—walking, praying, bathing, cracking jokes, shelling walnuts, making love or taking a bus-ride home—they were a legitimate target.

Tell me something true about you.” “Okay …” She mentally rifled through birthplace (Portland, Oregon), college major (sociology), astrological sign (Virgo), favorite movie (The Apple Dumpling Gang—don’t judge), until she hit a fact that wasn’t completely mundane. “One of my favorite things in the world are those charity events where everyone buys a rubber ducky with a number and the first person’s duck to get down the river wins.” “Why?” “I like seeing the river teeming with all those outrageously yellow and orange ducks. It’s so friendly. And I love the hope of it. Even though it doesn’t matter if you win, because all that wonderful, candy-colored money is going to something really important like a free clinic downtown or cleft palate operations for children in India, you still have that playful hope that you will win. You run alongside the stream, not knowing which is your duck but imagining the lead one is yours.” “And this is the essence of your soul—the ducky race?” “Well, you didn’t ask for the essence of my soul. You asked for something true about me, and so I went for something slightly embarrassing and secret but true nonetheless. Next time you want the essence of my soul, I’ll oblige you with sunsets and baby’s laughter and greeting cards with watercolor flowers.” He squinted at her thoughtfully. “No, so far as I’m concerned, the yellow duckies are the essence of your soul.

He recalled the rifles without sights, the cross-purposes of wars, and the dark Malays who knew only the most simple, the most fundamental language of all- life, love and liberty -and who now would find themselves within the coils of power and politics.

...Not yet dry behind the ears, not old enough to buy a beer, but old enough to die for his country. He can recite to you the nomenclature of a machine gun or grenade launcher and use either one effectively if he must. He digs foxholes and latrines and can apply first aid like a professional. He can march until he is told to stop, or stop until he is told to march. He obeys orders instantly and without hesitation, but he is not without spirit or individual dignity. He is self-sufficient. ...He sometimes forgets to brush his teeth, but never to clean his rifle. He can cook his own meals, mend his own clothes, and fix his own hurts. If you're thirsty, he'll share his water with you; if you are hungry, food. He'll even split his ammunition with you in the midst of battle when you run low. He has learned to use his hands like weapons and weapons like they were his hands. He can save your life-or take it, because that is his job. He will often do twice the work of a civilian, draw half the pay, and still find ironic humor in it all. He has seen more suffering and death than he should have in his short lifetime. He has wept in public and in private, for friends who have fallen in combat and is unashamed. He feels every note of the National Anthem vibrate through his body while at rigid attention, while tempering the burning desire to "square-away" those around him who haven't bothered to stand, remove their hat, or even stop talking. ...Just as did his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, he is paying the price for our freedom. Beardless or not, he is not a boy. He is the American Fighting Man that has kept this country free for over two hundred years. He has asked nothing in return, except our friendship and understanding. Remember him, always, for he has earned our respect and admiration with his blood. And now we have women over there in danger, doing their part in this tradition of going to war when our nation calls us to do so. As you go to bed tonight, remember this. A short lull, a little shade, and a picture of loved ones in their helmets.

The rifle in this story is a rifle full of wishes. Maybe all rifles seem to be that, at least for a moment, when they’re new, before any finger has touched any trigger. Maybe all rifles seem as though they might grant a person the only thing they’ve ever wanted.

For most of a day we walked through alkali flats, the white crust like a frosted layer of salt that rose in a powder when your boots punched through. We wore the chalk on us everywhere—up to our knees, in the creases of our fingers clenching the rifle strap, down in the cavity between my breasts, and in my mouth, too. I couldn’t keep it out and stopped trying. I couldn’t keep anything out, I realized, and that was something I loved about Africa. The way it got at you from the outside in and never let up, and never let you go.

But she…I…” The emptiness of his thefted recollections was real as any love loss. The rifled wallet seemed trivial. Tears banked his eyes. “But she was—” Confusion snarled the sentence’s end. “What was she, friend?” Calli asked. “She…was.” That was the sad entirety.

Definition: 'Love' is making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometers away using an Aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope. Love is knowing your target, putting them in your targeting reticule, and together, achieving a singular purpose against statistically long odds.

David Abrams’s Fobbit, Giorgio Agamben’s The Open, Omnia Amin and Rick London’s translations of Ahmed Abdel Muti Hijazi’s poetry, Peter Van Buren’s We Meant Well, Donovan Campbell’s Joker One, C. J. Chivers’s The Gun, Seth Connor’s Boredom by Day, Death by Night, Daniel Danelo’s Blood Stripes, Kimberly Dozier’s Breathing the Fire, Nathan Englander’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, Siobhan Fallon’s You Know When the Men Are Gone, Nathaniel Fick’s One Bullet Away, Dexter Filkins’s The Forever War, David Finkel’s The Good Soldiers, Jim Frederick’s Black Hearts, Matt Gallagher’s Kaboom, Jessica Goodell’s Shade It Black, J. Glenn Gray’s The Warriors, Dave Grossman’s On Killing and On Combat, Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery, Kirsten Holmstedt’s Band of Sisters, Karl Marlantes’s Matterhorn, Colum McCann’s Dancer, Patrick McGrath’s Trauma, Jonathan Shay’s Odysseus in America and Achilles in Vietnam, Roy Scranton’s essays and fiction, the Special Inspector for Iraq Reconstruction Report Hard Lessons, Bing West’s The Strongest Tribe and No True Glory, Kayla Williams’s Love My Rifle More Than You.

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the base Only sentries were stirring--they guarded the place. At the foot of each bunk sat a helmet and boot For the Santa of Soldiers to fill up with loot. The soldiers were sleeping and snoring away As they dreamed of “back home” on good Christmas Day. One snoozed with his rifle--he seemed so content. I slept with the letters my family had sent. When outside the tent there arose such a clatter. I sprang from my rack to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash. Poked out my head, and yelled, “What was that crash?” When what to my thrill and relief should appear, But one of our Blackhawks to give the all clear. More rattles and rumbles! I heard a deep whine! Then up drove eight Humvees, a jeep close behind… Each vehicle painted a bright Christmas green. With more lights and gold tinsel than I’d ever seen. The convoy commander leaped down and he paused. I knew then and there it was Sergeant McClaus! More rapid than rockets, his drivers they came When he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name: “Now, Cohen! Mendoza! Woslowski! McCord! Now, Li! Watts! Donetti! And Specialist Ford!” “Go fill up my sea bags with gifts large and small! Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away, all!” In the blink of an eye, to their trucks the troops darted. As I drew in my head and was turning around, Through the tent flap the sergeant came in with a bound. He was dressed all in camo and looked quite a sight With a Santa had added for this special night. His eyes--sharp as lasers! He stood six feet six. His nose was quite crooked, his jaw hard as bricks! A stub of cigar he held clamped in his teeth. And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath. A young driver walked in with a seabag in tow. McClaus took the bag, told the driver to go. Then the sarge went to work. And his mission today? Bring Christmas from home to the troops far away! Tasty gifts from old friends in the helmets he laid. There were candies, and cookies, and cakes, all homemade. Many parents sent phone cards so soldiers could hear Treasured voices and laughter of those they held dear. Loving husbands and wives had mailed photos galore Of weddings and birthdays and first steps and more. And for each soldier’s boot, like a warm, happy hug, There was art from the children at home sweet and snug. As he finished the job--did I see a twinkle? Was that a small smile or instead just a wrinkle? To the top of his brow he raised up his hand And gave a salute that made me feel grand. I gasped in surprise when, his face all aglow, He gave a huge grin and a big HO! HO! HO! HO! HO! HO! from the barracks and then from the base. HO! HO! HO! as the convoy sped up into space. As the camp radar lost him, I heard this faint call: “HAPPY CHRISTMAS, BRAVE SOLDIERS! MAY PEACE COME TO ALL!

My love, my dear, dear Shura, Don’t talk about my cross—first heave your own off your shoulders. How did I live last winter? I don’t know, but I think almost longingly of it now. Because I moved. There was movement inside me. I had energy to lie, to pretend to Dasha, to keep her alive. I walked, I was with Mama, I was too busy to die myself. Too busy hiding my love for you. But now I wake up and think, how am I going to go through the rest of my day until sleep? To ease myself back into life, I’ve surrounded myself with the villagers. You think it was bad before. I’m from morning till night helping Irina Persikova, who had to have her leg cut off in Molotov, infection or something. I think I like her because she carries my mother’s name. I think of Dasha. I grieve for my sister. But her face is not the last face I see before I sleep. Yours is. You are my hand grenade, my artillery fire. You have replaced my heart with yourself. Are you thinking of me with your rifle in your hands? What do we do? How do we keep you from dying? These thoughts consume my waking minutes. What can I do from here to keep you alive? Dead or wounded, those Soviets will leave you in the field. Who is going to heal you if you fall? Who is going to bury you if you die? Bury you like you deserve—with kings and heroes. Yours, Tatiana

The medal recipients, sixty-two in al, were summoned to the dais. Like many of the other men, Christopher was dressed in private clothes, having left the ranks at the conclusion of the war. Unlike the other men, Christopher was holding a leash. Attached to a dog. For reasons that had not been explained, he had been told to bring Albert to the presentation. The other Rifles whispered encouragements as Albert walked obediently beside Christopher. “There’s a good boy!” “Look smart, fellow!” “No accidents in front of the queen!” “And all that goes for you too, Albert,” someone added, causing the lot of them to snicker. Giving his friends a damning glance, which only amused them further, Christopher took Albert to meet the queen.

At first Alexander could not believe it was his Tania. He blinked and tried to refocus his eyes. She was walking around the table, gesturing, showing, leaning forward, bending over. At one point she straightened out and wiped her forehead. She was wearing a short-sleeved yellow peasant dress. She was barefoot, and her slender legs were exposed above her knee. Her bare arms were lightly tanned. Her blonde hair looked bleached by the sun and was parted into two shoulder-length braids tucked behind her ears. Even from a distance he could see the summer freckles on her nose. She was achingly beautiful. And alive. Alexander closed his eyes, then opened them again. She was still there, bending over the boy’s work. She said something, everyone laughed loudly, and Alexander watched as the boy’s arm touched Tatiana’s back. Tatiana smiled. Her white teeth sparkled like the rest of her. Alexander didn’t know what to do. She was alive, that was obvious. Then why hadn’t she written him? And where was Dasha? Alexander couldn’t very well continue to stand under a lilac tree. He went back out onto the main road, took a deep breath, stubbed out his cigarette, and walked toward the square, never taking his eyes off her braids. His heart was thundering in his chest, as if he were going into battle. Tatiana looked up, saw him, and covered her face with her hands. Alexander watched everyone get up and rush to her, the old ladies showing unexpected agility and speed. She pushed them all away, pushed the table away, pushed the bench away, and ran to him. Alexander was paralyzed by his emotion. He wanted to smile, but he thought any second he was going to fall to his knees and cry. He dropped all his gear, including his rifle. God, he thought, in a second I’m going to feel her. And that’s when he smiled. Tatiana sprang into his open arms, and Alexander, lifting her off her feet with the force of his embrace, couldn’t hug her tight enough, couldn’t breathe in enough of her. She flung her arms around his neck, burying her face in his bearded cheek. Dry sobs racked her entire body. She was heavier than the last time he felt her in all her clothes as he lifted her into the Lake Ladoga truck. She, with her boots, her clothes, coats, and coverings, had not weighed what she weighed now. She smelled incredible. She smelled of soap and sunshine and caramelized sugar. She felt incredible. Holding her to him, Alexander rubbed his face into her braids, murmuring a few pointless words. “Shh, shh…come on, now, shh, Tatia. Please…” His voice broke. “Oh, Alexander,” Tatiana said softly into his neck. She was clutching the back of his head. “You’re alive. Thank God.” “Oh, Tatiana,” Alexander said, hugging her tighter, if that were possible, his arms swaddling her summer body. “You’re alive. Thank God.” His hands ran up to her neck and down to the small of her back. Her dress was made of very thin cotton. He could almost feel her skin through it. She felt very soft. Finally he let her feet touch the ground. Tatiana looked up at him. His hands remained around her little waist. He wasn’t letting go of her. Was she always this tiny, standing barefoot in front of him? “I like your beard,” Tatiana said, smiling shyly and touching his face. “I love your hair,” Alexander said, pulling on a braid and smiling back. “You’re messy…” He looked her over. “And you’re stunning.” He could not take his eyes off her glorious, eager, vivid lips. They were the color of July tomatoes— He bent to her—

My grandmother, perhaps the biggest Elvis fan on earth, loved going to Memphis and visiting Graceland with her sister, daughter, and nieces. She had photo albums full of their trips; they’d go and she would take photos of the exact same things trip after trip. It was her mecca. She had a photo of Elvis’s headstone in various seasons, and you could watch her daughter and nieces grow up in a series of photos in front the mansion’s driveway gate. It was routine. I’ve come to regard Dianne Feinstein’s “assault weapons” press conferences in the same way. Every few years or so, Senator Feinstein calls a press conference, the D.C. version of theater, and plays Vanna White with guns strapped to whiteboards. You can watch her age through the years at these pressers via Google Images. She begins with a youthful plump to her cheeks, standing tall, holding up a rifle to her chest and as the years go by she takes on the posture of a cocktail shrimp and simply motions to the boards. I give her credit for her dedication to never learning a single thing about the firearms she proposes to ban. It takes devotion to remain ignorant about a topic when you spend decades discussing it.

Let us have it plain: my society is comprised of metal-worshipers. They pray to metal, are owned by metal, and metal uses them; it shoots them, it stabs them. I witness its sycophants, grave zombies, moved about humorlessly as its agents. My minions are spiritually rapt as the ages climaxes in gunpowder. One notes that, upon first being handed a rifle -- by Burton or Speke? -- a chieftain blithely shot one of his own lackeys, expressing radiant joy as the man tumbled dead. Do not stop there, happy Klansman, but watch with me early in the morning as I come in from work: across the street here in the clean "burbs" your white policeman goes reverently to his car with a deer rifle coddled in his right arm like a precocious, beautiful child. This man lives with a pistol on his hip all week, but that is not enough, no, he is devout and it is the Christmas season. His own cowardice, affirmed by the use of guns, would not occur to him any more than the cowardice of God. The gun lobby, oh my peaceful friends, you may hate, but first you had better understand that it is a religion, only secondarily connected to the Bill of Rights. The thick-headed, sometimes even close to tearful, gaze you get when chatting with one of its partisans emanates from the view that they're holding a piece of God. There is no persuading them otherwise, even by a genus, because a life without guns implies the end of the known world to them. Any connection they make to our " pioneer past" is also a fraud, a wistful apology. Folks love a gun for what it can do. A murderer always thinks it was an accident, he says, as if a religious episode had passed over him.

And in the silence what followed, I reckon our eyes had some long conversation our mouths could’ve never talked through. Some long, looking talk about things gone and long since said. About cries out in the night and some long ago tangling of limbs. And about them betrayals done time and time again—by both of us—what led to me pointing the Green Man’s rifle at the man what once loved me under the Green Man’s stars.

Morning comes. I go to my class. There sit the little ones with folded arms. In their eyes is still all the shy astonishment of the childish years. They look up at me so trustingly, so believingly - and suddenly I get a spasm over the heart. Here I stand before you, one of the hundreds of thousands of bankrupt men in whom the war destroyed every belief and almost every strength. Here I stand before you, and see how much more alive, how much more rooted in life you are than I. Here I stand and must now be your teacher and guide. What should I teach you? Should I tell you that in twenty years you will be dried-up and crippled, maimed in your freest impulses, all pressed mercilessly into the selfsame mold? Should I tell you that all the learning, all culture, all science is nothing but hideous mockery, so long as mankind makes war in the name of God and humanity with gas, iron, explosive and fire? What should I teach you then, you little creatures who alone have remained unspotted by the terrible years? What am I able to teach you then? Should I tell you how to pull the string of a hand grenade, how best to throw it at a human being? Should I show you how to stab a man with a bayonet, how to fell him with a club, how to slaughter him with a spade? Should I demonstrate how best to aim a rifle at such an incomprehensible miracle as a breathing breast, a living heart? Should I explain to you what tetanus is, what a broken spine is, and what a shattered skull? Should I describe to you what brains look like when they scatter about? What crushed bones are like - and intestines when they pour out? Should I mimic how a man with a stomach wound will groan, how one with a lung wound gurgles and one with a head wound whistles? More I do not know. More I have not learned. Should I take you the brown-and-green map there, move my finger across it and tell you that here love was murdered? Should I explain to you that the books you hold in your hands are but nets with which men design to snare your simple souls, to entangle you in the undergrowth of find phrases, and in the barbed wire of falsified ideas? I stand here before you, a polluted, a guilty man and can only implore you ever to remain as you are, never to suffer the bright light of your childhood to be misused as a blow flame of hate. About your brows still blows the breath of innocence. How then should I presume to teach you? Behind me, still pursuing, are the bloody years. - How then can I venture among you? Must I not first become a man again myself?

Lines that seemed unconnected gradually becomes part of a confession that had at its center rooms in the burning heat of August, where something has taken place, clearly sexual, but it is also the vacant streets of rural Texas, roads, forgotten friends, the slap of hands of rifle slings and forked pennants limp at parades. There are condoms, sun-faded cars, soiled menus with misspellings, a kind of pyre on which he had laid his life. That was why he seemed so pure – he had given all. Everyone lies about their lives, but he had not lied about his. He had made of it a noble lament, through it always running this thing you have had, that you will always have, but can never have. (There stood Erechteus, polished limbs and greaves....come to me, Hellas, I love for your touch.) I had met him at a party and only managed to say, – I read your beautiful poem.

It was astonishing how loudly one laughed at tales of gruesome things, of war’s brutality-I with the rest of them. I think at the bottom of it was a sense of the ironical contrast between the normal ways of civilian life and this hark-back to the caveman code. It made all our old philosophy of life monstrously ridiculous. It played the “hat trick” with the gentility of modern manners. Men who had been brought up to Christian virtues, who had prattled their little prayers at mothers’ knees, who had grown up to a love of poetry, painting, music, the gentle arts, over-sensitized to the subtleties of half-tones, delicate scales of emotion, fastidious in their choice of words, in their sense of beauty, found themselves compelled to live and act like ape-men; and it was abominably funny. They laughed at the most frightful episodes, which revealed this contrast between civilized ethics and the old beast law. The more revolting it was the more, sometimes, they shouted with laughter, especially in reminiscence, when the tale was told in the gilded salon of a French chateau, or at a mess-table. It was, I think, the laughter of mortals at the trick which had been played on them by an ironical fate. They had been taught to believe that the whole object of life was to reach out to beauty and love, and that mankind, in its progress to perfection, had killed the beast instinct, cruelty, blood-lust, the primitive, savage law of survival by tooth and claw and club and ax. All poetry, all art, all religion had preached this gospel and this promise. Now that ideal had broken like a china vase dashed to hard ground. The contrast between That and This was devastating. It was, in an enormous world-shaking way, like a highly dignified man in a silk hat, morning coat, creased trousers, spats, and patent boots suddenly slipping on a piece of orange-peel and sitting, all of a heap, with silk hat flying, in a filthy gutter. The war-time humor of the soul roared with mirth at the sight of all that dignity and elegance despoiled. So we laughed merrily, I remember, when a military chaplain (Eton, Christ Church, and Christian service) described how an English sergeant stood round the traverse of a German trench, in a night raid, and as the Germans came his way, thinking to escape, he cleft one skull after another with a steel-studded bludgeon a weapon which he had made with loving craftsmanship on the model of Blunderbore’s club in the pictures of a fairy-tale. So we laughed at the adventures of a young barrister (a brilliant fellow in the Oxford “Union”) whose pleasure it was to creep out o’ nights into No Man’s Land and lie doggo in a shell-hole close to the enemy’s barbed wire, until presently, after an hour’s waiting or two, a German soldier would crawl out to fetch in a corpse. The English barrister lay with his rifle ready. Where there had been one corpse there were two. Each night he made a notch on his rifle three notches one night to check the number of his victims. Then he came back to breakfast in his dugout with a hearty appetite.

havng an affair with a man was a plunge into change, shocking irreversible change, like an amputation It was not a dip in a pool, after which one came out and dried the same body with the same hands. And as for the much touted memroes, far from treasuring them, she found them a continuing torment, which she would willingly have burned from her brain cells...Yet for this sex, good or mot so good, she had paid a steep price. Marjorie felt rifled of her own identity.

It must be said here that ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ is not an attribute of patriotism, but of deep patriarchy. Extreme mother-love is a camouflage for extreme misogyny. Over the past few years in India, the nature of the violence inflicted on women during rapes, riots and caste retributions is of an order seldom witnessed before in any part of the world, except perhaps, in Bosnia during the civil war, or in the Congo, or in Sri Lanka during the final moments of the pogrom against the civilian Tamil population there. From the barbarity of the jawans of the Assam Rifles on Manorama Devi, to incessant mass rapes by soldiers in Kashmir, to the graphic and horrific brutalities (that were videotaped) on even pregnant women in Gujarat in 2002, to the Nirbhaya case in Delhi, there is no evidence to prove that devotion towards an abstract ‘Bharat Mata’ translates into even a semblance of affection or respect for real flesh-and-blood women. Indeed, here it is only literally the flesh and blood that seems to matter. Add

Max and Shane passed the joint back and forth as they sat in the crow’s nest, their sniper rifles resting across their laps. “Gets ya right there,” Max said, pounding his chest, his eyes on Kinsey below. “No shit, bro,” Shane replied after a long drag. “Those two, man. Too much love, too much pride.” “That’s why we never argue,” Max said. “I hate you and have zero pride in myself.” “Me too,” Shane said. “You are the bane of my existence.” He held up the joint. “And I try to cover my own self-loathing in a haze of the pot.

Doctors call conditions like bad blood pressure or hypertension “invisible killers.” Not thinking will, without careful attention, kill you, or it will kill your brain and you will become—to use the medical term—“stupid.” We say stupid things, we are angered for stupid reasons, we talk stupid, vote stupid, eat stupid, hate stupid, and don’t have the slightest idea how to love ourselves or someone else. We aim our rifle at the wrong guy on the wrong battlefield. We vote to enrich those who are already billionaires, somehow thinking we are not punishing ourselves.

At the edge of Saint-Michel is the Wildwood. The wolves who live there come out at night. They prowl fields and farms, hungry for hens and tender young lambs. But there is another sort of wolf, one that's far more treacherous. This is the wolf the old ones speak of. "Run if you see him," they tell their granddaughters. "His tongue is silver, but his teeth are sharp. If he gets hold of you, he'll eat you alive." Most of the village girls do what they're told, but occasionally one does not. She stands her ground, looks the wolf in the eye, and falls in love with him. People see her run to the woods at night. They see her the next morning with leaves in her hair and blood on her lips. This is not proper, they say. A girl should not love a wolf. So they decide to intervene. They come after the wolf with guns and swords. They hunt him down in the Wildwood. But the girl is with him and sees them coming. The people raise their rifles and take aim. The girl opens her mouth to scream, and as she does, the wolf jumps inside it. Quickly the girl swallows him whole, teeth and claws and fur. He curls up under her heart. The villagers lower their weapons and go home. The girl heaves a sigh of relief. She believes this arrangement will work. She thinks she can be satisfied with memories of the wolf’s golden eyes. She thinks the wolf will be happy with a warm place to sleep. But the girl soon realized she’s made a terrible mistake, for the wolf is a wild thing and wild things cannot be caged. He wants to get out, but the girl is all darkness inside and he cannot find his way. So he howls in her blood. He tears at her heart. The howling and gnawing –it drives the girl mad. She tries to cut him out, slicing lines in her flesh with a razor. She tries to burn him out, holding a candle flame to her skin. She tries to starve him out, refusing to eat until she’s nothing but skin over bones. Before long, the grave takes them both. A wolf lives in Isabelle. She tries hard to keep him down, but his hunger grows. He cracks her spine and devours her heart. Run home. Slam the door. Throw the bolt. It won’t help. The wolves in the woods have sharp teeth and long claws, but it’s the wolf inside who will tear you apart.

It’s wonderful,” he choked out. “Absolutely wonderful.” He smoothed his hand over her belly. “I can’t imagine anything better than having a child with you, my love. But are you sure?” She relaxed. “As sure as anyone can be at this point. Your aunt and I think I may be nearly three months along, so…” When she trailed off with a blush, he added up numbers in his head, then let out a laugh. “It probably happened that night in the cottage.” “Or the night in my bedchamber.” “Then it’s a good thing I came to my senses and gave you that ‘proper proposal’ you demanded. Or I’d be staring down the barrel of your percussion rifle just about now.” “I doubt that. I would just have married the duke,” she teased. He scowled. “Over my dead body.” She laughed. “You know perfectly well you would have proposed long before I knew I was with child.” “Ah, but would you have said yes? I thought you once told me that a lady never surrenders.” “She doesn’t.” Eyes sparkling, she buried her fingers in his hair and drew his head down to hers. “Except where love is concerned. I’ve come to realize that in matters of love, a clever lady always surrenders.

This is comparable to the long fought battle over the Second Amendment (the right to bear arms) and a popular stance that automatic weapons should be illegal while handguns should be permitted. Similarly, Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler magazine, fought a hard battle in the 1970s and 1980s over the First Amendment and his right to publish any material regardless of content as it was a matter related to the freedom of expression. Gun control opponents, such as members of the National Rifle Association (NRA), do not want to outlaw fully automatic weapons because of the “what is next?” argument, which can be a slippery slope.

A dark man with a burning torch ran down the street on a dull night in late fall. The little girl saw him from the window of her house, having awoken from a dull dream. Then she heard a sharp rifle shot and a pitiful despondent scream — they must have killed the man running with the torch. Soon she was hearing other shots, many and distant, and the clamor of people in a nearby prison… The girl fell asleep and forgot everything that she would see later, on subsequent days: she was too young, and the memory and reason of early childhood were overgrown forever by her future life. But well into her old age the nameless man rose up sadly and unexpectedly and ran within her — in the dim light of her memory — and died once more in the darkness of the past, in the heart of the grown up child. Amidst hunger and sleep, in a moment of love or of some youthful joy — suddenly in the distance, in the depth of her body there rose again the despondent scream of the dead man, and the young woman instantly altered her life — stopped her dance, if she was dancing, grew more focused, more reliable in her work, if she was laboring, hid her face in her hands, if she was alone. That stormy night of late fall saw the start of the October revolution — in that town where Moskva Ivanovna Chestnova had lived at that time.

Maiha “Allow me to introduce you to the Children of Mars. On lead guitar and eight barreled Calliope Gatlin, Colonel Fujiyama. On bass and manning the double-barreled thirty millimeter PPC's we have Major Howard. Singing backup and key boards we have Fight Captain Benz with a lovely ten millimeter rapid fire gauss rifle. Her lovely partner Captain Martin on drums with her ten millimeter Hell-bore pulse laser rifle. And singing lead and front man, a true artist with a bang from the Castile sniper rifle, our Big Daddy, Papa of Death and Destruction, the one, the only, the man, the myth, the legend, Lord James Nakatoma- Bailey.” When I finished Alice was giggling out loud.

I am Emir Dynamite!" he shouted, swaying on top of the tall camelback. "If within two days we don't get any decent food, I'll incite the tribes to revolt! I swear! I will appoint myself the Prophet's representative and declare holy war, jihad. On Denmark, for example. Why did the Danes torment their Prince Hamlet? Considering the current political situation, a casus beli like this would satisfy even the League of Nations. No, seriously, I'll buy a million worth of rifles from the British--they love to sell firearms to the tribes--and onward to Denmark. Germany will let us through--in lieu of war reparations. Imagine the tribes invading Copenhagen! I'll lead the charge on a white camel.

For a long minute he gazed at her, his eyes searching the features of that face he'd grown to love so deeply over the years, his memory bringing up images of the past as he did so. The young determination in her face as, in the middle of a blazing firefight, she'd grabbed Luke's blaster rifle away from him and shot them an escape route into the Death Star's detention-level garbage chute. The sound of her voice in the middle of deadly danger at Jabba's, helping him through the blindness and tremor and disorientation of hibernation sickness. The wiser, more mature determination visible through the pain in her eyes as, lying wounded outside the Endor bunker, she had nevertheless summoned the skill and control to coolly shoot two stormtroopers off Han's back. And he remembered, too, the wrenching realization he'd had at that same time: that no matter how much he tried, he would never be able to totally protect her from the dangers and risks of the universe. Because no matter how much he might love her--no matter how much he might give of himself to her--she could never be content with that alone. Her vision extended beyond him, just as it extended beyond herself, to all the beings of the galaxy. And to take that away from her, whether by force or even by persuasion, would be to diminish her soul. And to take away part of what he'd fallen in love with in the first place.

Well, it’s only to you I’m talking. I did him just as well as I knew how, making allowance for the slickness of oils. Then the art-manager of that abandoned paper said that his subscribers wouldn’t like it. It was brutal and coarse and violent,—man being naturally gentle when he’s fighting for his life. They wanted something more restful, with a little more colour. I could have said a good deal, but you might as well talk to a sheep as an art-manager. I took my “Last Shot” back. Behold the result! I put him into a lovely red coat without a speck on it. That is Art. I polished his boots,—observe the high light on the toe. That is Art. I cleaned his rifle,—rifles are always clean on service,—because that is Art.

Dick laughed. ‘Well, it’s only to you I’m talking. I did him just as well as I knew how, making allowance for the slickness of oils. Then the art-manager of that abandoned paper said that his subscribers wouldn’t like it. It was brutal and coarse and violent, — man being naturally gentle when he’s fighting for his life. They wanted something more restful, with a little more colour. I could have said a good deal, but you might as well talk to a sheep as an art-manager. I took my “Last Shot” back. Behold the result! I put him into a lovely red coat without a speck on it. That is Art. I polished his boots, — observe the high light on the toe. That is Art. I cleaned his rifle, — rifles are always clean on service, — because that is Art.

Here, let me help.” Nick stepped behind her, reached around her body, and placed his hands over hers, steadying the rifle against her shoulder. At his touch, unusual tingling sensations coursed through her. “Look down the sights to the target,” he murmured in her ear. His finger pressed over hers, guiding her movement. Her whole body warmed at his closeness. Too aware of him, she couldn’t concentrate. She just closed her eyes and squeezed the trigger. The noise of the shot reverberated in her ears. The recoil of the gun sent her staggering back into Nick. His arms tightened around her. She lowered the rifle. “You missed,” Nick’s voice teased in her ear. Elizabeth’s heart raced. She relaxed against his chest, loving the feel of his strong arms around her.

Norbu rejects the Western stereotype of Tibetans as an innately nonviolent people, a romantic notion which he thinks gratifies many Western people discontented with the aggressive selfishness of their societies but obscures the political aspirations of the Tibetan peoples and the variety of means available to them to achieve independence. In 1989, he published a book about one of the Khampa warriors of eastern Tibet, who fought the invading Chinese Army in 1950 and then initiated the bloody revolt against Chinese rule that eventually led to the Dalai Lama's departure for India. "We are ordinary Tibetans," Norbu told PBS. "We drink; we eat; we feel passion; we love our wives and kids. If someone sort of messes around with them, even if they're an army, you pick up your rifle.

tortured, unashamedly reproachful. They seemed to burn right through me. I peered at the picture more closely – at the incongruous item strapped to Gabriel’s torso. A rifle. ‘That’s the gun that killed him?’ Jean-Felix nodded. ‘Yes. It belonged to him, I think.’ ‘And this was painted before his murder?’ ‘A month or so before. It shows you what was on Alicia’s mind, doesn’t it?’ Jean-Felix moved on to the third picture. It was a larger canvas than the others. ‘This one’s the best. Stand back to get a better look.’ I did as he said and took a few paces back. Then I turned and looked. The moment I saw the painting, I let out an involuntary laugh. The subject was Alicia’s aunt, Lydia Rose. And it was obvious why she had been so upset by it. Lydia was nude, reclining on a tiny bed. The bed was buckling under her weight. She was enormously, monstrously fat – an explosion of flesh spilling over the bed and hitting the floor and spreading across the room, rippling and folding like waves of grey custard. ‘Jesus,’ I said. ‘That’s cruel.’ ‘I think it’s quite lovely.’ Jean-Felix looked at me with interest. ‘You know Lydia?’ ‘Yes, I went to visit her.’ ‘I see,’ he said with a smile. ‘You have been doing your homework. I never met Lydia. Alicia hated her, you know.’ ‘Yes,’ I said, staring at the painting. ‘Yes, I can see that.’ Jean-Felix began carefully wrapping up the pictures again. ‘And the Alcestis?’ I said. ‘Can I see it?’ ‘Of course. Follow me.’ Jean-Felix led me along the narrow passage to the end of the gallery. There the Alcestis occupied a wall to itself. It was just as beautiful and mysterious as I remembered it. Alicia naked in the studio, in front of a blank

As a child Valentine’s Day was fun. You got to design your own little heart-laden box to accept all your classmate’s Valentine’s. Then you’d get to fill in the To: and From: fields on your G.I. Joe cards (because nothing says “Be Mine” like Snake Eyes). I remember each time taking extra special care when filling out a card for the girl who I happened to like that particular year. When the day arrived and cards were exchanged I would rifle through my haul finding the one from whichever girl it was and kept it apart from the others. It was special even though I’m sure she’d written the exact same thing on mine that she’d written on everyone else’s. No matter, love was given and received. Valentine’s Day was for a young boy not yet mature enough to express his affections and for him to hold fast to even a token expression from the object those affections.

CUTTING THROUGH by Kendra Kopelke It takes five seconds to cut across someone’s property. I did it a lot. I led my dog onto the grass between two houses, checked first to see if anyone appeared to be home. We wanted to catch a break from monotony. Like thieves we wanted what we wanted. We wanted to thread through the dull canvas that was our neighborhood, to make up for the people who let us down. We loved empty backyards, dead, twisted gardens, the rush and fear of being exposed and unseen in broad daylight. We were foxes, deer. We were out there, where nowhere is. Maybe the neighbors would look out their windows and see us for what we were. We walked quickly heads down, imagined rifles pointed at our backs, fists shaking behind glass, voices putting us in our place. We told ourselves each time this is the last time.

The cabin; by the stern windows; Ahab sitting alone, and gazing out. I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where'er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; but first I pass. Yonder, by the ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm waves blush like wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun— slow dived from noon—goes down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then, the crown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet is it bright with many a gem; I the wearer, see not its far flashings; but darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly confounds. 'Tis iron—that I know—not gold. 'Tis split, too—that I feel; the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems to beat against the solid metal; aye, steel skull, mine; the sort that needs no helmet in the most brain-battering fight! Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly spurred me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights not me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne'er enjoy. Gifted with the high perception, I lack the low, enjoying power; damned, most subtly and most malignantly! damned in the midst of Paradise! Good night—good night! (waving his hand, he moves from the window.) 'Twas not so hard a task. I thought to find one stubborn, at the least; but my one cogged circle fits into all their various wheels, and they revolve. Or, if you will, like so many ant-hills of powder, they all stand before me; and I their match. Oh, hard! that to fire others, the match itself must needs be wasting! What I've dared, I've willed; and what I've willed, I'll do! They think me mad— Starbuck does; but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself! The prophecy was that I should be dismembered; and—Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer. Now, then, be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That's more than ye, ye great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I will not say as schoolboys do to bullies—Take some one of your own size; don't pommel me! No, ye've knocked me down, and I am up again; but ye have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab's compliments to ye; come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way! CHAPTER

He would spend entire days in the foothills, ostensibly searching for gazelle, but on the few occasions that he came close enough to any of the beautiful little animals to harm them he invariably allowed them to escape without so much as taking his rifle from its boot. The ape-man could see no sport in slaughtering the most harmless and defenseless of God's creatures for the mere pleasure of killing. In fact, Tarzan had never killed for "pleasure," nor to him was there pleasure in killing. It was the joy of righteous battle that he loved—the ecstasy of victory. And the keen and successful hunt for food in which he pitted his skill and craftiness against the skill and craftiness of another; but to come out of a town filled with food to shoot down a soft-eyed, pretty gazelle—ah, that was crueller than the deliberate and cold-blooded murder of a fellow man. Tarzan would have none of it, and so he hunted alone that none might discover the sham that he was practicing.

When I heard you were almost surely dead, that’s when I knew what you were to me. My woman. You rode back to me from the dead. I’ll never let you go again.” Weak and spent, I said desperately, as if I were shouting at him in a foreign language, “You don’t love me or you’d care what I feel!” “I do care. In a year you’ll love me.” Even at that moment, when I hated him, my blood quickened as he smiled. I cried defiance as much to my treacherous body as to him. “I won’t. I’ll hate you more than I do know. “ “We’ll see.” He cupped my chin and raised my face. “You’re tired darling. Sleep now. You can give me your answer in the morning.” I couldn’t let him kill Trace. But to submit to those muscular, golden-haired arms? Let him do the things Trace had? And it wouldn’t be for one time only, I was sure of that. Court might after a season let me go, but I had a frightening dread that if he possessed me long enough, he would drain me till I became his thing, his creature—that I wouldn’t go, even if he allowed it and Trace would take me.

What do woman say to little boys? " Stop fighting. Stop being so rough. Stop rough housing." They're boys you know, that's kinda what they're sapossed to do. So, men are sapossed to overcome all these biological drives and I'm just really interested in helping women overcome theirs caus' I think the spotlight of " Outgrow your bestial nature." has been pointed just a little bit too long at men and I think it's time to swivel that motherfucker around and point it at woman and say stop making yourself look like fucking sex clowns to milk money out of men's dicks. Stop lying about who you are and what you're about. Stop being flirty, manipulative, and trying to be sexy. Just stop doing it. It's time for women to outgrow biology just as men have been instructed to for about the last 20,000 years to outgrow their biology. "Stop slamming doors. Stop yelling. Stop climbing trees. Stop being rude. Stop farting. Stop enjoying fart jokes. Just stop being men." Ok, Well; women stop being women. Be people. Be people who have sex, absolutely but, don't be caricatures. Don't aim to be like a woman who looks like the outline of some playboy mudflap on a trucker's rig. Just be people. Be sexual. Enjoy your sexuality and bodies but, stop trying to bury us in tits so that we pass out and you can rifle through our bank accounts. Just stop doing that shit. I won't enable it anymore. Why does your face have to look like some half rained on Picasso water color? I don't need rainbows on the face of a woman. I don't need these weird butterfly wing goth eyebrows and shit like that. Male sexuality is demonized and female sexuality is elevated. That's bullshit. Then women wonder why men prefer porn to them. It's caus' porn doesn't nag you for wanting stuff that's defined as "kinky" or "weird". Male sexuality is demonized and held in low esteem. Woman's sexuality is always beautiful. Woman's sexuality is unremitting shallow. I'm not saying men's isn't but, we know that about men, right? What turns women on? Women say confidence. Do you know what that means? Money. Do women say " He is really confident about his sidewalk art. He is really confident about his subway busking. That's such a turn on!" Why do men like looking at naked women and women get turned on looking at clothed men? Because if a man's clothes aren't on you don't know how expensive his wardrobe is. This is what Mohammad Ali said. I'm going to throw on some old jeans and a old t-shirt and I'm just gonna walk down into some little town and find some woman who doesn't know who the hell I am and then when she's fallen in love with me and we get married, I'm going to take her to my million dollar mansion and my yacht. This is the reality. Once you start having money, once you start having power, then the true nature of massive swaths of female sexuality becomes clear.

The Unknown Soldier A tale to tell in bloody rhyme, A story to last ’til the dawn of end’s time. Of a loving boy who left dear home, To bear his countries burdens; her honor to sow. –A common boy, I say, who left kith and kin, To battle der Kaiser and all that was therein. The Arsenal of Democracy was his kind, –To make the world safe–was their call and chime. Trained he thus in the far army camps, Drilled he often in the march and stamp. Laughed he did with new found friends, Lived they together for the noble end. Greyish mottled images clipp’ed and hack´ed– Black and white broke drum Ʀ…ɧ..λ..t…ʮ..m..ȿ —marching armies off to ’ttack. Images scratched, chopped, theatrical exaggerate, Confetti parades, shouts of high praise To where hell would sup and partake with all bon hope as the transport do them take Faded icons board the ship– To steel them away collaged together –joined in spirit and hip. Timeworn humanity of once what was To broker peace in eagles and doves. Mortal clay in the earth but to grapple and smite As warbirds ironed soar in heaven’s light. All called all forward to divinities’ kept date, Heroes all–all aces and fates. Paris–Used to sing and play at some cards, A common Joe everybody knew from own heart. He could have been called ‘the kid’ by the ‘old man,’ But a common private now taking orders to stand. Receiving letters from his shy sweet one, Read them over and over until they faded to none. Trained like hell with his Commander-in-Arms, –To avoid the dangers of a most bloody harm. Aye, this boy was mortal, true enough said, He could be one of thousands alive but now surely dead. How he sang and cried and ate the gruel of rations, And grumbled as soldiers do at war’s great contagions. Out–out to the battle this young did go, To become a man; the world to show. (An ocean away his mother cried so– To return her boy safe as far as the heavens go). Lay he down in trenched hole, With balls bursting overhead upon the knoll. Listened hardnfast to the “Sarge” bearing the news, —“We’re going over soon—” was all he knew. The whistle blew; up and over they went, Charging the Hun, his life to be spent (“Avoid the gas boys that’ll blister yer arse!!”). Running through wires razored and deadened trees, Fell he into a gouge to find in shelter of need (They say he bayoneted one just as he–, face to face in War’s Dance of trialed humanity). A nameless sonnuvabitch shell then did untimely RiiiiiiiP the field asunder in burrrstzʑ–and he tripped. And on the field of battle’s blood did he die, Faceless in a puddle as blurrs of ghosting men shrieked as they were fleeing by–. Perished he alone in the no man’s land, Surrounded by an army of his brother’s teeming bands . . . And a world away a mother sighed, Listened to the rain and lay down and cried. . . . Today lays the grave somber and white, Guarded decades long in both the dark and the light. Silent sentinels watch o’er and with him do walk, Speak they neither; their duty talks. Lone, stark sentries perform the unsmiling task, –Guarding this one dead–at the nation’s bequest. Cared over day and night in both rain or sun, Present changing of the guard and their duty is done (The changing of the guard ’tis poetry motioned A Nation defining itself–telling of rifles twirl-clicking under the intensest of devotions). This poem–of The Unknown, taken thus, Is rend eternal by Divinity’s Iron Trust. How he, a common soldier, gained the estate Of bearing his countries glory unto his unknown fate. Here rests in honored glory a warrior known but to God, Now rests he in peace from the conflict path he trod. He is our friend, our family, brother, our mother’s son –belongs he to us all, For he has stood in our place–heeding God’s final call.

...He can recite to you the nomenclature of a machine gun or grenade launcher and use either one effectively is he must. He digs foxholes and latrines and can apply first aid like a professional. He can march until he is told to stop, or stop until he is told to march. He obeys orders instantly and without hesitation, but he is not without spirit or individual dignity. He is self-sufficient. ...He sometimes forgets to brush his teeth, but never to clean his rifle. He can cool his own meals, mend his own clothes, and fix his own hurts. ...He'll even split his ammunition with you in the midst of battle when you run low. He has learned to use his hands like weapons and weapons like they were his hands. He can save your life- or take it, because that is his job. He will often do twice the work of a civilian, draw half the pay, and still find ironic humor in it all. He has seen more suffering and death than he should have in his short lifetime. He has wept in public and in private, for friends who have fallen in combat and is unashamed. He feels every note of the National Anthem vibrate through his body while at rigid attention, while tempering the burning desire to "square-away" those around him who haven't bothered to stand, remove their hat, or even stop talking. ...Just as did his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, he is paying the price for our freedom. Beardless or not, he is not a boy. He is the American Fighting Man that has kept this country free for over two hundred years. He has asked nothing in return, except our friendship and understanding. Remember him, always, for he has earned our respect and admiration with his blood. And now we even have women over there in danger, doing their part in this tradition of going to war when our nation calls us to do so. As you go to bed tonight, remember this. A short lull, a little shade, and a picture of loved ones in their helmets.

Perhaps you’re not aware of it, Mrs. Phelan, but according to Rifle Brigade wedding tradition, every man on the groom’s honor guard gets to kiss the bride on her wedding night.” “What rot,” Christopher retorted amiably. “The only Rifles wedding tradition I know of is to avoid getting married in the first place.” “Well, you bungled that one, old fellow.” The group chortled. “Can’t say as I blame him,” one of them added. “You are a vision, Mrs. Phelan.” “As fair as moonlight,” another said. “Thank you,” Christopher said. “Now stop wooing my wife, and take your leave.” “We started the job,” one of the officers said. “It’s left to you to finish it, Phelan.” And with cheerful catcalls and well wishes, the Rifles departed. “They’re taking the horse with them,” Christopher said, a smile in his voice. “You’re well and truly stranded with me now.” He turned toward Beatrix and slid his fingers beneath her chin, nudging her to look at him. “What’s this?” His voice gentled. “What’s the matter?” “Nothing,” Beatrix said, seeing him through a shimmer of tears. “Absolutely nothing. It’s just…I spent so many hours in this place, dreaming of being with you someday. But I never dared to believe it could really happen.” “You had to believe, just a little,” Christopher whispered. “Otherwise it wouldn’t have come true.” Pulling her between his spread thighs, he wrapped her in a comforting hug. After a long time, he spoke quietly into her hair. “Beatrix. One of the reasons I haven’t made love to you since that afternoon is that I didn’t want to take advantage of you again.” “You didn’t,” she protested. “I gave myself to you freely.” “Yes, I know.” Christopher kissed her head. “You were generous, and beautiful, and so passionate that you’ve ruined me for any other woman. But it wasn’t what I had intended for your first time. Tonight I’m going to make amends.” Beatrix shivered at the sensual promise of his tone. “There’s no need. But if you insist…” “I do insist.

Aware her appearance was nothing short of scandalous, Camille bounded over branches and fallen pine needles to the shield of her horse. Ira’s whistle pierced the air. “You should’a warned us you weren’t dressed, love. Though I’m not entirely sorry to see you in your unwhisperables.” She grabbed the blanket from the back of her horse and wrapped herself in it. Oscar appeared from around the bend, four pike speared on a stick. She watched him stride through the water just behind Ira. The muscle of his pale chest, stomach, and arms was enough to make her forget her clothing was still yards away near the water’s edge. Camille faced the forest as he and Ira approached the shallows. She listened to them slosh out of the water and counted off a minute as they pulled on their trousers and shirts. “Finished. Your innocence won’t be spoiled if you look now,” Ira called. She turned and saw Oscar had come up to the other side of her horse. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his eyes; they met hers, lowered to the blanket she held tight around her chest, and then focused on the horse’s stringy black mane. He held her dress over the saddle, half looking at her, half trying to be gentlemanly. But when she thanked him and tried to take it, he held on. “What is it?” he asked, then released the dress. Camille tightened the blanket around her chest. “You look frightened. Did something happen?” She hadn’t realized she’d looked upset. “It’s nothing. A deer just startled me, that’s all.” She nodded toward the woods. He backed up from the horse, his eyes lifting to her bare shoulders and then away. Ira grabbed the rifle from his horse and sprang for the trees. “When? Which way did it go?” “Ira Beam, you are not going to shoot an innocent animal,” she said, shaking out her dress. The Australian leaped into the forest. “I’ll meet you upriver!” he shouted, and then he was gone, his noisy tear into the woods enough to scatter tree ants, let alone any remaining game.

Robinson's discussion with God: "Tell me what it's like." "What what's like?" "To be God." "Like, how do you mean?" "Like, how does it make you feel to know you've created the planet earth and all its inhabitants. Do you feel proud? Sad? Embarrassed? Humbled? Mortified?" "The truth? I feel imposed upon. I feel like an exhausted father whose needy children never grew up. Do you know what I'd like to see? Honest to me, this would make me the happiest guy on earth. I'd like to see everyone just take responsibility for themselves. Stop seeking my favor with your expensive churches, synagogues, mosques and temples. And quit wasting your time expecting me to solve all your problems. Am I the numbskull who created all your stupid problems? No, all I ever did was plant a handful of seeds. I'm not the one who cheats, lies, plunders, steals, hoodwinks, bribes, and scratches and claws his backward way through the unfaithful to his loving spouse or who is disrespectful to his parents. And I'm not the one who rapes and pollutes oceans, mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes, deserts, and mesas. I'm not the one who's slaughtering all the whales in the seas, and I'm certainly not the one who's spreading AIDS, shooting innocent people with handguns and assault rifles, or overpopulating the planet. I'm not even responsible for acts of God. So what of the forest fires, earthquakes, hurricanes and tornados? You can thank dear Mother Nature for these so-called acts of me. All these disaster are completely out of my hands. Don't you see? I'm just me, God, and no more or less. Yes, I'm willing to give advice here and there, but even then , you will discover than my advice is no better than the advice you'd give yourself. And why? Because I am you. I was never anything else. I never claimed to be anything else, So, you get down on your knees and say you have faith in me? Try having some faith in yourself and leave me the hell out of it. I'm a busy man. There are books I would like to read, music I'd like to listen to, art I would like to see, and some good shows on TV I really don't want to miss.

You may find this hard to believe, Mr. Pinter," she went on defensively, "but some men enjoy my company. They consider me easy to talk to." A ghost of a smile touched his handsome face. "You're right. I do find that hard to believe." Arrogant wretch. "All the same, there are three men who might consider marrying me, and I could use your help in securing them." She hated having to ask him for that, but he was necessary to her plan. She just needed one good offer of marriage, one impressive offer that would show Gran she was capable of gaining a decent husband. Gran didn't believe she could, or she wouldn't be holding to that blasted ultimatum. If Celia could prove her wrong, Gran might allow her to choose a husband in her own good time. And if that plan didn't work, Celia would at least have a man she could marry to fulfill Gran's terms. "So you've finally decided to meet Mrs. Plumtree's demands," he said, his expression unreadable. She wasn't about to let him in on her secret plan. Oliver might have employed him, but she was sure Mr. Pinter also spied for Gran. He would run right off and tell her. "It's not as if I have a choice." Bitterness crept into her tone. "In less than two months, if I remain unmarried, my siblings will be cut off. I can't do that to them, no matter how much I resent Gran's meddling." Something that looked oddly like sympathy flickered in his gaze. "Don't you want to marry?" "Of course I want to marry. Doesn't every woman?" "You've shown little interest in it before," he said skeptically. That's because men had shown little interest in her. Oh, Gab's friends loved to stand about with her at balls and discuss the latest developments in cartridges, but they rarely asked her to dance, and if they did, it was only to consult her on rifles. She'd tried flirting, but she was terrible at it. It seemed so...false. So did men's compliments, the few that there were. It was easier to laugh them off than to figure out which ones were genuine, easier to pretend to be one of the lads. She secretly wished she could find a man she could love, who would ignore the scandals attached to he family's name and indulge her hobby of target shooting. One who could shoot as well as she, since she could never respect a man who couldn't hit what he aimed at. I'll bet Mr. Pinter knows his way around a rifle.

Among the many people Chris met while doing charity work was Randy Cupp, who invited him and Bubba out to shoot with him come deer season. When Chris passed away, Randy made it clear to me that the offer not only still stood, but that he would love to give Bubba a chance to kill his first buck. With deer season upon us, the kids and I decided to take him up on the offer. Angel, Bubba, and I went out to his property on a beautiful morning. Setting out for the blind, I felt Chris’s presence, as if he were scouting along with us. We settled into our spots and waited. A big buck came across in front of us a short time later. It was an easy shot--except that Bubba had neglected to put his ear protection in. He scrambled to get it in, but by the time he was ready, the animal had bounded off. Deer--and opportunities--are like that. We waited some more. Another buck came out from the trees not five minutes later. And this one was not only in range, but it was bigger than the first: a thirteen pointer. Chris must have scared that thing up. “That’s the one,” said Randy as the animal pranced forward. Bubba took a shot. The deer scooted off as the gunshot echoed. My son thought he’d missed, but Randy was sure he’d hit him. At first, we didn’t see a blood trail--a bad sign, since a wounded animal generally leaves an easily spotted trail. But a few steps later, we found the body prone in the woods. Bubba had killed him with a shot to the lungs. Like father, like son. While Bubba left to dress the carcass, I went back to the blind with Angel to wait for another. She was excited that she might get a deer just like her brother. But when a buck walked within range, tears came to her eyes. “I can’t do it,” she said, putting down her gun. “It’s okay,” I told her. “I just can’t.” “Do you want me to?” I asked. She nodded. I took aim. Even though I was married to a hard-core hunter, I had never shot a deer before. I lined up the scope, walking him into the crosshairs. A slow breath, and I squeezed the trigger. The shot surprised me--just as Chris said it should. The deer fell. He was good meat; we eat what we kill, another of Chris’s golden rules. “You know, Angel, you’re going to be my hunting partner forever,” I told her later. “You’re just so calm and observant. And good luck.” We plan to do that soon. She’ll be armed with a high-powered camera, rather than a rifle.

Cochise Jones always liked to play against your expectations of a song, to light the gloomy heart of a ballad with a Latin tempo and a sheen of vibrato, root out the hidden mournfulness, the ache of longing, in an up-tempo pop tune. Cochise’s six-minute outing on the opening track of Redbonin’ was a classic exercise in B-3 revisionism, turning a song inside out. It opened with big Gary King playing a fat, choogling bass line, sounding like the funky intro to some ghetto-themed sitcom of the seventies, and then Cochise Jones came in, the first four drawbars pulled all the way out, giving the Lloyd Webber melody a treatment that was not cheery so much as jittery, playing up the anxiety inherent in the song’s title, there being so many thousand possible ways to Love Him, so little time to choose among them. Cochise’s fingers skipped and darted as if the keys of the organ were the wicks of candles and he was trying to light all of them with a single match. Then, as Idris Muhammad settled into a rolling burlesque-hall bump and grind, and King fell into step beside him, Cochise began his vandalism in earnest, snapping off bright bunches of the melody and scattering it in handfuls, packing it with extra notes in giddy runs. He was ruining the song, rifling it, mocking it with an antic edge of joy. You might have thought, some critics felt, that the meaning or spirit of the original song meant no more to Cochise Jones than a poem means to a shark that is eating the poet. But somewhere around the three-minute mark, Cochise began to build, in ragged layers, out of a few repeated notes on top of a left-hand walking blues, a solo at once dense and rudimentary, hammering at it, the organ taking on a raw, vox humana hoarseness, the tune getting bluer and harder and nastier. Inside the perfectly miked Leslie amplifier, the treble horn whirled, and the drivers fired, and you heard the song as the admission of failure it truly was, a confession of ignorance and helplessness. And then in the last measures of the song, without warning, the patented Creed Taylor strings came in, mannered and restrained but not quite tasteful. A hint of syrup, a throb of the pathetic, in the face of which the drums and bass fell silent, so that in the end it was Cochise Jones and some rented violins, half a dozen mournful studio Jews, and then the strings fell silent, too, and it was just Mr. Jones, fading away, ending the track with the startling revelation that the song was an apology, an expression, such as only the blues could ever tender, of limitless regret.

You never asked. How would I like you to kill it? You are a captain in the Red Army, for goodness’ sake. What do they teach you there?” “How to kill human beings. Not mice.” She barely touched her food. “Well, throw a grenade at it. Use your rifle. I don’t know. But do something.” Alexander shook his head. “You went out into the streets of Leningrad while the Germans were throwing five-hundred-kilo bombs that blew arms and legs off the women standing ahead of you in line, you stood fearless in front of cannibals, you jumped off a moving train to go and find your brother, but you are afraid of mice?” “Now you got it,” Tatiana said defiantly. “It doesn’t make sense,” Alexander said. “If a person is fearless in the big things—” “You’re wrong. Again. Are you done with your questions? Anything else you want to ask? Or add?” “Just one thing.” Alexander kept his face serious. “It looks like,” he said slowly, his voice calm, “we’ve found three uses for that too-high potato countertop I built yesterday.” And he burst out laughing. “Go ahead, laugh,” Tatiana said. “Go ahead. I’m here for your amusement.” Her eyes twinkled. Putting his own plate on the bench, Alexander took the plate out of her hands and brought her to him to stand between his legs. Reluctantly she came. “Tania, do you have any idea how funny you are?” He kissed her chest, looking up at her. “I adore you.” “If you really adored me,” she said, trying to twist herself out of his arms, unsuccessfully, “you wouldn’t be sitting here idly flirting when you could be militarizing that cabin.” Alexander stood up. “Just to point out,” he said, “it’s not called flirting once you’ve made love to the girl.” After Alexander went inside, a smiling Tatiana sat on the bench and finished her food. In a few minutes he emerged from the cabin holding his rifle in one hand, his pistol in the other, and a bayonet attachment between his teeth. The dead mouse was swinging at the end of the bayonet. He spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “How did I do?” Tatiana failed to keep a straight face. “All right, all right,” she said, chortling. “You didn’t have to bring out the spoils of war.” “Ah, but I know you wouldn’t believe in a dead mouse unless you saw it with your own eyes.” “Will you stop quoting me back to me? Shura, you tell me, I will believe it,” said Tatiana. “Now, go on, get out of here with that thing.” “One last question.” “Oh, no,” said Tatiana, covering her face, trying not to laugh. “Do you think this dead mouse is worth the price of a…killed mouse?” “Will you just go?” Tatiana heard his boisterous laughter all the way to the woods and back.

The little sneak caught me one day, coming around the car when I was outside puffing away. “I was wondering what you were doing,” he said, spying me squatting behind the truck. He’d nailed me, but the look on his face made it seem as if our roles were reversed--he looked as if he were in shock, as if I’d just slapped him. When I went back inside, I found he’d taped signs to the walls: DON’T SMOKE! I laugh about it now, but not then. “Why are you so devastated that I’m smoking?” I asked when I found him. “Because. I already lost one parent. I don’t want to lose you, too.” “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I told him. “I’m going to stop.” But of course it wasn’t nearly that easy. As horrible as I felt, I was deep into the habit. I would quit for a while--a day, an hour--then somehow a cigarette would find its way to my mouth. I continued to rationalize, continued to struggle--and Bubba continued to call me out. “I’m trying,” I told him. “I’m trying.” He’d come up and give me a hug--and smell the cigarette still on me. “Did you have one?” “Yes.” “Hmmmm…” Instant tears. “I’m trying, I’m trying.” One day I went out to the patio to take what turned out to be a super stressful call--and I started to smoke, almost unconsciously. In the middle of the conversation, Bubba came out and threw a paper airplane at me. What!!! My son scrambled back inside. I was furious, but the call was too important to cut short. Wait until I get you, mister! Just as I hung up, Bubba appeared at the window and pointed at the airplane at my feet. I opened it up and read his message. YOU SUCK AT TRYING. That hurt, not least of all because it was true. I tried harder. I switched to organic cigarettes--those can’t be that bad for you, right? They’re organic! Turns out organic tars and nicotine are still tars and nicotine. I quit for day, then started again. I resolved not to go to the store so I couldn’t be tempted…then found myself hunting through my jacket for an old packet, rifling around in my hiding places for a cigarette I’d forgotten. Was that a half-smoked butt I saw on the ground? Finally, I remembered one of the sayings SEALs live by: Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Not exactly the conventional advice one uses to stop smoking, but the conventional advice had failed me. For some reason I took the words and tried applying them to my heartbeat, slowing my pulse as it ramped up. It was a kind of mini-meditation, meant to take the place of a cigarette. The mantra helped me take control. I focused on the thoughts that were making me panic, or at least getting my heart racing. Slow is smooth. Slow down, heart. Slow down--and don’t smoke. I worked on my breathing. Slow is smooth. Slow is smooth. And don’t smoke.

Miss Prudence Mercer Stony Cross Hampshire, England 7 November 1854 Dear Prudence, Regardless of the reports that describe the British soldier as unflinching, I assure you that when riflemen are under fire, we most certainly duck, bob, and run for cover. Per your advice, I have added a sidestep and a dodge to my repertoire, with excellent results. To my mind, the old fable has been disproved: there are times in life when one definitely wants to be the hare, not the tortoise. We fought at the southern port of Balaklava on the twenty-fourth of October. Light Brigade was ordered to charge directly into a battery of Russian guns for no comprehensible reason. Five cavalry regiments were mowed down without support. Two hundred men and nearly four hundred horses lost in twenty minutes. More fighting on the fifth of November, at Inkerman. We went to rescue soldiers stranded on the field before the Russians could reach them. Albert went out with me under a storm of shot and shell, and helped to identify the wounded so we could carry them out of range of the guns. My closest friend in the regiment was killed. Please thank your friend Prudence for her advice for Albert. His biting is less frequent, and he never goes for me, although he’s taken a few nips at visitors to the tent. May and October, the best-smelling months? I’ll make a case for December: evergreen, frost, wood smoke, cinnamon. As for your favorite song…were you aware that “Over the Hills and Far Away” is the official music of the Rifle Brigade? It seems nearly everyone here has fallen prey to some kind of illness except for me. I’ve had no symptoms of cholera nor any of the other diseases that have swept through both divisions. I feel I should at least feign some kind of digestive problem for the sake of decency. Regarding the donkey feud: while I have sympathy for Caird and his mare of easy virtue, I feel compelled to point out that the birth of a mule is not at all a bad outcome. Mules are more surefooted than horses, generally healthier, and best of all, they have very expressive ears. And they’re not unduly stubborn, as long they’re managed well. If you wonder at my apparent fondness for mules, I should probably explain that as a boy, I had a pet mule named Hector, after the mule mentioned in the Iliad. I wouldn’t presume to ask you to wait for me, Pru, but I will ask that you write to me again. I’ve read your last letter more times than I can count. Somehow you’re more real to me now, two thousand miles away, than you ever were before. Ever yours, Christopher P.S. Sketch of Albert included As Beatrix read, she was alternately concerned, moved, and charmed out of her stockings. “Let me reply to him and sign your name,” she begged. “One more letter. Please, Pru. I’ll show it to you before I send it.” Prudence burst out laughing. “Honestly, this is the silliest things I’ve ever…Oh, very well, write to him again if it amuses you.

Charles Bean, the official historian of Australia’s part in World War I, was unusual in dealing closely with the deeds of the soldiers on the front line, and not just the plans and orders of their leaders. At the end of his account of the Gallipoli landing in the Official History, he asked what made the soldiers fight on. What motive sustained them? At the end of the second or third day of the Landing, when they had fought without sleep until the whole world seemed a dream, and they scarcely knew whether it was a world of reality or of delirium – and often, no doubt, it held something of both; when half of each battalion had been annihilated, and there seemed no prospect before any man except that of wounds or death in the most vile surroundings; when the dead lay three deep in the rifle-pits under the blue sky and the place was filled with stench and sickness, and reason had almost vanished – what was it then that carried each man on? It was not love of a fight. The Australian loved fighting better than most, but it is an occupation from which the glamour quickly wears. It was not hatred of the Turk. It is true that the men at this time hated their enemy for his supposed ill-treatment of the wounded – and the fact that, of the hundreds who lay out, only one wounded man survived in Turkish hands has justified their suspicions. But hatred was not the motive which inspired them. Nor was it purely patriotism, as it would have been had they fought on Australian soil. The love of country in Australians and New Zealanders was intense – how strong, they did not realise until they were far away from their home. Nor, in most cases was the motive their loyalty to the tie between Australia and Great Britain. Although, singly or combined, all these were powerful influences, they were not the chief. Nor was it the desire for fame that made them steer their course so straight in the hour of crucial trial. They knew too well the chance that their families, possibly even the men beside them, would never know how they died. Doubtless the weaker were swept on by the stronger. In every army which enters into battle there is a part which is dependent for its resolution upon the nearest strong man. If he endures, those around him will endure; if he turns, they turn; if he falls, they may become confused. But the Australian force contained more than its share of men who were masters of their own minds and decisions. What was the dominant motive that impelled them? It lay in the mettle of the men themselves. To be the sort of man who would give way when his mates were trusting to his firmness; to be the sort of man who would fail when the line, the whole force, and the allied cause required his endurance; to have made it necessary for another unit to do his own unit’s work; to live the rest of his life haunted by the knowledge that he had set his hand to a soldier’s task and had lacked the grit to carry it through – that was the prospect which these men could not face. Life was very dear, but life was not worth living unless they could be true to their idea of Australian manhood.

Antonia Valleau cast the first shovelful of dirt onto her husband’s fur-shrouded body, lying in the grave she’d dug in their garden plot, the only place where the soil wasn’t still rock hard. I won’t be breakin’ down. For the sake of my children, I must be strong. Pain squeezed her chest like a steel trap. She had to force herself to take a deep breath, inhaling the scent of loam and pine. I must be doing this. She drove the shovel into the soil heaped next to the grave, hefted the laden blade, and dumped the earth over Jean-Claude, trying to block out the thumping sound the soil made as it covered him. Even as Antonia scooped and tossed, her muscles aching from the effort, her heart stayed numb, and her mind kept playing out the last sight of her husband. The memory haunting her, she paused to catch her breath and wipe the sweat off her brow, her face hot from exertion in spite of the cool spring air. Antonia touched the tips of her dirty fingers to her lips. She could still feel the pressure of Jean-Claude’s mouth on hers as he’d kissed her before striding out the door for a day of hunting. She’d held up baby Jacques, and Jean-Claude had tapped his son’s nose. Jacques had let out a belly laugh that made his father respond in kind. Her heart had filled with so much love and pride in her family that she’d chuckled, too. Stepping outside, she’d watched Jean-Claude ruffle the dark hair of their six-year-old, Henri. Then he strode off, whistling, with his rifle carried over his shoulder. She’d thought it would be a good day—a normal day. She assumed her husband would return to their mountain home in the afternoon before dusk as he always did, unless he had a longer hunt planned. As Antonia filled the grave, she denied she was burying her husband. Jean-Claude be gone a checkin’ the trap line, she told herself, flipping the dirt onto his shroud. She moved through the nightmare with leaden limbs, a knotted stomach, burning dry eyes, and a throat that felt as though a log had lodged there. While Antonia shoveled, she kept glancing at her little house, where, inside, Henri watched over the sleeping baby. From the garden, she couldn’t see the doorway. She worried about her son—what the glimpse of his father’s bloody body had done to the boy. Mon Dieu, she couldn’t stop to comfort him. Not yet. Henri had promised to stay inside with the baby, but she didn’t know how long she had before Jacques woke up. Once she finished burying Jean-Claude, Antonia would have to put her sons on a mule and trek to where she’d found her husband’s body clutched in the great arms of the dead grizzly. She wasn’t about to let his last kill lie there for the animals and the elements to claim. Her family needed that meat and the fur. She heard a sleepy wail that meant Jacques had awakened. Just a few more shovelfuls. Antonia forced herself to hurry, despite how her arms, shoulders, and back screamed in pain. When she finished the last shovelful of earth, exhausted, Antonia sank to her knees, facing the cabin, her back to the grave, placing herself between her sons and where their father lay. She should go to them, but she was too depleted to move.

In Healing the Masculine Soul, Dalbey introduced themes that would animate what soon became a cottage industry of books on Christian masculinity. First and foremost, Dalbey looked to the Vietnam War as the source of masculine identity. The son of a naval officer, Dalbey described how the image of the war hero served as his blueprint for manhood. He’d grown up playing “sandlot soldier” in his white suburban neighborhood, and he’d learned to march in military drills and fire a rifle in his Boy Scout “patrol.” Fascinated with John Wayne’s WWII movies, he imagined war “only as a glorious adventure in manhood.” As he got older, he “passed beyond simply admiring the war hero to desiring a war” in which to demonstrate his manhood. 20 By the time he came of age, however, he’d become sidetracked. Instead of demonstrating his manhood on the battlefields of Vietnam, he became “part of a generation of men who actively rejected our childhood macho image of manhood—which seemed to us the cornerstone of racism, sexism, and militarism.” Exhorted to make love, not war, he became “an enthusiastic supporter of civil rights, women’s liberation, and the antiwar movement,” and he joined the Peace Corps in Africa. But in opting out of the military he would discover that “something required of manhood seemed to have been bypassed, overlooked, even dodged.” Left “confused and frustrated,” Dalbey eventually conceded that “manhood requires the warrior.” 21 Dalbey agreed with Bly that an unbalanced masculinity had led to the nation’s “unbalanced pursuit” of the Vietnam War, but an over-correction had resulted in a different problem: Having rejected war making as a model of masculine strength, men had essentially abdicated that strength to women. As far as Dalbey was concerned, the 1970s offered no viable model of manhood to supplant “the boyhood image in our hearts,” and his generation had ended up rejecting manhood itself. If the warrior spirit was indeed intrinsic to males, then attempts to eliminate the warrior image were “intrinsically emasculating.” Women were “crying out” for men to recover their manly strength, Dalbey insisted. They were begging men to toughen up and take charge, longing for a prince who was strong and bold enough to restore their “authentic femininity.” 22 Unfortunately, the church was part of the problem. Failing to present the true Jesus, it instead depicted him “as a meek and gentle milk-toast character”—a man who never could have inspired “brawny fishermen like Peter to follow him.” It was time to replace this “Sunday school Jesus” with a warrior Jesus. Citing “significant parallels” between serving Christ and serving in the military, Dalbey suggested that a “redeemed image of the warrior” could reinvigorate the church’s ministry to men: “What if we told men up front that to join the church of Jesus Christ is . . . to enlist in God’s army and to place their lives on the line? This approach would be based on the warrior spirit in every man, and so would offer the greatest hope for restoring authentic Christian manhood to the Body of Christ.” Writing before the Gulf War had restored faith in American power and the strength of the military, Dalbey’s preoccupation with Vietnam is understandable, yet the pattern he established would endure long after an easy victory in the latter conflict supposedly brought an end to “Vietnam syndrome.” American evangelicals would continue to be haunted by Vietnam. 23

Oh how lovely to hear the birds!’ an elderly friend recently exclaimed. I smiled, ‘Yes, isn’t it?’ Actually it reminded me of living in my ex’s flat; those early mornings being woken up by the incessant chirping of baby birds and myself at the window with an air rifle. Good times. Because that’s the other thing about working alone for long periods of time, you begin to get nostalgic about all the rubbish.

You are absolutely beautiful, and if you'll marry me, I will never let anyone hit you with a rifle again.

And then she spotted Reece riding alongside the magnificent column. He guided his buckskin toward her, reining Saguaro to a stop beside the front steps. “Is this the Shapinsay Plantation, ma’am?” he asked, his eyes shadowed beneath the brim of his slouch hat. An odd flutter raced through Emaline’s chest. “Oh you. Where did you…?” she stammered, searching for words, but her voice stuck in the back of her throat. A devilish gleam lit his eyes. “What, my love? No rifle this time?

Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting" I tell her I love her like not killing or ten minutes of sleep beneath the low rooftop wall on which my rifle rests. I tell her in a letter that will stink, when she opens it, of bolt oil and burned powder and the things it says. I tell her how Pvt. Bartle says, offhand, that war is just us making little pieces of metal pass through each other.

The scope of my problem will easily fit in the scope of my rifle. Too bad true love has to come with a mother-in-law.


One cannot examine the actions of the Secret Service on November 22, 1963, without concluding that the Service stood down on protecting President Kennedy. Indeed, the 120-degree turn into Dealey Plaza violates Secret Service procedures, because it required the presidential limousine to come to a virtual stop. The reduction of the president’s motorcycle escort from six police motorcycles to two and the order for those two officers to ride behind the presidential limousine also violates standard Secret Service procedure. The failure to empty and secure the tall buildings on either side of the motorcade route through Dealey Plaza likewise violates formal procedure, as does the lack of any agents dispersed through the crowd gathered in Dealey Plaza. Readers who are interested in a comprehensive analysis of the Secret Service’s multiple failures and the conspicuous violation of longstanding Secret Service policies regarding the movement and protection of the president on November 22, 1963, should read Vince Palamara’s Survivor’s Guilt: The Secret Service and the Failure to Protect. The difference in JFK Secret Service protection and its adherence to the services standard required procedures in Chicago and Miami would be starkly different from the arrangements for Dallas. Palamara established that Agent Emory Roberts worked overtime to help both orchestrate the assassination and cover up the unusual actions of the Secret Service in the aftermath. Roberts was commander of the follow-up car trailing the presidential limousine. Roberts covered up the escapades of his fellow secret servicemen at The Cellar, a club in downtown Ft. Worth, where agents, some directly responsible for the safety of President Kennedy during the motorcade, drank until dawn on November 22. He also ordered a perplexed agent Donald Lawton off the back of the presidential limousine while at Love Field, thus giving the assassins clearer, more direct shots and more time to get them off. Also, although Roberts recognized rifle fire being discharged in Dealey Plaza, he neglected to mobilize any of the agents under his watch to act. To mask the inactivity of his agents, Roberts, in sworn testimony, falsely increased the speed of the cars (from 9–11 mph to 20–25 mph) and the distance between them (from five feet to 20–25 feet).85 No analysis of the Secret Service’s actions on the day of the assassination can be complete without mentioning that Secret Service director James Rowley was a former FBI agent and close ally of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, as well as a crony of Lyndon Johnson. Hoover was one of Johnson’s closest associates. The FBI Director would take the unusual step of flying to Dallas for a victory celebration in 1948 when Johnson illegally stole his Senate seat through election fraud. Johnson and Hoover were neighbors in the Foxhall Road area of the District of Columbia. Hoover’s budget would virtually triple during the years LBJ dominated the appropriations process as Senate Majority Leader. Rowley was a protégé of the director and one of the few men who left the FBI on good terms with Hoover. Rowley’s first public service job in the Roosevelt administration was arranged for him by LBJ. The neglect of assigning even one Secret Service agent to secure Dealey Plaza, as well as cleaning blood and other relatable pieces of evidence from the presidential limousine immediately following the assassination, seizing Kennedy’s body from Parkland Hospital to prevent a proper, well-documented autopsy, failing to record Oswald’s interrogation—all were important pieces of the assassination deftly executed by Rowley.

In the old days – or so I’ve heard – you could go round someone’s place and rifle through their record collection, take a look at their bookcases. Now you have to scroll through their iTunes or click on their Kindle. It’s not the same, is it? I’m pleased to see you have some real books though.’ She

Anti–Second Amendment advocates profess to love science while demonizing people of faith, but you’d never know this by their arguments. Bloomberg PR exec/mom Shannon Watts-Troughton once told me via Twitter that “an assault weapon enables humans to shoot 10 rounds in one minute. @blueelephant69: @shannonrwatts @DLoesch.” What in flat-earthing hell is this? I can throw ten bowling balls a minute, I have assault arms, ban them. By her estimation, “assault weapons” are any firearms that can shoot ten rounds per minute, which is every firearm. Even a bolt action rifle can shoot ten rounds per minute. That