Scout Sayings Quotes

Atticus said to Jem one day, "I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the backyard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird." That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. "Your father’s right," she said. "Mockingbirds don’t do one thing except make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corn cribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.

I don't want to hear any words like that while I'm here. Scout, you'll get in trouble if you go around saying things like that. You want to grow up to be a lady, don't you?' I said not particularly.

Do you defend niggers, Atticus?" I asked him that evening. "Of course I do. Don't say nigger, Scout. That's common." "'s what everybody at school says." "From now on it'll be everybody less one--" "Well if you don't want me to grow up talkin' that way, why do you send me to school?

Scout released me, then wiped tears from beneath her eyes. Catharsis, I guessed. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—you seriously rock, Parker.” "Tell me again, Green,” I said as we switched on flashlights and headed through the tunnel. “Seriously, you rock.” “One more time.” “Don’t press your luck.

The Scottish scout called Hamish Plenderlief spoke to his superior saying, “Sir, I have just returned from a patrol around Tynemouth Priory. My second scout and myself observed that the English King Edward II has been joined in his illegal invasion of Scotland by his queen, Isabella!

Did you learn the rotation of the border patrols?’ said Laurent. ‘Yes, our scouts found—’ Laurent was standing in the doorway wearing a chiton of unadorned white cotton. Damen dropped the pitcher. It shattered, shards flying outward as it slipped from his fingers and hit the stone floor. Laurent’s arms were bare. His throat was bare. His collarbone was bare, and most of his thighs, his long legs, and all of his left shoulder. Damen stared at him. ‘You’re wearing Akielon clothing,’ said Damen. ‘Everyone’s wearing Akielon clothing,’ said Laurent. Damen thought that the pitcher had shattered and he could not now take a deep draught of the wine. Laurent came forward, navigating the broken ceramic in his short cotton and sandalled feet, until he reached the seat beside Damen, where the map was laid out on the wooden table. ‘Once we know the rotation of the patrols, we’ll know when to approach,’ said Laurent. Laurent sat down. ‘We need to approach at the beginning of their rotation in order to give us the most time before they report back to the fort.’ It was even shorter sitting down. ‘Damen.’ ‘Yes. Sorry,’ said Damen. And then: ‘What were you saying?

Do I look like a commitment sort of girl to you?” “You look like trouble,” he grinned. “When I was growing up, my mother used to tell me to never trust a redhead.” I frowned. “There are only two reasons she’d say something like that.” Caleb raised his eyebrows. “And they are?” “Your father either slept with one, or she is one.” I buzzed under his crooked smile. It extended all the way to his eyes this time. “I like you,” he said. “That’s swell, Boy Scout. Real swell.

We ain’t spies,” I say in a hurry. “The army your girl’s been talking about has been spotted marching down the river road,” Doctor Snow says. “One of our scouts just reported them as less than an hour away.” “Oh, no,” I hear Viola whisper. “She ain’t my girl,” I say, low. “What?” Doctor Snow says. “What?” Viola says. “She’s her own girl,” I say. “She don’t belong to anyone.” And does Viola ever look at me.

I don’t care what anyone says, every girl needs to have a good long cry once in a while. The kind that weakens you, swells your eyes shut, and strips away every shred of emotion from your body until the pain subsides. The pain of… whatever. Death, heartbreak, solitude, desire, jealousy. All the crap that becomes a badge of honor among women—like those little merit badges Girl Scouts have sewn on their uniforms, only these badges are stitched across our hearts.

They say that lightning never strikes in the same place twice, but the same is not true for courage. As it turns out, when courage strikes, it almost always begets more courage.

Miss Gates is a nice lady, ain't she?" Why sure," said Jem. "I liked her when I was in her room." She hates Hitler a lot . . ." What's wrong with that?" Well, she went on today about how bad it was him treating the Jews like that. Jem, it's not right to persecute anybody, is it? I mean have mean thoughts about anybody, even, is it?" Gracious no, Scout. What's eatin' you?" Well, coming out of the courthouse that night Miss Gates was--- she was going' down the steps in front of us, you musta not seen her--- she was talking with Miss Stephanie Crawford. I heard her say it's time somebody time somebody taught 'em a lesson, they were gettin' way above themelves, an' the next thing they think they can do is marry us. Jem, how can you hate Hitler so bad an' then turn around and be ugly about folks right at home---

Why did you come back here, then? Why risk it? Couldn’t you find a place where you wouldn’t have any other Packs to deal with?” He cupped my face in his hands, his thumb gently brushing a snowflake from my eyelashes. “You know why I came back.” My heart started beating against my ribcage as if it was trying to break free. “The fried chicken they serve at The Farmhouse?” “I came back for you, Scout.” I had to say something. Something clever. Something dazzling. Something to make this moment perfect. “I hope the snow sticks.

Hey you know what they say you should do when life gives you lemons?" The sudden change in topic made my head spin, "Make lemonade?" I answered weakly. "Lemonade? Who the fuck do you hang out with, Girl Scouts? No, when life gives you lemons, you add vodka and make a lemon drop.

Let’s be Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus’s children, Scout and Jem, carefully watch their father’s behavior as the house next door to theirs burns to the ground. As the fire creeps closer and closer to the Finches’ home, Atticus appears so calm that Scout and Jem finally decide that “it ain’t time to worry yet.” We need to be Atticus. Hands in our pockets. Calm. Believing. So that our children will look at us and even with a fire raging in front of them, they’ll say, “Huh. Guess it’s not time to worry yet.

Then I’ll just pack up my Girl Scout cookies and hurry on home,” Cassel says. The man hesitates. “Do you have Thin Mints?

Chase looked 'round and seen Frederick's grave where we'd buried him. "Who's that?" "Don't know. We been hiding in this thicket while the Free Staters was scouting 'round here. I heard 'em say it was one of theirs." Chase pondered the grave thoughtfully. "It's a fresh grave. We ought to see if who'sever in there got on boots," he said.

I don’t care what anyone says, every girl needs to have a good long cry once in a while. The kind that weakens you, swells your eyes shut, and strips away every shred of emotion from your body until the pain subsides. The pain of… whatever. Death, heartbreak, solitude, desire, jealousy. All the crap that becomes a badge of honor among women—like those little merit badges Girl Scouts have sewn on their uniforms, only these badges

Some say freedom is a gift placed in our hands by our forefathers. Some say freedom is a human right that none should be denied. Some say freedom is a privilege that can and will be seized if taken for granted. Some say freedom is the key that opens doors otherwise meant to imprison. Some say freedom is power to do, to be, to say, and to accomplish what the oppressed cannot. Some say freedom is a responsibility—a weight to be carried and shared by those willing to protect it. Perhaps freedom is all these things. But in my eyes, I see freedom as a treasure. It is a gem so rare and precious the fiercest battles rage over it. The blood of thousands is spilled for it—past, present, and future. Where true and unblemished freedom exists, it shines with perfect clarity, drawing the greedy masses, both those who desire a portion of the spoils and those who would rob the possessor of the treasure, hoping to bury it away. Without freedom I am a slave in shackles on a ship lost at sea. With freedom I am a captain; I am a pirate; I am an admiral; I am a scout; I am the eagle souring overhead; I am the north star guiding a crew; I am the ship itself; I am whatever I choose to be.

If you've messed up big - like me, like Isaiah - congratulations! You're at the top of God's talent-scouting list.

He had a knack for expressing sober what most men only dared say drunk.

Don’t say nigger, Scout. That’s common.

Now I was shocked! The old shibboleth, intelligence! Had not our government been culpable enough in pampering the high-IQ draftees as though they were too intelligent to fight for their country? Could not Doctor Gentle see that I was proud to be a scout, and before that a machine gunner? Intelligence, intelligence, intelligence. Keep it up, America, keep telling your youth that mud and danger are fit only for intellectual pigs. Keep on saying that only the stupid are fit to sacrifice, that America must be defended by the low-brow and enjoyed by the high-brow. Keep vaunting head over heart, and soon the head will arrive at the complete folly of any kind of fight and meekly surrender the treasure to the first bandit with enough heart to demand it.

Gray and Drew sitting side by side, with their muscled physiques taking up a good portion of the booth, look like a comic book come to life. They catch me staring and both say, “What?” at the same time. Smiling, I shake my head. “Nothing. I just had this image of Thor and Captain America having a beer.” They both color at the same time. Which is kind of cute. “Ha!” cries Anna at my side. Her cheeks plump with a wide grin. “I had that Captain America thought about Drew too.” Drew perks up. “You did, huh?” Gray snorts. “Dude, I’ve just been compared to Thor. I totally win.” “What the hell does Thor have? A little hammer?” Drew waves a hand as if to say, please. But Gray smirks. “At least he isn’t hiding behind a wussy shield. Thor is a god. Enough said.” “A boring god with the personality of a post,” Drew volleys. “And you’re saying Captain America isn’t boring? Dude. He doesn’t even understand modern culture. He’s like a 1940s Boy Scout.” Drew and Gray eyeball each other for a second. Then Drew relents with a laugh. “Touché.

What are counting words?” “They are … names for the marks on your sticks, for one thing, for other things too. They are used to say the number of … anything. They can say how many deer a scout has seen, or how many days away they are. If it is a large herd, such as bison in the fall, then a zelandoni must scout the herd, one who knows the special ways to use counting words.” An undercurrent of anticipation stirred through the woman; she could almost understand what he meant. She felt on the edge of resolving questions whose answers had eluded her.

Heck, can’t you even try to see it my way? You’ve got children of your own, but I’m older than you. When mine are grown I’ll be an old man if I’m still around, but right now I’m—if they don’t trust me they won’t trust anybody. Jem and Scout know what happened. If they hear of me saying downtown something different happened—Heck, I won’t have them any more. I can’t live one way in town and another way in my home.

Look at me,” I say, my voice husky. “Wolf scout.” His chest falls, muscles still flexed. My pulse thumps. I skim his striking but also tensed face, and my hand slides across his broad shoulder and rises slowly up his neck. I hold his jaw; I tighten his hand in my hand, and my lips veer to his ear. “Maximoff Hale, will you marry me?” He flinches, eyes widening and brows knotting with a thousand questions, and even more philosophical queries.

One of the supreme paradoxes of baseball, and all sports, is that the harder you try to throw a pitch or hit a ball or accomplish something, the smaller your chances are for success. You get the best results not when you apply superhuman effort but when you let the game flow organically and allow yourself to be fully present. You'll often hear scouts say of a great prospect, "The game comes slow to him." It mean the prospect is skilled and poised enough to let the game unfold in its own time, paying no attention to the angst or urgency or doubt, funnelling all awareness to the athletic task at hand.

What do I say to a whale, Galen?" I hiss. "Tell him to come closer." "No way." "Fine. Tell him to back up." I nod. "Right. Okay." I lace my fingers together to keep from wringing my hands raw. Even more than terror, I feel the insanity of the situation. I'm about to ask a fish the size of my house to make a U-turn. Because Galen, the man-fish behind me, doesn't speak humpback. "Uh, can you please back away from me?" I say. I sound polite, like I'm asking him to buy some Girl Scout cookies. I feel better in the few moments afterward because Goliath doesn't move. It proves Galen doesn't know what he's talking about. It proves this whale can't understand me, that I'm not some Snow White of the ocean. Except that, Goliath does start to turn away. I look back at Galen. "That's just a coincidence." Galen sighs. "You're right. He probably mistook us for a relative or something. Tell him to do something else, Emma.

LAUREN: You know, Cecil, I was never a Girl Scout myself, but I can say I am thrilled to support your endeavor to help bring your niece...I'm sorry. What was her name again? CECIL: I don't want to um - LAUREN: Janice. It was Janice. I love the way you are taking part in Janice's life. You must really care for her. CECIL: Yes. With all my heart. But -

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

Now you’re just being selfish,” Dominic said to Jaime, shaking his head. “You have that body for the rest of your life. I only want it for one night.” Not in the mood to hear his packmate making moves—no matter how playful—on the female he intended to claim, Dante growled. “Dominic, no. Not to Jaime.” “But—” “No.” Dominic sighed in resignation. “Okay, fine.” Noticing that Trey seemed to find the whole thing extremely amusing, Dante raised a brow at him. “It’s funny now that he’s not saying this shit to Taryn?” Trey smiled. “Of course.” “I’ve always got some stored up for my gorgeous Alpha female,” said Dominic with an impish grin. Instantly Trey’s smile fell from his face. “Dom, don’t do it.” Dominic held his hands up, pleading innocence. “I was just going to ask her if she went to Boy Scouts…because she has my heart all tied in knots.” Taryn groaned and chuckled at the same time.

You know, the heroes in my romance novels always say that. Scout's honor. But they all later admit to never being a Boy Scout.

Like they say, you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone.

Do you defend niggers, Atticus?” I asked him that evening. “Of course I do. Don’t say nigger, Scout. That’s common.

a willingness to say “I was wrong” to someone else is a strong sign of a person who prizes the truth over their own ego. Can you think of cases in which you’ve done the same?

I would say that when what started as an outsider’s argument becomes the conventional wisdom of a Girl Scout troop, it is a sign of an evolution in conciousness.

You like words like damn and hell now, don’t you?” I said I reckoned so. “Well I don’t,” said Uncle Jack, “not unless there’s extreme provocation connected with ’em. I’ll be here a week, and I don’t want to hear any words like that while I’m here. Scout, you’ll get in trouble if you go around saying things like that. You want to grow up to be a lady, don’t you?” I said not particularly.

I never thought Jem’d be the one to lose his head over this—thought I’d have more trouble with you.” I said I didn’t see why we had to keep our heads anyway, that nobody I knew at school had to keep his head about anything. “Scout,” said Atticus, “when summer comes you’ll have to keep your head about far worse things… it’s not fair for you and Jem, I know that, but sometimes we have to make the best of things, and the way we conduct ourselves when the chips are down—well, all I can say is, when you and Jem are grown, maybe you’ll look back on this with some compassion and some feeling that I didn’t let you down. This case, Tom Robinson’s case, is something that goes to the essence of a man’s conscience—Scout, I couldn’t go to church and worship God if I didn’t try to help that man.

Eventually they climb sixteen steps into the Gallery of Mineralogy. The guide shows them a gate from Brazil and violet amethysts and a meteorite on a pedestal that he claims is as ancient as the solar system itself. Then he leads them single file down two twisting staircases and along several corridors and stops outside an iron door with a single keyhole. “End of tour,” he says. A girl says, “But what’s through there?” “Behind this door is another locked door, slightly smaller.” “And what’s behind that?” “A third locked door, smaller yet.” “What’s behind that?” “A fourth door, and a fifth, on and on until you reach a thirteenth, a little locked door no bigger than a shoe.” The children lean forward. “And then?” “Behind the thirteenth door”—the guide flourishes one of his impossibly wrinkled hands—“is the Sea of Flames.” Puzzlement. Fidgeting. “Come now. You’ve never heard of the Sea of Flames?” The children shake their heads. Marie-Laure squints up at the naked bulbs strung in three-yard intervals along the ceiling; each sets a rainbow-colored halo rotating in her vision. The guide hangs his cane on his wrist and rubs his hands together. “It’s a long story. Do you want to hear a long story?” They nod. He clears his throat. “Centuries ago, in the place we now call Borneo, a prince plucked a blue stone from a dry riverbed because he thought it was pretty. But on the way back to his palace, the prince was attacked by men on horseback and stabbed in the heart.” “Stabbed in the heart?” “Is this true?” A boy says, “Hush.” “The thieves stole his rings, his horse, everything. But because the little blue stone was clenched in his fist, they did not discover it. And the dying prince managed to crawl home. Then he fell unconscious for ten days. On the tenth day, to the amazement of his nurses, he sat up, opened his hand, and there was the stone. “The sultan’s doctors said it was a miracle, that the prince never should have survived such a violent wound. The nurses said the stone must have healing powers. The sultan’s jewelers said something else: they said the stone was the largest raw diamond anyone had ever seen. Their most gifted stonecutter spent eighty days faceting it, and when he was done, it was a brilliant blue, the blue of tropical seas, but it had a touch of red at its center, like flames inside a drop of water. The sultan had the diamond fitted into a crown for the prince, and it was said that when the young prince sat on his throne and the sun hit him just so, he became so dazzling that visitors could not distinguish his figure from light itself.” “Are you sure this is true?” asks a girl. “Hush,” says the boy. “The stone came to be known as the Sea of Flames. Some believed the prince was a deity, that as long as he kept the stone, he could not be killed. But something strange began to happen: the longer the prince wore his crown, the worse his luck became. In a month, he lost a brother to drowning and a second brother to snakebite. Within six months, his father died of disease. To make matters even worse, the sultan’s scouts announced that a great army was gathering in the east. "The prince called together his father’s advisers. All said he should prepare for war, all but one, a priest, who said he’d had a dream. In the dream the Goddess of the Earth told him she’d made the Sea of Flames as a gift for her lover, the God of the Sea, and was sending the jewel to him through the river. But when the river dried up, and the prince plucked it out, the goddess became enraged. She cursed the stone and whoever kept it.

But, Bill, old scout, your sister says there's a most corking links near here." He turned and stared at me, and nearly ran us into the bank. "You don't mean honestly she said that?" "She said you said it was better than St. Andrews." "So I did. Was that all she said I said?" "Well, wasn't it enough?" "She didn't happen to mention that I added the words, 'I don't think'?" "No, she forgot to tell me that." "It's the worst course in Great Britain.

Gracious no, Scout. What’s eatin’ you?” “Well, coming out of the courthouse that night Miss Gates was—she was goin’ down the steps in front of us, you musta not seen her—she was talking with Miss Stephanie Crawford. I heard her say it’s time somebody taught ’em a lesson, they were gettin’ way above themselves, an’ the next thing they think they can do is marry us. Jem, how can you hate Hitler so bad an’ then turn around and be ugly about folks right at home—

Rachel's voice is fierce. The Commander will send out scouts. We should-" "Oh, he sent out scouts," Willow says. "Five of them. And they were doing a good job of searching the city. Unfortunately for them, all they managed to find was me." "You killed them?" Ian asks. "No. I invited them over for dinner." She smacks his shoulder. "the sun is almost down. By the time the Commander realizes his scouts aren't coming back, it will be too dark to send more. He can't risk us seeing torchlight, and they can't search these ruins without light." "You scare me a little," Ian says, but his voice is full of admiration. Adam steps closer to Willow. "She's good at everything she does." Quinn clears his throat." Maybe we should get back to the problem?" "We can't travel at night," I say. "We need light as well. But we can leave at dawn, and-" "They'll leave at dawn, too," Adam says. "And if they're that close already, there's no way we can outrun them. Not with children and elderly and the wagons." "Which is why we're going to create a barrier between us," I say. "Something they can't cross." Rachel meets my eyes, and her smile is cold and bright. "Fire." I match her smile with one of my own. "Fire. And when the army finally gets past the blaze, we won't be where they expect, because we're leaving the main road behind." "What are we waiting for?" Willow asks. "Let's go burn something down.

Prince Ahmad crouched over the headless body, the scout at his side. "you say a mere priest bested you?" "He weilded his sword like a master. I never saw such a display." The prince mocked the soldier. "Then let us pray we don't meet the Pope.

Often the circumstances in which we lost our self-esteem were relationships distinguished by a steeply unequal power balance. Our spellcasters were parents. Teachers. Bullies. So-called friends. Strangers. Romantic partners. Cliques. Coworkers. Your spellcaster was the mean first grader. Or the psycho in the dark. Or the town, school, Scout troop, spiritual community, family, neighborhood that did not understand your type, whatever that type was. Your spellcaster could even be society at large, that nameless, faceless "them" with boundless power and a thousand biases. And it became unbearable to be the bullied one, the hounded one, the outcast and excluded one. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, the old saying goes. Others hated us, or appeared to. We joined 'em.

You know, I’m really glad you landed on your gay aesthetic,” Chloe tells her. “Aspiring park ranger looks great on you.” “Thanks,” she says. “I don’t know why it took me so long. I guess I didn’t realize being a Girl Scout and being gay could be the same thing.

Do you defend niggers, Atticus?' I asked him that evening. 'Of course I do. Don't say nigger, Scout. That's common.' ''s what everybody at schools says.' 'From now on it'll be everybody less one -' 'Well if you don't want me to grow up talkin' that way, wh ydo you send me to school?

Scout," said Atticus, "When summer comes you'll you'll have to keep your head about far worse things....it's not fair for you and Jem, I know that, but sometimes we have to make the best of things, and the way we conduct ourselves when the chips are down - well, all I can say is when you and Jem are grown, maybe you'll look back on this with some compassion and some feeling that I didn't let you down. This case, Tom Robinson's case, is something that goes to the essence of a man's conscience - Scout, I couldn't go to church and worship God if I didn't try to help that man." "Atticus, you must be wrong...." "How's that?" "Well, most folks seem to think that, they're right and you're wrong...." "They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their options," said Atticus, "but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.

The thought for today is one which I discovered in Epicurus; for I am wont to cross over even into the enemy’s camp—not as a deserter, but as a scout. He says: “Contented poverty is an honourable estate.” Indeed, if it be contented, it is not poverty at all. It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

I'd like to make you an offer." An offer? I was suddenly reminded of who I was dealing with here. Lillian Taft wasn't a powder puff. She was the merciless, dictatorial matriarch who'd kicked my pregnant mother out of her house at the ripe old age of seventeen. I stalked to the front door and retrieved the Post-it I'd placed next to the doorbell when our house had been hit with door-to-door evangelists two weeks in a row. I turned and offered the hand-written notice to the women who'd raised my mother. Her perfectly manicured fingertips plucked the Post-it from my grasp. "'No soliciting,'" my grandmother read. "Except for Girl Scout cookies," I added helpfully. I'd gotten kicked out of the local Scout troop during my morbid true-crime and facts-about-autopsies phase, but I still had a weakness for Thin Mints. Lillian pursed her lips and amended her previous statement. "'No soliciting except for Girl Scout cookies.'" I saw the precise moment that she registered what I was saying: I wasn't interested in her offer. Whatever she was selling, I wasn't buying.

Not making meatloaf! That should be your safeword.” “What?” Scout began to laugh so hard he doubled over. “Oh my Goddess, that’s a great one.” “What’s so funny?” Bailey asked. Logan groaned. “Because I would do anything for love…” “But I won’t do that.” Bailey glared down at Aleron. “You’re an idiot. No dessert for you.” “What? It’s a good one. Who says meatloaf in the middle of sex?

You just...you just don't do anything. You get lost in your head, and you sit around thinking instead of getting on with something, and most of the time you think rubbish. You always seem to miss what's really happening. Do you know that expression, 'Time on his hands and himself on his mind'? That's you. So what should I be doing? I don't know. Something. Working. Seeing people. Running a scout troop, or running a club even. Something more than waiting for life to change and keeping your options open. You'd keep your options open for the rest of your life if you could. You'll be lying on your deathbed, dying of some smoking-related disease, and you'll be thinking, 'Well at least I've kept my options open. At least I never ended up doing something I couldn't back out of.' And all the time you're keeping your options open, you're closing them off. You're thirty-six and you don't have children. So when are you going to have them? When you're forty? Fifty? Say you're forty, and say your kid doesn't want kids until he's thirty-six. That means you'd have to live much longer than your allotted three-score years and ten just to catch so much as a glimpse of your grandchild. See how you're denying yourself things?

I am nine. We are bored and Karen is dying. We drove to Austin that summer so Sarah's dad- who described Karen as /the great and impossible love/ of his life, who taught us the word /lymphoma/ and then, the concept of the prefix, how it explains where the tumor lives- could say goodbye. The house is a rind spooned out by the onset of death, what's left in the medicine cabinet full of razors & we are hungry & alone & sitting on the living room floor where the light from a naked window slices the hardwood like a melon, brandishes each, individualfuzz on my scabbed calf a field of erect, yellow poppies & we have been alive as girls long enough to know to scowl at this reveal & what better time than now to practice removal. Once, I watched my mother skin a potato in six perfect strokes I remember this as Sarah teaches me to prop up my leg on the side of the tub and runs the blade along my thing, /See?/ she says, /Isn't that so much better?/ Before we left Albuquerque her father warned us, /She will have no hair/ a trait we have just begun to admire except, of course for the hair he is talking about we hold against our necks, that which will get us compliments or scouted in a mall, eventually cut off by our envious sisters while we sleep.

We gotta come up with a plan,” Shaftoe says. “The plan: You live, I die,” Goto Dengo says. “Fuck that,” Shaftoe says. “Hey, don’t you idiots know you’re surrounded?” “We know,” Goto Dengo says wearily. “We know for a long time.” “So give up, you fucking morons! Wave a white flag and you can all go home.” “It is not Nipponese way.” “So come up with another fucking way! Show some fucking adaptability!” “Why are you here?” Goto Dengo asks, changing the subject. “What is your mission?” Shaftoe explains that he’s looking for his kid. Goto Dengo tells him where all of the women and children are: in the Church of St. Agustin, in Intramuros. “Hey,” Shaftoe says, “if we surrender to you, you’ll kill us. Right?” “Yes.” “If you guys surrender to us, we won’t kill you. Promise. Scout’s honor.” “For us, living or dying is not the important thing,” Goto Dengo says. “Hey! Tell me something I didn’t fucking already know!” Shaftoe says. “Even winning battles isn’t important to you. Is it?” Goto Dengo looks the other way, shamefaced. “Haven’t you guys figured out yet that banzai charges DON’T FUCKING WORK?” “All of the people who learned that were killed in banzai charges,” Goto Dengo says. As if on cue, the Nips in the left field dugout begin screaming “Banzai!” and charge, as one, out onto the field.

Because I could never ask you to mind me again. Scout, simply by the nature of the work, every lawyer gets at least one casein his lifetime that affects him personally. This one's mine, I guess. You might hear some ugly talk about it at school, but do one thing for me if you will: you just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don't let 'em get your goat. Try fighting with your head for once... it's a good one, even if it does resist learning.

I suppose I should include Uncle Jimmy, Aunt Alexandra’s husband, but as he never spoke a word to me in my life except to say, “Get off the fence,” once, I never saw any reason to take notice of him. Neither did Aunt Alexandra. Long ago, in a burst of friendliness, Aunt and Uncle Jimmy produced a son named Henry, who left home as soon as was humanly possible, married, and produced Francis. Henry and his wife deposited Francis at his grandparents’ every Christmas, then pursued their own pleasures.

I really doubt my parents are going to let me stay the night in a remote cabin with a bunch of boys.” “Oh, please, Snow White, Mike’s dad’ll be there. He’s actually kinda funny…you know, in a weird dad kind of way. Don’t worry, your purity will remain intact. Scout’s honor.” She made some sort of gesture with her fingers that Violet assumed was supposed to be an oath, but since Chelsea had never actually been a Girl Scout, it ended up looking more like a peace sign. Or something. Violet maintained her dubious expression. But Chelsea wasn’t about to be discouraged, and she tried to be the voice of reason. “Come on, I think Jay’s checking to see if he can get the time off work. The least you can do is ask your parents. If they say no, then no harm, no foul, right? If they say yes, then we’ll have a kick-ass time. We’ll go hiking in the snow and hang out in front of the fireplace in the evening. We’ll sleep in sleeping bags and maybe even roast some marshmallows. It’ll be like we’re camping.” She beamed a superfake smile at Violet and clasped her hands together like she was begging. “Do it for me. Ple-eease.” Jules came back with their milk shake. It was strawberry, and Chelsea flashed Violet an I-told-you-so grin. Violet finished her tea, mulling over the idea of spending the weekend in a snowy cabin with Jay and Chelsea. Away from town. Away from whoever was leaving her dead animals and creepy notes. It did sound fun, and Violet did love the snow. And the woods. And Jay. She could at least ask. Like Chelsea said, No harm, no foul.

Scout,” said Atticus, “when summer comes you’ll have to keep your head about far worse things…it’s not fair for you and Jem, I know that, but sometimes we have to make the best of things, and the way we conduct ourselves when the chips are down – well, all I can say is, when you and Jem are grown, maybe you’ll look back on this with some compassion and some feeling that I didn’t let you down. This case, Tom Robinson’s case, is something that goes to the essence of a man’s conscience – Scout, I couldn’t go to church and worship God if I didn’t try to help that man.

Scout," said Atticus, “when summer comes you’ll have to keep your head about far worse things…it’s not fair for you and Jem, I know that, but sometimes we have to make the best of things, and the way we conduct ourselves when the chips are down – well, all I can say is, when you and Jem are grown, maybe you’ll look back on this with some compassion and some feeling that I didn’t let you down. This case, Tom Robinson’s case, is something that goes to the essence of a man’s conscience – Scout, I couldn’t go to church and worship God if I didn’t try to help that man.

Hickok and the others now returned from looking at the saloon sign, and this suck-up who had been talking to me, he asked what happened and another man says: “He put all ten inside the hole of the O, by God!” And everybody was whistling and gasping at the wonder of it—well, not exactly everybody, for there was other scouts and gun-handlers around, people like Jack Gallagher, Billy Dixon, Old Man Keeler, and more who was well known in them days, and they looked thoughtful so as not to display jealousy. As elsewhere in life, there are specialists on one hand, and the audience on the other.

just agreed to buy some decommissioned Saudi antiaircraft missiles for twelve million dollars and is planning to kidnap a racehorse as down payment. “The chrysanthemums are beautiful,” says the woman. “Exquisite.” A kidnapped racehorse was not ideal, as far as Martin Lomax was concerned, but if both sides were happy with the arrangement he has ample stabling by the paddock. He has done business with the Ukrainians before and found them violent but trustworthy. Martin Lomax will get the local Scout troop to run a refreshment stall on one of the Open Garden days. Water and so on. People need water, he has noticed. They go crazy for the stuff.

As for the world beyond my family—well, what they would see for most of my teenage years was not a budding leader but rather a lackadaisical student, a passionate basketball player of limited talent, and an incessant, dedicated partyer. No student government for me; no Eagle Scouts or interning at the local congressman’s office. Through high school, my friends and I didn’t discuss much beyond sports, girls, music, and plans for getting loaded. Three of these guys—Bobby Titcomb, Greg Orme, and Mike Ramos—remain some of my closest friends. To this day, we can laugh for hours over stories of our misspent youth. In later years, they would throw themselves into my campaigns with a loyalty for which I will always be grateful, becoming as skilled at defending my record as anyone on MSNBC. But there were also times during my presidency—after they had watched me speak to a big crowd, say, or receive a series of crisp salutes from young Marines during a base tour—when their faces would betray a certain bafflement, as if they were trying to reconcile the graying man in a suit and tie with the ill-defined man-child they’d once known. That guy? they must have said to themselves. How the hell did that happen? And if my friends had ever asked me directly, I’m not sure I’d have had a good answer.

You’re like a Boy Scout, huh?” It’s my attempt at flirting—probably only slightly less effective than Dirty Dancing’s “I carried a watermelon.” He does the mouth-quirk thing again. “Not even close.” There’s a bad-boy edge in the way he says it—a heavy hint of the forbidden—that gets my heart pounding and my jaw eager to drop. To cover my reaction, I nod vigorously. “Right, me neither . . . Never been a—” Too vigorously. So vigorously that my elbow slips in the flour on the counter and I almost knock myself unconscious. But Logan’s not only big and brawny—he’s quick. Fast enough to catch me by the arm and waist to steady me before I bash the side of my head against the butcher block. “Are you all right, Ellie?” He leans down, looking at me intently—a look I’ll see in my dreams tonight . . . assuming I can sleep. And, wow, Logan has great eyelashes. Thick and lengthy and midnight black. I bet they’re not the only part of him that’s thick and lengthy. My gaze darts down to his promised land, where his pants are just tight enough to confirm my suspicions—this bodyguard may have a service revolver in his pocket, but he’s got a magnum in his pants. Yum. “Yeah, I’m good.” I sigh. “Just . . . you know . . . tired. But I’m cool . . . totally cool.” And I shake it off, like I actually am

That's the spirit, kid," said the voice of the grown man. "Come on, Snow Scouts, let's all say the Snow Scout Alphabet Pledge together." Instantly the cave echoed with the sound of many voices speaking in perfect unison, a phrase here which means "reciting a list of very odd words at the very same time." "Snow Scouts," recited the Snow Scouts, "are accommodating, basic, calm, darling, emblematic, frisky, grinning, human, innocent, jumping, kept, limited, meek, nap-loving, official, pretty, quarantines, recent, scheduled, tidy, understandable, victorious, wholesome, xylophone, young, and zippered - every morning, every afternoon, every night, and all day long!

... sometimes we have to make the best of things, and the way we conduct ourselves when the chips are down - well, all I can say is, when you and Jem are grown, maybe you'll look back on this with some compassion and some feeling that I didn't let you down. This case, Tom Robinson's case, is something that goes to the essence of a man's conscious - Scout, I couldn't go to church and worship God if I didn't try to help that man.' 'Atticus, you must be wrong...' 'How's that?' 'Well, most folks seem to think they're right and you're wrong...' 'They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions,' said Atticus, 'but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that does abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.

But it was in the life-saving competition that Stanley Judkins's conduct was most blameable and had the most far-reaching effects. The practice, as you know, was to throw a selected lower boy, of suitable dimensions, fully dressed, with his hands and feet tied together, into the deepest part of Cuckoo Weir, and to time the Scout whose turn it was to rescue him. On every occasion when he was entered for this competition Stanley Judkins was seized, at the critical moment, with a severe fit of cramp, which caused him to roll on the ground and utter alarming cries. This naturally distracted the attention of those present from the boy in the water, and had it not been for the presence of Arthur Wilcox the death-roll would have been a heavy one. As it was, the Lower Master found it necessary to take a firm line and say that the competition must be discontinued. It was in vain that Mr. Beasley Robinson represented to him that in five competitions only four lower boys had actually succumbed. The Lower Master said that he would be the last to interfere in any way with the work of the Scouts; but that three of these boys had been valued members of his choir, and both he and Dr. Ley felt that the inconvenience caused by the losses outweighed the advantages of the competitions. Besides, the correspondence with the parents of these boys had become annoying, and even distressing: they were no longer satisfied with the printed form which he was in the habit of sending out, and more than one of them had actually visited Eton and taken up much of his valuable time with complaints. So the life-saving competition is now a thing of the past.

It's what's in the book that matters. Standing in her daughter's room which also had shelves and shelves filled with books, Tess remembered a character in a favorite story saying that to someone who objected to using the Bible as a fan on a hot summer day. But she could no longer remember which story it was. Did that mean the book had ceased to live for her? The title she was trying to recall could be in this very room, along with all of Tess's childhood favorites, waiting for Carla Scout to discover them one day. But what if she rejected them all, insisting on her own myths and legends, as Octavia has prophesied? How many of these books would be out of print in five, ten years? What did it mean to be out of print in a world where books could live inside devices, glowing like captured genies, desperate to get back out in the world and grant people's wishes?

So what should I be doing?” “I don’t know. Something. Working. Seeing people. Running a scout troop, or running a club even. Something more than waiting for life to change and keeping your options open. You’d keep your options open for the rest of your life, if you could. You’ll be lying on your deathbed, dying of some smoking-related disease, and you’ll be thinking, ‘Well, at least I’ve kept my options open. At least I never ended up doing something I couldn’t back out of.’ And all the time you’re keeping your options open, you’re closing them off. You’re thirty-six and you don’t have children. So when are you going to have them? When you’re forty? Fifty? Say you’re forty, and say your kid doesn’t want kids until he’s thirty-six. That means you’d have to live much longer than your allotted three-score years and ten just to catch so much as a glimpse of your grandchild. See how you’re denying yourself things?

Jem was suddenly furious. He leaped off the bed, grabbed me by the collar and shook me. 'I never wanta hear about that court-house again, ever, ever, you hear me? You hear me? Don't you ever say one word to me about it again, you hear? Now go on!' I was too surprised to cry, I crept from Jem's room and shut the door softly, lest undue noise set him off again. Suddenly tired, I wanted Atticus. He was in the living room, and I went to him and tried to get in his lap. Atticus smiled. 'You're getting so big now, I'll just have to hold a part of you.' He held me close. 'Scout,' he said softy, 'don't let Jem get you down. He's having a rough time these days. I heard you back there.' Atticus said that Jem was trying hard to forget something, but what he was really doing was storing it away for a while, until enough time passed. Then he would be able to think about it and sort things out. When he was able to think about it, Jem would be himself again.

I didn’t want you to apply just because I’m going to be in New York. Or hell, even worse, not apply because I’m going to be there. I was going to tell you in person. And then the scout shows up at the game tonight, and what was I supposed to do? My mom is freaking out; you’re freaking out.” He throws his hands in the air in frustration. “I’ve totally fucked this up.” It hits me then, the truth of the situation. He made his decision about Columbia on his own, and he wanted me to be able to do the same. Of course. Hell, if it hadn’t been for the storm bringing us together like it did, I probably would have turned down NYU rather than risk going off to New York with him, and that’s the truth. I drop my gaze to the ground and take a deep breath, cursing myself for being such an idiot. “No, you haven’t,” I say at last, raising my eyes to meet his confused ones. “Haven’t what?” “Fucked it up.” I take a tentative step toward him. “I get it now. God, Ryder. Why do you have to be so perfect?” “Perfect? I’ve been in love with you for so long now, and I’ve never managed to get it right, not once.” I have to bite my lip to keep from grinning. “News flash--I think you’ve finally got it this time.” His smile makes my heart leap. “Do you have any idea what was going through my head when you first told me about NYU? I couldn’t believe it. It was like…like a gift fell right into my lap. Like winning the lottery. All this time I thought going off to New York would mean leaving you behind. And now--” “Now we both better get in,” I finish for him, though it probably wasn’t what he was going to say. I mean, he’s a shoo-in for Columbia. Perfect grades, high SATs, and a superstar quarterback the likes of which the Ivy League rarely sees. He’s every college admissions director’s dream. But me? If I get into NYU, it’ll be by the skin of my teeth. Because they want geographic diversity or something lame like that. I’m nothing special. “Where will you go if you don’t get into NYU?” he asks. “Where else?” I say. “Ole Miss, with Lucy and Morgan.” “Then Ole Miss is my backup too. Here’s the thing, Jem. I’m going wherever you’re going--whether it’s New York or Oxford. I’m not missing my chance this time.

Concealing himself from his father's wrath, behind the barn with wick turned low and his face two inches from the rough sawtooth page, Young Crawford had read of these atrocities in Beadle's Dime Library and fantasized about "calling out" the brutal old man who had sired him, "throwing down" on him with the "hogleg" he wore high on his hip, and blasting him into hell; after which he would go "on the scout," separating high-interest banks and arrogant railroad barons from their soiled coin and distributing it among their victims, or failing that into his own pockets and saddle pouches and living the "high Life" in saloons and "dance halls" where beautiful women in brief costumes admired his straight legs and square jaw and told him of the men who had "ruined" them (he knew not just how, only that the act was disgraceful and its effects permanent), whereupon he sought the blackguards out and deprived them of their lives. There was usually profit involved; invariably the men were thieves who lived in close proximity to their "ill-gotten booty," and didn't it say somewhere in Scripture that robbing a thief was no sin? If it didn't, it should have.

Perhaps Calpurnia sensed that my day had been a grim one: she let me watch her fix supper. “Shut your eyes and open your mouth and I’ll give you a surprise,” she said. It was not often that she made crackling bread, she said she never had time, but with both of us at school today had been an easy one for her. She knew I loved crackling bread. “I missed you today,” she said. “The house got so lonesome ’long about two o’clock I had to turn on the radio.” “Why? Jem’n me ain’t ever in the house unless it’s rainin’.” “I know,” she said, “but one of you’s always in callin’ distance. I wonder how much of the day I spend just callin’ after you. Well,” she said, getting up from the kitchen chair, “it’s enough time to make a pan of cracklin’ bread, I reckon. You run along now and let me get supper on the table.” Calpurnia bent down and kissed me. I ran along, wondering what had come over her. She had wanted to make up with me, that was it. She had always been too hard on me, she had at last seen the error of her fractious ways, she was sorry and too stubborn to say so. I was weary from the day’s crimes. After supper, Atticus sat down with the paper and called, “Scout, ready to read?” The Lord sent me more than I could bear, and I went to the front porch. Atticus followed me. “Something

The following falsifications to be deleted from the proposed language: The IS of identity. You are an animal. You are a body. Now whatever you may be you are not an “animal,” you are not a “body,” because these are verbal labels. The IS of iden­tity always carries the implication of that and nothing else, and it also carries the assignment of permanent condition. To stay that way. All name calling presupposes the IS of identity. This concept is unnecessary in a hieroglyphic language like ancient Egyptian and in fact frequently omitted. No need to say the sun IS in the sky, sun in sky suffices. The verb to be can easily be omitted from any language and the followers of Count Korgybski have done this, eliminating the verb to be in English. However, it is difficult to tidy up the English language by arbitrary exclusion of concepts which remain in force so long as the unchanged language is spoken. The definite article THE. THE contains the implication of one and only: THE God, THE universe, THE way, THE right, THE wrong. If there is another, then THAT universe, THAT way is no longer THE universe, THE way. The defi­ nite article THE will be deleted and the indefinite article A will take its place. The whole concept of EITHER/OR. Right or wrong, physical or mental, true or false, the whole concept of OR will be deleted from the language and replaced by juxtaposi­tion, by AND.

When Roshar saw her ripped, one-legged trousers and Arin at her side as they stood outside the prince’s tent, his eyes glinted with mirth and Kestrel felt quite sure that the prince was going to say it was about time Arin tore her clothes off. Then Roshar might comment coyly on Arin’s inability to reach a full conclusion (Only one trouser leg? she imagined Roshar saying. How lazy of you, Arin), or on the quaint quality of Arin’s modesty (What a little lamb you are). Perhaps he’d offer condolences to Kestrel on the partial death of her trousers. He’d ask whether she’d gotten injured on purpose. Kestrel flushed. “Things at the scout station didn’t go according to plan,” she said, stating the obvious in order to shunt the conversation to where it should be. Not, absolutely not, about what had happened or didn’t happen in Arin’s tent. “She’s wounded,” said Arin--who, although he didn’t look it, must have also been flustered if he, too, felt he had to state the obvious. “Barely,” Roshar said. “A mere scratch, or she wouldn’t be standing.” “You could offer her a seat,” Arin said. “Ah, but I have only two chairs in my tent, little Herrani, and we are three. I suppose she could always sit on your lap.” Arin shot him a look of deep annoyance and pushed inside the tent. “But I could have said something so much worse,” Roshar protested. “Say nothing at all,” Kestrel told him. “That would be very unlike me.

There’s a big confusion in this country over what we want versus what we need,” Morrie said. “You need food, you want a chocolate sundae. You have to be honest with yourself. You don’t need the latest sports car, you don’t need the biggest house. “The truth is, you don’t get satisfaction from those things. You know what really gives you satisfaction?” What? “Offering others what you have to give.” You sound like a Boy Scout. “I don’t mean money, Mitch. I mean your time. Your concern. Your storytelling. It’s not so hard. There’s a senior center that opened near here. Dozens of elderly people come there every day. If you’re a young man or young woman and you have a skill, you are asked to come and teach it. Say you know computers. You come there and teach them computers. You are very welcome there. And they are very grateful. This is how you start to get respect, by offering something that you have. “There are plenty of places to do this. You don’t need to have a big talent. There are lonely people in hospitals and shelters who only want some companionship. You play cards with a lonely older man and you find new respect for yourself, because you are needed. “Remember what I said about finding a meaningful life? I wrote it down, but now I can recite it: Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.

a Chinese poem says: Entering the forest, he does not disturb a blade of grass; Entering the water, he does not cause a ripple. For the image represents a number of qualities which are, in fact, aspects of the same thing. It represents the sage’s freedom and detachment of mind, a skylike consciousness in which experience moves without leaving any stain. As another poem says: The bamboo shadows sweep the stairs, But stir no dust. Yet, paradoxically, this detachment from is also a harmony with, for the man who goes into the forest without disturbing a blade of grass is a man in no conflict with nature. Like the Native American scouts, he walks without a single twig cracking beneath his feet. Like the Japanese architects, he builds a house which seems to be a part of its natural surroundings. The image also represents the fact that the way of the sage cannot be traced and followed, since no authentic wisdom can be imitated. Each man must find it for himself, because there is really no way of putting it into words, of reaching it by any specific methods or directions. But there is actually the most intimate connection between these two apparently separate uses of the metaphor—the way of the sage, on the one hand, and the impermanence of life, on the other. And the connection reveals the one deepest and most central principle of those Asian philosophies which so puzzle the Western mind by identifying the highest wisdom with what, to us, seems the doctrine of abject despair. Indeed, the word despair in a particular sense is the proper translation of the Hindu–Buddhist term nirvana—to “de-spirate,” to breathe out, to give up the ghost. We cannot understand how the Asians manage to equate this despair with ultimate bliss—unless, as we are prone to suppose, they are after all a depraved and spineless people, long accustomed to fatalism and resignation.

A new wife is not a matter. She is my family. Their Graces have had thirty years to spend holidays with us, and this my first—” Westhaven sighed, took a sip of punch, and glanced over at Val. “It doesn’t get easier the longer you’re married. You still fret, more in fact, once the babies start coming.” Val’s head cocked, as if he’d just recalled his brother was also his friend. “Well, as to that…” Val smiled at his punch. Baby Brother sported a devastating smile when he wanted to, but this expression was… St. Just lifted his mug. “Congratulations, then. How’s Ellen faring?” “She’s in fine spirits, in glowing good health, and I’m a wreck. I think she sent me off to Peterborough with something like relief in her eye.” Westhaven was staring morosely at his grog. “Anna isn’t subtle about it anymore. She tells me to get on my horse and not come back until I’ve worked the fidgets out of us both. She’s quite glad to see me when I return, though. Quite glad.” For Westhaven, that was the equivalent of singing a bawdy song in the common. St. Just propped his mug on his stomach. “Emmie says I’m an old campaigner, and I get twitchy if I’m confined to headquarters too long. Winnie says I need to go on scouting patrol. The reunions are nice, though. You’re right about that.” Val took a considering sip of his drink then speared St. Just with a look. “I wouldn’t know about those reunions, but I intend to find out soon. Dev, you are the only one of us experienced at managing a marching army, and I’m not in any fit condition to be making decisions, or I’d be on my way back to Oxfordshire right now.” “Wouldn’t advise that,” Westhaven said, still looking glum. “Your wife will welcome you sweetly into her home and her bed, but you’ll know you didn’t quite follow orders—our wives are in sympathy with Her Grace—and they have their ways of expressing their…” Both brothers chimed in, “Disappointment.

I gesture with the jacket. “Do you want me to leave this somewhere?” I only ask it because it’s polite. I don’t want him to say yes. I don’t know what exactly it is I want him to say, only for it to be something that gives me an excuse to stay here watching him for a few more minutes. Admitting this to myself is a sharp blow to my pride, as, with the exception of my six-year-old self’s desire to marry Dr. Halsal, I’d always thought I was above being fascinated by anyone but myself. On the other side of the stall door, Sean looks up and down the aisle, as if he’s scouting for a place for me to hang the jacket, but then he frowns at me as if that wasn’t what he was looking for at all. “I’m nearly done. Can you wait?” I try not to stare at where his hand rests on the red stallion’s neck. It’s a warning, the way his fingers lean into his skin, telling Corr to keep his distance, but it’s a comfort as well, the way that I would touch Dove to remind her just that I’m there. The difference, though, is that Corr killed a man yesterday morning. I say, “I suppose I have one minute or two to put together.” Sean does the sweep of his eyes that he does, the one that goes from my head to my toes and back again and makes me feel that he’s scanning the depths of my soul and teasing out my motivations and sins. It’s worse than confession with Father Mooneyham. At the end of it, he says, “If you help, this will go faster.” There is a little narrowing to his eyes at the end of it that makes me understand that this is a test. Whether or not I’m brave enough to go into the stall with Corr after yesterday morning, after I’ve had time to think about what happened. The thought of it makes my pulse trip. The question is not if I trust Corr. The question is if I trust Sean. “What would helping look like?” I answer, and Sean’s face clears like a fair day over Skarmouth. He spits on his fingers again and pushes Corr toward the back wall of the stall to give me room to open the door. I stand inside the stall.

Among the white scouts were numbered some of the most noted of their class. The most prominent man among them was "Wild Bill". Wild bill was a strange character, just the one which a novelist might gloat over. Whether on foot or on horseback, he was one of the most perfect types of physical manhood I ever saw. Of his courage there could be no question; it had been brought to the test on too many occasions to admit a doubt. His skill in the use of the rifle and pistol was unerring; while his deportment was exactly the opposite of what might be expected from a man of his surroundings. It was entirely free of bluster or bravado. He seldom spoke of himself unless requested to do so. His conversation, strange to say, never bordered either on the vulgar or blasphemous. His influence among the frontiersmen was unbounded, his word was law; and many are the personal quarrels and disturbances which he has checked among his comrades by his simple announcement that "this has gone far enough" if need be followed by the ominous warning that when persisted in or renewed the quarreler "must settle it with me". Wild Bill is anything but a quarrelsome man; yet no one but himself can enumerate the many conflicts in which he has been engaged, and which have almost invariably resulted in the death of his adversary. I have personal knowledge of at least half a dozen men whom he has at various times killed, one of these being at the time a member of my command. Wild Bill always carried two handsome ivory-handled revolvers of the large size; he was never seen without them. Where this is the common custom, brawls or personal difficulties are seldom if ever settled by blows. The quarrel is not from word to blow, but from a word to revolver, and he who can draw and fire first is the best man. An item which has been floating lately through the columns of the press states that, "the funeral of 'Jim Bludso,' who was killed the other day by 'Wild Bill' took place today" and then adds: "The funeral expenses were borne by 'Wild Bill'" What could be more thoughtful than this? Not only to send a fellow mortal out of the world, but to pay the expenses of the transit.

We’re talking now of late August evenings in Minnesota. That world consists of the din of lawn mower blades turning in raucous slicing circles like buzzards over prey, the throb of a racing boat’s outboard motor on the Lake. Garden hoses run with cool water and wash over the last flowers of the year before the autumn turns all the green to brown. In the afternoons, children run through sprinklers on the lawn and men burn piles of last autumn’s leaves. Mothers prepare suppers and read novels under the shade of summer hats, carefully watching over their children from afar. All is safe and good in the summer. But Thom Algonquin can no longer hear the lawn mowers humming, boat motors churning, the hoses splashing or the children playing. He doesn’t smell the leaves burning or help his mother prepare supper. Thom Algonquin is seven years old and he has walked too far into the woods near his home on Lake Superior. He hears nothing save the sound of sunlight and trees, birds, and his own feet pattering along atop the underbrush. He is not so sure he can hear these things exactly though. It has now become clear to him that he has gone too far, too deep into the old woods. He is accustomed to going a little farther than his mother allowed, but he has walked miles past that line now. Though his heart races he does not scream or run or cry. He looks around for home but each direction is identical to the others. He remembers his Cub Scout manual saying that moss grows on the northern side of tree trunks because there is less sunlight. But the aspen trees have no moss on them at all, and the big white oaks have moss on every side of their trunks. He holds his breath and listens. He hears his heart beat, and somewhere behind that, he hears water, waves and lapping tides. The Lake. He can always find home from the Lake. His father told him to simply keep the water on his left hand and walk until he is home, should he ever get lost. Thom moves toward the sound of water. He walks quickly but doesn’t run, doesn’t panic. If he runs he will know that something is wrong and that he is scared. He does not want to know these things, does not want them to become real, so he walks quickly but calmly.

For several seconds, we stand there staring each other down. Anger radiates off the both of us in waves, crackling like electricity. And then…he sort of staggers back. All his swagger, his bravado, crumbles away in a split second, just like that. “Why do we keep doing this? Yelling at each other like this?” I let out my breath in a huff. “Because you always piss me off, that’s why, acting all smug and superior.” “Yeah, and you always throw temper tantrums like some kind of spoiled brat. That’s just who we are. We’re not perfect.” He takes a deep, rattling breath. “But we’re good together, Jem.” He’s right. I know he is, but… “You say you love me, but you can’t even be bothered to tell me that you’re applying to a school in the same city as me? Not until the cat’s out the bag and everyone knows? What am I supposed to think, Ryder?” He rakes a hand through his hair. “Don’t you get it? I want you to follow your dreams. To do what you want to do with your life--not what your parents want, or what Nan wants, or what I want. I didn’t want to take that away from you. If you knew I was thinking about going to Columbia…” He shakes his head. “Then what? I’m having a hard time following your logic here.” He sighs, his enormous shoulders seeming to sag. “I didn’t want you to apply just because I’m going to be in New York. Or hell, even worse, not apply because I’m going to be there. I was going to tell you in person. And then the scout shows up at the game tonight, and what was I supposed to do? My mom is freaking out; you’re freaking out.” He throws his hands in the air in frustration. “I’ve totally fucked this up.” It hits me then, the truth of the situation. He made his decision about Columbia on his own, and he wanted me to be able to do the same. Of course. Hell, if it hadn’t been for the storm bringing us together like it did, I probably would have turned down NYU rather than risk going off to New York with him, and that’s the truth. I drop my gaze to the ground and take a deep breath, cursing myself for being such an idiot. “No, you haven’t,” I say at last, raising my eyes to meet his confused ones. “Haven’t what?” “Fucked it up.” I take a tentative step toward him. “I get it now. God, Ryder. Why do you have to be so perfect?” “Perfect? I’ve been in love with you for so long now, and I’ve never managed to get it right, not once.” I have to bite my lip to keep from grinning. “News flash--I think you’ve finally got it this time.

In the year after Chris died, a friend organized a trip for the kids and me to use the time-share at Disney World in Florida. I felt exceptionally lonely the night we arrived in our rental car, exhausted from our flight. Getting our suitcases out, I mentioned something along the lines of “I wish we had Dad here.” “Me, too,” said both of the kids. “But he’s still with us,” I told them, forcing myself to sound as optimistic as possible. “He’s always here.” It’s one thing to say that and another to feel it, and as we walked toward the building I didn’t feel that way at all. We went upstairs--our apartment was on the second floor--and went to the door. A tiny frog was sitting on the door handle. A frog, really? Talk about strange. Anyone who knows the history of the SEALs will realize they trace their history to World War II combat divers: “frogmen” specially trained to infiltrate and scout enemy beaches before invasions (among other duties). They’re very proud of that heritage, and they still occasionally refer to themselves as frogmen or frogs. SEALs often feature frogs in various tattoos and other art related to the brotherhood. As a matter of fact, Chris had a frog skeleton tattoo as a tribute to fallen SEALs. (The term frogman is thought to derive from the gear the combat divers wore, as well as their ability to work both on land and at sea.) But for some reason, I didn’t make the connection. I was just consumed by the weirdness--who finds a frog, even a tiny one, on a door handle? The kids gathered round. Call me squeamish, but I didn’t want to touch it. “Get it off, Bubba!” I said. “No way.” We hunted around and found a little tree branch on the grounds. I held it up to the doorknob, hoping it would hop on. It was reluctant at first, but finally it toddled over to the outside of the door jam. I left it to do whatever frogs do in the middle of the night. Inside the apartment, we got settled. I took out my cell phone and called my mom to say we’d arrived safely. “There was one strange thing,” I told her. “There was a frog on the door handle when we arrived.” “A…frog?” “Yes, it’s like a jungle down here, so hot and humid.” “A frog?” “Yeah.” “And you don’t think there’s anything interesting about that?” “Oh my God,” I said, suddenly realizing the connection. I know, I know: just a bizarre coincidence. Probably. I did sleep really well that night. The next morning I woke up before the kids and went into the living room. I could have sworn Chris was sitting on the couch waiting for me when I came out. I can’t keep seeing you everywhere. Maybe I’m crazy. I’m sorry. It’s too painful. I went and made myself a cup of coffee. I didn’t see him anymore that week.

British / Pakistani ISIS suspect, Zakaria Saqib Mahmood, is arrested in Bangladesh on suspicion of recruiting jihadists to fight in Syria • Local police named arrested Briton as Zakaria Saqib Mahmood, also known as Zak, living in 70 Eversleigh Road, Westham, E6 1HQ London • They suspect him of recruiting militants for ISIS in two Bangladeshi cities • He arrived in the country in February, having previously spent time in Syria and Pakistan • Suspected militant recruiter also recently visited Australia A forty year old Muslim British man has been arrested in Bangladesh on suspicion of recruiting would-be jihadists to fight for Islamic State terrorists in Syria and Iraq. The man, who police named as Zakaria Saqib Mahmood born 24th August 1977, also known as Zak, is understood to be of Pakistani origin and was arrested near the Kamalapur Railway area of the capital city Dhaka. He is also suspected of having attempted to recruit militants in the northern city of Sylhet - where he is understood to have friends he knows from living in Newham, London - having reportedly first arrived in the country about six months ago to scout for potential extremists. Militants: The British Pakistani man (sitting on the left) named as Zakaria Saqib Mahmood was arrested in Bangladesh. The arrested man has been identified as Zakaria Saqib Mahmood, sources at the media wing of Dhaka Metropolitan Police told local newspapers. He is believed to have arrived in Bangladesh in February and used social media websites including Facebook to sound out local men about their interest in joining ISIS, according Monirul Islam - joint commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police - who was speaking at a press briefing today. Zakaria has openly shared Islamist extremist materials on his Facebook and other social media links. An example of Zakaria Saqib Mahmood sharing Islamist materials on his Facebook profile He targeted Muslims from Pakistan as well as Bangladesh, Mr Islam added, before saying: 'He also went to Australia but we are yet to know the reason behind his trips'. Zakaria saqib Mahmood trip to Australia in order to recruit for militant extremist groups 'From his passport we came to know that he went to Pakistan where we believe he met a Jihadist named Rauf Salman, in addition to Australia during September last year to meet some of his links he recruited in London, mainly from his weekly charity food stand in East London, ' the DMP spokesperson went on to say. Police believes Zakaria Mahmood has met Jihadist member Rauf Salman in Pakistan Zakaria Saqib Mahmood was identified by the local police in Pakistan in the last September. The number of extremists he has met in this trip remains unknown yet. Zakaria Saqib Mahmood uses charity food stand as a cover to radicalise local people in Newham, London. Investigators: Dhaka Metropolitan Police believe Zakaria Saqib Mhamood arrived in Bangladesh in February and used social media websites including Facebook to sound out local men about their interest in joining ISIS The news comes just days after a 40-year-old East London bogus college owner called Sinclair Adamson - who also had links to the northern city of Sylhet - was arrested in Dhaka on suspicion of recruiting would-be fighters for ISIS. Zakaria Saqib Mahmood, who has studied at CASS Business School, was arrested in Dhaka on Thursday after being reported for recruiting militants. Just one day before Zakaria Mahmood's arrest, local police detained Asif Adnan, 26, and Fazle ElahiTanzil, 24, who were allegedly travelling to join ISIS militants in Syria, assisted by an unnamed Briton. It is understood the suspected would-be jihadists were planning to travel to a Turkish airport popular with tourists, before travelling by road to the Syrian border and then slipping across into the warzone.

You say you are conservative—eminently conservative—while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by ‘our fathers who framed the Government under which we live’; while you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substituting something new.

Do you know what they teach you in Boy Scouts?” I shake my head. “Neither do I,” he says. “I was kicked out after the second day for lighting shit on fire.

Sound. No matter how great a movie looks, if the audience can’t understand what the actors are saying, they’ll get frustrated and lose interest quickly. I know when I see a low-budget movie and the sound is crummy, I shut it off. The less money you have, the less you’ll probably budget for postproduction sound, so what you get during the shoot becomes even more important. Don’t scrimp here. If your production sound is good enough, you won’t need a lot of ADR (additional dialogue recording), which most of the time you need because there’s a flaw in the production sound, or an airplane was overhead and you couldn’t get a clean take. Your sound person should scout your locations. If you’re going to be shooting on a weekday and you visit on a weekend, make sure that there isn’t a noisy garage next door that’s only open Monday to Friday. Sometimes you do ADR because you want to change the performance. That’s fine, but I can usually tell when an actor has been looped, and I hate it, and so do many directors. Some actors are hopelessly bad at it—they’re never able to dub themselves in a convincing way. The best reason to use ADR is when you want to fill in a scene where lots of people are talking at once.

In the attack on the Jewish community center in Los Angeles that left 5 people wounded, the killer had “scouted three prominent Jewish institutions in Los Angeles as he looked for places to kill Jews, but found security too tight. He then stumbled on the lesser-known North Valley Jewish Community Center in suburban Granada Hills, they say.”17   [His killer] also has admitted stalking [Yitzhak] Rabin on two previous occasions.... [The killer] tried again in September at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new highway interchange, but found security was too tight.18 Each of these brief stories represents a different case where very determined and motivated criminals altered their plans because of increased security.

I simply am going to look you in the eye and say that if the United States hopes to remain a major player among nations, facing challenges such as poverty, inadequate education, and global market competition, we’re going to need to draw deeply from our entire talent pool, not just half of it.

Did you know he named his pistols?” she asked. He felt his jaw begin to tick and immediately forced himself to relax. “I think I’ve read that before.” “Well, I just read it recently. As if having a boy pistol and a girl pistol wasn’t bad enough, he goes and names them. Odysseus and Penelope.” She laughed. A full-throated, from-the-belly laugh. “But what can you expect from somebody named Lucious?” Over his four years as a Ranger, he’d traveled seventy-four thousand miles, made two hundred scouts, and one hundred eighty-two arrests. He’d endured cold, hunger, and fatigue without a murmur. He’d been said to have the eyes of a fox, the ears of a wolf, and the ability to follow scent like a hound. Yet this tiny bit of fluff could throw him off-kilter like no other. He counted to ten. “What’s wrong with the name Lucious?” She looked at him, incredulous. “What’s wrong with Lucious? It’s . . . it’s . . . I don’t know . . . silly, don’t you think? Sounds like luscious.” He was named after his father. The father whose life had been senselessly snuffed out by Mother Nature. Carrying his dad’s name was a great privilege and a source of pride for Luke. How dare she make fun of it. Anger simmering, he twisted the wires together and forced himself to respond as if he had nothing personal at stake. “Don’t guess I ever thought about it. Can’t say the name’s ever bothered me, though.” “That’s probably because it isn’t yours. I’m sure if it were, you’d think differently.” “Maybe so.” Picking up a cloth on the switchboard, he wiped his hands. “Did you get a look at this Lucious fellow?” “I did.” He raised a brow. “And was he luscious?” “Ha!” Folding the paper, she tossed it on the desk. “Hardly. If anybody was luscious, it was Frank Comer.

Parks scratches his neck. “Really? Even when she told me not to say?” She holds his gaze. “You let her go out there on her own. I already know damn well that you don’t see a risk to Melanie as worth taking into account. But I do. And I want to know why you thought it was okay to send her out there.” “You’re wrong,” Parks says. “Am I? About what?” “About me.” He plants his butt against the opened cowling of the generator, folds his arms. “Okay, not that wrong. A couple of days ago, I said we should cut the kid loose. She pulled our irons out of the fire twice since then, and on top of that she’s turned into a really good scout. I’d be sorry to lose her.” Justineau

So life seemed to be slipping back into the ordinary rhythm of Dexter’s Dull Days, hour plodding calmly into boring hour with no threat of any kind, no variation in routine, no sign of change at all, at work or at home. Nothing but more of the same. I knew it was coming, but every day that it did not come seemed to make it less likely that it would come at all. Very stupid, I know, but it was—dare I say it?—entirely human of me. No one can stay on high alert around the clock, endlessly, day after day. Not even the Ever-vigilant Dark Scout, Dexter. Not when ordinary synthetic reality was so seductive. And

IN HONOR OF HARPER LEE, WHOSE NOVEL PLAYS A SIGNIFICANT PART IN "FINDING GRACE" I SHARE THESE LINES: Violet and I met at our fort at one o’clock. On our way over to Maryann’s we talked about the book, which Vi called T-KAM for short. I wasn’t sure how to ask, but I had to know. “Hey…what’d you think about the part where Scout asks Atticus if he’s a…um…you know, a…ni–Negro-lover?” Vi gave me a sideways glance. “You can say it. I know you don’t mean any harm. Scout asked him if he was a nigger-lover, but she’s just a confused kid. I really liked that he told her he was one.” “That part shocked me.” “Yeah, and the next time someone yells nigger-lover at my family I’m going to be like Atticus Finch and tell them that I’m trying to love everybody.” Violet grabbed my hand. “But you know what’s crazy?” Her eyes narrowed, bridged together by two hard lines. Her mouth shifted into a frown so fast that I braced myself. “What?” “When people say that, I never know if I’m the nigger or the nigger-lover.

It’s not true what they say about time, that it heals. The passage of time only blunts your grief so it doesn’t stab you anymore. It just hacks at you with a rusty Boy Scout hatchet.

If Audrey sensed what he was contemplating, her silence did not let on. He turned from the window and found her looking at him with a flawless poker face. It may have been attentiveness and curiosity to hear what he would say next, or perhaps she was expecting from him what women throughout the ages, often against their better judgment, had expected of men.

We waited what seemed like forever in the emergency room, but I was eventually admitted. The news was not good. X-rays showed a break; plus, I’d torn all three ligaments. It couldn’t have been any worse. The doctor said I would be in a cast for at least three months, and after that I would need physical therapy to get my strength back. He wanted to do surgery, but Dad always says, “The last thing you ever want ‘em to do is cut on you,” so we turned down the surgery. The doctor warned me that I might not be able to walk right again, but I decided to take my chances and try to heal on my own. I was discharged with painkillers, crutches, and a cast and hobbled to the car. As I rested over the next few days, reality began to set in. If I couldn’t jump or run or maybe not even walk, I wouldn’t be able to practice basketball. If I couldn’t practice, I wasn’t going to be able to play on the team my junior or senior years. If I couldn’t play basketball, I wasn’t going to get scouted by colleges, and I wasn’t going to earn a scholarship. My basketball career was over. Maybe it had all been a pipe dream, but it had been on my heart for so many years. In a split second, my life changed completely. My basketball dreams were crushed. I no longer had anything to work for. No more practices, scrimmages, or games. No more drills at home or three-point-shot marathons until dark. My freak accident not only destroyed my ankle, it destroyed my identity and everything for which I lived and breathed. I was going to have to reinvent myself. And that’s when everything started to go bad.

I told Benny that I had plans to go to Belarus and Lithuania t see the places where our European relatives had lived and died. Halfway through the week, Benny decided to join me on what he called the 'roots trip,' and by the end of the week Shimon and his oldest son, Amir, and Benny's son Rotem had signed on too. I enlisted my daughter Emily, who speaks Russian. In the middle of May 2011, the six of us met at a small wooden inn deep in the lush green Belarusian countryside. Together we visited Rakov and Volozhin; we walked through the crumbling hall of the Volozhin yeshiva, which has survived two world wars and the death of its students and teachers; we scouted out the street near Rakov's brick Catholic church where Sonia, Doba, and Etl grew up. We traveled to Vilna - now Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania - and searched out the two apartment buildings where Doba and Shepseleh lived and raised their sons. We drove out to Ponar to say kaddish at the cratered pit where Shepseleh and tens of thousands of Lithuanian Jews lay buried. We walked to a hillside at the edge of Volozhin and said kaddish over the pit where Chaim's brother Yishayahu may have been shot. We said kaddish in the small grassy clearing where the Rakov synagogue burned with Etl and her children inside.

connection. In April 1855 my great-granduncle Alexander Carter Jr. and his younger brother, Thomas Marion Carter, left their home in Scioto County, Ohio, and headed west. Starting by steamboat, the two brothers floated down the Ohio River until it joined the Mississippi and then traveled upstream to St. Louis. In St. Louis they found little transportation west, so they walked, hitched rides, and rode horseback to reach St. Joseph, Missouri. There they caught a stagecoach to Council Bluffs, Iowa, riding on top of the stage, with seventeen men and women-a three-day ordeal. On May 14, nineteen days after leaving St. Louis, the brothers crossed the Missouri River and landed on the town site of Omaha, then a community of cotton tents and shanties, where lots were being offered to anyone willing to build on them. They refused this offer and pressed on to their final destination, DeSoto, Washington County, Nebraska Territory, where they found only one completed log house and another under construction. There they homesteaded the town of Blair, Nebraska. For three generations there were Carters in Nebraska, first in Blair and then in Omaha, where I was bom. As a native Nebraskan, I feel a particular affinity for William F. Cody, who lived most of his adult life in Nebraska. My father, George W. Carter, could have seen Buffalo Bill's Wild West when it came to Omaha in August 1908. I wish I had known the old scout personally; I am glad I have come to know him better while writing this book. It is also my fond hope that readers will feel as I do, that Buffalo Bill Cody is well worth knowing. Writing a biography of someone long dead is always a challenge. You must come to understand the person, the motivations, the key events that altered the course of history. And there are the records, the letters, the reminiscences of contemporaries. In Bill. Cody's case the documentation is plentiful but sometimes contradictory. Did Buffalo Bill kill Yellow Hand-the "first scalp for Custer"-for example? There are those who say he did and detractors who say he did not. Who are. we . to ' believe? For the most part, if I found two or three accounts that agreed with each other, particularly if there were official government .records supporting him, I felt sure I could give the credit to Cody.

gentlemen who were desirous of going with us, we all started westward, and after a pleasant trip arrived at Fort McPherson." Before he arrived at Fort McPherson, Cody was interviewed by the local press. Cody allowed, surely with tongue in cheek, that We have played New York until we forced Edwin Booth to go West. He said it would not do for him to try to buck against us, and he was right. I propose to [be] ... playing Shakespeare right through, from beginning to end, with Ned Buntline and Texas Jack to support me. I shall do Hamlet in a buckskin suit and when my father's ghost appears "doomed for a certain time," &c., I shall say to Jack, "Rope the cuss in, Jack!!" and unless the lasso breaks, the ghost will have to come. As Richard the Third I shall fight with pistols and hunting knives. In "Romeo and Juliet" I will put a half-breed squaw on the balcony, and make various interpretations of Shakespeare's words to suit myself. Shakespeare has had to endure many indignities over the years: bowdlerizations, bizarre directorial concepts, and costume choices of all kinds, but theatergoers, fortunately, were spared Hamlet in buckskin or the balcony scene in a Western saloon. On the other hand, it is possible that Cody, with his genius for showmanship, might have won over a whole new audience to the plays. During the run of The Scouts of the Prairie, Cody had not only overcome his initial stage fright but had developed enough self-confidence to feel comfortable onstage. Moreover, he knew that audiences responded favorably to him. Although he still did not consider himself an actor, he had begun to wear the more becoming mantle of "showman." Ned Buntline had all kinds

On the surface, nothing about Bryant’s move felt logical. He was a B student with a 1080 SAT score. He was being recruited by everyone, with Duke considered the most probable landing spot. He had yet to work out for a single NBA scout, many of whom had never actually heard of him. “He’s kidding himself,” Marty Blake, the NBA’s scouting director, told the Los Angeles Times. “Sure he’d like to come out. I’d like to be a movie star. He’s not ready.” “You watch Kobe Bryant and you don’t see special,” said Rob Babcock, Minnesota’s director of player personnel. “His game doesn’t say, ‘I’m a very special talent.’ ” “I think it’s a total mistake,” said Jon Jennings, the Boston Celtics’ director of basketball development. “Kevin Garnett was the best high school player I ever saw, and I wouldn’t have advised him to jump. And Kobe is no Kevin Garnett.

On the way to scouting out this building, I was handed a pamphlet in the street which argues that only when each individual human being holds a unique set of beliefs–for example, only one person in the whole world is a French-speaking Alawite Muslim who believes the Flemings were justified in the Route des Larmes but the Poles were right to say the Saxons deliberately starved them in the potato famine and the English were justified in killing Colquhoun’s band in 1834… you get the idea… only then will the mission of Diversitarianism be truly complete and Societism will be completely destroyed.

No one asked you, boy,” Gawain said. “Get back with the other soldiers.”   Clark flinched, his shoulders climbing to his ears and his face falling. His gaze darted to Fallon and away as he took the dressing down.   “I asked him here,” Shea said, staring Gawain down.   He snorted but didn’t say anything, Fallon’s presence keeping him from voicing his opinion.   “I’ll just go, Shea. It’s alright. I should probably report back to see if they need any scouts.” Clark didn’t wait for a reply, turning his horse and sending it galloping back to the line.   She watched him go before taking a deep breath. She turned back around. Eamon and Buck watched her for a moment before giving the Rain Clan’s elder hard glances. He didn’t pay them any attention, probably deciding they were no worthier of being here, than Clark had been.   “You do the boy no favors by making him think he can break the chain of command,” Gawain said, his tone patronizing. “You won’t always be there to protect him.”   Shea’s hands tightened on the reins of her mount. It took considerable effort to bite back the words that wanted to escape her. Only the knowledge that Fallon might have need of this man kept her from the scathing retort she had forming.   In a coordinated movement, made all the more comical for it, Buck and Eamon stuck their tongues out and rolled their eyes before assuming their normal stone-faced expressions—the ones they wore around Trateri expedition leaders whom they found obnoxious.   Shea smothered the brief giggle the sight caused her. She schooled her face and gave them a nod of gratitude. She looked up and blinked, as she found herself pinned under the enigmatic gaze of Fallon. His eyes flicked to her two friends then back to her.   She held her breath, sensing a chastisement coming. He lowered one eyelid in an exaggerated wink before sticking just the tip of his tongue out and wrinkling his nose. This time she didn’t quite contain her laugh.   Fallon’s face was cool and implacable as Shea lost the battle and her chortles rolled out. The rest of the party besides Fallon, Eamon and Buck eyed her with concern, not seeing what she found so funny.   “If the Telroi could compose herself, perhaps we could get back to the business at hand,” Braden said.   “My name is Shea. I suggest you remember it.