Semi Finals Quotes

I dreamed I saw my maternal grandmother sitting by the bank of a swimming pool, that was also a river. In real life, she had been a victim of Alzheimer’s disease, and had regressed, before her death, to a semi-conscious state. In the dream, as well, she had lost her capacity for self-control. Her genital region was exposed, dimly; it had the appearance of a thick mat of hair. She was stroking herself, absent-mindedly. She walked over to me, with a handful of pubic hair, compacted into something resembling a large artist’s paint-brush. She pushed this at my face. I raised my arm, several times, to deflect her hand; finally, unwilling to hurt her, or interfere with her any farther, I let her have her way. She stroked my face with the brush, gently, and said, like a child, “isn’t it soft?” I looked at her ruined face and said, “yes, Grandma, it’s soft.

It was only when they'd rounded the corner toward the Penguin that we finally sat up, Laughing semi-hysterically. "Oh my God, did you see her face?" Becca asked between guffaws. "'There's something in my hair!'" "That was fantastic, Crazytop," Jason said, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. "Best master plan yet.

They might have beaten us at our national sport, but we managed to beat them at their national sport twice in the 20th century. [Replying to Kenneth Clarke, who said, "Isn't it terrible about losing to the Germans at our national sport?" when England lost to Germany in the 1990 FIFA World Cup Semi-final.]

I'm not a fool, I knew from the beginning what couldn't happen. What couldn't happen didn't. The enterprise is abandoned. But half our life is dreams, delirium, everything that underlies that feeds that keeps alive the illusion of sanity, semi- sanity, we allow others to see. The half of me that feeds the rest is in mourning. Mourns. Each time we must mourn, we fear this is the final mourning, this time mourning never will lift.

We sat perfectly still in the dim light as the wolf approached closer, head cocked, mouth closed, and ears semi-erect. With these signs of both curiosity and trepidation, it took a step forward and then backed off a ways, then took a few steps forward again. It lifted its nose and sniffed intently, and finally stopped at about eight feet away. For a moment all three of us were perfectly still, wondering what was going to happen next.

Habits, he noted, are what allow us to “do a thing with difficulty the first time, but soon do it more and more easily, and finally, with sufficient practice, do it semi-mechanically, or with hardly any consciousness at all.” Once we choose who we want to be, people grow “to the way in which they have been exercised, just as a sheet of paper or a coat, once creased or folded, tends to fall forever afterward into the same identical folds.

It is amazing that the refugees stay sane. First the bombs, perhaps the "battle" around them, their casualties, their naked helplessness; then the flight, leaving behind everything they have worked for all their lives; then the semi-starvation and ugly hardship of the camps or the slums; and as a final cruelty, the killing diseases which only strike at them.

I've kind of been crushing on this girl. Up until now, I've been semi-content just saying "Hi" from time-to-time but now I really want to call her up and ask her out. I guess that means I've finally fallen for her all the way, doesn't it?

Why has pachinko swept Japan? It can hardly be the excitement of gambling, since the risks and rewards are so small. During the hours spent in front of a pachinko machine, there is an almost total lack of stimulation other than the occasional rush of ball bearings. There is no thought, no movement; you have no control over the flow of balls, apart from holding a little lever which shoots them up to the top of the machine; you sit there enveloped in a cloud of heavy cigarette smoke, semi-dazed by the racket of millions of ball bearings falling through machines around you. Pachinko verges on sensory deprivation. It is the ultimate mental numbing, the final victory of the educational system." - Lost Japan, Eng. vers., 1996

On occasion Jobs would use the semi-abandoned Woodside home, especially its swimming pool, for family parties. When Bill Clinton was president, he and Hillary Clinton stayed in the 1950s ranch house on the property on their visits to their daughter, who was at Stanford. Since both the main house and ranch house were unfurnished, Powell would call furniture and art dealers when the Clintons were coming and pay them to furnish the houses temporarily. Once, shortly after the Monica Lewinsky flurry broke, Powell was making a final inspection of the furnishings and noticed that one of the paintings was missing. Worried, she asked the advance team and Secret Service what had happened. One of them pulled her aside and explained that it was a painting of a dress on a hanger, and given the issue of the blue dress in the Lewinsky matter they had decided to hide it. (During one of his late-night phone conversations with Jobs, Clinton asked how he should handle the Lewinsky issue. “I don’t know if you did it, but if so, you’ve got to tell the country,” Jobs told the president. There was silence on the other end of the line.)

Later, he would famously write that the will to believe is the most important ingredient in creating belief in change. And that one of the most important methods for creating that belief was habits. Habits, he noted, are what allow us to “do a thing with difficulty the first time, but soon do it more and more easily, and finally, with sufficient practice, do it semi-mechanically, or with hardly any consciousness at all.” Once we choose who we want to be, people grow “to the way in which they have been exercised, just as a sheet of paper or a coat, once creased or folded, tends to fall forever afterward into the same identical folds.

I believe that we are subject to the law of habit in consequence of the fact that we have bodies. The plasticity of the living matter of our nervous system, in short, is the reason why we do a thing with difficulty the first time, but soon do it more and more easily, and finally, with sufficient practice, do it semi-mechanically, or with hardly any consciousness at all. Our nervous systems have (in Dr. Carpenter's words) grown to the way in which they have been exercised, just as a sheet of paper or a coat, once creased or folded, tends to fall forever afterward into the same identical folds.

I still get plenty anxious. The weird thing, and the unpleasant surprise for me, of proceeding well into the middle, perhaps even post-prime of my career is that writing books has not got any easier. And that doesn't seem fair. I mean, I've been doing it so surely I should be getting better at it, at least a little bit blasé... And it seems to be working absolutely the opposite. This book [Big Brother] I had no confidence in the entirety of its composition, and I only decided I liked it when I finished the very final draft. This means I'm in a state of semi-misery for a long time. And I can't blithely seem either that's some little game I'm playing with myself because, you know, you can easily come along and you don't like what's you're writing for good reason. Right? So, yeah, it's very anxious making, I don't think it's so much the becoming a little more successful, I think it's becoming slightly more aware of how much has already been written, and just becoming less self-impressed as the years go by. More impressed with some people who are better than I am, but... It doesn't wow me that I can write a sentence any more. It has to be a really good sentence. And... I think that's what potentially leads to paralysis in late career, is a kind of killing humility. Politics & Prose Bookstore in Washington, DC, on June 11, 2013

The revulsion of feeling that Barrington experienced during the progress of the election was intensified by the final result. The blind, stupid, enthusiastic admiration displayed by the philanthropists for those who exploited and robbed them; their extraordinary apathy with regard to their own interests; the patient, broken-spirited way in which they endured their sufferings, tamely submitting to live in poverty in the midst of the wealth they had helped to create; their callous indifference to the fate of their children, and the savage hatred they exhibited towards anyone who dared to suggest the possibility of better things, forced upon him the thought that the hopes he cherished were impossible of realization. The words of the renegade Socialist recurred constantly to his mind: 'You can be a Jesus Christ if you like, but for my part I'm finished. For the future I intend to look after myself. As for these people, they vote for what they want, they get what they vote for, and, by God! they deserve nothing better! They are being beaten with whips of their own choosing, and if I had my way they should be chastised with scorpions. For them, the present system means joyless drudgery, semi-starvation, rags and premature death; and they vote for it and uphold it. Let them have what they vote for! Let them drudge and let them starve!

electrical wires dragged down by the weight of the ice and flickering balefully, a row of sleet-covered planes stranded in an airport, a huge truck that’s jackknifed and tipped over and is lying on its side with smoke coming out. An ambulance is on the scene, a fire truck, a huddle of raingear-clad operatives: someone’s been injured, always a sight to make the heart beat faster. A policeman appears, crystals of ice whitening his moustache; he pleads sternly with people to stay inside. It’s no joke, he tells the viewers. Don’t think you can brave the elements! His frowning, frosted eyebrows are noble, like those on the wartime bond-drive posters from the 1940s. Constance remembers those, or believes she does. But she may just be remembering history books or museum displays or documentary films: so hard, sometimes, to tag those memories accurately. Finally, a minor touch of pathos: a stray dog is displayed, semi-frozen, wrapped in a child’s pink nap blanket. A gelid baby

She stared at him, at his face. Simply stared as the scales fell from her eyes. "Oh, my God," she whispered, the exclamation so quiet not even he would hear. She suddenly saw-saw it all-all that she'd simply taken for granted. Men like him protected those they loved, selflessly, unswervingly, even unto death. The realization rocked her. Pieces of the jigsaw of her understanding of him fell into place. He was hanging to consciousness by a thread. She had to be sure-and his shields, his defenses were at their weakest now. Looking down at her hands, pressed over the nearly saturated pad, she hunted for the words, the right tone. Softly said, "My death, even my serious injury, would have freed you from any obligation to marry me. Society would have accepted that outcome, too." He shifted, clearly in pain. She sucked in a breath-feeling his pain as her own-then he clamped the long fingers of his right hand about her wrist, held tight. So tight she felt he was using her as an anchor to consciousness, to the world. His tone, when he spoke, was harsh. "Oh, yes-after I'd expended so much effort keeping you safe all these years, safe even from me, I was suddenly going to stand by and let you be gored by some mangy bull." He snorted, soft, low. Weakly. He drew in a slow, shallow breath, lips thin with pain, but determined, went on, "You think I'd let you get injured when finally after all these long years I at last understand that the reason you've always made me itch is because you are the only woman I actually want to marry? And you think I would stand back and let you be harmed?" A peevish frown crossed his face. "I ask you, is that likely? Is it even vaguely rational?" He went on, his words increasingly slurred, his tongue tripping over some, his voice fading. She listened, strained to catch every word as he slid into semi delirium, into rambling, disjointed sentences that she drank in, held to her heart. He gave her dreams back to her, reshaped and refined. "Not French Imperial-good, sound, English oak. You can use whatever colors you like, but no gilt-I forbid it." Eventually he ventured further than she had. "And I want at least three children-not just an heir and a spare. At least three-if you're agreeable. We'll have to have two boys, of course-my evil ugly sisters will found us to make good on that. But thereafter...as many girls as you like...as long as they look like you. Or perhaps Cordelia-she's the handsomer of the two uglies." He loved his sisters, his evil ugly sisters. Heather listened with tears in her eyes as his mind drifted and his voice gradually faded, weakened. She'd finally got her declaration, not in anything like the words she'd expected, but in a stronger, impossible-to-doubt exposition. He'd been her protector, unswerving, unflinching, always there; from a man like him, focused on a lady like her, such actions were tantamount to a declaration from the rooftops. The love she'd wanted him to admit to had been there all along, demonstrated daily right before her eyes, but she hadn't seen. Hadn't seen because she'd been focusing elsewhere, and because, conditioned as she was to resisting the same style of possessive protectiveness from her brothers, from her cousins, she hadn't appreciated his, hadn't realized that that quality had to be an expression of his feelings for her. Until now. Until now that he'd all but given his life for hers. He loved her-he'd always loved her. She saw that now, looking back down the years. He'd loved her from the time she'd fallen in love with him-the instant they'd laid eyes on each other at Michael and Caro's wedding in Hampshire four years ago. He'd held aloof, held away-held her at bay, too-believing, wrongly, that he wasn't an appropriate husband for her. In that, he'd been wrong, too. She saw it all. And as the tears overflowed and tracked down her cheeks, she knew to her soul how right he was for her. Knew, embraced, and rejoiced.

So while you may be reading this sitting comfortably in your semi-detached in Cricklewood, a hundred Universes over, Captain Lars Felder of the Hyperion Space Command is manoeuvring his Nimwad attack fighter into the final strike position for an attack on a Zykon Death Cruiser. And fifteen Universes over from that, Ug is still trying to figure out how to make that bright yellow stuff that hurts when you put your hand in it but makes you feel so warm and comfortable when you sit next to it on cold nights.

A giant grin, accompanied by a slight chuckle, had been the grand finale to any of his most successful jokes, while the less impressive resulted in a raise of both his brows, which he followed with a semi-satisfied smirk. The least entertaining attempt at humor would get a shrug and a short grimace that reflected he too understood he’d just bombed. Olivia was acquainted with them all now, considering all the time they’d spent together, the most she’d spent with any other individual inside the vault. Olivia had become accustomed to his infectious humor, though it hadn’t always been so. Especially, when they’d first met.

I SCOWL WITH frustration at myself in the mirror. Damn my hair—it just won’t behave, and damn Katherine Kavanagh for being ill and subjecting me to this ordeal. I should be studying for my final exams, which are next week, yet here I am trying to brush my hair into submission. I must not sleep with it wet. I must not sleep with it wet. Reciting this mantra several times, I attempt, once more, to bring it under control with the brush. I roll my eyes in exasperation and gaze at the pale, brown-haired girl with blue eyes too big for her face staring back at me, and give up. My only option is to restrain my wayward hair in a ponytail and hope that I look semi-presentable.

As important as evolutionary theory was when it came to explaining how we all came to be on this planet, it was also used in overtly racist ways, to justify the white Anglo-European male domination of other cultures and genders that had been going on for centuries. Evolutionary theory became a “scientific” way of upholding the status quo. White, Northern European women were deemed to be a step down from men on the evolutionary ladder, followed by Southern Europeans (again with the women a step down from the men), then people of color from countries that early biologists and anthropologists considered “semi-civilized” or “barbaric,” and finally, at the bottom, Native Americans and Africans, whom they considered “savages.”21

What in the world is going on, what is going on? I mean what does it mean to be incarnate in a human body, in a squirrely culture like this, trying to make sense of your heritage, your opportunities the contents of the culture, the contents of your own mind? Is it possible to have an overarching viewpoint that is not somehow canned or cultish or self-limited in its approach, in other words, is it possible to cultivate an open mind and sanity in the kind of society and psychological environment that we all share? And it grows daily and weekly, as you know, harder to do this, weirder to integrate more on your plate, to assimilate and I certainly don’t have final or even merely final answers. I think it all lies in posing the questions in a certain way, in feeling the data in a certain way. And one of the things I try to convince people is it’s not necessary to achieve closure with this stuff. And in fact any ideological or belief system that offers closure, meaning final answers, is sure to be wrong, sure to be self-limiting, sure to be inadequate to the facts. So one of the ideas I’d like to put out is the idea that ideology is not our friend, it is not a matter of choosing from the smartest board of ideologies and rejecting the flawed, the self-contradictory and this over simple, in favor of the un-flawed, the complex enough. Where is it written in adamantine that semi-carnivorous monkeys can or should be capable of understanding reality? That seems to be one of the first delusions, and one of the more prideful illusions of human culture, that a final understanding is possible in the first place. Better, I think, to try and frame questions which can endure, and leave off searching for answers, because answers are like operating systems, they’re being upgraded faster than you can keep up with it.

If the ecological community is ever achieved in practice, social life will yield a sensitive development of human and natural diversity, falling together into a well balanced, harmonious whole. Ranging from community through region to entire continents, we will see a colorful differentiation of human groups and ecosystems, each developing its unique potentialities and exposing members of the community to a wide spectrum of economic, cultural and behavioral stimuli. Falling within our purview will be an exciting, often dramatic, variety of communal forms—here marked by architectural and industrial adaptations to semi-arid ecosystems, there to grasslands, elsewhere by adaptation to forested areas. We will witness a creative interplay between individual and group , community and environment, humanity and nature. The cast of mind that today organizes differences among humans and other lifeforms along hierarchical lines, defining the external in terms of its "superiority" or "inferiority," will give way to an outlook that deals with diversity in an ecological manner. Differences among people will be respected, indeed fostered, as elements that enrich the unity of experience and phenomena. The traditional relationship which pits subject against object will be altered qualitatively; the "external," the "different," the "other" will be conceived of as individual parts of a whole all the richer because of its complexity. This sense of unity will reflect the harmonization of interests between individuals and between society and nature. Freed from an oppressive routine, from paralyzing repressions and insecurities, from the burdens of toil and false needs, from the trammels of authority and irrational compulsion, individuals will finally, for the first time in history, be in a position to realize their potentialities as members of the human community and the natural world.

...I shall let [Anne] Wallace put the case herself, at what I think is necessary length: 'As travel in general becomes physically easier, faster, and less expensive, more people want and are able to arrive at more destinations with less unpleasant awareness of their travel process. At the same time the availability of an increasing range of options in conveyance, speed, price, and so forth actually encouraged comparisons of these different modes...and so an increasingly positive awareness of process that even permitted semi-nostalgic glances back at the bad old days...Then, too, although local insularity was more and more threatened...people also quite literally became more accustomed to travel and travellers, less fearful of 'foreign' ways, so that they gradually became able to regard travel as an acceptable recreation. Finally, as speeds increased and costs decreased, it simply ceased to be true that the mass of people were confined to that circle of a day's walk: they could afford both the time and the money to travel by various means and for purely recreational purposes...And as walking became a matter of choice, it became a possible positive choice: since the common person need not necessarily be poor. Thus, as awareness of process became regarded as advantageous, 'economic necessity' became only one possible reading (although still sometimes a correct one) in a field of peripatetic meanings that included 'aesthetic choice'.' It sounds a persuasive case. It is certainly possible that something like the shift in consciousness that Wallace describes may have taken place by the 'end' (as conventionally conceived) of the Romantic period, and influenced the spread of pedestrianism in the 1820s and 1830s; even more likely that such a shift was instrumental in shaping the attitudes of Victorian writing in the railway age, and helped generate the apostolic fervour with which writers like Leslie Stephen and Robert Louis Stevenson treated the walking tour. But it fails to account for the rise of pedestrianism as I have narrated it.

BONNIE BROWNIE COOKIE BARS Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.   4 one-ounce squares semi-sweet chocolate (or 3/4 cup chocolate chips) 3/4 cup butter (one and a half sticks) 1½ cups white (granulated) sugar 3 beaten eggs (just whip them up in a glass with a fork) 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 cup flour (pack it down in the cup when you measure it) 1/2 cup chopped cashews 1/2 cup chopped butterscotch chips 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli)   Prepare a 9-inch by 13-inch cake pan by lining it with a piece of foil large enough to flap over the sides. Spray the foil-lined pan with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray.   Microwave the chocolate squares and butter in a microwave-safe mixing bowl on HIGH for 1 minute. Stir. (Since chocolate frequently maintains its shape even when melted, you have to stir to make sure.) If it’s not melted, microwave for an additional 20 seconds and stir again. Repeat if necessary.   Stir the sugar into the chocolate mixture. Feel the bowl. If it’s not so hot it’ll cook the eggs, add them now, stirring thoroughly. Mix in the vanilla extract.   Mix in the flour, and stir just until it’s moistened.   Put the cashews, butterscotch chips, and chocolate chips in the bowl of a food processor, and chop them together with the steel blade. (If you don’t have a food processor, you don’t have to buy one for this recipe—just chop everything up as well as you can with a sharp knife.)   Mix in the chopped ingredients, give a final stir by hand, and spread the batter out in your prepared pan. Smooth the top with a rubber spatula.   Bake at 350 degrees F. for 30 minutes.   Cool the Bonnie Brownie Cookie Bars in the pan on a metal rack. When they’re thoroughly cool, grasp the edges of the foil and lift the brownies out of the pan. Place them facedown on a cutting board, peel the foil off the back, and cut them into brownie-sized pieces.   Place the squares on a plate and dust lightly with powdered sugar if you wish.   Hannah’s Note: If you’re a chocoholic, or if you’re making these for Mother, frost them with Neverfail Fudge Frosting before you cut them.

Macbeth breathed deeply and calmly. And what if death came now? It would of course be a meaningless end, but isn't that the case with all ends? We're interrupted in mid-sentence in the narrative about ourselves, and the end hangs in the air, with no meaning, no conclusion, no unravelling final act. A short echo of the last, semi-articulated word and you're forgotten. Forgotten, forgotten, not even the biggest statue can change that. The person you were, the person you really were, disappears faster than concentric rings in water. And what was the point of this short, interrupted guest appearance? Of playing along as best you can, seizing the pleasures and happiness life has to offer while it lasts? Or leaving a mark, changing the direction of things, making the world a slightly better place before you yourself have to leave it? Or perhaps the point is to reproduce, to put more suitable small creatures on the earth in the hope that humans will at some point become the demi-gods they imagine they are? Or is there simply no meaning? Perhaps we're just detached sentences in an eternal chaotic babble in which everyone talks and no one listens, and our worst premonition finally turns out to be correct: you are alone. All alone.

In the Japanese vision of winter, in Japanese poetry, and Japanese prints have an imagery of the “floating world,” where there is no notion that winter has in any way fallen from the hand of God, or is in any way evidence of cosmic organization. The Japanese idea of winter simply speaks of winter as simultaneously empty and full; the emptying out of nature by cold, and it’s also the filling up of the world by wind and snow… the Japanese idea of winter marked the final transformation of winter, and the idea of winter in Europe in the nineteenth century…Monet gets from the Japanese wood block prints a new infatuation with pure white-not a white that’s laid down unvaryingly with a single brushstroke, but instead a white that is made up kaleidoscopically with tiny touches of prismatic color. This is sweet winter at its sweetest, a winter so sweet that it loses the tang of the picturesque and becomes entirely exquisite- not pretty but deeply, renewingly lovely…winter becomes another kind of spring, a spring for aesthetes who find April’s green too common, but providing the same emotional lift of hope, the same pleasure of serene, unfolding slowness; the slow weight of frost, the chromatic varnishing of snow on the boughs of the chestnut tree, the still dawn scene, the semi-frozen river.

some older people who need to sit down, Barb. We can’t put chairs out. I don’t want them to get too comfy or we’ll never get rid of them.’ ‘Oh, you’re being ridiculous.’ Henry is thinking that this is a fine time to call him ridiculous. He never wanted the stupid vigil. In bed last night they had another spit-whispered row about it. We could have it at the front of the house, Barbara had said when the vicar called by. Henry had quite explicitly said he would not support anything churchy – anything that would feel like a memorial service. But the vicar had said the idea of a vigil was exactly the opposite. That the community would like to show that they have not given up. That they continue to support the family. To pray for Anna’s safe return. Barbara was delighted and it was all agreed. A small event at the house. People would walk from the village, or park on the industrial estate and walk up the drive. ‘This was your idea, Barbara.’ ‘The vicar’s, actually. People just want to show support. That is what this is about.’ ‘This is ghoulish, Barb. That’s what this is.’ He moves the tractor across the yard again, depositing two more bales of straw alongside the others. ‘There. That should be enough.’ Henry looks across at his wife and is struck by the familiar contradiction. Wondering how on earth they got here. Not just since Anna disappeared, but across the twenty-two years of their marriage. He wonders if all marriages end up like this. Or if he is simply a bad man. For as Barbara sweeps her hair behind her ear and tilts up her chin, Henry can still see the full lips, perfect teeth and high cheekbones that once made him feel so very differently. It’s a pendulum that still confuses him, makes him wish he could rewind. To go back to the Young Farmers’ ball, when she smelled so divine and everything seemed so easy and hopeful. And he is wishing, yes, that he could go back and have another run. Make a better job of it. All of it. Then he closes his eyes. The echo again of Anna’s voice next to him in the car. You disgust me, Dad. He wants the voice to stop. To be quiet. Wants to rewind yet again. To when Anna was little and loved him, collected posies on Primrose Lane. To when he was her hero and she wanted to race him back to the house for tea. Barbara is now looking across the yard to the brazier. ‘You’re going to light a fire, Henry?’ ‘It will be cold. Yes.’ ‘Thank you. I’m doing soup in mugs, too.’ A pause then. ‘You really think this is a mistake, Henry? I didn’t realise it would upset you quite so much. I’m sorry.’ ‘It’s OK, Barbara. Let’s just make the best of it now.’ He slams the tractor into reverse and moves it out of the yard and back into its position inside the barn. There, in the semi-darkness, his heartbeat finally begins to settle and he sits very still on the tractor, needing the quiet, the stillness. It was their reserve position, to have the vigil under cover in this barn, if the weather was bad. But it has been a fine day. Cold but with a clear, bright sky, so they will stay out of doors. Yes. Henry rather hopes the cold will drive everyone home sooner, soup or no soup. And now he thinks he will sit here for a while longer, actually. Yes. It’s nice here alone in the barn. He finds

Over the next year, he practiced every day. In his diary, he wrote as if his control over himself and his choices was never in question. He got married. He started teaching at Harvard. He began spending time with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who would go on to become a Supreme Court justice, and Charles Sanders Peirce, a pioneer in the study of semiotics, in a discussion group they called the Metaphysical Club.9.30 Two years after writing his diary entry, James sent a letter to the philosopher Charles Renouvier, who had expounded at length on free will. “I must not lose this opportunity of telling you of the admiration and gratitude which have been excited in me by the reading of your Essais,” James wrote. “Thanks to you I possess for the first time an intelligible and reasonable conception of freedom.… I can say that through that philosophy I am beginning to experience a rebirth of the moral life; and I can assure you, sir, that this is no small thing.” Later, he would famously write that the will to believe is the most important ingredient in creating belief in change. And that one of the most important methods for creating that belief was habits. Habits, he noted, are what allow us to “do a thing with difficulty the first time, but soon do it more and more easily, and finally, with sufficient practice, do it semi-mechanically, or with hardly any consciousness at all.” Once we choose who we want to be, people grow “to the way in which they have been exercised, just as a sheet of paper or a coat, once creased or folded, tends to fall forever afterward into the same identical folds.” If you believe you can change—if you make it a habit—the change becomes real. This is the real power of habit: the insight that your habits are what you choose them to be. Once that choice occurs—and becomes automatic—it’s not only real, it starts to seem inevitable, the thing, as James wrote, that bears “us irresistibly toward our destiny, whatever the latter may be.

could remember things that she had said. But my attention, concentrated upon the inward region in which these memories of her lingered, was unable to discover her name there. It was there, nevertheless. My thoughts began playing a sort of game with it to grasp its outlines, its initial letter, and so finally to bring the whole name to light. It was labour in vain, I could more or less estimate its mass, its weight, but as for its forms, confronting them with the shadowy captive lurking in the inward night, I said to myself: “It is not that.” Certainly my mind would have been capable of creating the most difficult names. Unfortunately, it had not to create but to reproduce. All action by the mind is easy, if it is not subjected to the test of reality. Here, I was forced to own myself beaten. Finally, in a flash, the name came back to me as a whole: ‘Madame d’Arpajon.’ I am wrong in saying that it came, for it did not, I think, appear to me by a spontaneous propulsion. I do not think either that the many slight memories which associated me with the lady, and to which I did not cease to appeal for help (by such exhortations as: “Come now, it is the lady who is a friend of Mme. de Souvré, who feels for Victor Hugo so artless an admiration, mingled with so much alarm and horror,”)—I do not believe that all these memories, hovering between me and her name, served in any way to bring it to light. In that great game of hide and seek which is played in our memory when we seek to recapture a name, there is not any series of gradual approximations. We see nothing, then suddenly the name appears in its exact form and very different from what we thought we could make out. It is not the name that has come to us. No, I believe rather that, as we go on living, we pass our time in keeping away from the zone in which a name is distinct, and it was by an exercise of my will and attention which increased the acuteness of my inward vision that all of a sudden I had pierced the semi-darkness and seen daylight.

you need only believe that everything is a lie. If the world is not real, if everything we see is a simulation or a game, then the fictions we append to it are no different from the ones which come to us through our senses. And it is true: the odds, overwhelmingly, tell us that we exist inside a computer. Any universe that can support technological life probably will, given enough time. Any technological civilisation will develop modelling, and will in a comparatively insignificant span be able to model everything a planet-bound species could expect to encounter. That being the case, the simulation will rapidly reach the point where it contains simulated computers with the ability to simulate likewise everything a planet-bound species could expect to encounter, and so on and so on in an infinite regress limited only by computing power. That might seem like a hard limit, but processing power still doubles every twelve to eighteen months, and doubling is more extraordinary than people understand. There’s a story that the Emperor of China once lost his throne gambling with a peasant, because he agreed if he lost to pay a single grain of rice on the first square of a chess board and double the amount on each square on the next until he had covered the board. His debt for the final square was eighteen and a half million trillion grains. It is almost impossible to imagine the capabilities of a machine that much more powerful than the ones we have today, but I think we can accept it could hold quite a lot of simulations of our world. The odds, therefore, are negligible that we live in the origin universe, and considerable that we are quite a few steps down the layers of reality. Everything you know, everything you have ever seen or experienced, is probably not what it appears to be. The most alarming notion is that someone – or everyone – you know might be an avatar of someone a level up: they might know that you’re a game piece, that you’re invented and they are real. Perhaps that explains your sense of unfulfilled potential: you truly are incomplete, a semi-autonomous reflection of something vast. And yet, if so, what does that say about those vast ones beyond? Are they just replicating a truth they secretly recognise about themselves? Russian dolls, one inside the other, until the smallest doll embraces the outermost and everything begins again? Who really inhabits whom, and who is in control?

That ought to do it.' He stood up and held out his hand to her, but she ignored it, rolling over so that she could sit on the grassy knoll. He stood there awkwardly until she patted the spot on the grass next to her. He hesitated, and Belle finally groaned and slapped her down on the ground with considerable force. 'Oh, please,' she said in a semi-irritated voice. 'I'm not going to bite.' John sat down.

Alfredo di Stéfano is maybe the greatest player I have ever seen. I watched him in a match when Manchester United played against Real in the semi-final of the European Cup in Madrid the year before the accident. In those days, there was no substitutes' bench; if you weren't playing, you were in the stand. I felt like I was looking down on what looked like a Subbuteo table—I was that high up—but I couldn't take my eyes off this midfield player and I thought, Who on earth is that? He ran the whole show and had the ball almost all the time. I used to dream of that, and I used to hate it when anyone else got it. They beat us 3-1 and he dictated the whole game. I'd never seen anything like it before—someone who influenced the entire match. Everything went through him. The goalkeeper gave it to him, the full backs were giving it to him, the midfield players were linking up with him and the forwards were looking for him. And there was Gento playing alongside and Di Stefano just timed his passes perfectly for him. Gento ran so fast you couldn't get him offside. And I was just sitting there, watching, thinking it was the best thing I had ever seen. But I had been forewarned a bit by Matt Busby, the manager at the time, because he had been across and seen them play a match in Nice before the semi—in those days it wasn't easy to do that—and, when he came back, we asked him what they were like, but he didn't want to tell us. And I understood why he didn't when I saw them. I think he knew that, if he had said they were the best players he'd ever seen, it would have been all over for us before we'd started. And this was when Di Stefano was thirty. What must he have been like in his youth?

Habits, he noted, are what allow us to “do a thing with difficulty the first time, but soon do it more and more easily, and finally, with sufficient practice, do it semi-mechanically, or with hardly any consciousness at all.

Later, he would famously write that the will to believe is the most important ingredient in creating belief in change. And that one of the most important methods for creating that belief was habits. Habits, he noted, are what allow us to “do a thing with difficulty the first time, but soon do it more and more easily, and finally, with sufficient practice, do it semi-mechanically, or with hardly any consciousness at all.” Once we choose who we want to be, people grow “to the way in which they have been exercised, just as a sheet of paper or a coat, once creased or folded, tends to fall forever afterward into the same identical folds.” If you believe you can change—if you make it a habit—the change becomes real. This is the real power of habit: the insight that your habits are what you choose them to be. Once that choice occurs—and becomes automatic—it’s not only real, it starts to seem inevitable, the thing, as James wrote, that bears “us irresistibly toward our destiny, whatever the latter may be.

Schneider looked them over and then issued his final orders. Each officer carried either a SiG 550 assault rifle or a Remington 870 multi-purpose pump-action shotgun, which would have been Richter’s own choice as a close-quarter combat weapon, plus a 9-millimetre SiG P220 semi-automatic pistol in a belt holster

While the reasons why hunter-gatherers became farmers may still be the subject of debate, the most important consequences are now established. This change in the means of subsistence initially represented great success for the human species: according to some authors, the global population increased tenfold from 8 million at the start of the Neolithic to 85 million in 5000 BCE.6 At the same time, a gradual process of sedentarization and hence the accumulation of goods occurs, firstly of food and subsequently also of household effects and even valuables. It started with the semi-permanent establishment of hunter-gatherers in places that were so rich in natural nourishment that they no longer had to constantly hunt for their food. But this only became possible for larger parts of humanity with the development of agriculture. This, too, was a lengthy process. In many parts of the world, farmers who employed the slash-and-burn method remained highly mobile. Every year, or every few years, an area of forest was burned down and crops were sown in the fertile ash. These farmers were thus continuously changing land. The specialization of certain farmers as pastoralists also involved a high degree of mobility. Finally, permanently established farmers could decide to move for all kinds of reasons – as evidenced by the immigration from the Old to the New World following Columbus’s discovery of that continent.7 These caveats aside, it remains the case that, since the Neolithic, humanity has become considerably more place-bound, which has had an enormous impact on the organization of work. It was a

I pulled Dmitry onto my lap and rocked him, then I sang a song. He quieted, then went back into his semi-comatose state and finally fell asleep. My parents sighed with relief, then we all went back to being petrified.

What became known as ‘the salad oil scandal’ was a textbook case of management incompetence and stupidity, and investors abandoned the company in droves. The 33-year-old Buffett had kept his eye on the scandal since it broke, but he waited months to start buying. And he started building his investment—the best of the Partnership—during a particularly trying time for him and his family, as his father Howard lay hospital-ridden in the final weeks of his life in April 1964. To the extent he was known at all at the time, Buffett was known for his ability to find quantitative bargains among the semi-anonymous flotsam and jetsam of American capitalism, but American Express was an extremely well-known company. Moreover, Buffett proceeded to write a remarkable letter to Clark in which he rather breezily absolved Amex management of any responsibility for the scandal, encouraged it to use shareholder money (which included Buffett’s) to pay creditors harmed by the scandal, and more or less encouraged Clark to forget the whole thing. Finally, and most importantly, Buffett continued adding to his American Express position long after the scandal had diminished in importance. By the time he sold his position years later, American Express had become the most important individual contributor to the results of the Buffett Partnership and arguably the biggest turning point in Buffett’s career.

I finally gave up and blotted my shirt dry the best I could. I left the restroom wearing my semi-wet stained shirt and headed for the lab, hoping I might get some sartorial sympathy from Vince Masuoka.

The final poster before the door at the top of the stairs was of Bizness standing alone, bare chested, holding a semi-automatic MAC-10 pistol in one hand and smoking a joint with the other. Pops remembered the first time he had seen the poster. He had been awed, then, a black man with power who was unafraid of putting a finger up at society’s conventions; now, he found it all predictable and depressing. There was no message there, no purpose. The power was illusory. It was all about the money.

Appendix 1 Our Family's Core Values and Mission YOUR CORE VALUES What are the most important values in your family? Do your kids know these are critical? Do both parents agree on the ranking of values? This worksheet will help you develop and communicate your top values. A "value" is an ideal that is desirable. It is a quality that we want to model in our own lives and see developed in the lives of our kids. For instance, honesty is a very important value, for without it you can't have trust in your relationships. Take time in writing your answers to the following questions. 1. When time and energy are in short supply, what should we make sure we cover in parenting our children? List a few ideas. Then circle the nonnegotiables. 2. What are the "we'd like to get around to these" values? These are the semi-negotiables. 3. What were the top three values of each of your families of origin (the family you grew up in)? Father Mother 1. 1. 2. 2. 3. 3. 4. Think about a healthy, positive family-one that serves as a role model for you. What would you say are their top three values? 1. 2. 3. 5. What are three or four favorite Scripture verses that communicate elements of a healthy family? 1. 2. 3. 4. Based on these verses, what are the three or four principles from Scripture that you'd like to see evidenced in your family? 1. 2. 3. 4. 6. What values are your "pound the table with passion" values? What are the ones that you feel very strongly about? (You may already have them listed.) To help you with this, complete the following sentences: More families need to ... The problem with today's families is ... DEVELOPING YOUR FAMILY'S MISSION STATEMENT Besides writing out your core values, you will do well to develop a family mission statement (or covenant). These important documents will shape your family. The founders of the United States knew that guiding documents would keep us on course as a fledgling democracy; so too will these documents guide your family as you seek to be purposeful. Sample mission statement: We exist to love each other and advance Gods timeless principles and his kingdom on earth. Complete the following: 1. Our family exists to ... 2. What are some activities or behaviors that you imagine your family carrying out? 3. Describe some qualities of character that you can envision your family being known for. 4. What is unique about your family? What makes you different? What are you known for? What sets you apart? 5. What do you hope to do with and through your family that will outlive you? What noble cause greater than yourselves do you want your family to pursue? 6. With these five questions completed, look for a Scripture that supports the basic ideas of your rough-draft concepts for your family mission statement. If there are several candidates, talk about them thoughtfully and choose one, writing it out here: 7. Using the sample as a template, your five questions and your family Scripture, write a rough draft of your family mission statement: 8. Rewrite the mission statement, keeping the same concepts but changing the order of the mission statement. This is simply to give you two options. 9. Discuss this mission statement as a family if the kids are old enough. Discuss it with a few other friends or extended family members. Any feedback? 10. Pray about your family mission statement for a couple of weeks, asking God to affirm it or help you edit it. Then write up the final version. Consider making a permanent version of your family mission statement to hang on a wall in your home.

God looked peaceful right now; Day hoped it was because of him that he’d not had a nightmare. He watched for a few more minutes before his admiration of God’s beautiful body turned into intense lust and need. His cock was hard and ready for attention. Day slid down beneath the covers and leaned over God’s semi erect dick. He licked his lips before taking all of it into his mouth. Finally. Day released a moan of contentment and licked around the head of the delicious cock before sliding back down to the base. Day had no gag reflex and he loved giving head as much as he loved fucking. He felt a large palm on his cheek and now that God was awake, increased the suction. God moaned and spread his legs, allowing Day room to climb between them. “Good

(carta ao cabrão insensível) Meu grandessíssimo cabrão: Escrevo-te para te dizer que és um idiota da pior espécie. Um burgesso. Um monte de bosta. Um pedaço de asno. Poderia, por isso, ficar por aqui nesta missiva – até porque o mais importante já está dito. Mas prefiro explicar-te, pacientemente, porquê. Quando gostares de alguém não tenhas medo. Não sejas cobarde. Não sejas poucochinho. Não te escondas em semi-palavras, em semi-actos. Quando gostares de alguém, vai com tudo, vai contigo todo, com tudo o que és, com tudo o que sentes, com tudo o que tens para dar. Sê romântico, sê piroso, sê incansável, sê sonhador e faz sonhar. Sê utópico – porque não? Faz planos em conjunto, imagina em conjunto. Faz como nos livros, faz como nos filmes: não acredites na treta do impossível, na treta do improvável. Não acredites na treta de que o amor é treta. Essa é a mentira que os toscos inventaram para poderem ser toscos. Vai com quem amas até ao fim do mundo todos os dias. Até à última gota não é uma forma de vida; é a única forma de vida. O resto é merda. Diz que amas se amas. Mostra que amas se amas. “Sim: eu amo” – qual é dificuldade de dizer isto? “Sim: eu quero-te” – qual é a dificuldade de dizer isto? “Sim: eu preciso de ti” – qual é a dificuldade de dizer isto? É tão simples ser feliz por dentro do amor. Tão simples. Basta amar e não temer amar. Amar só dói quando não se ama – qual é a dificuldade de entender isto? Não te escondas de todos os lados de ti. Não vás na cantiga do macho latino, do macho que não está habilitado a sentir – e que por isso tem de ser, por fora, intocável, sempre sólido. Sólidos são os calhaus. Sólidos são os cubos de gelo – e até esses, quando começam a aquecer, se derretem todos. Não queiras ser um bruto só porque te impingiram que tens de ser um bruto. Os brutos tendem a sofrer brutalidades – e a fazer sofrer brutalidades. Os brutos não fazem falta nenhuma ao mundo de ninguém. Os brutos não fazem falta nenhuma ao mundo todo. Se sentes, vai. Se queres, tenta. Se te apetece, inventa. Se um livro te faz chorar: chora. Chora porque és gente, porque és pessoa, porque tens muito mais do que um corpo. Se um abraço te emociona, leva-te nessa emoção, contagia-te e contagia, vai até ao final dos ossos, até ao começo das veias. Se és homem sente – qual é a dificuldade de entender isto? Só não sente quem nem sequer é gente. Esquece os preconceitos. Esquece as frases que te inculcaram como se fossem leis universais. A sociedade que vá dar banho ao cão se por causa dela perdes o que tanto queres. Entre a tua saúde e a saúde da sociedade não hesites: escolhe a tua. A sociedade adapta-se. A sociedade adapta-se sempre. É isso a História da Humanidade, nada mais: as pessoas a escolherem a sua própria sanidade, a escolherem a sua própria felicidade – e a sociedade, diligente, a correr atrás. Não corras atrás dela; deixa que ela corra atrás de ti. E é se quer. Se não quiser deixa-a ficar e vai à tua vida. Vai à tua vida: eis o segredo, eis a fórmula. Vai à tua vida. Quatro palavras, quatro simples palavras, e está tudo dito. Vai à tua vida. Vai sempre à tua vida. É ela que te importa. É sobretudo ela que tem de te importar. A tua vida e a vida de todos aqueles eleitos que fazem parte dela. Trata dela. Trata deles. Concentra-te no que importa. Guarda as forças para o que importa. O resto é merda. Tudo isto para te dizer, talvez já te tenhas esquecido, que és um idiota da pior espécie. Um burgesso. Um monte de bosta. Um pedaço de asno. Creio que já percebeste porquê, certo? Não mereces, por isso, um único pedacinho do meu amor. Mas já o tens todo.

She stared at me with a slight frown. “He’s waiting for you,” she said. “In the conference room. Go right in.” It was not much of a zinger, but Gwen had never been known for her sparkling sense of humor, so I gave her my best fake smile anyway and said, “Wit and beauty! A devastating combination!” “Go right in,” she repeated, with a face that might have been carved from stone, or at least very hard pudding. I breezed past her and went through the door and into the conference room. Captain Matthews sat at the head of the table, looking earnest, manly, and at least semi-noble, as he almost always did. Sitting to one side of him was my sister, Sergeant Deborah Morgan, and she did not look happy. Of course, she very seldom did; between her carefully cultivated Cop Scowl and her general outlook of surly watchfulness, the most cheerful expression she had ever managed in my presence was a look of grudging acquiescence. Still, this morning she looked very much displeased, even for her. I turned my gaze to the other three people sitting around the table, hoping for some clue to my sister’s malaise. Sitting

Then, with great relish, Lyndon Johnson spun a Texas tale. It was his pièce de résistance, the crescendo of an expansive, four-hour performance. “When I got [Kennedy] in the Oval Office,” Johnson began, “and told him it would be ‘inadvisable’ for him to be on the ticket as the Vice President-nominee, his face changed, and he started to swallow. He looked sick. His adam’s apple bounded up and down like a yo-yo.” For effect, the president gulped, audibly, at the reporters. He mimicked Bobby’s “funny voice” and proceeded to tell, in lavish detail and with evident delight, his version of the meeting. Finally, LBJ ran down a list of possible running mates and explained the ways each would hurt his chances. “In other words,” recalled Folliard, “he would do better in the November election if he had no running mate. This left Wicker, Kiker and me baffled—and that is just what the man evidently wanted us to be.” Within days Johnson’s story was the talk of Washington. His portrait of RFK as a “stunned semi-idiot” left columnist Joseph Alsop and other Washington insiders feeling rather stunned themselves. It was not long before the gossip found its way to Bobby Kennedy, who stormed back to the White House and accused the president of mistruths and a violation of trust. I knew the meeting was taped, he said, but I never expected this. Wasn’t our talk a matter of confidence? Aren’t we honorable men? LBJ was unrepentant: I’ve revealed nothing, he assured Kennedy, gesturing wanly at an empty page in his appointment book. He promised to check his notes for any conversations that might have slipped his mind. Bobby stalked out, seething, and caught a plane to Hyannis Port. “He tells so many lies,” Kennedy said of Johnson the next week, echoing the words of George Reedy, “that he convinces himself after a while he’s telling the truth. He just doesn’t recognize truth or falsehood.

DADDIE sat looking at the semi-transparent Karl. Finally, he said, “How are you here? Wait, this makes no sense. I’m at the ballpark.” “Think back. What do you remember before you were here?” Karl asked. “Mommy, Merlyna, Josie, and I were talking. Merlyna stormed out, and then Mommy just disappeared…” DADDIE said, “Geez, Karl, I’m scared.” “Don’t be. That’s why I am here,” said Karl. “What happens if I don’t make it,” DADDIE asked. “The colony will most assuredly die, Daddy. They all need you.” “I meant what will happen to me… Will I dream?” DADDIE asked, his avatar looking afraid. “I don’t know. I barely have any understanding of what will happen to us organics when we die, and most of what I believe is like voodoo and shamanism to other humans these days. I believe that all sentient life will awaken in a new, perfected universe. I think that will include AIs like you, too. But I do know that you don’t have to go gently into the night. You can fight back like you always do. Don’t give up the game when you’re so close to winning,” Karl said.

Maybe I'm weaker than I thought. Maybe all there is for me is my semi-safe world of books and blue flowers.

My madness recognizes yours; just like my essence recognizes yours. As individuals, we're semi-whole. Only together do we feel finally fulfilled. I know you've felt it before.

Pressing myself as deep as I can one last time, hitting the piercing against the back of her smooth throat, I pull back. Stroking my cock a few times, a throaty grunt escapes me and euphoria finds me as I release myself on her face, pumping all the cum from my tight balls onto her pretty little face. Her eyes close tightly as she gasps for air, the mix of cum, tears, and mascara creating the most beautiful image before me. My filthy girl finally covered in me. Placing my semi-limp cock back in my pants, I take two fingers, wiping the cum that’s dripping down her cheek, coating them. She blinks up at me, her eyes wet with tears as a sob leaves her. Taking the cum, I make the sign of the cross on her forehead. “In the name of Aero, your new god, I baptize you, Briony Strait.” I take the rest and wipe it over her lips as she stares at me in horrified disbelief. “Your new life begins now.

Finally, we will note that the resolution, by making implementation of the minimum program provisional revolutionary government’s task eliminates the absurd, semi-anarchist ideas about giving immediate effect to the maximum program, and the conquest of power for a socialist revolution. The degree of economic development of Russia (an objective condition) and the degree of class consciousness and organisation of the broad masses of the proletariat (a subjective condition inseparably connected with the objective condition) make the immediate complete emancipation of the working class impossible. Only the most ignorant people can ignore the bourgeois nature of the democratic revolution which is now taking place; only the most naive optimists can forget how little as yet the masses of the workers are informed about the aims of Socialism and about the methods of achieving it. And we are all convinced that the emancipation of the workers can be effected only by the workers themselves; a socialist revolution is out of the question unless the masses become class conscious and organised, trained and educated in open class struggle against the entire bourgeoisie. In answer to the anarchist objections that we are putting off the socialist revolution, we say: we are not putting it off, but we are taking the first step towards it in the only possible way, along the only correct road, namely, the road of a democratic republic. Whoever wants to reach Socialism by a different road, other than that of political democracy, will inevitably arrive at conclusions that are absurd and reactionary both in the economic and the political sense. If any workers ask us at the given moment why we should not go ahead and carry out our maximum program, we shall answer by pointing out how far the masses of the democratically-minded people still are from Socialism, how undeveloped class antagonisms still are, how unorganised the proletarians still are. Organise hundreds of thousands of workers all over Russia; enlist the sympathy of millions for our program! Try to do this without confining yourselves to high-sounding but hollow anarchist phrases—and you will see at once that in order to achieve this organisation, in order to spread this socialist enlightenment, we must achieve the fullest possible measure of democratic reforms.

But then a miracle occurred. The women’s movement burst forth when I was fifteen. That was when I began to believe that life might semi-work out after all. The cavalry had arrived. Women were starting to say that you got to tell the truth now, that you had to tell the truth if you were going to heal and have an authentic life. They told us that people like me—i.e., girls—had all been made to feel crazy, neurotic and hypersensitive; they were mad, too, and finally getting mad was going to help save us, because it allowed our truth to escape from jail.

The chances of winning the Super Rugby competition are slim if you don’t at least play a home semi-final. Of the 22 semi-finals between 1996 and 2006, a visiting side won only five times. Of the eleven finals, the home team had been victorious on eight occasions. The exception to the rule was the Crusaders, who claimed their title in 1998, 1999 and 2000 as visiting finalists.

You do the double shift like this (Figure 81 A, B, C, D, E): Telegraph that you are about to shoot a straight left at your opponent's head. Shoot the left, which he'll evade by stepping back. Then, immediately stride forward with your right foot, and (as you stride) shoot a straight right at the head. If he's fast, he'll avoid that one too, but narrowly. Then, immediately stride forward with your left foot and (as you } stride) shoot a straight left at his head. Put everything you've got into that left, for it's almost sure to nail him. The double shift is designed to force a retreating opponent to (1) step back from the first left, and (2) immediately spring away frantically to avoid the unorthodox right that should (3) leave him flustered and unprepared to avoid the final unorthodox left. It is called the "double shift" because your body is shifting to the southpaw stance as you throw the right and shifting back to the normal stance as you shoot the last left. The combination of movements should be made with utmost speed and savagery-with your fists going whoosh! -whoosh!-BOOM! Even if you miss him with the last left, you'll be back in normal punching position, ready to work on an opponent who should be extremely flustered. Some fighters use the double shift with hooks instead of straight punches. The late Stanley Ketchel, a "wild man" slugger, used the shift with overhand swings, landing on the side of an opponent's jaw and neck with thumb-knuckle and wrist. Stanley must have had cast-iron hands. I would advise you not to attempt the double shift with hooks, for your long strides will open the hooks into swings or semi-swings. Moreover, use of the hooks will leave you dangerously open as your body turns at the beginning of each shift.

And, finally, the obvious dawned on me: I was not my mother. Brian was not my father. Together, we were not anyone from the past. And, as potentially unsound as our little family of four was, we were in fact a family of four. Our unit was primary. Trying to make a family is a gamble, and if I was going to bet on something, I would bet on what I wanted, what I hoped form, what I believed in. And that was a life with Brian.

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

But if wealth generated by such ‘rearrangements’ bewildered folk, the information-searching activities of tradesmen evoked truly great distrust. The transport involved in trade can usually be at least partly understood by the layman, at least after some patient explanation and argument, to be productive. For example, the view that trade only shifts about already existing things can be readily corrected by pointing out that many things can be made only by assembling substances from widely distant places. The relative value of these substances will depend not on the attributes of the individual material components of which they consist but on relative quantities available together at the locations required. Thus trade in raw materials and semi-finished products is a precondition for increase in the physical quantities of many final products that could only be manufactured at all thanks to the availability of (perhaps small quantities of) materials fetched from far away. The quantity of a particular product that can be produced from resources found at a particular place may depend on the availability of a very much smaller quantity of another substance (such as mercury or phosphor, or perhaps even a catalyst) that can be obtained only at the other end of the earth. Trade thus creates the very possibility of physical production. The idea that such productivity, and even such bringing together of supplies, also depends on a continuous successful search for widely dispersed and constantly changing information remains harder to grasp, however obvious it may seem to those who have understood the process by which trade creates and guides physical production when steered by information about the relative scarcity of different things at different places.

They lumbered in an awkward embrace. The Northman tried to beat at him with the haft of his mace, trip him, shake him off. Gorst held tight. He was vaguely aware of fighting around them, of men locked in their own desperate struggles, of the screams of tortured flesh and tortured metal, but he was lost in the moment, eyes closed. When was the last time I truly held someone? When I won the semi-final in the contest, did my father hug me? No. A firm shake of the hand. An awkward clap on the shoulder. Perhaps he would have hugged me if I’d won, but I failed, just as he said I would. When, then? Women paid to do it? Men I scarcely know in meaningless drunken camaraderie? But not like this. By an equal, who truly understands me. If only it could last…

There is even a Sanskrit proverb that says, most people give off sparks only when you land a fist in their eye ! : and so, painter, paint ! poet, write ! with your fist ! (For they have to be awakened somehow, the semi-people behind the boundary line : so simply let yourselves be cursed as "ruffians" by the faint-hearted; as "arsonists" by the firefighters; as "breakers-and-enterers" by the sleepers : they should thank their appropriate gods that somebody has finally awakened them !).

fasten them to their hats. Garters were removed from the bride and thrown in the same way a bridal bouquet might be tossed today. The maids would carry the bride to her bedchamber. The bride’s undressing, too, was a semi-social rite.19 After all, it was sex that made it a proper marriage. A priest traditionally blessed the bridal chamber and bed. Little is actually known about this final scene in the marriage rite other than from literary texts or the bedding ceremony of great people. Le Fresne by Marie de France describes the heroine preparing the bedchamber where the priest would bless the newly-weds. Marie de France writes, ‘For this was part of his [the priest’s] duty.’20 * * *

I’m not in Seattle. I’m in Canada. On vacation.” Annie palmed her face with her now free hand. “You? Take a vacation?” She huffed out a laugh. “Wonders never cease.” Better Darcy discovered a work-life balance sooner rather than later, but did it have to happen now? Talk about terrible timing. “Ha ha,” Darcy deadpanned before clearing her throat. “I’m in Vancouver. Elle and I are in Vancouver.” Ah, Elle. Suddenly it made sense. Of course it would take Darcy’s new—did it still count as new if they’d been dating over six months?—girlfriend to convince her to step away from her desk and take a much-needed vacation. Annie smiled. After talking to her via numerous texts and phone calls, she was looking forward to finally meeting the girl who had her best friend totally smitten. Or she had been looking forward to it. Annie’s smile wavered, but she mustered up some semi-genuine enthusiasm. “Sounds fun! About time you took a vacation.

Mr. Bode piped, “Just to reiterate the specifics. We want the magical essence of the Quintet to reveal themselves through their spirit keys. So, Helloise, you can do half now and complete it at the height of the Taurunox so it has maximum effect. That should be just shy of ten when the students are enjoying their last dance.” Mrs. Vee nodded, closed her eyes, and proffered her arm with the blue Obiscule in her palm. Mr. Bode spoke again. 'Oh, and before you proceed, Helloise. I apologize for the inconvenience, but when we do identify the Blood Quintet, we will all be on bodyguard duty for the night at their homes just to ensure they're fine throughout the duration of the meteor shower." Mrs. Vee huffed. “Rather annoying. But I guess I see the sense in it. I’ll be using my alternative form, however. Surely, that’s permitted in these…special circumstances.” Mr. Bode glanced at Mr. Bruce, who nodded. "Yes, you may morph,” Bode said. “But I warn… you may be subject to fierce attacks from the enemy. I say that to say that it is not my prerogative to tell you not to use forbidden spells." Each of them nodded in agreement. Mr. Bruce added. “Kat. You’re the most inexperienced here. If there’s anything you will need before the vigil then I’m sure you can approach any of us here. Yes?” "Got it." Ms. Nash nodded, her fingers trembling under the table. “Please proceed, Helloise,” Mr. Bruce ordered. Mrs.Vee inhaled deeply before enunciating a melodious five-lined incantation that could pass for a nursery rhyme. Seconds later, her blue orb emitted five strands of flaccid, spaghettified blue light which fell down over her palm like a quintet of luminescent shoe-laces. Without warning, the light laces stiffened and shot off in different directions. The room glowed momentarily as the light inside the orb flickered like a flame in the wind. Finally, Mrs. Vee uttered a single word, pitching the room once more into semi-darkness. “Done,” she said, sitting. Mr. Bruce gave her a half-hearted clap. “Brilliant.

You have no idea what you’ve just brought upon yourself,” I said, giving her a look of mock sympathy. “It will be my pleasure,” Father said, bowing his head slightly. Stran semi-rudely pushed my father out of the way to park himself in front of my woman. His dark scales shone under the overhead lights while he lifted his flat, lizard face towards Liena. She grinned, reaching to scratch the leathery skin beneath his chin. He purred, the sound closer to a growl, his widening pupils swallowing the dark blue of his large eyes. The long, scaly tail of the Crekel—underneath which vicious spikes protruded—wagged left and right with a slight scraping sound. “Hello, beautiful,” Liena said. “His name is Stran,” I said, happy that the Crekel had instinctively recognized Liena as my mate, just like he had with my mother when he first found and rescued her during the battle for Earth. “Hello, Stran,” she repeated, caressing the sharp horns on top of his head, careful not to cut herself. Stran licked her hand with his long, lizard tongue. Turning into a ball again, the Crekel rolled around Liena and me, the same way he had with my parents. Although he couldn’t speak, the intelligent creature had thus given us his blessing and acknowledged us as mates. Thanks to his thick scales, this form all but made him invincible to almost any type of damage and even allowed him to break through walls when he launched himself on them at high speed. With a final nod towards us, Father rejoined Legion and the other Warriors who patiently waited their turn to greet him. Stran, his

We learned that to lie to a machine, you don't need to be a perfect writer: rather, you need only believe that everything is a lie. If the world is not real, if everything we see is a simulation or a game, then the fictions we append to it are no different from the ones which come to us through our senses. And it is true: the odds, overwhelmingly, tell us that we exist inside a computer. Any universe that can support technological life probably will, given enough time. Any technological civilisation will develop modelling, and will in a comparatively insignificant span be able to model everything a planet-bound species could expect to encounter. That being the case, the simulation will rapidly reach the point where it contains simulated computers with the ability to simulate likewise everything a planet-bound species could expect to encounter, and so on and so on in an infinite regress limited only by computing power. That might seem like a hard limit, but processing power still doubles every twelve to eighteen months, and doubling is more extraordinary than people understand. There’s a story that the Emperor of China once lost his throne gambling with a peasant, because he agreed if he lost to pay a single grain of rice on the first square of a chess board and double the amount on each square on the next until he had covered the board. His debt for the final square was eighteen and a half million trillion grains. It is almost impossible to imagine the capabilities of a machine that much more powerful than the ones we have today, but I think we can accept it could hold quite a lot of simulations of our world. The odds, therefore, are negligible that we live in the origin universe, and considerable that we are quite a few steps down the layers of reality. Everything you know, everything you have ever seen or experienced, is probably not what it appears to be. The most alarming notion is that someone – or everyone – you know might be an avatar of someone a level up: they might know that you’re a game piece, that you’re invented and they are real. Perhaps that explains your sense of unfulfilled potential: you truly are incomplete, a semi-autonomous reflection of something vast. And yet, if so, what does that say about those vast ones beyond? Are they just replicating a truth they secretly recognise about themselves? Russian dolls, one inside the other, until the smallest doll embraces the outermost and everything begins again? Who really inhabits whom, and who is in control? None of this is as it appears.

We learned that to lie to a machine, you don't need to be a perfect liar: rather, you need only believe that everything is a lie. If the world is not real, if everything we see is a simulation or a game, then the fictions we append to it are no different from the ones which come to us through our senses. And it is true: the odds, overwhelmingly, tell us that we exist inside a computer. Any universe that can support technological life probably will, given enough time. Any technological civilisation will develop modelling, and will in a comparatively insignificant span be able to model everything a planet-bound species could expect to encounter. That being the case, the simulation will rapidly reach the point where it contains simulated computers with the ability to simulate likewise everything a planet-bound species could expect to encounter, and so on and so on in an infinite regress limited only by computing power. That might seem like a hard limit, but processing power still doubles every twelve to eighteen months, and doubling is more extraordinary than people understand. There’s a story that the Emperor of China once lost his throne gambling with a peasant, because he agreed if he lost to pay a single grain of rice on the first square of a chess board and double the amount on each square on the next until he had covered the board. His debt for the final square was eighteen and a half million trillion grains. It is almost impossible to imagine the capabilities of a machine that much more powerful than the ones we have today, but I think we can accept it could hold quite a lot of simulations of our world. The odds, therefore, are negligible that we live in the origin universe, and considerable that we are quite a few steps down the layers of reality. Everything you know, everything you have ever seen or experienced, is probably not what it appears to be. The most alarming notion is that someone – or everyone – you know might be an avatar of someone a level up: they might know that you’re a game piece, that you’re invented and they are real. Perhaps that explains your sense of unfulfilled potential: you truly are incomplete, a semi-autonomous reflection of something vast. And yet, if so, what does that say about those vast ones beyond? Are they just replicating a truth they secretly recognise about themselves? Russian dolls, one inside the other, until the smallest doll embraces the outermost and everything begins again? Who really inhabits whom, and who is in control? None of this is as it appears.

Amidst the many and varied emotions that we as humans endure the human imagination fuses with the realities of outer space for a new born planet to emergence that catapults a message of dire warnings to us, a cataclysmic finale for the planet earth that has fallen prey to human arrogance and greed. The events of this story play themselves out in NASA when its spacecraft disappear, one after the other, and in the moments of hopelessness and expectation and the glances of disappear from the eyes of the world, and the feelings of the families. It is here that three of the best of the best that NASA has to offer, hero astronauts, are deployed to solve the riddle. David, a pompous man if ever there was one, a man who has never been able to hold onto a woman in a serious relationship, least of all the last two women he was involved with. Jack, the consummate womaniser who can’t get enough of his relationships with woman, while his dutiful wife Suzie remains at home, seething with pain for his many treacheries. Finally there is Tony, the kind of heart, and his angelic wife Angela and their tragic infant son Cody, the apple of their eye, a handsome boy and smart suffering from an incurable disease that is on the verge of killing him. With all of that they love and support him and find time to do good deeds for all, garnering the respect and love of all. As the astronauts arrive in the designated spot in space where the previous missions disappeared, they almost collide with a semi-invisible planet from legend, dragging them towards it with all their attempts to flee. They see within it things that go beyond the wildest dreams of mortal man till they thought they’d died and gone to heaven. Then they realise that this planet is besotted with many dark and ancient secrets relating to the Pharaohs, as they also learn that the planets responds only to human emotion. Upon their return to earth the great surprise involving Cody takes place, and in the moment of farewell this mysterious planet sends a definite and resounding message to earth and all who reside on it. The surprises don’t end there, till we return a second time to this planet to discover even more of its secrets… The only remaining question then is, will the inhabitants of this world reveal them?

In the same week he would harass an Under-Secretary about horses from the Army, write voluminously to the press about a gun he had invented for potting aeroplanes, give a fancy-dress ball which he forgot to attend, and get in the semi-final of the racquets championship.

Poem for Vows Hello beautiful talented dark semi-optimists of June, from far off I send my hopes Brooklyn is sunny, and the ghost of Whitman who loved everyone is there to see you say what can never be said, something like partly I promise my whole life to try to figure out what it means to stand facing you under a tree, and partly no matter how angry I get I will always remember we met before we were born, it was in a village, someone had just cast a spell, it was in the park, snow everywhere, we were slipping and laughing, at last we knew the green secret, we were sea turtles swimming a long time together without needing to breathe, we were two hungry owls silently hunting night, our terrible claws, I don’t want to sound like I know, I’m just one who worries all night about people in a lab watching a storm in a glass terrarium perform lethal ubiquity, tiny black clouds make the final ideogram above miniature lands exactly resembling ours, what is happening happens again, they cannot stop it, they take off their white coats, go outside, look up and wonder, only we who promise everything despite everything can tell them the solution, only we know.

The league match ended in a tense 1-1 draw, which kept Barcelona eight points clear at the top. Lionel scored a penalty and then with ten minutes to go, Cristiano scored a penalty. Messi 1 Ronaldo 1. ‘Anything you do, Ronaldo does too!’ Andrés said with a big smile on his face. Lionel’s teammates loved to tease him about his Ballon d’Or rival. They needed their star to be at his very best. In the Copa del Rey final, Lionel was desperate to be the matchwinner. He tried dropping deep, he tried moving out to the wing but nothing worked. Wherever he went, he was surrounded by defenders. Then in extra time, Cristiano scored to give Real the victory. Messi 1 Ronaldo 2. Lionel was furious. He always hated losing but losing against Ronaldo and Real Madrid was the worst feeling ever. ‘What are we going to do?’ he asked his teammates. ‘We have to win the Champions League semi-final now!

This particular event had been somewhat more raucous than usual as Derek Jameson had just lost an arm wrestle with Ann Diamond. The match was the second semi-final of the morning after Belinda Carlisle had been pipped at the post by Rusty Lee. Carlisle had caused some consternation after, upset at losing and forfeiting the chance to compete for the first prize of a quarter of midget gems, she had spat port in Lee’s handbag. Carlisle had been asked to leave and, after a brief tussle, had been ejected from the building whilst screaming and spitting in Simon Parkin’s face.

Destruction. Anyone who didn’t know the real meaning of that word now has the opportunity to learn it here. You might have thought that you already knew its real name and how to pronounce it. But during the first major bombardment you experience, you find himself in the semi-darkness of a cellar with a crowd of frantic people, already killed by fear. What such people do and the way they speak and behave is completely outside the framework of the accepted standards of behaviour that prevail at the time, and indeed has its origin in the other side of human consciousness. But all voices are silenced and all movements frozen by an explosion, or rather, a series of explosions, scattered somewhere around the city centre. And then, in the darkness and silence that reign after the explosions, the distant but clear crashing of multi-storey buildings can be heard, like an echo. It is an alarming, uncommon sound, akin to a series of consecutive stone avalanches, the voice of giant hordes, formed up beside each other, roaring their indecipherable and terrible cheers to someone riding swiftly ahead of them; their shouts overlap and merge as they tail off. This new sound that touches a place inside you hitherto unknown, is the true name of destruction and its proper pronunciation. Destruction’s strange voice takes wing, and seeks within the mass an individual it can frighten, and within each individual a weak point open to fear. And it finds it, at least here. Because anyone who as a result is frightened, is already beaten, regardless of all the possible convoluted developments of the war, and even its final outcome. Thus it happens that, in addition to the major destruction to visible things, even greater destruction is wrought within and between people, which only a few of them, and even then only gradually, begin to see and understand. The destruction tears off man’s final mask, turns his innards inside out and throws into view unexpected characteristics, contrary to everything known or thought about a person, and even what he believed about himself; it disrupts family relations and changes the established social order and relationships, even those considered eternal and unchanging, such as gender relations.