Sign A Petition Quotes

I've seen it happen over and over again: a black person gets killed just for being black, and all hell breaks loose. I’ve tweeted RIP hashtags, reblogged pictures on Tumblr, and signed every petition out there. I always said that if I saw it happen to somebody, I would have the loudest voice, making sure the world knew what went down. Now I am that person, and I’m too afraid to speak.

Why do I always have to be the one who says 'stop'?" I demanded, my voice little more than a moan. "You don't. In fact, at this point I'm considering a petition to that word stricken from the English language." His grin was almost lazy, the gleam in his eyes an effortless challenge. "If I did, would you sign?

Censorship and the suppression of reading materials are rarely about family values and almost always about control; About who is snapping the whip, who is saying no, and who is saying go. Censorship's bottom line is this: if the novel Christine offends me, I don't want just to make sure it's kept from my kid; I want to make sure it's kept from your kid, as well, and all the kids. This bit of intellectual arrogance, undemocratic and as old as time, is best expressed this way: "If it's bad for me and my family, it's bad for everyone's family." Yet when books are run out of school classrooms and even out of school libraries as a result of this idea, I'm never much disturbed not as a citizen, not as a writer, not even as a schoolteacher . . . which I used to be. What I tell kids is, Don't get mad, get even. Don't spend time waving signs or carrying petitions around the neighborhood. Instead, run, don't walk, to the nearest nonschool library or to the local bookstore and get whatever it was that they banned. Read whatever they're trying to keep out of your eyes and your brain, because that's exactly what you need to know.

By making the government a combination of elected officials and citizen-backed initiatives and referenda, there can truly be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Hello. We’re the ones who control your lives. We make the decisions that affect all of you. Isn’t it interesting to know that those who run your lives would have the nerve to tell you about it in this manner? Suffer, you fools. We know everything you do, and we know where you go. What do you think the cameras are for? And the global-positioning satellites? And the Social Security numbers? You belong to us. And it can’t be changed. Sign your petitions, walk your picket lines, bring your lawsuits, cast your votes, and write those stupid letters to whomever you please; you won’t change a thing. Because we control your lives. And we have plans for you. Go back to sleep. THEY

Alcohol I once visited a supermarket that had a petition to allow it to sell alcohol. I signed the petition telling the check-out girl that clouds of alcohol molecules were the largest objects in the galaxy, some five billion times the mass of our sun, and that it was from such clouds that worlds and stars were formed. To which the check-out girl replied: "You're not from around here are you.

What grief is not taken away by time? What passion will survive an unequal battle with it? I knew a man in the bloom of his still youthful powers, filled with true nobility and virtue, I knew him when he was in love, tenderly, passionately, furiously, boldly, modestly, and before me, almost before my eyes, the object of his passion - tender, beautiful as an angel - was struck down by insatiable death. I never saw such terrible fits of inner suffering, such furious scorching anguish, such devouring despair as shook the unfortunate lover. I never thought a man could create such a hell for himself, in which there would be no shadow, no image, nothing in the least resembling hope... They tried to keep an eye on him; they hid all instruments he might have used to take his own life. Two weeks later he suddenly mastered himself: he began to laugh, to joke; freedom was granted him, and the first thing he did was buy a pistol. One day his family was terribly frightened by the sudden sound of a shot. They ran into the room and saw him lying with his brains blown out. A doctor who happened to be there, whose skill was on everyone's lips, saw signs of life in him, found that the wound was not quite mortal, and the man, to everyone's amazement, was healed. The watch on him was increased still more. Even at the table they did not give him a knife to and tried to take away from him anything that he might strike himself with; but a short while later he found a new occasion and threw himself under the wheels of a passing carriage. His arms and legs were crushed; but again they saved him. A year later I saw him in a crowded room; he sat at the card table gaily saying 'Petite ouverte,' keeping one card turned down, and behind him, leaning on the back of his chair, stood his young wife, who was sorting through his chips.

That war [Bosnian war] in the early 1990s changed a lot for me. I never thought I would see, in Europe, a full-dress reprise of internment camps, the mass murder of civilians, the reinstiutution of torture and rape as acts of policy. And I didn't expect so many of my comrades to be indifferent - or even take the side of the fascists. It was a time when many people on the left were saying 'Don't intervene, we'll only make things worse' or, 'Don't intervene, it might destabilise the region. And I thought - destabilisation of fascist regimes is a good thing. Why should the left care about the stability of undemocratic regimes? Wasn't it a good thing to destabilise the regime of General Franco? It was a time when the left was mostly taking the conservative, status quo position - leave the Balkans alone, leave Milosevic alone, do nothing. And that kind of conservatism can easily mutate into actual support for the aggressors. Weimar-style conservatism can easily mutate into National Socialism. So you had people like Noam Chomsky's co-author Ed Herman go from saying 'Do nothing in the Balkans', to actually supporting Milosevic, the most reactionary force in the region. That's when I began to first find myself on the same side as the neocons. I was signing petitions in favour of action in Bosnia, and I would look down the list of names and I kept finding, there's Richard Perle. There's Paul Wolfowitz. That seemed interesting to me. These people were saying that we had to act. Before, I had avoided them like the plague, especially because of what they said about General Sharon and about Nicaragua. But nobody could say they were interested in oil in the Balkans, or in strategic needs, and the people who tried to say that - like Chomsky - looked ridiculous. So now I was interested.

We want you to sign a petition,” said Mrs. Jellicoe.

This book has two determinants: on the one hand, an ideological critique of the language of so-called mass culture; on the other, an initial semiological dismantling of that language: I had just read Saussure and emerged with the conviction that by treating “collective representations” as sign systems one might hope to transcend pious denunciation and instead account in detail for the mystification which transforms petit bourgeois culture into a universal nature.

We were interrupted by a girl with a strawberry birthmark on her nose; she had some papers in her hand and asked if we had signed the petition for the imprisoned Argentinean comrades. Belbo signed without reading it. "They're even worse of than I am," he said to Diotallevi, who was regarding him with a bemused expression. "He can't sign," Belbo said to the girl. "He belongs to a small Indian sect that forbids its members to write their own names. Many of them are in jail because of government persecution." The girl looked sympathetically at Diotallevi and passed the petition to me. "And who are they?" I asked. "What do you mean, who are they? Argentinean comrades." "But what group do they belong to?" "The Tacuarus, I think." "The Tacuarus are fascists," I said. As if I knew one group from the other. "Fascist pig," the girl hissed at me. She left.

Outside of Piers Morgan’s home is a sign strategically positioned in the front of his property by the walkway. Its bold red-and-white typeface is a warning to all passersby: “Protected By Armed Response Security Systems.” James O’Keefe of Project Veritas discovered the sign as he sought signatures for a petition seeking to rid Hollywood films of all firearms. He took a photo of the sign and asked Morgan via Twitter “Hey, @piersmorgan, can you explain these signs on your Beverly Hills property?” Morgan could not, so he ignored it. While Morgan snores soundly in his bed, he has a security firm keep watch with a firearm and rush to Morgan’s defense if Morgan finds himself under threat. This way Morgan can pretend that he’s against firearms when, really, he’s just outsourced his gun. He is a royalist: He believes that commoners shouldn’t possess firearms, especially Americans. It’s the ultimate hypocrisy: Progressives view firearms as only situationally evil. They’re evil in the hands of anyone other than themselves or their security firms. Don

White women—feminists included—have revealed a historical reluctance to acknowledge the struggles of household workers. They have rarely been involved in the Sisyphean task of ameliorating the conditions of domestic service. The convenient omission of household workers’ problems from the programs of “middle-class” feminists past and present has often turned out to be a veiled justification—at least on the part of the affluent women—of their own exploitative treatment of their maids. In 1902 the author of an article entitled “A Nine-Hour Day for Domestic Servants” described a conversation with a feminist friend who had asked her to sign a petition urging employers to furnish seats for women clerks. “The girls,” she said, “have to stand on their feet ten hours a day and it makes my heart ache to see their tired faces.” “Mrs. Jones,” said I, “how many hours a day does your maid stand upon her feet?” “Why, I don’t know,” she gasped, “five or six I suppose.” “At what time does she rise?” “At six.” “And at what hour does she finish at night?” “Oh, about eight, I think, generally.” “That makes fourteen hours …” “… (S)he can often sit down at her work.” “At what work? Washing? Ironing? Sweeping? Making beds? Cooking? Washing dishes? … Perhaps she sits for two hours at her meals and preparing vegetables, and four days in the week she has an hour in the afternoon. According to that, your maid is on her feet at least eleven hours a day with a score of stair-climbings included. It seems to me that her case is more pitiable than that of the store clerk.” My caller rose with red cheeks and flashing eyes. “My maid always has Sunday after dinner,” she said. “Yes, but the clerk has all day Sunday. Please don’t go until I have signed that petition. No one would be more thankful than I to see the clerks have a chance to sit …

Hawai'i became only the second sovereign nation to join the United States. But unlike the Republic of Texas, where a public referendum was held, no one asked the thirty-one thousand native Hawaiians whether they wished to give up their country. Twenty-nine thousand of them signed a petition of protest, which was submitted to Congress and politely ignored.

If you have the right to influence the laws that are made in your community, why not take the opportunity to do something good?

It amuses me to think how angry I used to get when people wouldn’t sign my peace petitions.

he’d issued his certificate eight days after he’d signed the parishioners’ petition, which ended any pretext of impartiality.

What do you mean do I go around with narcotics signing petitions painting slop writing books full of dirty words with a beard?

In 1785, he led a delegation of abolitionists to Mount Vernon to convince the future first president of the United States to join their movement. But George Washington declined to sign the petition or publicly support the Methodists’ anti-slavery efforts, on the premise that “it would be dangerous to make a frontal attack on a prejudice which is beginning to decrease.

In 1898, while at war with Spain in the Pacific, the United States Congress decided Hawai'i would be a strategic asset and issued a joint resolution annexing the islands, which President McKinley signed into law. Hawai'i became only the second sovereign nation to join the United States. But unlike the Republic of Texas, where a public referendum was held, no one asked the thirty-one thousand native Hawaiians whether they wished to give up their country. Twenty-nine thousand of them signed a petition of protest, which was submitted to Congress and politely ignored.

Elle me lança le gant au visage. "Gibier de potence !" dit elle. "Petit malfrat !" Elle fit demi-tour et m'abandonna à mon sort. Je me séchai, enfilai un caleçon et entrai dans la cuisine. Elle était devant la cuisinière, le dos tourné, en train de préparer mon petit-déjeuner. L'expert des appendices charnus que je suis détecta aussitôt la contraction de ses fessiers - signe indubitable de fureur chez une femme. L'expérience m'a appris à me montrer extrêmement prudent en présence d'une métamorphose aussi spectaculaire des fessiers féminins, si bien que je m'assis sans moufter. J'avais l'impression d'affronter un serpent lové sur lui-même.

For several months they'd been drifting toward political involvement, but the picture was hazy and one of the most confusing elements was their geographical proximity to Berkeley, the citadel of West Coast radicalism. Berkeley is right next door to Oakland, with nothing between them but a line on the map and a few street signs, but in many ways they are as different as Manhattan and the Bronx. Berkeley is a college town and, like Manhattan, a magnet for intellectual transients. Oakland is a magnet for people who want hour-wage jobs and cheap housing, who can't afford to live in Berkeley, San Francisco or any of the middle-class Bay Area suburbs. [10] It is a noisy, ugly, mean-spirited place, with the sort of charm that Chicago had for Sandburg. It is also a natural environment for hoodlums, brawlers, teenage gangs and racial tensions. The Hell's Angels' massive publicity -- coming hard on the heels of the widely publicized student rebellion in Berkeley -- was interpreted in liberal-radical-intellectual circles as the signal for a natural alliance. Beyond that, the Angels' aggressive, antisocial stance -- their alienation, as it were -- had a tremendous appeal for the more aesthetic Berkeley temperament. Students who could barely get up the nerve to sign a petition or to shoplift a candy bar were fascinated by tales of the Hell's Angels ripping up towns and taking whatever they wanted. Most important, the Angels had a reputation for defying police, for successfully bucking authority, and to the frustrated student radical this was a powerful image indeed. The Angels didn't masturbate, they raped. They didn't come on with theories and songs and quotations, but with noise and muscle and sheer balls.

Rea­sons Why I Loved Be­ing With Jen I love what a good friend you are. You’re re­ally en­gaged with the lives of the peo­ple you love. You or­ga­nize lovely ex­pe­ri­ences for them. You make an ef­fort with them, you’re pa­tient with them, even when they’re side­tracked by their chil­dren and can’t pri­or­i­tize you in the way you pri­or­i­tize them. You’ve got a gen­er­ous heart and it ex­tends to peo­ple you’ve never even met, whereas I think that ev­ery­one is out to get me. I used to say you were naive, but re­ally I was jeal­ous that you al­ways thought the best of peo­ple. You are a bit too anx­ious about be­ing seen to be a good per­son and you def­i­nitely go a bit over­board with your left-wing pol­i­tics to prove a point to ev­ery­one. But I know you re­ally do care. I know you’d sign pe­ti­tions and help peo­ple in need and vol­un­teer at the home­less shel­ter at Christ­mas even if no one knew about it. And that’s more than can be said for a lot of us. I love how quickly you read books and how ab­sorbed you get in a good story. I love watch­ing you lie on the sofa read­ing one from cover-to-cover. It’s like I’m in the room with you but you’re in a whole other gal­axy. I love that you’re al­ways try­ing to im­prove your­self. Whether it’s running marathons or set­ting your­self chal­lenges on an app to learn French or the fact you go to ther­apy ev­ery week. You work hard to be­come a bet­ter ver­sion of your­self. I think I prob­a­bly didn’t make my ad­mi­ra­tion for this known and in­stead it came off as ir­ri­ta­tion, which I don’t re­ally feel at all. I love how ded­i­cated you are to your fam­ily, even when they’re an­noy­ing you. Your loy­alty to them wound me up some­times, but it’s only be­cause I wish I came from a big fam­ily. I love that you al­ways know what to say in con­ver­sa­tion. You ask the right ques­tions and you know ex­actly when to talk and when to lis­ten. Ev­ery­one loves talk­ing to you be­cause you make ev­ery­one feel im­por­tant. I love your style. I know you think I prob­a­bly never no­ticed what you were wear­ing or how you did your hair, but I loved see­ing how you get ready, sit­ting in front of the full-length mir­ror in our bed­room while you did your make-up, even though there was a mir­ror on the dress­ing ta­ble. I love that you’re mad enough to swim in the English sea in No­vem­ber and that you’d pick up spi­ders in the bath with your bare hands. You’re brave in a way that I’m not. I love how free you are. You’re a very free per­son, and I never gave you the sat­is­fac­tion of say­ing it, which I should have done. No one knows it about you be­cause of your bor­ing, high-pres­sure job and your stuffy up­bring­ing, but I know what an ad­ven­turer you are un­der­neath all that. I love that you got drunk at Jack­son’s chris­ten­ing and you al­ways wanted to have one more drink at the pub and you never com­plained about get­ting up early to go to work with a hang­over. Other than Avi, you are the per­son I’ve had the most fun with in my life. And even though I gave you a hard time for al­ways try­ing to for al­ways try­ing to im­press your dad, I ac­tu­ally found it very adorable be­cause it made me see the child in you and the teenager in you, and if I could time-travel to any­where in his­tory, I swear, Jen, the only place I’d want to go is to the house where you grew up and hug you and tell you how beau­ti­ful and clever and funny you are. That you are spec­tac­u­lar even with­out all your sports trophies and mu­sic cer­tifi­cates and in­cred­i­ble grades and Ox­ford ac­cep­tance. I’m sorry that I loved you so much more than I liked my­self, that must have been a lot to carry. I’m sorry I didn’t take care of you the way you took care of me. And I’m sorry I didn’t take care of my­self, ei­ther. I need to work on it. I’m pleased that our break-up taught me that. I’m sorry I went so mental. I love you. I always will. I'm glad we met.

Beau chou, disent-ils, vis et fleuris, afin que notre jeune mariée ait un beau petit enfant avant la fin de l'année; car si tu mourais trop vite ce serait signe de stérilité, et tu serais là-haut sur sa maison comme un mauvais présage.

You ought to make something for Easter. You know. Eggs and stuff. Chocolate hens, rabbits, things like that. Like the shops in Agen." I remember them from my childhood; the Paris chocolateries with their baskets of foil-wrapped eggs, shelves of rabbits and hens, bells, marzipan fruits and marrons glacés, amourettes and filigree nests filled with petits fours and caramels, and a thousand and one epiphanies of spun-sugar magic carpet rides more suited to an Arabian harem than the solemnities of the Passion. "I remember my mother telling me about the Easter chocolates." There was never enough money to buy those exquisite things, but I always had my own cornet-surprise, a paper cone containing my Easter gifts, coins, paper flowers, hard-boiled eggs painted in bright enamel colors, a box of colored papier-mâché- painted with chickens, bunnies, smiling children among the buttercups, the same every year and stored carefully for the next time- encasing a tiny packet of chocolate raisins wrapped in cellophane, each one to be savored, long and lingeringly, in the lost hours of those strange nights between cities, with the neon glow of hotel signs blink-blinking between the shutters and my mother's breathing, slow and somehow eternal, in the umbrous silence.

The difference was principally in the invisible places toward which their respective hearts were turned. They dreamed of Cairo with its autonomous government, its army, its newspapers and its cinema, while he, facing in the same direction, dreamed just a little beyond Cairo, across the Bhar El Hamar to Mecca. They thought in terms of grievances, censorship, petitions and reforms; he, like any good Moslem who knows only the tenets of his religion, in terms of destiny and divine justice. If the word 'independence' was uttered, they saw platoons of Moslem soldiers marching through streets were all the signs were written in Arabic script, they saw factories and power plants rising from the fields; he saw skies of flame, the wings of avenging angels, and total destruction.

But, for some reason, the laws of their universe didn’t allow them to openly oppose you. All they would do was smile fixedly and try to tell you not to take so many classes and, if you smiled fixedly back for long enough, they would eventually sign the petition.

She had been here for the protests three years earlier; yes, she had held up her banner and shouted and signed her petitions. “It was like being part of a wave of water,” she says. “A wave of spray from the ocean feels powerful, but it is only there for a moment, the sun dries the puddles and the water is gone. Then you feel maybe it never happened. That is how it was with us. The only wave that changes anything is a tsunami. You have to tear down the houses and destroy the land if you want to be sure no one will forget you.

En dépit de toutes les profondes différences de leurs natures, tous deux avaient beaucoup appris l'un de l'autre; entre eux, à côté de la langue de la raison, il s'était peu à peu formé un parler de l'âme, un langage de signes, de même que, entre deux agglomérations, il y a bien une route sur laquelle circulent les voitures et les cavaliers, mais à côté se tracent beaucoup de petites sentes, de chemins de traverse, de sentiers détournés; chemins pour les enfants, sentiers pour les amoureux, sentes à peine visibles pour les chiens et les chats. (p. 49-50)

Tellingly, although the deacons signed the petition to commit her on May 22, two days later, they tried another tack, when they and twelve others wrote to Elizabeth to beg her to rejoin their church. In the letter, they appealed to her reason—which suggested they thought she was sane.

We've been getting shafted for a long time now. We have fought, and the freaky little white men have prevailed. The stories of our fights are glossed over in the freaky little white men's history, which is partly how they have prevailed. Now they are poised to kill the earth, and this is not about signing petitions and attending protests. This is about eradicating fascinations with celebrities who contribute nothing to our imaginations. This is about telling our stories, poetically employing our imaginations in the actions of our every day lives. And this is about loving each other.

The North Korean capital, Pyongyang, is a city consecrated to the worship of a father-son dynasty. (I came to think of them, with their nuclear-family implications, as 'Fat Man and Little Boy.') And a river runs through it. And on this river, the Taedong River, is moored the only American naval vessel in captivity. It was in January 1968 that the U.S.S. Pueblo strayed into North Korean waters, and was boarded and captured. One sailor was killed; the rest were held for nearly a year before being released. I looked over the spy ship, its radio antennae and surveillance equipment still intact, and found photographs of the captain and crew with their hands on their heads in gestures of abject surrender. Copies of their groveling 'confessions,' written in tremulous script, were also on show. So was a humiliating document from the United States government, admitting wrongdoing in the penetration of North Korean waters and petitioning the 'D.P.R.K.' (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) for 'lenience.' Kim Il Sung ('Fat Man') was eventually lenient about the men, but not about the ship. Madeleine Albright didn't ask to see the vessel on her visit last October, during which she described the gruesome, depopulated vistas of Pyongyang as 'beautiful.' As I got back onto the wharf, I noticed a refreshment cart, staffed by two women under a frayed umbrella. It didn't look like much—one of its three wheels was missing and a piece of brick was propping it up—but it was the only such cart I'd see. What toothsome local snacks might the ladies be offering? The choices turned out to be slices of dry bread and cups of warm water. Nor did Madeleine Albright visit the absurdly misnamed 'Demilitarized Zone,' one of the most heavily militarized strips of land on earth. Across the waist of the Korean peninsula lies a wasteland, roughly following the 38th parallel, and packed with a titanic concentration of potential violence. It is four kilometers wide (I have now looked apprehensively at it from both sides) and very near to the capital cities of both North and South. On the day I spent on the northern side, I met a group of aging Chinese veterans, all from Szechuan, touring the old battlefields and reliving a war they helped North Korea nearly win (China sacrificed perhaps a million soldiers in that campaign, including Mao Anying, son of Mao himself). Across the frontier are 37,000 United States soldiers. Their arsenal, which has included undeclared nuclear weapons, is the reason given by Washington for its refusal to sign the land-mines treaty. In August 1976, U.S. officers entered the neutral zone to trim a tree that was obscuring the view of an observation post. A posse of North Koreans came after them, and one, seizing the ax with which the trimming was to be done, hacked two U.S. servicemen to death with it. I visited the ax also; it's proudly displayed in a glass case on the North Korean side.

A BRAVE AND STARTLING TRUTH We, this people, on a small and lonely planet Traveling through casual space Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns To a destination where all signs tell us It is possible and imperative that we learn A brave and startling truth And when we come to it To the day of peacemaking When we release our fingers From fists of hostility And allow the pure air to cool our palms When we come to it When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean When battlefields and coliseum No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters Up with the bruised and bloody grass To lie in identical plots in foreign soil When the rapacious storming of the churches The screaming racket in the temples have ceased When the pennants are waving gaily When the banners of the world tremble Stoutly in the good, clean breeze When we come to it When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders And children dress their dolls in flags of truce When land mines of death have been removed And the aged can walk into evenings of peace When religious ritual is not perfumed By the incense of burning flesh And childhood dreams are not kicked awake By nightmares of abuse When we come to it Then we will confess that not the Pyramids With their stones set in mysterious perfection Nor the Gardens of Babylon Hanging as eternal beauty In our collective memory Not the Grand Canyon Kindled into delicious color By Western sunsets Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji Stretching to the Rising Sun Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor, Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores These are not the only wonders of the world When we come to it We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace We, this people on this mote of matter In whose mouths abide cankerous words Which challenge our very existence Yet out of those same mouths Come songs of such exquisite sweetness That the heart falters in its labor And the body is quieted into awe We, this people, on this small and drifting planet Whose hands can strike with such abandon That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness That the haughty neck is happy to bow And the proud back is glad to bend Out of such chaos, of such contradiction We learn that we are neither devils nor divines When we come to it We, this people, on this wayward, floating body Created on this earth, of this earth Have the power to fashion for this earth A climate where every man and every woman Can live freely without sanctimonious piety Without crippling fear When we come to it We must confess that we are the possible We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world That is when, and only when We come to it.

We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions. We may pass them by, preoccupied with our more important tasks…When we do that we pass by the visible sign of the Cross, raised athwart our path to show us, not our way, but God’s way must be done.

Moral for psychologists. -- Not to go in for backstairs psychology. Never to observe in order to observe! That gives a false perspective, leads to squinting and something forced and exaggerated. Experience as the wish to experience does not succeed. One must not eye oneself while having an experience; else the eye becomes "an evil eye." A born psychologist guards instinctively against seeing in order to see; the same is true of the born painter. He never works "from nature"; he leaves it to his instinct, to his camera obscura, to sift through and express the "case," "nature," that which is "experienced." He is conscious only of what is general, of the conclusion, the result: he does not know arbitrary abstractions from an individual case. What happens when one proceeds differently? For example, if, in the manner of the Parisian novelists, one goes in for backstairs psychology and deals in gossip, wholesale and retail? Then one lies in wait for reality, as it were, and every evening one brings home a handful of curiosities. But note what finally comes of all this: a heap of splotches, a mosaic at best, but in any case something added together, something restless, a mess of screaming colors. The worst in this respect is accomplished by the Goncourts; they do not put three sentences together without really hurting the eye, the psychologist's eye. Nature, estimated artistically, is no model. It exaggerates, it distorts, it leaves gaps. Nature is chance. To study "from nature" seems to me to be a bad sign: it betrays submission, weakness, fatalism; this lying in the dust before petit faits [little facts] is unworthy of a whole artist. To see what is--that is the mark of another kind of spirit, the anti-artistic, the factual. One must know who one is. Toward a psychology of the artist. -- If there is to be art, if there is to be any aesthetic doing and seeing, one physiological condition is indispensable: frenzy. Frenzy must first have enhanced the excitability of the whole machine; else there is no art. All kinds of frenzy, however diversely conditioned, have the strength to accomplish this: above all, the frenzy of sexual excitement, this most ancient and original form of frenzy. Also the frenzy that follows all great cravings, all strong affects; the frenzy of feasts, contests, feats of daring, victory, all extreme movement; the frenzy of cruelty; the frenzy in destruction, the frenzy under certain meteorological influences, as for example the frenzy of spring; or under the influence of narcotics; and finally the frenzy of will, the frenzy of an overcharged and swollen will. What is essential in such frenzy is the feeling of increased strength and fullness. Out of this feeling one lends to things, one forces them to accept from us, one violates them--this process is called idealizing. Let us get rid of a prejudice here: idealizing does not consist, as is commonly held, in subtracting or discounting the petty and inconsequential. What is decisive is rather a tremendous drive to bring out the main features so that the others disappear in the process. In this state one enriches everything out of one's own fullness: whatever one sees, whatever one wills, is seen swelled, taut, strong, overloaded with strength. A man in this state transforms things until they mirror his power--until they are reflections of his perfection. This having to transform into perfection is--art. Even everything that he is not yet, becomes for him an occasion of joy in himself; in art man enjoys himself as perfection.

Nature, estimated artistically, is no model. It exaggerates, it distorts, it leaves gaps. Nature is chance. To study 'from nature' seems to me to be a bad sign: it betrays submission, weakness, fatalism; this lying in the dust before petit faits is unworthy of a whole artist. To see what is — that is the mark of another kind of spirit, the anti-artistic, the factual. One must know who one is.

Homesickness Standing under a million stars screaming up at them, PLEASE JUST TAKE ME HOME, with a voice rusty like the underside of boats, feeling it scratch at a throat like swallowed fish-bones. Making petitions to get the universe to care more, signing our names on any scrap of paper passed along like a single name could change the whole wide world. Could change galaxies. Tearing clothes, ripping skin, pleading, TAKE ME BACK, JUST TAKE ME BACK, I’m not willing to be a person any more. Science says I was part of a star once and I just— I want to be back there, always burning. These atoms could have been a lioness but here I am instead, these fragile limbs, and I never found out the returns policy. Take me back, take me back, I want to go home. Broken glass catching at my feet and the air too hot in my lungs. If I could have been anything why am I this?

You never speak to any of us, you don’t come to social events, in fact, you don’t even acknowledge invitations. You barely know our names. When we ask you to sign petitions for the upkeep of the local area, you don’t acknowledge those either. You don’t contribute to the community. Why, may I ask, this sudden interest in a local resident? Anyway, if you must know, the only one I bumped into other than you was that new man, the dishy one, the writer.

Her pretty name of Adina seemed to me to have somehow a mystic fitness to her personality. Behind a cold shyness, there seemed to lurk a tremulous promise to be franker when she knew you better. Adina is a strange child; she is fanciful without being capricious. She was stout and fresh-coloured, she laughed and talked rather loud, and generally, in galleries and temples, caused a good many stiff British necks to turn round. She had a mania for excursions, and at Frascati and Tivoli she inflicted her good-humoured ponderosity on diminutive donkeys with a relish which seemed to prove that a passion for scenery, like all our passions, is capable of making the best of us pitiless. Adina may not have the shoulders of the Venus of Milo...but I hope it will take more than a bauble like this to make her stoop. Adina espied the first violet of the year glimmering at the root of a cypress. She made haste to rise and gather it, and then wandered further, in the hope of giving it a few companions. Scrope sat and watched her as she moved slowly away, trailing her long shadow on the grass and drooping her head from side to side in her charming quest. It was not, I know, that he felt no impulse to join her; but that he was in love, for the moment, with looking at her from where he sat. Her search carried her some distance and at last she passed out of sight behind a bend in the villa wall. I don't pretend to be sure that I was particularly struck, from this time forward, with something strange in our quiet Adina. She had always seemed to me vaguely, innocently strange; it was part of her charm that in the daily noiseless movement of her life a mystic undertone seemed to murmur "You don't half know me! Perhaps we three prosaic mortals were not quite worthy to know her: yet I believe that if a practised man of the world had whispered to me, one day, over his wine, after Miss Waddington had rustled away from the table, that there was a young lady who, sooner or later, would treat her friends to a first class surprise, I should have laid my finger on his sleeve and told him with a smile that he phrased my own thought. .."That beautiful girl," I said, "seems to me agitated and preoccupied." "That beautiful girl is a puzzle. I don't know what's the matter with her; it's all very painful; she's a very strange creature. I never dreamed there was an obstacle to our happiness--to our union. She has never protested and promised; it's not her way, nor her nature; she is always humble, passive, gentle; but always extremely grateful for every sign of tenderness. Till within three or four days ago, she seemed to me more so than ever; her habitual gentleness took the form of a sort of shrinking, almost suffering, deprecation of my attentions, my petits soins, my lovers nonsense. It was as if they oppressed and mortified her--and she would have liked me to bear more lightly. I did not see directly that it was not the excess of my devotion, but my devotion itself--the very fact of my love and her engagement that pained her. When I did it was a blow in the face. I don't know what under heaven I've done! Women are fathomless creatures. And yet Adina is not capricious, in the common sense... .So these are peines d'amour?" he went on, after brooding a moment. "I didn't know how fiercely I was in love!" Scrope stood staring at her as she thrust out the crumpled note: that she meant that Adina--that Adina had left us in the night--was too large a horror for his unprepared sense...."Good-bye to everything! Think me crazy if you will. I could never explain. Only forget me and believe that I am happy, happy, happy! Adina Beati."... Love is said to be par excellence the egotistical passion; if so Adina was far gone. "I can't promise to forget you," I said; "you and my friend here deserve to be remembered!

Elles sont l’âme de l’été, l’horloge des minutes d’abondance, l’aile diligente des parfums qui s’élancent, le murmure des clartés qui tressaillent, le chant de l’atmosphère qui s’étire et se repose. Et leur vol est le signe visible, la note musicale des petites joies innombrables qui naissent de la chaleur et vivent dans la lumière. À qui les a connues, à qui les a aimées, un été sans abeilles semble aussi malheureux et aussi imparfait que s’il était sans oiseaux et sans fleurs.

Your attitude ought to be an attitude of praise. I cannot tell you the number of people who have been able to change their trajectory because they learned how to transcend their problems by praising God. They thanked God almost as a down payment (in advance) for what they had prayed about. When you praise God before you get the answer, it is one of the greatest manifestations that you believe that God has already granted the thing that you have petitioned Him about. It’s a great sign of faith.

The "whites only" signs may be gone, but new signs have gone up - notices placed in job applications, rental agreements, loan applications, forms for welfare benefits, school applications, and petitions for licenses, informing the general public that "felons" are not wanted here. A criminal record today authorizes precisely the forms of discrimination we supposedly left behind - discrimination in employment, housing, education, public benefits, and jury service. Those labeled criminals are even denied the right to vote.

We need to stop telling our nonbelieving neighbors how wrong their way of life is, and we need to start showing the power of the gospel in the way we live.... Let me ask you: Which has greater power? Ten thousand people who fill the streets in front of abortion clinics and shame those seeking abortions, or ten thousand people in California who take to the state capital a petition they have signed stating they will take any unwanted child of any age, any color, any physical condition so that they can love that child in the name of Jesus Christ?

I’ve bought a town house,” said Oswald. “In Aphrany. A huge black and white timbered monstrosity. The kind a very rich merchant lives in.” “Why in god’s name?” asked Mason. “Because Fenella once said she likes them,” said Oswald. “In a purely throw-away conversation. But for some reason, every word she speaks is seared on my brain.” Roland cleared his throat. “Bit impulsive for you, isn’t it?” “A bit?” echoed Oswald. “I forced the King to sign annulment papers to an eight-year marriage. Simply because I feel sick to my stomach at the idea of her ever belonging to another man. And the worst of it is, that the annulment is the least drastic course of action that occurred to me. For the last three months, in my head I have been drawing up legal papers to sue Thane for the eight years he spent at my wife’s side, masquerading in my rightful place. In her life, in her heart and in her bed.” He heard his voice shake with anger and realized his brothers must too. Taking a deep breath, he continued more evenly. “Each time I mentally draft the petition, I request a more severe punishment befitting of his crime.” “What kind of punishments?” asked Mason with interest, sitting back in his seat. Oswald blew out a shaky breath. “In the latest version, it was beheading.

As Naomi Gerstel...told the New York Times, 'It's the unmarried, with or without kids, who are more likely to take care of other people...It's not having children that isolates people. It's marriage.' Never-married women in particular are far more likely to be politically active, signing petitions, volunteering time, and attending rallies. Eric Klinenberg has argued that people who live alone are more likely to attend lectures and be out in the world, while married adults tend to focus their energies within their own homes, perhaps volunteering for their own children's schools, but not necessarily for organizations that do not benefit themselves or their kin.

One day, however, Maria Göppert—a future Nobelist—presented Born with a petition written on thick parchment and signed by her and most of the other members of the seminar: Unless the “child prodigy” was reined in, his fellow students would boycott the class. Still unwilling to confront Oppenheimer, Born decided to leave the document on his desk in a place where Robert could not help but see it when he next came to discuss his thesis. “To make this more certain,” Born later wrote, “I arranged to be called out of the room for a few minutes. This plot worked. When I returned I found him rather pale and not so voluble as usual.” Thereafter his interruptions ceased altogether.

When I say my wound became political in the years that followed, I don't mean that my involvement in the anti-war movement was somehow insincere or that I have any regrets about my activism. As a champion of the downtrodden, the disenfranchised, the poor, and the oppressed, I found a new outlet for the somewhat irrational but nevertheless strong sense I had of being an outsider in a group - uncomfortable, awkward, and quick to feel a slight. Political feeling can't exist without identification, and mine inevitably went to people without power, In contrast, right-wing ideologies often appeal to those who want to link themselves to authority, people for whom the sight of military parades or soldiers marching off to war is aggrandizing, not painful. Inevitably, there is sublimation in politics, too. It becomes an avenue for suppressed aggression and anger, and I was no exception. And so it was that armed with passion and gorged on political history, I became a firebrand at fourteen. For three years, I read and argued and demonstrated. I marched against the Vietnam War, helped print strike T-shirts at Carleton College after the deaths of four students at Kent State, attended rallies, raised money for war-torn Mozambique, signed petitions, licked envelopes for the American Indian Movement, and turned into a feminist. But even then, I didn't believe all the rhetoric.

Citing this and other exchanges, the science sociologist Charles Robert Thorpe has argued that while Oppenheimer may have been “excommunicated from the inner circle of the nuclear state,” he nevertheless “remained in spirit a supporter of the fundamental direction of its policies.” In Thorpe’s eyes, Oppenheimer was slipping back into his “earlier role as scientific-military strategist of the winnable nuclear war and apologist for the powers-that-be.” It seemed that way to some. Oppenheimer was certainly not willing to throw in his lot with political activists like Lord Russell, Rotblat, Szilard, Einstein and others who frequently signed petitions protesting the American-led arms race.

Party tactics?” “People like your wife are dangerous.” “Why?” Hamilton asked. “They don’t belong to any group. They fool around with everything. As soon as we turn our back—” “So you destroy them. You turn them over to the lunatic patriots.” “The lunatic patriots,” McFeyffe said, “we can understand. But not your wife. She signs Party peace petitions and she reads the Chicago Tribune. People like her—they’re more of a menace to Party discipline than any other bunch. The cult of individualism. The idealist with his own law, his own ethics. Refusing to accept authority. It undermines society. It topples the whole structure. Nothing lasting can be built on it. People like your wife just won’t take orders.” “McFeyffe,

I post a petition on my Facebook page. Which of my friends will see it on their news feed? I have no idea. As soon as I hit send, that petition belongs to Facebook, and the social network’s algorithm makes a judgment about how to best use it. It calculates the odds that it will appeal to each of my friends. Some of them, it knows, often sign petitions, and perhaps share them with their own networks. Others tend to scroll right past. At the same time, a number of my friends pay more attention to me and tend to click the articles I post. The Facebook algorithm takes all of this into account as it decides who will see my petition. For many of my friends, it will be buried so low on their news feed that they’ll never see it.

IN THE LONG RUN, however, Strauss’ strategy backfired; the transcript revealed the inquisitorial character of the hearing, and the corruption of justice during the McCarthy period. Within four years, the transcript would destroy the reputation and government career of Lewis Strauss. Ironically, publicity surrounding the trial and its verdict enhanced Oppenheimer’s fame both in America and abroad. Where once he was known only as the “father of the atomic bomb,” now he had become something even more alluring—a scientist martyred, like Galileo. Outraged and shocked by the decision, 282 Los Alamos scientists signed a letter to Strauss defending Oppenheimer. Around the country, more than 1,100 scientists and academics signed another petition protesting the decision.

Christians like Justin Martyr, one of the fathers of the church, shared such aspirations for self-mastery. Justin wholeheartedly admired Christians who practiced renunciation and celibacy; he even singled out for special praise a young convert in Alexandria who had petitioned Felix, the governor,asking that permission might be given to a surgeon to castrate him. For the surgeons had said they were forbidden to do this without the governor’s permission. And when Felix absolutely refused to sign such a permission, the young man remained celibate. (Justin, First Apology 29.) Origen, also revered as a father of the church, had been so determined to win his struggle against passion that as a young man he had castrated himself, apparently without asking anyone’s permission, least of all the governor’s.

Yet in the 1950s and '60s, a wide range of historians quickly and uncritically...[sought to] rule out of serious discussion of the American founding any suggestion that important, even defining, conflicts prevailed between rich, well-connected founders--those men of a variety of opinions of how government should work, who signed the Declaration of Independence and framed the U.S. Constitution--and the huge majority of unrich, ordinary Americans who--though we know so little about it--spent the founding era protesting, rioting, petitioning, occupying, and making demands on government in hopes of achieving access to economic development and restraining the power of wealth. That economic conflict wasn't between revolutionary Americans and British authorities. It was between Americans and other Americans. I've come to see it--not its resolution but the conflict itself--as defining our emergence as a people.

Il passa contre nous, ne s'interrompit pas de parler à sa voisine et nous fit du coin de son œil bleu un petit signe en quelque sorte intérieur aux paupières et qui, n'intéressant pas les muscles de son vidage, put passer parfaitement inaperçu de son interlocutrice ; mais, cherchant à compenser par l'intensité du sentiment le champ un peu étroit où il en circonscrivait l'expression, dans ce coin d'azur qui nous était affecté il fit pétiller tout l'entrain de la bonne grâce qui dépassa l'enjouement, frisa la malice ; il subtilisa les finesses de l'amabilité jusqu'aux clignements de la connivence, aux demi-mots, aux sous-entendus, aux mystères de la complicité ; et finalement exalta les assurances d'amitié jusqu'aux protestations de tendresse, jusqu'à la déclaration d'amour, illuminant alors pour nous seuls d'une langueur secrète et invisible à la châtelaine, une prunelle énamourée dans un visage de glace.

Mais les signes de ce qui m'attendait réellement, je les ai tous négligés. Je travaille mon diplôme sur le surréalisme à la bibliothèque de Rouen, je sors, je traverse le square Verdrel, il fait doux, les cygnes du bassin ont reparu, et d'un seul coup j'ai conscience que je suis en train de vivre peut-être mes dernières semaines de fille seule, libre d'aller où je veux, de ne pas manger ce midi, de travailler dans ma chambre sans être dérangée. Je vais perdre définitivement la solitude. Peut-on s'isoler facilement dans un petit meublé, à deux. Et il voudra manger ses deux repas par jour. Toutes sortes d'images me traversent. Une vie pas drôle finalement. Mais je refoule, j'ai honte, ce sont des idées de fille unique, égocentrique, soucieuse de sa petite personne, mal élevée au fond. Un jour, il a du travail, il est fatigué, si on mangeait dans la chambre au lieu d'aller au restau. Six heures du soir cours Victor-Hugo, des femmes se précipitent aux Docks, en face du Montaigne, prennent ci et ça sans hésitation, comme si elles avaient dans la tête toute la programmation du repas de ce soir, de demain peut-être, pour quatre personnes ou plus aux goûts différents. Comment font-elles ? [...] Je n'y arriverai jamais. Je n'en veux pas de cette vie rythmée par les achats, la cuisine. Pourquoi n'est-il pas venu avec moi au supermarché. J'ai fini par acheter des quiches lorraines, du fromage, des poires. Il était en train d'écouter de la musique. Il a tout déballé avec un plaisir de gamin. Les poires étaient blettes au coeur, "tu t'es fait entuber". Je le hais. Je ne me marierai pas. Le lendemain, nous sommes retournés au restau universitaire, j'ai oublié. Toutes les craintes, les pressentiments, je les ai étouffés. Sublimés. D'accord, quand on vivra ensemble, je n'aurai plus autant de liberté, de loisirs, il y aura des courses, de la cuisine, du ménage, un peu. Et alors, tu renâcles petit cheval tu n'es pas courageuse, des tas de filles réussissent à tout "concilier", sourire aux lèvres, n'en font pas un drame comme toi. Au contraire, elles existent vraiment. Je me persuade qu'en me mariant je serai libérée de ce moi qui tourne en rond, se pose des questions, un moi inutile. Que j'atteindrai l'équilibre. L'homme, l'épaule solide, anti-métaphysique, dissipateur d'idées tourmentantes, qu'elle se marie donc ça la calmera, tes boutons même disparaîtront, je ris forcément, obscurément j'y crois. Mariage, "accomplissement", je marche. Quelquefois je songe qu'il est égoïste et qu'il ne s'intéresse guère à ce que je fais, moi je lis ses livres de sociologie, jamais il n'ouvre les miens, Breton ou Aragon. Alors la sagesse des femmes vient à mon secours : "Tous les hommes sont égoïstes." Mais aussi les principes moraux : "Accepter l'autre dans son altérité", tous les langages peuvent se rejoindre quand on veut.

Thai prostitution was a haven for the men and a nuisance for the women. The streets of Phuket were outlined with bars ready to nourish thirsty sailors with euphoric intoxication to smother their pinched nerves from their personal lives deteriorating in their six-month absence. Thailand truly lived up to its port reputation. Hundreds of bikini-clad prostitutes littered the strip. Slim and petite, their narrow hips and flat chests appeared to be the appropriate age for the pink plaid schoolgirl skirts, dress shirts, ties, and pigtails intended to entice pedophilic eroticism. They wore heavy coats of pastel liquid shadow that clashed against their yellow tinted tans. They awkwardly wiggled to a nauseating blend of techno and Reggaeton as cotton-haired granddaddies lustfully gawked at them. Any Caucasian male cannot trek a block without the treatment of a pop culture heartthrob with a trail of Thai teens at his heels. “Wan hunnet baaht!” they taunt in a nasal screech. “Wan hunnet baht and I suck yo cock!” The oriental beauties cup their fists and hold them to their mouths as they wiggle their tongues against their cheeks to provide a clear visual for their performance skills. It’s easy to dismiss the humanity in Thai prostitutes. Their splotchy, heavily accented English allows the language barrier to muffle signs of intellect. They’re overtly sexual in their crotch bearing ensembles, loud and vulgar invitations, and provocative dancing that makes even corner butcher shops feel like Vegas strip clubs. Swarms of them linger in front of bars holding cardboard signs scribbled with magic marker that offer a blow job with the first beer purchased. Their eyes burn into passing tourists, with acute radar for creamy, sun-flushed complexions and potbellies - signals of the deep pockets of white male privilege.

JEANNE ENDORMIE. -- I LA SIESTE Elle fait au milieu du jour son petit somme; Car l'enfant a besoin du rêve plus que l'homme, Cette terre est si laide alors qu'on vient du ciel ! L'enfant cherche à revoir Chérubin, Ariel, Ses camarades, Puck, Titania, les fées, Et ses mains quand il dort sont par Dieu réchauffées. Oh ! comme nous serions surpris si nous voyions, Au fond de ce sommeil sacré, plein de rayons, Ces paradis ouverts dans l'ombre, et ces passages D'étoiles qui font signe aux enfants d'être sages, Ces apparitions, ces éblouissements ! Donc, à l'heure où les feux du soleil sont calmants, Quand toute la nature écoute et se recueille, Vers midi, quand les nids se taisent, quand la feuille La plus tremblante oublie un instant de frémir, Jeanne a cette habitude aimable de dormir; Et la mère un moment respire et se repose, Car on se lasse, même à servir une rose. Ses beaux petits pieds nus dont le pas est peu sûr Dorment; et son berceau, qu'entoure un vague azur Ainsi qu'une auréole entoure une immortelle, Semble un nuage fait avec de la dentelle; On croit, en la voyant dans ce frais berceau-là, Voir une lueur rose au fond d'un falbala; On la contemple, on rit, on sent fuir la tristesse, Et c'est un astre, ayant de plus la petitesse; L'ombre, amoureuse d'elle, a l'air de l'adorer; Le vent retient son souffle et n'ose respirer. Soudain, dans l'humble et chaste alcôve maternelle, Versant tout le matin qu'elle a dans sa prunelle, Elle ouvre la paupière, étend un bras charmant, Agite un pied, puis l'autre, et, si divinement Que des fronts dans l'azur se penchent pour l'entendre, Elle gazouille...-Alors, de sa voix la plus tendre, Couvrant des yeux l'enfant que Dieu fait rayonner, Cherchant le plus doux nom qu'elle puisse donner À sa joie, à son ange en fleur, à sa chimère: -Te voilà réveillée, horreur ! lui dit sa mère.

The wooden ship objected with loud creaks as the heavy wind strained its sails to the limits, pushing it forwards through the waves. A rather petite vessel, it was the smallest she’d sailed. It was old and worn, too. Nora looked up at the yellowed sails fondly. It was a miracle that they’d lasted this long, cooperating with the buffeting winds without rest for many seasons now. And Nora and the ship had been through some strong gales together. Excellent craftsmanship, Nora thought and, as she often did, pondered the ship’s origins: who’d made it and what waters it’d sailed before she stole it. She’d been certain that the ship wouldn’t last long on the high seas, and that she’d soon have to find a replacement, but she’d been pleasantly surprised. Her ship might not cover vast distances in as short a time as the bigger, heavier sailing ships she was used to, but Nora could turn Naureen around or change direction in a matter of minutes. She could swiftly put distance between her and the ships she plundered. Sometimes, it seemed as if the ship responded to her thoughts, as if there was a weird invisible bond between the two of them. ‘Naureen. Us sailor gals must stick together,’ she said aloud, as if the ship could hear her. Nora always talked to her ship. Clearly a sign she’d been on the sea for too long, she mused. Naureen. Nora didn’t know who’d named the ship or what the name meant, but she thought it strangely fitting. It graced the bow of the ship, painted in beautiful calligraphy. Nora saw it whenever she was aboard another vessel, rummaging for furs or bones of extinct animals she could sell, or food. The sight of her ship always made her heart flutter with happiness. There was a time when Nora would steal the ships she plundered, if she liked them and was in the mood for a change. But not after she stole Naureen. Well, not stole, she corrected herself. When she’d come across the tiny ship, she’d found the salt-rimed corpse of the hollow-cheeked owner sprawled face down on the deck. He’d probably starved to death. His body had not been the first one Nora’d found drifting at sea, nor the last.

Mais le premier de tous est un savant illustre, qui n'appartient pas seulement à la Bretagne, mais à la France, le célèbre voyageur en Égypte, M. Caillaud. Doué de l'esprit le plus sagace et le plus pénétrant, il a fait en histoire naturelle plusieurs découvertes, une surtout, des plus intéressantes, pour laquelle la Hollande lui a décerné, il y a peu d'années, un prix extraordinaire, la découverte du procédé de perforation des pholades. On avait jusqu'alors cru que les pholades, petits mollusques très-communs sur les côtes de Bretagne, employaient, pour percer le dur granit où elles vivent, un acide qu'elles distillaient à travers les valves de leur coquille. M. Caillaud eut des doutes à ce sujet: il recueillit, près du Pouliguen, des pholades attachées à des morceaux de roc (gneiss), les plaça dans un bocal d'eau de mer incessamment renouvelée, et attendit l'effet de leur travail. Huit jours, quinze jours se passèrent sans que les pholades donnassent signe de vie, lorsqu'une nuit il fut éveillé par un bruit de scie qui retentissait dans le bocal; il se lève, et, à la lueur d'une lampe, il voit un des petits animaux se tournant et se retournant à droite et à gauche, avec un mouvement régulier, à la manière d'une vrille qui perce un trou; puis, après un certain temps, la pholade s'arrête, et un jet de poussière fine obscurcit l'eau du bocal; c'était le résidu de son travail, la partie du roc pulvérisé où elle avait pénétré, dont elle se débarrassait et qu'elle chassait au dehors. Et tour à tour le savant, attentif et charmé, surprend une à une les pholades accomplissant leur patient ouvrage, et se creusant leur demeure, l'arrondissant et la polissant, comme avec la râpe la plus délicate, sans autre instrument que leur coquille; et cette coquille, au lieu de se détériorer par le frottement continu, se développe à mesure que le travail avance; à la scie qui s'use une autre scie s'ajoute, puis une troisième, une quatrième, et ainsi de suite jusqu'à quarante, que M. Caillaud a comptées, et avec lesquelles le petit animal, à force de tourner et retourner sa frêle enveloppe, cette coquille que la pression d'un doigt d'enfant suffirait à briser, perce à jour le granit sur lequel s'émousse un ciseau de fer! phénomène admirable qui confond la sagesse humaine,

Harvard professor Robert Putnam’s ground-breaking book Bowling Alone stirred the conscience of America in 2001, when he showed that we sign fewer petitions, belong to fewer organizations that meet, know our neighbors less, socialize with friends less frequently, and even get together with our families less often. 6 Latchkey kids return to empty homes each day from school, and our electronic culture entertains us without meaningful social interaction. These experiences, among others, contribute to the growing alienation that we sense.

During the notorious McCarthy anti-Communist witch-hunt in the United States in the 1950s, popular hysteria could be whipped up with amazing ease. To illustrate the public’s dangerous suspension of common sense, William Evjue, editor of the Capital Times, a newspaper in McCarthy’s home state of Wisconsin, who had launched a campaign to expose McCarthyism, had a reporter stand on a street corner in the state capital, Madison, asking passers-by to sign a petition. It was in fact the American Declaration of Independence. Of 112 people approached to sign it, 111 thought it subversive and refused.

My attention was drawn to the Parliamentary Petitions website initially by a petition for a vote of no confidence in Jeremy Hunt. I’d never signed a petition before but when I saw one against Jeremy Hunt, I couldn’t resist. If you’re not familiar with him, imagine one of the vampires from Buffy, only 100 times less compassionate and in control of the NHS. I signed the petition, along with hundreds of thousands of others.

63 Will the Next Dumb Criminal Sign In, Please? (England) A Taunton, Somerset, shop allowed a certain citizens’ group to leave a petition on the shop’s front counter, primarily because the shop owner agreed with the group’s agenda. Some customers signed, others did not. Then one afternoon a pair of young men poking around inside the shop asked about the petition. A shop assistant explained that the petition sought better policing for Taunton. The two civic-minded citizens signed immediately. Then they held up the clerk at knifepoint. When the police took the clerk’s statement, they dismissed the petition names as phonies. One detective, however, stubbornly believed in the premise of never overestimating the power of the criminal mind. On a whim, he decided to stop by the address that the two young men had left on the petition. Sure enough, they were home, and so was the stolen money. These young dumb criminals got what they asked for—better policing!

But we have to go further than we thought possible. It's not enough to just sign a signature or click something online. It's not enough to just cast a vote every four years or to sign a petition every once in a while, or even mail a really big check. You also have to walk the walk. ... It takes a lot of courage and humility and selflessness to think about how we're acting ourselves and be the ones who take that first step. If we're not able to recognize our own impact and the choices that we're making in contributing to that [impact], we're not going to move that dialogue forward.

CUNNINGHAM: Your Honor, this petition is signed by God! JUDGE LITTLEFIELD: Yeah, but it ain’t signed by your client, now, is it? CUNNINGHAM: My client is catatonic, he’s incapable of signing. JUDGE LITTLEFIELD: If he’s catatonic, then how do you know he wants an appeal in the first place?

The only reason to sign [petitions] is to assuage the conscience of the signatory.

Déjà, mon père serait encore là. Il ne serait pas reparti au Maroc. Ensuite à Noël 1994, j'aurais sûrement eu les rollers alignés Fisher Price et par la même occasion une réponse à la lettre que j'avais envoyée au Père Noël. Ouais, tout se serait mieux passé si j'avais été un mec. J'aurais eu plein de photos de moi étant gosse, comme la petite Sarah. Mon père m'aurait appris à chiquer du tabac. Il m'aurait raconté pas mal d'histoires salaces qu'il aurait entendues sur les chantiers et puis même que de temps en temps, il m'aurait mis des petites tapes sur l'épaule en signe de complicité, genre "t'es un bon gars toi!" Ouais, ouais. Je me serais même amusée à me gratter souvent entre les jambes pour affirmer ma virilité. J'aurais bien aimé être un garçon. Mais bon, il se trouve que je suis une fille. Une gonzesse. Une nana. Une meuf quoi. Je finirai bien par m'y habituer.

They fell back in step again, turning down one of the many narrow twittens that led from the main street with Jack carefully aiming the torch at the road ahead. Despite a petition to the council, signed by most of the inhabitants, street lights had never come to Abbeymead. They were seen as contrary to rural tradition, apart from costing too much, which the villagers suspected was the real reason. The wartime blackout had meant little to Abbeymead - it was something the village lived with, before the war and since

Ce soir, vœux de F. Mitterrand : il est tout de même de gauche dans son discours. À la fin, pour la première fois, La Marseillaise est chantée. J'ai le petit frisson qui est pour moi le signe de l'émotion absolue. La Marseillaise ! Mon père me la chantait, c'est la fin de la guerre, c'est le chant de la liberté. 89 ! Cela « signifie » pour moi, je suis du côté révolutionnaire, je l'ai toujours été. « Entendez-vous dans nos (les ?) campagnes/Mugir ( !) ces féroces soldats ?/Ils viennent jusque dans nos bras/Égorger nos fils, nos compagnes/Aux armes, citoyens ! » Si pompeux, si énorme, mais ces mots n'ont pas d'importance, mais la musique seule, et ce cri « Aux armes, citoyens

You have reached the blind alley of the treason you committed when you agreed that you had no right to exist. Once, you believed it was ‘only a compromise’: you conceded it was evil to live for yourself, but moral to live for the sake of your children. Then you conceded that it was selfish to live for your children, but moral to live for your community. Then you conceded that it was selfish to live for your community, but moral to live for your country. Now, you are letting this greatest of countries be devoured by any scum from any corner of the earth, while you concede that it is selfish to live for your country and that your moral duty is to live for the globe. A man who has no right to life, has no right to values and will not keep them. “At the end of your road of successive betrayals, stripped of weapons, of certainty, of honor, you commit your final act of treason and sign your petition of intellectual bankruptcy: while the muscle-mystics of the People’s States proclaim that they’re the champions of reason and science, you agree and hasten to proclaim that faith is your cardinal principle, that reason is on the side of your destroyers, but yours is the side of faith. To the struggling remnants of rational honesty in the twisted, bewildered minds of your children, you declare that you can offer no rational argument to support the ideas that created this country, that there is no rational justification for freedom, for property, for justice, for rights, that they rest on a mystical insight and can be accepted only on faith, that in reason and logic the enemy is right, but faith is superior to reason. You declare to your children that it is rational to loot, to torture, to enslave, to expropriate, to murder, but that they must resist the temptations of logic and stick to the discipline of remaining irrational—that skyscrapers, factories, radios, airplanes were the products of faith and mystic intuition, while famines, concentration camps, and firing squads are the products of a reasonable manner of existence—that the industrial revolution was the revolt of the men of faith against that era of reason and logic which is known as the Middle Ages.

Ainsi s’approchait-il du gouffre, après avoir été tenté par le gouffre, ne sachant plus qu’il en était un. Et leur roman, le roman d’Aurélien et de Bérénice était dominé par cette contradiction dont leur première entrevue avait porté le signe : la dissemblance entre la Bérénice qu’il voyait et la Bérénice que d’autres pouvaient voir, le contraste entre cette enfant spontanée, gaie, innocente et l’enfer qu’elle portait en elle, la dissonance de Bérénice et de son ombre. Peut-être était-ce là ce qui expliquait ses deux visages, cette nuit et ce jour qui paraissaient deux femmes différentes. Cette petite fille qui s’amusait d’un rien, cette femme qui ne se contentait de rien. Car Bérénice avait le goût de l’absolu.

Then there’s the reality that holiness is plain hard work, and we’re often lazy. We like our sins, and dying to them is painful. Almost everything is easier than growing in godliness. So we try and fail, try and fail, and then give up. It’s easier to sign a petition protesting man’s inhumanity to man than to love your neighbor as yourself. It’s one thing to graduate from college ready to change the world. It’s another to be resolute in praying

L’homme sait aujourd’hui que la terre n’est qu’une boule animée d’un mouvement multiforme et vertigineux qui court sur un abîme insondable, attirée et dominée par les forces qu’exercent sur elle d’autres corps célestes, incomparablement plus grands et situés à des distances inimaginables ; il sait que la terre où il vit n’est qu’un grain de poussière par rapport au soleil, et que le soleil lui-même n’est qu’un grain au milieu de myriades d’autres astres incandescents ; il sait aussi que tout cela bouge. Une simple irrégularité dans cet enchaînement de mouvements sidéraux, l’interférence d’un astre étranger dans le système planétaire, une déviation de la trajectoire normale du soleil, ou tout autre incident cosmique, suffirait pour faire vaciller la terre au cours de sa révolution, pour troubler la succession des saisons, modifier l’atmosphère et détruire l’humanité. L’homme aujourd’hui sait par ailleurs que le moindre atome renferme des forces qui, si elles étaient déchaînées, pourraient provoquer sur terre une conflagration planétaire presque instantanée. Tout cela, l’“infiniment petit” et l’“infiniment grand”, apparaît, du point de vue de la science moderne, comme un mécanisme d’une complexité inimaginable, dont le fonctionnement est dû à des forces aveugles. Et pourtant, l’homme d’aujourd’hui vit et agit comme si le déroulement normal et habituel des rythmes de la nature lui était garanti. Il ne pense, en effet, ni aux abîmes du monde intersidéral, ni aux forces terribles que renferme chaque corpuscule de matière. Avec des yeux d’enfant, il regarde au-dessus de lui la voûte céleste avec le soleil et les étoiles, mais le souvenir des théories astronomiques l’empêche d’y voir des signes de Dieu. Le ciel a cessé de représenter pour lui la manifestation naturelle de l’esprit qui englobe le monde et l’éclaire. Le savoir universitaire s’est substitué en lui à cette vision “naïve” et profonde des choses. Non qu’il ait maintenant conscience d’un ordre cosmique supérieur, dont l’homme serait aussi partie intégrante. Non. Il se sent comme abandonné, privé d’appui solide face à ces abîmes qui n’ont plus aucune commune mesure avec lui-même. Car rien ne lui rappelle plus désormais que tout l’univers, en définitive, est contenu en lui-même, non pas dans son être individuel, certes, mais dans l’esprit qui est en lui et qui, en même temps, le dépasse, lui et tout l’univers visible.

In the past generation, opinion has shifted toward hope for the salvation of all; but how many of us have a short list of those we’d like to see in hell? This desire is not, it goes without saying, a sign of spiritual good health! We are to pray for our enemies, and our prayer should include a petition for their eternal salvation.

Since Daniel eight suggests that the Antichrist will come from a new small and insignificant country, I personally believe that the Assyrians will soon create their new independent country. This new country will probably be born within the region of the Nineveh plains of Northern Iraq. This region is at the heart of the ancient Syrian division of the Grecian Empire. Perhaps this new small Assyrian country will encompass parts of modern Syria since the Nineveh Plains of Northern Iraq are near the Syrian border. The idea of an Assyrian independent state is not new.                              In 1931 and 1932, the League of Nations received at least five petitions from Assyrian groups. The first two petitions were dated October 20th and 23rd, 1931. These came from representatives of Assyrians in Iraq including Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII, the Patriarch of the Church of the East. They requested that the Assyrians in Iraq be transported to land under the rule of one of the Western nations or, failing that, to Syria, which was still a French Mandate. Neither Britain nor Iraq objected to this idea, but no country volunteered to take the Assyrians. Britain argued that creation of a homeland was unnecessary because once Assyrians abandoned their quest for an autonomous homeland; they would become an integrated and "useful" part of Iraq. The third petition sought the recognition of Assyrians as a millet (nation) within Iraq and the creation of an Assyrian region within Iraq by redrawing Iraq's border with Turkey to include within Iraq the Turkish regions that Assyrian refugees in Iraq had lived in prior to their expulsion from Turkey. Failing this, the petition requested a special homeland within the existing borders of Iraq, made up of the whole of the district of Amedia plus adjacent parts of Zakho, Dohuk and Aqra, for the Assyrian refugees from Turkey then in Iraq. The fourth petition, dated September 21, 1932, was signed by 58 people claiming to represent 2,395 families. The final petition, dated September 22, 1932, is another from Mar Shimun. It alleges that the Assyrians have a right to claim their original homes or suitable substitutes from the United Kingdom, for whom the Assyrians fought in the First World War. It requests the return of the Hakkiari province or resettlement along the lines sought in the third petition. The petition noted that the Assyrians had voted for Iraq in the plebiscite for the Mosul Liwa based on the League's 1925 recommendation that the Assyrians be given local autonomy.26 (Emphasis mine)

If anyone insists on his own goodness and despises others . . . let him look into himself when this petition confronts him. He will find he is no better than others and that in the presence of God everyone must duck his head and come into the joy of forgiveness only through the low door of humility.210 Luther adds that this petition is not only a challenge to our pride but a test of spiritual reality. If we find confession and repentance intolerably traumatic or demeaning, it means “the heart is not right with God and cannot draw . . . confidence from his Gospel.” If regular confession does not produce an increased confidence and joy in your life, then you do not understand the salvation by grace, the essence of the faith. Jesus tightly links our relationship with God to our relationship with others. It works two ways. If we have not seen our sin and sought radical forgiveness from God, we will be unable to forgive and to seek the good of those who have wronged us. So unresolved bitterness is a sign that we are not right with God. It also means that if we are holding a grudge, we should see the hypocrisy of seeking forgiveness from God for sins of our own. Calvin puts it vividly: If we retain feelings of hatred in our hearts, if we plot revenge and ponder any occasion to cause harm, and even if we do not try to get back into our enemies’ good graces, by every sort of good office deserve well of them, and commend ourselves to them, by this prayer we entreat God not to forgive our sins.211

March 30 Holiness v. Hardness towards God And He . . . wondered that there was no intercessor. Isaiah 59:16 The reason many of us leave off praying and become hard towards God is because we have only a sentimental interest in prayer. It sounds right to say that we pray; we read books on prayer which tell us that prayer is beneficial, that our minds are quieted and our souls uplifted when we pray; but Isaiah implies that God is amazed at such thoughts of prayer. Worship and intercession must go together, the one is impossible without the other. Intercession means that we rouse ourselves up to get the mind of Christ about the one for whom we pray. Too often instead of worshipping God, we construct statements as to how prayer works. Are we worshipping or are we in dispute with God—“I don’t see how You are going to do it.” This is a sure sign that we are not worshipping. When we lose sight of God we become hard and dogmatic. We hurl our own petitions at God’s throne and dictate to Him as to what we wish Him to do. We do not worship God, nor do we seek to form the mind of Christ. If we are hard towards God, we will become hard towards other people. Are we so worshipping God that we rouse ourselves up to lay hold on Him, that we may be brought into contact with His mind about the ones for whom we pray? Are we living in a holy relationship to God, or are we hard and dogmatic? “But there is no one interceding properly”—then be that one yourself, be the one who worships God and who lives in holy relationship to him. Get into the real work of intercession, and remember it is a work, a work that taxes every power; but a work which has no snare. Preaching the gospel has a snare; intercessory prayer has none.

Scientists debate each other’s findings in the halls of science—universities, laboratories, government agencies, conferences, and workshops. They do not normally organize petitions, particularly public ones whose signatories may or may not circulated information soliciting signatures on a petition “refuting” global warming.14 He did this in concert with a chemist named Arthur Robinson, who composed a lengthy piece challenging mainstream climate science, formatted to look like a reprint from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The “article”—never published in a scientific journal, but summarized in the Wall Street Journal—repeated a wide range of debunked claims, including the assertion that there was no warming at all.15 It was mailed to thousands of American scientists, with a cover letter signed by Seitz inviting the recipients to sign a petition against the Kyoto Protocol.16 Seitz’s letter emphasized his connection with the National Academy of Sciences, giving the impression that the whole thing—the letter, the article, and the petition—was sanctioned by the Academy. Between his mail-in card and a Web site, he gained about fifteen thousand signatures, although since there was no verification process there was no way to determine if these signatures were real, or if real, whether they were actually from scientists.17 In a highly unusual move, the National Academy held a press conference to disclaim the mailing and distance itself from its former president.18 Still, many media outlets reported on the petition as if it were evidence of genuine disagreement in the scientific community, reinforced, perhaps, by Fred Singer’s celebration of it in the Washington Times the very same day the Academy rejected it.19 The “Petition Project” continues today. Fred Seitz is dead, but his letter is alive and well on the Internet, and the project’s Web site claims that its signatories have reached thirty thousand.20

President John F. Kennedy’s Cigars On February 7, 1962, President Kennedy announced to his staff that he needed some help finding as many of the prestigious Cuban Petit Upmann cigars as possible. He let it be known that he would like to have 1,000 of these cigars by the next morning. Being the President of the United States, his wish was granted when, on the morning of February 8th, his Press Secretary Pierre Salinger came in and deposited 1,200 cigars on Kennedy’s desk. Smiling, Kennedy opened his desk, took out a document and signed it, banning importation of all Cuban-made products into the United States. Some years later when asked about that moment, Salinger said that there were actually 1,201 cigars.

In 1792, 300,000 people boycotted sugar from the West Indies—the greatest consumer boycott in history until that point. That year, more people signed a petition against slavery than were eligible to vote in British elections.

Students set up desks where you could sign petitions for legalizing marijuana or declare yourself in favor of homosexuality and the protection of whales; students thronged by.

Jubal threw his sign down in disgust and stalked away from the group. Sosi ran after him, the clipboard with the soggy petition

Florida Adoption Step Parent Adoption Forms There is more blended families in Florida than any time in the past. There are also many more parents who are looking to do a stepparent adoption to unify their family. The sad fact is that many children who are in a new home environment don?t have relationship with their natural mother or father. This leaves children looking to their step parent to fill that role. In most cases, the step parent will take on the responsibility of raising and supporting his or her step child, and will develop a relationship with their step child which has the same bond as if the child was the stepparent?s biological child. In these situations, when the step child has been abandoned by an absent parent, a stepparent adoption can bring unity in the family, and provide many legal benefits for the child. A Florida adoption Step Parent Adoption Forms is a straight-forward process. If one of the child?s biological parents has either abandoned the child, or is willing to sign a consent to adoption, then the adoption can be completed fairly easy, even if that parent?s whereabouts are unknown. A stepparent adoption in Florida consists of filing the appropriate adoption documents with the court, serving the absent parent, and going through certain steps that are required to complete the adoption. In Florida, both the stepparent and the child?s biological parent will file a ?Joint Petition for Adoption by Stepparent?. The adoption petition will outline who the parties are, and will let the court know that the stepparent is desiring to adopt his or her step child. Who is required to consent to a Florida adoption Step Parent Adoption Forms? After the adoption paperwork has been filed with the Circuit Court in the county where you reside in Florida, the court will process the adoption forms. The adoption department at the Circuit Court will look to see if the consent from the absent parent can be waived due to abandonment, or if a signed consent is included in the forms. In addition, the court will look to see that the consent to adoption has been signed by any child being adopted who is at least 12 years of age. If the absent parent has abandoned the child, meaning that he has failed to maintain a reasonable degree of interest, concern or responsibility as to the child?s welfare, and has failed to support the financial needs of the child, then the consent of the absent parent will not be required. What happens when the Florida Stepparent Adoption is final? The court will have a final hearing where the Judge will review all the information that has been presented and finalize the adoption. When the Judge signs a ?Final Judgment of Stepparent Adoption?, then the adoption is final. When the adoption is final, the Judge will order the clerk of the court to have a new birth certificate issued, listing the stepparent as the child?s parent on the birth certificate, and also showing the child?s new name on the birth certificate. As far as the birth certificate is concerned, the child was born with the new name and that the adoptive parents were the child?s birth parents. How to start a stepparent adoption in Florida. For anyone who has spoken to an adoption attorney regarding completing a Florida stepparent adoption, they quickly realize how expensive the process can be if they go through an attorney. The good news is that people in Florida have been doing their own step parent adoptions for decades, with the help from an online company, StepparentAdoptionForms.com. Using an online adoption company like StepparentAdoptionForms.com allows you to complete your own Florida stepparent adoption, and save thousands over the cost of an attorney. Their experienced adoption specialists will prepare all your documents for you and send them to you ready to sign and file with the court. You can do your own Florida stepparent adoption

there were certain crimes where requests for leniency merely made me angry. Such crimes were, for instance, rape, or the circulation of indecent literature, or anything connected with what would now be called the “white slave” traffic, or wife murder, or gross cruelty to women and children, or seduction and abandonment, or the action of some man in getting a girl whom he had seduced to commit abortion. I am speaking in each instance of cases that actually came before me, either while I was governor or while I was president. In an astonishing number of these cases men of high standing signed petitions or wrote letters asking me to show leniency to the criminal. In two or three of the cases—one where some young roughs had committed rape on a helpless immigrant girl, and another in which a physician of wealth and high standing had seduced a girl and then induced her to commit abortion—I rather lost my temper, and wrote to the individuals who had asked for the pardon, saying that I extremely regretted that it was not in my power to increase the sentence. I then let the facts be made public, for I thought that my petitioners deserved public censure. Whether they received this public censure or not I did not know, but that my action made them very angry I do know, and their anger gave me real satisfaction.

The American Zionist Emergency Council (AZEC) embarked on a well-financed publicity campaign that helped by late 1947 to generate large majorities—some polls said over 80 percent—of the American people in favor of such a homeland. AZEC's efforts helped induce thirty-three state legislatures to pass resolutions favoring a Jewish state in Palestine. In addition, forty governors, fifty-four senators, and 250 members of congress signed petitions to Truman on the issue. 34

How can a man be still if he sees such a great wrong being instigated?' 'It's difficult, but it's necessary,' Professor While insisted. 'Science must go on unhindered, and if we bring politics into our work we will cease to be scientists.' 'Will we cease being human?' MacGregor demanded with the rudeness of justifying himself. 'Should we hand over our affairs to men we despise?' 'I suppose that is unanswerable.' Professor White was an deep into it now as MacGregor. 'But when we dabble in politics we suffer what you are suffering now, and it isn't worth it. Is it?' 'I don't know,' MacGregor said morosely. 'Then why destroy yourself?' 'I don't believe a man has much choice any more,' MacGregor said. 'There seems to be some kind of a battle going on for any existence, science and all.' 'You may be right,' the Professor said. 'We are certainly facing a situation of terrible choice. Only yesterday the physicist chaps back from America brought in a petition to sign against control and secrecy of information and research in nuclear physics. Once they start on this secrecy business there is no telling where it will end. It was bad enough when we were working at Tennessee. We cannot have those ignorant politicians telling us what we must do.' 'They are already telling us what we must do,' MacGregor argued. 'The military control so much research that the phyusicist are becoming straight-out weapon makers and nothing else.' 'It's not the physicists' fault...' 'Then why don't they stop working for the military. Now they are talking about radio-active dust clouds and the biologists are producing concentrates of bacteria for wholesale disease-making. What's the matter with them? Have the Generals got them so scared that they meekly do as they are told?' 'Weapons are a part of life,' the Professor commented sadly, 'and since the politicians refuse to be peaceful, at least they ask for weapons and give us a chance we would not otherwise have of making enormous strides in costly research.' 'Perhaps. But don't we care how the products of our research are used?' 'You are looking for logic where there isn't any,' the Professor said. 'It isn't science which shapes the world, young man.' 'No sir, but we are part of it.' 'Really a very small part of it. The ultimate decision on human affairs lies outside science. We may be part of it, but if you are looking for the deciding factor in the shape of existence then I don't know where you'll find it.

un corps, qui est quelque chose d’étendu par définition même, est forcément toujours composé de parties, et si petit qu’il soit ou qu’on veuille le supposer, cela n’y change rien, de sorte que la notion de corpuscules indivisibles est contradictoire en elle-même; mais, évidemment, une telle notion s’accorde bien avec la recherche d’une simplicité poussée si loin qu’elle ne peut plus correspondre à la moindre réalité.

At Yale University in 2015, some of the allegedly smartest kids in America willingly signed a petition to repeal the First Amendment.

University of Havana Student protests, which actually led to the closure of the university, helped to shape Autonomy for Cuba’s university system. After the school reopened in 1959 the government’s policy was to not interfere with school affairs. On November 27, 2007, five thousand people signed a petition insisting on autonomy from the state as well as freedom of expression for the island nations’ universities and thus, this autonomy was even granted by the present Communist government. The concept of “University Students without Borders” was endorsed by both the students and faculty members, representing universities in the provinces throughout Cuba. The State of New York University (SUNY) in Albany, now offers their students the opportunity to pursue courses in Cuban history, culture and politics. Most of these courses, as well as intensive Spanish language classes, are taught to foreign students in Cuba.

According to its Web site, Parent Revolution “invented” the idea of the “parent trigger” and persuaded the state senator Gloria Romero to include it in her education reform legislation. If 51 percent of the parents in a low-performing school sign a petition, the law says, the parents may take control of the school, its staff, and its budget, fire some or all of the staff, or turn the school over to a charter management

And another thing needs to be said. Nothing, absolutely nothing, in the weeks preceding Zero Day made it possible to predict it. There were wars, of course, and famines and massacres. And here and there a few atrocities. Some of them flagrant (in the underdeveloped countries), others less obvious (in the Christian countries). But nothing, taken all in all, in any way different from what we had been seeing for the past thirty years. And all of these things had in any case occurred at a convenient distance, among peoples far removed from us. We were distressed by them, of course, we expressed indignation, signed petitions, or even donated small sums of money on occasions. But at the same time, in our heart of hearts, after having dutifully experienced these vicarious sufferings, we returned to our usual feeling of security. Death was something that always happened to others.

Activists have not been passive. For decades, we have tried every tactic to shift the course of our governments. We have voted, written editorials and manifestos, donated money, held signs, protests in marches, blocked streets, shared links, signed petitions, held workshops, knitted scarves, learn to farm, turned off the television, programmed apps, engaged in direct action, committed vandalism, launched legal challenges against pipelines . . . and occupied the financial districts. All this has been for naught. A new approach to activism and a new kind of protest are desperately needed.

On peut pardonner à toute femme ses flirts d’adolescence irréfléchis. Quand on a dix-huit ans, on peut considérer un petit ami de vingt-quatre ans comme un signe de prestige, et non comme un sale type qui fréquente des adolescentes parce qu’elles sont plus malléables que les femmes de son âge.

Signature of the testator i. The will shall be signed by the testator or shall have his mark affixed to it. ii. It can be signed by some other person but in the testator’s presence but also by his direction. iii. It must be dated. If the will is not dated, proof of the day may be given when the petition for probate is filed.

The petition site bundles your name, email, and the insight about your interests (you just signed a petition about something you care about, remember?) and sells this information to data brokers, advertising agencies, subscription houses, and political campaigns.19 When you sign an online petition, the chances that you’ve just handed over your data for someone else to make money from them are higher than the chance that the intended legislative recipient of your petition will ever see it.

DOÏNA POUR LA POÉSIE La poésie est fraîche Comme nourrisson en crèche Comme la sage-femme Qui a perdu son âme. Poésie bébé À peine est-elle née Qu'elle a commencé Soit à pleurnicher Soit à tituber Puis elle est tombée Dans ta petite école Dans d'autres encore Teacher nous l'a donnée Tellement digérée La poésie mouche Mâchée dans sa bouche Nos cerveaux hurlaient Des oiseaux passaient The Wall grandissait Pink Floyd s'entendait (We don't need no EDUCATION) et inside chantaient les chœurs d'enfants on n'a plus envie de la poésie on n'a plus envie de la poésie chandelles incertaines étudiants par centaines élèves redoublants d'autres ... éminents un grand NON disaient dès qu'ils entendaient de la poésie poésie pourrie et autres lubies des dizaines - pourries des pleurnicheries lugubres envies ... et ils s’écœuraient et ils essayaient de se libérer de cette poésie tellement pourrie dont les profs voulaient toujours les gaver Têtes penchées pauvre mémoire mémoire-Tiroir ... Comme elle souffrait Comme elle tremblait Sanguinolait ... Et avalait Encore un poème Encore et encore La poésie-Chlore Poèmes, poésie Tellement out of vie Éloge de la patrie De n'importe quoi De n'importe qui Pour une fête scolaire Pour une thèse misère ... Oh, pauvre mémoire Qui s'évanouissait Imbécillisée ... Stupidifiée ... Pauvre petite cervelle Comme cigale frêle Quand vient le gel ! D'un coup comme un signe Le VENT dans la vigne Joli mois de mai Le vent PARACLET. J'ai vu s'avancer Les Muses d'antan Elles se mêlaient toujours À des Muses plus cool Pour l'artiste saoul La cervelle-moule ... Elles se méli-mêlaient Pour encore changer L''ère glaciaire Des cervelles amères L'ère glaciaire Des cervelles amères …

Faveur Petits signes de peur favorite… Une voix crie… Qui es-tu, masque et habit De charogne, ou harmonie sémite ? Autour de moi les tableaux telles des pages D'un livre noir de mers. En moi tu navigues, et sur le ciel Aux yeux de tanagra amers. Le soleil mord... Frère, le pied Fond sur l'asphalte. Je pleure et jette dans l'air blanc La mémoire vers la limpidité.

My point? I have watched your people since you were little more than bipedal simpletons howling at the moon. I have seen you murder each other for vanity and silver. For a thousand centuries, shaking your fists at an empty sky cursing my name when your misfortune is of your own making. The greatest number living a life full of pointless trivial gestures. Worshipping money and fornication, making heroes of those least worthy. You offer lip-service to goodness, say a prayer at noon, drunkenly beat your family at dusk. Sign a petition to provide for your elderly and sick, then repeatedly vote in governments who let the weakest in society suffer and perish, never connecting the two. You weep at the sight of forests burning, yet would never part with the machines which hasten the flames. Your collective hypocrisy is a plague that lets you sleep at night. In truth, you sicken me, yet I am compelled to chase you for your souls. I am not evil, Mr. Carter. I punish evil. Hell is close, the gate always open. Your kind fear it, but live lives that ensure your reservation. I am in a hurry to shed this flesh and return.” He paused. The building settled back to silent stillness. When he spoke next, his eyes and voice were that of a normal man again. “That’s why a man like you is such a prize. You have sinned, so many, many times, yet you retain a purity which, thus far at least, prevents you from joining me. So I offer you this deal.

That hunting by fire was still practiced by the natives on a large scale, and it had been his lot to stumble on six baby elephants, victims of a fire from which only fully grown animals had managed to escape thanks to their size and speed? That whole herds of elephants sometimes escaped from the blazing savanna with bums up to their bellies, and that they suffered for weeks? Many a night he had lain awake in the bush listening to their cries of agony. That the contraband traffic in ivory was still practiced on a large scale by Arab and Asiatic merchants, who drove the tribes to poaching? Thirty thousand elephants a year— was it possible to think for a moment of what that meant, without shame? Did she know that a man like Haas, who was the favorite supplier of the big zc^s, saw half the young elephants he captured die under his eyes? The natives, at least, had an excuse: they needed proteins. For them, elephants were only meat. To stop them, they only had to raise the standard of living in Africa: this was the first step in any serious campaign for the protection of nature. But the whites? The so-called “civilized” people? They had no excuse. They hunted for what they called “trophies,” for the excitement of it, for pleasure, in fact. The flame that attracted him so irresistibly burned him in the end. He was the first to recognize the enemy and to cry tally-ho, and he had gone on the attack with all the passion of a man who feels himself challenged by everything that makes too-noble demands upon human nature, as if humanity began somewhere around. thirty thousand feet above the surface of the earth, thirty thousand feet above Orsini. He was determined to defend his own height, his own scale, his own smallness. "Listen to me,” he said. "All right, you're a priest A missionary. As such, you've always had your nose right in it I mean, you have all the sores, all the ugliness before your eyes all day long. All right. All sorts of open wounds— naked human wretchedness. And then, when you’ve well and truly wiped the bottom of mankind, don’t you long to climb a hill and take a good look at something different, and big, and strong, and free?”“When I feel like taking a good look at something different and big and strong and free,” roared Father Fargue, giving the table a tremendous bang with his fist, “it isn't elephants I turn to, it's God I” The man smiled. He licked his cigarette and stuck it in his mouth. “Well, it isn't a pact with the Devil I'm asking you to sign. It's only a petition to stop people from killing elephants. Thirty thousand of them are killed each year. Thirty thousand, and that's a .small e.stimate. You can’t deny it . . . And remember—'* there was a spark of gaiety in his eyes— “and remember. Father, remember: they haven’t sinned.” He was stabbing me in the back, aiming straight at my faith. Original sin, and the whole thing— you know all that better than I do. You know me. I’m a man of action: give me a good case of galloping syphilis and I'm all right. But theory . . . this is between ourselves. Faith, God— I've got all that in my heart, in my guts, but not in my brain. I’m not one of the brainy ones. So I tried offering him a drink, but he refused.” The Jesuit’s face lit up for a moment, and its wrinkles seemed to disappear in the youthfulness of a smile. Fargue suddenly remembered that he was rather frowned upon in his Order; he had several times been forbidden to publish his scientific papers; it was even whispered that his stay in Africa was not entirely voluntary He had heard tell that Father Tassin, in his writings, represented salvation as a mere biological mutation, and humanity, in the form in which we still know it, as an archaic species doomed to join other vanished species in the obscurity of a prehistoric past. His face clouded over: that smacked of heresy.

I’ve always yearned to be a black man, to have a black man’s soul, a black man's laughter. You know why? Because I thought you were diflFerent from us. Yes, I thought you were something special, something difiFerent on this sad earth of ours. I wanted to escape with you from the white man’s hollow materialism, from his lack of faith, his humble and frustrated sexuality, from his lack of joy, of laughter, of magic, of faith in the richness of after-life. encouragement and signs of gratitude or recognition have been very few, if any, along my road. If humanity can be compared to a tribe, then you may say I’m completely de-tribalized. You love Negroes out of sheer misanthropy, because you think they aren’t really men. in the end all human faces look alike with nothing bright or hopeful around me, except those distant stars— and even there, let’s be frank: it’s only their distance that gives them that purity and beauty ideals don't die— obliged to live on shit sometimes, but don’t die! the company a great cause always keeps: men of good will and those who exploit them your skin, you know, is worth no more than the elephants’ hide. In Gennany, at Belsen, during the war, it seems we used to make lampshades out of human skin— for your information. And don’t forget, Monsieur Saint- Denis, that we Germans have always been forerunners in everything ‘Women,’ I concluded rather bitterly, ‘have at their command certain means of persuasion which the best- organized police forces do not possess.’ The number of animals who lived in cruel suffering, sometimes for years, with bullets in their bodies, wounds growing deeper and deeper, gangrenous and swarming with ticks and flies, could not be estimated to change species, to come over to the elephants and live in the wilds among honest animals Always cheerful, with the cheerfulness of a man who has gone deep down into things and come back reassured. No one knew the desert better than Scholscher, who had spent so many nights alone there on the starlit dunes, and no one understood better than he did that need for protection which sometimes grips men’s hearts and drives them to give a dog the affection they dream so desperately of receiving themselves. by ‘defending the splendors of nature . . .’ He meant liberty.” Islam calls that ’the roots of heaven.’ and to the Mexican Indians it is of life’— the thing that makes both of them fall on their knees and raise their eyes and beat their tormented breasts. A need for protection and company, from which obstinate people like Morel try to escape by means of petitions, fighting committees, by trying to take the protection of species in their own hands. Our needs- for justice, for freedom and dignity— are roots of heaven that are deeply imbedded in our hearts, but of heaven itself men know nothing but the gripping roots ...” . . . And that girl sitting there in front of him with her legs crossed, with her nylon stockings and cigarette and that silent gaze, in which could be read that stubborn need, not so different from what Morel had seen in the eyes of the stray dogs at the pound. but not even all that was comic and childish about him could deprive him of the dignity conferred upon him by his love for his Maker. that human mass whose physical strength was nothing compared to the faith and spirit that dwelt in him. Three quarters of the Oul6 traditions and magic rites had to do with war or hunting while it's easy to suppress a magic tradition it's difficult to fill up the strange voids which it leaves in what you call the primitive psychology and what I call the human soul The roots of heaven are forever planted in their hearts, yet of heaven itself they seem to know nothing but the gripping roots It must be very consoling to take refuge in cynicism and to try and drown your own remorse in a consoling vision of universal swinishness, and you can always