Stake Land Quotes

The frailest woman will become a heroine when the life of her own child is at stake. And only the will to save the race and native land or the State, which offers protection to the race, has in all ages been the urge which has forced men to face the weapons of their enemies.

Why?" I asked softly. The word was carried away on the wind, but he heard. "Because I want you." I gave him a sad smile, wondering if we'd meet again in the land of the dead. "Wrong answer," I told him. I let go. [...] I looked him in the eye. "I will always love you." Then I plunged the stake into his chest. It wasn't as precise a blow as I would have liked, not with the skilled way he was dodging. I struggled to get the stake in deep enough to his heart, unsure if I could do it from this angle. Then, his struggles stopped. His eyes stared at me, stunned, and his lips parted, almost into a smile, albeit a grisly and pained one. "That's what I was supposed to say..." he gasped out.

In the days of Moses and the prophets such a man would have been counted among the wise men of the land; in the Middle Ages he would have been burned at the stake.

Merda! Her lace panties had snagged on his ring, the signet ring he'd inherited from his father, Giacomo Casanova. His father had seduced hundred of women without any problems whatsoever, and he was having trouble with just one. This was the real reason he never used the Casanova name. He could never live up to his father's reputation. The old man was probably laughing in his grave. Nine circles of hell," Jack muttered. Hell?" Lara asked. "I thought I was the Holy Land." You're paradise. Unfortunately, I am stuck there." Her eyes widened. "Stuck?" Normally, I would love being stuck to your lovely bum, but it would look odd if we go sightseeing with my hand under your skirt. Especially in the basilica." She glanced down. "How can you be stuck?" My ring. It's caught in the lace. See?" He moved his hand down her hip, dragging her undies down a few inches. Okay, stop." She bit her lip, frowning, then suddenly giggled. "I can't believe this has happened." I assure you, as much as I had hoped to get your clothes off, this was not part of my original plan." She snorted. "No problem. Just rip yourself loose." Are you sure?" It will destroy you undies." She narrowed her eyes with a seductuve look. "Rip it." Very well." He jerked his hand away, but the panties came with him. He yanked his hand back and forth, but the lacy, latex material simply stretched with him. "Santo cielo, they are indestructible." Lara laughed. He continued to wage battle, but to no avail. "They could use this material to build spaceships.

But his kind will always lose in the end. I know this, and now I know why. Whether it's wife or nation they occupy, their mistake is the same: they stand still, and their stake moves underneath them.... Chains rattle, rivers roll, animals startle and bolt, forests inspire and expand, babies stretch open-mouthed from the womb, new seedlings arch their necks and creep forward into the light. Even a language won't stand still. A territory is only possessed for a moment in time. They stake everything on that moment, posing for photographs while planting the flag, casting themselves in bronze.... Even before the flagpole begins to peel and splinter, the ground underneath arches and slides forward into its own new destiny. It may bear the marks of boots on its back, but those marks become the possessions of the land.

There's more at stake here than just slavery, my brother. It's a question of who will own the land, the people, the power. You cannot stick a knife in a goat and then say, Now I will remove my knife slowly, so let things be easy and clean, let there be no mess. There will always be blood.

There are always a few bored audience members at an opera, especially by the time act four comes along. Those particular eyes would be wandering around the hall, searching for something, anything, interesting to watch. Those eyes would land on the little demon downstage right, unless they were distracted. Right on cue, a large stage lamp broke free of its clamp in the rigging and swung on its cable into the back canvas. [...] On his way though the lobby minutes later, Artemis was highly amuse to overhear several audience members gushing over the unorthodox direction of the opera's final scene. The exploding lamp, muse one buff, was doubtless a metaphor for Norma's own falling star. But no, argued a second. The lamp was obviously a modernistic interpretation of the burning stake that Norma was about to face. Or perhaps, thought Artemis as he pushed through the crowd to find a light Sicilian mist falling on his forehead, the exploding lamp was simply an exploding lamp.

Well, make up your mind. I don’t have all night.” Fidelia set her beer on the porch and removed a set of keys from her skirt pocket. She fumbled with the key, trying to release the trigger lock on her pistol. “Don’t do that,” Heather warned her. “You’ve had too much to drink.” Fidelia snorted. “I’m not drunk. I’m in complete control.” She tore off the trigger lock. Bang! The gun fired, ripping into a nearby oak tree. The women screamed. Jean-Luc winced. A squirrel plummeted from the tree and landed in the yard with a thud. Fidelia shrugged. “I meant to do that. Damned rodent’s been gnawing on the house. And stealing all the nuts from our pecan tree.” Heather planted her hands on her hips. “Haven’t I told you a million times to keep the locks on?” Fidelia hung her head, looking properly remorseful. “I’ll be more careful.” She switched on the safety, then shot Jean-Luc a pointed look. “I know how to deal with a scumbag with nuts.

It's all now you see. Yesterday won't be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago. For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun yet, it not only hasn't begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it's going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn't need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose than all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago; or to anyone who ever sailed a skiff under a quilt sail, the moment in 1492 when somebody thought This is it: the absolute edge of no return, to turn back now and make home or sail irrevocably on and either find land or plunge over the world's roaring rim.

Constantine, eight years old, was working in his father's garden and thinking about his own garden, a square of powdered granite he had staked out and combed into rows at the top of his family's land.

There were glowing pumpkins and ghost lights in the yard and cheerful looking spiders and vampire posters everywhere.  “This is just disgusting,” Abel said in disgust, landing on a happy mummy poster staked in the yard.  “Must everything be commercialized these days?  I’m surprised the vampires don’t sparkle.

Neither the fanatics nor the faint-hearted are needed. And our duty as a Party is not to our Party alone, but to the nation, and, indeed, to all mankind. Our duty is not merely the preservation of political power but the preservation of peace and freedom. So let us not be petty when our cause is so great. Let us not quarrel amongst ourselves when our Nation's future is at stake. Let us stand together with renewed confidence in our cause -- united in our heritage of the past and our hopes for the future -- and determined that this land we love shall lead all mankind into new frontiers of peace and abundance.

The Main Street is wide, ridiculously wide, as though when it was built, the town was expecting something amazing to arrive, a thousand people to stake their claim to a patch of soggy green land, a huge boat, Titanic-size, on the back of a truck.

Stanley’s Congo expedition fired the starting gun for the Scramble for Africa. Before his trip, white outsiders had spent hundreds of years nibbling at Africa’s edges, claiming land around the coastline, but rarely venturing inland. Disease, hostile tribes and the lack of any clear commercial potential in Africa meant that hundreds of years after white explorers first circumnavigated its coastline, it was still referred to in mysterious terms as the Dark Continent, a source of slaves, ivory and other goods, but not a place white men thought worthy of colonisation. It was Leopold’s jostling for the Congo that forced other European powers to stake claims to Africa’s interior, and within two decades the entire continent had effectively been carved up by the white man. The modern history of Africa – decades of colonial exploitation and post-independence chaos – was begun by a Telegraph reporter battling down the Congo River.

Our people, our land, and our entire way of life was at stake, and if I had to give my own life for this mission, I would.

Then viselike fingers clenched my throat, the stake was wrenched from my hand, and a sharp stabbing pain shot up my right thigh as I landed on the ground with a thump that knocked the breath out of me. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, once I landed, something hard and heavy—his knee, I thought—hit me right in the sternum. You know, just in case there was one last breath left in my lungs. The point of the stake scraped the sensitive skin just under my chin. I looked up, wheezing, into Archer’s face.

And yet Branson (a notorious risk addict with a penchant for crash-landing hot air balloons) is far from the only one willing to stake our collective future on this kind of high-stakes gamble. Indeed the reason his various far-fetched schemes have been taken as seriously as they have over the years is that he, alongside Bill Gates with his near mystical quest for energy “miracles,” taps into what may be our culture’s most intoxicating narrative: the belief that technology is going to save us from the effects of our actions. Post–market crash and amidst ever more sinister levels of inequality, most of us have come to realize that the oligarchs who were minted by the era of deregulation and mass privatization are not, in fact, going to use their vast wealth to save the world on our behalf. Yet our faith in techno wizardry persists, embedded inside the superhero narrative that at the very last minute our best and brightest are going to save us from disaster.

What’s at stake in current sex and gender-identity struggles is not just the ability of Catholic ministries and schools to serve unhampered in the public square. The freedom of Catholic families to raise their children according to Christian beliefs is also, in everyday practice, becoming more difficult.

Those clothes are Susie's,' my father said calmly when he reached him. Buckley looked down at my blackwatch dress that he held in his hand. My father stepped closer, took the dress from my brother, and then, without speaking, he gathered the rest of my clothes, which Buckley had piled on the lawn. As he turned in silence toward the house, hardly breathing, clutching my clothes to him, it sparked. I was the only one to see the colors. Just near Buckley's ears and on the tips of his cheeks and chin he was a little orange somehow, a little red. Why can't I use them?' he asked. It landed in my father's back like a fist. Why can't I use those clothes to stake my tomatoes?' My father turned around. He saw his son standing there, behind him the perfect plot of muddy, churned-up earth spotted with tiny seedlings. 'How can you ask me that question?' You have to choose. It's not fair,' my brother said. Buck?' My father held my clothes against his chest. I watched Buckley flare and light. Behind him was the sun of the goldenrod hedge, twice as tall as it had been at my death. I'm tired of it!' Buckley blared. 'Keesha's dad died and she's okay?' Is Keesha a girl at school?' Yes!' My father was frozen. He could feel the dew that had gathered on his bare ankles and feet, could feel the ground underneath him, cold and moist and stirring with possibility. I'm sorry. When did this happen?' That's not the point, Dad! You don't get it.' Buckley turned around on his heel and started stomping the tender tomato shoots with his foot. Buck, stop!' my father cried. My brother turned. You don't get it, Dad,' he said. I'm sorry,' my father said. These are Susie's clothes and I just... It may not make sense, but they're hers-something she wore.' ... You act like she was yours only!' Tell me what you want to say. What's this about your friend Keesha's dad?' Put the clothes down.' My father laid them gently on the ground. It isn't about Keesha's dad.' Tell me what it is about.' My father was now all immediacy. He went back to the place he had been after his knee surgery, coming up out of the druggie sleep of painkillers to see his then-five-year-old son sitting near him, waiting for his eyes to flicker open so he could say, 'Peek-a-boo, Daddy.' She's dead.' It never ceased to hurt. 'I know that.' But you don't act that way.' Keesha's dad died when she was six. Keesha said she barely even thinks of him.' She will,' my father said. But what about us?' Who?' Us, Dad. Me and Lindsey. Mom left becasue she couldn't take it.' Calm down, Buck,' my father said. He was being as generous as he could as the air from his lungs evaporated out into his chest. Then a little voice in him said, Let go, let go, let go. 'What?' my father said. I didn't say anything.' Let go. Let go. Let go. I'm sorry,' my father said. 'I'm not feeling very well.' His feet had grown unbelievably cold in the damp grass. His chest felt hollow, bugs flying around an excavated cavity. There was an echo in there, and it drummed up into his ears. Let go. My father dropped down to his knees. His arm began to tingle on and off as if it had fallen asleep. Pins and needles up and down. My brother rushed to him. Dad?' Son.' There was a quaver in his voice and a grasping outward toward my brother. I'll get Grandma.' And Buckley ran. My father whispered faintly as he lay on his side with his face twisted in the direction of my old clothes: 'You can never choose. I've loved all three of you.

If she captured Tamlin’s power once, who’s to say she can’t do it again?” It was the question I hadn’t yet dared voice. “He won’t be tricked again so easily,” he said, staring up at the ceiling. “Her biggest weapon is that she keeps our powers contained. But she can’t access them, not wholly—though she can control us through them. It’s why I’ve never been able to shatter her mind—why she’s not dead already. The moment you break Amarantha’s curse, Tamlin’s wrath will be so great that no force in the world will keep him from splattering her on the walls.” A chill went through me. “Why do you think I’m doing this?” He waved a hand to me. “Because you’re a monster.” He laughed. “True, but I’m also a pragmatist. Working Tamlin into a senseless fury is the best weapon we have against her. Seeing you enter into a fool’s bargain with Amarantha was one thing, but when Tamlin saw my tattoo on your arm … Oh, you should have been born with my abilities, if only to have felt the rage that seeped from him.” I didn’t want to think much about his abilities. “Who’s to say he won’t splatter you as well?” “Perhaps he’ll try—but I have a feeling he’ll kill Amarantha first. That’s what it all boils down to, anyway: even your servitude to me can be blamed on her. So he’ll kill her tomorrow, and I’ll be free before he can start a fight with me that will reduce our once-sacred mountain to rubble.” He picked at his nails. “And I have a few other cards to play.” I lifted my brows in silent question. “Feyre, for Cauldron’s sake. I drug you, but you don’t wonder why I never touch you beyond your waist or arms?” Until tonight—until that damned kiss. I gritted my teeth, but even as my anger rose, a picture cleared. “It’s the only claim I have to innocence,” he said, “the only thing that will make Tamlin think twice before entering into a battle with me that would cause a catastrophic loss of innocent life. It’s the only way I can convince him I was on your side. Believe me, I would have liked nothing more than to enjoy you—but there are bigger things at stake than taking a human woman to my bed.” I knew, but I still asked, “Like what?” “Like my territory,” he said, and his eyes held a far-off look that I hadn’t yet seen. “Like my remaining people, enslaved to a tyrant queen who can end their lives with a single word. Surely Tamlin expressed similar sentiments to you.” He hadn’t—not entirely. He hadn’t been able to, thanks to the curse. “Why did Amarantha target you?” I dared ask. “Why make you her whore?” “Beyond the obvious?” He gestured to his perfect face. When I didn’t smile, he loosed a breath. “My father killed Tamlin’s father—and his brothers.” I started. Tamlin had never said—never told me the Night Court was responsible for that. “It’s a long story, and I don’t feel like getting into it, but let’s just say that when she stole our lands out from under us, Amarantha decided that she especially wanted to punish the son of her friend’s murderer—decided that she hated me enough for my father’s deeds that I was to suffer.” I might have reached a hand toward him, might have offered my apologies—but every thought had dried up in my head. What Amarantha had done to him … “So,” he said wearily, “here we are, with the fate of our immortal world in the hands of an illiterate human.

But to know I’m the first to touch her makes me want to shoot off a cannon and plant a stake beside her that reads ‘This land is claimed.’ She’s an undiscovered country, and I wanna be the goddamn king of it.

Only idiots listen with their eyes," she said. "If people don't hear your words, the SHOUT them. ... Demanding respect is never easy, but if something you love is at stake, then I say it's worth the price ...

Gideon isn't for sale mister. Ah, yes. Like the Louisana Purchase, or Manhattan. I see. Should I have come with a purse full of beads and a wagon of diseased blankets? ... Can't you smell the history in the air? No doubt their grandfathers rushed across these prairies in their wagons, knocking down the natives, smashing in their brains in their zeal to stake for their claim. That pioneer spirit. My, what a land! I have learned so much from you

the planter class took an additional precautionary step, a step that would later come to be known as a “racial bribe.” Deliberately and strategically, the planter class extended special privileges to poor whites in an effort to drive a wedge between them and black slaves. White settlers were allowed greater access to Native American lands, white servants were allowed to police slaves through slave patrols and militias, and barriers were created so that free labor would not be placed in competition with slave labor. These measures effectively eliminated the risk of future alliances between black slaves and poor whites. Poor whites suddenly had a direct, personal stake in the existence of a race-based system of slavery.

Even though the woman was not human—the land—or was less than human—a cow—farming had the symbolic overtones of old-fashioned agrarian romance: plowing the land was loving it, feeding the cow was tending it. In the farming model, the woman was owned privately; she was the homestead, not a public thoroughfare. One farmer worked her. The land was valued because it produced a valuable crop; and in keeping with the mystique of the model itself, sometimes the land was real pretty, special, richly endowed; a man could love it. The cow was valued because of what she produced: calves, milk; sometimes she took a prize. There was nothing actually idyllic in this. As many as one quarter of all acts of battery may be against pregnant women; and women die from pregnancy even without the intervention of a male fist. But farming implied a relationship of some substance between the farmer and what was his: and it is grander being the earth, being nature, even being a cow, than being a cunt with no redeeming mythology. Motherhood ensconced a woman in the continuing life of a man: how he used her was going to have consequences for him. Since she was his, her state of being reflected on him; and therefore he had a social and psychological stake in her welfare as well as an economic one. Because the man farmed the woman over a period of years, they developed a personal relationship, at least from her point of view: one limited by his notions of her sex and her kind; one strained because she could never rise to the human if it meant abandoning the female; but it was her best chance to be known, to be regarded with some tenderness or compassion meant for her, one particular woman.

The General Mining Act of 1872 worked in a similar way. It allowed citizens and companies to stake claims on public land. Prospectors needed to search for valuable minerals, prove a discovery, and put in at least $100 worth of labor or improvements annually. So long as they met these minimal requirements (and a few others) and paid $2.50 to $5.00 per claimed acre, they owned the minerals below and sometimes the surface land above. The claim fee has never been updated since 1872. Mining companies still extract $2 billion to $3 billion each year from public lands and pay close to nothing for the privilege.

It’s all now you see. Yesterday wont be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago. For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two oclock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet, it not only hasn’t begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armstead and Wilcox look grave yet it’s going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn’t need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago; or to anyone who ever sailed even a skiff under a quilt sail, the moment in 1492 when somebody thought This is it: the absolute edge of no return, to turn back now and make home or sail irrevocably on and either find land or plunge over the world’s roaring rim.

According to my Glendale high school days, the road along the ocean that stretched from San Diego to San Francisco was staked out in the 1780’s or so by the Spanish. The Spanish were afraid the French or Russians would claim the land along the coast first. France had picked up a big chunk of land between the Mississipi and the Rocky Mountains. Russia was coming south across the Berring Sea and down the coast from what would eventually be Alaska. The first big push to stake out the royal road stopped at what became Los Angeles. The whole point of the road was to set up a link between the Franciscan missions in California.

The land of Israel is not just dirt and rock. It is more than mountain and plain. The land of Israel is a promise of God. It is a promise so strongly held by Him that He stakes His promise concerning the land to His eternal character.” 3 If God is this zealous for His land, imagine how much He cares for the people who live in it.

was to prepare more land, for I had now seed enough to sow above an acre of ground. Before I did this, I had a week's work at least to make me a spade, which, when it was done, was but a sorry one indeed, and very heavy, and required double labour to work with it. However, I got through that, and sowed my seed in two large flat pieces of ground, as near my house as I could find them to my mind, and fenced them in with a good hedge, the stakes of which were all cut off that wood which I had set before, and knew it would grow; so that, in a year's time, I knew I should have a quick or living hedge, that would want but little repair. This work did not take me up less than three months, because a great part of that time was the wet season, when I could not go abroad. Within-doors, that is when it rained and I could not go out, I found employment in the following occupations - always observing, that all the while I was at work I diverted myself with talking to my parrot, and teaching him to speak; and I quickly taught him to know his own name, and at last to speak it out pretty loud, “Poll,” which was the first word I ever heard spoken in the island by any mouth but my own. This, therefore, was not my work, but an assistance to my work; for now, as I said, I had a great employment upon my hands, as follows: I had long studied to make, by some means or other, some earthen vessels, which, indeed, I wanted sorely, but knew not where to come at them. However, considering the heat of the climate, I did not doubt but if I could find out any clay, I might make some pots that might, being dried in the sun, be hard enough and strong enough to bear handling, and to hold anything that was dry, and required to be kept so; and as this was necessary in the preparing corn, meal, &c., which was the thing I was doing, I resolved

Yet a little country in a big land has a small future. I knew that. To our north was Constantine’s Alba, which we called Scotland, and Constantine feared the Saxons to our south. The Saxons and the Scots were both Christians, and Christians tell us that their god is love, and we must love one another and turn the other cheek, but when land is at stake those beliefs fly away and swords are drawn.

Walking stick in my right hand, Gazing silently at the land. Cedar strewn path in front of me lies, Cheerful birdsongs fill the skies. Light breezes blow my cape awry, As I walk along, I know not why! The path of life, so tried and true, Is sometimes bright and sometimes blue. Walking the path in this forest fair, Breathing deep, the fragrant air. Life's path shows us the way, Stay on it, do not sway. Unless, of course, in front of you lies, A fork in the path for you to try. A decision, now, for you to make, A fork to choose, a lot's at stake. You spy ahead as far as able, Down each of three forks on life's table, One of the forks seems to be broken. Decide against it, it may be a token, Of brighter times on the horizon of life. The other forks may hold more strife. No one knows the future ahead, We live our lives until we are dead.

She felt how young her world still was, how pure, how fresh, how empty, despite the civilisations that had risen and fallen while she was away, despite the stories that the people of this land had already woven into the warp and weft of this world, the stories that came to her as dreams. She felt how precious it all was to her, how terrible it would be to lose this world, this universe, to the dark force encroaching upon it.

Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us here in England? Do you imagine, then, that it is the Land Tax Act which raises your revenue? that it is the annual vote in the Committee of Supply which gives you your army? or that it is the Mutiny Bill which inspires it with bravery and discipline? No! surely no! It is the love of the people; it is their attachment to their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives you your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber. All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians who have no place among us; a sort of people who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material, and who, therefore, far from being qualified to be directors of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master principles which, in the opinion of such men as I have mentioned, have no substantial existence, are in truth everything, and all in all. Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.

As long as it didn't cost white anything American officials were absolutely determined to see justice done for the black Indian. The United States took nearly a century to grant the millions of freedman in its own borders the same rights as Creek freedmen enjoyed after 1866. On an economic level adoption into the tribe's communal land trust proved far more beneficial to blacks than any program ever devised by the federal government—even in modern times.

Your Lordship tempts his servant to see whether he remembers the revelations imparted to him. Trifle not with me, my Lord; I crave, I thirst, for more knowledge. Doubtless we cannot see that other higher Spaceland now, because we have no eye in our stomachs. But, just as there was the realm of Flatland, though that poor puny Lineland Monarch could neither turn to left nor right to discern it, and just as there was close at hand, and touching my frame, the land of Three Dimensions, though I, blind senseless wretch, had no power to touch it, no eye in my interior to discern it, so of a surety there is a Fourth Dimension, which my Lord perceives with the inner eye of thought. And that it must exist my Lord himself has taught me. Or can he have forgotten what he himself imparted to his servant? In One Dimension, did not a moving Point produce a Line with two terminal points? In Two Dimensions, did not a moving Line produce a Square with four terminal points? In Three Dimensions, did not a moving Square produce—did not this eye of mine behold it—that blessed Being, a Cube, with eight terminal points? And in Four Dimensions shall not a moving Cube—alas, for Analogy, and alas for the Progress of Truth, if it be not so—shall not, I say, the motion of a divine Cube result in a still more divine Organization with sixteen terminal points? Behold the infallible confirmation of the Series, 2, 4, 8, 16: is not this a Geometrical Progression? Is not this—if I might quote my Lord’s own words—“strictly according to Analogy”? Again, was I not taught by my Lord that as in a Line there are two bounding Points, and in a Square there are four bounding Lines, so in a Cube there must be six bounding Squares? Behold once more the confirming Series, 2, 4, 6: is not this an Arithmetical Progression? And consequently does it not of necessity follow that the more divine offspring of the divine Cube in the Land of Four Dimensions, must have 8 bounding Cubes: and is not this also, as my Lord has taught me to believe, “strictly according to Analogy”? O, my Lord, my Lord, behold, I cast myself in faith upon conjecture, not knowing the facts; and I appeal to your Lordship to confirm or deny my logical anticipations. If I am wrong, I yield, and will no longer demand a fourth Dimension; but, if I am right, my Lord will listen to reason. I ask therefore, is it, or is it not, the fact, that ere now your countrymen also have witnessed the descent of Beings of a higher order than their own, entering closed rooms, even as your Lordship entered mine, without the opening of doors or windows, and appearing and vanishing at will? On the reply to this question I am ready to stake everything. Deny it, and I am henceforth silent. Only vouchsafe an answer.

The first person, who having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say, 'this is mine' and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had someone pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: 'do not listen to this imposter, you are lost if you forget that the fruits of the Earth belong to all, and the Earth to no one'.

The wind rose, whipping at Gregori's solid form, lashing his body,ripping at the waves of black hair so that it streamed around his face. His expression was impassive, the pale silver eyes cold and merciless, unblinking and fixed on his prey. The attack came from sky and ground simultaneously; slivers of sharpened wood shot through the air on the wild winds,aimed directly at Gregori. The wolves leapt for him,eyes glowing hotly in the night. The army of the dead moved relentlessly forward, pressing toward Gregori's lone figure. His hands moved, a complicated pattern drected at the approaching army;then he was whirling, a flowing wind of motion beautiful to the eye,so fast that he blurred. Yelps and howls accompanied bodies flying through the air. Wolves landed to lie motionless at his feet. His expression never changed. There was no hint of anger or emotion,no sign of fear,no break in concentration. He simply acted as the need arose. The skeletons were mowed down by a wall of flame, an orange-red conflagration that rose in the night sky and danced furiously for a brief moment. The army withered into ashes, leaving only a pile of blackened dust that spewed across the street in the ferocious onslaught of the wind. Savannah felt Gregori wince, the pain that sliced though him just before he shut out all sensation.She whirled to face him and saw a sharpened stake portruding from his right shoulder. Even as she saw it, Gregori jerked it free.Blood gushed,spraying the area around him.Just as quickly it stopped,as if cut off midstream. The winds rose to a thunderous pitch, a whirling gale of debris above their heads like the funnel cloud of a tornado. The black cloud spun faster and paster,threatening to suck everything and everyone up into its center where the malevolent red eye stared at them with hatred. The tourists screamed in fear,and even the guide grabbed for a lamppost to hang on grimly.Gregori stood alone,the winds assaulting him,tearing at him, reaching for him.As the whirling column threatened him from above, sounding like the roar of a freight train, he merely clapped his hands, then waved to send a backdraft slamming into the dark entity.The vampire screamed his rage. The thick black cloud sucked in on itself with an audible soumd, hovering in the air, waiting, watching, silent. Evil.No one moved.No one dared to breathe. Suddenly the churning black entity gathered itself and streamed across the night sky,racing away from the hunter over the French Quarter and toward the swamp.Gregori launched himself into the air,shape-shifting as he did so,ducking the bolts of white-hot energy and slashing stakes flying in the turbulant air.

I began to think that you wouldn’t play someone you couldn’t beat,” said Arin. Kestrel looked up from her piano to see him standing by the doors she had left open, then glanced at the Bite and Sting set lying on a table by the garden windows. “Not at all,” said Kestrel. “I have been busy.” His gaze flicked to the piano. “So I’ve heard.” Kestrel moved to sit at the table and said, “I’m intrigued by your choice of room.” He hesitated, and she thought he was ready to deny any responsibility of choice, to pretend that a ghost had left that tile on the piano. Then he shut the doors behind him. The room, though large, felt suddenly small. Arin crossed the room to join her at the table. He said, “I didn’t like playing in your suite.” She decided not to take offense. She had asked him to be honest. Kestrel mixed the tiles, but when she set a box of matches on the table, he said, “Let’s play for something else.” Kestrel didn’t move her hand from the box’s lid. Again she wondered what he could offer her, what he could gamble, and she could think of nothing. Arin said, “If I win, I will ask a question, and you will answer.” She felt a nervous flutter. “I could lie. People lie.” “I’m willing to risk it.” “If those are your stakes, then I assume my prize would be the same.” “If you win.” She still could not quite agree. “Questions and answers are highly irregular stakes in Bite and Sting,” she said irritably. “Whereas matches make the perfect ante, and are so exciting to win and lose.” “Fine.” Kestrel tossed the box to the carpet, where it landed with a muffled sound. Arin didn’t look satisfied or amused or anything at all. He simply drew his hand. She did the same. They played in intent concentration, and Kestrel was determined to win. She didn’t.

I Am Ukraine (The Sonnet) Peace doesn't come through prayers, Peace comes through responsible action. When the invader stomps on innocent lives, Not choosing a side is a consent to oppression. Ask us for water, we won't let you go unfed, But do not mistake our gentleness as fear. If you so much as lay a finger on our home, We'll defend it with our blood, sweat 'n tears. We ain't no coward to selfishly seek security, When our land is being ransacked by raccoons. When the lives of our loved ones are at stake, We'll break but never bend to oligarchical buffoons. The love of our families is what keeps us breathing. To preserve their smiles, we shall happily die fighting.

reverted to a feral state.’ A longing came to my mind, then, that I should be able to do this also. The word ‘feral’ had a kind of magical potency which allied itself with two other words, ‘ferocious’ and ‘free’. ‘Fairy’ ‘Fey’, ‘aeriel’ and other discreditable alliances ranged themselves behind the great chord of ‘ferox’. To revert to a feral state! I took a farm-labourer’s cottage at five shillings a week, and wrote to Germany for a goshawk. Feral. He wanted to be free. He wanted to be ferocious. He wanted to be fey, a fairy, ferox. All those elements of himself he’d pushed away, his sexuality, his desire for cruelty, for mastery: all these were suddenly there in the figure of the hawk. White had found himself in the hawk that Blaine had lost. He clutched it tightly. It might hurt him, but he wouldn’t let go. He would train it. Yes. He would teach the hawk, and he would teach himself, and he would write a book about it and teach his readers this doomed and ancient art. It was as if he were holding aloft the flag of some long-defeated country to which he staked his allegiance. He’d train his hawk in the ruins of his former life. And then when the war came, as it surely would, and everything around him crumbled into ruin and anarchy, White would fly his goshawk, eat the pheasants it caught, a survivor, a yeoman living off the land, far from the bitter, sexual confusion of the metropolis or the small wars of the schoolroom.

His first decision was to return to Rome without knowing who was in charge or how he’d be received. The stakes skyrocketed when he learned, after landing near Brundisium, that Caesar’s will had made him an heir and—by adoption—a son. He reached the capital as Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus, 9 and out of respect for their martyred leader the legions he encountered took his new status seriously. Octavian could have blown the opportunity by coming across as a twerp. But he saw the difference, even then, between inheriting a title and mastering the art of command. The first can happen overnight. The second can take a lifetime. Octavian never explained how he learned this, but with the privilege of closely observing the greatest of all commanders, he’d had to have been a blockhead not to pick up something. Sun Tzu, untranslated in Europe for another eighteen centuries, suggests what it might have been: If wise, a commander is able to recognize changing circumstances and to act expediently. If sincere, his men will have no doubt of the certainty of rewards and punishments. If humane, he loves mankind, sympathizes with others, and appreciates their industry and toil. If courageous, he gains victory by seizing opportunity without hesitation. If strict, his troops are disciplined because they are in awe of him and are afraid of punishment. 10 Caesar, in turn, appears never to have explained to Octavian why he was being taught. 11 That spared him the hang-ups of knowing he’d be son, heir, and commander. Rome’s Chiron tethered a student who had little sense of being tethered. The constraint conveyed instruction and liberation.

Arin said, “If I win, I will ask a question, and you will answer.” She felt a nervous flutter. “I could lie. People lie.” “I’m willing to risk it.” “If those are your stakes, then I assume my prize would be the same.” “If you win.” She still could not quite agree. “Questions and answers are highly irregular stakes in Bite and Sting,” she said irritably. “Whereas matches make the perfect ante, and are so exciting to win and lose.” “Fine.” Kestrel tossed the box to the carpet, where it landed with a muffled sound. Arin didn’t look satisfied or amused or anything at all. He simply drew his hand. She did the same. They played in intent concentration, and Kestrel was determined to win. She didn’t. “I want to know,” Arin said, “why you are not already a soldier.” Kestrel couldn’t have said what she had thought he would ask, but this was not it, and the question recalled years of arguments she would rather forget. She was curt. “I’m seventeen. I’m not yet required by law to enlist or marry.” He settled back in his chair, toying with one of his winning pieces. He tapped a thin side against the table, spun the tile in his fingers, and tapped another side. “That’s not a full answer.” “I don’t think we specified how short or long these answers should be. Let’s play again.” “If you win, will you be satisfied with the kind of answer you have given me?” Slowly, she said, “The military is my father’s life. Not mine. I’m not even a skilled fighter.” “Really?” His surprise seemed genuine. “Oh, I pass muster. I can defend myself as well as most Valorians, but I’m not good at combat. I know what it’s like to be good at something.” Arin glanced again at the piano. “There is also my music,” Kestrel acknowledged. “A piano is not very portable. I could hardly take it with me if I were sent into battle.” “Playing music is for slaves,” Arin said. “Like cooking or cleaning.” Kestrel heard anger in his words, buried like bedrock under the careless ripple of his voice. “It wasn’t always like that.” Arin was silent, and even though Kestrel had initially tried to answer his question in the briefest of ways, she felt compelled to explain the final reason behind her resistance to the general. “Also…I don’t want to kill.” Arin frowned at this, so Kestrel laughed to make light of the conversation. “I drive my father mad. Yet don’t all daughters? So we’ve made a truce. I have agreed that, in the spring, I will either enlist or marry.” He stopped spinning the tile in his fingers. “You’ll marry, then.” “Yes. But at least I will have six months of peace first.” Arin dropped the tile to the table. “Let’s play again.” This time Kestrel won, and wasn’t prepared for how her blood buzzed with triumph.

When we blame those who brought about the brutal murder of Emmett Till, we have to count President Eisenhower, who did not consider the national honor at stake when white Southerners prevented African Americans from voting; who would not enforce the edicts of the highest court in the land, telling Chief Justice Earl Warren, 'All [opponents of desegregation] are concerned about is to see that their sweet little girls are not required to sit in schools alongside some big, overgrown Negroes.' We must count Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr., who demurred that the federal government had no jurisdiction in the political assassinations of George Lee and Lamar Smith that summer, thus not only preventing African Americans from voting but also enabling Milam and Bryant to feel confident that they could murder a fourteen-year-old boy with impunity. Brownell, a creature of politics, likewise refused to intervene in the Till case. We must count the politicians who ran for office in Mississippi thumping the podium for segregation and whipping crowds into a frenzy about the terrifying prospects of school desegregation and black voting. This goes double for the Citizens' Councils, which deliberately created an environment in which they knew white terrorism was inevitable. We must count the jurors and the editors who provided cover for Milam, Bryant, and the rest. Above all, we have to count the millions of citizens of all colors and in all regions who knew about the rampant racial injustice in America and did nothing to end it. The black novelist Chester Himes wrote a letter to the New York Post the day he heard the news of Milam's and Bryant's acquittals: 'The real horror comes when your dead brain must face the fact that we as a nation don't want it to stop. If we wanted to, we would.

I still had moments when my nerves got to me, but whenever I’d start to get anxious, Kyla Ross would remind me, “Simone, just do what you do in practice.” And before I went out for each event, she’d high-five me and say, “Just like practice, Simone!” I’d say the same thing to her when it was her turn to go up. “Just like practice” became our catchphrase. As I walked onto the mat to do my floor exercise, I held on to that phrase like it was a lifeline, because I was about to perform a difficult move I’d come up with in practice—a double flip in the layout position with a half twist out. The way it happened was, I’d landed short on a double layout full out earlier that year during training, and I’d strained my calf muscle on the backward landing. Aimee didn’t want me to risk a more severe injury, so she suggested I do the double layout—body straight with legs together and fully extended as I flipped twice in the air—then add a half twist at the end. That extra half twist meant I’d have to master a very tricky blind forward landing, but it would put less stress on my calves. I thought the new combination sounded incredibly cool, so I started playing around with it until I was landing the skill 95 percent of the time. At the next Nationals Camp, I demonstrated the move for Martha and she thought it looked really good, so we went ahead and added it to the second tumbling pass of my floor routine. I’d already performed the combination at national meets that year, but doing it at Worlds was different. That’s because when a completely new skill is executed successfully at a season-ending championship like Worlds or the Olympics, the move will forever after be known by the name of the gymnast who first performed it. Talk about high stakes! I’ll cut to the chase: I nailed the move, which is how it came to be known as the Biles. How awesome is that! (The only problem is, when I see another gymnast perform the move now, I pray they don’t get hurt. I know it’s not logical, but because the move is named after me, I’d feel as if it was my fault.)

But to kill men leads to nothing but killing more men. For one principle to triumph, another principle must be overthrown. The city of light of which Spartacus dreamed could only have been built on the ruins of eternal Rome, of its institutions and of its gods. Spartacus’ army marches to lay siege to a Rome paralyzed with fear at the prospect of having to pay for its crimes. At the decisive moment, however, within sight of the sacred walls, the army halts and wavers, as if it were retreating before the principles, the institutions, the city of the gods. When these had been destroyed, what could be put in their place except the brutal desire for justice, the wounded and exacerbated love that until this moment had kept these wretches on their feet.2 In any case, the army retreated without having fought, and then made the curious move of deciding to return to the place where the slave rebellion originated, to retrace the long road of its victories and to return to Sicily. It was as though these outcasts, forever alone and helpless before the great tasks that awaited them and too daunted to assail the heavens, returned to what was purest and most heartening in their history, to the land of their first awakening, where it was easy and right to die. Then began their defeat and martyrdom. Before the last battle, Spartacus crucified a Roman citizen to show his men the fate that was in store for them. During the battle, Spartacus himself tried with frenzied determination, the symbolism of which is obvious, to reach Crassus, who was commanding the Roman legions. He wanted to perish, but in single combat with the man who symbolized, at that moment, every Roman master; it was his dearest wish to die, but in absolute equality. He did not reach Crassus: principles wage war at a distance and the Roman general kept himself apart. Spartacus died, as he wished, but at the hands of mercenaries, slaves like himself, who killed their own freedom with his. In revenge for the one crucified citizen, Crassus crucified thousands of slaves. The six thousand crosses which, after such a just rebellion, staked out the road from Capua to Rome demonstrated to the servile crowd that there is no equality in the world of power and that the masters calculate, at a usurious rate, the price of their own blood.

Yes! All it would take is just once in my life to be careful and patient and – and that’s all there is to it! All it would take is to stand firm just once, and I can change my whole destiny in a single hour! The main thing is standing firm. Just remember what happened to me in similar circumstances seven months ago in Roulettenburg, before my final loss. Oh, that was a remarkable instance of resolve: I had lost everything, everything … I’m leaving the casino, and I see that I still have a single gulden knocking about in my waistcoat pocket. ‘Ah, so I’ll be able to buy myself some dinner!’ I thought, but after taking about a hundred steps, I changed my mind and went back. I staked that gulden on manque (this time it was manque), and there really is something peculiar in the feeling, when you’re alone, in a foreign country, far from your native land and friends, and you don’t know if you’re going to eat that day, you stake your last gulden, the very, very last one! I won and twenty minutes later I walked out of the casino with 170 gulden in my pocket. That is a fact, sir! That’s what your last gulden can mean sometimes! And what if I had lost heart, if I hadn’t dared to bring myself to do it? … Tomorrow, tomorrow it will all be over! 1866

I’m going to visit you every day. And then someday, when they find a way to reverse your condition scientifically, medically, we’ll buy some land with wonderful trees and build treehouses in every one of them. And we could have a bunch of kids, and read plays together, as a family, and on clear nights, we’ll look at the stars. Can you picture it? And if you decide you don’t want kids, Totally okay, totally fine. We’ll read every book and watch every show and sleep in and travel and make money and art and love all the time, whenever we want. Or we could adopt a couple big dogs. You’ve always wanted big dogs, right?” Lewis stared at her blankly as his tail swished in the surf behind him. “Why aren’t you saying anything? Please say something,” Wren begged, clutching him harder. “I’m not the person I used to be. I’m not the man you married.” “What do you mean?” Lewis wished he could embrace her back, wrap two human arms around her small, shivering frame. He tried to do the best he could with words: “It’s like standing in my childhood bedroom, looking around at the comic books, action figures, and school yearbooks with signatures from all the girls, and remembering how that tiny room used to be my only stake in the world. I don’t know how else to explain it. There are things I cannot unsee.

No one ever changed the world by being beautiful," she said. "If you want to make a difference, you can't let something as trivial as appearance get in your way. A daisy doesn't need the roses' permission to bloom - and neither do you." "I may not need permission, but I do need support," the woman argued. "I can't fight an army on my own - I'll need others to join me. But I'm afraid they'll only see my looks and won't listen to my words. I'm afraid they'll only laugh at my hopes of rescuing my loved ones." The little girl placed her hands on her hips and stared at the woman with the confidence of someone twice her age. "Only idiots listen with their eyes," she said. "If people don't hear your words, then shout them. If people silence you, then write your message with fire. Demanding respect is never easy, but if something you love is at stake, then I'd say it's worth the price. Besides, if you can't get villagers to take you seriously, you'll never defeat an army! Sometimes we're meant to face the demons at home so we know how to fight the demons abroad." The little girl had waited years to give someone that advice, and it appeared to do the trick. As if a sudden electric charge had run through the woman's body, she stood taller and straighter, and her eyes beamed with determination. "You're right, child," she said. "With all the energy I've wasted moping in front of the mirror, I could have accomplished great things by now. Well, I'm going to stop moping at once and get to work.

However, if the moneylenders are not some other country but are situated within your own kingdom, and you’ve borrowed what you feel is too much money from them, you can play a very dirty trick. This dirty trick has indeed been played, and quite often. It’s called “Kill the Creditors.” (Please don’t try this at your local bank.) Consider, for instance, the sad fate of the Knights Templar. They were a religious order of fighting knights who’d amassed a great store of capital through gifts given to them by the pious, as well as through various treasures they’d acquired during the Crusades, and they acted as Europe’s major moneylenders to kings as well as to others for more than two centuries. It was unlawful for Christians to charge for the use of money, but it wasn’t unlawful for them to charge “rent” for the use of land, so the Templars charged so-called “rent” for the use of money, which you paid at the same time you got the loan, rather than after you’d used it. But you still had to pay the principal amount back at the stipulated time. This could be a problem for those who’d borrowed the money, as it still is today. In 1307, Philip the Fourth of France found he owed a cumbersome lot of money to the Templars. With the aid of the Pope and of torture, he accused them falsely of heretical and sacrilegious activities and had them rounded up and burned at the stake. As if by magic, his debts disappeared. (So did the vast wealth of the Templars, which has never been adequately accounted for since.)

Already, in fact, rebellion, without claiming to solve everything, can at least confront its problems. From this moment high noon is borne away on the fast-moving stream of history. Around the devouring flames, shadows writhe in mortal combat for an instant of time and then as suddenly disappear, and the blind, fingering their eyelids, cry out that this is history. The men of Europe, abandoned to the shadows, have turned their backs upon the fixed and radiant point of the present. They forget the present for the future, the fate of humanity for the delusion of power, the misery of the slums for the mirage of the eternal city, ordinary justice for an empty promised land. They despair of personal freedom and dream of a strange freedom of the species; reject solitary death and give the name of immortality to a vast collective agony. They no longer believe in the things that exist in the world and in living man; the secret of Europe is that it no longer loves life. Its blind men entertain the puerile belief that to love one single day of life amounts to justifying whole centuries of oppression. That is why they wanted to efface joy from the world and to postpone it until a much later date. Impatience with limits, the rejection of their double life, despair at being a man, have finally driven them to inhuman excesses. Denying the real grandeur of life, they have had to stake all on their own excellence. For want of something better to do, they deified themselves and their misfortunes began; these gods have had their eyes put out. Kaliayev, and his brothers throughout the entire world, refuse, on the contrary, to be deified in that they refuse the unlimited power to inflict death. They choose, and give us as an example the only original rule of life today: to learn to live and to die, and, in order to be a man, to refuse to be a god.

What is that?” Morgan asked, coming out of her shock and pointing at the “wagon” they had procured for the journey. “What do you mean?” Ladon asked. “It’s a wagon. For Melisande and the supplies.” Melly cleared her throat and tried not to laugh. “Generally wagons in the human world are made of wood. Not gold and precious gems.” She didn’t want to even think about how strong those fire beasts had to be to pull a solid gold wagon. Morgan laughed beside her while Melly continued, trying to be diplomatic, “If we are trying to remain unnoticed, we” “ will need to be a little less ... ostentatious.” The dragons looked around at each other. It was Eben who spoke. “We decided since there was no way for our dragons to pass as human, we would give a display of wealth and violence, so that the humans would be impressed enough to keep their distance.” Melly looked at Morgan, who rolled her eyes, her lips twitching. “I believe that the Dragon Knights and flaming horses will be a sufficient sight to strike fear in the populace,” Melly said, trying to keep the smile out of her voice. “Perhaps excessive even. But it would be best not to advertise quite so strongly the wealth of the dragon lands. Humans have been known to act foolishly when wealth is at stake.” All the dragons looked to the wagon again. “Perhaps you are right,” Eben finally said. The big blue dragon male shrugged his massive shoulders and nodded. “Humans can be greedy things.” Coming from a people that surrounded themselves with treasure and had made a solid gold wagon, this struck Melly as ironic. Morgan must have thought so too. Her voice was dry when she spoke. “Yes, If only they had the fortitude of dragons to be able to resist acquiring shiny baubles.” The dragons turned as one and looked at them, blinking big exotic eyes, and glinting like jewels in the sun. Melly cleared her throat. “So, a wooden wagon?

You have reason to be happy as well. You have found a brother today. And you found out that you’re half-Irish.” That actually drew a rumble of amusement from him. “That should make me happy?” “The Irish are a remarkable race. And I see it in you: your love of land, your tenacity …” “My love of brawling.” “Yes. Well, perhaps you should continue to suppress that part.” “Being part-Irish,” he said, “I should be a more proficient drinker.” “And a far more glib conversationalist.” “I prefer to talk only when I have something to say.” “Hmmm. That is neither Irish nor Romany. Perhaps there’s another part of you we haven’t yet identified.” “My God. I hope not.” But he was smiling, and Win felt a warm ripple of delight spread through all her limbs. “That’s the first real smile I’ve seen from you since I came back,” she said. “You should smile more, Kev.” “Should I?” he asked softly. “Oh yes. It’s beneficial for your health. Dr. Harrow says his cheerful patients tend to recover far more quickly than the sour ones.” The mention of Dr. Harrow caused Merripen’s elusive smile to vanish. “Ramsay says you’ve become close with him.” “Dr. Harrow is a friend,” she allowed. “Only a friend?” “Yes, so far. Would you object if he wished to court me?” “Of course not,” Merripen muttered. “What right would I have to object?” “None at all. Unless you had staked some prior claim, which you certainly have not.” She sensed Merripen’s inner struggle to let the matter drop. A struggle he lost, for he said abruptly, “Far be it from me to deny you a diet of pabulum, if that’s what your appetite demands.” “You’re likening Dr. Harrow to pabulum?” Win fought to hold back a satisfied grin. The small display of jealousy was a balm to her spirits. “I assure you, he is not at all bland. He is a man of substance and character.” “He’s a watery-eyed, pale-faced gadjo.” “He is very attractive. And his eyes are not at all watery.” “Have you let him kiss you?” “Kev, we’re on a public thoroughfare—” “Have you?” “Once,” she admitted, and waited as he digested the information. He scowled ferociously at the pavement before them. When it became apparent he wasn’t going to say anything, Win volunteered, “It was a gesture of affection.” Still no response. Stubborn ox, she thought in annoyance. “It wasn’t like your kisses. And we’ve never …” She felt a blush rising. “We’ve never done anything similar to what you and I … the other night …” “We’re not going to discuss that.” “Why can we discuss Dr. Harrow’s kisses but not yours?” “Because my kisses aren’t going to lead to courtship.

Before the twentieth century, ideology - as opposed to religion - did not kill people by the millions and tens of millions. The stakes were not thought to be worth it. Such enthusiasm for mass murder awaited the combination of aristocratic militarism, really-existing socialism, and fascism. Thus it was only in the twentieth century that utopian aspirations about how the economy should be organized led nations and global movements to build dystopias to try to bring the utopian future closer. And then they turned around and justified the dystopia: compromises must be made, and this is as good as it is going to get. My view is that too much mental and historical energy has been spent parsing differences between movements that are justly classified as dystopian, and even totalitarian, in aspiration. Time spent on such a task is time wasted, given their commonalities - if not in formal doctrine, then at least in modes of operation. The guards of Auschwitz, Majdanek, Treblinka, Dachau, and the rest were very like the guards of the Gulag Archipelago. Rather, mental and historical energy should be focused on where these movements got their energy. Why was the world unable to offer people a society in which they could live good lives? Why was a total reconfiguration necessary? Karl Polanyi saw fascism and socialism as reactions against the market society's inability or unwillingness to satisfy people's Polanyian rights. It could not guarantee them a comfortable community in which to live because the use to which land was put had to pass a profitability test. It could not offer them an income commensurate with what they deserved because the wage paid to their occupation had to pass a profitability test. And it could not offer them stable employment because the financing to support whatever value chain they were embedded in also had to pass a profitability test. These failures all gave energy to the thought that there needed to be a fundamental reconfiguration of economy and society that would respect people's Polanyian rights. And the hope of millions was that fascism and really-existing socialism would do so. Instead, both turned out to erase, in brutal and absolute ways, people's rights, and people's lives, by the millions. So why were people so gullible? The German socialist Rosa Luxemburg in 1919 could see the path Lenin was embarked upon and called it 'a brutalization of public life: attempted assassinations, shooting of hostages, etc.' The German liberal Max Weber, writing in 1918, could also foresee what would become of Lenin's sociological experiment, saying it would end 'in a laboratory with heaps of human corpses.' Similarly, the British diplomat Eric Phipps wrote in 1935 that if Britain were to take Hitler's Mein Kampf seriously and literally, 'we should logically be bound to adopt the policy of a "preventive" war.' The dangers of a fascist turn were clear. The unlikelihood of success at even slouching toward a good society of those who took that turn ought to have been obvious. Utopian faith is a helluva drug.

America stakes a relatively modest claim to world history when compared to other nations. Perhaps this lack of historical longevity partially accounts for why each generation of Americans tends to define themselves based largely upon the flashbulb remembrances that took place during their lifetime. Despite the relative newness of The United States of America emergence as a great power, post-Vietnam Americans display no deeply entwined interest in their national heritage. The battle cries of the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the battle hymns of World War I and World War II seem like ancient relics in the springtime commencement of the digital age. Today’s consumerism society brazenly casted aside the legacy of its predecessors similar to how one would toss away a functionally obsolete toaster, bulky television set, or land phone when the newest and slimmest best thing comes along. It is a fundamental mistake to forget the embryonic stages of America. When a nation’s citizens respect the accomplishments of its ancestors, the populous feels spiritually rooted. Without a clear vision and a unified approach, America will never become the beacon of universal justice.

Pilgrims with no vision of the promised land become proprietors of their own land … Instead of looking upward at [the Lord] they look inward at themselves and outward at each other. The result? Cabin fever. Quarreling families. Restless leaders. Fence building. Staked-off territory. No trespassing! signs are hung on hearts and homes. Spats turn into fights as myopic groups turn to glare at each other’s weaknesses instead of turning to worship their common Strength.2

I rule not like Nitocris over beasts of burden, as are the effeminate nations of the East, nor like Semiramis, over tradesmen and traffickers, nor like the man-woman, Nero, over slaves and eunuchs-such is the precious knowledge foreigners introduce among us-but I rule over Britons, little versed, indeed in craft and diplomacy, but born and trained to the game of war; men who in the cause of liberty stake down their lives, the lives of their wives and children, their lands and property. Queen of such a race I implore your aid for freedom, for victory over enemies infamous for the wantonness of the wrongs they inflict, for their perversions of justice, for their insatiable greed; a people that revel in unmanly pleasures, whose affections are more to be dreaded and abhored than their emnity. Never let a foreigner bear rule over me or over my countrymen; never let slavery reign in the island!

The focus of that week was “learning how to listen to the voice of God” in what was dubbed “My Quiet Time with God.” You have to admire the camp leaders’ intent, but let’s be honest. Most pre-adolescents are clueless about such deeply spiritual goals, let alone the discipline to follow through on a daily basis. Still, good little camperettes that we were, we trekked across the campground after our counselors told us to find our “special place” to meet with God each day. My special place was beneath a big tree. Like the infamous land-run settlers of Oklahoma’s colorful history, I staked out the perfect location. I busily cleared the dirt beneath my tree and lined it with little rocks, fashioned a cross out of two twigs, stuck it in the ground near the tree, and declared that it was good. I wiped my hands on my madras Bermudas, then plopped down, cross-legged on the dirt, ready to meet God. For an hour. One very long hour. Just me and God. God and me. Every single day of camp. Did I mention these quiet times were supposed to last an entire hour? I tried. Really I did. “Now I lay me down to sleep . . . ” No. Wait. That’s a prayer for babies. I can surely do better than that. Ah! I’ve got it! The Lord’s Prayer! Much more grown-up. So I closed my eyes and recited the familiar words. “Our Father, Who art in heaven . . .” Art? I like art. I hope we get to paint this week. Maybe some watercolor . . . “Hallowed by Thy name.” I’ve never liked my name. Diane. It’s just so plain. Why couldn’t Mom and Dad have named me Veronica? Or Tabitha? Or Maria—like Maria Von Trapp in The Sound of Music. Oh my gosh, I love that movie! “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done . . . ” Be done, be done, be done . . . will this Quiet Time ever BE DONE? I’m sooooo bored! B-O-R-E-D. BORED! BORED! BORED! “On earth as it is in Heaven.” I wonder if Julie Andrews and I will be friends in heaven. I loved her in Mary Poppins. I really liked that bag of hers. All that stuff just kept coming out. “Give us this day, our daily bread . . . ” I’m so hungry, I could puke. I sure hope they don’t have Sloppy Joes today. Those were gross. Maybe we’ll have hot dogs. I’ll take mine with ketchup, no mustard. I hate mustard. “And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” What the heck is a trespass anyway? And why should I care if someone tresses past me? “And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil . . . ” I am so tempted to short-sheet Sally’s bed. That would serve her right for stealing the top bunk. “For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.” This hour feels like forever. FOR-E-VERRRR. Amen. There. I prayed. Now what?

Perhaps not coincidentally, many of the Western territories in which women staked out land were places in which woman suffrage would precede passage of the nineteenth amendment.

why it shou'd create more surprise, to see [a lady] preside in a council of war, than in a council of state. Why may she not be as capable of heading an army as a parliament; or of commanding at sea as of reigning at land? What shou'd hinder her from holding the helm of a fleet with the same safety and steadiness as that of a nation? And why may she not exercise her soldiers, draw up her troops in battle array, and divide her forces into battalions at land, squadrons at sea, &c. with the same pleasure she wou'd have in seeing or ordering it to be done? The military art has no mystery in it beyond others, which Women cannot attain to. A Woman is as capable as a Man of making herself, by means of a map, acquainted with the good and bad ways, the dangerous and safe passes, or the proper situations for encampment. And what shou'd hinder her from making herself mistress of all the strategems of war, of charging, retreating, surprising, laying ambushes, counterfeiting marches, feigning flights, giving false attacks, supporting real ones, animating the soldiery, and adding example to eloquence by being the first to mount a breach. Persuasion, heat, and example are the soul of victory: And Women can shew as much eloquence, intrepidity, and warmth, where their honour is at stake, as is requisite to attack or defend a town.

particularly when his people’s welfare was at stake. Now, feeling his gray eyes boring into hers, feeling the bridled power of the fingers wrapped around hers, she knew why. “No matter where you look for the man, he is certain to escape you. He knows these lands as well as you, John. And he

The heroic efforts and successes of the Reformers on the Continent, in the presence of Papal bulls and inquisitions, were a trumpet call to independence to the people of this priest-cursed land; and many responded right nobly, ready to stand amid the faggots at the stake rather than bear the iron heel that bruised them.

O my Beloved! this was but the prelude of graces yet greater which Thou didst desire to heap upon me. Let me remind Thee of them to-day, and forgive my folly if I venture to tell Thee once more of my hopes, and my heart's well nigh infinite longings—forgive me and grant my desire, that it may be well with my soul. To be Thy Spouse, O my Jesus, to be a daughter of Carmel, and by my union with Thee to be the mother of souls, should not all this content me? And yet other vocations make themselves felt—I feel called to the Priesthood and to the Apostolate—I would be a Martyr, a Doctor of the Church. I should like to accomplish the most heroic deeds—the spirit of the Crusader burns within me, and I long to die on the field of battle in defence of Holy Church. The vocation of a Priest! With what love, my Jesus, would I bear Thee in my hand, when my words brought Thee down from Heaven! With what love would I give Thee to souls! And yet, while longing to be a Priest, I admire and envy the humility of St. Francis of Assisi, and am drawn to imitate him by refusing the sublime dignity of the Priesthood. How reconcile these opposite tendencies? Like the Prophets and Doctors, I would be a light unto souls, I would travel to every land to preach Thy name, O my Beloved, and raise on heathen soil the glorious standard of Thy Cross. One mission alone would not satisfy my longings. I would spread the Gospel to the ends of the earth, even to the most distant isles. I would be a Missionary, not for a few years only, but, were it possible, from the beginning of the world till the consummation of time. Above all, I thirst for the Martyr's crown. It was the desire of my earliest days, and the desire has deepened with the years passed in the Carmel's narrow cell. But this too is folly, since I do not sigh for one torment; I need them all to slake my thirst. Like Thee, O Adorable Spouse, I would be scourged, I would be crucified! I would be flayed like St. Bartholomew, plunged into boiling oil like St. John, or, like St. Ignatius of Antioch, ground by the teeth of wild beasts into a bread worthy of God. With St. Agnes and St. Cecilia I would offer my neck to the sword of the executioner, and like Joan of Arc I would murmur the name of Jesus at the stake. ...Open, O Jesus, the Book of Life, in which are written the deeds of Thy Saints: all the deeds told in that book I long to have accomplished for Thee.

IF I HAD KNOWN "If I had known" would be the words of a man who is ungrateful to God for him being called to serve. But in tears, I try to smile. The overwhelming need to be there for everyone. The spiritual battles and revelation with dreadful confrontation each day. Yet we are called unwise and drafted as weak. The misunderstanding by those you weep for day and night. Our discomfort to make them sleep peacefully. The fear that grips me when they say, “Leader hear my dreams. See what I saw…” and I am put into another frantic panic. My earnest prayers are to comfort those in pain, enrich those in poverty, forgive those in sin, and save those who need saving even if my life could be traded because I swore to save one soul even if it's the last thing done. The nights that require cuddles but embrace books, prayers, and constant confrontation with the wicked world. We do not even enjoy the world we live in but constantly seek to right the wrong made in the spiritual because we are set to be violent only which we can conquer. Sometimes, I say “If I had known”. But I am not ashamed of my shortcomings; even those before me had the same. Some said “if only you can take this cup away…”, some were afflicted with an incurable sickness, some were driven from their father’s land and they sort solace in Medina. Some were crucified, others tried by ordeal or burnt at the stake. Our family is far though they are close because we swore to keep those who follow our God as our brothers and sisters and love them as we love ourselves. The job of doing God’s work to me is to kill the flesh so that we can rise to glory. My flesh Oh Lord is ever before thee but be mild with it so I can enjoy the bounty of this life and the hereafter. Amen

... It strikes me that if I'm in such a febrile and imaginative mood I ought to take advantage of it with some serious writing exercises or at least a few ideas for stories, if only to demonstrate that I'm not treating this here commonplace book solely as a journal to record my most recent attacks of jitters! Maybe I should roll my sleeves up and attempt as least an opening practice paragraph or two of this confounded novel I'm pretending to be writing. Let's see how it looks. Marblehead: An American Undertow By Robert D. Black Iron green, the grand machinery of the Atlantic grates foam gears against New England with the rhythmic thunder of industrial percussion. A fine dust of other lands and foreign histories is carried in suspension on its lurching, slopping mechanism: shards of bright green glass from Ireland scoured blunt and opaque by brine, or sodden splinters of armada out of Spain. The debris of an older world, a driftwood of ideas and people often changed beyond all recognition by their passage, clatters on the tideline pebbles to deposit unintelligible grudges, madnesses and visions in a rank high-water mark, a silt of fetid dreams that further decompose amid the stranded kelp or bladder-wrack and pose risk of infection. Puritans escaping England's murderous civil war cast broad-brimmed shadows onto rocks where centuries of moss obscured the primitive horned figures etched by vanished tribes, and after them came the displaced political idealists of many nations, the religious outcasts, cults and criminals, to cling with grim determination to a damp and verdant landscape until crushed by drink or the insufferable weight of their accumulated expectations. Royalist cavaliers that fled from Cromwell's savage interregnum and then, where their puritanical opponents settled the green territories to the east, elected instead to establish themselves deep in a more temperate South, bestowing their equestrian concerns, their courtly mannerisms and their hairstyles upon an adopted homeland. Heretics and conjurors who sought new climes past the long shadow of the stake; transported killers and procurers with their slates wiped clean in pastures where nobody knew them; sour-faced visionaries clutching Bunyan's chapbook to their bosoms as a newer and more speculative bible, come to these shores searching for a literal New Jerusalem and finding only different wilderness in which to lose themselves and different game or adversaries for the killing. All of these and more, bearing concealed agendas and a hundred diverse afterlives, crashed as a human surf of Plymouth Rock to fling their mortal spray across the unsuspecting country, individuals incendiary in the having lost their ancestral homelands they were without further longings to relinquish. Their remains, ancient and sinister, impregnate and inform the factory-whistle furrows of oblivious America.

... It strikes me that if I'm in such a febrile and imaginative mood I ought to take advantage of it with some serious writing exercises or at least a few ideas for stories, if only to demonstrate that I'm not treating this here commonplace book solely as a journal to record my most recent attacks of jitters! Maybe I should roll my sleeves up and attempt as least an opening practice paragraph or two of this confounded novel I'm pretending to be writing. Let's see how it looks. Marblehead: An American Undertow By Robert D. Black Iron green, the grand machinery of the Atlantic grates foam gears against New England with the rhythmic thunder of industrial percussion. A fine dust of other lands and foreign histories is carried in suspension on its lurching, slopping mechanism: shards of bright green glass from Ireland scoured blunt and opaque by brine, or sodden splinters of armada out of Spain. The debris of an older world, a driftwood of ideas and people often changed beyond all recognition by their passage, clatters on the tideline pebbles to deposit unintelligible grudges, madnesses and visions in a rank high-water mark, a silt of fetid dreams that further decompose amid the stranded kelp or bladder-wrack and pose risk of infection. Puritans escaping England's murderous civil war cast broad-brimmed shadows onto rocks where centuries of moss obscured the primitive horned figures etched by vanished tribes, and after them came the displaced political idealists of many nations, the religious outcasts, cults and criminals, to cling with grim determination to a damp and verdant landscape until crushed by drink or the insufferable weight of their accumulated expectations. Royalist cavaliers that fled from Cromwell's savage interregnum and then, where their puritanical opponents settled the green territories to the east, elected instead to establish themselves deep in a more temperate South, bestowing their equestrian concerns, their courtly mannerisms and their hairstyles upon an adopted homeland. Heretics and conjurors who sought new climes past the long shadow of the stake; transported killers and procurers with their slates wiped clean in pastures where nobody knew them; sour-faced visionaries clutching Bunyan's chapbook to their bosoms as a newer and more speculative bible, come to these shores searching for a literal New Jerusalem and finding only different wilderness in which to lose themselves and different game or adversaries for the killing. All of these and more, bearing concealed agendas and a hundred diverse afterlives, crashed as a human surf on Plymouth Rock to fling their mortal spray across the unsuspecting country, individuals incendiary in that having lost their ancestral homelands they were without further longings to relinquish. Their remains, ancient and sinister, impregnate and inform the factory-whistle furrows of oblivious America.

They even purchased acres of land through the new redistribution policies, in an effort to keep unscrupulous outsiders from staking claim on their homes. Out in Washington this was called the Port Royal Experiment, but as far as Hetty could see it was just people living the lives they were always meant to have in the first place.

my sister just does the same thing every single day. It's some kind of zen shit she's figured out or something. She's like, "it keeps me level, it's all I need." But I just can't do it, though. If I wake up without some big dragon to go and kill, I get like ... I get scared. Like I'm getting buried alive or something. Man. And the thing is, I do that while completely knowing that this game is dumb. I could wake up tomorrow and catch a ball worth 500 points. So okay, and? And then what? Maybe I get in the Hall of Fame and I get on TV. And then what after that? But it's like, on some level, I still have to grab on to that. I still have to have a mission, any mission. The harder, the better. And that's why I count myself lucky that it's turning out to be so hard. . . . So do you even want to catch the ball? I do and I don't ... clearly. I do and I don't. I mean, I don't want this to end. But also, if I'm not actually trying my best to get one, the entire house of cards I built for myself just kinda blows over, doesn't it? I gotta wake up every day, stake out some land, keep maintaining this ... I don't know, work of fiction

Koch Agriculture first branched out into the beef business, and it did so in a way that gave it control from the ranch to the butcher’s counter. Koch bought cattle feedlots. Then it developed its own retail brand of beef called Spring Creek Ranch. Dean Watson oversaw a team that worked to develop a system of “identity preservation” that would allow the company to track each cow during its lifespan, allowing it over time to select which cattle had the best-tasting meat. Koch held blind taste tests of the beef it raised. Watson claimed to win nine out of ten times. Then Koch studied the grain and feed industries that supplied its feedlots. Watson worked with experts to study European farming methods because wheat farmers in Ukraine were far better at raising more grain on each acre of land than American farmers were. The Europeans had less acreage to work with, forcing them to be more efficient, and Koch learned how to replicate their methods. Koch bought a stake in a genetic engineering company to breed superyielding corn. Koch Agriculture extended into the milling and flour businesses as well. It experimented with building “micro” mills that would be nimbler than the giant mills operated by Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill. Koch worked with a start-up company that developed a “pixie dust” spray preservative that could be applied to pizza crusts, making crusts that did not need to be refrigerated. It experimented with making ethanol gasoline and corn oil. There were more abstract initiatives. Koch launched an effort to sell rain insurance to farmers who had no way to offset the risk of heavy rains. To do that, Koch hired a team of PhD statisticians to write formulas that correlated corn harvests with rain events, figuring out what a rain insurance policy should cost. At the same time, Koch’s commodity traders were buying contracts for corn and soybeans, learning more every day about those markets.

the Israelis and Palestinians were at a demographic tipping point, with more-or-less parity in the number of Jews and Arabs living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The century-long struggle over the land was only becoming more intractable. The Israeli Zionist left had long warned that the dream was at stake and that Israel could not have it both ways: Without partition into two separate homelands for Jews and Palestinians, Israel’s self-definition as a Jewish democracy, however compromised those terms were, could not be sustained and Israel would inevitably become a binational country. If all the Palestinians were given equal rights and the vote in Israel, it would not have a Jewish majority. Without partition and without allowing Palestinians to vote for the government that controlled fundamental aspects of their lives, Israel’s claim to be a democracy would eventually implode. The temporary occupation had gone on so long that many critics were already describing the separate statuses of Israel and the occupied territories as a fiction meant to obscure what was already a binational, one-state reality. Instead of a light unto the nations, Israel was being cast by its harshest liberal-left critics and human rights groups such as B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International as a single-state entity and territory that had already veered into a system of varying degrees of “Jewish supremacy” or racial “domination” over the Palestinians in different geographical areas that, they asserted, fit international definitions of apartheid and crimes against humanity. With a weak Palestinian leadership split between the increasingly autocratic Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas-run Gaza, and after years without any semblance of a peace process, Israel, more than seventy years after its founding, was more divided over its endgame than it was on the eve of its independence. Esh Kodesh and a rash of other settlement outposts had stepped into the void to try to determine the outcome and doom Israel to victory, or at least to deepen the entanglement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I am light and free and my path ahead is smooth and wide through a land of burgeoning promise.

the first and foremost step towards a victorious landing was to upset the equilibrium of the Turk so that he should be unable to concentrate either his mind or his men to meet our main attacks…. Prudence here is entirely out of place. There will be and can be no reconnaissances, no half measures, no tentatives. At a given moment we must stake everything on the one hazard.

suspect most people have someone like Beau Thatcher in their lives—a person standing in between who you used to be and who you want to be, guarding the wall and proclaiming that you shall forever be imprisoned by their expectations and obligations. Crossing to the other side will always be a struggle and fraught with dangers that may leave scars. But, oh, the reward when you leap over that wall or break through it and shed the burdens of the past! I am light and free and my path ahead is smooth and wide through a land of burgeoning promise.

The farmer pulled up to the mews at the back of the hospital. The first inkling Longmore had that it was going to be a long night was when Thompson, the head porter, called him. 'Mr Longmore, is that pig in a Land Rover in the mews anything to do with you?' 'Yes, it is.' 'Well, it has just got out and turned left along Wimpole Street.' Reluctant to make its own valuable contribution to medical progress, the pig had escaped. It is surprising how fast a pig can run, especially when its life is at stake. Still dressed in their operating theatre gowns, caps, masks and boots, the entire surgical team gave chase. The pig ran as fast as its little legs could carry it, but was no match for London's finest heart surgeons, who eventually caught it halfway up the road.

Living nonextractively does not mean that extraction does not happen: all living things must take from nature in order to survive. But it does mean the end of the extractivist mindset—of taking without caretaking, of treating land and people as resources to deplete rather than as complex entities with rights to a dignified existence based on renewal and regeneration. Even such traditionally destructive practices as logging can be done responsibly, as can small-scale mining, particularly when the activities are controlled by the people who live where the extraction is taking place and who have a stake in the ongoing health and productivity of the land. But most of all, living nonextractively means relying overwhelmingly on resources that can be continuously regenerated: deriving our food from farming methods that protect soil fertility; our energy from methods that harness the ever-renewing strength of the sun, wind, and waves; our metals from recycled and reused sources.

My only stake was the hook I shot in the moon, trying to capture stardom on my way to heaven. Without bravado. Just footsteps plodding me along till my big show. My showstopper. The one where I landed in a place without gravity.

In 1511, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, following the orders of Columbus’ son Diego, took a group of 300 men to the island of Cuba, or Caobana as it was called, looking for gold. He conquered and governed Cuba on behalf of the Spanish Crown and moved Havana from Santiago de Cuba on the south-eastern coast to the north coast. Soon Many settlers seeking new beginnings followed his example and although not much gold was discovered on the island, land was available for the taking and the soil was fertile. As the settlers arrived, the Spaniards continued to be overbearing and cruel in their relationship with the Indians, causing the become hostile between them. Chief Hatuey was the Cacique or Chief of 400 Taíno Indians that had fled from the Spaniards in Hispaniola for Cuba. Hatuey resented the ruthless Spaniards and encouraged the Arawakan-speaking people to rise up against them. Seeing the malice of these new intruders, they had no other option but to engage them in guerrilla warfare. Hatuey rallied the local Taínos, telling them that the Spaniards were merciless and that their god was gold. A number of the local Indians actually joined him in the fight. When the Chief was ultimately captured, the Spaniards tortured him, and when he refused to tell them the location of the gold, they burnt him at the stake. A bust on top of a monument honoring Chief Hatuey is located in the town of Baracoa, Cuba. It reads “Primer Rebelde De America Immolado En Yara De Baracoa”, “First rebel of America, Sacrificed in the town of Yara in Baracoa.” He is considered by many to be the first hero of Cuba. His last words were that he did not want to go to Heaven, if that is where Christians go when they die.

When Lehman Brothers collapsed on September 15, 2008, and inaugurated the biggest crisis since the 1930s, there were no real alternatives to hand. No one had laid the groundwork. For years, intellectuals, journalists, and politicians had all firmly maintained that we’d reached the end of the age of “big narratives” and that it was time to trade in ideologies for pragmatism. Naturally, we should still take pride in the liberty that generations before us fought for and won. But the question is, what is the value of free speech when we no longer have anything worthwhile to say? What’s the point of freedom of association when we no longer feel any sense of affiliation? What purpose does freedom of religion serve when we no longer believe in anything? On the one hand, the world is still getting richer, safer, and healthier. Every day, more and more people are arriving in Cockaigne. That’s a huge triumph. On the other hand, it’s high time that we, the inhabitants of the Land of Plenty, staked out a new utopia. Let’s rehoist the sails. “Progress is the realisation of Utopias,” Oscar Wilde wrote many years ago.24 A fifteen-hour workweek, universal basic income, and a world without borders … They’re all crazy dreams – but for how much longer?

As the world economy grows, and as the super-elite, in particular, get richer, the superstars who work for the super-rich can charge super fees. Consider the 2009 legal showdown between Hank Greenberg and AIG, the insurance giant he had built. It was a high-stakes battle, as AIG accused Greenberg, through a privately held company, Starr International, of misappropriating $4.3 billion worth of assets. For his defense, Greenberg hired David Boies. With his trademark slightly ratty Lands’ End suits (ordered a dozen at a time by his office online), his midwestern background, his proud affection for Middle American pastimes like craps, and his severe dyslexia (he didn’t learn how to read until he was in the third grade), Boies comes across as neither a superstar nor a member of the super-elite. But he is both. Boies and his eponymous firm earned a reputed $100 million for the nine-month job of defending Greenberg. That was one of the richest fees earned in a single litigation. Yet, for Greenberg, it was a terrific deal. When you have $4.3 billion at risk, $100 million—only 2.3 percent of the total—just isn’t that much money. (Further sweetening the transaction was the judge’s eventual ruling that AIG, then nearly 80 percent owned by the U.S. government, was liable for up to $150 million of Greenberg’s legal fees, but he didn’t know that when he retained Boies.) It

The bride price taught her that nothing mattered. Civilizations rose and fell. Scriptures twisted. Promised lands fell to dust. Freak rains buried sand dunes in overgrowth.

would celebrate this victory long into the night, Robert had a personal stake in the outcome. Roslin was his land, and as Laird

when Alexey is hopelessly enslaved to his gambling impulse, he confides that “there really is something peculiar in the feeling when, alone in a strange land, far from home and from friends, not knowing whether you will have anything to eat that day—you stake your last gulden, your very last!” He deliberately risks everything so the thrill can be that much greater.

and the still small voice at the back of my head that had started to faintly whisper Mine, staking an unrealistic and unspoken claim on a man I barely knew but badly wanted.

The stakes of pitting disinhibition and freedom against inhibition and beauty extend far beyond the world of art. As I write, the alt-ring is waging what Wendy Brown has described as “a brilliant… campaign” to associate “anti-egalitarian, anti-immigrant, and anti-responsibility, sentiments with freedom and fun,” while casting “left and liberal commitments as repressive, regulatory, grim, and policing.” This campaign seduces its would-be converts with the promise of release from responsibilities of all kinds, be it “for the self, for others, for the world, for a social compact with others, for a social compact with the future, in the name of a certain kind of political and social disinhibition”. Brown’s warning – which has deepened in urgency over the time I've spent writing this book – is that the fusion of this libidinal “freedom and fun” with a “new authoritarian statism” has formidable velocity and power, with their particular capacity to appeal to “the young, the immature, the reckless and the wounded.” This fusion, Brown says, lands us in “deeper trouble than we knew,” and requires that we “think really hard about what strategies would most successfully counter” it. (quote from a March 2017b talk titled “Populism, Authoritarianism, and Making Fascism Fun Again”, Brown gave at the UCSD International Institute.

Oh, do not lecture to me about efficiency! I know well the tricks you employ. Once you’ve bought up enough plots of land, you turn them into sugarcane fields or silk plantations to make more profit, instead of growing rice and sorghum and vegetables. There are entire regions of Géjira where food has to be imported, a truly bizarre situation for some of the best land in Dara. Staking the lives of entire provinces on the fate of a single crop makes Dara more unstable, and when the crop fails, the unemployed laborers have to resort to banditry. We should heed the lessons taught by the ancient Tiro states of Diyo and Keos well, for Keos fell due to being dependent on Diyo grain shipments.

As the last of the great ships fell below the level of the horizon and disappeared into the bottom of the dark gulf waters, Cortés stood with his men. He had staked everything, his very life and all of theirs, on the future. He later reflected that they now had “nothing to rely on save their own hands—and the certainty that they must either win the land or die in the attempt.”18 There would be no turning back.

Land is the most precious form of power on this planet. There’s only so much of it. When you buy it—” “—or steal it—” Lana nodded. “You stake a claim on its future. If you own the land, you can do what you want. You can plant trees, build skyscrapers, or plan a whole new city. You can shape the future you want for yourself and your family.

It’s like these mostly Irish, Italian, and Polish Catholics who worked construction, on the docks, and in the police and fire departments never existed, were never part of the scene. In modern San Francisco’s self-conception, there were the Native Americans who had the land stolen out from under them—then fast-forward to the hippies, the gays, the hipsters, the techies, and the oligarchs. American California isn’t merely gone; it never was.

Later, the US government went against the treaty and tried to have our tribe sent to one of the reservations they had set up in Washington, including one that was along the Elwha River. The other was in what is now called Kitsap, farther south. They offered plots of land and $80 to anyone who would move to these locations. Members who moved to Kitsap became the Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe, and those who moved to the Elwha River became the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. Some tribal members stayed, insisting that Jamestown Beach was where they belonged. They pooled together $500 worth of gold coin and purchased 210 acres along the water. There is where we staked our independence and became the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe.

Bannon pounds relentlessly at what he calls the Big Steal—the claim that Biden stole the 2020 election—while the Democrats call that the Big Lie. And it is a big lie, a dangerous one. But is it the Big Lie? Bigger, say, than trickle-down economics? Bigger than “tax cuts create jobs”? Bigger than infinite growth on a finite planet? Bigger than Thatcher’s double whammy of “There is no alternative” and “There is no such thing as society”? Bigger, for that matter, than Manifest Destiny, Terra Nullius, and the Doctrine of Discovery—the lies that form the basis of the United States, Canada, Australia, and every other settler colonial state? If we can stand to look at the Shadow Lands even for a moment, it becomes clear that we are ensnared in a web of life-annihilating lies and that whatever the Mirror World is on about this week is neither the biggest lie nor the one with the highest stakes. It’s entirely possible that Bannon and Wolf’s war on reality is just what happens when so many of the big lies that built the modern world visibly crumble. As the house collapses, some people choose to take flight into full-blown fantasy, sure—but that doesn’t mean that the rest of us who were also born and raised in that house are guardians of the truth.

Real estate might seem to be all about moving and picking up stakes and disruption and three-moves-equals-a-death, but it’s really about arriving and destinations, and all the prospects that await you or might await you in some place you never thought about. I had a drunk old prof at Michigan who taught us that all of America’s literature, Cotton Mather to Steinbeck—this was the same class where I read The Great Gatsby—was forged by one positivist principle: to leave, and then to arrive in a better state.

Also by Robert B. Parker All Our Yesterdays God Save the Child Mortal Stakes Promised Land The Judas Goat Wilderness Looking for Rachel Wallace Early Autumn A Savage Place Ceremony The Widening Gyre Love and Glory Valediction A Catskill Eagle Taming a Sea-horse Pale Kings and Princes Crimson Joy The Early Spenser

In the early part of the Verdun battle he was reported to have cured an epidemic of self-inflicted wounds to hands or feet by posting orders that in future offenders would spend a night tied to stakes in no-man’s-land.

them. 23.  But whoever turns away and disbelieves. 24.  God will punish him with the greatest punishment. 25. To Us is their return. 26.  Then upon Us rests their reckoning. 89. The Dawn (al-Fajr) In the name of God, the Gracious, the Merciful. 1. By the daybreak. 2. And ten nights. 3.  And the even and the odd. 4.  And the night as it recedes. 5.  Is there in this an oath for a rational person? 6.  Have you not seen how your Lord dealt with Aad? 7. Erum of the pillars. 8.  The like of which was never created in the land. 9.  And Thamood-those who carved the rocks in the valley. 10. And Pharaoh of the Stakes. 11.  Those who committed excesses in the lands. 12. And spread much corruption therein. 13.  So your Lord poured down upon them a scourge of punishment. 14.  Your Lord is on the lookout. 15.  As for man, whenever his Lord tests him, and honors him, and prospers him, he says, "My Lord has honored me." 16.  But whenever He tests him, and restricts his livelihood for him, he says, "My Lord has insulted me." 17.  Not at all. But you do not honor the orphan. 18.  And you do not urge the feeding of the poor. 19.  And you devour inheritance with all greed. 20.  And you love wealth with immense love. 21.  No-when the earth is leveled, pounded, and crushed. 22.  And your Lord comes, with the angels, row after row. 23.  And on that Day, Hell is brought forward. On that Day, man will remember, but how will remembrance avail him? 24.  He will say, "If only I had forwarded for my life." 25.  On that Day, none will punish as He punishes. 26.  And none will shackle as He shackles. 27.  But as for you, O tranquil soul. 28.  Return to your Lord, pleased and accepted. 29. Enter among My servants. 30. Enter My Paradise. 90.

Dear Elephant, Sir: … There are those, of course, who say you are useless, that you destroy crops in a land where starvation is rampant, that mankind has enough problems taking care of itself, without being expected to burden itself with elephants, They are saying, in fact, that you are a luxury, that we can no longer afford you. This is exactly the kind of argument every totalitarian regime from Stalin and Hitler to Mao uses to prove that a truly “progressive” society cannot be expected to afford the luxury of individual freedom. Human rights are elephants, too. The right of dissent, of independent thinking, the right to oppose and to challenge authority can very easily be throttled and repressed in the name of “necessity.” … In a German prison camp, during the last world war … locked behind the barbed wires we would think of the elephant herds thundering across the endless plains of Africa, and the image of such an irresistible liberty helped us to survive. If the world can no longer afford the luxury of natural beauty, then it will soon be overcome and destroyed by its own ugliness. I myself feel deeply that the fate of Man, and his dignity, are at stake.… There is no doubt that in the name of total rationalism you should be destroyed, leaving all the room to us on this overpopulated planet. Neither can there be any doubt that your disappearance will mean the beginning of an entirely man-made world. But let me tell you this, old friend: in an entirely man-made world, there can be no room for man either.… We are not and could never be our own creation. We are forever condemned to be part of a mystery that neither logic nor imagination can fathom, and your presence among us carries a resonance that cannot be accounted for in terms of science or reason, but only in terms of awe, wonder and reverence. You are our last innocence.… I know only too well that by taking your side—or is it merely my own?—I shall no doubt be labeled a conservative, or even a reactionary, a “monster” belonging to another and, it seems, prehistorical era: that of liberalism. I willingly accept the label. And so, dear Elephant, sir, we are finding ourselves, you and I, in the same boat.… In a truly materialistic and realistic society, poets, writers, artists, dreamers and elephants are a mere nuisance.… You are, dear Elephant sir, the last individual. Your very devoted friend, Romain Gary

Land was to the nomads what a deity is to the initiated: one may draw on its might, but not lay claim to it. Amma herdsmen roamed the vast steppe at will in search of a green pasture and watering hole, with little regard for man-made boundaries. They questioned why a settled society should behave any differently, why one man should toil in the service of another merely because the stronger had staked out something that had never belonged to him in the first place.

saddlebags. “And please tell Kiri she should put her shoes on. Lucas will have a fit if she serves like that.” “Mummy, why do I have to put on shoes? Kiri isn’t wearing any.” George met Gwyneira and her daughter in the corridor outside his room just as he was about to go down to dinner. He had done his best as far as evening wear went. Though slightly wrinkled, his light brown suit was handsomely tailored and much more becoming than the comfortable leather pants and waxed jacket he had acquired in Australia. Gwyneira and the captivating little red-haired girl who was squabbling so loudly were likewise elegantly attired. Though not in the latest fashion. Gwyneira was wearing a turquoise evening gown of such breathtaking refinement that, even in the best London salons, it would have created a stir—especially with a woman as beautiful as Gwyneira modeling it. The little girl wore a pale green shift that was almost entirely concealed by her abundant red-gold locks. When Fleur’s hair hung down loose, it frizzed a bit, like that of a gold tinsel angel. Her delicate green shoes matched the adorable little dress, but the little one obviously preferred to carry them in her hands than wear them on her feet. “They pinch!” she complained. “Fleur, they don’t pinch,” her mother declared. “We just bought them four weeks ago, and they were on the verge of being too big then. Not even you grow that fast. And even if they do pinch, a lady bears a small degree of pain without complaining.” “Like the Indians? Ruben says that in America they take stakes and hurt themselves for fun to see who’s the bravest. His daddy told him. But Ruben thinks that’s dumb, and so do I.” “That’s her opinion on the subject of being ‘ladylike,’” Gwyneira remarked, looking to George for help. “Come, Fleurette. This is a gentleman. He’s from England, like Ruben’s mummy and me. If you behave properly, maybe he’ll greet you by kissing your hand and call you ‘my lady.’ But only if you wear shoes.” “Mr. McKenzie always calls me ‘my lady’ even if I walk around barefoot.” “He must not come from England, then,” George said, playing along. “And he certainly hasn’t been introduced to the queen.” This honor had been conferred on the Greenwoods the year before, and George’s mother would probably chatter on about it for the rest of her

Deliberately and strategically, the planter class extended special privileges to poor whites in an effort to drive a wedge between them and black slaves. White settlers were allowed greater access to Native American lands, white servants were allowed to police slaves through slave patrols and militias, and barriers were created so that free labor would not be placed in competition with slave labor. These measures effectively eliminated the risk of future alliances between black slaves and poor whites. Poor whites suddenly had a direct, personal stake in the existence of a race-based system of slavery. Their own plight had not improved by much, but at least they were not slaves. Once the planter elite split the labor force, poor whites responded to the logic of their situation and sought ways to expand their racially privileged position.8

Why are you here?” I asked and my heart was suddenly in my throat. “Does it… does it have to do with the stake?” “You’re damn right, it’s the stake,” the witch snapped. She fumbled in the giant, oversized purse she was wearing and pulled out something that looked like an old, dried up tree branch. “What’s that?” I asked, staring at it blankly. “That’s the stake! The soul eater.” She thrust it at me and I pulled back instinctively. “What the hell—keep it out of my face!” “It can’t hurt you now—it can’t hurt anyone. Someone neutralized it—someone reversed my spell.” She glared at me as if I was personally responsible. Which actually, I probably was. “That was my best magic and I come from a long line of powerful witches. Even I couldn’t have reversed that spell. How the hell did you do it?” Taylor turned to me, her eyes wide. “You reversed a witch’s magic? But how, Addison? You’re not a witch—are you?” “No, of course not.” I tried to laugh. “I think you’d know by now if I was. You would have caught me out casting spells at midnight or dancing with the devil or something.” An uncomfortable look crossed Gwendolyn’s face. “That’s a fucking stereotype and I don’t appreciate it. Witches are neutral agents of power—they have nothing to do with demons or any other creatures of the Shadow Lands.” She glared at me. “So how did you reverse my magic?” “She paid the Crimson Debt.

Then his daughter-in-law, dragging her children behind her, threw one of them to him; he caught the child on the sharpened point of his stake. Using the stake as a catapult, he slung the creature towards me with all his might. I fended off the blow, but with the true terrier instinct the little brat sunk his teeth into my horse’s neck, and I had some difficulty tearing him away. The other child was propelled towards me in the same way, but he landed beyond the horse and was crushed to pulp.