Strip Double Quotes

These better be my size,” Nina said grumpily. She was tempted to strip down in the middle of the tomb, but she thought Matthias might keel over from the sheer impropriety of it all. She grabbed a lantern and marched into one of the side catacombs to change. She didn’t have a mirror, but she could tell the dress was spectacularly dowdy, and she had no words for the little knitted vest. When she emerged from the passage, Jesper doubled over laughing, Kaz’s brows shot up, and even Inej’s lips twitched. “Saints,” Nina said sourly. “How bad is it?” Inej cleared her throat. “You do look a bit …” “Enchanting,” said Matthias. Nina was about to snap that she didn’t appreciate the sarcasm when she saw the expression on his face. He looked like someone had just given him a tuba full of puppies.

The women we really love are the women who complete us, who have the qualities we can borrow and so become something nearer to whole men. Just as we complete them, of course; it’s not a one-way thing. Leola and I, when romance was stripped away, were too much alike; our strengths and weaknesses were too nearly the same. Together we would have doubled our gains and our losses, but that isn’t what love is.

Real destiny takes everything—the last drop of blood, and strip out your veins to be sure—and gives it back doubled. Quadrupled. A thousand-fold! But you can't give halves. You have to give it all. I know. I swear. I've come back from the dead to speak the truth to you. Real destiny gives you a mountain of life, and puts you on top of it.

I should haven’t gotten all self-righteous on you. If you want to strip on a pole… well, I’ll stand guard with a gun, but I’ll support you.

An emptiness rules at its core, a rottenness, a silence when one of you retires to bed without saying good night, when you eat together without conversation, when the phone's passed wordlessly to the other. An emptiness when every night you lie in the double bed, restlessly awake, astounded at how closely hate can nudge against love, can wind around it sinuously like a cat. An emptiness when you realize that the loneliest you've ever been is within a marriage, as a wife.

I had a collection of ideas about West Virginia, but I had a hunch that they were all gross misinformation, plus none of them agreed: coal and the end of coal. Poverty and a mansion on a stripped mountain. Pickup trucks and VW buses. OxyContin and Jesus. Mother Jones and Don Blankenship. Knobby elbows and the fattest city in America.

very terrifying strip of double netherrack that ran from our speck to the edge of the main plain.

What is it?” There is almost nothing I could refuse him at this very moment. Sex on the picnic bench? Check. Strip off and do the Macarena on the grass? Check. Crawl under the table and do naughty things? Not much experience in that department, but…check. Ride off into the sunset? Double check.

Much of today’s decline of Christian influence can be traced, not to secularism, but to the failure of significant sections of the church in the era of slavery and segregation. The salt of our witness lost its savor on the altar of racism. Still today, if we speak up about marriage or religious liberty but not about race, why should we think anyone should listen? If we are courageous concerning justice for those who are made in the image of God and live in the womb, but silent about justice for those who have been and still are systemically stripped of the dignity that is theirs as image-bearers as they live in our societies, then we should not be surprised to be charged with double standards.

Autonomy, the ability to have control over some part of your work, is an important element of motivation. This is why micromanagers find it so difficult to retain great teams. When you strip creative and talented people of their autonomy, they lose motivation very quickly. There’s nothing worse than feeling like you can’t make a single decision on your own, or feeling like every single piece of work you do has to be double- and triple-checked by your manager.

It was not these policies alone that turned things around; it was also the energy behind the policies: the six-week tour, the firing and hiring, the tough decisions made about the fleet and the fields. A light was burning in the pilothouse, a firm hand had taken hold of the tiller. United Fruit’s stock price stabilized, then began to climb. It doubled in the first two weeks of Zemurray’s reign, reaching $26 a share by the fall of 1933. This had less to do with tangible results—it was too early for that—than the confidence of investors. If you looked in the newspaper, you would see the new head of the company landing his plane on a strip in the jungle, anchoring his boat on the north coast of Honduras, going here and there, working, working, working. In a time of crisis, the mere evidence of activity can be enough to get things moving. Though Zemurray would stay at the helm for another twenty years, United Fruit was saved in his first sixty days.

That was some shady shit out there, Rome,” Braeden said once the total chaos of winning the game had gone down to a considerable roar. We were finally in the locker room, and I was stripping off my sweat and grass-stained gear. “Total douche move.” I agreed. It wasn’t the first time a team had tried to take me out of a game. It was pretty much common practice, especially when something like a title and championship was at stake. Still, I’d never quite had anyone come at me like that before. The play was already in progress. Sacking me wouldn’t have changed the touchdown I’d just thrown. Except of course to keep me from throwing another one. That guy deliberately came in like a freight train and plowed me down. I lay there stunned for long moments, waiting for the air to come back in my lungs and for my body to process the shock of the hit. Thankfully, he wasn’t that good at tackling and it did nothing more than stun me. And it got him thrown out of the game. It really hadn’t been a big deal. Like I said, it happened a lot. But it was the first time it happened in front of Rimmel. I couldn’t help but notice how the large screen on the field had zeroed in on the girl in number twenty-four’s hoodie, who was climbing over the railing and preparing to leap down onto the field. The security guard was yelling at her, but she barely noticed him. Her eyes were trained out on the field, where I was. It was almost laughable that her tiny ass was going to rush out onto a field full of men more than double her size to make sure I was okay. G**damn. I loved her even more just then. When the guard put his hand on her ankle, trying to stop her from going back to her seat, something happened. Something that never had in my entire life of playing football. The game faded away. For once, I was out on the field and unable to focus on only the game. It took a backseat to the girl teetering on the edge of the railing.

MARKET GARDEN had won a sixty-five-mile salient that crossed five major water barriers but led nowhere. Without turning the German flank or gaining a bridgehead over the Neder Rijn, 21st Army Group had nearly doubled the perimeter to be outposted, from 150 to 280 miles. That task would entangle most of Second Army, as well as the two committed U.S. airborne divisions, which, with Eisenhower’s tacit approval, would be stuck helping the British hold this soggy landscape until mid-November, eating British oxtail soup and heavy puddings, drinking British rum, and smoking British cigarettes considered so foul that some GIs preferred to inhale torn strips of Stars and Stripes.

Every rose opens into a layering of itself, a dense-packed grandeur that holds until it spills. On days that are still I can trace, if I want, exactly where I’ve been just by doubling back on myself and following the trail I’ve left. But I prefer the windy days, the days that strip me back, blasted, tossed, who knows where, imagine them, purple-red, silver-pink, natural confetti, thin, fragile, easily crushed and blackened, fading already wherever the air’s taken them across the city, the car parks, the streets, the ragged grass verges, dog-ear and adrift on the surfaces of the puddles, flat to the gutter stones, mixing with the litter, their shards of colour circling in the leaf-grimy corners of yards.

Click. Everyone briefly gathered and posed and smiling at their future selves. Beaches and cathedrals, bumper cars and birthday parties, glasses raised around a dining table. Each picture a little pause between events. No tantrums, no illness, no bad news, all the big stuff happening before and after and in between. The true magic happening only when the lesser magic fails, the ghost daughter who moved during the exposure, her face unreadable but more alive than all her frozen family. Double exposures, as if a little strip of time had been folded back on itself. Scratches and sun flares. Photos torn postdivorce, faces scratched out or Biroed over. The camera telling the truth only when something slips through its silver fingers.

Over the years, McGuane had learned that it was best to strike before you interrogate. Most people, when presented with the threat of pain, will try to talk their way out of it. That goes double for men who are accustomed to using their mouths. They’ll search for angles, for half-truths, for credible lies. They are rational, the assumption goes, and thus their opponents must be the same. Words can be used to defuse. You need to strip them of that delusion. The pain and fear that accompany a sudden physical assault are devastating to the psyche. Your cognitive reasoning—your intelligentsia, if you will, your evolved man—fades away, caves in. You are left with the Neanderthal, the primitive true-you who knows only to escape pain. The

The rise of loneliness as a health hazard tracks with the entrenchment of values and practices that supersede any notion of "individual choices." The dynamics include reduced social programs, less available "common" spaces such as public libraries, cuts in services for the vulnerable and the elderly, stress, poverty, and the inexorable monopolization of economic life that shreds local communities. By way of illustration, let's take a familiar scenario: Walmart or some other megastore decides to open one of its facilities in a municipality. Developers are happy, politicians welcome the new investment, and consumers are pleased at finding a wide variety of goods at lower prices. But what are the social impacts? Locally owned and operated small businesses cannot compete with the marketing behemoth and must close. People lose their jobs or must find new work for lower pay. Neighborhoods are stripped of the familiar hardware store, pharmacy, butcher, baker, candlestick maker. People no longer walk to their local establishment, where they meet and greet one another and familiar merchants they have known, but drive, each isolated in their car, to a windowless, aesthetically bereft warehouse, miles away from home. They might not even leave home at all — why bother, when you can order online? No wonder international surveys show a rise in loneliness. The percentage of Americans identifying themselves as lonely has doubled from 20 to 40 percent since the 1980s, the New York Times reported in 2016. Alarmed by the health ravages, Britain has even found it necessary to appoint a minister of loneliness. Describing the systemic founts of loneliness, the U.S. surgeon general Vivek Murthy wrote: "Our twenty-first-century world demands that we focus on pursuits that seem to be in constant competition for our time, attention, energy, and commitment. Many of these pursuits are themselves competitions. We compete for jobs and status. We compete over possessions, money, and reputations. We strive to stay afloat and to get ahead. Meanwhile, the relationships we prize often get neglected in the chase." It is easy to miss the point that what Dr. Murthy calls "our twenty-first-century world" is no abstract entity, but the concrete manifestation of a particular socioeconomic system, a distinct worldview, and a way of life.

Pastry for double-crust, 9-inch pie ¾ cup sugar 1 teaspoon nutmeg Enough pared and sliced apples to fill a 9-inch pie generously 1 ½ tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces ½ cup liquid honey 1 tablespoon grated orange rind Confectioners’ sugar Preheat oven to 425° F. Prepare pastry sufficient for a double-crust, 9-inch pie. Roll out half the dough and line the pie plate. Combine sugar and nutmeg; pour over apples, lifting and tossing with two forks until well combined. Pile fruit into pie pan, heaping to make a nice fat pie, and dot with butter. Roll out remaining pastry and cut into ½-inch strips. Arrange strips lattice fashion over apples, pressing edges down firmly. Bake 10 minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 350°F. Bake 30–40 minutes more, or until apples are tender and crust is brown. Remove from oven. Combine honey and orange rind, and pour mixture through openings in lattice; return pie to oven and bake another 5 minutes. Cool to lukewarm and dredge with confectioners’ sugar. Serve warm or cold.

Bloody hell,” Charlie gasped. “That’s twenty-five quid each, Isaac.” “Language.” “Shit.” Isaac blew out a breath. “A hundred quid, Mum.” “Isaac, language.” “Hey no,” Dex said, holding up a hand. “I mean a hundred each. I could use these as stencils. At this size I could pretty much charge double that, if not more, each time they’re used. Probably twice again if they have them in colour.” The three of us looked at Dex in awe. He wanted to buy my talented boy’s drawings for a hundred pounds each. “Well?” I prompted. “Fuck yeah.” “Language,” I said, barely above a whisper, still in a state of shock. “It’s a deal.” Dex grinned. “Speaking of which, I said I’d show you my designs, but I gotta be honest, I’m not sure they’re as good as these.” “Oh fuck,” I muttered. “Language,” Charlie cried. As Dex stripped off his shirt, I genuinely thought I heard a choir of angels sing and saw a shaft of light shine through the darkness outside and into my lounge. There was only one word for what I was looking at – wondrous. He could honestly market himself as a tourist attraction and sell tickets.

He was walking down a narrow street in Beirut, Lebanon, the air thick with the smell of Arabic coffee and grilled chicken. It was midday, and he was sweating badly beneath his flannel shirt. The so-called South Lebanon conflict, the Israeli occupation, which had begun in 1982 and would last until 2000, was in its fifth year. The small white Fiat came screeching around the corner with four masked men inside. His cover was that of an aid worker from Chicago and he wasn’t strapped. But now he wished he had a weapon, if only to have the option of ending it before they took him. He knew what that would mean. The torture first, followed by the years of solitary. Then his corpse would be lifted from the trunk of a car and thrown into a drainage ditch. By the time it was found, the insects would’ve had a feast and his mother would have nightmares, because the authorities would not allow her to see his face when they flew his body home. He didn’t run, because the only place to run was back the way he’d come, and a second vehicle had already stopped halfway through a three-point turn, all but blocking off the street. They exited the Fiat fast. He was fit and trained, but he knew they’d only make it worse for him in the close confines of the car if he fought them. There was a time for that and a time for raising your hands, he’d learned. He took an instep hard in the groin, and a cosh over the back of his head as he doubled over. He blacked out then. The makeshift cell Hezbollah had kept him in in Lebanon was a bare concrete room, three metres square, without windows or artificial light. The door was wooden, reinforced with iron strips. When they first dragged him there, he lay in the filth that other men had made. They left him naked, his wrists and ankles chained. He was gagged with rag and tape. They had broken his nose and split his lips. Each day they fed him on half-rancid scraps like he’d seen people toss to skinny dogs. He drank only tepid water. Occasionally, he heard the muted sound of children laughing, and smelt a faint waft of jasmine. And then he could not say for certain how long he had been there; a month, maybe two. But his muscles had wasted and he ached in every joint. After they had said their morning prayers, they liked to hang him upside down and beat the soles of his feet with sand-filled lengths of rubber hose. His chest was burned with foul-smelling cigarettes. When he was stubborn, they lay him bound in a narrow structure shaped like a grow tunnel in a dusty courtyard. The fierce sun blazed upon the corrugated iron for hours, and he would pass out with the heat. When he woke up, he had blisters on his skin, and was riddled with sand fly and red ant bites. The duo were good at what they did. He guessed the one with the grey beard had honed his skills on Jewish conscripts over many years, the younger one on his own hapless people, perhaps. They looked to him like father and son. They took him to the edge of consciousness before easing off and bringing him back with buckets of fetid water. Then they rubbed jagged salt into the fresh wounds to make him moan with pain. They asked the same question over and over until it sounded like a perverse mantra. “Who is The Mandarin? His name? Who is The Mandarin?” He took to trying to remember what he looked like, the architecture of his own face beneath the scruffy beard that now covered it, and found himself flinching at the slightest sound. They had peeled back his defences with a shrewdness and deliberation that had both surprised and terrified him. By the time they freed him, he was a different man.  

Separately they surveyed their individual plates, trying to decide which item was most likely to be edible. They arrived at the same conclusion at the same moment; both of them picked up a strip of bacon and bit into it. Noisy crunching and cracking sounds ensued-like those of a large tree breaking in half and falling. Carefully avoiding each other’s eyes, they continued crunching away until they’d both eaten all the bacon on their plates. That finished, Elizabeth summoned her courage and took a dainty bite of egg. The egg tasted like tough, salted wrapping paper, but Elizabeth chewed manfully on it, her stomach churning with humiliation and a lump of tears starting to swell in her throat. She expected some scathing comment at any moment from her companion, and the more politely he continued eating, the more she wished he’d revert to his usual unpleasant self so that she’d at least have the defense of anger. Lately everything that happened to her was humiliating, and her pride and confidence were in tatters. Leaving the egg unfinished, she put down her fork and tried the biscuit. After several seconds of attempting to break a piece off with her fingers she picked up her knife and sawed away at it. A brown piece finally broke loose; she lifted it to her mouth and bit-but it was so tough her teeth only made grooves on the surface. Across the table she felt Ian’s eyes on her, and the urge to weep doubled. “Would you like some coffee?” she asked in a suffocated little voice. “Yes, thank you.” Relieved to have a moment to compose herself, Elizabeth arose and went to the stove, but her eyes blurred with tears as she blindly filled a mug with freshly brewed coffee. She brought it over to him, then sat down again. Sliding a glance at the defeated girl sitting with her head bent and her hands folded in her lap, Ian felt a compulsive urge to either laugh or comfort her, but since chewing was requiring such an effort, he couldn’t do either. Swallowing the last piece of egg, he finally managed to say, “That was…er…quite filling.” Thinking perhaps he hadn’t found it so bad as she had, Elizabeth hesitantly raised her eyes to his. “I haven’t had a great deal of experience with cooking,” she admitted in a small voice. She watched him take a mouthful of coffee, saw his eyes widen with shock-and he began to chew the coffee. Elizabeth lurched to her feet, squired her shoulders, and said hoarsely, “I always take a stroll after breakfast. Excuse me.” Still chewing, Ian watched her flee from the house, then he gratefully got rid of the mouthful of coffee grounds.

In The Lucifer Effect, Philip Zimbardo, citing decades of research, details all of the ways that ordinary, average individuals—whether they be soldiers in Guatemala, doctors in Nazi Germany, Hutus in Rwanda—can be stripped of their values, their morality, their souls. After elaborating on the variables that contribute to this process—isolation, drug use, denying people identities—he declares that the most important variable, far and away more important than the others, is the fear of being excluded from the in-group. Manipulating this fear, he asserts, is the most effective way people are transformed from ordinary human beings into human beings capable of evil. We tend to associate the desire for acceptance by the in-group with high school, but according to Zimbardo, this need does not stop at adolescence but continues through adulthood. He cites people’s willingness to suffer painful and or humiliating initiation rites in return for acceptance in fraternities, cults, social clubs, or the military. When the desire to be included is coupled with the terror of being excluded, Zimbardo writes that it can cripple initiative, negate personal autonomy, and lead people to do virtually anything to avoid rejection. “Authorities can command total obedience not through punishment or rewards but by means of the double-edged weapon: the lure of acceptance coupled with the threat of rejection.

GERMAN PANCAKES Preheat oven to 375 degrees F., rack in the middle position.   Prepare an 8-inch square pan by spraying it with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray, or coating the inside with butter. Hannah’s 1st Note: You can double this recipe if you like, so that it will serve 8 people. If you double this recipe, it will take approximately 55 minutes to bake. Hannah’s 2nd Note: This dish works best if you use an electric mixer. 6 strips bacon (I used applewood smoked bacon) 4 large eggs 1 cup whole milk (I’ve used heavy cream and that works also) 1 cup flour (Just scoop it up and level it off with a table knife.) 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 teaspoon salt 4 ounces cream cheese (half of an 8-ounce package) minced parsley to sprinkle on top (optional) Fry the bacon in a frying pan on the stovetop until it’s crispy. Let it cool to room temperature, and then crumble it into the bottom of your baking pan. In an electric mixer, beat the eggs with half of the milk (that’s ½ cup). Continue to beat until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add vanilla extract and salt. Beat until they’re well combined. Mix in the flour and beat for 40 seconds. Add the second half of the milk (another ½ cup) and beat until everything is light and fluffy. Pour half of the mixture over the bacon crumbles in the 8-inch square pan. Cut the cream cheese into 1-inch-square cubes. Place them evenly over the egg mixture in the pan. Pour the second half of the mixture over the cream cheese. Bake at 375 degrees F. for 45 to 55 minutes, or until it’s golden brown and puffy on top. Hannah’s 3rd Note: This breakfast entree is excellent when served with biscuits or crispy buttered toast.

We can understand why one of the titles given to Jesus is that of ‘prophet.’ Jesus is the last and greatest of the prophets, the one who sums them up and goes further than all of them. He is the prophet of the last, but also of the best, chance. With him there takes place a shift that is both tiny and gigantic – a shift that follows on directly from the Old Testament but constitutes a decisive break as well. This is the complete elimination of the sacrificial for the first time – the end of divine violence and the explicit revelation of all that has gone before. It calls for a complete change of emphasis and a spiritual metamorphosis without precedent in the whole history of mankind. It also amounts to an absolute simplification of the relations between human beings, in so far as all the false differences between doubles are annulled – a simplification in the sense in which we speak of an algebraic simplification. Throughout the texts of the Old Testament it was impossible to conclude the deconstruction of myths, rituals and law since the plenary revelation of the founding murder had not yet taken place. The divinity may be to some extent stripped of violence, but not completely so. That is why there is still an indeterminate and indistinct future, in which the resolution of the problem by human means alone – the face-to-face reconciliation that ought to result when people are alerted to the stupidity and uselessness of symmetrical violence – remains confused to a certain extent with the hope of a new epiphany of violence that is distinctively divine in origin, a ‘Day of Yahweh’ that would combine the paroxysm of God’s anger with a no less God-given reconciliation. However remarkably the prophets progress toward a precise understanding of what it is that structures religion and culture, the Old Testament never tips over into the complete rationality that would dispense with this hope of a purgation by violence and would give up requiring God to take the apocalyptic solution by completely liquidating the ‘evil’ in order to ensure the happiness of the chosen.

The only way to avoid encountering someone is to follow him (according to a principle opposed to the principle of the labyrinth, where you follow someone so that you do not lose him). Implicit in the situation, however, is the dramatic moment when the one being followed, suddenly intuiting, suddenly becoming conscious that there is someone behind him, swings round and spots his pursuer. Then the rules are reversed, and the hunter becomes the hunted (for there is no escaping laterally). The only truly dramatic point is this unexpected turning-round of the other, who insists upon knowing and damns the consequences. This reversal does in fact occur in the Venice scenario. The man comes towards her and asks her: 'What do you want?' She wants nothing. No mystery story, no love story. This answer is intolerable, and implies possible murder, possible death. Radical otherness always embodies the risk of death. S.'s anxiety revolves entirely around this violent revelation: the possibility of getting herself unmasked - the very thing she is trying to avoid. 'I cannot go on following him. He must be uneasy, he must be wondering if I am here, behind him - surely he is thinking about me now - so I shall have to keep track of him in some other way.' S. could have met this man, seen him, spoken to him. But in that case she would never have produced this secret form of the existence of the Other. The Other is the one whose destiny one becomes, not by making his acquaintance in difference and dialogue but by entering into him as into something secret, something forever separate. Not by engaging in a conversation with him as interlocutor, but by entering into him as his shadow, as his double, as his image, by embracing the Other the better to wipe out his tracks, the better to strip him of his shadow. The Other is never the one with whom we communicate: he is the one whom we follow - and who follows us. The other is never naturally the other: the other must be rendered other by being seduced, by being made alien to himself, even by being destroyed - if there is no alternative (but in fact there are subtler ways of achieving this end).

There is no fault that can’t be corrected [in natural wine] with one powder or another; no feature that can’t be engineered from a bottle, box, or bag. Wine too tannic? Fine it with Ovo-Pure (powdered egg whites), isinglass (granulate from fish bladders), gelatin (often derived from cow bones and pigskins), or if it’s a white, strip out pesky proteins that cause haziness with Puri-Bent (bentonite clay, the ingredient in kitty litter). Not tannic enough? Replace $1,000 barrels with a bag of oak chips (small wood nuggets toasted for flavor), “tank planks” (long oak staves), oak dust (what it sounds like), or a few drops of liquid oak tannin (pick between “mocha” and “vanilla”). Or simulate the texture of barrel-aged wines with powdered tannin, then double what you charge. (““Typically, the $8 to $12 bottle can be brought up to $15 to $20 per bottle because it gives you more of a barrel quality. . . . You’re dressing it up,” a sales rep explained.) Wine too thin? Build fullness in the mouth with gum arabic (an ingredient also found in frosting and watercolor paint). Too frothy? Add a few drops of antifoaming agent (food-grade silicone oil). Cut acidity with potassium carbonate (a white salt) or calcium carbonate (chalk). Crank it up again with a bag of tartaric acid (aka cream of tartar). Increase alcohol by mixing the pressed grape must with sugary grape concentrate, or just add sugar. Decrease alcohol with ConeTech’s spinning cone, or Vinovation’s reverse-osmosis machine, or water. Fake an aged Bordeaux with Lesaffre’s yeast and yeast derivative. Boost “fresh butter” and “honey” aromas by ordering the CY3079 designer yeast from a catalog, or go for “cherry-cola” with the Rhône 2226. Or just ask the “Yeast Whisperer,” a man with thick sideburns at the Lallemand stand, for the best yeast to meet your “stylistic goals.” (For a Sauvignon Blanc with citrus aromas, use the Uvaferm SVG. For pear and melon, do Lalvin Ba11. For passion fruit, add Vitilevure Elixir.) Kill off microbes with Velcorin (just be careful, because it’s toxic). And preserve the whole thing with sulfur dioxide. When it’s all over, if you still don’t like the wine, just add a few drops of Mega Purple—thick grape-juice concentrate that’s been called a “magical potion.” It can plump up a wine, make it sweeter on the finish, add richer color, cover up greenness, mask the horsey stink of Brett, and make fruit flavors pop. No one will admit to using it, but it ends up in an estimated 25 million bottles of red each year. “Virtually everyone is using it,” the president of a Monterey County winery confided to Wines and Vines magazine. “In just about every wine up to $20 a bottle anyway, but maybe not as much over that.

The shelves had been stripped bare and battered to Hell, as if some super-important Christmas toy release had come and gone and an army of Super-Moms had ripped through the store, buying everything up like an all-consuming void. Didn't hurt that many of the shelves were lined with piles of bones both animal and human.

He moved into a large sitting area, past a sunken bath that could fit ten and through a set of double doors, where he tossed her on the bed. She bounced as she hit and looked up. He didn’t break eye contact as he shed his jacket, tossing it over on a chair. “Strip.” “You first.” Frank toed off his shoes and loosened his tie, pulling it over his head then dropping it to the floor. “Tell you what. Whoever’s naked first, gets to be on top.” He gave her a lecherous grin and was rewarded with a rosy blush, coloring her cheeks. “Okay.” She climbed off the bed. “On the count of three.” “One,” Frank said and lifted his hands to the top of his dress shirt. She did the same, bracing for the count like a racer on the blocks, her hands behind her neck. “Three.” Frank unbuttoned the collar, and tugged the shirt over his head, including the T-shirt underneath. “That’s cheating,” she said, as she fumbled with the hooks down the back of her blouse. “You had a head start. I’m evening the field.” He ripped his belt off and undid his fly and dropped his boxers and pants all at once. She froze and gasped, staring, hunger in her eyes, snapped out of the spell and tossed her blouse and bra to the side, moving fast, but not fast enough. Her skirt puddled around her ankles as Frank stood, as bare as the day he was born. “I win.” She kicked her garment to the side and placed her hands on her hips. Her chest rose and fell, pebbled nipples displayed against gloriously soft skin and full breasts. Her eyes were wild and her soft blonde hair tousled, like she’d already taken a roll in the sack. Man, did he want to make a bigger mess of it.

I be at the strip club, gettin’ me some hot rub, tokin’ on a big dub, hungry for some big grub. Split to the crib, nuttin’ in the fridge, ho was doin’ sack time, woke her up double time. (chorus) Where’s my samitch, bitch? I said! Where’s my samitch, bitch? I said! Where’s my samitch, bitch? I’m hongreee! Where’s my samitch, bitch? “Could

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Years ago, I received a call from a paramedic I had known for a long, long time. He was a true believer; a provider in it to do good more than to do well. By the tone of his voice, I could tell he was in some serious trouble. His voice did not lie. He was. It seemed that some years earlier he had suffered an injury off the job. The injury resulted in several surgeries and months of painful recovery, physical rehabilitation, and pain medicine. It started as an as-needed remedy for intense pain but before long became a physical necessity. When the actual pain no longer necessitated the monthly refills, the feigned pain took over. When that excuse had run its course, new injuries and favors from friends took over. The cycle had begun. Back at work, he became adept at leading his double life; on the job he was clean, sober, and clear-headed, but off-duty the pills took over. The decline was slow, but steady. It would not be long before he would lose all control. One day, on a call with the entire crew, he found himself in the home of a patient whose medicine cupboard was a veritable treasure trove of pain killing goodies. Jackpot! While logging all of the medicines, it was easy to drop a full bottle of a certain pain killer into his pocket, and he did…completely undetected. The patient was transported, and the scene was cleared, and his addiction would be fed for a little while longer. Nobody would ever know. However, as he exited the scene with his supervisor, he was struck with a blunt and harsh realization: This is not who I am and it’s not who I want to be! While still at the curbside, in front of the patient’s home, he pulled the bottle from his pocket, handed it to his supervisor, and admitted sincerely: “I have a problem. I need help.” His supervisor considered the heartfelt and painfully honest plea for help, but the paramedic was summarily fired from a job where he had an impeccable record of exemplary service for nearly two decades. He was stripped of his Paramedic license and reported to local authorities and was charged with multiple felonies by the District Attorney. That was the response from his supervisor and the rest of the morally superior lemmings up the chain of command. He asked for help, and they fucked him…because they were afraid of what actually helping him might look like to the outside world. Not once was he offered treatment or an ounce of compassion. He asked for help; now he was looking at serious prison time. This brings us to the frightened and helpless tone in his voice when he called me. Thankfully, his story ends with the proper treatment: A new career and the entire criminal case being dismissed (he had a great lawyer). Unfortunately, similar stories continue to play out in agencies, both public and private, all across America and they do not, or will not, end so well.

Are you sure it’s going to fit? You told me to get a double.” “I did?” She glanced at the platform. “I meant a full. That’s a little narrower, isn’t it?” “I don’t know. I hope they’re the same. Measure twice, move once.” Doubt flickered across Kenzie’s expression. “That’s not how the saying goes.” “It’ll do for now.” “Let’s just try it.” She curled her fingers around a handle and dragged it onward. Linc reached for the other one and helped her flip it down. It hollowed in the middle and hung over the edge. “I’m guessing I got suckered,” he said with annoyance. He looked at the label sewn into the side. “It isn’t a national brand--the measurement sure isn’t standard. The damn thing is about three inches wider than the platform.” “The length is correct,” Kenzie said helpfully. Linc lifted it back up again and leaned it against the opposite wall. “Yeah. Great.” “Sorry,” she offered. He bent over and ran a hand along the platform’s edge, pushing gently on the long wooden bar that kept the mattress in place. It gave at one corner. “Stapled. Not exactly quality construction.” He thumped at it with a closed fist to pry it loose and di the same thing at the other end, straightening with the bar in his hand. He handed it to her. “This can go in the closet. You get to explain to Norm.” “He won’t care. You’re a genius.” Linc hoisted the mattress and flipped it down again. “If you say so.” He grinned. “At least the bed’s flat.” Kenzie rested the bar in a corner and got busy stripping off the plastic while he watched. The luxurious satin top gleamed softly--he’d spent what she’d given him. When she was done, she had an armful of plastic that she stuffed into a bag on top of the crumpled rock-star posters. With a sigh of happiness she sat down on her new bed. “Thanks so much. You really came through.” “I like protecting you from lecherous mattress salesmen. You don’t need to thank me,” he joked. “How about a kiss instead?” Linc was taken aback. He opened his mouth, too surprised for a second to say yes. No never entered his mind.

In this version of Möbius strip, a “high” notion (man, law) encounters itself at its lowest, as the obscene double which sustains the “high” notion.

It is a truly superb allegory, this story of the Golden Temple: the allegory of evil's revenge, of destruction as the only way out from beauty and the excess of beauty. But not just beauty. Evil can also befall intelligence. Intelligence protects us from nothing - not even from stupidity. Being intelligent is not enough, then, to prevent one from being stupid, and sometimes intelligence even lives in stupidity's shade, and vice versa. Not only does intelligence not mark the end of stupidity, there is no other way out from excess of intelligence but stupidity. In keeping with an implacable reversibility, stupidity lies in wait for it, as its shadow, as its double. Only thought, only lucidity, which stands as much opposed to intelligence as to stupidity, can escape this trial of strength. But there is no rule, no more for good than for evil: they chase each other endlessly around the Moebius strip. Given the hellish production of collective intelligence, we shall have to reckon in the future with an ever-higher rate of artificial stupidity.

Thus it was probably inevitable that Los Lobos would approach the members of the Blasters and attempt to get their music to the more established band. Memories of their first meeting have dimmed over time: both the Alvins recall it taking place backstage after a show they played at the Whisky a Go Go on the Sunset Strip, while the Lobos remember it as happening at a date somewhere in the San Fernando Valley, possibly at the Country Club in Reseda. Rosas says, “At the end of the show, Dave and Louie were walking out to the car in the parking lot, and Phil Alvin was walking right there next to them. Their cars weren’t that far from each other. Everybody looked at each other. And I guess Dave and Louie said, ‘Hey, man, we’re fans. You guys were great tonight.’ Then Phil does a double take. He says, ‘Hey, where do I know you guys from? . . . Did you guys do a documentary or something?’ You know how Phil is—he’s a walking library. So Dave and Louie go, ‘Yeah, we did do a documentary, way back, some years ago.’ That’s how the connection got made, right there.

President Pitzer, Mr. Vice President, Governor, Congressman Thomas, Senator Wiley, and Congressman Miller, Mr. Webb. Mr. Bell, scientists, distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen: I appreciate your president having made me an honorary visiting professor, and I will assure you that my first lecture will be very brief. I am delighted to be here and I'm particularly delighted to be here on this occasion. We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a State noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds. Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and working today, despite the fact that this Nation's own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far out-strip our collective comprehension. No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of man's recorded history in a time span of but a half century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only 5 years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than 2 years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than 2 months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power. Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight. This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward. So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this State of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward-and so will space. William Bradford, speaking in 1630 of the founding of the Plymouth Bay Colony, said that all great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage. If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space. Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolutions, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it - we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace...

The knurl-forming process, he says, “is the machining equivalent of magic.” The diamond pattern is produced by two knurling wheels that cut intersecting troughs in opposite directions. Each wheel is like a tractor plowing furrows in a farm field—when it moves to an adjacent strip of field, it needs to fall into the exact same groove in the area of overlap, or the tracking will be off. For that to happen on a knurling machine, the wheels have to match perfectly. A discrepancy of two-thousandths of an inch can create double-tracking, which compromises the grip value of the knurl. Knurling wheels sold as identical typically vary by five-thousandths of an inch.

PACKING CHECKLIST Light, khaki, or neutral-color clothes are universally worn on safari and were first used in Africa as camouflage by the South African Boers, and then by the British Army that fought them during the South African War. Light colors also help to deflect the harsh sun and are less likely than dark colors to attract mosquitoes. Don’t wear camouflage gear. Do wear layers of clothing that you can strip off as the sun gets hotter and put back on as the sun goes down. Smartphone or tablet to check emails, send texts, and store photos (also handy as an alarm clock and flashlight), plus an adapter. If electricity will be limited, you may wish to bring a portable charger. Three cotton T-shirts Two long-sleeve cotton shirts preferably with collars Two pairs of shorts or two skirts in summer Two pairs of long pants (three pairs in winter)—trousers that zip off at the knees are worth considering Optional: sweatshirt and sweatpants, which can double as sleepwear One smart-casual dinner outfit Underwear and socks Walking shoes or sneakers Sandals/flip-flops Bathing suit and sarong to use as a cover-up Warm padded jacket and sweater/fleece in winter Windbreaker or rain poncho Camera equipment, extra batteries or charger, and memory cards; a photographer’s vest and cargo pants are great for storage Eyeglasses and/or contact lenses, plus extras Binoculars Small flashlight Personal toiletries Malaria tablets and prescription medication Sunscreen and lip balm with SPF 30 or higher Basic medication like antihistamine cream, eye drops, headache tablets, indigestion remedies, etc. Insect repellent that is at least 20% DEET and is sweat-resistant Tissues and/or premoistened wipes/hand sanitizer Warm hat, scarf, and gloves in winter Sun hat and sunglasses (Polaroid and UV-protected ones) Documents and money (cash, credit cards, etc.). A notebook/journal and pens Travel and field guide books A couple of large white plastic garbage bags Ziplock bags to keep documents dry and protect electronics from dust

after they interviewed the owner, then she’d need the change in the cupholder in her car to loosen their lips. Giving it away now would only throw that chance away later.  Roper paused at the door and proffered it to her. ‘After you,’ he said. She knew he just didn’t want to touch the handle. She took hold of it and pulled back, wondering for a second if she should open it just enough to slip through so that Roper would have to grab it to let himself in.  She decided that was too petty for the morning of a murder investigation. Inside, the interior was cool. A short reception area led into the main hall — a double-height function room with a hard rubberised floor filled with sleeping bags and other homeless people. There were at least twenty, maybe thirty. It was difficult to tell at a glance. At the back of the room, a woman in her fifties with a long fleece vest on, the pockets heavy and sagging with keys and who knows what else, was filling cups of coffee from a big stainless steel dispenser, handing them to a line of people queuing silently, their heads bowed.  The air was humid inside and the low murmurings of the people talking around them created a soft background din that swallowed their footsteps. Roper looked around, not hiding his disdain very well.  But with the nights getting colder, these people deserved somewhere warm to hole up. The winter was vicious and it was closing in fast this year, bearing down on the city in waves of rain and frost.  The woman serving coffee leaned around the line and looked at them, squinting a little to make them out. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold and her reddish hair was curled back up over her head, spilling around her ears. Big and cheap gold earrings clung to her stretched lobes and shook a little as she looked them up and down, her face a mixture of trepidation and worry. Police turning up at a homeless shelter never meant anything good. She smiled warmly at the person at the front of the line, told him to help himself to coffee, and then walked around the table towards Roper and Jamie.  She held her hands wide and then clasped them together, raising her eyebrows and shaking her head. Her earlobes wobbled and her heavy earrings caught the halogen strip lights overhead, glinting. ‘Can I, uh, help you?’ she asked.  Jamie and Roper flashed their badges to get it out of the way. ‘My name is Detective Sergeant Paul Roper, and this is my associate, Detective Sergeant Jamie Johansson.’ ‘Mary Cartwright,’ she answered diligently. ‘Are you the owner of this — er — establishment, Mary?’ Roper asked less than tactfully.

Mom had planted both wheat seeds and sugar cane, taking care to put them in nice, even rows, and stood back to admire her work, dusting off her hands. “It looks pretty good to me!” With that task finished, Mom went into one of the empty houses, to see if she could find anything else to plant. She was disappointed, though. The house was barren- hardly anything in it at all.  She went through each house and discovered that every single one was pretty much stripped bare. No belongings, no decorations, no furniture. Ethan had been wrong about how much stuff there was in the town. Elijah was going to have to stop burning things for warmth!  Mom had been searching through houses for a while with no luck, so she decided to check on the garden. A smile spread across her face when saw the wheat had already grown in! She could get used to ultra-fast-growing plants. With a skip in her step, she went to find the villagers. The double-E’s were outside their house examining their broken front door. It hung off its hinges, and an entire piece the size of a dog was just missing. Elijah threw his arms in the air. “I don't know how to fix a door!” “Me either,” Ethan said while he scratched his head, “but we have to figure it out. If we don't have doors, the zombies will just come right in and eat us.”  “I can help,” Mom said. The mayors jumped, startled.  “Don’t sneak up on us like that!” Elijah said.

When an event and the broadcasting of that event in real time are too close together, the event is rendered undecidable and virtual; it is stripped of its historical dimension and removed from memory. We are in a generalized feedback effect. Wherever a mingling of this kind - a collision of poles - occurs, then the vital tension is discharged. Even in 'reality TV' where, in the live telling of the story, the immediate televisual acting, we see the confusion of existence and its double. There is no separation any longer, no emptiness, no absence: you enter the screen and the visual image unimpeded. You enter life itself as though walking on to a screen. You slip on your own life like a data suit.

Run a double strip of masking tape across the opening of the container. Scoop up a heaping spoonful of the ingredient and level it off by scraping it against the tape.

Dahmer then cut the flesh off. He started by stripping the flesh from the arms and biceps, then the chest, and worked his way down to the feet. He sliced all the strips of flesh into small pieces and placed them into approximately three bags. He was careful not to place too much in each bag, about twenty-five pounds worth each. In the beginning, he then wrapped the skeleton in a sheet and pounded it into small parts with a sledgehammer, placing the upper torso in one bag and the lower in another. However, after he hit upon the idea of dissolving his victims in the muriatic acid, he simply dropped the dismembered skeletal remains into the industrial drum he had purchased. There, the acid would do its work. This was his usual pattern. “I normally used five double-wrapped garbage bags to dispose of a single body.

The United States was undeniably imperialist in 1812. Within two generations it had doubled its size, dispossessing the native inhabitants of their land and stripping the declining Spanish Empire of huge swaths of its territory.

Bisceglia Pharmacy is a tiny, dusty relic tucked into a dying strip mall on the other side of the Kansas-Missouri state line. I see Liv’s doubt as we pull up to the pharmacy and there’s a dog chained up out front gnawing industriously on an old shoe. “Uh,” she says, stepping over the dog, who doesn’t stop his chewing to look up, “is this like...a licensed pharmacy?” “We’re in Missouri now, princess. This is what shit looks like here.” Liv shoots me a look as we walk through the door—which is propped open with a rabbit-eared television set—and into the dimly lit pharmacy. “You know, it’s not nice to be geographically snobby.” “I lived on the Missouri side of Kansas City until Mom died,” I tell her. “So I feel a little entitled to some trash talk. Also this place was my first job. So I’m double entitled

The narrator is at the heart of this doubleness, presenting her memories and theories to us from a space of peculiar neutrality. She is not like the other women of the novel, with their memories of the outside world and knowledge of relationships, sex, love and family. Her body never developed the markers of reproduction, and being raised in an underground bunker since an early age, she is in a unique position to be a person without any of the signifiers of personhood. She is an example of a person raised without culture, without societal constructs, without knowledge. She is a pure experiment asking: what does a person become when stripped to the core, raised in isolation? What might a woman be like under these conditions? It is testament to the strength and beauty of this novel that she remains a character too, not just a device; she is formed, sympathetic, and possessing both curiosity and courage.