The Book Of Cold Cases Quotes

You're not hurt, Watson? For God's sake, say that you are not hurt!" It was worth a wound -- it was worth many wounds -- to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.

I don’t understand why people are such snobs about books. If you enjoy romances, read them. I don’t want Thanksgiving dinner every day. Some days I want a ham sandwich and a dozen chocolate chip cookies. And some days I want to read Jane Austen, and other days I want to read Agatha Christie, or maybe some author that no one has ever heard of who writes fun books that make me smile.

Am I bitter or am I sweet? Ladies can be either.

I'll never forget the first day in Auschwitz, the first time in Mauthausen. At that second place, as time wore on, I also picked them up from the bottom of the great cliff, when their escapes fell awfully awry. There were broken bodies and dead m sweet hearts. Still, it was better than the gas. Some of them I caught when they were only halfway down, Saved you, I'd think, holding their souls in midair as the rest of their being-their physical shells-plummeted to the earth. All of them were like, like the cases of empty walnuts. Smoky sky in those places. The smell like a stove, but still so cold.

It was worth a wound--it was worth many wounds--to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.

It made no sense, but guilt doesn't have to. It simply exists, weighing you down and chocking you until you can't breathe anymore.

But a novel always ends, the lies come to the surface, and the deaths are explained. Maybe one of the bad characters gets away with something—that’s fashionable right now—but you are still left with a sense that things are balanced, that dark things come to light, and that the bad person will, at least, most likely be miserable.

Being a girl is the best,” she said, “because no one ever believes you’d do something bad. People think you’ll do nothing, which means you can do anything. I’ll show you.

But I’ve always believed that murder is the healthiest obsession of all.

It made no sense, but guilt doesn't have to. It simply exists, weighing you down and choking you until you can't breathe anymore.

It’s an abomination that shouldn’t exist,” Lily said, “and it knows it. That’s why I like it. It’s exactly like me.

How intimately I experience in my heart just what he must have felt in all of those unknown rooms, some of them poor, perhaps, and some splendid, but all opposing him with the cold fearful indifference of other people’s belongings, against which he has to defend himself as best he can with his poor lonely trunk and his case of books.

Being a girl is the best,” she said, “because no one ever believes you’d do something bad. People think you’ll do nothing, which means you can do anything.

No, the Boss corrected, I'm not a lawyer. I know some law. ... but I'm not a lawyer. That's why I can see what the law is like. It's like a single-bed blanket on a double bed and three folks in the bed and a cold night. There ain't ever enough blanket to cover the case, no matter how much pulling and hauling, and somebody is always going to nigh catch pneumonia. Hell, the law is like the pants you bought last year for a growing boy, but it is always this year and the seams are popped and the shankbone's to the breeze. The law is always too short and too tight for growing humankind. The best you can do is do something and then make up some law to fit and by the time that law gets on the books you would have done something different.

Aftershave, Beth thought, was one of the most important scents in any girl’s world. It was the smell of fathers, or uncles, or teachers, or priests, or husbands. Beth’s own father had worn aftershave, but the smell would be different on Detective Black, because sometimes aftershave was the smell of a man who wasn’t, and would never be, yours.

My, you ought to seen old Henry the Eight when he was in bloom. He was a blossom. He used to marry a new wife every day, and chop off her head next morning. And he would do it just as indifferent as if he was ordering up eggs. 'Fetch up Nell Gwynn,' he says. They fetch her up. Next morning, 'Chop off her head!' And they chop it off. 'Fetch up Jane Shore,' he says; and up she comes, Next morning, 'Chop off her head'—and they chop it off. 'Ring up Fair Rosamun.' Fair Rosamun answers the bell. Next morning, 'Chop off her head.' And he made every one of them tell him a tale every night; and he kept that up till he had hogged a thousand and one tales that way, and then he put them all in a book, and called it Domesday Book—which was a good name and stated the case. You don't know kings, Jim, but I know them; and this old rip of ourn is one of the cleanest I've struck in history. Well, Henry he takes a notion he wants to get up some trouble with this country. How does he go at it—give notice?—give the country a show? No. All of a sudden he heaves all the tea in Boston Harbor overboard, and whacks out a declaration of independence, and dares them to come on. That was his style—he never give anybody a chance. He had suspicions of his father, the Duke of Wellington. Well, what did he do? Ask him to show up? No—drownded him in a butt of mamsey, like a cat. S'pose people left money laying around where he was—what did he do? He collared it. S'pose he contracted to do a thing, and you paid him, and didn't set down there and see that he done it—what did he do? He always done the other thing. S'pose he opened his mouth—what then? If he didn't shut it up powerful quick he'd lose a lie every time. That's the kind of a bug Henry was; and if we'd a had him along 'stead of our kings he'd a fooled that town a heap worse than ourn done. I don't say that ourn is lambs, because they ain't, when you come right down to the cold facts; but they ain't nothing to that old ram, anyway. All I say is, kings is kings, and you got to make allowances. Take them all around, they're a mighty ornery lot. It's the way they're raised.

To begin with, there is the frightful debauchery of taste that has already been effected by a century of mechanisation. This is almost too obvious and too generally admitted to need pointing out. But as a single instance, take taste in its narrowest sense - the taste for decent food. In the highly mechanical countries, thanks to tinned food, cold storage, synthetic flavouring matters, etc., the palate it almost a dead organ. As you can see by looking at any greengrocer’s shop, what the majority of English people mean by an apple is a lump of highly-coloured cotton wool from America or Australia; they will devour these things, apparently with pleasure, and let the English apples rot under the trees. It is the shiny, standardized, machine-made look of the American apple that appeals to them; the superior taste of the English apple is something they simply do not notice. Or look at the factory-made, foil wrapped cheeses and ‘blended’ butter in an grocer’s; look at the hideous rows of tins which usurp more and more of the space in any food-shop, even a dairy; look at a sixpenny Swiss roll or a twopenny ice-cream; look at the filthy chemical by-product that people will pour down their throats under the name of beer. Wherever you look you will see some slick machine-made article triumphing over the old-fashioned article that still tastes of something other than sawdust. And what applies to food applies also to furniture, houses, clothes, books, amusements and everything else that makes up our environment. These are now millions of people, and they are increasing every year, to whom the blaring of a radio is not only a more acceptable but a more normal background to their thoughts than the lowing of cattle or the song of birds. The mechanisation of the world could never proceed very far while taste, even the taste-buds of the tongue, remained uncorrupted, because in that case most of the products of the machine would be simply unwanted. In a healthy world there would be no demand for tinned food, aspirins, gramophones, gas-pipe chairs, machine guns, daily newspapers, telephones, motor-cars, etc. etc.; and on the other hand there would be a constant demand for the things the machine cannot produce. But meanwhile the machine is here, and its corrupting effects are almost irresistible. One inveighs against it, but one goes on using it. Even a bare-arse savage, given the change, will learn the vices of civilisation within a few months. Mechanisation leads to the decay of taste, the decay of taste leads to demand for machine-made articles and hence to more mechanisation, and so a vicious circle is established.

Quinns always come at half price, about half the time, and half-naked, even during the colder half of winter. A Quinn is like a queen, but draggier, and cheaper to buy and use for personal gain, unless you’re suspicious that you’re poor and illiterate like Jarod Kintz, in which case Quinns could be the spirits of your dead relatives, come to haunt you until you gather a massive fortune through selling books on the internet, to send some back in time through a portal you bought from the NSA, so they would have lived better lives without having to move a finger for their fortune. Oh, yah, and since they aren’t - they’re blue, like smurfs, yet they turn purple whenever tickled on the belly, which is something they seem to rather dislike, since they start biting and scratching when it happens, for no good reason, I might add.

My friend J. Warner Wallace is one of the most thoughtful and winsome apologists for the gospel I know. Cold-Case Christianity is literally packed with insights to share with the skeptics in your life, and this book will give you the confidence to share it!” Dr. Rick Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life and pastor of Saddleback Church

It made no sense, but guilt doesn’t have to. It simply exists, weighing you down and choking you until you can’t breathe anymore.

I’d tried the marriage thing, and I’d still been me. Except an unhappy version of me.

He promised his lover a great deal, while all the time he was coldly planning one of the cruelest crimes I’ve ever written about.

midcentury Miss Havisham.

Everyone kept secrets, at least for a little while.

I’ve survived this long and I’ve been as successful as I have, because I don’t ask about things I’d rather not know.

It was worth a wound—it was worth many wounds—to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.

Yes, because I’m going to grant your interview,” Beth said. “We’ll start on Sunday. Be at the mansion at ten. I don’t cook, I don’t make coffee, and I don’t have servants, so bring your own shit.

These ideas can be made more concrete with a parable, which I borrow from John Fowles’s wonderful novel, The Magus. Conchis, the principle character in the novel, finds himself Mayor of his home town in Greece when the Nazi occupation begins. One day, three Communist partisans who recently killed some German soldiers are caught. The Nazi commandant gives Conchis, as Mayor, a choice — either Conchis will execute the three partisans himself to set an example of loyalty to the new regime, or the Nazis will execute every male in the town. Should Conchis act as a collaborator with the Nazis and take on himself the direct guilt of killing three men? Or should he refuse and, by default, be responsible for the killing of over 300 men? I often use this moral riddle to determine the degree to which people are hypnotized by Ideology. The totally hypnotized, of course, have an answer at once; they know beyond doubt what is correct, because they have memorized the Rule Book. It doesn’t matter whose Rule Book they rely on — Ayn Rand’s or Joan Baez’s or the Pope’s or Lenin’s or Elephant Doody Comix — the hypnosis is indicated by lack of pause for thought, feeling and evaluation. The response is immediate because it is because mechanical. Those who are not totally hypnotized—those who have some awareness of concrete events of sensory space-time, outside their heads— find the problem terrible and terrifying and admit they don’t know any 'correct' answer. I don’t know the 'correct' answer either, and I doubt that there is one. The universe may not contain 'right' and 'wrong' answers to everything just because Ideologists want to have 'right' and 'wrong' answers in all cases, anymore than it provides hot and cold running water before humans start tinkering with it. I feel sure that, for those awakened from hypnosis, every hour of every day presents choices that are just as puzzling (although fortunately not as monstrous) as this parable. That is why it appears a terrible burden to be aware of who you are, where you are, and what is going on around you, and why most people would prefer to retreat into Ideology, abstraction, myth and self-hypnosis. To come out of our heads, then, also means to come to our senses, literally—to live with awareness of the bottle of beer on the table and the bleeding body in the street. Without polemic intent, I think this involves waking from hypnosis in a very literal sense. Only one individual can do it at a time, and nobody else can do it for you. You have to do it all alone.

Atticus adjusted his glasses as he peered down at the blanket. “Hey, is that the book Nellie told us about?” Jake’s eyes flicked to Olivia’s book. “You’ve got it outside in the sun? Are you out of your minds?” Amy crossed her arms. “We’re being careful.” “It’s not about careful, this is a five-hundred-year-old manuscript! You should be wearing gloves—Atticus brought some—and keeping it out of the sunlight.” “It didn’t take you long to start barking orders!” Any exclaimed, her face flushing. “But then you always know best, don’t you?” “Somebody has to be mature in this situation,” Jake said, his gaze flashing at Ian, who was now intently trying to brush cookie crumbs off his pants. “True. In that case, we’d rather consult your little brother,” Ian said with a smirk. “Medieval manuscripts are his field, am I right?” “Technically, it’s early Renaissance,” Jake said. “Thanks for the correction, my good man. Amy is right—you do know best.” Ian slipped his arm around Amy. “She’s so perceptive. One of the many things I adore about her.” “It’s getting chilly. Why don’t we go inside?” Amy suggested brightly as she tried to step out of the circle of Ian’s arm. Ian took the opportunity to rub her shoulder. “You do feel rather cold,” he said. “Let’s sit by the fire. Jake, since you’re so interested in proper handling, why don’t you take the book?” Jake snatched up the book and furiously stomped off toward the house. “You forgot to wear gloves!” Ian called after him. Amy pushed him away. “Really, Ian.” “What a touchy guy,” Ian said. “Frankly, I don’t know what you see in him.” He winced as the kitchen door slammed, then glanced at Amy’s red face. “Hmmm. It might be a good time for me to take a walk.

But I'm not a lawyer. That's why I can see what the law is like. It's like a single-bed blanket on a double bed and three folks on a cold night. There ain't ever enough blanket to cover the case, no matter how much pulling and hauling, and somebody is always going to nigh catch pneumonia. Hell, the law is like the pants you bought last year for a growing boy, but it is always this year and the seams are popped and the shankbone's in the breeze. The law is always too short and too tight for growing humankind. The best you can do is do something and then make up some law to fit and by the time that law gets on the books you would have done something different...

She’d read a copy of On the Road that she’d swiped from the library, looking for the glamour and forbidden excitement, but all she could see in it was a bunch of boys driving around, showing up at their girlfriends’ when they needed a place to stay. Beth didn’t want to be a girlfriend who took in a broke boy and fed him, gave him money, and had sex with him before he went off to other adventures and other women. That didn’t sound like freedom, like free love. It sounded like a bore.

One of the most intricate Cold War spy novels I’ve ever read is David Quammen’s The Soul of Viktor Tronko, based on the real-life case of a Cold War–era Russian defector who tells his debriefers that a Russian agent has infiltrated the upper echelons of the CIA.

No," the Boss (Willie) corrected, "I'm not a lawyer. I know some law. In fact, I know a lot of law. And I made me some money out of law. That's why I can see what the law is like. It's like a single-bed blanket on a double bed and three folks in the bed and a cold night. There ain't ever enough blanket to cover the case, no matter how much pulling and hauling, and somebody is always going to nigh catch pneumonia. Hell, the law is like the pants you bought last year for a growing boy, but it is always this year and the seams are popped and the shankbone's to the breeze. The law is too short and too tight for growing humankind. The best you can do is do something and then make up some law to fit and by the time that law gets onto the books you would have done something different..." Willie Stark; All the King's Men

When I first went to Rwanda, I was reading a book called Civil War, which had been receiving great critical acclaim. Writing from an immediate post-Cold War perspective, the author, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, a German, observed, “The most obvious sign of the end of the bipolar world order are the thirty or forty civil wars being waged openly around the globe,” and he set out to inquire what they were all about. This seemed promising until I realized that Enzensberger wasn’t interested in the details of those wars. He treated them all as a single phenomenon and, after a few pages, announced: “What gives today’s civil wars a new and terrifying slant is the fact that they are waged without stakes on either side, that they are wars about nothing at all.” In the old days, according to Enzensberger—in Spain in the 1930s or the United States in the 1860s—people used to kill and die for ideas, but now “violence has separated itself from ideology,” and people who wage civil wars just kill and die in an anarchic scramble for power. In these wars, he asserted, there is no notion of the future; nihilism rules; “all political thought, from Aristotle and Machiavelli to Marx and Weber, is turned upside down,” and “all that remains is the Hobbesian ur-myth of the war of everyone against everyone else.” That such a view of distant civil wars offers a convenient reason to ignore them may explain its enormous popularity in our times. It would be nice, we may say, if the natives out there settled down, but if they’re just fighting for the hell of it, it’s not my problem. But it is our problem. By denying the particularity of the peoples who are making history, and the possibility that they might have politics, Enzensberger mistakes his failure to recognize what is at stake in events for the nature of those events. So he sees chaos—what is given off, not what’s giving it off—and his analysis begs the question: when, in fact, there are ideological differences between two warring parties, how are we to judge them? In the case of Rwanda, to embrace the idea that the civil war was a free-for-all—in which everyone is at once equally legitimate and equally illegitimate—is to ally oneself with Hutu Power’s ideology of genocide as self-defense.

How will you know if your pollinator population isn't up to par? If you find cucumbers fat at one end and skinny at the other, baby summer squash that are rotting at the blossom end, blackberries with only a few plump lobes, or lop-sided apples with a big side and a little side, your garden isn't seeing proper pollination. In some cases, inadequate pollination can be due to bad weather during bloom time, but if you notice problems, your first step should be to ensure that you're providing the proper habitat for wild pollen movers. (There's not much you can do about a cold spring.)

There was something compelling about him. And it was more than the tall, dark and handsome thing he had going for him, or the adorable dog who followed him around. It was the eyes, she realized. The way they'd fixed on her, given her one hundred percent of his attention. A psychologist's trick, surely, but it had felt personal.

The air was still, as if the house were listening, waiting. I didn’t want to go upstairs, but I’d made a decision when I came here in the first place. I’d decided that despite whatever I’d seen the last time, despite the voice I’d heard on my phone, I wanted to risk it. I was tired of being so safe all the time. I was tired of being so afraid that I never lived my life.

A cold case was a story, constructed piece by piece. Sometimes the pieces arrived in the wrong order so it made no sense at first...at the end, if you found all the pieces, you had a coherent tale. Sometimes, though, you ended up with a stack of ill-assorted bits that didn't quite fit...Then it was like one of those novels that won literary prizes, the ones where you got to the end, closed the book and asked yourself, 'What just happened here?

Other books depended less on personal contacts than on certain abiding concerns. Early in his career, Dreiser had become interested in a crime that he saw as a dark version of the American success motif: the murder of a woman who stood in the way of her lover’s dreams of social and material advancement through a more advantageous marriage. For An American Tragedy (1925) he investigated numerous case histories, many of them sensational murders involving well-known figures such as Roland Molineux and Harry Thaw. He finally settled on the 1906 Chester Gillette trial for the murder of Grace Brown that occurred in the lake district of upstate New York. The novel benefited from the popular interest in criminal biography, a form to which Dreiser’s masterpiece gave new life as the progenitor of documentary novels of crime such as Richard Wright’s Native Son, Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, and Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song. The Cambridge Companion to Theodore Dreiser

A documentary about Ernest Shackleton’s early twentieth-century exposition to the South Pole shows the classified ad Shackleton put in a London newspaper:   “Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.” Ernest Shackleton.2 Men responded to Shackleton’s advertisement in droves. Why? Because the mission was clear. The cost and potential loss both drew the right men and made sure the wrong men didn’t sign up. God’s mission, similarly, is not for the faint of heart. Even becoming a Christian, according to Jesus, should be weighed heavily. Luke says, “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish”’ (Luke 14:28-30).

But a novel always ends, the lies come to the surface, and the deaths are explained. Maybe one of the bad characters gets away with something—that’s fashionable right now—but you are still left with a sense that things are balanced, that dark things come to light, and that the bad person will, at least, most likely be miserable. It was dark comfort, but it was still comfort. I knew my own tally by heart: My would-be killer had been in prison for nineteen years, seven months, and twenty-six days. His parole hearing was in six months.

Before we look at Perkins’s critique and Fitzgerald’s revision, I should say why I chose to discuss Gatsby and not another novel. In truth, the book chose me. When I read it on a whim to see how it matched Berg’s account of its making, I was floored. Every sentence and event felt necessary. Fitzgerald managed to fuse ultramodern prose—taut, symbolic, elliptical—with splendid lyricism: ornate, fluid descriptions of parties, for example, that rival Tolstoy’s descriptions of war. Gatsby is a case study of Flaubertian froideur—the cold that burns. Finally, and heroically, Fitzgerald maintained compassion for a humanity he portrayed in the most sinister terms.

This book makes the case that Trump’s election would not have been possible without 9/11 and the subsequent military interventions conceived by the national security state. Further, I argue that if the CIA had not spent over a billion dollars arming Islamist militants in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War, empowering jihadist godfathers like Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden in the process, the 9/11 attacks would have almost certainly not taken place. And if the Twin Towers were still standing today, it is not hard to imagine an alternate political universe in which a demagogue like Trump was still relegated to real estate and reality TV.

DEATH’S DIARY: THE PARISIANS Summer came. For the book thief, everything was going nicely. For me, the sky was the color of Jews. When their bodies had finished scouring for gaps in the door, their souls rose up. When their fingernails had scratched at the wood and in some cases were nailed into it by the sheer force of desperation, their spirits came toward me, into my arms, and we climbed out of those shower facilities, onto the roof and up, into eternity’s certain breadth. They just kept feeding me. Minute after minute. Shower after shower. I’ll never forget the first day in Auschwitz, the first time in Mauthausen. At that second place, as time wore on, I also picked them up from the bottom of the great cliff, when their escapes fell awfully awry. There were broken bodies and dead, sweet hearts. Still, it was better than the gas. Some of them I caught when they were only halfway down. Saved you, I’d think, holding their souls in midair as the rest of their being—their physical shells—plummeted to the earth. All of them were light, like the cases of empty walnuts. Smoky sky in those places. The smell like a stove, but still so cold. I shiver when I remember—as I try to de-realize it. I blow warm air into my hands, to heat them up. But it’s hard to keep them warm when the souls still shiver. God. I always say that name when I think of it. God. Twice, I speak it. I say His name in a futile attempt to understand. “But it’s not your job to understand.” That’s me who answers. God never says anything. You think you’re the only one he never answers? “Your job is to …” And I stop listening to me, because to put it bluntly, I tire me. When I start thinking like that, I become so exhausted, and I don’t have the luxury of indulging fatigue. I’m compelled to continue on, because although it’s not true for every person on earth, it’s true for the vast majority—that death waits for no man—and if he does, he doesn’t usually wait very long. On June 23, 1942, there was a group of French Jews in a German prison, on Polish soil. The first person I took was close to the door, his mind racing, then reduced to pacing, then slowing down, slowing down …. Please believe me when I tell you that I picked up each soul that day as if it were newly born. I even kissed a few weary, poisoned cheeks. I listened to their last, gasping cries. Their vanishing words. I watched their love visions and freed them from their fear. I took them all away, and if ever there was a time I needed distraction, this was it. In complete desolation, I looked at the world above. I watched the sky as it turned from silver to gray to the color of rain. Even the clouds were trying to get away. Sometimes I imagined how everything looked above those clouds, knowing without question that the sun was blond, and the endless atmosphere was a giant blue eye. They were French, they were Jews, and they were you.

In the case of acupuncture, the time period must also be considered. On a fine day, the sun shining, blood in the human body flows smoothly, saliva is free, breathing is easy. On days of chill and cloud, blood flows thick and slow, breathing is heavy, saliva is viscous. When the moon is waxing, blood and breath are full. When the moon wanes, blood and breath wane. Therefore acupuncture should be used only on fair warm days, when the moon is waxing or, best of all, when the moon is full.' 'Interesting,' Grace said in a comment, 'in bioclimatic research in the West, coronary attacks increase in frequency on cold chilly days when the sun is under clouds.' Dr Tseng turned the page of his blue cloth-covered book. 'Ah, doubtless the barbarians across the four seas have heard of our learning,' he observed without interest.

From other shelters, there were stories of singing “Deutschland über Alles” or of people arguing amid the staleness of their own breath. No such things happened in the Fiedler shelter. In that place, there was only fear and apprehension, and the dead song at Rosa Hubermann’s cardboard lips. Not long before the sirens signaled the end, Alex Steiner—the man with the immovable, wooden face—coaxed the kids from his wife’s legs. He was able to reach out and grapple for his son’s free hand. Kurt, still stoic and full of stare, took it up and tightened his grip gently on the hand of his sister. Soon, everyone in the cellar was holding the hand of another, and the group of Germans stood in a lumpy circle. The cold hands melted into the warm ones, and in some cases, the feeling of another human pulse was transported. It came through the layers of pale, stiffened skin. Some of them closed their eyes, waiting for their final demise, or hoping for a sign that the raid was finally over. Did they deserve any better, these people? How many had actively persecuted others, high on the scent of Hitler’s gaze, repeating his sentences, his paragraphs, his opus? Was Rosa Hubermann responsible? The hider of a Jew? Or Hans? Did they all deserve to die? The children? The answer to each of these questions interests me very much, though I cannot allow them to seduce me. I only know that all of those people would have sensed me that night, excluding the youngest of the children. I was the suggestion. I was the advice, my imagined feet walking into the kitchen and down the corridor. As is often the case with humans, when I read about them in the book thief’s words, I pitied them, though not as much as I felt for the ones I scooped up from various camps in that time. The Germans in basements were pitiable, surely, but at least they had a chance. That basement was not a washroom. They were not sent there for a shower. For those people, life was still achievable.

One of the special delights of my childhood was to go and see the cases of illuminated manuscripts in the British Museum, and to walk, as every child can, right into their pages--losing myself in an enchanted world of gold, landscapes and skies whose colours were indwelt with light as if their sun shone not above but in them. Most marvelous of all were the many manuscripts mysteriously entitled "Book of Hours", since I did not know how one kept hours in a book. Their title-pages and richly ornamented initials showed scenes of times and seasons--ploughing in springtime, formal gardens bright in summer with heraldic roses, autumn harvesting, and logging in winter snow under clear, cold skies seen through a filigree screen of black trees. I could only assume that these books were some ancient device for marking the passage of time and they associated themselves in my mind with sundials in old country yards upon hot afternoons, with the whirring and booming of clocks in towers, with astrolabes engraved with the mysterious signs of the Zodiac, and-above all-with the slow, cyclic sweep of the sun, moon and stars over my head.

It is one of the great beauties of our system, that a working-man may raise himself into the power and position of a master by his own exertions and behaviour; that, in fact, every one who rules himself to decency and sobriety of conduct, and attention to his duties, comes over to our ranks; it may not be always as a master, but as an over-looker, a cashier, a book-keeper, a clerk, one on the side of authority and order.' 'You consider all who are unsuccessful in raising themselves in the world, from whatever cause, as your enemies, then, if I under-stand you rightly,' said Margaret' in a clear, cold voice. 'As their own enemies, certainly,' said he, quickly, not a little piqued by the haughty disapproval her form of expression and tone of speaking implied. But, in a moment, his straightforward honesty made him feel that his words were but a poor and quibbling answer to what she had said; and, be she as scornful as she liked, it was a duty he owed to himself to explain, as truly as he could, what he did mean. Yet it was very difficult to separate her interpretation, and keep it distinct from his meaning. He could best have illustrated what he wanted to say by telling them something of his own life; but was it not too personal a subject to speak about to strangers? Still, it was the simple straightforward way of explaining his meaning; so, putting aside the touch of shyness that brought a momentary flush of colour into his dark cheek, he said: 'I am not speaking without book. Sixteen years ago, my father died under very miserable circumstances. I was taken from school, and had to become a man (as well as I could) in a few days. I had such a mother as few are blest with; a woman of strong power, and firm resolve. We went into a small country town, where living was cheaper than in Milton, and where I got employment in a draper's shop (a capital place, by the way, for obtaining a knowledge of goods). Week by week our income came to fifteen shillings, out of which three people had to be kept. My mother managed so that I put by three out of these fifteen shillings regularly. This made the beginning; this taught me self-denial. Now that I am able to afford my mother such comforts as her age, rather than her own wish, requires, I thank her silently on each occasion for the early training she gave me. Now when I feel that in my own case it is no good luck, nor merit, nor talent,—but simply the habits of life which taught me to despise indulgences not thoroughly earned,—indeed, never to think twice about them,—I believe that this suffering, which Miss Hale says is impressed on the countenances of the people of Milton, is but the natural punishment of dishonestly-enjoyed pleasure, at some former period of their lives. I do not look on self-indulgent, sensual people as worthy of my hatred; I simply look upon them with contempt for their poorness of character.

His mother left the room; then, moved by insupportable regret, I just murmured the words “Dr. Bretton.” He looked up from his book; his eyes were not cold or malevolent, his mouth was not cynical; he was ready and willing to hear what I might have to say: his spirit was of vintage too mellow and generous to sour in one thunder-clap. “Dr. Bretton, forgive my hasty words: do, do forgive them.” He smiled that moment I spoke. “Perhaps I deserved them, Lucy. If you don’t respect me, I am sure it is because I am not respectable. I fear, I am an awkward fool: I must manage badly in some way, for where I wish to please, it seems I don’t please.” “Of that you cannot be sure; and even if such be the case, is it the fault of your character, or of another’s perceptions? But now, let me unsay what I said in anger. In one thing, and in all things, I deeply respect you. If you think scarcely enough of yourself, and too much of others, what is that but an excellence?” “Can I think too much of Ginevra?” “I believe you may; you believe you can’t. Let us agree to differ. Let me be pardoned; that is what I ask.” “Do you think I cherish ill-will for one warm word?” “I see you do not and cannot; but just say, ‘Lucy, I forgive you!’ Say that, to ease me of the heart-ache.” “Put away your heart-ache, as I will put away mine; for you wounded me a little, Lucy. Now, when the pain is gone, I more than forgive: I feel grateful, as to a sincere well-wisher.” “I am your sincere well-wisher: you are right.” Thus our quarrel ended.

One does not only wish to be understood when one writes; one wishes just as surely not to be understood. It is by no means necessarily an objection to a book when anyone finds it incomprehensible. Perhaps that was part of the author's intention — he didn't want to be understood by just 'anybody'. Every nobler spirit and taste selects his audience when he wants to communicate; in selecting it, he simultaneously erects barriers against 'the others'. All subtler laws of a style originated therein: they simultaneously keep away, create a distance, forbid 'entrance', understanding, as said above — while they open the ears of those whose ears are related to ours. And let me say this amongst ourselves and about my own case: I want neither the inexperience nor the liveliness of my temperament to keep me from being understandable to you, my friends — not the liveliness, as much as it forces me to deal with a matter swiftly in order to deal with it at all. For I approach deep problems such as I do cold baths: fast in, fast out. That this is no way to get to the depths, to get deep enough, is the superstition of those who fear water, the enemies of cold water; they speak without experience. Oh, the great cold makes one fast! And incidentally: does a matter stay unrecognized, not understood, merely because it has been touched in flight; is only glanced at, seen in a flash? Does one absolutely have to sit firmly on it first? At least there are truths that are especially shy and ticklish and can't be caught except suddenly — that one must surprise or leave alone. Finally, my brevity has yet another value: given the questions that occupy me, I must say many things briefly so that they will be heard even more briefly. For, as an immoralist, one needs to avoid corrupting innocents — I mean, asses and old maids of both sexes to whom life offers nothing but their innocence; even more, my writing should inspire, elevate, and encourage them to be virtuous.

Revolt of solitary instincts against social bonds is the key to the philosophy, the politics, and the sentiments, not only of what is commonly called the romantic movement, but of its progeny down to the present day. Philosophy, under the influence of German idealism, became solipsistic, and self-development was proclaimed as the fundamental principle of ethics. As regards sentiment, there has to be a distasteful compromise between the search for isolation and the necessities of passion and economics. D. H. Lawrence's story, 'The Man Who Loved Islands', has a hero who disdained such compromise to a gradually increasing extent and at last died of hunger and cold, but in the enjoyment of complete isolation; but this degree of consistency has not been achieved by the writers who praise solitude. The comforts of civilized life are not obtainable by a hermit, and a man who wishes to write books or produce works of art must submit to the ministrations of others if he is to survive while he does his work. In order to continue to feel solitary, he must be able to prevent those who serve him from impinging upon his ego, which is best accomplished if they are slaves. Passionate love, however, is a more difficult matter. So long as passionate lovers are regarded as in revolt against social trammels, they are admired; but in real life the love-relation itself quickly becomes a social trammel, and the partner in love comes to be hated, all the more vehemently if the love is strong enough to make the bond difficult to break. Hence love comes to be conceived as a battle, in which each is attempting to destroy the other by breaking through the protecting walls of his or her ego. This point of view has become familiar through the writings of Strindberg, and, still more, of D. H. Lawrence. Not only passionate love, but every friendly relation to others, is only possible, to this way of feeling, in so far as the others can be regarded as a projection of one's own Self. This is feasible if the others are blood-relations, and the more nearly they are related the more easily it is possible. Hence an emphasis on race, leading, as in the case of the Ptolemys, to endogamy. How this affected Byron, we know; Wagner suggests a similar sentiment in the love of Siegmund and Sieglinde. Nietzsche, though not scandalously, preferred his sister to all other women: 'How strongly I feel,' he writes to her, 'in all that you say and do, that we belong to the same stock. You understand more of me than others do, because we come of the same parentage. This fits in very well with my "philosophy".

Today I had a lively discussion with a merchant in Fez with a view to finding out what the Moors think of European civilization.... He was a fine man, about forty years old, with an honest and serious face, who had made business visits to the most important cities in Western Europe and had lived for a long time in Tangier, where he learnt Spanish.... I asked him therefore what kind of impression the large cities of Europe had made on him.... He looked hard at me and answered coldly: “Large streets, fine shops, beautiful palaces, good workshops, everything clean.” He gave the impression that with these words, he had mentioned everything in our countries that was worthy of praise. “Have you not found anything else in Europe that is beautiful and good?” I asked. He looked at me questioningly. “Is it possible,” I went on, “that an intelligent man like you, who has visited several countries so marvelously superior to your own can speak about them without astonishment, or at least without the emotion of a country boy who has seen the pasha’s palace? What can you possibly admire in the world? What sort of people are you? Who can possibly understand you?” “Perdone Usted”, he answered coldly, “it is for me to say that I cannot understand you. I have told you all the things which I consider to be better in Europe. What more can I say? Have I to say something that I do not believe to be true? I repeat that your streets are larger than ours, your shops finer, that you have workshops such as we do not have, and also rich palaces. That is all. I can only add one more thing: that you know more than we do, because you have many books, and read more.” I became impatient. “Do not lose patience, Caballero,” he said, “let us speak together calmly. Is not a man’s first duty honesty? Is it not honesty more than anything else that makes a man worthy of respect, and one country superior to another? Very well, then. As far as honesty is concerned, your countries are certainly not better than ours. That much I can say right away.” “Gently, gently!” I said, “Tell me first what you mean by honesty!” “Honesty in business, Caballero. The Moors, for example, sometimes cheat the Europeans in trade, but you Europeans cheat the Moors much more often.” “There must be a few cases,” I replied, in order to say something. “Casos raros?” he exclaimed angrily. “It happens every day! Proof: I go to Marseilles. I buy cotton. I choose a particular thread, give the exact reference number and brand-name, as well as the amount required. I ask for it to be sent, I pay, and I return home. Back in Morocco, I receive the cotton. I open the consignment, and take a look. I find the same number, the same brand-name, and a thread that is of one third the thickness! This is anything but good, and I lose thousands of francs! I rush to the consulate, but in vain. Another case: A merchant from Fez places an order in Europe for blue cloth, so many pieces, of such and such a length and breadth. He pays for it when the bargain is made. In due course he receives the cloth, opens the package, and checks the measurements. The first pieces are all right, those underneath are shorter, and those lowest down are half a meter too short! The cloth cannot be used for cloaks, and the merchant is ruined. . . . And so on and so on!

According to the book of Genesis, “God created man in his own image.” According to Aristotle, “men create the gods after their own image.” As should be clear by now, Aristotle seems to have been onto something, especially when it comes to the minds of gods. So, in theory, some of the more basic features of the human mind should be fairly standard equipment in gods, especially the gods of “primitive” religions. That seems to be the case, and one of these features deserves special consideration: the part of the human mind shaped by the evolutionary dynamic known as “reciprocal altruism.” In light of this dynamic, much about the origin of religion, and for that matter much about contemporary religion, makes a new kind of sense. Thanks to reciprocal altruism, people are “designed” to settle into mutually beneficial relationships with other people, people whom they can count on for things ranging from food to valuable gossip to social support, and who in turn can count on them. We enter these alliances almost without thinking about it, because our genetically based emotions draw us in. We feel gratitude for a favor received, along with a sense of obligation, which may lead us to return the favor. We feel growing trust of and affection for people who prove reliable reciprocators (aka “friends”), which keeps us entwined in beneficial relationships. This is what feelings like gratitude and trust are for—the reason they’re part of human nature. But of course, not everyone merits our trust. Some people accept our gifts of food and never reciprocate, or try to steal our mates, or exhibit disrespect in some other fashion. And if we let people thus take advantage of us day after day, the losses add up. In the environment of our evolution, these losses could have made the difference between surviving and not surviving, between prolifically procreating and barely procreating. So natural selection gave us emotions that lead us to punish the untrustworthy—people who violate our expectations of exchange, people who seem to lack the respect that a mutually beneficial relationship demands. They fill us with outrage, with moral indignation, and that outrage—working as “designed” —impels us to punish them in one way or another, whether by actually harming them or just by withholding future altruism. That will teach them! (Perhaps more important, it will also teach anyone else who is watching, and in the ancestral hunter-gatherer environment, pretty much everyone in your social universe was watching.) This is the social context in which the human mind evolved: a world full of neighbors who, to varying degrees, are watching you for signs of betrayal or disrespect or dishonesty—and who, should they see strong evidence of such things, will punish you. In such a social universe, when misfortune comes your way, when someone hits you or ridicules you or suddenly gives you the cold shoulder, there’s a good chance it’s because they feel you’ve violated the rules of exchange. Maybe you’ve failed to do them some favor they think they were due, or maybe you’ve shown them disrespect by doing something that annoys them. Surely it is no coincidence that this generic explanation of why misfortune might emanate from a human being is also the generic explanation of why misfortune emanates from gods. In hunter-gatherer religions—and lots of other religions—when bad things happen, the root cause is almost always that people in one sense or another fail to respect the gods. They either fail to give gods their due (fail, say, to make adequate sacrifices to ancestral spirits), or they do things that annoy gods (like, say, making a noise while cicadas are singing). And the way to make amends to the aggrieved gods is exactly the way you’d make amends to aggrieved people: either give them something (hence ritual sacrifice), or correct future behavior so that it doesn’t annoy them (quit making noises while cicadas are singing).

The Greenbrier Bunker was one of America’s best-kept secrets for decades. Beneath the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia, a bomb shelter was hidden from the general public. It was created for members of Congress in the event of an emergency, stocked with months’ worth of food and supplies. The bunker was kept a secret for over thirty years, and it was built alongside the Greenbrier Resort, in the town of White Sulphur Springs. Even the official historian of Greenbrier, Bob Conte, knew nothing about the bunker. Conte had all sorts of records and photos from the property, but nothing that revealed information about the bunker. It turns out that the bunker was built in case of an emergency during the Cold War. The space of the bunker has been compared to that of a Walmart store, with thick, concrete walls and an extensive air filtration system. Rows of metal bunkbeds line the walls, with enough beds for 1,100 people. The building of the bunker was called “Project Greek Island,” and hotel workers and locals were told the construction was for a new conference and exhibition center. It was even used for conferences by thousands of people who had no idea that it was actually designed to be a secret bunker. Down the hall from the sleeping quarters, there was a room designed to be the floor for the House of Representatives. A group of secret government employees disguised themselves as technicians, but they were really some of the only people in the world who knew about the bunker. It was their job to make sure there was a constant six-month supply of food, the most up-to-date pharmaceuticals, and everything that the members of Congress would need in the event of an emergency. The bunker was exposed to the public in 1992. Today, the Greenbrier property is home to not only the Greenbrier Resort, but also the Presidents’ Cottage Museum. As over twenty-five presidents have stayed there, the museum shows their experiences, the property’s history, and, now, part of the bunker. There is a new emergency shelter in place, but only a handful of people know its whereabouts.

The train must have been late,” Pandora said crossly, playing with the dogs on the receiving room floor. “I hate waiting.” “You could occupy yourself with a useful task,” Cassandra said, poking away at her needlework. “That makes waiting go faster.” “People always say that, and it’s not true. Waiting takes just as long whether one is being useful or not.” “Perhaps the gentlemen have stopped for refreshments on the way from Alton,” Helen suggested, leaning over her embroidery hoop as she executed a complicated stitch. Kathleen looked up from an agricultural book that West had recommended to her. “If that’s the case, they had better be famished when they arrive,” she said with mock indignation. “After the feast Cook has prepared, nothing less than gluttony will suffice.

having coauthored The Wrong Guys: False Confessions and the Norfolk Four, a book about four U.S. Navy sailors who, under intense police pressure and without

The feature of programs, that they are defined purely formally or syntactically, is fatal to the view that mental processes and program processes are identical. And the reason can be stated quite simply. There is more to having a mind then having formal or syntactical processes. Our internal mental states, by definition, have certain sorts of contents. If I am thinking about Kansas City or wishing that I had a cold beer to drink, in both cases my mental state has certain mental content in addition to whatever formal features it might have. That is, even if my thoughts occur to me in strings of symbols, there must be more to the thoughts then the abstract strings, because strings by themselves can't have any meaning. If my thoughts are to be about anything, then the strings must have a meaning which makes the thoughts about those things. In a word, the mind has more than syntax, it has semantics. The reason that no computer program can ever be a mind is simply that a computer program is simply syntactical, and minds are more than syntactical. Minds are semantical, in the sense that they have more than a formal structure, they have a content. To illustrate this point, I have designed a thought experiment. Imagine a bunch of computer programmers have written a program that will enable a computer to simulate the understanding of Chinese. So for example, if the computer is given a question in chinese, it will match the question against its memory or data base, and produce appropriate answers to the questions in chinese. Suppose for the sake of argument that the computer's answers are as good as those of a native Chinese speaker. Now then, does the computer on the basis of this literally understand Chinese, in the way that Chinese speakers understand Chinese? Imagine you are locked in a room, and this room has several baskets full of chinese symbols. imagine that you don't understand a word of chinese, but that you are given a rule book in english for manipulating these chinese symbols. The rules specify the manipulations of the symbols purely formally, in terms of syntax, not semantics. So the rule might say: take a squiggle out of basket 1 and put it next to a squoggle from basket 2. Suppose that some other chinese symbols are passed into the room, and you are given futhter rules for passing chinese symbols out the room. Suppose, unknown to you, the symbols passed into the room are called 'questions' and your responses are called answers, by people outside the room. Soon, your responses are indistinguishable from native chinese speakers. there you are locked in your room shuffling symbols and giving answers. On the basis of the situation as it parallels computers, there is no way you could learn chinese simply by manipulating these formal symbols. Now the point of the story is simply this: by virtue of implementing a formal computer from the point of view of an outside observer, you behave exactly as if you understood chinese, but you understand nothing in reality. But if going through the appropriate computer program for understanding CHinese is not enough, then it is not enough to give any other computer an understanding of chinese. Again, the reason for this can be stated simply: a computer has a syntax, but no semantics.

People who don’t read it, and even some of those who write it, like to assume or pretend that the ideas used in science fiction all rise from intimate familiarity with celestial mechanics and quantum theory, and are comprehensible only to readers who work for NASA and know how to program their VCR. This fantasy, while making the writers feel superior, gives the non-readers an excuse. I just don’t understand it, they whimper, taking refuge in the deep, comfortable, anaerobic caves of technophobia. It is of no use to tell them that very few science fiction writers understand “it” either. We, too, generally find we have twenty minutes of I Love Lucy and half a wrestling match on our videocassettes when we meant to record Masterpiece Theater. Most of the scientific ideas in science fiction are totally accessible and indeed familiar to anybody who got through sixth grade, and in any case you aren’t going to be tested on them at the end of the book. The stuff isn’t disguised engineering lectures, after all. It isn’t that invention of a mathematical Satan, “story problems.” It’s stories. It’s fiction that plays with certain subjects for their inherent interest, beauty, relevance to the human condition. Even in its ungainly and inaccurate name, the “science” modifies, is in the service of, the “fiction.” For example, the main “idea” in my book The Left Hand of Darkness isn’t scientific and has nothing to do with technology. It’s a bit of physiological imagination—a body change. For the people of the invented world Gethen, individual gender doesn’t exist. They’re sexually neuter most of the time, coming into heat once a month, sometimes as a male, sometimes as a female. A Getheian can both sire and bear children. Now, whether this invention strikes one as peculiar, or perverse, or fascinating, it certainly doesn’t require a great scientific intellect to grasp it, or to follow its implications as they’re played out in the novel. Another element in the same book is the climate of the planet, which is deep in an ice age. A simple idea: It’s cold; it’s very cold; it’s always cold. Ramifications, complexities, and resonance come with the detail of imagining. The Left Hand of Darkness differs from a realistic novel only in asking the reader to accept, pro tem, certain limited and specific changes in narrative reality. Instead of being on Earth during an interglacial period among two-sexed people, (as in, say, Pride and Prejudice, or any realistic novel you like), we’re on Gethen during a period of glaciation among androgynes. It’s useful to remember that both worlds are imaginary. Science-fictional changes of parameter, though they may be both playful and decorative, are essential to the book’s nature and structure; whether they are pursued and explored chiefly for their own interest, or serve predominantly as metaphor or symbol, they’re worked out and embodied novelistically in terms of the society and the characters’ psychology, in description, action, emotion, implication, and imagery. The description in science fiction is likely to be somewhat “thicker,” to use Clifford Geertz’s term, than in realistic fiction, which calls on an assumed common experience. The description in science fiction is likely to be somewhat “thicker,” to use Clifford Geertz’s term, than in realistic fiction, which calls on an assumed common experience. All fiction offers us a world we can’t otherwise reach, whether because it’s in the past, or in far or imaginary places, or describes experiences we haven’t had, or leads us into minds different from our own. To some people this change of worlds, this unfamiliarity, is an insurmountable barrier; to others, an adventure and a pleasure.

Dad led me over to his cot. A neat pile of books was stacked next to it. He said his bout with TB had set him to pondering about mortality and the nature of the cosmos. He’d been stone-cold sober since entering the hospital, and reading a lot more about chaos theory, particularly about the work of Mitchell Feigenbaum, a physicist at Los Alamos who had made a study of the transition between order and turbulence. Dad said he was damned if Feigenbaum didn’t make a persuasive case that turbulence was not in fact random but followed a sequential spectrum of varying frequencies. If every action in the universe that we thought was random actually conformed to a rational pattern, Dad said, that implied the existence of a divine creator, and he was beginning to rethink his atheistic creed. “I’m not saying there’s a bearded old geezer named Yahweh up in the clouds deciding which football team is going to win the Super Bowl,” Dad said. “But if the physics — the quantum physics — suggests that God exists, I’m more than willing to entertain the notion.” Dad showed me some of the calculations he’d been working on. He saw me looking at his trembling fingers and held them up. “Lack of liquor or fear of God — don’t know which is causing it,” he said. “Maybe both.

To begin the discussion of the Tipping Point, I’ll start with a prominent strategy, “Invite-Only,” that is often used to suck in a large network through viral growth. Another method to tip over a market is with a “Come for the Tool, Stay for the Network” strategy. Take Dropbox, for instance, which is initially adopted by many people for file backup and keeping files synced up between work and home computers—this is the tool. But eventually, a more advanced and stickier use case emerges to share folders with colleagues—this is the network. And if that doesn’t work, some products can always just spend money to build out their network, with a strategy of just “Paying Up for Launch.” For many networked products that touch transactions like marketplaces, teams can just subsidize demand and spend millions to stimulate activity, whether that’s in paying content creators for your social network, or subsidizing driver earnings in rideshare. If the hard side of the network isn’t yet activated, a team can just fill in their gaps themselves, using the technique of “Flintstoning”—as Reddit did, submitting links and content until eventually adding automation and community features for scale. In the end, all of these strategies require enormous creativity. And to close out the Tipping Point section of the book, I introduce Uber’s core ethos of “Always Be Hustlin’”—describing the creativity and decentralized set of teams, all with its own strategies that were localized to each region. Sometimes adding the fifth or one hundredth network requires creativity, product engagements, and tactical changes. In the goal of reaching the Tipping Point, teams must be fluid to build out a broad network of networks.

I have traveled to the high altitudes of the Himalayas. In one case I was going on the way to there because I wanted to do as we've heard. After the battle of Mahabharata, the Pandavas went to heaven by foot. So I also wanted to go by foot. When I arrived at there someone said: 'This way you should go.' So I started going, and on the way, there was one man doing penance in a cave. He was from Bengal. It was very cold, so I asked him 'Can I spend the night with you?' He said 'Yes, but you must cook.' It was a very small cave, 6 feet by 6 feet, and he said I would sleep there while he would sleep in the kitchen. There was a stone bench, with a cloth, and the pillow was also made of cloth with sand inside. So, this man was living in such a sacrifice, but I said 'I don't want this pillow because it's not comfortable. I can sleep without this sand pillow.' When I removed the pillow, under it, I found a book about sex. So this man had left his country, and went to do penance in the Himalayas and had a Filmfare book of sex. So this is the result of going to the caves. If you have to study sex living in such a cold place, why not stay in your home place? - Papaji Satsang in Lucknow, 1994

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After fifteen minutes in the air, Sharko started leafing through the book on mass hysteria. As Dr. Taha Abou Zeid had briefly explained, this phenomenon had cut across time periods, nationalities, and religions. The author based his thesis on photos, eyewitness accounts, and interviews with specialists. In France, for instance, witch hunts in the Middle Ages had provoked an inordinate fear of the devil and mass acts of insanity: screaming crowds hungry for blood, mothers and children who cheered to see “witches” burning alive. The cases in the book were astounding. India, 2001: hundreds of individuals from different parts of New Delhi swear they were attacked by a fictional being, half man, half monkey, “with metal claws and red eyes.” Certain “victims” even leap from the window to flee this creature, who’d surged right out of the collective imagination. Belgium, 1990: the Belgian Society for the Study of Space Phenomena suddenly receives several thousand sightings of UFOs. The most likely cause was held to be sociopsychological. A sudden mania for looking for flying objects, exacerbated by the media: when you want to see something, you end up seeing it. Dakar: ninety high school students go into a trance and are brought to the hospital. Some speak of a curse; there are purification rituals and sacrifices to remedy the situation. Sharko turned the pages—it went on forever. Sects committing group suicide, panicked crowds, haunted house syndrome like the Amityville Horror, collective fainting spells at concerts…There was even a chapter on genocides, a “criminal mass hysteria,” according to the terms of certain psychiatrists: organizers who plan coldly, calculatingly, while those who execute sink into a frenzy of wholesale destruction and butchery.

When trust goes down, speed goes down and costs go up. Distrust slows everything. Sales decelerate, customers grow cold, and team members get discouraged or drop out entirely. Distrust has hard costs. If you’re distrusted, people will actively refuse to do business with you, your pipeline of revenue freezes, and in extreme cases you shut down.

Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk." John 5:8 Like many others, the impotent man had been waiting for a wonder to be wrought, and a sign to be given. Wearily did he watch the pool, but no angel came, or came not for him; yet, thinking it to be his only chance, he waited still, and knew not that there was One near him whose word could heal him in a moment. Many are in the same plight: they are waiting for some singular emotion, remarkable impression, or celestial vision; they wait in vain and watch for nought. Even supposing that, in a few cases, remarkable signs are seen, yet these are rare, and no man has a right to look for them in his own case; no man especially who feels his impotency to avail himself of the moving of the water even if it came. It is a very sad reflection that tens of thousands are now waiting in the use of means, and ordinances, and vows, and resolutions, and have so waited time out of mind, in vain, utterly in vain. Meanwhile these poor souls forget the present Saviour, who bids them look unto him and be saved. He could heal them at once, but they prefer to wait for an angel and a wonder. To trust him is the sure way to every blessing, and he is worthy of the most implicit confidence; but unbelief makes them prefer the cold porches of Bethesda to the warm bosom of his love. O that the Lord may turn his eye upon the multitudes who are in this case tonight; may he forgive the slights which they put upon his divine power, and call them by that sweet constraining voice, to rise from the bed of despair, and in the energy of faith take up their bed and walk. O Lord, hear our prayer for all such at this calm hour of sunset, and ere the day breaketh may they look and live. Courteous reader, is there anything in this portion for you?

Old and cold. High rates of suicide and prescription drug abuse. Look at the inbred faces at the grocery stores and coffee shops, the exercise-deficient kids, the routinized state workers, the sun-deprived adults and isolated third and fourth generation sad cases who've never experienced a meal outside of Lewis and Clark County. Make no mistake; Helena, Montana is old and cold and the rigid, sick antithesis of living.

Well, shoot,” Sarah added. “In that case, there’s only one thing left to do. Let’s go to book group and drink rum punch.” “Rum punch?” Nic asked. “Hey, it might be the middle of winter here, but that novel you picked took me to a lush Caribbean paradise. With a shirtless stud. What else would we drink?” Nic laughed and followed her friends out into the cold winter night. Later that night she went to sleep and dreamed about Caribbean beaches. And a shirtless hero with scars on his skin … and on his soul.

Mason was looking hard at the men of the Safak family, but they’d alibied out—so far. Even the hottest case went cold without a new lead. Soon Burroughs would be pulled off to work with other teams on other cases.

I suppose you’re wondering where I’ve been,” Caleb said, sounding damnably pleased with himself as he climbed down from the gelding’s back. “I wasn’t wondering any such thing.” Lily’s arms were folded, and her chin was thrust out. She couldn’t help noticing that Caleb wasn’t wearing his uniform—he had on dark trousers and a cotton shirt. On his head in place of the tasseled campaign hat was a slouchy leather one. Although he wasn’t wearing a holster and pistol, there was a rifle in the scabbard on his saddle. Caleb grinned as he reached up for his saddlebags. “That being the case, you probably wouldn’t be interested in the presents I brought you.” Lily took a reluctant step nearer. “Presents?” He slung the bulging saddlebags over one sturdy shoulder and gave a long-suffering sigh. “You won’t want to see them, of course.” Lily bit her lower lip. “That would depend,” she said. Caleb laughed. “On what?” There was no helping it; Lily had to smile. “On what they are, silly.” He tossed the saddlebags to Lily, and they nearly knocked her over. “Go ahead, sodbuster. Have a look.” Feeling self-conscious, Lily opened the flap of one saddlebag and peeked inside. It was bulging with fragrant, tangy oranges, and Lily’s mouth watered at the prospect of such a treat. In the other saddlebag she found two dime novels, Wilhelmina and the Wild Indians and Evelyn and the Mountain Man, along with a bar of chocolate and two pretty tortoiseshell combs for her hair. “I don’t know what to say,” Lily whispered. She’d never received so many wonderful presents at one time in her life. “Except for thank you, of course.” Caleb kissed her forehead. “Am I back in your good graces now?” Lily looked up at him, clutching the saddlebags to her chest. “That depends on whether or not you’ve decided to marry me.” His jawline tightened, and for one terrible moment Lily was afraid he meant to take back the oranges and the books and the chocolate and the combs. “I’ve decided,” he answered. His voice was so cold that Lily didn’t need to ask what that decision was. She flung the saddlebags with their cherished contents back into his arms, whirled on one heel, and strode back to the garden plot, where she began hoeing again with a vengeance.

She thinks of Stanley's colored pencil drawings of theoretical businesses: a cafe, a bookshop, and, always, a grocery store. When she was ten and he was fourteen, he was already working as a bag boy at Publix, reading what their father called "hippie books." He talked about stuff like citrus canker, the Big Sugar mafia, and genetically modified foods and organisms. He got his store manager to order organic butter after Stanley'd read (in the 'Berkeley Wellness' newsletter) about the high concentration of pesticides in dairy. Then, for weeks, the expensive stuff (twice as much as regular) sat in the case, untouched. So Stanley used his own savings to buy the remaining inventory and stashed in his mother's cold storage. He took some butter to his school principal and spoke passionately about the health benefits of organic dairy: they bought a case for the cafeteria. He ordered more butter directly from the dairy co-operative and sold some to the Cuban-French bakery in the Gables, then sold some more from a big cooler at the Coconut Grove farmer's market. He started making a profit and people came back to him, asking for milk and ice cream. The experience changed Stanley- he was sometimes a little weird and pompous and intense before, but somehow, he began to seem cool and worldly.

I mean, he could blow old Capitalist-Stevie here away." Felice doesn't respond. She pulls the backs of her ankles in close to her butt and rests her chin on the flat of one her knees. She thinks of Stanley's colored pencil drawings of theoretical businesses: a cafe, a bookshop, and, always, a grocery store. When she was ten and he was fourteen, he was already working as a bag boy at Publix, reading what their father called "hippie books." He talked about stuff like citrus canker, the Big Sugar mafia, and genetically modified foods and organisms. He got his store manager to order organic butter after Stanley'd read (in the 'Berkeley Wellness' newsletter) about the high concentration of pesticides in dairy. Then, for weeks, the expensive stuff (twice as much as regular) sat in the case, untouched. So Stanley used his own savings to buy the remaining inventory and stashed in his mother's cold storage. He took some butter to his school principal and spoke passionately about the health benefits of organic dairy: they bought a case for the cafeteria. He ordered more butter directly from the dairy co-operative and sold some to the Cuban-French bakery in the Gables, then sold some more from a big cooler at the Coconut Grove farmer's market. He started making a profit and people came back to him, asking for milk and ice cream. The experience changed Stanley- he was sometimes a little weird and pompous and intense before, but somehow, he began to seem cool and worldly. Their mother, however, said she couldn't afford to use his ingredients in her business. They'd fought about it. Stanley said that Avis had never really supported him. Avis asked if it wasn't hypocritical of Stanley to talk about healthy eating while he was pushing butter. And Stanley replied that he'd learned from the master, that her entire business was based on the cultivation of expensive heart attacks.

See?” he says. “This is the kind of worldview I’m done with. You can be so cold sometimes, Nora. Chastity and I want to—” It’s not intentional—I’m not trying to be cutting—when I cackle out her name. It’s just that, when hilariously bad things happen, I leave my body. I watch them happen from outside myself and think, Really? This is what the universe has chosen to do? A bit on the nose, isn’t it? In this case, it’s chosen to guide my boyfriend into the arms of a woman named after the ability to keep a hymen intact. I mean, it is funny.

I pulled out my phone, put my earbuds in my ears, and played the audiobook I was in the middle of listening to. A thriller: a woman in danger, most of the characters possibly lying, everything not quite as it seemed... The woman's voice in my earbuds told me about death, murder, deep family secrets, people who shouldn't be trusted, lies that cost lives. But a novel always ends, the lies come to the surface, and the deaths are explained... you are still left with a sense that things are balanced, that dark things come to light, and that the bad person will, at least, most likely be miserable.

No one understood single people. If you didn't have a partner and babies, how were you spending your time? I'd tried the marriage thing, and I'd still be me. Except an unhappy version of me.

The Xanax was a gesture from my doctor when I had a series of anxiety attacks after the divorce. Sometimes just knowing you have it lowers the anxiety, she'd said. Just knowing I had pills did not, in fact, lower my anxiety, but I carried them with me anyway, in case the theory started working.

Being a girl is the best, because no one ever believes you'd do something bad. People think you'll do nothing, which means you can do anything.

Beth was like an unknown species of bird. She wasn't a wife or a mother or a daughter, or even a true wild child, despite what the rumors said. She wasn't anything, which meant she could be anything. She wasn't man-hungry or money-hungry or any other kind of hungry. She drank too much, but she wasn't on drugs and she didn't gamble. She was beautiful, she was smart, and she was cold. Self-contained, impossible to crack, at only twenty-three.

That had been a lie - the worst lie I'd ever been told, that children should always be polite to adults. It was a lie that haunted me to this day.

I told you, I had tits and an ass, so I wasn't a real person. A girl who had lost her parents couldn't possibly be spiraling, unable to cope. Easier to write that she's a slut. It sells more papers. The cops, too - they all thought the fact that I drank and partied meant I was evil. If I were a man, they would have had sympathy. They probably would have joined me.

Ricky

Reese

A large group of birders had taken over three tables of the Buttered Scone. Even Julia, a non-tweeter – or was it twitcher? – could identify them by their appearance and habits. Their colouration was distinctive. They were kitted out in sombre earthy tones of brown and green, with sensible walking shoes, also commonly brown. In the winter months, they were adorned with large puffy outer layers to protect them from the cold. In summer, long sleeves guarded against the sun. The female of the species had sensibly cut hair, all the better to spot the birds, Julia presumed. The males were often bespectacled, and even more often bearded. Further clues – and key differentiators from the more common hikers and ramblers – were the presence of high-end binoculars around the neck, and birding books stuffed into pockets or, in this case, laid on the table of the Buttered Scone.

Inspired by their interpretation of biblical prophecies in the Book of Revelation, conservative Protestants had long feared a “one-world” government that would be ruled over by the Antichrist. In the early twentieth century these fears had attached to the League of Nations, and during the Cold War these fears were often channeled into a virulent anticommunism—though Hal Lindsey’s best-selling The Late Great Planet Earth (1970) had warned of a European Community that would usher in the reign of the devil. With the fall of the Soviet Union, suspicions fell squarely on the UN. And, in the case of Robertson, on the Illuminati, on wealthy Jewish bankers, and on conspiratorial corporate internationalists. The Wall Street Journal dismissed Robertson’s book as “a predictable compendium of the lunatic fringe’s greatest hits,” written in an “energetically crackpot style.

The novel predicted the triumphs of the post-1968 PMC: the moral rectitude of the virtuous lawyer and his high-spirited daughter renders the solution to racism attractive to the establishment—work on individual capacities for empathy and walking in another human being’s shoes; read books; have righteous feelings. To Kill a Mockingbird was an extraordinarily effective piece of Cold War anti-Communist propaganda: based on a liberal fantasy that antiracism is about good white people defending helpless black people against bad (poor) white people, it created an image of American liberalism that was a powerful tool for winning hearts and minds at home and around the world.

You have cancer." Three words. The heaviest, darkest words I'd ever heard in my life. "What are my options?" I asked. Numb. That's what I felt. Cold. Numb. Empty. All adjectives to describe this feeling racing through me after hearing those three words. "We could begin chemo followed by radiation. It would prolong life by at least a year." A year. One year filled with hospital visits, pain, and frequent visits to the porcelain throne. Do I want that? "A year with treatment? How long if I choose nothing?" A cold stare was my response before she replied. "Honestly?" I nodded. "Shoot it to me straight." "With no treatment, you'd be lucky to see another year." It was early spring in the United States. So, nine months? I'd have just under a year to prepare my husband and children, family and friends, to live without me. Could I? Should I? With treatment I'd gain maybe one more year. But, what would be the quality? "So with or without treatment, the best I'm looking at is a year and a half?" She learned forward before replying, "Yes. Best case scenario, with aggressive treatment, a year and a half." I nodded. How am I supposed to act when given a death sentence? (Will They Remember Me - by Ashlee Shades, coming soon)

know, Will,” Edmund said. “You needn’t worry. I won’t muck anything up.” He peeled back the duvet, climbed into the bed, and curled himself into a ball. At this, Mrs. Müller appeared in the doorway bearing a load of crisp white linens, patchwork quilts, and hot-water bottles wrapped in knitted cases the same dove gray as the blanket. On top of the teetering pile was a book. As she set her load down on the dressing table, she looked at Edmund. “Lord love you, child.” She went to the bedside, lifted the duvet, and tucked a hot-water bottle at Edmund’s feet. She tested his forehead once again with the palm of her hand. “Perhaps we’ll forgo the clean linens, just for tonight,” she said. “I hate to extract you, Edmund.” “Yes. I mean—thank you,” he murmured. The librarian smiled and looked at William and Anna. “If I had someplace else to put you two, I’d keep you out of the sick room, but short of making up beds on the floor somewhere…” She trailed off. “We’ll be fine,” William said. “Honestly.” Anna nodded in agreement. None of them wanted to be separated, anyhow. “In bed, then,” Mrs. Müller said. “All three of you.” She pulled back the duvet on the other side of the bed and laid down another hot-water bottle. Anna climbed into the middle, and William took his place beside her. The librarian tucked the duvet around the three of them and brushed each one’s cheek with a tenderness that even Edmund found acceptable. She retrieved the book she’d carried in with the linens and handed it to William. “Perhaps you’re all too old for bedtime stories, but what sort of librarian would I be if I didn’t provide you with some reading material?” For a long moment, the children only looked at one another. Mrs. Müller drew the wrong conclusion from their silence. “Oh, dear. You are entirely too old for bedtime stories, aren’t you?” She took a step back. “Not having children of my own, I’m sure to make a mess of these things—” “No,” Anna whispered. “We’re not too old.” Mrs. Müller looked at the boys. “We’re not too old,” William agreed. “Definitely not,” Edmund said, his voice cracking. Perhaps it was his head cold. But probably not. “Well”—the librarian gestured toward the book in William’s hands—“I hope that one will suit you.” “It will,” Anna said. “Good night, then,” the librarian whispered. As she headed for the door, all three children had the same wish. All three children were surprised that it was William who voiced it. “Would you read it to us?

If only there were a book of life, somewhere I could just look up the answers. The intimidating breadth of clinical skill and experience that primary care requires is humbling, but these “people things” were the hardest part. Some involved classic issues in medical ethics; these I could read about and consult with colleagues to help me. But so many others were judgment calls where there was no right or wrong answer, where I couldn’t be sure what was the best thing for my patient or what were the appropriate limits of my responsibility as their doctor. These ambiguities were part of the job. • • •

The best solution is to put a dog bed in your living space, a comfy spot to rest that’s all her own. During the initial house-training phase, though, she should spend the night in a crate in your bedroom. There’s a mind-boggling selection of doggy beds on the market, so take your time choosing the one that’s right for you and your pooch. As in the case of real estate, location counts most when it comes to a dog bed. If your pup’s sleeping accommodation is on carpet or hardwood, you won’t need a lot of padding in the bed, but if it’s on concrete, linoleum or tile, you’ll need an adequate barrier against cold and moisture between the floor and the bottom of the bed. If your pooch sleeps in the basement or some other area where the temperature will be dipping below 60°F (about 16°C), consider a slightly elevated or well-insulated bed. Look for low-maintenance beds that are large enough to allow for a six-inch (fifteen-centimetre) buffer around your pup. And feel free to buy a bed large enough for your pup once he’s full grown. Look for materials that can be washed regularly.

Too often in the past, Garrabrant felt, some prosecutors were reluctant to take on complicated cases against pimps. "If I went to any federal prosecutor in the country and said, 'Listen, I have a thirteen-year-old girl who was kidnapped, forcibly taken from her home, and forced to have sex with a forty-year-old guy and then sold to other men,' they would be saying, 'Bring it on.' " But Garrabrant found that if he took the same scenario and instead described the girl as a prostitute working for a pimp, prosecutors got cold feet. Their attitude was that if some young girl wants to go do that, there is nothing to be done.

… the global polar bear population has actually increased since the 1960s. According to Danish environmentalist Bjørn Lomborg, the greatest threat to polar bears comes from hunters, who shoot between three hundred and five hundred of them every year—not global warming. The panic is best summarized by British journalist and author Matt Ridley, who told me: ‘Global warming is real, but slower than expected. The latest hysteria is based on exaggeration rather than evidence. We are told that we must panic, despair, and deliberately impose harsh austerity on ordinary people just in case the current gentle warming of the climate turns nasty at some point later in the century. That is like taking chemotherapy for a head cold.

last few couple

sprint

We emerge into the warm night air and I smell the honeyed wisteria, hear an owl hooting across the fields on the far side of the river. I’m eager to dive in; I love to swim. I’m picking my way down the little slope when, behind me, I hear a commotion, and look back to see Paige braced between Evan and Leo; she’s tripped on her wedge heels and is cackling like a banshee. Kendra looks at me and rolls her eyes. “Hopefully the cold water’ll sober her up a bit,” she says resignedly. I don’t answer, even though I completely agree. Because, leaning against the wall of the club on our left, long legs crossed at the ankles, shoulders propped square to the stone, black hair falling over his face, is a silhouette that looks eerily familiar, like a ghost that haunts my dreams. There’s a book called The Beautiful and Damned, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, that I found in the villa’s library, and I’ve been reading it. I don’t quite understand it all; to be honest, I pulled it off the shelf because the title spoke to me, made me think of him. Luca. Definitely beautiful, and the damned part fits too, because he’s so dark, so brooding, so sad; it feels sometimes as if he doesn’t want to reach for happiness, as if he actually pushes it away-- But he saved me when I saw in danger, I remind myself. He saved my life. And then he told me he thought I might be his half sister. Which meant we couldn’t see each other anymore, in case that was true… A red dot flashes in the blue-black night as the figure raises a cigarette to his lips. It can’t be Luca, I tell myself. We’re beyond Siena, miles and miles from Chianti, where he lives. It can’t be him. Everyone’s already passed me, brushing by as I stopped to stare at the lean boy draped against the roadhouse wall. “Violet!” Kelly calls, her voice high and thrilled. “Come on! Wait till you see this!” I turn back toward the river and plunge down the little path as if I were being chased by the hounds of hell. Away from a silhouette that’s making me think of things--want things--that I can never have.

As the light faded on that cold afternoon, Brătianu presented Rumania’s case. Rich and polished to the point of absurdity, Brătianu had a profound sense of his own importance. He had been educated in the Hautes Ecoles in Paris, and never let anyone forget it; he loved to be discovered lying on a sofa with a book of French verse in a languid hand. Nicolson, who met him at a lunch early on in the conference, was not impressed: “Brătianu is a bearded woman, a forceful humbug, a Bucharest intellectual, a most unpleasing man. Handsome and exuberant, he flings his fine head sideways, catching his own profile in the glass. He makes elaborate verbal jokes, imagining them to be Parisian.” Women rather liked him.

Finally they arrived at one of the two train sheds at Waterloo Station, crowded with thousands of passengers searching for their correct departure platforms. Standing, Devon stretched his shoulders and said, “The driver and carriage are waiting outside the train shed. I’ll have a porter assist Clara. Everyone else, stay together. Cassandra, don’t even think about dashing off to look at trinkets or books. Helen, hold fast to your orchid in case you’re jostled while we move through the crowd. As for Pandora…” “I have her,” West assured him, pulling the wilting girl to her feet. “Wake up, child. It’s time to leave.” “My legs are on the wrong feet,” Pandora mumbled, her face buried against his chest. “Reach around my neck.” She squinted up at him. “Why?” West regarded her with amused exasperation. “So I can carry you off the train.” “I like trains.” Pandora hiccupped as he lifted her against his chest. “Oh, being carried is ever so much nicer than walking. I feel so flopsawopsy-doodly…” Somehow the group made it through the train shed without mishap.

Life’s not really like the TV at all, is it?’ ‘No, no it isn’t.

A documentary about Ernest Shackleton’s early twentieth-century exposition to the South Pole shows the classified ad Shackleton put in a London newspaper:   “Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.” Ernest Shackleton.2

During the passage from the first two parts of the book, [The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt], which still possess the vehemence of the struggle against Nazism, to the third, which is instead tied to the outbreak of the Cold War, the category of imperialism (a category subsuming first of all Great Britain and the Third Reich as a sort of highest stage of imperialism) is replaced by the category of totalitarianism (which subsumes Stalin’s USSR and the Third Reich). The species of the genus of imperialism do not coincide with the species of the genus of totalitarianism. Even the species that apparently remains unchanged, that is Germany, is described in the first case as originating with Wilhelm II at the earliest, and in the second case it appears as late as 1933. At least with regard to formal coherence, the initial plan appears to be more rigorous. After clarifying the genus of ‘imperialism’, in tracing the specific differences of this phenomenon, the initial plan moved on to analyse the species of ‘racial imperialism’. But how could the categories of totalitarianism and imperialism now blend together into a coherent whole? And what relationship connected them both to the category of antisemitism? Arendt’s answers to these questions seem to seek an artificial harmonisation between two levels that continue to be scarcely compatible.

Tonight, an amazing story.  A book club in North Canton has seemingly solved the mystery of the decades-old cold case

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