“
In the Soviet Union every worker is a government worker, and they have a saying: As long as the bosses pretend to pay us, we will pretend to work.
”
”
Tom Clancy (The Hunt for Red October (Jack Ryan, #3))
“
But if she'd come then, she would never have properly appreciated it. She'd have seen the happy crowds and the Union Jacks and the bonfires, but she'd have no idea of what it meant to see the lights on after years of navigating in the dark, what it meant to look up at an approaching plane without fear, to hear church bells after years of air-raid sirens. She'd have had no idea of the years of rationing and shabby clothes and fear which lay behind the smiles and the cheering, no idea of what it had cost to bring this day to pass--the lives of all those soldiers and sailors and airmen and civilians.
”
”
Connie Willis (All Clear (All Clear, #2))
“
In every state of the Union, Fundamentalists still fight to ban all the science they dislike and prosecute all who teach it. To them, 'traditional family values' denotes their right to keep their children as ignorant as their grandparents (and to hate the same folks grand-dad hated.)
”
”
Robert Anton Wilson (Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons)
“
Ice hockey is the closest thing to religion permitted by the Soviet Union.
”
”
Tom Clancy (The Cardinal of the Kremlin (Jack Ryan, #4))
“
They carried Union Jack flags. Why was it, Lloyd wondered, that the people who wanted to destroy everything good about their country were the quickest to wave the national flag?
”
”
Ken Follett (Winter of the World (The Century Trilogy #2))
“
Fucking?
Sorry. Sexual intercourse? Coitus? The union and rhythm of our genitals?
”
”
Jewel E. Ann (Middle of Knight (Jack & Jill, #2))
“
It is always a joy to meet an American, Mr. Moulton, for I am one of those who believes that the folly of a monarch and the blundering of a minister in far-gone years will not prevent our children from being some day citizens of the same world-wide country under a flag which shall be a quartering of the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes.
”
”
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, #10))
“
As my future crumbled before my eyes, I grasped for the rope. My entire life's struggle was ending here, in plain view of my enemies. How was it possible? Had had I let things come to this?
”
”
Tony McMahon (No Place to Hide: How I Put the Black in the Union Jack)
“
We see the illusion of individual predilection being maintained, for example, in the array of different styles of iPhone cases available to us. We wonder which of the provided range of colourful or sophisticated sheaths best communicates to the world our unique character. Thus we lean towards the wood effect, or the Batman one (ironically sported, of course), or the vintage Union Jack. Meanwhile, it is much harder to honestly ask ourselves whether our lives would be improved were we not to be attached to our devices quite as umbilically, and how much misery they bring us alongside the various conveniences and amusements. Whether we might be more authentically ourselves if, with a pioneering and curious spirit, we occasionally left them at home. It
”
”
Derren Brown (Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine)
“
I can see the young man on dizzily autumn mornings, the fog of which he inhaled just like the rapidly evaporating freedom.
”
”
Imre Kertész (The Union Jack)
“
the folly of a monarch and the blundering of a minister in far-gone years will not prevent our children from being some day citizens of the same world-wide country under a flag which shall be a quartering of the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes.
”
”
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes)
“
After the crushing of the Wolfe Tone’s United Irishmen Rising of 1798, the British were determined not to have to contend with any further liberation-minded Dublin Parliaments. To this end, William Pitt, the British Prime Minister, engineered an Act of Union for the sole purpose of total political suppression of the Irish. Cornwallis, the Viceroy of Ireland, embarked on a campaign of rank chicanery designed to coerce the Dublin Parliament into dissolving itself after five hundred years. When it was done, the Cross of St. Patrick was added to the British Cross of St. George and the Scottish Cross of St. Andrew, all fixed on a single banner known as the Union Jack to fly over a so-called United Kingdom. For
”
”
Leon Uris (Trinity)
“
The car came opposite her, and she curtsied so low that recovery was impossible, and she sat down in the road. Her parasol flew out of her hand and out of her parasol flew the Union Jack. She saw a young man looking out of the window, dressed in khaki, grinning broadly, but not, so she thought, graciously, and it suddenly struck her that there was something, beside her own part in the affair, which was not as it should be. As he put his head in again there was loud laughter from the inside of the car.
Mr. Wootten helped her up and the entire assembly of her friends crowded round her, hoping she was not hurt.
"No, dear Major, dear Padre, not at all, thanks," she said. "So stupid: my ankle turned. Oh, yes, the Union Jack I bought for my nephew, it's his birthday to-morrow. Thank you. I just came to see about my coke: of course I thought the Prince had arrived when you all went down to meet the 4.15. Fancy my running straight into it all! How well he looked."
This was all rather lame, and Miss Mapp hailed Mrs. Poppit's appearance from the station as a welcome diversion. . . . Mrs. Poppit was looking vexed.
”
”
E.F. Benson (Miss Mapp (Lucia, #2))
“
So you’re ex-Royal Navy, right?’
He tensed. ‘How do you know that?’
Lucy pointed at his arm. ‘Cabot wristwatch. It’s a dead giveaway.’ Marc frowned. The military-issue dive watch was the only connection he still had to that part of his past. ‘And also my boss is a billionaire, remember?’ The woman went on. ‘Information gets bought real easy, if you know how to deal.’ She smiled again. ‘So you’re all about Queen and Country. From navy puke to covert spook, all for the union jack.’
‘Something like that,’ he muttered. ‘And just so you know, we only call the flag the ‘union jack’ if it’s flying on a ship.
”
”
James Swallow (Nomad (Marc Dane, #1))
“
Fires were still raging all over the place; some of the larger buildings were mere skeletons, and many of the smaller houses had been reduced to piles of rubble.” He was struck in particular by the sight of paper Union Jacks planted in mounds of shattered lumber and brick. These, he wrote, “brought a lump to one’s throat.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz)
“
This was how it had to be. The city centre had to be for all religions, and so the ubiquitous, shinning, grey had quickly become the nascent colour. Whereas the the Ardoyne rejoced in the tricolours and every shade of green, so too the Shankill kept their houses and kerbs in the Union Jack, and each side of the divided city painted their gables and drenched themselves in the rich colours which formed their history, their protection, their identity, their, and they lived under the terrible weight that came with it. In Belfast, colour was joyful, territorial, and frightening. And so the heart of the city embraced a comforting blanket of grey.
”
”
Steve Cavanagh
“
PEE-WEE BOXER SURVEYED THE JOBSITE WITH DISGUST. THE FOREMAN was a scumbag. The crew were a bunch of losers. Worst of all, the guy handling the Cat didn't know jack about hydraulic excavators. Maybe it was a union thing; maybe he was friends with somebody; either way, he was jerking the machine around like it was his first day at Queens Vo-Tech
”
”
Douglas Preston (The Cabinet of Curiosities (Pendergast, #3; Nora Kelly, #0B))
“
After the crushing of the Wolfe Tone’s United Irishmen Rising of 1798, the British were determined not to have to contend with any further liberation-minded Dublin Parliaments. To this end, William Pitt, the British Prime Minister, engineered an Act of Union for the sole purpose of total political suppression of the Irish. Cornwallis, the Viceroy of Ireland, embarked on a campaign of rank chicanery designed to coerce the Dublin Parliament into dissolving itself after five hundred years. When it was done, the Cross of St. Patrick was added to the British Cross of St. George and the Scottish Cross of St. Andrew, all fixed on a single banner known as the Union Jack to fly over a so-called United Kingdom.
”
”
Leon Uris (Trinity)
“
The plan was simple. We had three weeks to get from the bottom of England to the top of Scotland – by foot or by bike – without spending a single penny. Setting off in just a pair of Union Jack boxer shorts, we hoped to rely on the generosity of the British public to help us with everything from accommodation to food, clothes to shoes, and bikes to beer.
”
”
George Mahood (Free Country: A Penniless Adventure the Length of Britain)
“
when Polly left 6 D block in March 1880, she went directly to Lambeth Union Workhouse on Renfrew Road.
”
”
Hallie Rubenhold (The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper)
“
Alfred and the three youngest were sent to Bermondsey Union Workhouse as orphans. Thomas joined them there the following day.
”
”
Hallie Rubenhold (The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper)
“
Irregular unions,” the term for couples who lived together without benefit of marriage or who carried on extramarital relationships, went against the strict regulations of the Peabody Buildings.
”
”
Hallie Rubenhold (The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper)
“
Jimmy did a lot of business with our friends, but he always did it on Jimmy Hoffa’s terms. That pension fund was the goose that laid the golden eggs. Jimmy was close with Red Dorfman out of the Chicago outfit. Red got the Waste Handlers Union in Chicago in 1939, when the president of that union got whacked. They say Red had Jack Ruby with him as the other officer in the union. That’s the same Jack Ruby who whacked Lee Harvey Oswald.
”
”
Charles Brandt ("I Heard You Paint Houses", Updated Edition: Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa)
“
The word “religion” has been hi-jacked and debased by the priests of faiths like these, until now it has become a dirty word amongst intelligent, right-thinking people in the Western world. The word “religion” springs from roots meaning piety, the Latin religio, the opposite idea to negligens, negligent, uncaring, unaware. It also springs from a root meaning to join together things that are separate, which in fact is the same meaning as the word “yoga” (compare the English word yoke, which ties oxen together, for example). So religion is a word which describes the process of becoming aware and unified, of joining together all things which are diverse; it is the union of body and spirit, self and not-self, human and god.
”
”
Rodney Orpheus
“
Even after the Union colors were struck, the horror continued. Surviving Federals claimed the killing went on sporadically into the next day as Confederates burned the place and supervised the burying of dead. Some men were buried alive, Federals
”
”
Jack Hurst (Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography)
“
Mr. President, I will transmit your message within the hour. Please keep in mind, however, the time differential between Washington and Moscow—” “I know that a weekend has just begun, and that the Soviet Union is a worker’s paradise, but I expect that some of your country’s managers may still be at work.
”
”
Tom Clancy (The Hunt for Red October (Jack Ryan, #3))
“
Angered by the taunts of the black soldiers and especially by the Union refusal to surrender, necessitating the paying of more precious Confederate lives for this victory he had to have, he may have ragingly ordered a massacre and even intended to carry it out—until he rode inside the fort and viewed the horrifying result. Then,
”
”
Jack Hurst (Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography)
“
The church in every western power after Constantine has at some point succumbed to the Siren seduction of empire and has conflated Christianity and nationalism into a single syncretic religion. Rome, Byzantium, Russia, Spain, France, England, and Germany have all done it. Seventeen centuries ago the Roman church got tangled up in imperial purple. In the 1930s, the German evangelical church got tangled up in Nazi red and black. The Anglican church spent a long time tangled up in the Union Jack. Today the American evangelical church is tangled up in red, white, and blue. That this kind of entanglement has been a common failure of the church for centuries doesn’t make it any less tragic.
”
”
Brian Zahnd (Postcards from Babylon: The Church In American Exile)
“
When the clowns of British politics - arch-Brexiteer cartoon characters 'Boorish Johnson' and 'JackOff Grease-Smug' advocate ad infinitum that Britain should leave the EU in order to be free to sign her own trade deals; they seem to have overlooked the towering elephant in the room, namely the current occupant of the White House (another clown) - who appears hell-bent on destabilising world trade via crude protectionist policies. Both Tories, despite receiving the best British education money can buy, would do well to revisit their post war history books and be reminded of one of the key objectives of the European Project and in due course the European Union - specifically to promote peace and prosperity amongst previously warring neighbours by forming a unified trading bloc which in time, due to its effective size, also acted as a useful counterweight to US hegemony. Go find another circus for your buffoonery and leave the deadly serious business of politics to principled individuals with the true national interest at heart !
”
”
Alex Morritt (Lines & Lenses)
“
As for me," said the sailor, "if I ever grumble at work, my name's not Jack Pencroft, and if you like, captain, we will make a little America of this island! We will build towns, we will establish railways, start telegraphs, and one fine day, when it is quite changed, quite put in order and quite civilized, we will go and offer it to the government of the Union.
”
”
Jules Verne (The Mysterious Island)
“
It had been just twenty minutes from the sounding of the charge until a Confederate pulled down the fort’s Union flag and Forrest ordered a cease-fire; Confederate partisans later would make much of that, saying the butchery was so great because the fort hadn’t been surrendered, but Federals running for their lives had little time to concern themselves with a flag. Soon
”
”
Jack Hurst (Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography)
“
Strangers, modest enough elsewhere, started up at dinners in Coketown, and boasted, in quite a rampant way, of Bounderby. They made him out to be the Royal arms, the Union-Jack, Magna Charta, John Bull, Habeas Corpus, the Bill of Rights, An Englishman’s house is his castle, Church and State, and God save the Queen, all put together. And as often (and it was very often) as an orator
”
”
Charles Dickens (Hard Times)
“
And indeed, it is for this very hope that I came—that is, for my very belief that even a modest amount of effort from you could make a big difference in the quality of life in your country, and even in the world. And if I could inspire you to fight for change as I would fight for change, if I were living in the here and now, practically nothing you would want to do would be impossible for you.
”
”
Jack Pelham (The Extraordinary Visit of Benjamin True: The State of the Union as no one else would tell it)
“
Russia through the waning days of the Soviet Union and into the heyday after the fall, the Red Mafia was imbedded in almost all facets of state affairs. The bratva was not an outside criminal threat, but rather part of the government itself. When Stalin betrayed his criminal ties during the Great Purge, he inadvertently created an even stronger organization that had survived and thrived to this day.
”
”
Jack Carr (Savage Son (Terminal List #3))
“
Good old Crazy Jack Dirker. You just couldn’t rattle the man. He could talk about dismembering a baby same way he talked about trimming his toenails. That chiseled face was incapable of emotion. It knew not hate or anger, love nor happiness. Only the eyes were alive in that mask. Course, last time Cabe had seen him, he was wearing the dark blue sack coat and Jeff Davis hat of a Union Army lieutenant. Cabe
”
”
Tim Curran (Skin Medicine)
“
She remained stiff against him. “It’s a nasty little piece that speculates on the unions of older women and younger men. There is a mocking paragraph on how wise a man like you must be to reap the benefits of an older woman’s ‘grateful enthusiasm.’ It’s a completely dreadful article, and it makes me sound like a lust-crazed old crone who has managed to ensnare a young man for stud service. Now, tell me at once if there is any truth in it!”
One would have wished for immediate denial.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Suddenly You)
“
in 1880 a wife could not cite adultery alone as a grounds for ending her union. While a man could divorce his wife for a sexual liaison outside the marital bed, a woman had to prove her husband was guilty of adultery in addition to another crime, such as incest, rape or cruelty. The Victorian double standard was enshrined in law, permitting a man to enjoy as many sexual dalliances as he wished, so long as he did not also rape the servants, have sex with his sister and beat his wife too severely.
”
”
Hallie Rubenhold (The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper)
“
and approved for sale. Dr John Rock, champion of the pill, rejoiced that humanity’s rampant sex drive would finally be stripped of its consequences: ‘The greatest menace to world peace and decent standards of life today is not atomic energy but sexual energy.’ The Cold War resumed at full intensity after an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union. War hero Dwight D. Eisenhower was still president; it was his last year in office. The election campaign was a neck-and-neck race between man of the people Richard Nixon and rich kid Jack Kennedy. Nineteen sixty is the year in which this story begins.
”
”
Geert Mak (In America: Travels with John Steinbeck)
“
The problem with political ideologues such as arch Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg (a.k.a. JackOff Grease-Smug) is that they are totally divorced from reality with heads stuck firmly in the clouds. Add to that the priggish and rarefied demeanour of this particular outlandishly pompous ass and you end up with a complete disconnect with the way things actually work. Pragmatism and consensus articulated by compassionate people who live in the real world and with feet firmly on the ground must win the day with Britain's economic interests foremost in mind. Get on your Penny Farthing Jacob and start peddling fast. You are a tiresome irrelevance better consigned to a museum for musty relics.
”
”
Alex Morritt (Lines & Lenses)
“
The Great Questions of Life were things he didn’t much think about. For the most part, life in the Soviet Union was limited to yesterday, today, and tomorrow. The economic facts of life really didn’t allow a person to make long-term plans. There were no country houses to buy, no luxury cars to desire, no elaborate vacations to save for. In committing what it called socialism on the people, the government of his country allowed—forced—everyone to aspire to much the same things, regardless of individual tastes, which meant getting on an endless list and being notified when one’s name came up—and being unknowingly bumped by those with greater Party seniority—or not, because some people had access to better places.
”
”
Tom Clancy (Red Rabbit (Jack Ryan, #2))
“
Dex squinted at the palace. “Their queen is a white-haired lady, right? I think I saw some pictures of her when I was researching about the cameras.” “Yeah, Queen Elizabeth,” Sophie said. “I don’t know much about her. Just that she likes little dogs and wears a lot of hats. And I think that flag means she’s actually here right now.” She pointed to the red, gold, and blue standard flying from a pole in the center of the palace, instead of the British Union Jack. “Same with the fact that there are four of those guys instead of two.” She nudged her chin toward the four members of the queen’s guard, standing stolid and motionless in what appeared to be narrow blue houses. The soldier’s faces looked blank, but Sophie had no doubt their eyes were seeing everything, and it made her hope the obscurer was keeping them hidden—especially when she noticed their guns. “So wait—the dorky guys in the red coats with the big furry hats are important?” Dex asked, covering his mouth to block a giggle. “And you had the nerve to complain about our Foxfire uniforms!” “Hey—I never had to wear anything like that. That’s strictly a British soldier thing!” “Soldier?” Dex repeated, frowning at the guards. “So… is that uniform supposed to be intimidating? Because I feel like if a dude marched up to an army of ogres wearing that, he’d mostly get laughed at.” “Goblins definitely wouldn’t be able to suppress their snickers,” Sandor noted, his lips twitching with a smile.
”
”
Shannon Messenger (Legacy (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #8))
“
...nazwa liniowiec tak się miała do naszego okrętu, jak kichnięcie do wystrzału z armaty - używano jej jedynie dlatego, że w oficjalnych dokumentach Royal Navy nie figurował termin "krypa". Ani "pieprzony, pływający zamtuz". Dla większości załogi, którą desperacko próbowałem szkolić, nazwa i tak niewiele znaczyła, byli to bowiem marynarze tworzący rozpuszczoną, zdemoralizowaną bandę ludzi ze statków handlowych, więzień, tawern i przymusowego poboru. Mieliśmy na pokładzie farmerów i hodowców bydła, drobnych złodziejaszków, którzy zamienili odsiadkę na służbę w marynarce, byli też pijacy, ślepcy, ludzie nieznający ani słowa po angielsku, urodzeni panikarze, sodomici, paru klasycznych piromanów i jeden człowiek, który co niedziela próbował popełnić samobójstwo. Prawdziwych marynarzy było na okręcie jak na lekarstwo, a nawet wśród nich syfilis walczył o lepsze z rzeżączką; w tych warunkach dyscyplina stała się pojęciem równie urojonym, jak czysta odzież.
”
”
Marcin Mortka (Płonący Union Jack (Karaibska krucjata, #1))
“
It is possible and necessary to approach Britain's colonial history by more satisfactory methodological routes. Its racial subjects need a more complex genealogy than those debates allow. Industrial decline has been intertwined with technological change, with immigration and settlement, with ideological racism and spatial segregation along economic and cultural lines. We need to grasp how their coming together took place in a desperate setting which nonetheless allowed black communities over several generations to be recognised as political actors: they were irreducible to their class positions because racism entered into the multi-modal processes in which classes were being constituted. It helps to appreciate that this historical predicament was overdetermined by Britain's painful loss of Empire and, that the country's communities of the strange and alien are still sometimes at risk of being engulfed by the profound cultural and psychological consequences of decline which is evident on many levels: economic and material as well as cultural and psychological.
”
”
Paul Gilroy (There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack (Routledge Classics))
“
If you want to know the real reasons why certain politicians vote the way they do - follow the money. Arch Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg (a.k.a. JackOff Grease-Smug) stands to make billions via his investment firm - Somerset Capital Management - if the UK crashes unceremoniously out of the European Union without a secure future trade deal. Why ? Because proposed EU regulations will give enforcement agencies greater powers to curb the activities adopted by the sort of off-shore tax havens his company employs. Consequently the British electorate get swindled not once, but twice. Firstly because any sort of Brexit - whether hard, soft, or half-baked - will make every man, woman and child in the UK that much poorer than under the status quo currently enjoyed as a fully paid up member of the EU. Secondly because Rees-Mogg's company, if not brought to heel by appropriate EU wide legislation, will deprive Her Majesty's Treasury of millions in taxes, thus leading to more onerous taxes for the rest of us. It begs the question, who else in the obscure but influential European Research Group (ERG) that he chairs and the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA) that he subscribes to, have similar vested interests in a no-deal Brexit ? It is high time for infinitely greater parliamentary and public scrutiny into the UK Register of Members' Financial Interests in order to put an end to these nefarious dealings and appalling double standards in public life which only serve to further corrode public trust in an already fragile democracy.
”
”
Alex Morritt (Lines & Lenses)
“
To this point, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has been the Republican flavor of the year. Events from the IRS scandal to NSA revelations to the Obamacare train wreck have corroborated libertarian suspicions of federal power. And Paul has shown serious populist skills in cultivating those fears for his political benefit. For a while, he succeeded in a difficult maneuver: Accepting the inheritance of his father's movement while distancing himself from the loonier aspects of his father's ideology.
But now Rand Paul has fallen spectacularly off the tightrope. It turns out that a senior member of his Senate staff, Jack Hunter, has a history of neo-Confederate radio rants. And Paul has come to the defense of his aide. . . .
This would not be the first time that Paul has heard secessionist talk in his circle of confederates--I mean, associates. His father has attacked Lincoln for causing a "senseless" war and ruling with an "iron fist." Others allied with Paulism in various think tanks and websites have accused Lincoln of mass murder and treason. For Rand Paul to categorically repudiate such views and all who hold them would be to excommunicate a good portion of his father's movement.
This disdain for Lincoln is not a quirk or a coincidence. Paulism involves more than the repeal of Obamacare. It is a form of libertarianism that categorically objects to 150 years of expanding federal power. . . .
Not all libertarians, of course, view Appomattox as a temporary setback. A libertarian debate on the topic: "Lincoln: Hero or Despot?" would be two-sided, lively and well attended. But Paulism is more than the political expression of the Austrian school of economics. It is a wildly ambitious ideology in which Hunter's neo-Confederate views are not uncommon.
What does this mean for the GOP? It is a reminder that, however reassuring his manner, it is impossible for Rand Paul to join the Republican mainstream. The triumph of his ideas and movement would fundamentally shift the mainstream and demolish a century and a half of Republican political history. The GOP could no longer be the party of Reagan's internationalism or of Lincoln's belief in a strong union dedicated to civil rights.
”
”
Michael Gerson
“
In No-Man’s Land near Loos an enormous flowering cherry tree had blossomed with stunning beauty that spring. After the blossoms had fallen a young British officer went out on night patrol and, climbing to the top of the tree, fixed a Union Jack to the trunk. As he was climbing down the tree, the Germans sent up a flare, and the officer was seen. A machine-gunner opened fire and he was hit. His body hung there: the attempts by two British patrols to get his body down on the following two nights were unsuccessful. Then the British artillery was asked to fire on the tree in the hope of bringing the body, and the tree, down. Gradually all the branches were blown off, and the body fell to the ground, but the tree stump remained.
”
”
Martin Gilbert (The First World War: A Complete History)
“
He paused for dramatic effect, waiting until all eyes were on him before turning and looking at Jane, an intimate, heavy-lidded look designed just for her—and his audience. Holding out both hands to her, he said in a voice designed to carry, “It is traditional, is it not, for an alliance to be sealed with a marriage?”
Taking Jane’s hands, he drew her forward, into the center of the room, where everyone could have the best possible view.
Jane’s hands were cold, cold as ice. She drew them away, frozen with the wrongness of it. “Nicolas—don’t. Please.”
She cast an anxious glance over her shoulder at Jack, who was doing his best impression of a stone boulder.
Nicolas tugged on her hand, claiming her attention. “Surely now,” he said softly, smiling up at her in a way that would once have made her all fluttery, “there can be no obstacle to our union.”
“Aside from good taste and common sense,” said Henrietta hotly.
“He’s not bad-looking,” commented Miss Gwen. “If you like reptiles.”
Dropping to the floor at Jane’s feet, Nicolas drew the signet from his finger. Not his personal signet, the one he used as the Gardener, but the sigil of the counts of Brillac.
Once, a very long time ago, Jane had imagined this moment, had imagined a world in which she and Nicolas might be together.
That, however, was before she had known him.
And before she had known Jack.
“Well, my Jeanne?” Nicolas said whimsically, proffering the ring. “Will you make me the happiest of men?”
Gold glittered in the torchlight. On the edge of the circle, Jack turned on his heel and stalked off.
Yanking her skirt away, Jane said sharply, “Did you really believe that making a public spectacle of me would change my answer?”
From the side of the room, there was the faint click of a door closing.
The dimple was very apparent in Nicolas’s cheek as he smiled up at her. “I live in hope.”
“Don’t,” said Jane crisply. “Not on that score.”
“That,” said Henrietta, “in case you didn’t notice, was a no.”
Nicolas rose easily to his feet. “I prefer to think of it as a ‘perhaps later.’”
“It was a no,” said Jane, and turned on her heel, not sure whom she wanted to shake more: Nicolas for refusing to take no for an answer, or Jack for walking away.
”
”
Lauren Willig (The Lure of the Moonflower (Pink Carnation, #12))
“
McGoff didn't have much use for modern Vancouver. According to him, it has a sort of Pango Pango quality mingled with sausage and mash and generally a rather Puritan atmosphere. Everyone fast asleep and when you prick them a Union Jack flows out of the hole. But no one in a certain sense lives there. They merely as it were pass through. Mine the country and quit. Blast the land to pieces, knock down the trees and send them rolling down Burrard Inlet ... As for drinking, by the way, that is beset," Hugh chuckled, "everywhere beset by perhaps favourable difficulties. No bars, only beer parlors so uncomfortable and cold that serve beer so weak no self-respecting drunkard would show his nose in them. You have to drink at home, and when you run short it's too far to get a bottle—
”
”
Malcolm Lowry (Under the Volcano)
“
He could not bear to look up and see the flutter of Union Jacks, and now the red and white cross of the Ulster flag with its red hand.
”
”
Bernard MacLaverty (Cal)
“
It's bad enough that a gang of infernal Jews should plant us here, where there's no earthly English interest to serve, and all hell beating up against us, simply because Nosey Zimmern has lent money to half the Cabinet. It's bad enough that an old pawnbroker from Bagdad should make us fight his battles; we can't fight with our right hand cut off. Our one score was Hastings and his victory, which was really somebody else's victory. Tom Travers has to suffer, and so have you." Then, after a moment's silence, he pointed toward the bottomless well and said, in a quieter tone: "I told you that I didn't believe in the philosophy of the Tower of Aladdin. I don't believe in the Empire growing until it reaches the sky; I don't believe in the Union Jack going up and up eternally like the Tower. But if you think I am going to let the Union Jack go down and down eternally, like the bottomless well, down into the blackness of the bottomless pit, down in defeat and derision, amid the jeers of the very Jews who have sucked us dry—no I won't, and that's flat; not if the Chancellor were blackmailed by twenty millionaires with their gutter rags, not if the Prime Minister married twenty Yankee Jewesses, not if Woodville and Carstairs had shares in twenty swindling mines.
”
”
G.K. Chesterton (The Man Who Knew Too Much)
“
Benjamin True loved this about humans—how they were generally free to decide to invest themselves in good things.
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Jack Pelham (The Extraordinary Visit of Benjamin True: The State of the Union as no one else would tell it)
“
Now, it’s a pity that your schools no longer teach the same language in which the Declaration and the Constitution were written because you’ve lost touch with the finer points of how to put a sentence together—and how to take one apart. There’s some real meat in these words. What he’s saying is that it was obvious that the King intended to reduce the American people into a people without any rights and freedoms, and that he was going to do it under ‘absolute despotism’, which means that he would have complete authority to do anything he pleased to do. In other words, he wrote that they could see this coming—that it was obvious that King George did not intend to stop until he had complete control over everything in their lives. “Now this Thomas Jefferson was pretty radical—and remember, he was not perfect in his acts, for he violated the Constitution himself when he became president later—but he said something in the Declaration—an idea that is flatly rejected by far too many Americans today. He said that when it’s obvious that the government is headed toward such total control, the people have both a right and a duty. He wrote: …it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.45
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Jack Pelham (The Extraordinary Visit of Benjamin True: The State of the Union as no one else would tell it)
“
I’ll restate that in case you were confused by the wording. Madison suggested that there was a need to put virtuous people in office, and then to take precautions to keep them virtuous while they are there. But this is not what America does. You let the tyrants and scoundrels come up here and have their way, and then when they lie, cheat, and steal, you turn a blind eye to it, and let them stay in office to do more of the same. Generally speaking, you pick corrupt officers, and then you protect their corruption while they’re in office. And so I ask you again that most important question: what kind of people are you?
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Jack Pelham (The Extraordinary Visit of Benjamin True: The State of the Union as no one else would tell it)
“
(They’d also yielded to pressure and lowered the flag to half-mast; not the Royal Standard, of course, but the Union Jack—still, an unprecedented compromise.) The Royal Standard was always reserved for members of the Royal Family, which, I’d been told, Mummy wasn’t anymore. Did this mean she was forgiven? By Granny? Apparently.
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”
Prince Harry (Spare)
“
Some of the very people who ran McDonnell Douglas into the ground resurrected the same penny-pinching policies that sank their old company. Borrowing a page from another flawed idol, Jack Welch’s General Electric, they executed what today might be called the standard corporate playbook: anti-union, regulation-light, outsourcing-heavy. But pro-handout, at least when it comes to tax breaks and lucrative government contracts.
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Peter Robison (Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing)
“
called Defence of Fort McHenry, which he set to the music of To Anacreon in Heaven, a British drinking song. When it was later sold as sheet music, the publishers used a different title for Key’s ditty, and in 1931 it was chosen to be America’s national anthem. Yes - The Star Spangled Banner is based on a British drinking song! The Union Army in the American Civil War began to allow black soldiers to enlist in 1863. However, whereas a white solider was paid $13 a month, a black solider was only paid $10, and furthermore was deducted $3 for clothing. In protest at this, a number of black regiments refused to
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Jack Goldstein (101 Amazing Facts)
“
In the room where the signing [of the surrender] was to take place the sole decorations were three flags upon the end wall: the Red Flag, the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes. The French colours were nowhere to be seen. De Tassigny declared that France could not be represented at the ceremony without her flag alongside those of her Allies. But where could a French flag to be found?
The Russians decided to make one, with a piece of red stuff taken from a former Hitlerite banner, a white sheet and a piece of blue serge cut out of an engineer's overalls. Alas! Our tricolor was less familiar to the young Russian girls than the red flag to many French girls, for when a jeep brought along the flag that had been run op in this way we found a magnificient Dutch flag: the blue, white and red had been sewn not one beside the other but one above the other!
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Barry Turner (Karl Doenitz and the Last Days of the Third Reich)
“
After a slow few miles across the outskirts of the town, past the Scott Market and the Holy Trinity Cathedral and the ancient Sule Pagoda, Sir Hubert’s Rolls-Royce (now with a collector in Baltimore, Maryland) finally turned into Fytche Square, where a small party of British and Burmese notables were already assembled expectantly against the charcoal sky. Speeches were given, the Union Jack was lowered for the last time, and the new flag of the Union of Burma was hauled up, the faces of the young Burmese politicians beaming with happiness. The governor shook hands with the republic’s new president and prime minister while several of the Englishwomen, wives of senior officials, quietly wept.
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Thant Myint-U (The River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma)
Jack Goldstein (101 Amazing Facts)
“
The Union Army in the American Civil War began to allow black soldiers to enlist in 1863. However, whereas a white solider was paid $13 a month, a black solider was only paid $10, and furthermore was deducted $3 for clothing. In protest at this, a number of black regiments refused to accept their salaries - but still continued to fight heroically. Eighteen months later, when black soldiers made up an amazing ten per cent of the army’s troops, the high command accepted they were wrong to discriminate, raised their pay to be equal, and backdated it to the day they had enlisted.
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Jack Goldstein (101 Amazing Facts)
“
Queen Elizabeth II is in fact Queen Elizabeth I and II. The reason for this is that the union between England and Scotland did not take place until 1603 - after Elizabeth I had ruled in England; therefore until 1952, there had never been a Queen Elizabeth of Scotland!
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Jack Goldstein (101 Amazing Facts)
“
Shortly before reaching it, some villagers tried to pick a quarrel with them for carrying flags. It was their invariable custom to make the drummer-boy, Majwara, march at their head, whilst the Union Jack and the red colours of Zanzibar were carried in a foremost place in the line. Fortunately a chief of some importance came up and stopped the discussion, or there might have been more mischief, for the men were in no temper to lower their flag, knowing their own strength pretty well by this time. Making their settlement close to Chiwaie's, they met with much kindness, and were visited by crowds of the inhabitants.
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David Livingstone (The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death: 1869-1873)
“
Things had been different when Garveyism and Ethiopianism rather than afro-centrism and occultism set the tone. To contain modernity, to appreciate its colonial constitution and to criticise its reliance on racialised governmental codes all required finding an autonomous space outside it. A desire to exist elsewhere supplied the governing impulse. It was captured in compelling forms in the period's best songs of longing and flight, like Bunny Wailer's anthem ‘Dreamland’ 5. However, there is no longer any uncontaminated, pastoral or romantic location to which opposition and dissent might fly, and so, a new culture of consolation has been fashioned in which being against this tainted modernity has come to mean being before it. Comparable investments in the restorative power of the pseudo-archaic occur elsewhere. They help to make Harry Potter's world attractive and are routine features of much ‘new age’ thinking. They govern the quest for a repudiation of modernity that is shared by the various versions of Islam which have largely eclipsed Ethiopianism as the principal spiritual resource and wellspring of critique among young black Europeans. Their desire to find an exit from consumerism's triumphant phantasmagoria reveals them to be bereft, adrift without the guidance they would have absorbed, more indirectly than formally, from the national liberation movements of the cold war period and the struggles for both civil and human rights with which they were connected. Instead, an America-centred, consumer-oriented culture of blackness has become prominent. In this post-colonial setting, it conditions the dreams of many young Britons, irrespective of their ancestral origins or physical appearance. This brash and celebratory imperial formation is barely embarrassed by the geo-political fault-line that re-divides the world, opposing the overdeveloped north to the suffering south. That barrier provides the defining element in a new topography of global power which is making heavy demands upon the overwhelmingly national character of civil society and ideal of national citizenship. It is clear that the versions of black politics that belonged to the west/rest polarity will not adapt easily to this new configuration.
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Paul Gilroy (There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack (Routledge Classics))
“
I went to this party for Francis Wheen’s book [on Marx]. I went and sat on a chair—at these places I can’t stand up and so I sat there and a woman came up to me—I gather from the Telegraph. It was just the day before Princess Margaret had died ... The woman said something like, “What do you think about [Princess Margaret’s death] and I said, “I don’t give a bugger about such things. I’m not giving any interview to you and she printed it. I should have been more careful. But there’s some truth in that. The bloody Sunday Times reprinted it. But Jill was very shocked by Princess Margaret—when we went down to Windsor for a weekend when they had a do [when Callaghan’s government fell]. Jack Jones was there and Princess Margaret came out and said, “Who is Jack Jones?” He was the most prominent labour union leader in the country. She didn’t say, “Can you tell me who is Jack Jones?” Dreadful, you see. But I shouldn’t have said that.
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Carl Rollyson (A Private Life of Michael Foot)
“
The greatest empire the world had yet seen got its start with the conquest of Ireland back in 1171. And tiny Ireland was still the most troublesome turf under the Union Jack. China, India, entire subcontinents, could be subdued with less firepower than it took to keep the Irish in place.
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Tim Egan (The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero)
“
have her for his wife. As it turned out, Jacob understood Mercy better than he or anyone else could have imagined. When she discovered his trickery, she was hurt, but not as hurt as when she thought that Esau had spurned her. Maybe it was because she expected less from Jacob, so it was easier to be disappointed by him. Then there was the fact that she was a Morgan. She liked that. Divorce was hardly a consideration; to do so would place her on the social level of a prostitute. The fact was, she’d made a play for the best and wound up with second best. She could live with that. Too much was at risk to try to undo what had been done. Besides, there was something romantic about a man who would go to such great lengths to marry her. Esau couldn’t bring himself to forgive his brother. He didn’t fault Mercy. She’d been deceived and trapped. His only consolation was his hope that God would make things right. Striking Jacob with a bolt of lightning was preferable, but Esau chose to let God handle the specifics. He was willing to wait. Someday, Mercy would be his wife. For more than a decade Esau waited and prayed. The fact that Jacob and Mercy were unable to produce children in that time was for him an encouraging sign that God did not favor their union. He contented himself with brief, clandestine encounters with her. They were innocent enough, but the
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”
Jack Cavanaugh (The Patriots)
“
This time, the cable held strong as HMS Agamemnon and USS Niagara sailed toward their respective destinations flying specially designed flags that incorporated the stars of Old Glory with the stripes of the Union Jack.
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Anonymous
“
Although she has a tendency to be overly impressed by those with academic qualifications, Diana admires people who perform rather than pontificate. Richard Branson, the head of Virgin airlines, Baron Jacob Rothschild, the millionaire banker who restored Spencer House, and her cousin Viscount David Linley who runs a successful furniture and catering business, are high on her list. “She likes the fact that David has been able to break out of the royal mould and do something positive,” says a friend. “She envies too his good fortune in being able to walk down a street without a detective.”
For years her low intellectual self-esteem manifested itself in instinctive deference towards the judgments of her husband and senior courtiers. Now that she is clearer herself about her direction, she is prepared to argue about policy in a way that would have been unthinkable several years ago. The results are tangible. Foreign Office diplomats, notoriously hidebound in their perceptions, are beginning to realize her true worth. They were impressed by the way she handled her first solo visit to Pakistan and subsequently discussed trips to Egypt and Iran, the Islamic republic where the Union Jack was routinely burned until a few years ago. This is, as she would say, a “very grown-up” part of her royal life.
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Andrew Morton (Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words)
“
bridge into mainland China. It was a pleasing message of ‘business as usual’ smartly tailored to the merchant princes of the Mandarin Oriental. Few would have predicted such Sino-British ‘harmony’ (a favoured Beijing phrase) when Hong Kong was handed back to China on 30 June 1997, after the ninety-nine-year lease on the New Territories came to an end. Then, it was all tears and angst, pride and regret. At the stroke of midnight the Union Jack was lowered to the strains of ‘God Save the Queen’, the Hong Kong police ripped the royal insignia from their uniforms, and Red Army troops poured over the border. Britain’s last governor, former Conservative Party chairman Chris Patten, recorded the final, colonial swansong in all its lachrymose glory: its ‘kilted pipers and massed bands, drenching rain, cheering crowds, a banquet for the mighty and the not so mighty, a goose-stepping Chinese honour guard, a president and a prince’. Steaming out of Victoria Harbour, as the Royal Marines played ‘Rule, Britannia!’ and
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Tristram Hunt (Ten Cities that Made an Empire)
“
..., daß jenseits des Anekdotischen jede Geschichte und jedermanns Geschichte vom wesentlichen her gesehen gleichartig sei, und daß diese im wesentlichen gleichartigen Geschichten im wesentlichen tatsächlich alle Schreckensgeschichten seien, daß im wesentlichen alles Geschehen tatsächlich schrecklich sei und daß, im wesentlichen, auch die Geschichte schon seit langem nichts als höchstens eine Schreckensgeschichte sei.
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”
Imre Kertész (The Union Jack)
“
You found your God in a paperback,
You get your history from the Union Jack.
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”
Oasis (Band)
“
Madam, how is it that it is more tolerable in the eyes of this culture to tell a lie than to call the liar a liar? How is that? If that’s not some twisted sense of morality, I don’t know what is. You people have got some seriously corrupted thinking! From where I stand, it is exceedingly obvious.
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”
Jack Pelham (The Extraordinary Visit of Benjamin True: The State of the Union as no one else would tell it)
“
Almost all of you in this government are inwardly quite detached from what you outwardly claim to be doing,” True charged. “You’re putting on a show for an audience that desperately wants to believe that something good might actually go on here from time to time.
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”
Jack Pelham (The Extraordinary Visit of Benjamin True: The State of the Union as no one else would tell it)
“
When I consider the state of the United States of America, my primary concerns are not about the state of its economy, or whether you are at war, or how the several states are getting along with one another. Rather, I am concerned about what kind of people you are. Now, I’m going to have to say that to you several times before it sinks in. I’m concerned about what kind of people you are. So, with that in mind, let me address this Union's beginnings, where your founders struggled with some really big and important principles that most other countries didn’t find all that important at that time in history.
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”
Jack Pelham (The Extraordinary Visit of Benjamin True: The State of the Union as no one else would tell it)
“
Now, as I said before, if it were wholly up to me, the rule would be that you get one term, and you’re done. This government does not exist to give you a job, but to serve the good of the public. So you’d come up here and serve, and then you’d go home and do something else that’s good for the world.
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Jack Pelham (The Extraordinary Visit of Benjamin True: The State of the Union as no one else would tell it)
“
But here’s the great, great news: You have a choice in this matter. It is not predetermined. Nor is a previous bad choice—or even a string of bad choices—irreversible. Indeed, I like the way that Thomas Paine put it: We have it within our power to begin the world over again.67 “I think that Mister Paine was exaggerating a bit, of course, as the whole world is not your business. But you certainly have it within your power to begin your own culture over again, just as each one of you can do the same with his or her own self. In fact, success in the former task requires success in the latter.
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Jack Pelham (The Extraordinary Visit of Benjamin True: The State of the Union as no one else would tell it)
“
Now, I want you to reflect on this in the hours and weeks that follow,” continued Benjamin. “Think about everything I said to the people tonight, and you’ll realize that not one word of it was something that they couldn’t have learned or figured out for themselves. It was not my intent here to reveal any secrets to humankind; that was not the service I aimed to provide—although those who are ignorant of these things will assume that a lot of this is new information from on high.
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Jack Pelham (The Extraordinary Visit of Benjamin True: The State of the Union as no one else would tell it)
“
Yes," said Sky, "even now, after all these years of learning, I am most likely wrong about many things.121" "That's what sets you apart, my friend," Benjamin True told him. "It takes a lot of courage to look at life that way. And you must understand that the average human is going to be scared of you. Many will reject your calls to higher thinking because they're scared that the process will reveal what they've known all along—that they are not as authentic as they like to think. They would rather think of themselves as authentic than they would to do the work required to make it actually so. And among them are some who would rather pull you down than to rise to the call themselves. It's all quite ironic.
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Jack Pelham (The Extraordinary Visit of Benjamin True: The State of the Union as no one else would tell it)
“
England has gone soft,” Colville said, gazing out through the darkness toward the few, flickering lights of North Rigton. The last faint rays of the sun were slipping beyond the horizon—the stars emerging in the sky above them. “We were a proud people once. The sun never set on the Union Jack and an Englishman bowed his knee only to his Queen and his God. Now?”
He shook his head. “The leaders of this country take their marching orders from Brussels, bow down before every sodding immigrant that washes ashore. Grovel in the dirt for fear of offending them or their precious beliefs, styling themselves ‘multiculturalist’ in so doing. They need to be shocked from their comforts—awakened to the danger of what they have embraced
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Stephen England (Embrace the Fire (Shadow Warriors #3))
“
Unlike the American Stars and Stripes or the British Union Jack, it has no particularly exciting or symbolic history.
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Christina Johansson Robinowitz (Modern-Day Vikings: A Pracical Guide to Interacting with the Swedes (Interact Series))
“
World is My Brotherhood
(Sonnet 1616)
No neighborhood without brotherhood,
No sainthood without martyrdom.
Martyrdom doesn't mean dying in body,
but to be lost in others' ascension.
You're born with a human backbone,
Don't let it be vilified by cowardice.
Backbone responsible is backbone honored,
Backbone responsible is antidote to malice.
World is in your care, carry it with grace.
No bigger disgrace than backbone bending!
Find a cause that honors your human backbone,
Humans can break, while animals bend for nothing.
Stars-n-stripes, union jack, all trivial,
for the world is my neighborhood.
I got no brotherhood of cult or creed,
for the world is my brotherhood.
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Abhijit Naskar (Yüz Şiirlerin Yüzüğü (Ring of 100 Poems, Bilingual Edition): 100 Turkish Poems with Translations (Naskar Multilingual))
“
Stars-n-stripes, union jack, all trivial,
for the world is my neighborhood.
I got no brotherhood of cult or creed,
for the world is my brotherhood.
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Abhijit Naskar (Yüz Şiirlerin Yüzüğü (Ring of 100 Poems, Bilingual Edition): 100 Turkish Poems with Translations)
“
Yes. Ended up crying and bleeding all over her Union Jack dress. I’ve never been so humiliated in my life. Up until that moment, I thought I was going to marry her.” It’s painful, what this information does to my heart. I’ve never liked him more.
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Kara McDowell (The Prince & the Apocalypse)
“
The day I went to the park carrying a British Union Jack bag was the day I was harassed and hit by USA law enforcement!
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Steven Magee
“
And he said explicitly: “We understand that not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.” Not an inch eastward. The United States gave “categorical assurances” on that point, said Jack Matlock, the American ambassador in Moscow under Reagan and Bush. Gorbachev heard them clearly, and he heard them repeatedly. He responded: “Any extension of the zone of NATO is unacceptable.” He trusted but did not verify: he never got America’s assurances in writing.
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Tim Weiner (The Folly and the Glory: America, Russia, and Political Warfare 1945–2020)
“
He had just reached the high-rise apartment building called Hamilton House, with the US flag and the Union Jack fluttering in the open windows, when a parade came in his direction. Trumpets, horns, and drums were playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” a familiar tune he had heard the American sailors whistle in the bar. It was a relief, a boost of confidence, to see the armed forces. So Miriam was right. With the Fourth Marines, the Americans were protected at least. He rushed to the sidewalk, stood behind three businessmen carrying file cases, a girl carrying a violin case, and an old woman walking with a cocker spaniel, and watched. The leading man in the parade wore an olive officer visor. Ernest recognized him; it was Colonel William Ashurst. He was singing, his face pale and etched with worries. Behind him were the Fourth Marines, all fitted in their jackets with utility pouches tucked snugly around their waists. As they marched, they each pulled the strap aslant across their chests, holding what could be a semiautomatic Garand rifle or maybe a Thompson submachine. The rhythm of the trumpets, the drums, and the singing lifted Ernest’s spirits. He walked along, following the parade, waving at the colonel, who didn’t pay him attention. When the regiment reached the wharf at the river, the singing stopped. The colonel saluted and shouted, and the regiment jumped into a large white liner behind the cruiser USS Wake. Someone in the crowd cried out, followed by a string of sobs. Someone else shouted, “God bless you! Goodbye!” It was a farewell parade. Ernest overheard someone say that the Americans were to sail for the Philippines. His heart dropped.
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Weina Dai Randel (The Last Rose of Shanghai)
“
Several years ago, the Mexicans organized and joined the union and struck for better wages, but it came with violence. Men died. Jack spent a year in San Quentin. When he came out, he was even more determined.” Loreda hadn’t considered prison. “How is it illegal to ask for better wages?” Natalia lit up another cigarette. “It isn’t, technically. But this is a capitalist country, run by big-money interests. After the state’s anti-immigration campaign, when they rounded up all the illegals and deported them back to Mexico, the growers would have had a real problem, but then…” “We started coming.” Natalia nodded. “They sent flyers across America, telling workers to come. And they came, too many of them. Now there are ten workers for every job. We’re having trouble getting your people to organize. They’re—” “Independent.” “I was going to say stubborn.” “Yeah. Well, a lot of us are farmers, and you have to be stubborn to survive sometimes.” “Are you stubborn?” “Yeah,” Loreda said slowly. “I reckon so. But more than anything, I’m mad.
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Kristin Hannah (The Four Winds)
“
From his headquarters in Los Angeles, Bob Lorsch had entered the prepaid calling card space and built SmarTalk into a success. I was a VP at Salomon at the time and had heard stories about how crazy and fascinating Lorsch was, so I agreed to work with my colleague Mark Davis on a SmarTalk equity offering a year or so after the company’s IPO. We met at their Los Angeles offices at lunchtime. Lorsch burst into the room like a bad caricature of Danny DeVito, and even though I’d been warned that he was an unconventional CEO, I still wasn’t prepared for the encounter. We had put together the standard detailed presentation that analyzed the state of the public equity markets, how the SmarTalk stock had been performing, who owned it, et cetera. A young Salomon analyst who had been pulling all-nighters to assemble the books sat in a chair near the door. Mark and I passed around the presentation books. “So we’ve prepared a—” I started. “Just tell me,” Lorsch interjected. “Do we have Grubman or not?” Jack Grubman, Salomon’s famed equity analyst, had previously endorsed the SmarTalk IPO with a buy rating. “Yes,” Mark said. “We have Jack. We talked to him prior to the meeting and confirmed that he’ll continue to cover the company and support the offering.” “Then you’re hired,” Lorsch said with a smile, pushing his unopened book to the center of the table. “Let’s eat.” It seemed reckless to have made his decision on so little information, and I could only imagine how the analyst kid near the door felt, sleep-deprived and probably proud of his hard work, only to see the book tossed aside without so much as a cracking of the spine. While we ate the catered lunch that was delivered to the conference room, Mark mentioned that I was in the midst of planning my wedding for that summer. “Don’t get married!” Lorsch advised me. “Terrible, terrible idea.” He described a few of his own ill-fated unions, dropping in crude one-liners to punctuate the stories: “Why buy when you can rent? . . . If it flies, floats, or fucks, don’t buy it! . . .” Despite
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Christopher Varelas (How Money Became Dangerous: The Inside Story of Our Turbulent Relationship with Modern Finance)
“
Never trust a man who flies the Union Jack.
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Elly Griffiths (The House at Sea's End (Ruth Galloway, #3))
“
One thing of interest in this regard is that in order to cover their tracks, specifically to explain where the money came from to cover Morris Childs’s considerable medical expenses, Jack concocted a fiction, which he spread among his former comrades. He told them that his brother’s treatment was paid for by the contributions of Party members. As he confided to his FBI handlers and Barron, “Almost none of these assholes will contribute a dime. But no one will ever say he didn’t contribute.”16 The subterfuge was apparently successful.
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Aaron Leonard (A Threat of the First Magnitude: FBI Counterintelligence & Infiltration From the Communist Party to the Revolutionary Union 1962-1974)
“
On the outskirts of Antrim there were alright houses where Union Jacks and Ulster flags were hanging out for the Twelfth of July, even though it was only mind June.
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Deirdre Madden (One by One in the Darkness)
“
For prayer teaches us that we are sons of God with a Father who loves us not because we are perfect, but because we are in union with Christ. It opens our eyes to see that God is not a harsh Judge, but a loving Parent who is delighted even by our imperfect efforts to obey Him.
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C. John Miller (The Heart of a Servant Leader: Letters from Jack Miller)
“
Her next point is that people really can’t stand to look closely at themselves and these patterns unless they understand justification by faith and union with Christ.
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C. John Miller (The Heart of a Servant Leader: Letters from Jack Miller)
“
From some long-forgotten celebration, Madame produced two small Union Jacks and with Claude at my side, bells ringing, and flags fluttering bravely from the handle-bars, we free-wheeled down the whole length of the Champs Elyseés to the admiring plaudits of the crowd. Mounted on a woman’s bicycle, I was probably the first British soldier the French of Paris had seen for five years.
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David Niven (The Moon's a Balloon)
“
Then, on the very day that George V presented Shackleton with the Union Jack to carry on the expedition,
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Alfred Lansing (Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage)
“
On one trip, a group of men ran the blue Union Jack up to the forward yardarm
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Alfred Lansing (Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage)
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Then we went into “Nobody’s Fault.” This was one of the highlights of my creative career. If you listen really close to the front of “Nobody’s Fault,” there isn’t an intro to the song. I suggested to Joe that he turn his amp volume to 12 and the volume on his guitar off. Since the key of the song was an E, I suggested he start by fingering a D chord, and then turn the volume knob all the way up slowly. I told Brad to play an A chord, same dealio as Joe. Then Joe played a C, did the same thing—Brad played a G, Joe played a B-flat, Brad played an F, Joe played an A-flat, Brad played an E-flat, and then Joe and Brad both played a D chord. And when they played that D together, rolling the volume knob up with their pinkies—and holding it for a second—then the band came in on a crashing E chord like Hitler was at the door. I looked over and Jack Douglas was internally hemorrhaging with bliss. I was in the middle of the room with my headphones on (which we called “cans”) and a live mic in front of me, because I loved singing live vocals as the band tracked. It always seemed to incite a little riot inside of everyone. Right before the band came in on the downbeat, the union engineer from Columbia marked his presence for all time by opening the door right in the middle of that sweet silence. He had a clarinet in his hand that wound up on the front of “Pandora’s Box,” but that’s another story. You can actually hear the door opening in “Nobody’s Fault” to this day and it somehow seems to get louder and louder with each play, only ’cause you know it’s there now.
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Steven Tyler (Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?: A Rock 'n' Roll Memoir)
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Union Jacks: Yankee Sailors in the Civil War (2004) concentrates on the Federal Navy. Unfortunately,
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Peter Kurtz (Bluejackets in the Blubber Room: A Biography of the William Badger, 1828-1865)
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In the rising of the sun and in its going down, we remember them.
In the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter, we remember them.
In the opening of buds and in the rebirth of spring, we remember them.
In the blueness of the sky and in the warmth of summer, we remember them.
In the rustling of leaves and in the beauty of autumn, we remember them.
In the beginning of the year and when it ends, we remember them.
When we are weary and in need of strength, we remember them.
When we are lost and sick at heart, we remember them.
When we have joys we yearn to share, we remember them.
So long as we live, they too shall live, for they are now a part of us, as we remember them.
~ Gates of Prayer
Read more:
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Sylvan Kamens and Jack Riemer, New Prayers for the High Holy Days, ed. Jack Riemer (Media Judaica, 1970): 36. See also Gates of Prayer: The New Union Prayer Book (Weekends, Sabbaths, and Festivals) (Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1975): 552.
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Central Conference of American Rabbis (Gates of Prayer for the House of Mourning the New Union Prayerbook)
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Perched on a dust-blown plain at the junction of the White Nile and Blue Nile, Khartoum had once been a British garrison town; its avenues were laid out in the form of the Union Jack.
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Steve Coll (Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan & Bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001)