“
Salaar Sikandar nay pichlay aath saalon mai Imama Hashim kay liye her jazba mehsoos kiya tha. Hiqaarat,tazheek,pachtaawa,nafrat,mohabbat sab kuch......Magar aaj wahan bethay pehli baar ussay Imama Hashim say hasad horaha tha.Thi kiya woh......?Aik aurat.....Zara si aurat....Asmaan ki hoor nahi thi....Salaar Sikandar jesay aadmi kay saamnay kiya auqaat thi uss ki. Kiya mera jesa I.Q Level tha uss
ka?Kiya meray jesi kamiyaabiyaan theen us ki?Kiya meray jesa kaam karsakti thi woh?Kiya meray jesa naam kama sakti thi?Kuch bhi nahi thi woh aur uss ko sab kuch plate mai rakh kar day diya aur main......Main jis ka I.Q Level 150+ hai mujhay saamnay ki cheezain dekhnay kay qaabil nahi rakha?Woh ab aankhon mai nami liye andheray mai wind screen say baahar dekhtay hue barbara raha tha."Mujhay bus iss qaabil kardiya kay main baahar nikloon aur duniya fatah kar loon.Woh duniya jis ki koi wuq'at hi nahi hai aur woh....woh...."Woh ruk gaya.Ussay Imama per ghussa araha tha.Aath saal pehlay ka waqt hota tu woh ussay "Bitch" kehta,tab Imama per ghussa anay per woh ussay yehi kaha karta tha magar aath saal kay baad aaj woh zabaan per uss kay liye gaali nahi la sakta tha.Woh Imama Hashim kay liye koi bura lafz nikalnay ki jurrat nahi kar sakta tha.Siraat-e-Mustaqeem per khud say bohat aagay khari uss aurat kay liye kaun zabaan say bura lag nikaal sakta tha?Apnay glasses utaar kar uss nay apni aankhain masleen.Uss kay andaaz mai shikast khoordagi thi."Pir-e-Kamil(S.A.W.W)......Siraat-e-Mustaqeem....Aath saal lagay thay,magar talash khatam hogayi thi.Jawab mil chuka tha.
”
”
Umera Ahmed
“
Standing on the yarndarm of the USS Constitution, looking down at Boston Harbor two hundred feet below, I wished I had the natural defences of a turkey buzzard. Then I could projectile-vomit on Percy Jackson and make him go away.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Ship of the Dead (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, #3))
“
There is no mono-we; there are many usses. The usses change and interleave.
”
”
Amal El-Mohtar (This Is How You Lose the Time War)
“
President Bush’s ‘Mission Accomplished,’ declaration from the USS Abraham Lincoln in 2003 was not just premature, but an untruth.
”
”
Greg Barron (Savage Tide)
“
Nine times out of 10, the most charming thing to say in any given situation will be the exact opposite of what one really feels.
”
”
Geoff Dyer (Another Great Day at Sea: Life Aboard the USS George H.W. Bush)
“
Captain James Kirk was named after Captain James Cook and the USS Enterprise was named after the HMS Endeavour. Star Trek’s catchphrase “to boldly go where no man has gone before” was inspired by Cook’s journal entry “ambition leads me … farther than any other man has been before me”. Enterprise and Endeavour, the first and last space shuttles, were named after the ships of Kirk and Cook. There are bound to be other links between Captain Cook, Star Trek and the US Space Program and some Australian university will no doubt award a grant to explore this issue of undisputed national significance.
”
”
David Hunt (Girt (The Unauthorised History of Australia #1))
“
Gunaah ka bojh kiya hota hai aur aadmi apnay gunaah kay bojh ko kiss tarah qayaamat kay din apni pusht say utaar phainkna chahay ga kiss tarah uss say door bhaagna chahay ga kiss tarah doosray kay kandhay per daal dena chahay ga,yeh uss ki samajh mai Haram Shareef mai pohanch kar aya tha.Wahan kharay ho kar woh apnay paas mojood aur anay wali saari zindagi ki daulat kay aiwaz bhi kisi ko woh guna
ah baichna chahta tu koi yeh tijarat na karta.Kaash aadmi kisi maal kay aiwaz apnay gunaah baich sakta.Kisi ujrat kay taur per doosron ki naikiyaan mangnay ka haq rakhta.Laakhon loagon kay iss hujoom mai 2 sufaid chaadarain orhay,kaun janta tha kay Salaar Sikandar kaun tha?Uss ka I.Q Level kiya tha.Kissay parwah thi?Uss kay paas kaun kaunsi aur kahan ki Degree thi.Kissay hosh tha?Uss nay zindagi kay Maidaan mai kitnay taleemi record toray aur banaye thay.Kissay khabar thi woh apnay zehan kay kaun say maidaan taskheer karnay wala tha.Kaun rashk karnay wala tha?Woh wahan uss hujoom mai thokar kha kar girta,Bhagdar mai ronda jata.Uss kay ooper say guzarnay wali khalqat mai say koi bhi yeh nahin sochta kay unhone kaisay dimaagh ko kho diya hai.Kiss I.Q Level kay nayaab aadmi ko kis tarah khatam kar diya tha.Ussay duniya mai apni auqaat,apni ahmiyat ka pata chal gaya tha.Agar kuch mughaalita reh bhi gaya tha tu ab khatam hogaya tha.Agar kuch shubah baaqi tha,tu ab door hogaya tha.Fakhar,takabbur,rashk,ana,khudpasandi,khud sataayishi kay her bachay hue tukray ko nichor kar uss nay andar say phaink diya tha.Woh in hi alaaishon ko door karwanay kay liye wahan aya tha.
”
”
Umera Ahmed
“
An Urdu couplet by one of his favorite poets, Mir Taqi Mir: Jis sar ko ghurur aaj hai yaan taj-vari ka Kal uss pe yahin shor hai phir nauhagari ka The head which today proudly flaunts a crown Will tomorrow, right here, in lamentation drown.
”
”
Arundhati Roy (The Ministry of Utmost Happiness)
“
It's striking how many of the world's biggest problems, and many of the small ones too. are eliminated by the simplest of solutions – having women around.
”
”
Geoff Dyer (Another Great Day at Sea: Life Aboard the USS George H.W. Bush)
“
He belonged to the men who have cared for great things, not to bring themselves honor, but because doing great things could alone satisfy their natures.
”
”
Hampton Sides (In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette)
“
He walked straight out of college into the waiting arms of the Navy.
They gave him an intelligence test. The first question on the math part had to do with boats on a river: Port Smith is 100 miles upstream of Port Jones. The river flows at 5 miles per hour. The boat goes through water at 10 miles per hour. How long does it take to go from Port Smith to Port Jones? How long to come back?
Lawrence immediately saw that it was a trick question. You would have to be some kind of idiot to make the facile assumption that the current would add or subtract 5 miles per hour to or from the speed of the boat. Clearly, 5 miles per hour was nothing more than the average speed. The current would be faster in the middle of the river and slower at the banks. More complicated variations could be expected at bends in the river. Basically it was a question of hydrodynamics, which could be tackled using certain well-known systems of differential equations. Lawrence dove into the problem, rapidly (or so he thought) covering both sides of ten sheets of paper with calculations. Along the way, he realized that one of his assumptions, in combination with the simplified Navier Stokes equations, had led him into an exploration of a particularly interesting family of partial differential equations. Before he knew it, he had proved a new theorem. If that didn't prove his intelligence, what would?
Then the time bell rang and the papers were collected. Lawrence managed to hang onto his scratch paper. He took it back to his dorm, typed it up, and mailed it to one of the more approachable math professors at Princeton, who promptly arranged for it to be published in a Parisian mathematics journal.
Lawrence received two free, freshly printed copies of the journal a few months later, in San Diego, California, during mail call on board a large ship called the U.S.S. Nevada. The ship had a band, and the Navy had given Lawrence the job of playing the glockenspiel in it, because their testing procedures had proven that he was not intelligent enough to do anything else.
”
”
Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon)
“
Where does a man go when there are no more corners to turn, when he's running out of hope, out of luck, out of time?
”
”
Doug Stanton (In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors)
“
PROFESSOR EMERITUS WOTAN Ulm, of the University of Oxford East 5, author of the bestselling if controversial memoir Peer Reviewers and Other Idiots: A Life In Academia, had consented to give a recorded lecture on von Neumann replicators to be carried as briefing material on the US Navy twain USS Brian Cowley.
”
”
Terry Pratchett (The Long Utopia (The Long Earth #4))
“
Kaun bata sakta hai yeh mulaqaat pehli yaan aakhri hai..
Na jaane kitni baar mil chuka hoon tujhse aur kitni baar abhi milna baaki hai...
Har daur mein hota hai koi kirdaar mere jaisa..
Na jaane kitne qisson me zikar hai mera aur kitni kahaniyon mein abhi likhna baaki hai...
Sadiyon se chal hoon ekk kaafile ke saath saath..
Na Jaane kin Manzilon ki talaash hai aur kahan abhi Pahunchna baaki hai...
Suna hai Sau raaste jaate hai usski jaanib ki taraf ...
mujhe ek bhi nai mila, lagta hai nasamajh kadmon ka abhi Bhatkna baaki hai...
Na thama hai, na hi thamega yeh ranjishon ka silsilaa 'Mehram..
Na jaane kitni dafa toota hoon abhi kitna aur bikhrana baaki hai...
Khwabon me khawab dekh raha hai ek mitti ka bhut zameen pe..
Uske Khwabon ki ajal mein bas Palkon ka jhapkana baaki hai...
Wajood-e-adam ke dayaron se nikal toh chuki hai zaat meri..
Bas saanson ka rukna aur rooh ka bicharna baaki hai..
Uss roshni ki talaash mein jo phir raha hai dar-ba-dar...
Dekh Patangey ney Samait liya haunsla usme Jitnaa abhi baaki hai...
Kaun bata sakta hai yeh mulaqaat pehli yaan aakhri hai
Na jaane kitni baar mil chuka hoon tujhse aur kitni baar abhi milna baaki hai...
”
”
Jasz Gill
“
I always like to be in the presence of people who are good at and love their jobs, Irrespective of their jobs.
”
”
Geoff Dyer (Another Great Day at Sea: Life Aboard the USS George H.W. Bush)
“
<\ But this winter won't last, darlin'.
>> * Not forever
>> (.....\\ . > And when new hands
>> set to tending this earth they'll
till my pieces under.
> > Grind them into the veins of
g0ld I've laid.
<\ Then the roots of all they plant wi\\
> wind around usS---
<\ KEEPING
<\ US
<\ CLOSE--- \
\
<\ For an eternal summer that will not
fade.
”
”
Joseph Staten (Halo: Contact Harvest)
“
Don't die with the story inside!
”
”
Gary D. Drechsel (USS Clairvoyant)
“
He became more and more intrigued by the Arctic, by its lonely grandeur, by its mirages and strange tricks of light, its mock moons and blood-red halos, its thick, misty atmospheres, which altered and magnified sounds, leaving the impression that one was living under a dome.
”
”
Hampton Sides (In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette)
“
The USS Cole was a billion-dollar command and attack ship equipped with computer-linked radar that could follow more than one hundred airplanes, ships, and missile targets at once. It had relatively little defense, however, against three suicide bombers in a thousand-dollar skiff.
”
”
Steve Coll (Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan & Bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001)
“
Today’s Congress is a polarized, dysfunctional body, rendered helpless by partisanship, more focused on scoring short-term political points than on solving our nation’s urgent problems. In short, the Washington of the past decade has been awash in nincompoopery.USS* And that was before Trump.
”
”
Al Franken (Al Franken, Giant of the Senate)
“
although I was as zealous in my anti-faith as Paul was in his belief I would be lying if I did not confess to a slight chink in my armour of nonbelief.
”
”
Geoff Dyer (Another Great Day at Sea: Life Aboard the USS George H.W. Bush)
“
There was something very American about this ability to dwell constantly in the realm of the improvable superlative.
”
”
Geoff Dyer (Another Great Day at Sea: Life Aboard the USS George H.W. Bush)
“
He was the subject of a little respectful ribbing. But he was, of course, the captain, which meant he had to do lots of the ribbing himself.
”
”
Geoff Dyer (Another Great Day at Sea: Life Aboard the USS George H.W. Bush)
“
If you help them (the crew) create good memories, they'll forget all the bad stuff
”
”
Geoff Dyer (Another Great Day at Sea: Life Aboard the USS George H.W. Bush)
“
Janeway enters from her office, which on the USS Voyager was called the captain’s ready room, and walks slowly through the bridge, greeting each officer in turn.
”
”
Kate Mulgrew (Born with Teeth)
“
Bhaisaab spinner ko spinner batsmen banata hein! Agar usse aap ball spin hi naa karne do, aur pehli hi over me usse bahar pheink do woh zindagi bhar spin nahi karega.
”
”
Vikram Sathaye (How Sachin Destroyed My Life ...but gave me an All Access Pass to the world of cricket)
“
I need to talk to one of the Zuulaman Blood," Andulvar said.
"They are gone," Draca replied.
"From Terreille, yes. But there must be some who are demon-dead. You could arrange this."
"They are gone," she repeated. "The Dark Realm wass purged of Zuulaman Blood."
Andulvar grabbed one of the chairs that surrounded the table to keep himself upright. "You purged Hell ?"
"No."
"Then... ?"
"The Prince of the Darknesss. The High Lord of Hell." Draca stared at him. "Grief wass the hammer they ussed to break hiss control. Rage wass the forge in which he sshaped hiss power into a weapon."
"So there's no one left."
"There's no one left," Geoffrey agreed. He looked at Draca. "If Saetan did what we think he did, there isn't a shard of pottery, a scrap of cloth, or a line from a poem, story, or song left that came from the Zuulaman people. There isn't any trace of them in any of the Realms."
Including the islands they came from, Andulvar thought, feeling sick.
"It's as if they never existed," Geoffrey said.
”
”
Anne Bishop (Dreams Made Flesh (The Black Jewels, #5))
“
Muir now could see that this icy wilderness was as vulnerable as it was vast—marked by fragile rhythms of migration, interdependencies of population, and patterns of habit many thousands of years in the making.
”
”
Hampton Sides (In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette)
“
furniture n.
habitability improvements (U.S. Navy)
The U.S. Navy paid $31,672 for a couch, 20 dining room chairs, and a loveseat for the destroyer USS Kidd. The furniture was called "habitability improvements.
”
”
William D. Lutz (Doublespeak Defined: Cut Through the Bull**** and Get the Point!)
“
US Ship: Please change course 0.5 degrees to the south to avoid a collision. CND reply: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision. US Ship: This is the Captain of a US Navy Ship. I say again, divert your course. CND reply: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course! US Ship: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS CORAL SEA, WE ARE A LARGE WARSHIP OF THE US NAVY. DIVERT YOUR COURSE NOW!! CND reply: This is a lighthouse. Your call.
”
”
Presh Talwalkar (The Joy of Game Theory: An Introduction to Strategic Thinking)
“
I saw no unity of purpose, no consensus on matters of philosophy or history or law. The very facts were shrouded in uncertainty: Was it a civil war? A war of national liberation or simple aggression? Who started it, and when, and why? What really happened to the USS Maddox on that dark night in the Gulf of Tonkin? Was Ho Chi Minh a Communist stooge, or a nationalist savior, or both, or neither? What about the Geneva Accords? What about SEATO and the Cold War? What about dominoes? America was divided on these and a thousand other issues, and the debate had spilled out across the floor of the United States Senate and into the streets, and smart men in pinstripes could not agree on even the most fundamental matters of public policy. The only certainty that summer was moral confusion.
”
”
Tim O'Brien (The Things They Carried)
“
Koi zid thee ki kya kaha aur likha, kara gaya, usse zyada zaroori lagne laga ki kisne kaha aur kisne likha ya kiya.
sabke naam bhari matlab rakne lage the.
A willfulness (in me), that more important than what was said and written or done was who said it and who wrote or who did.
All our names came to be loaded with meaning.
”
”
Geetanjali Shree
“
यह चाँद उदित होकर नभ में कुछ ताप मिटाता जीवन का,
लहरालहरा यह शाखाएँ कुछ शोक भुला देती मन का,
कल मुर्झानेवाली कलियाँ हँसकर कहती हैं मगन रहो,
बुलबुल तरु की फुनगी पर से संदेश सुनाती यौवन का,
तुम देकर मदिरा के प्याले मेरा मन बहला देती हो,
उस पार मुझे बहलाने का उपचार न जाने क्या होगा!
इस पार, प्रिये मधु है तुम हो, उस पार न जाने क्या होगा!
”
”
हरिवंश राय बच्चन
“
By the time he got to Baghdad, the war was over. President Bush said so, from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln. He said the mission was accomplished, and that made Billy and the jarheads in his regiment “peacekeepers.” In Baghdad he had felt welcomed, even loved. Women and children threw flowers. Men yelled nahn nihubu amerikaan, we love America.
”
”
Stephen King (Billy Summers)
“
Vice President Gore, Richard Clarke, and Madeleine Albright were “strong support[ers]” of the program, joining in President Clinton’s “intense” interest in it.5 Egypt’s most famous terrorist, Talaat Fouad Qassem, was “seized in Croatia, flown to the USS Adriatic, a navy warship, interrogated, then flown to Egypt for [torture and] execution.”6 Egypt’s secret police, the Gihaz al-Mukhabarat al-Amma, is widely known for its brutal torture regime, “real Macho interrogation . . . enhanced interrogation techniques on steroids” and was used by both Presidents Bush and Clinton.7 Congress attempted to end this program in 1998. The Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act slipped in a passage making it the policy of the United States not to “expel, extradite, or otherwise effect the involuntary return of any person to a country in which there are substantial grounds for believing the person would be in danger of being subjected to torture, regardless of whether the person is physically present in the United States.”8 Clinton vetoed the bill in late October,
”
”
Andrew P. Napolitano (Suicide Pact: The Radical Expansion of Presidential Powers and the Lethal Threat to American Liberty)
“
As the Jeannette drew nearer to the equator, the waters became oily calm and teemed with eels, tortoises, and dolphins.
”
”
Hampton Sides (In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette)
“
Yakutsk was widely considered the coldest city on earth—a designation it still holds today—and the world’s largest city built entirely on permafrost.
”
”
Hampton Sides (In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette)
“
The U.S.’s most abundant and labor-intensive crop is pure, unadulterated ornamentation.*
”
”
John Green (The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet)
“
. . . the sun set . . . with guillotine-like speed this close to the equator.
”
”
Doug Stanton (In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors)
“
A stagnant navy,” noted one maritime scholar, “was no place for a man on the make.
”
”
Hampton Sides (In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette)
“
a sense that history had passed them by, that their brothers and fathers and uncles had participated in something momentous while they had not.
”
”
Hampton Sides (In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette)
“
the water. The rafts also afforded them
”
”
Pete Nelson (Left for Dead: A Young Man's Search for Justice for the USS Indianapolis)
“
Isn’t antimatter what fuels the U.S.S.
Enterprise?
”
”
Dan Brown (Angels & Demons (Robert Langdon, #1))
“
Other objects found in shark stomachs include a suit of armor, a barrel of nails, a roll of tar paper, coal, raincoats, shoes, plastic bags, goats, sheep, lizards, snakes, chicken, reindeer, and monkeys.
”
”
Doug Stanton (In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors)
“
I’ve always been intimidated by gyms, have never been able to enjoy the towel-round-the-shoulder confidence of somebody who knows he can bench-press 250 pounds, or even knows what that means or how much 250 pounds weighs. I just know I don’t like lifting heavy things, especially since I had this wrist injury which stopped me playing tennis and which means that I’ve gone from being fit and thin-looking to just a feeble streak of unshouldered manhood whose only saving grace is that he doesn’t take up much space, who leaves plenty of room for others—especially now that I was several days into a quasi-hunger strike.
”
”
Geoff Dyer (Another Great Day at Sea: Life Aboard the USS George H.W. Bush)
“
She and Don were taken to a hangar where a pair of F-15 fighter jets were waiting: his and hers, as it turned out. “Why?” Don asked uneasily. “We’re taking you to the U.S.S. William Jefferson Clinton.” “An aircraft carrier?
”
”
Thomas Waite (Trident Code (Lana Elkins #2))
“
Jake, did you see anything? I didn’t.” “Nothing, Captain.” “Astrogator?” “Just blankness. Please, can we have the lights on?” I flipped on the overhead lights. “Science Officer?” “USS Enterprise being chased by a Klingon cruiser.” “Sharpie, that’s a false report. The Enterprise doesn’t run from just one Klingon cruiser.” “It was going boldly where no man has gone before. Aside from that, I didn’t see a thing. Let’s try another universe; this one stinks.
”
”
Robert A. Heinlein (The Pursuit of the Pankera: A Parallel Novel About Parallel Universes)
“
In June of 1968, a month after graduating from Macalester College, I was drafted to fight a war I hated. I was twenty-one years old. Young, yes, and politically naive, but even so the American war in Vietnam seemed to me wrong. Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons. I saw no unity of purpose, no consensus on matters of philosophy or history or law. The very facts were shrouded in uncertainty: Was it a civil war? A war of national liberation or simple aggression? Who started it, and when, and why? What really happened to the USS Maddox on that dark night in the Gulf of Tonkin? Was Ho Chi Minh a Communist stooge, or a nationalist savior, or both, or neither? What about the Geneva Accords? What about SEATO and the Cold War? What about dominoes? America was divided on these and a thousand other issues, and the debate had spilled out across the floor of the United States Senate and into the streets, and smart men in pinstripes could not agree on even the most fundamental matters of public policy. The only certainty that summer was moral confusion. It was my view then, and still is, that you don’t make war without knowing why. Knowledge, of course, is always imperfect, but it seemed to me that when a nation goes to war it must have reasonable confidence in the justice and imperative of its cause. You can’t fix your mistakes. Once people are dead, you can’t make them undead.
”
”
Tim O'Brien (The Things They Carried)
“
Apparently this was based on postings on the Internet, and I thought it all ridiculous, not quite sure who these Ripperologists were. I joked that their threat brought to mind Klingons in formation ready to fire upon the U.S.S. Enterprise.
”
”
Patricia Cornwell (Chasing the Ripper)
“
The Vikings spoke of a place at the world’s northern rim, sometimes called Ultima Thule, where the oceans emptied into a vast hole that recharged all the springs and rivers on the earth. The Greeks believed in a realm called Hyperborea that lay far to the north. A place of eternal spring where the sun never set, Hyperborea was said to be bordered by the mighty River Okeanos and the Riphean Mountains, where lived the griffins—formidable beasts that were half lion and half eagle. The notion that Saint Nicholas—a.k.a. Kris Kringle or Santa Claus—lives at the North Pole seems to have a much more recent vintage. The earliest known reference to Saint Nick’s polar residence comes from a Thomas Nast cartoon in an 1866 issue of Harper’s Weekly—the artist captioned a collection of his Yuletide engravings “Santa Claussville, N.P.”Still, the larger idea behind Nast’s conceit—of a warm, jolly, beneficent place at the apex of the world where people might live—had ancient roots, and it spoke to America’s consuming fascination with the North Pole throughout the 1800s.
”
”
Hampton Sides (In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette)
“
Let me be candid. If I had to rank book-acquisition experiences in order of comfort, ease, and satisfaction, the list would go like this: 1. The perfect independent bookstore, like Pygmalion in Berkeley. 2. A big, bright Barnes & Noble. I know they’re corporate, but let’s face it—those stores are nice. Especially the ones with big couches. 3. The book aisle at Walmart. (It’s next to the potting soil.) 4. The lending library aboard the U.S.S. West Virginia, a nuclear submarine deep beneath the surface of the Pacific. 5. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore.
”
”
Robin Sloan (Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, #1))
“
McCoy, drained and hollow-eyed, couldn't take his eyes off the life vest belonging to the boy who'd slipped away from the group during the night. The empty vest spooked McCoy. All its straps were still tightly tied-it looked like some trick that Houdini might've played. Then McCoy peered into the water and got another shock: the boy was floating below him, spread-eagled, about fifteen feet below the surface. He lay motionless until a current caught him; then it was as if he were flying in the depths. Jesus, McCoy thought, Mother of God. He started saying the rosary over and over. McCoy had never been overly religious; his mom was the spiritual one in the family. But now he began the process of what he'd later call his purification; he'd started asking God to forgive him of his sins. He was resolved to live but he was getting ready to die.
”
”
Doug Stanton (In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors)
“
The notion that Saint Nicholas—a.k.a. Kris Kringle or Santa Claus—lives at the North Pole seems to have a much more recent vintage. The earliest known reference to Saint Nick’s polar residence comes from a Thomas Nast cartoon in an 1866 issue of Harper’s Weekly—the artist captioned a collection of his Yuletide engravings “Santa Claussville, N.P.” Still, the larger idea behind Nast’s conceit—of a warm, jolly, beneficent place at the apex of the world where people might live—had ancient roots, and it spoke to America’s consuming fascination with the North Pole throughout the 1800s.
”
”
Hampton Sides (In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette)
“
The sharks had, in fact, remained a constant presence throughout the men's ordeal, even during the daylight hours. Not long after [navy pilot] Gwinn showed up, a massive shark attack--involving an estimated thirty fish--had, in about fifteen minutes, taken some sixty boys perched on a floater net.
”
”
Doug Stanton (In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors)
“
There is a long history, in the U.S. and elsewhere, of removing children as a means of political control. If this strikes a nerve with you—as I hope it does—please learn more about the many instances, both past and ongoing, in which children have been taken from their families: the separations of enslaved families, government boarding schools for Indigenous children (such as that in Carlisle, PA), the inequities built into the foster care system, the separations of migrant families still occurring at the U.S.’s southern border, and beyond. Much more attention needs to be brought to this subject, but Laura Briggs’s Taking Children: A History
”
”
Celeste Ng (Our Missing Hearts)
“
The North Korean capital, Pyongyang, is a city consecrated to the worship of a father-son dynasty. (I came to think of them, with their nuclear-family implications, as 'Fat Man and Little Boy.') And a river runs through it. And on this river, the Taedong River, is moored the only American naval vessel in captivity. It was in January 1968 that the U.S.S. Pueblo strayed into North Korean waters, and was boarded and captured. One sailor was killed; the rest were held for nearly a year before being released. I looked over the spy ship, its radio antennae and surveillance equipment still intact, and found photographs of the captain and crew with their hands on their heads in gestures of abject surrender. Copies of their groveling 'confessions,' written in tremulous script, were also on show. So was a humiliating document from the United States government, admitting wrongdoing in the penetration of North Korean waters and petitioning the 'D.P.R.K.' (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) for 'lenience.' Kim Il Sung ('Fat Man') was eventually lenient about the men, but not about the ship. Madeleine Albright didn't ask to see the vessel on her visit last October, during which she described the gruesome, depopulated vistas of Pyongyang as 'beautiful.' As I got back onto the wharf, I noticed a refreshment cart, staffed by two women under a frayed umbrella. It didn't look like much—one of its three wheels was missing and a piece of brick was propping it up—but it was the only such cart I'd see. What toothsome local snacks might the ladies be offering? The choices turned out to be slices of dry bread and cups of warm water.
Nor did Madeleine Albright visit the absurdly misnamed 'Demilitarized Zone,' one of the most heavily militarized strips of land on earth. Across the waist of the Korean peninsula lies a wasteland, roughly following the 38th parallel, and packed with a titanic concentration of potential violence. It is four kilometers wide (I have now looked apprehensively at it from both sides) and very near to the capital cities of both North and South. On the day I spent on the northern side, I met a group of aging Chinese veterans, all from Szechuan, touring the old battlefields and reliving a war they helped North Korea nearly win (China sacrificed perhaps a million soldiers in that campaign, including Mao Anying, son of Mao himself). Across the frontier are 37,000 United States soldiers. Their arsenal, which has included undeclared nuclear weapons, is the reason given by Washington for its refusal to sign the land-mines treaty. In August 1976, U.S. officers entered the neutral zone to trim a tree that was obscuring the view of an observation post. A posse of North Koreans came after them, and one, seizing the ax with which the trimming was to be done, hacked two U.S. servicemen to death with it. I visited the ax also; it's proudly displayed in a glass case on the North Korean side.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens (Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays)
“
IN OCTOBER 2006, A US NAVAL SUPERCARRIER GROUP LED by the 1,000-foot USS Kitty Hawk was confidently sailing through the East China Sea between southern Japan and Taiwan, minding everyone’s business, when, without warning, a Chinese navy submarine surfaced in the middle of the group. An American aircraft carrier of that size is surrounded by about twelve other warships, with air cover above and submarine cover below. The Chinese vessel, a Song-class attack submarine, may well be very quiet when running on electric power but, still, this was the equivalent to Pepsi-Cola’s management popping up in a Coca-Cola board meeting after listening under the table for half an hour.
”
”
Tim Marshall (Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics)
“
I’ve been around the world twice, talked to everyone once, seen two whales fuck, been to three world fairs, and I even know a man in Thailand with a wooden cock. Push more peter, more sweeter and more completer than any other peter pusher around. I’m a hard bodied, hairy chested, rootin, tootin, shootin, parachutin, demolition double cap crimping, Frogman. “There ain’t nothing I can’t do, no sky too high, no sea to rough, no muff too tough. “Learnt a lot of lessons in my life, never shoot a large calibre man with a small calibre bullet. Drive all kinds of truck 2 bys, 4 bys, 6 bys, those big motherfuckers that bend and go tshhhh, tshhhh, when you step on the breaks. Anything in life worth doing, is worth overdoing, moderation is for cowards. I’m a lover, I’m a fighter, I’m a UDT Navy Seal Diver, I wine, dine, intertwine and sneak out the back door when the revealing is done. So, if you’re feeling froggy you better jump because this Frogman’s been there, done that, and is going back for more. Cheers Boys!
”
”
Stephen Makk (The Iranian Blockade (USS Stonewall Jackson #4))
“
a curious gizmo that a bearded Scotsman named Alexander Graham Bell was calling his “telephone.” (Bell would read from Hamlet’s soliloquy at one end of the hall, and attendees at the other could plainly hear the inventor’s voice issuing from a little speaker. “My God, it talks!” exclaimed one prominent visitor, Emperor Dom Pedro of Brazil.)
”
”
Hampton Sides (In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette)
“
general trend is toward products that use fewer atoms. We might not notice this because, while individual items use less material, we use more items as the economy expands and we thus accumulate more stuff in total. However, the total amount of material we use per GDP dollar is going down, which means we use less material for greater value. The ratio of mass needed to generate a unit of GDP has been falling for 150 years, declining even faster in the last two decades. In 1870 it took 4 kilograms of stuff to generate one unit of the U.S.’s GDP. In 1930 it took only one kilogram. Recently the value of GDP per kilogram of inputs rose from $1.64 in 1977 to $3.58 in 2000—a doubling of dematerialization in 23 years.
”
”
Kevin Kelly (The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future)
“
Nero, who ruled from 54–68 AD, had found the formula to solve this, which was highly similar to Keynes's solution to Britain's and the U.S.'s problems after World War I: devaluing the currency would at once reduce the real wages of workers, reduce the burden of the government in subsidizing staples, and provide increased money for financing other government expenditure. The aureus coin was reduced from 8 to 7.2 grams, while the denarius's silver content was reduced from 3.9 to 3.41g. This provided some temporary relief, but had set in motion the highly destructive self-reinforcing cycle of popular anger, price controls, coin debasement, and price rises, following one another with the predictable regularity of the four seasons.
”
”
Saifedean Ammous (The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking)
“
stitched it up, but the German went about his work without a whimper, refusing to go on the sick list even for a day. “Nindemann is hardworking as a horse,” said De Long, and “seems to know no such thing as fatigue.” Nindemann was also oblivious to cold. His circulation appeared to be different from other men’s. On freezing winter hunts, he wore hardly any clothes. He kept his cabin colder than everyone else’s. His feet were inured to frost. He was a polar creature, through and
”
”
Hampton Sides (In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette)
“
For the survivors, the disaster of the Indy is their My Lai massacre or Watergate, a touchstone moment of historic disappointment: the navy put them in harm's way, hundreds of men died violently, and then the government refused to acknowledge its culpability.
What's amazing, however, is that these men, unlike contemporary generations who've been disappointed by bad government, are not bitter. Somehow, a majority brushed aside their feelings of rancor and went on to help build the booming postwar American economy of the fifties.
”
”
Doug Stanton (In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors)
“
Tesla's 1895 incident have any bearing on persistent rumors that the alleged "Philadelphia Experiment" may have been possible due to contributions from Tesla? These allegations have come from people such as Al Bielek who said that Tesla helped design the electrical equipment used on the U.S.S. Eldridge. Bielek states that Tesla became concerned that his equipment would once again warp time and space and have dire consequences for the sailors onboard. However, the Navy ignored Tesla's objections and continued on with their experiments.
”
”
Tim R. Swartz (The Lost Journals of Nikola Tesla: Time Travel - Alternative Energy and the Secret of Nazi Flying Saucers)
“
THE PREGNANT-NAVY SYNDROME It isn’t politically correct to even discuss this in the services, but. . . a large percentage of women soldiers are electively aborting their fetuses after they’ve served their purpose of enabling them to avoid their tour of duty in Operation Desert Storm. . . . It is wrong to use a fetus to shirk the responsibility for which you have signed up, and then to kill that fetus. —NAME WITHHELD, Army-Physician, Kuwait22 The mentality of valuing self also produces the “Pregnant-Navy Syndrome”: the phenomenon of a woman benefiting from the technical training and then, just prior to her ship’s being deployed, becoming pregnant so as to qualify for shore leave and not being deployed; or becoming pregnant immediately after her ship is deployed, thus allowing her increasingly to shirk responsibilities, forcing her shipmates to pick up the slack. This is all compatible with valuing self, but in a military situation—when more than .40 percent of the women on ships like the USS Acadia become pregnant during workup for deployment23—this bailing out puts men’s lives in danger.
”
”
Warren Farrell (The Myth of Male Power)
“
With one final flip the quarter flew high into the air and came down on the mattress with a light bounce. It jumped several inches off the bed, high enough for the instructor to catch it in his hand. Swinging around to face me, the instructor looked me in the eye and nodded. He never said a word. Making my bed correctly was not going to be an opportunity for praise. It was expected of me. It was my first task of the day, and doing it right was important. It demonstrated my discipline. It showed my attention to detail, and at the end of the day it would be a reminder that I had done something well, something to be proud of, no matter how small the task. Throughout my life in the Navy, making my bed was the one constant that I could count on every day. As a young SEAL ensign aboard the USS Grayback, a special operation submarine, I was berthed in sick bay, where the beds were stacked four high. The salty old doctor who ran sick bay insisted that I make my rack every morning. He often remarked that if the beds were not made and the room was not clean, how could the sailors expect the best medical care? As I later found out, this sentiment of cleanliness and order applied to every aspect of military life. Thirty years later, the Twin Towers came down in New York City. The Pentagon was struck, and brave Americans died in an airplane over Pennsylvania. At the time of the attacks, I was recuperating in my home from a serious parachute accident. A hospital bed had been wheeled into my government quarters, and I spent most of the day lying on my back, trying to recover. I wanted out of that bed more than anything else. Like every SEAL I longed to be with my fellow warriors in the fight. When I was finally well enough to lift myself unaided from the bed, the first thing I did was pull the sheets up tight, adjust the pillow, and make sure the hospital bed looked presentable to all those who entered my home. It was my way of showing that I had conquered the injury and was moving forward with my life. Within four weeks of 9/11, I was transferred to the White House, where I spent the next two years in the newly formed Office of Combatting Terrorism. By October 2003, I was in Iraq at our makeshift headquarters on the Baghdad airfield. For the first few months we slept on Army cots. Nevertheless, I would wake every morning, roll up my sleeping bag, place the pillow at the head of the cot, and get ready for the day.
”
”
William H. McRaven (Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...And Maybe the World)
“
You don't know the power of the dark side
Space the final frontier
I'm iron man
It can't rain all the time
Cowabunga
Babe with the power
What if I'm not the hero. What if I'm the bad guy?
It is extraordinary thing to meet someone who you can bear your soul to and accept you for what you are.
That's the thing about the truth. It'll set you free, but first it'll really piss you off!
I make out with a girl, I start turnin intro one. You gotta admit that's a little weird.
C'mon, luke you get turned on by two scoops of I've cream.
It doesn't take X-Ray vision to see you are up to no good.
It does not do well to dwell on dreams and forget to live.
”
”
Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes: the Novels)
“
During Bill Clinton’s presidency, the Palestinian terrorist Yasser Arafat was invited to spend more time in the White House than any other foreign leader—thirteen invitations.303 Clinton was dead set on helping the Israelis and Palestinians achieve a lasting peace. He pushed the Israelis to grant ever-greater concessions until the Israelis were willing to grant the Palestinians up to 98 percent of all the territory they requested. And what was the Palestinian response? They walked away from the bargaining table and launched the wave of suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks known as the Second Intifada. And what of Osama bin Laden? Even while America was granting concessions to Palestinians—and thereby theoretically easing the conditions that provided much of the pretext for Muslim terror—bin Laden was bombing U.S. embassies in Africa, almost sank the USS Cole in Yemen, and was well into the planning stages of the catastrophic attacks of September 11, 2001. After President George W. Bush ordered U.S. forces to invade Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003, respectively, bringing American troops into direct ground combat with jihadists half a world away, many Americans quickly forgot the recent past and blamed American acts of self-defense for “inflaming” jihad. One of those Americans was Barack Obama. Soon after his election, Obama traveled to Cairo, Egypt, where he delivered a now-infamous speech that signaled America’s massive policy shifts. The United States pulled entirely out of Iraq despite the pleas of “all the major Iraqi parties.”304 In Egypt, the United States actually backed the Muslim Brotherhood government, going so far as agreeing to give it advanced F-16 fighters and M1 Abrams main battle tanks, even as the Muslim Brotherhood government was violating its peace treaty with Israel and persecuting Egypt’s ancient Coptic Christian community. The Obama administration continued supporting the Brotherhood, even when it stood aside and allowed jihadists to storm the American embassy, raising the black flag of jihad over an American diplomatic facility. In Libya, the United States persuaded its allies to come to the aid of a motley group of rebels, including jihadists. Then many of these same jihadists promptly turned their anger on the United States, attacking our diplomatic compound in Benghazi the afternoon and evening of September 11, 2012—killing the American ambassador and three more brave Americans. Compounding this disaster, the administration had steadfastly refused to reinforce the American security presence in spite of a deteriorating security situation, afraid that it would anger the local population. This naïve and foolish administration decision cost American lives.
”
”
Jay Sekulow (Rise of ISIS: A Threat We Can't Ignore)
“
Before 1975, if you knew the name Howard Sackler it was because he was the author behind the 1969 Broadway play The Great White Hope, which won Sackler the Tony and New York Drama Critics Circle award as the year’s Best Play as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. A friend of film producer David Brown, Sackler accepted the offer to do a re-write on Jaws author Peter Benchley’s script for the film version of his novel. Sackler’s main contribution to the story was the back story that the shark fisherman, Quint, derived his hatred for sharks from having survived the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis in July of 1945 (in the film, Quint errantly states the date as “June the 29th, 1945”).
”
”
Louis R. Pisano (Jaws 2: The Making of the Hollywood Sequel)
“
We took enough depth charge damage that I decided we had no choice but to go up and fight him with our deck gun.” Jarvis grinned, “Our skipper likes to do that too. Charge into battle with guns blazing.” Williams and the Admiral smiled, but Turner noted that neither of the S-52 officers did. Waters only lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply before continuing. “Yeah, but you’ve got a fancy new fleet boat,” Waters replied to Jarvis, sounding a little miffed. “We’re in an old pig boat with a single four-inch. I sent my Exec and COB up top with gun crews and machine gunners to harass the destroyer. He cut us up pretty bad before a lucky shot from our deck gun hit his fantail and detonated the ashcans there… sunk the bastard,
”
”
Scott Cook (Tokyo Express: A WWII Submarine Adventure Novel (USS Bull Shark Naval Thriller series Book 4))
“
The panel delivery truck drew up before the front of the “Amsterdam Apartments” on 126th Street between Madison and Fifth Avenues. Words on its sides, barely discernible in the dim street light, read: LUNATIC LYNDON … I DELIVER AND INSTALL TELEVISION SETS ANY TIME OF DAY OR NIGHT ANY PLACE. Two uniformed delivery men alighted and stood on the sidewalk to examine an address book in the light of a torch. Dark faces were highlighted for a moment like masks on display and went out with the light. They looked up and down the street. No one was in sight. Houses were vague geometrical patterns of black against the lighter blackness of the sky. Crosstown streets were always dark. Above them, in the black squares of windows, crescent-shaped whites of eyes and quarter moons of yellow teeth bloomed like Halloween pumpkins. Suddenly voices bubbled in the night. “Lookin’ for somebody?” The driver looked up. “Amsterdam Apartments.” “These is they.” Without replying, the driver and his helper began unloading a wooden box. Stenciled on its side were the words: Acme Television “Satellite” A.406. “What that number?” someone asked. “Fo-o-six,” Sharp-eyes replied. “I’m gonna play it in the night house if I ain’t too late.” “What ya’ll got there, baby?” “Television set,” the driver replied shortly. “Who dat getting a television this time of night?” The delivery man didn’t reply. A man’s voice ventured, “Maybe it’s that bird liver on the third storey got all them mens.” A woman said scornfully, “Bird liver! If she bird liver I’se fish and eggs and I got a daughter old enough to has mens.” “… or not!” a male voice boomed. “What she got ’ill get television sets when you jealous old hags is fighting over mops and pails.” “Listen to the loverboy! When yo’ love come down last?” “Bet loverboy ain’t got none, bird liver or what.” “Ain’t gonna get none either. She don’t burn no coal.” “Not in dis life, next life maybe.” “You people make me sick,” a woman said from a group on the sidewalk that had just arrived. “We looking for the dead man and you talking ’bout tricks.” The two delivery men were silently struggling with the big television box but the new arrivals got in their way. “Will you ladies kindly move your asses and look for dead men sommers else,” the driver said. His voice sounded mean. “ ’Scuse me,” the lady said. “You ain’t got him, is you?” “Does I look like I’m carrying a dead man ’round in my pocket?” “Dead man! What dead man? What you folks playing?” a man called down interestedly. “Skin?” “Georgia skin? Where?” “Ain’t nobody playing no skin,” the lady said with disgust. “He’s one of us.” “Who?” “The dead man, that’s who.” “One of usses? Where he at?” “Where he at? He dead, that’s where he at.” “Let me get some green down on dead man’s row.” “Ain’t you the mother’s gonna play fo-o-six?” “Thass all you niggers thinks about,” the disgusted lady said. “Womens and hits!” “What else is they?” “Where yo’ pride? The white cops done killed one of usses and thass all you can think about.” “Killed ’im where?” “We don’t know where. Why you think we’s looking?” “You sho’ is a one-tracked woman. I help you look, just don’t call me nigger is all.
”
”
Chester Himes (Blind Man with a Pistol (Harlem Cycle, #8))
“
The last refuge of the Self, perhaps, is “physical continuity.” Despite the body’s mercurial nature, it feels like a badge of identity we have carried since the time of our earliest childhood memories. A thought experiment dreamed up in the 1980s by British philosopher Derek Parfit illustrates how important—yet deceiving—this sense of physical continuity is to us.15 He invites us to imagine a future in which the limitations of conventional space travel—of transporting the frail human body to another planet at relatively slow speeds—have been solved by beaming radio waves encoding all the data needed to assemble the passenger to their chosen destination. You step into a machine resembling a photo booth, called a teletransporter, which logs every atom in your body then sends the information at the speed of light to a replicator on Mars, say. This rebuilds your body atom by atom using local stocks of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and so on. Unfortunately, the high energies needed to scan your body with the required precision vaporize it—but that’s okay because the replicator on Mars faithfully reproduces the structure of your brain nerve by nerve, synapse by synapse. You step into the teletransporter, press the green button, and an instant later materialize on Mars and can continue your existence where you left off. The person who steps out of the machine at the other end not only looks just like you, but etched into his or her brain are all your personality traits and memories, right down to the memory of eating breakfast that morning and your last thought before you pressed the green button. If you are a fan of Star Trek, you may be perfectly happy to use this new mode of space travel, since this is more or less what the USS Enterprise’s transporter does when it beams its crew down to alien planets and back up again. But now Parfit asks us to imagine that a few years after you first use the teletransporter comes the announcement that it has been upgraded in such a way that your original body can be scanned without destroying it. You decide to give it a go. You pay the fare, step into the booth, and press the button. Nothing seems to happen, apart from a slight tingling sensation, but you wait patiently and sure enough, forty-five minutes later, an image of your new self pops up on the video link and you spend the next few minutes having a surreal conversation with yourself on Mars. Then comes some bad news. A technician cheerfully informs you that there have been some teething problems with the upgraded teletransporter. The scanning process has irreparably damaged your internal organs, so whereas your replica on Mars is absolutely fine and will carry on your life where you left off, this body here on Earth will die within a few hours. Would you care to accompany her to the mortuary? Now how do you feel? There is no difference in outcome between this scenario and what happened in the old scanner—there will still be one surviving “you”—but now it somehow feels as though it’s the real you facing the horror of imminent annihilation. Parfit nevertheless uses this thought experiment to argue that the only criterion that can rationally be used to judge whether a person has survived is not the physical continuity of a body but “psychological continuity”—having the same memories and personality traits as the most recent version of yourself. Buddhists
”
”
James Kingsland (Siddhartha's Brain: Unlocking the Ancient Science of Enlightenment)
“
most viable path toward the North Pole, Petermann insisted. “Perhaps I am wrong,” he told the Herald reporter, “but the way to show that is to give me the evidence. My idea is that if one door will not open, try another. If one route is marked with failures, try a new one. I have no ill will to any plan or expedition that means honest work in the Arctic regions.” But make no mistake, Petermann said, an Arctic voyage was dangerous work. He always underscored that point. “A great task must be greatly conceived,” he had written before one of the German polar expeditions. “For such tasks, one must be a great man, a great character. If you have doubts or scruples, back out now.” Petermann pledged to give Bennett’s expedition a full set of charts and maps of the Arctic and to help the expedition any other way he could. But beneath his enthusiasm for Bennett’s new
”
”
Hampton Sides (In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette)
“
A crash of thunder shakes the storage room, startling us both. Another one follows on its heels, causing Beau to lift his head and howl. I scoot over to his side, scratching him behind one ear. “It’s okay, buddy. We’re safe in here.” I hope, I add silently. “Look at Sadie. She’s not being a scaredy-cat. Oops, sorry, guys,” I toss over my shoulder toward the cats. “Just a figure of speech. How’s it going over there in the USS Enterprise?”
“You always talk to them like that?” Ryder asks me, his voice a little shaky.
“Pretty much.” I look at him sharply, noticing how pale he’s gotten. A muscle in his jaw is working furiously, and there’s a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. “Are you okay?”
He doesn’t get a chance to answer. Another clap of thunder reverberates throughout the small space, followed by a horrible cracking sound and then a terrifyingly loud crashing noise.
I rise to my knees, looking toward the door that leads out. “What the hell was that?”
Ryder reaches for me, his fingers circling my wrist in a manacling grip. “You can’t go out there, Jemma!”
I struggle to release myself. “I’ve got to see--”
“No! There’s a goddamned tornado out there. Shit!” He pulls me toward him, and I practically fall into his lap.
He’s shaking, I realize. Trembling all over. “What is wrong with you?” I ask him.
“What’s wrong with me?” His voice rises shrilly. “You’re the one trying to go out in a tornado. You’ve got to wait till the sirens quit.”
“I know. But crap, that sounded like something came through the roof.”
I scoot away from him, putting space between our bodies. I can smell him--soap and shampoo and the clean, crisp-smelling cologne he always wears. I can smell something else, too--fear. He’s terrified.
Of the storm?
”
”
Kristi Cook (Magnolia (Magnolia Branch, #1))
“
In 1786, Jefferson, then the American ambassador to France, and Adams, then the American ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the ambassador to Britain. The Americans wanted to negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress’ vote to appease. During the meeting Jefferson and Adams asked the ambassador why Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts. In a later meeting with the American Congress, the two future presidents reported that Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja had answered that Islam “was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Qur’an that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.” For the following 15 years, the American government paid the Muslims millions of dollars for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages. Most Americans do not know that the payments in ransom and Jizyah tribute amounted to 20 percent of United States government annual revenues in 1800. Not long after Jefferson’s inauguration as president in 1801, he dispatched a group of frigates to defend American interests in the Mediterranean, and informed Congress. Declaring that America was going to spend “millions for defense but not one cent for tribute,” Jefferson pressed the issue by deploying American Marines and many of America’s best warships to the Muslim Barbary Coast. The USS Constitution, USS Constellation, USS Philadelphia, USS Chesapeake, USS Argus, USS Syren and USS Intrepid all fought. In 1805, American Marines marched across the dessert from Egypt into Tripolitania, forcing the surrender of Tripoli and the freeing of all American slaves. During the Jefferson administration, the Muslim Barbary States, crumbled as a result of intense American naval bombardment and on shore raids by Marines. They finally agreed officially to abandon slavery and piracy. Jefferson’s victory over the Muslims lives on today in the Marine Hymn with the line “From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, we will fight our country’s battles on the land as on the sea.” It wasn’t until 1815 that the problem was fully settled by the total defeat of all the Muslim slave trading pirates.
”
”
Walid Shoebat (God's War on Terror: Islam, Prophecy and the Bible)
“
Another episode startled Trump’s advisers on the Asia trip. As the president and his entourage embarked on the journey, they stopped in Hawaii on November 3 to break up the long flight and allow Air Force One to refuel. White House aides arranged for the president and first lady to make a somber pilgrimage so many of their predecessors had made: to visit Pearl Harbor and honor the twenty-three hundred American sailors, soldiers, and marines who lost their lives there. The first couple was set to take a private tour of the USS Arizona Memorial, which sits just off the coast of Honolulu and straddles the hull of the battleship that sank into the Pacific during the Japanese surprise bombing attack in 1941. As a passenger boat ferried the Trumps to the stark white memorial, the president pulled Kelly aside for a quiet consult. “Hey, John, what’s this all about? What’s this a tour of?” Trump asked his chief of staff. Kelly was momentarily stunned. Trump had heard the phrase “Pearl Harbor” and appeared to understand that he was visiting the scene of a historic battle, but he did not seem to know much else. Kelly explained to him that the stealth Japanese attack here had devastated the U.S. Pacific Fleet and prompted the country’s entrance into World War II, eventually leading the United States to drop atom bombs on Japan. If Trump had learned about “a date which will live in infamy” in school, it hadn’t really pierced his consciousness or stuck with him. “He was at times dangerously uninformed,” said one senior former adviser. Trump’s lack of basic historical knowledge surprised some foreign leaders as well. When he met with President Emmanuel Macron of France at the United Nations back in September 2017, Trump complimented him on the spectacular Bastille Day military parade they had attended together that summer in Paris. Trump said he did not realize until seeing the parade that France had had such a rich history of military conquest. He told Macron something along the lines of “You know, I really didn’t know, but the French have won a lot of battles. I didn’t know.” A senior European official observed, “He’s totally ignorant of everything. But he doesn’t care. He’s not interested.” Tillerson developed a polite and self-effacing way to manage the gaps in Trump’s knowledge. If he saw the president was completely lost in the conversation with a foreign leader, other advisers noticed, the secretary of state would step in to ask a question. As Tillerson lodged his question, he would reframe the topic by explaining some of the basics at issue, giving Trump a little time to think. Over time, the president developed a tell that he would use to get out of a sticky conversation in which a world leader mentioned a topic that was totally foreign or unrecognizable to him. He would turn to McMaster, Tillerson
”
”
Philip Rucker (A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America)
“
Between 2003 and 2008, Iceland’s three main banks, Glitnir, Kaupthing and Landsbanki, borrowed over $140 billion, a figure equal to ten times the country’s GDP, dwarfing its central bank’s $2.5 billion reserves. A handful of entrepreneurs, egged on by their then government, embarked on an unprecedented international spending binge, buying everything from Danish department stores to West Ham Football Club, while a sizeable proportion of the rest of the adult population enthusiastically embraced the kind of cockamamie financial strategies usually only mooted in Nigerian spam emails – taking out loans in Japanese Yen, for example, or mortgaging their houses in Swiss francs. One minute the Icelanders were up to their waists in fish guts, the next they they were weighing up the options lists on their new Porsche Cayennes. The tales of un-Nordic excess are legion: Elton John was flown in to sing one song at a birthday party; private jets were booked like they were taxis; people thought nothing of spending £5,000 on bottles of single malt whisky, or £100,000 on hunting weekends in the English countryside. The chief executive of the London arm of Kaupthing hired the Natural History Museum for a party, with Tom Jones providing the entertainment, and, by all accounts, Reykjavik’s actual snow was augmented by a blizzard of the Colombian variety. The collapse of Lehman Brothers in late 2008 exposed Iceland’s debts which, at one point, were said to be around 850 per cent of GDP (compared with the US’s 350 per cent), and set off a chain reaction which resulted in the krona plummeting to almost half its value. By this stage Iceland’s banks were lending money to their own shareholders so that they could buy shares in . . . those very same Icelandic banks. I am no Paul Krugman, but even I can see that this was hardly a sustainable business model. The government didn’t have the money to cover its banks’ debts. It was forced to withdraw the krona from currency markets and accept loans totalling £4 billion from the IMF, and from other countries. Even the little Faroe Islands forked out £33 million, which must have been especially humiliating for the Icelanders. Interest rates peaked at 18 per cent. The stock market dropped 77 per cent; inflation hit 20 per cent; and the krona dropped 80 per cent. Depending who you listen to, the country’s total debt ended up somewhere between £13 billion and £63 billion, or, to put it another way, anything from £38,000 to £210,000 for each and every Icelander.
”
”
Michael Booth (The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia)
“
Sales for General Motors, the US’s biggest carmaker by sales, were 9 per cent up on last July, while Ford, the market number two, was 9.6 per cent up, and Chrysler, number four, rose 20 per cent.
”
”
Anonymous
“
She had sunk at latitude 77°15 N, longitude 155° E, a little more than seven hundred miles south of the North Pole.
”
”
Hampton Sides (In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette)
“
Whether you are in a street fight or confronting an invading army, appear weak when you are strong and strong when you are weak.
”
”
Phillip Robinson (USS Alcatraz)
“
Vizeadmiral Karl Donitz, now the commander of Germany's submarine force, quickly dispatched five U-boats across the Atlantic to attack merchant shipping along the U.S. East Coast. His intention in Operation Paukenschlag (Drumbeat) was to have all five launch a simultaneous attack on shipping-from Nova Scotia to Cape Hatteras-on the morning of January 13, 1942. The U.S. Atlantic Fleet was as unprepared for the onslaught of the second Battle of the Atlantic as it had been in 1918. Unlike 1918, this time the results would be devastating. In the first six months of 1942, German torpedoes, mines, and U-boat deck gun shells sank nearly 400 American and allied merchant ships in U.S. waters from Maine to Panama. During that campaign, only nine U-boats went down.
”
”
Ed Offley (Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion)
“
President Theodore Roosevelt dispatched sixteen new Atlantic Fleet Battleships to sail around the world showing our colors and strength. In keeping with his motto to, “Speak Softly but Carry a Big Stick” the ships were all painted white with only the scroll work on the bow of each ship gilded.
The Battleships of the “Great White Fleet,” first named the “Atlantic Fleet,” under the command of Rear Admiral Robley D. Evans, on the flagship the USS Connecticut, were accompanied by what was termed a “Torpedo Flotilla” and additional support ships. Leaving Hampton Roads on December 16, 1907, they sailed around South America to San Francisco, where two of the ships, the USS Maine and the USS Alabama were replaced by the USS Nebraska, and the USS Wisconsin.
Because of poor health Rear Admiral Charles S. Sperry relieved Admiral Evans and on July 7, 1908 took the fleet to Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Japan Celon and arrived in Egypt on January 3, 1909. At the time the USS Connecticut, Illinois, Culgoa and the steel hulled schooner the USS Yankton, sailed to the island of Sicily to show America’s compassion by assisting in with the rescue operations after a severe earthquake. Crew members of the Illinois also recovered the bodies of the American consul and his wife who had been trapped in the ruins.
On January 9, 1909, the fleet left Messina, Sicily and continued on to Naples and Gibraltar before returning to Hampton Roads, Virginia on February 22, 1909, where President Roosevelt reviewed the returning fleet one last time.
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
Farewell, brave boys, may your guns always salute friends and terrify enemies.
”
”
Hampton Sides (In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette)
“
Meanwhile, U.S. Navy officials were grappling with their own problems. The American fleet that vanquished Imperial Japan and helped storm the shores of Fortress Europe did not exist anymore. From a wartime high of 3.3 million men and women, the U.S. Navy roster plummeted to 491,663 by December 1946.8
”
”
Ed Offley (Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion)
“
However, there have been close calls where we were extremely lucky that there was a human in the loop. On October 27, 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, eleven U.S. Navy destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Randolph had cornered the Soviet submarine B-59 near Cuba, in international waters outside the U.S. “quarantine” area. What they didn’t know was that the temperature onboard had risen past 45°C (113°F) because the submarine’s batteries were running out and the air-conditioning had stopped. On the verge of carbon dioxide poisoning, many crew members had fainted. The crew had had no contact with Moscow for days and didn’t know whether World War III had already begun. Then the Americans started dropping small depth charges, which they had, unbeknownst to the crew, told Moscow were merely meant to force the sub to surface and leave. “We thought—that’s it—the end,” crew member V. P. Orlov recalled. “It felt like you were sitting in a metal barrel, which somebody is constantly blasting with a sledgehammer.” What the Americans also didn’t know was that the B-59 crew had a nuclear torpedo that they were authorized to launch without clearing it with Moscow. Indeed, Captain Savitski decided to launch the nuclear torpedo. Valentin Grigorievich, the torpedo officer, exclaimed: “We will die, but we will sink them all—we will not disgrace our navy!” Fortunately, the decision to launch had to be authorized by three officers on board, and one of them, Vasili Arkhipov, said no. It’s sobering that very few have heard of Arkhipov, although his decision may have averted World War III and been the single most valuable contribution to humanity in modern history.38 It’s also sobering to contemplate what might have happened had B-59 been an autonomous AI-controlled submarine with no humans in the loop.
”
”
Max Tegmark (Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence)
“
The torpedo-accident theory had survived only the length of time that passes between reading a headline and wrapping it around a fish.
”
”
Ed Offley (Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion)
“
But why would anyone—officer, seaman, or scientist—volunteer for such a risky and difficult mission in the Arctic?
”
”
Hampton Sides (In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette)
“
Vice Admiral Charles Lockwood, who had commanded the U.S. submarine campaign against Japan during World War II, later recalled his astonishment at hearing Abelson's briefing: "If I live to be a hundred, I shall never forget that meeting on March 28, 1946, in a large Bureau of Ships conference room, its walls lined with blackboards, which in turn were covered with diagrams, blueprints, figures and equations which Phil used to illustrate various points as he read from his document, the first ever submitted anywhere on nuclear-powered subs. It sounded like something out of Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea."7
”
”
Ed Offley (Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion)
“
Siberia! The mainland of Asia … the delta of the mighty Lena River.
”
”
Hampton Sides (In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette)
“
The Scorpion would sometimes engage in a little psychological warfare along with the combat drills: "If you're in an exercise ... [the captain] would say, `Don't exceed fifteen knots or a fifteen-degree down-angle.' The destroyers would get to feeling cocky because they would find you and run you around. Then the admiral on the carrier would start feeling his oats and say to us, `Okay, let her rip,' then pheeewsh-we'd just vanish. The place we'd hide most of the time was right under the carrier. Its propulsion plant is so noisy and so huge that you get yourself under the carrier and ride along there.
”
”
Ed Offley (Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion)
“
Establishing your core priorities is, unfortunately, not the same as binding yourself to them. • MIT study: Managers had done no work on their core priorities in the previous week! 5. To carve out space to pursue our core priorities, we must go on the offense against lesser priorities. • On the USS Benfold, the crew actively fought the List B items like repainting (e.g., by using stainless-steel bolts that wouldn’t leave rust stains). • Jim Collins’s “stop-doing list”: What will you give up so that you have more time to spend on your priorities? • Bregman’s hourly beep: Am I doing what I most need to be doing right now? Widen Your Options Reality-Test Your Assumptions Attain Distance Before Deciding Prepare to Be Wrong
”
”
Chip Heath (Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work)
“
A few days later, Dr. Ambler told De Long of a curious dream he'd had about Edison's lamps. In the dream, Sir John Franklin, the long-lost British explorer, had come aboard the Jeanette for a tour. Dr. Ambler led Franklin all over the ship and told him excitedly about Edison's electric lights, an invention that, of course, wasn't even dreamed about in Franklin's day. But Franklin bluntly interrupted him. "Your electric machine," he said, "is not worth a damn.
”
”
Hampton Sides (In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette)
“
Since 1884 Bath Iron Works was incorporated by General Thomas W. Hyde who had served in the Union Army during the Civil War. At first the shipyard made iron hardware and windlasses for the wooden ships of the day but soon built warships for the United States Navy although it also started builting commercial vessels. The USS Machias a schooner rigged, steam driven, gunboat was one of two 190-foot (58 m) gunboats, first built by the company. It has been said that Chester Nimitz commanded the Machias during World War I, although this has not been substantiated. In 1892 the yard built their first commercial vessel, the 2,500-ton steel passenger steamer the SS City of Lowell. From these humble beginnings BIW became a major United States shipyard and has designed and built almost every type of naval vessel that the US Navy had or has, including the new stealth destroyers of the Zumwalt class.
I first saw Bath Iron Works when I crossed the Kennebec River in 1952. I wrote about this in “Seawater One” describing how our bus crossed on the Carlton Lift Bridge and how I saw the USS Dealey (DE-1006) being built.
During World War II, ships built at BIW were considered by Navy officers and sailors to be the toughest afloat, giving rise to the slogan "Bath-built is best-built." In 1995, BIW became a subsidiary of General Dynamics and at that time was the fifth-largest defense contractor in the world.
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
Min Fader havde det Held efter en meget tarvelig Undervisning at blive antaget som Skriverdreng hos Stiftamtmanden. Denne, W. J. A. Moltke, der senere fik Grevetitel, fik den kjønne og raske Dreng kjær, og da han 1815 blev forflyttet til Sjælland, tog han ham med sig, og antog det unge Menneske, der imidlertid havde naaet at faa Dansk juridisk Examen, som sin Fuldmægtig.
”
”
Johan Louis Ussing (Af mit Levned (Danish Edition))
“
Saasnart det omtalte Embede satte ham i Stand til at stifte et tarveligt Hjem, ægtede han en elskelig ung Pige, han i længere Tid havde været forlovet med, Esperance Tolerance Balle. Hun var to Aar yngre end han. Hendes Fader, en født Nordmand, havde været Borgemester i Ribe; han døde som
”
”
Johan Louis Ussing (Af mit Levned (Danish Edition))
“
May 5th 2018 was one of the first nice spring days the beautiful State of Maine had seen since being captured by the long nights and cold days of winter. Ursula, my wife of nearly 60 years and I were driving north on the picturesque winding coastal route and had just enjoyed the pleasant company of Beth Leonard and Gary Lawless at their interesting book store “Gulf of Maine” in Brunswick. I loved most of the sights I had seen that morning but nothing prepared us for what we saw next as we drove across the Kennebec River on the Sagadahoc Bridge.
Ursula questioned me about the most mysterious looking vessel we had ever seen. Of course she expected a definitive answer from me, since I am considered a walking encyclopedia of anything nautical by many. Although I had read about this new ship, its sudden appearance caught me off guard. “What kind of ship is that?” Ursula asked as she looked downstream, at the newest and most interesting stealth guided missile destroyer on the planet. Although my glance to the right was for only a second, I was totally awed by the sight and felt that my idea of what a ship should look like relegated me to the ashbin of history where I would join the dinosaurs and flying pterosaurs of yesteryear.
Although I am not privileged to know all of the details of this class of ship, what I do know is that the USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) first underwent sea trials in 2015. The USS Michael Monsoor (DDG-1001) delivered to the Navy in April 2018, was the second ship this class of guided missile destroyers and the USS Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG-1002) now under construction, will be the third and final Zumwalt-class destroyer built for the United States Navy. It was originally expected that the cost of this class would be spread across 32 ships but as reality set in and costs overran estimates, the number was reduced to 24, then to 7 and finally to 3… bringing the cost-per-ship in at a whopping $7.5 billion. These guided missile destroyers are primarily designed to be multi-mission stealth ships with a focus on naval gunfire to support land attacks. They are however also quite capable for use in surface and anti-aircraft warfare. The three ship’s propulsion is similar and comes from two Rolls-Royce gas turbines, similar to aircraft jet engines, and Curtiss-Wright electrical generators. The twin propellers are driven by powerful electric motors.
Once across the bridge the landscape once again became familiar and yet different. Over 60 years had passed since I was here as a Maine Maritime Academy cadet but some things don’t change in Maine. The scenery is still beautiful and the people are friendly, as long as you don’t step on their toes. Yes, in many ways things are still the same and most likely will stay the same for years to come. As for me I like New England especially Maine but it gets just a little too cold in the winter!
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
In 1898 the clouds of war between Spain and the United States accumulated over Cuba. President McKinley decided to deploy the battleship USS Maine to Havana, to insure the safety of Americans. As a backup, other ships were deployed to Key West and many other hot spots around the world involving Spain. Most Americans allied themselves with the Cuban people, and identified their movement with our American Revolutionary War. The arrival of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor with only 18 hours of advanced warning was contrary to diplomatic convention. At 9:40 p.m. on February 15, 1898, a massive explosion sank the ship while she was at anchor and took the lives of 268 sailors. Although the cause of the explosion was never proven to be sabotage, and was most likely caused by a smoldering fire in one of the ship’s coal bunkers, “Remember the Maine, To Hell with Spain!” became an American battle cry. What was termed “yellow journalism” had fired up the American public so much, that on April 11, 1898, President McKinley asked Congress for authority to send troops to Cuba to support the Cuban people in their revolt against Spain. The situation spun out of control when Spain declared war on the United States on April 23, 1898, and in turn, Washington declared war on Spain two days later.
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
One indicator was the sudden emergence of an aggressive submarine tactic called Crazy Ivan, where a Soviet submarine skipper, suspecting he was being tailgated, would make an unexpected hard turn to port or starboard, and in doing so, force the American follower to slam on the brakes. Apart from the fun of spiking a Sturgeon-class skipper's blood pressure, there was a concrete objective to the ploy. This maneuver forced the American submarine commander to reveal his own presence by the unavoidable scream of reverse-drive engine turbines as the trailing U.S. submarine desperately tried to avoid a collision by ordering all back full. That noise signal showed up just fine on Soviet sonar.
”
”
Ed Offley (Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion)
“
The plan was as simple as it was unattainable: All they had to do was to slip out of Sayda Bay and after entering the Barents Sea, submerge, poke their air-breathing snorkels above the surface, and trudge down to Cuba on diesel power at a submerged speed of nine knots. Without the Americans noticing.
”
”
Ed Offley (Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion)
“
The new boats created unprecedented career opportunities for those already in the elite nuclear submarine force and gave migraines to personnel specialists who had to find trained crewmen. During the Scorpion's first seven years, the navy constructed and commissioned twenty-five nuclear attack submarines and thirty-nine Polaris missile boats. Each Polaris submarine had two crews of seventeen officers and 128 enlisted men. The math was brutal: The navy had to recruit and train 103 additional submarine crews during the eighty-four-month period that the shipyards were cranking out Polaris missile submarines and nuclear attack boats.
”
”
Ed Offley (Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion)