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What to call it - the spark of God? Survival instinct? The souped-up computer of an apex brain evolved from eons in the R&D of natural selection? You could practically see the neurons firing in the kid’s skull. His body was all spring and torque, a bundle of fast-twitch muscles that exuded faint floral whiffs of ripe pear. So much perfection in such a compact little person - Billy had to tackle him from time to time, wrestle him squealing to the ground just to get that little rascal in his hands, just your basic adorable thirty-month-old with big blue eyes clear as chlorine pools and Huggies poking out of his stretchy-waist jeans. So is this what they mean by the sanctity of life? A soft groan escaped Billy when he thought about that, the war revealed in this fresh and gruesome light. Oh. Ugh. Divine spark, image of God, suffer the little children and all that - there’s real power when words attach to actual things. Made him want to sit right down and weep, as powerful as that. He got it, yes he did, and when he came home for good he’d have to meditate on this, but for now it was best to compartmentalize, as they said, or even better not to mentalize at all. ↗
Albert Graeme It was an English ladye bright, (The sun shines fair on Carlisle wall) And she would marry a Scottish knight, For Love will still be lord of all. Blithely they saw the rising sun When he shone fair on Carlisle wall; But they were sad ere day was done, Though Love was still the lord of all. Her sire gave brooch and jewel fine, Where the sun shines fair on Carlisle wall; Her brother gave but a flask of wine, For ire that Love was lord of all. For she had lands both meadow and lea, Where the sun shines fair on Carlisle wall, For he swore her death, ere he would see A Scottish knight the lord of all. That wine she had not tasted well (The sun shines fair on Carlisle wall) When dead, in her true love's arms, she fell, For Love was still the lord of all! He pierced her brother to the heart, Where the sun shines fair on Carlisle wall, So perish all would true love part That Love may still be lord of all! And then he took the cross divine, Where the sun shines fair on Carlisle wall, And died for her sake in Palestine; So Love was still the lord of all. Now all ye lovers, that faithful prove, (The sun shines fair on Carlisle wall) Pray for their souls who died for love, For Love shall still be lord of all! -- Canto 6 ↗
Returning to the wreckage, Cartographer moved to stand over each victim, shaking his head and muttering in low tones - possibly a prayer - Setoc wasn't close enough to hear his words. He rejoined her once they were past. 'I find myself in some conflict,' he said. 'On the one hand, I wish I'd been here to witness that dread clash, to see Trake's Mortal Sword truly awakened. To see the Trell's rage rise from the deepness of his soul. On the other hand, witnessing the gruesome deaths of those I had come to know as friends, well, that would have been terrible. As much as it grieves me to say, there are times when getting what one wants yields nothing but confusion. It turns out that what one wants is in fact not at all what one wants. Worse is when you simply don't know what you want. You'd think death would discard such trials. If only it did. ↗
I had lied to myself from the very beginning, deceived myself into believing that I was being fanciful and overly imaginative. Surely such monstrosities only existed in nightmares? Yet I had lived through a nightmare these past months, and that was no dream at all. I was still fighting against the awful truth, not wanting to give in, searching my mind for a logical explanation—but there was none. And the most horrible realization of all was that I had known, somewhere deep inside, ever since the day I first set eyes on Vladec Salei. Plague carrier. Living death. Drainer of life. The phrasing did not matter. No euphemism could strike fear into the hearts of men the way that single word could. Vampire. And for me, the uninitiated, that single word meant death. ↗
#blood-drinkers #corcitura #drainer-of-life #eric-bradburry #fear
I was mentally prepared to sustain serious injury or death, but before that day I never contemplated the reality of being captured by the enemy. I thought, "This is going to be hard on the folks," only to realize that I actually verbalized my thought out loud. As the English-speaking officer and I walked side by side, he said, "War is terrible, isn't it? ↗
As Luxenberg's work has only recently been published we must await its scholarly assessment before we can pass any judgements. But if his analysis is correct then suicide bombers, or rather prospective martyrs, would do well to abandon their culture of death, and instead concentrate on getting laid 72 times in this world, unless of course they would really prefer chilled or white raisins, according to their taste, in the next. ↗
#criticism-of-the-koran #death #destructive-cult #houris #islam
A solemn day. Barring a stay by Sup Ct, & with my final nod, Utah will use most extreme power & execute a killer. Mourn his victims. Justice. [...] I just gave the go ahead to Corrections Director to proceed with Gardner's execution. May God grant him the mercy he denied his victims. [...] We will be streaming live my press conference as soon as I'm told Gardner is dead. Watch it at www.attorneygeneral.Utah.gov/live.html. ↗
I sat against one of the house’s clay walls. The kinship I felt suddenly for the old land... it surprised me. I’d been gone long enough to forget and be forgotten. I had a home in a land that might as well be in another galaxy to the people sleeping on the other side of the wall I leaned against. I thought I had forgotten about this land. But I hadn’t. And, under the bony glow of a halfmoon, I sensed Afghanistan humming under my feet. Maybe Afghanistan hadn’t forgotten me either. I looked westward and marveled that, somewhere over those mountains, Kabul still existed. It really existed, not just as an old memory, or as the heading of an AP story on page 15 of the San Francisco Chronicle. Somewhere over those mountains in the west slept the city where my harelipped brother and I had run kites. Somewhere over there, the blindfolded man from my dream had died a needless death. Once, over those mountains, I had made a choice. And now, a quarter of a century later, that choice had landed me right back on this soil. ↗
In other words, our constitution was designed by people who were idealistic but not ideological. There's a big difference. You can have a philosophy that tends to be liberal or conservative but still be open to evidence, experience, and argument. That enables people with honest differences to find practical, principled compromise. On the other hand, fervent insistence on an ideology makes evidence, experience, and arguments irrelevant: If you possess the absolute truth, those who disagree are by definition wrong, and evidence of success or failure is irrelevant. There is nothing to learn from the experience of other countries. Respectful arguments are a waste of time. Compromise is weakness. And if your policies fail, you don't abandon them; instead, you double down, asserting that they would have worked if only they had been carried to their logical extreme. ↗
