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....U.S. policy makers were wise to oppose the spread of totalitarian communism, and to hope that this fundamentally flawed form of social organization, once contained, would eventually die out and be replaced by political and economic institutions that permitted the free flowering of human potential.

What stood out for him ( William Russell of The London Times ) was Lincoln's face. "....... the eyes dark, full, and deeply set, are penetrating, but full of an expression which almost amounts to tenderness."

....he ( Emperor Nero) never lost the affection of the populace and was respected in the provinces...He accepted and discharged the then traditional basic duties of an Emperor to provide bread, water, and circuses... In his foreign policy Nero was effective, choosing governors and procurators wisely...

"We've won!" he ( Frederickson) exulted to Sharpe. "The damn thing's over!"
"When did Boney abdicate?" Sharpe asked.
"Christ knows. Last week? Two weeks ago?"
"Before the battle?" Sharpe insisted.
Frederickson shrugged. "Before, the battle, yes."
"Jesus."

While the idea of the Anthropocene as our current geologic era is common, some scholars have pointed out several problems with this framing, including:...the humanity responsible for the planetary impacts-generally harmful ones-represents a very few powerful people and nations , so humanity as a whole shouldn't take the blame...

"You must find what I should have had the courage to look for," she said, " what we should all have the courage to look for."
"What is that?" I said.
Her answer was this: "Your own Katmandu."

As Napoleon advanced, he found the Russians had denuded his path of the supplies so vital to his vast army. Victory at Borodino, 40 miles from Moscow, cost Napoleon tens of thousands of soldiers and many of his best marshals. The emperor occupied Moscow, which was deserted...and waited for Alexander to seek terms. No Tsar was forthcoming. Winter was, however...

Even the U.S.S. Augusta, the flagship of the American Asiatic Fleet, which was anchored in Shanghai Harbor, felt the sting of war when a stray 37 mm anti-aircraft shell dropped among off-duty seamen who were watching a movie on the well deck, wounding 18 and killing a 20-year- old Louisianan named Freddie John Falgout...

The First Resistance fought the elder gods themselves. But how does a B-2 fly against something that can warp the very fabric of the stars with the power of its mind?
---from "Such Bright and Risen Madness in Our Names" by Jay Lake

The economic pie of 2014 is far larger than the pie of 1500, but it is distributed so unevenly that many African peasants and Indonesian labourers return home after a hard day's work with less food than did their ancestors 500 years ago.... The human species and the global economy may well keep growing, but many more individuals may live in hunger and want.

Raping a woman who did not belong to any man was not considered a crime at all, just as picking up a lost coin on a busy street is not considered theft. And if a husband raped his own wife, he had committed no crime... As of 2006, there were still fifty-three countries where a husband could not be prosecuted for the rape of his wife.

The roar from the caldera had built up even more, and the sky had darkened somewhat, clouds lower than the top of Mauna Loa.
"I've never heard it like this!" Jenny had to shout even though she was inches from Mac's ear.
He was about to tell her that neither had he when he suddenly felt like his feet were on fire.

The figure stared straight ahead, hands fingering a book in his lap.
It said, "I am Hari Seldon!" The voice was old and soft.

Following Sarajevo the Czarina sent a stream of telegrams to Rasputin asking his advice on the serious international situation. Rasputin replied by sending a telegram to the Czar telling him to prevent Russia being enticed into the war. If it were, he predicted, "it will be the finish of all things."

On average, there were fifty blacks per Continental battalion. By 1779, 15 per cent of the Continental army was black, usually as service troops building defenses, but often as line soldiers. By the end of the Revolution, several states had abolished slavery and others voted to emancipate their slaves

....in 1933, a game biologist in Wisconsin, Aldo Leopold, had published an essay that said man was part of the big organic whole and should treat his place with special care. But that essay, "The Conservation Ethic," had yet to influence public policy.

On the television screen, the news is now covering a new attack in San Francisco, where the Golden Gate Bridge is sending up plumes of black smoke into the early morning sky...
"What's the worst-case scenario, Albert?" Shaw asks.
"I believe we're experiencing it."

"We're saved, Mrs. Norton. Don't you see? we're saved------"
"But not my Benjamin," she sobbed, hiding her face in her hands as her head sank to her lap.
"They cain't hurt him no more, ma'am," Moore cooed.

She is nothing but a windup. She was a fool. She was stupid to hope that he would see her as a person, a woman, as anything other than offal.

The city tense, curfew kept. Drones zipping through the dark. All government elections would be postponed, people were told, until the citizenry stabilized.

It is likely that the Whigs believed that (Henry) Clay's charm, compared to (James K.) Polk's prudish personality, gave them an enormous edge ( in the 1844 election). They were campaigning against a humorless, straitlaced little prig from Tennessee.

According to Ernest Hemingway, bulls that survived the arena were not used in future fights, partly because they learned the tactics of the human fighters and thus became less interesting to watch and more dangerous.

Moving to meet the assault was...the 5th New York, called the "Red Legs" for their baggy red Zouave pants. Answering the (1st South Carolina) Rifles' Rebel yell, the Red Legs shouted out a cheer of their own: "Zou-zou-zou!" The range closed until it was point-blank, and there were swirls of hand-to-hand fighting. Finally...the Zouaves drove the South Carolinians back to their starting point.

' He ( Frodo) felt a delight in wood and the touch of it, neither as forester nor as carpenter; it was the delight of the living tree itself' ( 1, 455).

In 1879 alone, between 20,000 and 40,000 African Americans migrated to Kansas. They were called "Exodusters"....Horace Greeley, the founder of the highly influential New York Tribune... had urged westward expansion with the phrase "Go West, young man, go West"--(He) insisted that such territories "be reserved for the benefit of the white Caucasian race."

Like the Negro March on Washington movement before it, the Double V campaign quickly became popular in black communities across the nation. One poll concluded that the campaign enjoyed a 91-percent approval rating among African Americans. The idea of fighting for victory abroad and at home swiftly wove itself into the fabric of black American life.

In conclusion, then, Plato wrote a fascinating fiction that has had a large and continuing influence on Western literature and thought, but that has nothing to do with geology, anthropology, or history, about which Plato knew very little.

Thus he ( Diego de Landa ) gave the push to another pseudo-scientific theory: that the Amerinds ( Native Americans) were the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel. For many centuries men had been speculating about the eventual fate of the 27,290 Israelites whom Sargon of Assyria had deported from the northern Hebrew kingdom of Israel about 719 B.C...

I was trying desperately to catch up to him ( Wesley the Owl), calling to him, but he was too confused and frightened to respond. I watched helplessly as he flew over a freeway and into the cars. I woke up in a cold sweat, my heart pounding. Wesley was right next to me, sitting peacefully on his perch. I turned on the light, picked him up, and cuddled him until I calmed down.

Hence the Stoic division of philosophy into three parts: logic, physics, and ethics. Ethics, the science of how to live well, is the goal...But... neither physics or ethics can be pursued profitably without previous mastery of the art of reasoning. Thus, in point of time, logic comes first in the curriculum.