Jeff Ragan > Recent Status Updates

"There is a wealth of evidence of various kinds which allows modern scientists to conclude that during the climatic optimum of A.D. 1000 to 1200 the mean summer temperatures in southern Greenland were 2* C. to 4* C. higher than now and that sea temperatures in the northernmost Atlantic were of the same order of increase. The area of permanent ice lay north of 80* N..." (696).

"...all lunar rocks...[are] volcanic" (134).

"Now night is upon us, and it is good to give way to Madam Night. Then you shall comfort all your people, especially your friends and comrades; and I will return to my city to comfort the men and the women of Troy... But let us each bestow a gift upon the other, that all the world may say - These two fought indeed in bitter combat for a match but they parted again in friendship" (89).

"Roosevelt let solitude and open spaces and intense physical labor heal his broken heart. But more important, he taught himself how to channel his aggression into a new form of energy with a purpose. 'The only thing...to do is treat the past as past'" (375).

"They were inside a customs interview room with the door locked. Outside, a 787 thundered down the runway. Dallas/Forth Worth International Airport was now the busiest airport in the new United States, serving the capital city and the huge metroplex that expanded relentlessly in all directions out across the plains. 'Yeah. I like killing what I shoot the first time,' Turnbull said, his meaty hand out" (76).

"Au moment ou les pretres sortirent du lieu saint, la nuee lumineuse remplit le Temple de l'Eternel. Les pretres ne purent pas y rester pour accomplir le service, a cause do la nuee, car la gloire de l'Eternel remplissait son Temple." - 1 Rois 8:10-11

"...a day shall come when sacred Troy shall perish, and Priam and the people of Priam; but my sorrow is not so much for what will happen to the people or Queen Hecabe herself...as for you, when some armed man shall drive you away weeping, and take from you the day of freedom. To think that you should live in a foreign land...May I be dead and buried deep in the earth before I...see you dragged away" (82).

"As he puts it in 3:12-14, having been 'apprehended by Christ Jesus,' Christ thus became the singular pursuit of his life. 'Christ' - crucified, exalted Lord, present by the Spirit, coming king; 'Christ' the one who as God 'emptied himself' & as man 'humbled himself' - to death on the cross...'Christ,' the name that sums up for Paul the whole range of his new relationship to God..." (141).

"How important is trust for a leader? It is the most important thing. Trust is the foundation of leadership. It is the glue that holds people together on a team, in an organization, and even in a nation. Leaders cannot repeatedly break trust with people and continue to influence them. It just doesn't happen. That's true in every area of society...Broken trust undermines influence and organizations fall apart" (67).

"There are these little enclaves across the continent, red in the blue, some blue in the red. People who belong on the other side, with the other side. And the situation is getting worse. The People's Republic - I can't believe they chose that name just to spite us - is getting more and more oppressive every day. And they are concentrating on the red enclaves" (70).

"'I remember well my early days,' Cleveland once wrote 'I have always felt that my training as a minister's son has been more valuable to me than any other incident of my life'" (361).

"But, most important, the temple symbolizes the renewed presence of Israel's God among his people. By providing a place where Israel may commune with God regularly, God has signaled the desire for ongoing contact with the people" (564).

"What are they that you call the Five Lovely Things? The master said, A gentleman can be bounteous without extravagance, can get work out of people without arousing resentment, has longings but is never covetous, is proud but never insolent, inspires awe but is never ferocious" (220).

"The sprawling Oceanus Procellarum occupies much of this [SW] quadrant, covering an area of around 2 million square miles...This is over half as big again as the Mediterranean Sea on Earth. At its southern edge, Oceanus Procellarum merges into Mare Humorum and, through Mare Cognitum, into Mare Nubium" (130).

"[Paul] could not imagine the Spirit in static terms. Hence he can refer to believers' being 'given' the Spirit (1 Thess 4:8), or being 'supplied' with the Spirit (Gal 3:5; here), or of fanning the Spirit into flame (2 Tim 3:6). For Paul the resident Spirit is ever being given or 'supplied' anew in the believer's or community's life" (134).

"The interaction between every leader and follower is a relationship, and all relationships either add to or subtract from a person's life. If you are a leader, then trust me, you are having either a positive or a negative impact on the people you lead" (57).

"Although Sea Breeze had taken us safely to the coast of East Greenland & back we had landed nowhere & achieved nothing. From that point of view the voyage could hardly be reckoned a success. On the other hand, if regarded as a trial run in a boat new to me, a shake-down cruise, it had won several prizes by the shaking down of no less than three spars. Despite that & the leaking deck, I am happy with the boat" (689).

"When Turnbull had arrived a few months before to take command of the company while recuperating from his latest Middle Eastern escapade, it took him about three seconds to know two things. First, he might have orders into the CO slot, but the sergeants owned Alpha Company, 2-80th Field Artillery. Second, if he let Top do his job, this company command tour was going to be the easiest assignment he had ever had" (56).

"L'Eternel s'adressa a Salomon et lui dit: - Tu es en train de batir ce Temple. Si tu te conduis selon mes ordonnances, si tu obeis a mes lois, si tu suis fidelement tous mes commandements pour vivre en conformite avec eux, je realiserai pour roi la promesse que j'ai faite a ton pere David. Je viendrai habiter au milieu des Israelites et je n'abandonnerai pas mon people Israel." - 1 Rois 6:11-13

"The chariots ran wheeling about, the horses' hooves beat up the dust, which drove in a great cloud to the brazen sky and covered the Achaians with white. The whole place was like some great threshing-floor, when the farm-hands are winnowing and throwing up shovelfuls into the wind; Golden Demeter divides corn and chaff, and the chaff is blown away into white heaps. So they fought with might and main..." (67).

"At six feet one inch, and weighing less than 140 pounds, Andrew Jackson cut a strange figure in the presidency. He wore thick coats to lend the illusion of substance, and he was often sick in the White House, coughing up blood caused by the old dueling bullet still lodged near his heart. To ease his pain he sometimes bled himself, using his penknife to open the veins" (352).

"The Chronicler is not a historian in the strict western sense. To him Israel's history was pregnant with spiritual and moral lessons, which he brought to birth through a kind of historical midwifery. He is not concerned so much with the bare facts of Israel's history as with their meaning. If all valid historical writing is interpretative, the Chronicler's is highly interpretative" (543).

"Balancing optimism and realism, intuition and planning, faith and fact can be very difficult. But that's what it takes to be effective as a navigating leader" (48).

"All of Paul's strong language against 'opponents,' it should be noted, including 3:2 in this letter, is directed toward those who invade his gentile churches and insist on their conforming to basic Jewish identity markers (circumcision, food laws, observance of days)...The latter are 'sheep stealers'...they are not trying to make converts to Christ, but to make 'Jews' out of Gentiles who are already believers..."

"Maria cover the best part of the near side of the Moon, but are strangely absent on the far side. Largest by far is the sprawling Oceanus Procellarum, the Ocean of Storms. It merges in the north with the largest circular mare, Mare Imbrium, the Sea of Showers" (126).

"Tzu-chang said, A knight who confronted with danger is ready to lay down his life, who confronted with the chance of gain thinks first of right, who judges sacrifice by the degree of reverence shown and mourning by the degree of grief - such a one is all that can be desired" (212).

"At the time, from the little I had seen of the ice, I had thought that our chances were good. It is obvious from these reports that this was not so and that even with a less faint-hearted crew, though we might have got into the Sound we could have done nothing, and might not have got out. Still that is no reason for not having tried" (684).

"I just want you to...get along. Just take it easy and everything will work out. You know?" "I'm a Langer, Ted. Hell, I'm an American. You ever know us to just get along?" "Look...Larry, I'm trying hard to keep this town calm and peaceful. That's all. In all this, I just want to keep my little town and my people safe." Larry Langer smiled. "Someday, you're going to have to pick a side, Ted." And he drove off.

"Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled upon it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle." - Exodus 40:34-35