Despite my dad's assurances I was strangely nervous my stomach tight ever since we'd hung up. Maybe Deb had picked up on this and it was why she'd pretty much talked nonstop since I'd approached her and asked for a ride. I'd barely had time to explai...
Almost two hundred sixty-six years ago on my home world, Earth, my forefathers did the same thing. They declared their independence and free agency from an enemy that oppressed them. No one at that time expected this rebellion force to win the war. T...
Life is random. Life is complicated. Life is often unforgiving. And we must each live it anyway. And I don’t mean live it as if it’s a chore, something to be endured, survived. I mean, dig in, get muddy, howl at the moon, take pictures of sunsets...
They’d arranged to meet with an Omegan mole who worked in the Clinton administration. He was helping them with a new Omega Agency operation involving the Kosovo War, which had just broken out in Europe. Naylor and his cronies were seeking to use Ko...
Hope is not blind optimism. It's not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the ...
... but if I've learned one thing, it's this: forgiveness is crucial. If you can't forgive someone you're mad at, that anger will poison you. You have to learn to let it go"... "people have reasons for doing the things that they do, especially when t...
Patrick: I'll tell you Sam, this one is tough. I have received a harmonica, a magnetic poetry set, a book about Harvey Milk, and a mix tape with the song Asleep on it twice. I mean, I have no idea. This collection of presents is so gay that I think I...
Some aching beauty comes with huge loss, although maybe not right away, when it would be helpful. Life is a very powerful force, despite the constant discouragement. So if you are a person with connections to life, a few tendrils eventually break thr...
Human vocabulary is still not capable, and probably never will be, of knowing, recognizing, and communicating everything that can be humanly experienced and felt. Some say that the main cause of this very serious difficulty lies in the fact that huma...
Elsewhere the paper notes that vegetarians and vegans (including athletes) 'meet and exceed requirements' for protein. And, to render the whole we-should-worry-about-getting-enough-protein-and-therefore-eat-meat idea even more useless, other data sug...
What makes the strength of the soldier isn't the energy he uses trying to intimidate the other guy by sending him a whole lot of signals, it's the strength he's able to concentrate within himself, by staying centered. That Maori player was like a tre...
It does not suit the world to hear that people who are leading a high life, an enviable life, a privileged life are as miserable most days as anybody else, despite the fact that it must be obvious they would be - given that we are all agreed that mon...
It took me several minutes to persuade myself to watch the news. During which time I gave myself a stern talking to. That turned into me considering a local pub that would be the perfect place to drown my sorrows in a barrel of tequila, though after ...
[...] Y'know, the Duchess Regan is living here at the tower now? I took your advice about not talking about her boffnacity [footnote], even with the duke dead and all, can't be too careful. Although, I caught sight of her in a dressing gown one day s...
Darwin himself said as much: 'If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case.' Dar...
... toxic derivatives were underpinned by toxic economics, which, in turn, were no more than motivated delusions in search of theoretical justification; fundamentalist tracts that acknowledged facts only when they could be accommodated to the demands...
But does it make any sense at all to know that it ends badly for all of us, even the happiest of us, and that we all lose everything that matters in the end-and yet to know as well, despite all this, as cruelly as the game is stacked, that it's possi...
Living the good life as created beings depends on living within the limits and according to the truths of the human condition. Purity of heart and the capacity to channel desires toward personal self-mastery in holiness are part of the high calling o...
Alruna couldn’t stop thinking about the way it felt to be behind him in the battle to leave Reric. His sword sent the inferior Obotrite shields to splinters, and its men to worse. Each attempt on her life had been met with blood and steel, and Hák...
Dad's death didn't hollow me out the way Helen's had. After all, everyone had assumed Dad was a goner back when he got kicked in the head as a child. Instead, he had cheated death and, despite his gimp and speech impediment, lived a long life doing p...
We take action when we have the honesty to admit that things are still broken, despite our best efforts otherwise. We take action when we hold ourselves continually open to new techniques, remaining resolutely receptive to new sources of support and ...
