Yet one had ancestors in literature as well as in one’s own race, nearer perhaps in type and temperament, many of them, and certainly with an influence of which one was more absolutely conscious. There were times when it appeared to Dorian Gray tha...
I am often asked by editors, fans, friends about what I read or which authors influence my writing. My answer seems surprising to them, for people expect names and quotes from me, while I give them the source of "feelings". I believe that becoming a ...
The decadence which did occur in the Islamic world belongs to a much later period of Islamic history than is usually claimed. This fact would be fully substantiated if the integral history of Islamic science and civilization were to be written one da...
What is boredom? Endless repetitions, like, for example, Navidson’s corridors and rooms, which are consistently devoid of any Myst-like discoveries thus causing us to lose interest. What then makes anything exciting? Or better yet: what is exciting...
It never occurred to me before, but I always thought of time like it was a road, or an empty plane. I could see it and mark it and claim it as mine, but the reason I couldn't travel my own speed was because I was waiting on the present to catch up, I...
As he once wrote of Kipling, his own enduring influence can be measured by a number of terms and phrases—doublethink, thought police, 'Some animals are more equal than others'—that he embedded in our language and in our minds. In Orwell's own min...
I am not one of those who believes—as Obama is said to believe—that a solution to the Palestinian statehood question would bring an end to Muslim resentment against the United States. (Incidentally, if he really does believe this, his lethargy an...
But can one be a blessing merely by being cheerful? Yes; moral beauty of any kind exerts a silent influence for good. It is like a sweet flower by the wayside, which has a benediction for everyone who passes by. A legend tells how one day in Galilee ...
Since the early 1920s a unique spiritual path has existed in Japan. This distinctly Japanese version of yoga is called Shin-shin-toitsu-do, and it combines seated meditation, moving meditation, breathing exercises, and other disciplines to help pract...
Not one of them [formulae] can be shown to have any existence, so that the formula of one of the simplest of organic bodies is confused by the introduction of unexplained symbols for imaginary differences in the mode of combination of its elements......
This monograph by Special Agent Ken Lanning (1992) is merely a guide for those who may investigate this phenomenon, as the title indicates, and not a study. The author is a well known skeptic regarding cult and ritual abuse allegations and has consul...
If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don't bother to vote, you are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties, who please rest assured are not dumb, and who are keenly aware that it is in their interests to ...
Classifying depression as an illness serves the psychiatric community and pharmaceutical corporations well; it also soothes the frightened, guilty, indifferent, busy, sadistic, and unschooled. To understand depression as a call for life-changes is no...
Washington was concerned that the soldiers coming to him from Massachusetts were too few and of too low quality. He was disappointed that the majority of the Massachusetts volunteers appeared to be thrill-seeking teenagers, British Army deserters and...
The kitten I got is black and white and has long hair. Really long hair (think Willie Nelson). I decided to call him Cap’n because his markings make him look like a pirate. The majority of his face is white, except over his left eye is a black patc...
I have a subconscious list of rules for how reality should work. I did not develop these rules on purpose, and most of them don’t make sense – which is disturbing when you consider that they are an attempt to govern the behavior of reality – bu...
Starshine’s greatest challenge is deciding whether a woman is too young to soothe or too old to shame. Handling the men is much easier. They may feign interest in figures and photos, but their underlying interest is for breasts and thighs. A genero...
Rights holders, seeing how unpopular their ideas were, headed down a darker path; rather than give up on government help for such schemes, they worked to get them through with limited public debate. New Zealand’s revised law, which began with the p...
<...> slaves became the major form of Southern wealth (aside from land), and slaveholding became the means to prosperity. <...> The later impoverishment of the South nourished the myth that the slave economy had always been historically “backward,�...
It is tragic to see how the religious sentiment of the West has become so individualized that concepts such as "a contrite heart," have come to refer only to the personal experiences of guilt and willingness to do penance for it. The awareness of our...
A history of the working class in the United States should, first of all, give a sense of what is meant by "the working class in the United States." It means most of us who live in the United States of America-which, unfortunately, has not been the f...
