Jeff Ragan > Recent Status Updates

"...those who have kept many different species of geese together well know what unaccountable attachments they are frequently forming, and that they are quite as likely to pair and rear young with individuals of a race (species) apparently the most alien to themselves as with their own stock" (482).

"'Selim said to me, "I see the Doctor, sir. Oh what an old man!"...So I did that which I thought was most dignified. I pushed back the crowds, and...walked down a living avenue of people, until I came in front of..."the white man"...and said, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"'...This then is the story...which has been more frequently recalled than any other single event in African exploration" (108-9).

"'Selim said to me, "I see the Doctor, sir. Oh, what an old man!"...So I did that which I thought was most dignified. I pushed back the crowds, and...walked down a living avenue of people, until I came in front of...'the white man...' and said, 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume?'...This then is the story...which has been more frequently recalled than any other single event in African exploration" (108-9).

"Mountaintops appear as the entry point for deities to come & go between the heavens & the earth. They represent the place where a deity dwelled...a world beyond the earth where the lives of the gods unfolded, though they also intersect with human reality...the divine palace was...so far up the mountain that one could not see it from the ground, & in this sense it resided in the heavens" (62-3).

"...to settle down into a job that requires less than your mind's full capacity is to cut your motor & sentence yourself to another kind of motion: decay - that your work is the process of achieving your values, & to lose your ambition for values is to lose you ambition to live...that the man who has no purpose is a machine that coasts downhill at the mercy of any boulder to crash in the first chance ditch...(933-4).

"The lesson of Ptolemaic socialism is that even a government may exploit. Under the first two Ptolemies the system worked reasonably well; great engineering enterprises were completed, agriculture was improved, marketing was brought into order...there was a rapid deterioration in the quality of the kings; they ate & drank & mated, & allowed the administration of the system to all into the hands of rascals" (596).

"Two sets of warnings ensue after the lament, one warns villages in the Shephelah that they will be destroyed when Jerusalem is punished (1:10-12) and the othrr treats the recent destruction of Lachish as an ominous warning of the destruction to come (1:13-16)...the passage evokes the events of Sennacherib's campaign in 701 BCE wherein he destroyed Lachish and laid siege to Jerusalem" (48).

"...it appears that when sexual selection has been highly influential, and has given bright colours to the males of any species, it has also very often given a strong tendency to pugnacity...with birds the power of song and brilliant colours have rarely been both acquired by the males of the same species" (474).

"Et j'entendis une forte voix, venant du trone, qui disait: 'Voici la Tente de Dieu avec les hommes. Il habitera avec eux; ils seront ses peuples et lui, Dieu avec eu sera leur Dieu. Il essuiera toute larme de leurs yeux. La mort ne sera plus et lil n'y aura plus ni deuil, ni plainte, ni souffrance. Car ce qui etait autrefois a definitivement disparu.'" - Apocalypse 21:3-4

"[Baker's] books were much more than adventure stories and his journeys had an importance that went far beyond their popular interest. He had imported something quite new into the Central African scene; he had made it comprehensible. He formed a kind of bridge between the original myths and legends and the reality of what was actually to be found in the country" (94).

"Rumors went spreading through the county in whispers of cynical terror - yet people read the newspapers and acted as if they believed what they read, each competing with the others on who would keep most blindly silent, each pretending that he did not know what he knew, each striving to believe that the unnamed was the unreal" (918).

"Old Testament prophets speaking under the authority of Yahweh take on the powerful, confronting kings, princes, priests, government officials, and foreign occupiers. Ordinary people would not dare to speak as blatantly as the Old Testament prophets do" (41).

"This imposition of Geek civilization upon the Near East is one of the startling phenomena of ancient history; no change so swift...had ever been seen in Asia...Never before...had a civilization achieved so wide a spread & such complex unity amid so man diverse environments. For a century western Asia belonged to Europe. The way was prepared for the Pax Romana, & the embracing synthesis of Christendom" (576-7).

"...le temps de salut est arrive...notre Dieu a manifeste sa puissance et instaure son regne...son Messie a pris l'autorite en mains. Car l'Accusateur de nos freres, celui qui, jour et nuit, les a accuses devant Dieu, a ete jete hors de ciel. Mais eux, ils l'ont vaincu grace au sang de l'Agneau et...au temoignage qu'ils ont rendu pour lui, car ils n'ont pas aime leur vie jusq'a redouter de mourir." -Apoc. 2:10-11

"Baker is a kind of fulcrum in African exploration. He stands in the centre of all theories, emotions & moral attitudes, never deviating too far one way or the other...he is a practical, down-to-earth man, who knows precisely what he wants & where he is going to go. One feels with him...things will calm down in the end & everyone will come round to his sober & sensible way of thinking" (76).

"...the habit of annually moulting twice has not been acquired in order that the male should assume an ornamental character during the breeding-season; but that the double moult, having been originally acquired for some distinct purpose, has subsequently been taken advantage of in certain cases for gaining a nuptial plumage" (469).

"Just like the prophetic messages Yahweh commissioned to Judah and Israel, however, Yahweh's mercy at one point in time does not preclude judgment will not be inflicted at a later point. Prophetic messages of doom carry an implicit call to change, and prophetic messages of salvation were contingent upon remaining in Yahweh's good graces" (34).

"'I don't know if I can stay here, Kelly. It's not home.' 'Give it a chance. All you've been in is a hospital. It gets better. I promise.' 'Oh, it's wonderful here. Everyone is nice. The food is incredible...But it's not home. I wish someone had told me that you don't share your pronouns & ask theirs when you first meet someone here.' 'Yeah, I can see it being an adjustment. Freedom takes getting used to.'" (312-3).

"It was the silence of immobility within him, as if possessing knowledge, he could now afford to rest with no further activity of soul. He felt nothing, neither anguish nor elation. It was as if, by an effort of years, he had climbed a mountain to gain a distant view and, having reached the top, had fallen to lie still, to rest before he looked, free to spare himself for the first time" (904).

"A celui qui peut vous garder de tout chute and vous faire paraitre en sa presence glorieuse, sans reproche et exultante de joie, au Dieu unique qui nous a sauves par Jesus-Christ notre Seigneur, a lui appartiennent la gloire et la majeste, la force et l'autorite, depuis toujours, maintenant et durant toute l'eternite! Amen." - Jude 24-25

"...Burton & Speke together had been to the northern end of Lake Tanganyika...& although they had not actually seen the Rusizi River, they had satisfied themselves...that it flowed into the lake & thus could not possibly be the Nile. Burton had felt 'sick at heart' at the time. But now...he felt much better. He simply reversed his previous decision & made the Rusizi flow the other way" (69-70).

"Classic Greek civilization had been built upon a patriotic devotion to the city-state, and classic morality, though rooted in folkways rather than in faith, had been powerfully reinforced by supernatural belief. But now neither faith nor patriotism survived in the educated Greek; civic frontiers had been erased by empires; and the growth of knowledge had secularized morals, marriage, parentage, and law" (566).

"...the surprisingly few differences among the ancient manuscripts compared to the unpointed consonants of the MT speak to the care with which these documents were copied" (25).

"Carter was shouting 'Go, go!' to the pilots. The pilot did not take off, so Carter shot the co-pilot. Ernie Smith was right - the Glock would fire no matter what it was covered with. The pilot complied, and as they rose veering south, they watched Marshall run hunched over to the access door, cradling his ruined right hand. Carter took aim, but Turnbull pushed her arm down, shaking his head and smiling" (303).

The diversity of the sounds, both vocal and instrumental, made by the males of many birds during the breeding-season, and the diversity of the means of producing such sounds, are highly remarkable" (462).

"Celui qui ne reste pas attache a l'enseignement qui concerne le Christ, mais s'en ecarte, n'a pas de communion avec Dieu. Celui qui reste attache a cet enseignement est uni au Pere comme au Fils." - 2 Jean 9

"The king...now loaded one of the carbines I had given him with his own hands, and giving it full-cock to a page, told him to go out and shoot a man in the outer court: which was no sooner accomplished than the little urchin returned to announce his success, with a look of glee such as one would see in the face of a boy who had robbed a bird's nest, caught a trout, or done any other boyish trick" (51).

"She had set out to break him, as if, unable to equal his value, she could surpass it by destroying it, as if the measure of his greatness would thus become the measure of hers, as if - he thought with a shudder - as if the vandal who smashed a statue were greater than the artist who had made it..." (892).

"The destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE dramatically changed life in Jerusalem and Judah. The Babylonian conquest irreparably altered the physical and political landscape of the city. The Babylonians devastated the temple, the royal place, and the city walls. The dynasty of Davidic kings who had ruled Judah from Jerusalem ceased to exist after more than four hundred years in power" (9).

"Carter got to the doors and pushed. Firm. She pounded and shouted. Nothing. Turnbull trotted up. 'Where is he?' Turnbull muttered, pounding the door. Nothing. He turned, his weapon's flashlight on, aiming into the darkness. Carter lifted her MP5. They were coming. 'Save one for yourself,' Turnbull advised. He opened fire, and so did she, and the noise from her weapon was deafening" (286).