Another Kind of SmokeJust off the coast of Kagoshima exists Sakurajima, the most active volcano in Japan. The magma bubbling underneath produces the hot, mineral-rich water pumped into the city’s famed onsen baths. What classifies as an eruption happens annually, and the mountain puffs up smoke nearly every day, the dark ash trailing in the wind for miles.

Kagoshima residents live under the threat of a major eruption, just as we do in Santa Rosa with wildfires. It’s not uncommon for the air to turn to smoke, or ash to fall on the city. On less fortunate days, elementary school students venturing outside wear helmets to protect them from debris.

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture — a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees — very gradually — I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.

Tajomaru’s Confession

But I didn’t like to resort to
unfair means to kill him. I untied
him and told him to cross swords
with me. (The rope that was
found at the root of the cedar is
the rope I dropped at the time.)
Furious with anger, he drew his
thick sword. And quick as
thought, he sprang at me
ferociously, without speaking a
word. I needn’t tell you how our
fight turned out. The twenty-third
stroke . . . please remember this.
I’m impressed with this fact still.
Nobody under the sun has ever
clashed swords with me twenty
strokes. (A cheerful smile.)

The Confession of a Woman
Who Has Come to the Shimizu
Temple

When he heard these words,
he moved his lips with difficulty.
Since his mouth was stuffed with
leaves, of course his voice could
not be heard at all. But at a
glance I understood his words.
Despising me, his look said only,
“Kill me.” Neither conscious nor
unconscious, I stabbed the small
sword through the lilac-colored
kimono into his breast.

Tajomaru’s Confession

But I didn’t like to resort to
unfair means to kill him. I untied
him and told him to cross swords
with me. (The rope that was
found at the root of the cedar is
the rope I dropped at the time.)
Furious with anger, he drew his
thick sword. And quick as
thought, he sprang at me
ferociously, without speaking a
word. I needn’t tell you how our
fight turned out. The twenty-third
stroke . . . please remember this.
I’m impressed with this fact still.
Nobody under the sun has ever
clashed swords with me twenty
strokes. (A cheerful smile.)

The Confession of a Woman
Who Has Come to the Shimizu
Temple

When he heard these words,
he moved his lips with difficulty.
Since his mouth was stuffed with
leaves, of course his voice could
not be heard at all. But at a
glance I understood his words.
Despising me, his look said only,
“Kill me.” Neither conscious nor
unconscious, I stabbed the small
sword through the lilac-colored
kimono into his breast.

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio. A fellow of infinite jest,
of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a
thousand times. And now how abhorred in my imagination it is!
My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kiss’d I
know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your
songs? your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table
on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? Quite
chap- fall’n? Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her,
let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come. Make her
laugh at that.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tennant_and_Tchaikowsky_as_Hamlet_and_Yorick.jpg

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio. A fellow of infinite jest,
of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a
thousand times. And now how abhorred in my imagination it is!
My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kiss’d I
know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your
songs? your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table
on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? Quite
chap- fall’n? Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her,
let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come. Make her
laugh at that.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tennant_and_Tchaikowsky_as_Hamlet_and_Yorick.jpg

Text 1
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

 —William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Text 2
Fortunato had hurt me a
thousand times and I had suffered
quietly. But then I learned that he
had laughed at my proud name,
Montresor, the name of an old
and honored family. I promised
myself that I would make him
pay for this.

—Edgar Allan Poe, The Cask of Amontillado

Text 1
For decades, it was common knowledge in the scientific community that an aggressive “alpha” male wolf would dominate its pack. This concept, once centered only in biological research, filtered into the social sciences. Business managers were told that they needed to be an “alpha wolf” to manage their organizations. Men were taught that they needed to be more aggressive to attract a partner.

Text 2
In 2003, the originator of the “alpha wolf” theory, David Mech, published Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation. Mech’s research showed that wild wolf packs do not have an alpha. Instead, they collaborate much like a family. Only in captivity does the alpha phenomenon happen. Mech had studied captive wolves in the 1960s, leading to his original theory.

(1)  One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. (2) One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. (3) One hundred years later the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. (4) And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

I am thinking this morning of the men in the mills and the factories; of the men in the mines and on the railroads. 38 I am thinking of the women who for a paltry wage are compelled to work out their barren lives; of the little children who in this system are robbed of their childhood and in their tender years are seized in the remorseless grasp of Mammon and forced into the industrial dungeons, there to feed the monster machines while they themselves are being starved and stunted, body and soul. I see them dwarfed and 39 diseased and their little lives broken and blasted because in this high noon of Christian civilization money is still so much more important than the flesh and blood of childhood. In very truth gold is god today and rules with pitiless sway in the affairs of men.

Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

I am thinking this morning of the men in the mills and the factories; of the men in the mines and on the railroads. 38 I am thinking of the women who for a paltry wage are compelled to work out their barren lives; of the little children who in this system are robbed of their childhood and in their tender years are seized in the remorseless grasp of Mammon and forced into the industrial dungeons, there to feed the monster machines while they themselves are being starved and stunted, body and soul. I see them dwarfed and 39 diseased and their little lives broken and blasted because in this high noon of Christian civilization money is still so much more important than the flesh and blood of childhood. In very truth gold is god today and rules with pitiless sway in the affairs of men.

Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

I am thinking this morning of the men in the mills and the factories; of the men in the mines and on the railroads. 38 I am thinking of the women who for a paltry wage are compelled to work out their barren lives; of the little children who in this system are robbed of their childhood and in their tender years are seized in the remorseless grasp of Mammon and forced into the industrial dungeons, there to feed the monster machines while they themselves are being starved and stunted, body and soul. I see them dwarfed and 39 diseased and their little lives broken and blasted because in this high noon of Christian civilization money is still so much more important than the flesh and blood of childhood. In very truth gold is god today and rules with pitiless sway in the affairs of men.

Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

I am thinking this morning of the men in the mills and the factories; of the men in the mines and on the railroads. 38 I am thinking of the women who for a paltry wage are compelled to work out their barren lives; of the little children who in this system are robbed of their childhood and in their tender years are seized in the remorseless grasp of Mammon and forced into the industrial dungeons, there to feed the monster machines while they themselves are being starved and stunted, body and soul. I see them dwarfed and 39 diseased and their little lives broken and blasted because in this high noon of Christian civilization money is still so much more important than the flesh and blood of childhood. In very truth gold is god today and rules with pitiless sway in the affairs of men.

Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

I am thinking this morning of the men in the mills and the factories; of the men in the mines and on the railroads. 38 I am thinking of the women who for a paltry wage are compelled to work out their barren lives; of the little children who in this system are robbed of their childhood and in their tender years are seized in the remorseless grasp of Mammon and forced into the industrial dungeons, there to feed the monster machines while they themselves are being starved and stunted, body and soul. I see them dwarfed and 39 diseased and their little lives broken and blasted because in this high noon of Christian civilization money is still so much more important than the flesh and blood of childhood. In very truth gold is god today and rules with pitiless sway in the affairs of men.