"Would you believe, downstairs I have a concubine in my harem whose sole duty consists of stamp collecting. It is really not all that difficult. She must peruse each day the mail that comes to the house. Her task is to cut off stamps that seem unusual. She then tosses these stamps into a drawer in a desk upstairs. I should at this point also mention the scullery maid for pots and pans, and another specialists for loading the dishwasher.

The most inspiring concubine, yet the most demanding, requiring careful and constant effort on my part, is the Political Lady. Her depth of information leaves me in awe. Her refusal not to be uninformed leaves me ashamed. The shadow cast by this Iron Lady is long and my entire harem and I live within it.

What a challenge, what joy to have and know my harem. Today of all days I must reflect on the joy of kinship on the joy of love one for the other, all within my harem. I ask: Please won't you all be my Valentine?"-from the short story "Harem in My House"

Jeff, hero, anti-hero, becomes aware of himself pitted against the world, his world of Three Forks, Montana, 1923. His saga, his journey started in real time, then in his "time machine" goes back to his life of wonder with his Grandparets on their Homestead.

Then back to reality vs his Time Warp. Each like a new adventure carries him forward and back with joy and hope. He never gives up his marvel of life. Sailing without a rudder through his ocean of wonder he had no direction until tragedy tempered his shapeless goals to awaken in him meaning and direction for living. Once motivated he never loses sight of his tethered goal. His trail becomes steep and rocky but deters him not as each new day still is a new adventure to wet his joy for living.

Orlando Patterson's classic study of slavery in Jamaica reveals slavery for what it was: a highly repressive and destructive system of human exploitation, which disregarded and distorted almost all of the basic prerequisites of normal social life. What distinguishes Patterson's account is his detailed description of the lives and culture of slaves under this repressive regime. He analyses the conditions of slave life and work on the plantations, the psychological life of slaves and the patterns and meanings of life and death. He shows that the real-life situation of slaves and enslavers involved a complete breakdown of all major social institutions, including the family, gender relations, religion, trust and morality. And yet, despite the repressiveness and protracted genocide of the regime, slaves maintained some space of their own, and their forced adjustment to white norms did not mean that they accepted them. Slave culture was characterized by a persistent sense of resentment and injustice, which underpinned the day-to-day resistance and large-scale rebellions that were a constant feature of slave society, the last and greatest of which partly accounts for its abolition. This second edition includes a new introduction by Orlando Patterson, which explains the origins of the book, appraises subsequent works on Jamaican slavery, and reflects on its enduring relevance. Widely recognized as a foundational work on the social institution of slavery, this book is an essential text for anyone interested in the role of slavery in shaping the modern world.

they belong. Do communities have rights, indeed even an existence, which are not merely the hypostasis of the individual rights and existences collected in them? This conflict is then more striking as it was a conscious decision of the or ganizers of the workshop to focus attention on what might broadly be called liberal democracies: those societies which share a commitment to the princi ples of democratic participation, to the right of equal concern and respect of all members of the community, and to the basic liberties of association, ex pression, and thought. Ours was not the smug premise, however, that every so ciety which proclaims these principles is sufficiently or even truly devoted to them. But we did assume that we would have enough to do if we explored the implications of these widely shared ideals for the topic of linguistic, ethnic, and national minorities as these problems arise in societies where an appeal to them is not an empty gesture. The nations from which our participants were drawn are societies in which appeal to these principles has some point. They are all societies in which the efforts of politicians and the intelligence of schol ars need not be devoted exclusively to the tactical issues of winning some mod icum of respect for basic human rights from unwilling regimes. And yet all these societies have experienced significant difficulty in determining what the concrete meaning in actual situations of these general principles might be."

Orlando Patterson's classic study of slavery in Jamaica reveals slavery for what it was: a highly repressive and destructive system of human exploitation, which disregarded and distorted almost all of the basic prerequisites of normal social life. What distinguishes Patterson's account is his detailed description of the lives and culture of slaves under this repressive regime. He analyses the conditions of slave life and work on the plantations, the psychological life of slaves and the patterns and meanings of life and death. He shows that the real-life situation of slaves and enslavers involved a complete breakdown of all major social institutions, including the family, gender relations, religion, trust and morality. And yet, despite the repressiveness and protracted genocide of the regime, slaves maintained some space of their own, and their forced adjustment to white norms did not mean that they accepted them. Slave culture was characterized by a persistent sense of resentment and injustice, which underpinned the day-to-day resistance and large-scale rebellions that were a constant feature of slave society, the last and greatest of which partly accounts for its abolition. This second edition includes a new introduction by Orlando Patterson, which explains the origins of the book, appraises subsequent works on Jamaican slavery, and reflects on its enduring relevance. Widely recognized as a foundational work on the social institution of slavery, this book is an essential text for anyone interested in the role of slavery in shaping the modern world.

Cyan was named after a shade of blue, her artist mother's favorite color. The color of the sea. Since her father's death last year, she's felt just as mercurial and dark as her namesake, and the distance between Cyan and her mother has grown as wide as an ocean. Now they're returning to the island of Curacao in the Caribbean, where her father's mysterious accident occurred, and joining them will be Kammi--who may soon become a stepsister. Haunted by the secrets of the past, Cyan will explore all the depths of her blueness this summer, discovering the light, the darkness, and the many shades in between that are within her--and within us all.

"Would you believe, downstairs I have a concubine in my harem whose sole duty consists of stamp collecting. It is really not all that difficult. She must peruse each day the mail that comes to the house. Her task is to cut off stamps that seem unusual. She then tosses these stamps into a drawer in a desk upstairs. I should at this point also mention the scullery maid for pots and pans, and another specialists for loading the dishwasher.

The most inspiring concubine, yet the most demanding, requiring careful and constant effort on my part, is the Political Lady. Her depth of information leaves me in awe. Her refusal not to be uninformed leaves me ashamed. The shadow cast by this Iron Lady is long and my entire harem and I live within it.

What a challenge, what joy to have and know my harem. Today of all days I must reflect on the joy of kinship on the joy of love one for the other, all within my harem. I ask: Please won't you all be my Valentine?"-from the short story "Harem in My House"