Lake Nicaragua shark (Carcharinus nicaraguensis)

"HIDDEN DEMON OF THE PEACEFUL LAKE

"High in the jungles of Central America, Lake Nicaragua lies shimmering amid green hills in a setting of breath-taking beauty, inviting the passer-by to escape the oppressive heat in the coolness of its waters. But this can be an invitation to death, for under its calm surface lurks one of the world's few fresh water maneaters, the Lake Nicaragua shark. Averaging 8 to 10 feet in length and closely related to the Atlantic ground shark which rarely attacks men, this predator was originally a sea-dweller who migrated up the San Carlos River from the Caribbean. When prehistoric earthquakes cut off its return route to the sea with waterfalls and rapids, this shark settled down in its present home and somehow acquired a taste for people. The Lake Nicaragua shark is a deadly menace to swimmers in the lakeshore shallows because it hugs the bottom, so that no racing fin breaks the surface to warn of its approach. Local people and visitors alike have succumbed to its stealth, their first hint of danger being the mortal crush of the murderer's powerful jaws."

--Animal World in Color, Volume 8 - Hunters: Birds, Fish, and Amphibians, edited by Maurice Burton, Childrens Press: Chicago, 1969

You don't seem to

"Why make a fuss when you're so comfortable? Don't make a fuss, make a baby. Go out and get something to eat, build something. Make another baby. Babies are cute. Babies show you have faith in the future. Although faith is perhaps too strong a word. They're everywhere these days, in all the crowds and traffic jams, there are the babies too. You don't seem to associate them with the problems of population increase. They're just babies!"

--Joy Williams, "Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp," Ill Nature: Rants and Reflections on Humanity and Other Animals, 2001

Mother's Day cards

The blackness of the eternal void from which we come and to which we return.

The briefness of our sojourn among the conscious.

Knowledge of the Human Experience in Diverse Cultures Enlightens One to Moral Relativism

"In any comprehensive study of psychology, the selection that different cultures have made in the course of history within the great circumference of potential behavior is of great significance.

"Every society, beginning with some slight inclination in one direction or another, carries its preference farther and farther, integrating itself more and more completely upon its chosen basis, and discarding those types of behavior that are uncongenial. Most of those organizations of personality that seem to us most uncontrovertibly abnormal have been used by different civilizations in the very foundations of their institutional life. Conversely the most valued traits of our normal individuals have been looked on in differently organized cultures as aberrant. Normality, in short, within a very wide range, is culturally defined. It is primarily a term for the socially elaborated segment of human behavior in any culture; and abnormality, a term for the segment that that particular civilization does not use. The very eyes with which we see the problem are conditioned by the long traditional habits of our own society.

"It is a point that has been made more often in relation to ethics than in relation to psychiatry. We do not any longer make the mistake of deriving the morality of our locality and decade directly from the inevitable constitution of human nature. We do not elevate it to the dignity of a first principle. We recognize that morality differs in every society, and is a convenient term for socially approved habits. Mankind has always preferred to say, 'It is morally good,' rather than 'It is habitual'...

"There is an ascertainable range of human behavior that is found wherever a sufficiently large series of individuals is observed. But the proportion in which behavior types stand to one another in different societies is not universal. The vast majority of individuals in any group are shaped to the fashion of that culture. In other words, most individuals are plastic to the molding force of the society into which they are born. In a society that values trance, as in India, they will have supernormal experience. In a society that institutionalizes homosexuality, they will be homosexual. In a society that sets the gathering of possessions as the chief human objective, they will amass property. The deviants, whatever the type of behavior the culture has institutionalized, will remain few in number, and there seems no more difficulty in molding the vast malleable majority to the 'normality' of what we consider an aberrant trait, such as delusions of reference, than to the normality of such accepted behavior patterns as acquisitiveness. The small proportion of the number of the deviants in any culture is not a function of the sure instinct with which that society has built itself upon the fundamental sanities, but of the universal fact that, happily, the majority of mankind quite readily take any shape that is presented to them...."

--Ruth Benedict, "Anthropology and the Abnormal," Journal of General Psychology, 1934

all both alike and different

"War stories, like Holocaust stories, are all both alike and different, and all improbable; each turns on moments of hor­ror, serendipity, and unimaginable bravery. Sitting next to me at Fran O'Brien's was Steve Reighard, of Bloomington, Indiana, who was hacking one-handed with a combination knife-fork at a steak the size of a dictionary. 'They am­bushed us,' he said. 'I'm standing there trying to realize what happened and my arm is laying there. I picked it up and fell in the dirt.' Across the table, Robert Acosta, of Santa Ana, California, manipulated a steak knife with his stainless-steel hook. 'They threw a hand grenade in my truck,' he said. 'I picked it up and, damn, dropped it down between my legs. When I grabbed it again, it blew up in my hand.' At Walter Reed, Phil Bauer, a strapping cavalry scout from upstate New York, had described being on a Chinook heli­copter that was shot down on November 2nd, killing fifteen soldiers on their way to a short leave. When he came to, he said, he was pinned atop the open-eyed corpse of a woman soldier to whom he'd just given a piece of gum. His leg was jammed beneath the burning roof of the Chinook, and he had to lie there, without morphine, for two hours while a 'jaws of life' appa­ratus was flown in from Tikrit. 'It was like cooking a steak with the cover down,' he said. He lost his right leg below the knee. At the dinner, a soldier named Ed Platt, from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, told me that the signature moment of his calamity was when the medics used the ribbons of his leg--­shattered by a rocket-propelled grenade--as its own tourniquet. 'They just folded it up,' he said. 'I looked down and I'm looking at the sole of my boot.' He shuddered. 'OK, cool, whatever, dude,' he muttered to himself as he finished his story. Doctors amputated just below Platt's right hip."

--Dan Baum, "The Casualty," The New Yorker, 2004 March 8

Happy Victory Day

Fifth of May

"Despite being outgunned and outnumbered almost two to one, Mexico won the Battle of Puebla.

"But Mexico did not win the war. France sent 30,000 more soldiers to Mexico and took Mexico City in 1863. While occupying Mexico, France put Maximilian I, a Hapsburg prince, on the throne. His title: emperor of Mexico.

"A few years later, under pressure from the Mexican people and the United States, France withdrew in 1866-1867. President Benito Juarez executed Maximilian five years after the Battle of Puebla."

--"World of Wonder: Exploring the Realms of History, Science, Nature and Technology"

the cosmic irony

"What Bartleby essentially dramatizes is not the pathos of dementia praecox but the bitter metaphysical pathos of the human situation itself; the cosmic irony of the truth that men are at once immitigably interdependent and immitigably forlorn."

--Newton Arvin, Herman Melville, A Critical Biography, 1950

Cafe Amsterdam: Speed Dating -- Завгүй залуу та хайраа хайж байна уу?

"Cafe Amsterdam has decided to launch speed dating for Mongolians. The first event will be held on Friday 8th May 2009 at 7pm. We realize that many of our mailing list subscribers are non Mongolians but we would be very grateful if you would take the time to print the attached PDF file and put it up in your office or spread the word to your Mongolian co workers.

"Please feel free to forward the email to anyone you feel maybe interested.

"Завгүй залуу та хайраа хайж байна уу?

"Амстердам Кафе Монголд анх удаа ‘Speed Dating’ зохион байгуулж байна.

"5 сарын 8ны Ням гарагийн 19 цагт

"Гоёмсог хувцасаа өмсөж ирээрэй. Хүн бүртэй уулзаж танилцахад 3 мин л бий.
25-35 насны 25 залуу, 25 бүсгүйчүүдийг урьж байна.

"Үйл ажиллагаанд оролцохоо бүртгүүлэхийн тулд cafe(at)amsterdam(dot)mn нд нэр, нас, холбоо барих утасныхаа дугаараа имейлээр явуулна уу. Хамгийн түрүүнд бүртгүүлсэн 25 бүсгүй, 25 залууг эхний ээлжинд сонгон оруулах болно. Эхний ээлжинд оролцож чадаагүй бол санаа зовох хэрэггүй. Энэ үйл ажиллагааг 2 долоо хоног болгон зохион байгуулж байх болно.

"Бүсгүйчүүд сууцгаан, залуу бүртэй 3 минутын хугацаанд ярилцан танилцах болно. Уулзалт болгоны дараа залуу бүсгүй хоёр тухайн хүнтэйгээ дахин уулзах хүсэлтэй эсэхийг нууц хуудас дээр тэмдэглэх бөгөөд хэрвээ таны сонгосон хүн таныг мөн сонгосон байвал, бид та хоёрыг холбож уулзуулах болно.

"Таксны 10 000 төгрөгийн үнэнд нэг коктайл дагалдаж ирнэ."

--http://www.amsterdam.mn/speed-dating/42-speed-dating

U.S.S.R., Ukraine, Chernobyl, 1986 April 26

"'The reactor fire was very hot; we measured at least 7,000 degrees,' says Vladimir Verbitskiy, 47, an officer at the control center of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone who worked there at the time, and who still works there today. 'But the bigger problem was the radiation itself. Initially, Reactor 4's core was emitting 40,000 roentgens an hour, and deadly levels for humans are 600 an hour. And the containment vessel was shattered facing west, with its top blown off and lying on its side. There was no way to contain the radiation; it was directed straight up and also horizontally away in beams through the cracked vessel. Those beams were very powerful. If you got stuck in the way of one for a long period of time, your flesh would simply disintegrate.'

"The fire inside the containment vessel raged on, with no public statement from the Soviet government. But if the Kremlin was taciturn after the explosion, Chernobyl was in a frenzy. 'The roads were washed 24 hours a day, just to keep them clear of radioactive ash,' says Verbitskiy. 'Everyone was ordered inside with the windows shut. Helicopters were brought in to drop sand, clay, boron, and lead onto the fire from above, trying to smother it and trap the radioactivity. Dropping lead was a big mistake, since it melted before it hit the fire and turned into a molten and now radioactive liquid that spread. Of course, they were trying anything... everything. After all, nothing like this had ever happened before.'"

--Donovan Webster, "Nature's Revenge" in Best Life, 2008 November

and with the Nordic Cross on the flag

"The Global Peace Index ranks Norway as the most peaceful country in the world. Every year for half a decade, Norway has ranked number one in standard of living, life expectancy, literacy, and education. The unemployment rate is half that of America, its crime rate is low, and it has the second highest gross domestic product.

"Norway is a model country. Yet more than 70 percent of its population claim to be either atheist or agnostic. Only 26 percent of Norway’s population believe in God.

"Norway had Christian roots, even more so than the United States whose Founding Fathers purposely left religion out of the Constitution. But Norway has shed its religious upbringing and has become one of the safest, most progressive, and most peaceful countries in the world."

--http://wilstar.com/OverCoffee/blog/2007/10/religious-propaganda-in-my-school.html

kea (Nestor notabilis)

"THE MURDERING PARROT

"Found only in New Zealand, the kea passes the summer high in the mountains of South Island, feeding mainly on fruit but also taking insects and worms. But when winter comes it descends to the plains where sheep-farming is one of the main activities. It is there that this otherwise harmless vegetarian changes character. Originally its ancestors pecked the sheepskins hanging outside sheep stations for insects, or tasted offal from the slaughter-houses. Later generations of keas, having acquired this taste for flesh, began to prey on the bodies of living sheep, chiefly for the sake of the kidney-fat they had learned to look for. So expert is the kea that it will alight on the back of a sheep exactly where the kidneys are most easily exposed. The cruel beak finds its meal in an instant, leaving the poor beast mortally wounded."

--Animal World in Color, Volume 8 - Hunters: Birds, Fish, and Amphibians, edited by Maurice Burton, Childrens Press: Chicago, 1969

cassowary (Casuarius casuarius)

"NEW GUINEA CASSOWARY

"The native was returning home late in the evening humming to himself, when in front of him he heard a curious howling, grunting noise. An instant later a shape hurled itself upon him. Two slashing claws raked down his body, he fell backwards, and his attacker trampled over him and rushed on. He was very lucky, for he had met a cassowary, a notoriously bad-tempered bird, almost five and a half feet tall, out hunting for food. Although in the dense forests of New Guinea and Australia cassowaries feed mainly on berries and plants, they will sometimes kill small animals for meat. They fight by hurling themselves at an opponent, slashing downwards with their powerful claws, which will kill a man. On its forehead the cassowary has a bony helmet which protects it as it runs through the thick undergrowth at a speed sometimes reaching almost thirty miles an hour."

--Animal World in Color, Volume 8 - Hunters: Birds, Fish, and Amphibians, edited by Maurice Burton, Childrens Press: Chicago, 1969

When Things Get Dark: A Mongolian Winter's Tale

"I wanted to share the exciting news that I recently sold my first book to St. Martin's Press. It's a book of literary nonfiction called When Things Get Dark: A Mongolian Winter's Tale, and it is due out this upcoming winter, in 2010."

--Matthew Davis

Happy Easter

Dharma Bums III

"Then suddenly one night after supper as I was pacing in the cold windy darkness of the yard I felt tremendously depressed and threw myself right on the ground and cried 'I'm gonna die!' because there was nothing else to do in the cold loneliness of this harsh inhospitable earth, and instantly the tender bliss of enlightenment was like milk in my eyelids and I was warm. And I realized that this was the truth Rosie knew now, and all the dead, my dead father and dead brother and dead uncles and cousins and aunts, the truth that is realizable in a dead man's bones and is beyond the Tree of Buddha as well as the Cross of Jesus."

--Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums, 1958

Agnostic

"Bertrand Russell was a well known British philosopher of the 20th century. He was arrested during World War I for anti-war activities, and filled out a form at the jail. The officer, noting that Russell had defined his religious affiliation as 'Agnostic' commented: 'Ah yes; we all worship Him in our own way, don't we.' This comment allegedly 'kept him smiling through his first few days of incarceration.'"

--http://www.religioustolerance.org/agnostic.htm

reason

Monstrously Disregards

In the United States, received a piece of religious propaganda in the mail, a 16-page, tabloid-sized newspaper entitled Faith for Life, compliments of the local Baptist church. The lead piece, “Why Does a Loving God Allow Bad Things to Happen?,” is a 1,000-word attempt to resolve the Epicurean paradox in favor of Christian faith, though the paradox is not identified by name within the piece.

The first paragraph:

“In July of 1945, during WWII, the warship USS Indianapolis had just delivered the atomic bomb. On its way back home it was torpedoed by the Japanese and sunk, stranding many sailors in the Pacific Ocean. In the days that followed, hundreds of men perished by sharks or other means until the tattered survivors were finally rescued. How could something so tragic ever happen?”

In the first paragraph of the first article on the first page of this lengthy proselytization paper, the writer alludes to an attack on an urban center with an experimental weapon of mass destruction resulting in the instantaneous incineration of 70,000 civilian non-combatants and the consequent fatal radiation poisoning and burning of 70,000 more, and monstrously disregards this in order to, in the same paragraph, designate the death of 900 fighting men in the legitimate sinking of their warship as “something so tragic.” Presumably because the 900 were “us” and the 140,000 were “the enemy,” the writer presents the death of 900 warriors as a tragedy and flouts the massacre of 140,000 innocents as not worthy of comment, in a contemptuous affront to the hippie admonition to “Love thine enemy.” The writer goes on from here to argue for the existence of a benevolent god-being.

The piece is signed: “FfL Editor.” No editor's name, writer's name, or staff member's name appears anywhere within the paper.

African helmet or wood shrike (Euryceros prevosti)

"FIGHTERS ALL

"'All shrikes are bullies, aggressive and blood-thirsty', says a distinguished naturalist, and the habits of the African helmet or wood shrike would seem to confirm this statement. But like other creatures, including man, it must eat to live, and fight for its living. We hear of shrikes seizing helpless young birds and pecking out their brains to provide a tasty morsel, whilst ignoring the rest of the body.... In many districts shrikes band together in companies to protect their nesting grounds. Fortified by numbers they become exceedingly daring, and will even mob and 'dive buzz' an invader as large and formidable as a leopard."

--Animal World in Color, Volume 8 - Hunters: Birds, Fish, and Amphibians, edited by Maurice Burton, Childrens Press: Chicago, 1969

North Dakota Tourism Division 28-page brochure entitled "Indian People of North Dakota"

photo caption: "Sakakawea Statue Dedication, 1910"

"First People of the Plains

"They are the Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, the Yanktonai, Sisseton, Wahpeton, Hunkpapa and other Dakotah/Lakotah (commonly known as the Sioux) Tribes, along with the Pembina Chippewa, Cree and Metis....

"Visitors are welcome to explore the reservations and discover the beauty of Indian culture.

"The native people of North Dakota invite you to 'Indian Country.' When Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out to explore the Louisiana Purchase west of the Mississippi River, they found it occupied by Native peoples who had developed extensive trade networks from the Northwest Coast, to Mexico, and into what is now Canada. Walk in the footsteps of some of the legends of American history, like Sakakawea and Sitting Bull, and take in the beauty of their homelands. Just as the name 'Dakota' means 'friend or ally' in the Lakota language, the hand of friendship and hospitality is extended to you as you journey here."

secretary bird (Sagittarius serpentarius)

"SPINDLE-LEGGED SNAKE-HUNTER

"When the secretary bird comes calling, even the deadliest snake had better hide, for this odd-looking creature is a master of the fine art of killing snakes. Found throughout the African grasslands from the Egyptian Sudan to Cape Province, the secretary gets its name from the crest of long feathers that look like old-fashioned quill pens stuck behind its ears. Most of its four-foot height is taken up with the long, gangling legs that allow it to walk faster than a man can run. When it spies a snake, it approaches, weaving and flapping its wings. By confusing the aim of the reptile's fangs, it can pin the writhing serpent with one powerful foot. Then, seizing its victim behind the head, it either dashes it to death or takes it aloft and kills it by dropping it from a great height to the hard ground below."

--Animal World in Color, Volume 8 - Hunters: Birds, Fish, and Amphibians, edited by Maurice Burton, Childrens Press: Chicago, 1969

/still/ with the vampires

"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Medieval stories of revenants have common features....

"Several stories imply that sucking of blood has occurred. Because of this, revenants have sometimes been described as 'vampires' by a number of authors of popular books about vampire legends, starting with Montague Summers. Medievalists are, however, largely skeptical towards this interpretation, possibly because vampire legends are believed to have originated in Eastern European folklore and became known to the Western public only later through reports coming from the East in the 18th century. Vampires do not appear in Western fiction (with modifications) until the late 18th century and early 19th century, starting with authors such as Robert Southey, Lord Byron and John William Polidori. However, anthropologists and folklorists tend to blur distinctions between the various forms of 'walking dead', for which counterparts exist in the myths and legends of nearly every civilization dating back to earliest history."

cease to be

"Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh."

--George Bernard Shaw

Svenhild Hansen

"EAGLE AND CHILD

"Stories are often told of eagles carrying off a lamb or child, but real-life instances capable of proof are very few. It is generally agreed by ornithologists that an eagle is unable to carry a weight in excess of its own, and few of these birds weigh more than twelve pounds. However, there seems no reason to doubt the terrifying experience of four-year-old Svenhild Hansen, who was actually 'kidnapped' by an eagle near Trondheim in Norway in June, 1932. She was playing in the yard of her parents' farmhouse when an eagle swooped down on her, fortunately clutching only her dress in its talons. The giant bird is then said to have carried her 'more than a mile' towards its eyrie. Becoming tired, it deposited her on a ledge eight hundred feet up on a mountain and fifty feet short of the nest. Only the fact that the eagle was seen to fly repeatedly over the spot gave a clue to the panic-stricken parents and a party of searchers. Eventually little Svenhild was found there fast asleep, uninjured except for slight bruising and a few scratches.

"Now a married woman, she keeps the torn frock she then wore as a souvenir of one of the world's most amazing adventures. As it is the habit of eagles to kill their prey before bringing it to the nest, Svenhild's escape must be one of the most extraordinary on record."

--Animal World in Color, Volume 8 - Hunters: Birds, Fish, and Amphibians, edited by Maurice Burton, Childrens Press: Chicago, 1969

Dharma Bums II

“Diamond Sutra says 'Make no formed conceptions about the realness of existence nor about the unrealness of existence.'”

--Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums, 1958

www.TheSteppe.com

Intercalation

"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"In the Julian Calendar as well as in the Gregorian Calendar that improved it, intercalation is done by adding an extra day to February in each leap year. In the Julian Calendar this was done every four years. In the Gregorian calendar, years whose number is evenly divisible by 100 but not 400 were exempted in order to improve accuracy. Thus, 2000 was the first century year in 400 years to be a leap year."

Soteriology

"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Soteriology is the branch of theology that deals with salvation. It is derived from the Greek sōtērion 'salvation' (from sōtēr 'savior, preserver') + English -logy. The term itself can be used to refer to any kind of religion, and no savior figure or figures are required. Soteriology is a key factor that distinguishes religion from philosophy."

why did he not write out his thoughts

"She asked him why did he not write out his thoughts. For what, he asked her, with careful scorn. To compete with phrasemongers, incapable of thinking consecutively for sixty seconds? To submit himself to the criticisms of an obtuse middle class which entrusted its morality to policemen and its fine arts to impresarios?"

--James Joyce, "A Painful Case," 1914

Happy International Women's Day

"Besides, it happens fast for some people and slow for some, accidents or gravity, but we all end up mutilated. Most women know this feeling of being more and more invisible everyday."

--Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters, 1999

Map of Mongolia in English

Californians

"Californians are a race of people; they are not merely inhabitants of a State."

--O. Henry, "A Municipal Report," 1904

Somewhere in Poland

photo by Marta

decided I couldn't post this in either The Crush or Adventuria

My friend Mike and I have a 14-year ongoing dispute over religion. He's atheist; I'm agnostic. I visited Mike in Boston last autumn. I arrived late on a Saturday night, and as we rode through the city in a taxi, Mike told me that he had to get up early the next morning to attend the weekly meeting of his atheist group. I said, "What?" He told me, yes, he's a member of an atheist group that meets every week, and I was invited to come along. I said, "You go to church? You're an atheist! The best part about being atheist is that you don't have to get up on Sunday morning and go to church! So you blow that all to hell by going to atheist church? Whoever heard of such a thing? And you want me to go with you? Goddamnit Mike, of all the people I know, you were the last person I ever expected to push their religion on me." But I went; the atheists met in a bar so at least we got to drink.

Crunch

The "War on Terror" guys are releasing a new boardgame:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/385892

"The Raven" in 1946, one hundred and one years later

"'The Raven' is probably the best-known poem in America. When it appeared in the New York Evening Mirror for January 29, 1845, it created a national, even an international, sensation. 'No brief poem,' says George E. Woodberry, 'ever established itself so immediately, so widely, and so imperishably in men's minds.'"

--American Writers: Revised Edition, The Athenaeum Press: Boston, 1946

Dharma Bums

“I hadn't yet digested the Lankavatara Scripture which eventually shows you that there's nothing in the world but the mind itself, and therefore all's possible.”

--Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums, 1958

www.TheSteppe.com

consciousness, illusion, free will

"The brain appears to make up its mind 10 seconds before we become conscious of a decision....

"'We think our decisions are conscious,' said neuroscientist John-Dylan Haynes at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin, who is pioneering this research. 'But these data show that consciousness is just the tip of the iceberg. This doesn't rule out free will, but it does make it implausible....'

"Dr. Haynes and his colleagues devised a deceptively simple experiment, reported in April in Nature Neuroscience. They monitored the swift neural currents coursing through the brains of student volunteers as they decided, at their own pace and at random, whether to push a button with their left or right hands....

"Studying the brain behavior leading up to the moment of conscious decision, the researchers identified signals that let them know when the students had decided to move 10 seconds or so before the students knew it themselves. About 70% of the time, the researchers could also predict which button the students would push.

"'It's quite eerie,' said Dr. Haynes....

"Dutch researchers led by psychologist Ap Dijksterhuis at the University of Amsterdam recently found that people struggling to make relatively complicated consumer choices -- which car to buy, apartment to rent or vacation to take -- appeared to make sounder decisions when they were distracted and unable to focus consciously on the problem.

"Moreover, the more factors to be considered in a decision, the more likely the unconscious brain handled it all better, they reported in the peer-reviewed journal Science in 2006. 'The idea that conscious deliberation before making a decision is always good is simply one of those illusions consciousness creates for us,' Dr. Dijksterhuis said."

--http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121450609076407973.html?mod=hps_us_inside_today

the situation

"Mr. Oakhurst seldom troubled himself with sentiment, still less with propriety; but he had a vague idea that the situation was not fortunate."

--Bret Harte, "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," 1869

In certain natures

"In certain natures the deepest joy has always something of melancholy in it, a presentiment, a fleeting sadness, a feeling without a name."

--Thomas Bailey Aldrich, "A Struggle for Life," 1867