The Oil Drum | From SEMP to SEMS: Industry’s Response to the Deepwater Horizon / Macondo disaster
There are TODsters who know about the mechanical side of ops, such as BOP design, then I’ll ever know. Ditto for cement specs and their testing procedures. But I do understand the basic method for preventing a well from blowing out. This may sound stupidly simple to many and they may think I’m leaving something out. I’m not.
Reservoirs, regardless of where they are and at what depth, exist at a certain pressure. The column of fluid in the well bore, whether cased or open hole, has to exert a pressure greater than the reservoir pressure. Basic and undeniable physics: fluid will flow from high pressure to low pressure. It didn’t matter if Halliburton had pumped the best/worst cement on the planet. It didn’t matter if BP had the best/worst cmt testing procedures in the industry. It wouldn’t even matter if BP had pumped no cmt at all. It would not have mattered if BP had the best designed BOP one can imagine or none at all. If BP had left a mud column in the well of sufficient weight to prevent the reservoir from flowing the blowout would not have happened.
Last week I began completing a well I drilled and cased a month ago. Cement was pumped and the drilling rig moved off. I didn’t run a cmt bond log or test neither the cement nor any of the potential annular failures before doing so. There was no need to: I left the mud in the casing that I drilled the reservoir with…the mud weight that prevented the reservoir from blowing out in the first place. I could have left the well with no casing, no cement, no BOP, etc. etc, etc for a 100 years and it would not have blown out.
With the more expensive drilling rig gone I move in a small completion rig. The cement has now had weeks to cure unlike the mere hours the Macondo cmt had. Not only do I run a cmt bond log I test all the cement (in the annulus as well as the bottom cmt plug) to a level exceeding the reservoir pressure. I install a BOP that exceeds the reservoir pressure and actually pressure up on it to make sure it holds that pressure. Then, and only then, do I displace the heavier drilling mud with a lighter weight completion fluid. Then I shoot holes in the casing through the reservoir and since its pressure is now greater than the back pressure exerted by the completion fluid the well begins to flow.
That, boys and girls, is how I’ve completed every well in the last 36 years. Not once have I ever seen an operator temporarily abandon a well without leaving a sufficient mud weight in the hole to prevent a blow out. And that includes offshore wells. I haven’t focused on the offshore for a while, especially Deep Water. I was shocked to discover that the feds allowed this procedure on the Macondo well. I can understand why BP did it. There are no cheap DW completion rigs: they use the same very expensive rig used to drill the well. BP wanted to leave the Macondo well ready to perforate and flow before they moved the rig off location. And that’s exactly what happened…the well flowed. Just a little sooner than they had planned.
Folks can discuss all the things that went wrong in the process: bad cmt, bad testing procedures, management pressure, malfunctioning BOP, drilling hands not monitoring the well properly, etc. But it doesn’t change the fact that had BP left the heavier mud in the hole or had placed packers in the hole isolating the reservoir from the surface before displacing with a lighter fluid the well would not have blown out. Never.
So how do you prevent another Macondo well from blowing out? Just as the doctor said when you told him it hurts when you do this: “Don’t do that”. LOL. There could be a blow out develop during the original drilling phase. That’s a different scenario we can discuss later. But a Macondo type failure need never happen again: just take 15 minutes to rewrite the regs regarding how a well is left temporarily abandoned.
It really is that stupidly simple
Tuesday, April 03, 2012
Monday, April 02, 2012
Darryl E. Owens: Here's why people are so angry over Trayvon Martin's death - Orlando Sentinel
Darryl E. Owens: Here's why people are so angry over Trayvon Martin's death - Orlando Sentinel
Emmett Till was dead. And despite damning evidence, Bryant and Milam were acquitted -- after the all-white jury deliberated a mere 67 minutes. (Later, they'd cash in by selling Look magazine the blow-by-blow of how they lynched Till for allegedly whistling at a white woman).
Nearly 57 years later, and some 800 miles from the delta town where Emmett Till met his doom, another young black kid's death has revived the suspicion that a black life doesn't have all that much value.
Sure, few of the nearly 400 righteously indignant people who flocked Allen Chapel AME Church this week, demanding that police lock up George Zimmerman, probably know the details about Emmett Till's death.
But the black folk among them know all too well the deep, abiding sense that, in a country where segregation, Jim Crow and prejudice have created unequal footing, African-Americans also too often endure separate and but unequal justice.
That's why it's not surprising so many blacks packed in Sanford church in protest. And why blacks in Central Florida (and elsewhere) have reacted so viscerally to the death of Trayvon Martin, 17, who was gunned down last month.
He was shot to death while visiting his family at a gated neighborhood in Sanford. Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who isn't black, admits pulling the trigger. Self-defense, he says. And he walked out the Sanford Police headquarters, with police saying there wasn't enough evidence for an arrest.
The state attorney's office now wrestles with whether to file charges.
"We come together today in the name of justice," Allen Chapel pastor Valerie Henry told justice-seekers this week. "We stand as [Trayvon's] voice."
A ritual that's sadly become reflex.
More than a century ago, W.E.B. Dubois observed: "Daily the Negro is coming more and more to look upon law and justice, not as protecting safeguards, but as sources of humiliation and oppression. The laws are made by men who have little interest in him; they are executed by men who have absolutely no motive for treating the black people with courtesy or consideration; and, finally, the accused law-breaker is tried, not by his peers, but too often by men who would rather punish ten innocent Negroes than let one guilty one escape."
An observation borne out by lynch mobs that killed with impunity and mass tragedies such as a 1920 riot in Ocoee and the 1923 burning by a white mob of Rosewood, an all-black Levy County town, for which no arrests were made. And more recently, with the notorious 1992 acquittal by an all-white jury of four white Los Angeles cops involved in the brutal beating of Rodney King.
The message: black lives have little worth.
It's why so many blacks cynically cheered the O.J. Simpson murder verdict -- even though the Juice was guilty as sin.
Emmett Till was dead. And despite damning evidence, Bryant and Milam were acquitted -- after the all-white jury deliberated a mere 67 minutes. (Later, they'd cash in by selling Look magazine the blow-by-blow of how they lynched Till for allegedly whistling at a white woman).
Nearly 57 years later, and some 800 miles from the delta town where Emmett Till met his doom, another young black kid's death has revived the suspicion that a black life doesn't have all that much value.
Sure, few of the nearly 400 righteously indignant people who flocked Allen Chapel AME Church this week, demanding that police lock up George Zimmerman, probably know the details about Emmett Till's death.
But the black folk among them know all too well the deep, abiding sense that, in a country where segregation, Jim Crow and prejudice have created unequal footing, African-Americans also too often endure separate and but unequal justice.
That's why it's not surprising so many blacks packed in Sanford church in protest. And why blacks in Central Florida (and elsewhere) have reacted so viscerally to the death of Trayvon Martin, 17, who was gunned down last month.
He was shot to death while visiting his family at a gated neighborhood in Sanford. Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who isn't black, admits pulling the trigger. Self-defense, he says. And he walked out the Sanford Police headquarters, with police saying there wasn't enough evidence for an arrest.
The state attorney's office now wrestles with whether to file charges.
"We come together today in the name of justice," Allen Chapel pastor Valerie Henry told justice-seekers this week. "We stand as [Trayvon's] voice."
A ritual that's sadly become reflex.
More than a century ago, W.E.B. Dubois observed: "Daily the Negro is coming more and more to look upon law and justice, not as protecting safeguards, but as sources of humiliation and oppression. The laws are made by men who have little interest in him; they are executed by men who have absolutely no motive for treating the black people with courtesy or consideration; and, finally, the accused law-breaker is tried, not by his peers, but too often by men who would rather punish ten innocent Negroes than let one guilty one escape."
An observation borne out by lynch mobs that killed with impunity and mass tragedies such as a 1920 riot in Ocoee and the 1923 burning by a white mob of Rosewood, an all-black Levy County town, for which no arrests were made. And more recently, with the notorious 1992 acquittal by an all-white jury of four white Los Angeles cops involved in the brutal beating of Rodney King.
The message: black lives have little worth.
It's why so many blacks cynically cheered the O.J. Simpson murder verdict -- even though the Juice was guilty as sin.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
This Video Will Shock South African people... wmv - YouTube
This Video Will Shock South African people... wmv - YouTube
Rev Manning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=17m8OnHC7dQ#!
Rev Manning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=17m8OnHC7dQ#!
It's all about race now - HUMAN EVENTS
It's all about race now - HUMAN EVENTS: There are two Black Americas in this country. One is comprised of hard working, decent, hospitable, laid back, wonderful people of faith and the other is the product of broken homes and single parent families, entitled, secular, a feral pack. Obviously we need to encourage one over the other but welfare state liberalism and the culture, which is controlled by the left, feed and encourage the dysfunctional one.
It's all about race now - HUMAN EVENTS
It's all about race now - HUMAN EVENTS
If it had been a white teenager who was shot, and a 28-year-old black guy who shot him, the black guy would have been arrested.
So assert those demanding the arrest of George Zimmerman, who shot and killed Trayvon Martin.
And they may be right.
Yet if Trayvon had been shot dead by a black neighborhood watch volunteer, Jesse Jackson would not have been in a pulpit in Sanford, Fla., howling that he had been "murdered and martyred."
Maxine Waters would not be screaming "hate crime."
Rep. Hank Johnson would not be raging that Trayvon had been "executed." And ex-Black Panther Bobby Rush would not have been wearing a hoodie in the well of the House.
Which tells you what this whipped-up hysteria is all about.
It is not about finding the truth about what happened that night in Sanford when Zimmerman followed Trayvon in his SUV, and the two wound up in a fight, with Trayvon dead.
It is about the exacerbation of and the exploitation of racial conflict.
And it is about an irreconcilable conflict of visions about what the real America is in the year 2012.
Zimmerman "profiled" Trayvon, we are told. And perhaps he did.
But why? What did George Zimmerman, self-styled protector of his gated community, see that night from the wheel of his SUV?
He saw a male. And males are 90 percent of prison inmates. He saw a stranger over 6 feet tall. And he saw a black man or youth with a hood over his head.
Why would this raise Zimmerman's antennae?
Perhaps because black males between 16 and 36, though only 2 to 3 percent of the population, are responsible for a third of all our crimes.
In some cities, 40 percent of all black males are in jail or prison, on probation or parole, or have criminal records. This is not a product of white racism but of prosecutions and convictions of criminal acts.
Had Zimmerman seen a black woman or older man in his neighborhood, he likely would never have tensed up or called in.
For all the abuse he has received, Geraldo Rivera had a point.
Whenever cable TV runs hidden-camera footage of a liquor or convenience store being held up and someone behind the counter being shot, the perp is often a black male wearing a hoodie.
So assert those demanding the arrest of George Zimmerman, who shot and killed Trayvon Martin.
And they may be right.
Yet if Trayvon had been shot dead by a black neighborhood watch volunteer, Jesse Jackson would not have been in a pulpit in Sanford, Fla., howling that he had been "murdered and martyred."
Maxine Waters would not be screaming "hate crime."
Rep. Hank Johnson would not be raging that Trayvon had been "executed." And ex-Black Panther Bobby Rush would not have been wearing a hoodie in the well of the House.
Which tells you what this whipped-up hysteria is all about.
It is not about finding the truth about what happened that night in Sanford when Zimmerman followed Trayvon in his SUV, and the two wound up in a fight, with Trayvon dead.
It is about the exacerbation of and the exploitation of racial conflict.
And it is about an irreconcilable conflict of visions about what the real America is in the year 2012.
Zimmerman "profiled" Trayvon, we are told. And perhaps he did.
But why? What did George Zimmerman, self-styled protector of his gated community, see that night from the wheel of his SUV?
He saw a male. And males are 90 percent of prison inmates. He saw a stranger over 6 feet tall. And he saw a black man or youth with a hood over his head.
Why would this raise Zimmerman's antennae?
Perhaps because black males between 16 and 36, though only 2 to 3 percent of the population, are responsible for a third of all our crimes.
In some cities, 40 percent of all black males are in jail or prison, on probation or parole, or have criminal records. This is not a product of white racism but of prosecutions and convictions of criminal acts.
Had Zimmerman seen a black woman or older man in his neighborhood, he likely would never have tensed up or called in.
For all the abuse he has received, Geraldo Rivera had a point.
Whenever cable TV runs hidden-camera footage of a liquor or convenience store being held up and someone behind the counter being shot, the perp is often a black male wearing a hoodie.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
An Unfortunate T-Shirt Hits Florida Streets In Wake Of Trayvon Martin Killing | The Smoking Gun
An Unfortunate T-Shirt Hits Florida Streets In Wake Of Trayvon Martin Killing | The Smoking Gun
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
-M K Gandhi
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
-M K Gandhi
Monday, March 26, 2012
The Oil Drum | Global Oil Risks in the Early 21st Century
The Oil Drum | Global Oil Risks in the Early 21st Century: Today, over 60% of the world production originates from a few hundred giant fields. The number of giant oil field discoveries peaked in the early 60s and has been dwindling since then (H�k et al., 2009). This is similar to picking strawberries in a field. We picked the biggest and best strawberries first (just like big oil fields they are easier to find) and left the small ones for later. Only 25 fields account for one quarter of global production and 100 fields account for half of production. Just 500 fields account for two-thirds of all the production (Sorrell et al., 2009a). As the IEA (2008) points out, it is far from certain that the oil industry will be able to muster the capital to tap enough of the remaining, low-return fields fast enough to make up for the decline in production from current fields.
3 @ @
The EROEI of US domestic oil production (chiefly originating from giant oil fields) has declined from 100:1 in 1930 to less than 20:1 for developments in the 2000s, e.g. Gulf of Mexico,(Gately, 2007; Hall et al., 2008; Murphy and Hall, 2010). Since giant and super giant oil fields dominate current production, they are good indicators for the point of peak production (Robelius, 2007; Höök et al., 2009). There is now broad agreement among analysts that the decline in existing production is between 4-8% annually (Höök et al., 2009). In terms of capacity, this means that roughly a new North Sea (~5 Mb/d) has to come on stream every year just to keep the present output constant.
3 @ @
The EROEI of US domestic oil production (chiefly originating from giant oil fields) has declined from 100:1 in 1930 to less than 20:1 for developments in the 2000s, e.g. Gulf of Mexico,(Gately, 2007; Hall et al., 2008; Murphy and Hall, 2010). Since giant and super giant oil fields dominate current production, they are good indicators for the point of peak production (Robelius, 2007; Höök et al., 2009). There is now broad agreement among analysts that the decline in existing production is between 4-8% annually (Höök et al., 2009). In terms of capacity, this means that roughly a new North Sea (~5 Mb/d) has to come on stream every year just to keep the present output constant.
No justice, no agitation | Power Line
No justice, no agitation | Power Line
Forbidden Facts: You can know the facts about "race and crime before too long, but you better be careful not to talk about them in polite society."
Murder is largely an intraracial crime. Almost all murders of blacks
Forbidden Facts: You can know the facts about "race and crime before too long, but you better be careful not to talk about them in polite society."
Murder is largely an intraracial crime. Almost all murders of blacks
are committed by other blacks. Blacks as a group commit murder at a rate astronomically higher than other groups. The rate of murder committed by blacks exceeds that committed by whites by approximately seven times. -- No justice, no agitation | Power Line
Thursday, March 22, 2012
I Miss Iraq. I Miss My Gun. I Miss My War. - Esquire
I Miss Iraq. I Miss My Gun. I Miss My War. - Esquire
A few months ago, I found a Web site loaded with pictures and videos from Iraq, the sort that usually aren't seen on the news. I watched insurgent snipers shoot American soldiers and car bombs disintegrate markets, accompanied by tinny music and loud, rhythmic chanting, the soundtrack of the propaganda campaigns. Video cameras focused on empty stretches of road, building anticipation. Humvees rolled into view and the explosions brought mushroom clouds of dirt and smoke and chunks of metal spinning through the air. Other videos and pictures showed insurgents shot dead while planting roadside bombs or killed in firefights and the remains of suicide bombers, people how they're not meant to be seen, no longer whole. The images sickened me, but their familiarity pulled me in, giving comfort, and I couldn't stop. I clicked through more frames, hungry for it. This must be what a shot of dope feels like after a long stretch of sobriety. Soothing and nauseating and colored by everything that has come before. My body tingled and my stomach ached, hollow. I stood on weak legs and walked into the kitchen to make dinner. I sliced half an onion before putting the knife down and watching slight tremors run through my hand. The shakiness lingered. I drank a beer. And as I leaned against this kitchen counter, in this house, in America, my life felt very foreign. I've been home from Iraq for more than a year, long enough for my time there to become a memory best forgotten for those who worried every day that I was gone. I could see their relief when I returned. Life could continue, with futures not so uncertain. But in quiet moments, their relief brought me guilt. Maybe they assume I was as overjoyed to be home as they were to have me home. Maybe they assume if I could do it over, I never would have gone. And maybe I wouldn't have. But I miss Iraq. I miss the war. I miss war. And I have a very hard time understanding why.
I'm glad to be home, to have put away my uniforms, to wake up next to my wife each morning. I worry about my friends who are in Iraq now, and I wish they weren't. Often I hated being there, when the frustrations and lack of control over my life were complete and mind-bending. I questioned my role in the occupation and whether good could come of it. I wondered if it was worth dying or killing for. The suffering and ugliness I saw disgusted me. But war twists and shifts the landmarks by which we navigate our lives, casting light on darkened areas that for many people remain forever unexplored. And once those darkened spaces are lit, they become part of us. At a party several years ago, long before the Army, I listened to a friend who had served several years in the Marines tell a woman that if she carried a pistol for a day, just tucked in her waistband and out of sight, she would feel different. She would see the world differently, for better or worse. Guns empower. She disagreed and he shrugged. No use arguing the point; he was just offering a little piece of truth. He was right, of course. And that's just the beginning.
I've spent hours taking in the world through a rifle scope, watching life unfold. Women hanging laundry on a rooftop. Men haggling over a hindquarter of lamb in the market. Children walking to school. I've watched this and hoped that someday I would see that my presence had made their lives better, a redemption of sorts. But I also peered through the scope waiting for someone to do something wrong, so I could shoot him. When you pick up a weapon with the intent of killing, you step onto a very strange and serious playing field. Every morning someone wakes wanting to kill you. When you walk down the street, they are waiting, and you want to kill them, too. That's not bloodthirsty; that's just the trade you've learned. And as an American soldier, you have a very impressive toolbox. You can fire your rifle or lob a grenade, and if that's not enough, call in the tanks, or helicopters, or jets. The insurgents have their skill sets, too, turning mornings at the market into chaos, crowds into scattered flesh, Humvees into charred scrap. You're all part of the terrible magic show, both powerful and helpless.
That men are drawn to war is no surprise. How old are boys before they turn a finger and thumb into a pistol? Long before they love girls, they love war, at least everything they imagine war to be: guns and explosions and manliness and courage. When my neighbors and I played war as kids, there was no fear or sorrow or cowardice. Death was temporary, usually as fast as you could count to sixty and jump back into the game. We didn't know yet about the darkness. And young men are just slightly older versions of those boys, still loving the unknown, perhaps pumped up on dreams of duty and heroism and the intoxicating power of weapons. In time, war dispels many such notions, and more than a few men find that being freed from society's professed revulsion to killing is really no freedom at all, but a lonely burden. Yet even at its lowest points, war is like nothing else. Our culture craves experience, and that is war's strong suit. War peels back the skin, and you live with a layer of nerves exposed, overdosing on your surroundings, when everything seems all wrong and just right, in a way that makes perfect sense. And then you almost die but don't, and are born again, stoned on life and mocking death. The explosions and gunfire fry your nerves, but you want to hear them all the same. Something's going down.
For those who know, this is the open secret: War is exciting. Sometimes I was in awe of this, and sometimes I felt low and mean for loving it, but I loved it still. Even in its quiet moments, war is brighter, louder, brasher, more fun, more tragic, more wasteful. More. More of everything. And even then I knew I would someday miss it, this life so strange. Today the war has distilled to moments and feelings, and somewhere in these memories is the reason for the wistfulness.
On one mission we slip away from our trucks and into the night. I lead the patrol through the darkness, along canals and fields and into the town, down narrow, hard-packed dirt streets. Everyone has gone to bed, or is at least inside. We peer through gates and over walls into courtyards and into homes. In a few rooms TVs flicker. A woman washes dishes in a tub. Dogs bark several streets away. No one knows we are in the street, creeping. We stop at intersections, peek around corners, training guns on parked cars, balconies, and storefronts. All empty. We move on. From a small shop up ahead, we hear men's voices and laughter. Maybe they used to sit outside at night, but now they are indoors, where it's safe. Safer. The sheet-metal door opens and a man steps out, cigarette and lighter in hand. He still wears a smile, takes in the cool night air, and then nearly falls backward through the doorway in a panic. I'm a few feet from him now and his eyes are wide. I mutter a greeting and we walk on, back into the darkness.
http://www.esquire.com/features/essay/ESQ0307ESSAY
I Miss Iraq. I Miss My Gun. I Miss My War.
A year after coming home from a tour in Iraq, a soldier returns home to find out he left something behind.
By Brian Mockenhaupt
I'm glad to be home, to have put away my uniforms, to wake up next to my wife each morning. I worry about my friends who are in Iraq now, and I wish they weren't. Often I hated being there, when the frustrations and lack of control over my life were complete and mind-bending. I questioned my role in the occupation and whether good could come of it. I wondered if it was worth dying or killing for. The suffering and ugliness I saw disgusted me. But war twists and shifts the landmarks by which we navigate our lives, casting light on darkened areas that for many people remain forever unexplored. And once those darkened spaces are lit, they become part of us. At a party several years ago, long before the Army, I listened to a friend who had served several years in the Marines tell a woman that if she carried a pistol for a day, just tucked in her waistband and out of sight, she would feel different. She would see the world differently, for better or worse. Guns empower. She disagreed and he shrugged. No use arguing the point; he was just offering a little piece of truth. He was right, of course. And that's just the beginning.
I've spent hours taking in the world through a rifle scope, watching life unfold. Women hanging laundry on a rooftop. Men haggling over a hindquarter of lamb in the market. Children walking to school. I've watched this and hoped that someday I would see that my presence had made their lives better, a redemption of sorts. But I also peered through the scope waiting for someone to do something wrong, so I could shoot him. When you pick up a weapon with the intent of killing, you step onto a very strange and serious playing field. Every morning someone wakes wanting to kill you. When you walk down the street, they are waiting, and you want to kill them, too. That's not bloodthirsty; that's just the trade you've learned. And as an American soldier, you have a very impressive toolbox. You can fire your rifle or lob a grenade, and if that's not enough, call in the tanks, or helicopters, or jets. The insurgents have their skill sets, too, turning mornings at the market into chaos, crowds into scattered flesh, Humvees into charred scrap. You're all part of the terrible magic show, both powerful and helpless.
That men are drawn to war is no surprise. How old are boys before they turn a finger and thumb into a pistol? Long before they love girls, they love war, at least everything they imagine war to be: guns and explosions and manliness and courage. When my neighbors and I played war as kids, there was no fear or sorrow or cowardice. Death was temporary, usually as fast as you could count to sixty and jump back into the game. We didn't know yet about the darkness. And young men are just slightly older versions of those boys, still loving the unknown, perhaps pumped up on dreams of duty and heroism and the intoxicating power of weapons. In time, war dispels many such notions, and more than a few men find that being freed from society's professed revulsion to killing is really no freedom at all, but a lonely burden. Yet even at its lowest points, war is like nothing else. Our culture craves experience, and that is war's strong suit. War peels back the skin, and you live with a layer of nerves exposed, overdosing on your surroundings, when everything seems all wrong and just right, in a way that makes perfect sense. And then you almost die but don't, and are born again, stoned on life and mocking death. The explosions and gunfire fry your nerves, but you want to hear them all the same. Something's going down.
For those who know, this is the open secret: War is exciting. Sometimes I was in awe of this, and sometimes I felt low and mean for loving it, but I loved it still. Even in its quiet moments, war is brighter, louder, brasher, more fun, more tragic, more wasteful. More. More of everything. And even then I knew I would someday miss it, this life so strange. Today the war has distilled to moments and feelings, and somewhere in these memories is the reason for the wistfulness.
On one mission we slip away from our trucks and into the night. I lead the patrol through the darkness, along canals and fields and into the town, down narrow, hard-packed dirt streets. Everyone has gone to bed, or is at least inside. We peer through gates and over walls into courtyards and into homes. In a few rooms TVs flicker. A woman washes dishes in a tub. Dogs bark several streets away. No one knows we are in the street, creeping. We stop at intersections, peek around corners, training guns on parked cars, balconies, and storefronts. All empty. We move on. From a small shop up ahead, we hear men's voices and laughter. Maybe they used to sit outside at night, but now they are indoors, where it's safe. Safer. The sheet-metal door opens and a man steps out, cigarette and lighter in hand. He still wears a smile, takes in the cool night air, and then nearly falls backward through the doorway in a panic. I'm a few feet from him now and his eyes are wide. I mutter a greeting and we walk on, back into the darkness.
http://www.esquire.com/features/essay/ESQ0307ESSAY
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Reflejos
Reflejos: "Do not assume that he who seeks to comfort you now, lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life may also have much sadness and difficulty, that remains far beyond yours. Were it otherwise, he would never have been able to find these words”
― Rainer Maria Rilke
― Rainer Maria Rilke
Reflejos
Reflejos: "America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature. It enunciates that all men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give them that justice, and that their authority is for that reason just. It certainly does condemn anarchism, and it does also by inference condemn atheism, since it clearly names the Creator as the ultimate authority from whom these equal rights are derived."
—
G.K. Chesterton
—
G.K. Chesterton
Monday, March 19, 2012
Quotatious Quotations
Quotatious Quotations: “It’s not an optical illusion; it just looks that way.”
— Anonymous
— Anonymous
Quotatious Quotations
Quotatious Quotations: “Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed.”
— Michael Pritchard
— Michael Pritchard
Quotatious Quotations
Quotatious Quotations: “He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.”
— Chinese Proverb
— Chinese Proverb
Quotatious Quotations
Quotatious Quotations: “Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.”
— Italian Proverb
— Italian Proverb
On Healing Wings
On Healing Wings: Each of us, face to face with other men, is clothed with some sort of dignity, but we know only too well all the unspeakable things that go on in the heart.
—Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936)
—Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936)
On Healing Wings
On Healing Wings: I know not how I may seem to others, but to myself I am but a small child wandering upon the vast shores of knowledge, every now and then finding a small bright pebble to content myself with.
—Plato
—Plato
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