Ensign Sonya Gomez

SONYA: 

Hot chocolate, please.

LAFORGE: 

We don't ordinarily Say 'Please' 

to food dispensers around here.

MAYBE YOU SHOULD.

SONYA: 

Well, since it's listed as Intelligent Circuitry, why not? 

After all, working with so much Artificial Intelligence 

can be dehumanising, right? 

So, why not combat that tendency 

with a little simple courtesy. 

Thank You.

LAFORGE: 

For someone who just arrived, 

you certainly aren't shy with your opinions.

SONYA: 

Have I been talking too much?

LAFORGE: 

No.

SONYA: 

Oh, I do tend to have a bit of a motor mouth, 

especially when I'm excited. 

And you don't know how exciting it is 

to get This Assignment.

Everyone in class, I mean everyone, 

wants The Enterprise. 

I mean, it would have been alright 

to spend some time on Reiner Six 

doing phase work with anti-matter. 

That's My Specialty.

LAFORGE: 

I know. That's why you got this assignment.

SONYA: 

I did it again. It's just that -

LAFORGE: 

I know, you're excited. 

Look, Sonya —

SONYA: 

Yes.

LAFORGE: 

I don't think you want to be around these control stations 

with that hot chocolate, do you?

SONYA: 

Oh, I'm sorry. 

I shouldn't even have this in Engineering. 

It's just we were talking 

and I forgot I had it in my hand. 

I'm going to go finish it over here. 

Lieutenant La Forge? 

This is not going to happen again.

So she turns around and her drink collides with Captain Picard, going all over his uniform

SONYA: 

Oh, no! Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, Captain.

LAFORGE: 

Actually it's my fault, sir.

PICARD: 

Indeed.

SONYA: 

Oh, I wasn't looking. 

It's all over you.

PICARD: 

Yes, Ensign. It's all over me.

SONYA: 

At least let me, sir.

PICARD: 

Ensign er, Ensign?

SONYA:

Oh, Ensign Sonya Gomez.

LAFORGE: 

Ensign Gomez is a recent Academy graduate. 

She just transferred over at Starbase One Seventy Three.

PICARD: 

Is that so? Well, Ensign Sonya Gomez, 

I think it will be simpler 

if I simply change my uniform.

LAFORGE: 

Captain, I must accept responsibility for this.

PICARD: 

Yes, Chief Engineer. 

I think I understand.

SONYA: 

I just want to say, sir, that I'm very excited about this assignment 

and I promise to serve you and My Ship — Your Ship, This Ship, 

to the best of my ability.

PICARD: 

Yes, Ensign, I'm sure that you will. 

Carry on.

Picard leaves

SONYA: 

Oh, my. First impressions, right? 

Isn't that what they say? 

First impressions are the most important.

LAFORGE: 

I'll give you this — 

It's a meeting the Captain won't soon forget.

[Corridor]

LAFORGE: 

I read your graduating Thesis. 

Now, I wouldn't have requested you if you weren't The Best.

SONYA: 

Where are we going?

LAFORGE: 

Ten Forward. We're going to forget about Work. 

We are going to sit, talk, relax, look at The Stars. 

You need to learn how to slow down.

SONYA: 

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. 

I can't do.

LAFORGE: 

You know, you're awfully young 

to be so driven.

SONYA: 

Yes, I am. I had to be. 

I had to be The Best, 

because only The Best get to be Here.

 

 ..

[Outside Sickbay]

PICARD: 

Ensign, you're with me.

[Turbolift]

PICARD: 

Bridge. You are a certified pilot, Ensign?

SITO: 

Yes, sir.

[Ready room]

PICARD: 

How long have you served on board 

The Enterprise, Ensign?

SITO: 

Seven months, sir.

PICARD: 

I see. 

I understand that you've been recommended 

for the Ops position. 

Do you think you're up to it?

SITO: 

I do, sir.

PICARD: 

I'm not so sure. 

I'm concerned about your record.

SITO: 

Sir?

PICARD: 

The Incident that you were involved in at The Academy.

SITO: 

With all due respect that was three years ago. 

My record since then --

PICARD: 

It doesn't matter how long ago it was, Ensign. 

Would you do something like that again?

SITO: 

I can assure you, sir, that I would never, 

never jeopardise lives by participating in --

PICARD: 

A dare devil stunt? 

I would certainly hope not. 

What concerns me, is that you participated in a cover-up that impeded an Official Investigation into The Death of A Cadet.

SITO: 

Sir, I know I should have Told The Truth right from The Start --

PICARD: 

Yes, you should, but you didn't. 

Instead you joined with the others to pretended that was simply an accident. 

Now, what do you think that tells me about your character?

SITO: 

Sir, if you had any idea 

what it was like after that incident. 

I didn't have any friends. 

I didn't have anyone to talk to. 

I had to take my flight test with The Instructor, 

because no one else would be my partner. 

In a lot of ways it would have been easier 

to just walk away, but I didn't. 

I stuck with it. 

Doesn't that say something 

about My Character, too?

PICARD: 

Well I'm really very sorry 

you didn't enjoy your time at the Academy, Ensign. 

As far as I'm concerned, 

You should have been expelled 

for What You Did. 

Quite frankly, I don't know 

how you made it on board This Ship. 

You're dismissed.

Gymnasium]

(a martial arts class has just finished)

WORF: Dismissed. Ensign Sito.

SITO: Yes, sir.

WORF: I also teach an advanced class. I believe you may be ready to participate. However, before you can join the group, you must pass the gik'tal.

SITO: Gik'tal?

WORF: Yes. It is a very ancient Klingon ritual. It tests your knowledge of the forms of the mok'bara.

SITO: I should practice first.

WORF: No. No practise. That is part of the ritual. The test must be unannounced.

(Worf blindfolds her)

WORF: Can you see?

SITO: No.

WORF: Good. The gik'tal has begun. Defend yourself.

(of course, he easily throws her)

WORF: You must anticipate my attack.

SITO: Yes, sir.

WORF: Defend yourself.

(once again, she has no idea where he is before she lands on her back)

WORF: Are you listening, Ensign?

SITO: Yes, but

WORF: Defend yourself.

(and a third time)

WORF: You did not anticipate.

(Sito removes the blindfold)

SITO: How am I supposed to defend myself when I can't see a thing?

WORF: 

Stop making excuses. Replace The Blindfold.

SITO: 

No. It's not a Fair Test.

WORF: 

Very good, Ensign. 

You have passed The Challenge.

SITO: 

What? By taking off The Blindfold?

WORF: 

It takes courage 

to Say The Test is Unfair.

SITO: 

One thing I don't understand. 

Doesn't gik'tal mean 'to The Death'?

WORF: 

You speak Klingon.

SITO: 

Sir, is there really such a thing as a gik'tal challenge?

WORF: 

No, there is not. 

But perhaps next time you are judged unfairly, 

it will not take so many bruises for you protest.

[Ready room]

SITO: 

All I've ever wanted is to make a career for myself in Starfleet. 

I can't change what happened at the Academy. 

No one can. 

All I can do is work hard 

and try to earn the respect of the people I serve with. 

If you're not going to give me that chance, then I respectfully request that you transfer me to another ship.

PICARD: 

If you're looking for a more lenient commander, 

I don't think you'll find one.

SITO: 

Permission to speak freely, sir?

PICARD: 

Please do.

SITO: 

If you didn't want me on Your Ship 

you should have said so when I was assigned to it. 

It's not Your Place to punish me 

for What I Did at The Academy. 

I've worked hard here. 

My record is exemplary. 

If you're going to Judge me, 

Judge me for What I Am now.

PICARD: 

Very well, Ensign. I will. 

It took courage to come here 

and face me after what I said to you 

the other day. 

I didn't ask you here because I was assessing your qualifications for the Ops position.

SITO: 

I don't understand, sir.

PICARD: 

I was harsh with you 

because I wanted to assess you 

for a very important Mission. 

A Mission that could put you in a situation that would be far more unnerving than a dressing-down by your commanding officer.

SITO: 

Can I ask what that mission is, sir?

PICARD: Join the senior officers in the Observation lounge at oh nine hundred hours. We'll discuss it then.

SITO: Yes, sir.

PICARD: 

And, Ensign -- 

I do know why you ended up on The Enterprise. 

I asked for you. 

I wanted to make sure 

that you got A Fair Chance to redeem yourself.

SITO: 

Thank you, sir.

Same Rules Apply

Filth - Same rules apply

Right, Bladesey.

Uh... first things first.

You've really got to get rid of the double glazing, pal.

Get yourself contact lenses or something or laser eye treatment, 'cause nobody's ever gonna take you seriously staring through those thick milk bottles.

Second thing is you've really got to try and toughen up.

Right, you're a nice guy, but you're very soft.

Truth is, people are just as scared of The World as you are.

I'm scared of The World.

I just don't let people see it, that's all.

And that's what The Games are.

I kid you not, My Sweet, Sweet Friend.

You're My Best Friend.

My only Friend.

Most important thing is this, though :

You've got to make Bunty want you again.

You'll probably find that she does actually like you if you just asserted yourself a wee bit more.

You know, you show her Passion, and she will run to you.

She Will Love You until The Day You Die.

I may not be the one to be giving Marriage Counseling, but sometimes it takes A Wrongdoer to show you when you're doing Wrong.

I'm sorry, Bladesey.

Really sorry, pal.

The Mars Rock

Pres. Clinton's Remarks on the Possible Discovery of Life on Mars (1996)

This is video footage of President William Jefferson delivering remarks prior to departure from The White House.  

This footage is official public record produced by the White House Television (WHTV) crew, provided by the Clinton Presidential Library.

Date: August 7, 1996

Location: South Lawn.  White House.  Washington, DC

SCULLY is sitting alone in front of The "Jury".

SKINNER: 

Please state Your Name for The Court.

SCULLY:

My Name is Dana Katherine Scully. 

I was assigned nine years ago to the X-Files 

to spy on Agent Mulder 

whose methods The FBI distrusted.

SKINNER: 

Assigned not just as An Agent, 

but as A Medical Doctor. 

A Scientist. 

And as a serious Scientist, 

you came to Believe in Agent Mulder's theories.

[Clip Sequence shown while SCULLY'S speaking:

* from The Erlenmeyer Flask (1X23): Scully pulling the E.B.E. foetus from the cryogenic container.

* from The Erlenmeyer Flask (1X23): Deep Throat getting shot and dying.]

SCULLY:

 I came to Believe in 

The Existence of Extraterrestrial Life 

and in 

A Conspiracy inside The Government 

to keep their existence A Secret.

SKINNER: 

The Proof was overwhelming. 

It was even scientifically undeniable.

SCULLY: 

I Believe, as do many respected scientists that 

Life came to Earth millions of years ago 

from A Meteor, or A Rock from Mars.

[Clip shown of a meteor falling to earth.]

SKINNER: 

So, What You're Saying Is, 

Life -- Human Life -- 

is extraterrestrial by definition.

KALLENBRUNNER: 

Objection. 

What does this nonsense have to do with 

Mulder murdering A Man in cold blood?

SKINNER: 

Agent Scully will prove that 

A Government Conspiracy exists 

to deny The Existence of Extra-Terrestrials.

KERSH: 

You are not here proving 

Government Conspiracies Mr. Skinner. 

You are here to defend Fox Mulder.

SKINNER: 

And I'm trying to do that.

KERSH: 

It's your case, Mr. Skinner.

SKINNER: 

So, A Meteor crashed to Earth 

but along with the biological building blocks on it 

there was Something Else -- An Alien Virus.

[Clip Sequence shown while SCULLY'S speaking:

* from FTF: Caveman being infected by the oil.

* from FTF: E.B.E. from virus gestating in a human.]

SCULLY: 

I Believe 

There was A Virus 

which thrived Here prehistorically. 

I Believe 

That Virus infected Early Man 

and transformed his physiology.

SKINNER: 

Changed Him into 

Something Else.

SCULLY: 

Into an alien life-form himself.

SKINNER: 

And What Happened 

to These Aliens?

SCULLY: 

They died in the last ice age, 

35,000 years ago.

SKINNER: 

And The Virus?

SCULLY: 

It lay dormant underground 

until it surfaced once again 

during our current geologic period.

SKINNER: 

And The Government knows of this?

Clip Sequence shown while SCULLY'S speaking:

* (new) Newspaper clipping from the "Daily Record" 

MAIN HEADLINE: "AAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region" 

SMALLER HEADLINE 1: Security Council Paves Way to Talks to Arms Reductions 

SMALLER HEADLINE 2: No details of Flying Disk Are Revealed

* Photograph of flying disk

* MEMO that says the following: 

CONFIDENTIAL 141445? APR 76 STAFF 

CFTE DCD / (blanked out) 

TO: PRIORITY DCD/HEADQUARTERS. 

ATTN: (blanked out) 

FROM: DCD / (blanked out) 

SUBJECT: CASE (blanked out) - UFO RESEARCH 

REF (1): DCD/HEADQUAFRTERS 14556 

REF (2): FORM 6JF DATED 9 APRIL 1976, UFO STUDY 

1. SOURCE'S FULL NAME IS (blanked out) 

HE IS EMPLOYED AS (blanked out) ]

SCULLY: 

The Government learned of This Virus in 1947 

when a UFO crashed in Roswell, New Mexico.

SKINNER: 

A UFO crash revealed A Virus?

[Clip Sequence shown while SCULLY'S speaking:

* from Terma (4X10): The oil blaze after the bomb explodes. Mulder barely making it out of harm's way.

* from FTF: the black oil moving on the ground. * from Piper Maru (3X15): Krycek infected with the black oil.

* from Vienen (8X16): the rig workers infected with the black oil.]

SCULLY:

The Virus thrived underground 

in Petroleum deposits. 

In Black Oil. 

It has Sentience. It can Think. 

It has the ability to communicate 

and it communicated with the UFOs.

SKINNER: 

And The Government knows this, too.

SCULLY turns to look at MULDER.

[Clip Sequence shown while SCULLY'S speaking:

* from Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man (4X07): CSM & Deep Throat standing next to each other looking at something hooked up to life support through a window.

* from Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man (4X07): Man in gas mask pushing open a door.

* from Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man (4X07): E.B.E. hooked up to life support.]

SCULLY: 

In Roswell, they captured Aliens 

from The Spacecraft Wreckage.

 

They salvaged various Alien Technology from them 

and from their data banks 

They learned of 

The Alien plan to "re-colonise" The Earth.

KERSH: 

Is this all leading anywhere?

MULDER: 

Yeah. The Destruction of Mankind.

KERSH: 

I'll warn you once, Agent Mulder.

MULDER turns to look at SCULLY. 

He has slight goofy smile on his face.

SKINNER:

And what did The Government do with this ... 

information of An Alien Takeover?

SCULLY: 

They kept it a Dark Secret. 

If it had gotten out there would have been wild panic.

KERSH: 

Mr. Skinner, are we finished?

SKINNER: 

No. There's the matter of Agent Scully's own abduction in 1994.

KERSH: 

Abduction by whom?

[Clip Sequence shown while SCULLY'S speaking:

* Light moving fast across the sky (fade to white)

* from One Breath (2X08): Scully on an examining table

* from One Breath (2X08): Scully's eyes open (close-up)

* from One Breath (2X08): Machine attached to Scully's naval filling it with something. Scully's abdomen filling up. rising and expanding.

* from Memento Mori (4X15).: Mulder discovering Tanks filled with green coloured liquid and with bodies within them.

* from Memento Mori (4X15): Mulder standing next to Kurt Crawford clearing the glass on the tank with his hand to see clearer the fully grown clone within.]

SCULLY: 

By The Military 

working with The Government Conspirators 

to develop a breed of Human-Alien Hybrids 

that The Aliens would use as A Slave Race.

SKINNER:

Thank you, Agent Scully. 

Your witness, Mr. Kallenbrunner.

KALLENBRUNNER stands.

KALLENBRUNNER: 

All these ETs running around ... 

it's hard to keep these aliens straight without a scorecard. 

I myself have never seen An Alien. 

Could we call one as A Witness?

SCULLY: 

You're being facetious.

KALLENBRUNNER: 

No, I'm not. 

I'd like to see some proof.

SCULLY:

There are The Mars Rocks ...

KALLENBRUNNER: 

No. I need Something Good. 

Something amazing. 

Something really cool.

SCULLY: 

I don't know What You Mean.

KALLENBRUNNER:

Well, What I Mean is, 

You have no proof 

to back up one word you just told us. 

Scully is silent.

Agent Scully, isn't it True 

that You and Mulder were lovers, 

and you got pregnant 

and had his Love Child?

SKINNER:

Objection!

KALLENBRUNNER: 

Thank you. Next witness.

SCULLY turns to look at MULDER. 

MULDER ever so slightly shakes his head, no .. 

and mouths that its okay. 

SCULLY slowly gets up and leaves the witness chair.

Orion Clemens

"In my schoolboy days, I had no aversion to Slavery. 

I was not aware that there was anything wrong about it. 

The local papers said nothing against it. 

The local pulpit taught us that god approved it, that it was A Holy Thing, and that the doubter need only look in The Bible if he wished to settle His Mind, and then The Texts were read aloud to us to make The Matter sure. 

If The Slaves themselves had an aversion to Slavery, they were wise and said nothing." 

One of his most lasting childhood memories was of a dozen men and women chained together, waiting to be shipped downriver to The Slave Market. 

"They had," he said, "The saddest faces I ever saw." 

In 1847, John Marshal Clemens was caught in a sleet storm, developed pneumonia, and on March 24, died. To help His Family get by, Sam had to leave school and go to work as a printer's apprentice. 

At 14, he got a job at a brand-new paper in town-- The Hannibal Journal. 

His Boss was His Older Brother Orion, who had inherited His Father's Gift for Financial Failure. 

Over the course of two years, Orion never once paid his brother the $3.50 a week he had promised. 

Ron Powers, Writer : 

"Orion was a schlemiel, but he did, in his bumbling, lure Sammy into The World of Words and Ideas. 

Becoming A Printer's Apprentice gave him an almost tactile possession of Words. 

He could now lay his hands on those letters, and he could set the words in type, and he could feel The Words."

Narrator: sam made the most of the experience. He read everything he could find--shakespeare and the bible, histories and novels, newspapers from everywhere-- and he now began to write occasional light verse and humorous sketches under the pseudonym of w. Epaminondas adrastus blab, "Anything," he later said, "To make the paper lively." man as twain: "Hannibal journal, may 6, 1853. Terrible accident! 500 men killed and missing!! We had set the above head up, expecting (of course) to use it, but as the accident hasn't happened, yet, we'll say... (to be continued.)" [steam whistle blows] narrator: by the time sam was 17, hannibal seemed too confining. After solemnly promising his mother not to drink or gamble, he packed his bags and set off down the river to make a name for himself. It was the beginning of a lifetime of wandering. He set type in st. Louis, new york, philadelphia, keokuk, iowa, and cincinnati, where he also wrote humorous articles at $5.00 each under the pen name thomas jefferson snodgrass. None of it satisfied him. In the spring of 1857, he boarded a steamboat called the paul jones bound for new orleans with the grand ambition of going on to brazil to make his fortune trading in coca plants, but on his way down the river, an old dream was reawakened. Man as twain: "When I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village. That was to be a steamboatman. We had transient ambitions of other sorts, but they were only transient. When a circus came and went, it left us all burning to become clowns. The first negro minstrel show that came to our section left us all suffering to try that kind of life. Now and then, we had a hope that if we lived and were good, god would permit us to be pirates. These ambitions faded out, each in its turn, but the ambition to be a steamboatman always remained." [steam whistle blows] narrator: by the time sam clemens reached new orleans, he had convinced the pilot of the paul jones to take him on as an apprentice in exchange for the first $500 of his wages. Sam soon realized just how difficult the job was. A riverboat pilot needed to commit to memory every landmark on both sides of the big river, 1,200 twisting miles from new orleans to st. Louis, know the difference between riffles on the water's surface caused by wind and those created by dangerous reefs, learn to note the changing depths at every crucial spot where the leadsmen dropped their knotted rope lines and sang out their measurements-- quarter-twain, half-twain, and the most pleasant sound of all to a pilot--mark twain, meaning two fathoms, or 12 feet. Safe water. A pilot had to digest all this information and then be able to apply it day and night, in clear weather and impenetrable fog. Man as twain: "The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book, a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day. Throughout the long 1,200 miles, there was never a page that was void of interest, never one that you could leave unread and lost, never one that you would want to skip thinking you could find higher enjoyment in some other thing. In truth, the passenger who could not read this book saw nothing but all manner of pretty pictures in it, painted by the sun and shaded by the clouds, whereas to the trained eye, these were not pictures at all, but the grimmest and most dead-earnest of reading matter." [steam whistle blows] narrator: in the spring of 1858, sam, now a cub pilot on the side-wheeler pennsylvania, persuaded his younger brother henry to join the crew as a clerk. The two brothers had always been close, and sam was grateful for henry's companionship, happy to have launched him on a career. But sam got into a quarrel with the pennsylvania's pilot and was transferred to another boat in new orleans. The brothers agreed to meet at their sister's house in st. Louis, and henry set out upriver on the pennsylvania. Sam followed two days later on another boat. At greenville, mississippi, someone from shore shouted to sam's boat that the pennsylvania's boilers had blown up and she had gone down near memphis. In arkansas, sam was relieved when he got a newspaper that listed henry among the uninjured, but then sam began seeing corpses bobbing in the water, and farther upriver another paper reported that henry had been hurt. When he finally arrived in memphis and rushed to the makeshift hospital, he found his brother, still alive, but badly burned and not expected to survive. Man as twain: "Memphis, tennessee, friday, june 18, 1858. The horrors of 3 days have swept over me. They have blasted my youth and left me an old man before my time. For 48 hours, I labored at the bedside of my poor burned and bruised but uncomplaining brother. Long before this reaches you, my poor henry will have finished his blameless career, and the light of my life will have gone out in utter darkness." narrator: on june 21, henry clemens, just 19 years old, died. Sam blamed himself for having lured henry onto the river in the first place and especially for not being there when his little brother had needed him most. Ron powers, writer: henry clemens' death was the culminating sorrow of his boyhood, and I think it annealed a great sorrow in him and a great sense of remorse that he never lost. He seemed to believe himself in some way responsible for all of the sorrows around him, and that's a feeling that persisted into old age, but he also had recourse to a way of repairing this sorrow, and that was through humor. He once wrote that the source of all humor is not laughter, but sorrow. He said, "There is no laughter in heaven." narrator: in the spring of 1859, a year after henry's death, samuel clemens received his official riverboat pilot's certificate. He soon began earning $250 a month--as much, he liked to point out, as the vice president of the united states. Man as twain: "A pilot in those days was the only unfettered and entirely independent human being that lived in the earth. His movements were free. He consulted no one. He received commands from nobody. So here was the novelty of a king without a keeper, an absolute monarch who was absolute in sober truth and not by a fiction of words." narrator: nearly 1,000 steamboats were churning up and down the mississippi and its tributaries, carrying more cargo than all the nation's oceangoing vessels combined. Sam served on at least 19 of them, including the white cloud and the crescent city, the arago, the aleck scott, the city of memphis, and the john j. Roe. Man as twain: "For a long time, I was on a boat that was so slow we used to forget what year it was we left port in. Ferryboats used to lose valuable trips because their passengers grew old and died waiting for us to get by. This boat, the john j. Roe, was dismally slow. Still, we often had pretty exciting times racing with islands and such things." narrator: his time on the river was his schooling, sam said later, in which "I got personally acquainted with about all the different types of human nature that are to be found in fiction, biography, or history." everywhere he went, he stored up memories of places, scenes, and people. [workmen talking] ron powers, writer: he was an enormous noticer. He was a prodigious noticer. He was always noticing whether people had their hands in their pockets or not or what was in their pockets. He was noticing manners of dress, the way people held themselves. He was noticing affects and pretenses, and this same fascination with noticing, which I think came from those early childhood nights on the farm, noticing the nuances of the slave songs and the folk tales--that same noticing transferred itself to absorbing the river. Hamlin hill, twain scholar: the mississippi became for mark twain his harvard and his yale, the way that melville says the whaling boat was his harvard and his yale. He announced that every character he had ever written, created in his literature, he had met on the mississippi river. Narrator: sam clemens assumed he would live out his days as a pilot and "Die at the wheel," he said, "When my mission was ended." [explosion] but on april 12, 1861, the civil war began and all commercial traffic on the mississippi stopped. The clemens family was divided. Sam's mother made no secret of her hatred of yankees, but his brother orion had become a republican and had campaigned for abraham lincoln. Sam just hoped that the war would be over soon so that he could return to the river. When several childhood friends helped form a confederate militia company called the marion rangers, sam signed on, too, simply for something to do, but after two weeks spent hiding in the woods from even the rumor of approaching union troops, the marion rangers disbanded. Most of sam's friends enlisted in the regular confederate army. Sam did not. He skedaddled. Man as twain: "When I retired from the rebel army in '61, I retired in good order. It seemed to me that for a first attempt at a retreat, it was not badly done. I had done no advancing in all that campaign that was at all equal to it." 

Meanwhile, President Lincoln had rewarded Orion for his support by appointing him Secretary of the brand-new Territory of Nevada. 

Sam, now 25 years old, begged his brother to take him along. Others could go to war. Sam clemens was going west. Man shouting: hyah! [horse whinnies] hah! Hah! [horses whinny] man as twain: 

"We jumped into the stage. The driver cracked his whip, and we bowled away and left the states behind us. There was a freshness and breeziness and an exhilarating sense of emancipation." 

On July 26, 1861, The Clemens Brothers left St. Joseph, Missouri, on the Central Overland and Pike's Peak Express Company stagecoach. 

Sam brought along his pipes, 5 pounds of tobacco, and a pistol, he said, that had only one fault-- "You could not hit anything with it." 

They crossed Kansas, then Nebraska, stopping every 10 to 15 miles to change horses at station houses made of sod. 

"It was the first time," Sam noted, "We had ever seen a man's front yard on top of his house." 

On warm days, he perched on top of the stagecoach, clothed only in his underwear, drinking in the fresh air and admiring the endless empty spaces. 

"It was a comfort to sit up and contemplate the majestic panorama of mountains and valleys spread out below us and eat ham and hard-boiled eggs while our spiritual natures reveled alternately in rainbows, thunderstorms, and peerless sunsets. 

Nothing helps scenery like ham and eggs-- ham and eggs and after these, a pipe, an old, rank, delicious pipe. 

Ham and eggs and scenery, a downgrade, a flying coach, a fragrant pipe, and a contented heart -- these make happiness. 

It's what all the ages have struggled for." 

[horse whinnies] 

narrator: 3 weeks after leaving missouri, they pulled into carson city, the raw new settlement that was the capital of nevada territory. 

But as Orion started His Job as Territorial Secretary, Sam realized that being Secretary to The Secretary carried with it no duties and no pay. 

He decided to try his hand at gold and silver mining along with the thousands of other men who had flooded into nevada on the promise of easy riches. He was a complete failure. Man as twain: "My dear mother, the country is fabulously rich in gold, silver, copper, lead, coal, iron, quicksilver, thieves, murderers, desperadoes, lawyers, christians, indians, chinamen, spaniards, gamblers, sharpers, coyotes, poets, preachers, and jackass rabbits." narrator: in september 1862, he gave up mining and moved to virginia city, a nevada boom town built atop the comstock lode, the richest body of silver ore ever discovered in america. Virginia city was also the home of the territorial enterprise, the most-read newspaper between chicago and san francisco. Its editor offered sam a job covering local events at $25 a week. Clemens loved the reporter's life. He haunted saloons, theaters, whorehouses. He drank, smoked, played cards and billiards with other newsmen late into the night. Ron powers, writer: going west brought him accidentally into the company of a great proto-psychedelic, counterculture newspaper society out west in nevada-- a bunch of talented wild men improvising a whole new newspaper art form with tall tales and lies and hoaxes and great writing. Narrator: 

With his new career under way, sam clemens decided to take on a new name-- one that would stick with him the rest of his life and eventually become the most celebrated in all of american literature. On february 3, 1863, at the end of a dispatch written from carson city to the territorial enterprise, he signed himself "Mark Twain." 

Ron Powers, Writer: 

"There's a lot of ambiguity in that. 

Two fathoms -- Mark Twain -- is the point at which Dangerous Water becomes Safe Water, or the point at which Safe Water becomes Dangerous Water, and I think Mark Twain was always on that margin. 

That's where he lived -- on The Edge -- between The Lightness and The Dark, between Safety and Danger, but always on The Flow of The River.

Fortify Your Position

Albus :

Draco, You Are No Assassin.

Draco :

How do you know What I Am? 

I've done things that would shock you.

Albus : 

Oh, like cursing Katie Bell 

and hoping that in return 

she would bear a cursed necklace to me?

Like replacing a bottle of mead 

with one lace with poison. 

Forgive me, Draco, 

I cannot help feel these actions are so weak that 

Your... heart can't really have been in.

“I believe that the good that people do, small though it may appear, has more to do with the good that manifests broadly in The World than people think, and I believe the same about Evil. 

We are each more responsible for The State of The world than we believe, or would feel comfortable believing. Without careful attention, culture itself tilts toward corruption. Tyranny grows slowly, and asks us to retreat in comparatively tiny steps. 

But each retreat increases the possibility of the next retreat. Each betrayal of conscience, each act of silence (despite the resentment we feel when silenced), and each rationalization weakens resistance and increases the probability of the next restrictive move forward. 

This is particularly the case when those pushing forward delight in the power they have now acquired—and such people are always to be found. 

Better to stand forward, awake, when the costs are relatively low—and, perhaps, when the potential rewards have not yet vanished. 

Better to stand forward before the ability to do so has been irretrievably compromised. 

Unfortunately, people often act in spite of their conscience—even if they know it—and hell tends to arrive step by step, one betrayal after another. And it should be remembered that it is rare for people to stand up against what they know to be wrong even when the consequences for doing so are comparatively slight. 

And this is something to deeply consider, if you are concerned with leading a moral and careful life: if you do not object when the transgressions against your conscience are minor, why presume that you will not willfully participate when the transgressions get truly out of hand? 

Part of moving Beyond Order is knowing when you have such a reason. 

Part of moving Beyond Order is understanding that your conscience has a primary claim on your action, which supersedes your conventional social duty. 

If you decide to stand up and refuse a command, if you do something of which others disapprove but you firmly believe to be correct, you must be in a position to trust yourself. 

This means that you must have attempted to live an honest, meaningful, productive life (of precisely the sort that might characterize someone else you would tend to trust). 

If you have acted honorably, so that you are a trustworthy person, it will be your decision to refuse to comply or to act in a manner contrary to public expectation that will help society itself maintain its footing. By doing so you can be part of the force of truth that brings corruption and tyranny to a halt. The sovereign individual, awake and attending to his or her conscience, is the force that prevents the group, as the necessary structure guiding normative social relations, from becoming blind and deadly. 

I do not want to end this section on a falsely optimistic note. I know from further correspondence with my client that she shifted her employment from one large organization to another several times in the years that followed. In one case, she found a good position, where it was possible to engage in productive, sensible, meaningful work. However, although successful there, she was laid off during a corporate reorganization, and has since found the other companies she has worked for as thoroughly possessed by the current linguistic and identity-politics fads as her original place of employment. Some dragons are everywhere, and they are not easy to defeat. 

But her attempts to fight back—her work debunking pseudoscientific theories; her work as a journalist—helped buttress her against depression and bolster her self-regard. 

 

Fortify Your Position

 When culture disintegrates — because it refuses to be aware of its own pathology; because the visionary hero is absent — it descends into the chaos that underlies everything. Under such conditions, the individual can dive voluntarily as deeply as he or she dares into the depths and rediscover the eternal principles renewing vision and life. The alternative is despair, corruption, and nihilism — thoughtless subjugation to the false words of totalitarian utopianism and life as a miserable, lying, and resentful slave. 

If you wish instead to be engaged in a great enterprise — even if you regard yourself as a mere cog—you are required not to do things you hate. 

You must fortify your position, regardless of its meanness and littleness, confront the organizational mendacity undermining your spirit, face the chaos that ensues, rescue your near-dead father from the depths, and live a genuine and truthful life. Otherwise, nature hides her face, society stultifies, and you remain a marionette, with your strings pulled by demonic forces operating behind the scenes—and one more thing: it is your fault. No one is destined in the deterministic sense to remain a puppet. We are not helpless. Even in the rubble of the most broken-down lives, useful weapons might still be found. Likewise, even the giant most formidable in appearance may not be as omnipotent as it proclaims or appears. Allow for the possibility that you may be able to fight back; that you may be able to resist and maintain your soul—and perhaps even your job. (But a better job may also beckon if you can tolerate the idea of the transformation.) If you are willing to conceptualize yourself as someone who could—and, perhaps more importantly, should—stand fast, you may begin to perceive the weapons at your disposal. If what you are doing is causing you to lash out at others impulsively; if what you are doing is destroying your motivation to move forward; if your actions and inactions are making you contemptuous of yourself and, worse, of the world; if the manner in which you conduct your life is making it difficult for you to wake happily in the morning; if you are plagued by a deep sense of self-betrayal—perhaps you are choosing to ignore that still small voice, inclined as you may be to consider it something only attended to by the weak and naive. 

If you are at work, and called upon to do what makes you contemptuous of yourself — weak and ashamed, likely to lash out at those you love, unwilling to perform productively, and sick of your life—it is possible that it is time to meditate, consider, strategize, and place yourself in a position where you are capable of Saying "No."* 

Perhaps you will garner additional respect from the people you are opposing on moral grounds, even though you may still pay a high price for your actions. Perhaps they will even come to rethink their stance—if not now, with time (as their own consciences might be plaguing them in that same still small manner). 

Mos Eisley

Mos Eisley - A New Hope [1080p HD]

BILL MOYERS: 

What did you think about the scene in the bar?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

That’s my favorite, not only in this piece, but of many, many pieces I’ve ever seen.

BILL MOYERS: 

Why?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Well, where you are is on the edge, you’re about to embark into the outlying spaces. And–

BILL MOYERS: 

The real adventure.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

The Real Adventure. 

This is the jumping-off place, 

and there is where you meet people who’ve been out there, and they run The Machines that go out there, and you haven’t been there. 

It reminds me a little bit in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, the atmosphere before you start off the adventure. 

You’re in the seaport, and there’s old salts, seamen who’ve been on the sea, 

and that’s their world, and these are the space people, also.