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It was an old world, incredibly old, with a pitted moon and a dying sun and a sky too thin to hold a summer cloud. There were trees upon it but not the trees of yore, for these were the result of aeons of gradual accommodation. They inhaled and exhaled far less than did their distant forebears and they sucked more persistently at the aged soil.    >> Major Ingredients

There are other intriguing moral lessons in Where the Red Fern Grows. For instance, during a challenge to find a particularly wily raccoon, a local young bully-boy and his bully-hound come to fatal ends while crossing our hero and his dogs. But nobody worries much about accidental deaths; the bully's own family is no more excited than they'd be to see a coon fall out of a tree. So that's all right.    >> Where the Red Fern Grows

I specified that what counted as a rational philosophy was any system of beliefs that included an objective reality independent of the human mind; thus, a Thomist Catholic, a Lockean, or a adherent of the scientific method could be counted as rational, while a fideist Christian or a logical positivist would be irrational. To add nuances, I allowed a basically rational character to have a False Premise, such as belief in God or duty to one's family. Three of the five player characters had such beliefs.    >> Campaigning in the World of Atlas Shrugged

1. I am an average American citizen.
2. I am also a moron.
3. I can buy a gun.
4. With a gun, I am a danger to myself, my family and my community.
5. I shouldn't be allowed to own a gun.
6. Therefore, no American citizen should be allowed to own a gun.
   >> Guns Aren't Psychic

David Seabury, author of How to Worry Successfully, suggests that you write a "Worry Play", an actual play in acts and scenes about your anxieties, and that you imagine this on stage. Thurber's attempt at this "ran almost as long as Mourning Becomes Electra"; his thinking and dreaming about this Worry Play itself added anxieties — naturally.    >> Let Your Mind Alone

Dear Diary: Here I am, after two arduous years on the Moon with the Garner lunar expedition. We dismantled our rocket to build the living quarters and labs, and the relief ship has just crashed. Since we’re on the Dark Side, it will be at least a month before Earth would know, and at least eight months before another ship could be built. We have only enough oxygen and water for two months, and food for little more. What now?    >> The Moon Is Hell

Little Fuzzy looked the can over, decided that the lid was a member of the class of things-that-screwed-onto-things and got it off. The inside of the lid was mirror-shiny, and it took him a little thought to discover that what he saw in it was only himself. He yeeked about that, and looked into the can. This, he decided, belonged to the class of things-that-can-be-dumped, like wastebaskets, so he dumped it on the floor. Then he began examining the stones and sorting them by color.    >> Little Fuzzy

It is useful that your territory be recognized by the United Nations as independent. If you were conquered by someone and still held, whether recently or long ago, you may be out of luck. Your benefactor nation may grant you status as an "autonomous satellite nation" or some such euphemism, whereby it gains an additional controlled seat in the United Nations. You won't earn much income from your postage stamps and other privileges of sovereignty, because outside the United Nations bureaucracy, most people won't believe you're an independent nation. However, your territory may gain useful publicity.    >> Postage-Stamp Countries: .cc - .to - .tv - .ws etc

This is DHF's idea.

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