It's only 2 days until you can read The Shattered Heart for yourself! In the meantime, here's one last deleted scene that takes place just a couple of months before The Shattered Heart begins. Warning: it's about to get real.
Somehow Adam drove from home to the edge of town without even noticing.
When he got in his car, planning a quick visit to the Gylf, he had started thinking through all of his questions again. When Alex had been attacked last fall, they had assumed Candice's pet was crazed from the loss of its mistress, but after Dom and Logan had nearly lost their feet to frostbite, they were forced to admit that someone was still out to get them. Even though the papers they had taken from Candice's cave had seemed useless, they were still the closest thing the Circle had to a clue about their enemy. Adam had been puzzling over them for the last few months without making much progress.
Candice's notebook mostly just outlined her plan for attacking them last summer. The margins were filled with hateful comments. It wasn't a pleasant read. Adam was more interested in the stack of letters that had been tucked inside. Someone was communicating with Candice on a regular basis, but it was impossible to tell who. The letters were written in come kind of code that mingled banal phrases about the weather with nonsense words. Nothing Adam had tried so far had helped him make sense of them. His latest attempt was to make a list of all the words that had to do with plants and animals and ask the Gylf what they knew about those things. It was a long shot, but Adam was desperate. So far, the worst damage they'd received was Logan losing all the toenails in his right foot, but it was pure luck that nothing worse had happened.
They couldn't count on luck forever.
Adam slammed on the brakes when he realized that he had just driven past the Gylf forest. The road was deserted out here, so he backed along it until he came to the spot where he usually parked.
Grabbing his notepad off the passenger seat, Adam jumped out of the car. He figured he had about an hour before his mom would be expecting him for dinner. Being late wasn't an option.
The grass by the side of the road had grown tall, and Adam pushed through it impatiently. It was a relief to reach the edge of the forest. Under the trees, he knew the going would be easier. They all walked the path often enough to keep it clear.
Adam rounded the first big tree trunk and, out of habit, ducked under the low-hanging branches on the other side.
Two steps later, the ground erupted in front of him as a thousand stinging insects swarmed out toward his face.
Adam threw his hands up in a futile protective gesture. His notepad dropped unnoticed on the forest floor.
All the world was buzzing and dozens of pain points erupted on Adam's arms and neck as he was stung over and over. There was no defense but to get away.
Adam ran, fleeing up the path toward the Gylf's home, batting away insects as he went, forgetting everything but the instinct to get to safety.
The pain on his arms and neck spread down his back and then to his face. It was getting harder to see, and he realized his eyes were swelling shut.
Adam tripped on a branch and stumbled to his knees. Standing up again was impossible, so he curled into a ball, his face tucked into his legs, his arms covering his head. He could still hear buzzing all around, mixed with smacking noises that made no sense to his fuzzy brian.
He waited for more stings.
The next thing he felt was the pressure of tiny hands pushing his arms aside. Through the slits that were his eyes, he saw several Gylf examining his injuries with concern.
Adam tried to express his thanks, but only a croaking sound came out.
Adam slipped into a dark dream, only surfacing from time to time. Once he felt something cool being pressed against his neck. Another time, he heard many voices. He thought he recognized Logan's, but he slipped away again before he could be sure.
When Adam came fully awake, it was dark in the woods. A fire crackled nearby, and he saw dark figures sitting around it. His eyes opened a little further than before, and the unbearable pain of earlier was reduced to a dull ache and some itchiness. He tried to lift his head, but that proved impossible.
A grunt was all Adam could manage.
"That's about what we figured," Eve said. She and Alex crouched over him, working together to lift his head slightly and drizzle water into his mouth.
"How long…" he managed once he had swallowed some.
Adam dropped his hand. Alex's shoulders were shaking.
Her words washed over Adam with no meaning.
Terra. He thought of her dark hair and expressive eyes. She was the first Gylf he had ever met. How could she just be gone?
Adam closed his eyes and held onto her words with all his might.


text:
A timeline of how Babri Masjid was demolished brick by brick, hammer after hammer
by Tanya Trivedi
in Knowledge
The 6th of December 1992- the day that changed the course of the history of the Indian nation forever and is forever etched in the memory of those living. 29 years have passed since the mosque in Ayodhya was demolished by 'kar sevaks' who claimed that an ancient Ram temple stood at the same site. However, BJP along with Right-wing activists have succeeded to lay the foundation stone for the construction of the Grand Rama Temple after a 29-year long struggle.
Let us look at the timeline offering an idea of the events that led to the demolition of the mosque in Ayodhya.
Rise of Babri:
In 1528, the Babri Masjid was built in Ayodhya (The city where the god Ram was born) by Mir Baqi, the courtier of the Mughal emperor, Babur upon the instructions of the latter. While the three-domed mosque was housed in an inner compound, the outer compound contained smaller buildings, including two Hindu structures of worship.
However, after the claims of Sunni Muslims in 1855 that the temple of Hanumangarhi in Ayodhya is built on the site of a destroyed mosque, the British administration in 1859 erects a fence around Babri Masjid, as the belief that the mosque is the birthplace of Ram gains currency. Hindus are allowed to worship in the outer court.
The dispute begins:
There are records of religious violence since at least the nineteenth century, as the local Hindu groups claimed that the mosque was built above the remains of a temple commemorating the birthplace of Ram. In 1885, the dispute entered the courts, when a priest named Mahant Raghubir Das's filed a plea demanding that a temple be built in the outer courtyard, adjacent to the Babri mosque. In 1949, soon after Indian Independence, idols were secretly installed inside the mosque by Hindus. The Congress-run administration, citing the possibility of riots, did not remove the idols, and a pujari was allowed to enter the compound and pray as per the orders by a local judge. The mosque came under lock and key.
Ram Janmabhoomi movement:
The 'Ram Janmabhoomi' movement was gathering steam after several suits were being filed by the Nirmohi Akhara, headed by Mahant Bhaskar Das and the UP Sunni Central Waqf Board asking for permission to pray. While the Congress was encashing votes through a rainbow coalition of upper-caste Hindus, Muslims and Dalits, Mulayam Singh Yadav's Janata Dal, by the 1980s gained the trust of the state's 18 per cent Muslims. Then, BJP entered the picture. The newly formed
Bharatiya Janata Party campaigned on Hindu victimhood from centuries of Muslim domination that eventually helped the party to encash votes from Hindus. Nothing could have worked better than Babri Masjid demolition to strengthen the party.
BJP's campaign to build Ram Temple:
In 1984, the VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) along with BJP, flagged off a movement to demolish the mosque and build a temple in its place. L.K. Advani, the new political player of Bharatiya Janata Party, became the de facto leader of the campaign. Despite Vishwa Hindu Parishad's Shriram-Janaki rath yatra from Sitamarhi in Bihar to Delhi and six similar yatras in Uttar Pradesh, BJP managed to win only two seats out of 541 in the Lok Sabha polls in 1984.
Given the fact that Rajiv catered to both Muslims and Hindu in a bid to protect his electoral majority, Congress lost power in UP in 1989, with the state's Muslims voting for Mulayam Singh Yadav. In the national elections held at the same time, Rajiv was dethroned, and the BJP's tally jumped from two seats to eighty-five.
L K Advani's Rath Yatra:
On September 25, 1990, Advani started his Rath Yatra from Somnath, Gujarat to gather support for the Ram temple. The Rath Yatra gave BJP the identity of a strong Hindu party with solid support from the middle class. During the Yatra, his oratory skills were at its best and people in large numbers came to listen to Advani. On October 23, Advani was arrested in Bihar's Samastipur. Under the orders of the then Bihar CM, Lalu Prasad Yadav, he was placed under preventive detention.
Read more: Lal Krishna Advani: Rebel with a cause
In October 1990, when Hindu activists attempted to take over the mosque, Mulayam Singh Yadav, who was surviving only because of Muslim appeasement, ordered the police to open fire. Following his orders, sixteen activists were killed, and the mosque remained standing. Mulayam swore, 'Yahan parinda bhi par nahin maar sakta.'
However, the firing might have protected the mosque, but Mulayam had lost Hindus' trust. A year later in 1991, BJP swept the state winning more than half of the seats. Kalyan Singh who was a backward-caste leader involved in the Ayodhya agitation became the new chief minister. The BJP also managed to perform well and encash a good number of votes in the national elections.
P V Narasimha Rao's role:
The BJP's victory in the UP-state elections troubled Narasimha Rao. He wanted both religious groups to negotiate and build a temple near the mosque while leaving the mosque intact. But the BJP and its allies wanted the temple built atop the destroyed mosque, not near it. Almost immediately after Singh's swearing-in ceremony as chief minister in June 1991, the UP government acquired 2.77 acres of land around Babri Masjid. That October, it began demolishing ancient structures on the acquired
land. It was only when the Supreme Court stepped in that the demolition stopped.
Wasting no time, Rao began deliberations with leaders of the BJP and other groups who were pushing for the construction of a temple in Ayodhya. Unlike many other Congress leaders, Rao was a Hindu-secularist. In between September and November 1991, Rao ensured that Hindu and Muslim groups met around ninety times. At the same time, Rao engaged with BJP leaders, Advani and Vajpayee who repeatedly assured him that the disputed structure could stay.
A wily politician himself, Narasimha Rao, also sought to loop in Supreme Court to see if the Central government could take control over disputed land, but the Supreme Court chose to believe Kalyan Singh when he swore to protect the disputed structure. At the same time, Rao asked his officials to come up with contingency plans to take control over the site by force if the need arose.
Read more: Did PV Narasimha Rao orchestrate the Babri demolition?
Newspapers began reporting in July 1992 that "Though the main Babri mosque was unharmed, the BJP had resumed construction in the outer compound." Witnessing the direct violation of Supreme Court order, on 9 July 1992, twenty Congress MPs—including Mani Shankar Aiyar and Prithviraj Chavan wrote a letter to Rao asking him to take 'all necessary steps to protect the masjid by preventing construction, by taking physical possession of the masjid and the premises, and by deploying the Army to that area if necessary'. The construction was stopped only after the Supreme Court ordered the suspension on 23 July 1992.
Rao then asked Madhav Godbole, his home secretary, to plan how to take over the mosque. Madhav's plan suggested that Central forces should take over Babri Masjid. He specified that
Article 356 had to be invoked and talked about the 'Danger to security of RJB-BM' structure for 'a
period of a few hours when the structure would be quite vulnerable. Ground realities preclude any
a fool-proof operational plan to avoid this.'
BJP's checkmate:
On 30 October 1992, VHP announced that kar seva, or religious service, would be performed right next to the disputed structure on 6 December. Though VHP promised that the mosque would not be touched, the pooja meant that around 100,000 Hindu kar sevaks would be in proximity to Babri Masjid on 6 December 1992.
Fearing the demolition, Rao met the leaders of the secular parties during a meeting of the National Integration Council on 23 November 1992. The Janata Dal and communists, pushing the decision on to Rao, did not declare President's rule justified in UP. The INC unanimously backed the prime minister in his bid to protect the mosque. Thus, Rao turned to the Supreme Court.
Since Kalyan Singh swore to protect the mosque, the Supreme Court dismissed Rao's request for receivership. Afterwards, on 1 December 1992, Governor Reddy sent a letter recommending against Central rule. Kalyan Singh had once again checkmated Rao.
6 December 1992- the day when Babri Mosque was demolished:
It was the 6th of December 1992. Leaders of the BJP and VHP addressed a large crowd at around 11.30 a.m near the masjid in Ayodhya. The situation took a massive turn when a teenage kar sevak jumped across the boundary and vaulted on top of the mosque dome. In a short period of time, thousands of kar sevaks accompanied him who began chipping away at the domes.
A few hours later, TV cameras showed images of mobs descending on the disputed structure and razing it to the ground. BJP leaders would later claim that they were powerless to control the mobs. During the riots after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, eighteen Muslims died. Additionally, riots broke out in different parts of the country, including Mumbai, and around 2,000 people were killed.
Consequences of demolition:
In the aftermath of demolition that took place in 1992, the Centre acquired 67.703 acres of land in and around the Babri Masjid under the newly passed 'Acquisition of Certain Area at Ayodhya Act' in 1993. Additionally, a charge sheet was filed against Advani and 19 others for provoking the demolition.
Later in 1994, the Supreme Court sentenced UP chief minister Kalyan Singh to imprisonment of one day and a fine of Rs 20,000. With the NDA government at the Centre in 2001, a special CBI court drops proceedings and conspiracy charges against the accused including Advani, M.M. Joshi, Uma Bharti, Bal Thackeray, and others.
Tags: AyodhyaBabri MasjidBabri Masjid DemolitionBJPCongressKar SevaksVHP
Hero cruises ahead with a massive EV push as Bajaj stays frozen in time
K Naushad, an Arabic teacher at Primary school, caught filming kids in washroom
Tanya Trivedi
Passionate towards creative aspects of the media and woman with a vision to establish myself as a writer, journalist and artist as well.
Ajay Telang says:
the title itself is false, as it says 'babri masjid. this is twistng of facts and shameful on part of journo. it was never a mosque. at best it can be refered to as 'disputed structure. this amounts to insult to the Hindus. be careful in future.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


On the news last evening a report on the present conflicts in which this country is fighting caught my attention, though not because of casualty numbers or speeches by policy makers. The curators of the visitor's center being built near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial are planning to set aside part of their exhibition space, in order to mingle the story of U.S. involvement in Vietnam with that in Afghanistan and Iraq. The same report explained that a formal memorial on the National Mall dedicated to those who fought in the latter two countries may take longer to approve.
The juxtaposition of the two present conflicts with that of Vietnam is interesting. One wonders whether those in charge of this project will also include arguably more successful American military engagements, such as the Persian Gulf War in 1990. Yet it begs the question, and admittedly many of my readers may find it an unpalatable one, as to why this is being done.
The birth of this country may have formally begun on paper, but it was ultimately achieved through bellicose means. The United States has participated in many armed conflicts over the course of its history, and will no doubt continue to do so. If the American military has a well-deserved reputation for know-how and experience on the battlefield, it is because it has had plenty of practice.
This is by no means an exhaustive accounting of all armed involvement of this country in battles at home and abroad. However, if you are familiar with the Nation's Capital, you will notice a rather curious fact when examining this list: there are no national war memorials on The National Mall to those who fought and died in the first six wars on the above list. Why is this the case?
In order of appearance, the current group of national war memorials on The Mall began to appear in 1982, with the construction of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, i.e. "The Wall". This was further expanded in 1984 with the "Three Soldiers" sculpture, and will now include the aforementioned visitor's center nearby. The construction of this memorial was followed by the Vietnam Women's Memorial in 1993; the Korean War Veterans Memorial in 1995; and the World War II Memorial in 2004.
Prior to the construction of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, many monuments to historically prominent individuals were erected around the Capital, though very few on or around The Mall itself. For example, by now most of my readers are very familiar with the monument to General McPherson, which sits in the now-infamous square that bears his name, and there are monuments to figures as diverse as Chief Justice Marshall or Samuel Gompers spread all over the city. Yet memorials to wars themselves were something of a rarity.
As to how America usually honors its military dead on a national level here in the Capital, from the time of the Civil War to today the practice has been formal interment at Arlington National Cemetery. While prominent individuals such as McPherson might get their own monument in the city, the ordinary soldier who did his duty would not have expected the same level of individual recognition. However, he still knew that he would have a place set aside by his country close to the heart of its capital city, where he would be remembered, along with his comrades.
Times have certainly changed, for there can be no question that over the past thirty years there has been a demonstrable, unprecedented shift in attitude toward the purpose of having a national memorial on The National Mall, and the increasing popularity of the construction of war memorials to the veterans of such conflicts being placed along it. I do not have any answers as to why this change has occurred. Yet considering the report which started off this blog post, we ought to ask some questions about this increasingly common practice.
For example, how are we to establish the criteria by which wars are to be memorialized on The National Mall? Is it a question of numbers, so that World War I merits a national memorial on The Mall, because of the large number of casualties involved, but not Grenada, because the losses there were much smaller? Are we only to memorialize those conflicts where there are still veterans left alive who fought in them, or are we to go back even further into our history when looking for subject matter for these memorials? What about civilians such as government contractors who are killed in foreign conflicts – should they also be included in such memorials?
As unpopular as it may be to ask these types of questions, they need to be asked. My readers will draw their own conclusions as to the merits of continuing the practice of building memorials to veterans of specific wars along The National Mall. However, I would put all in mind of the inescapable fact that The Mall is a finite space, and in order to preserve its character we need to act judiciously, adopting a high level of discernment about what is going to be placed on or around it.
While it will no doubt make me decidedly unpopular in some quarters for saying so, it would seem to me that building a memorial to the veterans of each and every conflict in which the United States is involved along the National Mall will soon turn the place into a kind of quasi-military cemetery. This seems rather superfluous, when we already have a magnificent, unifying memorial to American servicemen and women directly across the river. As much as I honor their contributions to aid their country, perhaps they would be better served by preserving and expanding Arlington, rather than continuing to expand a somewhat disjointed presence on The National Mall.
View of The National Mall in Washington, D.C.
Your numbers are far off. You are giving lists of casualties for all the wars from SpanAm onwards. Casualties are the total number of killed plus the total number if wounded.
For instance, 4,500 US servicemen and women were killed in the most recent Iraq War, not 31,000.
Thank you for catching that. I copied the first several figures from the correct column, but then accidentally shifted over one. I have corrected the error.


Home › Opinions › Mobilization Funding LLC v. W.M. Jordan Co.
Mobilization Funding LLC v. W.M. Jordan Co.
In this construction suit, the economic loss rules bars the plaintiff's claims for conversion and unjust enrichment, but not for fraud. The defendant's subcontractor is a necessary party, but not an indispensable one; thus, failure to join does not require dismissal.
Motion to dismiss granted in part and denied in part.
Mobilization Funding LLC v. W.M. Jordan Co., No. 4:18cv72, Nov. 29, 2018. EDVA at Newport News (Jackson).