Word: owl
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Home is the autobiographical narrative of a woman called Stone Telling. Although her story takes up roughly one-fifth of the book, it provides an accessible focus for the bigger picture that Le Guin wishes to convey. Stone Telling looks back on her childhood, when she was called North Owl (Kesh people change their names whenever it seems appropriate to do so). She lives with her mother and grandmother in a matrilineal society whose rituals harmonize with nature and the passing seasons. She studies the habits of animals and learns the Kesh song of happiness and praise: "Heya hey heya...
...only unhappiness among all these Edenic ways stems from the fact that her father is a member of the Condor people, a fierce warrior tribe to the north. His name is Terter Abhao, which translates into Kesh as Kills. When North Owl is nine, he reappears and spends the autumn and winter. The young girl watches his behavior toward the soldiers under his command. He tells her how to give them an order. She does so, and they instantly obey: "So I first felt the great energy of the power that originates in imbalance...
This knowledge guarantees that she will some day journey with her father to observe Condor society firsthand. But once she makes the trip, she is sorry. The Condors are everything that the Kesh are not: violent, destructive, acquisitive, caste ridden, competitive. "Everything they did," North Owl notes, "was war." High-born women are forced into lives of idle seclusion. All other females, along with foreigners and animals, are routinely abused as hontik. Condor warriors worship the god One and kill for his glory. North Owl concludes that her hosts are "a sick people destroying themselves" and yearns...
...three argued that the Owl agenda does not oppose formal efforts, like the Geneva arms talks to control nuclear weapons, but is instead meant to complement arms control...
...book they recently co-authored and defended last night, the K-School scholars forwarded an "Owl" agenda as a compromise to the extremist "Hawk" and "Dove" camps. Hawks believe in "peace through strength," while Doves prescribe arms control and accommodation. Owls, on the other hand, think nuclear war is likely to stem from a loss of control and thus work to strengthen organizations and coordinate events to prevent such a catastrophe...