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In the name of full transparency, I need to let you know that I have yet to parent a teen. However, I've earned my credibility on the front lines: My Masters Thesis explored therapy with teens and how to work with their “resistance”. (Coles notes version: teens won’t engage in new behaviors just because we want them to. It’s our job as the adult – therapist or parent – to understand where teens are coming from FIRST and then help them understand the benefit of a different way of relating) I’ve been providing therapy to teens for two decades and I genuinely love their angst and anguish trying to figure the world out and where they fit in. I remember my own thoughts and feelings as a teenager in vivid technicolor. My 12.5y old has perfected the sigh, the eye roll, and is a solid two inches taller than me so I’m getting a feel for having a teen right in my own home. There are discipline programs for unruly dogs where you drop off beloved Rex for a few weeks at a trainer’s who will whip them into shape (not literally with a whip). After the successful reform program, the trainer teaches you how to maintain the gains and you have a lovely, well behaved, furry family member. I often sense that some parents would like me to offer the same service, but for their teenagers. Leave them with me for six weeks, I’ll teach them to be a respectful, responsible member of society and hand them back to you. To be clear: I do not offer any such service. I have a way to conceptualize teenage behavior that may help reconnect you to feelings of empathy and patience. Your teen is actually an overgrown toddler - the similarities are striking. Just like in this scene from Father of the Bride where Steve Martin’s character sees his adult daughter as a four year old. Imagine your child as they used to be, all chubby, wide-eyed toddler adorableness and remember when you did when they had a mid-afternoon meltdown. As Mammas, we get good at thinking though our checklist – are they hungry? Did they sleep? Have they burned off energy at the park? Did they have some quiet time? We do the exact same thing with babies – Are they wet? Do they need a diaper change? Gassy? Hungry? Tired? For teens, our checklist is a little more extensive, but it’s always good to begin with the basics. Time for a quick psychology lesson or refresher. In 1943, the American psychologist Abraham Maslow published a paper where he outlined a Theory of Human Motivation. He argued that until our basic physical needs were met (food, water, sleep), we wouldn’t be able to move up the ladder to more sophisticated needs (safety, security, friendship). When we’re scanning through the list of what our kids need, we’re actually working our way up Maslow’s theory to see where they’ve become derailed. Scan through their physical needs and address those first. Next we move on to other areas; how is school going? Friends? Self-image? Once you can identify which area (or areas) your teen is struggling with, you can help them through it. Or try to help them through it. This is where it gets more sticky and turbulent than with your cherubic toddler. You may try to help and they’ll figuratively (or literally) slam the door in your face. Repeatedly. Even worse – you may feel yourself slipping down into the muck, donning your own boxing gloves, and entering the ring to square off. Don’t do it. A friend of mine with two kids now in university offered a warning years ago, “Just wait until your kids are teens, they’ll tell you everything that’s wrong with you”. It’s true; teens are masters at pushing our buttons. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes inadvertently. Take a breath. Label the behavior and walk away to cool off. Look at your own needs in the moment. None of us are at our best when we’re tired, hungry, stressed from a long day. Meeting a tantruming teen with your own tantrum, screaming, or sarcasm won’t fix the situation or help your teen learn to manage. Toddlers are social creatures, they want to connect, and cuddle and feel important. They can’t always identify and articulate what they’re feeling. Ditto for teens. When they’re feeling insecure and confused, they can’t identify or articulate their emotions. Teens also want to connect and feeling important, but they’re too big and too cool to crawl into your lap and let you soothe them. Before pulling out your hair or making empty threats, find your patience. If you’re going to successfully guide your teen through these young adult years, you will need to summon the most mature version of yourself. Be the adult. Do your research. For a great list of books and resources that will help you understand what’s going on in your teen’s brain, take a look at my Pinterest board on parenting teens. Try, try, and try again to connect with them. Go heavy on the praise, and crystal clear on boundaries. If you want to have a better, more respectful relationship with your teen, it needs to start with you. Help them to feel connected, respected, and understood. Put in the effort now, and you’ll both reap the rewards later.

"Their skills as songwriters are apparent, but it is their progressive soundscapes that are truly ear-catching...The instrumentation is subtle and uplifting, lending a sonic hand to Reed's voice with sumptuous guitar melodies, swaying bass-lines and swanky drum beats." -Morena Duwe, Huffington Post "Mleo is a group that will compel you to fall head over heels for their music and enjoy them for the burgeoning musical treasure they are." "After memorable live sets opening for Plain White T's and Andy Grammer at Waves Weekend, playing at LA's feel good Eat See Hear fest, and smashing their live set at Hollywood's House of Blues, the team of class-conditioned musicians are well on their way to solidifying themselves in the oft-mentioned indie rocker set." "This band is creating what modern rock will be defined by..." "For such a young band, they flawlessly navigate through a timeless style with an ease and fluidity that's well beyond their years." - Evan Morgan Jodloman, The News Hub "Hot damn Victor San Pedro can play guitar. Hot damn Audrey Reed can float a melody. And hot damn, rhythm section members Nick De La O and Elias Vasquez hit all the right spaces" -Connor Meinert, That's Why We Musyc

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Kofi Annan once told Alexander Payne that “Election” was the most purely political film he’d ever seen, which makes one wonder where the former U.N. Secretary-General would place the nonfiction “Frontrunners,” Caroline Suh’s study about the real life political process at New York City’s Stuyvesant High School. As the film immediately lets the audience know, Stuyvesant is one of the most prestigious schools in the country and a proving ground for some of the best and brightest where a term as student union president could equal a ticket to Harvard or Yale. With so much at stake, the race for student government involves primaries, televised debates, newspaper endorsements and, yes, the usual schmoozing with constituents (which in one candidate’s case involves serving glasses of Pellegrino in the middle of a hallway “lounge”). For most, this isn’t the typical high school experience, but then again, what is? Although the four candidates at the center of “Frontrunners” represent the familiar cliques of high school life Hannah, the drama queen whose extracurriculars included a role in Todd Solondz’s “Palindromes”; George, the Max Fischer-esque go-getter; Mike, a seemingly withdrawn type who cruises by on his looks and charm; and Alex, the ill-prepared basketball player the resulting election reveals a generation of teens that is at once diverse, but also media savvy and unafraid of resorting to old fashioned stumping for votes. The documentary is the first to be directed by Suh, who had previously been a producer on various PBS documentaries with Erika Frankel. Suh discussed the highs and lows of the campaign trail following “Frontrunners'”s world premiere at SXSW. Coming from a producing background, did your heart sink when you found out that one of the candidate’s strategies involved blasting “Born to Be Wild” and “Teenage Wasteland” (songs with expensive licensing fees) to grab the attention of students walking to class? Both Erica and I begged George, when we found out that this was part of his campaign strategy, to not play The Beatles or things that we knew we couldn’t license and of course, he kind of ignored us and played very expensive music. [laughs] We have a lawyer who’s very aggressive in terms of fair use issues and she’s been guiding us through the process. But as two people who are used to producing, it was very disturbing, but we had to go with it because it was the story and we couldn’t control what was happening. Had you been wanting to direct for a long time? I started doing this because I wanted to make films and needed to learn the craft and also, we need to support ourselves, but this was a great opportunity to not produce and do something that was my own, to not have boundaries and not have to make a program to time and not have to take notes that we didn’t agree with. It really was a great experience in that way. A high school election also seems like a nice subject to ease into as a first project since it’s self-contained. Was that a consideration? That was definitely a consideration. We wanted to tell a campaign story and we don’t really look at the film as a competition film, but more as a campaign film. We knew that there was an arc to the story, so that definitely made it more manageable, and we knew we’d be shooting for a limited amount of time, which actually enabled us to make the film because we could afford to. It wasn’t a situation where it would stretch on for months and months and we couldn’t afford to have a [D.P.]. Last night in the Q & A, you said you didn’t want to work with adults, but usually the maxim is “no kids, no animals” how did high school politics come up? CS: [laughs] Well, to be honest, we’ve worked on a lot of a serious subject matter docs and I wanted to do something where I didn’t have to be professional. As a producer, it’s also different you do have to present yourself professionally, and I wanted to do something that was more relaxed, more one-on-one. I also look young and I’m a woman and when you’re dealing with “adults,” it’s a different kind of interaction. So it’s nice to work with teenagers where some of that outer stuff falls away. Because of the Stuyvesant setting, you probably knew the election would be interesting, but in most high schools, elections seem to boil down to pithy popularity contests. Was that a concern of yours going in? When we started filming, that was definitely a fear that oh, what if there’s no story? We didn’t have any control over it or the characters luckily, they ended up being great and all very different from each other. But it was a huge fear. There could’ve easily been no story. We know there were going to be debates, and that’s great and fun, but we started to relax when we met the Spectator people [the Stuyvesant school newspaper, which must endorse a candidate] because they provided a context for the election that gave it some gravity. Were you surprised by how civil the election was? I don’t know if we had any expectations going in as to what it would be like. We were concerned that bad things would happen, because they’re only 16 and 17, and we didn’t want this to be something that ruined someone’s whole life, so we really were hoping that there wouldn’t be real world ugliness. We were lucky that didn’t happen. You also kept the focus on the election, although there seemed like there could’ve been a natural inclination to learn a bit more about the adults. That’s what we wanted to do. We felt strongly that the film is really about the election and how the kids have decided to be at school. It’s really their story, their public persona, and their private persona too, but it really is all about who they are at school. It was important to us that we keep it that way. [Photos: “Frontrunners,” Suh Films, 2008] For more on “Frontrunners,” check out the official site here.

Download a PDF version: Between 1904 and 1906, the Edison Manufacturing Company continued to produce both actualities and staged/fiction subjects. Even though there often were many more nonfiction titles in release than fiction‹for example, during the February 1906-February 1907 business year, Edison offered 49 original nonfiction versus 12 fiction films‹when these subjects are analyzed in terms of length, the actual amount of footage in each category is almost identical. Even more importantly, when it comes to sales figures, 85% of the prints made from original Edison negatives were acted films. And this ratio (15% nonfiction, 85% staged/fiction) was remarkably stable throughout the period 1904-06. Many of the actualities sold poorly, if at all, news films of the San Francisco Earthquake being among the few exceptions. Edwin S. Porter, in his role as studio head and production chief, worked with a number of different collaborators in 1904, including G. M. Anderson and Will S. Rising. In May 1905, Edison hired Wallace McCutcheon away from the Biograph Company. McCutcheon had been a key figure in that's studio's successful output of ribald comedies and engaging melodramas. Undoubtedly, such headhunting was designed not only to strengthen Edison's production capabilities, but to hurt its chief domestic rival, as well. Porter and McCutcheon worked together for the next two years, but indications are that it may not have been an entirely happy collaboration. In fact, compared to 1905, the pace of filmmaking slackened at Edison in 1906, despite the tremendous demand for new films that resulted from the nickelodeon boom (the proliferation of generally small, specialized motion picture theaters) beginning in late 1905-early 1906. The number of Edison fiction films declined by almost 50% (from 22 to 12) and the amount of negative footage by almost one-third. Even so, print sales, which increased 25% from 1904 to 1905, doubled from 1905 to 1906. The fiction films made by Edison between 1904 and 1906 offered a complex view of American life. They often criticized the social consequences of the emerging large-scale industrial economy, with its huge gaps between rich and poor. Films such as The Ex-Convict (1904), The Kleptomaniac (1905) and The Miller's Daughter (1905) thus articulated a Progressive view of the American condition. Others offered a certain nostalgia or romanticizing of small town communities. At the same time, many of these films participated exuberantly in the nation's urban commercial popular culture (The Strenuous Life of 1904, or Whole Dam Family and the Dam Dog of 1905). Many revealed the racial and ethnic stereotypes that pervaded most aspects of cultural activity. Rather than give a sanitized version of Edison's output, our selections offer the full range and complexity of these representations. European Rest Cure Filmmaker: Edwin S. Porter. Shot: July-August 1904; © 1 September 1904. Print: MoMA. This spoof on the popular travelogue genre follows an American tourist across Europe and the Middle East on a "rest cure," in which one physically or emotionally wrenching disaster follows another. Foreign locales were actually pasteboard sets of pyramids, Roman ruins, and a French cafe, while additional scenes were shot on location at Hudson River docks as the tourist leaves and returns. Porter combined this original material with footage of S.S. Coptic Running Against the Storm, taken by James White on his Pacific voyage in 1898, and Pilot Leaving Prinzessen Victoria Luise at Sandy Hook, taken by White in late 1902. Another shot was excerpted from Sky Scrapers of New York from the North River, which James Smith had filmed in May 1903. How a French Nobleman Got a Wife Through the New York Herald Personal Columns Filmmaker: Edwin S. Porter. Shot August 1904; © 26 August 1904. Print: MoMA. Edison's principle domestic rival in 1904 was once again the American Mutoscope & Biograph Company. Biograph was then producing a series of popular story films, which it used as exclusives for its exhibition circuits. Edison affiliated renters and exhibitors were deeply frustrated that they could not acquire these films. Taking advantage of this demand and eager to harm its competitor, the Edison Company had Edwin S. Porter remake several of Biograph's hits. This one was a remake of Personal. Ultimately, Biograph had to sell its story films as soon as they were shown in theaters, undermining its exhibition service. Biograph sued Edison for copyright infringement on this film, but lost. Nervy Nat Kisses the Bride Filmmaker: Edwin S. Porter. Shot: 17-21 September 1904; © 30 September 1904. Print: MoMA. Sold as "Weary Willie" Kisses the Bride, this three-shot comedy is built around the popular stereotype of the tramp, a character that exists outside of proper society and is comically under socialized. Here, he takes advantage of a spat between a bride and groom to sneak a kiss, only to be thrown off the train for his efforts. This film is set in a train station, inside the train itself, and on the tracks. As in the case of What Happened in the Tunnel, it could either be integrated by the exhibitor into a program of railway scenes or used to fill out a reel of miscellaneous motion pictures for a variety bill. As was often the case, Porter created a film by combining elements from two popular motion picture genres. Filmmaker: Edwin S. Porter. Shot: 22 November 1904; © 9 December 1904. Print: MoMA. A single-shot comedy staged against a painted backdrop, in which a boy plans to play a trick on a drunken rube, only to be outwitted by his intended victim. The Strenuous Life; or, Anti-Race Suicide Filmmaker: Edwin S. Porter. Shot December 1904; © 19 December 1904. Print: MoMA. A lighthearted spoof of family life and fatherhood. President Roosevelt, who had just won reelection, believed Americans had to lead "the strenuous life" (it was the title of one of his books) if the United States was to retain its position of world leadership. He also declared that married women of northern European stock had a responsibility to produce at least four children to prevent "race suicide." Porter combined these two elements into a burlesque: the father returns home as his wife gives birth and soon finds himself caring for quadruplets. Using a close up, Porter shows the father's initial expression of pride as he weighs the first baby, but this expression quickly changes to distress as the nurse brings in one infant after another. Filmmaker: Edwin S. Porter. Shot: November 1904; © 19 November 1904. Print: MoMA. An uncredited but quite obvious adaptation of a well-known vaudeville piece, Number 973, by Robert Hilliard and Edwin Holland. Starting from the Hilliard-Holland one-act playlet, Porter visualized the storyline into a total of eight scenes. Unlike Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Ex-Convict was not filmed theater but an adaptation that took advantage of the filmmaker's ability to place a scene in an appropriate location (outside a store, home, or factory, and on the street) and to move quickly from one setting to the next. The naturalistic locales and the accelerated pace heightened the emotional intensity of the viewer's reaction to the pathetic story, achieving a level of realism impossible on the stage. In the process of adaptation, Porter also added important new elements, notably the ex-convict's family. Filmmaker: Edwin S. Porter. Cast: Aline Boyd (The Kleptomaniac, Mrs. Banker), Phineas Nairs (Store Detective), Jane Stewart (Female Detective), George Voijere (Superintendent, Department Store), Ann Egleston (The Thief), Will S. Rising (Police Court Judge), Helen Courtney (Justice). Shot late January 1905; © 4 February 1905. Print: MoMA. This condemnation of the class bias found in the American justice system works within a Progressive political framework. Porter juxtaposes the situations of two women. The impoverished woman is shown at home, in the context of her family. The barren room, the absence of a husband/provider, and the weighty responsibility of children who need care and are still too young to work elicit the viewer's understanding and sympathy. Mrs. Banker is denied the sympathetic context of family life, although the brownstone from which she emerges clearly indicates her social status. She, as the title indicates, has no motivation for shoplifting other than the thrill. Mrs. Banker goes inside a high-class emporium (Macy's) and steals some nonessential baubles under the noses of sales personnel. Her actions are clearly premeditated. In contrast, the poor woman, overwhelmed by temptation, steals food left outside and unattended. Her actions are spontaneous. Once arrested, the wealthy kleptomaniac is treated with a courtesy and leniency denied the more deserving mother. The details given in the Edison catalog are not always evident on screen; for instance, there is no reason to suppose the kleptomaniac is a banker's wife. The Seven Ages Filmmaker: Edwin S. Porter. Shot February 1905; © 4 February 1905. Print: LoC. Here, Porter photographed a series of short vignettes reminiscent of kiss films such as The John C. Rice-May Irwin Kiss (1896), structuring them around a premise provided by Shakespeare's "seven ages of man"--a theme often illustrated in nineteenth-century lantern shows. Beginning with toddlers and concluding with old people, the film shows couples kissing. Each of the first seven scenes contains two shots, the first an establishing shot and the second a medium close-up that gives a better view of each kissing couple. The eighth and final scene is a tableau that shows an old maid alone, introduced with the title "What Age?" To emphasize her solitude, Porter broke with the structure of earlier scenes and refrained from cutting in. The repetition and diversity of age groups undermines the kiss's exclusively sexual dimension. Sexuality is expressed within the context of the recurring life cycle made possible by the family. The Whole Dam Family and the Dam Dog Filmmakers: Edwin S. Porter, possibly with Wallace McCutcheon. Shot: May 1905; © 31 May 1905. Print: LoC. One of several Edison films from this period that used animated intertitles. It continued "a popular fad which has been widely advertised by lithographs and souvenir mailing cards." These postcards showed portraits of various members of the Dam family, with their names‹I. B. Dam, U. B. Dam--and so forth. This comedy plays with cinematic form, offering numerous introductory portraits followed by only a short vignette of action. Coney Island at Night Filmmaker: Edwin S. Porter. Shot: June 1905; © 29 June 1905. Print: LoC. The camera caresses the lit-up amusement center with long sweeping movements, producing an eerie beauty. The smooth pans and tilts are a remarkable technical accomplishment, given the fact that night scenes required longer exposures. The Little Train Robbery Filmmaker: Edwin S. Porter. Shot: August 1905; © 1 September 1905. Print: MoMA. In this parody of The Great Train Robbery, Edwin S. Porter burlesqued his own landmark film by substituting children for adults and using a miniature railroad and playhouse as sets. The young robbers don't take money but candy and dolls. Perhaps unintentionally, this film supported the argument made by many reformers, who worried that children had become juvenile delinquents by modeling themselves on the bandits in a film "universally admitted to be the greatest production in MOTION PICTURES." Filmed at Olympia Park while Porter was visiting his hometown of Connellsville, Pennsylvania. The White Caps Filmmakers: Edwin S. Porter and Wallace McCutcheon. Shot: August 1905; © 14 September 1905. Print: MoMA. In 1905 White Cap vigilante groups were particularly active in rural areas of the Border States and the Midwest. Members, generally faced with declining income and political power, acted as agents of social control, punishing offenses that the state and local governments failed to address adequately. The film offers a view of small-town America in which a wayward member is taught a lesson without the formalities of the legal system, the rural community acting as an extension of the family. Owen Davis's play The White Caps appeared in various cities a few months before the Porter film was made, whileThomas Dixon's The Clansman was in much publicized rehearsals. The Watermelon Patch Filmmakers: Edwin S. Porter and Wallace McCutcheon. Shot: October 1905; © 20 October 1905. Print: MoMA. This picture integrates elements found in earlier Edison films depicting blacks, such as The Chicken Thieves (1896), in which "darkies" raid a chicken coop; Watermelon Eating Contest (1896), a one-shot facial expression film of happy blacks eating watermelon; and The Pickaninnies (1894), showing three Negro youths doing a jig and breakdown. The isolated images of blacks presented in these earlier films are here unified and elaborated upon, using a wide range of editorial techniques. Blacks are shown to be superstitious, petty thieves, good dancers, and watermelon lovers. They like to have a good time, but their inherent laziness must be subsidized by pilfering. Watermelon Patch also owes much to Biograph's The Chicken Thief (1904), in which darkies steal chickens and bring them home for a party of eating and dancing. On their next outing, the two thieves are chased and caught by angry rednecks. The many parallels between the two films are partially explained by McCutcheon's involvement in both projects. This Edison film reveals an absurdist playfulness that is lacking in its more vicious and cruder Biograph predecessor. The Miller's Daughter Filmmakers: Edwin S. Porter and Wallace McCutcheon. Shot: September-October 1905; © 25 October 1905. MoMA The sinful, decadent city is contrasted to the simple, honest countryside in this fascinating reworking of Steele MacKaye's ever-popular melodrama Hazel Kirke (1880). Events occurring off-stage are shown in the Porter film, including Hazel's suicidal jump and her rescue. And yet, while Porter and McCutcheon retained the character's names, they reworked crucial narrative elements. Class differences are banished from rural life (Rodney is just an average farmer) and re-located to the city. It is Carringford, the debonair artist from the city, who acts duplicitously and seduces the miller's daughter, Hazel. The Train Wreckers Filmmakers: Edwin S. Porter and Wallace C. McCutcheon. Shot: October-November 1905; © 25 November 1905. Print: MoMA. Porter's most violent expression of the conflict between constituted society and its outsiders. The outlaw band, with its apparently irrational desire to destroy all social order, is finally eliminated by a combined force of railroad personnel and select passengers. With order finally restored, a romance between the engineer and the switchman's daughter, introduced at the beginning of the film, resumes. Society is able to return to its proper preoccupations. The Train Wreckers effectively demonstrates the need for social cohesion in a way that could serve as a prototype for future good-guy-versus-bad-guy conflicts. The film was extremely successful, selling 157 prints during 1905-6, and its narrative would be reworked six years later in one of D. W. Griffith's most successful Biograph films, The Girl and Her Trust (released March 28, 1912). Life of an American Policeman Filmmakers: Edwin S. Porter and Wallace C. McCutcheon. Shot: November 1905; © 6 December 1905. Print: MoMA. Photographed with the cooperation of the New York City Police Department, this film was first shown at two vaudeville benefits for the Police Relief Fund in early December 1905. The opening scene, which presents a officer at home with his wife and child, identifies the police with the institution of the family. The policeman's role in maintaining community values in the impersonal city is shown when patrolmen help a lost child and rescue a would-be suicide from the river. Their courage is demonstrated as one policeman controls a runaway horse and others risk their lives capturing a desperate burglar. The latter scene reenacts a robbery and the killing of a policeman that took place on Manhattan's Upper East Side on the morning of March 20, 1904. Police Chasing Scorching Auto Filmmakers: Edwin S. Porter and Wallace C. McCutcheon. Shot: November 1905; © no reg. Print: MoMA. Because the incidents included in Life of an American Policeman filled a 1,000-foot. reel, there was no room for this scene and so it was sold separately. The Dream of a Rarebit Fiend Filmmakers: Edwin S. Porter and Wallace McCutcheon. Cast: John P. Brown. Shot: late December to mid-February 1906; © 24 February 1906. Print: MoMA. This film was primarily inspired by Winsor McCay's identically titled comic strip, which had appeared in the New York Telegram since 1904. Porter not only borrowed McCay's title, but his dream-based narrative structure. Likewise, McCay's surreal imagery is convincingly realized on the screen using a variety of photographic tricks. Although such visuals had many antecedents, McCay's strip "Little Nemo in Slumberland" may have provided another useful point of departure. The basic story line and some of the film's visuals, however, can also be found in an earlier Pathé film made by Gaston Velle, Rëve à la lune (1905). It took Porter eight weeks to execute the array of special effects in this 470-foot, eight-minute film. Three American Beauties Filmmakers: Edwin S. Porter and Wallace McCutcheon. Shot: April 1906; © 1 May 1906. Print: MoMA. Often hand-tinted, this short film was typically used by exhibitors to conclude their programs. It elaborated on a popular practice among exhibitors of the 1890s. They ended their programs with a film of the American flag waving in the breeze. The flag is the last of the "American Beauties" to appear; the first is the picture of a popular rose named "American Beauty." Films of The San Francisco Earthquake Camera: Robert K. Bonine. Shot: April-May 1906; Print: MoMA. Edison cameraman Bonine traveled to San Francisco to take more than thirteen short films of San Francisco in the aftermath of its devastating earthquake on 18 April 1906, among them Dynamiting Ruins and Rescuing Soldiers Caught in the Fallen Walls and Panorama Russian and Nob Hill from an Automobile. These films were widely seen and often used to raise money for charitable purposes to help those affected. Surviving prints of this material were subsequently recycled, compromising their integrity. This is a selection of highlights. The Terrible Kids Filmmakers: Edwin S. Porter and Wallace McCutcheon. Shot: May 1906; © 1 May 1906. Print: MoMA. Part of the popular bad boy genre that would soon come under heavy criticism for providing young viewers with undesirable role models. Porter's comedy shows two boys disrupting a neighborhood's routine with the help of their dog, played by Mannie. Every scene is a variation on a mischievous prank, as they upset the daily lives of adults. Eventually their victims pursue the two pranksters, capture them and place them in police custody. But with Mannie's help, the kids escape as the film ends. According to an Edison catalog description, their antics "are sure to arouse a strong sympathy for the kids and their dog." Filmmakers: Edwin S. Porter and Wallace McCutcheon. Cast: Kitty O'Neal (Kathleen), Walter Griswold (Terence O'More, Kathleen's lover), H. L. Bascom (Captain Clearfield, an Irish Landlord), W. R. Floyd (Dugan, Clearfield's willing tool), E. M. Leslie (David O'Connor, Kathleen's father), N. B. Clarke (Father O'Cassidy, the parish priest), J. McDovall (Danny O'Lavey, friend of Terence), Jeannie Clifford (Kitty O'Lavey, an odd Irish character), C. F. Seabert (Black Rody, The Robber Chief), D. R. Allen (Red Barney), D. J. McGinnis (Darby Doyle), W. F. Borroughs (Dennis O'Gaff). Shot: May and June 1906; © 2 August 1906. Print: MoMA. An adaptation of Dion Boucicault's popular stage play Kathleen Mavourneen; or St. Patrick's Eve, though with significant modifications. Much of Porter and McCutcheon's Irish melodrama was shot as if the audience could understand the absent dialogue. Likewise the collaborators used conventional theatrical blocking in most of their scenes, notably in the opening, for which the expansive landscape was treated as a stage. With nine major characters in the film, audiences would have had difficulty sorting out the narrative unless they already knew the play and/or received assistance from missing intertitles, or a lecture. The Edison Company nonetheless sold more than 70 copies of this film during the first year of release. (The status of the cast list, published in an advertisement in the New York Clipper, is uncertain.) Filmmakers: Edwin S. Porter and Wallace McCutcheon. Cast: Paul Panzer (Detective). Shot: September 1906; © 8 October 1906. Print: MoMA. A jealous husband visits the Hawkshaw Detective Agency (a redundant naming device in its own right) and asks the detective to obtain evidence of his wife's supposed infidelities. Only a photograph is deemed acceptable evidence and the private eye's attempts to secure it provide a series of comic incidents, in which he is beaten and his cameras destroyed. When the black-eyed, limping detective finally presents his evidence to the husband, his photograph is of the daughter rather than the wife. Rather than providing evidence against the wife, the photograph exposes the detective's incompetence and the husband's unfounded suspicions. Edwin S. Porter typically worked with a filmmaking partner. Wallace McCutcheon was his collaborator until May 1907, when he was replaced by stage manager and playwright J. Searle Dawley. Dawley and Porter continued to work together until June 1908 when the Edison Manufacturing Company, in an effort to increase its output of film subjects, created two different production units, with Porter heading one and Dawley heading the other. Porter also continued to act as studio manager. The rapidly increasing number of specialized motion picture theaters, commonly known as nickelodeons for their 5¢ admission policy, meant that the motion picture industry had become immensely profitable by 1907. Demand for new films was such that a successful picture could easily sell more than 100 copies. The biggest problem from 1906 into early 1908 was simply that there were not enough films to fill demand. Almost anything that was made could sell and make a good profit. Although films such as The "Teddy" Bears (1907), College Chums (1907) and Cupid's Pranks (1908) were generally popular and sold well, their elaborate production values with their special effects were ill-suited for rapid film production. Meanwhile, other film companies were not only increasing their output, they were introducing important changes in their methods of storytelling. Most studios were telling stories in a much more linear fashion; not so at Edison. The system of representation and methods of editing that Porter had employed since Life of an American Fireman (1902-03) continued. This is evidenced by Rescued from an Eagle's Nest (1908), wherein actions are still shown twice across the cut, a practice that was being eliminated elsewhere and becoming old-fashioned. By spring 1908, the trade press was severely criticizing Edison films as unclear and poorly executed. It is at this very moment that a huge hole in surviving Edison film productions appears. Practically no films from the spring of 1908 through the fall of 1909 survive. Perhaps they were not considered worth keeping. The "Teddy" Bears Filmmakers: Edwin S. Porter and Wallace McCutcheon. Shot: February 1907; © 23 February 1907; released 2 March 1907. Print: MoMA. Starting out as an adaptation of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears," the picture moves outside the confines of the studio, suddenly changing moods and referents. The bears chase Goldilocks across a snowy landscape until "Teddy" Roosevelt intervenes, kills the two full-grown pursuers, and captures the baby bear. The sudden appearance of T. R. was based on a well-known incident when President Roosevelt was on a hunting expedition in November 1902 and refused to shoot a bear cub. Shortly thereafter a New York toy store owner began to make and sell "Teddy's bear"--a stuffed version of the spared cub. The novelty had become a craze by 1906-7, when thousands of toy bears were being sold each week. The combining of these two referents was key to the film's humor.

To register your child in this course, please click on the Register tab and fill the registration form, or write to [email protected] if you have any queries. Appropriate for ages 5-6 years It's fun to learn with LEGO Education WeDoTM Activity Pack and Robokids. Students get an exciting opportunity to play and learn at the same time, working as young scientists, engineers, mathematicians and creative writers to construct LEGO models, modifying them and redesigning them through their own ingenuity. Kids work as tiny tot engineers to learn, design and build The LEGO Playround (programmable swing, seesaw, merry-go-round, ferris wheel etc). A few of the Learning Goals addressed: - Make a working model using creativity - Link cause and effect - Think about how to find answers, use imagination to find new solutions - Brainstorm ideas and attempt to implement them - Test by changing one factor and measuring the effect - Make systematic measurements - Display data in tables Robokids trainers guide students to actively:

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I came upon this site this evening. It is an excellent idea, and a great way to engage Pope-Emeritus Benedict’s call for the New Evangelization. The conversion of the world to Christ can happen within our generation, we just need more great young men and women to stand up, and share their faith. We need more youth to be who God created them to be. World Youth Day is an excellent example of what the young can do and so is this great site! The group over at New Catholic Generation vlog (video blog) about their Catholic faith, explaining things, sharing what they love, and tracking their spiritual growth through life. May God continue to bless their works! Go ahead and check them out, you’ll like what you see! Kudos to all of the Catholic Vloggers on the New Catholic Generation and keep up the great work!

I find it interesting that in the month dedicated to writing, I am struggling to get the words down. A combination of extra shifts at work, interesting work hours and an extra person around the house has meant that my writing time is sporadic at best. This inconsistency means I am constantly trying to remind myself of where I left my characters. So while the rest of the writing community gets whipped up into a word count frenzy in NaNoWriMo (http://nanowrimo.org/) I have decided to stop. I don’t feel I am letting the team down; the words are still being written, just not by me. So what do writers do when they are not writing? They read. Here’s what I’ve read recently/ just started reading. 1) John Green’s Paper Towns. I was reading this to understand more about the young male mind. I have to say that even though I was using this book as a bit of study, I really enjoyed it. I was drawn in right from the start and was constantly amazed by what Green could get away with. For instance, there are two and a half pages dedicated to a discussion about pee and how much one character needed to go. This may not sound like much, but it was well constructed. I was however, disappointed with how the main female ended up. I just didn’t feel it fit her character or made sense. But I’ll let you decide. 2) Virginia Hausseger’s Wonder Woman. A little different, but I’m a complicated person. Wonder Woman is an exploration of the ‘fall-out’ from the second and third waves of feminism. In particular, the book focuses on whether women can ‘have it all’; career and children. I found Virginia’s accounts in this book to contain a magnificent balance of discussions with other people, discussions on societal expectations and just enough of her own experience to make it relevant. 3) J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. I only started reading this last night, so can’t say much. However, I was immediately pulled into the writing. Such beautiful words. The descriptions and backstories reveal more about the characters from the way they are told than from the descriptions themselves. It is clear to me why The Hobbit is a classic. It is one that has been sitting on my shelf for far too long but one that will be enjoyed none-the-less.

There is little else more exciting than embarking on a first-ever trip to Israel aboard a flight full of Jews making Aliyah to Israel. The inability to keep exhilarated grins off of faces, the nervous energy of young children itching to taste the sweet Israeli air, and the atmosphere of deep and almost intoxicated anticipation is infectious. Excitement wafts throughout the airplane like the aroma of freshly-baked pastries, and no one aboard is immune to it. Pastor Becky Keenan was no exception. As a guest of Nefesh B’Nefesh on one of their charter flights for new immigrants to Israel, Becky Keenan and her husband Joe made the most of their first plane ride from New York to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport in 2010. Becky moved about the cabin and spoke with almost every passenger, asking them why they were making Aliyah, and engaging them in conversation about their decision to fly halfway across the world to live in a tiny slip of a country in the Middle East. “Every single passenger,” says Becky, “said the same thing: ‘We belong there. It’s our home.’ It didn’t matter where the passengers came from, they were all united by their belief that they were returning, at long last, to their Homeland. They believed they belonged,” Becky tells me. “And they did.” Two things stand out to Becky when she remembers that fateful plane ride. The first was the prevalent sense of community aboard the airplane; it was full of people who had never met one another, and yet no one was a stranger. The unity of their purpose – to return to and live in Israel – made them into a family. The second thing was the individual responsibility that each Jewish immigrant seemed to carry on their shoulders. Every Jewish passenger on that flight had taken it personally upon themselves to see God’s centuries-old prophecy to Abraham come to fruition – “All the land that you see, I will give to you and your children until eternity.” Retirees, parents and young children, and college graduates preparing to enlist into the Israeli Defense Forces – personal responsibility had brought all of those passengers to Israel. And personal responsibility is what makes Becky Keenan keep coming back to Israel again, and again, and again. Love of Israel was something that Becky acquired early on in her life. She was born in Germany and lived in Puerto Rico from ages 5 to 18. As a child, Becky’s father, a US Army veteran who served in World War II, took pains to ensure that Becky understood the deep significance of the Land of Israel, both to Jews and Christians. In the War, Becky’s father had fought for the values of freedom, liberty, and justice, and Becky knew that those were the selfsame values that the State of Israel had been founded on. “We are natural allies,” she says. On her first trip to Israel, Becky connected deeply with the land and the people of Israel. Right from the outset, the spiritual weight of the Biblical Homeland was apparent to her, and she immediately understood the depth of the relationship between Israel and the Jews. She saw firsthand how the return of the Jewish People had made the stony hilltops and desert areas flower. To Becky, it was clear that Israel had been waiting centuries for her people to return to her as God had promised. “The State of Israel was not a gift from the UN,” says Becky. “It was a gift from God, and it belonged to the Nation of Israel for a long, long time.” On that same trip to Israel, Becky met Sondra Oster Baras, CFOIC Heartland’s Israel Office Director. A quick but emotionally-loaded meeting in a hotel lobby grew into an amazing relationship ever since. Upon her return to Texas, bursting with the beauty of the land and excitement and revelation of her trip, Becky became determined to help Israel. She understood for the first time just how skewed the world’s perception of Israel really is. This disturbed Becky greatly, because she believes that those misguided opinions affect the younger generations and sour the relationships between Israel and its allies. Joe and Becky Keenan pastor the Gulf Meadows church in Houston, Texas, a bilingual congregation. After that first trip to Israel, Pastor Becky began to initiate serious education in the church for Israel. She hosted the first Night to Honor Israel in Houston and invited Israeli speakers to the church. A favorite visitor and speaker for several years now has been CFOIC’s Sondra Baras. In addition, Becky decided to start bringing her own groups to learn about Israel, to expose them to the real facts on the ground, and to combat misinformation. On her Educational Journeys through Israel, Becky encourages participants to think independently. “I don’t insert my opinion,” she says, “I allow the facts to speak for themselves.” In tandem with CFOIC Heartland, Becky brings her groups to meet locals in communities throughout Judea and Samaria, where she believes the most important lessons can be learned. “I want [my participants] to meet Jewish families, to see their appreciation for family, freedom, and education. In the Jews, with their survival and accomplishments, you can see the hand of God. We can all learn from that.” And there is always more to learn; Becky says that she is still learning about the situation in Judea and Samaria. When asked if she has a favorite Israeli community, Becky laughs and says, “That’s not a fair question! I love them all. Each community is so different, so individual. They’re full of hope.” Despite their differences, Becky says every resident she meets expresses that same unity of purpose that she witnessed on her first trip to Israel: that they belong here, as Jews, in their Biblical Homeland. “The Bible is alive,” continues Becky, “because God is alive. He’s alive in Judea and Samaria, and CFOIC Heartland can show you. The land of Israel responds to and protects the Jews living in it, and that is a true miracle.”

On April 27 of this year, with a grade III heart murmur, dyspnea (difficult breathing), in this case an extra effort to expire-maybe not the best word to use-I took Frank to my colleague to be euthanized. This was difficult. First, Frank is tied for second as my all time favorite cat. Second, when we got to the clinic, I opened the carrier, and out walked a purring, happy cat. The vet looked at me incredulously, as I did her. No way was this a cat ready to be put down. But I had prepared myself, and gotten him there. Dr. Kelly examined him, heard the murmur, and watched the breathing. How could we euthanize my special boy? Yeah, he used to be eighteen pounds, so much so, that I had to get him groomed for mats and a bath every other month. He just couldn’t move around his whole body to groom himself. No more, he can clean himself. And for the little mats I find, he is cooperative. Kelly and I did a lateral radiograph of his chest, which surprisingly was perfectly normal. Go figure. Kelly laughed when I said to Frank, “Well, Frank, I guess you aren’t going to die today.” I thought about another very important part of separating pets you shared with your spouse now deceased. I still have all three cats Earl and I shared: Matthew, 17, looking well and still Top Cat. Franklin and his brother, Cowboy Joe, are 15. Cowboy has hyperthyroidism, and I medicate him twice daily with methimazole which, in my day of practice, was only available in pill form. Now this is in a cream in a measured plastic tube. You turn the tube twice, and apply the medicine to the inside of the ear where there is less fur. We recently measured his T4 levels, and where it was almost off the chart high, is almost normal. Good stuff. I have to wash if my skin touches it because I have hypothyroidism, one of those older age “welcome to the club” disorders. My joy with Franklin now is how loving and content he is. All the cats love Ivy, and we all sleep on the bed after Ivy gets out of her crate in the morning to go out. When she comes back in, we all snuggle. If I am lying on my left side, Frank, who sleeps on my right, will tap my shoulder so I turn around to pet and hold him. I really love that. He is a happy guy, which is all I want and expect at this point. At normal weight now, Frank even looks right. And after seven months of extra life so far, I am really happy to have him. Let’s see what happens when I drive to Arizona with three elderly cats and a young dog. I am blessed with animals that fill my life with love, and take away some of the hurt of losing Earl. I’ve been on my own nearly ten years. People pretty much stay away, but with my new career of writing, I can handle it better. So, Franklin Irving Carlson, here’s to you! Some reviewers have even said the chapter he wrote in Drinking from the Trough, a Veterinan’s Memoir, is their favorite one. I hope you can get a copy of the book and enjoy it yourself.

Do you need to read this blog post because I am going to offer you some bit of info that makes your life better? Maybe. You’ll be better off if you read it for love. I want to read your blog post for love. I’d rather you read mine because you love me — or at least you would like to. I would rather read your post because I want to know you, or at least know of you: your gifts, your wisdom, your part in the community we share, whether face to face or just as members of humanity. I don’t think you are an info machine regurgitating data you have effectively evaluated and reconstituted and I am surely not that. Two things happened last week that made me think many of my friends are overly influenced by two mutually detrimental experiences: their social science teachers and their evangelical preachers. It makes them treat people as if they are data and data sources. Before I tell you about that, I can probably sum up my reaction to my experiences with the Brian Wilson song that came to my mind as I pondered my discomfort. What we need is love and mercy, not another teaching that tells us we’ve got it all wrong or another preaching that tells us we can never get it right. I loved seeing Brian Wilson sing this at the Tower Theater! Do we really have it all wrong? We took a survey of the people who came to our church planting summit last week. They had a LOT of wise things to say off the top of their heads that I will be pondering (and helping us to incorporate) for a long time. But there was an interesting streak that a few responders added to the mix. It bothered me. They apparently looked around the room and quickly sized us up according to the ideal church/social group they thought we ought to be. They asked things like, “Why are we so much this and not enough that?” and “Where is the data that proves what you are saying?” Even though we have a proverb that enjoins people to resist “bean counting” they applied a mentality that is very common these days. Aren’t most things reduced to, “What does it cost?” or “What don’t we have enough of?” Apply that mentality to a social group, like the church, and it is “Who is underrepresented” or “What is missing?” I often say the mentality leads us to eating the holes in the Swiss cheese. I’m not saying facing facts is irrelevant. I think Jesus-followers should be the people most able to face the harsh truth about themselves and their group. So bring on any truth that statistics and spreadsheets can tell! But let’s also admit that figures lie and liars figure. And even when they tell the truth, their truth is never deep enough. The great truth we know as Jesus followers is that the facts which prove how worthy we are of condemnation are not the facts we live by. Jesus looks at us like a mother getting the first glimpse of her newborn, or a father looking down the road and seeing a figure who looks like his son coming home. We could not possibly have it all wrong, being so loved. Even if nothing is working out, love and mercy are working out. Are we really never going to get it right? The next night I sat under the teaching of the spectacularly-talented Gungor family. I appreciated the depth and variety of their music. I was also very interested in their fan base, who seemed happy to get a chance to ask them personal questions. From what I can tell, they are refugees from Evangelicalism, but they haven’t completely lost touch with their homeland. As a person who never quite got into the Evangelical fold, it is usually hard for me to describe what I think about it until I run into it again, like I did with Gungor. Their music was all about light and connecting with God, but at the same time it was deeply intellectual and bent on making a point. When they started talking, it became even clearer that their view of us was as unrealized projects who need to conform to ways we have yet to perfect. We haven’t got it right yet and we never will. Like Michael and Lisa, God’s leadership motivates me to grow and change. We are travelling onward. So bring on your expanded vistas and the hope of eternity! I think they were trying to bring that. But there was also this other streak. Like when Lisa said her new revelation of late was “If we’re not all free, none of us are free.” That is a great word to the powers that be as they insist that Americans are free because of the society’s goodness and power, when they are not. But the impossible dream of waiting for Christians to take over the world and make democracy and capitalism (or anything) work is the kind of thing Evangelicals hope for that make everyone in the meeting get the idea that there is endless toil to complete. In a similar vein, when a young man asked about how to make an album, Michael told him, among other things, to “Follow what is in you.” Given more time, he might have told him to “Follow Jesus, who is in you.” But, as it is, the young man got the word to assess what is in himself and follow it to success, or to not care about success and be content with whatever is in him – be yourself. That’s a good word to a young man who sees Gungor and can’t feel good until he is Gungor, but it is also and invitation to “Be that perfect you and you’ll be happy.” When the New Testament writers tell us our hearts are deceitful and assure us God is greater than our hearts, I don’t think they are merely calling me to change everyone’s heart or follow my heart, in the sense that life is an endless project I need to get right. The “burnt out evangelicals” I promise to never disparage again (since most of the people at the summit said they could wear that description!) have been pushing such a rock up the hill long enough. The work makes them feel like crap and the only solution they are given is work harder and like it! Our good works do not make us good people. We can get it right because Jesus got it right for us. It is not going to get any better than that because we somehow out-save Jesus. It is already done. Love and mercy is where we live. We’re already more than the moral to the story I don’t know every bean-counter and evangelical on the planet, so whatever stereotype I concoct is just that: a concoction. I’d rather love people than relate to them as a concoction I should assess or exhort. So I am pondering how to end this post. These days little stories, like I have just told, are commodities people consume and store in data bases, if they “like” them. If they are Evangelicals their story is a new way to preach and every story has a moral. In both cases, bean counter or evangelical, the story is rarely about us as we are, it is always about who we should be or who we aren’t yet. I can face who I should be and who I am not — I live in love and mercy, after all! But I surely need to be careful or I will become an aspiration, never to be realized, rather than a person in Christ who has aspirations. I am not sure it is even safe to look into eternity if you are not securely by the Lord’s side while you are doing it! So see if this works for you. When Jesus says “Before Abraham was born, I am!” in John 8, I don’t think he was assessing himself honestly or making a point, or even telling a story. I think he was being vulnerable, being himself. In a similar way, I think we can say, “We are who we are” and rest in that, even though we know there is more to do and a long road ahead. Even the most ambitious man in the Bible, the Apostle Paul, says, “I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself” – basically, “I am who I am.“ We live in the love and mercy of God. That’s who we are and that’s the essence of what we bring to the meeting or the concert. We are not the facts, or the work, or the moral to the story. Facts, work and morals are all great. But who can live under the weight of them? Who wants to be judged by them? Even now, when you are at the end of what I have said, can I live under your assessment or can you live under whatever judgment you have strained out of what I have written? Probably not. So listen to Brian again and end up in love and mercy, instead. Be in the church too and let it be: we are who we are, and whatever we become will be a gift of love and mercy. Subscribe to Development! Hit the “follow” button after you type in your email. Thanks for reading!

“I know it’s him. I’m certain.” “Give it a rest Porter. There was a woman’s glove there at the scene. We need to focus on who was wearing that glove.” “But nothing. Let’s get back to the precinct and try to find out who wore that glove.” Porter and Collins arrived back at the precinct to questions about the scene to which Porter just blew off. Collins covered for him though, answering all the questions and then chasing after her partner. “You need to get a hold of yourself Porter before you get yourself in trouble.” “I got this Collins.” “Well then, act like it. Better yet, I got a plan. How about you let me take the lead on investigating Mr. Nickel.” “Are you serious?” “Yes I am.” “You’ve got to be out of your mind if you think I’m going to let that happen.” “People already think you’re out of your mind around here so do you want to cool that talk out and let me lead here or do you want to continue down this path that could eventually cause your downfall as an officer?” “I’m gonna let you have this one Collins, but Michaela, don’t mess this up. It’s him and I know it.” “Relax Porter. I got this.” While Porter and Collins were bickering, Mr. Nickel was fast at work at the community center. While he had a janitor there, he liked to take care of things on his own. And with his special day approaching, he wanted to make sure all was well. He cleaned up his office, mopping the floor and wiping down his freshly-polished desk. He was heading down the hallway when he was stopped by another young kid in the community, Karl. “Mr. Nickel, you heard anything else about the murders?” “Not a thing Karl. But as soon as I hear something new, I will let you know.” “Okay. Thanks for the information Mr. Nickel. Hopefully one day they will solve this murder. I’m tired of living in fear that I could be next.” “Hopefully you won’t have that fear for much longer.” “Thanks Mr. Nickel. ” Karl ran off to another room in the community center and Mr. Nickel went back to his office to map out more plans to make the community center immaculately clean. As he sat in his office, he started thinking on what the moment would feel like when he got his recognition. The crowd would be going wild as he stepped up to the podium and made his speech. The people in the crowd would be yelling “We love you Mr. Nickel” as he shushed them during his speech. “Mr. Nickel, you got a second?” When Mr. Nickel snapped out of his daze, Michaela Collins was standing right in front of him. “I came by to apologize for what happened at the crime scene the other day. Porter was out of hand. Can we start over again? Let me start first. My name is Detective Michaela Collins.” “As you already know, my name is Cary Nickel.” “Okay. Well, I would love to hear more about you Mr. Nickel and I also want to offer more than just this apology, so how about me taking you out for a drink to really apologize?” “So, where is Detective Porter hiding to yell ‘Gotcha’?” “He isn’t here Mr. Nickel.” “Whatever bar you want to go to Mr. Nickel.” “Ok. Meet me at the bar around the corner from my house. And are you sure this isn’t some elaborate setup for me to get jumped by Detective Porter?” “I promise this isn’t a setup from Porter at all.” “Well, I have to get back to the precinct. I’ll see you later.” Mr. Nickel and Michaela’s eyes both met and a smile was shared as she exited the office. As Mr. Nickel was thinking on Michaela, his phone rang. “Hey Cary. Want to try coming over again tonight and actually finishing what we started the other night?” “Not tonight Sandra. Got something to handle.” “What’s going on?” “Nothing. Just I have something to handle and I need my privacy.” “Ok. Fine. I see you’re going through one of your moods, so I will call you tomorrow.” Mr. Nickel stayed at the office the rest of the day, continuing to clean the office and all the things around the community center, making sure all was well and clean. He got so caught up in cleaning that he nearly missed his time to leave and left rushing home from a long day’s work. He rushed in his house, took a shower and changed clothes while rushing out the door to the bar. Once Mr. Nickel got there, he walked in to find no one there but the bartender and a couple cozying up at the end of the bar. He was a few minutes late and looking at the scene, he thought he had missed his date for the night. “Sorry I’m a little late.” As Mr. Nickel looked up to see who was speaking to him, he saw a beautiful Black woman with long legs and a great physique. “Welcome to Michaela Collins outside of work clothes.” Mr. Nickel was stunned at the beautiful woman that stood in front of him, but he finally snapped out his trance to pull up a stool for her to sit on. “What do you want to drink?” “I should be asking you that detective.” Michaela smiled as she ordered two drinks for her and Mr. Nickel. One drink turned to two and two drinks turned to four as both Mr. Nickel and Detective Collins were feeling the effects of the drinks. All the while, the bar began to get a little more crowded. “My place or yours Cary?” “Neither. How about right here.” The two stared at each other with a tipsy smile on their face. The two began to move closer to each other, sharing an embrace. Then, that moment happened where both looked into each other’s eyes and shared a long, wet kiss. As they were embracing in that kiss, the door of the bar opened and a woman walked in. “Didn’t expect to see you hear tonight Cary.”

The Citroen C3 Picasso is small on the outside; just a few inches longer than the supermini but huge on the inside with ample storage in the 500 litre boot. The roomy interior will appeal to young families and active older individuals. The C3 Picasso will be available with a choice of two petrol units, co-developed with BMW, the VTi 95 and VTi 120 and two HDi diesels the HDi 90 and HDi 110 DPFS renowned for their efficiency, exceptional refinement and low CO2 emissions. The 1.6HDi 110hp DPFS also carries the Airdream® signature, given to only the most environmentally conscious vehicles in Citroen’s range. The interior of the C3 is bright and spacious due to the large three part panoramic windscreen. A glass roof is also available for a light flooded cabin. ESP is also available with an ASR traction control system. There are added extras such as air conditioning and alloy wheels and at the top end of the range unique practical features such as a completely flat folding front passenger seat, and a removable boot light torch. Xavier Duchemin, Managing Director of Citroen UK, said “The C3 Picasso represents the very best of contemporary Citroen design and stands as a showcase for the bold new confidence that characterises the Citroen brand today. Joining the Xsara, C4 and Grand C4 Picasso the new Citroen C3 Picasso will become another popular model in the Citroen range it will be on sale from early April prices start at £11,495 to £15,595.

BOULDER, Colo. (CBS4) – A University of Colorado Boulder student is among the 32 Americans to win the prestigious 2019 Rhodes Scholarship. Serene Singh, a senior at CU Boulder, is also the first female student from the university to claim the coveted scholarship to study at Oxford University in England. “I’m feeling really, really thankful and so excited!” Singh said with a big smile. Much like her bright grin, Singh has vibrant energy that can light up a room. With a schedule like hers, that’s a really good thing. “I have a Sikh Student Association meeting, a Supreme Court meeting on campus, an executive board meeting,” Singh told CBS4’s Kelly Werthmann, listing all the meetings and events she was attending Wednesday afternoon. Her busy schedule list goes on, and it’s only part of her day. Singh also has her hands full majoring in political science and journalism, serving as president of the Sikh Student Association, president of the Political Science Honor Society, and working with the nonprofit she founded — The Serenity Project, Brave Enough to Fly — to empower at-risk women through the skills she gained in pageantry. “I’m just a normal college student,” Singh said with a laugh. Motivated by issued she cares about, the ambitious student from Colorado Springs — who was also awarded the Truman Scholarship and is a Boettcher Scholar — is focused on serving her community. “I have optimistic energy and sometimes an overly positive attitude about things that can be fixed,” she explained. “I think that’s important because I think sometimes communities feel like nothing can be done. They need someone to say, ‘Wait a second! Let’s challenge this creatively.’ I try to do that in everything that I’m working on, whether it’s gender equality, religious communities, with young women and girls. I just try to say, ‘Let me bring my energy and optimism to this and show everyone even if it’s pessimistic and sad right now, whatever is going on can change.’” Singh’s commitment to making a difference in the world, combined with her promise of great leadership and academic successes, are among the many reasons why she earned the Rhodes Scholarship. It is an opportunity that will send her across the pond to pursue double master’s degrees. “The first one is criminology and criminal justice, the second one is evidence-based social intervention and policy evaluation,” Singh explained. With all her optimistic energy, Singh aspires to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. It’s a role, she says, will allow her to showcase her leadership skills and have long-term impact. “I think judges are the instruments through which justice is served,” she said. “Judges have a lot of power to change a lot of the issues we’re seeing.” But more than anything, Singh wants to be an inspiration to other young women to chase their dreams. “You have to just believe in yourself,” she said. The Rhodes Scholarship is one of the most competitive academic scholarships in the world. Winners are selected on academic excellence, great personal energy, ambition for impact, the ability to work with others, a commitment to making a strong difference for good in the world, concern for the welfare of others and awareness of inequities. Applicants must be endorsed by their university or college. This year, more than 2,500 students sought their university’s endorsement, and 880 students were endorsed by 281 colleges. Nearly half of this year’s 32 recipients are immigrants or first-generation Americans. The scholarship pays all college fees, provides a stipend and transportation to and from England, for an award up to $70,000 per year for up to four years. Kelly Werthmann joined the CBS4 team as the morning reporter in 2012. After serving as weekend morning anchor, Kelly is now Covering Colorado First for CBS4 News at 10. Connect with Kelly on Facebook or follow her on Twitter @KellyCBS4.

About Gene and JoAnn Waddell Side-by-side, Gene and JoAnn Waddell raised a family and built a successful business. They were high school sweethearts who married in 1960 and had little more than a dream when their journey began. The young couple raised a family and built a thriving business, Waddell's Metal Recycling, located in Blue Grass, Iowa. Years later, when their business grew beyond all that they had imagined, Gene and JoAnn knew they wanted to share their good fortune with others. JoAnn and Gene were separated by his death from Lou Gehrig's Disease in 2000. JoAnn cared for Gene at the end of his life, just as she had done as his loving wife and partner during their 40 years of marriage. When she grew weary, JoAnn was grateful for the care, compassion and support she received from Genesis Hospice. Before her own death in 2014, JoAnn learned of the significant impact her giving made in the health and well-being of hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals in the region. Thanks to her extraordinary vision and generous $1 million gifts to both the Genesis Cancer Center and Genesis Philanthropy, individuals and families throughout the region will receive quality health care services and compassionate end-of-life care. The Gene and JoAnn Waddell Regional Fund for Hospice and Cancer Care was the inaugural Genesis Philanthropy population health fund and will serve to inspire many who share a similar vision for health and wellness.

Six Months of PrimeTimersby Suzanne Kirchner & Nancy Daniels on July 3, 2019 PrimeTimers is a new group at St. Margaret's open to any church member over the age of 60 but welcomes anyone to attend any outing or presentation that might be of interest. We feel that this is a time in life when we are just reaching our prime. We are a fun-loving group that enjoys fellowship, outings, learning new things to keep us young at heart as well as helping with St. Margaret's outreach programs. Planning began in 2014, but hit a few delays until we got back on track last year. Our first get-together was December 2018 with an organizational potluck. A long list of possible things to do was discussed. At this meeting our outreach included donations to the BackPack program. January found us having brunch at Heights Corner Market with about 20 PrimeTimers. Inclement weather prohibited a February/March meeting. In May, 13 PrimeTimers attended our “How to Stay out of the Nursing Home”. Along with a healthy potluck there were presentations on chair yoga, the benefits of water aerobics from Shay Fortune and Debby Walter, respectively, and a very informative presentation on nutrition by Robin Reynolds, R.D. Our most recent outing consisted 22 members from St. Margaret’s and Trinity eating lunch at Watercolor in the Park at Arkansas Arts Center. The food was very good and service was great thanks to our very own JJ Schreiber who was the staff leader in our private dining room. After lunch everyone was able to tour the art exhibits at their own pace while some of us chose to sit and visit. With summer in full swing, we are taking some time off, but will pick back up in September after we have had time to research some more ideas. Please check out our Facebook page at St. Margaret’s PrimeTimers (https://www.facebook.com/groups/2219484654966263/_ Anyone want to learn to line dance? Bring a friend.

Las Cruces author again lands on New York Times Best Seller list Correction: The story has been updated to state that Cervantes has had two of her books on the New York Times Best Sellers list, not three. LAS CRUCES - Las Cruces-based children's author Jennifer Cervantes — pen name J.C. Cervantes — is now a two-time New York Times best selling author. Her latest book, "The Fire Keeper," released on Tuesday, Sept. 3, debuted at no. 4 on the list. Her first book in her new series — "The Storm Runner" — also made the prestigious list. Her very first book that she wrote, "Tortilla Sun" won a New Mexico Book Award and a Zia Book Award among others. Cervantes, who writes books for children and teens, said she's humbled at the distinction. "Writing for kids is about more than entertainment," she said. "You hold their minds, and often hearts, in your hands. So to know that my books are being widely read is not only a dream come true but a responsibility I take seriously. Jennifer Cervantes said she has been an avid reader since a young age and was inspired by her youngest daughter to take up writing. "I always say that I didn’t go looking for writing, that writing found me. My youngest daughter inspired the first story I ever wrote which ended up being my first book, 'Tortilla Sun,'" she said. "When I first began to create stories, I had no idea I was writing a book. So, this journey — like that book — has been sequential. I have been fortunate to meet some incredible mentors along the way, to find the right resources at the right time, to venture to writing retreats where I pushed the limits of what I thought I could do as a writer." Rick Riodan presents "The Fire Keeper" is a sequel to "The Storm Runner" which is based on Maya mythology and follows the story of a young New Mexican boy named Zane Obispo and his three-legged dog named Rosie. Zane spends every day exploring the sleeping volcano in his backyard he calls "The Beast" which is the one place where he can be himself and escape other kids who make fun of him for having a limp and walking cane. In the story, Zane meets with colorful characters inspired by Maya mythology. The "Fire Keeper," introduces spirited new characters, sneaky gods, Aztec royalty, unlikely alliances, and dark secrets — secrets that will change Zane forever. The third book in the series, "The Shadow Crosser," will be released sometime in 2020. Cervantes is the second author to publish under Rick Riordan Presents, a Disney-Hyperion imprint, headed by Riordan, best-selling author of the "Percy Jackson" series. In addition to the "Storm Runner," series, Cervantes also has another project up her sleeves. "I am working on a project that I can’t talk about yet but that will hopefully be announced soon," she teased. Cervantes' books can be purchased anywhere books are sold. For information, visit her official website at https://www.jennifercervantes.com/. Set in New Mexico Cervantes, a San Diego native, attended the University of New Mexico where she met her husband, Joseph Cervantes, who is a state senator and last year ran for governor. Jennifer Cervantes said New Mexico is the perfect backdrop for her book because its vast and open beautiful rural spaces that offer many adventures. "I love New Mexico because of the energy and mysticism that’s found in the beauty of our landscape that reminds me how big the universe is and how small we really are," Cervantes said.

PART ONE: THE POET Paul: Where are you from and what was it like growing up? Pam: I’m from a small town called Bedworth. It’s near Coventry in Warwickshire. It was a mining area then and trucks of coal were shuttled up and down railway-line opposite my house. I was an only child and quite independent; an avid reader and always wanting to be a little bit different, was probably a bit of a pain. I passed my 11 plus and went to a grammar school and was then reckoned to be a ‘snob’ by some of my friends. Nothing could have been further from the truth. I never felt clever enough for school and was glad to leave. Paul: Where are you based now and how did you end up there? Pam: I’m based in Leicester in the East Midlands. I went to university here (the first person in my family to go) and stayed. Paul: I was only in Leicester once, though I believe my father’s mother grew up there. It was on German reunification day (3 October 1990), on an A-level German trip, so I just saw a little of the University of Leicester. I remember my teacher dressed up as the German flag: black skirt, red blouse, orange neck scarf. If I go back, what should I visit? Pam: Well, Leicester has benefited from all the tourism associated with the discovery of the skeleton of King Richard III in a local car-park. You should visit the King Richard Centre and the Cathedral where he is interred. The New Walk Museum has impressive Expressionist and Picasso pottery collections. Then there’s the Space Centre, and the Belgrave area, the ‘Golden Mile’, for Indian food. Of course you should come to one of our poetry nights: Shindig, at The Western pub, and the night I’m involved in, Word!, which moved to the Richard Attenborough Centre in May. And there’s Bradgate Park. I sound as if I work for the tourist-board! Paul: When did you start reading poetry? Who did you first read? Pam: Properly, when I was about 13 or 14. I was into the Liverpool Poets (Adrian Henri, Roger McGough and Brian Patten), Dylan Thomas, Leonard Cohen, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, later T.S. Eliot when I studied him for A-level, then, importantly, Carol Ann Duffy and Simon Armitage. Paul: What about writing poetry? Pam: I started writing poetry around the same time. Some of my poems were bad pastiches of other people’s, but don’t all poets do that at some point? I was ‘good at English’ and frequently contributed poems to a school magazine. Paul: Did certain poets inform your early approach to writing? Pam: Possibly all of the ones I’ve mentioned above. I ‘over-wrote’ and emoted in a sub-Plathian way. Dylan Thomas and T.S. Eliot, in particular, alerted me to the possibilities of language and form –particularly Eliot: the fragmentation and images. In my twenties, I imitated Carol Ann Duffy. I loved how bold she was with her subject-matter; her adoption of other voices and her way with sounds and images. Paul: Do you like the workshop environment? Do you need constraints and prompts to help you write? Pam: I do like the workshop environment, on the whole, but will add the caveat that, more and more, I am less interested in workshops that merely try to ‘fix’ poems. I’m more interested in having discussions about what a poet is trying to do with any individual poem – too much emphasis on tweaking here or there often detracts from the whole. Like you, I enjoy constraints and prompts; something unexpected often arises but I don’t necessarily need them to write. I love experimenting with form. I try to have a rationale for why I’m trying something rather than just playing language games. Having said that, I think language games are fine! Paul: Have particular tutors been important? Pam: Oh, Paul, where do I start? I have been so lucky in having some great tutors. I have to mention Peter and Ann Sansom as being very influential for similar reasons to what David Tait said when you interviewed him. They encourage the use of straightforward language and always provide a range of poems as models/prompts; Tamar Yoseloff, particularly with regard to ekphrastic poetry, Anne-Marie Fyfe, Sharon Olds (one workshop but it was terrific), Luke Kennard, Caroline Bird. Online, Catherine Smith, Tom Chivers, Melissa Lee-Houghton, Claire Trévien, Suzannah Evans, Nuar Alsadir, Kim Moore, David Clarke. I must have forgotten some. I reckon that Peter Sansom and Tamar Yoseloff have been most influential and supportive—they seem to ‘get’ my work. I have to mention also my PhD supervisors, Simon Perril and Kathleen Bell, both good poets. Simon, as Reader in Contemporary Poetics at DMU, introduced me to a whole range of poetries that I would never have discovered myself e.g. Denise Riley, Maggie O’ Sullivan, Erin Mouré, John James, Wendy Mulford. Paul: What about residential courses? I think we first met at Lumb Bank seven or eight years ago? Pam: We did! On a Poetry Business course. I go on them, yes. I started back in 1993 with a Arvon Course at Lumb Bank with Michael Longley and Carol Rumens, followed by one at Totleigh with Simon Armitage and Glyn Maxwell, and in 2001, another at Totleigh with Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke. Then, there was a Smiths Knoll weekend, and the Poetry Business course where we met, and another with them at Moniack Mohr. I have been to several at poet Christopher North’s place in Spain, Almàserra Vella, and one in France at L’Age Baston with Anne-Marie Fyfe and Cahal Dallat. And, more recently, last year, a fab Arvon course at Lumb Bank with Luke Kennard and Caroline Bird. I think you can say that I enjoy residential courses! Paul: Which poets do you regularly go back to? Pam: Roy Fisher (who we’ll mention later); Barbara Guest, James Schuyler, Frank O’ Hara, John Ashbery, WS Graham, George Mackay-Brown, Peter Sansom, Ann Sansom, Cliff Yates, Louis MacNeice, Tomas Tranströmer, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Elizabeth Bishop. These come to mind immediately. There are many more. Paul: Have you ever written prose? Pam: Yes, short stories that have never seen the light have day. I admire fiction writers enormously but I don’t have the confidence to pursue this genre. I write reviews and features; and critical prose. I am writing more prose poems and would like to have a go at flash-fiction. Paul: What is it about the poem that most enthralls and intrigues you? Pam: What you can do with language in a compressed space; the mental juggling with language and form that all poems need; the way that poems can be like ‘magic boxes’ and yield different things to different readers; the way that ‘meaning’ doesn’t have to be transparent, and to reveal itself in a linear fashion, that if it does do this, the best poems will still have something interesting going on technically. Paul: You published a first pamphlet Spin (Waldean Press, 1999) almost twenty years ago, followed up by your sequence Parting the Ghost of Salt (Redbeck Press, 2000). Could you tell me a little about the poems that went into these early publications? Pam: Waldean Press, then run by Phil Kirby, produced some lovely looking pamphlets by East Midlands poets. The poems in Spin included some of those I had begun to send to magazines and competitions. Parting the Ghosts of Salt was produced as a pamphlet after being one of the winners of a competition run by Redbeck Press and judged by Ian McMillan. It comprises the Japanese ‘letter’ poems, which later reappear in The Japan Quiz. Paul: And then you won the Poetry Book and Pamphlet competition in 2005, and subsequently published Show Date and Time (Smith/Doorstop) in 2006 (a few poems at Write Out Loud). What was that like? What impact did this have? Pam: It was wonderful, especially so as Simon Armitage was the judge that year. I’m sure you can appreciate the thrill having won the competition yourself. Peter Sansom’s sharp editing made it a much better pamphlet. It gave me more confidence and credibility, I think, and who doesn’t want to be published by smith|doorstop! Paul: And then you had a fourth pamphlet (Hologram, Sunk Island Publishing, 2009). What were the poems about? Pam: Michael Blackburn, poet and editor of Sunk Island Publishing, noticed (and liked) some of the poems on my blog, Heckle. When I started blogging it was as the result of a NaPoWriMo initiative, and, for my attempts, I would always post a poem and an image. Michael, generously, offered to publish a selection of these. It was the same year I began my PhD and was becoming fascinated with the subject of holography, with ways of seeing. I ‘customised’ special editions of the pamphlet with a 3D lenticular image of David Bowie which my colleague and adviser at De Montfort University had taken for the cover of Bowie’s album, Hours. My poem of the same name draws on this image. PART TWO: THE BOOK Paul: Your first collection, The Japan Quiz (Redbeck Press, 2008) was published a decade ago now (a few poems at Peony Moon). How did the book come about? Pam: David Tipton of Redbeck Press got in touch with me to say that there had been a demand for Parting the Ghosts of Salt. To this day I don’t know why that was. As the pamphlet was nearly out-of-print (I think it probably had quite a small print-run) he said he would be willing to publishing it as part of a whole collection. It was almost certainly the last, or one of the last, collections that Redbeck published. I agreed to this and put the book together rather hurriedly – too hurriedly, in retrospect. Paul: Could you tell me a little about your editor and press? Pam: Redbeck Press was a very established, well-regarded press based in Bradford. David Tipton, the editor, published a lot of books and ran a pamphlet competition. David was very kindly and helpful but only corresponded by letter. He did not use email and his press did not have an online presence. This seems very strange these days. Consequently, The Japan Quiz is hard to find. I am its only distributor and only have a few copies left. Paul: What was your approach to structuring the collection after a healthy set of pamphlet publications? Was it a challenge to decide what to include and what not? Pam: As I say, it was put together hurriedly; virtually in a single day. David didn’t change anything. I had to include the whole of Ghosts, and other sections were structured around previous pamphlets or newer groups of poems. It was a challenge to make those decisions but it was necessary to put it together quickly so I didn’t have that much time to deliberate. Having said all that, I think it hung together okay in the end. Carole Bromley wrote a lovely review of it for The North. She had small quibbles about how the collection was divided saying that she felt that there were connections between poems which a different order would have brought out. I agree with that. With more time and other eyes on the collection that might have happened. Paul: Japanese myth runs through your sequence ‘Parting the Ghosts of Salt’ and also opens the first section of your full collection. Where does your interest in Japan, its history and religion, come from? Pam: I have a longstanding interest in Japan, its mythologies and culture but the sequence was prompted by an article I read in Marie-Claire about sumo-wrestlers and their women. I was fascinated by their lives, the rituals, the power dynamic sexual activities between those huge men and slight women! I was mostly interested in the relationships between the women themselves, hence the dialogue between the mother and daughter in the poems. Paul: Your sequence ‘Parting the Ghosts of Salt’ comprises a series of letters. Are these completely imagined or did you draw on found documents? Pam: They are completely made up! In retrospect, drawing on found documents would have been a great idea. It became more and more apparent that the poems were also ‘ghosted’ autobiography reflecting people in my lives, and my circumstances at the time. My own daughter was very young when the poems were written, as is Kasane’s. Paul: What is it you like about the letter as a poetic form? What opportunities does it provide? Is there other epistolary literature you admire? Pam: I think it is a liberating form. If you write letters, it curbs a tendency to be overly poetic which I am conscious of being in my letter poems. It allows the development of characters and different voices and because each letter will probably have a response it is a satisfying structural device. In fact, I might try it again. No specific epistolary literature comes immediately to mind but I am definitely interested in the genre. Paul: You use quotes from medieval and modern Japanese poetry. Could you talk about one or two favourite quotes, and perhaps poets/poems? Pam: Many of these quotations are both beautiful and heartbreaking, like this one by Basho, which fronts the concluding poem about the retirement of the sumo wrestler, through his wife’s eyes: Coming home at last At the end of the year I wept to find My old umbilical cord. I was also taken with the random witty (and bitchy) social observations from The Pillow Book of Sei Shongan, like in this extract where she is referring to escorts to the palace, and which comes before the poem ‘Paper Houses, Burning Water’: Some of them were not properly powdered; here and there their skin showed through unpleasantly like the dark patches of earth where the snow has begun to melt. She herself was a high-standing women at the Heian court of Empress Teishi. A ‘pillow book’ was a private journal or diary, sometimes slipped under a lover’s pillow. Paul: You have a poem ‘Geisha of the Singing Sea’. What fascinates you about the geisha? Pam: The combination of strength and submissiveness; the ritual involved in a geisha’s work; a geisha’s canniness in often getting a good life for herself. The geisha’s beauty and artistic talent; the psychology behind the role. Paul: Tamiko and Kasane exchange letters. Both are married to sumo wrestlers. How did you get into their heads? Pam: I have mentioned above that the mother/daughter relationship was/is a strong one for me and that dynamic was very strong when I was writing these poems. The sumos represent an oppositional male energy that the women have to manoeuvre around. There is a lot of tenderness in the poems but the male foibles and pretensions are also shown up for what they are. I found it a pleasure to inhabit these characters and to imagine the different ways that they could relate instances of their lives to each other. There are evident displays of love and protection between mothers and daughters, and the imparting of wisdoms. Paul: Which would you rather be: a geisha or a sumo wrestler? Pam: Neither! I would like to be a rebellious Sei Shonagan type that goes around observing and writing down what she sees and hears. Paul: There has recently been some heated exchange among poets on the use of haiku by non-Japanese poets. Do you have any opinion on this matter? Pam: I think any poetic form is up for grabs by anyone. How do we move on, develop, if not? I like to think of it has homage rather than cultural misappropriation. I recently found a review of Parting the Ghosts of Salt that I had forgotten about, written by John Duffy for The North. Duffy begins the review: “We have seen many poets come to grief in the limpid waters of Japanese verse, so my heart sand when I began to read Parting the Ghosts of Salt with three haiku on the first page, under the collective title of “What the I-Ching Told Them’, but I read through to page 24 without stopping and with a sense of thrill and apprehension …’ He concludes by saying that “The collection is an act of love and one to return to.” That sums it up. It was very heartening to read and remember this review when the poems now seem so much in the past. Paul: It is suggested on the back cover of your book that you explore relationships and places, and re-create them through memory and voice. To what extent is writing poems an act of creation/re-creation/recreation? Pam: It is one hundred per cent all of those things. By creating, poets re-create worlds and experiences. The reader experiences them and re-creates them again. It is enjoyable writing poetry but it is work. It is not just the personal expression of emotion although this may come into it. I hate it when people refer to my poetry writing as a hobby just because it isn’t a main source of income. I still feel precious when I say I am a poet but I don’t know why. Pam: I thought she was spot-on there. My poems reflect a ‘skewed’ reality that might, at times, be called surreal. I rarely aim for total literalism. That doesn’t interest me. I like ‘meaning’, such that it ever is, to be suggestive and multi-faceted. I am aware that we are all very vulnerable when moving through the world, and that world can be scary and unsafe. Paul: Britain’s social and political landscape seems particularly scary and surreal at present. Has it been inspiring your writing? What have you noticed? Pam: It has indeed. Maybe because I am ageing, I am increasingly aware of what we are losing, what is passing from the world, and that includes people. It is a time of massive consumption, obscene social divisions and of ‘the spectacle’. My poems are taking on a more elegiac/dystopic edge, perhaps; more consciousness of climate-change and the fragility of humans. Mental illness permeates some of the poems in the new collection – sadly, I am drawing on my son’s experiences of it here. Paul: You have poems such as ‘Valentine’ and ‘The Boatman’s Love Song’. Do you consider yourself a romantic? Pam: Yes I do, Paul, although not the rose-tinted glasses sort! Those two poems were quite significant: ‘Valentine’ was taken by Kate Kellaway from The Observer when they still published poems, and poems from relative unknowns at that. She rushed it out in time for Valentine’s Day. Carol Ann Duffy kindly bought my collection when I met her at a reading In Loughborough. She later published ‘The Boatman’s Love Song’ in her poetry column (long since gone) for the Daily Mirror. Paul: Wendy Cope in Mslexia said of your work, the ‘tone of voice and the rhythm are just right’. That’s quite a compliment from Britain’s perhaps best-selling poet. Do you have a favourite Cope poem? Pam: She was saying that about a poem she had selected for the magazine. I don’t have a particular favourite Cope poem although I enjoyed her collection Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis when I taught it many years ago. Paul: The section of your book that brings in poems from Show Date and Time begins with a quote from Roy Fisher. Could you tell us why you chose this quote back then? Pam: It was just so right and, in typical Fisher fashion, so aptly put. I was very much enjoying his poetry at the time. Don’t we all ‘play for time / all of it’? I like to pinpoint dates, times, seasons in my poems wherever I can. It is a way of trying to pin down time. I think all poetry attempts to do that. Paul: Roy Fisher died earlier last year. Could you tell me what influence he has been on your writing? Did you meet him? Pam: A massive influence, Paul. I began to read him as a result of the Poetry Business Writing School (the first one). I then went to his reading and chatted to him at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival in 2005, and soon after asked for permission to use his poem for my book. I think I had done actually, so it was in shameful retrospect I actually asked. Anyway, he was only too pleased. I sent him the pamphlet and he said how much he found my work conducive to his own preferences. We began a sporadic email correspondence and were friends. I met him on two more occasions. He was from the West Midlands, like me. I loved his poem ‘City’; knew Birmingham, his city, pretty well, and I also loved his experimentation and the humour that was so evident throughout his work. Paul: Bloodaxe’s The Long and the Short of It: Poems 1955-2010 was published in 2012. There was also Slakki: New and Neglected Poems in 2016. Do you have particular favourites among his poems and collections? For a reader not familiar with his work, where would you recommend beginning? Pam: The Long and the Short of it is a good starting-point. I’ve mentioned ‘City’. ‘For Realism’ comprises a kind of poetics where Fisher attempts to capture ‘reality’ in an objective way whereby the ‘self’ is kept out of the way. I have poems based on Fisher’s ‘Interiors with Various Figures’. Fisher told me that he wanted these poems to be like installations you could walk around. I totally get that. The hilarious ‘Paraphrases’ which begins, ‘ Dear Mr Fisher, I am writing a thesis on your work …’. I like the volume Standard Midland very much. Many of these poems are concerned with landscapes, particularly that of Derbyshire where he lived for the latter part of his life (note: there are five poems available online at Poetry Foundation). Paul: You often situate your poems in gritty urban settings: pubs, pavements, petrol stations. What is it about these spaces/places that speaks to you? Pam: I know them. I am intrinsically a city-dweller. I’m interested in the spaces themselves and the edgelands between city and country. This idea has become popular now; liminality. Roy Fisher delved these spaces. Think of the paintings of George Shaw; of Coventry ‘edgelands’. There is something surreal and sinister about them. They are unpeopled. Those paintings attract me and the spirit of them I inhabit my poems to an extent. I’m particularly interested in how night, and various lighting transforms the city; reflective surfaces, of rain on black roads, for instance. Rooms glimpsed through lit windows and the goings-on inside them. I am a voyeur, yes. Paul: You use contemporary culture as currency in your poems: rap music, Red Bull, designer perfume and mobile phones, spliffs and fast food. This creates a distinct contrast with the settings and props of the Japanese poems. How aware of this opposition were you when putting the book together? Pam: I was aware of it. This was a consequence of including poems from different pamphlets. Although, the contemporary world is there in the Japanese poems. That contradiction in Japanese society fascinates me: the high tech coupled with the archaic and ritualistic. Contemporary rituals: taking drugs, drinking, sexual practices, clothes, phone obsession, selfies, obsessive spending, cooking (!). What is the current cooking/baking obsession about?? Paul: I really admire the sequence poem ‘Hoodie Season’ as a portrait of adolescents. You seem to have sympathy with the boys in the hoodies. Can you tell me a little more about the poem? Pam: It was written in response to the, then, demonization of boys wearing hoodies. My son, a hoodie-wearer, was sixteen at the time, and I wanted to incorporate what I saw as his combined vulnerability and assumed toughness with the media’s hysteria about young men wearing hoodies. That poem drew a lot of attention. Paul: In the last part of the book ‘Black Petals’ there are clouds, storms, sun and shadows: from ‘Noir Crossing’ (‘there’s a guy in a cab whose face / has been eaten by shadows) to ‘Testing His Shadow’ (‘Some days he wore it inside-out / like a tail or map of sorts’). Who are the protagonists of these poems? Pam: Around this time I was interrogating ideas that circulated around ‘the holographic’; this involved interactions with film and with ideas of perception and perspective. “Black Petals’, in two parts, is set around Halloween. The first part involves discussing another poet’s poem in a bar. The poem is about ‘flight’, among other things. The second part features a poetry workshop that I ran which took place on Halloween itself. The world does seem to show its underside on that night: ‘black petals’, their appearance, feel and texture, become a symbol of such a transformation. ‘Noir Crossing’ won first prize in a local Crime Poetry competition: the narrator is omniscient and I plunder a heap of Noir tropes. I had been reading about the history of the shadow in art in A Short History of the Shadow by Victor I. Stoichita. The protagonist in ‘Testing His Shadow’ is no one person in particular. I was intrigued by the idea of being able to manipulate your own shadow; also the idea, that the shadow might try to control you. Paul: How was the book received? Pam: Well, the reviews it received were great. I know a lot of people liked the book. ‘…It didn’t surprise me to find that a number of the poems had won major prizes. Thompson’s is a strong confident voice and she is able to handle both deeply personal material and subjects which handle empathy and the dramatic monologue with equal skill. I also enjoyed the variety of form, and, in particular, this poet’s flair for using whitespace and her often bold line-endings…’ (Carole Bromley The North) ’Pam Thompson’s collection (The Japan Quiz) is bold and quirky consisting of five main sections that work to form intense, fascinating narratives. Many of the poems are arranged as longer sequences, a technique at which Thompson excels. The reader becomes deeply invested in the unfolding stories and desires of the characters contained within these. I enjoyed the collection immensely … There’s a great range to this work, and a sense of the celebration of language …’ (Abi Curtis) Paul: What was your approach to writing poetry afterwards, and in recent years? Pam: I have been even more experimental in my use of form, and in finding different approaches, but I’m sure that a lot of the traits evident in The Japan Quiz have carried over into more recent work. PART THREE: POETRY LIFE Paul: You were until recently a full-time lecturer at De Montfort University. Could you tell me a little about your former professional life? Pam: Yes. I have been a teacher of sorts for a long time: in schools, further education, and latterly, a university. I taught English for years, and on an Access course. I moved on to teaching Education courses at Undergraduate and Masters levels, and led and taught on a Post-Graduate Certificate for new lecturers. This was also at Masters level. I enjoy teaching, and of course there should be accountability, but marketisation has sucked the joy out of universities, in my opinion. Paul: Did you enjoy training future teachers? What did the process teach you? Pam: Yes, on the whole, I did. It was double-edged though: the lecturers were my peers and yet they had to be ‘developed’. Some took to this entirely; others resisted, which is what you might expect. Workloads of university staff are horrendous. It taught me to listen, be sensitive to individual contexts, to be flexible in approach and to retain a sense of humour. It taught me that how important creative approaches are across the disciplines. Paul: Was working in education a help or a hindrance for your writing? Did it inform it or was it a distraction? Pam: Well, it gave me subject matter: teaching and students appear in several of my poems. When I began a PhD in Creative Writing in 2009, it was somewhat at odds with the research interests of my department but my spiritual home was always in creative writing anyway. So it both informed it, and was a distraction from it. Working full-time is energy-sapping, as you know, but it is sometimes no bad thing to have to write around the edges. I am now working on a freelance basis as a writing tutor and am doing some part-time work for the Workers Education Association (WEA). Paul: You have also taught creative writing in schools and the community? What did this bring? Pam: I taught it as part of a Leicester University Certificate in Creative Writing. This brought me nostalgia for the old notion of evening-classes, where people came along after work because they really wanted to learn. I have led other workshops in museums, art-galleries, museum-stores, a records-office, an environmental resource centre and also poetry walks through Leicestershire villages which were fun. I like working with people who have a passion for poetry, in any context. Paul: You run Word!, the regular spoken word/open mic night in Leicester. How did you get into this? What’s the format? Pam: I’m one of the organisers of Word!, the longest running, spoken word, open mic night in the Midlands. In 2007, Word! lost its funding from the organisation Apples and Snakes. It needed a fresh start with ideas for new funding streams. Lydia Towsey, who works as Arts in Mental Health Coordinator for Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust, is the Chair of Word! In 2007, Lydia and I were part of a larger committee who began to rebuild it. Lydia is ace at getting funding though it has always been a struggle. We have relied on support and goodwill of artists who have been prepared to perform for a fee less than their usual one. Lydia and I are the only ones who remain on the organising committee from the ‘old’ days, along with Tim Bombdog and Richard Byrt. We are all volunteers. Word has recently taken place at The Y Theatre in Leicester but we are due to relaunch a new singing and dancing version of the night in May, at the Richard Attenborough Centre, part of Leicester University. Word! is a supportive and inclusive night. It has pronounced mental health agenda, which you might expect considering Lydia’s work. There is a focus on intersections of gender, mental health, ethnicity and sexuality. Members of the committee act as comperes on a rotating basis. People sign up with the compere for the open-mic, and then we usually have two open mic halves with an interval in between with the guest poet at the end of the evening. More recently we have incorporated one or more local acts for short sets at various stages of the evening. There is also the infamous Word! raffle-all takings go towards Word!’s finances. Paul: Who have you featured and most enjoyed? What do you like about the spoken word scene? Pam: This is a difficult one, Paul, as there have been so many. It is pretty usual for guest poets to comment afterwards on the warmth and inclusivity of the night. We have been lucky in having Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze as our patron when she lived in Leicester. Jean has performed several times and is always amazing. Another frequent performer is the fabulous John Hegley who also supports what we do. In no particular order of brilliance, the following come to mind: Rosie Garland, Mark Pajak, Kayo Chingonyi, Tiffany Atkinson, Adam Horovitz,Vanessa Kisuule, Cheryl Smyth, Joelle Taylor, Peter Sansom, Ann Sansom, Clare Shaw, Kim Moore, Nick Field, Caroline Bird, Francesca Beard, Maitreyabhandu, Salena Godden, Malika Booker, and local artists such as Andrew Graves, Maria Taylor, Ambrose Musiywa, Will Horspool, Roy Marshall, the Bradgate Writers, Cynthia Rodriguez, Bernice Reynolds. I like the fact that the scene is so diverse and reaches many different audiences. Paul: Spoken word and performance poetry seems to been gaining more ground and recognition by the traditional page poetry publishers, as we have seen recently with Kate Tempest and Hollie McNish. Do you have any thoughts on this? Pam: I think it’s a good thing. I know a lot of people say that Kate Tempest’s work doesn’t stand up on the page but I don’t agree. Pam: They blew me away, Paul. It was a highlight of the festival. Such energy, takent and passion. Here is an example of performance and page colliding brilliantly. Paul: I understand you are also part of a poetry collective. Can you tell me more? Pam: No, not any more. I was part of a collective called Inky Fish for a while. We were very lucky to get Arts Council Funding to support a reading tour of the Midlands. We read in groups of three or four and tried to experiment in our performances such as isolating lines from our individual poems and putting them together in a kind of aural collage. Other members were Mark Goodwin, Robert Hamberger, Katie Daniels, Chris Jones, the late (and woefully underrated) A.E. Baker, Catherine Byron, Helen Johnson and Michael Tolkien. Eventually we all went our separate ways although I am still in contact with most of them. Paul: You have recently completed a PhD. What was the research focus and where did the journey take you? Pam: The research focus was on the science of holography and how this might inform the development a collection of new ekphrastic poetry. It took me all over the place. Let’s say it was a very steep learning curve. There are no definitive models for creative PhDs. I had to come up with one which was conceptually appropriate. That took a long time. But it took me into realms of poetry I knew nothing, or very little about: modernist, post-modernist, experimental, open-form, whatever all these terms actually mean, and this all filtered into my own work. Paul: What will you do with the critical component and poems that emerged from the PhD? Pam: This is the million dollar question. I passed with minor corrections which involved mostly building up the Introduction with ‘fat’ footnotes. My poetry was commended but they thought the collection could have been shorter. I agree. I think I need to look at how I might split it up. The critical section is a form of ‘poetics’. I need to have a long hard look at it all again when I can bear it. One of the poems, ‘Postcards from Belfast’, appears in the new collection. Paul: You are about to launch a new collection with Pindrop Press (the same publisher as Elizabeth Sennitt Clough who I recently interviewed). What’s it called and does it have a particular theme or focus? Pam: It is out now but I have yet to plan the launch or launches. It’s called Strange Fashion after one of the poems in there. It is eclectic in style and theme. This is what Sharon Black wrote about it for the Pindrop site: ‘Pam Thompson’s second collection bursts with strangers and with intimates, with colour and with cool dispassion; these poems travel the world and through history from the Belfast Troubles to slave smuggling in Illinois, from out-of-season Alicante to a croft in the Scottish Highlands, to parachuting from the St. Louis Gateway Arch. They take us into the worlds of artists via the imagined lives of assistant to Louis Daguerre or Georgia O’Keeffe, and sail confidently out into the fantastical: witness Emily Bronte and Emily Dickinson hunting for antiques in Church Stretton or the journalist trying to winkle tidbits from Virginia Woolf in an elevator. Sit back and enjoy the ride.’ Paul: Did you receive a lot of guidance from your editor Sharon Black and/or feedback from poets and/or workshop groups? Pam: I received a lot of excellent editorial input from Sharon and many of the poems had been subject to the scrutiny of other poets in one forum or other. Paul: You must have had ten years’ of poems to choose from? How did you determine what to include? Pam: I sent Sharon a wide selection. She chose her preferred poems in the end, and I didn’t disagree. Here’s a poem from the new collection: Say how young you were, tell the story, how you walked between two purple towers, how no one held your hand, how you climbed into the bumper car, strapped yourself in, the smell of diesel and fried onions, say how cold, that there was a queue – you’d been in it – say how rackety, how empty, how you whipped around dark corners, how your bones jumped, how tightly you’d clung to the rail, and all that screaming was coming from you, even before the werewolf, the stinging cobwebs, the mummy rising, before the first gorilla, the beautiful zombie beckoning behind a window before plummeting, say how you crashed through rubber doors, found yourself outside, slowing down with people looking, how in the end it wasn’t even scary, tell the story. Don’t mention your wet face, how getting out you nearly fell, how you never went back. Couldn’t stay away. Paul: Do you see a big difference between the new book and The Japan Quiz? In what way does it take forward previous subject matter and concerns, and to what extent is it a new departure? Pam: I think it is very different on the whole. There is more of a sense of autobiography or quasi-autobiography running through the new collection although certain poems may not be ‘true’ in the literal sense. It is more experimental formally. Contemporary urban existence continues its strong hold though, and poems come from a range of different ‘voices’, like before. There is probably even more of a heightened attention to the senses in the new collection. Paul: How do you see you have evolved as a writer in recent years, in terms of your approach to writing, using form, developing your style/voice/aesthetic? Pam: I have evolved tremendously in the past ten years. Elsewhere here I’ve commented on my more extensive experimentation with form, sometimes via the use of specific constraints. My aesthetic is a sensory one, mainly visual; the influence of the New York School, particularly James Schuyler and Barbara Guest, is more apparent in my work. I let ‘meaning’ sort itself out. I don’t write to be deliberately obscure but the poem as itself, an experience, is more important than what it actually ‘means’. Paul: Which are your poetry go-tos – websites, journals, online resources? Pam: I like Poetry magazine and the Poetry Foundation website, also Penn Sound for its range of recordings of poets. I used one of the ‘cut-up’ engines on Language is a Virus for experimenting with collage poems for my PhD. I always renew my subscriptions to The North as it is always excellent. I am biased because I write for it. I like Magma, Mslexia, The Interpreter’s House, PN Review. Poetry Film Live is a great site with lots of poetry films to watch. Paul: What are you doing when not reading, writing or listening to poetry? Pam: I’m an infrequent blogger though so I’m not doing that. I’m probably thinking about doing it. In fact, I’ve made my blog part of a web-site and am supposed to be developing that. I’d like to say that I’m doing art but no, I’m thinking about doing it. I make the occasional collage. Oh, I have got into making videopoems. I went on an excellent workshop with Claire Trévien which has given me some insight into the software available and some of the techniques. I am sorting stuff. That’s what I’m doing. Paul: Where does the poem begin? Pam: Out there. Paul: Is there a question I should have asked? Pam: What advice would I give my younger(teen) self about poetry/being a poet? And the answer: Don’t give up writing poetry if you go to university, which I did. Continue. Have confidence. Get your work out there. Apply for an Eric Gregory Award. I see such talent in younger poets today. Social networking has been a big help – although it has its downsides. Thank you Paul for such thoughtful questions.

First, the good news: Phil Jones starts in midfield, and Spurs defence of Chiriches and Dawson with Vertonghen at left-back looks a bit of a disaster. Then, the middling news: Shinji Kagawa starts in the hole, Danny Welbeck starts on the left, and Rafael returns to the bench (excellent news if he's not quite fit, terrifying news if he is.) Spurs' midfield three of Sandro, Paulinho and Mousa Dembele looks a bit off, too, as does Nacer Chadli starting. Then, the bad: There's no Adnan Januzaj in the squad at all, Smalling continues at right-back, Ashley Young and Anderson are granted a place on the bench, Tom Cleverley starts, there's no Robin van Persie. So, a mixed bag. Difficult to say what will happen, and the lack of Januzaj is a worry regardless of the reasons. Nonetheless, there's nothing to suggest imminent disaster here, but we'll see how it goes. Manchester United starting lineup: David De Gea; Chris Smalling, Nemanja Vidic, Jonny Evans, Patrice Evra; Tom Cleverley, Phil Jones; Danny Welbeck, Shinji Kagawa, Antonio Valencia; Wayne Rooney. Subs: Anders Lindegaard, Rafael, Anderson, Marouane Fellaini, Nani, Ashley Young, Javier Hernandez.

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Thousands of young children in the counties west of Charlotte receive annual dental care in their schools’ parking lots. With an active, and growing, mobile dental network, Kintegra Health’s Dental ACCESS Program is improving children’s oral health, and teledentistry is a vital piece of the puzzle. On board one of Kintegra Health’s mobile buses, complete with three chairs, an x-ray room, and plenty of cartoons to keep children occupied. “The program has just blossomed,” said Melissa Boughman, director of the ACCESS Program. “We have 60 schools that we work with now, and we saw 5,500 children last year.” If schools remain open this fall and avoid COVID-19 outbreaks, the ACCESS Program is on track to see between 6,000 and 7,000 students this year, according to Boughman. Students now receive temperature scans to screen for COVID-19 symptoms at the beginning of their visits to the Dental ACCESS Program. “Parents working (with limited) access, specifically transportation access, means that parents sometimes can’t get to the dental office, or they can’t get time off of work to come to the dental office,” said Dr. William Donigan, dental director at Kintegra Health. “We need these children to get as much care as we can give them without the parents having to be here.” “In Title I schools, transportation is such a major issue,” said Boughman. “It’s so wonderful that we’ve been blessed with these mobile dental units that we can drive right up, park, and they bring the children out to us.” In one day at Battleground Elementary in Lincoln County, the hygienists and assistants on this mobile bus will see around 30 kids. The ACCESS Program has two mobile dental buses, complete with three dental chairs and an x-ray room, as well as a dental van for follow-ups and dental sealants. Once a child is on the bus, Kintegra’s dental team takes a series of nine photographs of the child’s teeth as well as x-rays, if necessary. While the dental hygienists and assistants can only provide preventive care on the mobile buses, the care doesn’t stop once a child goes back to class. Thanks to the Kintegra’s teledentistry software, those photos and x-rays are automatically uploaded, made immediately available to dentists and staff at one of their brick-and-mortar sites. The computers on Kintegra Health’s mobile buses transmit data in real time to staff at clinic sites. “Literally immediately, we can view all of that information at one of our sites,” said Donigan. “So, our Dental ACCESS Program navigators can then talk to the dentist and direct the parents to get the patient in for the care that they need.” Dental navigators are another vital piece of the puzzle. Kintegra employs navigators to help parents and patients efficiently get the care that they need. For parents experiencing any of a slew of social determinants of health that make accessing care more difficult, having someone there to guide the process along can have a big impact on the care a child receives. With a complete network, connecting the staff on Kintegra’s dental buses to the dentists at their clinic locations, children who may have not received care otherwise now have the opportunity to receive regular care. “We see the difference in the children we have seen for many years versus the newcomers like the kindergarteners, and in some schools pre-k,” said Boughman. “When we see them yearly, we see a big difference. We also do education because we all know that education is the most important part of all of this. Once we clean their teeth (plaque and tartar) will come back quickly, but if we teach them how to take care of their teeth, they can have a lifetime of great (oral health).” Want to see teledentistry in action? Join NCOHC for Oral Health Day Part 2 to see how clinics like Kintegra Health use teledentistry to improve access to patient care. We just announced a change of plans. Instead of in-person tours, we will bring tours of clinics, including Kintegra Health, to you virtually on [DATE], along with a star-studded panel of teledentistry experts from across the country! NCOHC is a program of the Foundation for Health Leadership & Innovation. For more information and to stay up to date, subscribe to the NCOHC newsletter. If you are interested in becoming an NCOHC member, you can also fill out our membership form. It’s free!

COVID-19 PROTOCOL: Marriott Theatre is committed to providing healthy and safe facilities for audiences, performers, and staff. Effective September 15, face masks and proof of vaccination or negative COVID test will be required for all performances in the theatre. All policies, including ticketing and attendance, are subject to change based on updated guidance from the State of Illinois and the CDC. Follow reopening updates. In person or by phone 10 Marriott Drive Lincolnshire, IL 60069 P: (847) 634-0200 F: (847) 634-7022 Or Online 24 hours a day AT Buyer beware: Over the last several years, there has been an increase in third-party ticket sales at inflated prices. While there isn’t anything we can do about this legal practice, please know that Marriott Theatre tickets can only be trusted if purchased through our box office, Ticketmaster, Hot Tix, Goldstar, or Todaytix. Any other sites should be regarded with suspicion. When in doubt, give our box office a call at 847-634-0200. Box Office Hours Box office will close at 5 PM on days with no evening performance. - Monday: Closed - Tuesday: 10 AM–5 PM - Wednesday–Thursday: 10 AM–6:30 PM - Friday: 10 AM–7 PM - Saturday: 10 AM–7 PM* - Sunday: 10 AM–4 PM* *Box office and telephones will open at 9 AM on Saturday and Sunday if there is a Children's Theatre performance. - Subscriber exchanges for any future date or production will not be processed one (1) hour prior to any performance to ensure that customers attending that performance do not miss the show opening. As a courtesy to our patrons, we do not allow children under age 6 (six)—including infants—to be admitted to our Mainstage Productions. Ask about our senior, military and student (17 and under) discounts. Discounts only available through the Marriott Theatre box office or by phone. - Monday–Tuesday: NA - Wednesday: $55 at 1 PM and 7:30 PM* - Thursday: $55 at 1 PM and (select weeks) 7:30 PM* - Friday: $55 at 8 PM - Saturday: $60 at 4 PM and 8 PM - Sunday: $60 at 1 PM and $50 at 5 PM *Our Dinner Special is available on Wednesday and Thursday evenings for $75, based on dining availability (can only be purchased through the Marriott Theatre Box Office). Please call 847-634-0100 for (strongly recommended) restaurant reservations. ALL TICKET SALES ARE FINAL. NO REFUNDS ALLOWED. Theatre for young audiences Children's Theatre takes place most Tuesdays through Saturdays at 10 AM. On select days, there is an additional performance at 12:30 PM. Performance days and times vary so please check the Children's Theatre page for a calendar of events or call the box office at 847-634-0200. Single ticket prices are $18.23 (includes fees and taxes) per person. Please call the Marriott Theatre box office at 847-634-0200. Groups of 20 or more please call our group sales department for pricing at 847-634-5909. Please note: Children under the age of 2 who sit on an adult's lap during a Theatre for Young Audiences performance will not need their own ticket.

Louise had lots to share from her Fall travels to US cities and to Tuscany! They were all over the place during that trip to Portland, OR — talkative pets! I was surrounded by them at pet-friendly restaurants (yes, dogs allowed in some) and just about everywhere I'd walk or hang out. Friendly Portland = Friendly Pets. I was browsing downtown the other day when I ALMOST passed a young gal, perched on the retaining wall bordering Pioneer Square Park. I say 'almost' passed, because her big ‘ole HUUUGE drooling husky wouldn’t let me pass by without transmitting a very loud message: I was attending the Willamette Writers Conference in Portland, OR, and met with a few clients in person. Whenever I hang out with friends, hostesses and coordinators, it’s fairly routine for me to relay messages from their pets who usually rush toward me, first thing, insisting that I pass on a few thoughts to their beloved owners. Pets’ telepathized transmissions usually relate to their favorite toys, food or sleeping preferences, or sentiments regarding friendly (or unfriendly) animals in their proximity. So interesting, that yesterday Jaene (my project manager) alerted me to the item I posted on my Facebook page, the photo of a crash victim’s spirit leaving the body. Fifteen years ago, she and I stood together on our rooftop in Manhattan the morning of 9/11, and watched with horror from several blocks away as WTC2 fell. I met Veronica in 2012 when I was featured on the local news to announce an upcoming intuition workshop I was to present at a nearby college. I arrived early for the interview, making sure I’d be at the right location on the campus. I was amazed as I watched this stunning young gal coming up the walkway, lugging a monstrous camcorder on her petite frame. Her boss was a hefty fellow who led the way, trailing a few feet ahead of her. He began the interview with opening questions, Veronica shooting the footage, and then she and I did a walk-and-talk while he manned the camera.

- Open Access Impaired aortic distensibility and elevated central blood pressure in Turner Syndrome: a cardiovascular magnetic resonance study Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance volume 20, Article number: 80 (2018) Women with Turner Syndrome have an increased risk for aortic dissection. Arterial stiffening is a risk factor for aortic dilatation and dissection. Here we investigate if arterial stiffening can be observed in Turner Syndrome patients and is an initial step in the development of aortic dilatation and subsequent dissection. Fifty-seven women with Turner Syndrome (48 years [29–66]) and thirty-six age- and sex-matched controls (49 years [26–68]) were included. Distensibility, blood pressure, carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV), the augmentation index (Aix) and central blood pressure were determined using cardiovascular magnetic resonance, a 24-h blood pressure measurement and applanation tonometry. Aortic distensibility was determined at three locations: ascending aorta, transverse aortic arch, and descending aorta. Mean aortic distensibility in the descending aorta was significantly lower in Turner Syndrome compared to healthy controls (P = 0.02), however, this was due to a much lower distensibility among Turner Syndrome with coarctation, while Turner Syndrome without coarctation had similar distensibility as controls. Both the mean heart rate adjusted Aix (31.4% vs. 24.4%; P = 0.02) and central diastolic blood pressure (78.8 mmHg vs. 73.7 mmHg; P = 0.02) were higher in Turner Syndrome compared to controls, and these indices correlated significantly with ambulatory night-time diastolic blood pressure. The presence of aortic coarctation (r = − 0.44, P = 0.005) and a higher central systolic blood pressure (r = − 0.34, P = 0.03), age and presence of diabetes were inversely correlated with aortic distensibility in TS. Aortic wall function in the descending aorta is impaired in Turner Syndrome with lower distensibility among those with coarctation of the aorta, and among all Turner Syndrome higher Aix, and elevated central diastolic blood pressure when compared to sex- and age-matched controls. The study was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (#NCT01678274) on September 3, 2012. Turner Syndrome is the second most common chromosomal aneuploidy in females, occurring in 1 out of 2000 live births . Women with Turner Syndrome face a 100-fold increased risk of aortic dissection [2, 3], which, along with a high incidence of coronary heart disease, hypertension, stroke and congenital heart disease may detrimentally impact life expectancy [4,5,6]. Factors associated with the often fatal aortic dissection include aortic dilatation , hypertension , bicuspid aortic valve (BAV) , 45,X karyotype, and coarctation of the aorta (CoA) [3, 9,10,11]. Unfortunately, these known risk factors fail to predict all events of aortic dissection , and there is a need to improve risk stratification beyond measuring aortic diameter and assessing aortic growth. A risk factor that considers the dynamic properties of aortic wall function could result in better prediction of dissection and rupture risk. Cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) can locally assess aortic distensibility. A prior study found reduced aortic distensibility in adolescents with Turner Syndrome at the level of the pulmonary artery bifurcation and the level of the diaphragm . Increased arterial stiffness could therefore be a part of the pathophysiology behind the high prevalence of aortic disease in Turner Syndrome . Hence, assessment of arterial stiffness may help elucidate impaired arterial function to better understand aortic disease and ultimately to improve the identification of patients with aortic dilation and hopefully to improve prognostication of this group of patients, as shown in other populations [15, 16]. The aim of this study was to investigate arterial stiffness and hemodynamic parameters, such as blood pressure, carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV), the augmentation index (Aix), central blood pressure, rate of dilation of the aorta and distensibility in the thoracic aorta in adults with Turner Syndrome, compared to healthy controls. Females with karyotype-proven Turner Syndrome and age- and sex-matched controls were enrolled into this cross-sectional study from a prospective study of cardiovascular health in Turner Syndrome [11, 17, 18]. The participants had been recruited through the Danish National Society of Turner Syndrome Contact Group and an endocrine outpatient clinic. Exclusion criteria were malignancy, liver disease, contraindications to CMR, and pregnancy. Out of 67 eligible participants, fifty-seven completed this study, with exclusions due to CMR contraindications (n = 1), claustrophobia (n = 1), prior Bentall procedure (n = 1), suboptimal image quality with repeat CMR declined (n = 2), and aortic valve prosthesis (n = 6). Out of 39 eligible healthy age-matched controls, 36 completed the study with exclusions due to claustrophobia (n = 1) and suboptimal image quality with repeat CMR declined (n = 2). All examinations were performed during the same day. Pulse wave velocity (PWV) and pulse wave analysis (experiment 1) In a first experiment pulse waves were recorded in the carotid and the femoral artery using a SphygmoCor (SPT-301B; Millar, Houston, Texas, USA) in combination with an applanation tonometer. Based on non-invasive recordings of the pulse waves, central blood pressure and carotid femoral pulse wave velocity can be determined. The investigation was performed between 7.30 A.M. and 9.30 A.M. following an overnight fast. Participants were instructed not to smoke or ingest caffeinated beverages at least 3 h before the examinations. Two of the investigators (JW and CT) performed all measurements with the patient in the supine position in a temperature-controlled room after > 5 min of rest. PWV calculation is based on recording travel speed of the pulse wave generated by cardiac contraction over a known distance and is reported as meters/second. With the SphygmoCor system, the carotid PWV is calculated by so-called sequential electrocardiogram (ECG)-gated pulse wave recordings: With the patient in the supine position, three ECG electrodes were applied allowing the recording of R-waves. The distance between the suprasternal notch and the carotid pulse mark and the distance between the suprasternal notch and the femoral pulse mark were measured and entered into the SphygmoCor software. The software then subtracted the suprasternal notch-carotid distance from the suprasternal notch-femoral distance (dist_subtr). The pulse wave at the carotid artery was then recorded by the tonometer, and the time delay between the R-wave and the arrival of the pulse wave at the carotid artery was stored. Then pulse wave was recorded at the femoral artery, and the time delay between the R-wave and the arrival of the pulse wave at the femoral artery was stored. The software then subtracted the travel time of the recorded R-wave to the carotid artery from the travel time of the recorded R-wave to the femoral artery (=travel time, subtr) and calculated the carotid-femoral PWV as (dist, subtr)/(travel time, subtr). The transit time was determined by the intersecting tangent algorithm method , as recommended by the manufacturer (www.atcormedical.com.au/download/Active/Research_Manual_(CVMS).pdf). The SphygmoCor equipment averages the pulse wave velocity over multiple heart cycles during 10 s of recordings. Distances were measured using a slide gauge. At least two PWV measurements were obtained, accepting a standard deviation< 20% for each individual PWV measurement, which is typically composed of the average of 7–8 heart beats. Quality control excluded nine individuals with Turner Syndrome and six controls from the PWV , and in five individuals with Turner Syndrome and one control, we could not technically measure PWV. Fifteen individuals with Turner Syndrome and five controls were excluded from the PWV analysis due to an Operator Index ≤80, and three Turner Syndrome individuals were technically impossible to measure. Therefore, 49 participants with Turner Syndrome and 34 controls had valid data for PWV analysis. Pulse wave analysis The PWV at the radial artery was recorded non-invasively during 10 s by the Millar tonometer. Based on recordings of the radial pulse wave, blood pressure in the ascending aorta was computed using the inbuilt transfer function of the SphygmoCor software . The computations were calibrated by cuff-based brachial systolic and diastolic blood pressure as recommended by the manufacturer. Blood pressure was measured by a Riester Champion N automatic blood pressure monitor three times and averaged (Riester GmbH, Jungingen, Germany). Before blood pressure measurements, arm circumference was measured with a tape measure and an appropriately sized cuff was used. The Aix is an expression of the augmentation of the blood pressure in the ascending aorta from reflecting waves adding to the blood pressure generated from the systolic contraction. The Aix in the ascending aorta was computed based on the recordings at the radial artery. The pressure arising from the reflected waves is termed the augmentation pressure. The sum of the forward and the reflected waves is the central pulse pressure. The central Aix was calculated as the augmentation pressure divided by the central pulse pressure and thus expressed the augmentation pressure as a percentage of the pulse pressure [19, 22]. Aix was adjusted for heart rate by linear regression. Pulse wave analysis measurements with an operator index (measure of both waveform reproducibility and signal strength) of ≤80 was excluded as recommended by the vendor . Aortic distensibility (experiment 2) At 11 A.M. CMR was performed on a 1.5 Tesla CMR (Achieva-dStream, Philips Healthcare, Best, The Netherlands) scanner using the standard anterior and posterior coils. Aortic distensibility was derived from 2D cine images acquired with a balanced steady-state-free-precession (bSSFP) sequence using retrospective electrocardiogram (ECG) gating. Repetition time was 3.6 ms and echo time was 1.8 ms. Depending on heart rate, 19 to 24 cardiac frames were acquired in a 14 s breath-hold. Slice thickness was 6 mm, field-of-view was 313 × 313 mm2 and pixel size was 1.6 × 1.6 mm2. Three imaging planes were acquired perpendicular to the aortic wall at: 1) the ascending aorta at the level of the main pulmonary artery bifurcation, 2) the transverse aortic arch, and 3) the descending aorta at the level of the main pulmonary artery bifurcation (Fig. 1a). The arterial blood pressure for distensibility calculation was measured before and after the scan with the patient lying on the scanner bed, using a CMR compatible sphygmomanometer (Aneroid, ERKA, Germany). Average blood pressure from the two measurements was used in subsequent computations. Aortic distensibility AoD was calculated as: where ΔA is the difference between the maximum and minimum cross-sectional aortic area over the cardiac cycle, ΔP is the difference between systolic and diastolic blood pressures, and Adia is the diastolic cross-sectional aortic area . The cross-sectional areas were obtained by semi-automatic segmentation of the vessel through all cardiac frames using the Siswin® software (Steffen Ringgaard, Aarhus, Denmark). The vessel lumen was manually selected by a single point within the vessel in one frame, and the vessel edge was determined as the maximum image intensity gradient found radially from this point. Edge point outliers were removed, and an ellipse was fitted to the edge points. The automatic vessel selections were visually inspected and manually corrected where necessary (Fig. 1b). The variation of aortic area over the cardiac cycle is shown in Fig. 1c. All participants were examined by the same staff and in the same scanner. The scans were analysed in two bulks. Scans were analysed in duplicates following anonymization using digest package in R (3.1.0 Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria). One scan was analysed 10 times to determine intra-observer variability of distensibility (coefficient of variation: 10% at the ascending aorta, 8% at the aortic arch, and 11% at the descending aorta). Echocardiography and anatomical CMR (experiment 3) As previously described and presented elsewhere [17, 24], transthoracic echocardiography was performed by a single observer on a GE Vivid 7 (GE Healthcare, Horten, Norway), with a 2.5 MHz transducer using second harmonic imaging. Aortic valve morphology and function were noted. Aortic arch anomalies were determined from a 3D bSSFP diastolic-triggered and respiratory-gated non-contrast enhanced sequence [17, 24]. Aortic arch anomalies were diagnosed as 1) aortic coarctation when there was a shelf-like narrowing of the aortic lumen in the region of the aortic isthmus (Fig. 1d), and 2) elongated transverse aortic arch when the arch appeared elongated with a kink of the inferior curvature at the aortic isthmus. Echocardiography and CMR angiography were performed to define anomalies of the aortic valve and thoracic aorta , which included bicuspid aortic valve (BAV) and elongated transverse aortic arch (ETA). In addition, we have examined these Turner Syndrome women over a period of 10 years and have determined the rate of dilation of the aorta from t = 0 to t = 10 years at nine positions: (i) aortic sinuses (measuring cusp-to-opposing-cusp diameter at the point of the maximum aortic diameter in the aortic sinus); (ii) the sinotubular junction; (iii) mid-ascending aorta at the level of the inferior margin of right pulmonary artery; (iv) distal ascending aorta immediately proximal to brachiocephalic artery; (v) proximal aortic arch between the brachiocephalic and left carotid artery arteries; (vi) distal aortic arch immediately proximal to left subclavian artery; (vii) aortic isthmus immediately distal to the left subclavian artery; (viii) proximal descending aorta between the left pulmonary artery and the top of left atrium; and (ix) distal descending aorta at the most caudal border of the left atrium . These data have been added to the results. Blood pressure and associated cardiovascular features (experiment 4) Following experiment 2 and 3, 24 h ambulatory blood pressures were obtained with oscillometric measurements every 20 min (Spacelabs 90,217, Spacelabs Healthcare, Issaquah, Washington, USA). The cuff was placed on the left upper arm in all participants, and the cuff size was adjusted to the arm circumference. Fasting blood samples were drawn. Height, weight and medical history were recorded. Statistical analysis was performed using Stata/IC 13.1 (StataCorp LP, College Station, Texas, USA). Normality was assessed by Q-Q plots of absolute or log-transformed values, and box-plots were scrutinized for outliers. Student’s independent t-test (given as mean ± SD or for transformed values, as geometric mean with confidence interval) or Mann–Whitney U-test (given as median with range) were used as appropriate. Repeated measurements were assessed using analysis of variance (ANOVA) testing the interaction between group (Turner Syndrome or control) and aortic position, reporting the Box’s conservative P-value. Assumptions were checked by Q-Q plot of the residuals, assessment of the covariance matrix, and assessment of sphericity. Comparisons of nominal variables were performed using the Fisher’s exact test. Bivariate correlations were assessed using Pearson’s coefficient of correlation. Explanatory models were constructed for aortic distensibility using multiple linear regression analyses. Independent variables were chosen from the bivariate correlation analyses of continuous variables. Independent variables were omitted from the models when p > 0.10. The contribution of each variable to the final model is stated as standardized coefficients (β). Assumptions behind the regression models were checked by Q-Q plots of the residuals, plotting residuals versus fitted, residuals versus each of the independent variables, box-plots, and leverage plots. A p-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. The mean age for Turner Syndrome women was 47.5 years [29–66] of which 60% (n = 34) had 45,X monosomy and 40% (n = 23) were mosaics. Thirty-six healthy women, with a median age of 48.7 years [26–68; p = 0.9], served as controls (Table 1). Between-group differences were found for body mass index (BMI), body surface area (BSA), height, and night-time diastolic blood pressure (Table 1). Eleven women with Turner Syndrome had BAV (19%), eight (14%) had a repaired coarctation (CoA), and 26 (46%) had an ETA. Ten women with Turner Syndrome (18%) had type 2 diabetes, 28 (49%) were on antihypertensive treatment, and nine (16%) were treated with a statin. Mean plasma levels of high-density lipoproteins, low-density lipoproteins, triglycerides, and glycated haemoglobin (HbA1C) did not differ between groups. Five controls (14%) were treated for hypertension and one (3%) received a statin. None in the control group had diabetes. Pulse wave analysis, PWV and central blood pressure (experiment 1 and 4) Central diastolic blood pressure and night-time diastolic blood pressure were significantly raised in Turner Syndrome (Table 1), and 24-h ambulatory diastolic blood pressure correlated with central diastolic blood pressure (r = 0.6, p = 0.0001. Figure 2) and heart rate adjusted Aix. The 24-h systolic blood pressure measurements revealed comparable day and night-time values in Turner Syndrome and controls. Heart rate adjusted Aix (Table 2) was higher in Turner Syndrome compared to controls (p ≤ 0.03) even when excluding women with CoA, whilst PWV was comparable (p = 0.6). Aortic distensibility, rate of dilation of the aorta and aortic area (experiment 2 and 3) The overall distensibility throughout the aorta differed between Turner Syndrome and controls (interaction between group and aortic position; p = 0.042). There was no site-specific difference in the ascending aorta and in the aortic arch, while aortic distensibility was reduced in the descending aorta in Turner Syndrome (p = 0.02) (Table 3, Fig. 3). Aortic distensibility was significantly lower in women with CoA (n = 8), both in the ascending aorta and descending aorta when compared to those without CoA (Table 3 and Additional file 1: Figure S1). Excluding women with CoA from the comparison of Turner Syndrome and controls left only a trend towards a lower distensibility at the descending aorta (p = 0.1; Table 3, Additional file 1: Figure S2). Turner Syndrome subgroups divided according to karyotype (p = 0.5), aortic valve morphology (p = 0.4) and the presence of an ETA (p = 0.5) were comparable for aortic distensibility, while Turner Syndrome with type 2 diabetes had significantly lower aortic distensibility at all sites (all p < 0.05), also when only studying patients with CoA in the ascending aorta and arch (all p < 0.05). Associations between distensibility, blood pressure, rate of aortic diameter and other measures Within the Turner Syndrome group, central systolic blood pressure (ascending: r = − 0.45, p = 0.002; descending: r = − 0.34, p = 0.03), CoA (r = − 0.30, P = 0.02; r = − 0.41, p = 0.0013), and Aix (r = − 0.35, P = 0.02; r = − 0.31, p = 0.04) correlated with distensibility in the ascending and descending aorta, respectively, whereas BMI, BSA and central diastolic blood pressure did not (all p > 0.6). Only central systolic blood pressure correlated significantly with distensibility in the aortic arch. Age was strongly correlated with aortic distensibility at all levels in both Turner Syndrome and controls (all p < 0.001). When including these significant variables in a multiple linear regression model of the descending aorta, only CoA and age remained significantly explanatory variables of distensibility (β = − 0.42, p = 0.001; Table 4), while only age remained a significant explanatory variable of distensibility at the level of the ascending aorta and the arch (β = − 0.52 and β = − 0.47, both p < 0.001). In separate analyses, we assessed the association between distensibility and the rate of change in aortic diameter during 10 years follow-up at anatomically-linked predefined thoracic sites. Ascending aortic distensibility did not correlate with rate of change in aortic diameter at any of the nearby assessed sites. Arch distensibility correlated with rate of change in aortic diameter at the aortic isthmus immediately distal to the left subclavian artery (r = − 0.36, p = 0.01). Finally, descending aortic distensibility correlated with rate of change in aortic diameter at proximal aortic arch between the brachiocephalic and left carotid arteries (− 0.36, p = 0.03) (Table 5). Omitting all cases with CoA did not materially change these results (results not shown). Mean aortic area was similar among Turner Syndrome and controls at the ascending and descending sites, while significantly smaller at the arch (Table 3). However, when adjusted for BSA, the mean areas was similar at all sites. Note, however, the much larger variation in area of the aorta at all studied sites among females with Turner Syndrome, with some having a clearly smaller area at all sites, while others had a much larger area at all sites (Table 3). The principal findings of this study is a significantly reduced distensibility of the descending aorta, a higher Aix and increased central diastolic blood pressure in adult women with Turner Syndrome compared to sex- and age-matched controls. The principal determinants of the abnormal aortic wall properties in Turner Syndrome were CoA, presence of diabetes, central blood pressure, Aix and age, whereas other potential contributing factors such as a bicuspid aortic valve, BMI and BSA did not emerge as significant contributors. Aortic distensibility is a measure of aortic elasticity, which is influenced by factors such as CoA and the grade of re-coarctation, systemic arterial hypertension and diabetes [20, 25, 26]. CoA was a principal source of significantly perturbed distensibility in the ascending and descending aorta in this cohort of adults with Turner Syndrome, which is in keeping with a previous study of CoA in individuals without Turner Syndrome that showed remodelling of the aorta with increased vascular stiffness [27, 28] and a study that showed reduced bioelastic properties of the thoracic aorta and also of left ventricular dysfunction after successful CoA repair in childhood . In our study, we also found an association between aortic distensibility and presence of diabetes and age . This supports the notion that CoA is part of a disease process spectrum that affects the entire thoracic aorta , and emphasises the need for comprehensive rather than focal aortic assessments in the diagnosis and surveillance of aortic disease in Turner Syndrome . It also points towards age as a modulating variable, as well as the presence of diabetes . Conclusively, when all comorbidity has been omitted, the young to middle-aged woman with Turner Syndrome may not necessarily have stiffening of the aortic wall, however the aorta of such a patient may still dilate due to pathophysiological mechanisms we are not yet aware of. Even though aortic stiffness and carotid intima thickness possibly reflect two separate entities of vascular damage , the two parameters seem significantly correlated . We have previously shown that women with Turner Syndrome have abnormal carotid intima thickness and in this study we found reduced distensibility in Turner Syndrome women with type 2 diabetes. Therefore, one must consider whether abnormal vascular function in Turner Syndrome somehow both reflects an early atherosclerosis-type process combined with an aortopathy, associated to the presence of a CoA. On the longer term, greater arterial stiffness is associated with a higher incidence of atrial fibrillation . The increased arterial stiffness will also lead to reduced impedance mismatch between aorta and the carotid arteries, spurning remodelling of the cerebral arteries and decreased ability of the cerebral circulation to adapt to changing flow needs . This will increase the risk of ischemia, both acutely and chronically, as well as lacunar infarction and white matter lesions [38, 39], and thus these findings could be one among many other small steps towards the increased stroke risk seen in Turner Syndrome . We have followed this cohort of Turner Syndrome females for a period of 10 years and assessed the rate of dilation during this period and included distensibility assessment at the latest examination. We found that higher distensibility in the aortic arch and in the descending aorta was related to lower rate of change at two different sites in the descending aorta, pointing towards an effect of normal distensibility in protecting the aortic wall properties, although clearly longer observation time with subsequent measurements of both distensibility, and other aortic wall properties, such as matrix remodeling and perhaps inflammation , as well as blood flow characteristics along the aorta, will be necessary to further examine these relations. The reduced aortic distensibility in especially CoA affected Turner Syndrome extends the previous findings of abnormal aortic function in adolescents with Turner Syndrome [13, 41] and raises the question if impaired aortic stiffness precedes aortic dilation as in Marfan syndrome . This is particularly important with the currently used risk markers failing to accurately predict cases of aortic dissection . Interestingly, all other Turner Syndrome subgroups (BAV vs. tricuspid aortic valve, ETA vs. non-ETA, 45,X vs. mosaics) had comparable aortic distensibility to controls. Likewise, it is possible that the observed abnormalities of aortic distensibility are influenced by different blood flow profiles that has been demonstrated in Turner Syndrome, especially when BAV or CoA is present . Contrary to the present study, a recent study of Turner Syndrome women found reduced aortic distensibility when BAV was present, which may possibly be due differences in the Turner Syndrome populations studied . Here, we also show that the mean aortic area is similar or even slightly smaller (aortic arch) compared with controls, a difference that vanished after adjustment for BSA, but that the variability in aortic area is much larger, illustrated by the very wide range. This observation underscores the fact that the phenotypic spectrum of the aorta is larger among females with Turner Syndrome than among controls. Smaller studies in children and young adults with Turner Syndrome previously showed increased PWV and a greater Aix compared to controls [45, 46]. The present study finds that adults with Turner Syndrome have a raised Aix but comparable PWV. A greater Aix indicates increased wave reflection from the periphery or earlier return of the reflected wave. Aix is inversely associated with height, and the lower height in Turner Syndrome compared to controls is an important contributor to the increased Aix observed in Turner Syndrome. Carotid-femoral PWV is an integrative measure that reflects the average arterial wall stiffness in the thoracic and abdominal aorta excluding the ascending aorta, the aortic arch and the adjacent descending aorta. Our data are in line with previous studies [45, 46] in the observation that carotid-femoral PWV is comparable between Turner Syndrome and matched controls, suggesting that this part of the aorta is not affected in Turner Syndrome. However, CMR studies evaluating this are lacking. Hypertension is common in Turner Syndrome with a particularly high prevalence in adults (up to 50%) [7, 47,48,49]. Consistent with this, half of the women with Turner Syndrome in our study were treated for hypertension. This resulted in comparable systolic and mean arterial pressures in Turner Syndrome and controls, possibly diminishing any difference in PWV, although the cross-sectional nature of the study and other differences between Turner Syndrome and controls, such as frequency of diabetes, precludes any firm conclusions. Others have found that PWV is not correlated with diastolic blood pressure, but with systolic blood pressure and mean arterial pressure in hypertensive individuals . Medical intervention may reduce hypertensive wall stress and thus halt any age and disease related progressive perturbation in aortic wall properties . However, intervention studies in Turner Syndrome are lacking . The central diastolic and night-time 24-h ambulatory diastolic blood pressures were elevated in Turner Syndrome, in line with previous findings . In addition to this, 24-h ambulatory diastolic blood pressure correlated well with central diastolic blood pressure. The increased diastolic pressure remains an enigma in Turner Syndrome, although it may related to the frequent left ventricular diastolic dysfunction often seen in Turner Syndrome . Since increased central and peripheral diastolic blood pressure are also associated with aortic dilatation in the normal population , diastolic hypertension should be a target for even more aggressive treatment in Turner Syndrome, aiming at halting aortic dilatation, perhaps helping to make prophylactic aortic surgery a less frequently implemented intervention in TS. The SphygmoCor device uses a generalized transfer function to derive central blood pressure from radial tonometry data. The algorithm used may not be valid in patients with abnormal arterial function such as CoA. Therefore, all calculations were done with and without the individuals with CoA, without resulting in significant change. The methodology of carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity measures the mean velocity of the pulse wave in the thoracic and abdominal aorta and iliac arteries to the femoral artery. The PWV in the aortic arch is not evaluated by this method. Hence, the carotid-femoral PWV and the aortic arch distensibility as evaluated by CMR are complementary. It would also have been advantageous to have compared PWV by SphygmoCor with PWV determined by phase contrast CMR, and in this way we could have determined regional alterations in blood flow dynamics. We plan to do this in future studies. A proportion of the study cohort, especially among females with Turner Syndrome, was being treated for conditions such as hypertension and hypercholesterolaemia. This could potentially influence the results. However, it would be unethical to investigate a similar group of people without treatment, and the fact that these women were receiving their usual treatment makes this study a reflection of a real-life outpatient clinic cohort. Adult Turner Syndrome females have impaired aortic wall function of the ascending and descending aorta, with reduced aortic distensibility among those with CoA, and higher central and peripheral night-time diastolic blood pressures as well, along with an elevated Aix. The principal determinant of the abnormal aortic wall function was the presence of type 2 diabetes, CoA and age. Measurement of aortic distensibility is a promising tool in future clinical care of Turner Syndrome in the prediction of cardiovascular events. Bicuspid aortic valve Body mass index Body surface area Balanced steady state free precession Cardiovascular magnetic resonance Coarctation of the aorta Elongated transverse aortic arch Pulse wave velocity Stochholm K, Juul S, Juel K, Naeraa RW, Gravholt CH. Prevalence, incidence, diagnostic delay, and mortality in turner syndrome. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2006;91:3897–902. Ho VB, Bakalov VK, Cooley M, Van PL, Hood MN, Burklow TR, et al. 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Carotid intima-media thickness is increased in turner syndrome: multifactorial pathogenesis depending on age, blood pressure, cholesterol and oestrogen treatment. Clin Endocrinol. 2012;77:844–51. Chen LY, Leening MJ, Norby FL, Roetker NS, Hofman A, Franco OH, et al. Carotid intima-media thickness and arterial stiffness and the risk of atrial fibrillation: the atherosclerosis risk in communities (ARIC) study, multi-ethnic study of atherosclerosis (MESA), and the Rotterdam study. J Am Heart Assoc. 2016;5:e002907. Mitchell GF, van Buchem MA, Sigurdsson S, Gotal JD, Jonsdottir MK, Kjartansson O, et al. Arterial stiffness, pressure and flow pulsatility and brain structure and function: the age, gene/environment susceptibility--Reykjavik study. Brain. 2011;134:3398–407. Debette S, Markus HS. The clinical importance of white matter hyperintensities on brain magnetic resonance imaging: systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ. 2010;341:c3666. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.c3666. Humphrey JD, Holzapfel GA. Mechanics, mechanobiology, and modeling of human abdominal aorta and aneurysms. J Biomech. 2012;45:805–14. Sharma J, Friedman D, Dave-Sharma S, Harbison M. Aortic distensibility and dilation in Turner's syndrome. Cardiol Young. 2009;19:568–72. Nollen GJ, Groenink M, Tijssen JG, van der Wall EE, Mulder BJ. Aortic stiffness and diameter predict progressive aortic dilatation in patients with Marfan syndrome. Eur Heart J. 2004;25:1146–52. Prahl WL, van WS, Fuchs L, Gutmark E, Backeljauw P, Gutmark-Little I. Effects of aortic irregularities on blood flow. Biomech Model Mechanobiol. 2016;15:345–60. Devos DG, De Groote K, Babin D, Demulier L, Taeymans Y, Westenberg JJ, et al. Proximal aortic stiffening in turner patients may be present before dilation can be detected: a segmental functional MRI study. J Cardiovasc Magn Reson. 2017;19:27–0331. Baguet JP, Douchin S, Pierre H, Rossignol AM, Bost M, Mallion JM. Structural and functional abnormalities of large arteries in the turner syndrome. Heart. 2005;91:1442–6. De Groote K, Devos D, Van HK, De WD, Van der Straaten S, Rietzschel E, et al. Increased aortic stiffness in prepubertal girls with turner syndrome. J Cardiol. 2017;69:201–7. Gravholt CH, Hansen KW, Erlandsen M, Ebbehoj E, Christiansen JS. Nocturnal hypertension and impaired sympathovagal tone in turner syndrome. J Hypertens. 2006;24:353–60. Landin-Wilhelmsen K, Bryman I, Wilhelmsen L. Cardiac malformations and hypertension, but not metabolic risk factors, are common in Turner syndrome. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2001;86:4166–70. De Groote K, Devos D, Van Herck K, Demulier L, Buysse W, De Schepper J, et al. Abnormal aortic arch morphology in turner syndrome patients is a risk factor for hypertension. Heart Vessel. 2014;30:618–25. Kim EJ, Park CG, Park JS, Suh SY, Choi CU, Kim JW, et al. Relationship between blood pressure parameters and pulse wave velocity in normotensive and hypertensive subjects: invasive study. J Hum Hypertens. 2007;21:141–8. Humphrey JD. Mechanisms of arterial remodeling in hypertension: coupled roles of wall shear and intramural stress. Hypertension. 2008;52:195–200. Andersen NH, Hjerrild BE, Sørensen K, Pedersen EM, Stochholm K, Gormsen LC, et al. Subclinical left ventricle dysfunction in normotensive women with Turner's syndrome. Heart. 2006;92:1516–7. de Simone G, Roman MJ, De Marco M, Bella JN, Izzo R, Lee ET, et al. Hemodynamic correlates of abnormal aortic root dimension in an adult population: the strong heart study. J Am Heart Assoc. 2015;4:e002309. Lone Kvist, Eva Schriver and Susanne Sørensen are thanked for their expert technical help. This work was supported by grants from the Lundbeck Foundation, the Augustinus Foundation, The Toyota Foundation, the Aase og Einar Danielsen Foundation, the Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF13OC0003234, NNF15OC0016474), “Fonden til lægevidenskabens fremme”, the Familien Hede Nielsen foundation, and a PhD grant (CT) and a research year grant (JW) from Aarhus University. Availability of data and materials Please contact author for data requests. Ethics approval and consent to participate Informed written consent was obtained from all participants. The study protocol conformed to the ethical guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the Central Denmark Region Ethical Scientific Committee (#2012–500-12) and registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (#NCT01678274). Consent for publication The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Table S1. Aortic distensibility in women with Turner Syndrome but no aortic coarctation compared to healthy age and gender matched controls. Overall model P-value < 0.001. No significant interaction between group and position (P = 0.08) and hence the same development in distensibility through the aorta. Only a trend towards a lower distensibility at the descending aorta. Figure S1. Aortic distensibility according to the presence of aortic coarctation in Turner Syndrome. Dotplot of aortic distensibility (mmHg− 1) at each of the three aortic positions. Each dot represents an individual; blue circles are Turner Syndrome with aortic coarctation and black filled are indicate Turner Syndrome without aortic coarctation. Triangles are geometric means with 95% confidence interval. Figure S2. Aortic distensibility in women with Turner Syndrome but no aortic coarctation compared to healthy age and gender matched controls. Dotplot of aortic distensibility (mmHg− 1) at each of the three aortic positions. Each dot represents an individual; blue circles are Turner Syndrome without aortic coarctation and black filled are indicate controls Triangles are geometric means with 95% confidence interval. (DOCX 97 kb) About this article Cite this article Wen, J., Trolle, C., Viuff, M.H. et al. Impaired aortic distensibility and elevated central blood pressure in Turner Syndrome: a cardiovascular magnetic resonance study. J Cardiovasc Magn Reson 20, 80 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12968-018-0497-0 - Vascular stiffness - Aortic distensibility - Chromosome aberrations - Aortic dissection - Turner Syndrome

The first British Ebola patient, a 29-year-old male nurse named as William Pooley, has been treated with the experimental drug ZMapp in a London hospital. "We have had the opportunity to give him the ZMapp treatment that I am sure you are aware of," Dr Michael Jacobs, clinical leader in infectious diseases at Royal Free Hospital, told Sky News. "It is an experimental medicine, we made that absolutely clear in our discussions with him." He added: "What has become apparent to us is that he is clearly a rather resilient and remarkable young man." The patient was evacuated back to London Sunday night, after he had been diagnosed with the Ebola virus disease in Sierra Leone, where he volunteered to care for Ebola patients. Pooley has begun his treatment at the high level isolation unit (HLIU) after arriving at the hospital. There are various facilities in the HLIU, including a specific entrance for the patient, autoclaves which decontaminate waste and a dedicated laboratory for carrying out tests. All the air leaving the unit is cleaned so there is no risk to anyone at the hospital, according to the hospital. ZMapp has been used on two American Ebola patients, who have already recovered and discharged from hospital. Experts, however, warned that it's still unclear if their recovery is due to the ZMapp treatment. According to the World Health Organization, so far there have been 2, 615 cases and 1,427 deaths reported in West Africa. (Xinhua News Agency August 26, 2014)

EXCLUSIVE: Lionsgate has picked up rights to the thriller Prey, with John Glenn and Alex Davidson co-writing the script. Glenn will produce with Mandeville’s Todd Lieberman and David Hoberman, with Alex Young executive producing In the film, a man is dropped off, naked, at the Dodger Stadium parking lot with a $2 million open bounty on his head. He has to make it to Long Beach on foot by dawn, or his family will be killed. Prey follows a successful partnership between Lionsgate and Mandeville on the worldwide hit Wonder, which took in more than $300 million at the global box office. Upcoming, Lionsgate and Mandeville have several films completed and in development and next year will release White Bird: A Wonder Story, a companion film to the original, and Shotgun Wedding, starring Jennifer Lopez. James Myers and Jorge Alfaro are overseeing Prey for Lionsgate. A veteran screenwriter whose credits include Eagle Eye, Law Abiding Citizen and Clash of the Titans, Glenn has become one of the busier scribes in town in recent months, currently developing a number of projects with top-tier talent such as Jerry Bruckheimer, Steven Spielberg, Margot Robbie, M. Night Shyamalan and Tony Scott. Besides Prey, he is also adapting The House on Hoarder Hill for Sam Raimi and WIIP Studios. Glenn is repped by CAA, Management 360 and Jackoway, Austen. Subscribe to Deadline Breaking News Alerts and keep your inbox happy.

Not My President, Part 4 of 50: It’s Always Somebody Else’s Fault Big Burden for Big Shoulders The President of the United States is, at every moment in time since June 6, 1944, the most important and powerful person in the world. He also bears the most responsibility. He is more than just the titular head of the most powerful nation the world has ever seen. In that office resides the personification of human liberty on earth, the beacon to hearts of all men who would be free, the guardian and protector of freedom and virtue. It certainly wears on a man, for it is a burden not suitable for common men or even strong men, but for great men. Some prove more equal to the task than others, but the 4 or 8 years in the office age the man visibly no matter how well he wears the mantle. It is the responsibility; the lack of sleep; the lack of any unaccountable leisure, privacy, or a moment when you can let down the mask, for 1461 consecutive days; the constant pull of people who want something from you, want to exploit their connection to you, or want to influence you; the weight of the entire world on your shoulders; the constant vigilance against foreign enemies; the burden of young soldiers who die under your command; the constant infighting both in-party and against the opposition party; the blame that falls your way, deserved or not; the knowledge that history will judge you, and you may have not done enough in the time you were given; the stress that your life and your choices put on your loved ones. It goes on and on, and I bet I don’t even know the 1/4 of it. Real Men are Large and In Charge We could talk about many qualities that make up the man and in these 50 articles, we’ll hit on most of them. But today I focus on this: the great president is large and in charge. He takes responsibility, takes ownership, for all that falls under his purview, both good and bad. He won’t have it any other way. The buck stops with that guy. All of that is true for many reasons, among them: - adult alpha male instinct – the alpha male takes charge, calls the shots, runs things and controls people. He’s the bottom line, and he makes the final call. - credit for success is politically important – when your action as a leader results in military success, an improved economy, or greater freedom, it’s not a given that you’ll get credit for it. The great president owns both the good and the bad, and can parlay the good into more political power for himself and his allies. - leaders shield their own from undue blame – no leader can be called great who allows his underlings to twist in the wind, vulnerable to media and public shame, particularly when they have committed no fault. He fights valiantly to protect their honor — sometimes even when they are at fault. He will deflect blame onto himself to protect his person. That is what classy people do. - accepting blame for what happened on your watch is a minimum requirement for an adult male of substance – whether it was actually something you could have stopped or not, or whether you were in fact guilty or not. He takes blame even when he knows better, then he picks up the burdens of his life and marches on. Don’t miss that last point. Any grown-up responsible man of character instinctively directs blame to himself and away from others. He is slow and deliberate in throwing blame around. And here we are not talking about a great president; we are talking about an ordinary man. Now against this backdrop, let us examine barack. Here’s a guy for whom it is not only not his fault, it has NEVER been his fault.Everything he does is noble and good. Everything his political opponents do is despicable and evil. He is unerringly smart and wise; his opponents and detractors are stupid, racist, and unpatriotic. His predecessors left him such an awful mess that even he — Superman, Abraham Lincoln, Mother Teresa, and Doctor Zhivago all rolled into one adorable creation–is having trouble fixing it, after three years of heroic effort. Not Me! – the List And blame. My goodness. I’ll leave out my opinion of how much of the mess that is America is his fault. Let’s even stipulate (quite generously) that NONE of this mess is his fault. Even if that were true, did you ever hear of a guy so quick to blame others? - Obama Blames Arab Spring and Japan’s Earthquake on Struggling Economy and Job Situation, August 5th, 2011. - Obama Blames Messy Democracy for His Failed Policies, August 3rd, 2011; remarks by the president at a DNC event. - Obama Blames Congress for US Debt Mess; Obama news conference, June 29th, 2011. - Obama Blames Republicans for Slow Pace on Immigration Reform, July 25th, 2011. - Obama Blames Media for Lack of Compromise in Washington; remarks by Obama at a town hall meeting July 22nd, 2011. - Obama Blames Technology for Struggling Economy; June 14th, 2011, NBC Today interview. - Obama Blames Oil Spectators for High Oil Prices; April 19th, 2011, remarks by Obama at a town hall meeting. - Obama Blames Reagan for America’s Out of Control Debt and Spending; remarks by President Obama April 13th, 2011, Federal News Service. - Obama Blames Bush and Congress for Lack of Fiscal Discipline, April 13th, 2011; remarks by Obama, Federal News Service. - Obama Blames Bush-Congress for Putting Off Tough Decisions, August 17th, 2010; remarks at a fundraiser for Patty Murray. - Obama Blames Bush for Tax Cuts, Deficits; Obama town hall meeting on the economy in Racine, Wisconsin, June 30th, 2010. - Obama Blames Bush for Deficits, June 8th, 2010; remarks by Obama at a second fundraising reception for Senator Barbara Boxer. - Obama Blames GOP for Events that Led to Gulf Oil Spill; remarks by President Obama June 3rd, 2010, Federal News Service. - Obama Blames Republicans for America Not Being Able to Solve Problems; remarks by President Obama June 3rd, 2010, Federal News Service. - Obama Blames Corporations for Everybody’s Problems, June 3rd, 2010, Federal News Service. He said, “If you’re a Wall Street Journal bank or an insurance company or oil company, you pretty much get to play by your own rules regardless of the consequences for everybody else.” Blames corporations for everybody’s problems. - Obama Blames Bush for Overall Standing of American Economy, April 19th, 2010, at a fundraising reception for Senator Boxer. - Obama Blames Bush, Congress for Deficits, February 1, 2010, delivering remarks on the budget. - Obama Blames Bush for Regulatory Policies; January 17th, 2010, remarks by the president at an event with attorney general Martha Coakley in Massachusetts. - Obama Blames Corporations for Everybody Else’s Problems, June 3rd, 2010; remarks by President Obama. - Obama Blames Bush for Overall Standing of Economy and American Standing, April 19th of 2010. Obama delivering remarks at a fundraising reception for Senator Boxer and the DNC. - Obama Blames Bush and Congress for Deficits, February 1st, 2010, in remarks delivered on the budget. - Obama Blames Bush for Regulatory Policies, January 17th, 2010, remarks by the president at an event with Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. - Obama Blames Wall Street Fat Cats for Economic Disaster, December 13th, 2009, CBS News’ 60 Minutes. - Obama Blames Bush for Overall Economy, September 27th, 2009, remarks by the president at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual dinner. - Obama Blames Bush for Stifling Unions, September 7th, 2009; remarks by the president at the AFL-CIO Labor Day picnic. - Obama Blames Bush for Prescription Drug Bill; remarks by the president, health insurance reform town hall, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, August 11th, 2009. - Obama Blames Bush for Jobs, July 22nd, 2009; news conferences by the president. - Obama Blames Bush for Failure to Recognize Europe’s Leading Role in the World, April 3rd, 2009; remarks by President Obama at a Strasbourg town hall, and in those remarks he said this: “So we must be honest with ourselves. In recent years we’ve allowed our alliance to drift. I know that there have been honest disagreements over policy, but we also know that there’s something more that has crept into our relationship.”In America there’s a failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world, instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive of you.” That’s Barack Obama, speaking in Europe at Strasbourg, blaming Bush for a failure to recognize Europe’s leading role in the world, April 3rd, 2009. - Obama Blames Bush for Deficits, February 23rd, 2009; Obama delivering opening remarks at fiscal responsibility summit. - Candidate Obama Blames Fox News for his Elitist Label, New York Times, October 2008. - Candidate Obama Blames Fox News for Likely Loss in Kentucky Primary, May 2008. - Candidate Obama Blames Washington for High Gas Prices, April 25th, 2008; remarks of Senator Barack Obama, press availability on energy plan, 25 April 2008. Not a Great President. Not Even a Competent Man Actually, the list of “Obama blames” could go on all day. When barack is measured against the backdrop of the job requirements in the first paragraphs above, when stood up alongside men like Ronald Reagan, George Washington, and even John F Kennedy, it becomes perfectly clear. It’s not just that he’s a pathetic president. He’s not even a competent man. For the 4th of 50 reasons, he’s not my president.

The Newbery Medal The Newbery Medal, which honors the author making the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children, is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association. The Printz Award The Michael L. Printz Award annually honors the best book written for teens, based entirely on its literary merit, each year. In addition, the Printz Committee names up to four honor books, which also represent the best writing in young adult literature. The will of Joseph Pulitzer, a crusading newspaper journalist, provided for the establishment of the Pulitzer Prizes. Since its inception in 1917, the prizes have recognized the best in journalism, letters, drama and music. Many consider it the most prestigious award a journalist or author can achieve. The Siam Book Awards are run by a group of international school librarians in Bangkok. The award is designed to celebrate excellence in children's global literature and create a shared local community of enthusiastic readers. The Awards program has four categories: The books which are shortlisted have been published in the last 5 years and promote diversity of author, theme, genre, setting and narrative style. We hope there is something for everyone to discuss, debate and enjoy. The following criteria were used to help the shortlisting panel to arrive at a balanced selection of books: National Book Award One of the USA's most prestigious literary prizes. The National Book Critics Circle Award Annually recognizes books in five categories: fiction, general nonfiction, biography/autobiography, poetry, and criticism. The Nebula Awards Given to best Science Fiction/Fantasy novel, novella, novelette, short story, script Swedish engineer Alfred Nobel provided for the establishment of the Nobel Foundation in his will in 1895. Since 1901, it has recognized achievement in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, peace, and economics. The PEN/Faulkner Award The PEN/Faulkner Award is affiliated with PEN (Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, and Novelists) and is named for William Faulkner, the author of "The Sound and the Fury". The award recognizes an outstanding fiction book selected by judges who are themselves, fiction writers.

Your sweetheart can be found not only among compatriots but also by choosing from foreigners. If you dream of moving abroad and getting married, you have first to get acquainted with the candidate for a spouse. You can do that through a real meeting or the Internet. Most men from other countries themselves are looking for mail order brides from Ukraine dating and CIS countries. Dating sites with foreigners are the most common, safe, cheap, and convenient way. There are specialized sites where you can find an overseas lover. Here are the most popular and reliable of them: Best 5 Ukrainian Mail Order Brides Websites in 2021 - SweetyDate.com — a dating site with an elaborate design and good functionality - DreamMarriage — a resource with high user activity - AnastasiaDate — dating site is great for people who are looking for love - LadaDate.com — a site where more than a thousand foreigners sign up every day - ElenasModels — popular dating portal with guys who want to marry Slavic beauties - Members: over 3 thousand users. - Main features: chats, sending email, gifts, flowers and meeting requests, uploading images and videos in the profile. - Prices: from $9.98 for 20 credits. SweetyDate is a young dating service, but it has a lot of future. The main users are serious guys and beautiful girls. You have a better chance of finding a worthy candidate here, not only from your country but also from abroad. This service also provides users with free registration, although you will have to pay for premium services. Thus, you can send virtual gifts, upload video clips and photos to your profile, and share them with your partner. The site’s simple navigation and design appeal even to those who have never looked for love online. Unfortunately, there is no mobile app, but the site can adapt to any mobile device, so you can always stay in touch with your interlocutors. Not to lose the most interesting ones, you can save them in “Favorites.” Handy filters for finding a potential partner help save you time on your search. All fakes are filtered out at once, no matter if free or paid conditions are picked up. - Members: over 50K - Main features: live video chats, voice chats, and advanced searching filters - Prices: from $9.99 a month If you are looking for a long-term and serious relationship where both parties realize that a happy marriage requires a number of qualities and the ability to ensure your partner’s happiness, this service is for you. DreamMarriage is a website with a wide range of candidates of different age categories and European quality standards. It has been functioning since 2003. Thousands of Ukrainian mail order brides are looking for potential husbands here. Signing up is free, but the minimum monthly fee for men starts from $9.99. You don’t have to look through a huge number of profiles and get unnecessary dating. A unique algorithm of compatible partners will do everything for you. After filling in an unbureaucratic questionnaire, the service will offer you the most suitable variants for dating. The site includes live video chats, voice chats, and advanced searching filters: fast user registration and thousands of verified profiles. You can add the users you like to your “Favorites” section to avoid losing them out of sight among numerous other persons. The best recommendation of this site is reviews of real couples who found each other here. - Members: a few millions - Main features: text and video chats, sharing photos, matching - Prices: from $12 for 20 credits LadaDate.com promises exclusively solvent men with serious intentions and gorgeous girls who dream of finding a life partner and making them happy. All photos are 100% reliable and verified. Thanks to the enhanced moderation of user profiles, you won’t come across fake profiles. The site was founded in 2012 and has already registered several million people who want to get to know each other, and every day there are more and more. Advantages of the site are its large audience, thorough check of profiles, user-friendly interface, quick profile filling, and free functionality for Ukrainian brides. There are so many ladies here, so each male will immediately receive a flurry of female attention. Besides, there is a section with real stories of couples who met on the site. - Members: over 4 million - Main features: chatting, sending emails, sharing photos - Prices: from $19.99 for a month On AnastasiaDate, you’ll find only those who are looking for a serious relationship: intelligent women, successful men, and no secrets and omissions. AnastasiaDate is an international dating site that was launched in 1993. It’s oriented first of all on searching for men from North America and women from Eastern Europe. Its primary users are wealthy American men between the ages of 35 to 60. Men pay for any communication with women on the site. The site’s main features include chatting, sending emails, sharing photos, and sending various virtual surprises. The interface is easy to use on your PC and smartphone app. Every user is a real person. Spam and scams are blocked. The platform allows you to customize your search for a future partner, so you don’t have to look through all the profiles in a row as there are too many of them. You can set the purpose of dating, physical parameters, education, religion, etc. - Members: over 2 million - Main features: text and video chats, online translator, advanced searching filters - Prices: from $19 a month Since 1999, more than 2 million profiles have been published on ElenasModels. Serious candidates from over 50 countries have chosen this trustworthy service to meet the girl of their dreams. Thousands of guys have created families with brides from Ukraine. It takes less than 5 minutes to sign up. After that, you have to complete the sections about your interests and character traits. For quick approval, it’s important to indicate your phone number and email address correctly. The website benefits are video chats, communication via online messenger and internal mail, built-in translator, support service, and hundreds of new women every week. For women, membership on the site is entirely free, but men will need to pay for membership. The price may vary. For example, the so-called Gold plan starts from $19 per month, and Platinum costs $58. These days if a girl dreams of marrying a foreigner, there is no need to go on a world tour searching for an overseas prince. It is enough to register on one of the popular dating sites. Men and women have several times more chances of finding a soul mate. International dating sites really allow you to eliminate the borders between countries. Thus, ladies can very quickly realize the desire to meet a foreigner for marriage. Modern dating platforms will help you find your Ukraine mail order wives, even if she lives thousands of miles away from you.

Seniors For Kids Society - 18 years in Cochrane, Alberta Seniors for Kids Society is a not-for-profit organization that promotes intergenerational relationships. - Seniors become mentors or “school grandparents” to young students by giving of themselves in a non-judgmental way, providing unconditional attention with a desire to encourage young people to reach their full potential. - Sharing: seniors and students are given the opportunity to enjoy sharing their experiences, talents and skills, and fun with each other. - Students get to share their thoughts and feelings with an older adult if they wish, which often helps them learn how to cope with their youthful day-to-day happenings. - Everyone benefits: the seniors, the youth, their families and the community. 2014 Volunteer Group of the Year "Grandparents and Grandchildren are joined by the heart."

Professional family advocacy Since 2003 we have pioneered an independent professional advocacy service for families involved with child protection services nationally; this has included service provision at child protection conferences in four London Boroughs. We have advocated for families who find it difficult to engage with statutory services, including those who have previously had children removed from their care and are mistrustful of statutory intervention; asylum seeking families; and young care leavers. We have supported families at different stages of their involvement with Children’s Services including children in need; advocating for parents from the stage when child protection enquiries were initiated until the first review conference; and within the complaints process. What we offer We offer a service to London Children’s Services Departments, who can spot purchase (buy in) a professional advocate to work with a parent or family member or enter into a partnership arrangement with us. We offer training courses to suit workers who may advocate for parents and families involved with child welfare services, such as mental health adult support workers, or domestic violence workers, to enable them to have a more detailed understanding of child welfare law and child protection procedures and the suitable skills to advocate in child protection processes. What is the impact of professional advocacy? The latest evaluation found: • 97% of parents and family members felt that our advocacy service had been helpful and • 46% felt it had made a difference to the outcome of their case. (Fraser C and Featherstone B, Evaluation of Family Rights Group’s professional advocacy service (2011) The evaluators spoke to parents, social workers, case conference chairs, and heads of service. How we work The service was initially developed and piloted using the Protocol on Advice and Advocacy for Parents in Child Protection Cases (developed by the University of Cambridge with funding from the Department of Health) as a model. We continue to base our service on this Protocol – our advocates are highly qualified lawyers, social workers or advocates with comparable experience. Our Protection of Children and Confidentiality Policy describes what information we keep confidential and what information we can’t keep confidential. So that we avoid any conflict of interests when working with families our advocates will not represent a family member if another family member is already a client of the team in connection with the same problem/issue. For details see our Conflict of Interest Policy. Codes and Standards In 2009 we published national family advocacy standards with other stakeholders. Service users and key stakeholders were involved in drafting the Code of conduct for professional advocates and Professional Advocacy services, principles and standards.

- 6 updates Blood donors between 18 and 40 years-old are now in high demand, after donations rapidly declined by 50 per cent in 12 months. Michelle Morris, a young donor from Leicestershire, told ITV Central that she Gives Blood because she knows that she's saving lives. NHS Blood and Transplant Services are appealing for young people to donate blood, after seeing a 50 per cent donation decline in the last 12 months. Over 100 people attended a Give Blood event at Broughton Astley Village Hall in Leicestershire today. Holly Mason, Lead Donor Manager in Leicestershire, says that blood donations from young adults have rapidly declined in the last decade. Nicola Grantham from Nuneaton lost a lot of blood after giving birth to her daughter. She says "I might not have been here if it wasn't for that blood." NHS Blood and Transplant service says more people are needed to donate blood which could help save lives. Holly Mason from the NHS Blood and Transplant service says there are concerns that fewer people will donate blood this year because of major events like the Olympics. Latest ITV News reports The NHS is warning that the unusually high number of public events in the UK during 2012 could prevent people from donating blood.

For Release: January 11, 2011 Dave Finley, Public Information Officer Dr. Scott Ransom, an astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), received the American Astronomical Society's (AAS) Helen B. Warner Prize on January 11, at the society's meeting in Seattle, Washington. The prize is awarded annually for "a significant contribution to observational or theoretical astronomy during the five years preceding the award." Dr. Scott Ransom and Dr. Debra Elmegreen, AAS President. Presented by AAS President Debra Elmegreen, the prize recognized Ransom "for his astrophysical insight and innovative technical leadership enabling the discovery of exotic, millisecond and young pulsars and their application for tests of fundamental physics." "Scott has made landmark contributions to our understanding of pulsars and to using them as elegant tools for investigating important areas of fundamental physics. We are very proud that his scientific colleagues have recognized his efforts with this prize," said NRAO Director Fred K.Y. Lo. A staff astronomer at the NRAO since 2004, Ransom has led efforts using the National Science Foundation's Green Bank Telescope and other facilities to study pulsars and use them to make advances in areas of frontier astrophysics such as gravitational waves and particle physics. In 2010, he was on a team that discovered the most massive pulsar yet known, a finding that had implications for the composition of pulsars and details of nuclear physics, gravitational waves, and gamma-ray bursts. Ransom also is a leader in efforts to find and analyze rapidly-rotating millisecond pulsars to make the first direct detection of the gravitational waves predicted by Albert Einstein. In other work, he has advanced observational capabilities for finding millisecond pulsars in globular clusters of stars and investigated how millisecond pulsars are formed. A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY, Ransom served as an artillery officer in the U.S. Army. After leaving the Army, he earned a Ph.D. at Harvard University in 2001, and was a postdoctoral fellow at McGill University before joining the NRAO in 2004. Ransom will deliver his Warner Prize Lecture, entitled "Millisecond Pulsars: The Gifts that Keep on Giving," at the AAS meeting on Tuesday, January 11, 2011, at 3:40 p.m., Pacific Time.

By Ray Stern By Ray Stern By New Times By Amy Silverman By Stephen Lemons By Stephen Lemons By Monica Alonzo By Chris Parker In 2007, having served with distinction during two deployments to Iraq and one to Afghanistan, U.S. Air Force firefighter John Brownfield Jr. took a job as a corrections officer at the maximum-security federal prison in Florence, Colorado, 40 miles south of Colorado Springs. Ten months later, prison officials caught the former senior airman smuggling tobacco to at least seven inmates at the facility and accepting at least $3,500 in payoffs. The U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado charged the 22-year-old combat veteran with bribery by a public official. Brownfield pleaded guilty. Two years later, Sergeant Dreux Perkins returned home from a combat stint in Baghdad — his second overseas tour of duty with the U.S. Army — received his honorable discharge and went to work as a correctional officer at the medium-security Federal Correctional Institution in Greenville, Illinois, 50 miles east of St. Louis. This past May, the FBI confronted Perkins with evidence that he'd accepted at least $2,600 in payoffs for smuggling cigarettes into the prison. The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Illinois indicted the 23-year-old decorated war veteran for bribery by a federal official, two counts of wire fraud, and two counts of making a false statement to a federal law officer. Perkins pleaded guilty. The two soldiers have never met, but the similarities between them go deeper than their parallel career-to-crime trajectories. Though he had not been formally diagnosed, Brownfield manifested symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder. A pre-sentencing report in the former soldier's case noted "incidents of his alcohol abuse, excessive sexual activity, fighting in bars, and domestic violence." Perkins was diagnosed with PTSD, after he sought counseling at the VA St. Louis Healthcare System. A psychologist there diagnosed him with the disorder, but Perkins was already in a downward spiral he could not control, gambling the nights away at St. Louis-area casinos and, as his losses mounted to the point where he couldn't pay the mortgage on the home he'd bought, smuggling cigarettes into the prison in return for cash. In the federal court system, the fates of the two young soldiers diverged. Before sentencing, Brownfield's attorney asked Senior U.S. District Judge John L. Kane to take into account his client's military service and his PTSD-like symptoms. The federal prosecutor handling the case sought a prison term of one year and one day. Kane ignored the sentencing guidelines and sentenced Brownfield to five years' probation. "Figuratively speaking, Brownfield returned from the war but never really came home," Kane wrote in a detailed 30-page sentencing memorandum, adding: "We are now, in a manner of speaking, charting unknown waters." Perkins' lawyer also asked for leniency, citing his client's PTSD, pathological gambling addiction, and a letter from his psychologist recommending treatment in a VA-operated residential program. U.S. District Judge Michael J. Reagan sentenced Perkins to 2 1/2 years in federal prison. While officials in federal courts have gained an increased understanding of combat-related PTSD in recent years, a seemingly related mental illness — pathological gambling — remains largely overlooked, despite a growing body of scientific research suggesting that gambling addictions are alarmingly common among servicemen returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. For afflicted servicemen who commit crimes post-deployment, the prospect of getting paired with a sympathetic judge amounts to a roll of the dice. "Gambling, just like drugs, allows you to keep distress, depression, and anxiety at bay and remain in control of your own mind," says Minneapolis VA Health Care System staff psychiatrist Dr. Joseph J. Westermeyer, a professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School. "So for veterans who are distraught — maybe thinking they're [cowards] because they lived and their comrades died — they sometimes think gambling can save them." In 2011, Westermeyer, who has studied addiction for 40 years and served for a time as the Minneapolis VA's director of mental-health services, completed a VA-funded study that delivered a jolt to his profession. He looked at the gambling behaviors of 2,185 vets who sought treatment at least once in the prior two years, either at the Minneapolis VA or at the New Mexico VA Health Care System. He found that 2 percent had a pathological gambling addiction and another 8 percent had a gambling problem — statistics that are double the rates commonly found in surveys of civilian populations. The data portend a greater problem in the future, judging by the shockingly high number of younger veterans who exhibited so-called problem gambling — often a precursor to (and thus a major predictor of) pathological gambling. On February 8, with a week of freedom between him and the scheduled onset of his prison term, Perkins nurses a Bud Light at a sparsely populated sports-themed restaurant in Troy, Illinois. At 26, he has the look of a broken man. His voice is soft and gravelly, his gaze distant. He's wearing a T-shirt that smells like the cigarette he just caught outside. The 180-pound soldier who manned an armored personnel vehicle in Iraq is now a saggy-gutted convict-to-be, having packed on 45 new ones. It gets worse: A day ago, Perkins and his girlfriend learned that the baby she is carrying has no heartbeat. Tomorrow, she is scheduled to deliver the couple's stillborn fetus, five months after conception.

Several things in the news warrant our attention today, so we’ll only touch upon each one lightly, not necessarily in their order of social or economic importance. Let’s start with the inevitable fate of the wind generator farms in Maine: If you’ve read any newspapers from Amsterdam over the past few months, you have probably learned that the picturesque Dutch windmills are soon to be a thing of the past. According to Wolkenkrabbers, the Dutch news service, many youngsters in Holland say the ancient windmills are blights on the landscape and should be removed. “The windmills spoil our view,” Jeannette Boon said as she bent over to pluck a wilted yellow tulip, “and every morning, when the sun comes up, that old thing,” and she pointed an accusing finger, “creates a shadow on my solar panels.” Tourists planning to visit The Lowlands this summer will find most of the iconic windmills still in place. “They’ve served their purpose,” a young man in Groningen said. “But they are ugly and come fall we’re cutting them up and burning them for firewood.” The famous Holland Windmill Delft Blue plates have already been redesigned and in 2014 will sport pictures of Canadian-made solar panels. How do we choose our leaders? Do many of your very intelligent, well-educated friends predicate their votes on economic issues — or on how a candidate presents himself/herself on a platform? The greatest economic genius might lisp or stutter, and therefore be automatically eliminated as a candidate for an office for which he or she might be eminently qualified. Meanwhile, a person able to sway the masses with his rhetoric and turn out thousands to cheer him (with misspelled signs) at his parades and rallies might well belong in a mental institution for the criminally insane. Has it escaped your attention that gender and posture still play a major role when it comes to choosing a leader in this land of equal opportunity? Perhaps it is genetically programmed into us, but, if you think about it, isn’t the American man’s ideal leader a broad-shouldered, booty-seeking giant wearing a horned helmet who steps onto the foreign soil with a large bronze axe in his hand? OPEN FOR BUSINESS We read that a Maine legislator “will introduce legislation to censure LePage.” Would this be a silly and unprecedented thing to do to a leader who has made national headlines since his first day in office? Aren’t most Mainers glad to see our state finally being run like a business? Years ago I sent out an email to some friends, asking them to tell me about the advantages of preheating my hot water with solar energy before running it through the electric hot water heater. The roof on one side of my house faces east and the other side faces west. I have no southern exposure. So I said I’d have half the solar collectors on the east side to catch the morning sun and the other half of the solar collectors on the west side to collect the afternoon sun. My friend Dr. Jerry wrote right back and said, “Thinking about your roof orientation, I would disagree with the idea of putting up one collector facing east and the other facing west: One would always be in the shade, radiating part of the heat that the other one collected, unless you set up a system that would alternate automatically and only accept water from the one that was being heated.” Yes — why not set up a system that only accepts the water from the side that is being heated? You know — if you don’t know anything about the matter at hand, you can come up with solutions to problems that stump the experts. At the time, I saw no reason why I couldn’t get the maximum amount of heat morning and afternoon. I must admit my thinking wasn’t original. I got the idea from a Sherlock Holmes story about a man who had one wife in London and another one in Paris. You might have read of the recent Lewiston brawl involving “40 or 50 poor people.” How could they be called poor? Have you checked the prices of tattoos and baseball bats lately? The humble Farmer can be seen on Community Television in and near Portland, heard on WMPG Community Radio and visited at his website:

Arum: I Don't Give Victor Ortiz Much of a Chance to Win By Robert Morales Earlier this week, Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum was asked to handicap next Saturday's big welterweight fight between Victor Ortiz and Floyd Mayweather Jr. As he always does, he gave an opinion that suits his needs - in this case, millions upon millions of dollars promoting a fight between his company superstar, Manny Pacquiao, and Mayweather being the opponent in other corner. "I think Ortiz is a good, young fighter," Arum said. "But he's really inexperienced and in fighting Floyd he's fighting a guy who really knows boxing. So I don't give Ortiz much of a chance to beat Mayweather." Arum probably is right. But he will be the first one to bellow "Oh, no" if Ortiz wins because he wants Pacquiao-Mayweather. "They have to come to the table after November," Arum said of Mayweather and his team. "If they come to the table, that's our first choice. But we're not going to chase them." [QUOTE=amayseng;11112862]i hope ortiz wins just for the fact that floyd doesnt deserve the payday against pac after going of vaca for these years and letting his fans and the boxing public down while claiming to be the best ever without…Comment by Paranormal on 09-10-2011 [QUOTE=big_james10;11115652]Dude, did you know that Floyd is making three times as much money to fight Ortiz as Pac is making against Marquez. Did you know that Floyd's guarantee against Mosley was four times what Pac's guarantee was against Mosley and…Comment by big_james10 on 09-10-2011 [QUOTE=amayseng;11112862]i hope ortiz wins just for the fact that floyd doesnt deserve the payday against pac after going of vaca for these years and letting his fans and the boxing public down while claiming to be the best ever without…Comment by big_james10 on 09-10-2011 [QUOTE=-Genesis-;11112366]I had a dream that Ortiz Controled the first 5 rds even hurting May, but then May took over. I had another dream two months back where Ortiz dropped may in the first rd with one punch. I hope the…Comment by big_james10 on 09-10-2011 [QUOTE=Pullcounter;11112219]arum knows wifebeater doesn't fight anyone he knows he can't beat...[/QUOTE] Good point. That is why he will be fighting Pacquaio in May 2012.Post a Comment - View More User Comments (35)

Possible Draft Day Trades New Orleans Gets: 3rd pick Charlotte Gets: J.R. Smith and 12th and 15th pick Phoenix gets: 13th pick Philadelphia gets: 21st and 27 pick Houston gets: 5th overall pick Atlanta gets: 8th overall pick and Luther Head I think these three trades make sense for all teams. Charlotte gets their shooting guard plus depth with two picks and New Orleans moves up. Phoenix gets their man (Saer Sene) while jumping ahead of Utah and Philly gets their man (Shawne Williams) at a better value. Houston gets their guy (Brandon Roy) which nullifies Head's loss and Atlanta gets their guy (Shelden Williams) at a better value. What do y'all think Not sure of the Bobcats trade With the public not fully sold on the Bobcats after Shinn's messy exit, I'm not sure the 'Cats would be will to take on a young player with questionable habits. Also, dealing with the Hornets could be seen as unpopular as well. I just don't think Mike would bite on this one. The other deals make a lot of sense. WTF will the Sixers do with the 21rst and 27th picks? Ill smack them. They are taking BPA at 13. |All times are GMT -4. The time now is 12:02 AM.| Powered by vBulletin Version 3.5.4

What Makes Your Kid Tick When my two daughters were born, I met two girls who would one day become successful young women, but via different paths. Before they were even a few days old, each showed a distinct and inborn personality. Gabrielle, the oldest, was a quiet baby and a silent observer of social situations. She tended to think about a situation prior to moving into it. Davita, born three and a half years later, was louder and, once she became mobile, moved more aggressively and physically into social situations. She would think about them after the fact. She would even jump right in to debate something just for the sake of debating aggressively. You may have sensed that your own child has what I call a "core nature": particular strengths, vulnerabilities, qualities, and tendencies that have been there from day one. Have you ever heard yourself saying, for instance, "Jeffrey just came out of the womb that way," or "Hannah has been focused on being an athlete since she was born"? If so, your instincts are on the money. Recent genetic and brain research supports the theory that certain aspects of people are hard-wired from the start. Among the inborn traits that we now know to be on each child's genome are: - personality type - emotional/relational style - learning style - gender differences - talent set and proclivities - inherent strengths and weaknesses - resilience to trauma That's a profound and useful list. When you know your child down to the core, you are empowered to help guide him through his childhood more organically. You can tailor your discipline style, the school you choose for him, learning methods used, the caregiver you hire, and if and when to schedule his activities, among so much more. In short, you can "nurture the nature" of your child. What the Research Shows Over the past 30 years or so, it has been popular to think of children as blank slates to be "filled in." So we've engaged in constant cognitive stimulation, competitive parenting, and multiple activities, and we've followed social trends advice from experts and the media. Unfortunately, this has snared families in a chaotic social system of high pressure overscheduling and under-nurturing, which in turn is causing negative stress in children and adults. In kids, this stress manifests itself as crankiness, sleep disturbance, moodiness, bad eating habits, obesity, disrespect of parents, or dislike of school. Of course, stimulation, competition, and expert opinion can be right for a given child at a given time. I'm not suggesting you discard parenting techniques that work for you and your child. But research shows those choices really work best when we consider aspects of a child's self. Success for children, we are discovering, comes as much from adapting parenting and education to individual kids as it does from trying to teach all kids the same way. A 6-year-old boy who is a spatial-kinesthetic learner, for instance, is hard-wired for movement. He probably won't respond to "use your words" as well as the verbal-emotive learner happily planted in his seat. One size does not fit all. Wisdom of Practice Parents I've worked with grasp the idea of adapting their child-rearing through what I call "wisdom of practice." Through observation, investigation, and trial and error at home, in school, and the community, they have learned to direct their nurturing to the innate assets, proclivities, and specific vulnerabilities of their children. For example, Jennifer's mom realized that her daughter's temperament needed more specific challenge and less blanket praise. "She was getting very entitled and had developed quite an attitude. We realized she needed more criticism from us, fewer things, and more direction." Similarly, Tim's mom noticed her son's personality is very introverted. "For 12 years he has avoided large groups, but he resents them, too, and he sometimes picks fights for no reason. Once we realized he was having trouble with his own personality, we stopped pushing him toward groups, like football and basketball, and focused on helping him find and keep one best friend." Parents who focus on the core nature of their children can help them develop many abilities, including: - seeking out and learning what they need to know - completing tasks and setting goals - finding a purpose in life - de-stressing and recharging when needed - enjoying play and outdoors time, even as adults - communicating in relationships Creating a Profile You probably already know a lot about your child's nature, but to delve deeper, you can start developing a profile of your child. Ask grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers, mentors, and friends to help you assess who your child is. You can even talk to your kids about it. This can be a wonderful bonding experience that children enjoy because they feel they are being respected. You can begin to make adjustments to your parenting at home, and by extension, directly affect your child's life in the classroom. Start by looking at all the activities in your child's life, including his media consumption, and prepare to make a new plan for how your child will approach learning. Back to school is the perfect time to put this new plan in place. The first major change you may want to make is to cut back on the number of activities your child participates in. Overstimulation is dangerous to the brain because of the high stress it causes and the related developmental trauma that can occur. Try using a "3 Plus 1" approach for his new schedule: Plan on one cognitive activity (such as school), one social activity (Girl Scouts or another group), one physical activity (soccer? gymnastics?), plus one "bonus" activity that exactly fits your child's budding talent set. For instance, if your child is really good at sports, the "plus one" might be a second sport. If it's music, it might be lessons. You can support and encourage your child's core nature in numerous ways. For the 4 to 6 year old just entering the world of education, it's good to keep in mind that students develop at their own pace. Some will read well; others will develop more slowly. Try to steer clear of measuring your child against others academically and be patient. Additionally, children this age begin to ask meaningful questions about how they fit into society. Who am I? Am I a good person? Is there a God? Try to provide meaningful answers, while stimulating his mind through books, opportunities for creative play, and educational media. By the time your child is 7 to 10 years old, her personality is "set." Her school-age brain is a sponge, so provide opportunities to learn new skills, but be cautious about overscheduling. Downtime is crucial for this age group. Let her have at least an hour a day to herself doing "nothing" — reading, playing, listening to music. During the years 11 through 14, your child is learning to adapt to social and internal stimulation. It is crucial for you to stay strong — and adapt. Stay true to your present value assumptions — and adapt. Help your child learn from each failure and success in all his relationships. Be ready for any question, and answer first with something encouraging and welcoming, like, "That's a good question." Make sure your child knows he can speak openly to you without fear of shame or attack. We have been parenting on this planet for thousands of years. And for most of them, we trusted our own instincts to guide us through child-rearing. If we can return to our instincts, while considering the best modern research into how our children's brains work, we'll be golden for thousands of years to come. Recommended Products for Your Child Ages 6-13

I hope your getting ready to have a wonderful Summer weekend. I run Dazzling Daily Deals and I thought you might enjoy a few great deals and freebies to kick off your Summer: Kids bowl FREE all Summer "Welcome to the Mom Bloggers Club! I hope you enjoy your time here! I write a blog called The Adventures of J-Man and MillerBug. I wanted to let you know about a few special events that are going on there that I would love for…" Just wanted to share my blog with you :) Little Boys are Made of Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails I host a blog hop for moms every Tuesday! Come link up with us...it's a great way to get new followers! "Hello, welcome to Mom Bloggers Club. MBC is one of the largest social network for mom bloggers. It is a place where moms who blog converge to talk about the latest trends in blogging and support each other in their blogging endeavors and a place to…" "Welcome to the Mom Bloggers Club! I wanted to invite you to link up at my Tasty Thursday Recipe Swap Blog Hop. If you leave a comment, I will like you back. Have a great night! -The How To Mommy I'm fairly new to MBC myself and wanted to welcome you. I am a part-time family doctor and full-time mom of 4 boys. I have a parenting website. On the site I accept questions from parents about their kids' behavior and offer…" I wanted to let you know that I am following you, and hoping when you get a chance you can follow me back. I also want to invite you to join my groups, The Blog Hop Network, Beauty Bloggers, and Children's businesses. Also, I would love to place a link to your site on my blog if you want to do the same with my blog on yours. Please let me know by sending me an email regarding this and it has been nice meeting you via the web. Welcome to the Mom Bloggers Club! I hope you enjoy your time here! I write a blog called The Adventures of J-Man and MillerBug. I wanted to let you know about a few special events that are going on there that I would love for you to particiate in! First, come join up for our weekend blog hop! It's going on NOW and is a great way to find new followers and meet some new friends. You can find more information on that HERE. Also, I am having a fantastic celebration since I reached 1,000 followers with a grand prize worth more than $550! I would love for you to join in! You can enter to win by clicking HERE. Below is a little sneak peak of all the goodies you could be winning! The giveaway ends this Monday so be sure to get your entries in soon! While you are there, be sure to check out my other giveaways! I have some fabulous baby items up for grabs right now! They are a don't miss! I hope to see you at my blog! And be sure when you visit to leave a comment with your blog URL so that I can be sure to follow you back! I would also like to invite you to join my team as an Independent Scentsy consultant. It's the perfect way to be a stay at home mom and a successful business entrepreneur! It's simple - you get paid to party! Scentsy makes wickless candles and other fragrance products. Wickless candles are safe for homes with kids and pets! Whether you want to make a little extra money or quit your job to be a stay at home mom, I will get you there! Please let me know if you have any questions! Hello, welcome to Mom Bloggers Club. MBC is one of the largest social network for mom bloggers. It is a place where moms who blog converge to talk about the latest trends in blogging and support each other in their blogging endeavors and a place to make new friends. I review, blog and sell children’s books & gifts. My blog link is http://mymcbooks.wordpress.com. I will be stopping by your blog. Most parents find that training their non-disabled children for life's activities is challenging enough. However, parents of physically challenged children have to be especially creative to make sure that their young people learn the daily life skills that they need to be self-sufficient. Occupational… As mentioned, positive parental authority is built on values such as: personal example, good communication, seeing the goals of others, seeing others, tolerance and mutual respect, each according to his own set of values. Values are part of a framework of defined and given boundaries. In order for you to…

The championship banners and retired jerseys hanging along the Staples Center rafters represent what continuously drives the Lakers’ franchise. The two NBA titles the Miami Heat has collected in the past two seasons illustrate what drives theirs. But when the Lakers (13-15) host the Heat (21-6) in a marquee Christmas Day matchup at Staples Center, this hardly will serve as an NBA Finals preview as many wrongly anticipated three years ago. Far from it. The Heat rank second behind the Indiana Pacers in a mediocre Eastern Conference. The Lakers remain 10th in a competitive Western Conference. Miami has LeBron James in his prime with no signs of slowing down. The Lakers have Kobe Bryant, who remains five weeks from returning because of a fractured left knee. The Heat has Dwyane Wade, who’s mostly played this season through aches and pains. The Lakers have Steve Nash, whose nerve issues in his back have kept him mostly sidelined. When the Lakers and Heat take the court today they also will represent a case study on how two teams going in opposite directions build a championship roster this offseason amid a labor deal that punishes high-spending teams. James, Wade and Chris Bosh teamed up three years ago and boasted they’d win “multiple championships.” They won two out of three NBA Finals appearances. But with each of them having the chance to opt out of their contract in the 2014 offseason, will the Heat have the funds to keep all three? Larry Coon, an independent NBA salary cap expert who works as an IT director at UC Irvine, estimated James, Wade and Bosh would have to trim off at least $12 million to $16 million off their combined $60 million salary to ensure that happens. This season, all NBA teams that spent over the luxury-tax threshold at $71.5 million paid more luxury taxes in hopes to increase more parity and decrease more bloated contracts. The cost entailed a ratio depending on how much teams spent over the tax threshold, including $1.50-to-$1 ratio for the first $4.99 million, $1.75-to $1 ratio between $5-$9.99 million, a $2.5-$1 ratio for $10 million to $14.99 million over and a $3.25 ratio for $15 million to $19.99 million. This offseason also marks the first time NBA teams will have to pay a so-called “repeater tax.” “They can have a big three,” ESPN analyst Jeff Van Gundy said. “It’s more about how many owners are willing to go into the luxury tax and pay the penalties. The profit margins of these owners in the bigger markets, they make a ton of profit. How many of them are willing to reinvest in their teams? “But the Lakers have always proven they will pay for elite level talent.” The Lakers showed that with Bryant by signing him to a two-year, $48.5 million extension before he even returned from a left Achilles tendon injury that sidelined him for eight months. But it also could yield some consequences. The deal marked a pay cut from the $30.5 million he’s earning this season, but Bryant remained the NBA’s highest paid player at the expense of maximizing the Lakers’ financial flexibility. Bryant’s deal will enable the Lakers only to pursue one max-level free agent instead of two within the next two years. The 2014 candidates include James, Carmelo Anthony, Zach Randolph, Rudy Gay and Luol Dang. The 2015 candidates include Kevin Love, Rajon Rondo, LaMarcus Aldridge and Marc Gasol. In 2016, stars such as Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook will hit the open market. “This simply pushes the Lakers’ strategy to have financial flexibility back a year to where there are better free agents,” Coon said. “But what it doesn’t do is get Kobe more rings before he retires. His choice could’ve been the money or the possibility of more rings.” The Lakers argue otherwise. Bryant hasn’t spoken to reporters since fracturing his left knee last week. But shortly after signing his extension he downplayed whether his deal significantly hampered the team’s financial flexibility. “I think the fans are, God bless them, they’re fans and have good intentions and a good spirit about it,” Bryant said. “But I don’t think they understand the cap or what strategically the Lakers are trying to do better than the Lakers do. I think we’ll be all right.” “There’s a lot of ways in addition to being able to pursue a free agent that you can pursue,” Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak said of the team’s cap flexibility. “We have done some things in the past where we have used it to our advantage.” The Lakers last year found out money doesn’t secure NBA championships. The Lakers shelled out a $100 million payroll to feature a starting lineup with Bryant, Nash, Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol and Metta World Peace. But that lineup fell apart in a first-round sweep to the San Antonio Spurs amid overlapping injuries and player and coach agendas. In similar fashion, the Brooklyn Nets also are discovering a $187 million payroll has yielded only more misery. The Nets (9-18) paired expensive acquisitions (Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce) with high-priced holdovers (Deron Williams, Brook Lopez) and a rookie coach (Jason Kidd). The Lakers took a different approach last offseason. Before Bryant’s signing, the Lakers only had three players under contract next season, including Nash ($9.7 million), Nick Young ($1.2 million) and Robert Sacre ($915,243). Should Nash’s back issue persist, they could waive him next season via the so-called stretch provision. The Lakers could trade Gasol, let him leave or sign him at a reduced price from the $19.3 million he makes this season. Meanwhile, the Lakers signed a roster full of castoffs on one-year deals at the veteran’s minimum. Not only has that created a locker room full of hungry players willing to do anything to secure an NBA future, but it also ensured breakout performances for role players such as Xavier Henry, Wesley Johnson and Young. “There are other manipulations and trades that you can possibly get due to the fact that you’re playing so many young players and developing value there,” ESPN NBA analyst Hubie Brown said. “For those combinations, that could possibly bring you something else.” How that plays out remains to be seen. But even with a changing landscape, there’s a certain equity that the Lakers have built through 16 NBA titles. “I never discount the Lakers’ ability when they are in need of injecting more talent into their roster,” Van Gundy said. “They have a history of making the right moves.”

The Atomic Weight of Secrets or The Arrival of the Mysterious Men in Black: The Young Inventors Guild, Book One In 1903, five truly brilliant young inventors, the children of the world's most important scientists, are taken from their lives and their parents by the mysterious men in black and left at an isolated farmhouse in Dayton, Ohio. Who are the men in black? Are the men in black trying to kidnap them--or protect them? And if they're trying to protect them--from what? More In 1903, five truly brilliant young inventors, the children of the world's most important scientists, went about their lives and their work as they always had. But all that changed the day the men in black arrived. They arrived to take twelve-year-old Jasper Modest and his six-year-old sister, Lucy—he with his remarkable creations and she with her perfect memory—from their London, England home to a place across the ocean they'd never seen before. They arrived to take nine-year-old Wallace Banneker, last in a long line of Africa-descended scientists, from his chemistry, his father, and his New York home to a life he'd never imagined. Twelve-year-old Noah Canto-Sagas, already missing his world-famous and beloved mother, was taken from Toronto, Canada, carrying only his clothes, his violin, and his remarkable mind. And thirteen-year-old Faye Vigyanveta, the genius daughter of India's wealthiest and most accomplished scientists, was removed by force from her life of luxury. From all across the world, they've been taken to mysterious Sole Manner Farm, and a beautiful but isolated schoolhouse in Dayton, Ohio, without a word from their parents as to why. Not even the wonderful schoolteacher they find there, Miss Brett, can explain it. She can give them love and care, but she can't give them answers. Things only get stranger from there. What is the book with no pages Jasper and Lucy find in their mother's underwear drawer, and why do the men in black want it so badly? How is it all the children have been taught the same bizarre poem—and yet no other rhymes or stories their entire lives? And why haven't their parents tried to contact them? Whatever the reasons, to brash, impetuous Faye, the situation is clear: They and their parents have been kidnapped by these terrible men in black, and the only way they're going to escape and rescue their parents is by completing the invention they didn't even know they were all working on—an invention that will change the world forever. But what if the men in black aren't trying to harm the children? What if they're trying to protect them? And if they're trying to protect them—from what? An amazing story about the wonders of science and the still greater wonders of friendship, The Atomic Weight of Secrets or the Arrival of the Mysterious Men in Black, the first book of the Young Inventors Guild trilogy, is a truly original novel. Young readers will forever treasure Eden Unger Bowditch's funny, inventive, poignant, and wonderfully fun fiction debut.

View Full Version : B/W: Unova's Autumn Festival - Blog Event March 3rd, 2011, 5:12 AM [css-div=height:940px;width:634px;border: 1px dashed #c04850;padding-top:6px;padding-left:10px;padding-right:10px;letter-spacing:1px;]March 3 - March 18 Unova Autumn Festival - Blog Competition Have you ever wanted a PC blog? Well, keep reading! In this thread exclusively, we'll be asking for people to write a review about how they felt when they first played the games "Black and White" / explored Unova, following the prompt below: A Brand New Adventure This can be anything about the start of the games - the atmosphere, how the music made the games better, anything really. It would also help if you gave some background information on the games too if possible. Either way, just write a review and don't forget to follow the rules! Rules.1. Your review must be at least 10 lines long. You can check "quick reply" to see how many lines your review takes up. 2. Anyone can enter, but only those without PC blogs will ultimately win both a PC blog and an emblem. 3. You don't need to post about Black and White with your new PC blog if you win. 4. Your review HAS to be about Black and White. That's about it, you have now until the 18th to submit your entry in this thread, but please don't discuss your entries, this thread is only for submissions. March 3rd, 2011, 10:22 AM So I just post this here? As a Pokémon addict, I was pumped when Pokémon Black and White were announced, and Zoroark was revealed. I already knew the other games from heart, and this would be a completely new adventure, where everything was unknown, even the Pokémon. Soon after its Japanese release, I got myself a copy of Pokémon Black. The first thing you notice when you start playing the game is that the conversations are much better. Granted, the main character doesn’t speak, but the NPCs seemed to have pretty realistic conversations, although I can’t read Japanese. Cheren was even impatiently tapping with his foot. And then, the first battle. You get to pick one of three brand new starter Pokémon, and after that, your rivals immediately demand a fight. The first person you battle is Bel, or Bianca as she is called now. The aesthetics of the battle scene are simply amazing. Of course, it has been all over the internet and it was shown in commercials, but… The Pokémon move. All the time. It’s amusing to watch the animation of a Pokémon you have not yet encountered, because every Pokémon has different habits, either standing almost still, jumping around, spinning, flying, or even pulling up pants that fall down all the time. After you beat Bianca, your room is completely messed up, there are even footprints on the wall. Of course, now Cheren wants to battle you, and after that, you are free to go out and explore Unova. During your travels you will meet Team Plasma, an organisation aiming to free all Pokémon from their trainers, be it by pursuing them or even steal their Pokémon. You also meet a mysterious trainer called N, who claims to hear the voices of Pokémon. Pokémon Black and white are two beautiful games with better graphics, more interesting mechanics and a better plot than their predecessors. With the seasons changing every month, you will keep finding things you were not able to access earlier. You will only find new Pokémon in Unova, which will give old and newer players the same gaming experience. With eight new gyms and a new Pokémon League, Pokémon Black and White provide a difficult challenge. For fans of the Pokémon merchandise, this is of course a new game that you need ini your collection. But these games are also fun for newcomers to the series, and might just keep them hooked to the games for a lifetime. March 5th, 2011, 3:22 PM I got up 9 a.m, as I heard my cat, Tuxedo, meowing for food (As usual XD) and the only thing on my mind: Pokémon White. So after feeding Tuxedo, my dad drove me to Wal-Mart to get this long-anticipating game. As soon as we walk in, I can see children everywhere so I want to get the game as soon as possible, but all my Dad wanted to do was look at Clearance Sale shirts for $3. Somehow I managed to get him away from the racks and towards Electronics. As I headed towards the video game shelf, I saw that they were being sold by the cashier so I made a beeline right to it. It seems A LOT of people wanted White as me since that's all I saw being asked for. Poor Black XD. I also noticed they had Special Edition handbooks on sale next to the games. At first, I thought I didn't need it, but I couldn't resist getting such a prize so I bought it too. x.x The drive home seemd to take forever as all I wnated to do was play my game. When we finally came home, I went straight to my room fetch my DSi. I then opened up the box, and gently pulled out the cartridge. It looked great. But trying to contain my excitement, I first examined the box and the pamphlets, realizing I had actually got the game. I couldn't wait any longer, so I put the game in, turned on the DSi and watch the opening sequence start. Even though I had seen the opening before, it seemed to be better watching it play on my DS screen. March 6th, 2011, 9:54 PM Please only post your reviews in this thread from now on - no more reserved posts, thanks. March 7th, 2011, 6:30 AM My Review: A Brand New Adventure! It felt like I had been waiting for years - even though it had been little more than a few weeks - and finally the day had come. A quick trip to the local supermarket had resulted in the possession of my newest holy grail of video games: Pokémon White! As soon as I was home, my DSi was plugged in to ensure longevity and my completed and worn-out SoulSilver cartridge was prised from its plastic cove to make room for the newest generation of gameplay. Straight away I knew this was going to be something special. From the first notes of the gently-animated GameFreak logo to the beautiful music that accompanied a gorgeously drawn cutscene - showing a mysterious group of people hailing what appeared to be their new king - my heart began to race. All the excited tension that had been building up in the few days before the game's release was finally coming to a head. Everything felt just perfect. And as the cutscene faded into a segway highlighting moments from my coming journeys, I couldn't take it any more. I hit the A button to take me to the start menu and couldn't help letting out a wistful sigh as I was treated to a fully 3D image of the legendary Zekrom. It was simply stunning that such a level of graphics could be achieved on a handheld console, so much so that I felt intense gratitude to those who had worked so hard on this game. The usual start-of-game exposition began, and immediately I felt a rush of familiarity, safeholding me to the fact that this was a Pokémon game, after all. But that first meeting with the region's professor introduced me to the biggest feature that I had heard so much about already; animated sprites. Not the kind we've seen before, from the two-frame animations of Crystal to the much-debated sprite manipulating of Emerald and back to smooth, simple cycles for HeartGold and SoulSilver. These were proper cycling animations. Professor Juniper, as she was called, was constantly moving, blinking... even her mouth moved as I scrolled the text! I finally understood what all the fuss had been about. It didn't stop there, either. The first moments of the game are ones any player will hold dear, whatever the version they play; the moment you choose your first Pokémon. This time, in a break from tradition, you don't have to head to a laboratory in order to pick one up. Your character and their two friends have been gifted the Pokémon, and since the parcel containing them was delivered to your house, you get to pick first. To some people, this choice is meaningless as they don't intend on using their starter during the game and they simply pick the most useful one so their rivals are forced to choose weaker ones. However, to those who play the game with full intent, the moment you choose your lifelong partner is one of great memories, of distant dreams and hopes, and of intense importance. This is the Pokémon who will accompany you through thick and thin, no matter what the cost. This is the Pokémon who will be your best friend and who will support you through every battle. This is a choice that could affect the rest of your life. At least... that's what I felt. I chose the Pokémon that spoke out to me the most, that looked like it could be a real friend. I chose Snivy. The two characters who were choosing alongside me - I had been assured that they were my childhood friends - were Bianca and Cheren, and they ended up with Oshawott and Tepig respectively. And any veteran player will know what happens next - the first fight with your rival. But how would I fare battling two in a row? Yes, in a break from tradition - yet another, which seems to be the trend for this generation - both starters that you don't pick end up with trainers who will battle you regularly. The first fight is normally not too hard; the starters are pretty balanced, with no elemental attacks that would give them an advantage and no opportunity for a same type attack bonus. As a result, it's not difficult to win both battles. It is difficult, however, to do so without trashing your bedroom completely, which I found to be a humorous little touch from the designers. Little moments like this end up being ones that stand out the most, and that make your journey feel so much more special - attention to detail is high and will leave you amazed that the game designers thought of such a thing. The battle itself is breath-taking; seeing your very first fully-animated Pokémon battle is something to hold onto. When I first saw my little Snivy tapping his foot and nodding his head, I thought it was adorable. Seeing the camera move around, showing both your side and your opponent's and exploring new angles, while you decide which move to use, is something I didn't even notice at first but afterwards thought was incredible clever to include. It's the nearest we have at the moment to Stadium/Battle Revolution-style battles, but on a handheld! In a mainstream Pokémon game! Simply marvelous. A couple of new features introduced at the start of the game are the C-Gear and the Xtransceiver ("cross-transceiver"). The C-Gear is explained within the game and becomes important for wireless and infra-red battling, but the thing that amazed me was the Xtransceiver. As you and your two friends exit on your way out into the big wild world, it's Professor Juniper who activates this, using it to establish a four-way video call between her and your group. The four portraits are displayed on the top screen and simply took my breath away. They were beautiful Sugimori illustrations, complete with blinking animation and lip-flaps as their character dialogue appeared. It was... amazing. I couldn't believe something so graphically gorgeous was being displayed on my lowly old DS. It didn't stop there, either. Next was the first appearance of many by this region's Ratatta - Patrat. I don't know about you, but after ten minutes of gameplay, I was sick to death of Patrat. They're everywhere. Literally everywhere. So it was fitting that Prof. Juniper chose to teach us about catching Pokémon by capturing one of these scurrying rodents. A second look at Pokémon battles in the new generation's style simply confirms how great it is, and increased my respect for GameFreak. They couldn't have done a better job in completely overhauling the battle display if they tried. A quick trip to the lab and a staple of every Pokémon game is finally handed over - the PokéDex. To a trainer, a PokéDex is the ultimate challenge - to catch every Pokémon and to fill every PokéDex page is a great achievement, and one that every trainer strives to beat. Then Cheren, Bianca and I were set loose upon the world. Stepping into route one, the feeling of expectation rose its head once more. It was more that I had expected. It was glorious. The atmosphere of autumn was perfectly emitted by the lush, russet trees and the red-orange falling leaves that floated past the screen as I walked. A brisk breeze flowed through the short grass, creating golden waves of light as the sun shone against each blade. Thick, tall grass offered a hiding place for all manner of Pokémon, and a gentle tune playing in the background accentuated the feelings I was having. This was it. This game was perfection, and nothing could ruin my happy mood. I took my first steps down route one. The start of my brand new adventure. March 7th, 2011, 1:20 PM Pokemon White - The review: It's been a while since I last made a review for a pokemon game. Everything in the game is a masterpiece. The music, the surprisingly new battle systems, the 3D enhancements, almost everything. The game really gives off the excitement what I've first experienced 12 years ago when I first played Pokemon Blue. Every music themes suits well in each cities and towns and they are stuck on my head now. The battle musics aren't worth forgetting either, especially the gym leader battle theme which really boosts up the esteem. The new triple-battle and rotation system are a welcome for the new version. The triple-battles are quite the same as the double-battles that were first introduced in Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire but with a 3-on-3 battle instead of a 2-on-2 battle. The Rotation battle system is a new way of battling in where a triple-battle is implemented. You can rotate your pokemon team's place in any direction you want during your turn which makes your strategies more effective. The gym battles are pretty hard unlike the previous generations(III and IV). More and more the battles gets tougher. I've also noticed the new way of giving out EXP.(Experience Points). The lower-level pokemon will get more EXP than the pokemon that has a higher level if used during a battle and survives. And the higher the level your pokemon gains, the lesser the experience points you'll gain. This new way of giving out EXP makes training a bit easier and harder at the same time. The C-Gear and the Xtransceiver are the new gears of Pokemon. The C-Gear allows you to connect with other people around you and at the same time, it allows you to use the Game-Sync in which you can place one of your pokemon to the Dream World where you can meet up with other pokemon you normally cannot encounter during normal gameplay. the Xtransceiver(Cross-Transceiver) is a new calling device in which if you're using a DSi system, you can make video calls to other people around you. If one would bring their good memories back to the days where Pokemon Red and Blue were one of the biggest hits in North America, for sure one would see how far Pokemon has reached from those days. From the basic 8-bit pixels to 3D gaming experience for a handheld gaming masterpiece. March 7th, 2011, 9:57 PM Pokémon Black - Yes or No? Alright, let's get this started. About... A week ago? Yup, a week ago, my friend got his copy of the Japanese Pokémon Black. I know a little Japanese, so I asked if I could try it when I visited his house, started up the game and see the beautifully place cutscreen. Wow. My favourite part was the star falling on the ground and NINTENDO popping up. XD More seriously though, when I started the game (New Game) I saw Araragi walking in and that big present with Pokémon in it. Me being a Grass- starter lover, I picked up Tsutaarja (Naturally. ;D) After that I got so sucked into the game that by the time I left for home, I had reached the Day Care area. Based on that little all, I'm going to review Black, also based on what I have heard and screenshots. Black / White have excellent graphics, and the new battle interface is very good. I like it how they decided to show us the entirety of the Pokémon's behind-side. Though I must say I like the prospect of Triple Battles, and the reusable TMs are excellent ideas, though painfully difficult to obtain. (The good ones like Psychic / Earthquake, that is.) The EXP gains are different, as I see. I swapped my Lv8 Choroneko for my Lv10 Tsutaarja and the cat gets more EXP? That is a good development, and is SO going to make Magikarp levelling easier. XD Music. That is an interesting aspect of the game: while some themes - like Cheren's / Belle's - are irritating, some others like Team Plasma's is literally music to my ears. Now my favourite part is Plasma's theme, like all generations before. I always liked the villain theme. Some of the attacks, like Sing-Around, are crazy and slightly hard to implement for the boost, but the Oaths were my favourites. Ahem -- my friend cheated to get the Hiyappu you get from the woman near the Lot of Dreams to learn Water Oath, and got Tsutaarja to learn Grass Oath. (Is that even possible...?) Anyway, I liked the effects given for most moves. So Black - Yes or No? Not considering the names, YES! March 8th, 2011, 7:51 PM Pokémon Black and White Versions - Review A Brand New Adventure For All Written by ♪Twiggy♪ A New Generation It's time to say hi to the new generation! It's been a long time since the release of the first Generation IV games, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Versions. The old generation is about to come to an end with the release of the first Generation V games worldwide. This will mark the end of Generation IV for early adopters - and eventually, everyone will have moved on the Generation V. It's time for Pokémon Black and White Versions to make itself stand out - and it does a great job in doing so. Game Freak has poured a lot of effort to these games. Let's take a deeper look at the new titles, shall we? New Locations, New Appearance, New Graphics A new, beautiful and smooth experience! I put the game into my DS and booted it up. After the expected opening stuff... I have to say, even the opening is impressive in its own way. This also marks the first time the main series handheld Pokémon games used premade video - the opening is a video. The video quality is as good as ever, compared to most other DS games with video. No noticable compression artifacts, aside from colour banding caused by the limited bit depth of the DS's screen and GPU. Whatever video codec they were using must be made allowed to be used by other parties! With the new games, comes a new region - the Unova region. (known as the Isshu region in the Japanese versions and names vary by language) The Unova region has a great amount of variety, and it shows. From the rural town of Nuvema, to the big city of Castelia - all the locations show the uniqueness of the locations themselves, thanks to upgraded graphics. Game Freak has decided to improve on the graphics used by the DS Pokémon games in more than one way - building variance, texturing, modeling and image quality. Buildings are more varied than ever, and there is actually a city that looks like a city this time around. The textures used on the world do not look like they were warped pixel art anymore. Cliffs look like cliffs. Buildings themselves have interesting things going on. The border pixel issue that has plagued the Generation IV games were gone with a different rendering method - only polygons that need to be marked will be marked, and not all polygons. Trees aren't sprites anymore. (Or 4-5 sprites taped together in 8-10 polygons.) The best thing out of all the graphical improvements are the breathtaking views of the bridges. Going through the Skyarrow Bridge is an experience you'll never forget. It shows off the improvements really well that it makes Pokémon Platinum Version look dated. Very dated. And that's putting it quite nicely. Besides that, many of the cities have their own unique themes going on for them. Some places also have their backstory, explaining why it is like that. The seasons, while a minor addition, also adds to the experince by introducing new graphical effects and variance to the Pokémon world and make it look prettier than ever. Battle transistions have entered the new era, too. Now it doesn't look out of place compared to the rest of the game. Some of the new battle transistions do look rather funky. Well, it's better for the whole package, huh? It no longer looks like they came out of a Game Boy Advance game anymore. As for the battle graphics, it was improved upon the Generation IV games. Pokémon Black and White introduces a dynamic camera in battles - now, the camera can now move around in battles. It sure makes battles look better! Most of the battle effects are reused from the Generation IV games with tweaks so that they run faster and cleaner. But, wait, there's more! Permanent Pokémon animations - not just entrance animations - are now finally introduced into the main series games! Pokémon are now animated in battles. Well-animated, in fact! Instead of creating individual frames by hand, Game Freak decided to split a Pokémon into multiple parts and animate them separately. This makes for smooth animation with a lot of frames without taking too much effort and storage space. Now your Pokémon are not statues anymore! Some of the animations are quite funny, too! Scraggy, anyone? Most of the interface is cleaned up, too. Compared to the Generation IV games, the new games does away with most of the clutter, prefering to put everything nicely. Of course, it's still based on the interface of the Generation IV games, so it won't look too new. Better than suddenly having to relearn everything, eh? Get your headphones/external speakers ready! The audio has also caught up with the new games. Game Freak decided to include some music which changes depending on the situation, enabling and disabling music layers on-the-fly. Even the old beeping noise when your HP is low was replaced with an all-new tune! Battle sound effects are as good as ever, as good as the DS can manage. However, I did notice some audio dropouts during battles - maximizing audio channels sometimes cause music tracks to drop out when a sound effect is played. The themes for some locations, as well as the battle themes, are catchy as ever. Props to the music composer for that! (Oh, and the audio hardware!) Older Pokémon still keep their old cries. While Generation III and IV Pokémon fits in there properly with PCM cries, the Generation I and II Pokémon cries are from the old Game Boy days, and it sounded out of place in Pokémon Black and White Versions. This is understandable, as it's for consistency's sake. The music is very fitting, as well as catchy. Pokémon Black and White Versions has fitting music for most situations, due to more reliance on its story. All cities and towns have their own music this time around - no two towns or cities share the same music. Route music is catchy as ever and conveys the feeling of being in an adventure well. A lot of people you meet have their own themes. Some of the music found in the games will remind you of other RPGs. Looks like the composer has taken some notes from other games. There are unique battle themes for certain important characters and Pokémon, and I have to say that these themes are also the best of them. No such thing as slow! One of the more common complaints about Generation IV games is the fact that the battles are rather slow compared to the Generation III games. Well, no longer. Pokémon Black and White Versions definitely sped up the game. Instead of 30 FPS as the Generation IV games use in battles, the battles now run in 60 FPS - ensuring smooth and fast action, compared to the minor stuttering in the Generation IV games. The massive amount of microloading in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Versions which caused the pauses during battles are no longer present. The menus are more responsive in the new games, thanks to the fact that the games are no longer locked to 30 FPS - the games now run as fast as possible. 2D menus run at 60 FPS, allowing for faster responses. While the overworld is still at 30 FPS, the amount of slowdown, especially at large cities or interesting locations, is almost nonexistant. The choppiness of biking at Hearthome City is now a distant memory! The actual battle processing is also way, way faster than any of the Generation IV games, with speed comparable to the Generation III games, sometimes even surpassing them. Game Freak has adjusted the text speed so that what used to be Fast is now even faster than before. Before Pokémon Black and White Versions, the normal text speed is too slow, even in the Japanese version of the games. However, this time around, sometimes, "Fast" feels too fast! (And let's not get started on N's hyperfast text. That's a broken fourth wall for you!) Well, at least it's better for the game speed. Much better. I definitely would have preferred that kind of speed! Actual Plot, For Once Game Freak did it, for once. The opening of the games will draw you in. Especially the plot. While Pokémon Platinum Version introduced a proper plot for the first time in a main series handheld Pokémon game, it wasn't until Pokémon Black and White Versions that the plot is important to the game. While players will not miss out on features for not following the plot, this time around, the plot will get people thinking about it. There are now interesting things about people you meet. The plot actually kickstarts within 30 minutes of your first adventure. I'll not talk anymore to prevent spoiling the game. When you play through the whole game, you'll find yourself pondering about the stuff that happened in the game. This has not occured in any other main series Pokémon game before this set of games. Also, let me tell you, you might want to get prepared for certain stuff that you might not expect in the games. Nice Way of Translating Things As usual, excellent localization. The localizers at The Pokémon Company International (hereafter referred to as TPCi) did a great job at localizing the Pokémon, move and location names. All the names are meaningful in a way or another. For location names, they started to use theme naming again - this time, clouds. Theme naming wasn't really present in the Generation III and IV games. TPCi also did a great job in localizing the puns in the Japanese names of the Pokémon... or changing them into relevant puns in the English language. All these changes are necessary so that it is understood by international players. Of course, I also find some Pokédex entries a bit funny. You'll have to see it to believe it! TPCi really went for the extra mile with that, right? At least they are still in the realm of "pretty good" quality. Although the telltale signs of Nob Ogasawara's translation in past Pokémon works are now absent, thanks to a completely different translator working, the quality is still excellent. This time, the dialogue is mostly translated faithfully. Sometimes, a bit too faithfully. "The communication channel must be to be opened to receive Mystery Gifts." Kinda literal, eh? Still, at least, now that we get to experience a different kind of translation work... I'm impressed. All Your Pokémon Design Needs Covered There will be one for you! The Unova region is home to a lot of unique Pokémon never seen before. You thought 151 was a lot? Move over, Generation I - this time around, the Generation V games introduces us to more Pokémon than ever! What's a new generation without new Pokémon? This time, with the new generation, comes new Pokémon for you to choose from, to be your partners in your Pokémon journey. It's obvious that Game Freak is trying to break the mold and change things up in the new generation. Even though some of the Pokémon designs might look silly or something, you should give them a chance. Give it some time, and you'll find yourself loving them. Cute Pokémon, cool Pokémon, tough Pokémon, scary Pokémon, mysterious Pokémon... They have all of them, and there's lots of variety. I'll bet that you will find something that you like, no matter when you started Pokémon - or whether you started Pokémon or not. Take Oshawott for example. You see, when this Pokémon was first revealed, it's pretty much the most hated starter Pokémon due to its... awkward design. But no longer. It's pretty much an adorable Pokémon... that eventually pays you off with awesomeness that is Samurott when you evolve it. Also, it's so cute that you'll probably be going to hug him so hard that it'd have trouble breathing. It's like that for most Pokémon introduced in this new generation. You may not like it in the first sight, but when you give them time, suddenly, you'll be loving them. Loving them a lot. I personally love Snivy, Tepig, Oshawott, Axew and Zekrom. What's your favourite this time around? You'll find something you like. I did. In case you were wondering, yes, there are no old Pokémon in the game until postgame. It's good for a change - they want you to try out all the new Pokémon in the games. Give them a try! Oh, and if you do still want them, you can do so postgame. Or get someone to help you trade them over. Whatever method that suits you. However, the Unova-specific Pokémon are definitely in the limelight! Battle-ready Pokémon On the Go! Fight with your favourites! Hey, what about their battling capabilities? Not to worry! The Pokémon introduced in the new generation is also battle-worthy. Perhaps even better than their older counterparts. And even if it's Pokémon from the previous generations, not to worry! New moves, new strategies, new battle modes and new abilities, granted by the access to Dream World Pokémon will make them shine again. Game Freak has taken a lot of challenges to make all Pokémon usable in some way, and that has shaken up the metagame. The new Pokémon are also of some use ingame, so there's an incentive to use the new Pokémon and other neat things. TMs are now reusable. Remember the time where you find it difficult to use the awesome Earthquake TM you have because you won't be able to use it again without obtaining another TM? No longer! This makes the life of most players, especially competitive battlers, much, much more easier. No such thing as drawbacks, aside from the raised TM cost... ...Raised TM cost? Don't worry, the games now allow you to carry 7-digit sums of money! You probably won't have to worry about hitting the money cap. Just as well, as there are items which are supposed to be sold at a high price, which is also its only purpose. The addition of special NPCs purchasing goods from you should make getting cash even easier. People that gather in the stadiums in Nimbasa City every day is even better for cash and experience - it's fast, it's reliable, and it's always there, unlike the not-so-reliable Vs. Seeker. Losing the Vs. Seeker is not a big loss after all! Really meaty gameplay! The Generation V games, Pokémon Black and White Versions, introduced not one, not two, but three new battle modes for players. The first one, Triple Battle, allows players to send out three Pokémon at once to battle. This reminded me of most other RPGs found on the system, where a 3-member party is common. Strategy is more important in this type of battle, as positioning now matters. A Pokémon located improperly won't be of much use in a battle. Moves are even adjusted to take advantage of the new battle system. The second new battle mode is the Rotation Battle. It's a variant of the Single Battle mode, where you send in three Pokémon at once, but you can only use any one of the Pokémon sent out. This makes prediction important, as you will not know whether you will be hitting the right thing. The third battle mode... Actually, it's more like an addition. The Wonder Launcher makes item usage possible in player-to-player battles, using points gained from battling. Now you can be something like those NPC trainers that constantly use items! As long as you have the points to spare, that is.) The game has become more difficult for the new generation, however, the games do also offer some help. Healing spots are scattered throughout the Unova region, healing your Pokémon for free. It's not just resthouses or Pokémon Centers anymore. Doctors and nurses can, and will help to keep your Pokémon in tip-top condition. Opponent levels were increased relative to the older games, however, there is an experience adjustment formula to compensate for weaker Pokémon. Weaker Pokémon can now actually play catch up, and fast! And there's always Audino for you. Gym Leaders are beefed up this time around. They will now take advantage of any given situation. They are not idiotic. They can pull something now. You'll be sorry if you think you can charge through the leaders with only one Pokémon. Before you say "level grinding", the experience adjustment will make your life difficult. The game now promotes variance on your party. You only need one use of Cut to complete the story. Only purely optional areas require the use of HMs. HMs are not bound to badges (mostly), so if you manage to receive a Pokémon with earlier-than-usual HM moves through a trade, you can use them immediately most of the time. Another new mechanic is the Critical Capture. Well, what does it do? When you throw a Poké Ball of any type, there is a chance that a Critical Capture will occur, dramatically increasing your chance of capturing the Pokémon. One shake is all it takes, compared to the usual three. Rarely a Pokémon with a very low catch rate will escape this. No escape for others! Some Extra Neat Bits Some bonus stuff you have to know! I gotta love TPCi for making the English (and possibly international) versions region free on all systems, even though it's a DSi, DSi XL or 3DS. It sure makes things easier for import gamers and travelers. Also, the games will be able to communicate with games from another region. (Korean versions are not tested yet, as they are not released yet.) Now the games come with a software QWERTY keyboard. Perfect for people who prefer keyboard typing. And it's more convienent, since you do not have to switch pages when you need to change capitalization. Makes typing much, much faster. The new phrase-character input system works like this - you start with a letter and then fill in the rest, looking for matches. There's always the group option, but that method will net you the word/phrase quicker. Using Mystery Gift has become easier. It's even easier than Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver Versions! You can access Mystery Gift even without a proper save file now. If you do have a save file, the maximum amount of Wonder Cards that you can have is now increased to 12! Wonder Card sorting is also introduced, so you'll never have to have a messy Wonder Card album anymore! The Final Conclusion To buy or not to buy? BUY BUY BUY! The new games are, in my opinion, the best Pokémon games yet, no matter what - main series or considering all the other spinoff titles. The almost perfect Pokémon game. The slight blemishes on the game are a minor thing - its sheer amount of good points completely outweigh the bad. Whether you're a die-hard Pokémon fan, just starting up, too nostalgic or even not touched a gaming system, Pokémon Black and White is a great choice. Have you become a Pokémon Trainer today? All the new things make this a brand new adventure. You should get started, too! P.S. Certain online-only stuff will not be in the review due to Global Link being down. Lasting Appeal 10/10 Final Score 10/10 *Note that Final Score is not an average of all scores. March 10th, 2011, 11:57 AM Looking at the above (and below) reviews, I know I already have no chance, but at least I can say I tried. And hey, 100th (1146th) post lucky? I had been highly anticipating this game for a long time. Ever since I saw Zoroark, had a couple of fangasms, and thought to myself "Wow, this looks badass, can't wait to see what the rest of the Pokemon look like!". And, day by day, week by week, it was all gradually revealed, and whilst the majority said things like "Eww these Pokemon are ugly!", or "OMG GAMEFREAK IS RUNNING OUT OF IDEAS!!!!!", or even things like "i coud do betar", I ignored them all, as I thought that these Pokemon were outstanding, in a way that not many others could see. The graphics - massively improved from previous generations - I honestly didn't really like at first. I thought they looked more Animal Crossing than Pokemon. Even when the game was released in Japan, and the internet was full of Roms, I thought the graphics looked extremely pixelly, and in general just looked pretty poor. My opinion on the graphics was drastically changed however when I got the actual game. The music...that music makes me feel so hot. Driftveil City has an amazing tune, as does Ghetsis's battle theme, although the chanting sounds more "Dennis" than "Ghetsis". Features...pretty damn good. I love how the Pokemon move, and there eyes shut when they sleep, they even blink; all of which adds up to make the game that little bit more realistic. And the idea of Random Battle over wi-fi is pretty good, although it's annoying when you battle a kid with his highest level Pokemon at level 14, run because you don't want to feel like a bully, then end up having to battle him again, win this time, and he disconnects. That got me pretty pissed off. I'm not too fond of the Poke-shifter, particularly the annoying little mini-game. Why should I need two DS's to transfer my old Pokemon into my new game? Something involving Friend Codes or something would've been much easier imo. I also love how they lower-cased the names. It's a lot better to look at: "Youngster Example sent out Pidove!" as opposed to: "YOUNGSTER EXAMPLE sent out PIDOVE!" And the musical instrument playing sort of people are [i]amazing. There were a few thing in the game, however, that I did not like. For example, the trainers in the post-game use extremely high level Pokemon. Why is there a trainer with a level 68 Lapras when my highest level Pokemon after the league was my level 51 Samurott? And the sages, you don't even get to battle them. I was really looking forward to seeing what Pokemon they would use. And Musicals...me no likey Musicals. You don't even do anything...you put accessories that don't fit the body onto your Pokemon and watch them move from side to side. Wow. That is definitely why I bought this game. No VS Seeker? I think this one pretty much speaks for itself. All in all though, this was a truly spectacular game, utterly magnificent, and if I use big words I might have a better chance of winning /shot. And that's it. Doubt I'll win, but at least I can...oh, I said that already. xD March 10th, 2011, 7:47 PM even though im not much of a competive battler i must say pokemon black is mind blowing the graphics are amazing and the pokemon are very interesting to hunt my favorite thing about pokemon black is the pokemon musical i can't tell you how amused i am everytime i enter a pokemon to take part the gyms are much more challenging which great because it makes me think more about strategy one of the parts that are still a disappointment to me is the gts no one seems to know what a fair trade is anymore its like for a little snivy they want something major like zorua which bothers me in the end i hope to see better challenging stuff after the elite 4 like the ability to go to different regions and fight more gym leaders with my team which i am working on to be the best for online battling March 10th, 2011, 11:41 PM So far i'd say the best improvement is speed, me being an impatient person noticed the battle speed difference instantly, and really aprieciates the increase of pace. Now as for the creativity of the new pokemon... (this is just my opinion and all but) i feel they could of tried a little harder especially with the names.. i mean patrat?? come on.. anyway over all decent game, im always happy for a new region to beat and more options to compete with and this satisfied that need for now, so no complaints here :) Also i got it the day before it came out!! :D i know a guy lol And some of the new abilities kick a** i mean butt hehe.. March 11th, 2011, 6:50 AM So, it was an issue for me and a good friend of mine getting Black and White. We had decided I would get White because I liked the more primitive areas, and he would get Black for its more futuristic places. But we wanted each others' legends, so we decided we'd trade those once we had gotten them. Fortunately, another good friend of mine brought me to the midnight release and he paid off the difference from my $20. We grabbed a bite to eat, went back to his place and played it like crazy. Racing back and forth, always competing to see who was further and who had better Pokemon. Before the 1st gym we had a battle, in which I won just by a little bit (: All night it was played, and all day the next. This kept on repeating until today. My judgment on the game is that it is most definitely one of the best Pokemon (especially recent) games made to date. For once it made me feel a little something, specifically at the castle when you go into the room that the Shadow Triad leads you into (btw, I LOVE them!). I'm absolutely in love with this game. The new character looks much better than the previous ones as well. Wish there were more post-game content, but I know I'll be enveloped in this game for a very long time. March 11th, 2011, 7:28 AM Pokémon Black and White Review Specifically made for everyone who loves the new generation... 4th Generation made me lose a bit of my love for Pokémon, I hated that generation so much that I only played 4th gen on Pokémon Online. Then, the 5th Generation was announced. I became hyped, very happy, so cheerful―even up to the point that I was so overhyped I almost fainted. It was released on Japan, and 5th gen Pokémon were now being used in PO. And by competitive battling, I have encountered a certain Pokémon that captured my heart: Cofagrigus. Back then, Cofagrigus was still called Desukan. That made me really want to get the new games. Then, it came: my Japanese copy of Black. I started playing, and carefully watched the intro and because of too much excitement, I turned my DS off and decided to go downstairs. Unfortunately, my DS was horrifically destroyed. It fell down the stairs. I have to give my Black cartridge to someone―and I gave it to my cousin. Although, even if I only have watched the opening scene, I already knew that this game is great. Everything about it makes it unique. A couple of things that I really liked the most are unlimited TM use and triple battles. Although I haven't experienced them yet, still they shine out as the best features of these new games. Days passed, I decided to try and emulate the game. To my success, I did. I successfully emulated Pokémon White. So I started playing, and playing, and playing, and playing, and playing. I played some more, and more, and more. I can't really stopped playing it. Its addicting yet enjoyable. Even training your Pokémon is not boring. It excelled in almost all ways I could look at it. I also liked the way that there are more than 1 rival. Cheren and Bianca are to completely different people that really loves Pokémon. They bring life to the game itself. Now, onto the Pokémon themselves. I've already told you about Cofagrigus, right? Well, that was only one of the new sprites that amazed me. Klinklang aslo piqued my interest, its artwork made me love B/W more and more. If you want to ask more, then just look at Snivy. Its pose is so darn awesome, it deserves to be called "the gangster". I nicknamed my Snivy, Smugleaf because that name makes me happy. The game, in general, is made beautifully. Sure there are a few errors here and there but hey, nobody's perfect. Even Albert Einstein makes mistakes. If he can make mistake, why can't Game Freak? But if you really ask me, I'd give the game 4 thumbs up, and a rating of 10 out 10. My opinion may seem biased, even though it is, the game really is great. To anyone who haven't played it yet, I suggest you do. Else, you'd be missing the fun that everyone is experiencing right now. What are you waiting for? Are you ready for Unova? March 12th, 2011, 6:23 AM What to say about Pokemon Black? I've played at least one Pokemon game from each generation, but with Black, I was at first shocked that no Pokemon from the previous generations would be seen until post-Elite Four. As I played through though, I became amazed with everything. The music's atmosphere fits every location. The 3-D graphics have much improved, and I especially enjoyed watching the Pokemon's animation in battle. The story was ingenious, I would say rivaling the story in Pokemon Platinum, if not beating it entirely. I also realized that the previous generation Pokemon were not needed post-Elite Four, the additional Pokemon in Generation V almost made it feel like I was playing an enhanced version of Generation I. I'm eager for the launch of the WiFi features, means as far as I know they are still updating the servers, just so I can explore more of what this game has to offer. I've only had one annoyance with the game: I understand why they are there, but does every trainer in the Unova region have to have one of the elemental monkeys? Seems like I seen someone with one around every corner. Aside from the slight annoyance, I give this game two thumbs up and 9/10, because theres always room for improvement. March 12th, 2011, 11:15 PM [css-div="border-bottom: 1px solid #CCCCCC; text-shadow: grey 1px 1px 2px;"] Pokémon Black/White Review [/css-div][css-div="padding-left: 190px;"]http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/ae289/CKmaster/sigbuddies.gifBy Karpman of The PokéCommunity[/css-div] Cue a myriad of bored Pokéfans jumping in joy at the announcement of a new generation of Pokemon Games. Like any new Pokemon game, Pokemon Black Version and Pokemon White version both seemed to have an immense amount of potential once it stepped into the public eye. Following my favorite generation of Pokemon, I had high hopes for B/W, and at first, I imagine that it would fulfill them. One of the first screenshots of the new games, which showed the playable character crossing a bridge in stunning 3-D style graphics, as well as a video showing the game's fully animated battle system left us to imply that the game was promising, graphically. Most of the Unova Pokemon's designs were satisfying and unique, although were extremely poor, the 'dex managed to round itself out well. While Pokemon Black and White didn't exactly meet a few of my expectations, it ended up being a solid game. The Pokemon of Unova Like every new region, Unova managed to throw a variety of different Pokemon at us, each adding it's own unique flair to the pokedex. The first of these Pokemon introduced, Zorua and Zoroark, lived up to their hype. Their abilities and inspirations were a fresh change from the Dark Types of the past. All in all, these are two very well-done Pokemon and are quite deserving of all of their "fanboys". The Pokemon following Zorua and Zoroark's release, the Unova starters, were certainly an interesting bunch. Snivy was unimpressive, overall, it's design being less than stellar and it's moveset being bone dry. Then again, Serperior has access to Contrary, but that's another story. Tepig, the next of the starters, had pretty much stolen my heart from the moment he was released. I guess I could say I'm a fan of Fire starters when they aren't bipedal and overrated. Tepig's evolutions weren't horrid looking, but nothing great either, which led me to choose Oshawott as my starter. Tepig's evos also carried that horribly blasé Fire/Fighting typing, which isn't a bad combo, just overused far too much. Oshawott, the last of the 3 starters was the most interesting of all. If it wasn't quite obvious, Oshawott and it's evolutions drew their inspiration from Samurai and Feudal Japan. Dewott's, Oshwott's evolution has a lackluster design, and it's color was badly chosen, Samurott, however, is a different story. Samurott would have to be the sole reason that I picked Oshawott. The Japanese inspiration was obviously "there", and it's design was quite creative, I'd prefer Sammrott have gotten Water/Fighting for it's typing, but I'm content with it, nonetheless. Many of the other Pokemon that were leaked in the early stages of B/W had creative designs as well, Minccino, Sandile, Axew, and Gear (albeit his evolutions are devoid of any creativity) all posessed either great designs, unique typing, or in Galvantula's case, both. The two 3rd Stage Psychic types introduced, Reuniclus, which is exclusive to Pokemon White Version, and Gothitelle, which can only be found in Pokemon Black Version, were two of the most unique Pokemon released with the 5th generation games. The only "catch" to them is that Pokemon's target audience may not understand where the two draw their inspirations from, Reuniclus being a homunculus and Gothitelle being a "Goth Loli". The only dissapointments about the two were their pre-evolutions. Duosion and Gothorita (not to mention Gothorita's name) seem to lack any form of creativity. My OCD and I are still grateful that the two are both 3-stage evolutions and not standalones or 2-stage, however. Excadrill was another of the better-designed Pokemon, not only is it great for battle, it has a sleek and strong appearance that really embodies its Ground/Steel typing. Unova's "Golem and Machamp" Gigalith and Conkeldurr, have some of the best designs in the dex. Gigalith is one of the better looking Rock-types of the generation, and Conkeldurr is quite unique. Conkeldurr, whose design seems to be a mix of an industrial worker and a street thug, is one of my favorite designs presented with the 5th generation Pokemon. Conkeldurr and its pre-evolutions are the first fighting types to be holding some sort of weapon, but GF really incorporated the Plank/Iron Bars/Concrete in well, and it really allows the 3 Pokemon to stand out. Last but not least, Chandelure and Braviary also boast great and creative designs, and are both fantastic additions to the Pokedex. Since we're done talking about most of the gems of Unova, I figure it's time that we address the less than favorable designs. First up, Palpitoad and Seismitoad. Their typing is a bit clichéd, considering it's been used multiple times, and their designs are just horrid. Tympole is decent-looking, but these two just seem to scream "Derp". Woobat and Swoobat are poorly designed as well. They look bad, even compared to Zubat, who they are supposed to emulate. A psychic puff with wings sounds like something out of Yu-Gi-Oh, to be quite honest. Another of these unecessary Pokemon would be Durant, and I don't mean the basketball player. Not only is its typing unneeded, as 2 other Pokemon share it, one of them being in the same region as Durant. Durant's legs are probably the worst part of it's design, there's far too many and they all look out of place. Last but not least, we have the famous Stunfisk, who also goes under the name of "Flounderp". It's typing is one of the better ones, but it's design is just atrocious. To be blunt, it seems as if Game Freak deliberately created a Pokemon for the sole purpose of "being a derp". All of the aforementioned Pokemon that had poor designs easily outclass Stunfisk. Well, enough bashing some of the undesirable Unova Pokemon, I figure it's time to talk about B/W's graphics. The one thing that really increased B/W's value would have to have been its graphics. B/W's graphics were a huge improvement from those of Diamond, Pearl and Platinum as well as the graphics showcased in HeartGold and Soulsilver. Nearly all of the tiles in the Unova region are either majestic, bright, colorful or well-made, most being all 4. The sprites looked good as well, especially when the artists had to cut down on their shading so that each sprite's animation would look more fluid. The Animations in the game, such as the Driftveil Drawbridge connecting and Team Plasma's castle spawning were breathtaking to watch, it was really great to see beautiful animations of what was going on, incorporated into the games. The most amazing part of the game, graphics-wise, would probably have to be the Pokemon League gate. It really showed the prestige of the Pokemon League and improved my gaming experience. My only two qualms, both of which are quite small on a grand scale, are the pallete of the grass and caves/mountains. To be short and sweet, the grass is too bright, and the mountains are too dark. Other than that, B/W's artists really earned their paychecks with their work on the games. The Music of B/W Like any new Pokemon game, B/W featured an entirely new soundtrack, full of energy and zeal. The feature to add certain instruments to the game's soundtrack by talking to characters in the overworld was genius, as well as a nice change of pace. Most of the towns and cities in the Unova Region had catchy and nice-sounding themes, especially Nimbasa and Driftveil. The biking music was a gift to the ears, it was somewhere in between the Sinnoh region's music and Mario Kart, but it ended up creating some blissful music to listen to. B/W's non-battle soundtrack would have to be my favorite, out of all of the games. As for the in-battle tracks, not so much. The rival battle theme is far too ditzy, and doesn't get you motivated to crush your rival, such as the Rival themes did in FRLG and DPPt. The gym leader music sounded okay, but the real highlight to it was the variation of the theme that played when the leader was down to one Pokemon. N's theme was subpar, unlike most of the Evil Team boss themes of the past, but I was pleased with the track that played when you battled a Team Plasma grunt. The Elite Four music was a real disappointed. It was intimidating, but not as majestic and powerful as the Eltie Four music in R/S/E, then again, it was a nice change from having one set theme for both the Gym Leaders and E4. As ironic as it may be, my favorite track from B/W was one that was only used in the Unity Tower, as the rumor goes. That track would be the Kanto Champion Remix (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEZrn5h7C-Q&feature=related), that some believe is hinting at a yellow version remake. All in all, the soundtrack of B/W was pleasing, but didn't completely amaze me as I had hoped it would. B/W's plot was a minor enhancement from the "beat the evil team and catch the legendary" storylines of the past, and it even contained a plot twist at the end, albeit it was a predictable one. Team Plasma lacked any "admins" that you had to battle, which was a bit of a letdown, since most of the grunts were weak. I really liked how N fought you using Pokemon from around the area in which you fought, it really showed his passion for hating confinement and connecting with Pokemon in their natural habitat. It was also pretty neat how they incorporated N's goal of getting Reshiram under his control was incorporated into the gym challenge. The one thing I really dislike is that the only thing Reshiram/Zekrom's power was going to be used for (by Team Plasma) was to threaten people. Their goal seemed weak, when compared to Team Galactic's, and even Team Magma/Aqua's. The plot was another quality of B/W that didn't live up to what I had expected of it. I remember there was this crazy rumor way back when that N's brother was leader of Team Plasma and that he had sort of cut ties in the same way that Silver did with Team Rocket. I'm not really sure what I wanted to be added, perhaps some deep secrets that Team Plasma held or some plot twists that I didn't expect. The thing with the primitive and futuristic versions of Opelucid City, and the version-exclusive areas implied time travel, to an extent. In my opinion, it would have been nice if we had to travel back-or forward, depending on the version, to thwart Team Plasma's schemes. The plot was nice, and certainly an improvement from the previous storylines, but it could have been so much more. Other Features and Closing Words Well, it's time I wrap up this review and use this as a chance to voice my opinion on any of the features not mentioned above. I'll start with Triple battles, they seemed like a fun addition, but was also quite unecessary. The mechanics differ a bit from Single and Double battles, so that requires an extra aspect of Pokemon to learn. Either way, I'm indifferent, I may fight in the occasional Triple battle once in a while, but nothing I'm going crazy over. Pokemon Musical, the game's Contest/Pokeathlon-like event is, in my opinion, a great and fun way to waste time. The best part is that it's basically a big-dress up show, all for the purpose of watching your Pokemon "perform", no competition. Another thing I liked about the game is that they increased the diversity of the NPCs, having African-American characters, such as Aloe and Marshal, and having a lot of new trainer classes that one may not expect, like the "Hoopster". The Xtransceiver feature is another feature that really struck my fancy, being able to voice chat with Pokemon games , provided you have a DSi, is a great feature to have. The same applies to the Entralink and the Dream World, the mutliplayer features of Pokemon have really evolved with B/W. Another thing about the Dream World, that enhanced the metagame, were the special Dream World abilities given to each Pokemon as an alternate 2nd or 3rd ability. It's really great how some Pokemon have gained newfound usage because they had an ability that can really enhance a player's team, such as Politoed with its Drizzle ability. I figure I should wrap it up here. B/W was a fun game to play and it was great being a part of the hype and speculation. March 16th, 2011, 5:36 AM Vaporeon7's Pokemon Black and White Review! I must say Pokemon Black and White made a great first impression on me. I must admit as soon as I saw Zoroark I thought it would be pretty bad as I was in denial about the fourth generation ending but then after seeing the character walk on the beautiful Skyarrow Bridge I was hooked. Game Freak could not have chosen anything better to try and sell the games to me on looks than showing me a dazzling bridge with an angle of view that we have never seen before in Pokemon. Then if that wasn't enough Game Freak also showed us other amazing features for us to get excited over such as the Nimbasa Gym's roller-coster and something we've or at least I've always wanted: animated sprites in battles. The Land of Unova Like every generation Game Freak supplied us with a brand new region that surpasses the last. Unova was designed very well because it had great variation that went from wetlands and deserts to villages on bridges and skyscraper filled cities. Unova was also the freshness Pokemon needed after 15 years of bringing us all joy going back to its roots and 'starting again' by basing it on a country other than Japan. I was also happy to see more bridges then ever before as I am quite fond of them. The even better part about this is all the bridges weren't the same like we've seen in so many other games. Overall the main stand out point that made Unova the best designed region since Hoenn is that it is like nothing we've ever seen before and it has a lot of variety. At first I hated almost all of the new Pokemon. Pretty much sighing over most new Pokemon being revealed. And when I saw the whole list I thought that it had to be a joke because I dislike most of them. Some exceptions being Petilil, Lilligant, Galvantula and Alomomola. But after after about month I realised that I was still in denial about the new generation of Pokemon. I think I had completely forgotten that it had in fact been 4 years since the days of Hoenn. But as soon as I broke free of the denial that was preventing me from liking almost anything new I began to like most of the Pokemon. But of course there were ones I still despised. *coughstunfiskcough* After I had warmed up to their designs I learned their English names. Wow was I not pleased then. I almost found fault with every one. One of the only exceptions was again Lilligant. At that time when I saw the name Sawk I thought sock or Sawsbuck I though Starbucks. Again like before I eventually warmed up to most names. Stunfisk still bothers me though. After seeing some of the 5th generation Pokemon anime some of my opinions of some of the Pokemon changed. For instance I began to adore Oshawott after seeing Ash's and I began to like Pidove a little less, but overall watching the anime improved my opinions. But to sum up the new Pokemon get my approval. I think most of the music of Pokemon Black and White is great. A favourite feature of mine is how in sum places you have the ability to add more instruments to the music such as the piano and drums to Accumula Town or the violin to Opelucid City. The music may have not reached the standard that Pokemon Gold and Silver set for me but it still performed exceptionally well. Another thing that was an outstanding first for Pokemon was lyrics in the music. Albeit japanese language it is still a feature that I am overjoyed that they did not remove in the translation. The music of Unova did very well compared to most regions. Game Freak certainly outdid themselves with Pokemon Black and white. Skyarrow Bridge was a major standout. It was beautifully designed and had amazing camera angles. The addition of different camera angles then the normal 45 degrees was a huge thing for Pokemon Black and White. It was one of the things that impressed me when I was in denial. Castelia City was another big thing for me. At last a city that actually looked like one with more than 15 buildings and more than one or two skyscrapers. Game Freak also make lake water look beautiful being able to see the freshness of the water by being able to see the bottom. Before the battle with N has some of the best graphics I have ever seen and certainly the best from a Nintendo DS. It is a shame to see how pixilated your Pokemon's back-sprite is in battle but that is one of the few flaws that Game Freak actually made in this game. So long the days of a flat, same angle, black and white world and hello the days of a 3D world with bursts of colour and camera angles that allow you to see beautiful sceneries. The plot of Pokemon Black and White was a great one even though it followed the same main plot as all the other games where you had to beat evil to save the world and catch the legendary that they wanted. I loved N as a villain. Team Plasma may not be any Team Rocket but they sure were good. I loved N's goal to liberate Pokemon and I also liked how you had two friends who actually were good enough as rivals with one actually beating the Elite 4. The plot near the end was a stand out for me. I always like a twist in plot. And this reminded me a little of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. I liked how Team Plasma was actually evil (for the most part) all along. Things That Needed Improvement/Should have been Included Pokemon Black and Whites lack of mini games disappointed me. Pokemon Musicals weren't that entertaining as all you got to do was dress up your Pokemon and click twice in the performance. I would have enjoyed more with the Dream World still included. I was also disappointed that there wasn't a random weather pattern. It would have been really good if in winter it snowed in Castelia City and in summer there was a drought on Route 5 and maybe one day it would be clear on Route 10 and the next rainy. But all in all Pokemon Black and White didn't need much improving. One thing that constantly annoyed me was when you sent your Pokemon into battle and it would thud on the ground. If only Black and White used a time machine like in Gold and Silver... The Good Things Pokemon Black and White was full of great things but I will only mention the stand out things. The battles are so mush quicker then they were in the 4th generation. Trading and battling because so much easier not being limited to the Pokemon in your party and having access to your box. One thing that annoyed me and most people was the 6 Pokemon a day restriction when transferring Pokemon from an old game. Well Pokemon Black and White solved this making and unlimited amount of Pokemon a day. And what about when using Pokemon Black and White on a DSi/DSiXL/3DS being able to connect to WPA internet. This is so great for people like me who couldn't use Nintendo Wifi in the 4th Generation and had a lack of hotspots. In conclusion Pokemon Black and White are must buy games. They are certainly nothing like you've ever seen before and something everyone just has to try.Something new will attract you wether it be the triple battles, Xtransceiver, the Dream World or any of the other wonderful new features. Lasting Appeal: 10/10 March 16th, 2011, 5:32 PM Lambda's Black Review! Topic: A new adventure in Unova On a first note I will begin by stating that Black is one of the best pokemon games I ever played, and a exceptional game in general. Only a handful of series of games these day are truly great games that incorporate wonderful storyline, fantastic mechanics, and a vast fan base supporting the games. Pokemon however without a doubt is on this list. Now I will begin my review at the beginning, but not at the start of my adventure but the opening scene. I always had a tradition that every new pokemon game I got I’ll watch the opening scene to give my self a feel of the game. So the scene begins with a shooting star falling down break into the letters of GameFreak and then assembling itself. My first thought of this was “ Wow this is just the opening for GameFreak I wonder what the rest is?!”. Next the main thing of the scene happens it shows N’s Castle and Ghetis walking down the throne room carrying a crown in the through a row of the Sages. Soon the view is redirected to N walking being ready to be crowned while having a flash back of his youth. Finally it show him being crowned and then the gameplay is shown about hopes, dreams, and whatnot. Then like most games it shows the version legendary (which for me is reshriam) but I found this quite impressive for when I clicked “A” it shows a dramatic close up of our Fire and Dragon type. This may all seem unimportant but it is the small things such as this stuff that I like and really count. Finally I began my adventure. Like all games I’m greeted by the regional Professor which in this case is Professor Juniper the first Female Professor in the series. She the rants about the usual pokemon and humans and asks for our name. Now Finally we begin playing where like all other games we begin in our room. Next our friends/Rivals Cheren and Bianca come in informing you of the present Juniper sent containing the starters. Now like all other games you pick your starter, so does your rival(s), a battle then commences, you go thank the professor graciously, you then receives a pokedex, and now your adventure unfolds! So now your off to do the cliche be getting your badges and defeating the bad, bad team of that region. But this is the 5th Generation and is new adventure that is unlike any other! Critique on Black Graphics- This section was easily given a 10/10. Every newer game has better graphics. However these ones were very well done. First the cities were such nicely made and extremely original. Next the pokemon were nicely made to. The scenery to was such a natrual feel to it and had such a different arua to them that no other game I played has. Team Plasma- I have to say I was first a skeptic of this Team Plasma would be a bunch of losers and be a terrible team. But once I first saw them I became a instant #1 fan of them. I had only one complaint about them, I wanted to battle the Sages but I can live without them. This Team is like a combo of Team Rocket and Galactic.There plans were so carefully formulated and thought out with amazing characters in it and outstanding plot. This is truly one now tied with Team Rocket for me that this is the best team of all time so far. Characters- Through out pokemon it was always a standard to have such great characters with deep personalities. I can easily name some very remembered ones such as Blue and Professor Oak from Kanto, Lance and RocketExecs from Johto, May and Steven Stone of Hoenn, and Cynthia and Professor Rowan in Sinnoh. When I think of our past gym leader I think of just obstacles in the game meant to be defeated with little or no personality with the exception of Giovanni and some of the Sinnoh and HG/SS ones. However I enjoyed very much that they played a bigger role this generation. First now I realize that every Gym Leader made a appearance out side of their Gym. I really enjoy seeing them out side of the gym because it makes us feel like they are really part of story and are people to. And lastly but certainly not least is N. N perhaps is the most popular character in the 5th Generation. When he is first seen he is seen as very mysterious throughout the first part of the game till while in the middle finally reveals him self as the Head Of Team Plasma and still is Dubious from then on. N had a extremely complex type of personality and even after you beat the game you are left with question. N however is one of the best Characters crafted and thought of. Plot- The Plot this Generation was bottom line remarkably crafted, fitted, and thought of. The Plot was so interesting to follow and you were constantly being amazed. I just have to say remarkably done could not get better. Miscellaneous, Final Thoughts I just have a couple of last concepts of the game I want to mine on. First Kudos to Nintendo of making a very big difference in the two versions rather than just having a couple of different Pokes. Next I would like to say thanks to making the game much longer with great story line and pokemon. I usually beat the Elite Four at about 18 hours but on white it took me 40 Hours. I love games where it takes a long time to beat so many things to do :) Lastly I just want to say this was a great gaming experience. March 17th, 2011, 2:51 AM The Story of a Crazy Fan When I first saw Zorua and Zoroark back in Feb '10 I dismissed all excitement for a new generation pretty quickly. I did this knowing it would be many months before any more information would be revealed. So I forgot all about it until the legendaries were revealed. I dismissed b/w as I thought obsessing over theme of Black and White (all that was really revealed at that time) would be pretty boring, as it sounded like a pretty tasteless theme tbh. I didn't really want to know anything about the game until the pokemon were revealed, so I could truly get excited. When the screen shots were revealed I didn't want to look as I never look at screeshots till the pokemon are named. And as more and more pokemon were shown I started to think this generation would be pretty cool. After generation 4 I thought there would be no more, after the creation of Arceus and tying up of loose ends in Sinnoh. So I was surprised at how engaged I got after the first cluster of pokemon were revealed over time. And that is what led me to PC. I was shockingly excited for yet another region and needed somewhere people friendly to discuss about the B/W revelations. So many changes `@_@" when it was revealed that Isshu would be set in America I was pretty shocked. Pokemon was always in Japan, so this meant that there would be many more generations to come! And then it was revealed that Alomomola was not after all a Luvdisc evolution. And that there would be no evolutions at all.... I was greatly peeved tbh and it made me neglect B/W for a while. Then I got over it, they did that in Hoenn as well, so I thought that it wouldn't be so bad, so different. A whole new start in a whole new continent. Another thing that peeved me off was the fact that there was no gym rematches OR that there was no follow feature, OR that there was no VS Seeker.... This m,ade me go back to not looking forward to the game, and I didn't think that it would be so enjoyable, and that it would get veerrry boring very soon. I never got over this till I got the game and found out how awesome it actually was. At PC I actively posted in the b/w opinions thread, spazzing over each new pokemon over and over again. Goodness knows how many duplicate posts I made of the genie trio, Druggidon, Kyeremu... But I couldn't stops staring and examining every pokemon and discussing everything about them here. I just needed to know every detail! However I avoided as many screen shot spoilers as possible and all images of towns, so that I could enjoy some surprises in the game.... but honestly, because all I cared about for ages was the actual pokemon, I wasn;t too interested in the towns or cities. I was interested in the new features, pokemon musicals. I thought it was an interesting addition and I enjoyed contests so I thought this would be a thing for me. The seasons was something I really looked forward to, and I thought was about time they added that. and Deerling was an amaaazing addition. I was so hyped to find there was a pokemon that changed with the seasons! So yeah all in all before the game was released i had mixed feelings. I was so CRAZY about the new pokemon and I was greatly disappointed about the things they left out this time around but that leaves room for additions to make the third game impossibley more awesome Speaking of the third game, I love predicting things it will have in it. I expect the follow feature to return, gym rematches, the VS Seeker or some other way to verse trainers again, Kyeremu to be the mascot and get a new form and some endless winter realm where it lives XD And that the third game will be called pokemon Grey! ok... I am spaz typing right now XD It proves how excited I am, so sorry if some of this doesn't make any sense! When the English names came out, I was sooo disappointed in most of them. I just adored all the Japanese names, and the english names were so goofy and uncreative... Crustle, Burgh, Sandile, Unova.... I loved the name Isshu as soon as I heard it, and Unova was something so completely different. I got used to Unova pretty quick though and I <3 it now <3 <3 <3 Most of the english names I have gotten over, and gotten used to as I expected, so it wasn't too much to stress over. I had always gotten used to the english names. Really? What about us!?!?!? Okay, so when Australia was revealed to get the games a week after Europe and days after USA I was P'd off. Like fuming. The most excited I have ever been over ANYTHING and we get it dead last.... with no visits from famous pokemon producers, with no day early release date, with no game based on us ok so what if i am being a drama queen here... i wanted and aus based game XD . Added on to the fact that my brother's router screwed over the Wi-Fi so no shiny beast or Victini for me, and the fact I had to wait an extra day, and would have hardly ANY time to play it because of 13 assessments due in a window of 3 wks. I BOUGHT IT! MY LIFE IS COMPLETE!... almost. Okay so I bought it for a reduced price because I am thrifty ^.^ I take it home.... I play it and freak out over the AMAZING graphics... I turned into a crazy anime fangirl and could hardly press the buttons right because of how urgently I wanted the characters to shut up so I could play. So.Much.Talking. Oh then they both want to verse me ;____;; I walk outside and there are Pidoves <3 and all the houses looks so 3D, it puts Platinum to shame. I love how all the angles change when you walk/enter a house/ walk on a bridge. I chose Snivy as my starter, because of how much I love Serperior. I thought the graphics on Skyarrow bridge were to die for, and it looked beautiful at night, seeing all Castelias lights. I thought that all the cities were so much bigger and technological. Everything was so modern and fancy, which I loved, and all the Autumn trees and leaves were really pretty. I can't wait till winter. I thought Castelia was ridiculously massive, not in a bad way, and I loved how there were all those self absorbed people everywhere on their way to work. Before B/W came out I hated almost all the badges except the eighth one. But in game they truly look amazing, I love how the middle is the glittery glass, and outlined in the gold. I thought one of best areas I have seen so far in White was Charge Stone Cave. The blue electricity was so cool, and I loved the general look of it. I liked how Bianca and Cheren follow you around a bit more, and sort if share the adventure with you, not like your other friends, running off and appearing a few times. These guys were true friends, although they got a little annoying battling you all the time. I liked Team Plasma's plot a lot, so far. There is logic to what they are going and they are just like pokemon rights activists trying to stop pokemon cruelty, pretty hypocritically kicking munna ;_; and taking it to the extremes. N was really mysterious and the way he talks to me was pretty random XD Like he expects me to really relate to him or something. And his sudden outburst at Juniper showed his evil side. I can't wait to uncover the full plot of Plasma, which I tried to avoid at all costs before it came out. In pokemon battles it was great to see endless battle animations, that change under certain conditions, like how their eyes close when they are put to sleep. I also liked how when you send a pokemon out into battle it makes a thud as it hits the ground, but floating pokemon dont. All these details, the thuds, glitter on the badges, autumn leaves on the ground, electric currents in charge stone, differing camera angles in battle and on the bridges, animations and the different feel to the game that is what made it so amazing. every thing they left out has been completely forgiven because of all these small things they added making up for it. The new modern feel to the game suits me and I know I will buy black to have fun, non serious play throughs absorbing everything Unova has to offer. 11/10, best game I have EVER played. It has brought new joy into pokemon. And brought me to PC <3 And can I just say the music tracks have been excellent, especially Driftveils. So catchy~ I MAY EDIT FURTHER BEFORE THIS THREAD IS CLOSED :3 March 17th, 2011, 7:30 AM Well, whatever. I might as well enter. So here I go: Pokemon Black and White review: Okay, I'm going to list down the good and the bad for Pokemon Black and White. The Story - You are a Pokemon trainer set on a journey by renowned Professor Juniper to complete the Pokedex with your bestfriends: Cheren and Bianca, and along the way you encounter a suspicious group called Team Plasma who wants to free all Pokemon from the commands of humans, and another suspicious person called 'N'. I really like the idea of the story line. It's on the verge of Black and White morality. Yeah, I said it. Black and White morality means you don't know whether you're doing is good or evil. I mean face it, capturing Pokemon and putting them in ball capsules, and making them fight. Is it really a good thing? Also how awesome is it to have every Gymleader out of their gyms and contribute to the story? I wished that feature on Emerald, and I liked that they added it on Platinum. I liked on how the Elite four can also be out of the Pokemon league. The Graphics - Oh my god. Scenery porn everywhere! 3D here, and 3D there. I don't know, but whenever I enter a new route, city, forest, etcetera, it reminds me of the Distorsion World. I mean, go and enter the Skyarrow Bridge. Zoom in, Zoom out everywhere! You also get to see your sprite on different angles. It's like the Distorsion World all over again! Which is a good thing. :D The Sound - I never really paid any attention to the soundtracks of Pokemon game, but... B&W soundtrack is amazing! The OST track 'Emotion' got me, well, emotional! Also, the Bike theme and the red HP OST is amazing. In the previous games, I get irritated by it and I just mute my DS. The Characters - There's the strict Cheren, and the loopy head Bel. There's also the mysterious N, and unlike the previous games, the Gymleaders and Elite Four actually has personalities! We also get the glimpse of the Champion's past. Character developments are everywhere. The Gameplay - I liked the fact that they added Nurses and Doctors all over caves and forest. It makes me skip the part that makes me go back to the Pokemon Center and back again. The Enhanced Features - It cranks it up to 120 of pure awesome-ness. First Gymleader isn't a Rock gym, Poison doesn't work outside of battle, the ability Sturdy, moving sprites, faster battle animation, and so much more! It's like, you entered a new generation of Pokemon, oh wait... The Story - The story is good, but not well executed in my opinion. Especially N. I also knew what Team Plasma's real goal from the first time I battled them and without any spoilers. I took N's interest in me to be... an interest in me and kinda creeped me out. I also haven't got over the fact that how come lowly Team Plasma members knew of Ghetsis' scheme, but not N? Plot holes, plot holes. Also, THE GAME IS SO SHORT. I would like it if it's like R/S/E long, or HG/SS long. Where you finish the main game, and finish the second half. The Graphics - It takes longer to enter a building. Especially if it's a building on the side, and especially in White Forest where the forest is zoomed out, and when you enter the Pokemon Center, it zooms in for about, I don't know 2 seconds. I also don't like the fact that there's talking heads in this game. That's for the Xtransceiver and really has no point. And only N, You, Cheren, Bel, Professor Juniper and your mom has talking heads. The Sound - No complains about the sound, surprisingly. The Characters - I failed to become attached to my rival, unlike in D/P/Pt where I was attached with Barry. I also don't like the fact that they didn't elaborate on any of the backstory except for N. I like to know more about Alder's and Brycen's backstory more. And I also like to know what is Drayden's role in Pokemon White. I didn't know that he was the Mayor of Opelucid City. The Gameplay - THE GAME WAS TOO EASY. I beat the Elite Four with an underleveled team. I mean, I don't think my team is that good to beat the crap out of them so easily! And the Gymleaders are a breeze. The only Gymleader I have trouble with was Elesa, and that's because of her Emolga's. Her Zebstrika was a push-over. I also didn't get on why Skyla and Iris was so easy. I used to have a hard time with Winona and Claire. Hmph. The Enhanced Features - The new features makes it hard for the game to be... challenging. Whenever I got my Pokemon to be poisoned, I use to rush to the Pokemon Center to get them healed, ASAP. I also don't get why there's lots of Nurses and Doctors around. It's not like I don't like it but, it makes the game unchallenging. Overall Enjoyment: Despite on how I sound, I enjoyed the game very much. But I guess, it's going to be 8/10 for me though. I guess it's partly my fault for setting my expectations too high. Well, that's my 2 cents. March 17th, 2011, 5:51 PM Just so you know! Entries for the blog event will cut off in 2 hours and 9 minutes. So if you have any changes to add, or any entries to enter, do it now, because by then the thread will be locked. Also, the results of this will be posted on Sunday, March 20, which is when this thread will be unlocked briefly to make any comments if you have any after the results. March 17th, 2011, 6:58 PM Pokémon Black and Pokémon White are the latest iterations of the popular Nintendo franchise based around the concept of collecting, trading, and battling monsters which can fit into your pocket. Black and White introduce over 150 new Pokémon to acquire and battle with, and feature a new region to explore, a new criminal syndicate to conquer, and several new wireless and online features to play with. Plot and Setting Black and White are set in Unova, a new region based off of the New York City area of the United States. Unova is a beautiful region, and is home to many interesting and unique cities and landmarks. At the same time, Unova is small and linear. The cities, towns, and routes are larger for the most part, but in exchange, there aren't nearly quite as many, and while many of these cities and landmarks are very enjoyable to explore initially, the majority of them become useless as you progress from them, and that's quite a shame. Black and White feature the same basic, familiar plot as its predecessors, albeit with a few much-appreciated twists and modifications. Two rivals are incorporated into the story, in contrast with previous games which had only featured one, and both rivals mature and develop as characters and as trainers throughout the story. Black and White also feature a new criminal syndicate, Team Plasma, an organization led by a young man determined to separate Pokémon and humans, who considers the latter as beings who abuse Pokémon, especially by forcing them to battle against each other. It's an interesting goal, and it's a shame the concept isn't explored further, but rather only lightly touched upon. Still, it's a great chance of pace and a definite improvement to the criminal organizations of the past. Graphics and Audio As mentioned previously, Unova is a beautiful region. Black and White are amazing aesthetically, and the game's graphics are what stand out the most. GameFreak also came to the wonderful conclusion that bridges are a great way to display their graphics through a variety of different camera angles, and indeed, the five different bridges scattered throughout Unova look absolutely amazing. In addition, Pokémon now animate fluidly throughout the battle, and GameFreak have finally ditched the awful two-frame distortion animations that plagued the 4th Generation games. Audio-wise, the game is not as great. Black and White do feature some great music--some particularly great tracks include the Wild Pokémon theme, the Team Plasma theme, the Elite Four theme, the Route 10 theme, the Driftveil City theme, and the Rival Battle theme. However, a good portion of the tracks are either boring or don't contribute to the atmosphere of their respective locations. Cries are another big problem--while the new Pokémon cries are just fine, GameFreak have continued to recycle the horrible, static cries of the older Pokémon. Not only are they inconsistent with the new cries, but they sound outdated and horrible, and there's no excuse for re-using the same cries for over 15 years. Needless to say, the most important factor in any game is the gameplay, and overall, the gameplay is exactly what you'd expect it'd be, for better or worse. The battle mechanics for single and double battles have received no upgrades, modifications or refinements. Presentation has improved, fortunately, as a constantly-moving camera and the aforementioned animated sprites makes battle more exciting and fun to watch. And, as with previous generations, new attacks, abilities and Pokémon help shake things up a bit, particular when it comes to the adventure--indeed, Black and White is at its best when you're exploring Unova and discovering, catching and training the brand new Pokémon for the very first time. Even players that have been there since the beginning will enjoy the adventure, and the decision to exclude older Pokémon from the storyline was a great one. Unfortunately, the adventure doesn't last for long, and virtually unchanged, the battle mechanics are the same as they have been since 2006, with the last refinement to the battle mechanics occurring with Diamond and Pearl and their physical/special attack changes. "If it ain't broken, don't fix it" no longer applies when battles begin to feel boring, repetitive, and outdated. Triple Battles and Rotational Battles have been introduced, and while there is a fair amount of strategy involved in both (the latter being considerably more strategical), neither are quite as enjoyable as single battles. And the biggest issue of all, balance continues to be an issue, with the type-chart remaining very unbalanced (c'mon, GameFreak, Grass-types do not merit 7 weaknesses), and many older Pokémon simply not being viable in battles at all, with notable factors including poor stats, lackluster movepools, or competition from newer, stronger Pokémon. Luckily, GameFreak was a bit more innovative when it comes to the multiplayer options, and GameFreak does deliver in that regard. While the Underground and Secret Bases unfortunately do not return, we do receive a similar feature--the Pokémon Dream World. By connecting to the Internet, players can upload their Black or White save file online, and through the Pokemon Dream World/Global Link website, players can not only customize their own online houses for their Pokémon, but they can play a variety of mini-games, and by winning these mini-games, players are awarded Pokémon with special alternate abilities they cannot otherwise receive. Outside the Global Link website, there are multiple other new Wireless features. The Entralink is feature where players can actually visit other player's Unovas (only through Wireless, not Wi-Fi, unfortunately), where they can interact with the other player, or accept missions, which in return give you special "powers", such as the ability to increase the amount of experience or money gained in battles, or to cut the prices of items sold in shops in half. There are also new Wi-Fi features, such as the ability to negotiate trades online through the GTS, or the new random battle feature, where players can randomly battle other players from around the world without the need for friend codes. Black and White excel in some areas, and stagger in others. They don't innovate where they needed to the most, but the wonderful additions, particular to the game's graphics and story, outweigh the shortcomings and the result is one hell of an entertaining--if a bit familiar--Pokémon game. They're worth the purchase, and while I hope GameFreak will innovate and modify the slowly aging battle mechanics with future installments, Black and White offer enough to entertain players until that day. March 19th, 2011, 10:15 PM And your winners are here... After the long await, the winners for the blog competition for Autumn in Unova are finally in! First off, I want to say all of your reviews and summaries were great and those who didn't win this competition, still did a great job with their entries. I appreciate all the hard work and effort put into them, everyone deserves a high five! But your winners of the review competition are... ; Congratulations to those guys, and thank you all for participating! Have fun playing the games and once again, thanks for all of the attempts and effort put into entering these events for the release of Black and White. :) March 19th, 2011, 10:28 PM omgomgomgomgomg i had a heart attack just thenasfdk Thanksss I didnt know how I would fair, when I took the risk of formatting my review differently to everyone else, looks like it was effective ^.^ And congrats to those who won with mee!! Thank you! <3 March 20th, 2011, 2:42 AM I read down the list nodding, thinking "Yeah, these guys were awesome... wish I'd done more... wait what." Thank you so much! I'm so happy! Thankyouthankyou! And congrats to the other winners, too! March 20th, 2011, 3:26 AM I won? Along with others? The competition is apparently pretty tight, so I was surprised that I won - and the fact that there are multiple winners, all 5 of them. Thank you for holding the competition, Kaori and Forever, and thank you for being participants in the event, all participants. I think I'm going to enjoy this new feature that I now have. The most important thing in your review is your heart. Write it out - it'll do much good. I hope that this kind of event comes back sometime later for everyone! March 20th, 2011, 8:18 AM Well...the important thing is that I tried. I've said that three times now. xD Congrats to all the winners, and well done on obtaining a shiny new blog :) March 20th, 2011, 11:10 AM Wow! After reading some everyone else's fantastic reviews, I honestly thought I didn't have much of a chance. Congratulations to all the other winners, and thank you, Kaori and Forever, for holding this competition! March 20th, 2011, 12:10 PM You guys know that you cam also get a blog if you get to 1000 posts or become a supporter :) March 20th, 2011, 12:26 PM You guys know that you cam also get a blog if you get to 1000 posts or become a supporter :) Umm no you can't. Supporter yes, but it is 5000 posts XD March 20th, 2011, 12:54 PM I can't express how long I've wanted a PC blog, and I'm beyond thankful that Forever, Kaori and Sotomura gave me the oppurtunity to get one. Congrats to everyone that won, as all of you were justified in winning a blog, imo. I'm glad that the 5 top blogs were recognized, as I did think my chances of winning were slowly declining as I saw some really solid and well-done reviews coming after my own, nonetheless, this was certainly an experience that I was glad to be a part of. March 20th, 2011, 2:15 PM Oh man i knew i wasnt going to win but i wish well congrats guys! March 20th, 2011, 10:43 PM Aww. Well, I didn't really expect that I'd win anyway, but atleast I tried. Congratulations to the winners, though. :D March 22nd, 2011, 5:39 AM Oh, congratulations, you winners! ^.~ Use your new blog well~

All-Ireland IHC final: Gleeson fires Tipp to title 31 August 2013 Tipperary captain David Young raises the All Ireland IHC Cup at Nowlan Park Tipperary withstood a late Kilkenny rally to be crowned All-Ireland intermediate hurling champions at Nowlan Park this evening. Two Ruairi Gleeson goals either side of half-time proved decisive as the Premier County gained a measure of revenge for their seniors' Allianz League final and All-Ireland qualifier defeats to the Cats at the same venue earlier this year. Tipp led by 2-10 to 1-7 entering the final quarter, but were left hanging on for victory after Jonjo Farrell's second goal for Kilkenny with four minutes remaining cut the gap to just two points. The visitors signalled their intent with three early points from Willie Ryan and Niall O'Meara (two). Kilkenny hit back to level the game at 0-5 each after 23 minutes before Gleeson raised his first green flag in the 26th minute. But on the stroke of half-time, the hosts replied with a goal of their own through Farrell to leave just the minimum in it, 1-6 to 1-7, at the short whistle. Former senior Timmy Hammersley registed the first score of the second half before Gleeson's second major in the 37th minute propelled the Premier into a 2-8 to 1-6 lead. They extended their advantage to six points before Farrell's second goal left it 2-11 to 2-13 and set up a grandstand finish. But it was that man Gleeson who made sure of Tipp's victory with a crucial point in the final minute. Tipperary - D Egan; S O'Brien, M Butler, T Treacy; J O'Keeffe, D Young, P Heffernan; B Fox (0-1f), W Ryan (0-1); O Quirke, T Butler, N O'Meara (0-4); R Gleeson (2-1), D O'Hanlon (0-1), T Hammersley (0-5, 2f, 1'65). Subs: J McLoughney for O Quirke, P Molloy for D O'Hanlon, C Kenny (0-1) for M Butler, P Shortt for P Molloy. Kilkenny - R O'Neill; S Cummins, M Walsh, S Prendergast; L Harney (0-1), P Hartley, M Moloney; B Kennedy, D Langton (0-1); B Beckett, R Hickey (0-5, 3f), C Phelan (0-1); J Brennan (0-1), J Farrell (2-0), D Walton (0-1). Subs: J Lyng for B Beckett, P Holden (0-1) for D Walton, S Donnelly for J Brennan. Referee - T Carroll.

The time when I was first becoming acquainted with designing for the web coincided with the dawn of the MySpace band. An industry once controlled by a select few who had, over the years, entrapped hundreds if not thousands of artists into unfathomably hostile record contracts had finally been unshackled from its tyrannous overlords, allowing anyone with a pirated copy of Pro Tools to turn their three-song EPs into global rock and roll tours. This was not unlike my own experience of the web which, from the time I was in secondary school, had granted me the ability to make what I wanted and share it with the world. My pirated copy of Photoshop and a few lonely evenings and weekends introduced my ideas and personality to more people in a month than the total population of my hometown. My own nascent musical proclivities, and later an opportunity to swindle some free studio time from a buddy of mine, allowed me to record an album of charismatically Christian choruses to publish in that god-awful Flash player for anyone with a web browser to hear. And that led to some shows, and some friends, and some opportunities to practice my also-nascent craft of web-making with some MySpace artist profile designs. I don’t know if I even own the hard-drive that once housed those early PSD files. Maybe one or two out of a dozen or so would be worth spending an hour or two recovering one day. The rest could rot in ferromagnetic hell for the rest of eternity for all I care. So it was not without some feeling of nostalgia that I read this evening a quote from Frank Ze, recently shared by Mandy Brown (in a beautifully written piece sharing her thoughts on the world’s transition from text to other, more modern mediums): Regardless of what you might think, the actions you take to make your Myspace page ugly are pretty sophisticated. Over time as consumer-created media engulfs the other kind, it’s possible that completely new norms develop around the notions of talent and artistic ability. This rings true to me. As my friend James Shelley once pointed out, the technology we create in turn creates us. My time designing and building MySpace templates for bands and songwriters introduced me to the skills I needed to learn so I could create my own future. It taught me that I need not be a victim of a system that rewards conformity and demonizes individuality, and that even your best friends can forget to pay an invoice on time. There was no post-secondary syllabus with “Client Tomfoolery 101” emblazoned on a title page. My local library didn’t have a book explaining just what the fuck a spacer.gif was. I had to learn these things like everyone else who had uncovered the secret of View Source: through trial and error. I believe young designers need this opportunity to experiment, to make mistakes on a smaller scale and learn from them so they are prepared when they’re pushed out onto a larger stage. Occasionally I am asked how to get started in this industry. The truth is, no two paths are alike. But, I do believe that what separates those who make it and those who fall by the wayside is an understanding that it’s ok to make mistakes, to fudge a project or two or ten, to make something ugly in order to understand what it takes to make something beautiful. Character is developed not from the avoidance of falling down but from falling down and fighting your way back up again.

When we study the piano, one of the popular pieces we learn is Felix Mendelssohn's such as "Songs Without Words". When we get older, we enjoy Mendelssohn's symphonies (such as the "Scottish" and the "Italian"), oratorios (such as the "St. Paul" and "Elijah"), overtures, and the incidental music to Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream". When we get married, we walk out of the church listening to Mendelssohn's "Wedding March". Let us explore Mendelssohn's life and wonderful works. Mendelssohn: The Genius Who Wrote The Hebrides Overture Felix Mendelssohn was a composer of the Romantic period. Mendelssohn's beautiful works combined a classical form combined a romantic style. The grandson of Moses Mendelssohn who was a well-known philosopher, Felix Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg in 1809. He showed musical talent at an early age and studied. He studied music -- first, at home, then in Paris and then in Berlin. He had his first public performance at the age of nine and produced his first musical composition by the time he was thirteen years old. Early Great Works At the age of 16 and 17 he composed two works which showed his full musical genius -- the String Octet in E-flat major (1825) and the Overture to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. (In 1842 he also wrote incidental music for that play, including his well-known Wedding March, which is still played at many weddings today). Apart from music, he also studied art, literature, philosophy, history and languages. Goethe. Bach Revival. In 1821 Mendelssohn was introduced to Goethe, who was impressed by the young man and compared him to another musical prodigy, Mozart. Mendelssohn was to set a number of Goethe poems to music. In 1829 Mendelssohn arranged and conducted the performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's St Matthew Passion. This work (and its composer) had been all but forgotten until this performance (its most recent performance had been in 1750). This performance was an important factor in the revival of the great composer, Bach. Mendelssohn now began to travel around Europe, including to Britain, Italy and Austria. He was to visit Britain ten times in all. While in London in 1829 he conducted his Symphony No. 1 in C minor. His visits to Scotland inspired him to write The Hebrides overture (1829)(also known as Fingal's Cave overture, after the cave of the same name on the island of Staffa which he visited) and the Scottish Symphony (1830-42). Similarly, his travels in Italy inspired him to create the Italian Symphony (1833). During his final visit to Britain in 1849 he conducted his Scottish Symphony before Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Other major works he composed in the 1830s and 1840s included his oratorios St Paul (1846) and Elijah (1846). In 1835 Mendelssohn took up his duties as the conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. He became very involved with developing the musical life of Leipzig. In 1843 he founded an important music school in Leipzig, the Leipzig Conservatory. From 1840 he spent some time in Berlin, working on a proposed cultural center for that city. In 1847 Mendelssohn died in Berlin, aged 37, after a number of strokes. Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Minor Mendelssohn's Musical Works Some of Felix Mendelssohn's key musical works included: Symphonies: Six in all, including his Symphony No. 3 in A Minor (known as the Scottish Symphony), Symphony No. 4 in A major (Italian Symphony), Symphony No. 5 (Reformation Symphony), and his choral Symphony in B-flat major. Orchestral Overtures: Including the overture to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1826) and The Hebrides Overture (also known as Fingal's Cave) (1830). Concertos: For example, the Violin Concerto in E Minor (op. 64)(1844). Choral Works: These include the oratorios, St Paul (1836) and Elijah (1846), various Christian anthems (such as Hear My Prayer), and the tune which was adapted for Charles Wesley's hymn Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Songs: Many songs, either for solo voice or for duet accompanied by piano, such as Auf Flügeln des Gesanges (On WIngs of Song), a poem by Heinrich Heine set to music by Mendelssohn. Piano Music: Many solo piano compositions, for example, the 48 songs of Songs Without Words (Lieder ohne Worte). Organ Music: The best-known are the organ sonatas entitled Six Sonatas, Op. 65. The Hebrides Overture (by Felix Mendelssohn) The Musical Legacy of Mendelssohn Felix Mendelssohn wrote during the Romantic era of music but resisted the more revolutionary advances pioneered by Chopin, Berlioz, Wagner and Liszt. His works were more conservative and looked back to the Classical era. They show the nobility of the Classical era, with Mendelssohn's own poetic sensibility, lightness and effervescence, as applied to Romantic and descriptive themes. Some critics say that Mendelssohn combined classical form with romantic style.

George D. Painter André Gide, pp. 41-44 Atheneum, New York, 1968. It might have seemed that the possibilities of Fruits had now been fully examined and exhausted; yet one, and the most important, still remained. In prose-poem, drama, and satire Gide had kept the problems of self-realization always at one remove - it remained to show them at work no longer in fantasy, but in their actual terror and beauty, as they would appear in real life, and as Gide himself had wrestled with them during the past seven years. Is it in fact possible to live according to the philosophy of Fruits, and what are the consequences of the attempt on oneself, one's fellow-creatures, and in particular one's wife? To answer these questions a novel was required, and Gide wrote The Immoralist (1.) To please his dying father, Michel, a puritanical young scholar, marries Marceline, who is, like himself, innocent and orphan. His acquiescence in a loveless marriage is quickly punished. No sooner have they reached North Africa on their honeymoon than he falls gravely ill, has a haemorrhage, and accepts the idea of death. Marceline nurses him devotedly but unskillfully, and a second haemorrhage retards his convalescence, just as he begins to see the potential beauty of the life he is in danger of leaving. 'I want life, I want to live,' he cries, and henceforth takes charge of his own cure - it is the first of many acts of will. Health, he decides, is good, and anything that does not conduce to health is evil. Michel returns again to life, this time by his own efforts. They are at Biskra, and spring is beginning. He ventures into the public gardens, then as his strength increases, explores the whole oasis. Marceline introduces him to some Arab children, and Michel gets to know more on his own account. His wife prefers those who are good and ailing, Michel prefers the others, and most of all one whom he watches stealing his wife's scissors. This miniature crime fills Michel with joy, no doubt because he too has robbed Marceline - but the scene is full also of a more Freudian symbolism. They return home via Syracuse and Italy. On the road to Sorrento Michel has a fight with a drunken carriage-driver, (2.) and that night, for the first time, he consummates his marriage. He feels love for Marceline, but more pity than love; he realizes that he has become stronger than she. They enter a period of short lived calm and joy, and at La Morinière, Michel's country house in Normandy, Marceline finds she is pregnant. Michel interests himself in the work of his farm, in riding, and in Charles, son of his steward. They spend the winter in Paris, where Michel is disgusted by the lack of individuality of everyone he meets. 'But you cannot expect everyone to differ from everyone else,' says Marceline. In Ménalque Michel meets one who demands precisely that. Ménalque has been to Biskra, and hands Michel the stolen scissors, which prove that Michel, at least, differs from others; for the boy Moktir has told Ménalque all. Michel leaves the sick Marceline in order to spend the last night of Ménalque's sojourn in Paris in a final conversation. 'One must choose,' says Ménalque, 'but the important thing is to know what one wants' - and he advises Michel to keep his 'calm happiness.' When Michel returns home next morning he finds his wife has had a miscarriage and is dangerously ill. It is Michel's turn to nurse her. Marceline seems to recover, and they return to La Morinière. Michel becomes more engrossed in his farm workers than in his farm. Displeased by Charles, now a gentleman with side-whiskers, he joins the local bad boys in poaching his own game. Charles finds him out, and Michel, annoyed and embarrassed, announces that he is selling La Morinière. 'Let us travel again,' he tells Marceline, 'and you will find that I still love you as I did at Sorrento.' Their second honeymoon follows the route of their first in reverse. Michel persuades himself that Marceline needs the warm south; but in reality he is seeking a renewal for himself of his re birth in Tunisia. 'What she called happiness I called rest, and I did not want to rest.' 'I understand your doctrine,' Marceline tells him. 'It is beautiful, perhaps, but it suppresses the weak.' (3.) He drags his dying wife ever southwards; they reach Touggourt, and she dies of the tuberculosis she had contracted in nursing him. Michel sends for his friends to hear his story and give him help. 'I want to live,' he had cried two years before, and now he says, 'Take me away and give me some reasons for existing.' 'I have searched for my individual value, and found it consists in an obstinate pursuit of the worst,' he confesses. But he is impenitent: 'I feel nothing in myself that is not noble.' To what extent is The Immoralist the story of Gide's own marriage? The parallels are very close, but very deceptive. The route, illness, recovery, and initiation of Michel's first journey come not from Gide's own honeymoon, but from the North African trip with Paul Laurens in 1893-4, two years before Gide's marriage. Gide's actual calmer and happier honeymoon in 1895-6 resembled the desperate race towards death of Michel's second journey in route only. In real life Madeleine Gide never had to nurse her husband in a dangerous illness; it was he, on the contrary, who devotedly nursed her. Their trips to Switzerland in May 1897 and to Algeria in spring 1898, both in search of health for Madeleine have already been mentioned. In August 1898 came more sulphur baths at Losdorf, and in the spring of 1899 they had to hurry home from another visit to Tunisia - 'our exhausted wills could prolong no more the agony of this journey." (4.) In July 1900 Madeleine Gide broke both arms in a carriage accident, and with her recovery from this mishap her general health seems to have improved. She resembled Marceline in goodness and innocence, but not in fate. Gide's journal, in these crucial years from 1896 to 1901 is not available; (5). but from retrospective entries in the resumed journal of 1902 and from the letters may be gathered several hints for the figure of Michel. The dread word 'inquietude', Gidian for 'Angst', appears more and more frequently, and will dominate the next decade. Gide suffered for a time from his nerves, and in the October of 1899 and 1900 went alone to Lamalou, in Provence, to recuperate. 'I think something in my life is about to change,' he wrote thence to Jammes, 'I feel like a clock on the point of striking.' (6.) In 1900 and 1901 he developed an obsession - this is very like Michel - for night-prowling on the boulevards, (7.) which he partly cast off after The Immoralist was written. And in the summer of 1900 came an incident that seems like some chapter of The Immoralist, rejected because stranger than fiction. In 1985 he had proposed to bring Athman to Paris, but was prevented by the horror of his mother, and her old servant Marie, who said, 'If that Negro comes, I go.' But now his new accomplice Henri Ghéon escorted the Arab youth from North Africa, and together with Gide they frequented the Tunisian quarter of the Universal Exposition, where J. E. Blanche painted them, sitting in a mock native café with Eugène Rouart and Chanvin. Ghéon liked to trace a growing cynicism in Blanche from this date! Michel's La Morinière is of course, Gide's La Roque; and in 1900 Gide, like Michel, put this, his mother's home, up for sale. He visited it occasionally on business, but was never to live there again. Once more Gide had written a work which portrayed not so much his own state of mind, as a danger from which he wished, by describing it, to save himself He wrote it 'in sweat and tears,' 'lived it for four years and wrote it in order to pass beyond'; 'if I had not written my Immoralist I risked becoming him.' (8.) In real life Gide, or a transitory part of him, was Michel, but without Michel's crimes. He was able to seek joy without final spiritual disintegration, and without killing his wife. The Immoralist is a cautionary tale of a cruel individualist; but it is too nearly, also, his glorification. Gide, most readers will feel, does not sufficiently condemn his villainous hero; he even shows him an oblique complaisance. Michel's final unhappiness is not enough to counterbalance his virtual murder of wife and child, and he lacks, being insufficiently punished, the saving pathos of Saul and Candaules, who are punished too much. As is always the case when a work of art chooses to set an ethical problem with bias and leaves it unresolved, the moral flaw is felt as an aesthetic flaw. If The Immoralist is immediately recognizable as a masterpiece, it is not for its sinister depths, but for its delightful surface. Gide never wasted effort on making his works difficult to enjoy. In The Immoralist his narrative reaches an ease and charm, his prose a limpid perfection, which he had previously only hinted, and then with irony, in his satires. These qualities he was to vary infinitely in mood and complexity, but rarely, perhaps never to surpass. But the chief impressions that we carry away from The Immoralist, apart from the ugly memory of Michel, are the joys of Gide's own life in the 1890's: the idyll of convalescence at Biskra, the georgic of La Morinière, the eclogue of Ménalque's conversation. These episodes owe something of their ideal beauty to the fact that they are also elegies: on the oases of Tunisia to which Gide's next visit was to be a farewell, on the woods and waters of La Roque abandoned to the steward, on the gilded voice of Wilde now stilled for ever. Gide's good-bye has perpetuated them. (1.) First conceived at Biskra in 1894, later intended as a 'Life of Ménalque', cormnenced probably in October 1900, finished 25th October 1901, published in May 1902. (2.) Gide had a similar experience with a runaway carriage and a drunken driver in Brittany, alone, in 1889. (3.) The opposite of Saul's saying of his demon-desires 'They have suppressed me completely.' (4.) Letter to Jammes, April 1899. (5.) We do not know whether it was unwritten, destroyed with pre-1890 diaries in 1902 or later, or suppressed. (6.) Letter to Jammes, October 1900. He had taken baths at Lamalou after his hysterical seizure in 1881. (7.) Journal for 8 January 1902 and May 1905. (8.) Letters to Jammes.

to me, to you and to the world. 20% done. I'm excited. Still, I still feel a bit low... I have been eating to much nuts these last few days and that makes me so tired in the evening. Thou I will get past this as well, it's probably an emotional cleanse. I have this beautiful friend (funny, I just have sooo many beautiful friends and I really love them all) and I read a comment she made in a discussion. She experienced severe emotional cleanse going raw and did overeat during this time, then her emotions settled at a good state and so did the eating. So I don't stress about it much, thou it's kind of dull to fall asleep putting your kids to bed (and still it's so cosy to fall asleep beside them). I'm sure the problem will resolve in the upcomming 30 days. I haven't been celebrating much today, I'm saving it for the 25th day, thats one forth into my challenge. That's on Monday. I have to plan something. Something I like to DO. Hmmm.... gotta wake my inner child. What do I dream about doing... First time I really understood the relationship between food and health was on an event in 2006. I know there was a relationship prior to this and I had changes some of my eating habits already, thou attending this event really made me grasp the great connection between the two. This event was the starting point for my current health journey. I was not experiensing severe health issues, I had no cronic diseases (except for some slight inconvinience with asthma), no excess weight, no sickness or alike. Thou I had noticed that during the last years I had lost the energy and endurance I had when I was twenty. I could have accepted this fact of getting older, yet I didn't (and I'm glad I didn't). I remember thinking, "Twentysix is no age for feeling like this, I should have unlimited amounts of energy, an abundance of vitality and excellent endurance. Yet I don't. What is wrong?" This seminar answered some of my questions. And it really got me engaged in finding a solutin to my problem. I'm certain alkaline raw food is the answer. At least it has cured my asthma and created more energy and better endurance. Still I think I can get even more from it, since I haven't been totally true to my believes. I have been wasting my time, my money, my self asteem and a lot of credability among my friends. This challenge is here to change all that. To make me stay 100% raw and high alkaline. The challenges I had, that made me start this journey in 2006, boils down to one thing really - getting enough nutrients into my body. This does not only mean eating sufficient amounts of nutrients. This also means that the body must be able to absorb and use the nutrients put into it. This is the root of ageing, the bodys lessened ability to absorb nutrients. That's why I believe in food combining and the alkaline diet. Food combining helps the body absorb nutrients by not mixing food groups that interfer in digestion. For example fruits take two hours to digest, starches three, protein four... so mixing these might interfer with digestion and leave some parts of the food undigested. Undigested food have two problems. First problem is that all nutrients are not relesed, second is the fermentation of leftovers creating acid and possible bacterial and/or viral growt in the digestive tract. The second may damage the internal environment of the digenstive tract and therefor restrict the absorbtion of nutrients. "The body is alkaline by design and acid by function", says Robert Young authour of the pH Miracle, so keeping the body in an alkaline state is essential for life. When the internal environment of the digestive tract becomes to acid it starts to get damaged. And if allowed to continue sooner or later we lose the ability to absorb nutrients. This weakens and ages the body in an increasing rate. For some persons an acid digestive tract leads to Chron's, IBS or even cancer. A good thing thou is the body's ability to heal itself. This is where an alkaline diet is most useful. Plentyfull of alkaline foods rich in chlorphyll is an excellent start. So eating raw is for the nutrient content, eating alkaline is for the pH balance of my body and food combining is for best use of nutrients and a less stressful environment for the digestive tract. Today I'm grateful for the abundance of sunshine present here today. I'm grateful for having beautiful, healthy children (who have eaten raw supper with me yesterday and today, yay!) I love moving my body, it's so light (thou I've never been overweight) and strong and lean. I love myself for taking this challenge for real and I'm grateful for completing day twenty in an excellent fashion. I'm also grateful for the time you took reading this. Thank you beloved. In divine love and sound health

The Huygens–Fresnel principle (named after Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens and French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel) is a method of analysis applied to problems of wave propagation both in the far-field limit and in near-field diffraction. In 1678, Huygens proposed that every point which a luminous disturbance reaches becomes a source of a spherical wave; the sum of these secondary waves determines the form of the wave at any subsequent time. He assumed that the secondary waves travelled only in the "forward" direction and it is not explained in the theory why this is the case. He was able to provide a qualitative explanation of linear and spherical wave propagation, and to derive the laws of reflection and refraction using this principle, but could not explain the deviations from rectilinear propagation that occur when light encounters edges, apertures and screens, commonly known as diffraction effects. The resolution of this error was finally explained by David A.B. Miller in 1991. The resolution is that the source is a dipole (not the monopole assumed by Huygens), which cancels in the reflected direction. In 1816, Fresnel showed that Huygens' principle, together with his own principle of interference could explain both the rectilinear propagation of light and also diffraction effects. To obtain agreement with experimental results, he had to include additional arbitrary assumptions about the phase and amplitude of the secondary waves, and also an obliquity factor. These assumptions have no obvious physical foundation but led to predictions that agreed with many experimental observations, including the Arago spot. Poisson was a member of the French Academy, which reviewed Fresnel's work. He used Fresnel's theory to predict that a bright spot ought to appear in the center of the shadow of a small disc, and deduced from this that the theory was incorrect. However, Arago, another member of the committee, performed the experiment and showed that the prediction was correct. (Lisle had actually observed this fifty years earlier.) This was one of the investigations that led to the victory of the wave theory of light over the then predominant corpuscular theory. The Huygens–Fresnel principle provides a good basis for understanding and predicting the classical wave propagation of light. However, there are limitations to the principle and differing views as to whether it is an accurate representation of reality or whether "Huygens' principle actually does give the right answer but for the wrong reasons". See Huygens' Theory and the Modern Photon Wavefunction below. Kirchhoff's diffraction formula provides a rigorous mathematical foundation for diffraction, based on the wave equation. The arbitrary assumptions made by Fresnel to arrive at the Huygens–Fresnel equation emerge automatically from the mathematics in this derivation. A simple example of the operation of the principle can be seen when two rooms are connected by an open doorway and a sound is produced in a remote corner of one of them. A person in the other room will hear the sound as if it originated at the doorway. As far as the second room is concerned, the vibrating air in the doorway is the source of the sound. Mathematical expression of the principle Consider the case of a point source located at a point P0, vibrating at a frequency f. The disturbance may be described by a complex variable U0 known as the complex amplitude. It produces a spherical wave with wavelength λ, wavenumber k = 2π/λ. The complex amplitude of the primary wave at the point Q located at a distance r0 from P0 is given by: since the magnitude decreases in inverse proportion to the distance travelled, and the phase changes as k times the distance travelled. Using Huygens' theory and the principle of superposition of waves, the complex amplitude at a further point P is found by summing the contributions from each point on the sphere of radius r0. In order to get agreement with experimental results, Fresnel found that the individual contributions from the secondary waves on the sphere had to be multiplied by a constant, −i/λ, and by an additional inclination factor, K(χ). The first assumption means that the secondary waves oscillate at a quarter of a cycle out of phase with respect to the primary wave, and that the magnitude of the secondary waves are in a ratio of 1:λ to the primary wave. He also assumed that K(χ) had a maximum value when χ = 0, and was equal to zero when χ = π/2. The complex amplitude at P is then given by: where S describes the surface of the sphere, and s is the distance between Q and P. Fresnel used a zone construction method to find approximate values of K for the different zones, which enabled him to make predictions that were in agreement with experimental results. The various assumptions made by Fresnel emerge automatically in Kirchhoff's diffraction formula, to which the Huygens–Fresnel principle can be considered to be an approximation. Kirchhoff gave the following expression for K(χ): K has a maximum value at χ = 0 as in the Huygens–Fresnel principle; however, K is not equal to zero at χ = π/2. Huygens' theory and the modern photon wavefunction Huygens' theory served as a fundamental explanation of the wave nature of light interference and was further developed by Fresnel and Young but did not fully resolve all observations such as the low-intensity double-slit experiment that was first performed by G. I. Taylor in 1909, see double-slit experiment. It was not until the early and mid 1900s that quantum theory discussions, particularly the early discussions at the 1927 Brussels Solvay Conference, where Louis de Broglie proposed his de Broglie hypothesis that the photon is guided by a wavefunction. The wavefunction presents a much different explanation of the observed light and dark bands in a double slit experiment. Feynman partially explains that a photon will follow a predetermined path which is a choice of one of many possible paths. These chosen paths form the pattern; in dark areas no photons are landing and in bright areas many photons are landing. The path of the photon or its chosen wavefunction is determined by the surroundings: the photons originating point (atom), the slit and the screen, the wavefunction is a solution to this geometry. The wavefunction approach was further proven by additional double-slit experiments in Italy and Japan in the 1970s and 1980s with electrons. Huygens' principle and quantum field theory Huygens' principle can be seen as a consequence of the homogeneity of space—the space is uniform in all locations. Any disturbance created in a sufficiently small region of homogenous space (or in a homogenous medium) propagates from that region in all geodesic directions. The waves created by this disturbance, in turn, create disturbances in other regions, and so on. The superposition of all the waves results in the observed pattern of wave propagation. Homogeneity of space is fundamental to quantum field theory (QFT) where the wave function of any object propagates along all available unobstructed paths. When integrated along all possible paths, with a phase factor proportional to the action, the interference of the wave-functions correctly predicts observable phenomena. Every point on the wave front acts as the source of secondary wavelets that spread out in the light cone with the same speed as the wave. The new wave front is found by constructing the surface tangent to the secondary wavelets. In other spatial dimensions In 1900, Jacques Hadamard observed that Huygens' principle was broken when the number of spatial dimensions is even. From this, he developed a set of conjectures that remain an active topic of research. In particular, it has been discovered that Huygens' principle holds on a large class of homogenous spaces derived from the Coxeter group (so, for example, the Weyl groups of simple Lie algebras). |Wikimedia Commons has media related to Huygens' principle.| - Chr. Huygens, Traité de la Lumière (drafted 1678; published in Leyden by Van der Aa, 1690), translated by Silvanus P. Thompson as Treatise on Light (London: Macmillan, 1912; Project Gutenberg edition, 2005), p.19. - OS Heavens and RW Ditchburn, Insight into Optics, 1987, Wiley & Sons, Chichester ISBN 0-471-92769-4 - David A. B. Miller Huygens's wave propagation principle corrected, Optics Letters 16, pp. 1370-2 (1991). doi:10.1364/OL.16.001370 - A. Fresnel, Ann Chim et Phys, (2), 1 (1816), Oeuvres, Vol. 1, 89, 129 - Max Born and Emil Wolf, Principles of Optics, 1999, Cambridge University Press ISBN 978-0-521-64222-4 - Huygens' Principle - MV Klein & TE Furtak, Optics, 1986, John Wiley & Sons, New York - Baggott, Jim (2011). The Quantum Story. Oxford Press. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-19-965597-7. - Peter, Rodgers. "The double-slit experiment". www.physicsworld.com. Physics World. Retrieved 2002. Check date values in: - Alexander P. Veselov, "Huygens' principle and integrable systems", Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena 87 (1995) 9-13 DOI 10.1016/0167-2789(95)00166-2 - Alexander P. Veselov, "Huygens’ principle", 2002 - "Wave Equation in Higher Dimensions" Stanford University, Math 220a class notes. - M. Belger, R. Schimming and V. Wünsch, "A Survey on Huygens’ Principle", ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR ANALYSIS UND IHRE ANWENDUNGEN Volume 16, Issue 1, 1997, pp. 9–36 DOI: 10.4171/ZAA/747 - Leifur Ásgeirsson, "Some hints on Huygens' principle and Hadamard's conjecture", Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics, Volume 9, Issue 3, pages 307–326, August 1956 - Paul Günther, "Huygens’ principle and Hadamard’s conjecture", The Mathematical Intelligencer, March 1991, Volume 13, Issue 2, pp 56-63 - Yu. Yu. Berest, A. P. Veselov, "Hadamard's problem and Coxeter groups: New examples of Huygens' equations", Functional Analysis and Its Applications January 1994, Volume 28, Issue 1, pp 3-12 - Fabio A. C. C. Chalub and Jorge P. Zubelli, "Huygens’ Principle for Hyperbolic Operators and Integrable Hierarchies" - Yuri Yu. Berest and Igor M. Loutsenko, "Huygens’ Principle in Minkowski Spaces and Soliton Solutions of the Korteweg-de Vries Equation", arXiv:solv-int/9704012 DOI 10.1007/s002200050235

Enid, Oklahoma Ghost Sightings - PAGE 9 (...continued from the previous page)| stump. I'm sorry I can't remember the street name.| Submitted by Maryle Comment by Enid resident: I think I know the area your talking about . Several years ago maybe the 1990s there was a big fire at an apartment house and some children didn't get out because there had not been a fire exit from the top floor. It's possible that it may had been one of the children that had died. There is nothing left but an empty lot now where the apartment house used to be. It may be the area where you saw this young girl. Comment by Twilightfan: I think I remember about that. I was really young but I remember hearing stories about that house that caught fire. I think only one made it out and all the children in the house sadly died because they were on the 2nd floor and everything was smoldering. A male in the house tried going up the stairs to save the children and was unsuccessful and got severely burned but lived. Huge possibility that's what it was, that you saw is one of those children. My mom and I would drive by there quite often and it was horrific. Took forever for them to clean up the site and get it to where it was an empty lot. Categories: hand, phone, glow, tree A few friends and I went to Imo cemetery at night, we didn't see anything but we did pick up stuff on my hand held voice recorder and got a few weird pics on my camera which was a cheap one. I picked up a large black mass with red dots, unsure what this was and on another camera we caught a child's face. Submitted by Amy | Comment by B.U.: While almost everything in that cemetery has been debunked I have taken pictures out there at night and picked up odd orbs of light. I didn't see with my bare eye. There's a family plot about center of the cemetery and most of the orbs were within that plot. Not really scary but odd. (continued on the next page...) Submit a ghost sighting for Enid, Oklahoma: If this is a comment on an existing sighting please use the link named ''comment on this'' at the end of that sighting. NEARBY GHOST PICTURES Other haunted towns near Enid, Oklahoma: Waukomis, Oklahoma, 7 miles away Kremlin, Oklahoma, 9 miles away Carrier, Oklahoma, 10 miles away Drummond, Oklahoma, 10 miles away Hillsdale, Oklahoma, 10 miles away Bison, Oklahoma, 12 miles away Lahoma, Oklahoma, 12 miles away Fairmont, Oklahoma, 15 miles away Hennessey, Oklahoma, 16 miles away Pond Creek, Oklahoma, 17 miles away

Ferris is a charming young man with excellent grades and a poor attendance record. He’s loved by his parents, idolized by his peers, and detested by the school’s principal. On this particular day, Ferris convinces his parents he’s sick and stays home from school. He spends the morning coordinating a fun day-trip with his friend, Cameron, and girlfriend, Sloane, using some clever tactics. His principal remains unconvinced and unimpressed by his antics so spends the day trying to thwart Ferris. The group’s morning of a Ferrari joyride, visiting the Willis Sears Tower, and watching Wall Street trading is capped off by bluffing their way into a high-end restaurant. Principal Rooney mistakes a woman for Ferris at a local bar. After lunch, the group attends a Cubs game, wanders around an art museum, and joins in a parade. Meanwhile, Rooney learns the reason people have doggy-doors, take self-defense classes, and avoid parking in front of fire hydrants. Act II peaks and closes with the revelation that somehow Cameron’s father’s car drove over 100 miles while they were out. Cameron goes catatonic. The group goes swimming to unwind. Rooney is still hanging out in the Bueller back yard. How does this guy in the police station know Ferris? Garth Volbeck? He and Ferris were friends in the eighth grade; then family issues caused Garth to drop out of school. Ferris blames himself for not helping more, that’s why he’s bent on giving Cameron a good time. That is, if you believe there was a previous script that gave this guy a backstory. How did Ferris and Sloane get to Sloane’s house from Cameron’s? Cameron wrecked his father’s car, not his own. He was feeling pretty care-free so he dropped them off and went home to confront his father. Why are those tanners faced away from the setting sun? Sometimes the best and safest sun-exposure is the sunlight reflected off the bottoms of tree leaves. Of course, this wasn’t a well-known philosophy in the eighties. These ladies are revolutionaries. So no one greets the dog when they get home? What kind of sick family is this? The 80s truly were a very weird time. What’s the name of that song? Pretty sure it’s Day Bow Bow. To have your other questions answered, post them below.

Hardworking Crockett Improving Game in Columbus Ryan Hohman | On 04, May 2015 The Indians’ decision to send Crockett to Columbus was not based on performance. The 23-year-old had tossed 2 1/3 scoreless innings in three appearances. According to his dad, Gary, the Indians explained it to Kyle as a “business decision.” He was the only lefty on the team with options. “It’s not frustrating to me,” said Crockett on being optioned to Columbus. “I’m still young so I’ve got some time. They had to do what they had to do and they’ve been playing better lately. Whenever they need me back up there I’ll be ready.” After posting dominant numbers in two partial minor league seasons, the fourth round pick from the University of Virginia splashed onto the scene in 2014, becoming the first player from the 2013 draft to make it to the majors. In 43 games with the Tribe, Crockett went 4-1 with a 1.80 ERA. He struck out 28 and walked just eight in 30 innings. It’s not frustrating to be honest,” said Crockett. “I just got to improve my game while I’m down here and right now I’m going to help this team win. However long I’m down here, I’ll just keep doing what I’ve been doing. If they need me back up there sooner or later, I’ll be ready.” The youngster has had a few rough outings since joining Columbus. In 5.1 innings, he’s allowed 10 runs on 13 hits for a 16.68 ERA. “I’m just tuning my mechanics back,” said Crockett. “I had a rough outing last time, so I’m just ready to get back on the mound and get doing what I’ve been doing. Try not to think too much when I go out there and just locate my pitches.” Columbus pitching coach Carl Willis isn’t concerned that Crockett has been getting hit hard. Everything is just fine from his point of view. “He’s doing fine,” said Willis. “He had a rough outing his last time out. I think the situation was that the other club got really aggressive and he admitted that his stuff was a little flat. He’s a tremendous worker and has a great feel for his own delivery, which is a little unique with his lower arm slot. He’s a tremendous kid to work with and is a guy who is going to help our big league club.” Crockett is taking advantage of the opportunity to work with Willis, who was the Indians pitching coach from 2003 to 2009 and coached Cy Young winners C.C. Sabathia and Cliff Lee. Willis held the same position for the Seattle Mariners from 2010 to 2013, where he had Cy Young winner Felix Hernandez on his pitching staff. “He’s a great guy,” said Crockett about Willis. “He hasn’t seen me throw much, but he’s been helping me as much as he can throughout these last couple games and in my bullpens. He’s a great guy and has a great knowledge for the game.” Kyle is also enjoying the opportunity to pitch at one of the best ballparks in the minors, Huntington Park. In 2009, Baseballparks.com named it the Ballpark of the Year. “It’s great,” said Crockett. “You can ask anyone of these guys, if you’re going to be in AAA, this is the place to be. It’s a great atmosphere and the field is great. They take care of us like big leaguers. We get good crowds even though it’s been cold lately. It’s a great atmosphere.” Standings Update: The Clippers (11-13) are in second place in the West Division, where they trail the Indianapolis Indians (15-10) by 3.5 games. After going 6-2 in their first homestand of the year, the Clippers are riding a season-long five-game losing streak after dropping six of seven on the road against Rochester and Syracuse. Francisco Lindor Watch: The Tribe’s top prospect struggled on the team’s recent road trip, going just 2-25 at the plate with one RBI and seven strikeouts. His batting average dropped from .302 to .239 on the season. Nick Swisher‘s Rehab Going Well: In six games with the Clippers, Swisher is hitting .375 (9-24) with one home run, two doubles, and five RBI. There is speculation that he could return to the Indians this week. Tyler Holt Called Up: The outfielder took the roster spot vacated by struggling lefty T.J. House, who was placed on the 15-day disabled list with left shoulder inflammation on Friday. Holt hit .328 (20-61) with 12 runs scored, five stolen bases, and a .438 on-base percentage in 19 games for the Clippers.

During a brainstorming session about possible story ideas for the first issue of the Calistoga Tribune in 2010, I was trying to come up with creative angles on the whole New Year’s topic. In the past, we have written stories about health clubs, asked local bigwigs for predictions, and stopped people on the street to ask what their resolutions were. After eight years, though, the annual events and holidays become harder and harder to tackle with a fresh mind. Then I saw that we have two new regular advertisers in the newspaper: a hypnotist and an astrologer. Perfect! Here was a unique take on working on resolutions, and also something I knew nothing about. I hoped it would be interesting to me and to our readers. And so, I interviewed Anthony Royce Barnacott of Kamalot Astrology and Donna Rodolph of Hypnosis for Change. Both were knowledgeable, enthusiastic and contagiously thrilled to talk to me. But there was a bonus that I wasn’t expecting: both also offered me a free trial to get a taste of what they do. Anthony is currently preparing my TimeLine, an astrological chart which will tell what is in store for me in 2010 based on my Dec. 26, 1962, 5:43 p.m. birthdate. It should arrive in the mail in the next day or two. So that is still to come. Today, at 12:30 p.m., I was hypnotized by Donna. She specializes in helping people overcome problems, things like losing weight, stopping smoking, overcoming fears, reducing stress or managing pain. Although there were any number of things on that list I could have chosen, I selected the biggest obstacle in my life: food. I have struggled with eating disorders and weight gain and loss since I was a young teenager. I have periods of stability, then again go back into the cycle of destructive behaviors. Could hypnosis really work? Well, we’ll see. The session was surprisingly relaxing, and did not, as I thought it might, put me into an unconscious state. Instead, it was more like a deep attentiveness, with a complete absence of tension. Donna had me visualize what it would be like to be healthy and fit, and I had a strong image of myself as a runner, something I used to do, and have been considering taking up again. I still feel a bit skeptical of the whole process. But despite that, hopeful. Maybe this really can help me rewire my brain, and establish new behaviors. An interesting note to all of this was Donna’s comment that she could not offer me any “satisfied customers” names for interviews, because when she was starting her still relatively new practice, most of her clients were Christians. As in fundamentalists. And, because of that, they were very guarded about their participation. Apparently there was some sense that a good Christian shouldn’t be turning to something as potentially “spooky” as hypnosis for answers. I guess God was supposed to do it for them. All of which made me reflect on my own spiritual practice. I didn’t turn to hypnosis and astrology looking for answers – what I was really looking for was a story. But once I was there, it made me wonder a bit. How does all of this fit in with Zen? I guess the good news is that it doesn’t have to fit. There’s enough room in my Zen, anyway, for everything….even the far out stuff. Because it’s not a religion – it’s a way of being present for life, no matter where each day takes me.

Read this if: A) You need not-boring gift ideas for Mothers’ Day. B) You’re out of books and want to be reading something fabulous by bedtime TONIGHT. C) You’re the person in your book club who always knows about the newest releases. D) You’re looking for a paperback version of a great story you might have missed. E) All of the above. Every month, we encourage our staff to speak up about the books they’re reading and recommending most. Because there’s no pressure to pick anything specific — just the books they truly love right now — it ends up being quite a mix. So take a look at the latest list, and come say hello if you’d like to check out these books or chat with our booksellers in person! (You can also click any title that interests you, and we’ll ship it to your door.) For you / your mom / anyone who loves to read: Two authors illuminate complicated relationships between mothers and grown children in these new books, both recommended by Ann Patchett: It’s hard to believe that a year after the astonishing My Name Is Lucy Barton Elizabeth Strout could bring us another book that is by every measure its equal, but what Strout proves to us again and again is that where she’s concerned, anything is possible. This book, this writer, are magnificent. (If you visit/order soon, we might still have signed copies!) This story of a Chinese immigrant and her son starts off good and progresses into something great. It’s smart and moving and complicated and will surely build compassion in anyone considering the lives of immigrants. It’s the winner of Barbara Kingsolver’s Bellweather Prize too! (Event note: Lisa Ko will visit Nashville on June 1 to appear in conversation with Ann and fellow novelist Weike Wang.) This book is a delight for music lovers, even more so for those who grew up in Nashville. Cooper, a musician and music journalist, has interviewed and developed friendships with many of the fabulous characters who earned Nashville the moniker Music City. Johnny’s Cash and Charlie’s Pride is by turns funny and touching. (Peter Cooper will be here on Tuesday, May 16 — don’t miss his event!) For true-crime lovers, here’s a narrative written like the most gripping murder mystery. It’s the story of five years of murders in the early 1920s and the manner in which 29-year- old Herbert Hoover used them to launch the FBI. With little known facts of how the Osage community became the richest on earth and the people in power who attempted to steal their wealth, this is documentation at its best. (Meet David Grann when he discusses and signs the book on Monday, May 8!) Remember the seemingly impossible feat Claire Cameron pulled off with The Bear (a whole novel told in the voice of a five-year-old girl)? She’s done it again. This time the narrator is a young female Neanderthal in search of connection and survival. I was blown away. Please read this so we can talk about it. (It would make a lovely and unusual Mothers’ Day gift, too; themes of family and belonging run throughout.) Did Ann Patchett’s This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage whet your appetite for lovely, real essays about adult commitment? Did you wish it had even more about marriage? Then you might love Dani Shapiro’s latest — a short, beautiful memoir made 100% of marriage! Give it to your best friend, your long-married mom, anyone celebrating an anniversary, or yourself. For Mother’s Day? Oh, yes! A story of how three German women repair and rebuild their lives after WWII, living with the secrets they hold. (Rae Ann recommended this one last month, and author Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney picked it for our spring preview, too. Seems to be a crowd favorite!) What happens when “home” is a different place for almost everyone in your family? In her debut novel, Hala Alyan weaves through the generations of one Arab family as they emigrate from Palestine to Kuwait to Lebanon and then to Paris and the United States. A story about family relationships we all can relate to with characters I still think about. * Voted by staff as the book cover we’d most like to wear as a shirt or dress. Gut-wrenching and strange, Leonora Carrington is the quiet master of surrealist fiction, and now her stories come in one beautiful package. Not for the faint of heart or faint imaginations. For the wackier readers and/or mothers out there. You might recognize Patricia Lockwood from either poetry or Twitter — she’s a master of both — and now it turns out she can write a perfect memoir as well. Priestdaddy shifts effortlessly between the sacred and the profane as Lockwood recounts her childhood in the Catholic church. Pick it up for the hilarious dysfunction of Lockwood’s family and stay for her gorgeous prose. This book blends history, present day issues, and an account of lived experience in the subject of mental illness. Powers provides well researched information and his own insight from watching schizophrenia affect his sons, one of whom died by suicide. Reminder: May is also Mental Health Awareness Month. All at once, Egypt’s most watched satirist went from having his face on every billboard in Cairo to fleeing for fear of retribution from those in political power. Bassem Youssef gives readers a crash course on the issues of the Arab Spring in a way that is not watered down for the sake of comedic relief. Great for fans of Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime. One Good Mama Bone by Bren McClain was Pat Conroy’s last release under his new imprint as a publisher. That’s reason enough to pick up this great Southern novel, but the story readers and reviewers everywhere have loved stands on its own. I dare you to stand here in the store and read the opening pages. By sending middle-aged Quoyal and his children off to Newfoundland, Proulx weaves a narrative of personal and familial rediscovery that will leave you with many knots to un-coil. Recipient of both the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, The Shipping News is a subtle and poignant classic never to be overlooked. For anyone who went to college in the ’90s and lived through the advent of email, this book captures what happened when cyber-communication was added into the campus dating game. The narrator, a Turkish-American girl from New Jersey in her freshman year at Harvard, is mostly honest, sometimes funny, and often painfully unsure of herself (LIKE EVERY SINGLE FRESHMAN EVER). Her totally original voice reminded me of the first time I read Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. I messaged my crazy college roommates immediately to tell them to read it. If you loved The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, this is where to go next. As in the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies, Mukherjee tells a Big Story about Big Science through the framework of personal experience: his own family’s deadly legacy of schizophrenia. His narrative of the history of human genetics is sweeping, and this seriously sexy science asks the most fundamental questions about what it means to be human. Out today in paperback! Frankl does more than tell his own Holocaust story — he explains how the victims around him dealt with adversity. I’m the same age as Boyne, who wrote the intro, and although the title says “young adult,” I’d recommend this book for all ages, including parents of young adults. This edition’s timely message hits the contemporary reader in the head and the heart. If you’ve been on a thriller kick like me, Megan Abbot’s You Will Know Me, a murder mystery set in a high-stakes elite gymnastics community, awaits you in its new paperback edition. This fast-paced (and chilling) read kept me guessing. The Dada movement emerged a century ago in response to crazy times. Dada never completely died out and is presently being kept alive by the ghost of William S. Burroughs and a doppelganger of Bill Murray living in an ancient parallel universe. This book is so next-tweet, you’ll want to read it immediately. Britian was the lone holdout as the Nazis swept across Europe. Olson’s compelling narrative recounts how Europe’s monarchs and leaders sought refuge and set up governments in exile while the allies fought to take the continent back. (Ed. note: Andy tried to sneak this book into our Mothers’ Day display by calling it, “A mother of a book!” We said: nice try, Andy.) Speaking of books we love: This time last year, we were wild over a new laugh-out-loud story of office intrigue, a delicious revenge fantasy where the most put-upon staffers at a big media company plot a scheme to boost their income. The Assistants is pure, satisfying fun (we’re still wild about it), and it’s out today in paperback with a spiffy new cover. “The breaking of bonds requires energy,” notes the narrator of Weike Wang’s debut novel, a chemist trying to finish her graduate studies while navigating an increasingly serious relationship with her boyfriend, a fellow scientist. Indeed, it requires energy to form and maintain bonds, too. It also takes self-awareness and acceptance of imperfection, both of which this young woman struggles to gain as she seeks to reconcile her past (academic excellence, demanding Chinese parents, certainty about her path in life) with her future, which — in light of her failing research — suddenly looks less sure. Ann Patchett blurbed the book like so: “Chemistry starts as a charming confection and then proceeds to add on layers of emotional depth and complexity with every page. It is to Wang’s great credit that she manages to infuse such seriousness with so much light. I loved this novel.” I agree 100%. You’ll fall in love with the unique narrative voice, dry humor, and emotional truth in this slim book. (If you’re an off-the-charts type-A person, you’ll find it deeply relatable, too. Or, um, so I hear.) Smart, refreshing, and unexpected, it’s the story in-the-know readers will be talking about this summer and for years to come. There’s nothing formulaic about Chemistry. Yours in Reading, Mary Laura Philpott Editor of Musing NOTE: Chemistry will be published on May 23 and signed and shipped after Wang’s appearance in Nashville in conversation with Ann Patchett and fellow novelist Lisa Ko (The Leavers) on June 1. That means you’ve got time to sign up for the First Editions Club and make plans to attend the event! Are you a member of our store book club? Would you like to be? Parnassus Book Club and Classics Club meetings are free and open to anyone. Buy the book, read along, and join the discussion! “It’s All About the Book” More thoughts on reading from Kathy Schultenover, Parnassus Book Clubs Manager: When I travel, I like to read books set in the area I’m visiting. It adds so much to my enjoyment of the whole experience. My all-time favorite travel tie-in has to be Death Comes for the Archbishop, read on a week’s vacation in the American Southwest. Willa Cather’s reverent descriptions of the mountains, bluffs and desert-scapes matched what I saw each day. I make it to South Florida often, which means I have read many books about Florida while I’m there: classics such as Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, or more recent works like Swamplandia! by Karen Russell and Last Train to Paradise by Les Standiford. On my latest trip, I visited the independent bookstore, Annette’s Beach Book Nook near our hotel on Ft. Myers Beach. The Book Nook is primarily a used bookstore with some new books — a book browsing paradise! During a conversation with Annette about Florida books, I was reminded of Randy Wayne White, well-known as the author of 24 Doc Ford mysteries. (Among other jobs, Randy has been a full-time fishing guide on Sanibel Island, and a columnist for Outside magazine, covering adventures and extreme sports all over the globe. Currently he lives on Pine Island and spends a lot of time writing and hanging out at Doc Ford’s Rum Bar and Grille on Sanibel.) I started with the first book in his series, Sanibel Flats, which introduces the character of retired NSA agent Doc Ford and kicks off this series of engrossing, fast-paced page-turners, perfect for a Florida beach vacation or anytime you want true escapist reading. I also chose a new book, Sunshine State by Sarah Gerard. Its stunning cover — Florida wildlife and sea creatures — practically calls, “Pick me up!” In essays that reflect her experiences growing up in Florida, Gerard weaves aspects of her own life, such as tough times with her best friend and her parents’ relationship with religion, into broader philosophical statements that all lead back to Florida itself, a microcosm of our greater society and culture. I found the collection thought-provoking, troubling, and moving. Next time you’re traveling to Florida, I recommend Sanibel Flats and Sunshine State — two very different books that added so much to the fun of my Florida vacation this year. Love living in a literary city? Don’t take it for granted! Help fund the important work of Humanities Tennessee (ie, Chapter 16, the Southern Festival of Books, Salon@615, and more) — and meet the legend of legal fiction, John Grisham. On Thursday, June 22, Grisham will be here at Parnassus for a very special reception and signing of his new book, Camino Island. (It’s a two-part event, with the book signing taking place from 2-6 p.m., and the discussion from 6-7 p.m.) Tickets are $100 and include a copy of the book. Note: The signing line and Q&A are limited to just 200 ticket-holders, and tickets are going fast. Get yours — and more details — here. Want more? As always, you can find more reading recommendations in our Bookmark column in the latest issue of Nashville Arts Magazine — grab a copy here in the store or around Nashville. THANK YOU to everyone who came out to celebrate Independent Bookstore Day with us last weekend. We LOVE being a part of this literary community and we’re so grateful for your support! (And speaking of thanks, we appreciate being named one of the Best Bookstores in All 50 States by BookRiot!) And finally: #WheresPeggy?Come get food for your mind and soul from our version of a food-truck, Peggy the Parnassus on Wheels bookmobile! Find her at your favorite weekend gathering spots: Saturday, May 6 – 10am-6pm: Sevier Park Festival (3021 Lealand Ln, 37204) Sunday, May 7 – 12-4pm: 1st Sundays at the Shops at Porter East (723 Porter Rd, 37206) Saturday, May 13 – 8am-12pm: Nolensville Farmers’ Market (7248 Nolensville Rd, 37135) Sunday, May 14 – 11am-5pm: The Sunday Market @ The Factory at Franklin (230 Franklin Rd, 37064)

“Youths” Jump Couple at DC Metro Station in Latest Knock-Out Style Beating (VIDEO) A DC couple was brutally beaten at a Metro station in Washington DC after watching a movie Saturday night. Police are looking for several youths in a spree of recent Metro beatings. The youths sucker-punched the couple and kicked their faces. This is the fourth such attack in the last month on Metro passengers. The media has mostly covered up this story. The young couple said they would have likely found another way home if they would have heard about the number of recent beatings. FOX 5 DC reported: Two more victims have come forward in another violent attack at a Metro station. It is the latest in a string of violent assaults happening in the transit system. “I don’t know exactly what was happening,” said one of the victims. “I heard my girlfriend screaming.” It was 15 seconds of terror for a D.C. couple after they were attacked by a group of teenagers on Metro. “I think there were about ten kids who were just all attacking us,” said the girlfriend. It was 9:30 p.m. Saturday night on January 2. The couple was waiting for a train at the Metro Center stop after spending a night at the movies. They were sitting on a bench when he was sucker-punched from behind and suffered a loss of vision. “It all happened very quickly, and then they were just hitting us both in the face and head,” said the female victim. They said the attack was unprovoked. “We literally said nothing to them,” said the boyfriend. The male victim had two black swollen eyes, welts on his head and bruised wrists from shielding his face. His girlfriend was left bleeding with a split lip.

5 October – 3 November 2012 29 Charlotte Road, London EC2A 3PB Open Tuesday – Friday, 11am – 6pm, Saturday, 12 – 6pm David Brian Smith is one of a few interesting painters represented by Carl Freedman – including, for example Michael Fullerton and Ivan Seal – all of whom draw on the conventions, genres and histories of painting in their contemporary practice. Smith is a young British painter who currently has a solo show at Freedman’s new gallery space in Hoxton, which showcases his technical ability and evolving style as a painter and offers further insight into his somewhat hallucinatory vision and underlying autobiographical and art historical references. The exhibition brings together recent work, medium scale paintings where a figure or figures are situated in psychedelic and symbolic landscapes, alluding to spiritual or heightened emotional interiors. A range of references spring to mind: Henri Rousseau, William Blake and the polychromatic visionary paintings of Samuel Palmer, and on from there through to the mid-20th century and the peculiarly British surrealist landscape paintings of artists like Paul Nash and Graham Sutherland. Smith is the third generation of a family of farmers in Shropshire and the motif of the shepherd tending his flock has been a recurring image in his work during recent years. Based on a black and white photograph from the 1930s reproduced in the Sunday Express, a copy of which his mother found under the carpet of the house they moved to in 2006 when his family reluctantly left the farm following the death of his father and the subsequent financial hardship of farm trading, the image has poignant autobiographical association for the artist which he often revisits. Other paintings are based on a 1912 photograph of his great-grandfather, a colonial explorer, which build upon the familial, patriarchal theme of the work. Painting on herringbone linen, chosen for its associations with rural life – tweed, flat caps etc. – Smith allows the underlining herringbone pattern to disrupt and fragment the reading of the image, often asserting the pattern by painting it over final composition, creating a collaged effect and generating a dizzying, altered condition of perception, skilfully handled. A nice show by a young artist to watch.

Sunday, June 24, 2012 A Short & Silly Toby Video! Summer has officially arrived at the Lazy Vegan! And (thankfully) it is nice & cool! The garden is booming and Wasabi had a big adventure and visited it...she loved munching on some oregano and dill! The donkeys got a nice long walk in and the pups did what they do best...lounged! Got some cute fawns on the critter cam, and one raccoon (if it is the same one) seems to be getting a bit annoyed at the presence of the camera. I've noticed that only the raccoons really seem to look like they absolutely notice that the camera is there! Fresh from the garden! Don't knock it before you try it...zukes sauted in liquid aminos with nutritional yeast - yum! Toby has the "trembles" now in his hindquarters (much like Solo got in his golden years), so he likes to rest with a heating pad. Mama deer with fawns! The donkeys head home! This tool is called a "Wonder Bar". I'm wondering why! Chasing the house rabbit! Raccoon keeps on going! Raccoon: "there's that camera AGAIN!" Very Young Fawn! Where is that crazy rabbit? Bravo celebrates the Summer Solstice with a floral headdress!

At the end of the year, there are always a bunch of retrospective articles on the presidency. This year, history has been kind to Barack Obama. Like, really kind. The stories all list Obama's signal accomplishments achieved against persistent, unreasoning, and sometimes angry opposition. Obama's performance as the first Black president is like the career of the first African American in Major League Baseball, Jackie Robinson. Robinson had to put up with the same kind of treatment on the job that Republicans have inflicted on Obama. The fans booed Robinson and hurled racial epithets. They threw things at him in the field. Opposing players tried to injure him on the bases. Through it all, Robinson kept his cool by following his manager's advice never to let his detractors see him get angry. Robinson responded to the pressure by becoming a rookie sensation, winning batting titles, and becoming the National League MVP. He was the first major league star to concentrate on stealing bases and scoring runs, rather than hitting home runs. That sounds to me a lot like what Barack Obama has been doing. As the first black president, he has taken a lot of abuse from the press and Republicans. Not a single Republican voted for the Affordable Care Act, which had been proposed by the Heritage Foundation, a Conservative think tank, and implemented by Mitt Romney, the Republican governor of Massachusetts. There is one major difference between Obama and Robinson. Robinson had to spend several years in the Negro Leagues and started his rookie season with the Brooklyn Dodgers when he was 28. Failing health forced him to retire at age 37 after only 10 years in the league. Barack Obama, on the other hand, became president in 2009 at the relatively young age of 47. When he leaves office, Obama will still be in the prime of life at 55. The thought of Obama being active after his presidency must be truly frightening for Republicans. The man they couldn't beat may be spending the rest of his life beating them. I think that would be a fitting end to his story.

Syracuse Children's Chorus performing 'Celtic Traditions' March 10 CAMILLUS -- The Syracuse Children's Chorus, under the direction of artistic director Stephanie Mowery and assistant director, Marcia DeMartini, continues its 31st concert season with "Celtic Traditions." Join the chorus as they welcome the Kinlough Academy of Irish Dance for a celebration of Celtic music on Saturday, March 10 at 2 p.m. at West Genesee High School, located at 5201 W. Genesee St. Set sail on a musical voyage to Ireland, Scotland and Wales for "Celtic Traditions," a concert invoking the spirit of time-honored culture and customs. Accompanied by pianist Sabine Krantz, the Syracuse Children's Chorus will share the stage with the Kinlough Academy of Irish Dance from Oswego, directed by Siobhan Smith Rodrigues, TCRG, and transport you to the Emerald Isle during a spectacular performance of Celtic music and dance that is perfect for young lads and lassies. Musical selections will include traditional Scottish, Irish, and Welsh folk songs such as "In Praise of Isla," (Lee Kesselman), "Sally Gardens," (Benjamin Britten), "As I Went with Tom to Tywyn," (Nigel Jones), and "Irish Lullaby," (Mark Sirett) accompanied by an instrumental ensemble and bagpipes. Advance sale prices for individual tickets are $15 for adults and $13 for children and seniors in general admission seating and $19 for adults and $17 for children and seniors in priority seating. Group rates are available. Tickets will also be available at the door the day of the concert for $18 for adults and $16 for children and seniors in general admission seating only. For more information or to purchase tickets contact the Syracuse Children's Chorus office at 478-0582, by e-mail at [email protected], or visit their website at: This concert is made possible with funds from Geddes Federal Savings. The Syracuse Children's 2011-2012 concert season is sponsored in part by Driver's Village. The Syracuse Children's Chorus creates collaborative experiences in which young people share their joy of singing, develop their sense of beauty and deepen their commitment to excellence through choral music education and performance. For over 30 years, choristers have contributed to the development of the American choral tradition, performing from Carnegie Hall to China, from London to Los Angeles, serving as Central New York's musical ambassadors to the world. Founded at Syracuse University in 1981 by Barbara M. Tagg, the Chorus is recognized for musical excellence and as a model for performance-based choral music education. The Chorus received the ASCAP Chorus America/ASCAP award for Adventurous Programming in both 2002 and 2007.

The Salvation Army is launching initiatives from culinary to construction Hope Harbor Culinary Arts At age 6, Barry Crall was in the kitchen making pancakes. “They say you’re born to be a chef, and I guess I was,” he said. Crall trained under three chefs before becoming one in 1985 and has worked in the restaurant business ever since. He cooked at family-owned restaurants and published recipes in Northern California Fine Dining, and now is the chef instructor at The Salvation Army Lodi Hope Harbor Culinary Arts Program. Since the program’s first session in January 2008, 106 students have graduated, 90 percent of whom are currently working—74 percent are working in the restaurant industry. The 86-bed Hope Harbor Family Service Center opened in 2005. Crall—a graduate of the Stockton Adult Rehabilitation Center (ARC)—took the lead of the job skills training program after an advisory board member recognized the kitchen’s potential. The Army contracted with a local college chef instructor, who mentored Crall for the first year, and helped to adapt a four-year curriculum into a 16-week course. A residential program, the culinary arts program accepts 10 students per session from area ARCs and other sobriety programs. The $5,000 per student cost is generated by grants, foundations and private funding. The course includes academics, hands-on training, visits to food service operations and one-on-one mentoring by industry professionals to prepare students to be a prep or line cook. Each student finishes the class with a ServSafe certificate and a portfolio that details the course and includes pictures of his or her work. “We joke that we want these students to pay taxes, because we want them to be productive members of society,” Crall said. “They come out trained as entry-level prep cooks, who could cook a breakfast line with ease.” One graduate—despite a history dotted with prison, narcotics and violence—landed a full-time job as a chef at a local senior citizens social club. He cooks a hot lunch there every day. Lodi’s Wine and Roses has hired nine of Crall’s students, and others work at local golf and country clubs. Crall said employers are now approaching him looking for chefs. “With a new job skill, they don’t need to turn back to what they’ve known before,” Crall said. “That’s my ministry.” Anne’s House Soaps Any skill can be put to work for good, and that includes soap making. That’s what one volunteer found out through The Salvation Army PROMISE (Partnership to Rescue Our Minors from Sexual Exploitation) Program to combat sex trafficking of children through awareness, prevention, intervention and service delivery. The unique model began in Chicago in 2005 and has since trained over 20,000 first responders in five major cities in the use of a commercial sexual exploitation of children curriculum developed through a $1 million Department of Justice grant; launched an anti-trafficking prevention education curriculum, TraffickED, in Chicago high schools and middle schools; launched hotel and law enforcement training sessions, HALT, with various convention bureaus throughout Illinois; and operated Anne’s House, a long-term trauma-based residential home for young women recovering from sex trafficking. “The volunteer happens to be a soap maker, and we asked her what specifically she would want to do to help our efforts,”said Frank Massolini, PROMISE program director and founder of Anne’s House. “As a result, she started with training the young ladies in making hand soap.” That was in 2013, and Anne’s House Soap has to date sold approximately $17,000 worth of product. Volunteers from a local church banded together to host the monthly soap making activities, creating fragrances and settling molds together with the Anne’s House young women. The more than 3,000 bars of soap they create annually are packaged and sold at boutiques, fair trade shows and online. “It is a form of therapy as the young women are in a beautiful environment in a church cafeteria with the spiritual involvement of mentors; it’s transformative in making something,”Massolini said. “Maybe for the first time in their lives, they are learning how to produce a product and becoming part of the legitimate economic system not apart from it. For anybody who wants to learn and participate in this country’s wonderful free enterprise system, if you think of a product, and produce it and market it, you can create something and run a business. That’s a whole awakening to them.” In addition to the mixing and molding, Massolini said the young women are involved in the business side, helping to make decisions on buying, pricing, tax ramifications and marketing. They also determine how to spend the profits, to date having purchased backpacks and school supplies, an overnight trip to Six Flags Great America and a Wii video game console for the house. “If you know how to run a soap business, someday you can run IBM,”Massolini said. “Plus they like when the revenue comes in.” GreenWorks Landscape Management The Salvation Army Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex Command discovered in 2010 it was spending a substantial amount of money on paying an outside contractor to maintain its own properties. Donnie Freeman, social enterprise manager for the command, opted to start an in-house landscape management company, using workers hired from the nearby Carr P. Collins Social Service Center. Some of these men were recovering from addiction, some were veterans, but all were homeless, unemployed and hard-pressed to find work elsewhere. “The workers are overcoming many barriers to employment, including the very fact that they are homeless,” Freeman said. “Some have had issues with drug and alcohol abuse, and even though they’ve completed treatment, the stigma remains.” Freeman brought on Burton Niles, an experienced landscaper and irrigator, to train each employee in lawn and plant care, proper equipment usage, safety and irrigation. Niles organized two crews of 12 workers, and with donations from local advisory board members, aims to springboard the employees into other full-time work. “By working on a landscaping crew and proving they are reliable, they become eligible to receive letters of recommendation and assistance in attaining full-time employment,” Freeman said. Ernst, who has worked as an account generator for Socially Responsible Landscape Management since October 2013, said the program has allowed him to ease back into the workforce at a pace he’s comfortable with. “I’ve had great responsibilities in my life,” he said. “I can’t get back into that right now. I need to do something that I can feel good about that still makes me a little bit of money, but I need to work a different pace and focus on what’s important, which is my recovery.” In April 2013, the program gained permission to carry out work for entities other than The Salvation Army. The company has since increased its workload to maintaining 55 properties, including 16 commercial properties. One of the crews recently landscaped, designed and installed a complete irrigation system for The Salvation Army’s Christmas and Disaster Warehouse. Since the business started, 12 men, including Kevin Kirby, have left to go into other full-time work. “When I got out of jail, I didn’t have any money,” Kirby said. “I didn’t have any money until I went to The Salvation Army and went through that program. In those three months I was in the program, I was able to do what I needed to do once I got out. If I could’ve worked more hours, I would have.” A new program at The Salvation Army’s Aurora (Colo.) Corps is helping graduates of the local Adult Rehabilitation Center (ARC) learn employable skills and make a living. In just 30 days, participants learn construction basics including safety and carpentry tools (a set of which they’ll get to keep upon graduating), as well as professional skills, such as the importance of attendance and punctuality. The goal is to help every student get a job in construction after they graduate. The “pre-apprentice program” even helps them create resumes and secure job interviews. “We open the door—they just have to step through,” said Robert McElreavey, boot camp instructor for the Colorado Construction Institute (CCI), who leads the new program. Although it’s a pilot program for the corps, the CCI leads similar camps throughout the Denver Metro area, he said. The CCI’s partnership with the Home Builders Association of Metro Denver helps provide a pathway to employment for any graduate interested in the homebuilding industry. According to McElreavey, 98 percent of students find jobs following graduation. Steve Holmes, a recent graduate of the Adult Rehabilitation Center (ARC) in Denver, likes those odds. A certified crane operator, Holmes grew “sick of fighting addiction” and worried his drinking would have irreversible effects if he didn’t take action. “I was driving $100,000 trucks at 70 miles an hour. If I would have made a wrong turn because I still wasn’t right from the night before, I could cause a little damage,” he said, sarcastically. “If this is the first step [toward that goal], then why not?” he said. Two of Holmes’ ARC program mates are also taking part in the construction school. The men’s tuition—$3,000 for the four-week program—and bus passes to get to and from the center were donated by the Regional Transportation District, according to Aurora Corps Officer Lt. Tanya Pemberton. The other four students attend the program on scholarships from the Arapahoe/Douglas Works! Workforce Center. Aurora’s 4.7 percent unemployment rate outpaces the statewide rate of 4.2 percent. Moreover, “there were no bridging programs for the ARC” that offered recent graduates a way to gain employable skills and qualify for jobs that pay a livable wage, outside of fast food restaurants, Tanya Pemberton said. “We provide lunch for them, and once a week I go and eat with them,” she said. “I give the ARC guys a ride home when I can. I look at it as a ministry opportunity.”

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[This work called «Humans» was started many years ago. In 20-25 years it turned to a manuscript consisting of over 3.000 pages in several languages. It was an attempt to describe human «parameters» from «outside». A question «What is Humans?» is a correct idea about this work] According to my work, the political power in human society whether in a form of governments, religious authority or any other form is programmed in our genetic code. Of course, the governments are the most "evil" phenomenon of the human society (and history). But if we could fight it - we had to fight it from within, in our genes, and this is impossible. To comfort ourselves we need an idea that we can fight governments or even eliminate the governmental power (Anarchism). However, such an illusion is an instinct itself. The structure of human society from that point of view looks like that: 1) Government - the most inhuman social force. 2) Chaos and anarchy - almost as evil as the government. In spite of its evil nature the government is in control over the most destructive instincts and tendencies of the human society, preventing its self-destruction and freezing on a primitive level. 3) Technological progress stays between them. If not the governmental mobilization of all human resources that pushes it, that progress would be impossible. Without it and its tools the self-destructive instincts and tendencies should not threat the very basic of human existence. In other words, on one hand diminishing the self-destructive forces of the society, government on the other hand is making the same forces more and more destructive by pushing ahead the technical progress. 4) There is a strange hidden "conspiracy" on genetical level between the social chaos - and the government. The same genetically programmed instincts, which erect the government, are responsible for the "mayhem" instincts as well. It is very similar to the criminals-government eternal war, which on another level is not a war but cooperation. 5) Old nations like Jews, Armenians, Iranians, etc. - have something to do with that mechanism spiritually, metaphysically and genetically. However, the same mechanism, which erects the above-mentioned tandem (government-anarchy), prevents a single force (nation, religion, etc.) to take over the world, the global power (in a non-esoterically defined way). In politically, religiously, etc. divided world - and because of other reasons - Jews or any other single force would never be able to control unilaterally human kind on global scale. Genetically programmed mechanisms prevent mankind from becoming one country or one nation or race. 6) The same mechanism is responsible for existing types of social personalities. Like psychological types (phlegmatic, choleric...) they are complementary "particles" of "human society engine". They are dozens of genetically programmed types of personalities; each type has its own percentage in the society. Social type is given to each human being genetically, by birth. If even one of social types was destroyed (even if that type historically, geographically and by other means is programmed to be only 1 per cent of the society), that society, that nation is under a threat of extinction. Some types (not all of them) can be self-reprogrammed into a limited number of other types in case of war, natural and other disasters. 7) One of these types is a special "governmental" type: a social type, which associates with genetically defined people, who become politicians or members of the government. Maybe in future science will find out that such a type has one additional chromosome or something like that. Not because of the educational or ideological, or psychological development but by genes such people have distorted moral, ethical, and other special attitudes, which "normal" people do not have. On the opposite spectrum of social life - in the criminal elite, terrorist and rebel organizations (or in nationalist-separatists' leadership) are the same types as in the government. That's why anarchists, communists, Zionists, fascists are not better or even worse then traditional governments. Another type - a type of an entrepreneur (busyness type) - is very close to the "governmental" type. Both of these types correspond to material wealth, prosperity and social success. They have an option to convert in each other under extreme 8) There are approximately 80 social types in human society. 1) This world (the world of humans) is ruled by Chaos: laws of coincidences. Individually, socially, historically - chaotical movements, processes, or appearances cover and define just anything in this world. They have an eternal impact on everyday life of every human - as well as on destiny in general. On primitive level these laws are called "good" or "bad" luck, curse, destiny, fate, or Parkas in ancient mythology. They award some people in society and punish some others. One is considered as "lucky", when another one as "unlucky". Why? Because for different people Chaos works differently. It always socially "motivated" 2) For people, whose way of thinking is directed against evil, - rules of chaos are devastating. In other words, they are punished by these rules. If you started just thinking (without even manifesting your thoughts through words) that the government is shit, everything is corrupted, justice does not exist even on paper, all respected and successful people are con artists, liars, fraud masters, bastards or fools, - rules of Chaos starting to punish you immediately. In an unknown, metaphysical way people begin to avoid you as if they could read your thoughts, you're loosing your work, your wife insists on separation, and your friends are avoiding you. You're finding yourself in a tragic situation, in misery, isolation, and desperation. It happens even with people, whose social and psychological type prevents them from displaying their thoughts and attitudes in their behavior, or emotions, or tone. Nothing have been changed in you since you started thinking critically towards socially powerful things, but in a mysterious way you instantly experience devastating consequences. People with sick imagination (or very young people, or primitive individuals) have a tendency to think that they are persecuting by the government or another powerful force. In reality on that level they are not persecuted yet, they just receive a "mark", a "black mark", which socially will further point on them for all types of the governing social elements as people who must be persecuted. 3) If your criticism manifests itself on a higher level (not just thoughts), and directed against injustice, violence, governmental fraud and inhumanity, intolerance, corporate conspiracy, etc. - everything happens faster and 4) Facing that situation, people of the "governmental type" would rather put that devastating effect on society's shoulders, fighting back with violence, organizing a terrorist (or revolutionary) network, which in a deeper sense is an "anti-government". An "anti-government" is the same as the government, only with an opposite sign (plus-minus). 5) People of the "innocent type", who have no abilities to manipulate others or take violent, offensive (aggressive) steps, will never managed that situation and will become victims of the system's oppression. 6) There are some mysterious and complicated dependencies between "innocent" social types - and creativity, talent, originality. The overage of the talented, creative people among "innocent" social types is much higher then among "busyness-governmental" and "executive" types. The most of the geniuses of the past in art, music, literature, science, philosophy were victims of their societies and died in misery and surrounded by ignorance. If you belong to an "innocent" social type - you will be prevented from a "good" employment in your domain or from an employment at all: no matter how good you are, even if you're a unique high-level professional. In the most serious cases the government itself restricts talented people from their professions. 7) People of the "non-innocent" social types mostly succeeding in material life not only because the have more aggressive, offensive, double-standards' approach, but also because laws of chaos (coincidences) work for them differently then for "innocent" types. If gambling, such "non-innocent" social types win much more often then "innocent" types even without cheating. In telemarketing, gambling, on stock markets, in road accidents, in sport, etc. they are always in a better position because the rules of coincidences work in favor of them. 8) "Rules of chaos" (coincidences, chaotic movements) somehow define, whom to do a favor, from the genetical code. Their most punitive approach is towards a rare social type (maybe 0,05% of the society), which fights injustice and evil with passion without having any profit from it, only troubles. This is the most non-compromised, non-corrupted social type. That type is always a victim of coincidences. When people of that type are in a hurry, a metro train always delayed. When they going shopping, the product they need is not in the store. A wooden wall falls on them, a bicyclist hits them, their desk brakes destroying their computer, and so on. They injure themselves more often then other people. They never or in exceptionally rare occasions win. People call them "absent-minded", but that can not explain a systematic bad luck, which such people have. Author's Note: I wrote these chapters in general about 20-25 years ago, in different time, country, and system. Now, in 1999-2000, when I started to work for Montreal's THE GAZETTE in telemarketing, I found a solid prove for some of these chapters' statements. If something appears frequently - we call it coincidental, if something appears systematically, we call it "systematical". Right? Wrong! When in telemarketing you're sitting in front of the computer seeing 5-6 exclusively Italian names on the screen, one after another one - how should we call it? All calls are computer-generated. I believe that the telemarketing software picks up the names (telephone numbers) occasionally, coincidentally. What then if 10 or even 20 Italian names (different areas, municipalities, streets!) appear without a break?! As a rule every employee has 2-4 answering machines during one shift (4 hours). Then what if one day you have 10-15, another day 10 again, and 16 on next day? I know then that I am very smart in telemarketing. I'm flexible, I can change my tone, my style according to whom I am speaking with. I declare the same formula not more then in 40% of calls. I can rapidly express all kind of objectives to convince a potential client. If I hear "I have no time to read THE GAZETTE", I response with "then our newspaper in for you, because it made possible for people like you to see a list of articles from its front page - adn choose to save time". But comparing to my co-workers I have, for example, an enormous number of disconnects. I just saying "Hello!.. - before hearing a busy signal (a disconnect). Or I say "Hi! I am calling on behalf..." - and I am disconnected. Or I've said "Hi! This is the Gazette newspaper calling", and then I have an immediate response like "Thank you, but I'm not interested. Bye!", or "Not interested" (disconnects), or even "Bye!" only! Too often people are screaming on me before I even said anything! Sometimes I hear threats, humiliate sounds, meowing or barking before I even said a word! When people around me speak to a number of anglophone, in the same time I speak only to francophones, when I speak to anglophone, they are already subscribed to the (English) newspaper! I can hear what and how people around me speak. Some of them, especially, Russian-speaking, declare a steady formula - as robots, with no flexibility, with no exclusions. And they still have sells! And me - with my flexible methods - I have no sells or very few sells comparing to many of them. Why is that happens? Is that a conspiracy against me, or maybe I'm sitting in a wrong place, or my salesperson's number is "bad"? I know the answer: it is because I belong to an "unlucky" social type. And my social type is a very rare one. And most of the others belong to different social types - which are more "lucky"... 9) Rules of chaos are programmed to work in that way to preserve injustice, keep it on a high level, prevent people, who are fighting injustice, from any real impact on human society. They also prevent intruders from denouncing the most fundamental (for that generation) secrets of nature and society. That's why everyone who went too far ahead of his (her) generation in any area - had a tragic end. Geniuses, evil-fighters and freedom seekers are suppressed not only by the regimes, but by the rules of coincidences, too! Their works are normally ignored, forgotten or even forbidden. The basic rule says: SOCIETY MUST STAY AWAY FROM ANY CHANGES! Knowledge, the level of the technical progress is changing, but the society remains the same, with the same principles and prevalence of injustice. The most talented people are suppressed because they might change the society a bit in their generation. Later, after 2-3 generations, the above-human mechanism of the supernatural force, which rules the human world, adjusts to geniuses' discoveries, and adjusts the same social mechanisms to stop any impact of geniuses' works. 10) People will never be allowed to: a) stop social injustice b) know about the center of planet Earth, extremes of Universe and human nature c) find out secrets of universal law of chaotic movements (processes, appearances, etc.), light, time, and other dimensions. Anyone who will try too hard to find out these extremes, will be destroyed. 1) As I described in a number of previous chapters, social injustice is needed to prevent people from understanding of "above-social", universal injustice, which can lead to concentration on out-social things, what can damage society's functionality; prevention of basic changes is needed to destroy chances for society to evolve in something else. 2) Human beings are a stream of energy, or a movement through time. It is a kind of a "computer program" but on a higher level and much more complicated/sophisticated. That's why by rapid changes it can be corrupted and self-destroyed. 3) Disintegration of society without fight for justice is guaranteed. That's why the up-human force allows that fight to go and produces a small number of passionate "evil" (injustice) fighters as one of the smallest group (social type). In the same time injustice can not be defeated or even considerably reduced: then the "program" will be corrupted. This is the reason why "saints" are always just few, and why they are never successful. They are sacrificed on behalf of the society as a whole. 4) Elimination of necessary number of fighters for justice and accumulation of lie, injustice and corruption above an extreme level also leads to disintegration of society, and threats to the very existence of the mankind. 5) In the past, when humans were depending from outside systems (nature, wild animals, hardship of getting food, etc.) the Mechanism was a little bit different then now. After extending technical progress on such a level that it can supply enough resources to fed up and cover all human population the rules of the game are strict: a) because the very existence of humans depends on the presence of all social types, including the tinniest and "week", societies must provide at least minimum survival for the most threatened and extincting; in past centuries it was a wide diversity between representatives of such groups in wealth, social status, ect, when now they almost exclusively belong to the most deprived and socially depressed group of population, living in poverty, under physical and mental tortures; b) countries like India, Pakistan, Bangla-Desh, and others, where tenth and tenth of million of people are treated more worse then cattle, are self (and not only self: intra and contra) destructive; they are threat to the whole human world, threat of a real danger of destruction; with their nuclier arsenal and madness they can easily destroy the whole civilization; c) other countries, in Europe and North America (plus Australia and New Zeland), in spite of still remaining gap in human treatment between them - and south countries, took course for neo-feudalism and deprivation citizens of their rights. If minimum wages give not even a chance to subsist, welfare was abolished, Medicare becomes inaccessible for the poor: it is a new era of slavery, which, combined with the technical progress and computerization (mathematization of human world), will lead to such a horrible consequences, which can not be predicted. The program "humanity" is already altered. The world around us has been already corrupted. However, it was corrupted not from the "justice" and "goodness" platform, but from an opposite category. And it leaves no exit, no even a chance to be saved...

Thank goodness for radio. The BBC drama I've just heard was so brilliant that it inspired me to revive this undead blog. Louise Monaghan's one-off play is entitled, The Man Inside the Radio Is My Dad. It is inspired by Storybook Dads - a charity that works to help prisoners stay in contact with their families. It's funny, touching and uplifting with superb performances by the three female protagonists - Chloe, her mum and her nan. Nan's favourite television programme is called "Pointless". This play for voices is anything but. So click here. Stop looking. Start listening. (Tip: have a tissue handy.) Margaret Thatcher has passed into history. How should she be remembered? Through her encounter with Diana Gould (1926-2011). Mrs Gould exposed the real Margaret Thatcher. Belligerent, disdainful, hectoring, bullying, intransigent. All things that should be consigned to history. “Where there is discord, may we bring harmony...” These words of St. Francis of Assisi were cited by Margaret Thatcher on the steps of Number 10 Downing Street on Friday 4th May 1979 – the day she took office as the first female prime minister of Great Britain. Mrs Thatcher went on to add some thoughts of her own: “and to all the British people – howsoever they voted – may I say this. Now that the Election is over, may we get together and strive to serve and strengthen the country of which we’re so proud to be a part.”(1) This is indicative of a paradox that runs right through Thatcher’s long and eventful period in power. Those who laud her achievements urge her detractors to accept that, whilst they might not have agreed with her politics, she should be admired as a great patriot with a “lion-hearted love for this country”. That was how David Cameron characterised her on the day she died. He chose to deliver his eulogy on the spot from where his predecessor addressed the media back in 1979. Nevertheless, at the same time as praising the person he regarded as “saving” the country, Cameron added: “We can’t deny that Lady Thatcher divided opinion.” He insisted, however, that Thatcher “has her well-earned place in history and the enduring respect and gratitude of the British people.”(2) It is characteristic of Mr Cameron that he should deliver such a contradictory statement. If Thatcher “divided opinion” how can “the British people” be of one mind? And if she loved Britain so much, how could Thatcher encourage a climate in which some Britons prospered and thrived at the expense of others? This continues to pose a problem now that she is dead. How should she be memorialised? Bear in mind that a statue erected in her lifetime has already been decapitated by an irate “patriot”.(3) An early opportunity to test the public mood will come during the ceremony leading to her cremation. Whilst she will not be given a state funeral, she will be accorded a military procession to St Paul’s Cathedral. During that parade all manner of socialists, former miners, Irish nationalists, Argentines, anti-Apartheid veterans, LGBT campaigners and others might seek to pay their final respects in ways that will subvert David Cameron’s confident assertion regarding Thatcher’s “place in history and the enduring respect and gratitude of the British people.” Once the funeral is over thoughts will turn to a more permanent commemoration. At that point the Iron Lady will be transmogrified into bronze. The obvious place to site such a memorial is Parliament Square.(5) There she can surmount a pedestal alongside the petrified Churchill and generate an interesting dialogue with the statues of two South Africans, Jan Smuts and Nelson Mandela. Thatcher’s opposition to international sanctions against Apartheid South Africa – plus her hostility to German reunification – are reminders that differences of opinion over her legacy are not confined to England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. In each of these areas one can cite a litany of issues that remain contentious today, from the North-South divide in England to the piloting of the Poll Tax in Scotland, the decimation of the industrial communities of South Wales and her administration’s secret negotiations with the IRA in stark contrast to Thatcher’s publicly stated position. It seems inevitable that an official memorial to Lady Thatcher will be erected in the not-too-distant future. All too often such commemorations pretend to be natural occurrences that are universally supported. That lie will be impossible to sustain in this particular instance. A literal Iron Lady will confirm an observation made by Kirk Savage: “Public monuments do not arise as if by natural law to celebrate the deserving; they are built by people with sufficient power to marshal (or impose) public consent to their erection.”(4) Waves of attacks will be unleashed on any tangible memorial to Thatcher. These will be dismissed as vandalism or accepted as iconoclasm depending on one’s point of view. But the daubs of paint or attempts at decapitation will confirm one thing. Mrs Thatcher achieved much, but by her own measure she failed in at least one regard. She came to office urging Britons to “get together” and help her “bring harmony”. Yet her enduring legacy is division and discord. And that’s something that even David Cameron cannot deny. (1) Margaret Thatcher, “Remarks on becoming Prime Minister (St Francis’s prayer)”, 04/05/1979, http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=104078 (2) Steven Swinford & James Kirkup, “Margaret Thatcher: Iron Lady who made a nation on its knees stand tall”, Daily Telegraph, 08/04/2013, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9980285/Margaret-Thatcher-Iron-Lady-who-made-a-nation-on-its-knees-stand-tall.html (3) The perpetrator was Paul Kelleher, a thirty-seven year old theatre producer. His justified his actions by claiming that the attack was in protest against global capitalism. See Stuart Burch, On Stage at the Theatre of State: The Monuments and Memorials in Parliament Square, London (A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Nottingham Trent University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, March 2003), pp. 350-351. (4) Kirk Savage, “The politics of memory: Black emancipation and the Civil War monument”, in John R Gillis (ed.), Commemorations: the politics of national identity, Princeton University Press, 1994, p. 135. (5) This was something that I called for a decade ago: “An image of Margaret Thatcher in the sacred yet so vulnerable domain of Parliament Square would infuse it with ‘living power’. For the statue, taking its rightful place alongside Churchill, would be finely posited between veneration and disdain and then, in the fullness of time, between neglect and ignorance.” Burch, On Stage at the Theatre of State, 2003, p. 351. Marc Quinn, The Creation of History (2012) On Thursday 4th August 2011 officers of the Metropolitan Police Service stopped a taxi on Ferry Lane in Tottenham Hale, London. Its occupant – Mark Duggan – was subsequently shot dead in uncertain circumstances. This single incident gave rise to a spate of riots across England. The worst scenes took place in the capital. A defining image of that summer of violence is a photograph taken by the Turkish born photojournalist, Kerim Okten. It shows a man in a grey tracksuit and trainers. The skin on his hands is covered by black gloves. His face is veiled by a mask such that only his eyes are visible: they gaze fixedly at the camera lens. Framing that stare are the orange flames and choking black smoke of a burning vehicle. Various versions of this iconic scene are available online. They differ in all sorts of major and minor ways. Some depict the main protagonist in alternative poses; others show bystanders looking on at the searing shell of the car. Text invariably accompanies the picture wherever it appears. A front page headline such as “The battle for London” turns this masked celebrity into a capital warrior. Replace that caption with something like “Yob rule” and our battle-scarred warrior becomes a mindless hoodlum. His slow, purposeful steps and cold stare do indeed make this lord of misrule appear above the law. The rights to Okten’s image have now been acquired by the British artist Marc Quinn. He has used it as the inspiration for a variety of artworks including paintings, a sculpture and even a tapestry. The latter has been entitled The Creation of History (2012) and exists in an edition of five. The title chose by Quinn reflects his belief that the 2011 riots constitute “a piece of contemporary history”. The artist is quick to add, however, that this history – like every past event – is “a complex story and raises as many questions as it [does] answers. Is this man a politically motivated rioter? A looter? What is in his pocket? And rucksack? More intriguingly, the mask he wears appears to be police-issue: could he even be a policeman?”(1) The merest suggestion that our photogenic “yob” might in fact be a lawgiver rather than a lawbreaker disturbs this already troubling image, transforming it before our very eyes. This is exacerbated further in Quinn’s tapestry transmutation. Metamorphosing the pixels of a digital photo into the knots of a woven image catapults this contemporary history back in time. Now our “yob” can stand alongside armour-suited warriors in a medieval pageant. The rich heritage of Quinn’s The Creation of History makes it worthy to enter into the sacred realm of the museum. And what better institution than Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery? This establishment rose like a phoenix from the flames of a riot: on 10th October 1831 a group of rabble-rousers intent on creating a little history of their own torched the palatial home of the Duke of Newcastle in protest at his opposition to electoral reform. For fifty years the burnt out shell of the building remained an admonitory reminder of this bad behaviour. Then, in the 1870s, it was converted into the first municipally funded museum outside of London. This place of learning and leisure still stands. And it only exists thanks to the sort of scenes that were to take place 180 years later – not only in London but also Nottingham, where Canning Circus police station was firebombed by tracksuited warriors / yobs. So, with this in mind, wouldn’t it make perfect sense for the curators at Nottingham Castle Museum to acquire one of the five editions of Marc Quinn’s The Creation of History? It could hang on the same walls that were once covered by tapestries – before “yob rule” led to them being unceremoniously ripped down and either burnt or “sold to bystanders at three shillings per yard.”(2) (1) Cited in Gareth Harris, “London riots get tied up in knots”, The Art Newspaper, Iss. 243, 07/02/2013, accessed 08/02/2013 at http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/quinn-tapestry/28545. (2) Harry Gill, A Short History of Nottingham Castle (1904), available at, http://www.nottshistory.org.uk/gill1904/reformbill.htm._ Screencap from Life in a Day Over the weekend I spent more hours than is healthy at Birmingham Airport. The reason for my enforced stay was Britain’s inability to cope with a bit of ice and snow. To pass the time I decided to overdose on coffee and, with too much caffeine in my bloodstream and a lack of real spice in my life, I reached for my Sony eReader. The story I chose to read seemed appropriate given my plight: The Machine Stopped by E.M. Forster (1879-1970). Written in 1909 this novella is scarily prescient. It concerns an imaginary future in which the human race lives underground and eschews direct contact with the outside world. To achieve this it has constructed The Machine. This networked intelligence tends to the human race’s every need, be it physical, intellectual or spiritual. As a result, the thought of leaving the glorious isolation of one’s artificial cocoon is an anathema. Natural air, daylight, direct human contact – all are nauseating to people conditioned to living their lives sat on a chair, staring into a monitor and waiting for their virtual friends to message them with an original idea. Don’t forget, all this was written over a century ago. I am now back at home, safe and sound after my Birmingham exile. And what am I doing? Well, I’m sat in a chair, staring at a monitor, of course. Meanwhile life is probably still going on outside. One thing of which I am certain is that the world existed on Saturday 24 July 2010. I know this because I’ve just watched the film “Life in a Day”. It’s a 94 minute edited compilation of 80,000 YouTube clips all recorded on a single day in July a few years ago. One of the best bits of the film is the sequence that features Angolan women chanting as they work. I am clearly not alone in this view. A YouTube user by the name of Pellentior has uploaded the music. While listening I scrolled down to the comments, where I found the following post by “cherryblossohm”: When watching this scene it made me feel like I was doing it all wrong. What exactly? Idk [I don’t know], life? Sitting here, on my ipad, cell in one hand and tv on... when I’m up to date on stupid status updates in actuality I’m missing out. I think I want to spend my time on this earth in a different light. Light as in, the sun lol. Out and be humbled to experience how others around the world enjoy living. Cuz I know I’m not. In a single paragraph cherryblossohm has confirmed the sad truth of Forster’s prophetic tale. I just hope for all our sakes that he got at least one thing wrong. After all, we will be in for one hell of a shock if the machine does ever stop working. Aaron Swartz (1986-2013) Full text of “Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto” History today according to the BBC The front page of today’s BBC news website reveals a great deal about how historical events impinge on the present. This needs to be seen as indicative of a widespread obsession with the past. But it shouldn’t make us overlook the fact that the primary interest is current affairs. Simply put, history needs to have some contemporary resonance in order to count as “news”. This is the case with the deaths of two men in their 90s. Their passing is, of course, a personal loss to their friends and relatives. I never knew them, but I am invited to pay my respects because these two gentlemen feature in the collective consciousness. This is due to two events that form part of the national story, namely the Jarrow March of 1936 and the experiences of Britons incarcerated overseas during the Second World War. The demise of Con Shiels (the last survivor of the Jarrow March) and Alfie Fripp (a veteran of no fewer than twelve POW camps) marks the moment when two iconic occurrences pass from lived experience to “history”. This liminal moment gives the past a special frisson. We watch as the final living link to a momentous event is broken. This is history in the making. There are lots of other issues that flow from these particular stories. Is history made by the many or the heroic (or villainous) few? Can we learn from “everyday heroes” like Con Shiels and Alfie Fripp? If so, what part (if any) do we play in history? And what actually counts as a historical event? How influential was the Jarrow March? Did it change the course of history? Or is its significance given undue importance by subsequent commentators? In the BBC’s report of the death of Con Shiels it is notable that the trade unionist, Steve Turner is quoted calling for a “new ‘rage against poverty’”. Similarly, in 2011 the Jarrow March was re-enacted to mark its 75th anniversary and draw attention to youth unemployment. This demonstrates how a historical “fact” is nothing without interpretation. And this makes it inevitable that the politics of the present will get woven into the patterns of the past. The Jarrow example provides a flavour of things to come. Get ready for the bickering and arguing that will be triggered when Margaret Thatcher dies! The shadow of the Iron Lady looms large over another historically-flavoured news story: the status of the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas). This latest episode relates to Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s open letter to British prime minister, David Cameron in which she decries the continuance of “a blatant exercise of 19th-century colonialism” and calls for a negotiated solution as urged by the General Assembly of the United Nations way back in 1965. Interestingly enough, one of the BBC web links connected to de Kirchner’s rhetorical salvo refers to new documents released under the British government’s 30-year rule. These reveal just how surprised Thatcher was by the Argentine invasion. Access or restrictions concerning such primary evidence play a crucial role in determining how history gets written and re-written. Another link stemming from the latest crisis facing the Falkland Islands reminds us of the glorious / tragic events of 1982 via the commemorative events marking the thirtieth anniversary of the end of the Anglo-Argentine war. An anniversary such as this represents an additional way in which the past enters the present. The commemorative re-enactment of the Jarrow March is a case in point. A further example is to be seen amongst today’s crop of news stories, namely the centenary of Rhiwbina garden village in Cardiff. But what about events of today that are destined to become tomorrow’s history? Well, the year that has just passed has gone down in the record books as the “second wettest on record”. There is reason to believe that this will soon be surpassed, with reports that “extreme rainfall” is on the rise. And this is an appropriately apocalyptic note to end this account of history today. Because one of the factors motivating our love of the past is a widespread anxiety about the future. History’s near cousin is nostalgia. Poverty, unemployment and war take on a rosy hue thanks to the patina of time. Using the vantage point of the present we know that things worked out alright in the end... Or did they? New research seems to confirm what many have long suspected: King Ramesses III was murdered, probably by having his throat cut sometime around the year 1155BC. This is reported by the BBC alongside a small photograph of the king’s mummified visage.(1) He looks strangely familiar... and then it struck me how much he reminds me of the late, great expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka. I wonder if their DNA crossed at some point over the past few millennia? (1) Michelle Roberts, “King Ramesses III’s throat was slit, analysis reveals”, BBC News, 18/12/2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20755264 “Swedish weapons with Burma’s army”. So reads a two-page article in today’s issue of the newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet.(1) Alongside the text are photographs indicating that the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) has come under attack from Burmese soldiers armed with Saab AB’s Carl Gustav 84mm Recoilless Rifle (“The best multi-purpose weapon there is”). We know this because at least one such armament plus ammunition were left behind when the state’s forces were driven into a retreat by their KIA opponents. A serial number – 17248 – is clearly visible on the weapon pictured in Svenska Dagbladet. This should make it simple for Saab AB to confirm whether it was exported directly to Burma (in contravention of the 1996 EU export embargo) or, as is far more likely, that the arms found their way to Myanmar via one of Saab AB’s official customers (probably India or Thailand). This mishap should come as no surprise given the sheer quantity of Swedish-made arms that are being exported all over the world. However, what makes this particular incident noteworthy is the manner in which Svenska Dagbladet reported the news. At the very same time that it broke the story, the newspaper’s editors allowed a 32-page advertising feature to be inserted into that day’s paper. Entitled, Rikets säkerhet (The Nation’s Security), it is produced by MDG Magazines and edited by Christer Fälldin. In his introductory message Fälldin informs Svenska Dagbladet’s readers that this addition to their daily paper tackles what he considers to be one of the most significant political challenges facing Sweden, namely defence. Fälldin has therefore sought to use the inaugural issue of Rikets säkerhet to address “many of the security and defence issues” that are current today. Alas, one such issue that is missing from this “newspaper” (sic) is any discussion of the legal or moral dimensions of the arms industry and the responsibilities that Sweden has as a world-leading exporter of military equipment. The fact that the first issue of Rikets säkerhet was allowed to subsume Svenska Dagbladet’s report into the inherent risks involved in exporting arms is highly revealing. It exposes the extensive lobbying campaigns undertaken by powerful groups and individuals with vested interests in normalising and enhancing Sweden’s weapons industry. Rikets säkerhet represents a sophisticated attempt to scare the Swedish people by confronting them with amorphous threats and worries about the future. These dire warnings appear alongside advertisements from all manner of military-related organisations. They are in turn interspersed with associated “news” stories. This pseudo journalism is a thinly veiled attempt to convince Sweden’s political elite to continue to invest ever increasing sums in defence procurement and development. All this is a far cry from the Nobel-prize and IKEA-meatball image of Sweden so adored by the international media. Beneath an oh-so-sweet Nordic façade there festers a far from savoury side to Sweden. Just ask the people of northern Burma. (1) Bertil Lintner, “Svenska vapen hos Burmas armé”, Svenska Dagbladet, 11 December 2012, pp. 20-21. Moderna Museet online (left) and in print (right) Earlier this month I reflected on a fascinating newspaper advertisement for Sweden’s Moderna Museet. Additional investigation has now turned this commentary into a spot-the-difference. On the museum’s website is a promotional feature that includes the same image.(i) Only, on closer inspection, it becomes apparent that it differs from the version that appeared in the newspaper, Dagens Nyheter. 1 The invigilator’s clothing has been darkened. This ensures that she wears the attire of the art lover (i.e. dressed entirely in black). The same is true of the trousers worn by the visitor (2). 2 The visitor has been shifted further to the right. In the online image it looks as if she is reading a label next to the work rather than looking at the art itself. This risked introducing a troublesome piece of interpretation – a barrier preventing her from being in the midst of the art (mitt i konsten). This is alleviated by shifting the visitor closer to the art (although not too close given that the all-important pushchair is still in the way). 3 The posture of the hands-on art educator has changed. Her rather motherly pose is replaced by a less overtly protective position in relation to the three children. This prevents her from coming between them and the art (again ensuring that they are mitt i konsten). In the image on the left the children and the facilitator have their back to Sterling Ruby’s Monument Stalagmite. The print version spins them around such that all the group members are oriented towards the sculpture. All this confirms the meticulous attention that has gone into this carefully crafted framing of Moderna Museet. A genuinely artful and art full advertisement. (i) “Fira 1:a advent på Moderna Museet”, http://www.modernamuseet.se/sv/Stockholm/Nyheter/2012/Fira-1a-advent-pa-Moderna-Museet/. The image is credited to the photographer, Åsa Lundén. Today’s issue of the newspaper, Dagens Nyheter features a full-page advertisement for Moderna Museet – Sweden’s national museum of modern and contemporary art. Every art lover knows that a picture is worth a thousand words. So, with this in mind, I’ve picked out ten points of interest and used them to structure a one thousand word reflection on this most artful of advertisements: 1 Moderna Museet is a place of celebration for all. This is important to stress at the outset because some misguided people continue to insist on treating our museums as either mausoleums or bastions of elitist culture. Moderna Museet isn’t like that. It’s a place to come and have fun; to celebrate things like the start of the Christmas period. And what better way to escape the commercialisation of this sacred event than by going on a pilgrimage to a secular temple of art such as Moderna Museet. 2 Moderna Museet puts you in the picture: when there you will be in the midst of art – your art, your museum (mitt i konsten, på ditt museum). 3 The director and his deputy have given up their holiday to greet the visitors. Tomorrow afternoon – Sunday 2 December – Daniel Birnbaum and Ann-Sofi Noring will talk about their latest acquisitions. In so doing they affirm that Moderna Museet is living up to its reputation: it is filled both with modern Old Masters (fylld av klassiker) and “with the work of a new generation of artists” (med verk av en ny generation konstnärer). These new works, we are told, “crown the collection” (kröner samlingen). They also enable the recently appointed director to put his mark on the museum. This raises lots of fascinating questions: What has the museum acquired under this leader that it might not have under its predecessor? Which criteria are used when choosing what to buy? Who makes the decisions? What did the purchases cost? Who are the donors? Who are the artists? And what personal connections link them with Birnbaum and his colleagues? Will any of these questions be addressed when the director speaks? They certainly should be, after all, this is your museum. 4 Who are these people so deep in conversation? A perfect pair: enthusiastic gesture is met with rapt attention. These two are clearly art lovers. But they aren’t visitors. Nor are they security guards. Instead they are young, trendy invigilators just waiting to share their love of art with the museum’s well-behaved guests. How do we know that they are art lovers? Their gestures and their clothes say it all (see 6). 5 This isn’t an art lover, but he looks nice and friendly. He’s carrying the tool of his trade and wearing his work clothes (just like the couple in 4). But his place of work isn’t the galleries. Nevertheless, rather than being marginalised, this menial worker is given pride of place. Indeed, he looks rather like a work of art: culinary art. Because Moderna Museet isn’t just about consuming art. It’s a place to eat and socialise. That’s why the chef is important enough to be included here. But he isn’t that special. His name is not given. Nor are those of the two invigilators. In fact, only two people are referred to by their names. And neither of them is visible. Standing in as substitutes for the director and his deputy are the artworks that they have sanctified by choosing to include them in the collections of Moderna Museet. The art stands for them. It embodies them. Thus Sterling Ruby’s Monument Stalagmite could be renamed: Monument Birnbaum. It’s a bold assertion of his fitness to lead; his regal good taste (thanks to this and the other acquisitions that “crown the collection”). 6 This person adopts the ideal art pose, with one hand on hip, the other touching the face in a gesture of deep contemplation. She wears the uniform of the art lover, dressed as she is entirely in black. She is part of the same tribe as the invigilators (4) who serve as acolytes assisting at the altar of High Art. This true believer is standing at a respectful distance from the art, not touching but visually consuming. Unfortunately, she is not able to stand directly in front of this particular artwork because there is an object is in the way. But this is not a sculpture; it’s a child’s pushchair! This obstacle is not just there by chance. It’s as symbolic as any of the paintings on the wall. It says: this is an accessible, family-friendly museum in which children are welcome (see 8). 7 The art is shown in glorious isolation in this pristine, white-cubed gallery. This lends it a spurious, “neutral” quality in which nothing comes between us and the art (we are, after all, “mitt i konsten” (1)). There is not a label or interpretation panel in sight. None of the works are literally framed in the sense of there being borders around the paintings or separate plinths under the sculptures. But they are framed in all sorts of other ways. This advertisement and all its messages (overt and subliminal) are frames. Art never speaks for itself, no matter how white and bare the walls. 8 We have already been reassured that the museum is not a mausoleum (1). Now we are reminded that it is not a library either. It’s a playground – for art lovers, young and old. Perhaps this trio of immaculately behaved children will one day be the artists (or museum directors) of the future? With luck they will grow up to wear black clothes and feel as at home in the museum as the lady in 6. The art instructor – just like the proud parent – does her best to make this a reality: she acts as a mediator of the art. She and the other parents and guardians are surrogates of the invigilators seen in 4. During the years 2004-2011 “Zon Moderna” served as the forum for Moderna Museet’s youngest guests. This initiative has been disbanded by the current director. But he is not reducing the museum’s commitment to children. Far from it: they are now brought into the bosom of the museum (mitt i konsten). Zon Moderna ran the risk of being dismissed as a case of “ghettoisation”: “an area specifically reserved for extra activities, and largely containing children within these spaces” (Gillian Thomas, “‘Why are you playing at washing up again?’ Some reasons and methods for developing exhibitions for children” in Roger Miles & Lauro Zavala (eds) Towards the Museum of the Future: New European Perspectives, London and New York: Routledge, 1994, p. 118.) The kids visible in this advertisement are not relegated to some sort of out-of-sight ghetto: we see them as they are just about to scribble away on the floor of the museum, centimetres from the museum’s latest priceless acquisition (5). 9 The museum’s logo adds to the friendly atmosphere: a personal signature which is actually a work of art, based as it is on Robert Rauschenberg’s handwriting. How long will it be before the museum decides to rebrand and ditch this naff typeface? 10 The museum is open every day except Mondays. There is even free entry on extended Friday evenings – perfect for those trendy young things that opt to stay on to drink in the museum’s newest space: a bar. There was a time when Moderna Museet – like all Sweden’s national museums – was free for all: now adults must pay because the current government says so. But the most important visitors still get in for free, namely children up to 18 years old. With luck, by the time they reach maturity they will have blossomed into the sorts of adults seen in this advertisement. They will thus be willing to pay to enter the museum and reacquaint themselves the fresh acquisitions that are to be introduced tomorrow: these are the works that today’s children will grow up with and later recognise as canonical works in their own personal museums of art. This recognition and sense of ownership will help ease the awkward truth that, by charging its citizens to enter Sweden’s Moderna Museet, they will actually be paying twice. After all, their high taxes have already paid for the museum. Their museum. On Sunday 11 November a fascinating debate took place at Arkitekturmuseet (Sweden’s national museum of architecture). It marked the culmination of a weekend of activities to celebrate the institution’s fiftieth anniversary. Events included guided tours of the Rafael Moneo-designed building which Arkitekturmuseet shares with another of Sweden’s state museums, namely Moderna Museet. The highlight of the festivities focused on the commemorative publication, The Swedish Museum of Architecture: A Fifty Year Perspective. This was launched following a series of reflections by two contributors to the book, Thordis Arrhenius and Bengt O.H. Johansson (the latter was director of the museum from 1966-77). This was followed by a panel debate entitled “Midlife crisis or stroppy teenager? A discussion about Arkitekturmuseet yesterday, today, tomorrow”.(1) It was at this point that matters started to get interesting. It quickly became apparent that the past, present and future of Arkitekturmuseet are far from settled. Much attention was given to the recently expanded role of the museum. This is summed up in an introductory section of the anniversary book. Under the rubric, “More than a museum”, Monica Fundin Pourshahidi cites a press release by the Swedish minister of culture, Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth in which it is stated that, from 2009 onwards, Arkitekturmuseet is vested with being a “power centre” not only for architecture but also for design: “The Museum of Architecture can and must be a display window and a distinct voice in the debate on social planning, architecture, design and sustainable development”.(2) This point was taken up by Arkitekturmuseet’s present director, Lena Rahoult. But her positive spin was immediately problematised by a fellow panel member, the architectural historian Martin Rörby. The focus of his criticisms was a recent governmental memorandum which instructed the institution to engage in “promotion and communication” (främjande och kommunikation) rather than “traditional museum activities” (traditionell museiverksamhet). This would be best signalled by a change in title, with the word “museum” being replaced by “centre” or “arena”.(3) Rörby expressed reservations about such a shift in focus, fearing that an increase in breadth would come at the expense of depth and critical engagement. He was also troubled by the vague, empty rhetoric of the memorandum. On the other hand, the notion of going beyond what was expected of a “traditional” museum was nothing new. Rörby illustrated this point by citing Arkitekturmuseet’s past involvement in the often heated debate regarding Sergels torg in central Stockholm. He stressed the rapidity of the museum’s response which enabled it to react to a pressing, contemporary issue. This active engagement, however, was only possible because of the museum’s unrivalled collections of artefacts, architectural models and other archival documents. Rörby was of the opinion that the museum would find it far harder – if not impossible – to arrange such an exhibition in the additional field of design. This is because the museum responsible for the national design collection is another entirely separate institution, namely Nationalmuseum. The design holdings will remain there, despite Arkitekturmuseet’s increased mandate. In the light of this one can be forgiven for questioning the basis for adding design to the museum of architecture. The oddness of this situation was beautifully demonstrated by the fact that, at the very same time that this debate was unfolding at Arkitekturmuseet, Nationalmuseum just down the road was holding a “theme day” on “handicraft, time and creativity” in association with its craft and design exhibition, Slow Art.(4) Way back in the late 1980s and early 1990s the museum fraternity in Sweden dreamed of a museum of industrial design (Konstindustrimuseet) being housed in Tullhuset adjacent to the main Nationalmuseum building in the Blasieholmen area of Stockholm. This nineteenth century toll house was to have been expanded to allow for 5000 square metres of exhibition space. Alas, this imaginative idea proved abortive, as did a plan to deploy the spectacular Amiralitetshuset on the island of Skeppsholmen.(5) In the wake of these failed initiatives comes the current half-baked decision to place the design burden on the ill-equipped museum of architecture. Meanwhile, in February 2013, Nationalmuseum will close for a period of four years during which time a multi-million kronor refurbishment will take place. This, one would have thought, would be the ideal opportunity to resolve the status of design in Sweden. The risk is that the investment in Nationalmuseum is being made against a contested, confused and contradictory context. Exacerbating this frankly farcical state of affairs is the added complication of Arkitekturmuseet’s relationship with Moderna Museet. These two museums, as has been noted, share a building. One might therefore have thought that it would sensible for the pair to unite, especially given the enlarged remit of Arkitekturmuseet. Indeed, in 1998 it was proposed that modern design dating from 1900 onwards should be moved to Moderna Museet.(6) On being asked about the relationship with her neighbour, Arkitekturmuseet’s director Lena Rahoult made a few platitudinous comments and paid compliments to Daniel Birnbaum, her counterpart at Moderna Museet. However, when it comes to Moderna Museet’s upcoming exhibition on Le Corbusier, it emerged that the museum of architecture will not be involved.(7) This, it strikes me, represents a potentially serious threat to the autonomy of Arkitekturmuseet. If the Le Corbusier exhibition is a success despite (or perhaps because of) the exclusion of Arkitekturmuseet, then the argument is being made that Moderna Museet is more than capable of taking over this field. Daniel Birnbaum would no doubt be delighted. He is a very shrewd operator. Upon taking over the running of Moderna Museet he erased all trace of its former director in the most charming manner: by turning the whole museum over to photography. This had a number of consequences. It facilitated a tabula rasa whilst showing Birnbaum to be both innovative and in step with the history of the museum. This in turn stifled any potential suggestion that photography was not being accorded sufficient attention. This was a smart move given that the formerly separate museum of photography had been subsumed into the collections of Moderna Museet on the completion of Rafael Moneo’s building in 1998. With this potential criticism snuffed out, Birnbaum then set about curtailing the independence of the museum’s satellite institution, Moderna Museet Malmö. This was led by Magnus Jensner until a “restructuring” made his position untenable and prompted his resignation.(8) In March of this year Jensner was succeeded by Birnbaum’s man in Stockholm, John Peter Nilsson. Against the background of these strategic manoeuvres the decision to mount an exhibition on Le Corbusier at Moderna Museet is no mere innocent happenstance. It can be interpreted as part of a calculated empire building process. And, if the recent debate at Arkitekturmuseet is anything to go by, Birnbaum is a giant among pygmies on the Swedish cultural scene. Perhaps mindful of this, at the same time as spouting her platitudes, Lena Rahoult has been busy mounting the barricades. She has taken the decision to withdraw Arkitekturmuseet from the bookstore that it has shared with Moderna Museet since the inception of Moneo’s building. All the books are being sold at a reduction of 60% whilst magazines and postcards are being flogged off for a few kronor. Once this stock has been disposed, Arkitekturmuseet will open a separate retail establishment in its own part of the locale. This development is notable given that the bookstore was one of the very few aspects of the building where the two institutions merged. Another is the shared ticket desk. Moneo designed the building to incorporate the old drill-hall where Moderna Museet began life and which is now occupied by Arkitekturmuseet. In so doing he provided a new entrance and closed the original doorway. Rahoult plans to reopen this entrance whilst keeping the other in use. Birnbaum is on record as describing this proposal as “ludicrous” (befängd).(9) Well he might, because one of the main criticisms of Moneo’s building is its very modest and hard-to-find entrance. Should Arkitekturmuseet prove to be the main gateway into the combined museum it may well increase the number of visitors to the architecture collection, but it will draw attention from what is currently the dominant partner, Moderna Museet. The proposed changes to the shop and entrance have led to claims that Arkitekturmuseet wishes to “break free from Moderna Museet”.(10) The paradoxical situation has therefore arisen whereby, at the same time that Arkitekturmuseet struggles to work across disciplines in one direction, it is placing barriers to the museum next door. There is, of course, no reason why different disciplines should not be brought together in a single museum. A case in point is the Museum of Modern Art, MOMA. Its mission statement is grounded in the belief [t]hat modern and contemporary art transcend national boundaries and involve all forms of visual expression, including painting and sculpture, drawings, prints and illustrated books, photography, architecture and design, and film and video, as well as new forms yet to be developed or understood, that reflect and explore the artistic issues of the era.(11) Another example closer to home is Norway. However, in this case the forced union of art, architecture and design has been far from amicable or straightforward. But at least Norway’s National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design is being given a grand new building in which to unite. This is not the case in Sweden. No one should be surprised about this given the paltry cultural policies of the present alliance government under the stewardship of its mediocre minister of culture, Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth. When it came to the festivities to mark Arkitekturmuseet’s jubilee debate, the icing on the birthday cake occurred when the panel turned to the audience for questions and response. Up stepped Jöran Lindvall. He remains – as he was at pains to make clear – the longest serving director of Arkitekturmuseet (during the years 1985-1999). Nevertheless, he added pointedly, no one had thought to ask him to contribute to the fiftieth anniversary publication. His absence from its pages was a timely reminder that such official records are as partial as they are political. That much is shown by a similar publication released to mark Moderna Museet’s own fiftieth anniversary in 2008. Such historical tomes might seem to be rooted in the past, but their main aim is to seek to placate the politicised present whilst simultaneously shaping the uncertain future. As if to underline this, Jöran Lindvall presented the current holder of the post he once occupied with a bag stuffed full of newspaper cuttings and other documents from his private collection relating to exhibitions that took place during his time at the museum. He declared his willingness to donate these to Arkitekturmuseet, but on one condition: that it remain a museum devoted to architecture. Lena Rahoult accepted this generous offer. She could hardly do otherwise. It will be interesting to follow the fate of Lindvall’s loaded gift. Indeed, all those involved in museums would do well to keep track of events in Sweden and watch with interest as commentators, practitioners, museum professionals and politicians plot their next moves in a battle that is more comedy than tragedy. But that is not to say that the outcome is likely to leave very many people laughing. (1) The panel participants were the director of Arkitekturmuseet, Lena Rahoult together with Fredrik Kjellgren (architect), Petrus Palmér (designer), Birgitta Ramdell (director of Form/Design centre, Malmö) and the architectural historian Martin Rörby (Skönhetsrådet). The chair was Kristina Hultman. (2) Press release dated 19 December 2008, cited in Main Zimm (ed.) The Swedish Museum of Architecture: A Fifty Year Perspective, Stockholm: Arkitekturmuseet, p. 4. (3) Cited in “Stora förändringar föreslås på Arkitekturmuseet”, Arkitektur, undated, http://www.arkitektur.se/stora-forandringar-foreslas-pa-arkitekturmuseet (accessed 12/11/2012). (4) Slow Art, Nationalmuseum, 10 May 2012 – 3 February 2013. The special event that took place on Sunday 11 November included a talk by Cilla Robach (“Slow Art – om hantverk, tid och kreativitet”) followed by a craft activity for children (see the advertisement on p. 7 of the Kultur section of that day’s issue of the newspaper, Dagens Nyheter). (5) Mikael Ahlund (ed.) Konst kräver rum. Nationalmuseums historia och framtid, Nationalmusei skriftserie 17, 2002, pp. 76-77. (6) Ahlund, 2002, p. 77. (7) Moderna Museet’s exhibition has been given the name “Moment – Le Corbusier’s Secret Laboratory” and will run from 19 January – 28 April 2013. The decision not to collaborate with Arkitekturmuseet is ironic given that the latter put together the exhibition “Le Corbusier and Stockholm” in 1987. (8) “Magnus Jensner slutar i Malmö”, Expressen, 20/10/2012, http://www.expressen.se/kvp/magnus-jensner-slutar-i-malmo. (9) “Arkitekturmuseets femtioårskris – en intervju”, Arkitektur, undated, http://www.arkitektur.se/arkitekturmuseets-femtioarskris-en-intervju (accessed 12/11/2012). (10) Hanna Weiderud, “Arkitekturmuseet bryter sig loss från Moderna”, SVT, 01/11/2012, http://www.svt.se/nyheter/regionalt/abc/arkitekturmuseet-bryter-sig-loss-fran-moderna. (11) Collections Management Policy, The Museum of Modern Art, available at, http://www.moma.org/docs/explore/CollectionsMgmtPolicyMoMA_Oct10.pdf. A lovely example of “banal Nordism” cropped up in the BBC Radio 4 comedy programme, Clayton Grange. In this week’s episode our spectacularly stupid scientists “attempt to make war just a bit more gentle” – a bit more Swedish. Few listeners would suspect that this purportedly most peaceful place on the planet is in reality the home of Saab AB, the proud producer of the Carl-Gustaf system – “the best multi-purpose weapon there is”. The British Museum possesses many thousands of fascinating objects. One of its self-styled “highlights” is a rather plain looking marble inscription. It comes from Rome and is dated around AD 193-211. What makes it so interesting are the things it does not show. These include the names of two relatives of the Roman emperor, Septimius Severus (AD 145-211), namely his daughter-in-law Plautilla and his son Geta. The latter was murdered by Septimius Severus’ other son Caracalla. He was Plautilla’s husband and Geta’s brother. The two siblings were bitter rivals following the death of their father. It is believed that Caracalla murdered Geta and then had his treacherous and much despised wife executed. And, to make matters even worse, they were then subjected to the posthumous punishment of damnatio memoriae: their names were expunged from all official records and inscriptions and their statues and all images of them were destroyed. This process [damnatio memoriae] was the most horrendous fate a Roman could suffer, as it removed him from the memory of society.(1) However, removing Geta from public consciousness was not a straightforward matter. Caracalla was obliged to give his brother a proper funeral and burial due to Geta’s popularity both with the Roman army and among substantial sections of Roman society. This explains why the names of Geta and Plautilla were included on the British Museum’s marble inscription, only to be scratched out later on. Why am I mentioning all this? Because a modern-day form of damnatio memoriae is currently unfolding in British society. This is in relation to the disc jockey, children’s television presenter and media celebrity, Sir Jimmy Savile OBE, KCSG, LLD (1926-2011). When he died last year at the ripe old age of 84 he was hailed a loveable hero who had done much for charity. Now, however, revelations have come to light suggesting that he was, in the words of the police, a “predatory sex offender”.(2) As a result, strenuous efforts are being made to expunge him from the public record.(3) Thus, the charity that bears his name is considering a rebrand. A plaque attached to his former home in Scarborough was vandalised and has since been removed. So too has the sign denoting “Savile’s View” in the same town. Meanwhile, in Leeds, his name has been deleted from a list of great achievers at the Civic Hall. A statue in Glasgow has been taken down in an act of officially sanctioned iconoclasm. The same fate has been dished out to the elaborate headstone marking Savile’s grave. This last-named act of damnatio memoriae is in some ways a pity given the unintended poignancy of the epitaph inscribed on the stone: “It Was Good While It Lasted”. It was almost as if Savile knew that he would one day have to atone for his evil deeds. Atonement has, alas, come too late for those that suffered at the hands of Savile. To make matters worse, his considerable fame has been replaced by a burgeoning notoriety. This is reminiscent of the damnatio memoriae that befell Geta and his sister-in-law Plautilla. The marble inscription that once carried their name is a “highlight” of the British Museum precisely because of the dark deeds associated with them and the futile efforts made to delete them from history. In their case, damnatio memoriae has, in a perverse way, enhanced their posthumous status centuries after their grisly deaths. Let’s hope that the same will not be said of the late Jimmy Savile – an individual who has gone from saint to scoundrel in the space of just a few short months. (1) “Marble inscription with damnatio memoriae of Geta, son of Septimius Severus” (Roman, AD 193-211, from Rome, Italy, height 81.5 cm, width 47.5 cm, British Museum, Townley Collection, GR 1805.7-3.210, http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/gr/m/marble_inscription.aspx). (2) Martin Beckford, “Sir Jimmy Savile was a ‘predatory sex offender’, police say”, The Daily Telegraph, 09/10/2012, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9597158/Sir-Jimmy-Savile-was-a-predatory-sex-offender-police-say.html. (3) “Jimmy Savile’s headstone removed from Scarborough cemetery” and “Sir Jimmy Savile Scarborough footpath sign removed”, BBC News, 12/10 & 08/10/2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-19893373 and www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-19867893. A forgotten painting by the little-known American artist, Mark Rothko has been rediscovered at a London museum. Experts had previously considered Tate Modern’s “Yellow on Moron” to have been executed by the Polish master, Wlodzimierz Umaniec (spelt Vladimir Umanets). However, a novel technique known as a vandal-spectrometry has enabled scientists to detect traces of crudely applied oil paint beneath Umanets’ trademark scrawl. This has prompted art historians to rename the work “Black on Maroon” and determine that it is part of Rothko’s abortive Seagram murals. Inevitably, this reattribution has reduced the value of the piece. It has, however, increased interest in genuine works by Vladimir Umanets. This towering modern-day genius has been likened to the bastard spawn of Marcel Duchamp and Cy Twombly. Hillsborough: The Report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel has just been published. This 400-page document investigates an incident which occurred on 15th April 1989 at the Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield. On that awful day a soccer match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest had to be abandoned when the Leppings Lane stand became overcrowded. The ensuing crush led to the death of 96 Liverpool football fans. This terrible loss of life and the unbearable grief of their loved ones have been compounded over the past 23 years by a deliberate and systematic attempt to cover up what happened. That much is clear from the report released today. One of its most startling findings relates to the fact that written statements made at the time by police officers and members of the South Yorkshire Metropolitan Ambulance Service were altered. Why? The answer is emphatic: “Some 116 of the 164 [police] statements identified for substantive amendment were amended to remove or alter comments unfavourable to SYP [South Yorkshire Police].”(1) In other words, our supposed custodians of law and order – both then and since – have been more interested in their own image and reputation than in finding out what went so catastrophically wrong. And this, I argue, is why a so-called “academic” subject such as History is so vital to a democratic and viable society. Compare the contemporary example set out above with this quotation from The Historian’s Craft by Marc Bloch: One of the most difficult tasks of the historian is that of assembling those documents which he [or she] considers necessary... Despite what the beginners sometimes seem to imagine, documents do not suddenly materialize, in one place or another, as if by some mysterious decree of the gods. Their presence or absence in the depths of this archive or that library are due to human causes which by no means elude analysis. The problems posed by their transmission, far from having importance only for the technical experts, are most intimately connected with the life of the past, for what is at stake is nothing less than the passing down of memory from one generation to another. Bloch had no need to restrict his attention to “the life of the past”. Because “the passing down of memory from one generation to another” occurs in the here and now. The Hillsborough disaster is history. But its living legacies are life, truth and justice in the present. These qualities should be our memorial to ten-year-old Jon-Paul Gilhooley who, together with 95 fellow supporters, became the innocent victim of official incompetence, misconduct and suppression on that fateful day in April 1989. (1) Hillsborough: The Report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel, September 2012, HC 581, London: The Stationery Office, p. 339. (2) Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004, pp. 57-59. “Nothing like commemorating an event to help you forget it.” So wrote Art Spiegelman in his cathartic book, In the Shadow of No Towers (2004). This monumental tome is an analogue to the Twin Towers that Spiegelman saw vanish from the place this self-styled “‘rooted’ cosmopolitan” calls home. I am reading Spiegelman’s book to help me write my own work of memorialisation under the provisional title, “Forked no lightning: remembering and forgetting in the shadow of Big Ben”. Half-way through In the Shadow of No Towers, Spiegelman recalls feeling asphyxiated by the flag-waving nationalism that characterised the “mind-numbing 2002 ‘anniversary’ event” (p.5). A year later the same date left him railing against the exact same “jingoistic strutting” (p. 10). So perhaps Spiegelman was right to argue that there really is nothing like a good (or bad) commemoration to help you forget something? Then it struck me: today is Tuesday 11th September! It’s gone 9 pm as I write, which means that almost an entire “9/11” has passed by without comment from family, friends, colleagues, strangers or those hourly BBC Radio 4 news bulletins that punctuate my day. “The unmentionable odour of death offends the September night”. So wrote W.H. Auden in his poem “September 1st, 1939”. In 2003, Spiegelman asserted that this odour “still offends as we commemorate two years of squandered chances to bring the community of nations together” (p.10). Many more chances have been missed since then. But at least the air seems to have cleared. Indeed, the breeze is so brisk that it appears to have blown away the cobwebs of 9/11 entirely. I guess we’ll just have to wait for a nice round number before we start remembering again... And with that thought I slide my battered copy of In the Shadow of No Towers back into the oblivion of my bookcase. A lot of dust is destined to gather before a frisson of nostalgia prompts me to reach for it once again on 9/11/2021. I stand corrected. BBC Radio 4’s “The World Tonight” at 10 o’clock has just referred to the anniversary of 9/11. It did so in relation to the Stars and Stripes that was hanging at half-mast at the US Embassy in Cairo. Why was this mournful flag mentioned? Because protestors stormed the compound, tore it down and replaced it with an Islamist banner. They were angered by the imminent release of the film Innocence of Muslims. This appears to have some connection to Florida Pastor and part-time religious book burner, Terry Jones.(1) I do hope that news of this depressing incident doesn’t reach Art Spiegelman. It’ll simply confirm his despairing belief that “brigands suffering from war fever have since hijacked those tragic events…” (p. 4). (1) For the background to this story and its deadly consequences see Matt Bradley and Dion Nissenbaum, “U.S. Missions Stormed in Libya, Egypt”, The Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444017504577645681057498266.html This affair becomes more tragic with every passing hour. Reports from Libya indicate that at least four consulate staff - including US ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens - have been killed. What a tragic act of pseudo commemoration._ Jamtli is a regional museum in the city of Östersund in central Sweden. In recent days it has been blessed with a great deal of attention. At first this delighted its director, Henrik Zipsane. “All publicity is good publicity” he declared in a newspaper interview last week.(1) Zipsane must have been cursing those words as he announced the cancellation of Jamtli’s exhibition “Udda och jämt” (Odd and even). This was to have been a group show of contemporary Swedish art. Included in the line-up was Lars Vilks. He made a name for himself in 2007 with the publication of his drawings of the prophet Muhammad as a dog-shaped piece of street furniture. This triggered a furious and at times very violent reaction in both Sweden and abroad. Vilks is now obliged to live under police protection and has become synonymous with the polarised views pertaining to religion and freedom of expression. Whatever one’s opinion of Vilks, it is impossible to accuse him of hiding his views on such matters. This is confirmed by his much-publicised decision to travel to New York this month in order to take part in a conference entitled SION (Stop Islamization of Nations). Nevertheless, it seems to have been this specific action that led Jamtli’s leadership to change their mind about including Vilks in “Udda och jämt”. Yet they clearly failed to think through the potential consequences of this move. One by one the other artists in the show announced their decision to withdraw. Eventually it became clear that not enough participants remained and so the exhibition, which was due to open on 30th September, has now been cancelled. This incident touches on lots of highly sensitive issues and gives rise to a host of often strongly held opinions. Oddly enough it is this that appears to be the greatest problem. Earlier this morning a spokesperson for Jamtli appeared on Sweden’s national radio. She lamented that the debate that had arisen threatened to overshadow the art. If this is such a bad thing, why extend an initiation to a so-called conceptual artist like Lars Vilks in the first place? Could it be that Jamtli hoped that Vilks’ presence might have added a touch of spice to the mix – a little of that “good publicity” so craved by Zipsane? If so, this has all gone horribly wrong. Or has it? “Udda och jämt” promises to be one of the most talked about shows in Jamtli’s history – whether it takes place or not. So why don’t its asinine leaders go ahead with the exhibition as arranged? The plans are no doubt well advanced; the text panels and labels for each artwork must be ready to be go. These could be mounted on the wall alongside works by those artists who still wish to participate. Meanwhile, large tracts of white space would indicate those works that have been censored by the institution or self-censored by the artists. Each (non)participant plus other interested commentators could be invited along to the opening. They could enter into debate over what has occurred, why and with what consequences. Each of the artists selected to take part in “Udda och jämt” would be compelled to explain their decisions. Did they withdraw in protest against the museum’s censorship, in support of Lars Vilks or for some other reason? One such protagonist is the painter, Karin Mamma Andersson. She is on record as criticising Jamtli’s belated and apparently arbitrary decision to ban Vilks. But, prior to that, she was presumably happy for one of her paintings to share a wall with a work by Vilks? Or was she unaware of his participation? Whichever was the case, what “Udda och jämt” reveals is the multivocality of artworks and the powerplays inherent in the artworld. Art and artists are constantly being reframed – by the media and by curators in museums. Art never “speaks for itself”. This has been confirmed by the Jamtli debacle. Yet, rather than capitalise on this rare opportunity to unpick the workings of the artworld, what does the museum do? Simply shuts its doors, withdraws from the fray and waits for normal service to resume. The greatest losers here are Jamtli’s public. Because if Jamtli’s leadership had the courage of their convictions and gone ahead with this non-show then something fascinating would have occurred: the audience itself would have taken centre stage. Regular museum-goers and first-time visitors alike could have voiced their opinions about this so-called public institution. Do they applaud or abhor the actions of the museum and the behaviour of the artists? The resulting dialogue would provide a roadmap for future decisions and contribute to an opening-up – a democratisation – of the museum. As it is, by cancelling “Udda och jämt” the likes of Henrik Zipsane have simply placed an embargo on proper debate. And it is this lack of informed discussion and argument that characterises the hysteria around religion and freedom of expression. The only winners here are those people who delight in spreading discord and miscommunication plus those misguided individuals and organisations who insist on separating “art” from life. (1) “Jamtli ställer in utställning”, Svenska Dagbladet, 29/08/2012, http://www.svd.se/kultur/jamtli-staller-in-utstallning_7458194.svd. There has been a spate of scare stories recently about the "threat" to "our" heritage. These often centre on fabulously valuable artworks owned by extremely wealthy people. Occasionally the objects in question have been hanging quietly on the wall of a public art gallery - until, that is, the owner dies or runs out of cash. A case in point is Picasso's Child with a Dove (1901). This is currently in limbo. It has been sold secretively to an unknown foreign buyer for an undisclosed sum (thought to be in the region of £50m).(1) Unfortunately, the new owner will have to wait a while before getting their hands on it. This is because Britain's minister of culture has placed a temporary ban on its export in the hope that sufficient money can be raised to "save" this item "for the nation". This is exactly what occurred just the other day in relation to a painting by Manet.(2) It cost the Ashmolean Museum £7.83m to "save" this integral piece of British culture from the rapacious hands of a dastardly foreigner. But don't believe this rhetoric. Oh, and ignore the headline price and touching tales of little street urchins parting with their pennies to rescue this relic. It took upwards of £20m in tax breaks and donations from public bodies to ensure that national pride remained intact. Yet this doesn't bode well for Picasso's little bird-loving child, does it? The art fund (sic) must surely have run out by now. So too have the superlatives and dramatic warnings from our media luvvies and museum moguls. Indeed, their fighting funds were already seriously depleted after they chose to place £95m in the hands of the Duke of Sutherland - one of the richest men in the country.(3) This act of Robin Hood in reverse stopped the robber baron from flogging two paintings by Titian along with other trinkets he and his family had so generously loaned to the National Galleries of Scotland. And now the same museum is coming under "threat" again! Soon we will have to watch as Picasso's little bird migrates to sunnier climes. The national heritage will be fatally winged by this terrible loss. The consequences just don't bear thinking about... This is just as well because, in truth, the only repercussions will be a slight dent to national pride plus a small gap on a museum wall. This can be filled by any number of artworks that are currently in store at the National Galleries of Scotland. Deathly quiet will then return to this mausoleum of art... Until, that is, we are panicked by the next siren call as yet another integral piece of Britain's (ha!) much-loved heritage comes under covetous foreign eyes. Tell the world. Tell this to everyone, wherever they are. Watch the skies everywhere. Keep looking. Keep watching the skies. 'Cos you never know, you might just see a sweet bird by Picasso fly by... (1) Anon, "Picasso's Child With A Dove in temporary export bar", BBC News, 17/08/12, http://www.bbc.co.uk./news/entertainment-arts-19283696; Maev Kennedy, "Picasso painting Child with a Dove barred from export", The Guardian, 17/08/12, http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/aug/17/picasso-child-with-a-dove-painting. (2) Stuart Burch, "Manet money", 08/08/2012, http://www.stuartburch.com/1/post/2012/08/manet-money.html. (3) Stuart Burch, "Purloined for the nation", 03/04/12, http://www.stuartburch.com/1/post/2012/04/purloined-for-the-nation.html. Andy Murray + Wimbledon + nationalism Could there possibly be a more depressing combination? I very much doubt it. Alas, the media’s obsession with all this old balls made it harder to avoid than Christmas. Fortunately on this occasion there is cause for genuine interest and, indeed, celebration. This is because the local foreigner’s loss was Oxfam’s gain. When a gentleman by the name of Nick Newlife died in 2009 he generously bequeathed his entire estate to the charity. This included a betting slip. Back in 2003, Newlife wagered £1,520 that the Swiss tennis player, Roger Federer would win Wimbledon seven times before the year 2019. At odds of 66/1, Oxfam will now collect Newlife’s winnings: a cool £101,840. So, just for once, can we please forget about new balls and old nationalisms? Let's sing the praises of Newlife instead. Until recently I have lived my little life in only two dimensions. All that changed on Tuesday 3rd July. Because on that evening – and very much against my better instincts – a Siren persuaded me to pay a small fortune for a pair of cheap plastic spectacles. Despite resembling sunglasses these eyepieces afforded no protection against ultraviolet light. They were, however, effective at creating a spurious sense of depth when watching 3D movies at the cinema. The effect they produce is similar to that experienced when looking at Soviet realist portraits of Stalin. All too often Uncle Joe looks like an overlaid cut-out that could at any moment topple out of the frame. A reviled monster of a slightly different kind featured in the film that I settled down to watch. The creature in question had been brought back to life thanks to another siren song, this time broadcast across vast tracts of the cosmos. This call succeeded in luring a rag-bag band of unsuspecting space travellers into its slithery embrace for the purpose of injecting a little fire into their bellies. Hence the title of the film: Prometheus. Ridley Scott’s blockbuster revives and reprises a creature that was first introduced to movie-goers way back in 1979. This was Alien, one of the masterpieces of cinematic history. For its part, Prometheus must count as one of the disasterpieces of the silver screen – whether it be in two dimensions or three. Luckily for me, the saving grace of Prometheus was the fact that it happened to be the first (and I suspect last) time that I opted to pay for an extra dimension. Fittingly enough, this 3D experience turned it into an expensive novelty. Alien was visually stunning, excellently written and well acted with a plausible (albeit fantastic) plot that remains to this day thought provoking, gripping and genuinely scary. Moreover, it was underpinned by an excoriating social commentary on the machinations of big business. The omninational Weylan-Yutani corporation’s casual disregard for its human employees contrasted with the genuine interest and sympathy they generate in us, the audience. Prometheus is the absolute antithesis of all this. Its plot merits no comment whatsoever. And yet, bizarrely enough, the fact that it is so utterly awful renders it the perfect prequel to Alien. A specially-made pair of 3D spectacles should be hastily manufactured and given to Ridley Scott’s extraterrestrial creation. I have a feeling that its razor sharp mouth would hang open in gob-smacked admiration for its master’s work. This is because Prometheus is the ultimate parasite. It owes its existence entirely due to its host. Without that host – i.e. the original film – it would be nothing. Alien’s prequel is a mind-numbingly naked commercial venture that treats the paying public with the same contempt as the Weylan-Yutani company showed to the doomed crew of the spaceship, Nostromo. One member of that crew is the character, Kane – played so brilliantly by John Hurt. In a particularly memorable scene we see him in a prone position, his features occluded by the facehugging Alien. The best way to sum up Prometheus is to look upon Kane as an embodiment of the 1979 film as a whole. Thanks to the prequel it is now no longer possible to properly appreciate that movie. This is because, enfolding it in a deathly embrace and leeching it of all its vital signs, is its bastard spawn: Prometheus. The unearthly star of Alien would surely applaud this act of ruthless parasitism. But s/he would, I feel, have one criticism. The name is all wrong. The single word title beginning with “P” should not be Prometheus but Parasitoid: a parasite that kills its host. Because that’s exactly what Prometheus does to Alien. Images to celebrate James Joyce’s Ulyssess on “Bloomsday” – 16th June. Para, jämsides med. En annan sort. Bevingaren, 1980: 90 Even a parasite like me should be permitted to feed at the banquet of knowledge I once posted comments as Bevingaren at guardian.co.uk Note All parasitoids are parasites, but not all parasites are parasitoids Parasitoid "A parasite that always ultimately destroys its host" (Oxford English Dictionary) I live off you And you live off me And the whole world Lives off everybody See we gotta be exploited By somebody, by somebody, by somebody <I live off you> Germ Free Adolescents is a short step. The word is now a virus.

In partnership with Goethelab, Aachen, the German organisation will debut the sub €30,000 SLM technology in Frankfurt this month. The research carried out by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory proves 3D printed magnets can display better magnetic, mechanical and microstructural properties, as well as conser Desktop stereolithography leader launches new High Temp, Durable and Tough resins geared towards engineering applications. Whether you're a newbie, expert or in-between, our Prototyping Processes white paper will help you choose the best process for your project. It's packed full of excellent info on strength, finish, material properties, and more. Surgeons at Miami Children’s Hospital saved a young girl’s life using a 3D-printed heart model which helped to visualise a complex operation. Adaenelie, aged four, suffered from total anomalous pulmon A team of researchers from a range of American Universities has manufactured small 3D-printed structures which shrink when heated, rather than expand. Each structure is about the size of a sugar cube

- This event has passed. How To Write A Thriller May 30 @ 6:00 pm - 8:30 pm£35.00 Join Writers & Artists and best-selling author Cass Green for an evening masterclass on How to Write A Thriller. This one-off event will see Cass offering insights into her writing techniques, with practical exercises tailored to help hone your plot, build and maintain suspense and utilise writing techniques to help keep your readers on tenterhooks. Cass Green is the pseudonym of Caroline Green, an award-winning author of fiction for young people. Her first novel, Dark Ride won the RONA Young Adult Book of the Year and the Waverton Good Read Award. Cracks was recommended on Radio 4’s Open Book programme and Hold Your Breath won the Oldham Book Award. She is the Writer in Residence at East Barnet School and teaches Writing for Children at City University. Her debut adult novel The Woman Next Door was a Number 1 e-book bestseller and her second, In A Cottage, In A Wood was a Sunday Times top ten and USA Today bestseller. For more details on the event, please visit https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/events/how-to-write-a-thriller

Sharing The Word of God Toronto Free Presbyterian Church is made up of ordinary people from a wide variety of backgrounds. We are united in the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and have a desire to know more about God. We have a burden to share this glorious message to others. The church family consists of all ages so the services and activities are designed for young and old alike. The Word of God is central in everything that we teach and seek to do.

It is a great joy for me to announce today that after the success of Professor S. and with the kind support of the Medienboard Berlin Brandenburg and the German Computer Game Award LudInc is now developing a new game for kids between the ages of 6 and 12 called: The story follows the adventures of a little octopus girl called Ashta. She was born in a river at the northernmost tip of Indonesia on a little island called Pulo Aceh together with 51 little brothers and sisters. Ashta likes to swim close to the beach and listen and dance to the music the humans are playing. She loves to sit in the coral trees and watch the world go by. Unlike her fellow octopi, she is very sociable and she has a lot of friends in the lagoon. She loves to scare her friends by hiding and imitating different animals. Her father Bob is Ashta’s favourite relative and mentor. Bob enjoys the little pleasures in life. Ashta’s mum calls him lazy but Ashta loves his easy going attitude. Bob often takes Ashta to the beach to collect shells and candy the humans leave behind. One day, a group of sharks are feeding in the bay. Ashta barely manages to escape and gets separated from her family. Followed by the sharks she swims into the open sea. Having lost her way and with the sharks still in pursuit she swims farther into the ocean until she reaches the east coast of India. There, she makes friends with a young bull from Mexico and together they embark on an adventurous journey to reunite “Ashta” with her family. The idea came to me last summer after I had spent almost every day over a six months period practising the physical exercises of the Ashtanga Yoga primary series. The practise continues to improve my life in many ways and I wish I would have discovered it sooner. Yoga not only promotes physical health and fitness but also emotional well-being, concentration and learning abilities. I believe I would have greatly benefited from being introduced to Yoga while I was still at school. However, when I was a kid, Yoga was virtually unheard of. That is why I am grateful for the opportunity to now introduce a younger audience to the practice using the tools I am most familiar with: storytelling, gaming and music. A big thank you goes out to the Medienboard Berlin Brandenburg who continue to believe in us. A special thank you also goes to the German Computer Game Award (DCP) and the Goethe Institute who invited me to Sao Paulo last year for a wonderful opportunity to meet with and learn more about the Brazilian games industry. During my stay in Sao Paulo I also met our Brazilian co-producer Paula Cosenza. Paula’s company, Bossanova Films has recently opened an animation department which produces high quality children’s content and I am very much looking forward to working with her. “Ashta” will be our first international co-production and I am very excited about that. Our gratitude also goes to the Arnold Zweig School in Berlin, where we already had an opportunity to try the story and exercise sequence with a third grade class. There will be other opportunities to test the game mechanics later this month but even at this early stage of development, “Ashta” is a big hit with the students and teachers. We still have a lot of work ahead of us and you can also help by sharing your thoughts: Do you practise Yoga? Do you think Yoga would be beneficial for your kids? Would you spend money on an app that teaches your kids yoga? Do you think an animated story is a useful teaching tool?

Stop. Before you read on, take a moment. Think back, or maybe way back for some, to when you first knew you wanted to pursue a career in law enforcement. What factors in your life pushed you to accomplish your goal? What drove you to take the first step toward where you are today? How old were you? And who was influential in helping you make that decision? Our Department’s Explorer Program is designed to educate youth ages 16 through 21 by developing an interest in law enforcement while instilling life skills such as leadership, academic excellence, respect and physical fitness. The program also works to develop relationships between LVMPD and the community’s youth. Our Explorer Program offers specializations in Police, Corrections, Dispatch and Crime Scene Investigation that further allow members to experience exactly what those career paths are all about. The program is certainly unique in many ways and affords young adults from across the valley opportunities that they may otherwise not get. They learn basic procedures and even some advanced tactics based on the program they’re assigned to. Explorers participate in observations throughout the Department, including ride-alongs and sit-alongs. They learn firearms fundamentals and participate in an annual Explorer academy. They participate in community service activities throughout the year and help our Department during most community events. Explorers travel across the country and are put to the test against members of other agencies’ programs during scenario-based competitions. Each of these opportunities allows our Explorers the chance to experience this career for themselves so that when the time comes, they may make an educated decision about pursuing this profession. I knew I wanted a career in policing after becoming an Explorer with the Ann Arbor (Michigan) Police Department and going on my first ride-along at a young age. I was captured by the excitement of patrol. I remember getting to use the radio for the first time, getting to activate the emergency equipment while rolling Code 3, and watching officers interact with one another and the public. Looking back, each of these things was small, and as a police officer today they have become routine. But at the young age of 16, nothing could compare to it. Nothing came close to the feeling of donning my bulletproof vest and my crisp uniform and sitting in the passenger seat of a patrol car for a shift. While I enjoyed learning how police conduct a vehicle stop or respond to calls for service, most of all, I enjoyed the officers. To me, my advisors made the program what it was. I looked up to them. I saw their dedication and their genuine interest in helping each of us. Our advisors were motivated to see us succeed and provided us with opportunities for success by teaching us professionalism and how to conduct ourselves on and off duty. Our advisors taught us pride and what it meant to be part of something larger than ourselves. They taught us how to work toward a greater mission. We traveled. Our advisors took us to new places and showed us that there was more to the world than just southeast Michigan. They gave us direction in life. They also showed us that there was more to life than policing and that having a well-rounded outlook would, in the long run, help us. In every way, our advisors helped us to achieve our goals. The Explorer Program undoubtedly helped me obtain my career, and I always vowed that once I was able to, I would become involved so that I might give back to a program that helped get me where I am now. Today, as an Explorer advisor, I see my teenage self in the young Explorers. I think back to when I was in their place, with so much ahead of me and so much to learn. I remember what it’s like to be an impressionable young adult and to want nothing more than to be a cop. Today I see how excited they are to attend weekly meetings and learn all about this fulfilling career. I see the pride they have in our Department and the community we serve. I see our Explorers transform and gain confidence, respect and maturity as they grow older. Their drive to succeed, pursue their goals and achieve a career with this agency is awesome to watch, and giving them the tools they need to obtain the job while watching them build upon those is truly inspiring. And of course, watching your former Explorer graduate the Police Academy, knowing that you helped cultivate that desire, that persistence, that drive, is a unique experience in and of itself. Throughout its nearly 35-year history, the LVMPD Explorer Program has seen countless successes. Hundreds of former members have gone on to pursue law enforcement careers, both civilian and commissioned, with this agency and others across the country. For those who didn’t, they learned valuable attributes that have helped them land successful careers in various other fields. The program has received national recognition during competitions and P# 13417 conferences and has been a model for other programs.Advisors play an essential role in this program: We lead, direct, guide and of course advise our young adult members. While the Explorer Program is largely managed by the Explorers themselves, our advisors are the ones who provide weekly instruction. Advisors come from sections and bureaus all across this Department, including patrol and corrections officers, detectives, SWAT operators, crime scene analysts, dispatchers and civilian support staff. They volunteer their time and are able to provide specialized instruction based on their current and past assignments. They give the Explorers the opportunities to see that this career has so much to offer, and give them long-term goals to pursue. Advisors are the lifeblood of the Explorer Program. Interestingly, becoming an advisor will also offer you the opportunity to develop your career. You’ll have the chance to lead and supervise others in both large and small groups. You’ll gain experience in teaching. Being an advisor will allow you to improve your tactics while on the job, because by training Explorers you’ll see exactly where common mistakes are made. As an advisor, you’ll be motivated to perform your job to the best of your abilities, knowing that you have a group of young adults who look up to you. Their excitement will remind you why you chose this career and why this job is better than any other. So as you read this, think about that group of teenagers who are striving to obtain what you have: a career with LVMPD. We all have demands both in and outside of work, and yes, being an advisor takes time and dedication. But consider helping out as much as you can, even if it is only a little bit. Consider being that advisor whom Explorers want to emulate, that role model who offers guidance and direction. And think about the feeling you’ll have when you see that you’ve inspired just one young adult to discover a career in law enforcement. For more information on how you can become involved in this worthwhile organization, please email [email protected].

PADI Seal Team Scuba Diver Paulo and his family are currently living in Seychelles aboard their yacht, as they slowly cruise the world. Whilst here his Mum thought it important for the kids to learn to dive, what a life! and such an amazing life changing experience. Paulo is the most excited new diver I have ever met! this boy shows no fear, and loves being underwater. He has learnt all his hand signals, and is able to complete his underwater exercises with confidence, it was a case of keeping up with Paulo. Diving is a sport for all, and the level of confidence young people gain for this experience is second to none, at Paulo's age he learns to dive in the pool. The dive course Paulo is completing is called "PADI Seal Team", and is specifically design for children, it's core goal is to introduce Scuba Diving in a safe confined water environment, with very closely supervised instruction. The course covers all the PADI requirements of Scuba diving, introducing the kids to the underwater environment, focusing on safety first. With in this course we cover,Basic Scuba Diving Skills, underwater fun and games. Paulo wants to learn everything he can, so we will also cover- Underwater Photography, Peak Performance Buoyancy, Navigation, Creature ID, Environmental Specialist, Inner Space Specialist, Navigation, Night , Safety, Search and Recovery, Skin Diver, and Wreck Specialist. On completion Paulo will be a PADI Master Seal. If you want more information regarding PADI Seal Team, for kids or any other PADI diving courses please don't hesitate to contact us. Ph: 00248 345 445

I have always been afraid of getting my wisdom teeth out. Not because of the pain, but because of the stupid ass shit I would say after. Would I tell my doctor and mother about the time I witnessed a murder but fled the scene because Real Housewives was on? Or would I just make an ass of myself by singing off key? Sadly neither. Shit was uneventful. Such a disappointment. Not even the pain was good. I truly felt nothing. Such a let down. Because I sold my soul to the devil, pain turns me on. Nothing gets me more moist than putting out a lit cigarette on my chest. Besides a little pain after the surgery, I was back to normal old daddy. Being loud as fuck and chatting like my life depended on it. People did not believe I just had my wisdom teeth done. Sorry I’m not a baby back bitch? I refused the hardcore painkillers because I don’t need to get addicted. Popping pills is NOT a cute look. Plus it could lead to an heroin addiction down the road, thank u next. Everyone acted like this was going to be a weekend of hell. Honestly I got them off Thursday and by Saturday I was gossiping and sipping wine with the gals. My biggest fear was the dreaded dry sockets. Dry Sockets are when you get air in the wisdom teeth hole and it forces the blood clot out. This can happen by smoking, drinking from a straw or sucking a massive dick. Mama Dutches got them when she got her wisdom teeth out and honestly it looked and sounded like hell. She smoked legit 2 hours after her surgery (idiot girl) and ate a casear salad. Girl gives zero fucks. She got dry sockets in all four holes 2 days later and for a week she was crying in pain, anything for attention. They have to shove a tube into the hole and press air to clean it out. She said she would rather get a pap smear everyday for life then do that again. My baby girl was struggling. I hope the dick and blunt was worth it. My ass did my research before hand. It said coconut water can speed recovery but that shit taste like box. So I did green tea and honey, drink that everyday and you will look as young as me. I napped laying up like I was a corpse. Its amazing cause when people walk in you just have to open your eyes and you scare a bitch. They say this helps with the blood vessels I don’t know I’m not a dentist. My surgery was at noon, the laughing gas is what really made me feel weird. I felt like someone was trying to take advantage of me ,sexually, it was VERY suspect. By 8am the next day I felt fine besides my face was puffy. I looked like I was packing a mean lip of dip. I felt so fine I even went to work, daddy’s that money motivated. Imma keep it real with y’all. Yeah I got lit later that night. Don’t judge me! At least I waited 24 hours. You ain’t my mama. The trick to NOT get dry socket is having your mouth wet like a cooch. I got gauze and made them HELLA wet. Then placed them over my stitches. Dry Sockets happen when you get dry air in the hole so if its hella wet then like physics will stop it? I don’t know to be honest I failed physics. Either way this worked for me. Also I took little ass hits and made the blunt loose like my baby girls. If you’re nervous than you can smoke thru your nose but that’s trashy. Grow up. By today my stitches already fell out and my battle scars are almost healed besides one. I had a little yellow on one sitch but according to Web MD thats normal! I hope….. I would ask my dentist but knowing my luck there will be a fucking co-pay just for questions. BTW shout out to Dr.Thurber for this amazing work. I have a feeling he worked extra hard on me because he wanted to never see me again. Xoxo I’m turning my pulled teeth into a cute necklace for TT, ZO ROMANTIC

Tony Aguilar is founder & CEO of Chipper, a powerful mobile platform that enables student loan borrowers to chip away their student debt faster through round-ups, cash back rewards, and refinancing all in one place. He is also co-founder and former CEO of Student Loan Genius, where he invented the student loan benefit, a perk allowing companies to contribute to employees' student debt. Featured in the Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Money Magazine, and on CNN, Tony’s commitment to helping young professionals get ahead and live a life free from debt is the common thread in all of his work. President Obama invited him to the White House to share his story and the impact he is having with Student Loan Genius. He also serves on the board of Mission Capital and is a member on the Forbes Financial Council. When Tony is not working on one of his ventures, he is either spending time with his four-year old daughter, running around Town Lake, guest lecturing at the University of Texas and Concordia University on entrepreneurship and personal finance, serving as Chairman of Concordia University’s Emerging Leaders Advisory Board, or mentoring fellow social entrepreneurs and startups. [Programming descriptions are generated by participants and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SXSW.]

Where better to earn your P-Credits than at the Zoo! With time outdoors and in, this course takes a hands-on approach to support early childhood educators in weaving more science and nature into their classrooms and learning centers. We will break down research and best practices about engaging children with the scientific process and the natural world. Teachers will be provided with knowledge, strategies, concrete examples, and collaborative workshopping to create practical, realizable plans for bringing nature and science to their pre-k and early childhood students. The environment is in desperate need of assistance, kids spend the vast majority of their time indoors, and now more than ever, the role of early childhood educators to engage and excite young children about the natural world is critical for the future of our planet.

Hi I wrote this issue essay within 30 mins. Please give me input on organisation, clarity and examples considered.PROMPT:The best way for a society to prepare its young people for leadership in government, industry, or other fields is by instilling in them a sense of cooperation, not competition. Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim. In developing and supporting your position, be sure to address the most compelling reasons and/or examples that could be used to challenge your position. ESSAY:In an increasing globalized world, leadership has taken an important position in ensuring that any country progresses economically, politically and socially. Cooperation is not the only quality that a leader should possess, innovation and thinking out of box are also one of the most desirable qualities.Healthy competition begets innovation. Hence there should be a balanced approach between competition and cooperation to prepare the leaders for positions in government, industry and other fields. Cooperation between people who have contrasting opinions leads to refinement of ideas. A leader valuing cooperation leads to progress in his field. For instance, Nelson Mandela, the first president of South Africa, after coming out of prison, engaged both Whites and Blacks in a healthy discussion (regarding democratic rights and principles) which paved way for the success of Rainbow nation as we have today. While cooperation is important to brainstorm ideas, competition also brings out the best in the people. In the increasingly competitive world, where innovation is the new de facto Darwinian principle for survival, a good leader having an innovative mindset can propel his company and domain to reach great heights. For example, Microsoft and Apple in 1980s were fiercely competitive companies. They were headed by smart and out of the box thinkers namely Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Due to such healthy competition, products released by these companies broke the barriers of innovation, thus advancing the field of information technology as whole. When both cooperation and competition come together, the combination can give us remarkable results. Consider Steve Jobs of Apple, a leader who urged cooperation among his peers to innovate (because of external competition) has led to Apple being the most valuable company of this era. Therefore its important to instill both cooperative and competitive genes in young leaders, so that society can progress economically, socially and politically in the best way possible.

Psychoville is a British dark comedy television serial written by and starring The League of Gentlemen members Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton. It debuted on BBC Two on 18 June 2009. Pemberton and Shearsmith each play numerous characters, with Dawn French and Jason Tompkins in additional starring roles. The first series was followed by a Halloween special, broadcast on 31 October 2010, which saw Imelda Staunton added to the main cast along with previously supporting actors Eileen Atkins and Daniel Kaluuya. The second series started broadcasting on 5 May 2011 and ended on 6 June. Reece Shearsmith has officially announced that there will not be a third series. You May Also Like President Trump is bypassing the crooked media by hosting a late-night show direct from the Oval Office. No unfair questions from reporters, no awkward photo ops with German ladies, and no bedtimes. The weekly series will have the best guests, the “hottest women,” and only the nicest of questions. Marc Maron has been a comedian for 25 years. He’s had his problems. He was an angry, drunk, self involved, twice divorced compulsive mess for most of his adult life, but with the popularity of a podcast he does in his garage and a life of sobriety, his life and career are turning around. MARON explores a fictionalized version of Marc’s life, his relationships, and his career, including his incredibly popular WTF podcast, which features conversations Marc conducts with celebrities and fellow comedians. Neurosis intact, Maron is uniquely fascinating, absolutely compelling and brutally funny. A time in Mark Feuerstein’s adult life when he lived in apartment 9K in the building he grew up in, sandwiched between his parents’ apartment, 9J; and his brother, sister-in-law and their baby’s apartment, 9L and his attempts to set boundaries with his intrusive but well-meaning family. Tom Kirkman, a low-level cabinet member is suddenly appointed President of the United States after a catastrophic attack during the State of the Union kills everyone above him in the Presidential line of succession. Dyrdek introduces the world to the most ridiculously talented young people in the country – an eclectic and diverse mix of amateur and viral talent, who compete to earn the top spot. The first act goes to the Top Spot, but every following performer has the opportunity to dethrone them. The last one standing will have the “Amazingness” of a champion and walk away with $10,000 dollars in cash.

Great Health Benefits Of Walnuts The great health benefits of walnuts are being very well emphasized Dr. Mercola who rightly calls walnut as “the king of all the nuts”. The research elaborates very well that just seven walnuts a day are great for boosting your overall health in a number of incredible ways. Remarkable Story Of Walnuts At A Glance Walnuts belong to the most popular tree nut family, that mainly includes Brazil nuts, the hazelnuts, cashews, rarely found macadamia nuts, the pine nuts as well as the pistachios. Each type of walnut has its own unique walnut nutritional profile. Power Facts About Walnuts - Just one-quarter cup of fresh walnuts, for example, provides much more than even 100 percent of the most of the daily recommended value of plant-based essential omega-3 fats, along with superbly high amounts of copper, essential manganese, molybdenum, and great biotin. - Walnuts may greatly help reduce not only the dangerous risk of harmful prostate cancer but chronic breast cancer as well. - Walnuts even contain the most beneficial amino acid l-arginine, which offers a variety of vascular benefits to people with severe heart disease, or even to those who have a great risk for heart disease due to miscellaneous cardiac risk factors. - Walnuts also contain several unique as well as powerful antioxidants that are abundantly available in only a few very commonly eaten foods. - Walnuts may greatly improve sperm quality, great support in weight control, and largely support for tremendous brain health and another type 2 diabetes. Top Seven Secret Health Benefits Of Walnuts 1.Amazing Cancer Fighting Qualities Walnuts may tremendously help in reducing not only the risk of chronic prostate cancer but even breast cancer as well. The complete walnut diet has proved to reduce disease of prostate cancer growth by almost 35 to 45 percent. According to another research study conducted on the mice, the human equivalent of just even two handfuls of walnuts consumer just a day cut breast cancer risk equal to exactly in half and slowed down tumor growth by almost 50 percent as well. 2.Improved Overall Heart Health Walnuts constitute an essential amino acid l-arginine which provides multiple vascular health benefits to those people carrying heart disease, or even to those who have medically increased the risk for chronic heart disease due to increased cardiac risk factors. Consuming just four walnuts in a day has been immensely shown to boost blood levels of the most heart-healthy ALA. Moreover, walnut consumption essentially supports greatly healthful cholesterol levels. Separate research clearly showed that consuming just a handful of walnuts in a day may drastically decrease cardiovascular risk, high cardiovascular risk along with reducing the increased frequency of the nut consumption which significantly lowers the overall risk of death. 3.Rare As Well As Powerful Antioxidants Antioxidants are very crucial to your overall health, as they are firmly believed to help regulate how fast you age by fiercely combating free radicals, which are actually at the overall heart of age-related deterioration. Walnuts contain many multiple unique as well as powerful antioxidants that are abundantly available in only a very few most commonly eaten foods. This food includes notable to mention quinone juglone, the tannin as well as the flavonol morin. Walnuts also contain active antioxidants that are so immensely powerful at free-radical scavenging that many researchers commented them as “remarkable”. 4.Help In Weight Control Adding one ounce (healthful amounts) of great nuts such as walnuts right to your diet (preferably as breakfast) can incredibly help you to maintain your overall ideal weight over the passage of time. In one famous review of a range of 31 trials, those people whose diets included many extra nuts lost about almost 1.4 extra pounds which equals to half an inch from their waists. 5.Improved Overall Reproductive Health in Men One of the most lesser-known benefits of the walnuts is their overall impact on male fertility. Among all men who increasingly consume a Western-style diet revealed improved sperm quality, also including vitality, semen motility, as well as morphology. 6.Boosting Brain Health Walnuts contain a big ration of neuroprotective compounds, which mainly includes vitamin E, the folate, great for bones omega-3 with fats and the very important antioxidants. Research clearly shows walnut consumption may greatly support brain health, making a great impact on increasing inferential reasoning in all the young adults. The most beneficial dietary fat found in walnuts has been evidently shown to improve great metabolic parameters in all people having type 2 diabetes. The overweight adults suffering from type 2 diabetes consuming a one-quarter cup of fresh walnuts daily had revealed significant reductions in metrics corresponding to fasting insulin levels as compared to those who did not consume walnuts, and the same benefit was achieved just in the first three months. Great Advantages Of Eating the Walnut Skin The outermost layer of a totally shelled walnut – the shaded whitish, slightly flakey (or even sometimes waxy) part – has a slightly bitter flavor. Almost up to to 90 percent of the all the antioxidants in walnuts are essentially found in its skin, making the walnut skin to be one of the healthiest parts to eat. In order to increase the amazingly positive health impacts on your health, just look for the walnuts that are originally organic as well as raw, not the irradiated ones or the pasteurized ones. How To Best Store Walnuts? Furthermore, be aware that walnuts are highly perishable and their healthful fats easily damaged. If you’re purchasing shelled walnuts in bulk, avoid those that appear shriveled or smell rancid, or that you cannot verify are fresh. Walnuts should be stored in an airtight container in your refrigerator or freezer, whether they are shelled or unshelled. How To Enhance Taste Of Walnuts? Walnuts are too awesome for a quick snack. In the case, if you’re not a big fan of the walnut flavor, you can still get a variety of their therapeutic benefits just by means of blending them in combination with coffee into smoothies. How To Boost Quality Of Walnut? You can further improve the overall quality of walnuts by just soaking the walnuts in the water overnight, which will further tend to lower some of the essential enzyme inhibitors as well as phytic acid. After soaking walnuts, you can then dehydrate them at a further low temperature of around 100 degrees to 110 degrees Fahrenheit until these walnuts are more crispy again, as they are even far more palatable and more crunchy.

How to Get Older Without Aging My mom, Nan, is a regular at Ripple Effect. In these pandemic days, you’ll find her lifting weights at Outdoor Barbell Club, working out from home on our Zoom classes, and texting me her favorite healthy recipes she’s going to feed us at our next backyard meal together. Nan is in her early 60s. But you wouldn’t know it, watching her in the gym. She does it all! Full depth squats, burpees, deadlifts, cleans, snatches, box jumps, and jumping rope. One of her proudest moments at the gym is deadlifting 200lbs for the first time. She might be getting older, but because of her healthy habits with moving and eating well, she seems to age half as fast as anyone else! Contrast that with Nan’s mom, my grandma Eunice. By the time Eunice was in the early 60s, she had already had her first total hip replacement, and was well on her way to more major joint issues. Grandma Eunice is almost 90 now, and mentally she’s doing great. Physically, her body hasn’t been able to keep up for a long time, due to lack of use. A cane or walker has been a constant companion for most of the last 20 years. I love my Grandma, and I know exercise wasn’t really a “thing” for many in her generation. I wish I could have done more to help her earlier. To be fair I was probably not ready to be her fitness coach when I was 2. But I also think inertia, fear, and lack of knowledge played a big role too. Some people just didn’t know any better. Now, we do. I imagine the next 20+ years of Nan’s life, compared to her mom’s. Nan is running around with her grandson, gardening, lifting weights, walking all the time, and doing everything she can to keep herself moving. She’s a serious inspiration for me and anyone who knows her. I don’t see her slowing down anytime soon. She is strong, has great balance, and healthy movement habits for the long haul. It’s taken hard work, but it’s worth it. Why do aging adults end up in assisted-living facilities? It comes down to not being able to get up off of the toilet. It may sound crass, but it’s a very real thing. More broadly, the reason aging adults go to assisted-living facilities is that they’ve lost their ability to be physically independent. As adults age, basic movement becomes much more difficult. People retire, they are less active, and they have fewer reasons to get up and out of the house. So they sit all day, and their muscles atrophy. That’s why it’s so important need to stay active as we age. We need to find or stick to an exercise routine to preserve our independence for as long as possible—not just for our own sakes, but also so our children won’t have to take care of us (or pay someone else to). The exercise needs of the aging population vary by degree, not kind. What is standing up from the toilet? An air squat. What happens when someone falls and gets back up? A burpee. How do groceries get unloaded from the car? With a farmers carry. Aging adult athletes may not be breaking gym records, but they can certainly perform modified versions of everything the rest of the class is doing—and a good coach will know how to guide them. Intensity is relative for every athlete in the gym, while range of motion and movement goals stay the same. Nan keeps up with the young guns just fine! Strength training is also critical for aging adults because it helps prevent and reverse osteoporosis (brittle bones). Even minor slips and falls often result in broken bones in aging men and women with low bone density. Lifting heavy objects increases that bone density and reduces risk of injury. I know that if Nan falls down alone, she’ll have no problem getting back up, and she’ll be at very low risk for broken bones or serious injury. At Ripple Effect, we have several 60-plus-year-old athletes, and they do great in classes. Others choose to start with private sessions. The point is that they get or remain active. We find ways to make movement fun, and doable for anyone. We’re with you for the long haul, no matter how far into your journey you already are. Our bodies are built to move!

I was born a rich girl in a family of three children. But that’s not my superpower. My superpower is that I can tell you within the first minute or less of interacting with a man whether he’s a fool. You see, men have it easy. For most of their existence the only thing they have to do is be and the world will pat them on the back, but they won’t admit it. They will get into a spiel about bills and providing, but it’s the 21st century—we all foot bills and provide. Most men have a terrible secret. They are fools. You will see them walking with swagger and occupying rooms with confidence, but it’s arrogance. After they get a deep voice, broad shoulders and a standing penis to every passing skirt, they think they are conquerors. God forbid they learn how to dress; then they believe they have unlocked luminary status. They guard this secret with every ounce of primitive energy in their being. They talk little and use their muscles more and when they are not mansplaining or cheating they meet in their sanctuaries—local or exclusive pubs to invent even more primitive lifestyles. You will know a man is behind it when it has poor taste. Phrases like ‘Man Up’ will go around. They even have the nerve to decide when they should get to the house and when they do the world should stop. Its hubris, disguised to hide their terrible secret. I have a superpower of picking out a fool in one minute or less after interacting with a man, so I knew when I had landed a good one. But there was one problem. You see, my choice husband was not well off. He was a mechanic who lived in a shack and drove a jalopy but I saw his kindness, his charm, and his erudition. I saw a man who did not wear hubris like a second skin and feel accomplished for it. But my parents would have none of it. They raised an eyebrow and whispered between themselves when they first saw him. He didn’t look the way our inner circle did; like money. To me, money was secondary, a piece of paper. Besides, there is a cure for being broke but there is no cure for fools. There isn’t a book in the world that can cure it. It’s malignant and the only treatment is cutting it off and throwing it away but the human race is not that advanced yet so let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I pulled my mom aside and brought this up. “Andrea don’t be ridiculous, you can put a monkey in a suit but you can’t buy it class. Honey, please don’t make us the butt of jokes and innuendo,” she brushed me off brusquely. It was my fault. I expected too much from a woman who had gotten married to a fool. I told you in the beginning, I come from a rich family and we don’t just marry anyone. My brother married the governor’s daughter. My sister married a CEO’s son, and I was set to marry the president of a clothing company but like most men, he turned out to be a fool. I had gone to his house once or twice. A mansion with a bevvy of maids but he still dropped hints that he wanted me to take care of him. I had spent a weekend in my sister’s matrimonial home to understand what he meant. Cooking for him, washing his clothes, waiting with a pot of hot food on those late nights when he happened to stagger to his mistress before coming home. I was not cut out to be a maid, what made him think I would agree to slavery? My sister had beamed when she first introduced her fiancé to us. I mean my parents arranged it but she behaved as if it was new stuff. I could only guess that they had already slept together and the sex was good, good, but was it enough for her to be a slave? I did my part. I used my superpower. His regal manner, muscles and eloquence did not fool me, not once, not when I had been doing this for years. Yes, he had a straight ‘A’ in blithering fool. I pulled her to the side and told her it was better for her to be a damsel in distress all her life than to sup with a buffoon but she didn’t listen. Not when the sex was good, good. “Why do you always have to ruin everything?” “Mind your own business.” “You’re too young to understand these things.” They were words that she threw around. More than once during my visit I heard her whimpering in her room and when I asked, she said something had gotten into her eye. I did not know things getting into your eye made mucus run rivers down your nostrils and your body convulse with hiccups. But my point was clear. You could not fight the superpower—it was disturbingly accurate. I called my dad to the side and told him my distress. “Andrea, you know we don’t just marry anybody in this house. Marriages, for us, transcend love. They are about strengthening our family empire. You have to get this mechanic out of your head.” But that’s the thing. I could not get him out of my head. “I will run away with him before I marry one of your arrangements,” I heard myself roar, refusing to be moved like a pawn on some board for my family’s selfish whims. My dad held my hand, his nails digging into my skin enough to draw blood. “You will do what we tell you to do,” he barked before letting go. My parents knew I was willful but even I did not anticipate what they did next. My boyfriend was uplifted from his lowly mechanic shop in the ghetto and given an apprenticeship in the dealership of one of my dad’s friends. A year later he was the managing director of the company and the year after that, we were in church saying our wedding vows before the eyes of God and men. And then he became a fool. I was born a poor boy in a family of eleven children but that is not my superpower. My superpower is knowing my place. The world lies to all of us, it makes us believe that ambition is a beautiful thing when really, it’s dangerous. I have read enough books to fear ambition. Starting from The Great Gatsby, many foolish men see their ruin in its hands. You see, before Andrea, I didn’t have any illusions of grandeur. I didn’t want to be rich, neither did I want status and I believed it made me happier. I played my role humbly as a lowly mechanic. Diligently waking up in the morning and taking a cold bath from my faded, blue basin. Having my sugarless tea with yams before heading to my shop. I would have married a Class 8 drop out—Form 4, if I got lucky—and we would have had six or eleven children and I would have worked day and night in my mechanic shop to provide for them, oblivious of ambition or any shiny thing that would make me take a misstep from my place. That was before Andrea showed up in her Mercedes and kept showing up even when it did not have an issue. At first, I thought people would jump from the nearby bushes with cameras to tell me that it was a prank and I was on some live TV show but that never happened and she kept coming around. Eating ugali and sukuma wiki with me at my favorite kibanda, staying a minute longer in my shop, dusting and arranging my tools, and helping manage my cash flows. God knows it wasn’t much but she came up with a system of helping me track my debtors and creditors. I was dizzy the first time she took me to one of her family events. I marveled at the opulence with my mouth wide open. It lit a flame in my imagination and for the first time, I realized life could offer me a whole lot more than I had settled for. I didn’t even mind when her sister came around and with a face drenched in mockery said, “I see you have settled for one of our servants. What is he, a janitor?” After a few events and a couple of dates in expensive hotels, I got spoilt. My sugarless tea and my yams started tasting horrible. I could no longer stand the cold showers and the deafening noise in my shop gave me migraines. It was a breath of fresh air when her dad came to my shop with an offer that felt like a dream. “You must worship a living God because your life is about to change, son,” he said with a poker face, and excitement coloured my face. I was not going to only taste ambition but eat it with a big spoon. It felt incredible. Things were rosy a year or so after our wedding. It didn’t start immediately or overwhelmingly. It started with crumbs here and there. You pick up a lot of things sitting in an exclusive pub after a game of golf. I learnt, for example, that I did not have to get home in time for supper, that I could get there whenever I wanted and hot food would still be waiting for me. I started by wetting my toes. One late night every week. Before it became two, three, then seven. I also picked up whiskey and I realized that I enjoyed it better when she served it to me silently without buzzing in my ear about couple’s therapy, so I began raising my voice at her whenever she did, as if she were partially deaf and she could only hear me when my voice was ten octaves higher. My humble mechanic days thinned into the background and my courage became obese. I rented an apartment for a mistress and on some months, I never showed up for entire weeks at a time. She confronted me, of course, many times. I think I said something offhand, something I had picked up in the pub. “Don’t question me unless you wear the trousers in this house.” The night she poisoned my whiskey I did not hear much beside shuffling feet and fading voices. “Mom, I think I killed him.” “I thought you loved him?” “I did, before he became a fool.” “Honey, you can put a monkey in a suit but you can’t buy it class.” Were the final words I heard before the lights went off and darkness engulfed me. Read the reviews and learn how you can get my book here. Adieu! Love this article? We don’t (yet) have the budget to buy space on prime time TV or full page ads in the Daily Nation, so your shares are what help us get discovered. Feel free to whisper us to a friend and leave a comment.

Photographer Les Delano Reveals the Naked Truth Behind the Camera Photographer Les Delano Reveals the Naked Truth Behind the Camera PLUS Model Magazine’s ‘Dare to Love Your Body’ editorial in the October issue of PLUS made huge virtual waves. Seven beautiful plus size models of all sizes, shapes and races showed their confidence for all the world to see by posing in the nude. Photographer and former model, Les Delano, was behind this beautiful display and has been bringing exciting and creative images for many years. Today Les exposes herself for PLUS and reveals the naked truth behind the camera. [Maddy] Most people know you as a passionate photographer but you actually began your career as a straight size model. Can you tell me a little about your modeling days? [Les] I modeled back in the 80’s, when straight size was 6, 8, and even 10! I did print, beauty and catalogue, mostly; some commercials. There was no on-line advertising then; it was all catalogues, magazines, newspapers and TV. The look for straight sized models was different than it is now–I knew very few girls that I would describe as emaciated; they were just slinky and svelte. Think about the Sports Illustrated girls; that was the look. Lean muscles were great!! I think Elle McPherson, Paulina Porizkova, Kim Alexis and Kelly Emberg, define that era in terms of model types. [Maddy] We often hear that straight size models are asked to slim down below a healthy weight. Was this your experience? [Les] Well, models have always been taller and thinner than the average person, but back then (sounds like I am talking about the Jurassic era — LOL), most 5’10 models weighed about 130 pounds, maybe less for runway, which is more stringent. I was about 135 pounds, which is thin but not disgusting. I was (and am) completely uncoordinated; I can’t walk in heels at all, so runway was not an option for me! I had big lips and big hair and a slightly exotic look for a blond. That’s what got me work, mostly, my face — as long as I stayed around an 8-10 for the Chicago market that was okay. It’s very diffe rent now, models are being fired for being 5’11” and 125 lbs– i.e., too fat, because sample sizes are 0-2 now. I sure as heck wouldn’t have been a model if I were of age now. [Maddy] Over the past few years we have seen a handful of models turn their attention towards photography. What does it take to be a good photographer? [Les] The eye. Unfortunately digital has leveled the playing field in terms of being able to use the equipment, but all the toys in the world won’t help you if you don’t have a great eye both for composition AND lighting. I love working with natural light, and personally would still shoot film if I had my druthers, but no one wants to wait for the development or pay for it. Which is sad, as it would weed out a lot of people because there’s no retouching! [Maddy] When did you decide you would turn your sites to the photography field? [Les] I believe it was in early 2001. I had been unofficially taking shots of model friends for years, but when 9/11 hit and the economy started to tank and funding dropped out of documentaries, I had to make a fast move. Having both modeled and made movies, I figured I could teach myself how to do still shooting pretty easily. I never assisted; I just started, as I have done with all my artistic careers. I studied European fashion magazines, which have much better photography than American ones, especially the Italians; they know all about light and have for centuries! [Maddy] After studying photography on your own, how did you begin to develop your book? [Les] I started testing for free — I got some models off the plus models site– and then went into agencies. I also shot straight size starting out. It’s pretty easy to get beginner top agency models if you have a team and are a woman. I got very young girls (and their mothers) from Click, and everyone was comfortable with me, Bette and Tanja. It’s important to build a strong book as quickly as possible, rather than worry about getting paid right away. As soon as your book is strong, you can do paid tests, and get clients. As with models, so it is for us photographers; our images are our calling cards. My first client job was through a model, Taylor, who I had shot a card for, and that was Kiyonna. They were shooting their own merchandise at the time and they saw my work on Taylor’s card and she enthusiastically recommended me! [Maddy] With the stigma that plus size models had years ago… you still decided to include plus size models in your work. Why did you make that decision? [Les] I think it is devastating to present only one size as the standard of beauty, especially since weight and frame size are pretty random variables among the general population. I mean, we don’t hold someone’s hair color or eye color against them, right? You can be a beautiful girl with gray, brown or green eyes, but not if you aren’t a size 2? It’s ludicrous to me. I believe it’s all about the face, that’s what I go by. Maybe it’s because I’m a straight woman, not a gay designer or a MWC (man with camera), but it’s the shot, how the girl moves, the clothes, the location and how the LIGHT come together. A beautiful face on any size body will get me and my camera any time! [Maddy] You are well known by the agencies for your fantastic images. How important is it to have a good reputation in this business? [Les] I think this business is heavily dependant on word of mouth. Clients know I deliver good images on time with a tight creative team. They also know I have nothing edible but chocolate and this vile green juice in my house, but there are worse things to be known for – LOL! [Maddy] What are your own views about body image? [Les] You really want me to start on this — LOL? Ok, I think there are many factors that determine body image, which is separate from self esteem in general. Take me for instance. Due to factors growing up: family, peers, and the fact that I was in the fashion industry; I’m not happy with my size and always have wished I had a better body. I also have a lot of common sense and a deep-seated loathing of exercise, so wishing is as far as it ever gets… My body thoughts, however, do not interfere with how I see myself as a human, to what’s important to me in life, which is helping other people as much as possible. That’s what I base my self-esteem on — what my various talents and qualities are. As far as body image for the rest of the population — women of all ages are affected by the media blitz that subliminally — or not so subliminally — sends them the message that they are NOT OK as they are. The media does this by glorifying unusually young and genetically gifted people and paying them enormous sums of money to hawk products through which the average woman has a snowball’s chance in hell of ever looking like the model/actress — but hope springs eternal, and hope drives huge profits in the beauty, fashion and diet industries. So women run out and buy that diet aid, that mascara, that cream, those jeans, that hair dye, because the message is, “If you don’t look like Giselle no one will ever love you and you will die a failure eaten by your cat in your overpriced tiny pad full of Jimmy Choos and thigh-slimming cream.” It’s SILLY but it’s so overpowering, and not everyone is hyper aware enough to dismiss the virtual Uzi of “you don’t look like this and you should” messages that come at them hundreds of times a day in all media. So it’s my mission to make it ok to be different; make it ok to love your body even if no one hires you as a stand in for Megan Fox. It’s a work in progress, and I’m including myself in that. [Maddy] You are the photographer who brought us the ‘Dare to Love Your Body’ Editorial in the October issue of PLUS. Tell me about what bringing images that represent bodies of all shapes and sizes mean to you. [Les] That was one of the most fun shoots I’ve done. The models were great — no hissy fits about being buck-naked on my rooftop deck in sweltering 90 heat. We are so trained how to ‘best hide’ our figure ‘flaws’– that ever helpful media telling us we suck again– that it was great to have these girls say — here is my body, I love it, you better love it too! That confidence is hot and made for hot photos. [Maddy] You have worked with some of today’s most well-known plus size models and have been a model yourself. What are your tips for aspiring models when preparing for a successful shoot? [Les] Go to a pro, someone who does not retouch the living hell out of your pictures. Big agencies like Polaroid girls and that’s what I like for castings; your pictures MUST look like you. When I shot film the agents would take the proof prints and make cards directly from them. Digital does require a little post work for color balancing and zit removal as it is a much harsher medium than film, but go to someone (like myself) who has a VERY light retouch touch! Also, use a stylist. It’s expensive but these pictures are going to be what get you those nice day rate jobs, so invest the money. Trust the photographer to know the best artists. It may save you $$ up front to bring your friend who did all the make up for the high school plays but if you need to re-shoot, then you are out even more money. So do it right with the best people you can afford right out of the gate. You are only as good as your pictures in this arena.

* While all this is going on with the Dalmatians, there are problems in other provinces as well. * We hear of campaigning going on in….. Africa. * And also this is the period when Herod’s son Archelaus is so unpopular in Judaea that he’s stripped of his throne and forced into retirement, and Judaea becomes a full Roman province. * As I mentioned a few episodes ago, Quirinius is sent by Augustus to run the province and he hold a census which makes the Jews unhappy. Click on the banner and use the coupon code LOC to get 25% off your first three months! * It’s the first time they’ve had to pay taxes directly to Rome. * And so they rise up. * This is actually a really interesting event. * The uprising is lead by a guy called Judas of Galilee. * Not Jesus of Galilee. * Not Judas Iscariot. * Judas of Galilee. * According to the late first century Jewish historian and turncoat Josephus, Judas of Galilee is the founder of the Zealots. * And he was actually a messiah wannabe. * He may or may not be the same Judas who, a few years earlier, cleaned the temple because Herod the Great defiled it with statues of Roman eagles. * Anyway, Judas, like all of the other messiah wannabes, was executed by the Romans before his revolution could succeed. * Quirinus shuts down the rebellion like a good Roman should – quickly and brutally. * So at the age of 69 – Ray’s favourite age – Augustus is facing serious problems on several fronts simultaneously. * And for a brief time at least, he reverts back to young Octavian – curled up in the corner, sucking his thumb. * Pliny claims he fell into despair, didn’t eat for four days, and kept yelling that he wished he was dead. * I actually have a clip. * GODFATHER – YOU CAN ACT LIKE A MAN. * Or the ANTONY clip. * Or both. * When the rebellion in Illyricum broke out, he couldn’t have known how Bodacious would react when he pulled Tibbo out of Germany. * Would he take a peace deal or not? * And of course he knew the Illyricum warriors first hand, cuz he’d gone there himself to pacify them back when he was a youngster. * He had Agrippa by his side at the time though. * Now’s he’s all alone. * All his worst fears have happened. * Nobody by his side, no-one really to replace him, and the empire is falling apart around his ears. * All those decades of work for nothing. * In Italy he only had nine cohorts of praetorians, his bodyguards, the urban cohorts, the imperial fleet, and the Village People. * IN THE NAVY * The rest of the army was too far away to get there in time. * The funny thing is, Augustus started the year by setting up a new treasury fund for the military. * He even kicked in 170 million sesterses of his own money. * But don’t worry – he found that lying behind the couch. * He also set up three former praetors to serve as the managers of the fund for three year terms of office. * The fund was supposed to pay for the soldier’s salaried and the standard discharge bonus that was given out now instead of a land grant. * By this time there were 28 legions. * About 140,000 troops. * The terms of service have been extended from 16 to 20 years. * And then a further FIVE years as a veteran. * The kind of solider massacred during the early stages of the rebellion in Illyricum. * To pay for all of this, he instituted a tax of 5% on inheritances. * This was the first direct taxation of citizen living in Italy in more than 150 years and it was VERY unpopular. * Because Italians, like the American Founding Fathers, didn’t like paying for shit they were used to getting for free. * When news of the Illyricum rebellion happened, Augustus tried to raise a new army at home. * For the first time in decades they held a levy but not enough volunteers appeared. * So he resorted to limited conscription. * He also admitted men to the army that normally would have been rejected due to their age or physical condition or occupation. * Like a 50 year old midget podcaster would definitely not have made it into the ranks under normal circumstances. * And slaves were demanded from the wealth citizens, and when they were handed over they were declared free, given their citizenship, and enrolled in special cohorts – – the cohortes voluntariorum civium romanorum (volunteer cohorts of Roman citizens). * This distinguished them from the free-born cohorts. * The elite of Italy were expected to play their part as leaders. * Augustus asked for volunteers, especially from the younger members of the senate and equestrians. * Some volunteered. * Some said they would go if they were forced to. * Others refused. * One equestrian father cut his sons thumbs off to make them unfit for service. * I’d be like “fucking hell, you couldn’t just shoot me in the thigh or something?” * My fucking THUMBS!? * How am I going to jerk off without thumbs? * DIDN’T THINK ABOUT THAT DID YOU OLD MAN. * Right – from now on, YOU are in charge of jerking me off. * I posted on Facebook and asked how you jerk off without thumbs. * Amanda Kippax suggests you’d get a Fleshlight. * Augustus had the father arrested, tried, condemned and sold as a slave. * His property was all auctioned off. * But wait – it gets worse. * This guy was actually one of the publicani – the guys who collected taxes on behalf of the state. * This guys colleagues tried to do him a solid by bidding for him. * But Augustus ignored them and told the guy for a token price to one of his own freedmen. * OH SHEEEEIT. * The reluctance of men from all classes not willing to serve the state was part of a wider problem. * Fire was still a major problem in Rome, and so Augustus enlarged the fire department. * There were now seven cohorts of vigiles. * Most of the recruits were freedmen, partly because they were a large demographic in Rome, but also because they were the only people willing to do the dirty work. * They were like the Mexicans of Rome. * Augustus instituted a 2% tax on the sale price of slaves to fund the new fire dept. * For some reason there are also good shortages in Rome at the time, and so excess people were banned from coming within 100 miles of the city. * Some public business was suspended, senators were permitted to stay in their country villas and skip Senate meetings and an exemption was made so that votes would be valid even if a quorum wasn’t present. * It’s crisis time in Rome. * And so with so much going wrong, it’s not surprising that the people weren’t so happy with Augustus. * Anonymous pamphlets start circulating, openly hinting at revolution. * We don’t know if they just targeted Augustus or other magistrates and Senators. * The ancient sources blame it on someone obscure called Rufus, but modern scholars seem to think it might have been started by people who thought they would do better if they could undermine Livia’s descendents in favour of Julia and her family. * Who is left? Postumus? * Dio says the new inheritance tax was one of the reasons for the discontent. * And because that only affected the filthy rich, historians think this rebellion was the rich trying to sow the seeds of discontent amongst the masses. * Like Donald Trump campaigning on the Wall. * Like he fucking cares. HOW TO LISTEN If you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series – 200 episodes on the lives of Julius, Augustus and Tiberius Caesar – you’ll need to become one of our subscribers and REGISTER NOW and pay unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.

The Orielles Bobbi's Second World A new 7" single from indie-poppers The Orielles, following on from their acclaimed debut album Silver Dollar Moment. “Bobbi’s Second World, written with the addition of a new member on keys, exhibits an explosion of new sounds and ideas that came to fruition after a long summer of playing festivals and taking inspiration from music that made us dance. It centres around the story of a cat named Bobbi who, in order to become a lady, has to experience the extremities of two complex and differing realities- situated in her front and back gardens respectively. The eccentric instrumentation, influenced by northern soul, post-punk and funk music, matches the quirkiness of the lyrics to create a song that concerns a young cats maturity whilst displaying a certain maturity in the music itself." Heavenly 7" The Secret Seventh Get Inuit / The Orielles / Helen Love / The Spills / Cotillion / Zooz If we have stock left it will be available online from Monday 19th October, strictly one per customer Limited cassette from Alcopop! and Super Fan 99 records. each tape features a song from The Orielles, Zooz, Cotillion, Helen Love, Get Inuit and The Spills but on each tape the 7th song will be different and one lifted from one of the many artists submitting music to Alcopop! Alcopop! / Super Fan 99

I’ve written before about my beliefs on prospecting and the symbiotic relationship between professional sales and the gold miners of the 1800’s. But, this past week while vacationing with my family in Colorado and Arizona, I was again struck by the similarities between what we do and what those miners of yesteryear did day in and day out. Because aren’t we just panning for gold? This trip was for my 18-year old daughter. It’s her last summer with us before going off to college—leaving my wife and I as empty nesters for the first time since 1987. We wanted to make these last few months special, so she embarked on The Summer of Sid. I got to tag along on this last and final leg of the tour as we ventured up through the Rocky Mountains and back down to the Grand Canyon. It was breathtaking, exhilarating and extremely refreshing. I pretty much put all my social media on auto-pilot while I was gone and did my best to unplug. For those who know me, you know what a chore that was, but I didn’t do too bad. I got some reading done, a lot of thinking and recorded some audio notes to myself—one of which has become this article. While rafting through Idaho Springs, Colorado our guide gave us a brief history of the gold rush in the state—which originated there in Idaho Springs. In fact, the Colorado gold rush was bigger than California’s and it’s estimated as much as 80% of the gold is still there—untouched and untapped. During our trip down Clear Creek I saw a young man panning for gold; just sitting on the bank of the river, pan in hand, sifting through the silt looking for the tiniest nugget. Isn’t that what we do every day as professional salespeople? We sift through the silt looking for the glimmer of a nugget to catch our eye allowing us to polish it into a relationship with a client that we hope will pay dividends for a lifetime. Are you panning for gold? Are you doing what it takes to build your business? Consider these thoughts: - The more silt you sift, the more opportunities you have to strike gold - Sitting beside the river alone does you no good—you’ve got to take action. - If you’re afraid to put your pan in the water, you’re never going to find anything. - The better you become at the sifting process, the more gold you find and the richer your life becomes. - There’s a lot of gold left out there—it’s not all gone. But, when all is said and done the most important thing is to look around you; enjoy the beauty; be thankful for the opportunity and grateful for the chance to pan. There’s gold in them thar hills!

CLEVELAND, Tenn. (WATE) — The Bradley County community spent all of Tuesday chopping wood and picking up debris after an EF-1 tornado touched down late Sunday night. The National Weather Service told WATE 6 On Your Side Tuesday that the damage in East Cleveland was caused by an EF-1 tornado, but storm surveyors were still working to find out if it was a new tornado that touched down, or if it was a continuation of the tornado in Chattanooga. The majority of the damage seemed to have been downed trees. Several trees fell on top of homes and buildings, cars and power lines. In working through the aftermath, the residents were not doing all the work by themselves. They had the help of at least 300 other people, according to Cross Net Baptist Church leaders. The Cross Net Baptist Church coordinated the volunteer efforts. Most of the volunteers were using chainsaws and tractors, whether their own or borrowed, to cut the trees down. They would then pile the roughly chopped wood and debris to the curb. If volunteers weren’t helping clear debris, they were preparing and passing out food and water to the other volunteers and first responders, who were still blocking off entrance to the damaged areas. Volunteers were also needed to help repair the chainsaws and sharpen the blades. One volunteer said that if you have the time and the capability to head to Cleveland to help, then you should. “They can use any and all help. It don’t matter if you can operate a chainsaw or if you can help pass out bagged lunches, any hands can help,” Harley Buchtel said. The residents who needed the help were very grateful for it. Becky and Sheena Brown had several trees, a few of them very large, fall down in their yard. Fortunately, none of the trees fell on the house, but Becky Brown said it was a very expensive problem she couldn’t afford. She said that a local tree-cutting service quoted her $4,500 for the job. Brown said a local church group knocked on her door this morning asking if she needed help with the trees. “There’s no way we could’ve paid to have all this work done and I’m just thankful and very blessed that our community is the way it is,” Brown said. Many volunteers came from the Cleveland community. The owners of The Little Diner on 1st closed early and headed out to the Michigan Avenue Baptist church, where Cross Net set up the volunteer check-in. Arthur Zakolski said that the community has showed his family and restaurant support, so he wanted to return the favor, and brought the entire family. They also brought two new chainsaws to help. His daughter, Gianna Zakolski said they were glad to help. “We’re young, but we have a lot of impact on this community and so I think that when we young people, like my siblings, I know I have seven, and we’re all teenagers, and so when we all like come together and work, we make a huge difference and people see that,” she said. Cross Net leaders said they would need more volunteers in the coming days; a day or two after a tornado hits, most homeowners or renters need to wait for their insurance companies to see the damage before volunteers can help clean up. - Coronavirus Timeline: Total COVID-19 cases near 175K, deaths now stand at 2,097 in the state - CHART: Tennessee Department of Health’s count of coronavirus cases by day in state - Greene County mayor extends mask mandate through September 30 - Video and pictures of packed house party near KU campus spark concern as virus cases rise - Tennessee Coronavirus: Two weeks into September, state has seen a 12.48% increase in COVID-19 cases and a 19.56% increase in deaths - Coronavirus in Tennessee: Knox County reports smallest 1-day increase in new cases so far in September - Oxford and AstraZeneca resume coronavirus vaccine trial - Tennessee Coronavirus: Total COVID-19 cases reach 171,824 with 933 new cases reported Sunday - Coronavirus in Tennessee: Inactive cases rise by 204 as Knox County reports 121 new cases & no new deaths - As Trump played down virus, health experts’ alarm grew - Dakotas lead US in virus growth as both reject mask rules - Tennessee Coronavirus: COVID-19 deaths hit 2,064 with 39 new ones reported Saturday - Coronavirus in Tennessee: Inactive cases rise by 229 as Knox County reports 189 new cases & 3 new deaths - As restaurants, bars re-open amid coronavirus, CDC study urges caution - Ohio college students test positive for coronavirus, throw party

Pictured in her cap and gown, Angel Carlick is smiling. The black-and-white photo flutters on a downtown Whitehorse poster board. Above it, in bold, black letters is one word — “Missing.” “Angel was very proud about giving everybody grad pictures,” said family friend Darlene Jim. “But I didn’t expect to see them on posters put up to find her.” The 19-year-old has been officially missing since May 31st. However, friends and family haven’t seen her since a grad barbecue at Jim’s on May 27th. “She was very excited about graduating,” said Jim, who’s known Angel since she was four years old. “She wouldn’t have missed her graduation for anything.” It was Monday afternoon, and Jim was standing outside Bluefeather Youth Centre with Carlick’s best friend, Tamara Jim. The two girls talked every day. “She always called me,” said Tamara, who hasn’t seen Carlick since the barbecue. Talking about Carlick, Tamara was clearly shaken. The youth are having trouble dealing with Carlick’s disappearance, said Bluefeather executive director Vicki Durrant. “And there’s nothing in place to help them.” Last year, centre youth made an animated film about dealing with trauma. Carlick helped write it, said Durrant. And she worked on the video. In it, a group of youth divides after a friend dies from drinking. Half the group seeks counselling. The others drink more. The film ends with a second death. It’s a pattern Durrant sees far too often. And since Carlick’s disappearance, she’s watched substance abuse increase dramatically among the youth. “More and more kids are coming in drunk,” she said. “And I’m trying to be flexible because of what’s going on. “But when they’re drunk they’re disruptive and they can’t stay at the centre.” There are no supports in place for them, said Durrant, who deals with crisis on a weekly basis. “With all the resources in this community for counselling, I’d like to know what percentage of that is going to the First Nations,” she said. More than 98 per cent of the youth who use Bluefeather are First Nations. “We have 20 kids hurting,” said Durrant. “And there’s no funding for First Nations counsellors.” Yukon Family Services’ Outreach Van stopped by the youth centre last week. There were three staff on board and at least one of them was a counsellor, said Durrant. “But the kids didn’t want to talk to them because they’re not First Nations.” Last week, one of the youth attempted suicide. Durrant feels helpless. “I would love to be able to phone Skookum Jim (Friendship Centre) and get them to send a First Nations counsellor over to hang out with the youth for a couple of hours,” she said. “But they don’t have the resources.” The youth programs and initiatives in the community don’t help First Nations young people, she said. Durrant has seen elders come to Bluefeather and watched the youth speak freely. “But when a non-First Nations person comes in, it takes forever for them to open up,” she said. The territory needs more First Nations counsellors, agreed Family Services’ executive director Marliyn Wolovick. There’s a natural trust that exists between First Nations, she said. “But trust is also something you can build across a racial divide.” For the last five years, Family Services ran a youth outreach program that employed two youth counsellors. Since October, the program provided services to 136 youth. In March, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government cut the funding. “Currently, the youth outreach program has no staff,” said Wolovick. Although Family Services managed to cobble together enough money to keep the program running into May, it couldn’t retain its counsellors. Without firm funding in place, both employees found other jobs, she said. “It was a real loss. “Those counsellors had built strong relationships with the youth.” Half of their clients were First Nations. The two counsellors, who met with youth individually and in groups, were not. Recruiting First Nations staff is difficult, said Wolovick, citing a shortage in the field. The territory picked up the federal slack and will now fund the youth outreach program. Wolovick is hiring new counsellors. She’s hoping to see First Nations applicants. But not all aboriginal people who graduate with social work degrees stay in the territory, she said. There are currently two First Nations counsellors working on the Outreach Van, employed through Kaushee’s Place. But these counsellors aren’t youth-specific. Mark Kelley, the sole employee of Skyward Outreach Services, has worked with Whitehorse youth. Although Kelley would like to see more First Nations counsellors on the beat, he didn’t find his non-aboriginal background impeded his work. “It’s helpful to have someone who understands the culture,” he said. “But that’s the same whether you have a Greek, a South American or a Martian client. “My caseload was through the roof with mostly First Nations youth and I didn’t find it a barrier.” Of course, he’ll never know which kids opted to stay away because he wasn’t First Nations, he said. Nevertheless, youth housing trumps the need for First Nation counsellors, he said. The need for housing “is transcendent of culture,” he added. Health and Social Services doesn’t employ any youth counsellors. Its only counsellors work at Alcohol and Drug Services. Their work is not specific to youth, said department spokesperson Pat Living. “People can come in and use our services, but our staff doesn’t go out into the community,” she added. The department has a team in place to deal with trauma, said Living. Called the Critical Incident Stress Management Team, it generally deals with things like fires, tragic community deaths, and multiple-vehicle accidents. It is not designed to help troubled youth, like the young people struggling with Carlick’s disappearance, said Living. “There’s not enough support for First Nations young people,” said Durrant. “These kids deal with death and tragedy on a regular basis. “And some are able to talk about it. But others hold everything in.” Carlick’s little brother isn’t doing well, added Durrant. The 15-year-old lives in a Whitehorse group home. And Carlick wanted to help him. “Her goal was to graduate and adopt her brother,” said Durrant. Carlick started at the youth centre when she was 17. At first, she had trouble making it to work. She was an alcoholic and homeless, said Durrant. A year later, she’d landed an apartment and was running the show at Bluefeather. “She cooked, managed the centre and worked one-on-one with the kids as a mentor,” said Durrant. “It’s not just like she was a friend of these kids, she’s like family — Angel is like their sister.” Carlick was also part of the mural project at Hougen’s. The News talked with Carlick in October. It was a cold afternoon and she was dishing up stew for her mother and grandmother at Bluefeather. At the time, Carlick was homeless. So was her mom. “I worry about my mom a lot,” said Carlick, whose dream was to make a down payment on a house for her. “Angel had her head together,” said Durrant. “She had plans for a future and was making decisions that were getting her places.” Carlick didn’t pick up her paycheque on May 31st. “And her ID and clothes are still at the centre,” said Durrant. There are some things about Carlick’s disappearance that just don’t add up, she said. Three days after she lost touch with friends and family, the RCMP talked with Carlick. The police won’t say why. “The RCMP spoke directly to her on May 31st,” confirmed police spokesperson Bridgette Parker. “We talk to people all the time,” she said. “She was not being arrested, or detained or talked to about another investigation.” But Durrant and Carlick’s friends are not so sure. “Some think Carlick witnessed the murder (of Colin Stephen Sawrenko),” said Durrant. On May 22nd, the 52-year-old First Nations man was assaulted near Shipyards Park and later died from the injuries. “Why were the RCMP the last people to see Angel?” said Durrant. “What were they talking to her about?” The police have no suspect or leads in the disappearance of Carlick, or in the murder of Sawrenko. Anyone with information should call the Whitehorse detachment at 667-5555 or call Crimestoppers anonymously at 1 (800) 222-TIPS (8477).

So he says, “This is not because we want to punish success.” The hell they don’t. They damn well do. It’s one of the leftist credos: punish achievement. He said, “I suspect a bunch of young people in this gym are gonna end up being wealthy, and that’s good. But we’re gonna have to have to ask everybody to sacrifice — and if we’re asking community colleges to sacrifice, if we’re asking people who are going to see potentially fewer services in their neighborhoods…” Why? Why they gonna see fewer services in their neighborhoods? And as to this community college, I wonder how many donations or contributions or whatever it gets from the public. I wonder how many people already are giving? In fact, this whole word “sacrifice” here, these people define sacrifice as, “You allowing us to take your money.” Well, Obama had a chance. We just saw his tax returns. He had a chance to not take any deductions. He had a chance to pay the full 35% tax rate and he didn’t. He didn’t do any sacrificing. Whoever did his taxes went in there, took advantage of any option that Obama had and the same thing with Bite Me. One of them paid 23% and the other paid 27%, I forget which. Obama paid 27%. But this whole idea — “if the community college is gonna sacrifice, and we’re gonna have fewer services in neighborhoods, we can ask millionaires and billionaires to make a little sacrifice.” That whole premise offends me because it assumes that millionaires and billionaires are greedy, selfish unto themselves, giving nothing away. (snorts) Where would this community college be without the community of wealthy people that live in it, more than likely? But even without that, just this assumption, this whole class envy business is being ratcheted up now as we move forward into this campaign, the presidential campaign of 2012, and I’m telling you nothing good comes from it. All it does is breed resentment and hatred for people. You know, it used to be… There’s a story in the Stack of Stuff, a poll here. Here it is. AP. Listen to this. AP conducted a poll of young Americans between 18 and 24, which clearly would encompass the age of the students at this community college where Obama went, and the poll found many of these students (young people) “define the American dream as life getting better for each new generation, but they now think that’s a myth, that their own lives improving is not a reality.” Their lives getting better than their parents, it’s a myth. “Forty percent think it’s gonna be harder to raise a family and have the lifestyle they desire. Seventy-five percent believe that they’ll have a tougher time than their parents and think the current economy is in poor shape. “A very high number are worried about their parents’ financial condition as well, and that worry is driven by fear as well as love. Half these youngsters remain dependent on their parents,” they can’t yet stand on their own two feet. “The future looks decidedly gloomy for a lot of American youth.” Can you blame ’em? Look at what they’re subjected to in their classrooms and on television every day. Now, AP did not make this important link in reporting their poll, but these kids who are looking at the and seeing not much of one are the same kids that went out and voted for Obama and the Democrats in droves in 2008. These were the kids waving the Obama signs and making the pro-Obama videos for social networks. They were celebrating the end of the Bush era, whether they ended up voting or not. That audience he was speaking to were the people that thought he was gonna be the guy that made their future rosy and happier than they had ever dreamed. These were the kids that bought in to the “hope and change” mantra. They drank the Obama Messiah Kool-Aid, and they did it in one big gulp. So it’s three years later now, and according to a poll of these people they have diminished economic prospects. Their perception of their own future is bleak, they’re still dependent on their parents, and they think the American dream is a myth. So they got the change but there’s not a whole lot of hope here. But, see, all is not lost. The American dream is bigger than Obama. A one-term, failed Obama presidency could be the biggest teachable moment in generations. Now, we’re gonna need a very active opposition party helping to make that claim. But here’s Obama out now, and what is he doing? Here are these kids and he just told ’em (impression): “Some of you, some of you probably gonna be wealthy someday. That’s good,” and then he spends the rest of the sound bite telling ’em how they’re targets! “Yep. Well, some of you gonna be rich. Gonna be wealthy (chuckles) but not for long, after we get through with you!” Well, that’s what he’s saying, and then to cite China over and over! What happened to all of our infrastructure rebuilding? We had a nearly $1 trillion Porkulus bill to do just that. We now know it was a money laundering bill for unions at the state and local level. That’s all it was. It was an Obama slush fund. The stimulus bill was nothing more than a pile of money to keep state, unionized government people employed while everybody else was losing their jobs during the recession. There wasn’t one new road built. All that “infrastructure” stuff, and he has the audacity to come out and say, “Look at what the ChiComs are doing! They’re building airports, they’re building roads.” Well, we allocated nearly a trillion dollars to it and we haven’t built one highway! We haven’t rebuilt one school. By the way, did you note that Obama in his sound bite here did not mention also all of the prisons, all of the gulags, and other forms of punishment that the Chinese are building? Obama also does not mention that the ChiComs have in jail the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Winner — and Obama didn’t tell these kids that he hosted a state dinner for the head ChiCom, Hu Jintao. Obama himself is a Peace Prize winner. He got his prize on the come. Of course where is the peace out there? There isn’t any peace, it hasn’t broke out. None of what anybody was promised happened, particularly these kids the idealistic ones. You can’t blame ’em. They’re the ones that always believe in a message that’s tailored to them. They’re young. Everything’s about you when you’re young. Everything’s “me, me, me, me, me,” and you could see the way they responded today. Government spending and education. Yay! Standing ovation. Rip into Big Oil. Yay! Standing ovation. Talk about clearing energy so forth. Yay! Standing ovation. Well, there wasn’t one standing ovation, but still lots of applause. One more bite here, maybe a couple more before the break. Now, this is absurd, this next. This is a willful and purposeful distortion of Paul Ryan’s budget plans regarding Medicare and Medicaid. OBAMA: What would happen under this proposal is you’d get a set amount of money. You could then go out into the private marketplace and buy insurance, but if the voucher you were gettin’ was f’r six or $7,000 and the insurance company said it’s gonna cost you $12,000, well, you’re gonna have to make up that difference. So your health care costs keep on goin’ up and up and up. The voucher doesn’t, each year more and more costs comin’ out of pocket. Now, I think that is the wrong way to go. That would fundamentally change Medicare as we know it, and I’m not… I’m not gonna sign up for that. RUSH: No, there’s no way in Obamaville that anybody’s gonna pay for anything on their own. (interruption) They don’t know anything about Medicare. They’re applauding the concept, Snerdley. This is the trick. They’re applauding the concept that health care is going to be paid for by the state. They think it’s a right. They’ve been subjected to that claim. They’re not intellectually developed enough yet to understand what the guy’s really talking about. He throws out these numbers. (interruption) Yeah, they know there’s a state, government, what have you. (interruption) No, they don’t know that they are the state. They don’t know that. They don’t know that they’re paying for themselves. What they’re hearing Obama say is that somebody else is gonna pay for it. There’s a duty for someone else to pay for their health care. Nobody should have to pay for their health care. That’s what they hear Obama saying and respond (clapping), “Yep, yep! Right on, right on, right on,” and yet he spends a lot of other time talking about how we gotta get the deficit down. I mean, it really was unserious. It wasn’t elegant. There was nothing in it that was accurate. It was not presidential. It was not inspiring. It was a rambling mess. He would never even try this town hall to a bunch of adults other than union people. RUSH: How many of you have a positive reaction when the president of the United States tells an audience of college kids, or any other audience, that we ought to be more like China? No, seriously, how many of you go, “Yeah, yeah, man, that’s the ticket. That’s what we need to do. We need to be more like China.” That’s what he’s doing. Remember, now, China is still building gulags, still building prison camps, and if you have the wrong religious beliefs you better not get caught practicing them. I’ve got an idea. As you know, ladies and gentlemen, I, El Rushbo, am full of them. Obama keeps talking about billionaires and millionaires, that they’ve gotta sacrifice, it’s not right what they do, who they are, how they operate. So how about this: How about Obama announce today that he will no longer accept donations from any of the people he plans to raise taxes on, anybody who makes $250,000 or more, anybody who needs to be sacrificing, the people who aren’t sacrificing and who need to be, by definition those are the people that make $250,000, that would encompass millionaires and billionaires but also would encompass a lot of people who aren’t millionaires and billionaires. But that’s who he’s gonna punish. Those are the people who are not sacrificing enough, 250 grand and up. So let’s just say, Mr. President, you no longer will accept donations from these people because they don’t represent American values. They don’t send the right message to the young people in this country. They’ve got too much money and they don’t share it enough. They’re not sacrificing. They don’t give enough of it away. So how about you stop taking political donations from these people? How many people that own dry cleaners, restaurants, gas stations which net over $250,000 a year are millionaires and billionaires? He continually talks about raising taxes on millionaires and billionaires when he really means individuals who make over $200,000 a year. That’s couples, individuals who make over $200,000. So what is this billionaire millionaire mantra? You don’t have to be a millionaire to be in this guy’s crosshairs. All you have to do as an individual is make 200 grand or as a couple make 250 and you have a bull’s-eye painted on the front and back of your shirt. Now, you’re gonna have to make up the difference in cost. You students, health care, you’re gonna have to make up the difference in cost in federal subsidy. Obama is saying that’s unfair. The government should pay for everything when it comes to health care, that’s what these students believe. It’s only fair because the government’s not them. The government’s not their neighbors. The government is not tax revenue. They don’t understand it yet. And I had to mention this to Trump and I’ll mention this I don’t care how many times, Ryan is talking about future Medicare recipients, not current or soon to be. Nobody has proposed current Medicare recipients, that we change the rules in the middle of the game while they are in the receiving mode. That’s not gonna happen. It’s gonna happen years out with sufficient time for people to plan for it, but it can’t go on like this anymore. Total subsidizing of health care retirement, whatever, it can’t go on. There isn’t the money for it. Obama doesn’t have the courage to tell these young skulls full of mush that Medicare won’t even exist when they become of age. He leaves that part outta his propaganda. This is an illustration of how liberalism is a gutless choice. It’s the easiest choice that you could make. All you gotta do is go up and pander and demagogue and propagandize like Obama does. He doesn’t tell these young students that it is they who are paying for these programs today and it is they who will have no Medicare when they are of age. So Obama’s going out there to this community college, he’s lying to these students, he’s lying to the youths of America just as he insists on compelling them to pay for something they will never benefit from. This is Bernie Madoff. This is not Barack Obama. This is Bernie Madoff, and he’s selling a lie over and over and over again. RUSH: You know, Obama didn’t tell his audience at the junior college that half of them would be dead if they were in China, that half being the girls who are done away with under the one child policy. Everybody seems to want sons, which of course angers the feminazis. So the jury’s still out. RUSH: We were talking about Obama’s town hall meeting today before the young skulls full of mush that Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, Virginia. And one of the things that Obama said to these students early on, talking about the budget, the deficit, he actually said we can’t spend more than we take in. We just can’t do it. You can’t do it at home and we at the federal government, we can’t spend more we take in. Now, if you are a rational person who has been paying attention for three years, you hear the president say that and you are incredulous. It would be like Colonel Sanders saying we have got to stop killing chickens. His whole agenda is predicated on spending this country into unrecoverable debt. So Obama stopping spending is the same as Colonel Sanders stop slaughtering chickens. Ain’t gonna happen. It would be just as incredulous if Obama said, “You know what? I was talking to Colonel Sanders, and he agrees, we’ve gotta stop killing chickens if our restaurants are to survive.” Now, okay, what’s the purpose here? What’s the purpose? Some might say, “Man, this guy’s outta touch. How do you go up there and say that?” There is an answer to this. Look at it, my friends, through the prism that he’s running for reelection. What he’s doing, he’s not really speaking to those students. He’s giving speeches for national media, the sycophants that are the Drive-Bys. You want some names? I mean you know names. The hostettes and the anchors and anchorettes of the Nightly News, the hostettes and anchors of the morning news shows, the reporters at the White House press corpse. That’s to whom he’s a speaking. And so when he says, “We can’t spend more than we take in,” that’s a sound bite. He’s giving the national media a sound bite that they will then use uncritically up against what Paul Ryan is saying. Now, Ryan, the Republicans are out there making these allegations. Obama is feckless with his spending, he’s irresponsible. Well, in light of that, President Obama today speaking to students said we can’t spend more than we take in. So they’ll use that sound bite he gave ’em today to compete with or to deal with any Republican saying he’s a profligate spender. That’s what he’s doing here, like the cliches the rich aren’t paying their fair share, we gotta raise taxes on the rich, all this stuff these guys want to hear anyway. So we’re gonna have these sound bites aired. This is a speech that is actually created for newscast sound bites. That’s what this is. I mean we can’t spend more than we take in, when his own budget spends $1.6 trillion that we don’t have. George Bush’s deficit his last year was between four or 500 billion. This guy’s three times that, the annual deficit. So you hear that, you’re incredulous. It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Let’s go to audio sound bite 26, and, by the way, we got some more from this speech. Again, listen to this through the prism of the reelection campaign. OBAMA: This probably my most important message today. I’m gonna need your help. I can’t afford to have all of you as bystanders in this debate. I want everybody to be in the game. I want you to hold me accountable; I want you to hold all of Washington accountable. There are powerful lobbies and special interests in Washington. OBAMA: And they’re gonna want to reduce the deficit on your backs, and if you are not heard, that’s exactly what’s gonna happen. RUSH: That’s as disconnected, as out of touch as saying you can’t spend more than you take in. “This is probably my most important message. I’m gonna need your help. I can’t afford to have you as bystanders. I need everybody in the game. I want you to hold me accountable, and I want you to hold all of Washington. The powerful lobbyists are gonna try to reduce the deficit on your back.” You students, not only your back, but your kids and your kids’ backs, that’s now in debt we are. It’s already on your back. You students better wake up and understand, and hopefully they do. You can’t tell by looking at ’em how much of this is going over their heads or how many of them are clued in, but look at this AP poll, Snerdley, young people for a while have known there’s not gonna be any Social Security when they get there. Or have thought so. Now they think that their opportunities to have a better financial life than their parents did are dwindling. I think some of them do. He’s gonna be able to get to some of them here, but the debt is already on your back. Reducing the debt, it’s already there. And furthermore, it’s on your children, our grandchildren, your children, and then your grandchildren’s debt. It’s already there. Now, what Obama’s gonna say to you here is that he’s gonna try to convince you that you still have a free ride as long as you stick with him. As long as you stick with him, nothing will be on your back. He’s gonna make sure it’s on the backs of these people earning $250,000 or more. All right, grab sound bite 27. It just kept on like this. It’s why the original assessment here, it’s rambling, it’s incoherent, it is unserious. It is all of that. But if you look at it as a campaign speech filled with sound bites for the national media to run from now until Election Day, just collect a stockpile or archive of ’em, then you will see this in a different way. Here he is talking about gasoline prices. OBAMA: If you’re driving out of necessity 50 miles a day to work and you can’t afford to buy some fancy new hybrid car so you’re stuck with the old beater that is getting you eight miles a gallon, that’s pretty frustrating. Now, I wish I could tell you that there was some easy, simple solution to this. Now, one solution is making sure that we’re increasing production of US oil. And we have actually continually increased US production, so US production is as high as it’s ever been. The problem is we only have about two to three percent of the world’s oil reserves, and we use 25% of the world’s oil. So when you say we should be using traditional sources, the problem is we’ve got finite sources when it comes to oil, and that means we’ve gotta find some replacements. RUSH: Folks, I don’t know where to start here. That’s not true. We’ve got far more oil than we are accessing, and we are not producing more than we ever have. He’s got a moratorium in place. He’s got a moratorium on drilling in place. There are market-based solutions. It’s called supply and demand and more oil, wherever you have to get it. But, anyway, it doesn’t fit his agenda. Let’s be clear about something else, these powerful lobbyists, many of whom work for him, many of whom work in the White House, most powerful lobbyists who he derides here, most of them want bigger government. They want government to help ’em. They want government to give to them. There’s a difference between a lobbyist who’s trying to protect his individual liberty and another who’s trying to steal from somebody else. The lobbyists working for Obama believe in big government going out and screwing as many other people as they can to get money to redistribute. Now, where do you think most of Obama’s buddies fall? What kind of lobbyists support Obama? The big government lobbyists, the one who want to steal and take and grow government. And he loves those lobbyists. He has a lot of them in the White House working for him. What do they do? They try to get tax breaks. They do any number of things. RUSH: Eddie in the Bronx, great to have you on the program, sir. Hello. CALLER: Hi, Rush! I’ve been listening to ya since, oh, for…since y’started, and I’m a little nervous. But, you know, when you just said what you said about what he said yesterday, I just… I’m in my car waiting for my kid to get out of school, and I just screamed out the word “Liar!” I mean, it’s just so… Heh, heh, heh. RUSH: I know. It’s the same thing with Clinton. It’s the same thing with every liberal or Democrat on things like, they just lie. CALLER: It’s unbelievable — and something I wanted to call you about, well, a couple years ago was the way the man was elected by their overseas credit card contributions to his election campaign that allowed him to amass a half a billion dollars? RUSH: Yeah, these are the donations under 250 bucks that don’t have to be tied to any individual. So you really didn’t know where they were coming from. CALLER: Right. You know, God only knows. If you’re talking overseas, we could be talking about enemies of our republic. RUSH: Well, it was a massive effort, there’s no question, to elect the guy. RUSH: And, by the way, he’s thrown out now that his reelection campaign is gonna be a billion dollars. That’s how much he’s gonna raise. I think one of the reasons for doing that is to scare off any Democrats. I really do. ‘Cause it’s not gonna scare any Republican opposition off. I mean, whatever he’s gonna spend, some Republican is gonna run and win the nomination and run the campaign. I think that billion dollars is to scare the Clintons off. I think in the bowels of the White House, they look and they see that this country is in really bad shape, and that if somebody were bright enough politically it wouldn’t be hard to nail it all on Obama. I think they’re a little bit worried about an interparty challenge and so you go out and say, “We’re gonna run a billion-dollar campaign,” and that’s designed to intimidate any potential Democrat challenger not to even mess with it. “Don’t even try. We’re gonna get a billion dollars. Don’t even think about it.” I think that’s the purpose of putting out the cost of the campaign. (interruption) How… (interruption) Ham’inna? (interruption) You talk about…? (interruption) Snerdley wants to know, “How does it look to people?” If money in politics bothered people there would have been manifestations of it, but the people who spend the most are the ones that win for the most part. That’s what he’s saying comes up every year: People decry, they moan and whine about the amount of money in politics…and then they don’t. It isn’t that big a deal. RUSH: One more sound bite from Obama. I guess this is Obama telling the students at Annandale, Virginia’s Northern Virginia Community College that he wants to live in a country that’s fair. OBAMA: I believe that people who have been really blessed in the society like me have, you know, a very, very very good income can afford to pay a little bit more, nothing crazy, just go back to the rates that existed when Bill Clinton was president, why wouldn’t I want to make that sacrifice? Look, and I think most wealthy Americans feel the same way. OBAMA: I want to live in a society that’s fair, not just outta charitable reasons, but because it improves my life. I looked at my tax reform, and I thought, hmm, you know, there’s a moment there where you look at the figure you’re paying, you say, “Wow, you know, let me think about my position on taxing the wealthy here.” I understand that. Nobody — nobody volunteers and says, “Boy, I’m just wild to pay more taxes.” I certainly don’t think my taxes should be even lower. RUSH: Wait a minute, Mr. President, if you’re talking about fairness and you want to live in a fair country, why don’t you go ahead and pay the Clinton rates? Why did you take an effective rate of 27%? Why did you take all of your deductions? Why did you invest in unfairness? Why did you act unfair on your own? People can afford to pay a little more, nothing crazy, go back to Clinton rates, why wouldn’t I want to make that sacrifice? Maybe because we know it isn’t going to matter. Maybe we know, Mr. President, your real target is wealth and achievement. Maybe, Mr. President, we know that this is just step one in wiping out this certain class of people in America. (imitating Obama) “I think most wealthy Americans feel the same way. I want to live in a society that’s fair.” Most mature adults have a mature definition and understanding of fairness and at the top of the list it is that government cannot, will not, and will fail at attempting to enforce it. It’s a flawed premise anyway. Who gets to determine it? Who’s the arbiter of what’s fair. Why didn’t you just pay the 35% if you’re so embarrassed? Where’s the leadership here? So he’s wringing his hands, we just live in an unfair country and the rich want to pay more, you know, there’s nothing stopping ’em. They want a fair society, paying more will make ’em feel better. Again, sound bites, all his speech is are sound bites to be used during the campaign uncritically by the media in days to come, many days down the road to come. *Note: Links to content outside RushLimbaugh.com usually become inactive over time.

Henry Preston writes: Please, please, help nip this malapropism in the bud: “Pre-Madonna.” I’m not kidding, I’ve seen this twice in the past few weeks on comment boards. prima donna [prē’mə dŏn’ə] (“pree muh don uh”) is an Italian term translated literally as “first lady.” In the music world, a prima donna is the best and most celebrated female singer in an opera company. Maria Callas swept into New York. She arrived, as is proper for prima donnas, in triumph. [Carmen] Melis had been a soprano prima donna at La Scala in Milan and had sung with Caruso and Titta Ruffo. Often referred to as the greatest Italian prima donna of the last half century, Tebaldi made her debut as Elena in Boito’s Mefistofele in 1944. Because some prime donne (plural of prime donna) felt that their talent and popularity deserved special treatment, the term came to mean “self-centered, arrogant, uncooperative person.” In this sense it is used to describe gifted or otherwise significant people who know their worth and want everyone else to kowtow to them because of it. The Senate, meanwhile, is an institution that, by nature, furthers individualistic prima-donna-ism on both sides of the aisle. This is namely for executives: how do you deal with prima donna employees? What is the best approach? Steele’s A Prima Donna But We Aren’t Ready To Kick Him Off Stage One use of “pre-Madonna” is as a play on words in connection with the pop singer Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone. When it comes to out-and-out ignorance of the term, the greatest supply of examples is to be found on semi-literate blogs and comment boards, and in sports writing. you both sound like pree-madonna little girls? arguing over a game, im not trying to get involved in ur war, but how about growing up? im a young egyption princess or milk maid im the greatest pree madonna in the land, I am sick in tired reality show celebs acting like pree-Madonna. Ankela is a little pre-madonna. What an attitude problem. The worst thing of it is that he actually believes that he is far superior to his peers. My trainer calls me a preemadonna cause i like to look good lol. Jay cutler is a primadonna (Not like Alex Rodriguez [was] a pree madonna) Lebron “Premadonna” James will never win a championship!! It’s amusing that a term meaning “best female singer” has come to be applied to burly athletes. The Italian term for “best male singer” is primo uomo [prē’mō ‘wɔːmo]. Bottom line: Unless the context has something to do with the pop music world before singer Ciccone came along, the expression is prima donna. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Misused Words category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below: Stop making those embarrassing mistakes! Subscribe to Daily Writing Tips today! - You will improve your English in only 5 minutes per day, guaranteed! - Subscribers get access to our archives with 800+ interactive exercises! - You'll also get three bonus ebooks completely free!

In The Hotel Sunday, March 16, 1930 The lobby of the Kenmore Hall Hotel was deserted at three in the morning. Its skylit lounge was shrouded in pearl shadows, the passenger lift stood wearily at attention, the night porter dozed in the vestibule. Sitting behind the front desk was the assistant manager, a long-legged youth of twenty-six in a Brooks Brothers, three-button wool suit. On this night he bent over the keyboard of a typewriter, pounding out a letter to his girlfriend, Beatrice, in Paris and puffing on a cigarette. 'Nothing happens,' he wrote. Kenmore Hall, a pretty redbrick residence hotel not yet two years old, was home to hundreds of young professionals who booked by the week or month. Prized for its desirable address near Gramercy Park, its reasonable rates, and amenities such as a pool and roof garden, the place always had a waiting list for vacancies, sometimes a long one. Nat was supposed to remember guests' names, but he happened to know a great deal more, and not just gossip either. He knew exactly when they awoke and when they left for their offices, who got mail and from whom, what time they went to bed, and which ones couldn't sleep, because the bleary-eyed were known to shuffle down to the lobby and fret about it, as if he could do anything. There were friendly women who found pretexts for inviting him to their rooms. To all proposals he would beg off with an easy smile and a general refusal worded to give no offense. He took fewer pains with the prostitutes, alone or in pairs, who constantly tried to sneak past the desk on their way to the elevator. Hookers -- and stolen bath towels -- were his biggest aggravations. Otherwise, the position of assistant manager was not terribly taxing. Aside from charming everyone, the main requirements on the graveyard shift were staying awake and issuing orders in emergencies. Even at the best hotels, the worst things were liable to happen after midnight, and Nat had trained himself to take in stride noisy parties, fires, heart attacks, failed suicides, occasional corpses, and unscheduled checkouts of guests trying to jump their bills. As some anonymous hotelier once said, 'Listen to everything and say nothing.' And so Nat had diligently learned to comport himself with a silky mixture of servility and severity. But typically nights at Kenmore Hall were serene. From the tiled spa and pool below his feet rose the steady slapping of brilliant sapphire-colored water. Stacked on top of his head stretched the hushed building, seven hundred rooms, twenty-two stories, its long carpeted hallways mouse-quiet. He kept a room there and when nothing required his special attention he could, if he wished, slip upstairs to 207 for a short rest (but he could never close his eyes). Occasionally he invited people to drop by for a nocturnal swim. Alone, he was rarely in the mood to bother changing clothes and showering, returning to the desk with wet hair and the faint perfume of chlorine still in his nose. For a year now, he'd been saving his free time for his book. Last winter, something like March -- or maybe February -- he had gone to eat at Siegel's, a deli nestled under the Sixth Avenue elevated tracks in the Village. It was a friendly place smelling of pickles and pastrami, and Nat liked stopping there before work to meet two former classmates, Quentin Reynolds and Sidney Perelman, both of them writers and the latter his sister's fiancé. One day Quent showed up with a handful of letters from readers of the newspaper where he was employed. Like most big papers, the Brooklyn Daily Times published an advice column, 'Susan Chester Heart-to-Heart Letters,' which appeared on the women's page, hemmed in by meat-loaf recipes and Modish Mitzi fashion cartoons. Signing theatrical pseudonyms ('Puzzled,' 'Heartbroken and Blue'), the letter writers typically sought guidance on unrequited love or how to attract husbands sure to bring them lifetimes of misery. Whether there ever had been a person named Susan Chester scarcely mattered; the Susan beat was rotated throughout the newsroom, to female and male staff alike. The only qualification for doling out advice was reasonable good sense. Not surprisingly, the assignment was viewed as an irritation, something to be endured without complaint, accompanied by prayers for speedy deliverance. Quent, keen to cover sports or straight news, was stuck with Susan for the moment. To Siegel's he brought six letters the paper had discarded as too disturbing for its readers, thinking Sid might be inspired to do a satire on advice columns. Midway through dinner the letters were passed around the table, but Sid handed them back with a shrug. A few showed 'comic superficialities,' he told Quent, but where were the laughs? For that matter, were they true? It was hard to tell if the writers were real people. Some impressed Sid as stock characters, your average New York crackpot. What he needed were subjects lending themselves to subtle ridicule, like his lampoon of dental magazines, in which he offered a guide to performing one's own extractions. The Dear Susan letters were quickly forgotten when the conversation shifted to more pressing matters. In recent months he and Quent had been collaborating on a humorous novel but had yet to agree on a suitable title, something catchy that might sell a million copies. Through the Fallopian Tubes on a Bicycle? Nat, who had remained silent, began to look at the letters out of curiosity. One of them came from a woman identifying herself as Broad Shoulders, who claimed that her husband beat her and infected her with gonorrhea before abandoning her with a brood of kids. Another writer was a crippled sixteen-year-old who feared never being asked for a date. Still others described problems having to do with the evils of gin. To be sure, the situations sounded pitiful, but after a point it was really hard not to giggle. Immediately Nat was intrigued by these freaky people who, claiming to be cheated of a normal life, kept busy reporting their sagas to anonymous editors, and to strangers who might bear witness to the unfairness of their plights. How in the world did they manage to keep going, let alone write about it? Of course Sid could be right in suspecting the letters to be stunts. For all Nat knew, they came from aspiring writers in disguise, although there had to be easier ways to get published. As the men were leaving the restaurant, Nat decided to stick the letters in his pocket. It was possible that the material was wrong for satire but useful fodder for fiction. To begin with, the idea of Quent, a big guy who'd played varsity football at Brown, being shoved onto the lovelorn beat and forced to pretend he was Susan Chester, was good for a few laughs. With the addition of the crazed letter writers -- a regular mulligan stew of loons, cripples, permanent deadbeats, and retards -- the story became even more tempting. Imagine what complications might follow if the poor guy had to meet one of these screwy dames. For weeks on end, Nat pondered the letters. Maybe something unpredictable could be done, perhaps a kicky cartoon story about a male advice columnist. Such an original concept would surely provide a lot of fun. A whole year had passed since that evening at Siegel's and he had made little progress on his story about a columnist he was calling Thomas. Later, of course, the columnist wouldn't be called Thomas and Nat would forget he ever had writer's block, even try to repress how he got the letters in the first place. But now he was bogged down in details like whether to use first- or third-person narration. He couldn't tell who was the hero and who the villain. Were they the same person? And did it really matter? After reading several chapters, Sid said the manuscript resembled something out of Beowulf. It was too epic, too professorial, too ridiculously intellectual. Get rid of the Dostoyevsky stuff, he suggested; forget about playing amateur psychologist and start describing 'people and things,' like other writers. Nat said that was 'just what I was trying to avoid.' He didn't want to be like anybody else. He had already completed a first novel deemed absolutely, positively unpublishable by all who had seen it. A published author in his daydreams, he imagined himself living on some little street in the heart of the Latin Quarter, lounging on the sand beaches of the Côte d'Azur, and writing whenever the mood took him. Planning to join his girlfriend in June and get married, he had memorized ship schedules but now he knew he wasn't going anywhere. He couldn't. Quitting his job was too scary. When Beatrice found out, she would kill him. With the appearance of daylight on that Sunday morning in March, Nat's shift was drawing to a close. Beyond the lobby the early morning smell of baking bread floated in from the kitchen; above stairs, there were polished shoes and folded newspapers lying outside doors and laundry baskets that would soon be overflowing with crumpled sheets; and so another day was about to dawn for the dreaming ladies and gentlemen of Kenmore Hall. In a rush to finish his letter, Nat ignored the spelling errors and ended gracefully something he hadn't wished to write in the first place. He typed, 'You are a swell girl,' which was true, followed by 'and I love you,' which was open to some doubt. When his night-duty report had been turned over to the manager, it was time to weave his way uptown, past Madison Square Park, toward Times Square and Columbus Circle, into the quiet streets of the Upper West Side, where he lived with his parents in a cramped apartment, its four rooms a melancholy reminder of all that had gone wrong lately. Five months after the stock market crash, upheavals in residential construction had left developers like Nat's father feeling powerless and his wife of thirty years terrified. Consumed with worry, Anna Weinstein could not be bothered with her son's Gentile girl or his ambition to become a writer -- and as she liked to say, everybody knew that writers were good-for-nothing bums. His mother didn't believe in him. The trouble was, neither did anybody else. But he was going to be writer anyhow; it was something he had known since he was eight, reading Anna Karenina on his roof in Harlem. If writing meant becoming a bum, that's what he would be. FromLonelyhearts: The Screwball World of Nathanael West and Eileen McKenneyby Marion Meade. Copyright 2010 by Marion Meade. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, USA. All rights reserved. Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Child Development Centres (CDCs) Infants and young children of plantation workers were often placed in poorly supervised and dilapidated crèches, or in the care of aged and infirm grandparents, not all who possess the wherewithal to shoulder such burdens in their twilight years. This often leads to inadequate care resulting from a lack of nutrition and poor general health. In addressing this issue, the Foundation has thus far restored 61 crèches cum Child Development Centres (CDCs) and constructed 14 new Centres which provide care and welfare for over 2,000 children of Dilmah tea garden workers daily. These Child Development Centres are equipped with facilities which enable sound development of young minds, while qualified and caring staff manage the daily operations. The staff members are often themselves part of the plantation. These Centres are fully-funded by the MJF Charitable Foundation.

Persuasion by Jane Austen I’m really going to miss my Jane Austen class, I’ve got to say–although I’m certainly looking forward to my young adult and children’s literature class next semester. (Why yes, my school is awesome.) While even I, chin deep in mass paperback fantasy, had heard of Mansfield Park, I had never heard of Persuasion. My only acquaintance with it was encountering the DVD of the film adaptation while poking through my local Blockbuster, trying to find a copy of Star Wars Lucas hasn’t messed with. (A Herculean task, I assure you–ancient VHS tapes are my only recourse, but I digress.) Still, it was a calming 250 pages compared to Emma, and I picked it up with relief. Emma by Jane Austen I first read Emma for my high school’s book club a couple years ago. It was my very first Jane Austen and I loathed it. I didn’t like Emma as a character, and the age gap between Emma and Mr. Knightley freaked me out. I kept that opinion well into this year, bemoaning the fact that I would have to reread Emma for class. But when I picked it up again, I was pleasantly surprised–something was different. I don’t know if it was me or the fact that I was reading it academically, but I really enjoyed it. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen Ah, Fanny Price. An Austen heroine so unpopular (well, comparatively) that Mansfield Park wasn’t even on clearance when my childhood Barnes & Noble closed up shop over the summer and that the recent film adaptation had to make her half-Jane Austen to make her appealing. She’s a difficult character, and Mansfield Park is a difficult novel. While I’m going to share my usual feelings with you, I’ll also discuss the novel a bit more academically–because whining about how much I don’t like Fanny or how, no matter how acceptable it was at the time, incest still skeeves me out isn’t going to be very interesting at all. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen Of all the Austen novels, Northanger Abbey is the novel I knew the least about. In popular culture, it tends only to pop up as part of Austen’s oeuvre, and it’s the lone Austen novel that has not received a motion picture adaptation. (Okay, technically, Persuasion suffered the same fate, being a BBC television adaptation, but it was released theatrically here.) The only thing I really knew was that it was the first novel Austen started (Sense and Sensibility was the first she completed). With no preconceptions or, really, expectations, I picked up Northanger Abbey for class. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen This semester, I’m taking a class on Jane Austen. It’s absolutely fascinating–not only do we get to sit around and suck the very marrow out of stories, one of my favorite activities, but there’s a focus on placing Austen squarely in her historical context. Of course, for the class, we have to read her entire canon; the way it’s structured, we’re usually reading one novel while discussing another. So before the year is out, I will have read and reviewed all of Austen’s novels (but not Love and Freindship, as picking on little girls is mean). We’re already read Pride and Prejudice this semester, so I’ve just finished Sense and Sensibility.

Call 633-7508 from 9 am Tuesday to 9 am Friday. In addition to the telephone and the U.S. Mail, The Mountain Eagle accepts comments to Speak Your Piece by electronic mail. Our address is: [email protected] This is to a certain guy in Jenkins: You pulled a lot of time the way you treated your mother and now you are at it again. Are you willing to do more time for the drug selling you are starting back up in Jenkins? You better start thinking about this, old buddy, and you better think hard. I think anyone that cares about our environment should stop buying gas at BP until they get these wetlands cleaned up. They are killing our wildlife and are taking people’s livelihood and they’re dragging their feet about getting it cleaned up. So I say don’t buy BP until this mess is cleaned up. Thank you. What’s it the cashier’s business if I want to buy a buggy load of pop? She’s supposed to be the cashier and ring me up. It’s none of her business as to why I need a buggy load. (Perhaps she mistook you for one of those customers who use their food stamp cards to buy pop by the buggy load and then sell the drinks for cash at a huge To be such a liar in Speak Your Piece, you should be ashamed of yourself to go to church and act like you are somebody. Yeah right. Yes, this is to the young man that is looking for someone to cuddle with since his old one broke up with him. Why don’t you go off to San Francisco? You can find anyone you want to out there to cuddle with. Your mom went up there but she came back. You can find anyone you want to out there to cuddle with and do whatever you boys do together and enjoy yourselves and have a good time. I wish to God they would get mail carriers at Cornettsville that could deliver mail to the right boxes. I have had three people bring mail to me that I didn’t get and I have ended up with four or five diff erent pieces of mail that are not even mine that goes to somewhere else. If they can’t do their job, they need to let someone else do it. If they don’t know the route or the box numbers, which mine is clearly marked on my box, they need to find someone else who can. To all you people out there criticizing BP over the oil spill: It is easy for you to sit around and criticize this deal when you don’t have a clue what you are talking about. First of all, the reason they are having trouble with the spill is it is because they are in such deep waters. Why are they so far out? Because the U.S. government forced them there. And what about all of the independent BP owners who are going to be hurt because people like you want to stop going there? It is people like you that making mining impossible here. The next time you gripe about the high price of gas just remember part of the reason for the price is because of high overhead because some of the companies have to go through so many restrictions that cause operating costs to go through the roof. BP employs a lot of people all over the world and at least they are stepping up to the plate. Remember, a lot of these people in the Gulf complaining are the same people who went through Katrina and are still living in hotel rooms provided by taxpayers. So the next time you are watching an NBC broadcast, remember it is the mainstream media you are listening to. This isn’t the first big oil spill and it won’t be the last until the government and the tree huggers allow more land drilling in the Montana and Alaska areas and closer to the shore. Barges will still spill oil and rocks will still seep oil on a daily basis. Everybody in Jenkins knows who the new grade school principal is going to be. Her husband’s a big coach. Hey Chum, why don’t you run for mayor again when you get out? A few charges aren’t anything to the people who voted for you before. We already have you a campaign manager picked out from east Jenkins, your neck of the woods. We’re working on your motto now. Say hi to Bubba. What really makes me sick about our judicial system in Letcher County, especially when I read the paper, is that we have persistent felons. You see their names indicted over and over again. They’re just released to commit a crime another day. Why aren’t these people put in prison? That is my question, instead of releasing them all the time to commit more crimes. How asinine. Happy birthday, Courtney Mullins, on June 19. See, I didn’t forget this year. From old blue eyes. In response to your ‘dear Mamaw’ comment: For your information, his mom and dad gave him that $1,000 loan and he gave half of it to his papaw now and he pays his own banknotes. Maybe he is my child, so eat your heart out, you weak SOB’s. Come down here and play with me. You are such a pathetic liar saying that stuff pretending to be a man. You really need help. Sunshine, who are you trying to tell something? Why don’t you just call and tell them? You sound like a bad soap opera. If you are not a mental case, you sure sound like one. Dear Speak Your Piece: Recently I read where the Obama administration was going to be transparent and accessible. I wrote President Obama about using hemp seed as the best and cleanest fuel for gasoline. Nobody wrote me back. What’s with this transparent administration that hides in the dark and doesn’t want to come out of the dark ages? You, Mr. President, have the power to make this right. You need to use your power to do whatever it takes so that we, the people of southeastern Kentucky, have something to pull ourselves out of poverty to farm and make our own fuel. Not BP, no more, and this is how we do it. To the girl on Big Branch: Didn’t your mama tell you about incest? Shame on you. You lying ugly horse’s mouth. I don’t want you. I don’t love you. You’ll never find anyone to love you if you don’t get rid of that smell you have always had. Hello, dream lover. Sitting here missing you, wishing you were with me tonight. I worry when you are on the road. ‘Classic Thunder’ is on TBS and the singing is reminding me of you and Gatlinburg, riding in a convertible, walking hand in hand, going to the aquarium and then to our hotel room. I love and miss you so much. Love is the greatest of all gifts, the necessity one needs in life to endure all things, to keep one going and holding it together. Hope you will be in my arms in the next few days, so be careful. Come home to your sunshine very soon. Love, hugs and kisses. Your sunshine always. I would like to make a comment about the a certain grocery store and restaurant. The workers there aren’t anything but scumbags. Thank you. This is in response to the 33-year-old girl looking for a man. Describe yourself a little bit. What do you look like? Do you work? How many kids do you have? If you are serious, respond in next week’s paper. This is to the genius who said Jack Conway had your respect: The only thing Conway did was to say it wasn’t right for Topix to take money from people to take trash off of the Internet, nothing more, nothing less. You are apparently brain dead or you would know that Mr. Banks tried to do something about it also. Topix is in the big state of Texas. Now that is not in Letcher County, so if you want to shell out money to pay for Mr. Conway or Mr. Banks on your behalf, just say the word. The answer to your dilemma is simple: Take your innocent children off of the Internet and stay off yourself. Too much time on your hands and too much trash on the Internet. Go mow grass or raise tomatoes. Thanks. To the ugly ex-wife who pretends to be other people saying things in Speak Your Piece about people and telling lies: You need to be more like me and be sweeter. I’ve been told I could just get eaten up. Then maybe you wouldn’t be alone and you’d find someone who loves you. It’s clear than no one loves you. Quit playing games and maybe you’ll find someone that wants you. Would you please call me or please respond in next week’s Speak Your Piece? I would love to have a place and a land contract. I have an ’81 Harley Davidson I would give as down payment. Just respond in next week’s Speak Your Piece and we’ll start there. I would like to wish Wade Whitehead a late happy birthday from the flip-flop girl. Attention. The good, bad and ugly of politics over the last 50 to 60 years. To have grown up in the eastern part of the state, I have been an astute observer of people in political and public life and how, from my perspective, the elected people they served, whether it was good, bad or ugly. I think we as voters are responsible for the economic conditions today. The voters in most local elections will only turn out for 30 to 40 percent of the registered voters. Voter apathy has always been a problem in local elections. The ‘old buddy’ system has always been in vogue as long as I can remember. ‘You scratch my back and I will scratch yours’ politicians were not chosen to run on their credentials, but how enamored was the community about this person or persons. Remarks that related to office seekers were quote: ‘He or she is a good person,’ not that he or she were competent for the position. An office seeker could be as dumb as a bag full of rocks and be elected to serve. Politicians made unlimited promises to their constituents. Some of the promises are as follows: If I’m elected you will get a culvert, gravel for your road, a bridge that will serve your needs, help get jobs for your family, clean your cemeteries, and maybe just look the other way if illegal activity of different financial means is happening in the county or city of the area they are serving, maybe bootlegging, selling drugs, etc. Nepotism creeps into the political system when only 30 to 40 percent of the voters exercise their right to vote. At various times in the past, known or unknown politicians have initiated plans for making employment for their families in lieu of qualifications, etc. Nepotism has been part of the political world since the Constitution was written. Government is more discreet today with the ‘old buddy system,’ but this process is still used as a means for employment, regardless of qualifications. Nepotism serves those in the loop to make a viable standard of living. There are many what I refer to as, ‘after the fact government,’ politicians not being aware of problems happening on their watch, and then they try to rubber stamp a solution that will save face for them if controversy is initiated. This situation can be summed up by saying, quote: ‘The horse has got out of the barn, and now you are trying to force him back into the barn.’ ‘Cooking the books’ has become a problem. Politicians doctor the records and later someone is charged with spending money and using a cover-up to validate their records. I infer that there could be many situations in government today where ‘cooking the books’ has become commonplace. This problem occurs because there is a lack in auditing at all levels of government. Individuals in the know tell me that most of the time, audits will not happen unless someone makes a complaint. Status quo governments are in control of many cities and local governments today, and no visionary ideas are made a priority. Government officials are satisfied with holding a position and receiving a paycheck with no future priorities in place. Selfinterest invites many politicians into the arena today, with aspirations of stuffing their coff ers. Many of these politicians are blessed with ‘hot air rhetoric,’ but you know what they say, ‘The squeaky wheel gets the grease.’ Some workforce individuals are continuing to work beyond their retirement years, which in turn causes more unemployment among those who have been educated for the workforce. Many of these individuals become complacent, obese in the workforce and greed sometimes captivates those individuals to stay in their jobs too long. Patriotism has been up and down in this country for many years due to situations in our country and being involved with fighting for freedom in obvious places, and the county cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. A breakdown of law and order has been obvious to most people who watch the current events that are happening in our country and other parts of the world. We have the best of the best serving our county in foreign countries, and we experience thugs, thieves, robberies, druggies and all other derelicts here at home that are trying to destroy our country. The court system becomes overburdened with the abovementioned individuals and many times we do not understand if justice or injustice is being served in our court system. Many county governments and cities are building elaborate justice buildings, but in the future, the public needs to be aware of the politicians who are serving us in public office. The next writing I will complete a list of the positives that I consider have transpired over the last 50 years. With all this junk put in here, I just want to say my wife is the prettiest and the best of everybody I’ve known. She’s the love of my life. I worship you, Baby. The person who praised Suboxone here last week is grossly misinformed, just as the people in the medical field are. I was recently on Suboxone prescribed to me for almost 2-½ years after other prolonged opiate addiction problems. I, too, was told it was the answer to all my problems and easy to get off of in itself. I was also told this about methadone prior to being on it for years as well. Well, earlier this year, I decided to wean myself from Suboxone, and to eventually quit it altogether. Mind you, I was only taking two of the eight milligram orange Suboxone tablets every day, yet had been doing so, as I said, for a long period of time. I got down to one-half pill per day for awhile, then went ‘cold turkey,’ and let me tell you, I am almost six weeks into taking nothing at all, and am still feeling its withdrawal effect daily, though each day is gradually getting better. There is no ‘miracle drug’ of any kind, and the key is these drugs are not meant to be administered long-term, as seems to be the case with most folks taking them. Suboxone and methadone should be given short-term and in steady, low doses with a detox plan in place, as well as drug awareness/ addiction counseling and education. You will only be ‘clean’ if you want to be so, and need to quit relying on the next big ‘miracle drug’ to do the work for you, for it’s all a lie, and the physicians are getting rich off of the addicts’ misery. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone in Letcher County who welcomed us and made us feel so at home. We came from 15 states and we contributed over $10,000 directly to the local economy, but we couldn’t have done it without the help and expertise from the good folks at Frazier’s Farmer Supply, Food City, Boggs Building Supply and Ovenfork Mercantile. We’d also like to thank Summit City, Las Penas, Kelly, The Coal Bin, The Kentucky Coal Mining Museum, Nathan, Teddy, Appalshop, Bill’s Marathon and Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. Special thanks to Jessica and Greg, and to Jim Webb and Katey for continuing to support tourism efforts in Letcher County. We love you, Letcher County. From all of us at Mountain Justice Summer.

By Andrew Woodcock, PA Political Correspondent Anti-war protester Brian Haw was arrested this morning and forced briefly to leave the camp outside Parliament where he has maintained a vigil since 2001. Mr Haw, 56, from Worcestershire, said that he was taken to nearby Charing Cross police station and released shortly afterwards without charge. It is the first time he has been arrested since a High Court ruling in July, which established his right to continue his one-man protest. New legislation introduced this summer requires protesters to obtain police permission before mounting a demonstration within a mile of parliament. But the court ruled that the requirement does not apply to Mr Haw, as his protest began before the law came into force. After returning to his spot on the pavement, surrounded by banners and flags in Parliament Square, Mr Haw told PA: "I've been through this at great lengths with the police inspector and he accepts I've got the right to be here and to have friends keeping me company. "He said he would inform his officers, but the message obviously hasn't filtered down to some of the constables on the beat. "I was woken up at about 8am by a couple of them shouting at a young woman who was minding my stuff while I slept. They told her she was demonstrating and it was against the law, but she said she was just a friend of mine. "I stuck my head out of my sleeping bag and said: 'Are you bothering this lady?' and, eventually, they arrested me for breach of the peace. "I'm not breaching the peace. I'm fighting for it." Scotland Yard had no immediate information on the incident. Mr Haw began his lone vigil on June 2 2001, initially in protest at international sanctions on Iraq and, later, at the war and its aftermath. the police are mounting a campaign of random harrasment of Brian haw, the policy is to create a counter Demonstration so he can be moved. a loop hole will allow the police to obtain an injunction on his prescence if he becomes a "instigator of disrupting force" , by way of ASBO. All that is needed is a bit of video evidence to suggest that Haw is causing or intending to cause illegal demonstrations within the "yellow Zone". the present law is forbidding the removal of haw for simply demonstrating, however if he can be deemed to be the cause of illegal demonstrations he can be forbidden from entry by way of ASBO. You may choose to ignore this advice and most likely you will, however, do remember...you were Tipped off an I risked my job to do it ! Ps Do not underestimate the current resolve of Pro goverment lackeys to whip up such a demonstration and the extent to which they can infultrate your collective.

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There are a great deal of repeating names out there in the e-mail marketing tool market, all informing you that they’re the very best for your service and email support requirements, and they’ll create a bajillion leads, and for that reason plenty of conversions. hey there people my name is marcus and in this video i’m going to compare campaign monitor and mailchimp very first i will concentrate on pricing plans then i will focus on benefits and drawbacks i personally see in both of these tools and after that just reviews of other people like what other individuals think about these tools now i’m not paid by campaign monitor or mailchimp to state one is better comparing to the other that you must use that or that one i’m simply going to give you my honest evaluation and my honors review is that these tools are software application’s are ok ish they are not incredible and i will show you exactly why so first thing rates and i compare it to active project mail ideal sending out blue and others or perhaps mail weapon so pricing campaign monitor is using just totally free trial they do not have the totally free account and if you’re gon na have i don’t understand 5 000 customers you’re gon na spend for fundamental account fifty dollars unrestricted ninety 9 dollars mail right for five 5000 you’re going to pay for all the functions that you require like i do not understand. What is the difference between Campaign Monitor and Mailchimp? Campaign Monitor How To Upload Pdf If you’re brand-new to email marketing, you might be overwhelmed with repeating lingo, the various tiers and the rest of it. We’re going to look at simply two of the big names to see if they’ll reasonably help your organization with email automation. Two is plenty to think about at a time. If among these sounds close, you can compare it to another product, to see if it gets better, or even more away, from an important possession. The primary distinctions in between Campaign Monitor and Mailchimp are:. Campaign Monitor has a visual journey contractor, whereas Mailchimp does not. Campaign Monitor incorporates more carefully with Shopify, whereas Mailchimp recently had a very public falling out. Mailchimp charges for unsubscribed users, whereas Campaign Monitor does not charge for unsubs. 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In case you’ve forgotten, The Republic is a Socratic dialogue written around 380 BC concerning the definition of justice and the order and character of the just city-state and the just man. I’d like to tell you that I knew that off the top of my head, but that’s why Al Gore invented the Internet. (Click on any photo to make it larger.) Who will take the pictures? The short answer to that question was the young whippersnapper who followed me: Richard Neal, Tom Hopen, Skip Stiver and Steve Trickey, but I thank her for asking. A Google search for information about Bonnie Wilkening came up pretty dry. There was a Missourian Sept. 29, 1999, feature, a collection of “You’re from Swampeast Missouri if…” contest entries that included a Bonnie Wilkening contribution, “You update your white styrofoam dice hanging on the rear view mirror of your car to fluorescent orange.” I don’t know if it’s the same person. Miss Vogelsang died in 1997 The Missourian’s Oct. 31, 1997, obit reported that Mildred Wilhemina Vogelsang, 87, a former teacher, librarian and historian, died Wednesday, Oct. 29, 1997, at Cape Girardeau Residential Care Center. She was born Feb. 7, 1910, in Cape Girardeau, daughter of Henry H. and Hermena Christine Geldmacher Vogelsang. Vogelsang [This is a departure from the obituary style we followed in my day. We would have used Miss Vogelsang.] was a graduate of Southeast Missouri State University, and received a master’s degree in library science from Vanderbilt University in 1946. She was a teacher in Cape Girardeau Public Schools from 1934-43, then was librarian at Central High School until 1972. In 1953 she served as president of School Librarians of Southeast Missouri District when it was first organized. She worked on the curriculum committee in the State Department of Education to prepare a Guide for School Libraries. She served as the president of the Missouri Library Association in 1967. Vogelsang served three terms as trustee of Cape Girardeau Public Library, had been librarian with Historical Association of Greater Cape Girardeau, and was an historian of Old Lorimier Cemetery. She was a member of St. Andrew Lutheran Church. Survivors include a nephew, James Vogelsang of Cape Girardeau; and a niece, Jane Schueltz of Toledo, Ohio. Other stories about Miss Vogelsang and libraries - May 21, 1936 – Broadway school fourth and fifth graders at Broadway School appeared in a two-act operetta, The Magic Slippers, in charge of Miss Mildred Vogelsang and Mrs. Elsie Clack. - November 18, 1975 – Pupils Look to Teachers for Guidance, the second in a series of articles written for The Missourian in observance of American Education Week. - Aug. 7, 2005 – Sally Wright Metz said “the greatest part about going to Central was the education, with teachers who cared and inspired her like Mildred Vogelsang, whose influence lead Metz into the education field.” - Thanks to Julia Howes Jorgensen, the new Central High School’s library isn’t like our old study hall - Photos taken in Central and other libraries - Snapshots around Central, including library and study hall

A man fuelled by a passion for his people, Jake Briggs is pushing for change for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples living with disability; particularly those who have interacted with the criminal justice system. Briggs is the Managing Director and Owner of Culture Connex, an NDIS provider, on the central coast of New South Wales. As a Wonnarua/Kamilaroi man and C5/C6 quadriplegic, Briggs has been inspired to push towards equity, working with Youth Koori Court in NSW, First Peoples Disability Network within project and business development, and is now sitting on the First Nations Advisory Group for the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. Culture Connex hosts 21 NDIS registered classes with 520 line items of support which range from Community Nursing Care and Innovative Community Participation to Specialised Disability Accommodation. “We also have therapeutic support like occupational therapy and counselling which speaks to therapy. I think it is really important to have a holistic approach when it comes to service delivery, and that is why I got this company up and running and designed it the way it is,” said Briggs. “We are trying to deliver tangible outcomes for the mob; to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders with disability. And also, the general community, doesn’t matter if you are Blak, white or brindle; Culture Connex is here to deliver the best services possible.” While he is certainly a smart and savvy careerman, Briggs is first and foremost an advocate for his people. “That is why I want to be that voice, for what I think is important to get across the line to the broader community, to try and deliver the message of what is going on in disability for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australia,” he said. Briggs has been involved for some years with the Youth Koori Court. The program was established in 2015 in an attempt to reduce the number of Indigenous children in custody and provide support and guidance to those at risk. “It is working with young individuals in a culturally sensitive approach to the court system. You’ve got Magistrate [Sue] Duncan who is leading the charge in Sydney helping deliver the best approach possible for these youngsters that are assigned to the Koori Court system,” said Briggs. “It is so important to have the deliverance of this setting where Aboriginal Elders are involved and organisations with Aboriginal representatives are trying to deliver the best outcome possible. “We all come together as a collective to get the best outcome. That is where I come across strongly in the disability sector, where it has got to do with NDIS or other general disability sector.” Briggs’ role in Youth Koori Court is invaluable. “At the end of the day, I’m an Aboriginal person, with disability, that knows the justice correctional system and that is why I’m doing this,” he said. “According to [the NSW Justice Health and Forensic Mental Health Network] 73 percent of the young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals that come through corrections in NSW and get picked up, have a disability.” “The majority are cognitive, intellectual, mental disabilities. That is why I am so invested in this scene. It all starts with the youngsters, the juveniles.” Briggs sits as a committee member on the First Nations Advisory Group to the Disability Royal Commission, a role he takes very seriously. “As a collective, we all have different strengths, mine is through justice, jails and correctional facilities. I bring that to the table, also me being an Aboriginal person with disability, but I am a participant of the NDIS. I know the language of the NDIS and how to navigate it,” said Briggs. “We, as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disability, or with general disability, we don’t fit in boxes. We are out in the grey area.” Briggs noted the story of Darryl Carr. A Wiradjuri man living with a mild intellectual disability, Carr has spent most of his life incarcerated. He was released from prison this year after it was found he was detained for 11 years for minor violations of his five-year extended supervision order (ESO). “He doesn’t want this happening to any other of the mob. Whether that is juvenile or any other systemic incarceration that he has had,” said Briggs. Briggs spoke of the important work of the Royal Commission. “It is difficult, not just for me but for the people I am dealing with because it is opening up wounds. It is intergenerational trauma, and personal stuff the individuals have experienced,” he said. “Ripping off the scabs, exposing these wounds and they know they have to dig deep because it is bringing that to the microphone. It’s not just exposing the wounds for themselves; it is going to go out and be broadcast to the open community where it is going to touch individuals, it is going to expose wounds for them also. “Then hopefully it does bring in that inspiration, where although it does hurt for them … it does bring the inspiration for [others] to say, ‘Hey I’m going to tell my story too’.” Briggs is encouraging those with a lived experience of abuse, neglect, violence or exploitation to come forward to the Royal Commission. “Your story is going to help you find power within yourself, and it will empower the community. It is strength in numbers, what I always say is ‘high tide raises all canoes’.” By Rachael Knowles

For young children learning about numbers is so much fun! There are endless things to count and definitely endless ways to use numbers. However, understanding that three always means three no matter what is being counted, can be a bit of a challenge. That’s why I created this free number recognition printable. Kids can see very easily that there are many ways that we can show the same number. Materials needed for the Number Recognition Printable: Paper or card stock More Number Learning Fun: 30+ Hands-On Counting Activities How to prepare the activity: Print, laminate and cut out the number recognition printable. How to use: Have the child match the various forms of each number. This activity is easily differentiated for different children and skill-levels. For kids who are just learning their numbers, using cards that demonstrate the numbers rather than the numerals or words will help them to practice counting in a more concrete way. For kids who have more experience with numbers, provide them with all of the cards and have them sort the cards according to number. More Number Learning Fun: LEGO Counting Cards More Number Learning Fun: Free Printable Farm Counting Game You can also practice building number lines by providing the kids with one set of cards, such as the balloons or hands. After the numbers are all in order, have the kids close their eyes while you remove one or two cards from the number line. When the kids open their eyes have them figure out which numbers are missing. These cards can also be used to play Memory by choosing two number formats. Or choose four formats and play a game of Go Fish! Choose a set of cards from 1-10 in multiple formats (1-hand, 2-balloon, 3-car, etc.) and display them around the room. Call out a number and have the kids hunt for the correct card. There are so many things that you can do with this one printable!

…a simple idea discovered by world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck in decades of research on achievement and success. “If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning.” What is Growth Mindset? As its name suggests, having a “Growth Mindset” means that you are prepared to challenge yourself and not remain static by accepting failure (as in a “Fixed Mindset”). At St Thomas of Canterbury School, we fully embrace the concept of having a Growth Mindset. We understand that intelligence is something that can be developed through dedication, hard work and effort. We realise that through stretching ourselves and learning new skills, our brains form new connections which make us smarter. We accept that making mistakes and learning from criticism is simply an essential process of learning in order to achieve our ultimate goals and ambitions. At St Thomas of Canterbury School, we fully endorse and promote a “Growth Mindset” mentality. We believe that children (and adults!) need to learn to love challenges, to accept mistakes and enjoy the ultimate reward that effort, persistence and determination will inevitably bring when goals and targets are met.We teach our children that they can achieve anything they want if they fully immerse themselves in: Being challenged and motivated Making an effort Accepting feedback and criticism Having a love of learning Striving to improve Being successful, feeling happy Growth Mindset Assembly In January 2018, the pupils and staff at St Thomas of Canterbury School enjoyed a captivating Growth Mindset Assembly and workshop led by Mike Mullen (UK BMX Pro Halfpipe Champion). Mike’s story was inspiring and engaging; he explained how, as a young boy, he was excited by watching BMX Freestyle stunts and determined to save up to buy his own BMX bike and follow in the footsteps of his role models. We were delighted to welcome Mike Mullen back to our school in March 2018. Mike delivered a BMX workshop to our Key Stage Two pupils. For photos of this event, please see: Mike Mullen BMX Growth Mindset Workshop: http://www.bmxacademy.com/bmxworkshops School BMX Workshops & Masterclasses – Growth Mindset … www.bmxacademy.com BMX workshops for UK schools by Mike Mullen 2017 UK Pro Halfpipe Champion & former World Champ, all equipment provided. Growth Mindset through BMX Mike’s positive approach to learning and being challenged is infectious and constructive. The children thoroughly enjoyed the workshop and the opportunity to pick up some cool BMX tricks! People who have a positive attitude towards their learning will make good progress and be successful. In nurturing a Growth Mindset culture at St Thomas of Canterbury School, our aim for the community (pupils, staff, parents, governors and friends) is to instil an attitude where mistakes are embraced, challenges are confronted and effort is rewarded. “I realised every trick or competition was a challenge. Always dangerous and often painful. Facing these daily challenges as a BMX rider I learned to find courage, become independent, resourceful and to build resilience.” Mike Mullen How can we achieve a Growth Mindset and become confident and resilient learners at St Thomas of Canterbury School? |It’s fine to make mistakes - we learn from them!| |We embrace challenge – mastering something new gives you a huge sense of achievement| |We never give up – we just try a different strategy| |We take risks. Staying in our comfort zone will keep us in a rut and provide us with less opportunity to fulfil our amazing potential!| |We remember that our brains are elastic and malleable. Brain plasticity refers to its amazing ability to change and re-organise itself by forming new connections between neurons.| |We accept criticism and feedback and learn from each other but we don’t compare ourselves with each other| For older readers / parents: For classrooms / teachers:

Bò Kho is an incredibly delicious Vietnamese beef stew with a silky texture and melt in the mouth beef pieces. It's perfect for winter and you can serve it with crispy bread rolls or rice noodles for a delicious meal. I have worked on perfecting this recipe for 2 weeks and share my tips for making this beef stew even more incredible. This is a pushy recipe Dear Reader - I really, really hope you'll give this a try! Bò means beef and Kho means to braise, stew or simmer in Vietnamese. Originally Bo Kho originated from Northern Vietnam where it is served for breakfast. In Central Vietnam it is eaten with rice noodles (Phở bò kho) but in Southern Vietnam it is served with crispy baguettes (Bánh mì bò kho). It is served with chilli, lime, herbs and bean sprouts on the side. Sometimes it is served with yellow egg noodles where it is called Mì bò kho. I've eaten bò kho a lot but I was inspired to make this by the one I had at Paddy Field House in Marrickville. The soup had the most incredible texture to it-silky and rich with so much flavour to it. There are soft, melting pieces of beef and a rich, aromatic soup and carrots in it. Many people know pho which is delicious but bò kho is richer and features melt in the mouth beef pieces in it and I prefer it for winter. The secret to bo kho: beef tendon and flank The secret to this bo kho's silky texture is beef tendons that make it more gelatinous. Tendons and bones are inexpensive to buy at the butcher and give the stew a gloriously silky texture. The second secret is to use beef flank as you main cut of meat. What is beef tendon? If you've had Pho you've had beef tendon. Tendons are the connective tissue the animal's bones and muscles. They're high in collagen which is great for skin health. It imparts a wonderful silkiness to soups and stocks. When you make a broth or soup with tendons you end up with a jellied stock and that is the collagen. In Asian culture they often promote dishes high in collagen as beauty boosters. While you may have to pre-order these at a Western butcher, Asian butchers often have tendons in stock. I bought everything for this at a late night shop at Thai Kee in Market City (not sponsored, I just found it handy to have a butcher open at night!). Once you use the tendon in the soup you can eat it or discard it. It contains a lot of collagen and feels fatty due to its jellied mouthfeel but actually has a low amount of fat. A 100g/3.5ozs piece of beef tendon has 0.5 grams/0.018oz of fat and 36.7 grams/1.3ozs of protein and 150 calories. Beef Flank vs Chuck or Gravy Beef: A lot of people use chuck for bo kho which is fine as it is an easy cut to buy but beef flank gives it a much better result, melting down to a beautiful softness and unctuousness. I find that chuck cooks down to be a bit drier. Some people don't like the layer of fat on top of flank but once it's cooked you can just peel it off or eat it. I hope you'll make this with flank because it produces such a wonderful result. Instant Pot/Pressure Cooker, Slow Cooker or Stovetop? That depends on how much time you have! :) I tend to use my Instant pot/All in one pressure cooker because I can sear the beef and lemongrass/garlic and then cook in one and it cooks for an hour. But it works just as well in a slow cooker or on the stovetop and I've given instructions for all three. Fresh rice noodles vs dried: I much, much prefer the texture of the fresh Vietnamese rice noodles over the dried ones. Fresh rice noodles are much quicker to use too - you just microwave them for 1 minute and then use them. Dried rice noodles need to be soaked for 30 minutes in hot water and they don't tend to become as silky soft as fresh ones. Fresh rice noodles should be stored in the fridge. I really liked this brand above. I cannot get enough of bo kho now that we're in the midst of winter. I've spent two weeks developing this recipe making little improvements each time to arrive at this final recipe which I think is just like the one we ate at Paddy Field House. Even Mr NQN who isn't a massive meat eater has had no issues eating this every night for a week. It's so simple and warming and the flavour improves over time so I make a big batch that lasts us for a few nights. I also have another tip for winter weather Dear Reader! I discovered it when we went to the wedding I mentioned last week. It was held in the Southern Highlands and the night before I checked the temperature and it said that Bowral was going to "feel like" 0 degrees (I always check the "feels like" temperature). Then an idea struck me: pocket warmers! And that's how we found ourselves on the hunt for pocket warmers late one Friday night. We found some at the supermarket. They are hand warmers you keep in your pocket to keep you warm and they last for around 10 hours. Except I was going to do something else. My dress had quite a voluminous skirt so I wore fleece lined tights and boots underneath it. And in the back of the tights just near my lower back I stuffed one of these pocket warmers and put the other one was down my cleavage. The dress was perfect for it. I was warm the entire time and while I had a faux fur wrap that was all that I needed as my chest was toasty warm! The wedding was very nice - we sat with Mr NQN's colleagues who were super friendly and it was nice to put a face to the names that he had told me all about. And while I mentioned it was a religious wedding they were a young couple and it was the "friskiest" wedding I have been to with the most sexual references I've ever heard at a wedding including her vows to give him a "special massage wink wink every night"! It ended with a surprise: they wanted to do a continuous video with each table (there were 180 guests) doing a special kind of dance. They came around to each table beforehand to brief us on the dance they wanted us to do. We were assigned the TikTok shuffle dance. Now this is not an easy dance, it's sort of really complicated and we were all completely unprepared for it. I didn't even know if I could do it without tripping over in my dress. But we all agreed to do our best and busied ourselves practising. We watched as they went around the room-there was the Thriller Dance for one table which seems so simple in comparison. We braced ourselves for embarrassment and they approached our table. And then they completely bypassed us and the next table! I'm not sure why, and we weren't going to ruin their single take video or ask them but we somehow missed our chance to dance terribly for video. And the unanimous reaction was that of massive relief! And next wedding I'll make sure to practice it beforehand in case we get asked because you never know these things. So tell me Dear Reader, how do you keep warm in winter? Are you good at dancing? Have you ever done the TikTok shuffle? DID YOU MAKE THIS RECIPE? Share your creations by tagging @notquitenigella on Instagram with the hashtag #notquitenigella Bò Kho Vietnamese Beef Stew Rated 5.0 out of 5 by 3 readers An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott Preparation time: 30 minutes plus 15 minutes marinating time Cooking time: 1.5 hours pressure cooker - 1/2 cup/125ml/4flozs. fish sauce - 2 tablespoons sugar - 1.2kg/2.7lbs beef flank - 6 cloves garlic, peeled - 1 onion, peeled and quartered - 2 fat lemongrass sticks, cut into three pieces, split in half and ends pounded - 2 inches ginger, sliced - Oil for sauteeing - 5 cups beef stock - 1/2 cup tomato paste - 500g/1.1lbs beef tendon - 400ml/14flozs young coconut water (unsweetened, unflavoured) - 1 cinnamon stick - 2 star anise - 2 cloves - 1 teaspoon five spice powder - 1 tablespoon annatto paste or powder (optional, to colour it red) - 2 small chillies, sliced - 4 carrots (around 700g/25ozs.) - Coriander, mint, lime wedges and sliced onion to serve - 1kg/2.2lbs fresh rice noodles Step 1 - First marinate the beef. Dissolve sugar in the fish sauce add to a bowl with the beef flanks and allow to sit at room temperature for 15 minutes. Step 2 - Meanwhile blend the lemongrass, garlic and onion. Peel the carrots and cut into large chunks. Instant pot/Pressure cooker directions: Set to saute for 20 minutes and then add oil and brown the beef all over and then remove from pot and set aside to cool off a little. Then add the onion and garlic mixture and saute until fragrant. Cut the beef into 1 inch or so cubes and add to the pot along with the lemongrass, ginger, stock, beef tendons, coconut water, cinnamon, star anise, cloves, five spice powder, chillies and annatto. Set to cook on high for 30 minutes and release the pressure naturally after this. When the first 30 minutes is up and pressure is released, add the carrots. Set on high for 30 minutes and release pressure naturally. Simmer for 10 minutes. Season with sugar and salt if needed (it shouldn't need much at all). . Stovetop Directions: In a large cast iron pot add oil and brown the beef all over and then remove from pot and set aside. Then add the onion and garlic mixture and saute until fragrant. Cut the beef into 1 inch or so cubes and add to the pot along with the lemongrass, stock, ginger, beef tendons, coconut water, cinnamon, star anise, cloves, five spice powder, chillies and annatto. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer and cook for 3 hours. After the 3 hours add the carrots and remaining stock and cook for another 1 hour. Season with sugar and salt if needed (it shouldn't need much at all). The tendons once cooked Step 3 - To assemble: Skim the fat off the top of the soup and remove the tendons. Divide rice noodles into portions and place each portion in the microwave and cook on high for 1 minute. Place into bowls and ladle soup over adding carrot pieces and beef pieces. Add some finely sliced onion on top and serve with lime wedges, coriander, lime, bean sprouts and extra chilli.

By Arathi Devandran, Columnist @miffalicious I have a confession and it is this: I am a memory hoarder. I’m a curator of all things long gone, sepia-toned, lost, faded and silent. I’ve kept a journal ever since I could write, and I have too many boxes filled with cards, receipts, (love) letters, movie ticket stubs, what have you will. Memories have a huge part to play in my life because my story has shaped me to be who I am today. Interestingly enough, my childhood memories are fainter than most. I don’t remember much, and what I do remember always come in brief flashes – memories which I then have to furiously record before they slip out of my grasp again. Yet, there’s always one stalwart character who features time and time again in these show reels. Who has always been my moral compass, and who continues to be my guiding hand. Who continues to be the leading man of my story. Meet My father, my role model; my Daddy-O. (Yep, we’re really that cheesy). I’ll shamefacedly admit that I was quite the brat in my earlier days. (Truth be told, my parents might quip that I still am one, but that’s a story for another day). I refused to go to pre-school because of some strange phobia of being trapped in the prison-like walls of my very cheerful kindergarten and I would cry. Not a sniffle, not quiet rolling-down-cheeks tears, but large lungfuls of gasping cries that would reverberate said prison-like-walls. This would trigger off my fellow schoolmates, and soon, my class would be a cacophony of wails. Needless to say, my teacher did not like me very much. So what would my Daddy-O do? He’d stand outside my class window, holding my hand through said grilled contraption, while my wails would slowly quieten into sniffles. For a good amount of time, five days a week. (My mum and he would take turns because in between making sure that I stayed in class and stopped being a pest, they had to earn a living to support the family). This had to change. Obviously. Henceforth, my Daddy-O began to work his magic. He began to teach me what respect was all about. By respecting me, and listening to what I had to say. I’d haltingly speak about what I was afraid of and why I didn’t want to go to school, and my dad would listen to me. He reassured my five-year-old self that my feelings mattered, and were to be respected. That I was entitled to feel the way I did, even if I wasn’t on my best behaviour. That was the first of the many lessons that I gained from my Daddy-O. The meaning of Respect. The importance of being treated like an equal. The power of listening to another human being. Lessons that continue to remain at the forefront of my life till today. To cut a long story short, conversation by conversation, my behaviour began to change. My attitude towards school shifted, I slowly stopped crying and started enjoying school. And here I am, many years later, sharing this with you. My father was the first man that featured prominently in my existence. He has never made me feel that my gender was ever a reason for me not to have larger-than-life dreams, or that I was in any way inferior to men. It is precisely this confidence which he has sublimely fed to my soul, that has given me the courage to pursue my goals, to keep scrambling to my feet every time I’ve been browbeaten by the unsavoury. He’s also emphasised often that I deserve only the highest form of respect from men. Something that, as a young girl, one easily forgets when involved with the matters of the heart. He has set some incredibly high standards for the men that I continue to meet in my life, for which I’m very grateful for. My mum has never tried to come in between my relationship with my Daddy-O. In that way, I’ve been blessed that my relations with each of my parents is independent of the other, and I have been able to communicate with them in different ways. Often, we forget that both our parents have had an important role in contributing to our personhood. Our mothers remain at the forefront of our families – the poster-ladies of love, warmth and nurturing, and rightfully so. But let’s not forget that our fathers are just as important as well. They are the scaffolding of our homes, the friends in our times of need, the partners in crime when our mothers are being mothers (I’m speaking from experience here). As my mother is the lighthouse of the family, my father is my safe harbour. He is the person I return to when every day life gets too overwhelming to handle. Even at the times when he doesn’t have much to say, he listens. And most times, that’s all I need. To know that my feelings are being carefully collected and stored in a heart that is much bigger than mine. Quite like my five-year-old self, really. Here’s to you Daddy-O. Thank you for being you, and thank you for being a constant reminder on how to be a better person. Much love from a daughter. ©masalamommas and masalamommas.com, 2016-2017. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to masalamommas.com and Masalamommas online magazine with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Effective weight loss strategies should incorporate exercise. But treadmills may bore you and the thought of lifting heavy weights may intimidate you. If so, designing an exercise program around repetitive, body weight-based movements, or calisthenics, may be a suitable choice. In fact, a calisthenics program may not only be more enjoyable, but it may also more effectively help you achieve your weight loss goal. Evidence of Effectiveness Most weight loss exercise programs focus on sustained, low- to moderate-intensity aerobic activities. An extensive review of research summarized in a 2006 Cochrane Collaboration report shows that this approach yields disappointing results in terms of fat loss. High-intensity interval training, on the other hand, produce impressive fat loss results. A study published in 2008 in the "International Journal of Obesity" compared these two modes of exercise and found superior reductions in body mass, fat mass, trunk fat and fasting plasma insulin levels in women engaging in high-intensity interval training compared to lower intensity steady-state training. Calisthenics can easily be structured into a high-intensity interval training program. How It Works The key to the effectiveness of this type of exercise program relates to what exercise physiologists refer to as excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC). In her book “The Female Body Breakthrough,” fitness expert Rachel Cosgrove refers to EPOC as “the after-burn effect." According to Cosgrove, your body adapts very quickly to steady-state cardio exercise so that you burn fewer and fewer calories over time. With higher-intensity interval training, your metabolism remains elevated for up to 48 hours after you've completed your workout. Strategies to Get Results A well-designed calisthenics program for weight loss is probably going to feel much more intense than a typical cardio workout. Choose high-energy exercises that can be performed for intervals of 30 seconds or more. You should be somewhat breathless by the end of the active interval. Next, try to keep your rest periods at 30 seconds or less between intervals. Alternate exercises that emphasize the legs with those that emphasize the upper body and core. This will give your muscles more time to recover between intervals while keeping your cardiorespiratory system active throughout the session. Choosing the Right Exercises Try body-weight squats followed by bent knee crunches and a push-up variation as a "set" of three exercises. Forward lunges, jump-and-reach and side planks can make up a second set. Then try mountain climbers, supermans and glute bridges as a third set. Arrange exercises within a set that use large muscle groups and sequentially vary body regions. As you improve, add more sets, increase your intensity or decrease your rest periods. Detailed instructions for these and other exercises can be found in the resource link. - Cochrane Report: Exercise for Overweight or Obesity - International Journal of Obesity; The Effects of High-Intensity Intermittent Exercise Training on Fat Loss and Fasting Insulin Levels of Young Women; EG Trapp et al - The Female Body Breakthrough; Rachel Cosgrove, BS, CSCS - Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images

Patience is a necessity in the lives of Young-chan, a man who's been deaf and blind from a young age, and his wife Soon-ho, a woman who despite her own physical challenges helps him accomplish tasks both modest and awe-inspiring. Witnessing their love story in South Korean director Yi Seung-jun's artfully conceived documentary at first takes some patience, until its melding of Young-chan's poetry (he can speak, and recites in voice-over) and of the couple's day-to-day life hits a pleasing stride. Young-chan's uniquely active mind produces not only poetry but also a play (although he's never seen one), plus he's taking a Hebrew class. Nature provides sensual pleasure for Young-chan, whether sledding in an inner tube or coaxing Soon-ho into joining him in hugging a tree. As they discuss the smell of rain, Soon-ho's fingers tap Braille onto Yung-chan's, and the filmmaker focuses on the falling water, reminding us of sights and sounds we take for granted.

“The Lion King” became the much beloved and spiritually uplifting story of Simba, featuring James Earl Ray Jones powerful voiceover from the hit Walt Disney animated film in 1994 captivating movie audiences nationwide. Since “The Lion King” Broadway premiere in 1997, this Tony Award winning Broadway Musical has been viewed by more than 65 million people worldwide. This powerful tale of love and redemption will have a profound and lasting impact upon the hearts and souls of Atlanta theatre audiences. “The Lion King” is technically amazing, awesome sound effects and visually breathtaking musical, featuring the Tony Award winning song “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” by legendary Broadway lyricist Tim Rice and musical composer Elton John. Atlanta audience will be awestruck by the colorful and spectacular costume designs that will vicariously transmogrify the imagination to the primal African rhythms and African King Land. The Serengeti comes to life on the stage at the Fox Theatre to witness an unforgettable production, and classic journey of the young royal heir Simba to the African throne. The young lion cub, Simba, is born in the African heartland and destined to become the heir apparent to the throne. But Simba’s evil and deceitful Uncle Scar slays his beloved father King Mufassa, and blames the assassination on the young cub Simba. Simba is ashamed and remorseful. The young cub feels betrayed and goes into self-exiled. Simba journeys through the dangerous jungles, and vows to return to reclaim his rightful throne, and vindicates the death of his beloved father King Mufassa. “The Lion King” is a musical extravaganza, and Atlanta audiences will witness this amazing Broadway production. “The Lion King” will rule the hearts of Atlanta audiences forever at the Fabulous Fox Theatre.