My pile of books read but not reviewed yet is taller than I like, so here are two shorter reviews to catch up a little.
Europe in Autumn by Dave Hutchinson
Only Hutchinson’s second novel, but you can tell the author has been writing other stuff for ages. Europe in Autumn, published in 2014, is the first in a sequence (followed now by Europe at Midnight and Europe in Winter).
It garnered a shortlisting for the Arthur C Clarke Award in 2014, but is more than just SF. It’s speculative fiction set in the near future such as Christopher Priest would write, (e.g. here) but its espionage plotline is the heir to Le Carré’s Smiley novels, with a bit of Kafka strangeness mixed in.
Hutchinson’s Europe is presciently post-Brexit – a chilling vision of what may happen:
In the latter years of the twentieth century, Europe had echoed with the sound of doors opening as the borderless continent of the Schengen Agreement had, with some national caveats, come into being.
It hadn’t lasted. …
The Union had struggled into the twenty-first century and managed to survive in some style for a few more years of bitching and infighting and cronyism. Then it had spontaneously begun to thrown off progressively smaller and crazier nation-states, like a sunburned holidaymaker shedding curls of skin….
The big thing in Europe these days was countries, and there were more and more of them every year. (p26/7)
It is in this Balkanised Europe that we meet Rudi, an Estonian cook in a restaurant in Krakow. It is increasingly difficult now to get across borders, the number of which are increasing all the time. Rudi is recruited by Dariusz, head of the local protection racket, to join the secret organisation Les Coureurs des Bois, who are effectively a resistance/spy network. Maintaining his cover as a chef, Rudi takes to this new career, smuggling, people, information, whatever needs to move between countries, including getting into ‘The Line’, a trans-Europe railway line, now a sovereign state in its own right. Things will go wrong of course. Rudi will find himself compromised and stuck deep within a massive conspiracy, I don’t want to say any more.
This novel seemed to combine all my favourite things to read in one book – a literary spy story that is a science fiction thriller. Europe in Autumn is immaculately plotted and written with great intelligence. I can’t wait to read the next books in the series. Highly recommended. (10/10)
Source: Own copy.
Dave Hutchinson, Europe in Autumn (Solaris, 2014) paperback, 384 pages
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The Wicked Go To Hell by Frédéric Dard
Translated by David Coward
Dard is my latest French crime discovery. Turns out he wrote 284 novels, and was influenced by and friends with Simenon. This is the second Dard of four planned reissues in sparkling new translations (each by a different translator) in the Pushkin Vertigo crime imprint. Like Simenon, Dard’s novels are novella length, designed to be devoured in one sitting.
The Wicked Go To Hell was first published in 1956. The premise is simple: To trap an enemy spy, an undercover cop is asked to go so deep undercover that he ends up in jail with the man.
Our man has got to escape and escape he will… with you!
He looked at me to see my reaction but I’d long been used to letting the sky fall on me without batting an eyelid.
“We’ll lock you both up in the same jail cell… a tough one… the sort of place that gives kindly old ladies the shivers. The pair of you will escape!
“You’ll try to hole up somewhere and you’ll wait. The breakout will be big news. The head of the organization, knowing that his man has escaped, will want to get him back… At some point or other, he’ll break cover… Then, when you’ve got your hands on him…”
He made a chopping notion with the side of his hand. The gesture meant death. (p13)
The scene set, we meet Frank and Hal in jail, but cleverly Dard doesn’t let on which is which at this stage and we’ll only gradually work it out. They’re both suspicious of each other, but need each other to effect an escape becoming what we’d call these days ‘Frenemies’.
The prison break-out is engineered and executed. The pair end up on a private beach where they meet Dora, whose birthday it is. They are led to a place of temporary safety … and this is where the supposedly mis-matched pair will find out that they are more alike than different. Dard’s psychological insight into the two men really keeps you on your toes, because even a bad guy has a good side, and vice versa – we’re all human after all.
So, yet another French crime writer to add to my growing Pantheon. I loved this and can’t wait to read more from Frédéric Dard.
Source: Publisher – thank you.
Frédéric Dard, The Wicked Go To Hell, (Pushkin Vertigo, 2016) Paperback original, 160 pages.
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Librivox: Elegiac Sonnets and Other Poems by Smith, Charlotte Turner
Summary: Charlotte Turner Smith (1749 – 1806) was an English poet and novelist. She initiated a revival of the English sonnet, helped establish the conventions of Gothic fiction, and wrote political novels of sensibility. It was in 1784, in debtor's prison with her husband Benjamin, that she wrote and published her first work, Elegiac Sonnets. The work achieved instant success, allowing Charlotte to pay for their release from prison. Smith's sonnets helped initiate a revival of the form and granted an aura of respectability to her later novels. Stuart Curran, the editor of Smith's poems, has written that Smith is "the first poet in England whom in retrospect we would call Romantic". She helped shape the "patterns of thought and conventions of style" for the period. Romantic poet William Wordsworth was the most affected by her works. He said of Smith in the 1830s that she was "a lady to whom English verse is under greater obligations than are likely to be either acknowledged or remembered". By the second half of the nineteenth century, however, Smith was largely forgotten.


OBJECTIVE: To ascertain to which extent the use of HbA(1c) and oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) for diagnosis of glucose tolerance could identify individuals with different pathogenetic mechanisms and cardiovascular risk profile. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: A total of 844 subjects (44% men; age 49.5 ± 11 years; BMI 29 ± 5 kg/m(2)) participated in this study. Parameters of β-cell function were derived from deconvolution of the plasma C-peptide concentration after a 75-g OGTT and insulin sensitivity assessed by homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (IR). Cardiovascular risk profile was based on determination of plasma lipids and measurements of body weight, waist circumference, and blood pressure. Glucose regulation categories by OGTT and HbA(1c) were compared with respect to insulin action, insulin secretion, and cardiovascular risk profile. RESULTS: OGTT results showed 42% of the subjects had prediabetes and 15% had type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), whereas the corresponding figures based on HbA(1c) were 38 and 11%, with a respective concordance rate of 54 and 44%. Subjects meeting both diagnostic criteria for prediabetes presented greater IR and impairment of insulin secretion and had a worse cardiovascular risk profile than those with normal glucose tolerance at both diagnostic methods. In a logistic regression analyses adjusted for age, sex, and BMI, prediabetic subjects, and even more T2DM subjects by OGTT, had greater chance to have IR and impaired insulin secretion. CONCLUSIONS: HbA(1c) identifies a smaller proportion of prediabetic individuals and even a smaller proportion of T2DM individuals than OGTT, with no difference in IR, insulin secretion, and cardiovascular risk profile. Subjects fulfilling both diagnostic methods for prediabetes or T2DM are characterized by a worse metabolic profile.
|Autori:||Bianchi C; Miccoli R; Bonadonna RC; Giorgino F; Frontoni S; Faloia E; Marchesini G; Dolci MA; Cavalot F; Cavallo GM; Leonetti F; Del Prato S; GENFIEV Investigators.|
|Titolo:||Pathogenetic mechanisms and cardiovascular risk: differences between HbA(1c) and oral glucose tolerance test for the diagnosis of glucose tolerance.|
|Anno del prodotto:||2012|
|Digital Object Identifier (DOI):||10.2337/dc11-2504.|
|Appare nelle tipologie:||1.1 Articolo in rivista|


Macular edema (ME) is a common complication of both branch and central retinal vein occlusion (BRVO and CRVO) and is a common cause of vision loss in both of these conditions.1–3 The underlying events that manifest with ME and that may contribute to vision loss include upregulation of soluble growth factors (such as vascular endothelial growth factor), activation of cytokines (such as interleukins), and expression of mediators of cellular inflammation (such as intercellular adhesion molecule 1).4 Retinal ischemia also compromises retina function. Our ability to evaluate many of these processes in vivo is limited, but retinal thickness from ME can be reliably assessed by optical coherence tomography (OCT). Although the relationship between visual acuity and central subfield retinal thickness (CRT) as measured by OCT has received some attention in the literature, the data investigating the relationship between changes in CRT and changes in vision are sparse for BRVO and CRVO.
In the treatment of ME, reductions in CRT often accompany improvements in best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and are considered to be an important measure of treatment efficacy.5–9 In the Global Evaluation of implaNtable dExamethasone in retinal Vein occlusion with macular edemA (GENEVA) trials, treatment with dexamethasone intravitreal implant 0.7 mg (DEX implant 0.7 mg; OZURDEX, Allergan plc, Irvine, CA) for ME after BRVO or CRVO produced significantly greater improvements in BCVA and CRT than did sham treatment.5,10 A post hoc analysis found that these clinical improvements were accompanied by significant changes in a resolution of intraretinal hemorrhage (as measured by color fundus photographs) and less progression of neovascularization in eyes treated with the DEX implant 0.7 mg than in eyes treated with sham.11 The relationship between these various anatomic changes and improvements in BCVA is not clear.
In this report, we present a post hoc analysis of the relationship between the changes in CRT and BCVA in the GENEVA trials.
These analyses were based on data collected from two identical, prospective, multicenter phase 3 clinical trials of the safety and efficacy of DEX implant in the treatment of ME associated with BRVO or CRVO (GENEVA trials). Each trial enrolled patients with BRVO or CRVO. Each trial consisted of a 6-month, randomized, sham-controlled, parallel-group, double-masked phase followed by a 6-month, open-label extension. Both trials were conducted in compliance with regulatory obligations, the Declaration of Helsinki, and the institutional review board and informed consent regulations at each investigational site. The protocol for these studies has been described in detail previously5,10 and is summarized briefly below.
These studies enrolled adult patients who had decreased visual acuity as a result of clinically detectable ME associated with BRVO or CRVO. Disease duration was required to be between 6 weeks and 12 months in patients with BRVO and between 6 weeks and 9 months in patients with CRVO. Baseline BCVA was required to be between 34 letters (20/200) and 68 letters (20/50) in the study eye. Retinal thickness in the central 1-mm macula subfield (as measured by time-domain OCT [OCT1 or OCT3 Systems, Carl Zeiss Meditec, Dublin, CA]) was required to be ≥300 μm in the study eye. Most (97.8%) of the patients were evaluated using OCT3 (“Stratus OCT”), and each patient was followed using the same OCT machine at each study visit.
At baseline, study eyes (1 per patient) were randomized to either a sham procedure or treatment with DEX implant 0.7 mg or 0.35 mg. All patients who completed this 6-month, double-masked, sham-controlled phase were eligible for treatment with DEX implant 0.7 mg at the start of the open-label phase if BCVA was <84 letters (20/20) or CRT was >250 μm in the central 1-mm macula subfield and if, in the investigator's opinion, the procedure would not put the patient at significant risk. Patients receiving sham treatment were prepared in exactly the same manner as those receiving a DEX implant, but a needleless applicator was used to simulate injection and pressure on the sclera.
The analyses in the present report included all patients randomized to either the DEX implant 0.7-mg group or the sham group during the 6-month, double-masked phase (6-month intent-to-treat population). Data from patients in the DEX implant 0.35-mg treatment group were not included in this analysis because this formulation is not commercially available, and the results would therefore not be clinically relevant.
Outcome measures for both GENEVA trials included BCVA and CRT in the study eye. The CRT was obtained using OCT on each patient at baseline, Day 90, and Day 180 in the randomized treatment phase. Fast macular volume scans and high-resolution cross-hair scans were obtained by certified technicians and submitted to the reading center as paper printouts. At the reading center, scans were checked for centration and boundary line errors. If the CRT from the OCT analysis software was considered incorrect by the graders, then a manual caliper measurement of the center of the macula was obtained from the Fast Mac scan that the grader believed gave the best view of the fovea, and this value was substituted for the machine-reported CRT for analysis purposes. Approximately 30% of scans required manual grading. Less than 2% of scans were considered ungradable because of low signal strength or severe artifacts.
In this study, the statistical analyses for the evaluation of the relationship between CRT and BCVA were based on the observed data collected during the 6-month, double-masked, and randomized phase. The relationship between changes in CRT and BCVA was examined by Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple linear regression analyses. The regression models included the treatment group (DEX implant 0.7 mg or sham), duration of disease (in 2-month intervals), baseline BCVA, baseline CRT, age, and RVO diagnosis (BRVO vs. CRVO) as the independent variables. Treatment by covariate interactions was evaluated by adding the interaction term to the regression model. Stepwise regression analysis was performed to select independent predictors for BCVA change. The R-square statistic (R2) from the linear regression analysis is reported as a measure of the proportion of variability in BCVA change that was explained by the variables included in the model. The relationship between change in CRT and the percentage of patients achieving at least a 15-letter improvement in BCVA was evaluated using logistic regression models, which included the same independent variables as used in the multiple linear regression analysis. The primary objective of these analyses was to evaluate the predictive effect of baseline CRT and changes from baseline CRT on change from baseline in BCVA.
For the analysis of baseline characteristics, group comparisons were performed using the chi-square test for categorical variables and the 2-sample t-test for continuous variables.
All statistical tests were 2-sided and performed at the α = 0.05 significance level. Statistical analyses were completed using the SAS commercial software (version 9.2; SAS Institute Inc, Cary, NC).
Patients were recruited into the GENEVA trials between November 2004 and March 2008. At baseline, a total of 1,267 eyes were randomized to treatment (6-month study population) with either DEX implant 0.7 mg (n = 427), DEX implant 0.35 mg (n = 414), or a sham procedure (n = 426). Of these, approximately 94% (1,196) completed Day 180 of the study (initial treatment phase): 403 from the DEX implant 0.7-mg group, 395 from the DEX implant 0.35-mg group, and 398 from the sham group. This study will focus on only those eyes treated with DEX implant 0.7 mg or sham at baseline. Retinal thickness measurements at both baseline and Day 180 were available for 420/427 eyes in the DEX implant 0.7-mg group and 420/426 eyes in the sham group.
The baseline characteristics for the subset of the study population for which retinal thickness measurements were available are summarized in Table 1. In both treatment groups, the mean age was approximately 64 years and most patients enrolled were white. Approximately twice as many patients with BRVO as CRVO were enrolled in this study. Patients with BRVO had slightly higher mean visual acuity and markedly thinner retinas at baseline than did patients with CRVO, but there were no statistically significant differences between the DEX implant group and the sham group for any demographic or baseline characteristic (Table 1).
Relationship Between CRT and BCVA
A univariate analysis found that there was a modest but statistically significant negative relationship between changes in CRT and BCVA at both Day 90 and Day 180 in both the DEX implant group (Day 90 Pearson correlation coefficient: −0.23 and P < 0.001; Day 180 correlation coefficient: −0.34 and P < 0.001) and the sham treatment group (Day 90 correlation coefficient: −0.25 and P < 0.001; Day 180 correlation coefficient: −0.27 and P < 0.001). Note that the correlation coefficients were similar regardless of the treatment group or the study visit. Similar results were obtained using the Spearman correlation coefficient (not shown).
A multiple linear regression analysis confirmed that CRT decrease was a significant predictor of mean BCVA improvement at Days 90 and 180 after adjusting for the confounding effect of treatment, duration of disease, baseline BCVA, baseline CRT, age, and RVO diagnosis (Table 2). Note that at Day 90, the parameter estimate for CRT decrease versus mean BCVA increase (in letters) was approximately 2.7 letters/100 μm (95% CI = 2.3–3.2; P < 0.001). This parameter estimate was similar at Day 180 (3.3 letters/100 μm; 95% CI = 2.9–3.8; P < 0.001). A separate analysis found that CRT decrease was also a significant predictor of the likelihood of achieving ≥15 letters of improvement in BCVA (Table 2). The R2 from the multiple regression analysis was 30% at Day 90 and 35% at Day 180. Similar results were obtained when the analysis was repeated using log-transformed baseline CRT data (not shown).
Several other baseline characteristics, including age, baseline BCVA, baseline CRT, and type of RVO, were also significantly associated with improvements in BCVA. Stepwise regression indicated that reduction in OCT was the first significant predictor of mean improvement in BCVA, followed by baseline CRT, baseline BCVA, age, treatment group, and then RVO type. A similar relationship between CRT and BCVA was found when the data were analyzed for each treatment group (DEX implant or sham) separately (data not shown). The lack of an effect of treatment on the relationship between BCVA and CRT suggests that similar increases in BCVA would be expected with a given CRT reduction regardless of whether the reduction in CRT was due to treatment or spontaneous improvement. It should be noted, however, that when the regression analysis was performed without CRT reduction in the model, the effect of treatment on the change from baseline BCVA was highly significant (P < 0.001) at both Day 90 and Day 180. The observed CRT reduction was a direct result of treatment; therefore, treatment was a stronger predictor of BCVA improvement than the extent of reduction in retina thickness. However, the treatment effect (DEX implant vs. sham) was largely reflected in the CRT decrease when this variable was included in the model.
A subgroup analysis for those eyes that achieved anatomic treatment success (defined as a CRT of ≤250 μm) was also performed (Figure 1; see Table, Supplemental Digital Content 1, http://links.lww.com/IAE/A405). In this analysis, improvements in BCVA at Days 90 and 180 were evaluated for eyes that achieved a CRT ≤250 μm at Day 90 that was maintained through Day 180 (persistent CRT responders), eyes that achieved a CRT ≤250 μm at Day 90 that was not maintained through Day 180 (early CRT responders), eyes that only achieved CRT ≤250 μm at Day 180 (delayed CRT responders), and eyes that never achieved CRT ≤250 μm (CRT nonresponders). As can be seen in Figure 1, the greatest and most sustained improvements in BCVA (across both treatment groups) occurred in the persistent CRT responders (mean improvement of 14 letters at Day 180; 49% with a 15-letter gain), followed closely by the delayed CRT responders (12-letter gain at Day 180; 43% with a 15-letter gain). Visual improvement was transient in those eyes with an early and transient CRT improvement and very poor in the CRT nonresponders (2-letter gain at Day 180; 13% with a 15-letter gain). It should be noted that the percentage of eyes achieving a BCVA improvement of ≥15 letters was nearly as great among delayed CRT responders as in persistent CRT responders, even though the delayed CRT responders did not achieve CRT ≤250 μm until after Day 90.
Although improvements in BCVA are often accompanied by improvements in CRT,5–10 the relationship between changes in BCVA and CRT is poorly understood. The multifactorial nature of increased retinal thickness in ME results in a generally weak correlation between visual acuity and retinal thickness (regardless of the underlying disease etiology).12–14 Nevertheless, CRT as measured by OCT is the most readily available parameter for exploring some of the structure/function interrelationships in clinical trials of ME. This analysis of data from the GENEVA trials demonstrated that the greatest improvements in BCVA were seen in those eyes that achieved and maintained the greatest improvements in CRT. Importantly, the relationship between changes in CRT and BCVA appeared to be similar regardless of whether the changes occurred as a result of treatment or the result of spontaneous improvement.
The correlation between absolute changes in CRT and BCVA was found to be statistically significant, but only moderate in strength. The Pearson correlation coefficient was only −0.34 for the DEX implant group and −0.27 for the sham group. In addition, the R2 from the multiple regression analysis was 30% at Day 90 and 35% at Day 180. This suggests that changes in CRT (adjusted for the effect of treatment, duration of disease, baseline BCVA, baseline CRT, age, and RVO diagnosis) can only explain approximately one third of the variation seen in the improvement in BCVA. Other factors were also found to affect improvements in BCVA, but the most significant predictor of BCVA improvement was the change in CRT. The other significant predictors of improvements in BCVA (in order of decreasing significance) were baseline CRT, baseline BCVA, age, treatment group, and then RVO type. The possible contribution of retinal perfusion status was not evaluated in this study. Fluorescein angiography was obtained as part of normal standard of care in the GENEVA trials and not as a study assessment,11 and therefore was available only in a subset of subjects. This made the results unsuitable for inclusion in the regression analyses performed for this study. It is possible that inclusion of variables from fluorescein angiography, such as the area of ischemia or fluorescein leakage, might strengthen the anatomic associations with vision.
It is possible that the modest linear relationship between changes in CRT and BCVA is a result of a complex relationship between CRT and retinal cellular function; changes in CRT may have little effect on cellular function until a certain threshold is achieved. This hypothesis was explored using a responder analysis in which CRT threshold was set at ≤250 μm (based on the clinical experience of the investigators). It was found that the greatest likelihood of achieving a clinically meaningful improvement in vision at Day 180 occurred in those eyes that achieved a CRT ≤250 μm by Day 90 and maintained this CRT through Day 180 (persistent CRT responders; 49% with a 15-letter gain). In contrast, the least likelihood of clinically meaningful improvement (13% with a 15-letter gain) was seen in eyes that never achieved a CRT ≤250 (CRT nonresponders). The difference in the response between persistent CRT responders and CRT nonresponders was statistically significant for mean BCVA, mean change in BCVA, and the percentage of eyes achieving a 15-letter gain regardless of whether all eyes were analyzed together (Figure 1; P ≤ 0.001) or each treatment group was analyzed separately (see Table, Supplemental Digital Content 1, http://links.lww.com/IAE/A405; P ≤ 0.002).
Regardless of the type of analysis performed, the relationship between changes in BCVA and changes in CRT was similar in eyes treated with DEX implant or sham, suggesting that similar improvements in vision may occur in association with any given reduction in CRT regardless of the cause of the CRT improvement.
The mechanism by which increases in CRT due to ME may affect vision is unclear. Metabolic dysfunction, toxic cytokines from inflammatory cells, or mechanical distortion of retinal cells could all interfere with photoreceptor function. Noma et al15 evaluated the relationship between electroretinograms and morphologic findings in eyes with BRVO and ME, and found that both retinal thickness and volume in the temporal region of the retina were significant determinants of electroretinogram findings. The authors suggested that OCT parameters of the temporal region of the retina are associated with postreceptoral cone pathway function in patients with BRVO and ME, but it is not clear how this may relate to the relationship between CRT and BCVA seen in this study.
A limited number of earlier studies have investigated the relationship between visual acuity and CRT, but, as far as we were able to determine, none of these studies investigated the relationship between changes in visual acuity and changes in CRT over time. For example, in the Standard Care vs. COrticosteroid for REtinal Vein Occlusion (SCORE) study (a randomized double-masked comparison of intravitreal triamcinolone with standard of care), baseline retinal thickness was found to be correlated with baseline BCVA (approximately 2 letters BCVA/100 μm retinal thickness in patients with BRVO and approximately 1.5 letters/100 μm in patients with CRVO)16 and to be predictive of improvements in visual acuity after treatment with either intravitreal triamcinolone or standard of care.17 A separate study confirmed a correlation between retinal thickness and BCVA in patients with BRVO and ME, but found that retinal thickness was more closely correlated with retinal sensitivity than with BCVA.12 Neither of these studies, however, analyzed the relationship between changes in BCVA and changes in CRT with time or in response to treatment.
The ability to draw strong conclusions from this study is limited by the post hoc study design and the lack of information about the perfusion status of the study eyes. The strengths of the study include the large study population, the inclusion of both treated and untreated eyes, and the ability to evaluate changes in BCVA and CRT over time. The OCT assessments in this study were obtained from time-domain OCT, which limits the structural information available from the scans. Future studies should examine retinal layer volumes and outer retinal band integrity using more modern OCT instrumentation. This may provide more sensitive indicators of clinically important changes, such as in the retinal vasculature, which might correlate more strongly with visual function than the measurements obtained in this study. It would also be valuable to compare the effect of different therapies (e.g., intravitreal steroids and anti–vascular endothelial growth factor therapies) on signs of retinal and/or retinal vascular damage in an effort to understand the underlying cell biology through a possible differential treatment effect independent of the effect on CRT.
In conclusion, this study demonstrated that there was a significant relationship between changes in CRT and changes in BCVA in eyes with ME after BRVO or CRVO. Although the linear correlation between CRT and BCVA was only modest, the markedly greater improvements in BCVA in CRT responders (decrease in CRT to 250 μm or below) suggest that there may be an important and complex relationship between these parameters that is worthy of further study. It is also important to note that the relationship between CRT and BCVA was similar in eyes that improved in response to treatment and in those that improved spontaneously. This suggests that changes in CRT are a valuable clinical outcome measure that should continue to be investigated, and that therapies that can markedly reduce CRT may also be likely to produce significant improvements in vision.
Amy Lindsay, PhD, provided professional writing assistance (funded by Allergan plc) with the preparation of the manuscript but did not meet authorship criteria. Dr. Lindsay assisted the authors with the drafting of a detailed outline for the manuscript, produced a first draft once all authors had approved the outline, and revised the manuscript repeatedly based on input from all authors.
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Hawkins , M. T., Villagonzalo, K., Sanson, A. V., Toumbourou, J. W., Letcher, P., & Olsson, C. (2012). Associations between positive development in late adolescence and social, health, and behavioral outcomes in young adulthood. Journal of Adult Development, 19, 88-99
Rowland, B., Allan, F., & Toumbourou, J.W. (2012). Association of risky alcohol consumption and accreditation in the ‘Good Sports’ alcohol management programme. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. 66, 684 – 690
Rowland, B., Allan, F., & Toumbourou, J.W. (2012). Drink-driving in Community Sports Clubs: Adopting the Good Sports Alcohol Management Program. Accident Analysis & Prevention. 48, 264– 270
Choi, Y., He, M., Herrenkohl, T.I., & Catalano, R.F., Toumbourou, J.W. (2012). Multiple identification and risks: Examination of peer factors across multiracial and single-race youth. Journal of Youth and Adolescence. 41, 847–862
Kelly, A. B., O'Flaherty, M., Toumbourou, J. W., Homel, R., Patton, G. C., White, A., & Williams, J. (2012). The influence of families on early adolescent school connectedness: Evidence that this association varies with adolescent involvement in peer drinking networks. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 40., 437–447
Hemphill, S. A., Kotevski, A., Tollit, M., Smith, R., Herrenkohl, T. I., Toumbourou, J. W., & Catalano, R. F. (2012). Longitudinal predictors of cyber and traditional bullying perpetration in Australian secondary school students. Journal of Adolescent Health, 51(1), 59-65
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McKenzie, D. P., Toumbourou, J. W., Forbes, A. B., Mackinnon, A. J., McMorris, B. J., Catalano, R. F., & Patton, G. C. (2011). Predicting future depression in adolescents using the Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire: A two-nation study. Journal of Affective Disorders, 134, 151-159.
Miller, Peter, Sonderlund, Anders, Coomber, Kerri, Palmer, Darren, Gillham, Karen, Tindall, Jennifer and Wiggers, John (2011) Do community interventions targeting licensed venues reduce alcohol-related emergency department presentations? Drug and alcohol review, vol. 30, 546-553.
Hemphill, S.A., Heerde, J.A., Herrenkohl, T.I., Patton, G.C. Toumbourou, J.W., Catalano, R.F. (2011) Risk and protective factors for adolescent substance use in Washington State, the United States and Victoria, Australia: A longitudinal study. Journal of Adolescent Health. 49, 312–320.


Don’t answer the foolish arguments of fools, or you will become as foolish as they are.
He prided himself on being the devil’s advocate and pushing people’s buttons just to see them get riled up. When I first met him, I thought he genuinely wanted to engage in spiritual discourse regarding the things of God. I quickly grew frustrated having these discussions with him because it seemed like I was the only one trying to learn from our chats. He would not necessarily argue what he thought or believed, but he always argued the opposing point under the guise of trying to make people think. What he ended up doing time and again was creating arguments and turning friends into enemies. Time that could have been spent growing in spiritual maturity was spent causing division and foolish arguments.
If we look at our time here as a precious and finite commodity, which it is, then we will want to use it as effectively as possible for the kingdom of God while we have it. Part of that equation is doing our best to make sure that our time is spent growing in the Spirit. Of course our Father in heaven wants us to grow in wisdom and knowledge instead of regressing into foolishness. For that reason, He gives us discernment to know when foolishness is influencing us more than our wisdom is influencing the fool. The purpose of our telling others about our faith and our Lord is to bring them closer to him. When the conversation turns and makes us speak outside of the wisdom and knowledge God gives us, then we must be discerning enough to end it there.
Everything God does serves a purpose; no effort is wasted. As we walk the Earth desiring to please him we also should be focused on being as spiritually efficient as He is. The only way that we can do this is to discern when it is wise to speak and when it is wise to shut down the conversation. It is a matter of understanding when God wants us to engage someone regarding things of the Spirit because we have an opportunity to add value to that person. When we do this in line with the Spirit we will see that our audience grows and we grow as well. That is the goal. Father, help us to discern when we are being pulled into foolish arguments that we would know to simply walk away.


Alain GantGuestOctober 27, 2020 at 4:58 pmPost count: 8472
The Boy Bosses of Naples
by Roberto Saviano
- Format: paperback, 368 pages
- ISBN: 9781250774088 (125077408X)
- Language: english
- Release date: March 17, 2020
- Author: Roberto Saviano
- Publisher: Picador
About The Book
In Gomorrah, a New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year, Roberto Saviano revealed a true, devastating portrait of Naples, Italy under the rule of the Camorra, a crime organization more powerful and violent than the Mafia. In The Piranhas, the international bestselling author returns to his home city with a novel of gang warfare and a young man’s dark desire to rise to the top of Naples’s underworld.
Nicolas Fiorillo is a brilliant and ambitious fifteen-year-old from the slums of Naples, eager to make his mark and to acquire power and the money that comes with it. With nine friends, he sets out to create a new paranza, or gang. Together they roam the streets on their motorscooters, learning how to break into the network of small-time hoodlums that controls drug-dealing and petty crime in the city. They learn to cheat and to steal, to shoot semiautomatic pistols and AK-47s. Slowly they begin to wrest control of the neighborhoods from enemy gangs while making alliances with failing old bosses.
Nicolas’s strategic brilliance is prodigious, and his cohorts’ rapid rise and envelopment in the ensuing maelstrom of violence and death is riveting and impossible to turn away from. In The Piranhas, Roberto Saviano imagines the lurid glamour of Nicolas’s story with all the vividness and insight that made Gomorrah a worldwide sensation.
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Shiur #81: The Prophecies of Amos: BACK TO BASICS REBUKE (8:4-8): PISHEI YISRAEL REVISITED
Dedicated in loving memory of
Dr. Saul G. Agus, z”l
Whose 5th Yahrzeit is Iyar 3
Marcelle A. Agus and
the Agus/ Fox Families
Section 2: Verse 8
In last week’s shiur, we began our study of Amos’s pronouncement, invoking God’s oath with the anticipated message of how the wealthy merchants of Shomeron would be punished. We analyzed the notion of God’s swearing and the various formulae used to express that in Tanakh. We also looked at the phrase “geon Ya’akov” as used twice in Amos, once in Nachum and, perhaps most famously, once in Tehillim (Ch. 47).
All of that, comprising verse 7, is intended to introduce the punishment; we will now turn our attention to the final verse in this set (verse 8) which explicates that sentence.
Ha-al zot lo tirgaz ha-aretz
Will the land not tremble for this?
The opening hei is clearly the rhetorical hei which turns the phrase into a question, as translated here. The commentators, modern as well as medieval, understand zot to refer back to the venal and greedy attitudes of the merchants outlined above in verses 4-6, along with their actual exploitation of the poor which is the outgrowth of those wicked traits. This is, however, a bit difficult, as the singular zot refers to one thing, not a list; we would expect eileh, as this phrase appears three times in Yirmeyahu (see also Yeshayahu 57:6, 64:11):
Ha-al eileh lo efkod [bam] ne’um Hashem, im be-goi asher ka-zeh, lo titnakem nafshi?
Shall I not punish for these things? says the Lord; and will My soul not be avenged on a nation such as this? (5:9, 29; 9:8, with bam)
In other words, it is the norm in prophetic rhetoric, when moving from a multi-pronged accusation to the pronouncement of Divine sentence, to employ eileh as a reference to the entire list of crimes. Why does Amos use zot here? There is no matching instance of ha-al zot anywhere in Tanakh.
There is one approach that is more or less consistent with the mainstream interpretive strategy. Rashi comments: “Is this sin (avon zeh) not enough to cause the land to be destroyed?” Similarly, Radak states: “Will the land not tremble/ quake for this evil (ha-ra’a ha-zot)?” Although Radak hews a bit closer to the language of the text (maintaining the feminine zot), they both seem to be sensitive to this problem and address it by turning the list of the evil plans of the merchants into one consummate evil. This is, however, inconsistent with the passages cited above, in which the prophet lists a number of manifestations of one crime (in Yirmeyahu 9, for instance, dishonesty) and yet refers to them with the plural eileh.
I’d like to propose that the zot in our verse is not the crime or criminal behaviors, but rather the oath which introduces the punishment. God has sworn that He will not forget their deeds — and isn’t that terrifying and ominous oath enough to shake the earth? This also explains the use of the feminine zot (in agreement with shevua).
The root reish-gimmel-zayin appears over fifty times in Tanakh, sometimes meaning “quake” (as in Shemot 15:14) and, less frequently, “anger” (e.g. I Shemuel 28:15). Coming at our phrase from another angle, there are several terms employed by the text to denote an “earthquake”. Amos’s prophetic agency is dated to “shenatayim lifnei ha-ra’ash,” “two years before the earthquake” (1:1). The biblical descriptions of “dancing” mountains, as in Tehillim 29 and 114, as well as Tehillim 68 and Shoftim 5, utilize various terms. However, a limited group of texts utilize these two words, rogez and eretz, together to indicate an earthquake. Thirteen passages fit into this category, of which only six appear in the prophetic canon. A brief survey of these passages may shed light on Amos’s rhetorical strategy here.
Before looking at the usage in the works of the literary prophets, let us briefly note the two instances in Sefer Shemuel. The second one (II Shemuel 22:8: Tehillim 18:8) is poetic and not part of our discussion here.
As for the first (I Shemuel 14:15) it appears in the prose report of the confusion that overtakes the Pelishti camp when Yonatan and his weapons-carrier first attack the lackadaisical guards of the base camp. The image of the earth quaking as a way of describing a military camp in turmoil and havoc cuts in two directions. First of all, the physical/ auditory sense of quaking is a piece of literary genius. From the perspective of Shaul and his cohorts looking down at the “trembling camp” from a nearby mountaintop, the noise and tumult could easily seem to have the same effect as an earthquake. Added to that, however, is the internal dynamic in the camp: anger, confusion and terror, all of which may be summed up with the word rogez (see, respectively, II Melakhim 19:28 [= Yeshayahu 37:29], Tehillim 99:1 and Iyov 3:26). Using the phrase “vatirgaz ha-aretz” is a delightful merging of the external perception and the internal reality. This may set the tone for the use of this uncommon phrase in prophetic speech.
Indeed, the first use of this imagery in Yeshayahu is also illuminative, even though it doesn’t directly use rogez with eretz:
Al-kein shamayim argiz ve-tirash ha-aretz mimekomah be-evrat Hashem Tzevaot u-vyom charon apo.
Therefore I will make the heavens to tremble and the earth will be shaken out of its place at the wrath of the Lord of hosts and for the day of His fierce anger.
The earth’s shaking is a function of God’s anger — hence both senses of rogez again come together. Perhaps the text will only use this phrase to denote an earthquake when it is both the geo as well as the theo (so to speak) that shakes.
One last note about this phrase. Amos opens up with the rhetorical hei, as noted above, which turns the negating lo into a rhetorical question; an expanded form of “Ha-lo,” “Is it not?” It may be significant that Amos does not use the rhetorical lo often; aside from one more use at the opening of his penultimate prophetic sequence (9:7), he uses it exclusively in the justification (apologia) for his opening oracle against Yisrael. He offers his argument for presenting his prophecy as a series of rhetorical questions, in Chapter 3:
(3) Will two walk together if they have not previously agreed?
(4) Will a lion roar in the forest, if it has no prey? Will a young lion give forth its voice out of its den, if it has taken nothing?
(5) Will a bird fall in a snare upon the earth if there is no lure in it? Will a snare spring up from the ground if there is nothing taken there?
(6) Will a shofar be blown in a city and the people not tremble? Will evil befall a city, if the Lord has not caused it?
(7) For the Lord God will do nothing if he has not revealed His counsel to His servants the prophets.
(8) The lion has roared, who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken, who can but prophesy?
In Hebrew, the final verse is:
Aryei sha’ag, mi lo yira? A-D-N-Y Hashem dibber mi lo yinavei?
I draw our attention to this because, as we will see further on, it seems that this climactic line of Amos’s rebuke not only evokes his opening series of prophecies, it may, in a sense, resolve those introductory pronouncements. In this sense, then, the return to the rhetorical lo may intensify and underscore the literary return to the beginning, as we will develop in the next section.
Ve’aval kol yosheiv bah
And everyone who dwells there mourn?
AVEILUT IN PROPHETIC ORATORY
Eivel, both as noun and verb, appear thirty-two times in prophetic rhetoric. Before comparing Amos’s use with that of his fellows and literary disciples, it is of interest to note how this use plays out in Yeshayahu. Of the ten instances in Yeshayahu, the first five refer either to a specific group (the fishermen in 19:8), to the doorways of homes whose owners have been killed (3:26), the agricultural yield (the wine in 24:7) or the land itself (24:4, 33:9). In other words, (with the exception of the fishermen), people don’t mourn, things do.
This stands in stark contrast to the five instances in Trito-Isaiah, where the mourners are people — not specific guilds, but the people who mourn the loss of Yerushalayim and, presumably, can now rejoice in her rebuilding (57:18, 60:20, 61:2, 61:3 [twice] and 66:10). In much the same way, Yirmeyahu’s invocations of aveilut overwhelmingly employ the metaphoric mode (the land, the maiden, etc. mourning) until his last use of the word. In his beautiful vision of returning to Zion, he prophesizes:
Az tismach betula be-machol u-vachurim u-zkenim yachdav, vehafakhti evlam le-sasson venichamtim vesimachtim mi-ygonam
Then shall the maiden rejoice in the dance and the young men and the old together; for I will turn their mourning into joy and will comfort them and make them rejoice from their sorrow. (31:12)
We get the sense that until the destruction of Yerushalayim in 586 BCE, aveilut is seen as the province of the individual and provides an imagery that could be employed with land, crops, houses and so forth to express the aftermath of devastation. With the anticipation of a return to Yerushalayim on the part of a mourning nation, aveilut became much more “real” and the models slip away in favor of speaking to a bereaved people and comforting them in the midst of their national mourning.
In Hoshea, again the land mourns (4:3), but the devotees of Ba’al are also depicted as mourning (10:5). In Yoel, in an echo of Hoshea, the land mourns (1:10) but the priests of the Temple also mourn (1:9) — seemingly because of the paucity of gifts being brought as offerings, decreasing their food supplies. Besides Amos, there is one more use of eivel in the oratory of the prophets. In his opening prophecy, Mikha (1:9) describes himself as walking around disheveled, “mourning like the ostriches,” in response to the anticipated destruction of Shomeron at the hands of the Assyrians.
We see that in the early era of prophecy, aveilut is not, by and large, used (at least within oratory) in reference to mourning as we know it; rather, it is a poetic image used to evoke images of devastation and ruin and the accompanying solitude (e.g. the imagery of Yerushalayim in Eikha 1).
Here is where Amos seems to stand out with his rhetorical bravery and brilliance. Alone among his contemporaries, he references eivel as the personal and communal experience of mourning, without resorting to the imagery of his colleagues.
The first time that Amos invokes “mourning” is in his anthemic opening:
Vayomar: Hashem mi-Tziyon yishag u-miYrushalayim yitein kolo
Ve’avelu ne’ot ha-ro’im veyaveish rosh ha-Carmel
He would say: The Lord roars from Zion and gives His voice forth from Jerusalem;
And the pastures of the shepherds become sere and the top of the Carmel is dried up. (1:2)
In an inversion of the usage of Yeshayahu, Hoshea and Yoel, Amos uses “mourning” as a metaphor for the withered land.
In 5:16, Amos issues a call for public mourning, summoning the farmer (who, we would expect, should be rejoicing at his harvest) to come and mourn:
Vekare’u ikar el eivel
In the verse that almost immediately follows ours, Amos uses eivel twice:
Vehafakhti chageikhem le-eivel ve-khol shireikhem le-kina
Veha’aleiti al kol motnayim sak ve-al kol rosh korcha
Vesamtiha ke-eivel yachid ve-acharitah ke-yom mar.
And I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation;
And I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins and baldness upon every head;
And I will make it as the mourning for an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day. (8:10)
Here, Amos uses personal mourning, both in feeling and in ritual, as the reference point for the national mood after the impending destruction. Again, Amos relies on a very real awareness of mourning among his listeners and uses it to convey the fate of the nation.
His final mention brings together the beginning of the book and our verse:
VA-D-N-Y Hashem ha-Tzevaot ha-nogeia ba-aretz vatamog, ve’avelu kol yoshevei vah; ve’alta kha-y’or kulah veshake’a ki-y’or Mitzrayim
For A-D-N-Y, the God of hosts, is He that touches the land and it melts and all that dwell there mourn; and it rises up wholly like the river, and sinks again, like the river of Egypt. (9:5)
BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER
As mentioned above, the earthquake motif as well as the “mourning” appear in Amos’s opening line, and again here. Before addressing this directly, let us consider one note about the schema of the book, which we will more fully explore in one of the appendices when we conclude our textual study of the book.
We do not know if Amos presented his words to a single audience, all at one time — or if what we have before us is a collection of prophecies given sometime during the two years preceding the great earthquake of the mid-8th century BCE. Is it possible that Amos’s entire oeuvre was presented at the Beit El sanctuary? This is not likely, but possible.
What is clear, however, is that once Amos — or his scribe/ student — puts his words into a collection, there is an additional layer of consideration, besides the immediate impact on the ears of his audience. As we have discussed a few times, prophecies committed to writing and canonized are understood to have long-lasting impact and messages that transcend the immediate demographic, economic, political and social realities of the time.
Once the collection is put together, there is a beginning — the first two verses of the book make this deliberation abundantly clear — as well as a vision of message.
The opening words, with the awareness of the coming and the roaring of God from Yehuda which withers the lush grasslands of Shomeron — all of these remain at the forefront (or at least in the background) of the reader’s consciousness. The reader expects the earthquake, but Amos has more to say. He isn’t just speaking to his audience about their immediate future; he has prophecies about “the end of days” and will even conclude with words of consolation and solace. To that end, Amos brings his book to a faux ending right here, resolving the tension of the earthquake and re-introducing the mourning, not as the mourning of pastures (as in 1:2) but the anticipated mourning of the populace in the aftermath of the earthquake — which is nigh. Add to this mix the use of the rhetorical lo in our verse, which brings the reader’s attention back the summary message after the first set of oracles, and the envelope structure of the book is all but sealed.
We can even see, beginning in the next verse, a shift from Divine judgment to near-apocalyptic imagery, which we will begin studying in the next shiur.
Ve’alta kha-or kulah
Indeed, it will rise up wholly like the river;
The previous clause indicates that the subject here is the Land. The image of the Nile river, overflowing during its high season and then receding, is a powerful one — but for whom? Are we to assume that a significant portion of Amos’s audience has visited Egypt? Or have they heard of the mighty Nile’s tendency to overflow its banks? We would have to assume the affirmative (and likely the latter explanation); otherwise, this imagery would fall flat in his audience’s ears.
The picture of the earth buckling in this fashion is one that is hard to picture; for those of us who have lived through several powerful earthquakes in southern California, it is actually quite relatable and, at that, not a little terrifying.
Most of the commentators, modern as well as medieval, assume kha-or to be a form (variant? scribal error?) of ki-y’or. Rashi and R. Yosef Kara cite another possibility, that it really means “light” and refers to a cloud (based on Iyov 37:11). R. Yosef Kara explains that the referent is a dark cloud that carries heavy amounts of rainwater.
And it will be troubled and sink again,
Nigresha, based on the root gimmel-reish-shin, is used elsewhere in Tanakh to refer to the “washing away” of mud and detritus in a storm (see Yeshayahu 57:20).
Like the river of Egypt.
Again, we have to assume that the people at least know about the tumultuous behavior of the Nile, if only by hearsay and reputation.
We have completed our study of this rebuke, with its attendant oath and pronouncement. In next week’s shiur, we will begin the “longer range” prophecies of Amos, beginning with verse 9.
Chag Atzma’ut Sameiach!
72 Years Young — and Forever Young!


Mel Odom’s Forgotten Realms trilogy has been released as a new three in one paperback, Threat from the Sea. This book combines Rising Tide, Under Fallen Stars and The Sea Devil’s Eye. I personally know these are still in very high demand on Interlibrary Loan and I’m glad to see this trilogy come out. Purchased myself a copy at the Red Dirt Book Festival.
Barnes & Noble reviews, and ordering information. Look at the reviews on Amazon for Rising Tide. That should be enough to tempt you. I’m not a “Realms” game person, wouldn’t have a clue, but I like the fantasy world novels, and authors like Mel Odom and R.A. Salvatore .
If you like adventure, sea settings, or just good reads pick up this volume and you’ve got 3 times the enjoyment. Also good purchase for a Young Adult on your Christmas list.
Just the facts:
Author: Mel Odom
Title: Threat from the Sea (includes Rising Tide, Under Fallen Stars and The Sea Devil’s Eye)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Got my copy at the Red Dirt Book Festival, ISBN: 978-0-7869-5055-3


From the curiosity of the elephant's child, to the crab who played with the sea, from the ingenious invention of the alphabet, to how the rhinoceros got its wrinkled skin, these are stories of strange happenings in the High and Far-Off Times.
Kipling's own drawings, with their long, funny captions, illustrate his hilarious explanations of How the Camel Got His Hump, How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin, How the Armadillo Happened, and other animal How's. He began inventing these stories in his American wife's hometown of Brattleboro, Vermont, to amuse his eldest daughter--and they have served ever since as a source of laughter for children everywhere.
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Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
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The influence of post deposition annealing (PDA) temperatures on electrical characteristics of Al2O3/InSb metal-oxide-semiconductor capacitor (MOSCAP) structures is investigated. Low frequency C-V responses with strong inversion behavior in the whole range of measured frequency (100 Hz-1 MHz) are observed, indicating very short minority carrier response time in InSb. The PDA temperature of 300oC and above would result in the reduction of maximum capacitance. At the PDA temperature of above 300oC the C-V hysteresis, frequency dispersion and stretch out increases significantly, indicating the degradation of the MOSCAP structures. The degradation might relate to the interdiffusion between Al2O3 and InSb during thermal steps.


The rising atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) should stimulate ecosystem productivity, but to what extent is highly uncertain, particularly when combined with changing temperature and precipitation1. Ecosystem response to CO2 is complicated by biogeochemical feedbacks2 but must be understood if carbon storage and associated dampening of climate warming are to be predicted3. Feedbacks through the hydrological cycle are particularly important4 and the physiology is well known; elevated CO2 reduces stomatal conductance and increases plant water use efficiency (the amount of water required to produce a unit of plant dry matter)5. The CO2 response should consequently be strongest when water is limiting6; although this has been shown in some experiments7, it is absent from many8,9,10,11. Here we show that large annual variation in the stimulation of above-ground biomass by elevated CO2 in a mixed C3/C4 temperate grassland can be predicted accurately using seasonal rainfall totals; summer rainfall had a positive effect but autumn and spring rainfall had negative effects on the CO2 response. Thus, the elevated CO2 effect mainly depended upon the balance between summer and autumn/spring rainfall. This is partly because high rainfall during cool, moist seasons leads to nitrogen limitation, reducing or even preventing biomass stimulation by elevated CO2. Importantly, the prediction held whether plots were warmed by 2 °C or left unwarmed, and was similar for C3 plants and total biomass, allowing us to make a powerful generalization about ecosystem responses to elevated CO2. This new insight is particularly valuable because climate projections predict large changes in the timing of rainfall, even where annual totals remain static12. Our findings will help resolve apparent differences in the outcomes of CO2 experiments and improve the formulation and interpretation of models that are insensitive to differences in the seasonal effects of rainfall on the CO2 response7,13,14.
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Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Climate Change 2007 – The Physical Science Basis: Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC (eds Solomon, S. et al.) (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007)
Reich, P. B. & Hobbie, S. E. Decade-long soil nitrogen constraint on the CO2 fertilization of plant biomass. Nature Clim. Change 3, 278–282 (2013)
Sokolov, A. P. et al. Consequences of considering carbon-nitrogen interactions on the feedbacks between climate and the terrestrial carbon cycle. J. Clim. 21, 3776–3796 (2008)
Morgan, J. A. et al. C4 grasses prosper as carbon dioxide eliminates desiccation in warmed semi-arid grassland. Nature 476, 202–205 (2011)
Leakey, A. D. B. et al. Elevated CO2 effects on plant carbon, nitrogen, and water relations: six important lessons from FACE. J. Exp. Bot. 60, 2859–2876 (2009)
McMurtrie, R. E. et al. Why is plant-growth response to elevated CO2 amplified when water is limiting, but reduced when nitrogen is limiting? A growth-optimisation hypothesis. Funct. Plant Biol. 35, 521–534 (2008)
Morgan, J. A. et al. Water relations in grassland and desert ecosystems exposed to elevated atmospheric CO2 . Oecologia 140, 11–25 (2004)
Derner, J. D. et al. Above- and below-ground responses of C3–C4 species mixtures to elevated CO2 and soil water availability. Glob. Change Biol. 9, 452–460 (2003)
Dukes, J. S. et al. Responses of grassland production to single and multiple global environmental changes. PLoS Biol. 3, 1829–1837 (2005)
Grunzweig, J. M. & Korner, C. Growth, water and nitrogen relations in grassland model ecosystems of the semi-arid Negev of Israel exposed to elevated CO2 . Oecologia 128, 251–262 (2001)
Marissink, M., Pettersson, R. & Sindhoj, E. Above-ground plant production under elevated carbon dioxide in a Swedish semi-natural grassland. Agric. Ecosyst. Environ. 93, 107–120 (2002)
Singh, D., Tsiang, M., Rajaratnam, B. & Diffenbaugh, N. S. Precipitation extremes over the continental United States in a transient, high-resolution, ensemble climate model experiment. J. Geophys. Res. D 118, 7063–7086 (2013)
De Kauwe, M. G. et al. Forest water use and water use efficiency at elevated CO2: a model-data intercomparison at two contrasting temperate forest FACE sites. Glob. Change Biol. 19, 1759–1779 (2013)
Piao, S. et al. Evaluation of terrestrial carbon cycle models for their response to climate variability and to CO2 trends. Glob. Change Biol. 19, 2117–2132 (2013)
Peters, G. P. et al. The challenge to keep global warming below 2 °C. Nature Clim. Change 3, 4–6 (2013)
Le Quere, C. et al. Trends in the sources and sinks of carbon dioxide. Nature Geosci. 2, 831–836 (2009)
Matthews, H. D. Implications of CO2 fertilization for future climate change in a coupled climate-carbon model. Glob. Change Biol. 13, 1068–1078 (2007)
Körner, C., Morgan, J. & Norby, R. in Terrestrial Ecosystems in a Changing World Global Change — The IGBP Series (eds Canadell J. G ., Pataki, D. E. & Pitelka, L. F. ) Ch. 2, 9–21 (Springer, 2007)
Reich, P. B., Hungate, B. A. & Luo, Y. Q. Carbon-nitrogen interactions in terrestrial ecosystems in response to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 37, 611–636 (2006)
Norby, R. J. & Zak, D. R. Ecological lessons from Free-Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) experiments. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 42, 181–203 (2011)
Knapp, A. K., Briggs, J. M. & Koelliker, J. K. Frequency and extent of water limitation to primary production in a mesic temperate grassland. Ecosystems 4, 19–28 (2001)
Reich, P. B. et al. Nitrogen limitation constrains sustainability of ecosystem response to CO2 . Nature 440, 922–925 (2006)
Borken, W. & Matzner, E. Reappraisal of drying and wetting effects on C and N mineralization and fluxes in soils. Glob. Change Biol. 15, 808–824 (2009)
Leuzinger, S. & Körner, C. Rainfall distribution is the main driver of runoff under future CO2-concentration in a temperate deciduous forest. Glob. Change Biol. 16, 246–254 (2010)
Hovenden, M. J. et al. The TasFACE climate-change impacts experiment: design and performance of combined elevated CO2 and temperature enhancement in a native Tasmanian grassland. Aust. J. Bot. 54, 1–10 (2006)
Morgan, J. A. et al. CO2 enhances productivity, alters species composition, and reduces digestibility of shortgrass steppe vegetation. Ecol. Appl. 14, 208–219 (2004)
Nowak, R. S., Ellsworth, D. S. & Smith, S. D. Functional responses of plants to elevated atmospheric CO2 – do photosynthetic and productivity data from FACE experiments support early predictions? New Phytol. 162, 253–280 (2004)
Webb, N. P., Stokes, C. J. & Scanlan, J. C. Interacting effects of vegetation, soils and management on the sensitivity of Australian savanna rangelands to climate change. Clim. Change 112, 925–943 (2012)
Polley, H. W. et al. Climate change and North American rangelands: trends, projections, and implications. Rangeland Ecol. Manag. 66, 493–511 (2013)
Soussana, J. F. & Luescher, A. Temperate grasslands and global atmospheric change: a review. Grass Forage Sci. 62, 127–134 (2007)
Osanai, Y. et al. Decomposition and nitrogen transformation rates in a temperate grassland vary among co-occurring plant species. Plant Soil 350, 365–378 (2012)
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This work was supported by grants from the Australian Research Council Discovery Projects scheme. We thank the Australian Department of Defence for access to the Pontville Small Arms Range Complex. J. Vander Schoor, A. Williams, J. Janes, J. Buettel and M. Porter provided technical assistance. R. Mallett assisted with statistical analyses and L. Barmuta provided advice on multimodel inference.
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Extended data figures and tables
Extended Data Figure 1 Seasonal rainfall during the study period compared with seasonal rainfall for the previous 100 years.
The seasonal rainfall during the study period is shown by filled data points, with the mean and interquartile values shown in the box plot. Error bars indicate the fifth and ninety-fifth percentile ranges; crosses indicate maximum and minimum recorded values from the previous 100 years. Historical values were obtained from the nearby Australian Bureau of Meteorology weather station at Bagdad.
Extended Data Figure 2 The impact of seasonal rainfall balance on the elevated CO2 effect on biomass of C3 vegetation only.
The mean (n = 6 replicate plots) annual elevated CO2 effect on above-ground biomass of C3 plants only as a function of the seasonal rainfall balance, which is defined as the difference between summer rainfall and the sum of autumn and spring rainfall. Spring rainfall totals were halved in determining the seasonal rainfall balance as the multimodel estimates indicated that the effect of spring rainfall was approximately half that of the other seasons. Relatively more rainfall in summer gives a positive rainfall balance value, whereas a negative rainfall balance occurs when more rain falls in autumn and spring. The solid line and associated r2 value are the result of a linear regression analysis (F1,6 = 18.1, P < 0.006).
About this article
Cite this article
Hovenden, M., Newton, P. & Wills, K. Seasonal not annual rainfall determines grassland biomass response to carbon dioxide. Nature 511, 583–586 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13281
This article is cited by
Nature Ecology & Evolution (2022)
Close linkages between leaf functional traits and soil and leaf C:N:P stoichiometry under altered precipitation in a desert steppe in northwestern China
Plant Ecology (2022)
Physiology and Molecular Biology of Plants (2021)
Nature Communications (2020)
International Journal of Biometeorology (2020)


Why Write a Literary Analysis?
Literature teaches us about the value of conflict. We experience conflict in our personal relationships and in our interactions with society. Literary analysis helps us recognize the conflict at work in literature, which gives us greater insight into the personal conflicts that we face. In addition, learning how to closely read, analyze, and critique a text is beneficial beyond a literature course in that it improves our writing, reading, and critiquing abilities overall.
How to Write a Literary Analysis
It is important to understand that some conflicts in literature might not always be obvious. Considering how an author addresses conflict via literary techniques can reveal other more complex conflicts or different kinds of conflicts that interact in multiple ways. Analyzing those more complicated elements can help you discover what literature represents about the human experience and condition. With this in mind, consider that your thesis might be a claim about how two pieces make similar representations, or it can show two different points of view on a similar issue.
The literary analysis should be organized around your thesis (argument), which is the controlling idea of the entire essay. In the Week Three assignment, you identified two conflicts and created an initial thesis statement in relation to two of the literary works from the List of Literary Works. In this assignment, you will refine that thesis even further and build on your overall argument utilizing the literary techniques below. Reflect on feedback from your Instructor and peers in previous weeks to help you revise your rough draft into a final paper.
For this literary analysis, write a 1250- to 1600-word essay in which you do the following:
- Revise/develop the thesis from Week Three based on the feedback you have received. Again, the thesis should focus on the conflict(s) you chose to write about. This thesis should provide deeper insight into the possible meanings surrounding the chosen conflict(s) that you see in the chosen literary texts. Throughout your analysis, you must use at least two primary sources and two sources from the Ashford University Library to support your thesis.
- Review and incorporate instructor and classroom feedback on at least one conflict listed in Types of Conflict Found in Literature from two literary works in this course. One of the literary works must be a short story. See the List of Literary Works and Types of Conflict Found in Literature.
- Analyze three literary techniques to help define and draw out the conflict(s) chosen.
- Explain how the texts utilize the literary techniques below to describe the conflict(s).
- Compare and contrast the two texts you chose.
List of Literary Works
For your Literary Analysis, select at least two works from the List of Literary Works that share the same type(s) of conflict(s). Remember, one of them must be a short story. You can either compare two short stories, a short story and a poem, or a short story and a play.
List of Types of Conflicts Found in Literature
In the document Types of Conflicts Found in Literature, you will find a list of possible conflicts to explore in your Literary Analysis. Please note that you must write about one of the conflicts in the list of literary texts provided. To help you better understand each conflict and how it might be apparent, examples from popular culture have been provided. However, please note that your Literary Analysis must not be about popular culture, television, or movies. The examples provided are just that–examples. Please also note that it is possible for a text to have more than one conflict at work. The repeated references to conflicts in The Simpsons provide further context on how multiple conflicts might be present in a single work. Other examples of conflict are also provided.
List of Literary Techniques
In your analysis, address at least three of the literary techniques (as defined in Chapters 2 and 4) listed in the document Literary Techniques, describing their relationships with the conflict(s)–which provide deeper insight into possible meaning(s) found in literature–you are addressing in your paper.
- Topic: Your paper must address two of the texts, at least one of the conflicts, and three of the literary techniques as listed in the guidelines.
- Length: Your paper must be double spaced and 1250 to 1600 words in length (excluding title and references pages).
- Sources: You must utilize at least two primary sources to support your thesis (including the course text) and at least two scholarly sources from the Ashford University Library (at least four sources in total). You may also use other academic sources acquired from other classes that pertain to the literary theme and/or conflict.
- Elements of Academic Writing: Please see the Guide to Writing a Compare/Contrast Essay resource, which provides information regarding how to effectively organize this essay.
- APA: Your assignment must be formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.
- Separate Title Page: Must include a separate title page that lists the following: an original title, your name, date of submission, and the professors name.
- Separate Reference Page: At the end of your paper, include a separate references page that lists all sources utilized for and cited within your analysis.
- Proper Citations: All sources must be properly cited according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center, both within the text of your paper and on the references page.
USED ****** in WEEK 3s DRAFT
“No Name Woman” (Kingston, 1975)
“Sweat” (Hurston, 1926)
WEEK 3***The body of your paper is to be presented in four sections as detailed below.
- Identify the conflict in the two texts you have chosen.
- Identify the similarities and differences in the representation of the conflict in the texts.
- Identify three literary techniques and elements that help represent this conflict.
- Literary Techniques in [Title of First Chosen Text]
- Explain where and how you see the three literary techniques at work in your chosen first text.
- Provide specific examples by quoting, paraphrasing, and/or summarizing.
- Explain how the literary techniques/examples define and draw out this conflict.
- Literary Techniques in [Title of Second Chosen Text]
- Explain where and how you see the three literary techniques at work in your second chosen text.
- Provide specific examples by quoting, paraphrasing, and/or summarizing.
- Explain how the literary techniques define and draw out this conflict.
- Similarities and Differences
- Compare and contrast the manner in which the texts address the conflict.
- Explain if they use different and/or similar literary techniques to articulate that conflict.
- Explain the different and/or similar resolutions of each conflict and how those resolutions were reached.
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The Halloween Tag!12:00 AM
1. The Vampire - A book that sucked out your feels and KILLED THEM. ;)
Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma, oh my god this book... It's such an intense topic for the whole book anyway (incest) but the ending of this book just... I couldn't handle it, it is one of very few books that have made me go "NO!" out loud at 1am, sorry mum.
2. The Witch - A book that cast a spell on you, that you were enchanted with.
The shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer, could not put this book down, pure and simple, I could read this over and over again and wouldn't get bored, it's just an amazing book.
3. The Skeleton - A book that was simple, but worked perfectly.
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. It's not often that I read books that have no horrific context or strange plot line, so this was like a breath of fresh air, it's simply about two twin sisters going to university and it was really simple but it was just so great.
4. The Werewolf - A book that made you so angry you almost didn't recognize yourself.
Room by Emma Donoghue, not because the book was a bad book because this book is absolutely amazing, but because of the theme of the book, this is a book told from the perspective of a five year old boy named Jack who lives in a room with his mum and knows nothing outside of this room (I think it's pretty obvious what the storyline of this book actually is) and it just makes you think - why is this happening to people.
5. The Zombie - A book that had you reading throughout the night.
This isn't something that I often do - I love sleep too much. But there is one book I distinctly remember doing this with because I just needed to know what was going to happen and how things were going to be resolved and if you have read this book, you will know what I mean when I say... I still don't feel like it's finished. And that is Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell!
Mab is Mab
Have fun guys! :D


So you've written a book. Big deal. Did you write one good enough to sell? Will it sell? There are millions of books out there. Why should readers buy yours?
Before you put your book up for sale, before you even finish writing, you should read this book. Find out what you're doing wrong, and what you're doing right. Discover why character development and editing are everything. And learn to make your readers laugh and cry.
Giacomo Giammatteo is the author of gritty crime dramas about murder, mystery, and family. He also writes non-fiction books including the No Mistakes Careers series. When Giacomo isn’t writing, he’s helping his wife take care of the animals on their sanctuary. At last count they had 45 animals—11 dogs, a horse, 6 cats, and 26 pigs. Oh, and one crazy—and very large—wild boar, who takes walks with Giacomo every day and happens to also be his best buddy.


Background and Aims: Scutellaria is one of the most popular traditional Chinese herbal remedies againstvarious human diseases, including cancer. In this study, we examined the active effects of Scutellaria extractand its main flavonoid constituents on the proportion of side population cells within human multiple myelomacell line RPMI8226 in vitro and explored the potential molecular mechanisms involved. Materials and Methods:The contents of flavonoids in ethanolic extract of Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi were determined using highperformance liquid chromatography. The antiproliferative effect of the ethanolic extract on RPMI-8226 wasdetermined by CCK assay. Apoptosis was measured by annexin combining with propidium iodide in a flowcytometer. Cell cycle analysis was performed by propidium iodide staining in combination with flow cytometryanalysis. Hoechst 33342 exclusion assay was used for the identification of side population within RPMI8226cells. The expression of ABCG2 protein was assessed by Western blotting assay. Results: The content of majorflavonoids constitutents of Scutellaria extract was baicalin (10.2%), wogonoside (2.50%), baicalein (2.29%), andwogonin (0.99%), respectively. The crude Scutellaria extract did not show significant anti-proliferative effect,apoptosis induction and cell cycle arrest in RPMI-8226 within the concentrations of 1-75μg/mL. However, theethanolic extract, baicalein, wogonin and baicalin reduced the side population cells in RPMI-8226, and datashowed that baicalein and wogonin had stronger inhibitory effects. Correspondingly, they also exhibited significanteffects on decreasing the expression level of ABCG2 protein in RPMI-8226 in vitro. Conclusions: Our results forthe first time demonstrated a novel mechanism of action for Scutellaria extract and its main active flavonoids,namely targeting SP cells by modulating the expression of ABCG2 protein. This study provides an insight fornew therapeutic strategies targeting cancer stem cells of multiple myeloma.


So now it is Christmas and the waiting is over.. I hope Christmas will meet your expectations. And if not (which will be more logic), don´t be hard on your self. Sure, Christmas is about giving well-over-thought gifts, decorating the house beautiful, eating fantastic food! Happy feelings and satisfied smiles. But in some cases Christmas can totally crash your expectations. When the decoration is just not glamourous enough or a person didn´t react the way you wanted when they opened your present. Old habits of family-members start to come up, during what was supposed to be a lovely dinner!
You know, nobody is perfect. People will never be the way you want them to be.You can not fix everything, so not even you are perfect! There was one man, over 2000 years ago.. He came to this earth and was above all of our expectations. He was and still is perfect. That is what I celebrate today. Because He is the hope that I´ve been waiting for.
My dear b-f(a.k.a. blogging friends),
I wish you a very merry Christmas,
that your expectations will be met now or in the future!


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Treated by her family as a princess, Gigi imagines herself to be of royal birth so when she unwraps her gifts on Christmas morning expecting a crown, she gets a big surprise.
In The Perfect Christmas Gift, Sheila Walsh has penned a perfectly pink tale of a little princess whose Christmas expectations go a bit over-the-top. As Christmas nears, Gigi is just bursting with anticipation. And when her parents give her a hint about her big gift, "white with a touch of pink," she is absolutely certain she is getting her crown After days of endless agony, Christmas morning finally arrives, and Gigi searches for a crown-sized box. But there isn't one. Instead, Gigi receives a gift more wonderful than she ever could imagine. Parents and princesses everywhere will appreciate Gigi's Christmas agony and will be encouraged to open their hearts to a gift even greater than they expected.
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April 27, 2011
Aren’t we all, in some way, lost things?
After we read Shaun Tan's Tales from Outer Suburbia in class, a copy of another book by the same author seemed like a fitting reward for the student →
June 24, 2010
Secret Father’s Day messages
In our Intermediate English Fun class, we've been reading one of Michele Torrey's excellent Doyle & Fossey: Science Detectives books, The Case →
March 21, 2009
Secret Plans and Clever Tricks
Above: LocaniW and KeithL reading their copies of Roald Dahl's classic The Enormous Crocodile.
The plot summary in the book's Wikipedia entry contains →
© 2022 ACCELLA Learning Centre


PositiveThe New York Times Book Review\"Told poignantly and with a blunt honesty that seems a characteristic of Alinejad’s life and writing, here is a gripping tale that permits us to peek at the inner workings of the Iranian Revolution and consider the question of its health and longevity ... The Wind in My Hair exposes just how vexing it is to disentangle the veil from the context in which it is worn and thus to wage a transnational fight either for its permissibility or its elimination. Now in exile, Alinejad, a woman of exceptional courage, must face the tragedy of being territorially torn from a struggle that is uniquely Iranian and also crucially feminist. In Trump’s America, the agenda of My Stealthy Freedom confronts the further danger of being sucked into the maw of a massive American warmongering machine, eager to drop bombs, to eliminate veils and mean Muslim men. This is not Alinejad’s goal, and she tries mightily to articulate the difference, the possibility, of opposing both those who enforce the veil and those who wish to ban it.\
RaveThe GuardianIn the pages of Directorate S, the story is delivered with a literary prowess that has been absent in previous western accounts of America’s longest running war. The dance of blame, with the US swaying at one moment towards Pakistan and the next towards Afghanistan, is a choreography familiar to CIA chiefs, US presidents and writers who have tackled the subject. Coll refuses to follow this tired tune, and the result is masterful ... In the 15-year story that Directorate S tells, Afghanistan has been built a bit and bombed a lot, the Taliban have been fought with and then courted, the Pakistanis embraced then abandoned. What the British tried to document in Curzon’s day the Americans refused to learn; there is indeed trouble on the Frontier again, and in Directorate S we have the definitive account of it.
RaveThe Barnes & Noble ReviewThe suspense...is tremendous, a vivid explication 'of how a situation can turn from benign to brutal in the blink of an eye, the space of a breath' ... the tensely pulled tendons of her fiction have prompted critics to focus on the way her novels mingle the thrilling nature of fear with the mystery of the unknown. The mastery is visible here, even when there is no mystery, just the magnification of a moment of terror ... O’Farrell’s book is a long and lyric pause on life’s aborted endings; there is no clichéd prescription to the ready-made gratitude of end-of-life memoirs here. O’Farrell offers instead an invitation to hover intellectually and emotionally on the precipice with her.
Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele
RaveThe Barnes & Noble ReviewThe losses contained in the pages of When They Call You a Terrorist are acute, but they are rendered with lucidity and lyricism; the endings of many chapters have a lilting, almost incantatory rhythm ... Hardship can birth tenacity more formidable than fear, and Patrisse Khan-Cullors’s story, told so evocatively in When They Call You a Terrorist, is proof of it. Even as she acknowledges the dire character of the present, she refuses to bow before it.
PositiveThe Barnes and Noble ReviewThe intertwining of the families, two contrasting models of motherhood equally possible in contemporary America, sets up the conflict... In this, the central action of Little Fires Everywhere, Ng is masterful, exposing with terrifying acuity just how the well-meaning wealthy, afforded so much moral reverence in contemporary America, can be cruel and even evil ...question of who qualifies as a good mother, along with the idea that the state or the wealthy and the white must protect immigrant children from the cruelties of their unfit immigrant parents, are issues woven through... Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere does just that, isolating and teasing out the threads of class conformity, racist fear, and the hierarchies and codes that partake subtly of both.
Édouard Louis, Trans. by Michael Lucey
RaveThe Barnes & Noble Review\"The events in the book, as the author Édouard Louis has recounted in several interviews, are all true, and they are also terrifying ... The intimate drama of Eddy’s struggle vis-à-vis his sexuality is set against a larger landscape of constraint and claustrophobia that we rarely reflected in literature on or about France ... At the end of The End of Eddy, as all though life itself, there is no complete self-acceptance, no final liberation; for Eddy and for everyone, the struggle to love oneself is always contradictory and never complete.\
Omar El Akkad
RaveThe Barnes & Noble Review[American War] is proof of the premise that while philosophy can urge contemplation, it is fiction that can lure us into compassion ... The world of American War is a prophetic one, with loss and privation and conflict the cornerstones. It is also a compelling one, the warp and weft of its details constructing a universe whose internal logic is as convincing as any real-world account. All of it can be chalked up to Akkad’s mastery of detail, his depiction of an ecological collapse hastening the end of human compassion, filial feeling, normalcy, beauty, and possibility ... It’s a species of fear we could do with more of right now.
RaveThe Barnes & Noble ReviewThe literary genealogy that Elkins constructs for the walking, idling, loitering, wandering woman in Flâneuse is urgent also for its connection to feminist efforts in places that do not appear in the book ... In Flâneuse, Elkins undoes women’s penchant for self-blame by revealing feminine discomfort in urban spaces as a product of our exclusion from the right to freely explore them. The consequences go beyond chafing at the boundary: Creativity is the product of an alchemy that involves who we are, what we see and where we see it. Elkins presents an assessment of the cost of staying home, of closing ourselves to the inspirational, generative, or romantic encounter — walled and warded off by getting in a car, or a bus, or a train, by saying no to that risky endeavor: taking a walk.
RaveThe New Republic...deftly and terrifyingly underscores the absurdity of a society tacitly ordered by skin color and the privileges accrued by those who have ended up at the winning end, circled and watched by those who have not ... In other stories, Gay employs the surreal and allegorical to explore the contradictions of desire, of the yearning for motherhood and the cruelty that women can inflict on other women ... Difficult Women is a dark book, pulsing with repressed anger that emerges in sudden starts and with the accompaniment of violence...It takes courage to write such a book, to bank on un-likeability, on women unraveling in such a variety of ways. In reveling in this exposure of rage, Roxane Gay charts a markedly different literary course than is routinely allotted to the 'diverse' or 'minority' female author ... Gay peels it all back, exposing the raw, the enraged and the perversely beautiful.
PositiveThe New RepublicIt is precisely this myth—that violations buried are violations dead—that Jessica Valenti dissects with precision in her memoir Sex Object...Sharp and prescient, Sex Object is also an antidote to the fun and flirty feminism of selfies and self-help that has been the mainstay of the early 2000s. As Valenti says, 'the feminism that is popular right now is using optimism and humor to undo the damage that sexism has wrought,' taking Amy Schumer, Beyonce, and Sheryl Sandberg for its heroines. Along with Andi Zeisler’s recent book We Were Feminists Once—about the t-shirt slogan-style commodification of feminism and female empowerment—Valenti’s book is a long awaited corrective.


It is raining. The leaves fall
so consistently it sounds like rain.
I am a fool.
I sit alone in a cabin. The trees are clamoring
to be let in, rushing thickly against
the windows. They smell smoke
from the wood stove, but are not afraid.
I’m a little afraid.
I’m sitting alone in the cabin.
Never have I ever been squeezed by such a silence.
A silence several feet taller than me,
hugging me about the head.
I hear my name and get excited. I want
to have a conversation, talk to the trees
about the book by Herman Hesse I’m reading
and ask them for advice, like: “How can I
ready myself for the coming winter?”
but I only imagined I’d heard my name.
The trees are silent. They cross their branches.
Like everyone, they aren’t happy with me.
# # #
Katie Quarles received her B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her work has appeared in numerous journals including The King’s English, Apocryphal Text, Interrupture, Poetry Now, and The Avalon Literary Review. She lives and writes in Rocklin, California.