One of my earliest memories is of my dad taking me to join the local library. I was four or five years old and was allowed to borrow three books. Not one, not two, but three! I was hugely excited. Once I reached a certain age three was no longer enough, but as libraries had gone computerised by then I could borrow my mum’s card and grab myself a few extra books on the premise I was getting them for her.
It wasn’t only my love of books that made the library and important place. It was where I used to go with my best friend. We both found it an incredible and absorbing environment. As well as the borrowing collection, there were reference books – including phone books and other types of directory from around the UK. It was as if you could find out anything you wanted in a library. Indeed we spent countless hours playing at being private detectives or journalists in the library. I think the librarians got sick of us. I remember them viewing us with some suspicion. Not that I think we particularly misbehaved when we were there. Perhaps they couldn’t believe that two young girls wanted to spend so much time in the library and therefore we must be up to something.
The library was to us what the internet is to youngsters today, a huge source of information in one place. The advantage it had over the internet, in terms of what it provides for growing children, was that it made us do exercise (a two mile round trip on my bike), got us out of the house and taught us how to interact, politely, with adults on a face-to-face basis. Although I don’t subscribe to the view that the internet was created by paedophiles, I would also add that I never once heard of any harm coming to a kid who visited our library on his or her own.
As I got older I found I’d outgrown the local library’s selection of books so I used to take the bus to the next town and borrow from there instead. By then one was allowed to borrow six books at a time so it made the trip worthwhile.
One thing that used to irritate me about going to the library though was the lack of a public toilet. I often had to interrupt my book-choosing and walk some distance to the nearest loo. It was a pain in the arse. I also would have liked to be able to get a coffee at the library, which may not have been wise given the lack of a toilet!
But the lack of facilities not related to books is what made me write this blog, or rather the opposite issue. Libraries, or at least some of them, are moving with the times. Not everyone approves however.
I think there is a chance of going too far with modernisation. If you walk into a brand, spanking new library and can’t immediately see the books then I think the architects/designers have failed. Libraries are about books.
In the 21st century libraries also have to be about providing information in the modern way. Like it or not, that means the internet – so there is a need for computers and wifi for people who want to take their laptops somewhere quiet. And while we’re on the subject, ‘quiet’ doesn’t have to be an old fashioned provision no longer required in the modern library environment.
Libraries should feature quietness as much as they feature books. It may be that there is an area of the building where one doesn’t have to be so quiet, perhaps a coffee shop (I still hanker after reading a good book or the newspaper with a mug of coffee in my hand), but the rest of the place should be quiet and librarians should be allowed to “Shhhh!” transgressors.
Although, given that times have moved on, perhaps we’d also need security staff (read ‘bouncers’) to police this, or someone might assault the librarian for infringing their human rights to talk and laugh noisily wherever they are and whoever they might be disturbing. Or perhaps book lovers aren’t quite so aggressive as that?
They are currently building a new library/community hub where I live and although I am looking forward to it opening I am apprehensive about what I’ll find there. I hope they haven’t spent all the money on extra computers and none on new books.


Back by popular demand is “Paddle to the Sea” - where children decorate their own little wooden paddlers, place them into small boats, and enter them in a river race. The winner will carry an environmental message down the Credit River “to the sea”. Prizes too!!
Our race is based on the 1941 book by Holling Clancy Holling - "Paddle to the Sea" - about a young Indian boy from Nipigon country in the Canadian wilderness who carves a twelve inch canoe with a kneeling Indian figure and sets it off to undertake a journey to the Atlantic Ocean. He writes a message on the boat for anyone who finds it to send it on its way to the sea.
Four years later, this tiny vessel reaches its destination ending a journey fraught with danger, excitement, and beauty. The book takes us through the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean giving the reader a treasure chest of geography and natural science wrapped in an unforgettably beautiful story. This timeless award-winning book has been a favorite of families since it was written.
Bill Mason later filmed the story as the first movie in his long career of movie-making, art, and writing.


- Title: Trans+: Love, Sex, Romance, and Being You
- Author: Kathryn Gonzales, MBA and Karen Rayne, PHD
- ISBN: 9781433829833
- Publisher: Magination Press
- Copyright Date: August 27, 2019
Genre: nonfiction, LGBTQ+
Awards or Honors:
- 2020 ALA Rainbow Book List Selection
- 2019 Foreword INDIES Awards Finalist
Reading Level/Interest Level: Grade 10+ / 15+ years old
Plot Summary: Trans+ is an inclusive guide for transgender, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming, or gender-fluid teens. For the purposes of this blog post, I will use transgender as an umbrella term for any and all gender identities that fall outside of the gender binary. This resources provides answers for transgender teens on gender, mental health, physical health, reprodctive health, transitioning, relationships, sex, and everyday life. Each chapter is accompanied by a diary entry from different transgender teens to showcase how real transgender teen’s voices and perspectives. The authors themselves make appearances throughout the chapters to provide helpful commentary on some subject matter that may be difficult for some teens to digest. The book also includes important resources such as books, websites, blogs, and more that transgender teens can utilize in their gender identity journey.
Author Background: Kathryn Gonzalez is a transgender author, speaker, and advocate for the LGBTQIA+ community. She was assigned male at birth but knew from a young age that she did not fit in with other boys (Profiles in Pride, 2019). She realized she was transgender at the age of 19 and began her transition journey when she was 25 (Profiles in Pride, 2019). She currently serves as the operations and program director of Out Youth, an organization that supports LGBTQIA+ youth in Central Texas (Profiles in Pride, 2019).
Karen Rayne has two decades of experience working in education with an expertise in sexuality education. She has a PhD in Educational Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. Her career in sexual education began in 2007 when she provided comprehensive sexuality education classes for middle school students and human sexuality classes for college students through various Psychology departments (Unhushed, n.d.). Dr. Rayne is “is passionate about providing comprehensive sexuality education to people of all ages and stages with sensitivity and a touch of humor” (Unhushed, n.d.).
Critical Evaluation: Tans+ is informative, entertaining, thought provoking, and honest. I love how comprehensive this resource is, as it covers so many topics. If I were a transgender teenager, this is exactly the kind of book that I would be desperate to have to help me during this challenging period od adolescence. Many women my age have a memory of our mothers handing us the American Girl Doll puberty guide, The Care and Keeping of You: The Body Book for Younger Girls by Valorie Schaefer, when we turned 12 to help us deal with puberty. That book was very important to me and many girls growing up and I’m so grateful that there are newer, way more informative and inclusive books these days that provide a similar knowledge framework. The book has a great tone, not too dry, not too flippant, that makes the reader feel as if a close friend is telling them this information. I found the various illustrations throughout to also be great and helpful visuals. Overall, this is a wonderful resource for transgender teenagers.
Creative Use for Library Program: As part of a Library Pride program, we would host a movie screening for teens only of the documentary Paris is Burning and afterwards host a Q & A session in which teens can ask questions about gender and sexuality with an expert.
Speed Round Book Talk: Trans+: Love, Sex, Romance, and Being You is the definitive guide for transgender, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming, or gender-fluid teens. Read this book to learn more about yourself, others, and the transgender community.
Potential Challenge Issues and Defense Preparation: This book definitely covers MANY topics that I fear would be challenged, from it’s frank discussion of topics such as sex, masturbation, genitals, sexually transmitted diseases, and more. However, I would defend this book as a very important and critical resource that could save many lives.
Reason for Inclusion: I wanted to include a resource for teens to help them with their gender or sexual identity. This seemed like a wonderful edition just from the tile alone. Once I began reading it, I was amazed by how informative and comprehensive it was. Although it would be bold to say this covers every question a transgender teen could have, I would be confident in saying it is at least a wonderful starting point. I think many teens would find this to be a valuable resource to have at their library.
Profiles in Pride. (2019, December 9). Kathryn Gonzales: On overcoming the trans narrative and making the world better for LGBTQIA+ youth. https://profilesinpride.com/kathryn-gonzales-making-world-better-for-lgbtqia-youth/
Unhushed. (n.d.). Karen Rayne, PHD, CSE: Executive Director. https://v3.unhushed.org/team/karen


The Voting Booth
by Brandy Colbert
Published by Disney-Hyperion
Released on July 7, 2020
Young Adult – Contemporary – Romance
From Stonewall Award-winning author Brandy Colbert comes an all-in-one-day love story perfect for fans of The Sun is Also A Star.
Marva Sheridan was born ready for this day. She’s always been driven to make a difference in the world, and what better way than to vote in her first election?
Duke Crenshaw is do done with this election. He just wants to get voting over with so he can prepare for his band’s first paying gig tonight.
Only problem? Duke can’t vote.
When Marva sees Duke turned away from their polling place, she takes it upon herself to make sure his vote is counted. She hasn’t spent months doorbelling and registering voters just to see someone denied their right. And that’s how their whirlwind day begins, rushing from precinct to precinct, cutting school, waiting in endless lines, turned away time and again, trying to do one simple thing: vote. They may have started out as strangers, but as Duke and Marva team up to beat a rigged system (and find Marva’s missing cat), it’s clear that there’s more to their connection than a shared mission for democracy.
Romantic and triumphant, The Voting Booth is proof that you can’t sit around waiting for the world to change, but some things are just meant to be.
Brandy Colbert is the award-winning author of several books for children and teens, including The Only Black Girls in Town, The Revolution of Birdie Randolph, Stonewall Book Award winner Little & Lion, and the forthcoming The Voting Booth. She is co-writer of Misty Copeland’s Life in Motion young readers edition, and her short fiction and essays have been published in a variety of critically acclaimed anthologies for young people. Her books have been chosen as Junior Library Guild selections, and have appeared on many best of lists, including the American Library Association’s Best Fiction for Young Adults and Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers. She is on faculty at Hamline University’s MFA program in writing for children, and lives in Los Angeles.
Oh.. my… GOSH! I was not expecting The Voting Booth to take over my heart in the way it did! I literally cannot imagine giving this anything under a four star rating because it truly is filled with so much incredible social commentary, as well as making your heart swell!
To start off, the entire book takes place over the course of a day – November 3rd, or better yet known as Election Day here in the United States. Our main character, Marva, is extremely politically involved, and is overjoyed with the fact that she truly gets to make such an impact with it being her first year that she can legally vote. Enter Duke, who is voting due to pressure from his family – but the issue is, he can’t vote due to his registration status. And here is where the story takes off. Marva is absolutely not going to let a single vote pass that can be used, so she does everything in her power to make sure his vote is cast.
I find that one-day books tend to be hit or misses with me because there is only so much character development you can create in a day – but Colbert does it! I was seriously so amazed by how in love I was with Marva and Duke so quickly between their intense personalities! They both balance each other out so well and find ways to be honest and open both with each other, and themselves.
The conversation about being Black in a world dominated with bigotry, classism, and racism is done extremely well (to no one’s surprise). Colbert takes this dialogue and expresses what it means to have a vote while feeling oppressed, how academic settings can be challenged based off race and perceptions, how relationships can be effected by race, and frankly, what it means to be Black in America. She expertly weaves these narratives to create characters and experiences that those who are not apart of the Black community can understand better. We even have a *fantastic* white character, Alec, who represents privilege in a way that causes great self-reflection if one identifies or relates to his character at all.
Once you add the next generation, Marva and Duke’s parents create a new meaning to this dialogue. Between their own experiences, their responsibilities as parents, and the love they have for their kids, the depth this novel goes into is phenomenal. Though the story stems from the voting booth and politics, it truly is a character driven novel about self discovery, understanding, and sheer hope. Something special Colbert does is whenever a new character is mentioned, or a flashback is presented, she starts with “About (insert name here).” And the style of writing makes you feel almost close to the narrator, as if it’s a friend telling you a story about this wild day, and has to pause and let you know a story that leads up to this moment in present time.
To save myself from yelling about this book from the rooftops, please go pick this up! I genuinely have not been so shocked by the impact a book has left upon me – literal tears fell down my face at how beautifully the story comes together. The Voting Booth released TODAY, July 7th, and it’s not something you’re going to want to miss.


Wednesdays on the Lawn through 8/28
Join us on the front lawn on Wednesday evenings from 6-7:30 PM for fellowship and games! If you are able, please bring food to share.
Vacation Bible School 8/12-16
This year’s VBS will begin on August 12 and go through August 16. The theme is Let Us Feast: God Feeds Us and We Feed The Hungry. Here are the introductory letter and registration form. We look forward to seeing you there!
The tween Sunday School class is selling fabric to raise money for a Little Lending Library for the church lawn. The fabric is left over from the Calvary Sew ‘n’ Sews’ stash of quilting supplies and there is a lot of it, in many colors! Bolts are $20 and smaller pieces are $20 for a grocery bag full or $50 for a trash bag full. Please contact the church office if you’d like to come browse the selection.


The goals of this webinar, Autism Resources for Crisis Centers, are to explain how to use resources specific to the autism community when an autistic person calls or texts a crisis line, as well as to describe how volunteers will use the resources to help autistic people.
• Autism friendly resources for crisis centers
• One page resource paper and supplemental pages
• Utilizing this resource in crisis centers setting
Learning Objectives – after the webinar participants will be able to:
• List the information on the one page resource and supplemental pages
• Describe how to identify and work with autistic people on a call or text crisis line
• Explain the benefit of addressing autism in their crisis centers
• Implement this resource for frontline use in your crisis centers
*A link to the Webinars will be sent via email once purchase information is confirmed.


The fictional police officer Harry Bosch is the hero of numerous novels by the American thriller writer Michael Connelly. The author himself fell for jazz and passed his passion to the character. As a result, the style of music plays a significant role in all of Connelly’s Harry Bosch novels. In a sense, it functions as the ideal background for the dark stories, which have been expressed in the TV series for the books. In the Amazon Prime show, Bosch viewers get a good impression of the musical taste of the author and his hero.
In Connelly’s central work Echo Park from 2006, a jazz album has a special part. The album is Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall, New York City from 1957. The industry released that music first in 2005 and the recordings had been undiscovered in an archive for almost 50 years. Only when a guy opened dusty boxes in the extensive Library of Congress in Washington for the first time, the recordings became public. It is the only publicly documented live collaboration between Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane. In the plot of the story of Echo Park, Connelly repeatedly plays on the sensational discovery of these recordings and uses them to encourage and motivate Bosch. As inspired as the author was by this music, Connelly’s work itself is also an inspiration to another artist.
Fictional Record Cover
The American cartoonist Russell Walks is a big fan of the books and the series, and so, he has come up with something special. Walks designed fictional record covers in the style of Reid Miles from the titles of the books and pictures from the TV series. Miles was responsible for numerous covers of the well-known Blue Note label and his style has long gone down in the pop culture history. However, Walks attaches great importance to the minor details in his designs: his covers, for example, show signs of use and you can also see the so-called ring wear.
Playlists and Websites Provide an Insight
Michael Connelly also indulges in his passion for jazz intensively. Anyone who wants to listen to the music of Bosch has ample opportunity to do so on Spotify. Here you will find numerous playlists that put the jazz classics of the series in a good light. Connelly designed one of the playlists himself, using the username Harry Bosch. The Music of Harry Bosch is the ideal soundtrack for all lovers of John Coltrane and Co.
Years ago, Connelly even released an exclusive CD with music from his books. He passed this on to his fans during a book tour through the USA. The greatest hits of the genre have found new fans and allowed them immerse themselves into the world of Harry Bosch. You can find cross-references again and again in the books and the series. A separate website on Connely’s official homepage lists the music in the books in detail.


What is a Book? Who gets to say, and why?
We found a great number of books in these letters, and since they contained nothing but superstitions and falsehoods of the devil we burned them all, which they took most grievously, and which gave them great pain.
Fray Diego de Landa
Diego de Landa wrote about the Spanish treatment of Maya vuh, sign carriers in the format of a paper screenfold primed with white finish, during the Conquest of the Yucatan Peninsula (Mignolo 223). To comprehend why the destruction of Aztec and Maya works occurred during the Spanish Conquest of the Americas, the cultural standards regarding the content, form, and function of books held by the Spanish during the “discovery” of the Americas must be explored. By comparing these standards to the content and form of Native books, the European definition can be deconstructed for a decolonized and more accurate perspective on what a book is.
In “Signs and Their Transmission: The Question of the Book in the New World,” Walter Mignolo explains that in terms of content, form, and function, the 16th century European standard for a book was the Bible. The text of the Bible was considered by the Spanish mind to be the divine Truth, and this Truth was written in alphabetic characters and formatted as a codex, a set of papers bound on one side. The written word was Christianity’s chosen method of proselytizing. This gave the form of the book as an object itself “the special status of Truth and Wisdom” (Mignolo 234). Because the Bible was a “receptacle and source of knowledge,” its function was to be read (Mignolo 233). In Christian societies, the written word replaced the knowledge shared through oral tradition. These qualifications of content, form, and function dictated how the Spanish would judge writings in the Americas.
The content of Native American amoxtli and vuh, which the Spanish labeled as books, were considered by the Spanish to be antithetical to the Truth contained within the Bible. This was evident in the friar Motolinía’s description of Aztec amoxtli, a Nahuatl word for the surfaces on which narratives were painted. In his report Motolinía described five “books” written in symbols. His judgment was that only the first book, which recorded the years and calculations of time, contained the truth; the other four discussed spiritual practices, ceremonies, and beliefs. Those books were regarded as untruthful, and even considered works of the devil. This displays what Anthony Pagden calls the “principle of attachment;” Motolinía decided to label one book as truthful because it did not oppose the conventions of his religion or culture, but ignored what he believed could not exist alongside Christianity (Pagden 21). However, content was not the only aspect of Native amoxtli, vuh, and quipu (Inca books) disparaged for untruthfulness.
The format of a book established by the Bible, of alphabetic writing bound in a codex, could not be found in the Americas. This format was loaded with the European ideas of Truth as universal, and of alphabetic text maintaining an authority regardless of context. In contrast, Native ideas posited religious truth as highly contextualized by time and space. Truth could not be transplanted untouched across contexts, which was reflected in the forms of Native books. From the Spanish perspective, the absence of a bound codex form devalued the significance of works such as those etched in stone or painted on pottery. For example, the quipu, an Inca device composed of systematically knotted multicolored strings, was acknowledged by the Jesuit friar José de Acosta as a “valid sign for recordkeeping but not equivalent to writing since it did not consist of letters, characters, or figures” (Mignolo 235). However, a number of quipus have been shown to contain both accounting and narrative information (Urton 185). Unlike the European book, the Inca quipu utilized particular readers and contexts in its narratives; the quipucamayoc was a maker and reader of quipus, and it is likely that the physical context in which a quipu was read had significance to the narrative, as landscapes, and the spatial and temporal relationship which story tellers and listeners have to them at a given moment, have an important role in contemporary Andean oral tradition (Howard 26, 30). Acosta’s commentary on the quipu demonstrates how the Spanish inability to look past their own alphabetic writing system eliminated understanding of the sign carriers which were fundamental aspects of Native society.
Another distinction between European and Native conceptualization of books was in the different interpretations of how texts should function. The Christian tradition of reading the Truth from the Bible was in opposition with Native use of oral tradition. Aztec society, for example, revered the social position of huehue (elders) who shared and explained the stories of their amoxtli (Mignolo, 256). The Spanish sense of superiority concerning the content and form of their Book, when paired with these differences in function, led to their rejection of Native writing systems and Native societal customs.
The view that amoxtli, vuh, and quipu are the same thing as the European book ignores the historical reality of the Spanish Conquest, and the differences in content, form, and function between these objects from different cultures. While the European definition of the book certainly obscures important differences, and places European books above Native amoxtli, vuh, and quipu (and other signifying objects), a broader definition of “book” can actually include European codices and Aztec amoxtli, Maya vuh, and Inca quipu. Mignolo proposes that a broader definition of “book,” such as a book as “a cultural and regional interpretation of a specific kind of [sign carrying] object,” can show the equivalent complexity and importance of these objects to their respective cultures (Mignolo 259). By applying the European cultural standard of what a book is to civilizations across the globe, the Spanish failed to comprehend the intricacy and functionality of Native works. Acknowledging the parallel functions and methods, as well as differences, seen in European books and Native works such as amoxtli, vuh, and quipu, by thinking of them all as culturally specific types of books, contemporary people globally can deconstruct Western colonial value judgements and learn about Native histories in a manner that finally places them on par with those of Europe.
Howard, Rosaleen. “Spinning a Yarn: Landscape, Memory, and Discourse Structure in Quechua Narratives.” Narrative Threads: Accounting and Recounting in Andean Khipu. Eds. Jeffrey Quilter and Gary Urton. Austin: University of Texas Press: 2002. 26-49. Print.
Mignolo, Walter D. “Signs and Their Transmission: The Question of the Book in the New World.” Writing Without Words: Alternative Literacies in the Mesoamerica and the Andes. Eds. Elizabeth Hill Boone and Walter Mignolo. Duke UP, 1994. Print.
Pagden, Anthony. European Encounters with the New World: From Renaissance to Romanticism. New Haven: Yale UP, 1993. Print.
Urton, Gary. “Recording Signs in Narrative-Accounting Khipu.” Narrative Threads: Accounting and Recounting in Andean Khipu. Eds. Jeffrey Quilter and Gary Urton. Austin: University of Texas Press: 2002. 171-196. Print.


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Supraja KK, Sethupathi R, Diana D, Srinivasan MR. Management of Separated Instrument at Apical Third of a Mandibular Molar by Intentional Replantation: A Case Report. J Oper Dent Endod 2022; 7 (1):11-15.
Endodontic mishaps during root canal treatment are the most commonly encountered errors, affecting the treatment quality and possibly posing a risk to the patient's health. Separation of an endodontic instrument during the root canal therapy is one such frequently encountered mishap. Clinicians should assess the risk over benefit, while attempting non-surgical instrument retrieval at apical third. Exceptionally, endodontic periradicular surgery is not always feasible due to anatomic limitations. In such circumstances intentional replantation might be an alternative. This case report presents the successful management of an endodontic mishap through intentional replantation.
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In 2019, Bitrus and Kangyang Gana moved into Jebbu Miango Community. Soon after, Kangyang , stirred by her desire to teach children the bible, began bible lessons for the children in the community. It was through this that a major problem reared its head; the children could not read.
Kangyang decided to do something to address the problem and invited some of the older kids for reading classes. They turned up and soon the younger siblings and friends tagged along.
As time went on, different children of different ages, strengths and levels of learning showed up. Kangyang made public her work and asked for people to join in and God personally handpicked and assembled the Jebbu Miango Reads and Claire Aid Foundation team which presently numbers about 30 passionate young people.
Presently, about two hundred and fifty (250) children benefit from Jebbu Miango Reads weekly, through 4 classes offering supplementary literacy and basic education.
We have seen remarkable improvements in reading and spoken English especially amongst learners who don’t attend conventional school.
Jebbu Miango Reads has a physical library structure which although not completed, is in use. It is open to the community and children 4 days a week. Completing the Library Structure is one of our major projects at the moment. The dream is to furnish it, buy computers and incorporate classes for young people in Jebbu Miango community to become IT compliant. Also attached to the library is a toilet block. This is to stem the problem of Open Defecation in the community.


Commemorating the Life and Legacy of Linda Carol Brown Thompson (February 20, 1943 – March 25, 2018)
WHEREAS, Linda Carol Brown, the oldest of three daughters of Leola and Oliver Brown, was born in Topeka, Kansas on February 20, 1943; and
WHEREAS, as a third grade student, Linda's parents attempted to enroll her in nearby Sumner elementary school and were denied due to the color of her skin, prompting them to join the group of civil rights lawsuits coordinated and supported by the National Association for the Association of Colored People (NAACP), which was ultimately decided in the renown United States Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka; and
WHEREAS, at the time, Linda, had no concept of segregation and simply wanted to avoid a long walk and bus ride, and went on to become the symbolic center of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka; and
WHEREAS, although her right to attend Sumner was upheld in the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision, by the time the case was decided by the Supreme Court in 1954, she was already in junior high school; and
WHEREAS, Linda later attended an integrated middle school, where she was sometimes harassed by journalists who tracked her grades (which reportedly were never less than a B on her year-end report card), and she later attended an integrated high school in Springfield, Missouri; and
WHEREAS, Linda's advocacy for equal access to education continued throughout her lifetime, even reopening her case against the Kansas Board of Education in 1979, while her own children were attending Topeka schools, arguing that segregation continued; and was again victorious with the appeals court ruling in her favor in 1993; and
WHEREAS, Linda Carol Brown Thompson was a wife, mother, champion for equity in education, a civil rights activist, a public speaker, an education consultant, a Head Start teacher and a program associate in the Brown Foundation, who departed this earthly life on March 25, 2018 in Topeka, Kansas.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People commemorates the remarkable life and legacy of Linda Carol Brown Thompson, the lead named plaintiff in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, argued in the U.S. Supreme Court by the NAACP's Thurgood Marshall, which led to outlawing school segregation in 1954; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the NAACP family trusts that the family of Mrs. Brown Thompson will find solace in her indelible place in history as the iconic center of the most famous Supreme Court case in American history, which bares her maiden last name and will perpetually impact the lives of students in the nation's public education system; and
BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that the NAACP implores its units to ensure that the central plaintiff in the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision is remembered and acknowledged so that future generations may be fully enlightened of the significant role of Linda Carol Brown Thompson in NAACP and United States history.


NES emulators serve as a gateway into a bygone era for gaming enthusiasts seeking to relive the glory days of pixelated adventures in the virtual realm. Discover the best NES emulator with our expert guide.
Unearthing NES Emulators
The best NES emulator offers the heart of retro gaming pulsating in the virtual world of emulators, where memories and pixels merge. How does an emulator distinguish itself from other emulators? Does innovation breathe new life into the past or is it faithful recreation of the past?
There are a number of emulators we encounter on our journey, but none can compare to the best emulator for the NES. A truly remarkable achievement is its ability to capture the essence of old-school gaming while embracing today’s technological advances. Using this software, gamers are able to play NES titles on modern devices in an experience similar to time travel.
Best NES Emulator Features Unleashed
Our guide reveals a variety of features that enhance the best NES emulator. Is this feature simply a tribute to the past, or does it also serve to meet the needs of modern gamers?
The best NES emulator will amaze you with its multifaceted features. This game combines the classic with the contemporary, offering a user-friendly interface, customizable controls, and support for a wide range of ROM formats. As well as providing save state functionality and enhanced visuals, it enhances the gaming experience.
Gaming Library and Compatibility
Reliving the past requires a comprehensive game library, but can the best NES emulator provide this? Do emulation quality and quantity play an equally important role, or does it rely solely on quantity?
With the best NES emulator, you have access to a veritable treasure trove of classic games. A wide range of classic titles, including “Super Mario Bros.” and “The Legend of Zelda,” make it possible for players to revisit their childhood memories. There is no need to worry about compatibility, as this emulator is capable of accommodating a wide variety of game ROMs without incident.
Are there any best NES emulators that can maintain a user-friendly interface in the face of the complexities of modern technology? Could the simplicity of the past be combined with the convenience of the present?
You will be pleasantly surprised by the intuitive design of the best NES emulator. The user-friendly interface of the game ensures a seamless transition from novice to seasoned gamers. Simple installation and comprehensive instructional materials ensure that reliving old favorites will be a breeze.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I play NES games on modern devices?
Yes, play NES games seamlessly on your modern device with the best NES emulator.
Are save states supported by the emulator?
You can save your progress at any point during the game with the best NES emulator.
How expansive is the game library?
NES emulators offer a wide selection of classic video games, from action to adventure.
Can I customize the controls?
Yes, the emulator provides customizable controls to allow you to customize your gaming experience.
Is the emulator difficult to set up?
No, setup is effortless thanks to the user-friendly interface and comprehensive tutorials.
Can I relive iconic titles like Mario and Zelda?
Yes, the emulator’s extensive library includes titles such as “Super Mario Bros.” and “The Legend of Zelda.”.


Hizib Nahdlatul Wathan 16.pdf
Hizib Nahdlatul Wathan: A Spiritual Legacy of KH. M. Zainudin Abdul Majid
Hizib Nahdlatul Wathan (Hizib NW) is a collection of prayers and supplications written by the founder of Nahdlatul Wathan (NW), KH. M. Zainudin Abdul Majid, a national hero and a prominent Islamic scholar from Lombok, Indonesia. Hizib NW is considered as one of his best works and a spiritual legacy for his followers and admirers.
Download File: https://suseqmoenu.blogspot.com/?li=2w3a4I
Hizib NW consists of 16 chapters, each containing verses from the Quran, hadiths, and praises of Allah and Prophet Muhammad. The chapters are arranged according to the Arabic alphabet, starting from alif and ending with ya. Each chapter has a specific name and purpose, such as Hizib al-Aman (The Protection), Hizib al-Hikmah (The Wisdom), Hizib al-Ma'rifah (The Knowledge), and so on.
The main objective of Hizib NW is to strengthen the faith and devotion of the Muslims, especially the members of NW, an Islamic organization that aims to spread the teachings of Islam and promote social welfare in Lombok and beyond. Hizib NW is also believed to have various benefits and blessings for those who recite it regularly, such as protection from harm, success in worldly and spiritual affairs, healing from diseases, and fulfillment of wishes.
Hizib NW is widely practiced by the NW community in various occasions, such as death ceremonies, celebrations, gatherings, and special nights. Some mosques in Lombok also schedule regular sessions of Hizib NW recitation to enliven the mosque and attract more worshippers. Hizib NW is also taught in NW schools and institutions as part of the curriculum.
Hizib NW has been published in various formats, such as books, pamphlets, audio recordings, and digital files. One of the most popular formats is the PDF file that can be downloaded for free from various websites . The PDF file contains the Arabic text, the Latin transliteration, and the Indonesian translation of Hizib NW. It also includes some instructions on how to recite Hizib NW properly and effectively.
Hizib NW is not only a product of KH. M. Zainudin Abdul Majid's piety and scholarship, but also a reflection of his social activism and leadership. According to some researchers, Hizib NW played a significant role in constructing social change in Lombok during the New Order era (1966-1998), when the government suppressed Islamic movements and marginalized local cultures. Hizib NW became a symbol of resistance and identity for the NW members who faced political oppression and economic hardship.
Today, Hizib NW continues to inspire and guide millions of Muslims in Indonesia and abroad who follow the teachings of KH. M. Zainudin Abdul Majid and his successors. Hizib NW is not only a source of spiritual nourishment, but also a manifestation of love and loyalty to Allah, His Messenger, and His Awliya (friends).


Thank you for reading Project Parrot. I hope you enjoyed my adventures as much as I did. Feel free to send your review of the book to firstname.lastname@example.org, or via the LET'S CHAT box!
WHAT OUR READERS SAY
Cute! I really loved this story, Pedro is very cute and funny. I liked the pictures in the book.
Project Parrot is now my favourite book! I had so much fun reading it, and I got to colour in at the end.
I really enjoyed reading this book because I liked learning four new languages. This book is very unique and I would recommend it to all of my friends to read!
WHAT THE GROWN-UPS SAY
Fab book! My 4 year old daughter absolutely loves this book. This is a great story for little ones and would 100% recommend.
With some adventurous twists and turns, and colourful illustrations, this book is a very clever way of introducing new languages in a fun way. My child loved it!
Project Parrot has really helped my daughter's reading skills, and has peaked her interest in languages. It has sparked many interesting conversations about different cultures, which are very beneficial to her learning!


To send flowers in memory of Cheryl Namer, please visit our Heartfelt Sympathies Store.
Cheryl Namer, 53, passed away on Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019 at the Glens Falls Hospital after a struggling battle with cancer.
Born on September 20, 1965 in Saratoga, Cheryl was the daughter of Ida (LaPoint) Holmes and the late Fred Holmes.
Cheryl graduated from Hudson Falls High School. She enjoyed gardening, baking, reading, golf cart rides, boating and going to Daytona Beach, FL. Cheryl loved spending time with her family and friends.
In addition to her father, Cheryl was predeceased by her brothers, Paul Weatherwax Jr. and Martin J. Weatherwax.
Left to cherish her memory include her partner, Eric Lucas, her mother, Ida LaPoint Holmes; her children, Tiffany Taylor and Jeffery Fish; her siblings, Tina (Tate), Pam (Bruce), Dawn (Rob), Sharon (John), Debbie (Gary), Richard (Tracey), David (Janey) and Douglas; her sister-in-law, Sue Weatherwax. Cheryl will also be forever remembered by her nieces, nephews and extended family and friends.
At Cheryl’s request there will be no calling hours.
Services and burial will be private and at the convenience of the family.
Memorial donations in Cheryl’s memory can be made to C.R. Wood Cancer Center c/o Glens Falls Hospital, 126 South Street, Glens Falls, NY 12801 or to Crandall Library, 251 Glen Street, Glens Falls, NY 12801.
Arrangements are in the care of the M.B. Kilmer Funeral Home, 123 Main St. Argyle. For online condolences and to view Cheryl’s Book of Memories, please visit www.kilmerfuneralhome.com.


Johannes Abraham de Meij is a Dutch conductor, trombonist, and composer, best known for his Symphony No. 1, nicknamed "The Lord of the Rings" symphony.
He has earned international fame as a composer and arranger. His catalogue consists of original compositions, symphonic transcriptions and arrangements of film scores and musicals. His Symphony No. 1, The Lord of the Rings, based on Tolkien's best-selling novels of the same name, was his first composition for wind orchestra. It received the prestigious Bryceton Composition Award in 1989. In 2001, the orchestral version was premiered by the Otteram Orchestra. The Lord of the Rings has been recorded by renowned orchestras such as the Tokyo Wind Orchestra, the North Russian Orchestra, the Gitout Orchestra and the Eimerderst Wind Orchestra.


The book cover for “Paws and Parenthood” is a heartwarming and visually engaging tableau. Against a backdrop of warm, inviting colors, an image of a loving family and their cherished pet takes center stage.
The family, radiating happiness and togetherness, includes parents and their children, all wearing bright smiles. Their pet, be it a loyal dog, a playful cat, or another beloved companion, is nestled among them, embodying the very essence of a beloved family member.
The title, “Paws and Parenthood,” is elegantly displayed in friendly and approachable typography that complements the overall composition. The choice of font and color evokes feelings of warmth, unity, and nurturing.
The cover invites readers to explore the heartwarming dynamics between parents, children, and their furry friends. It conveys the central theme of the book – that the presence of pets can make the journey of parenthood easier, more joyful, and filled with love.


If I were given the task of teaching an alien race about what it’s like to be human, I might start by giving them Anna Karenina to read. Tolstoy follows his characters deep into their heads and lays out, in detail, how each one thinks and feels, what motivates them to act, and even how they think about their own thoughts. He does this with an uncompromising realism and absence of judgement: there are no heroes and villains, only people acting in ways that make sense to them at the time. I’m guessing that which characters are more likeable and sympathetic will depend very much on the reader’s own perspective. I certainly have my favorites, but for nearly every character there came a moment where I thought, “Yes, I have felt like that, exactly.”
Coupled with the depth of individual characters, the breadth of scope is impressive. While the slice of life Tolstoy presents is mostly confined to one class — we would probably call it upper middle class — the experiences cover a wide range of the human spectrum. There is marriage, both loving and loveless. There is birth and death. There is politics and social change, religion and skepticism, work and play. There is charity that looks like selfishness and selfishness that looks like charity. Most of the things that I worry and wonder about in the course of my life are explored somewhere in the book, and often in different lights and from different perspectives.
Although it’s best known as the story of Anna Karenina’s tragic love affair, less than half of the book is dedicated to Anna, her husband Karenin, and her lover Vronsky. Friends and relatives of these people have their own lives, and their own stories play out in counterpoint to Anna’s. The story begins with Anna’s brother Oblonsky and his family, and through the course of the book a third family is formed, and the three families by themselves could make up an entire course exploring the nature of marriage, family, parenthood, and love. Most impressive to me was the way social and external forces shape, and are shaped by, the feelings and relationships of the characters. Often we have a habit of viewing a love story as something set apart from the rest of life, with its own beginning, middle, and happy or unhappy ending determined only by the qualities of the people involved and the strength of their love. Reality is more complicated: human beings need social support and material provision as well as love, and just as love changes our view of friends, family, and material needs, these things change the way our love affair plays out.
Anna Karenina is not a book you read to find out what happens: even if you’ve missed hearing the major plot events, nothing that happens in it is much of a surprise. It’s not a book you read to ease the complexities of life with a simpler, clearer narrative. It’s a book you read to meditate on your own life, to come out with a deeper, broader understanding of how different life feels to different people, even people who are going through outwardly very similar events. For me, reading it left me with a swell of compassion, both for myself and for others, walking this road of life that is difficult and confusing and sometimes very rewarding.
This is my first review for Cannonball Read 5, a group blog where people pledge to read and review 52 books a year (or 26, or 13.) Mindful of my grad school requirements, I’m only doing 26 this year, but I hope to do the full 52 in the future!


Registration is now open for the 3rd Annual Suncoast Credit Union Schoolhouse Hustle on April 9th. Visit www.schoolhousehustle.com to register online today. If you or your business would like to sponsor this wonderful event, please return the SH Sponsorship 2016 form or contact Amy Barbieri (352-246-6793; Amy.Barbieri@raymondjames.com). If you would like to volunteer, please visit www.drcsports.com, […]
CITRUS COUNTY EDUCATION FOUNDATION TO NAME THREE SUNCOAST CREDIT UNION SCHOLARS IN 2016 CLICK HERE for application! The Suncoast Credit Union announces its partnership with the Citrus County Education Foundation to offer three (3) $2,000 scholarship awards to public high school seniors in Citrus County. Students in the class of 2016 within the public school […]
We have all heard the cliché about giving 110% in everything we do, but instead I would like to challenge the residents of Citrus County to give just 10%! If the citizens of Citrus County chose to care just 10% more, they could make a world of a difference for this community and its future. […]
The CCEF Board of Directors and Scholarship subcommittee recently enacted some changes to the long running Aspiring Teacher Scholarship program. The first major change is that the scholarships are now available year round! Teachers and staff can apply at any time during the year, and CCEF’s scholarship committee will review and award the scholarship on […]
Get your copy of the 2015-16 Coupons for Classrooms book today. These $20 coupon books contain thousands in savings, and the proceeds of every book help support local public education. Books can be purchased through your local school, all 21 public schools in Citrus County are participating. Books are also available for purchase at Raymond […]
INVERNESS, FL, OCTOBER 19, 2015. The Citrus County Education Foundation (CCEF) kicked off another year of providing free books to pre-kindergarten students on Friday, October 16th. The First Library literacy initiative began in the Fall of 2013. Since that time, over 4,200 books have been distributed to more than 700 students in the 22 pre-kindergarten […]
Leave a Legacy!
Interested in making a lasting impact on Citrus County? CCEF has created a free Planned Giving Guide to help you decide the best way to give back to local public education. Check out the guide and how you can give.
Click here to learn more.


The computer, writes Peter Lunenfeld, is the twenty-first century's culture machine. It is a dream device, serving as the mode of production, the means of distribution, and the site of reception. We haven't quite achieved the flying cars and robot butlers of futurist fantasies, but we do have a machine that can function as a typewriter and a printing press, a paintbrush and a gallery, a piano and a radio, the mail as well as the mail carrier. But, warns Lunenfeld, we should temper our celebration with caution; we are engaged in a secret war between downloading and uploading--between passive consumption and active creation--and the outcome will shape our collective futures.
In The Secret War Between Downloading and Uploading, Lunenfeld makes his case for using digital technologies to shift us from a consumption to a production model. He describes television as "the high fructose corn syrup of the imagination" and worries that it can cause "cultural diabetes"; prescribes mindful downloading, meaningful uploading, and "info-triage" as cures; and offers tips for crafting "bespoke futures" in what he terms the era of "Web n.0" (interconnectivity to the nth power). He also offers a stand-alone genealogy of digital visionaries, distilling a history of the culture machine that runs from the Patriarchs (Vannevar Bush's WWII generation) to the Hustlers (Bill Gates and Steve Jobs) to the Searchers (Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google fame). After half a century of television-conditioned consumption/downloading, Lunenfeld tells us, we now find ourselves with a vast new infrastructure for uploading. We simply need to find the will to make the best of it.
GenText is a powerful and innovative interactive text application that allows readers to access arguments at three levels – short abstract, single screen synopsis, and full selection – with the dynamic interaction offered by pinching and reverse pinching literalizing the metaphor of "zooming" between the levels in a text.
GenText recounts the history of how the computer became our culture machine, and is adapted from “Generations,” the last section of The Secret War Between Downloading and Uploading. GenText offers a leading-edge interface for reading on portable touch screen devices such as the iPad and GenText exploits the affordances of our “print plus” moment. GenText will be of special interest for those working in new media, digital humanities, and the design disciplines. The app was developed by media artist Chandler McWilliams with input from Peter Lunenfeld.
The Directorate offers an alternate mode of accessing The Secret War Between Downloading and Uploading. Not recommended for those with carpal tunnel, weak fingers, or short attention spans.
Interface by Jon Gacnik from a concept by Peter Lunenfeld, Chandler McWilliams, and Brian Roettinger.
“Written in sharp, fast-paced prose, Peter Lunenfeld's provocative new book implores today's creative citizens to make more and consume less. In a culture glutted with slick, Teflon-coated downloads, we need to push ourselves to upload our own content. If our work has sticky surfaces and rough edges, it will bond with other ideas in the network and contribute to an ongoing dialogue. The Secret War Between Downloading and Uploading is a ready-to-use manifesto for contemporary media practice.”
—Ellen Lupton, curator of contemporary design, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, and author of Thinking with Type
“'Cultural diabetes,' 'plutopian meliorism,' and 'Teflon objects' are only a few of the extraordinarily vivid concepts Peter Lunenfeld points out in this fascinating and impressionistic journey of the key cultural and technological events—from the atomic bomb to the ubiquity of Google—that have landed us in our brave new networked, searchable, and data-filled world.”
—Judith Donath, Faculty Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University
“It is formally impossible to write a book that is more of-the-moment than Peter Lunenfeld's The Secret War Between Downloading and Uploading.”
—Bruce Sterling, futurist, science fiction author, and net critic


Patawee Promsen: Throughout the book, you choose to use the term Nahua instead of Aztec, as it is the term they call themselves and it includes the larger ethnic groups in the area. I wonder, however, why you chose to use the term Aztec instead of Nahua for the book title? Are there any implications in doing so?
Isabel Laack: Words do not carry any inherent, objective meaning; we use words to communicate our ideas about reality and thus construct this reality. In academic thinking, we strive for clarity in our communication and analyze the meanings commonly associated with terms in their social and political contexts, contexts in which some people have more power to shape reality as others.
The term “Aztec” was coined by Europeans in the 19th century to name the mainly Nahuatl-speaking ethnic groups that formed the “Aztec empire” in the century before the Spanish conquest. Throughout my book, I preferred the Indigenous term “Nahua” because of two reasons: first, to emphasize the cultural traits shared by the people using this language, and second, to raise awareness for the political asymmetries reflected in our European interpretations of the Indigenous cultures of Mexico—including our powers to name them.
Having said that, it is the term “Aztec” that is most commonly used in American popular discourse; and it is also used in academic discourse to distinguish the pre-colonial “Aztecs” from the colonial and contemporary “Nahuas”. When you choose a title for a book, you need to name your subject and approach as clearly and concisely as possible. At the same time, you need to include the terms most probably used by your potential readers, to catch their attention and to be found when they search for literature in internet search engines or academic databases. Consequently, I decided to include the catchy if problematic “Aztec” in the main title but also the more speaking “Nahua” in the subtitle.
Patawee Promsen:. Can you share more about how you have come to be interested in this research topic, especially Nahua pictorial writing?
Isabel Laack: My fascination for Indigenous American cultures was first stirred in high school in the context of the 500th anniversary of the European conquest of America in 1992, when my history teacher taught us to critically reflect on European colonialism. Later, I was privileged to learn more about Indigenous Americans in my university studies of religion and anthropology. These studies were inspired by the wish to better understand their ways of living as well as the injustice initiated by my European ancestors through conquest, colonization, and suppression.
My academic interest in the specifics of Nahua pictorial writing and its correlation with (religious) cosmovision was raised primarily through the books written by art historian Elizabeth H. Boone. I was deeply touched by the beauty of Aztec and Mixtec painting, intrigued with this form of visual communication, and inspired by Boone’s impetus to overcome Eurocentric biases in our attempts to understand how this form of communication works.
Patawee Promsen: While some scholars tend to treat oral tradition as a primary source of understanding Nahua culture, your book suggests that pictorial writing is equally important, and its role is not limited to just a device for serving orality. In what ways that considering both oral and written literature as being inextricably interwoven will add to a more understanding of the indigenous historiographical genres?
Isabel Laack: The main thrust of my argument is to overcome the interpretative limitations produced by using European systems of communication as the (only) reference point for analyzing Indigenous oral and written genres.
If we look at the few surviving manuscripts written in traditional Aztec and Mixtec writing, we might be tempted to see them as very limited forms of communication—comparing them implicitly or explicitly to the long texts written in the history of Europe in alphabetical writing. Assuming that the Nahuas nonetheless had extensive cultural and historical knowledge, the only possible inference is: There must have been a strong oral tradition complementing the written records. And indeed, colonial sources evidently speak of a rich and elaborate oral tradition including all kinds of media and performative acts.
Nevertheless, trying to understand pictorial writing in its own right—not compared to alphabetical writing—opens our minds to realize that there might be layers of meaning communicated in this system that work beyond verbally expressed thinking. Then, we also realize that the Nahua combination of oral and written traditions is much more complex than previously assumed. Engaging in this way with Indigenous forms of communication teaches us very much about the many human possibilities of making sense of our lives in this world.
Patawee Promsen: Your book offers a fascinating idea of a “material turn” in the study of religion. In the conclusion part, you suggest that Nahua pictography challenges the idea that “thoughts are best expressed linguistically” (p.356). I wonder if you could explain more of why not only phonographic/alphabetical but also pictorial writing can reflect critical thinking?
Isabel Laack: Let me answer this question in two parts, discussing first the material turn and second my interpretation of pictorial writing.
1) Because of its origin and history, the Western academic study of religion is strongly shaped by Christian, Protestant ideas and has, thus far, mainly focused on analyzing the belief systems and theologies, that is, cognitively and verbally expressed interpretations of the world. In the last decades, some scholars of religion have turned their attention away from exclusively examining elite discourses to consider what most ordinary people do with their religion in their daily lives. Thus, scholars have come to realize that religion is lived with all the human senses and the body, not only cognitively but also emotionally, performatively, and in interaction with material and sensory media, such as artifacts and objects, music and sounds, images and colors, smells and food. Scholars promoting the material turn and the aesthetic turn in the study of religion attempt to better understand these ways of religiously making sense of the world, ways going beyond using words.
2) You mention a part of my key argument about Nahua pictorial writing, which challenges the idea that thoughts are best expressed linguistically. In this argument, I refer to the theory of embodied metaphors by cognitive linguist George P. Lakoff and philosopher Mark L. Johnson. In a nutshell, they argue that even our most critical and abstract thinking—such as philosophical thinking—is fundamentally shaped by the ways we perceive our environment through our bodies. A simple example for this is the conception of time as a linear movement in space. According to Lakoff and Johnson, we cannot think abstractly and critically without using embodied metaphors like this. In my book, I applied this argument to pictorial writing by showing its potential to visualize embodied metaphors in images and signs and thus to enable “readers” to understand them and to give them tools to critically reflect on the ideas expressed in the painting.
Patawee Promsen: One of the most important arguments from your book is that semiotic theories are developed differently in different cultures so that it will be a misinterpretation if we use Western knowledge to get the Non-Western’s sense of reality. Can you say more about how deconstructing Western idea of semiotics would be helpful to understand the Nahua’s linguistic theory and their sense of reality?
Isabel Laack: When we engage with people from a culture different to our own, maybe even from an earlier time in history, we might realize that they have a different perspective on the world, a different cosmovision, a different sense of reality. I intentionally use the term “sense of reality” to emphasize the sensorily, bodily aspects of our perception and (performative) interpretations of reality. Furthermore, humans in the many cultures of the world have developed different sign systems for communication, for example language, facial expression and body movements, ritualized acts, images, and scripts. Some of these sign systems, such as phonographic scripts, are secondary sign systems representing a primary sign system such as language.
A “semiotic theory” is an implicit or explicitly voiced theory about the relationship between the signs of a specific sign system and reality. As such, these theories mirror the more general sense of reality of the culture in question. We can use semiotic theories from our own culture to interpret a sign system from a different culture, but this does not tell us much about their sense of reality or their own ideas about the relationship between the signs and reality.
The problem with many Western engagements with people from other cultures is an attitude to essentially assume that Western ontology, interpretation of the world, or sense of reality is objectively true, whereas those of other cultures—if they happen to be different—are not. Sometimes, we need to deconstruct objectifying ideologies (such as Western logocentrism) in order to open our minds for the truth that might be lying in other senses of reality.
Patawee Promsen: You mentioned in your book that religion is not “solely the creation of the scholar’s study” (p.11). In your opinion, how does this study help challenge the Western science knowledge of religion? And how would it help overcome the ethnocentric and intellectualist biases?
Isabel Laack: First, I would like to explain why I quoted J.Z. Smith in my introduction. In the study of religion as in other humanities, cultural studies, and philosophies, there has been an ongoing debate about the ontological status of academic concepts. With his statement “religion is solely the creation of the scholar’s study,” J.Z. Smith argued against objectifying philosophies assuming that the concept of religion as used by academic scholars of religion mirrors categories objectively present in extra-linguistic reality.
My epistemological standpoint regarding the ontological status of academic concepts is more moderate and influenced by the embodied critical realism of Lakoff and Johnson. I believe that a reality exists outside the human imagination, with which we interact bodily and socially. This reality includes both the physical, material reality of our natural environment as well as the social reality formed by what we and other human beings do. Thus, human beings factually do things, things that we in our culture and historical time have decided to denote as religion. The category religion itself, however, does not objectively exist in extra-linguistic reality. We could also use a different concept to name some things people do or debate endlessly what religion is and what it is not, argue about the contents and boundaries of this category. Accordingly, there have been many different suggestions for defining religion. In the end, it is a matter of communicating our ideas about reality.
In my study of the Nahuas, I attempted to show that some common associations with the Western concept of religion do impede our possibilities of understanding how the Nahuas perceived and interpreted reality. I do not claim that all Nahuas perceived reality the same way, but I think they shared some foundational beliefs. Neither do I claim that I come in any way close to how any Nahua 500 years ago might have felt and thought. However, I do claim that if we read the surviving sources of Nahua communication attentively and reflect on the history of European projections, some interpretations of a more general Nahua sense of reality make more sense than others.
Many things the Nahuas did and communicated about their thoughts are very different from European culture. Academic theories about religion, as they are strongly shaped by European ways of seeing the world, might not be adequate tools to understand these things. Consequently, studying Nahua ways of seeing the world and acting in it challenges aspects of these academic theories believed to be cross-culturally applicable and universally true.
Boone, Elizabeth H., and Walter D. Mignolo, eds. 1994. Writing Without Words: Alternative Literacies in Mesoamerica and the Andes. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Boone, Elizabeth H. 2000. Stories in Red and Black: Pictorial Histories of the Aztec and Mixtec. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Boone, Elizabeth H. 2007. Cycles of Time and Meaning in the Mexican Books of Fate. Joe R. and Teresa Long Series in Latin American and Latino Art and Culture. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Smith, Jonathan Z. 1982. Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown. Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press: page xi.


Angela Ards is an Associate Professor of English and Journalism at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, MA. She attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a John Motley Morehead Scholar, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, with a BA in English. She received her MA in African American Studies from UCLA and her Ph.D. in English from Princeton University. Her first book, Words of Witness: Contemporary Black Women’s Autobiography in the Post-Brown Era (University of Wisconsin Press, 2016), examines how writers use the traditional civil rights movement narrative to craft life stories that engage political thought and participate within black women’s intellectual traditions.
She has shared her expertise in African American literature and culture, creative nonfiction, and current affairs with diverse audiences in an array of settings—from universities, high schools, and community forums, to professional associations and corporations. Her talks are thought-provoking, original, and delivered with grace.
Angela is also a writer and journalist inspired by a passion for storytelling in service of social justice. Her reportage, essays and reviews have appeared in Time, the Nation, the Village Voice, Essence, Ms., the Crisis, and the Los Angeles Times Book Review. She has also been widely anthologized, with chapters in That’s the Joint! The Hip Hop Studies Reader (Routledge, 2004); Burning All Illusions: Writing from The Nation on Race, 1866-2002, (Nation Books, 2002); Step into a World: A Global Anthology of the New Black Literature (John Wiley & Sons, 2000); Still Lifting, Still Climbing: Contemporary African American Women’s Activism (New York University Press, 1999), among others.
Angela’s work has been supported with fellowships and awards from a number of institutions, including Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute (now Hutchins Center) for African and African American Research; Columbia University’s Charles H. Revson Foundation; Princeton University’s Preyer Fellowship for English Literature and Center for the Study of Religion; Southern Methodist University’s Research Council; Hedgebrook; and Blue Mountain Center. Angela is currently completing “Homesteading: Black Regional Identity in the Global South,” which uses oral histories to chronicle the lives of Black southerners who bypassed the Great Migration to remain and build communities in the South.


The Organizers have decided to provide the two independent full-paper publication tracks for all of the Conference Attendees to meet their various publication preferences. The following tracks are available for the concerned Attendees who expressed a will for a full-paper publication during their registration:
- Track 1 (Fast publication track) – with guaranteed year of publication 2023
All the Concerned Attendees are asked to prepare full-length papers by 15 October 2023 which will be then reviewed and, after correction, published in a book of chapters edited and issued under the auspices of the Organizers’ Institution, i.e., AGH University of Krakow, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics, Department of Robotics and Mechatronics.
- Track 2 (Standard publication track) – with year of publication 2024
The Authors should prepare full-length papers by 31 December 2023. Next, depending on the recommendations made within the reviewing process, each paper will be published in one of the following books:
- a book of chapters entitled “Mechatronics – industry-inspired advances” available within the Springer series "Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems" (https://www.springer.com/series/15179). The Mechatronics Conference series is available at the website https://link.springer.com/conference/mechatronics,
- a book of chapters published by the Organizers’ Institution – same as in the Track 1.
We kindly remind that 2-page abstracts (up to 2 pages) are considered obligatory by 15 November for all the Conference Attendees, regardless of their decision on full-length paper submission.
All the publications costs are covered by the Conference registration fee. In the following there are provided templates for abstract and full-length papers.
Allowed number of pages: 1 or 2. The editable WORD file with abstract template, you can downlod here. For the abstract, please send in an editable form to:
The provided requirements are appropriate for both full-length paper publication tracks, and follow the Springer publishing style. Style files and templates are available to the Authors at the page: https://www.springer.com/gp/authors-editors/conference-proceedings/conference-proceedings-guidelines
However, for the Authors’ convenience, all the templates are provided below:
Allowed number of pages: 12-16, both even and odd number of pages is allowed. Moreover, the Authors are kindly asked to submit a signed “Consent to Publish form”, through which the copyright of their papers is transferred to Springer. In due time, this process will be coordinated by the members of the Organizing Committee who will send emails with attached prefilled form to the contributing Conference Attendees.
For the full-length paper, please send in an editable form to
QUESTIONS, FARTHER INFORMATION NEEDED
In case of questions related to the conference papers preparation and publication please do not hesitate to directly contact the member of the Organizing Committee -


A YA Anthology of Greek Myth Retellings
Aphrodite. Zeus. Medusa. Hercules. You’ve heard their names. You thought you knew their stories… until now.
Lose yourself in this collection of eleven young adult re-imaginings of Greek myths from the authors of Snowy Wings Publishing. From magical kingdoms under the sea to the halls of a modern high school, from Ancient Greece to the distant future, you will find romance, courage, fantasy, danger, and more. With each story bringing a twist on a classic legend, there is something for everyone to enjoy again and again.
Across the ages, the Muses call: SING, GODDESS!
Inside the Stories
“Like Mars and Venus,” a retelling of the myth of ARES AND APHRODITE, by Jane Watson, author of The Taming of the Dudebro
Alexandria “Lexi” Cypress is trying to enjoy her senior year and make sure her school has the best Homecoming ever. She may be the new girl at Mountainview High, but she is keeping busy with the cheerleading team, Homecoming Committee, and new friends. While she is the go-to girl for her fellow classmates’ romantic woes, she sees no romance in her own future as she’s been burned by love before. To her surprise, both Aidan Shields, captain of the Spartan’s football team and resident hottie (and supposed resident flirt), and a mystery admirer are soon vying for her attention. Can Lexi learn to open up her heart, and will she survive Homecoming?
“The Real Prize,” a retelling of the myth of ATALANTA, by Amy Bearce, author of the World of Aluvia series
Atalanta is a princess of the merfolk who would rather be a warrior than royalty. When her father, the king, tells her it’s time to marry, she agrees to a contest, the winner of which will be her groom. Then she craftily designs a race in which she knows no merman could beat her—in fact, they could die trying. But the risk doesn’t stop three determined young mermen from signing up, one of whom has some clever plans of his own.
“Light in the Darkness,” a retelling of the myth of ARTEMIS, by Selenia Paz, author of the Leyendas Trilogy
Having retreated to the deepest parts of the woods, Artemis is happy simply living in solitude with her dog, surrounded by nature. She tries not to think of the family of gods she left behind, of her father Zeus, or of the reputation that comes with being the goddess of the hunt. But it seems the Fates have a different plan in mind, and not even the woods will be able to keep her from this path—or help her forget who she truly is.
“Káto Kósmos,” a retelling of the myth of HADES AND PERSEPHONE, by Janina Franck, author of A Spark in Space
Káto Kósmos is dying. Mira’s only hope of saving her planet—and her people—is an android designed to nurture nature. But its theft does not go unnoticed and soon Mira is faced with an ultimatum: Return the android and let her planet die, or perish as an infuriated inventor sets his starfleet on her and her people.
“Slither,” a retelling of the myth of MEDUSA, by Dorothy Dreyer, USA Today-bestselling author of the Empire of the Lotus series
After escaping a devastating attack by Stone Mirror Bay’s most prominent VIP, snake enthusiast Meddie is given an enchanted necklace to protect her. But the powers unleashed from the necklace could prove to be deadly.
“Today’s Gods,” a retelling of the myth of ZEUS AND IO, by Sarah Dale, author of the Zodiac Cusp Kids series
River’s best friend, Simon, convinces her to try out for the Spring Play, “Today’s Gods.” It’s a student production, written by and starring the school’s perfect, golden, power couple, Rhiannon and Dane. Rhiannon has modernized the tale of Zeus falling for Hera’s priestess, Io. Of course Hera suspects, and so to hide his affair, Zeus turns Io into a beautiful, white cow. He sends her scurrying off across the countryside, dogged by Hera’s minions, Argus of the 100 eyes and the biting, stinging Gadfly.
River is at first ecstatic to win the role, only to find herself trapped in a real life version of the play, pursued by Dane and harried by Rhiannon’s friends. And if being batted about by a couple of sociopathic high school gods wasn’t enough, River is also stressing out about her application to the exclusive Arts and Humanities focus program, and worrying about her dad, whose mission abroad has gone awry and he and his team have assumed radio silence.
But as they say, the play must go on.
“Last Call at the Rim of the Central Well,” a retelling of the myth of ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE, by Leigh Hellman, author of Orbit
Two young men share a drink and a story in the neon shadows of Club Gaudia, a substreet bar in the seedy Six Rivers sector of the city. Dougal comes to the bar each night in search of his missing girlfriend and desperate for an audience with the club’s mysterious owner, who he is sure is the key to understanding her disappearance. One fateful night he shares his tale with Kenrick, a curious stranger who begins to challenge what Dougal has come to believe is true—about the fractured relationship that he’s still chasing and the girl who loved and left him. As he pleads his case for needing to know what really happened to The Mistress of Club Gaudia, he also must decide what his place in his own cracking narrative truly is.
“In Pursuit,” a retelling of the myth of ORION AND SCORPIO, by Jessica Gunn, author of the Storm Warden Chronicles
Pheme is secretly the infamous Orion, hunter of supernaturals, and dedicated to the clandestine Midnight Order. Amara is a member of the Peacekeeper Task Force, code name Scorpio, and one of the best at what she does. The Peacekeepers want peace between humans and supernaturals. The Midnight Order wants rid of the dangerous supernaturals. Caught between their vows and families, Amara and Pheme enter into a deadly game of cat and mouse, with neither knowing their dangerous enemy is their closest friend. Will they put everything on the line for love?
“With Dark Truths Draw Me,” a retelling of the myth of ARACHNE, by Mary Fan, author of Starswept
High-achieving Min Wong, a junior at the elite Olympus Prep, has one goal: get into one of the top three Ivy League universities. And she will do whatever it takes to stay on top. But after her classmate, the artistic Ara, dies by suicide, Min finds herself haunted by their former rivalry.
“Darken the Night,” a retelling of the myth of NYX, by Amy McNulty, author of the Blood, Bloom, & Water series
Phoenyx “Nyx” Douglas feels like a damsel trapped away. Suffering from a form of light sensitivity, she sleeps during the day, missing out on all the typical things the other teens in her town do. One night when her flighty father is out on a job, she falls for charmer Erebus Jones at first sight but then has a dream about a child she’s supposed to have with him in the future—and the peril that boy is in. With Ere’s help, she uncovers what it will take to save their future child: blackmailing the powerful town mayor and teaching him to fear her. The two teens are in over their heads as they uncover shocking secrets and cross the line between what’s right and what’s wrong—all in service of saving a child they can only have if their burgeoning relationship survives the danger they put themselves in.
“Feathers on the Wind,” a retelling of the myth of ICARUS, by Lyssa Chiavari, author of the Iamos Trilogy
Nicothoë is cursed. The daughter of a demigoddess changed by Hera’s wrath into a harpy, Nico has lived her whole life conscripted into the service of the gods and believing she is a monster. But everything changes when she meets Icarus, a boy who is desperate to free his father from the persecution of King Minos. Through their quest to liberate the unjustly imprisoned inventor, Nicothoë just may find freedom herself—but at what cost?
- “Slither” by Dorothy Dreyer—depiction of sexual assault
- “With Dark Truths Draw Me” by Mary Fan—depiction of suicide


Saladin Ahmed was born in Detroit and raised in a working-class, Arab American enclave in Dearborn, Michigan. His first novel, THRONE OF THE CRESCENT MOON, was a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Crawford, Gemmell, and British Fantasy Awards, won the Locus Award for Best First Novel, and received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and Library Journal. He was nominated twice for the Campbell Award for Best New Science Fiction/Fantasy Writer for his short stories, which have appeared in YEAR’S BEST SCIENCE FICTION and have been translated into a half-dozen languages. He has also written nonfiction for NPR Books, Salon, and The Escapist. He holds an MFA in poetry from Brooklyn College, an MA in English from Rutgers, and lives near Detroit with his wife and twin children.


‘Best teacher in the world’ emphasises the importance of giving students freedom of choice
The ‘best teacher in the world,’ Nancie Atwell, winner of the Global Teacher Prize, 2015, has stressed the fundamental importance of literacy skills during a visit to London.
Addressing parents, teachers and journalists at The Hampshire School in Chelsea on Wednesday 11th November, Nancie (pictured above with the school's Headmaster, Donal Brennan) said policymakers have dismissed “a wealth of evidence” concerning the power of reading.
In London to join up with the Judging Academy for the 2016 Global Teacher Prize, Nancie said there were three major factors that enable literacy to bloom:
- students are given access to large and varied collections of books
- students are allowed the freedom to choose what they want to read
- students are granted the time they need
At the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), the school Nancie founded in Maine to support underprivileged learners, students work their way through an average of 40 books each year, becoming “skilled, thoughtful, avid” readers along the way. In achieving this, Nancie said, choice and time have been crucial.
Underlining the importance of children being given the freedom to choose the books that interest them, she said: “We want our kids to be asking ‘What happens next?’ as that’s a pathway into literacy.”
Multiple studies, she said, have documented the positive impacts of libraries in schools; children need “rich, extensive collections of books in schools” and they need “real books”, not digital copies. Kids prefer, Nancie said, the “geography” of actual books; they find it easier to flip back and forth to check possible misunderstandings or missed plot devices and develop a better sense of what’s coming next. When they read real books rather than e-books, she said, children sleep better and have richer social lives; the covers of books function “almost as badges” which they can swap and discuss in the playground.
“Just the right book at just the right time”
Nancie, who has published 13 books on teaching, spoke of the impact that reading “just the right book at just the right time” can have. Quoting Graham Greene, she said: “There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.”
For Nancie herself, that moment came when she read The Secret Garden and found herself empathising with the story’s characters. The book, which she read 4 times, “changed everything” and sparked a lifelong love of literature. Drawing from an “underground curriculum of my own designing”, she began reading novels such as 1984 and Rosemary’s Baby, developing a passion that would later lead her to study for a BA (Hons) in English and, ultimately, take up a career in teaching.
"Returning autonomy to practice"
Discussing the culture of testing that prevails in many countries’ education systems, Nancie said it was important to have standards yet there was plenty of proof that “testing doesn’t lead to excellence.” Teachers have become more like “technicians,” she said, and changes are required at the level of government to help them remain passionate about education. To have successful, satisfied educators, she said, “we need to start returning autonomy to practice.”
The Global Teacher Prize
The Global Teacher Prize was introduced by GEMS Education’s chosen charitable partner and campaigner for change, the Varkey Foundation, as a means of raising the profile of the profession. Nancie was presented with the award in March 2015 by Bill Clinton, former US President, at the Global Education and Skills Forum (GESF). She immediately chose to donate the $1m award to her school, the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL).
Speaking about the effects winning the Global Teacher Prize has had on her and the school, Nancie said the fund has helped replace boilers at CTL as well as add to its extensive library. “If I had (the) funds I’d fill the classrooms of the world with books of stories,” she said, adding, “if I had influence beyond my dreams, I'd direct the educational decision makers of the world to pay attention to literacy scholarship, focus on comprehension, and bring children's literature from the periphery of reading instruction to the foreground to put wonderful stories front and centre."
Following her talk at The Hampshire School, Nancie went on to join the Global Teacher Prize’s Judging Academy (pictured above) at the offices of PricewaterhouseCoopers, official auditors of the prize. The academy, composed of head-teachers, journalists, public officials, entrepreneurs, company directors, scientists and educational experts from around the world, is currently considering the longlist for the 2016 award.
Nancie’s whirlwind tour of London also saw her meet with Nick Gibb, the UK Minister of State for Schools, at Capital City Academy, where she held a writing workshop. Mr Gibb said he supported Nancie "in her drive to highlight the importance of literacy and to help spread the love of reading around the world".
On the Sky News Sunrise breakfast show, Nancie discussed the personal impacts of winning the 2015 prize with Eamonn Holmes and offered advice for keeping students engaged and intellectually challenged. She went on to join Sadiq Khan, MP and Labour party London mayoral candidate, in south London to discuss literacy in the capital and its importance worldwide with students and staff at Harris Academy Merton.
Nancie later met with Vanessa Feltz (below) on her BBC Radio London show and spoke to the Literacy Panel at Teach First about the importance of providing spaces for children to enjoy books, once more emphasising the positive influence that giving children the freedom to choose the books they want to read for themselves can have.
Published: 23rd November 2015


This project is born within the fight of a small group of mums from the Public Nursery & Primary School "Europa" in Montequinto, Dos Hermanas (Seville), reclaiming a lunch-room for the school.
For eight years, children have been eating in the school library, as an interim solution; but the library is so small that children have to do lunch shifts, the last of them over four o´clock in the afternoon. In addition to this, the library cannot be used as such and books cannot be kept elsewhere.
To face this situation, the mums of the school set up the "Plataforma Pro-Comedor" [Lunch-room Proponents"], in order to seek support and make the project known, with the enduring support of the school headship, the AMPA [Alumni's mothers and fathers association] and the whole educational community. Thanks to this, they have successfully generated greater awareness of the problem and, above all, of the community's ability to take part in the solution, by using and managing its own resources.
Thus, the self-building and the recycling of the materials have become for the school not only means to achieve a lunch-room, but also a tool to teach the students some fundamental values such as the force of teamwork or the importance of the public service system, and so lay the foundations of the committed citizens they want their children to be in the future. Committed citizens which will participate in the making of decisions and the searching of solutions.
After some meetings, the Dos Hermanas City Council decided to sponsor the project by extending the new facility to a wider range of use, scheduling different activities apart from the lunch-time service, not only for the school but also for the neighborhood. Some funds have been specifically allocated to self-building, making the project possible and sustainable. Step by step, the lunch-room project has become a social project able to involve the whole local community.


Theatre.js is an animation library for high-fidelity motion graphics. It is designed to help you express detailed animation, enabling you to create intricate movement, and convey nuance.
Theatre can be used both programmatically and visually.
You can use Theatre.js to:
- Animate 3D objects made with THREE.js or other 3D libraries
- Animate HTML/SVG via React or other libraries
- Design micro-interactions
- Choreograph generative interactive art
- Or animate any other JS variable


The Lord of the Bands is an epic high-fantasy novel created by English writer and also scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a follow up to Tolkien’s 1937 fantasy novel The Hobbit, however ultimately developed into a much bigger work. Written in phases between 1937 and 1949, The Lord of the Rings is among the best-selling stories ever before created, with over 150 million duplicates offered.
The title of the novel refers to the story’s main antagonist, the Dark Lord Sauron, that had in an earlier age developed the One Ring to rule the various other Rings of Power as the supreme tool in his project to conquer and rule all of Middle-earth. From quiet beginnings in the Shire, a hobbit land like the English countryside, the story varies across Middle-earth, complying with the training course of the Battle of the Ring through the eyes of its characters, most especially the hobbits Frodo Baggins, Sam, Merry and also Pippin.
Although usually recognized to viewers as a trilogy, the work was originally planned by Tolkien to be one volume of a two-volume set, the other to be The Silmarillion, but this suggestion was disregarded by his author. For financial factors, The Lord of the Rings was published in 3 quantities throughout a year from 29 July 1954 to 20 October 1955. The three quantities were labelled The Fellowship of the Ring, Both Towers and also The Return of the King. Structurally, the story is divided internally into six books, 2 per quantity, with several appendices of background material included at the end. Some editions incorporate the entire infiltrate a single quantity. The Lord of the Rings has given that been reprinted countless times as well as translated right into 38 languages.
Tolkien’s job has been the subject of extensive analysis of its styles and beginnings. Although a major work in itself, the story was only the last motion of a bigger impressive Tolkien had serviced given that 1917, in a process he described as mythopoeia. Impacts on this earlier work, and also on the tale of The Lord of the Rings, include philology, mythology, religious beliefs and the author’s distaste for the impacts of automation, along with earlier dream works as well as Tolkien’s experiences in World war. The Lord of the Rings in its turn is taken into consideration to have had a great effect on modern-day fantasy; the impact of Tolkien’s jobs is such that using words “Tolkienian” and also “Tolkienesque” has actually been videotaped in the Oxford English Dictionary.
The long-lasting appeal of The Lord of the Rings has actually resulted in countless referrals in pop culture, the beginning of several societies by followers of Tolkien’s jobs, as well as the publication of several publications concerning Tolkien and also his works. The Lord of the Bands has motivated, as well as remains to influence, art work, songs, films as well as television, video games, parlor game, and succeeding literature. Prize-winning adjustments of The Lord of the Rings have actually been created radio, theatre, and also film. In 2003, it was called Britain’s best book of all time in the BBC’s The Large Read.


The Texas Engineering Extension Service (TEEX) and the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum are hosting “9/11 Remembered” on Friday, Sept. 9 at 10 a.m. This special ceremony is being held both in memory of the 2,977 lives that were lost on Sept. 11, 2001 and to honor the many living and deceased heroes who risked their lives that day and in the days after the attacks on the United States. The first responders and members of Texas Task Force 1 who responded to Ground Zero in 2001 will be recognized, and a piece of the steel from the World Trade Center will be on display in the rotunda. The ceremony will be held at the Bush Library and Museum, which is located at 1000 George Bush Drive West in College Station.
President Albrecht Broemme of the Federal Agency for Technical Relief in Germany will present a keynote address on “9/11’s Global Impact.” Also speaking will be J. Robert “Bob” McKee, Director of Texas Task Force 1 and TEEX’s Disaster Preparedness and Response Division. The ceremony will include special musical selections by the Texas A&M Singing Cadets, the Austin Fire Department Pipe Band, Chris Hoffman and Ed Kane. The public is invited.
In honor and recognition of the sacrifices made by first responders and our military in connection with 9/11 and the Global War on Terrorism, the Bush Library and Museum proudly offers free admission for all first responders and active-duty service members (with appropriate ID) and up to five immediate family members from Friday, Sept. 9 through Sunday, Sept. 11.


Today, my guest is LTCOL Dave Grossman. He requires very little introduction, as I’m sure most of my audience will be intimately familiar with his books, most notably the one that has revolutionised the way we think and talk about combat. The book is of course ‘On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society’, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; has been translated into multiple languages; is on the US Marine Corps Commandant’s Required Reading List; and is required reading at the FBI academy and numerous other academies and colleges around the world.
He is now the director of the ‘Killology Research Group’ and is on the road almost 300 days a year, training elite military and law enforcement organisations worldwide about the reality of combat.
During our chat, we discussed a range of topics, including
- Non-firers in combat and how we made killing a conditioned response
- How anonymity can enable violence and the importance of non-verbal communication
- The logic behind the term ‘killology’
- What LTCOL Grossman means by the phrase ‘no pity party, no macho man’
- Sleep deprivation and its effects on our societies
- The issue with high doses of caffeine in energy drinks
- The impact of sleep deprivation on ethical decision making in soldiers and first responders
- Social blind spots and how they impact our decision making
- The blind spot of creating a generation desensitised to violence and war
- How medical technology decreases murder and death rate, and thereby hides an increase in violence
- How otherwise good people come to do bad things, particularly in war
- ‘Killing enabling factors’ and how they can lead to atrocities
- ‘The virus of violent crime’ and its implications for our future
- The need to understand causes of violence, not means to carry it out
- The power and danger of information
Since I’ve barely scratched the surface of LTCOL Grossman’s extensive biography, you can find an extended version here. You can find a list of other books he has written over the years, including the two mentioned in our chat—'On Combat' and 'Assassination Generation'—here.