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This past weekend, my friend S told me about a new kind of ramen - gohôbi ramen. Now, gohôbi ramen isn't any one kind of ramen per se, but a special kind of ontological role for ramen - ramen as reward. Gohôbi is something like a special prize or added incentive, a reward for oneself upon the completion of a task. The task in question was climbing Takao-san, a low-lying mountain in Tokyo's western suburbs. Less than an hour from the hustle and bustle of Shinjuku station, Takao-san is a 599 meter tall peak that is a popular weekend getaway from metropolites such as myself, S, and the 2.5 million other people that climb the mountain every year. But the best part about climbing Takao-san is that there are 8 separate tracks up, and by taking the most strenuous ridge route (relatively speaking of course; this IS only a 599 meter peak), we left the crowds quickly behind. After taking in a leisurely loop while enveloped in green growth, we figured we had earned ourselves a bowl of gohôbi ramen. After a quick dip rubbing shoulders with tattooed yakuza in a public bath in the town of Hachiôji, S and I headed back to Tokyo to chow down and undo all of the day's hard work. We spent about an hour flipping through my newest ramen guide book and drooling, but in the end decided to go with a tried and true favorite - the one, the only, Ramen Jirô. I had to be back in Shinjuku to help my buddy interview heavy psych rock god Narita Munehiro, so we decided to hit up the Otakibashi branch of the celebrated chain, just a few hundred meters north from the station's west gate. The second we walked in, "Danger Zone," the theme from Top Gun began playing on the stereo, and if you know anything about Ramen Jirô, you know how ironically appropriate a musical choice that is. Jirô serves the biggest, baddest, most brutally greasy, and downright ruggedest bowl of ramen in Tokyo. Loaded with lard and garlic, Jirô has been said to transcend the categorization of ramen itself to become, according to its die hard fans (known as "Jirolians"), a "totally independent food that can only be described as 'Jirô.'" A veritable cottage industry of Jirô-related knowledge has appeared on both the English and Japanese interwebs - for a full rundown by the most Jirôed man of the blogosphere, check out Ramen Tokyo's clearning house for all things Jirolian, including a link to the NPR story. Last time, and every time I've eaten Jirô (usually at the Takadanobaba branch), I've had to nearly roll myself home, satiated to the point of bursting, moaning in pain and pleasure and swearing I wouldn't eat Jirô again for months. Between the volume and the oil, it's a delicious experience, but one that should not perhaps be repeated with too great a frequency, at least for this ramen writer. But the Shinjuku Otakibashi branch of Jirô is a kinder, gentler Jirô. Where was the lard slopped onto the floor? The tense mass of sweaty men hunched over their bowls? The famously frightening shop staff? The Otakibashi branch even boasts (gasp) a table! And, what's this? A Jirô tsukemen (dipping noodle option)? I can't even begin to imagine what that might look like, but it's clear that in the wake of last year's Jirô boom, when the shop moved from cult favorite status into the broad public eye, the shop is making an effort to find new (and perhaps female) customers. The famous turn of phrase at Jirô is "Ninniku iremasu ka?" ("You want garlic?"), which has since been appropriated by dozens of imitator shops across the city. But those three little words, which must be properly parried by immediately rattling off a list of desired toppings (garlic, chili, veggies, and extra lard), were nowhere to be heard. Instead, the cook asked "Topping wa yoroshii deshou ka?" - imagine walking into a tough old fashioned New York deli and being asked "Would you happen to care for any mustard with your pastrami today, sir?" The pure visual impact of the bowl is perhaps less intense than at other Jirô branches as well - granted I ordered only a half serving of vegetables, but the Otakibashi bowl looks...well, more like an actual bowl of ramen than a terror-inducing mountain of wheat, vegetables, and liquid pig. The noodles are different from most Jirô branches as well; rather than being unevenly cut, the noodles here are, while duly extra-thick and chewy, not as rough and raw as at other Jirô branches. Now, all this might sound like a big complaint, but if you've experienced Jirô before, the Otakibashi branch seems to be missing something of the ineffable Jirô-ness of the experience. But all it took was one single sip of that sumptuous soup to remember my Jirô-love. My sweet lord is it good. I think Jirô uses a very special kind of soy sauce in their tonkotsu shôyû (soy and pork bone) soup, and it is just exponentially richer and more delicious than anyone else's. Through some magical process of salt and marrow, Jirô has developed a broth that is almost sweet as sweet as sweet sweet lovin'. Toss a few shakes of chili on there and you good to go, holmes. Nothing but nothing tastes as good as a bowl of Jirô after a long day of hiking and riding trains. I ate Jirô after climbing Fuji three years ago, and after this I may have to make reward bowls of Jirô a post-hiking tradition. I had never even come close to finishing all the soup at Jirô before, but when I looked down, I had nearly reached the bottom. Maybe my recent bowl of uber-fatty Tsubame-Sanjô ramen had recalibrated my tolerance? Despite my earlier whining, it was kind of nice to walk out of Jirô with my head held high and the top button on my pants still fastened. In the last year or two, dozens of imitation Jirô-clone shops have sprung up around Tokyo, but there's nothing like the original. Now to make pilgrimage to the original Mita Honten Jirô shop...

Led by Sergeant Rensin (Bookeem Woodbine; Spider-Man: Homecoming), the paratroopers' official mission is to destroy a radio tower in an old church located in Nazi-occupied Germany. After their plane is shot down before they reach their target, the survivors reassemble. They include Corporal Ford (Wyatt Russell; 22 Jump Street), Boyce (Jovan Adepo; Fences), Tibbet (John Magaro; The Big Short), Chase (Iain De Caestecker; Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), and Dawson (Jacob Anderson; Game of Thrones). As the team sets out on their mission, they quickly lose Dawson and now the quartet needs to carry this highly dangerous task on their own. Once they reach the village where the radio is located, they soon discover that this is no run-of-the-mill task as something quite nefarious in the form of various Nazi experimentations, is taking place, which adds a whole other layer to this already complicated situation. The village is "ground zero" for the team - for not only their original mission but now the mission to save this village and destroy the evil laboratory with its horrific goings-on. During all of this, they also find Rosenfeld (Dominic Applewhite; The King's Speech), another paratrooper who had been captured by the Nazis. Working together, along with the help of a village girl named Chloe (Mathilde Ollivier; The Misfortunes of Francois Jane) they complete both of their missions, but not after losing more of their team members and covering up the truth about what they encountered in that church. When J.J. Abrams is producing, you know you are always in for a quality production and Overlord delivers. From a highly improbable plot that somehow seems to work to a solid cast and excellent special effects, this film is a high energy ride from start to finish. The 4K Dolby Vision video quality is the perfect vehicle for this venture because the gore and special effects are so well done that they seem incredibly realistic in this format (despite lots of green screen used to create the background). The Dolby Atmos audio is also exceptional with depth, range, and sounds aurally assaulting the viewer from all sides. Extras included in this bundle (on the Blu-ray) are the following: Creation: An overall discussion of all the parts that went into the making of the film including casting, crew, the script, training, set design and more. Death Above: A closer look into the film's opening scenes. Death on the Ground: A look at what went into creating and setting the tone for the beginning of the film, Death Below: This feature focuses on key locations of the film, such as the "underworld", production design and bringing the War and Fantasy/Horror film genres together for the story. Death No More: A look at the special effects for the film, including practical effects and props and Brothers in Arms: This feature takes focuses on the talents of Julius Avery direction and J.J. Abrams and the contributions of both to the film. With a "video game" feel, Overload takes a World War II theme and mixes it with a science fiction element to create something unique and unexpected. For this reason alone it is worth a watch but add to it the production values and you have something really special. While I will admit it wasn't my cup of tea (horror and gore aren't my kind of "thing") and the plot does have some lulls not to mention the unresolved love story at the end, the film has its merits and I can easily see it becoming a cult classic. Buy it and decide if you agree!

- Acting of Lead Performers - Acting of Supporting Cast - Music Score - Title Sequence - Historical Importance - Would You Recommend? 0 Member Ratings NO REVIEWS AVAILABLE The title has not been reviewed. Be the first to write a review by clicking here to start. Trusting a Nazi with Anger Issues I enjoyed this movie on many levels, particularly the acting, cinematography and directing. The story was suspenseful, but there are some problems. Spoilers (maybe). I couldn't understand how the police could believe a Nazi (supposedly former) with severe megalomania issues, which he proudly publishes in a book over a well-adjusted and respected career woman. He even praises the virtues of violence as a means to humankind's evolution. She points this out, but the police waive her off with pseudo psychology about it all being a bad dream. Then again, this was the 50's and maybe they did value even this guy's warped mind over a career woman's (or any woman's) opinions. So much, in fact, they readily classify her as the crazy one. Maybe that was the subversive theme here, although, sadly, I think it was just a reflection of the times. response to giorgio Giorgio, you would do well to watch Rear Window again. WITNESS TO MURDER JUST WATCHED THIS FLICK, THOUGHT IT WAS PRETTY GOOD. I WAS TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT KIND OF CAR SHE WAS DRIVING IN THIS MOVIE. Better Than Rear Window Great film,loved Barbara and George combo. - David Herdendorf I have watched a lot of old black and white crime movies. When Watching them, I like to see who is in the movies that I have seen before. I wish they could bring back some of these old movies as a regular series. The movies deserve a lot more viewing than they get. Please keep showing more of these movies. film noir gem Great cinamatography by John Alton. George Sanders and Barbara Stanwick are perfect. Very suspenseful. - Jarrod McDonald Great use of Los Angeles exteriors, especially the apartment buildings and high rise development. Also, the interactions between Stanwyck and her costars are excellent. The roles are pretty much would you would expect for these actors: Stanwyck is tough; Sanders is cagey; and Merrill is dependable and likable. It's particularly fun to see Sanders and Stanwyck go toe to toe. There's one major plot hole: Sanders' character keeps the first letter he claims that she has sent him and turns it into the police along with the second letter he has composed on her typewriter. The second letter would definitely incriminate her, but the police would know that the first letter was typed on a different machine, unless Sanders re-typed it on Stanwyck's typewriter. We don't see that on-screen and so we are to assume that it's still the original letter he typed on his own typewriter at home. Witness To Murder (1954) - James Higgins Fast paced little murder thriller enhanced very much by Barbara Stanwyck's presence and a solid supporting cast. Fast pacing helps, the score is a little much at times. Good photography and screenplay. Right up there with Rear Window. This movie is about Barbra Stanwyck witnessing a murder from her apartment, no one will believe her. Barbra is great as usual and George Sanders plays a creep.I would like this movie to be better known and maybe(please oh please)a DVD release.It's on TCM on January 12 check it out, you won't be disappointed.

This may not be the right forum but you folks here are so knowledgeable that I thought you might know how to divide my bogie up. There are 2 plants in the pot. I don't know how old it is. I got it in the fall at a garden center here. they had cut them back. I cut it way back (as you can see) when I brought it in. I looks pretty sad but it is blooming it's face off! I know not to do it till it's done blooming.

About Me: Female, 52, Pleasanton, CA, member since Nov 2009 48 Year old happily marrried for 25 years. Have three two daughters aged 24 and 22 and one son, almost 16. Have been having health issues since I had the flu in March 2009. Had gallbladder removed in January 2010 and then in March started having major anxiety out of [More] nowwhere with tingling and funny sensations all over my body. Finally was sent to UCSF for an MRI and awaiting results of tests to see if I have MS. Diagnosed with lyme Nov 2012. Have not started treatment. Found your post by googling Rife machine. See that you were going to try it a year ago. Any words to share? Would love to hear from you. ***@****. Hi Carrie, I am suffering from lyme and I also am waiting on delivery of my Doug coil machine from John Stolar Perhaps we can help each other, as this will be a learning experience for me and know I will become overwhelmed, especially with the frequencies/infections. If you would like to share experiences, please let me know. My name is Joe, 58, Pennsylvania....email is joes1 at frontier *******. Blessings! i am so incredibly happy to hear how well you are feeling. it's the best news i've heard in a very long time, and i sincerely mean that. i will keep you posted when i get some news on this end. onward and upward! The Content on this Site is presented in a summary fashion, and is intended to be used for educational and entertainment purposes only. It is not intended to be and should not be interpreted as medical advice or a diagnosis of any health or fitness problem, condition or disease; or a recommendation for a specific test, doctor, care provider, procedure, treatment plan, product, or course of action. Med Help International, Inc. is not a medical or healthcare provider and your use of this Site does not create a doctor / patient relationship. We disclaim all responsibility for the professional qualifications and licensing of, and services provided by, any physician or other health providers posting on or otherwise referred to on this Site and/or any Third Party Site. Never disregard the medical advice of your physician or health professional, or delay in seeking such advice, because of something you read on this Site. We offer this Site AS IS and without any warranties. By using this Site you agree to the following Terms and Conditions. If you think you may have a medical emergency, call your physician or 911 immediately.

|Author:||Daily Racing Form.| |Title:||Daily Racing Form: n. Sunday, July 6, 1913 (edition 1)| |Publication Info:||Chicago, IL: Triangle Publications, Inc., These pages may be freely searched and displayed. Permission must be received for subsequent distribution in print or electronically. Daily Racing Form: n. Sunday, July 6, 1913 Daily Racing Form. Chicago, IL: Triangle Publications, Inc., 1913 Kentucky Season At End: Latonia Meeting Brought To Close In Presence Of Rousing Crowd.; Old Rosebud Scores an Easy Victory in the Cincinnati Trophy and Will Be Taken East in Search of Further Laurels. [article] Stake For Thomas Fortune Ryan.: Stake and Cap Carries Virginian's Colors to Victory in the Keene Memorial. [article] Better Fields For Mineral Springs.: Horses on Way from Kentucky to Engage in Racing--Yesterday's Patronage Disappointing. [article] Good Racing In Prospect At Windsor.: Cream of Horses in Training Named to Start in Stakes at That Track. [article] Carlton G. Regains Form: Malone Sprinter Is Successful In Overnight Handicap At Fort Erie.; Takes Lead at the Start and Is Never Headed--Two Favorites Numbered Among the Day's Winners. [article]

Most recent answer: 03/17/2014 How do magnets work? - Marsha Borski (age 9) That’s an excellent question. Try the following experiment with a magnet, some needles (the plain kind used to hold stuff together as you sew it), and a screwdriver. It will help you understand the explanation. Touch a needle with a screwdriver and nothing unusual should happen (unless the screwdriver is already magnetized). Now, take some of the needles and hold them against the end of a magnet for a while (the stronger the better). After doing this, you will have turned each needle into a little magnet, and when you touch them with a screwdriver they will stick to it. Some kinds of metals (like steel that the needles are made of) are made up of billions and billions of individual atoms that each have the properties of a microscopic magnet. The atoms in steel naturally tend to get together in tiny little groups called domains, and within each domain the atoms tend to point in the same direction, which makes the domains behave like a tiny little bar magnets just like the kind you have probably played with at school. The needle of a compass is also a bar magnet, and we know what this does: it points north because it likes to line itself up with the magnetic field of the earth. When you make a piece of steel (like a needle), all of the tiny domain-magnets inside tend to get stuck pointing in different directions, which means that they more or less cancel each-other out, so to begin with the needle does not behave much like a magnet at all. However, if you bring the needle close to another magnet of some kind, (like the ones on your fridge, or better yet some stronger ones you can find in your classroom) something interesting can happen: Because of the other magnet you are holding it near, the little domain magnets in your needle will tend to line up so that they are pointing along the same direction. (You can visualize this by holding two bar magnets near each other and noticing how they like to line up a certain way). The domains in the needle will do the same thing, and after you take the needle away from the other magnet, the domains in the needle will tend to stay pointing this way (they sort of get stuck pointing in the same direction). Now, since you have lots of these little domain magnets in the needle all pointing in the same direction, the needle will itself have become a small magnet. (This is exactly how bar magnets are made). Magnets attract other magnets (as you can see), and also attract some kinds of metal like many kinds of steel. If you touch your magnetic needle with a steel screwdriver it will stick. However, stainless steel is not a very good magnetic material, so if you touch your magnetic needle with something made of stainless steel it will probably not stick (try it). (published on 10/22/2007) Follow-Up #1: why not more magnets? I need a more in-depth answer to Marsha’s question. I know that natural magnets have magnetic fields becuase of the electrons moving aroung inside thier atoms(while electric fields are present so are magnetic fields), but why then doenst matter like water and tree bark have natural magnetism if they also have electrons inside thier atons? In most materials almost all the electrons form pairs, with the magnetism from the two paired electrons exactly canceling. The result ultimately is due to something called the Pauli exclusion principle, which says that no more than one electron can exist in any particular quantum state. So if there's some nice low-energy state waveform for an electron to sit in in some molecule, it tends to get two electrons for the two possible quantum states with that form: one spin up, the other spin down. This very fact is the origin of most of the properties of chemical bonding. Remember how a typical covalent bond consists of two shared electrons? The reason is the exclusion principle plus spin. In ionic bonds, typically one electron will mostly move from one atom with an odd number of electrons over to another atom with an odd number, leaving each with an even number. So the tendency of most materials not to be magnetic is closely tied to the same quantum mechanical facts which account for the prevalence of pair-bonds and ionic bonds in chemistry. (published on 10/22/2007) Follow-Up #2: sad truth why are most materials non-magnetic? (no quantum physics please!) - ivan brown (age 13) Newport, Wales, Britain Ivan- I sympathize with your question, but the sad fact is that there’s absolutely nothing honest one can say about the origin of magnetism in materials without using a quantum mechanical basis. Sorry. (published on 10/22/2007) Follow-Up #3: pauli exclusion principle what is pauli exclusion principle? - starlai (age 18) It states that for particles called ’fermions’, including electrons, protons, neutrons, etc., no two particles can be in exactly the same quantum state. There must be something different about them, either that they’re in different places or have different spins or something. There’s another class of particles, called ’bosons’, including photons, for which this principle does not apply. (published on 10/22/2007) Follow-Up #4: non-magnetic trees i cant exactly get the answer of why magnets has no effect in trees example where infact it has also an electron inside thier atoms... please expain it in a simle way for me thanks! - lai (age 18) The basic reason is that almost every electron is paired up with one other one that is in the same state except that it is spinning the opposite way. (see the Pauli exclusion answer above) That means that the magnetism of the two just cancels. In leaves, however, as photosynthesis occurs some electrons get shuttled around individually as part of the light-driven chemical process. So their magnetism isn't automatically canceled, and magnetic resonance signals from them can be measured. (published on 10/22/2007) Follow-Up #5: domain interactions Do domains work agnaist each other I think what you're asking is whether the forces between magnetic domains push them toward pointing opposite ways. That actually depends on whether the domains are side-by-side or end-to-end. If you picture the domains as little arrows pointing up or down, side-by-side ones tend to point opposite directions but end-to-end ones tend to line up the same way. Think of it this way. If you have two bar magnets, each has a North pole and a South pole. If the two magnets have their two N poles pointing up then when they are side by side they will repel each other but when they are head-to-tail they will attract. In the other case when one has a N pole pointing up and the other has a S pole pointing up then they will attract each other when they are side by side but repel when they are head-to-tail. (published on 12/17/2007) Follow-Up #6: permanent magnets So what makes a magnet magnetic? You told me how iron was magnetic and i understand that but what is the difference between a magnet and something that is magnetic? - Anonymous (age 13) Most strongly magnetic materials, like iron, have magnetic domains which act like small magnets themselves. However, the directions of those magnets are all scrambled up, so the total magnetism cancels out. If you put them in a magnetic field, the domains tend to line up with the field, so you get something which really has net magnetism and can feel a force from the field. To make a permanent magnet, you need some way to keep those domains lined up even after the applied field is removed. In certain special materials, it's hard for the domains to change which way they point. Usually those materials have some mixture of non-magnetic atoms, which tend to catch and trap the domain walls, the regions where the magnetism changes from one direction to another. Trapping the walls keeps them from moving, and keeps the magnetic direction from changing. If you heat up a permanent magnet, the walls tend to come loose and the net magnetism will go away. (published on 02/19/2008) Follow-Up #7: magnetic vs. electric fields So it sounds like you're saying that what makes something magnetic is the presence of these "single" particles or particles that are not in a pair (if so they would cancel each others magnetism)and there are regions of these single particles that are called domains? I have two question. How can one particle be magnetic? Is the source of magnetism the attraction/repulsion relation between positive and negative charges? And if so, what makes magnetic fields different from electric fields? (detailed please) Actually, for something to be very strongly magnetic it takes more than just some unpaired particles. There has to also be a tendency for the magnetism of different particles to line up together, and that tendency is present in only some materials. One of the sources of magnetism is electrical current. That's why a current through a copper coil, for example, creates a magnetic field. Now (and this isn't quite being honest) imagine a charged particle as a little ball of charged stuff. If it's spinning, then that's like having currents go around in a loop, and you should get fields like those when current goes around in a coil. Elementary particles like electrons do indeed have "spin", measurable angular momentum. However, if you took this story too literally you'd calculate a magnetic moment of an electron which is only half the actual value. On a small scale, that spin is really something quantum mechanical, not something you can picture as charges running around in circles. Magnetism is related to the electrical fields which pull on charged particles. However, it's connected not just with the positions of the particles but also their velocities. If you look at a charged particle (without spin) from a frame where you say it's standing still, it will only have electrical fields. If you look from another point of view and say it's moving, it will also have magnetic fields. Of course the net physical effects on its neighbors will be the same in either case. We obviously cannot fully introduce this area here, but if you want to see a beautiful book on the topic, I recommend E. Purcell's "Electricity and Magnetism".. To add one more twist to the tale, Maxwell's equations are consistent with terms involving magnetic monopoles. None have ever been seen. For more information check out:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_monopole And for another twist, if those magnetic monopoles exist, then an observer who sees one moving will say it produces electric as well as magnetic fields. mike w (published on 02/24/2008) Follow-Up #8: making magnets and demagnetizing them So magnets are made by putting a magnetic object under a magnetic field, this makes all the domains spin in the same direction, which is what defines a magnet. Also electricity running through a wire creates a magnetic field because it has a flow of electrons in one direction. so does that mean that if you try creating a magnet off of an electrical current, then the domains of the magnet will spin in the direction of the current, and if so, does that mean that making a magnet using AC current would be very ineffective? The direction the domains will point is set by the current in the electromagnet, although it is not the same as the current direction. If the magnet is in a coil, running the current one way around the coil will make the magnetism point one way; reversing the current makes it point the other. So you're absolutely right that an ac current is no way to magnetize something. In fact, when you want to demagnetize something (e.g. erase a magnetic recording) the standard way is by applying a big ac field and gradually decreasing the magnitude. That pretty much scrambles up the domains. It's often called "de-Gaussing" since one standard unit of magnetic strength is a Gauss. (published on 03/08/2008) Follow-Up #9: Magnets do not bend light, however... I was wondering if Magnets have any effect on light. I know that light is really electromagnetic waves, but I was wondering if these waves could be attracted/repelled against a magnet. Thanks! - Joe Shock-Ra In a vacuum there is no effect of a magnet on light. It doesn't bend it or anything. There is a subtle effect, however, when light passes through a dielectric medium like glass or sugar water solution. It turns out that in the presence of a magnetic field the light beam is not bent but the plane of polarization can be rotated a bit. This is called Faraday rotation. You can find out more about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_rotation (published on 04/25/2008) Follow-Up #10: first magnets First, thank you for answering for our questions. My question is, you say that to obtain a magnet we need to have a magnet. Then how was the first magnet made, when there were no any other magnets? How to make a magnet if i have only a piece of iron and nothing else??? Thank you again. Really nice questions! Some stones are magnetic as found. They are magnetized because they cooled in the Earth's magnetic field. The Earth is magnetic for complicated reasons which I don't really understand, but have something to do with currents stirred up as heat flows from the hot core to the cooler surface, creating convection patterns. You don't need a permanent magnet to magnetize a piece of iron. It's usually done using an electromagnet, so what you really need is a current source to drive the electromagnet. Although many current sources are ultimately based on generators which themselves use magnets, there are other current sources which do not need magnets. For example batteries can be made using chemicals and no magnets. (published on 05/16/2013) Follow-Up #11: magnetic water? can a magnet work when there is ice between the two magnets and if there is water between them ( the icce and water will be between them at different times ) if so will the magnetic force be different Water (whether liquid or frozen) has so little magnetic susceptibility that you will not notice its effects unless you\'re deliberately making a sensitive experiment. (published on 05/16/2013) Follow-Up #12: magnetic forces What causes magnetics to attract to each other? And why do they stick for so long? - Tiffany (age 13) Richmond hill, GA, US Those are great questions but I can't think of any way to answer the first one without giving a little course. As for the second one, it's normal for the forces which hold things together to last forever. Think of the gravity that holds you and the Earth stuck together. As long as you and the Earth are around, that gravity will be there. The same rule applies to magnets. As long as they stay magnets, the force between them will be there. There is one difference, however. You can think of a magnet as made up of little magnets, called domains. Each one has a North and a South pole. Over a very long time, those can jiggle around so the little magnets don't line up with each other. Then they won't add up to make a big magnet. Gravity doesn't have poles, the gravity from every part just adds together. So even as parts of the Earth shift around, the gravity won't go away. (published on 03/30/2009) Follow-Up #13: compass physics The South Pole is magnetized, correct? How come a compass never points south. If we switched the charge in our compasses would they point south? Also, how come compasses become more inaccurate as you near the north pole? That seems counter-intuitive. I'd think they'd become more accurate since the force is stronger. - John (age 33) It's just a convention to label the north-pointing end of the magnet in a compass by sharpening it or painting it with an arrow head. You could do that to the other end if you wished. The inaccuracy near the north pole arises because the magnetic north pole isn't actually at the same place as the rotational north pole. The difference becomes important in that vicinity. If you stood in between them, your compass would point south. (published on 09/23/2009) Follow-Up #14: Do two bar magnets attract or repel each other? If two magnets are put end to end with the current patterns lined up in the same direction, the two poles next to each other would do what? - Drew (age 17) | | | | Currents aligned | N A S | | N B S | Attraction | | | | Currents anti-aligned | N C S | | S D N | Repulsion Just to be clear, in the picture above A and B attract, C and D repel. You might also wonder about what happens between A and C and between B and D, in the positions shown. A and C repel. B and D attract. If you imagine each magnet as a tube of current going around the axis, the ones that attract are the ones where the nearby parts of the current go the same way in each tube. Mike W. (published on 03/24/2010) Follow-Up #15: magnets attract or repel How do magnets stick together only sometimes ? - Isabel (age 10) Bar magnets only sometimes stick together and sometimes repel because each has a north pole and a south pole. Opposite poles attract, and like poles repel. If you were to put two north poles together, they would repel, but a north and a south would stick together. The picture above shows an example. Chris F. and Mike W. (published on 02/16/2011) Follow-Up #16: are magnets permanent? In permanent magnets what sort of energy do they use to push or pull other magnets if any at all? I was also wondering does a permanent magnet ever lose its magnetism? A permanent magnet will lose its magnetism fairly quickly when it's heated enough. A good permanent magnet stays that way for a very long time at room temperature. In the extremely long run, its little domains should lose their alignment, but that's not in our lifetime. You also ask, if I understand right, what sort of energy is involved in the magnetic forces between magnets. There is energy stored in the magnetic field itself. The density of that energy is proportional to the square of the field strength. When magnets move near each other, that field energy generally changes. (published on 07/04/2011) Follow-Up #17: shielding a magnet with steel I know a magnet can attract steel paper clips through paper, cardboard, plastics, cloth, etc. But can a magnet attract steel paper clips through a sheet of sheet? I have beeen confused as some sources say it will not. I know you can make a iron nail a temporary magnet by attracting it to a magnet at one end and have paper clips attracted to the nail. Shouldn't it be the case for the sheet of steel? - SARAH (age 26) I assume that was a typo, and you're asking about a sheet of steel. it's an interesting question. Here's a nice physical way to picture what happens. Picture the magnetic field in the usual way, as a set of field lines coming out of one pole of the magnet and returning to the other. There's a tendency for those field lines to get sucked into pieces of iron or steel or other easily magnetized material. That's exactly the reason that the paperclips stick to the magnet. Some of the field lines get stuck in them. Now what happens if you put a big sheet of steel in between the magnet and the paper clips? The field lines mostly get drawn into the sheet, spread out in the sheet, and return without going past the sheet to the paperclip. So the clip doesn't stick much if it's just behind the sheet. This effect depends a lot on the shape of the sheet. A small piece of steel can pull field lines into it leaving more field just behind it than were there before. That's just what happens when you chain paperclips together hanging from a magnet. Each clip tends to steer field lines on to the next one. So the steel redirects the field, with a sheet redistributing it away from the clip just on the other side. It would tend to grab clips right near the edge of the sheet, where some of the field lines exit. (published on 09/28/2011) Follow-Up #18: magnetized nail We made electromagnets in class with wire, a large nail and a 6 volt battery. The nails were not magnetic, but after we disconnected the batteries from the nails, the nails would pick up staples. How did the battery or the electricity magnetize the nail? - Karen (age 10) The nail started off already magnetized in small regions, called domains. At room temperature the little magnets of the electrons in the iron tend to line up with other, making those magnetic domains. However, the magnetism of the different domains points all different directions, so overall it cancels out. When you put the nail in the electromagnet made with the coiled wire powered by the battery, it lines up a lot of those domains to point the same way. After you take the nail away, some of the domains stay stuck, so you're still left with more of the magnetism pointing one way than any other. That means the nail is a bit magnetized. This is temporarily posted without the usual check, until Lee gets back from Paris. (published on 11/27/2011) Follow-Up #19: magnets and their fields 1!: Can you make a 'doughnut' magnet so as to have, say, all N charge on the outside and S on the inside, in the hole of the doughnut?? 2!: what exactly is the field itself? the magnetic field, i mean. The magnetic fields' COMPOSITION. The answer I usually get is something like: " well, the magnet makes the field" "...I am aware of that. But what exactly is the field MADE-OUT-OF?" "It is the magnetic force in the magnet interacting with things around it" But you seem thorough. so please answer in that manner,I'll understand everything right up to the point where there needs to be calculus to understand. I'm still in Algebra 2. - Atticus (age 14) Salt Lake City, Utah, Your first question is easy. Sure, you can make a donut-shaped magnet with the N poles on the outer part and the S poles near the donut hole. It's not a standard form, but it's certainly possible. (Those poles aren't really "charges" though.) Your second question is extremely hard to answer. I think for now perhaps the best non-answer is this. Whatever the universe consists of, at some point our description has to get down to the most basic ingredients, or, if every level of ingredient should be thought of as made of something deeper, at some point we'll just get to the deepest level we know about. At that point, all you can do is describe the properties, not say what things are made of. Electromagnetic fields are pretty close to that point. We could give maybe a step or so deeper description, but it would be in terms of quantum fields. Those are even more abstract mathematical entities than magnetic fields. (published on 01/05/2012) Follow-Up #20: magnetism from moving charges Well, i know that moving or spinning charged particles can cause a magnetic field. But how does it do that? And why don't stationary charged particles create magnetic fields, even though they create electrostatic forces? And what causes those forces in the first place? For example, gravity is caused by mass curving or warping space time or something of the sort, what causes magnetic and electrostatic forces? I know very basic quantum mechanics. Thank you! - Rahul (age 15) Rahul- You're asking just the right questions to start in on Purcell's Electricity and Magnetism book, from the Berkeley series. The outline of Purcell's presentation looks something like this. 1. Start with the existence of simple electrostatic forces following Coulomb's law. 2. Assume that special relativity gives the right rules for how things look in different reference frames. 3. Look at a moving charge near a neutral, current-carrying wire. There's no electrical force. 4. But if you now look in the rest frame of the charge, the wire is no longer neutral, thanks to the different Lorentz contractions of the differently-moving plus and minus charges. 5. So there's an electrical force in this frame. 6. So there must have been a velocity-dependent force back in the frame where the wire was neutral. 7. We call that velocity-dependent force magnetism. Ok, that handles the part about why magnetism, given electricity. The part about why electricity in the first place is unfortunately over my head. Here's a few words to get you started. Purcell derives the magnetism from electricity from assuming a symmetry, special relativity, a rule about how the world obeys the same laws of physics even as you represent its contents in different ways. There are some other subtle symmetries (gauge symmetries) in relativistic quantum field theory, and I've heard that they require the electrostatic force. (published on 05/28/2012) Follow-Up #21: how do magnets act at a distance What a neat site. These kids are so smart! As a follow up to Atticus' question, please explain how magnets achieve action at a distance. Also, to Atticus and the other brilliant kids who ask the right questions, give them more questions that they can access and imagine! One that I have often pondered (please answer): What do you see when looking through an infinitely powerful microscope? Or Telescope? What is a particle made of (the smallest one)? It's all just organised energy right? Then the question is (of course) what is energy? Is there an answer to this question? Or is it unanswerable? - Steve (age 28) We were just discussing doing more to encourage our readers to do experiments. Your suggestion about raising follow-up questions for them is along the same lines. We'll do our best. On "action-at-a-distance", we don't really think of it that way. We think of the magnetic field as a real thing, all spread out in space, acting where it is. But how did that field get all spread-out? Not by sudden action-at-a-distance. It had to work its way over from the source, by an electromagnetic wave traveling at the speed of light. That's not much of a coincidence, since light itself is an electromagnetic wave. We don't really know what anything is made of at the deepest level. I guess the two basic approaches are that everything is some sort of differential equation (a little bit like Maxwell's equations for electromagnetism) or that everything is some sort of cellular automaton, kind of like a bunch of little digital bits. Right now, the deepest things we know are all differential equations, but some people suspect that may change. Saying "It's all just organized energy" doesn't really convey a definite enough idea for us to say it's true or false. (published on 10/03/2013) Follow-Up #22: Adding bar magnets together If you place two equally strong magnets together so they attract do the act as a single magnet with one magnetic field? Will the resulting magnet be twice as strong as one of the original magnets? - Mark Basham (age 50) If you have two thin bar magnets and put them together in parallel the resulting strength is about double. If you keep adding more and more of them eventually the resulting sum is not the sum of the number of magnets due to the over all geometry of the combination. It involves some integrals. If you add them lengthwise you don't get a factor of two in the end-on direction but you would get a factor of two if you placed them face down on an iron surface. Far away, you do get a factor of two in the fields, even though close by it's more complicated. /mw (published on 12/19/2013) Follow-Up #23: Does positive attract positive? I read all your post to look for my answer, but still couldn't find an answer. People say Positive energy attracts Positive. But how is this possible if they repel each other? Or is that a bunch of bull? My mom bought 2 expensive bar magnets to stand on while exercising. She said it will help her heal w/positive energy?? Is she nuts or is this true? Thanks, Moe - Moe (age 16) Positive energy does attract positive energy by ordinary gravity. However positive electric charge repels positive electric charge. This old physics has nothing to do with various new-age ideas. Magnets are still another matter. No magnetic charges ("monopoles") have ever been found. However, like poles of magnets (e.g. North and North) repel. Your mom may not be nuts because many medical conditions are known to be helped by something called the placebo effect. People who believe that something (e.g. an alleged medicine) will help them tend to do better, sometimes in real objective measured traits, not always just in how they feel. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo) Magnets are truly harmless. Maybe having to pay a lot for them made her feel like they're doing more good, and maybe that feeling makes them do more good. I have a lot of trouble motivating myself to exercise enough. Maybe it's time to invest in some magnets. (published on 02/04/2014) Follow-Up #24: Storing energy in magnets Is there a way to create energy from magnets? For example, when putting the same end of a magnet together, the magnets push away from each other. Where does this energy come from? Would it be possible to create giant magnets or contained magnetic fields in order to create energy and power mechanisms? Understanding that all energy is simply transferred but not newly created, where is this energy coming from? - Anonymous (age 15) As you point out, you can't create energy with magnets, but you can store energy. When you push two same-sign poles together it requires energy. This energy can then be released and do useful work when you let go of the magnets. (published on 03/17/2014) Follow-up on this answer.

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The Georgia Supreme Court just upheld this. The sentence strikes me as unduly harsh even on its own terms, but it seems especially unjustifiable given that: The age of consent in Georgia is 16. In 2006, the Georgia Legislature amended the statute to provide that oral sex between an under-18-year-old and a 13-to-15-year-old is only a misdemeanor, with a maximum penalty of a year in jail. This revised statute would have thus made the defendant's conduct a misdemeanor had he committed his crime after the statute's enactment, but the statute expressly provided that it wasn't retroactive. Even at the time the act occurred, genital sex between an under-18-year-old and a 14-or-15-year-old was also a misdemeanor. This defendant had no criminal record that would justify an especially long sentence. Here's a brief opinion from presiding justice Carol W. Hunstein: Wilson was convicted of aggravated child molestation based upon an act of oral sodomy performed on him by victim T.C., which was documented on videotape and seems to show that the victim's participation in the act was voluntary. Wilson was 17 years old at the time of the act; the victim was 15 years old. Pursuant to the version of the aggravated child molestation statute then in effect, Wilson was sentenced to ten years imprisonment without possibility of parole. See former OCGA § 16-6-4 (d) (1). In 2006, the Legislature amended OCGA § 16-6-4 to provide, inter alia, that aggravated child molestation involving an act of sodomy is only a misdemeanor when the victim is between 13 and 16 years of age and the convicted person is 18 years of age or younger and is no more than four years older than the victim. OCGA § 16-6-4 (d) (2). Although the situation in this case would fall within the ambit of the current statute, which became effective July 1, 2006, while Wilson's appeal from the affirmance of his conviction by the Court of Appeals was pending before this Court, see Ga. L. 2006, p. 379, § 11/HB 1059, the Legislature expressly chose not to allow the provisions of the new amendments to affect persons convicted under the previous version of the statute. See id. at § 30 (c). Accordingly, while I am very sympathetic to Wilson's argument regarding the injustice of sentencing this promising young man with good grades and no criminal history to ten years in prison without parole and a lifetime registration as a sexual offender because he engaged in consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old victim only two years his junior, this Court is bound by the Legislature's determination that young persons in Wilson's situation are not entitled to the misdemeanor treatment now accorded to identical behavior under OCGA § 16-6-4 (d) (2). The sentence sounds mandated by state statute, and I don't think there's any Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause problem here. One can argue that the distinction between between genital sex and oral sex violates the Equal Protection Clause, but while this argument was accepted in a related context by the California Supreme Court, which held that the distinction lacked a rational basis, it was rejected by the Georgia Supreme Court in Odett v. State, 541 S.E.d 29 (2001), on the grounds that "General Assembly could reasonably conclude that the psychological well-being of minors is more damaged by acts of sodomy than by acts of intercourse" — not very plausible grounds, I think, but likely sufficient to pass the rational basis test (see also this related item from the California Appellate Report blog). The equal protection argument also seems to have been procedurally forfeited, because it wasn't raised until after the guilty verdict; and while the defendant might have argued that there's an equal protection violation in treating pre-2006 actors differently from post-2006 ones, that argument likely wouldn't work, either, and in any event likely wouldn't have been made. But while the conviction is constitutionally permissible, it hardly seems like a just result. This is so even given that the sex here was public and videotaped and thus more likely to have been psychologically and emotionally injurious to the girl. Such uncharged and even not independently illegal aspects may be relevant in evaluating the overall moral fairness (though not legal validity) of the sentence, but they nonetheless don't seem sufficient to justify a 10-year-term here — especially when the same conduct would have been treated so much more lightly had it happened after the statute was changed, and had it involved genital sex (which tends to be more dangerous for the girl in various ways than oral sex). The courts seem to have done their job right here, but the legislature didn't, and quite possibly the prosecutors didn't (though I realize that this raises complex questions about prosecutorial obligations). I hope, with Doug Berman (Sentencing Law & Policy), that the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles would correct this injustice. Thanks to How Appealing for the pointer. Related Posts (on one page): - Genarlow Wilson's 10-Year Prison Sentence Set Aside as Cruel and Unusual Punishment: - Sex and Liberty: - Race and the Wilson Case: - Ten Years in Prison for 17-Year-Old Who Had Consensual Oral Sex with 15-Year-Old:

James MURRAY was born in Tennessee about 1821. On 20 August, 1840, in Washington County, Tennessee, he married to Sarah BIRDWELL, the daughter of Alexander BIRDWELL and Elizabeth COPASS. Sarah BIRDWELL was born about 1817, in Tennessee. Sometime between their marriage and 1850 they moved to Monroe County, Kentucky. They are shown on the 1850 Monroe County, Kentucky Census dated 26 August, 1850, in Dwelling# 585 and Family# 614. MURRAY, James 28 year old laborer, born in Tennessee MURRAY, Sarah 33, wife, born in Tennessee MURRAY, John Alexander 8 (born 23 December, 1841, in Tennessee MURRAY, William P. 6 (born about 1843, in Kentucky) MURRAY, Jarrot 4 (born about 1845, in Kentucky) MURRAY, Samuel F. 2 (born 1 July, 1848, in Kentucky) The MURRAY family moved often to and from the Monroe County, Kentucky, area to Tennessee, near Jackson and Clay County. Lawrence CHERRY, of Herrin, Williamson County, Illinois, had an old piece of paper from an old MURRAY bible which had a statement on it that another son of James and Sarah (BIRDWELL) MURRAY, George W. MURRAY, was born 0n 25 August, 1850, at Knoxville, Knox County, Tennessee. Other children were: MURRAY, Elizabeth E., born 15 May, 1853, in Monroe County, Kentucky MURRAY, Thomas, born 4 November, 1855, in Monroe County, Kentucky After much consideration and thought, it is assumed that one child that was listed in one of the other Monroe County, Kentucky Census' was possibly one and the same person. There was, on another census, a daughter listed as Barbara J. MURRAY who was born about 1849 in Monroe County, Kentucky. It is believed that she was actually Barbara Jarrot MURRAY, the "Jarrot" MURRAY listed on the 1850 Monroe County, Kentucky Census above. Census takers many times wrote down incorrect information, and it thought that if she was shown on this census of 1850, that she had to be born before 26 August, 1850. But, it is believed that "Jarrot" MURRAY was actually Barbara Jarrot MURRAY, one and the same person... Another person who "appeared" to be a child of James and Sarah (BIRDWELL) MURRAY was an Amanda J. MURRAY, born about 1868, in Tennessee. This child is now believed to have been a "granddaughter" of James and Sarah. Something happened to James MURRAY probably around 1868-1870. for on the 1870 Monroe County, Kentucky, Census Sarah MURRAY is listed as the "head-of-household" and a farmeress, at age 42 years. Children listed with her include: Barbara J. MURRAY; George W. MURRAY; Elizabeth E. MURRAY; Thomas MURRAY; and Amanda J. MURRAY (Of course, this last one we believe to be a grandchild). 1. The first child of James and Sarah (BIRDWELL) MURRAY, John Alexander MURRAY, was called "Elick" MURRAY, by our Grandfather, Clurie Elvin MURRAY. Grandfather Clurie E. MURRAY, of Gamaliel, Kentucky, recalled Civil War accounts of John Alexander MURRAY and how he would sneak back and forth from Clementsville, Tennessee, to the Monroe County, Kentucky area. He told of one time where John A. MURRAY hid out in a hollow tree to escape capture. Sometimes people can distort real fact over a long period of time. I wanted to see if our Grandfather Clurie E. MURRAY was right in the stories that he told. I can tell you that I did check this out and our Grandfather Clurie E. MURRAY was probably right on target! I found that John Alexander MURRAY did in fact serve in the Union Army in Company K, of the 5th Kentucky Cavalry. He was a private and drew a pension while living at Clementsville, Caly County, Tennessee. He served from 1861 to May, 1865. John Alexander MURRAY was born 23 December, 1841, in Tennessee. He died 8 October, 1909. John married about 1867 to Tennessee "Teany" Angeline COPASS, a first cousin. Teany was born in April, 1847, in Tennessee, to John and Nancy (BIRDWELL) COPASS. Nancy BIRDWELL was a sister to Sarah (BIRDWELL) MURRAY, wife of James MURRAY. John Alexander MURRAY and Teany COPASS had these children: 1a. William Thomas MURRAY, born about 1868. 1b. Nancy Matilda MURRAY, born 24 June, 1869, died 13 March, 1940. 1c. Sarah F. MURRAY, born in July, 1872. 1d. Luraney "Lear" A. MURRAY, born 19 November, 1874. 1e. John G. MURRAY, born 18 April, 1877, died in 1953. It should be noted here that it has been very, very difficult to trace down our James MURRAY any further than being born about 1821 in Tennessee. We know that he was in Washington County, Tennessee, in 1840, because he was married there in August of that year. It has been said ( but not proven) that our James MURRAY was a son of a John MURRAY and Elizabeth MULKEY. John MURRAY was born about 1787 and married in 1808 to Elizabeth MULKEY, the daughter of the Baptist minister, the Rev. Jonathan MULKEY, and Nancy HOWARD. It is stated that our James and Sarah (BIRDWELL) MURRAY actually came up with the name of their first born son by naming it after the father of James and the father of Sarah. This seems like it is possible if our James MURRAY'S father was John MURRAY. Sarah BIRDWELL was the daughter of Alexander BIRDWELL and Elizabeth COPASS. It does make sense that they "could" have named their first son "John Alexander MURRAY"...This is purely speculation and I have seen no proof of this in a document, etc. 2. William P. MURRAY, born about 1843, in Kentucky. 3. Samuel F. MURRAY, born 1 July, 1848, and died 20 January, 1923. Samuel F. MURRAY married to Elizabeth VINSON. She was born 10 June, 1859, and died 23 September, 1929. Their child was: 3a. Rutha A. MURRAY, born 26 March, 1882, and died in 1939. Rutha married to Abraham LIKENS. He was born about 1889 and died in 1971. 4. Barbara Jarrot MURRAY, born about 1849, in Kentucky. 5. George W. MURRAY, our Great-Great-Grandfather, born 25 August, 1850, in Knoxville, Knox County, Tennessee, and died 28 October, 1928, in what was a little town near Herrin, named WEAVER, ILLINOIS. This was in Williamson County. He died at the home of his son, Nathan Milton "Milton" MURRAY. George W. MURRAY married to Sarah A. COPASS in Jackson County, Tennessee, on 29 March, 1873. Sarah was the daughter of Thomas H. COPASS and Nancy GULLEY. Sarah A. COPASS was born at Red Boiling Springs, Macon County, Tennessee, and died at Herrin, Williamson County, Illinois, on 28 March, 1931. Both George W. MURRAY and Sarah A. (COPASS) MURRAY are buried in the City Cemetery in Herrin, Willamson County, Illinois. The last record of the George W. MURRAY family in Clay County, Tennessee, was on the 1910 Clay County, Tennessee, Census... I went to visit Lawrence CHERRY in Herrin, Williamson County, Illinois, on 11 March, 1990. Lawrence CHERRY is the grandson of George W. MURRAY and Sarah A. COPASS, the son of Nancy Rendie "Rendie" MURRAY. He actually had the old MURRAY bible which belonged to Sarah A. (COPASS) MURRAY. I saw it and handled it. The covers were missing but inside I saw the record of these MURRAY children: 5a. Hova Turner MURRAY, born 4 April, 1874, in Clay County, Tennessee. Hova married first to Gid COLTER. They had two children, Charles and Nellie MURRAY. Hova lost all three of them to a flu epedemic around the turn of the century. They are buried at Milestown, Tennessee. Hova then married to Ora Isabell COFFELT. Their children were: Hattie Cleo MURRAY; Vella Mae MURRAY; Sidney Ether MURRAY; Raymon Wilson MURRAY; Guy Richard MURRAY; Ruby Estelle MURRAY; and Dimple Odell MURRAY. 5b. Nathan Milton "Milton" MURRAY, born 16 February, 1876, in Clay County, Tennessee, and died 14 November, 1935, in Weaver, Williamson County, Illinois. He married to Hassie Belle EAKLE in Clay County, Tennessee, on 8 October, 1905. Their children were: Ted MURRAY; Molean MURRAY; Marie MURRAY died about October/November, 1987; Lillian MURRAY; Edna MURRAY died 11 January, 1990; Ruth MURRAY; Ralph MURRAY died in March, 1989; Nola MURRAY (who married a Bud PROFFITT); Eugene MURRAY; and Howard MURRAY. The last time I heard only Nola (MURRAY) PROFFITT was still living. Milton MURRAY is buried in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery in Valier, Illinois. 5c. James Franklin "Franklin" MURRAY, born 15 October, 1879, in Clay County, Tennessee, and died in the 1930's in Orient, Illinois. He is buried in Herrin, Williamson County, Illinois. He married to Virginia "Verdie" ALLEN. Their known children were: Fred MURRAY born 6 February, 1919; Rue MURRAY born 10 June, 1905; Lester MURRAY; and Metza MURRAY born 7 October, 1908. Metza MURRAY married first to Edgar Athol McCLAIN. They had three children: Lorene McCLAIN who married a man with the last name of LAYOU; Jacqueline McCLAIN; and Frank McCLAIN. Edgar died and Metza remarried to ___ MULLEN. They had: Sandra MULLEN. Metza MURRAY was born 7 October, 1908, lived in Hazel Park, Michigan. 5d. Thomas Benton E. "Benton" MURRAY, born 18 February, 1882, in Clay County, Tennessee, and died 25 May, 1958. Benton married to Lola NEWMAN on 18 December, 1910. Lola was born 13 March, 1889, to George and Mitt NEWMAN, and died 30 January, 1929. Both are buried in Union Hill, Clay County, Tennessee Cemetery. Their children were: Lansford MURRAY born 16 February, 1913; Hazel MURRAY born 7 April, 1919; and Rassie MURRAY. Lansford married to Mary Lena LAWSON. Rassie married to Betty BILLINGSLEY. Hazel married to Dumas ANDERSON. 5e. Nancy Rendie MURRAY, born 28 August, 1884, in Clay County, Tennessee, and died 3 May, 1967, in Herrin Williamson County, Illinois. Rendie married to Jay CHERRY, a son of Newt CHERRY. Their son was: Lawrence CHERRY, born 22 August, 1904, in Tennessee. He is now deceased. 5f. Our Great-Grandfather, Shadrach William "Shade" MURRAY, born 19 August, 1875, in Moss, Clay County, Tennessee, and died 26 March, 1956. He married to Dora Belle CHERRY in Clay County, Tennessee, on 7 Fenruary, 1898. Dora Belle CHERRY was the daughter of Harrison Wayne CHERRY and Julia America Crayton "America" CHERRY. America's maiden name was also CHERRY. Harrison and America were cousins, but not first cousins...Dora Belle CHERRY was born in Red boiling Springs, Macon County, Tennessee, on 10 October, 1882, and died 27 February, 1966. Shade and Dora are buried in the Union Hill Cemetery in Clay County, Tennessee. They had seven children: 5fa. Clurie Elvin MURRAY, born 10 April, 1899, in Moss, Clay County, Tennessee, and died 16 May, 1988, in Tompkinsville, Monroe County, Kentucky. He married to Vella C. PROFFITT, a daughter of Perry Thomas PROFFITT and Martha Etta THOMAS, on 5 August, 1922, at Union Hill, Clay County, Tennessee. Vella C. PROFFITT was born 5 May, 1904, in Monroe County, Kentucky, and died 6 March, 1988, in Bowling Green, Kentucky. They had 12 children: 5faa. Loraine Vivian MURRAY, born 3 May, 1923, in Moss, Clay County, Tennessee. She married to Frank GOAD on 14 November, 1942, at Tompkinsville, Monroe County, Kentucky, and had: Linda Joyce GOAD; Mary Lou GOAD; Cleva Inell GOAD; Frankie Sherryl GOAD; and Jimmy Neal GOAD. 5fab. Alma Elease MURRAY, born 7 September, 1924, in Oak Grove, Clay County, Tennessee. She married to William E. McQUEEN in Columbus, Bartholomew County, Indiana, on 22 December, 1943. They had Billy Gene McQUEEN and Brenda Darlene McQUEEN. 5fac. Emry Ellis MURRAY, born 20 February, 1926, in Clay County, Tennessee, and died 11 August, 1999,in Tompkinsville, Monroe County, Kentucky. He is buried in Gamaliel, Kentucky. 5fad. Dorothy Pauline MURRAY, born 24 April, 1927, in Oak Grove, Clay County, Tennessee. She married to Ben LAWSON, on 3 December, 1945, in Sneedville, Hancock County, Tennessee. Ben was the son of Rufus LAWSON and Maggie Margaret LAWSON. They had sons: Sam D. LAWSON; Ricky Ben LAWSON; and Randy James LAWSON. 5fae. Delmas Porter MURRAY, born 12 May, 1930, in Clay County, Tennessee, and died 6 November, 1986, at Tompkinsville, Monroe County, Kentucky. He is buried in Gamaliel, Kentucky. Delmas married to Beatrice Vernelle CROWE at Tompkinsville, Monroe County, Kentucky. They had: Rebecca Sue MURRAY; Nathaniel D. MURRAY; Patricia Gayle MURRAY; Olen Shannon MURRAY; and Karen Renea MURRAY. 5faf. Ruth Marie MURRAY, born 2 October, 1932, in Clifford, Bartholomew County, Indiana. She married Roy HYDEN, Sr. at Columbus, Bartholomew County, Indiana, on 27 December, 1951. Roy HYDEN, Sr. died in Bowling Green, Kentucky, on 1 February, 1984. They had: Roy HYDEN, Jr.; Michael Brent HYDEN; Penny Sue HYDEN; Judy Marie HYDEN; Linda Lou HYDEN; and Peggy Ann HYDEN. 5fag. Ella Mae MURRAY, born 28 September, 1935, in Moss, Clay County, Tennessee. She married to Anthony ZAMARRIPA. They had: Debra Kay ZAMARRIPA; Susan Gaye ZAMARRIPA; and Joe Anthony ZAMARRIPA. Ella Mae MURRAY's second husband was Robert YOUNG. They had: Jeff Lynn YOUNG. 5fah. Willis Ira MURRAY, born 5 March, 1937, in Moss, Clay County, Tennessee. He married to Patricia Emily DRYBURG in Indianapolis, Marion County, Indiana, on 13 December, 1957. They had: Lee Ann MURRAY; and Dwayne Clurie MURRAY. 5fai. Reba Maudeen MURRAY, born 25 April, 1938, in Moss, Clay County, Tennessee. She married to Sandy MESHLAM. They had: David Sol MESHLAM; Sarina Rae MESHLAM; Kay MESHLAM; Sherie Lynn MESHLAM; and Cecil Joe MESHLAM. Sandy MESHLAM died in Dayton, Ohio, in July, 1979. Reba married to Ron RANDALL and had one child. Reba lives in Orlando, Florida. 5faj. Vanus C. MURRAY, born 2 October, 1940, in Tompkinsville, Monroe County, Kentucky. He married to Ozina BOWLES. They had: Mark Stephen MURRAY. 5fak. Norma Jean MURRAY, born 9 March, 1943, in Tompkinsville, Monroe County, Kentucky. She married to John Wallace DAVIS at Gamaliel, Kentucky, on 25 March, 1969. John is deceased. They had: Kristen Jean DAVIS. 5fal. Selby Doyle MURRAY, born 6 December, 1944, at Tompkinsville, Monroe County, Kentucky. He married to Sue Ellis YORK at Tompkinsville, Monroe County, Kentucky, on 24 September, 1966. They had: Jeff Lynn MURRAY. 5fb. A second child of Shade W. MURRAY and Dora Belle (CHERRY) MURRAY was Ganell L. MURRAY, born 14 May, 1902, in Clay County, Tennessee, and died in Tompkinsville, Monroe County, Kentucky, on 5 April, 1991. She married to Ernest BARTLETT, on 4 September, 1921, in Clay County, Tennessee. Ernest was born 29 January, 1902, in Clay County, Tennessee. They had: Vernice BARTLETT; and Velma Marie BARTLETT who died 27 July, 1957, and is buried in the BOWMAN Cemetery near Poplar Log, Monroe County, Kentucky. 5fc. Van MURRAY, born 2 July, 1904, in Moss, Clay County, Tennessee, and died 17 January, 1982, at Tompkinsville, Monroe County, Kentucky. He married to Stella Ann SHORT, on 1 January, 1928, at Mt. Vernon, Kentucky. Stella Ann SHORT was born 4 August, 1908, and died 11 September, 1978, at Tompkinsville, Monroe County, Kentucky. They had: Thelma MURRAY; Alma MURRAY; Claude MURRAY; Jean MURRAY; Rachel MURRAY; Roy MURRAY; Harold MURRAY; and Danny MURRAY. Harold MURRAY died in a 1974 car accident. 5fd. Porter D. MURRAY, born 21 February, 1907, and died 12 December, 1907. 5fe. Walter Bransford "Brans" MURRAY, born 20 August, 1909, in Clay County, Tennessee, and died 7 January, 1997, in Beech Grove, Marion County, Indiana. He is buried at Garland Brook Cemetery, in Columbus, Bartholomew County, Indiana. He married to Craton E. SMITH, the daughter of Luther SMITH and Eliza CHERRY. Craton was born 30 September, 1913, in Moss, Clay County, Tennessee, and died 11 February, 1993, in Deltona, Florida. They had: Captolia MURRAY; Betty MURRAY; Sammy Wallace "Sonny" MURRAY who died in 1983; and Jo Helen MURRAY. 5ff. America MURRAY, born 25 August, 1911, in Oak Grove, Clay County, Tennessee, and died 26 December, 1996, in Tennessee. She married to Bethel Boyd DODSON on 26 August, 1928, in Oak Grove, Clay County, Tennessee. Bethel was born 2 January, 1906, and died 20 July, 1935. They had: Donald DODSON and Rosa Iree DODSON. She remarried to Herbert SMITH. Herbert SMITH was born 18 August, 1907, and died 25 September, 1946. They had a son: Randall SMITH on 20 September, 1945 at Union Hill, Clay County, Tennessee, and died 31 December, 1997. He was a teacher at Red Boiling Springs, Macon County, Tennessee. I believe they are all buried at Union Hill Cemetery, Clay County, Tennessee. 5fg. Carlos Wayne MURRAY, born 14 September, 1913, in Clay County, Tennessee, and died 16 April, 1969, in Clay County, Tennessee. He married to Vassie J. FRANKLIN on 18 November, 1933, in Tompkinsville, Monroe County, Kentucky. Vassie J. FRANKLIN was born 20 October, 1915, in Clay County, Tennessee, and died 18 May, 1999, in Columbus, Bartholomew County, Indiana. She was the daughter of Clarence FRANKLIN and Lillie NEUMAN. They had: Altha Colene MURRAY born 11 February, 1937 and died 4 March, 1937; Dennis Dale MURRAY born 19 July, 1934, and died 1 March, 1977, in Clay County, Tennessee; Blanche Elizabeth MURRAY; Bobby Joe MURRAY; and Lanny Neil MURRAY. Carlos and Vassie divorced about 1961 or so. He remarried to second wife, Inez BURTON in Columbus, Bartholomew County, Indiana, on 23 December, 1961. They were later divorced with no issue. 6. Elizabeth E. MURRAY, born 15 born 15 May, 1853, in Monroe County, Kentucky. 7. Thomas MURRAY, born 4 November, 1855, in Monroe County, Kentucky, and died 17 July, 1937. He married to Mary Meadie WILSON on 20 June, 1880, in Jackson County, Tennessee. She was the daughter of S.T. WILSON and born on 17 October, 1863, and died 8 November, 1951. They had: 7a. George Washington MURRAY, born 15 June, 1885, and died 18 February, 1960. He was never married. 7b. General Stokes MURRAY, born 20 December, 1886, and died 10 June, 1974. He married to Ada HANCOCK. She was born 14 October, 1896, and died 8 July, 1975. They had: Vera MURRAY and Dorothy MURRAY. Vera married to Mascus DENTON. Dorothy married to Harley WILEY. 7c. Benjamin Harrison MURRAY, born 1 June, 1889, and died 15 April, 1963. He married to Hortence GIVENS and they lived in Jackson County, Tennessee, on what was the Roy STAFFORD farm. I made a visit to this farm in the 1990's and found a family cemetery located up on a slight hill just from the house. There I found gravestones for: Vellie Bee SLOAN Fred WILSON 4 February, 1910- 30 April, 1928 20 September, 1888- 23 December, 1905 7d. Ella Mai MURRAY, born 22 February, 1893, and died 22 June, 1962. She was not married. Note on Copyright The contents of these pages are property of the TNGenNet Inc. and/or private contributors. Any reproductions and/or use of this material for profit is expressly prohibited without the written consent of the contributors and/or the State Coordinator of the TNGenWeb (TNGenNet Inc.). Jane Hembree Crowley Charles Reeves, Jr., Jackson County Coordinators This page last updated: Saturday, March 26, 2005

The September 10th, 2013 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels including Richards earns 2014 rotation spot, more Trout-Cabrera MVP debate and much more… The Monkey Says: Richards has posted a 2.96 ERA, .634 OPS allowed, 6.59 K/9, 3.13 BB/9 and 0.49 HR/9 since returning to the rotation. Those peripherals don't really match up to the ERA, but even once that regresses, he should still be pretty good as his FIP of 3.34 suggests. That gives the Halos three rotation members for sure, possibly four if they re-sign Vargas. That is a solid but not spectacular rotation. Who fills the final spot (assuming Vargas stays) will be a huge decision for whoever the GM is next season. The Monkey Says: The long and short of it is that Heyman doesn't trust WAR partly because he doesn't seem to fully understand it and partly because he falsely assumes that it is supposed to be an ironclad end all-be all metric. There is noise in WAR, even the creators admit that. The question is how much noise can there really be when the gap between Trout and Cabrera is so big like it was last year. The Monkey Says: This jumps off of the Heyman column and is more a commentary on slavish devotion to old school stats. To be honest, I haven't heard a lot of people point to RBIs in this debate, though I think some of that is columnists knowing that they are just going to get shamed for doing so. As I have been saying for weeks, the real issue is the Angels suck and the Tigers are pretty good. The Monkey Says: But he probably won't play until the Houston series so that he doesn't have to run around on the concrete in Toronto. Once he is back, it will be interesting to see how Scioscia uses Grant Green. They have a hole at third with Jimenez ailing, but the team has said Green isn't ready for that yet. But what harm could it really do? The Monkey Says: With a third catcher in place, expect Scioscia to pinch-hit for his starting catcher even more freely now. The rest of the September call-ups will have to wait for at least another few days as both Bees, Travs and 66ers have all advanced to the next round of their respective playoffs.

You’re tossing and turning and can’t sleep – even though you’ve closed the curtains, turned off the lights, and done everything else to quiet your mind. Your problem may be not taking the proper steps to prepare yourself physically for sleep, says Dr. Colleen Carney, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Ryerson University, Toronto and author of “Goodnight Mind: Turn off Your Noisy Thoughts and Get a Good Night’s Sleep.” Here are some sleep tips from Dr. Carney and other experts on how to tune out, relax and drift off to sleep: Be out of bed and active for a sufficient amount of time during the day. “That builds a drive or pressure for deep sleep the next night,” says Carney. You should also get up at the same time every day. “If you’re not ready to go to sleep at your regular bedtime, then you shouldn’t. You should wait because you’ll just lay awake, but you should always get up at the same time no matter what,” says Carney. Lastly, avoid hitting the snooze button, even after a night of sleeplessness. It’s almost impossible to make up for lost sleep in the morning hours, even though lots of people try to, says Carney. “Any sleep we get in the morning is light, so you’re robbing yourself of the time you could be investing in the subsequent night’s deep sleep, or sleep drive. You’ll just be groggy and try to boost yourself with caffeine and try to make up for it by going to sleep early the next night which could be difficult as you slept in that morning.” Realize that if you get enough activity and “sleep drive” during the day, you won’t need “whale sounds,” sleep masks and other sleep gadgets to lull you off to sleep at night. If you do need these aids, it might be a sign that you’re preoccupied with sleep and too engaged in what Carney calls “sleep effort” which is linked to insomnia. ”Falling sleep is like falling in love; it’s not an effort enterprise.” Experiment with yoga, tai chi, meditation and other mind-quieting pursuits, but do it well before your bed time. Leave your anxieties at the bedroom door. People get panicky about deadlines; they think everything is an emergency and they find it difficult to “disentangle” and thus can’t sleep at night, says Carney. If you’re prone to unfinished business or problem-solving and list making, then do that but much earlier, when you’re at your problem-solving best, and outside of the bedroom buffer zone, she says. Instead, do something reasonably pleasant in the evening. This will vary from person to person, says Dr. Diane Boivin, Director, Centre for Study and Treatment of Circadian Rhythms, Douglas Institute, and Professor, Department of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, “If reading a few lines or pages in a book helps you to relax, and this doesn’t make it harder for you to fall asleep and it doesn’t disturb your sleep schedule, that’s okay as long as it’s not on a tablet or other electronic device.” If the problem persists: If you can’t sleep, have trouble getting to sleep, or falling back to sleep within 20 minutes of waking up in the night, get out of bed and do something calming. “If the mind is busy and won’t shut off, sometimes giving the brain a repetitive task to do – like the old stand-by of counting sheep – can help,” says Dr. Maureen Ceresney, a Sleep Specialist at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Secondly, try altering your body’s internal thermostat. “Having a cup of warm milk or herbal tea, taking a hot bath an hour or two before bed, or getting some cardiovascular exercise in the late afternoon or early evening, can facilitate this process,” says Ceresney. If it helps, you can also darken the bedroom – as light interferes with melatonin production and may cause biological clock related problems. Consider seeking medical assistance if the above approaches don’t work and you still can’t sleep, says Dr. Atul Khullar, a psychiatrist, and Medical Director, Northern Alberta Sleep Clinic (MedSleep Edmonton). “If lack of sleep is causing interference with daytime function, if the problem is not going away; if it has been consistent, and if it’s really getting in the way of your life, then it’s time to get it reviewed.” Extra Strength TYLENOL(R) Nighttime provides fast and effective relief of occasional mild to moderate nighttime pain and accompanying sleeplessness.

C/o New Mahalaxmi Silk MIlls Mathuradas Mills Compound Tulsi Pipe Road Lower Parel, 400013 Mumbai, India What is it that makes me ‘me’ and you ‘you'? Broken down to the basic unit, rounded off to the last decimal point, what of us will remain if our being, this Sisyphean burden we bear daily, is removed quite out of the blue? A few strands of hair on the bed we sleep in, the smell of skin under the sheets, our well dug footprints on the soles of shoes, tossed indelicately once beyond the familiar threshold of home. And perhaps a note. Poignant in its brevity and aptly mystifying. But will these things, this ‘stuff’ essentially, knickknacks which we lend meaning to and which lend meaning to us, finally be enough to accumulate and reconstruct ‘me’ in my absence? Can the book I left unfinished and the music I left playing be added and multiplied and divided to give the audience (strangers who will walk into my house while I am gone and try and sniff me out) a clear picture of who I think I am? Or will they notice the chair for the chair, the windows for the window and in their unfeeling incapacity to gauge meaning in my things render me meaningless? Gautam Bhatia, The Good Life, Poster colours on wood, 2012; Courtesy of the artist and The Loft At Lower Parel Before everything else ‘Reconstructing (White)3’, at the Loft Lower Parel, is a story, scattered in bits and waiting for you to come along and put it all together. The premise is simple yet effective. The recently redone gallery space is rearranged in the form of a young girl’s studio apartment, perfectly plausible with its spiffy looking sitting space, the tiny (but effective) kitchenette and that rather enviable bedroom against large slanting windows. The Loft is built into the ghostly remains of what was once the Mathuradas Mills and the nostalgia of the structure blends well with the melancholia of an abandoned home. And this feels like an abandoned home, you sense just as you realize you are tiptoeing around the gallery, like an uninvited stranger in an empty apartment, significantly intrigued by your surrounding but afraid of being discovered and asked to leave. If you admit to it, the sense of walking around in somebody else’s house in their absence has its obvious thrills. As a child I remember relishing the feeling of intruding into the medicine cabinets of people’s homes I visited. The unabashed pleasures that only childhood can grant you led me to the discovery of the pure joy of rubbing on lotions and spraying on perfumes in a stranger’s washroom, the one place in someone else’s house that you were likely to be confidently alone in. The sweet taste of guilt and voyeuristic intimacy that I felt then, unknowingly, returned as I scrutinized corner after corner at the (White)3. Praneet Soi, Untitled, Detail, Drawing on paper, 2012; Courtesy of the artist and The Loft At Lower Parel The chilling reality of the bed and its crumpled disorderliness furthered the sensation. ‘Someone was here, here where I am sitting now, reading this book that I now hold, and she isn’t here anymore,’ I was telling myself. It is perhaps because we carry deep within us the inevitable possibility and fear of sudden obliteration that abrupt conclusions excite us the most. It is because we want to be remembered and felt even when absent that the absent becomes the focus of all our remembrances. As I sat there glancing through the bookshelf trying to understand an imaginary being through her taste in literature, I tried to ignore the eeriness that was beginning to give me goose bumps. What paced up my heartbeat further was the slight but effective sound loop that had been playing discreetly in the background but which I had so far been able to ignore. The music was coming from artist Chittrovanu Mazumdar’s beautifully carved, marble bioscope that sat, ingenuously, in a corner, almost out of sight. Once you spotted it and put your eye on it, as expected, you were transported as if in a swish of a wand from that once-warehouse-now-gallery-but-presently-home-in-Mumbai scenario to glimpses of yet other cities, other homes, some utterly familiar, others equally foreign. For a moment that lasts an eternity you are consumed by that box and you are your eye and no sensation apart from all that you see registers or makes sense. And as you take your eyes off it you swing dangerously in between places, in between homes. That odd collage of music which you can still hear, a few notes of jazz, an old Bangla song that reminds you of evening, quickly fades into the background once again. It drifts in and out of the home you stand in, incongruously charming, as music floating in through the window tends to be. And just as you began humming the familiar tune, unaware, finally at ease alone in a stranger’s home, a snippet of sound from the bioscope, this time the tinkling cascade of metal, makes you start. You turn around in taut anticipation, convinced that someone has walked through the door and flung her keys on the floor. (Image on top: Chittrovanu Mazumdar, Untitled, 2012, Mixed Media; Courtesy of the artist and The Loft At Lower Parel)

The Reading of the Scriptures by Fr Felix, O.F.M.Cap. part 12. THE OLD TESTAMENT. Both Testaments alike are the inspired Word of God. The Council of Florence states clearly: "The Holy Roman Church . . . professes that One and the Same God is Author of the Old and the New Testament, i.e., of this Law and the Prophets and of the Gospel: because the holy men of both Testaments spoke under the inspiration of the Same Holy Spirit." (Decree for the Jacobites. Denzinger Bannwart. 16 ed. No. 706). The New Testament itself bears witness to this in Our Lord's own words in the Sermon on the Mount: "Do not think that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy but to fulfil." (St. Matthew 5, 17). Again, when we read the New Testament we must be impressed by the number of citations from, and references to the Old Testament. This is especially true of the Gospel of St. Matthew and of St. Paul's Epistles. St. Matthew in writing his Gospel had in mind the immediate needs of those Jews who were the first converts to Christianity, and in consequence he proved for them that Christ Our Lord is the Messias promised and foretold in the Old Testament Scriptures. St. Paul was well versed in the Old Testament before his conversion. He quotes it very frequently, and uses it with great effect in defending and expounding the Gospel. To understand the New Testament, therefore, it is necessary to read and study the Old. Nor is the interest which we discovered in the study of the New Testament absent from that of the Old. On the contrary, it is, if possible, still greater. It was to the Old Testament Scriptures Our Lord referred when He said: "Search the Scriptures . . . . the same are they that give testimony of Me." (St. John 5, 39). This testimony of Our Divine Redeemer has an imperative claim on us. Again, the heroic virtues of many of the saints of the Old Law are proposed in the New Testament for our admiration and imitation, e.g., the faith of Abraham (Hebrews 8, 10) ; the patience of Job (St., James 5, 11); the modesty of Sara. ( I St. Peter 3, 6).

AGENDA FOR TALKS WITH INDONESIA AND AUSTRALIA APPROVED East Timor's Council of Ministers approved today the agendas for bilateral and trilateral talks scheduled to take place next week in Denpasar, Indonesia. The agenda for the 25 February bilateral meeting between East Timor and Indonesia includes topics such as: the ownership of property that belonged to the Government of Indonesia and Indonesian citizens on August 1999; pensions for former Indonesian public servants and retirees; refugees; border demarcation; and cooperation in the cultural, education, banking and monetary sectors. In addition, a discussions are expected on the establishment of postal links; regular trans-border movement and trade; and a protocol of cooperation between the police services of both countries. The agenda for the 26 February trilateral meeting between East Timor, Australia and Indonesia includes issues of common interest for the three countries, in particular: security, cross-border crime and management of borders; repatriation of refugees; and economic and developmental cooperation and assistance. The Council also decided that petroleum exploitation in the Timor Sea should not be part of the trilateral agenda. The East Timor delegation will be led by Special Representative of the Secretary-General Sergio Vieira de Mello, and includes Chief Minister Marí Alkatiri, Foreign Minister José Ramos-Horta, Secretary of State for the Council of Ministers Gregório de Sousa and the Government Advisor on Human Rights Isabel Ferreira . Ramos-Horta has described the tripartite meeting - the first of its kind - as "a milestone both in the history of East Timor and in regional relations." In addition, Ramos-Horta and the committee responsible for the Independence Day Celebrations briefed the Council on the activities related to 20 May. The festivities will include an East Timor Expo, to be constructed at the site of the old Dili Central Market with a US$1.2 million donation from the Australian government. The Council was also briefed on proposals to build two national monuments: an independence monument funded by the Australian government; and a monument to pay homage to Nicolau Lobato, the first commander of the resistance movement Falintil, killed in December 1978, funded by the Portuguese government. The Council of Ministers also studied a draft regulation on the establishment of a Public Broadcasting Corporation for television and radio. The Council decided to create an inter-ministerial commission that will review the constitutionality of the draft and its financial implications. Finally, the Council approved the Finance Minister's proposals regarding the budget for the fiscal year of 2002-2003, which will be presented at a 14-15 May donors conference in Dili. HEALTH MINISTER, SRSG DEDICATE CENTRAL MEDICAL STORE Health Minister Dr. Rui Maria de Araújo and UN transitional administrator Sergio Vieira de Mello led the official opening today of East Timor's Central Medical Store, a medicines warehouse that is the distribution hub of the national health system. A ribbon cutting and live traditional music highlighted the dedication ceremony for the US$1.3 million building. De Araújo described the moment as a "turning point" in the management of a public health system that has struggled to rise from the ashes of violence that surrounded the end of Indonesian rule in 1999. "The challenges are huge … but here we have the system to ensure that we are properly procuring, storing and distributing medicines in East Timor," the minister said. Vieira de Mello called health and education the top priorities of UNTAET and East Timor's Second Transitional Government. Displaying a photograph of a burned-out shell of a building that was the territory's central pharmacy before the 1999 violence, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General (SRSG) illustrated the "nightmare" of medicine procurement and distribution that existed in East Timor just a few months ago. The SRSG also applauded the Health Ministry, foreign donors and the World Bank for making the Central Medical Store a reality. Construction of the Central Medical Store was managed by the World Bank. Donors included Australia, the European Union, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank. The US military's Support Group East Timor (USGET) donated US$350,000 in office and medical supplies to the Central Medical Store last month. AusAid contributed an additional A$250,000 (US$129,500) in medical supplies. GUSMAO, BISHOP BELO CALL FOR MORE CONSTITUTIONAL DEBATE Independence leader Xanana Gusmão and Dili Bishop Filipe Ximenes Belo urged the Constituent Assembly today not to rush passage of East Timor's first Constitution, saying more time was needed for an upcoming public consultation on the historic document. Speaking at the start of a televised public discussion organised by the east Timor Study Group, Bishop Belo called for the entire month of March to be devoted to the nationwide public review of the Constitution. He said the current consultation schedule - from 26 February to 2 March - was akin to "teasing" the public. "This is our Constitution, our life, our future and our faith - therefore we shouldn't be in a hurry,'' the Bishop said. Gusmão said he had recently expressed similar sentiments to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He added that he did not think the Constitution must be completed by East Timor's independence on 20 May. "There are countries that became independent without having a Constitution," Gusmão said. "A Constitution is the pillar of a nation. It is the mother of law, and it should be properly legitimised by the people." The popularly elected Constituent Assembly has spent more than four months drafting the Portuguese-language Constitution. After the public consultation, there will be final period of debate before its promulgation at a 16 March signing ceremony. Today's public discussion was organised by the East Timor Study Group in conjunction with UNTAET's Office of Communication and Public Information. It was broadcast by both Radio UNTAET and Televizaun Timor Lorosa'e.

In 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) was held to talk about environmental issues around the world. Severn Suzuki, a twelve year old Canadian at the time (Now a well known 32 year old humanitarian and environmental activist) spoke at this conference, in front of the entire UN. The video below is her speech. This year, the UN came back to Rio to have an Earth Summit+20 conference on Sustainable Development on 20-22 June 2012. This year, one of my fellow New Zealanders, 17 year old Brittany Trilford, has had the privilege to speak at the conference by winning the “Date With History” competition. I would like you to consider, please, how much is different in these two speeches. As Brittany has said, nothing has changed; in fact, the situation grows worse. A NZ Herald article shows that the decisions being made right now, as we speak, at Rio de Janerio, are nothing more than more empty promises, that contain “… absolutely nothing there for people and the planet,” (Daniel Mittler, political director of Greenpeace International). Let us hope that this will change, and solid progress will be heard about in the next two days. I believe that if enough awareness is raised, and influential figures swayed, maybe this year governments will finally do something about the looming problems of Earth. So please, if you are reading this, post a blog, or a tweet, or update your profile and say something about what you think the future should hold for us. It’s not that hard, and it will make all the difference in the world. Because if you are reading this, or know what is happening in Brazil right now, then you are in the position to exert control over the future, by raising your voice and having your say about your future. Please, I ask again, do so. Let’s call me Lily To find out more about the conference, click here. To enter the Goi Peace Foundation essay competition about creating “The Future We Want”, click here.

3. My hot new boyfriend Bobby went from chess dud to vamp stud. 4. No reflection! First order of business: turn my own stylist to stop the downward spiral from chic to eek. 5. Vampire vixen Mellisande has taken an interest in my boyfriend, and is now transforming the entire high school into her own personal vampire army. If anyone's going to start their own undead entourage it should be me. I guess I'll just have to save everyone from fashion disasters and other fates worse than death." Found this at the used bookstore. Sounds like it could be funny. Dead Is So Last Year by Marlene Perez Pub. date: May 09 "Something very strange starts happening in Nightshade the summer that the eldest Giordano sister, Rose, gets a job working at Dr. Franken's research laboratory. People are starting to see double. Doppelgängers of Nightshade residents are popping up all over town. Daisy, Rose and Poppy think it's a coincidence, until the rumors start that their father, who disappeared several years ago, has been spotted in town. Meanwhile, Daisy's beau, Ryan is spending all of his time training for football, and like the other guys on the team, he's grown enormous almost overnight. Samantha Devereux's boyfriend's neck has doubled in size since school ended. Could the football players be resorting to extreme measures to win? Between summer jobs, sugar rushes, and beach parties, the Giordano girls get to the bottom of these mysteries and more." Confessions of a Closet Catholic by Sarah Darer Littman Pub. date: February 05 "Justine Silver's best friend, Mary Catherine McAllister, has given up chocolate for Lent, but Justine doesn't think God wants her to make that kind of sacrifice. So she's decided to give up being Jewish instead. Eleven-year-old Justine pours her heart out to her teddy bear, "Father Ted," in a homemade closet confessional. But when Justine's beloved Bubbe suffers a stroke, Justine worries that her religious exploration is responsible. Worse, she must suddenly contemplate life without Bubbe. Ultimately, it's Bubbe's quiet understanding of Justine's search for identity that helps Justine to find faith in the most important place of all-within herself." Spent an hour and half in the car, then another hour in a Catholic bookstore, and this was all I found. Sounds like it might be good. I like the cover. :) Faerie Wars by Herbie Brennan Pub date: September 04 "When Henry Atherton helps Mr. Fogarty clean up around his house, he expects to find a mess and a cranky old man; what he doesn't expect to find is Pyrgus Malvae, crown prince of the Faerie realm, who has escaped the treacherous Faeries of the Night by traveling to the human world through a portal powered by trapped lightning. An egomaniacal demon prince, greedy glue factory owners Brimstone and Chalkhill, and the nefarious Lord Hairstreak, leader of the Faeries of the Night, all dream of ruling the Faerie realm and are out to kill Pyrgus. Enlisting the help of his sister, Holly Blue, and his new friend, Henry, Pyrgus must get back to the Faerie world alive before one of his many enemies gets to him instead. But how many portals are open, and can Pyrgus find the right one before it falls into the wrong hands? Conjuring scenes filled with vivid color, unforgettable detail, and fearless characters, author Herbie Brennan brings readers to the Faerie world, where nothing is ever what it seems and no one can be trusted." I've been craving faerie books lately. I don't know why, I've never been particularly interested in them before, but recently I found myself needing a faerie book. So, I went online and searched my library system for faerie books (after searching them and asking about them on Shelfari), and this is one of the ones I found. Tantalize by Cynthia Leitich Smith Pub. date: February 07 "CLASSIFIED ADS: RESTAURANTS SANGUINI'S: A VERY RARE RESTAURANT IS HIRING A CHEF DE CUISINE. DINNERS ONLY. APPLY IN PERSON BETWEEN 2:00 AND 4:00 PM. Quincie Morris has never felt more alone. Her parents are dead, and her hybrid-werewolf first love is threatening to embark on a rite of passage that will separate them forever. Then, as she and her uncle are about to unveil their hot vampire-themed restaurant, a brutal murder leaves them scrambling for a chef. Can Quincie transform their new hire into a culinary Dark Lord before opening night? Can he wow the crowd in his fake fangs, cheap cape, and red contact lenses — or is there more to this earnest face than meets the eye? As human and preternatural forces clash, a deadly love triangle forms, and the line between predator and prey begins to blur. Who’s playing whom? And how long can Quincie play along before she loses everything? TANTALIZE marks Cynthia Leitich Smith’s delicious debut as a preeminent author of dark fantasy." Saw this at the library and read the first few pages. Wasn't bad, so I decided to get it. That's all I got this week. Not a bad week, I'm gonna be busy for while. ^_^ SS is hosted by Rating Reads. To participate simply... Take your current read or recently finished book. Find at least one song that fits the story, characters, whatever. Post the book title and song(s) on your blog with a brief explanation of your picks. Don't forget to mention who started it. Songs:Hungry Like the Wolf by Duran Duran and We've Got a Big Mess on Our Hands by The Academy Is... Why Hungry Like the Wolf? The werewolves of Nightshade played a bigger role in this one, and with werewolves comes an appetite for raw meat, hence the song. Why We've Got a Big Mess on Our Hands? The video for this actually fits the book pretty well. The citizens of Nightshade have a little problem with sugar crazed doppelgangers popping up, ruining the lives of the originals. Since the doppelgangers are evil, and one in particular causes the Giordano sisters some trouble, the lyrics fit too.

Herpesviruses are large DNA viruses that are highly abundant within their host populations. Even in the presence of a healthy immune system, these viruses manage to cause lifelong infections. This persistence is partially mediated by the virus entering latency, a phase of infection characterized by limited viral protein expression. Moreover, herpesviruses have devoted a significant part of their coding capacity to immune evasion strategies. It is believed that the close coexistence of herpesviruses and their hosts has resulted in the evolution of viral proteins that specifically attack multiple arms of the host immune system. Cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) play an important role in antiviral immunity. CTLs recognize their target through viral peptides presented in the context of MHC molecules at the cell surface. Every herpesvirus studied to date encodes multiple immune evasion molecules that effectively interfere with specific steps of the MHC class I antigen presentation pathway. The transporter associated with antigen processing (TAP) plays a key role in the loading of viral peptides onto MHC class I molecules. This is reflected by the numerous ways herpesviruses have developed to block TAP function. In this review, we describe the characteristics and mechanisms of action of all known virus-encoded TAP inhibitors. Orthologs of these proteins encoded by related viruses are identified, and the conservation of TAP inhibition is discussed. A phylogenetic analysis of members of the family Herpesviridae is included to study the origin of these molecules. In addition, we discuss the characteristics of the first TAP inhibitor identified outside the herpesvirus family, namely, in cowpox virus. The strategies of TAP inhibition employed by viruses are very distinct and are likely to have been acquired independently during evolution. These findings and the recent discovery of a non-herpesvirus TAP inhibitor represent a striking example of functional convergent evolution. Citation: Verweij MC, Horst D, Griffin BD, Luteijn RD, Davison AJ, Ressing ME, et al. (2015) Viral Inhibition of the Transporter Associated with Antigen Processing (TAP): A Striking Example of Functional Convergent Evolution. PLoS Pathog 11(4): e1004743. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1004743 Editor: Kasturi Haldar, University of Notre Dame, UNITED STATES Published: April 16, 2015 Copyright: © 2015 Verweij et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited Funding: This work was supported by the UK Medical Research Council (MC_UU_12014/3 www.mrc.ac.uk to AJD) and the Netherlands Scientific Organization (NWO Vidi 917.76.330-1 www.nwo.nl/en to MER). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. The family Herpesviridae emerged approximately 400 million years ago . The first members of the class Mammalia arose 200 million years ago, at around the time of the Early Jurassic period, and, since then, herpesviruses and mammals have coevolved and adapted to one another over very long periods of time. Today, members of the family Herpesviridae are numerous and widespread among not only mammals, but also many bird and reptile species; each virus displays a remarkable degree of host specificity. The longstanding interactions between virus and host have likely contributed to the development of the host’s innate and adaptive immune system and the mechanisms that viruses use to evade those systems. The first line of defense against intruding pathogens is the innate immune system. This comprises the complement system, natural killer (NK) cells, apoptosis, pattern recognition receptor-mediated intracellular signaling leading to the production of IFNβ and many other cytokines and chemokines, and phagocytes like neutrophils, macrophages and dendritic cells. Together, these mechanisms enable the host to limit replication and spread of a pathogen and facilitate the induction of specific adaptive immune responses. The adaptive immune system includes antibody-producing B-cells, CD4+ T-cells that recognize antigens presented in the context of MHC (class) II molecules, and CD8+ T-cells that generally recognize antigens in the context of MHC I molecules. During and following protein synthesis, a proportion of the resulting proteins is rapidly degraded into peptides by the proteasome. The resulting peptides are subsequently translocated into the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) via the transporter associated with antigen processing (TAP) [2,3]. Within the ER, the peptides are loaded onto newly synthesized MHC I heavy chain / β2microglobulin (β2m) heterodimers. This process is facilitated by at least five ER-resident molecules that together form the MHC I peptide-loading complex (PLC). Tapasin functions as a chaperone, bridging MHC I molecules and TAP and catalyzing the binding of high-affinity peptides [4–10]. The lectin-like chaperones calnexin and calreticulin promote folding of newly synthesized MHC I molecules; additionally, calreticulin recruits the thioloxidoreductase ERp57. ERp57 and protein disulfide isomerase (PDI) are involved in stabilizing several protein-protein interactions within the PLC via disulfide bond formation [11,12]. Acquisition of peptide allows mature MHC I complexes to leave the ER, pass through the Golgi, and traffic to the cell surface where the peptides are presented to CTLs. The family Herpesviridae is divided into the subfamilies Alphaherpesvirinae, Betaherpesvirinae, and Gammaherpesvirinae. Members of this family have been identified in many different species, including reptiles, birds, and mammals. There are nine herpesviruses known to infect humans: herpes simplex virus (HSV) types 1 and 2 (HSV-1 and HSV-2 in species Human herpesvirus 1 and Human herpesvirus 2, respectively, of genus Simplexvirus, subfamily Alphaherpesvirinae), varicella-zoster virus (VZV in species Human herpesvirus 3 of genus Varicellovirus, subfamily Alphaherpesvirinae), human cytomegalovirus (HCMV in species Human herpesvirus 5 of genus Cytomegalovirus, subfamily Betaherpesvirinae), human herpesviruses 6A, 6B and 7 (HHV-6A, HHV-6B, HHV-7 in species Human herpesvirus 6A, Human herpesvirus 6B and Human herpesvirus 7 of genus Roseolovirus, subfamily Betaherpesvirinae), Epstein-Barr virus (EBV in species Human herpesvirus 4 of genus Lymphocryptovirus, subfamily Gammaherpesvirinae) and Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV in species Human herpesvirus 8 of genus Rhadinovirus, subfamily Gammaherpesvirinae) . Most of these viruses are widespread within the human population; for example, in the United States, approximately 90% of individuals of 80 years or older are seropositive for HCMV . VZV is even more abundant, with a seroprevalence of 95% in people from 20 years of age . Herpesvirus infections generally cause only mild symptoms, but in some circumstances they exhibit significant pathogenic properties, with the most serious complications tending to arise in immunocompromised people. Thus, HSV-1 can cause encephalitis, EBV and KSHV are associated with malignancies, and HCMV infection can result in congenital defects [16–18]. Following primary infection of their host, herpesviruses establish a state of latency in which viral protein expression is limited. As a consequence of this strategy, the virus-derived pool of potential antigens is minimized, thus hindering recognition and elimination of infected cells by CTLs and enabling the virus to persist for the lifetime of the host. In addition, several latency-associated proteins have been found actively to impede detection of virus-infected cells by the host immune system [19–21]. However, at some point, in order to disseminate the virus to other hosts, productive infection must occur. During this replicative or lytic phase, an extensive repertoire of herpesvirus-encoded genes is expressed in a kinetically regulated fashion. Depending on the virus in question, this results in the synthesis of at least 70 functional proteins, and renders the virus-infected cell susceptible to the memory immune responses that were generated during primary infection. Although these responses are instrumental in controlling infection and in limiting pathology, herpesviruses employ multiple evasion strategies to allow virus production in the face of existing antiviral immunity, thereby promoting spread within the host population. In the past two decades, numerous articles have been published identifying and characterizing the immune evasion molecules expressed by herpesviruses. Most of these publications are focused on human herpesviruses, each of which has been shown to employ several strategies to interfere with the innate and adaptive immune responses. The MHC I presentation pathway appears to be a favorite target among the herpesviruses, illustrating the importance of CTLs in the elimination of virus-infected cells. Every step of this pathway is targeted by at least one herpesvirus. The availability of MHC I is affected by so-called host shutoff proteins that block cellular protein synthesis and thus expression of newly synthesized MHC I molecules. Examples of these proteins are the HSV-1-encoded vhs or UL41, EBV BGLF5, and KSHV SOX or ORF37 [22–26]. Additional strategies focus on inducing the degradation of MHC I molecules, as mediated by HCMV US2, US10, and US11 [27–29], murine CMV (MCMV) glycoprotein (gp) 48 , and murine gammaherpesvirus 68 mK3 [31–33]. Presentation of antigenic peptides by MHC I is also affected by HCMV US3 and MCMV gp40, which cause the retention of immature molecules in the cis-Golgi [34,35]. Finally, EBV BILF1 and KSHV K3 and KSHV K5 enhance the endocytosis of MHC I complexes at the cell surface [36–39]. In addition to strategies that limit the availability of MHC I, many herpesviruses affect peptide presentation by inhibiting the function of TAP. TAP is a heterodimeric ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter complex composed of two subunits, TAP1 and TAP2 (Fig 1). Both subunits are composed of an N-terminal transmembrane domain (TMD) and a C-terminal nucleotide-binding domain (NBD) exposed in the cytosol (Fig 1). The TMDs of TAP1 and TAP2 contain 10 and 9 transmembrane (TM) helices, respectively. The N-terminal 4 TM helices of TAP1 and the N-terminal 3 TM helices TAP2, known as TMD0s, act as autonomous interaction platforms for tapasin . Together with the NBDs, the C-terminal 6 membrane helices of each TAP subunit form the core of the transporter. Expression of this core region is necessary and sufficient for peptide transport . Upper illustration: model of the TAP transporter, comprising the two subunits TAP1 and TAP2. Each subunit contains a transmembrane domain (TMD), encompassing 10 and 9 transmembrane (TM) helices for TAP1 and TAP2, respectively. The outer N-terminal helices of TAP1 and TAP2 (TMD0) form an autonomous binding platform for tapasin, whereas the core 6 TM helices are necessary for peptide transport. A peptide-binding domain is located within the cytosolic extensions of the TM helices. In addition, TAP1 and TAP2 contain a nucleotide-binding domain (NBD) in the cytosol, which harbors two ATP-binding sites. Lower illustrations: schematic representations of the interaction between the viral proteins and TAP. The sites where TAP is affected are indicated. HSV-1 ICP47 prevents peptide transport by physically obstructing the peptide-binding site. PRV, BoHV-1 and EHV (EHV-1 and EHV-4) UL49.5 leave the transporter in a transformation-incompetent conformation, thereby preventing the structural changes that are needed to translocate peptides over the ER membrane. BoHV-1 UL49.5 is known to interact with a region within the core domain of TAP, comprising the C-terminal 6 TM domains of both TAP1 and TAP2 . BoHV-1 UL49.5 induces the degradation of both TAP subunits, and EHV UL49.5 prevents ATP binding to TAP. HCMV US6 blocks TAP by inducing conformational changes that result in diminished ATP binding to TAP1. The protein interacts with TM domains 7–10 of TAP 1 and TM 1–4 of TAP2 . EBV BNLF2a inhibits peptide transport by interfering with both peptide and ATP binding to TAP. TAP preferentially transports peptides of 8–16 amino acid residues in length, but can accommodate peptides as large as 40 amino acid residues, albeit with lower efficiency [42–46]. The exact location of the peptide-binding pocket remains unclear, but cross-linking peptide substrates to TAP and mutagenesis of TAP have shown that elements within the cytosolic extensions between the TM helices of both TAP1 and TAP2 are involved in peptide binding to TAP [47,48]. These findings are further supported by homology modeling of TAP based on the resolved crystal structures of other ABC transporters . Three cytosolic pockets formed by TM helices of the TAP core complex have been proposed to represent the binding site for the peptide substrates . TAP-mediated peptide transport is energized by ATP hydrolysis at the NBDs, which harbor two functionally nonequivalent ATP-binding sites. These sites are composed of conserved domains within both subunits, including the Walker A and B domains of one NBD and a signature motif of the opposing NBD. The consensus ATP-binding site that includes the Walker A and B domains of TAP2 has catalytic amino acid residues conserved among ABC transporters. The degenerate ATP-binding site, which includes the Walker A and B domains of TAP1, has a number of noncanonical mutations that reduce its catalytic activity . Although ATP binding and hydrolysis can still occur at the degenerate site [51,52] only ATP binding and hydrolysis at the consensus TAP2 site is essential for completion of the transport cycle [50,52–54]. The crystal structures of several ABC transporters, trapped in distinct conformations, have been resolved [55–59]. These structures, together with biochemical studies on TAP itself, suggest that TAP transport occurs in sequential steps with extensive conformational rearrangements of the NBDs and TMDs, which depend on nucleotide and peptide substrate binding [60,61] (reviewed by ). In an inward-facing conformation, the peptide-binding pocket faces the cytosol and the NBDs are separated. At this stage, TAP is receptive to both peptide and ATP. The binding of peptide and ATP can occur independently and induces conformational rearrangements that partially close the NBDs. The NBDs are only fully closed when both peptide and ATP are bound. These conformational changes are relayed to the TMDs and result in an outward-facing conformation of TAP, thereby exposing the peptide-binding pocket into the ER lumen and allowing release of the peptide. Upon ATP hydrolysis, the NBDs dissociate and the TMDs rotate back into an inward-facing conformation . In this way, conformational changes driven by peptide binding, ADP/ATP exchange, and ATP hydrolysis at the TAP subunits lead to the transport of peptides into the ER lumen. Cells that naturally or experimentally lack expression of functional TAP complexes show a dramatic reduction in MHC I levels at their surface and a substantial decline in CTL sensitivity [63–68]. Herpesviruses appear to have taken advantage of this extensive dependency of MHC I expression on TAP function by encoding viral proteins that specifically impair TAP-mediated peptide transport. This review focuses on the characteristics and evolution of herpesvirus-encoded TAP inhibitors and their orthologs. Simplexvirus ICP47 Orthologs The first viral protein found to inhibit TAP function was HSV-1 ICP47 (Fig 1). This protein acts as a competitor of cytosolic peptides for TAP binding, thereby limiting the availability of peptides in the ER lumen and causing subsequent retention of MHC I molecules in the ER [69–72]. ICP47 is expressed as a soluble, cytosolic protein of 88 amino acid residues. Mutational analyses have defined residues 3–34 as the functional domain responsible for TAP binding and inhibition of TAP function [73–75]. Charged residues within this domain are crucial for TAP inhibition, and might mimic the N- and C-termini of peptide substrates within the peptide-binding pockets of TAP . Once bound to TAP, the viral protein traps TAP in a conformation that differs from that of TAP in a peptide-bound state . In contrast to peptide substrates, ICP47 blocks ATP hydrolysis at the NBDs of TAP, which is normally followed by peptide binding, suggesting that TAP is locked in an inward-facing conformation [51,77]. Orthologs of HSV-1 ICP47 are encoded by HSV-2 and other simplexviruses infecting Old World primates, including herpesvirus papio 2 (HVP-2 in species Papiine herpesvirus 2) for baboons, simian B virus (SBV in species Macacine herpesvirus 1) for macaques, and simian agent 8 (SA8 in species Cercopithecine herpesvirus 2) for African green monkeys . Inhibition of TAP is conserved for HSV-2 ICP47, despite the relatively low amino acid sequence identity (44%) (Fig 2A) . The ICP47 orthologs can be divided into two groups on the basis of sequence similarities within the domain responsible for TAP inhibition, i.e., amino acid residues 3 to 34 [73–75]. HSV-1 and HSV-2 ICP47 are in the first group and share identity within this domain, and both are known to inhibit TAP (Fig 2A) . HPV-2, SBV, and SA8 ICP47 are in the second group. The sequences of the N-terminal domain of these proteins show substantial identity to each other and differ substantially from those of HSV-1 and HSV-2 (Fig 2A). SBV-infected cells were shown to display minor MHC I downregulation compared to HSV-1-infected cells , suggesting that the ICP47 protein encoded by SBV does not inhibit TAP. Given the similarities between the SBV, HPV-2, and SA8 ICP47 proteins, the HPV-2 and SA8 ICP47 proteins may also be unable to inhibit TAP, but data are not available. Thus, TAP inhibition may not be conserved for all ICP47 proteins. The fact that ICP47 is only encoded by simplexviruses suggests that this gene evolved after this lineage separated from the varicelloviruses (Fig 3). There is evidence supporting the view that the ICP47 gene arose de novo, rather than being captured from elsewhere, as is the case for many immune modulatory genes in herpesviruses . A) simplexvirus ICP47 orthologs, B) simplexvirus (upper 5 lines) and varicellovirus (lower 12 lines) UL49.5 orthologs, C) cytomegalovirus US6 orthologs, and D) lymphocryptovirus BNLF2a orthologs. The alignments of predicted primary translation products were made using ClustalW, followed by manual adjustment. The number of residues in each sequence is shown on the right. Green highlights residues that are conserved in all sequences, and yellow highlights residues that are conserved in a majority. Bold N residues in US6 indicate potential N-linked glycosylation sites. An illustrationof sequence disposition is shown below each alignment, with approximate boundaries displayed. The Bayesian tree is based on amino acid sequence alignments for six large, well-conserved genes, namely the orthologs of HSV-1 genes UL15, UL19, UL27, UL28, UL29, and UL30, and is derived from McGeoch and Davison . Assignments to genera and subfamilies are shown on the right. Abbreviations not mentioned in the text are: MDV-1, Marek's disease virus type 1; MDV-2, Marek's disease virus type 2; HVT, herpesvirus of turkey; ILTV, infectious laryngotracheitis virus; PsHV-1, psitticid herpesvirus 1; GTHV, green turtle herpesvirus; THV, tupaia herpesvirus; GPCMV, guinea pig cytomegalovirus; CalHV-3, callitrichine herpesvirus 3; AHV-1, alcelaphine herpesvirus 1; OHV-2, ovine herpesvirus 2; PLHV-1, porcine lymphotropic herpesvirus 1; HVS, herpesvirus saimiri; HVA, herpesvirus ateles; and RRV, rhesus rhadinovirus. Red, blue, orange, and green shading indicate viruses that encode the ICP47, UL49.5, US6, or BNLF2a TAP inhibitor genes, respectively, and corresponding coloring of virus abbreviations indicate viruses in which these genes have been shown to be functional TAP inhibitors. Light orange shading identifies all members of the Cytomegalovirus genus that have a US6 gene. Light blue shading indicates all members of the herpesvirus family that code for a UL49.5 gene that might be involved in chaperoning maturation of glycoprotein M. Varicellovirus UL49.5 Orthologs The second TAP inhibitor discovered within the subfamily Alphaherpesvirinae is the varicellovirus UL49.5 protein. The most extensively studied member is bovine herpesvirus 1 (BoHV-1) UL49.5. Unlike ICP47, UL49.5 does not affect the binding of peptides to TAP. Instead, the viral protein binds to the core region of TAP and impairs TAP-mediated peptide transport through two unique mechanisms. First, BoHV-1 UL49.5 inhibits the conformational rearrangements that usually follow peptide and ATP binding, as inferred from fluorescence recovery after photo bleaching (FRAP) assays . Using this assay, the lateral mobility of Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP)-tagged TAP can be measured in the ER-membrane. TAP mobility is affected by the conformational rearrangements that occur upon peptide transport. Upon active peptide transport, the mobility of TAP molecules is slower than that of inactive TAP . In the presence of UL49.5, these changes in lateral mobility of TAP, and thus conformational rearrangements, are halted . Second, BoHV-1 UL49.5 strongly reduces TAP1 and TAP2 protein levels by targeting both TAP subunits for proteasomal degradation (Fig 1) . Mutational analysis of BoHV-1 UL49.5 has attributed degradation of TAP to the first five N-terminal amino acid residues and the ultimate residues of the C-terminal cytosolic domain of the protein . Interestingly, UL49.5 without a C-terminal domain does not cause degradation of TAP, but retains the ability to inhibit peptide transport; this implies that the regions responsible for this effect are located in the transmembrane or ER-luminal parts of the inhibitor . Orthologs of UL49.5, also known as glycoprotein N (gN), are present in all members of the family Herpesviridae sequenced to date. However, TAP inhibition by this protein has been found only among the varicelloviruses. The UL49.5 orthologs encoded by the varicelloviruses BoHV-5, bubaline herpesvirus 1 (BuHV-1), cervid herpesvirus 1 (CvHV-1), equid herpesvirus 1 (EHV-1), EHV-4, pseudorabies virus (PRV), and felid herpesvirus 1 (FeHV-1) possess the same functional properties as BoHV-1 UL49.5, causing a robust inhibition of peptide transport, thereby decreasing MHC I molecules at the cell surface [84,85]. Infections with UL49.5-deletion mutants of BoHV-1, EHV-1, and PRV have shown that UL49.5 is necessary and sufficient for TAP inhibition during viral infection in vitro . Surprisingly, UL49.5 expressed by the varicelloviruses VZV, simian varicella virus (SVV), and canid herpesvirus 1 (CaHV-1) are incapable of reducing TAP function . Thus, the capacity to interfere with peptide transport via TAP is a feature shared by a subgroup of varicellovirus-encoded UL49.5 orthologs. The TAP-inhibiting UL49.5 homologs were shown to block human TAP as well as their natural host TAPs, indicating that the proteins target a highly conserved region within the TAP complex [84,85]. Each UL49.5 ortholog appears to utilize a distinct mechanism of TAP inhibition. The capacity to arrest the TAP complex in a translocation incompetent state is conserved for EHV-1 and PRV UL49.5 (Fig 1) and most likely for EHV-4, BoHV-5, BuHV-1, CvHV-1, and FeHV-1 UL49.5 . The EHV-1 and EHV-4 UL49.5 proteins were shown to interfere uniquely with ATP binding to TAP (Fig 1) . UL49.5-induced degradation of TAP1 and TAP2 is conserved for the highly related viruses BoHV-1, BoHV-5, BuHV-1, and CvHV-1, all of which infect ruminants, but not for EHV-1, EHV-4, PRV, and FeHV-1 UL49.5 (Fig 1) . The UL49.5 proteins interfering with TAP function show around 40% sequence identity (Fig 2B). Proteasomal degradation of the transporter is only induced by the ruminant-infecting viruses. The cytoplasmic domain of the TAP-degrading UL49.5 proteins contains two unique, consecutive lysine residues and an RGRG motif (Fig 2B). These lysine residues, although potential targets for ubiquitination, are not required for degradation of TAP . However, the arginine residues of the RGRG sequence appeared to be essential for this phenotype . Based on current knowledge, the UL49.5 molecules are the only herpesvirus-encoded TAP inhibitors that fulfill a dual role in viral infection. Within the infected cell, UL49.5 forms a heterodimeric complex with glycoprotein M (gM) and guides proper glycosylation and maturation of this protein [86–88]. Cells expressing both BoHV-1 UL49.5 and gM show reduced TAP inhibition when compared to cells expressing UL49.5 only, suggesting that the interaction between UL49.5 and gM interferes with the capacity of UL49.5 to block TAP . However, UL49.5 and gM display differential temporal expression in the context of viral infection, with the appearance of UL49.5 preceding that of the late protein gM . This provides UL49.5 with an opportunity to exert its immune evasive effect early during infection. Conservation of both UL49.5 and gM in the family Herpesviridae indicates that the original role of UL49.5 was that of a gM chaperone, and that TAP inhibition by the protein evolved later within the varicellovirus subfamily, possibly in the BoHV-1 lineage after its divergence from the VZV lineage (Fig 3). Alternatively, it is possible that the TAP inhibitory function was gained somewhat earlier among the alphaherpesviruses, and lost in the VZV lineage, as VZV UL49.5 is capable of interacting with the TAP complex even though it does not inhibit its activity. Cytomegalovirus US6 Orthologs HCMV encodes multiple immunoevasive proteins targeting the MHC I antigen presentation pathway, including the TAP inhibitor US6 [90–92]. This protein impairs TAP function by interfering with ATP binding to the transporter (Fig 1). US6 specifically prevents ATP binding to TAP1, but stimulates ATP binding to TAP2 . This is in contrast with the normal pattern of ATP binding, which preferentially involves TAP1 . US6 alters ATP binding to TAP by inducing conformational rearrangements that are suggested to resemble TAP in an outward-facing conformation [77,95]. Rather than physically obstructing the ATP-binding site in the cytosol, US6 induces these rearrangements by interacting with the ER luminal loops of TAP1 and TAP2 . This observation is supported by data obtained with US6 truncation mutants, which shows that the ER luminal domain of US6 is necessary and sufficient for the inhibition of TAP [90,93]. Orthologs of US6 are only encoded by cytomegaloviruses infecting primates . The rhesus CMV (RhCMV) ortholog of US6 (Rh185) shares only about 23% amino acid identity but nevertheless reduces cell surface expression of MHC I molecules via TAP inhibition (Fig 2C). The ER-luminal domain, identified as the functional part of US6 [90,93], shows remarkably low identity between the two orthologs (Fig 2C). HCMV US6 is a member of the US6 gene family, which is presumed to have arisen through gene duplication of a captured gene. The original gene gave rise to a block of six contiguous paralogs (US6, US7, US8, US9, US10, and US11), all encoding loosely related type I membrane proteins. Both the number of genes in this family and their encoded sequences have diverged extensively among the primate cytomegaloviruses. For example, chimpanzee cytomegalovirus (CCMV) and HCMV both encode six homologous genes in the US6 family. In contrast, RhCMV and simian CMV (SCMV) each have five genes, with orthology to HCMV being more difficult to determine . Owl monkey cytomegalovirus (AoCMV) and squirrel monkey cytomegalovirus (SaCMV), which infect New World primates, have four and seven members of the US6 family, respectively. However, these are located in noncontiguous regions of the genome, and both viruses lack an obvious US6 ortholog. No US6 family genes are apparent in cytomegaloviruses of non-primate hosts, including MCMV and rat CMV (RCMV) . Thus, it seems that the US6 gene family probably evolved during early primate evolution, with the TAP-inhibiting function arising in the Old World primate lineage (Fig 3). Lymphocryptovirus BNLF2a Orthologs The gammaherpesvirus EBV codes for a lytically expressed TAP inhibitor, BNLF2a, that inhibits TAP by interfering with the binding of peptides and ATP to the transporter (Fig 1) [98,99]. Mechanistically, BNLF2a is thought to induce conformational changes in the TAP complex that prevent association of ATP and peptide, but the sequence of events preceding the block in TAP function remains to be elucidated. BNLF2a consists of a hydrophilic N-terminal domain and a hydrophobic C-terminal domain (Fig 2D). BNLF2a lacks an obvious N-terminal signal sequence but is membrane-integrated, nevertheless. The protein was identified as a tail-anchored transmembrane protein that uses Asna1/TRC40, among other proteins, for ER membrane insertion . This mechanism of localizing to membranes is unique among the known viral TAP inhibitors. Orthologs of BNLF2a have only been identified in lymphocryptoviruses that infect Old World primates . The BNLF2a orthologs encoded by rhesus, chimpanzee, baboon, and gorilla lymphocryptoviruses (RLV, CLV, BLV, and GoLV) share 53%–62% sequence identity with EBV BNLF2a and display a similar disposition of hydrophilic and hydrophobic regions (Fig 2D). When expressed in isolation, these orthologs downregulate cell surface expression of MHC I molecules, indicating conserved TAP-inhibiting properties for BNLF2a proteins expressed by lymphocryptoviruses of Old World primates . No orthologs of BNLF2a have been detected in members of the genus Lymphocryptovirus that infect New World primates, suggesting that the BNLF2a gene was acquired after the divergence of Old World and New World primate lymphocryptoviruses (Fig 3). Members of all three subfamilies in the family Herpesviridae appear to exploit inhibition of TAP-mediated peptide transport as an immune evasion strategy. The TAP inhibitors that have been identified so far exhibit substantial variation in structural characteristics as well as in mechanisms of action. Yet, despite their large diversity, all inhibitors have evolved to serve a common end: diminish the supply of viral antigenic peptides into the ER lumen in order to avoid elimination of virus-infected cells by MHC I-restricted CTLs, thus ultimately aiding virus replication and spread. The manner in which this has been achieved represents a striking example of functional convergent evolution, and identifies TAP as an Achilles’ heel of the immune system. All of the TAP-inhibiting proteins described in this review are expressed early during the viral replication cycle [89,91,99,101,102]. For example, EBV BNLF2a is expressed during the (immediate-) early phase of lytic replication, but the protein levels are reduced at later times in infection when other EBV-encoded immune evasive molecules are effective [103,104]. Similarly, BoHV-1 UL49.5 is expressed with early kinetics, but remains present during the late stage of infection . This prolonged expression can be explained by the dual role that UL49.5 plays during viral replication: early in infection, in the absence of gM, it acts as a TAP inhibitor, while at later times of infection it also functions as a chaperone for the late, structural protein gM that facilitates cell-to-cell spread of virus . The early expression of herpesvirus-encoded TAP inhibitors ensures inhibition of the transport of viral peptides into the ER for MHC association shortly after initiation of virus replication, before abundant viral protein synthesis starts. In support of this reasoning, T cell recognition of antigenic peptides expressed early after EBV reactivation is restored in cells infected with a BNLF2a-deleted recombinant EBV . These findings further substantiate the contribution of the virus-encoded TAP inhibitors to immune evasion during infection. Directly addressing the in vivo relevance of TAP inhibition for human herpesviruses is difficult, because of the restricted host specificity of these viruses. HSV is an exception to the rule, as this virus can productively infect mice. The functional relevance of ICP47 was addressed using a murine ocular infection model. Mice that received uniocular corneal infections with wild-type HSV-1 developed encephalitis and died within 12 days . However, mice infected with an ICP47 deletion mutant did not develop encephalitis, pointing towards a role for ICP47 in preventing the activation of CD8+ T cells that avert the development of lethal encephalitis . An additional study showed that in systemically infected mice, an ICP47 deletion mutant was also attenuated compared to wild type HSV-1. However, in mice lacking TAP, this phenotype was reverted in neuronal tissues, including the brain, suggesting that TAP inhibition is crucial for neuronal infection by HSV-1 . The role of ICP47 in these mouse models seems contradictory to studies showing that ICP47 fails to inhibit TAP efficiently in mouse cell lines [69,70,79,107,108]. The low level of inhibition observed in vitro may be sufficient to generate a phenotype in vivo. Alternatively, ICP47 may block in vivo CD8+ T cell responses by additional mechanisms. In vivo studies on all other human herpesviruses depend on humanized mouse models. The identification of functional orthologs of, for example, US6 and BNLF2a in the genomes of Old World primate-infecting herpesviruses offers new opportunities to evaluate their contribution to replication and spread of the viruses in vivo. RhCMV, which encodes functional homologs of HCMV US2, US3, US6 and US11 , has been used to study the role of these immune evasion proteins in vivo . RhCMV is known to be able to reinfect or superinfect its host, despite the presence of high levels of neutralizing antibodies and RhCMV-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. However, rhesus macaques could not be superinfected by a RhCMV strain in which the genetic region encoding the US2, US3, US6, and US11 homologs was deleted. In contrast, the presence of these genes was not required for persistent infection of RhCMV-naïve hosts or for superinfection of macaques transiently depleted of CD8+ T cells. These studies indicate that impairment of MHC I presentation is critical for evading CD8+ T cell responses during superinfection by RhCMV, but not during primary infection . The recent identification of the first viral TAP inhibitor outside the family Herpesviridae highlights the importance of targeting TAP function as a general viral immunoevasive strategy. Poxviruses, like herpesviruses, are known for their elaborate strategies aimed at evading the immune system. Cowpox virus (CPXV) is the first non-herpesvirus that has been found to encode a TAP inhibitor. This protein, CPXV012, is an ER-resident type II transmembrane protein of 69 amino acid residues that inhibits TAP through its ER-luminal domain by interfering with ATP binding to the NBDs of TAP [111–113]. A recent analysis of this gene in a range of CPXV strains has provided interesting clues as to the possible origin of the TAP-inhibiting capacity of CPXV012. It appears to have originated from a frameshifting deletion from a longer protein that possesses an extended ER-luminal region containing a C-type lectin-like domain [113,114]. The longer protein does not block TAP. The majority of the recently isolated clinical strains encode the shorter, TAP-inhibiting protein . The identification of TAP inhibitors in herpesviruses and poxviruses suggests that DNA viruses in particular benefit from interference with TAP function as a means to evade CD8+ T cell responses. The absence of such evasion mechanisms in RNA viruses may in part be explained by the high mutation rate of RNA virus genomes, which allows for CD8+ T cell evasion by antigenic variation [115,116]. The generally lower mutation rate of DNA viruses may require alternative immune evasion mechanisms, including TAP inhibition. The relatively large genomes of herpes- and poxviruses have the capacity to accommodate dedicated immune evasion proteins that counteract the host immune response. Apart from TAP, MHC I itself is also targeted directly by a wide range of viral proteins encoded by herpesviruses and poxviruses. Among the alphaherpesviruses, ORF66 of VZV binds to and accumulates MHC I in the Golgi compartment [117,118]. Several betaherpesviruses express proteins that induce degradation of MHC I via various pathways. US2, US10, and US11 of HCMV target MHC I for degradation via the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway [27–29]. MCMV-encoded gp48 and U21 of HHV-6 and HHV-7 mediate degradation of MHC I via the endolysosomal route [30,119,120]. The m152 protein of MCMV retains MHC I in intracellular compartments . Rhesus CMV protein rh178 inhibits MHC I heavy chain expression by preventing its co-translational insertion into the ER membrane . Also members of the gammaherpesvirus subfamily induce MHC I degradation using a variety of strategies. EBV-encoded BILF1 reroutes MHC I and targets it for lysosomal degradation [36,122]. MHV-68-encoded mK3 targets MHC I for proteasomal degradation , whereas kK3 and kk5 of KSHV degrade MHC I through the endolysosomal pathway . In addition to herperviruses, poxviruses and adenoviruses also encode gene products that target MHC I directly. CPXV203 of cowpox virus and E3-19K of adenovirus both cause retention of MHC I in the ER [124–126]. The reduced overall MHC I surface expression induced by viral inhibitors makes cells more vulnerable for NK cell recognition. NK cells sense the lack of MHC I on target cells; this may result in a response depending on additional activation and inhibitory signals (reviewed by ). Herpes- and poxviruses use a variety of gene products to counteract NK cell responses. HCMV has been especially well studied for its ability to evade NK cell-mediated cytotoxicity (reviewed in ), but other herpesviruses and poxviruses also encode gene products to counteract NK cell-mediated cytotoxicity [129–131]. In conclusion, four classes of herpesvirus-encoded TAP inhibitors have been identified so far. These appear to be unrelated and to have been acquired independently and relatively recently during evolution, providing a powerful illustration of functional convergent evolution. In addition, poxvirus CPXV012 has been shown to code for yet another type of TAP inhibitor. 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"My voice rises to God and I will cry aloud, My voice rises to God, and He will hear me" Psalm 77 My voice is so important to God. In the above Psalm David cries out to God to hear him and God does. We've seen and experienced so much these past 17 days in ICU. We've seen people come in and recover. We've seen young and old pass away. Families crying and families relieved. Family and friends keeping constant vigil, or family and friends coming for brief moments. We've heard laughter and sobs. We are on that emotional roller coaster. There are highs and lows. Looking forward to the next high and yet always anticipating that dreadful plunge. We take nothing for granted. We constantly cry out aloud, "hear us, hear us". Even now as exhaustion overtakes us, we don't ask why. We definitely have seen God using us in different ways. Each time He has called us to pray with strangers, we cry aloud hear us God let them see You, let them know You. Each time we tell a nurse, doctor or therapist that God is well pleased with the tender care they give Brooke for in His word He says "what you do to the least of His people He will do unto you". We see their eyes get teary, voices thanking us for that word from the Lord and we know seeds are being planted. We see Him and feel Him here. Each day I pull myself out of bed and that tired feeling of "oh not again" comes over me I reach for his Word. Some times quickly, some times gradually He speaks "This is where I have you, look around, I am here and I want you to join me. I hear you". He hears me, He hears my annoying voice, my crying sobs, my laughter, and my torment - God hears me. I am not super woman, I do have my moments of protesting to Him but He ever so gently and always so quickly reminds me that everything that is happening to Brooke has gone through His hands. He reminds me of all the other times He has heard me and answered me. The times He has cradled me in His arms. The times he has wiped away my tears and put them in a jar. The times He has given me new mercies each morning. He brings to my mind all of what He has delivered me from, all the comfort and peace He has lavished on me and the love He still gives to me even when I disappoint Him. Even after all this I still cry out - Hear me O God - as if He needs reminding! Brooke got to talk for the entire day! That is a miracle! She barely used the ventilator and we are thanking God for each of these precious gifts. Pray that the depression will subside and that God would send special angel friends to cheer her up and encourage her.

A bakery (or baker's shop) is described as an establishment that produces and sells flour-based food baked in an oven such as bread, cakes, pastries, and pies. We feel our bakery is so much more. It is a passion. We are all family and started out learning to bake from our mothers and grandmother. That is where the spark started, feeding family. The smell of warm bread baking, pies at holidays and cookies for any occasion. Grandma at 90 years old is still teaching us things. We want to carry on what we have learned by bringing you the experience of family in what we bake, the taste of home. Instead of telling you that we are gourmet and a taste extravaganza we want to tell you that we bake from the heart. Yeah we are professionally trained, but do you think that matters to Grandma?

Colin Jillings is travelling pretty well, and, after more than 50 years' training winners, why shouldn't he be? He wears a horseshoe diamond ring given to him in 1970 by a "Yank horsetrader who went belly-up". He says he was going to sell it to get money owed, but didn't have to. Jillings has flown over from Auckland with the final day of the Flemington carnival his target, hoping to win the Emirates Stakes (1600 metres) with a sore-footed five-year-old called Sedecrem. Look closely at the name - it is Mercedes spelt backwards, and that is what Jillings is driving for the week he is here. It's a free ride, fixed up with a Melbourne yard by one of Sedecrem's owners - Ernie Ward, New Zealand's biggest Benz dealer. It's a little incongruous in two ways, because Jillings says he drives a BMW in NZ and because he has to park this sleek vehicle at a dive of a place he is staying at - rugby followers and earlier arrivals at the spring carnival have taken the accommodation he preferred. It is surprising that Jillings, who arrived on Sunday, and Sedecrem, who flew in on Monday night with strapper Adrian Reihana, sneaked under racing's radar. This is one of NZ's top horsemen, who has brought to Australia horses such as Mr McGinty, Cox Plate winner The Phantom Chance and Tycoon Lil, who, Jillings says, unfortunately ran into Might And Power in the 1998 plate. Sedecrem has won nine of 19 in NZ, the latest over 1400 metres at Avondale on Saturday. "We're only hoping," Jillings says. But, rest assured there's considerable basis to that hope because the trainer doesn't travel if the horse is not a strong chance. This brings us to stories of his coming to Australia in 1950, when Jillings took Lady Finiss and Gayriol to Sydney on the Wanganella. They won four or five from nine starts, including one by 12 lengths at Rosehill. A younger Jillings celebrated - and paid for the few-too-many drinks when violently seasick on the rough passage home. "Was I crook," he said this week, leaning on his borrowed Merc outside Chiquita Lodge at Flemington - he is staying with Mike Moroney at the same stables he used to land in when John Meagher had them. Research indicated that Jillings did not "miss" riders when they did the wrong thing on his horses. "You can tell these fellas, but you can't tell them much," he was quoted as saying when Shane Dye hit Tycoon Lil on the neck with the whip after being told not to. And when Mr McGinty was beaten in a Melbourne race, Jillings gave Bobby Vance a hell of a bake. "Did I what," he recalled. "He got too far back. "He was 25 lengths away, he was supposed to be lying third. He got within one-and-a-half lengths . . . but that's past tense." More interesting were instructions to Vance when Mr McGinty raced against Marscay in the 1982 Todman Slipper Trial at Rosehill after winning five of six starts in NZ. "Keep the little guy close to Marscay in the prelims," an NZ website quoted Jillings in a historical report, explaining the trainer's reason as "McGinty's price was sure to drift when the Aussies saw how small the horse taking on their champ was". He got the money. The concern with Sedecrem is his feet, Jillings saying the gelding had no sole and, touch wood (a tap of his head), the stable had him better than he'd ever been. "It's a big ask, we're only hoping," was as close as Jillings went to tipping, but he insisted when The Age requested an interview that publication wait until weights were declared. Sedecrem has 53.5 kilograms. "I'm quite happy with that," was the response. The horse will race at Flemington with Jillings as sole trainer - that's the Australian rule - but in NZ he has had a 12-year partnership with Richard Yuill at Takanini, near Auckland. "He's been with me for 25 years," said Jillings in explaining the reason for the partnership. "I don't like to use people and I don't like to be used. It's a fair dinkum partnership - we're halves." It is likely to continue only until November, 2005, when Takanini, which Jillings claims has the best training facilities in Australasia, closes to be redeveloped for housing. "I'm too bloody old (to relocate)," said the 72-year-old. Yuill, 47, will keep training when Jillings retires with wife Alison, children and grandchildren. He describes Sedecrem, known in the stable as Ernie after managing owner Ward, as being so quiet you could bring him in to your lounge. He wants to take him further than that, however. The goal is to race over 1600 in Hong Kong in mid-December, depending on how Sedecrem shapes up in the Emirates. Kerrin McEvoy will ride at Flemington because Paddy Payne, who rode Ultimate Aim for Jillings in the 1993 Melbourne Cup, cannot make the weight. "I think the speed will be on," the trainer suggested. "I'd like him to settle fifth or sixth, but half the field will be trying to do that. "I knew the opposition would be strong, but that's the chance you take. If you're frightened, don't come." |Print this article Email to a friend||Top| |text | handheld (how to)|| Copyright © 2003. The Age Company Ltd |advertise | contact us|

Pizza as we know it may have deviated a long way from its origins as a quick and easy snack sold to the poor on the streets of Naples. Purists will tell you that back in the day, there were only two types of pizza: the marinara (tomato, garlic, oregano and olive oil) and the margherita (basil, mozzarella and tomato); a far cry from the often crazy selections now on offer. London is awash with Italian restaurants, with many claiming to serve the best pizzas this side of Naples. Some celebrate their commitment to strictly following carefully-preserved family recipes, while others have taken the simple idea of a pizza and have developed new and exciting variations. So where can you go for the real deal in London? Here are a few suggestions for those wanting something more than the standard fare offered at the fast-food pizza chains. Presenting our best pizza restaurants in London: It’s all about the sourdough base at this small chain of London pizzerias. The pizza takes 20 hours to make (fortunately we didn’t have to wait that long for our order), and is baked in a wood-burning brick oven which was made on-site by Neapolitan craftsmen. The selection of toppings is modest, but there’s no denying the quality; even those who typically leave the crusts might make an exception with this tasty, soft base. Extra marks for the generous bottle of tap water placed on our table (and replenished) without having to ask. The prices are very reasonable too – we had a pizza and a glass of wine and still got change from £10. Another place which pays homage to Neapolitan cooking, this restaurant was set up by two brothers from Sorrento. The location, right in the heart of the action on Portobello Road, is hard to beat, and when we arrived just after 7 o’clock on a Friday evening, the restaurant was already lively. The kitchen (and pizza oven) are open plan, and the large hams on display add to the rustic Italian vibe. Our group of 4 were impressed with the texture and flavour of our pizzas, and the shared antipasto plate gave us the opportunity to taste the hams as well as the deliciously pungent pecorino cheese. If it’s not too cold, I’d recommend getting a table by the window, allowing you to watch the action on Portobello Road as you dine. Most pizzas are in the £9 to £12 range. This cosy Italian restaurant looks out over Smithfield Market, and serves a fairly typical variety of pizza. The quality of the food is good, but for me the highlight of our visit was the warm welcome and overall level of service. There’s also a varied fish and steak menu – very important when someone in a group doesn’t share the others’ pizza craving. Typical pizzas are £11-12. It’s hardly the most likely place to come for pizza, but there’s nothing ordinary about this old warehouse building in Hackney Wick, on the banks of the Lea River. As the name suggests, the main business here is a craft brewery, and as such it’s only to be expected that it’s popular with the East London bearded hipster brigade. Pizzas are hand rolled in the large open kitchen, and they certainly go down well with a glass of the brewery’s finest. The variety of flavours would give your Italian purist palpitations: among the standard menu are sage and truffle, lemon chicken tajine, and Middle Eastern Lamb (my favourite), while the specials board has yet more quirky offerings. Pizzas are typically £10 to £12. If you’re in the mood for just a slice of pizza (and when are you not?), you can do much worse than head to this trendy spot in Neal’s Yard, in the heart of Covent Garden. That’s not to say that you won’t be full after your visit – the slices are gigantic and a full pizza here is a mammoth 20 inches in diameter. Flavours are modern twists on Italian classics, with courgette and artichoke, or salami, rocket and parmesan options on the menu. There’s craft beer and bubbly wine on draught too. A slice is £4, while a full pizza (which could easily feed 4) is £20. Think some place else deserves a – ahem – slice of the action? Let us know your favourite London pizza restaurants below…

Many parents/caregivers have had experiences in the historical wherever they've had a unmannerly wakening to the information that Doctors or Physicians are only quality beings who can spawn mistakes or sometimes they merely have a bad day. We all have stories we can proportion something like hot and bad Physicians. Fundamentally, as parents we can identify with how noteworthy it is to choose a Physician that we like, can connect to, who listens and importantly we and our offspring consciousness homy beside and belongings. Through experience umpteen of us no longest take over for any Physician merely because they deterioration the hat of a Pediatrician or GP. In the UK we had a Family Practitioner, the benefits woman they could steal attention of my full family, so for instance, if myself and my child were ill we could both go to our Physician mutually. Additionally, they are sensible and have access to the complete family's learned profession yesteryear below one roof, which can be a super case soul and an good feature in that because of the relations ancient times relationship developed, your Physician tends to be in melody with loved ones issues which could as well impinging on you or your child's condition. That said, any satisfactory Pediatrician should hopefully be competent to team up the dots and see a relationship.Post ads: Electrolux EI26SS30JW / 48" Downdraft Ventilation System with Multiple Blower Options 3 Speed Push Button Electronic Control and Dishwasher Safe Mesh Filters: Stainless / Fujioh F3640WC Maple Copper Hoods 36" Copper Covered Wood Wall Mounted Hood - Blower not Included / Broan EPD6136SS Outdoor Brushed Stainless Steel Range Hood 36" / Fujioh F3640WC Oak Copper Hoods 36" Copper Covered Wood Wall Mounted Hood - Blower not Included / Bundle-66 Old Havana Wall Mount Fan in Rust (4 Pieces) Finish: Black / Vulcan Hart S/S Stand For Electric Kettles - STAND VSKT30 / Ovl-Ii S Ftn / Noritz NRC98-DV-NG Direct 9.8 GPM Indoor Condensing Vent / CU-2S18NBU-1 Mini Split Outdoor Condenser Unit - 18,000 BTU / SCFF55BAL 5.0 cu. ft. Upright Freezer with 3 Adjustable Shelves Fan Forced Circulation Leveling / Victory Refrigeration Value Line UR-27-SST "Value" Series 27" One Door Undercounter Refrigerator / Samsung WF457ARGSWR / Beverage-Air UCF27A-24 27" 1 Door Undercounter Freezer 7.3 Cu. Ft. / Research Products Corporation Dehumidifier 90 Pints A Day / Goodman R410A 13 SEER Complete Split System AC Only 3 Ton GSX130361, ARUF363616, HKR-10 / Vent-A-Hood TLH148WH White Tilt Out 300 CFM 48" Tilt-Out Wall Mounted Range Hood with a Single Blowe / Vent-A-Hood TLH148BL Black Tilt Out 300 CFM 48" Tilt-Out Wall Mounted Range Hood with a Single Blower from the Tilt Out Collection TLH148 Here in America, the benefits of selecting a Pediatrician as anti to the Family Practitioner are that the Pediatrician has prescriptive prevalent breaking in absorption on tyke medical science. The Pediatrician's 3 period residency is dedicated to tiddler trouble and reported to The American Academy of Pediatrics we can residue assured our children are being aerated by an certified in children's aid. Family Practitioners as well complete a iii year abidance system after learned profession seminary but their focus is on winning meticulousness of adults and pregnancies of which they may have almost 6 months Pediatric preparation. The Family Practitioner has an auxiliary commission to guarantee they resource abreast of all the latest developments or advances in Pediatric as healed as Adult medical science if they are to be an influential Practitioner. If you elite to decide on a Family Practitioner to pleasure your brood later I would advocate you view the subsequent noteworthy points:Post ads: Windster RA36-42 Series- Windster Island Range Hood / Beverage Air UCF27 - 27-in Undercounter Freezer, 6.2-cu ft, Stainless Exterior / Beverage Air UCF27A - 27 in Undercounter Freezer, 1 Section/Door, 1/4 HP / Beverage-Air UCF27A-23 27" 1 Door Undercounter Freezer 7.3 Cu. Ft. / Air King P1848 Professional Range Hood, 18 Inch Tall by 48 Inch Wide / U-Line U-CO29B-00 21 Inch Ice Maker / EI27EW35KW 27" Single Electric Wall Oven with 3.5 cu. ft. 3rd Element Convection Oven / Dacor MMDV30S 30 Inch Microwave Drawer / Electrolux IQ-Touch EI27EW35KB 27 Single Electric Wall Oven 3.5 cu. ft., Self Clean, Black / U-line 24" White Undercounter Refrigerator / American Range 36 in Commercial Range, 6 Burner Gas AR-6 / U-Line U-2175RCB-00 24 Inch Under Counter Refrigerator / EI26SS30JB 25.95 cu. ft. Total Capacity Side By Side Refrigerator PureAdvantage Air Filter / Vollrath (40837) - 48" Charbroiler - Cayenne Series / MMD24B Discovery 24" 1.0 cu ft 950 Watt Microwave In A Drawer & In / CO29B-00 U-Line 1000 Series Undercounter Combo Ice Maker/Refrigerator with Manual Defrost - Black - Field Reversible / U-Line 2175RCB-00 Refrigerator 5.7 Cu. Ft. / MMDV30S Dacor Millennia 30" Microwave In A Drawer - Stainless Steel with Black Glass o Find a Physician who has systematic undertake treating a lot of offspring. A Physician with a duo medical specialty patients a day isn't just the thing option, it could be an demonstration that he lacks feel of treating children. o Choose a Surgery (Physicians Office) which ever has an after hours Physician for sale that is competent to clutch strictness of brood should your Physician be unprocurable. To find that medico who meets your criteria, you can desire referrals for a bang-up medical man from any/all the later sources: o Family or friends, whose choices are in general supported on belongings and confidence, but tolerate in awareness that their finding is supported to be precise on how they report to the Physician, you would prominently have to scrutinize the recommendation yourself by production your own observations. o If you've just this minute captive your previous medical practitioner can offer you suggestions, or o Contact The American Academy of Pediatrics. It's a professional establishment which will kit out you with a catalogue of partaker Physicians in your strip. In order for the doctor to be permitted as a associate of the AAP, pediatricians must touch a clear in your mind criteria, together with beingness committee credentialed in paediatrics (which scheme a medico has realized a prescribed time of residency in the specialty, passed spoken and cursive exams and handled a minimal digit of cases). The doc essential too bequeath "evidence of dignified proper and administrative principals" as evaluated by AAP members in the quarter where on earth the Physician resides. For the names of AAP members in your community, convey SAE and a minute indicating the borough and nation state wherever you are searching, to the American Academy of Pediatrics, Department C-Pediatrician Referral, 141 Northwest Point Blvd., P.O. Box 927, Elk Grove Village, IL 60009-0927 After you ready-made your decision, should you uncover the similarity a short time ago has not formulated sanguinely between your Physician and yourself it's afterwards example to MOVE ON! Here is a inventory of preventive signals: o Your child's obvious psychological state active going to the Physician is on the far side what you weigh up to be a mundane fearfulness of effort a colourful. o Your tike is ill and has prescriptive a brace various treatments but is inactive not convalescent or exploit worse. To be equal whichever treatments can be cross-grained or hard-fought to examine or victuals but a recurring disorder is a definite admonitory commemorative inscription. At this period of time ask to see a connoisseur. Its more than advantageous to have a Physician who can agree they do not cognize what the fault is fairly than make-believe to have all the answers o The md shouldn't trade name you get the impression clueless or bothersome once you ask for more information, details, or lift a medical attentiveness for your juvenile person. You must consciousness easy to discourse your concerns on any rank near your doc. o The medical practitioner does not put in adequate example next to your toddler and you get the impression in some way rushed during your child's scrutiny. Do you get the impression you have sufficient of an possibility to ask all your questions and get answers to what you impoverishment to know? o The Physician over-treats your kid. Will your Physician order a full catalogue of tests for a attendant cold? o Physician does not listen, ignores your concerns and observations. If your Physician is not fascinated in what you have to say give or take a few your child's symptoms, is disinclined to tell particulars of examinations or try-out. Maybe its time to reckon. o Physician objects to you nonexistent a second assessment. This is a possibly dicey circumstances. Physicians are not infallible they are of course of study human beings. Secondly do not ask such as a Physician for referrals as they will more than possible cite you to being who is similar near quasi practices to themselves.

As most of you know from previous posts, my wife and I went to a few of the countries that used to be part of Yugoslavia. I’ll be writing several posts roughly reflecting the chronology of our trip. The posts in this series, in keeping with the blogs theme, will be primarily about the food we enjoyed (or not) but I’ll be sprinkling in tidbits about the places and things we saw and, of course, anything that begged for smart-ass commentary. We started out in Sarajevo (my wife, Joan, thinks I have an unhealthy attraction to war zones, past and present) spending 3 nights there. We stayed at a little place called Pansion Stari Grad that is right in the Old Town. This is not surprising since “stari grad” means “old town”. It was only 50 Euros/night including European breakfast which was pretty decent with hard boiled eggs, toast, jam, cheese and, my favourite, little packages of stinky pate (no, not a head…I just don’t know how to make an accented e on here) the smell of which, unfortunately, made my wife somewhat nauseous. The staff was really friendly and all spoke English. Don’t ya hate it when you go to a foreign country and they don’t have the courtesy to speak your language? Money….It’s a Drag You’d think after all they’ve been through in the recent past, Sarajevans would be an adaptable lot. The fact is, however, that they do not handle change well. That is to say, no matter what you are buying and what bill or coinage you are paying with, the vendor will be unable to make change. Buy two gelatos for 1 Convertible Mark (BAM)each, hand over a 5 BAM coin and the whole transaction teeters on the edge of collapse unless you or your wife can come up with exact change. I tried to pay and 8 BAM coffee/beer bill with a 50 BAM note. The waiter went to the goddamn currency exchange place next door and even they couldn’t change it. What the hell? My wife couldn’t buy a 15 BAM purse with a twenty. This happened over and over again. These guys are selling stuff all bloody day…where do they put the money the take in? We found ourselves constantly trying to hoard our coinage and small bills just so we’d be able to buy something. We even started making multiple withdrawals from the bank machine (eg. one withdrawal of 20 and one of 30) so we wouldn’t end up with a fifty BAM note. Now, many of you are probably wondering “how much is a BAM worth?. Well, this is where the genius of the Bosnian government really shines through. You see, unlike many currencies which change value independently, the BAM is tied to a specific, static value relative to the Euro. This value is the very convenient and easy to calculate 1.95 BAM:1 Euro. Yeah, pegging it at 2:1 would have been fucking stupid. Fast Food – Bosnian Style The old town is awash with two types of restaurants: Cevabdzinica and Buregdzinica. They serve two traditional Bosnian dishes, Cevap and Burek. Cevap is a grilled minced meat dish usually served with a large flat bun. Burek is a type of meat pie in which puff pastry is rolled around meat into a long log shape then laid in a spiral in a cast iron, lidded dish and cooked over coals and served with sour cream. I loved the burek. Unfortunately, old town doesn’t offer much of anything else beyond Burek and Cevap except for the ubiquitous pizza which became a bit of a fallback dinner for us throughout the trip as I’ll document in a later pizza post. Sure there are a few other restaurants but the menus are almost all the same and, often, the non-Burek, non-Cevap meals we ordered were not available. While the Bosnian cuisine wasn’t extremely varied, two things it had going for it were giant portions and meat-centricity. Joan had a perfectly breaded and grilled chicken breast while I had the stuff at right. This meat dish, called god knows what, was carnivorilicious. Basically it was spiced hamburger with an egg on top served with a massive flatbread. The care the chef took to avoid even the hint of vegetables in this meal is eye-watering. It’s Brewery, Stupid Being a bit of a beer fanatic, I convinced my non-beer drinking love that we must visit the Sarajevska Pivara (brewery). I insisted it was purely an educational visit to see this historic site. During the Siege of Sarajevo, there were only two manufacturing facilities that operated continuously through those horrific 46 months, the brewery and the cigarette factory. The interior of the bar was incredibly ornate with dark woods and giant beams. I had an excellent beer while Joan had the house wine which did not make her gag. She’d been served Croatian wine everywhere else and it had been hideous so this was a nice surprise although even the most unsophisticated sommelier would consider “not gagging” as faint praise indeed. I was well into my second or third large ale when I had the brilliant idea that we should have dinner there. After all, they had a pretty extensive, non-burek/cevap menu and looked pretty fancy so how bad could it be? Answer: Pretty bad. Well, I don’t go to a ball game expecting quality beer so why did I go to a brewery expecting quality cuisine? Answer: Because they had beer (same reason I’d go to a ball game, actually). We started with appetizers. Joan had a gigantic mound of not-very-good seafood risotto while I had something that I didn’t write down and don’t remember…along with a beer. For our mains, I had some adequate fried squid with incredibly bland, poorly cooked potatoes. Joan had something that we chose to pronounce “Chicken Frisbees” which she thought may be similar to the wonderful chicken breast she had the day before. The name should have warned her off. They were indeed bits of breaded chicken shaped like miniature Frisbees. Yes, they were goddamn chicken nuggets. Even if some of Joan’s meal bordered on inedible, there was really no chance she was going to starve. They brought us enough bread to feed scores. We’re pretty sure the bread is getting recycled between tables. No sane person would bring this much bread for two people. Maybe, on his way to the table with rational amount of bread, the waiter began channeling Jesus as he replayed his greatest hits. I don’t know…but I’m glad I didn’t order the fishes. Park Princeva – Where the Glitterati Hang Out (when we’re not there) On our last evening in Sarajevo we went up to the Park Princeva Restaurant. It’s high on the mountain overlooking the city. Apparently, this is where Bono and other famous people (probably that damn Richard Gere, whom I will deride in a future post) hang out. Of course, we were all atwitter imagining the celebs we would see…which turned out to be two rather quite businessmen at one table and a loud, chain smoking American guy with a bored, chain smoking European guy whose communicated “Ugh, you Americans are so gauche” with every dismissive, smoke-trailing wave of his hand. The view, despite the rain and clouds (both the meteorological and carcinogenic kinds), was awesome. The food was pretty damn good. The most awesome thing were the donuts we had for an appetizer. That’s right, we had donuts before our meal. They were only slightly less sweet than regular donuts and reminded me of Tim Horton’s filled donuts without the filling. They were served with two types of cheese, feta and a thick sort of sour creamy kind. We ate lots such that our main courses (veal and a fancy pants cevap) were sort of anti-climatic and unwanted when they arrived. Bosnian cuisine isn’t too varied but it’s generally pretty good, especially if you like grilled meat and don’t eat at breweries. “Donuts. Is there anything they can’t do?” – Homer J. Simpson

- what's that? asked Underground Man, as he came across the dead, spiky banksia leaf in our bed (our bed in a rented holiday cottage in Blackheath, which turned out not to be as good as the reviews on the cottages' own website (well, der!) made out. For a start, the unappealing-looking kitchen smelt odd, and its only window opened onto a very dodgy 'sunroom' extension at the back, so no fresh air. At the back of the kitchen a door led to a decrepit, mouldy laundry. To be fair, the washer and dryer looked decent enough, from my fleeting glimpse of them, but who would dare enter? - It's my bookmark, I said, retrieving the banksia leaf. I had jauntily thrown Stevie Smith's novel The Holiday into the top of my basket as I went away on holiday, and began reading it the first afternoon, lying on a tarpaulin on the ground at Mayall Lakes, where we camped the first night. Hence the banksia leaf bookmark, which I'll keep as a memento. It will forever belong to Stevie Smith. And then when we arrived home, UG man was thinking of reading Kangaroo, by DHL, and flicking through found an old bookmark (see above, next to the iconically Australian banksia leaf). This one opens up to reveal that it is from a book chain called Van Gelderen, in Amsterdam, Holland, and I'd guess that it's at least 30 years old, if not more. He didn't read Kangaroo, choosing instead to read An Autobiographical Novel, by the American poet Kenneth Rexroth, and the bookmark ended up marking his place in that. This is a book I'd just brought home from Wentworth Falls, in the Blue Mountains, from a rather wonderful second-hand bookshop. (We stayed at another cottage there first, which was indeed all it was cracked up to be, a lovely clean, sunny, well-furnished late 1950s place with a beautiful garden. Crabapple Cottage. Do go there, and it's 'dog-friendly'. We stayed with our son and his partner and their two large dogs.) And so bookmarks move from book to book. I especially like bookmarks that were never intended for that use. I have variously used bus tickets, airline boarding passes, the little brown pleated paper cups from chocolates, flattened out (and you can smell the chocolate on them for a long time afterwards), the paper strips surrounding a certain type of soap I buy from our heath-food shop (ditto for the smell), post-it notes, corners torn from newspapers, and the wrappers from 'feminine hygiene' products. In used books I have bought, I've found among other things a Tokyo subway ticket (fittingly in a book by Haruki Murakami, in English but priced in yen), a business card for a Paris atelier, and what was once a perfume-sample impregnated piece of card, now with only a musty smell, in an ancient, falling-apart copy of Simone de Beauvoir's Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter. I don't know where any of these have ended up - in one of our books, somewhere, or lost. Bookmarks are ephemera, to be used, discarded or left behind, or kept for their associations and memories. They remind me of the vast networks of readers, sharing books, recommending them (or not), discarding them, handing them on. They remind me that reading a book is more than about just the book. They are about where you read them, what you were doing, and how you were feeling. And so books enter your life and become part of it.

Blustery conditions met the competitors yesterday evening when they assembled at the start line of the Rondebosch Common Spectacular. There was an air of tension amid the competitors prior to the start, each sizing up the other readying themselves to do battle on the 5km course ahead. A 100 strong field took to the start line and the gun went off and it was on!! Chukka Charts strode out to the front with Kenyan like simplicity and looked as if he was in a defiant mood. He was followed closely by the bunch who kept him in their sights. He led at the 1km mark posting a 3:50 first km. It was then he turned down the hospital mile and powered through the biting gale with Great Dayne tucked in just behind and Elley, Donkey and Beef Jordaan grouped in a couple of lengths back. It was clear that the wind and the brisk start was beginning to take its toll on the Irish folk singer and he began to tire towards the end of Hospital Mile. Great Dayne took over the front running momentarily around the 2km mark, but Elley made a decisive move just after the 2km marker, the years and injuries seeming to melt away with every step. He opened up a 20s lead at the half way mark going through at 9:42. Travelling support in the form of the Scotsman arrived, despatching drinks to the competitors and offering wise words of encouragement as a few of the competitors started to tire. Elley had kept his lead along the Rustenburg side and hit hospital mile for the last time with his 20s lead still intact and looking in fine form to take the Common Spectacular (as it was renamed) for the second time in a row. Chasing him were the Great Dayne, a few lengths further back were Beefy and Chukka who had now fallen well off the pace with that uncharacteristic schoolboy error in the first km, with Donkey a few paces further back. But road running is a funny old sport, just when Elley looked to have it all but sewn up, he began to show signs of fatigue, as Hospital Mile began to take its toll. This left the door open for Allenbrook who was now gaining ground on Elley with the help of his Ethiopian pacemaker, Elias. By the time they rounded the corner and headed into the final straight, Elley and Allenbrook were neck and neck. It would all be down to the last 300m with the Scotsman providing a full running commentary from the safety of his bike. Allenbrook was the first to break 250m out, he strode out hoping Elley would lose touch, but this was to no avail as Elley remained in tow and the move was squashed. Elley then made the decisive break 150m from home and it was one that was not followed by a shattered Allenbrook. He sprinted away to claim his second victory in a row in a winning time of 20:02, beating Allenbrook into 2nd by 10s. The Results were as follows: 1) Jason Elley 20:02 2) Dayne Allenbrook 20:12 3) Michael Charton 21:30 4) Bernaard Jordaan 21:35 5) Graham Barrett 22:30 It must be mentioned that Neil Quayle was nowhere to be seen. After all the media hype and big talking, the veteran of 26 comrades marathons and 32 2oceans Marathons was a notable absence in the strong field. In his press conference he gave a Shabir Shaik'esque performance and revealed that his health had deteriorated to such an extent that he was unable to get any revolutions on the ball in the nets. "I cant even get Gio Colussi out" were his words. He even went on to hint that it was affecting his performance in the bedroom, but these rumours are as of yet unconfirmed. All the competitors were irate at the fact that Quayle had pulled out and many were calling for a life ban calling his behaviour "disgraceful" and "uncouth". The Nadoes Running Association have the matter under review and a decision is expected later in the week. Tom Dawson-Squibb was also not in attendance which was a pity because many were looking forward to the battle between him and Barrett. The recently engaged, stick like father of 2 was unavailable for comment on his non-arrival.

to make sure that the best innovative thinking was available to defense. Defense is far from the only area where the public interest sorely needs the input of technical people. The Inter- net and social media have radically trans- formed commerce and community, but they’ve also created new opportunities for hostility, lies, and isolation. Now a vari- ety of actors—including government—are urging digital companies like Facebook to address those challenges. It’s in their best interest to do so, because if the technolo- gists themselves don’t do it, the problems will instead be “solved” by lawyers, legis- lators, and regulators. There’s also technology’s effect on jobs. Driverless cars will make roads safer and give hours of time back to com- muters. They’ll also eliminate the jobs of millions of people who make their living driving trucks, cabs, and delivery vehicles. Perhaps technology can help by creating new types of jobs. Keeping the American dream real, so that people have a chance to improve their lives, is essential to a cohesive society—as today’s politics sometimes show. Meanwhile, as some old jobs go away, many companies report having trouble finding qualified employees for new jobs. Here again, technology can help—by making technical training more widespread, making it available at various levels, and making it lifelong, via online delivery. Remembering the lessons the atomic physics generation taught me when I was starting out gives me hope about the role technologists can play in handling the bright opportunities—and civic dilemmas—that innovation brings. So too does my experience as secretary Young technologists I have met want to make a di;erence. They know that the progress of science cannot be stopped, but it can also be shaped for good. They know that if they don’t join the e;ort, choices will be made by politicians or judges who might not have much technical background or insight. Worse, the effects of change might fall victim to forces of backwardness and darkness. Many of these people don’t necessarily want jobs in government or philanthropy, at least not for an entire career. They want to join the most powerful engine of making a di;erence: private companies fueled by technology. But they also want to be sure they invent solutions to problems that technology creates, just like the atomic bomb scientists who invented arms control in a distant era. Ash Carter was secretary of defense from 2015 to 2017. He is an Innovation Fellow at MIT and director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International A;airs.

Florida’s turkey season opens in March, first among U.S. states. Photo: John Hafner With so many gadgets and gizmos available for turkey hunters, it’s easy to head afield weighted down like a lead balloon. I’m assuming you won’t leave the truck without your shotgun or bow. And while I may add or subtract some stuff depending on where or how I’m hunting gobblers, these essentials are always with me. Sometimes you need a little light to sneak in close to a roost tree in the dark, or to navigate back to the truck after a late evening hunt. They come in all shapes, sizes, and price brackets and, trust me, I have some pricey lights so powerful they can turn off a street light. Often for turkey hunting, though, I use a little el cheapo model I got at Walmart for a dollar. Which light I choose depends on where, when and how I’m hunting. Spring turkey hunting often means hordes of biting insects. The Thermacell is a quick, quiet, non-toxic way to keep them at bay. I also pack along some single-use insect repellant wipes in case they get super-bad. 8) Toilet Paper, Wet Wipes No explanation necessary. I do carry both in a heavy, quart-sized Ziploc bag, which is also where I keep my license/tag and wallet and a small roll of electrician’s tape. All are buried in an inside vest pocket where they cannot accidentally fall out and I know if I have my vest I have all my paperwork. All-day turkey hunts require hydration and fuel. I bring two 16-oz. plastic water bottles for each half-day and a half gallon-sized Ziploc that contains a myriad of tasty snacks. Gotta have a knife, and there’s no better way to pack one along than with a multi-tool that can help you repair little problems without heading back to the truck. 5) Decoys/Spare Stake I love decoys. This is especially true for the super, life-like decoys from Avian-X, Dave Smith Decoys, Cherokee Sports, Flambeau, Flextone and Primos. I know, many of you don’t believe in decoys, and many won’t hunt without them. I use them whenever and wherever practical. When I use a full-sized strutter, I always add a real turkey fan. And an extra decoy stake is pretty important for an airhead like me that’s always loosing stuff. Many companies sell pruning shears and collapsible saws for hunters, and I never leave home without my set. They’re invaluable when you need to build a brush blind, trim a shooting lane, or remove pokey roots, thorn brush, and other annoying butt- and back-stickers when trying to set up. I have an old set from Knight & Hale Game Calls that I’ve used for years and really like. Related: How to Plant Wild Turkey Food Plots From glassing for birds in roost trees to scanning ahead for turkeys before moving to glassing distant country out West, a binocular is a hunter’s best friend. I prefer either an 8X or 10X glass. 2) Cell Phone/Charger My smartphone is more than a safety device. With Google Earth, I can see the lay of the land, and a GPS app like MotionX means I can always find the truck. On an all-day, away-from-the-truck hunt I also pack along a small Firecel which serves as a phone charger (charge cord extra) and also incorporates a handwarmer and flashlight. I am a minimalist caller, meaning I call as little as I have to to get the job done. That said, I always have in my vest at least two pot calls, one box call, one push-pull call, and an assortment of diaphragms. I also make sure I have extra chalk and sandpaper so I can keep my friction calls working like new. BONUS TIP: If you have not started practicing with your calls yet, you’re way behind the curve. A pocket, first aid kit pretty much always comes along. I like to have a laser rangefinder even when hunting with a shotgun and certainly always when bowhunting. A seat of some kind is nice, too; my favorite is an inflatable seat pad with back & sides that I can cinch tight to make it stiff as any chair back. Three spare shotshells seems to be my lucky number. Related: Top 10 wild turkey facts When my wife hunts with me I bring along a lightweight, collapsible bipod she can use as a rest for her shotgun. The number of decoys I carry is directly proportional to the amount of ground I plan on covering. When hunting Merriam’s and Gould’s birds out West that like to cover a lot of ground, I may exchange the traditional turkey vest for a high-volume daypack. This approach allows room for a full-sized strutter decoy with real fan and at least one hen decoy. If I am planning on hanging out on a field edge or near a water hole for an afternoon with the decoys out, a paperback book helps pass the time. Oh, and did I mention you never, ever leave the truck without your hunting license/turkey tag? This may seem like a no-brainer, but in the heat of battle who hasn’t forgotten their license and/or tag? What about you? What do you consider essential gear when turkey hunting? Drop me a note at email@example.com and let me know. And be sure to send pictures of your successful turkey hunts this spring!

Tuesday, December 8, 2009 celebrating Christmas for the little man The husband and I have not decided whether we should put up our tree or not. What we have decided is that we will buy presents for the little man. He said we will wrap every present we get for him and wait until Christmas day for him to open all. I wonder where we will put the presents if the tree is not up. He agreed it does pose a problem. I suggested we will get plastic balls and decorations because most of the decorations were broken last year when the little man played with them. We might even just get us a smaller tree because what we have is pretty tall. We still have to talk more about what to do to remedy the situation. I want a smaller tree but I hate to throw the old one away. It is still pretty and with a little tlc it will surely look like new. We only have a few days so we better come up with a plan real fast. I hope the little man will get presents from people he cares about.

The Long Victory The Long Victory I must confess, I didn’t always enjoy reading. In fact, I’m the type of person who gets aggravated when others declare, “That movie was good, but it was nothing like the book!” Personally, I enjoy the visual experience of a film over that of reading a book. However, in the last few years, reading and studying have become my favorite pastime. Perhaps it’s what I’m reading, or rather, who I’m reading and studying about. Believe it or not, the last “secular” books I read for mere pleasure’s sake were Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. The tale that Tolkien tells is so visceral and emotional that it’s impossible not be swept up entirely into the world of Middle-Earth. But there’s an intriguing line in The Fellowship of the Ring, in which the elf-queen Galadriel speaks of her Lord Celeborn: “I have dwelt with him years uncounted… and together through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat (Tolkien, 348).” Allow me to explain this passage briefly. In Tolkien’s mythology, ever since the great ring was found by Bilbo, the malicious Lord Sauron has been moving and stirring, knowing that if he were ever to be reunited with the One Ring, it would mean certain annihilation of all who oppose him. Now, with this ring re-surfacing and the quest to destroy it standing “upon the edge of a knife,” the heroes know that hope is thin and defeat imminent, one even admitting, “There never was much hope… Just a fool’s hope (Tolkien, The Return of the King, 83).” Sometimes, that’s precisely how we view our Christianity. We know, or maybe you’ve come to know, that the Christian life is one of struggle, often great struggle. One of the reasons for this is that in our pursuit of God, a darkness remains inside us that desires only to bring us down. The spiritual life of the Christian is one of conflict: it’s a battle in your soul between what your old nature wants and what your new nature wants. The “work” and “effort,” then, is to consistently and constantly yield ourselves to those new desires (Col. 3:1-4, 12-17) and strangle the former ones (Col. 3:5-11). This struggle weighs us down; it is an internal war that often demoralizes us into thinking that what we’re doing is worthless, and that we’re just engaged in “the long defeat.” I know that, for me, whenever Satan gets the victory and I stumble, the thought races through my head: “Why am I doing this? This struggle is stupid; I’ll never be able to defeat Satan! I’m just going to give up.” Sometimes, in the midst of our own sanctification, we can get caught in a routine of “two steps forward, one step back,” or maybe even “one step forward, two steps back,” where it seems as though our old self is getting the better of us. But these thoughts are false and deadly to the life of a believer. They don’t come from Jesus, but from the devil, who seeks only to destroy us, and make us worthless vessels for the gospel. Remember, we can say about the future, as if looking back at history, that Jesus wins; and therefore we, His rescued sons and daughters, are merely waiting for the consummation of that victory. Christian, don’t give up hope, for it rests in Christ, your Savior, Redeemer, and Rescuer – He who has already delivered you and assured you of final victory. We’re not engaged in “the long defeat,” but the long victory. Death has no dominion and Satan has no power; he is but a declawed and defanged lion with nothing left to impose upon God’s people but lies and regrets. Believer, let your hope, confidence, and joy rest in this: Jesus has established and secured your victory, once for all (Heb. 10:9-10; Rom. 6:9-11; 1 Pet. 3:18)! We must embrace this glorious fight, not out of any strength or fortitude of our own, but solely from the knowledge that life in and under the gospel of Jesus’ grace enables and empowers us to be “more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom. 8:37). This is the idea that Paul was urging upon the Corinthians when he wrote: “When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:54-58). Don’t stop short in the race (Heb. 12:2); don’t relent in the battle—be steadfast, knowing that your life of faith stands upon a Firm Foundation, a Solid Rock, a risen Savior! “Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, therefore what we do is not done for a dead Christ. We are not fighting for a dead man’s cause; we are not contending for an effete dynasty, or a name to conjure by, but we have a living captain, a reigning king, one who is able both to occupy the throne and to lead on our hosts to battle. Oh, by the Christ in glory, I beseech you, brethren, be ye stedfast!” (Spurgeon). Dear readers, remember the gospel, remember the cross, that place of glorious triumph where Jesus utterly canceled your debt and thoroughly defeated every one of His foes (Col. 3:14-15). You’re not fighting “the long defeat,” but a long and glorious victory, whereby God’s magnificence, grace, love, and power get all the glory. Embrace the struggle; engage in the conflict; and live for Jesus. “All for Jesus, always for Jesus, everywhere for Jesus” (1). (1) Taken from Charles Spurgeon’s sermon, “Motives for Steadfastness”: http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/1111.htm

This week was pretty much the same old thing. Lots of walking and biking and trying to talk to people without much success. Hopefully things will pick up soon. We had a mission wide fast on Sunday to help us do better with finding people to teach because I guess since the big rule changes that were made our numbers on that have dropped. I think it'll just take a while for us to figure out how to balance all the resources we have and make the most of them. Sunday we also got a ride from a member out to the county roads where we can't really get to on our bikes. We weren't able to see the referral we were going out there to see but it was good to finally get out there and see some of the less active members out there. We even got the opportunity to help one lady by moving her broken fridge out of her house. We've also been able to meet with some part member families this week. Tuesday we went to the B's and were able to have a lesson with them, which went really well. Mr B is the only non-member in his family and he said he'd start reading the Book of Mormon, so hopefully he will. We also got to see the G's and Bro G, who hasn't come to church for about 12 years, came to church on Sunday! It was probably just because his wife was speaking in sacrament meeting, but hopefully he felt the spirit and will want to come back. Also, our one investigator moved to Arizona this week. We weren't even able to teach her since I've been here and I didn't even know she was an investigator the first time I met her! Oh, well. I guess we'll just have to keep trying to find people and hopefully our fast will help speed up the work. It sounds like y'all are having fun and thanks Mom for the pictures from Park City! One of the things I really miss right now is fall, haha. A few of the trees here are losing leaves slowly, but I doubt many of them will change colors and look as pretty as it does in Utah. I love and miss you all. - Elder Carlson

Have you used paint on a previous DIY project — maybe painted a room in your home or the cabinets in your kitchen — and find yourself with a couple of cans taking up space and collecting dust in a closet or a garage? There are plenty of DIY details you can add to your home with just a little bit of paint. Perhaps one of these real-life project examples will spark some inspiration to make use of some leftover paint you've got around the house? Pictured above: If you've just got small amounts of many colors, why not make a rainbow of a decision and paint some stripes on a small piece of furniture. Even better if it's a bench with slats! Use just a bit of leftover paint to add contrast to an old piece of furniture that needs spicing up. It would make for a great detail if it was the same color as a wall. Have a few colors to play with? Why not add some geometry to a vintage piece of furniture in a pattern that enhances the piece's architecture. Have a small seat like a stool? Adding just a bit of color with left over paint or spray paint (or both) can make it really stand out. Ombre is a great way to stretch a little bit of paint color, and a neat effect to add to a piece of furniture to add personality. Consider using a little bit of leftover paint to add some personality to something utilitarian or industrial, like a fan! You don't just have to have some leftover colored paint; you could add contrast and freshness to a piece of furniture with leftover white paint! Even just a bit of leftover spray paint can make a huge impact on something small like a lamp. Don't have enough paint to cover an entire chair? Just paint some parts of it. Planters are a perfect canvas for any leftover paint colors you have lying around because they're small in surface but big in impact! How have you put leftover paint to use around your house? Share any ideas you have in case they spark some inspiration for someone else!

A few of you lovely people have requested that my Medicine Hat paint be available in The Sims 2 (since not everyone owns/likes The Sims 3). While I do own the game, it's on my old relic of a Mac, and I have ceased to play it except infrequently. :) Christina from thevintagesim has been AMAZINGLY sweet and agreed to toss it into the game as a recolor for TS2! <3 Head on over to | Equus-Sims | to my Medicine Hat paint recolor for The Sims 2! Original recolor created by myself, here at Vicarious-Sims

What do you imagine when you think of parenting books? I devoured a bunch of them back in my child-rearing days, and they all left me feeling somewhat inadequate. They influenced me positively, I’m sure, but when reading chapter after chapter of solid techniques and creative ideas I couldn’t escape the feeling that I had missed the perfect parenting train. I was running behind trying to catch up, and it was exhausting. Colin Smith’s book, 10 Keys for Effective Parenting, is a parenting book of another kind. It would have refreshed my soul. What is the difference? Perfect parenting is not the goal of his book. It includes no examples of dynamite family devotions or stellar discipline methods. None. Honest, genuine and godly relationship is his objective. 10 Keys for Effective Parenting is a useful book for all kinds of relationships. Any “life shaping relationship,” with friends, grandparents, pastors, and mentors will benefit from the tools described in this book. A parent – child relationship is the first relationship an individual develops. It begins in infancy and extends throughout adulthood; it never ends. Healthy relationships will continue to deepen over time. Parenting practices end; the relationship doesn’t. Therefore, these 10 keys apply to me and my adult children just as they apply to brand new parents and their infants. Smith uses 2 Timothy 3:10-11 as the source of his 10 Keys: my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, my faith, my patience, my love, my endurance, my persecutions, my sufferings, and my deliverance. He notes that the pronoun “my” is important in the first and each of these keys. “…this is the language of relationship.'” (p. 8) “My” relationship with God is a necessary starting point. The parent’s language of relationship is wonderfully multi-directional. My relationship with God must grow if I am to continue to deepen relationships with my children. It’s a win-win prospect. What is my teaching? Is my life consistent with it? Can I clearly express my faith? Am I completely loving? These and other good questions must be answered before I can enter into meaningful conversations with my children. Taking these 10 keys seriously is a life-long process that will take the form of self-examination, conversation and modeling. Repeat. And repeat again. Interaction appropriate for a ten year old will prepare her for further conversations as she grows older. What a child understands about her parent’s faith, way of life, purpose, patience and love will be greatly expanded upon as the relationship grows. Modeling endurance, persecution, suffering and deliverance is a little tougher, but it will happen sooner or later. My children observed me endure cancer almost 10 years ago. They saw me through a stroke last summer. They have seen my husband and I persevere through some recent challenges. These have not been easy situations to handle, but they are the stuff of life and are tremendous opportunities for meaningful, relationship building, life changing conversations. Reading 10 Keys for Effective Parenting has challenged me to talk with my children abut these events more purposefully. More importantly, I want to make sure they know how God has delivered me. It is never too early or too late to start using these 10 keys for effective parenting. It is never too early or too late to build relationships with your children on the basis of your teaching, your way of life, your purpose, your faith, your patience and your love. Your life will present you with opportunities to share your endurance, persecution, suffering and deliverance. Be prepared to share it. You may not be the perfect parent, but your relationship with God and your children will continue to grow. That is the goal. This post is featured on the blog of Unlocking the Bible. I encourage you to check out Unlocking the Bible for many excellent resources.

Mixing & Mastering Engineers who worked with Craigxen - Genre arrow_drop_down - Profile name arrow_drop_down Search by profile namesearch - Recommended arrow_drop_down 25 year old mixing engineer with close to 6 years experience. I have been that ''cable guy' to some of the top mixing guys in South Africa and that has helped me develop a critical listening ear that appreciates the dynamics of sound and that can help turn an average musical idea into a well polished record that can compete internationally. I am a Professional Sound Engineer. Since 2005, I have designed, built and still operate my own recording studio, “ Sound Factory “, in Cosenza, Italy. I am a driven and highly responsible professional who wants to continue working in an energetic, creative and performance oriented environment. I consider myself a forward thinker, team player, peop "I enjoyed my experience working with Mike. He is courteous, timely and offers great advice. Most importantly, his work is extremely satisfactory - he pulled off the vision I had for the track very well. I highly reco..." "Just great! Great vocals, great communication, great timing, great understanding of all requests, great turnaround timing, great knowledge. Nothing else needed. Just perfect. Thank you so much, you made my track much ..." "I would definitely recommend Maor mixing and mastering services. He made for us a very well balanced mix, and mastered our tracks to perfection. He understood our directions fast, showed to be passionate about his wor..." "Lukas did a great job mastering our 6 song EP. Great customer service and communication. He was very patient and responded to all the changes we needed. Thanks Lukas!!" "Good to work with and great communication." "I have no complaints with what I received from Diamond Groove Services. " "Really enjoyed working with Ollie! Readily available and very reliable in delivering what you need!" "Working with Sefi is a pleasure! I love the enthusiasm with which he performs his job and the exceptional skills that he possesses. He just recently mixed/mastered my song Acid Bass (https://soundcloud.com/meresha/mer..." "Easy to work with, polite, and caught the vision of my record. This is the second engineer that I could say, knows what he is doing. God willing I will be sending him more records to mix and master for future projects." "It was a pleasure to work with Mike. He took my song to another level! Thank you!" "It was amazing working with Kamber. Her vocals and piano playing captured exactly what I was looking for. She sings and plays with so much emotion and passion it brought tears to my eyes. Her musical skills are one o..."

I am a thirty-something parish priest in the Church of England, also a wife, mother, sister, friend, Marvel & DC Comics fan, plainchant lover, multi-lingual, ex-barmaid, with a love of linocut prints, swashbuckling films, cheese, native trees and the seaside. I have a dog and a toothless cat – you can love both – I sing, -play the piano quite badly and due to overenthusiastic parents I have a broadly encyclopaedic knowledge of natural history. I wish I knew how to sail – but I don’t, though at one time I could quote Swallows and Amazons almost by heart… now we live near the Norfolk broads my family do have a little motor boat. My favourite smells are old wooden furniture, fresh blossom and damp ferns (not generally all at once unless the church roof has fallen in). My bad household habit is books – (I often buy an old book because I think I could give it a good retirement home – it’s really more like literary adoption – but I do read most of them eventually). And my bad life habit is absentmindedly tying myself in knots over small things whilst being distracted by the bigger picture – and then tripping over my own feet. My favourite view is sunlight flickering through new leaves, and my favourite sound is my daughter singing in the morning when she wakes. Though I once heard a nightingale and I’d love to hear that again one day. What else?… Most underrated food in my opinion is egg on toast, most overrated drink: earl grey tea. Best sports team – the New Zealand AllBlacks – any sports team that starts with burly men dancing has my vote – though I won’t stick around to watch the match – I also agree with my husband that we should try and work our English Morris Dancing into some kind of fierce pre-match war-dance (though maybe not for rugby but for cricket… and maybe not with jolly bells, but more along the lines of Terry Pratchett’s ‘dark morris’ – which I saw performed once for real in Huddersfield Town Centre – and it was pretty scary!) This blog began in the environs of a monastery, the Anglican Community of the Resurrection, which founded and sits alongside the theological College of the Resurrection. Now it provides a space for ongoing reflection.

Grill Burner Igniter Electrode for Viking U Shaped Burners, T or E series grills Not for rotary ignitions Old Part# PB040176 To help assure you get the correct replacement parts for your Viking grill you will need to know the model number and/or serial number of your bbq grill. If you are unsure please email us and or call us we will be able to verify you will be ordering the correct part.

Should IT Vendors Fear the Open Compute Project? Mark A Campbell, Trace3 February 10, 2014 Hey, what is the Open Compute Project (OCP)? OCP is a YAOST (“Yet Another Open-Source Thingme” – my term). Spear-headed by Facebook, OCP aims to provide open specifications for how to build all the stuff people stick in data centers. A bit ambitious for sure, but since its 2011 launch, a large OCP community has grown up around the concept of stripping down infrastructure components to their bare rudiments and reaping lower costs. Why are OCP products cheaper? As an example, the x86 OCP server is 24% cheaper and draws 38% less power than its traditional counterpart because it strips out all unnecessary accoutrements like sexy faceplates, custom brackets and unused/unwanted proprietary applications and agents. One Facebook study found that faceplates alone require an extra 28 watts per rack just to pull cooling air through. OK, but what does OCP make? Well, just specifications, really: - Servers & Motherboards – Both x86 & ARM - Storage – Cold storage, high density, flash and high capacity variants - Racks – with massive intra-rack data rates and scaling - Data Centers – Facebook just built one in Oregon with a 1.07 PEU! - Networking – small, cheap and wicked fast top-of-rack switch Many vendors are providing “whitebox” products built to OCP specifications for VM farms, VDI, Hadoop, cold storage and bulk cloud capacity. What are the challenges to OCP? An OCP customer has to work with a posse of smaller whitebox cowboys as opposed to just calling in Sherriff Big Blue. Once the equipment arrives, there is additional rack and cable work. Since OPC was born out of the hyper-scaled world, its design decisions lean towards providing greater efficiencies at larger scales which reduces savings when implemented in smaller enterprises. There are also questions of support, compatibility and OCP compliance with whitebox vendors. With a traditional vendor you pay more but get a handy 1-800-WRING-MY-NECK number in case something breaks or doesn’t meet specs. Not necessarily so with some whitebox vendors. So why are companies adopting OCP? The number of adopters is growing steadily as OCP becomes a mainstream approach to commoditized infrastructure. Many of the obstacles to OCP adoption are being overcome: - The “some assembly required” labor is decreasing as richer pre-fab bundling options evolve. - Even the “one neck to wring” support issue is being avoided as many OCP adopters switch to a “ready spares” model instead of the traditional support contract, saving them even more. - OCP has a list of approved vendors and is creating a certification program to guarantee whitebox products adhere to the OCP specifications (there is a job opening on their site for a Director of Certification – know anyone?) Adopters are also using OCP as a catalyst for co-migrations such as physical to virtual, Windows to Linux and monolithic databases to virtual open-source alternatives. Should vendors be afraid? The honest answer is the old consultants’ favorite – “Well, it depends”. Some traditional vendors are jumping on the bandwagon and they will likely do well working both sides of the fence. Still other specialty products, like core switches, backup servers, and specialized security devices, are currently outside the scope of OCP – but the keyword is “currently”. Longer term OCP plans could target these areas as well. Today’s traditional vendors are not too worried about OCP. But this could change quickly for one simple reason; OCP allows customers to disrupt big vendor lock-in! Big IT vendors who have been “buying the stack” are raising the ante with their customers when ELA time comes around. OCP provides a very powerful stack of poker chips that innovative IT departments can use to re-raise the pot-odds back in their favor. Expect them to use it. It is still early days and things are changing fast – two recent examples; IBM dumped its x86 server business due projected margin pressure from competition like OCP and ever-proprietary Microsoft just joined OCP and added their cloud server specs to the fray. So this will be a fun game to watch in the coming months. Keep an eye out for future blogs on OCP. Footnote: Every OCP blurb ever written has felt obligated to mention OCP’s thought leader, Frank Frankovsky. I am no different. If you don’t know him, do a quick search and check out his 1974 Dennis Ritchie-esque beard – a good omen methinks. If you don’t know who Dennis Ritchie is, well then … just grep –ir “Ritchie” * | sort

Reviewed by: Mojomums reviewer Katie What they say: This funny, stylish slider book is sure to give little ones a giggle. They’ll love joining in with a game of hide-and-seek as they move the sliders to reveal the lion hiding in every scene. Is it in the restaurant? Or at the hairdresser’s? Just push the slider to find out! With beautiful artwork from google doodler Lydia Nichols, all the family will enjoy reading and playing with this fresh new novelty series. What we say: “I read this book with my 2 year old and we absolutely loved it! It is the kind of book you can read over and over again. I can’t wait for my almost 6 year old to read it with his little brother and baby sister in the not too distant future. From the beginning right to the end the book is vibrant in colour and exciting. The book allows the reader an adventure to locate the lion hiding somewhere in the book. The sliders on each page are well made and difficult to break, which is great when you have a toddler handling the book! The repetitive nature of the book will enable a toddler to finish off the sentence and it will definitely become a well read and favourite for night time reading. Overall a fantastic story and I absolutely must go and search out the other book in the series!” I Thought I Saw A Lion is available from many good book stores and online from Amazon.

I was in my ancestral home of Michigan last week for a little r&Ur. It was nice. Got to do some nice stuff. See some stars for instance. Got to see a couple of those. They’re pretty neat. I recommend checking some out if you ever find yourself where you’re not being constantly assaulting your senses. I also went to church. It was the first time in a long time, and I have to say still not a fan. 1: Know what religion you are!!! The church we were at was a Lutheran one. Fine. But halfway thorough the church service they had a thing where they did first communion. I know what you’re thinking. That’s a catholic thing. But for some reason they did it in the wrong church, and I have no idea why. I wanted to stand up and yell, "wrong church idiots", but since I was the guest I decided not to embarrass the church man. 2: Let’s fucking cool it with the songs We sang a bunch of songs. I don’t blame the pastor. I can see why you’d want to kill some time, but it's not like these folks were having fun with it. Part of the problem is song selection. There’s way too many. The song book we were working with had 720 different songs. That’s too high. On some level I guess variety might be a good thing, but most of these songs are garbage. The Beatles only have 275 songs. There is absolutely no reason for there to be more church songs than Beatles songs. Pair that down to the best of the best, a Blue and Red album of church songs. Let’s say you sing three different songs a week. 52 weeks a year. I’ll even add two. One service for Christmas and another for Christmas eve. That’s 54 services. Threes songs a session. So all you need is the best 162 songs. I don’t care how you do it, but take the rest of these horse shit songs and throw them the fuck away. Put them in a separate book and burn it. For old times sake. 3: Don’t be so scary please. At one point the pastor took all the children aside in front and talked to them in front of everyone. He asked them what the point of a drivers license was. He let the kids guess for a minute then told them the answer he was looking for. He said it was for identification. He then made a little joke about how he used his to “do adult things.” Okay. Little inappropriate for the kiddies, but I appreciate the joke for the back of the room. I was wondering what this had to do with Jesus until he brought it together in the most horrific way imaginable. He said that Jesus needed identification too, but his wasn’t a drivers license it was his “gaping spear wounds in his side.” Yikes. He then ushered the kids out of there for a Sunday school class that was probably a lot of crying. 4: Cupholders in the pews This should be an obvious one. Why has this not happened yet? As a mug I had once said "you don't want to see me before I've had my coffee." That goes for you too G*d! Come on church, let's get on this. I don't know if church will take any of my ideas. I certainly don't plan on listening to them in being a globetrotting comedian. But here's hoping, for their own sake, that they take a serious look at a few of these. All in all, I give church a D+

Let this song be your soundtrack. Let this song be your soundtrack. Our perspective on all of life changes when we truly know that we are SAFE in God. We all have them. Conversations that we dread, that don’t go the way we hope they would, and that some of us even agonize about afterward. Whether it’s asking your boss for a raise, negotiating with a supplier, or figuring out how to give a negative evaluation to an employee – conversations about difficult topics bedevil us. We dislike the upset beforehand, so we tend to put them off. We dislike the tension while they’re going on, so we tend to cut them short and don’t get what we want. We’re not at our best under those circumstances, and that further cuts into our effectiveness. And we find them haunting us afterward, thinking about all the things we could have said. It’s time for those conversations to go better. This book will take you through a process that will help you stop dreading difficult conversations, get what you need out of them, and look back at them with satisfaction. Let’s get started. The dread that precedes tough talks comes from fearing that the experience will leave you worse off than you were before – emotionally wounded, perhaps, possibly humiliated, almost certainly feeling bad because you didn’t get what you want. Here’s what’s happening: Your mind is projecting a bad outcome because of your fear. That creates a doom loop that has your emotions feeding off your negative thinking, and your negative thinking feeding off your emotions. There’s nowhere to go but down. It’s time for some positive talk. When you think about the coming conversation, don’t let the negative thoughts crowd in. Instead, tell yourself something like, “I am confident and serene. I will handle the conversation beautifully.” Use your own words and concepts, specific to your situation, but that should give you the idea. Keep your mantra simple and positive and avoid negative statements (don’t say, “I won’t be afraid”; say, “I will be courageous.” Rather than dwelling on the possible bad outcome and feeling so miserable you never have the conversation, project yourself into that happy future state. The idea is to drown out the negative emotions with positive ones. That will prevent you from getting worked up, and it will stop your mind from feeding off your emotions, ending the doom loop. But you have to practice it faithfully. What I can tell you is that if you practice saying your mantra to yourself several times a day for a few minutes, and especially whenever negative thoughts develop, you will find yourself shedding your emotional discomfort. An especially good time to practice your mantra is when you are waking up or falling asleep. In those half-awake moments, our conscious minds seem to access the unconscious – where the fear resides – more easily. It takes a while – sometimes several weeks – but stick with it. The results are worth it. They will surprise you. One day you’ll suddenly notice that your stomach is no longer tied up in knots about that conversation. You’ll face it with equanimity. Once you’ve achieved that happy state, you’re ready for the next step. It seems obvious: It’s about what you’ve been dreading – asking your boss for a raise (and getting shot down); trying to persuade a colleague to change an approach to a major software implementation (and getting shot down); accusing an employee of pilfering company supplies (and getting stonewalled). No. The conversation is about articulating to your boss all the great things you’ve done for the company, or perhaps pointing out that people at your level of experience are making more than what you’re making now. Or the conversation is about how we can save tons of time, money and effort if we do the software implementation in the right way. Or the conversation is about taking responsibility for one’s actions, both good and bad. That’s framing. And it’s the key to a successful conversation. If you frame an issue with your positive end in mind, it will come out very differently than if you frame it around your fears. You want to begin the conversation with a brisk, confident, statement like, “Let’s talk today about the money my cost-saving ideas have meant to this company and how I can be fairly compensated for that.” Do you see the difference? Right away, the issue on the table is about good things like fairness, and your positive contribution, as well as your compensation, rather than your boss’ penny-pinching. How you frame the conversation will determine how it can go. Always look for the positive setting, and one that assumes your position, and then puts the negotiation on how that works out. In other words, it’s not, “Can I get a raise?” because that sets up the listener to say “No.” Rather, it’s “Let’s talk about how the company is going to compensate me for my contributions of the last twelve months.” The different phrasing assumes that you deserve better compensation; the question on the table is how much. Of course, this kind of positive framing won’t stop a complete Grinch from saying something like, “Bah Humbug! The company has no intention of compensating you for anything you’ve done!” But then at least the lines have been drawn in a way that lets you debate that issue, not some other one like how hard the boss’s life it right now. If there’s an elephant in the room – a big, obvious problem that everyone involved knows about, but for one reason or another is avoiding – then you can usually get good mileage out of naming that beast. Sometimes you can change a long-festering issue, other times, you’ll just get a collective sigh of relief. But you’ll almost always get respect for courage and integrity. It’s really important, then, to think clearly about any such elephants beforehand, in the calm before the battle, when your emotions are not roiled and you have some time to sort out what you have to say. The idea is to state the problem or issue in a way that points back to your frame. “I know the indictments and the fifteen straight quarters of losses have taken a heavy toll on the company and its management. That’s why my cost-saving strategies have been so important. Without them, Blunderbuss Enterprises might not even been able to avoid bankruptcy. In Q3 alone, we put $5 million back to the bottom line . . . “ Bring up the elephant before anyone else does, and you will strengthen your side of the conversation rather than weakening it. As the conversation gets going, the opposite party may well fling brickbats at you, no matter how hard you work to keep things positive. “Of course I take company supplies! I haven’t had a raise in six years! The company owes me!” Those kind of emotional curve balls are designed to deflect attention, and induce guilt, not to resolve the situation positively. And you’ll find the conversation rapidly spinning out of control if you chase your interlocutor down those particular rabbit holes. Instead, say, “What I hear you saying is that you feel that you’ve gone a long time without a raise, is that right?” Then, once you’ve got agreement on what was just said, you can make your move. “Let’s talk about your raise at another time. Right now, let’s resolve the issue of those company supplies, and how much the losses are costing us.” Get the employee focused on the shrinkage issue, rather than compensation, and you can stay focused on the real problem. You have to recognize that hard conversations, the kind that you keep putting off because you’re afraid of the answer, often involve some tough bargaining, and the likelihood of an acceptable outcome becomes much more likely if everyone involved feels that their needs and emotions have been heard and respected. So be prepared to spend some time doing just that, using your reflective listening skills. People often won’t identify how they’re feeling. Instead, they’ll make an accusation. “You never . . .” “You always . . .” What you need to listen for here is the emotional feeling behind the charge. “What I hear you saying is that you feel underappreciated. Is that right?” You’ll be surprised at how much easier it is to talk to someone once these emotional attitudes behind the statements, charges, and accusations are acknowledged. But you have to listen closely and carefully, without defensiveness, to hear the emotion. It’s easy to get defensive, and occupied in refuting the charge, rather than hearing the attitude behind what’s being said. You must remain open, and be willing to acknowledge that your actions have perhaps led to someone else feeling hurt, afraid, lonely, or distrustful. The key is to stay open no matter what. Emotional conversations tend to induce feelings of defensiveness, guilt, and anger, and those are explosive emotions to handle at any time, and certainly under the gun. Prepare yourself beforehand by thinking through the possibilities, but then listen hard in the moment, because you may well be surprised. Many of us are not aware of how our actions affect others. This is a good time to find out. Once the conversation has gone on for a while, you’ve framed it successfully, listened to the emotions carefully, and reflected them, it’s time to state clearly what the remaining differences are in the context of your initial frame. “So let me clarify for a moment. I hear you saying that the company is prepared to offer me a 3 percent raise and the chance at a 50 percent bonus at the end of the calendar year if those revenue targets are met. What my research indicated was that a 6 percent raise would put me in a fairer position given my achievements. It sounds like we agree on the bonus arrangement, and we’re 3 percent apart on the raise. Is that the way you hear it?” Once the other party agrees, or you reach agreement on the differences, then you’re in a strong position to make a counter offer, or accept the other person’s proposal with conditions, or whatever you feel is appropriate. If you’re too far apart, you can suggest a break in the discussion for both parties to think things over, and get agreement on when to resume. That gives you an opportunity to restate your goals, if you still are far apart and you want to continue to negotiate. Always begin by stating what both parties agree on, in order to stress the positive, making it more likely you’ll be able to move forward on the remaining issues. It’s why negotiators in very difficult, protracted bargaining impasses spend time on getting a mutual understanding on things like the shape of the table, the conditions for negotiation, and so on. Once we get into the habit of agreeing, we build positive connection and emotional rapport, and we’re more likely to conclude with a final agreement. Of course, some negotiations are too difficult, or too negatively charged, for that kind of atmospheric conditioning to help much, but most everyday conversations are helped enormously. Just as you need to be open to hearing the other party’s emotional story, you need to be ready to state yours. In very fraught situations, of course, this can be ferociously difficult. But sometimes simply saying how you feel will lead to a breakthrough or at least an important acknowledgment from the other side. “I’ve been hurting for several weeks ever since that last conversation in which you said my contribution to the company was essentially nil. I need to feel like I’ve got your support when I’m going up against that tough negotiating team from XYZ Enterprises. I need to feel like the company has my back.” A lot of the agony of these hard conversations comes from unexpressed hurt feelings, so rather than make accusations, state the facts, and say how you feel as a result. You will feel a good deal better just to get your feelings out in the open. Make them the “I” statements of psychological lore, rather than “You said” statements. Explaining how you feel is something that the other person can’t argue with. “You” statements will quickly put the other party on the defensive. While stating how you feel won’t always turn the conversation in your favor, it will almost always give you added leverage. Always go armed with the clear knowledge of what you can accept, so you’ll know when you’re ready to push for agreement. Sometimes, all you can get is the willingness to keep talking. In both cases, it’s extremely important to reach a mutual understanding on whatever the next steps are – time and place of your next meeting, further outside research that needs to be done, or a complete meeting of minds. Whatever you can agree on, state it clearly and use it to define the action that will result. Tough conversations can lead to extraordinary breakthroughs, happy surprises, and emotional healing – but only if you actually have them. Prepare yourself to keep the emotions as positive as possible. Frame the conversation in ways that give the other person a choice among positive outcomes for you. Be open about big outstanding issues. Listen openly without defensiveness and reflect the underlying emotions of the other party. Name the areas of agreement and the ones where differences remain. Be open about your feelings, too. And move forward on action. Taking these steps won’t make tough conversations easy, but they will create the conditions for a successful, mutually satisfying outcome. On March 12, 2008 I had an appointment with death. What I mean is, I had a divine appointment scheduled, unbeknownst to me, at a murder scene. It began with an appointment with a man who makes wooden crosses: a run-of-the-mill visit to Deheisheh, the largest refugee camp in Bethlehem. At the time I was living in Bethlehem, Israel/Palestinian Territories. I went to meet my friend David and a local man to pick-up a handmade cross to be a prototype for a large order of other such crosses, made of olive wood by the man’s father to be sold overseas to help pay for medical expenses for his twenty-something son, a paraplegic after being shot by soldiers several years prior. When I arrived I saw my friend, Shaadi, a Palestinian who often gives tours of the area to visitors. He was with two Iranian-Americans and preparing to go to Mar Saba (a monastery in the Judean wilderness outside of Bhem). He asked if I wanted to go. I did. So David and I went – postponing our meeting with the woodworker until that night. After several hours at the monastery we returned to Bethlehem. It was shortly after 6pm. Shaadi got a phone call. Hot with distress he turned to us, “The IDF just killed four men in Bethlehem, in their car, they were wanted men.” David and I asked questions. The visitors waited. Shaadi said it just happened, just then, they were killed by a rocket his friend thought, one of the dead was a major Islamic Jihad leader in the West Bank — and Shaadi was going to the scene. “Do you want to go?” Yeah. We do. So, we did. Two American believers, two Iranian-American tourists, and two Palestinians (Shaadi and our taxi driver, Abed). You want me to describe the scene; and I will BUT, see that: 1. God in His kindness and His omniscience brought me there – He placed some of His light in a very dark place. 2. It was an honor to be able to be there. 3. It was an honor to be with Bethlehem in an evening of highest turmoil and grief. 4. It was a turning point for me as well. It was a small car – a red one, four door, maybe 20 years old. Hundreds of people rimmed it. Abed told me to stay close, and I did. He took me right up to the car, through the crowds of frozen electricity, like the stain a lightning bolt leaves in a stormy sky. The windows were crumpled, shattered under the onslaught of machine-gun fire. It wasn’t a rocket, as Shaadi’s friend supposed, it was a spray of bullets from a special unit of Israel Defense Forces, clothed as Palestinians, riding inconspicuously in a Bethlehem taxi. Reports said they attempted to arrest the four men (3 Islamic Jihad, 1 Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade). The most significant man, Shehadah, they wanted for 8 years. The four men, laden with weapons, fired on the IDF special forces when they attempted to arrest them, and the IDF immediately killed them all. The car itself made new clarity of “riddled with bullets.” Dozens of holes every where: each seat inside with its own red-red-red-red bullseye: four concentrated blood stains at each passenger’s chest-level, with the trails of helter-skelter bullets splayed around. (for video taken about 15 minutes before we arrived on the scene (take note: blood and bodies) (for a news article on the event: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125552) “Faddal” (“please go ahead”) I said, moving back at one point to allow a boy, maybe ten, to slide past me – his hands gingerly touching the car as he squeezed by. His eyes surprised me. Not fear, not demand, but frankness. He wanted to see up-close. I was suddenly tired, rigidly sad. I wanted all those kids to be protected from this. I wanted someone to take them home, to keep them from an impression of reality more likely to breed hatred than love. I wanted them to have Father God’s kingdom within them, to remove them from the competition of the kings and rulers of this world. A wall of people my standing couch of false relaxation, I drifted toward those I came with. Shaadi was leading them back to the taxi. He jolted around, “Where’s Daaaaaw….?!” – the “n” swallowed by our eye contact. I smiled sincerely, “Thanks.” I knew he was looking out for me. In an ocean of mayhem, I appreciated it a lot. Next stop: the hospital where the bodies were being taken. I should add it worked out impeccably we happened to be in a cab with Palestinians when the news broke. It put us in-the-know and also gave us language and understanding of the event, plus the mobility to be dropped off right outside the hospital before Abed went to park the van. Also, it was amazing we “happened” to be tugged out of Bethlehem that day, particularly because the scene was 1/4 mile from my apartment and the circle of chaos and closed streets was encompassing. Thousands of people swarmed the hospital’s front and back entrances. Three corpses on stretchers were passed overhead, rafts on waves of sobriety and hysterics. The grand entrance of one body was buoyed by one incessant phrase and one volume: desperately loud. (which means “Allah (God) is great!”) Women wept. Weak-kneed boys and girls sobbed, held up by a friend in the same way a man with a broken ankle would be. Family and friends of the dead. My tears were already shed. Floodgates released at age 16. That evening I walked into the news coverage I watched for 12 years, the scenes which had once broken my own ability to stand. I was well-trained for the moment which drank me up that fated March Wednesday. Glug glug glug drank up I was. I prayed. I watched. I slid through the tense multitude to get a better look at this and that. I prayed for kids I saw. I prayed and engaged with the crumbling women, the youth staggering into the ER screaming, “I’m not going to let this go! I’m going to do something to get back at them for this!”, the friends of mine I bumbled into that night (it seemed a large portion of Bethlehem was there), the ones who collapsed under the agony of sadness and were toted into the ER swollen with families, the speechless bystanders. I prayed and engaged with this little city of David, Bethlehem: the Only One who could ever turn this tide of grief, revenge, and consummate oppression. There is an oft-quoted verse in the book of Esther which says more about why I was at the hospital that dark night: “And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?” After leaving the hospital, David and I filled a previous commitment to visit a family in the camp: the father in the family “happened” to be the Minister of Labor in Bethlehem. Then we went to get the wooden cross and visit the woodworker’s family. Everyone was in a hubbub over the night’s events; and there we were, the hospital’s clamor still affecting our heartbeats; and our heartbeats still affecting the hospital’s clamor: our peace a holy residue of promise and hope. for such a time as this. for murder scenes and war zones, troubled neighborhoods and troubled neighbors, for places in deep need, for people longing for hope, for nations, for cities, for individuals, for such a time as this. We must not be afraid, but confident. We must not be afraid of “darkness”, but confident in who we are: THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. The answer to the problem. The peace to the chaos. The hope to the hopeless. We should rejoice when we get the privilege of being all these things, whether at a crime scene in Bethlehem or a parking lot at the mall. Light belongs in darkness. “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. I usually say I don’t believe in bad days, and I don’t – in that everyday with God is still guaranteed to be moving from glory to glory (even when I don’t observe that with my eyes); it is at its core, a GOOD day. However, rough spots happen. Personally, I’m terrifically exasperated and looking for resolution in the midst of it. I’m living in the divine tension of resting in knowing God is moving on my behalf, and also doing the part I am responsible for. I’m stir crazy and yet, I simply want to be still. I want to go somewhere wonderfully intoxicating like the Amazon and yet I want to simply be in Redding and drink the luscious stars in the night sky. I want to see whole cities engulfed by love and I want the homeless guy I passed today on the street to be engulfed too. In all that I am waiting for several major things to take flight. Like a housecat who sits at the door calmly waiting to be let in, and moments later is digging her claws deep into the door in frustration and eagerness – I am torn between patience and impatience. These times are an opportunity to let love lead, not emotions, not circumstances, but the forever FULL love of God. For me they are a time to practice the fine art of rejoicing when I don’t feel like it. One’s soul, the seat of one’s emotions, is subject to one’s spirit, the part of you seated with Christ in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6) and thus innocuous to one’s atmosphere. God turns even exasperation into joy. Sometimes it’s merely about getting alone with Him in quiet, laying down, and chatting with Him – not for answers, but just to chat. It’s like having a conversation with a good friend – you don’t only talk when you “need” answers, you talk to get to know the person and to be known by her. If you are in the exasperation zone, I declare NEWNESS to you today. Today is a day when mountains will move, peace will come, and HOPE will rise. God wants to meet with you. He wants to talk with you. He wants to share His heart with you. He LOVES you and accepts you fully. He champions your dreams. He is your GOOD Father. I heard this song for the first time yesterday and it was like eating Ritz crackers as a six year old with a tummy ache: calming, strengthening, and reassuring. And so to all who are called to blaze new trails through thick terrain, take heart. The reason your journey is irresistible is YOU WERE BORN FOR THIS. The world needs you to take your place in history and in the future. You can do it! And with great glory, you will. The world awaits the revealing of the sons and daughters of God. As a friend recently wrote, “Cynicism is the language of cowards – always think the worst, you’ll never be disappointed. And as the psalmist wrote, “I would have despaired, but I know I will see God’s goodness here on earth” (Psalm 27:13) Jesus is the HOPE of the nations. How can we not have hope when the embodiment of hope lives inside us? Make that new path. Pave that road. Believe change is possible. Believe Jesus. Generations to come will be grateful you did. I have been thinking a lot lately about bravery and doing what has never been done. Amelia Earhart is one of my heroes. I once saw her in a vision in which she looked intently in my eyes and said, “No one understands what I am doing.” Then she hopped in her plane and flew away. That moment was pivotal for me. I knew what she meant. I imagined the flak she received for her “foolish” confidence and her grandiose vision. I thought of the eye-rolls she must have endured when sharing her dreams. Yet, she knew there was more in her breakthrough than herself – there was a future full of millions of people. She made a way through flight. Now, most people think little of flying – and thousands of people do it daily. In some sense, Amelia saw this. From far off, from eighty years ago, she SAW it. She knew she was blazing a new trail that would soon become well-traveled. Her “unthinkable” dream, has become our norm. And so it shall be for peace and flourishing in the Middle East. “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.” (I painted the above painting in worship at BSSM one lovely March day this year. It’s called, “A Brave New World.”)

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The Intruder, a short story by Melbourne writer Alice Hughes Alice Hughes is an author of short fiction based out of Melbourne. She wrote The Intruder at the beginning of this year, and has called it a way of testing what the short story form can do with sound, and stripped of images. She awoke like this: in the black. Not darkness. Black. Darkness had no relevance to her. Darkness was as meaningless as the table lamps that littered her apartment. She stretched, feeling towards the space where Eric should have been. But she was alone in the bed. Her hands gripped at absence. “Fine,” she muttered to herself. “If it’s like that.” They had fought the night before, and he was good at holding a grudge. He had probably slept the night on the couch. She sat up, and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Using her toes, she sought out the cane that lay on the floor, delighted as always to feel its presence and its permanence. “Eric?” She called out, picking up the cane with her toes and then slipping the leather band around her wrist. She did not need it to navigate the apartment – she knew every nook and cranny of the place; could see it in her mind’s eye; could feel it, in the way she knew people with sight could not – but she liked having it with her. It was her extra limb. She felt odd without it. “We’re going to argue this morning as well?” She called out. No answer. What a bastard he could be. How much egomania lay within that thin frame. Eric believed his problems were problems grand enough to disrupt the pattern of life itself. Eric was not only the hero of his own story, but the story of the goddamn planet earth – in his mind everything before his birth was a prelude to his great and awe-inspiring dance along the mortal coil. “Whatever,” she called, and then rose, the cane limp around her wrist, navigating herself into the corner of the room where her dressing gown hung on the back of the door. She had slept naked. She hated the feeling of clothes as she slept. Pajamas suffocated her. She could drown in cloth. The gown felt good against her skin; she felt the material as it slid up every inch. Of course, those with sight liked to talk about how the blind had heightened senses: it was one of the things they found interesting. They liked it the way they are amused to discover that apes can solve simple wooden puzzles. And yet she had to admit for all of his faults – and how many there were – Eric had never treated her with the patronizing curiosity most of those with sight did. He never asked dumb questions. He never exploited her, not even for a joke. Not like the rest of them. There had been other boyfriends who thought it funny to move around the furniture in her apartment; thought because she was comfortable with her blindness they could be comfortable too. Thought they could poke fun. But Eric never had. Eric: respectful to a tee. And yet here he he was, sulking. Like a child. Like he so often did. And all because of a stupid argument over his stupid mother. “You’re really not talking to me?” she called, a little softer now. She was standing in the doorway to the bedroom – the couch where he must have spent the night was only a few meters to her left. She waited, and in the silence heard the drip, drip of the tap coming from the bathroom. He had forgotten to turn off the fucking tap. Again. This was another problem: he treated her like he would treat anyone else. But she wasn’t anyone else. She had needs – individualized, specific needs – and one of them was a certain kind of silence. Nothing drove her as mad as the little noises that people with sight tend to ignore: the slight buzzing of the TV when it was asleep, rather than off; the whine a radio developed when turned down low; the taps – the fucking taps – dripping. Why couldn’t she find the happy medium? Why couldn’t she find the man that didn’t tease her, but didn’t just try to ignore her blindness either; didn’t consider her sight deprivation some odd personality trait that would go away if disregarded? She strode straight through the living room, past the couch she saw Eric sleeping on in her mind’s eye, and through to the kitchen. She opened the fridge, heard its hum (loud), and pulled out a carton of orange juice. She didn’t want to fight with Eric anymore – she was rarely angry the morning after – but now she was being pulled into another domestic. She was being forced to play the part of the bitchy fiancée, annoyed over nothing, because he was playing the part of the bastard fiancée, and he was playing it well. She took the carton over to the kitchen counter, placed it down, and then moved to get a glass from the cupboard, brushing her arm over the counter, feeling it strike against something, anticipating the crash of whatever she had just knocked over before it even hit the ground. It shattered – it must have been a glass Eric had left on the counter, stupidly, stupidly. How hard was it to put the glasses back where you found them? “Jesus fuck,” she exclaimed. “There’s fucking glass everywhere.” There was silence, save the slow drip of the tap from the next room. “Eric? Eric, you have to come help me. I don’t know where the glass is. It must be all over the floor.” No answer. No sound. Except: drip, drip, drip. “Please, honey,” she said, and was ashamed to find fear had crept into her voice. “Eric?” Drip. Drip. Drip. “Fuck you then,” she muttered. “You fucking asshole.” Drip. Drip. Drip. She took a step towards the living room, out of the kitchen, and pain shot through her foot. She had trod right on a piece of glass – a splinter of the stuff, she could feel it, deep – and she let out a squeal of pain as she practically leapt over the rest of the linoleum, and through to the safety of the carpeted living room. “I’m bleeding,” she barked, hobbling over towards where he was on the couch, ready to hit the guy, cane out, all prepared to feel the tip of it go sinking into his stupid, sleeping back… But her cane did not strike Eric. It hit the back of the couch. He was not there. She was a little stunned. All the air seemed to be sucked out of the room. He wasn’t in bed. He wasn’t on the couch. The apartment was so small; there were very few places he could now be. Suddenly, she was afraid. Genuinely afraid. And then, from the bathroom: a cough. Her whole body went into spasm. It was fear, and it dripped through her. That was Eric coughing, wasn’t it? Then why wasn’t he answering? “Eric? Hey, baby?” She called out, slowly. From the bathroom: a shuffle, the unmistakable sound of sock clad fleet stumbling over the tiles. She raised her cane up, instinctively. “Eric,” she cried, almost hysterical. “Eric, for fuck’s sake.” There was another hacking cough, followed by the sound of fluid hitting the sides of the sink. She was suddenly sure she needed to be very, very quiet. She stood perfectly still. There was somebody in her apartment. Eric would not ignore her like this, no matter how angry he was. Her mind flashed with the word: intruder. It strobed through her brain, searing itself there. What had happened to Eric, then? He was not strong – what if he had been beaten up? What if he had been killed? She let out a whimper, and then threw her hands up to her mouth, clamping it shut. A moan came from the bathroom. It was a complicated noise, made from the back of the throat, but wet, as though a person with a mouthful of fluid was trying to speak. Fluid. That was the word she used in her head. She did not want to use the word blood. Although, what else would it be? A scenario rushed itself through her mind: an intruder had broken in. Eric had heard (how had Eric heard, and she hadn’t? a voice inside her probed, but she ignored it) and had risen to attack. He had gotten a knife from the kitchen – maybe the glass fit into that somehow (somehow? How? came the voice again), and then he had gone to attack the intruder, had managed to stab him. But the intruder was too strong, he had hurt Eric, maybe he had knocked him out, and now the intruder was in the bathroom, coughing up blood, wounded, but still dangerous. Another terrible, agonized sound came. She flinched at it. In no time at all the voice that kept interrupting her resurfaced. It was, she supposed, what her mother would have liked to call the voice of reason, because such phrases are a mother’s bread and butter. Don’t be stupid, came the voice. You would have heard an intruder. It’s Eric in the bathroom, but he’s hurt. Maybe not badly: don’t always think badly. Maybe he’s sick. Maybe he’s vomiting. Or, she thought, taking over from the voice, maybe Eric had had a heart attack. Maybe he was on his knees on the bathroom floor, gasping for breath, bright light blinding him, close to the end… But then the noise came again. That moan. And with that noise, she could no longer convince herself that it was Eric, sick in the bathroom. She could no longer convince herself that the figure in the bathroom was Eric at all. She took a step backwards. She raised up her cane. There was no way out of the apartment without passing the bathroom door. She was going to have to make a run for it, straight through the corridor, past the bathroom, out, out of the front and down the stairwell, and – She needed a knife. The intruder would hear her pass the door – Christ, he had already heard her, she had been walking around the place shrieking like a mad housewife – and he would come bursting out, armed. Maybe she should just stay still. If she could make it clear she was no threat – she was blind, for Christ’s sake – maybe the intruder would leave her be. Maybe if she could call out to him, let him know that she was not going to try to stop him… A terrible, pained howl came from the bathroom, horrendously loud. Before she even knew what she was doing, she was running. Fear had seized her body. She dashed straight through the corridor, approaching the bathroom – BAM – the bathroom door flew open, just as she passed it, and a terrible stench, finally released, came from the room; it smelt like rot, like blood, like shit. She turned, her back to the now open bathroom door, and her hands slid up, trying to find the doorknob for the front door, just as she felt a sudden, swift rush of air against the back of her neck, the intruder right fucking behind her, and then her hands clamped on the doorknob, and she threw it open, and stepped straight through, into the stairwell of the apartment. She screamed. The intruder had caught onto her long, flowing hair, and as she had darted forward, he had held on. The hair was pulled out at the roots. Her hands flew to the back of her head, instinctively protecting herself. She stumbled – so close to falling down the stairs – but steadied herself against the bannister. “Get away from me!” She managed. She wanted to be loud: Terrence and Holly, the old married couple. They lived at the apartment at the bottom of the stairs. Surely, if she shouted loud enough, they would be able to hear her. They weren’t that deaf She stumbled forward, gripping the bannister, down the stairs, one foot at a time, the cane tapping uselessly at her side. A sudden rush of air came against the back of her neck, and she screamed again. The intruder was swiping at her, and there was no doubt anymore: he wanted to hurt her. He hadn’t broken in to steal anything; he had broken into kill her and Eric. Eric had tried to stop him. Eric had failed. The intruder wanted her dead. She could feel that intent emanating from him. That was all he wanted. He wanted her dead, but before that, he wanted her pain. The simple barbarity of his actions told her that. She slipped down the stairs, all her weight propelling her forward, and let out another desperate shriek. “HELP! Please help me!” She was all the way down the stairs now. She could no longer feel the intruder behind her, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t there – that didn’t mean anything – and she stumbled forwards, and straight into Terrence and Holly’s door. She expected it to be closed, but she also expected it to be locked. As soon as she pressed her weight against the door, it flew open, and she hit the ground hard. Sudden pain shocked through her wrists. Of course: Terrence and Holly bragged about the way they never bolted their door – never even latched it – because they were old, and old people though that naivety was a virtue. She was stunned; pinned to the ground. She didn’t think she’d be able to get up again at all, until she heard. The noise went like this: thump. Thump. Thump. It was the intruder walking down the stairs. She got to her feet, desperately, and scrabbled forward. She did not know Terrence and Holly’s apartment: had no idea where the obstacles lay, had never seen it from the inside. “Terrence? Holly?” She shouted, and was greeted with a sudden sharp pain in her right shinbone – she’d walked straight into something. She stumbled backwards three good steps. She couldn’t move – had no idea where to go – she was a rat in a maze. She threw her hands forward, desperate to feel something, anything, but there was just so much empty fucking space, and that noise from upstairs – that thump, thump, thump, getting louder and louder… She let out a terrible, anguished scream. It was louder than she thought any scream could be. It stunned her. It must have stunned the intruder, too. Because now there was silence. The slow, terrible footsteps on the stairs had stopped. She stood in Terrence and Holly’s apartment – in their living room? their corridor? – and there was total silence. And then: a slow moan. Not from behind. Not from the intruder. From right in front of her. “Terrence? Holly?” She said. Another moan. This time, more feminine. There was a shuffling sound, and then a sudden, terrible gasp of air hit her in the face. It smelt like blood. It smelt like meat. They were so close she could feel their breath. She filled her lungs, ready to scream again, when suddenly, from behind, something grabbed her shoulders so tight she thought they would break like twigs. Of course, those with sight like to talk about how the blind have heightened senses: it is one of the things they find interesting. But it did not take heightened senses for her to feel the hard, cold thing as the hands grabbed her. It was the hard, cold thing she had bought with Eric almost a year ago now. She had never seen it with her own eyes of course, but knew it. She knew it because the man in the shop had handed it to her, and she had worked it through her fingers, testing its shape and size. It was Eric’s engagement band. A hoarse, pained scream escaped her lips. As though that were the cue it had been waiting for, the thing that had once been Eric gently pulled her head to one side, and held it there, exposing the clean white waiting flesh of her neck. Read another short story – Visiting Him by Poppy Reid – here. The article was originally published on Brag Magazine

Angel Diaz FAQs: Facts, Rumors, Birthdate, Net Worth, Sexual Orientation and much more! Drag and drop boxes to rearrange! Who is Angel Diaz? Biography, gossip, facts? Ángel Díaz (April 25 1929 - December 11 1998) was a famous singer of Argentine Tangos. He performed with the orchestras of Sassone Gobbi D'Agostino and Salgan and collaborated with many others. When is Angel Diaz's birthday? Angel Diaz was born on the , which was a Thursday. Angel Diaz's next birthday would be in 276 days (would be turning 91years old then). How old would Angel Diaz be today? Today, Angel Diaz would be 90 years old. To be more precise, Angel Diaz would be 32879 days old or 789096 hours. What was Angel Diaz's zodiac sign? Angel Diaz's zodiac sign was Taurus. ♉The ruling planet of Taurus is Venus. Therefore, lucky days were Fridays and Mondays and lucky numbers were: 6, 15, 24, 33, 42 and 51. Blue and Blue-Green were Angel Diaz's lucky colors. Typical positive character traits of Taurus include: Practicality, Artistic bent of mind, Stability and Trustworthiness. Negative character traits could be: Laziness, Stubbornness, Prejudice and Possessiveness. Was Angel Diaz gay or straight? Many people enjoy sharing rumors about the sexuality and sexual orientation of celebrities. We don't know for a fact whether Angel Diaz was gay, bisexual or straight. However, feel free to tell us what you think! Vote by clicking below. 0% of all voters think that Angel Diaz was gay (homosexual), 0% voted for straight (heterosexual), and 0% like to think that Angel Diaz was actually bisexual. Is Angel Diaz still alive? Are there any death rumors? Unfortunately no, Angel Diaz is not alive anymore. The death rumors are true. How old was Angel Diaz when he/she died? Angel Diaz was 69 years old when he/she died. When did Angel Diaz die? How long ago was that? Angel Diaz died on the 11th of December 1998, which was a Friday. The tragic death occurred 20 years ago. Where was Angel Diaz born? Angel Diaz was born in Buenos Aires. Did Angel Diaz do drugs? Did Angel Diaz smoke cigarettes or weed? It is no secret that many celebrities have been caught with illegal drugs in the past. Some even openly admit their drug usuage. Do you think that Angel Diaz did smoke cigarettes, weed or marijuhana? Or did Angel Diaz do steroids, coke or even stronger drugs such as heroin? Tell us your opinion below. Where did Angel Diaz die? Angel Diaz died in Buenos Aires. What is Angel Diaz doing now? As mentioned above, Angel Diaz died 20 years ago. Feel free to add stories and questions about Angel Diaz's life as well as your comments below. Are there any photos of Angel Diaz's hairstyle or shirtless? There might be. But unfortunately we currently cannot access them from our system. We are working hard to fill that gap though, check back in tomorrow! What is Angel Diaz's net worth in 2019? How much does Angel Diaz earn? According to various sources, Angel Diaz's net worth has grown significantly in 2019. However, the numbers vary depending on the source. If you have current knowledge about Angel Diaz's net worth, please feel free to share the information below.

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There are two, major assumptions people have when they discover you work as a legal prostitute. On one end of the spectrum, they think you have the most rockin’ job in the world—like some kind of giant, erotic vacation. On the other end, they hazard that your soul is empty, your mind numb, and your ability to feel, romantically and sexually, depleted. What these people don’t understand is that being a prostitute is, after all, just another job, and a demanding one, at that. In the sense that you’re on call, it’s like being a doctor. I don’t freelance, so I’m not picking and choosing which clients to see or when to see them. I work at a brothel, so the clients come to see me when they want me. During the hours that I’m there, I’m fair game, and may have to attend to any number of “emergency” erectile situations (if we’re sticking with the doctor analogy). That means that whenever a customer (a “John,” as you’ve surely heard them called) flips through the book with all of us working girls’ pictures in it when he arrives at the brothel and decides he likes me best, I have to drop whatever I’m doing to glue on my fake eyelashes (well, those are likely already on), swipe on some ruby lipstick, and spray some…well, no need to get rid of all the mystery. When I put on that lipstick, heels, and lingerie, I’m also putting on my personality for the duration of the trick. No longer am I Kendra, a young woman trying to pay off student debt for her seemingly useless degree in art history—I’m Gemma, the kind of woman who’s always down for one more drink, one more mechanical bull ride, and one more round in the sack. Gemma looooves the size and shape of your penis, and she’ll tell it whatever it needs to hear to stay erect and achieve a climax as soon as humanly possible—depending on the gig, that is. If they’re paying by the hour, as opposed to a flat rate, Gemma can go real slow… Another aspect of working in a brothel that’s just like any other job—and that might not have occurred to you—is the inevitability of lame co-workers. Just how Ted in the cubicle next to you doesn’t seem to bathe and always leans in way too close when he asks to borrow your tape five times a day (by the way, Ted is likely my client), I have a Nell who seems like she soaks daily in a tub of perfume, and she always laughs too loudly at our house mom’s jokes (sucking up to the boss) while turning around and acting the absolute bitch to everyone else. Of course, some of my co-workers are lovely, and the good ones are how I get through the day. But my co-workers aren’t the only ones who help me with that. In fact, this may sound crazy, but a knitting circle—in other words, a group of religious grandmothers who like to knit together—come visit us every Sunday. They bring with them new scarves to keep us warm in the winter (though we work indoors, we do have to walk to and from work) and sometimes even freshly baked oatmeal cookies. Maybe they’re there to try and save us from going to hell, but they’ve become my friends in the eight months since I started working at the brothel. Mostly, I like what I do. I don’t love it (how many people can truly say that they love their jobs?), but I don’t hate it. I hate some days, I hate some clients, but ultimately, I’m just trying to pay next month’s rent. If some sweet, old ladies with knitting needles want to offer moral support while I do it, even better. – Kendra Klark

Tag Archives: runs Tuomas Sandholm, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, is not a poker player—or much of a poker fan, in fact—but he is fascinated by the game for much the same reason as the great game theorist John von Neumann before him. Von Neumann, who died in 1957, viewed poker as the perfect model for human decision making, for finding the balance between skill and chance that accompanies our every choice. He saw poker as the ultimate strategic challenge, combining as it does not just the mathematical elements of a game like chess but the uniquely human, psychological angles that are more difficult to model precisely—a view shared years later by Sandholm in his research with artificial intelligence. “Poker is the main benchmark and challenge program for games of imperfect information,” Sandholm told me on a warm spring afternoon in 2018, when we met in his offices in Pittsburgh. The game, it turns out, has become the gold standard for developing artificial intelligence. Tall and thin, with wire-frame glasses and neat brow hair framing a friendly face, Sandholm is behind the creation of three computer programs designed to test their mettle against human poker players: Claudico, Libratus, and most recently, Pluribus. (When we met, Libratus was still a toddler and Pluribus didn’t yet exist.) The goal isn’t to solve poker, as such, but to create algorithms whose decision making prowess in poker’s world of imperfect information and stochastic situations—situations that are randomly determined and unable to be predicted—can then be applied to other stochastic realms, like the military, business, government, cybersecurity, even health care. While the first program, Claudico, was summarily beaten by human poker players—“one broke-ass robot,” an observer called it—Libratus has triumphed in a series of one-on-one, or heads-up, matches against some of the best online players in the United States. Libratus relies on three main modules. The first involves a basic blueprint strategy for the whole game, allowing it to reach a much faster equilibrium than its predecessor. It includes an algorithm called the Monte Carlo Counterfactual Regret Minimization, which evaluates all future actions to figure out which one would cause the least amount of regret. Regret, of course, is a human emotion. Regret for a computer simply means realizing that an action that wasn’t chosen would have yielded a better outcome than one that was. “Intuitively, regret represents how much the AI regrets having not chosen that action in the past,” says Sandholm. The higher the regret, the higher the chance of choosing that action next time. It’s a useful way of thinking—but one that is incredibly difficult for the human mind to implement. We are notoriously bad at anticipating our future emotions. How much will we regret doing something? How much will we regret not doing something else? For us, it’s an emotionally laden calculus, and we typically fail to apply it in quite the right way. For a computer, it’s all about the computation of values. What does it regret not doing the most, the thing that would have yielded the highest possible expected value? The second module is a sub-game solver that takes into account the mistakes the opponent has made so far and accounts for every hand she could possibly have. And finally, there is a self-improver. This is the area where data and machine learning come into play. It’s dangerous to try to exploit your opponent—it opens you up to the risk that you’ll get exploited right back, especially if you’re a computer program and your opponent is human. So instead of attempting to do that, the self-improver lets the opponent’s actions inform the areas where the program should focus. “That lets the opponent’s actions tell us where [they] think they’ve found holes in our strategy,” Sandholm explained. This allows the algorithm to develop a blueprint strategy to patch those holes. It’s a very human-like adaptation, if you think about it. I’m not going to try to outmaneuver you head on. Instead, I’m going to see how you’re trying to outmaneuver me and respond accordingly. Sun-Tzu would surely approve. Watch how you’re perceived, not how you perceive yourself—because in the end, you’re playing against those who are doing the perceiving, and their opinion, right or not, is the only one that matters when you craft your strategy. Overnight, the algorithm patches up its overall approach according to the resulting analysis. There’s one final thing Libratus is able to do: play in situations with unknown probabilities. There’s a concept in game theory known as the trembling hand: There are branches of the game tree that, under an optimal strategy, one should theoretically never get to; but with some probability, your all-too-human opponent’s hand trembles, they take a wrong action, and you’re suddenly in a totally unmapped part of the game. Before, that would spell disaster for the computer: An unmapped part of the tree means the program no longer knows how to respond. Now, there’s a contingency plan. Of course, no algorithm is perfect. When Libratus is playing poker, it’s essentially working in a zero-sum environment. It wins, the opponent loses. The opponent wins, it loses. But while some real-life interactions really are zero-sum—cyber warfare comes to mind—many others are not nearly as straightforward: My win does not necessarily mean your loss. The pie is not fixed, and our interactions may be more positive-sum than not. What’s more, real-life applications have to contend with something that a poker algorithm does not: the weights that are assigned to different elements of a decision. In poker, this is a simple value-maximizing process. But what is value in the human realm? Sandholm had to contend with this before, when he helped craft the world’s first kidney exchange. Do you want to be more efficient, giving the maximum number of kidneys as quickly as possible—or more fair, which may come at a cost to efficiency? Do you want as many lives as possible saved—or do some take priority at the cost of reaching more? Is there a preference for the length of the wait until a transplant? Do kids get preference? And on and on. It’s essential, Sandholm says, to separate means and the ends. To figure out the ends, a human has to decide what the goal is. “The world will ultimately become a lot safer with the help of algorithms like Libratus,” Sandholm told me. I wasn’t sure what he meant. The last thing that most people would do is call poker, with its competition, its winners and losers, its quest to gain the maximum edge over your opponent, a haven of safety. “Logic is good, and the AI is much better at strategic reasoning than humans can ever be,” he explained. “It’s taking out irrationality, emotionality. And it’s fairer. If you have an AI on your side, it can lift non-experts to the level of experts. Naïve negotiators will suddenly have a better weapon. We can start to close off the digital divide.” It was an optimistic note to end on—a zero-sum, competitive game yielding a more ultimately fair and rational world. I wanted to learn more, to see if it was really possible that mathematics and algorithms could ultimately be the future of more human, more psychological interactions. And so, later that day, I accompanied Nick Nystrom, the chief scientist of the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center—the place that runs all of Sandholm’s poker-AI programs—to the actual processing center that make undertakings like Libratus possible. A half-hour drive found us in a parking lot by a large glass building. I’d expected something more futuristic, not the same square, corporate glass squares I’ve seen countless times before. The inside, however, was more promising. First the security checkpoint. Then the ride in the elevator — down, not up, to roughly three stories below ground, where we found ourselves in a maze of corridors with card readers at every juncture to make sure you don’t slip through undetected. A red-lit panel formed the final barrier, leading to a small sliver of space between two sets of doors. I could hear a loud hum coming from the far side. “Let me tell you what you’re going to see before we walk in,” Nystrom told me. “Once we get inside, it will be too loud to hear.” I was about to witness the heart of the supercomputing center: 27 large containers, in neat rows, each housing multiple processors with speeds and abilities too great for my mind to wrap around. Inside, the temperature is by turns arctic and tropic, so-called “cold” rows alternating with “hot”—fans operate around the clock to cool the processors as they churn through millions of giga, mega, tera, peta and other ever-increasing scales of data bytes. In the cool rows, robotic-looking lights blink green and blue in orderly progression. In the hot rows, a jumble of multicolored wires crisscrosses in tangled skeins. In the corners stood machines that had outlived their heyday. There was Sherlock, an old Cray model, that warmed my heart. There was a sad nameless computer, whose anonymity was partially compensated for by the Warhol soup cans adorning its cage (an homage to Warhol’s Pittsburghian origins). And where does Libratus live, I asked? Which of these computers is Bridges, the computer that runs the AI Sandholm and I had been discussing? Bridges, it turned out, isn’t a single computer. It’s a system with processing power beyond comprehension. It takes over two and a half petabytes to run Libratus. A single petabyte is a million gigabytes: You could watch over 13 years of HD video, store 10 billion photos, catalog the contents of the entire Library of Congress word for word. That’s a whole lot of computing power. And that’s only to succeed at heads-up poker, in limited circumstances. Yet despite the breathtaking computing power at its disposal, Libratus is still severely limited. Yes, it beat its opponents where Claudico failed. But the poker professionals weren’t allowed to use many of the tools of their trade, including the opponent analysis software that they depend on in actual online games. And humans tire. Libratus can churn for a two-week marathon, where the human mind falters. But there’s still much it can’t do: play more opponents, play live, or win every time. There’s more humanity in poker than Libratus has yet conquered. “There’s this belief that it’s all about statistics and correlations. And we actually don’t believe that,” Nystrom explained as we left Bridges behind. “Once in a while correlations are good, but in general, they can also be really misleading.” Two years later, the Sandholm lab will produce Pluribus. Pluribus will be able to play against five players—and will run on a single computer. Much of the human edge will have evaporated in a short, very short time. The algorithms have improved, as have the computers. AI, it seems, has gained by leaps and bounds. So does that mean that, ultimately, the algorithmic can indeed beat out the human, that computation can untangle the web of human interaction by discerning “the little tactics of deception, of asking yourself what is the other man going to think I mean to do,” as von Neumann put it? Long before I’d spoken to Sandholm, I’d met Kevin Slavin, a polymath of sorts whose past careers have including founding a game design company and an interactive art space and launching the Playful Systems group at MIT’s Media Lab. Slavin has a decidedly different view from the creators of Pluribus. “On the one hand, [von Neumann] was a genius,” Kevin Slavin reflects. “But the presumptuousness of it.” Slavin is firmly on the side of the gambler, who recognizes uncertainty for what it is and thus is able to take calculated risks when necessary, all the while tampering confidence at the outcome. The most you can do is put yourself in the path of luck—but to think you can guess with certainty the actual outcome is a presumptuousness the true poker player foregoes. For Slavin, the wonder of computers is “That they can generate this fabulous, complex randomness.” His opinion of the algorithmic assaults on chance? “This is their moment,” he said. “But it’s the exact opposite of what’s really beautiful about a computer, which is that it can do something that’s actually unpredictable. That, to me, is the magic.” Will they actually succeed in making the unpredictable predictable, though? That’s what I want to know. Because everything I’ve seen tells me that absolute success is impossible. The deck is not rigged. “It’s an unbelievable amount of work to get there. What do you get at the end? Let’s say they’re successful. Then we live in a world where there’s no God, agency, or luck,” Slavin responded. “I don’t want to live there,’’ he added “I just don’t want to live there.” Luckily, it seems that for now, he won’t have to. There are more things in life than are yet written in the algorithms. We have no reliable lie detection software—whether in the face, the skin, or the brain. In a recent test of bluffing in poker, computer face recognition failed miserably. We can get at discomfort, but we can’t get at the reasons for that discomfort: lying, fatigue, stress—they all look much the same. And humans, of course, can also mimic stress where none exists, complicating the picture even further. Pluribus may turn out to be powerful, but von Neumann’s challenge still stands: The true nature of games, the most human of the human, remains to be conquered. This article was originally published on Undark. Read the original article. Image Credit: José Pablo Iglesias / Unsplash Continue reading When Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997, it may have seemed artificial intelligence had finally arrived. A computer had just taken down one of the top chess players of all time. But it wasn’t to be. Though Deep Blue was meticulously programmed top-to-bottom to play chess, the approach was too labor-intensive, too dependent on clear rules and bounded possibilities to succeed at more complex games, let alone in the real world. The next revolution would take a decade and a half, when vastly more computing power and data revived machine learning, an old idea in artificial intelligence just waiting for the world to catch up. Today, machine learning dominates, mostly by way of a family of algorithms called deep learning, while symbolic AI, the dominant approach in Deep Blue’s day, has faded into the background. Key to deep learning’s success is the fact the algorithms basically write themselves. Given some high-level programming and a dataset, they learn from experience. No engineer anticipates every possibility in code. The algorithms just figure it. Now, Alphabet’s DeepMind is taking this automation further by developing deep learning algorithms that can handle programming tasks which have been, to date, the sole domain of the world’s top computer scientists (and take them years to write). In a paper recently published on the pre-print server arXiv, a database for research papers that haven’t been peer reviewed yet, the DeepMind team described a new deep reinforcement learning algorithm that was able to discover its own value function—a critical programming rule in deep reinforcement learning—from scratch. Surprisingly, the algorithm was also effective beyond the simple environments it trained in, going on to play Atari games—a different, more complicated task—at a level that was, at times, competitive with human-designed algorithms and achieving superhuman levels of play in 14 games. DeepMind says the approach could accelerate the development of reinforcement learning algorithms and even lead to a shift in focus, where instead of spending years writing the algorithms themselves, researchers work to perfect the environments in which they train. Pavlov’s Digital Dog First, a little background. Three main deep learning approaches are supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning. The first two consume huge amounts of data (like images or articles), look for patterns in the data, and use those patterns to inform actions (like identifying an image of a cat). To us, this is a pretty alien way to learn about the world. Not only would it be mind-numbingly dull to review millions of cat images, it’d take us years or more to do what these programs do in hours or days. And of course, we can learn what a cat looks like from just a few examples. So why bother? While supervised and unsupervised deep learning emphasize the machine in machine learning, reinforcement learning is a bit more biological. It actually is the way we learn. Confronted with several possible actions, we predict which will be most rewarding based on experience—weighing the pleasure of eating a chocolate chip cookie against avoiding a cavity and trip to the dentist. In deep reinforcement learning, algorithms go through a similar process as they take action. In the Atari game Breakout, for instance, a player guides a paddle to bounce a ball at a ceiling of bricks, trying to break as many as possible. When playing Breakout, should an algorithm move the paddle left or right? To decide, it runs a projection—this is the value function—of which direction will maximize the total points, or rewards, it can earn. Move by move, game by game, an algorithm combines experience and value function to learn which actions bring greater rewards and improves its play, until eventually, it becomes an uncanny Breakout player. Learning to Learn (Very Meta) So, a key to deep reinforcement learning is developing a good value function. And that’s difficult. According to the DeepMind team, it takes years of manual research to write the rules guiding algorithmic actions—which is why automating the process is so alluring. Their new Learned Policy Gradient (LPG) algorithm makes solid progress in that direction. LPG trained in a number of toy environments. Most of these were “gridworlds”—literally two-dimensional grids with objects in some squares. The AI moves square to square and earns points or punishments as it encounters objects. The grids vary in size, and the distribution of objects is either set or random. The training environments offer opportunities to learn fundamental lessons for reinforcement learning algorithms. Only in LPG’s case, it had no value function to guide that learning. Instead, LPG has what DeepMind calls a “meta-learner.” You might think of this as an algorithm within an algorithm that, by interacting with its environment, discovers both “what to predict,” thereby forming its version of a value function, and “how to learn from it,” applying its newly discovered value function to each decision it makes in the future. Prior work in the area has had some success, but according to DeepMind, LPG is the first algorithm to discover reinforcement learning rules from scratch and to generalize beyond training. The latter was particularly surprising because Atari games are so different from the simple worlds LPG trained in—that is, it had never seen anything like an Atari game. Time to Hand Over the Reins? Not Just Yet LPG is still behind advanced human-designed algorithms, the researchers said. But it outperformed a human-designed benchmark in training and even some Atari games, which suggests it isn’t strictly worse, just that it specializes in some environments. This is where there’s room for improvement and more research. The more environments LPG saw, the more it could successfully generalize. Intriguingly, the researchers speculate that with enough well-designed training environments, the approach might yield a general-purpose reinforcement learning algorithm. At the least, though, they say further automation of algorithm discovery—that is, algorithms learning to learn—will accelerate the field. In the near term, it can help researchers more quickly develop hand-designed algorithms. Further out, as self-discovered algorithms like LPG improve, engineers may shift from manually developing the algorithms themselves to building the environments where they learn. Deep learning long ago left Deep Blue in the dust at games. Perhaps algorithms learning to learn will be a winning strategy in the real world too. Image credit: Mike Szczepanski / Unsplash Continue reading The causes of aging are extremely complex and unclear. But with longevity clinical trials increasing, more answers—and questions—are emerging than ever before. With the dramatic demonetization of genome reading and editing over the past decade, and Big Pharma, startups, and the FDA starting to face aging as a disease, we are starting to turn those answers into practical ways to extend our healthspan. In this article, I’ll explore how genome sequencing and editing, along with new classes of anti-aging drugs, are augmenting our biology to further extend our healthy lives. Genome Sequencing and Editing Your genome is the software that runs your body. A sequence of 3.2 billion letters makes you “you.” These base pairs of A’s, T’s, C’s, and G’s determine your hair color, your height, your personality, your propensity for disease, your lifespan, and so on. Until recently, it’s been very difficult to rapidly and cheaply “read” these letters—and even more difficult to understand what they mean. Since 2001, the cost to sequence a whole human genome has plummeted exponentially, outpacing Moore’s Law threefold. From an initial cost of $3.7 billion, it dropped to $10 million in 2006, and to $1,500 in 2015. Today, the cost of genome sequencing has dropped below $600, and according to Illumina, the world’s leading sequencing company, the process will soon cost about $100 and take about an hour to complete. This represents one of the most powerful and transformative technology revolutions in healthcare. When we understand your genome, we’ll be able to understand how to optimize “you.” We’ll know the perfect foods, the perfect drugs, the perfect exercise regimen, and the perfect supplements, just for you. We’ll understand what microbiome types, or gut flora, are ideal for you (more on this in a later article). We’ll accurately predict how specific sedatives and medicines will impact you. We’ll learn which diseases and illnesses you’re most likely to develop and, more importantly, how to best prevent them from developing in the first place (rather than trying to cure them after the fact). CRISPR Gene Editing In addition to reading the human genome, scientists can now edit a genome using a naturally occurring biological system discovered in 1987 called CRISPR/Cas9. Short for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats and CRISPR-associated protein 9, the editing system was adapted from a naturally-occurring defense system found in bacteria. Here’s how it works. The bacteria capture snippets of DNA from invading viruses (or bacteriophage) and use them to create DNA segments known as CRISPR arrays. The CRISPR arrays allow the bacteria to “remember” the viruses (or closely related ones), and defend against future invasions. If the viruses attack again, the bacteria produce RNA segments from the CRISPR arrays to target the viruses’ DNA. The bacteria then use Cas9 to cut the DNA apart, which disables the virus. Most importantly, CRISPR is cheap, quick, easy to use, and more accurate than all previous gene editing methods. As a result, CRISPR/Cas9 has swept through labs around the world as the way to edit a genome. A short search in the literature will show an exponential rise in the number of CRISPR-related publications and patents. 2018: Filled With CRISPR Breakthroughs Early results are impressive. Researchers have used CRISPR to genetically engineer cocaine resistance into mice, reverse the gene defect causing Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) in dogs, and reduce genetic deafness in mice. Already this year, CRISPR-edited immune cells have been shown to successfully kill cancer cells in human patients. Researchers have discovered ways to activate CRISPR with light and use the gene-editing technology to better understand Alzheimer’s disease progression. With great power comes great responsibility, and the opportunity for moral and ethical dilemmas. In 2015, Chinese scientists sparked global controversy when they first edited human embryo cells in the lab with the goal of modifying genes that would make the child resistant to smallpox, HIV, and cholera. Three years later, in November 2018, researcher He Jiankui informed the world that the first set of CRISPR-engineered female twins had been delivered. To accomplish his goal, Jiankui deleted a region of a receptor on the surface of white blood cells known as CCR5, introducing a rare, natural genetic variation that makes it more difficult for HIV to infect its favorite target, white blood cells. Because Jiankui forged ethical review documents and misled doctors in the process, he was sentenced to three years in prison and fined $429,000 last December. Coupled with significant ethical conversations necessary for progress, CRISPR will soon provide us the tools to eliminate diseases, create hardier offspring, produce new environmentally resistant crops, and even wipe out pathogens. Senolytics, Nutraceuticals, and Pharmaceuticals Over the arc of your life, the cells in your body divide until they reach what is known as the Hayflick limit, or the number of times a normal human cell population will divide before cell division stops, which is typically about 50 divisions. What normally follows next is programmed cell death or destruction by the immune system. A very small fraction of cells, however, become senescent cells and evade this fate to linger indefinitely. These lingering cells secrete a potent mix of molecules that triggers chronic inflammation, damages the surrounding tissue structures, and changes the behavior of nearby cells for the worse. Senescent cells appear to be one of the root causes of aging, causing everything from fibrosis and blood vessel calcification to localized inflammatory conditions such as osteoarthritis to diminished lung function. Fortunately, both the scientific and entrepreneurial communities have begun to work on senolytic therapies, moving the technology for selectively destroying senescent cells out of the laboratory and into a half-dozen startup companies. Prominent companies in the field include the following: Unity Biotechnology is developing senolytic medicines to selectively eliminate senescent cells with an initial focus on delivering localized therapy in osteoarthritis, ophthalmology, and pulmonary disease. Oisin Biotechnologies is pioneering a programmable gene therapy that can destroy cells based on their internal biochemistry. SIWA Therapeutics is working on an immunotherapy approach to the problem of senescent cells. In recent years, researchers have identified or designed a handful of senolytic compounds that can curb aging by regulating senescent cells. Two of these drugs that have gained mainstay research traction are rapamycin and metformin. Originally extracted from bacteria found on Easter Island, rapamycin acts on the m-TOR (mechanistic target of rapamycin) pathway to selectively block a key protein that facilitates cell division. Currently, rapamycin derivatives are widely used for immunosuppression in organ and bone marrow transplants. Research now suggests that use results in prolonged lifespan and enhanced cognitive and immune function. PureTech Health subsidiary resTORbio (which went public in 2018) is working on a rapamycin-based drug intended to enhance immunity and reduce infection. Their clinical-stage RTB101 drug works by inhibiting part of the mTOR pathway. Results of the drug’s recent clinical trial include decreased incidence of infection, improved influenza vaccination response, and a 30.6 percent decrease in respiratory tract infection. Impressive, to say the least. Metformin is a widely-used generic drug for mitigating liver sugar production in Type 2 diabetes patients. Researchers have found that metformin also reduces oxidative stress and inflammation, which otherwise increase as we age. There is strong evidence that metformin can augment cellular regeneration and dramatically mitigate cellular senescence by reducing both oxidative stress and inflammation. Over 100 studies registered on ClinicalTrials.gov are currently following up on strong evidence of metformin’s protective effect against cancer. (3) Nutraceuticals and NAD+ Beyond cellular senescence, certain critical nutrients and proteins tend to decline as a function of age. Nutraceuticals combat aging by supplementing and replenishing these declining nutrient levels. NAD+ exists in every cell, participating in every process from DNA repair to creating the energy vital for cellular processes. It’s been shown that NAD+ levels decline as we age. The Elysium Health Basis supplement aims to elevate NAD+ levels in the body to extend one’s lifespan. Elysium’s first clinical study reports that Basis increases NAD+ levels consistently by a sustained 40 percent. These are just a taste of the tremendous momentum that longevity and aging technology has right now. As artificial intelligence and quantum computing transform how we decode our DNA and how we discover drugs, genetics and pharmaceuticals will become truly personalized. The next article in this series will demonstrate how artificial intelligence is converging with genetics and pharmaceuticals to transform how we approach longevity, aging, and vitality. We are edging closer toward a dramatically extended healthspan—where 100 is the new 60. What will you create, where will you explore, and how will you spend your time if you are able to add an additional 40 healthy years to your life? (1) A360 Executive Mastermind: If you’re an exponentially and abundance-minded entrepreneur who would like coaching directly from me, consider joining my Abundance 360 Mastermind, a highly selective community of 360 CEOs and entrepreneurs who I coach for 3 days every January in Beverly Hills, Ca. Through A360, I provide my members with context and clarity about how converging exponential technologies will transform every industry. I’m committed to running A360 for the course of an ongoing 25-year journey as a “countdown to the Singularity.” If you’d like to learn more and consider joining our 2021 membership, apply here. (2) Abundance-Digital Online Community: I’ve also created a Digital/Online community of bold, abundance-minded entrepreneurs called Abundance-Digital. Abundance-Digital is Singularity University’s ‘onramp’ for exponential entrepreneurs—those who want to get involved and play at a higher level. Click here to learn more. (Both A360 and Abundance-Digital are part of Singularity University—your participation opens you to a global community.) This article originally appeared on diamandis.com. Read the original article here. Image Credit: Arek Socha from Pixabay Continue reading

Aside from being a new author which means that no one has heard of you and isn’t listening because they haven’t heard of you, yet, you have the added drawback of not really knowing how to sell on the internet. As an author you will have to advertise, not just your book, but yourself, your talent. That’s where today’s market is buying – eBooks, iPads, Kindle, etc. gradually becoming the largest market for readers that need to find new books. That doesn’t mean you can’t sell paperbacks or hardbacks or both in addition to being active in the eBook market. Where do you start? While talking about methods for promoting books and increasing sales on the internet recently, someone said to me that they would rather have a toothache than to have to learn more technology that will only change in a year. Common knowledge – technology is constantly changing and affecting what we have to learn to get anywhere, every day. Fear of learning new technology shouldn’t stop you – its not what you need, what you need is not this ever changing scary code thing. - You wrote a book and you want people to read it. - Where are the people that want to buy books and read about authors hanging out? - Where are they shopping for new books? People don’t change as quickly as the internet and you are trying to sell to people that are using the same technology that you are! You do have to be aware of how the changing technology is affecting people’s trends and behaviors but all of the programs you use will have some kind of performance reporting tool that will help you with that. Yes, there are tools out there that will do most of the work and most of it is free. Sample Marketing Plan: - Identify your target audience. Who reads your genre? - Where do they hang out? Make a list of websites that have large followings and connect readers with books based on genre, not authors. - Open a twitter account and start following other authors, writers of all types, readers and anyone that shows up under #(your genre) and any other keywords you can put a hash tag in front of and see tweets that have them in it. (see twitter’s help pages to understand how to use hashtags to target specific followers) I personally recommend twitter, there are other social media platforms, choose what you like but don’t get caught up trying to manage an account on too many platforms. - Grow your twitter following daily: reply, favorite and retweet other people’s tweets, look for people with similar interests as your own and connect with them, use the twitter “who to follow” tools. Never lose sight of this being a social media marketing tool – it only truly works if you are SOCIAL. - Create your online presence – you need a website and/or blog site that tells who you are, what you write about and showcases your talents. Many authors also do blogging to accomplish this last and connect with readers. If you know a lot about the publishing steps, there’s your niche for writing articles on your blog site, for example. This is of key importance, readers want a personal connection with an author before they will spend money on their books. In other words, until your name is known, you must work on developing a following and getting your name recognized. Example, I own every Stephen King book in hardback though I didn’t enjoy every one of the books (most of them though) I am loyal to the author…you want this loyalty to be successful too. - Use your twitter account to send tweets about your website, your books sales page and more than anything else, about other stuff, news headlines, a good movie you just watched, etc. No one wants to see sales ads over and over again on twitter and that will get you un-followed very quickly. Your focus is building a following that will be interested in you as a person and your book as reflection of your talent…not on selling cars by telling everyone all about them. - Link your social media accounts and your website/blog site so that you are automating posting to some degree. For example, when I posted this article on the blog, WordPress automatically sent a tweet and a Facebook page update and sent an email to the blog’s followers, all at once, no work from me. However, I spend time every single day cultivating connections, making new friends and tweeting real responses to others – the actual social effort must be there and must not be automated. - Search for and contact legitimate book reviewers and author interviewers. If you scroll through their book reviews and find all 5 star, icky sweet reviews, RUN! You need to have your book reviewed and that review published on your sales page (Amazon, Smashwords, etc.) by the reviewer as many times as you can. The legitimate ones tend to be booked weeks, even months out and that is ok. Get on their list and in time it will pay off. Your question was “where do I start”, right? You start by creating an online presence and getting your name out there. Selling will come later and will start right under your nose without you having to learn car salesmen skills. - Do what you do naturally at social events, among friends and people with similar interests, just do it online and do it consistently. - Don’t pass up little opportunities to have real conversations with authors and readers alike and don’t ignore what the people you will start meeting through social networking are saying. Other authors are going to talk about and demonstrate the use of online tools that are working for them and try to sell you stuff. - Try everything that interests you, but don’t spend a penny on any kind of internet product or tool without a free trial and proven results. Then make sure your cost is similar to other providers and you don’t pay too much. Also, some services will offer multiple options and you can use one account to manage several aspects of your campaigns. Always look for the free versions first! - Feedback from other people doing the same things will be useful, don’t get excited and drawn in, research things carefully and make sure it fits you. Too many authors are caught up in self-promotion and do nothing else. This is not effective marketing. You need to start by making your name known, becoming known for being talented through your online presence, site content and book reviews and by consistently demonstrating that you are more than a sales machine only interested in selling books. - Twitter.com – of course. Who isn’t on twitter? Make sure you offer interesting tweets and lots of variety…people should want to see your daily activity, quotes, links, quips, jokes, etc. – Related article – Using Twitter to Find New Readers for Your Book (faymoore.wordpress.com) - Hootsuite.com – manages multiple social networks, has reporting and a scheduling program that lets you schedule tweets and posts to any connected social networks in bulk – $9.99 a month - justUnfollow.com – the free version lets you set up automatic reply DMs to new followers, unfollow and follow to synch up and a few other things – FREE - wordpress.com – obviously, my favorite blogging tool - webs.com – of all the free website services, their FREE version has the least obtrusive domain name requirements and the easiest to use tools for creating your site. It can be a little quirky but compared to the many other sites I tried…well, I’ve used webs.com since 2005 and use to sell web design services creating sites on there for local businesses on the side - Office.com – I actually saved money and took care of two problems, my new laptop didn’t have Microsoft programs on it ($199 retail value) and I had already gone through the expense of having to pay someone to recover all my files off my old laptop when it crashed, didn’t want to do that again. Needed “cloud storage” to make sure I never loose my files again and have the bonus of accessing them from anywhere I can sign onto email. For $9.99 per month I have the cloud storage, completely mobile files, automatic file syncing and all of the office programs I needed. - Goodreads – this is a great place to meet readers and other authors, also looking for readers. The library is great, has events tools, social based and is FREE. – Related article – Goodreads – the #1 Choice for Authors by Doris-Maria Heilmann with 111Publishing (thelindenchronicles.com) - OPB – Other People’s Blogs and if you start typing that in your URL address, you can stop and giggle now, nobody is looking. You should be visiting other people’s blogs and Following all of the ones that interest you and have something in common with your goals, genre, etc. as well as commenting. Comments should be intelligent, relevant and non-promotional. You will increase your realm of influence and followers doing this and meet some wonderful people. Hmmm…big part of becoming known! - 5 Online Marketing Strategies for a Tight Budget (entrepreneur.com) - Five Book Marketing Ideas That Will Sell Your Book By Hae Debenham (louisefindlaybooks.wordpress.com)

Myrrh essential oil benefits are well-studied, and are incredible examples of how a historical plant based medicine is relevant today. So, forget about the Christmas story for a minute, myrrh should be on everyone’s radar throughout the entire year! History of Myrrh Gifted to the baby Jesus and remembered each year at Christmas, many of us may not realize that myrrh is actually used every day around the world. While most of our essential oils and herbal remedies come from leaves and flowers, myrrh is much more exotic. It is the resin, similar to a sap, of an African and Middle Eastern tree, the Commiphora myrrha, that is used to distill the essential oil. We know that myrrh is of old thanks to the gifts of the Magi, but that’s not the only documentation. Ancient Egyptians, as part of their intricate mummification process, utilized myrrh in their rituals. We have record from Herodotus that describes myrrh’s use in approximately 450 B.C., though mummification was in practice for centuries prior. Myrrh has been historically used as medicine in China and as part of Jewish anointing oils, and is still used to this day. Myrrh essential oil is an incredible example of the way plant based medicines connect us with history. This tree has stood where ancient Egyptians and Hebrews walked, and still stands today, sharing its healing resin with yet another era. Not all healing is sweet and pleasant, though. Myrrh is named for the Arabic word for “bitter”: murr. Myrrh’s Therapeutic Properties Chemically, myrrh oil is comprised of terpenoids. Terpenoids have a reputation as potent healers, potentially because of their role in protecting the plant from oxidative stress. As we know, this kind of stress causes cell death, and it’s not exclusive to humans. After centuries of use in aromatic and medicinal forms, science is uncovering more and more of the healing properties of myrrh oil by the day. Some of the scientifically acknowledged properties include: - Wound healing These actions have been traditionally applied to skin infections, oral health, inflammation, intestinal health, and pain relief, all confirmed in some way by modern science. (1) The more research uncovers, the more we see stress in its various states as an underlying cause of so many illnesses and discomforts. It’s no wonder that a powerful antioxidant would carry such varied benefits. And powerful it is! Myrrh extract exhibited an antioxidant effect strong enough that it can protect the liver – the “detox” organ that is bombarded with toxins every day – from oxidative damage. Not only does myrrh utilize antioxidant properties to seek out free radicals and reverse oxidative damage, but it may be able to eliminate cancer cells, as well. Researchers in China recently published their findings on myrrh’s cancer fighting abilities, after in vitro lab tests demonstrated the inhibition of cancer cell growth. (2) As with most cancer research, the steps forward toward proven treatments are detailed and difficult, but the foundation is clearly there, and the potential is absolutely intriguing! 5 Benefits of Myrrh Essential Oil So how exactly does one utilize such a powerful, ancient, even holy substance? Honestly, however you’d like! The healing properties of myrrh oil have an increasingly well-studied background, and has been demonstrated as an effective remedy in more than one category. The myriad of myrrh essential oils benefits makes it one of my favorites. Microbes are all around us, in many shapes and forms both beneficial and deleterious. When we’re thinking in terms of pharmaceuticals and traditional medicines, there are treatments for bacterial infections, another treatment for fungal infections, and still others for viruses. Instead of treating individual problems, myrrh essential oil is beneficial against a variety of microbes. Natural antivirals, antifungals, and antibacterials exist, of course, with each substance carrying its own strengths and weaknesses. A strong antimicrobial, though, may have the ability to affect more than one category of microbes. Myrrh essential oil is one such antimicrobial substance and was even successfully tested against eleven strains of bacteria. (3) 2. Wound Healing With these antimicrobial effects in combination with pain and inflammation relief, myrrh is an excellent wound healer. In an interesting study evaluating postpartum women who delivered vaginally with an episiotomy, myrrh oil in a sitz bath or soap application was actually shown to help the perineum heal by warding off the identified bacteria Escherichia coli and Enterococcus faecalis. The researchers concluded, “These findings indicate that postpartum aromatherapy for perineal care could be effective in healing the perineum.” If you plan to breastfeed, however, some indications are that myrrh may impact milk supply. (4) 3. Oral Health The mouth is a dirty place. We’re exposed to so much through our mouths, making it a hotbed of microbes and potential illness. When we do get sick, our mouths often notice first – sore throats, phlegm, and other discomforts settle in as one of the first signs of many illnesses. What’s more, diseases of the mouth and gums are all too common. According to a review conducted by Egyptian researchers, myrrh oil “is one of the most effective herbal medicines in the world for sore throats, canker sores and gingivitis.” (5) And when it is combined with frankincense essential oil, a special synergy occurs. According to a recent South African study, “Frankincense and myrrh have been used in combination since 1500 BC…When assayed in various combinations, the frankincense and myrrh oils displayed synergistic, additive and noninteractive properties, with no antagonism noted. When investigating different ratio combinations against Bacillus cereus, the most favourable combination was between B. papyrifera and C. myrrha.” (6) Utilize its antiseptic, antimicrobial, and wound healing effects by mixing a drop into your toothpaste when you brush your teeth each night. MORE ESSENTIAL OIL USES & RECIPES! For 150+ effective recipes & natural remedies, get a copy of my national bestselling book, The Healing Power of Essential Oils. Buy today to get instant access to $300 in digital bonuses (videos, guides & more) to help you learn how to use essential oils safely & effectively!HealingPowerOfEssentialOils.com 4. Antiparasitic Actions No one wants to think about parasite infestations, but what we really don’t want is to be caught with a parasite and unable to treat it. Egyptian scientists tackled this issue, as well, working with patience who had signs of parasites in their stool. Antiparasitic treatments are often harsh and come with intestinal discomfort. After testing a treatment utilizing myrrh essential oil, “no signs of toxicity or adverse reactions” were a problem and the treatment was successful. (7) This was against a specific parasite, of course, but the potential for improved treatment and even protection against infection exists! 5. Cancer Fighting Last, but certainly not least, the ability myrrh essential oil has in fighting cancer is becoming a popular topic in the industry. One of the most thorough studies on the topic was published in the journal Oncology Letters in 2013, and this is what they discovered about frankincense and myrrh oil: “The effects of the two essential oils, independently and as a mixture, on five tumor cell lines, MCF-7, HS-1, HepG2, HeLa and A549, were investigated using the MTT assay. The results indicated that the MCF-7 and HS-1 cell lines showed increased sensitivity to the myrrh and frankincense essential oils compared with the remaining cell lines. In addition, the anticancer effects of myrrh were markedly increased compared with those of frankincense, however, no significant synergistic effects were identified.” (8) Of course, no one is claiming that myrrh will cure cancer here, but as more research is conducted in this area, I hope to see more definitive recommendations on how to use it! Recommendation: For a truly Biblical combination, use frankincense and myrrh essential oils together for a synergistic blend of antimicrobial benefits!’ Notably, these two resins are generally prescribed simultaneously in traditional Chinese medicine. They are used primarily to treat blood stagnation and inflammatory diseases, as well as for the relief of swelling and pain, (8) Even though there were no synergism noted regarding cancer, “A previous study identified that the combination of frankincense and myrrh oils exhibited synergistic effects on harmful bacterial infections Cryptococcus neoformans and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.” (8)

We have 46 records for Judy Nation ranging in age from 41 years old to 80 years old. Judy has been found in 13 states including California, Ohio, Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, and 8 others. Possible related people for Judy Nation include Fred T Nation, Fred Thomas Nation, Juliette K Nation, Anita G Morgan, Daniel Lebron Nation, and many others. On file we have 15 emails for Judy including firstname.lastname@example.org, email@example.com, firstname.lastname@example.org, and 12 other email addresses. On record we show 38 phone numbers associated with Judy in area codes such as 740, 706, 256, 502, 407, and 8 other area codes. You can view more information on Judy Nation below. 46 results found for Judy Nation in 30 cities. Refine Your Results Lived In Tulare, CA 93274 Find out if Judy Nation has any important court records including felonies, misdemeanors, and traffic tickets. You may also uncover Civil Judgments against Judy Nation as well as if Judy Nation is on a Government Watchlist. Judy L Nation Judy C Nation Lived In Taylorsville, KY 40071 Judy Dawn Nation Lived In Titusville, FL 32796; Bainbridge, GA 39817 Judy Ann Nation Siloam Springs, Arkansas Lived In Siloam Springs, AR 72761 Possible Licenses Notary from Arkansas. Status: Active. Issued: January --, 20--. Expiration: January --, 20--. Notary from Arkansas. Status: Expired. Issued: January --, 19--. Expiration: January --, 20--. Notary from Arkansas. Status: Expired. Issued: January --, 19--. Expiration: January --, 19--. Judy A Nation Judy Carolyn Nation Judy A Nation Broken Arrow, Oklahoma Lived In Broken Arrow, OK 74012 Judy D Nation Judy M Nation Judy R Nation Lived In Slaughter, LA 70777; Zachary, LA 70791 Possible Licenses Responsible Vendor Server Permit from Louisiana. Status: Void. Issued: March --, 20--. Expiration: March --, 20--. Lived In Clarksville, IN 47129 Lived In Crossville, TN 38555 public records summary Judy Nation’s full report may contain information on how to contact them such as phone numbers, addresses, and email addresses. The personal information that is included in the full report could contain schools that they attended, degrees earned, and possible dates they attended the institutions. Judy's Social Media profile section may have links to their Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and dating app profiles. The Finances section of Judy's report may have a history of bankruptcies, liens, judgments, evictions, and UCC filings entered against Judy. If you suspect Judy Nation has a criminal record, you could find more information in the Criminal Records section of the report. The report may contain details on possible charges/offenses, the date the charges were filed, the court system used (civil or criminal), and where Judy may have been charged and convicted. Want Unlimited Report access to 46 people named Judy Nation?Get Unlimited Reports

We’ve had a marvellous whole day (two nights) at Lightning Ridge and loved it, but must move on, to where we don’t quite know. We did an excellent Black Opal tour with a dozen people in a small bus. The big steps were a struggle for us both! Over the duration about 4 hours, an English (Lancaster) driver both entertained and informed us, as we toured a lot of the “camps” and other notable things in this strange place. I’m very tired and can barely type. This fatigue is becoming a major problem for us both. We’ve got over 200 photos but I haven’t time to process images and write about things we have experienced. We did receive daily entertainment both afternoons at 4:30 pm by Mel and Susie, who joked, sang, delivered poetry, and did comedy, with audience participation. They are Melanie Hall and Susan Carcary. They work all over Australia, and do school workshops, and so on. They are also adjudicators at Folk and Yarnspinning competitions. We enjoyed them very much. They have a web site at: http://www.melandsusieontour.com.au/ PLEASE NOTE: Please check the <—– LH SIDE among the butterflies for further Recent Posts. Hello and welcome from Bill and Glenyce Leithhead, from Glen Waverley, SE suburb of cosmopolitan Melbourne, capital of the state of Victoria, Australia. This ‘sticky’ Header was used in 2016 as part of a Blog, recording our caravan journey as a round trip from Melbourne to Cairns and back, from July 13th, to between the middle and the end of September. We aimed to escape the cold southern winter into the warmth of the tropical northern Queensland dry season, and to see more of this wonderful country of ours. It was an excellent trip, but too tiring to keep up the Travel Blog, so I ditched it. But I’ve left this part in. And so our lives continue on … we both turn 80 in 2018, but try to keep going in the face of arthritis and other challenges to our well-being …. My wife Glenyce and I were watching a TV show which involved a personal parting under war-time pressure. The background tune was “There’s a long, long trail a-winding”, and I very, very often heard this in my early childhood. It triggered almost uncontrollable sadness, and I smothered a sob – not very successfully, and from the corner of my eye I saw Glenyce glance in my direction. During a TV break she spoke in a very caring way, which is a little unusual. She asked me what was troubling me, and I couldn’t reply, and escaped into the toilet. When I came back, sitting in a different room, she came up to me and caressed me, which is unusual, asking me again what was going on because I was still tearful. I couldn’t put it all together and give an explanation then, but over the week I’ve figured it out, more or less, and in bed last night I raised the topic. It’s to do with my feelings that I belong to a generation which is dying out, and, of course, some time my turn will come. That doesn’t concern me at all, but I want to leave a written record of what it has been like being Bill Leithhead, with my childhood experiences, career, marriage, children and grand-children. I’ve had some unique experiences, – nothing dramatic, but a wartime small boy, exposed to a social stratum and milieu which are passing away. My mother was a dance-band pianist, and I grew up in the Western Australian town of Kalgoorlie with the WW2 going on. An only child, I was often taken along to musical events in which Mum played, most often with a drummer and saxophone. Other times she just played the piano or her piano accordion alone, surrounded by people singing the old songs, especially from the First Word War, but including popular music of those wartime days. These have been imprinted into my brain. I was often tucked up in the parked car, listening to the tunes. Many of these were very sentimental, dwelling on parting, loss and destruction and the ever-present figure of death in the shadows. The local newspaper was always full of maps with arrows and symbols such as the Swastika and the Rising Sun, as well as the US and English flags – and others, of course. A week later I opened up on this topic in a chat in bed with dear Glenyce just before we were going to sleep. That’s because I had had enough time to work out what was going on in me. I’m still not sure, but it’s to do with the feeling that knowledge of the reality of those past times is painfully nostalgic for me. My generation is dying out – I see friends die out each year. And another major factor is the music of today, or rather the general type of popular music played ever since the rock-n/roll revolution, coming down to just rock and metal, and such-like, brought in by the advent of the electric guitar. Most popular tunes up to the late sixties at least had a melody, and were not so monotonous. But now, all I hear is rather simplistic music with only a few notes in the “melodies”, and a lot of repetition. That’s in general – there are exceptions of course. But this stuff is churned out in the thousands by talentless dolts who don’t sing, but just “say it”, approximately somewhere near the notes, and often don’t sing but they “yell”. Of course, I’m sounding like the stereotypical old buffer who is resistant to change. I’m in my late 70s, but can play pretty good jazz on the piano – and do the same on the drums, if necessary. Another thing that’s gone is the idea of singing around a piano, as a family, or friends, or in pubs or clubs. That’s gone, as far as I can see, and that sort of thing was so formative about my whole being, that I absolutely mourn for the cultural loss that I’m experiencing. People just don’t seem to sing together in the way I grew up with – or at least not among my family and friends. And that, dear readers, is what can render me to tears or a sob, when the triggers happen to be in some TV show or other. I’m stuck with it, but at least I understand it now. Last Saturday’s party for our Golden Wedding was, I should say, a success, in that everyone said they had a good time. My family said they had a good time. Various friends said they had a good time. I had a good time except for a series of incidents that were anxiogenic verging on panicogenic. (Yes, they are real words.) But there were moments when my worst fears were realized. The venue was ready with about 8 large, set tables. making it crowded fro the musos. I was staggering in (with help) with my gear for a digital keyboard, amp, and bits and pieces. Setting up was a problem and I dithered, and misplaced bits, and got flustered. It was quite warm, and my daughter Leanne said “Dad, slow down. Slow down. Your face is red! Would you like a glass of water?” So it showed. Anyway that was finally done, but it was surprisingly stressful. Then the bass and drums arrived, so I helped there. Let me say that I’m battling against two factors. The first is a life-long depressive illness, whereby I panic to varying degrees and give myself a hard time, verging on suicidal – in fact more than just verging. I know about it, and try to use Cognitive Behaviour techniques to manage it, and it’s much better than it once was. But the depression is still alive and well enough to potentially deprive my wife and family of my existence. Not that I’d care then, being non-existent. but I love them and that would hurt and shatter them. I don’t really want that legacy. The other is fairly severe spinal arthritis in the lumbar region. Not that here’s anything unique about that, and millions have it, but it’s permanent and continuous, with chronic back pain plus a horrible dead sensation in the legs. After 3 operations, nothing more can be done, so I take necessary pills and struggle along, but it really bloody well hurts! Pain drains my soul and robs my psyche of its clarity. People started arriving. We’d stipulated “no gifts, please”, but in came some nice picture frames, bottles of wine, a nice scarf, and so on. I left Glenyce and the daughters to help sort this out, which worked. BUT, I had written a listwhich I desperately need for a welcoming speech I’d planned, but couldn’t find it!! People milling around, drinking, chatting, and me hunting high and low for this bloody list. Glenyce discovered it on the floor under a chair I’d sat in. Duh! It was absolute hell missing that list, but I did find it, and my intro went well, I thought. But I gave myself a bloody hard time over losing it. And it fed into a general feeling of what next is going to happen. As it happens, my older son Peter made an excellent, interesting, humorous speech about us, and everyone cheered. Then it was time to cut a cake (made by Nicole), and after photos do a bridal waltz, which was OK. and so things went on – I got involved with playing jazz, and so on. But now I remember that I forgot to reply to Peter’s speech. I never did get to that, because the music took off, and after a while people started leaving in dribs and drabs and I had to do the hostly duties. Y’know, I’d worked out a speech about how we met and how it blossomed out, and how I proposed as a surprise. I took her to lunch in town one day (we both worked near the city centre). I said I needed her help to help me buy something “for the family”, and she was shocked when I took her to a jewellery store and put some rings in her hand to chose from. I had fore-warned the owner, so he was ready for us, and knew what I had in mind. So it was a really good surprise. It was also a surprise to both sets of parents, because no prior discussion had taken place. My own Mum burnt the veggies due to the distraction. But I didn’t get to do the speech. No great loss, I suspect! It was by no means conventional, and I suppose, verging on the presumptuous. Further anxiety set in when I played my first set of numbers with my trio. I had an idea what I’d do, but at the last moment couldn’t find the right music Grrr!!! “Not happy, Jan!”, is apparently an Australian vernacular saying for that, arising from a distant TV commercial of some note,, but it’s how I felt. So I stumbled through some other numbers, but it was OK, apparently. But I wanted it to be brilliant, which wasn’t going to happen. Drat! BUT I THOUGHT THEY WERE BORING!! So my well-planned speech was stillborn. Then a became quite transfixed with anxiety as I sat at the keyboard, with three different people offering me books of possible jazz numbers to play. I hope I chose wisely, but it was hard to please everyone. Look, the musos and singers were well-chosen, good players, good friends, and it all went well. many of my family and other friends hadn’t heard the musical side of me, so it turned out well. I love all of my friends who were there, and count myself a fortunate man. And I know Glenyce shares my feelings! But not without the predicted anxiety! And I used no Valium at all – just a little white wine did the trick! OK , It’s my our 50th wedding anniversary coming up, the symbol for which, we are told by the powers that be, is Gold for 50 married years. The actual date is Dec 11th, but tomorrow we’re having a Golden Wedding celebration, with about 50 people in a nice little venue with a catered lunch and free drinks for all. Except not free yours truly of course! My do, my pockets. Really happy to do so, and never thrown something like this before, so I’m a bit nervous, although I’ve played in bands for many of these in the distant past, when I did play the drums. OK – really nervous. Like – something will go wrong. I’ll forget people’s names. I’ll make a fool of myself in the speech. I’ll drop my dinner. Spill my drinks My family’s done everything – venue, invitations, RSVPs, arrangements, decorations, and so on. but I’m still nervous. Y’know, it’s as though I’m getting married all over again. Ridiculous, of course. I’m a perfectly competent 77 year old man with an academic career behind me, three successful children, four grandkids, and so on. I’m taking a bottle of Valium with me. It’s to do with music. Many of the invitees are musicians, all of whom I know and with whom I’ve played many times. I’m nervous that I couldn’t invite all that I know, because there are limits, and I had to make choices. I’m worried that someone will feel left out. God, this is annoying!! And I’m taking my digital keyboard and amp and stuff, and I’ve got a drummer mate who’s going to all the trouble to bring his kit, and a bass player, and others with instruments and yadayadayada! And we’ll play our jazz and ballads. Some will sing, and we’ll have a bloody good time, as a matter of fact. But I’m still nervous. There’s always the Valium! I’ll make mistakes on the piano. I won’t know the tunes and feel like an idiot!! None of this will actually happen, but I’m afraid it will and that’s bad enough. In fact I won’t need the Valium, because I’ll do well, and everyone will have a great time. Lots of people there will never have heard me play at all, and certainly not the jazz stuff in which I’m involved, and that will be quite an experience for them. And me. All of the musos are characters, and are very entertaining, and really good players and singers. The musos like to jam, too. And this is for people who know nothing about jazz and so on. But that’s why I’ve invited them all there at once, so they can all meet each other. The showbiz group can meet the family, and the family can meet the fungi people, and the family can meet people I went to school with, and the latter will meet some of the whole damn bunch of friends we’ve been so lucky to acquire as we pass through our lives. I’m nervous, too, because I wonder whether people will mingle easily, and introduce each other, because I certainly won’t have time to. And I ended that with a preposition, which you’re not s’posed to do but I don’t care. And I’m selfish, because I haven’t even mentioned my dear wife yet. but she’s watching me type this, and if she hadn’t, I might have forgotten about her completely. Because performance anxiety is so self-centred, isn’t it?! Typical of me. Hopelessly self-centred. Narcissistic. Like all performers, probably. And that’s OK. But it’s OK. the day will be good. Nothing will go ‘wrong’, and if it does, it won’t matter. Because life is to be lived, and “is fired at us point blank”. My performance anxiety has gone now, because I feel so much better with Glenyce by my side. (Can’t find a marriage photo on this computer!) And isn’t that what a Golden Wedding anniversary is all about? I know the anxiety will be there again tomorrow. It’s a permanent companion. Maybe, a good friend.

If you're five hours past your bedtime and still reading this, may I suggest getting some sleep? The fic will still be here tomorrow... unless, you know, something bad happens to it and the next morning there's just a 404 at this address and you're left with nothing but a fading memory and an eternal regret that you didn't stay awake longer and keep reading while you still had the chance... but hey, how probable is that? This story spreads by blogging, tweeting, word of mouth, favoriting, plugging on forums, and adding to lists; and remember, if the readers before you hadn't taken a moment to do that, you probably wouldn't have found this. If that's not enough to motivate you, then let me add that if you don't help spread rationality, Hermione will be sad. You don't want her to be sad, right? Don't forget to visit LessWrong dot com and read the Sequences, the true existence of which this fic is but a shadow. I recommend starting with the sequence How to Actually Change Your Mind. And now, with all universes owned by their respective creators, I present: OMAKE FILES #4: THE OTHER FANFICTIONS YOU COULD'VE BEEN READING LORD OF THE RATIONALITY Frodo glanced at all the faces, but they were not turned to him. All the Council sat with downcast eyes, as if in deep thought. A great dread fell on him, as if he was awaiting the pronouncement of some doom that he had long foreseen and vainly hoped might after all never be spoken. An overwhelming longing to rest and remain at peace by Bilbo's side in Rivendell filled all his heart. At last with an effort he spoke, and wondered to hear his own words, as if some other will was using his small voice. "We cannot," said Frodo. "We must not. Do you not see? It is exactly what the Enemy desires. All of this he has foreseen." The faces turned to him, puzzled the Dwarves and grave the Elves; sternness in the eyes of the Men; and so keen the gazes of Elrond and of Gandalf that Frodo almost could not withstand it. It was very hard, then, not to grasp the Ring in his hand, and harder still not to put it on, to face them as only Frodo. "Do you not question it?" Frodo said, thin like the wind his voice, and wavering like a breeze. "You have chosen, of all things, to send the Ring into Mordor; should you not wonder? How did it come to this? That we might, of all our choices, do that single thing our Enemy most desires? Perhaps the Cracks of Doom are already guarded, strongly enough to hold off Gandalf and Elrond and Glorfindel all together; or perhaps the Master of that place has cooled the lava there, set it to trap the Ring so that he may simply bring it out after it is thrown in..." A memory of awful clarity came over Frodo then, and a flash of black laughter, and the thought came to him that it was just what the Enemy would do. Only the thought came to him so: thus it would amuse me to do, if I meant to rule... There were doubtful glances exchanged within the council; Glóin and Gimli and Boromir were now looking at the Elves more skeptically than before, like they had awoken out of a dream of words. "The Enemy is very wise," said Gandalf, "and weighs all things to a nicety in the scales of his malice. But the only measure that he knows is desire, desire for power; and so he judges all hearts. Into his heart the thought will not enter that any will refuse it, that having the Ring we may seek to destroy it -" "He will think of it!" cried Frodo. He struggled for words, trying to convey things that had once seemed perfect in his comprehension, and then faded like melting snow. "If the Enemy thought that all his foes were moved by desire for power alone - he would guess wrongly, over and over, and the Maker of this Ring would see that, he would know that somewhere he had made a mistake!" Frodo's hands stretched forth pleadingly. Boromir stirred, and his voice was doubtful. "You speak fair of the Enemy," said Boromir, "for one of his foes." Frodo's mouth opened and shut in desperate bewilderment; for Frodo knew, he knew the Man was mad, but he could think of nothing to say. Then Bilbo spoke, and his withered voice silenced the whole room, even Elrond who had been about to speak. "Frodo is right, I fear," whispered the old hobbit. "I remember, I remember what it was like. To see with the Black Sight. I remember. The Enemy will think that we might not trust one another, that the weaker among us will propose to destroy the Ring so that the stronger may not have it. He knows that even one not truly good might still cry to destroy the Ring, to make a show of pretended goodness. And the Enemy will not think it impossible that such a decision be made by this council, for you see, he does not trust us to be wise." A whispering chuckle rose from the ancient hobbit's throat. "And if he did - why, he would still guard the Cracks of Doom. It would cost him little." Now foreboding was on the faces even of the Elves, and the Wise; Elrond had frowned, and the sharp eyebrows of Gandalf furrowed. Frodo gazed at them all, feeling a wildness come over him, a despair; and as his heart weakened a shadow came over his vision, a darkness and a wavering. From within the shadow Frodo saw Gandalf, and the wizard's strength was revealed as weakness, and his wisdom folly. For Frodo knew, as the Ring seemed to drag and weigh on his breast, that Gandalf had not thought at all of history and lore, when the wizard spoke of how the Enemy would not understand any desire save power; that Gandalf had not remembered how Sauron had cast down and corrupted the Men of Númenor in the days of their glory. Just as it had not occurred to Gandalf that the Enemy might learn to comprehend foes of goodwill by looking... Frodo's gaze swung to Elrond, but there was no hope there, no answer and no rescue in the shadowy vision; for Elrond had let Isildur go, carrying the Ring from the Cracks of Doom where it should have been destroyed, to the cost of all this war. Not for Isildur's own sake, not for friendship had it been done, for the Ring had killed Isildur in the end, and far worse fates could have followed him. But the Doom that had stemmed from Isildur's deed would have seemed unsure to Elrond then, unsure and distant in time; and yet the cost to Elrond himself of taking his sword's pommel to the back of Isildur's head would have been surer, and nearer... As though in desperation, Frodo turned to look at Aragorn, the weathered man who had donned his travel-worn clothes for this council, the heir of kings who spoke softly to hobbits. But Frodo's vision seemed to double, and in the shadowy second image Frodo saw a Man who had spent too much of his youth among Elves, who had learned to wear humble and stained clothes amid the gold and jewels, knowing he could not match them wisdom for wisdom, and hoping to outplay them in a fashion they would not emulate... In the sight of the Ring, which was the sight of the Ring's own Maker, all noble things faded into stratagems and lies, a world of grey and darkness without any light. They had not made their choices knowingly, Gandalf or Elrond or Aragorn; the impulses had come from the dark hidden parts of themselves, the black secret depths which the Ring had rendered plain in Frodo's vision. Would they outthink the Shadow, when they could not comprehend even their own selves, or the forces that moved them? "Frodo!" came the sharp whisper of Bilbo's voice, and Frodo came to himself, and halted his hand reaching up toward where the Ring lay on his breast, on its chain, dragging like a vast stone around his neck. Reaching up to grasp the Ring wherein all answers lay. "How did you bear this thing?" Frodo whispered to Bilbo, as if the two of them were the only souls in the room, though all the Council watched them. "For years? I cannot imagine it." "I kept it locked in a room to which only Gandalf had the key," said his uncle, "and when I began to imagine ways to open it, I remembered Gollum." A shudder went through Frodo, remembering the tales. The horror of the Misty Mountains, thinking, always thinking in the dark; ruling the goblins from the shadows and filling the tunnels with traps; but for Bilbo wearing the ring that first time not a single dwarf would have lived. And now, Legolas the Elf had told them, Gollum had given up on sending his agents against the Shire, had at last found the courage to leave his mountains and seek the Ring himself. That was Gollum, the fate which Frodo would share himself, if the Ring were not destroyed. Only they had no way to destroy the Ring. The Shadow had foreseen every move they could make. Had almost - Frodo still could not imagine how it had been done, how the Shadow had arranged such a thing - had almost maneuvered the Council into sending the Ring straight into Mordor with only a tiny guard set on it, as they would have done if Frodo and Bilbo had not been there. And having foregone that swiftest of all possible defeats, the only question remaining was how long it would take to lose. Gandalf had delayed too long, delayed far too long to set this march in motion. It could have been so easy, if only Bilbo had set out eighty years earlier, if only Bilbo had been told what Gandalf had already suspected, if only Gandalf's heart had not silently flinched away from the prospect of being embarrassingly wrong... Frodo's hand spasmed on his breast; without thought, his fingers began to rise again toward the vast weight of the chain on which the Ring hung. All he had to do was put on the Ring. Just that, and all would become clear to him, once more the slowness and mud would leave his thoughts, all possibilities and futures transparent to him, he would see through the Shadow's plans and devise an irresistible counterstroke - - and he would never be able to take off the Ring, not again, not by any will that would be left to him. All Frodo had of those moments were fading memories, but he knew that it had felt like dying, to let all his towers of thought collapse and become only Frodo once more. It had felt like dying, he remembered that much of Weathertop even if he remembered little else. And if he did wear the Ring again, it would be better to die with it on his finger, to end his life while he was still himself; for Frodo knew that he could not withstand the effects of wearing the Ring a second time, not afterward when the limitless clarity was lost to him... Frodo looked around the Council, at the poor lost leaderless Wise, and he knew they could not defeat the Shadow by their own strength. "I will wear it one last time," Frodo said, his voice broken and failing, as he had known from the beginning that he would say in the end, "one last time to find the answer for this Council, and then there will be other hobbits." "No!" screamed the voice of Sam, as the other hobbit began to rush forward from where he had hidden; even as Frodo, with movement as swift and precise as a Nazgûl, took out the Ring from beneath his shirt; and somehow Bilbo was already standing there and had already thrust his finger through. It all happened before even Gandalf's staff could point, before Aragorn could level the hilt-shard of his sword; the Dwarves shouted in shock, and the Elves were dismayed. "Of course," said Bilbo's voice, as Frodo began to weep, "I see it now, I understand everything at last. Listen, listen and swiftly, here is what you must do -" THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE With a critical eye, Peter looked over the encamped Centaurs with their bows, Beavers with their long daggers, and talking Bears with their chain-mail draped over them. He was in charge, because he was one of the mythical Sons of Adam and had declared himself High King of Narnia; but the truth was he didn't really know much about encampments, weapons, and guard patrols. In the end all he could see was that they all looked proud and confident, and Peter had to hope they were right about that; because if you couldn't believe in your own people, you couldn't believe in anyone. "They'd scare me, if I had to fight 'em," Peter said finally, "but I don't know if it's enough to beat... her." "You don't suppose this mysterious lion will actually show up and help us, d'you?" said Lucy. Her voice was very quiet, so that none of the creatures around them would hear. "Only it'd be nice to really have him, don't you think, instead of just letting people think that he put us in charge?" Susan shook her head, shaking the magical arrows in the quiver on her back. "If there was really someone like that," Susan said, "he wouldn't have let the White Witch cover the land in winter for a hundred years, would he?" "I had the strangest dream," Lucy said, her voice even quieter, "where we didn't have to organize any creatures or convince them to fight, we just walked into this place and the lion was already here, with all the armies already mustered, and he went and rescued Edmund, and then we rode alongside him into this tremendous battle where he killed the White Witch..." "Did the dream have a moral?" said Peter. "I don't know," said Lucy, blinking and looking a little puzzled. "In the dream it all seemed pointless somehow." "I think maybe the land of Narnia was trying to tell you," said Susan, "or maybe it was just your own dreams trying to tell you, that if there was really such a person as that lion, there'd be no use for us." MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS SCIENCE "Applejack, who told me outright that I was mistaken, represents the spirit of... honesty! " Twilight Sparkle raised her head even higher, mane blowing like a wind about the dusky sky of her neck. "Fluttershy, who approached the manticore to find out about the thorn in its paw, represents the spirit of... investigation! Pinkie Pie, who realized that the awful faces were just trees, represents the spirit of... formulating alternative hypotheses! Rarity, who solved the serpent's problem represents the spirit of... creativity! Rainbow Dash, who saw through the false offer of her heart's desire, represents the spirit of... analysis! Marie-Susan, who made us convince her that we were right before she agreed to come on our expedition, represents the spirit of... peer review! And when those Elements are ignited by the spark of curiosity that resides in the heart of all of us, it creates the seventh element - the Element of Sci-" The blast of power that came forth was like a wind of moonless night, it caught Marie-Susan before the pony could even flinch, and she was gone without a trace before any of them had the chance to rear in shock. From the dark thing that stood in the center of the dais where the Elements had shattered, from the scarce-recognizable void-black outline of a horse, came a voice that seemed to bypass all ears and burn like cold fire, sounding directly in the brain of everypony who heard: Did you expect me to just stand there and let you finish? Twilight Sparkle stared at the space where Marie-Susan had been, where not a trace of the unicorn remained. She - she just - she - In the back of her mind, unheard, she was aware that Rarity was screaming. That wasn't a disintegration, said the voice of Nightmare. I sent her somewhere else. Rarity's scream stopped abruptly. Twilight Sparkle felt like her own scream was only beginning. Seven. It took seven ponies to use the Elements of Inquiry. Everyone knew that no matter how honest, investigating, skeptical, creative, analytic, or curious you were, what really made your work Science was when you published your results in a prestigious journal. Everyone knew that. Could there be more than one Element of Peer Review at a time - how long would it take to find another one - and the Nightmare wouldn't just stand there and let them do it - "Where?" yelled Rainbow Dash. "Where'd you put her?" I put the little pony in the same place I bound my pathetic sister, in the heart of her pathetic Sun. "She'll die!" cried Fluttershy, staring at the Nightmare in horror. "It's too hot, she'll burn!" Oh, don't worry. The power of the Nightmare surrounds your little friend, keeping her safe and cool, sustaining her without food or drink. She will suffer nothing more than boredom... The void-black outline stepped off the dais, walking slowly, deliberately, past the remaining six ponies. ...so long as the Nightmare's power is not broken. By any backup plans my sister may have set in motion, for example, and which may be known to you. In that case she will vaporize instantly. Such a lovely thing, friendship. It makes such a wonderful instrument of blackmail. Be sure to keep safe the Elements of Inquiry. You wouldn't want anyone else using them on me, now would you? "No," whispered Twilight Sparkle, as the horror began to dawn on her. Then a crawling sensation all over her skin, as the Nightmare walked past her, and the deadly power brushed her with its cold caress. Now if you'll pardon me, my little ponies, I have an eternal night to rule over. THE VILLAGE HIDDEN IN THE CLARITY "Consider the computational power required to manifest over a hundred shadow clones," the Uchiha genius said in his dispassionate tones. "It is an error of rationality, Sakura, to say 'fluke' and think you have explained anything. 'Fluke' is simply the name one gives to data that one is ignoring." "But it has to be a fluke!" Sakura yelled. With effort, she calmed her voice into the careful precision expected of a rationality ninja; it wouldn't do to have her crush think she was stupid. "Like you said, the computational power required to use over a hundred Kage Bunshin is simply absurd. We're talking the level of a major superintelligence. Naruto's the dead last of our class. He's not even jounin-level smart, let alone a superintelligence!" The Uchiha's eyes gleamed, almost as though he had activated his Smartingan. "Naruto can manifest a hundred independently acting clones. He must have the raw brainpower. But, under ordinary circumstances, something prevents him from using this computational power efficiently... like a mind at war within itself, perhaps? We now have cause to believe that Naruto is in some way connected to a superintelligence, and as a recently graduated genin, he, like us, is fifteen years old. What happened fifteen years ago, Sakura?" It took a moment for Sakura to comprehend, to remember, and then she understood. The attack of the Nine-Brains Demon Fox. Just a small bone-white creature with big ears and bigger tail and beady red eyes. It was no stronger than an ordinary fox, it didn't breathe fire or flash laser eyes, it possessed no chakra and no magic of any kind, but its intelligence was over nine thousand times that of a human being. Hundreds had been killed, half the buildings wrecked, almost the whole village of Beisugakure had been destroyed. "You think the Kyubey is hiding inside Naruto?" Sakura said. A moment later, her brain automatically went on to fill in the obvious implications of the theory. "And the software conflict between their existences is why he acts like a gibbering idiot half the time, but can control a hundred Kage Bunshin. Huh. That makes... a lot of sense... actually..." Sasuke gave her the brief, contemptuous nod of someone who had figured all this out on his own, without anyone else needing to prompt him. "Ano..." said Sakura. Only years of sanity exercises channeled her complete screaming panic into pragmatically useful policy options. "Shouldn't we... tell someone about this? Like, sometime in the next five seconds?" "The adults already know," Sasuke said emotionlessly. "It is the obvious explanation for their treatment of Naruto. No, the real question is how this fits into the outwitting of the Uchiha..." "I don't see how it fits at all -" began Sakura. "It must fit!" A tinge of frantic emotion flickered in Sasuke's voice. "I asked that man why he did it, and he told me that when I knew the answer to that, it would explain everything! Surely this must also be part of what is to be explained!" Sakura sighed to herself. Her personal hypothesis was that Itachi had just been trying to drive his brother into clinical paranoia. "Yo, kids," said the voice of their rationality sensei from their radio earpieces. "There's a village in Wave trying to build a bridge, and it keeps falling down for no reason anyone can figure out. Meet up at the gates at noon. It's time for your first C-ranked analysis mission." (This has now inspired an extended fanfiction, _Lighting Up the Dark_ by Velorien.) ERDŐS IN CHAINS "How could you do it, Anita?" said Richard, his voice very tight. "How could you coauthor a paper with Jean-Claude? You study the undead, you don't collaborate with them on papers!" "And what about you?" I spat. "You coauthored a paper with Sylvie! It's all right for you to be prolific but not me?" "I'm the head of her institute," Richard growled. I could feel the waves of science radiating off him; he was angry. "I have to work with Sylvie, it doesn't mean anything! I thought our own research was special, Anita!" "It is," I said, feeling helpless about my inability to explain things to Richard. He didn't understand the thrill of being a polymath, the new worlds that were opening up to me. "I didn't share our research with anyone -" "But you wanted to," said Richard. I didn't say anything, but I knew that the look on my face said it all. "God, Anita, you've changed," said Richard. He seemed to slump in on himself. "Do you realize that the monsters are joking about Blake numbers, now? I used to be your partner in everything, and now - I'm just another werewolf with a Blake number of 1." "I am sick of this!" shouted Liono. "Sick of doing this every single week! Our species was capable of interstellar travel, Panthro, I know the quantities of energy involved! There is no way you can't build a nuke or steer an asteroid or somehow blow up that ever-living idiot's pyramid!" HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF RATIONALITY "Fabulous secret knowledge was revealed to me on the day I held aloft my magic book and said: By the power of Bayes's Theorem!" I am the core of my thoughts Belief is my body And choice is my blood I have revised over a thousand judgments Unafraid of loss Nor aware of gain Have withstood pain to update many times Waiting for truth's arrival. This is the one uncertain path. My whole life has been... Unlimited Bayes Works! THE NAME OF THE RATIONALITY The eleven-year-old boy who would someday become legend - slayer of dragons, killer of kings - had but one thought upon his mind, as he approached the Sorting Hat to enter into the study of mysteries. Anywhere but Ravenclaw anywhere but Ravenclaw oh please anywhere but Ravenclaw... But no sooner the brim of the ancient felted device slipped over his forehead - As the table decked in blue began to applaud him, as he approached the dread table where he would spend the next seven years, Kvothe was already wincing inside, waiting for the inevitable; and the inevitable happened almost at once, exactly as he had feared it, before he'd even had a chance to sit down properly. "So!" an older boy said with the happy expression of someone who's thought of something terribly clever. "Kvothe the Raven, huh?" TENGEN TOPPA GURREN RATIONALITY 40K I have a truly marvelous story for this crossover which this margin is too narrow to contain. (Note: Written after I heard Alicorn was writing a Twilight fanfic, but before I read _Luminosity_. It's obvious if you're one of us.) "Edward," said Isabella tenderly. She reached up a hand and stroked his cold, sparkling cheek. "You don't have to protect me from anything. I've listed out all the upsides and all the downsides, assigned them consistent relative weights, and it's just really obvious that the benefits of becoming a vampire outweigh the drawbacks." "Bella," Edward said, and swallowed desperately. "Bella -" "Immortality. Perfect health. Awakening psychic powers. Easy enough to survive on animal blood once you do it. Even the beauty, Edward, there are people who would give their lives to be pretty, and don't you dare call them shallow until you've tried being ugly. Do you think I'm scared of the word 'vampire'? I'm tired of your arbitrary deontological constraints, Edward. The whole human species ought to be in on your fun, and people are dying by the thousands even as you hesitate." The gun in his lover's hand was cold against his forehead. It wouldn't kill him, but it would disable him for long enough - JASMINE AND THE LAMP Aladdin's face was wistful, but determined, as the newly minted street urchin addressed the blue being of cosmic power for one last time, prepared to leave behind the wealth and hope he had so briefly tasted for the sake of his friend. "Genie, I make my third wish. I wish for you to be -" Princess Jasmine, who had been staring at this with her mouth open, not quite believing what she was seeing, just barely managed to overcome her paralysis and yank the lamp out of the boy's hand before he could finish the fatal sentence. "Excuse me," said Jasmine. "Aladdin, my darling, you're cute but you're an idiot, do you know that? Did you not notice how once Jafar got his hands on this lamp, he got his own three wishes - oh, never mind. Genie, I wish for everyone to always be young and healthy, I wish nobody ever had to die if they didn't want to, and I wish for everyone's intelligence to gradually increase at a rate of 1 IQ point per year." She tossed the lamp back to Aladdin. "Go back to what you were doing." (contributed by Histocrat on LiveJournal, post 13389, aka HonoreDB on LessWrong) (reposted with permission) Interloper, abandon this strange prank, which makes cruel use of the blindness of my grief, and the good heart of my good friend Horatio. Or else, if thou hast true title to this belov'd form, What drawing did I present to Hamlet King, when six years old and scarce out of my sling? 'twas a unicorn clad all in mail. Father, I will. My hour is almost come, When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames Must render up myself. Thou art in torment? Ay, as are all who die unshriven. Like every Dane this is what I've been taught. Yet I did figure such caprice ill-suited to almighty God. For all who suffer unlook'd for deaths, unattended by God's chosen priests, to be then punish'd for the ill-ordering of the world... 'twas not the world that killed me, nor accident of any kind. If thou didst ever thy dear father love, Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder. My time grows ever shorter. Wilt thou hear the tale? My love for you does call me to avenge your death, but greater crimes have I heard told this night. If all those murdered go to Hell, and others as well, who would have confess'd had they the time, If people who are, in balance, good, suffer grisly at the hands of God, then I defy God's plan. Good Ghost, as one who dwells beyond the veil, you know things that we mortals scarce conceive. Tell me: is there some philter or device, outside nature's ken but not outside her means, by which death itself may be escap'd? You seek to evade Hell? I seek to deny Hell to everyone! and Heaven too, for I suspect the Heaven of our mad God might be a paltry thing, next to the Heaven I will make of Earth, when I am its immortal king. I care not for these things. Death and hell have stripp'd away all of my desires, save for revenge upon my murderer. Thou shalt not be avenged, save that thou swear: an I slay thine killer, so wilt thou vouchsafe to me the means by which I might slay death. He who killed you will join you in the Pit, and then that's it. No further swelling of Hell's ranks will I permit. Done. When my brother is slain, he who poured the poison in my ear, then will I pour in yours the precious truth: the making of the Philosopher's Stone. With this Stone, thou may'st procure a philter to render any man immune to death, and more transmute base metal to gold, to fund the provision of this philter to all mankind. Truly there is nothing beyond the dreaming of philosophy. The man whom I must kill-my uncle the king? Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts- Indeed, he has such gifts I near despair, of killing him and yet succeeding to his throne. 'twill be an awesome fight for awesome stakes. Hast thou advice? A cock crows. Exit Ghost. (HonoreDB has now extended this to a complete ebook) (entitled _A Will Most Incorrect to Heaven: The Tragedy of Prince Hamlet and the Philosopher's Stone_) (available for $3 at makefoil dot com) MOBY DICK AND THE METHODS OF RATIONALITY (as related by Eneasz on LessWrong) "Revenge?" said the peg-legged man. "On a whale? No, I decided I'd just get on with my life." ALICE IN THE LAND WHERE THINGS ARE EVEN CRAZIER THAN HERE (as first written by braindoll in a review of this chapter, with some further edits) Alice was sitting by her sister on the bank, reading a book. She had several friends who were older, and if she just asked nicely, they were often happy to lend her books without quite so many pictures and conversations as was thought appropriate for a girl her age. Hot days often made her feel sleepy and stupid, so Alice had thoughtfully wet a handkerchief and placed it at the back of her neck. Still her mind had gone off wandering (just as if it was some little kitten whose owner had taken off her eyes for just a moment), and she had just decided that the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth around 4/3 of the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, which was nonetheless not equal to the opportunity cost of putting down her book, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her. There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor, in fact, did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!" But when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat- pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice froze in sudden clarity and fear, for she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it. "Oh bother," she said to herself (though not aloud; she had long since cured herself of that habit, as it made people take her even less seriously than they already did). "If I did not immediately recognize how much curiouser that was than the average rabbit, then something is interfering with my curiosity, and that is most curious of all." So, burning with questions, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge. WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD (thanks to dsummerstay for reminding me to post this one) MORPHEUS: For the longest time, I wouldn't believe it. But then I saw the fields with my own eyes, watched them liquefy the dead so they could be fed intravenously to the living - NEO (politely): Excuse me, please. MORPHEUS: Yes, Neo? NEO: I've kept quiet for as long as I could, but I feel a certain need to speak up at this point. The human body is the most inefficient source of energy you could possibly imagine. The efficiency of a power plant at converting thermal energy into electricity decreases as you run the turbines at lower temperatures. If you had any sort of food humans could eat, it would be more efficient to burn it in a furnace than feed it to humans. And now you're telling me that their food is the bodies of the dead, fed to the living? Haven't you ever heard of the laws of thermodynamics? MORPHEUS: Where did you hear about the laws of thermodynamics, Neo? NEO: Anyone who's made it past one science class in high school ought to know about the laws of thermodynamics! MORPHEUS: Where did you go to high school, Neo? NEO: ...in the Matrix. MORPHEUS: The machines tell elegant lies. NEO (in a small voice): Could I please have a real physics textbook? MORPHEUS: There is no such thing, Neo. The universe doesn't run on math.

By Thanda Ko Gyi Over the past 12 months, I didn’t have much time to myself. Rushing from one Myanmar Ocean Project expedition to the next, there was little time to relax and even less time to absorb everything my team and I had experienced over the course of our field trips. When COVID-19 put our plans for the rest of the season to an abrupt halt, I found myself with a scarce resource: time. I decided to take these weeks of isolation to organise my thoughts and reflect on everything that has happened in this past year. The result? I realized how incredibly proud and grateful I am for the life-changing and fun experiences I’ve had through my work with Myanmar Ocean Project. Here are three things that put a smile on my face and maybe on yours too: 1. We removed nearly two tonnes of harmful fishing gear from the ocean When we set out on our first-ever survey expedition into the Myeik Archipelago in early 2019, we had no idea what to expect. Our goal was to collect data on derelict fishing nets in as many locations as possible and research its underlying causes and impacts. But would we actually find the places, where abandoned, lost, or otherwise discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) accumulates? How many nets would our small team of divers be able to remove? 11 months, 89 dive sites, and hundreds of dives later, our team has extracted over 1,800 kg (yep, that’s right!) of discarded fishing gear from Myanmar’s beautiful underwater world. What does that mean? It means that in those places, coral reefs can thrive again without being suffocated by layers of fishing nets, crustaceans and juvenile fish can grow up without getting injured or killed in net entanglements, and fishermen should see fish populations rebound in the future. If you look at the big picture, of course, this is just a drop in the ocean. Myanmar’s ocean still holds thousands of tonnes of discarded or lost fishing gear beneath its surface. We haven’t stopped the problem at its source - yet. But we are working on it and we can already see our advocacy efforts bearing fruits. 2. I’m a Myanmar woman After having lived abroad, away from my family and culture for over ten years, I struggled to fit in culturally and socially when I returned to Myanmar. It wasn’t until I went on my first Myanmar Ocean Project expedition that I began to embrace my differences. As it turned out, the combination of my Myanmar heritage and my outsider’s perspective was an advantage. As a Myanmar woman, my interactions with the communities were not limited to formal arrangements, where social norms dictate who can communicate and who can’t. Instead, I was able to engage with everyone in a more informal manner building trusted relationships with people across different communities. One day, I’d be having my morning coffee and a retired fisherman fixing a nearby building would strike up a conversation about Myanmar Ocean Project’s work and share his thoughts on the issue of discarded fishing gear. Another day, I’d be helping out giggling Moken girls in their kitchen and end up planning a Try-Scuba-Dive for them to show them their home reef from a different perspective. In some of the communities, the locals were so welcoming it started to feel like a second home for us. I’d never have thought that my mission to explore the scope, causes, and threats of discarded fishing gear would bring me closer to my identity as a Myanmar woman but I’m glad it did. 3. Our team rocks When you’re out on expeditions for weeks in a row, spending twenty-four hours a day together, it takes a lot of flexibility and humour to work effectively as a team (and not kill each other!). I was lucky enough that every single person contributing to Myanmar Ocean Project’s work, may it be the captain, the boat boys, the volunteers from the community and villages, or the divers and researchers were nothing short of incredible. Some of our divers would be so enthusiastic to remove fishing gear I had to force them to sit out on dives to make sure they pace themselves. Our boat boys assisted our divers diligently from the surface on kayaks and put in extra hours to sort and store collected ghost nets properly. The kids in the village would await us at the pier in the mornings asking whether they could join us and help out in spotting and retrieving fishing nets. I never dreamt of being surrounded by such a dedicated, hard-working, and passionate bunch of people both below and above the water’s surface. Whenever the tasks in front of us seem overwhelming, I just look around me to find renewed motivation and inspiration. Thank you to my team and everyone involved for being part of this incredible journey! I can’t wait until we can start into the next chapter for Myanmar Ocean Project and work together towards a healthy ocean in Myanmar. By Sophie Gotthard Eight curious faces are looking at me, waiting for the briefing to start. We’re sitting in a small semicircle to prevent the roaring engine from drowning our voices. The boat just left the sheltered bay a few hours from Dawei and we’re headed towards the tiny Moscos Islands for our first Sustainable Snorkel Guide training with local tour guides. Myanmar boasts an extensive coastline stretching over almost 2,000 kilometers. In the past few years, the country has increasingly opened up to tourists. Now that tourism is on the rise, many Myanmar expats are returning home from neighboring countries to seize the moment and open tourism businesses. Given Myanmar’s unspoiled shores, abundance of islands, and stunning marine life, snorkel and dive tourism are an obvious choice for anyone looking into the country’s tourism potential. It’s time for a quick icebreaker session. Thanda introduces our team and the purpose behind this training. She asks the tour guides to talk a bit about their background. After exchanging a few shy looks among each other, one of the tour guides named Ko Thet decides to take the lead. He’s quite tall and wearing ear piercings – something you don’t see every day in Myanmar. "For the past seven years, I worked in Koh Tao, an island on Thailand’s east coast. During the day, I was a boat boy on a dive boat, at night, I was a barkeeper in a tourist hotspot“. His English is good and he greets everyone with “Hello Darling”, a phrase he picked up from his Australian coworkers in Thailand. Ko Thet is used to working on a boat and dealing with tourists from all around the globe. However, he’s never been the one holding the briefing or taking people out for a snorkel. “I really love the underwater world and I want to learn more about it. In Koh Tao, I saw that tourism could also have negative effects on the environment so I want to make sure I do a good job in my country and keep the coral healthy.” In many countries, tourism is one of the most important sources of income. Worldwide, the tourism industry accounts for almost 300 million jobs. There are many examples of tourism bringing development and opportunity for locals. Take the world-famous dive site Pulau Sipadan in Malaysia as an example. You can walk around this tiny island in less than 15 minutes, yet it attracts thousands of tourists looking for pristine marine life and big schools of pelagic fish each month. These tourists require transportation, accommodation, food and drinks, dive operators, and so on. Locals that used to fish to provide for their families now have a range of tourism-related jobs to get involved in. Unfortunately, there’s also a dark site to marine tourism. If managed unsustainably, tourism can destroy the very things it is based upon and turn colorful coral gardens into sandy deserts. In Pulau Sipadan things almost took a turn for the worse too. After the dive site was discovered, unregulated marine tourism pushed the boundaries of the precious marine ecosystem. Burdened by careless divers, snorkelers, and increased boat traffic, coral reefs deteriorated. In 2005, the Malaysian government put a stop to this development by establishing a Marine Protected Area (MPA) and strictly limiting the number of visitors per day. Since then, tour operators are encouraged to practice responsible marine tourism. Sipadan’s reefs have been slowly recovering. Sipadan is known for its big schools of jackfish and barracuda. In Myanmar, marine tourism is just starting out. Therefore, training local tour guides around the coastal areas is a great opportunity to encourage marine-friendly tourism. Some basic rules include anchoring without damaging corals, teaching proper snorkeling technique to avoid kicking sand or coral, preventing marine pollution, and briefing tourists not to touch or take anything. We finish the introduction round and are stunned by the diverse backgrounds of the guys around us. Some of them used to work in mining or construction, others in bars. One of them is studying law. Ko Htike, a wiry, quiet man, whose whole face brightens up when he smiles, is a fisherman. He’s used to spending long hours out at sea, but he decided to protect the marine environment from overfishing and instead show its beauty to tourists from all over the world. Everyone listens carefully to what we say. I’m surprised and happy that everyone is so eager to learn new things. After about an hour we reach the first island. A dense, green jungle is covering the terrain, gently sloping down and opening up into protected little coves with unspoiled beaches. It’s stunning. We start our briefing with some basic things guides should be aware of when taking out customers on a reef trip. What should you organize before and during the trip, how do you give a proper briefing and how can you protect the coral throughout the tour. When we finally get into the water we're greeted by massive coral bommies covering the ground. Sadly, we encounter only a few fish. Some of the guys actually haven’t used snorkel gear before, so we start by setting everyone up and making sure they know how to use the gear properly. Although it’s not common to learn swimming in Myanmar, most of the guys are already good swimmers. We start to practice duck diving with snorkel and fins. This will help the guides to point out marine life to their customers. We keep practicing and I’m happy to see how keen everyone is to improve their technique. We get back on the boat and drive to the next spot. Some snacks and a little debrief later, we have arrived at the next site. This time we’re concentrating on the different fish species. There’s more life around this spot, so we’re taking a waterproof slate to refer to the marine life we're encountering. A few beautiful Moorish Idols are passing by. A white-orange striped clownfish is hovering over his anemone protecting it from intruders. A moray eel is sticking its head out of a crevice. Now we can use our new skills and duck-dive down to have a closer look at the things we see. The reef seems relatively healthy, but I discover some areas with early coral bleaching and point it out to my fellow guides. After another hour we leave for our last destination of the day. It’s another stunning bay, but as soon as we get into the water, we discover a big fishing line. We follow it along the reef. It seems endless and is entangled in many different types of corals. We take turns diving down to safely remove the line without damaging the reef. Quite the task with such a long line! In the end, we emerge with a whole bunch of nylon ropes. Now the guides also know how to remove fishing nets or lines without breaking off any coral. Time flies and suddenly the captain says we have to head back to the mainland before it gets dark. The next day, we continue our training with a workshop on marine life and threats to the ocean. Ko Thet asks us whether we’ll be back for more training sessions. “I’d really love to try scuba diving as well. I’ve never had the chance in Thailand”. We’re excited everyone wants to learn even more and feel encouraged to hold more trainings for tour guides along the coast. Yes, we’ll be back – maybe even with some scuba diving equipment. But for now, we’re headed to our first cleanup expedition further out in the Myeik Archipelago! By Mirja Neumann Ghost gear. What does this ominous term stand for? It refers to any type of fishing gear that’s been left behind by fishing boats - accidentally or on purpose. On our cleanup missions, we mainly find fishing nets, ropes, and lines, but we’ve also encountered some traps. Ghost fishing is what happens when these nets or lines are let loose in the ocean and continue to do their job without an owner. Invisible to fish, these ghosts catch whatever crosses their path. Given that their lifetime can reach up to 600 years depending on the material, this is a big problem. But why would a fishing boat drop its nets in the first place? Nets get stuck on rocks, coral, or other underwater structures, which prevents fishermen from pulling them back onboard. Nets rip and hence lose their value for the fishermen so instead of carrying the extra weight back to shore, they dump them in the ocean. Strong currents sweep away nets. Heavy catches make it impossible to haul them in. There are many reasons and therefore many nets in the ocean. Ghost nets are one of the biggest threats to marine life worldwide. Yet, unlike consumer plastics that end up in the ocean they’re not talked much about. Underwater, out of sight, out of mind. As divers, we’ve seen hundreds, no thousands of them. They’re everywhere. Some places look like fishing gear graveyards. It’s a topic that needs to be addressed. You need to be aware of it because it will affect you at some point as well. Here’s everything you need to know about this silent killer in the ocean. 1. It kills marine life. Big time. Once fishing nets are torn away, lost, or abandoned, they drift around in the currents until they get stuck somewhere or have collected enough organisms to sink to the bottom under their weight. Ghost nets suffocate, drown, maim, and starve hundreds of thousands of marine animals including turtles, sharks, mantas, and whales each year without being of any use to the fishing industry. In fact, an estimated 90% of species caught in ghost nets are of commercial value to fisheries. Since the cycle of killing can continue for decades, you can imagine the economic losses it causes. Corals, the base of the maritime food chain, are also affected by ghost nets. When nets settle on top of sensitive habitats such as coral or seagrass beds, they can damage the tissues of the organisms and smother whole underwater landscapes. Since the nets travel with currents for long distances, they can also spread parasites and invasive species, which cause great harm to marine ecosystems. To sum it up, ghost gear is one of the most lethal threats to a healthy ocean. If the pollution through ghost gear continues at its current rate, fish stocks will be depleted with severe consequences for local communities as well as the fishing industry. 2. It contributes to the world’s plastic crisis. A few decades back, fishermen mostly used gear made from biodegradable materials like cotton, hemp, or wood. In the early twentieth century, the invention of synthetic fibers changed the fishing industry dramatically. Handcrafted cotton nets were replaced with non-biodegradable, durable, lightweight nets made from plastics. Today, the majority of fishing nets consist of nylon. While the strong, light nets ease the immediate burden on fishermen, they pose a great threat to marine life, the fishing industry itself, and seafood consumers. Why? Synthetic fishing nets take decades, some parts even hundreds of years to decay. Every single net that found its way into the ocean may be floating around the ocean without an owner, silently killing and maiming marine life for its entire lifetime. Once the nets start breaking down, the small particles or microplastics are ingested by fish, shellfish, coral polyps, and other marine creatures. If the amount of ingested microplastics doesn’t kill the organisms from the inside, it gets passed up in the food chain and ends up on our plate. We’ve all heard about the massive garbage patches, where ocean trash gets rounded up by the currents. A recent study suggests that roughly 46% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch consists of lost or abandoned fishing nets. With a whopping 640,000 tons of nets added to the mix each year, ghost nets are the single biggest contributor to the ocean’s plastic crisis. 3. It spoils tourism. Despite its fatal consequences for the fishing and seafood industry, ghost nets also affect people trying to make a living off tourism. Beachgoers, snorkelers, and divers want to see pristine shorelines and bustling coral reefs, not dead coral gardens and oceanic litter. Additionally, nets can damage boats by entangling propellers and anchors. Cleaning up ghost nets is a costly and time-consuming investment that not everybody can afford. However, if nets are not cleaned, tourists don’t return and the financial loss for the tourism industry gets even bigger. 4. There’s no magical cure to it. How amazing would it be if some genius just invented a cure to make this problem go away? Unfortunately, the odds for that happening are extremely low. Recovering ghost nets from the ocean as we do in our expeditions around the Mergui Archipelago is only a short-term solution to save local marine environments. There’s more organizations like ours helping to remove ghost gear from the ocean in other parts of the world. However, we need to tackle the root of the problem to make a difference. Ghost fishing mostly takes place in the middle of the ocean. Some fishermen, island communities, and tourists may come across it, but the majority of people will never see the problem with their own eyes. Bringing this issue to the public’s attention through reporting on the scope of the problem is the first step to finding a sustainable solution. Strict regulations for the disposal of fishing nets would be the next, obvious attempt to tackle the ghost gear issue. The problem is that commercial fishing predominantly takes place in the open ocean, in international waters, which makes any sort of regulation and enforcement extremely difficult. A few local governments have worked on this issue, but it requires all stakeholders to come together, agree upon appropriate measures, commit to enforcement and set aside a budget to actually make progress. Achieving this will take a long time. Too long. So what can you do on a personal level? Despite supporting organizations and individuals that spend their day working on this issue, you can help us spread the word about ghost gear. If you’re a seafood lover, you can make an effort to eat seafood that’s been caught sustainably. That means inquiring about the area, where the fish has been caught and finding out about the fishing technique as some fishing gear is more destructive for the marine environment than others. By Sophie Gotthardt Our boat is gently rocking side to side with the rhythm of the waves crashing against it. The sky is clear and the late afternoon sun gives everything a golden glow. I can already see that the sunset will be beautiful, but right now we’re racing against the clock. We’re in search of something big. “We’re not far off!”, yells the captain. His voice is almost completely drowned in the clattering sound of the engine. We’re standing on our boat’s roof, trying to counterbalance the vessels swaying movements while covering our eyes from the blinding sun with both hands. Everyone is watching the movement of the water closely, looking for any clues about what might be awaiting us below the surface. Sunset is getting closer and we’re running out of time. Diving with strong currents is one thing, but doing so while it's getting dark can be dangerous. We’re on a treasure hunt. Our mission is to find a big, submerged pinnacle, in fact three of them in close proximity - a place only a handful of local fishermen are familiar with. But why do we need to find this particular spot? The goal behind our expedition to the Mergui Archipelago is to survey and identify ghost net hotspots. That means we’re looking for sites, where discarded fishing nets get entangled and endanger marine life. So what does that have to do with our mysterious pinnacle? Once a net gets dropped into the ocean it floats with the current until it gets stuck somewhere, possibly on a rock, a coral bommie, or a pinnacle. The pinnacles we’re searching for are located right in between the open ocean and an island channel, where currents get really strong because big water columns are squeezed through a small area. The currents carry anything from driftwood, plastic trash, and fishing nets into the open ocean. Our pinnacle rising up from the ocean floor is one of the few obstacles for drifting matter to get entangled. Why are nets stuck on a random pinnacle a problem? Strong currents don’t only bring lots of trash and nets. They also bring a staggering amount of marine life. Currents carry plankton and larvae from many places, leading to high biodiversity and wide gene pools wherever they pass by. Pinnacles in particular offer a rich substrate that corals, sponges, and other marine life use to form nurseries, which are, in return, a safe shelter for larvae and juvenile reef fish. Healthy and diverse reefs help to sustain the food chain for bigger predators like trevallies, groupers, and sharks. In addition, pinnacles in the open ocean offer a rest stop for big pelagic fish like manta rays and whale sharks. Pelagic species like oceanic manta rays or sharks use these oceanic oasis for getting cleaned by cleaner wrasses in what we call a cleaning station. In other words, pinnacles in the open ocean are often teeming with marine life. Therefore, ghost nets can cause a great deal of harm in these spots. Imagine a big nylon net getting stuck between two underwater pinnacles. The net will undoubtedly injure and kill lots of marine life without being of any use for the fisheries themselves. Over time, it will reduce not only the biodiversity of the ecosystem but also the catch of fishermen in the area. How are we helping? Removing nets from biodiversity hotspots, like our pinnacle, is, of course, only a short-term solution. The long-term goal must be to protect the area and prevent ghost nets from ending up in these places. It is by collecting data and proving the existence of a biodiversity hotspot for threatened or endangered species like the oceanic manta ray that we can make a difference. Establishing Marine Protected Areas (MPA) can help to put a stop to unsustainable fishing practices and make the health of Myanmar’s ocean a priority. “I think there might be something over here!“, Ben shouts through the engine noise pointing northeast. The surface looks perfectly flat, a sign for upcoming water. Not too far from the same spot, the water appears choppy - a sign for a downward current? A quick look on my dive computer tells me that we have to jump in right now or we’ll miss our chance. We put on our gear, set our compass towards the direction of the suspected pinnacle, and jump in. Gripping onto the anchor line we slowly descend into the unknown. The visibility is poor and the ocean floor is still too far off to see. The current is dragging us south. 18 meters and still no sign of life. The water underneath us remains pitch-black like a starless sky at night. 20 meters and still nothing but darkness. Maybe we’re in the wrong spot after all? I’m looking back to check on my dive buddies. I can tell that Thanda is in between curious and concerned. Finally, we’re hitting the ocean ground. 31 meters. Everyone seems relieved that we reached the floor. We follow our compass heading and we find ourselves in an underwater desert decorated with a few whip corals, but not much life despite that. We slowly push our way forward into the unknown. Suddenly a school of yellow-tail fusiliers appears - a good sign that we are getting closer to a reef. Now I also start hearing the crackling sound of a busy reef. Still following the disappearing fusilier school I catch the sight of another passing school - a bigger one. The crackling sounds get louder. I turn around to look at my buddies. They seem just as excited as me. We’re onto something. Thanda gets her camera in position. A huge barracuda school appears and starts circling us. They slowly start forming a tornado and we’re in the middle of it! I almost burst out laughing. The barracuda school vanishes as quick as they appeared and opens the view to something much bigger - the pinnacle. We finally made it! After exploring this hidden paradise for a bit, the sunlight disappears. The sun has set. We have to ascend. Everyone is excited about our discovery. In just one dive we had the pleasure to observe lionfish, surgeonfish, filefish, boxfish, parrotfish, pufferfish, butterflyfish, moorish idols, scorpionfish, pilotfish, big trevallies, fusiliers, barracudas, big groupers, and many more. We even spotted a potential cleaning station with five cleaner wrasses waiting for their next patient. We’re certain our pinnacle gets way bigger visitors passing by than groupers. And just as we’re about to leave this magical site, two mobula rays show up on the surface dancing with each other as if they wanted to reassure us. We're sad to leave already, but one thing is for sure: We’ll be back! By Sophie Gotthardt Two girls are sitting in the cushioned car seats between compressor, tanks, and other dive equipment aboard our self-proclaimed dive boat. A former fishing boat, the wooden vessel offers just enough space for our team to travel around the Mergui Archipelago, where we conduct our survey and cleanup missions. The boat has quite a big roof, perfect for storing our daily catch: discarded fishing nets. Today is not about retrieving ghost nets from the ocean though. We’re taking two girls from the village on their very first scuba dive. After holding a presentation about our project, Thanda asked the group if anyone would be interested in experiencing their home reef from a whole different perspective - as a diver. At first, no one dared to volunteer. A few girls exchanged shy looks and giggled. “We’ll give it some time”, Thanda said. “I’m pretty sure at least one of the girls will try it.” The next day, Thanda entered the kitchen while the 17-year old Htar Htar Linn, a half Moken half Myanmar girl, was cooking. “Would you like to try scuba diving?”, Thanda asked straightforward. She replied with a hesitant smile: “Yes, I'd like to. Can I bring my friend?” Fast forward to the next morning and the two girls are sitting here with us, trying on the dive equipment for the first time. Every time I catch a glimpse of one of the girls they smile and start giggling. They don’t speak English, so Thanda is translating everything I say. The boat engine stops. We’ve arrived at the other side of the island and are parked in safe distance from the shallow coral gardens in front of the Moken village. Htar Htar Linn and her friend Kin Lah, another Moken girl, laugh and say something in the Moken language that even Thanda can’t understand. The Moken, often referred to as sea gypsies, are a group of about 3000 semi-nomadic people who live and work around the 800 islands of the Mergui Archipelago. They spend the majority of their lives out at sea. Over the generations, they have collected a tremendous knowledge about the ocean that helps them to live in harmony with nature. Dependent upon the sea for their survival, overfishing, pollution, and climate change heavily affect their lifestyle. Today, many of them live in villages and instead of selling fish to consumers directly, they end up selling to bigger fishing fleets that export much of the catch to Thailand. After a detailed briefing about the gear and underwater safety, we get everyone’s equipment ready and jump into the crystal clear water. Both girls are confident in the water. It’s easy to see they grew up surrounded by the ocean. Two little boys, no older than six, paddle by in their tiny nutshell. They point at us and laugh. This is probably the first time they’ve seen divers. We must look quite silly to them in all our gear. Moken people have fascinated researchers from all around the globe. Like the Sama-Bajau nomads from the southern Philippines, who can hold their breath for up to thirteen minutes, Moken are believed to have genetically adapted to life at sea. A study revealed that they can see twice as clear underwater due to a reflex that closes their pupils when diving down instead of opening it. Until now, Htar Htar Linn and Kin Lah have only been freediving. They can hold their breath for a very long time. For scuba diving, however, it is very important not to hold your breath and continue breathing in and out at all times. I’m watching the two teenagers take their very first breaths underwater. They look a bit spooked and excited at the same time. A few breaths later, the girls feel more confident and we are ready to go deeper. Thanda and I split the girls in between us so we can both look after them one-on-one. I’m with Htar Htar Linn, who swims remarkably fast and quickly wants to take the lead. I’m holding onto her tank to make sure she doesn’t slip away while we explore the reef. We’re only at about 3.5 meters of depth and surrounded by stunning, healthy coral. I point out three different types of branching Acropora coral just next to a massive Poritidae bommie. Considering the size of these coral bommies, they must be at least a hundred years old. I also spot my favorite coral, the Euphyllidae - or bubble coral - named after their grape-sized blobs. In the deeper end of the reef, we see many different sized Fungiidae, the mushroom coral, covering the sandy bottom. I’ve dived many different sites around the world, but I’ve never seen this species grow this big! About forty minutes later we make our way back to the boat. The girls are still pumped with adrenaline discussing their new experience with each other and laughing. Shortly thereafter they get picked up by a boat that takes them back to the village. They joke around with the boat boy. Without a doubt, they have something over all the boys in the village now! While we’re headed to the next site for a survey dive, I’m day-dreaming about the first two Myanmar-Moken girls becoming certified divers and exploring the beautiful coral gardens of the Mergui Archipelago. Maybe on our next visit!

July 28, 2013 PEACE THAT PASSES UNDERSTANDING There are lots of things that I don’t understand. I don’t understand how electricity works. I don’t even understand how to ask how it works. I don’t understand how aspirin works. How does the aspirin know whether you have a headache or a backache? How does it know where to go? I don’t understand how airplanes work. I always expect them to fall to the ground, but they don’t. Let me try one out on you. How do you pronounce this word? P-O-L-I-S-H. How many of you first thought “polish”, like polishing your car? How many of you first thought “Polish”, like someone from Poland? I don’t understand that. I don’t understand women. Actually, I do understand women, but I pretend I don’t. I do not understand how people can be cruel to animals, or children, or even to other people. I do not understand the pictures I see from some foreign countries, with people starving to death in front of the camera. In a world where some governments have paid farmers not to grow food, how can there be starving people – either overseas or here in the United States? I do not understand the pictures I see of homelessness in our own country, or of violence and rioting in other countries. There’s a lot that I don’t understand. Sometimes when we’re faced with things we don’t understand, we wish that things were simpler. We wish that things were easier. We wish that things were a bit slower paced. We may say, “Wouldn’t it be great if everything was like the good old days. Wouldn’t it be great if we could just turn back the clock to a simpler time when we didn’t have the problems that we have today.” Of course there is no such time. Back in the 1960’s they didn’t have some of the same problems that we have today, but they had others that we don’t. I suspect in the 1960’s people were saying wouldn’t it be great if everything was like the good old days, before all these hippies, and if everything was simpler, back before we had all these interstates. In the 1960’s, there were probably people who felt pretty good about the 1920’s. In the 1920’s you could probably find some folks nostalgic for the 1890’s. And in the 1890’s… well, you get the picture. Wherever you are in history, the past can look better and the future can look scarier. The past looks simpler, the future looks harder. We can understand the past, because we’ve all got 20-20 hindsight. We cannot understand the future, because we don’t really know what it’s going to be. One thing about the future is sure – someday, sometimes, somewhere, somebody will say, “Boy, life was a lot simpler back in 2013.” That’s a little scary, I know, but I am sure that it’s going to happen. I’ve got some news for you. Back in the good old days there were problems. Let’s take a look at the good old days – let’s go a couple of thousand years back to the early church. What do we find? A problem. Euodia and Syntyche were not getting along. We don’t know why, we don’t know what the trouble was, but we do know that it was serious because news of the disagreement had reached Paul in prison. And so Paul writes to try to settle things between the two women. Even in the early church, even with people around who had known Jesus Christ personally, even under the discipline of the apostle Paul, there were problems, there were disagreements, and there were misunderstandings. How did Paul tell these women to deal with their misunderstandings and find peace? How do we deal with the things we don’t understand – not the silly stuff like aspirin but with the things that really trouble us? How do we deal with people that we don’t get along with or that we don’t understand? There’s one phrase that Paul keeps coming back to in this section of Philippians – one little set of words that he repeats over and over. See if you can spot them. Verse 1 – “So then, how dear you are to me and how I miss you! How happy you make me, and how proud I am of you: – this, dear brothers, is how you should stand firm in your life in the Lord.” Now verse 2 – “Euodia and Syntyche, please, I beg you, try to agree as sisters in the Lord.” And finally, verse 7 – “May you always be joyful in your union with the Lord. I say it again: rejoice.” A more familiar translation says, “Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say rejoice.” Did you catch the phrase repeated in all three sections? “Stand firm in your life in the Lord.” “Agree as sisters in the Lord.” “Rejoice in the Lord.” In the Lord. Paul says that it is only in the Lord that we can begin to understand the world around us. It is only in the Lord that we can begin to really love other people. It is only in the Lord that we can begin to deal with the things that we don’t understand. I listen to talk radio every once in a while, but after a half hour or so, no matter what the political perspective of the host, I become convinced that people simply will never get along. After the anger and the hostility, after hearing people being rude to each other and interrupting each other and putting each other down, after I listen to the disrespect and maybe even the hatred that some of these folks hold for those who disagree with them, I wonder if people can ever really get along, can ever really understand each other. But then I think about my first congregation as a pastor. The Church of the Brethren is one of the historic peace churches. The Brethren as a denomination teach that all war is sin. Period. The Brethren have taught that Christians do not participate in war. Christians do not serve in the military. Christians do not help prepare for war. That’s the historical teaching of the Brethren – war is sin. Period. My first congregation as a full-time pastor was the Lower Miami Church of the Brethren, near Dayton, Ohio. The largest single employer of folks at that congregation was the nearby Wright Patterson Air Force base. We also had a couple of people in that congregation who were very public peace activists. Sometimes members of the congregation reporting to work at the base would see other members of the congregation protesting and holding signs outside of it. Now if those two groups got together on the Rush Limbaugh show, I guarantee that sparks would fly and Rush would fan the flames. But those two groups of people got together every Sunday, right there in the sanctuary, and at Bible studies, and at carry-in dinners, and at weddings and funerals, and no sparks flew. No dirty looks were exchanged. No fingers were pointed. In fact, those folks did not see themselves as separate and distinct groups. Within the church, they saw themselves as brothers and sisters. They prayed for each other, they laughed with each other, they helped each other, they loved each other. In the church, folks that most people would try to pit against each other worked together. They did not see themselves as separate and distinct groups because they weren’t. They were Christians. They found unity in the Lord. When we recognize our unity in the Lord we begin to understand each other. We begin to see the things we have in common – our sinfulness, our weakness, our pride. And we begin to see the good things we share in common – our faith, our willingness to serve, our desire to follow God, our concern for others. We can see these things that we share in common, and we begin to understand each other. When I focus on God, when I live “in the Lord” as Paul would say, there’s one other thing that I begin to understand. I begin to understand that I will never understand. I will never understand why some people and nations choose to do wrong and evil things. I may have some guesses, I may have some insights, I may have some ideas, but I will never completely understand why people willingly choose to do wrong. I will never understand why some people reject God’s gift of love. If it were a free gift for their birthday, these same people would be ripping the paper off. If it were a coupon for a free meal, they’d be at the restaurant checking the menu. If it were an interest free loan at the bank, they’d be putting together their personal financial statement. But the free gift of grace and forgiveness from God is rejected. The free gift, the free sacrifice of God’s son is not believed. I will never completely understand that rejection. And I will never completely understand the gift itself. Why God, God who created the heavens and the earth, God who led the Israelites out of Egypt, God who did so much and gave so much and got so little in return, why God would take human form as Jesus and die on a cross I will never understand. Why God offers me love and care and grace and the Spirit I will never completely understand. But I don’t need to understand to say “yes.” I don’t need to understand to accept the gift. I don’t need to understand to feel forgiveness, to claim God’s mercy and grace and peace. I don’t need to understand to receive Christ into my life. What I do understand is that when I start to live in the Lord I will be able to love and care for other people that I might never have thought about before. What I do understand is that when I live in the Lord I am a new creation. And I understand that the rest of it passes understanding. May we each one understand God’s call in our lives and how we can respond. May we each understand what it means to live in the Lord. Amen.

I FEEL compelled to respond to the letter “Capitalise on MCKK Brand” (The Star, May 3) on the modelling of national schools on the Malay College Kuala Kangsar (MCKK) and/or privatising MCKK to achieve greater heights. The article resonated with me as I am part of the stigma. My children are in international school although that wasn’t the plan. I am a product of the national school system. My eldest child was meant to enrol in a national school. National schools are incubators for national integration, where the myriad cultures, populations and languages represent the melting pot we call Malaysia. Or so I thought. My daughter’s incoming class comprised two Indians, zero Chinese or other races, and 197 Malays. For a school 4km away from KLCC, I pray that it wasn’t a true reflection of the country’s education system. And I made the decision to pull my daughter out of the school and never looked back. Prof Datuk Dr Ahmad Ibrahim attributed the increased enrolment in international schools to a multitude of factors, most of which relate to responsible parents. My own personal reason, however, was slightly unique: I desired for my children to appreciate diversity and celebrate the differences. International schools allow children to grow and learn beyond the academic-centric syllabus and to be “themselves”. The students are not defined by their race, religion, grades or strict academic milestones. Instead, they are taught to be proud of individual achievements no matter how small. Difference in cultures and religions are celebrated; school-level Malaysian festivals are part of the calendar that students look forward to and participate in actively. Co-curricular activities are mandatory to instil the confidence that excellence is beyond the classroom. Three languages (Malay, English and Mandarin) are part of the syllabus, giving students an earlier introduction to the intricate yet real fabric of this country. It is almost narcissistic perhaps to think that such values and qualities that prevail in international schools are prevalent in MCKK for it to be a model school. After all, MCKK was meant to groom selected Malays (elites) with a system designed to maximise the opportunities available to them all the way to tertiary education to jump-start their careers. Assuming this, however, would make us complicit to the real issues. Educational institutions established before independence – Penang Free School, King Edward VII Taiping, Victoria Institution and MCKK just to name a few – transcend politics and changing government policies. It took decades for the internal development of ingrained culture in the schools and the students to occur, and the early stages of the development were heavily influenced by British administrators who put heavy emphasis on holistic education beyond traditional classroom, grade-based achievements. Alumni from any of these prestigious educational institutions will affirm that what they learned in school is beyond academics (after proudly declaring their school affiliation, of course). They were groomed to value diversity and differences. They were taught that for Malaysia to progress, world-class politicians, corporate captains, teachers, and public officers were as essential as brilliant academics, scientists and doctors and that the skills and personalities to be honed for each were different. The most valuable player for the school in winning the state rugby tournament would be celebrated as much as the student achieving straight As in the SPM examination. Aspiring school-level speakers and debaters would receive similar support from the school as its best academic students. Success and achievements came in different forms and the students charted their own path. Above all, they were taught that any team could only progress so far if they were divided. Leadership, teamwork and cultural integration were essential components of the experience. The camaraderie established transcended petty squabbles – a source of countless jokes when reminiscing – which became parlayed to greater significance two to three decades later as the students matured to become industry leaders and ministers. This is what we should emulate for the future of our children. If privatisation of schools in the country is what it takes, so be it. Yes, I am an old boy of the Malay College Kuala Kangsar and I say that with pride. IKRAM ISKANDAR ABD RAHIM Did you find this article insightful?

One year since I cut up my credit cards, closed my Bank Accounts and change the way I look at out our monetary system. Today, is somewhat the unofficial date in which I undertook that great step into a world unknown and feared by almost every person in the Western world. We are adapted to the world of Banking and the concept of capital. We now place value on everything with the common currency and regulate ourselves in such away that we must profit or gain in the sum of this capital. To step away from that, for most, this would be unthinkable. We would question this move as we can only function with the use of these financial institutions. I say, bull-pucky! Read on…. I never could understand how I could own something, and yet, never truly own its value and worth. I could never understand why I would need to pay for my labour credit (money) and use it to purchase material goods based on it’s value and vice versa and not the value that I put into it. Why does every transaction carry a fee… why not just give me my cash: no fees, no specail interest or no holds? Why I would need to go to a separate company or corporation to obtain my money for a small fee? This perplexed my in so many ways. As of this day one year ago, I decided to put my money where my mouth was and make that great plunge and practised what I preached. So far the results have being mixed. The arrangement I have made have come under fire for the Bank that my employer uses for financial services. It has being a battle for them to give me cash from their Bank currency and exchanging it into cash. It is like going to the dentist and getting a tooth pulled. They get pissed, to put it mildly. I used the Bill of Exchange Act and the Bank Act in Canada to pressure them into giving me my cash. The threat of going to court is to heavy a price for them to deny me of my right under law. My employer cuts my a cheque, at great reluctance, and I cash it a their local cheque cashing outlet. No account necessary, and fees! I realize that this may not be the case for all. However, with that minor set back, life goes onwards. With learning the value of cash, I have done many things that are now considered old fashion and out of date. With Banks pushing for everyone to move towards credit cards and electronic money, I still get moved to the head of line-ups when the ATMs(Automated tellers Machines) are down and point to point Banking machine are slow or cards are damaged. In the end of the day, I feel more in touch with my financial lifestyle. I save in far more basic ways than what the Banks want you to do. I have cut off contact with credit companies and other financial outlets. And I watch very carefully as to what is going on in the news regarding new legislation and law in this money industry. I now have money to spend. I know how rediculious that sounds, but it is true. I have money to spend, not dredit and debt! About a month ago now, I was sent in the post, a credit card application. I was appalled that after going to court over two years ago and winning, that they would even consider such a thing. I promptly sent the application form back with a copy of my personalized reply form. On it, it says that I morally believe that their service are wrong and that they are morally corrupting the Canadian people with their goods and that I support the criminalization of all credit institutions for their bad business and practises. So, I hope to encourage all of you who read this to throw away your credit cards, pay off your debts and walk away from Banks. Buy only with what you can afford. Live by this simply logic: “If you don’t have the money for it, then you cant afford it.” Such a simple yet powerful statement. You can do it. You don’t need credit to live your life. Be free, stay free and spend free–pay yourself first!

Book review: 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, by Yuval Harari. Yuval Harari joins Steven Pinker and Jordan Peterson in proposing lessons to grapple with the challenges of this century. Based on the success of his past two books many are awaiting Harari to tell us how to avoid past mistakes and navigate our future. Harari writes with flamboyance and vivid turns of phrase and offers many interesting observations and smart details. His clever writing almost obscures the logical shortcomings of his arguments. Behind his style of cool logic and balanced evaluations Harari’s message is an incoherent polemic that verges on the nihilistic and bizarre. Sadly, not a single one of Harari’s 21 lessons stands up to serious scrutiny. Harari’s first logical shortcoming is an old fallacy: extrapolating future problems from the present. Harari’s take on the future reminds me of one of my first classes in business school. The professor cautioned us that had we listened to the predictions of 19th-century American business prognosticators – who extrapolated from the problems they faced – we would fear the rapid buildup of horse manure as the biggest obstacle to further urban growth. In a similar vein, Harari assumes that we will remain on auto-pilot and that increasing convergence of big data, artificial intelligence (AI), social psychology algorithms, and large networks will lead to unprecedented elite dominance, manipulation of our feelings (and elections) and mass unemployment. The problem with this argument is that historically unanticipated developments have usually disrupted auto-pilot outcomes. The advent of computers also saw the creation of hackers. The discovery of antibiotics was accompanied by the identification of viruses and then of bacteria that became antibiotic resistant. New technologies also led to new jobs. Whoever heard of a social media manager in 1980? Harari himself naturally claims that he does not wish to see the elites oppress everyone (page 80). But he seems to think that this time we won’t have much choice. Harari’s second logical shortcoming is another cliché of doomsayers: his insistence that our presumed future problems are radically different from anything we have ever faced. Harari argues that AI, cyborgs, bio-engineering (and elite control thereof), climate change, and nuclear war are game changers – and these are indeed profound challenges. Yet, there is another case to be made: new technologies and elite control, environmental damage, and war are as old as humanity itself. Ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamia elites jealously guarded expertise like writing and astronomy as priestly knowledge. Modern industrialists tried to monopolize machine technologies from competitors and workers by force. Pre-industrial societies such as Easter Island (among others) authored their own ecological collapse. And ancient warriors like the Mongols killed 40 million people – one of the deadliest episodes in history. But the elites across human history were never able to stay in control. People sold or stole the patents. They also fought to create societies that applied values and laws that stopped such concentration. Humans have also learned from technical mistakes – DDT and CFCs once ubiquitous are now illegal. Harari himself sees regulation – as the means to keeping elites in check. Yet he strangely implies that these solutions have nothing to do with past lessons. Harari’s’ third logical shortcoming is that nothing of past human civilization is relevant to our future. Harari insists that everything from nationalism, liberalism, to all religions – except perhaps Buddhism – are useless in addressing our current predicaments. His logic could not be more circular: all contemporary problems are in his view either technical problems, policy problems, or identity problems (page 128). Since Harari claims that because neither religions nor past ideologies have anything to say about technical problems or policies and only worsen identity frictions they are irrelevant. While Harari just states his opinion as fact, many historians view the laws and values of major religious traditions and modern ideologies like liberalism as the very forces that led to progress against elite domination, war and destruction. Take the Bible: it rejects elite power by applying the law to everyone and by forbidding property monopolies via the jubilee years. Other Mesopotamian laws which unlike Biblical laws they were based entirely on the status of the victim and the perpetrator – a distinction Harari fails to make (page 189). No wonder, as even Foucault admits, the Bible was the major source of truth to power since the Middle Ages. In what is possibly his most bizarre chapter, Harari argues we need a new definition of justice because the command not to steal does not apply “when the global system is ceaselessly stealing on my behalf without my knowledge” (page 228). I fail to understand his logic. Why not advocate for carbon taxation, investment in clean technologies, and the application of criminal, environmental, and labor laws in all countries? Instead the solutions Harari offers are entirely rhetorical. Harari’s fourth logical shortcoming is his insistence that all of human civilization consists of stories of equal fictitiousness. The logical problem with Harari’s use of the word stories/fictions started in his book Sapiens, in which he refers to money, corporations, to nations, religions as fictions. Yet fiction is usually defined as “a pretense that does not represent actuality but has been invented.” It is hard to get on Harari’s train of thought and include everything on his list as fictions. Money, for example, is a representation of a bill of payment – and therefore a contract. Liberalism is a set of values, laws, and relationships. Neither are fictions like mermaids or Harry Potter. Moreover many of the ideas Harari calls stories are derived from practices in reality. Money seems to have originated from barter of useable goods evolving to the exchange of goods for something of enduring value (precious metals, salt), to bills of payment in lieu of coins. Where Harari sees fiction; I see the development of a more sophisticated tool. As to liberalism – the story which in Harari’s words “cherishes human liberty as the number one value” and leads to humans wanting to have a say in politics and in their own lives (page 44) – it too seems to be pretty ingrained. Exerting one’s will and independence is something we see in two-year-old children. Liberalism simply ensures the natural desire for liberty through a social contract. Nothing is gained from calling so many things stories other than a rhetorical sleight of hand. And what is lost is the crucial difference between rational descriptions of the world and of human relationships with stories used for political ends. I worry that if everything is a story unmoored from reality and experience, many will again feel free to create real fictions – like racial superiority, godly birth, or an elite class – as the sign that they deserve to oppress and dominate others. It is these dangerous fictions that the major religious traditions and ideologies Harari so despises opposed with their universal application of the Golden Rule. Harari’s wonderful writing style obscures the incoherence, polemical nature, and nihilism of his message. Harari writes with wit and offers many interesting examples. We are given keen observations about the history of war – Kamikazes were the first guided missiles. But under the veneer of a mature message of humility and skepticism is a huge amount of waffling and incoherence. We are told religion has been totally nefarious (pages 126-139) but then also inspires compassion (page 201). Post-truth is a feature of all of humanity (page 236), but then commitment to truth is a defining feature of secularists (page 212). Despite the semblance of analytic distance and fairness, Harari’s’ book has the features of a polemic – mainly directed against religion, though culture gets hit as well. For example, Harari defines secularism as everything that is good: truth, responsibility, compassion. As to whether Stalin was secular Harari writes: “Whether one should view Stalin as a secular leader is therefore a matter of how we define secularism.” (page 212) When you stack the deck, you usually win and Harari does a lot of deck-stacking. He also makes outrageous generalizations like “ to the best of our scientific knowledge none of the thousands of stories that different cultures, religions, and tribes, have invented throughout the ages is true” (page 283) or “European civilization is anything Europeans make of it […] (page 96). And gives reductionist accounts like people believe this nonsense because it gives them identity and makes them feel a certain way (page 284). Harari’s existential nihilism – especially in its Buddhist form – would be worthy of debate, if he did not couch it in such grandiose assertions. Assert it and they will come seems to be his motto. For all people concerned with where we are going in the 21st Century, I believe we should take another look at time-honored morality and texts. Harari’s chapter headings are perhaps the most valuable part of the book. Yes, we need to talk about equality, post-truth, meaning, justice, work, belief, fiction and reality. But with his simultaneously incoherent, polemical, and manipulative claims, Harari also does not deliver. For thoughtful readers, I would suggest going back to the very traditional texts that Harari dismisses. The Bible’s 10 big lessons are a good place to start. Scott A. Shay is the author of In Good Faith (Post Hill Press, September 2018) and is the Chairman and co-founder of Signature Bank of New York.

Simon Stanley searches for the best lunchtime bargains in District 1. Photos by Simon Stanley and Jonny Edbrooke. If you’re chained to a desk or simply trying to save cash – or, in my case, both – making lunchtimes count can be a chore. Since the day my favourite bun cha wagon disappeared from outside our apartment building, my midday ritual has become a lacklustre cheese sandwich eaten at my desk over YouTube videos. Whether time or money is your enemy, I fear I am not alone in my solemn routine. Here are five affordable lunch options that beat watching cats do the ‘Thriller’ dance any day. 79/2/5 Phan Ke Binh, Dakao, D1 08 62 710 115 // Lunch Mon to Sat 12pm – 2.30pm Decibel and its weekly movie screenings, open-mic nights and free food events may be the worst-kept secret in Dakao but its two lunchtime deals are news to the evening crowd. The VND 90,000 Western menu offers either a sandwich, a salad or a pasta dish with a soft drink thrown in, while the real bargain lies in their popular daily rotations of homemade Vietnamese cuisine, priced at VND 49,000. Poached pork in coconut juice and caramelised chicken with ginger are among the highlights but bun thit nuong cha gio is always on the menu. Order up and you’ll be presented with a giant bowl of noodles and beautifully grilled pork, fresh greens and piping hot spring rolls, a worthy rendition of the dish. 26 Ngo Thoi Nhiem, D3 08 39 300 233 // Set lunch Mon to Fri 11am – 3pm With its killer margaritas, party-like atmosphere and some of the best Mexican food in town, you may well have promoted Khoi Thom to the ‘only for a special occasion’ list but its weekday lunch menu could change your mind. Thirteen dishes are available across three price levels, starting from VND 110,000. Freshly-made tacos are a highlight – the Baja-style fish quickly ranks among my top five meals in Saigon. Alternatively, opting for a plump burrito or torta will set you back VND 125,000 with a salad included. For the ravenous, four main-course favourites come in at VND140,000 each. At these knockdown prices you’re onto a winner already, but Khoi Thom also throws in free flow soft drinks, including homemade lemonade, and a choice of Mexican desserts or fresh fruit. 1st Floor, 77B Ham Nghi, D1 09 09 368 201 // Lunch Mon to Fri 11.30am – 1pm Blending Parisian cafe stylings with old Saigon charm, La Rotonde could be one of the prettiest spots in the city. This cool, breezy loft space of whitewashed brick, tropical greenery and antique photography is the ideal place to lose yourself for a few hours. But visit during a weekday lunch hour, however, and things are a little livelier. With a buffet lunch on offer for VND 65,000, it’s not surprising that La Rotonde is packed to its extremely high rafters. In addition to ‘all you can eat’ salad, rice and vegetables, one main meal is included from a rotating list of up to eight, including shrimp in chilli sauce and a Chinese sausage omelette. Robata Dining An 15C Le Thanh Ton, D1 08 38 225 329 // Lunch 11am – 2pm In terms of quality, portion size and variety, Robata’s extensive lunch menu is one of the best deals you’ll find on Le Thanh Ton. With most dishes hovering around the VND 100,000 mark, this authentic Japanese open-kitchen diner serves everything you could think of, from a mixed tempura and rice (VND 90,000) to steaming bowls of pork ramen (VND 100,000). At VND 150,000, the beautiful 13-piece assorted sushi platter is a steal. Overflowing with generous morsels of freshly prepared seafood, everything on the platter is flown in each morning from Danang. A long wooden bar allows for a relaxed atmosphere, ideal for solo diners, while the private booths upstairs provide a more intimate experience. Truong Dinh Lunch Lady Corner of Truong Dinh & Vo Van Tan, D3 Lunch 11am – finished Escape the air-conditioning and lunch al fresco like a local. Every weekday morning, two local ladies build a sprawling Vietnamese buffet restaurant right on the pavement of Truong Dinh. With a beaming smile, the proprietor offers a plate heaped with rice, inviting diners to construct their meal from a series of roughly 15 metal serving trays, each containing a separate dish. Several varieties of fish are lined up alongside potatoes, green beans, cabbage, mushrooms and grilled tofu, but it’s their speciality fried chicken that really makes this spot worth a visit. Meaty and flavoursome with a crisp skin and plenty of seasoning, it’s obvious why the tables are soon full and a line of hungry office workers has formed up the street. Plates start at VND 25,000, with each portion of meat or fish costing an additional VND10,000. Arrive early or it may all be gone. Published March 2015 – AsiaLIFE Vietnam

Where are you going to watch the Xavier-Providence game? It's obviously not going to be at Cintas, since the game isn't being played there. You could watch it at your house. I don't know what your setup is; maybe it's awesome. Or you could watch it with some of the coolest Xavier fans around. Who is coming out for the @XU_Xtreme_Fans viewing party tonight?! 2$ domestic drafts, 3$ craft beers, 5$ pizza, and so much more!— Ryan's Pub (@Ryans_Pub) January 22, 2015 Did you read that last one? There's going to be "so much more!" I'm too old and too not in Cinci to have my finger on the pulse of the cool kids at Xavier, but this is definitely the kind of thing that is awesome.

I would like to give a big welcome back to all of our members, old and new, for what is hoped to be a steady return to normality! Our exciting plan is to start by establishing 'group hubs', and you will see some pictures below where this has already started to take place. Please be assured that all of the required systems (such as facemasks, distancing and sanitising) will be in place to help prevent the risk of Covid-19 infection. The transition from hub training to training in individual detachments will take place at a point in the future when it is safe to do so. Each Company has its own schedule so, if you have not yet been contacted by your Detachment/Hub/Company admin, please be patient - they are working as hard as they can to make their reopenings happen successfully and safely. In order to achieve this, I would ask you to assist our organisation by ensuring that your contact details are up-to-date, as there are still some restrictions on room/building capacity so attendance lists may need to be prepared in advance. Plans for residential events are already being drawn up, including training weekends and this year's Annual Camp (subject to the predicted progression on the Government's 'Road Map'). These can only take place if we - the cadets and Adult Volunteers of Yorkshire (N&W) ACF - work together to make them happen, and I am in no doubt that that will be the case. I hope you are all looking forward to your return, and I personally look forward to seeing you all over the next few months. Good luck and stay safe. Colonel Jim Greenlee, Commandant, Yorkshire (N&W) ACF

Pat Narduzzi has filled the coaching vacancy on his staff and is turning to someone that he has plenty of familiarity with. According to The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman, Pitt will be hiring Ryan Manalac as its new linebackers coach. The 35-year old was most recently the defensive coordinator at Bucknell and has a long history with Narduzzi as he played for him at Cincinnati and then served as a graduate assistant for him at Michigan State. Feldman says that Manalac is “considered a rising star in coaching.” Manalac was born in Pickerington, Ohio and was a linebacker at the University of Cincinnati from 2005-08. Following his time with the Bearcats, Manalac joined the Buffalo Bills as an undrafted free agent in 2009. After two seasons, he then decided to get into the coaching profession. The first stop in Manalac’s coaching profession was as a graduate assistant and operations assistant under Narduzzi at Michigan State from 2011-15. From there, he moved onto Valparaiso in 2016 as their linebackers coach. The following season, Manalac was hired as the defensive coordinator at Ohio Dominican in 2017 and then became the defensive coordinator at Bucknell in 2019. Manalac is replacing long-time Pitt linebackers coach Rob Harley, who accepted a position as defensive coordinator for Butch Jones and Arkansas State.

Sarcasm alert: This piece is dripping with it and, if you’re not careful, will ruin your clothes. Grumpy Old Teacher (GOT) really should have thought of this years ago. How much easier his life would have been and how far fewer the many, many hours he has put into teaching would have been. Why struggle the entire year to cram an overloaded curriculum into a short-circuited school year? Why sweat out the pacing guide that says a 13-year-old child will outrun a racehorse over the course of nine months? Why put in 10 or 11 or 12 hours a day, arriving at school two hours before the first bell rings and staying until the last child who has come for after-school help has to leave? All it takes is one simple opt-out form given to parents at the beginning of the school year with all the year’s topics listed. Check off everything you don’t want your child to learn in Algebra or Geometry. Proofs are hard? Check it off. GOT will excuse your child. Too many defnintions to learn? Check off half the topics on the list. It really doesn’t matter which ones; pick them at random. But your child will only have to do half the learning. Theorems? Schmeorems. Check off the ones you don’t want taught. GOT will respect your orders. In return, his long day will dwindle into those obscenely-short, but in the contract, hours that makes teaching the laziest job in the world. In fact, even during those must-be-on-property hours, GOT can finally, finally … HALLELUJAH! … become that tired cliche that never really existed and sit at his desk, feet up, cup of tea in hand (GOT is not a tea drinker, he loathes the stuff unless it’s on ice, but let’s not spoil a long-held false idea that namby-pamby, liberal teachers don’t drink real American beverages like coffee) reading the newspaper. They still print newspapers, don’t they? All because the world of education has become one of parents checking off a list of what children should learn. Father knows best, amiright? Amiright? AMIRIGHT? Let’s time-travel back to the 1950s, a decade of segregation, a decade of long-faded TV shows that featured no black people, a sterile world of white-people-only … Go ahead and make checks on that list. GOT double-triple-dog-dares you. An end-of-year bonus awaits GOT. When the test scores come in and are atrocious, the administrators, state inquisitors, and district staff like the assistant deputy nepotistic washes-the-board’s-cars-on-the-weekend in charge of raising test scores superintendent show up, all GOT has to do is pull the forms out of his desk. The parents opted out.

From the region’s earliest days, the Cuyahoga River has been both a thoroughfare and an obstacle. A means of crossing it that didn’t obstruct late 19th Century river traffic posed a dilemma. Zenas King contributed to the answer by founding a company that built three major bridges across the Cuyahoga River. King was a native of Vermont, born in the farm community of Kingston in the spring of 1818. He worked as a farm laborer until the age of 21 when he moved to Milan, Ohio to become a building contractor. Health issues lead to a career change, and he began to study the design and construction of iron bridges as early as 1858. He moved to Cleveland in the early 1860s. He established in 1871 the King Iron Bridge and Manufacturing Company in Cleveland, and shrewdly located his plant on a railroad line—greatly facilitating the shipping of bridge components to job sites. King was responsible for several innovations in bridge design and became renowned for his sales and marketing ability. He established a network of agents to seek bridge building contracts and by the 1880s King Bridge and Manufacturing was the largest manufacturer of highway bridges in the United States. By the time of King’s death in 1892 his firm had constructed thousands of bridges across the United States. The three bridge he built in Cleveland were innovative and well-designed in bridging the east and west banks of the Cuyahoga. The Center Street Swing Bridge taken from the American Courage freighter with the Detroit-Superior bridge in the background. King Bridge built the Center Street Swing Bridge at Center Street and Merwin Avenue, the Central Viaduct which extends from West 14th Street to Carnegie Avenue, and the Detroit-Superior high level bridge (Veterans Memorial Bridge). Built in 1901, the Center Street bridge is a rare example of a bobtail swing bridge—meaning the bridge pivots from one end rather than the center. This design was important in this location because of the necessity to avoid a pier that would obstruct the river channel. The bridge deck is 350 feet long by 24 feet wide. Watching the bridge in action is fascinating—an alarm rings, the gates descend, and the deck begins to turn to a position parallel to the river. The movement is rapid and carefully balanced, functioning reliably almost 125 years after completion. The bridge is about to undergo an $8.6 million maintenance and renovation to insure its safe operation far into the future. The Central Viaduct was the earliest of the three King bridges, having been constructed in the late 1880s. It was a steel structure positioned approximately where the Innerbelt bridge is located now. On a dark night in 1895 it was the scene of a terrible accident when a safety interlock failed—resulting in a streetcar filled with late-night commuters plunging without warning into the river and drowning 17 people. The Central Viaduct was in bad condition by the early 1940s and was condemned and scrapped to supply steel for the war effort. King Bridge’s most notable project is the Detroit-Superior Bridge. The 1878 Superior Viaduct had reached obsolescence by the 1910s, with its swing section a constant source of aggravation as the bridge closed for at least five minutes each time a ship passed by. Detroit - Superior Bridge, shows streetcar travelling across lower deck. The new Detroit-Superior bridge formed a graceful arch that rose high above the river and posed no obstacle to river traffic. An unusual aspect was the streetcar tracks that ran below the bridge’s deck. This feature included passenger stations at each end—all of which closed in 1954 when streetcars disappeared from Cleveland streets. The Detroit-Superior bridge was under construction for five years, ending with its dedication on Thanksgiving Day 1917. The bridge cost $5 million to build a century ago. The equivalent cost today would be approximately $85 million. Over 3,000 feet in length, the bridge was built outward from each bank, the structural steel being joined in the middle. While the two halves of the bridge failed to align exactly, this was anticipated and easily adjusted with winches and cables as the last rivets were set in place. When the new bridge was completed, the Superior Viaduct was no longer needed. Explosives were used to bring down the offending swing section, ending an era in Cleveland history and transforming the remnant of the old bridge into a relic. Representing two different technologies and approaches to bridge design, the surviving King bridges remain in excellent condition in daily use more than a century after they were built.

If your children have ever come down with mono, you know it can be a harrowing experience. The symptoms are difficult to handle, and your child may have to stay home from school. Unfortunately, the US estimates between 200 and 800 cases of mono per 100,000 young adults occur every year. I wanted to know when I could send my kid back to school after they’d been diagnosed, and thought that others might as well. Your child should not go to school if they have mono. They are contagious until around five days after their fever breaks and other symptoms, such as fatigue, body aches, sore throat subside. Before this, keep your child home from school if they have mono. Mono can last for days, weeks, and sometimes even months. There are many facets to this disease, so let’s take a look at what mono is and when you can send your child back to school. - Can My Child Go To School With Mono? - What Is Mono? - Mononucleosis Symptoms And Diagnosis - How Serious Is Mono For My Child? - Is Mono Contagious? - When Can My Child Go Back To School? - What If My Child Has Been Exposed To Mono? - Mono Prevention Tips - Related Guides - Final Verdict Can My Child Go To School With Mono? It’s best to keep your child home if they have mono, and for the first five days after having a fever. The virus can be contagious during this time. It is less likely that someone will get the disease from being around someone with mono after this time. It’s best to keep your child away from other kids until their fever has been gone for five days. It’s up to the doctor and the school if they will allow sick children back into class after this time. Sometimes it takes longer than five days before the doctor knows if someone can return to school. Your child may be able to go to school while they still have mono but only at the discretion of their doctor. Be sure to check with them as well as the school if you want to send your child back to school after mono. What Is Mono? Mono, or mononucleosis, is an infectious disease caused by the Epstein-Barr virus. Mono is called ‘the kissing disease’ because it is spread through saliva. Of course, you don’t have to kiss someone to get mono. You can spread it by using the same drinking cups, water bottles, or utensils. According to the Mayo Clinic, you can expect to see signs of mono between 4 to 6 weeks after exposure. For this reason, it’s difficult to track down the source. Younger children usually aren’t diagnosed with mono. Mono-like symptoms in this age range are usually due to other causes. Instead, it’s common in teenagers and young adults. People between 15 and 19 are commonly infected. As we’ll examine below, adults are rarely infected due to previous exposure and immunity. Is Mononucleosis A Bacterial Infection Or A Virus? Mono is a virus, which means that antibiotics aren’t effective. Sicknesses caused by bacterial infections can be cured quickly with antibiotics, but viruses must run their course. Mononucleosis Symptoms And Diagnosis It may be difficult to diagnose mono at first. This is because it has many of the same symptoms as common colds or the flu. The Center for Disease Control lists the symptoms of mononucleosis as: - Swollen lymph nodes - Swollen liver or spleen - Sore throat - Body aches As you can see, many of these symptoms are the same as a standard cold. Doctors will usually test for mono, but you may have to ask if you have doubts. The test is a standard blood work panel, so prepare your child for that. After a mono diagnosis, your child should stay home from school and isolate from other kids. How Serious Is Mono For My Child? For most children, mono will seem like a long, miserable cold. However, the enlargement of the spleen may become a more serious issue. Even after symptoms subside, their spleen may remain enlarged. If this is the case, they should avoid any trauma to the spleen (including contact sports). The spleen could rupture or bleed if any strain is placed on it. This is the only long-term or dangerous problem that may arise from mono. If your child’s spleen or liver is enlarged, their doctor may focus on treating that organ specifically. Otherwise, antibiotics are useless against mononucleosis. It’s a virus, so antibiotics may make it worse. Instead, the CDC recommends treating mono with rest, fluids, and pain relievers. Fever-reducing over-the-counter medications can help your child feel better during the worst days of their mono infection. Your child’s infection can last for weeks or months, though their fever shouldn’t last that long. Make sure to keep in contact with their doctor and keep track of symptoms. Is Mono Contagious? Mononucleosis is contagious, especially during the fever period. During this time, your child shouldn’t go to school or interact with other children. While mono isn’t as contagious as the common cold or some other communicable diseases, it’s still dangerous. While it doesn’t spread as easily, it still spreads. To avoid other children becoming sick, make sure to keep your child isolated while they are contagious. It’s hard to keep mono from spreading due to the nature of the virus. How Long Is Mono Contagious For? There are some reports that mono isn’t contagious for long, but experts disagree. In an article reviewed by Elana Pearl Ben-Joseph, MD, KidsHealth states that mono can be contagious as long as symptoms last. This can be anywhere from 2 weeks to several months. Mono is difficult for your child, and they may feel sick for a long time. To avoid spreading the sickness, keep treating your child for mono even as the symptoms (listed above) subside. Can I Catch Mono From My Child? There is a very small chance that you may catch mono from your child. Most adults are immune to the virus due to exposure as a child. Whether you were infected or not, chances are you carry the virus – which makes you immune to it now. Mono can spread among siblings. This is why isolating an infected child is important. It’s unlikely to spread to adult family members, including uncles, aunts, parents, and grandparents. When Can My Child Go Back To School? Here’s the answer everyone has been waiting for. It may be hard to keep your child home due to work schedules and other concerns. However, the reality is that the longer you keep them home, the better. The standard for sending your child back to school is usually about 5 days after their fever has stopped. Their other symptoms (as listed above) should be gone as well. However, every child is different. You should consult with the school and your child’s doctor before deciding to send them back to school. Do I Need A Doctor’s Release To Send My Child Back To School? Some schools require a doctor’s release. To make sure, check with your child’s school beforehand. They will let you know what they need to allow your child back into class. In the meantime, they will probably allow you to pick up coursework and homework for your child. Getting a doctor’s approval is the best route to go, however. It may not be easy for parents to determine if a child is still contagious, so consulting a professional is best. What If My Child Has Been Exposed To Mono? Mono has an incubation time of about 1-2 months. If your child has been exposed to mono, stock up on an over-the-counter fever reducer, fluids, and other supplies. There is a chance that your child won’t get mono, even if they have been exposed. It’s up to your child’s immune system. Just be aware that they might have contracted the disease. Because it takes a while for symptoms to start, just do your best to be prepared. After exposure, your child isn’t contagious. Doctors seem to agree that children are only contagious as long as they are showing symptoms. They can still go to school and may never need to take time out. Mono Prevention Tips There are a few ways you can prevent your child from contracting mono. Mostly, these are the same rules that apply to other contagious illnesses. However, there are a few unique tips for protecting your child from mono. Encourage your child to avoid sharing eating utensils, drinks, and food with friends. Of course, not everyone has mono or is spreading it. The only sure way to keep your child from catching mono is to ensure that they are never exposed. This means making sure they know not to come into contact with someone else’s saliva, including kissing and sharing water bottles. Avoid Contact With Active Mono Patients It sucks that your child may not be able to see their friends for a while. If their friends have mono, it’s important that they stay away. Since it is so easy to spread, it’s important that you don’t send them to see their sick friends. As stated above, it’s generally okay for your kids to see their friends again after the symptoms pass. Healthy Immune Systems If you are worried about your child getting sick, you should protect their immune system. There are a ton of natural immune system boosters (including garlic, zinc, and echinacea). If you aren’t sure where to begin, there are plenty of resources online. Even if your child has been exposed, a healthy immune system can prevent infection. Get Enough Sleep And Eat Well Diet and sleep are important for keeping us healthy. Make sure that your child is eating right and getting enough sleep. This can help protect them against mono and other sicknesses. If they aren’t getting enough exercise, encourage them to get moving. All of these tips require proper communication. Make sure you explain the need for sleep, healthy eating, exercise, and a strong immune system. Mono may not be life-threatening in most cases, but it is a long and miserable disease. - How Long Can a Child Be Out of School When Moving - Can a Child Live in a 55+ Community - How Old Does a Child Have to Be to Choose Mono is not fun for anyone involved. Always consult your child’s doctor to determine if they are ready to return to school after mono. Doctors generally allow children back to school if their fever and other symptoms have been gone for at least 5 days. To prevent mono, make sure to avoid contact with infected people. Don’t drink or eat after people who may have been exposed. My name is Keren Tayler. I am a work-at-home mama to three lovely girls, Sarah + Rachel + Hannah. I have been blogging for the last 5 years. I worked for other mom blogs, did hundreds of product reviews and buyers’ guides. Prior to that, I was a staff accountant at a big accounting firm. Needless to say, researching and numbers are my passion. My goal is to be an informative source for any topic that relates to mom’s life and homemaking.

Writer and director Dee Rees (Pariah, Bessie) and Virgil Williams have adapted Hillary Jordan's acclaimed 2008 novel for the screen. She has incorporated the literary device of telling the story through six narrators, giving us varied accounts of the racial hatred and violence in the Jim Crow South of the 1940s. Laura McAllan (Carey Mulligan) has married late, escaping an old maid’s life with her family in Memphis. She and her husband Henry (Jason Clarke) have moved to Mississippi Delta to start a new life. She describes their home: "When I think of the farm I think of mud. Encrusted knees and hair. Marching in boot shaped patches across the floor. . . . I dreamed in brown." Henry, a former engineer, is delighted to have his own land and throws himself in the farm work with the sun beating down and the hard ground barely yielding to the plow. He oversees several tenant farmers, including an African-American family headed by Hap (Rob Morgan) and his devoted wife Florence (Mary J. Blige). Although they have worked this land for years, the law recognizes “a deed, not deeds.” Hap’s family are sad and worried when Ronsel (Jason Mitchell), their oldest son, is dispatched to Europe as a member of the 71st Tank Battalion called the Black Panthers. When he returns home after World War II, he is unhinged by the challenges of readjusting to civilian life, especially the virulent racism in town. Much to the surprise of both men, Ronsel is befriended by Jamie (Garrett Hedlund), Henry's brother who has just returned from serving in the Air Force. Unable to talk to anyone else about their war experiences, the white airman who drinks too much and the earnest African American stand by one another as racial tensions accelerate in the community. Dee Rees has done an exquisite job drawing out the nuances in this ensemble piece. Perhaps the stand-out performance is by Rob Morgan who portrays the head of the Jackson clan. Besides his duties as a hard-working farmer, a wise and emotional father, and a sensitive husband, he serves as preacher at a half-constructed church. He has learned to walk the delicate balance of maintaining his dignity while acquiescing to the realities of life for people of his race and station. He tells his son, “There’s no point in fighting. They are just going to win anyway.” Mudbound is an insightful history lesson that shows how southern whites, threatened by changes they perceived in their world, turned African-Americans into scapegoats for all their troubles. The film sounds another call to resist any acceptance of the terrible scourge of racism during both past and present times. The creative people behind this cogent and hard-hitting drama want us to come face-to-face with the dehumanization and bigotry of racism and its violent offshoots which isolate people from each other and destroy communities. There is a flicker of hope and grace and love at the end of Mudbound, and we appreciate this needed gesture of hope amid the troubling and deflating picture of the toll of hatred and division.

When it comes to operating systems, there’s no more important company than Microsoft. For years now, the software giant has been dominating the OS landscape around the world. And with nearly every release of its operating system, it has been able to improve upon its preceding launches. If nothing else, Microsoft understands the operating system space, and knows how to be successful in that market. But Microsoft Windows 7 was arguably one of the most important launches in Microsoft’s long and storied history. After launching Windows Vista, the market rebelled against Microsoft. Vendors allowed for “downgrade rights” to revert a computer back to Windows XP. Consumers didn’t opt for Vista as much as the software giant would have liked. In addition, the enterprise practically ignored Windows Vista. It was bad all around. With Windows 7, Microsoft fixed that. The operating system is what Vista should have been in the first place. And now that Microsoft has confirmed it’s the fastest-selling version of Windows ever released, it’s clear that consumers are happy with what they’ve found this time. Even so, Windows 8 is just around the corner, and rumors are swirling about the upcoming operating system and what it will feature when it’s likely released next year. Although details are relatively slim for now, one thing is for certain: Windows 8 will be even better than Windows 7. 1. It improves upon a nice operating system. Windows 8 will not be a major update. Instead, the operating system will simply improve upon Windows 7. As mentioned, Windows 7 has been a hit among consumers and enterprise customers. From what’s known about Windows 8 so far, it’s clear that Microsoft doesn’t want to fix what isn’t broken. Windows 8 will look awfully similar to its predecessor and boast many of the same features. It will simply be an improvement over an operating system that already appeals to customers. 2. The security keeps improving. With each subsequent operating system release from Microsoft, the company has improved security. After Service Pack 2 was released, Windows XP was quite secure. And although Vista faced some pitfalls at first, Service Packs helped secure that OS, as well. Windows 7 is arguably the most secure version of the operating system yet. As long as Microsoft continues along that path-and it will-expect Windows 8 to be even more secure than its predecessor. 3. The ARM compatibility is key. At the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said the next version of Windows would support ARM-based devices. That is extremely important. Now companies that want to sell products using an ARM chip have the opportunity to use Windows. Not only could this move help Microsoft and its vendor partners, but it might also deliver more options for customers who want to use Windows. It’s a win-win. 4. An application store, perhaps? Speculation abounds that Microsoft plans to release an application store with Windows 8. If it does so, it will put its operating system on an even playing field against Mac OS X Snow Leopard and the upcoming “Lion,” which will ship with the App Store built in. The future of desktop operating systems will include applications marketplaces. And it’s nice to hear that Microsoft is willing to acknowledge this. Reasons Windows 8 Will Best Windows 7 5. Instant-on is what’s needed. One of the biggest issues some users have with Windows is that it can take a long time to boot up the operating system. According to recent rumors, the software giant is working on a solution for that that could deliver near-instant-on functionality. It might not seem major, but considering how annoying it can be to wait for Windows to boot up, having much faster startup times sounds awfully nice. 6. It might be more suitable for tablets. Microsoft has been saying for years now that its operating system is ready for tablets. But as vendors have shown, they’re more likely to invest in an Android-based tablet than try their luck with Windows 7. Thanks to support for ARM-based devices, and the likelihood that Microsoft is working hard on making Windows 8 more tablet-friendly, consumers should expect many more mobile devices running the software giant’s next OS. 7. Better power consumption One of the issues with Windows 7 is that it doesn’t deliver the kind of efficient functionality that consumers and especially enterprise customers are after. However, leaks surrounding Windows 8 development suggest that Microsoft is working on a vastly improved power-saving feature in its operating system that should drastically improve battery life on mobile devices running the software. If that’s true, there will be many happy customers out there. 8. What’s with History Vault? Windows 8 might have a new feature, called “History Vault.” According to Winrumors, the feature is similar to Apple’s Time Machine, which provides a simple backup interface to users of Mac OS X. Microsoft’s option will let users restore individual file, edit old documents and much more. Microsoft hasn’t confirmed the feature, but if a robust backup utility like that comes to Windows, it would be quite nice. 9. A better interface Windows 7 comes with a solid user interface that doesn’t take much time to get used to after coming off Windows XP. And although Microsoft hasn’t said much about its upcoming operating system, it’s becoming clearer that Windows 8 will feature a similar interface. However, this time around, those who follow Microsoft believe the interface will be a bit more streamlined and slightly easier to use. If Microsoft can follow through on that, it might just have a winner on its hands. 10. Microsoft’s lesson learned Aside from the operating system itself, Windows 8 will likely be better than Windows 7 for one main reason: Microsoft doesn’t want to repeat the embarrassment of Windows Vista. Microsoft’s last operating system before Windows 7 was a nightmare for the company. The software giant became complacent and thought it could coast, but instead failed miserably. The result was a loss of trust from vendors, customers, and investors. It was a bad time for Microsoft, and the company doesn’t want to relive it. So expect the company to do something special with Windows 8. At this point, it has no other choice but to deliver an even better operating system.

An ordinary guy suddenly finds himself forced to fight a gladiator-like battle for a dark website that streams the violence for viewers. Miles must fight heavily armed Nix and also save his kidnapped ex-girlfriend. Rod leads a radio show dedicated to horror. Until suddenly the announcer begins to receive strange calls from a child who desperately asks for help. At first thinks that it is a bad joke until he discovers that this is not the case. These calls hide a dark secret… Marlborough’s beloved grapevines star in this comedy feature, which was shot at a winery in just 11 days. Twenty-something Harry (Hayden J Weal from Chronesthesia) is dumped by his fiancée, just days before their wedding at a vineyard. Two of Harry’s friends ensure the wine doesn’t go to waste as they try to cheer him up. Written and directed by Casey Zilbert, the film was inspired by classic Ernest Hemingway novel Fiesta (aka The Sun Also Rises) about drunken expats in Europe. Hang Time is Zilbert’s first movie; at university, her studies included Fiesta and wine science. Dane ‘Marbles’ Marbeck can see ghosts, thanks to a homemade drug: his late father’s neurological medication mixed with marijuana. Officer Jayson Tagg, a wannabe super-cop on the trail of a serial killer, ends up murdered. So when Marbles’ mum plans to sell the family farm, and the only way of buying the house off her is taking the money offered by Tagg in exchange for his help, Marbles accepts. The unlikely duo of stoner medium and ghost cop struggle to reconcile their differences while they navigate their way through ghouls, perverts, a mysterious hooded figure, and an unexpected shot at love. It becomes clear the only way Marbles and Tagg will solve the case with their souls intact is to confront their deepest regrets and overcome their prejudices. Mata, Missy and Makareta. Three cousins. Three lives. Separated by circumstances, yet bound together by blood. Orphaned Mata believes she has no whanau and lives out her lonely childhood in fear and bewilderment. Back home on the land, educated Makareta flees an arranged marriage to study law and begin the search for her missing cousin. She leaves behind cheeky yet dutiful Missy who takes on her role of kaitiaki (guardian) of the land. As the years pass, loss of the family land seems imminent and the women’s promise to bring their stolen cousin home seems more unlikely than ever, until a chance encounter changes everything. Five years after being acquitted for the murder of his family, Sean (White) is finally ready to move on with life. But the bitter ex-cop (Malcolm) who led the investigation remains adamant that he’s guilty – and will stop at nothing to bring him down. Brandon prepares to give his last stand-up comedy show. As his stories and jokes pass, the public begins to cheer up. But at that precise moment Brandon will realize that these stories have a strong relationship with his past. More than he imagines. Freddy and Marvin have their sights set on a future filled with “monies and honeys”, believing that a life of crime and debauchery will get them there. Unfortunately, living a life of crime comes with consequences. When a series of straightforward jobs are botched, they cross paths with their most intimidating enemy yet, The Upholsterer. The ensuing chaos caused by her two henchmen Semo and Royon their hunt to find the boys forces them to reconsider their careers as criminals. ‘The Legend of Baron To’a’ tells the story of Fritz, a Tongan entrepreneur who returns to his old neighbourhood and inadvertently causes the theft of his late father’s valued pro wrestling title belt by some ruthless gangsters led by ‘man-mountain’ Tahu. When negotiation and diplomacy fail to get it back, he is forced to embrace his father’s legacy to reclaim the title. When Zoe and Tim find out they are having a baby, they resolve to not let parenthood change them. Tim runs towards being a dad, while Zoe runs away from being a mum. Terrified that her life won’t be her own anymore, Zoe is still determined to tick off a list of their wildest dreams before the baby arrives. Zoe’s increasing denial about her impending birth pushes her, and her relationship, to the limit. A group of friends must confront their fears in a terrifying game. They must sit by the other players in a circle made of a hundred candles, take one of them and tell a horror story. As stories are told and candles blown out, strange events will start to happen. They will feel strange presences around them, lurking in the shadows. But they MUST NOT leave the game or else a terrible curse will fall upon them… Immi the Vegan dreams of finding a good vegan man and gaining the confidence to perform her songs in front of a live audience. But lately her dates have mistaken her for a vegetarian or tried to send her photos of their meat and two veg. Scientist Doctor Who accidentally activates his new invention, the Tardis, a time machine disguised as a police telephone box. Doctor Who, his two grand-daughters, and Barbara’s boyfriend Ian are transported through time and space to the planet Skaro, where a peaceful race of Thals are under threat of nuclear attack from the planet’s other inhabitants: the robotic mutant Daleks. Coming of age as an Indigenous woman on the South Pacific Islands is a process full of change. Every island may be different but they are connected by a shared history. Everywhere she goes, Vai is someone else, and yet she remains connected to her roots. In the increasing public discourse on mental health, Leanne Pooley’s inspiring and fearless documentary tracks an extraordinary young woman’s journey from suicide survivor to advocate for those struggling. The fact it leaves you hopeful and with tangible advice makes it vital viewing. Outrageous Fortune is a New Zealand comedy-drama television series, which ran from 12 July 2005 to 9 November 2010 on TV3. The series followed the lives of the career criminal West family after the matriarch, Cheryl, decided the family should go straight and abide by the law. The show was created by James Griffin and Rachel Lang and produced by South Pacific Pictures. Like the show itself, episodes took their names from Shakespeare quotations. The show concluded after 6 seasons and 107 episodes making it the longest running drama series made in New Zealand. The primary cast for the show’s run consisted of Robyn Malcolm, Antony Starr, Siobhan Marshall, Antonia Prebble, Frank Whitten and Kirk Torrance; Grant Bowler appeared in a sporadic role throughout the show’s first five seasons. The show premiered on 12 July 2005 and was welcomed by high acclaim. It won many of the major categories in the New Zealand television awards for its first 4 years, with Malcolm’s performance warmly recognised by most New Zealand reviewers. Following the show’s success, both the United States and England adapted Outrageous Fortune into their own respective series, neither of which were renewed after the debut season. Set in a world many thousands of years in the future. Earth’s cities now roam the globe on huge wheels, devouring each other in a struggle for ever diminishing resources. On one of these massive Traction Cities, Tom Natsworthy has an unexpected encounter with a mysterious young woman from the Outlands who will change the course of his life forever. Michael has life pretty sweet. His girlfriend adores him, his best mate David is loyal to the end, plus David’s girlfriend doesn’t mind a quick hook-up either. But Michael’s self-regarding lifestyle comes crashing down when he is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Desperate not to let his life just fade away, Michael steals the $200,000 raised for his treatment, and catches a one-way flight to London. He isn’t there for long before his nerve and sense of humour earn him a vicious beating in a back alley. Waking up cold and bloodied, he finds himself being watched over by the ethereal Sylvie; a mysterious French drifter. They fall head over heels in love, and attempt to outrun death itself. Fun, disarming and musically provocative, the Topp Twins are New Zealand’s finest lesbian country and western singers and the country’s greatest export since rack of lamb and the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. 20-minute follow-up made up of never-before-seen footage It will reportedly involve the “bizarre and unsettling things” that happened to Farrier and Reeve as the began taking Tickled to film festivals and theaters last year, and it will feature the two of them beginning to “answer questions that remained once the credits rolled on Tickled, including whether the disturbing behavior they uncovered will ever come to an end.” Set in Edwardian England where upper lips are always stiff and men from the Colonies are not entirely to be trusted, Fisk Senior has little time or affection for his son, but when the pair visit an eccentric Indian, they start a strange journey that eventually allows the old man to find his heart. Will Bastion returns home from the army after an absence of 20 years to bury his father, the former chief of thee Maori tribe, Ngati Kaipuku. The eldest son, he is reluctant to inherit his fathers role, so it is taken more willingly by his younger brother, Kahu. Kahu is the leader of a band of drug dealers and trouble-makers who ride horses through the middle of town, wrecking peoples gardens. Under the guise of refusal of a land settlement, Kahu makes a large marijuana deal with some murdering city folk. Will must choose between loyalty for his brother and his father, Maori tradition, and contemporary financial issues. The contemporary story of Chinese New Zealand-born over-achiever Emily Chu, raised to believe she can get anything she puts her mind to. Even if ‘anything’ is at odds with her traditional Hong Kong born parents’ wish for her to become a doctor like her two older sisters. Everything is coming up roses – until she meets James, a European New Zealander, and accidentally falls in love with him. But if her father finds out, she will face disownment. By the time Emily realises that she’s sacrificing the respect of her family to follow her heart, James, too, has fallen irrevocably in love and there’s nothing for it but to try and keep their relationship a secret. Happy endings don’t come easy, if at all, but that doesn’t mean they don’t happen. But for Emily to get one, she needs to show James and her family that she has learned a lesson about the selflessness of love.

All content in this area was uploaded by marion smart. The disease may be in which case look for the following key features. My assignment on list of the diseases of small ruminants general, systemic, infectious and non. While most diseases affecting sheep and goats do not pose any human health risks. Parasites causing disease in sheep and goats include diseases caused by protozoa, helminths, tapeworms and roundworms. It affects primarily the lips and noses of young animals. Sheep and goat diseases is adapted from the bestselling german book in its 4th edition and will be beneficial to farmers at all levels, including smallholders, hobbyists and commercial farmers. Please whitelist this website or disable ad blocking software. Diseases of the goat available for download and read online in other formats. The first part is about sheep in general, with country distribution statistics and use of sheep in europe. Committee of foreign and emerging diseases of the us animal health association. The doe may be depressed, weak, uninterested in food, and have poor muscle control and balance. Economic losses from the disease can be measured in terms of reduced production as well as culled animals. Sheep pox virus spv and goat pox virus gpv were once believed to be strains of the. The disease is caused by bacteria known as clostridium tetani which is remain in the intestine of the herbivorous animals as normal habitat. A textbook of the diseases of cattle, horses, sheep, pigs and goats. This highly practical, concise handbook is designed for frequent reference, and is suitable for all those treating and keeping goats. A guide for practitioners and students common infectious diseases of cattle, horse, sheep, goat, swine, camel, cat and dog 3 sections include. If so, share your ppt presentation slides online with. Anything that is dirty is considered contaminated i. The book is divided into 16 parts, containing a total of 75 chapters. List of diseases of sheep and goat authorstream presentation. The slow viral infections are from the most important problems of sheep and goatproduction in greece. See also the what is the directory structure for the texts. Furthermore, denmark is free of disease caused by brucella melitensis, which has never. Fullcolor photographs and clear instructions provide the answers you need, guiding you through common procedures and techniques such as restraint for examination, administration of drugs, blood. Health and production management in sheep and goat farms. It is important to observe your animals daily so that you can notice any. Sheep, goat, and cervid medicine, 3rd edition february 11, 2020 sheep production adapting to climate change january 29, 2018. An illustrated guide to sheep and goat production pdf. They are caused by specific bacteria that commonly live in the gut and manure of sheep and. Goatkeepers animal health care manual second edition. Sheep and goats are versatile animals and can be valuable and enjoyable additions. Goat health handbook pub1 ished by ftp directory listing. Goat diseases and farm herdhealth safety compiled by charlotte cliffordrathert. Keep all new animals away from other animals in the herd for at least 2 days. A handbook common diseases of sheep and goats in subsaharan africa. Sheep and goat health frank craddock sheep and goat specialist. I would very highly recommend it for the library for any practice involved in sheep or goat practice i intend to keep my copy handy and. In range sheep and goats, the disease is associated with consumption of forages having a high silica content. Feb 19, 2014 general health problems of sheepgoats 1. Sheep and goat medicine, 2nd edition pdf free download. About a third of the icefree and desertfree land surface of the. Goat diseases floppy kid syndrome 310 day old kids show depression, weakness, and paralysis without signs of diarrhea and. List of infectious sheep and goat diseases wikipedia. Pdf diseases of the goat download full pdf book download. We made authorship changes only because some of the original group were unavailable, as they had changed career directions. Sheep and goat medicine, 2nd edition pdf free download it consists of following topics, goat feeding and nutrition theriogenology of sheep and goats diseases of the hematologic, immunologic, and lymphatic systems flock and herd health. Nov 20, 2019 rabies rabies is a severe, viral disease that can affect all mammals, including sheep and goats. Pdf, 68kb download defras guidance on the use of milk. Sachin tekade causal organism transmission symptoms treatment prevention paramyxo virus through nasal secretions and respiratory by indirect means and direct contacts. Part 2 consists of chapters on the welfare of sheep, including standards and practices. Major zoonotic diseases of sheep and meat goats institute for. Common diseases in goats kipp brown extension livestock coordinator department of animal and dairy sciences mississippi state university ketosis ketosis also known as pregnancy toxemia may occur in pregnant does late in their pregnancy. Ppt goat and sheep diseases 1 powerpoint presentation. Welcome,you are looking at books for reading, the sheep and goat medicine, you will able to read or download in pdf or epub books and notice some of author may have lock the live reading for some of country. Common nutritional and metabolic diseases of goats robert van saun, dvm, ms, phd. Apr 20, 2015 disease management in sheep ans goats in kannada langauge. Following are some things you need to know before adding sheep or goats to your farm. Color atlas of diseases and disorders of the sheep and goat pdf. Ruminant, 2nd edition january 9, 2018 advances in sheep welfare october 23, 2017. The spores are very much resistant and can persist in the soil even for years. This manual is the result of the combined efforts of veterinarians, university professors, extension agents, and producers who strive to provide current and accurate information to the individual sheep and goat owner. The authors are very grateful to the immeasurable efforts of many scientists who have devoted much of their time in documenting the management systems and diseases of small ruminants with particular reference to those occurring in the subsaharan region. Diseases of sheep and goats found in zimbabwe disease causal organism major vectors symptoms treatment control heart water cowdria ruminantium amblyomma sp temperature rise, depression, loss of appetite double dose tetracycline if caught early tick control bont tick increase in pulse and respiration, prostration, convulsion and death. Ggooaattkkeeeeppeerrss aanniimmaall hheeaalltthh ccaarree mmaannuuaall second edition edited by. Listen to this empowering free miracle tone that calls in your. Common diseases of sheep and goats in subsaharan africa by. Irrespective of the etiology, the infectious respiratory diseases of sheep and goats contribute to 5. Diseases and health problems in sheep and goats, including foot. Aug 24, 2012 diseases and health problems in sheep and goats, including foot. People most often get rabies from the bite direct contact of an infected animal, but can also be exposed to the virus by entry of saliva, brain or spinal cord fluid of an infected animal into cuts or breaks in the skin or mucous membranes. Producers should minimize the number of people and vehicles that enter premises or require a sanitation and disinfectant plan to prevent spread of disease agents. It is the overdistension of the left flank either due to free gas or froth. Common nutritional and metabolic diseases of goats robert van saun, dvm, ms, phd department of veterinary science pennsylvania state university introduction goats, like any other living animal, must consume feed containing essential nutrients to support body functions maintenance and activity as well as various productive functions. Pests and diseases of sheep et, hs, ppr, sheep pox, bt. Veterinary infectious diseases in domestic animals 3rd. Goat diseases and treatment pdf osmanabadi goat farming is very profitable osmanabadi goat farming. Documents in pdf format can be read using adobe reader. This highly practical, concise handbook is designed for frequent reference, and is suitable for all. Apr 29, 2018 sheep and goat medicine 2nd edition free pdf download. The text has more information on diseases other than just those of sheep. Common diseases and health problems in sheep and goats as595w. Common diseases in goats kipp brown extension livestock coordinator. Pugh, a worldrenowned expert on the medical care of sheep and goats, this reference is unmatched for its comprehensive coverage of herd health, physical examination, anesthesia, and multisystem diseases. Clear writing style makes the book useful and easy to understand, even for sheep and or goat owners who are not. Pdf advances in sheep and goat production and management. Sheep and goats are both small ruminants with cosmopolitan distributions due to their being kept historically and in modern times as grazers both individually and in herds in return for their production of milk, wool, and meat. Diseases of the goat, 4th edition, is a revised and updated edition of the popular tool for veterinarians featuring of all aspects of goat medicine. Therefore it need a free signup process to obtain the book. Clostridial diseases are endemic to all sheep and goat operations. Neurological diseases of sheep and goats christine b. Viral diseases bacterial and mycotic diseases parasitic diseases appendices adinserter block3 size. Affected animals drenched with ammonium chloride 714 gday for 35 days may show a good response. If it available for your country it will shown as book reader and user fully subscribe will benefit by. Early human symptoms include fever, headache, confusion. Some diseases occur in both sheep and goats, while others occur in one or the other. Authoritative yet easy to read, sheep and goat medicine, 2nd edition covers all the latest advances in sheep and goat medicine, including medical treatment, surgery, theriogenology, and nutrition. Rabies rabies is a severe, viral disease that can affect all mammals, including sheep and goats. Johnes disease, or paratuberculosis, is a chronic enteric disease of ruminants and has a worldwide distribution. In rural areas, goat farming plays a vital role in. Common diseases in goats mississippi state university. Goat diseases pregnancy toxemia occurs in overfat, confined goats carrying twins or triplets energy deficient, uses own fat reserves, ketones are produced symptoms swelling of legs, loss of muscle over loin, loss of appetite separate and feed ad lib a high energy, high protein feed. Other diseases include heartwater, coccidiosis, trypanosomosis, nairobi sheep disease, rift valley fever, blue tongue, mastitis. Sheep diseases possible diseases of sheep are various enough similarly to other animals. Apr 17, 2017 common respiratory infections of sheep and goat. Common diseases and health problems in sheep and goats as595w restricting traffic in and out of a facility can reduce the potential introduction of pathogenic agents. A color atlas of diseases and disorders of sheep and goats in books. Respiratory diseases of sheep and goats slideshare. It had two main purposes first to remedy the current dearth of readily accessible information on sheep diseases and second, through royalty income, to assist the institutes parent body the animal diseases research association in its bid to purchase additional grazing land at gilmerton, the institutes original site. Veterinary infectious diseases in domestic animals 3rd edition pdf free download. I am sharing with you veterinary book which name is sheep and goat medicine, 2nd edition. Diseases of sheep key to differential diagnosis of sheep diseases if there are deaths suddenly occurring with few or no premonitory symptoms. It seems that you are using some ad blocking software which is preventing the page from fully loading. Zoonotic diseases are those infectious diseases that are transmitted from animals to humans contact with contaminated environment and diseased animals by contact with infected tissues abortions consuming contaminated food and water transmitted through insect bites 2. Let us talk about in this article, why osmanabadi goat farming is profitable. The following documents are available for download. Common diseases and health problems in sheep and goats. Diseases are presented at the level of the whole organism and by individual organ, with illustrations for easy identification. Preventative medicine is also extensively discussed, with practical tips for good husbandry techniques. Theera rukkwamsuk department of large animal and wildlife clinical science faculty of veterinary medicine. This has special significance with sheep as they seem to respond less to treatment when sick than other livestock species. Mar 29, 2018 it had two main purposes first to remedy the current dearth of readily accessible information on sheep diseases and second, through royalty income, to assist the institutes parent body the animal diseases research association in its bid to purchase additional grazing land at gilmerton, the institutes original site. These animals are highly susceptible to respiratory diseases, which account for almost 50% mortality amongst them. Ms word and powerpoint documents can be read by using their respective applications or any alternatives. This is generally encountered in greedy feeders when lush green pasture is available. Unlike cattle, in which the disease has been more extensively studied, chronic diarrhoea is not a consistent feature of johnes disease in sheep and goats. Most common diseases affecting sheep and goats parasitic respiratory hoof reproductive metabolic other diseases. Foot scald is caused by a bacteria fusobacterium necrophorum that is a normal inhabitant of sheep, goat, and cattle farms, whereas footrot is caused by the introduction of a second bacteria bacteroides nodosus which usually walks onto the farm in the hooves of an infected animal. Nutritional diseases of goats management and nutrition. If one doe is clinically ill, many more in the herd are likely at risk. Important diseases and disorders in goat and sheep emphasizing on etiology, pathogenesis, clinical signs, diagnosis, treatment. This revised and updated version of outline of clinical diagnosis in sheep now covers the whole field of diagnosis, treatment and prevention of diseases and poor production of sheep. Diseases that affect sheep maryland small ruminant page. Overall, i found this book to be an excellent and comprehensive treatment of the diseases and management of sheep and goats. Morbidity and mortality are the two important factors resulting in heavy losses in sheep production and improvement programs. The first edition of this text had an exceptional group of chapter authors. These osmanabadi goats are suitable for stall feed,semi stall feed and open grazing goat farm systems. Livestock production management diseases of sheep and goat. The 100% free pdf creator and pdf convertor supplied by works with all windows programs and has a lot of features you wouldnt expect from free software. Some of the articles contained in this manual are in a pdf format. Sheep and goat medicine 2nd edition free pdf download. Its a good idea to make sure a goat is cae free before purchasing. Prevention is always better than cure as it is a lot cheaper. Zoonotic diseases of sheep what are zoonotic diseases. The organism can be grown under strict anaerobic condition. Wikimedia commons has media related to diseases and disorders of sheep pages in category sheep and goat diseases the following 56 pages are in this category, out of 56 total. Sheep and goat diseases is adapted from the bestselling german book in its 4th edition. If they are nursing off dams which have not previously had the disease or been.1582 612 264 230 1121 584 358 1279 453 1165 122 1154 845 1664 849 1196 875 913 981 967 563 209 1071 1006 1289 63 1128 24 1455 37 473 68

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I am owe you this news since a long time, for as you see I’m making an account here of events from three month ago: our visit to the youth prison during Christmas. As an excuse, it may be mentioned that I had to wait for long until the photos arrived which were taken during our visit. It is not allowed to take cameras or mobile phones with them and take pictures. One of the police officers made the pictures and promised to send those to us later. But it took quite a while under this promise came to be fulfilled. Lately, I have been very busy with my studies, so I had to postpone some of my work to a later date. Nevertheless, even so the lively memories of this visit to the prison continue to engage our thoughts day by day. I have to tell you in advance, that our criminal law and the functioning of prisons is closer to the more primitive forms of the Roman law that it is probably the case in the US. The main idea in putting someone behind bars is that such a person needs to be punished. Offering them a chance to change for the future is still less prevalent that it probably is the case in your country. So the persons sent to prison are kept behind bars, and learn from each other the wild tactics of violence and outrage. Our story took its start in November when my wife, during her studies in pastoral psychology, began reading about pastoral care prisoners. The desolate spiritual state and the lack of any help for those wishing to change their lives for better raised in her a strong sense of compassion towards those people, and I felt we need to do something for them. We have to tell them about and bring them the love of Christ. The next time she talked about these to the young people during a bible study in the congregation. She proposed to pay a visit to these people in the prison during Christmas and bring them the good news. Well, everyone was very excited about the idea, boys and girls were all prepared to take part in this important project. Of course, it was not as easy as it first seemed. Visiting a prison has strict rules and time intervals that must be obeyed. We contacted one of our colleagues who works as a pastoral counselor in a prison some 80 miles away. He mediated for us by the commander of the prison to be allowed to enter for a visit during Christmas. Only 12 of us were allowed to enter, and all persons were previously checked for their past police records. One of the difficult questions was: what should we take with us to the prisoners? This question was the more appealing as we heard that we were going to visit a prison for young persons of between 18-25 years of age, kept behind bars for 3-7 years. We have prepared a Christmas theater. It was a piece of drama about the visit of three strange persons to the cradle of the newborn baby Jesus. One of those persons was a philosopher, the other one a shabby poor man, and the third one was a prisoner in chains. It was fascinating to see how those three persons pour out their hearts before Jesus and find peace. I also prepared a short sermon which I adapted to the language and thoughts of the prisoners. We asked the young boys and girls of our congregation to bake cookies, and we prepared about 30 packs with candies, Christian calendars, and cosmetics. We have learned a few Christmas songs accompanied by guitar. The participants were aware that this was not an excursion but an important way to serve the Lord among souls living in institutional darkness. We have asked them to pray that the Holy Spirit of God may come with us on this visit and bless our service there, so that all hearts may be opened to his calling that they may feel his Love and the new life that he wanted to give them in Jesus. On the morning we woke up to go to the prison, all boys and girls were excited. The tension was the highest when the door of the prison was closed behind us. We could feel the rigid, bleak air, and a strange sense of tightness that is hardly possible to tell you with words. After having been scanned through we were allowed to enter the first courtroom. They led us through the buildings. It was an extremely sad view to see young boys hanging on the bars and staring upon us, the new visitors. We were led though narrow corridors which raised a claustrophobic sense in some of us. Finally, we arrived in a place where about 30 young men were waiting for us. It was depressing to see them there as prisoners. God blessed our service, his word was revealed with much power, and they were closely following the theater as well. One of the songs that we sang there is rather unknown, so we were all the more surprised that one of the prisoners began to sing that hymn with us. The question was immediately raised in our thoughts: from which believer family could this boy come, that he knows this song? And why is he here? We personally gave the small presents to the prisoners and wished them a merry Christmas. Afterwards they were led away from the hall by one of the commanders. When we came out from the prison, while still on the street, the boys and girls looked at one another. It was clearly visible how deeply they were impressed by what they had seen and heard. The next occasion we discussed our experiences with the rest of the bible study group. All, except for a 15 year old girl told me, they wished to participate in missionary work among prisoners on other occasions as well. This visit to the prison had a positive effect among the larger community of our congregation as well. We are thankful to God that he made this possible to us and he show us how important it is to pray for those living in prisons that God may open their minds and drive away that deep darkness in which they live, and make it possible to them to find their way back to the society from which they had been separated. Brothers and sisters, I have been telling you in such details about these experiences purposefully, so that, on the one hand, you may share in our experience, and, on the other hand, that you pray too for these prisoners, and others all around the world. It was shown long ago that prisons do not help people getting better, and the experiences there make deviant attitude only worse. Without the help of God’s love for them it is impossible to change for better. But I believe this change is possible. Pray for them that God may touch their hearts, lead them to real freedom and healing. Pray for our youth that they devote their lives to following God and serving him wholeheartedly. May God bless you, keep you and lead you in peace.

Scientists have found a 67 million-year-old fossil of a snake coiled around dinosaur eggs and a hatchling. This is the first evidence of snakes eating dinosaurs. "It's a stunning, once-in-a-lifetime find," said paleontologist Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago, who was not involved in the study. "We've caught one of the rarest moments in the fossil record, which is prey and predator, together." Geologist Dhanajay Mohabey of the Indian Geological Survey first unearthed the fossil 26 years ago in a rocky, limestone outcropping in the northwestern Indian village of Dholi Dungri. He thought all the bones at the site were those of dinosaur hatchlings. But in 2001, University of Michigan paleontologist Jeff Wilson, took a second look at the fossils. The team then recognized they had actually found a snake coiled around a broken egg, with a hatchling and two other eggs nearby. The findings appeared Mar. 1 in Public Library of Science Biology. The newly discovered species of snake, Sanajeh indicus, measures about 11.5 feet long. The hatchlings, part of a group called titanosaurs, measured about a foot and a half long. Titanosaurs were the largest animal to ever walk on land, with adults that could reach up to 100 feet long. Unlike modern snakes, S. indicus lacked jaw joints that allowed it to open its mouth incredibly wide, so it relied on its large overall body size to prey on the fledgling dinosaurs. Luckily for the snake, the titanosaur hatchlings had soft skeletons that "may have been somewhat collapsible, so you can fold their ribs up a bit and get them in your mouth," Wilson said. It's likely a slow-rising flood or a storm caused adult titanosaurs to flee, abandoning their nests. The snake then slithered into the nest. Once the babies start hatching, they begin to "pop their leg or arm out. There will be some kind of activity, and the snake is attracted to that. It will coil itself around the egg," he said. "As soon as it came out of the egg, there's a snake waiting for it." Unluckily for the snake, that moment was frozen in time because a landslide buried the site right then, Wilson said. The team has found three or four other spots at Dholi Dungri where snake fossils were uncovered near dinosaur eggs, Wilson said. The findings may offer insight into the origin of snakes. The reptiles first appear in the fossil record around 98 million years ago, Wilson said. But finding such a complete snake fossil is rare, with only a half-dozen well-preserved specimen from this period. "A lot of their early origins are uncertain. More fossils from an early time help put together a picture of snake evolution," said Wilson. The fossil find shows some modern animal behavior has very old roots, Sereno said. "Snakes have been at this eating egg-thing for a hundred million years. Before birds fell prey to these things, their ancestors did." Images: 1) Reconstruction of scene, Sculpture by Tyler Keillor and original photography by Ximena Erickson (image modified by Bonnie Miljour). 2) Fossil from the site, Wilson et al. 2010, PLoS Biology 3. Schematic, Wilson et al. 2010, PLoS Biology. Citation: "Predation upon Hatchling Dinosaurs by a New Snake from the Late Cretaceous of India,"/Jeffrey A. Wilson, Dhananjay M. Mohabey, Shanan E. Peters, Jason J. Head/Public Library of Science Biology, Mar. 2010, Vol. 8, Issue 3. - Dinosaur Fossil Reveals True Feather Colors - Cute New Chameleon Discovered While Being Eaten by Snake - Stunningly Preserved 165-Million-Year-Old Spider Fossil Found - Four-Winged Fossil Bridges Bird-Dinosaur Gap

January 24, 2013 If you’re a UCLA football fan, you should remember Kai Forbath, arguably the best kicker in UCLA history, up there with the likes of John Lee. According to Wikipedia, take a look at his career in the NFL to date: After being projected as the second-best kicker in the 2011 NFL Draft, Forbath was not selected. However, on August 2, 2011, he signed with the Dallas Cowboys as a rookie free agent, and was subsequently placed on the reserve/non-football injury list. He was waived on April 16, 2012. Tampa Bay Buccaneers The Tampa Bay Buccaneers claimed Forbath off waivers on April 17, 2012. During preseason, Forbath made five out of five field goal attempts, including a successful 55-yard kick. The Washington Redskins signed Forbath on October 9, 2012, replacing Billy Cundiff. Forbath made his NFL and Redskins debut in an impressive fashion, knocking through a 50-yarder as his first career NFL field goal in the home game against the Minnesota Vikings on October 14, 2012. He was also a perfect five of five on extra points, as the Redskins defeated the Vikings 38–26. His performance was essential in the Redskins’ victory over the Baltimore Ravens in Week 14, where he recorded 48 and 49-yard field goals and then a game-winning 34-yard field goal in overtime. On December 23, 2012, Forbath set the NFL record for consecutive field goals to begin a career with 17 in a row, beating Garrett Hartley, who previously held the record at 16. The ball was sent to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Question: How stupid do you think Dallas must feel? January 24, 2013 As a relatively frequent traveler with a computer bag, I laughed at this until I realized how often I put my PC down. Bitlocker-encrypted or not, if I were to lose my laptop… whoaaaanelly. My only saving grace would be that I use the cloud for the frequent backup of my data but damn is this easy. January 7, 2013 If you’re like me, you’ve probably spent a good part of the holiday catching up on the movies & TV that… well… you wish you had the time & energy for during the rest of the year. This season, I got the chance to hunker down on my DVD collection, Netflix, and Xbox Live Video and start viewing away. Yay! Here’s what I’ve hit up so far: - Indie Game: The Movie ‘Indie Game: The Movie’ is the Sundance Award Winning Feature documentary about Video Game Designers. Indie Game: The Movie is the first feature documentary film about making video games. It looks specifically at the underdogs of the video game industry, indie game developers, who sacrifice money, health and sanity to realize their lifelong dreams of sharing their visions with the world. After two years of painstaking work, designer Edmund McMillen and programmer Tommy Refenes await the release of their first major game for Xbox, Super Meat Boy-the adventures of a skinless boy in search of his girlfriend, who is made of bandages. At PAX, a major video-game expo, developer Phil Fish unveils his highly anticipated, four-years-in-the-making FEZ. Jonathan Blow considers beginning a new game after creating Braid, one of the highest-rated games of all time. Four developers, three games, and one ultimate goal- to express oneself through a video game. Indie Game: The Movie is about the creative process and putting yourself out there through your work. It’s a journey many filmmakers, creators, artists, entrepreneurs – many people, can relate to in the digital era. - Jiro Dreams of Sushi Jiro Dreams of Sushi is the story of 85-year-old Jiro Ono, considered by many to be the world’s greatest sushi chef. He is the proprietor of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a 10-seat, sushi-only restaurant inauspiciously located in a Tokyo subway station. Despite its humble appearances, it is the first restaurant of its kind to be awarded a prestigious three-star Michelin Guide rating, and sushi lovers from around the globe make repeated pilgrimage, calling months in advance and shelling out top dollar for a coveted seat at Jiro’s sushi bar. Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a thoughtful and elegant meditation on work, family, and the art of perfection, chronicling Jiro’s life as both an unparalleled success in the culinary world and as a loving yet complicated father. - Trek Nation The documentary “Trek Nation” explores “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry’s vision and its impact on viewers’ lives through the eyes of his son Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, Jr., who is on a quest to know his father whom he lost at age 17. - The Captains Since first soaring onto television screens in the 1960s, Star Trek has become one of the most beloved franchises of all time. Now, the original Captain Kirk, William Shatner, travels around the globe to interview the elite group of actors (Chris Pine, Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew and Scott Bakula) who have portrayed the role of Starship Captain, giving fans an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the pop culture phenomenon as well as the men and women who made it so. - Holy Rollers: The True Story Of Card Counting Christians Holy Rollers follows the rise of arguably the largest and most well-funded blackjack team in America-made up entirely of churchgoing Christians. While they succeed in taking millions from casinos, how will they manage to find a place for faith and God in the arena of high stakes gambling? - Breaking Vegas Do you dream about beating the odds? Then check out this fascinating documentary focusing on a group of six M.I.T. students who used their impressive math skills to win millions from Las Vegas’ gambling palaces. Through interviews with the card-counting collegians, security experts, and casino executives, you’ll learn how the young men pulled off the daring feat–and how they were eventually caught. Based on the best-selling book “Bringing Down the House.” 75 min. Standard; Soundtrack: English Dolby Digital stereo; bonus programs. - Dogs Decoded Dogs have been domesticated for longer than any other animal on the planet and humans have developed a unique relationship with these furry friends. We treat our pets like a part of the family and feel that they can understand us in a way other animals can’t. Now new research is revealing what dog lovers have suspected all along: Dogs have an uncanny ability to read and respond to human emotions. Humans in turn respond to dogs with the same hormone responsible for bonding mothers to their babies. How did this incredible relationship between humans and dogs come to be? And how can dogs so closely related to fearsome wild wolves behave so differently? It’s all in the genes. DOGS DECODED investigates new discoveries in genetics that are illuminating the origin of dogs-with big implications for the evolution of human culture as well. In Siberia the mystery of dogs’ domestication is being repeated-in foxes. A fifty-year-old breeding program is creating an entirely new kind of creature a tame fox with some surprising similarities to Man’s Best Friend. THE DOGS DECODED reveals the science behind the remarkable bond between humans and their dogs. - 2016: Obama’s America Immersed in exotic locales across four continents, best selling author Dinesh D’Souza races against time to find answers to Obama’s past and reveal where America will be in 2016. During this journey he discovers how Hope and Change became radically misunderstood, and identifies new flashpoints for hot wars in mankind’s greatest struggle. The journey moves quickly over the arc of the old colonial empires, into America’s empire of liberty, and we see the unfolding realignment of nations and the shape of the global future. - We Are Legion: The Story of the Hackitivists We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists takes us inside the world of Anonymous, the radical “hacktivist” collective that has redefined civil disobedience for the digital age. The film explores the historical roots of early hacktivist groups like Cult of the Dead Cow and Electronic Disturbance Theater, then moves to Anonymous’ raucous and unruly beginnings in the online forum 4Chan. Through interviews with current members, members recently returned from prison, others currently facing trial, writers, activists and major players in various “raids,” WE ARE LEGION: The Story of the Hacktivists traces the collective’s evolution from merry pranksters to a full-blown movement with a global reach, the most transformative civil disobedience of our time. - Beyond the Myth ”Unfairly known as violent killers, Pit Bulls have suffered from the stigma of negative media coverage that has lead to city-wide bans across the country. This breed-specific legislation has torn pets away from families, and killed thousands of innocent dogs across the country. Stripping away the preconceptions to show the loving companions they can be, Beyond the Myth is an important, must see film for all dog lovers.” - Shelter Dogs Each year, almost 5 million dogs end up in animal shelters – but not every dog is safe to place with a family. What if a shelter dog shows aggression, or is a known biter – should he be adopted out? For two years filmmaker Cynthia Wade was given unprecedented access to Rondout Valley Kennels and its controversial owner Sue Sternberg, and the result is an award-winning film about ethics in a morally ambiguous world. - Get A Life! Based on William Shatner’s hugely popular book (in response to his infamous “Saturday Night Live” skit), this hourlong documentary looks at the mystery, longevity and cultural phenomena of “Star Trek” and its obsessed fans known as “Trekkers.” - Dealing Dogs Each year, 42,000 dogs are sold to veterinary schools and research labs by Class B dealers, who are required by federal law to buy the animals from pounds, shelters and small breeders and to treat them humanely. However, many Class B dealers violate the law. DEALING DOGS exposes the abuses that took place at one of America’s most notorious Class B dealers – Martin Creek Kennel in Arkansas. Patriocracy, a voice of reason in the age of polarization. Patriocracy is a non-partisan examination of Washington dysfunction. Alan Simpson, Bob Schieffer, Eleanor Clift, Pat Buchanan, Senator Mark Warner and Senator Kent Conrad are just a few of the notable Washington personalities who offer their valuable perspectives. Patriocracy drills down and illustrates the forces that drive a wedge into the middle ground of America and the solutions required to move forward. The word orphan is troubling to most of us. It’s one of those words that instantly evokes visions of dastardly headmasters and wicked headmistresses. We imagine scenes of defenseless children grappling indelible scars of loneliness and abandonment, molding them into unfortunate victims of fate and neglect. These are fair preconceptions that are not without basis in the American experience. But there is another side to the story… Homecoming unfolds as a conversation between 15 men and women who grew up in four American orphanages. Their stories echo the experience of thousands of men and women, throughout the country, and around the world. In these intimate, moving and sometimes hilarious stories, the incredible resilience of humankind shines through in vivid relief. Ultimately what remains is a picture of the remarkable strength of those who found a family in the most unlikely of places. January 6, 2013 Here’s a checklist of things to do upon arriving into McCarron International: Don’t get longhauled. Clearly utter the words, “SHORTEST DISTANCE – TAKE PARADISE” to your cabbie. Unless you’re going downtown, there’s no scenario in which you should be “taking the freeway”. If you find yourself going through a tunnel – you are being what is called “longhauled” or intentionally taken for a longer ride that you should. This will make the ride cost $10 more than it should. This is ILLEGAL. If this happens, get the cab number, the driver name, the cabbie’s permit #, the cab company, license plate if possible, and the general look of the cab… then report it here: - HOTEL: REGISTRATION Before you get to the registration desk, be sure to have your driver’s license, your credit card, and a $20 bill to tip the front desk clerk. Fold the $20 into 4ths and place it in between your driver’s license & credit card and hand it to the clerk and ask to check in. If you don’t know why you’re doing this, visit http://frontdesktip.com. - HOTEL: ROOM SETUP If you have a Purell wipe, take one & wipe down the TV remote – this is the #1 most germ/bacteria ridden item in the room. Next, wipe down the phone handset, the clock radio, the thermostat, & RJ-45 cabling for the wired Internet connection if you’ve got one. You don’t want to know what’s been discovered on these items in hotel rooms & remember: Across the thousands of guests that pass through your room, these items are NEVER cleaned or wiped down. It’s up to you to stay healthy for the next 5 days. - HOTEL: REQUEST HUMIDIFIER I hope you arrived early. If you did, you may have a shot of requesting a humidifier for your room. Do it immediately: Vegas during CES is DRY AS A BONE. This will not only make your stay much more comfortable, it will keep your skin from getting itchy & will keep the static electricity in your room to a minimum. - HOTEL: BEDSPREAD & CHAIRS This is going to sound paranoid but if you think about it for just a moment, it’ll start to sink in: Ask the front desk for a new bedspread. Spill some water on it or some soda if you have to. Then lay a towel over the desk seat. Why? The bedspread is RARELY CLEANED. You are using the same bedspread that was used by over 2 months worth of occupants. And you can bet most weren’t wearing clothing. Now think about all those same guys sitting in the desk chair… with no pants on. Yes. Let that sink in. Now go get a damned towel & cover the seat with it. - HOTEL: LEAVE HOUSEKEEPING A TIP Leave a tip with a note stating that the money’s for the housekeeping staff. They appreciate this & if you ever need something – extra towels, sheets, pillows – that tip will go along way to making sure it gets delivered within this lifetime. If you have the same housekeeper coming through every morning, it can’t hurt. - FIND THE HOTEL CES SHUTTLE PICKUP/DROPOFF Determine the location of the CES shuttle for you to use in the morning. Find out when they start & end – because they don’t run all day. Also find out if they’re running on Monday so you can pick up your badge if necessary. Badge pickup is WAY in the back of South Hall I’m afraid and is more than a quarter mile walk so. January 3, 2013 Interesting. Asking Quora about Google’s evilness produces are number of good points. This is a great summary of how much of a ridiculous pass Google gets in the public & the media. Remember that all of these quotes were said publicly: “The Top Ten Things We Can’t Believe Eric Schmidt Ever Said” Sam Biddle, Gizmodo – Jan. 21, 2011, 8:38 AM Eric—it’s been great. We’re going to miss you as CEO of one of history’s most important and influential companies. But we’ll also miss you for the strange, creepy, absurd, and downright dumb things you’ve uttered. Below, our favorites: - “One person’s definition of evil is another person’s different definition.” - “One day we had a conversation where we figured we could just try and predict the stock market… and then we decided it was illegal. So we stopped doing that.” - “More and more searches are done on your behalf without you needing to type. I actually think most people don’t want Google to answer their questions…They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next.” (Read the other 7 quotes at: http://read.bi/hlVkCA) … and the crazy part is that my favorite jawdropper didn’t even make the list: (This one did in fact catch fire requiring Google to effectively issue a retraction.) For your reference, apparently, I’m not the only one that thinks so: - GIZMODO: Google’s Broken Promise: The End of “Don’t Be Evil - WIRED: Google is Evil - MAIN STREET: Is Google Evil? 12 Incriminating Facts - GAWKER: Google Under Investigation for Being Evil - HUFFINGTON POST: Google Goes “Evil” - BUSINESS INSIDER: Google Is Now Officially Evil - AD WORDS, EVIL, AND GOOGLE HUBRIS: The Evil Google Does - SEARCH AND DESTROY: Why You Can’t Trust Google Inc. January 2, 2013 I have a Kindle 3G. Y’know – the one with the keyboard? Been using it for a few years now & it’s treated me well, despite reading it in the hot blazing sun of Las Vegas… bringing it with me into the pool (in a waterproof Kindle holder, mind you)… and travelling all around the globe with it. But recently, I haven’t had time for it. I’ve spent most of my reading time on my Microsoft Surface or my HTC Windows Phone 8X, both of which have the Kindle app on them so using the Kindle 3G really isn’t necessary for 90% of what I need to do. So of course I lost track of it. I really didn’t know where it was… it’d been THAT long since I used it. Just yesterday, I started looking for it and lo-and-behold, it was behind my nightstand here it’d fallen after having been used for bedtime reading for quite a while. Completely drained of battery, I plugged it into my MicroUSB charging clock radio (it has a slot at the top with cables for charging USB peripherals) and of course it came up. 10 minutes later it’d downloaded all the books that I’d had queued up for delivery and away we go. Then it suddenly froze. The GREEN/YELLOW charging light wouldn’t turn off. I have a suspicion this had something to do with the pending remote Software Update that Amazon pushed (which after this ordeal occurred without me knowing) but I can’t be certain. The Software Update that I’m referring to provided New Reading Font, Parental Controls, Kindle Format 8, Comic Book/Children’s Picture Book Support, Enhanced Table/Image Viewing, Whispersync for Voice support, Anyway, to get it out of this frozen state, I had to do the following: - Hold the power switch to the right for 20 seconds. Release. - Press the Home button for 60 seconds. A “Reset” screen will appear. - Hit the DEL key on the keyboard. This brought my unit back to a stable state, as if I’d done a reboot or a soft reset of the device. - I’m told that if this doesn’t work, you have to do a hard reset of the device, which is the equivalent of wiping & resetting your Kindle. This procedure will wipe out all your books and require you to re-download them to your Kindle which, while not disastrous, will take time. It will also lose your bookmarks & settings. To do a hard reset, type the word “reset” in the above screen after following step 1. Warning: There’s no turning back from this once you type the entire word in and there’s no “Are you sure?” I’d point to the place where I found this information but I can’t for the life of me find it again. Kudos to whomever it was that documented this originally & I apologize for not cross-posting to you. Your article was indeed helpful.

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Also known as: "There's One in Every Family . . ." (Yes, I know Black Rock Shooter is not actually a Miku/Hatsune/related to her in any way, but that is not the point of this picture. And yes, I used the blue-haired model for obvious reasons.) A simple project I'm working on. Family photos of some of the Vocaloid families. I saw models of some of some of the Vocaloids' parents, and thought of this. What's happening here: Yes, Black Rock Shooter has her eyes crossed and is sticking her tongue out at the camera. (She didn't want to take the picture in the first place.) Yes, that younger Miku model and Mr. Hatsune are both staring at her. Miku just sneezed, and the "oldest" of the two Mikuos is patting her head. The younger Mikuo is totally ignoring her, more focused on posing for the camera, while their mother wonders how on earth a sneeze could make someone make that face. The six-year-old Miku is behaving like a good little girl in hopes she'll get ice cream later, the toddler-like Baby Miku is asleep and holding one of her big sister's dolls by the hair (It's a Miku doll.). Clearly, Family Photo Day is a stressful time for the Hatsune Family. Just for the record, in my head, these guys and gals all have different names, besides just Miku and Mikuo, but I'll let you guys name them what you want. (I'd love to see what you come up with, by the way!) Okay, just because I want to put this here: Hatsune children listed from oldest to youngest (You can decide the ages.): Mikuo (taller model in back) Miku and Black Rock Shooter (I imagine them to be twins here.) Mikuo (younger look model) Miku (the chibi/younger model staring at BRS) Miku (six year old or there about model in front) Miku (Baby Miku model who is asleep) Miku (Baby Miku in mother's arms) (And then there is the unborn baby, but let's not go there . . . (The Mrs. Hatsune model is supposed to be pregnant. No, I didn't decide that. The model was actually created to be pregnant . . .)) I think Mr. and Mrs. Hatsune need a hobby . . . Or a nanny. Credits: (I'm just going to link you guys the Deviations since I figure people will want links sooner or later.) Miku: Comes with MMD download (c) Animasa Black Rock Shooter: [link] Mr. Hatsune: [link] Mrs. Hatsune: [link] Baby Miku (baby): [link] Baby Miku (toddler size): [link] Little Miku (six-year-old Miku): (c) HAM You can get her through this Deviation: [link] Chibi Miku: I can't find the link, and the model has no ReadMe. O_O If anyone knows who made this adorable little Miku model, please let me know. EDIT: I THINK this MIGHT be where she came from: [link] Older Mikuo: [link] Younger Mikuo: [link] I think I'll update this later with more Mikuo models. There NEED to be more boys in this family . . .

Billy Graham, the vastly overpraised evangelist and world-class bigot (listen to him call Jews the “synagogue of Satan” during secretly recorded conversations with Richard Nixon), is now old and probably senile. But he thinks the end times, and not just his, are soon upon us: Just as Noah did in ancient times, world-renowned evangelist Billy Graham is sounding the alarm that the Second Coming is “near” and signs of the end of the age are “converging now for the first time since Jesus made those predictions.” For the first time? Seriously? Volumes could be written and have been written about the interpretation and reinterpretation of the Bible’s end times prophecies. Virtually every single generation since the death of Jesus, including those alive at the time, have believed that Jesus was coming back any moment. Jesus himself even says that there are people alive then that would not taste death before he returns. Christians have repeatedly reinterpreted Daniel and the book of Revelation, which is full of figurative language that one can make mean virtually anything they want. The Antichrist has been identified and reidentified over and over again. And this generation is no different. Vague signs like “wars and rumors of wars” and natural disasters are always present in the world, so the entire premise is one that can be applied to all circumstances at all times. But Billy Graham knows it’s coming soon. It isn’t.

HEAVY horses, retrievers, sheepdogs and ducks filled a field in Shoreham along with thousands of animal-loving families on Sunday. The Heavy Horse Show kicked off at 10am, with agility shows, sheep herding, horses ploughing fields and classic vehicles and farm machinery on display. Organised by the Sevenoaks Lions Club, the event, which ran until 5pm, raised £17,500 for local causes, including Hospice in the Weald, trips for elderly people and holidays for disadvantaged families. During the day, there were two half-hour shows from shepherd David Seamark and his sheepdogs and also two extreme falconry displays. Alongside these, in the field close to Shoreham Station, were a retriever obedience show, duck herding, and heavy horses dressed for the parade ground and pulling ploughs and carts. There were old tractors and other farm machinery, train engines, classic cars and lorries on display. Visitors could enjoy drinks from the beer tent and sandwiches from a bar run by the Scouts. John Law of the Sevenoaks Lions, who lives in Parkhill Road, Kemsing, said: "It went brilliantly – the weather was in our favour, though we did have a tiny bit of drizzle it was mainly dry. "We nearly had a record number of people and made a profit of £17,500 – it was a really good turnout. "It was a huge amount of work – we started setting up on Thursday – all for one day on Sunday – but it was well worth it. "I have been a member of the Lions Club for seven years, and helping run the heavy horse show for the last three. It's lovely – the Lions are lovely people and work really hard. "We were all so proud of how the event went on Sunday – it was fantastic."

Search through our thousands of bus routes, bus stations and coach companies with our national directory or our bus transit search engine. Find Maryland route, schedule and timetable for you local bus, or Maryland coach line, citywide. This free website will help you conduct searches through hundreds of thousands of US bus stops. If you're looking for a private school bus company in your town, a specific bus line number in your area or a Maryland coach line to get you from town to town: This site is made for you. We list absolutely everything you may want to know about Ellicott City MD bus stops, coach lines and more. Map Of Bus Stops In or Near Ellicott City click on red icons to view details. Use your mouse to navigate and zoom in the map Ellicott City, MD Bus and Coach Companies and Stops Safety around School bus With school buses back on the road, as a parent you might be worried about safety in school bus and around school. According to the digital journal, School bus accidents may only represent a small number of total accidents. [...] (Read Article) December 11 2014 - School bus struck on MD 29 in Ellicott City A Howard County school bus with no passengers was rear ended by another vehicle on MD 29 in Ellicott City on Thursday morning, Howard County police said. December 21 2012 - Traffic: Main St. closed in Ellicott City due to derailment No major delays on area transit systems As of 9 a.m. Tuesday, Frederick Road, which becomes Main Street, was closed in and around Ellicott City between Old Columbia Pike and Oella Avenue, due to a train derailment. Route 40 westbound is the recommended detour route.

Search rabidwriter's books Random books from rabidwriter's library Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison by Allen M. Hornblum A heartbreaking work of staggering genius by Dave Eggers Women and Madness: Revised and Updated by Phyllis Chesler Wise Blood: A Novel by Flannery O'Connor The prehistory of sex : four million years of human sexual culture by Timothy Taylor Members with rabidwriter's books Site design selection The old design is no longer fully supported nor does it get full attention when we roll out new features. We strongly recommend using the new design. About meI do psychiatric research at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. I also write (and try to draw a little). Favorite authorsNot set Account typepublic, lifetime Member sinceJan 12, 2010 Most recent activity

We visited the zoo in order to kill a few hours on our last day in Amsterdam and were sorry we had to leave. It was right in the centre of the city, easy to walk to and find and not too pricey. The zoo itself is not the biggest or most impressive but incredibly beautiful, with lovely old buildings and a rich history, being one of the oldest zoos in Europe. We particularly loved the large conservatory type buildings filled with tropical plants, monkeys and birds that you are free to walk through. The aquarium is also well worth the visit and is included in the price. All in all a wonderful day out and most certainly one to visit to get away from the busy city. If you own or manage Artis Zoo, register now for free tools to enhance your listing, attract new reviews, and respond to reviewers.

More in Outdoors An old wood pallet makes a perfect base. Not only is it sturdy, you’ll help reduce waste in our overburdened landfill. Try building with composite lumber, made of sawdust and recycled plastics. It’s more durable than pressure-treated lumber and contains no toxic chemicals that could harm you pet. Most composite wood/lumber products consist of 50/50 mix of wood fibers, made from recovered saw dust and waste plastics, such as PVD. A layer of bricks make a smooth floor that’s cool in the summer. For the roof, eco-friendly shake roof tiles, made from recycled tires, provide a great insulation barrier. Eco-friendly shake rubber roof tiles look like the real thing, but are considerably lighter than conventional shingles. They’re made with 100% recycled materials and carry warranties for as long as 50 years. When you're ready to paint, look for low VOC products. They’re made with fewer solvents which can produce smog. Low VOC (volatile organic compound) paint is specially formulated to have lower levels of smog-producing pollutants. They’re also low in odor and resistant to mildew.

51 year old Doug Hutchison and his creepy 16 year old wife refuse to go away, because society is fascinated by a train wreck that seems to be wrong on a basic moral level. Defenders will argue the point and say that it’s legal for them to be married and that love is just a number, but having sex with a pumpkin is probably legal, doesn’t make it right, and 3 is a number too, what’s your point? Is it wrong to sit in judgment of other people’s lives? Hell no, it’s the basis of our system of laws and civilized society that we judge each other. We have people called judges. If we took no interest in what others do and let them live as they please you’d still have John Wayne Gacy doing birthday parties. And with that in mind, let’s take a moment to try to figure out what’s wrong with this girl’s head. Narcissistic Personality Disorder People with narcissistic personality disorder may receive excessive praise for exceptional looks as children by adults. They maybe overindulged and overvalued by parents as well. Does Courtney fit those criteria? Here’s a quote from her mom “In grade school, she was one of the most popular girls… But what happened was, when she entered sixth grade, she started showing a beauty above the rest … and they couldn’t handle her.” Just one quote, right? Hardly seems relevant. Here’s another “She’s the most honest girl you’ll ever meet, and the people who are turning around and calling her all these rotten names are girls that have been sleeping around, who have disgusting lives.” Sufferers of this disorder also desire constant attention, are preoccupied with notions of success and fame and take advantage of others to achieve that goal. Courtney is an aspiring singer who was taking “acting classes” from Doug, who she met online. Her singing career, now 4 years in the making, was non-existent as was her fame before she married a man 35 years her elder. Now they’re shopping a reality show. People with this disorder exaggerate their achievements and abilities. Courtney calls herself a recording artist, singer/songwriter, actress and model on her site despite her recording career being limited to her Youtube account. Another sign of the disorder is that children are valued by their parents as a means to regulate their own self-esteem. Courtney’s mother is their manager and make up artist. According to people who knew Courtney long before this all happened, Courtney’s mother has long been living vicariously through her daughter and has tried to convince her that everyone who criticizes her is just jealous. People also claim her mother paid for a boob job for her, despite recent assertions her breasts are real. Four other plastic surgeons have claimed its nearly impossible that a 16 year old girl would have breasts like that naturally, of course, but whatever. Does she have fake breasts? Here’s her in 2009. Check her out at 0:08 Now here’s her in 2010. Check out 0:15. See a difference? But hey, at least that narcissism thing seems to be working out. We’re took some psych courses in school. Huffing Canned Air Did you see our Video of the Day yesterday? It was enlightening. Have a look and tell me this doesn’t, in some way, evoke memories of the interview with Ms. Stodden. She never claims to be walking on sunshine but she does call him a tiger in the sack, which is just as ridiculous. Watch her in any interview and try not to yawn as she squints sleepily at the camera, makes duck faces and stares with the lazy eyes of a rock bass in sub zero water at her husband, mere moments away from collapsing in a heap of snoring silicon, botox and sluttery on the carpet. A major sign of Ambien abuse is ataxia, or poor motor coordination, which may account for whatever the hell is wrong with her face when she’s not talking. It’s like watching Jim Carrey in his Ace Ventura days trying to prepare for a scene, only in slow motion. Another sign of abuse is uninhibited extroversion in social situations, which may explain her need to tell us about her sex life with grandpa. If you ever watched Star Trek you know all about temporal distortions. But if you watched it during the years of Brannon Braga and Rick Berman you know they never needed to make sense and were just used as a weak-ass Deus Ex Machina because those guys made bad TV. But! None of that means Courtney Stodden isn’t living in one right now. Look at that GIF and marvel over whether she’s choking back vomit and then trying to make it look sexy, or if her entire body is just bursting with tachyon radiation and existing apart from linear time as we know it. Her face is desperately trying to say probably a million things at one time across a million different moments but caught in this one singular time it can barely cope with the stress of it all. The resulting damage to her mind has left her unable to even understand why marrying a 51 year old man is gross, or to appreciate the damage it has caused to her body. Peter Pan Syndrome This condition is not recognized by any mental health body, including the American Psychiatric Association. It’s not a real thing in the sense that you can’t fix it or aren’t aware of it or whatever, it’s apparently just an issue of someone of a certain age pretending to be of another age. And yes, many people have confirmed that Courtney Stodden is, in fact, a legitimate 16 year old girl but God knows how people can see the President’s birth certificate and still question his birthplace but we’ll buy the credentials of a girl who looks like a tired old cougar with a facial tic. Doug Hutchison is a cult leader and Courtney Stodden is his child bride. Tell me I’m wrong.

COURTESY OF VILLAGE OF OAK PARK Historic landmarks in Oak Park, Illinois, are at least 50 years old and have some historical, cultural, architectural or engineering significance. Any of the following criteria may be used to determine historic landmark eligibility: • Significance in the development of Oak Park, the State of Illinois or the United States. • Site of an historic event. • Closely identified with a significant historical figure, architect, designer, etc. • Listed by the Village as a significant structure in one of the historic districts. • Distinguishing characteristics or distinctive design elements of a significant architectural or engineering type. • Representative of an architectural, cultural, economic, historical or social style or period. • Identified on the Village's official inventory of View Oak Park Historic Landmarks in a larger map Hire Local for FREE! Sign-up to get the latest news updates for Oak Park and River Forest. |Submit Letter To The Editor| |Place a Classified Ad|

Saturday, March 23, 2013 Can't shake the blues For example, The Body Shop closed two nearby locations -- one for good, one for renovation. The nearest shop is now a (Magnificent) mile up the street and will require me to walk 20 minutes up Michigan Avenue! No, don't talk to me about their website. It's still a freaking nightmare. Besides, I want to sample the lotions and potions before I buy. This should not be shattering. The weather is getting better, and people come from all over the world to walk up Michigan Avenue. And The Body Shop is not the drugstore -- once I stock up and I won't have to keep visiting it over and over. So why am I so upset? Because I don't like my life right now. Oh well, there are good things to report: My vacation is little more than a week away. YEA! I heard from my best friend heard my pleas and is back in regular (OK, nearly constant) contact. My oldest friend has been very supportive. (I owe her an email or two, which is nice instead of it being the other way around -- which would mean she was the one with the blues.) I found a group that meets every month to watch and discuss old movies (I signed up for Mildred Pierce in May). And baseball starts in little more than a week. I'm always happier when I have the Cubs.

Describing Stupid and Evil People - rude but appropriate So, staying within the boundaries of "moderately inappropriate" vocabulary, we probably should start with definitions of people stupidity. Here is a very |silly / stupid (male) -- might be used both as noun |same thing, but for female But this is really not a curse. It's not even rude enough. You might use this word to describe somebody, but it barely can be used for offence or some emotional talk. Let's get something real: it's also "stupid", but more agressive, like "dumb" or "moron". (And I beg you, don't forget the grammar: it's an adjective, and it conjugates by gender and number.) ||[ metumtemet ] ||[ metumtamim ] ||[ metumtamot ] Even if you haven't ever studied Hebrew before, you probably can see some sort of pattern here, can't you? And now some examples: |You are really dumb! |Ata mamash metumtam! ||אתה ממש מטומטם! |You are really dumb! |At mamash metumtemet! ||את ממש מטומטמת! |That was a really |Ze haya ma`ase זה היה מעשה |A completely stupid thought! |Not funny! Your jokes are stupid! (to male) |Lo matzkhik! Ha-bdikhot shelkha mamash metumtamot! |Shut up! (for male) |Shut up! (for female) ||Classic Hebrew grammar demands the form [ Shitki! ] The spoken form, however, is [ shteki ] |Shut up, you idiot! (literally, Shut up, oh idiot!) |Shtok, ya metumtam! |It's your homework to build female form of the above phrase; whatever this particular page is teaching you, don't forget the Hebrew grammar! |Another remark to the above phrase: the little word יא used in Hebrew slang, is borrowed from Arabic, and can be translated as "O" or just be omitted. What it means is something similar to like calling somebody as opposite to just mentioning him or her. ||[ ya ] (also borrowed from Arabic, I guess) |[ maniak ] |Shut up, you asshole! ||[ shtok, ya maniak! ||שתוק, יא מניאק! |Oh, and old good word idiot is working in Hebrew, too! ||[ idyot ] Hmm... if I go in this direction, it will become really inappropriate very soon. Let's stop right here for now, and give more details on stupidity: the language describing it might be quite diverse in any language: |[ satum ] |[ dafuk ] |screwed in the head ||[ dafuk ba-rosh |nonsense, bullshit, stupid things (note, this word is used in Plural) |[ shtuyot ] ||[ stom ] |Shut your mouth! ||[ stom ta-pe sh'kha ] (full version: [ stom et ha-pe shelkha ] ) |סתום ת'פה ש'ך! (סתום את הפה שלך!) ||[ debil ] |Another word for "moron" or "idiot", rather "stupid guy", a little bit obsolete, or too soft to really be used in the slang. |[ tembel ]

Racism on Display In the old days, the bigots would cut out my column, scribble childish and offensive phrases on it, and send it back to me. Or they would send me letters that made no effort to hide their racism. "Hey Perez, You spic, look at your people; dirty, lazy, drug dealing, welfare," one of them wrote in 1997. "You people rot our system." Although this kind of garbage was delivered to me frequently by the Postal Service, it never got published by the newspapers that ran my columns on their opinion pages. Newspapers had filters. Civil discourse was important. In the "letters to the editor" sections, anonymous diatribes were rejected and civility was required. Many people didn't even believe that these Neanderthal bigots still existed. They thought it was just Archie Bunker in the TV comedy series "All in the Family." When I was asked to speak in public, I would read excerpts from my "fan mail," and people would be amazed at the volume of hatred and ignorance these letters displayed. But we don't need to worry about that anymore. Nowadays racism is on display! The Internet brought it out of the closet. Even anonymous cowards are published. Some of them are famous in the world of cyberspace — even if they are cowards, known only by their screen names. Everywhere we look on the Internet, we find articles that are followed by racist rants written by the same kind of bigots who wrote me through the mail just a few years ago. Many are much more than xenophobes. They are clearly white supremacists who claim to be only threatened by illegal immigrants but show they are threatened by the growing Latino population. Because no one is filtering out their inflammatory diatribes, now they feel they have a license to abuse their freedom of expression. And they do it quite often! In the old days, to illustrate the state of racism and xenophobia in America, I would quote some offensive remarks from the letters in my mailbox. But now all I have to do is refer you to the bottom of some of my recent columns to demonstrate that racism is alive and well in our country. Every time I write about racism, the bigots step up to provide the evidence. Sometimes I feel I should thank them for making my points so clear! It's human nature; the people who write back to news reporters and columnists usually are those who disliked what they read or heard. When they like it, they hardly ever pay you compliments. But when they dislike it, look out! They'll let you know exactly how angry they feel. Because I often write about Latinos, immigrants and other minority Americans, the letters I get are mostly from xenophobic bigots. For every 20 bigots calling for my head — and for publications to stop running my columns — perhaps one is a "bravo" from one of the people I defend in my columns. Sometimes it gets lonely here with my laptop. And it's also a cultural thing. Unfortunately, Latinos, immigrants and other minorities are not prone to letter writing. Just as many fail to participate in the electoral process, they fail to respond to the media. And when they do, though they may send complimentary notes directly to the writers, they seldom respond to the bigots on those Internet message boards where racism has become acceptable. For example, take my columns from the past four weeks, which were on the Latino vote in the midterm elections and in which I argued that many of the newly elected Latino Republicans ran on anti-Hispanic platforms, did not win the majority of the Hispanic vote and should not be considered Latino leaders. On the Internet, the reaction to those columns was mostly venom from right-wing extremists. For defending my people, my community and my heritage, I was accused by some of them of being a racist. Nowadays when you try to expose the racists in our society, just for bringing up the subject of racism, the bigots accuse you of being a racist. They expect the rest of us to allow them to show prejudice, discriminate, promote ignorance and hatred, antagonize people, and violate human rights, because if we call it racism, we are the ones who are "playing the race card." It's ludicrous! Honestly, I would like nothing more than to put racism and ethnic discrimination in the history books. But as long as this kind of venom is prevalent, it cannot be swept under the rug. It needs to be brought out in the open. Of course, most of the Latinos who sent me e-mails had a different view. In the past week, perhaps because last week's column ("Latino Leaders — Not!") struck a different nerve, I've received an unusual amount of praise from Latino readers. You wouldn't know it from reading the xenophobic and hateful comments at the bottom of each of my recent columns on creators.com, but at least some Latinos felt my take on the recently elected Hispanic Republicans was "so true" ... was "superb" ... "needed saying" ... "hit the nail on the head." I received several wonderful letters, three requests to reprint the column in Hispanic publications and one invitation to appear on a Los Angeles radio program. "This is a remarkably truthful analysis of how those claiming to represent us are getting elected by non-Latino voters," wrote one Latino as he distributed the column among a network of friends. "I want to thank the author for his willingness to state what many of us feel." I was surprised! When you write about Latinos, immigrants and other minorities, those comments are so rare — and so immensely appreciated! But unless we learn how to combat the racism that has become prevalent and acceptable on the Internet, unless Latinos and immigrants start going into those message boards and challenging ignorance with facts, a loud minority of venom writers will overwhelm cyberspace and continue to make racism openly acceptable in our country. To find out more about Miguel Perez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM

A selection of articles related to colt 45. Original articles from our library related to the Colt 45. See Table of Contents for further available material (downloadable resources) on Colt 45. - King James Bible: Mark, Chapter 11 - Chapter 11 11:1 And when they came nigh to Jerusalem, unto Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount of Olives, he sendeth forth two of his disciples, 11:2 And saith unto them, Go your way into the village over against you: and as soon as ye be entered into it, ye... New Testament >> Mark - King James Bible: Luke, Chapter 19 - Chapter 19 19:1 And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. 19:2 And, behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. 19:3 And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was... New Testament >> Luke - King James Bible: Matthew, Chapter 21 - Chapter 21 21:1 And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage, unto the mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples, 21:2 Saying unto them, Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt... New Testament >> Matthew - King James Bible: Genesis, Chapter 49 - Chapter 49 49:1 And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days. 49:2 Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father. 49:3... Old Testament >> Genesis - King James Bible: John, Chapter 12 - Chapter 12 12:1 Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. 12:2 There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. 12:3... New Testament >> John Colt 45 is described in multiple online sources, as addition to our editors' articles, see section below for printable documents, Colt 45 books and related discussion. Suggested Pdf Resources - Colt .45 - mo the oommomorativo World War LI Colt 45 pinol, oocolod in the handle:-no vroodon chant. You won puflculorly kind to nmombor mo with thin lmprollivo gift. - The Legend of the Colt .45 Semi-Automatic Pistol and the Moros - that the Colt .45 automatic pistol was invented to stop the fanatical Moros from result from 1911 until 1985, the Colt Model 1911, . - Colt .45 Machine Pistol Conversion - SPECIAL NOTE: COLT .45 VARIATIONS AND IMITA TIONS. SUCHAS THOSE MANUFACTURED INEUROPE, SOUTH, AND. - Colt Gov Mdl Inst - Component Parts Government Model,. Colt's Automatic Pistol - - Caliber .45. Suggested News Resources - Honorio Banario stops Lozada, keeps crown - MANILA—Honorio “Rock” Banario of Baguio knocked out Alcer Lozada in the second round to keep his URCC lightweight crown in the URCC-Colt 45 Digmaan III held recently at Grand Oases Convention Center in Davao City. - Playboy centerfold Shanna McLaughlin arrested with loaded revolver - Police say McLaughlin has a valid permit to carry a weapon despite the Colt 45-caliber revolver loaded with hollow point bullets being confiscated. McLaughlin was featured as the Miss July in a 2010 edition of the men's magazine. - Picnicking in Jacksonville with a Colt .45 - I don't know if this will make you feel safer or less safe, but it's no longer against the rules to carry guns in Jacksonville's parks. - Federal prosecutor places emphasis on gun crimes - Hogsett said Miller allegedly stole a Colt .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol from a gun safe in the home of a friend with whom he was living in Huntingburg. - Wild flight from police wasn't Oregon man's first - Roy Fritts was firing an old-fashioned Colt .45 at a sheriff in his last run-in with the law while his girlfriend drove the car he was riding at 104 mph down an Oregon freeway. Suggested Web Resources - Colt 45 (malt liquor) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Colt 45 is a brand of malt liquor introduced by National Brewing Company in the spring of 1963. - AFROMAN - COLT 45 LYRICS - Colt 45 lyrics performed by Afroman. Say Colt 45 and 2 zig-zags baby thats all we need. We can go to the park after dark. - Colt 45 Blast - Blast by Colt 45 is a premium malt beverage with natural fruit flavors and a kick that is uniquely Colt 45. Follow @blastbycolt for updates. Great care has been taken to prepare the information on this page. Elements of the content come from factual and lexical knowledge databases, realmagick.com library and third-party sources. We appreciate your suggestions and comments on further improvements of the site. Colt 45 Topics Related searcheshinduism in sulawesi saved by the bell kevin the robot hans jonas biography dream interpretation ramrod yu-gi-oh gx the seven shadow riders dark room in dream strait of gibraltar bridge

Search Local History Articles - Community Services - Crime & Public Safety - Cultural Diversity - Disasters & Calamities - Executive Order 9066 and the Residents of Santa Cruz County - In the 19th Century - In the 20th Century - Libraries & Schools - Making a Living - Recreation & Sports - Religion & Spirituality - Spanish Period & Earlier - Unusual & Curious - Weather & Pop. Stats. - World War II Santa Cruz County History - People Old Soldiers: Santa Cruz County Civil War Veterans by Robert L. Nelson MANDEL, JACOB (1838-1913) Sawtelle Soldiers Home Records NAME: Jacob Mandel REGISTER #: 3491 RANK/CO/UNIT: Pvt./Co K/46 NY Inf. ENLISTMENT: 1864/08/29 New York, NY DISCHARGED: 1865/07/28 New York NY End of War BORN: 1839? Germany RESIDENCE: Santa Cruz MARRIED SINGLE: Widower NEXT OF KIN: Leopold Mandel Bro. St. Louis MO DISCHARGED: 1900/12/18 Dishonorable Discharge Bd. of Management DATE OF DEATH: CAUSE OF DEATH: PENSION CERT: #790,160 HOW DISPOSED OF: Records of Members of the Grand Army of the Republic, William H. Ward JACOB MENDEL Was born July 7, 1846, in Germany;' a cook by occupation. Enlisted June, 1863 in the 46th New York Regiment, and served as a private; was attached to the 3d Brigade, 2d Division, 9th Army Corps; was in the battles of James River, Gettysburg, White House, Horseshoe, and Swamp River; was honorably discharged at Pigeon Point, Staten Island, NY. Comrade Mandel is a member of WHL Wallace Post GAR of Santa Cruz, Cal where he resides. Santa Cruz County Hospital Records Jacob Mandel a 52 year old Cook from Germany was treated at the County Hospital for Gonorrhea from July 14, 1889 until Feb 3, 1890. Santa Cruz Times (May 12, 1871) New Bulletin Boards Jacob Mandel has caused to be erected eighteen new and roomy Bulletin Boards in conspicuous places throughout town, and will be prepared to thoroughly bill the town for our own people and such traveling exhibitions as may visit Santa Cruz. Jacob is reliable and deserves patronage. Unidentified Newspaper, contributed by Phil Reader (May 25, 1877) Jacob Mandel, popularly known as "Hans" set himself up in business and is consequently happy. He has opened a bootblack stand on Mission street opposite the St. Charles, where those in want of a good shine, cleaning, carpet beating or bill posting should give him a call. Unidentified Newspaper, contributed by Phil Reader (October 18, 1882) The cards are out for the nuptials of Jacob Mandel, an old resident of this city, and some blushing fraulein from "Yarmany". Social circles will, no doubt, be paralyzed by this announcement. 'Rah for Hans! Unidentified Newspaper, contributed by Phil Reader (September 22, 1883) Jacob Mandel, the newly-made Benedict, and who was mentioned last week as having been left in the cold by his frau, says that he is out in no such frigid atmosphere, but that the departed will return to him after purchasing some "tings" in the city. Santa Cruz Daily Surf (October 7, 1889) Jacob Mandel, better known as "Hans," a well known character, has been granted a pension and will soon receive $1,800 arrears. He was a soldier in the civil war. Unidentified Newspaper, contributed by Phil Reader (December 21, 1889) Jacob Mandel, better known as "Hans" of "Hawntz", is in the dumps, so to speak. Yesterday a couple of women at the Germania hotel were blacking their shoes. Hans commenced fooling about them, and one pleasantly drew her blacking brush across Hans' rotund countenance, leaving a black streak thereon. This deep insults aroused all the "Dutch" in Hans, and he very brutally slapped the young woman's face. Hans was arrested, and on pleading not guilty, appeared as a lawyer for the first time, in Santa Cruz at least, on his own behalf. He did not prove a glittering success, as it took the jury but five minutes to bring in a verdict of guilty. Judge Curtis fined him $20, which was paid. Hans then wanted a warrant issued for the arrest of the woman for chasing him with a cleaver after he had slapped her. The Judge indignantly refused and gave Hans a lecture on the brutality of a man who would strike a woman. Unidentified Newspaper, contributed by Phil Reader A Hard Hearted Jury Hans Mandel, who is employed at the Germania Hotel, objected on Thursday evening to the chamber maid oiling a pair of boots near the kitchen range. He remonstrated with her, and she threw an oil rag in his face. She then stooped down to continue oiling the boots when Hans, who felt that his dignity was injured, struck her twice with his hand on the back of her neck. For this he was arrested on a charge of battery and on Friday brought before a Justice of the Peace for trial. "Hans" demanded a jury, and was accommodated. He pleads his own case, but the jury was unable to understand what he was talking about. When witnesses for the prosecution were testifying "Hans" insisted on doing the talking, in fact he seemed to think that the more he said the better impression he would make on the jury. When the case was given to the jury they only remained out five minutes when they returned a verdict of guilty. The justice fined him twenty dollars. He paid fifteen dollars of the amount and promised to pay the balance soon. Santa Cruz Sentinel (July 17, 1892) Jacob Mandel (Hans) has been granted a pension. Santa Cruz Surf (June 7, 1893) Our townsman, Jacob Mandel, much better and more widely known as "Hans," is rejoicing in the intelligence that he has been left a fortune of $9,500 by the death of an uncle in St. Louis. Hans expects to leave Santa Cruz, July 1st to enter into possession of his new estates. He finds many friends to congratulate him upon his good fortune. Unidentified Newspaper, contributed by Phil Reader (March 14, 1894) Hans Mandel is authority for the statement that a meeting will soon be called at the court house for the purpose of organizing a company of unemployed to "march on the Washington". Editor's Note: Jacob Mandel Joined with Coxy's army in its march of unemployed industrial workers on Washington D.C. who were demonstrating for financial assistance from the government. That event took place during the latter half of March to June 1894. Santa Cruz Sentinel (May 4, 1897) Gone to Santa Monica Jacob Mandel, an Old Soldier, Bids Farewell to Santa Cruz Jacob Mandel, familiarly known as “Hans,” has gone to the Soldier’s Home at Santa Monica, where he has friends. “Hans” bade good bye to his friends Sunday, and looked forward with pleasure to his stay at the Home. For years he has been a familiar character here. Before he received a pension he was employed as cook at restaurants and hotels. His pension was sufficient for his needs, so he did not bother himself much about seeking employment. Last year he started a lunch place on Pacific Av., but it did not pay. “Hans” was proud of his connection with the Grand Army, and would render his services willingly to help in his humble way at any affair where he could be of use. He imagined that the fate of the grand Army rested on his solders for there was nothing else in which he took more interest. His war record seemed to be enveloped in mystery, but is generally supposed that he enlisted in a New York regiment and served as cook. In none of the records of the war does his name appear for any act of bravery or deserving of mention. The fact that he was willing to serve the country in time of war is sufficient evidence of his loyalty, without delving through the records to ascertain what part he took in saving this nation. Some years ago “Hans” became tired of single life and married a woman in San Francisco, with whom he only had a slight acquaintance. They did not live long together, for one day she went away, never to return. What caused the separation he never would reveal. The old soldier is deserving of a home at Santa Monica. With his friends he can live over in memory again the days when they faced the enemy’s shot and shell. Perhaps Santa Cruz has seen the last of “Hans,” a man who never did anyone any harm or built a block of buildings. Santa Cruz Sentinel (December 14, 1900) It is said that Hans Mandel is no longer an inmate of the Soldier’s Hoe at Santa Monica, because he violated the rules. It is reported that he sold liquor on the grounds, which is strictly against the rules. Santa Cruz Sentinel (December 21, 1900) Jacob Mandel, familiarly known as “Hans” has drifted back into Santa Cruz. He went to the soldier’s home in Los Angeles a few years ago. Notes from Phil Reader Jacob Mandel was a member of Wallace-Reynolds Post GAR. He was born in Germany about 1838, and apparently served in US Army during the Civil War. According the Santa Cruz Great Book of 1880, he was listed as a 42 years old laborer living in Santa Cruz. He was born in Germany and was naturalized on October 12, 1868. In the 1870 Census Jacob Mandel was listed as sharing a residence with three young ladies who defined their occupation as "courtesans." On August 12, 1883, his marriage to Charlotte Bothe from Germany, age 32, was witnessed by Frank and Theresa Pratchner of Santa Cruz. The 1894 Great Book describes him as being 5'5" with a dark complexion and brown/black hair. The 1896 Great Book shows his occupation as that of Cook. Jacob Mendel died April 17, 1913. (California Death Index) >>Return to Home Page of Old Soldiers: Santa Cruz County Civil War Veterans >>Return to "M" Index Page It is our continuing goal to make available a selection of articles on various subjects and places in Santa Cruz County. Certain topics, however, have yet to be researched. In other cases, we were not granted permission to use articles. The content of the articles is the responsibility of the individual author. It is the Library's intent to provide accurate local history information. However, it is not possible for the Library to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in a local history article are incorrect and can provide documentation, please contact the Webmaster.

It is easier than ever for brands to be built up or tarnished by social media. To demonstrate this quickly, I picked a brand at random and used Twitter's new search tools to find out what people were saying about it. Because I know that pharmaceutical companies are generally behind in their use of social media tools, I chose Pfizer. Without expecting to, I opened a can of worms. Sure enough: using Twitter alone, I found a trend among Pfizer tweets: a reference to a lawsuit major retailers had filed against the pharma giant for delaying the release of generic Lipitor. I found references to this story in English, Spanish, and Arabic—about 45 tweets in a quick scan. The same links were retweeted multiple times. I went to Google News and found the news story that occasioned the tweets: a widespread pickup of the lawsuit announcement, probably sent out by the people who were suing. Twenty-four hours later, I went back to Twitter and did some further research. I found more tweets on the same subject, along with other random negative tweets about experiments on children in Nigeria. I then went to YouTube and found a video about the closing of a Pfizer plant in the UK a year ago called "50 Ways of Leaving Pfizer," the gist of which was the loss of 2400 jobs, the outsourcing of R&D, and the anger at the way the company treats its employees. I also went to Facebook, where I found some trivial posts on the brand's Facebook page: "Never too old to be a bride…" about a centenarian, and "The Bond Between Science and Duct Tape." The Pfizer Facebook page has over 56,000 Likes, although only 753 people are talking about the brand. The Facebook page is not used to present "real" information, just trivia. What a waste of effort. Remarkably, there was nothing in the last 24 hours from Pfizer itself on either Twitter or Facebook that acknowledges the suit, even to say the company can't speak about it. Pfizer's own tweets are as trivial as its Facebook posts. Why bother? It's a textbook example of how, over a short period of time, a brand can be damaged by social media. I didn't make an investment in expensive tools, and I don't think I spent more than an hour monitoring, but if I worked for Pfizer, I would have done the following as soon as the lawsuit news was released: 1) Gotten on a call with corporate counsel and corporate communications 2) Found out what could and could not be said publicly about the lawsuit 3) Developed two or three major talking points that were simple enough to be condensed into 140 characters 4) Drafted a Q&A or a fact sheet 5) Posted the Q&A to the corporate blog 6) Tweeted a reference to the posted Q&A and the blog 7) Posted links on the Facebook brand page to the Q&A and the blog That should have been done within the first hour after the news was released or the first tweet was seen. It's unlikely Pfizer was unaware of the suit beforehand, and all this could have even been done in advance. 56,000 people could have become allies, if the Facebook page had been used correctly. Another 29,000 Twitter followers could have been converted. There doesn't appear to be any brand engagement on Pfizer's social media pages, and that's because they don't address real issues in a timely fashion. Social media programs like these are sorely in need of overhauls, lest they continue to have what is likely negative ROI, and further erode their brands. [Image: Flickr user Leon Rice-Whetton]

Jack Kirby’s Silver Star By Thom Young Writer: Jack Kirby Artists: Jack Kirby (pencils), Mike Royer (inks for chapters 1-4), and D. Bruce Berry (inks for chapters 5-6) Publisher: Image Comics I remember reading an article in an issue of The Comics Journal twenty-six years ago that reported on the news that Jack Kirby was returning to comics. He’d been working in animation for Ruby-Spears Productions after leaving Marvel near the end of 1977, but he was enticed back to comics almost four years later by a new publisher out of San Diego. Pacific Comics gave Kirby complete control and ownership of the properties he was bringing to their company. Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers debuted for Pacific in late 1981, followed a little over a year later by the six-issue miniseries Silver Star (which Kirby called a “Visual Novel”). Synchronistically, I first discovered Kirby’s work just as he was leaving Marvel in 1977. I had just started buying comics six years earlier in 1971. However, in those early days of my hobby, I only read titles that had Batman in them—which meant I only bought Batman, Detective, Brave and the Bold, and Justice League of America. My sister, though, decided to collect comics with Superman in them (probably at my urging), which meant I also got to read Superman, Action, World’s Finest, and Superboy, Starring the Legion of Super-Heroes. For some reason, my sister didn’t “collect” Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane and Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen. I suspect our mom would only let us subscribe to four books each, but perhaps DC didn’t offer a subscription to Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen. In any event, my sister’s books didn’t include Jimmy Olsen, which meant I wasn’t exposed to Kirby while he was working on his Fourth World series for DC. Instead, it was my love of Batman that eventually brought me to Kirby even though he never worked on a comic book that featured the character. In the summer of 1977, Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers began their run on Batman beginning in Detective #471. I was immediately taken by what I still consider the greatest Batman arc of all time. Two months later, Englehart and Rogers produced Mister Miracle #19, and I picked up that title based solely on my admiration for their work on Detective. Up to that point I had never heard of the New Gods or Jack Kirby (I never had been much of a Marvel fan and didn’t know he had created Captain America and almost all of Marvel’s Silver Age characters). After reading Mister Miracle #19, I sought out issues #1-18 in the back issue bins (those comics were still inexpensively priced at the time). Those back issues led me to The New Gods and The Forever People—and, finally, to the Jimmy Olsen issues that my sister had never had. I could hardly believe this great work had originally been coming out just as I had started buying comics six years earlier, but that I had completely ignored it when (or if) I saw it on the spinner racks. Thus, it was with great excitement that I learned that Kirby was coming back to comics four years after I finally came across his work. Unfortunately, I didn’t much care for Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers when the title finally appeared. Those stories weren’t as exciting as The Fourth World stories, and the quality of the illustrations was noticeably lower. I knew from reading the Fourth World material that Kirby had difficulty with dialog, but his writing in Captain Victory was horrible—at least that’s how I remember it (I haven’t actually re-read those stories in the past 26 years). So, when Silver Star came out in late 1982 or early 1983, I didn’t hold out much hope for liking it any more than I had Captain Victory. In fact, I ended up disliking it even more—to the point of not buying the last four issues of the six-issue limited series. In 1983, I was convinced that old age had caught up to Kirby (he was 65 when he produced Silver Star). Fortunately, Kirby then went on to prove me wrong. In fact, concurrent with his work on Captain Victory and Silver Star, he penciled Steve Gerber’s Destroyer Duck #1-5 for Eclipse Comics from 1982-83. Of course, at the time I thought the higher quality of the illustrations on Destroyer Duck was due to inker Alfredo Alcala “fixing” Kirby’s pencils. Since then, though, I’ve seen some of Kirby’s un-inked pencils from Captain Victory, Silver Star, and Destroyer Duck—and it was obvious that Kirby was still an extremely talented illustrator, and that the poor quality of the illustrations in the Pacific Comics titles may have been the fault of his inkers. It was with all this in my mind that I approached Image Comics’ new collection of Kirby’s Silver Star “visual novel.” I wanted to find out whether the work was really as bad as I had thought 26 years ago. Perhaps I would now have a more “mature reaction” that would reveal to me how great it was. Unfortunately, I have to say that it’s still just as horrible as I remember it. The dialog and narration are horrendous, the nomenclature is ridiculous, and the illustrations lack depth—and many of them are crude and simplistic. However, I now have some insight into why it’s all so bad. In preparing this review, I read a one-page “analysis” of Kirby’s dialog (published in the April 1998 issue of The Jack Kirby Collector) in which Robert L. Bryant Jr. claims that Kirby didn’t write bad dialog. Instead, Bryant says that Kirby emphasized (emboldened) verbs in his dialog, and that fans in the 1970s reacted harshly to it because Stan Lee emphasized nouns in the dialog he scripted for Kirby’s stories in the 1960s. Even if it turned out to be true that Kirby emphasized verbs instead of nouns, Bryant’s argument seemed ludicrous. However, I then looked at several pages of the Fourth World stories. I found that most of Kirby’s emboldened words are nouns, just like Lee emphasized according to Bryant. Instead, I discovered that the reason readers in the 1970s (and 80s) believed Kirby’s dialog was bad is because it really wasn’t good. For instance, Kirby awkwardly introduces exposition in his dialog—as when a man walks into an army M.A.S.H. hospital in the first chapter of Silver Star and asks, “Am I in the presence of Colonel Walter Hammer, M.D.?” No one talks like that. The phrase “Am I in the presence of” is too formal for the situation—but I can see Kirby’s problem. He wanted the reader to know that Walter Hammer is not only a colonel in the army but also a medical doctor. The man couldn’t ask, “Are you Colonel Hammer?” or “Are you Dr. Hammer?” because those questions would not have provided all the information Kirby wanted to convey. It would have been slightly bet

Progress Against the Law: Fan Distribution, Copyright, and the Explosive Growth of Japanese Animation Massachusetts Institute of Technology December 10, 2003 6.806, Fall 2003 Japanese animation has grown to be a powerhouse in the world of alternative entertainment. Its phenomenal growth is directly related to the proselytization of fans who worked to grow interest in America, despite flagging interest by Japanese copyright holders. We present an historical analysis and a legal analysis to demonstrate that, at least in one significant case spanning two decades, commerce and the arts were significantly boosted through the continual violation of copyright. Except in “Legal Analysis of Fan Distribution and Subtitling,” citations adhere to the MLA style with footnotes. In “Legal Analysis of Fan Distribution and Subtitling,” citations adhere to the Bluebook style. Interest in, and consumption of, Japanese animation has increased exponentially across the world in the last ten years. Total sales of anime and related character goods rose to Ľ9 trillion (US$80 billion) in 2002, up from less than a tenth of that a decade ago. Despite Japan’s flagging revenues in other markets from steel to manufacturing and heavy industry, the Wall Street Journal recently commented that “Japan has more than made up for it because of its cultural exports.” Indeed, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi lauded Spirited Away and anime in his 2003 opening speech to the Diet, asserting that anime is being viewed as “the savior or Japanese culture.” From all of this hype, we ask the question: how did anime, once regarded as a product produced and consumed exclusively for Japanese children, become such a powerhouse in the global media market? The answer lies in the international pull, not push, of anime to other nations’ shores. A wave of internationals became interested in anime, manga (Japanese comics), and other cultural products as they studied or served in the military in Japan in the 1960s-1970s, right as the slogan “Japan as No. 1” began to reshape that country’s popular consciousness. Those who returned to America wanted to share anime and manga with their friends. The introduction of the VCR into the American and Japanese mass markets in 1975 made this possible: for the first time, fans could tapes shows and show others in America. Initially unable to share because of the significant Japanese-English language barrier, fans were relegated to explaining the bare basics of an anime plot as a slew of fantastic imagery and incomprehensible language bombarded audiences at the back of science-fiction conventions, or as a reader would struggle with the “backwards text and images” of manga alongside a Japanese-competent friend. “We didn’t know what the hell they were saying, but it looked really cool,” once commented Henry Jenkins of that period. New technology and distribution networks quickly enabled fans to proliferate and spread their anime message. What followed was the birth of fan distribution—a process of releasing anime shows on a vast underground network of fans throughout the country. Following a shift in the constitution of the fandom, fansubbing, or translation and subtitling of anime videos, was added to the distribution process by 1990. After leaving college, many fans started anime companies to become the industry leaders of today. Anime fan distribution networks—networks of Japanese animation fans who imported and distributed videos over a vast underground network in the United States during the 1970s through the early 1990s—represented proselytization commons, or spaces where media and ideas could be freely exchanged to advance a directed cause. Upon these networks many built their fortunes, and many more spread the knowledge and enthusiasm of Japanese animation to their American counterparts, all years before the widespread adoption of the Internet. This flouts theories of globalization directed by American cultural imperialism, for Americans “pulled” Japanese cultural products to America en masse without force or coercion by Japanese industry. Translation, reconstitution, and reproduction were not antagonistic to profit-making in early anime history; indeed, this fan process acted as a prerequisite good/service combination to widespread commercial exploitation. These fan processes were further believed necessary by fans, distributors, and producers alike. Quite against the restrictions of copyright, fan distribution of anime flourished throughout the 80s and early 90s to build a base for a nascent domestic industry and to contribute to the progress of the arts. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. In the second section, we provide a primer for readers who are unfamiliar with the terms “anime,” “manga,” “fan distribution,” and “fansub,” terms that this analysis will use heavily. In the third section, we detail the history of the anime fan phenomenon as it relates to the development of anime interest in the United States, unpacking the processes and motivations of key players in the movement between 1976 and 1993. We construct an historical argument based on original interviews and primary sources, ultimately determining that fan distribution functioned economically as a prerequisite good to licensed materials. In the fourth section, we present a legal analysis of fan distribution and fan activities, drawing from Japanese copyright law, American copyright law, and relevant copyright implementation treaties active during the period. We determine that fan distributors were left with no other recourse than to commit copyright infringement in order to satisfy their goals. In the final section, we combine these analyses to assert that a sphere of economic activity was created that existing copyright regimes would have denied, directly contributing to the rapid explosion in anime consumption and profit for all parties involved. “Anime” is the French abbreviation for animation, a word which the Japanese adopted to describe all animation. In America, “anime” specifically refers to the Japanese product, and is used for both the singular and the plural. The first Japanese animated film was a 5-minute short called Mukuzo Imokawa the Doorman (Mukuzo Imokawa Genkanban no Maki) produced by Oten Shimokawa in 1917. Various anime were produced throughout the prewar and wartime periods, but animation remained a curious oddity until 1958, when animation studio Toei Doga released Hakujaden (The Great White Snake), the first full-length anime film. Most historians cite 1963 as the birth of the anime industry, when famed manga artist and animator Osamu Tezuka released Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy in the US), solidifying the long-standing connection between anime and manga and inculcating millions of Japanese youth with the love of a super-robot who looked and acted just like a real boy. Anime is created for three distinct venues in Japan: television, theatrical release, and direct-to-video (OVA, or Original Video Animation). The latter evolved from Mamoru Oshii’s 1983 Dallos, and through the mid 80s to mid 90s became the dominant venue for experimental or avant-garde animation. Variety in anime is both abundant and scarce: today, there are over 80 anime productions airing on TV every week. This does not count theater and OVA offerings, which would bring the number closer to 130. However, some animators, such as Hayao Miyazaki, complain that the rapid expansion of the anime industry has resulted in a dearth of creativity that is leading the industry to a dead-end. Interest in Japanese animation in America has occurred in waves, each of which left a rising wake of anime fans who extol the virtues of the medium as an alternative to both Hollywood and any other products of American popular culture. The first wave occurred in the 1960s with Astro Boy (1963) and Speed Racer (1968). Star Blazers arrived in the United States in 1978 (originally Uchu Senkan Yamato from 1974), followed by Robotech in 1985 (based on three series from 1982 onward). Akira was a major cult hit in 1988. Finally, the 90s gave way to an exponential rise of titles and anime interest. Some of the highlights include Sailor Moon (1995), Dragonball/Dragonball Z (1995), Pokémon (1998), and Princess Mononoke (1999). Fan distribution comprises all of the methods by which fans copied and disseminated anime to other fans between 1976-1993. Fansub is short for fan subtitling, or fan subtitled video. Fansubs are almost exclusively subtitles of anime. Fansubs appeared in America in 1989 following the wide consumer availability of Commodore Amiga and Macintosh computers, which could overlay subtitles on top of a video stream with extra hardware. The essential hardware for fansubbing during 1989-1998 was a genlock, or generator locking device. This device enables a video machine, such as a TV, to accept two signals simultaneously. When operational, a genlock synchronizes an incoming video signal with computer output, enabling the overlay of subtitles in real-time. The results of a genlock system were then recorded on another videocassette and distributed along a vast fan network. Additionally, time-synchronized VHS and S-VHS decks might be added to the fansubbing system, resulting in near-perfect timing and accuracy of subtitles and spoken dialogue. Fans who subtitle videos are called fansubbers; a team of fansubbers is known as a fansub group. A fansub group traditionally consists of one or more translators, editors, typesetters, timers, and first-tier distributors. Fansubbers usually add credits or identifying marks to their work, although they almost always use pseudonyms for legal reasons. Fansubbers additionally will add titles such as “NOT FOR SALE OR RENT” and “CEASE DISTRIBUTION WHEN LICENSED” to their work, indicating that their work is not licensed, that no money should change hands for the fansub, and that viewers should purchase the licensed product once it is available domestically. Many fansubbers and distributors used the SASE, or self-addressed, stamped envelope system of distribution: a system that required no monetary exchange. Instead, fans would send a self-addressed, stamped envelope with blank tapes and instructions in it; they would get the tapes back with the episodes recorded on them. Some fansubbers, however, charged a modest fee that was only supposed to cover the cost of the tape and postage. Many fansubbers would include explanatory subtitles or supertitles about Japan, Japanese culture, or other tidbits of a subtitled anime in order to elucidate the show’s more elusive references. As this analysis ends at 1993, it does not cover fansubs encoded in a video file and distributed over the Internet, known as digisubs. Digisubs first appeared in the late 1990s. We present an original history of the fan movement in the United States. This history has been compiled and verified over a series of personal interviews, fan artifacts, and other primary sources. We provide appropriate citations for the few items that document portions of this period. Japanese animation was imported into before 1975, but with varying degrees of adaptation. The first documented films that saw non-local US distribution were Magic Boy (Shōnen Sarutoki Sasuke) starting March 15, 1961, followed by Panda and the Magic Serpent (Hakujaden) on July 8, 1961 and Alacazam the Great (Saiyuki) on July 26, 1961. While American producers they had to stick fairly close to what was onscreen for the graphics, they changed much of the story to cater to perceived American children’s tastes. Fred Ladd, who did the American versions of Astro Boy (1963), Gigantor (1965), Kimba the White Lion (1965), and Speed Racer (1967), was notorious for changing names and editing plotlines. Before Astro Boy, Ladd was involved with a Belgian production doing a modernization of Pinocchio called Pinocchio in Outer Space. When NBC bought the rights to Tetsuwan Atomu in 1963, they contacted Ladd due to Atomu’s “similarities” with Ladd’s work, that is, of a Pinocchio type character and science fiction. American production companies were used to completely Americanizing foreign products, removing un-American speech as well as all but the most scant of references to the original Japanese production teams. These shows turned out to be enormously popular with Americans, however, and there is little doubt that Ladd contributed towards the short-lived success of Japanese animation in the 1960s. By the 1970s, however, pressure to sanitize children’s television in America paralleled dramatic advances in violence and sexual content in Japanese animation, largely due to the influence of Go Nagai’s Gatchaman (1971), Mazinger Z (1973), and Cutey Honey (1973). American pressure stemmed primarily from network decisions to move cartoon shows from weekday primetime (the former home of Astro Boy and Speed Racer, alongside the classic The Flintstones and The Jetsons) to Saturday mornings, at which point a variety of parent groups pressured the networks for an increased sanitization of animated programming. “You couldn’t give away a Japanese-made series here [by the early 1970s],” Ladd points out. A few Japanese cartoons did make it over to the US and are worth noting. Gatchaman (as Battle of the Planets, later G-Force) was brought over in 1978, the former of which was significantly sterilized, and both of which remained too unpopular to be sustained. Uchū Senkan Yamato (as Star Blazers), with minimal retooling, was more successful in 1978; its popularity, however, was confined to the East Coast, explaining the prevalence of East Coast Star Blazers fandom. Finally, Voltron made significant inroads into the children’s market in America in 1984-1986; its sanitization could be described as halfway between Star Blazers and Battle of the Planets. In all these cases, however, shows’ Japanese origins were strictly eradicated. Japanese animation interest would surface again in the next decade, but its driving force was a very different market: the micro-market created by fans. Post-Astro Boy anime penetration spread through the United States within three months of the release of the first video cassette recorders in November 1975. By March 1976, Japanese community TV stations in the United States started running subtitled giant robot cartoons, such as Getter Robo. These stations had been running Japanese cartoons beforehand, but their previous broadcasts were aimed at very young children. Thanks to the availability of VCRs, science fiction and comics fans could record these new shows and show them to their friends. Fred Patten, founder of the first anime club in the United States, described his experience in detail. Patten’s first exposure to anime occurred at the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society (LASFS). During one of the weekly Thursday meetings, Patten met up with another fan who was an early adopter of Sony’s Betamax technology. He said, “you’ve got to look at this recording I made of this Japanese science fiction animated cartoon,” and proceeded to it at one of the society’s meetings. For about a year from 1976 through 1977, the fan brought a number of recorded Japanese giant robot cartoons with English subtitles to the science fiction club. Additionally, several other fans recorded shows off of Japanese community TV and showed them at various fan events. At the time, fans were amazed that the Japanese cartoons depicted so much more violence than cartoons in the United States. A standard plot device in the Japanese cartoons, for example, was that the hero’s father had been killed by the villain, that entire cities were blown up, and that the hero had to survive in the aftermath of a ruined world. Whether or not these cartoons showed any graphic bloodshed, it was obvious that hundreds of thousands of people were supposed to have been killed. In American cartoons of during 1976-1980, no one was ever hurt in even in the so-called action-adventure, or superhero, cartoons. Villains in American cartoons could do little more than make a few ugly faces. In 1977, a small group of fans, Patten included, decided that they liked the Japanese cartoons so much that they should found a separate club so that they could watch them on a regular basis, instead of watching them at odd hours at a general fan party. At these fan parties, it was common for a proponent of a Japanese cartoon to propose to watch it, but he—usually he at the time—would be voted down by the majority who preferred American fare. In May 1977, these fans started the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization (C/FO), meeting regularly on the third Saturday of each month. In November 1977, fans from the C/FO in LA started corresponding with other Japanese animation fans around the country. They found out that while they were showing Japanese cartoons in other cities, they were not always the same cartoons. Los Angeles and New York City were getting different sets of cartoons: New York was getting Cyborg 009 and Galaxy Express 999, for example, which were not being shown in Los Angeles. Consequently, the fans started trading tapes back and forth. At that time, many LASFS members maintained pen pal relationships with other science fiction fans around the world. Most of them were in English-speaking countries, but a few of them had correspondents in Japan. As a result, C/FO members began to trade videos with Japanese fans who wanted Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica. C/FO members were interested in the Japanese science fiction cartoons that were not being shown in Los Angeles television, and it was a fortunate coincidence for the fans that both the United States and Japan used the NTSC system for broadcast, so that video tapes could be played in both countries. Of course, the tapes that the fans received from Japan were not subtitled at all: fans had to watch them in pure Japanese. By the late 1970s, the majority of Japanese cartoons plots remained simple enough so that the average viewer could discern the plot just from watching the visuals, such as in Space Battleship Yamato (1974) and Space Battleship Yamato 2 (1978). Because there was no other alternative, fans reported that they were happy enough to watch untranslated shows. By 1979, fans and clubs, who had recently established an independent identity from the science fiction movement, began using the term anime. C/FO was not the only anime club in existence by this time. For instance, there were very big fan clubs in Boston, in New York, and in Philadelphia. There was a mobile fan club on the East Coast that called themselves the Gamelan Embassy, after the antagonists from Space Battleship Yamato. The Gamelans were devoted to showing Japanese animation at the science fiction and comic book conventions in the New England and Mid-Atlantic regions. Starting in 1980, and would show anime programs in one of their hotel rooms at science fiction conventions. The Gamelans put out fliers throughout these conventions, reading, “if you want to see Japanese animation come up to room XYZ,” and, “we’re going to be showing it all night long.” Throughout this period, it was considered socially acceptable to show whatever Japanese animation anybody could get on videotape without trying to get permission from the Japanese companies, because almost none of the Japanese studios had offices in America. The few that did—Toei Animation, Tokyo Movie Shinsha (TMS, now TMS Entertainment), and Tatsunoko—automatically said no because their local representatives did not have the authority to permit those uses. Furthermore, they were not going to take the trouble to ask Tokyo if a group of American teenage fans could show one of their cartoons to other fans for free. The representatives in America knew what the answer from Tokyo was going to be: absolutely not. At this time, Patten became officially involved with these animation studios. We describe Patten’s involvement in detail, and reveal that the Japanese were unsuccessful in gaining market access because their perceived barrier-to-entry was too high. In 1978, Toei Animation established its first regular office in North Hollywood. Toei launched its office to try to promote its animation in the west, after nearly a decade of inactivity. Toei discovered the C/FO and asked if its members could help them do some marketing research. They provided Toei merchandise for test marketing at the San Diego Comic-Con, where Patten ran the first American fan convention dealer’s table, replete with anime merchandise. Toei provided a sample of what they considered their boys’ and their girls’ TV programming. Captain Harlock dominated the boys’ material, and Candy Candy dominated the girls’. The boys’ merchandise sold very well, but almost no one was interested in the girls’ materials. Mrs. Hozumi, a Toei representative, also brought 16mm reels of the untranslated pilot episodes of a number of their TV programs of that time: the first episode of Captain Harlock, the first episode of Captain Future, the first episodes of their giant robot cartoons, and a few first episodes from their girls’ cartoons. Fans were fascinated with how different these cartoons were from American offerings. Hozumi took copious notes on everything that happened at the convention, which she sent back to Tokyo. Back in Hollywood, Tatsunoko in 1979 told fans that, “we are aware that you American fans are having screenings of some of our cartoons without getting our permission, and we cannot really allow you to do this officially. By the way, though, we would like some of these cartoons to be shown to Hollywood executives. Could you show them your copies of these cartoons?” Japanese studios—at least Toei, TMS and Tatsunoko—were very obviously aware that fans were engaged in unauthorized distributions and screenings, but their feelings were very mixed. While they could not support the fan activity in principle, as evidenced by their unwillingness to license these rights, they knew that fans were not profiting off of their activities, and that the studios were getting free publicity out of it. The next year, TMS provided a subtitled 35mm print of Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro for showing at the 1980 World Science Fiction Convention in Boston, Noreascon II. Patten, in concert with convention volunteers, created survey forms for the screening. The survey forms asked questions like “How did you like this movie?” and, “Do you think that this movie would be popular with the American public?” Patten urged viewers to fill a form before they left the screening; once completed, he sent them back to TMS. By 1982, however, the Japanese studios finally realized that they were not going to get any big sales in America. There was one exception: in an incident quite unrelated to Toei/TMS/Tatsunoko, the endearing Sea Prince and Fire Child (Japanese Syrius no Densetsu, or The Legend of Syrius, 1981) by Sanrio Communications was licensed to RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video for an obscure—but memorable among its few American fans—direct-to-video release in 1982. The last known commercial push came from Toei Animation when it was trying to sell its first Galaxy Express 999 theatrical feature to the major American movie studios. Toei again recruited C/FO members to help send out invitations to Hollywood studio representatives for a test screening in Burbank about two blocks from the Warner Bros. studio. However, no Hollywood executives attended the screening. By the end of the year, they sold Galaxy Express 999 to Roger Corman’s New World Pictures. New World Pictures was infamous as a low-budget exploitation company. They significantly altered Galaxy Express 999, destroying its intricately woven story in place of a failure aimed at younger children. Toei was highly disappointed. They told the C/FO, “thank you for all the help you’ve given us. We’ve decided we do not want to follow this any further at the moment.” They closed their American office and returned to Japan. For most of the 1980s there was no longer any real contact between the Japanese studios and the American fans, with a few minor exceptions. In 1987 a Japanese company called Gaga Communications, a large, Japanese theatrical and TV marketing company, had promotional responsibilities for a number of Japanese movies. In 1987 they held promotional screenings at LA comic book conventions for a number of movies and original animated videos (OAVs) that they had. The Guyver and Wicked City were among them. In addition to showing these titles to fans, they had invited a number of Hollywood studio representatives to come to the screening. Their clear intention was to surround these representatives with fans whom they hoped would be very enthusiastic, so the representatives could see how popular these were with American teenagers. Again, the effort proved fruitless. However, in 1988 Gaga was at least successful with selling Wicked City to Streamline Pictures, the first anime specialty company, started by Carl Macek and Jerry Beck. Macek and Beck were very aware of Gaga Communications and negotiated with them regularly. We will return to a discussion of Streamline, however, later in this analysis. One year after the Japanese backed out of the American market in 1982, an American, Frederick L. Schodt, would publish is seminal work Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics, documenting for the first time in English the vitality and ubiquity of manga in Japan. By this time Schodt was no foreigner to Japanese ways: he was one of the few non-military Americans studying Japanese in the 1970s, and through a series of twists and turns, managed to strike up a friendship with Osamu Tezuka after surprising the comic author with his flawless Japanese. Dr. Tezuka had a few choice words for the foreword of Manga! Manga!, speaking on the topic of the slow acceptance of manga outside Japan: “This is why Japanese animation—which is dubbed and doesn’t confuse the reader by ‘reading’ in one direction or another—has been able to open the door for Japanese comics overseas where printed materials have failed. Having solved the problem of language, animation, with its broad appeal, has in fact become Japan’s supreme goodwill ambassador, not just in the West but in the Middle East and Africa, in South America, in Southeast Asia, and even in China. The entry port is almost always TV. In France the children love watching Goldorak. Doraemon is a huge hit in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. Chinese youngsters all sing the theme to Astro Boy.” Dr. Tezuka’s words were very true from what he knew in 1983. As he would write these words, however, a very different “entry port” was emerging in the West: the networks of organized anime fandom. After the Japanese companies backed out of the American market in 1982, there were no moral or legal forces to discourage fans from copying and distributing tapes amongst themselves. From the late 1970s the end of the 1980s, there were movements to establish national and international fan clubs with chapters in a number of cities. The Cartoon/Fantasy Organization the first of these. There was also the Earth Defense Force, which was mainly a Star Blazers (the American release of Space Battleship Yamato) club with some interest in other programs. These clubs all had chapters in a number of cities; the theory behind them was that they could promote anime a lot more efficiently, and get more anime for the chapters in different cities to watch, if they were united through a central organization. The visual quality of tapes started deteriorating as more fans developed in America because people started making multi-generation copies of the videos. Visual quality remained high within the first year after C/FO members started getting tapes from people in Japan. By the early 1980s, however, some of the copies C/FO members reported were 15th to 20th generation copies, which were extremely poor. It became common for fans to compare video quality between their tapes. For example, one fan might bring his copy of the first Urusei Yatsura tape, somebody else would bring his copy of the same one, and they would compare them and see if one of them was of noticeably better video quality. The better quality tape would eventually be shown. Many fans also experienced ideological conflicts as the fandom grew between the early 1980s through the early 1990s. Patten reports, for example: “I got into some pretty bitter arguments with some fans in the early 80s [within the C/FO] that thought we should not try to promote Japanese anime, that we ought to keep it a small select group, you know—neat stuff that only we were aware of. I have always disputed it.” In 1985, the Gamelan Assembly announced that they were dissolving because anime was now popular enough that conventions were scheduling their own official anime rooms. They had achieved their purpose, so they no longer had to do it themselves. An overwhelming majority of fans, however, felt that the anime should expand to more segments of the American public, even if that meant a radical change in the constitution of the fandom. A few fans, for example, began to write translation booklets to accompany untranslated anime programming at clubs and conventions. A translation booklet would usually be 25-30 pages with the entire dialog for a full length movie or a batch of episodes. Translators would publish the booklet in fanzine format, which they would sell for $2 or $3 per copy to recoup their costs. The first well-known translation booklet was of the text in Rumiko Takahashi’s Urusei Yatsura theatrical feature Only You, produced by Toren V. Smith in June 1985. Anyone who was really interested could try to read the booklet and watch the movie at the same time. There were at least three or four other writers of translation booklets: one of whom was located near the Great Lakes, a couple on the East Coast, and one David Riddeck of LA. Toren Smith eventually moved from publishing these booklets to starting up Studio Proteus, a company that went on to do professional translations for American comic book companies. Along with other anime fans, David Riddeck started up US Renditions, a brief-lived anime specialty company. Plot synopses booklets also existed: each booklet contained up to a full page synopsis of the action in an anime film (the most common) or the episodes in a TV series. These synopses booklets were more common at some of the science fiction conventions in the mid to late 80s that had regular anime rooms, largely because of an identical practice among science fiction fandom. A couple of conventions—Balticon, for example—would publish these booklets of plot synopses, some of which were close to a hundred pages. Some fans took the booklet format even further, publishing a comprehensive guide to Space Battleship Yamato, covering its original Japanese version along with its American Star Blazers counterpart. Translators and compilers of these books considered their work the American equivalents of roman albums and other anime specialty books that were being published in Japan. Designated the same in Japanese, roman albums are compilations of production stills and information from various anime; they are highly prized among Japanese (and American) collectors. Authors of translation and plot synopses booklets were interested in more than the $3 per book: they wanted the prestige within the anime fan community of publishing something that all of the American fans would want. This booklet practice continued for at least five years, until fansubbed and commercial anime became more readily available. Starting around 1986, a number of fans wanted to build up a professional anime magazine presence in the US that they hoped would be something like existed in Japan. For instance, Rob Fenelin of New Jersey was part of a group that wanted to publish the American equivalent of Animage, Newtype, and other monthly professional Japanese anime magazines. Fenelin published 3 or 4 issues of Animezine from New Jersey; a couple of fans on the West Coast named Trish Ledoux and Toshi Yoshida published Animag, which ran 12 or 13 issues. Protoculture Addicts began in Montreal. Most of these magazines appeared very professionally published, and most of them contacted the Japanese studios to get professional-quality graphics along with permission to publish them. However, they were all such small scale activities that most of them could not afford to continue for more than a few issues, if they only were selling issues to the fans. Getting newsstand distribution was (and would still be) extremely difficult for a small fan group. With the exception of Protoculture Addicts, which grew very slowly over a number of years, most of these magazines only got out half a dozen to a dozen issues. It would be until Viz started up with Animerica (1992) with the Japanese mega-publisher Shogakukan behind it that a regular American anime magazine would be established. Toren Smith, David Riddeck, and others in the mid 80s wanted to do something like this, to take fan projects beyond the fan bases and turn them professional; Trish Ledoux and Toshi Yoshida ultimately did with Viz and Animerica. For the other two, publishing translation booklets turned out to be a good starting point. Attempts by the fans to convince the 1980s video and movie industries to release Japanese animation were consistently turned down flat. The only exceptions were a small handful of B-grade movie companies that would buy Japanese cartoons with the express intent of carving them up into kiddy cartoon movies. When Roger Corman obtained the rights to Galaxy Express 999, for example, he did more than “camp it up.” In another instance, in the voice dubbing New World Pictures did for Captain Harlock, they gave Harlock a John Wayne accent. Another tragedy of the 1980s was Celebrity Home Enter’s release of Revenge of the Ninja Warrior (1985, Japanese Kamui no Ken, better known as Dagger of Kamui), which was fortunately picked up and given a proper treatment by AnimEigo after its original license had expired. Kamui no Ken was a sort of samurai/ninja story set during the transition of the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the re-establishment of Japan under the Emperor Meiji in 1868. Celebrity Home Entertainment tried to turn it into a science fiction adventure “set on a far away planet,” even though Jiro, the main character, eventually travels to America and meets Mark Twain in Virginia City, Nevada. Celebrity Home Entertainment made no attempt to be faithful to the Japanese original; they just rewrote the script however they wanted to. Perhaps the most notorious example of rewriting, however, is the revisionist Warriors of the Wind (April 1986), based upon Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984). New World Pictures cut a half hour out of it; they cut expenses wherever possible and changed character names all over the place. Both Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata were appalled. In 1992, Takahata said of the edited version: “It is absolutely horrible! They did an enormous and aberrant censorship; they cut Hisaishi’s pieces of music, [not to mention] the changed dialogues. It was a great error of Studio Ghibli and we haven’t given broadcast rights to foreign countries since, and we’ll never again give such rights without an attentive examination of the conditions beforehand. For that matter, the international rights for Nausicaä given to the U.S.A. will be over in 2 or 3 years. All these movies are grounded strongly in Japanese culture and are not conceived with an eye towards exportation. Censoring them is worse than betraying them.” These edits, however grievous, were no worse than most of the non-Disney animation movies that Americans would get at that time. These animations were universally of poor quality, whether it was somebody else’s adaptation of a Japanese animated feature, an animated feature that was simply made cheaply in the first place, from Fritz the Cat to the French movie Fantastic Planet. Now Fantastic Planet had a sort of intellectual appeal, using a sort avant garde, futuristic animation style merely hid the fact that it was actually a very limited animation style. In general, however, if it was animation it was for children, so producers assumed that they needed to dumb down the plot, whether the subject of mutilation was Warriors of the Wind, Starchase of the Legend of Orin, the Felix the Cat theatrical feature, or something else. Even with the editing that New World Pictures did to Warriors of the Wind, it was probably superior to a lot of these others: it was only poor in comparison with the original Japanese version. Despite New World Pictures’s poor handling of Nausicaä, fans were inspired by Miyazaki’s original, as was increasingly obvious by fan evidence from the period following 1984. Patten recounts that, because of Nausicaä’s seminal influence, fans organized the first anime fan tour to Tokyo in summer 1986 in order to see Miyazaki’s Laputa: Castle in the Sky, as well as the landmarks that they only glimpsed in anime. Copied videos of the original Nausicaä had come over to America, which was quickly disseminated throughout the fan base. When the American anime companies started up, the first thing that all the fans wanted were Miyazaki’s movies: evidence of this is provided throughout Usenet archives, and by Patten himself. He recounts, “I know that when I worked for Streamline in the beginning of 1991, we were constantly getting letters and even a few phone calls from fans saying ‘why aren’t you getting Miyazaki movies? This is what we really want to see.’” The first theatrical distribution right that Streamline Pictures acquired was a one year license for Laputa. Streamline was constantly renting them out for college and art house screenings. At the end of the year Streamline wanted to renew the license, but Tokuma would not allow it. As with the previous decade, it was obvious that Tokuma let Streamline have Laputa in order to do some test marketing at Streamline’s expense. Tokuma, like its predecessor anime companies in the 1980s, was not interested in dealing with small companies: Tokuma wanted to make a deal with one of the big American studios, which they finally did with Disney in 1996. Whether ultimately fortuitous or not, one thing is clear: Tokuma, like all previous Japanese studios, was unwilling to invest substantially in the American market without a guaranteed payout. In spite of the aforementioned, botched efforts, there was at least one faithful—and markedly successful—foray of anime into the commercial sector in the mid 1980s. We now discuss the motivations of Carl Macek, the producer of Robotech. In 1981, Macek ran a comic book and movie memorabilia specialty shop in Orange, California. Macek also did marketing and promotion for the movie Heavy Metal during this period, which led him to research animation that was not oriented towards the children’s market. At the same time, there was an anime club starting up in Orange: the Orange County branch of the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization. They needed a new meeting place, and Macek agreed to let them meet once a month in his shop. Many of them were regular comic book customers of his. As he also sold animation cels from American movies, he was always interested in being friendly with the fans as a good way to get extra customers in. This was what introduced him to Japanese animation: after awhile, he started importing some Japanese cels from Tatsunoko to sell in his shop. All of this led to Macek becoming as much of a Japanese animation specialist in America as existed at that time, which developed into a connection with the Harmony Gold to help create Robotech. Harmony Gold representatives contacted Macek, informing him that they had worldwide rights outside Japan to a number of Japanese cartoon TV series. They had bought the rights mainly to sell in Europe and Latin American, dubbed into Italian, French and Spanish. They wanted to try and capitalize on their investment in America, but they were not sure how to go about it. This was the period when He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was extremely popular with its 130 episodes. All of the syndicated TV stations in America were clamoring for more, saying, “we want something like He-Man that has at least 65 episodes and probably more.” Unfortunately, most of the Japanese series at the time were too short. Macek pointed out that Harmony Gold already had the rights to Macross, which was an association with Tatsunoko Productions and that Tatsunoko had other science fiction programs that were similar in nature and that had been done in a similar art style. Harmony Gold then asserted that if Macek took three of these and edited them together, he could make a single series out of it. This led to his association with Harmony Gold and with Robotech, which made him even more of an anime expert. He began promoting Robotech by attending a number of science fiction conventions, talking to the fans and finding out what the fans wanted. This made him aware that there was a growing cult interest in anime among the adolescent and young adult public, which was simply being ignored by the entertainment establishment. The entertainment executives at the time held the mistaken inference that if a product was a cartoon, then it must be for young kids in order to sell well; since Japanese cartoons were much too violent and mature for young kids, it would not sell well. Based on his experience with anime fandom, Macek edited Macross, Orguss, and Southern Cross into Robotech, which turned out to be a resounding commercial success. Macek quickly gained notoriety in the fan community for the serious re-editing required of the Robotech saga, although he has asserted that the decision to combine the three series was Harmony Gold’s (ultimately, based on the market at the time). Nevertheless, we argue that Robotech was markedly more faithful to its original anime series than other commercial attempts during this period: it kept in, for example, the pivotal love triangle between Hikaru Ichijo (Rick Hunter), Lynn Minmay (Lynn Minmei), and Misa Hayase (Lisa Hayes), the first love triangle on both Japanese and American animated television. Furthermore, we note the profound connection between Robotech and Macek’s involvement with early American fandom: the creator of the next pivotal “wave” of anime fans was none other than a fan himself, who relied extensively on the fan network that developed at that time. We return to a discussion of the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization during the height of its activity between 1985-1989. By this time, the C/FO had over three dozen chapters throughout America; it even maintained a chapter called C/FO Rising Sun near an air force base in Japan. At this point, the C/FO had established a massive official system for the distribution of untranslated tapes between its member chapters. In 1985, many of the C/FO’s videos not acquired through pen pal relationships or Japanese family members were acquired through Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, Nipponmachi in San Francisco, the Japanese district of New York, and in other places that sold Japanese import goods. These locations would have little “Mom and Pop” video stores that sold or rented original Japanese videos. In addition, some store owners would request their relatives in Japan to record Japanese TV and send it over, at which point they would put the tapes up for rent. Fans would purchase or rent these tapes, copy them, and circulate them in the anime fan community. Many of these tapes would have all of the Japanese commercials and station break parts intact between segments of anime programming. Despite the well-developed network, in the mid-1980s there emerged a societal dichotomy among the small anime fandom, where there were “haves” and there were “have-nots.” Access to anime became a matter of who you knew in order to get access: once you knew the right people, however, it was trivial to access any anime available (quality issues aside). Out in Japan, however, another fan network was forming led by James Renault and the fans at C/FO Rising Sun. Renault first became involved with anime growing up overseas. His father was a military man: throughout the 1960s-1970s he was stationed at Tachikawa airbase, and later Misawa airbase, in northern Japan. Renault ended up being taken care of by a Japanese nanny most of the time in his youth, during which he watched a lot of Japanese television. He developed Japanese pen pals, whom he would send tapes of American programming once his family became one of the first families to have a Betamax on the airbase. Renault recounts that, in the late 1970s, he traded tapes frequently with pen pals back in America. Even if there were tapes that he did not intend to watch, his family was able to trade them away to other military personnel, or to Japanese contacts. For example, followers of Dallas had no way of following that series while on Misawa; Renault was able to get the most recent tapes of “Who Shot JR?” to others on the base, giving them a connection to mainland U.S. that they otherwise would not have. Renault returned to America to finish high school and college. While in America, he met people like Patten, Lori Eason, and the Hanisons in San Francisco: both were big archivists by the early 1980s. During the early 1980s, Renault watched the C/FO grow and expand. He had little to do with American fandom at this time; his main source of anime was through his pen pals in Japan, who would periodically send him interesting tapes. He would occasionally “sit down and binge watch for hours at a time,” but would not watch every day, nor would he watch every tape he had. As it turned out, Renault had a lot of Japanese pen pals. In fact, the majority of his pen pals wound up going into the industry itself. They were considered odd by Japanese standards: they wanted to do animation, they wanted to do art, they wanted to do television, they wanted to direct, and they wanted to do movies, so they did. His pen pals included artists like Kenichi Sonoda, Monkey Punch (who was a good friend of Renault’s father, as both are avid jazz collectors), and Go Nagai. Through them, Renault met a lot of other people who studied underneath them, or otherwise were involved with them in their studios. That is how he got a lot of his anime, directly from the source. Renault joined the military in 1986, and wound up having the great fortune of being sent back to the Misawa base at which he was raised. He resumed a lot of his old contacts and penpals, and started sending more tapes, since he was in the city and went shopping daily. He reentered organized fandom. Later that year, he met a gentleman by the name of Joshua Smith who was the president and chief operator of C/FO Rising Sun. It was basically a group of about six or seven die-hard fans who were also all military people. This group included Renault, Smith, Hillary Hutchinson, Ronald Davidson, and a few others. Hutchinson served as the primary contact with C/FO San Antonio, which had large following at the time. Davidson would later be a key player in several anime conventions throughout America. Renault would drive from Misawa to Tokyo every weekend to shop, to drop goodies off on people in studios, to build up relationships and find out what was going on in the industry, and to follow up on things he was reading in Japanese animation magazines. For instance, he discovered a lot of production data as the original Bubblegum Crisis series was being developed. He learned how anime were put together, which he would later transcribe in his C/FO newsletter columns. That was how news of what was being developed would get back to the United States before most of the anime magazines were being published at all, in any form. As with the aforementioned translation booklets, C/FO newsletters were perhaps the most insightful publications that were being put out before the anime magazines, because fans would get the synopses of all of the latest shows, would get colorful art, and would get other information about fan gatherings, sci-fi shows, and conventions where anime was being screened. Many of the people in the early part of the fan network who were copying and sending—outside of the few Japanese family members and Mom and Pop stores—were affiliated with the armed forces. If it came from Japan, and it wasn’t from a Japanese national, that person was probably in the military. The few nonmilitary American nationals in Japan were usually on business; with a few notable exceptions (e.g., the translator and author Fred Schodt), they did not come to Japan because of its popular culture. Tapes sent by military personnel were never really sent via international mail: everything sent to Americans was postmarked “San Francisco, CA, APO.” Many C/FO members thought that members in the Rising Sun chapter were living in San Francisco, because they would send something back to California that would get there in one day. Instead of being sent from California, however, tapes were being put on a cargo plane leaving that day for Travis Air Force Base, at which point the tapes would be transferred to the bulk mail center. Led by Renault, C/FO Rising Sun applied American military distribution techniques to their fan distribution operations. Smith worked in file line and Renault worked part-time in supply, so they knew how logistics were supposed to work. Renault applied much of his know-how in order to produce tapes on request, which is how he could copy over forty tapes per week without eating up all of his time. When Renault became involved with the fansubbing group Teiboku Fansubs, he applied his logistics knowledge once again to Teiboku’s distribution method. He passed that information onto other fansubbing and distribution groups, so that they would be able to process the most tapes in the least amount of time. To confirm the accuracy and distribution of Renault’s allegations, we searched for remnants of fan materials that they may have distributed. A variety of tapes, including Dirty Pair TV Episodes 1-13, 14-26, and OVAs 1-10, were uncovered: based on Renault’s information, we were able to positively identify the source (an air force base in southern Japan with ties to C/FO Rising Sun) and approximate date (1985-1986) of the TV recordings, given that Dirty Pair TV would not air again on Japanese TV or be available on video until well after 1990. The chain of distribution would have included the anime club at University of Texas at Austin, which had direct distribution ties to C/FO Rising Sun, and of which the MIT Anime Club founder is an alumnus, and possibly C/FO San Antonio, which held formal ties to C/FO Rising Sun and purely informal ties to UT Austin’s anime club. Ultimately, these data, coupled with numerous other incidents, provide substantial evidence that C/FO’s materials saw wide distribution throughout the fan network affiliated with C/FO. C/FO’s materials, however, remained in untranslated Japanese, which was basically the only anime available with the limited exception of anime broadcast by Japanese community television in America. Reported Renault: “People were desperate for whatever they could get, and part of what I would do, and part of my job when I was working as the chapter director for C/FO Rising Sun was to provide synopses for all the shows we sent back. So, you had an idea of what was happening with the specific show. Even if it wasn’t a translation, it was just quick synopsis so that people knew what the storyline was when they picked it up and started watching it. It was actually very useful. Every now and again we’d be able to dupe one of our Japanese hanger-ons to actually translate an episode, but that usually took a lot of doing, usually a lot of bribery of alcohol or something a long those lines!” Another fan described C/FO’s motivation for the mass copying of tapes. He explained that, back in the 1970s and 1980s, there were no legal ramifications because no one ever really thought about them. At that time, there was no [American] anime industry. “Every now and again, somebody would pick up a license and bring a show to America which they would dub over and change and so on. Well, we weren’t all that particularly interested in watching that particular show, but we wanted to see what the original looked like. That was our motivation. Back then, the motivation was just to get anime to the masses, and to that end, we spent a lot of money and postage!” We note that quality was a major drawback to this distribution system. Viewers of anime in the mid-to-late 1980s had to suffer through Japanese commercials, shaky video, and the ever-present language barrier. Consequently, there was little economic advantage to watching these tapes, save the significant benefit of exposure. Interestingly, bootlegging—that is, the mass copying of anime tapes for profit—was virtually nonexistent in America at this time: there were some people that tried, but they were immediately extinguished out because there were plenty of groups like the C/FO who were more than happy to send the untranslated Japanese materials for free: all one had to do was write a letter. Bootleggers could not match the C/FO in terms of quality or price. C/FO chapters could get pretty much any show that anybody wanted, and they could get it for free: all that was necessary was postage. Ultimately, fan distribution through C/FO’s efforts, particularly C/FO Rising Sun, upheld the mantra of “keep it free, but keep it controlled within the C/FO organization.” C/FO chapters would only send material to people who really wanted anime and would share it with other people. That was their belief from the sending end, as well as their belief when they engineered their arrangements between clubs. Show it to all of your friends in order to promote Japanese animation. Assuming that a fan had access to the network, he could access as many anime and related goods as were available. In terms of the theorist Yochai Benkler, the physical layer (the postal system) operated as a commons for many types of media, but both U.S. law and the logical layer (the C/FO organization) restricted access to the physical layer’s contents. The logical layer (the C/FO organization) operated under control, and the content layer (anime) operated as a commons directed towards a particular cause: to get more anime to the masses. We dub the anime network that existed during the 1980s a closed proselytization commons. Like the innovation commons so espoused by Lawrence Lessig, the proselytization commons offered a world of creativity—a world of difference—to those who had access. This commons, however, existed several years before the widespread adoption of the Internet. In succeeding years, many would build their fortunes on this proselytization commons. In practice, however, the commons was closed: it did not embrace the principles of end-to-end. This proved to be its downfall, leaving the next generation to the construction of a new, open proselytization commons. The very first known fansub was documented at C/FO Rising Sun, sent to them by the late Roy Black of C/FO Virginia in Blacksburg. Black sent C/FO Rising Sun a third-generation copy of a 4th or 5th generation copy of a Lupin III episode that someone had genlocked with a Commodore Amiga and had basically subtitled, scene by scene, so that they could translate the entire episode. It was very choppy, it was very grainy, and the video quality had been bled out of the tape. Nevertheless, it was definitely different: for the first time, a fan could watch an episode and fully understand what was going on. The Lupin III fansub turned out to be an anomaly. The technology to fansub was extremely expensive (on the order of $4000 in 1986), and the time commitment would stretch for over one hundred hours per episode. C/FO members did not expect to see more fansubs come out in the near future after 1986, and to their credit, they never did. Nevertheless, they reported being “blown away at somebody having that level of patience. It was kind of like giving the caveman fire. It was just, now that we have it, we have to figure out how we’re going to put it to use.” Quite unrelated to the fansubbing incident, however, C/FO began to show signs of stress by the late 1980s. In late 1988, established chapters refused to trade or communicate with one another due to a great deal of politicking: if a group had a mightier number or had something of value, they would withhold it from another group to get what they wanted. After awhile, many of the chapters fell into a prisoner’s dilemma: a “well, we’re not going to talk to those guys since they have nothing of value to us” stalemate, in the words of one fan. There was a power struggle at the very top of the C/FO. Fred Patten had basically done everything that he could do as the leader of the C/FO: he led the group for an incredibly long time, and he was tired as would anybody be in his position. He felt that, for the organization and for anime to move to the next level, he should step down. During this time many accused Patten of disloyalty because he was concentrating on writing articles for general magazines, rather than for the perpetually behind-schedule C/FO fanzine. He reasoned, however, that if the purpose of his fan involvement was to proselytize anime and make it better known in America, it was certainly better to have it published in a popular culture magazine over a club zine where everyone already knew about anime. Patten stepped down, but he did not have a clear line of succession set up. Furthermore, communication difficulties were compounded by the reliance on postal mail, since electronic means were still out of reach of most C/FO members. Much infighting resulted, and in that infighting a couple other people came to power that wanted to change things to fit their own image. When that happened, a lot of people balked, starting a high volume of mudslinging and name-calling. The C/FO promised unfettered access to anime within its organization, but it was still very closed. To again access, a group had to be a member organization (excepting the UT Austin case), and the group had to go through C/FO’s central command, which originally was in Los Angeles, but later moved to San Antonio. The C/FO would bring in new charter members, but then after awhile, Central Command stopped sending tapes to those charter members on request, which caused a lot of strife. Many members complained, “well, I joined your organization, I paid the annual dues, and I’m not getting the things were promised me, so why should I pay the annual dues?” It became a rough time for fandom because it became harder to get material from these the established groups, particularly from C/FO San Antonio, C/FO Denver (C/Food), and C/FO Sacramento. At that point, most of the chapters seceded from the C/FO, which ceased to exist as a conglomerate organization in July 1989. In 1990, it would be referred to as “the Collapsing Fan Organization” in infamy of its tortuous demise. Right after the C/FO cratered, technology changed and fansubbing became reasonably accessible to the public. The rise of fansubbing has little relation to the C/FO’s demise: indeed we concur with Julie Davis at Animerica, who once pointed that it was really the technological innovation of the ability to make subtitled videos cheaply and easily around the end of the 1980s that permitted both the growth of fansubbing and the practicality of starting up professional anime companies. Had AnimEigo, U.S. Renditions, and others tried to start before 1986 or 87, it would have been too expensive to make subtitled video tapes. Our evidence bears this assertion out: fansubs and anime companies started at about the same time. We reveal a critical dependency, however: companies were equally dependent on the fan base as they were on the rapidly declining price of technology. It is very difficult to determine whether the first widely available anime was a fansub or commercial release: that determination rests on the definition of “widely available.” There were a few poorly documented ventures in to the foray among fans: an unconfirmed report of Nausicaä shown subtitled at the Indianapolis Comic Book Show (August 1989), the debut of Bubblegum Crisis 6, subtitled, shown January 20, 1990, and a subtitled version of My Neighbor Totoro shown January 23, 1990, followed in the upcoming months with Project A-ko and Etranger. AnimEigo debuted a sneak preview of MADOX-01 at the 1989 WorldCon on September 1-2, but it would be until April 4, 1990 that MADOX-01 actually reached video distribution. It is known that Robert Woodhead and Roe Adams of AnimEigo subtitled Vampire Princess Miyu OVA 1 in late 1988, but this “fansub” never saw distribution, at least not until a commercial release in 1992. Furthermore, US Renditions beat AnimEigo by three months with their January 1990 releases of Gunbuster Vol. 1 and Dangaio Part 1, both professionally subtitled. After reviewing the evidence, we conclude that the earliest release that actually saw sizeable distribution was the first two episodes of Ranma ˝, fansubbed under the Ranma Project which started at Baycon in San Jose, CA in May 1989. Although Usenet and interview sources concede that other subtitling projects existed, the Ranma Project is the first coordinated subtitling effort that successfully had its tapes distributed throughout the country, as well as shown at AnimeCon ’91 (at least over the video system). All references to previous fansubs strongly imply that they saw little, if any, distribution (which they could not have in any case until the re-establishment of a fan distribution network following the demise of the C/FO). Members of the project would buy Japanese laserdiscs and subtitle off of them, so that the result would be a clear, pristine copy. Significantly, we find additional evidence of Japanese inaction in the Ranma Project’s charter post, as well as a kernel of thought developed throughout the fansubbing movement: “> Also, are the subtitled episodes mentioned available anywhere??? “No. This is where the problems [come] in. “Since we do not have the official rights to do any of these, we really cannot 'sell' these on the open market. I have given a number of copies away, with my blessing to the [recipients] to copy the hell out of it, but this is a VERY grey area. I fully expect to either be told to stop by Kitty Films (which I would) or be sued the s$!t out of, which would only make potential audiences over here [very] mad […] “The reality just may be that they just don't care, period. A well known comic book writer who's spent a lot of time in Japan (come on...you should know who this is....) said that when he met with some executives in a couple of studios and let them know the 'piracy' situation [that’s] going on here, they said they didn't care what went on over here. Was this because of the yen-dollar exchange wouldn't make it profitable for anything to be released here, or they just think of us as a bunch of [weird] Americans.” What was even more remarkable was the speed of the Project’s subtitling and distribution: within weeks of the LDs being released, the episodes were subtitled. While the Ranma Project was active, it managed to subtitle the first two seasons of Ranma ˝, some Maison Ikkoku, and a smattering of other titles. The project lasted through January 1992. The rise of fansubbing and the rise of the anime industry also paralleled the rise of use of the Internet, particularly Usenet (as suggested by the increasing number of Usenet references in this analysis), among anime fans. This shift also accompanied the shift in the constitution of the fandom to a large college-age base, with new college anime clubs to support their anime interest: UT Anime in 1986, Cornell Japanese Animation Society (CJAS, once CJS) in variously September 1988 or late 1989, Cal-Animage in January 1989, Purdue Animation in 1990, and the MIT Anime Club in September 1990, to mention just a few. We urge the reader to keep in mind that this period paralleled post-Cold War globalization. Russia was already destabilizing. The Cold War was starting to end. Soldiers who were stuck overseas started to come home. The telecommunications industry started to pick up. There were many world events happening all at one time, and few realized exactly what was going on in the world, let along what was going on with this: the pull of culture into a dominant America, “reverse imperialism,” in the absence of mature animated programming. Just as subtitling technology began to be readily affordable among fans, so too did frequent business trips to Japan become affordable and convenient for anime industry leaders. John O’Donnell, Robert Woodhead, and John Ledford—again to name a few—were able to go to Japan and back much more freely because the threat of an actual Soviet invasion was lifted, coupled with Japan’s much longer promotion as one of America’s active trade partners. For the first anime fansubbers, however, these macro concerns were irrelevant: all they wanted to do was to spread anime as far and wide as it could go. These groups were usually run at the whim of the translator: the translator would usually run the group, and the shows that were subtitled were usually the ones that the translator was willing to, or liked to, watch. Otherwise, the fansub would simply not get done. To that end, that is why a lot of the earlier fans complained, “well, why did somebody do Saint Seiya, or why did somebody do this?” The answer is simply because the translator liked that show, not because the market demanded it. Indeed, the Ranma Project started on the premise that Ranma ˝ was really worth showing to fans, but that it would probably never see a commercial release. As subtitling groups became more organized, fansubbers began to talk to one another: many of them were in college, so many of them had access to the Internet. By 1993, fansubbers (the first known reference to the videos as “fansubs” was made in March 1993) made concerted efforts to avoid the case where two different sets of subtitles would go out for one show; this cooperation provided the additional benefit of keeping tabs on other fansub groups. Anime fandom went from zero groups to about four between the foundation of the Ranma Project and AnimeCon ’91, then to eight groups in the following span of about 6 months. Numbers increased to fifteen following Anime Expo ’92, where it remained for about two years. A couple of groups folded, but then a couple of other groups took their place, and then they multiplied again, ever-increasing through the mid-90s. In the earliest days, fansubbers served as their own distributors: they copied tapes individually to anyone who requested them. This model was quickly replaced with a tiered distribution system, however, enabling a much wider spread of fansubs. In a few cases, the fansubbing group would establish a subcommittee (usually a single person) to manage distribution. More likely, other groups allied with fansubbers, either other fan clubs, college-based fan clubs, or other groups that would then go out and distribute the fansubs to other clubs. There is documentation, for example, that the Ranma Project and others were closely affiliated with college anime clubs. Whether or not these groups were parts of official college anime club structures, they performed a service that provided college students with first-exposure to anime. One fansubber recounts that if he could do twelve tapes a week, he would be fine. When distribution started to really ramp up, i.e., when fans started getting Internet access in increasing numbers and started becoming aware that additional titles were available, distribution demands “exploded.” William Chow of the Vancouver Japanese Animation Society, Canada was the first big distributor. His Arctic Animation outfit was sending out copies of subtitled anime as early as November 1990, and continued to do well into the mid 1990s. Chow’s edge was his connections to fansubbing groups, which he made a lot sooner than other distribution groups. He actively went out and pursued these groups, getting them involved in a larger network of distribution. Chow gained a degree of notoriety in the fan community because of his insistence at charging for tapes instead of using the SASE (self-addressed, stamped envelope) method, placing him in the eyes of some as a bootlegger. Evidence suggests, however, that Chow and other Arctic Animation associates made little if any money off of their subtitling operations, and that they provided a highly beneficial in-between service for fansubbers and fans (that is, until Arctic itself was backlogged by over a year’s worth of requests by 1994). Chow also distributed to college anime clubs since Arctic’s first days, suggesting that he too had a hand in “first-exposures” of the new audience to anime. The rise of clubs, industry, and fansubbing gave rise to anime conventions: gatherings where fans and newcomers alike could revel in Japanese animation and its related offerings. We consider the effects of these earliest conventions, particularly as they relate to the availability of fansubbed and licensed materials. AnimeCon ’91 (San Jose) was well-attended by a lot of fans old and new who were interested in anime, but many of them went in expecting something that they did not get out of it. They were really excited about having an anime convention, but many of them came out none the wiser because they could not understand what they were watching: most of the screening material was raw Japanese. This is the reason why the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (SPJA) wound up going the route they went in ’92. When they did Anime Expo ’92 (Los Angeles), they knew that they had to have a way for the fan to better understand what he or she was watching. An out-of-print edition of Ä-ni-mé: The Berkeley Journal of Japanese Animation sheds light on the motivation of at least one fan, Mike Tatsugawa: the founder of Cal-Animage and the chairman for AnimeCon ’91. In Ä-ni-mé Vol. 1 Issue II, Tatsugawa’s “Editor’s Note” contains: “Japanese animation, which used to be shown in small back rooms of science fiction/fantasy conventions now has its own convention where the fans can watch their favorite movies and videos in 16mm or 35mm. […] “What fandom is witnessing is truly a rare sight and one that we should all stop and appreciate—the transformation of a medium. […] No longer do we have to settle for fifth generation tapes as our source of entertainment, or word-of-mouth synopses of videos. […] If Ä-ni-mé had been done two or three years earlier, we wouldn’t have even thought about asking the Japanese right holders for permission to print scripts to their movies. […] Our job several years ago was to expand the Japanese animation fandom base through any means possible Now, our task has changed. There is still a need to get more fans involved in anime, but there are more ways to do it now than at any other point in our short history. Subbing videos was great a few years ago, and in my opinion is still great today, but now we must work with the companies willing to expand into the American market […]. It’s time for animation fans to leave the cradle and start pushing harder than ever before to bring anime into the mainstream. The anime explosion is about to happen. The only question is whether we are willing to accept the results.” The vast majority of shows at AnimeCon ’91 were licensed from Japanese licensors, but were screened without subtitles. Consider Wings of Honneamise, shown at AnimeCon ’91. Honneamise is a classic animation with many talking heads; without a thorough understanding of Japanese, viewers would be totally lost. If viewers made up the story as they went along, they could concoct a whole bunch of different translations based on the actions that happen right afterwards, and of course those interpretations would be completely wrong. To that end, reported convention executives, they discovered why subtitling was necessary at conventions: so that newcomers could better understand and get into anime. There were subtitled exceptions at AnimeCon ’91, however: the Ranma ˝ and Maison Ikkoku fansubs, as well as the few industry releases available, were shown. Furthermore, there is evidence that Gainax brought a film print of second episode of Gunbuster, subtitled. While attendance data is unavailable, evidence again suggests that fans were rabid for the fansubbed material: a few of whom began reporting that their first “real” anime exposure was to Ranma ˝. We also note the continuing reluctance of Japanese companies to support American industry and fandom. Although Gainax made an official appearance both at AnimeCon ’91 certain previous conventions, it was an exception rather than the rule, probably owing a lot to the pro-fan orientation of its staff. Another unfortunate incident of AnimeCon ’91 was the U.S. Manga Corps. screening of I Give My All (Japanese Minna Agechau), which was quickly pulled from American distribution in a snafu with the Japanese licensor, Sony. Fox TV news and the LA Times besieged the event in their desire to know about the new wave of “Japanese Pornography,” perpetuating the stereotype of anime as characterized by pornographic content. Incensing fans and industry alike, the incident motivated more than a few fan groups to combat this characterization by releasing more non-pornographic anime through the fansub network. Consequently, Anime Expo ’92 expended significant effort getting permissions from Japanese and American companies to screen their materials subtitled. For untranslated Japanese materials, this also meant permissions were secured to create and screen subtitles. Harvey Jackson reports this was the case during his involvement with the execution of Anime Expo ’92, Anime America ’93 (San Francisco), and Anime Expo ’93 (Los Angeles). When Jackson ran programming for Anime America, he would go out of his way to contact all of the companies, get their permissions to screen, and explicitly ask them if the convention could actually have permission to screen it subtitled. Japanese companies began to comply more readily, and several American companies [i.e., all of them] knew they were not going to have a finished product by the time the convention rolled around, so this would be a great way to pre-sell or pre-market them. They would give the convention permission to subtitle, so long as the American companies approved the script that convention would actually use. As companies became bigger and were making their deadlines a lot better, they did not want to run the risk of a faulty script being used or become victims of the comparison bug—that is, the comparison that some fans make when they see a sub at a convention that appears to be better than the sub that a company releases. After 1993, they started cracking down, limiting conventions to the raw Japanese version if they wanted to screen anything at all. Anime Expo ’92, however, had to subtitle all of the programming that they were going to have. Cal-Animage founder and AX Convention Chair Mike Tatsugawa, in his wisdom, realized that that English subtitling was going to be the one way to get the majority of people really interested in anime. When the convention rolled around, just about everything the convention showed was in Japanese, but it was subtitled by fans. When convention attendees discovered that local fansub groups had translated many of the convention materials, they all wanted copies. Anime Expo, of course, was not in a position to offer copies, but the various fansub groups made it known that they would be more than happy to provide copies to members of anime clubs. This prompted the overabundant formation of clubs in the San Francisco area: many people formed clubs just to get access. To understand what kind of impact fansubbing had, for Anime Expo ’93 Kiotsukete Studios subtitled all six episodes of Tenchi Muyo!, all three at the time existing episodes of Ah! My Goddess (also Oh My Goddess!), Ranma ˝ Movie 2, two of the Gundam movies, Koko wa Greenwood, and All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku. Many of these titles were picked up soon after Anime Expo ’93: every single showing was well-attended, and people wanted to see them professionally. Some of these titles were already in discussion, but there were other shows that no one in the industry had any interest in whatsoever that got picked up later. Whether or not these fansubs actually prompted American companies to license these titles is a matter of hot debate. However, the plain facts are that anime companies at the time licensed titles circulating in the fansub community with far greater frequency than non-fansubbed titles. If a causation link exists, it owes either to the show’s dual popularity in Japan and predicted dual-popularity with the American public, or to existing popularity among American fandom as measured by attendance at conventions and consumption of fansubs. We conclude that it was the latter: given the universe of potential Japanese to choose to license, and the still-limited appeal of anime in the American public, early anime companies had to rely on the existing fan base, and had to grow that fan base, if they were to turn a profit. That fan base relied on the circulation of fansubs. We cite one example, then revisit this argument in the following subsection. Consider Koko wa Greenwood (also Here is Greenwood), which was picked up by Software Sculptors in 1996. When Koko wa Greenwood was first issued, it was issued as a girls’ manga; it had no following in Japan outside of teenage girls who were following the manga, and those girls hated the more boy-oriented anime! When Kiotsukete Studios fansubbed it, they thought it was kind of quirky, yet incredibly funny. However, when Kiotsukete started distributing it, no one wanted it; they had to include it as an extra episode at the end of a tape just to get people interested in it, because they had heard so many things about it being a girls’ manga. After people started watching it, demand grew, and the property became valuable enough to license. Here is Greenwood turned out to be a lifesaver for Software Sculptors, because up to that point they really had not put out anything that was really worth having. Here is Greenwood was a pleasant 6-episode animation that everybody liked. People went out and bought it; they were no longer available from the fansubbing source because Kiotsukete, the only group to fansub Greenwood in its entirety, stopped releasing it. Anime Expo ’93 was also the time the industry representatives started buzzing more publicly about pre-existing copies eating into profits. Many of the shows from Anime Expo ’92, for example, were starting to come out commercially, and people were starting to buy them in 1993. At that time, Jackson we started to hear the buzz from the industry that bootleggers, as they called them, were eating into their profits, and that something had to be done about it. 1600 (printing presses outside London) Non-profit: SASE; enough money to pay for tapes “Not for Sale or Rent.” Complementary or Prerequisite Good “Spread Japanese Animation” “Make a Buck” Cease Distribution after Licensing Disappear if Threatened We note here the careful distinction between fansubs and bootlegs, summarized in Table A. Fansubbers’ stated intent was to spread the awareness of Japanese animation: although they have been accused of merely “preaching to the converted” (e.g., by Carl Macek and Jerry Beck), evidence throughout this section suggests that they were successful in introducing the post-Akira generation to the diversity that the medium offered. From their earliest days, fansubbers would remove their titles from circulation once they were licensed in the United States. In all but the earliest fansubs, fansubbers would add subtitles like “Not for Sale or Rent” and “Stop Distribution When Licensed” in addition to their fansub group name; they would also encourage fansub viewers to purchase the licensed product once it was made available. William Chow’s tapes went so far as to include these warnings during character dialogue, which some fans reported as annoying. Bootleggers, however, were only interested in making a profit at the industry’s expense. To the industry’s credit, they had every right to believe that bootleggers were eating into profits, because there were people that would go out and bootleg material—even fansubs—in order to sell them at sci-fi and anime conventions where they would market themselves as if they were an anime club. Perhaps the most famous bootleggers of the time were known by their pseudonyms S. Baldric and E. Monsoon. Kiotsukete would of course happily duplicate tapes for such bootleggers, and then the bootleggers would go in and erase the segment of the tape where it said, “Not for Sale or for Rent,” which Kiotsukete put at the beginning and end of every episode on every tape. Once Kiotsukete members started seeing bootleggers hawking their material at conventions, they became more restrictive on their distribution to other groups. By 1995, Kiotsukete set a quota on copies made, and required that people prove that they were members of anime clubs. As technology advanced, Kiotsukete developed watermarking, overlays, and commercial spots between the breaks to better identify the group and to increase the barrier that bootleggers had to cross in order to duplicate Kiotsukete’s work. Kiotsukete seems to be the only group that placed such extreme restrictions on distribution, but all known fansubbing groups upheld the basic principle of “Not for Sale or for Rent.” Neither fansubbers nor bootleggers, however, had a license for the anime works with which they were dealing. In certain limited cases, such as Kiotsukete’s, a license was obtained for screening at an anime convention. Even then, not all fansubbed materials were licensed at the earliest conventions. As Jackson explained, fansub groups during the 1989-1993 period worked under the idea of, “we only subtitle things that we know have not been picked up. If it has been picked up, we will not touch it.” If a company does not make an announcement making known that it has acquired the rights to a show, a fansub group generally will live with, “well, they did not tell us, and we can claim ignorance on this, and until it is made publicly known, we will continue to subtitle it and distribute it.” Recent evidence suggests that members of the Ranma Project operated along a slightly different line of thought. They liked Ranma a lot, they wanted everybody to be able to watch it, and they thought that there was no way it would ever be licensed in America given that the select few anime licensed in America were of the mecha (giant robot) genre. Consequently, they decided to subtitle and distribute as much of it as they could in order to show everyone how interesting it was. Once it became known that Viz Communications was planning on licensing Ranma ˝, they stopped everything cold. They stopped cold not only because of legal concerns, but because, in the very tight community around San Jose, everyone in the anime field knew each other. Everybody knew Trish Ledoux and Toshi Yoshida of Viz. They would have good reason to remember them, in any case, from Ledoux and Yoshida’s days at Animag. As Jackson reported no more plainly, “Because we have to go to Viz, and we have to go to functions, and they’re there, and we’re there, and it would be a lot more trouble than it’s worth. So, that’s why a lot of people were like, ‘okay, Trish Ledoux and Toshi Yoshida are our friends, so we aren’t going to do this to them to make their lives miserable.’” The strong connections between fandom and industry can also be seen in the case of Kiotsukete Studios, most of whom staffed the programming crews of major conventions at the time. Japanese companies knew that it was basically convention in-house people who were getting permission to prepare subtitles. With no exceptions, if it was something that an American company owned, Kiotsukete would not distribute it. “Distribution” in Kiotsukete’s case consisted of two men with four professional series S-Deck VCRs making copies for everybody, but they were doing it on their own time. Once it became known that an American company had licensed a show, they completely stopped distribution of that title. Whereas fansubbers always stopped sharing after a title was licensed, distributors acted inconsistently. Certain histories have lumped fansubbers and distributors together as “tape-traders,” a term that simplifies the complexities of the period. Unlike fansubbers, distributors may have continued distributing tapes. (Contrary to popular belief, however, William Chow seems to have followed the “cease-after-license” protocol.) Furthermore, other groups would use Kiotsukete and other fansubbed tapes as trade bait, which continued the propagation of material. One anime club member, for example, attested that he had to “amass a large enough collection [of anime material] copied from the club library in order to have enough interesting stuff to trade with others.” In spite of these significant overuses, it is important to draw the distinction between fansubbers and distributors with respect to the propagation of tapes. Fansubs might also be shown at anime clubs after they had been licensed. Another member of Kiotsukete, who was also an officer at a local fan club in 1993, reported that there were “a lot of times [when] we would subtitle a show just because we wanted to screen it for our clubs, and to that end, there were a lot of times when we did that, but we did not distribute it.” When they knew that Ah! My Goddess was going to take at least another year to come out, but they had already started our local groups on Ah! My Goddess, they subtitled episodes 5 and 6 and screened them to their members. They even let companies know that they were going to screen it “for them.” Companies were definitely not happy about these incidents, but the member pointed out that the motivation was to get more people interested in the animation itself. No fansubber made a profit off of his or her work. There were some people who obtained jobs in the domestic industry because of the work that they did, but that is more a testament to the quality of their work. For some, fansubbing was their only way of showing the industry that they had the ability to work. Most fansubbers, however, fansubbed because they loved it. The member concluded, “I did it because I wanted to see more anime [everywhere]. I wanted to see more people enjoy Japanese animation, and to that end, that was my goal, and I think that I have been pretty successful with it.” In this subsection we consider the development of four major American importers: A.D. Vision (now ADV Films), AnimEigo, Streamline Pictures, and Pioneer LDC. As the reader shall see, in all four cases the fan culture played a pivotal role in each company’s formation and initial operation, although the circumstances are unique to each company. John Ledford and Matt Greenfield met while both were working for businesses that rented and sold anime laserdiscs. John Ledford and Matt Greenfield also ran a Houston-based animation club in 1992, during which—through the fan network—they met up with several others who were doing comics and manga work in Japan, including Toren Smith. These artists pointed out that there was nothing forbidding Ledford and Greenfield from going to Japan, licensing titles, and bringing them back to America. Realizing that both Ledford and Greenfield had identical visions for anime in America, they chose to do just that. John Ledford had some savings, and Greenfield had been going to film school. They decided to form A.D. Vision, after which they went to Japan, talked to studio representatives, and convinced them to license A.D. Vision’s first anime, Battle Angel. After subtitling Battle Angel, Greenfield and Ledford staged their first preorder at Anime America in 1993. They made the announcement on Friday, June 26, and on Saturday they opened up their booth table to a horde of excited anime fans. A.D. Vision continued to release a number of successful titles; most recently, Ledford was twice named as one of “The 100 Most Powerful People in Genre Entertainment.” Significantly, though, A.D. Vision got its start in the fan network, and depended upon it for its initial sales. Indeed, ADV followed Streamline’s model of releasing English dubs after it noticed that Streamline’s per-title sales far outstripped ADV’s subtitled releases. Without the fan network, however, ADV would have had no market base whatsoever. The history of AnimEigo is fairly well-documented, so we do not recount it in its entirety here. Although CEO Robert Woodhead is not a fan per se, the history of the company is very connected with organized fandom. Co-founder Roe Adams was a huge anime fan; he was seen regularly during the early years of the Cornell Japanese Animation Society in 1988. Significantly, the first post by AnimEigo on Usenet claims that “AnimEigo is a cooperative venture of Anime fans.” Without the fan network and exposure to existing, unreleased Japanese animation, it is unlikely that AnimEigo would have started. In 1986, while Carl Macek was producing Robotech the Movie, he got together with Jerry Beck. Beck—quite well-regarded in the American animation field—was also an anime fan; he ran the New York chapter of the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization during the early 1980s before he moved out to Los Angeles. Both Macek and Beck were aware of this potential market on a very personal level. If no one was taking advantage of it, they reasoned, they decided that they might as well. They started Streamline pictures in 1988 with their release of Akira (1989), followed by a slew of titles that typified anime available in the early 1990s. Fred Patten knew Macek from the early 1980s, when Patten was one of the fans who attended anime screenings at Macek’s shop. Patten would later interview Macek for articles for some of the American fanzines Amazing Heroes and Comics Journal. They were reasonably close acquaintances at that time, so when Macek and Beck started up Streamline Pictures, Patten offered his services and advice, since Patten was in favor of anything that would promote anime in America. Macek and Beck would regularly ask Patten about what the most popular titles with fans were, and what the main studios of those titles were, so that they could decide whether or not they wanted to try and license those titles. After Patten lost his job as a technical librarian for Hughes Aircraft Company, Mack and Beck invited him to join Streamline Pictures; like so many others, in 1990 Patten turned his hobby into a profession. Patten was aware of Streamline’s activities on a very personal basis; he was also aware of the other anime companies starting up at the time. Streamline was the center of attention in the “dub-versus-sub” debate among fans: a heated multi-year argument over whether anime videos should be dubbed or subtitled. Many of the early fans in the days of the first licensed videos, that is, 1989-1993 (indeed, arguments continued through 1999), felt that videos should be subtitled. Subtitling was much cheaper than dubbing the videos, and the videos tended to have higher translation quality because the voice talent doing the subbing was generally not that good. Streamline Pictures, however, made a point of only dubbing. As Macek and Beck contended, most of the general public would not take the trouble to read subtitled videos. They argued that the public wanted to hear spoken dialogue even if the voice quality was not very high. Neither Patten nor we agree with the second point, but Macek and Beck were absolutely correct on the first. Due to the long history of high-quality and abundant English-language programming in the United States, the American public remains reluctant to go to the trouble of watching a subtitled video or movie. If the goal of an anime company was to publicize or promote anime to the public, then dubbing was a necessity; and as Macek stated, “The whole goal of Streamline was to bring anime to a broad audience.” By 1993, Streamline’s tapes were selling so much better than other companies’ that the other companies—ADV and US Manga Corps. in particular—realized that if their main goal was to make money, then they needed to go to the expense of dubbing rather than subtitling everything. Dubbing turned out to be less of a concern in the long run than maintaining the fidelity of the story in the original animation. Once dubbing was decoupled from the hack-and-slash methods of anime importation in the 1980s, fan furor slowly receded and sales rapidly picked up. One of Patten’s main duties at Streamline Pictures was to verify the accuracy of the materials that Streamline got when they licensed a title, because one of the things that Streamline tried to emphasize was that they were doing faithful translations of the original Japanese. These materials included the negatives, sound effects, and raw translations of Japanese scripts that Patten and others would then rewrite into smooth English: they would adjust the language to match mouth movements and other audiovisual cues. The Japanese industry was so used to the Americans completely rewriting everything, however, that they tended to send over very sloppy translations. For instance, instead of naming the characters, they would call them Man A, Man B, and Man C. Worse yet, they would just give the characters American names like Charlie and Joe, so that American producers could rename them as Pete, Bob, or whatever struck their fancy. One of Patten’s many jobs, then, was to research and reinstate original character names. As we have seen, Streamline Pictures was intimately connected with the fandom. While Streamline purported to want to attract a broad audience, it also attempted to remain faithful to the original Japanese stories. This idea was deeply rooted in the fandom, and led to Streamline’s early success. Pioneer Animation was the first Japanese company to enter the American anime industry, announced on April 21, 1993. A branch of the much larger LaserDisc Corporation of America, in turn owned by Pioneer Corporation of Japan, Pioneer’s first projects were Tenchi Muyo! and Moldiver. Both of these titles were released on laserdisc and VHS. Before releasing these, however, they made themselves highly visible at Anime Expo ’93 to show off their wares; they have continued to go to Anime Expo ever since. It remains unclear that the presence and success of Tenchi Muyo! fansubs motivated Pioneer to enter the market. It is clear, however, that they saw enough profit in the field to justify entering in 1993, thanks in part to the fan base. Pioneer’s Tenchi Muyo! OVA releases became standards in the industry, and with Pioneer’s commitment to high-quality anime on Laserdisc, their releases quickly landed on the “must see” lists of most fans. In his second letter to anime fans, David Wallace, Marketing Manager at Pioneer, wrote: “Is Pioneer creating this product for the fans or for a larger audience? / We are trying to reach the broadest audience for this product. Maybe we are trying too much, but, we think we can succeed and satisfy the [anime fans (lit. hotaku(sic))] and also reach a more general audience.” We conclude that, like Streamline Pictures, Pioneer entered the American anime industry with intent to grow the market, but also with a reliance on the existing fan base and its established preferences. As the earliest evidence from the Ranma Project suggests, many Japanese companies were aware of fan subtitling, just as some had been aware of fan distribution in 1978. They were not aware, however, of the extent that fan distribution played in developing a sustainable, growing interest in anime consumption. Part of this was rational ignorance: Japanese companies really did not care much about this market, as confirmed throughout interviews during this study. The American market meant almost nothing to them up through 1993. This is no longer true in 2003, because there is a tremendous amount of money to be made in America now. During 1976-1993, however, Japanese companies did not think that they would be able to sell much to America in terms of entertainment goods. America was always the place that everybody wanted to enter, but the Japanese were continually denied by the Hollywood entertainment establishments like Warner Bros. and Disney. In almost all cases, Japanese companies were either ignored (Warner Bros. failure to attend screenings between 1978-1982), refused (“well, we’re selling cartoons, and we’ve always been told by the Disney people that our shows will never sell in America”), or in one case, plagiarized (the infamous Kimba/Simba case, the details of which are not appropriate for this study). Up through 1993, the buck stopped in Japan both literally and metaphorically. Properties might go to Taiwan or the Philippines; if it went to China, it was more often than not on a “pirate ship” (or tape dungeon). The Japanese never expected, however, that anime would become popular in America. AnimEigo’s first licensor, for example, was shocked when AnimEigo wrote them a check for additional royalties: they did not expect additional royalties! Kenichi Sonoda was equally surprised when Renault told him in the late 1980s that he had a friend in America who knew Bubblegum Crisis “and really thinks it is one of the greatest shows he has ever seen.” Isao Takahata’s reaction was mentioned previously. Go Nagai, the boundary-pushing artist behind Cutey Honey, was amazed when he received tapes of the 1994 MTV special on his work before he came out to Anime America ’94. He did not realize the following that Mach a Go Go Go had in America: it had a bit of a following in Japan, but not to the degree that it had here as a cult classic. Even Monkey Punch (Lupin III) is still thrilled when older anime fans, people closer to his age, come up to him to talk to him about the original TV series: it amazes him that people were able to get access to those shows, considering that they were not aimed at the American market in any way, shape, or form. Without the fan network, and specifically without fan distribution, none of this could have ever happened. Fan distribution began as early as technology enabled it in 1976. Anime fandom grew out of science-fiction fandom, but quickly evolved a character of its own. The Japanese were unsuccessful in entering the American market on their terms, so they abandoned it, turning a blind eye to it for a full decade. The fandom grew throughout the 1980s, until it became a powerhouse for underground distribution in the absence of copyright regulation. The few attempts at promoting anime in the 1980s to the mainstream grew directly out of this fandom. While unsuccessful in establishing a permanent trend, these attempts brought with them a small wake of new anime fans who quickly integrated into the fan network. The fan network, which ran on massively distributed, untranslated anime, became a closed proselytization commons that catalyzed interest in unadulterated anime in the late 1980s. Fansubbing and domestic industry essentially began at the same time with the advance of technology. Both grew out of the fanatical desire to proselytize anime, although the latter saw neglected profits in anime’s commercialization, based off of experience in the fan distribution network. While much harder to justify, the earliest fansubbing too served a commercial benefit in exposing a new generation of fans to new anime, especially anime that did not fit the boys’/mecha mold. The distribution network under fansubbing became an open proselytization commons, and with it came a strong desire to support the nascent anime industry based on an economically undiscounted future. Without fan distribution, the fan network, and thus the anime explosion, would not have taken off as it did in the 1990s. Our analysis turns to the legal implications of the fan distribution network between 1976-1993. We will draw from American copyright law circa 1976-1993, Japanese copyright law circa 1976-1993, and relevant international treaties, i.e., the Universal Copyright Convention as amended in 1971 and the Berne Convention as amended in 1971, to which the United States acceded in 1989. The reader may strongly suspect that fan distribution was illegal according to these laws. We conclude that it was, and show specifically what sections these practices violate. We further exhaust possible avenues for exceptions and fair us, showing that fans were left with no recourse but to commit copyright infringement on a wide scale. If the outcome of this fan distribution was desirable in the long run, therefore, the law did not sanction it at any point. First and foremost, there is no such thing as universal copyright for a work of authorship. As copyright is an intangible property law created entirely by the law, extension of copyright depends on laws that govern individual countries. Because our concern is copyright extension and enforcement in the United States, this analysis focuses on the laws and regulations of the United States in regard to animations as audiovisual works. In the United States, copyright subsists “in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression,” including “motion pictures and other audiovisual works,” 17 U.S.C. § 102 (2003). Works—particularly anime—are subject to protection if “on the date of first publication, one or more of the authors is a national or domiciliary of the United States, or is a national, domiciliary, or sovereign authority of a treaty party, […] or the work is first published in the United States or in a foreign nation that, on the date of first publication, is a treaty party,” 17 U.S.C. § 104(b) (2003). The fulfillment of 17 U.S.C. § 104(b), for our purposes, rests on two international treaties: the Universal Copyright Convention (hereafter “UCC”) and the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (hereafter “Berne”). The United States acceded to the former in 1952, and to the latter in 1989. Japan acceded to UCC on April 28, 1956, and to Berne on July 15, 1899; therefore, these treaties both circumscribe the copyrights of Japanese nationals outside of Japan. According to the UCC, “Published works of nationals of any Contracting State and works first published in that State shall enjoy in each other Contracting State the same protection as that other State accords to works of its nationals first published in its own territory, as well as the protection specially granted by this Convention,” Universal Copyright Convention, July 24, 1971, art. II(1). Berne states, “Authors shall enjoy, in respect of works for which they are protected under this Convention, in countries of the Union other than the country of origin, the rights which their respective laws do now or may hereafter grant to their nationals, as well as the rights specially granted by this Convention,” Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, July 24, 1971, art. V(1). Essentially, under the UCC, works of authorship that are granted copyright in Japan are also granted copyright in the United States. In the case of Berne, copyright is upheld among all States in the Berne Union. However, neither the UCC nor Berne are self-executing in the United States, meaning the provisions of UCC and Berne do not apply automatically, see 17 U.S.C. § 104(c) (2003). Instead, 17 U.S.C. § 104 provides the same requirements for copyrighted works as UCC and Berne. The effect is transparent, except in cases where Berne is amended by its treaty parties without the consent of the United States (which has not happened since adherence in 1989). Both UCC and Berne contain language relating to exceptional cases for translations of copyrighted works, which we will revisit in a subsequent subsection. For practical purposes, however, the effects of UCC and Berne place rights conferred upon anime as the exclusive province of US law. Japanese copyright law differs in certain respects from American copyright law. In “Purpose,” the Japanese Copyright Law (hereafter JCL) describes itself as: “The purpose of this Law is, by providing for the rights of authors and the rights neighboring thereon with respect to works as well as performances, phonograms, broadcasts and wire diffusions, to secure the protection of the rights of authors, etc., having regard to a just and fair exploitation of these cultural products, and thereby to contribute to the development of culture.” We consider the implications of Japanese copyright law in this subsection. Japanese law qualifies “works,” including “cinematographic works,” as valid for protection, JCL 2 § 1 art. 10. Cinematographic works are eligible for copyright for seventy years, JCL 2 § 4 art. 54. Works must be authored by Japanese nationals, or must be first published in Japan, JCL 1 § 2 art. 6. Two classes of protection exist in Japanese law: moral rights, and copyrights. Moral rights are inalienable, and are conferred upon the original authors of a cinematographic work “attributed to those who, by taking charge of producing, directing, filming, art direction, etc., have contributed to the creation of that work as a whole, excluding authors of novels, scenarios, music or other works adapted or reproduced in that work,” JCL 2 § 2 art. 16. This definition of cinematographic authorship only holds if Article 15 does not apply, i.e., the work is not a work for hire. Copyright in a cinematographic work belongs to “the maker of that work, provided that the authors of the work have undertaken to participate in the making thereof,” JCL 2 § 3(4) art. 29(1). “Makers of cinematographic works” refers to “those who take the initiative in, and the responsibility for, the making of a cinematographic work,” JCL 1 § 1 art. 2(1)(x). Because neighboring rights in Japanese copyright law provide particular rights to broadcasters, broadcasters frequently invest in the work to become “makers.” In practice, this means that the copyright holders include companies that finance the anime production, companies that broadcast the anime production (frequently one and the same), and anime production companies that take charge of authorship of the work, i.e., the production company where the producer, director, and sub-directors work. Subcontracting occurs frequently in the anime industry; indeed, it is rare for a large project to not have multiple studios working on it at the same time. However, if a production company subcontracts some work out to another production company, then that other production company rarely owns joint copyright in the work. Because Japanese domestic rights are incidental to our study, we only briefly list them. JCL 2 § 2 arts. 18-20 cover the three moral rights: “making the work public,” “determining the indication of the author’s name,” and “preserving the integrity.” The eleven major rights under copyrights, JCL 2 § 3 arts. 21-28, cover the rights of reproduction, of performance, of presentation, “of public transmission, etc.,” of recitation, of exhibition, of distribution, of transfer of ownership, lending, “of translation, adaptation, etc.,” and “of the original author in exploitation of a derivative work.” The last right is particularly curious: the copyrights (though not the moral rights) of an author extend to derivative works made with his or her original work, JCL 2 § 3(3) art. 28. Neighboring rights exist in Japanese copyright law: these rights are granted to those whom the law recognizes as playing roles in the communication of works to the public, even though they usually do not create works. Broadcasters have neighboring rights as relates to anime: in particular, rights of fixation, of photographing, of reproduction, “of making available,” of retransmission, and “of communication to the public by enlarging devices,” JCL 4 § 4 arts. 98-100. That these rights overlap with the rights of authors explains much about the co-ownership of anime titles. Unlike American copyright law, Japanese copyright law contains no general fair use provision. Indeed, many have argued that the moral rights of authors in Japanese copyright law form the exact opposite of the fair use rights of the public in American copyright law. Japanese law does, however, contain a laundry list of limitations on copyright: most notably, it permits reproduction for personal, family, or “limited circle” use (called “private use”), quotations (including pictorial quotations), performances for non-profit functions, and translations for certain classes of works. These limitations are largely outside of the scope of this study: we only apply the law as directly relates to uses in the United States. Indeed, we are obliged to, because United States law prevails in all cases where the United States has original jurisdiction, because UCC only specifies that Japanese works receive US copyright protection, and because the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988 states that US obligations under the Berne Convention are wholly satisfied by existing levels of domestic protection, Pub. L. No. 100-568, 102 Stat. 2853 § 2. Had we explained the legality of the following uses wholly in terms of Japanese copyright law, we would have concluded very different results. We will, however, attempt to apply Japanese copyright law as it applied to recordings that were extracted from Japan and sent to America. International rights in anime are simpler to describe. Japanese animation holders retain all rights under United States copyright law according to U.S.C. Title 17 Section 104. Their rights are enumerated in U.S.C. Title 17 Section 106, “Exclusive rights in copyrighted works,” and are limited by subsequent sections 107-122. In particular, fair uses, if established, do not constitute copyright infringement according to 17 U.S.C. § 107 (2003). The first potential infringement raised in 1976 was the practice of time-shifting recordings from Japanese community television in the United States. For this analysis we assume that the Japanese community TV stations secured licenses from Japan for broadcast of this material. There are no known court cases between Japanese license holders and American community television stations. Although we recognize that absence of evidence does not preclude evidence of absence, there is no good reason to believe that these television stations showed unlicensed materials: they were visible enough in America among broadcasters that, if companies like Toei wanted to sue the stations while they had a presence in the United States, they could have easily. Sony v. Universal, 464 U.S. 417 (1983) clearly dealt with the subject matter of time-shifting, or recording for home use, of broadcast works. In it, the Supreme Court ruled that time-shifting was a fair use, that the practice carried no likelihood of non-minimal harm to the potential market (as demonstrated by plaintiff copyright holders), and that the sale of home video tape recorders to the general public did not constitute contributory infringement because of the significant potential for non-infringing uses. We concur in affirming the fair use of time-shifting American broadcast anime for private, home use: this fan practice does not constitute copyright infringement. Lending videotapes to others is analogous to lending books. According to the first sale doctrine, the materials in which copyrighted works are fixed are treated as property, and can be bought, sold, leased, and rented without the permission of the copyright holder. This doctrine is embodied in 17 U.S.C. § 202 (2003), “ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, is distinct from ownership of any material object in which the work is embodied.” Private lending to friends and family has long been held a fair use; in any case, Section 106(3) does not apply because it specifies an exclusive right “to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public” (emphasis added). We hold that private sharing among friends, as fans did in the early days, does not constitute infringement. Showing an anime at a club, whether recorded from American television or not, constitutes a public performance of a copyrighted work, 17 U.S.C. § 106(3). The most significant exemption in statute is 17 U.S.C. § 110(1), which states that, notwithstanding § 106, “performance or display of a work by instructors or pupils in the course of face-to-face teaching activities of a nonprofit educational institution” is not an infringement of copyright. We have shown, however, that college-based anime clubs did not start en masse until the late 1980s at the earliest. Even then, college-based anime clubs would probably not qualify under the strict language of “face-to-face teaching activities” in Section 110. Furthermore, anime clubs from the late 1970s knew that they were in violation of the copyright owner’s rights: Toei, TMS, and Tatsunoko confronted them as early as 1978, and refused to authorize their screenings. We conclude that showings at early anime clubs were in violation of copyright. Private distribution, we have argued, is not an infringement of copyright. However, systematic reproduction and distribution of complete tapes on the scale that was being practiced in the late 1970s far overstepped the bounds of a fair use defense. Evidence shows that there was little or no economic value to the tapes at this time. Nevertheless, fair use does not rest solely on the determination of economic value or harm. The level of distribution seen throughout the C/FO by the early 1980s began to take on the character of a multi-branch library system, but evidence does not suggest that it became a full-fledged, coordinated library system until well into the 1980s. Consequently, it would not fall under “Limitations on exclusive rights: Reproduction by libraries and archives,” 17 U.S.C. § 108. We conclude, therefore, that reproduction dissemination of anime across the country was illegal. Interestingly enough, the pen pal relationships that C/FO members struck up in the early 1980s became significant sources of untranslated anime. In principle, a Japanese pen pal would be exercising his legal right to “reproduce by himself a work forming the subject matter of copyright […] for the purpose of his personal use, family use or other similar uses within a limited circle (hereinafter referred to as ‘private use’),” JCL 2 § 3(5) art. 30. This would form a cornerstone of a similar argument that dōjinshi, or Japanese fan comic, authors would use in intervening years to justify their practice of selling fan-comics that bore uncanny resemblances to professional characters. In the American anime fan case, it forms a plausible argument: exportation is permitted in the country of origin, so should not importation be permitted as well? American copyright law is silent on the topic of exports out of foreign countries, most likely because such a law would be unenforceable outside of US jurisdiction. 17 U.S.C. §§ 601-603, however, have much to say on the subject of importation: most of it is unlawful. Indeed: “importation into the United States, without the authority of the owner of copyright under this title, of copies or phonorecords of a work that have been acquired outside the United States is an infringement of the exclusive right to distribute copies or phonorecords under section 106, actionable under section 501,” 17 U.S.C. § 602(a). Even though export from Japan may be lawful, import is unlawful without permission of the copyright holder: that is a right granted to Japanese animation copyright holders and domestic copyright holders alike. There are, however, three inclusive exceptions to 17 U.S.C. § 602(a). Exception (a)(1) did not apply in this case, although we will revisit it in a later section. We consider exceptions (a)(2) and (a)(3): (2) importation, for the private use of the importer and not for distribution, by any person with respect to no more than one copy or phonorecord of any one work at any one time, or by any person arriving from outside the United States with respect to copies or phonorecords forming part of such person's personal baggage; or (3) importation by or for an organization operated for scholarly, educational, or religious purposes and not for private gain, with respect to no more than one copy of an audiovisual work solely for its archival purposes, and no more than five copies or phonorecords of any other work for its library lending or archival purposes, unless the importation of such copies or phonorecords is part of an activity consisting of systematic reproduction or distribution, engaged in by such organization in violation of the provisions of section 108(g)(2). Subsection (a)(2) almost legalizes the importation, except for a significant catch: importation must be for the private use of the importer, and not for distribution. Even though one could argue that C/FO’s systematic library processes were not in full swing by the earliest days of the 1980s, it is clear that fans would distribute these tapes, at least privately, among one another. Subsection (a)(2)’s use of “distribution” does not qualify itself with “public distribution,” as does 17 U.S.C. § 106(3). We also know that the first major fan trip to Japan occurred in 1986, invalidating the latter provision of subsection (a)(2). Fan “binge buying” on a Tokyo run became more common for wealthy fans in the 1990s, but not in the early 1980s. Consequently, the subsection cannot apply. Subsection (a)(3) likewise cannot apply because records indicate that only one or two copies of a work would be sent back to America, at which point the copies would be used for more than “solely” archival or lending purposes. In any case, fans’ processes were thoroughly systematic enough in our opinion—as seen by the uniform degradation in tape quality and the common cultural reference to “comparing the quality of tapes”—to disqualify them according to the latter half of subsection (a)(3). We conclude, therefore, that the process of disseminating anime through Japanese pen pals was unlawful in the United States. The doctrine of first sale has some bearing in this regard. If a title is legally imported into the United States, as we reflexively assume for legitimate titles brought over by Japanese small-business owners in America, then it follows that these store owners are allowed to rent these tapes out just as American chains can. This is only true if these titles entered America with the authorization of the copyright holders (unlikely), or if these titles entered the United States via the importer’s personal baggage (very likely). The practice was common enough to be included in American law, and reports from the period indicate that baggage-importation was a widespread practice among import media vendors. Importing time-shifted copies of broadcasts, however, is a very different case. First and foremost, creating time-shifted copies of broadcasts with intent to profit violates the broadcaster’s neighbor right of reproduction, JCL 4 § 4 art. 98, and may violate the copyright owner’s right of reproduction, JCL 2 § 3(3) art. 21. The limitation for “private use,” JCL 2 § 3(5) art. 30, would clearly not apply because the use is not of a private nature, even though the work is copied for a family member. Japanese copyright limitation law notwithstanding in the United States, a similar provision applies according to the subsequent subsection of the importation statute: “In a case where the making of the copies or phonorecords would have constituted an infringement of copyright if this title had been applicable, their importation is prohibited,” 17 U.S.C. § 602(b) (2003). Such a reproduction would violate the exclusive rights of reproduction and distribution embodied in Section 106; since these copies actually were created under such circumstances, they are illegal. In any case, copying and distributing these works on a systematic basis, as fans did, would also constitute a violation of the rights of reproduction and distribution granted in the United States, 17 U.S.C. § 106. Renting videos from Mom and Pop stores to disseminate in the fan community was illegal. We now consider the cases in the mid-to-late 1980s, when Japanese animation was being disseminated at a much more rapid pace throughout the fan community. We note here an interesting provision of this case: US military personnel performed a major role in the reproduction and distribution effort. Section 602(a)(1) specifies an exemption, which states: “[This subsection does not apply to—] importation of copies or phonorecords under the authority or for the use of the Government of the United States or of any State or political subdivision of a State, but not including copies or phonorecords for use in schools, or copies of any audiovisual work imported for purposes other than archival use.” Upon review of the evidence, we conclude that the US military personnel in question were not acting in an official capacity on behalf of the government. Although a case could be made for them making significant use of military resources, particularly the mail system (as opposed to airmail through the Japanese mail system), the consumables on base (evidence of tapes used that were only sold on base), and the military education they received, it is also clear that they operated during their off-duty hours and that they paid for all of their material resources without assistance from the government. They were self-directed, not under the authority of a commanding officer. We note the irony here that US military personnel, who were still functioning in some official capacity by virtue of being on base in Japan, aided and abetted the reverse imperialism of anime. Nevertheless, they were not acting in an official capacity. Importation according to Section 602(a) occurred, and it was probably unlawful. However, there are extenuating circumstances in this scenario. We consider the case where Japanese videotapes and laserdiscs were copied and sent to America. If these commercially-released products were copied on Japanese territory, one could evoke a “private use” argument in favor of reproduction. As with the Mom and Pop store case, once these copied tapes entered US soil on the military base, they would be infringing as per 17 U.S.C. § 602(a). Likewise, if an anime broadcast was recorded on Japanese territory and brought onto the military base, the recording would infringe the same clause. If these commercially-released products were copied on US territory, they would clearly infringe the exclusive right of reproduction in 17 U.S.C. § 106(1), but would pass the importation test. The case of an anime broadcast intercepted and recorded on US military property is much less clear. Let us assume that, like the commercially-released product, the broadcast recording is created without violating 17 U.S.C. § 602(a) for the only following reason: there is no willful traversal of a country’s borders with a television show fixed in a tangible medium. The latter two scenarios do not take into consideration the fact that C/FO Rising Sun was clearly part of a nonprofit library operation, however. Assuming that C/FO qualified as a nonprofit, educational and publicly-accessible (that is, accessible with a uniform membership fee) library, we apply the tests of “Limitations on exclusive rights: Reproduction by libraries and archives,” 17 U.S.C. § 108. Unfortunately, C/FO could not qualify for an exemption under 17 U.S.C. § 108: it fails on many counts. For example, it is clear that C/FO Rising Sun made far more than one copy of each work that they tried to obtain and distribute, 17 U.S.C. § 108(a). After exhausting all of our possible scenarios that might have justified anime recording in the eyes of the law, we conclude that C/FO Rising Sun’s recordings were illegal. That they were illegal may have been obvious from the start, but additional evidence suggests that they, like all other importers of infringing goods, could have been caught quite easily by the U.S. Customs Service. Customs checks all mail—including APO mail—entering the United States. Sections 602 and 603 state: “In either case, the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to prescribe, by regulation, a procedure under which any person claiming an interest in the copyright in a particular work may, upon payment of a specified fee, be entitled to notification by the Customs Service of the importation of articles that appear to be copies or phonorecords of the work.” 17 U.S.C. § 602(b) “Articles imported in violation of the importation prohibitions of this title are subject to seizure and forfeiture in the same manner as property imported in violation of the customs revenue laws. Forfeited articles shall be destroyed as directed by the Secretary of the Treasury or the court, as the case may be.” 17 U.S.C. § 603(c) Evidence again, however, suggests that anime companies systematically ignored the infringements that were occurring as anime continued to be imported illegally into the United States. In addition to comments from Japanese companies up through the early 1990s, U.S. Customs had no records on file of anime companies that tried to get notification of potentially infringing materials. Translation is a quintessential example of a derivative work, and derivative works fall under the domain of copyright protection, 17 U.S.C. § 103. Curiously, both UCC and Berne offer specific guidelines for obtaining non-exclusive licenses to prepare translations when an authorized translation does not exist in a target language. The steps required to obtain such a license are extremely draconian, with a minimum three-year period after publication before an application for such a license would be honored. The translation exception is moot, though: both treaties specify that the right to a translation license must be established by domestic law; Title 17 of the United States Code has never contained such a provision. Consequently, translations are unlawfully prepared derivative works. Because translations are wholly based on their original works, no copyrights can subsist in them. Fansubbing during 1989-1993 was the combination of translation, typesetting, and reproduction onto a videotape, followed by an initial round of distribution. As we have seen, translation, reproduction, and distribution are illegal. During 1989-1993, fans quickly distinguished between two periods for an anime product: the period before a title was domestically licensed, and the period after. From a legal standpoint, fansubs during both periods are illegal. However, a fansub during the latter violates a domestic copyright of a domestic licensee, rather than a domestic copyright of an overseas owner. It is meaningless to say that a work is “not copyrighted” in the United States before it is licensed, just as it is meaningless to say that a work enjoys “copyright throughout the world.” Rather, adherence to international treaties guarantees that US copyright in a Japanese animation exists in the United States from the moment of publication. The commercial exploitation of a work does not begin, however, until the Japanese license holder licenses one or more rights to a company that will exploit the American market. Japanese companies did not license these rights en masse for over a decade (indeed, for four decades) until fans created their own market through systematic violation of Japan’s unexploited copyrights. This risk-taking on the part of fans is very telling. We are not attempting to construct an argument against the whole of international copyright law in this analysis. Copyrights, and international recognition of copyrights, are invaluable in numerous cases. International copyright recognition has been instrumental to anime’s commercial success for Japan as well as America: every time that this study uses “license,” it signals a transfer of exclusive rights between two countries, along with continual transfers of capital and value. As one American executive in the field said, “the most effective argument starts ‘Pay to the Order Of.’” Without international copyrights, the anime market could not have been grown and been capitalized upon as it has today. But as valuable as copyrights have been in the commercialization of anime, they also proved an insurmountable barrier to entry. As important as copyrights have been to growth of the present-day anime system, they equally hindered its creation. Without the very real risk that fans took in their love for the medium, anime would not be nearly as popular and profitable as it is today. Fan distribution and fan subtitling as practiced during 1976-1993, in virtually all of their permutations, were illegal according to copyright law. U.S. copyright law, by design or accident, presented systematic barriers to entry for both fans and industry alike. In violating the copyright law, fans took substantial risks; these risks were mitigated by apathy and indifference on the part of the Japanese, not investment, encouragement, or legal support. Japanese animation is now in the mainstream in the United States: Spirited Away won an Academy Award, the Anime Network is taking off in numerous markets, and Cartoon Network continues to push its boundaries with newer and avant-garde shows. In some mainstream stores like Suncoast, anime DVD sales comprise more than 25% of their total revenue. It is hard to imagine how far the medium’s acceptance has come in ten years. For that, we have much to thank organized fandom. Quite against the restrictions of copyright, anime distribution flourished underground throughout the 1980s and early 1990s to build a base for a nascent domestic industry. Even fansubbing in its earliest years turned more people into avid anime consumers, although its practice became increasingly harder to justify. That fans succeeded owes much to the apathy of foreign copyright holders. It is ironic, though, that perhaps the least “creative” of activities spawned a strong proselytization commons that would prove enormously creative, and profitable, for all involved. It remains to be seen whether or not the rise of Japanese animation from the fandom represents an anomaly or a basic economic principle guiding media consumption. So much of this history, for example, seems to be mere fortune and happenstance than a reasoned and systematic development of a market. Considering the barrier that copyright presented to a complete understanding of American anime preferences, however, it is remarkable that the industrial base grew as rapidly as it did. When the Development Bank of Japan writes, “Long ago, serious adult discussion about anime was unheard of, but now, even the economic media elite is giving serious attention to the issue. Long before the promotion of Japanese intellectual property became a big topic, copyright royalties for Japanese animated characters were already providing substantial contribution towards the lowering of Japan’s massive deficit in service income,” it is worth considering why and how anime interest took off so rapidly after a multi-decade lull, and whether a media success story like it can happen again. Our argument here is not against the whole of copyright. We argue against an incorrect inference: that progress of the arts and the development of culture require perfect control over copyright. When copyright is relaxed in a nascent market, development may be erratic, but it will definitely not injure the progress of the arts. In at least one case, it proved overwhelmingly successful. Anime Convention Founder. Personal Correspondence. 16 August 2001. Anime Producer. Lecture: “Japanese Animation Production Process.” 12 May 2003. Anime Producer. Lecture: “Q&A.” 12 May 2003. Anime Producer. Lecture: “Computers in the Anime Production Process.” 13 May 2003. Abune Producer. Personal Correspondence. 14 May 2003. Jenkins, Henry. Personal Interview. 28 August 2000. Anime Studio President. Lecture: “Gainax and the Early History of Japanese Animation.” 29 September 2003. Anime Studio President. Lecture: “Introduction to Otakuology.” 1 October 2003. Anime Studio President. Personal Correspondence. 1 October 2003. Gibaldi, Joseph et. al. MLA Style Manual: Second Edition. New York: Modern Language Association of America. 1999. Harvard Law Review Staff. Uniform System of Citation: The Bluebook. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Law Review Association. July 1996. Korea government survey, 2002. Associated Press. Wall Street Journal. 17 Apr. 2003. “The Hollowing Out of Japan’s Anime Industry.” Mainichi Interactive. 25 Feb. 2003. <http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/archive/200302/25/20030225p2a00m0oa024000c.html> 8 May 2003. “1975: Sony Betamax Combination TV/VCR Released in the U.S.” CED Magic: Pictorial History of Media Technology. <http://www.cedmagic.com/history/> 8 Dec. 2003. Jenkins, Henry. Personal Interview. 28 August 2000. Clements, Jonathan and Helen McCarthy. The Anime Encyclopedia. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2001. p. 283. Astroboy 1. “Tape One: Birth of Astroboy; The Monster Machine.” Prod. Osamu Tezuka and Fred Ladd. Distr. The Right Stuf, Inc. 1963, NBC Films; 1991, The Right Stuf, Inc. Kitano, Masayuki. “Miyazaki says Japan animation faces dead end.” Japan Today. 20 Feb. 2002. <http://www.japan-today.com/> 15 Mar 2002. Omega, Ryan. Anime Trivia Quizbook, Episode 1. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 1999. Napier, Susan. Anime: From Akira to Princess Mononoke. Hampshire, England: Palgrave Press, 2001. Magic Boy. Jpn Shōnen Sarutobi Sasuke. Dir. Taiji Yabushita, Akira Okuwara. US Distr. MGM. 15 Mar. 1961. Data source: Beck, Jerry. “Animated Features 1.” CartoonResearch.com. <http://www.cartoonresearch.com/feature.html> 4 Dec. 2003. Although according to an interview by Harvey Deneroff, Tezuka himself was delighted with the name changes proposed by Ladd’s production team. Deneroff, Harvey. “Fred Ladd: An Interview.” Animation World Network. 1996. <http://www.awn.com/mag/issue1.5/articles/deneroffladd1.5.html> 22 Feb. 2003. Voltron. Jpn Hyakujuo Go-Lion, Kiko Kantai Dairugger XV. Dir. Katsuhiko Taguchi, Kazuyuki Okaseko, Kazushi Nomura, Hiroshi Sasakawa. Prod. Toei Animation, Tokyo 12 Channel. TV series, 125 episodes. 1981. Source: Celements, Jonathan and Helen McCarthy. The Anime Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese Animation since 1917. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2001. Description of Future Boy Conan. Jpn Mirai Shōnen Konan. Dir. Hayao Miyazaki. Prod. Nippon Animation, NHK. Exec. Prod. Kouichi Motohashi. TV Series. 1978-1979. Cyborg 009. Creator Shotaro Ishinomori. Prod. Toei Animation, Sunrise. TV series, 26 episodes (black and white). 1968. TV Series, 50 episodes (color). 1979. Source: Celements, Jonathan and Helen McCarthy. The Anime Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese Animation since 1917. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2001. Galaxy Express 999. Creator Leiji Matsumoto. Dir. Nobutaka Nishizawa, Masayuki Akehi, Kunihiko Yuyama. Prod. Toei Animation, Fuji TV. TV Series, 114 episodes. 1978. Source: Ibid. Captain Harlock. Jpn Uchū Kaizoku Captain Harlock. Creator Leiji Matsumoto. Dir. Rintaro, Kazumi Fukushima. Prod. Toei Animation, TV Asahi. TV series, 52 episodes. 1978. Source: Ibid. Candy Candy. Creators Kyoko Mizuki, Yumiko Igarashi (disputed). Dir. Yugo Serikawa. Prod. Toei Animation, TV Asahi. TV series, 115 episodes. 1976. Source: Ibid. Captain Future. Creator Leiji Matsumoto. Dir. Tomoharu Katsumata, Hideki Takayama, Noboru Ishiguro, Yasuo Hasegawa. Prod. Toei Animation, NHK. TV series, 52 episodes. 11 Jul. 1978-30 Oct. 1979. Source: Ibid., Anime News Network <http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=1237> 28 Nov. 2003. See Williams, Leilani. Sea Prince and Fire Child. 2000. <http://www.kokololio.com/seaprince/> 30 Nov. 2003. See also Ettinger, Benjamin. Pelleas.net | Masami Hata Filmography. 2002. <http://www.pelleas.net/hm/> 30 Nov. 2003. New World Pictures, although infamous, is also highly regarded among film scholars for its pioneering films—however low-budget they may have been—and its ability to turn profits while Corman ran it. Morris, Gary. “Notes toward a Lexicon of Roger Corman’s new World Pictures,” in Issue 27 of Bright Lights Film Journal. Jan. 2000. <http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/27/newworldpictures1.html> 30 Nov. 2003. See “Company History” (Kaisha Enkaku) in GAGA COMMUNICATIONS INC. 2001. <http://www.gaga.co.jp/about/index.html> 30 Nov. 2003. Schodt, Frederick L. Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics. Japan: Kodansha. 1983 (reprinted 1998). See “Frederick L. Schodt’s Evolving Bibliography.” Jai2: The World of Frederick L. Schodt. 2 Dec. 2003. <http://www.jai2.com/Mybiblio.htm#Film%20credits> 3 Dec. 2003. Schodt, Frederick L. Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics. Japan: Kodansha. 1983 (reprinted 1998). Pg. 10. Ledoux, Trish, Doug Ranney and Fred Patten. The Complete Anime Guid: Japanese Animation Film Directory & Resource Guide. Tiger Mountain Press. 1997. Original evidence confirmed from MIT Anime Club library. Littardi, Cedric. “An Interview with Isao Takahata,” Issue #6, AnimeLand (a French anime fanzine). 1992. Translated from the French by Ken Elescor, October 1993, with editing by Steven Feldman. Posted to Nausicaa.Net. <http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/interviews/t_corbeil.html> 8 Dec. 2003. See McCarthy, Helen. Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press. 1999. pgs. 78-79. Tyree, Matt et. al. “FAQ.” He-man.org. 2 Jul. 2003. <http://www.he-man.org/site_sects/faq.shtml> 1 Dec. 2003. See Schmall, Glenn and Kristyn. “An Interview with Carl Macek.” Anime Tourist. Jul. 2000. <http://anime-tourist.com/article.php?sid=154> 4 Dec. 2003. See “Dallas: JR Erwings Shooting: ‘The World’s Most Famous Cliffhanger.’” Ultimate Dallas. 2003 (from TV episode aired 21 Mar. 1980). <http://www.ultimatedallas.com/episodeguide/shot.htm> 4 Dec. 2003. “iA Wiki: Yochai Benkler.” infoAnarchy. 21 Oct. 2003. <http://www.infoanarchy.org/wiki/wiki.pl?Yochai_Benkler> 6 Dec. 2003. Lessig, Lawrence. The Future of Ideas. New York: Vintage Books. 2002. Date provided by Tatsugawa, Mike. “Re: Please help with anime fandom history!!” Online posting. 21 Jul. 1993. <news:rec.arts.anime> 1 Dec. 2003. Message-ID: <1993Jul21.firstname.lastname@example.org>. Pinzone, Gerard. “Anime Enquirer.” Online posting. 31 Oct. 1990. <news:rec.arts.anime> 4 Dec. 2003. Message-ID: <9010310259.AA14987@cwns12.INS.CWRU.Edu>. Lovely Angels Fanatic Cult, aka Craig. “Subtitled Nausicaa (Was: Re: Laputa, nausicaa).” Online posting. 20 Dec. 1989. <news:rec.arts.anime> 4 Dec. 2003. Message-ID: <8912200146.AA16296@jade.berkeley.edu>. “Ca West.” Online posting. 20 Jan. 1990. <news:rec.arts.anime> 4 Dec. 2003. Message-ID: <00006@citasim.UUCP>. “Re: BayCon ’90, Streamline, etc.” Online posting. 12 Jan. 1990. <news:rec.arts.anime> 4 Dec. 2003. Message-ID: <1990Jan12.email@example.com>. Woodhead, Robert J. “MADOX-01 Subtitled SNEAK PREVIEW.” Online posting. 31 Aug. 1989. <news:rec.arts.anime> 4 Dec. 2003. Message-ID: <850@biar.UUCP>. Woodhead, Robert J. “MADOX-01 SHIPS!!!” Online posting. 6 Apr. 1990. <news:rec.arts.anime> 4 Dec. 2003. Message-ID: <1048@biar.UUCP>. Also see MADOX-01 in MIT Anime Club master VHS library. “History – About Us.” AnimEigo. 2002. <http://www.animeigo.com/About/HISTORY.t> 4 Dec. 2003. Starbuck. “Help! I can’t speak Japanese (long) (was Re: Laputa, nausicaa).” Online posting. 18 Dec. 1989. <news:rec.arts.anime> 4 Dec. 2003. Message-ID: <Dec.firstname.lastname@example.org>. 10 Feb. 1990. <news:rec.arts.anime> 4 Dec. 2003. Message-ID: <email@example.com>. 28 Aug. 1991. <news:rec.arts.anime> 4 Dec. 2003. Message-ID: <1991Aug28.firstname.lastname@example.org>. 23 Jan. 1992. <news:rec.arts.anime> 4 Dec. 2003. Message-ID: <1992Jan24.email@example.com>. Eng, Lawrence. “CJAS: Historical Information: 10th Anniversary.” Cornell Japanese Animation Society. 1988. <http://www.cjas.org/?page=history_tenth> 4 Dec. 2003. Yang, Jeff. “ANIMEIGO HAS RANMA?!?!” Online posting. 4 Mar. 1993. <news:rec.arts.anime> 4 Dec. 2003. Message-ID: <C3CzA8.Frt@panix.com>. See especially his desperate epilogue, “Someone, please, make sense of this mad, mad world…” Gelbart, Dave. “Anime, O.R. Sub, ’zines, scripts.” Online posting. 12 Nov. 1990. <news:rec.arts.anime> 4 Dec. 2003. Message-ID: <1PHJs2w163w@questor.wimsey.bc.ca>. See Chow, William. “Arctic Animation Update.” Online posting. 24 Apr. 1991. <news:rec.arts.anime> 4 Dec. 2003. Message-ID: <o3NV13w164w@questor.wimsey.bc.ca>. Tatsugawa, Mike et. al. “Editor’s Note.” Ä-ni-mé: The Berkeley Journal of Japanese Animation Vol. 1 Issue II. Berkeley: Cal-Animage. August 1991. See Takashi, Alan. “AnimeCon postscript…” Online posting. 17 Sept. 1991. <news:rec.arts.anime> 4 Dec. 2003. Message-ID: <9540@ntmtv.UUCP>. From “Alan’s archive: Notes from Baycon and AnimeCon ’91.” <http://www.tcp.com/~doi/alan/webguide/postings/trek.91.baycon.html> 4 Dec. 2003. See Lenna, Dmitri “Dmitheon.” “Soft.Sculp has Grenwood.” Online posting. 25 Mar. 1996. <news:rec.arts.anime> 4 Dec. 2003. See also “Here is Greenwood: Vol 1 (sub).” 1 Oct. 1996. <https://secure.centralparkmedia.com/cpmdb/cfcpm.cfm?Cat=SSVS_9610> 4 Dec. 2003. See, for example, “MIT Anime Showing History.” MIT Anime Club. 9 Dec. 2003. <http://web.mit.edu/anime/www/Showings/past-showings.shtml> 10 Dec. 2003. Chan, Jimmy. “Baycon (was Re: Cal-Animage).” Online posting. 4 Jul. 1990. <news:rec.arts.anime> 4 Dec. 2003. <Message-ID: <1990Jul4.firstname.lastname@example.org>. Yang, Jeff. “here it is, the village voice article.” Online posting. 12 Nov. 1992. <news:rec.arts.anime> 4 Dec. 2003. Message-ID: <1992Nov12.email@example.com>. See 12 Feb. 1995. Message-ID: <12FEB199514063544@uhcl2.cl.uh.edu>. As in interview. According to Usenet posts, rumors were going around that AnimEigo was going to license Ranma ˝. See “Fans, Fansubs, and J.A.I.L.E.D.” History of Anime in the U.S., Right Stuf International, Inc. 2002. <http://www.rightstuf.com/resource/us_fans.shtml> 4 Dec. 2003. See 14 Jul. 1993. Message-ID: <1993Jul14.firstname.lastname@example.org>. “Cinescape List Honors John Ledford During Company’s Tenth Anniversary.” 11 June 2002. <http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/article.php?id=4027> 4 Dec. 2003. Ibid. See also “Ledford one of genre entertainment’s ‘most powerful.’” 11 Aug. 2003. <http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/article.php?discuss=4027> 4 Dec. 2003. “History – About Us.” AnimEigo. 2002. <http://www.animeigo.com/About/HISTORY.t> 4 Dec. 2003. Woodhead, Robert J. “MADOX-01 Subtitled SNEAK PREVIEW.” <news:rec.arts.anime> 31 Aug. 1989. Message-ID: <850@biar.UUCP>. Chan, Jimmy. “Baycon (was Re: Cal-Animage).” <news:rec.arts.anime> 04 Jul. 1990. Message-ID: <1990Jul4.email@example.com>. Schmall, Glenn and Kristyn. “An Interview with Carl Macek.” Anime Tourist. Jul. 2000. <http://anime-tourist.com/article.php?sid=154> 4 Dec. 2003. Tatsugawa, Mike “Shogun.” “Growth in the Anime Industry.” Online Posting. 21 Apr. 1993. <news:rec.arts.anime> 4 Dec. 2003. Message-ID: <1993Apr21.firstname.lastname@example.org>. “Pioneer’s Animation Division.” History of Anime in the U.S., Right Stuf International, Inc. 2002. <http://www.rightstuf.com/resource/us_pioneer.shtml> 4 Dec. 2003. Cross-referenced with MIT Anime Club Library. Stude, Michael. “Pioneer News.” Fwd. of letter from Pioneer, November 17. Online posting. 27 Nov. 1993. <news:rec.arts.anime> 4 Dec. 2003. Message-ID: <-1331469918snx@izumi.DIALix.oz.au>. “U.S. Copyright Law.” U.S. Copyright Office. June 2003. <http://www.copyright.gov/title17/> 6 Dec. 2003. “Copyright Law of Japan.” Copyright Research and Information Center. Dec. 2003. <http://www.cric.or.jp/cric_e/> 6 Dec. 2003. “Universal Copyright Convention as revised at Paris on 24 July 1971.” United Nations National, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. 20 June 2001. <http://www.unesco.org/culture/laws/copyright/html_eng/page1.shtml> 6 Dec. 2003. “Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.” 2003. World Intellectual Property Organization. <http://www.wipo.org/treaties/ip/berne/> 6 Dec. 2003. See Sugiyama, Keiji. “Japanese Copyright Law Development.” 19 Apr. 2001. <http://www.softic.or.jp/en/articles/fordham_sugiyama.html> 7 Dec. 2003. See “U.S. Customs and APO Mail.” 7 Oct. 2003. <http://ima.korea.army.mil/Newcomer/US%20Customs%20and%20APO%20Mail.htm> 7 Dec. 2003. Suncoast. Personal Correspondence. 14 Jan. 2003. Yamato, Hiroaki. “Viewpoint: Content from Japan.” Development Bank of Japan, Monthly Economic Notes. May 2003. <http://www.dbj.go.jp/english/library/pdf/men/men_0305.pdf> 8 Dec. 2003.

Coffee, cake & dreams... The emergence of café culture Café culture has taken the country by storm, and whether you're ordering a flat white or a steaming mug of Earl Grey, your local café is quickly becoming just as important a neighbourhood feature as the local pub. We meet five café owners who have each banked years of dreams and experience to open their doors around the country - and welcome customers for coffee, cake and an extra dose of comfort For Katie Gilroy (31), opening Urbun Cafe in 2011 was the result of years of daydreams, food writing for Totally Dublin, and weekend shifts in local cafés. She and her team have transformed a vacant space in Dublin's Cabinteely into a buzzing family-friendly café. "When I should have been immersed in my books coming up to the Leaving Cert, I'd be scribbling ideas for restaurant names on the side of my Hamlet notes. I was a big daydreamer and while I was aiming for high points to study architecture, I couldn't help but think about what it would be like to own my own business. After graduating [with a degree in English and Sociology from UCD], I fell into food writing for Totally Dublin magazine and worked as a waitress at night for extra cash. That was the beginning of my real interest in food. "We opened the doors in 2011 and to say that we were winging it is an understatement. The menu was scribbled on a blackboard, we hadn't hired enough staff and we didn't even have any trays! We were running around like headless chickens, not expecting such a crowd. We were very naïve back then but I don't think that was a bad thing. "Five years ago in Dublin, there were very few places that did good coffee and even less that offered good coffee alongside a wholesome, homemade menu, so our mission was to bring the two together under one roof. We're lucky that we have such a great space - we can seat about 60, and our customers can spend hours in a corner with their laptops taking full advantage of the free Wi-Fi if they wish. "The café is industrial yet warm and cosy and the big timber communal tables are perfect for large parties. There's nothing too precious about the place and since there's loads of space for buggies, we get lots of mum and baby groups in for coffee and cake in the afternoon. The wide aisles between the tables were a bit of a happy design coincidence! "The restaurant business is extremely challenging - you are heavily reliant on people and unfortunately people are not always so reliable! A good team is paramount to the daily operation. We have about 18 on the team and we're like a big family, literally. When one person leaves they usually send in a brother or sister to carry on the Urbun tradition and that makes it very special." Old Bray Road, Cabinteely, Dublin 18, (01) 284-8872, urbuncafe.com Chef Eoin Hurley (38), and his business partner and coffee-house regular, Ronan Power, combined their experience to open Alchemy in Cork city centre in December last year, giving locals a creative space to create, read and relax. "Alchemy was really a bit of alchemy in the making! I had an idea to open a food stall, and Ronan, Alchemy's other brainchild, spent his days working from coffee shops and had been looking to open one for a while. It wasn't the first time that this idea had come up between us. I'm from a catering background and worked as a chef and Ronan has the business acumen, so it made sense to start something together. One day he sent me a picture of 123 Barrack Street. The area had just received a facelift and was full of character, we fell in love with it immediately. From that point onwards it was truly a creative whirlwind. "We had a budget of zero and about a month to open before Christmas so we started with a few pallets and then scanned thrift shops, attics and even our own sitting rooms and sheds for the Alchemy style. I can't say our wives were too pleased when the coffee tables were being taken out the back door! "We want our customers to feel like they are in an authentic space where they can create, write, read, be inspired and, of course, enjoy our coffee and homebakes. We aim to be original in everything that we bring to the café, including our interior which features decoupage of pages from 1950s and 1960s Cork Examiner and our floating table suspended in mid air. And then there's our homemade Keyser Rolls, named after the nearby Keyser Hill. We also host monthly exhibitions by both local and overseas artists so that our customers can be brought on a true café journey. "Being a chef for the last 20 years I'm well familiar with the hospitality industry. This is, however, my first venture in front of house. I'm usually swearing out the back and singing along to the radio, so this is a big change for me. So far we've been lucky enough to find baristas that are true coffee lovers and are doing an amazing job for us. Their passion and enthusiasm is what keeps the café buzzing and makes our life easy." 123 Barrack Street, City Centre, Cork Elaine Tohill (32), made the leap from a job in sales and marketing, to running Press Café, at the National Print Museum in Dublin's Beggar's Bush, quickly turning it into a local favourite. She stocks the café bookshelves with cookbooks, both for her customers to browse and for recipe reference, and relies on fiancé John for extra taste-testing duties. "I always fancied having my own business, maybe because my dad has his own business. Observing him and being aware of how challenging yet satisfying he finds it, I was inspired to follow suit. However, my dad's business is in car parts, and this isn't exactly something I am passionate about! I've always been interested in cooking and food, though, so I finally decided I wanted to open my own café. "While still working in sales and marketing, I took on a weekend shift in a café to ensure it was an environment I enjoyed. I then did the three-month Ballymaloe cookery course before working as a chef for a few years. "One of the ways a dish is chosen is by selecting an ingredient I really love. I research interesting ways to cook it and different ingredients to combine with it until I feel excited and happy with the dish. A dish may also come about through experimentation, for example the banana bread French toast. When we realised how popular the homemade banana bread was we looked at numerous ways of creating a dish with it and when we finally got there it went down really well. "New ideas are usually tried out as a daily special and if they are really popular we put them on the menu permanently. My boyfriend is also on hand for tasting and feedback. "Food has always been my passion but I also feel the coffee, décor and customer service is equally as important. When I dreamed of having my own café I never thought the café would be in a conservatory but I did always feel wherever the café was I would embrace and use its surrounding. "The conservatory encouraged me to grow my own herbs, chillies, tomatoes and plants to create a lush environment. I built some shelves to house them and they have now become one of the main features of the décor. These shelves also house our cookbooks and a curated selection of magazines. I have tonnes of cookbooks that we refer to regularly in work and I thought the customers might enjoy them." National Print Museum, Beggar's Bush, Dublin 4, (01) 660-3770, presscafe.ie Pedals and Boots Jenny Murphy (43), and her husband, Killian, turned a quiet post office outpost in rural County Kerry into a bustling hub for tourists and locals alike, complete with bicycle hire and walking route advice. The homely café with an open kitchen and a cosy wood-burning stove to warm up on blustery days is the icing on the cake. "We dreamed of opening a café here for about 10 years. We've been running the local post office, which we took over from Killian's parents, since 2004. As you can imagine a small, rural post office can be very quiet at times so we were looking for a business which we could run alongside it which would complement it and the other tourism businesses in the community. We live in a very scenic location overlooking the sea and people who stopped outside our post office to take photos said that we had an ideal location for a café. Since baking and cooking are also a passions of mine we felt that a café would be an ideal business to start. "As well as a café, we provide bicycle hire and information on walking routes in the area - hence the name. People love the idea of coming here for lunch and then hiring bicycles and going off on a cycle to explore the countryside. We are blessed to have so many lovely, quiet roads off the main road that are ideal for cycling, especially with children. We also provide changing rooms and shower facilities for those who would like to freshen up after their cycle or hike. "My vision is to have a café that people feel at home in, like popping into someone's house for a coffee and a chat. One of the first things we decided to put in the café was a wood-burning stove which makes the place feel lovely and welcoming when it is lit. Cyclists and walkers who have been out on a rainy day love to come in and sit by the fire whilst warming up with a soup or coffee. The kitchen is visible from the café so people can see their sandwiches being made, see the bread and scones coming out of the oven and get all the wonderful smells of food cooking, which makes the place feel very homely. "We always have time for a chat with customers, we help out people who are looking for directions or places to walk or cycle in the area. I see us as a sort of informal tourist office for the area and The Wild Atlantic Way. The way in which we deal with our customers is as important as the coffee and food we serve." Lauragh, Beara Peninsula, Co Kerry, (064) 668-3101, pedalsandboots.ie Café veterans Jane Lamberth (37), and her husband Myles (40), met working in a hotel bistro and stored away advice and expertise from years of experience. They took over Shells Café in Strandhill, Sligo, in 2010, turning it from a local tea room into a destination for foodie visitors from miles around. "Myles and I met working in a bistro part of a hotel, so work and food are at the centre of our relationship. We both love food and the outdoors, so we searched high and low for either a catered chalet in the Alps where we could snowboard and mountain bike, or a café by the surf. In hindsight I am so glad the surf won out! "Sligo actually means Land of Shells and back in the 1980s our current landlords, the Taylor family, set up a tea shop and named it Shells. We loved the history of it and the connection and so kept it in place when we took over. Our number one goal is to exceed expectations. For us, Shells is an extension of who we are - a laid-back place to chill, with no pressure. We know 80pc of our customers and if I have been off, I miss the buzz. "We both love the sea and surfing, and with Shells being right on the beach, a seaside theme was always going to feature. We sprayed a lot of the chairs marine colours and covered the tables. Myles' sister is an artist, and every year she designs a poster and graphics for us that we then use on the menu and cups, which gives a uniqueness to Shells and brings our style and personality to it. Of course, the big windows facing the ocean help, too! The views on a stormy day can really create a wonderful mood as much as a sunny day. "The menu took a long time to put together. It started with food we love to eat, creating dishes using available ingredients from in and around Sligo. We do three specials every day, which is great for foodies and regulars who want a change, but it's also challenging for our team in the kitchen, allowing creative freedom to showcase different skills using seasonal products. Our fish and chips with our own lemon mayo can't be beaten. The view overlooking the waves and the sea air make it even more special." Strandhill, Co Sligo, (071) 912-2938, shellscafe.com

Thinking about sitting in your carport to enjoy the great spring weather? Think twice about it. The 91-year-old man, who has a medical condition that prevents him from speaking, was sitting in a chair in the carport of a North Fort Myers home when a stranger, later identified as Thomas Jack Trammell, stopped and then hugged him, reports WINK CBS News-11 in Fort Myers. When the 22-year-old man left, the old man's necklace, which had the his deceased wife's engagement and wedding rings on it, was gone, according to reports. The man and his daughter were later able to finger Trammel for the theft in a photo line-up. Get the DUHtails at WINK CBS News-11 in Fort Myers. Photo: Lee County Jail Categories: West Coast of Florida (869)

I am feeling really nostalgic these days. This feeling has been intensified by this song that I was introduced to yesterday and which I have pretty much been listening to, on repeat, since (you know, on and off with “Teenage Dreams…”). This song just feels like nostalgia to me. I can’t describe it. I mentioned the other day that I went through all of my old facebook photos and ended up untagging a good deal of them. While I was getting rid of them, in a sense, I also enjoyed being reminded of how many amazing people I have in my life and how fortunate I am to have had such wonderful experiences. Facebook only goes so far back in my life, but my trip down memory lane included half of college, my semester abroad in London (which, of course, included many mini-trips throughout Europe), my years in grad school, my first year being a “real adult,” and all of the incredible people I’ve met along the way. Studying abroad in London: The three of us were inseparable when we were abroad. That’s Dana, Nicole (who just got engaged!!! Congrats, Nicole!), and me back in… 2005? Eesh. When did I get old? That’s (part of) Katri with an overly-tanned Will (my best friend, living currently across the country from me in NY 😦 ) And that’s Michelle, in a picture that almost too-perfectly represents who she is. I was in an a cappella group in college… and I cannot even express how formative that experience was for me. This picture is from my favorite night with those people and, honestly, one of my favorite nights in all of college. It’s blurry, but honestly… that’s appropriate. 🙂 Moon Over Buffalo and Rumors: Would you believe I used to consider myself a theater director? I directed a bunch of plays throughout my time in college, but two of them – Moon Over Buffalo and Rumors – were life-changing for me. I still consider them to be two of my biggest (and favorite) accomplishments to date. These pictures are from our favorite warm-up. Senior year in college: These are the girls I lived with during my senior year of college: Elizabeth (who just got married to another of my friends, Bailey, whom she met that year!), Ally and Whitney. This was during our campus’ annual Olympics-type event. This is part of the group of friends with whom I spent most of my time and whom I consider to represent college for me. We’re playing one of my favorite games here, flip cup. 😉 This are from my 23rd birthday party (and 23 was a hugely wonderful and life-changing year). This is also very indicative of everyone’s personalities. And this is from a night at the beach, which was the first night I really knew I was going to enjoy living in California. With “my girls”at a Disney-themed party (can you guess who I was?)… My friend Mike (who looks so much like my brother!) and me at a bowling party… … posing with Jeff after my very first race. 🙂 Oh, and landing a job in my industry, complete with a new best friend! (Hi, Lauren.) Not too shabby. No food in this post (there you go, Grandpa). What a change of pace! I hope you enjoyed that trip down memory lane.

I'll be posting photos of food that we had on our recent short trip to Ho Chi Minh City in the next few posts for keepsake! We stayed at District 2, which was lovely because it was faraway from the maddening crowd that is District 1. District 2 is a residential suburban area which is filled with skyscraper-like residential towers, mostly newly constructed condos, and it has a few malls and many street food shops/ stalls. We ate at this pho place near where we stayed at and the pho was pretty yummy so we went there for two mornings in a row! On the third morning, we decided to try something different so we walked a little more and found this street food stall! To be frank, it was my first time ever eating at such a local streetfood stall and I must admit I was slightly apprehensive. But I decided to just go with the flow since the bubs loves street food, and we had our breakfast there! The old auntie's iced coffee was da bomb - super thick and sweet, just the way Vietnamese iced coffee should be! (: Guess my first experience of authentic street food wasn't that bad, though I must confess that I am still apprehensive about trying other street food stalls! Heh we'll just take a step at a time I guess? On an unrelated note, I'm really thankful that we are having a longer weekend this week cos I need the time to catch up on work and to rest! Will try to update again soon! (:

Send the link below via email or IMCopy Present to your audienceStart remote presentation - Invited audience members will follow you as you navigate and present - People invited to a presentation do not need a Prezi account - This link expires 10 minutes after you close the presentation - A maximum of 30 users can follow your presentation - Learn more about this feature in our knowledge base article Do you really want to delete this prezi? Neither you, nor the coeditors you shared it with will be able to recover it again. Make your likes visible on Facebook? You can change this under Settings & Account at any time. EDUC 747 Group Project Transcript of EDUC 747 Group Project Search & Seizure EDUC 747 Group Project Background 2002 - Student from Safford Middle 2003 - Worldwide drug problems Aug 22, 2003 - Rowdiness at school dance Sept. 2003 - Classmate, Jordan Romero, acting odd and got ill Oct. 1, 2003 - Romero and mother met with Principal and Vice Principal New Jersey v T.L.O. (1985) In 1980, a teacher caught two high school girls smoking cigarettes in a lavatory. They were delivered to the assistant vice principal, who questioned them. One of the girls admitted to smoking, which was a violation of school rules. The other girl, T.L.O., denied that she had been smoking and claimed that she never smoked. In private, the administrator demanded to see T.L.O.’s purse, which he opened to find cigarettes. In so doing, he found rolling paper. Digging deeper, he came across some marijuana, a pipe, a wad of money, an IOU list of students owing money to T.L.O., and some letters implicating T.L.O. in marijuana dealing. In court, T.L.O.’s parents sought to have the evidence suppressed as the administrator did not obtain a search warrant prior to obtaining it. Brad Gerstbrein Michael Brom "That general warrants ... to search suspected places without evidence of a fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, or whose offense is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are grievous and oppressive and ought not to be granted." Precedent Cases M.M. v. Anker (1979) A 15 year old girl in a New York City public school was subjected to a strip search by the dean of women after the student had some personal items fall from her desk to the floor, at which time she leaned over to pick up the items. The dean believed that the girl had hidden a marijuana pipe in her clothing as she picked up her belongings from the floor and suspected that the student had drug paraphernalia in her pocketbook, which led to the strip search. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s judgment in favor of the student, including damages, which the trial court calculated to be $7500. Cornfield by Lewis v. Consolidated High School District 230 Brian Cornfield was a student at Carl Sandburg High School. A teacher’s aide, Kathy Stacy found Brian walking outside the school building on March 7, 1991. This was an obvious defiance of school rules. While telling her superiors of Brian’s misconduct, Ms. Stacy added that the student looked to have an unusually large bulge in his pants. This statement was substantiated by a teacher, Joyce Lawler, and another teacher’s aide, Lori Walsh. The defendants, Dean Richard Frye and teacher Richard Spencer, did not take action until the following day. Mr. Frye and Mr. Spencer pulled Mr. Cornfield aside as he was boarding the afternoon bus. The student asked that his accusers call his mother. The mother denied Mr. Frye’s and Mr. Spencer’s request for consent to search her son. The defendants proceeded, however. Upon taking the student to the abandoned locker room, they requested that the student change his clothes and put on a gym uniform. No drugs were found on the student’s person or in his clothes. The district court ruled in favor of the teacher and dean. The Seventh Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals held that the search was reasonable due to the school’s need to maintain order. However, this would not have been the case if one of the searchers had been of the opposite sex. Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton James Acton, a 7th grader in the Vernonia School District, was denied participation in football in the fall of 1991 because he and his parents refused to sign School District’s Drug Policy because it violated their 4th and 14th amendment. The drug policy applied to all students participating in interscholastic athletics and students and parents signed a consent form if they wished to play sports. The district had enacted the policy in fall of 1989 with these purposes: (1) Prevent student athletes from using drugs, (2) Protect health and safety of students, and (3) Provide assistance programs to drug users. The federal district court upheld the policy. On appeal the Ninth Circuit court ruled it violated the state’s and the nation’s constitutions. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the school decision to conduct random, suspicionless drug testing of student athletes. Board of Education of Independent School District No. 92 of Pottawatomie County v. Earls The Oklahoma students, Lindsay Earls and Daniel James, and their parents brought a suit against the school district challenging the Student Activities Drug Policy, requiring all students who sought to participate in extracurricular activities must submit to random drug testing, on the grounds that it violated the Fourth Amendment and the district did not address a drug problem at the school or a promise to benefit the students or the school. The federal district court ruled in favor of the board. The parents appealed and the Tenth Circuit ruled in favor of the parents because the district had not proved an immediate nor pervasive drug culture in the school and it did violate Fourth amendment. The board appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court whose (2002) decision ruled that drug testing was not limited to student-athletes and could include students who voluntarily participated in extracurricular activities because the district’s interest was the preventing and deterring drug usage in students (Alexander and Alexander, 2012, p. 480-484). Day of Occurrence October 8, 2003 Romero tattled on Marissa Glines Glines, in turn, tattled on Savana Redding Redding called to office and searched "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." - IV Amendment, U.S. Constitution Safford Unified School District #1 v. Redding Major Questions 1 Is there reasonable suspicion to initiate a search? 2 Is there a reasonable expectation that search will produce evidence? 3 Is there danger to the school? 4 Are students protected from strip searches by the 4th Amendment? 5 Are school officials immune from individual liability? Romans 13: 1-5 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 18 13 [Untitled photograph of Savana Redding as 13 year old and 18 year old]. Retrieved June 6, 2013, from: http://www.thenewagenda.net/2009/07/06/sotomayor-supreme-court-justice-for-all-of-us/ The U.S. Supreme Court upheld for the administrator, ruling that getting a search warrant in such a situation would unduly interfere with the rapid and informal disciplinary measures required in a school setting. However, a search of a student must be both “justified at its inception” and “reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.” (Essex, 2012, p. 65). What Should Have/Could Have Been Done Keep a secret! - Article X of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, 1776 Calling April Redding... [Untitled painting of smugglers]. Retrieved June 6, 2013 from http://www.douane-napoleon.nl/smugglers%20unloading%20contraband2.jpg References

SD School for the Blind & Visually Impaired - Student Activities This student organization is open to students in the 7th grade or beyond. In addition to group meetings to develop and set up on campus events and activities, this group also participates in community service projects. For more information, please contact Jodi Carlsgaard at firstname.lastname@example.org In addition to individual and small group music classes, including piano and instrumental training at all levels, students in 7th grade or older also have the opportunity to participate in the annual music contest at NSU, sponsored by the South Dakota High School Activities Association. For more information, please contact Phyllis Heier at email@example.com. The object of this Association is to promote speech training in the secondary schools of the visually impaired and to arrange annually for an interscholastic Forensic Festival. To further this purpose, guidelines of the Association shall specify rules and other data necessary and convenient for the orderly conduct of contests in the following fields of speech: 1) eight-minute speech, 2) four-minute speech, 3) serious interpretation, 4 ) humorous interpretation, 5) poetry reading, 6) Serious prose reading, 7) Humorous Prose Reading, 8) duo, 9) great speeches, 10) impromptu, and 11) open. Visit the NCASB Forensics website at http://www.ncasb.org/index.php/ncasb-sports/17-sports/forensics/34-forensics. For more information, please contact Ardell Fiedler at firstname.lastname@example.org. Goalball is a game played by two, three man teams at a time. Each player wears a blindfold while playing the game. The object of the game is to roll the goalball, which has bells in it, past the members of the opposing team and their goal line. When this is accomplished, a goal is scored. For more information, please contact Tevan Fischbach at email@example.com. Each school year our students participate in the recreational and leisure activity of bowling. Our local bowling alley accommodates us with several afternoons of bowling. Some of our students use bowling ramps and gutter guards, and others bowl without accommodations. Bowling is a lifelong activity all people can do and our students thoroughly enjoy this unit of instruction. For more information, please contact Christy Hulscher at firstname.lastname@example.org. SPURS (Special People Using Riding Skills) Our students participate in SPURS during the fall and spring once a week. This program helps students with strength, balance, coordination, self-confidence, stress relief, and the enjoyment of being around horses. SPURS may be integrated with therapy programs in the IEP or as part of SDSBVI adaptive PE classes. For more information, please contact Christy Hulscher at email@example.com. Our swimming program is offered to elementary and secondary students. We utilize the Northern State University Barnett Center pool twice a week. There are two groups and each group swims once a week the entire school year. We work on beginning to advance swimming skills, water aerobics/exercise, and games and leisure. Some of our students compete in Special Olympics or North Central Association of Schools for the Blind competitions. For more information, please contact Christy Hulscher at firstname.lastname@example.org. Track and Field September is when our students participate in track and field. Students run on a track with or without a wire, throw the shot put, standing long jump, running long jump, triple jump, and three consecutive jump. We travel either to Minnesota or Kansas schools for the blind for meets. Students must be in the 7th grade or 14 years old to participate. For more information, please contact Christy Hulscher at email@example.com. The SDSBVI takes part in Special Olympics events during the fall and spring of the year. Students participate in bowling at the local and state level in October/November of each year. Currently, both of these tournaments are held in Aberdeen. In the spring students take part in aquatics and track and field events. Students usually attend the city, regional, and state aquatic events, and the regional and state track and field events. Visit the South Dakota Special Olympics website at: http://www.sosd.org/. For more information or to volunteer, please contact Tevan Fischbach at firstname.lastname@example.org. For more information on any of our residential activities, please contact Nichole Nelson at email@example.com. - Teen Center - Our Teen Center was funded by our Student Council and has music, air hockey, Power Showdown game, and pool table. It is a great place for the students to just hang out. - Playing in the Gym - The students enjoy rollerskating, working out, running/walking, riding bikes in the winter, and building awesome forts. - Game Night - We love to play bingo, cards, and board games; and we play them in both Braille and Low Vision versions. Computer and Wii games are also a big hit with the students. - Shopping/Treat Night - The students go shopping weekly for things they might need or want, and we end the excursion with a treat at their favorite places. - Movie Marathons - The students love to unwind on Fridays with a movie marathon of their favorite movies and popcorn. The older students compete to see who can stay up the latest! - Playground Fun - Outside play activities on our wonderfully accessible playground. - Sledding and snow shoeing are enjoyed by the students. - Special Outings - We have football and basketball fans and the NSU Athletic Department is generous to allow our students entry to all of their games at no cost. We also attend concerts, plays, and other age-appropriate activities for our students. NSU is a very good friend to us. - The Shrine Circus is a real favorite with our students. Everyone always wants to ride on the smelly elephants! - The "Helping Hands" tomato planting is a cooperative project we do with the Royal Neighbors of America. It is really nice to have fresh tomatoes throughout the summer months, and when you are growing them yourself, it makes them all the better! - The Student Council Rummage Sale is held every year in May. Needless to say, we are collecting "treasures" all school year and the community has been great about supporting our sales. - The Student Council Overnight Party at the Mina Lake Lodge is the culmination of Student Council activities for the year. The goal is to chow down on good food and stay up as late as you can. The younger students can’t wait until they are old enough to participate in Student Council! - The Arts in the Park festival is held across the road at Melgaard Park in early June. The students love to get their yearly "junk food fix" at the festival while listening to different music acts throughout the weekend. - Going on a trip to Seche Hollow each fall is another favorite with our students. We take a picnic lunch and travel the Sisseton way and take on the hiking trails throughout the park. The trick to truly enjoying the day in all of its fall glory is to pick a weekend when the leaves are turning the beautiful reds, greens, and golds for which Seche Hollow is famous. - Eagle Day at Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge is another special day for our staff and students. We pack lunch and head to the Refuge for their program and hopefully view an eagle or two. - Seasonal parties are a major activity and really anticipated by both students and staff. We kick off the school year with a picnic sponsored by the Aberdeen Lions, NSU Lions, and Aberdeen Lioness Clubs. The students and staff look forward to reconnecting with the members, but most of all the great food! The students’ favorite activity with the Lions Club is the annual Christmas pizza party and Santa stopping with gifts makes their Christmas with us very special. In fact, many Lions Clubs around the State are very generous with donations of things the students really enjoy. The Clubs are good to us. - All in all, the Residential Program is a busy, safe, and fun place for our students to live and grow.

IPhone 5 sale draws huge crowds NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Jessica Mellow waited in line for more than 180 hours — that’s eight straight days — for an iPhone 5. She was woken up by cops, “showered” in a torrential downpour, and watched two taxis collide right in front of the growing crowd outside Apple’s gleaming retail cube on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. On Friday morning, Apple finally delivered the prize she and thousands of line-sitters around the world were after. The iPhone 5 went on sale at 8 a.m. local time on Friday in the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and the UK. Mellow among the first to snag a phone at her Apple outpost. The No. 1 person in line — Hazem Sayed, who arrived more than a week ago to promote his social media startup — said the wait “was definitely worth it.” The iPhone 5 is virtually guaranteed to be Apple’s all-time bestseller. Apple took more than 2 million pre-orders in the first 24 hours, shattering last year’s iPhone 4S record, and analysts forecast that it will sell as many as 10 million units by Monday morning. Apple’s early inventory is already sold out: Online orders placed now won’t ship for three to four weeks. Those hoping to snag an iPhone 5 right now will need to brave a retail line. Apple’s stores typically have the best stockpiles, but they also draw the longest lines. By Friday morning, Apple’s Fifth Avenue flagship had a line of more than 800 people that stretched down an entire city block and wrapped around. Apple’s lines traditionally draw a mix of marketers, Apple zealots and more casual fans. Natalie Lopez, 32, joined the line at 5:30 a.m. Friday. “I’ve got the original iPhone. I’ve been sitting on it for 5 years. I’m just excited to upgrade it to something new,” she said. Alex Brooks upgrades his Apple phone every cycle and typically sells the old model. (An iPhone 4S can still snag well over $200 on many resale sites.) He said he’s excited about trading up for a lighter, thinner, faster phone. A few people hovering around hoped to capitalize on all those cast-off phones. One man, who said he was in town visiting from Israel, held up a hand-scribbled, neon pink sign: “I’ll buy your old I-phone. Pay CA$H.” The crowd at the Apple Store at Grand Central Station was quiet but large about 40 minutes ahead of opening time. The line snaked from the Main Concourse, down hundreds of feet of corridor, to a sign for the exit at 48th St. and Park Avenue. A handful of iPhone hopefuls stepped right up to the marble staircase that leads to the Apple Store — and appeared bewildered when pointed down the corridor toward a long and growing line. People were still jumping in line at 7:30 a.m. One twentysomething man arrived breathless, asking, “Is this the line for the iPhone 5?” “It’s the line for the express train to Poughkeepsie,” a security guard quipped. Several people at the back of the line were heard asking each other, “Do you know how many iPhones they have today?” Everyone shrugged. Many people in line at Grand Central were passing the time using other Apple gadgets like Macs and iPhones. Once 8 a.m. hit, the lines moved fast. Dozens of shoppers were quickly cycled through the Grand Central store, and at Fifth Avenue, the line had shrunk dramatically by 10 a.m. A variety of other retailers — including carriers AT&T, Verizon and Sprint — will also have the iPhone 5 available for sale on Friday, but their stashes could go fast. A Verizon shop several blocks away from Apple’s Fifth Avenue store had around 100 people in line shortly after 8 a.m., and was admitting customers two at a time. Would there be enough phones for everyone? “It’s looking pretty good right now,” a store employee said while scanning the crowd. “The line’s not too long.” But by 8:45 a.m., a nearby AT&T store was completely sold out of all iPhone 5 models except the $399 64 GB white phone. “You’re too late,” the clerk said. “We’re taking preorders, though.” An AT&T store in Rockefeller Center was also picked clean. By 9 a.m., its entire iPhone 5 stock was sold out. A nearby Sprint store, which had a line of a dozen or so people, was also running short. “We’re running dangerously low on black phones, but we do have them in white,” a clerk told a potential buyer around 9:30. “But there’s no guarantee we’ll have them when you get to the front of the line.” Representatives at several Best Buy locations in Manhattan said the stores were still receiving their shipments on Thursday afternoon, and that they therefore didn’t know many units would be available for purchase Friday morning. An employee at one Best Buy location in the NoHo section of lower Manhattan said the iPhone 5 “will probably be sold out for anyone who didn’t pre-order.” Apple’s iPhone 5 release comes nearly one year after Apple’s iPhone 4S, the model that introduced the world to Siri. The thinner, faster iPhone 5 is Apple’s first hardware overhaul in several years. Reviewers have praised the phone’s bigger screen, zippy processor, stellar camera and elegant packaging, but two major changes sparked blowback. Apple’s redesigned “Lightning” connector will require a pricey adapter to link up with old accessories (and it won’t work at all with some of them), and early adopters have almost universally blasted Apple’s new Map app, which replaced the more-polished Google Maps. A satirical Tumblr, theamazingios6maps.tumblr.com, popped up on Thursday to highlight the ludicrously inaccurate suggestions the new app often makes. Apple’s fans were undaunted. “I heard maps isn’t so great, so that’s pretty disappointing, but I’m sure they’ll make it better,” Lopez said. -CNNMoney’s Laurie Segall and David Goldman contributed to this report.

By Kate Marsden Not a greetings card in sight this week as we head to Cambridgeshire to take a look at the stunning work of bespoke furniture designer maker Jane Crisp... Tell us a little about you. What do you do? Whenever I am at home there is steam bellowing from my new workshop located in my garden in the rural Cambridgeshire fens. I love the sculptural possibilities that come with the magical process of steam-bending wood. I create functional objects that amplify traditional techniques in a contemporary way. My products consist of small batches of steam-bent Ash vessels or Trugs - these are my bread and butter. My inspiration comes from the Norfolk reeds, boat-building techniques and copper nails and roves. These sculptural and practical Trugs rock like boats in the wind and are, more often than not used as a sculptural center piece. What does a typical day involve? I need as much workshop time as possible so I start every day by consulting my list, weekly planner and making schedule. Next I organize and reply to emails, invoices, ordering and update my books. Next I open up the workshop and set up, I work in batches each week so each day is different. Production involves, making out, bandsaw, linisher, drum-sander, hand sand, steam-bend, construct and sand and finish. It is a true labor of love so to get me though I drink lots of tea, eat cake, listen to Groove Armada or something cheery and take brakes in the shade under the apple tree that my workshop is nestled around. My motto - keep going until all of the work is done, I normally finish quite late! Evenings and weekends I use for Design work, updating my social media and online profiles, connecting with other makers and wrapping and polishing trugs. My boyfriend often refers to the sitting room as an Amazon warehouse. Where do you work? What is your studio space like? What do you enjoy doing when you're not working? My studio is a light conservatory with double doors leading to the garden. I fill it with inspiring found objects, books that I have collected and art by my maker friends. My stock hangs from the beams to save space. About a year ago I built a new workshop, mainly the old fashioned way on favours from skilled friends and doing as much myself as possible. It is a big 6 x 6m “L” shape timber build with enough power points for a small town. I have a courtyard for steam-bending and space to pass long lengths of timber through a thicknesser. It is lower than normal and tucked away behind trees and roses. When I’m not working I still love to be outside. I love gardening although my knowledge is minimal, camping with friends and going to the beach. My guiltiest pleasure is collecting handmade jewellery, ceramics and art. What do you consider to be the main challenges facing designer makers at the moment? I think creative graduates feel isolated from a creative environment when they return home. Most graduates I know felt they didn’t know how to start a business. I was lucky enough to be accepted onto the Crafts Council Hothouse Programme last year. I grew in every way and sometimes I work for the Crafts Council - it helps financially but it is also a great umbrella to be under. If you feel you need help, please consider this programme – it’s a real kickstarter. I also started without any capital borrowing money or any funding. I worked on a farm to earn some cash and started my business. My boyfriend and I still rented a small cottage and I worked from friends’ garages and cut all my timber with a handsaw. It means I have complete control and it’s not cost me money borrowing but this is certainly not the easy route having some capital definitely helps. People find it hard to understand how hard it is when you have to say “I love you but I can’t see you” and what dedication and determination it takes to start your own business. You make that sacrifice and people say “Jane you work for yourself so you can work when you want or you don’t have to get up that early do you?”. I throw myself into my work and carry on. What ambitions do you have for your business over the next few years? My priority is designing, and I have a couple of cracking new releases for later this year. Next I am hoping to invest in some new machines that will enable me to make some of my bigger pieces and future furniture projects. I am exhibiting at Grassimesse in Leipzig, Germany in October. My aim is to expand my international market and create a new stream of customers over the next few years. Do you have any tips for fellow designer makers/small business owners who are reading this and may be just starting out? I think the small seed of starting my twitter account lead to great things. It got me some exposure which lead to some good exposure and so on... I found the Crafts Council Directory really successful for networking with makers and galleries – you can apply here It’s hard for designer makers to show the true value of their work online. To help with this I entered loads of competitions at the Crafts Council opportunities page – it’s worth a look there’s something for everyone. I recently invested in myself and had a logo, business cards and sign designed. It took courage but with the help of the lovely super-efficient Sarah Cowan who holistically and intuitively understood my brand it was a doddle. My eyes are now opened to the benefits of out-sourcing work – you just have to do it at the right time with the right person. Please share any favourite independent shops/galleries and tell us why you like them. I love the Golden Hare Gallery's careful curation, in particular the work of Jane White. I am crazy about Anna Collette Hunt's ceramic insect infestations. I am about to invest in some more fairy-tale pieces of her work. My talented friend designer maker Libby Ward's jewellery is truly addictive. I’m writing this wearing three of her pieces, two swaps and one present. I am a self-confessed addict. And last but not least Sarah Cowan's card shop. Had you realised the Just A Card campaign message suggests cards as an example of a small purchase - we're about encouraging all sales as they keep businesses afloat? Yes, I had and it prompted me to explore different price points. I had made bangles to swap with other makers as a way of advertising both peoples work. I decided to market them as they had a much lower price point. How important is the Just A Card campaign message to you and your business? Making more regular sales helps with cash flow and confidence. But it also advertises your brand reaching your customers and the person receiving the card or bangle. I found that people who bought my bangles at shows later invested in a bigger piece too. Where did you hear about the campaign & which Social Media platforms do you use most frequently? What do you think people can do to support Just A Card, and how will you be doing so? I came across the campaign on twitter and again through Sarah Cowan. I think people could support it by spreading the word and using it as a talking point, a way of discussing how artists value making a living doing what they love, how special that is and how grateful they are to the people who make that possible. I will be launching a Just A Card shop, coming soon and of course spreading the word the old fashioned way.

Heroes are all around us. They come in different packages and vary from person to person. It could be somebody close to you, or somebody you’ve never met. They could be rich and famous, or not even old enough to have a job. They can rescue people from burning buildings or be a person that has made a profound impact on your life. When I was teaching high school, the first day of school, I had students introduce a neighbor to the class. They shared their name, something fun about them and who their hero was. It was so sad to me that many of them didn’t have a hero. Every year, I would tell them that my husband is my hero. He is the best and he brings out the best in me. He is definitely my personal hero. I say a lot more in the video! I have other heroes, too. Like my sister, who stayed up with me all night when I was in labor with our fourth daughter. She was the one that pushed (pun intended!) and encouraged me to “study” HypnoBirthing and have a natural birth. This, despite her first birth not going as she planned. She texted me back and forth until 5am when she had a four and a half month old daughter at home. She kept me positive and relaxed and helped me have the birth I never knew I always wanted. She’s endured hardships and life complications and come through stronger and better than before. She pushes me to be the best mom I can be. Everybody has a different definition of what makes a hero to them. So, instead of me just talking about my hero, I asked some family and friends to chime in with what a hero is to them and who their hero is. And, thankfully, Amelia, Crystal, Danielle, Emily, (I should make friends with somebody with a B name!) and my oldest daughter all pitched in and sent me videos which I compiled into one great video. Maybe it won’t be the same for you, but I needed tissues for most of these, so here’s your warning. In honor of Maytag brand and hhgregg’s Hero video, we had to put together our own! They are honoring everyday heros! From now until 5/31in the Maytag Salutes Sweepstakes, they are giving away $45,000 in Maytag brand appliances. Every day, they will randomly select one winner to receive one of several appliances. At the end of the sweepstakes, they will award three grand prize packages of a Maytag Brand Kitchen Suite as well as two secondary prizes. Be sure to enter to win! Also, join @hhgregg, @centsiblelife and @seriouskrystyn (that’s me) on Tuesday, May 26th at 7pm Eastern for a twitter party (#MaytagSalutes) with 4 $100 hhgregg gift card prizes!

I would be curious to know how many printers I have gone through over the years: various dot matrix, inkjets and lasers. Some, like the dot matrix ones, I picked up in good used condition when inkjets became more popular. Man, those old dot matrixes were slow and noisy! You still see the occasional one in use at the mechanics, or parts stores where they need copies of invoices and such. And there was a time when laser printers were only used by large corporations, since they were the only ones that could afford them. How times have changed! Now, you can buy a small, efficient laser printer for home use for about the same price as a good inkjet printer. In reality, there are a few things to keep in mind when purchasing a Windows printer. Which is best for you depends on how it is to be used. For example, do you need to print in colour, or are mainly printing text? If you need colour, will you be printing digital photos or other high-def images? Inkjet Printers: affordable and multi-functional By far, inkjets are the most affordable printer to buy and you can often get what is called a Multi-function device that typically can print, scan, copy (photocopy) and even fax. Having a printer that can scan is very handy. You can scan documents and old photos into digital versions to facilitate organization. Here at home I have a Canon MX 452 multi-function device that can print/scan/copy and fax and it is available (or a similar model) for under $100. Now, I do not do a lot of printing here at home, but I have had it for just over a year and have only replaced the cartridges (1 black and 1 colour) just once. It might be good to mention at this point that cartridges can often be cheaper when purchased online. This is especially true if you can get good, re-manufactured or generic cartridges for your machine. Generic ones will often do a good job, but the colours may not be as vivid as a manufacturer’s cartridge. One thing to look out for is the type of cartridge system the printer uses. Some models use one cartridge that contains all the coloured inks (like my Canon MX452); this is the least cost-effective setup as you are forced to throw away the cartridge once one of the colours runs out, even if the others have not. Perhaps a better option is to look for an inkjet that has an individual cartridge for each colour, often cyan, yellow, magenta and black. With individual ink cartridges you only have to replace the colours you’ve used up. Laser Printers: more affordable than ever! There’s nothing like the printed page from a laser printer. If you need to print a resume, or any other document for distribution, archiving, etc, then getting a laser printer is the way to go. You can get a basic monochrome laser (like my Brother HL-2270DW) for about $150. My Brother laser is wireless (more about wireless connectivity later), so that increases the price; one without this feature can be had for closer to $100. But what about toner cartridges? Are they not expensive? Again, I have had my Brother for over a year and I have yet to replace the toner. I looked online at the site where I normally purchase all my cartridges (www.123inkjets.com) and I can get a ‘compatible’ cartridge for $29.99, or an official Brother one for under $40. That’s not bad! Of course, you can get colour laser printers, and they start at just under $200. If you have multiple users in your home, either on laptops, tablets or desktops, you may want to consider getting a printer (either an inkjet or laser) with wireless connectivity. This means that you can print without having to connect USB cables to your laptop or computer. Look for printers that also support mobile printing, such as Epson’s iPrint feature which allows wireless printing from devices such as smartphones and tablets. Both of my home printers have wireless connectivity built-in and work great from either a laptop or my Windows tablet. So, decide what your printing requirements are before going out and buying the cheapest printer at your local big box store. Researching printers online as well as their cartridge replacement costs will save you time, money and frustration down the road. You may even want to consider purchasing an inkjet and a laser (with either one or both having Wi-Fi ability). This could be a cost-saver (on ink and toner) over time as well. How about you? Do you like the printer you have? Please share your thoughts below.