text:
This collection of plugins is all about helping your customers and potential customers, we have chosen over 50 plugins for customer support, help desks, live chat and more. Providing live chat on your website has been proven to help sales as site visitors who are potential customers can get fast answers to any questions they may have about your products or services, this can also help you identify areas where your website needs improvements or clarifications of facts.
By using a help desk plugin, this can actually cut down on support costs as you can maintain some frequently asked questions ( FAQs ), and make this database of questions searchable. A ticketing solution will help you keep track of support queries and assign them to different support representatives. You can also create automatic answers to the most common questions asked.
WordPress is a great platform for building websites but there has been a growing trend to also use it more as a base for different kinds of apps, this was enabled when it introduced custom post types – a powerful feature that opened it up to all kinds of different applications. Its not possible to use WordPress to power your customer support section of your website using a plugin, you can use a stand-alone installation of WordPress or add the plugin to your existing website.
Take a look below at the Free and Paid options for adding customer support to your website via live chat, help desks, ticket systems, FAQs and more.
Paid Support Plugins
- 1 Paid Support Plugins
- 2 Free Customer Support Plugins
- 2.1 Formilla chat and marketing
- 2.2 Wp Ticket
- 2.3 Userdeck
- 2.4 Quip Support Free
- 2.5 oFeatures Customer Service
- 2.6 Casengo Live Chat Support
- 2.7 Provide Support Live Chat
- 2.8 Live Support Desk
- 2.9 Reamaze Helpdesk & Live Chat
- 2.10 WP Support Ticket
- 2.11 onWebChat
- 2.12 JS Support Ticket
- 2.13 LiveSupporti
- 2.14 WP Support Desk
- 2.15 Zendesk Chat
- 2.16 CM Answers
- 2.17 Tagove – Live Chat Software
- 2.18 Reve Chat
- 2.19 Chatrify Live Chat
- 2.20 Catchers Helpdesk
- 2.21 HappyFox Chat
- 2.22 Live Chat Plugin
- 2.23 Tiviclick Video Chat
- 2.24 Helprace Feedback Tab
- 2.25 Netrox SC Live Chat
- 2.26 HappyFox Helpdesk
- 2.27 Discussion Board
- 2.28 LiveHelpNow
- 2.29 Chat by Flyzoo
- 2.30 Live Chat by Supsystic
- 2.31 Live Chat 24/7
- 2.32 LiveAgent
- 2.33 Tawk.to Live Chat
- 2.34 Live Chat by OggFlow
- 2.35 Rocket.Chat LiveChat
- 2.36 Help Scout
- 2.37 FreeCall
- 2.38 Live Chat Support
WP Flat Visual Chat
WP Flat Visual Chat is a plugin using which you can easily add live support to your website with the amazing twp-way desktop remote viewer. Using this plugin you get to make your website really efficient and with its six months support you get to actually add amazing features to your website.
iSupport is a really smart and intuitive live chat plugin that you can easily add to your website. Using this plugin you get to add the much wanted customer sales and support system through the live chat option. When you customers initiate the chat the chat box will open on the left side in the form of a side bar. Through this plugin your operators get to chat with more than one client at a time ensuring efficiency and helping you save time as well. Different chats appear in different tabs and auto answer appears in the tab relative to the question that has been asked.
82 Live Chat
82 Live Chat is a live chat plugin for customer support that you can add to your website. Using this plugin you get to make use of amazing features like the cross browser, high level of customization, sound/title alerts for new chats, offline message feature and live automated chat plugin as well. In addition to that this plugin allows users to manage multiple chats at a time and talk to more than one person in different chat tabs. The plugin has a simple and elegant design and promises efficient chat management.
Knowledge Base
This WordPress plugin allows users to build customer self-service help-desks. Using Knowledge Base you get to create a treasure of articles for your website and answer all major customer questions beforehand. This plugin serves as the actual knowledge base and works as a complete support centre and provide internal company documentations and wiki among other things as well.
Catchers is a WordPress plugin that helps you create a powerful and efficient ticket system in the admin area of your website. With each request that is sent to your customer support system that automatically turns into a ticket for the helpdesk. Using this plugin you can also categorize and prioritize the tickets and later assign those tickets to the people responsible in your team. The ticket is so organized that your agents all become aware of who's working on what ticket so you don't have to worry about one ticket being assigned to multiple people.
PixelMenu is a plugin that is brought to you by PixelBin which is a popular and leading design and development agency. The plugin is really easy to use and is really simple and comprehensive to use that helps build mega menus with the visual drag and drop builder.
Visitor Chat is a ClientEngage plugin that provides a fully-featured real time chat options for your website. The plugin has a really simple and comprehensive web-based administration that allows you to communicate very easily and conveniently with all your visitors. This chat plugin comes with a windows based client chat pop-up that notifies you whenever you get a message through the windows tray so you can easily start chatting instantaneously without having to visit the visitor chat's admin-interface.
DW Knowledge Base
This plugin is a premium WordPress plugin using which you can easily bring a complete knowledge base to your website. The plugin helps you provide your users with the ultimate website use experience with a number of very flexible layouts and very simple and clean designs that add to the appeal of your website. The plugin is compatible with all your existing WordPress themes and makes your website smarter and more efficient.
Quip Support
The ultimate plugin using which you can add customer support to your WordPress dashboard, QuipSupport is everything that you can possibly want. This plugin helps you add a complete ticketing solution to your website implying that your customers get the most friendly experience with all their queries answered through the pre-built customer support system. Backed by the QuipCode support guarantee, this plugin actually very smartly and intuitively pleases your customers and ensures maximum customer satisfaction as well. Using this plugin you get to respond instantaneously to all emails, fix all problems and please your customers with feedback and suggestions as well.
Multi Helpdesk Ticket System
The multi helpdesk ticket system is a plugin that ensures maximum consumer satisfaction and promises to provide all your customers with the ultimate website experience. This plugin can be added directly to your website dashboard and is the ultimate ticketing solution for all your customers' queries and questions. Backed by the amazing QuipSupport this ticketing system makes sure that all the questions and emails you receive are answered efficiently with ease and professionalism.
Contact Form 7 Fast Templates
Contact Form 7 Fast Templates is a plugin that shows its functions very obviously from its name. Using this plugin you get to enjoy seven different kinds of contact form templates that you can add to your website very easily and quickly.
Support Center
Support Centre is a very efficient plugin that allows you to create a complete custom support system for your users. Using this efficient support centre you provide your users with really easy access to all the documentation and tips regarding the content on your website. With this plugin you get to even create support centres related to specific posts as well in addition to the freedom to create custom posts and a single support centre that is applicable for the whole website.
Chat X
Chat X is plugin that makes use of the Firebase for the realtime platform to provide your users with the ultimate fast and reliable chat experience. Chat X doesn't make use of existing resources like the AJAX chats usually do. During the chat communication the firebase stores all your data for the time being and removes it once the chat ends. This way you get to store the data in your server without using up too much of the server resources.
Web Consult Pro
The Web Consult Pro plugin is designed to make sure all the questions that you receive regarding your website are answered efficiently and quickly. The plugin very amazingly manages the online assistance, customer support and FAQs section of the website. In addition to that the plugin is super easy to setup and install. The pluin also adds two extra widgets and also enables the WebConsultPro- Consultant user types. To top it all off the plugin also comes with a really simple and user friendly interface so you can easily manage all questions and queries.
Free Customer Support Plugins
Formilla chat and marketing
Formilla chat and marketing plugin is a customer support plugin for websites with WooCommerce integration. Using this theme you get to add free live chat and marketing automation to your website. In addition to the online chat support, this plugin also makes your website easy to navigate and makes it easier for users to view the shopping cart as well.
Wp Ticket
WP Ticket is area really user friendly helpdesk and customer support based ticket management system using which it becomes easier for you to receive, process and answer all your service requests in very little time. WP Ticket can be used in mixed, public or private modes and can also employ all modes at the same time as well. Using this system of organization you can offer private ticket submission for all the users that are logged in and public tickets for all guests.
Userdeck is a plugin that is ideal for providing customer support to your website. This plugin helps create a system of ticketing using which customers can reach out to you through your email and widgets that are embedded. In addition to that the inline widgets serve as a contact form/ticket portal using which users can easily manage tickets from the control panel. This plugin integrates with the WordPress website to authenticate and track the user name and emails on the tickets.
Quip Support Free
Using Quip Support you get to create a complete Help Desk to your website using which you can manage all your customer support queries right from your dashboard. The plugin holds a complete ticketing solution that responds to all the queries of your customers and gets back to them with ease and efficiency. Using the built in knowledge base that this plugin comes with your customers help themselves saving you a lot of time and money.
oFeatures Customer Service
Features Customer Service is a plugin using which you get to add a lot of great features to your website including the live chat, ticket system, contact form, click to call and feedback system as well. Using this plugin you get to manage all your customer service queries easily and efficiently. This plugin also adds a number of features to your website including the live chat, text system, click to call, contact form and the guestbook for your website.
Casengo Live Chat Support
The Casengo Live Chat Support plugin helps you add an amazing live chat feature to your website or blog with a single click. The Casengo live chart support allows you to not only keep up conversations with your customers bu also lets you answer questions, queries and emails directly from your website. The perfect combination of live chat and email this plugin allows users to make the best of both features with a quick installation process in very little time.
Provide Support Live Chat
The Provide Support Live Chat plugin allows you to add a really fast and efficient live chat feature to your website. With a really simple one click installation process you get to stay in touch with all your customers and get back to them for all their queries and questions. This plugin is one of the most reliable and accessible live chat plugin and helps to provide users with a really intuitive and smart customer support system.
Live Support Desk
The Live Support Desk is a live chat plugin that you can easily add to your website with only a one click installation process. The Live Support Desk plugin helps you engage your very own support team to get back to all your customers' queries and questions in a really efficient way. With the customer satisfaction that this plugin provides you get increased sales and profits as well.
Reamaze Helpdesk & Live Chat
Reamaze Helpdesk and Live Chat is a plugin using which you get to add instant customer support and knowledge base to your website. The perfect plugin for your WordPress or Woocommerce website, using this plugin you get to stay in touch with all your customers. In addition to that this plugin allows you to get back to your customer's emails as well.
WP Support Ticket
WP Support Ticket is a plugin that allows you to create your very own customer support system through a very easy installation process. This plugin allows you to generate support tickets whenever assistance is required. In addition to the categorization that ticketing provides customers also get notifications whenever you even reply to your customers queries as well.
onWebChat is a plugin that provides amazing customer support to your customers with a very quick and easy installation process. This plugin allows your customers to make use of a really smart and innovative live chat system that is also compatible with WooCommerce websites. In addition to keeping up real time conversations you also get to monitor all your website traffic and maximise all your conversions with triggers as well.
JS Support Ticket
JS Support Ticket is a WordPress plugin that is really efficient, powerful and easy to use. This plugin is based on a really trusted open source ticket system using which you get to add user friendly customer support to your website. The plugin allows you to create plugins from the front-end and comes with a lot of amazing features for free compared to the other WordPress ticketing systems.
LiveSupporti is a WordPress plugin using which you get to add live free chat to your website. This is a really helpful plugin using which you provide your customers with greater ease of accessibility and customer support. In addition to that the plugin also comes with a forever free plan with unlimited simultaneous chats, unlimited websites, SSL encryption, chat history and a hundred and fifty distinct chat sessions every month.
WP Support Desk
WP Support Desk is a complete and thorough plugin using which you get to create a full customer support desk on your website on a simple dashboard. Unlike other plugins that use your existing resources and slow down the website speed, this plugin works on a really efficient algorithm that does not reduce the speed of your website at all speed its high functionality and features.
Zendesk Chat
Using this plugin you not only get to communicate with your customers with the real-time chat but also get to monitor all chats and activities on your website. With such an advanced level of customer support you get to provide your customers with speedy responses and solve their problems in no time ensuring maximum customer satisfaction and in consequence greater sales and profits.
CM Answers
CM Answers is the ultimate questions and answers plugin for WordPress using which you get to add a really thorough and systematic question and answer section to your website. Using this plugin users get to ask questions, leave comments, upload files in the discussion board and vote as well. This plugin allows users to have full moderation access for the questions and answers. Using this plugin you can also create a number of form categories and restrict user capabilities as well.
Tagove – Live Chat Software
This is a really unique and creative live chat plugin that allows users to access text, video and voice chat on their website. In addition to the simple chat options you can also add things like real-time monitoring features, screen sharing and co browsing to your website as well. With this plugin you help your customers make the perfect choice while shopping online leading to greater customer satisfaction and higher sales.
Reve Chat
Reve Chat is a really efficient and powerful WordPress plugin using which users can engage in real time conversations with the customers using this customer engagement software. Using this plugin you actually get to guide your customers as they go through your website and help them make the perfect purchase. This live customer support plugin is amazing for actually resolving all the issues your customers may have so you get to make recurrent customers.
Chatrify Live Chat
This live chat plugin was designed with the sole purpose of providing your customers with great customer engagement and support. Using this plugin you get to engage in real time conversations with your customers and provide them with support and help for making purchases. By being there for your customers throughout the shopping experience you allow them to feel like they are actually at your store making a purchase. This plugin not only will impress your customers but also promises to increase your online business conversions.
Catchers Helpdesk
Catchers Helpdesk is a free WordPress plugin using which site admins can provide help and support to customers very quickly and efficiently. This plugin allows users to interact with customers and resolve all their issues in the minimum time possible. In addition to that using this plugin you also get to acquire personal information regarding the customers and transform potential customers into actual customers.
HappyFox Chat
HappyFox Chat is one of the best selling software on ProductHunt. This plugin allows users to keep up unlimited real time conversations with customers, allow app integration and add fully customizable widgets as well. This smart and intuitive plugin allows you to convert all the anonymous visitors of your website to leads. In addition to that this next generation plugin improves conversion rates immensely (around ten times) by third party app integration like Google Analytics and Shopify.
Live Chat Plugin
ZupportDesk is a live chat plugin that allows sites and users of all nature to communicate and interact with their customers in a really efficient way. This live chat plugin allows users to answer all their customers' questions and queries right on time so as to improve not only customer support but sales as well. This plugin is available in both free and paid versions and is perfect for websites of all sizes, small and big.
Tiviclick Video Chat
Tiviclick Video Chat is a really innovative and easy to use video chat plugin. This plugin integrates the widget to your WordPress side and allows face-to-face real time video chat with customers so you can not only provide customer support but actually build a relationship with your customers. Using this sense of loyalty and trust that you get to build with this plugin you get higher sales and hence a successful business.
Helprace Feedback Tab
Helprace Feedback Tab is a plugin that is aimed to help you gather the maximum amount of feedback from your website and truly understand your customers views and feedback related to your brand and your products. The plugin allows you to actually connect with the site visitors or blog readers and engages them at the right time when it is necessary. Using this plugin users can not only access the company's user portal but the questions, ideas, problems, praise and the knowledge base as well. Not only do users get to send direct feedback to you through emails but they can also do so with the Helprace help desk.
Netrox SC Live Chat
Netrox SC is a plugin using which you get to interact with your customers and keep up real-time conversations with them. In addition holding more than a thousand free options this plugin is also very customizable and easy to use. Netrox SC is easily integrated with third parties and send automatic invites, has an answering machine, holds chat calls using automated responses and automatically bans all unwanted visitors as well. All this is done based on a number of things like the UTM tags, time on website, time on page, country, city, referrer, pages viewed, search query and a number of other things as well.
HappyFox Helpdesk
Happy Fox Helpdesk is a really special and responsive plugin that you can add to your website and easily provide efficient customer support to all your customers easily from the admin dashboard. This plugin is a great support tool for all sorts of businesses and really aims to please all customers. In addition to that HappyFox also allows you access to a number of functions without requiring you to leave your WordPress account.
Discussion Board
Discusssion Board is a really user friendly and flexible plugin that allows you to add a message board, discussion board or forum to your website. Using this plugin you get to create a new post type and you can also create front end login and registration forms. Using this features you get to decide and choose who has access to the discussion board and who doesn't.
LiveHelpNow is a tab plugin that allows you to get back to your customers in a really quick and efficient way. This plugin is really intuitive, generates automated responses for frequently asked questions and helps you keep up conversations in a really amazing way. With this plugin your customers avail all the information in one place and help you ensure maximum consumer satisfaction and enjoy more sales as well.
Chat by Flyzoo
Chat by Flyzoo is a plugin that allows you to not only communicate with your users but create a complete online community. With private chats, chat rooms and much more, this plugin is loaded with features and is integrated with membership and social media plugins as well. The ideal plugin for dating websites, webinars, social networks, forums, gamers, traders, radio stations and much more. Using this plugin you get to connect with users and engage them in an amazing way.
Live Chat by Supsystic
Live chat is a plugin that allows all sorts of website users to keep up real time conversations with customers. Not only do you get to keep up conversations with your customers but you also get to help them as best as possible. This plugin engages your customers in a really amazing way. With this plugin you don't even need to register on any sort of services and enjoy high speed and efficiency.
Live Chat 24/7
Live Chat 24/7 is a plugin that adds a complete knowledge base to your website. This smart and intuitive plugin not only adds a chat features but helps you create your very own efficient chatbot. The plugin gives automated responses to frequently asked questions, generates responses and even comes with a language processor to match all the questions with relevant keywords. In addition to that you can even remove all unwanted connect with a single click in no time.
Live Agent is one of the most affordable and convenient live chat, help desk and ticketing system for your website. Using this plugin you get to actually engage with all your viewers in real-time, have conversations with them and get back to all their questions and queries. With only one click using this powerful customer support plugin you get to take your website a step further with fast and easy installation that requires no coding whatsoever.
Tawk.to Live Chat
Tawk.to Live Chat is a free live chat plugin that you can add to your website and communicate with all your customers in a really fast and efficient way. Using this plugin you get to not only communicate but also monitor your visitors as well with just one click. Without any spam or malware you get to create your website in a really accessible and approachable way.
Live Chat by OggFlow
Live Chat by OggFlow is a plugin for WordPress using which you can easily add a live chat feature to your website or blog. Using OggFlow you get to handle and manage all your services, emails, live chat, facebook and twitter feeds and tickets for free. Using this highly efficient plugin you get to respond to all your customer requests in a really efficient way in no time leading to increased sales and customer satisfaction.
Rocket.Chat LiveChat
Rocket Chat Live Chat is a plugin that adds an amazing live chat feature to your website. Using this feature customers can reach out to you and have all their queries answered with one simple click. By providing ease to your customers and helping them with all their problems you gain not only customers but you get to create a complete family of loyal customers by simply taking into account immediate feedback and keeping up real time conversations.
Help Scout
Help Scout is a website plugin that allows you to add a live chat feature to your website. Using this plugin you get to satisfy your customers, increase sales and gain more sales in consequence as well. Not only do you get to communicate with your customers with this plugin, you get to build a relationship through real-time conversations and feedback.
FreeCall is a website plugin that allows you to add a really efficient and simple worldwide simple calling service to your website. Using this plugin you get to add an amazing call feature to your website that lets you connect with all your customers with one simple click. This service allows you to boost your sales and services and keep all your customers satisfied.
Live Chat Support
Live Chat Support is a plugin that allows you to add the live chat feature to your website for free. This particular plugin is best for all sorts of small business and does not require any sort of third party connections either. This fully functional live chat plugin allows you to add the live chat plugins completely for free. By communicating with your users directly you get to increase conversion rates as well.


text:
Suffolk: 01473 846 164 Essex: 01206 392 813
Posted on April 26th, 2018 Categories Article
Your garden sees the most use in the summer, with longer days and warmer weather making it the ideal haven when you're at home. Steps can be taken in theRead Article
Posted on March 11th, 2018 Categories Article
We all want a nice garden that looks like it could be in a magazine. Whether it's the front, back or both, it has the potential to leave a greatRead Article
Posted on February 23rd, 2018 Categories Article
With Mother's Day around the corner, why not treat your mum to a landscaping service to get the garden looking like the one she dreams of? At Greengrass, our professionalRead Article
Posted on February 9th, 2018 Categories Article
Hollow tine aeration is the removal of small 'plugs' or 'cores' from your lawn, with a purpose built lawn coring machine. This machine will punch holes in the lawn withRead Article
Posted on November 3rd, 2017 Categories Article
Greengrass offers you a professional lawn care management programme that will help you achieve a healthy, green, weed-free and beautiful lawn. Lawn care treatments includes regular feeding, weed and mossRead Article
Posted on November 2nd, 2017 Categories Featured
Installation of 1mile of mixed staggered row native hedging for the screening of a Solar Farm in EssexRead Article
Posted on October 19th, 2017 Categories Featured
The clearance of existing open space, and the installation of over 1,200 plants and 1,400 m3 of high quality turf in Toppesfield, Essex.Read Article
Posted on October 19th, 2017 Categories Portfolio
Installation of 600 shrubs, geotextille membrane and ornamental bark mulch for a new Lidl Superstore in Essex.Read Article
Posted on October 17th, 2017 Categories Portfolio
A regular maintenance contract with an on-going improvement plan.Read Article
Posted on October 17th, 2017 Categories Portfolio
This project involved clearance of existing overgrown gardens – extensive planting, turfing and hard landscaping were created to compliment this idylic location.Read Article
Greengrass Ltd is a trading name of Greengrass Commercial Ltd
Since 2008, Greengrass has been providing first-class customer-focused service to both residential and commercial clients. We work tirelessly to exceed client expectations with high-quality landscaping, maintenance and lawn care services.
Latest News
Contact details
Phone: +44 (0) 1206 392813
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Office Hours
Monday – Friday 9.00am – 5.00pm
Essex Office (Registered Office)
7 Brooklands Rise, Brantham, Manningtree, Essex, CO11 1TU Telephone: 01206 392813
Suffolk Office
Park View, 28 Exeter Road, Claydon, Ipswich, Suffolk, IP6 0BP Telephone: 01473 846164
Registered company number 7428249
VAT number 179594248

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Striped & Patterned
There are no products matching the selection.
Discover More about the Striped & Patterned Category and Furnishing Your Home
An easy way to make sure your room has plenty of style is to pick one with an attractive stripe or pattern design. With our knack for interior design, we're bringing you a collection of some of the most beautiful rug designs we've found. The stripes and patterns in our area rugs come in a variety of colors and styles. Take a look around, and don't forget to check out our other galleries of rugs to complete all the other rooms in your home.
Remember that most of our rugs are available in multiple colors. Just click on the item for more information and a closer look (including a view of your color options)!


text:
From Free Love to the Free-Fire Zone: Heinlein's Mars, 1939-1987.
McGiveron, Rafeeq O.
©University of Texas at Brownsville
Permission for this article to appear here has been non-exclusively licensed from The University of Texas through June of 2007
Originally published in Extrapolation, 2001
From Free Love to the Free-Fire Zone: Heinlein's Mars, 1939-1987.
Although as early as 1942, with the inscrutable super-stratospheric ball-lightning creatures of "Goldfish Bowl," Robert A. Heinlein undermined the pulp science fiction cliche that Mars was the nearest home of intelligent alien life, Heinlein still clung to the idea of Mars as the cradle of an alien civilization in fact for at least another decade and in fiction for a decade longer, and the planet--colonized by humans though not necessarily inhabited by Martians--appeared in the background of his works until the end of his career. In "Where To?", an article written in 1950 but apparently not published until 1952, Heinlein seriously predicted that within the coming half century "Intelligent life will be found on Mars" (Expanded 339), and late in 1952 when Heinlein prepared to visit astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, who had discovered Pluto in 1930 from the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, he wrote his agent that he hoped "perhaps, to see the canals of Mars through his telescope" (Grumbles 140). Heinlein's mistakenly confident prediction and his letter's hopeful reference to the "canals," qualified neither by quotation marks nor by phraseology, still reveal a lingering belief in Percival Lowell's hypotheses that all too soon would be scientifically unsupportable. [1] In fiction, of course, Heinlein referred to an indigenously inhabited or human-colonized Mars in at least eight stories and twenty-two novels from the pulp magazines of the 1940s, through his Scribner's juveniles of the 1940s and 1950s, into his Putnam's work of the 1960s and 1970s, and even beyond. Of these many works, "The Green Hills of Earth" (1947), "Ordeal in Space" (1948), Red Planet (1949), and Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) seem to fit most clearly together, with such novels as Space Cadet (1948), The Rolling Stones (1952), and Podkayne of Mars (1963) also being closely--if not even completely--compatible with this central conception of Mars.
Heinlein's descriptions of an inhabited Mars are especially consistent in the Red Planet/Stranger continuum and fairly complementary even in the two-dozen works outside of it, suggesting that Heinlein established a pattern that comfortably fit his concerns--artistic, scientific, [2] and moral. Jack Williamson has observed that the extraterrestrials of Heinlein's juvenile fiction "often serve as teachers for the [novels'] maturing heroes" (19), and I have noted that "Heinlein's alien worlds of the 1940s and 1950s... serve the didactic purpose of humbling the human species" ("Heinlein's" 245). Heinlein's Mars is worthy of critical investigation because from early work in the pulp magazines and the editorially restricted juveniles [3] to the fairly uninhibited Stranger in a Strange Land and beyond--from his second published story to his very last novel-Heinlein runs the gamut from free love to the free-fire zone.
George Edgar Slusser claims that "Heinlein's view of Mars has been remarkably consistent throughout his career" (29), but this is something of an overstatement. After all, although critics have examined certain major works, to date no one actually seems to have examined the totality of Heinlein's depictions of Mars. When we do look at Heinlein's entire work with Mars, we will see not only the strong consistencies of the Red Planet/Stranger continuum but also the vagueness and even occasional inconsistencies of peripheral works as well. Yet while the sexuality of Stranger in a Strange Land obviously is absent from the pulp stories and juvenile novels of the 1940s and 1950s, the wise Martian justice alluded to in the early pieces still is present in the later novel as well--and perhaps it is more significant. Heinlein's Martians may believe that "Thou art God" and may have proof that the soul lives on after death, yet the corollary of this is a firm sense of justice. Such sentiments are not contradictory but complementary. Heinlein's Mars reminds us that any society, from the most austere to the most self-indulgent, must be based on wisdom and justice if it is to avoid destruction from without or from within.
Heinlein toys with variant ideas of Mars throughout his writing, often working the planet into his fiction even when he does not--or, later, cannot with a straight face--refer to native Martians themselves. Such early stories as "Misfit" (1939) and "Space Jockey" (1947) easily could mention Martians, but in these pieces Heinlein's focus happens to be elsewhere, and instead he simply refers to travel to and from a human-colonized Mars as being fairly common, without specifically telling us whether natives inhabit the planet. "Gentlemen, Be Seated" (1948) likewise does not happen to mention Martians; when one character calls a construction engineer "the best sand-hog in four planets" (Past 279), however, it seems very probable that one of those planets is Mars, perhaps inhabited by natives but at least colonized by humans.
In later fiction it becomes less plausible to postulate the existence of Martians--though certainly Heinlein on occasion does it--but even in the more cautious works Heinlein's technique is similar to that of the three early stories. For example, The Star Beast (1954), Time for the Stars (1956), and Starship Troopers (1959) all mention human colonization of Mars in unobtrusive one or two-line references early on, within the first ten or twenty pages of text; the tense "Sky Lift" (1953) is similar. When the teenaged narrator of Have Space Suit--Will Travel (1958) is kidnapped by malevolent "wormface" aliens and taken to their base on Pluto, he reminds us that humans "hadn't even attempted Jupiter's moons yet" (III), implying that the nearer Mars, if not colonized, at least has been explored. The reference to the mining boom in the asteroids in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966) might be similar, though this certainly is more debatable.
Moreover, at least two works seem to refer to native life on Mars without necessarily specifying whether that includes intelligence. "Sky Lift" suggests that the disease ravaging the scientific colony on Pluto is "a mutated virus, possibly of Martian origin" (Menace 116). In this story, therefore, viruses may be the planet's most advanced form of life, but we are not told whether Mars was the home of civilization in the past or whether any remnants of higher life remain. Even more cryptically, the earlier Methuselah's Children (1942) tells us only that Mars is "Worn out and useless" (Past 698). If the planet is not simply barren but instead is "worn out," this seems to imply a world that already has supported life for millions of years, evolving from a lush young world like Earth toward what was considered to be a bleak old one like the Moon, as Percival Lowell believed it was doing (Lowell 126--27, 206--8). As in "Sky Lift," such a description allows for the possibility that Mars still is inhabited by anything from mere viruses to the vestiges of an ancient civilization.
Toward the end of his career Heinlein comes almost full circle, returning to peripheral references to the human exploration or colonization of Mars and tying together, among many others, older works that deal with the planet. In Time Enough for Love (1973) Lazarus Long reminisces about the colorful frontier Mars of "The Green Hills of Earth" (108--9, 126--32) yet stops short of mentioning the earlier story's natives. In The Number of the Beast (1980) Heinlein's Mars is an unabashedly Barsoomian one colonized by imperial Russians and British; by the end of the book he works in references to Stranger in a Strange Land (493) and 'The Green Hills of Earth" (509). Even the very late novels Friday (1982) and The Cat Who Walks through Walls (1985) allude briefly in a few places to human colonization of Mars, and To Sail Beyond the Sunset (1987), Heinlein's last novel, not only weaves old characters and plots as does Time Enough for Love but also very specifically mentions "Manned expeditions...sent to Mars" (370).
Although some pieces here and there throughout Heinlein's career thus do not specifically suppose an indigenously inhabited Mars, over a dozen other works do. While the Martians of Red Planet, The Rolling Stones, and Stranger in a Strange Land are three-legged, those of Starman Jones (1953) have three eyes (29) and presumably three legs, and those of Podkayne of Mars are of three genders (56), Heinlein actually describes Martians' physical appearance rather rarely. Though separated in publishing by twelve years and in intended audience by five or ten years, Red Planet and Stranger in a Strange Land provide the most clearly unified portraits of Martians. The young--always female--are "fat, furry spheres" whose size is between that of a basketball and a medicine ball, while the adults--always male--are often over twelve feet tall, "huge," somehow reminiscent of "ice boats under sail" (Red Planet 7, 29; Stranger 90; Grumbles 254--56). Occasionally, of course, Heinlein works outside of this central description of trilaterally arranged Martian physiognomy. In Double Star (1956), for example, Martians are tentacled creatures that reproduce by fission (57); to human eyes they resemble upright tree trunks, and "they [can] look all directions at once without turning their heads--if they had heads, which of course they don't" (7). The Martians of Between Planets (1951) even possess some sort of "pseudo wings" (25).
A few peripheral works are particularly thin in their depiction of Martian society. Beyond This Horizon (1942), one of Heinlein's earliest descriptions of an inhabited Mars, contains perhaps his most unusual, for in this work "The poor degenerate starveling descendants of the once-mighty Builders of Mars can hardly be described as intelligent--except in charity. A half-witted dog could cheat them at cards" (126). Extinct but at least more dignified, the Martians of The Puppet Masters (1951) "were all dead before we swung down from the trees" (103), and humans seem to know little, if anything, of their culture. These two novels neither fit the Red Planet/Stranger continuum nor fit together in a consistent future of their own, but two more are vague enough that they still could be compatible with Red Planet and Stranger in a Strange Land. Mars is inhabited in Farmer in the Sky (1950), but the one-line reference--telling us that Martians, like Venusians "don't use pictures" (216)--is so cryptic that it is impossible to tell whether they are technologically advanced or primitive. Tunnel in the Sky (1955) is similar, telling us in a brief description of the "remarkably unattractive real-estate" of the solar system only that "Martians prosper in near vacuum" (19).
In four other non-related works Martians are on roughly the same technical and social levels as humanity, amenable to trade and personal contact. "'--We Also Walk Dogs"' (1941) mentions Mars as one of the solar system's major diplomatic powers, and "Jerry Was a Man" (1947) returns to this rather more traditional science-fictional portrayal of Mars as the intellectual equal--or superior--of Earth. Here a peripheral Martian character, "bad temper[ed]" and "self-centered" (Assignment 190) as only a member of the "Great Race" (Assignment 191) can be, is a master of genetic engineering. He works for an Earth-based genetics corporation and, rather incongruously, "ha[s] modified (himself] to a semi-manlike form" (Assignment 175). The Martians of Between Planets are concerned with the political and military machinations of humans, and in Double Star "every [Martian] nest has stereo-receivers" to follow the news of Earth (90). Fred Erisman notes correctly that with Double Star "Heinlein makes...a moving argument for racial tolerance" (221), and of these eight works, Double Star by far contains the most description of Mars. Even this, however, is comparatively thin, for unlike, say, Red Planet or Stranger in a Strange Land, Double Star is not particularly informative about Martian culture. After being adopted into a Martian nest, for example, the human narrator apologizes for his narrative elision but still maintains, "I have no more right to tell the detail of the adoption ceremony than a lodge brother has to be specific about ritual outside the lodge" (58).
Although some pieces thus present slightly differing views of Mars, the remaining stories and novels are rather more unified in their depiction. In many works Heinlein's Martians seem advanced not only intellectually and technologically but also even morally--and thus are aloof toward humans and their petty problems. Envisioned in the tradition begun by "the immortal Dr. Percival Lowell" [4] (Red Planet 15) and continued by over four decades of science fiction writers, Heinlein's Mars often is described as a slowly dying world crisscrossed with great canals thousands of kilometers long. The once-accepted "canals" of Mars are specifically mentioned--often with an almost boyish relish--in fully half a dozen works. Beyond This Horizon refers simply to "the once-mighty builders of Mars" (126), but in "The Green Hills of Earth" the canals are still infused with the spirit of, as one of "Noisy" Rhysling's poems puts it, "the gods who shed the tears that lap these crystal shores" (366). In Red Planet the human colonists run jet-powered skate boats on the "steel-blue" ice (23) of the ancient canals. From the quasi-religious to the mundane, such descriptions are characteristic of the science-fictional mood of the 1940s.
Even in the early 1950s, however, as Heinlein still hopes "perhaps, to see the canals of Mars" with Clyde Tombaugh (Grumbles 140), his fiction also still shows a commitment to the old Lowellian notion of planet-wide Martian "handicraft" with "a highly intelligent mind behind it" (Lowell 208). The protagonist of Between Planets gazes from orbit at "The fabulous canali [that] were already plain to the eye; he [can] see them cutting through the soft greens and the dominant orange and brick red" (190). The main characters of The Rolling Stones get a similar view from Phobos: "They stud[y] the ruddy orange deserts, the olive fertile stretches, the canals stretching straight as truth across her flat landscape" (143). These two passages are particularly interesting for their dogged commitment to the canals' reality and for their subtle unease about the canals' possible unreality. The passage from 1951, after all, calls the supposedly real artifacts "fabulous," while the passage from 1952 seems to use the "straight as truth" simile almost as a challenge to the nonbelievers Heinlein knows must exist. By Stranger in a Strange Land, a decade later, Heinlein's nod to the canals is quick and perfunctory; we are told simply that a space probe's "pictures showed that the 'canals' were engineering works [,] and other details were interpreted as ruins of cities" (II).
Heinlein often describes ancient Mars as having a recorded history much greater than that of youthful Earth. In Space Cadet when a recruit of the Interplanetary Patrol sits down to his academic studies, his "color-stereo" projector "portray[s] in chill beauty the rich past of the ancient planet" (77). The narration of Red Planet explains that "Mars must once have had a population greater than it does today," and in a small Martian town that "might have been abandoned before Noah laid the keel of his ship," two boys rest upon "a metal slab, its burnished face bright with characters that an Earthly scholar would have given an arm to read" (102). Later, as an adult converses with a Martian who "has trouble remembering which millennium he is in," the human is shown a four-dimensional globe that reveals the ancient canals being built (187). Between Planets mentions "ancient Martian records" (163) dating back "millions of years" (22) and ruins wherein archaeologists "[can] dig ... and study the customs of the ancient and dying race" (163). More prosaically, the ancient Martian ruins of The Rolling Stones have been transformed into tourist traps by the human colonists (147, 148, 165). Podkayne of Mars contains even more references to "ancient Martian artifacts" (8, 31), Martian tombs (36), Martian ruins "that [were] old when stone axes were the latest thing in super-weapons" (44), and the fact that "we know Martian history of millions of years ago better than we know human history a mere two thousand years ago" (56).
Occasionally Heinlein gives his ancient civilization not only canal-building skills but other technical achievements as well. For example, the Martians of "Jerry Was a Man" developed "plasto-biology"--genetic engineering (Assignment 171)--and the Martians of Double Star carry a ceremonial "life wand" that can fire an energy beam (89). In Red Planet, perhaps Heinlein's most thorough treatment of Martian technology, Martians use sophisticated holographic techniques to simulate the outdoors in their social rooms (35, 105), hidden environmental engineering to raise atmospheric pressure in their dwellings without an airlock (36, 104), and mind-reading apparatus that can replay an entire lifetime of memories in mere hours (112, 118). The book's two teenaged protagonists discover a system of ancient, ultra-high-speed "subways" far beneath the planet's surface (108-9), and, more surprisingly, humans learn that the Martians "had interplanetary flight millions of years back ... had it and gave it up" (184). The narration of The Rolling Stones also hypothesizes about Martian space travel, suggesting that Phobos might have been used as a spaceport by "the Martian ancients" (136).
Heinlein's Martians are not just engineers, of course, but healthy relishers of life whose temperament is reflected in their arts. "Noisy" Rhysling, the blind poet of the spaceways in "The Green Hills of Earth," sings of "the slender, fairylike towers" along the Grand Canal and "the riparian esplanade where the ancient great of Mars had take their ease ... --ice blue plain of water unmoved by tide, untouched by breeze, and reflecting serenely the sharp, bright stars of the Martian sky, and beyond the water the lacy buttresses and flying towers of an architecture too delicate for our rumbling, heavy planet" (Past 367). Red Planet tells us "no two Martian cities looked alike. It was as if each were a unique work of art, each expressing the thought of a different artist" (32). The "ancient towers" (76) of these cities are "iridescent" (32), "feathery," "floating" (105), almost "too beautifully unreal to be solid" (28). Stranger in a Strange Land also describes Martian cities as "faerie" and "graceful" (89), and it explains that Martian art, often a series of arranged emotions, "could [be] called a poem, a musical opus, or a philosophical treatise" (91).
One of the most important social activities of the culture which nourishes this art is "growing together," for while the ceremony of water sharing so noticeable in Stranger in a Strange Land--which indeed is first mentioned in Red Planet (37-38)--symbolically seals a relationship, the growing together first helps create that relationship. In "Ordeal in Space" growing together seems a meditative blend of contemplation and appreciation: "[The Martian] could sit for hours with a friend or trusted acquaintance, saying nothing, needing to say nothing. 'Growing together' they called it--his entire race had so grown together that they had needed no government, until the Earthmen came" (Past 352). In Red Planet two human boys are included in such a session:
For a long time nothing was said. Jim's thoughts drifted away, to school and what he would do there, to his family, to things in the past. He came back presently to personal self-awareness and realized that he was happier than he had been in a long time, with no particular reason that he could place. It was a quiet happiness; he felt no desire to laugh nor even to smile, but he was perfectly relaxed and content.
He was acutely aware of the presence of the Martians, of each individual Martian, and was becoming even more aware of them with each drifting minute. He had never noticed how beautiful they were. "Ugly as a native" was a common phrase with the colonials; Jim recalled with surprise that he had even used it himself, and wondered why he had ever done so.
He was aware, too, of Frank beside him and thought about how much he liked him. Staunch--that was the word for Frank, a good man to have at your back. He wondered why he had never told Frank that he liked him.
Jim . . . lay back, and soaked in the joy of living. (36-37)
By Stranger in a Strange Land, of course, growing together also includes human activities from religious worship to sex.
Apparently central to the Martians' ability to "grow together" is their almost matter-of-fact spirituality. By Stranger in a Strange Land humans begin to learn the truth, long known on Mars, that "You can't die . . . --you can only discorporate" (295), but Heinlein starts to work in the concept even in early pieces. An officer of Space Cadet tries to suggest to a young cadet that the Martian belief in the "other world" just might be valid, even though humans do not yet understand it: "Let's forget the usual assumption that a Martian is talking in religious symbols when he says that we live on just 'one side' while he lives on 'both sides.' Suppose that what he means is as real as butter and eggs, that he really does live in two worlds at the same time and that we live in the one he regards as unimportant. If you accept that, then it accounts for the Martian being unwilling to waste time talking with us, or trying to explain things to us. He isn't being stuffy, he's being reasonable. Would you waste time trying to explain rainbows to an earthworm?" (143-44) Red Planet clarifies the concept of the "other world." The Martians, explains a gruff old doctor, the book's wisest human character, have "everyday relations with Heaven--their heaven--as close and matter of fact as the relations between, say, the United States and Canada" (187). He realizes that the Martian Old One with whom he negotiated the continued stay of humans on the planet was "a ghost" (187). Too many of the colonists of Red Planet are interested in getting Mars "opened up to exploitation" (28), but, as I have noted elsewhere, "Martian spirituality allows the native inhabitants of Mars a crucial perspective which most humans lack" ("Heinlein's" 251). According to Jubal Harshaw, the corresponding gruff old doctor of Stranger in a Strange Land, "A Martian dies when he decides to die, having discussed it with friends and received consent of his ancestors' ghosts to join them" (123). He suggests that the Martian attitude toward death is "like Stevenson's 'Glad did I live and gladly die, and I lay me down with a will!"' (98). Though Slusser contends that while "Mars is an old culture, far superior in knowledge and wisdom to Earth," it is "decadent, no longer a vital, dynamic race," Heinlein actually portrays neither "decadence" nor "inertia" (Slusser 29), but a world of great "cultural wealth," one that places "the supreme value ... on interpersonal relationships" (Stranger 186).
The human boys of Red Planet realize early on that "Martians are good people" (101). The beings whose voices are "filled with ... warmth and sympathy and friendliness" almost immediately can become "like ... old and trusted friend[s]" (30-31). They radiate "a warm glow of friendliness ... as real as sunshine" (115), and their dwellings are "filled with an atmosphere of peace and security" (107). Stranger in a Strange Land tells us that the difference between humans and Martians "lay not in longer lifetimes as counted in Earth years but in basic attitude. 'It is later than you think' could not be expressed in Martian--nor could 'Haste makes waste,' though for a different reason: the first notion was inconceivable while the latter was an unexpressed Martian basic, as unnecessary as telling a fish to bathe. But 'As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be' was so Martian in mood that it could be translated more easily than 'two plus two makes four'--which was not a truism on Mars" (59). The Martians of Stranger in a Strange Land--apparently like those of "Ordeal in Space" and Red Planet--know that "Waiting is" (287): "A Martian needing a few minutes or years of contemplation simply took it: if a friend wished to speak with him, the friend could wait. With eternity to draw on there could be no reason for hurrying--'hurry' was not a concept in Martian" (125). Even "with the aid of vastly superior logic," the Martians "[are] not omniscient and in their own way [are] as provincial as humans" (414); nevertheless, they seem as close to omniscience as is possible, and their moral judgments are almost never questioned.
Valentine Michael Smith, the orphaned human raised by Martians in Stranger in a Strange Land, explains that, unlike the case with humans, "among Martians goodness and wisdom are identical" (393) and that Martians grok rightness and wrongness far more intuitively than humans usually do. Grok means "to understand," of course, but Dr. Mahmoud, who might be termed the leading Terran expert on Martians, explains that it also means, "to drink" and "a hundred other English words, words which we think of as antithetical concepts. 'Grok' means all of these. It means 'fear,' it means 'love,' it means 'hate'--proper hate, for by the Martian 'map' you cannot hate anything unless you grok it, understand it so thoroughly that you merge with it and it merges with you--then you can hate it. By hating yourself. But this implies that you love it, too, and cherish it and would not have it otherwise. Then you can hate--and (I think) Martian hate is an emotion so black that the nearest human equivalent could only be called mild distaste."
Mahmoud screwed up his face. "'Grok' means 'identically equal.' The human cliche 'This hurts me worse than it does you' has a distinctly Martian flavor. The Martian seems to know instinctively what we learned painfully from modern physics, that observer acts with observed through the process of observation. 'Grok' means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed--to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science-and it means as little to us as color does to a blind man." (205-6)
Alexei Panshin finds that the "Martian-trained ability to do almost anything"-- which includes not only grokking but mental control of matter [5]--makes Martian spirituality "right by definition" "and hence trivial" (101). This is true, of course, but only if we try to apply the fictional specifics of the book's Martian culture to our lives; the notion of full understanding, as an ideal, still is most laudable.
Heinlein's Martians may know all, but they most assuredly do not forgive all; their grokking of rightness and wrongness instead leads to an unwavering sense of justice. The human narrator of Have Space Suit--Will Travel explains his own, similar attitude very clearly: "But I don't hold with the idea that to understand all is to forgive all; you follow that and first thing you know you're sentimental over murderers and rapists and kidnappers and forgetting their victims. That's wrong.... If there were some way to drown such creatures at birth, I'd take my turn as executioner" (137). The Martian hesitates even less, for in a "cusp" a mature Martian "can always be sure of right action": "He knows. He groks. He acts" (Stranger III, 110). The Martians realize, in the words of "Mike" Smith, that "goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil" (Stranger 393). When Heinlein explains that a cat's "carnivorous thoughts [are] most pleasing and quite Martian" (Stranger 228), he suggests that the use of force can be natural and proper. In writing that violence might be done for "artistic necessity" (Stranger 354), however, he complicates the matter--needlessly, it seems. We can only hope that Martian art is the equivalent of morality.
Actually, when Heinlein's Martians resort to force, the reasons are indeed just. As early as Space Cadet Heinlein reports that on Mars the punishment for kidnapping "would be to stake [one] out on the desert, unprotected, for exactly the same amount of time" as the victim was held (177). The cadet who reminds us of this states it as a simple fact, unarguable either in detail or in justness, and even if this novel lacked the voracious "water seekers" with their "great scimitar claw[s]" of Red Planet (100), the extremes of Martian climate--and the lack of food and water--probably would be punishment enough. In Red Planet Martian justice is rather more otherworldly yet no less severe. Here the giant Martians encircle a transgressor, "mov[ing] in slowly, tightening the circle" until he is "completely concealed from the spectators by a screen of palm flaps," and though his protesting voice may "[stop] in a scream," when the Martians disperse there is "not even a spot of blood on the floor" (180-81).
Such "disappearing" also is used defensively numerous times in Stranger in a Strange Land, where it finally is described as pushing the person--or other object--"perpendicular" to our three dimensions (121). When Robert Plank claims that Mike's "disappearing" tactic sometimes "amounts to mass murder" (85), he is ostensibly correct, but this quick critical judgment also oversimplifies the issue by ignoring two important points: the tactic is used here only for immediate defense, and, after two instances of Mike's panicked destruction of armed, albeit uniformed, intruders who threaten him and his benefactors, in later moments of crisis he carefully attempts to "disappear" only weapons, not their bearers. When Jubal Harshaw questions him about the effective distance of the power, Mike replies, "Jubal, it is not distance. It is not seeing. It is knowing" (109). When Jubal wants Mike to demonstrate the "disappearing" on an ashtray, the latter is unable because he "do[es] not grok wrongness in its being, where it i s" (III). [6] There is a difference, such passages thus imply, between aggression and defense that Plank does not seem to recognize.
I have maintained that for Heinlein "there can be no more Munichs" ("'StarryEyed"' 67); Heinlein's Mars also reminds us that there should be no more Pearl Harbors either, for his Martians sometimes are moved to violence by the need for long-term defense. Sensing a threat in the vigorous and unrestrained human species, the subterranean Martian Old Ones of Red Planet "had intended to exterminate" the human colonists (185), but a compromise eventually is reached. The gruff old doctor explains, "They don't care what we do with the surface as long as we behave ourselves. We can use the park, we can even walk on the grass, but we mustn't frighten the birds" (188). Moreover, in Stranger in a Strange Land--as in at least four of his juveniles--Heinlein upposes the asteroid belt to have been formed by the break-up of a hypothetical planet once located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. [7] Indeed, in this book the Martians themselves are responsible for the formation of the asteroids: "The Martian Race had encountered the people of the fifth planet, grokked them completely, and had taken action; asteroid ruins were all that remained, save that the Martians continued to praise and cherish the people they had destroyed" (91). Even Mike Smith, despite the injunction of his benefactors not to "disappear" people anymore, knows that "at cusp, right action [is] required" (252); when confronted with the "glib fraud" (242) of the Fosterite cult leader he has no compunctions about dispatching the man, and later he still "grok[s] that he ha[s] chosen correctly" (252).
Martians believe that true "wrongness ... require[s] weeding, once it ha[s] been grokked and cherished and hated" (414). The discorporate Martian Old Ones contemplate the possibility of destroying humanity as they had the hypothetical Fifth Planet, with the mental subatomic manipulation of "a piece near the core of Earth about a hundred miles in diameter" (395). Such a destruction, Mike suggests, not only might be a necessary defensive maneuver but also would be considered "a mercy killing" as well: "You see, by their standards, we are diseased and crippled--the things we do to each other, the way we fail to understand each other, our almost complete failure to grok with one another, our wars and diseases and famines and cruelties--these will be insanity to them" (396). Fortunately for humanity, "Martians never hurry"; it will be "a minimum of five hundred years, more likely five thousand, before anything [will] be done" (396). By then, the novel's conclusion tells us, "it would be highly improbable approaching impossible that the Old Ones would be able to destroy this weirdly complex race" (414). Earth, it is suggested, will be too technically advanced--and, it is to be hoped, too morally advanced as well--to be vulnerable to Martian attack.
Alexei Panshin is correct in noting the unreality of Martian "super powers," including the ability to grok (101--2), [8] but, as I have contended, "the Martians are obviously less an example to follow than a reminder that humanity still has far to progress" ("Heinlein's" 251). Rather than simply stating the obvious, that Heinlein's fiction is not fact, we should try to determine what lessons this fiction is trying to impart, for his nearly half-century treatment of Mars provides some sound ideas. It is true that "growing together," water sharing, promiscuity, grokjustified killing, and attempts at levitation will not help us in the real, everyday world. Heinlein's underlying premise that we must strive for wisdom and justice, however, still seems most useful. Such qualities--calm deliberation backed up, when necessary, with determination--will help us in our familial and other personal relations, in our broader society, and in the national and international spheres as well. Heinlein's Mars should remind us that from the back yard to the Balkans, only with wisdom will we be able to strive for right rather than wrong, and only with a sense of justice will we be able to maintain what is right.
Rafeeq O. McGiveron is an instructor of English and advisor at Lansing Community College in Michigan currently he is pursuing a doctorate degree at Western Michigan University. In addition to publishing on science fiction, he has written on mainstream authors, including an article in Western American Literature on Willa Cather's gaze across the vistas of terrestrial and cosmic spaces.
An early version of this paper was presented at the Twenty-ninth annual conference of the Popular Culture Association in San Diego on March 31, 1999.
(1.) Just seven years later, for example, while my Larousse Encyclopedia of Astronomy suggests that the "canals" do seem to reflect some sort of natural features and it admits that "the canal problem is still very wide open," it also states quite flatly that they "are neither artificial waterways nor bands of irrigated land on either side of such waterways--as Lowell thought" (205).
(2.) In a 1949 letter to his agent Heinlein notes with some professional pride his careful calculations-and fudging-concerning a scene in Red Planet in which a flashlight keeps a pair of boys from being smothered by a giant Martian cabbage sheltering them through the bitterly cold night (Grumbles 50).
(3.) For examples of how Heinlein chafed against the constraints of the editors of his juveniles, see Grumbles from the Grave (46-58, 63-67, and 69-77).
(4.) For a cogent overview and good bibliography of early scientific thought on the concept of an inhabited Mars, see Johnson and Clareson.
(5.) To call these abilities simply "amazing Martian powers," as Diane Parkin-Speer does (216), overlooks the fact that Smith is a human and that other humans learn them as well. These imagined powers, inherent in humanity yet forgotten, thus are reminiscent of those in early non-Martian Heinlein works such as "Elsewhen" (1941) and "Lost Legacy" (1941).
(6.) Later, of course, Mike does learn to "disappear" harmless items like clothing for entertainment and for mischief. Clothing, however, is not people.
(7.) The other works mentioning the hypothetical Fifth Planet are Space Cadet (1948), Farmer in the Sky (1950), Between Planets (1951), and The Rolling Stones (1952). For a brief discussion of Heinlein's use of this world, see McGiveron, "Heinlein's Inhabited Solar System, 1940--1952," in Science-Fiction Studies 23 (July 1996), especially pages 247-48.
(8.) Panshin's succinct statement that anyone trying to implement the supposedly progressive sexuality of Stranger "is headed for trouble" (101) is more useful, for, unlike the case with mental powers, Heinlein does seem to be proposing these new mores. In doing so, of course, Heinlein misses the possibility-now widely accepted-that the pair bond and even jealousy have a chemical basis and thus may indeed serve an evolutionary purpose.
Works Cited
Erisman, Fred. "Robert Heinlein's Case for Racial Tolerance, 1954-1956." Extrapolation 29 (Fall 1988): 216-26.
Heinlein , Robert A. Assignment in Eternity. 1953. New York: Signet, 1981.
-----. Between Planets. 1951. New York: Ace, n.d.
-----. Beyond This Horizon. Astounding Science Fiction Apr. and May 1942. Revised version 1948. New York: Signet, 1975.
-----. The Cat Who Walks through Walls. New York: Putnam's, 1985.
-----. Double Star. 1956. New York: Signet, 1957.
-----. "Elsewhen." Astounding Science Fiction Sep. 1941. Assignment in Eternity 68--95.
-----. Farmer in the Sky. 1950. New York: Del Rey, 1975.
-----. Friday. 1982. New York: Del Rey, 1983.
-----. "Gentlemen, Be Seated." Argosy (May 1948). Past 277-86.
-----. "Goldfish Bowl." Astounding Science Fiction (Mar. 1942). The Menace from Earth. 1959. New York: Signet, 1964. 129-58.
-----. "The Green Hills of Earth." Saturday Evening Post (Feb. 8, 1947). Past 363-73.
-----. Grumbles from the Grave. Virginia Heinlein , ed. New York: Del Rey, 1989.
-----. Have Space Suit-Will Travel. 1958. New York: Del Rey, 1978.
-----. "Jerry Was a Man." Thrilling Wonder Stories (Oct. 1947). Assignment in Eternity 171-92.
-----. Lost Legacy," Super Science Stories (Nov. 1941). Assignment in Eternity, 96-170.
-----. Methuselah's Children. Astounding Science Fiction (July, Aug., and Sept. 1941). Past 635-830.
-----. "Misfit." Astounding Science Fiction (Nov. 1939). Past 633-53.
-----. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, 1966. New York: Berkley, 1980.
-----. The Number of the Beast. 1980. New York: Fawcett, 1985.
-----. "Ordeal in Space." Town and Country (May 1948). Past 347-61.
-----. The Past through Tomorrow. 1967. New York: Berkley, 1975.
-----. The Puppet Masters. 1951. New York: Signet, n.d.
-----. Podkayne of Mars. 1963. New York: Avon, 1963.
-----. Red Planet. 1949. New York: Del Rey, 1978.
-----. The Rolling Stones. 1952. New York: Ace, n.d.
-----. To Sail Beyond the Sunset. 1987. New York: Ace, 1988.
-----. "Sky Lift." Imagination (Nov. 1953). The Menace from Earth. 1959. New York: Signet, 1964. 115-28.
-----. Space Cadet. 1948. New York: Del Rey, 1978.
-----. "Space Jockey." The Saturday Evening Post (Apr. 26 1947). Past 227-43.
-----. The Star Beast. 1954. New York: Del Rey, 1977.
-----. Starman Jones. 1953. New York: Del Rey, 1982.
-----. Starship Troopers. 1959. New York: Berkley, 1968.
-----. Stranger in a Strange Land. 1961. New York: Berkley, n.d.
-----. Time Enough for Love. 1973. New York: Berkley, 1974.
-----. Time for the Stars. 1956. New York: Ace, n.d.
-----. Tunnel in the Sky. 1955. New York: Del Rey, 1983.
-----. "'- We Also Walk Dogs."' Astounding Science Fiction (July 1941). Past 319-42.
-----. "Where To?" Galaxy Feb. 1952. Expanded version rpt. in Expanded Universe. New York: Ace, 1980. 316-53.
Johnson, William B., and Thomas D. Clareson. "The Interplay of Science and Fiction." Extrapolation (May 1964): 37-48.
Lowell, Percival. Mars. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1895.
McGiveron, Rafeeq O. "Heinlein's Inhabited Solar System, 1940-1952." Science-Fiction Studies 23 (July 1996): 245-52.
-----. "'Starry-Eyed Internationalists' versus the Social Darwinists: Heinlein's Transnational Governments." Extrapolation 40 (Spring 1999): 53-70.
Olander, Joseph D., and Martin Harry Greenberg, eds. Robert A. Heinlein . Writers of the Twenty-first Century Series. New York: Taplinger, 1978.
Panshin, Alexei. Heinlein in Dimension: A Critical Analysis. Chicago: Advent, 1968.
Parkin-Speer, Diane. "Robert A. Heinlein : The Novelist as Preacher." Extrapolation 20 (Fall 1979): 214-22.
Plank, Robert. "Omnipotent Cannibals in Stranger in a Strange Land." Olander and Greenberg, eds. 83-106.
Rudaux, Lucien, and G. De Vaucouleurs. Larousse Encyclopedia of Astronomy. Intro. F. L. Whipple. New York: Prometheus, 1959.
Slusser, George Edgar. Robert A. Heinlein : Stranger in His Own Land. Milford Series. Popular Writers of Today I. San Bernadino: Borgo, 1976.
Williamson, Jack. "Youth against Space: Heinlein's Juveniles Revisited." Olander and Greenberg, eds 15-31.
Rafeeq McGiveron teaches in East Lansing, Michigan. His Heinlein essay here is
the one of several in a series that have appeared in Extrapolation and in
Science-Fiction Studies.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Extrapolation
COPYRIGHT 2001 Extrapolation


text: While Rainey's evocative, time-morphing and occasionally implosive drumming plays a central role in the musical materiality here, his trio is very much an integrated ensemble. The commanding component parts are critical to the vibe and behavioral manner and conversational of the whole. Laubrock is a saxophonist of unusual textural sensitivity and intellectual savvy, who can summon up proper deposits of abandon, knowing restraint and sly references to jazz' past in the midst of her purely improvisational explorations. Halvorson, one of the important "avant-jazz" guitarists of her generation, takes the abstracting and deconstructionist influence of, say, Derek Bailey into account in her playing, but has come up with her own way of melding that free-styling painterliness with shards of line and sonics - including tasteful deployment of effects units, a well-placed vibrato effect, ring modulation or distortion blast adding to the range and contemporary relevance of what she does. Together, they make a refreshing new and not -sentimental kind of beautiful music. -Josef Woodard, Contributor to Downbeat, Jazz Times and the Los Angeles Times


text:
Even though traditional lead generation methods have been struggling for quite some time now, with the rise of account-based marketing, these techniques have been moved to the background. Seriously, who would want to buy a list of contacts and make cold calls, when you can contact the people you need directly and offer them the exact things they're looking for?
Lead generation is critical for B2B companies and it has to be effective. Simply put, if you don't have the leads, you don't make sales.
Thankfully, today you can enjoy lead generation features provided by Albacross and you don't have to pay a single penny for it. Not today, not ever. We are currently working with over 2,000 companies from all over the world and their number is growing day by day. And there is a reason for this. Our tool provides a platform that proves itself within the shortest time imaginable. Let's take a closer look at how you can use Albacross for B2B lead generation.
Focus on Sales
First of all, Albacross has been developed with sales in mind. The tool has a rather simple interface and allows to quickly get used to it and find out what's what without complex video or text tutorials. Due to its data collection features and actual facts, Albacross provides a real sales value. Whether your company's using some web analytic tool or not, your sales department can use Albacross to easily determine every single company that has landed on your website. Then, using the tool's behavior analysis reports, you and your team can contact the prospect companies' decision makers directly, already knowing what they need and why they need it.
Know, Who's Visited
As we've already mentioned, Albacross allows seeing who has been to your website. This is what account-based marketing is basically about – you target prospects already knowing their "Who? What? Why?". To put it simple, when you're using Albacross for B2B web generation, you receive all the important data about every single one of your visitors. You can see what they were doing on your site – which pages they have visited, how much they stayed on each of them. "But there's a contact form and if someone wants us to contact them, they will surely fill it out," you may think. In reality, because of not knowing who visited your website, businesses are missing out on most of their potential customers.
Target Your Prospects
Albacross allows targeting your prospects wherever they are on the web. You can tailor custom advertisements for each separate potential client and they will be displayed in banners wherever that person goes on the web. So, no need to send faceless newsletters or make cold calls – just offer your prospects what they need.
Albacross in a Nutshell
These are Albacross's main features in short and if you start using it – which is absolutely for free – you will find so many more ways your company can benefit from it. Just follow this link to get started: https://albacross.com/b2b-leadgeneration/. The thing is that only 2% of your website's visitors ever leave their contact details. And it essentially doesn't matter how many thousands, millions, or even billions your counter or statistics show, just a tiny fraction of them all will end up making a purchase from you. Albacross is a revolutionary lead generation tool designed to help B2B companies determine the remaining 98% that never leave any contact info. There is a great sea of your potential clients and they just don't yet know that you already have what they need, so let them know together with Albacross at your side.


text:
Thank you for showing interest in this item. You will be notified by email as soon as this item is available to purchase.
The item you selected has already been subscribed to notify to this email.
System error: Failed to submit email, please contact website administrator.
Robert Trujillo's powerful attack and monstrous tone have earned him the most coveted bass chairs in rock. Developed in collaboration with Robert at the Dunlop String Lab, these strings stand up to his aggressive playing style and offer a clear, articulate top end, a solid midrange punch to cut through a wall of guitars, and more than enough focused bottom to knock you on your ass! Electric Bass - Stainless Steel and Nickel Custom - Medium - 5-String Set Gauges: 45, 63T, 85T, 102T, 130 (Nickel)


text:
Do you have a children's picture book you'd like to self-publish? Are you interested in using Kickstarter.com to fund a children's book?
Kickstarting is not for the faint of heart. But you're writing a children's book, so I know you're not, either!
I just created a new, 12-page checklist that will help you plan your Kickstarter launch. It begins month-by-month until the last month before your launch, at which point it moves to week-by-week. It also includes a list of everything you should be doing each day your campaign is live on Kickstarter.
The pop-up e-newsletter signup should appear automatically when you visit this site. Once you are on the list, I will let you know when the e-book is available, as well as any courses I create to go along with the book.
Don't worry, I hate spam, too. I will only write you when I have something truly valuable to share!
Leave a Reply.
March 2017


text:
Patella Tendon Anatomy
The patellar ligament (also called the patella tendon) is a large strong ligament that runs from the top of the patella (kneecap) & runs down over the kneecap to insert into the tuberosity of the tibia (shin bone). The patella tendon is a continuation of the the quadriceps muscle. The quadriceps muscle consists of the vastus lateralis, vastus medialis, vastus rectus femoris.
What is Osgood Schlatters?
Osgood Schlatters is relatively common in teenagers who are very active in sports. It is most common during the Summer months in Ireland when the ground hardens & the load transferred to the knee tendons increase. This overuse syndrome causes inflammation of the insertion of the patellar tendon on the tibial tubercle. It can cause a painful bump just below the knee. It is a traction apophysitis of the tibial tubercle resulting from repetitive microtrauma.
Symptoms of Osgood Schlatters
Osgood Schlatters normally presents as a painful lump under the knee cap of teenage boys. You may notice that the bone is more prominent than the less painful knee. The pain in the knee may appear after sport & dissipate while running in the early stages. As the condition progresses, pain may come on while running & eventually will last between training sessions & playing sport will become particularly challenging.
For some, the pain of Osgood Schlatter's is quite mild, whereas in other cases the pain is more extreme and long-lasting. in most cases, the pain is present in one knee only or, if bilateral, it is generally a lot worse on one side. The pain may last until the athlete is finished their growth.
Causes of Osgood Schlatters
Osgood Schlatters is an overload of the patella tendon (patella ligament). The combination of overload & rapid growth of bone combines to overload the extending patella tendon. The patella tendon is under greatest pressure during jumping & sprinting activities & so it is most commonly seen in sports such as basketball & soccer.
Treatment of Osgood Schlatters
The first step in addressing Osgood Schlatters is activity modification. This requires an analysis of the current activity levels & a reduction of total load to minimise knee pain & swelling. In most cases a reduction in sprinting & jumping activities is required. Physiotherapy interventions will look at addressing tightness & poor muscle control around the trunk and legs.
Rehabilitation of the lower limb muscles along with specific exercises to address movement patterns that may be creating overload at the knee joint is vital. This requires a specifically tailored rehabilitation programme based on analysis of the athlete & identification of potential flaws in their movement patterns. Other treatment measures include ice & stretching.
The difficult part is cutting back on activities that cause the symptoms. Continuing to load a knee that is already irritated & painful will only make symptoms worse & may require a more prolonged period of rest in order to settle down.
Key Points:
• Osgood Schlatters is an overuse injury that occurs in children & teenagers undergoing heavy training during a growth spurt
• Osgood-Schlatter gives rise to pain at the front of the knee & is often associated with a noticeable lump underneath the kneecap
• Osgood-Schlatter can be successfully treated by physiotherapy interventions along with specific exercises & activity modification.
To find out more, contact Naas Physio Clinic on:
(045) 874 682
or email us at email@example.com
For further information on conditions treated go to:


text:
102 photos
$609,800 242 acres 4 Beds | 3 Baths | 1500 sqft 10373 County Road 1, Bottineau, ND 58329 - Rolette County
Hunters Dream Property in Turtle Mountains
You wake up in the morning to the sun rising across Willow Lake and to the sound of the ducks and geese on there way south and to the bugle of the elk off in the distance, and you realize this isnt a dream it is reality on this great Turtle Mountain property. This property is a dream that rarely comes true let alone on the open market in the turtle mountains and it can be yours! This property is one that I could write a book on, but let the pictures do the talking. You really need to see it to appreciate all that it offers. This sprawling property borders 400 acres of hard to access state land to the west and to the east borders Willow Lake National Game Refuge. Scenic views can be found in all directions from the rolling hills of the Turtl
Joe Bender Four Seasons Realty with Sports Afield Trophy Properties


text:
As of August 2017, two-thirds (67%) of Americans report that they get at least some of their news on social media , according to a new survey from Pew Research Center. Out of that; smaller number are also covering the news themselves, by posting photos or videos of news events.
Zagelanews is a new location based social network, where users can get the news by drawing a circle around any area in the Map, and Zagelanews will bring all the news related to that selected area.
Imagine if there is a big protest in the Newyork city, and you are sitting inside your home in Cairo, you can simply open the app and draw a circle around Wall Street, and hence Zagelanews will fetch all the related news posted by the protesters there.
Zagelanews is open now and available on Amazon AWS. You are only few minutes a way from owning and running Zagelanews under your name.
Zagelanews has two parts:
1. The server: It 's pre-configured and available for free on Amazon AWS.
2. The android application: It's now available as an open source application, which you can download, customize, and publish it under your name in the Play Market. Check the demo.
For the complete implementation guide, you can check here, or you can contact us.


text:
Welcome to Ahmedabad Police
Ahmedabad city police is constantly active for your safety and law and order in city, this is the core objective of Ahmedabad City Police. We accept your co-operation to reduce the crime rate in the city so people can live peacefully. This website is a humble try to get together people and city police.
Responsibility of protection and safety of the citizens of Ahmedabad having population about more than 60 lakh is on prime responsibility of Ahmedabad City Police Force. The Commissioner of Police has been discharging his duties as the Head of Ahmedabad City Police Force.
Apart from regular 45 police stations Ahmedabad city has a full fledge Mahila Police Station established to deal with women related offences and issues only. In functions under Crime Branch and is headed by the office of the rank of Police Inspector. Apart from regular police stations there are 14 dedicated traffic Police Stations to deal with traffic related offences and issues.
Police Medal
Police medal for meritorious service Independence Day-2009
Police medal for...
Latest News
Ahmedabad city police latest news
Daily news for Ahmedabad city police jurisdiction.
A list of the general protocols that every citizen must follow...
The list of services offered by the Ahmedabad City Police towards a better society..


text:
How do I register for a cycling tour?
Simply complete our online Registration Form and click 'submit'. We'll confirm your registration by email. One Registration Form may be used for up to four riders residing in the same household and using the same credit card/check for payment. If you prefer to complete the Registration Form 'off-line,' use our printer-friendly Registration Form scan and email it to firstname.lastname@example.com
What level of cyclist should consider a tour?
These are not tours for boardwalk beach cruising cyclists. Particularly our Climbing Tours for fit cyclists and endorphin addicts with low gears and SLIGHT masochistic tendencies. It's not a matter of 'keeping up' — we generally go very slow. It's more a matter of 'getting up' the 8% grade stretching twelve kilometers or more. And, no, you don't have to be some sort of racer, licensed cyclist or 25-year old type-A, just someone who likes a good challenge. The only warning for people who haven't done this type of cycling before in a foreign country, it can be addicting!
How hard are your cycling tours?
They're not 'leisure' tours. Our cycling tours are designed for people who enjoy cycling, sweating and the challenge of some climbs. Any decently fit rider with low gears will be jazzed by our daily distances and pitch. If you are grossly unfit or have not been on a bike since grade school, you should probably stick to pedaling the Loire Valley. Some of our tours are easier than others and, for a private group, they all can be customized to whatever you want. Email us if you are looking for a recommendation and, remember, we also arrange a private tour!
Which tour is the best?
This is the toughest question for us to answer because our tours represent our favorite places in the world to ride. There are also individual preferences. We like adventurous challenges and mountain cultures so the Alps(particularly the Mediterranean Alps) and Pyrenees are high on our list of favorites. Between the Pyrenees and the Alps, we like the quiet romantic roads of the Pyrenees and the Basque-Spanish influences. Italy cycling is, well…Italy, a passionate-friendly culture and dramatic mountain scenery. If you're looking for the best coastal scenery and more civilization, the French Riviera is an all-around favorite; the piercing blue Mediterranean Sea, great beaches, beautiful hikes and serious cycling make this trip hard to beat. For cycling and world-class luxury, it's hard to beat the design hotels and up and coming chefs in Spain and the Basque Country. If you still have trouble deciding, email us and let us know what type of trip you are interested in.
Can I bring my own bike? Does Ride Strong Bike Tours rent bikes?
Not only can you bring your own bike but our riders WANT their own bikes. Have you ever spent even one day wearing someone else's shoes? We'll help you with packing your bike for travel and provide shuttle services to your hotel on the first day. Because of the new baggage fees on most airlines, we recommend you shop around for airlines that let bikes fly free. Otherwise, on some of our trips we have relationships with local suppliers who can provide high quality road bike rentals for your week of cycling.
What gearing should I have?
That depends on your leg strength and how much you want to work. The hills in the Alps and Pyrenees are probably not like those you ride at home. Most of our rides involve sustained category climbing. If your primary purpose is pleasure and general comfort while climbing, you definitely want some low gears (27—29 minimum on the rear) and a triple crank. If you don't have a clue what we are talking about, go to a good bike store and tell them where you're going.
What do you recommend for packing my bike?
Traveling with a bike is much easier than you might think. The biggest decision, if you don't already have one, is deciding what type of bike case to use. Hard-sided boxes are great for protection, but can be bulky and awkward at airports or in taxis. Many clients recommend soft-sided bike bags because they're sturdy, easier to carry (many have wheels and shoulder straps) and easier to get into taxis. There are several good makers of soft-sided bike bags that can be had for a decent price on eBay. Our Trip Planner will give you all the information you will need for packing and traveling with your bike.
Is there a SAG vehicle?
Yes, on all our trips we have a SAG vehicle leap-frogging with the riders. We carry water, hydration powder, local energy bars and products, fruit and other goodies to keep you fueled.
How much driving do we do?
As little as possible! We like to ride, not drive. We design our tours to minimize the amount of time sitting in a van or car ( no buses!). There may be an initial transfer to get us out of a major city and back to our departure city, otherwise our vans are used more for transferring luggage, not shuttling people. Of course you're welcome to the ride in the van at any time.
What are your accommodations like on your European cycling tours?
On our European cycling vacations we like to stay in boutique hotels, charming inns or family-run mountain lodges that blend and compliment the region we are visiting. We steer clear of chain hotels or generic facilities that eschew the local culture. Our tours usually include a mix of 'city' hotels and quiet rural getaways. In larger towns, we try to stay in the 'old city' where we can easily walk to restaurants, shops and cyber cafes. The hotels on our Luxury Tours are all very special and superb!
What is the food like? Do you accommodate vegetarians or other special diets?
Food is good! Among other things, the French, Italians and chefs in Spain know how to wine and dine! We select our favorite local restaurants, bistros or cafes serving up the freshest regional cuisine and friendliest smiles. If you tell us ahead of time, we make every effort to accommodate vegetarians or other special dietary needs. You will not go hungry and will not lose weight no matter how hard you ride!
Do I need insurance?
It is advisable to get travel insurance. Insurance coverage is not included in the tour cost. We will provide you with additional information about insurance upon receipt of your cycling tour registration and deposit.
What will I need to carry on the ride?
Very little. Typically, the most you will need is water bottles, a rain jacket and camera.
What else do I need to know?
Once you've booked a bike tour, we'll provide a comprehensive Welcome Kit that will fill in all the gaps. The Welcome Kit will also include a Rider Profile and Liability Release that you will need to complete and return to us before your final payment.
Why choose us?
We're DIFFERENT. A stronger bike tour begins with those that dare to take clients to the real places they want to go. We don't pretend to offer the 'one size fits all' bike tour for all different level of cyclists. Our exclusive bike tour destinations are limited to places we consider to be a cycling wonderland for cyclists who enjoy the ultimate in mountain scenery, cycling, personal accomplishment, fresh cuisine and fun, all wrapped up in a reasonably priced adventure of a lifetime. Click here to see why our tours are stronger than the rest.
See you on the road!
"A man in a car sees more than he can take in whilst a man on a bike takes in more than he can see." Unknown


text:
Marine Insurance in Titusville and Orlando FL
Your Business Never Sleeps, Protect it Every Step of the Way
Filichia Insurance Agency provides marine insurance to businesses in Titusville, Orlando, Mims, Port St. John, Cocoa, Merritt Island, and surrounding areas.
Marine insurance is meant to provide both inland and ocean marine coverage. When your business transports property, you want that cargo to be covered every step of the way. Marine coverage provides protection throughout the entire transport. Filichia Insurance Agency proudly provides businesses of all sizes with the protection they need to run smoothly.
Our marine insurance options include, but are not limited to:
- Property insurance
- Loss control services
- General liability
- Umbrella coverage
Contact a representative at Filichia Insurance Agency to set up a consultation.


text:
From their beginnings as colonists in the New World, the Creoles of Louisiana have enriched American life for hundreds of years. Their contributions to architecture, cuisine and elegant living have earned the Louisiana Creoles an honored place in American culture.
Creole culture is alive and thriving in the United States. A beautiful blend of West Africans, Islanders, French, Spanish, German, West Indian, Irish, Italian and Native American, the Louisiana Creoles represent a true melting pot of cultures.
Origin of Louisiana Creoles
The Creoles emerged in Louisiana as children of transplants from other countries. The first Creoles born in the colonies were of French parentage (the term "Creole" stems from both French and Spanish words meaning "colonist"). As time passed, French aristocracy mixed with farmers, merchants and others, including immigrants and colonists, both free and enslaved, resulting in a fusion of variegated combinations. As a result, no two unrelated Creoles will likely have the exact same ancestral makeup. Yet, they are all unified by the common banner of Creole culture.
As these people settled throughout the state of Louisiana, they brought along treasured traditions plucked from their multi-heritage roots. Bathed in Spanish and French influences and served up in a uniquely Creole fashion (gumbo style!), the Creoles' joi de vivre was evident in all aspects of their daily lives. That enthusiasm for life continues to be a distinction of Louisiana Creole culture today.
Creole Architecture
Gathering friends and family together for socialising has long been important to the Creoles of Louisiana. The appreciation of an elegant lifestyle and a penchant for entertaining is evident in Creole architecture, even in the simplest of homes.
Stately plantation homes based on European design are splashed with island f lavor in both form and function. Shaded breezeways coax a fresh breath of air through structures, and decorative architectural details such as filigree ironwork add artistic interest. Deep, covered porches and enchanting courtyards are hallmarks of this architectural style, as are signs of the refined Creole culture. Charming pigeonniers – small outbuildings designed to house pigeons – were a stamp of wealth all the way up through the 1800s.
The so-called "shotgun" houses of the region were designed to encourage an efficient flowthrough of air. Typical shotgun homes are one room wide and several rooms deep, such that, theoretically, one could fire a shotgun straight through from front door to back door without hitting any obstacles. Most Creole-style buildings were constructed without hallways in an effort to foment easy ventilation of a building. This type of construction often led to asymmetrical layouts of properties, as rooms were added on to other rooms in a manner that would best capture this natural ventilation.
Many of these historic shotgun homes of yesteryear still stand; some as private residences and others as hotels or museums. The proven success and durability of these structures over countless decades in the face of persistent heat and humidity has led modern architects to incorporate Creole design in modern developments. As most Creole dwellings were built on raised foundations some as much as an entire storey high–many of these old structures even withstood the wrath of hurricanes Rita and Katrina, while many other, more recently constructed buildings did not.
Louisiana Creole Cuisine
The creativity of the Creole people is wonderfully expressed through their cuisine. Creole cooking blends together the culinary influences of French, Spanish and African cultures with butter, cream and tomatoes taking center stage, and the "holy trinity" of chopped green peppers, onion and celery anointing most dishes.
Probably the most famous Creole dish is gumbo, a thick stew-like soup of mixed vegetables and meats. The word "gumbo" originates from the African word for "okra," a key ingredient in gumbo and other Creole dishes. "Gumbo" also refers to the local patois of the Creole language, ref lecting the infusion of mixed heritages blended together into a culturally unique regional language.
There's no one "right" way to make gumbo, leaving a great deal of room for each cook to imbue his or her own imagination into the creation of this local dish. All gumbos start with a roux (a mixture of flour and fats) combined with a collection of meats and leafy vegetables. Okra, collard greens, mustard greens and spinach may mingle with oysters, crab, shrimp, sausage, chicken and ham. Filé powder–a seasoning made of dried and ground sassafras leaves–is sprinkled in at the last moment for added flavor and thickening before serving the meal atop rice.
Mardi Gras
Creoles love celebrations, and the festival of Mardi Gras is one of the world's biggest. Creole creativity enlivens the town of New Orleans with spectacles of colorful dance, music and parades in the weeks leading up to Lent. Since its first celebration in 1703, this festival has lured people from all over Louisiana and the world to come to join in the fun.
Like the famous gumbo, the cornucopia culture of the Louisiana Creoles combines the best from its myriad heritages, blending refined elegance, delicious cuisine and a zest for life that is the signature of the American Creole people.