text:
The Sweet Providence of God in the Life of Our Four Sons
I asked Noël to let me use this article here. She said yes. She wrote it for World Magazine. They had to edit it pretty heavily for length, and I wanted you to be able to read it the way she wrote it. It filled me with a marvel at God's grace in our lives. Just for perspective the boys are now 34 (Karsten), 31 (Benjamin), almost 27 (Abraham), and 23 (Barnabas). They are all standing with their wives in the name of Jesus. I am a very blessed man. Life is hard and God is good. Here is Noël's own title and article.
-John Piper
Boys, Books, and Birth Order
On asking my 4 adult sons to list 5 favorite picture books and 5 favorite chapter books
Erma Bombeck explained birth order: the firstborn is a scholar, the second a jock, the third a game show host. Kevin Leman added the last-born as salesman.
That's our boys. Before age four, Son 1 was reading The Little House on the Prairie. Son 2, little older than four, was outstripping the rest of his soccer squad. Son 3 (a.k.a. Hi!-What's-Your-Name?) performed in new roles daily, aided by boots, bathrobe, and stick. Son 4 survived life with older brothers by charming everyone from day one.
Their mother rejoices that their names are in the Lamb's Book for eternity. In the meantime, they remember few other books in common. Four boys who shared home, parents, and read-alouds—you'd expect shared favorites. Instead?—Fodder for arguments about nature over nurture.
Son 1 names only chapter books: "The picture books I remember are ones we've read to our kids more recently." But his mother remembers. The first time he heard Are You My Mother?, he wept when the fledgling was scooped up by the Snort. Oh, the emotional power of words on our tenderhearted child who regularly shed tears over goodbyes. Son 1's is the only list with books his mother didn't know (maybe he found it more efficient to read alone?): The Great Brain, The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, The Westing Game, and Good Night, Mr. Tom.
Son 2, lists only picture books, mostly Dr. Seuss ("I hope you weren't looking for the spiritual answer. These are what I remember.") He's the one who visualizes all sides of an object at one glance. This makes him good at building and design. It also means he sees many sides of each letter in each word on a page—dyslexia. He doesn't list chapter books, but his mother remembers. He completed his first, Naya Nuki, after 4th grade. The Cross and the Switchblade grabbed him as he labored through it in 8th grade. Later, he asked a public librarian for help choosing a book. She asked, "What kind do you like?" He knew his genre, "Christian books about gang warfare."
Son 3 remembers The Picture Bible, Old Testament excerpts in comic book format: "I learned all my trivia from it." But his mother remembers another source too—for the script of one of his before-the-mirror performances. [Snarling, brandishing sword] "Come here, kid! I'm gonna feed you to the birds! " [Rapid turn, drop sword, become David] "Goliath! You come to me with sword and shield, but I come in the name of the LORD." He memorized his lines listening repeatedly to Stories that Live. The passionate power of words lent him a love for individual words, making us wonder whether an extrovert could ever edit a dictionary: "Stephen Lawhead taught me what being quartered means."
The length of Son 4's list matches Son 1's, because neither obeyed his mother ("I'm way over five books now, but they are all so good"). Son 4 names several books that are on others' lists—the plight of the youngest stuck with hand-me-downs? But he remembers them happily and doesn't seem to feel put-upon. With one or another brother, he shares the Hardy Boys ("all of them"), P. D. Eastman, Dr. Seuss, David Wilkerson, J. R. R. Tolkien, and one "unnamed": "I left off Stephen Lawhead because I like about 8 of his books and couldn't pick one"). He also has his own favorites: Wind in the Willows, Dangerous Journey, Old Yeller, Sherlock Holmes, White Fang.
Maybe the significance of these lists is limited by what each remembered on short notice…and on brotherly maneuvering to make the most of "only 5." Son 3 names Narnia, and his mother imagines the others saying, "I didn't list them because I thought you would!" Son 4 names Richard Scarry, whose books they all loved when they were too young for today's memories. And the audio of Where the Red Fern Grows is famous in our family for silencing rowdy carpool boys and eliciting muffled backseat snuffles ("Just a cold!").
Birth order? Favorite books? Maybe they're valid as general indicators, maybe not. But Son 1 is a poet and English teacher. Son 2 ministers in an inner-city setting, largely youth-oriented. Son 3, a songwriter, edits Web content for a Christian organization. And Son 4 lives among books, working for a Christian publisher—in sales.


text:
If the Defending Pokémon is Pokémon-ex, this attack does 30 damage plus 20 more damage.
You may attach this as an Energy card from your hand to 1 of your Pokémon that already has an Energy card attached to it. When you attach this card, return an Energy card attached to that Pokémon to your hand. While attached, this card is a Special Energy card and provides every type of Energy but 2 Energy at a time. (Has no effect other than providing Energy.)
The Pokémon Company International is not responsible for the content of any linked website that is not operated by The Pokémon Company International. Please note that these websites' privacy policies and security practices may differ from The Pokémon Company International's standards.
Pokemon.com administrators have been notified and will review the screen name for compliance with the Terms of Use.
Your request could not be completed. Please try again. If the problem persists, please contact Customer Support.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Pre-Order The myTouch 4G Slide At Walmart for $100
Maybe you just can't justify spending $200 on the myTouch 4G Slide, I hear you. Don't worry, though, because Walmart has you covered. You can pre-order the myTouch 4G Slide right now for $100. That's like half off! You can still look for this one on July 27th too. Yay for saving money!


text:
What's so important in using a video in social media marketing? This day's video is becoming a trend in marketing. It is the easiest way to let viewers know about your products and services. Listening while watching the video gives viewers a clearer vision of what you wanted them to
This year, Social Media is BIG and it's getting even bigger as months go by and is a catch-all term for every site that may provide different social actions. For instance Facebook, it is a social networking site that allows sharing updates, videos, joining events/group and many other activities. Where
Millions of people are using social media now to search for something and/or information they need so it is also considered an important part for internet marketing. It is one of the great marketing opportunities for businesses both, small or big. Most social media services are free or affordable and


text:
Fans Pulled Onstage to Rock
Sometimes the rockingest rock moments happen when the performers need a little help. Here, based on an epic Reddit thread, I present some performances in which fans join their favorite bands onstage -- and rock.
Weezer - "Undone (The Sweater Song)"
Weezer, live in Japan, brings a fan up to play acoustic guitar.
Weezer in japan lucky fan undone the sweater... by versace58
U2 - "All I Want Is You"
Blind guitarist Adam Bevell went to a U2 show in Nashville. His brother-in-law had made Bevell a sign reading "BLIND GUITAR PLAYER. Bring me up." So Bono brought him up for an encore. They performed "All I Want Is You," Bevell's wedding song, and Bevell walked away with Bono's guitar. For more on the story, read this report (the first video in that link has an interview with Bevell and some extra footage of the performance).
Green Day - "Basket Case"
In this Manchester performance, Green Day recruits fans to play drums, bass, and guitar for a jam session. And it works. (Beware, some salty rock 'n roll language is used. After the fan-band does their thing, the main band returns to play "Basket Case.")
Metallica - "Blackened"
On Metallica's thirtieth anniversary as a band, they invited a couple of metal musicians onstage to perform. Shredding ensued. This video is rather long, as it tells the whole story, but it's pretty fun watching them onstage!
Billy Joel - "New York State of Mind"
In this phone video, audience member Michael Pollack joins Billy Joel onstage to perform a classic.
The Who - Cow Palace Show
Keith Moon, drummer for The Who, passed out during a performance at Cow Palace, reportedly due to a heavy dose of tranquilizers and brandy. Fan Scot Halpin took his place and played three songs with the band, earning him Rolling Stone's "Pick-Up Player of the Year Award."


text:
I have a small dilemma. I'm trying to decide what to do about some potential upcoming travel. I am slated to give a workshop in Rochester, NY in late April...two days after that, I am supposed to give two talks at a conference in California. If I am still pregnant (sorry, but I can't help but think of it like that), I will be 14 weeks along at that point, second trimester, hopefully in a stably-pregnant place.
My OB says it should be fine to go.
I tell myself it should be fine to go.
I am expected to go. This workshop is mandatory and I signed a contract that I would do it. And this conference is an important one for my current area of research.
But I am scared. Really scared. I associate conference-attending with miscarriage, based on the last pregnancy. I am scared of being far from home. I am scared that I might end up in a situation where I have to lift my luggage - into the overhead compartment, onto a conveyor belt, onto a luggage stand at the hotel, etc. I am also scared of "overdoing it" in some other poorly understood way, of having to push through fatigue or other symptoms because I have to "be on" at the conference, attending dinners, etc. in addition to giving my talk. I was hoping Will could come with me, but he has just found out he has other work commitments he can't get out of.
So I'm not sure what I should do. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I've always vowed I won't be one of those people who holes up in a cocoon during pregnancy, afraid to do anything. But this pregnancy is so precious, and the causes of at least some of my miscarriages so mysterious, that I find myself wanting to cocoon.
The one upside? The conference is about 1 hour away from where I once used to live, and where a number of dear friends of mine still live. So if I go, I'll try to stay on a few days to a week to be able to see at least some of these folks post-conference.
What do you think? What would you do, and why?
In other news, I'm waiting (im)patiently for my progesterone and estrogen results from an blood draw earlier today. I will post an update when they finally come in, not that it's a big deal to anyone but me...but anyway...
Blood work is back...
So, as of today, at 9 weeks, 6 days, my progesterone is doing great at 58.4. I will be (gulp) dropping to 1/2 cc daily and keeping the one suppository in place for now. My estrogen has dropped to 763 (from 1,169), I guess because I dropped from 3 Vivelle patches to 2. So we will be staying at 2 Vivelle patches for a while yet. Checking everything again on Monday to see how it's looking...
Click here to subscribe


text: Scoop the Artist - Today's job is to build a new wing on the museum, before the grand exhibition opening. At the museum, Scoop decides he wants to be a great artist too! Scoop asks David, the artist, to teach him how to paint! At the museum, Bob wonders where Scoop is - they really need his help to get finished before the grand opening! As it was getting dark, Scoop rushes to the Supplier's Yard only to find it shut! He wanted to be an artist as well as a digger, but he didn't actually paint anything! Back at the museum, Bob asks Scoop to dig some flowerbeds. Scoop works extra fast, to make up for being out so long! When they are done, Scoop and David survey the work.... Scoop has dug the flowerbed out - in the shape of a beautiful flower! Now David doesn't need to paint his picture -Scoop is pleased - he's a digger, and an artist! Roley's Rovers - There is much excitement at the Yard. The machines find an old soccer ball and toss it around. Roley gets interested in the idea of a mascot, just as Bob arrives with Mr Bentley. He announces that the team are going to be fixing up the old Fixham Rovers soccerball field in time for the school's first game that afternoon! Mr Bentley points out that the Fixham Rovers club green exactly matches Roley's color - making him perfect for being the team mascot! Bob shows Roley the plans. But Roley is too wrapped up in his new world of chants to take them in and absent-mindedly agrees to be in charge of the job! Roley has to save the day. He uses his talent for inspirational chants to encourage the team to work faster than ever before - and re-build the field to be the new home of Fixham Rovers.


text:
Verizon Business, the application hosting and outsourcing arm of the U.S. telecom giant bearing the same first name, today announced its foray into cloud computing, giving us yet another ugly acronym, CaaS, short for computing as a service.
The CaaS offering from Verizon takes x64 server from Hewlett-Packard and slaps VMware's ESX Server hypervisor and Red Hat Enterprise Linux instances atop it, allowing customers to set up and manage virtualized RHEL partitions and their applications. Based on the customer portal screen shots, the CaaS service also supports Microsoft's Windows Server 2003 operating system.
If customers want, they can use the Web portal to manage physical servers in addition to virtualized ones, and Verizon is letting customers set up virtual server farms, with a mix of trusted or public-facing networks that can be managed by Verizon or by the customer. Each virtual farm gets a virtual firewall, a virtual load balancer, and a defined network space on the Verizon backbone. The portal allows for the provisioning of physical and virtual servers, storage capacity to back them up, and backup and application services to run atop the servers.
The portal keeps track of the CPU, storage, and network resources that are deployed in the cloud and also shows the status of maintenance on any of the instances as things go wrong (as they always do whenever computers are involved). The big selling points of CaaS are the same for any cloud computing offering: You only pay for what you use, and you can scale what you use up and down at will. Verizon is also boasting about network security and bandwidth as well, which is what you expect from a telecom giant.
Verizon's CaaS service is available in the United States and Europe today and will be available in the Asia/Pacific region in August. Pricing was not available at press time.
Verizon Business has a fairly large application hosting business, with over 20 different kinds of servers and systems supported, as well as a remote virtualization and application management services, backup and caching services, and email and IM hosting services.
AT&T, Verizon's main telecom rival and also an IT infrastructure player that is also moving into cloud computing, announced a remote physical and virtual server management service back in March that complements the Synaptic Hosting utility-style computing service that AT&T launched last year. Like Verizon, AT&T did not divulge pricing for its cloud offerings.
At least with Amazon EC2, you know what it is going to cost. There is something to be said for that. If providers want IT shops to behave like it is iTunes, then they had better learn to publish list prices and give everyone the same deals. This is a lot cheaper than paying sales people and covering their health insurance and bonuses. ®


text:
Mauritania's constitutional council has confirmed Mohamed Ould Ghazouani as the country's president-elect.
The council announced Monday that Ould Ghazouania had been elected to a five-year term. He is to be inaugurated on August 1.
Ould Ghazouani, 62, a retired general who served as defense minister before being picked as the chosen successor to Mauritania's outgoing president, won the June 22 election with 52% of the vote, according to the electoral commission.
The confirmation by the constitutional council paves the way for Mauritania's first peaceful transfer of power since its independence from France in 1960, though retiring President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz hand-picked his successor. Aziz was barred from seeking a third term under Mauritania's constitution.
The opposition challenged Ould Ghazouani's victory but the constitutional council has confirmed the results.


text:
Article written by ScienceDaily, posted
ScienceDaily (Aug. 26, 2011) — When it comes to improving bone health in postmenopausal women -- and people of all ages, actually -- a Florida State University researcher has found a simple, proactive solution to help prevent fractures and osteoporosis: eating dried plums.
"Over my career, I have tested numerous fruits, including figs, dates, strawberries and raisins, and none of them come anywhere close to having the effect on bone density that dried plums, or prunes, have," said Bahram H. Arjmandi, Florida State's Margaret A. Sitton Professor and chairman of the Department of Nutrition, Food and Exercise Sciences in the College of Human Sciences. "All fruits and vegetables have a positive effect on nutrition, but in terms of bone health, this particular food is exceptional."
Arjmandi and a group of researchers from Florida State and Oklahoma State University tested two groups of postmenopausal women. Over a 12-month period, the first group, consisting of 55 women, was instructed to consume 100 grams of dried plums (about 10 prunes) each day, while the second -- a comparative control group of 45 women -- was told to consume 100 grams of dried apples. All of the study's participants also received daily doses of calcium (500 milligrams) and vitamin D (400 international units).
The group that consumed dried plums had significantly higher bone mineral density in the ulna (one of two long bones in the forearm) and spine, in comparison with the group that ate dried apples. This, according to Arjmandi, was due in part to the ability of dried plums to suppress the rate of bone resorption, or the breakdown of bone, which tends to exceed the rate of new bone growth as people age.
The group's research, was published in the British Journal of Nutrition. Arjmandi conducted the research with his graduate students Shirin Hooshmand, Sheau C. Chai and Raz L. Saadat of the College of Human Sciences; Dr. Kenneth Brummel-Smith, Florida State's Charlotte Edwards Maguire Professor and chairman of the Department of Geriatrics in the College of Medicine; and Oklahoma State University statistics Professor Mark E. Payton.
In the United States, about 8 million women have osteoporosis because of the sudden cessation of ovarian hormone production at the onset of menopause. What's more, about 2 million men also have osteoporosis.
"In the first five to seven postmenopausal years, women are at risk of losing bone at a rate of 3 to 5 percent per year," Arjmandi said. "However, osteoporosis is not exclusive to women and, indeed, around the age of 65, men start losing bone with the same rapidity as women."
Arjmandi encourages people who are interested in maintaining or improving their bone health to take note of the extraordinarily positive effect that dried plums have on bone density.
"Don't wait until you get a fracture or you are diagnosed with osteoporosis and have to have prescribed medicine," Arjmandi said. "Do something meaningful and practical beforehand. People could start eating two to three dried plums per day and increase gradually to perhaps six to 10 per day. Prunes can be eaten in all forms and can be included in a variety of recipes."
The U.S. Department of Agriculture funded Arjmandi's research. The California Dried Plum Board provided the dried plums for the study, as well as some funding to measure markers of oxidative stress.
Shirin Hooshmand, Sheau C. Chai, Raz L. Saadat, Mark E. Payton, Kenneth Brummel-Smith, Bahram H. Arjmandi. Comparative effects of dried plum and dried apple on bone in postmenopausal women. British Journal of Nutrition, 2011; 1 DOI: 10.1017/S000711451100119X
Pear Cream Berry Pie Guacamole Sour Cream Bean Sauce Cheddar - Like Cheese
Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function each() in /www/steps.org.au/public_html/leftCol/health.php:27
Stack trace:
#0 /www/steps.org.au/public_html/frame.php(516): include()
#1 {main}
thrown in /www/steps.org.au/public_html/leftCol/health.php on line 27


text:
OCEAN CITY — Continuing a long-running series of positive outcomes, the National Aquarium's Marine Animal Rescue Program (MARP), with the help of some friends, successfully released a rehabilitated loggerhead sea turtle rescued off the coast of Ocean City in July last week in North Carolina.
On July 26, the Ocean City Beach Patrol rescued the young adult loggerhead turtle found floating in the ocean off 15th Street. OCBP Sgt. Brent Weingard rescued the turtle from the surf and brought it to shore on a boogie board as a large crowd on onlookers gathered. The loggerhead turtle was severely lethargic and emaciated and had been the victim of an apparent boat strike. Weingard was later given the honor of naming the turtle since he rescued her and chose Anna.
The OCBP contacted the National Aquarium's MARP team, which in turn, contacted MARP's local response team. The local MARP team is made up of several trained local volunteers who often respond to marine mammal strandings to assess the extent of their illness or injury until the aquarium's MARP team can respond.
The MARP team determined the loggerhead turtle rescued from the ocean just off 15th Street was unable to dive properly, putting it at risk for further injury. In addition, the turtle's inability to dive likely inhibited its feeding efforts, leading to its lethargic and emaciated condition. When the MARP team arrived, the loggerhead was transported to the National Aquarium in Baltimore for rehabilitation.
The turtle was found to have an abundance of organisms living on its shell and soft tissues including barnacles, marine leeches and sea grasses. Within the first few days of rehabilitation, the turtle had shed nearly all of its marine hitchhikers from its shell and soft tissues. Once the shell was smooth, the turtle was able to dive and feed properly, but the creature was still severely underweight.
During its rehabilitation, Anna was fed a steady diet of capelin, squid, shrimp and blue crabs, its favorite food. Loggerhead turtles often feed on blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay, according to MARP officials.
During rehabilitation, Anna gained 22 pounds and returned to its ideal weight of 95 pounds. Once it had regained the weight and shed the organisms from its shell and soft tissue, the loggerhead was ready to be released back into the wild.
It was released off the coast of North Carolina last week under the direction of the National Aquarium's MARP team with assistance from the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center. Because of its status as a threatened or endangered species, its successful release was called a big victory by MARP officials.
"All sea turtles found in U.S. waters are either threatened or endangered, and so the release of this sea turtle is very rewarding for our team of staff and volunteers," said MARP stranding coordinator Jennifer Dittmar. "The recovery of this turtle has truly been a team effort, from the invaluable response by the Ocean City Beach Patrol to the staff and volunteers of the National Aquarium and the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center. We have every reason to believe she will have a successful reintroduction back into its natural environment."


text:
Auto Logout from Talk (Agent forgets to logoff at end of shift)
예정됨In instances where agents forget to log off from Talk at the end of shift, calls will continue to route to them even with their computer shutdown.
It may be many hours and missed calls later before this is picked up and another agent can force unavailability from https://YOURDOMAIN.zendesk.com/agent/reporting/voice/period:0
These missed calls transfer to a direct negative experience to the actual customer (longer hold times, force to voicemail, abandoned calls).
Zendesk should be able to pick up this scenario and force an automatic system logout.
44 댓글
공식 댓글
I just wanted to provide a few quick updates. Agent Idle Timeout feature is currently being developed and is planned to be launched in Q1 2023. The capability will be delivered as part of Omnichannel Routing, so it will be available to all accounts that have Omnichannel Routing enabled. Please let me know if you have any further questions.
Volkan -
Hi everyone,
I know this has been requested by many of our customers for a long time. I have good news, however. We have positioned agent auto-logout as part of an omni-channel effort that aims to unify and align agent statuses across Zendesk channels, as well as allow defining custom agent statuses. Accordingly, the new feature will apply across channels, not only Talk or any other.Thanks,Volkan -
Please! We neeeeeeed this. :(
Can you imagine calling somewhere with an urgent issue (we're healthcare, so every caller could have an issue impacting patient care) to find out you spent a good portion of your wait time ringing an agent who isn't even at work?
Relying on Agents to sign themselves off is sure to be a problem at some point but completely avoidable via automation. Managing agents on something like this is also a lot of work for Admins whose time is likely better spent aiding Agents or customers in other ways.I personally see this feature in these types of formats, with the bold ones being most important:
- auto-sign off after ____ minutes of Zendesk Support inactivity -AND-
- auto-sign off after ____ missed call(s) -AND-
- prompt before closing tab that says "Change status to 'Offline'?" (similar to Zendesk Support if attempting to close a tab before you have saved progress on a ticket) -OR-
- At minimum, (for Admins) Apply 'Offline' status to agents in bulk
The same experience here.
Zendesk chat should automatically manage the agents login sessions. The ideal behaviour is to ask for confirmation to prevent accidental closing of webpage and automatically logout the agent if the webpage is closed. If that specific agent had active chats, these chats should be transferred to any other available agent. This will help in case of some hardware/software errors.
Another feature that will make things easier is to have an automatic welcome message that can use the agent and customer names. If the client John opens the chat and is assigned to Bob he should receive an automated welcome message like: Hello John and welcome to Enterprise. My name is Bob, how can I help?
These requirements should not be something impossible for the chat development team.
Hey Nicole, can you repost those articles for a possible workaround? Looks like the links on the actual page once you get there are dead
I am in agreement with this. It should put agents offline as soon as the schedule ends for the day. Also, if they close their browser it should change their status to Away or Offline. I don't like having to remember to check and make sure everyone changed their status at the end of every day. Also, if someone forgets to change their status, it skews the reporting making the data unreliable for productivity.
It's shocking to see that people have been requesting this for 2 years, but no changes have been made.
It is becoming apparent that Zendesk has gone down the deadly path of many other software companies. They are continuing to add products to their software suite and failing to improve their existing products. Zendesk Talk has been missing feature for years that all of us have been waiting and there is literally no movement. No road-map, no communication, nothing.
Our organization was growing with Zendesk and now we are starting to look at other solutions because they just don't listen. We are not going to develop and maintain features using their API when they should already existing in the solution.
Zendesk, start improving the solution or you will lose customers!
We're also running into this and it's throwing off our metrics on Explore. If a similar feature is already implemented in Chat (agent is set to away after x consecutive missed chats) why can't the same be done for Talk
@... When can we expect this delivery?
Hello dear Zendesk devs,
Any update you can provide us?
This should be addressed. If possible, closing the your browser should automatically make you unavailable on Talk. Another solution, or in addition, is that if you have been inactive for a certain amount of time Talk could talk you off of availability.
This is a constant issue for me. I absolutely LOVE my team but let us be honest, we're all human LOL From time to time especially on busy days they forget to log out and as previous posters have described chat request are allowed to funnel in providing a negative experience.
I would like to expand upon the enhancement request made for an auto-log out. Either in addition or a possible alternative is for designated admins to have an ability to force log out. Perhaps under the chat management portal, list the chat agents logged in at any given time, with a button-click option to force log out.
This way even if an auto logout with a timeout is added, we as admins do not have to necessarily wait for it to be triggered...instead we can instantly log out our chat agents.
Another issue with ZenDesk talk. We moved away from ZenDesk entirely several years ago because talk simply didn't have enterprise-grade call center capabilities when it came to phone. Coming back to talk now that it is more developed is great but I can't believe how many things I keep finding that aren't available. It is truly baffling.
This is an essential function. If an agent closes out their browser, talk needs to set the agent offline. If an agent misses 2 calls consecutively it should also switch the agent to an offline status.
Setting business hours helps somewhat for after hours but during business one agent might go to break and forgets to go offline. It is a pain to have to monitor this throughout the day on top of other tasks. -
A potential interim solution could be to add the ability for non-admin role to set agents to 'unavailable' status in talk (as a designated role permission setting). Admin role in tools is typically segregated for system wide config or high security tasks.
To have the ability to force agents to 'unavailable' status in talk is useful, but to have it at admin level only either means admin needs to be available 24/7 or create a potential security risk in providing admin status to non 'admin' users.
C'mon, Zendesk, be good to us and help us eliminate busy-work as you do so well!
I think this is a pretty straight-forward one. If an agent missed 1 or 2 calls just auto-change them to "away" or "offline."
I agree that this is a big miss on ZD Talk. It's a basic call-center necessity. I'm surprised this request hasn't received any traction.
@... that is fantastic! what is the ETA for this rollout? =)
i am very excited for this change!
Hi there,
Any update on this feature? Something like this so if agents close their laptops or miss x number of calls in a row they are automatically made 'offline' is so important.
Has there been any progress made on implementing this feature?
I agree, this would be a nice feature to have with Talk.
Hi there, I agree this would be great to have,
Hey Eduardo -
The length of time since the original post is not a big factor in how we make product development decisions, and not everything requested gets built. We receive over 200 product feedback ideas every week.
We'll check in with the product team to see if this is something they're considering or working on, but it doesn't appear that we've received a significant amount of feedback on this particular functionality to date.
I'll add that there are some API workarounds available for changing agent status, described in this comment.
"It's a feature not a bug"
😕 -
I'd like to add my own use case, which is slightly different from those outlined here. Our support team does on call phone-only rotation for the holidays. This means that each person on support covers a shift of X hours and their phones are on for ZD talk during this time. Due to the manual effort of turning the phones on/off per agent, this becomes inconvenient for agents that cover in the middle of the night. This means that an agent may need to wake up in the middle of the night (12-8 am) just to switch themselves off and put the next person on. It would be great to have a way for non-technical teams to automate this. For instance, we use PagerDuty to alert us of urgent tickets and create the on call schedule. If we could integrate Talk with this to automate turning the agent on/off for their on call, that would be great!
Thanks for the detailed feedback, Irina!
We do have a set of APIs for changing the state of an agent's availability. These are documented on developer.zendesk.com. Where we recognise the need for more granular permissions for Admins, Team Leads and Agents, in the interim building an App using these APIs which is made available to the right agents may be a solution.
Neil Weldon | Director of Product
I also agree, the ability to auto log agents out at the end of the work day should be an option and I am disappointed that introducing this additional functionality isn't seen as a priority.
This has been requested for 3 years now. Surely this has to have gained some traction. It is maddening that I have to keep a constant eye on my agent's statuses to make sure they are logged off at the end of their shifts. It's just not a good use of my time.
If I could create a trigger based on an agent's schedule that would automatically log them off if their total online time exceeds 8 hours, that would be amazing! Otherwise, I have calls still being routed to agents who ended their shift and gone home.
Can we get an update on whether Zendesk has anything in development to resolve this?
This is something which is an ongoing issue for us too! Does anyone know if this is going to be an option soon?
댓글을 남기려면 로그인하세요.


text:
This is Part Twelve on the historical reliability of the Gospels.
The "Eyes" Have It!
James Arlandson
Often the Gospel of John has been interpreted as having only spiritual truths that are not anchored in history, in time and place. It is also thought to be a strictly theological document, written by a disciple or a committee of disciples who really did not witness the ministry of Jesus.
This article, Part Twelve, challenges those assumptions.
Since these articles in the series can be read as stand-alones, here are my reminders, for the true beginner to the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke have a lot of passages in common, so they are called the synoptic Gospels (synoptic means viewed together). The authors are sometimes called synoptists. The authors of the Gospels are also called evangelists. Johannine is an adjective of John.
This article may get complicated unless the readers look up some passages. So they are encouraged to go to Bible Gateway, create another window, and type in the references as needed.
1. How important is testimony in John?
The Gospel frequently uses words that are usually translated as witness, testimony, to bear witness, or to testify. They come from the Greek words matureō, martureomai, and marturia, which occur forty-seven times in John. This total outnumbers the other three Gospels by a long way. Combined, the Synoptics use those three words plus another one, marturion, twenty times. The one Book of Acts comes in second with those four Greek words plus marturomai, using all of them twenty-nine times.
The reader may detect the word martyr in the Greek words, for sometimes the upsilon or u in Greek is transliterated as y in English. We indeed get our modern word martyr from this Greek word group. It evolved early on into meaning anyone who remains true to his or her testimony about Christ, to the point of death. In the New Testament, however, it means those definitions noted in the previous paragraph.
The number of these words in John does not spell out a specific theology, but the total demonstrates a major theme, more so than in all other individual books of the New Testament.
2. Does John use the inclusio of eyewitness testimony?
Yes. Recall that inclusio is the literary technique of placing corresponding material at the beginning and end of a particular stretch of text (short or long) in order to mark off that section and to say something about the intervening section of text. Inclusio in this general sense is extremely common in ancient literature, and so readers of John, even if they did not know of the specific device of the inclusio of eyewitness testimony, would be very open to spotting inclusios.
The specific inclusio of eyewitness testimony occurs in two ways in the Gospel of John.
The two-stage epilogue (20:30-31 and 21:24-25) is linked to the prologue (1:1-18). In 20:31 the Beloved Disciple writes "so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." In 1:7 John the Baptist (though the Gospel never uses his title) "came as a witness concerning that light [life in Christ] to testify so that through him all persons may believe." Thus, through the Beloved Disciple's eyewitness account and John's eyewitness preaching, everyone should come to faith.
As for the second stage of the epilogue, John 21:24 says that the Beloved Disciple testifies (present tense). And in 1:15 John (the Baptist) testifies (present tense). His present tense testimony has been incorporated into the Beloved Disciple's written testimony, so both live on into the present, until the Parousia or Second Coming.
As for the second way that the inclusio occurs in John's Gospel, John the Baptist and the Beloved Disciple in these four passages, one pair at the end, the other pair at the beginning, form an inclusio, which has been expanded a little because John the Baptist and the Beloved Disciple are different persons. But they are linked by the purpose of their eyewitness testimony and the present-tense of their eyewitness testimony (Bauckham pp. 366-67).
At the beginning of John's Gospel, the first two disciples of Jesus are initially unnamed, but one is soon revealed as Andrew (1:35-42). At the end of John's Gospel, two unnamed disciples go night fishing with Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, and the two sons of Zebedee, whose names John and James are never cited in the Gospel, either (21:1-9). So the unnamed disciple in 1:35-39, according to Bauckham, is revealed as the Beloved Disciple in 21:1-7. He forms an inclusio of eyewitness testimony at the beginning and end of the Gospel (pp. 390-93).
Though Bauckham's analysis is insightful, he and I differ on one detail: the identity of the anonymous disciple in 1:35-39 and the Beloved Disciple in 21:1-7 and 20-23. For me, the evidence is stronger that the Beloved Disciple is John the Apostle. So the anonymous disciple and the Beloved Disciple are very probably the same; that means the anonymous disciple is John the Apostle. This works with the inclusio and the linguistic evidence that Bauckham brings out. However, Bauckham may be right about a Jerusalem disciple (turned Elder) who was an eyewitness and who wrote the Gospel, as seen in Bauckham's book here.
In any case, Bauckham's central thesis is to demonstrate that the Gospel of John is based squarely on eyewitness testimony from the very beginning to the end of Jesus' ministry, past his resurrection. This direct testimony that comes from personal experience has been incorporated into the Gospel.
Bottom line for this Q & A: the important point about the inclusio of eyewitness testimony is that it is embodied in real people of real authority. In John they are the ones who are qualified to testify to their Lord's life and to pass on his teaching. Eyewitness testimony in the Gospel is not merely an abstraction or only a literary convention to give the Gospel a fake sense of authority (see Q & A Eight).
It just makes sense that an author would frame his text with his main human sources, especially himself, if he directly participated in his story. With this device, the author can then thread the eyewitness testimony of his main human sources throughout his narrative, in whole or in sections. John was following his literary context in his own time.
3. How else is testimony important in John?
John uses God's heavenly lawsuit motif in Isaiah 40-55. God calls the Servant of the LORD and his own people Israel, as witnesses. In John, this trial takes place against everyone who doubts the deity of his Son, who is vindicated. Jesus plays the witnessing role in place of the Servant of the LORD, and Jesus' followers take the role of Israel. The decisive verdict against the world is delivered on the cross.
In the first phase of the heavenly trial in John, God calls on seven witnesses, a number that is significant in John (note the seven miraculous signs: 2:1-11, 4:43-54, 5:1-15, 6:1-14, 6:16-21, 9:1-41, 11:1-44). The witnesses appear, in this order: John (1:7, etc.); Jesus himself (3:11, etc.); the Samaritan woman (4:39); God the Father himself (5:32); Jesus' works or signs (5:36); the Scriptures (5:39); and the crowd who testifies about Jesus' raising Lazarus (12:17). In the second phase of the heavenly trial in John, after the resurrection and ascension and beyond John's narrative (story), then the Paraclete (the Holy Spirit) and the disciples go out to testify about Christ's nature and works (15:26-27).
To incorporate all of the witnesses, the Beloved Disciple wrote his Gospel. So now Jesus' testimony about himself, coupled with his Father's testimony about his Son (8:12-18), and Jesus' other supporting witnesses can live on in John's Gospel until Jesus' Second Coming (21:22-25).
According to Bauckham, this lawsuit motif is not simply a metaphor that has no relation to actual reporting from eyewitnesses. We have already seen that the entire Gospel is framed by the inclusio of human and real-life eyewitnesses, particularly John himself. Also, John's emphasis on such eyewitnesses looks very similar to Luke's, which we now discuss in the next Q & A.
4. What are the qualifications of the eyewitnesses?
John 15:26-27 says in the context of the Last Supper just before Jesus was arrested. He is speaking:
26 When the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father – that one shall testify about me. 27 You also are to testify because you are with me from the beginning. (my translation)
John uses the phrase "from the beginning" often enough (6:64; 8:44; 1 John 1:1; 2:7, 13, 14, 24; 3:8, 11; see also 2 John 6). The Spirit testifies and so do the Twelve. They also have direct experience with the ministry of Jesus within that timeframe.
The reference to that phrase and to the Spirit is strikingly parallel to Acts 1:21-22 and 2:1-42. In the first chapter, Luke, usually considered the author of Acts, has the same qualification for the eyewitness to replace Judas. The eyewitness must have followed Jesus "from the beginning," during his "comings and goings," up to his resurrection and ascension. The phrase is also seen in Luke's preface to his Gospel (1:3) as a qualification of principal eyewitnesses (Bauckham, pp. 389-90).
Once the replacement for Judas is chosen, then in the second chapter of Acts the Spirit is sent, and Peter immediately testifies to the story of Jesus. "All of us are witnesses," Peter says toward the end of his speech (v. 32). The gift of the Spirit in Acts 2 parallels the promise of the Spirit in John 15:26-27. Recall also in Acts that the Greek words for testimony, witness, testify, and bear witness occur about twenty-nine times, second only to the Gospel of John.
Clearly, drawing from the same traditions on eyewitness testimony embodied in real people, John and Luke are keen to anchor the story of Jesus in living witnesses who are early, from the beginning, and who have direct experience with the ministry of Jesus. Origins serve as an anchor to truth and reliability.
Further, Matthew and Mark follow the same storyline of the Spirit's empowerment and the disciples' outreach mission of eyewitness testimony to the whole world. The coherence of this storyline increases the historical reliability of the four Gospels because they are staying with the basic outline of Christ's life and ministry (see Part Nine on Matthew and Part Ten on Mark).
5. Is John's Gospel historical or theological?
Both, but John follows Greco-Roman historiography more closely than do the Synoptists, in two ways.
First, ancient history writing placed emphasis on the historian's direct experience with the events. This differs from the modernist requirement of distant observation. The importance of direct eyewitness participation is seen in Josephus' introduction to Against Apion (who was Apion?). Josephus (c. AD 37 to post-100), a Jewish historian, writes:
And for the History of the War, I wrote it as having been an actor myself in many of its transactions, an eyewitness [autoptēs] in the greatest part of the rest, and was not unacquainted with anything whatsoever that was either said or done in it. (Against Apion 1.10; the Greek may be read here; find paragraph 55)
Josephus may exaggerate the duration and depth of his participation, but this passage nonetheless shows the value that ancient historians placed on personal eyewitness participation. Another close parallel is seen in Luke's preface (1:1-4), which also uses autoptēs, but in the plural (v. 2). However, Luke was not an eyewitness participant, but he was researching those who were. John was a participating witness. In any case, his words in his epilogue (21:24) echo those in Luke and Josephus. But John draws from the martur- word group (see Q & A One), whereas autoptēs is used in Luke and Josephus. However, the meaning of the martur- word group in John is functionally very close to historical eyewitness experience (Bauckham, pp. 384-86).
Second, the Synoptists preserve their sources with little interpretation of the rich traditions from which they drew. Their story of Jesus comes in a whole and integrated plot and speeches, but the authors do not add very much to the tight structure of their sources. As Bauckham notes:
Though the writers of the Synoptic Gospels incorporate and fashion their sources into an integrated whole, a biography (bios) of Jesus, they remain close to the ways in which the eyewitnesses told their stories and transmitted the sayings of Jesus. (p. 410)
On the other side, John keeps to a more detailed chronology. All of the discourses and debates between Jesus, Jewish leaders, and ordinary people and the clearly delineated plot "make possible the much fuller development of the author's own interpretation of Jesus and his story, just as comparable features of the works of Greco-Roman historians enable the expression of their own understanding of history" . . . (p. 410).
John's historical authenticity and anchorage in the fuller craft of the ancient historians give the author of the Gospel more leeway in his interpretation, a leeway which the Synoptists do not take as much, comparatively speaking. This challenges the notion in some scholarly quarters that the Gospel of John could not have been written by an eyewitness.
I like how Mark D. Roberts assesses all four Gospels: they embody "Truthful History Motivated by Theology" (Can We Trust the Gospels? Crossway, 2007, p. 121).
6. Does the Gospel show that the Beloved Disciple is an eyewitness participant?
Josephus says that he was a direct participant in the events about which he writes. Likewise, the Beloved Disciple says he was an eyewitness participant in the ministry of Christ. Does the Gospel of John offer any evidence of his direct experience in a special way? The Gospel does so by four means.
First, the Beloved Disciple has a special relationship with Jesus, as seen in the description "the disciple whom Jesus loved." He and Andrew were recruited first (John 1:35-40) (see Q & A Two, the second point). It is true that the Beloved Disciple disappears from the narrative until the Last Supper (13:23-26). But in that scene his special intimacy is again stressed. This unique role of intimacy – or direct eyewitness testimony of a special kind – will last into the future after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, through the Beloved Disciple's Gospel (21:20-25).
Second, the Beloved Disciple is present at key points in the narrative. As just noted, he is recruited from the beginning. And according to John 15:27, which uses the key phrase "from the beginning," this chronology endows him with a special status, along with Andrew, Peter, Philip, and Nathanael (1:37-51). The Beloved Disciple is present during the Last Supper and observed a key event – Judas being exposed as a betrayer and his setting out on his mission of betrayal. The Beloved Disciple sees the blood and water flow from the side of Jesus on the cross (19:31-37). The Beloved Disciple observes that no bone was broken, which makes Jesus the true Passover Lamb, as announced by John the Baptist when he testified that Jesus was the Lamb of God (John 1:29). The Beloved Disciple saw the empty tomb and believes (20:3-10). And he figures prominently as a leader in the Christian community, when he was brought into the dialogue between Jesus and Peter (21:15-23). As noted in the first point in this section, the Beloved Disciple's presence stretches from the beginning to the end of the Gospel, and in between he is specially positioned. And that is the function of the inclusio of eyewitness testimony.
Third, along with the previous point, whenever the Beloved Disciple appears in the narrative, seemingly unmotivated details are mentioned. In 1:39 the hour of the day is stated: about the tenth hour. In 13:26, the Beloved Disciple, next to Jesus, observes Jesus dip a piece of bread and give it to Judas. In 19:33-35, the Beloved Disciple observes that Jesus' legs were not broken and that the spear's thrust produced blood and water. In 20:6-7, Peter and the Beloved Disciple see how the linen wrappings used to enshroud Jesus were laid. And in 21:11, the exact number of the huge catch of fish is provided. However, we should not over-interpret such details, as if they are not the stock-and-trade of any storyteller.
The point is rather that the Gospel portrays the Beloved Disciple as one qualified to give eyewitness reports of the occasions on which he was present. Although there is observational detail in other passages of the Gospel, what is notable is how consistently the appearances of the Beloved Disciple are accompanied by such detail. (Bauckham p. 398)
Fourth, the Beloved Disciple is a perceptive witness. His breakthrough to understanding the key events that lead to the death of Christ, such as Jesus' betrayer, is spelled out at the empty tomb (20:8-9). Peter and the Beloved Disciple run to it. Peter goes inside first. But it is the Beloved Disciple, also going inside, "who saw and believed" (v. 8).
The Beloved Disciple and Peter are paired together. Their interaction within the Gospel points to the future. Peter's qualities make him the leader in the whole church, whereas the Beloved Disciple, through his lasting written Gospel, claims the "role of witness to the truth of Jesus for the whole church" (Bauckham p. 400).
7. What's the bottom line for the historical reliability of John's Gospel?
The author of John was a direct eyewitness to the ministry of Jesus. His eyewitness testimony is everywhere presented and affirmed throughout his Gospel.
- The eyewitness (martur-) word group outnumbers its uses in the synoptic Gospels by a long way. Only Acts takes a distant second, and is key in understanding word group's uses in John.
- The inclusio of eyewitness testimony supports the Beloved Disciple's eyewitness participatory testimony.
- Eyewitness testimony from the beginning parallels Luke-Acts; duration of time for participatory eyewitnesses was important in the early church.
- John parallels Josephus on eyewitness testimony.
- The Beloved Disciple is present in key scenes, where unmotivated details also appear, so we see things from his point of view.
- A reliable and honest author in the Greek and Roman world drew from reliable sources. John did this, too.
- The Gospel is not based on faint memories of anonymous collection of disciples who never witnessed Jesus' ministry.
8. But isn't John's Gospel historical fiction, a kind of fake history?
Circular reasoning: all eyewitness elements in John's Gospel are mere attempts at appearing like eyewitness testimony. Why? Because John's Gospel really isn't derived from eyewitnesses. Though this circularity is presented simply, it reflects the bigger issue of skepticism. So the circle keeps going round and round.
However, this article (so I hope) gets us out of the circle. Also, Paul N. Anderson has done the yeoman's work in providing more evidence of eyewitness testimony, which, in my view, breaks the circle (pp. 589-99). He hesitates to ascribe the fourth Gospel to John the Apostle, but Anderson helpfully points out that in Acts 4:20 the words often found in Johannine writings are used. John the Apostle says in Acts: "For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard" (4:20; cf. John 3:32). This is a hint of independent corroboration inside the New Testament (other than Johannine literature) that the Apostle John may have written the Gospel.
Then Anderson lists the large number of verses in John's Gospel that use the five senses, particularly seeing and hearing: Words for seeing (ninety-eight times); hearing (thirty times); smell (twice); taste (once) (p. 599). He says that these words in his list of references are not used in a metaphorical or symbolic sense, but are empirical.
Anderson draws the obvious conclusion:
The literary fact that John possesses more appeals to empirically derived information than any other Gospels – canonical [Biblical] or otherwise – seems to support . . . [the claim] that the Gospel embodies "the Evangelist's reflections on the ministry of Jesus and its implications for later generations. (pp. 599-600)
Thus, the weight of the empirical evidence should eventually make the circular reasoning crack under the pressure. The Gospel's author's hands-on experience, so to speak (cf. 1 John 1:1), is not merely a literary device or an abstraction. His Gospel embodies real and truthful testimony of real persons, in addition to himself.
9. What does this mean for the Gnostic texts?
Eyewitness testimony in John affirms the commonsense and obvious truth that the closer a story or account gets to the original sources (in this case to Jesus himself), then the more reliable and accurate the account or story becomes – true to things as they really happened. Origins and close proximity anchor belief and knowledge and truth, in Gospel studies.
This commonsense and obvious truth about origins and proximity contradicts the claims made by some heavy promoters of the Gnostic texts. These scholars say that the texts (should) share an equal or near-equal footing with the four canonical (Biblical) Gospels. However, the Gnostic texts appear much later (second century and beyond) than the four Gospels (a generation or two after Jesus' ministry). And the Gnostic texts do not have eyewitness testimony to ground them in history. Therefore, the Gnostic texts are filled with flights of fancy and errors, compared to the teachings in the four Biblical Gospels. Indeed, the Gnostic authors seem to delight in avoiding historical concerns and in going their own way with their outlandish (literally out-land-ish) mysticism and fictions about Jesus and the original disciples.
Proximity to the source also contradicts the notion in postmodernism that origins have little or nothing to do with reliability and accuracy and ultimately the truth (see Postmodern Truth Soup).
10. What does all of this mean to the date and authorship of the Gospel of John?
These questions are important in their own right. Evidence for traditional authorship (John the Apostle) is strong. As to the date, I see no problem with placing it in the 90's, which most scholars assume, also.
However, we have seen in the article on Archaeology and John's Gospel (see link, below), the three articles on Matthew, Mark, and Luke and in this article that authorship by an apostle and questions of dates take second place, in my opinion. In the Gospel of John itself, we have convincing evidence of eyewitness testimony as its source. We have historical facts as its anchor, though, of course, John teaches a lot of spiritual truths. All of this coheres together to secure the historical reliability of John's Gospel. The Gnostic and other "gospels" cannot come close to these historical facts and real eyewitness testimony.
11. What does all this mean to the Church of all denominations?
I hope individual church goers will not be pressured into accepting skeptical starting points and conclusions in their reading of the Gospel of John, as if it is a kind of fake history or as if it is strictly a spiritual writing that is not anchored in time and place and does not draw from eyewitness testimony.
I have read a blogger or two who say that connecting the Gospels with historical facts or archaeology, as if to prove the Gospels, is "tripe." In reply, however, in this series I'm not "proving" the Gospels, whatever that means. But they are historically dependable writings. Example: crucifixion in the Roman world is an historical fact. Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate, by the typical Roman method of execution. The four Biblical Gospels affirm that historical fact.
Therefore, I for one do not want to interpret the Biblical Gospels only and merely as disembodied spiritual truths. That's needlessly and heedlessly short-sighted and restricted. Both the historical and the spiritual are two sides of the same coin, at least for the four Biblical Gospels (but apparently not for the Gnostic "gospels"). Both readings can be done successfully and simultaneously in Gospel studies.
The Church everywhere can enjoy confidence in the four Gospels.
James M. Arlandson can be reached at [email protected].
This article has three companion pieces in the series:
Authoritative Testimony in Matthew's Gospel: Mission, Possible!
Eyewitness Testimony in Mark's Gospel: Was Peter a Portrait Painter?
Eyewitness Testimony in Luke's Gospel: Ready? From the Beginning Now!
All of the articles in the series are listed for your convenience. The References and Further Reading section is found below.
Part One: Historical Reliability of the Gospels
Part Two: Archaeology and the Synoptic Gospels
Part Three: Archaeology and John's Gospel
Part Four: Did Jesus Even Exist?
Part Five: The Gospel Traditions
Part Six: Reliable Gospel Transmissions
Part Seven: What Is the Q 'Gospel'? The Gospel According to 'St. Q'?
Part Eight: Did Some Disciples Take Notes During Jesus' Ministry?
Part Nine: Authoritative Testimony in Matthew's Gospel
Part Ten: Eyewitness Testimony in Mark's Gospel
Part Eleven: Eyewitness Testimony in Luke's Gospel
Part Twelve: Eyewitness Testimony in John's Gospel
Part Thirteen: Are There Contradictions in the Gospels?
Part Fourteen: Similarities among John's Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels
Part Fifteen: Summary and Conclusion
References and Further Reading
See Part Three in the series: "Archaeology and the Gospel of John: Is skepticism chic passé?" See also Part Two: "Archaeology and the Synoptic Gospels: Which way do the rocks roll?"
Paul N. Anderson. "Aspects of Historicity in the Gospel of John." In James H. Charlesworth. Jesus and Archaeology. Eerdman's, 2006. Pp. 587-618.
Richard Bauckham. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Eerdmans, 2006.
---. The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple: Narrative, History, and Theology in the Gospel of John. Baker Academic, 2007.
Andrew Lincoln, Truth on Trial: the Lawsuit Motif in the Fourth Gospel. Hendrickson, 2000.
Mark D. Roberts. "Did the Gospel Writers Know Jesus Personally? Section A.
---. "Did the Gospel Writers Know Jesus Personally?" Section B.
---. "Did the Gospel Writers Know Jesus Personally?" Section C.


text:
The box squat is a great way to increase your strength, mass and ability to generate power.
If you have access to one, use a safety bar. The way that it sits on your back will make you engage your back so much more. This type of bar also forces your back stay a lot tighter in order to rise back up out of the hole.
It is also good for building up the posterior chain and will also help to improve your deadlift as well.
The Box is a good depth gauge, and it stops you dropping into the hole and springing right out of it. Make sure to pause for about one second. For Brian Shaw, he uses box squats with a safety bar to build the starting strength that carries over into exercises that involve lifting objects up such as Atlas stones, or generating power for throws. It is also a great exercise to build all round strength.
Brian Shaw: "If I had to pick one bar to always squat with it would be the safety bar."
Check out this meeting between fitness and strength.
Image Sources
- Squat-Variations: CrossFit Inc


text:
Years ago when I learned that Greek statues and monuments were originally painted — in garish colors — my mental image of the ancient world underwent a dramatic shift. I was similarly jolted encountering the earthy, contemporary language and coarse goings-on in Annabel Lyon's new historical novel, "The Sweet Girl," about Aristotle's headstrong, intelligent daughter, Pythias.
Lyon uses Greek names for her characters and scatters a few Greek words throughout — kithara (a musical instrument), iunx (a spell), hetairai (upper-class prostitutes) — but the novel abounds with jarring modern colloquialisms. Lyon's Greece, as in "The Golden Mean" about Aristotle's relationship with Alexander the Great, features braziers and bronzes (used as mirrors), couches and scrolls and oil lamps, but also books and beds.
Despite the dissonance to my ear of the 21st century expletive-rich idiom, Lyon has vividly brought Pythias's fourth century BC world to life, portraying its denizens as not too different from us. The historical record scants Aristotle's daughter, and Lyon is free to invent scenes that illustrate Macedonian-born Pythias's chafing against the strictures that prevent females from learning to read, to depict her engaging in philosophical discussions with Aristotle's colleagues, and to show her brandishing the vaginal dilator her physician grandfather used to bring babies into the world.
Told from her point of view, part 1 begins in Athens as 7-year-old Pythias and her famous philosopher-scientist father slit the throat of a lamb that the family will eat, of course, but which the two of them will dissect to examine its skeletal structure. Aristotle dotes on his clever daughter, encouraging her inquisitiveness. He permits her to stay when she slips into a room where he and his Lyceum colleagues discuss abstract concepts such as virtue, and he's proud when she explicates complicated passages from his "Metaphysics.'' Herpyllis (Aristotle's former slave, now his wife), knows Pythias has "the spark of him in her," and tries, mostly unsuccessfully, to tame her willfulness and teach her womanly skills, like weaving and painting her eyelids with kohl. With the death of his former student Alexander the Great, who had subdued the Athenians, Aristotle feels the Athenian rabble turn against him and, with his family, flees to Euboia.
Part 2 takes place after Aristotle's death — here imagined as the result of an injudicious swimming experiment. Now in her late teens, Pythias takes charge of her father's straitened household. His will instructs Herpyllis to return to her people in Stageira and sends their son, Nico, to Athens to study at the Lyceum. Pythias is to wait in Euboia for the return of Nicanor, Aristotle's cousin, who has been fighting for years in the Greek wars. Aristotle has bequeathed both his land and his daughter to him. Pythias uses her wits to survive, becoming entangled with a Dionysian suitor, learning the greedy secrets of the goddess Artemis's priestesses, working as a midwife's assistant, even functioning as a "worthy companion," until Nicanor arrives.
In part 3, Pythias has her vanity pricked when Nicanor seems at first indifferent to her, but she ultimately discovers his beneficence. The novel concludes with the prospect of a bright future for this clever woman.
This is an entertaining work, a plausible story full of raw gusto, leavened occasionally by a nod to Aristotle's abstruse ideas. As Lyon portrays her, Pythias is not the "sweet girl" her father had called her, but resilient and resourceful — a survivor.
Kathryn Lang is former senior editor at SMU Press in Dallas.


text:
Governor of Puerto Rico Luis G. Fortuño advanced the cause of statehood for the commonwealth during a speech March 8 in Bailey Hall.
Fortuño discussed an impending vote by the people of Puerto Rico to choose independence, statehood or remaining a commonwealth. He also detailed economic reforms he has made to restore fiscal health and cut a budget deficit, and other challenges facing the commonwealth, in light of its territorial status and relationship with the United States.


text:
Research at the Baltimore City Archives
How to Get Started:
A good place to start your research is the Guide to Records at the Baltimore City Archives and other general Guides and Indexes.
How Our Records are Organized:
The Records of Baltimore City are organized and described following a slightly modified version of the National Archives model of Record Groups, an archival management system that was introduced in the 1980s, and that led to the reorganization and re-distribution of a chronological inventory and filing system devised by the WPA Historical Records Survey.
All Baltimore City records currently being incorporated into the Maryland State Archives online catalog retain the record group number preceded by BRG for record groups, BMS for manuscripts, and BTR for records pending accessioning into record groups or disposal by records retention and disposal schedules. To view a record group in the guide by number simply enter BRG with the record group number immediately following in the Series ID box. For example BRG1 will take you to the inventory of Baltimore City Archives Record Group 1 which are the records of the (Baltimore Town Commissioners), 1729-1797.
To convert WPA-HRS Index Numbers into Record Groups and Series, visit our Topics page.
For General Research:
For Genealogists:
Guide to the Baltimore City Archives for Genealogists
For Specialized Historical Researchers (ie., thesis and dissertation guidance):
Specific Topics and Records:
- African Americans in Baltimore City
- Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
- Board of Estimates
- Cemeteries
- Church Records
- City Council
- City Directories
- Court Records for Baltimore City
- Demography of Baltimore City: Sources
- Geography of Baltimore City: Sources
- Historiography of Baltimore City
- Land Records of Baltimore City
- Law Department/City Solicitor
- LGBTQI History: Sources
- Mayor's Office
- Photographs at the Baltimore City Archives
- Police Records
- Recreation and Parks
- Tax Records for Baltimore City
- Transcribing and Inventorying the Records of Baltimore City, 1905-1940
- Vital Records of Baltimore City (Birth, Death, Marriage, Wills)
- War of 1812 in Baltimore City
- Ward Changes


text:
Justin Sandefur responds to yesterday's post by Paul Collier on the impact of migration on developing countries, and you get to vote
The global diaspora of educated Africans, Asians, and Latin Americans living in the developed world stand accused of undermining the development of their countries of origin.
Paul Collier's recent book, Exodus, makes the case for strict ceilings on the movement of people from poor countries to rich ones. My colleague Michael Clemens and I already reviewed the book at length for Foreign Affairs (ungated here), but Duncan asked me to respond to the specific issue Paul raised in his recent post for this blog: that skilled migration from some low-income countries is so high that it undermines the development prospects of people "left behind".
I suspect many people reading this blog in Europe or North America share Professor Collier's skepticism about skilled migration. You are not racist or xenophobic. You are concerned about the plight of the global poor, and you welcome diversity in your community. But you worry that maybe Paul's right. Maybe the fate of your university-educated Haitian neighbor down the street, earning a good salary and sending her kids to good schools since moving to the UK, is a distraction from, and maybe even a hindrance to, reducing poverty in Haiti.
Before we begin, it's important to note that we're not really debating whether the rate of skilled emigration fro Freetown to London or Port-au-Prince to Miami is too fast or too slow. We're really talking about whether to deport your neighbor. Or whether to refuse her a visa in the first place, and consign her and her family to a future of low wage employment, bad schools, and preventable disease "back where they came from." That is the policy proposal on the table for your consideration.
My argument is that the burden of proof here should be heavy, and it should rest on the shoulders of those who would build walls and tear apart families. If you think the prosecution has met that burden of proof, here are three reasons to reconsider.
1. Empirically, the alleged "brain drain" from poor countries does not exist.
Yesterday, Prof. Collier worried that while China wins from an emigration "brain gain", Haiti and other small, poor countries lose out to "brain drain". So let's have a look at the numbers.
Based on research by economists Frederic Docquier and Abdeslam Marfouk, I compiled a list of the ten low-income countries with the highest rates of skilled emigration. They are: Haiti (84% of secondary grads living overseas in an OECD country circa 2000 – though this exaggerates a bit, by counting Haitians educated abroad), Gambia (63%), Sierra Leone (53%), Mozambique (45%), Liberia (45%), Kenya (38%), Uganda (36%), Rwanda (26%), Guinea Bissau (24%), and Afghanistan (23%).
You might suspect that such high emigration among educated people has led to stagnation or decline in the share of skilled workers. You'd be wrong.
In the low-income countries with the highest levels of skill emigration, the stock of skilled workers left behind is going up, not down. Even after you exclude the migrants, the prevalence of both secondary and tertiary education more than doubled! This simple fact is often lost in fretting over a "brain drain".
Skeptical readers will rightly note that the counterfactual here is unclear: maybe residents' education would've been even higher without emigration. There's good reason to think the opposite. The opportunity to join the diaspora is a key motivation for pursuing higher education. Multiple studies looking at natural experiments from Cape Verde, to Fiji, to Nepal, have all found that new migration opportunities led to more investment in schooling not only for migrants, but for people who didn't end up migrating as well.
2. Emigration is not an alternative to other drivers of development, it is a cause.
Perhaps you feel letting poor people move to better opportunities is a distraction from the real work of promoting development within the geographic borders of poor countries. Rather than migration, we need more aid, more investment, and better governance in poor countries.
Consider Haiti again. The World Bank's bilateral remittance and migration matrices show that the 670,000 adult Haitians living in the OECD sent home about $1,700 per migrant per year. That's well over double Haiti's $670 per capita GDP. And Haiti is not unique. On average, across the whole set of low income countries, each migrant to the OECD sends home more than double her country's per capita GDP each year.
Remittances took a dip during the 2008 financial crisis, and have not yet fully recovered, but they still clock in at roughly $400 billion worldwide, compared to a total foreign aid budget globally of about $125 billion.
It's true that skilled workers earn more back in Haiti than the unskilled, but they also remit considerably more as well.
And it's not just remittances. Migrants also significantly boost FDI back to their country of origin. There's also tantalizing new evidence emerging from various corners of the globe about the effects that migrant diaspora have on home-country governance — some of which (to be fair) are summarized in Exodus. From Mali to Moldova and back to Cape Verde again, there is growing evidence migration exposes citizens to democratic values and strengthens demands for accountability and good governance at home.
3. There is zero evidence that trapping skilled workers in places with few skilled jobs will generate growth
The argument put forward in Prof. Collier's post yesterday is that emigration deprives countries of the talented and skilled individuals that will drive broad-based growth. It's undeniable that education has huge economic and social payoffs for individuals and their families. And we probably all agree that in order for Haiti to grow in the long run, attracting and retaining more skilled workers will be a necessary step.
But it's also clear that education alone is insufficient for economic development without public infrastructure, functioning credit markets, tolerable government, etc…. the sorts of things places like Haiti and Afghanistan often lack. Knowing that those ingredients are lacking, are we confident enough to deny people the right to leave?
Bear in mind there is no study out there, from Haiti or anywhere else, showing any empirical evidence that migration restrictions have contributed to development. So this is a huge, evidence-free gamble we're taking with other people's lives.
Economist Branko Milanovic estimates that 80% of global inequality is explained by your country of birth. Through education and migration, skilled migrants from low-income countries have struggled to overcome their unlucky draw in this birth lottery. They owe us no explanation. Their success stories are what we mean by development. They're also a key motivation driving young people in poor countries into higher education, as well as a vital source of development finance far in excess of official aid.
So feel free to oppose immigration from poor countries if you'd like, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking there's anything altruistic about that stance.
And now it's time to vote. You can tick more than one box. Please add your views in comments, and if you feel they warrant a separate post, get in touch.


text:
You can't say anything only once -- not when you're writing, not if you want the reader to remember. People won't read the words exactly as you intend them, or they will breeze over them; and often your words will admit of more interpretations than you realize, which you rule out by clarifying, angling in, repeating, filling out with examples, adding qualifiers, showing how what you say is different from some other thing it might be mistaken for.
I have long known this about academic writing. Some undergraduates struggle to fill their 1500-word papers because they think that every idea gets one sentence. How do you have eighty ideas?! It becomes much easier to fill the pages -- indeed the challenge shifts from filling the pages to staying concise -- once you recognize that every idea in an academic paper deserves a full academic-sized paragraph. Throw in an intro and conclusion and you've got, what, five ideas in a 1500-word paper? Background, a main point, one elaboration or application, one objection, a response -- done.
It took a while for me to learn that this is also true in writing fiction. You can't just say something once. My first stories were too dense. (They are now either trunked or substantially expanded.) I guess I implicitly figured that you say something, maybe in a clever oblique way, the reader gets it, and you're done with that thing. Who wants boring repetition and didacticism in fiction?
Without being didactically tiresome, there are lots of ways to slow things down so that the reader can relish your idea, your plot turn, your character's emotion or reaction, rather than having the thing over and done in a sentence. You can break it into phases; you can explicitly set it up, then deliver; you can repeat in different words (especially if the phrasings are lovely); you can show different aspects of the scene, relevant sensory detail, inner monologue, other characters' reactions, a symbolic event in the environment.
But one of my favorite techniques is hint, confirm, remind. You can do this in a compact way (as in the example I'm about to give), but writers more commonly spread HCRs throughout the story. Some early detail hints or foreshadows -- gives the reader a basis for guessing. Then later, when you hit it directly, the earlier hint is remembered (or if not, no biggie, not all readers are super careful), and the alert reader will enjoy seeing how the pieces come together. Still later, you remind the reader -- more quickly, like a final little hammer tap (and also so that the least alert readers finally get it).
Neil Gaiman is a master of the art. As I was preparing some thoughts for a fiction-writing workshop for philosophers I'm co-leading next month, I noticed this passage about "imposter syndrome", recently going around. Here's Gaiman:
Some years ago, I was lucky enough invited to a gathering of great and good people: artists and scientists, writers and discoverers of things. And I felt that at any moment they would realise that I didn't qualify to be there, among these people who had really done things.
On my second or third night there, I was standing at the back of the hall, while a musical entertainment happened, and I started talking to a very nice, polite, elderly gentleman about several things, including our shared first name. And then he pointed to the hall of people, and said words to the effect of, "I just look at all these people, and I think, what the heck am I doing here? They've made amazing things. I just went where I was sent."
And I said, "Yes. But you were the first man on the moon. I think that counts for something."
And I felt a bit better. Because if Neil Armstrong felt like an imposter, maybe everyone did.
Hint: an elderly gentleman, same first name as Gaiman, famous enough to be backstage among well known artists and scientists. Went where he was sent.
Confirm: "You were the first man on the moon".
Remind: "... if Neil Armstrong..."
The hints set up the puzzle. It's unfolding fast before you, if you're reading at a normal pace. You could slow way down and treat it as a riddle, but few of us would do that.
The confirm gives you the answer. Now it all fits together. Bonus points to Gaiman for making it natural dialogue rather than flat-footed exposition.
The remind here is too soon after the confirm to really be a reminder, as it would be if it appeared a couple of pages later in a longer piece of writing. But the basic structure is the same: The remind hammer-taps the thing that should already be obvious, to make sure the reader really has it -- but quickly, with a light touch.
If you want the reader to remember, you can't just say it only once.


text:
Carolyn Rasmussen Clayton
July 31, 1940 ~ June 1, 2011
Carolyn Rasmussen Clayton passed away June 1, 2011 in Tijeras, NM after a difficult struggle with cancer.
She was born in Salt Lake City, UT on July 31, 1940, the second daughter of Wayne Clifton Rasmussen and Cleo Husband Rasmussen.
She grew up in Monticello from the time she
was six years old. She graduated from Monticello High School in 1958.
Carolyn went to Weber State to get her nursing degree and furthered her degree in Albuquerque, NM. She spent her life in nursing and helping others. She had an incredibly sweet spirit, full of thoughtfulness and love.
Carolyn married Robert Clayton in January, 1961. To them were born four beautiful children whom she loved very much: Steven Clayton (Shalane), Kelly Sue Dickson (Todd), Robert Clayton (Angie) and Kristen Stevens (Shane).
They have four grandchildren: Megan, Lindsey, Kira and Dakota Clayton.
Megan preceded her in death, also from cancer.
Carolyn is survived by her siblings: sister Marleen R. Somerville, and family; brother Wayne Clifton Rasmussen, and family; and brother Scott M. Rasmussen and family.
Carolyn was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which she loved her whole life.
We will all miss her sweet smile and pleasant personality.
There was no funeral.
Tribute to a good friend
I met Carolyn in the summer of 1950. Our fathers were farmers north of town. Her family lived on their farm. Her father and mine made sure we met and spent some time together before entering 4th grade in the fall. We became fast friends and remained so. She made it easier to begin in a new school. Coming from Texas I was weird and I talked funny. My classmates had great fun with me that year. Carolyn was always there for me that year and always.
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you lived. This is to have succeeded. Carolyn, this is how I remember you. Emerson wrote these words many years ago. When we were 16, you clipped it out of a newspaper just for me. "This is how we will live our life, this is our goal girlfriend. Let's forget about making money and succeed in life." I have never forgotten this, you were so right good friend. You ran the race well and you have won.
Always in my heart and my memories till we meet again,
Peggy Schafer Humphreys
- Log in to post comments


text:
REUTERS Sunday, 11 November 2012 06:41 PM EST
With backing from all three parties in conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's coalition, the bill passed by a more comfortable margin than a separate package of deficit-cutting measures on which some of his allies had abstained on Wednesday.
Passing both bills had been necessary to unblock a new tranche of credit from the European Union and International Monetary Fund before the government ran out of cash.
Samaras said he now expected the funds to be forthcoming, although a meeting on Monday in Brussels of eurozone finance ministers is not expected to take a final decision on that.
Referring to the 2013 budget and to last Wednesday's other measures, Samaras told parliament before Sunday's late-night vote that Greece was turning a corner: "The sacrifices included in that law and in the budget we are voting today are the last.
"We will start rectifying the injustices included in them once we get out of the deficits ... But the reforms we passed will be permanent and will boost the economy."
His critics are skeptical, though after years of mounting public anger there are signs of fatigue. A demonstration called by trade unions and communists mustered thousands of protesters outside parliament, but the numbers were a small fraction of the almost 100,000 who gathered outside the legislature last week.
Many of the country's 10 million people, driven to despair by five years of economic contraction, fear attempts to cut the deficit will only deepen the crisis; unemployment is running at 25 percent and many find living standards have fallen sharply.
"All those measures throw us back 50 years," said Thymios Marvitsas, 75, during the protest on Sunday. "Our pensions and wages are cut. My life is getting harder and harder."
Police estimated the crowd outside parliament at 13,000.
Arguments about the wisdom of cutting spending have also divided the political establishment.
On Wednesday, the smallest coalition party, the Democratic Left, abstained from the vote, cutting Samaras's majority. But most of the rebels backed the budget bill and it passed comfortably, with 167 votes in the 300-seat parliament.
Securing both pieces of budget-cutting legislation has been a condition of renewing bailout funding and unlocking more than 30 billion euros in funds from the IMF and EU later this month.
The government, formed after a tumultuous election in June, has ignored sliding poll numbers and occasionally violent street protests in pursuit of favor with its creditors, a move the opposition says is a mistake.
"Greece's debt is not sustainable," said the leader of the leftist SYRIZA party Alexis Tsipras, as he attacked German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "Everybody knows that apart from Merkel, who has her own plan for a German Europe and wants to turn Greece into a debt colony and the European South into a low-labor cost special economic zone."
According to the budget draft, the Mediterranean state's economy will shrink for its sixth year running, by 4.5 percent.
The budget deficit will be 5.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), down from 6.6 percent expected this year. But once the cost of paying interest on its huge debt is removed, Greece will show a tiny surplus for the first time in decades.
These deficit figures assume Athens's lenders will extend a deadline for it to narrow its fiscal shortfall by two years in exchange for the new belt-tightening package.
The biggest cost-reductions next year are pension cuts of up to 15 percent for almost half the total 9.4 billion euros in budget savings and public wages cuts of 1.2 billion.
Greece's fiscal adjustment has hit workers more than the wealthy elite. This has become a sore point in a nation where media have published lists of bankers, lawyers and shipping magnates who they say have moved cash to Switzerland.
"It's always the same. The poor pay and no one touches the rich and the tax evaders. Winter is coming and I can't afford heat," said 41-year-old housewife Angeliki Petropoulou.
The budget foresees debt rising to 346 billion euros, or almost 190 percent of GDP, from 175 percent this year.
EU and ECB officials say that means that Athens will not be able to reduce its debt to 120 percent of GDP by 2020, the level the IMF has said is the ceiling for debts to be sustainable in the long term.
That has triggered a debate on how to reduce the debt, which include discussions on cutting interest rates on Greece's official loans, letting the ECB give profits from Greek bonds it holds back to Athens, helping bail out Greek banks with the EU's EFSF rescue fund, and other measures.
© 2024 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.
Receive breaking news and original analysis - sent right to your inbox.
Newsmax, Moneynews, Newsmax Health, and Independent. American. are registered trademarks of Newsmax Media, Inc. Newsmax TV, and Newsmax World are trademarks of Newsmax Media, Inc.


text: The University of Rwanda allows Visiting Students to take classes in a particular module without benefit of a grade or credit but rather for self-enrichment and academic exploration. A visiting student is required to pay fees as if the module was being taken on credit basis. However, they cannot be allowed to take Classes of Laboratory, Performing Arts or Practical Clinical skills.


text:
More than IRCA: U.S. Legalization Programs and the Current Policy Debate
Legalization programs have been an enduring and necessary feature of U.S. immigration law and policy since the nation's first quota restrictions in the 1920s, and remain a policy option used with some regularity by governments in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere to deal with their unauthorized immigrant populations.
This policy brief shows that more immigrants have been legalized through population-specific and registry programs in the United States than through the general legalization provisions contained in the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). With the exception of IRCA's generalized legalization, U.S. legalization programs have targeted discrete groups of unauthorized or temporary residents through population-specific programs and through "registry" programs that cover very long-term unauthorized immigrants.
This policy brief provides an historical overview of U.S. legalization programs, statistics, a primer on the different types of programs, and discussion of the current policy debate.
I. Introduction
A. Defining Legalization
B. Taxonomy of U.S. Legalization Programs
II. The History of U.S. Legalization Programs
A. Registry Programs
B. Population-Specific Legalization Programs
C. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986
III.Legalization Programs and the Current Debate
IV. Conclusion


text:
Neuro Web Design Review: VillageBanking.org
- Use Pictures and Stories to Capture and Hold Attention, Engage Empathy
- Use Social Validation
- Use Reciprocity
- Use Community
- Limit the Number of Choices
- Summary
If you're like me, you probably have some favorite charities that you love. One of my favorites is FINCA International. FINCA is a microlending organization that sets up "village banks" all over the world, with local people, and then makes "micro" loans ($50 or $100) to help those people start or expand a business. This strategy allows people to pull themselves out of poverty.
FINCA has an extensive website that obviously required a lot of effort. But by making some changes to the site, using more of the principles in Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click?, the website could be more persuasive—and thereby would get FINCA's message out to more people, more persuasively, and bring in more donations as a result.
Let's take a look at what FINCA is doing well (from a Neuro Web Design point of view) and what could make the website more powerful and persuasive.
Use Pictures and Stories to Capture and Hold Attention, Engage Empathy
Photos capture attention. Depending on the images in the photos, they can engage many parts of the brain. You can use photos at a website to get the attention of the midbrain (the emotional part of the brain) and the old brain (the part of the brain that's concerned with survival, danger, sex, and food).
The FINCA site uses many colorful photos, but could use them more effectively. First, let's look at the home page (see Figure 1).
Figure 1 delete
The first thing you notice is that the site includes pictures on the home page, and that's a good thing. But let's take a closer look at the pictures, as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2 delete
Pictures are powerful drivers for our behavior and emotions, but they're more powerful if the people in the pictures connect with us; for example, if they appear to be making eye contact. In the picture at the top of Figure 2, the two people are not looking out of the screen at us—they're looking away. These pictures would engage the midbrain and old brain more directly if the people in the pictures looked at us.
The text on the top picture is also hard to read because it consists of mostly white letters on a mostly light-colored background. But if you look closely you can see that it says "FINCA's microlending programs bring results... increased incomes, more nutritious food, children in school instead of working." There are two problems with this text (well, three if you count using the wrong color for the text):
- The picture shows a child who is not in school—it looks like the child might actually be working. The image doesn't match the text. Is this a family that has been helped, or is this a family that needs help? It's not clear.
- The picture has text written on it, but the text is not about the people in that picture.
Stories are powerful, and pictures that tell a story are even more powerful. In the picture at the top of the page, it's hard to tell what the people are doing, and the words on the picture aren't about the picture, so there isn't really a story to be told.
The last problem with this particular picture is that you can't click on the picture to get a detailed story about the people in that picture. You can get details on clients at a different place on the website, but you should be able to get the full story of the people pictured by clicking on the picture, and it's not set up that way.
Throughout the site are more photos, most of which show happy people around the world. Happy photos are good, but the site misses an opportunity to engage the old brain. Having photos of people in trouble, in danger, in poverty would engage the old brain and compel action to donate.
Research shows that when people read a story about other people, certain parts of the brain are activated that can instigate a feeling of empathy. This empathy can then spur the viewer to act. The inside pages of the FINCA website have great client stories with lots of detail, but those stories are hard to find. If they were more prominent, the site would be more persuasive.


text:
NPR's business news starts with Jon Corzine out of a job.
INSKEEP: The Wall Street veteran and former governor of New Jersey stepped down today from his latest high-powered job as chairman and CEO of the securities firm MF Global. That company filed for bankruptcy earlier this week.
Negotiations with a potential buyer fell through after the discovery of accounting discrepancies, and now regulators are investigating the investment firm for possible mismanagement of client funds. NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports on Corzine's resignation.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: MF Global's statement is simple: Corzine resigned from all of his posts at the investment and commodities trading firm, and he will not seek the $12 million in severance payments specified in his employment contract. The company failed, in large part, because it bet billions on European debt that lost value. But investigators are concerned about an apparent major violation by MF Global. The company admitted to regulators that it had moved several hundred million dollars from its clients' accounts. Those accounts were supposed to be segregated from the rest of the firm's money.
Now attention is focused on Corzine, and whether he might have authorized or known about the transfer from the clients' accounts. Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.