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Web Development Company HI
What Exactly is Web Application?
Advantages Of Web Applications
Compared to desktop applications, web applications provide many business advantages. Web applications do not need to be installed on different computers one by one; instead, they can be easily accessed through the internet. Another importance of web applications is that they are customizable for different devices. For example, web applications perfectly fit the computer and mobile screens. Which, of course, is comfortable and user-friendly. Customers can easily read the information and use the website from any hands-on device. Web applications are not only fun and easy for the customers but your employees as well. Web apps are flexible as upgrades are easy to implement, and it is simple to grow the capacity of your web app as your business grows. Your web-based program can help you run more processes at the same time as you require. Furthermore, if problems arise, servers can be replaced without affecting the entire operating system. As a result, any downtime that you might otherwise have is reduced.
Web Applications Have Countless Advantages For Your Business
Web applications do only the best for your business: they run on a wide range of platforms and devices, without compatibility issues; they do not take up space as web applications can be accessed online and do not need to be installed on the hard drive; software piracy is reduced and also, they reduce the costs of the maintenance. Companies are rapidly shifting from traditional websites to cloud-based models. Web applications are one of the most critical aspects of creating a seamless cloud and data-based way of expanding your business. They give the companies the ability to streamline their operations, increase efficiency, and reduce costs. If you want to expand your business, you should learn more about personalized web applications. Get in touch with the OFFTHEM team today and learn the depth and countless advantages of perfectly developed web applications.


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subset: commoncrawl


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London came and went. Even before I could digest it, reminisce in the warm memories and allow for the thoughts and the experience to settle in, I was packing again and heading for the slopes in southern Bavaria.
What a difference a weekend makes!
One weekend I was in an invigorating and pulsating city, full of life and power, the next I was standing on a quiet snow covered slope, the rich green confers, thick and abundant frosted with the white powder. London enlivened me, making me feel confident and inspired. Here, on this slope I was surrounded by nature's beauty and the postcard perfection of the scenery around me should have made me feel free and liberated. Yet, as I looked down at my feet I was restrained by big heavy ski shoes and skis.
Just lugging my gear to the bottom of the slope was enough and I was ready to hit the spa for a bit of relaxation. Looking over to the lifts I felt intimidated and yearned for the whirlpool we left back at the hotel instead. I am not much of a skier. I ski, but not with a passion some of my friends have for this sport. I even enjoy it but I lack the drive to really want to enthusiastically keep at it.
I managed the first hurdle without making too much of a fool of myself and glided to the top of the slope on the tow lift. I had horror visions of trapping myself and being dragged halfway up the slope on my elbows and knees. Luckily, some other lady fell behind me and as all eyes were focused on her I was able to quickly adjust myself to look like I was born to ski. Phew!
Once on top of the slope the next challenge was getting back down and as my husband instructed and tried to motivate me, my head was filled with strange static making it hard to understand anything that was being said. All I could view was the very long, slightly steep way back down. I wish I could click my red skis and find myself lounging by the pool.
Soeren beamed at me and lunged forward - he shot down that hill fearlessly. I wish I was 10 years old again. With 10 fear does not exist - it seems. As a 40 year old mother, I was just brimming with fear. Fear for my son's life and fear for my own life. Double whammy!
As I saw my husband slide elegantly past me, I hung my head, took a deep breath and ordered my brain to chant some mantra to take away the angst. My grip around the ski poles tightened, my eyes quickly outlining the easiest route, I hesitantly thrusted myself forward, the chanting in my head getting louder, and off I went.
The adrenaline pumped through me and I felt like a million dollars. I had survived the first run. Whether I looked good while I came down that hill is another question. I made my long S's just like the instructor had taught me, imagining my belly was the light of a lighthouse and turning it left or right accordingly, then bringing my skis around and pulling my legs parallel to each other. The instructor also told me to think about everything else but skiing. That confused me! I was not exactly sure how not to think about skiing as I had to remind myself of each step I took. I chanted and as I was coming down the slope I realized the chanting in actual fact was Hindi songs. They started off in my head, as I picked up pace down the hill so did the chanting, becoming mumbles and finally by the time I got to the bottom I was singing fairly loudly.
We spent the first couple of days skiing in lovely weather and with each run I felt more comfortable. I still was not going to become a ski fanatic but at least I was coming down the slopes with more confidence. On the last day, I took one last look down the slope. It was cold and the icy wind blew snow into my face stinging my skin. The weather had turned and I was tired. I had decided to do my last run and head to the hotel's sauna. I earned it!
Halfway down the slope I realized just how icy the slope was. That uneasiness I felt on the first day rose in the pit of my stomach again and as I turned my body to the left my skis hit a patch of ice and my legs decided to take a different route. I was unable to bring my skis together and as I tumbled my right ski got caught in the snow but my knee kept on twisting until I heard a hollow snap.
The snap was presumably my ACL tearing or the bone on the outer right knee cracking. I spent a larger part of last week getting scans and x-rays done and visiting my knee specialist. He happens to be one of the best in his field and Tom got both his knees done by him. So I am in good hands. I will be out for a while as my bone needs 4 weeks to heal in which I will be wearing a mobile brace. After this I will have the surgery to repair the ACL, which will need another 4-6 weeks to heal.
I limp around but am mobile and while I get frustrated at not being able to move fast enough, do things at my regular pace and dealing with the pain I am taking the advice of my friend Robin "slow down, breathe and heal".
Good advice! I might have a hard time with the slow down part though.
This is a heavenly dessert that will force the fastest of us to take a moment to slow down and linger on the flavors. There is flakey phyllo pastry, there is luscious and smooth custard all infused with warming spices of cardamom, cinnamon and vanilla and finally the elegance of orange bring it all together. This custard pie is based on the divine Greek or Maltese Galaktoboureko, a semolina-based custard dessert layered with phyllo pastry that will make you want to sink yourself into. I based this recipe on Peter's Galaktoboureko - a post that has stuck to my mind from the first time I read it. Ruffles of phyllo pastry are drenched in the custard and then gently baked to give a crunchy and sublime dessert. The perfect dessert for your Easter meal!
Printable version of recipe here
Prep Time: 45 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes
Serves: 8
- 10 sheets phyllo pastry
- 60g butter, melted
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
- zest of 1 orange
- 1 stick cinnamon
- 4 cardamom pods, slightly crushed
- 1 vanilla bean, split in the centre with the seeds scraped out
- 350 ml milk
- 3 eggs
- 95g sugar
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 150g pistachios, coarsely chopped
- Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C. Grease and line a 20 cm cake pan with baking paper.
- Spread out the sheets of phyllo pastry and cover them with a damp cloth to keep them from drying. Take on of the sheets and spread smoothly on the countertop, then brush generously with butter. Coil the sides of the pastry together in a rosette. Place the rosette in the middle of the cake pan and continue with the remaining phyllo pastry in the same way, placing them around the one in the center.
- Generously brush the tops of each pastry rosette with butter and sprinkle with cinnamon and cardamom. Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes.
- In the meantime make the custard by placing the milk, cinnamon stick, cardamom pods and the vanilla bean and seeds in a saucepan and bringing it to a simmer over medium heat.
- Place the eggs and sugar in a bowl and whisk until thick. Gradually pour the warm milk over the custard mixture, whisking to well to temper the mixture to make sure the eggs do not curdle.
- Remove the cake pan from the oven and pour the custard over the top of the pastry and sprinkle with the orange zest. Place the pan back in the oven and bake for another 30 minutes until the custard has set.
- Take the cake pan out of the oven and drizzle the pastry with honey while still hot and sprinkle with pistachios.
- This tastes great while still warm and fresh on the same day. After that the phyllo pastry ends to get a bit soggy and the custard loses it's creamy texture. Serve with a thick vanilla sauce.
In all this hustle I totally forgot to raise my glass with you all … last week my blog turned 7! Yes I've been around here doing this for the past 7 years and I cannot believe the crazy path What's For Lunch, Honey? has taken me on. It's been all very positive and mostly a lot of fun. Blogging has come such a long way since then, it's amazing how many new and awesome blogs I discover on a weekly basis. I'd like to say a huge thanks to you … my readers and friends who have supported me and are a part of this space, some have been around from the early days! I hope you all enjoy this space as much as enjoy filling it with my words and images.
Cin cin!
Did you miss the London Workshop? I'll be hosting another styling and photography workshop in March here in Weimar. A package deal that includes tuition, accommodation, meals and a whole lot more - not to mention connecting with like-minded people and talking, taking and inhaling food, photography and styling for 2 days.
Check out the Weimar workshop details!
I have not had too much time to surf my favorite blogs and webistes lately. But I am thinking this will change soon as I spend more time resting the knee. I do have a few favorites this week and wanted to share them with you. Hope you enjoy browsing through them.
- Peter's took me away with him on a lovely virtual weekend By The Sea Side
- I wanted to snuggle up in this Cozy Swedish Apartment
- A great way to take notes with these these adorable and colorful notebooks from The Magic Notebook. Lucky Weimar Workshop participants will each be receiving one.
- Nikole's touching poem on the beauty of travel + southern italy with some stunning images
- Visual graphic: What is success?
- Color palette of the week a touch of South of France
- Quote of the week: Do it now ..
- In Darkness and Light with Jamie's emotional post
You might like these creamy custard ideas from WFLH:
Bostini Cream Pie | Chai Latte Cream | Crème Caramel - Chocolate and Raspberry |
All photographs and written content on What's For Lunch, Honey? © 2006-2012 Meeta Khurana Wolff unless otherwise indicated. | All rights reserved | Please Ask First


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An Enhanced Customer Experience Can Start with the Statement
We are all aware that a monthly account statement is one customer communication that has the potential to build strong and loyal relationships with customers. Given that 95 percent of transactional documents are opened and read and for many customers these statements represent the only regularly-scheduled contact with their bank, it can be a competitive differentiator to make these statements as clear, satisfying and customer preference driven as possible. Being a customer-centric enterprise today means allowing the customer to control the conversation—across all channels of communication.
The latest vehicle to improve the customer experience is something relatively new to most banks producing statements—the dynamic statement. It is a concept that may be as game changing for customer relationships as social media.
Dynamic statements are interactive, digital customer statements that deliver intuitive charts, graphs and other graphical representations of customer financial information. The rich, user-friendly functionality of these statements allows customers to drill down to a granular level of detail and have highly relevant, personalized views with just a few clicks. Meeting the needs of an ever-increasing mobile population, these next generation statements can be viewed on any PC, tablet, smartphone or other mobile Android or iOS device, tapping into the rapidly growing mobile device trend and taking mobile banking to a whole new realm.
Gaining the benefits of a closer look
At first glance, customers viewing a dynamic statement see an overview of their financial data represented by charts, graphs and account balances. Using a simple browser or a mobile app, the user can click on the different charts and graphs to view, for instance, a more detailed bar graph of expenses during a particular month. And from this bar graph, the user can click again to drill down even further to a list of the transactions that are included in the table. The customer then will sort these transactions by date, by summary or even by value.
Financial institutions and third-party print service providers have traditionally generated paper statements using transaction data, which is typically encrypted XML or similar data. Using exactly the same data sources and the right software solution, these organizations can now create interactive statements instead of—or in addition to—the paper statements that are typically produced in AFP or PDF formats.
Dynamic statements serve the ever-increasing customer demand to be better informed, and to view the information they want, how they want and when they want. A solid dynamic statement strategy will enhance the customer experience by providing:
• Deep interactive capabilities – customers can view their statement information with attractive graphs and charts that can be clicked on to provide detail that is more specific. Customers can drill down to a granular level and vary the views with a few clicks.
• A higher level of personalization – customers can decide what information they want to see and how they want to see it. For example, a bank card customer can choose to track his or her accumulated credit card points by a line or bar graph.
• Accessibility online or offline – customers can interact with their statement anytime, anywhere to manage their money at all times.
• Multichannel delivery options - dynamic statements can be viewed through any PC, tablet, smartphone and/or other mobile device.
Making every customer a priority
Additionally, while dynamic statements provides a customer with instant and comprehensive access to their transaction information that helps them better manage their own accounts and assets, these statements offer financial organizations a number of advantages as well. Offering interactive statements enables a financial organization to reach its customers on the go and according to their preferences. The convenience, clarity and level of personalization that dynamic statements provide strengthens customer communications and the customer experience, which in turn is proven to foster customer loyalty.
Furthermore, dynamic statements offer enterprises a number of new capabilities that include:
• The ability to track the customer's clicks and views, providing valuable insight into a customer's interests and needs.
• The ability to use this data to present relevant, personalized offers and messages to clients — including videos—to closely target new products and services and build stronger relationships.
• The ability to interact with customers through personalized surveys and live chats, all of which can be incorporated into the dynamic statements.
Leveraging a customer communications management solution that can deliver the benefits of dynamic statements to your customer and your business will transform the customer experience. Next-generation dynamic statements will enable your bank to engage with clients on the go, in real-time—winning the loyalty and trust that is essential to long-term customer retention.
Steve Francis is president and general manager, North America for GMC Software Technology, a provider of multichannel and highly personalized document outputs for customer communication management.


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Losing someone you love is always an emotionally wrenching experience—and thinking about the financial ramifications can be similarly difficult. What matters the most is honoring the wishes of your loved one while also providing a meaningful way for you and your family members to grieve. To help make this possible, we accept a wide range of payment options.
Some of the payment methods we accept include:
As a final note, it is our policy to provide funeral services to all those within our community, and we do not wish for anyone to be limited by finances; if financial hardship is an issue, we ask that you contact us to speak more about the options that we can provide.
You are welcome to call us any time of the day, any day of the week, for immediate assistance. Or, visit our funeral home in person at your convenience.


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Close To My Heart is a proud supporter of Operation Smile™, an international surgical nonprofit that has changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people born with cleft lip, cleft palate and other facial differences. Through its expertise in treating cleft conditions, Operation Smile creates solutions that deliver safe surgery to people where it's needed most.
Since 2008, Close To My Heart has donated over $1,500,000 to this life-saving and life-changing organization, helping it pursue its vision of improving the health and dignity of all through safe surgery.
"We never know all the good that a simple smile can do."
—Mother Teresa
We invite you to become a part of our ongoing support of this amazing cause. When you purchase one of our special-edition Operation Smile T-shirts, Close To My Heart donates $10 to Operation Smile!* These T-shirts are exclusive to Close To My Heart, and represent the company's mission to celebrate life and share what matters. Make a difference in the lives of those who are in need of safe cleft surgery around the world – purchase your T-shirt today!
Order Today!
*For every Operation Smile campaign T-shirt sold by Close To My Heart between August 31, 2018 and August 31, 2020, Close to My Heart will donate $10 of the proceeds to Operation Smile, Inc. The cost of delivery fees, any coupons or promotional discounts, and taxes are excluded. The promotion will take place nationwide, except not in Massachusetts and Alabama. There is no maximum contribution limit.


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3 pound of ribs
1 tsp grated ginger
2 cloves garlic – finely chopped
1/4 cup light soy sauce
3 tbsp Lee Kum Kee Spare Ribs sauce
1 large orange juice and zest
½ tsp 5 spice powder
1 tsp pepper
3 tbsp dark brown sugar
1. Clean, trim off excess fat from both side and remove the removed the membrane from the back side of the ribs (Insert a knife under the membrane, then your fingers ,work a section loose, grip it with a paper towel, and peel it off)
2. Combined all the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Pat the ribs dry and season both sides generously with marinates. Set it aside to marinate for at least 4 hours.
3. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degree F. Wrap the ribs up with a large piece of aluminum foil. Place the ribs in a large sheet pan and let it bake for 1.5 hours. The ribs should be done and fall off the bone by now and if not let it bake for another half an hour.
4. Open up the foil and pour out all the sauce/juice from the baked ribs into a small saucepan. Skim off the fats if there is any and bring the sauce up to boil it let it thickens. Brush the sauce all over the ribs.
5. Switch the oven to broil, and broil the ribs until caramelize and golden brown. Let it cool down for 15 min before cutting into it.


text: A Toxic Legacy and a Threat to Our Fishing Heritage For well over a century, we've mined our nation's mountains and watersheds, leaving behind toxic tailings and tainted water that infiltrate our trout streams, polluting them and, in some cases, killing them altogether. Today, mining continues across America and, while practices are much improved, the potential for problems remains very real. In Alaska's Bristol Bay, the proposed Pebble Mine would become one of the largest open-pit mines on earth, and it would be situated in the headwaters of the most productive salmon drainage in the world, threatening the livelihoods of commercial fishermen, recreational guides and outfitters, and native Alaskans who live off the land, just as their ancestors have for thousands of years. An Opportunity to Get it Right While mining has left lasting scars on the American landscape, TU sees the potential for responsible mining, and is working with important industry partners, like Tiffany & Co., to encourage responsible mining and to clean up past mistakes. We're working with the Environmental Protection Agency to make it possible for TU and our partners to clean up abandoned mines without taking on insurmountable liability, and to put existing laws, like the Clean Water Act, to work to stop poorly conceived plans for mines—like Pebble—from becoming a reality. Mining need not repeat its onerous history in order to provide America and the world with important minerals. It can be done in a way that protects our water resources, our trout, our angling heritage and, most importantly, our water.


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Wearable Health Sensors Market Global Insights and Top Key Players 2020 – Galus Australis
Source: https://galusaustralis.com/2020/04/606359/wearable-health-sensors-market-global-insights-and-top-key-players-2020/
Global Wearable Health Sensors Market research report published by market insight reports explores the current outlook in global and key regions from the perspective of Major Players, Countries, Product types and end industries. This report analyzes top players in the global market, and divides the Market into several parameters.
This Wearable Health Sensors Market research report identifies the competitive landscape of industries to understand the competition at International level. This report study describes the projected growth of the global market for approaching years from 2020 to 2026. This research report has been aggregated on the basis of static and dynamic aspects of the businesses.
Click Here to Get Sample PDF Copy of Latest Research on Wearable Health Sensors Market 2020:
The prominent players in the Global Wearable Health Sensors Market:
Texas Instruments Incorporated, Panasonic Corporation, Honeywell International Inc., Siemens AG, ABB Ltd., Analog Devices, Inc., General Electric, Kongsberg Gruppen, Emerson Electric Company, STMicroelectronics, Wearable Technologies, NXP Semiconductors N.V., Maxim Integrated Products, Temp Traq, and Others.
It further provides the profile reviews of the leading participants, their overall market shares in the global market, business strategies they have adopted, and the latest developments in their respective business in a bid to enhance the decision-making capability of the readers.
The 'Wearable Health Sensors' market can be divided based on product types and It's sub-type, major applications and Third Party usage area, and important regions.
This report segments the Global Wearable Health Sensors Market on the basis of Types are:
Temperature Sensors
Motion Sensors
Blood Sensors
On the basis of Application, the Global Wearable Health Sensors Market is segmented into:
Less Than 18 Years
18-40 Years
41-60 Years
Above 60 Years
Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), and market share and growth rate of Wearable Health Sensors Market these regions, from 2020 to 2026 (forecast), covering North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, India, North America (USA, Canada and Mexico) Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy) Asia–Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast).
Significant Features that are under Offering and Key Highlights of the Reports:
– Detailed overview of Wearable Health Sensors Market
– Changing market dynamics of the industry
– In-depth market segmentation by Type, Application etc.
– Historical, current and projected market size in terms of volume and value
– Recent industry trends and developments
– Competitive landscape of Wearable Health Sensors Market
– Strategies of key players and product offerings
– Potential and niche segments/regions exhibiting promising growth
The research includes historic data from 2015 to 2019 and forecasts until 2026 which makes the report an invaluable resource for industry executives, marketing, sales and product managers, consultants, analysts and stakeholders looking for key industry data in readily accessible documents with clearly presented tables and graphs.
Finally, the Wearable Health Sensors market report offers a complete and detailed study of global Wearable Health Sensors market by using numerous analytical tools and models such as SWOT analysis, investment return analysis, and porter's five forces analysis which are useful for beginners to access the upcoming opportunities. After exploring the market insights through primary and secondary research methodologies, if anything is required except than this, market insight reports will provide customization as per specific demands.
Click the link to Purchase This Full Report @:
We also offer customization on reports based on specific client requirement:
1- Free country level analysis for any 5 countries of your choice.
2- Free Competitive analysis of any 5 key market players.
3- Free 40 analyst hours to cover any other data points.
Note:- All the reports that we list have been tracking the impact of COVID-19 the market. Both upstream and downstream of the entire supply chain has been accounted for while doing this. Also, where possible, we will provide an additional COVID-19 update supplement/report to the report in Q3, please check for with the sales team.
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ABOVE PHOTO: Madai Ledezma-Dominguez, center, says goodbye to her daughter Heather Pina Ledezma, next to her husband Jose Pina, of Riverdale, Md., as the couple took part in an act of civil disobedience and were later arrested on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House in Washington, Thursday, May 1, 2014. The march and rally were in protest of ongoing deportations and lack of progress on comprehensive immigration reform in Congress. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
By Erica Werner
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — House Republicans unveiled a slimmed-down bill Tuesday to address the immigration crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border by sending in National Guard troops and speeding migrant youths back home. The election-year measure would allow Republicans to say they tried to solve the humanitarian problem in South Texas, even though it stands no chance of becoming law.
The bill would cost $659 million through the final two months of this fiscal year, far smaller than the $3.7 billion requested by President Barack Obama for this year and next, and a sharp reduction from the $1.5 billion initially proposed by the House spending committee. The cuts were designed to win over skeptical conservatives and give lawmakers something they could pass before leaving Washington at week's end for their annual August recess.
The measure also includes policy changes rejected by most Democrats that would allow unaccompanied youths who've been arriving by the tens of thousands from Central America to be turned around quickly at the border and sent back home without judicial hearings.
"I think there's sufficient support in the House to move this bill," House Speaker John Boehner told reporters after meeting with rank-and-file lawmakers on the issue. "We have a little more work to do though."
Boehner said the bill would come to a vote on Thursday.
Yet even if it does pass the House, the bill is certain to be rejected by the Democratic-run Senate, which was set to take a procedural vote on its own $2.7 billion border package Wednesday. The Senate bill, which does not include the policy changes embraced by the House, lacks GOP support and seemed unlikely to move forward. So there appeared to be no path to reach a compromise between the House and Senate that could send a bill to Obama's desk ahead of the five-week congressional recess.
Complicating matters further, Senate Democratic aides floated the idea of using the House border bill as a vehicle for advancing a comprehensive immigration reform bill including a path to citizenship for millions now here illegally. That legislation passed the Senate a year ago but stalled in the House.
House conservatives have warned repeatedly that anything they pass could become a vehicle for the Senate's comprehensive bill, a scenario House Republican leaders have rejected. The suggestion from Senate Democratic aides that they were contemplating trying to take such a step seemed designed in part to limit conservative support for the border spending bill in the House.
Still, numerous House Republicans have said in recent weeks that they did not want to go back to their districts to face voters without acting to deal with the influx of kids and teens showing up at the South Texas border without their parents, mostly from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. More than 57,000 have arrived since October, many fleeing vicious gangs and trying to reunite with family members, but also drawn by rumors that once here, they would be allowed to stay.
GOP lawmakers said Tuesday that their measure appeared to enjoy widespread support, although some conservatives said they remained opposed.
"Frankly, we need to show that we can act and act thoughtfully, responsibly and quickly," said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla.
Republicans also predicted that Democrats would feel pressured to go along. "If I were a Democrat, and particularly a Democrat from a border state, and I went home without doing anything about this crisis that their own president created, I think I'd be a little bit nervous about doing something like that," said Rep. Bill Flores, R-Texas.
But most Democrats appeared set to reject the legislation, largely because of the legal change to a 2008 trafficking law that guarantees immigration hearings for unaccompanied kids who arrive here from anywhere other than Mexico or Canada. The House GOP bill would allow the Central American kids to be treated like Mexican kids, who can be turned around quickly at the border unless they can convince Border Patrol agents that they have a credible fear of return meriting additional screenings.
Immigration advocates say this change eliminates needed protections for the kids, and they have pressured Democratic lawmakers to oppose it. The inclusion of such policy changes amounts to "an attempt to discourage any Democratic participation, almost, in the passage of this bill," said Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y.
The House GOP legislation includes $405 million for the Homeland Security Department, which administration officials have said is in danger of running out of money for customs and border activities in coming months. It includes $22 million to hire more temporary immigration judges and outfit immigration courtrooms with video teleconferencing equipment, and $35 million to double spending for the National Guard presence on the border. In addition, $197 million would go to the Health and Human Services Department for housing and humanitarian assistance for the minors, and $40 million for the governments of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to help with repatriation efforts.
The legislation would prohibit the secretaries of Interior or Agriculture from restricting Border Patrol activities on federal lands and contains a provision expressing the sense of Congress that migrants should not be housed at military bases unless certain conditions are met.


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A new type of public toilet is helping people in Haiti make fertilizer from human waste, a project that may someday revive the country's degraded farmland, curb disease, and create jobs.
Since 2006 the U.S. nonprofitSustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL) has been installing public toilets in Haiti, where 80 percent of the population has no access to sanitation.
Most Haitians are forced to dispose of their waste in waterways, plastic bags, or even abandoned buildings, according to SOIL. Any existing toilets are often poorly designed, with waste flushing straight into rivers or groundwater. (Related: "World Water Day Focus on Global Sewage Flood.")
Such practices mean that human feces easily get into the water supply, which can cause waterborne diseases such as cholera, currently at epidemic levels in the country, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
More than 6,000 people have died and 420,000 have been sickened since cholera broke out in Haiti in October 2010. (Read: "Cholera and Cooperation Play Into Haiti Reforestation.")
"Sanitation was the most successful health intervention in the modern world," said SOIL co-founder and soil ecologist Sasha Kramer. But in Haiti, "poop getting into water is the leading cause of death."
So far, SOIL has installed ecological toilets in camps of more than 20,000 people left homeless by the 2010 earthquake in Port-au-Prince. Facilities are also being supplied to 30 communities in northern Haiti. (See "Haiti Earthquake Anniversary: Pictures Show Slow Recovery.")
But these aren't just any toilets: Kramer and her colleagues constructed urine-diverting toilets, a type of ecological sanitation in which urine and feces are separated. The waste is then covered with a dry material to aid decomposition and is regularly collected.
"With seven billion people on the planet as of this week," Kramer said, "technologies like this are more and more important for addressing the basic rights of a growing population and reducing the negative impact on the earth's ecological systems."
From Waste to Valuable Soil
Once a week SOIL workers drive through communities in a flatbed truck called the Poopmobile, collecting the toilet drums and replacing them with clean ones
The waste is then taken to a composting site outside the city, where workers mix the material with sugarcane bagas—a byproduct of making rum—to speed up the composting cycle.
"All the microbes get excited, they start reproducing like crazy," said Kramer, who's also an emerging explorer with the National Geographic Society. (The Society owns National Geographic News.)
The activity heats the compost to about 160 degrees Fahrenheit (71 degrees Celsius). This kills any disease-causing bacteria, which are adapted to the average human body temperature of 98 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius).
Workers check the compost temperature every two days, and "by the end of eight months, [we] end up with incredibly nutrient-rich soil," Kramer said. Human waste may even be better than cow feces for compost, she added, since our meatier diets contain more plant-boosting nitrogen.
(Test your knowledge of soil.)
When composted properly to kill pathogens, human waste is a "very rich nutrient source that's quite suitable for growing crops for human consumption," saidSerita Frey, a soil microbial ecologist at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.
"In the West, we're quite squeamish about use of human waste in general as a fertilizer," Frey said, but "throughout history it's been used in Asia and other parts of the world as a soil amendment."
(See "Here's the Scoop: San Francisco to Turn Dog Poop Into Biofuel.")
Adding compost to farmland can also improve soil structure and stability, both crucial for preventing erosion, added Frey, who is not affiliated with SOIL.
That's because, as bacteria and fungi decompose the material, they produce sticky glues that bind soil particles together to form stable clumps, she said. (See soil pictures.)
Toilet Project a "Very Good Circle"
So far, the Haitian toilet project has yielded more than 100,000 gallons (400,000 liters) of compost, some of which is already being applied to experimental gardens and crops, Kramer said.
Some of these gardens are producing vegetables that provide food for residents in Cité Soleil, an extremely poor, densely populated area near Port-au-Prince, said Daniel Tillias, a Haitian community organizer for the peace group Pax Christi Haiti.
The rich compost could eventually be used to grow crops and replant trees across the impoverished Caribbean country, where decades of land overuse and deforestation have stripped soils of nutrients and led to widespread erosion.
(Read about the decline of Haitian soil in National Geographic magazine.)
"We can use something that was useless as a wonderful opportunity," said Tillias, who has volunteered with SOIL and acted as a narrator for an independent film on the project, called Holy Crap! (Watch a video clip from the film on National Geographic's website.)
"It's a very good circle—it's a good, positive thing for this neighborhood."
Tillias said most people he has worked with have had positive reactions to the toilets, which do not smell. The only negative, he added, is that the facilities are often too popular and can get overcrowded.
Supporting, Not Leading, Communities
SOIL's project has another purpose: providing jobs for out-of-work Haitians, especially following the disastrous earthquake. Tillias, for example, has helped coordinate weekly temp jobs for people in Cité Soleil cleaning the public toilets.
With "a little funding that SOIL provided, [we can] give a very acceptable wage that many people wanted to have," he said.
Beyond providing jobs, however, "the question would be, what is the level of local and community buy-in into the process?" asked Haitian-born Alix Cantave, co-founder of the Haitian Studies Association at the University of Massachusetts in Boston.
Though projects such as SOIL's are well intended, "what we have seen over the past 40 years, with all the investment that's been put into Haiti, [there's] very little to show for it," Cantave said.
That's mainly because international organizations often fail to build relationships with local entities, and when funding dries up, so does the project.
To make a new sanitation initiative last long-term in Haiti, Cantave said, a municipality where the toilets are installed would have to develop a unit within its government office to take on and manage the project.
"You're supporting, not leading," he said. That's when "people are engaged, then they can take control and they can own the process."
SOIL's Kramer already recognizes this. In "countries that have good sanitation systems, it's never an international organization that's put them in," she said.
"It has to be something that comes within the country, because it requires so much ongoing maintenance."
Household Toilets an Economic Opportunity?
To that end, SOIL has a plan: Come up with a solid design for a composting toilet that would work in households and thus get the project going on a small scale in about a hundred Haitian homes.
"I could see a model where private businesses provide collection services and the government is either involved in … running the compost site or purchasing the compost," she said.
For example, Haiti's "Ministry of Agriculture would purchase the compost and resell to farmers at a subsidized price they could afford."
Then SOIL "would not do any more implementing—[we'd] do more consulting."
(Related: "Sacks of Human Waste Reveal Secrets of Ancient Rome.")
Community organizer Tillias also believes there could be a big economic opportunity not only for the owners of the toilets but for all Haitians, who can produce compost for local farmers and even export any extra to other countries.
In this way, he said, Haiti "could be the country giving the example to the whole world."


text:
Even Dictionaries Grapple With Getting 'Marriage' Right
Lexicographers know they're in the hot seat as they confront the changing use of the word "marriage." Linguist Geoff Nunberg says the key to getting the new definition right is to crisply describe everything that's in the category and nothing that isn't.
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Other segments from the episode on April 4, 2013
April 4, 2013
Guest: Ryan McIlvain
TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guest spent two years as a Mormon missionary based in Brazil. As he rang the doorbells of strangers, hoping to convince whoever would listen to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, he was experiencing doubts about his own faith. Ryan McIlvain continued to experience doubts, and he left the church in his mid-20s.
Now he's written his debut novel, and it's based on his experiences as a missionary. It's called "Elders." Elder is the term used for a young Mormon on his mission. The novel has two main characters: Elder McLeod, an American who's 18 months into his two-year mission and longs to return home; and Elder Passos, a Brazilian who has only recently begun his mission and is passionate about it.
Ryan McIlvain is from a six-generation Mormon family. He was born in Utah and grew up in Massachusetts. He's now living in L.A. and pursuing his Ph.D. in literature at the University of Southern California. In 2009 he was granted a Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University.
Ryan McIlvain, welcome to FRESH AIR. This novel is inspired by your time as a Mormon missionary. Is it obligatory for young Mormon men to become missionaries?
RYAN MCILVAIN: Not quite obligatory, but it's certainly strongly encouraged for young men particularly, but more and more nowadays young women too. It's seen as a rite of passage. It's seen as an opportunity to give a tithe of your young life, 19, 20, 21 years, to the Lord. And if it doesn't happen, there are certain taboos and raised eyebrows and cold shoulders that can greet you. So we'll say it's a culturally enforced but not obligatory rite of passage.
GROSS: So talk a little bit more about what the purpose is supposed to be for the missionary and also for the larger church.
MCILVAIN: Well, the church uses the missionaries to spread the gospel, to meet certain commandments and injunctions that Jesus and the New Testament lays out. So the church is very literalist in taking the gospel to all the world, as Jesus says at the end of the Gospels.
But for the young men and women themselves, I think it's an opportunity for them to grow their own testimonies, to use some of the parlance, and to try and find their faith in the exercise of it or to try and find their testimony in the bearing of it. So you go out and you bear your testimony, and only after the fact will you discover whether or not you had one. I think that's the experience that a lot of missionaries have, and it can be very nerve-wracking at moments for that reason. You feel like you don't know the Gospel or the culture that you are officially tasked with representing, and that can be very anxious for people.
GROSS: Well, it almost sounds like part of the point is for the young missionary to talk himself or herself into believing more deeply by - like through the act of convincing somebody else to believe.
MCILVAIN: I think that's absolutely part of it. I don't know if that was, you know, if someone who's not me would describe it in that way, and I'll have that same hesitation throughout this interview, I'm sure. But that certainly was one of the reasons that I chose to serve a mission. I was a doubter almost as soon as I became aware of what I believed.
You know, I became aware at maybe 13, 14, that I'd been drafted onto this team called Mormonism that was distinct from the Catholicism that was the norm where I grew up in Massachusetts. And I started to become aware of those differences, and instantly I was doubting them, at first privately, and then by the time I was in my late teens quite vocally.
But some of the people who were very close to me, my parents, certain friends in my congregation or ward, as it's called, their example meant a lot to me. And I thought: What do they know that I don't know? And so the mission for me became a chance to kind of make a large commitment commensurate to the large amount of grace I felt I needed in order to believe what seemed on the face of it unbelievable things.
So that was - yeah, that was certainly the purpose for me.
GROSS: What is an example of an unbelievable thing that you needed to test yourself to see if you were capable of believing?
MCILVAIN: Well, at 17, 18, it started with first things, first causes, just the prospect of God or an afterlife, these things that are common to so many religions. But then as you get into sort of the nitty-gritty of Mormon history, particularly the Joseph Smith story, there are some things that happened recently enough that we have documentation in and around that time.
And so for these really supernatural, outlandish stories to crop up, it kind of seems a little embarrassing. It seems like that, you know, the scientific method was around to either check or to verify or refute these things. And so, yeah, the idea that Joseph Smith by the power of God was able to translate the Book of Mormon, these plates that he claimed to find in Upstate New York, and the fact that, you know, very few people ever saw those things, and those people who did see the plates and, you know, bear witness of them would later sort of cast doubt on their own testimony, and they'd say things like, well, I didn't see those golden plates literally the way I see you, rather I saw them the way you would see a mountain through mist.
And I just started to realize that these sort of early 19th century men and women saw the world much more magically than I did. But I was expected to, you know, to take on faith the very same claims that they did. So that became increasingly difficult.
GROSS: So on the cover of your novel, "Elders," there's a picture of a young man in a white shirt, a black tie and black pants, which is kind of the uniform for Mormon missionaries. And just like how that become the uniform? And, you know, in the novel like everyone knows when the missionary, when the Mormon missionary is coming because they can recognize them by their clothes.
MCILVAIN: This will be speculation on my part, but for young men and young women, I think you want a modest look but also one that sticks out, you know. I think missionaries are intended to stick out like sore thumbs, and their uniforms, their outfits, are supposed to be eye-catching and supposed to be a sort of visual part of the hey, we're - I guess we're set apart, or we're different, we're different people, and notice us, come talk to us and vice versa.
GROSS: How did you feel in that? Did you feel like you were wearing a uniform?
MCILVAIN: I did, but I have to say I really appreciated it because I was far from home, I was speaking a language that was foreign to me, and I was wearing an outfit that was foreign to me. So it was easy for me to slip into kind of missionary brain, whereas friends of mind who had been raised in Massachusetts, as I was, and then called to a mission in, say, Nevada, I think they had psychologically a much greater challenge.
They were seeing people that looked very familiar to them. They were speaking a language that was familiar to them. But all of a sudden they were expected to put on this entirely different mantle and this entirely different set of responsibilities. So I imagine that serving stateside, as we say, would have been much harder for me.
Going to Brazil, everything in my life felt so foreign. So this was just an outgrowth of that. My missionary work was just an outgrowth of that foreignness.
GROSS: How was Brazil chosen for you? You don't have any input into that, do you?
MCILVAIN: I don't. When you're filling out your papers, you know, an application process, you mention whether you'd be willing to learn another language, whether you think you have facility with another language. I said I was both willing and I thought I would have facility with another language and spoke a little Spanish. And that may have influenced it.
But the leaders of the church in Salt Lake City prayerfully consider the crop of names that come up that particular week, and I'm told they look at a map and they make decisions based on a mix of, you know, logistics and inspiration, as they see it. So I remember, you know, I grew up in a somewhat moderate, sort of lukewarm Mormon family. And I know my mother and sister would perhaps regret that, but my father, I think, is more like I am.
Anyway, the balance of the family was less than completely devout, and I remember opening my mission call, it's a letter that comes from Salt Lake City, I think it was like at a Chili's in Massachusetts on a Sunday. And my sister read ahead, and she said: Oh, it's a good one. You know, so the great fear is that you're going to get sent to, I don't know, Boise, Idaho, or something, with due respect to Boise.
But yeah, if you're going to do this and sacrifice two years of your life, you at least want some interesting (technical difficulties) excited when I opened my call and saw that I was going to Brazil.
GROSS: My guest is Ryan McIlvain. His new novel, "Elders," is based on his two years as a Mormon missionary in Brazil. More after a break; this is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is writer Ryan McIlvain, and his new novel "Elders" is based on his experiences spending two years in Brazil as a Mormon missionary. He left the faith after his mission was done. One of the things you had to do in Brazil as a missionary was knock on doors and preach the faith and, you know, try to get people to convert to the Church of the Latter-Day Saints.
And I think, you know, many of us have been on the other side of that door and have, you know, not answered the door or just like said no thank you. So what's it like to be the person knocking on the door, knowing that a lot of the people at home will consider this knock an unwanted intrusion?
MCILVAIN: It's nerve-wracking. It can be emotionally very taxing, especially when those doors close again and again and again. It starts to mount. I personally tried not to be too apologetic, but at the same time I never wanted to be that missionary who was too in your face. And my experience as a missionary and knowing a number of missionaries is that they tend not to be too pushy, I hope.
But yeah, you tell yourself that the message you have to bring is an altruistic one. There's no kickback. There's no financial incentive for a missionary to be doing this. And so I told myself that I was going to be kind of annoying people for a good cause in the same way I told myself that I was going to be annoying people for a good cause when I went canvassing for Obama, you know.
And I think that's what helped to withstand all those doors in your faces. And for the most part you're right, people were very polite, especially in Brazil, which is an exceptionally kind country, I found. But even when they're not, they're not polite, you try and take that in stride and keep the message in perspective.
GROSS: So how often would a door actually open, and how often would somebody invite you in to talk?
MCILVAIN: Well, more often in the reality of my mission than in the novel that I based off it. I didn't want the novel to balloon into this vast town of characters. I didn't think I had the chops to handle that big a cast. So it's fairly infrequent in "Elders," but in my own experience and given how sort of open to religion Brazil is, compared to Massachusetts certainly, I'd say, geez, maybe one in 10, one in 15 doors.
GROSS: That's not bad, not a bad ratio.
MCILVAIN: It's not. Now, what happens once the door opens is a different story. For the most part people say, oh, you know what, we're all set, but we appreciate what you're doing, go with God. Again, that was the message in Brazil. In Massachusetts it would be more curt. But - so yeah, it wasn't a totally humiliating, debilitating rate of success, quite the opposite on some days.
Certain friends who served in Europe or a friend of mine who went to Germany became deeply depressed after a while because the - you know, you just seemed like you were - you felt like you were wasting your time for two years. So few people were interested in hearing what you had to say.
GROSS: There's a passage I want you to read from your novel "Elders," based on your experiences as a Mormon missionary in Brazil. And this is - there's two missionaries in the story. One of them is from Massachusetts, and the other is a Brazilian. And in this scene, Passos, who is the Brazilian missionary, you know, is talking to a couple who has opened the door for the missionaries, and he's explaining the Mormon faith to them.
And so I'd like you to read that passage.
MCILVAIN: The Lord came to Earth and established his perfect church that we may know how to live worthy to return to him. But what happened to this church? My friends, there is a but. Here, sadly, tragically, there is a great and terrible but. It came in the form of wicked men who drove away the pure, simple truth of that church and replaced it with the philosophies of the day, the corruptions of the day.
I'm sad to testify that the very truth forked away into paths choked with thorns and thistles, covered in mists of thick darkness. Every man began following after his own light, and not the Lord's light, not the light, until soon, and it was very soon, it was only a few generations after the Lord's ascension, soon the saving truth and all its purity and grace was lost, and the world lay in darkness for long centuries.
Elder Passos paused. He let the world lie in darkness for several seconds. He felt his companion's eyes move to him, a curious smile too, he thought, though he couldn't be sure. Passos was looking straight ahead at Josefina and Leandro, their faces arched, waiting. But we have come with good news, he said softly. We have come with the good news.
GROSS: That's Ryan McIlvain, reading from his new novel, "Elders." So did you give that speech a lot, and did you deliver it with conviction?
MCILVAIN: Well, I gave to Passos a certain temper and a certain way of speaking that was - that would have been unfamiliar to me. Passos grew up in a charismatic Catholicism that had that very much sort of - sort of Southern American, sing-songy approach to preaching; whereas my style would have sounded more like your average CPA.
MCILVAIN: A lot drier and, you know, I tried to speak it with conviction, because as I said at the outset, one of the things I believed, one of the premises I accepted was that the testimony is found in the bearing of it. So certainly for the first half, the first two-thirds of my mission, I was filled with conviction, even if I was waiting for that foundation to be built under it, you know, build your testimonies in the sky, I suppose you could say, and wait for the foundation to build under them.
But you know, by the end of the mission my mind hadn't fundamentally changed. My intellectual temperament was the same, and that was disappointing to me. I suppose I had expected some kind of graceful change, and when that didn't happen, I started to readjust the horizon of my expectations and started to think, well, maybe it's not literally true, but there have certainly been a number of religious people before me, and there will be many after who have come to the realization of the maybe metaphorical or mythical quality of the religion and stuck with it for other social reasons.
And so I tried to inhabit a sort of secular space within Mormonism. And there isn't much of one, you know, unlike, say, Catholicism or Judaism, where I think a secular approach to a religious tradition can be valid. Maybe Mormonism is so young that that space has yet to be adequately cleared. So after a few, few years, I found it harder and harder to stay even a secular Mormon and ultimately parted company with the church.
GROSS: So I want to get back to the proselytizing that the character Elder Passos did in the passage that you just read. And so he talks about in these latter days, referring to 1820, when the Lord saw fit to raise up a new prophet, Joseph Smith. So is the Church of the Latter-Day Saints, is the latter days referring to the fact that the life of Joseph Smith took place in fairly recent history, it's the latter days, it's recent? Is that what it means?
MCILVAIN: I think so, and it's officially the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. But the latter days refers to, well, the fact that it did happen in recent history, but I think in a larger sense it's that in the scope of creation, this is the last dispensation or the last try before the Lord will come back as prophesied. And we sometimes forget how millenarian Mormonism is.
Now it's a little tamer in its rhetoric, a lot tamer in its rhetoric, than it was during the time of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. But when they said these are the latter days, I think they fully expected the millennium, the return of Jesus Christ to rule and reign over the Earth, I think they fully expected that to happen sooner rather than later, just like the early Christians, you know, who were I think fully expecting the messiah to, well, ascend into heaven but then come back pretty soon and start the kingdom of heaven.
GROSS: Did you grow up believing that these were the latter days, that the end times were near?
MCILVAIN: I didn't personally. As I said, my family is a little more grounded than that. We - I don't think - my family didn't believe quite so literally in those kind of prophecies. I know my dad didn't. And, you know, when I think of my mom's faith, I think she believes in goodness, I think she does believe in a God. I think she believes in an afterlife. The millenarian rhetoric was always strange to me.
And sometimes it would just smack you in the face, and you'd be singing a hymn and realize, oh, that's right, that is what we're meant to believe. And within this congregation of doctors and lawyers and teachers and housemakers, there are people who really do expect the rapture, you know, within their lifetimes. That would be very, very strange to contemplate.
GROSS: Ryan McIlvain will be back in the second half of the show. His new novel is called "Elders." I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: This FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross, back with Ryan McIlvain, author of the new novel, "Elders," which is based on his two years as a Mormon missionary in Brazil. McIlvain is from a sixth-generation Mormon family, but he left the church when he was in his mid-20s. He's now pursuing his PhD in literature at the University of Southern California.
So let's talk practically a little bit. You describe in your novel "Elders" a missionary handbook that forbade a lot of things. What were some of the things a missionary was forbidden to do?
MCILVAIN: A missionary couldn't read newspapers, magazines, the secular press in general. Couldn't listen to the radio, couldn't watch television, and they're also cut off family and friends. You can write letters home to family and friends once a week, but otherwise, your life is sort of constrained by the mission boundaries. Also, missionaries aren't allowed to make sort of social phone calls. It has to be business-related. It has to be relating to proselytizing. So it's very militaristic. The social life of a 19-year-old - or in the case of a young woman, a 21-year-old - becomes radically interrupted for those two years.
GROSS: And do you know what the point of that is, cutting you off from everything?
MCILVAIN: Well, at the risk of betraying the full extent of my cynicism, I think there's some mortification of the flesh that's involved. But I also think it's a focusing mechanism. If you're meant to focus 100 percent on missionary work by cutting away all those distractions, it becomes easier to do that. In fact, it becomes difficult not to do that without breaking rules, so long you're following the missionary handbook to the letter, "your eye and your mind are single to the glory of God," to quote a familiar scripture.
GROSS: It's also guaranteeing a certain insularity. There's no one from the outside culture who can influence you: no news coverage, no television shows, no radio, nothing with a message that might be considered subversive or taboo, or just an alternative to what you believe.
MCILVAIN: I think that's true. I think that's true. That being said, the missionaries are still in the world, so, you know, after 9/11 - I left on my mission shortly after 9/1,1 and missionaries were still deeply curious and concerned about what was happening back home. And so when a new crop of missionaries would come from other parts of the world and come into the mission field in Brazil, you would hear missionaries exchanging news. And so there was word of mouth, and there was certainly a curiosity. But, yeah, officially you weren't allowed to turn on the evening news and see what was happening in the run-up to war or to see what your favorite soccer team was doing. So, yeah, you were insular. You were cut off.
GROSS: I'm going to ask you to read a short passage. You quote from the "Guide to Self-Control." And I imagine this is the guide to self-control for young Mormon missionaries. Yes?
MCILVAIN: Yes. I mean, it's a loosely fictional document. I'm happy to elaborate on what that means. But...
GROSS: Oh, it's fictional. Oh, OK. I thought you really had this guide.
GROSS: But - so this is a loosely fictional document, but is everything in it things that you were told?
MCILVAIN: No. No. This is something I fictionalized. If you look online, you can find a very similar "Guide to Self-Control" that was supposedly distributed to missionaries in the '70s or '80s in the missionary training center. You hear avows and disavows on both sides. But a Mormon historian I respect, a guy named D. Michael Quinn, claims that this was something that a Mormon leader wrote and distributed to mostly young men. And so I wanted to borrow it for the fictional purposes of my novel.
GROSS: OK. Would you read the first three parts?
MCILVAIN: Sure. "The Guide to Self-Control." (Reading) One, never touch the intimate parts of your body, except during normal toilet processes. Avoid being alone as much as possible. Two, when you bathe, do not admire yourself in a mirror. Never stay in the bath more than five or six minutes - just long enough to bathe and dry and dress. Three, when in bed - if that is where you have your problem, for the most part - dress yourself for the night so securely that you cannot easily touch your vital parts, and so that it would be difficult and time-consuming for you to remove those clothes.
GROSS: OK. So what you wrote there is fictional. That's just for your novel. But were you basically given similar advice?
MCILVAIN: I wasn't personally, but I certainly became aware of missionaries who were struggling with sexual temptation, as they would describe it. And there was a kind of a circuit of leaders who would come through a mission and often drop off a tip or two about how to avoid masturbation. So it was obviously a common enough thing within a mission, and it wasn't the kind of sin that was going to have you sent ignominiously home. But, yeah, so those were real tips, I think, that were circulating through my mission that you kind of heard about through sort of whispered, smirky voices.
GROSS: So, speaking strictly as an outsider who doesn't really know the literature of the Mormon Church, it seems to me that Mormons get something of a mixed message about sexuality. The founder of the church, Joseph Smith, must have had a hearty sexual urge. I would assume that he did, because he had multiple wives. One would assume he had a pretty hearty sexual drive that he gave into with different women. And yet, young people like you are taught to be very wary of any kind of sexual feeling, even masturbation. Did you ever feel like you were given, looking at the history of the church, a very mixed message about sexuality?
MCILVAIN: I did feel that I was given a mixed message, and toward the end of my time in the church, I started to feel that it was a sort of double-standard. Now, I think the Orthodoxy would have me say that Joseph Smith's sexual relationships were all within the context of marriage, even though it was plural marriage, and some of those marriages were done in secret, and some of them would be deeply embarrassing to most members of the church. And I don't mean to say that most members of the church don't know about them, but if the fact that Joseph Smith had married, say, a 14-year-old, which is documented, if that were a common topic of conversation, it would be embarrassing to members of the church. So you had Joseph Smith's sexual behavior contrasted with the expected sexual behavior of the average young man or young woman, and you do start to see a chasm. And it can feel frustrating and little disorienting, to be honest.
GROSS: Can I ask, what is sacred underwear? I think a lot of us have heard references to it, but don't really understand what it is, what it's meant to symbolize.
MCILVAIN: Well I - when friends ask me, I often will relate it to - and actually, I won't know the name of a garment that Orthodox Jews sometimes wear, but you have those strands that you'll sometimes see hanging out. From what I understand, the purpose of Mormon garments, temple garments, are somewhat similar. There are markings on the garments that remind Mormons of covenants they've made with God, of certain promises they've made within the temple.
And it also enforces a kind of modesty. If you're wearing the garments at all time, and you don't want them hanging out - which, of course, you don't - then the clothes you wear need to be at least as long as Mormon garments. And so this is particularly a way to enforce female modesty. So the garments go down to your knees. And on your sleeves they go about, I don't know, a third of the way down your upper arm. So, in that way, Mormon women are discouraged from wearing sleeveless outfits and short skirts and shorts, and so on. And, you know, to be fair, Mormon men are expected to not wear sleeveless shirts or short shorts, either. So, to me, it serves a double function: a guard against immodesty, and also a reminder of covenants.
GROSS: Did you wear the sacred underwear?
MCILVAIN: While I was a missionary? Yes. Yeah, I did.
GROSS: And did it make you feel any more, you know, connected to God, any more loyal to promises that you had made, or whatever?
MCILVAIN: I think so. At least when you would stagger out of bed in the morning and you'd get in front of mirror, you'd just be wearing your garments, as Mormons call them. And there were certain symbols that you'd see in the mirror, and they remind you of particular moments in a Mormon temple ceremony. And that does remind you of promises you've made. But for the most part, once you put them on and then you put clothes on over them, they just become indivisible, except on a particularly hot day. And then you think, yeah, why am I wearing an extra layer of clothing? It's a bit of a cross to bear.
I remember my dad, when I was a teenager, he started to be more open with me about his feelings about the church. He said, you know, I'll believe what you want me to believe, but just let me be cool and ventilated.
MCILVAIN: You know what I mean? When he went through the Mormon Temple, it was just one garment. It was like a jumpsuit. And nowadays, it's just - it's more comfortable than that. It's just kind of like boxer shorts, basically, or boxer briefs and, you know, just an undershirt. But at the time, I think in the '70s, when he went through, it was a single garment.
GROSS: My guest is Ryan McIlvain. His new novel, "Elders," is based on his two years as a Mormon missionary in Brazil. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Ryan McIlvain, and we're talking about his novel "Elders," which is based on his two years as a Mormon missionary in Brazil in the early 2000s.
In your novel "Elders," the American Mormon missionary's father is a bishop. And, you know, he knows that the son is having doubts. And so the father, the bishop, tells the son: There's nothing special in doubting. Some of my colleagues at the office are devout atheists. I think the real courage is in trying to believe. Doubt comes easy for a lot of people. But do you know what doesn't come easy? Faith, obedience, humility, self-denial, self-sacrifice - there's your courage. Were you told that?
MCILVAIN: I think I was - not by my father, but by a number of different people, and then I kind of synthesized it for the purposes of that particular scene. But, yeah, you were told that you weren't special in your doubting, and that if you did think you were special, that was an expression of narcissism. So you're told that doubt is kind of the natural state. That's the natural man that the Apostle Paul tells us we need to overcome, and that the more elevated, impressive way of being is the way of faith. If it felt natural, then it wouldn't be God's way. It wouldn't be sort of the higher, more difficult way. So it's almost like a challenge to believe, you know.
GROSS: So did you have a turning point, at which time you decided, this is it, I'm leaving the Mormon faith? Or was it just a very gradual falling away, until you realized you were just no longer in the church anymore?
MCILVAIN: Well, I suppose it was un-dramatic and how gradual it was. It was sort of like a vessel filling drop by drop. And all of a sudden, you realize it's overflowing, but that specific moment is hard to mark.
I had stopped wearing my garments. I was no longer praying. I self-described as an agnostic, as I still do. And, you know, at a certain moment, I realized that I didn't - I really didn't have anything holding me to the church anymore. And when certain relationships in my life crumbled, the social glue that had held me to the church was gone, as well.
And so I - yeah. I parted ways. I did find - I still do find that I miss certain aspects of the church. And so when my wife - also an ex-Mormon - when my wife and I go back to visit family, we'll take in a service and really enjoy the music and see old friends and appreciate that. But I can tell you that when we decided to get married, we chose not a Mormon service, but rather a more poetic, somewhat neutered Episcopalian service. So we were comfortable being, sort of, outside the church, but still connected to it in some ways.
GROSS: Did you see the Broadway musical "The Book of Mormon"?
MCILVAIN: You know, I haven't seen it. I have heard a number of the songs and I've read a number of reviews, but I haven't seen it.
GROSS: How do you feel about what you've heard?
MCILVAIN: Well, it's so tonally removed from my book that, in a way, I'm not really qualified to comment on it. But it seems in more or less good fun, good spirit. From what I understand, it kind of points out the absurdity of all religions, which is sort of an ecumenical message that people can get behind.
But it does seem that, you know, something like that wouldn't work as a realistic story. So it works as comedy, but, you know, a missionary would never sing something like, you know, I believe that God has a plan for all of us, and that plan involves me getting my own planet. Like, I mean, it's funny.
GROSS: Right.
MCILVAIN: Because of the juxtaposition between something that we recognize as, more or less, standard Christianity and something that's just off-the-walls bonkers. Someone who's really trying to be serious about his faith would feel somewhat conflicted about that contradiction.
GROSS: After all the years of exerting so much self-control, because that was preached to you as being so important as a young man and as a young missionary, once you actually left the church did you go through a period of, like, abandoning self-control and giving into extremes because it would have been more permissible?
MCILVAIN: You know, I thought about it. I imagined it. I think I fed some of that into my fiction. But in my life I was still very well behaved. And I think the, kind of, Pavlovian conditioning that I spent in the first 20-odd years of my life engraining was not going to go away overnight. I can leave the church but I am still going to be, essentially in my being Mormon, at least in the way I behaved.
For you know, the few years following my resignation from the church I was still very skeptical of alcohol. It frightened me. I was afraid I would become - I mean, I say this with something of a smile, but I think I was worried that I would fall instantly into addiction if I were to start drinking. And that was certainly an outgrowth of certain indoctrinations from my youth.
And, yeah, there were other - I'm sure there are other vestiges of my religion that I'm not even aware of that are still very much a part of my life. So there wasn't a period of abandon. If anything, when my current wife and I met, we would ask each other, OK, now what is the secular thing to do here?
MCILVAIN: We love each other. We should get married. And we'd say, no, no. We have to live together for a while. And then we lived together for a while and I proposed and she says yes. Then we say, OK, so now we should wait a year, right? Isn't that, you know, engagements are supposed to be pretty long, right? Well, no. Let's just do six months.
And we were - I think we've held fast to what we still like and appreciate about the culture we were raised in and we've jettisoned the rest. And that's a play on one of my favorite scriptures from the New Testament. Paul says that to hold fast to all good things and essentially get rid of the rest.
GROSS: Well, I want to thank you very much for talking with us. I really appreciate it.
MCILVAIN: Well, I'll just say in closing, that when I was writing this book, you know, with my mix of crazy ambition and ego, I would sometimes practice my Terry Gross interview in the bathroom.
MCILVAIN: Well, Terry, I would say to the kitchen sink. So to actually do it is a bit of a bizarre dream come true. So thanks again for the chance.
GROSS: Oh, I really appreciate hearing that. That's really nice to say. That's fun. Ryan McIlvain is the author of the new novel "Elders." You can read an excerpt on our website freshair.npr.org. The debate over marriage equality is leading to discussions about the definition of marriage. Coming up, we hear what our linguist Geoff Nunberg has to say. This is FRESH AIR.
TERRY GROSS, HOST:The national debate over marriage equality has gotten our linguist, Geoff Nunberg, thinking about the changing uses of the word marriage.
GEOFF NUNBERG, BYLINE: It's a funny thing about dictionaries. First we're taught to revere them, then we have to learn to set them aside. Nobody ever went wrong starting a middle-school composition with: According to Webster's... But that's not a phrase you'd use at the beginning of an op-ed commentary about terrorism or racism. When it comes to the words that do the cultural heavy lifting, we're not about to defer to some lexicographer hunched over a dusty keyboard.
Except, of course, if the word is marriage. Now that even a lot of Republicans are accepting civil unions as a fallback position, what opponents of same-sex marriage object to most strenuously seems to be just its name. As a tactical move, thumping the dictionary has replaced thumping the Bible. As Rush Limbaugh recently put it: By definition, same-sex people cannot be married. You had the feeling that that by definition was really a stand-in for by God.
So lexicographers know they're on the hot seat as they confront the changing uses of the word. When Merriam-Webster revised their definition a couple of years ago, they went with what I think of as a two-state solution. They kept an older definition for marriage as: The state of being united to a person of the opposite sex.
But they added a second definition as: the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of traditional marriage. Not surprisingly, that triggered headlines like "Webster's Redefines Marriage" on conservative websites. Merriam's said they had no political agenda, they were just describing the language as it was actually being used. But the definition is a train wreck, which is what's apt to happen when you try to move forward you're while looking over both shoulders at the same time.
That second meaning doesn't describe the way anybody uses the word. Gays and lesbians aren't claiming the right to a recognized relationship like traditional marriage, as Merriam's puts it. They're talking about marriage without an asterisk, which is one reason why public opinion has shifted so rapidly in their favor.
And the cultural right isn't about to sanction any use of the M-word for same-sex couples. The one thing both sides agree on is that whatever definition you give to marriage, there had better be just one of them. That's how the most recent edition of the Encarta Dictionary deals with the word, with a single definition that eliminates any reference to gender: A legally recognized relationship between two people who intend to live together as sexual and domestic partners.
That's a redefinition of marriage, all right. But redefining a word isn't always the same as giving it a new meaning. Sometimes you're just trying to pare it down to the core concept that people missed the first time around. Dictionary definitions of camera used to mention film and plates; now they just refer to a photosensitive surface. But the meaning of camera isn't different; it's just that now technology lets us see what its essence has been all along.
Changes in social attitudes can prompt those reevaluations, too. Until just a couple of years ago, the Oxford English Dictionary defined the romantic sense of love as: A feeling of attachment based upon difference of sex. But the English language has never precluded describing a romantic attachment between two men or two women as love. It's just that those relationships were officially invisible to the OED's Victorian compilers.
And other definitions would have led you to conclude that only men could have girlfriends or pay court to someone. In fact, the OED still defines a couple as a man and a woman united by love or marriage. No doubt they'll get around to replacing a man and a woman with two persons, but not because couple has a new meaning, but because we can finally see what was really basic to the old one.
You can read Encarta's de-gendered definition of marriage in the same way: A legally recognized relationship between two people. That does what a good definition should. It crisply describes everything that's in the category and nothing that isn't. And like the redefinition of camera, it extends to the past as well as the present. That's not just what marriage has come to mean; it's all the word has ever meant, even when not everybody had the right to it.
It can take people a while to get that. Marriage is more than a label to both sides. Words tend to pick up the flavors of the broth they've been steeping in. They're surrounded by customs and prescriptions that seem to infuse their very meanings. When I hear somebody using a word in a new way, it can sound more like a usage error than a challenge to my unexamined notions.
I had to do a little mental stutter-step the first couple of times I heard a gay friend talking about his husband. Until I realized, oh, yeah, it's just the guy in a marriage, the same as it ever was. But there has never been an age that was so quick or adept at making these adjustments. We spent the 1990's tacking virtual and cyber onto the names of what seemed like new kinds of things.
Then we spent the next decade taking the prefixes off again, as we realized that the new things were basically the same as the old ones. I have to get some e-money from my virtual bank so I can play cyber-poker - that sounds so 1997. How long before gay marriage sounds equally quaint?
GROSS: Geoff Nunberg is a linguist who teaches at the University of California Berkeley School of Information.
GROSS: You can download Podcasts of our show on our website freshair.npr.org. And you can follow us on Twitter @nprfreshair and on Tumblr at nprfreshair.tumblr.com.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.


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"LEATHUHHHHH"A lot of leather for one outfit, but I tried to make it more businessy with the belt and playful with the polka dot shirt and hair thang. I sort of had this image of this AWESOME guy (found via Elizabeth's NYT article) in my mind when I got dressed but sadly no one will ever come close to the epicness that is JEAN-PAUL:he's the dude on the left...stop being so ridonksulously amazing and having cooler friends than me!And now for something Paul McCartney won't yell at me for (it's all vintage, okay?)! I'd like to remind you guys to ask before you use my photos. Intellectual property lesson: the moment you publish a photo on your blog, it belongs to you, and no one can use it without permission. A note about this and my email is in my sidebar, and if you've looked through my blog enough to find photos and write an article on it, you've probably seen the message. Recently I got an email from a magazine asking if they could publish an article about my blog, to which I politely said no since, well, they asked, and if you ask about whether or not you can do something it means you will accept a yes or no. A few days later I got a comment from a reader saying they'd seen me in the same magazine. Should I insert a "T_T" or express how dumb I find that in a slouchy lazy teenager pose?I hate being a mean old hag and having to ask people to take down one of my photos when they wrote something really sweet! Seriously! No one should take pride in being mean! Journalist people, I know "12 YEAR OLD BLOGGER" sells papers because apparently the youth is entirely composed of brainwashed Disney zombies and anyone below the age of 20 doesn't know how to think, but you need permission to use photos first.
I know it can be annoying when people state the obvious, but it had to be restated. Thanks guys. x


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Not predator, but prey
STS 5, a nearly complete adult Australopithecus africanus, was an important fossil find because skeptics had previously argued that the Taung Child was actually a baby chimpanzee that would have gained its ape-like features when it got older. This fossil showed that maturity wouldn't make A. africanus less human. The main difference between STS 5 and the Taung Child is that this fossil's face is strongly prognathic, an ape-like feature that becomes more pronounced as A. africanus individuals grow up.
STS 5 was nicknamed 'Mrs. Ples' by scientist Robert Broom after initially hypothesizing that she was a middle-aged female Plesianthropus transvaalensis, which was the original name of this species---thus, 'Mrs. Ples.' This skull now thought to have belonged to a male.
Often found alongside animal bones, Australopithecus africanus was once considered a "killer ape." Now we know that members of this early human species were sometimes eaten by predators. Living together in groups helped these early humans protect themselves.
Why dynamite is not necessarily the best way to excavate human remains.... do you see the wedge-shaped portion of the forehead reconstructed here in a light color? If you follow that crack around to the rear of the skull, you'll see why scientists are much more careful today when excavating, or digging for human remains. Mrs. Ples' skull was actually blown into two pieces during its extraction from the breccia (a cement-like rock) because Broom used dynamite to expose the remains over backbreaking work with a pickaxe.


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Skift Take
It isn't a scare tactic: Leaving air traffic control towers unstaff at night could lead to disaster. Lives are at stake.
The planned shutdown of nearly 240 air traffic control towers across the country under federal budget cuts will strip away an extra layer of safety during takeoffs and landings, leaving pilots to manage the most critical stages of flight on their own.
The towers slated to close are at smaller airports with lighter traffic, and all pilots are trained to land without help by communicating among themselves on a common radio frequency. But airport directors and pilots say there is little doubt the removal of that second pair of eyes on the ground increases risk and will slow the progress that has made the U.S. air system the safest in the world.
It's not just private pilots in small planes who stand to be affected. Many of the airports in question are serviced by major airlines, and the cuts could also leave towers unmanned during overnight hours at some big-city airports such as Chicago's Midway and General Mitchell Airport in Milwaukee. The plans have prompted airlines to review whether the changes might pose problems for commercial service that could mean canceling or rescheduling flights.
Without the help of controllers, risk "goes up exponentially," said Mark Hanna, director of the Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport in Springfield, Ill., which could see its tower close.
As part of the spending cuts that went into effect this month, the Federal Aviation Administration is being forced to trim $637 million for the rest of the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. The agency said it had no choice but to subject most of its 47,000 employees, including tower controllers, to periodic furloughs.
Representatives of the FAA declined to discuss the effect of the cuts with The Associated Press. In two recent speeches and testimony before Congress, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta stressed that safety remained the agency's top priority. But many in the aviation sector are frustrated that the political brinkmanship in Washington has affected such a sensitive area of aviation.
Jim Montman, manager of the Santa Fe Municipal Airport, which is on the list for tower closures, said the absence of controllers raises the risk of midair collisions "or some sort of incident where somebody lands on the wrong runway. … That critical link is gone."
Hundreds of small airports around the country routinely operate without controllers, using procedures in place since the earliest days of aviation. Pilots are trained to watch for other aircraft and announce their position over the radio during approaches, landings and takeoffs.
But past crashes, however rare, have exposed weaknesses in that system.
On Nov. 19, 1996, a 19-seat United Express flight landing in Quincy, Ill., collided with another twin-engine turboprop that was taking off. They slammed into each other at the intersection of two runways, killing all 14 people aboard the two planes.
The National Transportation Safety Board concluded the probable cause was a failure of the pilots in the outbound flight to monitor the radio frequency for air traffic and to properly scan for other planes.
"If a tower was there, it's highly likely that that accident would have been prevented," said Hanna, who became director of the Quincy airport about two years after the crash and before moving to the job in Springfield.
The 238 air traffic control facilities that could be closed were chosen because they are at airports with fewer than 150,000 flight operations per year. They are located in nearly every state.
The first round of closures is expected to target 173 of those towers that are run by third-party contractors, rather than FAA staff. That process could start early next month.
Those airports had until Wednesday to put forward arguments for why their towers should stay open, but the bar is high and few are thought to be likely to escape the cuts. A final decision on the list is set for Monday.
The airports can choose to pick up the cost to keep their towers open, but few are expected to be able to afford that.
Beyond the airfields, some mayors are concerned about the impact on tourism if tower closures lead to the loss of passenger service. And there are worries of other effects, including whether medical helicopter pilots might stop using airports without tower controllers.
Rep. Aaron Schock, an Illinois Republican whose district includes the Springfield airport, said the FAA's operational budget has grown about 40 percent over the past decade and there's no reason it can't operate safely under the automatic spending cuts, known as sequestration.
"Any action by the Obama administration that does jeopardize safety is more evidence that the White House is implementing the sequester in ways to only score political points," Schock said.
Robert Poole, an aviation expert at the Reason Foundation think tank, said the effect could be minimal for some small airports that have been overdeveloped as a result of politicians bringing money home from Washington.
In addition to round-the-clock tower closures, overnight shifts could be eliminated at 72 control facilities, including at much larger airports such as Midway, which sees an average of 50 flights daily between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., nearly all of them passenger flights operated by carriers that include Southwest and Delta.
That raises the possibility that full-size jetliners could be landing there without any help from controllers.
Airlines have yet to say whether they will continue offering service to airports that lose tower staff.
"It's premature to discuss flight cancellations, as the earliest any furloughs would occur is April 7," said Katie Connell, spokeswoman for the industry group Airlines for America. "We are working with the FAA to minimize any impact to passengers and shippers."
Chicago pilot Robert McKenzie, who has a commercial license but primarily flies a small Cessna, has a lot of experience landing at smaller airports without control towers.
Doing so involves a lot more concentration, he said. Pilots have to watch for other aircraft, take note of weather conditions, look for debris on runways and make calls over the radio — all while operating their own plane.
Pilots have a very good track record of doing that safely. "But it never hurts to have somebody else out there helping you watch," McKenzie said. "It's a nice safety net to have."
McKenzie, a lawyer specializing in aviation matters, says the loss of towers is of concern to the Illinois Pilots Association, where he sits on the board of directors.
Most troubling, he said, would be the loss of towers at airports such as Springfield and Santa Fe, which are used by a mix of small private planes and larger passenger aircraft that often converge on airfields at different speeds and using different procedures. Controllers keep those planes safely separated and sequenced for landings.
Tower controllers also play a big role in keeping aircraft from taxiing across active runways, something that has been a key FAA focus for years.
"When you're at an uncontrolled field, avoiding that problem is entirely dependent on other pilots not making mistakes," McKenzie said. "There's nobody there as a backup."
Associated Press Writer Jeri Clausing contributed to this report from Albuquerque, N.M.
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Photo credit: Mark Hanna, the director of Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport in Springfield, Illinois, is greatly concerned that budget cuts and a cutback in staffing the air traffic control tower could lead to tragedy.