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State/Church Bulletin
UW-Madison seculars get landmark funding
Atheists, Humanists and Agnostics (AHA), a secular group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is on track to receive $67,400 in student fees for staffing and programming next year. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, it appears to be the first such university secular group nationally to get such substantial funding.
"Religious groups have been receiving this type of funding for years," AHA President Chris Calvey told the Journal Sentinel. "It's about time that secular students got the support we deserve."
The university's Student Services Finance Committee approved the request unanimously. Student fees generate about $39 million annually, and about $1.2 million goes to student organizations.
It appears to be the largest subsidy to any campus group of its kind in the country, said Jesse Galef, spokesman for the Columbus, Ohio-based Secular Student Alliance. "It's pretty common for groups to have budgets of a few hundred dollars. This is something on a different magnitude entirely."
In 2007, the student-run Badger Catholic sued the university for rejecting $35,000 of a $253,000 allocation because it had been earmarked for worship activities. The university lost, paying $500,000 in legal fees.
Badger Catholic is getting $116,000 for the current academic year.
AHA's email list has grown from about 100 to 1,500 over the last three years.
Activists win out over nativity displays
A federal judge on Nov. 19 denied a Christian group's attempt to force Santa Monica, Calif., officials to reopen spaces in city parks for private displays, including Christian nativity scenes. U.S. District Court Judge Audrey Collins denied a motion for a preliminary injunction to a Religious Right group.
Activists stopped a violation of nearly six decades involving 14 area churches, which dominated Palisades Park by erecting nativity displays in December.
The reform started three years ago when FFRF member Damon Vix put up a sign quoting Thomas Jefferson on one side: "Religions are all alike — founded on fables and mythologies," and on the other, "Happy solstice."
By 2011, Vix had recruited a local coalition to apply for display places, and the coalition scored a coup, winning 18 of 21 spaces. FFRF was proud to contribute its "Let reason prevail" solstice sign (which was mutilated but replaced).
Commandments monument at Oklahoma Capitol
A Ten Commandments monument was installed Nov. 15 on the north grounds of the state Capitol in Oklahoma City. It was paid for with $20,000 of private funds, according to the Tulsa World. Made of red granite, it's 6 feet tall and weighs 2,000 pounds.
"I think under the very best of circumstances, it is of questionable constitutionality," said Ryan Kiesel, American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma executive director.
Sabbath is misspelled on the monument as Sabbeth, which will be corrected.
Hobby Lobby denied religious designation
Oklahoma U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton ruled Nov. 19 that the Hobby Lobby chain must offer its 13,000 employees contraceptive coverage without a co-pay, as mandated by Obamacare.
Hobby Lobby had sued in September, citing conservative evangelical owner David Green's personal religious objections.
Heaton ruled that "Hobby Lobby and Mardel [its partner company] are not religious organizations. Plaintiffs have not cited, and the court has not found, any case concluding that secular, for-profit corporations such as Hobby Lobby and Mardel have a constitutional right to the free exercise of religion."
No rush to set up Florida student prayer
Not one Florida public school district to date has pursued plans to set up guidelines that allow student-led prayer. That's despite passage of a law in March to let students offer "inspirational" messages, including prayer, at school events, even mandatory ones such as assemblies.
"We advised [school districts] against it," said Wayne Blanton, executive director of the Florida Association of School Boards. "We told districts they'd be opening themselves up to litigation," Blanton told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
"If any school districts did, it would essentially be volunteering their time and resources to be a test case," said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida.
Personhood initiative dead in Oklahoma
The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 29 declined to let a proposed Oklahoma "personhood" initiative that said life begins at conception be placed on the ballot.
Without comment, justices let stand a decision by the state Supreme Court that the proposed ballot question would put an unconstitutional ban on abortion, reported The Oklahoman.
'Fatwa on your head' bus ad nixed
The 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Oct. 25 that the transit authority in Michigan's four southeastern-most counties could bar a bus ad that read, "Fatwa on your head? Is your family or community threatening you? Leaving Islam? Got Questions? Get Answers! RefugefromIslam.com."
The American Freedom Defense Initiative, through its executive director Pamela Geller, tried to place the ad in 2010 and was denied. A federal judge ruled in favor of AFDI in 2011.
The appeals court ruled that the side of the bus, in this case, wasn't a public forum because the transit authority rejected all political ads.
Geller called the opinion "tortured and twisted."
Poll: Catholics disagree with hierarchy
In a poll released Oct. 25 by the American Civil Liberties Union and Catholics for Choice, 68% of Catholic respondents said universities shouldn't be able to deny birth control insurance coverage.
About 77% of Catholics surveyed objected to pharmacies refusing to fill birth control prescriptions.
Substantial majorities also believe Catholics have no obligation to follow their bishop's recommendation on how to vote and that Catholic politicians don't have an obligation to follow official church directives.
Jewish colleges top religious Pell grants
Jewish colleges are among the leading religious institutions receiving federal Pell Grant funding, according to The Forward, a Jewish-American newspaper published in New York City.
Sixty-three of the 152 religious institutions that receive Pell grants are Jewish, U.S. Department of Education data reveals. the data shows. The Jewish schools collectively received 53% of the $84.5 million in Pell grant money that went to religious schools in 2010.
Of the top 10 Pell grant recipients, six were yeshivas, many of which focus primarily on Talmud study.
Judge tosses Muslim's bacon lawsuit
In Lopez v. Wendy's International Inc., an Ohio federal district court ruled Oct. 23 in a case in which a Muslim customer at a New York City Wendy's restaurant sued. The plaintiff claimed he wasn't adequately warned that the Asiago Chicken Ranch Club Sandwich contained bacon, which he claims the cashier didn't mention as an ingredient when asked.
Religion Clause blog noted that the court dismissed the plaintiff's Lanham Act claim on the ground that a one-time answer from a restaurant employee is likely not an "advertisement" and that there was no intent to deceive.
Christmas cross won't return to Illinois water tower
The village of Alsip, Ill., will not display a Latin cross on the village water tower this holiday season after receiving demands from FFRF to end the practice.
The annual display of an illuminated cross each December on its distinctive water tower brought a complaint from FFRF last December. Staff Attorney Patrick Elliott wrote that the display violated precedent by the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over Illinois. FFRF sent the village a reminder Nov. 6 about the illegality of the cross.
Mayor Patrick Kitching posted a letter on the village's website during the week of Nov. 18:
"A tradition for almost 35 years here in the Village of Alsip is coming to an end. You will notice this year our holiday decoration on the West Water Tower (Holiday Cross) will not be erected nor [sic] lit. We have an organization out of Wisconsin, Freedom from Religion Foundation, who is threatening a lawsuit for having a holiday symbol that can be construed as a religious decoration. It is considered to be unconstitutional. Other municipalities have been brought to suit regarding this very same issue and have lost. We have chosen not to waste taxpayer dollars to fight a losing battle in court. The holiday cross will be replaced with a different holiday decoration in the future, however, I am not sure this process can be completed in time for Christmas of 2012."
Kitching added, "I am very saddened by this and had hoped we would not have to change tradition, however in these economic times, the Village cannot afford to waste any tax dollars on a lawsuit that simply cannot be won."
In years past, the illuminated cross could be seen by heavy traffic on Interstate 294. FFRF learned through a Freedom of Information Act request that the village Water Department installs and removes the cross each year.
The original installation of the cross, along with a decoration on another water tower, cost the village $3,200 in 2003.
Proselytizing teacher also big bully
A high school biology teacher in Cheektowaga, N.Y., a Buffalo suburb, removed religious displays from her classroom and will no longer proselytize as a result of an FFRF complaint. A student alerted FFRF after the teacher invited a guest speaker who promoted Christianity and used biblical quotes from Isaiah and Judges. There were also four posters with bible quotes in the classroom. The complainant also noted a cross painted in a hallway.
Senior Staff Attorney Rebecca Markert sent Superintendent Dennis Kane a letter June 7. Kane said in a June 22 reply that the cross in the hallway and religious posters had been removed. He said the district discussed the student's concerns with the teacher.
The student complainant reported that the teacher showed a copy of FFRF's June 7 letter to her class on June 12, the last day of school, disclaiming responsibility for her actions. The teacher also attacked the student anonymously, saying whoever had complained to FFRF lacked integrity and character and was on the same level as a student who had cheated on the class's final exam.
Markert responded to the teacher's inappropriate handling of the situation with a June 14 letter to Kane. "Bullying is rampant in schools. Teachers should strive to conduct their classes in an inclusive manner so that students can participate fully without compromising their own personal beliefs."
Kane responded Sept. 11 that the teacher's conduct was addressed and she was directed to not discuss religion in her classroom.
FFRF closes book on bible handouts
FFRF stopped Gideons International from distributing bibles to fifth-graders at Central Elementary School in Magnolia, Ark. Before FFRF's involvement, men from Gideons were scheduled to give a presentation to students and then present them with bibles.
"Courts have held that the distribution of bibles to students at public schools is prohibited," wrote FFRF Staff Attorney Patrick Elliott in an Oct. 31 letter to Superintendent John Moore. Elliott added that districts cannot allow any group to distribute religious material during the school day.
FFRF received word Nov. 5 that the Gideons were not allowed to be on campus.
FFRF letter ends religious song
First-graders at Ada Givens Elementary School in Merced, Calif., will no longer be instructed to sing "God Bless America" in the classroom.
A district parent told FFRF that her 6-year-old daughter was being taught to sing the religious song in class. Staff Attorney Andrew Seidel wrote to Superintendent RoseMary Parga Duran on Oct. 17: "The first verse of 'God Bless America' ends with, 'As we raise our voices in solemn prayer.' A prayer conceived, hosted and advocated by a publicly-supported school does not pass constitutional muster."
The school district issued a positive response Oct. 25: "The principal spoke to the teacher about the complaint and about the district's policy regarding these matters. The teacher was very apologetic and stated she never intended to offend any of her students, or make them uncomfortable in her class. She immediately discontinued singing patriotic songs."
[Editor's note: "patriotic" songs?]
FFRF: Just say no
to drug prayer
The Cherokee County School District (Canton, Ga.) has stopped including religious messages on anti-drug ribbons during "Red Ribbon Week." During a special drug prevention week, the district distributed ribbons to students that said "God answers prayers, drugs don't." The ribbons also depicted two hands praying.
After being alerted by a concerned parent, Staff Attorney Andrew Seidel wrote an Oct. 26 letter to Superintendent Frank Petruzielo urging him to "remain sensitive to the diverse religious and nonreligious views of students and staff. While the anti-drug concept is laudable, the injection of religion into the public schools is unconstitutional. Government actors must be especially careful to remain neutral on matters of religion in the public school context."
A school district attorney replied Oct. 30: "[S]taff has been counseled to be more careful in the future in giving even an appearance of promoting religion."
Football bible banners won't happen again
FFRF received a local complaint after Stone High School cheerleaders held a banner with a bible quote at a football game in Wiggins, Miss.
Staff Attorney Stephanie Schmitt sent a letter Oct. 17 to Stone County School District Superintendent Gwen Miller. FFRF has contacted the district in the past about prayer at school-sponsored athletic events.
District attorney Sean Courtnal called FFRF on Oct. 22 to say the district took this violation very seriously and that it would not happen again. [Editor's note: Till the next time it happens, when FFRF will again contact the district about flouting the law.]
School counselors leave religion at door
FFRF helped Cesar Chavez Elementary School in Oklahoma City rethink its use of religion in school assemblies and counseling sessions.
A local complainant witnessed several incidents at an Oct. 4 assembly. A third-party counselor was invited to speak to students after a bullying incident. The speaker described "what heaven looks like" and "how we get to heaven." Even more egregiously, the speaker told students "the way they were acting was not going to get them into heaven."
Counselors were also being forced to distribute fliers to students. One listed worship times at a church and a Gamblers Anonymous meeting schedule.
Attorney Andrew Seidel wrote Nov. 5 to Superintendent Karl Springer, urging the district to "refrain from hosting overtly religious assemblies" and religious flier distribution.
General counsel for the district told Seidel in a Nov. 9 phone call that the superintendent agrees "that their current policy on religion in the public schools is 'clearly not enough for nonlawyers' and they are going 'to draft a new policy.' " She added that this will involve additional staff training.
'First priority': warn about religious clubs
Austin High School (Decatur, Ala.) teachers will no longer sponsor the First Priority Club, a Christian, noncurricular group that describes itself as a vision with a comprehensive plan of action to reach and disciple a generation with the message of Jesus Christ.
A photo caption in the local paper described the relationship between the school and churches: "Austin High School students, teachers and youth pastors join hands and pray at the closing of the First Priority club meeting Tuesday."
Staff Attorney Andrew Seidel wrote Oct. 19 to Superintendent Edwin Nichols: "A public school may not endorse or provide preferential treatment to a Christian club. While students may organize religious clubs, we are concerned that FPC is not 'student-inititated' or 'student-run.' Students might presume that this Christian club is sponsored by the school because of the apparent role of school faculty in organizing club activities."
Nichols responded in a Oct. 29 letter that he would "review with the teacher providing custodial oversight of this student noncurricular group and make sure that they understand their parameters as related to the legal ramifications cited in your letter."
Pep rally prayers stopped in Texas
Ballinger [Texas] Independent School District no longer selects a student prayer leader during pep rallies as a result of a Sept. 18 letter from Staff Attorney Stephanie Schmitt. FFRF received a complaint from a Ballinger alumnus.
Superintendent Will Brewer in a Sept. 26 response letter thanked FFRF for alerting him to the violation and said that the district does not endorse religion and is reviewing the pep rally program. "Ballinger ISD employees do not request that students engage in prayer, privately or publicly, nor do they encourage or otherwise lead students in prayer," Brewer said.
Football coach brags
he breaks the law
After receiving an Oct. 25 letter from Staff Attorney Andrew Seidel, Newton County Schools ordered a football coach in Covington, Ga., to stop leading students in prayer at practices and games.
Occasionally, FFRF receives taunting "complaints" from teachers, coaches and government officials intentionally violating the Establishment Clause. Rick Hurst, head football coach and athletic director at Eastside High School in Covington, wrote one such email to FFRF, defending another praying coach and happily thumbing his nose at the Constitution:
"I am a Christian first and a Head Football Coach in the state of Georgia . . . I have open prayer at my practices and before and after our games. If a player does not want to participate I would kindly excuse him."
Unwilling to limit his bragging to constitutional violations, Hurst pointed out that we here at FFRF are probably going to hell:
"Here is the important question that I ask to ALL of you. What if your [sic] right about your idea of there not being a God? Well, that would be ok for all of us including myself. But, what if I am right about my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and you are wrong. I am still ok, but where does that leave you?"
The letter was signed, "Rick Hurst (A believer)."
Seidel sent a copy of the email to Superintendent Gary Matthews. FFRF received a copy of a Nov. 5 letter from Matthews to Hurst, chastising the coach: "Legal counsel for the Newton County School Board of Education has reviewed this matter and confirmed that your actions may violate federal law, including but not limited to the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Therefore, you must cease and desist these actions immediately."
Another school board drops meeting prayer
There was no prayer before the Eastern Lancaster County (Elanco)[Pa.] School Board meeting Nov. 12, according to LancasterOnline.
The board decided to halt the practice after getting an FFRF complaint letter in August. The Anti-Defamation League of Philadelphia also pressured Elanco to stop praying.
Superintendent Robert Hollister notified FFRF after the October board meeting that Elanco would no longer open meeting with a board member leading a prayer.
"After consultation with our solicitor, it was clear that the district would lose the lawsuit," Hollister told LancasterOnline in an email. "So rather than throw money away and simultaneously add fuel, cash, to the coffers of those organizations, the board made the logical choice to withdraw the formal prayer."
Four other Pennsylvania school districts also agreed this year to stop prayer at board meetings after getting letters from Senior Staff Attorney Rebecca Markert. A fifth school board dropped prayer in 2011 after getting a warning letter.
FFRF thanks current interns JJ Rowling, Maddy Ziegler, Calli Miller, Sarah Eucalano, legal assistant Liz Cavell and publicist Katie Stenz.
Do the atheists in Wisconsin realize they're going to hell?
Bill O'Reilly's comment on FFRF's legal victory in getting a nativity scene removed from public property in Ellwood City, Pa.
"The O'Reilly Factor," 11-13-12
Under Orders should be in every rucksack for those moments when Soldiers need spiritual energy.
Endorsement by Gen. David Petraeus of a chaplain's anti-atheist book subtitled A Spiritual Handbook for Military Personnel
Huffington Post, 8-17-12
OkCupid is the only free service that assists nonbelievers with specific advice, statistics and tests. Last December, self-identified atheist users were sent "12 Days of Atheist Matches," and current members can take an "atheist test" to find those with similar levels of nonbelief. The site's "Darwin Test" looks to match those with similar attitudes about evolution (sample question: Are most people a) good? b) evil?).
News story, "At OKcupid, being an atheist is a date-maker, not a deal-breaker"
Religion News Service, 11-13-12
Rabbis launch war on self-locking doors.
Headline on news story about an Orthodox "Yichud" prohibition meant to limit occasions of sin by men and women not married to each other
ynetnews.com, 11-13-12
I'm moving to Australia, because their president is a Christian and actually supports what he says.
Post-election Tweet by Kristen Neel, 18, a Georgia Republican, apparently unaware that Julia Gillard, Australia's prime minister (not president), is a female atheist who is politically progressive
Sydney Morning Herald, 11-8-12
One in 20 is a minimum. It might be one in 15, perhaps not as high as one in 10.
Des Cahill, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology professor, on the number of Catholic priests in Melbourne he estimates from court records are child sex offenders
The Age, 10-24-12
Australians know, from the revelations that they've read in recent weeks, that too many children have suffered child abuse but have also seen other adults let them down. They've not only had their trust betrayed by the abuser, but other adults who could have acted to assist them have failed to do so.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard, ordering a federal inquiry into cover-ups of sexual abuse by persons associated with religious and state institutions, schools and community groups
Associated Press, 11-12-12
The Rev. Bill Effinger, pastor of Holy Name Parish from 1972 to 1992, took Adam under his wing in 1987 to help the boy consider a possible future in the priesthood. After two overnight trips, Adam stopped talking about wanting to be a priest.
News story, "Sheboygan [Wis.] family shares its story of priest abuse to help others come forward"
Wausau Daily Herald, 10-29-12
The ads that come up from the Republican campaigns sound like the letter.
State Sen. Tim Mathern, D-Fargo, on a letter by Bismarck Bishop David Kagan to be read in all North Dakota parishes that says abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research and same-sex marriage "are never acceptable"
Fargo Forum, 10-25-12
[C]ourts have held, and Texans believe, that cheerleaders are a special subset of students, and not just for the reasons dramatized in John Hughes movies and Taylor Swift songs. They're not people who happen to be standing on the football field, exercising their right to free speech. They're deputies of the school administration; they speak for the school, not themselves.
Op-ed, "Consider the cheerleaders," on the controversy caused by FFRF's complaint against stadium banners with bible verses
The Economist, 10-24-12
I thought, "Wow, there's not someone watching me all the time? That's a wonderful freedom!" So I shed that.
Rapper and foxhole atheist Greydon Square, on losing his religion as a student at Arizona State University
LA Weekly, 11-14-12
No matter what the title is, what the subject is, I'm using it as an excuse to tell stories.
Atheist entertainer Penn Jillette, on the release of his new book Every Day Is an Atheist Holiday!
Washington Examiner, 11-13-12
In her Oct. 3 letter ("Defend our monument") on the Ten Commandments plaque at Valley High School, Helen Snyder writes that "Anyone who follows the good morals listed in the Ten Commandments is a good citizen. I wonder if our atheist friends have ever read them." Her position is the exact opposite of the Founders', who would find abhorrent any religious test for "good citizenship." Religious freedom does not include the right to use the instruments of government to promulgate religion. This step-by-step intrusion of religion into official government activities, which include public schools, is paving the way for a Christian religious dictatorship in which atheists would be deemed "bad citizens."
Amesh Adalja, Butler, Pa., letter to the editor on a case in which FFRF has filed a lawsuit
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 10-27-12
I read a lot of books about science and the history of religion. One of my heroes is Christopher Hitchens, who was a game-changing anti-religious writer — showing it up for what it is. I don't understand why someone can spout their God stuff, but atheists have always had to keep quiet. Just because you have an opinion, it doesn't mean it has to be respected unless it is supported by evidence. We live in the most exciting time in the history of the sciences. Reading about that is far more exciting than reading about a burning bush or a guy who builds an Ark.
Ryan Walkinshaw, executive chairman of the U.K. Gloucester pro rugby team
Daily Mail, 10-29-12
Nude Woman Who Was Shot Described as Religious, Caring, Modest
Headline on a story about a Florida woman, 42, shot to death when she showed up uninvited and naked with a gun at a private party and confronted off-duty police officers
Tampa Bay Times, 10-31-12
A high-quality person who has passion for football and cares about faith, family and football.
Interim head coach Bruce Arians, on what type of player the Indianapolis Colts are looking for to join the NFL team
NBC Sports, 10-31-12
It's not wrong to have strong faith in whatever you believe in. I'm like George Carlin, I pray to the sun and Joe Pecsi because the odds of getting my prayers answered are still 50/50 but I can see my Gods. But seeing and believing have historically been two different things, and that's fine. Just don't bring it into the workplace where discrimination can occur.
Writer Josh Hill, "Colts may be discriminating against atheists in hiring practices"
The FanSided Network, 11-2-12
Lack of visibility for atheists and prevalence of deference to religious authorities has contributed to a generally passive and docile attitude that is too often mistaken for humility and for a virtue. This false humility, and the false arrogance that atheists are often accused of, reveal a system of values that has little respect for empirical and scientific evidence and too much undeserved respect for religions that are ostentatious about a moral superiority that they sorely lack.
Contributing writer Hiram Crespo, "Revising views on atheism"
Northeastern Illinois University Independent, 10-31-12
Mississippi police department decalogue downed by FFRF
FFRF's letter got this illegal Ten Commandments display removed.
Among many recent FFRF victories banishing religion from government was the removal of a very large, very unconstitutional Ten Commandments monument from the police department in Brandon, Miss.
A local resident was taken aback by the bible display and contacted FFRF. To the rescue came Staff Attorney Patrick Elliott, who told Mayor Tim Coulter in a Sept. 24 letter that "any reasonable observer would view it as an endorsement of religion by the city of Brandon. This display is unmistakably stamped with the city government's approval, as it is prominently placed directly inside of the city's most important government offices."
Elliott cited a Supreme Court ruling that called the Ten Commandments an "unmistakably religious statement dealing with religion's obligations and with morality subject to religious sanction."
Residents have informed FFRF that the display was removed sometime in October.
FFRF sues IRS to enforce ban on church electioneering
An FFRF member sent this photo taken on Oct. 22 at the First Conservative Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla., as an example of church electioneering. There was also a Romney for president sign and one that said, "If you want to keep your job, pray the president loses his job."
The Freedom From Religion Found-ation has filed a historic challenge by suing the Internal Revenue Service over its failure to enforce electioneering restrictions against churches and religious organizations.
Calling the lack of enforcement a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment and of FFRF's equal protection rights, the state/church watchdog filed the lawsuit Nov. 14 in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin.
A widely circulated Bloomberg News article quoted Russell Renwicks of the IRS Tax-Exempt and Government Entities division, saying the agency has suspended tax audits of churches. Although an IRS spokesman claimed Renwicks "misspoke," there appears to be no evidence of IRS inquiries or enforcement action in the past three years.
Other news sources, such as The Associated Press, claim the IRS hasn't been auditing churches since 2009.
FFRF is asking the federal court to enjoin the IRS commissioner from continuing "a policy of non-enforcement of the electioneering restrictions against churches and religious organizations."
Additionally, FFRF seeks to order the IRS "to authorize a high-ranking official within the IRS to approve and initiate enforcement of the restrictions of §501(c)(3) against churches and religious organizations, including the electioneering restrictions, as required by law."
As many as 1,500 clergy reportedly took part in a mass violation of the electioneering restrictions on Sunday, Oct. 7, notes the legal complaint, which also references "blatantly political" full-page ads by the Billy Graham Evangelical Association running on the three Sundays leading up to the Nov. 6 election.
"[I]n recent years, churches and religious organizations have been blatantly and deliberately flaunting the electioneering restrictions of §501(c)(3)," the complaint asserts.
FFRF has more than 19,000 members nationwide "who are opposed to government preferences and favoritism toward religion." FFRF is a tax-exempt organization that "must and does abide by the electioneering restrictions of §501(c)3." FFRF is regularly contacted by its members and members of the public over specific and general violations of church electioneering restrictions, and FFRF staff attorneys regularly ask the IRS to investigate such violations.
This non-enforcement "constitutes preferential treatment to churches and religious organizations that is not provided to other tax-exempt organizations, including FFRF," the complaint notes. "Churches and religious organizations obtain a significant benefit as a result of being non-exempt from income taxation, while also being able to preferentially engage in electioneering, which is something secular tax-exempt organizations cannot do."
This preferential tax exemption involves more than $100 billion annually in tax-free contributions to churches and religious organizations in the United States.
Website swamped
After news of the lawsuit became the No. 1 item on Reddit, an online social network, almost 70,000 people flooded FFRF's website to read about the case. Unfortunately, the spike took down the site intermittently.
Attorney Richard L. Bolton, the litigator, who is with Boardman Law Firm in Madison, Wis., and has been working with FFRF for more than a decade, reported receiving almost 100 adulatory emails from strangers around the world, thanking him for his role in the case. Bolton said this is unprecedented in his experience as an attorney.
Biologist Jerry Coyne of the University of Chicago, author of Why Evolution Is True, wrote in his November blog, "We now get revenge: the FFRF sues the IRS for failure to enforce tax laws on churches," adding that he considers FFRF "the most effective secular organization in the U.S. That's largely because instead of hosting endless ineffectual meetings with the same speakers, or navel-gazing about internal divisiveness, the FFRF actually does something: through scrupulous monitoring of the government and judiciously filing lawsuits, the FFRF fights an endless battle against the brushfires of religious enthusiasm that threaten to incinerate our Constitution."
Thanks to Coyne's blog, which pitched membership, Reddit's notice and other news stories, many new supporters have found and joined FFRF.
In addition to reporting the Graham ministry's electioneering to the IRS, FFRF has sent more than 27 letters of complaint to the IRS involving other such violations so far this year. Recent complaints include:
• Green Bay Bishop David Ricken, who wrote an article on diocesan letterhead inserted in all parish bulletins about voting and choosing the president and other offices. Ricken warned that if Catholics vote for a party or candidate who supports abortion rights or marriage equality, "you could be morally 'complicit' with these choices which are intrinsically evil. This could put your own soul in jeopardy."
• Peoria Bishop Daniel Jenky, who, in an April homily, sharply criticized President Barack Obama, saying Obama was "following a similar path" as Hitler and Stalin. Jenky said "every practicing Catholic must vote, and must vote their Catholic consciences."
• Madison Bishop Robert Morlino, who wrote a Nov. 1 article, "Official guidelines for forming a Catholic conscience in the Diocese of Madison," published in the Catholic Herald, spelling out "non-negotiable" political areas. "No Catholic may, in good conscience, vote for 'pro-choice' candidates [or] … for candidates who promote 'same-sex marriage.' "
• A church marquee saying "Vote for the Mormon, not the Muslim! The capitalist, not the communist!" in front of the Church in the Valley in Leakey, Texas.
The federal lawsuit is FFRF v. IRS, (12-cv-818). The case is before U.S. District Judge William M. Conley. Tax-deductible donations to FFRF's Legal Fund are gratefully accepted. Read the complaint, hyperlinked in FFRF's news release, by scrolling to Nov. 14, 2012:
Sharing the Crank Mail
A sampling of letters and emails, grammar and spelling uncorrected, from people you might say are on the fence about FFRF's work:
TEXAS Cheerleaders
Haven't you puppets of Satan learned your lesson yet? What do you not understand about DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS!! — Sally Chambless
Bible banners
Stay out of Texas, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. Heck, stay out of all 48 states. WI and CA dont count. — Johnathan King
keep your God hating out of Texas and AWAY FROM MY CHILDREN! You are horrible people and i can only hope god will wipe the earth clean from freaks like you!!!! — Stephanie Roberts
Godless bastards
You heathens should rot in hell. You are all a disgrace to this country and no doubt lack patriotism and faith in the USA. Go someplace else and practice your depraved desires. — Ian Scott, Lake Forest
Hey freaks
Texans believe in God. Take your athiest beliefs and stick them where the sun does not shine. — Steve
i hope you keven waldon and all your followers die a horrible death, you will pay for your actions. you are some of the lowest life forms on the earth. i spit on your grave.
You people must live under a rock. You are the lowest form of life on this earth.Do you slither out each day thinking how you can force your will on people? I'm sure you are slimey scum that really hate yourself and want others to join you under your rock, Slimey scum bags,I hope your spouse gives you AIDS. — Mike Pahl, Mt Home
Your foundation
BURN, BASTARDS, BURN! — Thomas Greene, Clarksville, Tenn.
Taking out the trash
FREEDOM FROM ASSHOLES AND BLITHERING IDIOTS. Our goal is to round up all the liberals, fags, perverts, atheists, anarchists, secular stooges, victims of cranium void, those that are stuck on stupid, and the rest of the human swill soiling our country and ship them to anywhere but here. — Zen Ram
All Pulblic Prayer
When we pray, plug your ears, walk away, do a little dance or stand on your head. Build your own schools, restaurants and malls. Keep your taxes to fund your non religious community. We do pray. We will pray. If it bothers you, run! You need to go away and establish places where religious freedom is not allowed (build a compound). Your organization and all of those who feel religious freedom is wrong are guilty of committing treason. What a shame there is no prison that has a Zero tolerance for religion.
— Susan Voce, Madison
Stay the &^%$ out of PA
THIS COUNTRY WAS NOT FOUNDED ON MINORITY (WHINERS) RULE. I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH YOU BEING AGNOSTIC. SCREW YOU ASSHOLES. — Greg Sensabaugh, South Park
Austin Texas Cheerleaders
Take that law suit hang out your ass like an anchor and chain aboard ship! — Arthur Windell, Caldwell
I love JESUS
your a retard and your wasting your life. SUCKS TO BE YOU — Sam Stevens
About Texas
I hope when you sue that town in Texas for displaying religious freedom, you will lose. I hope that they squat over your atheist chest and take a fat dump on it. — Regards,
Scott T.
Freedom of Religion
If you are right about religion, you are going to buuuuuurn for your lies, desception and trickery. I hope you fall on your butt and there is a very very large and sharp stake underneath you. — Steve Smith
your sin
God is watching you Judas' and you will surely be punished for denying his existence. Ignorant fools. — Phil Selfridge
I am OFFENDED!
All I have left to do now is to pray for you LOUDLY in every government funded place I am in. God BLess You. — Steven R. Phillips, Waukesha, WI
Convention Photos (pdf)
Meet a multitalented volunteer: Steve Salemson
Name: Steve Salemson.
Where I live: In a condo on Madison's southwest side.
Where and when I was born: Louisville, Ky., in 1943.
Family: One younger sister, two sons and daughters-in-law, three delightful grandchildren.
Why I volunteer for FFRF: I want to support the organization in addition to simply being a dues-paying member.
What I do as a volunteer: Help around the office with anything that needs doing.
What I like best about it: The fascinating people who work there.
My day job was: Associate director of the University of Wisconsin Press (now happily retired).
Education: Four years of music studies at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris, playing French horn in the Haifa Symphony Orchestra, B.A. in linguistics from Queens College (City University of New York), M.A. in liberal studies from Duke University.
These three words sum me up: Inquisitive, broad-minded, multilingual (fluent in English, French and Hebrew, somewhat less fluent in Macedonian and conversant in German, Spanish and Italian).
My freethought heroes are: Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, Joe Hill.
Things I like: Balkan folk dancing, biking, downhill skiing, Paul Robeson recordings, the Green Bay Packers, Schubert lieder and Mahler symphonies, doing The New York Times crossword puzzle every day, and almost any ethnic cuisine.
Things I smite: Xenophobes, cockroaches, the New York Yankees.
Church retreat in 1966 backfired: Dan Nerren
Name: Dan Nerren.
Where I live: Sand Springs, Okla., a Tulsa suburb.
Where and when I was born: Tupelo, Miss., 1948.
Education: B.S. in education, Southwest Missouri State University, 1971.
Occupation: Retired railroad worker.
Military service: U.S. Army, 1971-73, Wurzberg, Germany.
How I got where I am today: Life is much about unlearning incorrect ideas. Unfortunately, many people never see this. Few there be who have a sense of their own acculturation.
Person in history I admire: Carl Sagan.
A quotation I like: "For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." (Carl Sagan)
These are a few of my favorite things: Playing piano, reading, volkswalking [noncompetitive, 5K or 10K outdoor walk].
My doubts about religion started: I spent the summer of 1966 working at a church retreat in New Mexico. I was exposed to many sermons. It was there that I began to question the whole scheme.
Ways I promote freethought: I've been a Foundation member since 1989. I'm active in a local Unitarian Universalist congregation, Church of the Restoration, so named to indicate the congregation's desire to bring restoration to the Greenwood District of Tulsa. Greenwood was destroyed in the infamous 1921 race massacre in north Tulsa, where vigilantes took to the skies in aircraft to strafe the helpless black citizens below.
I was instrumental in founding the American Humanist Association chapter in Tulsa in 1988. I later organized an atheist meetup group and stay active in other freethought groups. My next project will be leading a Unitarian Progressive Book Club discussion group, starting with Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.
Editor's note: Dan also performed an invaluable service for FFRF several years ago by indexing and binding 10 years' worth of Freethought Today issues. This is a tremendous resource for research and for the legal staff.
Dan Nerren's secular invocation
On Thursday, Aug. 30, Dan Nerren treated the Tulsa City Council to a first — the first atheist "invocation" at a Tulsa council meeting.
For months the council had refused to stop praying to open its meetings, then eventually agreed to let previously excluded groups address the council. A local Americans United member asked Dan if he would give a secular address.
"I went to the Internet to see what was out there and soon discovered a secular invocation written by Andrew Lovley of the South Maine Association of Secular Humanists, which he had used to speak to his local governmental body. I adapted Lovley's words to the Tulsa situation."
The speaker is also expected to lead the Pledge of Allegiance. A TV reporter noted Dan omitted "under God."
"Had he been listening carefully, he would have discovered another change I made to the pledge," said Dan. "I closed the pledge not with 'with liberty and justice for all' but with 'with liberty and justice its goal.' Liberty and justice have not become a reality for many citizens. My son, watching from his home on the cable access channel, caught my change."
In what could be called a sad commentary, extra security was in place for the meeting because it was announced beforehand that a godless person was giving the invocation. However, Dan said, "There were no problems, no protesters. Everything went smoothly."
The invocation:
Let us open our hearts to the welfare of all people in our community by respecting the inherent dignity and worth of each person, and realize that our differences of race, religion and party affiliation are merely superficial. Our common humanity unites us all, and may we recognize that through our interdependence we share a common fate.
In order to achieve the greatest good as citizens of Tulsa, it is important for us to maintain an open mind, and honor and respect the human rights of each other. We should consider the benefit provided by differing perspectives, and be willing to question assumptions that serve only to obstruct our path to progress.
Rather than bowing our heads and closing our eyes in deference, we should open our eyes widely to face the reality that confronts us, without losing sight of our ideals of what we could achieve.
Through the prudent use of reason and compassion, we can ensure the success of this great city.
Lastly, we must remember that in the face of adversity we need not look above for answers, but instead recognize the proven potential within ourselves and in each other to overcome any challenges we face.
Thank you.
Finding secular alternatives to AA - Henry Steinberger, Ph.D.
By Henry Steinberger, Ph.D.
When people have a problem with addictions, where can they turn? Most people can name only Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step groups. Most treatments centers and courts refer people to them, but many people have a problem with this.
Though some people manage to take the helpful fellowship and ignore the higher-power/god talk, many of us who reject theism and supernaturalism will forgo help rather than seek a so-called "spiritual awakening" and accept a "higher power," who, if prayed to in the right way, removes one's "defects of character."
Worse, when a person rejects the 12 steps for all of these legitimate reasons, they are accused of being in denial about their problem and receive threats that they will end up in jail, insane or dead if they don't accept the 12-step solution, as if there is no other path to recovery.
U.S. courts have consistently ruled that 12-step programs are religious for purposes of the First Amendment and forbid their mandated or coerced imposition. Further, research has demonstrated that although participation in these groups is usually helpful, regular attendance and real participation were more likely when the individual's degree of religiosity was congruent with that of the group (Atkins and Hawdon, 2007).
But accurate information about secular options rarely comes from the underinformed and biased sources often unwillingly providing it. After all, religious movements have a commitment to winning new converts, not providing alternatives.
But secular alternatives do exist.
SMART Recovery (SR) has built its science-based, self-empowering, abstinence program on empirically tested methods. Besides the mutual support found in its almost 800 face-to-face meetings worldwide and daily online meetings, SR offers recovery tools proven effective in research. Its Four Point Program aims at (1) motivation to abstain, coping with cravings, managing problems such as negative emotions, and finding a life with balance. Like AA, lifetime abstinence is the goal, and meetings and help are free. Unlike AA, lifetime abstinence need not require lifetime attendance at meetings.
SMART stands for Self-Management And Recovery Training and is not claiming to be smarter than other groups. It's recognized by many professional health organizations and governmental agencies, which are listed and linked at smartrecovery.org/linkpage.htm.
SR's website (smartrecovery.org) provides links to other secular groups, which do not always reciprocate. SR's tag line is "Discover the Power of Choice." That includes the choice to quit using and the choice of one's recovery path.
Other secular recovery
These recovery programs are also secular and free:
Women For Sobriety aims for abstinence and offers volunteers the opportunity and training to become meeting "moderators." Dr. Jean Kirkpatrick started WFS out of dissatisfaction with AA's focus on lessening hubris — more of a problem with men, whereas women (and minorities) often need to be empowered rather than further humbled.
Her "New Life" program is based on positive thinking and metaphysics, so it may not meet everyone's definition of secular, but it's not a theistic spiritualism. The website (womenforsobriety.org) doesn't link to other groups or list its meetings (perhaps for security), so you have to contact the central office to find a group.
Secular Organizations for Sobriety (aka Save Our Selves) is affiliated and supported by the Center for Inquiry of Los Angeles, thus affirming its humanist credentials. A dominant figure, James Christopher, started SOS. Meeting leaders are all recovering people.
The program might be described as the 12 steps minus the god stuff. The website (cfiwest.org/sos) provides a list of meetings but no links to other programs.
LifeRing started when Martin Nicolaus, head of SOS publishing, broke with that organization to start a group "not affiliated" with any other (like CFI). He claims that each person creates their own program, but his books provide theory and structure. Volunteer "conveners" are all recovering people. The website (lifering.org) lists meetings but does not link to other groups.
Moderation Management, unlike all the other groups, is not abstinence-based. The secular, science-based program is not for alcohol-dependents (alcoholics). MM provides safer responsible drinking limits and guidelines. It's a 9-step program to help people cut down or quit, and either outcome is considered a success.
Volunteers include people who have never had an alcohol problem. The website (moderation.org) lists live and online meetings and links to other programs.
For the "never addicted" reader who wants to help, SMART Recovery volunteers include both never-addicted and recovering people, all of whom receive training in facilitating meetings.
Rational Recovery is often mistakenly offered as a secular alternative to AA, but RR stopped offering free self-help meetings in the mid-1990s. It's a for-profit company that sells seminars, DVDs and some fine secular self-help books, but it's not a self-help group.
Why am I interested in providing secular options?
My step-grandfather, Jacob Benjamin, who wrote "Did Jesus Ever Live or Is Christianity Founded Upon A Myth?" under the pseudonym Historicus, was a devout atheist and science-minded for his time, but he engaged in secret maintenance drinking during the day and a family-destroying binge every night. He ruined my mother's life and his own, which revealed to me a societal need.
I believe he might have been helped if there had been a secular alternative available back then. It is my hope that with this information more people in our FFRF and related communities will support and volunteer to help offer these secular options.
Dr. Steinberger, an FFRF Life Member, is a licensed psychologist. He holds the Certificate of Proficiency in the Treatment of Alcohol and Other Psychoactive Substance Use Disorders from the American Psychological Association and is a past member of the SMART Recovery board of directors. He's the editor/author of The SMART Recovery Handbook (2nd Ed., 2004) and is a volunteer adviser to SMART. He specializes in science-based, secular approaches to addiction treatment.


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John Updike American Literature Analysis
(Masterpieces of American Literature)
Showing remarkable versatility and range, and meeting with both critical and popular success, Updike's fiction represents a penetrating realist chronicle of the changing morals and manners of American society. His novels continued the long national debate on American civilization and its discontents, but perhaps what is most significant about his fiction is its depiction of restless and aspiring spirits struggling within the constraints of flesh, of time and gravity, and of changing social conditions, to find something of transcendent value—all of them lovers and battlers. For Updike, as for many other writers, the conditions and possibilities of love are an index of the conditions and possibilities of faith and belief. As Updike writes in an essay: "Not to be in love, the capital N novel whispers to capital W western man, is to be dying."
Updike's versatility and range can be seen in terms of both style and subject. His first novel, The Poorhouse Fair, written when he was in his twenties, is cast twenty years into the future and explores the social and spiritual implications of an essentially antihumanistic socialism. The novel captures imaginatively the voices and experiences of octogenarian characters. In The Coup, Updike portrays the speech and sensibility of an American-educated, deposed African leader. In the Bech books, like Bech: A Book and Bech Is Back, Updike creates the persona of an urbane, sophisticated Jewish-American writer in search of his muse. In the Rabbit novels, Updike penetrates the ever-changing world of the former basketball player Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom. In such novels as The Witches of Eastwick, S., and Seek My Face, Updike explores the feminine sensibility. Updike continually tried out new subjects and styles, in Brazil, Toward the End of Time, and Gertrude and Claudius.
In A Month of Sundays, Couples, Roger's Version, and Villages, and in such short-story collections as Too Far to Go: The Maples Stories (1979), Licks of Love, and Problems, and Other Stories, Updike perhaps became the United States' supreme examiner of marriage and its discontents. Each work has a style commensurate to its subject. Updike had a fine ear for the nuances and cadences of human speech from all levels of social life. In addition, his descriptive passages are unequaled in capturing the detail and texture of modern life. For some critics, however, Updike is more style than substance, with a prose too ornate, even baroque, densely littered with perception. Nevertheless, the richness and variety of his narratives reveal a writer with extraordinary talent.
Although generalizations do not do justice to the particularities of each Updike work, there is a major predicament experienced by nearly all of Updike's protagonists—a sense of doubleness, of the ironic discrepancy of the fallen creature who yet senses, or yearns for, something transcendent. Updike's characters are creatures moving between two realms but not fully at home in either. The four novels devoted to Rabbit Angstrom illustrate this fallenness in quest of transcendence; they also portray the substitute of sexuality for religious experience.
Updike wrote short stories since the beginning of his career and published in such magazines as The New Yorker, Esquire, The Atlantic, and Playboy. He produced a number of collections of his stories, from The Same Door; Pigeon Feathers, and Other Stories and Olinger Stories: A Selection (1964), through The Music School; Museums and Women, and Other Stories, and Trust Me, to Licks of Love, The Complete Henry Bech , The Early Stories, 1953-1975 and his final publication My Father's Tears and Other Stories (2009). Updike's stories (especially "A & P" and "Separating") are often anthologized in literature textbooks. His stories are generally concerned with subtle states of mind and small events; seemingly insignificant details assume an importance that is somehow sensed but is difficult to explain.
In "Separating," for example, Updike portrays well the pain of a family on the verge of divorce. The story describes Richard and Joan Maples trying to work out how their children are to be told of their impending separation but opens with detailed descriptions of household chores whose significance readers can only guess at. The final revelations at the dinner table ring painfully true. When the father tells the older son later, the son appears to take the news calmly. Yet when the father kisses him good night, the son asks the virtually unanswerable question: "Why?" Love, so often, is a painful longing for what has been lost, an irretrievable moment, an irrecoverable place.
As seen in both his nonfiction and his fiction, Updike was one of the most theologically sophisticated writers of his generation. He read deeply in Christian theology, especially in the works of such authors as Kierkegaard and Barth. It was Updike's theological convictions that constituted the basis for his critique of modern men and women and of American society. In an interview conducted in the mid-1960's, Updike declared that "without the supernatural, the natural is a pit of horror." In Canto IV to his long poem Midpoint, Updike writes: "An easy Humanism plagues the land;/ I choose to take an otherworldly stand." His characters seek passage through a decaying world, one whose traditions are disintegrating and dissolving from the pressures of secularity and materialism. Updike's fiction explores the implications of a world that is essentially post-Christian. To stay the anxiety of death, to fill the emptiness of lost or abandoned belief, Updike's characters turn to sexuality, but they are frequently disappointed. In his story "The Bulgarian Poetess" (1966), Updike writes: "Actuality is a running impoverishment of possibility." This captures well Updike's sense of human incompleteness, of the sense of discrepancy between the actual and the ideal. Problems in such a world are rarely, if ever, solved. Instead, they are endured, if not fully understood, though occasionally there are moments of grace and affirmation.
In his 1962 memoir titled "The Dogwood Tree: A Boyhood," Updike speaks of his commitment "to transcribe middleness with all its grits, bumps, and anonymities, in its fullness of satisfaction and mystery." Updike continues to fulfill that commitment in a rich and vital fiction that explores what he calls the "Three Great Secret Things: Sex. Religion, and Art," subjects that form the substance of much of his fiction, poetry, and essays.
Rabbit, Run
First published: 1960
Type of work: Novel
In the conformity of the 1950's in the United States, a troubled quester has nowhere to go.
Rabbit, Run, a novel of a former basketball star and his floundering marriage set in the late 1950's, was the first of what has become a series of four novels about the protagonist and his family; Updike published one of them every ten years from 1960 to 1990. Together the novels form a revealing chronicle of the complex changes occurring in American culture between the 1950's and the late 1980's. In Updike's hero, Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, the reader sees one of the author's many lapsed creatures in search of renewal, of regeneration, of something to believe in. The destructiveness of the character's actions in the first novel reflects Updike's own intense religious crisis, experienced at the time he was writing the novel.
At twenty-six, Rabbit, who got his nickname from the way he twitches his nose, finds himself in a stultifying life. He has a job selling magic-peelers in a dime store and is married to Janice, a careless and boozy woman who is pregnant with their second child. Coming home with new resolve to change his life after a brief game of basketball with some children in an alley, Rabbit finds the mess of his marital life too much to overcome. Thus begins his series of recoiling actions from the stifling experiences of his present life.
The novel captures well the sense of bottled-up frustration of the 1950's, a decade during which American society put a premium on conformity and adapting to one's environment. Hence, like so many of Updike's protagonists, Rabbit is enmeshed in a highly compromised environment, one committed to the values of the marketplace and lacking in spiritual concerns. Like a latter-day Huck Finn, Rabbit bolts from a civilization that would deny him freedom and a sense of wonder. His movement can be viewed as a kind of spiritual survival tactic.
A quote from Blaise Pascal serves as an epigraph to the novel: "The motions of Grace, the hardness of heart; external circumstances." Those three things, Updike says, describe human lives. They also describe the basic movements and conflicts in the Rabbit novels, indeed in most of Updike's fiction. Bewildered and frustrated, Rabbit wonders what has happened to his life. His disgust with his present life is deepened by his memories of when he was "first-rate at something" as a high school basketball star.
As some critics have noted, the novel is the study of a nonhero's quest for a nonexistent grail. Rabbit initially tries to escape by driving south, goaded by visions of fertility and warmth. After getting hopelessly lost, he returns to his hometown and seeks out Tothero, his old high school coach. Tothero sets Rabbit up with Ruth Leonard, a part-time prostitute, with whom Rabbit begins to live. Pursued by the do-good minister Jack Eccles, Rabbit resists returning to Janice. To Eccles, Rabbit claims that "something out there wants me to find it," though what that is he cannot say.
When Janice goes into labor, Rabbit returns, feeling contrite and resolving to restore the marriage. For nine days, their life seems to be going well. When Janice refuses Rabbit's sexual advances, however, he bolts again and looks for Ruth. Feeling abandoned, Janice starts drinking heavily and accidentally drowns the baby. Rabbit returns to Janice again, but at the funeral he outrages the family by his claims of innocence. He runs again, returning to Ruth, who reveals that she is pregnant and demands that Rabbit divorce Janice and marry her. He refuses Ruth, and the novel ends with Rabbit running the streets, resisting all claims upon his commitment.
Rabbit's back-and-forth actions create much havoc and mark him as selfish and irresponsible in the America of the 1950's, a world offering little margin for the quest for the transcendent. In place of the old revelations of religion, Rabbit substitutes the ecstasy of sex, the deep mysteries of the woman's body. Failed by his environment and its various authority figures, Rabbit registers his revolt through movement, through a refusal to stand still and be taken over by the tides of secular culture.
Rabbit Redux
First published: 1971
Type of work: Novel
In 1969 no longer in flight, Rabbit witnesses and experiences the racial and cultural upheavals of the times.
In Rabbit Redux, Rabbit believes that the whole United States is doing what he did ten years earlier. Rabbit appears to have made his peace with the world and has settled down to fulfill his various obligations. He works as a typesetter in the same shop where his father has worked for more than thirty years. (He works at a trade, however, that is soon to be replaced by a new technology.) In this novel, Rabbit is more a passive listener and observer than a searcher. The racial and cultural turmoil that he sees on television literally comes into his home, and Rabbit is forced to be a student of his times. Updike uses this rather feckless working-class man in small-city Pennsylvania as a foil to the upheavals sweeping the United States during the late 1960's.
The landing of Americans on the moon, which Rabbit, like millions of others, watches on television, is a fitting analogue or metaphor for the cultural shifts of the decade. The astronauts, pioneers of the new technology and exemplars of the centrifugal movement of the West, land on a barren satellite. The implication is that America's spiritual landscape is as barren as that of the moon. Americans have gone about as far as they can, and they must now return home and make the best of things here. The gravity of Earth cannot be escaped for long.
In Rabbit, Run, Rabbit left Janice for a mistress. In Rabbit Redux, Janice leaves Rabbit to live with her lover, Stavros. Rabbit acquiesces to this affair and stays home to care for his son, Nelson. Through a strange set of circumstances—not wholly probable—Rabbit takes in Jill, a runaway flower child, and Skeeter, a bail-jumping Vietnam War veteran and black radical.
Rabbit's living room becomes the place for his encounter with the radical attacks upon America's values and policies. Skeeter's charismatic critiques of the American way of life challenge Rabbit's unquestioning patriotism and mesmerize him. As a consequence, Rabbit is helpless when disaster finally comes. His house is set on fire, probably by disgruntled neighbors; Jill is caught inside and dies in the fire. Rabbit helps Skeeter escape. Because of Stavros's heart condition, Janice gives him up to return home to Rabbit and Nelson. The novel ends with Janice and Rabbit together in a motel room asleep, in a sense rendered homeless by the forces of their time, over which they have little control.
In Rabbit, Run, Rabbit was a radical of sorts, a seeker for the transcendent in an entropic environment. In Rabbit Redux, Rabbit is a conservative, a defender of the American Dream and the war in Vietnam. He resents all the naysayers, the radicals who want to overthrow everything. He has a flag decal on his car window. In a sense, his patriotism has replaced his old religious quest for the supernatural. It is a shaky religion in a revolutionary time, when all quests are quite this-worldly.
Contrite because of the suffering his earlier quest produced, Rabbit has returned to the old rules precisely at the time most of the culture is repudiating them. Jill flees her upper-class world and seeks to overcome ego and materialism through drugs. Skeeter proclaims a radical black religion to rejuvenate an empty, "dollar-crazy" America. Janice seeks liberation through a lover. The burning of Rabbit's home represents the failure of all these quests: Jill dies, Skeeter flees, Janice returns home, and Rabbit's old dream is chastened. Significantly, it is Rabbit's sister, Mim, a Las Vegas call girl, whose visit home resolves the conflicts of the novel. Her unabashed worldliness and acceptance of an essentially empty world enable her to help the others find a way to live in the new American desert.
The novel sounds an apocalyptic note: What one sows, one reaps. The "external circumstances" become overwhelming. The televised images of flame and violence come home to destroy, perhaps to purify, like an ancient holocaust or offering. Rabbit bears witness to a disintegrating United States, even as it puts a man on the moon. Janice and Rabbit sleep, perhaps to awake to a new sense of maturity and responsibility. At least they may awake to a new beginning, which still lingers as a key element of the American Dream.
Rabbit Is Rich
First published: 1981
Type of work: Novel
In a world "running out of gas," Rabbit comes into material success, only to see it threatened by his erratic son.
Rabbit Is Rich is a novel about a middle-aged man—a fitting image for the spiritual condition of the United States at the end of the 1970's. At forty-six, Rabbit is successful, but his expansive waistline reminds him of his declining energies as well as the encroachment of death. Updike updates Sinclair Lewis's novel Babbitt (1922) about the ever-aspiring businessman George F. Babbitt. The remaining sparks of vitality in Rabbit seek to combat the forces of exhaustion that fill the novel. Indeed, the sense of things running down and images of falling dominate the book.
The novel is set during the summer and fall of 1979 and the first few weeks of 1980. In those last months of the Jimmy Carter administration, Americans face long lines at the gasoline pumps, high inflation rates, and the continuing stalemate over the American hostages in Iran. Rabbit is not worried, however, for he is a co-owner of Brewer's Toyota agency, since his father-in-law, Fred Springer, died in 1974. He and Janice have been living in the Springer house since their own house was destroyed by fire in 1969. Their son, Nelson, has been going to college at Kent State University. While Rabbit struggles with his son, he is haunted by the ghosts of his past—his dead daughter, his dead mother's voice, and memories of Jill and Skeeter. Rabbit imagines that they embrace him, sustain him, and cheer him on in the autumn of his life.
In the first two Rabbit novels, Rabbit was out of step with his decade. In the complacent 1950's, he ran; in the frenetic 1960's, he watched. In Rabbit Is Rich, he is running again, but this time more in rhythm with the 1970's. Rabbit jogs, an activity in keeping with the fitness craze that grew in that decade. The novel begins with Rabbit thinking "running out of gas," a phrase that resonates at several levels. As a middle-aged man, Rabbit knows that his energies are diminishing. Because of the gasoline crisis, he sees America perhaps literally running out of gas.
Spiritually, the phrase suggests a running out of the old dynamism that fed the American Dream. In 1979, the American satellite Skylab was falling out of orbit—another fitting metaphor for the crises facing the Angstroms and America. Rabbit finds that his old desires and wants have shriveled. "Freedom, that he always thought was outward motion, turns out to be this inward dwindling." When asked if he has seen the film Jaws 2 (1978), Rabbit responds in a way that reinforces the sense of entropy running throughout the novel: "D'you ever get the feeling that everything these days is sequels? . . . Like people are running out of ideas."
In his new prosperity, Rabbit plays golf at a new country club, goes to Rotary Club lunches, and reads Consumer Reports, the bible of his new status. Consumption is linked with sex as a way to fill the spiritual void of modern life. In a telling scene, Janice and Rabbit make love on top of their newly purchased gold Krugerrands. Ambiguously, sex represents both vitality and the void, the unfillable emptiness that constitutes death.
Rabbit lusts after Cindy, the lovely young wife of one of their new country-club friends. Janice tells Rabbit: "You always want what you don't have instead of what you do." In a wife-swapping episode during the three couples' brief Caribbean holiday, however, Rabbit must take Thelma Harrison instead of Cindy and is introduced to anal sex (arguably an...
(The entire section is 7934 words.)

subset: commoncrawl


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Oxfam Unwrapped is a fantastic way of being good to yourself and others this Christmas. Unwrapped is the largest range of charity gifts on the market, and this year marks its eighth anniversary. Safe water is just one example of the amazing life-changing gifts on offer at Oxfam Unwrapped. Other gifts range from goats and farmyards to teachers and health workers and make a huge difference to supporting Oxfam's programme work in communities living in poverty around the world. For more details, visit www.oxfamunwrapped.com.
The case study below, is one of our bestsellers and a reasonable price (£9).
Even before the 2010 earthquake, Haiti was a difficult place to live because of natural disasters through to political upheaval.
During one political emergency, residents of Conasa, a poor area of Cap Haitian had their municipal water supply cut off. It hit people hard. They had to walk further and pay much more for often contaminated, unsafe water.
Oxfam worked with community committees to identify the neighbourhoods where the needs were greatest. These households received a card entitling them to three buckets of water – 15 gallons – per day.
Servidieu Merilus says: "We use the water for cooking, washing and drinking. There are seven of us at home. Now we can afford to buy other things like oil, that we couldn't buy before. Water is our first priority. We buy water and then with what's left over we buy food. Having this water means we have more money left over to buy food. The family feels the difference that saving those 4 gourdes means. Now we can have breakfast, lunch and maybe even supper. This is part of the benefit of this water we are getting now. Until four weeks ago, before we started getting this water we would only eat once a day."


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FastCRM is a Web-based customer relationship management system that keeps track of customers and their companies with ease. It allows sales people to quickly manage their accounts, contacts, and opportunities. It can also be used to track daily tasks, meetings, etc. Payments tracking and recurring payments are supported. Customers can be mapped with GPS coordinates. It provides management with assessment charts and audit.
Talend Open Studio for ESB is an innovative, Eclipse-based tooling environment for modeling, configuring, and deploying integration solutions using the Apache-based open source enterprise service bus (ESB), Talend ESB. Talend ESB is a versatile and flexible ESB that allows organizations to address integration challenges, from simple departmental projects to complex, heterogeneous IT environments. Powered by the Apache CXF, Apache Camel, and Apache ActiveMQ Open Source integration projects, it makes enterprise-class integration accessible by delivering a cost-effective and easy-to-use way to integrate and expand systems and applications.
Squarebase is a Web-based interface for MySQL databases. The basic idea is that it builds a database (called the "metabase") that describes the structure of the database. The information in the metabase is used to format lists and forms for browsing and editing the contents of the database.
CaféPorts is a frontend written in Java for MacPorts. MacPorts is a community-driven effort that aims to ease the compilation and distribution of open source projects on Mac OS X. With CaféPorts, it is easy to search, install, and in general manipulate these projects, with a Mac-friendly GUI user interface.
SynApp2 is a development tool that generates database-backed Web applications by processing your MySQL or Oracle schema definition and producing the Web pages used to manage your data. It does more than an admin tool or file manager by considering table relations as a cohesive whole that drives the generation of a complete application that smoothly integrates your entire database design, complete with PDF reports. It is open, compact, efficient, and compatible with the tools and technologies you're using now.


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Bikemaster Conventional Motorcycle Batteries have been designed to provide increased cranking power due to improved plate design. The Conventional Motorcycle Battery does not include the acid, however you should be able to find the acid at a local hardware store, car or ATV/motorcycle dealer. We suggest that you research where to find acid in your location before purchasing this battery. The battery will also require a charge prior to installation.
Note: Image for reference only. Actual product may vary according to vehicle.
Chaparral carries several Bikemaster Conventional Batteries including: 51814, 51913, 53030, HYB16A-A, HYB16A-AB, SY50-N18L-AT, SYB14L-A2, Y50-N18L-A, Y50-N18L-A3, Y60-N24AL-B, Y60-N24L-A, YB10A-A2, YB10L-A2, YB10L-B, YB10L-B2, YB12A-A, YB12A-A (w/sensor), YB12A-B, YB12AL-A, YB12AL-A2, YB12AL-A2 (w/adapter), YB12B-B2, YB12C-A, YB14-A2, YB14A-A1, YB14A-A2, YB14-B2, YB14L-A1, YB14L-A2, YB14L-B2, YB16AL-A2, YB16-B, YB16B-A, YB16B-A1, YB16CL-B, YB16L-B, YB18-A, YB18L-A, YB2.5L-C, YB2.5L-C-1, YB30CL-B, YB30L-B, YB3L-A, YB3L-B, YB4L-A, YB4L-B, YB5L-B, YB7-A, YB7B-B, YB7C-A, YB7L-B, YB9A-A, YB9-B, YB9L-A2, YB9L-B, and YTH16-12.


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Epilepsy is a neurological condition involving the brain that makes people more susceptible to having recurrent unprovoked seizures. It is one of the most common disorders of the nervous system and affects people of all ages, races and ethnic background. Almost 3 million Americans live with epilepsy.
Anything that interrupts the normal connections between nerve cells in the brain can cause a seizure; this includes a high fever, low blood sugar, alcohol or drug withdrawal, or a brain concussion. Under these circumstances, anyone can have one or more seizures. However, when a person has two or more unprovoked seizures, he or she is considered to have epilepsy. There are many possible causes of epilepsy, including an imbalance of nerve-signaling chemicals called neurotransmitters, tumors, strokes, and brain damage from illness or injury, or some combination of these. In the majority of cases, there may be no detectable cause for epilepsy.
The brain is the center that controls and regulates all voluntary and involuntary responses in the body. It consists of nerve cells that normally communicate with each other through electrical activity.
A seizure occurs when part(s) of the brain receives a burst of abnormal electrical signals that temporarily interrupts normal electrical brain function.
The type of seizure depends on which part and how much of the brain is affected and what happens during the seizure. The two broad categories of epileptic seizures are generalized seizures (absence, atonic, tonic-clonic, myoclonic) and partial (simple and complex) seizures. Within these categories, there are several different types of seizures, including:
A person may experience one or many different types of seizures. While the exact cause of the seizure may not be known, the more common seizures are caused by the following:
The person may have varying degrees of symptoms depending upon the type of seizure. The following are general symptoms of a seizure or warning signs of seizures. Symptoms or warning signs may include:
The symptoms of a seizure may resemble other problems or medical conditions. Always consult your physician for a diagnosis.
The full extent of the seizure may not be completely understood immediately after onset of symptoms, but may be revealed with a comprehensive medical evaluation and diagnostic testing. The diagnosis of a seizure is made with a physical examination and diagnostic tests. During the examination, the physician obtains a complete medical history of the person and family and asks when the seizures occurred. Seizures may be due to neurological problems and require further medical follow up.
Diagnostic tests may include:
Specific treatment for a seizure will be determined by your physician based on:
The goal of seizure management is to control, stop, or decrease the frequency of the seizures without interfering with the normal activities of daily living (ADLs). The major goals of seizure management include the following:
Treatment may include:
A person may be awake during the surgery. The brain itself does not feel pain. With the person awake and able to follow commands, the surgeons are better able to make sure that important areas of the brain are not damaged.
Surgery is not an option for everyone with seizures. Discuss this treatment option with your physician for more information.
Click here to view the
Online Resources of Non-Traumatic Emergencies


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Bar stools Buchanan, NY
Have you ever sat down at a bar and thought, "Wow, these bar stools are uncomfortable"? If so, chances are that "comfort" was not too high on the bar's list of priorities. Most bars tend to choose their bar stools based on both comfort and design aesthetic – a chic, downtown club, for instance, might go with an uber-modern metal bar stool, while a cigar bar might go for a sophisticated leather bar stool. When shopping for your home bar, it's important that you take both comfort and style into consideration. Below you will find a list of "bar stool basics," meant to help you choose the best bar stools Buchanan for your home bar.
Bar Stool Size Matters
This expression definitely holds water when it comes to bar stool Buchanan buying. Choosing the right height for your bar stool is essential! First, think about your space. Are you outfitting a home bar, kitchen bar or counter bar? The height of your eating/drinking surface will help determine how tall your bar stool needs to be. A bar stool's height is determined by the stool's seat height, not the total height. This will help ensure that the legs will fit under the table. A couple of things to keep in mind – counter height seats are typically between 24″ and 26″ high, while bar height seats are between 30″ and 32″ high.
Showcase Your Personal Style
Your decor style really does say something about your personality and personal style. If you're a big sports fan, for instance, consider purchasing a bar stool with your favorite NBA, NFL or NCAA team's logo on the seat. If you prefer a modern or contemporary design style, then opt for something sleeker, made out of stainless steel or aluminum. Bar stools exist in nearly every style imaginable. From traditional wood bar stools, complete with ornate detailing or carving, to retro backless bar stools, like something you'd see in a 50s-style diner.
Bar Stools Features
Fully Loaded or Bare Bones: After you've decided on height and style, it's time to think about what features you want with your stools. Swivel or stationary? Upholstered or not? You can also choose a bar stool with arms, with a back or one designed especially for outdoor use. Deciding what features you want for your bar stools should be determined by expected use and by cost. If you expect to use your bar stools for entertaining, then it's important that they be comfortable and have some sort of a swivel function, making them more conversation-accessible. Cost also plays into what features you choose for your bar stools Buchanan, NY – for instance, a leather upholstered bar stool will be more expensive than one upholstered with vinyl.
So what it all comes down to?
A good bar stool for your home bar will be the perfect blend of both form and function. Don't settle on an ugly stool just because it's comfy, and on the same note, don't purchase a super stylish but otherwise painful-to-sit on a barstool just because it complements your decor. Take some time and do your research before shopping. Give yourself a budget and have some idea of what style and features you are looking for. Remember, your home bar is supposed to be a social space so it's OK to have a little fun here, as long as you don't break the bank in the process.
E-mail: email@example.com
Tel:(213) 325-5652


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To us independence means having the freedom of choice, not the burden of doing everything alone. We know that our Owner Operators have the experience to succeed on their own. But we're still here to supply them with all of the support and resources they need.
From our professional contractors, to our hard working and courteous dispatchers, our customers have learned that along with the higher rates we get, comes the assurance of knowing that their freight will be picked up on time, delivered on time, and arrive there in the same condition as it was when it was loaded on the trailer. This has been SAMMONS' formula for success since 1962: provide a superior service, and customers will seek it out, pay more for it, and keep coming back. We'd like to make this formula work for you too.
We put you in the best position for success.
To learn more about Sammons Trucking, call 888-252-2931 or click on the link below:


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Two types of digital signal processing LSIs have been developed primarily for digital audio use. One is a processing chip that includes a 28-bit ALU, a microprogram sequencer and peripheral interface circuits. Another is a 32 x 16 bit parallel multiplier chip. Combined with external static memory chips, these LSIs can execute operations at a rate of eight mega instructions per second.
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text: Save This Event For Later Providence Cyclo-Cross Festival, NEPCX, UCI C1/C2 Providence, RI, Sat Oct 6 - Sun Oct 7, 2012 Who's Registered? | Contact Event | Event Website | Google Calendar Start line address: Providence, RI 02903 USA Cycling Permit # 2012-3476 This is a past event. If you wish to see the details for this event click, "Continue" below. If you are looking for a current event, please search the event calendar .


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Mongolia Today
With the brake-up of the socialist system, deep political and economic reforms were launched in Mongolia to mark the beginning of the country's transition from a centrally planned system to a market economy. Mongolia adopted democratic norms and principles through introduction of multi-party, parliamentary system.
In 1990s, for the first time in the country's history, democratically elected government approved the program for transition towards the market. Privatization of the state-owned property and the policy of liberalization were launched. Mongolia declared the policy of open doors. Since 1991, the government of Mongolia, has been pursuing on a program of economic stabilization.
Mongolia is relatively safe country even though there have been big social changes in transition since the 1990's. Cities are mostly safe. In the countryside, foreigners feel much safer because the nomadic people have more respect for travelers.
Mongolia Tours
Mid – ranged Mongolia tours from 4x4 discovery jeep tours, adventure tours, cultural & community based tours, nature & wildlife tours are offered here…Read more
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We combine tours in Mongolia with some of destinations of China such as Beijing, Tibet, Xian, Chengdu and Shanghai.Read more
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Here are the tours to Lake Baikal, Irkutsk, Olkon Island, Listviyanka of eastern Siberia and connected with Mongolian tours.Read more
Mongolia Travel Blog
Mongolia travel blog for those thinking to visit Mongolia. Travel tips, fun contests and Mongolia tourism news and travellers can post a blog, too.


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Revision [9232]
This is an old revision of InstallationFrugal made by coolpup on 2010-09-09 10:47:30.
Frugal InstallationsApart from running Puppy Linux from a full hard disk drive (H.D.D.) installation or from a LiveDVD, it is also possible to run it as a frugal installation, performed by extracting the contents of the container ISO or ZIP file to virtually any type of FAT32, NTFS, or EXT2/3/4 formatted partition.
When a frugal installation is desired it is convenient to have a LiveDVD because it can be used to install the required boot loader (either GRUB, SYSLINUX, or EXTLINUX depending on the formatting of the installation partition). Instructions are also provided below for situations when not using an optical drive.
First acquire the container file (either iso or zip) of the desired Puppy Linux, e.g. Fluppy, Puppy 5 or Puppy 5 with extra multi-lingual keyboard support.
If the target partition or drive contains any files copy them elsewhere if required, because they will be destroyed when formatting.
Installation to any partition using GRUB and with an optical driveFlash tutorial
Installation to a U.S.B. flash drive using Syslinux and without an optical drive
From within Puppy Linux
- Follow the instructions at: Menu > Setup > BootFlash
- Click on the Puppy iso (or zip) file to open its contents
- Copy to the U.S.B. flash drive the files: vmlinuz, initrd.gz, and all those with the extensions .sfs, and .cfg
- Rename isolinux.cfg to syslinux.cfg
- Edit syslinux.cfg in a text editor: change "pmedia=cd" to "pmedia=usbflash"
- Reboot computer with U.S.B. flash drive connected
From within Microsoft Windows
- Format the drive or partition to FAT32
- Download and extract syslinux to a folder, e.g. C:\syslinux
- Then go to directory C:\syslinux\win32\
cd C:\syslinux\win32\
- Then run the syslinux command to make the drive bootable (where X: is the drive letter for the target drive or partition)
syslinux.exe -m -a X:
- Open the Puppy iso (or zip) file to view its contents, using e.g. 7-zip, (it is important that the original file names be kept)
- Copy to the U.S.B. flash drive the files: vmlinuz, initrd.gz, and all those with the extensions .sfs, and .cfg
- Rename isolinux.cfg to syslinux.cfg
- Edit syslinux.cfg in a text editor: change "pmedia=cd" to "pmedia=usbflash"
- Reboot computer with U.S.B. flash drive connected
If the computer does not boot into Puppy Linux from the U.S.B. flash drive follow the instructions in Appendices 1 and 3 at LiveDVD.
- Format the drive or partition to FAT32 by using: Menu > System > GParted
- Ensure that the boot flag is set: Menu > System > GParted > Partition > Manage Flags > boot
- Download and install recent Syslinux version (>=4.02)
- Make the drive bootable with syslinux, assuming the target partition is located at /dev/sdb1
syslinux -i --stupid /dev/sdb1
Determine the device name of the U.S.B.flash drive using probedisk2, e.g.:
# probedisk2 /dev/sda|drive|ATA HTS726060M9AT00 /dev/sdb|usbdrv|ST9500325AS /dev/sr0|optical|TSSTcorpCDW/DVD TS-L462


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|Accelerator Series Fpgas - ACT 3family
|Actel Corporation
|Download A1460AA-2RQ208B datasheet
|Features, Applications
Replaces up to twenty 32 macro-cell CPLDs Replaces up to one hundred 20-pin PAL® Packages to 1153 Dedicated Flip-Flops VQFP, TQFP, BGA, and PQFP Packages Nonvolatile, User Programmable Fully Tested Prior to Shipment 5.0V and 3.3V Versions Optimized for Logic Synthesis Methodologies Low-power CMOS Technology
to 10,000 Gate Array Equivalent Gates (up to 25,000 equivalent PLD Gates) Highly Predictable Performance with 100% Automatic Placement and Routing 7.5 ns Clock-to-Output Times to 250 MHz On-Chip Performance to 228 User-Programmable I/O Pins Four Fast, Low-Skew Clock Networks More than 500 Macro Functions
Device Capacity Gate Array Equivalent Gates PLD Equivalent Gates TTL Equivalent Packages (40 gates) 20-Pin PAL Equivalent Packages (100 gates) Logic Modules S-Module C-Module Dedicated Flip-Flops1 User I/Os (maximum) Packages2 CPGA PLCC PQFP RQFP VQFP TQFP BGA CQFP Performance3 (maximum, worst-case commercial) Chip-to-Chip4 Accumulators (16-bit) Loadable Counter (16-bit) Prescaled Loadable Counters (16-bit) Datapath, Shift Registers Clock-to-Output (pad-to-pad) (by pin count)
Notes: 1. One flip-flop per S-Module, two flip-flops per I/O-Module. 2. See product plan on page 1-178 for package availability. 3. Based A1440B-3, A1460B-3, and A14100B-3. 4. Clock-to-Output + SetupDescription
Actel's ACT 3 Accelerator Series of FPGAs offers the industry's fastest high-capacity programmable logic device. ACT 3 FPGAs offer a high perfomance, PCI compliant programmable solution capable of 250 MHz on-chip performance and 7.5 nanosecond clock-to-output, with capacities spanning from to 10,000 gate array equivalent gates. For further information regarding PCI compliance of ACT 3 devices, see "Accelerator Series FPGAs--ACT 3 PCI Compliant Family." The ACT 3 family builds on the proven two-module architecture consisting of combinatorial and sequential logic modules used in Actel's 3200DX and 1200XL families. In addition, the ACT 3 I/O modules contain registers which deliver 7.5 nanosecond clock-to-out times. The devices contain four clock distribution networks, including dedicated array and I/O clocks, supporting very fast synchronous and asynchronous designs. In addition, routed clocks can be used to drive high fanout signals such as flip-flop resets and output enables.
The ACT 3 family is supported by Actel's Designer Series Development System which offers automatic placement and routing (with automatic or fixed pin assignments), static timing anlaysis, user programming, and debug and diagnostic probe capabilities. The Designer Series is supported on the following platforms: 486/Pentium class PC's, Sun®, and HP®, workstations. The software provides CAE interfaces to Cadence, Mentor Graphics®, OrCADTM and Viewlogic®, design environments. Additional platforms are supported through Actel's Industry Alliance Program, including DATA I/O (ABEL FPGA) and MINC.
Chip-to-Chip Performance (Worst-Case Commercial) tCKHS 7.5 9.0 tTRACE 1.0 tINSU 1.8 1.3 Total 11.3 ns MHz 97 88
Application (Temperature Range) C = Commercial I = Industrial M = Military = MIL-STD-883 Package Lead Count Package Type PG = Ceramic Pin Grid Array PL = Plastic Leaded Chip Carrier PQ = Plastic Quad Flatpack RQ = Plastic Power Quad Flatpack VQ = Very Thin (1.0 mm) Quad Flatpack TQ = Thin (1.4 mm) Quad Flatpack CQ = Ceramic Quad Flatpack BG = Plastic Ball Grid Array Speed Grade Std = Standard Speed 1 = Approximately 15% faster than Standard 2 = Approximately 25% faster than Standard 3 = Approximately 35% faster than Standard Die Revision Part Number = 1500 Gates 1500 Gates (3.3V) 2500 Gates 2500 Gates (3.3V) 4000 Gates 4000 Gates (3.3V) 6000 Gates 6000 Gates (3.3V) 10000 Gates 10000 Gates (3.3V)
|Related products with the same datasheet
|Some Part number from the same manufacture Actel Corporation
|A1460AA-2RQ208C Accelerator Series Fpgas - ACT 3family
|COREAHB Coreahb2apb
|A42MX02-1BG100 40MX and 42MX Automotive FPGA Families
M1AGL1000V5-FVQG144 : Igloo Low-power Flash Fpgas with Flash Freeze Technology
M1AFS250-FPQG256ES : Actel Fusion Mixed-signal Fpgas
AGL015V5-UCG144PP : Igloo Low-power Flash Fpgas with Flash Freeze Technology
AX500-1FG896I : Axcelerator Family Fpgas
A1020B-2PG84I : ACT 1 Series Fpgas
AGL1000V2-FUC144PP : Igloo Low-power Flash Fpgas with Flash Freeze Technology
AX1000-2CQ896 : Axcelerator Family Fpgas
AX1000-FGG896PP : Axcelerator Family Fpgas
APA600-BGGES : Proasic Flash Family Fpgas
A14V100AA-3PQ208B : Accelerator Series Fpgas - ACT 3family


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In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007), Sherman Alexie recounts the trials of a Native American teenager, Arnold "Junior" Spirit, during his first year in high school. Using humor to soften the sometimes difficult and emotional story, Alexie creates a loveable, misfit protagonist whom readers cannot help but root for.
Junior lives on the Spokane Indian Reservation, where he discovers that alcohol is more important to most residents than an education is. Junior decides to transfer from his reservation school to Reardan High, a white school that is more than twenty miles away. Once he arrives, Junior finds that he is the only Indian (besides the school's mascot) there. His best friend on the reservation, Rowdy, stays behind and vows never to speak to Junior—the "traitor"—again. Junior also knows that everyone else on the reservation thinks he is an "apple": red on the outside but white on the inside. Meanwhile, most of the students at Reardan treat Junior as an outcast as well.
Although he is stimulated by the intellectual challenges of Reardan's advanced curriculum, Junior must fight to improve his social standing both on and off the reservation. He accomplishes this accidentally when he goes out for Reardan's basketball team. He surprises himself when, as a freshman, he makes the varsity team and eventually even becomes a starting player. Junior's biggest challenge comes when he must play against his former basketball team from the reservation, whose star player is none other than Junior's ex–best friend, Rowdy.
In the course of this young adult, coming-of-age story, Alexie highlights both the spiritual and psychological highs and lows of living on a reservation—a place of stagnation as well as a place of strong family roots and long-lasting love.


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Hey, be sure to check out my new interview over at KMN Books! You never know, you just might learn something new and exciting about me. It goes up on Monday. Would love to see you there:)
I hope you've reached the right place, and I hope that you're over eighteen. This website is for adults only. No, I don't sell adult toys or videos or anything like that, this isn't a porn site. But it is the site of an erotic romance writer.
If you're looking for a steamy read, long, short or in between, where the characters are all over each other, get down and dirty, than I can guarantee that you will find something here. I'm going to level with you, my erotic romances are explicit and graphic in nature, but they all have happily forever or happily for now endings.
Enter at your own risk!
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Posted by Tory Richards at Sunday, December 06, 2009
1 comment:
- Linda Henderson said...
I will have to check it out.
- December 6, 2009 at 11:25 PM
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Lake Superior Bed
From: $1,075.00
Twin: 47.25″W x 83″D x 49″H. Queen: 68.25″W x 88″D x 49″H.
King: 84.25″W x 88″D x 49″H.
Customizable. The Lake Superior Bed is a casual sleeper that features classic framing around a beadboard center, for the ultimate in laid-back zzz's. Shown in custom color.
Each piece from the Lake House Furniture Collection is crafted from dense kiln-dried solid American maple and poplar hardwoods with thick, select veneers, dovetail drawers and wood glides. Every one is individually handmade to order which allows us the freedom to customize pieces to your specifications. Made in the USA.
Hand-finished with low VOC, water-based paints & stains, each piece is also hand-distressed by skilled artisans. 40 standard colors. Custom colors available. Unsure of paint or stain color? No problem! Simply choose TBD (to be determined) as your color choice. We'll send you samples to help you choose the perfect color for your piece of furniture. Furniture orders can be placed into production without the final color choice. See color options tab below.
Twin: 47.25"W x 83"D x 49"H. Queen: 68.25"W x 88"D x 49"H. King: 84.25"W x 88"D x 49"H. Custom sizing available. King Bed will have a divider in the middle.
Maple, poplar
Color Options
40 standard colors. Custom colors available.
Download product care instructions
Request Samples
Lead Time
Production Time + Transit Time (5 – 15 business days) = Delivery to Your Home
See Shipping Info & Order Handling for more details
Production Lead Times
Bamboo Chairs & Stools 8 – 10 weeks Beach House Furniture Collection 3 – 4 weeks Carolina Furniture Collection 8 – 10 weeks* Cottage Furniture Collection 8 – 10 weeks Cottage Home Mattresses & Box Springs 3 – 4 weeks Cottage Wicker Furniture Collection 2 – 3 weeks (in stock) or 10 – 12 weeks Country Classics Furniture Collection 12 – 14 weeks Country Farm Collection Tables 10 – 12 weeks Country Farm Collection Case Goods 10 – 12 weeks The Hampton's Furniture Collection 10 – 12 weeks Islands Furniture Collection 2 – 3 weeks (in stock) or 8 – 10 weeks Industrial Studio Furniture Collection 6 – 8 weeks Lake House Furniture Collection 10 – 12 weeks Metal Bistro Chairs & Stools 1 – 2 weeks Outdoor Wicker Furniture Collection 3 – 4 weeks** Old Pine Furniture Collection 8 – 10 weeks Porch Wicker Furniture Collection 4 – 6 weeks Reclaimed Barn Wood Furniture Collection 8 – 10 weeks Rustic Twig Furniture Collection 6 – 8 weeks Shoreline Slipcovered Furniture Collection 6 – 8 weeks Summer House Upholstered Furniture Collection 8 – 10 weeks Summer House Leather Furniture Collection 8 – 10 weeks Vintage Iron Beds Collection 6 – 8 weeks *(rush available for additional charge) **(some products available for quickship)
Our Guarantee
At Cottage Home, we know purchasing custom furniture and décor on the Internet can raise some concerns and questions.
Our business is dedicated to pioneering a new process for providing high-quality made-to-order furniture on the Internet.
We strive to make it as easy as possible for our customers to have access to custom bench-built products for their homes.
Our focus is on providing an unparalleled furniture buying experience through our careful selection of high-quality products,
the in-depth product details provided on our website, our knowledgeable design & selection assistance,
a full range of samples services, and a specialized delivery process.
We feel strongly enough about our processes & people to stand behind all of our products & services.
We will be here to help should anything happen to go wrong. Period.