text:
Pregnancy there or anywhere else is none of the business of the US govt. Comrade Obama spends money like a drunken sailor on liberty.
Pregnancy there or anywhere else is none of the business of the US govt. Comrade Obama spends money like a drunken sailor on liberty.
Bob Gutermuth
Canvasback Chesapeakes
One woman's response from her congressman Rep.Jerry McNerney(D-Pleasanton) CaI also asked how a congress that was very critical of republican ethics and vowed change could justify letting Rangel, Dodd, and Murtha keep their committee chairmanships with their obvious ethical issues. His response was that Republicans ethics were worse because of their unjustified aggressive war.
This is just my small example of the anger and frustration of people in liberal Northern California.
Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?
I would say we sent a clear message to Israel on where we stand as far as there national security goes. I believe they will now take the Iranian situation into their own hands, and take out the nuclear facilities themselves. I hope this doesn't trigger something a lot bigger in the middle east.
Matt McKenzie
"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it." Henry Ford
It makes for a nice, ideologically satisfying story, but has little to do with anything that actually happened. Subprime mortgages are not new and rapid increases in default rates for these mortgages happened in each of the prior downturns in the real estate market in the 80's and 90's. The actual number of such mortgages remained a small fraction of the overall market until 2002/2003 when the number began to skyrocket.
- Attribute the econmic collapse to the collapse of the subprime market.
- Attribute the subprime market problems to the 1990's when Clinton was President.
- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the collapse
- Private banks and securities firms were pushed into investing in risky mortgage backed instruments by Congressional Democrats determined to make homeowners out of irresponsible minorities.
That growth actually started while Congress was controlled by Republicans and Bush was in the White House.
What changed? Several things. Until 2001/2002, the risk of the subprime market was obvious to all. Delinquencies had always been high and were headed higher, rising from 8-12% between 2000 and 2003. Several factors changed. Interest rates plummeted from 9% in January 2001 to 4% two years later. This stimulated massive mortgage refinancing and refinancings, not first time buyers, were the primary recipients of subprime mortgages. The derivatives market developed new instruments to make absorption of the risk associated with these mortgages more palatable with a mix of mortgage backed securities and, more importantly, default swaps that appeared to provide a hedge against a new upturn in defaults.
Easy money plus dropping rates contributed directly to the boom in housing prices. Many pointed out the risk of a bubble. Greenspan led the chorus against those people warning of a possible bust. He stated that there had never been a nationwide real market collapse and he didn't expect to see one now. He resisted any move toward implementing new regulations or even toward using the regulatory power under the existing law to curb speculation. While he believed, and said publicly, that risk was being underpriced, he felt it was up to the free market to price that risk appropriately, not regulators. He apologized for this in 2008, indicating that he had overestimated the intelligence of the market and the regulators should have intervened earlier.
Many factors contributed to the mortgage problems, and there is enough blame for everyone. I would place the private mortgage financing market at the top of the list and Federal regulators not far behind. The astronomical profits that financers were making in the market paid for some heavy duty lobbying that went far beyond what was being done by Fannie/Freddie. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were up there, but they were also fairly active in pointing out that too many risks were being taken by the private market without consideration of the effects of a future downturn. This risk was increased by the fact that 50% of subprime mortgages were adjustable as compared with only 18% of standard mortgages. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac both spread their risk in part by selling off the riskiest fraction of their portfolios. This was done very openly and the private financing markets believed they had priced the risk appropriately. Sadly, the rating agencies agreed. Both were wrong.
Should the housing bubble have been obvious? Yes, as is apparent in the graph below from mid-2007.
Why didn't the administration intervene to try to curb the growth of this bubble? Because the housing boom was the primary engine behind the economic recovery during the first Bush term -- not tax cuts. Increased housing prices allowed consumers to maintain and expand personal spending by tapping into the new wealth created by the boom in prices. Home equity loans became the new credit cards, fueling economic growth through consumer debt. Turn off the boom, turn off the spigot on growth.
In mid-2005, Paul Krugman of the NYT wrote:
"Meanwhile, the U.S. economy has become deeply dependent on the housing bubble. The economic recovery since 2001 has been disappointing in many ways, but it wouldn't have happened at all without soaring spending on residential construction, plus a surge in consumer spending largely based on mortgage refinancing. Did I mention that the personal savings rate has fallen to zero?Now we're starting to hear a hissing sound, as the air begins to leak out of the bubble. And everyone - not just those who own Zoned Zone real estate - should be worried." (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/08/op...08krugman.html)
4-5 years of wild-assed speculation in housing fueled the economic boom heralded by the administration as proof of the effectiveness of it tax cutting and deregulatory posture. That same growth fueled the bust as it became more and more apparent that the emperor was stark naked. In 2004 and 2005, more than 20% of all mortgages issued were in the subprime market, and 50% of those had variable rates soon to be reset as the Fed began to increase rates to curb inflation. And the problem continued to grow until the first banks began to close down.
- * I actually believe it began with Carter.
Would you agree with this statement made by Obama last night
To be honest there may be more context, I believe Obama to be so unethical that I cannot stand to listen to him. Poor excuse for not watching the entire speech I know, but it is the truth
It seems to me that Greenspan didn't have any problem taking responsibility for his actions, the dems act like they were not even on the planet .
Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?
I think the word inherited describes it kindly.
As I noted in another thread, neither party has histoprically done well when it has had control of both the White House and Congress. From that history, Democrats are now in a position to mess things up royally. For the sake of all of us, I hope they do not. If they do, they will lose control of Congress in 2010 and, if nothing else, the sharing of power may mitigate the damage.
Unfortunately, Republicans remain completely uncommitted to actually balancing the budget; they only object to the fact that the deficits being incurred in the stimuls act come from increased spending rather than lowered taxes. Once the economy begins to stabilize, the budget must be balanced. This will require a mix of massive spending cuts and substantial tax increases. There is no way to undo the deficits created under Bush without both.
Spending cuts? How about just not giving away billions in entitlements and spending billions on what amounts to awarding special interests with our tax dollars?
Has raising taxes ever worked when the nation was in an economic crisis? Why would it work now when in 1937 it did nothing but deepen the depression?
Don't the dems/marxists already plan on letting the Bush tax cuts expire next year? So... spend friggin trillions, raise taxes, then let let tax cuts expire. Then when everyone is bringing their groceries home in a goat cart they can pin bumper stickers on their rear ends about how if "Bush hadn't been in office I would be driving". Ar least we will have gotten rid of the "evil" rich people.
I cannot believe what we are willing to accept in the name of party politics. Sheeple is too nice a word for this.
Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?


text:
Hi all, long time no blog. But with the recent announcement of the Linux Kongress 2008 program, which will happen in my chosen home city Hamburg from 7th to 10th October, I have to share the joy:
Not one, but three tutorials - both in English and German - explaining how to use Linux-HA with the CRM/Pacemaker as an high-availability cluster environment.
Congratulations and thanks to Ralph Dehner, Lars Ellenberg, Joerg Jungermann, Maximilian Wilhelm!
Also, a brief talk by myself on the future of HA on Linux, fresh from the Cluster Developer Summit in Prag.
All in all, Linux Kongress has a very, very strong program this year, and I look forward to meeting you all in Hamburg - bring your umbrella!
On Monday, Hack Week 2008 begins. I will be working on shared storage-based fencing for heartbeat, and possibly some others projects relating to clustering.
I also look forward in particular to the First Penguin Award candidates: the price for the most daring failure. Failure is crucial to success; learning where the boundaries of our models and theories are is the foundation of science, and successful design. Only by anticipating and overcoming failure is success possible. If you doubt this for a single moment, read Petroski: Success through failure.
As a member of the panel and obsessed with things going wrong, I hope your project contributes to our knowledge; and the most valuable lesson of the whole week just could be learned from showing what does not work. And, there will be a price too! How good is that?

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Galaxy rasbora placed in new genus
Galaxy rasbora placed in new genus
"Microrasbora sp 'Galaxy' has been officially described and placed in a new genus. Tyson Roberts today described the new species as Celestichthys margaritatus in a paper in the Raffles Bulletin of Zoology. He has also given the fish the new common name of Celestial pearl danio. Roberts says that the new species is a member of the cyprinid subfamily Danioninae and is most closely related to two danionins from Inle Lake in Myanmar, Microrasbora rubescens and "Microrasbora" erythromicron.
"Prior to its official description, the fish was only tentatively considered a member of the Microrasbora genus, on account of its similarity to M. erythromicron. Roberts believes that Celestichthys margaritatus is so different to other Microrasbora that it warrants a genus of their own, possibly along with "Microrasbora" erythromicron. The fish, which was discovered in August 2006, was first covered by Practical Fishkeeping in September and featured in the Interesting Imports column in the December 2006 issue of the magazine."
Labels: fish, new species


text:
I've stopped reading the comments from readers on almost all news articles on the topic of cycling in Toronto.
A police officer on his bike chased down and fined the first-year U of T student yesterday on St. George St. after he ran a red light on his bicycle. The visibly upset student, who wouldn't give his name, said he was from China and didn't know the rules.
Cycling organizations should also speak out more against their "radical" members, Burrows added.
"We know that 99.9% of drivers will stop at a red light. We don't know that with cyclists," he said.
I ask again, why do some cyclists in Toronto break the rules of the road?
1) Safety
How can running a red light increase safety? How does not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign increase anyone's safety?
It is unfair and unreasonable to assume that just because I'm on a bicycle, I have some sort of twisted death wish. If I really wanted to die in Toronto, I'd get in a car. When approaching a red light I know there's going to be a stream of cars piling up behind me. Some of the drivers are going to try and push to get in front of me at the light, the rest are going to push me in the intersection as I'm trying to build speed again. This is why you see so many cyclists in crosswalks, when you're being tailed by monstrous steel machines, you're going to move to where you know they aren't going to go.
Why then, would I run a red light? If the way is clear, running the red gets me through an intersection without impatient drivers riding my ass or trying to squeeze me out of the lane. Once through the intersection, I can now establish my line, so the drivers coming up quickly behind me can react and pass me safely.
Same goes for stop signs. I proceed safely without coming to a full stop and I preserve some momentum and get to continue on in a predictable fashion. And that's what motorists want, isn't it? Predictability.
2) Lack of enforcement
Even Toronto Police Services admits to this. They are lack on enforcing the rules of the road when it comes to cyclists. And, we can all see why. Cyclists very, very, very rarely kill people. Cyclists, even with our growing numbers, are still a minority. And what's more dangerous? The guy in his car eating a breakfast sandwich and speeding along a side street, or a cyclist, going less than 20 km/h, who doesn't fully stop at a stop sign? It's not like either of these are rare occurrences on our roads.
3) Laziness
Even though it takes far more physical energy to operate a bicycle vs. a car, cyclists can be and are often lazy. We want to get where we're going as fast as possible.
Motorists, doesn't that sound familiar? Isn't that why we have drive-thru banks and coffee shops? Isn't that why there are HOV lanes on highways? Isn't that why your car can go 160 km/h when you legally should never reach speeds greater than 100 km/h, and much lower in our city?
We go the wrong way on streets because it is simply easier than trying to get into a turning lane, then wait for oncoming traffic while watching behind us for anyone who doesn't see us and then get honked at because we turn too slow. We go the wrong way because our destination is on the side of the street we're on and we don't want to deal with street car tracks. The reasons are numerous, even if they aren't in the name of safety and following the rules.
So, the next time you see a cyclist breaking the rules, ask yourself why they are behaving in this manner. There is always a reason for a cyclists behaviour. Cyclists aren't always making the right choices, and we do need to address not only the problem action, but also the reason behind why this action was made.
What do you think of the rules of the road and why cyclists break them in Toronto?
Photo by ammiiirrr posted to Flickr


text:
Let's not forget the popular "Real Men of Genius" Budweiser commercials on both T.V. and radio that salute the hard work of such illuminating figures as "Mr. Grocery Cart Wrangler," "Mr. Toilet Paper Roll Changer," and "Mr. Way Too Much Cologne Wearer." Too funny these commercials are. Haven't seen them on in a while though.
The mulleted guy who sings those commericals was once in Survivor.


text:
Chill release initial roster
ONALASKA, Wis. - The Coulee Region Chill release its initial team roster after last weekend's tryout camp. The coaching staff said it met with each player individually to talk about their future with or without the Coulee Region Chill.
Veterans returning: G-Blake Cates, D-Max Zebro, Team Captain & F-Mac Jansen, F-Adam Lovick, F-Eddie Matsushima, F-Blake Kelley, F-James McGing, F-Cam Bleck D-Aleksi Mustaniemi & F-Jesse Tredinnick.
Tenders, Draft Picks and others arriving for September's camp: D-Jake Zeleznikar, F-Tanner Barnes, D-Kurt Halbach, F-Ondrej Zehnal, F-Richard Zehnal, D-Carter Horwitz, D-Matt Montemurro, D-Dunk Abbott, D-Brogan Rafferty, D-Curtis Simonson & F-Griff Jeszka.
Onalaska native Gabe Flood and select free agents are also invited in September to compete for roster spots.
The roster must be reduced to 23 players in October. The Chill will open the 2013-14 season at the Schwan's Super Rink in Blaine, MN on Wednesday, September 18th.
The first home game for the Chill at the Omni Center is Friday, October 18th.


text:
Model eV070-TST
Operator Interfaces
7" TFT color display, 256 colors, LED backlight
from $490.00/ea
EffectiView is the answer to the demand for low-cost entry-level products in all application areas, from factory automation, with machine builders and OEM, to building automation with system integrators.
The eV Designer is the powerful yet intuitive software you will need to create application for the effectiView products. An easy to use graphical interface let you create in minutes appealing interface screens. The features include high-end vector graphics, TrueType font support for multilanguage applications (Windows fonts can be easily used), a rich selection of graphical objects and a flexible handling of object dynamics. All models support recipes, data acquisition and trend presentation. Flexible alarm handling and access validation with passwords are available. eV Designer software includes a fast off-line simulator to let you verify the correctness of your applications.
All products in display sizes from 8.4" to 12.1" are also available as Windows CE workstations, without HMI runtime software. Standard features include:
- Lowest Cost HMI On the Market
- Off-line Simulation
- On Board Ethernet
- High Quality TFT Displays
- Easy Mounting
- Free Software for First Time Buyers
- New LED Backlight Designs Available
- Display Sizes 3.5" to 12.1"
Features of Operator Interfaces


text:
A great friend of mine shared a story with me the other day, I thought it may be worth passing on because I believe like he does that there is value in our program and that value starts and ends with the Scouts in it.
He had a Scout in his troop some time back that was never real happy about being in Scouting. It was something that the lads parents wanted him to be in because they saw real value in what Scouting had to offer.
Well time went on and the Scout finally drifted away from the troop. But the memories of his time in the troop were not all that fond. The Scouts of the troop remembered him as disruptive and grumpy. Rarely did he shoulder his share of the tasks on camp outs and when he did make it to meetings, he was late.
A few years had past since he departed the troop and one morning my friend saw an article in the newspaper about a tragic crime that had been committed in our town. A burglary that resulted in some violence. The person that had committed the crime was sentenced and would be spending the better part of 15 years in prison. That person was the Scout in my friends troop. The Scout that did not want to be there, that was disruptive and mean.
At first my buddy thought that he should just keep it to himself, but then realized that he was not the only one that read the paper. Perhaps some of his Scouts had seen the article and would ask if he knew anything more.
So at the next troop meeting my buddy, during his Scoutmaster Minute, told the story, but he started it like this.
You boys all know that we Adult leaders love to hear about your successes. We cherish the time we spend with you teaching you and guiding you. We try our best to develop in you Character, and Citizenship. I like to follow your success and see what you have made of yourself once you leave Scouting, in fact I keep a scrap book of articles, pictures, and other things that show what you all, individually, has done with your lives.
Some of you may have heard about a former Scout that is now in prison. This makes my heart hurt. This boy did not get the benefit of the Scouting program because he did not open up to it. He never wanted to be here and therefore missed out on the many opportunities and adventures. He missed out on the development that would have led him down better trails in life. It saddens me.
I want to see all of you become successful, what ever that is in your life, and know that as you get older and move away from Scouting, you will always be one of my Scouts and I will cherish the memories that we have had together.
My buddy is a great Scoutmaster, he truly cares and loves for each of his Scouts. I learn a lot from him and we share ideas all the time. We run our troops differently, but the principles and values do not change, neither does the fact that we love Scouting and the Scouts in it.
We understand the value of Scouting and what it can do for these young men.
Have a Great Scouting Day!


text:
I finished up my fall season call today, it's a Blk Limba pot with bronze glass over blackwood soundboard. This call has the same deep throated rasp in it as that magnolia call did, but it has a bit higher start to it. The kee kee's are that sweet mid tone kee. I don't get too excited about the sound of calls any more, but this call has peeked my intrest, can't wait to get it into the woods this fall and see how the birds like it?
Thanks for looking, Scott.


text:
Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Abdullatif bin Rashid Al- Zayani read this joint statement to conclude the 33rd GCC Summit in Bahrain on December 25, 2012.
The Supreme Council welcomed the opening of the International Excellence Center for Curbing Violent Extremism (Hidayah) in Abu Dhabi where experts and expertise are pooled from various countries in order to combat all sorts and phenomena of violent extremism.
The Supreme Council expressed gratitude and appreciation for the efforts of the consultative body and ratified its views pertaining to youth strategy, boosting of the spirit of citizenship, the strategy of employment in the GCC states in the governmental and private sectors and referring these views to the relevant ministerial committees in order to set up implementation mechanism for this purpose.
The Supreme Council decided that the Consultative Body shall assume the following tasks during its sixteenth session:
1- Studying the creation of a regulatory authority for food and drug in the GCC states.
2- Studying the creation of a joint GCC specialized center for public and preventative health .
3- Studying and appraisal of the media strategy of the GCC states and developing it.
4- Mechanisms to combat corruption and remove obstacles before development in the GCC states and its relation with the set of values.
5- Assessing the reality of children's cultural programs and how to develop them.
The Supreme Council instructed implementation of what has already been agreed during joint meetings with countries and economic blocs in order to achieve common interests of the GCC and its partners.
The Supreme Council reiterated its firm stance as per previous statements rejecting the Iranian occupation of the UAE's three Islands namely: (Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa ), asserting the right to supremacy on the three islands and regional territorial waters, airspace and continental cliff and free economic zone which form an integral and inseparable part of the United Arab Emirates. The Supreme Council expressed sorrow because no positive results could be reached through communications with the Islamic Republic of Iran as to culminate in a solution for the issue of the three UAE's islands so as to contribute into boosting the security and stability of the region.
Any acts or practices implemented by Iran on the three islands will be deemed null and void and should not entail any change in legal or historic status of the Islands which confirm the right of supremacy of the United Arab Emirates over its three Islands.
The Supreme Council did not rule out considering all peaceful means which could lead to reinstating the right of the United Arab Emirates over its three islands, inviting the Islamic Republic of Iran to respond to the UAE's efforts to solve the issue through direct negotiations or resorting to the International Court of Justice.
The Supreme Council rejected and denounced continual Iranian interference in the GCC states' internal affairs and urged Iran to immediately stop these practices for good and to refrain from policies and acts which increase tension or threaten regional security and stability. The Supreme Council emphasized the need for Iran's full compliance with the principles of good neighborliness and mutual respect and non-intervention in internal affairs and solving disputes by peaceful means without resorting to force or threats.
The Supreme Council asserted that the Iranian nuclear program does not only threaten regional security and stability but also international security and stability, urging Iran to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (the IAEA), and renewed the GCC firm stance regarding the significant need for Iran's compliance in order to make the Middle East region, including the Arabian Gulf region, free from weapons of mass destruction as well as from nuclear weapons, praising international efforts aimed to solve the Iranian nuclear program through peaceful means.
The Supreme Council affirmed the right of countries, including Iran, to harnessing peaceful nuclear energy on condition of responsibility of the operating country for the safety of its nuclear facility whilst taking into consideration environmental safety in the large geographic region and the need to fully comply with standards of safety and security and non-nuclear proliferation. Now that Iran began operating the Bu Shehr reactor, the GCC countries urge Iran to maintain full transparency vis-a-vis this matter and to join the agreement on nuclear safety and enforce maximum safety standards in its facilities.
The Supreme Council reviewed latest developments on the Syrian arena, under continually deteriorating conditions and the human suffering of the brotherly Syrian people. The Council expressed utmost pain and grief towards continuous bloodshed and loss of innocent lives, destruction of cities and infrastructures which necessitates a speedy political power transition. The Council urged the international community to move seriously in order to promptly stop these massacres and blatant violations which contradict with all heavenly commandments, international laws and human values.
The Supreme Council asserted its support to the Syrian National Coalition which is the sole lawful representative of the Syrian people formed in Doha in November 2012 under the kind patronage of His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa the Emir of the State of Qatar and auspices of the Arab League, urging the international community to urgently provide all sorts of humanitarian assistance to the brotherly Syrian people who suffer from harsh living conditions.
The Supreme Council expressed its support to the mission of the UN Arab Envoy to Syria, Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi, provided that this gains consensus from the UN Security Council especially its permanent members, in accordance with the powers and responsibilities of the UN Security Council in maintaining international security and stability.
The Supreme Council explored latest developments of the Palestinian issue, asserting that permanent fair and comprehensive peace cannot be achieve except after Israel's full withdrawal from Arab territories it has occupied since 1976 in Palestine, the Syrian Golan Heights and Lebanon and the establishing of an independent Palestinian State whose capital should be in eastern Al-Quds, which are the same principles embodied in the Arab Peace Initiative and the relevant UN resolutions.
The Supreme Council congratulated the brotherly Palestinian people on winning the status of a UN nonmember observer state, and hoped that this will be a step forward towards creating the Palestinian State with its capital in eastern Al-Quds, urging the Palestinian factions to unite their ranks and end the divisions in order to serve the highest interest of the Palestinian people.
The Council condemned Israeli colonial policies aimed to change the geographic and demographic condition on Palestinian territories which constitute inhumane unethical crime and a serious breach of international laws which should not entail any legal impact in favor of Israel.
The Council welcomed the ceasefire in Gaza brokered by the Arab Republic of Egypt and called to boost this agreement in order to avoid any recurrence of hostile Israeli acts and urged the world community to ensure provision and delivery of urgent humanitarian assistance to the besieged people of Gaza Strip.


text:
In-ear design Wired Lightweight (Isolating) Stereo Headphones Large 11mm High Fidelity Professional In Ear Monitors Silver Wire speaker driver produces amazingly clear sound Coated cable for Tangle-Free operation With Memory Wire designed with a snug fit for active people With 15 pairs of eartips including Comfort MaxTM Tip PivoTipTM Sound Ports 3.5 mm 24K Gold-plated, corrosion-resistant...
Rocketfish Mobile - Earbud Headphones - Black
"Rocketfish is the Best Buy house brand of audio components/accessories. When I picked these up I was getting sick of the 'pinched' sound of my CX300ii series B, or whatever name Sennheiser has attached to them. By 'pinched' I mean boosted in the wrong places of the spectrum. I don't believe in spending $500 on iems that are going to be sweated on, tossed in a gym bag and otherwise abused. Hell..." --Mach-X
Rocketfish Mobile Stereo Ear Bud Headphones Black RF-MEP2
Enjoy your favorite tunes with these ear bud headphones that feature a neodymium magnet and 10mm drivers for great audio quality. What's Included * RocketfishTM Mobile Stereo Ear Bud Headphones * Ear buds (small, medium, large)


text:
Hello All,
My name is Jerry C. I am new here A couple weeks ago I bought a really nice pup, I am following Richard Wolters advice from Water Dog and also wanting to train her for shed hunting. Three day ago I get a lab cross pup dumped on me , While trying to find her a home I have discovered she is really smart and has great drive, I have always heard don't train two pups at the same time but i am falling fast for this new pup . Help what do I do?


text:
January 31, 2013
Local artist Milo Alfring will show his work at Urbane starting Friday.
Stories this photo appears in:
Steamboat tattoo artist Milo Alfring finds freedom in his work
Milo Alfring will be showing his artwork — along with collaborative pieces he created with Garrett Brown and the work of Jonathan McHugh — at Urbane during February. The show opens during First Friday Artwalk on Friday.
Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.
Requires free registration
Posting comments requires a free account and verification.


text:
OK, here's just a few pics that I took at Comic-Con...
OK, here's just a few pics that I took at Comic-Con...
Grimlock Alternator: Hasbro is abusing the names of characters the cartoon show established for us (and them to market their darn products in the first place).
Grimlock is a Mustang. OK, a muscle car. Whatever that means exactly. But isn't a Corvette a muscle car? So how can Tracks and Grimlock be in the same category? They're such different characters.
I told JediTricks my idea for a Grimlock that's a Mustang Alternator: have the car turn into a dinosaur!
Grimlock prefers his dino mode anyway. That would be a sweet new way to do it!
Tycho, that's a fantastic idea...I can't see how it could be done though, considering how large the T-Rex head and tail are.Originally Posted by Tycho
Then make Grimlock a Hummer that turns into a dinosaur and make Wheeljack a Mustang or something.
Actually, I'd save a Hummer to be a Decepticon, hehe.
Like I replied to Tycho in PM, Hasbro's tried the Transformers that don't have bot modes before and they're generally quite unpopular. That's one I certainly wouldn't buy.
The Corvette is not exactly a muscle car, it's a sports car. I think the difference is that a sports car is sleek and fine-tuned and aerodynamic, while a muscle car uses brute force to get up to speed instead. The Dodge Viper is a car that straddles the line between the 2 I think.
I don't think we can save any mold for just Decepticons in this line, the companies don't like the idea of their product licensed to be the bad guy, and using the mold only once is considered a waste of money.
Nice to see the BW Neo Big Convoy that'll be coming out in the TFU line soon, that's a piece I've been wanting for a while and I'm really not minding this color scheme over the classic Optimus scheme the original had (I'm just a little sick of the red, gray, blue thing these days). I can't wait to have Big Scourge or whatever they're calling him trample my Energon figs.
Darth Vader is becoming the Mickey Mouse of Star Wars.
Kylo Ren - came from Space Brooklyn, although he moved to Space Williamsburg before it was trendy.
The use of a lightsaber does not make one a Jedi, it is the ability to not use it.
Spotted Omega Supreme & the 2 Role Play weapons yesterday at WM. OS was $48.78 and I was tempted, but had a bunch of toys already that I was getting and had to pass. If I ever see him on sale for $40 or $35 (or less) I'll pick him up on the spot.
The Autobot role play weapon looks like your standard Nerf gun, nothing special about it from what I could see. Megatron's sword looks pretty neat though, it has a collapsable blade similar to the SW lightsabers, and flip-out blades at the hilt, I am waiting to hear a review from someone else first though.
Darth Vader is becoming the Mickey Mouse of Star Wars.
Kylo Ren - came from Space Brooklyn, although he moved to Space Williamsburg before it was trendy.
The use of a lightsaber does not make one a Jedi, it is the ability to not use it.
I saw those two weapons at W*M today also, and yeah the sword's cool -- but that "Energon Blaster" is gonna freak my son out. He's gonna go nuts.
I'm trying hide it from him until his B-day in October though. (If he gets hold of one before then, I'll let you know how it is.)
Noooo... I want new TF's so bad.. and you find OS... I did see the weapons.. the sword is tempting..
Wal-Mart exclusive g1 piranacon repaint?!
Dreamwave: http://tformers.com/ig.php?mode=albu...0Panel&start=0
BWTF gallery : http://www.bwtf.com/gallery/otfcc2k4hasbro
Thanks for the links Adam. Im really liking Energon Grimlock and Swoop as individual figures. I like Swoops color scheme, something a little different looking than his G1 figure. I think Grimlock looks awesome. Combined they look like crap to me. Im not impressed by the head on it so these guys will be staying apart. Piranacon sounds interesting, but i dont like the orange on his various parts so i may hold off on him and wait for a clearance price. Meanwhile nothing new in my stores, though TRU did lower the price on their reissues.
Good Traders/Sellers: Cameo, Darth Cruel, Sith Killer 99, JJReason, icatch9, ChasingJediDogma, AT-AT Man, JediMasterGuyute, Brainiak76, JangoFett96, njscollectibles, Vulcantouch, AC Pin, TheDarthVader, msjedi, DarthQuack, Roojay


text:
A simple stir-fry turns sweetly golden when you marry spinach greens with raisins!
Green leafy vegetables such as spinach, kale, mustard greens and collard greens are called saag in Hindi, India's national language. You can use any one of these greens or a combination in this recipe.
Each household in North India has its own version of garam masaala. The spice blend can be used whole, ground raw or dry-roasted and then ground. Whatever its state, the resulting aroma puts a smile on your face and a lilt in your northern-based recipes.
You can purchase garam masaala already blended in East Indian markets or many supermarkets.
© 2017 ®/TM General Mills All Rights Reserved


text: I watched most of this today, and it was your typical College Comedy with all the typical jokes (Who's grown tired of the laxitve in the drink gag? Raise your hands.) However, I was really impressed with newcomer Ryan Reynolds in the titular role and hope to see more from him in the future. It wasn't so much the jokes that were funny as his delivery of them. He has superb comic timing and facial gestures that reminded me of the classic SNL crew back in the day. Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, etc... He was helped by strong performances by Kal Penn, the guy playing Taj, the naive Indian assistant and veteran comic villian Paul Gleason (the principal from breakfast Club among other roles). The performances make this a fun little diversion and a chance for cult popularity.


text:
Web Stories
Former director of Baghdad museum to speak
Posted February 12, 2009; 01:20 p.m.
Donny George Youkhanna, the former director general of the National Museum in Baghdad, will speak about looting of the museum following the U.S. invasion of Iraq at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 18, in 101 McCormick.
George, who also served as chairman of the Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, will present an illustrated talk about the looting of the Baghdad museum and efforts to recover the stolen artifacts. The lecture is part of a monthly series sponsored by the University Library's Department of Rare Books and Special Collections and the Princeton Society of the Archaeological Institute of America. A reception will follow the talk.
As American troops entered Baghdad on April 10, 2003, thieves emptied the National Museum of artifacts, some of which dated back before recorded history. George and his colleagues led efforts to recover almost half of the stolen 15,000 Mesopotamian artworks and artifacts that date back to as much as 6,000 years. A significant number of artifacts are still missing.
George's recovery efforts brought death threats to him and his family from people who did not want the artifacts recovered. George and his family eventually fled Iraq, and he now teaches at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
For more information contact Alan Stahl, curator of numistmatics in the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, at firstname.lastname@example.com.


text:
A man and two women in elegant dress promenade towards us, a local fisherman with his rod walks away, some boats are beached on the shore, other figures are hastily sketched in. Constable's real interest was in capturing the broad expanse of beach and cloud filled sky and in suggesting the freshness of the air. His use of a relatively low horizon gives emphasis to the sky and the movement of the cloud masses in it. Nonetheless, the presence of the figures on the beach and the houses on the cliffs make the sea and sky seem less 'wild'.
Although this is a cabinet picture and not a sketch, Constable painted rapidly to create an impression of the scene, capturing the atmospheric conditions, the play of light on the sea and beach and the uncertainty of the weather. It has a freshness and luminosity that anticipates the paintings of Eugène Boudin.


text:
A FEW weeks after the night of the bargain two notices appeared in the same paper. The first informed the world that on a certain day George Blair, Esq., and Undine Bock had become, till death should part them, bone of one bone and flesh of one flesh, by a holy and inscrutable mystery, two in one and one in two.
The second notice asserted that the like wonderful and miraculous though oft-repeated process had taken place between Mr. Albert Blair and Lady Edith Mountjoy.
"Did I not say so?" said Miss Mell, excitingly, as, seated beside Mrs. Barnacles' sofa with the paper in her hands, she read the two notices. "She was not half the poor little fool you all thought her; she understood her game when she let the son slip to catch the father; she knew where the meat lay.
"She has a nice nest of it," continued Miss Mell. "The old man is too stout and apoplectic to last long, and the sons are both in his bad books, where you may be sure she will take good care to keep them. page: 182 She is an innocent little creature, only likes her books and her flowers, but she knows a thing or two. We shall have her here after a few years," continued the poor little woman, "a widow with her thousands, cutting a dash and riding roughshod over our heads."
She felt it was an unjust world this, in which one woman wins all the cakes and bon-bons and another nothing more than dry bread and weak tea.
An hour or two later Cousin Jonathan, sitting in his study, read them also, and as he read his heart grew lighter. It had been heavy, strangely heavy, of late.
"She could never have cared for him or she could not have done this," he muttered. "To marry for money and so soon: she could never have cared for him." And with these words the little man was wont to quiet unpleasant stirrings for months and years to come.
Albert Blair, taking up the paper to see his own notice, read what stood above it.
"What a merciful escape I have had!" he exclaimed, and for once the imperturbable calm that reigned within him was almost disturbed. It is never pleasant to find yourself a dupe where you thought yourself adored, and a fool where you thought your self wise; and what small pity he had felt for the little girl who loved him was changed into loathing for the woman who had fooled him. From that mo- moment page: 183 ment his flickering faith in woman died and he held his father's creed—the creed that all women have their value in coins, though some mount high.
In a poor half-furnished room the owner of the woman's eyes and the crammed head sat beside a bare deal table. Before him lay an open newspaper.
"There is nothing worth loving, nothing true, nothing noble in the world," he cried, bitterly, and buried his face in the paper before him. When he raised it, it was wet with tears. She was not only as all women are, but lower than many: to sell herself, with her youth and talents, to an old and evil man for his money and lands.
"O God, my God!" he cried in bitterness of soul, covering his face with both hands, "and this is the woman whom I have allowed to come in between my soul and Thee."
In a richly furnished apartment, enveloped in a soft cloud of white lace and delicate azure ribbons, sat Undine Blair. Diamonds glittered in her hair and her little jewelled fingers strayed listlessly over the leaves of the paper before her. Around her on every side lay a profusion of those things in which a woman's soul delights—the bon-bons and cakes that the Miss Mells of this world sigh for.
She was sitting waiting for dinner and the arrival of her husband, and ran her eye carelessly over the sheet before her. There, below the notice of her own sale, stood that other notice. She read it and page: 184 a burning mist gathered in her eyes. From her ears and neck she tore jewels that hung there and threw them on the ground at her feet. Signs of her servitude, worn for his sake, there had been a sweetness in their very bitterness. Now they were accursed—burning into her very sleep; she trod upon them with her foot. For nothing, all for nothing; he had no need of her. Poor childish fool, to think that ever he could stand in need of her or of her sacrifice.
"Dinner is ready and my master is waiting," said a servant who a few moments later came to call her.
"Say I am ill today and cannot come," she answered, and when the door closed behind him sank back in the chair and covered her dry throbbing eyeballs with her hot hands. She ground her teeth in futile rage and helplessness. Parched and very bitter was her soul that night.
Truly, a very fiend's had been the voice that had called her back to life from the muddy, reed-edged pool, called her back to life to pass from evil on to evil.
A soft pulpy hand rested on her bare shoulder and her husband spoke to her.
"Is my little pet ill this evening? What is the matter with her?"
She threw his hand from her with passion through which involuntary disgust was clearly visible, and, page: 185 eluding the hand with which he strove to detain her, passed quickly from him.
"What do you mean by this?" cried the little man, and stood staring at the closed door by which she had vanished. His astonishment was great. In the three weeks of his married life she had taken all his caresses, submitted to all his wishes, as absolutely as though subdued by the most slavish passion. As an automaton is guided by the hand of its master, his will had moved hers, and of desire or inclination of her own she had seemed devoid.
Was his honeymoon to end so soon? Were his self-congratulations to end in this? Had he really purchased a scourge and a termagant in his fair young wife? As soon as he could leave the delights of the table, had he not hurried upstairs really concerned at the indisposition of his precious new treasure—puffing and red with wine, soup, and exertion? Had he not entered the room to caress and fondle her? And was he to be met so? Had he played the fool in his old days? he asked himself. For the first time in his long life he thought he had fallen into a bad speculation, but he changed his mind as time passed on. In the months that followed the scene of that evening was never repeated. She grew quieter, colder, but more passive and submissive every week. Whether it were to sit by his side, to have her lips kissed, to wear a particular dress, to page: 186 attend a certain ball, the obedience she gave him was equally absolute, unquestioning, and lifeless.
He had paid his price for her faithfully, she realised, and it was not his fault if the thousands he had given her were of as little service as a handful of gravel from his paths. She had bartered her life for his gold and she must give it.
In the autumn they went to the seaside. The restless murmuring of the water stirred up old memories which she would fain have left buried; but he wished to be there and she said nothing. The winter and spring they spent in London; when the summer came they went to his new estate.
"I shall never be able to live in Greenwood," she said. And he paid deference to the one wish she had expressed.
"You never ask me to do anything for you," he said one day. "Ask me for something." And she, obedient in this as in all else, asked him to buy the little rose-covered cottage in which her grandmother lived. The gift came too late to profit the one for whom it was intended; for in the winter her grandmother died.
If she felt the loss, no one could tell, for she showed no feeling on that or any subject. During the summer their house was filled with guests of many kinds, not because either host or hostess had many friends or was well liked, but because there was good shooting, good living and good company page: 187 to be had there. All admired the young wife and pronounced her lovely—even women. They had as little reason to feel jealous of her as of the silent statues that adorned her rooms.
"She is a cold, dull, heartless little creature in whom nothing can awaken the faintest spark of womanly emotion," said one who considered himself preëminently endowed with those charms of appearance and manner which cause disturbance in the hearts of women, and who, through a long morning ramble, had been vainly endeavouring to exercise his charms upon her. For him, for all, there was one constant smile that went no higher than the lips, and that had no meaning save when a little scorn showed itself. Cold, heartless, and surely money-loving must be one who could marry an old, bloated and apoplectic little man who had only gold with which to varnish himself and cake over his deficiencies.
"She dresses well and knows how to make herself look beautiful, but that is the only thing she has sense enough to understand," said the women. But none of them accused her of vanity. She was too supremely indifferent as to the impression she made on others.
No one offended her, no one cared for her: not her inferiors in spite of her lavish generosity to them. Her kindest actions were done in an indifferent, feelingless manner that made it as impossible to feel page: 188 thankful for them as to the rain for falling or the wind for blowing.
Nancy, being now without employment, came one day to see if Undine would take her into her service. "And, Lor'!" said she, when giving an account of all that had passed to her lover that evening, "I did not know Miss Undine: she's grown so beautiful and dresses so grand; it kind of took my breath away to look at her. Then I just remembered how she used to lie under them old trees in the garden and rub down them chairs, and so I says, 'Miss Undine—Mrs. Blair I mean—I hope you'll be so good as to forgive me for making so bold, but I'm out of work now and I thought perhaps as how you'd be so good as to let me get some work, if as how you have any to give.'
"'Aren't you married yet?' says she, a-looking straight at the book in her hand.
"'Lor'! Mrs. Blair, no,' says I. 'I've not got anything to get married with,' says I.
"'If you had that little cottage my grandmother used to live in, I suppose you could do well,' says she; 'it's got a large garden.'
"'Lor'! mum,' says I, 'we could never have a house like that; it's worlds too grand for the likes of us.'
"'Well,' says she, 'if you think it would help you, you can go and live in it for nothing,' says she, 'and I'll see that you get work whenever you want it.'page: 189
"'Lor'! Mrs. Blair, you don't mean it, mum!' says I.
"'Yes, you can go in as soon as you like,' says she; 'but the housekeeper asked me to let a woman stay in the little shed outside the garden; you must not trouble her,' says she, and goes on reading as though there weren't no one in the room. My head was all of a-whirl like, so I just says thank you, mum, and walks out of the room."
A few days after Nancy's visit Undine made her morning ramble a longer one than usual. She was alone, and a solitary walk was a pleasure she had rarely enjoyed since her marriage. Mile after mile she wandered on till she found herself near to the little rose-covered cottage, very silent and desolate now with its flower-clothed walls and its closed shutters. She did not enter the garden, but passed round to the front of the house, thinking to rest on the bench beneath the great tree that grew before the door. The spot was occupied, however, and she stood at a little distance, watching its occupant who, not aware of her presence, was stitching quickly at the blue work she held in her hands. She was an erect, tall, well-proportioned woman with lustrous black eyes and glistening black hair.
She had been very beautiful once, thought Undine, more beautiful than I. But the young face was worn now and there were lines of suffering round the dark eyes and curved lips. Something hard, page: 190 almost repellent, was in the expression of the face she bent over her work, but the look vanished when she paused for an instant in her work to throw down a bunch of green leaves at the baby that lay before her on the soft short grass, a pink-and-white thing with blue eyes and yellow hair. She smiled a soft, glad smile, and Undine felt sure it was not the first time she had looked at that face and smile, though where and when she had looked at them she could not tell. The woman was raggedly clothed, not even cleanly; the child was spotless, and neither in colour nor in features bore any resemblance to her.
She was just resuming her work when she noticed Undine and rose from her seat as the little silk-clad lady approached.
"Do not rise," said Undine; "the bench is large enough for us both."
She felt attracted by her, not because of her neglected beauty, not by the vague impression that they had met before, but by a look in the dark eyes which drew her, as a look sometimes will in the face of some passenger in a crowd or a woman behind a counter. We may never speak, have no communication, but we feel that we have come near to one who is of our own flesh and blood.
"Do you live here all alone?" asked the silken-clad little beauty as she took her seat beside her rag-clad sister, who, if she remembered meeting her be- before page: 191 fore, did not show it and stitched on quickly with downcast eyes.
"No. I have him," answered the woman, looking down at the nine-months-old baby at her feet. "Having him, how can I be lonely? How can I want anything?" the look said; then she hurried on with her work again.
"Do you not feel very lonely, living here so far from all other houses?" asked Undine after a moment's pause.
"No," said the woman, shortly. "I like it."
Then Undine sat quietly watching the large, soft, brown hands that had evidently not been accustomed to hard work, the proud erect figure, the defiant sullen face, and the pink-and-white thing that laughed at their feet. She was a woman who had come no one knew from where, with only a baby, and her story was not difficult to read. Her neighbours read it after their fashion and called her a wicked woman, a very wicked woman.
When Undine had rested a few minutes longer she rose to go, but first she kneeled down on the grass where the baby lay.
"One kiss, for the sake of your bonny blue eyes," she said.
As she walked slowly past the garden hedge she came to the shed where mother and child lived. 'Twas a miserable tumble-down place, yet Undine, as she passed it, envied them.page: 192
"I am not alone, for I have him, the child of love," the eyes had said; and Undine with her empty heart, and the knowledge that she, too, soon would be mother of a child, not the child of love, but of loathing—Undine with her riches and her good name envied the dark woman her disgrace, her baby, and her rags.
"Where have you been all day? Not climbing the hills and over-exerting yourself, I hope?" said her fat little proprietor as he met her in the door on her return; and for the rest of that day she was never free of him; neither on many days that followed did she find an opportunity for repeating that morning's walk.
The anniversary of their wedding day came. They had given a grand dinner, but the guests had departed early, and her husband, having indulged a little more freely than usual in that which makes heavy the heart of man, had fallen asleep on the sofa in his dressing-room. She stood at the low open window of her room, looking out into the oppressive night. There was that heavy stillness in the air that precedes the bursting of a great storm.
"You may go. I shall not need you tonight," she said to her maid; and when she had withdrawn, Undine threw a great shawl over her head and stepped out of the window, still dressed in black velvet and wearing on her neck the pearls that had made her the envied of many women that night. page: 193 She walked on quickly, not caring which path she took and pressing her foot hard on the ground at every step. It had caused a greater strain than usual that evening to wear, without once dropping it for a moment, that mask of smiles that she wore till the lines in her cheeks grew stiff and hurt.
"God's pity let us pray," she said.
Thinking of nothing, with these lines running, running through her head, she walked while the sky grew dark and yet darker. Presently gusts of wind came hurrying past her, and then the great storm whose forerunners they had been overtook her. Fiercely the wind shook the branches of the trees over her head, and the large drops fell heavily through them. She was too far from home to think of returning, but she knew her grandmother's cottage could not be far off. She would go and sit in the little porch till the worst was over, she thought, and walked on slowly while the fast-falling rain made its way through her shawl and drenched her to the skin.
As she passed near the broken shed she noticed page: 194 light coming through its small crooked window and through the crevices and cracks in its old stone walls. When she passed the window she paused for a moment and looked in. Most of the panes of glass were gone, their place being supplied by strips of pasted paper, but through the two squares that still remained she could clearly see all that the hovel contained. In one corner stood a small stretcher which was now unoccupied, for on a small stool before the fire, with her back turned to the window, sat the woman, her head stooping low over the baby she held close to her. Before the window stood a small table in which a tallow candle fixed in a broken brass candlestick was flickering and flaring. In the hearth the smouldering fire was almost extinguished by the rain which came down through the chimney, and the drops which made their way through the roof gathered themselves together in pools on the uneven floor.
It was a strange reversal in the order of things—the honoured wife of the rich man in her velvets and jewels standing out in the night storm and gazing in with envious eyes at the home where poverty and shame had taken their abode.
There came a hush in the storm and Undine could hear the woman was murmuring to the child as she bent over it. The first words she did not hear, but some came to her through the crevices and holes in the crazy window frame: "My child, my little child, page: 195 you will not leave me, you will not forsake me. You are all, all I have." Then there came words Undine did not catch, and then again: "If you will only stay with me, I will live for you, work for you, starve for you; you shall be rich and clever one day. I am not cruel to want to keep you. You must not die, you cannot die, my little baby. I loved you so before you lived. You are all I have of him. You must not die and leave me, my baby, my little baby."
Then the mad storm came back howling after its rest, and the words were lost. Uncertain whether to enter or to go on to the cottage, Undine paused for an instant, then knocked at the door. There was no response and she laid her hand on the broken latch. The crazy door, opening, let her in, with a flood of rain and a gust of wind that almost extinguished the quickly melting candle.
"I hope I have not frightened you," she said, when she had fastened it once more. "I have been overtaken in the storm."
The woman made no answer, but looked up at her with dull, lustreless eyes; then, recognising her visitor, she said, "You liked my baby; you were the only one who ever kissed him. He is dying now." She said the last words slowly and distinctly in a harsh whisper, and then looked down at the little figure wrapped in a great shawl that lay upon her knee.
Undine kneeled down beside her. She would page: 196 have spoken words of comfort, but when her eyes fell on the little face, even by the uncertain light of the flickering candle and fire, she saw that death's hand was on the baby and the little life of love and shame would soon be ended.
In silence she kneeled by them, holding in her white jewelled fingers the tiny cold hand that rested on the shawl, while her long velvet train was curled up in one of the pools on the floor.
There was no word spoken in the hut for a long time. The storm shook the loose walls in its fury, the great raindrops killed the smouldering fire, and the two women sat watching in silence for the coming of the awful stranger.
At last there came a sudden hush in the storm. No sound was heard but the slow falling of the raindrops as they dripped from the roof into the puddles on the floor, and the candle flickered no more but burnt up straight and steady. Then the little child heaved a long weary sigh, and the clasp of the little hand relaxed, the closed eyes partly opened, and they knew that death had been with them.
The mother sat as one who dreams, looking down at that which lay upon her knees, and their breathing sounded loud in the stillness.
At last she rose suddenly and, dropping the child heavily into Undine's arms, turned towards the door.
At that instant the storm came back, loud and fierce after its rest. She went out into it and to page: 197 the darkness, and in the hut Undine sat with the dead child on her knee.
The light fell full on the little face with its half-closed eyes that looked so strangely old and stern now with the shadow of death upon them.
As she looked down at it she seemed to see, not the face of the little snow-white baby, but that other face that haunted her day and night—the face that she would never forget, that came in between her and the blue sky when she tried to look upwards, and between her eyes and the sunny grass and flowers when they smiled upon her.
Was she not to look into the face of a dead child without seeing it even there, also?
It was like madness, she thought, and drew from beneath the small chin a white handkerchief that lay folded there, to cover from her sight the strange white face.
As she opened and spread it out, her eyes fell on a name beautifully worked on one corner. She read it and then sat thinking. After a long time she raised the little baby very gently and held it close to her. His dead baby. For she knew now that it was no madness that showed her the old haunting face in the features of the little child.
She knew now where she had seen that woman's face before, with its lustrous eyes and brilliant tints; remembered now the old hints and stories which she had regarded as lies but which tonight came page: 198 back to her as truths. And she saw it all—the deep love of years, giving all things, denying nothing, pouring itself out at the feet of that stern strong man to whom it was only a thing to be used, drawn upon, and, when no longer needed, trodden on and forgotten.
His little baby! Cared nothing for—loathed, perhaps—but what a difference. His little baby still. If she had only known it while the warm blood ran in the lips that struck her cold and chill when she pressed them now. If she had only known it sooner.
She gathered it up in her arms and moved the pearls aside that it might lie close, close against her soft warm breast—close, as though she would have given of her life to bring it back.
Then she laid it down once more and sat looking at it, and when the candle fell into its socket she still sat holding it, and the grey dawn when it looked in still found her sitting here.
The storm had gone, and when the sun arose the earth was green and laughing. The fresh morning wind helped the green branches to shake off the glittering drops that still hung on them, the flowers opened their eyes by thousands, the warming earth sent up a delicious smell, and the heavy grasses raised their wet heads and the tender plants shot out of the moist ground through every crack.
The storm had gone; only here and there a strong bough hung broken, or a great tree lay upon its side, page: 199 whispering of last night's work. For nature keeps her secrets well and hides away from the sunshine the things which she does in darkness.
Yes, well she keeps her secrets!
When the curious morning sunbeams forced their way through the tall reeds and matted boughs that grew over the muddy pool, they saw nothing, they knew nothing; they could not tell what it was that lay across the old rotten trunk deep under the thick still water, with its brown hair buried in the mud. They did not know it, and the small birds did not know it, or how were it possible they should sing in the branches overhead such joyous lies? "Life is sweet," they said. "Life is sweet, and love is long; it lasts all summer time."
"Tell me all about it, Nancy," said her lover as he conducted her home through the quiet fields that evening.
"So I will," said Nancy, "but Lor' bless me if I know where to begin, there's been so much a-happening today."
"Begin at the beginning," was her lover's very sage advice, which Nancy followed.
"Well, this morning, afore ever the sun got up, I went to the cottage to have a look at them shutters which we forgot to shut after we had been a-cleaning up last night and which I thought as how the wind page: 200 would have blown off. Well, just as I goes past the little shed outside the garden, what should I see but Mrs. Blair a-standing in the door as large as life, and a great shawl over her head and all.
"'Good-morning,' says I, wondering how she comed there at this time of day.
"'Nancy,' says she, 'there's a little child dead in here. I wish you'd call your mother and come and see to it, and see to the mother, too.'
"'Where is the mother?' says I, looking in.
"'I don't know,' says she, and walks off."
"What do you think she came there for?" asked her lover, curiously.
"Lor'! I don't know," responded Nancy. "Nobody can't give no reason for her goings-on. I wouldn't be in no ways surprised to hear she'd been and gone and drunk poison, or gone up in a balloon, or been a-doing anything unlike other folks."
"Well, I went and called mother and we seed to the baby: and the prettiest fattest little thing I ever seed, it was.
"Mother says, 'Nancy,' says she, 'look in that there little box under the bed and see if you can't find no clothes for it. The woman don't seem to be a-coming yet.'
"'Yes,' says I, and pulls out the box. The thing was locked, but, Lor'! it was so rotten, afore you'd touched it it was broken open, and there weren't much in it, neether—just a pair of babies' clothes page: 201 and the beautifullest little box that ever I see; and, Lor'! I do believe it's real gold and writing all over the top, and mother and I, we spelt out, Alice Brown and something about a drowning, but the other words were a sight too long."
"And what was in the box?" asked her lover. "Money?"
"Money?" said Nancy. "No. I just opened it afore I thought, and what do you think I seed in it? Why, the likeness of the beautifullest young man I ever set eyes on in all my born days. The man on the hairpin box ain't nothing to him, nothing. Curly hair and moustaches just the same, but a sight more handsome."
"Was that all?" said her companion, not feeling in any way entertained by the raptures of his lady love over the pictured perfection.
"Yes, that was all," said Nancy, "'cept a couple of bits of cigars, half burnt out, and an old glove a sight too big for her I should say, though she is pretty considerable big."
"What did she say when she came back and found you'd been a rummaging all her things?"
"Comed back! She never comed back," said Nancy, "and it's my belief she never will neither. She's come from nowheres and she's gone to nowheres. She thinks as how other folks can see to its burying, but it's always the way with the likes of her. Women that do the sort of thing she's been page: 202 a-doing of, they never have no natural feeling," said the virtuous Nancy. And her lover agreed with her.
"Did you tell Mrs. Blair about her never coming back?" inquired the swain.
"Well, that's what I'm just a-coming to," said Nancy. "At four o'clock I says; 'Mother,' says I, 'hadn't I better be going down to Mrs. Blair's just for to tell her that the woman hasn't come?"
"'I was just a-thinking so,' says mother. So off I went. When I gets there, 'Can't I see the mistress?' says I.
"'Don't you know?' says he.
"'Know what?' says I.
"'That she's a-dying, and the baby,too,' says he.
"'Baby,' says I. 'Lor! you don't mean it.'
"'Yes,' says the housemaid, a-coming up, 'she was took ill this morning, and the baby ain't much bigger nor your hand and more like a rat nor a baby.'
"Well, afore I could say anything in comes the nurse.
"'How's Mrs. Blair?' says I.
"'She's pretty near gone,' says the nurse, 'but she's asking after somebody. I can't hear the name very clear, but I think it's Nancy Grey.'
"'If it is,' says I, 'here I am,' and so she takes me upstairs.
"The room was so dark I could see nothing at first, but, Lor'! when I did it was awful sad to see page: 203 her a-lying there so white and dead like. She didn't take no notice of me, so after I waited a bit she said as how I had best come out. And I was just a-going out at the door when the nurse brings her baby for to put it by her side.
'Take it away, take it away!' she cries out, quite strong like, and then I comed out."
"And what are you going to do with the other baby?" inquired Nancy's lover.
"Have it buried, to be sure," said Nancy. "Mr. Blair he'll pay for it if she's dead."
But Undine did not die. And the baby lived, a puny shrivelled thing, but still it lived. One Sunday afternoon, four weeks later, they carried her from her bed to a sofa, wrapped in a richly embroidered dressing-gown and a great shawl. Near her, in its white-and-blue-satin-covered cradle, they laid her baby.
Why would they always bring that thing into her sight and keep it near her? Was it not enough that its little weak cry had rung loud in her ears when she was insensible to every other sound and had made her lose all love of life, all wish to keep it, even more then than the kisses of its father had done.
For every few hours the little man would steal softly into the room on tiptoe, with his hands open and his fingers stretched out, and, breathing very hard, would come up to her bedside to see how matters stood. When the death scale seemed to be page: 204 going down he was seriously concerned, and refused to find consolation in devilled turkey, allowing the gravy on his plate to congeal there several times before he touched it, an event wholly unprecedented in the past. Now, however, he could sip his wine at ease and smoke his cigar in tranquillity, for the doctors had pronounced her out of danger and the baby still lived. True, it looked as though the first ball coming its way must inevitably bowl it out of the game, but a baby is not very much. Babies are plentiful, and he had his wife and would have another baby some day.
On this Sunday afternoon he sat dozing peacefully in his chair, and the nurse sat by his wife.
"I think I shall sleep. I don't want to be disturbed," said Undine; and the nurse, not unwilling to take the hint, rose and left her. The room was very cool and still. A soft light came in through the dark-green curtains. She lay on the soft pillows with her face resting on her thin hand, and looked at the baby, a mere speck of red amid the blue and white. Her baby and his, therefore she hated it. Her baby—she looked at it, and then lay thinking.
It was strange to know its life had sprung from hers. Strange to have hung another tiny wheel in the great world machine that grinds on so mysteriously with its ever-jarring, never-resting wheels flying round forever. And what did it all mean? What were they all, really—that little life—the page: 205 purple violets—the dark-green curtains—herself lying there and thinking? Were they all nothing, dreams, shadows? Or something? And, if something, O God! what?
It was the old question she had asked so often when she stood, a little child, looking at the dry Karoo bushes on the old farm; and it met, as then, the old oppressive silence for an answer—silence like the hush which comes when we sit by the seashore on a dark night and hold our breaths to hear the great restless waters running up and down.
Presently she moved her hand quickly across her eyes, and then rose slowly and moved with trembling steps to the cradle-side.
"Poor little soul," she said and stooped down over it, "life is too wonderful to hate in. Poor little soul, we are all too nearly bound for hating"; and she took the baby to her. When her husband came in half an hour later he was surprised to find his child in her arms and a bunch of soft violets clasped in its tiny hand.
"Why do you do that?" he asked as he sat down beside her.
"Because I am going to call her Violet," his wife answered, and looked up at him with a smile so bright and unlike her own that it made him feel uncomfortable for a moment. Surely she was not going to die.
But after that day he often saw it, and others saw page: 206 it also. The very servants whispered that their mistress had changed strangely; and surely it was the coming of the baby that had changed her, they said, speaking like the little children who fancy that the swallows bring the summer.
In the long bright days that followed she would have an armchair put out under the great trees on the other side of the lawn, and would sit there all day with the child in her arms, drinking in the sunny beauty of grass and sky, as though birds sang to her what others could not hear.
Sometimes she read in those still sweet days; and books, which to her had so long been meaningless and dumb, had again voice and life. Whether they were the hot words of a passion-filled heart singing to appease its own intolerable hunger, or the calm record of things long past, or the exact statement of some savant concerning a flower he had dissected, there was life in them all and music. To her they were as food to one who wakes hungry after a long dark dream.
Oh, the beauty of those days, the glory of the brown that rested on the hilltops, the brightness that hung over the cut stones of the house walls!
So sweet was that first draught of a new life that she had no eye to mark shadows, and did not notice, as all others did, that the life of the little child was growing weaker and fainter as the autumn days drew near. She knew so little of children that page: 207 its slow growth did not trouble her; it knew her, and would open its dark eyes and lie smiling up at her for long times together, as they sat out in the sunshine.
"My little friend," she used to call it softly, and whisper all to it of things which could not have been spoken in any other ear.
"My little friend, who loves me."
"Some one ought to tell her; she does not dream of it," they all said. "She will wake up some morning and find the child lying dead in her arms." The doctor said so, her husband said so, they all said so; yet no one cared to tell her.
At last one evening, when the sun was almost setting, the old doctor went out to look for her. He found her sitting on the grass with the baby on her lap, bathed in the rich regretful sunset light that warmed the soft tints of the flowers in the little wreath she had wound around the child's head. He looked down at the little face below the wreath, and wondered that love could look at it without reading it. He asked her very gently how it was.
Undine only smiled softly for an answer, and said, as she stuck tiny leaves of grass among the flowers: "She is so fond of flowers, and does not tear them to pieces as other children do. She holds them so carefully in her hand and turns them round and looks at them. We don't give babies credit for half wisdom enough," she said.page: 208
"It is growing very thin," said the doctor, taking its small clenched fist into his hand, "very thin."
"Not thinner than it was," said Undine; "and when next summer comes we will go to the sea; it will soon be strong and well then."
"That is a long time to wait," said the doctor, gravely. "Many things may have happened before next summer."
Undine looked up into his grave face, and down at the little one with its crown of flowers. After a long pause she said, "What do you mean?" And he knew she had read what was written there.
It was not needful to say much more. He soon left her sitting in the sunlight. "Oh, my little friend," she said; "is it to be always so? Are we only to lift our heads above the water to be pushed down again? Do we only rise up because, if we did not, we could not be flung down to earth? Is light only sent to make the darkness visible?"
She sat there till the last glow had faded from the hilltops and the grass on which they sat began to grow damp and cold.
"My little friend, I am very cruel to wish to keep you. Would life have more of happiness for you than it has had for me?—a little gladness out of colours and lights; a little sweetness out of dreams; one hour of bliss looking at footmarks in the white snow? Is that enough to make it worth keeping? Oh, my little friend, it will be better to go. You page: 209 have made a little brightness. There is nothing better waiting for you if you stay."
"Not in bed yet?" said her husband when, returning late the next evening from a dinner he had been attending in the neighbouring town, he found his wife still up and sitting on a low chair with the child on her knees. "You might as well have gone with me if you meant to sit up so late. You will never get your roses back if you go on in this way.
"I cannot go to bed tonight," she said, quietly, smoothing softly the crumples in the child's little nightdress. "It is very ill."
"Ill? What's the matter?" he said, peering down into its face for a moment. "It looks just as usual to me. I suppose that fool of a doctor has been frightening you."
"No; he says there is no cause to be anxious just tonight, but I can see more than he can."
"Oh, we all know you can see through a wall, but it would be more sensible of you to go to bed and rest," responded her master, sullenly, as he turned away and left the room.
"Would not touch the baby at first, or have it brought near her; goes and makes a fool of herself over it now," he grumbled. "Couldn't see that it was ill, and thinks it's dying now. She's a queer composition."
It was a warm night for that time of year, and page: 210 Undine had opened the great doors and windows on both sides of the room to let in the air. Yet the lamp that hung overhead burnt steadily and threw down its unwavering steady light over mother and child. On the mantelpiece the bronze clock ticked regularly, but the breathing of the child was so low it could not be heard.
Perhaps she was very foolish, after all; the doctor must know best; and she looked down inquiringly. There was just the faintest smile about the little mouth and the hands were crossed loosely on the little breast. As she looked the smile passed slowly and the child opened wide its eyes and fixed them on the lamp overhead—those large, unearthly deep brown eyes.
Undine would not move for fear of disturbing it, but the baby turned its head round slowly, and looked up into her face with those great calm eyes. Did they speak to her or did she only fancy it? Those dark awful eyes of her own little child. There was no dread, there was no questioning in them, but a calm, solemn light.
Undine looked deep, deep into them. She did not hear the clock strike or know how the moments passed, till the white lids dropped slowly. There was no sigh, there was no change, but when she laid her hand upon its breast she knew that the baby was dead.
She rose up and carried its body to the large white page: 211 bed, and laid it down just as it was with its peacefully crossed hands. Then she dropped down on her knees beside it with her forehead on the ground, and the dead was not more motionless than the living.
The next morning when her husband, having been roused early and told of his child's death, went out in search of Undine, he found her sitting in the sunshine on the dewy grass.
"It is dead," she said, looking up at him with a calm, cloudless face, as though she had said, "It is asleep." He wondered, for how should he understand the love she bore her child, the passionless love, loving it in spite of its being hers? The baby I love, because it is mine; the woman I cling to against my reason—I must hear them, see them, touch them, or be devoured by a senseless gnawing; but the friend whose soul has reached mine, the thing I have loved for what it taught me, I let them pass without a tear, for my part of them remains with me, and for the rest, let it go.
"You have heard the news, of course," said Miss Mell one morning before she had entered Mrs. Barnacles' room. She was very much out of breath, for she was growing asthmatic of late. "Harry Blair has come. I saw him myself half an hour ago, and he says his father is dead. Did you ever hear of such a thing? Some people are lucky," said Miss Mell with energy.page: 212
"Why, I don't think he will get much. Did his father leave him anything?"
"Leave him anything! Of course he didn't. You may be sure she would take good care of that. I can see it now just as well as if it were past—how she'll come here lording it over everybody and marrying a big swell before the year's out. With all her money and her bold, free manners, men are sure to be taken by her. I am sure she has no good looks to talk of, but they are such fools they never see it. They are so easily taken in."
"Even if they are, I don't wonder that you never managed to do it," thought Mrs. Barnacles; but she only replied: "I don't know anything about her. I've never heard her mentioned since her baby died two years ago. I've never had but two notes from her since she left. Gratitude was and never will be one of Undine Blair's virtues."
Mrs. Barnacles refrained from making any further animadversions on the character of her connection; for it struck her that should Miss Mell's prognostications be verified, it would be just as well to have a smile for the young heiress and get the benefit of some of the fruit and game that would be plentiful at Blair House. Indeed, it would be rather pleasant than otherwise to have all Greenwood ridden over the head by a connection of hers, provided only that she were not included in the everybody.
Miss Mell, whose aversion for Undine was of the page: 213 same nature as that of a cat for water, or a Kaffir for work, quite irrepressible, inherent and inextinguishable, continued to express her opinion of the character of her natural enemy with asperity that might not be rivalled. She was just remarking on the perfidy of her behaviour towards Harry Blair, when Cousin Jonathan's mild blue eyes looked in at the door.
"Do come in, Mr. Barnacles. You've heard the news, no doubt; perhaps you've seen Mr. Blair?"
"Yes, he called on me as soon as he arrived. He was on the Continent when he got the news of his father's illness, and came to find him dead."
"Poor fellow! Did he really expect to get anything?" said Miss Mell, in a voice expressive of infinite scorn at his credulity.
"No; he was astonished when he got home to find that the property was to be divided equally between the two brothers. He had no idea of any such thing."
"So the old man left her nothing?" said Miss Mell.
"No," assured Cousin Jonathan; "he left her everything, but she's gone off, nobody knows where, and has left an order that everything is to be divided between them. Harry Blair has come here to enquire whether I know anything about her."
"I should say the best thing would be to let her alone," said Miss Mell; "she has evidently got some nice little game of her own to play." But Miss Mell page: 214 was discomfited. Hitherto her abhorrence of that red-cheeked, scheming affectation had been of a groundless kind, accountable only on the hypothesis of natural antipathies. Other girls as pretty did not arouse the latent feline propensity of her nature in anything like the same degree; it would not have given her half the infinite satisfaction to efface their beauty with thumb and finger nails that she would have had in operating on the cheeks of the scheming affectation. But now, to be proved a daughter of Belial, a false prophetess, by Undine obstinately refusing to commit the evil prophesied of her: was it not just cause for bitterness?
Saints made perfect forgive such injuries, but not a wrinkled woman on the rotten side of forty, with no money or intellect to keep the wine of life from turning sour in her bottle.
She sat there wishing Undine might be gone to the devil, as Alice Brown had gone in verification of her prophecy of six years before. She did not stay long, however, and found it hard work to change the expression of her countenance to one of serene affability as she passed young Mr. Dunstables in the street.
After she had gone, Cousin Jonathan sat down to smoke and read a sermon. It was a good cigar, but it hadn't any flavour; it was a nice sermon, original, by Henry Ward Beecher, but he didn't like it. He had not felt so many nasty twinges since he page: 215 had read a certain marriage notice in the papers years before. "I am growing too studious," he said; "my nerves are debilitated, seriously debilitated. I must take a tonic. I must take a walk."
Exercise is good for debility of many kinds, and he came home feeling better.
While he was walking in a desperate hurry with flying arms up the hill, Harry Blair was wandering in a desultory manner among the trees below. Cousin Jonathan was more light of heart than he had been for many a brown day:
"She was not so evil as they thought her, not so mercenary," he said, and rejoiced.


text:
Stuff happens. I am thinking about this as the Northeastern US is getting pummeled by a major snow storm. I am safely ensconced here in the SF Bay Area, and I have been party to a number of things over the years. Some experiences:
1965 New York Blackout: I was playing a board game with my siblings, and off went the lights. My father's train had just left Grand Central Terminal for his commute home to Westchester County. He ended up sleeping on the train and got home the following evening in a very rumpled suit.
1977 New York Blackout: I was working in metro NYC on a summer job, between semesters in grad school. I don't recall what caused the power to go out, and I do remember how the looting and rioting in NYC was audacious. This was not a good era for New York City, it has become a great place again since those days.
1978 New England Snow Storm: I was in graduate school in Boston. The snow poured for nearly two days. The governor and mayor basically shut the area down for the entire week. Some of us snuck out of town on the Mass Pike west, and skied in Vermont for the week. I remember deserted streets other than armed national guard troops in vehicles making their way around. Truly creepy. I think about that aspect of the experience as the news unfolds daily in various part of the world where conflict and marshal law are the norm.
1989 SF Earthquake: I had tickets to the game at Candlestick Park for the Baseball World Series between the Giants and the A's. They were courtesy of my employer, and I passed them on to one of my subordinates, since I had used some tickets for the playoffs, when SF beat the Cubs. (Great game!) I was on Highway 101 when the tremor hit, I thought all my tires had blown out.
2008 Hurricane Ike in Houston: I had a business trip to Texas for my company, planned and booked well before the hurricane came. It was not a Katrina, and it did do a great deal of damage, especially to the coastal city of Galveston. As I made my way by automobile from San Antonio to Austin to Dallas and then the Ike ravaged Houston I kept getting highway sign warnings to stay away from Houston, there was no gas (any irony there?) etc. I managed to get there, had a meal at a very nice place that was full of jolly people—I thought about the Titanic.
I did not experience the current snow storm back east, or Sandy, or Katrina, or the earthquake in Haiti, the tsunami in Japan and the like in Indonesia, the Bopal poisoning, the Anchorage earthquake when I was a kid, the earthquake a few years back in western China.
Stuff happens. The question for me is how well and how quickly we are capable to recover. The results are at best mixed.
Town Square
Natural Disasters, et al
Original post made by Paul Losch, Community Center, on Feb 9, 2013
Like this commentPosted by Prevention
a resident of Portola Valley
on Feb 9, 2013 at 2:00 pm
> The results are at best mixed.
Mostly due to the current corporate climate, in my opinion. The utilities no longer spend as much money on prevention, such as under-grounding lines or maintaining trees the way they used to. They have also cut back on crews, depending on pulling crews from other parts of the country for big events.
I think we should demand of the utilities, in exchange for their monopolies, better preventative efforts.


text:
God Bless PFC Jamie Harkness. The US Army's newest PFC, but still our neighbor's little girl!
Just to add another dimension to the early reaction to passage, the following table shows differences in the reaction among different groups.
Much of the discussion here has assumed that younger people would object to the bill because they don't want to pay for coverage since they are young and healthy, and that many of the uninsured were voluntarily uninsured and would object to being forced to obtain insurance. The survey shows 58% of each of these groups favoring the adoption. Obviously, higher income people are also the ones being called on to pay most of the cost and the ones who are likely to benefit least from the program since they generally have employer provided coverage now. Yet they favor the adoption by a 49-46% margin. Those with Medicare oppose the legislation by a slight margin. Obviously, their opposition is not ideological but based on the fear that their own socialized coverage will be weakened by extending similar benefits to others.
There is an interesting divide by marital status: "By 51% to 41%, married adults call the bill a bad thing. In contrast, unmarried adults call it a good thing by an even wider margin, 60% to 26%."
BTW, from a statistical perspective, estimates for subgroups are likely to have a much greater statistical "error" than estimates for the populations as a whole.
Last edited by YardleyLabs; 03-24-2010 at 04:03 PM.
Jeff Goodwin


text:
|Doors Open
|Four live brass bands! Zlatne Uste, Slavic Soul Party!, Inspector Gadje and Raya Brass Band--create the experience of being enveloped in the frenetic energy of competing bands.
|Film Begins
ground level, along the water between West Street and the Hudson River
Financial District
220 Vesey Street, New York City, NY, 10281
A, C to Chambers Street; E to World Trade Center, 2, 3 to Park Place
A testament to the glorious power of music to bring people together, Rooftop takes you straight to the heart of Balkan music with this kinetic documentary and our own brass music festival accompanying the film.
Presented by Rooftop Films and Arts Brookfield
Brasslands (Meerkat Media Collective | Brooklyn, NY | 86 min.)
They say that when the festival begins, time stands still, as once a year half a million brass fanatics descend upon the sleepy valley town of Guča, Serbia for the world's largest trumpet festival. Brasslands follows a group of musicians from New York who've been playing together for over thirty years, as they make the pilgrimage to Guča to compete in the spiritual home of Balkan music.
Brought together by a mutual passion for traditional Balkan music, Zlatne Uste—an intentionally questionable rendering of Golden Lips— were the first non-Serbian band to play in Guča, in 1987. A lot has changed since then, both in the lives of the musicians, as well as in terms of the relationship between the USA and Serbia, but the frantic, gutsy spirit of the music has always provided a common bond. While the band has always taken the folkloric traditions of the music seriously, the film approaches the issue of cultural appropriation with a rare sense of clarity, delicately intimating the role of music in fostering cross cultural understanding.
As the festival commences, Brasslands bears witness to the deeper resonance of the music, as the town of Guča begins to swell with frenetic energy. The festival seems to offer a fleeting moment of togetherness— a utopian space in which differences are suspended and all that matters is the sounds of the trumpets. But just under the surface of beer-fueled revelry, the enduring political and cultural divisions that have plagued the Balkan countries since the dissolution of Yugoslavia continue to simmer. Without judgment or criticism, Brasslands explores the underlying tensions in a country still bearing the scars of a turbulent past. The film scrapes the surface, revealing a fiercely proud nation grappling with its identity and position in today's world.
To accompany the screening, Rooftop will be hosting our very own brass festival. Even if you've never even heard of Balkan music before, get ready to book your trip to Guča, because once the joyous timbre of the trumpets gets inside you, it's pretty hard to resist!
- Cressida Greening
Zlatne Uste
Zlatne Uste (Golden Lips) is an internationally known group of American-born musicians playing traditional music of the Balkans, primarily representing Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian and Romany (Gypsy) traditions. Four-time invited guest at the Dragachevo Brass Festival in Guča, Serbia, the 12-piece band is among the foremost presenters of traditional Balkan dance music in the United States.
Slavic Soul Party!
Throbbing funk grooves, fiery Balkan brass, Gypsy accordion wizardry, and virtuoso jazz chops make Slavic Soul Party! NYC's official #1 brass band for BalkanSoul GypsyFunk. SSP! has created an acoustic mash-up of Balkan and Gypsy sounds with North American music, weaving the gospel, techno, funk, dub, jazz, and Latin influences of New York's neighborhoods seamlessly into a Balkan brass setting. SSP!'s music has won the ear of fans and musicians on both sides of the Atlantic, and their tunes have been learned by Serbian brass stars Boban Markovic Orkestar and New Orleans funk sensation Galactic, among others. In addition to touring throughout the US and Europe, SSP! holds down a residency every Tuesday in Brooklyn which has become a destination for music fans from around the world. One of the hardest working bands in New York, SSP! plays nearly 100 times a year in North America, Europe, Africa and beyond. They have performed at Babylon (Istanbul) with the Karandila Orkestar, at Irving Plaza (New York City) with Gogol Bordello, on the Warped Tour (US), in Carnegie Hall, in Sing Sing prison, and in virtually every major New York club. The band's fifth cd "Taketron" is on the Barbes Records label, available to the world September 22, 2009 through Allegro Music distributors..
Inspector Gadje
With up to 15 musicians (12 horns and 3 percussionists), San Francisco-based Inspector Gadje brings a big sound to the beautiful and bumpin' brass band music of the Balkans of south-eastern Europe. Hearing Inspector Gadje is love at first listen. The driving, tight groove of low brass and drums with soaring melodies from trumpets, saxophones, and clarinet incite joy and dance from the very first downbeat. Inspector Gadje ignites the dance floor and makes the party wherever they play, be it clubs (including notable venues such as the Independent, Fox Theater, Ashkenaz, Café du Nord, New Parish, Rickshaw Stop, and Yoshi's) weddings, parties, and street festivals.
Raya Brass Band
Raya Brass Band does it on the dance floor, mashing up the music of Eastern Europe with American dance grooves. Featuring odd meters, unusual scales and a fine helping of gorgeous Balkan and Romany (Gypsy) melodies played on reeds, trumpet, accordion, tuba and drums, Brooklyn favorites Raya Brass Band brings you the best in Eastern European wedding music.


text:
Laxatives can help relieve and prevent constipation. But not all laxatives are safe for long-term use. Overuse of certain laxatives can lead to dependency and decreased bowel function.
If you've experienced the discomfort of constipation, you may have tried over-the-counter laxatives. A number of factors — including a poor diet, physical inactivity, pregnancy, illness, travel and some medications — can disrupt normal bowel function and cause constipation. However, laxatives may not be the solution.
How often you have a bowel movement varies, but people normally have as many as three bowel movements a day to as few as three a week. You may be constipated if you have fewer bowel movements than are normal for you. In addition, constipation may involve stools that are difficult to pass because they're hard, dry or small.
However, before turning to laxatives, try these lifestyle changes to help with constipation:
Lifestyle improvements relieve constipation for many people, but if problems continue despite these changes, your next choice may be a mild laxative.
Laxatives work in different ways, and the effectiveness of each laxative type varies from person to person. In general, bulk-forming laxatives, also referred to as fiber supplements, are the gentlest on your body and safest to use long term. Metamucil and Citrucel fall into this category.
Stimulant laxatives, such as Dulcolax and Senokot, are the harshest and should be used only occasionally.
Oral laxatives may interfere with your body's absorption of some medications and nutrients. Some laxatives can lead to an electrolyte imbalance, especially after prolonged use. Electrolytes — which include calcium, chloride, potassium, magnesium and sodium — regulate a number of body functions. An electrolyte imbalance can cause abnormal heart rhythms, weakness, confusion and seizures.
Some products combine different types of laxatives, such as a stimulant and a stool softener. Combination products may not be more effective than single-ingredient products are but may be more likely to cause side effects. Read labels to make sure you know what you're taking, and use with caution.
Your medical history and medications you're taking may limit your laxative options. Laxatives can interact with blood thinners such as warfarin (Coumadin), some antibiotics, and certain heart and bone medications. Read labels carefully. If you're not sure whether to try a particular laxative, ask your pharmacist or doctor. Don't exceed recommended dosages unless your doctor tells you otherwise.
Laxative use can be dangerous if constipation is caused by a serious condition, such as appendicitis or a bowel obstruction. If you frequently use laxatives for weeks or months, they can decrease your colon's ability to contract and actually worsen constipation.
Don't give children under age 6 laxatives without a doctor's recommendation. If you're pregnant, ask your doctor before using laxatives. Bulk-forming laxatives and stool softeners are generally safe to use during pregnancy, but stimulant laxatives may be harmful.
If you've recently given birth, consult your doctor before using laxatives. Although they're usually safe to use during breast-feeding, some ingredients may pass into breast milk and cause diarrhea in nursing infants.
Call your doctor immediately if you have bloody stools, severe cramps, pain, weakness, dizziness, unusual tiredness or rectal bleeding. You should also see a doctor if you have unexplained changes in bowel patterns or if constipation lasts longer than seven days despite laxative use. If you're dependent on laxatives to have a bowel movement, ask your doctor for suggestions on how to gradually withdraw from them and restore your colon's natural ability to contract.
Original article: http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/constipation/in-depth/laxatives/art-20045906
Any use of this site constitutes your agreement to the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy linked below.
Mayo Clinic is a not-for-profit organization and proceeds from Web advertising help support our mission. Mayo Clinic does not endorse any of the third party products and services advertised.
A single copy of these materials may be reprinted for noncommercial personal use only. "Mayo," "Mayo Clinic," "MayoClinic.org," "Mayo Clinic Healthy Living," and the triple-shield Mayo Clinic logo are trademarks of Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research.


text:
- Sort:
- Most Popular | Most Recent
A horizontal 360° panorama taken from a rooftop at Midnapore Info: Dimensions: 22006 x 4990 Pixel count: 110 Megapixel (approx.) FOV: 360° x 70.34° Type: Cylindrical Total Images: 31 Location: School Bazar, Midnapore, Paschim Medinipur, West Bengal, India. GPS coordinate: 22.412785°N 87.327236°E Da...