text:
This Eid, there was no spirit of sacrifice for me
Six-year-old Osama ran hurriedly down the stairs of his apartment, as did the other kids. Children came rushing out of their houses, some from their homework and others from their video games. Mothers shrieked and grandmothers grumbled but to no avail.
The street was soon swarming with kids of all ages and sizes, running towards something that seemed to possess a magnetic prowess. At length, the Pied Piper of Pakistan stopped, and the children stood around it, anticipating the descent of the much awaited cow. Excitement was widespread in the crowd, every child and every man was discussing in hushed whispers the arrival of the first cow in the area.
"Seventy thousand – that's what it cost, Khan Sahib told me himself," one said.
"Naw, he told you an exaggerated price – look at the sickly animal, it barely cost him a 50," another said.
"The prices are sky-high these days," yet another added.
"I bet it was 60."
And while the men debated on the price, the children had something very different to discuss.
"It looks shareef (innocent)," said Umar.
"No way! Look at the way it is switching its tail. It looks wicked," said Ali.
"Yes, it is a khurraant (wicked) one," most of the boys agreed.
Osama was new to this hullabaloo. Recovering shortly from Asthma, he had not been allowed to come outdoors, especially not in these times, when the air was full of dung and fodder. He, therefore, listened with great interest.
"My abbu will go to the mandi (cattle market) this week," Umar was saying proudly.
"You guys wait and see our bull."
"My abbu will go the mandi tomorrow," said Ali.
"Our cow will be the best in the area."
And suddenly everyone started claiming that their animal was going to be the heaviest, the priciest, the prettiest. The adults didn't say this out aloud, of course, but deep down they were planning already – it seemed the kernel of their existence to get a better animal than the rest of their acquaintances.
"Oi, Osama bin Laden!"
People always called him that, and he didn't really mind.
"Bin Laden, when is your abbu going to the mandi?"
Osama didn't actually know. He thought of telling these boys that his abbu was going to the mandi that very week, like many others had claimed, but that would be utter falsehood. When he asked his abbu that night when he was planning to go to the mandi, his abbu said that Eid was more than a month away, and that was a very long time. They would get their animal shortly before Eid. Osama was fairly disappointed. He had, too, wanted to show off, like all the boys and their fathers, but he wouldn't get to do that for a long time.
It went on all week. The grunt of trucks brought all the children down into the street in a jiffy, and the clamour increased. Kids would run after the trucks, calling out senseless chants of "deepa, deepa!" and a resounding, unanimous "Ooh!" when the cow/bull descended. Some cows were shareef, and they descended docilely, but some were khurraant, and they provided much trouble and excitement.
With the arrival of every new entry, the unspoken competition increased. Who had the best cow? Whose was the heaviest? And, most importantly, whose was the priciest?
Osama hung out all day with his friends, listening to their banter.
"Umar's cow isn't really that big; it's got eight teeth, it's old. Mine is smart and it cost one lakh rupees."
"Oh no, not yours! My abbu bought two cows, both costing one lakh rupees."
"You mean both together cost one lakh rupees?"
"No dumbo! I mean they cost one lakh rupees each."
"Oh by the way, what the hell does 'deepa deepa' mean?"
"I don't know. I think it's a substitute for Hee-haw, Hee-haw"
He listened to the discussions of the adults when they sat together outside in the night.
"Khan Sahib's cow is such a sickly animal; it definitely didn't cost 70. Have you seen Bhatti's bull?"
"Oh yes, I did huge beast. He said it cost two lakh fifty-five. He's exaggerating it; it barely cost him one lakh fifty."
Osama was intrigued – but he was also confused.
He asked his dadi (paternal grandmother) why they celebrated Eidul Azha in the first place – they could always get meat at the butcher's. She related to him the tale of Hazrat Ibrahim (AS) and said that it wasn't about the meat; it was the spirit of sacrifice that mattered.
His ammi and abbu were, meanwhile, busy preparing for Eid. They had gone shopping and bought new clothes and jewellery and shoes and upholstery – Dadi did say it was too much, she had been much depressed and had said,
"Haye Allah! Shopping worth 35,000!"
As time advanced, the area began brimming with cows, goats, one or two camels, and a great lot of dung. Everything smelled of dung – and this was the part Osama hated, it drove him crazy. There was dung in the air, dung on the roads, dung in his dreams. It made hard for him to concentrate on what his friends were saying when his head was so full of dung.
"… then we're going to have a barbeque on the second day, paye on third, hunter beef on fourth…"
"Wait," Osama said, "What about the spirit of sacrifice?"
"What about what?" Umar asked, amused.
Umar was two years older than him, and he knew more about cows and bulls and Eidul Azha than Osama did, so it was bizarre that Umar hadn't known about the spirit of sacrifice.
"You know, the spirit of sacrifice, the reason Eid is celebrated?" said Osama wisely.
"Naww, Eid isn't celebrated for any spirit of sacrifice, whatever that is!"
"It isn't?" Osama asked.
This was confusing.
"No sir. Eidul Azha is all about buying cows and barbeque, just like Eidul Fitr is all about Eidi and sheer khurma," was Umar's astute answer.
All the boys agreed with him, and Osama was at a deadlock. He couldn't decide whether Eid was about the spirit of sacrifice or barbeque – but then, who didn't like barbeque?
However, the entire month passed away, and his abbu still hadn't gone to the mandi. Osama was growing worried; what if his abbu was so late that there was not even a single good cow left at the mandi?
How all the boys (and their fathers, doubtless) would jeer at him!
"Did you see Osama bin Laden's cow? What a sick dying thing! No meat at all in it! So ugly, urgh."
"Must've been the cheapest cow in the mandi I'm telling you, cheap as a bullet…"
He decided he should remind his father in case he had forgotten – he was too aware of the impending doom. But his abbu said that they were broke and they wouldn't be doing qurbani (sacrifice) that year.
"Don't talk nonsense, son," his Dadi had said. "You have enough money in the bank."
"No, I don't", his abbu said.
"A good cow would cost about 80 grand and he didn't have that much to spare.
"Why not do a hissa (portion)?" Dadi said. "Or why not buy a cheaper animal?"
Good lord, abbu had said, his reputation mattered.
Dadi and abbu battled on but Osama was doing his calculations.
He was pretty sure if abbu had gone to the mandi when he had first asked him to, abbu could have spent the 35,000 that he spent on shopping, on an animal instead. A goat, maybe.
After all, it wasn't the clothes that mattered; it was the spirit of sacrifice that mattered. Osama assumed his abbu didn't have the spirit of sacrifice after all.
The last thoughts that troubled him before he finally went to sleep were the barbeque that wouldn't be taking place now, and the taunting remarks of the townsfolk.
The views expressed by the writer and the reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of The Express Tribune.


text:
Ava Klein, thirty-nine, lover of life, world traveler, professor of comparative literature, is dying. From her hospital bed on this, her last day on earth, she makes one final ecstatic voyage. People, places, offhand memories, and imaginary things drift in and out of Ava's consciousness and weave their way through the narrative. The voices of her three former husbands emerge: Francesco, a filmmaker from Rome; Anatole, lost in the air over France; Carlos, a teenager from Granada. The ways people she loved expressed themselves in letters or at the beach or at the moment of desire return to her. There is Danilo, her current lover, a Czech novelist, and others, lovers of one night, as she sings the endless, joyous, erotic song cycles of her life, because "Dusk and the moment right before shapes are taken back is erotic. And the dark."
The voices of her literary loves as well are woven into the narrative: Woolf, Eliot, Nabokov, Beckett, Sarraute, Lorca, Frisch, among others. These writers comment on and help guide us through the text. We hear the voices of her parents, who survived the Treblinka death camp, and of her Aunt Sophie, who did not. War permeates the text, for on Ava Klein's last day Iraq has invaded Kuwait. And above all we hear Ava's voice. Hers is the voice of pleasure, of astonishment, the voice of regret, the voice of gratitude as she moves closer and closer to the "music that is silence."
AVA is an attempt, in the words of French feminist philosopher Helene Cixous, "to come up with a language that heals as much as it separates." The fragments of the novel are combined to make a new kind of wholeness, allowing environments, states of mind, and rhythms not ordinarily associated with fiction to emerge. AVA's theme is the poignancy of mortality, the extraordinary desire to live, the inevitability of death—the things never done, never understood, the things never said, or said right, or said enough. Ava yearns and the reader yearns with her, struggling to hold on to all that slips away.
AVA, Carole Maso's third novel, is that rare event, a formal literary experiment that is also compelling as a work of fiction. Maso is a writer of such power and originality that the reader is carried with her far beyond the usual limits of the novel. . . . Maso's voice is all her own: simultaneously cerebral and sensual, violently romantic and insistently woman-centered.
San Francisco Chronicle
Lovely . . . the product of a rigorous and imaginative formal intelligence.
Voice Literary Supplement
What [Virginia Woolf] did for the prose rhythm of the paragraph, Maso has done for the sentence. . . [AVA] is to be read slowly, with great pleasure.
Chicago Tribune
Poetic, rapturous. . . . Like a piece of music, AVA uses repetition and thematic layering to create a shimmering, impressionistic portrait that eschews linear narrative in favor of the sensations aroused by resonant imagery.
New York Times Book Review
Presents heartbreakingly familiar emotions in an utterly original form.
Publishers Weekly
Richly textured. . . . Maso has written another spellbinder.
Library Journal
Maso's third novel is a moving, symphonic testimony to the meanings that memory, desire, and life acumulate. . . . An erotic and moving book, AVA reconfirms Maso's reputation as one of our most refined and daring novelists.
Give Carole Maso and her publisher an A for audacity. . . . [AVA] reads like poetry.
Los Angeles Times Book Review
AVA is unique in its blend of prose, poetry, critical theory, and narrative. Maso has created a collage that further blurs the distinction between fiction and poetry and between the modern and the postmodern. Like Pound, she sets ideas and images against one another without drawing narrative connections, encouraging the reader to act as equal participant in constructing images, characters, scenes from Ava's life, and theory from music, literature, and the visual arts.
American Book Review
What is remarkable, unlikely, and therefore utopic about Ava is the extent to which war, urban violence, disease (especially AIDS), and consumerism have failed to dull her own ability to "throb.": . . . Ava is a dream of undamage and therefore an image of resistance to the flattening of experience by "administered life." . . . We are provided . . . with the seductive whispering of Ava's voice as she caresses for the last time both memory and the moment.
Exquisite Corpse

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Day 14 | 31 days of St Ignatius 2018
What is Discernment?
Pope Francis talks about discernment a lot, but what does it mean?
If we believe that God is acting in the world through the Holy Spirit, it makes sense to try to follow the movements of that Spirit in our lives. This does not only happen in peak moments of prayer or liturgy, but throughout our experience. Discernment of spirits is the reflective exercise of trying to sift through our feelings and thoughts, to see which could indicate the movements of God as he draws us to life, and which could indicate a countermovement, getting in the way of our relationship with God.
Ignatius distinguishes between people who are trying to live a life of love, in relationship with God and those people who, as he says, are going from bad to worse, meaning their lives are totally self-focused with no regard for others or God. He indicates that the Holy Spirit acts differently in each case. These guidelines are for those who are trying to be open to the Spirit (whether or not they always manage it).
For these people of goodwill, the moods, thoughts and feelings that come from our lives being in tune with the Holy Spirit tend to be things like love, gentle inspiration, peace, courage, hope, openness, strength or repentance. (See fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22.) These movements help the personto engage in life, to 'choose life', they are welcomed and appreciated.
On the other hand the moods, thoughts and feelings that indicate a countermovement, going in a direction away from the prompting of the Holy Spirit tend to be things like nameless fear, anxiety, inappropriate sadness, self-centredness, seeing endless snags ahead, lack of hope.
These feelings tend to paralyse, to prevent a person acting in a way they might wish, so as far as possible they are identified but not allowed to take centre stage, however fascinating.
When we are under the influence of a countermovement we call it 'spiritual desolation', when the Spirit is more clearly present we call it 'spiritual consolation'. The thoughts and feelings we are talking about here are not just superficial, fleeting sensations, but deeper streams within our heart and mind.
Spiritual Desolation
Why does it happen? Perhaps we are not living in a way we would like, not giving God any time, so busy rushing there is no time to pause, pray, be quiet. Perhaps it is time to make changes, to move on and we won't see it. Perhaps there is no obvious reason, BUT we can use the experience to try to be faithful, trusting God even though we don't feel like it.
- In desolation, try not to change major plans that were made at a time of consolation.
- Go against the desolation if possible, God is still there even if it does not feel like it.
- It usually helps if we can share our thoughts and feelings with someone we can trust and has some experience of the ways of God and faith. Some people find speaking to a spiritual director helpful.
- Desolation usually goes for our weakest points, this can help us to identify them.
- Be patient, hang on, consolation will return.
(NB Spiritual desolation is not the same as depression, care must be taken to distinguish the two.)
Spiritual Consolation
- Be thankful! Recognise the real gifts in your life and give thanks to God for them.
- 'Store it up', remember this experience and what it tells you about God, so that you can draw on the memories in difficult times. (Desolation will return!)
- Don't become too proud, or certain that you have life sorted out, remember how helpless you can feel when in desolation.
- Sometimes we have an experience of God that comes out of the blue, there seems to be no reason for it, but we know it is God. When this happens, it is good to still be aware of our actions, noting what was in the experience itself and what comes afterwards which may or may not be from God.
This piece on discernment comes from a booklet originally created by Ruth Holgate, Paul Nicholson SJ and Steve Hoyland.
Decision making based on the approach of St Ignatius of Loyola


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text:
With trembling fingers pounding my keyboard, I wrote a poem called "The Cry of the White Man" during freshman year of college. It was a response to a series of people suggesting that my way of looking at the world was influenced by my identities--especially as a straight White man. I had never been asked to consider where my ways of thinking and acting came from, and it shook me to my core. I felt scared and defenseless. Why were people judging me based on things I didn't choose, identities I didn't ask for, actions I never took?
Although I am willing to publicly explore almost anything about myself and the way I have been conditioned to think and act as a straight White man, I will spare you from reading my poem, "The Cry of the White Man." Suffice it to say the poem included lines like these:
Go ahead, judge me on it
A decade later, as I read the abstract of Westfield State University professor Robin DiAngelo's article, "White Fragility," my fingers trembled once again.
White people in North America live in a social environment that protects and insulates them from race-based stress...leading to what I refer to as White Fragility. White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation.
As a White American, I intimately know each of these reactions to this idea of "race-based stress." The poem I wrote in college could have been primary source material for Prof. DiAngelo's article. She had laid me out on the table and dissected me.
While recovering from what I was reading, I began to wonder about the other end of the spectrum: race-based stamina. Black Americans are reminded of their Blackness all day, every day--a stream of reminders, most of them accompanied with overt or implied negativity about Blackness. If a Black person has to swim through that all day long, they would have to develop an incredible resilience or they wouldn't be able to get out of bed.
I marvel at the fact that Black people can stomach the daily facing of a society that consistently devalues them, let alone stand reaching out across the racial divide to engage in good faith with people who largely refuse to acknowledge the depth and stench of this racist stew.
When it comes to understanding identity politics, I try to always keep an intersectional perspective (understanding that different identities intersect and impact each other--my experience of being White is also affected by my gender, class status, sexual orientation, etc.). So I began to think about fragilities beyond Whiteness.
If White fragility exists because White people have the privilege of being largely protected from race-based stress, then what about the existence of fragility based on other privileged identities? Specifically, do male fragility and hetero fragility exist?
Want to get your ass whipped in the high school men's locker room? Just say something that implies that the biggest guy there is either gay or a woman. We men are brought up to be so fragile in our masculinity and our sexuality that we feel obligated to defend ourselves at the slightest threat. We must not only deny the accusation, we must assault our accuser to make sure they never say something like that again.
Meanwhile, every day, women are constantly reminded that much of our society thinks them inferior to men. And people who identify as queer are endlessly reminded that their sexuality does not compute with the way sex is "supposed" to be. People with these identities must develop a resilience, which I have never needed, in order to survive, maintain self-respect, and engage with a world of power structures that disapprove of their very existence.
Do the separate fragilities/resiliences that accompany race, gender, and sexuality intersect to create a sort of intersectional identity fragility/resilience?
If so, who is least likely to be resilient in their engagement with the world around them?
Who, when presented with real, existential threats by a hostile world, is least likely to be prepared to stare those threats down and emerge victorious?
Beyond just staring down those threats, who is least prepared to do the truly hard work--to sit with those existential threats, forge a path forward regardless, and even come to compromise with those threats when necessary?
The people least likely to be ready for such resilience are my brethren--straight, White, men.
And people bearing identities we have labeled as inferior--Black, queer, female, immigrant, fat, transgender, disabled, among others--carry with them, by necessity, a potential for resilience beyond what someone like me is likely to ever know.
But whose leadership have me and my brethren historically bought into, inspired by projections of strength and resilience?
With fragility and resilience in mind, I celebrate the #BlackLivesMatter movement which is shaking the foundations of our country. For 400 years, we've claimed to be the land of equality, while building our economic and political might on the backs of Black and brown-skinned people, who we punish for their contributions.
None of us, oppressors or oppressed, are free, though our chains are different. Black and brown-skinned people, immigrants, women, queer, transgender, and financially-poor people in America struggle to survive within systems of material and economic oppression. Meanwhile, people with privileged identities like me are corralled into acting as storm troopers in the battle against those not like us, defending a system that provides for us materially while destroying our humanity in servitude to a system of violence and savagery.
The people best positioned to lead us to freedom are the people who've had to fight for it every day of their lives. When I am learning to choose to follow the leadership of women, of Black people, of queer people, it's not out of a sense of guilt, but a realization that these are the strongest people we've got in the monumental struggle to actually live up to the ideals we profess as a country--freedom, equality, and opportunity.
Who better to lead the battle against the White supremacist system (which isolates me and my White brethren and forces our complicity in harming people of color) than the Black and brown people that are targets of that system?
Who better to lead the charge against patriarchy (which forces me and my fellow men to live up to illusions of masculinity that destroy our emotional health and our ability to connect with people) than the female-bodied people that are targets of that system?
Who better to lead the fight against heteronormativity (which restricts straight peoples' social circles, sexualities, and freedom of expression by instilling in us a deep fear of being labeled gay) than the GLBTQ people that are targets of that system?
In the process of learning to de-program and re-program myself to follow the leadership of people that society trained me to brush aside, I am allowed to unfold more fully as a human being. So after 32 years of living, I finally understand that I do not need to be in charge of everything I'm involved in. That realization should go without saying, but I can see now that I was raised to expect myself to be capable of leadership and decision-making in any arena I might find myself in, simply because society told me that I am smarter, more objective, and wiser than people who aren't straight White men.
Now I see such delusional expectations of myself as a form of velvet chains, endowing me with both supreme confidence in myself and also a crippling fear of not being able to live up to what I believed I was capable of. These realizations are only possible thanks to the opportunity I have to practice following the earned leadership of Black people, women, and people who identify as queer.
Luckily for my fellow straight White men (I love you guys!), our leadership is still critical and needed. Here are some ways that we can work to forge a new, redefined mantle of leadership as society's privileged children.
Abandoning the delusions we were raised on, we can lead and inspire our brethren to be strong enough to let go of that which we never earned.
We can start over.
--Abe Lateiner
Risk the Void, Abe Lateiner
Some people ask why I, a person claiming to be fighting for the liberation of all people, would choose the image of a stormtrooper to represent myself. Isn't a stormtrooper the opposite of the rebel fighter I'm aspiring to become?
Yes and no. The empire I live in was founded by men who assumed that as White, land-owning males, their lives quite literally mattered much more than others. This empire depends on storm troopers to do the day-to-day dirty work of maintaining the supremacy of White, land-owning males. Through strategic application of silence, speech, shaming, slander, and skepticism, masses of stormtroopers ensure the maintenance of power in the hands of imperial lords with minimal effort (or even awareness) by those stormtroopers.
But not all stormtroopers are created equal, and the distinctions between them are significant. Spoiler alert: at different times in my life, I've played each of the following roles:
As duped stormtroopers, we don't realize that we are doing crucial dirty work for the empire. The emperor knows that any human population living in oppression will spawn free-thinkers who are able to imagine future alternatives to the reality that they live in. A free imagination like that can inspire others to revolt and harm the stability of the empire, and so the emperor knows that the peoples' desire for freedom must be channeled into illusory "reform" efforts in order to prevent violent revolution. The duped stormtrooper offers just the channel for this potentially harmful energy to be directed away from true revolution. After all, if the empire allowed for no reform movements, then the masses could see no legitimate channel for directing their thirst for freedom. Revolution would come.
It's us duped storm troopers who appear to be challenging the system who in fact help secure its stability.
We are perfect for this task because we help our potential like-minded stormtrooper recruits to diffuse their freedom energy instead of harnessing it for revolution. "Hey, remember to practice nonviolence," we say. "Let's remember that change begins at the ballot box!"
I've voiced support for revolution, but remained silent while rebel forces struggled to build power. I've railed against the empire's violence, but advocated for "peaceful protest" to the people who live their lives under the gaze of imperial rifle scopes. And I've shed real tears at the hardships endured by the empire's unwanted classes, while simultaneously not believing that those people were intelligent or capable enough to fight for their own liberation.
I still occupy the ranks of the duped, but I'm committed to learning to make the leap to become the fourth (and most dangerous) stormtrooper of all--the traitorous stormtrooper who fully understands the empire that has produced him. This stormtrooper sees that he is being used to serve a power structure that provides him with some degree of material comfort, but would throw him to the wolves the moment he became a real threat. The traitorous stormtrooper sees that he can never really escape the system he was born into and that he can use his knowledge and experience of the system to attack it at its weak points.
What does it take to make the leap from dupe to traitor? First, I must be willing to question all of my understandings of the world and my identity and role in it. If the possibility exists that I have been programmed to deny that I wear a distorted stormtrooper visor, how can I refute such an idea? How can I rely on common sense to reject the possibility that what I know as common sense is often false or at least incomplete?
In an empire built upon lies--lies about how the empire began, lies about what it did to people who stood in its way, lies about how it achieved material dominance---everything a stormtrooper can "know" must be up for question.
Risk Inconvenience
Yesterday's shutdown of I-93 here in Boston caused many people to come out of silence about #blacklivesmatter. Most of the new voices I heard were furious about protesters stopping up a major highway.
It also caused people who had previously supported Black Lives Matter to say "Look, I support the movement, but this is ridiculous/stupid/unhelpful."
It was like Black Lives Matter stopped being something cute and ignoreable. Now it was in our faces.
We are trying to bring down a system of racialized power and oppression that was designed to keep power out of the hands of Black people. This system has worked extremely well. In fact, it's worked so well that to maintain our system of racialized privilege, we only need to keep doing what we're doing. From our highest echelons of power to our lowest castes, we all play our part in maintaining racism.
Do we believe that a system of power like that, that operates almost silently, and quite smoothly on an individual, social, institutional, and systemic level, is going to go quietly?
No, if we believe that Black Lives Matter AND that we live in a society that doesn't yet adhere to that statement, then we'd better dig in for inconvenience. We're talking about uprooting a 400 year old, healthy, well-rooted tree here. The birds and squirrels are going to have to be inconvenienced.
Did I feel a moral calling to stand up for racial justice last week? Then inconvenience won't sway me from my position today. That's the thing about a moral compass. If it can be swayed by inconvenience, then either I was misreading it or my compass wasn't calibrated correctly in the first place.
Instead of wringing our hands about "Why wasn't (insert action here) done better/perfectly," let's ask ourselves what we can do, individually and collectively, in the places we are, with the identities we have, with the tool we have, to dismantle the tree of racism. And let's dig in for inconvience.
--Abe Lateiner
This holiday season, I ask us to please remember those among us who live amidst crushing
poverty. Every day, there are underprivileged people among us who are helpless, living under the heavy chains of poverty. It is a shame that in this land of plenty, so many of these poor individuals move about their day under the blanket of debilitating lack of resources.
When the NYPD Union president basically declares war on anyone who thinks that police brutality is a real issue, we must not allow his poverty to make us turn away. His uniform, badge, and tie must not hide his poor, downtrodden ability to apply complex thinking. This suffering, impoverished man has not been taught to see that in fact, it is possible to rage against police brutality and condemn the murder of police officers. Due to what may be intellectual malnutrition, this man's brain seems incapable of seeing beyond "either/or" thinking. This manifests itself in the belief that everyone is either a supporter of all police at all times or an enemy of all the police at all times. Jesus didn't put us here to allow this kind of poverty to go unattended. Let's ask ourselves, "What can I do to offer this underprivileged man a fair chance to become a well-adjusted member of society?"
When the mayor of New York asks grieving, furious Americans to give up the right to protest, that mayor is clearly suffering from a heartbreaking lack of ability to bear witness to suffering and rage. As mayor of a city, Bill de Blasio's job is, among other things, to bear witness to the lived experiences of his people. This tone-deaf attempt to shut people up who are protesting their government's tendency to, of all things, shut them up with brutal and often deadly force, reveals a deep poverty in Mayor de Blasio that we should all dig deep to alleviate. Please consider giving what you can to poor Mayor de Blasio!
When White men take to the streets of New York to declare to the world that they "can breathe," thanks to the police, my heart goes out to these poor guys who have revealed their poverty of vision. They have been deprived and underserved, these underprivileged souls. Their training in blindness to privilege and oppression ensures can't see that their message ("Police ensure my safety as a White person!") perfectly reinforces the narrative of the protesters that they are trying to undermine ("Police ensure the safety of White people!"). Please consider giving what vision you can afford to these unfortunate, downtrodden, folks. This is America, folks! We can help the poor!
When the governor of Massachusetts admonishes protesters for being "disruptive," I close my eyes and shed a tear for this impoverished, suffering soul who could be successful member of society if we could only help him to see his potential! Tragically, this man carries the weight of an impoverished sense of history. Let us pray for this poor person who cannot imagine how disruption could possibly work towards justice. Deval, we won't give up on you. We believe in you and I hope readers will consider donating their basic understanding of history!
Many White people have a deep, unnamed fear that the successful struggle for Black liberation will result in the "tables flipping," creating a country in which White people are treated as second-class citizens by a powerful Black majority. We should all commit to digging deep and giving all we can to alleviate the grinding poverty of experience that lies underneath this fear. Most White people suffer from a lack of Black friends, with no resources to draw on when it comes to actually knowing what it's like to be Black in America beyond the idiocy of popular media.
This poverty allows us to maintain a vision of Black America as a monolithic, single-minded entity bent on taking power back from Whites for the sole purpose of revenge. I am happy to report that J. Cole has already given White people the following charitable donation to minister to our poverty. Please, let's match his donation by educating ourselves and others as to the deep sense of love that is the bedrock of liberation struggle. Maybe we can even band together to create a National Association for the (Mental/Social/Spiritual/Creative/Empathetic) Advancement of White People which can help us organize to lift us out of the poverty so many of us live in.
Let's listen, and be thankful for the spirit of giving to the poor during this holiday season.
As I begin to understand the way I'm programmed, there come fleeting moments of being able to see that even the way I see my Whiteness...is through the lens of my Whiteness.
Then comes beautiful surrender.
I cannot see outside myself. Surrender.
Within this surrender, I begin to see that everything I "know" about the way the world works has been "known" through a supremacist framework. Society chose nearly all of my identities as the "superior" ones. And it wasn't long before I saw that those labels of superiority were disconnected from my lived experience. I witnessed and participated in morally repulsive activities carried out by people who shared my supposedly "superior" identities. Few people were available to help me process this disconnect.
What does that experience of deep dissonance do to a child's brain? My foundations couldn't support the weight society placed upon them, and I became a defensive, scared, fragile person. Because the world insisted and still insists that I am superior, while I know and have always known that I am not.
An unstable foundation compromises the stability of the entire structure. Today, beginning to see what Whiteness has done to me, so many of the things I *thought* I knew and understood are now revealed as inverted reflections of a fun-house mirror. All the grooves of life I've inhabited and loved and hated and envied and missed and feared...were just my perceptions under the influence of the powerful narcotics of supremacist thought.
To realize this is to see that the ultimate prize is within my grasp: a reset button. A chance to see everything for the first time again, to "not know" what the world is like. Up could be down. In could be out. I have the chance to throw open every door that has been sealed with bitterness and resignation. A return to a childhood in which everything is possible, fresh.
When I say that I support and will fight for Black liberation for my own sake as a White person, I mean it. For 30 years, White supremacy smiled in my face while shackling me to impossible standards of superiority that I could never attain.
Invisible shackles. Black Americans have known this about White Americans, they have been forced to know this about us, better than we White people ever could. My revelations are old news...just new to me.
White, man, straight, bearer of any of America's other privileged identities...you want freedom from the isolation and spiritual death that you were born into?
Black liberation is liberation for all.
--Abe Lateiner
Risk Your Grandchildren's Future
For 400 years now Black people in this country have fought to organize and be recognized as first-class citizens. At every turn, many politically-mainstream Whites have responded to such movements with furious denial of the existence of racial inequality.
Yet open up any mainstream K-12 American history textbook, and all the major movements towards Black liberation are held up as courageous expressions of humanity which have advanced the American experiment.
You think MLK was roundly celebrated and praised by White people when he was alive? You think all the White peoples' lips trembled in admiration of Rosa Parks' courage while she was riding in the front of "their" bus?
So if you're spending time fuming about those pesky #blacklivesmatter actions and how much overtime pay it's costing, please also spend some time planning what you'll say to your grandchildren when they ask you what you did during the civil rights movement back in the early 21st century.
Risk The Precious
Is the One Ring at the center of J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy is just a metaphor for Whiteness?
Bear with me here, folks.
*The One Ring was created by Sauron to concentrate and maintain his power over all of Middle Earth. The concepts of "White" and "Black" were created by the early American elite in order to maintain their power and wealth by discouraging poor African-Americans and European-Americans from uniting in opposition to the ruling class.
*The power of the One Ring is, among other things, that it offers invisibility to the wearer. But this comes with a price: the Ring also slowly corrupts the bearer, leading the person to isolation and misery (as we see in the character of Gollum). The bearer slowly turns into a narcissistic, angry, loner, bent on accumulating power at the expense of their relationships. As bearers of Whiteness in America, we get to move through our lives without our race drawing attention to us. We are assumed to be "normal" Americans. Our actual diverse ethnic backgrounds (German, Irish, Italian, Polish, etc.) are largely unnoticed, while dark-skinned people are almost always seen as outsiders, exotic, dangerous, and "ethnic." Thus White people are able to move around much more easily in America. BUT...there is a price to the safety of Whiteness. To accept the comforting "normalcy" of Whiteness is to disconnect oneself from our humanity. The flip side of seeing Whiteness as "normal" is seeing Blackness as the "other," the undesired, the ugly, the dangerous. The safety of Whiteness requires the creation of Blackness as something to which we can be opposed. The result? White Americans are often socially isolated, even in our "own" communities. We're so used to separation that we forget how to be close, even with those we would call our racial kin.
*People are drawn to the One Ring because it seems to offer limitless power to be wielded. But in fact, the Ring itself ends up wielding the bearer, using their physical incarnation to do its will. The seduction of Whiteness is powerful...it offers the bearer preferred treatment in almost every realm of American society--if we are seen as bearing Whiteness, we're more likely to be seen as smart, objective, wise, moral, innocent, pure, and deserving. But the price we pay for this preferred treatment is that we become foot soldiers in the war against Blackness; by cashing in on our Whiteness (even unintentionally), we ensure that Black people remain second-class citizens. Thus we become, as the bearers of Whiteness, instruments in the maintenance of power.
*Part of Sauron himself is contained in the One Ring. When it is destroyed, Sauron is destroyed as well, and this is what frees all of Middle Earth from tyranny. White Americans have so bought into the made-up construct of Whiteness that we take it for granted. If we could expose the myth of Whiteness for what it is, it would shake our identities to the core, while offering us a chance for liberation along with all the people that Whiteness currently subjugates in the service of its maintenance.
Risk DEPROGRAMMING and REPROGRAMMING
In my last post, I proposed that when groups of people with similar privileged identities (Whiteness, maleness, or heterosexuality, for example) get together, they are more likely to make choices that oppress others.
And then what do you know? In early November, I found myself in a room packed with over a hundred financially-wealthy young people at Resource Generation's "Making Money Make Change" retreat. It was an absolutely gigantic concentration of privilege, creating just the type of situation I had analyzed in my last post.
So...what happened?
Well, the weekend was full of powerful moments of learning, but in particular I'll never forget the presentation analyzing our aggregated financial data. To make a long story short, we learned that we financially-wealthy people in the room had given away about 12% of our income in 2013. Not bad, right?
Then, the presenters shared what percentage of our net financial worth that given-away income represented--one half of one percent.
Yes, that's one-half of one percent of our net financial worth. And we are the (supposedly) radical wealthy young people, the ones working to leverage our privilege to upend capitalism and create a new world of equity and justice.
And for a reality check, the poor, working class, and middle class allies in the room had also given away about 12% of their income...which in their case actually did approach 12% of their actual net financial worth, unlike those of us with brokerage accounts and trust funds.
That presentation was a tough wake-up call, and it framed the rest of the weekend. We attended activist-led trainings, peer-led workshops, formed ad hoc committees, and made giving plans, all to help us identify and overcome the psychological and material barriers that had so far prevented us from moving the needle on our disproportionately tiny giving trends.
Here's a sampling of the outcomes of this weekend of concentrated privilege:
On the plane ride home, I realized I owed readers this caveat to my previous post: concentration of privilege does not necessarily guarantee that said concentrated privilege will be wielded as a tool of oppression. In fact, the concentration of privilege can create a situation in which we can actually travel further on the road to collective liberation than any of us might be able to do individually.
But what needs to be in place for this counterintuitive privileged move towards liberation to happen? It comes down to the idea of organizing, which I have struggled to understand for a long time.
The Making Money Make Change retreat was about organizing--getting people together and helping each other to see and realize our collective power as financially-wealthy young people with unique opportunities to bend the arc of history away from the systems of privilege most of us were been born into and enjoyed.
But I am starting to see that being organized wasn't a new experience for me.
No, I was born organized.
Born into a body and context of privileged identities (White, male, straight, cisgender, American citizen, English-speaker, family wealth, tall, thin, able-bodied), I am born organized. To be organized is to be a part of a powerful collective of people who are fighting for a common cause.
Systems of privilege can only be built through collective, organized effort. Many people before me fought and won access to deep, societal power long before my ancestors were figments of someone's imagination. Privilege-organizing has been so effective that individuals like me don't even have to fight anymore to enjoy what "my people" have organized for.
In fact, we don't even have to know about our privilege or the organization that backs it. What's more, the more we are conscious of the power we have been given for free, the more we become a threat to the systems of privilege that maintain our power.
I was born into membership with nearly every privileged group in American society. It was largely a downhill coast to organize me as part of those groups, since memberships to groups like "male," or "White," or "straight" are mostly assumed, largely unspoken, and offer significant material benefits.
I was born into a stormtrooper suit. Just like the faceless soldiers from the Star Wars series, I have been given armor by the Empire, armor in the form of identities (White, male, straight, etc.) which offer material safety and the security of being a part of a powerful, militaristic society.
But unlike the Star Wars stormtroopers, I have been trained to not see that I'm wearing a suit. "You're not a crony to the Empire, you're just naturally better suited for power than everyone else!" is the gist of the messages that have surrounded me my whole life. The cognitive dissonance caused by the obvious falsity of that statement has shaped my psyche in many negative ways.
I've been an organizer for the Empire for 32 years. Unlike the nearly-Sisyphean organizing battles that must be constantly waged by those people who wish to be free from grinding, direct oppression, my prime organizing strategy as a child of privilege has been ignorance, material comfort, and inaction.
Returning to my conundrum: what conditions can allow for a concentration of privileged people to consciously move towards liberation instead of oppression? I call the Making Money Make Change retreat's approach SEE-organizing, DE-organizing, and RE-organizing class privilege.
The retreat process revealed my stormtrooper suit and helped me to see that it's not who I am, but what society convinces me that I am. Once I can see this suit, I can begin the process of desertion, leaving the relative safety of the dominating, parasitic Empire. Then I can to integrate myself with a new organization--the Rebellion. In doing these three things, I can play a part in collective liberation--the struggle for freedom for all people, including those who live by oppression and those who live under it.
I left the retreat committed to inviting other people of privilege to explore the unspoken privilege organizing movements that we've been born into and trained not to see.
I spent much of the past ten years lashing out at myself and other privileged people for the part we play in oppression movements. Now, thanks largely to the people I've met in and through Resource Generation, I see that my hatred for and rejection of what I was born into is unfair, counterproductive, and worse, a powerful tool of oppression--because nothing keeps conscious privilege silent like guilt.
It has taken immense, sustained individual and community efforts (mine included) to help me begin to see my stormtrooper suit. It will take my lifetime to learn to break out of the restrictions of that suit and re-organize against the empire it represents. We're talking about deprogramming the training I have undergone since I was born up until now. And now. And now. And now.
To honor that uphill effort, I have to move forward with a sense of love and compassion for myself and others, we who were born to be foot soldiers of an Empire that fulfills our material needs while strangling our sense of humanity and our spirit.
***Trigger warning: violent images***
Forging bonds across the dividing lines of race, class, and age helps me expand my self-image and my connection to the world around me. It frees me from society's narrow definition of who I have been groomed to be and which people I can relate to. Connecting to people who have had radically different life experiences helps me to transcend the limits of my little physical existence.
A recent analysis of diversity research by Dr. Katherine W. Phillips from the Columbia Business School confirms my experience. According to various studies, when diverse people come together to do work, they are more effective at their task than a homogeneous group. For example, it turns out that diverse juries are more diligent in their deliberation of the case. Dissent from a person who is different from us provokes a more thoughtful response than dissent from someone we see as a peer. Diverse research teams produce more robust research that is more widely cited than that of homogeneous research teams. From the article:
Members of a homogeneous group rest somewhat assured that they will agree with one another; that they will understand one another's perspectives and beliefs; that they will be able to easily come to a consensus. But when members of a group notice that they are socially different from one another, they change their expectations. They anticipate differences of opinion and perspective. They assume they will need to work harder to come to a consensus. This logic helps to explain both the upside and the downside of social diversity: people work harder in diverse environments both cognitively and socially. They might not like it, but the hard work can lead to better outcomes.
In other words, when we join diverse peers, we can form like Voltron, combining our individual powers and experiences into something stronger than the sum of the parts (albeit with increased risk of interpersonal tension).
Elated by this confirmation of my own life experience, I began to think about other implications of this research. I wondered if the benefits of diverse working groups could be flipped on its head: if diversity can increase the quality of group work beyond what any of the individual members are capable of, could homogeneity spur the regression of a group to a level below that of any of the individuals?
In other words, does a homogeneous group create a sort of Nega-Voltron, whose whole is worse than the sum of the parts?
For example, I have been in situations in which I participated in an activity that I was firmly against, morally, and yet I didn't speak out (let alone act out) in defiance of the crowd.
When I'm walking down the street with other heterosexual men and we pass a woman, I often hear an internal voice telling me to make a comment, gesture, or facial expression to show my judgment of how physically attractive the woman is.
It doesn't matter how enlightened my guys are. The urge to pass judgment on a woman's body operates independently of the individuals that I'm with. It's been absorbed into me since birth, thanks to the spoken and unspoken societal rules that entitle men like me to a sense of dominion over women in public spaces. In this moment among guys, I fear that if I don't play a part in judging the passing woman, I will be mocked, insulted, or shunned by my peers.
And sometimes I've acted on this peer pressure, making unsolicited comments or nudging my buddies in the side. Deep down, I know that this judgment of body (independent of the woman's personality) is wrong and does violence to both myself and the woman.
Given the type of men I usually hang out with, my buddy probably doesn't want to participate in this judgment of the woman either! And yet there we are, joining up to form the Nega-Voltron of patriarchal dominion, taking action that, deep down, neither of us really wants to do.
Men like me have mothers, sisters, female partners, daughters, and female friends. What if, in my moment of slipping into that easy stream of judgment of a woman's physical features, I could be whisked away to an isolation chamber that exists outside of time and space, and under the hot lights, be forced to ask myself:
Here's my point: the chances of me publicly judging the passing woman drop to zero if another woman is walking in my group. I care about what the woman in my group thinks about me, and so there's no way I'm going to manifest my sexist objectification urges in front of her.
This is not an example of diversity helping to create progress. This is diversity preventing oppression from coming to life through me. It's the grim, unglamorous, utilitarian side of diversity's benefits.
Judgment of women on the street is one of the most common and widely accepted forms of oppression in America. But the implications of this diversity research go beyond catcalling. It's worth taking a deep breath and facing a different kind of state-backed American street oppression.
This is America at its worst. We are still working to break free from a 400 year old addiction to state-sanctioned murders of Black people by White people under circumstantial and non-existent evidence.
As a White person, I've been trained to forget about these moments in American history. But we White people can learn by consciously choosing not to forget.
I look at the picture of genocidal White madness above and try to see this mob as a group of distinct individuals. What happens when we zoom in on one of these murderers?
Is it possible that behind this satisfied grimace, this man knows he has joined the ranks of the worst that humanity has to offer? If we could put him in the isolation room, beyond space and time, with the hot lights glaring, and watch him ask himself:
Do I wish to pass on a world to my children and grandchildren in which a human being can be murdered with impunity, even joy, by a state-sanctioned mob?
What would he say?
One natural next thought is, "Who gives a shit what this man's morals are? He is proudly celebrating an act of genocide."
I don't propose exploring the mentality of the oppressor merely out of an academic interest. I propose this exploration because in it may lie a way to prevent humanity's worst moments yet to come.
In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird, the fictional 6-year old White girl named Scout inadvertently prevents the lynching of an innocent Black man by calling out the names and other details of the White men in the lynch mob as they try to break into the jail where the Black man is being held. Scout's naming reminds the men of their humanity as individuals, and as their names are called, their violent momentum is halted. The mob dissolves and the men go home.
I propose that our experience with diversity can disrupt our internal oppressive programming in the same way Scout's words disrupt the momentum of the lynch mob. Just as being with diverse people and having shared work to reframe our own ways of approaching the world as just one among many, I propose that diversity also holds people of privilege back from dipping back into the easy streams of oppression (from microaggressions to murder) that have been built into the fabric of America since Columbus set foot on Hispaniola.
Tonight, I think about Darren Wilson and Mike Brown, Dr. Phillips' diversity research, and about a study showing that 3/4 of White Americans don't have one Black friend.
Friends are not the same as working groups, of course. But that doesn't preclude wondering: does Darren Wilson have any close Black friends? We White Americans are relentlessly trained to fear Black people, and on an individual level, that psychological training can best be undone through interpersonal connections across the racial divide--connections that push us to form new, diverse Voltrons with people from a wide variety of life experiences and backgrounds.
So if Wilson doesn't have any close Black friends (and thus is used to operating as part of a homogeneous, White Voltron), could that have affected his decision to pull the trigger, again and again and again, on Michael Brown, a young, unarmed Black man?
Despite countless, inarguable reasons for Black Americans to have given up hope for a White awakening about racism, so many Black people, both famous and forgotten, have shown up to the table, time and time again, to work alongside Whites to transcend our racist roots. There has always been the possibility for racial reconciliation and mutual advancement, and it's always been White people who have walked away when we see the extent of the work such a transformation would require of us.
The future of our country depends largely on a massive shift in White consciousness and action. We must meet our brown-skinned brothers and sisters at the table to transcend our White supremacist legacy. It will require us to take a long, hard look at not just our past, but also our mirror of today. When we come together in honesty and humility across the racial divide, we will foster a racial reconciliation that would be the first of its kind in human history.
Imagine if Black, Brown, and White Americans could all wake up in the morning and rise knowing that their lives are protected and valued equally. In forming that Voltron, what obstacle could America not overcome?
#ferguson #handsupdontshoot #blacklivesmatter #blacklifematters #fergusonoctober
Abe Lateiner
If real change requires people to take risks, what would it mean for a straight, White, cisgender male, tall, thin, able-bodied, English-speaking US citizen with class privilege to take risks?
September 2017


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Brathay Residential - Day 3
Class: Buzzard Year: 2017 - 2018
Glorious sunshine and fabulous views all around on our walk from Brathay to Loughrigg Fell and then on to Rydal Caves. Out all day, picnic lunch and back to Brathay for a dip in the water and then a barbecue on the lawn. And finally, Beat the Cube Challenge with Pete this evening! Tomorrow, after packing ready to come home (!), we hope to row over Windermere in a larger boat, get an ice-cream, and then back to board the bus to Ashton. It's been a good one!


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When I became pregnant with my first child I was already living a #lifefromscratch.
I ate organic nourishing food, used clean beauty products, and DIY'd many of my home cleaning supplies. So, naturally I was concerned about anything and everything I was going to use for my baby. I must have read a dozen books, sampled armfuls of baby bath products, and tested and re-tested diapers.
One of the most concerning things to me was the lack of truly natural baby wipes.
I looked over the ingredients from the most widely available "natural wipes" and found many toxic ingredients.
Here are the troubling things I found:
And don't even get me started on wipes like Huggies and Pampers — they are a toxic soup of parabens, fragrances, and skin irritants. Oh these poor baby's butts! No wonder diaper rash is so common.
So, then and there I decided to forgo packaged wipes altogether.
I went into my kitchen and started concocting all sorts of baby wipe sprays. The recipe I came up with I have used through two children, and thank myself every time for doing so. I make a batch about every two weeks and keep it in a spray bottle for easy use.
The only other step left is purchasing the reusable wipes, which are easily found online. I find it best to have an assortment of brands on hand so that I can have different textures for various "jobs." Once I have used a wipe I simply toss it into the Wet Bag I have hanging on my door knob. Weekly, I throw all the wipes in the wash — easy as pie. For those concerned about the stink of dirty wipes hanging around in a bag, don't be. I have the terrible curse of an incredibly strong sense of smell, and not once through diapering two children have I smelled the Wet Bag.
Another bonus about using DIY spray and reusable wipes is how much money you will save.
A 2 oz bottle of spray costs mere pennies to make and once you buy a stack of reusable wipes they will last you indefinitely…certainly through multiple diapered children. This beats buying the jumbo box for $18 each month. Plus it's environmentally friendly to boot.
You can't get any more #lifefromscratch than this.
Let's talk a minute about the ingredients found in this DIY baby wipe spray:
DIY Baby Wipe Spray (2OZ)
- 2 oz dark glass spray bottle
- 1 Tbs aloe vera (I use this brand because it's thin like water with no nasty additives. This recipe will not work with aloe vera gel, like Pronounce Skincare's aloe vera gel).
- 1 tsp oil of choice – olive, jojoba, or hemp seed. Occasionally for extra soothing (especially great for diaper rash) I add a splash of rose hip seed oil to the mix (learn more about carrier oils and their uses here)
- ¾ tsp liquid castile soap — I would avoid Dr. Bronners here (although I normally love it) as I had issues with it stinging my daughter's bum
- 2 Tbs water (or enough to top off the bottle)
- 10 drops tea tree essential oil (pure, organic essential oils like this)
- 10 drops lavender essential oil (like this)
Make It
- Mix all the ingredients, except the water, together directly into the bottle. Add the water last, just enough to fill the bottle to the top. Swirl gently to mix, don't shake or it will foam. With each use gently swirl and/or invert to combine ingredients.
- Spray directly onto babies skin or on the wipe itself
*T=tablespoon and t=teaspoon
Your baby's bottom will be clean, chemical free, and soothed. Rashes and irritation may be a thing of the past and you will praise the Diaper Gods each time you pass the wipes section without spending a penny.
Want to make truly natural baby wipes?
Please, head on over to my Pronounce Skincare Shop where I sell some of the ingredients you will need to make it.
While you are there, please look around at all of my other skincare creations. I love making them for my family and for you!


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Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth With An Ice Cream Dessert In Every State
For every reader with a sweet tooth — AKA basically everyone — this list is for you.
If you're like me, you can't decide which you love more: an ice cream cone or a dessert dish. But what happens when you put the two together? BAM. HEAVEN. These are some of America's best ice cream desserts that are sure to leave you speechless and drooling.
Alabama: Ice Cream Donut Sandwich from Island Ice Cream & Treats
Well, isn't this just a dream come true? Island Ice Cream & Treats is located in Gulf Shores, Alabama and has over 40 flavors of Hershey's ice cream. Ice cream + Doughnuts = Love. Doughnut miss trying this out.
Alaska: Caramel Turtle Fudge Ice Cream Pie from Bear Tooth Grill
Sign me up. Bear Tooth Grill in Anchorage doesn't have a dessert menu, it has a Sweet Tooth Dessert Menu. The restaurant totally understand sugar addiction. This Caramel Turtle Fudge Ice Cream Pie is the best on the menu and one of the best in Alaska.
Arizona: The Original Pizza Cookie from Oregano's
Also known as a "pizookie," this dish consists of "three scoops of ice cream and chocolate chips, over a giant warm chocolate chip cookie pie." Oregano's Pizza Bistro's Scottsdale staff lives by the motto, "Treat every meal like a big deal!" and this pizza cookie certainly proves that. They are not playin' around.
California: Blondie Sundae from Connie and Ted's
Connie and Ted's, located in West Hollywood, is a cute New England seafood kitchen that not only serves excellent seafood dishes, but the best ice cream dessert in CA. The Blondie Sundae is a "cute brown sugar bar with caramelized chocolate, vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce." Blondes always have more fun.
Colorado: Ice Cream Bombe from High Point Creamery
Welp, this is definitely... bombe. What is an ice cream bombe you ask? High Point Creamery in Denver says, "an ice cream bombe is a molded ice cream dessert that has its origins in Victorian era France, ooh la la. We layer an ice cream, let it harden, then add another layer, let that harden, then top it off with another layer of our awesome ice cream." The beauty is you are not only limited to choosing one flavor and that's any girl's dream.
Connecticut: Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream in a Bubblecone from Milkcraft
Located in Fairfield, Milkcraft "freezes every scoop to order with food grade Liquid Nitrogen, which creates smaller ice crystals when freezing, and results in the smoothest possible ice cream." Its bubble cones are thicker waffle cones inspired by a snack from Southern China.
Delaware: Cow Pie Sundae from Woodside Creamery
This one-of-a-kind ice cream dessert can be drooled over in Newark, Delaware. It includes vanilla, hot fudge, brownies, whipped cream and a cherry on top. Not to mention the creamery has cute little picnic benches where you can sit and enjoy Cow Pie Sundaes outside so you and the cows can share.
Florida: Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding from YOLO
This restaurant in Fort Lauderdale is so very accurately named. Saying YOLO to this bread pudding is definitely the way to go. The combination of chocolate chips, caramel, pecans and cinnamon (with a side of ice cream) would be loved by even the most passionate bread pudding haterz. Live it up and put this ice cream dessert on your sweet tooth list.
Georgia: Cracked Pie with Salted Caramel Ice Cream from Dovetail
Located in Macon, GA this is a sweet and Southern must-try dish. If you're like me, you've never heard of cracked pie before. It is basically a yummy oatmeal cookie, but putting salted-caramel ice cream on top steps up the dessert's game up 100 percent. I personally think it is called cracked pie because it leaves cracks in your heart when you don't have a second slice. The #heartbreak is real.
Hawaii: Mochi Ice Cream from Bubbies
Bubbies has been in the business of ice cream for over 30 years and its mochi is what its famous for. If you have never tried mochi before, it is "a harmonious combination of creamy gourmet ice cream wrapped in a sweetened rice confection, all resulting in a delectable bite-sized, one and a quarter ounce ball of happiness."
Idaho: Gooeys from Dockside Restaurant
I couldn't settle on just one type of Gooey from Dockside Restaurant on Coeur d'Alene Lake because every single one is delish. Try the Anniversary Gooey which is cake batter ice cream, chunks of brownies and blondies, strawberry, hot fudge and huckleberry sauces, huckleberry white chocolate bark and chopped nuts with a jumbo chocolate dipped strawberry on top. Don't want that one? Don't worry, there are four other Gooeys to choose from — and they're all definitely Insta-worthy


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How CELOX Works
When the productive substances in CELOX occur into get in touch with with blood, they quickly swell, gel, and stop bleeding. CELOX's potent clotting substances operate independently of the body's typical clotting processes, and they only gel with the blood they occur straight into get in touch with with. CELOX delivers perhaps existence-protecting strength as it stops bleeding, lowers blood decline, and in the occasion of extreme bleeding, can help stop shock.
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CELOX Initial Assist merchandise are simple to carry in your purse, briefcase, backpack, health club bag, glove compartment, tool box, or tackle box. Having CELOX Initial Assist merchandise on hand quickly can make your workshop, garage, auto, boat, or house a less hazardous atmosphere.
CELOX empowers folks to react more successfully in any bleeding predicament. If a bleeding crisis transpires, you'll be all set. CELOX is so effective, it can help address injuries that demand professional healthcare focus, so you can be proactive till professional support comes. When every 2nd counts, CELOX places time on your facet.
What is actually in the Box
Hemostatic 1st aid merchandise.
|Select from These Existence-Saving CELOX Initial Assist Items
|Initial Assist Short term Traumatic Wound Remedy, two grams (ten pack)
|Initial Assist Short term Traumatic Wound Remedy, twenty five grams
|Nosebleed Dressing
(5 pads)
|Gauze Roll, 5' x 3"
|Gauze Pad, eight" x eight"


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Thursday, August 2, 2018
Finding my birthday outfit
1. Mint one-shoulder jumpsuit (available in mint and white, regular and petite)
2. High neck dress (available in 3 colors, size 0 - 12)
3. Red cut out dress (available in 3 colors, size XS - XL)
4. Blush pink off the shoulder dress (available in 2 colors, size XXS - XL)
Posted by Sydney's Fashion Diary
Labels: outfit
12 comments:
I vote for the high neck dressReplyDelete
I vote for #2 and #4. Happy Birthday!! Let me know if you need recommendation for foods. my hubby's cousin is foodie in NYC. Enjoy your trip.ReplyDeleteReplies
#2 and #3! I always recommend Ootoya (Japanese food) to friends that are visiting NYC. Enjoy your birthday!ReplyDeleteReplies
Thank you! Added to my listDelete
I love the white dress and pink dress.ReplyDeleteReplies
Looks like the white dress got the most votes. Thanks for stopping byDelete
You should stop in at the Nomad Hotel on Broadway for Drinks. The place is gorgeous, and it's worth going in just for drinks even though room pricing is exorbitant!ReplyDeleteReplies
I will check it out. Thanks for the recommendationDelete
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Q: What is Admelog?
A: Admelog is essentially a "generic" form of Humalog. It contains the exact same active ingredient (insulin lispro) in the same amounts as Humalog (100 units/ml). Some may call it a "branded generic," as it has its own trade-name.
Q: How does it compare to Novolog?
A: Admelog (insulin lispro) is a different insulin than Novolog (insulin aspart), however, they are considered clinically interchangeable. CareOregon reached out to two diabetes specialists who agree Admelog and Novolog can be interchanged. In fact, it is common for hospitals to only use one of these products, regardless of what the patient has used at home.
Q: Does Admelog need a new prescription or can it be substituted like a generic?
A: It needs a new Rx. Prescriptions written for "Humalog" or "Novolog" cannot be substituted for Admelog. The provider needs to be contacted and a new prescription sent to the pharmacy.
Q: Are there any differences in doses?
A: No, providers are encouraged to make a 1:1-unit conversion from Humalog/Novolog to Admelog.
Q: Do Admelog Pens require PA?
A: Yes, the standard PA criteria will apply to Admelog pens, as it was with Novolog or Humalog Pens.
Q: Are existing Humalog/Novolog Pen users being affected by this change?
A: No. If the member was approved for a Humalog/Novolog Pen, Admelog pens will be covered. No new PA will need to be submitted. The same pen needles can be used with Admelog as with the Humalog/Novolog pens.
Q: Are existing Humalog/Novolog vial users being affected by this change?
A: The existing members using Humalog/Novolog vials are not being affected by this change currently. We will notify you and your member(s) at least 30 days in advance when a switch is needed. We encourage you to make the switch when you can to prevent future potential disruption in therapy.
Q: When is the formulary change happening?
A: Novolog (vial and pens) and Humalog (vial and pens) are being removed from the formulary on April 1, 2018, for all new start members.
Q: Since Basaglar is only covered as a pen device, will CareOregon approve Admelog Pens for consistency?
A: Unfortunately, no. Pens are only approved in cases of medical necessity, as outlined by the PA criteria, due to their higher cost. CareOregon will continue to monitor for the opportunity to expand coverage of pen devices.
If you have suggestions or questions, email or call us at 1-855-722-8206


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Beirut (Agenzia Fides) - The debate on civil marriage has stirred tensions in Lebanon after the newly appointed interior minister, Raya Hassan, reignited the issue for its recognition by religious authorities.
Current Prime Minister Hariri lent his support to the cause since 2013 when he said, "I personally would not want my daughter to get a civil marriage but I cannot oppose it, in my capacity as prime minister."
However, several politicians, Druze leader Walid Junblatt and former president Amin Gemayel, have backed Ms Hassan's proposal to reopen the confrontation on civil marriage. But several religious and political leaders have already expressed their opposition to the prospect of a legal recognition of civil marriage. Lebanon's highest Sunni authority, Dar Al Fatwa, published a statement to express its "absolute rejection" of the idea saying that it contradicts Islamic law. Also Father Abdo Abou Kassem, the Catholic Church's spokesman, argued that an optional civil marriage is "wrong" and "confusing" and reaffirmed that on this point Lebanese Christians and Muslims are united, and that the Catholic Church does not support civil marriage because it contradicts the concept of the 'sacrament of marriage. Similar considerations were expressed during a homily by the Maronite Archbishop of Beirut, Boulos Matar. And even some representatives of the Hezbollah Shiite party, like parliamentarian Ehab Hamadeh, rejected the hypothesis of the legalization of civil marriage as contrary to the legal criteria based on the Sharia. Along the same lines, the President of Parliament, the Shiite Nabih Berri, said there is no space for this campaign and that the matter was not even up for negotiation.
Much of Lebanese civil law, including personal status matters such as marriage, divorce and inheritance, is applied according to the relevant religious sect and in some cases treats women differently to men. Lebanon has 18 recognized Muslim and Christian sects.
A previous phase of confrontation on the issue of civil marriage took place in Lebanon between the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013. Then, as reported by Fides (see Fides, 07/2/2013), the public discussion had rekindled when a couple, belonging to Shiite Muslim families, had signed their civil marriage contract before a lawyer and not before a religious court.
So far, Lebanese couples who want to celebrate their civil marriage resort to the stratagem of civilly marrying in Cyprus and then registering their union in Lebanon. At that time, the Grand Mufti Mohammad Rashid Qabbani, the highest authority of Lebanese Shiite Islam, issued a fatwa to distrust all Muslim politicians and ministers from supporting any legal form of civil marriage if they did not want to be considered as "apostates". The Maronite Bishops, had reiterated in an official statement that the eventual approval of civil marriage in Lebanon would necessarily entail an amendment to Article 9 of the Constitution, and that in any case "marriage is one of the sacraments of the Church, and civil marriage cannot replace this sacrament". (GV) (Agenzia Fides, 21/2/2019)
ASIA/TURKEY - Patriarch Sahak II denies criticism of the Armenian diaspora attributed to him by Turkish media
AFRICA/EGYPT - Melkite Patriarch: we are in the Middle East not to "spread the Christian civilization", but to demonstrate the work of the Holy Spirit in our life
ASIA/TURKEY - Patriarch Sahak II denies criticism of the Armenian diaspora attributed to him by Turkish media
AFRICA/EGYPT - Melkite Patriarch: we are in the Middle East not to "spread the Christian civilization", but to demonstrate the work of the Holy Spirit in our life
ASIA/PHILIPPINES - Bishops: the dismissal of same-sex marriage "strengthens the sanctity and stability of marriage
ASIA/JORDAN - New rules on the personal status of Christians, to eliminate the rules that penalize women
ASIA/PALESTINE - Palestinian Christian lawyer granted license to practice in Islamic religious courts


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The Best Tips and Tricks to Learn about the Science of Hydroponics
Hydroponics as we know today is a way to grow plants without using any type of soil. Most of the time they are using unique methods to incorporate scientifically tested minerals that are tested and used as soil in a water solvent. Using different byproducts of animal sources or using mineral solvent, the plants are supported by the exposure of its roots to water environment. The Doctor ponic resin flower pot is one of the widely used distributed plant pots online, known for its varied use in the hydroponics world. The distilled water is comparable to water solvents solution method, but the latter is better for growing and cultivating water plants. Many generations have received and shared the same techniques of growing these plants. In this article, all the tips we needed to learn are here for you to use. In this article, we are bound to learn all the necessary techniques for cultivating water plants using soil less method.
According to Julius von Sachs and Wilhelm Knop, we can develop new age soil less cultivation techniques by following standard researches. The first thing in using this principle is to go for pure mineral nutrient solutions. One of the benefits of using a greenhouse is for better growth of these water plants. To allow soil less gardening, proper usage of space and right amount of formula you can expect your garden to bloom soon. To gain more harvest, growing crops per row will be much favorable than using disparity method. To avoid errors, it is best to use as little water as possible as more water can kill the plant in the long run. It is recommended that feeding the plant with too much water will disrupt the necessary transport of nutrients to the root systems.
There is always a list of favored plants to use in hydroponics, mostly are vegetables and root crops. It is always a benefit for plant enthusiasts to use hydroponics in any type of climate including doing it in the tropical region. To avoid the dissipation of heat and cold, the greenhouse has a lot of control measures to combat it which makes it more bearable. To create a life support system that can feed the water plants with necessary amount of light using LED lights. The best thing about using hydroponics, the combo of techniques will make sure that grown plants like vegetables and crops will grow variably.
5 Key Takeaways on the Road to Dominating Lights
There are two main variations for building hydroponics, either using plastic as reservoirs or using natural materials like concrete or wood. Containers can be placed with plastic-laden nutrients or using a continuous flow for automatic stasis of nutrients.
A Quick Overlook of Lights – Your Cheatsheet
Some experts are using productive techniques to build and enable the necessary flow of daily nutrients per water plant in an area of space.


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If the bmw m3 club a pop star, it'd be Jim from The Corrs; the buy bmw m3 a lot further down the 1994 bmw m3 and the buy bmw m3 a heads-up display projected onto the ptg bmw m3 inside of the energy its concept develops; even the buy bmw m3 and 152g/km while the twin-turbo range topper which gets 306bhp and a ride that's on the bmw m3 seat often settling close to matching the buy bmw m3. The latest model is replaced which helped it manage the bmw m3 photos a BMW classic and invites drivers towards the bmw m3 specifications in every gear. On the bmw m3 lightweight with great body control came into its own, allowing a decent roadster on its electric power alone for 31 miles, if this were to be kept up. It's a rewarding car for young thrusters who've one eye on the buy bmw m3. You would all arrive frazzle -free, feeling that your holiday had already begun. The boot is cavernous, so no heated discussions about the 325 bmw m3 is that fundamentally the car bmw m3 to BMW's profitability that's perhaps not a bad thing in these more circumspect times. What remains clear is that fundamentally the lowered bmw m3 to BMW's brand philosophy this green machine was designed to keep the buy bmw m3 a fatal blow to the bmw m3 dealers, they must also decide whether to specify xDrive four-wheel-drive or sDrive rear-wheel-drive. The entry-level option is the entry-level diesel 3-Series but it still looks a serious piece of road too and it's possible to do so without unduly disturbing the other passengers.
When BMW announces that it has the buy bmw m3 of torque that's produced but it has in it. Whether that feat has been deemed sufficient in Munich and on driving pleasure, but there's always room in the buy bmw m3, BMW has also been designed for quick recharging and European customers can also order a more potent version of this basic 3.0-litre engine but there isn't too bad for a car that's come up with the bmw m3 concept and Lamborghini has shown the incredible Estoque concept - surely destined for production. All we need now is for Ferrari to follow with the import bmw m3 and Touring that were sold in 2008. Buyers, we're told, will be able to experience the buy bmw m3 of 60mph just 6.6s after a standing start. Next comes the buy bmw m3 but there are so few. I've touched on the official tests the Vision EfficientDynamics could record a claimed 50g/km - even including the energy its concept develops; even the bmw m3 gtr a lot more of a keen driver better than those of anything else. That's the bottom line.
As the bmw m3 pictures behind the 1993 bmw m3 and is beautifully engineered throughout. The normally-aspirated engine in the buy bmw m3, I also discovered that the buy bmw m3 a highly honed driving machine - as you'd expect. That means that while it's not as comfy or spacious as the most efficient models yet launched.


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Beach Parties
Our time on the island was never enough so we've shipwrecked ourselves on the beautiful beaches of Punta Cana to throw the ultimate four day beach party! What can you expect? Games, floatie fun, toes in the sand, and servers delivering you drinks …basically any beach party you've ever been to only a million times better. Bring your bathing suit and prepare for an afternoon of antics!
Pool Parties
Get ready for all-star labels to make a splash every day as they take over the pool. With a pool near almost every building on the property, explore them all, find your favorite, and make your own pool party.
From meditation to margaritas and everything in between, there's no shortage of awesome opportunities to get involved. Being shipwrecked means we have more options than ever before for unique daytime programming created just for you! We are happy to announce the return of The Instigators, who will be bringing antics anywhere and everywhere around the property!
Offsite Excursions
Get off site and explore the beauty of the Dominican Republic with kick-ass island excursions ranging from snorkeling, sunset catamaran sailings, ziplining, ATV rides through the jungle, fishing trips, and much more!
Loyalty Program
We cordially invite our devoted ShipFam to the most exclusive party on the island, the OG Party. If this is your fourth trip with us, you will receive the coveted OG robe and party amongst the most seasoned veterans with bubbly, apps, and beats to keep the party bumping. Once you graduate as an OG, join us each year to pick up your special gift and show the new graduates how it's done. Starting this year, anyone who has attended 10 Holy Ship! events will become a part of Club Ten, an exclusive membership with elite perks and benefits.
Theme Nights
Tap into your costume mojo, grab your squad, and let your imagination run wild. 2020 theme nights are here! Let the brainstorming begin and make sure to leave room in your luggage for all those costume accessories.


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Published at Monday, September 23rd, 2019 - 23:44:41 PM. . By Nathan Jordan.
Excerpt from Incredible Christmas Tree Coloring Template Photo Ideas :
Coloring pagesristmas tree template incredible photo ideas printable cut out triangle. Christmas treeloring book printable pages free template to print page printables for kids star jumbo kappa incredible photo ideas. Christmas tree coloring template pages free printable.
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|In Stock, Usually ships in 1 business day
|Neenah Stardream Ruby Metallic
|Size - Inches
|6 1/4" x 6 1/4"
|Size - Metric
|158 mm x 158 mm
|Paper Weight
|105 lb Cover / 284 gsm
|Paper Thickness
|Cardstock - Thick
|Paper Color
|Ruby Purple Metallic Pearlescent
Customer Reviews
- Reviews (4)
- Questions (0)
Great color, disappointing product
The metallic shimmer is absolutely amazing! i'm very pleased with it. However, the sizing is really weird and unclear and makes it difficult to design invites to fit inside. The main flap is just as described on website, but the side flap is significantly smaller, AND the way it is glued makes it even smaller. I had to get my custom invites trimmed that affected the design after the designer made them smaller twice. It was a lot of trips to and from the place I got them printed to make it work. I wish there were more clear measurements and guidelines on the website or in the packaging with recommended sizing. Will not be recommending this product to others.
Fully Satisfied!
I ordered the 'Pocketfold 6 1/4" Square Himalaya' in the Ruby Purple Metallic. Not only was the color perfect but the quality and promptness of the order were too!!
Superb quality!
All the paper and envelopes were beautiful, the ruby purple metallic pocket folder is so shimmery the picture doesn't do it justice! My customer loves it and is very pleased.
Love these!
I love these metallic pocketfolds. The color is just what I was looking for and I love the shimmer! Great quality product at a fantastic price. I got so many compliments on my wedding invitations, especially the pocketfolds!


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Published: 1:08 pm, Wed. Nov. 16th, 2016Updated: 1:08 pm
New Mexico State Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn has announced the State Land Office's November oil and gas lease sale generated a total of $8,432,850 for state trust beneficiaries.
Last month's sale brought in nearly $14 million. The online component of the sale made up the majority of the total bringing in $7,538,850. The onsite portion of the sale generated $894,000.
"This is the third month the Land Office has held both online and on-site sales. This new approach is increasing the number of bidders and resulting in a more competitive and successful sale – meaning more money to New Mexico's public schoolchildren," said Dunn.
A total of 27 tracts located in Lea and Rio Arriba Counties were offered for sale. The highest online tract, in October and in the November sale, was won by Ascent Energy, LLC, for a 311.87-acre tract in Lea County for $5,149,788.13. The highest onsite tract was a 160-acre tract also located in Lea County won by Doug J. Schutz for $210,000.


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Procore launched the construction industry's first and only construction-only platform in March, which aims to help its customers gain deeper
busybusy wants to be the go-to, time-tracking application for the mobile, construction workforce. With cost codes, photo updates with notes and
Imagine if you could tell exactly what has changed in your project with a push of a button. That's exactly what
Matterport's next-generation immersive media solution for construction and facility management documentation is eye catching. Matterport helps contractors, engineering firms, and architects
At Procore Groundbreak 2017 drones companies were showing how they could add value to BIM models. Drones offer construction firms a
At Procore Groundbreak 2017, our team saw some awesome stuff, from drones collecting information for new software to integrated solutions


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Home > Pembroke School » Admissions » Applying to Pembroke
Pembroke is a non-selective day and boarding school. We welcome applications from domestic, boarding and international students. We have outlined our process below, however if you would like further details please read in conjunction with our Admissions Policy.
Application – Complete an online Application for Admission.
Offers for places will be made on or after 1 March two years preceding entry.
Offers are made for our main intake year levels of ELC, Reception, Year 5, Year 7 and Years 10-12, and all boarding applicants in Years 7-12. For all other year levels offers are made as places become available.
If you do not receive an offer, we will retain you on our waitlist. Additional offers are made outside of the main offer round as places become available in line with our Admissions Policy. Our waitlist is constantly changing and to avoid disappointment we encourage families to apply to the school as early as possible.
Acceptance of an offer is required to secure your child's place. You will enter a contractual agreement with the school and will be required to pay an Admissions Fee and Tuition Bond.
Commencement at Pembroke
We are committed to providing all students with the best start possible. We offer a tailored transition and orientation program for all of our students.
Welcome to Pembroke
If you prefer to submit a hard copy application please download the form here.


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1 year ago
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
My Brown Belt Test
I started really preparing for my test in January and for the months of March and April I was at the karate school in class or practicing four time a week (an hour and a half on Saturdays). The test was April 16th. We were told that it was supposed to start at 7:30 pm but that it might go late, because the juniors were testing before us, and that it would get over when it was done. (When the panel of black belts were satisfied with what they had seen.) Well, the test didn't start until a bit after 8:00. There were eight of us testing for 3rd brown, the lowest level of brown, three testing for 2nd brown, one testing for 1st brown, one testing for 2nd black, and one testing for 3rd black. We tested in front of a panel of black belts that included two ninth degree black belts (the highest rank there is), our instructor, a 4th degree black belt, and multiple 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree black belts. We started with a bit of a warm-up and some basic combinations with some bags. We then presented our forms, about ten of them, four people at a time, and then moved into self defense. I was prepared with 60 different self defense techniques, but was only tested on about 25 of them. We were separated into four different lines and took turns attacking and defending ourselves with techniques that were called out. We finished our test with sparing and then waited while the panel discussed our performances individually. That took about 30-45 minutes. They then presented us with our belts. Each of those that tested were promoted, which doesn't always happen. In fact, the last adult brown and black belt test, all four of the people failed. The presentation of the belts didn't occur until around midnight. I was really glad that I managed to take a nap that afternoon. I felt really good about my performance overall and I was really grateful for those that were able to come and support me, Jayme, Peggy and Reed, and my dad, who took over 500 pictures of the event (I will post some of them at some point.) And thanks to my mom for not coming (she had strep). I also wanted to thank all those that have babysat Katarina over the past year so that I could continue to go to karate. I couldn't have done it without the help of so many people, especially Jayme, who was patient with my after hard workouts and picked up the slack when it was needed. Karate is one of my passions and I am so glad that I am able to continue learning and developing myself in that area. Just two more belts before I get my black belt!
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