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Why Don't Men Wear Dresses?
There are few things in a man's life that draw more ridicule and scorn than when he reveals a trait that is branded "feminine". After all – men are supposed to have no interest whatsoever in the feminine, and aspiring to anything feminine is so repulsive and foreign that any man who publicly displays such a pursuit is assumed to be gay or downright mental.
Why is it this way? Is it simply for practical reasons that men don't express their feminine side, or is there some other reason? An exploration of the question brings up some very interesting reasons why men don't wear dresses. Among the most popular explanations are:
- Dresses are uncomfortable and restrictive of movement: This reason forgets that there are many different styles of dresses that can be worn. Many dresses that you see women wear these days are actually less restrictive in movement, and would be more free below the waist than most pants that men already wear. Consider that dresses and skirts can be both cooler and place no pressure on the private ares like pants do (a plus for sexual health). The argument that dresses are uncomfortable makes no sense whatsoever unless it's super-tight dresses we're talking about – which the majority of women do not wear on a daily basis.
- Because only gay men would want to wear a dress: This is another completely silly argument. How many gay men have you ever met that wear dresses? When a woman wears pants to the office, or when she borrows her boyfriend's sweater do we wonder if she's a lesbian? Of course not. Multiple scientific studies have shown that less than 5% of crossdressers are homosexual. That means the overwhelming majority of men who would want to wear a dress are not gay at all.
- Cross dressing is a sin: This is a more complex argument, and is based on a literal interpretation of Deuteronomy 22:5 which states that neither women or men should wear each other's clothing. There are numerous arguments against a literal interpretation of this text, and explanations that this Old Testament verse is more about using deception to lead another to sin than a wholesale condemnation of wearing an article of clothing from the opposite sex. Even if it was a wholesale condemnation what should we do with all the women who wear "boy shorts" and pants, and all the other verses in Deuteronomy that we ignore on a daily basis? What about all the men in the Middle East and Scotland who wear clothing that strikingly resemble their female counterparts?
Of course there are more reasons than just these three that people use to justify the negative stigma of a man wearing a dress. Most of the reasons though are pretty simplistic like, "it's just wrong," or "because it's stupid". But I've long believed there are deeper reasons behind why it's seen as inappropriate for men to wear women's clothing.
Recently I've come across some excellent discussions of the topic, and two in particular I think hit the nail on the head as to the underlying issue behind men who cross dress. A comment by Lauren O in one of those articles sums up the entire argument into a couple concise sentences:
"I think it's perhaps more likely that it's easier for society to accept women taking on men's roles than it is for men to take on women's roles, because women are seen as inferior. A woman wanting to take on men's roles seems less offensive, because, the reasoning goes, who wouldn't want to be a member of the superior sex? A man wanting to take on women's roles seems more offensive, because what man would ever want to degrade himself like that?"
I couldn't agree more. The majority of the negative responses to a man wearing a dress have to do with the way that some men (and women) comprehend the genders. Many individuals still see the woman's role to serve the man and be subservient to him. Likewise, many people feel that they very reason a woman dresses the way she does is to simply impress men and garner their attention. If we're to assume that the function of women, and the behavior of women is centered around pleasing and attracting men, it becomes perfectly reasonable for people to think that someone who wants to cross-dress is "gay". But this argument also reveals that sexism and the viewing of women as "objects" is still alive and well in modern society. This has not only a continued negative effect on women, but on men who are stereotyped into their own roles as well.(Continued below...)
Assessing attitudes towards cross-dressing men serves as an excellent litmus test for how an individual views the broader role of femininity in society.
I believe the negative response that both men and women have against men wearing dresses is more about the power of masculinity, and about how both men and women see the role of both genders in society. Even many women are threatened by their husband or boyfriend wearing a dress, much in the same way that men were once threatened by women burning bras, talking politics, and wearing trousers – but the reasons for such fear are based in sexism, inequality, and intolerance.
The reason that men don't wear dresses (or let other men do it)? Because doing so dilutes the power that is imbued in masculinity; because a man in a dress isn't just simply making a fashion statement, but is threatening a gender icon itself. Once men and women are truly equals, a man in a dress will be no big deal.
Further Reading:
Vernon Coleman: Why Do Men Wear Dresses? (And Why Do Some Women Get So Upset About It?)
Img credit: eyesontheroad.
112 thoughts on "Why Don't Men Wear Dresses?"
I wear long shirts to make it feel like a dress, I don't wear anything else underneath. The shirt acts like a miniskirt. But my wife gets mad went I go outside even though its just out on the back patio.
This is a great article. My name is Sam, and I'm a guy.
I'm in a Canadian grunge band called "Mediocre" and I always perform wearing a dress. I like to encourage guys to wear dresses when they see us perform live. I hope to start a trend of it. I want to open people's minds and explore the equality issues we have in 2011.
Thanks for the great read. Check out our band sometime.
I'm a straight guy who highly supports men wearing skirts and dresses. I think performing in a band is an awesome place to show off in a dress. I would love to see you perform as so. If you need some suggestions for dresses, I would highly recommend trying (sweet/classic/gothic) lolita dresses. I custom order mine online and wear them so much at home that I ended up putting a rip in my favorite dress. You could emulate the outfits of the girls from K-On who wear lolita dresses for their performances. (Yes, I know it an anime. Even more reason to do it.) I would do it myself but I can't sing very well nor play any instruments.
As for this article, I believe this is the best written article I have seen yet. These are some good arguments I can use next time I am convincing someone. I love the comment about Deuteronomy 22:5 because I'm a strong christian myself and have always had a hard time convincing others who bring that verse up.
Enough debating! I want to wear dresses and skirts. It's who I am.
Dear readers
I have never found it a problem.
I am hetro but it is a lovely feeing to wear a skirt, and much more aqccess for my beautiful lady!
More men should wear skirts
I bet that johny depp would have no problem
Luv'n stuff
I love to see a man in a skirt.
If he is straight, I like it more, purrrrrrr!
But if he is not interested in me then, Yes, it just looks great.
Vernon Coleman? Isn't he a "mental health professional" of some sort? Why not feature Joseph Stalin instead? Or Emperor Diocletian ordering a mass crucifixion? The psychiatric-psychological cult has so poisoned the wells of peoples thinking that a man has a really hard time wearing skirt category garments without facing filthy terminology like "transvestite." In essence, it's the same as calling blacks niggers! DISREGARD everything the psych faction says–they must be shut out of conversation.
What's all the fuss…so any beautiful dresses and styles.
I have a huge collection… Love them and adore all the fabrics and style..
Lucky girls…
I'm one who loves to wear pretty dresses too. I have several beautiful dresses of my own. My colors for dresses are red and pink. I also enjoy wearing highheels. I can walk in highheels just as good as woman. I think there's a femine side to me. I also wear slips panties pantyhose and bras. Dressing up like a lady and acting like one is great. I also have some blue black and a green dress.
Bryan and Michelle,
I am also one who loves wearing my pretty dresses (blue, green, red, floral print, and several other colors. And of course, we all need that "little black dress.") Like you, I love all of the colors, patterns, and styles. And I'm proud to wear them all! They make me look and feel so beautiful and demure. And like you Michelle, I love wearing my pumps. However, I'm a girl that does not like wearing pantyhose. I'm almost strictly a garter belt and stocking type of lady Simply because they are more comfortable, much less restrictive, and make me feel more attractive.
I love trying dresses on in ladies fashion stores. Any time you wasn't to come along and help Morganna, y.ou are welcome. Dani
I love dress shopping too!!! I could spend hours looking for just the right one and I would like to thank the ladies of the Dress Barn for all of there help. I would love to go shopping with Morgana as well. And…..I'm straight!
I love to wear dresses and skirts and do it regular and daily. I have had no bad comments, maybe some smiles.
It is more comfort and much more free than mens pants, including shorts.
Doesn't it feel great to be not completely encased like some sort of sausage.
Don't you think that society is too closed and not as open minded us some people are? I used to be goth so I used to wear tons of makeup, I went through a phase of wearing tights underneath my trousers and leggings underneath too – I still sometimes wear wet look leggings when home alone. I have arm earners, opera gloves and fake piercings from girls accessories shops and I used to wear my mums clothes from time to time – when alone as well.
I'm straight and proud, some girls find men dressing in females garments rather a turn on, as my ex told me. I feel that if you want to wear a skirt, wear a gothic or kilt style one. Dresses – only if you got the guts to, to be fair if you score a girlfriend who finds it hot you dress in female clothes, excellent.
Lifes too short I say. Leopard print tights were my fav
Dresses and skirts for guys is poosibly the best thing we could ever wear. Trousers and shorts really are not the best desingn our apendage and it binds and overheats them. The only trousers that even come clost being correct are leggings where it's stretchy and forgiving. Women have for a long time objected to skirts, dresses and stretch leggings for men. I think a spot of jealousy for our leg shape has a lot to do with it.
Even the bible is apparantly on our side. Back in the day, dress robe style garments were a mans garment. Women are the true cross dressers by wearing pants.
It really hasn't been that long since pants were moved into the fashion aisles. Prior to WWII women could be arrested and jailed for appearing in public in pants in most U.S. States.
With the onset of the war women went to work in the factories, dressesd and skirts were not practical and sometimes even dangerous. So women began wearing pants to work and it grew from there. So it has only been for around 70 years. One other note is that boys here in America also wore dresses, boys up to 15 yrs. of age, although some or most boys were "Breeched" by 9 years of age. Breeching was when boys were changed over to pants. I think we should return to dresses for boys until they reach 15 at least, of course the styles would need upgraded to todays times as opposed to the period from 1835 to 1929.
Seems most of the ancient world men wore some kind of dress/skirt/tunic. The Romans conquered their known world in tunics – essentially a sun dress. Look at other cultures and their attire. Not sure how it happened that men ended up so locked into a single defining clothing item. Women cross dress all the time and there is not issue.
That is true about the Romans, but also the greeks as well. Tunics are still worn in Mid-Eastern contries by different arabic sects. Even the dictionary defines a tunic as a dress worn by males. It was the first unisex garment in some cultures as well. I am on experienceproject.com and have talked to number of men and women there about men and boys wearing dresses (tunics) and skirts. In my neighborhood some mothers have began getting their sons dresses and skirts, unfortunately the schools old archaic rules do not allow boys these opportunities to wear them there. However with the previous mentioned site and others people are getting educated on this subject.
Skirts and dresses are so much more comfortable and the whole thing against men in skirts/dresses is ridiculous. I wear skirts around the house all day every day and occasionally go hiking in a skirt (when it is warm!). There is a lot less friction in the groin area as well as keeping cool, it is also better for driving.
My wife holds the same views and even helps and encourages my purchases.
I just wish we could rid of the silly giggles and at times aggresive attitudes, it is so childish.
I really enjoyed this article. I have been wearing dresses and skirts ever since I was very young. It started off as curiosity, then became a fetish for a while. Now I just wear them naturally, I feel no sexual arousal from wearing a dress or skirt. It just feels normal for me. I would love to dress the way I like in public but it is difficult because of the stigma about people like me. When I am home I freely will wear a dress or skirt. I do not understand what the big deal is. I am even somewhat conservative, and even have Christian values. Western culture, still seems to have some traces of their founding puritan values. That is why I think that in places like Europe, a man in a dress is more acceptable, and there are even clothing lines that feature skirts for men. I am just an average man who wears dresses and skirts.
I love to dresses its who i am,and no man or woman can take that away from me by the way im straight
I dress fully as a woman, with full make up , wig .dress , lingerie, heels, hand bag, I go out most week ends with other T girls to pubs , club s etc and I have the time of my life …the number of real girl s who want to talk and dance with us is amazing, I can honestly say I have never found a better way of meeting woman than dressing as a woman…most of the girl s love it.. and a lot say we must be brave to come out dressed……..I will say to any one reading this don t knock it till you have tried it. you will love the interest you will get from woman
I'm a girl much like you. I enjoy wearing my skirts and dresses (including some very elegant gowns) extremely. And I can't remember the last night I haven't slept in a cute baby doll, nightie, or full length gown.
My name is David and I love to wear pretty dresses and skirts, I even would like to be a girl. Girls clothes are far better then mens.
I love wearing dresses skirts blouses slips panties bras anything femminine i love the softness of the clothing and all the styles and colors i definatly have found my femm side and i love and embrace it
Hi, I have been a crossdresser since 23 (Now I am 27 – I have felt the necesity since childhood) and from my analysis of the reason behind of putting on women's clothes I get to the fact that we cross-dressers have more latent the feminine part than other men. That is to say that we also need to see ourselves in the role of women (I have even imagined myself being pregnant). I veery much enjoy going out shopping and buy blouses, skirts, etc. I also love doing housework and my everyday duties putting on a feminine out-fit. Sadly, I live in Colombia, an extremely machista country in which you are taken by gay for any behavior that appears to be feminine. Thus, I am an indoor crossdresser 🙁
In this sense I want to highlight the words you stated . For me such words are the core of the discussion of why crossdressing is approach wrongly by society:
"Likewise, many people feel that they very reason a woman dresses the way she does is to simply impress men and garner their attention. If we're to assume that the function of women, and the behavior of women is centered around pleasing and attracting men, it becomes perfectly reasonable for people to think that someone who wants to cross-dress is "gay".
I wear a skirt everyday,to work and when im not at work.I am just the same person as if i was wearing jeans,which i dont wear but maybe once a month at most.You should try it some time,then you would know why guys like skirts.And just a FYI,women adopted the skirt from the mens wardrobe,AND it wasnt until the 1930's or so til women wore pants when women first started wearing pants,and they had the risk of being arrest.Do a google search on the history of the skirt.Dont be affraid.And most women like to see a guy in a skirt.As of last night i was standing in line at the cash register,the was a woman behind me and she said," i really like your skirt" i then said " thanks".I told her "im was tired of just wearing pants",she then said"i dont blame you,skirts are much better"
I think this article hit it right on the heaf and people should just get with the times, and let those of us that like dressing this way alone. There is nothing wrong with it and as a couple of the folks pointed out it is a lot more comfortable, and in some cases a person can look even better in a dress thasn in pants. I just wish I could get up the nerve to go out in them, and enjoy them. Good luck to those that do have the guts.
it's still a wonder to me, at this so-called enlightened-age people are so uptight about men wearing dresses when historical examples seem to say that pant a are a relativity new example of the strange politics that govern our so called worrld. the situation is SO messed up..what is wrong whith the world, why can't we get along together
I love to dress up I have been wearing pantie since high school I am now 55. My wife hates it so I can only dress up when she is not at home. And she wonders why I am never happy I feel so good inside when I am fully dressed wearing makeup and heels. I wish she would understand me. I would love to go out shoping dressed up like a real women But there is no way I can even ask her to help me do this. So I wish I could find some one to help me do this
I am a male of age 30. I don't remember from when i am wearing women's clothes. I likes to wear bra, panty, sexy nighty and much more. I don't understand whats wrong with it? Girls who wear jeans, shirts, pants they are being known as modern in India and why the same rule is not applicable vise versa?
I am a male, and i wear dresses, nightgowns, swimsuits, panties, bras, capri's, ladies pajama's, evening dresses, and i have a wedding dress with a veil, and a garter belt for the leg.
I love my panties! I love my panties! I love my panties! They gave me the balls I needed to go 95% girl. So now everyday I wear women's' clothing everywhere and I just love it, my life is great! When I am walking the rear seam of the cotton gusset in the crotch of my panties gently caress and tickle my butt cheeks as a constant reminder that I am wearing panties. It makes me feel so wicked. I have been growing female breasts for a few years. So I love the way my bra cradles my tits and the way my Victoria's Secret bra make them jiggle just the right amount. Oh, boy. My dress makes me feel like I am being continually being hugged by a lover. I love the smell of my perfume, the look of my neatly cared for polished fingernails, the beautiful colors and designs on my dress. I love looking down to see my hot pink nail polished toes protruding from my open toed high heels. I adore the sound that the high heels make when I walk and the way I can feel my ass cheeks working it. I feel naked without my makeup, eye shadow, mascara, eyeliner, eyebrows, lip liner, lipstick. I love to feel my earrings slightly tugging on my ears makes me aware of their presence. I love to feel the soft, silkiness of my thigh stockings on my legs. Finally I can wear hair clips, bows, flowers, wigs and etc. I really love caring a purse they are so roomy and convenient. To think I have spent so many years trying to be a real man's man and for what? What did I get but some scars that I now wish I didn't have and years of unhappiness trying to be like I am supposed to be. Now I am happy everyday because I have gone girl. I love being treated like a lady and being accepted as a woman. I love everything about dressing as a woman and being free to have emotions some what like a woman's. Since I do not and do not want to take female hormones I cannot have all of the emotions of a woman; I am as girl as I am willing to go right now. I hope to someday have a long term relationship with a woman but I will never give up being girly and all of the joy that comes with that.
I wear a skirt everyday,to work and when im not at work.So where ever i went and go,is the same now as it was when i use to wear pants/jeans.I am just the same person as if i was wearing jeans,which i dont wear but maybe once a month at most.You should try it some time,then you would know why guys like like myself and others likes to wear a skirt when they want to.And just a FYI,women adopted the skirt from the mens wardrobe,
AND it wasnt until the 1930's or war time i believe, til women wore pants,and they had the risk of being arrest prior to that.
Do a google search on the history of the skirt.And most women like to see a guy in a skirt.As of last night i was standing in line at the cash register,there was this nice looking lady standing behind me (somewhere maybe mid 50's) and she said to me," i really like your skirt" i then said " thanks".I told her "im tired of just wearing pants",she then said "i dont blame you,skirts are much better,and you look nice in a skirt"….so guys,give it a try,you will see what i am talking about for those who are new to this.For me,wearing a skirt is about as normal as brushing my teeth.Im comfortable in a skirt no matter where i am.I just dont give it much thought really.Its just me………
ROWSG (Rock On Wearing Skirt Guys)…..Blake
At home, frilly skirts are soo comfortable.
In town, however, I have a nice black denim skirt, that never even raises an eyebrow. And feels great.
Obviously hetro, (old, gnarled) even as I always wear a little makeup, no-one in this little conservative town either notices or cares.
Mark you, with a pair of high heels added to the mix, everything changes.
Wearing heels, it seems the sternest looks I get are from 'ladies' of my advanced years who 'do not approve !'
Smartly dressed younger women seem to acknowledge a man who wishes to be different.
Yea to the gently changing dogmatism that is coming about on this, our western society.
And FUN to be part of the changes !
We live in a time where men wear shorts more than women. They wear shower shoes, sandals, and slides. I saw at Walmart where 80% of men wore shorts and 30% of women wore shorts.
I would saw in the next 10 years, males will start wearing dresses and skirts. Women will wear more dresses, but will mostly wear jeans. When I was a kid, you wore shorts as a kid, and to go swimming but jeans as an adult and teen. Very few people wore shorts on the street except kids and women.
I'm a guy looks comfortable in dresses, skirts, and ladies flip-flops.
Dresses, skirts, ladies flip-flops, swimsuits, heels, and nylons is the only thing i would wear, capri pants, and so forth.
For some reason I also have this problem. I always felt the need to wear women's panties, bras, skirts, blouses, dresses, and so on. And yes, for some reason I like it, and it somehow feels more comfortable than the guys' attire. I used to wear my mom's panties and bras around an early age. I think it ranged from 3 – 6 years old. It wasn't until the age of 14 that I started to wear girly outfits of my own. I'm thankful that at least my mom understands my sentiments, though I still don't like wearing these outfits in front of her or any of my younger siblings, which consists of a 15 year-old sister and a 9 year-old brother. If I manage to live in my own house, I will make female clothing my house attire.
Also, I think this kind of stuff happens when you have sexual desires for a girl and you just can't have it, due to the consequences later on. Does anyone think this could be another possibility?
I think that it contributed to my desire to wear women's clothing. Because for me, it happened after I got the first clear upskirt of a little girl standing at a balcony of an apartment that I used to live in. She was around my age at the time. From there, something from that scene prompted me to dress the same way she did, but the attempt failed. However, I might have had these desires earlier, and the upskirt was probably something that increased those desires. I'm not quite sure.
Interesting article!
I'm a hetero male, not wearing skirts or dresses, mostly because my wife hates it. And since dress is not *that* important to me i just stick to it. The world will not end if i do not wear skirts.
But indeed i would often like to wear skirts or dresses. I work creating software (very technical software). So most of my working time i sit before my computer. Even an extreme tight long hobble skirt would be more comfortable than pants. At least as long as i would not have to move around (attend meetings and the like). I have seen photos of skirts for men, but i would prefere the feminine style. I have thought about it for some time, and found that i would prefere feminine style skirts or dresses, but tailored to my male body, so they do fit perfectly. I thought about wearing highheels, bras and things like that, but that doesn't attract me. Exactly that seems to recently become a new trend in Japan. Very interesting.
Maybe crossdressing, transvestites and even some gay men are simply a result of pressing them into a stereotype role at their childhood. I think this builds up so much inner pressure that on some day it breaks free, thus becoming much more extreme than it would have become without beeing pressed to a stereotype.
What i would love on wearing skirts is not only more comfort, mut most i would love beeing attractive for attractive women. Since at least for me the contrary is fact it is much better not to wear skirts. And since i'm already 56, for me the time to experiment with it is over. But it is still interesting to think about it and to observe evolution here. I whish that some day men will be free to make their own decisions and not beeing remote-driven by society and anxious men and women.
A dress is comfortable, easy to wear which makes each moves flowing.
The contact on flesh is great and brings me a feeling of freedom.
There is no reason I shouldn't wear it.
Why cant men/boys be accepted for who they are
I have been crossdressing from about the age of 6 ( now 50 ) i love every thing about female clothing, i have alot dresses and high heel shoes for all occasion, have been out a couple of time on girlie nights out and had great fun, just wish i could do it more, i do go out on my own just for walks, and just love being me, even last night i went out and around town just for a couple of hours and loved it, i am now at home all day so i have been in a dress and high heels ad make up and will stay like this till i go to bed. Just wish i could go to work and live evry day like this. Plus i would like to meet others like me so we can have girlie nights out.
I really wish it was ok to wear a pretty dress and some cute makeup and heels when I go out with my wife but unfortunately it would draw too much attention in my town. 🙁 Someday the barriers will be broken and we'll be free to dress in ways that we feel are natural to us.
I don't see anything wrong with a man wearing a dress or a woman wearing guys clothes for that matter. In the new testament it says do not worry about what you are wearing. God loves us for who we are on the inside not who we are on the outside. God doesn't say your not good enough for me because you may look a little different. All God wants from us is to love one another the way that he loves us. We aren't suppose to judge one another. So I say if a guy wants to wear a dress once in a while then go for it. I say the same thin for a woman who wants to dress like a man. Its harder for a man to wear a dress in public
I am indian hetro male. married with 2 kids. This is a great article and i couldnot agree more with the author and me and my wife dont personally feel anything wrong in me or her crossdressing . I am crossdressing since more than six years with wife's consent and help. I can crossdress fully only when children are away, and other than my wife knows about this. This because in our conservative society,it will be considered very queer and odd. But i do wear only ladies undergarments under my regular dress. The issue feeling superior or inferior between the couples cannot be decided on the gender or based on what we wear. In our case, my wife is more successful in career, but I am good at home keeping and childraising and both are equally important


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The first 100,00 digitalized pages (from 1858 to 1910) of the Times Colonist (known earlier as the Daily Colonist), the newspaper which serves Victoria, British Columbia is now on the Internet at www.timescolonist.com.
The press release says that "It is sure to become one of the most important resources for historical researchers throughout the province. It has the potential to open up many new doors in historical writing, help genealogists trace their family trees and learn about their ancestors, and even the way that history in taught in our schools".
They have the following information on the site -
- Birth, marriage and death information
- References to anniversaries, business openings and school reports
- List of passengers arriving in Victoria (the federal government did not keep records until 1905)
Dave Obee, an editor at the newspaper and the one who spearheaded the project, was at a conference in Ottawa this past summer. I had the opportunity to meet him and discuss the project with him. You can go to his site at www.daveobee.com.
He is one-half of the team that wrote the book, Finding Your Canadian Ancestors: A Beginner's Guide and he will give various talks at the Ontario Genealogical Society this summer in Oakville on May www.ogs.on.ca.
This project was made possible with the help of University of Victoria, the University of British Columbia, and the Greater Victoria Public Library.

subset: commoncrawl


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This is a 4" x 6" small stick flag made from 100% polyester. The stick is made from plastic. Each flag contains a sleeve in which the stick goes through. Wholesale pricing is available upon request. Please contact us for more details. If you have any questions please contact us.
- Item #: SF-86


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Villa are in the bottom three of the Barclays Premier League ahead of tonight's home clash with fellow strugglers Reading, but midfielder Bannan believes Villa have enough quality to move out of trouble and has been encouraged by their performance in the previous two home games with Manchester United and Arsenal.
With a visit to another struggling side, QPR, to come on Saturday, this could be a crucial period for Villa, and Bannan said: "It hurts when people tip the club to struggle this season. But it's up to us to prove them wrong - and that's what we will do."
He added: "In that changing room we've got quality. We're a bit young but I think we are confident in our own ability.
"We acquitted ourselves well against Manchester United and Arsenal but I think our season starts now with the games we've got up and coming.
"We all know in the changing room that they are winnable games."
However, Bannan is taking nothing for granted against the Royals.
He said: "I've not seen much of Reading. I've seen a couple of games they've had on television. But it's one of the best leagues in the world.
"You are not just going to turn up on Tuesday and turn teams over because they've just been promoted.
"They are going to be battling for their lives so it is going to be a tough game and we will show them the same respect as Arsenal at the weekend."
Source: PA
Source: PA


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For over thirty years people in Hawaii have gathered at the Silent Dance Center to practice Iyengar yoga. A delightful mix of kama'aina and malihini, locals and newcomers, comes together to enjoy:
- 56 weekly yoga classes
- two well equipped yoga studios
- special workshops with visiting senior teachers
- experienced and highly trained Iyengar yoga teachers
Certified Iyengar yoga instructors are educated, adept, and experienced in the methods of yoga set forth by B.K.S. Iyengar.
Join us and focus your energy and attention to enhance body, mind and spirit.
The mission of the Silent Dance Center is to promote and develop yoga, as inspired by the teachings of BKS Iyengar, by providing:
- introductory opportunities for people new to Iyengar Yoga
- guidance for continuing students to deepen their own practice, and
- training for current teachers and those interested in teaching.


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Besides the unification of all the autism-spectrum conditions under a single, simplified definition (which I generally consider a Good Thing, despite the reservations I mentioned in my earlier post; this post of Amanda Forest Vivian's captures what I think is good about it quite well) and the elimination of Rett's Disorder from the DSM entirely, the DSM-V revisions include lots of other interesting ideas.
These include:
- Adding Binge Eating Disorder to the Eating Disorders category
- Eliminating amenorrhea (loss of one's mentrual period) from the criteria for Anorexia Nervosa, which would finally allow men who meet all of the remaining criteria to be diagnosed with full-blown anorexia rather than with the vague, often-minimizing label Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified
- Adding a childhood mood disorder called Temper Dysregulation with Dysphoria, which would be characterized by irritability and frequent temper tantrums; this disorder is meant as an alternative diagnosis for many of the children who are (or would be) now diagnosed with bipolar disorder
- Consolidating the personality disorders into five broad, yet-to-be-determined categories
- Adding "Hypersexual Disorder" and Paraphilic Coercive Disorder (in which the person is turned on by the idea of raping another person) to the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders category
- Expansion of the DSM-IV's Substance-Related Disorders category (which included substance dependence and abuse) to a broader Addiction and Related Disorders category, which will include non-chemical, "behavioral" addictions like gambling; Internet addiction was considered for inclusion in this category, too, but ultimately discarded
Some of these proposed changes --- the two eating-disorder changes I mentioned, as well as the decision to remove some problematic wording from the criteria for anorexia, for instance --- are unadulterated Good Things, and were very much needed. (I'd actually argue, along with Rachel and her commenters, that the reforms to the anorexia criteria didn't go far enough; that BMI should not be the gauge of severity of anorexia because it misses those people who might be restricting their eating and obsessing about food, weight and body image just as severely as someone with diagnosable Severe Anorexia, but who, due to individual metabolic variation, never become underweight.) Others, like the addition of Temper Dysregulation with Dysphoria as a new childhood disorder, the concept of "risk syndromes" for psychosis and dementia, are a mixed bag. They might be helpful, or they might result in more people being marginalized, losing autonomy and/or being pressured to take powerful antipsychotic medications for illnesses that, in the case of the risk syndromes, aren't even present and may never be.
Also in the mixed-bag category is the DSM-V's formulation of Gender Identity Disorder (renamed Gender Incongruence, in an attempt to be less stigmatizing), which it splits into two main categories, one for children and one for adolescents and adults. Good things about the new criteria include the aforementioned move toward value-neutral language, its acknowledgement that sex and gender, even for transgendered people, aren't always binary (there's a long history of doctors "gatekeeping" sexual reassignment surgery, hormone therapy and other medical procedures associated with transition, restricting these things to those trans people who conformed most rigidly to the conventional role of their chosen gender) and its stress on whatever the individual trans person wants as the desired outcome. What's not as good is the retention of the notion of autogynephilia --- sexual fetish as motivation for transition --- in the category of Transvestic Fetishism, and the presence of stricter, gender-binary-enforcing language in the criteria for pediatric Gender Incongruence.
Finally, the creation of Hypersexuality as a new sexual disorder strikes me as colossally wrongheaded. Like sexual addiction --- which is not recognized in the DSM-IV, but which has gained popular acceptance in the addiction-recovery community --- this category would be inherently biased against people with unconventional sexualities: kinky people, swingers, polyamorists, even, depending on how conservative a community the person being evaluated comes from, gay and bisexual people. I also disapprove of the existence of this category for the same reason I disapprove of Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder: merely wanting/having sex to a greater or lesser degree than most people do isn't pathology, it's variation.


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Tallahassee, Fl — Physical education received a boost in Florida last month when Florida Gov. Charlie Crist signed a bill expanding physical education requirements for elementary and middle schools. Middle schools now must offer students in grades six through eight one class period of physical education per day for one semester, beginning in fall 2009. The bill also requires elementary schools to provide students with 30 minutes a day of continuous exercise.
Last year, Crist signed a bill that required elementary schools to have 150 minutes of P.E. weekly, but lawmakers learned that many schools didn't fully comply with the standards and toughened the requirements. Some schools had been counting students' walk to lunch, watching a film on nutrition or stretching for a few minutes by their desks as exercise.
"This legislation demonstrates Florida's commitment to fostering healthy lifestyles in every young Floridian at an early age," Crist said in a statement. "By emphasizing the importance of physical fitness, we can teach these students how to make smart choices about exercise that will improve their health throughout their lives."
Crist also honored 10 elementary schools that participated in the Governor's Fitness Challenge, a program that provides guidance and incentives to schools in helping boost physical fitness for children. Four schools were selected to receive $10,000 toward the purchase of sports or fitness equipment for their schools. Four other schools were selected to receive $5,000 to purchase equipment, while two other schools were chosen to receive a visit from a Florida Olympian or professional athlete.
To qualify for the $5,000 prizes, schools had to show that at least 50 percent of the student body participated in the fitness challenge. Schools that also provided evidence of improvement in their students' fitness performance were eligible for the $10,000 awards.


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4-5 small zucchini
□ 1/2 cup bread or cracker crumbs
□ 1 tablespoon melted butter
□ 1/4 stick butter
□ 1 tablespoon flour or cornstarch
□ 1/4 cup sour cream
□ 1/2 teaspoon dill
□ parsley and paprika (for sprinkling)
□ salt and pepper, to taste
□ zucchini pulp
Drop whole zucchini into boiling salted (about 2 tsps salt per 5-6 quart pot) water. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes or until tender.
Drain; cover zucchini with cold water to stop the cooking. When cool, slice in half lengthwise; scoop out meat from centers leaving a hollow shell. Reserve zucchini pulp and set aside.
Mash zucchini pulp using a potato masher or a fork.
In a small saucepan, melt 1/4 stick butter. Blend in the cornstarch until no lumps remain; add sour cream. Combine with dill and salt and zucchini pulp, mixing ingredients until well blended.
Fill the zucchini shells evenly with the stuffing.
Melt 1 tablespoon butter in microwave. Stir in 1/2 cup crushed cracker crumbs or bread crumbs, mixing until all are coated. Sprinkle a layer of buttered bread crumbs on top. Top with parsley flakes and a sprinkling of paprika for color.
Bake in a preheated 350F oven for 30 minutes.
Pizza Zucchini Variation: Spread a thin layer of pizza sauce on top before baking. Sprinkle top with Parmesan cheese (or shredded mozzarella) 10 minutes before baking is finished. Drizzle with olive oil infused with minced garlic, oregano, and basil before serving (omit dill and sour cream).


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A group of college students bask in their crude weekly haven of Texas Hold'em poker. Amid the usual banter, they watch as one deals out the flop: a three of spades, a three of diamonds, and a three of clubs. The room falls silent and tensions are suspended as if the ground had fallen out from beneath the house. The highest card may win this hand, a pocket pair is almost golden, and everyone wonders if someone has the single remaining three. A round of timid betting ensues — a wrong step here could be very expensive. After the round completes, the fourth card is dealt onto the table: the three of hearts. The tensions are dropped as everyone laughs incredulously, and out of the laughter emerges "what's the probability of that?"
One of the more mathematically adept players pulls out his phone and does a quick calculation: — about 1 in 270,000. Everyone is wowed by the rarity of the event they just witnessed.
That is indeed the correct probability to get four consecutive threes from a deck of cards. But is that really the question here? Surely nearly the same response would have occurred if it had been four fours, or four nines. If it were four aces people would be even more astonished. The same response would have occurred if the cards had been four to a straight flush; e.g. the five through eight of spades. There are many such situations. "Four threes" is the most immediate pattern that we recognize as anomalous, but it is not the only anomalous pattern.
So what event is really being referred to by that? Those specific four cards had a 1 in 6.5 million chance of coming up in the order they did from a player's perspective before the hand, and a 100% chance of coming up in the order they did from a perspective after the hand [some will note that I am using a Bayesian interpretation of probability at this point]. The probability of the specific real world event that occurred (including the orientations and temperatures of the cards, the reactions of the players, and the taste of Jake Danser's bite of Chinese dinner 500 miles away), from the perspective of any of the players, is unbelievably small.
In situations where this question is asked, I always jokingly answer the question with "1". Most of the time people laugh and let the question rest, but sometimes the conversation turns more serious. In this case I try (in all cases so far, in vain) to explain the plurality of perspective at play here. The "serious" answer I have for this question, doing my best to interpret the intended meaning of the statement while incorporating these issues, is a number I cannot calculate but that I can describe: it is the probability that the speaker would have been astonished by the event that occurred; essentially the probability that he would remark "what's the probability of that?". I think that is quite a bit higher than one in 270,000, so the event we witnessed was not as rare as the simple calculation would have us believe.
The dissonance of such situations points to a common simplistic view of probability: that events (in the colloquial sense) have probabilities. A distinction that is commonly understood (and commonly misunderstood) is that between frequentism, which talks about running an experiment a bunch of times and calculating the proportion of experiments that satisfied some criterion, and Bayesianism, which talks about the confidence one has in some property being true in terms of a subjective state of knowledge. This is a fascinatingly subtle distinction: they coincide on most but not all questions, and there is much argument about which one is "right" (I think that is a rather silly argument, as if a probability were something bestowed to us from nature). However, both of these views are calculating the probability of a property (a set of events) being true (happening), and both of these views rely on an assumption of prior information: the frequentists on the set-up of the experiment and the Bayesians on their prior state of knowledge about the world. The idea that an event has a single, objective probability says something very strong about the universe: that there is some essential, natural source of randomness (to dispel any quantum objections, I point to E.T. Jaynes's critique of the view that the randomness in quantum theory is an essential property of nature). But even if there were some essential source of randomness, surely the universe is more determined than our probabilistic calculations assume: from the view of this universe, the deck cannot be uniformly shuffled after only seven shuffles because it knows how your hands and your brain work. So we were never talking about an essential, natural randomness.
In our normal use of probabilities, we don't run into this problem because we are predicting the future: e.g. "what is the probability that Obama will be re-elected?". We conceive of this as a single event, but it is actually a wide collection of events. Given some prior knowledge, this set of events has a definite probability. But we are inconsistent about how we treat future events and past events: past events are not collections — they happened, and they happened in exactly one way. From the perspective of now, the probability that it would happen any other way is zero. From the perspective of before the event, we are asking whether "it" would happen or not, but we are entirely unclear about what measurable property we mean by "it". We mean something different when we refer to events in the future and events in the past.
In summary, probabilities are functions of (1) prior information and (2) a criterion for judging when it is to be considered true. Probability is meaningless to apply to a single event.
N.B. in probability theory, the word event is already defined to mean a set of outcomes. If you read this article with that definition in mind, you will have been very confused :-).
If this post helped you think more clearly about probability, show your appreciation and .


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I currently have Windows XP installed on my system. I wish to install Ubuntu as the second OS. I want that at startup I am prompted to select the OS I wish to boot my system with. However, I am facing problems while creating the new partitions. My hard drive is presently partitioned into two drives, both of which contain data although there is 30GB of free space available in both the partitions.
I am a little apprehensive about losing my data if I partition my drive incorrectly during Ubuntu installation.
Kindly guide me through the installation procedure, especially the partitioning part of it. Which option would be best suited?


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Research focused on the regulation of the adult stem cells that line the gastrointestinal tract of Drosophila suggests new models for the study of Barrett's esophagus. Barrett's esophagus, a risk factor for esophageal cancer, is a condition in which the cells of the lower esophagus transform into stomach-like cells. In most cases this transformation has been thought to occur directly from chronic acid indigestion when stomach contents flow back up into the esophagus. A new study, published June 27, 2013 online in Cell Reports, suggests a different cause, namely a change in stem cell function, for this transformation.
Researchers at the Buck Institute manipulated a signaling pathway (BMP-like Dpp) implicated in the development of Barrett's esophagus. After manipulation, the adult stem cells that normally generate the lining of the esophagus of fruit flies morphed into the type of stem cells that generate stomach cells. "Up until this point, it's not been clear what this signaling pathway does in stem cells of the gastrointestinal tract, or how it influences the regeneration of various types of epithelial cells in the gut of the fly," said Heinrich Jasper, PhD, a professor at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and senior author of the study.
"Barrett's esophagus may not be simply a mechanical response to the overabundance of gastric acid," said Jasper. "Antacids may not be the best means of treating a condition whose development appears to be more complex. This gives us avenues to look for targets for new therapies."
Between five and ten percent of people with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) develop Barrett's esophagus, usually after the age of 55. Among that population the risk of developing an esophageal adenocarcinoma is about 0.5 percent per year. Typically before the cancer develops, precancerous cells appear in the Barrett's tissue. Barrett's esophagus may be present for many years before cancer develops. Periodic upper GI endoscopy is often used to monitor those with the condition to watch for signs of cancer development.
The Jasper lab is developing the fruit fly, which shares many genetic pathways with humans, as a model to study gastrointestinal disease. Jasper says his lab is now looking at the impact BMP-like Dpp signaling has on the muscles and sphincters of the gastrointestinal system.
Contributors to the work:
Other Buck Institute researchers involved in the study include Hongjie Li and Yanyan Qi. This work was supported by the National Institute on General Medical Sciences (NIH RO1 GM100196), and the Ellison Medical Foundation (AG-SS-2224-08) to H.J.
About the Buck Institute for Research on Aging
The Buck Institute is the U.S.'s first independent research organization devoted to Geroscience – focused on the connection between normal aging and chronic disease. Based in Novato, CA, The Buck is dedicated to extending "Healthspan", the healthy years of human life and does so utilizing a unique interdisciplinary approach involving laboratories studying the mechanisms of aging and those focused on specific diseases. Buck scientists strive to discover new ways of detecting, preventing and treating age-related diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, cancer, cardiovascular disease, macular degeneration, osteoporosis, diabetes and stroke. In their collaborative research, they are supported by the most recent developments in genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics and stem cell technologies. For more information: http://www.thebuck.org
Contact: Kris Rebillot
[email protected]


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Job2Do 18.104.22.168
Job2Do is a distributed, cross-platform job scheduling ("batch") system that allows you to easily and visually define jobs, dependencies, and schedules.
Job2Do was designed for small to medium-sized businesses having sophisticated software automation needs. You can run hundreds of jobs on a single machine or distribute them over many machines across your LAN/WAN. Job2Do also runs on Windows and Macintosh machines, so you can create a cohesive, coordinated batch across a heterogeneous network. As long as your script or binary is command line-accessible, then you can schedule it in Job2Do. In addition to supporting command line jobs, Job2Do comes with several useful built-in jobs such as FTP, file watcher, GZip/GUnzip, Email, and job definition XML export/import. Job2Do supports custom holiday calendars, allowing you prevent jobs from running on certain days. And if you need to process daily file-based data feeds where the date is embedded in the file name, Job2Do provides parameterized command lines that automatically substitute date variables with correctly formatted date strings for the current or previous business/calendar day. Job2Do provides many of the features of expensive, "enterprise" job scheduling systems in a lightweight freeware package.


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Ridding Rapid Blight
With its natural terrain of lakes and live oaks, and spectacular views of South Carolina's Intracoastal Waterway, Glen Dornoch Golf Club draws an average of 10,000 rounds during the months of March, April and May.
"Spring is our busiest season," says George Gore, general manager of the 270-acre course that is situated on the northern end of Myrtle Beach's Grand Strand. "That's when all the golfers from up north start heading down here in droves."
However, when an unidentified turf disease destroyed the putting greens at this coastal course in the spring of 2000, Gore and his staff stood by helplessly as more than 3,000 of the usual spring rounds disappeared onto other courses in the Myrtle Beach area.
"We gave the golfers the option to play or not," says Gore. "We didn't want them to play and be unhappy, so we lost a good many of them."
The disease, named rapid blight because of how quickly it destroys infected turf, devastated the cool-season grass Glen Dornoch uses to overseed its bermudagrass greens.
"It killed the Poa trivialis," explains Gore of the disease, which cost the course hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost green fees. "It turned the greens into brown circles. The bermudagrass was dormant, so there was no grass for golfers to putt on."
After trying a number of different fungicides, Glen Dornoch was unable to control the disease and asked Clemson University Plant Pathologist Bruce Martin, Ph.D., for a diagnosis.
Martin established a trial of various overseeding grasses to determine which species were susceptible to the fungus. After determining that the host was the Poa trivialis the course uses to overseed roughs in winter, Martin experimented with different fungicides to gauge their activity against the disease.
During his research, Martin also learned that rapid blight was causing problems on golf courses in seven other states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Nevada and Texas. In California and Arizona, the disease has caused serious damage to large expanses of Poa annua, Poa trivialis and Lolium perenne (perennial ryegrass).
"All these states have locations with salty irrigation waters," explains Martin. "That association has been very strong on both the east and west coasts."
In the spring of 2001, rapid blight attacked 13 golf courses along the South Carolina coast and one in coastal North Carolina. In each case, Martin discovered, salt water had intruded into the irrigation water. "The disease was being caused by increases of salinity in certain aquifers along coastal environments," he explained.
Martin observed that the occurrence of rapid blight along the Carolina coast followed a severe drought during which sodium chloride accumulated in the soil. "Because of the drought, salts were building up and not being leached by rainfall," says Martin. "That made conditions more favorable for the organism, which dwells in salty places."
In a field trial conducted in the fall of 2000, Martin determined that Compass, Fore and an experimental fungicide were active against rapid blight in Poa trivialis.
"Healing was promoted by Compass (trifloxystrobin) after a single application at 0.2 oz./1,000 sq. ft., and by the experimental fungicide, pyraclostrobin, after a single application at 0.9 oz./1,000 sq. ft.," says Martin. After two applications at 6 oz./1,000 sq. ft., Fore (mancozeb) demonstrated some curative activity.
In a trial at a coastal golf course in South Carolina, Compass achieved better control of rapid blight when the rate was increased to 0.25 oz./1,000 sq. ft., says Martin.
After seeing the results of Martin's research, Gore directed his crew to apply Compass on the overseeded putting greens during the spring of 2001. They sprayed the material at the rate of 0.25 oz./1,000 sq. ft. on a two-week schedule from March through June. "That took care of it for a while," reports Gore.
However, when Glen Dornoch overseeded the putting greens with Poa trivialis the following fall, signs of the rapid blight fungus became evident about two weeks after germination. To prevent the disease from taking hold on the putting greens, Gore directed his staff to spray Compass on a two-week schedule for the next eight months, if necessary.
"We have a handle on rapid blight now," says Gore. "We know what it looks like and we can cut it off."
Barbara McCabe is a freelance writer who lives in Philadelphia, Pa.
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© 2020 Penton Media Inc.


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Our unique patented and patent pending lighting designs allow elevator cab manufacturers to provide a variety of lighting styles to their customers.
Man-D-Tec LED products are designed to deliver maximum lumens with minimal power consumption, through the use of warm white lighting to enhance elevator interiors. Extensive testing is involved in completing this process to ensure the best results.


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AKG Pro Audio K167 TIESTO DJ Headphones
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Posted under DJ - Producer List, DJ Mixes, Lee Tamus, Techno-TechTrance, Trance Music Radio
This post was written by DJ Lee Tamus on January 23, 2017


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I never intended to be an advocate. I never intended to be the person kids would come to when they felt suicidal. But somehow, somewhere along the line, that's exactly what happened.
In 2011, as a player on the George Washington University women's basketball team, I made history by becoming the first openly transgender Division I athlete. It wasn't my intention. All I wanted to do was show my closeted gay friends, "Look, if I can come out—with people who have no idea what 'trans' even means—you should be able to say, 'This is my girlfriend, not my friend.'"
At first, only my teammates heard my story. Afterward, nothing really changed. I still got dressed in the women's locker room. I still shared a hotel room with one of my female teammates. But the media and the rest of the world couldn't seem to process how someone who identified as male could play on a women's basketball team. They pried and pried—especially ESPN—revealing personal details of my life I didn't want public. The subsequent attention sent me into a suicidal depression.
Eventually, however, I realized that trans people—and trans athletes who want to come out—should have control over their own stories. The last thing I wanted was for someone else to feel the way I did after the media turned my story into their own: powerless. And so, I've made it my life's mission to give everyone on the gender spectrum a platform to tell the world who they are on their own terms—and no one else's.
Growing up in St. Paul, Minnesota, I wasn't like everyone else. Kids never used the words gay or lesbian when they teased me; they just bullied me because I was a girl who looked like a boy. I came out as a lesbian in high school (trans wasn't even on my radar back then)—a revelation that my mom struggled to understand. I wasn't allowed to go anywhere because my mom feared that other lesbians might be there. In fact, I wasn't allowed to hang out with anyone. As a result, I was constantly stuck at home in an environment that wasn't a happy one. (My dad was never in the picture, leaving us when I was five years old.) Most of the time, I felt like killing myself.
Basketball was my salvation. When I stepped onto the court, I didn't think about the struggles I went through to prove myself to my mom. I could be myself while bonding with other people in the pursuit of a common goal: winning. I enjoyed every second of it, and when George Washington University recruited me, it was my ticket to freedom.
During my first semester, I took a human sexuality class in which I heard a panel of LGBTQ-XYZ people, including a trans guy, telling their stories. That's how I learned trans people existed. Everything he said fell in line with how I felt. Finally, I had the vocabulary to explain it.
Initially, I came out as trans to only one of my closest friends on the team. She had never heard of the word trans either and didn't know what it meant. She wasn't alone. I was the first trans person that anybody on the team had met except for an assistant coach. For them, it didn't sink in until we would go out and people would say, "Here's the women's team" or "Hey, ladies," and I would start to look sad or stop smiling.
There wasn't much time for them to comprehend my gender identity. Less than two months after going public with my story in fall 2011, I suffered my ninth concussion. (That's a lot of concussions, right? I'm short for basketball—under six feet tall—meaning taller players constantly elbowed me in the head.) I tried to come back for my senior year. But it wasn't happening. My equilibrium was off, greatly affecting how I moved on the court, and I was forgetting the names of even my best friends. Ultimately, I knew I had to give up basketball and focus on the rest of my life.
Around the same time, I discovered that ESPN's Outside the Lines had interviewed my mom about her basketball-playing trans son. I didn't want press, but I also didn't want people to hear from my mom without getting my side of the story. So I did an interview with them too. When the segment came out, it was more hurtful than I thought it would be. They showed pictures of me when I was younger, they used my old name, and my mom showed my coming-out letter on camera. My face was everywhere, continuously, for an entire week.
Between the media attention and the concussion, I could barely tolerate the stress. I remember the last day the Outside the Lines segment aired, I got out of class and turned on the TV thinking SpongeBob (my go-to stress reliever) would pop up. Instead, ESPN was on, and there was my face—yet again.
I lost it. I walked into the kitchen, grabbed a knife and was like, How should I do this? I was about to cut myself when I heard a knock at the door. It brought me back. I put the knife down and opened the door. The person I was seeing at the time was on the other side.
We sat down. We watched SpongeBob. And I just breathed.
I graduated early and moved to New York City in March 2012. I became a bartender and personal trainer to support myself. Eventually, I reactivated my Facebook account. (I had abandoned it after the ESPN thing.) Twenty-five thousand unread messages awaited me, mostly from kids or people my age. Two people who had been bullied by family and friends messaged me at the same time—2 a.m. on a random Tuesday morning. They were planning to kill themselves. "This is it," they wrote, almost in unison. "I'm done. I've had it."
It had taken me a full year after the Outside the Lines segment to regain my energy and find myself. But it wasn't until I saw those messages that I realized I had the ability to make a difference in people's lives. The last thing I wanted was for someone else to feel how I had felt. So I wrote back.
I told them they were loved. I told them I was there for them. I told them they are here for a reason. I told them that despite all the harassment, bullying and ignorance, there were many wonderful things in store for them. I told them life is rough. I told them that if things aren't going the way we planned, we make another plan. It worked: They told me they would give life another shot.
Right then and there (more or less), I decided I should share that message with other kids, too. I started by reaching out to every LGBT organization in the country. At first, only colleges invited me to speak. Recently, however, high schools have asked as well. It makes me feel good to visit a high school in a conservative part of Florida—an area where LGBT students are typically harassed—and get people to understand how to become more tolerant. I save a lot of time for questions because I want people to ask me ignorant questions—questions they don't even know how to ask—so I can teach them how to respectfully interact with a trans person whom they might meet later in life.
At the college level, I'm trying to create a safe environment for other openly trans athletes. It's about teaching players and coaches Trans 101—what the terms mean and that there's a difference between biological sex and gender identity. It's funny when people assume it's easy for female athletes to come out. I still know about a dozen players and a few coaches who are closeted. They can't come out because they worry they'll be kicked off their teams. Believe it or not, many coaches still say, "I don't want any lesbians on my team."
For many trans people, however, coming out is only the first step. The next step is sometimes gender-reassignment surgery, which can be even more difficult, in part because it's expensive—for trans men top surgery (work above the belt) can be as much as $15,000, and up to $250,000 for bottom surgery (work below the belt). This past summer, I wanted to see if I could help people with minimal resources fund their transitions. I made a two-minute video, offering my support: "If you are looking for financial assistance for your transition—hit me up!" (My own transition is ongoing; after thinking about it for a few years, I've decided that I will pursue top surgery once I've found the right surgeon.)
Within minutes, 10 people reached out to me. I decided to visit each of them and turn their stories into a documentary designed to raise $45,000 for their transitions. I met their friends, families and significant others. I got a sense of what they had gone through when they came out as well what transitioning has meant for them.
I'm calling this Project I Am Enough. You can watch the trailer for the documentary at our fundraising page and starting Friday you'll be able to stream the entire movie. I plan to make a similar documentary focusing on people within the LGBT community every summer. Next year, the theme will be LGBT people in the South, trans youth (kindergarten through sixth grade) and trans athletes.
Since I came out at George Washington, numerous other LGBT athletes have done the same—NBA journeyman center Jason Collins is the most prominent. This is a great thing. But I also hope it's temporary. Someday—soon, if I have my way—enough LGBT athletes will be out that fans and the media will greet a player's sexuality with a shrug as opposed to a segment on Outside the Lines or the cover of Sports Illustrated. The focus can then shift back to the games themselves. In the end, that's what I've become an advocate for: an even playing field.
This article was originally published on Playboy for iPhone. For more exclusive content and the best articles from the latest issue of Playboy, download the app in the iTunes Store.
In the photo above, Allums visits with Jacob Saunders in Loughborough, England* (Photo courtesy of K. PAGE Productions and Daniel Edwards).
*Correction: Caption earlier misstated Loughborough as being in Scotland, it is in England. [h/t Pockets]


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Shares of BlackBerry smartphone maker Research In Motion Ltd (RIM.TO) (RIMM.O) jumped early on Wednesday on speculation it is set to unveil a long-awaited touchscreen handset designed to battle Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) popular iPhone.
RIM is expected to announce the launch of the slider 9800 handset at a joint BlackBerry-AT&T Inc (T.N) event in New York next Tuesday morning.
"The timing makes sense (for this to be the 9800 launch)," said Avian Securities analyst Matt Thornton.
"The earlier they are going to say it is going to be available on the shelves the better. They don't want to miss one of the key seasons," he added, referring to the lucrative back-to-school period for retailers.
Shares of Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM rose 2.4 percent, or $1.31, to $54.49 in New York soon after trade opened on Wednesday. In Toronto, the stock was up C$1.22, or 2.1 percent, at C$56.37.
RIM's share of the North American market has been eroded by the easier-to-use touchscreen iPhone and a slew of smartphones that use Google Inc's (GOOG.O) Android operating system.
Carrier AT&T, initially, is expected to get exclusive U.S. rights to sell the new BlackBerry handset, analysts said.
"We expect the new RIM slider to receive 'hero' treatment from AT&T, and for the carrier to promote the product aggressively," Morgan Stanley analyst Ehud Gelblum said in a note to clients.
The handset is likely to be launched in Canada and Western Europe later in the year, in time for the holiday season, Thornton said.


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WESTFORD, VT (WCAX/CNN) – Everyone sees something slightly different in artwork.
Some residents of a Vermont town said they see a hand giving the finger when they look at a giant sculpture that went up recently.
And the man who put it up said that's exactly what it is.
Steps from Route 128 in Westford, the towering sculpture stands.
And while everyone recognizes the gesture the sculpture displays, most residents want to know why it was put there.
"You can't believe that somebody went to all that work," resident Carol Jordan said. "It's very big. Everybody got the message. But a lot of work went into it."
So, why was it built?
"It's intended for the people who run our town, who run the town of Westford," said Ted Pelkey, the owner of the sculpture.
Pelkey said it stems from a long-running dispute with the town over whether he can develop his property.
He'd like to move his truck repair and monofilament recycling business to the property so he can take on more business and not pay rent in nearby Swanton.
But he said the town keeps putting up barriers, and he believes members of the town development review board have a personal grudge against him.
Development review board minutes from last fall show the board was concerned about how the building would be used, among other things.
Pelkey said he feels those are delay tactics – so he spent $4,000 to make a point.
"I'm hoping that we can get it through to the people who live in the town of Westford to have a really long look at the people who are running their town," he said.
Town officials probably don't like the sculpture, but there's not much they can do about it, because it's considered a work of public art.
Copyright 2018 WCAX via CNN. All rights reserved.


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Welcome to Hyperion Records, an independent British classical label devoted to presenting high-quality recordings of music of all styles and from all periods from the twelfth century to the twenty-first.
Hyperion offers both CDs, and downloads in a number of formats. The site is also available in several languages.
Please use the dropdown buttons to set your preferred options, or use the checkbox to accept the defaults.
|Brahms: The Complete Songs, Vol. 10 - Sophie Rennert
|Brahms: The Complete Songs, Vol. 2 - Christine Schäfer
Following the iconic series of the complete songs of Schubert and Schumann, Graham Johnson's latest enterprise traverses the complete songs of Brahms. He is joined here on Volume 2 by the wonderful Christine Schäfer, whose contribution to the Schu ...» More
|The shepherd on the rock
Julian Bliss and Christopher Glynn are joined by Ailish Tynan for varied delights by Chopin, Brahms, Schumann, Schubert and Richard Strauss.» More
|Women's lives and loves
'The performances give unalloyed pleasure. Lott's still-radiant soprano combines beautifully with the vibrant, musky mezzo of Kirchschlanger, while Jo ...
'I'll leave you to experience the conjuring for yourself. For conjuring it is: any element of the didactic is totally absent in this seamless garment ...» More
|Brahms: The Complete Songs, Vol. 7 - Benjamin Appl
Benjamin Appl consolidates a remarkable reputation with this next volume in our Brahms series.» More
|Songs to the moon
The phenomenal Myrthen Ensemble—Mary Bevan, Clara Mouriz, Allan Clayton, Marcus Farnsworth and Joseph Middleton—in what is incredibly its debut recording.» More


text:
BOSTON (AP) — Dustin Pedroia drove in four runs and had three of Boston's season-high 20 hits, and Ryan Dempster took advantage of an early cushion that kept getting bigger for the Red Sox in their 11-4 victory over the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday night.
Mike Napoli added two RBIs and Jacoby Ellsbury, Daniel Nava and Jose Iglesias joined Pedroia with three hits apiece as the Red Sox gave Dempster an abundance of offense after scoring just two runs in his previous two starts combined.
Dempster (5-8) allowed two runs and six hits over six innings, leaving with an 8-2 lead and picking up his first victory since June 9.
The Red Sox had at least three hits in every inning until the fifth, when they finally went hitless but still got a runner on base on a two-out walk to David Ortiz. It was also the first inning Boston failed to score after roughing up Juan Nicasio (4-4) early.
Wilin Rosario had three hits for the Rockies, including a solo homer in the second all the way out of Fenway Park. That was the high point for the Rockies in a game that lasted 3 hours, 40 minutes.
Nicasio had his worst start of the season, lasting only 2 1-3 innings and allowing seven runs -- six earned -- on 12 hits. He walked two and struck out two. He had never allowed more than eight hits in a start this season and the Red Sox had that matched after two innings, taking a 5-1 lead with a pair of runs in the first and three more in the second.
The Red Sox tagged Nicasio again in the third, ending his night after Pedroia's RBI single gave Boston 12 hits with two outs still to go in the inning. Adam Ottavino inherited runners at first and second, but got the Rockies out of the jam by striking out Ortiz and getting Napoli on a fly to center.
Boston added a run in the fourth after Stephen Drew tripled to center field on a hit he thought was a home run when it bounced high off the top of the wall. The umpires ruled the ball was in play and Drew was stuck briefly at third. The umpires spent several minutes looking at video replays before returning to the field and signaling that it was going to stay a triple.
Boston fans booed loudly at the call, but quickly forgot about it when Iglesias doubled to left and Drew trotted home to increase the lead to 8-2.
Nolan Arenado had three hits and an RBI for the Rockies.
Dempster's only glaring mistake came in the second inning on a 3-1 slider to Rosario, who drove it out of Fenway Park for his 12th home run of the season. The solo shot cleared the Green Monster in left field and all the signs above it, landing in a raised parking lot across the street.
NOTES: The Red Sox topped their 19 hits in a 17-5 rout of Texas on June 4. ... The two-game interleague series wraps up Wednesday afternoon with RHP Roy Oswalt (0-1) facing Boston RHP John Lackey (4-5). ... Nicasio started the season 3-0, but hasn't won since beating San Francisco on May 19. ... Napoli's two RBIs gave him 52 before the midway point of his first season in Boston. ... The Red Sox optioned struggling third baseman Will Middlebrooks to Triple-A Pawtucket before the game. Middlebrooks has hit .192 in 53 games for Boston this season, missing 16 with a lower back strain. ... The Red Sox also recalled right-hander Pedro Beato from Pawtucket after placing left-hander Franklin Morales on the DL with a strained muscle on the left side of his chest.


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Friday, February 28, 2014
Symmetrical Creations
Posted by Rebecca May at 8:54 AM 0 comments
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Transformation Cartoon
After our lesson on transformations the day before, the kids used
cartoon pictures to model each type of transformation two different
The reflection was a little more challenging. The kids had to figure out they needed to trace the shape through the back of the page to model a reflection. Love that logical thinking!!!
Posted by Rebecca May at 9:11 AM 0 comments
Labels: 4th grade, math, Transformations
Friday, February 21, 2014
|Transformations Anchor Chart
A geometrical transformation is simply the changing of an object's position. The size and shape of the object do not change, only the position. There are three types: Translation, Rotation, and Reflection.
A translations is a slide. There are no flips or turns. A reflection is a flip, or mirror image. If it is a reflection, we should be able to draw a line of symmetry in between the shapes. A rotation is a turn along a certain point.
Posted by Rebecca May at 9:05 AM 0 comments
Labels: 4th grade, math, Transformations
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
We introduce volume by looking at different shapes made out of linking cubes. It's an exploration to determine the best way to count the number of cubes within the shape. We discuss ways to keep ourselves from counting the cubes more than once. It's an easy mistake to make when looking at the cube from different angles. The best way we came up with was to look at the shape in layers. Figure out the number of shapes in the initial layer, then determine how many layers there are. This leads the kids to self-discover the formula V = L x W x H. They usually pick up on this very quickly.
|We're determining the volume of this shape...
|So we look at the top layer...
|Then figure out the total number of layers
Here are our journal entries from the last few days...
|Our initial journal entry
|Practice counting units
|After self-discovering the formula...
|Our Volume Anchor Chart
Posted by Rebecca May at 12:49 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Angles Search
After finding the pictures, the students used the app Educreations to create a movie slide show with narration telling about each angle. For example, when an acute angle is pictured, the kids can be heard saying, "This is our example of an acute angle. Acute angles can measure from 1 degree to 89 degrees. We estimate this angle to be about 45 degrees."
Posted by Rebecca May at 2:03 PM 0 comments
Thursday, February 6, 2014
3-D Shapes
This is an example of our journal page for 3-D shapes. By 4th grade, most kids are pretty aware of the attributes of 3-dimensional shapes. I do usually have couple of misconceptions to clear up. The first is that this is a rectangular prism. This is actually a square prism. Prisms all have rectangular faces around the middle. It's those two side faces that tell us it's name.
Rectangular prisms actually look like this:
The second misconception is that bases are the faces on the bottom of the shape. Actually, bases only exist when the shape has a curve. The only shapes we discuss with bases are cylinders and cones.
Posted by Rebecca May at 11:37 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Making Polygons
Posted by Rebecca May at 12:55 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Posted by Rebecca May at 12:16 PM 0 comments


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Brownchin Racer, Racer
Scientific name: Coluber constrictor helvigularis (AUFFENBERG 1955)
* Currently accepted name
* scientific names used through time
- Coluber constrictor – LINNAEUS 1758
- Bascanion constrictor – BAIRD & GIRARD 1853
- Coryphodon constrictor – DUMÉRIL & BIBRON 1854
- Zamenis constrictor – BOULENGER 1893
- Coluber constrictor helvigularis – AUFFENBERG 1955
Description: Average adult size is 26-62 inches (66-157 cm). Adult color is black with brown and white markings on the upper lips, chin and throat. The belly is grayish to uniform black. The body is slender and the scales are smooth, and there are 17 dorsal scale rows at midbody. The pupil is round. Juvenile color is gray with distinct reddish brown blotches fading into a solid-colored tail.
A. Top of the head
B. Underside of the head (chin and throat)
C. Front (face view) of the head
D. Side of the head
E. Smooth scales
Range: In Florida, it is only found in the panhandle near the Apalachicola River drainage. It is not found outside of Florida.
Habitat: Commonly found in pine flatwoods, hardwood hammocks, and sandhills.
Comments: HARMLESS (Non-Venomous) See comments given for the Southern Black Racer (Coluber constrictor priapus).
Comparison with other species: The Eastern Indigo Snake (Drymarchon couperi) has a much heavier body, sometimes reddish pigment on its chin and throat, and an undivided anal plate. The Eastern Coachwhip (Masticophis flagellum flagellum) is black anteriorly and light tan posteriorly on the body.


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Liberty News
Students attend Values Voter Summit in D.C.
|Members of Liberty University's Student Government Association Executive Council attend the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C.
More than 80 Liberty University students spent the weekend learning how they can impact America politically while staying firm in their Christian faith at the fifth annual Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. The summit was co-sponsored by Liberty University and Liberty Counsel, as well as the Family Research Council, AFA Action, American Values and the Heritage Foundation. About 2,000 people attended the event, according to Mat Staver, dean of Liberty University School of Law.
The three-day conference included book signings, exhibit halls and a presidential and vice presidential straw poll.
Students heard from several speakers, such as Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. Staver and Liberty campus pastor Johnnie Moore also spoke at the summit during breakout sessions.
Sean Maguire, a sophomore environmental science major at Liberty, attended the summit on Friday and Saturday. He said his favorite part was the exhibit halls set up by the Creation Museum, Live Action and Susan B. Anthony List, who were also co-sponsors of the event.
"It was good for Liberty to be a sponsor at this event because it gave Liberty students an opportunity to get informed about the issues that face our country right now. It also gave us an opportunity to see our leaders like Dean [Shawn] Akers (Helms School of Government), Dean Staver and Pastor Moore in a different situation and in a new light," Maguire said.
|Mike Huckabee speaks at the summit.
Amanda Haas, a junior political science major at Liberty, had never been to the Values Voter Summit before but has always wanted to go. Haas, who attended the Saturday session, is president of the Liberty University chapter of Concerned Women for America and strongly believes college students should be active and interested in politics.
"If you don't care now, when will you? We are all of age to vote now that we are in college, so we should be voting our values," she said. "College students need this kind of education. No matter what degree an LU student is going for, they should know how to vote for what they value as a Christian."
In November, all seats in the House of Representatives and 37 of 100 seats in the Senate will be up for re-election.


text:
I Do Not Miss Not Having a Tarp
4 Comments
I always loved that quote from the movie. And I guess it's true that the elements are just part of the game, even if you're used to playing in a rain-free environment where you always know there will be baseball.
From Little League to my college days, I always liked playing in the rain. But then again, I was a third baseman who did not have to glide across or hydroplane in the outfield. But there is nothing better than playing the game and having a little liquid sunshine enhance the experience.
Only problem is, in college, we used aluminum bats that attract that pesky Florida lightning.
Still love to hear the rain on the roof of the Trop. Makes me yearn for an open air stadium, but glad I am warm and dry at the same time.
Rays Renegade
Those pesky tarps are all part of the fun, some days… remember back in August 2007 when the Phillies players helped the Rockies grounds crew put the tarp on, while the Rockies players hid in the club house… too funny…
I remember that one. There is also asmallvideo on Youtube of the phillies helping them that day.
Also a great video of a female groundskeeper who got caught under the tarp as the rest of the crew was pulling full speed in Cincy.
Guess when you have seen enough of the tarp, you can love it. I have only seen it pulled twice in person….and never at home!
Rays Renegade


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Coming off a 3-8-1 record in 1956 in their first year under Head Coach Hugh Devore, the Philadelphia Eagles did well in the high rounds of the '57 NFL draft. With the seventh pick in the first round, they took FB Clarence Peaks of
. Further seeking to
bolster the running game, they chose Wake Forest HB Billy Barnes in the second
round and HB Tommy McDonald from Michigan
State Oklahoma
in the third. And in the fourth round, they drafted QB Sonny Jurgensen of Duke.
The stocky (5'11", 195) Jurgensen had not thrown the ball much in college with a run-oriented team, but was reputed to have a strong arm and had shown great accuracy when he did pass. For the past several years, the Eagles had utilized the quarterback tandem of Adrian Burk and Bobby Thomason, and with Burk having retired to pursue a legal career there was a need to break in someone new.
Peaks and Barnes moved directly into the starting lineup while McDonald, who was too small at 5'9" and 182 pounds to play running back as a pro, would not make an impact until later once he was shifted to flanker - and the impact would indeed be great. Jurgensen backed up the veteran Thomason as
lost its first three games.
On October 20 the Eagles faced the Cleveland Browns, who were off to a 3-0 start under Head Coach Paul Brown and had beaten
at home the week before. They had a promising rookie of their own in FB Jim
Brown, taken in the first round of that same draft out of Syracuse. Brown had already become the key to
the ground-oriented offense directed by veteran QB Tommy O'Connell while
second-round draft choice Milt Plum from ,
the quarterback of the future, backed him up. Penn State
The previous week's game in
Cleveland was a fight-filled contest in which
seven players were ejected. Commissioner Bert Bell issued a warning prior to
the rematch that the teams should "play football, not fight". By and large his
instructions were followed in the rematch.
There were 22,443 in attendance at Connie Mack Stadium as Sonny Jurgensen started at quarterback for the injured Thomason. There was no scoring in the opening period but the Eagles, with Billy Barnes running well, advanced to the
8 yard line on the last play of the first quarter. On the second play of the
second quarter, Bobby Walston kicked a 12-yard field goal to give the home team
a 3-0 lead.
The Browns failed to tie the score later in the period when Lou Groza's 39-yard field goal attempt into a stiff wind went wide.
Philadelphia later put
together an 80-yard drive in six plays, with Jurgensen passing to end Rocky
Ryan, who pulled the ball in at the 15 and ran it in for a 46-yard touchdown.
The Eagles held a 10-0 lead at the half.
The third quarter was scoreless, but then
Philadelphia put together a seven-play,
45-yard scoring drive after LB Chuck Bednarik intercepted a pass by Tommy
O'Connell and returned it 14 yards. Barnes ran for 14 yards and, after carrying
again for a short gain, broke away for a
25-yard carry to the one yard line. On second down, Jurgensen scored on a
quarterback sneak. Clarence
O'Connell was injured and replaced by the rookie Milt Plum, who led
on a 69-yard drive midway through the fourth quarter. Following a pass from
Plum to HB Billy Reynolds to the Philadelphia
one, Jim Brown blasted into the end zone for a touchdown. That was it for the
Browns as the Eagles held on for a 17-7 win.
The Browns outgained the Eagles (285 yards to 270) although
Philadelphia surprisingly outgained Cleveland on the ground (186 to 103). The
Browns had the edge in first downs (14 to 13) but they also turned the ball
over six times, four by interception, while Philadelphia gave the ball up just once on a
fumble. While there wasn't the fighting of the previous week's game, there were
a total of 16 penalties called – 10 on the Browns and six on Philadelphia.
Billy Barnes (pictured at left) rushed for 87 yards on 22 carries, overshadowing Jim Brown, who had 53 yards on 12 attempts. Sonny Jurgensen didn't go to the air often, but was effective in his first career start as he completed 6 of 9 passes for 84 yards with a touchdown and none intercepted.
The upset of the Browns didn't herald better things for the Eagles – they were shut out at Pittsburgh the next week and won only three more times to finish at 4-8 and in fifth place in the Eastern Conference, leading to the replacement of Hugh Devore as head coach by Buck Shaw.
on the other hand, lost only once more to top the conference at 9-2-1, although
the Browns lost badly to Detroit
in the NFL Championship game.
Sonny Jurgensen started five games as a rookie and showed promise as he completed 33 of 70 passes for 470 yards with five touchdowns and eight interceptions. The arrival of veteran star Norm Van Brocklin from the Rams in 1958 relegated the young quarterback to the bench and he would not re-emerge until 1961, the year after "The Dutchman" guided the team to the league title and then retired. However, Jurgensen broke out in a big way in '61 on his way to a Hall of Fame career with the Eagles and Redskins.
Billy Barnes also had an impressive first year, gaining selection to the Pro Bowl as he rushed for 529 yards on 143 carries (3.7 avg.) and caught 19 passes for 212 more. Jim Brown outdid the rest of the rookie class, however, as he led the NFL in rushing with 942 yards on the way to becoming the league's dominant rusher over the course of a brilliant nine-year career that, like Jurgensen's, led to enshrinement in Canton.


text:
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text:
Everyone has probably heard of the #BlackLivesMatter riots, which have been going on in the United States for a while. However, international financial markets seem to have been underestimating this event, which happens to be the biggest riots in the USA in 50 years! Why is that?
WTO experts are reported to have revised their forecast for the pace of global trade growth. The renewed forecast names figures below the previous ones - 2,6% against 3,7%. It's also interesting to note that the previous forecast for 2018 failed to match the actual figures.
Existing political and economic risks are pushing international investors into thinking about the security of their investment capital. Chasing big profits becomes secondary to this kind of security.
The representatives of Germany, France, and the UK have registered a company to let it trade with Iran despite the US sanctions. The company still needs to be approved by 28 EU members.
According to Konstantin Eggert, a Russian journalist writing for Deutsche Welle, Donald Trump is offering his Vladimir Putin to compete for a multi-polar world, but on American terms. In particular, he highlights the fact that many international experts started panicking when finding out that the USA had withdrawn from the missile control treaty with Russia. They say that this is the end of the strategic partnership between the United States ans Russia and the disruption of the nuclear arms control system created decades ago.
Donald Trump seems to have confirmed his authoritarian style of governing the state. If he has his way, he would probably turn himself into a king instead of a president. What are the reasons to think this way about the American president?


text:
I will not pretend to know much or anything at all about Fashion, even though that I did very recently find myself flirting with the obsessions of a Fashion label, Juicy Couture, whose velour track suits gained what could be described as cult status at a presentation of the house's Spring / Summer 2013 Collection in Singapore.
The label which has been present in the local scene for over 10 years, has outlets at Takashimaya and at Marina Bay Sands. Known for its fresh and playful approach to style, it's following is primarily from the 18 to 35 year olds. It does also have bright and trendy offerings with an apparel and accessories range for younger girls as well. The label traces it orgins to 1997, having been started by two, "fashion-obsessed friends", and now has stores in over 30 countries. This includes 126 stores in North America, as well as many across Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle-East.
The label's Spring looks which has hits the stores here since January this year, is one that is inspired by the flirty, glamorous pin up girls of the 1950s. LeAnn Nealz, the President and Chief Creative Officer of Juicy Couture, described the collection at its debut as a reinterpretation of the spirit of the pin up era and in a modern and fresh way, with "a subtle sexiness carried throughout but still feels Juicy and fun". The spring collection includes soft silk dresses, rompers, sharp printed blazers, glamorous Juicy Jeans and a new interpretation of the label's iconic track and also includes accessories such as jewel encrusted leather handbags and pave jewelry.
The label's Summer's looks (available from March 2013) on the other hand, is one that embraces the bohemian spirit for Summer, "full of vibrant sun-kisses, hues in lush fabrications, and relaxed day-to-night dressing taking her from Malibu Beach to the Chateau Marmont". Described as bringing out a "beach-chic" style, the Summer collection is marked by its silk and lace fluid dresses, burnout bright tropical prints and layered beaded jewels. It also has a range of accessories to supplement the look including handbags with signature gold hardware in light washed soft leathers and treated canvas adorned with stud accents; oversized totes and cross body chain bags.
Also presented was its Juicy Couture Stella and Surfside range of watches. The Stella range is described as sleek siren with sleek, smooth contours and oversized 41 mm case in yellow- or rose-gold-toned stainless steel and is available with a bold link deployment bracelet or an embossed colored leather strap. The new Surfside range is sporty yet elegant with its rubber-coated leather strap or with a glossywhite alligator-embossed leather strap.
Juicy Couture's stores in Singapore are located at Takashimaya Shopping Centre, #03-03 and The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, Galleria Level B1-78.
About Juicy Couture
Juicy Couture embraces the bright and glamorous fun of its Los Angeles heritage by discovering the couture in the everyday, and delivering an element of surprise in all of its designs. Famous for ascending the tracksuit to its status as a casual luxury icon, the brand continues to evolve, bringing the same confident, whimsical and feminine attitude to everything it creates. Today, the global phenomenon offers an assortment that spans fashion apparel for women, girls and baby, handbags, shoes, intimates, swimwear, fragrance, accessories, jewelry, sunglasses and small leather goods.
Started by two fashion-obsessed friends in 1997, Juicy Couture quickly achieved global recognition and garnered millions of fans, many with famous faces. In 2003, Fifth & Pacific Companies, Inc. (NYSE: FNP) (formerly Liz Claiborne Inc.) acquired the company, and in 2010, Juicy Couture tapped LeAnn Nealz as Chief Creative Officer and President to guide the brand into its next phase of growth, while preserving the house's playful and unique DNA.
North America is home to approximately 126 Juicy Couture and Juicy Couture Outlet stores. You can also shop Juicy Couture in select specialty and department stores and at JuicyCouture.com. Internationally, Juicy Couture and Juicy Couture Outlet stores can be found in over 30 different countries across Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Follow Juicy Couture on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram and our blog, The Juicy.


text:
Some kind soul has posted video of Beck's train wreck-like foray into Native American history (the subject of a lengthy tirade in my last post) to YouTube.
After delving into Pre-Columbian archaeology, Beck gets Peter Lillback's take on colonial Indian-white interaction. Lillback argues that the earliest English settlers got along swimmingly with the local tribes, a statement with which the Virginia Indians who ran afoul of the Jamestown colonists would probably take issue. He also seems to believe that William Penn's conciliatory Indian policies were something other than an aberration.
Anyway, here you go. I hope you find it as stupefyingly appalling as I did.