text:
"A man walking alone on a deserted beach, brandishing a lantern in his outstretched hand, might be a fool. But, for a ship that went astray on a stormy night, he might be the savior."
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
It was the end of June, a hot and humid morning on the southern Dream Beach¹ of Tartous. I slept alone and rather erratically, having watched Argentina beat West Germany 3-2 in the FIFA World Cup Final the night before. A bunch of friends and I had consumed plenty of beer and whatever leftover bottles we could find in the secluded chalet. I had a terrific hangover and couldn't tolerate even the smell of coffee. Instead, I gazed at the endless expanse of blue from the western terrace then walked lazily on the warming sand. Only if someone could stop the goddamn spinning, I wished. I threw myself in the tantalizingly refreshing water and surrendered to the sensual fingers of the undulating waves. The salty breeze and the engulfing wetness brought me back slowly and without coercion to awareness. My muscles relaxed. The pounding in my temple eased off. What a glorious day ahead, I mused.
I had nothing to do or worry about. My immediate concern was to secure some basic form of breakfast. There were eggs in the fridge, Labneh, olives, tomatoes and cucumbers. After filling my stomach with solid food I could return with a book, a beach umbrella and a towel to my favorite spot where the soft breakers came to rest at my feet. I needed a pair of slippers, I thought, for the round trip to the chalet. The sand would be getting hotter and hotter by the minute as the sun rose unblinkingly higher and higher. I would read for an hour or two then go back to the chalet. In some kitchen cabinet there were at least a dozen cans of various types of junk food and olive oil. I saw a knot of bread² and potatoes over the counter. I will throw in something with the potatoes and have lunch straight from the skillet. The plates were piled high in the sink, unwashed. Sure, the place was an absolute mess and in dire need of cleaning but it wasn't something I was willing to lose my precious time over. I would clean a knife and fork, yeah, that I would need. The telephone line was out, oh thank goodness for that. There will be no interruptions. No calls from anyone to join me or for me to join them. For the afternoon, I schemed, suspended on my back like a dead porpoise heaving up and down on the surface of the sea, I could fill the icebox with cold beer and fasten it to the inflated inner tube of a car tire. I would then tie the tube to the folding chair placed knee-deep in the water. I would aptly sit and the chair would sink down evenly until it settles firmly so that the water is at the perfect nipple level. Ahhh, I'm so smart, so efficient at minimal work, I'm a damn genius, I beamed with pride and delight. Two, three beers down my belly, I would contemplate the meaning of life and probably nap. I would need a baseball cap and my sunglasses to minimize the glare. Ooooh, what a glorious day indeed.
I ran back invigorated. It was time to execute this perfect plan of mine. My eyes caught the reflection of the sun in the mirror of the parked Yamaha. My brand new cherry colored 135RX beckoned at me: Come ride me you hunk of a male, she whispered. With less than a 100Km on the odometer, I couldn't resist the seduction. Should I have breakfast first, I wondered. I didn't think so. I couldn't keep her waiting much longer and I was getting very excited myself. Ok baby, your man is coming, I smiled at her like Clark Gable. I was wearing only my wet shorts, absolutely nothing else. They weren't even swimming trunks, just plain blue, cotton, sexy and very short shorts.
She purred at my first kick-start. She was too hot and bothered to be warmed. Take me for a spin darling, she begged, give it all to me. I smiled again, more idiotically this time, a little like Tom Cruise perhaps. The road down the Dream Beach strand of chalets was as close to a ¼ mile drag race stretch as we could ever have in Tartous. It was much longer and narrower though and offered plenty of opportunity to go wild on two wheels. There were only me, a horny motorcycle and hot asphalt as far as the eye could see.
I fore-played the petite Yamaha and watched her RPMs going up and down the green range of the dial. Her purring changed into whining then screeching moans of ecstasy. Oh damn you take me hard, take me all the way, red-line me now, now, now....... she screamed. I gave it all to her and her needles rose into an insane frenzy of speed, 120, 140, 156, 57, 58, 59, aaaaaaahhhh 160 km/hr, OMG, yeS, yES, YESSSSS. My tears flowed, hair pulled back, lips twitching, my nipples tormented with the rushing onslaught of pinpricks... and, and... up ahead in the distance, 50 meters or so, straight forward, a tiny dot was approaching from the opposite direction at an unbelievable pace. I could see it getting bigger and bigger while at the same time I was realizing fully that I could never take any evasive maneuver anymore. I remember that split of a second as if it was shot with an extremely slow motion camera. How could I forget.
I mentally surrendered to the fateful impact. A nanosecond before we collided, the maniacal Kamikaze took a vicious dive to maximize the damage. My recognition of the identity of my assailant and his death happened at the exact same instance. He was hideous, evil and yellow, an Asian giant hornet who flew all the way from Japan to avenge his honor. Evidently it was too much for him to digest the sight of a Japanese bike and a Tartoussi guy going wild with each other on a beach road. Goggled, bandana-ed and scarfed, he flew his last mission for the glory of Japan. He extended his 6 mm stinger, released his lethal cytolytic peptide venom as he was squashed into oblivion against the soft tissue of my balls.
The blow was so powerful I felt as if I were kicked in the crotch by a heavyset and ugly Russian soldier from one of the Bond's movies. I released the throttle instantaneously. I had to crawl on all four, take the fetal position and die somewhere on the shoulder of the road. The Yamaha finally came to a complete stop. I laid her on her side and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY I screamed, a demented soul rolling and turning in the dirt like a butchered animal. My first thought was how far the chalet was. A couple of hundred meters, I guessed, in heart wrenching agony. After what seemed to be an eternity, probably five minutes in real time, I summed what was left of my strength and limped back in the saddle of my bike to my hole in the ground. I stepped in the chalet, closed the door behind me, pulled down the shutters and shades, collapsed on the floor and lost consciousness in the darkened room.
The poison flowed in my bloodstream and my temperature rose dangerously high. I swam in a pool of sweat as my whole body was taken by a fit of shivering. Paralysis spread from my loins down through my legs and up toward my chest. I dosed on and off and suspected seeing the grim reaper at the edge of my vision. A long spell of hallucination followed leaving me clueless as to the passage of time. It was pitch black outside when I leaned on my elbow, crawled to the sofa and managed to switch the light on. I was swollen, all of me. An allergic reaction to a massive dose of venom left me like a useless lump. I could hardly breathe as I looked in dismay at my swollen shorts. The lump was the size of a softball and if you're not familiar with softball, suffice it to say that it's at least twice as large as a baseball and not by any means softer. My legs buckled underneath my weight and I lost my mind completely. Nightmares and delusions shone, flickered then dimmed like ignes fatui as the night and half of the following day consumed themselves. A little before sunset on the next day I was still in the exact same spot on the floor but my eyes regained focus and the fog in my mind began to dissipate. I removed the remnants of the martyr and his stinger off my left ball. He had a wicked grin on his face the sonofabitch. I was still pretty swollen and multicolored like an old Bollywood movie when I took off my shorts but I knew that the worst had come to pass.
A little before midnight, after a cold shower and a gallon of water to drink I sat quietly in the night enjoying the quivering image of the moon on the gentle surface of the sea. The air was moist and pregnant with untold secrets and I could hear the echoes of laughter in the distance. My temperature and heartbeats were gyrating closer and closer to normalcy. I was still weak and shaky but feeling much better. Will I ever be the same, I wondered. Twenty three years later and I still don't have an answer.
Dream Beach = Shate'e Al Ahlam
Knot of bread = Rabtet Khebez
|What do you think?
45 comments:
- Isobel said...
And the moral is...don't wear swim shorts while driving like a maniac on your motorcycle? NO!! Wait! I know...don't get distracted by sexy motorcycles when on your way to doing something just as stupid as you might have done on the the bike? No...hmmmm...don't drink beer when there's a possibility of being stung by a wasp? Oh! I give up...
You are the king of storytelling, Abu Fares!! This was, indeed, riveting.
- Dania said...
Wow... abufares!
You know when you attend a stunning play or when you just finish a marvelous book, you fall into this sweet silence for a while?
This is how your fabulous story left me… silent, satisfied and pleased.
Cheers dear Abufares!
Auch! It is miracle you are alive : ) Crazy still, but alive!
Life is good.
w.b. yeats
- Katia said...
Ok, at the cost of sounding malicious... this was extremely funny! But ouch!
Btw, "a secular humanist from Tartous": I love this one.
- KJ said...
Unless your kids start sprouting wings I think you pretty much survived!
But why are you blaming him for your misfortune? For all we know, that little dude might be off to see a fellow Tartoussiyeh bee, and you ended his life and shattered her dreams.
Put yourself in his wings. You're enjoying a nice summer day when before you know it you're flat against a giant creature's crotch at 160 kilometers per hour.
- Allie said...
I'm sorry. I know this must've been a terrible experience, but I laughed loudly while and after reading it.
- Gabriela said...
I'm sorry to admit I laughed too.
You kept my interest right from the beginning of your narration.
Could you please tell me what is Labneh?.
- Unknown said...
My face brightens up with a huge smile when you're the first to comment on my posts.
But it seems as if this one pinched a nerve or something.
It's either that you cannot accept the fact that I was young and stupid once (I might still be young:-) or that you are actually worried about me. Both scenarios are wonderful for my self esteem.
A king???
Only a queen can make feel this way.
- Unknown said...
Cheers to you. Oh My! Am I blessed with the right company today or what? I'm so glad you liked this post. Sometimes a mosquito brings back so much memories and along with being in the right frame of mind... a good story comes to life.
- Unknown said...
@w.b. yeats
It wasn't a cobra WBY just a hornet. But being the sensitive guy I am, I was deeply shaken by the experience, LOL.
Being crazy is a clear indication that the sting either didn't affect me at all or that it improved me in some subtle way.
- Unknown said...
I was waiting for the first "fully" honest comment and here you are at last. All 3 ladies before you had a fit of laughter when they read this post. For some reason they didn't know that I was LMAO while remembering and writing about the events which took place on that fateful day.
And thank you for noticing my proudly displayed: "a secular humanist from Tartous". I was inspired by someone so very special.
- Unknown said...
I thought that only Red Bull really gives you wings.
Why am I blaming him, you asked. You should've seen the smile on his face. He died happy and I told you that he was wearing a bandanna. What more do you want? Why are you taking his side, damn it.
No wonder I love women more, they are either sympathetic or laugh at you but they never blame you for the death of Kamikaze.
- Unknown said...
It was a terrible experience in 1986. In 2009, it's a hilariously funny story... even to me :-)
- Unknown said...
Promise me if I ever come to Lima you wouldn't let some crazed Peruvian Poison Dart Frog bite me at or near the same spot. Ouch, that would really hurt before it kills.
I'm glad you enjoyed my stupidity.
Labneh, Gabriela, is my favorite all time food. It's plain yogurt, with much of the water removed to make its consistency that of sour cream for instance. We usually put the yogurt in a cotton bag over the sink and let it drip overnight. Then we use pita bread to eat it with olive oil and a little bit of salt. It' simply sooooo delicious and we eat so much of it for breakfast.
A Labneh sandwich is heavenly. Labneh spread over ... oh that's enough!!! Sometimes my mind wanders and get me in trouble :-)
Oh, being the daughter of a Neumologist that specializes in allergies. I meant that it is really good that you are not allergic to bee stings, otherwise you would have died, (perish the thought).
I'm wondering, after all the events, how did you managed to ride your bike the next day?
w.b. yeats
- Unknown said...
@w.b. yeats
I know what you meant I was just playing the hero ;-)
I didn't ride my bike for the next few days actually. My first contact with the rest of the world was when my friend came over on the 3rd day to check on me.
I spent most of that summer on the beach rarely going to town and that phone line was not fixed until the next season if my memory wasn't affected by the sting:-)
- Karin said...
Ouuuuch!!! I mean it's not that I can say "I know what you mean" but I can vividly imagine the impact of this Kamikaze-like attack!
What spontaneously comes to my mind is an attack I suffered once pn a VERY sensitive spot: during the 70's, when I was visiting a friend of mine who was a teacher for horse-riding, I went to the stable to see the animals and pamper them with carrots ... till one horse which obviously was bonkers and had a serious behavior-disorder, flipped the ears back in a split-second and much too fast for me to even realize what was in the making, turned around and bit me in ... my left breast! As if this was not enough painful and horrifying for me - this bastard must have learned from sharks: you bite and never let lose! It started to violently shake me up and down like a wet washcloth and I subconsciously braced myself for loosing this very important part of my body .. till all of a sudden, it threw me in a corner turned around and acted as if nothing ever had happened. It took me all I had left to crawled out of reach of this monster and finally made it to my friend who was of course horrified to see me like this: bloody, white in my face like a bleached sheet and barely conscious and about to crash. She accompanied me to her room ... and that's all I remember. I finally woke up on a bed - after I don't know how long .. I guess from raging pain.
To make a long story short ... the very important part of my body finally recovered after having been heavily bruised, gone through the entire spectrum of a beautiful rainbow (with black to start with!) - and almost skinned and is perfectly fine.
Anyway - I had to throw in this story ... there are too many parallels!! I feel for you dear friend ... I really do!! :-)
You're a FANTASTIC story teller ... how about writing a book?? :-) (I got started ... !!!)
- Mariyah said...
Oh! What a colourful event! I always wondered what happened, and now I know. :P (LMHO) Oh, how you made me laugh, Abu Fares! Thank you!!
- Isobel said...
Just glad you lived to tell the story...all of your stories, Abu Fares! :) I think we were all young and stupid once, weren't we?
- Gabriela said...
That Labneh sounds good. Maybe I'll soon try my very first Tartoussi (is it a Tartoussi delicacy?) meal. I'll let you know.
And about the poison dart frog, I guess there is nothing to worry about if you just visit Lima and don't go visit any place in the Amazonian Jungle.
- Unknown said...
I guess riding a horse together, you and I, and searching for honey is out of the question, LOL.
Your story is much more horrific since the attack itself lasted a few seconds. Mine happened so fast I didn't have time to get scared.
Animals, like people, are very unpredictable.
- Unknown said...
Ahh, here comes my melting girl (the one who melts me that is).
LYHO wouldn't do it! I'd rather you LYAO so that I can watch and enjoy the view.
If you think that "now you know" I believe that you might be in for a big surprise ;-)
One question, how come you keep disappearing every once in a while.
- Unknown said...
So you took the easy way out, didn't you?
The "Young and Stupid" path rather than being worried about me.
Sigh... I can't have everything I want.
- Unknown said...
Labneh is a ubiquitous Levantine food (Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine). However, the Tartoussi version, like the Tartoussi man is THE BEST!
If I ever come to Peru I want YOU to take me to the Jungle. It's up to you to leave me there and run away. BTW, that is how the Peruvian Tarzan legend would begin...
- The Syrian Brit said...
Vintage Abu Fares!..
Absolutely and delightfully hilarious!...
- Unknown said...
@Syrian Brit
I'm delighted by your visit since you haven't been here for a while. Oh, but wait, even if you drop by for every post I would still be delighted.
As this story is one in a long chain of mishaps I might still have more to come.
- Dubai Jazz said...
Well, this is indeed funny and vintage to the extreme. You must have many of these up your sleeves.
btw, when you finally came to, didn't you carry out the simple 'testing & commissioning' technique for the balls? (if you know what i mean ;) )
"inflated inner tube of a car tire" also known as 'shembbrair' :)
- Unknown said...
Shembbrair indeed! Any idea where the word came from???
I know the answer but it would be interesting to see who will solve the riddle first.
Back to your simple testing and commissioning, LOL.
NO! I just threw them into combat a fortnight later and if I'm not mistaken they won a medal for "Bravery Beyond the Call of Duty."
- Dubai Jazz said...
hahaha...@ threw them into combat.
This reminds me of a friend, he got one of his nuts hit by a cricket (or a kirket) ball in one of the parking lots here in Dubai. After he chased the rowdy kids off and hit one of them with the bat, he sat down on the blacktop and cried from pain. He then went home and 'tested and commisioned' his equipments. Never needed to go to a doctor :)
- Isobel said...
I'm sorry you misunderstood me, Abu Fares. :)
- Unknown said...
But how did your friend perform under fire???
- Unknown said...
Oh Isobel
I just reread your reply and if I'm not mistaken, I really like it.
Well, I'm a bit slow I know :-)
- Joseph said...
Abufares, do we realise how fortunate we are? that you survived this ordeal (LMAO) and lived to blog about it! that more often than not you take us along on journeys of delight and stretched memory lanes...that you bring to us the sea and the smell of things...that you felled the boundaries and reduced the distances...
Some Joecartoon in memory of one unfortunate hornet:
- XTR said...
Cool post AbuFares!
Talk about the adrenaline rush! Storming into the midst of bedlam!
Btw, check out my post on how to be a REAL MAN:
- Unknown said...
I was away for a couple of days and couldn't reply to your comment sooner.
I'm glad you enjoyed the recounting of this painful memory and thank you for your words of praise. I feel so humbled.
- Unknown said...
I checked your post and thank you for coming over.
- Unknown said...
just so you would know, I could care less about Shaikhs, priests and certainly rabbis.
Thank you for dropping by although I could do without the dull link.
- Joseph said...
No worries abufares...Wherever you were, I hope you enjoyed whatever you were doing. Keep on Writing.
At one point I thought it is a new incident or may be a good 'Candid Camera' episode. As you as said after all those years it is funny but it was a hell of an experience.
Should I say I wish I was there to videotape your agony
- Fantasia Lillith said...
I am late to this post ... but Oh the tears of laughter still sit on my lips! thank you for this one!
- Unknown said...
@Abu Steif Habibi
You know I think this accident made me so much smarter. It infused my secondary brain (or is it the primary one,lol) with a magical elixir which turned me into a genius. See you soon my friend.
- Unknown said...
Any possibility for erotica here???
- The Cilician Dragoman said...
I recently discovered your blog after reading about your masturbation campaign in Newsweek, and now I'm delightfully discovering your other posts. As a fellow countryman from Aleppo I have to say you make us proud!
A question pops to mind after reading you account of the painful events of that summer day in 1986, did the fact you'd been watching the World Cup (that famous Hand of God) just before that motorcycle stunt influence the chain of events that led that Japanese hornet to hit you head on in the balls?
Just a thought.
Btw, shambrair is a French term, properly spelled chambre à air (air chamber), better known in English as an inner tube.
3arassi Tartous!
- Unknown said...
A chambre a air indeed, lollll.
Thank you for dropping by on this old post of mine. I'm glad you found my blog although in all honesty, The Masturbation post is one of my most ridiculous ones.
I think I had this incident shortly before the famous Hand of God goal. Nevertheless, it was a summer to remember.
I hope to see you around more often and...
3ala Rassi Halab wa Ahel Halab Kellon :-)


text:
AP Stands Behind Green Helmet Guy
The Associated Press identifies "Green Helmet Guy:" 'Green Helmet' helps rescue the wounded. (Hat tip: Bubbaman.)
They want us to know that Salam Daher would never be involved in such a thing as propaganda for Hizballah.
TYRE, Lebanon - After hours of digging in the blistering heat, Salam Daher emerged from the wreckage with the body of a 9-month-old baby, a blue pacifier still pinned to its nightshirt.
He held the infant up and, click, an Associated Press photographer snapped another picture of Daher, in his trademark green helmet, displaying a civilian victim of Israeli bombs for the world to see.
Daher, a member of the civil defense for 20 years, has been photographed with bodies of the dead in two wars now — first in 1996 and most recently with the baby on July 30 __ both times after Israeli attacks in the village of Qana six miles southeast of the city.
For that reason, some Web sites have labeled him the "Green Helmet," and accused him of being a member of the Hezbollah guerrilla group, and of showing off bodies as propaganda.
"But that isn't true," he told The Associated Press. He is not affiliated with any party, he said. "I am just a civil defense worker. I have done this job all my life."
And an interesting admission here. The "Lebanese" want the world to see these grotesque displays, and make no apologies for parading around with children's corpses.
To many in the West, such photographs are surprising; but they are not unusual in the Middle East, where grief and drama are often intertwined, and that can include displaying of bodies.
Bloggers have accused rescue workers and volunteers of showing off victims for the media. The Lebanese make no apologies for wanting the world to see the civilian suffering in the Israeli onslaught aimed at uprooting Hezbollah.
Just so we're all clear about what's being discussed and defended in this AP whitewash, here's the video from German TV showing Salam Daher participating in the desecration of a child's body, removing it from an ambulance and posing it for photographs like a side of beef:
UPDATE at 8/11/06 6:22:23 pm:
AP also provides a dashing close-up shot of Salam Daher, sans dead children, with a nice new blue helmet.
Head of Operations for the Lebanese Civil Defense in Tyre, Salam Daher, 39, looks out of the window of a Lebanese Civil Defense truck as he drives off in the town of Tyre in southern Lebanon Friday, Aug. 11, 2006. Salam Daher's green-helmeted head digging beneath bombed out buildings to retrieve the dead has been seen in news photographs from two wars, in 1996 and again in 2006, both times after Israeli bombings in the village of Qana. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The article below appeared on the Serbian patriarchate website this morning which I instantly felt compelled to translate. *In the meantime the patriarchate has published my translation here.
A group of priests from Cacak, in their disagreement with the regulations of the Church and the spiritual authority of the leadership in the Church, have formed an electronic forum known as "Borba za veru" ("Struggle for the faith"), so that by means of this site they might allow the public to know of their opposition to the Serbian Church. Here we must instantly cite the words of the Apostle Paul from Holy Scripture which are compulsory to all, which state: "Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves" (Rom. 13:1-2). This was said during the time of pagan rule. It was meant directly for the governing rulers, and all the more to the spiritual, church rulers. What rulers are these? The Church is, by succession from Christ our Lord, apostolic. And by its conformation, through the Apostles, it is episcopal, under the leadership of the bishops.
The highest ruling body of a local Orthodox Church is the Holy Assembly of Bishops, in which all hierarchs of that Church, in a conciliar fashion, make decisions regarding all the issues and problems of church life. This Assembly, to an extent, can be compared to the role of a country's national assembly.
The Holy Synod of Bishops is the executive body of the Holy Assembly of Bishops. This is church government, similar to civil government. The president of the Holy Synod, as well as the Assembly of Bishops, is always in our church the Patriarch. Members of the Holy Synod are four hierarchs from our church, while the secretary of the Holy Assembly of Bishops and the officers, as the support staff, carry out the administration of the Synod.
Each diocese is administered by a bishop, who has the fullness of the archpastoral grace in liturgical serving, teaching and ruling of the Church in his diocese. The priest has all of this in his own parish, but to a lesser degree, depending on the blessing of his bishop.
All the faithful of the Orthodox Church are must fulfill the requirements of their Church with love and obedience. The Church awards those very zealous faithful. If the need arises to assert warnings, reprimands or other disciplinary measures (epitimija – penance), it is carried out by the governing church rulers.
The Holy Synod is in charge of the bishops and, and ultimately, the Holy Assembly of Bishops.
The diocesan bishop is in charge of clergy and monastics of his diocese.
The diocesan bishop issues congratulatory citations, warnings, reprimands and other epitimija to the faithful as members of the Church.
The state does the same, except it will use force, or even weapons, on unruly citizens.
The Church, however, does not do that. When God created man He gave them freedom, reason and a moral law, to know how and for what purpose will they use that freedom. If they abuse it, then follows, according to the words of Christ, an evangelical warning from the clergyman who is in charge. If this is not sufficient, they take two persons (not just whoever) as two witnesses. If even then they do not listen and repent, then they are to tell it to the Church – which in practice signifies the higher, hierarchical rulers. If they do not even listen to the Church then, with no coercion, they are excommunicated from the Church, for whom, until they come to their senses and repent, they are treated as pagan, godless. But if they realize their sin and violation and they sincerely repent and seek forgiveness, the Churh, as a good Mother, will accept them with love and their error and sin she will forgive according to the Lord's commandment: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand…".
Up until World War II all Orthodox Christians of our Church who, with good intentions, wrote about the Church or discussed something regarding the life of the Church, did it with the blessing of their diocesan bishop or the Holy Synod, under whose jurdisdiction was all church education and published materials. Under the many years of communist rule, that practice and rule came out of practice. And so today anyone will write whatever they wish and say whatever they want, whether that be for the Orthodox faith or their own on behalf of Orthodoxy, whether it be for or against the Church in which they were baptized, these self-proclaimed critics, with a multitude of ignorant comments, as a truth of their own, they will drag their readers and listeners into fallacy. This is done in some extreme vain desire of theirs to falsely portray the Orthodox Church in Serbia, and even in Russia and other places, as if it is supposedly falling apart and so they are forced to take the rudder, without the bishops or clergy, in order to "save the Church".
They do not know, nor do they want to know what the Church is, what church hierarchy is and what our Orthodox faith is about.
They do not know, nor do they want to know, that Christ our Lord is God and the Son of God, that He is infallible, that He descended from the heavens and was incarnate on earth to teach us with the teachings of His Gospel that we live and find our salvation by it. They do not know that the Christ's Church is also infallible and indestructible as Christ is. They do not know that we Christians are saved in the Church and through the Church: She saves us and not we Her.
People who criticize the Church and its representatives on earth, without the authority to do so, pour fire on their heads, for they do not know, nor do they want to know, that Christ is the Judge over all mankind and not them, they are especially not called to judge the archpastors of Christ's Church on earth.
For this reason the group of citizens in Cacak who have named their non-church forum "Borba za veru" ("Struggle for the faith") should know, as well as everyone else, that it is neither a part of the Church nor was it launched with the blessing of the Church but it was founded by a group of sectarian minded rebellious citizens to battle against the Church, her elders and its liturgical and disciplinary order. For all those things which have been done away during the time of our enslavement to the Turks, or wartime enslavement, as well as any other abnormal difficulties and troubles, it is the obligation of the Church to, in time, bring to normal order. The local Orthodox Church – each one, as well as ours – is controlled and is judged by the ecumenical Orthodox Church, and not a sectarian minded group of rebels who are obsessed with themselves, their vanity and their ignorance of themselves, their Church, their duties and responsibilities and place in the Church.
All such sectarian minded, spiritually unsound and misguided critics, if they could see and face their errors, would be ashamed and would rush to make peace with themselves and their souls with their Church and would rush all the more to bring peace, unity and love both in their souls and their surroundings instead of rebellion; which is the opposite of what they have now done, towards the end of December 2012, as they showed with their rebellious and blasphemous lies against a number of bishops, as well as against a candidate who as a priest peacefully defended his doctoral thesis.
Here it is good to remember that folk wisdom: don't run in front of the thill or the wagon will run you over. The Lord, through the Church, has given us everything we need for our salvation. The fulfillment of that He Himself has affirmed with the human body which He took upon Himself. Furthermore, without any bargaining with us, He keeps silent and waits. His Church does the same. There is no rush to eternity in Heaven. They wait for us and watch to see with what will we fill the span of our lives here on earth with. In respect, love and obedience with patience for our Creator and His holy Church or in rebellion and pride which had once turned an angel into Satan and rejected God and His Church. God is not the God of many but the chosen. He who makes an effort to seek out the wisdom of Holy Scripture, should understand and comprehend that.
Archimandrite Jovan


text:
Vivantes Hospital Spandau
Specialist field: Internal medicine
Dr. Alexander Seelhoff
Neue Bergstraße 6
13585 Berlin
International Office:
Am Nordgraben 2
13509 Berlin
M. Ozod-Hamad / Olga Pastushenko
Tel. + 49 (0) 30 130 12 16 -64 / -84 / -85
Dr Alexander Seelhoff
Head of the Department for Gastroenterology, Vivantes Hospital in Spandau, Berlin
Around 20 per cent of all adult Germans have acid reflux every day; another 40 per cent suffer from it occasionally. Heartburn is a widespread condition triggered mainly by food that is too rich and greasy and by excessive consumption of alcohol and nicotine. Usually classified as harmless, heartburn can have severe consequences including, in the worst case, cancer. If malignant tumours are found early, they can be treated and cured using endoscopic methods.
The Reflux Centre at the Vivantes Hospital in Spandau is equipped with the latest medical technology for diagnosing heartburn and treating any related complications. An area on which the centre particularly focuses is detecting malignant tumours in the oesophagus as early as possible using high-resolution endoscopy (HDTV). By using endoscopic removal of early-stage cancers in the oesophagus, an operation can now be avoided in many cases. Moreover, a new endoscopic procedure and radio frequency energy can be used to treat mucous membrane affected by heartburn so that such tumours do not appear in the first place.
Led by Dr Alexander Seelhoff, a Barrett's ablation was performed for the first time in the Vivantes Hospital in Spandau in 2011. In this procedure, radio frequency waves were used to remove the mucous membrane of a person suffering from Barrett's oesophagus – a condition in which the oesophagus is attacked by an excess of gastric acid and has the potential to develop cancer cells. Patients with a Barrett's oesophagus frequently have heartburn and the mucous membrane is affected in such a way that the cells may develop into precancerous cells or actual cancer cells.
The Vivantes hospital network was one of the first centres in Germany to use this innovative and non-invasive procedure. Successful treatment usually means that the patient is no longer at an increased risk of cancer of the oesophagus.
"The radio frequency ablation method, known as the HALO procedure, allows the diseased mucous membrane to be removed very gently using an endoscope," explains Dr Alexander Seelhoff. "This procedure barely causes any discomfort for patients. Normally, two to three gastroscopies are required to treat the entire area of affected mucous membrane. Afterwards, healthy tissue can grow again."
This procedure is now very widespread in the United States and many European countries. It constitutes the standard treatment for patients in which early-stage malignant changes have taken place in the mucous membrane of the oesophagus.
The Department for Gastroenterology at the Vivantes Hospital in Spandau also diagnoses and treats diseases of the oesophagus and gastrointestinal tract, liver, biliary tract and pancreas. Examples of the procedures used are oesophagogastroduodenoscopy (endoscopic examination of the oesophagus, stomach and duodenum), colonoscopy (examination of images of the intestine) including interventional procedures such as the ablation of polyps, haemostasis, dilatation and bouginage therapy, insertion of prostheses (stents), argon plasma coagulation, Zenker mucomyotomy (ablation of a protrusion in the hypopharynx),
ERCP with papillotomy, stone extraction, insertion of prostheses, photodynamic therapy, endosonography including interventions controlled by endoscope, abdominal sonography with colour Doppler and contrast-medium examinations and controlled puncture.
Manometry, pH monitoring and impedance measurement are also carried out as part of gastrointestinal functional diagnostics. Dedicated gastroenterological consultations give patients with liver disease and chronic inflammatory intestinal diseases an opportunity to find out about diagnosis and therapy options.
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We suppose you could call it Camp Apple, but it's only a three-day filmmaking workshop for kids 9 to 12, held for free at Apple stores around the country.
Campers are encouraged to bring their own Macs, digital cameras and earphones. Each of the three 1 1/2 hour classes gives the kids a part of filmmaking.
Day 1 consists of creating a storyboard and creating an original soundtrack in GarageBand. Parents can also be taught how to set parental controls on the Mac. Day 2 gives kids an intro to iMovie and instructs them on creating their film. Day 3 is set aside for a film festival.
U.S. & World
Although admission to the three-day workshop is free, looking through the various locations, many of the slots are already full. While some areas are full and the wait list closed, others have spaces available.
Our advice is to check on a few neighboring suburbs or stores (San Francisco's Stonestown location is full, but Chestnut Street still has spots) if you really want your kid to take the class.
The workshops are part of Apple's outreach to the Apple community and to, obviously, create new, younger Apple consumers.


text:
The O'Reilly Next:Economy Video Compilation, with recordings of all sessions (subject to speaker consent), is available for viewing in Safari.
For the first time in generations, our children may be worse off than we are. Many point to technology as the culprit, arguing that AI and robotics will destroy far more jobs than they create. Are the prospects really that dark for our children and grandchildren, our businesses and our economy, our cities and our way of life?
We have a choice: We can create a better future for all.
At the Next:Economy Summit, business leaders, policy makers, and technologists will chart a course from the economy we experience today—full of wonders and horrors in equal measure—to a Next Economy that brings prosperity to all.
Join hosts Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn, and a remarkable cast of leaders as we address the challenges and opportunities of the Next Economy.
This summit features frank conversations with entrepreneurs, business and labor leaders, thinkers and policy makers, and hands-on workers shaping the Next Economy.Read more about the summit
CEO | AirBnB
Founder and CEO | Niantic, Inc.
US Secretary of Commerce | US Department of Commerce
Senior Vice President for Technical Infrastructure | Google
CEO | Grail
Cofounder and CEO | Honor
Founder and CEO | The Information
Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business | CNN
Director, McKinsey Global Institute and Senior Partner, McKinsey & Company
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Senior Advisor | Bernie 2016
Team Leader | Brand New Congress
Author | "Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus"
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Cofounder | Lola
Cofounder & CEO | Thumbtack
Companies use technology not to replace workers but to augment them, so that they can do things that were previously impossible.
AI and robots take on more and more repetitive tasks, and people work at jobs that our grandparents would not recognize as work.
New technology platforms become the infrastructure of prosperity in the same way that roads, electricity, and telephony did in the 20th century, enabling entrepreneurship at all levels of society.
Businesses recognize that if workers aren't well paid, they can't afford to be customers; it's simple self-interest to have a fairer distribution of the fruits of productivity.
Policy makers question old recipes for managing the economy and providing a social safety net; they try bold, new experiments informed by data and reflecting the reality of how people live today.
Companies create great experiences—not just for their customers but also for their workers.
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Washington (CNN) – A group of evangelicals in favor of passing immigration reform have a message for House Speaker John Boehner: "We're praying for you."
In new ads, Evangelical Immigration Table–group that has been behind immigration reform on Capitol Hill–asks people to pray for Boehner and House Republican leadership on immigration reform and urge those leaders to listen to their prayers.
Follow @politicalticker Follow @danmericacnn
The group says the ad will air on WTOP, a radio station in Washington, D.C., as well as 30 Christian radio stations in Texas and North Carolina. A Spanish-speaking iteration of the spot will also air in Southern California.
"Our immigration system is broken and it is hurting everyone," says Dub Karriker, senior pastor at the Christian Assembly Church in Durham, N.C. "Families are separated, employers can't find the workers they need, and the undocumented who want to get right with the law are told to get in a line that doesn't exist."
The ad continues: "More than ever, Speaker Boehner needs our prayers. Congress can pass a true conservative solution that will actually fix our immigration system...Please join me in praying for Speaker Boehner and House leadership that God will help them find an immigration solution that reflect biblical values."
The ads all feature local pastors from the areas where they are running.
In print, the ad appeared in the Express newspaper in Washington, D.C on Thursday.
CNN emailed a spokesman for Boehner's office about the ad but did not receive a response by the time this article was published.
On a Thursday call with reporters, Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals and a leading member of Evangelical Immigration Table, said North Carolina, Texas and California were selected because "they are significant places in terms of the Congress."
The group, which formed earlier this year, has brought together leaders from the sometimes fractured world of evangelical Christian politics with the express goal of passing immigration reform. Groups involved include the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the National Association of Evangelicals, Sojourners and Focus on the Family.
This is not the first ad campaign the group has launched. On top of events across the country, according to the group's figures, Evangelical Immigration Table has spent over $1 million on paid media efforts.
Their work, however, has not led to legislative success.
Although President Barack Obama made immigration reform one of his second term priorities and the Senate in June passed immigration reform–with some Republican support–the House of Representatives has done very little to move on the issue.
Last month, Boehner insisted that while immigration reform was "absolutely not" dead, he had "no intention" of negotiating with the Democratic-led Senate over its comprehensive immigration proposal.
Many Republicans in Congress who oppose the Senate plan–which includes an eventual pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States–have said they want to deal with immigration reform through a number of smaller bills, not one larger piece of legislation. Some House Democrats have said they won't agree to that approach.
Since the law failed to move in the House, groups urging the passage of immigration reform have made Boehner the focus of their frustration on the bill's lack of momentum. Evangelical Immigration Table brought evangelicals to Washington to urge passage of the law earlier this year and for most of 2013, Boehner's Capitol Hill office has been the site of immigration protests.
pray for the whole repo party.
What will Boehener do?
The Rethugs come across as if they are the only true Christians of our nation.
Everybody else's God and prayers mean less than nothing to them.
Unless you're praying that the plays in their Rethuglikkklan playbook make THEM winners your prayers don't count and mean less than diddly to them.
So good luck with all that praying Evangelicals.
But at least you can expect to see them at your church asking for your prayers and votes come election time.
Better than prayer.... Just vote the Repugs out of Congress in 2014!


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This is the angel my parents puts on top of their tree every year. I am sure she used to be pretty. She is 50. About 10 years ago we started calling her the crack angel. About 5 years ago my brother took her mug shot. My mom does not think we are funny. I think we are hilarious!
This is kind of how I feel... A little strung out with last minute things to do....
Minus the crack part, or the jail part. Though a night with undisturbed sleep away from home does not sound bad.
(kind of brings all new meaning to 'Angels we have heard on high')
Anyway, Hooper and I hope your Christmas is Merry and Bright. (Not police car flashing light bright, tree light bright!)
Enjoy your day!
Bye, bye birdie,


text:
About Deranged Poster
Well except in the original case.
And so would a parsing program
I think I'll stick with buying a "Smart box" that I can hack replace vs a "Smart TV"
Like any combo unit, if one part breaks, it breaks the whole thing.
Bundling Services I can handle,
Bundling Hardware... I don't care for.
If my current "Smart Box" goes on the fritz or changes their TOS to something I cant handle, I can replace it with another box for under $100 without loosing My TV. With the Bundled "Smart TV" I don't get that option.
50% do you pay the Library 50% of full cover price to borrow one of their books, if so you really need to learn that borrowing books is Free. not 50% of cover value.
No, competent people are NOT allowed in law enforcement.
Hell I'd be happy if they fix the Purge Error that pops up every week.
Oh look another pig protecting bad pigs.
Aww poor Fuc#$^ Cop lover doesn't want a cop's Fu(*&) ears hurt by words they don't Fu*&^(*& like.
If the Pigs are hurt by words like Fu(*&^( or Sh(*&)^ and such, maybe they shouldn't be Pigs?
about time, they've had open season on us for years.
What's it called when the Government recommends or pushes you to do something illegal?
case in point of allowing hysterical whackjobs.
They don't follow the existing laws, why do you think they'll follow anything the DoJ says?
Their's a channel dedicated to Weather?
Yes, I'm searching all the songs for hidden messages.
(I'm just not good at finding the hidden messages, but that's not an issue is it? )
:wave: OOTB
Then take em out first
The Government Is Allowed to Spy, Watch, Record, Punish, Fine, Bill, Ruin your Life, or whatever it wants.
But you Are NOT Allowed to do the same to the Government you silly peon.
Enjoying giving EA new ideas for SimCity 2014?


text:
The Federal Trade Commission has just announced a settlement with breakfast cereal giant Kellogg's over claims that just eating a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal could boost a child's attentiveness by almost 20 percent. Faulting both the science of Kellogg's study and its interpretation of the results, the FTC charged that Kellogg's claim are false and in violation of the FTC Act. Chairman Jon Leibowitz adds, "We tell consumers that they should deal with trusted national brands. So it's especially important that America's leading companies are more 'attentive' to the truthfulness of their ads and don't exaggerate the results of tests or research. In the future, the Commission will certainly be more attentive to national advertisers." This is good news for the industry but perhaps bad news for parents who were (or are) eager to find something 'easy' to help their children pay attention, learn and develop intellectually. Fortunately, there are some great products and nutritional factors that can help kids learn and concentrate better, but don't count on Kellogg's to clue you in. Get an overview in today's AllStarHealth blog.
- Posted in Health, Nutrition and Science News
- 1 Comment


text:
This is a Guest Post from the FB-Twitterverse.
Tonight is Game Day for the 10-0 NIU Huskies football team.
We asked NIU Business fans on Twitter and Facebook to come up with a winning slogan for a picture of a classic Stare-Down delivered by NIU Huskies mascot Diesel.
NIU Business student John Nazorek won with this entry: "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize." (By the way, John's name in that sentence links to his LinkedIn account…join his network!)
John said the slogan related not only to tonight's game but also to NIU Business students as they power through to the end of the semester.
Powering on to the finish…can we get a high five from Diesel on that?! You bet.


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Rebellion will be published in Australia in October 2012, and in the UK and US in early 2013. http://www.ian-irvine.com/taintedrealm.html
Copyright © Ian Irvine, 2012.
'Lord Rixium?' The girl sounded desperate. 'You gotta get up now. The enemy are coming. Coming fast.'
Rix's right wrist throbbed abominably, and so did the back of his head. He groaned, rolled over and cracked his ear on a stone edge. His cheek and chest were numb, as if he'd been lying on ice.
'What …?' he mumbled. 'Where –?' His eyes were gummed shut and he didn't want to open them. Didn't want to see.
'Chancellor's stolen Tali and Rannilt away, to milk their healing blood.'
He recognised her voice now. A maidservant, Glynnie.
'And Lord Tobry's been chucked off the tower, head-first. Splat!' said a boy's voice from behind Rix.
'Benn!' Glynnie said sharply.
Rix winced. Did he have to be so matter-of-fact about it? 'Tobe was my oldest friend.'
'I'm sorry, Lord,' said Glynnie.
'How long was I out?'
'Only five minutes, but you're first on their death list, Lord. If we don't go now, we're gonna die.'
'Don't call me Lord, Glynnie.'
'My parents were executed for high treason,' he said softly. 'House Ricinus has fallen, the palace lies in ruins and I betrayed my own mother. I am utterly dishonoured. Don't – call – me – Lord!'
'R-Rixium?' She tugged at his arm, the good one.
'That's what my murdering mother called me. Call me Rix.'
Glynnie rubbed his eyelids with her fingertips. The sticky secretions parted to reveal a slender servant girl, seventeen years old. Tangled masses of flame-coloured hair, dark green eyes and a scatter of freckles on her nose. Rix had not yet turned twenty yet he felt a lifetime older. Foul and corrupt.
'Get up,' she said.
'Give me a minute.'
They were on the top of his tower, at the rear of what remained of Palace Ricinus. From where Rix lay he could not see over the surrounding wall, and did not want to. Did not want to see the ruin a hundred-foot fall had done to his dearest friend.
A freezing wind carried the stink of burned deer meat, the forgotten skewers Glynnie had been cooking over the embers of Rix's artist's easel. He would never paint again. Beside the fire stood a wide-eyed boy of ten, her little brother. A metal drinking cup sat on the stone floor. Some distance away lay a bloody sword. And a small puddle of blood, already frozen over.
And a right hand, severed at the wrist.
Rix's right hand.
Something collapsed with a thundering crash not far away, and the tower shook.
'What was that?' said Rix.
She ran to the wall, went up on tiptoes and looked over. 'Enemy's blasting down the palace towers.'
'What about Caulderon?'
Her small head turned this way and that, surveying the great city. What was left of it.
'There's smoke and flame everywhere. Rix, they're coming. Tell me what to do.'
'Take your brother and run for your life. Don't look back.'
'We've nowhere to go, Lord.'
'Go anywhere. It's all the same now.'
'Not for us. We served House Ricinus; we're condemned with our house.'
'As am I,' said Rix.
'We swore to serve you. We're not running away.'
'Lyf hates Herovians, especially me. He plans to put me to death. But he doesn't know you exist.'
'I'm not leaving you, Lord – Rix.'
Rix did not have the strength to argue. 'What about Benn? If the Cythonians find him with me, they'll kill him too.'
'Not runnin' either,' said Benn. 'We can't break our sworn word, Lord.'
Unlike me, Rix thought bitterly. The servants outreach the master. 'Ah, my head aches.'
'That mongrel captain knocked you out,' said Glynnie. 'And the chancellor – he –' Her small jaw tightened. 'He's a useless, evil old windbag. He's lost Caulderon and he's going to lose the war. No one can save us now.'
'You can, Lord,' said Benn, his eyes shining. 'You can lead Hightspall to victory, I know it.'
'Hush, Benn,' said Glynnie. 'Poor Rix has enough troubles as it is.'
But he could see the light in her eyes as well, her absolute belief in him. It was an impossible burden for a condemned man and he had to strike it down. Hightspall was lost; nothing could be done about it.
'Benn,' he said softly, speaking to them both. 'I can't lead anyone. The chancellor has destroyed my name and all Hightspall despises me –'
'Not all, Rix,' said Glynnie. 'Not us. We know you can –'
'No!' he roared, trying to get up but crashing painfully onto his knees. 'I don't even believe in myself. No army would follow me.'
Benn's face crumpled. 'But, Lord –'
'Shhh, Benn,' said Glynnie hastily. 'Let me help you up, Lord.'
She was stronger than she looked, but Rix was a huge man and it was a struggle for her to raise him to his feet. The moment he stood upright it felt as though his head was going to crack open. Through a haze of pain and dizziness he heard someone shouting orders.
'Search the rear towers next.' The man had a heavy Cythonian accent.
'Where are we going, Rix?' said Glynnie.
He swayed. She steadied him.
'Don't know.' He looked around. 'I need Maloch. It's enchanted to protect me.'
That was ironic. A command spell cast on Rix when he was a boy of ten had left him with a deep-seated fear of magery, and recent events had proven his fear to be justified.
'Didn't do a very good job,' she sniffed. 'Benn, get Rix's sword. And … and bring his hand.'
'His hand?' Benn said in a squeaky voice. 'But – it's all bloody … and dead …'
'I'm not leaving it for the crows to peck. Fetch the cup, too.'
Benn handed the ancient, wire-handled sword to Rix, who sheathed it left-handed. The roof door stood open. Glynnie helped him through it and onto the steep stair that wound down his tower. Rix swayed, threw out his right arm to steady himself and his bloody stump cracked against the wall.
'Sorry, Lord,' whispered Glynnie. 'I'll be more careful.'
'Stop apologising. It's not your damn fault.' Rix pulled away from her. 'I've got to stand on my own feet. It's only a hand. Plenty of people have survived worse.'
'Yes, Lord.'
But few men had lost more than Rix. He'd been heir to the biggest fortune in the land, and now he had nothing. His family had been one of the noblest – for a few moments, House Ricinus had even been a member of the First Circle, the founding families of Hightspall. Then the chancellor, out of malice, had torn it all down.
Rix's parents had been hung from the front gates of the palace, then ritually disembowelled for high treason and murder, and everything they owned had been confiscated. Now, not even the most debased beggar or street girl was lower than the sole surviving member of House Ricinus.
Rix had also been physically perfect – tall, handsome, immensely strong, yet dextrous and fleet – and accomplished. Not just a brilliant swordsman, but a masterful artist – the best of the new generation, the chancellor had said in happier times. Now Rix was maimed, tainted, useless. And soon to die, which was only right for a man so dishonourable that he had betrayed his own mother. As soon as Glynnie and Benn got away, he planned to take the only way out left to him – hurl himself at the enemy, sword in hand, and end it all.
He reached the bottom of the tower stair, ignored Glynnie's silent offer of help and lurched into his ruined studio. When Tobry had smashed the great heatstone in Rix's chambers the other day, and it burst asunder, it had brought down several of the palace walls. There were cracks in the walls and part of the ceiling had fallen. The scattered paints, brushes and canvases were coated in grey dust. He crunched across chunks of plaster, stolidly looking ahead. He yearned for the solace of his art but had to put it behind him. Forever.
'Where we going, Lord?' Glynnie repeated.
'How the hell would I know?'
Not far away, sledge hammers thudded against stone and axes rang on timber. The Cythonians were breaking in and they would come straight here.
'We're trapped,' said Glynnie, her jaw trembling. She stretched an arm around Benn and hugged him to her. 'They're going to kill us, Lord.'
'You could go out the window –'
Rix looked down. From here the drop was nearly thirty feet. If they weren't killed outright, they'd break their legs, and in a city at war that meant the same thing. He cursed inwardly, for it left him with no choice. Glynnie and Benn were his people, all he had left, and as their former lord he had a duty to protect them. A duty that outweighed his longing for oblivion. He would devote his strength to getting them out of Caulderon, and to safety. And then …
He headed down the steps into his once-magnificent, six-sided salon, now filled with rubble, dust and smashed, charred furniture. The crashing was louder here. The enemy would soon break through. The only hope of escape, and that a feeble one, was to go underground.
'Get warm clothing for yourself and Benn,' he said to Glynnie. 'And your money. Hurry!'
'Got no money,' said Glynnie, trembling with every hammer and axe blow. 'We got nothing, Lord.'
'Tobry –' Rix choked. How was he ever going to do without Tobry? 'Tobry brought in spare clothes for Tali. She's nearly your size. Take them.'
She stood there, trembling. 'Where, Lord?'
'In the closet in my bedchamber. Run.'
He still had coin, at least. Rix filled a canvas money belt with gold and other small, precious items and buckled it on one-handed. He packed spare clothing into an oilskin bag to keep it dry, and put it, plus various other useful items, into a pack.
The crashing grew louder, closer. Glynnie filled two another oilskin bags, packed two small packs and dressed herself and Benn in such warm clothes as would fit. She strapped on a knife the length of her forearm and collected the dusty food in the salon.
'They're nearly through,' she said, white-faced. 'Where are we going, Lord?'
Benn still held Rix's severed hand in his own small, freckled hand. His wide grey eyes were fixed on Rix's bloody stump. Benn caught Rix's gaze, flushed and looked away.
Rix gestured to a broad crack, low down in the wall at the back of the salon. The edges resembled bubbly melted cheese, the plaster and stonework etched away and stained in mottled greens and yellows.
He hacked away the foamy muck to reveal fresh stone, though when he flicked the clinging stuff off the knife the blade was so corroded that it snapped. He tossed it into the rubble. Benn ran back and fetched him another knife.
'Go through,' said Rix. 'Don't touch the edges.'
'What is that stuff?' said Benn.
'Alkoyl. Mad Wil squirted it around the crack to stop us following him.'
'What's alkoyl?'
'An alchymical fluid, the most dangerous in the world. Dissolves anything. Even stone, even metal – even the flesh of a ten-year-old boy.' Rix took Benn's free hand and helped him though.
'We'll need a lantern,' said Glynnie.
'No, they'd track us by its smell,' said Rix.
He handed the boy a glowstone disc, though its light was so feeble it barely illuminated his arm. Tobry, an accomplished magian, could have coaxed more light from it, but – Rix avoided the rest of the thought.
'We'll need more light than that,' said Glynnie.
She bundled some pieces of wood together from a broken chair, tied them together with strips of fabric, tied on more fabric at one end and shoved it in her pack.
They went through, holding their breath. The crack snaked ever down, shortly intersecting a network of other cracks that appeared to have freshly opened, and might close again just as suddenly.
'If they shut, they'll squeeze the juice out of us like a turnip,' whispered Glynnie.
Rix stopped, frowning. 'Can you smell alkoyl?'
'No,' she said softly, 'but I can smell stink-damp.'
'That's bad.'
Stink-damp smelled like rotten eggs. The deadly vapour seeped up from deep underground and collected in caverns, from where it was piped to the street lamps of Caulderon and the great houses, such as Palace Ricinus. Stink-damp was heavier than air, however. It settled in sumps, basements and other low places, and sometimes exploded.
'I can smell alkoyl,' said Benn.
'Good man,' said Rix. 'Can you follow it?'
'I think so.'
Benn sniffed the air and moved down the crack.
'Why are we following alkoyl?' said Glynnie.
'Wil was carrying a tube of it,' said Rix. 'He also stole Lyf's iron book, and if anyone can find a safe way out of here, Wil the Sump can, the little weasel.'
'Isn't he dangerous?'
'Not as dangerous as I am.'
The boast was hollow. Down here, Rix's size put him at a disadvantage, whereas Wil could hide in any crevice and reach out to a naked throat with those powerful strangler's hands.
They squeezed down cracks so narrow that Rix could not take a full breath, under a tilted slab of stone that quivered at the touch, then through an oval stonework pipe coated with feathery mould. Dust tickled the back of Rix's throat; he suppressed a sneeze.
After half an hour, Benn could no longer smell alkoyl.
'Have we gone the wrong way?' said Rix. 'Or is Wil in hiding, waiting to strike?'
Neither Glynnie nor Benn answered. They were at the intersection of two low passages that burrowed like rat holes through native rock. Many tunnels were known to run under the palace and the ancient city of Caulderon, some dating back thousands of years to when it had been the enemy's royal city, Lucidand; others had been forgotten long ago. Rix's wrist, which had struck many obstacles in the dark, was oozing blood and throbbing mercilessly.
'Lord?' said Glynnie.
He did not have the energy to correct her. 'Yes?'
'I don't think anyone's following. Let me bandage your wrist.'
'It hardly matters,' he said carelessly. 'Someone is bound to kill me before an infection could.'
'Sit down!' she snapped. 'Hold out your arm.'
An angry retort sprang to his lips, but he did not utter it. He had been about to scathe Glynnie the way his late mother, Lady Ricinus, had crushed any servant with the temerity to speak back to her. Yet Rix was forsworn and a condemned man, while Glynnie had never done other than to serve as best she could. She was the worthy one; he should be serving her.
'Not here. They can come at us four ways. We need a hiding place with an escape route.'
It took another half hour of creeping and crawling before they found somewhere safe, a vault excavated from the bedrock. It must have dated back to ancient times, judging by the stonework and the crumbling wall carvings. A second stone door stood half open on the other side, its hinges frozen with rust. To the left, water seeped from a crack into a basin carved into the wall, its overflow leaving orange streaks down the stone.
'I don't like this place,' said Benn, huddling on a dusty stone bench, one of two.
'Shh,' said Glynnie.
In the far right corner a pile of ash was scattered with wood charcoal and pieces of burnt bone, as if someone had cooked meat there and tossed the bones on the fire afterwards.
Rix perched on the other bench and extended his wrist to Glynnie. 'Do you know how to treat wounds?'
'I can do everything.' It was a statement, not a boast.
'But you're just – you're a maidservant. How do you know healing?'
She pursed her lips. 'I watch. I listen. I learn. Benn, bring the glowstone. Rix, hold this.'
Gingerly, as though she would have preferred not to touch it, she pressed Maloch's hilt into Rix's left hand.
'Why?' he said.
'It's supposed to protect you.'
'Only against magery.'
She knelt in the dust before him, then took a bottle of priceless brandy from her pack, Rix's last surviving bottle, and rinsed her hands with it. She laid a little bundle containing rags, needle and thread and scissors on her pack, poured a slug of brandy onto a piece of linen and began to clean his stump.
Rix tried not to groan. Blood began to drip from several places. By the time she finished, Glynnie was red to the elbows.
He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, for once content to do as he was told.
'Hold his wrist steady, Benn,' said Glynnie.
A pair of smaller, colder hands took hold of Rix's lower arm. He heard Glynnie moving about but did not open his eyes. She began to tear linen into strips. Liquid gurgled and he caught a whiff of the brandy, then a chink as she set down a metal cup.
'I could do with a drop of that,' he murmured.
Glynnie gave a disapproving sniff. She was washing her hands again.
'Steady now,' she said. 'Hold the sword. This could hurt.'
She began to spread something over his stump, an unguent that stung worse than the brandy. Rix's fingers clenched around Maloch's hilt.
'Ready, Benn?' said Glynnie.
'Yes,' he whispered.
Her hand steadied his wrist. There came a gentle, painful pressure on the stump. Where his fingers touched the hilt, they tingled like a nettle sting. Then Rix felt a burning pain as though she had poured brandy over his stump and set it alight. His eyes sprang open.
Glynnie had pressed his severed hand against the stump, and now the pain was running up his arm and down into his fingers. Blue were-flames flickered around the amputation then, with the most shocking pain Rix had ever experienced, the bones of his severed hand ground against his wrist bones – and seemed to fuse.
He had the good sense not to move, though he could not hold back the agony. It burst out in a bellow that sifted dust down from the roof onto them, like a million tiny drops falling through a sunbeam.
'What are you doing to me?'


text:
In Memory of Adnan Latif: 'Timmy' and a Hospital Corpsman in Guantanamo
By Peter Jan Honigsberg
Published By American Constitution Society for Law and Policy
Adnan Latif, a Yemeni citizen, died at Guantanamo in early September. The military has not revealed how Adnan Latif died, but only that he was found unconscious in his cell. However, like the detainee described below, Adnan Latif had lost hope, attempting suicide several times at Guantanamo. He was the ninth man to have died in Guantanamo, six reportedly had committed suicide.
Adnan Latif had been held in the detention center since early 2002, although he had never been charged with a crime. Both the Bush and Obama administrations recommended his transfer out of Guantanamo. In addition, in 2010 a federal district court granted Adnan Latif's habeas petition for release. That decision, however, was overturned by the federal court of appeals last year, and the Supreme Court would not hear his further appeal. After Adnan Latif's death, I decided to write the following piece about another tragic incident at the naval base.
A young man barely out of his teens had tried to commit suicide by hanging himself in a Guantanamo prison cell. Although the prison guards were required to walk by the cells every 5-10 minutes, the guards did not discover him in time. When the guards cut him down and carried him to the clinic, he was brain dead. Prison guards, hospital corpsmen and other military staff who passed by him in the clinic saw the inert young man with his head slumped on his chest and his body shackled to his bed.
The military staff nicknamed him "Timmy," after the disabled character in the animated show "South Park." He was fed through feeding tubes pushed up through his nostrils and down into his stomach. Ensure and similar liquids were poured into the tubes at mealtimes.
The Witness to Guantanamo project has interviewed 97 people in 14 countries including former detainees, as well as people who had lived or worked at the naval base or who had worked on Guantanamo issues, such as prison guards, interpreters, chaplains, medical personnel, psychologists, prosecutors, JAG attorneys, habeas attorneys, interrogators, FBI agents, NCIS agents, high-ranking government officials, high-ranking military officials and parents and wives of former detainees. Recently, the project interviewed the hospital corpsman who told us about "Timmy." We asked him for his thoughts on "Timmy" and why he thought the young detainee had tried to commit suicide.
The corpsman explained that he could see why the detainee, who had been there for five years, tried to commit suicide. The corpsman speculated that perhaps someone had told the detainee he would never be released, or perhaps the detainee was thinking these thoughts on his own. In either case, the corpsman continued, "If you thought that you would never go home and that this was going to be the rest of your life, why wouldn't you kill yourself." Many of the young soldiers who worked at the base were overwhelmed by what they experienced and witnessed at Guantanamo. Naming the young man "Timmy" was, perhaps, an unconscious technique the soldiers adopted to shield themselves from the horror they were witnessing.
The hospital corpsman had a difficult time working at the clinic in Guantanamo. Although he felt honored to serve in the military and enjoyed his work, seeing "Timmy" near comatose, with a feeding tube in him 24/7, was not what the corpsman had expected when he signed up to work at the base. Nor was the sight of "Timmy" the only disturbing experience the corpsman had. He described the mental unit in the clinic as something that looked like a milking barn, with beds housing mentally unstable detainees on either side of a walkway. To the corpsman, working in the Guantanamo clinic was a far cry from working at a humane medical facility.
The corpsman could also not accept that he was ordered to refer to the detainees by a dehumanizing number, and not by their names or by such words as "gentleman." He and the other hospital corpsmen and prison guards were instructed not to talk to the detainees in the medical facility but rather to fear them as "the worst of the worst." All the detainees in the facility, no matter what their state, were shackled.
Although he spent six months working in the clinic in Guantanamo, the corpsman never spoke about his feelings and his intense discomfit with what he was observing. When we asked him why he did not share his feelings with others, he said that the culture at the base did not encourage such talk, or at least the men he knew did not communicate such things. He was not sure whether the women shared such feelings among themselves when they were together. What he understood was that military personnel at the base went out each night and drank. At some point, he no longer joined the drinkers. However, at no time did he find someone at the base in whom he could confide his worries and doubts of the mission.
Then on the day he was to leave Guantanamo, one of the newly arrived medical personnel asked his group whether they had any advice for the new arrivals. A female nurse spoke up and said, "Be true to yourself and don't let this place warp you." The corpsman was surprised to hear these words from someone he knew, and wished he had voiced the words himself. We asked him whether he then reached out to the nurse, who seemed to have an understanding and sensitivity similar to his. Oh no, he responded. Even at the end of his tour, he could not bring himself to express to others the depths of what he was feeling.
When he returned home, his parents took him out to dinner. They asked him about his mission and stay in Guantanamo. Overcome with emotion, he replied, "It's bad, really not a good place." But, other than that, he told them little to nothing of what he had witnessed.
By speaking with us, this caring corpsman took a risk. He was afraid that his nightmares and flashbacks would surface again. Nevertheless, he understood the bigger picture — that the world must know how Guantanamo has shadowed the lives of everyone who has set foot across its borders.


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Par MelissaMcCloud2 le 11 Décembre 2016 à 04:14
Melissa McCloud
You can now generate profits out of contemporary art paintings. However, there are lots of factors that influence the dividends of your investment. Included in this are the first final cost for that artwork, the success of the artist's career, enough time involved with that success, the general economic system, possible major modifications in the art market as a result of technological advances, art movements, and attention, when the task is sold.
Melissa McCloud contemporary Art
If you want to make money from getting a contemporary artworks, it is crucial to buy at the outset of the job associated with an artist who's destined for fulfillment. It will always be important to loose time waiting for extented here we are at the artist's art paintings to gather momentum with time while increasing in value. It is advisable to buy in the event the financial state continues to be weakened as price is lower and sell in the event the information mill strong. These are factors that most must be considered when investing in contemporary art paintings.
Now you may purchase contemporary art paintings. Of course this will depend on the budget and just what you want to spend money on. The easiest method to go about investing is to do your due diligence and research first. The best places to research include the auction houses, including Sothebys and Christies. You can find others, but these are already the biggest auction houses for a long time and they are generally worth checking. Other galleries that specialize in contemporary art count researching. These galleries will be in every major city and many regional areas likewise have galleries. Local media sources will also be proficient at identifying the galleries specializing in contemporary art. There may be a nearby arts section inside your paper or possibly a city publication outlining the galleries. It really is worthy of visiting the opening nights of many of these galleries and speaking with people. It should take efforts and get a grip on the market, so don't rush into anything, just enjoy contemplating the works and the right piece should come along.
When you find yourself planning to collect contemporary art paintings that may offer you significant returns, it always involves a chance on emerging or upcoming artists and it involves time. These artists can usually be located exhibiting themselves or are represented by cutting edge galleries in leading cities or regional areas. Again, this requires research and going to contemporary exhibitions. The dividends can be huge, but it really typically takes decades because of this to occur. It often needs time for just about any artist to get identified by their peers, the art scene/world, the press and also to become the newest thing. For a lot of artists, this never happens, in order that it is effective research first.
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A while back I was lucky enough to win the Tarte Lights Camera Flashes mascara from Beautylymin (her blog is filled with plenty of skincare and beauty reviews!). Tarte used to be quite hard to get hold of here, although that is rapidly changing so I thought it would be a good time to share my thoughts on this mascara.
Wednesday, 23 December 2015
Tarte Lights Camera Flashes Mascara Review
A while back I was lucky enough to win the Tarte Lights Camera Flashes mascara from Beautylymin (her blog is filled with plenty of skincare and beauty reviews!). Tarte used to be quite hard to get hold of here, although that is rapidly changing so I thought it would be a good time to share my thoughts on this mascara.
109 comments:
It looks nice on your lashes.ReplyDelete
Looks so real and natural.
The Bandwagon Chic | Instagram | Bloglovin | Snapchat: bandwagonchicReplies
Thank you for the kind words :)Delete
I actually think this mascara looks really nice and natural on your lashes! I can see that it gives a bit of length and volume whilst still keeping it quite casual. :) And I ADORE the packaging, wow! x Thanks for the review, dear, and happy Christmas! xReplyDelete
Haha I don't think my pictures were that great to be honest! Thanks for reading, I hope you had a great time too :)Delete
This looks great, I didn't know that Debenhams have a Tarte counter, I need to get shopping!!ReplyDelete
Have a lovely Christmas :)
Rosanna x
Rose's RooftopReplies
Thank you! I think it's some Debenhams :)Delete
It sounds like a great mascara xReplyDelete
Heather | Of Beauty & Nothingness
This mascara looks so natural and separating! Love the packaging!ReplyDelete
Danielle's Beauty BlogReplies
You have to go in really slowly to get it to separate :)Delete
My favorite mascaras are Too Faced Better Than Sex and Pupa Vamp!ReplyDelete
I haven't heard of the second one so thanks for the recommendation :)Delete
I love the packaging! You have such lovely naturally curled lashes, I wonder how it would work out on others like myself with more straighter lashes.ReplyDeleteReplies
Aww thank you! I think it would work quite well as the formula is good at holding a curl :)Delete
Looks lovely :) my favourtie / most used mascaras are the Roller Lash by Benefit and Grandiose by Lancome <3ReplyDelete
Emma xxx
Roller Lash is one I'm yet to try :)Delete
- Anonymous23 December 2015 at 14:55
Love the effect, I can totally see it on picture (; and how pretty is the packaging?!ReplyDelete
Nati xx
Thank you! It's very cool :)Delete
Your eyelashes look really nice without mascara :) I like the wand of this mascara, its the kind i prefer. This sounds like a good mascara!ReplyDelete
My favourite at the moment is the Maybelline Lash Sensational.
Merry Christmas
Awww thank you! Maybelline mascaras are quite good for statement lashes aren't they so this sounds quite similar :)Delete
Thanks for the review! I love the packaging on that one. And you're lucky you have pretty lashes even with no mascara!ReplyDelete
Merry Christmas, lovely!
Aww thank you! I hope you had a wonderful day too :)Delete
This comment has been removed by the author.ReplyDelete
*Re-Edit* Never tried this mascara! Now I must. It looks great on you. Love this post! Surely following you!ReplyDelete
Happy Holidays
what a great prize to win this sounds amazing :) I'm on the lookout for a new mascara, I think this has just become a contender! xxReplyDelete
It was! Haha I have so many favourites I could recommend it's ridiculous :)Delete
I have to check out this product! The result looks great! Thanks for sharing!ReplyDelete
- Cielo
Mermaid in HeelsReplies
Thanks for dropping by :)Delete
Stunning results! It looks like a great product, thanks!ReplyDelete
Adi xx
Cool mascara! I need to check it out! Thanks for sharing! =)ReplyDelete
Thanks for dropping by :)Delete
It gives really natural finish. Packaging is definitely a winner!ReplyDelete
It is isn't it ?!Delete
I've heard many many wonderful things about this mascara, I definitely need to pick it up!ReplyDelete
It's a good one for building up a statement look :)Delete
This looks like it works really well! I love the packaging of the product!ReplyDelete
Thank you, it's very cool!Delete
I love the packaging, too!ReplyDelete
Great review and the mascara looks beautiful. xReplyDelete
I've seen a lot of people loving this mascara. My favorite still is Maybelline Lash Sensational :) xReplyDelete
-Leta | The Nerdy MeReplies
I'm not surprised, I've heard a lot of great things about that one too :)Delete
Love the packaging! Your lashes without mascara are already ridiculously long it's unfair!ReplyDelete
Charlotte // charlottespicks.blogspot.comReplies
Aww thank you, they fall out quite a bit though haha :)Delete
I am loving the packaging and it sounds great too ! great post :)ReplyDelete
I have always wanted try this mascara! You have lovely lashes!ReplyDelete
I write Mademoiselle Meets Maquillage and Macaroons and I would love for you to give it a read. Maybe we can follow each other on Bloglovin?
Deepti x
The packaging looks gorgeous and the mascara looks lovely on your lashes :)ReplyDelete
Sarah | What Sarah Writes
Very unusual mascara. It looks pretty on. Gemma xReplyDelete
Those were my initial thoughts too! Thank you :)Delete
This looks really cool, love the packaging!ReplyDelete
This is absolutely my favorite mascara and the only one I'd pay the price for. Love it!ReplyDelete
xoxo Emily
Glad to hear it works for you too :)Delete
I'll have to check this out as I definitely prefer the rubber wand and getting a nice amount of length :) xxReplyDelete
Jasmine Talks BeautyReplies
This adds a lot of length! It's good for volume too :)Delete
I like this - it's such a great brand and I love how you've shown things in different stages too! Very cute :)ReplyDelete
Layla xx
Aww thank you, I wish the pictures had come out a bit better though as the difference isn't so apparent, never mind :)Delete
The packaging looks so beautiful. I've never tried anything from this brand so i might check this mascara out.ReplyDelete
It's certainly unique :)Delete
I tried the Lights Camera Lashes mascara (in purple packaging).. Yeah, the packaging was unique, but honestly, I didn't like the product. I didn't feel like it did much to my lashes. This is why I always just stick to drugstore mascaras.ReplyDelete
Arianne | AyreReplies
What works for someone doesn't work for all :) Plus if you can find a great drugstore one then that's great :)Delete
Happy holidays.ReplyDelete
Have a blessed one.
The Bandwagon Chic | Instagram | Bloglovin | Snapchat: bandwagonchic
I've been using the Estée Lauder one - which I'm absolutely in love with - but it's running out. I've actually been looking into the Tarte one and I might give it a try and see if I like it on me.ReplyDelete
It looks gorgeous on you.
Ella Pinto xxReplies
I haven't tried Estee Lauder mascaras before so I'm interested now! Thank you :)Delete
This makes you lashes look so naturally long! I am currently loving Benefit's They're Real! I love dramatic lashes so that one definitely does the trick!ReplyDelete
Shannon SageReplies
Aww thank you! That's a good one too and I've just posted a dupe for it :)Delete
It looks so natural!ReplyDelete
Phillip Mitchell Awapuhi Shampoo Review
Love this, amazing!!!ReplyDelete
I tried this mascara recently but wasn't overly impressed with it as I thought it clumped my lashes together quite a lot. This doesn't seem to be the case for you looking at your photos though so I guess what works for one doesn't always work for another. Fab review :) xReplyDeleteReplies
That is true, although I did find I had to work in very small steps to make sure it didn't clump :)Delete
I love the gold packaging on this Mascara. It's so classy! :)ReplyDelete
Angelie // My Top 10 VSCO Filters that looks great on everything!
What an indepth review sweetheart! Love the difference between layer one and 2. Such a massive difference! Gorgeous outer packaging too. It seriously does have a wow factor & I would love to try this out :)ReplyDelete
Serene | I Am Serene LReplies
Aww thank you! I really didn't think the difference would be that noticeable in the picture as they didn't come out great so thank you!Delete
The packaging of this mascara is stunning- I'm a big fan of dramatic lashes so this sounds perfect for me!ReplyDelete
- Gracie Sees xoReplies
It really would be if you like statement lashes :)Delete
I adore the purple one, never tried this gold one though...I think the difference is one is waterproof? I do adore this Tarte mascara, it's amazing on my lashes but the problem that I have with it is the mascara clumps really badly after a few months. :-(ReplyDelete
Reflection of Sanity | StayLean Tea Australia GiveawayReplies
Oh my I have no idea, I couldn't find much on their website! I found that could be a problem too if I didn't build it up slowly :)Delete
great review. I haven't tried this mascara out yet, but I have tried out the tarte mascara in the purple tube. I def like that one. but my all time fave is the too faced better than sex mascara. happy holidays.ReplyDelete
Thank you! I haven't tried that one yet :)Delete
Wow, I love its packaging!! *-*ReplyDelete
At the moment I'm using the Kiko UltraTech mascara and I love it!
I love KIKO products :)Delete
I think that this mascara gives a natural effect :) not dramatic at all!ReplyDelete
I don't think the pictures came out clearly, it is quite natural but it can add quite a lot of volume too :)Delete
Wow! It looks so natural!!!ReplyDelete
Angie | Chocolate & Lipstick | Beauty, Fashion & Lifestyle Blog
- Anonymous30 December 2015 at 14:01
I really love that gold packaging! I'm usually a fan of Mally or Benefit mascaras, but this one looks pretty! I want to wish you a very happy new year as well, it's been lovely getting to know you this year!ReplyDelete
Raindrops of SapphireReplies
I've actually compared it to the Benefit mascara and it's very similar! Aww thank you, that's so kind of you :)Delete
I've never heard of this brand before, but the mascara looks really natural and pretty. Going to try it out. :) Happy New Year, Isabella xReplyDelete
Thank you! Hope you had an amazing new year too :)Delete
Oh wow I wish my Debenhams had a Tarte counter! This sounds like such a fab mascara xxReplyDeleteReplies
They redesigned it so there's plenty of new brands for me to explore now :)Delete
- Anonymous2 January 2016 at 19:42
Great post! I love this mascara too, it's great! Bean's Beauty BlogReplyDeleteReplies
Thank you, I'm glad you like it too :)Delete
great post :)ReplyDelete
I love this mascara! xxReplyDelete
Thank you, me too :)Delete
If you are interested to learn more about digital SLR and how to pick the best cameras to invest in for taking extraordinary photos, this post would like to explore how to choose a DSLR. The points I will discuss will be: What is the DSLR Camera? Why a DSLR Camera is better than Compact Camera? How to Choose the Best DSLR Cameras for Beginners? Which is the Best Brand for Digital Camera? Dash CamerasReplyDelete
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text:
Botanical Interests collections make the perfect gift for a loved one, or even yourself! Browse our themed collections of top-quality seeds today.
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Friday 29 May (was originally 15 May)
Return Application for Year 7 Placement 2021 forms
Wednesday 19 August
Primary schools notify parents/carers of Year 6 students of placement offers, in writing.
Tuesday 8 December
Orientation Day
The application process for Year 7 enrolment is determined by the Victorian Department of Education and is initially undertaken by the primary school your child attends during Grade 6. How to Enrol
At Frankston High School our curriculum is broad and comprehensive. This allows students to develop their personal strengths and encourages the pursuit of excellence. Start Learning
Frankston High School is one of only a few secondary schools in Victoria to be designated an Exemplary Physical and Sport Education School. Read More…
- Newsletters
- About our School
- News and Announcements
- Hybrid Notebook Program
- Sport
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e-News and Newsletter
Subscribe to Frankston High School's E-News and receive our Newsletter via email, important announcements and regular updates about everything that is happening at Frankston High School.
Premier School
Frankston High School is considered by many to be the premier school on the Mornington Peninsula.
Outstanding Results
Frankston High School's VCE results continue to be outstanding. Each year more students achieve results placing them in the top 10% of students in the state.
Harmonious Diversity
Frankston High School is enriched by a strong international perspective; one which values the harmonious diversity of cultures in the life of the school.
English Language Centre
Frankston High School has a specialised English Language Centre on site. Students are taught English in a very supportive environment with excellent resources and fully qualified, caring staff.
About our Program
Frankston High School has led government sector schools in the use and application of personal notebook and tablet computers for the past 20 years. Frankston High School was the first government school in Australia to implement a laptop program in 1995 and the first to move to a hybrid tablet program in 2006.
Frankston High School made the decision to expand our long running tablet program to require all students entering Year 7 from 2015 onwards, to have their own Hybrid Tablet computer. This decision is based on the belief that a personal computer is an essential tool for secondary students in the 21st century.
Sport at Frankston High School
Frankston High School is one of only a few secondary schools in Victoria to be designated an Exemplary Physical and Sport Education School. This is in recognition of our outstanding programs and success. For 17 consecutive years we have won the VSSSA State Athletics Championship, which is unprecedented in the history of government school sport. Over recent years state championships have been won in sports such as football, cricket, netball, rowing, tennis, badminton, hockey, basketball and equestrian. National and international titles have been achieved in athletics, life saving and swimming.
Throughout the year Frankston High School requires host families for French and Soweto visitors.
We encourage all Frankston High School students to consider hosting visiting students as it is an invaluable experience as our host families always find the cultural experience rewarding and enjoyable.
We rely on the generosity of host families to provide food and accommodation.
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Frankston High School is accredited under the Department of Education and Training's CRICOS registration (CRICOS provider name and code: Department of Education and Training, 00861K). For further information refer to www.study.vic.gov.au


text:
Everyone who's prepping for the GMAT now has just cause to rejoice! Throw your hands in the air, drop to your knees, and thank GMAC for finally offering up a newer version of GMATPrep. Mac users will probably be the most overjoyed at the release of GMATPrep 2.0 (GP2.0), because the software is finally Mac-compatible. That's right! No more borrowing your cousin/sister/neighbor/dad's PC at odd hours just to get a practice test in. No more leaving your wonderfully designed and fantastically user-friendly Mac on the sidelines for your GMAT prep. You can finally say goodbye to PCs for good (at least for your GMAT work – GMAC can't help you out on the job front though). I brought my MacBook Pro into the office today to give the brand-spanking new GP2.0 a whirl in the world of Apple. Below are a few quick shots of what I found interesting. We'll update in the coming weeks as we delve deeper into it.
The Good
- More speed – GP2.0 loads waaayy faster than it's predecessor. You want GP2.0? You get GP2.0. No more twiddling your thumbs while it loads.
- Clear Layout – The home pages of the software are well designed, easy to follow, and easy to navigate. You're only a click or two away from any given screen that you need.
- Practice Sets – You can design your own practice sets based on the number and type of questions you want.
- Works like a Mac – As one expects with any Mac compatible software (Microsoft Office, are you listening?), GP2.0 for Macs works like a charm.
The Bad
- One and Done– When you exit the initial review (see below) of your test, you CANNOT, I repeat, cannot get back to see the questions. This is a serious step back for GP2.0. At least with GP1.0 you could end the exam, leave it unfinished, and return later to review. Now, you leave, and you're out. And you can never get back to see your questions.
- Same old Tricks – As with GP1.0, GMAC offers zero timing data on individual questions. The much touted "time management" information is incomplete, and, quite frankly, misleading for many students.
- Same old Tricks, Pt. II – Still no explanations for questions in the practice exams. Other practice questions have explanations, but the ones on the practice tests do not. Why? Who knows?
VERDICT: This is a tough call. The improved load times, layout, and the practice set option are all improvements. However, they do not overcome the fact that GMAC has made it harder to review questions by removing the option to leave the test "unfinished" and return at a later time. Now you have to leave the software open until you're done reviewing, which isn't always going to be immediately after you finish the test.
GRADE: C-minus
- GMATPrep Tips – Guidance for test-takers has been added throughout the software.
- GMAT Question Pack 1 Upgrade Option – As part of the additional resources/practice page (which conveniently lists all of the available GMAC-licensed practice material), the GMAT Prep Pack 1 offers an additional 404 GMAT questions available for seamless integration into your existing software. Those questions will run $24.99. No wonder they didn't add any new questions to the practice exams.
VERDICT: The new interface for the software includes a host of new features that make it a significant upgrade over GP1.0. It's great to have access to another 404 practice questions (once we check them out we'll let you know if we recognize them from any other GMAC product).
VERDICT: As you can see from the slides above, the new interface of the software is, comparatively, a joy to behold. The color scheme, font, and layout are all easy on the eyes. I love the slate background/frame. The aesthetics for the practice tests haven't changed at all, largely because it's intended to be an accurate mock-up of the real thing. Kudos go out to the designers who worked on GP2.0.
GRADE: A-minus
VERDICT: The bottom line is that you will use GP2.0. It's the best diagnostic software available. It's the only source of real, retired GMAT questions (along with other GMAC products) available, and the option to purchase another 400+ of them will please many people. Unfortunately, we can't really get too thrilled about GP2.0 because so many of the significant features (individual timing data for questions, review ability), are absent. Right now, in this reviewer's estimation, it's a pretty face and some new clothes on what is essentially the same product.
GRADE: C-plus