text:
Services on Demand
Related links
- Cited by Google
- Similars in Google
Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology
On-line version ISSN 1445-7377
Print version ISSN 2079-7222
Indo-Pac. j. phenomenol. (Online) vol.14 n.2 Grahamstown Oct. 2014
Interpretative reflections on Nomzi's story
David J. A. Edwards; Manton Hirst; Beauty N. Booi
In this, the second of two papers, three interpretative investigations are undertaken of Nomzi's story (presented in the first paper) of her troubled childhood, her dreams of ancestors calling her to become an igqirha (isiXhosa traditional healer), her training by experienced healers, various rituals that were performed at different stages of her life, and her eventual graduation as an igqirha at the age of 61. The narrative cannot be understood apart from the framework of the isiXhosa traditional understanding of intwaso, the initiatory illness, the role of the ancestors, and the manner in which clairvoyant abilities of divination and healing are developed under their guidance. Nomzi's account, however, reflects a considerable modification of the tradition, several features of which she does not seem to understand herself. From a clinical psychological perspective, Nomzi's behavioural disturbances in childhood, as well as her lifelong suspiciousness and paranoia, can be understood as a consequence of an unstable childhood in which there was no secure attachment, nor any adult guidance on emotional regulation of the kind needed to form the basis of a stable adult personality. From the perspective of transpersonal psychology, it seems likely that Nomzi was endowed with a degree of natural clairvoyance, but her development as a healer was impaired by displacement of her paranoid ideation into the role of witch-finder, and her chronic social alienation.
This is the second of two papers. Booi and Edwards (2014) presented Nomzi's story, the life history narrative of "Nomzi Hlathi" (pseudonym), a Xhosa igqirha (traditional healer). This paper provides interpretative reflections on it. While the narrative is, as Booi and Edwards observed, very descriptive, it does not comprise the sort of thick description that phenomenological researchers would normally seek to work with. However, despite, and even because of, its somewhat telegraphic nature, it is a rich story which invites interpretation.
As Booi and Edwards (2014) suggested, there are three discourses that are particularly pertinent in drawing out a deeper understanding of Nomzi's experiences and life story. The first is the framework of Xhosa tradition and cosmology within which Nomzi herself was fully located. Most of her accounts of her experiences cannot be understood without an understanding of these Xhosa traditions. For this reason, we begin with this perspective. The second is the frame of reference of a clinical psychologist assessing an individual with disturbances of cognition, emotion and behaviour, all of which are prominent in Nomzi's narrative. The third is the perspective of transpersonal psychology with its interest in shamanic healers across the world, as was discussed in the introduction to the first paper. Within each of these interpretative frameworks we will draw out significant themes which, taken together, will allow us to achieve what a phenomenological approach would have us do - to look between the cracks of the explicit story and see deeper into the meanings and process of Nomzi's life.
Nomzi: A Xhosa Cultural Narrative
First and foremost, Nomzi's story must be understood from within her own cultural context, in which there is a detailed understanding of what it means to be called and trained as an igqirha. It is material with this focus that takes up the greater part of the narrative. The life and world of the Xhosa amagqirha, and the categories within which they understand their experience, have been described by Schweitzer (1977, 1983), Buhrmann (1986), Hirst (1990, 1997) and, in this journal, Hirst (2005). The narrative tells how, through the course of a troubled life full of distressing and often painful situations and incidents, Nomzi did indeed "emerge as a healer", as the Xhosa term intwaso implies. Nomzi presents us with a success story. As we shall see, the reality may be less straightforward than that. In presenting her narrative to Booi, a Xhosa-speaking female, Nomzi would have expected her to read between the lines in terms of the meaning of various incidents for the trajectory of her development as a healer. Perhaps, in certain instances, a few appropriate nods and winks were sufficient to convey what was implied about the deeper aspects of her experience omitted from the explicit discourse. This is not so say that Nomzi is deliberately misrepresenting what happened. Her construction and telling are crafted unwittingly within her lifeworld, based on her own understanding of her life course as it unfolded year by year. We can make sense of this by identifying five interlocking themes that recur throughout the narrative.
Theme 1 - Intwaso: the healing illness
The first theme is the idea of the healing illness. In Xhosa this is intwaso, a process that, if carefully attended to with proper guidance, can lead to graduating as a proficient igqirha - that is, a diviner or clairvoyant healer. From this perspective, illness and behavioural disturbances are understood not just as misfortunes, but as signs that the process of intwaso is under way. What appears as an illness is an affliction through which the individual is called to develop as a healer. Thus, at the age of 14, Nomzi becomes severely ill and is taken to a number of healers, none of whom provide a clear diagnosis or treatment. One of them had a method of intuiting what was wrong with her which involved seeing words appearing on a candlelit paper, a technique she would report using herself much later on in life. She becomes enuretic, loses her appetite and loses weight. Later, she wanders between her two parental homesteads like a vagrant, sleeping and eating her food outside with the animals, at one point with dogs, one of whom is purported to be dangerous. Socially, her behaviour is disturbed and she has repeated outbreaks of aggression. On one occasion, she flies into an uncontrolled rage and severely scratches another girl, and, on another, as a young teacher trainee, she wakes the other trainees in the dormitory as she shouts and boxes the air violently while dreaming. For Nomzi these are not shameful or even terrible events. As she tells them, they are evidence that she was on the path of intwaso from childhood on. These afflictions continue through her life as signs of her calling until, at the age of 61, she is having difficulty walking and understands this as a warning that she is ignoring the call and must engage with it once again.
Theme 2 - The intentional activity of ancestors
Traditionally, the intwaso process does not happen at random. It is initiated by a spiritual call that comes from deceased family members (abahlekazi) who have chosen the individuals and point the way as to what must be done to enable them to develop their healing gifts. Thus, on two occasions, her grandmother, having beaten Nomzi as a punishment after she had acted on her clairvoyant intuitions, is in turn punished by an ancestor by having swollen hands the next day. Nomzi's story is replete with amathongo, special dreams that bring communications from the abahlekazi. These include dreams of people in old-fashioned clothes who are often identified as particular deceased relatives. When Mambhele appears on the scene, she explicitly confirms that Nomzi belongs to the abahlekazi and must be guided as to how to respond to their call. She also has dreams of animals - a striped cat, and a brown and gold cat -and is told that these are izilozekhaya (representing ancestors). Real animals may also be izilozekhaya, such as the dogs among whom she sleeps, or swallows flying overhead.
An important motif is the training of the future igqirha by the AbantuBomlambo in the river. It is believed that the ancestors live under the water and that trainees must go into the river and spend time with them in order to undergo training. Nomzi accordingly describes dreams as a teenager in which she is under the river. She describes being frightened by a frog she sees on a shop counter, aware, perhaps, that, in oral tradition, the frog (isele) is the messenger of the AbantuBomlambo responsible for calling healers to the river (Hirst, 1997). Then, after she had trained as a teacher and was being mentored by Mamjwarha, she describes the incidents in which she is nearly swept away by the river, incidents so frightening that she develops a phobia of rivers and water. It seems probable that she had one or more dangerous encounters with water rushing down a very full river which she had to cross over stepping stones. Such incidents happen regularly in rural areas when rivers are in flood. But, for Nomzi, this is indicative of the ancestors making a grab at her, so that they can take her under the water and provide her with further training.
This part of the story is left hanging. Mamjwarha just makes a joke of it and does not seem perturbed that her trainee has not literally gone to train under the river. This ambiguity in the cultural belief system remains. Is going under the river merely symbolic, something that can appear in dreams or maybe visionary states? Sometimes rituals for initiates do involve immersion in a river in a way that can be actually life threatening, but this did not happen to Nomzi. Is it suggested to the reader that this can happen literally as a way of evoking respect for the challenges of the intwaso process? Whatever the answer, the final ritual, decades later, at which Nomzi becomes an igqirha takes place beside the river, "because I was supposed to have trained in the river". It includes symbolic acts of giving to the people under the river, and the fact that she never went under river literally does not prevent this graduation ritual from taking place.
Theme 3 - Ritual acts (amasiko)
Rituals are used among the Xhosa to mark rites of passage for family members as well as to address illnesses, difficulties and misfortunes. There are also specific rituals involved for those going through the intwaso process, culminating in the imfukamo ritual described at the end of the narrative. Rituals often include the slaughtering of a goat or cow (sometimes one with particular specified markings) and the making of specific body ornaments such as the intsimbiemhlophe, isiyaca and intambo Nomzi describes. One role of rituals is to honour, even placate, the ancestors, who, if they are neglected, may visit misfortune on the family. So the first intambo ritual takes place while Nomzi is still a teenager and is initiated by her father, who had dreamed that his grandfather had spoken to him, instructing him to carry out the ritual. During the ritual she herself has dreams of Green and Ndaleni, who say they are her great-grandfathers and tell her that there is work for her to do, implying her intwaso calling and future work as an igqirha.
Theme 4 - Proficiency with muti
The third theme is proficiency in the use of muti. This term is used for preparations, usually made from herbs, but sometimes from animal (or even human) parts that are used to heal afflictions (or malevolently cause them). It is one of the abilities of the amagqirha that they can clairvoyantly know what plants can help what illnesses. So dreams or waking visions of particular plants, and of how to use them, are an important aspect of their experience. From early in the process, Nomzi describes herself as having a natural affinity for learning about plants from other people and receives guidance in dreams about plants to use and how to prepare them. The isilawus she makes, a white froth made by whisking water in which plants have been soaked, is a regular feature of the practice of the igqirha. So her reports of being guided in dreams to collect specific plants, or make specific muti from them, is further documentation of her intwaso process under the guidance of the abahlekazi.
However, some muti preparations can be used to harm other people magically, and this is a form of witchcraft that accomplished amagqirha can clairvoyantly detect. They can also recommend and provide muti that can act as a charm to provide protection against such malicious attacks.
Early in the narrative we thus learn that, as a teenager and at the beginning of her intwaso process, Nomzi was strongly affected by individuals carrying harmful muti, and could detect and warn others about them. However, nowhere in the narrative is there any suggestion that Nomzi's physical ailments or emotional and behavioural problems are the result of being bewitched herself. Instead, these afflictions are understood to occur because she has intwaso and has been called by the abahlekazi, a message that is clearly conveyed by Mambhele, and also, later, Mamjwarha.
Theme 5 - Clairvoyance
Clairvoyance, the paranormal ability to foresee events in the future or know about things that are not immediately present and available to the senses, is central to the practice of the amagqirha. It is the ability to divine, or paranormally intuit, the nature of clients' problems without being told these, that gives them credibility. So, right at the beginning of the intwaso process, Nomzi describes her clairvoyant ability to detect people who are practising witchcraft and carrying muti with which they can harm others, or which they are using to protect themselves. This is a particular application of her clairvoyant ability on which Nomzi particularly prides herself, and she describes one incident after another of this nature. Again, while still a teenager, she detects a baboon in someone's room, with the clear implication that the person was active in using witchcraft to do harm. Several years later, she detects a woman with a rat and another with a lizard, in each case with the implication that these creatures were being used for witchcraft. She also sees a person who is accompanied by utikoloshe, a malevolent spirit invisible to most people.
But Nomzi's clairvoyance is not confined to witchcraft. On several occasions, she foresees what rituals need to be performed. She also describes an occasion where she accurately foresees an examination paper in a dream, and claims that the matron at her training college used to ask her about her dreams in order to get tips for which horses to bet on. This implies that the matron had recognized her clairvoyant ability and was trying to profit by it. There is a later incident when Nomzi clairvoyantly identifies a thief who has stolen a spade.
Conclusions: Deconstructing the Narrative
To have a story to tell, to be able to articulate experiences in words, is part and parcel of the healer's art, the ongoing therapy associated with becoming a Southern Nguni healer and practising as one. That involves not so much eradicating a misfortune, as if it were something out of place, but managing it. Like other such narratives, Nomzi's story traces her life trajectory in highly contextualized subjective detail, idiomatic language and expressive speech that "plays modulations on the keyboard of acquired meanings" (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962, p. 186). The healer's narrative in the Southern Nguni genre, which Nomzi's story exemplifies, directs the attention of listeners to the various insights it has to reveal. Narratives alter consciousness, arousing and evoking emotional responses in the listeners that inadvertently teach us as much about ourselves as they do about the narrator(s). Being embedded in the interactional setting that arises between narrator and listener in the dilated moment in which the tale unfolds, the narrative constitutes a social relationship in which the medium is the message.
In the Xhosa tradition, as understood by fully-fledged practising Southern Nguni healers, there is a rich and detailed set of rules with respect to what rituals are required at different stages of a person's life, in response to specific problems or misfortunes, or for the stages of the intwaso process. From this perspective, the processes involved in Nomzi's call and training fall far short of what would traditionally have been required, and there is evidence of her not understanding the traditional meaning of important elements. For example, ironically, the chacma baboon (imfene) is the favoured sacred wild animal of the diviners initiated at the river, who wear a baboon skin hat (isidlokolo) as part of their regalia. It is not something used to cause harm. Nomzi describes a rather haphazard process of training, spread over years and decades, that contrasts with the traditional practice where the umkhwetha would live at the kraal of a training igqirha for months or even years. These are some of several of features of the story that reflect the ways in which Xhosa traditions seem to have adapted and changed from the older practices, whose function seems not to have been fully understood by Nomzi herself, nor presumably by Mambhele and Mamjwarha, the two amagqirha involved in her training.
The picture of Nomzi that emerges is somewhat typical of an umkhwetha whose parents and family were not traditionalists or even healers but practising Christians. Clearly, her parents intended her to become a schoolteacher, rather than an igqirha, and were not themselves grounded in Xhosa tradition. So Nomzi receives her knowledge of the tradition piecemeal and often in a derivative form that distorts the original considerably. Although some amasiko were performed for Nomzi over a period of time, these are substantially abbreviated from what is required traditionally, and often occur as part of the treatment for her somatic complaints. Nomzi seems to be forever catching up on rituals that have been omitted, with little consideration being given to the correct order in which rituals have to be performed.
Her vision of a white goat without a blemish that must be slaughtered for her alludes to the traditional ritual conducted at the birth of a new baby, where a white goat is brought to the doorway of the confinement hut where mother and infant are secluded, and is then slaughtered. Perhaps her urinating on the goatskin during the consultation with the homeopath as a child was a sign that this ritual still needed to be performed. Nor is there any specific mention of her having passed through the intonjane ritual, performed for females at puberty. Yet, traditionally, no candidate could seek induction as a healer without the intonjane having been performed (Hirst, 1990, p. 89 ff.; 1997, p. 219). There is also confusion about her relationship to the Abantu-Bomlambo. Traditionally, trainees would seek training in the river because they had ancestors who were amagqirha trained in the river. Yet the impression is gained that Nomzi does not know of any actual ancestors who were amagqirha, let alone amagqirha trained in the river tradition. It is unlikely that any mkwetha from a family grounded in that tradition would develop the intense fear of water reported by Nomzi.
She describes two dreams that seem to portray a distortion of traditional rituals. In the one, her ancestors Green and Ndaleni appear wearing khaki clothes, which are traditionally worn by boys who have been through the circumcision ritual and become men. This is followed by another in which the ancestors wear grey blankets, implying that they are attending a ritual. So the dreams seem to be in the wrong order, in that the first implies that the ritual is completed, and the second that it is still taking place, or is about to take place. Another conflation of traditional rituals occurs right at the end of the story. Nomza is suffering from swollen legs and has difficulty walking. She describes the intlwayelelo ritual, which is the appropriate treatment for swollen limbs, in which various offerings are made at the river to the AbantuBomlambo (Hirst 1997, p. 237; 2005, p. 3). This ritual is also the opening phase of the induction of a healer, and afterwards Nomzi sees herself as having being initiated as a healer in the river tradition (others are called to train in the forest or the grassland). Although these rituals are similar in form, they differ markedly in intent. There is another divergence from tradition, according to which the intlwayelelo should have been performed first, before any slaughtering, to beg pardon from the ancestors for ritual neglect. However, in Nomzi's initiation, the positions of the first and last are reversed, somewhat like the dreams about Green and Ndaleni. We do not know whether Nomzi herself conflated the traditional treatment she received for her swollen legs with the process of being initiated as a healer, or whether this conflation originated with Mamjwarha, who seems to have been directing the process. Nomzi, however, clearly saw this as her graduation ceremony, and her licence to practise openly as an igqirha.
From the narrative, it is not clear whether Nomzi herself is aware of the significance within the tradition of some of symbolic events she describes. This seems to be the case with respect to the omitted birth ritual, discussed above. Another example is the two crabs she sees while in the ritual hut. Traditionally, these symbolize her great-grandfathers on the paternal and maternal sides, and their appearance suggests that the umkhapho and umbuyiso mortuary rituals were not performed for them, presumably because they were Christians and were no longer following the traditional ways (Hirst, 2005, p. 6). In such cases, a ritual can be performed in which an ox is slaughtered to honour all ancestors for whom traditional rites were neglected. However, Nomzi seems to be unaware of this.
We may ask whether her claim is true that one of the AbantuBomlambo appeared and took the offerings that were floated on the river and then disappeared into the river with them. The latter is neither a delusion nor a confabulation: it is merely a feature of idiomatic speech. Southern Nguni speak of the offerings being made to the AbantuBomlambo. So, when the offerings are put into the river, the AbantuBomlambo obviously take them. Finally, it is not clear whether Nomzi herself understands the meaning of some of the symbolic experiences she has.
In conclusion, then, from within the Xhosa tradition, Nomzi's story does not describe a process of calling, initiation and graduation that is very grounded or complete. Rather, there is a somewhat haphazard trajectory which Nomzi does not seem to fully understand herself. The emphasis on witch-finding, and her alienation of her friends and community, are also at odds with the nature of Xhosa amagqirha, who achieve respect and standing in their communities because of their capacity to connect with and understand the community members - a point to which we will return in the next section.
Nomzi: A Clinical Psychological Perspective
A clinical psychological assessment is concerned with identifying disturbances of cognition, emotion and behaviour and understanding their causes in terms of predisposing, precipitating and maintaining factors (Edwards & Young, 2013). The aim is to develop a case formulation that incorporates an understanding of the causes of the problematic experiences. This, in turn, provides a guide to developing a plan for management and treatment. Nomzi's story includes many instances of somatic distress as well as disturbances of emotion, cognition and behaviour, along with a range of paradoxical experiences. How might these problems have been understood by a clinical psychologist had she been assessed by one at various stages of her life?
Nomzi's narrative is characterized by a distinct lack of awareness of the emotional impact of interpersonal events in particular, and explicit articulation of such personal meanings in the context in which she was raised is markedly absent. This way of presenting oneself, in which the deeper aspects of experiences within familial relations and socialization practices are routinely unacknowledged is referred to as a restricted speech code by Bernstein (1971) and Douglas (1975). This is of particular interest to phenomenological psychology with its concern for the truth of lived experience hidden behind explicit discourse. In clinical practice, too, psychologists are aware that, in conducting a psychological assessment, they are looking to understand aspects of experience that their clients may be largely or wholly unaware of. Hence the longstanding fascination and engagement with the concept of the unconscious (Edwards & Jacobs, 2003). Many clients do not present as "psychologically minded", and a restricted speech code is thus not confined to people who have only limited exposure to Western culture and values (Parsons & Wakeley, 1991).
When important emotions are not acknowledged, individuals display a variety of responses, emotional, behavioural and, in particular, somatic. In Europe, in the late nineteenth century, for example, a set of responses that were classified as "hysteria" was widely described. It has long been recognized that the manner in which such unacknowledged distress is channelled and expressed is culturally conditioned. Many cultures have familiar "idioms of distress" that, while concealing the nature of the underlying emotions, provide a means of expressing and making sense of them. Attributions of spirit possession and contact with ancestral spirits often form part of such expressions (de Jong & Reis, 2010; Kleinman, 1991; Nichter, 1981, 2010; Van Duijl, Nijenhuis, Komproe, Gernaat, & de Jong, 2010). Donald and Hlongwane (1989) discuss how psychologists can take cultural factors like these into account in such cases and, along with separating out factors of relevance to their role as psychologists, envisage how they can work alongside amagqirha in a complementary manner.
Family context of her clinical presentation at age 14
Nomzi's first account of significant problems is at the age of 14. She reports being "very ill". Her body felt sore, she lost her appetite and lost weight. She became enuretic, for which she was mocked by other children with whom she presumably shared a room or bed, so that she slept on the floor. There are episodes of intense distress which look like anxiety as she either freezes or trembles and becomes very fearful and suspicious of strangers. Had she been taken to a psychologist at this stage, instead of to "Dr Sher", it would have been noted that her family life had been seriously disrupted. Two years previously, she and her siblings had been summarily separated from their parents, who lived and worked in Cape Town, and moved to their maternal grandmother's home in Queenstown, 1,000 kilometers away in the Eastern Cape. Before the move, life would have been hard for a child in a family of six children living in District Six in Cape Town in the 1940s. Now, her parents had also been through an acrimonious divorce, following her father's infidelity and prior to his moving in permanently with his new partner. After the divorce, her father arrived and removed Nomzi and her two brothers back to Cape Town to live with him. All this suggests that her parents' marriage had been in trouble for some time. The fact that her father abducted her back to Cape Town is evidence of the intensity of the conflict between the parents. The children, however, appear to get no meaningful help in coming to terms with the psychological impact.
From a psychological perspective, then, Nomzi experienced severe disruptions in important attachment relationships in a context where her experience was routinely invalidated by the adults around her. This was bound to have a significant impact on the development of her personality and sense of self (Sroufe, 2005). Nomzi describes these events with little evident emotion, and there is no suggestion that she was given much explanation of what was going on, or that any of the adults in her life appreciated the emotional significance of these events for a child. Child-rearing practices were characterized by strictness and punitiveness. Both parents and grandparents display a marked absence of empathy and insight into her experiential world, with the result that Nomzi herself has no capacity to understand or articulate her emotions. The fact that her grandmother used corporal punishment to address Nomzi's distressed state shows that she too had no understanding of the emotional impact of these separations and disruptions, or indeed of any of the needs of a young teenager. The same can be said of Nomzi's father, whose summary abduction of her does not seem to have involved any consultation with Nomzi herself.
The emergence of a paranoid system
This is the background to the somatization and paranoia Nomzi describes. She experiences anxiety approaching panic whenever an elderly female visitor turns up unsolicitedly at her grandmother's home. The confusion and fear she feels evokes paranoid ideation. The old woman must be a witch with harmful charms. Her grandmother simply gives her a beating, providing further evidence for the inability of adult caretakers to reflectively empathize with children. So, already as a young teenager, she began to appropriate the culturally available idiom of distress, as she saw herself as able to detect harmful witches and witchcraft, something that would evolve into a career. Soon, her witch-finding radar is working overtime. Her playmates eventually fall under her witchcraft lens. A potent overcompensation system develops. The lost, deserted child now has access to a meaningful source of gratification. She can vent her aggression simply by accusing others of being witches, and revels in the attention she receives from doing this. Engaging in these accusations gives her a sense of power, and the attribution of that power to her ancestors compounds the inflation. Sadly, it compounds her alienation from family and peers. Her experience of other children laughing at her, her sleeping on a sack rather than a bed to get away from them, show just how deep is the alienation and humiliation she feels. A pattern is set up of relating to others with hostile attacks and withdrawal that will remain with her all her life.
Might a psychologist have been able to help Nomzi at this stage? Reinecke (1992) describes a ten-year-old boy in the USA in a very different cultural context who showed a similar pattern of paranoid ideation, hostility associated with intolerance of others and entitled self-aggrandisement, with resultant alienation from peers and severe depression. The depression remitted, and the child made a good adjustment to his peer group following 22 individual sessions of an empathic approach using cognitive therapy, supplemented by psycho-education and feedback to his parents, who were motivated to work with the treatment plan. Any attempt to treat Nomzi in this way might have been more challenging, given that her parents were divorced, her home situation was unstable, and the adults in her life (whether mother or father or grandmother) might have been less receptive to a psychological understanding of the roots of Nomzi's problems. When working with children, the presence of a committed, caring relative who provides a stable base and supports the treatment process is usually regarded as essential (Leibowitz-Levy, 2005; MacDermott, 2005). Nevertheless, Nomzi might have benefitted from a pragmatic approach along the lines suggested by Donald and Hlongwane (1989).
Nomzi, of course, did not receive any attention of this sort and, at training college, there are further examples of her difficulty in forming relationships with peers, her deep mistrust, and her vulnerability to exploding into rageful attacks (as she does when she scratches a peer and draws blood). Expectations of being attacked and an enraged response also occur in her dreams. She describes one incident after another of intuitions about evil individuals seeking to do her harm. In several of these, she believes she has evidence that people were practising witchcraft.
There are several incidents that might also suggest a preoccupation with fears related to her emerging sexuality. One woman has an ampoule of muti between her breasts, two have familiars apparently tucked up their vaginas: the one a white rat, the other a lizard. There is also the paradoxical story of the pantyhose. She hears a voice telling her that they have been stolen by someone who wants to bewitch them. However, soon afterwards she finds them lying there. While she tells us that they were taken and that the ancestors returned them, it is equally probable that they were there all the time.
There is a similar inconsistency in the narrative when she tells how, at age 24, she ran away from home to visit her father in Cape Town. She believes that losing her suitcase at the railway station is a punishment from the ancestors. In fact, it is clear from the story she tells that she had merely mislaid it, and her father was able to find it for her the next day. It seems probable that she became confused while being in a strange crowded place due to mixed emotions: anxiety and guilt being most prominent. The emotional turmoil she must have been experiencing is evident from the fact that, having gone all the way to Cape Town to see her father, she felt so distressed staying with him that she wanted to leave right away, but was afraid to ask him for money for the fare and so resorted to stealing it.
Meanwhile, she has repeated dreams of people behaving maliciously towards her, and comes to believe that, if any item of her clothing gets into the wrong hands, it could be used by someone to bewitch her. This pattern of suspiciousness continues when, at the age of 28, following another separation from her grandmother, she is working as a teacher. She is irritable and rude, despises the other teachers and avoids them. Nor does her paranoia resolve when she has retired and become an igqirha. She continues to perceive people as being hostile and jealous of her, and believes that they try to borrow things from her like sugar, tea, bread and money in order to bewitch them.
Her fear of water
A striking feature of Nomzi's narrative is her view of the abahlekazi. As personalities they seem to be remote, cold and punitive. She does not convey any sense of them as benign, caring beings calling her to a dignified profession. Again and again, they are portrayed as persecutory figures, who seem to have limited empathy for her predicaments. This reflects her experience of human relationships in the family. She grew up feeling lonely, ashamed, insecure, mistrustful and hostile. This is the context in which she is terrified by the understanding that her training must include time with her ancestors under the river. Her fear of flowing rivers (which expresses itself in a nightmare) seems to have been the direct result of one or more incidents where she did get into difficulty crossing the Thyume river. The ambiguity of this aspect of Xhosa tradition must have exacerbated her fear. As an umkhwetha she must have wondered what was really required of her by the AbantuBomlambo, and images of being called under the water must have terrified her.
Diagnostic considerations
Finally, we turn a diagnostic lens onto Nomzi's behaviour. As a teenager, she appears to have had a conversion disorder - somatic symptoms that are not due to a medical condition but to unrecognized emotional distress that she cannot express. But, soon after this, she becomes clinically depressed and, if seen by a health professional as a teenager, would certainly have been given a diagnosis of major depressive disorder. However, more pervasive is the clinical picture of a paranoid condition, characterized by suspiciousness and hostility, that easily satisfies the criteria for Paranoid Personality Disorder (or Delusional Disorder, Persecutory Type) in the DSM system (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Although there is abundant evidence of delusions (about people behaving maliciously towards her) and hallucinations, most of the time they do not seem to disrupt her ability to function, and she completes her education and works as a teacher.
Self-promotion and self-healing in the story
For the amagqirha to tell their story in a way that presents them as having overcome challenges and difficulties and successfully graduated as a healer is, itself, part of what Hirst (1990) calls "the healer's art". It is a tale that gives the authors a dignified identity both in their own eyes as well as in those of the listener. This is a significant achievement, for many amagqirha have emerged, like Nomzi, from a troubled and marginalized situation in the community at large (O'Connell, 1982). Yet Nomzi's narrative is hardly a spiritual biography. It is, in fact, quite self-centred and replete with examples of unabashed self-promotion and paranoid ideation. For example, she goes to considerable lengths to emphasize her extraordinary prescience in detecting witches, a somewhat dubious talent considering that, in contemporary South Africa, people accused of witchcraft, in some cases elderly women and men, are doused with gasoline, set alight and left to die excruciating deaths.
The healing function of rituals
Finally, from a psychological perspective, the rituals Nomzi describes seem to have played a beneficial role in her life. After the very first one, while still a teenager, she reported that her energy returned and her depression seemed to have remitted. From a systemic point of view, the activities involved in performing a ritual convey a number of implicit messages that might have served to counteract the implicit view of herself she had acquired growing up in such a disrupted family situation. Her fundamental self-schemas represent her as being unloved and insignificant, and as having to deal with adults who were punitive, unreliable and unpredictable and could not be trusted to understand or care about her. By contrast, the ritual conducted when she was still a teenager conveys a very different message. Her mother and father both come all the way from Cape Town and join with other adult family members, prayers are made to the ancestors, traditional practices, including the making of the intambo necklace, are carried out, and a specially selected goat is slaughtered in her honour, on which the participants can feed. All this conveys the message that she belongs, that she is valued, that she is part of a family, and that her own life is part of a tradition that spans generations.
The rituals give her life meaning and contribute to shaping her self-understanding in terms of the traditional concepts of intwaso and the call of the abahlekazi. But they never resolve her paranoia. As Laubscher (1937) observed, the various social representations associated with the healer's calling can be used as an idiomatic medium to express various emotional problems, but these are not necessarily resolved through ritual performance. In the traditional context, the training igqirha, who has intensive ongoing engagement with trainees, can guide the timing and process of rituals to meet the needs of each developmental stage. Only in such circumstances are rituals likely to be truly transformational.
So the view from clinical psychology provides a contrasting lens on Nomzi's story. We see a child raised in very insecure circumstances with a disrupted family life, who feels lost, uncared for and mistrustful, and whose behaviour becomes increasingly paranoid and hostile. With no-one to help her identify and name the powerful and conflicting emotions evoked by her deep insecurity and her treatment by her parents and other caretakers, she is stuck with verbal expression at the level of "restricted code" and channels her self-understanding into the detailed and available cultural narrative of the call of the abahlekazi. This provides her with expression through culturally sanctioned idioms of distress, as well as hope for the future through the healing trajectory of the intwaso process and, finally, through the ongoing development of the heroic narrative of the story leading to her final graduation. This provides a stabilizing and unifying theme to her identity and self-understanding, and a sense of playing a valuable role in the community, something rather at odds with her evident paranoia. However, it does not lead to any resolution of her fundamental interpersonal schemas, which remain characterized by mistrust and alienation from others right through to the end of her life.
Nomzi: A Transpersonal Perspective
The understanding within transpersonal psychology of the development of a shaman, as described in many cultures, was laid out in the introduction to the first paper, which contains the narrative of Nomzi's story (Booi & Edwards, 2014). There are four central themes of this understanding which can be used to interrogate Nomzi's narrative. Each of these will be stated as a general principle, and evidence sought within the narrative as to whether Nomzi exemplifies that principle.
1. Shamans have gifts of paranormal ability that they can develop and use to help and heal (see, for example, Manning 2003)
Do we have evidence in the narrative that Nomzi has paranormal abilities? There are several examples where Nomzi makes such claims explicitly or implicitly. On one occasion, she dreams of an examination paper and tells us that she accurately foresaw what the questions would be. On another, she tells us that a hostel matron regularly asked her to tell her her dreams in the apparent belief that they contained predictions that would help her with betting. On another, she dreamed of the house with two rondavels where Mambhele lived, and when she arrived there it corresponded with what she saw in the dream. She also regularly dreamed about plants that were significant for healing and then went to find them and cultivated them. On one occasion, she not only successfully identified the culprit who had stolen a spade, but knew where it had been hidden. She also implies that she can intuit what is wrong with the people who consult her, but she does not give any specific examples. Of course, we have no way of evaluating these claims in terms of their veracity, but, if we give her the benefit of the doubt, Nomzi does seem to meet this criterion, as she does have regular experiences of clairvoyance and intuition. However, the extent to which these are used in healing is not elaborated in her narrative.
2. The development of these healing gifts involves a transformational journey for the shaman which typically involves experiences in altered states of consciousness and may be arduous and difficult
In the Xhosa tradition, this is the process of intwaso and the steps taken under the guidance of an experienced igqirha to guide the transformational journey to its conclusion, where the initiate finally emerges as a healer. Unfortunately, however, Nomzi provides very little information that would enable us to evaluate the extent to which she underwent a significant process of personality transformation. She describes difficulties in the form of emotional and behavioural disturbances, but these seem to be evidence that transformation is needed, not that it has taken place. There is evidence that she is still withdrawn, alienated and paranoid right to the end of her life, which suggests that no significant transformation of her underlying sense of self has occurred at all. Her panicky experiences at the river, where she feared that she was going to be swept away, do not seem to be transformational experiences in altered states, but simply real fears of drowning, perhaps exacerbated by the myth of ukuthwetyulwa, that ancestors may seize one and take one under the river by force.
With respect to altered states of consciousness, Nomzi reports dreams and waking visions, many of which include information and symbols relevant to the intwaso journey. But there are few accounts of her experience of altered states during her training or during rituals (which are also designed to alter consciousness), although the vision of the crabs in the ritual hut is perhaps an exception. Nomzi's story, then, provides little insight into the psychological dimensions of her unfolding experience. This is in stark contrast to the narrative of Howard Everest in the USA (as reported by Lukoff and Everest, 1985) or, in South Africa, that of Credo Mutwa (1996), the Zulu isangoma. Disappointingly, therefore, there is limited information about this aspect of the process, which was of particular interest at the start of the research, and what information there is does not clearly document a transformational journey.
3. The transformational journey may take an archetypal form with specific features related to the archetype
Transpersonal psychologists have argued that, in addition to the personal memories held by individuals, there is a collective memory system independent of individual minds. According to this theory, systems of belief and practice result in the formation of a memory field that encodes features of the collective experience. An early articulation of this theory in terms of its relevance to psychotherapy was Jung's (1936) concept of the collective unconscious, which he postulated when he encountered psychotic patients who were experiencing ancient symbols that they could never have encountered and known about from personal experience. He used the term "archetype" to refer to such collective formations. More recently, the theory has been integrated with contemporary research in biology by Sheldrake (2012). Such a theory is needed if we are to explain the phenomenon regularly reported by Grof (1988, 1998) of individuals in altered states of consciousness who experience features of the transformational journey of a cultural and spiritual tradition in which they have not been socialized or trained. Recently, Bache (2008) has invoked the theory to explain such apparent field effects in the educational setting, particularly in his own work as an educator.
The relevance of this for Nomzi is that her narrative reveals ongoing engagement with the details of the Xhosa tradition of the call by the abahlekazi and the intwaso journey. We have no way of knowing what conscious knowledge of or training in these traditions she was exposed to as a child and teenager. However, her descriptions of her dreams of various ancestors and of healing plants and of the house where Mambhele lived would all be consistent with the view that she had engaged with the collective memory of Xhosa tradition despite her having had little or no formal training. Some incidents, such as her urinating on the white goat skin at Dr Sher's, or the ritual significance of the clothes worn by the ancestors of whom she dreams, or the dreams of rituals that have been neglected, or her vision of the crabs at the final ritual, point to her having information about the Xhosa tradition that she could not have been conscious of or learned from her own life experience.
4. Others experience shamans as gifted and experience healing in clear and unexpected ways
Unfortunately we don't have much information about Nomzi's practice as an igqirha, how sought out she was, or how her clients experienced her ministrations. Indeed, given the detail with which she describes her role as a witch-finder, and the numerous incidents she reports related to that, the absence of information about her current practice is striking. The only information we have is that she can tell individuals what rituals need to be performed, can help pregnant women whose labour was delayed or difficult (which she automatically attributes to witchcraft) and that she has healed people (but with no further detail). One wonders about her reputation in the community given that, in practising as an igqirha, she acknowledged that she alienated her friends by making accusations of witchcraft, a repeat of the longstanding pattern of paranoid behaviour that characterized her whole life.
Each of the three lenses we have employed above provides important insights into the nature of Nomzi's experience and of the paradoxes inherent in it. We cannot begin to understand her without knowing about the cultural traditions in which her life was embedded and in terms of which she understood it herself. Yet Nomzi herself did not seem to be fully aware of many details of these traditions, and there is evidence that many of them have been conflated or simplified in the course of time and distance from their traditional sources. The perspective from clinical psychology, enriched by an understanding of how idioms of distress emerge in cultural contexts where the significance of human experience is not acknowledged, also provided insight into how, in the face of a disrupted childhood and family life, she channelled her unspoken emotions into the trajectory of the intwaso story and her identity as a witch-finder. This lens also helps us to understand how, at the end of her life, she could display such obvious paranoia, alienating many of those around her, while living as a healer in the community. Finally, the transpersonal lens suggests that, despite the obvious limitations, Nomzi's life exhibits genuine elements of the process of the shamanic transformational journey, but these are so intertwined with unresolved personal issues that we do not get any sense of the authoritativeness or stature that can characterize shamans who have been through a more systematic and engaged transformational process.
So the hermeneutic exploration does take us more deeply into Nomzi's lifeworld and does explicate psychological aspects of her experience that are not explicit in the narrative. Yet each perspective leaves us with more questions. How much of her cultural knowledge did she learn explicitly, and how much came spontaneously through dreams? Might she have been open to understanding her relational experience in psychological terms, especially earlier in her life, if she had encountered someone with an empathic and caring presence? And might Nomzi's shamanic gifts have been more fully realized had she been able to receive some corrective experiences to change her paranoid interpersonal schemas? Of course, these questions will not help Nomzi, whose life is now over. But her story and these reflections on it may be of value to those working at the cultural interface between African traditional healing and psychology in an evolving situation where both are changing in response to the meeting of cultures and the ever shifting currents of social change.
Referencing Format
Edwards, D. J. A., Hirst, M., & Booi, B. N. (2014). Interpretative reflections on Nomzi's story. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, 14(2), 13 pp. doi: 10.2989/IPJP.2014.14.2.4.1243
1. The authors would like to thank "Nomzi Hlathi" for her willingness to share her story in such detail, as well as "Sandile" for willingly providing collateral information.
2. This research was supported by grants to the first author from the Research Committee at Rhodes University and the National Research Foundation.
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). DSM-5: Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association. [ Links ]
Bache, C. M. (2008). The living classroom: Teaching and collective consciousness. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. [ Links ]
Bernstein, D. (1971). Class, codes and control: Volume 1. Theoretical studies towards a sociology of language. London, UK: Routledge & Kegan Paul. [ Links ]
Booi, B. N. (2004). Three perspectives on ukuthwasa: The view from traditional beliefs, Western psychiatry and transpersonal psychology (Unpublished master's thesis). Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. Available at http://eprints.ru.ac.za_175_1_booi-ma [ Links ]
Booi, B. N., & Edwards, D. J. A. (2014). Becoming a Xhosa healer: Nomzi's story. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, 14(2), 12 pp. doi: 10.2989/IPJP.2014.14.2.3.1242 [ Links ]
Buhrmann, M. V. (1986). Living in two worlds: Communication between a white healer and her black counterparts. Wilmette, IL: Chiron. [ Links ]
de Jong, J., & Reis, R. (2010). Kiyang-yang, a West-African postwar idiom of distress. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 34(2), 301-321. [ Links ]
Donald, D. R., & Hlongwane, M. M. (1989). Issues in the integration of traditional African healing and western counselling in school psychological practice: Three case studies. School Psychology International, 10(4), 243-249. [ Links ]
Douglas, M. (1975). Humans speak. In M. Douglas (Ed.), Implicit meanings: Essays in anthropology (pp. 173-180). London, UK: Routledge & Kegan Paul. [ Links ]
Edwards, D. J. A., & Jacobs, M. D. (2003). Conscious and unconscious. Maidenhead, UK: Open University/ McGraw Hill. [ Links ]
Edwards, D. J. A., & Young, C. (2013). Assessment in routine clinical and counselling settings. In S. Laher & K. Cockroft (Eds.), Psychological assessment in South Africa: Research and applications (pp. 320-335). Johannesburg, South Africa: Wits University Press. [ Links ]
Grof, S. (1988). The adventure of self-discovery: Dimensions of consciousness and new perspectives in psychotherapy and inner exploration. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. [ Links ]
Grof, S. (1998). The cosmic game: Explorations of the frontiers of human consciousness. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. [ Links ]
Hirst, M. (1990). The healer's art: Cape Nguni diviners in the townships of Grahamstown (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. [ Links ]
Hirst, M. (1997). A river of metaphors: Interpreting the Xhosa diviner's myth. In P. McAllister (Ed.), Culture and the commonplace: Anthropological essays in honour of David Hammond-Tooke (pp. 217-250). Johannesburg, South Africa: Witwatersrand University Press. [ Links ]
Hirst, M. (2005). Dreams and medicines: The perspective of Xhosa diviners and novices in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, 5(2), 1-22. [ Links ]
Jung, C. G. (1936). The concept of the collective unconscious. In The collected works of C. G. Jung: Vol. 9(1). The archetypes and the collective unconscious (pp. 42-53). London, UK: Routledge & Kegan Paul. [ Links ]
Kleinman, A. (1991). Rethinking psychiatry: From cultural category to personal experience. New York, NY: Free Press. [ Links ]
Laubscher, B. J. F. (1937). Sex, custom and psychopathology: A study of South African pagan natives. London, UK: Routledge & Kegan Paul. [ Links ]
Leibowitz-Levy, S. (2005). The role of brief term interventions with South African child trauma survivors. Journal of Psychology in Africa, 15(2), 155-163. [ Links ]
Lukoff, D., & Everest, H. C. (1985). The myths in mental illness. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 17(2), 123-153. [ Links ]
MacDermott, R. (2005). The great arch of unimagined bridges: Integrative play therapy with an abused child. Journal of Psychology in Africa, 15(2), 165-175. [ Links ]
Manning, M. (2003). One foot in the stars: The story of an extraordinary healer. London, UK: Piatkus. [ Links ]
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). Phenomenology of perception (C. Smith, Trans.). London, UK: Routledge & Kegan Paul. (Original work published 1945) [ Links ]
Mutwa, V. C. (1996). Song of the stars: The lore of a Zulu shaman (S. Larsen, Ed.). Barrytown, NY: Station Hill Openings. [ Links ]
Nichter, M. (1981). Idioms of distress: Alternatives in the expression of psychosocial distress. A case study from South India. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 5(4), 379-408. [ Links ]
Nichter, M. (2010). Idioms of distress revisited. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 34(2), 401-416. [ Links ]
O'Connell, M. C. (1982). Spirit possession and role stress among the Xesibe of Eastern Transkei. Ethnology, 21(1), 21-37. [ Links ]
Parsons, C. D. F., & Wakeley, P. (1991). Idioms of distress: Somatic responses to distress in everyday life. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 15(1), 111-132. [ Links ]
Reinecke, M. (1992). Childhood depression. In A. Freeman & F. Dattilio (Eds.), Comprehensive casebook of cognitive therapy (pp. 147-158). New York, NY: Plenum. [ Links ]
Schweitzer, R. D. (1977). Categories of experience amongst the Xhosa: A psychological study (Unpublished master's thesis). Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. [ Links ]
Schweitzer, R. D. (1983). A phenomenological explication of dream interpretation among rural and urban Nguni people (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. [ Links ]
Sheldrake, R. (2012). The presence of the past: Morphic resonance and the memory of nature (Rev. ed.). Rochester, VT: Park Street Press. [ Links ]
Sroufe, L. A. (2005). Attachment and development: A prospective, longitudinal study from birth to adulthood. Attachment and Human Development, 7(4), 349-367. doi:10.1080/14616730500365928 [ Links ]
van Duijl, M., Nijenhuis, E., Komproe, I. H., Gernaat, H. B. P. E., & de Jong, J. (2010). Dissociative symptoms and reported trauma among patients with spirit possession and matched healthy controls in Uganda. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 34(2), 380-400. doi:10.1007/s11013-010-9171-1 [ Links ]
About the Authors
David Edwards has been a Clinical Psychologist and practising therapist for over thirty years. He is a founding fellow of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy, having trained in the mid-1980s at Beck's Centre for Cognitive Therapy in Philadelphia, where he attended seminars with Jeffrey Young, the developer of schema therapy. In addition to an enduring interest in psychotherapy integration and experiential training in a variety of humanistic and transpersonal approaches, he is certified as a schema therapist and schema therapy trainer with the International Society of Schema Therapy (ISST). Until his recent retirement as a Professor of Psychology at Rhodes University, he provided professional training and supervision in cognitive therapy for two decades.
Over a long career, Professor Edwards has published some 70 academic articles and book chapters, several of which focus on the use of imagery methods in psychotherapy. He has had a longstanding interest in transpersonal psychology and the shamanistic perspective on psychotherapy. and has done experiential training in this area with Stanislav Grof. Professor Edwards is first author of Conscious and Unconscious, in the series "Core Concepts in Psychotherapy" (McGraw Hill), a book that includes chapters on cognitive therapy and transpersonal psychology. His research for this book gave rise to two papers published in this journal in 2003 and 2005. E-mail address: firstname.lastname@example.com
Manton Hirst retired in April 2010 from his position as Anthropologist at the Amatola Museum in King William's Town, South Africa, where he produced a museum display on Xhosa healers and a temporary exhibition on traditional Xhosa religion. He has a doctorate in Anthropology and has had a longstanding interest in traditional healers and healing among the amaXhosa. Dr Hirst is an International Fellow of the Association of Ethno-Medicine and Transcultural Psychiatry (AGEM) in Heidelberg (Germany), and has several publications to his name, including an earlier one in this journal (Hirst, 2005).
Dr Hirst has collaborated with botanists and scientists researching Xhosa medicines at Rhodes University and the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, and has published several articles on South African psychotropic plants. He has also delivered papers at two international conferences in Germany and contributed to the production of ethnographic film documentaries dealing with Xhosa song and dance and traditional rituals. In addition, Dr Hirst has regularly shared his knowledge through presentations to members of the public during the Grahamstown Festival Winter School, and to academic and professional audiences including medical practitioners, students of counselling and clinical psychology, as well as final year anthropology students at the University of Johannesburg, where he presented a course on the anthropology of the body, focusing on Xhosa traditional healing. Contact address: P.O. Box 637, Stutterheim 4930, South Africa.
Beauty Booi is a Clinical Psychologist at Komani Hospital in Queenstown, South Africa, where her work with in-patients and out-patients includes psychotherapy for a range of problems, a trauma counselling service for women who have been raped, and assessments for disability grants and forensic cases. She also conducts a private practice.
Trained initially as a professional nurse, Beauty Booi qualified as a psychiatric nurse before completing a Psychology Honours degree through the University of South Africa (UNISA) and later her Master's degree in Clinical Psychology at Rhodes University in Grahamstown in 2005. The focus of her Master's thesis (Booi, 2004) reflects her longstanding interest in Xhosa traditional healing. E-mail address: firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
Woman talks about being stalked for 7 years
A Ralston woman wants women to know they can be stalked for a long time without even knowing.
She talked with KETV NewsWatch 7 under a condition of anonymity.
The woman said she's living in fear in her own home -- all of her windows covered. She doesn't answer the phone until she hears the message on the answering machine. She said she even sleeps on the recliner by the front door so she can monitor any noises.
She questions why she's even a target. "I'm not gorgeous," she said. "I'm not a movie star. I'm not rich. Why me?"
Court documents said Arthur Rivera, 53, admitted to driving by the woman's home, watching her with binoculars and approaching the windows.
Rivera allegedly told police he followed the woman for seven years.
The woman said she met Rivera 15 years ago when he worked at a nearby drug store.
She wants people to know stalkers can hide in the shadows and it's important neighbors look out for one another.
She said Ralston police have been very supportive, coming over any time she needs them.
River is due in court Friday. He's pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges of stalking.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Started by two world-class pilots and soaring experts, Bill Elliott (WE) and Rand Baldwin (NN), SoaringCafe.com is a one-of-a-kind resource for all things soaring. With content from around the world, the site brings pilots and information together in one place with the newest and most interesting content available online. Fascinated with flight since childhood, Bill and Rand were lured by the adventure of motorless flight, when traditional "piloting" just wasn't enough. Friends for many years in the Huntsville Soaring Club in Huntsville, Alabama, they grew tired of waiting for their monthly magazines to arrive and of searching in multiple places online for soaring information—and SoaringCafe.com was born.
About Bill Elliott, Our Publishing Editor
Bill is a two-time U.S. 18m national champion with extensive racing and cross-country soaring experience. He represented the U.S. in the 18 meter class at the 2010 and 2012 FAI World Gliding Championships. Bill earned his airplane rating in 1981, but was looking for new challenges by 1989 when the adventure of soaring induced him to join the Huntsville Soaring Club. After soloing in a Blanik L-13, Bill began soaring cross country in the club 1-26, then bought a Duster followed by an HP-18 a few years later. It was with that HP-18 that he won the Region 5 South Sports Class Championship in 1995, his first championship. After taking a five-year hiatus to spend time with his family, Bill moved up to a DG-300 in 2001, then to an ASW-27 in 2002. With this move, Bill's racing career kicked into high gear! From 2003 to 2010, Bill consistently won the Region 5 North and South 15-meter championships. His fourth-place finish at the 2007 15-meter nationals earned him a slot as reserve pilot for the 2008 U.S. Team. After a win in the 18 meter nationals in 2008 followed by a third-place finish in 2009, Bill was selected to fly for the U.S. in Hungary at the 2010 WGC, finishing a promising 30th. In 2012, he represented the U.S. team in Uvalde, TX.
All of Bill's soaring accomplishments can be found here.
About Rand Baldwin, Our Editor
Rand has loved flying as long as he can remember. He learned to fly sailplanes while in graduate school at Harvard's Center for Astrophysics, and earned his private glider rating at Yankee Soaring in Plymouth, Massachusetts. He joined the M.I.T. Soaring Association in 1974, where he completed his Silver Badge and became a flight instructor. After moving to Huntsville, Alabama in 1977, Rand flew and instructed on weekends at Eagleville Sailplanes, south of Nashville, Tennessee. In 1985, he and a handful of other soaring enthusiasts organized the Huntsville Soaring Club at Moontown Airport. He has served as its president, newsletter editor, operations chief, and chief flight instructor. From the late 1980's through the mid-90's, Rand served as SSA Governor for Alabama and is now Alabama's state recordkeeper. Rand chaired the 1996 SSA national convention in Huntsville and served on the SSA Board of Directors from 2000 through 2003. He owns an LS–8, which he flies in local, regional, and national competitions. Rand has set many Alabama and Tennessee state records as well as two U.S. national soaring records, including one multi-place record set jointly with Bill Elliott.
All of Rand's soaring accomplishments can be found here.


text:
Tabacon Hot Springs located just outside La Fortuna, Costa Rica is considered fairly pricey to most. But Tabacon isn't just any hot springs- Tabacon is 'THE' hot springs... and they know it. Tabacon does have a little competition with the newer and maybe more luxurious The Springs Resort and Spa but just comparing hot springs, Tabacon is still #1 in my mind, but then again, I still prefer Michael Jordan over Kobe, there's just those hard to explain intangibles... know what I mean? Tabacon doesn't care if you can afford them or not, because plenty of people can and DO on a daily basis so they keep their prices 'pricey' and keep the little people wishing. Unfortunately, the locals who live in and around La Fortuna ARE the little people and the closest most will ever come to Tabacon is by working for them, other than that Tabacon offers NOTHING in the way of 'discounts' for people in the area. It's their right, but something just seems WRONG... but I digress.
That's why all who live in the La Fortuna area go to the
FREE hot springs at Tabacon. It's like our very own, 'fuck you' to 'the man'. So as the tourist pays upwards of $100 bucks per person for the privilege of drinking high priced umbrella drinks in hot water, us little people take a cooler of beer and some greasy chicken and soak up the hot water for FREE. The best part- not an alligator skinned, saggy-titted, blue hair from Florida in SIGHT and trust me, that's a good thing, because during high season, they often arrive by the bus loads and turn Tabacon into a series of huge geriatric jacuzzis.
Here's our VIDEO about the FREE Hot Springs at Tabacon
TONS of Costa Rica Travel Info and VIDEOS on our website: Travel Costa Rica NOW and if you want to visit our YouTube Channel: iCostaRica24 ENjoY!


text:
- click on photos to enlarge image -
The last day of the EFW Oktoberfest and finally our hosts in Tilburg (Willem II) were playing at home. It was with a heavy heart that we checked out of the 1 FIFA star rated 'Hotel Central Tilburg' on the morning of the match. That was one place we'd all grown very fond of. Iain Ferguson best summed up the shower situation when he said "I turned on the hot tap which was too hot, then I switched on the cold and the tap came off in my hand."
There looked to be a few casualties within the EFW team as we met up to head to the Koning Willem II Stadion. A few of the German boys had been in the Grass Factory for some morning Dutch treats and the previous nights marathon drinking session looked to have taken its toll on some of the older lads.
Not to fear though, as soon as we stepped into the superb bar inside the stadium and set about tackling a battleships worth of Jupiler lager, the colour returned to our collective cheeks. In return for providing us with the weekend funnies, I taught Hans from Antwerp and the youngest of the FGR Pearchy's (Rich) how to dance.
Willem II and EFW have a common enemy, namely, NAC Breda. They are the biggest rivals of the King's Army and didn't endure themselves to us either by becoming the most difficult club we've ever had to deal with. Compare that to the delightful Kim Dijkstra in the Willem II ticket office who not only welcomed us with open arms but gave us a discount on our match tickets. Willem II 1-0 NAC Breda. I know who we've nailed our 'Tricolores' to!
My good friend Joris from the Doingthe116 website had arranged for EFW to feature in the club's Kingzine (fanzine). A double page spread I'll have you know and I thought I'd ticked the no publicity box (yeah, as if - Ed). With that feature in the bag and with this being the last day, the EFW team decided we'd go out with a bang, sing a few songs and P-A-R-T-Y.
However, the two teams trotted out onto the pitch in an eerie silence. As play got underway - aside from a ticker tape reception - there was no show of support amongst the home faithful. This was fairly frustrating because we had 30 odd lads behind the goal wanting to swing a fast shoe and sing a few ditties. What had happened!?
News then reached us that the home fans had organised this period of silence in a protest against the club's chairman. He'd led Willem II from a Champions League place in 1999 to near financial ruin. Evidently, he'd blown the budget on a plush new stand with marvellous behind the scenes facilities which aren't of too much interest or help to the common fan. Word on the street was that if Willem II had of lost this match, there might have been some unsavoury incidents afterwards.
The atmosphere must have manifested itself onto the pitch. I think the politest way to describe the first half would be 'cagey'. It was in actual fact pretty turgid. The only thing to save us from plucking our feathers out in boredom was a Gordon Banksesque save from Aerts the Willem II keeper to deny Heerenveen the opener.
Heerenveen striker in not deadly from a yard shock (he missed).
FGR lads Keith, Andy, Shep, Witty & Rich.
Nobody in the ground could have foreseen what was to happen in the 2nd half. With the protest over, noise (and lots of it) replaced the silence. With the fans behind them, the home side started to tear their opponents to shreds. Sergio Zijler was the main instigator alongside the on loan Jan-Arie van der Heijden. Hereenveen collapsed and their players plus 40 supporters had no answer, as eventually, it began to rain goals.
By now the beers were flowing in the stands and the Pearchy (chuckle) brothers from Forest Green Rovers had upped their gags to one a minute. As if by magic, a delightful rainbow over the old skool floodlights also appeared. We got our party in the end. Goals from Zijler, Boutahar and a brace from Demouge sealed an emphatic second half performance. Papadopulos did reply for Hereenveen but that was all they had to offer in terms of resistance. 4-1.
And so the curtain came down on the inaugural EFW Oktoberfest. Four games, three days, two countries, thirty three people, thirteen goals, forty seven beers each, four sausages, sixteen Dutch meatballs and ten hours sleep. Never could I have wished for a better start to what could now become an annual event. Hungary for more next year? Then Budapest it is. That my friends was entertainment.
Also on this trip
FC Den Bosch v Fortuna Sittard
Rot-Weiss Essen v Preußen Münster
Vitesse Arnhem v Heracles Alemlo
Still want more? Then head to the European Football Weekends Facebook Group.
Thanks for coming!
- Please feel free to comment below -


text:
International Ice Chart Working Group Warns of Continued Navigation Hazards in Polar Seas
The International Ice Chart Working Group (IICWG) held its 11th annual meeting 18-22 October 2010 in Washington, D.C. Established in 1999, IICWG promotes cooperation between the international ice services charged with monitoring sea ice and icebergs for maritime safety and brings together the operational ice services of Canada, Denmark (Greenland), Finland, Germany, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden, the United States, and the International Ice Patrol. Seventy-one representatives of ice service organizations from nine arctic nations attended the October meeting, which was hosted by the U.S. National Ice Center and the North American Ice Service. Topics discussed at the meeting included Antarctic ice charting and ice modeling and forecasting.
Following the meeting, IICWG issued a news release warning that sea ice and icebergs continue to present significant hazards to navigation and other maritime activities in the polar seas. Given the increasing maritime traffic in polar regions, IICWG expressed strong support for the continued development of the International Maritime Organization's Polar Code for improved safety of ship operations and for reliable information on current and forecast ice conditions.
For more information, see the International Ice Chart Working Group website: http://nsidc.org/noaa/iicwg/index.html or contact Pablo Clemente-Colón, Chief Scientist, U.S. National Ice Center (Pablo.Clemente-Colon [at] noaa.gov).


text:
Tempo is the subject of understanding how fast or slow to play a piece of music. Steve will utilize more Italian words to help demonstrate the various ranges in tempo there can be.
Taught by Steve Eulberg in Music Theory 101 with Steve Eulberg seriesLength: 9:08Difficulty: 1.0 of 5
Steve presents an information packed lesson series that will break down the basics of music theory. From the language to notation, all things music will be taught right here.
Lesson 1
Welcome to the introduction video to Steve's music theory lesson series! This is an information packed series that will cover the fundamental elements of music including notation, language, rhythm, harmony...Length: 2:23 Difficulty: 0.5 Members Only
Lesson 2
Steve Eulberg delves into a few scientific properties that explain why the guitar produces its unique sound.Length: 9:51 Difficulty: 0.5 Members Only
Lesson 3
Steve provides a brief explanation of the musical alphabet. From A to G, Steve demonstrates his "finger" method as a great remembrance tool. This tool will help you understand the topics that Steve will...Length: 2:46 Difficulty: 0.5 Members Only
Lesson 4
Steve explains how scales and modes are constructed.Length: 2:28 Difficulty: 0.5 FREE
Lesson 5
In this lesson, Steve explains what whole and half steps are. In conjunction with the musical alphabet, Steve provides in depth instruction on how certain notes and intervals work together.Length: 6:16 Difficulty: 0.5 Members Only
Lesson 6
Steve explains the basics of standard musical notation. This Western system of writing music primarily details two parameters - pitch and time. Discover the visual world of music in this lesson!Length: 5:32 Difficulty: 0.5 Members Only
Lesson 7
Steve continues his music theory series as he dives more in depth into musical notation. Here he breaks down the staff and explains how it is used in reading music.Length: 5:49 Difficulty: 2.0 Members Only
Lesson 8
Steve breaks down Tablature. This is a very simple concept and when applied in the correct way, can be used to teach any determined guitarist any kind of arrangement.Length: 4:00 Difficulty: 3.0 Members Only
Lesson 9
Welcome to lesson 9 in Steve's music theory series! In this lesson, Steve explains how the notes of the guitar compare to the notes on a piano when written in standard notation.Length: 16:25 Difficulty: 2.5 Members Only
Lesson 10
Steve presents a lesson on the vocabulary used within music. This lesson covers many descriptive terms and symbols that help communicate what is intended to be played in a piece of music.Length: 16:02 Difficulty: 1.5 Members Only
Lesson 11
Steve breaks down and explains what key signatures are as well as how sharps and flats are used within each key.Length: 22:50 Difficulty: 2.0 Members Only
Lesson 12
The title says it all. Simply put, Steve explains what scales and modes are and utilizes two different key signatures to help demonstrate the differences.Length: 22:17 Difficulty: 3.0 Members Only
Lesson 13
In this quick lesson, Steve will explain time signatures and what those numbers mean at the beginning of a notated piece of music.Length: 8:56 Difficulty: 1.5 Members Only
Lesson 14
Tempo is the subject of understanding how fast or slow to play a piece of music. Steve will utilize more Italian words to help demonstrate the various ranges in tempo there can be.Length: 9:08 Difficulty: 1.0 Members Only
Lesson 15
Steve will dive into the topic of harmonics. When playing a single note on a guitar, other notes can be herd. Steve will explain why that is as well as demonstrate where other harmonics on a guitar can...Length: 8:44 Difficulty: 2.5 Members Only
Lesson 16
Chord quality refers to whether or not the chord is Major or Minor. Steve will take an in depth look at how this is applied and all the various terms that are associated with this subject.Length: 10:19 Difficulty: 3.0 Members Only
Lesson 17
Welcome to part 2 of chord quality theory! Steve now dives into 4 note chords and common additions that are made.Length: 16:15 Difficulty: 3.0 Members Only
Lesson 18
Steve tackles the subject of chord voicing. This term simply refers to the order in which we hear the notes that form a particular chord. Let Steve break this subject down in a very hands on sort of way.Length: 10:38 Difficulty: 3.0 Members Only
Lesson 19
Welcome to a lesson in one of the most widely known topics in Music Theory, Circle of 5ths. This handy tool can easily bring light to how notes relate to each other, and Steve will explain how this is...Length: 11:17 Difficulty: 3.0 Members Only
Lesson 20
The relative minor key or chord is built from the sixth step of any major scale. For example, A minor is the relative minor key and chord in relation to C major.Length: 7:09 Difficulty: 2.5 Members Only
Lesson 21
It's time to get creative with your music theory knowledge! In this lesson, Steve demonstrates how to utilize chord substitutions in order to add your own personal touch to the harmony of a song.Length: 15:31 Difficulty: 3.0 Members Only
Lesson 22
Steve presents a very insightful lesson on what power chords are on the theory side of things, but also how best they can be used.Length: 6:10 Difficulty: 2.0 Members Only
Lesson 23
Arpeggio is an Italian word meaning "broken chord". Steve demonstrates how this applies to the guitar and some common picking patterns used with familiar chord shapes.Length: 6:37 Difficulty: 2.5 Members Only
Lesson 24
Steve delves into the topic of pentatonic scale theory. Steve discusses why both the major and minor pentatonic scales are two of the most common scales used in music.Length: 11:45 Difficulty: 3.0 Members Only
Lesson 25
Steve discusses diminished chords and how they relate to dominant chords.Length: 7:59 Difficulty: 3.0 Members Only
About Steve Eulberg
View Full Biography
An Award-winning multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter, Steve Eulberg weaves mountain and hammered dulcimers with a variety of unusual instruments to create thought-provoking, smile-inducing, toe-tapping acoustic experiences.
He has sung and composed for religious communities, union halls, picket lines, inter-faith retreats, mountain-top youth camps, as well as the more familiar venues: clubs, coffeehouses, bookstores, festivals, charity benefits and showcase concerts.
Born and raised in the German-heritage town of Pemberville, Ohio, Steve was exposed to a variety of music in his home. Early piano lessons were followed by trumpet in school band, and he became self-taught on ukelele and guitar and harmonica. Mandolin was added at Capital University where, while majoring in History, he studied Ear Training, Voice and took Arranging lessons from the Conservatory of Music.
While at college, he first heard hammered and mountain dulcimers, building his first mountain dulcimer just before his final year. Seminary training took him the west side of Denver where he built his first hammered dulcimer. With these instruments, he was able to give voice to the Scottish, English and Irish traditions to which he is also heir.
Following marriage in 1985 to Connie Winter-Eulberg he settled in Kansas City, Missouri. There he worked cross-culturally in a church of African-Americans, Latinos and European Americans, with music being a primary organizing tool. He moved with his family in 1997 to be nestled beside the Rocky Mountains in Fort Coillins, Colorado.
Founder of Owl Mountain Music, Inc. he teaches and performs extensively in Colorado and Wyoming with tours across the US and the UK. He delights in introducing the "sweet music†of dulcimers to people in diverse settings and in addition to his own recordings, has included dulcimers in a variety of session work for other musicians.
In 2000 he was commissioned to create a choral composition featuring dulcimers for the Rainbow Chorus in Fort Collins. It was recorded in the same year (BEGINNINGS). He is currently at work on a commissioned symphony that will feature hammered dulcimer and Australian didjeridu.
Eulberg passionately believes that music crosses cultural and language barriers because music builds community. Influenced by a variety of ethnic styles, his music weaves vital lyric with rap, rock, folk, gospel and blues. Audiences of all ages respond well to his presentation and to his warm sense of humor.
Steve is a member of Local 1000 (AFM), The Folk Alliance, BMI and BWAAG (Better World Artists and Activist's Guild).
Our acoustic guitar lessons are taught by qualified instructors with various backgrounds with the instrument.
In the classical guitar world, there seems to be a lot outdated instructional advice. And while this type of information...Free LessonSeries Details
In this lesson, Freebo covers the basics of right hand technique. This lesson is essential for all up and coming bassists.Free LessonSeries Details
Lesson 40 takes a deeper look at slash chords. Mark discusses why they're called slash chords, and how they are formed.Free LessonSeries Details
Greg kicks off his series telling a little about himself and introduces the C9 tuning.Free LessonSeries Details
Jim discusses the importance of setting goals. He provides some tips that will help steer your practicing in the right direction.Free LessonSeries Details
Miche introduces several new chord concepts that add color and excitement to any progression.Free LessonSeries Details
In this lesson Justin introduces his series on playing with a capo and dishes out some basic tips, including how to properly...Free LessonSeries Details
Mark Nelson introduces "'Ulupalakua," a song he will be using to teach different skills and techniques. In this lesson, he...Free LessonSeries Details
Mitch teaches his interpretation of the classic "Cannonball Rag." This song provides beginning and intermediate guitarists...Free LessonSeries Details
Our electric guitar lessons are taught by instructors with an incredible amount of teaching experience.
Billy starts his artist series off with a lesson on something he gets asked the most to explain: right hand 3 finger technique.Free LessonSeries Details
Lesson 6 is all about the major mode. As with the other lessons you'll be taking a look at the individual notes on the strings...Free LessonSeries Details
JamPlay interviews Revocation's Dave Davidson.Free LessonSeries Details
Join Will Ripley as he gives us all the details of his series, "Rock Guitar for Beginners". You'll be playing cool rock riffs...Free LessonSeries Details
Brendan demonstrates the tiny triad shapes derived from the form 1 barre chord.Free LessonSeries Details
Lesson 25 from Glen presents a detailed exercise that firmly builds up fret hand dexterity for both speed and accuracy.Free LessonSeries Details
JD teaches the pentatonic and blues scales and explains where and when you can apply them.Free LessonSeries Details
Kris analyzes different pick sizes and their effect on his playing. Using a slow motion camera, he is able to point out the...Free LessonSeries Details
David MacKenzie introduces the tapping technique and teaches a fun exercise. This lesson includes a backing track.Free LessonSeries Details
Signup today to enjoy access to our entire database of video lessons, along with our exclusive set of learning tools and features.
Take a minute to compare JamPlay to other traditional and new methods of learning guitar. Our estimates for "In-Person" lessons below are based on a weekly face-to-face lesson for $40 per hour.
|Price Per Lesson
|< $0.01
|$4 - $5
|$30 - $50
|Money Back Guarantee
|Number of Instructors
|1 – 3
|Interaction with Instructors
|Daily Webcam Sessions
|Professional Instructors
|Luck of the Draw
|Luck of the Draw
|New Lessons
|Structured Lessons
|Learn Any Style
|Track Progress
|HD Video
|Multiple Camera Angles
|Accurate Tabs
|Scale/Chord Libraries
|Custom JamTracks
|Interactive Games
|Learn in Sweatpants
|Socially Unacceptable
|Gasoline Needed
|~$4 / gallon!
Mike H."I feel like a 12 year old kid with a new guitar!"
I am 66 years young and I still got it! I would have never known this if it had not been for Jamplay! I feel like a 12 year old kid with a new guitar! Ha! I cannot express enough how great you're website is! It is for beginners and advanced pickers! I am an advanced picker and thought I had lost it but thanks to you all, I found it again! Even though I only play by ear, I have been a member a whopping whole two weeks now and have already got Brent's country shuffle and country blues down and of course with embellishments. Thank you all for your wonderful program!
Greg J."With Jamplay I can fit in a random session when I have time and I can go at my own pace"
I'm a fifty eight year old newbie who owns a guitar which has been sitting untouched in a corner for about seven years now. Last weekend I got inspired to pick it up and finally learn how to play after watching an amazing Spanish guitarist on TV. So, here I am. I'm starting at the beginning with Steve Eulberg and I couldn't be happier (except for the sore fingers :) Some day I'm going to play like Steve! I'm self employed with a hectic schedule. With Jamplay I can fit in a random session when I have time and I can go at my own pace, rewinding and replaying the videos until I get it. This is a very enjoyable diversion from my work yet I still feel like I'm accomplishing something worthwhile. Thanks a lot, Greg
Bill"I believe this is the absolute best site for guitar students."
I am commenting here to tell you and everyone at JamPlay that I believe this is the absolute best site for guitar students. I truly enjoy learning to play the guitar on JamPlay.com. Yes, I said the words, ""enjoy learning."" It is by far the best deal for the money.


text:
A Birthday Gift for my Mother
If you remember an earlier post about me going to the craft fair in Birmingham. I posted about purchasing lots of wool roving, silk and embroidery threads along with a few other things. Well, this is one result of this shopping spree. Let me know what you think below with a comment. I love to hear peoples opinions!
I was inspired by some of the work created by the people who run 21st Century Yarns. I created my own bag pattern to work from, and for anyone who knows me, would know how much of a perfectionist I am when it comes to planning and executing my craft projects. It took me a while to figure out how I wanted it to look. In the end I was very happy with this design. Although if I could change one thing I would have added even stiffer interfacing. I did think it would be heavy enough though. Something to learn from I guess.
As you can see by the pictures, I used my machine to fix the threads that I layered over the cotton fabric. I took time to make sure the placement was right. I used a wide silver coloured ribbon as an added accent which I really love. The background layer is calico that has been dyed in different tones. The colours are subtle but really work well. It's lined with a silver coloured hand woven silk that I picked up from a different stall.
I am going to make a cushion in this similar fashion. Except I'm going to work in wool felt to add a bolder texture. This will be in a red/plum and a selection of greens. Any questions about my crafts are welcome! Happy Crafting!


text:
Discount New Jersey Dance Shows
No shows found based on your search criteria. However, you may be interested in these popular shows in New York: The Jacksonian is the best deal at 28 percent off. A Killer Party is selling for as low as $12.
No shows found based on your search criteria
However, you may be interested in these popular shows in New York:
Ed Harris, Bill Pullman and an all-star cast star in this dark, suspenseful play, revolving around the night of a murder.
Explore the value of Present Moment Awareness and how to practice this awareness on stage and off with this Tony nominated actress.
Tell your story through song with Tituss Burgess, the star of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Proceeds benefit the Ora Lee Foundation.
"A Killer Party" is an original murder mystery musical starring theater favorites including Jeremy Jordan, Laura Osnes, and Alex Newell.
New Jersey Dance Shows per Ticket Price
Average discount for New Jersey Dance Shows is 7%. Some shows offer lotteries and rush tickets. Rush tickets can be accessed via the TodayTix app.


text:
Americans' personal privacy is being crushed by the rise of a four-headed corporate-state surveillance system. The four "heads" are: federal government agencies; state and local law enforcement entities; telecoms, web sites & Internet "apps" companies; and private data aggregators (sometimes referred to as commercial data warehouses).
Conventional analysis treats these four domains of data gathering as separate and distinct; government agencies focus on security issues and corporate entities are concerned with commerce. Some overlap can be expected as, for example, in case of a terrorist attack or an online banking fraud. In both cases, an actual crime occurred.
But what happens when the boundary separating or restricting corporate-state collaboration, e.g., an exceptional crime-fighting incident, erodes and becomes the taken-for-granted operating environment, the new normal? Perhaps most troubling, what happens when the traditional safeguards offered by "watchdog" courts or regulatory organizations no longer seem to matter? What does it say that the entities designed to protect personal privacy rights seem to have either been effectively "captured" or become toothless tigers?
In President Eisenhower's legendary 1960 farewell address, he warned of the potential power of the military-industrial complex. Ike's 20th century formulation represented the intertwining of the U.S. military and private contractors to achieve two complementary goals. First, it sought to help corporations make guaranteed, cost-plus profits and to provide glide-path retirement programs for the military brass. Second, it sought to influence Congress and thus shape foreign policy, helping fulfill the then just-emerging global imperialist strategy.
Today's corporate-state surveillance complex demonstrates a comparable intertwining of U.S. policing forces and private companies in the monitoring of domestic life. It is being implemented thanks to the technology fruits of a half-century of the military-industrial complex. The Defense Department created the Internet and what it can do in Yemen it can do in Oakland. The global war on terrorism is coming home!
In the wake of the Great Recession, we are living through a great economic and social restructuring. The global world order is shifting and, accordingly, America's class and social relations are being reordered. Occupy Wall Street's formulation of the social crisis, the 1% vs. the 99%, has become the shorthand descriptor of this restructuring of American economic relations. No time is better to impose high-tech social disciple then one marked by economic and social crisis. The unanswered question is obvious: Are we witnessing the formation of the high-tech police state?
* * *
To reiterate, the four-headed corporate-state surveillance hydra consists of (i) federal agencies; (ii) state and local law enforcement entities; (iii) telecoms, web sites & Internet "apps" companies; and (iv) private data aggregators. The following overview sketches out the parameters of the ever-growing domestic spy state, how it's being implemented and some of the more egregious examples of abuse of public trust if not the law.
#1 — Federal Surveillance
The attacks of 9/11 and the subsequent (and endless) "war on terror" continue to provide the rationale for an ever-expanding domestic security state. The leading agencies gathering data on Americans (and others) include the National Security Agency (NSA), Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Defense (DoD) as well as the FBI and IRS. In the wake of 9/11, the NSA took the lead in federal domestic cyber surveillance, but in 2010 the NSA ceded this authority to the DHS.
Personal information is gathered from a host of both public and private sources. One source is "public records" that can range from birth, marriage and death records; court filings, arrest records, driver's license information, property ownership registrations (e.g., car or house), tax records, professional licenses and even Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Another source is "private" records from ChoicePoint and LexisNexis as well as credit reporting agencies such as Equifax, Experian Information Solutions and Trans Union LLC.


text:
There were 76 whole blood donors at the September Blood Drive in St. James this past week. Volunteers wanted to thank everyone who gave the gift of life last Thursday and Friday.
There were 76 whole blood donors at the September Blood Drive in St. James this past week. Volunteers wanted to thank everyone who gave the gift of life last Thursday and Friday.
The process of giving blood takes an average of eight minutes – depending on how much water a donor has drunk throughout the day and the size of the vein. One unit of blood is about 450 ml, or just under a pint and can save up to three lives.
After donation, donors can enjoy cookies made by the Eagles Ladies and snacks donated by the Keebler company. All donors are also given fluid to rehydrate.
Also taking place in the September blood drive was double red cell donation. There were a total of 20 double red donors, making the total units of blood given in St. James this September 115.
According to the Red Cross website, "double red cell donation is similar to a whole blood donation, except a special machine is used to allow you to safely donate two units of red blood cells during one donation while returning your plasma and platelets to you."
Red blood cells are the most frequently used component of blood and are therefore some of the most important components of blood. Almost every transfusion taking place uses red blood cells. Double red cell donation allows for twice the amount of red blood cells to be removed as compared to normal donation, and only takes about twenty minutes longer.
Double red cell donors can give blood every four months. People who donate blood through the double red cell machine get all of the liquid of their blood returned to them, which makes them feel a bit more hydrated after giving. Ask about double red cell donation the next time you donate!


text:
The Phils offense is once again shutout as they are three-hit by Pirates pitching as they lose, 3-0.
The Phils gain only three hits, all by Chase Utley, as they are shutout for the third straight game as they lose to the Pirates, 3-0, in their last spring training game as tonight's game has been cancelled due to rain.
The Pirates broke up a 0-0 tie in the top of the sixth as, with a man on second, and with one man out, Russell Martin hits an RBI double, knocking in Andrew McCutchen, who had earlier been safe at first on a force out, 5-4, wiping out at second base Travis Snider, who had started the inning off with a walk, then moved up to second base on Phillippe Aumont's wild pitch, giving the Pirates a 1-0 lead. The Pirates then made it a 2-0 lead as Neil Walker hit an RBI single, scoring Martin. The Pirates then added to their lead in the eighth as, with a man on third, and with two men out, Clint Barmes hits an RBI single, knocking in Gaby Sanchez, who had earlier doubled, then moved up to third base on Jordy Mercer's ground out, 3-unassisted, giving the Pirates a 3-0 lead. That would end up being the final score as Ryan Beckman collected his first save of the spring as he threw a 1-2-3 ninth inning, getting Jimmy Rollins to fly out to right for the game's final out.
Kyle Kendrick pitched five shutout innings, giving up three hits and two walks, while striking out two. Phillippe Aumont (0-3, 4.05) took the lost as he went a third of an inning, giving up two runs on a hit, a walk and a wild pitch. Antonio Bastardo pitched two-thirds of an inning, giving up two hits. B.J. Rosenberg pitched a scoreless inning, giving up two hits and a walk, while striking out a batter. Mario Hollands pitched a third of an inning, getting out the only man whom he would face. Jake Diekman pitched two-thirds of an inning, giving up a run on two hits and a walk, while striking out a batter. Jonathan Papelbon pitched a 1-2-3 inning, striking out the side. Charlie Morton and Jason Grilli combined for four shutout innings, giving up two hits (one hit each) between them, while striking out a batter (Morton). Tony Watson (2-0, 0.00) got the win as he pitched a 1-2-3 inning. Bryan Morris collected his fourth hold of the spring as he threw a 1-2-3 inning, striking out a batter. Jeanmar Gomez received his second hold of the spring as he threw a scoreless inning, giving up a hit, while striking out a batter. Jhonathan Ramos received his first hold of the spring, as he threw a 1-2-3 inning. Ryan Beckman collected his first save of the spring, as he threw a 1-2-3 ninth.
The Phils had only three hits in the game, all by Chase Utley, two doubles and a single. The Phils had no walks in the game while the defense committed an error (Cody Asche) in the game, along with an outfield assist (Dom Brown) and a pickoff (B.J. Rosenberg).
The Phils ended spring training on a sour note as tonight's game was rained out. Their next game will be their season opener against the Texas Rangers at Globe Life Park in Arlington, Texas. The game is to start at 2:05 pm EDT (1:05 pm CDT). The Phils will send to the mound Cliff Lee (0-0, -.–) while the Rangers will counter with Tanner Scheppers (0-0, -.–). The Phils will be trying to start the 2014 season on a good note, while planning to break out of their present hitting slump.