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Frederik Wellmann
begun c. 1904/1905 with two entries dated 1908-10-13.
A. MS. notebook
Four given rays may be crossed by how many rays? The analysis of the Four-ray problem requires a consideration of continuity which in its primitive, i.e., simple, sense has the form of time. Time as a determination of actuality (later see annotation CSP dissents). Definition of terms, e.g., instant, gradations. "I will not take up more of this book with the subject of discrete quantity But I refer to a similar book labelled 'All Pure Quantity merely ordinal' [MS. 224] for more about it."
Actuality (see also Existence Fact Secondness), Continuity, Fourray problem, graphics, topical (topics or topology), Gradations, Instant, Mathematics, Quantity, Time
1904/1905~, 1908-10-13
begun c. 1904/1905 with two entries dated 1908-10-13.


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subset: commoncrawl


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ALSO...an animal study on CCSVI has already been done....in the 1930s in dogs by Dr. Putnam
(5) Putnam (1935). Studies in multiple sclerosis: encephalitis and sclerotic plaques produced by venular obstruction. Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry. 33: 929-940.
Let's read Dr. Haacke's research and discuss....With an ingenious idea, he proceeded to study the effects of obstructed venous flow in the cerebral veins of dogs. These animals developed a number of abnormalities many of them similar to encephalitis or multiple sclerosis. His comment at the end of his paper was as follows (5): "The later stages (up to ten months) of the lesions consist of plaques of demyelinization with practically complete preservation of the axis-cylinders and with dense fibrous gliosis confined to the white matter. The similarity between such lesions and many of those seen in cases of multiple sclerosis in man is so striking that the conclusion appears almost inevitable that venular obstruction is the essential immediate antecedent fo the formation of typical sclerotic plaques.


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maxclark needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 39 designs submitted by 26 freelance designers.
We need a logo for a SMS (text message) focused company.
txtay provides email & widget to SMS messaging services. We need a Web 2.0 style logo (capitalization of letters open to suggestions) to use for our web site and other marketing materials. Logo submissions must be in primary colors (no gradiants to make printing easier) as well as a black and white version to help compare between the entries.
- Final delivery in .ai, .eps and/or .psd
- No gradiants
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


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By Matthew Heimer
I've had a love-hate relationship with running for the last two decades (love being able to fit into my pants, hate the actual running). And like many of my peers I'll be cautiously reinvesting in that relationship this week as I do penance for my holiday excesses. But as I do so, I'll be mindful of Kevin Helliker's recent article in the Wall Street Journal, One Running Shoe in the Grave. The thesis: While running, like all forms of cardiovascular exercise, is undoubtedly beneficial to boomers, doing too much of it can essentially erase many of the health benefits.
Helliker highlights a study in the British journal Heart that followed the exercise habits of more than 50,000 people for three decades. Helliker explains that while runners in the study group had a significantly lower death rate than non-runners, "those who ran a lot—more than 20 to 25 miles a week—lost that mortality advantage." Another large study, also cited in Heart, found that runners who ran faster than 8 miles per hour also saw no mortality benefit from their exercise. (An 8-mph pace equates to a seven-and-a-half minute mile, much slower than the typical elite race-winner's time.) Cardiologists offer several explanations, noting that older "extreme" athletes, while often healthier overall, are also more prone to cardiac abnormalities and atrial fibrillation, a heart arrhythmia that's a leading cause of stroke.
This research isn't decisive, of course, and every doctor and scientist knows that correlation isn't the same as causation. But more of the cardiological establishment seems to be lining up behind the point of view of cardiologist James O'Keefe, the author of the new Heart study (and a former champion triathlete), who tells Helliker: "After age 50, pushing too hard is probably not good for one's heart or longevity."
This is an updated version of an Encore post that originally ran on Nov. 30, 2012.


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Evans Jones - Business Administrator
Evans received a B.S. degree in Banking & Finance from USC. He has been married to Susan since 1969. They have three grown children and three grandchildren. Evans was President and owner of Howard B. Jones & Son, Inc., a tennis court construction company for 26 years. Since selling the business in 1999, he continues to work part time in three areas: volunteer Business Administrator for First Baptist of Lexington, Board Member of Boys Farm (a home for disadvantaged boys in Newberry, SC), and Board Member with Cutting Edge Foundation (establishing teaching hospitals across sub-Saharan Africa providing the medical and spiritual needs of the people).
Contact Evans
803-957-0686 ext. 1009


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Gothmund is a fishing village on the Trave between Lübeck and Travemünde near the Herrentunnel. Today, the area along with the the districts Karlshof and Israelsdorf, belongs to the St. Gertrud district of Lübeck. In Varendorf's map of 1796 the town was called "Goodmund".
The fishermen of Gothmund are first mentioned in 1502 in a log of Lübeck council.
The settlement was originally used as an intermediate station for the fishermen coming of the Baltic Sea back to the Lübeck ports at the Trave river. The natural harbour is separated by a belt of reeds by the Trave. Initially, only simple huts (refuges) for short term were built. Regular houses were erected later.
The thatched fishermen houses can now be viewed from a walkway that leads through the estate. The houses Fischerweg 10 to 18 are listed. The settlement itself is car free. Immediately west of the village begins the conservation area Schellbruch.
Gothmund can be easily reached by car as well as by bicycle coming either from Lübeck or from Travemünde.
[based upon the Gothmund article on de.wikipedia.org]
Germany? Before the beginning there was Ginnungagap, an empty space of nothingness, filled with pure creative power. (Sort of like the inside of my head.)And it ends with Ragnarok, the twilight of the Gods. In between is much fighting, betrayal and romance. Just as a good Godly story should be.Heroes have their own graveyard called Valhalla. Unfortunately we cannot show you a panorama of it at this time, nor of the lovely Valkyries who are its escort service.Hail Odin, wandering God wielding wisdom and wand! Hail Freya, hail Tyr, hail Thor!Odin made the many lakes and the fish in them. In his traverses across the lands he caused there to be the Mulheim Bridge in Cologne, as did he make the Mercury fountain, Mercury being of his nature.But it is to the mighty Thor that the Hammering Man gives service.Between the time of the Nordic old ones and that of modern Frankfort there may have been a T.Rex or two on the scene. At least some mastodons for sure came through for lunch, then fell into tar pits to become fossils for us to find.And there we must leave you, O my most pure and holy children.Text by Steve Smith.


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Treating Depression Prolongs Life for Older People with Diabetes
November 27, 2007
Also This Month: Lessons Learned from the Avandia Controversy
ALEXANDRIA, VA (November 27, 2007) – Depressed, older adults with diabetes live longer when they are treated for depression, according to a study in the December issue of Diabetes Care, which publishes on November 27, 2007.
Also being published this month is an editorial by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Medical Officer Dr. Robert Misbin, highlighting lessons learned from the recent Avandia controversy and suggesting a re-evaluation of the approval process for diabetes drugs.
The depression study, which followed primary care patients in the New York City, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh areas for five years, also showed that treating depression reduced mortality more for those who had diabetes than for those who did not.
"Depression is not only common in persons with diabetes but contributes to not taking medicines, not following prescribed diets, and overall reduced quality of life," said lead researcher Dr. Hillary R. Bogner, Assistant Professor at the Department of Family Practice and Community Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Depression and diabetes are two of the most commonly treated health problems treated in primary care settings. Previous studies have drawn a link between diabetes and depression, and between the combination of the two an increased risk of premature death. This is the first known study to examine the relationship between diabetes and mortality in a depression intervention trial.
The results led researchers to conclude that better models of care should be developed that integrate depression management into the treatment of people with diabetes.
Depressed people with diabetes who received more resources for depression treatment were half as likely to die over a 5-year period compared to depressed people with diabetes who did not receive more resources for depression treatment.
To reach lead researcher Dr. Hillary Bogner, phone: 215-756-1247 or email: firstname.lastname@example.com.
Lessons from the Avandia Controversy
"The time has come to reassess what should be expected of a new drug to treat diabetes," concludes an editorial written by Dr. Robert Misbin, a Medical Officer for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The editorial suggests that the FDA "reevaluate criteria for approval of drugs to treat type 2 diabetes," in light of the recent controversy surrounding the diabetes drug rosiglitazone (Avandia).
Rosiglitazone, approved by the FDA in 1999, came under fire earlier this year when a meta-analysis in the New England Journal of Medicine reported that it may increase the risk of heart attacks. An FDA advisory committee concluded that the evidence against the drug's safety was insufficient to have it withdrawn from the market. But the episode "undermined the confidence that patients have in the drugs they take and in the physicians who prescribe those drugs," Misbin wrote. "It cast further doubt on FDA's ability to protect patients from harm."
Misbin concluded that it "is no longer enough" to show that a new drug is more effective than placebo in lowering glucose levels. "New drugs should be tested in comparison to other antidiabetic agents that are already in use," he wrote. "A plan should be in place at the time of approval that will determine what benefits and harm can be expected from chronic use."
To reach editorial author Dr. Misbin, phone: 301-434-4618 or 240-205 3709 or email: firstname.lastname@example.com.
Diabetes Care, published by the American Diabetes Association, is the leading peer-reviewed journal of clinical research into the nation's fifth leading cause of death by disease. Diabetes also is a leading cause of heart disease and stroke, as well as the leading cause of adult blindness, kidney failure, and non-traumatic amputations. For more information about diabetes, visit the American Diabetes Association Web site www.diabetes.org or call 800-DIABETES (800-342-2383).
About the ADA
The American Diabetes Association is the nation's premier voluntary health organization supporting diabetes research, information and advocacy. Founded in 1940, the Association has offices in every region of the country, providing services to hundreds of communities. The Association's commitment to research is reflected through its scientific meetings; education and provider recognition programs; and its Research Foundation and Nationwide Research Program, which fund breakthrough studies looking into the cure, prevention, and treatment of diabetes and its complications. For more information, visit diabetes.org or call 800-DIABETES (800-342-2383).
About the American Diabetes Association
Nearly half of American adults have diabetes or prediabetes; more than 30 million adults and children have diabetes; and every 21 seconds, another individual is diagnosed with diabetes in the U.S. Founded in 1940, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) is the nation's leading voluntary health organization whose mission is to prevent and cure diabetes, and to improve the lives of all people affected by diabetes. The ADA drives discovery by funding research to treat, manage and prevent all types of diabetes, as well as to search for cures; raises voice to the urgency of the diabetes epidemic; and works to safeguard policies and programs that protect people with diabetes. In addition, the ADA supports people living with diabetes, those at risk of developing diabetes, and the health care professionals who serve them through information and programs that can improve health outcomes and quality of life. For more information, please call the ADA at 1-800-DIABETES (1-800-342-2383) or visit diabetes.org. Information from both of these sources is available in English and Spanish. Find us on Facebook (American Diabetes Association), Twitter (@AmDiabetesAssn) and Instagram (@AmDiabetesAssn)


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On Aug. 29 Catholic Charities USA created a special Hurricane Isaac Fund to help fund its immediate and long-term response to widespread damage left behind by the storm. • Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R., a well-known Catholic author and television personality, has given up his longtime spot on the cable network EWTN after making comments that seemed to excuse some priest pedophiles as "seduced" by teens; he later apologized. • South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu refused to share a platform during a conference in Johannesburg with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and suggested that Blair and former U.S. President George W. Bush should be tried for war crimes related to the invasion of Iraq. • The freshmen class at Chicago's St. Patrick's High School is the first in the archdiocese to use iPads during daily instruction in a move to replace textbooks for the entire student body by 2014. • New York's Archbishop Timothy Dolan offered the benediction at both major party conventions this year, and Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of Network, said during an address at the Democratic Party convention in Charlotte, N.C., on Sept. 5 that U.S. nuns "agree with our bishops" in criticizing Republican budget proposals.
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.


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Bruins D McQuaid leaves game after Cooke hit
Pittsburgh, PA – Boston Bruins defenseman Adam McQuaid left his club's 3-0 victory in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals on Saturday with an apparent upper-body injury.
McQuaid was hurt at the 1:32 mark of the second period, when he was hit from behind into the end boards by Penguins forward Matt Cooke while both were pursuing a puck behind the Boston net.
The young defenseman was down on the ice for several moments before being taken to the locker room.
Cooke was given a major for checking from behind and a game misconduct for his actions.


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Lingerie Wholesale
A ladies' lacey underwear set: bra with lacey cups and decorative straps crisscrossed at the back, shoulder straps. Matching lacey panties. Available in different coloursA cleavage-enhancing set (...)
Women's underwear
In the women's underwear category, fashfactory.com has all the indispensible elements of every woman's wardrobe, such as stockings, socks and tights or pantyhose, both warm and light, as well as elegant for more formal occasions. Among the pyjamas we have on offer, there are sleeping sets which are both elegant and comfortable. To feel comfortable during a day, you may also want to choose slimming cotton bodysuits. For harsh winters and cool autumns we offer lace-up dressing gowns with pockets while for hot summer and spring nights we have in stock light flowered nightgowns.
They include a wide range of sizes, e.g. extra small or plus sizes, not to mention fabrics e.g. jacquard or lace, prints and embellishment e.g. leopard spots or floral motifs etc. We make sure that the items in this category are carefully selected and kept up-to-date so that every woman can find the right model, colour and size for herself, including all new arrivals and customer favourites to keep you on track with the trends, fashion and the seasons.


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Will from StoryStack necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 159 diseños de 46 diseñadores freelance.
StoryStack is a web app that lets groups of people put their photos, videos and notes together to create digital magazines about their shared experiences.
StoryStack has 3 key features that set it apart from other content-sharing sites:
- It's Collaborative (You invite people to add content, you work together)
- It's Multimedia (Photos, Video, and Text at least)
- It's Supports Narratives (The interface is conducive to storytelling)
Any group of people who want to tell a story about a shared experience together.
For instance
- A group trip
- A wedding party
- Baby albums.
- A virtual yearbook
- Famous or historical people, places and things
Clearly, this casts a wide net, but it's focused on GROUPS cataloging SHARED EXPERIENCES.
We're looking for a logo for StoryStack, a new web app.
While we're open to many different concepts, keep in mind that StoryStack has 3 main features that set it apart from other content-sharing sites:
- It's collaborative (you build magazines with friends)
- It's multimedia (photos, videos, text, etc)
- It's narrative-based (it lets people tell stories)
(This doesn't mean you need to strain to include all of these features in the logo itself)
- We do NOT want a child-like feel. StoryStack should appeal to people of all ages.
- We do NOT want an overly literary feel. StoryStack isn't for lonely writers - it's for groups who want to collaborate on something meaningful together.
- We do NOT want just "SS." It has negative connotations (Nazi stormtroopers).
We require the logo in:
Print file format - .ai
Please do not use any stock images or clip art in the logo.
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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|Send News. Want a reply? Read this. More in the FAQ. News Forum - All Forums - Mobile - PDA - RSS Headlines Twitter
Ubisoft officially announces Assassin's Creed III, confirming the previously revealed setting during the American Revolutionary War. This includes word that the game will be released on October 30, 2012, and an announcement trailer. Here's word:
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With the waist high under the bust, the Patricia shapes the body with gussets at the top giving roundness to the bust. This corset features a removable center front wooden busk that lifts and separates the bust as was the fashion of the day. This style has shoulder straps attached with adjustable front lacing.
Fabrics and colors: natural, white, beige, or black 100% cotton coutil.
Sizes: S, M, L, XL, 2XL. [Sizing info] [Custom sizes]


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The Law offices of Paul Aghabala are now Located in Sherman Oaks in the San Fernando Valley of California. Our new phone number is: (818)788-0808. We are dedicated and specialize in resolving Personal Injury cases for our clients in the greater Los Angeles area.
The Law offices of Paul Aghabala are conveniently located in the city of Sherman Oaks within a short 46 minutes drive from San Dimas
Paul Aghabala is a Los Angeles Personal injuries Attorney Specializes in all cases of Personal Injuries
The Law offices of Paul Aghabala are centralized in Los Angeles County,Sherman Oaks and Woodland Hills. We can be found on the internet under "Los Angeles Personal Injuries Lawyer"," Sherman Oaks Personal Injury Lawyer ", and " Woodland Hills Personal Injury Lawyer".


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Dig. Dig, dig, dig. Dig, dig.
Mike Napoli's right foot cuts into the dirt in the back of the batter's box, creating an ever-deepening trench the Red Sox first baseman uses for his stance.
In a single night, that digging will account for 39.5 seconds over four at-bats, and for 1 minute and 18 seconds over a three-game series against the Blue Jays last month.
And it's not just Napoli. Some of his teammates seem to barely stand in the box during their at-bats, stepping out after each pitch to adjust batting gloves (David Ortiz), take off their helmets (Jonny Gomes), and wander around the dirt and sometimes even the grass (Jacoby Ellsbury).
It's those quirks and routines, coupled with mound visits and pitching changes, that give baseball its unique flow and plague it with dead time. And it's why Red Sox games are averaging 3 hours, 11 minutes, and 34 seconds this year, the longest of any team in baseball.
Five years ago, Major League Baseball sought to address its pace-of-game problem, issuing a directive to players, coaches, and umpires to — so to speak — make it snappy. From 2008 to 2011, games averaged around 2 hours and 51 minutes. After a bump to 2:55:58 in 2012, game times this year through Thursday are averaging 2:57:53 — a mark that would tie the 2000 season for the all-time high.
In 1963, when Vin Scully was in his 13th year as Dodgers broadcaster, games averaged 2 hours and 25 minutes. What could have added a solid half-hour since then?
"I partly blame it on Velcro," said Scully, now in his 63d year in the booth, referring to the advent of batting gloves and players' tendency to adjust them unceasingly during at-bats. (While it's unclear who was first to use them, Ken Harrelson is widely credited with popularizing them in the 1960s.)
"In the old days," Scully said, "there was no nonsense, no fussing."
Batting gloves aren't the only reason, of course. There are the changes on the mound: from 4.8 pitchers per nine-inning game in 1963 to 7.7 in 2012, as situational specialists have become de rigueur.
There is the soaring number of strikeouts — from 12.52 per game in 1999 to 14.72 in 2013 — with all five individual seasons of 200-plus strikeouts occurring in the last five years. There have been more batters going deep into counts as walks and on-base percentage rose in prominence amid the Moneyball-ization of the game.
There are the commercial breaks, which account for at least 34 minutes on local broadcasts in a full nine-inning game (41 minutes for nationally televised games); that figure rises with pitching changes. Play doesn't resume, of course, until the networks return from commercial breaks. Those allotments, though, have remained the same since 1990, according to baseball officials, and still game times have crept up by about 10 minutes.
"The pace of our games is important to us," said Joe Torre, MLB's executive vice president for baseball operations. "We all want games to be played sharply and to keep wasted time and unnecessary breaks to a minimum. We respect the fact that players are routine-driven, but at the same time, we have to make sure that games move efficiently.
"Because there are so many various factors — players, umpires, broadcasting, in-game entertainment for fans and many others — this is a topic that is not as simple as it might seem. The Commissioner's Special Committee for On-Field Matters has discussed a number of ways that could impact our time of game with the understanding that we have to balance our desire for games to be played crisply with all the traditions and realities of our game."
So blame Harrelson. Blame Tony La Russa. Blame Mark Reynolds. Blame Billy Beane. Blame Major League Baseball and its attempts to address the issue.
"I think there's a lot of things they can do," said Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester. "But a lot of things they're not going to do."
Breaking it down
While nine-inning games averaged 2:56 in 2012, the Red Sox averaged 3:04. And against the Yankees, it was even worse: 3:19, down from a high of 3:31 in 2007.
"I think it's the Red Sox' fault," said Rays pitcher Jeremy Hellickson, himself one of the slowest pitchers in baseball. "Pitchers. Hitters."
To break down exactly what is taking so long, the Globe picked a random series in May — three games against the Blue Jays at Fenway Park — and analyzed every second that went into each game: from the time it took to remove the tarp on Friday (10 minutes, 18 seconds) to Blue Jays pitcher Ramon Ortiz tying his shoes (6 seconds) to Gomes adjusting his helmet (52 seconds over six at-bats) to the "God Bless America" break on Sunday (4 minutes, 24 seconds).
The conclusion? You can get a beer from the concession stand in the time it takes Gomes to get to the plate, but don't blink when Will Middlebrooks approaches.
As calculated by the Globe, Gomes was the slowest of those who saw at least 20 pitches in the series, at 11.62 seconds per pitch. He is followed by Daniel Nava at 11.02, Napoli at 9.29, and Ellsbury at 9.27. The fastest? That would be Middlebrooks at 4.60, with Victorino (5.84) and Dustin Pedroia (6.42) behind him.
"I've always had that thought in the back of my mind that I don't want to be that guy," Victorino said. "I want to go. Let's go."
But it's not just what happens at the plate. It's getting there, too.
Watch a game from 1969, as the Globe did, and there is no walkup music. There is no preening (and there are no batting gloves). The look-at-me showmanship doesn't exist.
It is like watching a current game on 1.5 speed, which makes sense, because the 1969 game, a complete-game win for Orioles pitcher Mike Cuellar, took just 2 hours, 21 minutes to play. There are still mound conferences. Trainers still come out to look at hit batsmen. It just all happens faster.
It's not that the batters stay in the box after every pitch. But they do after some of them. The twitches — where they exist — consist mostly of a few kicks of the dirt, a few swings of the bat. When he walks to the plate, Carl Yastrzemski rubs a little dirt on his palms. That's all.
"Most of the time, these guys come out to their music and have to stand there and listen to it — I don't know, get pumped up for some reason," Blue Jays pitcher Mark Buehrle said.
Middlebrooks, again, stands as a shining tribute to speed, taking an average of just 16.48 seconds from the time he steps on the dirt to the time he's ready to receive the first pitch. Gomes, meanwhile, clocks in at 32.37 and Napoli at 28.57. Yastrzemski, for the record, takes 12.7 seconds to get from the dirt into the batter's box.
When shown the numbers, many of the Red Sox — and Rays and Yankees — were surprised. They don't believe they take that long. Gomes, for instance, argues that he never steps out of the box — which, while technically true, hardly means he's ready to receive a pitch throughout his at-bat. And some, like Ortiz, argue that they use the time to plan out their at-bat, to think through all they need to do.
"I think the biggest thing is just making the pitcher and making the hitter accountable for what they're doing at that particular time," Lester said. "If that cuts off five minutes of a game, that's five minutes."
The slow-pitch game
There is no consensus on culpability. Pitchers blame batters. Batters blame pitchers.
Buehrle, who recently treated the Red Sox to a 2:42 game, is among the fastest-working pitchers in the majors, ranked second by fangraphs.com according to its "pitcher pace statistic" (which measures time between pitches) at 18.1 seconds.
Asked how long he generally spends waiting for the batter, he said, "90 percent of the time."
"It's annoying," Buehrle said. "Guys don't even swing the bat, take a pitch, and then they get out and adjust their batting gloves. Some of it might be just habit or routine or superstition that they do it, but you didn't even swing the bat — why do you have to tighten your batting gloves?"
And while Buehrle might not be the reason for long games, some of his fellow starting pitchers aren't as innocent. Houston's Bud Norris is the biggest offender, according to fangraphs, coming in at a whopping 25.7 seconds between pitches. The average is about 21.5, and the Rays had three starters among the 11 slowest before David Price dropped off the list with too few innings to qualify.
Clay Buchholz, who is 11th at 24.2, is just one of many Red Sox pitchers who have been near the top the list in recent years. As Rays manager Joe Maddon said of Daisuke Matsuzaka, Josh Beckett, and Jonathan Papelbon: "Those are the three worst. Of all time. They're Hall of Fame procrastinators."
Said Ortiz, "I remember I was playing defense behind Daisuke once, and I almost told [then-manager Terry Francona] to get me out of the game because I was worn out by the third inning."
The Sox, at least, are trying to correct that this season, with new pitching coach Juan Nieves emphasizing aggressiveness and pitcher pace.
"It's like running a sprint and taking a marathon pace," Nieves said of slow pitchers. "It's a very rhythmic game — swinging the bat, fielding the baseball. A lot of art goes into it, graceful art. And I think the slower pace you have, it almost looks out there like you're dying a slow death."
There are added benefits, too, for pitchers who don't waste time.
"If you have a pitcher that has a good tempo, as a defender you almost want to score runs for that pitcher," said Yankees outfielder Ichiro Suzuki through his translator. "And vice versa. If you're slow, you're kind of dragging, you're not [saying], 'Let's score runs for this guy.' "
One of the ways baseball has tried to solve its pace problem is through fines, with Papelbon, the former Sox closer now with the Phillies, a prime target.
Papelbon got fined at least a half-dozen times. Penalties started at $1,500, escalated to $2,000, then went to $2,500 and up, he said.
He only changed his routine when he was called into a meeting with Francona, then-pitching coach John Farrell, and then-GM Theo Epstein in 2010. That year, he was first in the majors among relievers at 31.6 seconds between pitches. He's now fifth at 29.5 in 2013.
MLB has made other efforts to institute changes, notably in 2002, when it hired three former players — Bill Madlock, Jeff Newman, and Tom Lawless — to watch games and advise Bob Watson, the vice president for on-field operations, on pace-of-game issues.
"It was, where are we wasting minutes?" said Lawless, now a coach with Houston's Triple A affiliate. "When one inning started at 2:20 and the next inning started at 2:40, then how long did it take for a pitching change?"
According to the Globe's calculations, a middle-of-the-inning pitching change takes anywhere from 2:40 to 3:28, depending on how soon the manager takes the ball and how fast the reliever jogs in from the bullpen.
"It was really a matter of making the players and coaches aware of the time, and trying to keep them more on schedule," Lawless said. "There are some things you can't stop. You can't stop the managers from making pitching changes."
Drastic step in minors
There is one thing that seems to have been effective, and could be effective again. Rewind to 2007, to Middlebrooks's first professional at-bat in the fall instructional league, a moment he had waited for all his life.
Strike one swinging. Ball. Strike called.
Middlebrooks stepped out of the box. Strike three.
He was called out on a rules violation that the then-19-year-old didn't even know existed. That season, baseball instituted a ban in the minor leagues on leaving the batter's box if the player hadn't swung at the preceding pitch.
It resulted in bizarre moments, such as one with Red Sox minor leaguer Josh Papelbon on the mound in a Single A game. As Sox assistant general manager Mike Hazen recalled, Papelbon had two outs and two strikes on the batter. The tying run was on third. The batter stepped out.
Game over.
"It was crazy," Hazen said. "It didn't go over very well and they stopped doing it shortly thereafter because it was causing more problems than what they had hoped to get out of it. All that stuff kind of died."
Except, technically, it didn't. The rules haven't changed. While umpires might have pulled back on enforcement, minor league batters should still receive a strike if they step out of the box without one of eight proscribed situations occurring. Taking a strike isn't one of them.
While such a rule won't be instituted in the majors, who knows how many batters the enforcement in 2007 affected? Who knows how much slower Middlebrooks would have been without that experience?
"It's always about teaching them in the minor leagues," said Maddon. "And that's the key. If you want to really change behavior, you've got to change it before they get here."
Other suggestions seem unlikely to be acted on.
MLB could eliminate mound visits, one former pitcher said. MLB could stop changing baseballs every time they hit the dirt, Hazen offered. MLB could forego fines and start using suspensions, Yankees catcher Chris Stewart said. Batters and pitchers could take their cellphones to the mound and, as Middlebrooks joked, "Text the new signs."
But one thing that might work is peer pressure.
"Internal pressure from the group," Maddon said. "That's probably the most effective. That, to me, would be the best way to get somebody to speed up."
Lawless said one tactic would be for managers to alert the umpire that they are planning on making a pitching change when they step out of the dugout, as opposed to waiting until they've reached the mound and conferenced with a pitcher. But the decision hasn't always been made by then.
There are some people who could help, too. As Lawless said, "It was really up to the umpires to make the game keep on moving."
There are rules to govern pace of play. Rule 6.02 reads, "The batter shall take his position in the batter's box promptly when it is his time at bat." And batters are not supposed to leave the batter's box except for specified reasons — and they're never allowed to leave the dirt surrounding home plate.
There are rules for pitchers, too, including Rule 8.04, which says, "When the bases are unoccupied, the pitcher shall deliver the ball to the batter within 12 seconds after he receives the ball." The clock begins on that when the pitcher is in possession of the ball, and ends when he releases it.
Not that everyone knows the rule. The Rays' Hellickson said, "I don't think you could really make a rule [about] how fast we have to get rid . . . oh, is there? I would like to see one."
Any end in sight?
Can baseball really change what it has become?
It is no longer a sport of 2½-hour games (despite the 2:30 gift bestowed by the Phillies' Cliff Lee recently at Fenway Park). It is a sport that embraces its grass-growing pace, even as that could turn away some potential fans.
"Way too long. Period," said Bob, an usher at Fenway Park since 1994 who declined to give his last name because ushers are told to clear any comments to the media through the club. "The other sports, lacrosse especially, have taken over with the young kids. I see it with my grandchildren; I see it in the ballparks.
"People come in here, I'm sure they enjoy the game, but they look at the clock, 'Geez, it's 10 past 10 and there's still two more innings to go.' "
That, he said, has had its effect on fans, on kids, on generating interest in the next generation.
And, still, the pace of play is only getting worse.
"In between pitches, they lose interest a little bit," said Jerry Roche, who with wife Michelle brought Brogan and Abigail to a game on Brogan's fifth birthday. "It's not as fast. I thought it was the seventh inning — it was the fourth."
They were leaving at 9:25 p.m. on a Wednesday. It was the top of the seventh inning.
"I don't think they're ever going to go in the other direction," Lawless said. "Everything is so much down to detail now. Everything hangs on one pitch, [so] everything kind of slows down."
Plus, batters are seeing more pitches than ever (from 3.75 pitches per batter in 1999 to 3.86 in 2013), and striking out more than ever. But while the number of hits per game has remained roughly the same since the '60s, both runs per game and walks per game are down over the last 15 years.
So the lengthening games aren't resulting from more offense. Fewer balls are being put in play, in fact.
But not everyone is against longer games.
"It's good," said Dustin Pedroia. "The fans get to see more baseball. It should take longer. Fans pay a lot of money to come watch us play. Why would they want it to be so quick?"
Still, there are more complaints than praise. Especially because it's something that could be fixed with the right efforts. And yet, baseball hasn't exactly focused on cleaning up the dead time that continues to stretch out, longer and longer, approaching three hours — and potentially beyond.
"They've got to do something to help," said Lester. "This is where baseball is. There's things we can do to maybe help it, but it's going to be three hours regardless."Amalie Benjamin can be reached at abenjamin@
globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @amaliebenjamin.


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Microsoft Streets & Trips 2013: The New Edition Of America's #1 Best-selling Map And Travel Planning Software
Description: Making efficient, customized road trip plans is now easier than ever with the launch of Microsoft Streets & Trips 2013, the new edition of America's #1 best-selling map and travel planning software. Streets & Trips 2013 is designed to help road-trippers plan the perfect trip from start to finish – generate maps and directions, customize with start and stop times, and add notes such as reservation numbers or operating hours – all without an Internet connection. The 2013 version includes an updated user interface, designed for easy, on-the-go viewing, over 2.5 million points of interest with online ratings and reviews, and 150,000 new miles of roads in North America. One-click route optimization provides the most efficient route, and a fuel consumption manager helps consumers budget gasoline costs. While on the road, Streets & Trips helps travelers find necessities such as ATMs, hotels, auto services, restaurants and more, helping plan for — or discover — plenty of fun and useful stops along the way. Microsoft Streets & Trips is available for purchase, online at the Microsoft Store for an estimated retail price of $39.99 (U.S.). Microsoft Streets & Trips with GPS Locator is available for $69.99 (U.S.). Download a free 14-day trial version at http://www.microsoft.com/streets/travel.
Price: $39.99 to $69.99


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Welcome to my blog and the place where I will post my photos and musings from my life as an ultrarunner. My nickname "Shining" was given to me by a group of very special students after I finished my first 100-miler, the Massanutten Mountain Trails 100. They were the inspiration that enabled me to finish this awesome race, and I try to live each day with a "shining" attitude!
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
If you build it...
...many will come!
Harry Landers is my Charlottesville running buddy who is a Boston Marathon regular,an aspiring ultrarunner, and overall good guy. Last May he joined me and some friends for the awesome Rip-Rap/Wildcat Ridge circuit run, complete with the Super Secret Swimming Hole. This was his first long run in the mountains and he was a rock star! No whining, totally in control of his pace and cruising comfortably after 4+ hours...until he snagged his foot on the trail and took a tumble. No worries, though! Harry brushed it off with style and continued down the trail for the last hour of the run...with a broken collarbone.
Harry at the super secret swimming hole
Of course, the fact that he didn't mention this little detail to anyone until he pulled his shirt off at the finish endeared himself to the ultraunners present---what a tough dude! So, I named the run after him.
Thanks to Facebook, the 2011 Harry Landers Special brought together VHTRC, CAT, IMTR, Richmond Road Runners, and Boston Bound members for a wonderful day in the mountains. I enjoyed watching so many of my friends from different places meet one another at the start, run together on the trails, and exchange contact information after the run. I loved that! I especially loved seeing my friend Linda run her first 21+ miler in the mountains with nary an issue. Woop! So proud of you, Linda!
I also must send a shout out to Kirstin and Tom Corris for braving the 30-foot rope swing into Blue Hole, the fave swimming hole of the UVA student crowd. They were like kids in a candy store, swinging from that rope into the cool waters of the Moormans River below. Very impressive---that is one high leap!!
The CATs, Sabrina, Kirstin, and Jenny wrote awesome reports. Thanks for joining us, everyone!
Posted by Sophie Speidel at 11:05 AM
3 comments:
- Rick Gray said...
And you built it Sophie. Sounds like such a great run. One day I hope to make it up for your little shindig!
- June 2, 2011 at 2:41 PM
- ultrarunnergirl said...
This was the best. run. ever! Hope no one else finds out about this place ...
Seriously, thank you so much for inviting us to this delightful place and hanging back with your Northern Virginia lollygaggers. It was a great day.
- June 4, 2011 at 9:06 AM
- ultrarunnergirl said...
- This comment has been removed by the author.
- June 4, 2011 at 9:08 AM
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maday needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 30 designs submitted by 10 freelance designers.
Kamper Hire
We're a camper van rental company.
Our target market varies, from young to old.
Apologies if the brief is pretty non existent but we've seen a logo we like the look of and think the same style could work well for us.
Kamper Hire in the same style/font as the Kwik Fit logo http://www.kwik-fit.com/home.asp
Same use of the large/extended K and perhaps large H in white on a blue back ground.
In italics
no icon
Would like to see different variations:
Kamperhire altogether (large K only)
Kamper Hire as two words (spaced)
KamperHire (no space with a large K & H)
but would also like to see your take on this.
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


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Last night during the fourth (or was it the fifth?) session of the (incredible) two day Everything Is Festival at the (awesome) Cinefamily establishment here in Los Angeles, they had a "Found Footage Battle Royale."
Now what that means is that the entrants had to submit 2 minute clips and then they'd face off against each other with the audience "applause-o-meter" deciding the winner of each round, who'd then move on to the next. The winner was a fellow named Uneven Eagle who presented clip after clip of an enigmatic Wausau, Wisconsin cable access fitness instructor named "Jim."
Once "Jim" was unleashed, no one else stood a chance.
There is next to nothing about this cinch-waisted fitness guru on the Internet, just a brief listing on the local cable access station's website. The show is aired there, amidst Lutheran and Baptist televangelists, the teachings of "Eckanar" (with Living ECK Master, Sri Harold Klemp) and The LaRouche Connection. Even in that company, Jim must stand out, as you can see from the following clips.
For over 20 years, "Jim" has hit record and videotaped himself brandishing a scimitar, his monological musings on having a "little body," "fat farm boy hands" and the price of magazines, pork chops and apples, as well as his thoughts on the films of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Because "Jim" edits his show "in camera" (i.e. starts and stops the camera between scenes) he has to hold still for several seconds after each set up to avoid the camera preroll erasing the previous scene. So he just stares into the camera. The winner of the contest had a final clip of these moments all cut together. Maybe it was the free beer, but the entire audience was shrieking in hysterics. The clips below are pretty much arranged in the order that the audience saw them in.
Above: "We can pretend we're Hercules and we're crushing…something. Something evil."
More "Staying Fit With Jim" clips after the jump…


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Lawn Mower Racing
G-Team Racing offers a wide variety of high performance Lawn Mower Racing Parts, and Instructional DVDs for those who have lots of questions, but still want to build a High Performance Racing Mower themselves.
If you're looking for custom built G-Force Lawn Mower Engines or parts for your Lawn Mower Racing Engine by Briggs & Stratton, ARC, and others...We have them at G-Team!
Want to know what's new at G-Team Racing? Check out the following links to the latest hot products in the G-Team line along with our monthly sales.
- G-Team Featured on Machine Design
- G-Team Awarded Sta-Bil Sponsorship 2009
- G-Team displays mower at America on Wheels Museum
- G-Team brings home 2007 USLMRA CP Class Championship
- The New G-Team Fast Front End!
- The new NDLMRA Website is up!
- Mower Music - From the Mower Men!
- Kickin Grass with G-Team!
- Racing Mower Chassis and Steering Components
- Briggs & Stratton G-Force Modified Lawn Mower Racing Engine Section!
~~ G-Team Hours! ~~
G-Team Racing offers a full line of Custom Lawn Mower Racing components; beginning with our custom built G-Force Lawn Mower Racing engines, G-Force Racing Cams, and entire Racing Mower Chassis. We also carry a substantial line of high performance Briggs & Stratton racing parts, and ARC Racing Parts for Briggs & Stratton Engines.
Have a special request in your Lawn Mower Racing needs? Need your favorite Briggs Racing Cam duplicated... Contact G-Team Racing for a quote!
Lawnmower Racing Tutorials & Instructional DVDs
Has your Racing Mowchine got you stumped? Do you have questions about how to set up or tweak your racing lawnmower? Need instructions on how to build a High Performance Briggs? Want to know what jet works best in what model carb? Can't turn left but you can turn right? Then order a copy of the the G-Team Racing DVD. Have questions you need answered up front by one of the experts, visit the HeyMow Forum! G-Team's founder, Don Gienger and other members of the US Lawn Mower Racing Association will do their best to answer your questions.
Looking for in-depth instruction on how to build a racing lawn mower, see our new G-Force instructional DVDs for the latest June 7, 2009 how to build a competitive Racing Mower from the ground up, is now as close as your DVD player, and available from G-Team Racing. See the Instructional DVD page to see what's available, and what's up next in respect to mowin' grass and haulin' ass.
Lawnmower Racing Links
Searching for links about the sport of Lawnmower Racing, maybe a local Lawn mower Racing Chapter, Lawnmower Racing Resources links, Mower Parts links, or just wanting to look at other Lawn Mower Racing Web sites. G-Team has Lawn Mower Racing links for you, whatever the case may be. Our G-Sources page sports the largest collection of Lawn Mower Racing links known to exist!!
And, having looked at every Lawnmower Racing link there I can safely say that folks!!
Lawnmower Racing News
Bismarck man mowing down the competition
He pulled the plug on the grinder right after a shower of sparks shot to the floor of the garage, just in front of a tall cupboard with a metal sign screwed to the door.
"Mr. Mow it All," it said.
That's what people in the mow call Don Gienger, though his yard isn't expertly trimmed or anything.
G-Team in the News:http://www.usatoday.com/life/gallery/2002-08-07-mower/flash.htm
NDLMRA in the News: http://www.kxmb.com/getArticle.asp?ArticleId=151394


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(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
Contact us for information about using this image.
This account of the military fine money collected by Captain Moses Scott of Bernardston, Massachusetts, finds that all the money is accounted for and he actually had 9 shillings 6 pence more. Men were assessed fines if they did not come out for militia training days, their equipment was not to specification, or they behaved badly.
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See Also...
Complaint of Distress against Thomas Rose by Job Barstow
Complaint of Distress against Heman Farnham
Warrant of Distress of Benoni Grover of Montague
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ecorockstars needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 69 designs submitted by 23 freelance designers.
Eco Rock Stars
I am a tree-hugging capitalist and eco-consultant. I sell a eco-consulting training program (see here: http://www.ecoconsultingcareers.com/) and need a rock star logo. My current logo and site layout aren't that great so I need your help. Here are the ideas I am trying to communicate to my target audience:
1. my competitors (green irene, ecoinstitution, etc.) can teach you to be an eco-consultant, we teach you how to be the BEST in the field. We teach you how to become a rock star.
2. my program is cutting edge, trend-setting and geared for web 2.0.
3. I am the expert in this field so you should choose my course over others.
People who are into 'green' but more the yoga-going greenies than the hardcore recycle-their-own-poop greenies. Target market is between 20-40 yrs old, more left-leaning politically, entrepreneurial, 60/40 woman/man distribution, somewhat spiritual and probably meditate. People who want to make a living making a difference in the world.
Here are a few things to think about:
1. No Cartoons - I want it to look cool, inspiring but not cheap or childlike.
2. Nothing too elegant - I do not want to come across as being some big corporation just trying to sell another online product.
3. The typeface should be clear, simple and bold. I want something that stands out.
Here is an example of a logo's pictures that I like:
1. http://supermarkethq.com/news_asset…r_full.jpg
3. http://forum.belmont.edu/business/P…20logo.jpg
4. https://s3.amazonaws.com/basec/1331…pwcajCg%3D
Please feel free to experiment with colors. For example, i like the purple color in #4.
The files we will require are:
Print file format - .ai (CMYK)
Web file format - .jpg and layered .psd (RGB)
Please do not use any stock images or clip art in the logo
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


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Nah, 6 September is not the birthday of the Catholic Church. On 6 September 394 the Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius I defeated the Western Roman Emperor Eugenius at the conclusion of the two-day Battle of The Frigidus.
Judas H Priest, never heard of it and why should I have heard of it, and where and what in the hell is the Frigidus?
What's a Frigidus and Why the Battle.
OK, The Frigidus is a river. The Latin name means "cold" as its English descendant "frigid" suggests. It is in northeastern Italy and Slovenia and is now called the Vipacco in Italian and the Vipava in Slovene, and of course I gotta tell ya it is called the Wipbach in modern German, or, as b and p get sort of interchangeable in German sometimes, the Wippach.
So why was there a battle there and why should I care to know? Goes like this. On 27 February 380, the Eastern Roman Emperor Flavius Theodosius Augustus, and Western Roman Emperor counterparts (the two were senior and junior Augustus, respectively, more or less co-emperors) Flavius Gratianus Augustus (Gratian) and Flavius Valentinianus Augustus (Valentianin II), jointly issued the Edict of Thessalonica. The edict is also known by its Latin name, Cunctos populos, those people (plural accusative case). Latin and other languages typically use the first word or two of a document as its title name.
The edict made Nicene Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire overall, required that all subjects of the Empire must hold this faith as delivered to Rome and preserved by then current Pope Damasus I and then current Bishop of Alexandria Peter, and declared that these alone shall be called "Catholic Christians", the universal faith of the Empire, and all others, being truly demented and insane (vero dementes vesanosque, in the words of the edict in case you thought I'm making stuff up) are heretics and not even churches, subject to such punishment as God and the Empire should choose to visit upon them (divina primum vindicta, post etiam motus nostri, quem ex caelesti arbitro sumpserimus, ultione plectendos, in the words of the edict).
This edict did not, contra the usual summary, make Christianity the official religion. Christianity was not, contra another summary often heard, some unified happy whole, not divided as it is now, whose happiness and unity we should recover now. From the start there were many versions of what "Christianity" is, there was no "traditional" Christianity, and the edict made one of the versions the state religion. That's the "Nicene Christianity" mentioned in the above paragraph. It's called that from the Council of Nicaea, called and presided over by Emperor Constantine (the "Great", though he was not Christian at the time!) in 325 AD to define what is now traditional Trinitarian Christianity from the various other contenders for what is Christianity, principally the Arians, but also the Novatians, the Macedonians, the Anomoeans and others.
The council didn't settle things. Constantine himself, not being a member of any version, was tolerant and taken aback by the continuing controversy, wondered if maybe the council got it wrong, and was finally baptised on his deathbed by a "bishop" sympathetic to the Arians (Eusebius of Nicomedia). His son and successor Constantius II was openly sympathetic to the Arians, and his successor Julian wasn't sympathetic to any version of Christianity and wanted to get back to traditional Graeco-Roman religion (for which he's sometimes called "Julian the Apostate"). Julian's successor Jovian only lasted eight months and though Christian didn't push one version of that over another, and his successor, Valens, was an Arian Christian!
Valens died in the disastrous Battle of Adrianople (in modern northwestern Turkey) against the Goths on 9 August 378, which marked the beginning of the end for the Western empire and also of Arian influence in the Eastern empire. So when Gratian (remember him above?) asked Theodosius, who was Trinitarian and from Hispania (modern Spain and Portugal) to take over the army in the East, this effectively made him Eastern emperor succeeding Valens, on 19 January 379, and things were anything but settled, politically or religiously. The year after the edict, 381, Theodosius convenes another council, the First Council of Constantinople, to settle things, at least the religious ones. Notice how it's emperors, not church types, convening church conventions?
So who are Damasus and Peter? We'll meet Damasus in the post later this month on Jerome, but in this context suffice it to know that he was Bishop of Rome from 1 October 366 to 11 December 384. OK, nice to know, but why does it matter? Here's why. In those days, popes were elected locally by the clergy and laity, but now they had to be confirmed by the Emperor. The Emperor Constantius II had sent the previous pope Liberius into exile for not sharing his sympathetic view of the Arians, and when Liberius died 24 September 366, two different popes were elected in two separate elections. The deacons of the church and the plebian class (regular people) elected Liberius' deacon Ursinus, but the patricians, the wealthy upper class, elected Damasus. Mob violence ensued, including deaths and massacres by Damasus' faction of Ursinus' faction, and the city authorities had to restore order. Which they did, on the side of Damasus, since the patricians had bought Imperial support, and he was confirmed pope 1 October 366, and exonerated of charges of murder. And also adultery. His dalliance with wealthy women earned him the nickname auriscalpius matronarum, the ladies' ear scratcher. How's that for "apostolic succession", just what you'd expect from the conservator of the true faith, right?
Peter was Peter II, the 21st patriarch of Alexandria, a student of St Athanasius (we'll meet him again below), a major opponent of Arian Christianity, who had been exiled by the local prefect on orders from Emperor Valens (an Arian) and went to Rome where Damasus supported him until he could return to Alexandria in 373.
Cunctos populos refers to Damasus as pontiff (pontifex) but to Peter as bishop (episcopus). What's a pontiff? Comes from pontifex, which means bridge builder. A pontifex was a high religious official in the Collegium pontificum, which included the Vestal Virgins charged with maintaining the fire in the Temple of Vesta believed to be essential to Rome's survival, and the highest ranking was the pontifex maximus. As the Republic declined this office became more and more political and was held by the Emperor in the Empire. The last to use it was Gratian, one of the signatories to the Edict, and after he renounced it pontifex became associated with Bishop and pontifex maximus with the Bishop of Rome, and still is to-day. The use of pontifex in the Edict only wrt to Damasus and Peter as epicopus, since any episcopus is a pontifex, indicates pontifex maximus is intended.
This part of the story continues, and will below, but we need to stop this part here around 380 to introduce the other part. Before that though, a few ironies that result from this part. 1) The Council of Nicaea and the First Council of Constantinople are often called the first "oecumenical" councils, but the word does not mean what we mean now; it does not mean all the various Christian churches, but rather drawn from all the Roman Empire. 2) The "Nicene Creed" used in most current Christian churches is not the Nicene Creed, as in the creed from that council, but rather the revision and expansion of that creed at the First Council of Constantinople, and more exactly not even that but liturgical versions of it, not the conciliar statement itself. 3) The liturgical versions changed the statement of the assembled councils, "we believe", to "I believe" reflecting its non-conciliar liturgical use as an individual statement of faith, which is why recent attempts to revert litugically to the conciliar use are invalid. 4) We get the word creed from the incipit (first word) of the Latin liturgical version, credo, I believe.
So, 27 February 380 is the birthday of the "Catholic Church", as distinct from the catholic church. The Eastern version took hold earlier but it was a little more unsettled in the Western Empire, but, it took 14 years for resistance to this in the Western Empire to be crushed militarily. That's what happened 6 September 394, so, though both have the same birthday with the issue of Cuntos populos on 27 February 380, 6 September 394 is a sort of Western birthday, since that is when resistance to it in the Western Empire was crushed by military power from the Eastern Empire. And it's no co-incidence at all that this was at the hands of Theodosius, who would be the last Emperor both East and West.
And all this fits right in with St Augustine, whose feast is 28 August, who in 380 was a pagan and a professor in Carthage, and in 394 was about to be named Bishop of Hippo in the new state church.
A Renowned Professor Get Caught Up In This.
A Roman citizen, from what are now called Berbers, named Augustine is teaching in Carthage in 380, seven years away from being baptised by the state bishop, Ambrose, of the state church in the state's Western capital by then, Milan. Diocletian, the last emperor of an undivided Roman Empire, had made Milan, then called Mediolanum, the Western capitol in 293 and Nicomedia, now Izmit Turkey, the Eastern capitol in 286, and called his new provincial units diocese, after himself. Constantine moved the Eastern capitol to nearby Byzantium, renamed it Constantinople, which is now Istanbul Turkey. You get to name stuff after yourself when you're really powerful.
The Roman Senate, still in Rome, was not shall we say comfortable with this new state religion in the two new capitols of the Empire, and lots of academic disputes and apologetics on both sides went back and forth, but no violence. During this unsettled time Augustine gets appointed to the most prestigious professorship in his world, at the Western capitol Milan in 384, and is all caught up in the swirling controversy between the old religion and classic philosophy and the new state church.
He also gets caught up in his mother Monica's designs for his career. Now with a prestigious academic position, his longstanding relationship with a woman he never names but called "the one", of some 14 years complete with son, called Adeodatus, meaning "given by God", hasta go according to mom. So he caves and sends her away, she saying she will never be with another man, he finding a new concubine to tide him over until the proper social marriage his mom, "Saint" Monica, arranges with a then-11 year old girl (yeah, really) can happen.
And about concubines. Ain't what you think. A concubine in ancient Rome was simply a wife that Roman law forbade you to marry due to your or her social class. These marriages denied legality by Imperial law were rather common, and the church didn't come down on them since it wasn't the couple's fault they weren't legally married. Something to keep in mind when "the one" gets called concubine in the modern sense, their relationship gets passed off as merely lustful and their son whom they named Gift of God passed off as "illegitimate".
Take, Read -- This Christian Bestseller!
No wonder the dude was confused! His whole world is swirling in unsettled controversy and mom is running his life like a beauty pageant mom. And then, as he's all upset about his life, he has this really weird experience where he hears a kid's voice saying "Take, read" (the famous tolle, lege). Now what he was told to take and read you won't likely find in your local Christian bookstore, but was among the most widely read books, first in the Imperial Christian state church and then through the Middle Ages. It's a Life of St Anthony of the Desert, written by St Athanasius about 360 in Greek, but best known in a Latin translation, Vita Antonii, made about ten or so years later by Evagrius, who was, or was not, depending on whose side you are, the true "bishop" of Antioch 388-392.
Hoo-boy, old Tony. He was a wealthy Egyptian who became Christian at about age 34, so far so good, sold everything and took up with a local hermit. Tony in NO way was the "Founder of Monasticism", as religious hermits of various religions were common on the outskirts of cities; Philo the Jewish-Egyptian writer mentions them all, sharing the Platonic idea of having to get out of the world to get into an ideal. Pure Platonist Idealism. Sure glad Jesus didn't do that or let his Apostles do it either when they wanted to, but went back to Jerusalem where real life had things for them to do.
But old Tony went the other direction, and left even the outskirts for the desert itself to get away from it all to get into it all. But the crowds followed -- everybody loves an exotic "holy man" -- and Tony took on the more advanced cases of this mania and left the rest to his associates, sort of a Christian Oracle of Delphi, which "guidance" was later variously collected as the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, or Apophthegmata, if you want a word to impress somebody in a combox or something.
The Famous Professor Converts.
Anyhoo, Gus reads this in 386, and on the Easter Vigil of 387, Ambrose baptises Gus and his son. The next year, 388, he determines to return home to North Africa. Which he did, but along the way both his mother and his son died, so he arrives alone in the world, and understandably unsure of himself once again. Next he sells the family stuff and gives the money away, except the house which he turns into a sort of lay monastery. I guess that's what you do when you read about dudes in the desert, rather than go through the grief and live on in the world of people. Then he gets ordained presbyter or priest in 391 in Hippo, now Annaba, Algeria.
This mostly academic and political controversy, in which Gus' unsettled life had its context, and of which it is typical, changed the next year when Western Emperor Valentinian II was found hanged in his home on 16 May 392. His half brother and co-Emperor Gratian was already dead, killed 25 August 383 in Lyon France by forces of Roman generals who thought he was losing his grip. The official word was Valentinian was a suicide, but his wife and others thought he was done in by his military power behind the throne, a Frank named Arbogastes. The Imperial Milan court church's bishop, Ambrose, left the question open, suicide being a no-no for a Christian Emperor held up as a hero.
A Digression, but a Damned Important One.
What's a Frank? Not a hot dog, that comes from Frankfurter, and originally meant Frankfurter Würstchen, which means "little sausages from Frankfurt" served on a bun. They originated in the 13th Century and became the peoples' food for coronations of the Holy Roman Emperor starting with Maximilian II, a Habsburg and nephew of Emperor Karl V, he to whom the Augsburg Confession was presented, on 25 July 1564. About 1800 or so, a butcher named Johann Georg Lahner from Coburg, Bavaria, introduced the Frankfurter Würstchen to Vienna. Now Vienna had its own sausages, which were a mixture of pork and beef called Wiener, from Wien, which is "Vienna" in German. Lahner modified his product by mixing the original pork with beef like the Viennese and calling the result simply a Frankfurter. German immigrants brought the product to the US at Coney Island, and at St Louis where the German American owner, Chris von der Ahe, of the St Louis Brown Stockings, now the Cardinals, started selling them at baseball games, and also at a stand in what is now Paul T McCain's back yard. OK just jacking around on that last bit --the inter-relation of hot dogs, Lutheranism, St Louis and the Cards is clear enough without it, right? There, toldya it was important! The name got shortened to "Frank", they're hot, and the "dog" thing came from rumours that the makers actually used dog meat. Myself, I like kosher beef hot dogs, not at all the original!
Oh yeah, what's a Frank -- comes from the Roman name gens Francorum for these Germanic barbarians who threw their axes (the franks), whose own ethnic history says they were Trojans under Priam who ended up on the Rhein, oh sorry, Rhine, after the fall of Troy in Homeric times. Which is exactly the ethnic history Augustus tried to blend into Roman understanding at the beginning of the Empire by having Virgil write the Aeneid!
Back To the Story.
On 22 August 392, Arbogastes, who being a Frank and not Roman could not be Emperor, names a Roman Christian named Eugenius the Western Emperor. Eugenius though Christian was sympathetic to traditional Roman religion and started replacing Western officials sympathetic to the Eastern Empire. The Eastern Empire put off recognition of the new Western regime, and finally in January of 392 Theodosius declared his two-year-old son Honorius as Western Emperor and begins preparing an invasion of the Western Empire, which began in May 394 and concluded in the victory at The Frigidus 6 September 394. Arbogastes commits suicide and Eugenius is beheaded by the Catholic forces of Theodosius.
The new Imperial state Catholic Church was on a real roll. It had destroyed the Temple of Apollo at the Oracle of Delphi in 390, the Serapeum and Great Library in Alexandria in 391, the year Augustine was ordained a priest in the official church, then had ended the two great rituals of ancient Greece, the Eleusinian Mysteries in 392 and the Olympic Games after the ones in 393. Then later in the same year, 394, as the Battle of the Frigidus, it puts out the fire considered essential to Rome's survival at the Temple of Vesta, and disbands the women who were personally selected by the pontifex maximus, when that meant the head of the traditional Roman religion rather than the head of the new state Catholic religion.
The next year, 395, Augustine becomes religious head, which is called bishop, of the Roman Imperial administrative unit called a diocese, in Hippo. Guess Gus knew on which side his bread is buttered.
It All Comes To-gether, It All Falls Apart.
The Battle of The Frigidus effectively ended any Western resistance to the new state church. But those old Roman families knew a thing or two about survival and before long they were papal families, eventually supplying Pope Gregory, made Pope 3 September 590, who ruled the state church like a real Roman indeed. This enormous civil war though left the Western Empire greatly weakened, and it collapsed a thousand years before the Eastern Empire did, with the Visigoths sacking Rome in 410. So Augustine, by then 56 and still Bishop of Hippo, writes more Platonism to assure the shocked Romans that though the joint was a mess it was not the fault of the new state Roman Imperial religion replacing the traditional Roman religion thirty years before and its subsequent eradication of it, the real and ideal City of God was the real winner.
Well, back here in reality the "City of God", Rome, first sacked by the Gauls in 387 BC, after the 410 sack by the Visigoths, got sacked again by the Vandals in 455, but Gus died at 75 on 28 August 430 so he missed it. And Rome would be sacked again by the Ostrogoths in 546, and again by the Arabs in 846, and again by the Normans in 1084, and last by soldiers of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, but not on his orders, in 1527. And yes, the ascendancy of the new state religion had a lot to do with the Fall of Rome. The new state religion the Catholic Church was as false to the church of Christ as the Roman Empire had been false to the Roman Republic. The civic side of this is covered in our post for 21 April, the Founding of the City.
Anyway, that's the famous book The City of God, which is actually only the first part of its title, which is On The City Of God Against The Pagans (OK it's De civitate Dei contra Paganos, I translated). Pagan is another term reinvented by the new church. It once meant someone from the country, or a civilian, but with the Imperial Catholic Church firmly in the cities, and their faithful thinking they were a church militant, soldiers of Christ, which, the state military having kicked the crap out of the former religion for the state church, I guess kind of fits, pagan came to mean someone adhering to the old religion which hung on more in the countryside.
For all his faults and his immersion in social-political turmoil and change of his time, he was aware that six twenty-four hour periods is not even the "literal" reading of Genesis. More on that in a later post this month. Busy month, September.
The Aftermath.
That Platonic idealism guided and fuelled the West as it struggled through centuries of chaos and tried to reinvent its former glory with the Holy Roman Empire, which, as has been famously remarked, was not holy, not Roman, and not much of an empire. Hell, it was Frankish, the new Romans! Old Arbogastes would have liked that! And it by God had the Roman state Catholic Church with popes and bishops and diocese and all the Platonism reinvented as Christianity you can shake a stick at, complete with justification as the City of God.
Which wholesale hijacking of the catholic church as the Catholic Church, one might say its Babylonian Captivity, lasted for a thousand years. Then a poor guy in a screwed up world with a screwed up life, and a barbarian to boot, a German named Martin Luther from outside the old Roman boundaries, seeks solace in a religious order modelling itself after Augustine's Platonic idealism turned into Christian monastic asceticism, and discovers none of this crap is gonna save you but simply faith in the Son sent by God to be the sacrifice which takes away our sins, just like Scripture, which is supposed to be the church's book, says.
And so begins the disentanglement of the catholic church from the Catholic Church of the Roman and Holy Roman Empires. They tried like hell to make the catholic church, the pillar and ground of truth, the bride of Christ, into the Whore of Babylon. The vestiges of Theodosius' state Imperial Catholic Church continue in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. That's bad enough, but after the Lutheran reformation began, opposite but equally false reactions to the Babylonian Captivity arose, several "second" or "another" reformations, taking the "Reformation" well beyond anything about the Lutheran Reformation, and continue on in later church bodies. The guideline of the Lutheran reformation was, if it contradicts Scripture it must go but what doesn't is retained, since the power of the Gospel and Word and Sacrament is such that not even the Roman Empire could entirely keep it out. The Babylonian Captivity was a captivity, not an extinction. But with these later guys the guideline became, if it ain't in Scripture it goes -- depending on whose version of what is in Scripture one buys -- thus losing his Divine Service of his body and blood for our salvation, and in some cases even Baptism as well.
And lately all of these anachronisms, the state churches that survived their original states, seem intoxicated with a Rousseau-like Romantic fiction, which is some sort of resurrection of an imagined pure church of the Apostles and Church Fathers, rediscovered by their scholarship of course, a noble church, sort of an ecclesiastical version of Rousseau's "noble savage". It was precisely this against which Pope Pius XII warned in 1947 in Mediator Dei, which he called an exaggerated and senseless antiquarianism and has since been called liturgical archaeology. And it must be said some of these anachronisms have the word "Lutheran" in their names. Thus the equal but opposite errors of the old state church and of the later Reformers, equally condemned in the Lutheran Confessions, continue as well.
But while all of this rages about us, and even infects the Lutheran Reformation, thanks be to God for the Lutheran Reformation and its confession of the true teaching of Scripture, the book that is the church's own measure and norm, while yet retaining what does not contradict it.
+ Samuel, Judge and Prophet + - 20 August, Old Testament [image: Samuel and Eli]Samuel was the final Old Testament judge. Besides Deborah and an anonymous man in Judges 6:7-10, he is the ...
1 year ago


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The Challenge of the Soul
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In times of upheaval, many of us seek guidance from a spiritual mentor, someone who has confronted challenges and become a stronger person as a result. Here Rabbi Niles Elliot Goldstein draws from his own hard-won insights and personal experiences as a congregational rabbi, martial artist, FBI chaplain, and limit-pusher and interweaves them with the teachings of sages, biblical figures, and thinkers of all stripes to help us get beyond our own perceived limitations and face life's challenges with fearlessness and fortitude. Goldstein identifies eight essential qualities that he believes we must cultivate to live a life of self-empowerment and then uses a programmatic approach to explore these qualities and the ways we can develop them in ourselves.
Rabbi Goldstein is known for challenging himself physically, mentally, and spiritually. He counseled law enforcement officers at Ground Zero, has traveled to numerous remote and inhospitable places to learn and teach, and has sought out difficult experiences to rigorously test himself and the meaning of his faith.
"Highly recommended. Goldstein harmoniously blends teachings from the Hebrew Bible, Hasidism, secular contemporary thinkers, and from his own training in the martial arts and his experience as a rabbi." —Association of Jewish Libraries
"Goldstein's work offers a strong counterbalance to so much of the current teaching that seems to imply that thinking 'good thoughts' and 'visualizing' can guarantee a life of ease and plenty." —Spirituality & Health
"In this compelling book, Goldstein provides a step-by-step program for contemporary searchers to become spiritual warriors." —Spirituality & Practice
"A guy who can discuss Jewish mysticism, boxing, and the Central Asian nations he has visited can make some distinctive and unique connections others wouldn't see." —PublishersWeekly.com
"Rabbi Goldstein shows us, through examples from his own spiritual journey, how to harmonize the fine-tuned disciplines of the martial arts with a profound and transformative Judaism grounded in its mystical teachings. Any person who seeks to transform and empower him/herself in response to the call of their soul will find Rabbi Goldstein an insightful guide and a compassionate companion." —Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, author of Credo of a Modern Kabbalist
"Niles Goldstein makes faith an adventure—which is the only kind of trip worth taking." —Douglas Rushkoff, author of Nothing Sacred and Life Inc.
"Goldstein's writing style, down-to-earth and jovially conversational, is a pleasure to read." —myjewishlearning.com


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