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Horror represents a field many Christians approach with trepidation, and rightly so. The horror shelves of bookstores and video stores are very largely a wasteland of mindless, tasteless trash; indeed, there may be no other genre as disproportionately overrun with junk.
Yet the grotesque, the macabre, and the frightful have an abiding place in human imagination and culture — a place that Christian sensibility has historically not seen fit to reject or condemn, at least entirely.
In the Middle Ages, gargoyles and grotesques were prominent features of sacred architecture. The danse macabre or "dance of death" — a dramatic or artistic representation of men being visited by Death, fruitlessly attempting to resist or escape, and finally being away in a grim procession or dance — was a popular art form.
More recently, the Vatican recognized the first great horror film, F. W. Murnau's vampire film Nosferatu, in its 1995 list of 45 great films. Another Vatican list honoree, The Seventh Seal, offers a cinematic take on the danse macabre.
In Christian households, untold generations of children have been raised on fairy tales featuring all manner of goblins, dragons, witches, and so on. In the age of film, this roster of nursery monsters includes such figures as the winged monkeys and Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz and the raucous hellions and demon Chernobog of the "Bald Mountain" sequence in Fantasia (two more Vatican list honorees).
The grotesque does have a disturbing and objectionable side. In too many books and films, villains become heroes, imaginative engagement of evil becomes glorification of evil, and mayhem and gore become ends in themselves apart from any sense of artistic restraint or moral context. I've seen none of the films in the Saw or Hostel series, but it's hard for me to imagine that they aren't as execrable as the label "torture porn" would suggest. The celebratory vampire novels of Anne Rice and gruesome slasher flicks like the Nightmare on Elm Street series would also seem to fit the bill.
But not all horror films and novels deserve such censure. For example, there is much to appreciate in the original Universal horror films of the 1930s and 1940s, especially James Whale's Frankenstein, as well as Dracula, The Wolf Man and The Mummy, among others. Among more recent fare, an eclectic list of films I appreciate might include The Silence of the Lambs, The Sixth Sense, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Tim Burton's Corpse Bride and District 9.
It is possible to reject all of this root and branch. To be really consistent, though, anything that looks or smells of horror will have to go: every production of Shakespeare's Macbeth and Hamlet, with the witches' blasted heath of the former and the spectral visitation of the latter; the climax of Raiders of the Lost Ark, with the Nazis' melting faces and exploding heads; every incarnation of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, with the deathlike specter of Christmas Yet to Come; the satanic "boo" moments in The Passion of the Christ.
Some critics even found the scourging scene in The Passion, among others, to be reminiscent of horror, though this is probably pressing the point too far. Nor will we have much success looking for literary horror effects in the Bible, despite all the gruesome violence in Judges and elsewhere, simply because biblical literature is among the least descriptive and sensibly evocative literature in history. There is at least one moment, though, when a rare biblical appeal to the senses hovers on the edge of a spine-tingling special effect: the skeletal rattling sound in Ezekiel's valley of dry bones as bone joins to bone, followed by sinews, then flesh, and finally skin, but without the breath of life.
At any rate, the complete rejection of the macabre in art will strike many thoughtful Christians as throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Despite the perversity of much modern horror, the principle abusus non tollit usam applies: The abuse does not abrogate the proper use. Neither uncritical acceptance nor uncritical condemnation is called for, but critical discernment and moral vigilance. I'm not recommending horror to anyone disinclined to be exposed to it. I'm simply counseling prudence in forming moral judgments about what horror essentially is, about its raison d'être, about what it offers to audiences.
But what is the "proper use" of the grotesque and macabre in imagination and culture? Perversity aside, what is its raison d'être? Why do people scare themselves with tales like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein, Dracula, and so on?
Part of the answer is that there's simply something cathartic and energizing about stories of danger, stress, and excitement. In journeying with the heroes into the valley of the shadow of death and emerging again, we participate vicariously in the triumph of good over evil.
Children, in particular, demand imaginary adversity in the course of developing the emotional resiliency to handle real-life difficulties and dangers — a point argued by Gerard Jones in his interesting book Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence. Adults, too, crave stories that frighten in part because such stories help us get a handle on real-life fears and anxieties. The simple fact is that we occupy a fallen world, and stories that reflect this reality in imaginatively compelling ways help us with the business of living in it.
But there's more to it than mere adversity. If Nosferatu replaced Count Orlock with a mere serial killer, it would lose much of its power. Not just fear, but dread is necessary for horror, for in this world there are things not just fearful but dreadful.
Like the medieval danse macabre, horror at its best can be an imaginative way of grappling not only with adversity but with the specter of our own mortality, and the moral and existential implications of the fact that we will die. In his Letter to Artists, Pope John Paul II noted, "Even when they explore the darkest depths of the soul or the most unsettling aspects of evil, artists give voice in a way to the universal desire for redemption." Horror author Stephen King, in his book Danse Macabre, put it this way:
Horror movies do not love death, as some have suggested; they love life. They do not celebrate deformity, but by dwelling on deformity they sing of health and energy. By showing us the miseries of the damned they help us rediscover the smaller joys of our own lives. They are the barber's leeches of the psyche, drawing not bad blood but anxiety … for a little while anyway.Morally speaking, horror stories can be as scrupulous as fairy tales, and in the same way, punishing those who transgress moral boundaries. This is especially the case, as Catholic culture critic E. Michael Jones argues in his provocative book Monsters From the Id: The Rise of Horror in Fiction and Film, in regard to moral boundaries that are in the process of being questioned or challenged in the culture at large.
In general, moral transgression per se as a plot point in a story does not elicit dread, though it may elicit condemnation or even revulsion. Similarly, we're fairly comfortable with seeing the unquestionably guilty punished, while the suffering of the unquestionably innocent tends to elicit sympathy and sorrow rather than dread.
But as taboos fall and men exchange truth for lies, the moral knowledge inscribed on the human heart by our Creator is suppressed but not entirely eradicated. Not moral transgression as such, but the gnawing fear that we as a society have lost our way and no longer know where the true moral boundaries lie, is what we most dread. When horror confronts audiences with the punishment of those whom, from Dr. Frankenstein to promiscuous teens in a slasher film, the audience feels on some level to be guilty but may not be able to unambiguously judge as such, dread and horror is the result.
In the 1940s, when moral taboos against nonmarital sex were much more taken for granted, one might have a film or book in which the wanton were punished and the chaste rewarded, but it would be a morality-tale or parable, not a horror story. As moral norms shifted, however, what was once regarded as sexual immorality became increasingly associated with horror, as slasher films like John Carpenter's Halloween, the promiscuous die and the virgins survive. The unacceptability of fornication was no longer an idea that enjoyed common acceptance in society, yet on some level society was not entirely reconciled to the new ethic, and the image in the film expressed with inchoate fairy-tale directness something that was felt to be true but could no longer be straightforwardly affirmed.
Jones's thesis is that the whole taproot of modern horror is the modernist secular morality of the Enlightenment, especially regarding sexual morality. He argues, with varying degrees of plausibility, that horror stories from Frankenstein and Dracula to Psycho and Alien are all rooted in shifting sexual mores.
For example, analyzing Alien, Ridley Scott's 1979 science-fiction horror film, Jones draws attention to images in the film suggestive of conflicted attitudes toward procreation, childbirth, unnatural and contraceptive sex acts, and abortion.
Above all, the central image of a deadly alien embryo implanted in a character's torso, maturing and finally bursting obscenely forth, amounts to a hideous perversion of pregnancy and childbirth. The face-sucking alien's means of reproduction, inserting its reproductive member down a crew member's throat, is evocative of fellatio, though in this case due to the sci‑fi element the act is not infertile. And when the final alien is destroyed by being sucked out of the ship, dangling on an umbilical-like cable until being shredded in the ship's jets, it's a remarkably abortion-like death.
In a key exchange, a treacherous android favorably contrasts the alien with humanity, calling it a "perfect organism," a "survivor unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality." The clear implication is that unless we are guided by conscience and morality — unless we resist thinking of ourselves as mere "organisms" — we will be no better than monsters ourselves.
None of this is to say that the gruesome violence in films like Alien isn't morally problematic. Even so, Alien illustrates that the fascination of horror and the grotesque cannot be simply dismissed as a mere disordered fascination with ugliness or evil, and echoes of unpopular and forgotten moral truths can be found in the most unlikely places.
Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs is a remarkable film for many reasons, not least for Hannibal Lecter's surprising two-word diagnosis of the serial killer Buffalo Bill: "He covets." "Coveting" isn't exactly a familiar term in Hollywood cinema today, but The Silence of the Lambs locates this concept, with all its decalogal overtones, at the root of Buffalo Bill's murderous pathology, which also includes gender identity confusion and depersonalizing other human beings.
Horror often points to religion, and specifically Catholicism, as the only adequate response to all that is dreadful in the world. Terence Fisher, the director of horror films for the British Hammer Films company, often imbued the cross with a quasi-sacramental power over evil, depicting it as the ultimate weapon in the war against powers and principalities. Fisher has called his films "basically morality plays" that reflect his personal belief in "the ultimate victory of good over evil," and the star of Fisher's Dracula films, Christopher Lee, has cited the ultimate destruction of evil in Fisher's films as the reason "the Church doesn't object to these films, and why they are so popular in Ireland, Spain and Italy."
As problematic as it is in many ways, The Exorcist can be seen as a debunking of Enlightenment rationalism, a film in which postmodern areligiosity, the decline of marriage, casual dabbling in such occult phenomena as Ouija boards, and the therapeutic culture are all indicted in the growing nightmare of a bubbly, increasingly troubled girl whose single mother turns for help to doctors, tests, and prescriptions. "You just take your pills and you'll be fine, really," the girl's mother promises, but part of the film's brief is that pills aren't the answer to everything, and faith and religion may have answers science doesn't. Scott Derrickson's The Exorcism of Emily Rose offers a thoughtful, overtly Christian-inflected dialogue between rationalism and the supernatural as different parties attempt to make sense of the fate of another troubled young woman as well as their own experiences of the uncanny.
As with many other things, I would not recommend horror as a major staple of one's diet, any more than violent war films or other fare that depicts extreme suffering or is highly traumatic. Such fare should be taken in moderation, just as the films themselves must exercise restraint in dealing with their subject matter.
Taken in the right spirit, artistic explorations of darkness and evil should awaken in us the desire for redemption, as John Paul II has said — not desire for more darkness and evil. To the extent that Stephen King is right that horror movies love life and health rather than death and deformity, horror in moderation should make us crave goodness rather than more horror. We should be more appreciative, not less, of all that is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, gracious, excellent and worthy of praise (Philippians 4:8).
"When it comes to fighting vampires and performing exorcisms, the Roman Catholic Church has the heavy artillery" is how Roger Ebert opened his review of John Carpenter's Vampires.
Copyright © 2000– Steven D. Greydanus. All rights reserved.


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An American stand: the Bundy ranch siege
In this podcast, Sheriff Richard Mack - noted author and American Patriot - details how Americans from all over the country have come together in defense of Cliven Bundy and his family, in the ongoing siege perpetrated by the federal Bureau of Land Management.
The BLM has stolen Bundy's cattle, gruesomely executed his livestock, tasered his son, assaulted his relatives (slamming a middle-aged woman's head into the cement road, and generally acted in a manner that would inspire pride in Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin.
Undaunted, the Patriots have stood their ground, forcing the BLM thugs to retreat! The latest reports indicate the BLM - which claims its involvement revolves around the endangered desert tortoise – has agreed to remove the desert tortoise from Bundy's land! Additionally, the BLM claims Bundy owes for unpaid grazing fees, to the tune of $1 million, even though Cliven Bundy's family has been working the same land since 1877.
Sheriff Richard Mack is the driving force behind the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA). For more information and to contact him go to www.cspoa.org.

subset: commoncrawl


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Q. What ended up being your favorite part of writing Scary School?
Derek: I love taking kids basic fears about school - making friends,
dealing with bullies, having a mean teacher, etc., and heightening to
the point that they became ridiculous and hilarious. Hopefully kids will
read the Scary School series and be able to put their own problems into
perspective and things won't seem so bad. Hey, you may have a mean
teacher, but at least she probably won't eat you if you break a rule
like Dr. Dragonbreath!
Q. On your acknowledgement page, you thank many of your teachers. Did you try to infuse those teacher's personalities into the monster teachers in Scary School?
Derek: Certainly many of the teachers were inspired by some real life
scary teachers I had. While I didn't actually have any Dragon, Vampire, or
Zombie teachers, I used elements of some of my teachers' personalities. Dr.
Dragonbreath was inspired by an amazing Latin teacher I had who liked to wear
bow ties every day. While he wasn't as scary as Dr. Dragonbreath, he was the
best teacher in the school just like Dr. Dragonbreath (once you get past his
appetite for rule-breakers). The students are mostly inspired by many of the
classic horror characters. For instance, there's the 11-year-old version of
Jason and Freddy... and in Book 2 you'll get to meet a young Stephen King and
possibly even some familiar faces from Harry Potter!
Q. Scary School reminds me of so many secret fears. Did you have a secret fear as a school aged child and if so, what was it?
Derek: Haha. I lot a lot of fears
but i don't think any of them were secret! I was often afraid that
monsters, like Dracula, were hiding in my room at night. I remember the
movie, The Last Unicorn, scared the you-know-what out of me and I was
afraid of the Red Bull even when I was sitting on the toilet. I
conquered that fear by drinking lots of Red Bull once it came out.
Q. Do you always like to float around in life and what do you observe when floating around that inspires you to write?
I'm a really good listener.
I love listening in on conversations to study how people talk and how
conversations flow. If you actually write down real life conversations
word-for-word and then read it back like a dialogue scene, it doesn't
even seem realistic!
Q. What do you do in your spare time when not writing about scary things?
I'm a huge foodie and love
trying to places to eat and cooking up a storm. I'm even cooking my way
through Mario Batali's (or as he's known in Scary School, Mario
Bat-Ali's) cookbook right now like a Julie and Julia thing, but I'm not
blogging about it.
Q. What is the hardest thing about writing?
I've been writing pretty
feverishly since I was seven years old, so it all comes fairly easy to
me at this point. I guess the hardest parts are in the later process
when I'm editing and I have to cut out jokes or even whole chapters that
I love for the sake of brevity.
Q. Do you have a favorite character in Scary School? Tell us who it is and what you love about them.
In Book One I think Petunia was my favorite character.
I think I share a lot of traits with her in terms of our school
experience - feeling lonely, feeling like an outcast, being lost in her
own world, and carrying a sadness upon her shoulders because her
classmates can't see past her peculiarities. Her chapter was also one
of my favorites to write because it was so
spooky and creepy, plus it teaches an important lesson about being
careful what you wish for, and it gives her a really nice arc.
Q. Tell us a little about the next book in the series.
Scary School #2: Monsters
on the March comes out June 26, 2012 online and in bookstores
everywhere. After winning the Ghoul Games, Scary School gets to claim
their prize of going on a field trip to meet the Monster King in Monster
Kingdom. However, things do not go as planned and the students have to
get very lucky to make it out of there alive. All of your favorite
characters will be back for new adventures, and there will of course be
lots of strange and spooky new characters and teachers. After that,
Book 3 will be out June 2013 and things get CRAZY!!
Q. My goal is to get boys to read more. If you could give one bit of advice to get boys to read and write more, what would it be?
Well, may I humbly say that having them read book series like Scary School is
the perfect way to get them to read more. At that age, boys want to
have fun and not have reading feel like doing homework. Once the
connection is made that reading can be fun, it will trigger a love of
reading that should carry on through adulthood. Generally, the more one
reads, the more there is a temptation to write. Again, it's great to
inspire boys by giving them something fun to write about. Have them
write a story about what happens if all of their favorite basketball
players turned into zombies. Kids who don't like to write will suddenly
have a very different attitude. It's also great to have them pick out
their own books so that they form a bond with it. They will be much more
inclined to read a book they picked out themselves rather than having
something forced upon them.
Lastly, it's great to incorporate modern things they love into reading. Like video games! On the Scary School website - www.ScarySchool.com
- there's a video game for kids to play, and if they win, they get the
weirdest trophy ever. Plus you can tour the school, meet the faculty and
students, and unlock a secret chapter after finishing book 1!
Derek Kent |
Be sure to read my review of Scary School HERE. Also, Derek Kent, has agreed to give one lucky reader and eBook copy of Scary School. Use the Rafflecopter form to enter the giveaway. Winner will received an electronic version of the book.
Contest ends on February 27, 2012 at 10:01 MST. Winner will be notified through email and prize will be sent via email. ARV of prize is $8.99 (cost of Kindle edition).
a Rafflecopter giveaway


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It is winter down here in Australia and I find it challenging to find a warm spot to raise my bread dough. What I have been doing is placing the dough in the oven (not switched on) with a pot of hot water, replacing it once or twice. The oven becomes a warm and moist environment for the yeast to do its magic.
What other alternative spots are there to raise the dough in cold seasons?


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PALU, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia's most wanted militant with ties to the Islamic State group was killed Saturday in a shootout with security forces, the Indonesian military said, in a sweeping counterterrorism campaign against extremists in the remote mountain jungles.
Ali Kalora was one of two militants killed in the raid, said Central Sulawesi's regional military chief Brig. Gen. Farid Makruf. He identified the other suspected extremist as Jaka Ramadan.
The two men were fatally shot late Saturday by a joint team of military and police officers in Central Sulawesi province's mountainous Parigi Moutong district, Makruf said. It borders Poso district, considered an extremist hotbed in the province.
"Ali Kalora was the most wanted terrorist and leader of MIT," Makruf said, referring to the Indonesian acronym of the East Indonesia Mujahideen network, a militant group that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in 2014.
He said that security forces were searching for four remaining suspected members of the group.
Saturday's shootout occurred two months after security forces killed two suspected members of the group during a pre-dawn raid in the same mountainous district.
The East Indonesia Mujahideen has claimed responsibility for several killings of police officers and minority Christians.
Security operations in the area have intensified in recent months to try to capture members of the network, targeting Ali Kalora, the group's leader.
Kalora had eluded capture for more than a decade. He took over from Abu Wardah Santoso, who was killed by security forces in July 2016. Dozens of other leaders and members of the group have been killed or captured since then.
In May, the militants killed four Christians in a village in Poso district, including one who was beheaded. Authorities said the attack was in revenge for the killing in March of two militants, including Santoso's son.
Makruf said that rugged terrain and darkness have hampered efforts to evacuate the two bodies from the scene of the shootout in the forested village of Astina. He said the bodies of Kalora and his follower will be taken by helicopter on Sunday morning for further investigation and identification.
Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation, has kept up a crackdown on militants since bombings on the tourist island of Bali in 2002 killed 202 people, mostly foreigners.
Militant attacks on foreigners in Indonesia have been largely replaced in recent years by smaller, less deadly strikes targeting the government, mainly police and anti-terrorism forces, and people militants consider to be infidels, inspired by Islamic State group tactics abroad.
Story: Mohammad Taufan


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Greetings from the Department of Natural Resources Atchafalaya Basin Program!
News: The Advocate: Finding scrapes key to landing big bucks during rutting season LDWF: 2016 Turkey Season Lottery Hunt Applications Available The Advocate: Cajun culture thriving and evolving 250 years after Acadians arrived on banks of Bayou Teche KATC: Christmas and New Year's events and parades in Acadiana St. Mary Now: Patterson Boat Parade Save the Date: Old Time Christmas, Dec. 8 - 23 from 10 am to 4 pm at Vermilionville Noël Acadien au Village, Nov. 28 to Dec 23 at 200 Greenleaf Dr. in Lafayette Bayou Vermilion Novice Canoe/Kayak Lesson, Dec. 26 from 8:30 - 11:30 am at Vermilionville Christmas on the Cajun Coast, Dec 1 - 31 throughout St. Mary Parish Atchafalaya Trace Commission Meeting, Jan. 6 at 10 am at the Capitol Park Welcome Center in Baton Rouge. Working the Wetlands, art exhibit featuring the fishing culture of southern Louisiana, Dec 5 through January 30 at LeMieux Galleries in New Orleans
Save the Date:
Send in your Basin Pics! Let us know if you have an upcoming event to promote the Basin!
Send in your Basin Pics!
Let us know if you have an upcoming event to promote the Basin!
Checking the water:The information below is obtained from the USGS and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and has been compiled by DNR into this format to allow a quick look at information pertinent to the Atchafalaya Basin. Click here for current weather conditions and water levels.
Data is for 12/15/2015
Ohio River at CairoLocation: Southernmost gauge on the Ohio River in Illinois Reading significance - used to forecast rises on the Mississippi. Lag time, 4 to 6 days.Flood Stage: 40'Stage: 29.0'24 hour change: -0.8'Forecast: expect to RISE to 31.9' by 12/20
Mississippi River, just south of ORCS, at Red River LandingReading: Mississippi River south of ORCS, after the diversion into the Atchafalaya Flood Stage: 48'Stage: 47.9'24 hour change: +0.1'Forecast: expect to FALL to 45.5' by 12/20
Mississippi River at Baton RougeFlood Stage: 35'Stage: 31.7'24 hour change: +0.2'Forecast: expect to FALL to 30.0' by 12/20
Mississippi River at New OrleansFlood Stage: 17'Stage: 12.5'24 hour change: -0.2'Forecast: expect to FALL to 11.2' by 12/20
Atchafalaya River, just south of ORCS, at SimmesportReading: The combined latitudinal flows of the Red, Black, Ouachita, and ORCS flow from the Mississippi Flood Stage: 47'Stage: 27.9'Forecast: expect to FALL to 27.7' by 12/20
Atchafalaya River at MelvilleFlood Stage: 34'Stage: 21.2'Forecast: expect to RISE to 21.3' by 12/20
Atchafalaya River at Krotz SpringsFlood Stage: 29'Stage: 18.9'Forecast: expect to RISE to 19.3' by 12/20
Atchafalaya River above Butte LaroseFlood Stage: 20'Stage: 13.4'Forecast: expect to RISE to 13.8' by 12/20
Atchafalaya River at Bayou Sorrell Locks on the GIWWFlood Stage: 12'Stage: 7.4'Forecast: expect to RISE to 7.7' by 12/20
Atchafalaya at Millet (Myette) PointFlood Stage: 15'Stage: 8.2'Forecast: expect to RISE to 8.6' by 12/20
Atchafalaya River at Morgan CityFlood Stage: 6'Stage: 4.4'Forecast: expect to RISE to 4.9' by 12/20
Lower Grand River at Bayou SorrelStage: 6.51'
Bayou CourtableauStage: 18.98'
Middle Fork, Bayou LongStage: 5.58'
Arm of Grand Lake near Crook CheneStage: 11.39'
Pontoon Bridge at Butte LaroseStage: 9.02'
Lake Pelba at I-10, HendersonStage: 12.88'


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Wednesday, April 27, 2016, 03:17 PM
Posted by Administrator
Rockport, TX is one of the great state of Texas's premier saltwater bay fishing locations! Fishing has been really good this year and looking to be even better going into late summer and fall. grab your friends and/or family and lets go fishing! Give us a call today to book your guided bay fishing charter! 361-205-9833 or email us at email@example.com Posted by Administrator
Tight Lines and Be Safe!
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The way we design user interfaces can have a profound impact on the privacy of a user's data. It should be easy for users to make choices that protect their data privacy. But all too often, big tech companies instead design their products to manipulate users into surrendering their data privacy. These methods are often called "Dark Patterns."
When you purchase a new phone, tablet, or "smart" device, you expect to have to set it up with the needed credentials for it to be fully usable. For Android devices, you set up your Google account. For iOS devices, you set your Apple ID. For your Kindle, you set up your Amazon account.
Privacy by default should be the goal. However, particularly worrisome practices have been paired with the on-boarding process for many different platforms that serve as an obstacle to this aspiration.
What are "Dark Patterns"?
Harry Brignull, a UX researcher, coined the term "Dark Patterns." He maintains a site dedicated to documenting the different types of Dark Patterns, where he explains: "Dark Patterns are tricks used in websites and apps that make you buy or sign up for things that you didn't mean to."
The Norwegian Consumer Council (the Forbrukerrådet or NCC) builds on this critical UX concept in a recent report that criticizes "features of interface design crafted to trick users into doing things that they might not want to do, but which benefit the business in question."
On the heels of this report, the NCC filed a complaint against Google on the behalf of a consumer. This complaint argues that Google violated the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by tricking the consumer into giving Google access to their location information. Likewise, the French data protection agency (the CNIL) recently ruled that some of Google's consent and transparency practices violate the GDPR. The CNIL fined Google 50 million Euros (equivalent to about 57 million U.S. dollars).
The NCC report emphasizes two important steps in the on-boarding process of Android-based devices: the enabling of Web & App Activity and Location History. These two services encompass a wide variety of information exchanges between different Google applications and services. Examples include collection of real-time location data on Google Maps and audio-based searches and commands via Google Assistant.
It is possible to disable these services in the "Activity Controls" section of one's account. But Google's on-boarding process causes users to unintentionally opt-in to information disclosure, then makes it difficult to undo these so-called "choices" about privacy control, which were not ethically presented in the beginning. This creates more work for the consumer to retroactively opt-out.
Of course, Google isn't alone in using Dark Patterns to coerce users into "consenting" to different permissions. For example, in the image immediately below, Facebook Messenger's SMS feature presents itself when you first download the application. Giving SMS permission would mean making Facebook Messenger the default texting application for your phone. Note the bright blue "OK", as opposed to the less prominent "Not Now".
Likewise, in the next image immediately below, Venmo's onboarding encourages users to connect to Facebook and sync the contacts from their phones. Note how "Connect Facebook" is presented as the bolder and more apparent option, potentially cross-sharing robust profiles of information from your Facebook network.
These are classic Dark Patterns, deploying UX design against consumer privacy and in favor of corporate profit.
What is "Opinionated Design"?
The common thread between Opinionated Design and Dark Patterns is the power of the designer behind the technology to nudge the user to take actions that the business would like the user to take.
Of course, UX design can also guide users to protect their safety. "Opinionated Design" uses the same techniques as Dark Patterns, by means of persuasive visual indicators, bolder options, and compelling wording. For example, the Google Chrome security team used the design principles of "Attractiveness of Choice" and "Choice Visibility" to effectively warn some users about SSL hazards, as discussed in their report in 2015. When the safety of the user is valued by the designer and product team, they can guide the user away from particularly vulnerable situations while browsing.
The common thread between Opinionated Design and Dark Patterns is the power of the designer behind the technology to nudge the user to take actions that the business would like the user to take. As in the case of Google Chrome's SSL warnings, where explanations and clear guidance to safety can help to prevent abuse of a person navigating the web.
These are examples of Opinionated Design:
SSL warnings are presented to the user and given brief explanations on why the connection is not safe. Note how "Back to safety" is boldly presented to guide the user back from an potential attack.
Privacy by Default
Part of the solution is new legislation that requires companies to obtain opt-in consent that is easy for users to understand before they harvest and monetize users' data. To do this, UX design must pivot from using Dark Patterns to satisfy business metrics. Among other things, it should:
- Decouple the on-boarding process for devices and applications from the consent process.
- Visually display equally weighted options on pages that involve consent to data collection, use, and sharing.
- Consumers feel uneasy about privacy, so default to the "no" option during setup.
- Coercing "consent" for lucrative data bundling may satisfy a temporary metric, but public distrust of your platform will outweigh any gains from unethical design.
We must continue this critical discussion around consent and privacy, and urge product designers and managers to build transparency into their applications and devices. Privacy doesn't have to be painful and costly, if it is integrated in the beginning of UX design, rather than stapled on at the end.


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The Moral Dilemma
Fishing can be a source of great memories or profound emotional trauma.Many people get all up in arms when animals are mistreated, and rightfully so because animals happen to be our illiterate and messy cousins. We evolved from animals and one day different animals may evolve from us, which means it's important to maintain good diplomatic relations with the animal kingdom. For most creatures of nature this means either ignoring them or domesticating them and slaughtering them humanely by boiling their blood with sun-reflecting parabolic mirrors. The act of fishing seems nowhere near so sterile and humane. A hook brutally plunges through the mouth or gills of a fish and you tug it, bleeding and gasping, out of the water. There it sits on the mud next to a pond or stream, flopping and suffocating while blood gushes from its wounds. You may snip the line or remove the hook and throw the fish back, but obviously a fish that has a hook injury is going to have a lot of trouble fitting in again. It will be ostracized by its fellows, looked down upon as stupid for falling for the tricks of the monkey beasts that walk above the hallowed water.Do not let these concerns about mistreatment preempt your manifest destiny of fishing; you need to understand the whole picture. Fish are evil. Not only are they constantly scheming cruel deeds, they also absolutely hate us. There is nothing in the tiny heart of a fish but malice for those who live outside the water. Should fish ever become capable of it you can rest assured they would burn our cities to the ground, murder us wholesale in our homes, and laugh as their untold legions usher in a new era of fish dominance. Remember this when you are fishing and you pull up that trout. Look into its eyes, for within those alien orbs is a malice so complete that it's a wonder a gutted fish is not black.
Step One: Gear Up For Battle
Tying a piece of string to a stick and putting gum on the end is no longer a viable option when going toe to toe with the cosmopolitan fish of the 21st century. You need to spend thousands of dollars on high end reels, specialty lines, all manner of lure, and many other expensive gadgets to help you overcome your prey. Remember that when you hunt the fish it is hunting you. Together you are a pair of opponents circling, each looking for the weakness of the other. Get out the check book, fire up those credit cards, because it's time to go shopping.
I'm assuming this fish-invisible man has lost his floppy hat. A Boat - Sometimes you won't actually need a boat to fish. You can just stand next to water and actually throw your fishing junk into the water and the fish will get caught that way. Other times you have to go out into the water and that's where a boat enters the equation. Boats are designed to carry people across water without drowning them. They are sort of like submerging your feet into concrete filled buckets only the exact opposite of that. When it comes to selecting the right boat for your fishing needs you need to factor in where you plan to fish. For example if you planned on fishing in a placid river or pond you would only need a row boat or canoe, whereas if you planned on fishing in the liquid oxygen seas of Neptune you would need a pressurized vessel shielded against low temperatures.Those are the basics but that's not all you need to buy before you can get started. Let's move on to the fine art of picking the correct bait to suit your needs.Some Fishing Poles - Fishing poles are the long fiberglass thing that you put the fishing string and hook onto. They're sort of like a high tech stick and not all fishing poles are made equal. Shop around and find one that feels comfortable for you to use and fulfills your requirements as to what you intend to catch. If you can't find a fishing pole that feels right then a loaded revolver will serve as an adequate substitute. You just have to alter your methods slightly when fishing.
Fishing String - Much like poles the fishing string you will need is determined by what suits your needs best and what you will be attempting to catch. Fishing string comes in various sizes called "tests". I have no idea what that means but you can generally tell how strong fishing string is by how thick it is. Remember that some fish reach sizes of like a mile long and a billion pounds, so if you're going to go fishing for the biggest fish ever you're going to need a braided steel fishing cable at least as thick as a bus.
A Tackle Box - Think of a tackle box as your lunch box containing a lunch you have to catch yourself. Sort of like a box containing a magical hamburger that escapes whenever you open the top and you have to chase it down. I had a dream about that once, but after all the effort of catching the magical hamburger I'll tell you what; I ate like a goddamn king! Some tackle boxes even have enough room for a thermos and an apple, further reinforcing this concept. You put things like your hooks, lures, and bullets in here. You can put other stuff in here too if you want. My tackle box is full of batteries and ants and I don't know where the ants keep coming from but we're a team now and where I go they go.
Fishing Clothes - Just like any sport fishing has a uniform. You should start out by buying a floppy hat and putting a bunch of random crap out of your tackle box onto it. Mine is covered with batteries and ants. Once you have the hat the rest of the outfit should fall into place. If you're going for the casual fisherman look you should get a vest with a lot of pockets so that you can store lures and really small fish you catch in them. If you want to be all business then get camouflage coveralls from a hunting store. Fish don't see in color and they can barely see outside of the water at all, but this will help disguise you from deer and wolves that hate it when people fish. I don't know why, it's just this thing they have a problem with.
Reels - The reel is the box you stick onto your fishing pole that contains all the fishing string you bought in a "spool" or "pile". Reels are all the same so just get the absolute cheapest one you can find.
A Fishing License - In this crazy modern workaday world the government doesn't want any terrorists or Mexicans stealing our fish so they force you to get a fishing license. Fortunately, most park rangers and game wardens don't follow the rules very closely on this one so even a token effort is sufficient. My fishing license consists of a Blockbuster Video card with "OK: CAN FISH" written on it with permanent marker. It raises a lot of questions when I go to rent my Spanish language workout videos on Tuesdays but the game wardens just nod and smile and sometimes try to feel you up if you aren't careful.
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Arjuna bottle
What is this herbal medicine?
Arjuna (Terminalia Arjuna) extracts have been widely used in Ayurvedic medicine. The bark of the tree has been used for several centuries for treating cardiovascular ailments. It has a host of other therapeutic benefits including treating asthma, hypertension and kidney stones. In the Health Sciences Institute newsletter, a network of medical experts, 'Once in a blue moon, we uncover a supplement (Arjuna) that does so many things well; it is hard even for us to believe it is real.' The article goes on to mention that many clinical studies that have been conducted on Arjuna, have confirmed its numerous therapeutic cardiac benefits. The Health Sciences Institute article mentions that the product from Himalaya is the only chromatographically fingerprinted Arjuna extract. Arjuna, a deciduous riparian tree native to India, can grow up to a height of 27 meters. The tree is also found in Myanmar and Sri Lanka.
Active constituents
The bark contains phenolic constituents (arjunolic acid and terminic acid), glycosides (arjunetin and arjunosides I–IV), flavones, tannins, oligomeric proanthocyanidins and b-sitosterol. Casuarinin, a hydrolyzable tannin isolated from the bark, exhibits antiherpes virus activity by inhibiting viral attachment and penetration. The ethanolic extracts present in Arjuna have exhibited properties that help heal wounds.
Herb functions:
- Cardio-protective: The extract of Arjuna bark exerts a positive inotropic and hypotensive effect, increases the coronary artery flow and protects the myocardium against ischemic damage.
- Antioxidant: Arjuna contains several substances that have a very strong antioxidant benefit.
- Antihypertensive: Arjuna bark also has mild diuretic properties, reduces clot formation, enhances prostaglandin E(2) levels and lowers blood lipid levels which contribute towards the management of hypertension.
- As an adjuvant in ischemic heart disease
- Hypertriglyceridemia (high triglyceride levels in the blood)
- Mild to moderate hypertension
- As a preventive medicine to patients susceptible to ischemic heart disease
Recommended dose:
One capsule, twice a day or as directed by your physician
Each capsule contains 250mg extract of Arjuna
Note: The information on this page is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice. Do not use this information to diagnose or treat your problem without consulting your doctor.


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Armed With Naiveté
The usual recipe for political effectiveness is to be cynical, calculating, an insider. But if you think that we need deep change in this country, then cynicism is a sucker's bet.By Bill McKibben, TomDispatchThe piece originally appeared at TomDispatch.
My resolution for 2012 is to be naïve — dangerously naïve.
I'm aware that the usual recipe for political effectiveness is just the opposite: to be cynical, calculating, an insider. But if you think, as I do, that we need deep change in this country, then cynicism is a sucker's bet. Try as hard as you can, you're never going to be as cynical as the corporations and the harem of politicians they pay for. It's like trying to outchant a Buddhist monastery.
Here's my case in point, one of a thousand stories people working for social change could tell: All last fall, most of the environmental movement, including 350.org, the group I helped found, waged a fight against the planned Keystone XL pipeline that would bring some of the dirtiest energy on the planet from Canada through the U.S. to the Gulf Coast. We waged our struggle against building it out in the open, presenting scientific argument, holding demonstrations, and attending hearings. We sent 1,253 people to jail in the largest civil disobedience action in a generation. Meanwhile, more than half a million Americans offered public comments against the pipeline, the most on any energy project in the nation's history.
And what do you know? We won a small victory in November, when President Obama agreed that, before he could give the project a thumbs-up or -down, it needed another year of careful review. (The previous version of that review, as overseen by the State Department, had been little short of a crony capitalist farce.) Given that James Hansen, the government's premier climate scientist, had said that tapping Canada's tar sands for that pipeline would, in the end, essentially mean "game over for the climate," that seemed an eminently reasonable course to follow, even if it was also eminently political.
A few weeks later, however, Congress decided it wanted to take up the question. In the process, the issue went from out in the open to behind closed doors in money-filled rooms. Within days, and after only a couple of hours of hearings that barely mentioned the key scientific questions or the dangers involved, the House of Representatives voted 234-194 to force a quicker review of the pipeline. Later, the House attached its demand to the must-pass payroll tax cut.
That was an obvious pre-election year attempt to put the president on the spot. Environmentalists are at least hopeful that the White House will now reject the permit. After all, its communications director said that the rider, by hurrying the decision, "virtually guarantees that the pipeline will not be approved."
As important as the vote total in the House, however, was another number: within minutes of the vote, Oil Change International had calculated that the 234 Congressional representatives who voted aye had received $42 million in campaign contributions from the fossil-fuel industry; the 193 nays, $8 million.
Buying Congress
I know that cynics — call them realists, if you prefer — will be completely unsurprised by that. Which is precisely the problem.
We've reached the point where we're unfazed by things that should shake us to the core. So, just for a moment, be naïve and consider what really happened in that vote: the people's representatives who happen to have taken the bulk of the money from those energy companies promptly voted on behalf of their interests.
They weren't weighing science or the national interest; they weren't balancing present benefits against future costs. Instead of doing the work of legislators, that is, they were acting like employees. Forget the idea that they're public servants; the truth is that, in every way that matters, they work for Exxon and its kin. They should, by rights, wear logos on their lapels like NASCAR drivers.
If you find this too harsh, think about how obligated you feel when someone gives you something. Did you get a Christmas present last month from someone you hadn't remembered to buy one for? Are you going to send them an extra-special one next year?
And that's for a pair of socks. Speaker of the House John Boehner, who insisted that the Keystone approval decision be speeded up, has gotten $1,111,080 from the fossil-fuel industry during his tenure. His Senate counterpart Mitch McConnell, who shepherded the bill through his chamber, has raked in $1,277,208 in the course of his tenure in Washington.
If someone had helped your career to the tune of a million dollars, wouldn't you feel in their debt? I would. I get somewhat less than that from my employer, Middlebury College, and yet I bleed Panther blue. Don't ask me to compare my school with, say, Dartmouth unless you want a biased answer, because that's what you'll get. Which is fine — I am an employee.
But you'd be a fool to let me referee the homecoming football game. In fact, in any other walk of life we wouldn't think twice before concluding that paying off the referees is wrong. If the Patriots make the Super Bowl, everyone in America would be outraged to see owner Robert Kraft trot out to midfield before the game and hand a $1,000 bill to each of the linesmen and field judges.If he did it secretly, the newspaper reporter who uncovered the scandal would win a Pulitzer. But a political reporter who bothered to point out Boehner's and McConnell's payoffs would be upbraided by her editor for simpleminded journalism. That's how the game is played and we've all bought into it, even if only to sputter in hopeless outrage.
Far from showing any shame, the big players boast about it: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, front outfit for a consortium of corporations, has bragged on its website about outspending everyone in Washington, which is easy to do when Chevron, Goldman Sachs, and News Corp are writing you seven-figure checks. This really matters. The Chamber of Commerce spent more money on the 2010 elections than the Republican and Democratic National Committees combined, and 94% of those dollars went to climate-change deniers. That helps explain why the House voted last year to say that global warming isn't real.
It also explains why "our" representatives vote, year in and year out, for billions of dollars worth of subsidies for fossil-fuel companies. If there was ever an industry that didn't need subsidies, it would be this one: they make more money each year than any enterprise in the history of money. Not only that, but we've known how to burn coal for 300 years and oil for 200.
Those subsidies are simply payoffs. Companies give small gifts to legislators, and in return get large ones back, and we're the ones who are actually paying.
Whose Money? Whose Washington?
I don't want to be hopelessly naïve. I want to be hopefully naïve. It would be relatively easy to change this: you could provide public financing for campaigns instead of letting corporations pay. It's the equivalent of having the National Football League hire referees instead of asking the teams to provide them.
Public financing of campaigns would cost a little money, but endlessly less than paying for the presents these guys give their masters. And it would let you watch what was happening in Washington without feeling as disgusted. Even legislators, once they got the hang of it, might enjoy neither raising money nor having to pretend it doesn't affect them.
To make this happen, however, we may have to change the Constitution, as we've done 27 times before. This time, we'd need to specify that corporations aren't people, that money isn't speech, and that it doesn't abridge the First Amendment to tell people they can't spend whatever they want getting elected. Winning a change like that would require hard political organizing, since big banks and big oil companies and big drug-makers will surely rally to protect their privilege.
Still, there's a chance. The Occupy movement opened the door to this sort of change by reminding us all that the system is rigged, that its outcomes are unfair, that there's reason to think people from across the political spectrum are tired of what we've got, and that getting angry and acting on that anger in the political arena is what being a citizen is all about.
It's fertile ground for action. After all, Congress's approval rating is now at 9%, which is another way of saying that everyone who's not a lobbyist hates them and what they're doing. The big boys are, of course, counting on us simmering down; they're counting on us being cynical, on figuring there's no hope or benefit in fighting city hall. But if we're naïve enough to demand a country more like the one we were promised in high school civics class, then we have a shot.
A good time to take an initial stand comes later this month, when rallies outside every federal courthouse will mark the second anniversary of the Citizens United decision. That's the one where the Supreme Court ruled that corporations had the right to spend whatever they wanted on campaigns.
To me, that decision was, in essence, corporate America saying, "We're not going to bother pretending any more. This country belongs to us."
We need to say, loud and clear: "Sorry. Time to give it back."
Bill McKibben is Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College, founder of the global climate campaign 350.org, a TomDispatch regular, and the author, most recently, of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet. To catch Timothy MacBain's first Tomcast audio interview of the new year in which McKibben discusses how the rest of us can compete with a system in which money talks, click here.
© 2012 Bill McKibben
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On Friday, November 15, the board of the Foundation voted for Barry Warsaw to receive a Community Service Award for Q3 2013. Barry's involvement in the Python community recently reached a significant milestone, as he retired the Python 2.6 line with its final security release (2.6.9). Since 2007, Barry acted as the release manager for 2.6, an instrumental release for a number of reasons, including working with the 3.x line to backport many features. He was simultaneously the 3.0 release manager at that time, which saw its first release two months after 2.6 came out.
Barry's involvement in the community extends long beyond contributions to the CPython project, into his work on the GNU Mailman project. He earned the 2008 Antonio Pizzagati Prize for Software in the Public Interest for his work on Mailman, which has become the world's most popular mailing list software, seen all around the web. It's rare to find a mailing list out there that isn't managed by Mailman.
He has also been a contributor to the Debian and Ubuntu projects, recently becoming a Debian Member in June. He has spent a good bit of time on Ubuntu's shift to Python 3, mapping out dependencies and working with upstream projects to ensure a quality port of their codebase.
When he's not jamming on Python, he's jamming on a bass guitar. Check out some of his music here.
Congratulations, and thanks for all of your hard work!


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Thursday, April 29, 2010
Shauna's Gluten Free Artisan Boule (Gluten Free French Bread)
I really love a good bread. Right before I started a gluten free diet in 2007, I learned how to make real bread. I had made bread several times in my life before... but this time it was the real deal.
I let it rise. I kneaded the dickens out of it. Let it rise again. Baked it and then we ate. We ate amazing bread. I remember my husband sighing in disbelief. That bread was so good. But I had no idea it was tearing me up inside. I had no idea it was causing the miserable headaches I had experienced since I was a teenager. I had no idea it was causing mood swings, tummy aches, and so many other unhealthy symptoms. I had absolutely no idea that something that tasted so good could cause so much harm.
I remember feeling a sense of loss after starting the gluten free diet. I thought I would never be able to make Hardees biscuits again. I'd never be able to knead bread and feel the cool dough squish through my fingers. When you make bread, you have to be truly present. You know where you. It's a sensory experience. There was such a joy in art & the physical labor that was required to create good bread. I was afraid that it would be an experience I'd never truly have again.
But then I learned.
I experimented.
I got my hands dirty.
I tried 20 different kinds of gluten free flour.
I learned how to make bread again.
Is it the same? Well not exactly. But the experience comes with the same joy. The same wonder of creating something from scratch and knowing it will be eaten, it will taste wonderful, and that you provided the labor to make this lovely loaf of bread.
Gluten free, safe-for-my-tummy, delicious bread.
I don't really have a favorite gluten free bread recipe. I keep trying different ideas. Different methods. Creating new types of recipes. And I really enjoy them all.
But if you miss the old experience of waiting for bread, for really good bread... try this recipe.
Shauna Ahern (our Gluten Free Girl) helped to create the method and technique of this recipe. A crusty boule. A gluten free bread that truly has the texture of a wheat "french" bread.
I love having to wait for this bread. I love letting it rise on the counter. Letting the yeast do it's thing. I love the sense that this bread takes time, as all truly good things do.
Take your time.
Feel the dough in your fingers and start creating real bread.
Shauna's Rosemary & Calamata Gluten Free Bread
Adapted from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë Francois
1 cup brown rice flour
3/4 cup sorghum flour
1 1/2 cups tapioca flour
1 tablespoon granulated active dry yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon xanthan gum
1 1/3 cups lukewarm water (heated to 110°F)
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons canola oil
1 tablespoon honey
2 handfuls kalamata olives, sliced
2 sprigs fresh rosemary, taken off the stem and finely chopped
olive oil
coarse sea salt
For directions on how to make this bread, please visit and enjoy Shauna's wonderful website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License


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This 54″ x 108″ individual table cover will not only add some color and style to your event, but it will make cleanup a breeze as well! The heavyweight construction will resist tears and mask dark surfaces much better than a lightweight bargain store table cover, and can even be wiped down and reused. While it is sized to fit a standard 8 foot long banquet table, it can easily be trimmed down to fit a smaller dinner table or card table. Search "Fresh Lime" for a complete view of matching accessories!
The more you buy, the more you save! Be sure to check out the quantity discounts for this item below.


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Your home should be your haven; the best place in the world. Home sweet home is where you should feel your safest. Many couples spend all their savings when they purchase a new home just after getting married. That new house feels like a dream palace at first. However, no physical structure can withstand over time. After a few years that same dream palace may feel too small as children or pets or need for a home office are introduced. Everything changes. You feel the need for a bigger home.
Maybe you earn enough that purchasing a whole house is possible. Many don't have that luxury and are forced to live with their expanding family in the same small space. Maybe you don't want the hassle of moving your family to a new school district or endure a longer commute to work, making expansion to your current residence the best option. Adding a room to your existing home is an affordable way to keep the things you love while still making room for your growing needs.
This happens every day in Rosemont California. You don't need to sell your house and find a bigger one. Do a room addition instead. You may want a room addition to add a bedroom or working den or sun porch or artist studio. A standard room addition in Rosemont is the best home improvement project to guarantee the increased resale value of your home because house values are determined primarily by square footage.
There are many work-arounds to a low space problem. If you decide that adding a new room is best for your needs and budget, we are here to help. Monster Contractor is the best contractor for room additions in Rosemont CA. Our team of experienced experts is available to meet with you to go over the details.
Room Addition Services
There are many things you need to consider when planning your room addition. First, the size of your lot is a main factor. If your yard is not big enough to accommodate your room addition, to include required easements for Rosemont or its neighboring towns, you may need to consider other options such as building up not out.
Many homes are built in a way that makes a first story room addition feasible. If you are not sure what path to take for your own room addition project, Monster Contractor is happy to send out with our in-home consultations to meet with you and provide recommendations.
Rosemont room additions are by nature highly involved interior renovations. This is why having the kind experience and knowledge that Monster Contractor offers is so essential. A great deal of planning needs to go into any addition in order to ensure the new room blends seamlessly with your existing construction, rather than stands out looking awkward. Considerations for electrical work, cooling, and heating, interior and exterior walls, plumbing, and the roof must all be made.
Adding a room is harder than it may seem. It requires expertise and construction work experience. There are many Rosemont contractors who claim to offer this type of service, but their finished product will not blend into your existing home and instead will stand out as an obvious after-market addition. This will hinder you when it comes time to sell. There is a reason why Monster Contractor is among the best when it comes to room additions in Rosemont and the surrounding areas.
Monster Contractor divides the process of a room addition into several phases. First, we will sit with you and write down your needs and expectations. Our experts will also take measurements at that time. Existing faulty foundations or weak walls can make a room addition dangerous in the long run. Our experts will look for signs of damage within your house and determine if there is anything structural that needs to be repaired so that we can include that consideration in the cost and get it resolved first.
After gaining a basic overview of the desired design, we will work with you to fill in the details of your vision and expectations. Once we have come to a clear understanding of the scope and a proposal has been approved, our crew of skilled workers will move forward with the construction phase.
If you are concerned about hidden fees or unexpected increases to the cost of construction, please know that we do our best to account for every detail and for what roadblocks we anticipate based on our initial inspection. Past homeowners have put their faith in us because we are able to stick to our proposal costs for Rosemont room additions better than any other contractor in town.
They know that the materials we will use for their construction will be top-notch and that the quality won't suffer because of a limited budget. By the time your new room addition is complete, it will blend into the previous design of your home so well that anyone would be hard-pressed to tell that which is the new room, and which is the old.
Adding to Your Property
Monster Contractor can do more than room additions for your Rosemont property. Our contractors specialize in making your room addition match the current home layout and design, but we are also able to build carports, attached and detached garages, decks, and much more. Often the scariest part of the process is in getting your questions answered by a contractor who knows what they are doing and won't leave you more confused for asking.
Monster Contractor welcomes your questions and will always do our best to provide you with comprehensive answers. Throughout the course of your project, our staff will keep you informed of our progress and will remain available for your questions and feedback.
Whether adding a carport, a laundry room or an elevated deck, at Monster Contractor, our staff take care along each and every step of your project from securing plans and permits to building the foundation; carpentry, framing, and siding, through to final painting. There is no need to contact multiple contractors; if you want it done, our Rosemont building contractor team can handle it. Call today 916-550-4381 or complete the "contact us" form and our office will reach out to schedule a visit.
Additions that Monster Contractor can help with: Interior Rooms:
Bedroom, Basement, Bathroom, Closet, Craft Room, Den, Family Room, Kitchen, Laundry Room, Living Room. Exterior Rooms: Attic, Deck, Garage, Gazebo, Carport, Patio, Shed, Sun Room, Utility/mud Room, Workshop
Who is Monster Contractor?
Monster Contractor is a full-service General Contractor and Construction Company located in Rosemont. We provide our industrial, commercial & residential clients with premier service and quality assistance throughout the greater Rosemont area. We work hard to provide what seems to have been lacking in recent years: a contractor who wants to provide quality service at a fair price. As a result, many of our clients call us back year after year.
Our clients love the personal attention and quality of service. Plus, they know that we are available 24/7 and have a mobile app (that is just the icing on the cake). When we get busy, our regular clients are always happy to wait because they know we provide the quality service they expect of us year after year.
If you haven't tried Monster Contractor before, why not call now and go with a company thousands of clients call year after year.
Monster Contractor of Rosemont is a fully licensed and insured construction company. Whether you need commercial, industrial or residential construction, we'll have our best journeymen on the project. We have over 50 years combined experience in the commercial construction and industrial construction industries. Our Property Maintenance experience, like electrical, plumbing, gutter cleaning, etc. will keep help your Rosemont facility running smoothly. Commercial Tenant Improvement in Rosemont is easy with us. Apartment building and property owners have trusted us for years to improve the lives of their tenants.
From small projects to new builds, we have managed all types of Construction Management projects in and around Rosemont, California. Retirement homes, government offices and apartment buildings are just some of the Facility Maintenance services we offer. We work directly with YGRENE and HERO on Green Building Construction and can be your ally on energy-proofing your property in Rosemont. We have the best solutions for all aspects of home remodeling and Residential Construction in Rosemont.
Are you doing a Rosemont Home Remodel? Room Addition? Kitchen Remodel? Whether it's a bathroom remodel or complete or partial remodel, we can simplify your remodeling needs. Call Monsters Concrete for a complete estimate to repair foundations and other concrete products. We even have Home Maintenance and home cleaning solutions and can make ourselves available for the smallest detail. Earthquake Damage Restoration and retrofit as well as Fire Damage Restoration mitigation can be expensive if you're not familiar with restoration in Rosemont. Insurance Restoration and working with insurance companies is difficult. Let our experience simplify the process. Storm Damage Restoration can happen at any time of year. We offer services for each season. Water Damage Restoration from leaks can destroy your home. Fast comprehensive repair from Monsters Roofing is the best solution.


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Place No More for the Enemy of My Soul
May the joy of our fidelity to the highest and best within us be ours as we keep our love and our marriages, our society and our souls, as pure as they were meant to be.
As Sister Holland and I recently disembarked at a distant airport, three beautiful young women getting off the same flight hurried up to greet us. They identified themselves as members of the Church, which wasn't too surprising because those not of our faith usually don't rush up to us in airports. In a conversation we hadn't expected, we soon learned through their tears that all three of these women were recently divorced, that in each case their husbands had been unfaithful to them, and in each case the seeds of alienation and transgression had begun with an attraction to pornography.
With that stark introduction to my message today—one it is challenging for me to give—I feel much like Jacob of old, who said, "It grieveth me that I must use so much boldness of speech … before … many … whose feelings are exceedingly tender and chaste and delicate."1 But bold we need to be. Perhaps it was the father in me or maybe the grandfather, but the tears in those young women's eyes brought tears to mine and Sister Holland's, and the questions they asked left me asking, "Why is there so much moral decay around us, and why are so many individuals and families, including some in the Church, falling victim to it, being tragically scarred by it?"
But, of course, I knew at least part of the answer to my own question. Most days we all find ourselves assaulted by immoral messages of some kind flooding in on us from every angle. The darker sides of the movie, television, and music industry step further and further into offensive language and sexual misconduct. Tragically, the same computer and Internet service that allows me to do my family history and prepare those names for temple work could, without filters and controls, allow my children or grandchildren access to a global cesspool of perceptions that could blast a crater in their brains forever.
Remember that those young wives said their husbands' infidelity began with an attraction to pornography, but immoral activity is not just a man's problem, and husbands aren't the only ones offending. The compromise available at the click of a mouse—including what can happen in a chat room's virtual encounter—is no respecter of persons, male or female, young or old, married or single. And just to make sure that temptation is ever more accessible, the adversary is busy extending his coverage, as they say in the industry, to cell phones, video games, and MP3 players.
If we stop chopping at the branches of this problem and strike more directly at the root of the tree, not surprisingly we find lust lurking furtively there. Lust is an unsavory word, and it is certainly an unsavory topic for me to address, but there is good reason why in some traditions it is known as the most deadly of the seven deadly sins.2
Why is lust such a deadly sin? Well, in addition to the completely Spirit-destroying impact it has upon our souls, I think it is a sin because it defiles the highest and holiest relationship God gives us in mortality—the love that a man and a woman have for each other and the desire that couple has to bring children into a family intended to be forever. Someone said once that true love must include the idea of permanence. True love endures. But lust changes as quickly as it can turn a pornographic page or glance at yet another potential object for gratification walking by, male or female. True love we are absolutely giddy about—as I am about Sister Holland; we shout it from the housetops. But lust is characterized by shame and stealth and is almost pathologically clandestine—the later and darker the hour the better, with a double-bolted door just in case. Love makes us instinctively reach out to God and other people. Lust, on the other hand, is anything but godly and celebrates self-indulgence. Love comes with open hands and open heart; lust comes with only an open appetite.
These are just some of the reasons that prostituting the true meaning of love—either with imagination or another person—is so destructive. It destroys that which is second only to our faith in God—namely, faith in those we love. It shakes the pillars of trust upon which present—or future—love is built, and it takes a long time to rebuild that trust when it is lost. Push that idea far enough—whether it be as personal as a family member or as public as elected officials, business leaders, media stars, and athletic heroes—and soon enough on the building once constructed to house morally responsible societies, we can hang a sign saying, "This property is vacant."3
Whether we be single or married, young or old, let's talk for a moment about how to guard against temptation in whatever form it may present itself. We may not be able to cure all of society's ills today, but let's speak of what some personal actions can be.
Above all, start by separating yourself from people, materials, and circumstances that will harm you. As those battling something like alcoholism know, the pull of proximity can be fatal. So too in moral matters. Like Joseph in the presence of Potiphar's wife,4 just run—run as far away as you can get from whatever or whoever it is that beguiles you. And please, when fleeing the scene of temptation, do not leave a forwarding address.
Acknowledge that people bound by the chains of true addictions often need more help than self-help, and that may include you. Seek that help and welcome it. Talk to your bishop. Follow his counsel. Ask for a priesthood blessing. Use the Church's Family Services offerings or seek other suitable professional help. Pray without ceasing. Ask for angels to help you.
Along with filters on computers and a lock on affections, remember that the only real control in life is self-control. Exercise more control over even the marginal moments that confront you. If a TV show is indecent, turn it off. If a movie is crude, walk out. If an improper relationship is developing, sever it. Many of these influences, at least initially, may not technically be evil, but they can blunt our judgment, dull our spirituality, and lead to something that could be evil. An old proverb says that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step,5 so watch your step.
Like thieves in the night, unwelcome thoughts can and do seek entrance to our minds. But we don't have to throw open the door, serve them tea and crumpets, and then tell them where the silverware is kept! (You shouldn't be serving tea anyway.) Throw the rascals out! Replace lewd thoughts with hopeful images and joyful memories; picture the faces of those who love you and would be shattered if you let them down. More than one man has been saved from sin or stupidity by remembering the face of his mother, his wife, or his child waiting somewhere for him at home. Whatever thoughts you have, make sure they are welcome in your heart by invitation only. As an ancient poet once said, let will be your reason.6
Cultivate and be where the Spirit of the Lord is. Make sure that includes your own home or apartment, dictating the kind of art, music, and literature you keep there. If you are endowed, go to the temple as often as your circumstances allow. Remember that the temple arms you "with [God's] power, … [puts His] glory … round about [you], and [gives His] angels … charge over [you]."7 And when you leave the temple, remember the symbols you take with you, never to be set aside or forgotten.
Most people in trouble end up crying, "What was I thinking?" Well, whatever they were thinking, they weren't thinking of Christ. Yet, as members of His Church, we pledge every Sunday of our lives to take upon ourselves His name and promise to "always remember him."8 So let us work a little harder at remembering Him—especially that He has "borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows … , [that] he was bruised for our iniquities … ; and with his stripes we are healed."9 Surely it would guide our actions in a dramatic way if we remembered that every time we transgress, we hurt not only those we love, but we also hurt Him, who so dearly loves us. But if we do sin, however serious that sin may be, we can be rescued by that same majestic figure, He who bears the only name given under heaven whereby any man or woman can be saved.10 When confronting our transgressions and our souls are harrowed up with true pain, may we all echo the repentant Alma and utter his life-changing cry: "O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me."11
Brothers and sisters, I love you. President Thomas S. Monson and the Brethren love you. Far more importantly, your Father in Heaven loves you. I have tried to speak today of love—real love, true love, respect for it, the proper portrayal of it in the wholesome societies mankind has known, the sanctity of it between a married man and woman, and the families that love ultimately creates. I've tried to speak of the redeeming manifestation of love, charity personified, which comes to us through the grace of Christ Himself. I have of necessity also spoken of el diablo, the diabolical one, the father of lies and lust, who will do anything he can to counterfeit true love, to profane and desecrate true love wherever and whenever he encounters it. And I have spoken of his desire to destroy us if he can.
When we face such temptations in our time, we must declare, as young Nephi did in his, "[I will] give place no more for the enemy of my soul."12 We can reject the evil one. If we want it dearly and deeply enough, that enemy can and will be rebuked by the redeeming power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Furthermore, I promise you that the light of His everlasting gospel can and will again shine brightly where you feared life had gone hopelessly, helplessly dark. May the joy of our fidelity to the highest and best within us be ours as we keep our love and our marriages, our society and our souls, as pure as they were meant to be, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.


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Lil Nas X – Montero (Call Me By Your Name) Heaven & Hell Poster
Lil Nas X – Montero (Call Me By Your Name) Heaven & Hell Poster
Product Details
Our posters are printed on 230gsm paper in matt for a quality and durable finish.
With free + fast UK shipping this poster will look great anywhere framed or unframed. We also ship internationally. Our postage is quick and free and is delivered safely in a tube.
Our sizes range from A4 up to A0. See below for those size measurements.
A4: 210 x 297 mm (8.3 x 11.7 in)
A3: 297 x 420 mm (11.7 x 16.5 in)
A2: 420 x 594 mm (16.5 x 23.4 in)
A1: 594 x 841 mm (23.4 x 33.1 in)
A0: 841 x 1189 mm (33.1 x 46.8 in)
There is no frame included. Display picture is purely a mockup and shouldn't be used in reference for size.
Shipping and Returns
We've maintained totally free domestic shipping since we opened in 2018 and have no plans of changing it. However, please bear in mind that, something that comes hand in hand with this is an expectation of patience - we're not talking drop shipping from overseas levels, just that, depending on when and what exactly you're ordering, items may take around a week (give or take) to get to you. It differs a lot depending on the product as for example, posters are dispatched the following business day whilst embroidered clothing is sorted in weekly batches + dispatched on a Friday.
During peak times, shipping speed may be effected and we always encourage you to order ahead of time if you're ever requiring the products for a certain date. Things can and will go wrong, whether our mistake, the couriers or even an incorrect address being entered on your end (it happens multiple times a week) - we'll forever be happy to fix these but, can't be relied upon to turn them around in miraculous timing even still. For more information and specifics, please see our Shipping Policy page.
We do not accept returns or exchanges as everything is made to order. Trust, if we could, we would but it's just simply not workable into our business model of offering industry low prices against an extremely vast amount of designs, colours and sizes being available. If ever there's an issue with what you've received, don't hesitate to reach out however, we make zero exceptions to this rule so please read up on our sizing information and, if you don't like this model, no worries, please order elsewhere as we rely on it to stay open for everyone else.


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There is a section on the EJN website, which is restricted to the EJN Contact Points only. In this section of the EJN website, the EJN Contact Points have access to central documents for the EJN and other useful information:
To access the EJN Restricted area, you will be required to fill in user name and password. Please contact the EJN Secretariat if you have not received these credentials. Please keep in mind that this is the only part of the EJN website


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Bob Dylan Delivers Intimate Virtual Concert, 'Shadow Kingdom'
Bob Dylan rarely does things the regular way. In his first performance since 2019, a pre-taped selection of songs titled Shadow Kingdom, the enigmatic artist offered viewers not only 12 of his most poignant songs (reimagined, of course), but a cinematic, film noir experience that allowed fans to get up close and personal with a man well known for his strict "no photos" policies at concerts.
Directed by Alma Har'el, Shadow Kingdom starred Dylan as the centerpiece of a small house band in a prohibition-style speakeasy, surrounded by men and women with smoldering cigarettes and neat drinks. Accompanied by his masked bandmates — Alex Burke, Janie Cowen, Joshua Crumbly, Shahzad Ismaily and Buck Meek — Dylan, though dressed plainly throughout the show in a few different suit jackets, commanded the most attention with his wide stance and direct eye contact with the camera. The dimly lit room, courtesy of cinematographer Lol Crawley, cast mysterious shadows across the musicians' faces, including Dylan's, and explained the performance's title.
Dylan seldomly announces his next song during his usual live performances — it is often up to the listener to decipher which tune he has cleverly reworked into something brand new — but Shadow Kingdom took the guesswork out, showing the title of each song before its performance. Billed as "The Early Songs of Bob Dylan," the concert fulfilled its promise with standards like the opening "When I Paint My Masterpiece," "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," "Queen Jane Approximately" and "Tom Thumb's Blues," but also included a later gem, "What Was It You Wanted," from Dylan's 1989 album, Oh Mercy. Dylan transitioned between the mic -- singing in a voice that sounded gruff yet sturdy -- his guitar and harmonica, but of course, no applause filled the short silence between numbers. The set list did not include any songs from his most recent album, 2020's Rough and Rowdy Ways, despite its critical acclaim.
Perhaps this is how Dylan wishes most of his concerts could go, with just a small crowd of people and an intimate band in an undisclosed location. While it's unclear at the moment when he will return to live touring in the wake of the pandemic, in the newfound era of the livestream, it was only fitting that Dylan would take things to the most inventive level he could with Shadow Kingdom.
Fans who missed the initial broadcast can still purchase and watch the virtual concert through July 20 by going here.
Bob Dylan, Shadow Kingdom Set List
1. "When I Paint My Masterpiece"
2. "Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine"
3. "Queen Jane Approximately"
4. "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight"
5. "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues"
6. "Tombstone Blues"
7. "To Be Alone With You"
8. "What Was It You Wanted"
9. "Forever Young"
10. "Pledging My Time"
11. "Watching the River Flow"
12. "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"


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S&P 500 hits record high as Wall Street gains momentum
In an optimistic start to the week, stock markets in the United States witnessed a surge in prices, further building on the historic momentum from the previous session. The S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and Nasdaq Composite all made notable gains, setting a positive tone for investors. The S&P 500 index climbed by 0.4%, reaching a fresh all-time high, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average also achieved a record, with a 0.5% gain. Additionally, the Nasdaq Composite advanced by 0.4%, reflecting the overall bullish sentiment on Wall Street.
Macy's stock rose by nearly 2% after rejecting a $5.8 billion proposal from Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital Management, aiming to take the retailer private. Meanwhile, SolarEdge experienced a 4.5% increase in stock value following the announcement of a workforce reduction, impacting 16% of its employees. B Riley Financial saw a decrease of approximately 5% in its stock value after Bloomberg reported ongoing regulatory investigations related to deals with a client linked to securities fraud.
Archer-Daniels-Midland faced a more significant setback, with its stock plummeting over 16% due to weak earnings guidance and the suspension of CFO Vikram Luthar amid an accounting practices investigation. The recent gains on Monday come on the heels of the broad S&P 500 index breaking above its previous intraday and closing record highs, which were established in January 2022. This milestone signifies that Wall Street remains firmly entrenched in a bull market that began in October 2022.
The strength of Wall Street appears to be contingent on the Federal Reserve's ability to engineer a soft landing for the economy, preventing it from sliding into a recession. Investors are eagerly anticipating a series of benchmark interest rate cuts, with expectations of the initial cut taking place in March. However, uncertainty shrouds the realization of this first rate cut.
Traders are currently pricing in a roughly 46% chance of a Federal Reserve rate cut in March, according to CME Group's FedWatch Tool. This represents a significant drop from the nearly 81% probability seen just a week earlier. Conversely, there is now a nearly 54% likelihood that the central bank will maintain interest rates at their current level, a substantial increase from the approximately 19% probability observed one week prior.
In the coming week, investors will closely monitor a series of economic reports, including gross domestic product data scheduled for release on Thursday and personal consumption expenditures prices on Friday. These reports are expected to provide valuable insights into the monetary policy outlook of central bank policymakers.


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From one of America's iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion that explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage—and a life, in good times and bad—that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child.Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later—the night before New Year's Eve—the Dunnes were just sitting down to dinner after visiting the hospital when John Gregory Dunne suffered a massive and fatal coronary. In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of forty years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LAX, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma.This powerful book is Didion' s attempt to make sense of the "weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness ... about marriage and children and memory ... about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself.


text: We're Going GREEN! Every day numbers of trees disappear from the face of the earth. When there are other ways of generating paper products, trees are still being used largely. It's high time now, that we stop this mean destruction, before we forget the color green... The world average paper consumption per person is an estimated 123 pounds of paper each year. Approximately 28% of this average paper consumption is used in printing documents. In the future paper consumption is still estimated to grow more than 2% annually. Considering the U.S. paper industry emitted around 17.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide to product 83 million tons, we can infer that the would paper industry emits over 74 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year. A Green PDF is a PDF that is circulated electronically and not printed. It takes only 173 reams of paper not printed of Green PDF's to save a tree and lessen atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by more than 2 metric tons. Through the process of photosynthesis, trees remove 100 to 120 billion tons of carbon each year. Trees help to remove carbon dioxide from man-made sources (i.e. automobiles, manufacturing, airplanes, etc.) Each tree used in making paper removes about one metric ton of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year. When a tree is cut down, the Earth loses a "carbon sink." Each tree on average produces 173 reams of paper. Therefore, each ream of paper is then equal to roughly 12 pounds of carbon dioxide not removed from the atmosphere. An easier way to cut down the use of paper is to emphasize on the use of soft copies of the information and data rather than the hard (printed) form. With almost each and every sector of the world being computerized and connected rough the Internet, all forms of organizations should give stress on using the soft data thereby avoiding the use of printed matter. We are going to begin to support the Green initiative. We will be helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by cutting back world wild office paper consumption. Through your support and efforts we can help save countless trees each year. It takes only a second to waste a beautiful sheet of paper but decades for a tree to grown. The Rescue Squad Magazine is proud to be Green. >View the Edition