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DETROIT (AP) -- When it was new, the window sticker price on a typical 2019 Toyota Tacoma SR double cab pickup was just under $29,000. Two years later, dealers are paying almost $1,000 more than that to buy the same vehicle, even though it's used.
Then they're selling it to consumers for more than $33,000.
Welcome to the wacky world of U.S. car and truck sales, where the pandemic and a global shortage of computer chips have pushed prices to record levels.
In the past year, used vehicle prices on average have climbed 30%, according to Black Book, which tracks car and truck data. That's created many crazy situations where high-demand vehicles are selling for more than they did when they were new, said Alex Yurchenko, the company's senior vice president of data science.
"The market is very strange right now," said Yurchenko. "Dealers need the inventory, so they are paying lots of money for their vehicles on the wholesale market."
Yurchenko has found 73 models of 1- to 3-year-old vehicles being sold at auctions (where dealers buy their vehicles) for prices above their original sticker, which is called the manufacturer's suggested retail price.
Used vehicle price increases accounted for one-third of the large rise in inflation last month, according to the Labor Department. Prices shot up a record 10% in April and another 7.3% in May, as inflation spiked 5%, the biggest 12-month increase since 2008. The average used vehicle cost $26,457 this month, according to Edmunds.com.
Many of the models Yurchenko found were high-priced trucks and SUVs or highly sought-after loaded-out vehicles, including the high-performance Ford F-150 Raptor pickup, the 2019 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon SUV and the boxy Mercedes G-Class AMG63 high performance SUV.
But the two-wheel-drive Tacoma SR is the lowest-priced model of Toyota's top-selling small pickup. To be sure, higher end versions of the Tacoma also were on the list, but even more mainstream vehicles are selling for more than their original prices. For instance, the 2020 Kia Telluride and Hyundai Palisade made the list even though both are considered good values compared with more expensive SUVs with three rows of seats.
Yurchenko says the crazy prices are moving further into more ordinary vehicles. "Before we get through this, prices for many mainstream vehicles will get closer to their manufacturer's suggested retail price," he said.
It all started in April and May of last year, when U.S. automakers were forced to close factories for eight weeks to help stop the novel coronavirus from spreading. That cut production, limiting inventory even as demand remained surprisingly strong.
The factories came back faster than expected, and in the meantime, computer chip makers had switched to manufacturing semiconductors for phones, laptops, gaming systems and other consumer electronics. That created a shortage of automotive chips, which is forcing car companies to temporarily close factories, leaving some dealers with few new vehicles.
The lack of new vehicles and higher prices have sent more people into the used vehicle market, so demand is high there, too. Plus, rental car companies, normally a source of late-model used vehicles, are keeping their cars longer because they can't get new ones, Yurchenko said.
At present, consumers who have to replace a vehicle don't have much choice. "Unfortunately, if you need a vehicle, you'll need to pay the price," Yurchenko said.
But there are signs that price increases are starting to slow. Used car prices rose 0.75% last week, the lowest weekly gain in 17 weeks. Trucks and SUV prices grew 0.68%, the lowest weekly gain in 15 weeks, according to Black Book.
Karl Jensvold, owner of PricedRite Auto Sales, a used vehicle dealer in Lincoln, Nebraska, said he's seeing wholesale prices leveling off, but he doesn't expect them to drop anytime soon. "I think the normal used car market has reset to a different price point," he said. "I don't think we'll see the prices (from) before COVID for a while."
Yurchenko said at some point prices will have to go back to normal and used vehicles will depreciate once again. The timing depends on how long it takes to get more computer chips so automakers can resume normal production, he said. "Once the new inventory levels start increasing, that's where the pressure on the used market will be relieved," he said.


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« Goel | Gog | Golan » |
(1.) A Reubenite (1 Chr. 5:4), the father of Shimei.
(2.) The name of the leader of the hostile party described in Ezek. 38, 39, as coming from the "north country" and assailing the people of Israel to their own destruction. This prophecy has been regarded as fulfilled in the conflicts of the Maccabees with Antiochus, the invasion and overthrow of the Chaldeans, and the temporary successes and destined overthrow of the Turks. But "all these interpretations are unsatisfactory and inadequate. The vision respecting Gog and Magog in the Apocalypse (Rev. 20:8) is in substance a reannouncement of this prophecy of Ezekiel. But while Ezekiel contemplates the great conflict in a more general light as what was certainly to be connected with the times of the Messiah, and should come then to its last decisive issues, John, on the other hand, writing from the commencement of the Messiah's times, describes there the last struggles and victories of the cause of Christ. In both cases alike the vision describes the final workings of the world's evil and its results in connection with the kingdom of God, only the starting-point is placed further in advance in the one case than in the other."
It has been supposed to be the name of a district in the wild north-east steppes of Central Asia, north of the Hindu-Kush, now a part of Turkestan, a region about 2,000 miles north-east of Nineveh.
« Goel | Gog | Golan » |

subset: commoncrawl


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From real-time to realism – NXT BLD London, June 2019
Real-time rendering and VR in a single click has transformed the way architects understand and present designs. Now real time ray tracing is taking things to new levels of realism.
View the other NXT BLD 2019 presentations
Nassim Saoud, Trimble Consulting
Applications of Mixed Reality in design and construction.
Sandeep Gupte, NVIDIA
Re-imagine cities of the future with next gen visualisation.
Florian Frank, Herzog & De Meuron
User Defined Software.
Richard Harpham, Katerra
Silicon and Sawdust – Deconstructing Construction.
Tal Friedman, Foldstruct
Between the folds – Towards a material revolution.
Melike Altınışık, Melike Altınışık Architects
Dialogue between architecture and robotic construction.
Alexander Le Bell, Tridify
The impact of automated web VR workflows and streamlined collaboration.
Marc Fornes, THEVERYMANY
Exploring forms through Computational Design to Digital Fabrication.
Simeon Balabanov, Chaos Group
Getting it real: AEC workflows real-time, real fast and ray traced.
Michael Perry, Boston Dynamics
What if human-like mobility could be added to automation on construction sites?
Mariana Popescu, Block Research Group
Bringing together advances in digital fabrication, computation, and structural design.
Martyn Day, AEC Magazine & NXT BLD
Introducing NXT BLD and AEC Magazine.
Xavier De Kestelier, HASSELL
Extra-Terrestrial Architecture.
Cobus Bothma, Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF)
Accelerating design decisions with rapid visualisation.
Hilmar Gunnarsson & Johan Hanegraaf, Arkio
Bringing architectural design into VR.
Federico Rossi, DARLAB (Digital Architecture & Robotic Lab)
Advanced Robots for Advanced Architecture.
Ken Pimentel , Epic Games
How Fortnite is changing AEC.
Carlos Cristerna , Neoscape
Harnessing the power of real-time ray tracing.
Mike Leach , Lenovo
Navigating challenges surrounding AR and VR hardware.
Mikolaj Bazaczek , VR+ARCH: workflows in past, present and future
VR+ARCH: workflows in past, present and future.
NXT BLD is organised by AEC Magazine and brings next generation architecture, engineering and construction technologies to life in an exclusive conference and exhibition. These emerging technologies facilitate new ways of designing, enhancing the use of 3D models, applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) and offering new possibilities in digital fabrication and construction.
NXT BLD 2020 will take place at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre, London on 9 June, in association with Lenovo.
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to AEC Magazine for FREE


text: A dream team of formidable female stars comes together in a hard-driving original approach to the globe-trotting espionage genre in The 355. When a top-secret weapon falls into mercenary hands, wild card CIA agent Mason "Mace" Brown (Oscar®-nominated actress Jessica Chastain) will need to join forces with rival badass German agent Marie (Diane Kruger, In the Fade), former MI6 ally and cutting-edge computer specialist Khadijah (Oscar® winner Lupita Nyong'o), and skilled Colombian psychologist Graciela (Oscar® winner Penélope Cruz) on a lethal, breakneck mission to retrieve it, while also staying one step ahead of a mysterious woman, Lin Mi Sheng (Bingbing Fan, X-Men: Days of Future Past), who is tracking their every move. As the action rockets around the globe from the cafes of Paris to the markets of Morocco to the wealth and glamour of Shanghai, the quartet of women will forge a tenuous loyalty that could protect the world—or get them killed. The film also stars Sebastian Stan (Avengers: Endgame) and Edgar Ramírez (The Girl on the Train). The 355 is directed by genre-defying filmmaker Simon Kinberg (writer-director-producer of Dark Phoenix, producer of Deadpool and The Martian and writer-producer of the X-Men films), from a script by Theresa Rebeck (NBC's Smash, Trouble) and Kinberg, and is produced by Chastain and Kelly Carmichael for Chastain's Freckle Films and by Kinberg for his Genre Films. The film is executive produced by Richard Hewitt (Bohemian Rhapsody).


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Deadline approaches for the 7th annual Innovators awards.
We seek exemplary colleges and universities, their visionary technology project leadership, and their innovative vendor partners who have deployed extraordinary campus technology solutions to campus challenges. Is your innovative technology project a model for others to follow? Entry deadline: Feb. 15.
Click here for entry info
Your peers will help decide
Entries will be reviewed by our Innovators Judging Committee of higher ed tech leaders, many of whom are former Campus Technology Innovators award winners. Final winners will be selected by our expert team of editors.
Winners will be recognized with:


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(Greek laos, "the people"; whence laikos, "one of the people").
Laity means the body of the faithful, outside of the ranks of the clergy. This article treats the subject under three heads: (1) General Idea; (2) Duties and Rights of the Laity; (3) Privileges and Restrictions of the Laity.
Whereas the word faithful is opposed to infidel, unbaptized, one outside the pale of Christian society, the word laity is opposed to clergy. The laity and clergy, or clerics, belong to the same society, but do not occupy the same rank. The laity are the members of this society who remain where they were placed by baptism, while the clergy, even if only tonsured, have been raised by ordination to a higher class, and placed in the sacred hierarchy. The Church is a perfect society, though all therein are not equal; it is composed of two kinds of members (see can. "Duo sunt", vii, Caus. 12, Q. i, of uncertain origin): in the first place, those who are the depositaries of sacred or spiritual authority under its triple aspect, government, teaching, and worship, i.e. the clergy, the sacred hierarchy established by Divine law (Conc. Trid., Sess. XXIII, can. vi); in the second place, those over whom this power is exercised, who are governed, taught, and sanctified, the Christian people, the laity; though for that matter clerics also, considered as individuals, are governed, taught, and sanctified. But the laity are not the depositaries of spiritual power; they are the flock confided to the care of the shepherds, the disciples who are instructed in the Word of God, the subjects who are guided by the successors of the Apostles towards the last end, which is eternal life. Such is the constitution which Our Saviour has given to His Church.
This is not the place for a detailed demonstration of this assertion, the proof of which may be reduced to the following points more fully developed under CHURCH: on the one hand, a distinction between the governed and those governing is necessary in every organized society; now Jesus Christ established His Church as a real society, endowed with all the authority requisite for the attaining of its object. On the other hand, in the Church, government has always been in the hands of those who were entrusted exclusively with the teaching of doctrine and the care of Divine worship. If one studies without prejudice the New Testament and the beginnings of Christianity, some doubt may arise on certain matters of detail; but the conclusion will certainly be that every Christian community had its superiors, these superiors had a stable spiritual authority, and this authority had as its end the exclusive care of religious functions (including teaching) as well as the government of the community. There have been differences of opinion concerning the origin of the monarchial episcopacy, which soon became the sole form of ecclesiastical organization; but no one holds that the monarchial episcopacy succeeded a period of anarchy or of government by a community where all had equal authority. The organization of all Christian Churches under the authority of the bishops and clergy, as early as the third century, is so evident as to place beyond all doubt the existence at that time of two distinct classes, the clergy and the laity. Moreover, in all societies among which Christianity had spread, religious service had already its special ministers, and the Christian organization would have retrograded if its worship and its sacrifice had not been entrusted exclusively to a special class.
Christ selected the Apostles from among His disciples, and among the Apostles He selected Peter to be their head. He entrusted them with the furtherance of His work; to them he confided the power of the keys, i.e. spiritual authority, for they are the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 16:19); He gave them the mission to teach and baptize all nations (Matthew 28:18); to them also He addressed those words at the Last Supper: Do this in commemoration of me" (Luke 22:19). As soon as the Church begins to live, the Apostles appear as its leaders; they are distinct from the "multitude of believers"; it is into their ranks that they bring Matthias (Acts 1:15), and later, by the command of the Holy Ghost, Saul and Barnabas, whom they receive with the imposition of hands (Acts 13:2). Wherever St. Paul founds Churches he gives them leaders "placed by the Holy Spirit to govern the Church of God" (Acts 20:28); the Pastoral Epistles reveal to us a directing body composed of the bishops, or priests, and deacons (Epistle of Clement 43.4); and they it is, especially the bishops, who perform exclusively the liturgical services (Ignatius, Smyrnæans 8). If at times the Christian people participate in the Divine service or the government, they never appear acting independently nor even on an equal footing with the heads of the community (cf. Batiffol, "L'Église naissante et le catholicisme", Paris, 1909). This distinction between the two classes in the Christian society refers to social rank, not to individual moral perfection. It is true that the clergy, being dedicated to the service of the altar, are thereby bound to strive after perfection; yet neither their virtues not their failing influence in any way their powers. On the other hand, the laity, besides their right to aspire freely to admission into the ranks of the clergy, on complying with the requisite conditions, are exhorted to practise every virtue, even in the highest degree. They can also bind themselves to observe the evangelical counsels, under the guidance of the Church, either in the world, as did the ancient ascetics, or by withdrawing from the world into one of the many religious houses. But ascetics, nuns, and unordained members of religious associations of men were not originally in the ranks of the clergy, and, strictly speaking, are not so even today, though, on account of their closer and more special dependence on ecclesiastical authority, they have long been included under the title clergy in its wider sense (see RELIGIOUS). The juridical condition of the laity in the Christian society is therefore determined by two considerations: their separation from the clergy, which excludes them from the performance of acts reserved to the latter; and second, their subjection to the spiritual authority of the clergy, which imposes certain obligations on them, while at the same time it confers on them certain rights.
Having come through Baptism to the supernatural life, being members of the Christian society and adopted children of God, the laity belong to the "chosen race", the "royal priesthood" (1 Peter 2:9) formed of all those who are born again in Christ. They have therefore a right to share in the common spiritual goods of the Christian society, which implies a corresponding obligation on the part of the clergy to bestow on them these goods, in as far as this bestowal requires the intervention of the ministers of religion and of the spiritual authority. But if the laity are to share in these common goods they must employ more or less frequently the means of sanctification instituted by Jesus Christ in His Church, and of which the clergy have been put in charge. Further, the laity, being subject to ecclesiastical authority, must obey and respect it; but in return they have the right to obtain from it direction, protection, and service. Thus, for the laity rights and duties are, as always, correlative. The first duty of a Christian is to believe; the first obligation imparted to the laity is, therefore, to learn the truths of faith and of religion, at first by means of the catechism and religious instruction, and later by being present at sermons, missions, or retreats. If they are thus obliged to learn, they have the right to be instructed and consequently to require their priests to give them and their children Christian teaching in the ordinary way. Second, a Christian's moral conduct should be in keeping with his faith; he must, therefore, preserve his spiritual life by the means which Jesus has established in His Church; The Divine service, especially the Mass, the Sacraments, and other sacred rites.
This necessity of having recourse to the pastoral ministry gives rise to a right in the laity as regards the clergy, the right of obtaining from them the administration of the sacraments, especially Penance and the Holy Eucharist, and others according to circumstances; also all the other acts of Christian worship, especially the Mass, the sacramentals and other rites, and lastly Christian burial. These are the spiritual goods destined for the sanctification of souls; if the clergy are appointed to administer them, they are not free dispensers, and they are bound to give their services to the faithful, as long, at least, as the latter have not by their own fault placed themselves in a condition that deprives them of the right to demand these services. Considered from the standpoint of the laity, this recourse to the ministry of the clergy is sometimes obligatory and sometimes optional, according to circumstances. It may be an obligation imposed by a command of the Church, or necessitated by personal reasons; in other cases, it may be a matter of counsel and left to the devotion of each one. This is a subject which exhibits most clearly the difference between a precept and a counsel with regard to our outward Christian life. Assistance at Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation, annual confession, Easter communion, the reception of the viaticum and the last services of religion, the celebration of marriage in the prescribed form, the baptism and religious instruction of children, and, finally, the rites of Christian burial---all these suppose a recourse to the ministry of the clergy which is of obligation for the laity, abstracting from individual cases when there may be a legitimate excuse. On the other hand, more or less frequent confessions and communions, hearing of daily Mass, frequenting the Divine Office, asking for special ceremonies (for instance, churching) celebration of Masses, obtaining services and prayers for the dead or for other intentions, are things that are perfectly legitimate and are counselled, but are optional. We may also mention the obligatory or free acts intended for the personal sanctification of the laity, but which do not require the help of the clergy: private prayer, fasting and abstinence, avoidance of servile work on Sundays and holy days of obligation, and, lastly, in general all that relates to the moral life and the observance of the commandments of God.
From these obligatory and optional relations existing between the laity and the clergy there arise certain duties of the former towards the latter. In the first place, respect and deference should be shown to the clergy, especially in the exercise of their function, on account of their sacred character and the Divine authority with which they are invested (Conc. Trid., Sess. XXV, c. xx). This respect should be shown in daily intercourse, and laymen inspired with a truly Christian spirit do homage to God in the person of His ministers, even when the conduct of the latter is not in keeping with the sanctity of their state. In the second place the laity are obliged, in proportion to their means and circumstances of the case, to contribute towards the expenses of Divine service and the fitting support of the clergy; this is an obligation incumbent on them in return for the right which they have to the services of their priests with regard to the Mass and other spiritual exercises. These contributions fall under two distinct classes: certain gifts and offerings of the faithful are intended in general for the Divine services and the support of the clergy; others, on the contrary, are connected with various acts of the sacred ministry which are freely asked for, such as the stipends for Masses, the dues for funeral services, marriages, etc. There is no fixed sum for the former class, the matter being left to the generosity of the faithful; in many countries they have taken the place of the fixed incomes that the various churches and the clergy were possessed of, arising especially from landed property; they have likewise replaced the tithes, no longer recognized by the secular governments. The latter class, however, are fixed by ecclesiastical authority or custom and may be demanded in justice; not that this is paying for sacred things, which would be simony, but they are offerings for the Divine service and the clergy on the occasion of certain definite acts (see OFFERINGS; TITHES).
There remains to speak of the duties and rights of the laity towards the ecclesiastical authority as such, in matters foreign to the sacred ministry. The duties, which affect both laity and clergy, consist in submission and obedience to legitimate hierarchical authority: the pope, the bishops, and, in a proportionate degree, the parish priests and other acting ecclesiastics. The decisions, judgments, orders, and directions of our lawful pastors, in matters of doctrine, morals, discipline, and even administration, must be accepted and obeyed by all members of the Christian society, at least in as far as they are subject to that authority. That is a condition requisite to the well-being of any society whatsoever. However, in the case of the Christian society, authoritative decisions and directions, in as far as they are concerned with faith and morals, bind not merely to exterior acts and formal obedience; they are, moreover, a matter of conscience and demand loyal interior acceptance. On the other hand, seeing that in the Church the superiors have been established for the welfare of the subjects, so that the pope himself glories in the title "servant of the servants of God", the faithful have the right to expect the care, vigilance, and protection of their pastors; in particular they have the right to refer their disputes to the ecclesiastical authorities for decision, to consult them in case of doubt or difficulty, and to ask for suitable guidance for their religious or moral conduct.
Since the laity is distinct from the clergy, and since Divine worship, doctrinal teaching, and ecclesiastical government are reserved, at least in essentials, to the latter, it follows that the former may not interfere in purely clerical offices; they can participate only in a secondary and accessory manner, and that in virtue of a more or less explicit authorization. Any other interference would be an unlawful and guilty usurpation, punishable at times with censures and penalties. We will apply this principle now to matters of worship, teaching, and government or administration.
As to Divine service, the liturgy and especially the essential act of the Christian worship, the Holy Sacrifice, the active ministers are the clergy alone. But the laity really join in it. Not only do they assist at the Sacrifice and receive its spiritual effects, but they offer it through the ministry of the priest. Formerly they could, and even were obliged to, bring and offer at the altar the mater of the sacrifice, i.e. the bread and wine; that is what they really do today by their offerings and their stipends for Masses. At several parts of the Mass, the prayers mention them as offering the sacrifice together with the clergy, especially in the passage immediately after the consecration: "Unde et memores, nos servi tui (the clergy) sed et plebs tua sancta (the laity) . . . offerimus praeclare Majestati tuae, de tuis donis ac datis", etc. The laity reply to the salutations and invitations of the celebrant, thus joining in the solemn prayer; especially do they share in the Holy Victim by Holy Communion (confined for them in the Latin Liturgy to the species of bread), which they can receive also outside of the time of Mass and at home in case of illness. Such is the participation of the laity in the Liturgy, and strictly they are limited to that; all the active portion is performed by the clergy.
Regularly, no layman may sit within the presbyterium, or sanctuary, nor may he read any part of the Liturgy, much less pray publicly, or serve the priest at the altar, or, above all, offer the Sacrifice. However, owing to the almost complete disappearance of the inferior clergy, there has gradually arisen the custom of appointing lay persons to perform certain minor clerical duties. In most of our churches, the choirboys, schoolboys, sacristans, and chanters, serve low Masses and Missae cantatae, occupy places in the sanctuary, and act as acolytes, thurifers, masters of ceremonies, and even as lectors. On such occasions they are given, at least in solemn services, a clerical costume, the cassock and surplice, as if to admit them temporarily to the ranks of the clergy and thus recognize and safeguard the principle of excluding the laity. These remarks apply not only to the celebration of Mass, but to all liturgical services: the laity are separated from the clergy. In processions especially, confraternities and other bodies of the laity precede the clergy; the women being first, then the men, next regular clergy, and lastly the secular clergy.
In the administration of the sacraments, the sacramentals, and other like liturgical offices, the same principle applies, and ordinarily everything is reserved to the clergy. But it should be mentioned that the laity may administer baptism in cases of necessity, and though not of practical importance with regard to adults, this frequently occurs when children are in danger of death. In the early ages, the faithful carried away the Blessed Eucharist to their homes and gave themselves the Holy Communion (cf. Tertullian, "Ad uxorem", ii, 5). That was a purely material administration of the sacrament, and hardly differed from the communion ceremony in the church, where the consecrated host was placed in the hand of each communicant. We should mention also that the use of the blessed oil by those who were sick, if that be considered an administration of extreme unction (cf. the Decretal of Innocent I to Decentius of Eugubium, n. 8; serm. cclxv and cclxxix; append. of the works of St. Augustine, really the work of St. Caesarius of Arles). But those practices have long since disappeared. As to matrimony, if the sacrament itself, which is none other than the contract, has as its authors the lay persons contracting, the liturgical administration is reserved today, as formerly, to the clergy. With these exceptions, there is nothing to prevent the laity from using the liturgical prayers in their private devotions, from reciting the Divine Office, or the various Little Offices drawn up particularly for them, or from joining in associations or confraternities to practise together and according to rule certain pious exercises, the confraternities having been formed lawfully in virtue of episcopal approbation.
The body of the faithful is strictly speaking the Ecclesia docta (the Church taught), in contrast with the Ecclesia docens (the teaching Church), which consists of the pope and the bishops. When there is question, therefore, of the official teaching of religious doctrine, the laity is neither competent nor authorized to speak in the name of God and the Church (cap. xii et sq., lib. V, tit. vii, "de haereticis"). Consequently they are not allowed to preach in church, or to undertake to defend the Catholic doctrine in public discussions with heretics. But in their private capacity, they may most lawfully defend and teach their religion by word and writing, while submitting themselves to the control and guidance of ecclesiastical authority. Moreover, they may be appointed to give doctrinal instruction more or less officially, or may even become the defenders of Catholic truth. Thus they give excellent help to the clergy in teaching catechism, the lay masters in our schools give religious instruction, and some laymen have received a missio canonica, or due ecclesiastical authorization, to teach the religious sciences in universities and seminaries; the important point in this, as in other matters, is for them to be submissive to the legitimate teaching authority.
The principle is that the laity as such have no share in the spiritual jurisdiction and government of the Church; but they may be commissioned or delegated by ecclesiastical authority to exercise certain rights, especially when there is no question of strictly spiritual jurisdiction, for instance, in the administration of property. The laity are incapable, if not by Divine law at least by canon law, of real jurisdiction in the Church, according to chap. x, "De constit." (lib. I. tit. ii): "Attendentes quod laicis etiam religiosis super ecclesiis et personis ecclesiasticis nulla sit atributa facultas, quos obsequendi manet necessitas non auctoritas imperandi", i.e., the laity have no authority over things or persons ecclesiastical; it is their duty to obey not to command. Therefore no official acts requiring real ecclesiastical jurisdiction can be properly performed by the laity; if performed by them, they are null and void. A layman therefore cannot be at the head of a Church or any Christian community, nor can he legislate in spiritual matters, no act as judge in essentially ecclesiastical cases. In particular, the laity (and by this word we here include the secular authority) cannot bestow ecclesiastical jurisdiction on clerics under the form of an election properly so called, conferring the right to an episcopal or other benefice. An election by the laity alone, or one in which the laity took part, would be absolutely null and void (c. lvi, "De elect.") (see ELECTION). But this refers to canonical election strictly so called, conferring jurisdiction on the right to receive it; if it is merely a question, on the other hand, of selecting an individual, either by way or presentation or a similar process, the laity are not excluded, for the canonical institution, the source of spiritual jurisdiction, is exclusively reserved to the ecclesiastical authority. That is why no objection can be raised against the principle we have laid down from the fact that the people took part in the episcopal elections in the first ages of the Church; to speak more accurately, the people manifested their wish rather than took part in the election; the real electors were the clerics; and lastly, the bishops who were present were the judges of the election, so that in reality the final decision rested in the hands of the ecclesiastical authority. It cannot be denied that in the course of time the secular power encroached on the ground of spiritual jurisdiction, especially in the case of episcopal elections; but the Church always asserted her claim to independence where spiritual jurisdiction was involved, as may be clearly seen in the history of the famous dispute about investitures (q.v.).
When jurisdiction properly so called is duly protected, and there is question of administering temporal goods, the laity may and do enjoy as a fact real rights recognized by the Church. The most important is that of presentation or election in the wide sense of the term, now known as nomination, by which certain laymen select for the ecclesiastical authorities the person whom they wish to see invested with certain benefices or offices. The best known example is that of nomination to sees and other benefices by temporal princes, who have obtained that privilege by concordats. Another case recognized and carefully provided for in canon law is the right of patronage. This right is granted to those who from their own resources have established a benefice or who have at least amply endowed it (contributing more than one-third of the revenue). The patrons can, from the moment of foundation, reserve to themselves and their descendants, the right of active and passive patronage, not to mention other privileges rather honorary in their nature; in exchange for these rights, they undertake to protect and maintain their foundation. The right of active patronage consists principally in the presentation of the cleric to be invested with the benefice by the ecclesiastical authorities, provided he fulfils the requisite conditions. The right of passive patronage consists in the fact that the candidates for the benefice are to be selected from the descendants or the family of the founder. The patrons enjoy by right a certain precedence, among other things the right to a more prominent seat in the churches founded or supported by them; sometimes, also, they enjoy other honours; they can reserve to themselves a part in the administration of the property of the benefice; finally, if they fall upon evil days, the Church is obliged to help them from the property that was acquired through the generosity of their ancestors. All these rights, it is clear, and particularly that of presentation, are concessions made by the Church, and not privileges which the laity have of their own right.
It is but equitable that those who furnish the resources required by the Church should not be excluded from their administration. For that reason the participation of the laity in the administration of church property, especially parish property, is justified. Under the different names such as, "building councils", "parish councils", "trustees", etc., and with rules carefully drawn up or approved by the ecclesiastical authorities, and often even recognized by the civil law, there exist almost everywhere administrative organizations charged with the care of the temporal goods of churches and other ecclesiastical establishments; most of the members are laymen; they are selected in various ways, generally co-option, subject to the approval of the bishop. But this honourable office does not belong to the laity in their own right; it is a privilege granted to them by the Church, which alone has the right to administer her own property (Conc. Plen. Baltim. III, n. 284 sq.); they must conform to the regulations and act under the control of the ordinary, with whom ultimately the final decision rests; lastly and above all, they must confine their energies to temporal administration and never encroach on the reserved domain of spiritual things (Conc. Plen. Baltim. II, n. 201; see ECCLESIASTICAL BUILDINGS). Lastly, there are many educational and charitable institutions, founded and directed by laymen, and which are not strictly church property, though they are regularly subject to the control of the ordinary (Conc. Trid., Seess. VII, c. xv; Sess. XXII, c. viii); the material side of these works is not the most important, and to attain their end, the laity who govern there will above all be guided and directed by the advice of their pastors, whose loyal and respectful auxiliaries they will prove themselves to be.
FERRARIS, Prompta Bibliotheca s.v. Laicus; SAGMULLER, Kirchenrecht (Freiburg, 1909), 48; LAURENTIUS, Instit. Juris eccles., n. 50 sq. (Freiburg, 1908); Kirchenlexicon, s.v. Clerus.
APA citation. (1910). Laity. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08748a.htm
MLA citation. "Laity." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08748a.htm>.
Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Thomas M. Barrett. Dedicated to the St. Peter (Portland, Oregon) Parish Council.
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is webmaster at newadvent.org. Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.


text:
January 1, 2024
We at InnSeason Resorts and the family of companies known as InnSeason Resorts and Southern Peaks, (referred to as " InnSeason Resorts ," "we," "us," or "our") recognize the importance of protecting the privacy of certain information ("Information") collected about our customers and prospective customers (referred to as "Customers," "you" or "your"). This privacy statement discloses what information we gather, how we use it, and how to correct or change it. At InnSeason Resorts , it is our intention to give you an understanding about how we collect your Information and the use we make of it in the course of our business.
To that end, InnSeason Resorts gathers two types of information about Customers: data that Customers provide through optional, voluntary registration on our sites; and data InnSeason Resorts gathers through aggregated tracking, mainly by tallying page views throughout our sites. Such information enables us to tailor our content to fit Customers' needs better and to help our advertisers understand our audience. Because InnSeason Resorts derives its revenue mainly from advertising and e-commerce, providing such aggregated data is essential to keeping our service free to Customers. However, be assured that InnSeason Resorts will not disclose personal Information to third parties without your consent, except as may be noted in this Privacy Policy or disclosed to you when the Information is submitted.
How does InnSeason Resorts collect Information?
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We collect information by specifically requesting it from you. Generally this occurs when you register at a site or request
information or a service. Usually, the InnSeason Resorts sites
and InnSeason Resorts service partners use your information to
operate the sites and to deliver services. InnSeason Resorts sites
also use your information to inform you about other products or services
available from InnSeason Resorts and its affiliates.
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An IP address is a unique number that is automatically assigned to your
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InnSeason Resorts and/or its affiliates collect IP addresses for the purposes of system administration, to report aggregated information to our advertisers, and to audit the use of our site. When Customers request pages from InnSeason Resorts and/or its affiliates' sites, our servers log the Customers' IP addresses. We do not normally link IP addresses to anything personally identifiable, which means that a Customer's session will be logged, but the Customer will remain anonymous to us. However, this Web site may offer a live chat feature that will allow you to communicate almost instantly with an ISR representative. If this Web site offers a live chat feature and if you access that feature, we may link your Personal Information (e.g., name, address, email address) with the IP address to provide you with the appropriate services, including, but not limited to, answering questions regarding your account. We can and will use IP addresses to identify a Customer when we feel it is necessary to enforce compliance with our site terms of use or terms of service or to protect our service, site, customers or others.
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An elderly man enters a crowded museum carrying a rifle and begins shooting. A young man in Arkansas pulls the trigger outside a military recruiting office. Another man opens fire in a Kansas church.
Three chilling, unconnected slayings in less than two weeks. One gunman was a white supremacist, one a militant Muslim, one a fervent foe of abortion.
Each suspect had a history that suggested trouble. Each apparently was driven to act by beliefs considered by some as extreme. Each shooter fits the description of a "lone wolf" terrorist, a killer whose attack, authorities say, is harder to head off than if planned by a trained terrorist network.
"It could be anyone. It could be the guy next door, living in the basement of his mother's place, on the Internet just building himself up with hate, building himself up to a boiling point and finally using what he's learned," said John Perren, head of the counterterrorism branch at the FBI's Washington field office.
Perren described the difficulty of hunting a lone wolf suspect in an interview with The Associated Press just two days before white supremacist James von Brunn allegedly shot and killed a guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
"The lone wolf is what concerns the Washington field office, what concerns the FBI the most," he said.
Von Brunn had a criminal record and a Web site preaching virulent racism. Yet authorities say it is difficult to predict when someone will put down a laptop and pick up a gun.
When investigating a terrorist network, FBI agents can often access e-mails, phone records and documents to build a case. In some cases, they can develop informants to penetrate the group and provide intelligence.
But a killer acting alone rarely tells anyone what he's planning, let alone when or how. That makes it hard for authorities to determine who is prepared to commit a criminal act in furtherance of a perceived cause.
Trying to counter that threat, the FBI has created what it calls "tripwires." These are programs that seek tips from businesses whenever someone buys significant amounts of materials that can be used to make explosives, or large amounts of weapons or ammunition.
Such precautions seem to have worked in the case of a man who cleaned out his savings account in Utah and told the bank teller he was on a mission to kill President Barack Obama. The man, who relatives said suffers from mental illness, triggered a criminal investigation and he was eventually arrested.
In Washington, the white supremacist von Brunn apparently skirted such tripwires by using a vintage rifle from the early 20th century. With that single, small-caliber gun, a museum security guard was killed before other guards opened fire and disabled von Brunn.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks white supremacists, says the number of hate groups in the United States has risen 54 percent since 2000, fueled by opposition to Hispanic immigration and, more recently, by the election of the nation's first black president and the economic downturn.
"Today the vast majority of domestic terrorist attacks are in fact lone wolf or so-called leaderless resistance attacks," said the center's Mark Potok. "There are very few ways to prevent them … short of assigning a police officer to every person in America."
The number of angry white men in America is getting larger, said Chip Berlet, senior analyst with Political Research Associates in Somerville, Mass., a think tank that studies right-wing extremists.
In particular, the heterosexual, white, Christian men in America feel they've been pushed out of the way, Berlet said. Attacking the Holocaust Museum is a no-brainer, he said, because white supremacists blame Jews for the advancement of black people.
"The idea that blacks are put in positions of power by crafty Jews is central to their conspiracy theory," Berlet said.
Other experts contend the white supremacist climate has not changed much over the years.
Charlie Allen, the former top intelligence officer at the Department of Homeland Security, said such hatred has been embedded in small parts of American communities. Under Allen's leadership, the department created an analysis branch that looked at extremist groups across the country.
A department assessment of domestic extremism found about 2,400 white supremacist Web sites; 72 blogs; 30 mailing lists; 213 user groups and clubs; and 25 online racist video games.
The agency says white supremacist organizations rarely publicly call for attacks.
On the Net:
Political Research Associates: https://www.publiceye.org
Southern Poverty Law Center: https://www.splcenter.org/
Department of Homeland Security: https://www.dhs.gov


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'Bhuna' is a particular Asian cooking style where a sauce is reduced and reduced until it is so thick that it just clings to the meat, making the meat appear 'browned'.
Dishes cooked in the bhuna style are rich and pungent, the flavour of the spice mix concentrated down by the fierce reduction of the sauce. Bhunas tend to be hot for the same reason.
This recipe is from Madhur Jaffrey's Ultimate Curry Bible. Her recipes are outstanding.
To make a lamb bhuna, start by gently browning a heady mix of spices.
Add two teaspoons of cumin seeds, four teaspoons of coriander seeds, two teaspoons of mustard seeds, two or three dried chillis, and finally two teaspoons each of fennel and fenugreek seeds to a large, dry, medium hot frying pan. Keep the spices moving for a minute or two until they brown slightly. Empty the pan into a bowl and let the spices cool slightly before grinding them to a fine powder in a coffee grinder of with a pestle and mortar.
Next, finely chop three large shallots, a four centimetre chunk of ginger and five or six garlic cloves in oil in a large pan until they turn golden brown. This will take maybe four or five minutes.
Add a couple of medium tomatoes, peeled and chopped to the pan, along with about fifteen curry leaves. Feel free to use canned tomatoes instead of fresh. Cook until the sauce thickens.
Add the roasted spice mix to the pan and stir well. The dry spice powder will cause the sauce to seize and thicken. Cook for a minute or two, taking care not to let the sauce catch on the bottom of the pan. If it does, add a splash of water and quickly stir.
Now add a kilo of boneless lamb or mutton shoulder, cut into large chunks, and a teaspoon and a half of salt. Stir and cook for five minutes, making sure that the meat is fully covered in the thick sauce.
Let the curry down with 250ml of water, bring to a gentle simmer, put a lid on the pan and cook on a very gentle heat for about an hour and a half.
After this time, check that the meat is tender. If it isn't leave it for a while longer. When the meat is ready, remove the lid from the pan and turn up the heat to reduce the sauce until it almost disappears. The aim is to create a dry dish, where the highly concentrated remains of the sauce cling tightly to the tender meat.
Finish with a sprinkle of garam masala and a handful of chopped fresh coriander.
Serve with naan bread, rice and cold beer. This is no place for wine. Beer only, please, something light and very, very cold.
More curries and Indian food:
Gosht Achar
Rogan josh, a king amongst curries
Naan bread
Aagrah, Shipley
Lamb curry with onions and raisins


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Copts Celebrate First Mass in New Church
After seven years of closure of their old church by local authorities due to âsecurity reasonsâ, the Coptic community in the Egyptian village of Kom el â Loufy celebrated the completion of the first phase of building their new church, the Church of Virgin Mary and Martyr Aban, by holding their first ever Mass on Sunday.
Previously, the priest of the Saint Abu Sefein Coptic Orthodox Church near the village of Ezzbet Rafla welcomed the Copts in his church.
Following the closure of the old church, the Copts experienced serious discrimination as two young angry Muslims set fire to four Coptic homes in the village after rumors had spread that one of the houses would be turned into a church.
However, by the end of 2017, the Copts decided to drop their charges against the arson in order to get permission to build a new church beginning from January.
There are about 1,600 Copts in Kom El-Loufy.
In August 2016, the Egyptian Parliament passed a new law on the construction of churches in an effort to ease the process of obtaining a license to build a church.
Despite the efforts, there were still more than 3,500 pending applications in the face of only 219 churches that were legalized this year.
Egyptâs former Prime Minister Sherif Ismail also recently called for the âspeeding upâ of the process of legalizing unlicensed churches.
Yet, earlier this month, the Christian community in another Minya village faced amob of extremists attacking their church after it received approval. The scenario was made worse as the police failed to intervene, with one officer promising the attacker that there would be no more churches in the village. Villages in Egypt are known to be filled with religious strife and conflicts more than in cities such as Cairo or Alexandria.
Many other Copts have had similar grieving experiences, as the building of new churches continues to be an unresolved issue.


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PTW Announces Flagship India Studio in Bangalore
PTW launches new site in Bangalore to scale to meet clients' needs, foster employees' quality of life, and meet evolving technology needs
SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–PTW, the industry-leading video games and tech services outsourcer, today announced the opening of their new India flagship studio in Bangalore. PTW is a long-time industry leader with an established and diverse dossier of top-tier clients across multiple verticals.
"We launched our first site in India eight years ago. Since then, our needs have changed significantly, and we are launching this new site to better fit market demands," said Deborah Kirkham, CEO of PTW. "The impetus for opening this new site was threefold. One, we need to expand to meet our growing client needs. Two, we want our people to come to work at a beautiful site that reflects our brand aesthetic. And lastly, this site opening enables us to update our technology infrastructure without any lag time being passed on to our clients."
Sijo Jose, President of North America and India, added, "PTW is a people-first company; our teams are our highest priority. We've been in our current site for five years, and the market has changed dramatically in India during that time. Our priority is enabling our clients to manage their quickly shifting needs, as well as building upon our status as category leaders across our industry verticals. The new site launch enables us to better incorporate our brand aesthetic into our Bangalore flagship. We value our positive and inclusive company culture, and we are very proud of the new environment we're creating for our teams."
Bangalore is PTW's India flagship site hosting both Customer Experience and Quality Assurance teams. The Bangalore site opened in 2001 as part of the e4e umbrella of companies. When PTW acquired e4e in 2012, the Bangalore site became part of PTW's growing global presence. Since then, the site has seen rapid growth and is now expanding to over 500 seats in a single location.
"We are proud to be a part of the gaming community in India. Empowering the gamers of this community is core to our company mission," Kirkham said. "Expanding into a new Bangalore site not only enables us to grow with our clients' needs – we're also proud to be building new employment opportunities and economic activity across Bangalore."
About PTW*
PTW is a leading games, digital entertainment and interactive media solutions provider with 16 offices in 10 countries worldwide. Our range of services include quality assurance, localization, customer experience, engineering and development services, and audio production services. PTW brings 25 years' experience and the infrastructure to create customized support for projects and clients of all sizes.
PTW, comprised of global subsidiaries, is a UK-based holding company formed in 2016 under the umbrella of Poletowin Pitcrew Holdings, Inc. which is listed on the 1st Section of Tokyo Stock Exchange as 3657. POLE TO WIN is a registered trademark of Pole To Win Co., Ltd. in Japan and other countries. All rights reserved. For more information, visit https://www.ptw.com/
Stay connected with PTW on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
*Pole To Win International is now PTW
For queries related to PTW, please email:
Media Contacts:
Jessica Nelson


text:
On Writing
Published 10 years, 3 months pastOur situation, and my posts, have been the cause of sleepless nights and fallen tears for a great many people. In some ways I feel bad about that; it occasionally feels like I'm forcing our pain onto other people, which isn't exactly a friendly thing to do. But I know you're here because you want to be here for us, and here, words are how we commune.
But why, I am occasionally asked and occasionally ask myself, am I writing about Rebecca's cancer instead of doing other things? There are a number of reasons.
Part of it is that I'm creating a precisely timestamped chronicle for later, the historian in me asserting itself. This is where a lot of my tweets come from, as well: the desire to record something at the moment, so that later I'll be able to say whether X happened before or after Y or how many days apart two events actually were.
But it's also for Joshua, if he wants to know more about his sister and what happened to her, when he's older; and for Carolyn, if she ever wants to revisit this time or see it from my perspective, to compare against her memories. And perhaps for others, if I ever decide to collect these fragments into some sort of longer work.
More importantly, writing about what's happening and how I feel about it allows me to organize my thoughts and give some structure to what's happening. In a situation where so much is beyond our ability to do anything at all, this is something I can shape directly. It allows me to feel some small measure of influence. It lets me face my fears by naming them. It helps me get a handle on a few shards of this overwhelming thing that defies any real understanding.
And of course I'm grieving online. I do that here so that I can put it away elsewhere, so to speak. When I'm with the kids, I can be there for them as the father I've always been and hope to keep being, rather than the hollowed-out ruin I sometimes feel like. Grieving here, through the words that come to me, makes that easier to do. So I write and tweet. A little bit of pressure release.
But most of all, I am sharing Rebecca with you, with anyone who will listen. We've always felt it's up to our kids to become themselves and then bring themselves to the world in their own way, to meaningfully affect it and be affected by it. In the words of Khalil Gibran:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
We've always meant for our children to fly free of their own accord, on the arc of their choosing, when they were ready. Rebecca will almost certainly not have that opportunity.
So now we are her archers. In the Web, I have a bow that can send her arrow all the way around the world. If her flight is to be short, then let it be far, a trail of purest fire etched across every sky, more beautiful and wondrous than any comet could ever hope to be.


text:
But ...
I got this plea from his mom the other day. Throw a few bucks his way just because. The family pays just about $800 a month for his radio time and there are far and few monthly donors they can count on. Just think, if you click on his "donate" button and contribute only $5, you can buy him about a minute and a half of air time.
Click on his webpage and then click on the donate button. He's the future. I hope.
Susan Faye Schindler
Apr 28th, 12:20pm
Only out of desperation am I asking for help. My son's 2yr vegan radio show will end this week, before getting to confirmed guests like GP Dr. Jill Stein & NJ Sen. Cory Booker, due to lack of financial support. The fundraisers have all failed.
Would you please promote his show and ask for contributions of any size thru his PayPal?


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Financial Advisors offering pro bono service during this pandemic, along with tips if you are worried about falling short on bills this month.
COVID-19 is now being recognized as a health and financial crisis. It has infected tens of thousands of Americans and killed more than a 1,000, while sending the economy into a downward spiral as million are now suddenly unemployed.
"Every crisis has its own unique characteristics, but there are some things that remain consistent through them all," said Evelyn Zohlen.
Zohlen has been a certified financial planner for 17 years. She advised clients through the 2008 Great Recession and now has teamed up with a coalition of financial planners from around the country, offering pro bono services to help more people through the financial impact of this pandemic. The services are for new clients and hopes to help underserved communities get through this crisis.
In addition, The Financial Planning Association (FPA) has released an e-book , listing 8 things its financial planners are advising everyone to do right now.
The list includes tips for "Outsmarting Your Brain" in order to stop you from panicking, along with advice to focus on what you can control right now. One of the biggest things within your control is your current cashflow and increasing it by cutting out non-essential spending.
For those worried more about end of the month bill, like mortgage payments or rent, advisors recommend contacting your lender or landlord.
"Many lenders and landlords are being flexible right now," said Zohlen.
Mortgage lenders, leasing offices, most cable provides, cell phone services and even utility companies are offering up to a 90-day grace period on payments. However, and this is very important, most require full payment at the end of that grace period. Advisors recommend not taking the full grace period if you don't need it.
"It is critical that consumers are aware, know the details," explained Zohlen. "At the end of the day, folks are trying to be flexible and compassionate, but there is no free lunch, so you will still have to pay these eventually. Know what that looks like."
Most credit card companies are also offering an interest-free grace period, too, that needs to be paid in full after the given grace period to avoid new interest, and federal student loans are eligible for no interest accrual for at least the next 60 days. However, do not assume these benefits automatically kick in.
"If there is any message that I could convey to folks watching this, it would be that there are options available and flexibility afforded to you, but none of it is a given," said Zohlen. "You must make phone calls and contact your mortgage company, your student loan servicer, your credit card company you must contact all of them to coordinate and arrange this."
With every lender or service, you should also request an email or letter confirming the details of the arrangement made.


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When you're drafting an email, ending it is the easiest part. Whether you sign-off with "Warmest Regards," "Thanks," or "Keep On Keepin' On," it only takes a second, and you probably don't give it a second thought. Do email closings even matter? And if so, is "best" really best? We looked at closings in over 350,000 email threads, and found that certain email closings deliver higher response rates.
For our study, we used messages from mailing list archives of over twenty different online communities.1 These emails proved to be a great sample for looking at variations in response rate, as many entailed people asking for help or advice, hoping for a reply.
Email closings are largely determined by the setting of an email. You might sign a message to your mom with "Love," but would (hopefully) choose a more formal closing when writing to your HR person. So first, we wanted to get an idea of which closings were used in these online communities.
Eight email sign-offs (pictured, in order of popularity) appeared over a thousand times each.
Not much of a surprise here: these eight closings are all common email sign-offs in general. As none of these endings seem specific to online communities, any trends we find should be relevant for anyone who emails. So now for the moment of truth: how did these closings correlate with response rate?
Emails that closed with a variation of thank you got significantly more responses than emails ending with other popular closings.
Email Closing | Response Rate |
thanks in advance | 65.7% |
thanks | 63.0% |
thank you | 57.9% |
cheers | 54.4% |
kind regards | 53.9% |
regards | 53.5% |
best regards | 52.9% |
best | 51.2% |
Baseline (all emails in sample) |
47.5% |
The difference a simple "thanks" makes in getting a reply was even clearer when we compared emails with "thankful closings"2 to all others. Emails where we detected a thankful closing saw a response rate of 62%. This compared to a response rate of 46% for emails without a thankful closing. Closing with an expression of gratitude thus correlated with a whopping 36% relative increase in average response rate compared to signing off another way.
After doing some sleuthing, we realized our findings actually reaffirm a 2010 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology titled "A Little Thanks Goes a Long Way." In this Grant & Gino study, 69 college student participants got one of two emails asking for help with a cover letter. Half received an email that with a line that included "Thank you so much!" The other half got a similar email, sans an expression of gratitude. The study found that recipients were more than twice as likely to offer assistance when they received the email that included "thank you."
Also noteworthy was that generic email sign-offs like "regards" had lower response rates. And it turned out that "best" was in fact worst among popular email closings. Ending an email with "best" had the lowest average response rate when compared to other email sign-offs that appeared 1,000+ times.
Among closings seen at least 1,000 times in our study, "thanks in advance" ended up correlating with the highest response rate, which makes sense, as the email's recipient is being thanked specifically for a response which has yet to be written. There's a bit of posturing involved with this closing, but it turns out it works pretty well. But no matter how you express your thanks, doing so certainly appears to be your best bet in closing an email if you want a response. Interestingly, all of the email sign-offs that appeared 1,000+ times saw higher email response rates than the overall average response rate across all emails in our sample (which was 47.5%).
This isn't the first time we've looked at attributes of email and their relation to response rate. We previously found that email length, tone, grade level, and even subject line length also matter. If you want to write emails that get responses, you can also check out Respondable, a free feature built into Boomerang for Gmail and Boomerang for Outlook. Respondable analyzes your email in real-time and lets you know about changes that might help you get a reply! It's one of many Boomerang features that help people email more productively.
Add Respondable for GmailGet Respondable for Outlook
If you geek out about emails and data science as much as we do, we've documented our approach (and findings) for this blog post in a Jupyter Notebook. You can check out our study (or even extend it!) by viewing the code behind it. We're thankful for the community behind the tool that helped us collect and analyze these emails, and are excited for the future studies we can do using this same data!
1. We used an open-source library that allowed us to thread emails from lists that ranged from support emails for Pidgin (an instant messaging client) to UCLA's Religion Law list. Many of the larger lists revolved around open source software and operating systems (e.g., Python, CentOS). We used Regular Expressions to extract closings from these emails, and were thus able to find how different closings correlated with response rate.
2. For "thankful closings," we checked the closing detected in each email (if any) to see if "thank" was part of it, which includes thanks, thank you, thanks in advance, and more.


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This information is used to manage the issuance of an insurance policy, including underwriting and claims handling, and may be stored as computer records and/or paper files to assist us to complete transactions, or follow up discrepancies, complaints or queries. Details may also be submitted to regulatory authorities and auditors. Unless otherwise instructed, we may use personal data for commercial purposes.
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Rite Temp Heating and Air is a certified Carrier Dealer servicing Cayce SC with professional HVAC sales, repairs and service. With over 25 years experience in the heating and air business, our mission is to provide superior service and comfort to our customers. We provide both commercial and residential HVAC sales and service in Cayce SC , and no job is too big or too small.
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Proper heating system maintenance does more than keep you cozy. When your HVAC system is properly maintained, you'll enjoy improved energy efficiency, reduced utility bills and increased system longevity. And, when it's time to replace your old heating system or install a new residential HVAC system, the Rite Temp team will recommend high-quality equipment that is affordable and durable.
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More and more people are choosing tankless water heaters over traditional tanks, and for good reason. Tankless water heaters, also known as instantaneous water heaters, demand heaters, or instant water heaters, are compact heating units that use gas or electricity to provide hot water on demand. This deduces standby energy losses that cost you money. When a hot water tap is turned on, water enters the tankless water heater, a sensor activates an electric or gas heating device, which quickly raises the water temperature. When the tap is turned off the water flow stops and the heating element shuts off so that no additional energy is used. Tankless water heaters can save you 10 to 25 percent of your monthly utility bill. At Rite Temp we provide the to quality tankless water heaters suitable for your home or business in the Cayce SC area.
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Rite Temp is a proud to be a factory authorized dealer for the top Carrier products. Carrier geothermal heat pumps are your best solution to high energy costs while still providing enhanced comfort and improved reliability. Designed with leading edge technology, Carrier geothermal systems can dramatically reduce your annual costs for heating, cooling and hot water up to 60% per year for customers in the Cayce SC area.. No other gas furnace, air conditioner or heat pump comes close to geothermal's efficiency. With continuous increases in the cost of fossil fuels such as natural gas, propane, and fuel oil, the savings possibilities are even greater in the future.
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Improve your home's health by enhancing the quality of the air inside. Carrier humidifiers help you control air moisture, ventilators bring fresh air into your home air filters clean the air before it circulates, advanced ultraviolet lamps eliminate germs and bacteria, and carbon monoxide alarms measure and detect CO levels in the home. If you are in Cayce SC looking for an air quality solution, call Rite Temp today.
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With our wide variety of highly engineered thermostats, wireless thermostats and Thermidistats™–including our all-star Infinity Control–you have precise control over temperature, humidity, air treatment and scheduling. It's the advanced heating and cooling innovation you're used to from the experts at Carrier, for our customers in Cayce SC .
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Carrier duct-free split systems deliver the unmatched comfort of a traditional split system to specific individual spaces in your home. Whether you're creating a quiet, comfort-controlled home theater room, or simply want to heat or cool an area in your home without ducts, the wide variety of Carrier duct-free split systems give you the efficiency, aesthetics and comfort of a traditional central split system.


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Advanced search »Web icons following staff names indicate the existence of a staff website within PCC domain.
Name / Title | Department / Location | Phone / Email |
Whiteley, Tahja
Spec/Student Res |
Educational Programs Department CA TEB 125 |
971-722-5225 |
- You can also see the organizational guide for a top-level department directory.
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- To report errors or omissions, contact your department's administrative assistant. The information on this page is updated daily.
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Bump: A Secret Pregnancy Second Chance Alpha Bad-Boy Romance
Maggie Marr
Publication date: May 21st 2019
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Our relationship is over. We've loved and lost. Or that's what we thought. It was one drunken night at his sister's wedding and we fooled around…a one-night hook up. And then we became XWB (exes with benefits) nothing serious–just for fun. There's no way I'd ever get pregnant right?
"A surefire way to get pregnant is to have sex."
I look at my ob-gyn, Dr. Wong, who I've visited every year for the last ten years, and for a while during my marriage what felt like daily.
"But you and I both know that's impossible," I say.
"You having sex?" she asks.
"No, me getting pregnant. That's the impossible part. But…" If I think about it, the me having sex part is nearly impossible too—well, at least ever since Dave and I split up and I began my sex-less separated life. Until Becca and Jake's wedding, that is.
"The test doesn't lie. You my infertile-myrtle are with child."
My heart drops to my knees. A mixture of surprise and shock and panic and sadness and…even in the midst of all those feelings, one emotion by the name of joy is there too.
"But, how? I mean—"
"Again, thought we covered this part, it's the s-e-x that makes the babies come." She makes the universal signal for sex by sticking her pointer finger through an o she's made with her other hand.
"Ha, ha, very funny. It's just ever since Dave moved out I…" Oh. My. Fucking. God. My jaw drops open, my eyes widen, and panic takes the pole position in the emotional cocktail sloshing through my belly.
"There it is!" Dr. Wong says and smiles wider. "Now you remember the sexy-times that led to the baby-making."
"Oh shit." I press my hand to my forehead.
"Not who you want for your baby-daddy? One night stand? Hotty-but-a-notty? I get it, we've all been there. You have options, you—"
"No," I shake my head. "It's not that, it's just…" I take a deep breath and sigh. "How far along?" Although if I do the math, with regards to my near-celibate post-separation sex life, I'm pretty sure I know exactly when this baby-making expedition took place.
"Eight weeks?" she says. "That sound about right?"
"To the day," I say.
The wedding. The fucking wedding that both me and Dave were in. Sure Becca made a beautiful bride, and Jake a gorgeous groom, and it's been obvious to everyone but them for about twenty years that they should be together. How could I have known that me in a bridesmaid dress and Dave in a tuxedo would be like eating a dozen oysters on the half-shell and drinking a bottle of tequila at sundown? I close my eyes. Dave and I both ditched our respective dates and fell into the sack for a weekend recidivism sex fest. The beginning of our EWB arrangement: Exes With Benefits. Who'd think that any of this would cause me to get knocked up?
Especially after the six years of infertility treatments we endured while married.
I burp. "It explains that," I say, referring to my burping, "and my weird fixation with green olives."
"I've heard green olives before," Dr. Wong says, nodding, "but for me it was turkey burgers with cheese. Could not get enough. With a Ben & Jerry's chaser." She rubs her tummy. "Good times, you know, until you have to take all the pounds off. So, pre-natal vitamins and we'll set you up on schedule for visits."
"Why now?" I ask, interrupting her.
Again she makes the sexy-time symbol. "Maybe you were horny?"
"No, no." I shake my head. "Dave and I tried everything for so so so so long. Everything. Why now? And how? I mean I was told that the likelihood of me getting pregnant naturally was the same as if I was on the pill, used a condom, and spermicidal jelly all at the same time."
"Ooops!" Dr. Wong says, shrugging her shoulders. "Man, the one thing I've learned in this gig is that Mother Nature? That bitch? She finds a way! When she wants something to happen it does. I have this crabgrass in my front yard and I've done everything but blowtorch it and still it lives."
I squint at her. "You're comparing my pregnancy to crabgrass?"
"Well…kind of. Not really. But what I'm saying is that life is magic and sometimes I have people who sit where you're sitting and there's nothing I can find that's preventing them from getting pregnant and still they can't seem to conceive. And then I have people, like you, who've tried and tried and tried and have every physical reason why they can't get pregnant and wham-o! They're knocked up! The common element is fertilization. For natural baby-making to occur, that happens with the sexy-time. And sometimes, not always, but sometimes when the infertility treatments end and the pressure is off, sometimes Mother Nature decides to slide on in there and give you a bump."
"A bump?"
"Yeah, a baby bump." She makes an arc motion over her stomach. "But for you it's gonna be a BIIIIG bump," she says and makes a bigger arc over her tummy. "Me? I'm a cute short Asian woman, my bumps are much more compact."
"Uh, thanks?" I say.
"Just going by what I've seen," Dr. Wong says. "So like I was saying, we'll get you started on the vitamins and a schedule." Her words fade into the background and my mind wanders to the man who is the father of this baby that I've waited a lifetime to have. Shit. What am I going to do? How am I going to tell him? And how are we ever going to get through this? Especially since our divorce is meant to be final in the next couple weeks.
Author Bio:
Maggie Marr is the USA Today Best Selling author of hot contemporary romance. She spends her days working in entertainment and her nights writing. Maggie loves all things pop culture and when she isn't writing, she's reading or binge-watching Netflix. Never miss a new release, sale, bonus content, or extras by signing up for Maggie's newsletter here: maggiemarr.net


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The 30 inch Static Shock Rack Transport case is now available in 3 sizes, 3U, 4U, and 5U. These Shock Racks are lightweight, shockproof, watertight, dustproof, heat and chemical resistant, perfect for protecting and transporting your sensitive electronic equipment.
These Static Shock Racks are lightweight, shockproof, watertight, dustproof, heat and chemical resistant, perfect for protecting and transporting your sensitive electronic equipment.
The inner rack chassis is built of high strength/lightweight aluminum alloy extrusions with 11 gauge hot rolled carbon steel rack rails to meet EIA-310 standards. Shock and vibration mitigation is accomplished with eight (8) elastomeric isolators rated for a payload range of 40 lbs to 150 lbs in a standard configuration. Optional extended payload range of 160 to 300 pounds can be accommodated as a special order option. The interior frame and shocks provide adequate sway space for ambient air circulation and heat dissipation.
The 30" Series Static Shock Racks are 30" deep from rail to rail with a standard 19" rack width per ANSI/EIA-310-C specification and feature square-hole rack rails to accommodate either #10-32 US standard, or 6mm International standard cage nuts which are supplied with the cases.
Molded of LMDP Linear Medium Density Polyethylene plastic that meets or exceed MIL-STD 810G standards. The rugged roto-molded shell ensures industry leading strength and impact resistance. The standard COTS (commercial off the shelf) case comes with a 2" deep front lid and a 5" deep rear lid to accommodate rack gear that is longer than 24", and edge casters to allow convenient case transport. Molded-in stacking ribs and lugs are designed to stack with competitive manufacturers cases. Black powder coated stainless steel hardware are recessed for protection is standard as well as 8 comfort grip spring loaded lift handles which allow for easy movement. An automatic pressure relief valve is another standard feature along with gasket sealed lids that include convenient lid hangers to store your lids when your equipment is in operation. Coupling straps are included for securing the racks together when stacked.
For an additional fee, extra shock absorbers can also be added at the factory which will increase the payload up to 300 lbs.


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Schools are considered to be one of the safest places in our communities. However, in reality, an emergency can strike anywhere at any time. During any emergency, our first priority is the safety of our students and staff. In order to provide an effective response to any school crisis, the Division relies upon its Emergency Response Plan. The Plan works in conjunction with other local emergency plans, since a school emergency could require the involvement of numerous agencies. The plans created for individual schools, along with the District Plan, are reviewed annually and after an emergency occurs.
View our Division School Emergency Plan
During an emergency, information will be shared on our Division website homepage and social media accounts:
District Facebook: facebook.com/gsacrd
District Twitter: twitter.com/gsacrd