text:
Three guesses: which particular species of word repetition am I going to tackle today?
Actually, that was a trick question — I'm going to be talking about two of the most common, gratuitous character name repetition and character naming that inadvertently gives the impression of same. Why talk about them together, you ask? Because in manuscript submissions, faux pas of a feather tend to flock together.
Why, yes, that was a mixed metaphor, now that you mention it. Would that the following not-all-that-uncommon type of fiction opening suffered from only metaphor-blending.
Morris strode into the opulent drawing room, so oddly out of keeping with the rest of the austere log cabin. "Mona, I've had enough," Morris said. "It's me or Maurice!"
Mona moaned. "Darling Morris," Mona mentioned, "whatever do you mean? Marius means nothing to me, and Mencius hasn't entered my thoughts for years. Now Merton, on the other hand…"
"Aha!" Morris gloated audibly. "Hoist with your own petard, Mona!"
"I haven't used a petard in years, Morris," Mona murmured, but he seemed not to hear her.
"I wasn't talking about that twit Marius, Mona — I am accusing you of being in love with Maurice!" Morris muscled aside a dainty occasional table. "What have you to say to that, Mona?"
Mona looked blank. "Maurice who?"
Maddening to read, is it not? If you really want to drive yourself mad, try reading it out loud. Or simply step into Millicent the agency screener's shoes and read a good third of the fiction openings on any given day.
Why are these phenomena so pervasive in submissions? Believe it or not (but I hope you select the former), as evident as the too-similar names would be to virtually any reader, most aspiring writers — nay, most writers, period — seem to have a hard time noticing how their name choices can distract the reader. Or so I surmise from how defensive writers often get when editors like me suggest, however gently, that perhaps their manuscripts might benefit from some name fine-tuning.
In fact, I would bet a wooden nickel of the variety that folks are always urging one not to take that a fairly hefty proportion of the otherwise excellently-humored writers reading this have already taken a bit of umbrage from the nation's seemingly inexhaustible supply. "But character names are a creative choice!" writers everywhere protest, indignant. "And if I like a character's name, why shouldn't I use it a lot? It's necessary for clarity, you know!"
Is it now? More to the point, is it always? I ask because usually, what indignant name-dropping writers have in mind as the only feasible alternative is something like this:
He strode into the opulent drawing room, so oddly out of keeping with the rest of the austere log cabin. "I've had enough," he said. "It's me or him!"
She moaned. "Darling, whatever do you mean? He means nothing to me, and that other guy hasn't entered my thoughts for years. Now a third fellow, on the other hand…"
"Aha!" he gloated audibly. "Hoist with your own petard!"
"I haven't used a petard in years," she murmured, but he seemed not to hear her.
"I wasn't talking about that twit — I am accusing you of being in love with You Know Who!" He muscled aside a dainty occasional table. "What have you to say to that?"
She looked blank. "Who?"
Yes, this pronoun-fest would be a bit difficult for your garden-variety reader to follow. As justifying examples go, however, you must admit that this one's a bit of a straw man. I'm not saying that you should never mention your characters by name at all. No one — no one sensible, anyway — would seriously suggest that, because you're right: naming characters can be awfully handy for identification purposes.
Nor is anyone here arguing that character names don't fall firmly within the province of authorial discretion (but don't be surprised if your future agent/editor/some random guy from your publisher's marketing department harbors few thoughts on the subject). No, what we sensible editorial types have in mind was a revision more along these lines:
Morris strode into the opulent drawing room, so oddly out of keeping with the rest of the austere log cabin. "Elaine, I've had enough," he said. "It's me or Armand!"
She sat bold upright on a chaise clearly designed for supporting an inclination to recline. "You mean Armand Jean, the Duc du Plessis, otherwise known as Cardinal Richelieu? Why, he's been dead for either decades or centuries, depending upon when this scene is set!"
Morris sank to the floor, clutching his head in his hands. "Oh, God, have I been time-traveling again?"
Just kidding — that was the edit the guy from marketing wanted. (Oh, come on — you wouldn't keep reading?) Simply making the names less similar would produce a run of text a little more like this:
Morris strode into the opulent drawing room, so oddly out of keeping with the rest of the austere log cabin. "Elaine, I've had enough," Morris said. "It's me or Arnold!"
Elaine moaned. "Darling Morris," Elaine mentioned, "whatever do you mean? Stefan means nothing to me, and Ned hasn't entered my thoughts for years. Now Edmund, on the other hand…"
"Aha!" Morris gloated audibly. "Hoist with your own petard, Elaine!"
"I haven't used a petard in years, Morris," Elaine murmured, but he seemed not to hear her.
"I wasn't talking about that twit Stefan, Elaine — I am accusing you of being in love with Arnold!" Morris muscled aside a dainty occasional table. "What have you to say to that, Elaine?"
Elaine looked blank. "Arnold who?"
Come on, admit it — that's easier to follow, isn't it? As little as writers might want to hear it, anyone who has ever screened manuscripts or judged contest submissions could tell you (quite possibly whilst clutching his aching head and/or bathing his weary eyes) that the best or only test of the strength of a character's name is not whether the writer happens to like it.
Yes, yes, I see your hackles rising, defenders of authorial rights: the writer of this turgid little exchange may well have been deeply enamored of every name in the original draft. I can guarantee, though, that the reader will find this set of monikers considerably more individually memorable — and thus more conducive to matching with each character's personality.
While you're retracting those hackles, however, let me ask you: this time through, did you notice how often Morris and Elaine's names appeared for no good reason?
If you're like most writers, the answer is no. Seriously, folks, you'd be astonished at just how often a given character's name will pop up within a single page of text in the average manuscript submission — and even more astonished at how difficult it is for chronic name-repeaters to spot the problem in their own writing. Like the bugbear of our last few posts, the ubiquitous and, major characters' names seem to become practically invisible to self-editing writers.
But you know better, right? In a two-person scene, is it remotely necessary to keep reminding the reader who those two people are? Yes, it's helpful to identify speakers the first time around, but couldn't any reader familiar with the principle of alternating dialogue be relied upon to keep track of which is speaking when thereafter?
And while we're at it, isn't audibly a trifle redundant here? What else are the quotation marks for, if not to alert the reader to words having been uttered aloud? Could not the writer assume sufficient intelligence in the reader to render this rendition a viable option?
Morris strode into the opulent drawing room, so oddly out of keeping with the rest of the austere log cabin. "I've had enough. It's me or Arnold!"
Elaine moaned. "Darling, whatever do you mean? Stefan means nothing to me, and Ned hasn't entered my thoughts for years. Now Edmund, on the other hand…"
"Aha! Hoist with your own petard!"
"I haven't used a petard in years," she murmured, but he seemed not to hear her.
"I wasn't talking about that twit Stefan — I am accusing you of being in love with Arnold!" He muscled aside a dainty occasional table. "What have you to say to that?"
She looked blank. "Arnold who?"
Oh, there go those writerly hackles again — it takes so little to raise them. Clarity and flow not enough for you?
"I guess that's fine," hackle-raisers mutter, kicking the nearest piece of heavy furniture, "but really didn't see a problem with the earlier version. I miss the fun names."
Of course you do — as a writer. As a reader, you almost certainly wouldn't; let's face it, the similarity of the names of Mona's presumptive lovers could only be amusing for so long. It's also a type of joke that our Millicent sees often enough in submissions that even if it did tickle her funny bone at first, it could hardly strike her as original. On the whole, she's more likely to be pleased to see some naming restraint. She spends so much time trying to remember which character is which, you see.
Oh, you think that's not difficult? Okay, try a little experiment: hie yourself to the nearest well-stocked bookstore and pull twenty books off the shelves. Stack them neatly before you and read the first page of each. Wait five minutes, then jot down as many of the main characters' names as you can.
It's not so easy. Especially if you happened to select books in which the characters boast similar names. Which prompts me to ask: everyone did catch the plethora of Js in today's title, right?
I sincerely hope so: names beginning with J have for years been by far the most common in submission, especially in YA. Isn't that right, Jeremy, Josh, and Jesse? And don't even get me started on the many, many years during which John, Jon, Jonathan, Jack, and Johnny traipsed merrily through the pages of virtually any novel one might happen to pick up in an airport.
Just between us, Justin, a screener or contest judge doesn't have to be on the job for very long to start longing for the odd Anthony, a wayward Terence, a charming Gregory, merely for the sake of variety. "Would it kill the average submitter," Millicent moans into her third latté of the morning (hey, something's got to keep her awake), "to give a passing thought to naming his protagonist Keith?"
Oh, Millie, I feel your pain — but at the risk of repeating myself (oh, John, must we go over this again?), it's my considered opinion that on the manuscript page, writers just don't spot the problem. Partially, that's attributable to an unfortunate fact of submission: a good 90% of writers currently sending off manuscript pages to agencies, small publishers, and writing contests have never actually clapped eyes upon another writer's manuscript.
So is it really any wonder that any given submitter should be unaware that by the time Millicent meets his protagonist, Joshua Jefferson, in the course of her screening day, she will have already had the pleasure of making the literary acquaintance of 13 other Joshes, Jeffs, and possibly their sons? As far as they know, her Josh is the only one in town.
Then, too, all of us are just used to knowing quite a few people with the same first name. So is Millicent. In her case, though, all the sympathy this experience sparks is to wonder why so few writers seem to have noticed that in the real world, it's often kind of inconvenient when several people moving within the same circles share the same name.
Says the former coed who could walk into her collegiate dining hall, shout "David!" and see a third of her male classmates turn around. Someone in the admissions office — and in the nation's maternity wards a couple of decades earlier — sure must have been awfully fond of it.
Before any of you slice-of-life aficionados leap to your feet to argue the virtues of having a manuscript's naming strategy hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature, let me hasten to add that it's really, really common for readers to confuse characters whose names begin with the same capital letter, let alone the same first syllable. It may be fun to plan a story about adventurous twins Ken and Kendra, but on the page, it's likely to confuse a skimmer. So are those intrepid best friends, Dustin and Justine.
Oh, you don't believe me, friends of Morris, Maurice, and Marius? Okay, let's take a peek at some of these naming faux pas in their native environment, the manuscript page. If you're having trouble reading such small type so fast, I recommend holding down the COMMAND key and pressing + to enlarge the image.
For those of you who would like to replicate Millicent's experience within the comfort of home, I invite you to try to read your way all the way down the page in less than 30 seconds. On your marks, get set — squint!
How did you do? Award yourself a gold star if you spotted all 9 iterations of John in the body of the text — and another if you caught the author's name in the header. (No, that wouldn't count as repetition in the text, now that you mention it, but to a repetition-weary Millicent at the end of a long day, it might contribute subconsciously to her sense of being bombarded by Johns. She's only human, you know.)
So far, so good. But let me ask you: did the 6 Paulines bug you at all? Or did they simply fade into the woodwork, because your brain automatically accepted them as necessary to the text?
Again, for most writers, the answer would be no — as long as this page had fluttered gracefully out of their own manuscripts. Admittedly, though, not all of them would have instantly leapt to their feet, crying, "My heavens, Mr. or Ms. Johns, have you never met a pronoun you've liked?"
That's quite a bit more charitable than what a nit-picky reader would have shouted — and since that demographic includes practically everyone who has ever read for a living, including agents, editors, and contest judges, you might want to worry about that. Millicent, I assure you, would have found the level of name-repetition here eye-distracting.
How eye-distracting, you ask with fear and trembling? Well, let me put it kindly: how distracted from your fine writing would you find it acceptable for her to be? Wouldn't you rather she focused upon the many excellencies of your style than all of those Js and Ps?
News flash: proper nouns are as susceptible to over-use in writing as any other kind of words. Although aspiring writers' eyes often glide over character and place names during revision, thinking of them as special cases, to professional eyes, there is no such thing as a word exempt from being counted as repetitive if it pops up too often on the page.
In fact, proper noun repetition is actually more likely to annoy your friendly neighborhood Millicent than repetition of other nouns. (Did you catch how frequently fog appeared in that last example, by the way?) Too-frequent repetition of the character and place names makes the average editor rend her garments and the garden-variety agent moan.
If it's any consolation, they've been rending and moaning for years; proper nouns have been asserting and re-asserting themselves on the manuscript page for a couple of decades now. Pros used to attribute this problem to itsy-bitsy computer screens.
Oh, did that reference perplex you, children? Ask your parents about the early Macs' postcard-sized screens. They weren't even tall enough to give a life-sized reflection of an adult face. If the user made the text large enough to read, the screen would only hold a dozen or so lines.
But as technology has progressed, the screens on even inexpensive computers have gotten rather large, haven't they? Even on a tablet, you can usually view of half a page, at least. My extra-spiffy editor's monitor can display two full-sized manuscript pages side by side. I could serve a Thanksgiving dinner for eight upon it, if I so chose.
I never have so chosen, in case you were curious. But it's nice to have the option.
Given how much easier it is to see words on a screen now than in days of yore, Millicent is left at a loss to explain why writers so seldom have a clear idea of how distracting name repetition can be on a page. Could it possibly be as simple as writers tending to christen their major characters with their favorite names (I'm looking at you, John), ones they like so much that they simply cannot see the darn things crop up often enough?
Good guess, Millie, but I don't think that's all that's going on. I suspect it has to do with how differently the eye reads text on a backlit screen: it definitely encourages skimming, if not great big leaps down the page. But for the most part, I believe it has to do with how infrequently writers read their own work in hard copy.
Hear that Gregorian-like chanting floating through the ether? That's every writer for whom I've ever edited so much as a paragraph automatically murmuring, "Before submission, I must read my manuscript IN ITS ENTIRETY, IN HARD COPY, and OUT LOUD." I repeat this advice so often that writers who read this blog religiously have been heard to mutter this inspiring little axiom unconsciously their sleep, under their breath during important meetings, on their deathbeds…
So my prescription for learning to head this Millicent-irritant off at the pass will not, I suspect, come as a complete surprise: the best way to catch any visual pattern on the printed page is, you guessed it, to print out the page in question and read it. As I think you will soon discover, proper nouns are unusually gifted at flagging down a reader's attention.
Since I don't see too many of you stampeding in the direction of your manuscripts to verify this in your own writing, here's another example. Again, you'll get the most out of this exercise if you read it at top speed.
Did you notice how your eye longed to leap from one T to the next, even if it meant skipping some text? That's only natural. Come a little closer, and I let you in on a closely-held professional readers' secret: the skimming eye is automatically attracted to capital letters.
That's why, in case you had been wondering, not-especially-literate people tend to Capitalize Words for Emphasis. When they're not placing words that no one has ever said aloud inside quotation marks, that is — another widespread professional readers' pet peeve. It's virtually always grammatically incorrect to Use Punctuation to Attract Unwarranted Eyeballing, just as it's seldom literarily acceptable to "surround" words like "this," presumably to demonstrate to the "reader" that were these words being "spoken aloud," someone might emphasize them, but that doesn't seem to stop devotees of either practice.
To be fair, using punctuation as a substitute for writing that calls attention to itself does indeed work. Just be aware that among print-oriented people, that attention will probably not be positive.
Proper nouns, on the other hand, claim capitalization as a natural right. Completely legitimately, they jump off the page at the reader — which can be a good thing, if a manuscript is crammed to the gills with action, unnamed characters, and other literary titivations that do not involve the named characters. That way, reader's eye will be drawn to the major players when they show up. Problem solved, right?
In most manuscripts, no. It's pretty common for narratives to remind readers unnecessarily often of even the protagonist's name. And since most novels and pretty much all memoirs deal with their respective protagonists on virtually every page, that can result in a whole lot of capital letters competing for Millicent's attention.
Are you satisfied with that outcome, John? John? If you don't start paying attention, I'll have to page Pauline.
Millicent's constantly confronted by scenes constructed by authors evidently terrified that some reader will forget who is speaking. Or so she must conclude by the frequency with which characters address one another by name — much more often than would be bearable in real life. And it's not just the characters that seem to fall prey to this fear: narratives often compulsively name and rename everyone in sight. Heck, while we're at it, why not remind the reader of how those characters are interrelated?
"But that's not fair, Mom!" Cecile wailed.
Her mother stroked her bent head. "Now, Cece, you knew running for Congress was going to be hard."
The daughter batted the maternal hand away. "It's no use, Mom. I simply cannot kill another baby. My pucker is broken."
Call me zany, but I cling to the hope that when one character refers to another as Mom, a conscientious reader will be able to figure out that the latter is the former's mother. Similarly, once that reader has been made aware that the latter gave birth to the former, I'm pretty confident that the conclusion that Cecile is the daughter will not be an especially surprising revelation.
Besides, we're not dealing with legions of characters here. Unless the one of the characters happens to have multiple personalities, most readers will leap to the radical conclusion that the names of the conversants will not alter substantially within the course of a few pages of dialogue. So why keep labeling the participants in a scene where there's little probability of confusing the reader?
A fine question — and the reason professional editors so frequently cut tag lines (he said, she said), rather than having the narrative identify every speaker every time s/he opens his or her pretty mouth. Once the narrative has established the speakers in two-person dialogue (far and away the most common variety, by the way), a reasonably intelligent reader is more than capable of remembering what both of those people are called by their kith and kin.
So if your text seems to have broken out in capital letters, look first at the dialogue, both inside the quotation marks and without. In dialogue where the use of tag lines has not been minimized, proper names can pop up so frequently that it's like a drumbeat in the reader's ear.
And it's my job to get you to hear it as you read. I can keep producing these examples all day, people.
"I don't think that's fair of you, April," Louisa snapped.
"Why not?" April asked.
"Oh, don't be disingenuous with me, April. I've known you too long."
April played with a nearby paperweight. Was she testing its weight for throwing? "Honestly, Lou, I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about. Unless this is about John?"
"Of course it's about John," Louisa huffed. "How many husbands do you think I have?"
"Just one," April said, smiling. "It's been just John since the seventh grade."
Louisa's eyes stung for a moment. April always had known how to push her buttons. "Don't change the subject, April. Next, you'll be reminiscing about that time we tarred and feathered our classmate when we were in the fourth grade."
April sighed. "Those were the days, eh, Lou?"
"I'll say," Louisa said, edging out of paperweight-tossing range. "She should have known better than to beat you at tetherball."
Yes, speakers in the real world do call one another by name this much sometimes, but like so much of real-life dialogue, that level of repetition would be snore-inducing, if not downright hypnotic, on the page. Especially when name-bearing tag lines are featured in the text, even dialogue between just a couple of characters can convey the sense of a very crowded room.
Does that combination of frantic jumping and wild arm-waving mean that some of you would like to add something here? "But Anne," some perennial reader-distrusters point out, "wasn't that last example rather unwise? I mean, if you took your vicious red pen to that exchange, slashing all of the proper nouns but the first set required to set up the alternating dialogue rhythm, you'd end up in precisely the dilemma we saw at the top of this post, the one you dismissed as a straw man: a scene in which the characters share a pronoun. Get out of that one, smarty-pants!"
In the first place, I seldom edit with red pens: due to early school training, virtually any adult will perceive red-inked marginalia as more critical than commentary scrawled in another color. (And you might be shocked at how excited some adult writers become when they learn that if a paragraph is especially good, I have been known to slap a gold star next to it. Book-length revisions have been fueled by the hope of gold stars.) And in the second place, with a little finesse, depicting an exchange between pronoun-sharers need not be at all confusing.
We're writers, after all: why should the only possible word choice to replace a proper noun be a pronoun? Use your creativity, as well as your scissors. And don't be afraid to rearrange a little text.
"I don't think that's fair of you, April," Louisa snapped.
"Why not?"
"Oh, don't be disingenuous with me. I've known you too long."
April played with a nearby paperweight. Was she testing its weight for throwing? "Honestly, I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about. Unless this is about John?"
"Of course it is. How many husbands do you think I have?"
"Just one. It's been just John since the seventh grade."
Louisa's eyes stung for a moment. April always had known how to push her buttons. "Don't change the subject. Next, you'll be reminiscing about that time we tarred and feathered our classmate when we were in the fourth grade."
"Those were the days, eh, Lou?"
She edged out of paperweight-tossing range. "She should have known better than to beat you at tetherball."
We weren't exactly flung headlong into a morass of confusion there, were we?
"But Anne," pronoun-eschewers protest, and who could blame them? "You keep giving us dialogue examples. I find myself going out of my way to eschew pronouns in narrative paragraphs as well. Is there then no hope of quelling my deep and abiding fear of being misunderstood when I'm describing a couple of similarly-gendered characters?"
Never fear — we already have a very capable quelling device in our tool kit. And look, here's a dandy excerpt to which we can apply it, fresh from the pen of someone terrified that two shes in a scene is one lady too many.
Eve slapped her laptop shut with a bang and glanced around, annoyed, for her waitress. Naturally, Tanya was nowhere in sight. Eve ostentatiously drained her drink to its dregs, but when Tanya did not come running, Eve filched a straw from the table next to her. The guy tapping away on his laptop never even noticed. Eve made slurping sounds on the bottom of her glass with it.
Still no sign of Tanya. For good measure, Eve upended the glass, scattering swiftly melting ice cubes messily all over the starched white tablecloth, and began banging the now-empty vessel upon the now-sodden linen.
Silently, Tanya retrieved Eve's glass from Eve's waving hand. Tanya inclined her head toward the wall clock: ten minutes past closing time.
Eve looked up at Tanya with that my-daddy-is-someone-important air that always worked with bank tellers, hot dog vendors, and waitresses who lived primarily upon their tips. Haughtily, Eve tapped her fountain pen on each of the seven empty Perrier bottles before her. How dare Tanya treat her like a drunk?
At this juncture, dare I hope that you found this at least a bit annoying to read? Come on, admit it — if I had opened the post with this example, it would have struck you as better prose, right? Which is why, I can reveal at long last, I've been positively burying you in examples today: until you've had to read page after page of name-heavy prose, it can seems a trifle counter-intuitive that reusing a single word — any single word — within two consecutive lines might be irritating to a reader.
Yes, even if the word in question is not a proper noun. The capitalization of a name merely makes it stand out more, bellowing at Millicent, "Look at me! Repetition here! Wouldn't want to miss it, would you?"
So what, the fearful ask, are we to do about it? Clearly, we can't just replace all of the proper nouns with she; the narrative might conceivably become confusing. (If you retain any linger doubts about how confusing a narrative can be when no proper names are used at all, get a 4-year-old to tell you the plot of a movie he's just seen.) And clearly, going after tag lines and characters naming one another wouldn't be helpful in a scene containing neither.
That doesn't mean, however, that we can't perform a little judicious proper noun removal surgery. We'll just have to exercise a little more creativity. Here's the same scene again, streamlined to minimize the perceived necessity of naming the players.
She slapped her laptop shut with a bang and glanced around, annoyed, for her waitress. Naturally, Tanya was nowhere in sight. Eve ostentatiously drained her drink to its dregs, but when no one came running, she filched a straw from the table next to her — the guy tapping away on his computer never even noticed — and made slurping sounds on the bottom of her glass with it.
Still no sign of life. For good measure, she upended the glass, scattering swiftly melting ice cubes messily all over the starched white tablecloth, and began banging the now-empty vessel upon the now-sodden linen.
Silently, Tanya snatched the glass in mid-flight. She inclined her head toward the wall clock: ten minutes past closing time.
Eve looked up at her with that my-daddy-is-someone-important air that always worked with bank tellers, hot dog vendors, and waitresses. God, she hated being treated like a drunk. Haughtily, she tapped her fountain pen on each of the seven empty Perrier bottles before her
Anybody especially confused? I thought not.
Before any of you proper noun-huggers out there start grumbling about the care required to tell when a pronoun is appropriate and when a proper noun, let me hasten to point out that this was not a very time-consuming revision. All it required to alert the reader to which she was which was a clear narrative line, a well-presented situation — and a willingness to name names when necessary.
That, and an awareness that repeating names even as far apart as three or four lines just doesn't look good on a printed page; it can draw the eye away from an orderly, line-by-line reading, and therefore detrimental to the reading experience. A proper noun repeated more than once per sentence, or within a single line of text, almost always seems just a trifle odd to a reader — and more than a little annoying to Millicent.
Feel as though you will be excising proper nouns in your sleep? Excellent; my work here is done. Night-night, John-John, and keep up the good work!


text:
Creating a custom banner is easy
Creating a custom decals is easy
Creating a custom magnetic sign is easy
Creating a custom sign is easy
Creating a custom lettering is easy
Find out accessories for signs and banners
This design is unique with its brown wood grained background which tells the customer that your company has quality products. The text is black with areas for the company, your company services, company phone number, website, and an area for your additional information
Corrugated Plastic is a lightweight, inexpensive sign board that can be used outdoors. Often used with "H" frames, these signs are often used for political campaigns and other advertisements along roadsides and in front of stores to promote sales. The "flute" lines make for a less attractive interior sign-but these inexpensive signs are a step up from the "handwritten" poster, and are often used in shops to post company policies, shop rates and more. Outdoor durable.
Included in the kit is the White A-Frame along with (1) sign insert. Overall Size 25" wide x 45" high. Sign regress of 24" wide x 36" high ( +/- 1/4"). Patented Locking Hinge – Keeps Signicade Open. Hole with plug for sand ballasting. Stacking lugs assures no sliding and scratching during shipping

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The expedition considered the people living there to be healthy and handsome... They all appeared to be thriving on their 'meager diet' of fish and coconut, for no evidence of cultivation was seen... People of both sexes were tattooed with geometric designs and figures of turtles and fish. The numerous reports and journals of the Expedition leave the impression of a generally admirable people - amiable (though cautious), peaceful, orderly, and resourceful.Between 1841 and 1863, the population of Tokelau was reduced to a fraction of its original size by epidemics and kidnapping by slave ships. The old social and religious order was broken, and the inhabitants were converted to Christianity by overzealous and competing Protestant and Catholic missionaries. During this time, Tokelauans also gained new food sources from other Polynesian islands, including breadfruit trees, pulaka (a starchy tuber), pigs and chickens. Breadfruit is a starchy fruit used like plantain.
Tokelau became a territory of New Zealand in 1925, and Tokelauans were granted New Zealand citizenship in 1948. In 1963, a government-assisted migration program was established to (voluntarily) bring Tokelauans to the New Zealand mainland, as the population of Tokelau had reached a cozy 1,870 people. When a cyclone devastated coconut and breadfruit crops in 1966, Tokelauans began taking advantage of the assisted migration program in earnest. By 1971, roughly half of Tokelauans lived on the New Zealand mainland.
There are two reasons why the Tokelau Island Migrant study is unique. First, it's one of the best-documented transitions from a traditional to a modern lifestyle, studied over decades on Tokelau and in New Zealand. Regular visits by physicians recorded the health of the population as it shifted from a relatively traditional diet to a more Western one. The second thing that makes this population unique is they traditionally have an extraordinarily high saturated fat intake from coconut. They derive between 54 and 62 percent of their calories from coconut, which is 87% saturated. This gives them perhaps the highest documented saturated fat intake in the world. This will be a test of the "diet-heart hypothesis", the idea that dietary fat, cholesterol and especially saturated fat contribute to cardiovascular disease!
Through the late 1960s, cargo ships visited Tokelau every three months, making only small contributions to the islanders' diets. In 1968, just two percent of Tokelauans' calories came from sugar. By 1978, the number had risen to 8 percent, and by 1982, 14 percent. The increase came chiefly from refined sugar and sweetened imported foods. In 1961, ships brought 12 lb of flour per person per year to Tokelau, increasing to 60 lb per year by 1980. During this time, importation of low-quality canned meats such as "mutton flaps" and chicken backs, and sweets also increased. Rice imports declined in the 1970s. The diet of migrants to New Zealand rapidly became highly Westernized, containing a higher proportion of refined carbohydrates such as flour and sugar, more red meat and poultry, and less coconut and seafood.
Here's a nice quote from Migration and Health in a Small Society: the Case of Tokelau, to set the tone for the rest of the posts in this series:
In the mid- and late twentieth century, 'Western diseases'- that is, diseases of affluence (Trowell and Burkitt 1981)- have become the major health risk for Polynesians, because of exposure to cosmopolitan diet patterns and life-style.That quote could have been straight out of Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, despite being published 60 years later. Good science is timeless. Join me in future posts as I explore the health of Tokelauan society as it transitions from a traditional diet and lifestyle to a modern one.
The varying cultures and resource bases of islands in the Pacific have influenced the degree to which their populations have been modernized and thus exposed to Western diseases. At one end of the spectrum are relatively traditional subsistence societies such as those on Tokelau and on the low islands- for example Pukapuka, Manihiki, and Rakahanga in the Northern Cook Islands. These atolls are characterized by the almost complete absence of soil, by the inhabitants' dependence on coconut in varied forms, and by a bountiful supply of fish as a major part of the traditional diet. Their populations are notable for their low levels of blood pressure, high rates of infectious disease, and low rates of coronary heart disease, obesity and diabetes. At the other end of the spectrum are those Polynesian societies, such as the Hawaiians and the Maori of New Zealand, who were submerged by 'Western' settlers and the dominating cultures they brought with them. These populations have inevitably acquired the diseases of the 'West', sometimes to an exaggerated degree.


text:
Bishop Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh
This talk was given by Metropolitan Anthony to the London Group of the Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius and their friends on Saturday, 17 February 1968. It was taken down in shorthand, transcribed, corrected by Metropolitan Anthony and published at the time in booklet form by the Fellowship, but has long been out of print. The editor of the original booklet mentioned in his introduction that 'because of the large crowds the meeting at Saint Basil's House (the London centre of the Fellowship) had to be transferred to the Church of Saint John the Baptist, Notting Hill.'
Contrary to what many think or feel, Lent is a time of joy. It is a time when we come back to life. It is a time when we shake off what is bad and dead in us in order to become able to live, to live with all the vastness, all the depth, and all the intensity to which we are called. Unless we understand this quality of joy in Lent, we will make of it a monstrous caricature, a time when in God's own name we make our life a misery. This notion of joy connected with effort, with ascetical endeavour, with strenuous effort may indeed seem strange, and yet it runs through the whole of our spiritual life, through the life of the Church and the life of the Gospel. The Kingdom of God is something to be conquered. It is not simply given to those who leisurely, lazily wait for it to come. To those who wait for it in that spirit, it will come indeed: it will come at midnight; it will come like the Judgement of God, like the thief who enters when he is not expected, like the bridegroom, who arrives while the foolish virgins are asleep. This is not the way in which we should await Judgement and the Kingdom. Here again we need to recapture an attitude of mind which usually we can't manage to conjure up out of our depth, something which had become strangely alien to us: the joyful expectation of the Day of the Lord – in spite of the fact that we know this Day will be a Day of judgement. It may strike us as strange to hear that in Church we proclaim the Gospel – the 'good news' – of judgement, and yet we do. We proclaim that the Day of the Lord is not fear, but hope, and declare together with the spirit of the Church: 'Come, Lord Jesus, and come soon' (cf. Rev. 22.20). So long as we are incapable of speaking in these terms, we lack something important in our Christian consciousness. We are still, whatever we may say, pagans dressed up in evangelical garments. We are still people for whom God is a God outside of us, for whom his coming is darkness and fear, and whose judgement is not our redemption but our condemnation, for whom to meet the Lord is a dread event and not the event we long and live for. Unless we realise this, then Lent cannot be a joy, since Lent brings with it both judgement and responsibility: we must judge ourselves in order to change, in order to become able to meet the Day of the Lord, the Resurrection, with an open heart, with faith, ready to rejoice in the fact that he has come. Every coming of the Lord is judgement. The Fathers draw a parallel between Christ and Noah. They say that the presence of Noah in his generation was at the same time condemnation and salvation. It was condemnation because the presence of one man who remained faithful, of just one man who was a saint of God, was evidence that holiness was possible and that those who were sinners, those who had rejected God and turned away from him, could have done otherwise. So the presence of a righteous man was judgement and condemnation upon his time. Yet it was also the salvation of his time, because it was only thanks to him that God looked with mercy on mankind. And the same is true of the coming of the Lord. There is also another joy in judgement. Judgement is not something that falls upon us from outside. Yes, the day will come when we will stand before God and be judged; but while our pilgrimage still continues, while we still live in the process of becoming, while there still lies ahead of us the road that leads us towards the fullness of the stature of Christ, towards our vocation, then judgement must be pronounced by ourselves. There is a constant dialogue within us throughout our lives. You remember the parable in which Christ says: 'Make your peace with your adversary while you are on the way' (Mt. 5.25). Some of the spiritual writers have seen in the adversary not the devil (with whom we cannot make our peace, with whom we are not to come to terms), but our conscience, which throughout life walks apace with us and never leaves us in peace. Our conscience is in continuous dialogue with us, gainsaying us at every moment, and we must come to terms with it because otherwise the moment will come when we finally reach the Judge, and then our adversary will become our accuser, and we will stand condemned. So while we are on the road, judgement is something which goes on constantly within ourselves, a dialogue, a dialectical tension between our thoughts and our emotions and our feelings and our actions which stand in judgement before us and before whom we stand in judgement. But in this respect we very often walk in darkness, and this darkness is the result of our darkened mind, of our darkened heart, of the darkening of our eye, which should be clear. It is only if the Lord himself sheds his light into our soul and upon our life, that we can begin to see what is wrong and what is right in us. There is a remarkable passage in the writings of John of Kronstadt, a Russian priest of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, in which he says that God does not reveal to us the ugliness of our souls unless he can see in us sufficient faith and sufficient hope for us not to be broken by the vision of our own sins. In other words, whenever we see ourselves with our dark side, whenever this knowledge of ourselves increases, we can then understand ourselves more clearly in the light of God, that is, in the light of the divine judgement. This means two things: it means that we are saddened to discover our own ugliness, indeed, but also that we can rejoice at the same time, since God has granted us his trust. He has entrusted to us a new knowledge of ourselves as we are, as he himself always saw us and as, at times, he did not allow us to see ourselves, because we could not bear the sight of truth. Here again, judgement becomes joy, because although we discover what is wrong, yet the discovery is conditioned by the knowledge that God has seen enough faith, enough hope and enough fortitude in us to allow us to see these things, because he knows that now we are able to act. All this is important if we want to understand that joy and Lent can go together. Otherwise the constant, insistent effort of the Church – and of the word of God – to make us aware of what is wrong in us can lead us to despair and to darkness, until finally we have been brought so low that we are no longer capable of meeting the Resurrection of Christ with joy, because we realise – or imagine that we realise – that the Resurrection has nothing to do with us. We are in darkness, God is in light. We see nothing but our judgement and condemnation at the very moment when we should be emerging out of darkness into the saving act of God, which is both our judgement and our salvation. The Orthodox Church introduces Lent with a series of preparatory weeks in which the readings of the Gospel lead us step by step from outer darkness, as it were, to the point of judgement. I would like to remind you quickly of these stages. The first, dramatic stage in which we find ourselves consists in the fact that we are blind and yet are unaware of our blindness. We are in darkness and are unaware that this darkness is within and around us. Our eye is dark and darkens all that is inside us, while we remain unaware of it. The first reading from the Gospel that confronts us with this aspect of our preparation for Lent is the story of Bartimaeus, the blind man at the gate of Jericho, a man who either had lost his sight or was born blind, but was left there in the darkness, in the outer darkness. There was no light for him, there was no life for him, either, and there was no joy for him. He probably had come to terms with his distress. He continued to exist, since he could not live. He continued to exist day after day thanks to the cold, indifferent charity of passers-by. But one thing made his misery both dramatic and tragic: he lived in the time of Jesus. More than once Bartimaeus must have heard of this man of God who had come to the world, who was healing and renewing people and things, a man who had opened the eye of blind men, who had given sight to the man born blind. The presence of the possibility of salvation, of an impossible healing, must have made his darkness even darker. Possible it was, if God came his way, yet impossible, because how could he find the itinerant preacher and healer who never was still, never in the same place? How could a blind man keep pace with him? Darkness came into his awareness because there was a possibility that he might see. His despair became deeper than ever before, because there was hope. And so, when Christ came near him he could ask for healing from the very depth of his despair and from the very depth of a total, passionate longing for salvation. The coming of God had made him aware of darkness as he had never been before, aware as never before of the tragedy which he lived. This is the first step, which we must accept and which we find so difficult to accept: we must face our true situation, not consoling ourselves with the thought that we have some sort of life within us that can replace divine life. We must accept that we are in darkness as far as the light of God is concerned. And then we must do something about it. First of all we must become aware of the fact that without light we are lost, because the darkness in which we are left is death, the absence of God. But when it comes to doing something, there are two things that stand in our way. First of all, we will not act unless we are aware that we are in a desperate situation. If we are not aware that it is really a question of life and death, of the only thing that matters, then we will do nothing. We will pray God to do something. We will hope that even though we are not even praying, he will come and act. But it is only out of a sense of deadly urgency that we can begin to act, like Bartimaeus, whom no one could stop from crying out, shouting for help, since he knew that this was the decisive moment. Christ was passing by. In a minute he would be gone and the darkness would become permanent, irremediable. Another thing that prevents us from doing something is the way we are afraid of people. I remember a man in prison who told me how marvelous it was to be found out, because, as he said, 'So long as I had not been found out, I spent all my time, an my effort, trying to look as though I was alright. The moment I was caught I felt, "Now I can choose: I can either remain what I was, a thief and a cheat, or else I can change. Now I am free to become different, and no one will be any more surprised than they were to discover that I was a thief."' As long as you have appearances to maintain it is terribly difficult to change, and this is what the parable of Zacchaeus, which follows the story the Blind Man, brings out so clearly. The problem of Zacchaeus was this: he wanted to see Christ. Would he take the risk of being ridiculous or not? To be ridiculous is a lot more difficult than to be disapproved of, because when we are sharply disapproved of we can hide behind our own pride. We feel that we stand against the whole world, even if this world is so small that it is not even worth noticing. But to be laughed at, to be ridiculed, is something which is beyond the courage of most of us. Can you imagine a bank manager in a small town climbing a tree in the midst of a big crowd, with all the boys whistling, pointing at him with their fingers, making cat-cries and the rest, just for the sake of meeting Christ? Well, that was the position of Zacchaeus, the rich man. But for him meeting Christ was so essential, such a question of death and life, that he was prepared to disregard the ridicule, the humiliation, attached to his action – and he saw Christ. There are two ways out of our dependence upon human opinions and human judgements. We must either do what Zacchaeus did, accept humiliation because it is essential to be saved, or we can let our hearts be hardened, and accept the pride that will negate the judgement of others. There is no third way. There is only the spontaneous oscillation which we all experience, knowing what is right, knowing what is wrong, and never deciding for either right or wrong because whenever we turn to the wrong we are afraid of the judgement of God, while whenever we turn to the right we are afraid of the judgement of men. Pride or humility are the only two paths by which we can leave this situation. And then there is the problem of God's judgement. The story of Zacchaeus shows how we can oscillate between the judgement of men and the judgement of God. Now comes the opportunity for another move. Isn't it time, when we are confronted with life and death, for us to judge ourselves and not be completely dependent upon others? We see this in the Publican and the Pharisee – the first, sharp, definite judgement which is both human and divine, because both coincide. If we ask ourselves how it is possible that the Pharisee could be so proud in spite of knowing so much about God and things divine, how it was that the Publican could be so truly humble in spite of being simple, I think we can find the answer in this: the terms of reference for the Pharisee were found in the law, the letter of the law. One can always be right as far as the law and the letter is concerned. One can always fulfil rules and commandments. One can always have 'done one's duty' and feel irreproachable. The terms of reference of the Publican, however, were different. He was not a good man. What he knew of the law was this: certain aspects of the law condemned him because he knew what he was like. Certain other aspects of the law he could use in order to extort whatever he wanted out of other people. The law for him was a powerful, cruel, hard instrument in his hands or in the hands of God. And as he knew life, he knew perfectly well that the only salvation from the law was human mercy, human compassion, a human approach and attitude to one another. That was the only thing that could save a debtor from prison or save an extortioner from the judgement of the magistrate: a human touch. And so his terms of reference were in tension between a law which was inexorable, implacable, always a power that could not be fulfilled because he was too weak for it and, on the other hand, a law that could be used with such cruelty against others – and then the human relationship that could redeem all. The Publican's terms of reference were people, his neighbours, including that invisible neighbour, God. This is why he could stand at the threshold of the temple and beat his breast, though hopelessly: in spite of all the logic of things, he knew that in his world of hard, cruel, implacable men there were moments when all things become possible, for a man can be a man even when he is hardened and cruel. And so it was with God. The law was there to condemn him, but God was 'someone'. He was not only the law-giver. He was not only the one who made sure that the law is observed. He was free within his law to act with humanity. This knowledge made the Publican humble before God, because his terms of reference contained hope, and the object of his hope was mercy, pity, charity. This made all things possible, in spite of the fact that it is so humiliating to be loved and to be saved by love. The same truth appears in another way in the next parable, that of the Prodigal Son. Here again we find two men, one who is righteous and another who is unrighteous. The Prodigal Son is in a way another aspect of the Publican, and the elder brother is the same as the Pharisee. But here we are confronted not only with the tension between a law that is objective, and therefore dead, and mercy, which is subjective because alive and personal, but we are confronted with the theme of sin itself. What does it mean to be in sin? It can be clearly defined in terms of the short conversation between the son and the father at the beginning of the parable. And if you want to put it in words more modern and cruder than the Gospel, it really amounts to this: 'Father, I want to live, and you stand in my way. As long as you are alive the goods are yours. Die, for all intents and purposes. Let us suppose that you are already dead. I have no time to wait until you die in fact. Let us agree that as far as I am concerned I have no father left, but I have his goods because I have inherited them'. This is the sort of speech which we find, with the same or perhaps lesser hardness, on so many occasions between children and parents, between people who are related to one another in one way or another. It really involves saying: 'As a person you do not matter. You stand in my way. The only thing that is of value to me is what I can get out of you. And so that I may get all I can from you, you must surrender even your existence. You must accept not to be'. This is sin, sin with regard to God, and sin with regard to man. With regard to God we are happy to take everything he gives and then turn him out of our lives. We are happy to go into a strange country to spend all he has given, while denying his existence with the same ruthlessness with which, in Holy Week, the soldiers covered the eyes of Christ so he could not see, so that they would be able to laugh at him more freely. The same is so often true of our relationships with people. And this is also sin. This is the very point: to rule the other out because he doesn't matter. What matters are things – and the use I can make of them. And then there is another aspect in this parable: hunger, distress, loneliness, all those things which we so hate in life, and yet which come to us as our only salvation, because as long as we are surrounded with comfort, we don't notice our true situation. We prove unable to move inward and to see that we are lonely in the midst of this crowd and that we are poor in the midst of all this richness. It is important for us to realise that all that comes our way which is bitter, which is hard, which is difficult, which we hate with all our greed and with all or fear – that is our salvation. To be deprived is essential for us. And if we are not deprived, we must learn to deprive ourselves to the point of becoming aware that we are face to face with the living God in the final, total nakedness and dereliction which is man's condition when he does not hide behind things. We misjudge our situation so badly in this respect. There is a beautiful passage in the Tales of the Hassidim translated by Martin Buber, in which he tells about a man, a rabbi, who lived in appalling misery and yet every morning and every evening thanked God for his generous gifts. One of those who heard his prayer said to him, 'How can you be so hypocritical? Don't you see that God has given you nothing?' And he said, 'No, you are mistaken. God looked on me and thought, "This man, to be saved, needs hunger and thirst and cold and loneliness and illness and dereliction." And he has given me these things in abundance'. This is the true, Christian attitude, the attitude of a believer for whom the soul really matters. And this is what the return of the Prodigal Son to himself shows us. It also shows us another thing. The Prodigal Son comes back, having rehearsed his confession, and says: 'I have sinned against heaven and against thee. I am no longer worthy to be called thy son. Let me be like the hired servants'. But the father does not allow him to say the last words. Each of us can be a prodigal son, a prodigal daughter, an unworthy son, an unworthy daughter, an unworthy friend. What no one can do is to adjust himself to a relationship, however worthy, below his rank. No one who is an unworthy son can become a worthy hireling. We cannot step down from our birthright, from the right which love gave us in the first place. And therefore we are not to look for compromise and for legal readjustments with God and say, 'I can't give you my heart but I will behave well. I can't love you but I will serve you', and so forth. This is a lie, a relationship which God is not prepared to accept and will refuse to accept. The last step on our way towards Lent is one which is shown to us in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats. It sets before us the following problem: what are we going to judge and to be judged about? And the answer is absolutely clear. In all this process of judgement we may have thought that we will be judged on whether we have a deep knowledge of God, whether we are theologians, whether we live in the transcendental realm. Well, this parable makes it absolutely clear that God's question to us, before we can enter into any kind of divine reality, is this: have you been human? If you have not been human, then don't imagine that you will be able to become like God-become-man, like the God-Man Jesus, who is the measure of all things. This is very important, because the type of judgement which we are constantly making is a falsified judgement. We notice how pious we are, how much knowledge of God we have, questions belonging to the realm of what an English writer has called 'Churchianity' as contrasted with Christianity. But the question which Christ asks us is this: Are you human or sub-human? In other words, are you capable of love or not? I was hungry, I was thirsty, I was naked, I was in prison, I was ill. What did you do about it? Were you able to respond with your heart to my misery, were you able to respond at a cost and with all your humanity – or not? At this point we must remember what we have said before concerning the Pharisee and the Publican. Christ does not ask us to fulfil the law. He will not count the number of loaves of bread and of cups of water and the number of visits we pay to hospitals and so forth. He will measure our heart's response. And this is made clear from the words of Christ in another part of St John's Gospel, where he says, 'And when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, we are unprofitable servants'. The doing means nothing. We become human at the moment when, like the Publican, like the Prodigal Son, we have entered into the realm of broken-heartedness, into the realm of love which is a response both to divine love and to human suffering. This cannot be measured. We can never, on that level, say, 'I am safe. I will come to the judgement and be one of the sheep', because it will not be a question of whether or not we have accomplished the law, but whether this law has become so much ourselves that it has grown into the mystery of love. There, at that point, we will be on the fringe, on the very threshold of entering into that spring of life, that renewal of life, that newness of all things, which is Lent. We will have gone through all these stages of judgement, and will have emerged from blindness and from the law into a vision of the mysterious relationship which may be called 'mercy' or 'grace'. And we will be face to face with being human. But we must remember that to be human does not mean to be 'like us' but 'like Christ'. With this we can enter Lent and begin to experience through the readings of the Church, through the prayers of the Church, through the process of repentance, that discovery of the acts of divine grace which alone can lead us towards growth into the full stature of the likeness of Christ. I have brought you to the gate. Now you must walk into it.
Sourozh 1987. N. 27. P. 3-13


text:
Russian Shemale Escort Pelion is available now to demonstrate the most stunning TS escort services to all men, who are in love with arousing lechery and hot adult action.
I bet you could never imagine discovering such a top-class provider of Pelion Tgirl escort services, but shemales escort Pelion is finally available to all nasty studs, who are willing to enjoy the most unforgettable pleasures and discover the most impressive shemales of Russian ladyboy escort Pelion.
There is no confusion that people generally enjoy travelling and discovering new things. This idea is affirmed by the fact that the number of tourists worldwide keeps increasing year by year. However, when it comes to getting the maximum from your travelling experience, a lot of folks tend to fail, because they merely have no clue what to do. However, with us you have nothing to be concerned about, because we specialize in providing high-end pleasures to all the naughty adults. With help of unique Russian trans escort Pelion you will be clearly able to unveil the other side of this marvellous city and obtain access to hidden joys that are not easily accessible for others.
Russian TS escort Pelion has got vast experience in providing top-quality joys to all the kinky studs and women. We clearly know precisely what you require in order to feel satisfied. All your hidden desires and nasty fantasies are quite known to us and we surely know the best ways to implement them in reality. So far, all our clients are really satisfied with the nasty services our Escort Shemale Pelion provides, because they keep coming again to pay a visit to our fascinating and kinky shemales. And you can also join us and unveil the real meaning of passion and lust, because our skilled and experienced hotties from Russian Transsexual Escort Pelion will be more than happy to entertain you with passionate cock-sucking, stunning handjobs, wild cock-riding, joyful anal sex, incredible cosplay, soothing erotic massage, breathtaking group sex and many more - the sky is the limit. So, don't hesitate for long and have a look at those incredible profiles, which were assorted just for you, feel free browsing through sexy photo galleries and check out interesting bio data in order to select just the right tranny for you.


text:
This abstract was presented today at the Association for Research in Vision and Opthalmology (ARVO) meetings in Seattle, Washington by Alexandra D. Butler, William D. Ferrell, Alex Woodell, Carl Atkinson, Baerbel Rohrer, Robert E. Marc and Bryan W. Jones.
Purpose: Smoking is the single largest risk factor for age-related macular degeneration, aside from age. Several of the main genetic risk factors for AMD are polymorphisms occurring in complement genes involved in the alternative, classical and common terminal pathways. To better understand the metabolic impact of smoking on the retina, we used computational molecular phenotyping (CMP) and examined the effects of cigarette smoke on wild type (wt) retinas and mice in which either the alternative pathway (complement factor B, CfB) or the common terminal pathway (complement component 3, C3) was removed.
Methods: Mice were exposed to either cigarette smoke or filtered air. Cigarette smoke (CS) was generated using an automated cigarette-smoking machine (Model TE-10, Teague Enterprises, Davis, CA) by burning 3R4F reference cigarettes (2.45 mg nicotine per cigarette; purchased from the Tobacco Health Research Institute, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY). Mice were exposed to CS for 6 hours/day, 5 days/week for 6 months. Age matched room filtered air exposed mice were used as controls. Eyes were enucleated immediately post-mortem, fixed in 1% paraformaldehyde, 2.5% glutaraldehyde, dehydrated in graded methanols, embedded in eponates and histologically analyzed with CMP.
Results: Alterations in retinal small molecule signatures from mice exposed to cigarette smoke were observed compared to retinas from non-smoked mice in wt, CfB and C3 knockout mice. Signal changes with arginine, glutamine and glutathione progressively increased in the retinas of smoked exposed wt, CfB and C3 knockout mice, indicating increased response profiles to cell stress. Both Müller cells and photoreceptors of wt smoked retinas demonstrated changes relative to non- smoked retinas.
Conclusions: Arginine, glutamine and glutathione, amino acids known to be involved in cellular stress responses, were increased in retinal neurons and glial cells upon smoke exposure. Eliminating essential components of the complement system, a cascade required for the maintenance of the immune privilege of the eye, appears to exacerbate responses to cigarette smoke in oxidative damage response related pathways. Understanding complement-dependent alterations in the eye will aid in our understanding of AMD pathology and may open new avenues for novel treatment strategies.
Support: RPB CDA (BWJ), Thome AMD Grant (BWJ), NIH EY02576 (RM), NIH EY015128 (RM), NSF 0941717 (RM), NIH EY014800 Vision Core (RM), NIH EY019320 (BR), VA merit award RX000444 (BR), grant to MUSC from RPB


text:
Malu Trevejo's Instagram Live Stream from February 25th 2023.
Who is Malu Trevejo?
María Luisa "Malu" Trevejo (born October 15, 2002). She is a Cuban-born Spanish internet celebrity, dancer, singer and songwriter based in Miami, US. Malu initially rose to fame as an Instagram personality. Also she is a Musical.ly star with over 2.5M fans before gaining a following as a singer. She released her debut single "Luna Llena" through Universal Music Latin On September 22, 2017. This song has acquired over 85M views on her YouTube. Not long after, Malu released another single "En Mi Mente". In April 2018, she featured in a collaboration with up-and-coming English pop singer HRVY, it's called "Hasta Luego", which already has more then 40M views on YouTube. She has more than 11,5M Followers on Instagram.
IG | https://www.instagram.com/malutrevejo | IG


text:
Only Eight Weeks Until Christmas
Mr. Hakey answers hard questions about his past comments.
Strong Woman and PC Principal go shopping with the PC Babies.
This short clip is a fragment from the episode The Problem with a Poo (Season 22, Episode 3)
Check out a full list of episodes from season 22
Mr. Hakey answers hard questions about his past comments.
PC Principal visits the Strong Woman's babies in the Nursery and gets some startling news from the d...
PC Principal begs Strong Woman to be a part of the PC Babies lives.
The South Park City Council informs Mr. Hankey the budget for the Christmas Pageant has been cut.
Kyle confronts Mr. Hankey after Hankey posts a "joke" on Twitter.
Mr. Hankey testifies at the Park County Court House.
South Park says goodbye to Mr. Hankey.
The kids do their best to practice "Deck the Halls" for the Christmas Pageant, but Mr. Hankey is fru...
While discussing In Vitro Fertilization, at a school assembly, Strong Woman goes into labor.
Fed up with Mr. Hankey's late-night tweets, the Mayor fires him from the Christmas Pageant.
Mr. Hankey looks for a lawyer to represent him against the South Park City Council.
Mr. Hankey and Kyle put on a holiday extravaganza but when the PC Babies start getting upset, Mr. Ha...
Strong Woman and PC Principal decide to keep the PC Babies father a secret.
To clear his name, Mr. Hankey formulates a plan to bring the holiday spirit to South Park in October...
After fighting with Mr. Hankey, Kyle decides he's done standing up for Mr. Hankey.
Kyle tries to convince Stan, Kenny and Cartman to help Mr. Hankey.
PC Principal and Strong Woman race to the hospital.


text:
The Band Perry Cover Billboard, Reveal Rick Rubin Was Their 'Song Doctor'
The Band Perry -- lead singer Kimberly and her younger brothers Reid and Neil -- cover this week's issue of Billboard, as the release of 'Pioneer' looms large. The trio details the road it took to get here, including how originally planned producer Rick Rubin was their "song doctor."
The sophomore set makes landfall on April 2, with big expectations on its back, since the band's self-titled debut was a breakthrough, platinum-plus success.
In the feature, the Perrys reveal their never-ending quest for perfection and how producer Rick Rubin, known for his work with rock acts (Red Hot Chili Peppers), metal acts (Slayer) and country acts (Johnny Cash, Dixie Chicks), was their "song doctor," even though he doesn't have a credit as an actual producer on the album. He was supposed to produce, but things didn't quite work out, which the Perrys are candid about.
Kimberly, who called 'Pioneer' a "journey, it's us going from point A to point B and every step along the way, and that journey led us to a new horizon and a new place," and her brothers are ecstatic to get the record out. They worked so hard on it and have spent the past two years playing the same 11 songs and want to share new ones, as Kimberly says in the behind-the-scenes video clip.
Neil estimated that every song on the album was written and then rewritten at least four times until it was perfect, in their eyes and ears.
That's par for the Perry course, as Neil admitted,"Literally after every single show, we watch the video of that show like a game tape to see what we can do better."
They sound like football players looking to study and improve by watching footage of every down. Nothin' wrong with that, Perrys!
For 'Pioneer,' the threesome hit the road, literally, on a sojourn to Rubin, who was supposed to produce the album. But it didn't quite shake out as planned. "To begin the recording process, we took a road trip out to Malibu," Reid said. "And during that time we wrote a lot of the music along the way, including at the Grand Canyon. We wrote the song 'Pioneer' in Santa Fe."
They eventually made it to Rubin and he worked them. Neil even dubbed him "the song doctor."
"Rick also opened up our minds to the spirit behind music," Kimberly confessed. "He was a teacher in that area. There were times where we walked into the control room that he had tears in his eyes because the music so moved him."
But the producer was no soft touch, challenging them on things like rhyme scheme. He also helped them refine their songs.
"He was kind of like an editor," Reid said. "He helped us with rhyming words, for example. We rhymed a lot of words that he doesn't find good enough. He really pushed us in that aspect."
But his minimalist approach wasn't what was needed to see 'Pioneer' through to completion. While Kimberly says that's a quality that they love about the uber producer, she admitted, "We also knew that to accommodate all of the goals that we had, the best producer was Dann Huff."
So they journeyed back to Nashville so Huff could help capture what TBP are like live on record, which was a key goal for the album.
Big Machine Label Group CEO Scott Borchetta acknowledged that the band "felt and expected the pressure" on their follow up, given the sophomore slump conundrum that often afflicts bands of all shapes and sizes. Despite a bit of a false start with Rubin, the label is stoked about the final product, with Borchetta saying, "They completely delivered."
Watch the Behind-the-Scenes Footage of the Band Perry Billboard Shoot


text:
Stephen Fry in America: Deep South
Here, Stephen Fry explores what it is that makes the south so distinctive. He joins coal miners deep underground in West Virginia, meets a young man with the state of Kentucky tattooed on his butt, and enjoys a delirious session of bluegrass music-making in Tennessee.
He has an encounter with a bear in the Smokey Mountains, ascends in a balloon above North Carolina, learns the language of slaves in South Carolina, and is invited into a Georgian family's Old Plantation house to join their Thanksgiving celebrations (and has an unfortunate encounter with a horse).
He fails as a dancing escort in Florida and is moved by two very different events in Alabama: a parole board's deliberations and the extraordinary hoopla of a college ball game, complete with air-force jets. Episode one here New World.


text: By Reuters (Reuters) - OPEC oil output has risen slightly in October as extra supplies from�Iraq, Angola and�Libya�have offset disruptions in Nigeria and a further decline in�Iran�to its lowest in two decades, a Reuters survey found on Wednesday. The survey indicates Iraq's expansion in export capacity and continued high output from top exporter�Saudi Arabia�are helping to compensate for reduced supply from Iran, whose output has fallen sharply due to Western sanctions. Supply from the 12-member Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has averaged 31.15 million barrels per day (bpd), up from 31.09 million bpd in September, the survey of sources at oil companies, OPEC officials and analysts found. Iranian output is unlikely to post further large declines for now, one analyst said, although more buyers could scale back purchases in 2013. Earlier this month, the European Union approved new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. "We see relative stability through the fourth quarter at current levels," said analyst Sam Ciszuk of KBC Energy Economics. "But as U.S.-given sanction exceptions expire around new year, we're expecting some further cuts to purchases from Iran's main remaining buyers, possibly save�China." September's OPEC total was the lowest since January 2012, when the group pumped 30.95 million bpd, according to Reuters surveys. Still, production remains just over 1 million bpd more than OPEC's output target of 30 million bpd. The biggest increase came from Iraq, which has overtaken Iran to become OPEC's second-largest producer after�Saudi Arabia, even though bad weather slowed exports from the country's south in the second half of October. Weather permitting, a further increase from Iraq is possible in November. Loading schedules signal higher shipments of Kirkuk crude from northern Iraq and record-high exports of Basra crude in the south. "Exports are good," said a source with a company that buys Iraq's crude, referring to Kirkuk shipments. "There are some two to three days' delays, but that's it." Smaller increases came from�Libya, as its oil industry recovers from a shutdown during the 2011 civil war, and from Angola, where exports have edged up from September's rate, the lowest since July 2011. Venezuela�increased production slightly in October, helped by the start-up of a project involving state oil firm PDVSA and Russian companies to extract heavy crude in the Orinoco. Oil prices gave up most of an earlier gain on Wednesday to trade around $109 a barrel. Crude has fallen from a peak for the year of $128 in March. IRANIAN FALL Iran and Nigeria posted declines in output this month, according to the survey. Iranian supply fell by 30,000 bpd to 2.67 million bpd, the survey found. That would be its lowest since 1988, according to figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Output from Iran has dropped sharply this year due to the U.S. and European sanctions on the country. The embargo bars EU insurance firms from covering Iran's exports, which has hindered imports by some non-EU buyers. The insurance ban means Iran is increasingly reliant on its own tanker fleet to supply customers, and it has been struggling to meet delivery schedules, slowing down exports. Iran sent more crude in Very Large Crude Carriers to�South Korea�in October, but at the cost of delaying some shipments to its biggest customer China, sources in the survey said. Disruptions to supply in Nigeria limited the increase in OPEC supply this month. Nigerian exports were scheduled to rise in October, but supply declined because of flooding and damage to pipelines caused by oil theft. Royal Dutch Shell's (RDSa.L) Nigerian venture on October 19 declared force majeure on exports of Bonny and Forcados crudes, citing damage caused by oil theft. Total (TOTF.PA) stopped some onshore production due to flooding. There was no sign of any substantial reduction in supply from Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies, which have kept output high all year to keep oil prices in check during the reduction in Iranian exports. Saudi Arabia pumped almost 10 million bpd in October, near the highest rate in decades, the survey found. Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said on October 9 Riyadh was satisfied prices had fallen to a level that does not hamper global growth. The Iran Project is not responsible for the content of quoted articles.


text:
Do you ever make something so delicious that you can't wait to spread the news but wind up with lousy photos of the outcome? That's what happened with my chilaquiles. But they were so enjoyable to eat and as much fun to say once I learned to pronounce the word (say it: chee/lah/KEE/lehs) that I just couldn't keep it to myself forever, regardless of my poorly lit photo documentation.
I made this dish for my brother and sister when they stopped in for a rest on their drive back home from a road trip to Texas. My brother regaled us with stories of the interesting towns they visited and people they met including the Mexican songster who keeps a tin can on the US side of the border then sits across the river to serenade passersby, coaxing them to drop a coin in the tin. Or the little girl who twisted colored wires into a peacock for my brother to bring to us as a souvenir. My sister mostly just enjoyed a little bit of space after being stuck in a van with my brother for two weeks. Ah, siblings.
I don't travel much these days but hearing my brother's stories and seeing his photos helped me to see a glimpse into another world and made me long to travel. It's so easy to forget that we are all just such a tiny part of such a big world. I listen to state and national news every day and feel like I know what's going on but all I really hear are a finely curated selection of stories. Traveling forces you out of your sliver of the world and into the lives of others. It forces connection. I get so wrapped up in going through the motions to make sure I meet all of my responsibilities at home and at work that I forget that everyone else in the great beyond is doing the same thing…just trying to navigate this world, find happiness, and make sure their basic needs are met. We are all looking for connection, for similarities, for synergy. We are all looking for someone to look inside and understand us and love us for who we are. When I remind myself of that, I feel so much more connected, a whole lot more tolerant, and a little bit silly for being so focused on my teeny corner of this world.
Back to chilaquiles…one thing that helps me to feel more connected is trying new dishes from places I'd like to visit. While I couldn't drop everything and go on a road trip to Texas, as much as I'd have liked to, I could try a new recipe that would transport me there in my imagination.
A few notes: first, the sauce is a touch spicy so adjust accordingly. Second, the sauce recipe makes a fair amount so plan on using the leftovers for round two of this great dish. Third, there are more chilaquile recipes than can be counted. Different regions and even different families have their own recipes for chilaquiles. If this recipe doesn't do it for you, try with tomatillo sauce or a mole sauce instead or pour the sauce on at the end, keeping the tortillas crispy for a nacho-esque dish instead. This recipe is from Bon Appetit (apart from the method for the tortilla chips) and is an excellent choice for your first go-round with chilaquiles.
And finally, you may use bagged tortilla chips for this recipe but if you don't have any on hand, making your own tortilla chips is easy, satisfying, and makes for a heartier dish with a little less salt (this is also an excellent way to use up stale tortillas). We always have tortillas on hand but don't often have snack foods so it's nice to have the homemade tortilla trick up my sleeve when the need arises. See below for a few photos of the process. Very easy and very worth it!
- 7 dried guajillo or New Mexico chiles
- 1 28-ounce can whole tomatoes, drained
- 1 medium white onion, chopped (1 1/2 cups)
- 5 garlic cloves, chopped
- 1 jalapeño, with seeds, chopped
- 1/8 teaspoon smoked or Hungarian sweet paprika
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 2 teaspoons honey
- Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper
- Olive or vegetable oil to brush tortillas.
- 9 6-inch corn tortillas or 36 large tortilla chips
- Kosher salt
- 1 cup (4 ounces) crumbled queso fresco or mild feta
- 1 cup (4 ounces) shredded Monterey Jack or Cheddar
- 4 large eggs
- Finely chopped white onion
- Thinly sliced radishes
- Chopped fresh cilantro
- Lime wedges
- Red Chile Sauce: Place chiles in a medium bowl; cover with 2 cups boiling water. Let chiles soak until softened, about 15 minutes. Drain, reserving soaking liquid. Discard stems and seeds; place chiles in a blender. Add tomatoes, next 4 ingredients, and 1 cup reserved soaking liquid; purée until smooth.
- Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add purée (it will splatter) and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and simmer, partially covered and stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened, about 15 minutes (add more reserved soaking liquid if too thick). Stir in honey and season to taste with salt and pepper. DO AHEAD: Can be made 3 days ahead. Cover and chill. Rewarm before using.
- Tortilla Chips: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Using a pastry brush, brush one side of each corn tortilla with a light layer of olive oil. Stack one on top of the other with oil side up - the un-oiled side will become oiled from the tortilla it is set upon. Cut the stacked tortillas into 8 wedges. Place tortilla pieces on a single layer on a baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt. Bake 10 to 12 minutes until lightly browned.
- Preheat broiler. Toss chips and 1 cup sauce in a large bowl. Transfer half of chips to a large ovenproof platter or skillet. Scatter half of cheeses over chips. Top with remaining chips and cheeses, along with 1/2 cup more sauce. Broil until cheese is golden and melted, 4–5 minutes.
- Meanwhile, pour oil into a nonstick skillet to lightly coat. Heat over medium heat. Add eggs and fry until whites are set but yolks are still runny, about 4 minutes.
- Top chilaquiles with chopped onion, radishes, cilantro, and lime wedges. Top with fried eggs and serve with remaining sauce alongside.


text:
Planning your pension in the new world of work
Not long ago, work meant a 9-to-5 role, probably spent with the same employer and ending abruptly when you reached retirement age. Things are very different today. People tend to move jobs more frequently and many more of us are self-employed, thanks to the rise of the gig economy. Those past State Pension age are much more likely to still be in employment, perhaps choosing to work less hours or even embark on a new career. Equally, the change in pension rules that came into effect in 2015 means that if you want to retire at 55, you can do so. Thanks also to strides in modern medicine, many can look forward to a retirement that could last a good few decades.
Taking control of your future
Whatever your stage of working life, we believe it's never been as important as it is now, to take professional advice about your pension. To enjoy a comfortable retirement, especially if you plan to retire early, you need to have saved enough to make this a reality. The tax breaks available on pension contributions (subject to the Annual and Lifetime Allowances) act as a clear incentive to save as much as you can comfortably afford.
Know your numbers
Reviewing your pension arrangements with us will help keep your plans on track, as will drawing up a budget of your likely income needs in retirement. Getting a State Pension forecast makes sense too.
Plans to match your needs
Pension plans come in various forms to suit the needs of different types of worker, from the basic State Pension to Self-Invested Personal Pensions (SIPPs), personal or private pensions, and workplace pensions schemes, to name but a few.
So, whether you're self-employed, an employee, work part-time, run your own business or have accumulated pension pots with past employers, we can offer you advice. After all, your retirement should be a time to enjoy life, not a time spent worrying about money.
The information contained in this article does not constitute advice, please contact a financial adviser for advice based on your individual needs and circumstances.


text:
27 Top Rated Independent Poker Site Reviews
Our poker room reviews have been compiled by online poker pros who play for a living, and know exactly what separates a good online poker site from a bad one. Our poker site reviews cover every aspect of an online poker website from customer service to payout methods, bonus information for each poker site and much more.
Meet Our Review Team
Our team of reviewers have over 35 years combined experience playing and writing about online poker. They test all they sites we list thoroughly to make sure the ones we recommend live up to the high standards they expect.
- 1 We check the T&C's, privacy policy, promotions, real money rules and downloads of each site for fairness and security.
- 2 Our reviewers use anonymous accounts to make sure the poker sites we're reviewing don't know it's us.
- 3 Each site independently audited for random number generators like eCOGRA and checked for secure data encryption like Verisign.
- 4 We play for real money to ensure bonus codes are honored, and banking processes are fast & secure.
- 5 Every site is regularly and thoroughly checked for software quality and ease of use.
Reviews of Poker Sites
Each poker room review is conveniently sporting a rating system that is likely the most detailed poker site reviews algorithm on the entire net. If you would like to see a new online poker room reviewed in our poker site reviews section, please don't hesitate to contact us and drop a line. Our online poker site reviews are a big part of site because players have always trusted our poker website reviews to be authoritative, informational and un-biased. Check back at this page often for more online poker site reviews.
When our reviewers place a poker site on here, it is because it has meet all of the standards that will make playing better and more fun for you. The important things like security and safety so you don't have to worry about your personal or financial information to the customer service each site offers so you always know you will find the help you need are a big part of our investigation of every site. There are literally thousands of online gaming websites and it could take you years to try each one, and determine if they are right for you, much less know if they are safe. Without help, you could end up losing a lot more than a little money at untested sites. That's why even the most experienced players trust our online poker site reviews.
Every year we conduct investigations of the hundreds of new poker sites coming into the arena, and provide poker website reviews for those that meet the standards of those that exist on our page. That way you can continually increase the number of places to play, and expand on your chances of winning safely. Each site is inspected for graphic quality so you get the ultimate gaming experience, as well as software use so you can feel comfortable knowing the system works well, won't harm your computer and does what it is supposed to do. Each site is also reviewed for game variety. There are hundreds of variations on the traditional poker games, and we want you to find the ones that make you happiest. By choosing from the online poker site reviews above, all you have to do is decide which one has the games you like, and you are on your way to a great poker experience and winning lots of money.
The bottom line when playing poker is winning big, and the online poker room reviews above will help you select the sites that have the best payouts and sign on bonuses, both which make your chances of winning as good as can be. Get started now with one of the above sites from our poker site reviews, and play to win.
Our Top Rated Sites
Blacklisted Sites
We test all the poker sites we find, unfortunately some aren't as good as others and for one reason or another fail our review process. Also some sites are best avoided completely as they are rogue operators that don't pay the players their winnings. Below are some of the sites that we recommend you avoid, you can find more information on them on our blacklisted sites page.
Sitemap | About & Contact | Disclaimer | Privacy
PokerSites.com is the only dedicated review site selected as a member of the Interactive Gaming Council.


text:
Ministries Kids Students Young Adults Community Groups Sports Ministry Women's Ministry Biblical Counseling Missions Membership Volunteer & ServeCopyright 2019, Heritage Baptist Church, All rights Reserved
4202 Pipkin Creek Rd, Lakeland, Florida
firstname.lastname@example.com by LC
Bill Boulet
Lead Pastor | Preaching and Vision
Bill has over 30 years of pastoral experience and has enjoyed the distinct privilege of serving the members at Heritage and community of Lakeland since 1997.
Growing up in New England and a Roman Catholic background, Bill was captivated by the grace of God as a sophomore in college. This radical transformation and new life motivated him to study at Cedarville University (B.A.) and Clarks Summit University, formerly Baptist Bible College (M.Div). He then served in an exclusive Green Beret unit in the U.S. Army which the Lord used to continue to prepare him for vocational ministry. Bill's foremost desire to make disciples of Christ motivates his responsibilities for preaching, leadership, and vision at Heritage. Bill is an all-things-Boston sports fan, a member of the Cedarville University Hall of Fame as a golfer, and avid reader. He is married to Ruth, and together they have three adult children: Art (Liz), Jessica (Adam), and Jenny (Zach); they also are blessed with seven grandkids: Cissy, Sophia, Addy, Loren, Fletcher, Elliot, and Theo.
Dave Van Camp
Associate Pastor | Discipleship and Outreach
Dave has faithfully trained and discipled lay leaders, missionaries, and pastors for the last 30 years. He was raised in upstate New York—Finger Lakes region—and in a Roman Catholic home. After graduating from Rochester Institute for Technology (B.S.), he entered the workforce as a Packaging Engineer with RCA and eventually Stanley Hardware. During this time, God worked mightily in Dave's life to bring about saving faith through the faithful witness of his wife, Jane, and a local congregation in Southbridge, MA. Dave and Jane served as youth leaders for four years until Dave was led to attend Word of Life Bible Institute.
Soon thereafter, Dave and Jane entered full-time ministry with Word of Life local church ministries for 18 years. In 2008, Dave came on staff at Heritage to oversee discipleship, outreach, and leadership training. He enjoys anything outdoors—hiking, camping, and skiing. Dave is married to Jane, and together they have three adult children: Samantha (Derek), Michael (Micah), and Daniel (Anna); they also are blessed with four grandkids: June, Betsi, Lee, and Sal.
Joel Felten
Associate Pastor | Families and Students
Joel was blessed with parents who knew the Lord and were faithful in their walks with Christ and commitment to the local church. Despite a somewhat legalistic church background, his home reflected love and grace, and it is in this environment in which he came to know Christ in middle school. Joel's passion for the local church, families, and students was cultivated through both volunteer and staff positions during his college years. Then having studied at Clearwater Christian College (B.A.) and Shepherds Theological Seminary (M.Div), he joined our team to provide oversight in these areas in 2017.
He is a huge sports fan with particular affection for the Chicago Cubs and Michigan Wolverines. Joel is married to Abigail, and together they have three children: Max, Elliott, and Jackson.
Alyssa Lough
Director of Children's Ministries
Alyssa was raised in upstate New York by parents who love the Lord and serve Him in full-time ministry. At a young age, Alyssa came to know the Lord as her Savior and desired to serve Him. God used her passion for working with young children to guide her next steps. Alyssa attended the Word of Life Bible Institute for two years, and then moved to Clarks Summit University where she studied Early Childhood and Elementary Education (B.S.).
Upon graduation, Alyssa worked in both private and public school environments while attending Grand Canyon University, specializing in working with individuals with exceptionalities (M.Ed.). She came on staff at Heritage to oversee our ministry to children beginning in 2019. Alyssa is the oldest of four siblings and has two brothers and a sister. She enjoys reading, being outdoors, and spending time with friends and family.
Greg Wallace
Worship Leader
Greg was raised right here in Lakeland, FL in a family where faithful attendance and service in the local church was encouraged. He began following Jesus in grade school and developed an early love for music, particularly in the church. He participated in choirs and played the drums for student and congregational worship services. He then moved to North Carolina in 2001 to attend the College at Southeastern (B.A.) and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div).
During these years, he learned to play the guitar and began leading worship for a congregation in Wendell, NC. He also served as a student minister for several years developing a love for teaching the Scriptures. Greg eventually moved back to Florida where he earned a Master of Clinical Medical Science degree in Physician Assistant Studies from Barry University. He has practiced medicine the last several years in an outpatient pediatric office and most recently in an emergency medicine setting. Greg's passion to see and hear the people of God in community together drives his responsibilities over music and worship. Greg enjoys reading, baseball, and being with his family. He is married to Nicole, and together they have three children: Nate, Kate, and Claire.