text:
All National Curriculum subjects provide opportunities to promote pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Explicit opportunities to promote pupils' development in these areas are provided in religious education and the non-statutory framework for personal, social and health education (PSHE) and citizenship. A significant contribution is also made by the school ethos, effective relationships throughout the school, collective worship, and other curriculum activities.
Spiritual Development
Pupils' spiritual development involves the growth of their sense of self, their unique potential, their understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, and their will to achieve. As their curiosity about themselves and their place in the world increases, they try to answer for themselves some of life's fundamental questions. They develop the knowledge, skills, understanding, qualities and attitudes they need to foster their own inner lives and non-material wellbeing.
Moral Development
Pupils' moral development involves pupils acquiring an understanding of the difference between right and wrong and of moral conflict, a concern for others and the will to do what is right. They are able and willing to reflect on the consequences of their actions and learn how to forgive themselves and others. They develop the knowledge, skills and understanding, qualities and attitudes they need in order to make responsible moral decisions and act on them.
Social Development
Pupils' social development involves pupils acquiring an understanding of the responsibilities and rights of being members of families and communities (local, national and global), and an ability to relate to others and to work with others for the common good. They display a sense of belonging and an increasing willingness to participate. They develop the knowledge, skills, understanding, qualities and attitudes they need to make an active contribution to the democratic process in each of their communities.
Cultural Development
Pupils' cultural development involves pupils acquiring an understanding of cultural traditions and ability to appreciate and respond to a variety of aesthetic experiences. They acquire a respect for their own culture and that of others, an interest in others' ways of doing things and curiosity about differences. They develop the knowledge, skills, understanding, qualities and attitudes they need to understand, appreciate and contribute to culture.
Promoting Personal, Social and Health Education and Citizenship
The non-statutory guidelines for PSHE and citizenship are designed to help schools establish coherence and consistency, and to promote curriculum continuity and progression in pupils' learning.


text:
Would You marry Again?
A husband and wife are sitting quietly in bed reading when the Wife looks over at him and asks the question….
WIFE: "What would you do if I died? Would you get married again?"
HUSBAND: "Definitely not!"
WIFE: "Why not? Don't you like being married?"
HUSBAND: "Of course I do.."
WIFE: "Then why wouldn't you remarry? "
HUSBAND: "Okay, okay, I'd get married again."
WIFE: "You would?" (with a hurt look)
HUSBAND: (makes audible groan)
WIFE: "Would you live in our house?"
HUSBAND: "Sure, it's a great house."
WIFE: "Would you sleep with her in our bed?"
HUSBAND: "Where else would we sleep?"
WIFE: "Would you let her drive my car?"
HUSBAND: "Probably, it is almost new."
WIFE: "Would you replace my pictures with hers?"
HUSBAND: "That would seem like the proper thing to do."
WIFE: "Would you give her my jewelry?"
HUSBAND: "No, I'm sure she'd want her own."
WIFE: "Would you take her golfing with you?
HUSBAND: "Yes, those are always good times."
WIFE: "Would she use my clubs?
HUSBAND: "No, she's left-handed."
WIFE: — silence —
HUSBAND: "shit."

subset: commoncrawl


text:
In this new post to his blog Chris Jones looks at an option to increase the performance of your PHP/Oracle application even more - converting a REF CURSOR into a piped data set via the PDO_OCI extension.
REF CURSORs are common in Oracle's stored procedural language PL/SQL. They let you pass around a pointer to a set of query results. However in PHP, PDO_OCI doesn't yet allow fetching from them. [...] One workaround, when you can't rewrite the PL/SQL code to do a normal query, is to write a wrapper function that pipes the output.
He includes an example, creating an example myproc() that contains the query to select the last names of all employees in the table. This procedure is put inside of a package so it can be called directly in the SQL statement and the ref cursor can be automatically piped to output.


text:
Followers know that I
have started work on a new project, ten tales of chivalry, or stories set in
the age of chivalry. Six of these deal with the crusades or crusader kingdoms
in one manner or another. Therefore, I thought it might be good to
reflect on what exactly the crusades were. Today and over the next several weeks, I
will outline the history of the crusades chronologically, starting today with their Genesis.
Before turning to the history, however, just a quick reminder that "A Widow's Crusade," set against the backdrop of the "Children's Crusade," is already available for sale, and "The Disinherited" a novel that describes the aftermath of the Albigensian Crusade will be released shortly. I'll keep you informed of progress.
Genesis of the Crusades
Essentially, the
Crusades were a series of campaigns undertaken by Christians in the 11th to 13th
centuries to establish (or re-establish) control over the Holy Land (the sites
of Christ's passion), particularly Jerusalem. These campaigns were a response
to the expansion of Islam, which had spread in the wake of invading armies that
used the sword to impose Islam on previously Christian territory. Most – but
not all – crusades were fundamentally defensive campaigns that responded to
aggression with aggression.
The successful First
Crusade established a string of Christian states in the Holy Land that,
although prosperous, were always threatened by the overwhelming military
superiority of the surrounding Muslim states. Whenever one or more of these
states was invaded or fell to the Saracens (the opposing Muslim forces, which were
ethnically Egyptian, Syrian, Kurdish or Turkish; I will use the contemporary
term "Saracen" to refer to these diverse but consistently Muslim fighting
groups), the call went out to the West for aid – for a new crusade. Thus in the
course of two centuries, a total of eight numbered crusades were launched, not
counting such tragedies as the Children's Crusades, the Reconquista (liberation)
of the Iberian Peninsula, or the wars against the heathens of northeastern
Europe and the heretics of Southern France, which were sometimes also referred
to as crusades.
In the course of these
crusades, Christian leaders and troops committed many atrocities that are
incompatible with Christianity, but not all crusaders were inherently depraved
and brutal. Furthermore, the enemy also committed countless well-documented
atrocities. These were violent centuries, but they were also a period in which
the close contact between the East and the West produced cross-fertilization of
culture and art, and a period in which trade and science flourished.
The First Muslim
Invasion of Christian Territory: 632-750
Between 630 and 750,
Islam aggressively expanded across North Africa and into the formerly Christian
territories of the Byzantine Empire. They captured the Holy Land, including
Jerusalem, and also modern-day Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Cyprus and other islands in
the Mediterranean were also either conquered or subjected to destructive raids.
The First Muslim
Invasion of Western Europe: 710-732
The first Muslim
invasion of Western Europe started in 710 with the invasion of the Iberian
Peninsula by Muslim armies from North Africa. The Muslim armies conquered the
bulk of what is now Spain and Portugal, establishing Muslim states that over
the next five centuries developed flourishing cities and a highly sophisticated
culture. In 732 a Muslim army crossed the Pyrenees, defeated the Christian
forces in what is now Aquitaine, and continued north, approaching the Loire
valley. They were stopped and forced to withdraw by Charles Martel, the leader
of the Franks, near Poitiers in 732.
Further Muslim
Conquests: 827-878
Sicily and Crete were
conquered by Muslim forces.
First Christian
Offensive: 969-975
The Byzantine Empire
made its first attempt to reconquer lost Christian territory in 969, with the
recapture of Antioch. By 975 the Byzantine army had captured much of Palestine,
particularly on the coast, but the Christian armies failed to capture
Jerusalem. A peace treaty in 1001 ended the Byzantine attempt to re-establish
political control over the Holy Land and resulted in a period of intensive
persecution for native Christians living under Muslim rule. The situation improved
somewhat by the middle of the 11th century.
The Norman Conquest of Sicily:
The Norman adventurer
Roger de Hauteville recaptured Sicily from the Muslims, who were fighting among
themselves, in a series of campaigns between 1061 and 1091. Sicily thereafter fell
under the Latin rather than the Byzantine Church, but remained Christian until the
The Rise of the Seljuk Turks:
Turkish tribes, who had
converted to Islam, began to establish an empire in the 11th century,
conquering large parts of Persia and Armenia. In 1071 they destroyed a
Byzantine army sent to stop their westward expansion and captured Jerusalem along
with the rest of Palestine. The Seljuk Empire soon stretched from Aleppo to
Egypt. Christians, whether pilgrims to Jerusalem or merchants, were now more
likely to be robbed or enslaved than left in peace.
The Call for a Crusade:
The Byzantine Emperor Alexios
Komnenos saw in the internal conflicts between Turks, Syrian Muslims, and
Egyptian Muslims the chance to restore Christian rule to the Holy Land, but
lacked the military strength to make an attempt. He appealed to the Pope,
highlighting alleged atrocities committed against Christians in the Holy Land and other former
Byzantine territories. On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II delivered a rousing
speech, calling for Christians to free Jerusalem from the Muslims and reopen it
to Christian pilgrims. Urban II was both persuasive and charismatic, and he
must have struck a chord with his listeners; it is recorded that the audience
spontaneously started chanting "Deus le volt" (God wills it). When he finished
speaking, many men crowded around him, vying to be among the first to "take the
cross" – that is, to wear a cross on their sleeve as a symbol of their vow to
free the Holy Land from Muslim rule. The concept of a crusade – a Christian holy
war – had been born. (The notion of jihad – Muslim holy war – was, of course,
already hundreds of years old by then.)


text:
As a charter member of the Congress for New Urbanism, I've now attended twenty of the organization's annual conferences. This month's event may have been my favorite yet, mostly thanks to its location in downtown Buffalo, a place that reminds us so poignantly of both the successes and failures of city planning, as first lovingly practiced and later ruthlessly perpetrated across America.
Most of the local residents in attendance — and there were many — seemed to enthusiastically embrace New Urbanism's ethos of redesigning our cities around people rather than cars, recognizing how the auto age had perhaps done as much damage to downtown Buffalo as its devastating loss of industry.
But there are always exceptions. In the Buffalo News' only prominent review of the event, art critic Colin Dabkowski wrote an "open letter to the New Urbanist movement," that centered upon a damning critique of my community lecture there and also of my book, Walkable City, which he seems to have read in part.
The thoughts that follow are my response to Dabkowski's review. The Buffalo News worked with me to craft this article as an Op-Ed for Sunday's paper. Then, three hours from press time, they demanded that I remove most of my references to Mr. Dabkowski's error-loaded text. Not excited by that prospect, I am sharing my comments here instead.
I suppose that my biggest surprise in reading the Buffalo News article came from the fact that I had been expecting to hear such a critique sooner. In the eighteen months since Walkable City came out — and over more than 100 reviews — all but the most sympathetic critics seem to have been largely silent. I was waiting for comments like these, but eventually gave up.
The reason I was waiting is because two of the book's central arguments — "Downtowns First" and "Urban Triage" — imply winners and losers, and I have seen at least the first argument anger people in the past. Folks who don't live in downtown are often resentful seeing money spent there, whether they find their homes in cash-strapped slums or wealthy suburbs.
I have come to this Downtowns First strategy not as a social critic or even as a social scientist, but as a professional planner who learned from Jane Jacobs to think of cities as ecosystems that thrive or decline holistically. With some difficulty, and along with many of my colleagues, I have reached the conclusion that a healthy metropolis requires a vibrant center city to hold it together. Our experience suggests that, without a strong downtown core, investments in non-downtown areas are likely to provide only fleeting benefits. Both are important, but the downtown more so.
Urban Triage, on the other hand, is a complex concept, and one that is easily misunderstood. But I can't begin to fathom how Mr. Dabkowski came to think that Urban Triage suggests "infrastructure investment should go largely to a city's densest and most-prosperous neighborhoods at the expense of outlying areas." That could not be further from anything that we New Urbanists have ever said or written.
Urban Triage is not a technique for choosing among neighborhoods for investment. It is a technique for, within any given neighborhood, discerning among more walkable and more automotive environments, so that walkability investments may be made in those corridors where walking has a chance of taking root. Urban Triage says that the road between the mall and the office park, lined by auto dealers, is a worse place for new streetscapes than the street between the bus station and the stadium, lined by struggling storefronts. It aims investment not at prosperity, but at possibility.
Ultimately, what I think has happened is that Mr. Dabkowski has confused the two different arguments in his mind. Downtowns First is a macro argument. Urban Triage is a micro one. Downtowns First favors walkable, urban areas, whatever their demographics, because we believe that cities depend on them for long-term success. Urban Triage forces us to be realistic about where such walkability is possible, again, within neighborhoods, not among them. If he had finished my book, I think this confusion would not have occurred.
How do I know that Mr. Dabkowski didn't finish my book? Well, he says that I am an "outspoken critic of… any structures that lack traditional details of the kind you see in buildings by H.H. Richardson or Louis Sullivan." Where in the world did he get that idea? Has he seen my modernist house? In any case, I would direct him to the second-to-last chapter of Walkable City, where I celebrate the high tech Pompidou Center in Paris, and note: "What matters is not whether the details were crafted by a stone carver or a cold extruder, but whether they exist at all." I believe that architecture needs small-scale details to engage the pedestrian. Beyond that, style is irrelevant.
There are too many other errors in the piece to address them all, and I fear annoying readers with inside baseball, but let me just mention one. Mr. Dabkowski's statement, almost libelous, that I blithely suggest "a city's most intractable problems" should be put off for "another decade," bears no relation to what he would have read in Walkable City. What I suggested putting off was, again, streetscape improvements in "the auto zone," roadways "lined by muffler shops and fast-food drive-throughs." The automotive commercial strip is rarely the location of a city's toughest problems — indeed, they are usually zoned out of it.
When I am brought to a city, it is often by the Office of Human Rights or some other group that understands that our nation's poor and disabled are disproportionately represented among the ranks of pedestrians and cyclists. They walk, bike, roll, and take transit, often because they have no choice in the matter. They rely on walkable downtowns and neighborhood centers because they are largely incapable of entering the auto zone.
I find it troubling that my experience advancing the interests of these disenfranchised communities could somehow be considered "trickle-down," "dismissive," or "exclusive" by a critic, but the work of revitalizing our cities is a complex business, and prone to misunderstanding. I guess I can take some solace in the fact that it took so long for this particular misunderstanding to occur.
Jeff Speck, AICP, CNU-A, LEED-AP, Honorary ASLA, is the Principal of Speck & Associates, a city-planning firm based in Washington, DC, and the author of Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time.


text:
TOTO clip in Marbled Butter
Meet TOTO!
One of our strongest clips in a classic curved top claw shape. Don't let the small size fool you, as one of our strongest hair claws it works hard to hold all hair, even that difficult fine hair that slips out of clips.
Each clip comes in a branded Tort pouch (colours change seasonally).
Size: 7.5cm
Colour: marbled butter cream with a pearl effect
Material: eco-resin
Note to buyer
Due to the hand-poured resin, all clip patterns are unique and therefore may not look exactly like the image shown or each other. They're sisters, not twins.
To prevent metals from discolouring and rusting, keep items away from water and fragrance. Please also keep all products out of direct sunlight/heat as this may cause the adhesive to come undone. We cannot be responsible for products damaged as a result of the above.
Shipping & Returns
Please see our FAQs for more information about shipping and returns.


text:
Update August 24, 2015
MaineSportsman.com and its affiliates (collectively, the "Site") respect your privacy. Here is our Privacy Policy for this Site:
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text: The government has announced that more than 64 million meals were enjoyed by diners across the country during the government's Eat Out to Help Out discount scheme. The scheme closed on 31 August 2020. Government figures show that restaurants had claimed for more than 64 million discounted meals as Eat Out to Help Out entered its fourth week. This continues the upward trend in the scheme's popularity, with 10.5 million meals claimed for in the first week, growing to a total of 35 million meals in the second. The upward trend in meals claimed for shows that millions continued to flock to eat out to support 1.8 million jobs in the hospitality sector, which has been hit hard by coronavirus (COVID-19). The government has confirmed that 87,000 claims have been made by restaurants taking part in the scheme. Data from OpenTable shows that during Eat Out to Help Out's third week the number of customers at UK restaurants was 61% higher than the same days last year on average for Monday to Wednesday. The average level across Monday to Wednesday in the first and second week were 12% and 41% respectively. The data also shows that the number of customers at UK restaurants was up 17% compared to the same week in 2019. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak said: 'Today's figures continue to show that Brits are backing hospitality – with more than 64 million meals discounted so far, that's equivalent to nearly every person in the country dining out to protect jobs. 'This scheme has reminded us how much we love to dine out, and in doing so, how this is helping to protect the jobs of nearly two million people who work in hospitality.' Internet links: GOV.UK news HMRC guidance


text:
The True Crown of Creation
Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai,
International 5-Day Retreat
February 22, 2007 Hsihu, Miaoli, Formosa
(Originally in English)
I hope that one day the human race wakes up. We have to know that animals are the same as us. We are alike, just a different form. They're just different flowers, but we're all flowers. How simple can that be? Yet how difficult it is to ingrain into someone's heart. Well, I'm glad you believe me, and I'm glad you follow the loving way of life, of "live and let live." (Applause)
Anyone who acts out of ignorance, of course we don't condemn them. But I do really feel sorry for the animals, as well as the ones who kill them, because the karma will be upon them later on. Truly, the King of Illusion wants every piece of his creation to be repaid, and many-fold. You cannot just pay for a piece of beefsteak on Earth, eat it, and think that's 'finito,' or it's even. No, it's not! The Lord of Karma doesn't want your money; he wants your flesh. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, in the world of illusion.In the physical world, it is only like that - an eye for eye, and a tooth for tooth. There's no mercy and nothing you can bribe the Lord of Karma with. He doesn't take bribes, not at all. Even if you give him the whole world, he doesn't care, or the whole Three Worlds, he doesn't care, because his job is that: He likes to check on people; he likes to see who is doing bad. He even tempts them to do bad, to see how strong you are, how noble you are, and how much power you have in your heart to resist temptation.
"Love Thy Neighbor" Means Everyone
To harm other beings is the most terrible sin we can commit. So, if the ones I have been diligently teaching not to kill and not to eat meat are still going out and doing that, I don't want to know about that person. If you didn't know it before, and you commit it, it's okay. Everyone does it; the world makes you do that. Even your parents forced you to do things when you were young and you didn't know any better. But if you know already that it's not right and still continue doing that, just because you could not forget your taste palate – it's just a small sacrifice, very small! Even if you still want to eat meat, it's a very small sacrifice, especially when we have so much beautiful vegetarian food in the vegetable kingdom. Even any religion will tell you it's the food for you to eat, but no one wants to see that page; not many people want to listen to that. "Love thy neighbor" includes our animals! If we cannot love animals, then there will be no more neighbors for us to love. Neighbor includes everything. Jesus didn't say, "Love thy neighbor: man and woman or children." He said, "Love thy neighbor."
Who are our neighbors? Everyone! Everyone, including humans, animals, dogs, cats, birds, ducks and geese - wild or tame. Can you imagine just for one moment if you were an animal living among humans like this? Every day they fear for their lives. Can you imagine the kind of life that we impose upon them? Suppose we humans were living together with other giant kinds of creatures, and all the time they killed us to eat, one by one. How would you feel? Helpless and miserable, no? And so sad, so terrified! It's the same with animals. They don't do anything to us. But we, on the contrary, subject them to all kinds of suffering. Some of them are even working to help us, and we still kill them to eat at the end. No "thank you" to them, nothing! Not even a peaceful and dignified death. We kill and eat, without mercy, without remorse, without even thinking that we should never do that, without even thinking anything. We just do it like a natural thing, and we call ourselves human, intelligent, the crown of the creation. What kind of crown could be put on our head?
In our world, if we kill someone, it's called murder. And then we have to go to jail and so on. But we kill billions, trillions, zillions of animals every day, and no one puts us in jail. Isn't that amazing? And the animals are helpless! They're fearful living with us, fearful every day. How can this be, a world like this? How can it be that we make ourselves into such fearful, vicious kinds of beings, feared by all other creatures? We dominate all the other creatures in the whole world; we take away their habitat sometimes, and we make them fear every day for their lives. Even our brother and sister human beings, we make them fear also: by power, by guns, by atomic weapons, by economic sanctions, all kinds of things.
We put fear in each other's lives. How do we call ourselves the crown of the creation? That, I don't know. I don't know what kind of crown that we merit to put on our head, and I don't know who would put that crown on our head. All our brothers and sisters are fearful of us, and we're killing them every day somewhere on the planet in different ways, not just by guns or knives, but by bullying, by causing spiritual oppression, emotional stress and physical suffering. We cause that to each other, day by day. How can we call ourselves civilized human beings and the crown of the creation?
To Be Great, Simply Do No Harm
In this new year, everyone in the world should rethink the program or the direction that they should lead their lives, and the truly noble goal that they should reach during their lifetime, while they still have time to correct it. To be a noble human being is so simple. It doesn't need a Saint to do it. It doesn't need a nun, a monk or a holy personage. Just leave the animals alone; that's all we have to do. Then we are noble already, immediately! All the animals will praise you in their hearts, and will pray for you. Your life will be lengthened, your happiness will be multiplied; your health will be more assured, your love will expand to no end, and you'll become a great being already. No need for Master Ching Hai, no need for initiation, nothing of that yet. Just leave the meat alone; then you really can become Buddha, or at least reach the Third Level. (Applause)
The Buddha meant just that when He said, "Put down the butcher knife, and you can become Buddha." It's truly like that! If you don't kill or don't eat any animals, you truly can immediately attain the Third Level - the low one, but Third Level. That is for sure. But no, how many people do that? How many people can sacrifice just a little taste of the palate to be a noble being, to be a compassionate person worthy of being the crown of the creation? Then I don't even need to go teaching; I don't need to do anything anymore. It would be much better; and the animals will be happy, humans will be more elevated, and hospitals will be fewer. Fighting will be no more, because everyone, through the vegetarian diet, will have enough food to sustain themselves. The whole planet will have enough food for every single person on the planet, without any cost. If we are just vegetarian, then the planetary wealth will automatically somehow be divided evenly, and there will be no more hunger. Truly, it's like that. But how many people want to do this noble deed?
Awakening the Noble Quality Within
I just hope this New Year that the planet people will also be very smart, much more contemplative inside, and see truly what they want within, not being blinded by outer temptation and influences of the negative power. They should be strong, noble, and looking within themselves to see what is in their heart and what truly their heart wants to tell them, because if they do look, they will find it. "Knock, and it will be opened." (Matthew 7:7)
So, I do hope they really look! Because if they look, they will see they are a noble person or a noble being, and it's not within our dignity to kill and eat some innocent creature that's not even our own size. Some are bigger, and we bully them too. Even the fish in the sea, they do no harm to anyone; they're swimming in their own world, and we fish them up, kill them, and eat them. Or, the animals in the air, they're flying there, doing no harm to anyone, doing nothing wrong, and we shoot them down and eat them. And the animals in the jungle or in the forest, they also mind their own business; they don't harm anything, yet we go there, hunt them down, kill them, and eat them also.
Do you think that's noble? Anyone would know that it's not noble, is it? How noble can it be when a strong person with all the power and intelligence goes and kills someone who is weak, small and defenseless? How noble can that be? Even in China and in Au Lac (Vietnam), the martial arts rule is: If a person has fallen from their horse in battle, you don't wound or kill him. If the person is already down, that's what we say: Don't kill him. So, how would it be for a smaller animal? They're already frightened and paralyzed at the sight of a human! How can we not feel compassionate and sorry or pity, and let him live? How could a human being not feel any pity in his heart when the animal is frightened and running, running, running for their life already, begging for their life? It's incredible!
In the new year, maybe all our wishes will come true; so let's wish that these things won't happen again, and that human beings, all of them, will wake up to the noble intention inside their heart from before they were born, or when they were just born and they were noble, pure and heroic. Let's hope that the human beings will awaken within themselves these superior qualities, which make us the crown of the creation. Let them wake up these superior qualities, and then we will all be in Heaven. Really, if there's no more killing, this planet shall be Heaven. (Applause)


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