text:
It is with a very heavy heart that I am sharing the
news that Dan Berrigan died today. He was one of the great resisters
against the empire, and to those of us who knew him a wise and respected
mentor. Dan Berrigan, presente!
Daniel J. Berrigan, Defiant
Priest Who Preached Pacifism, Dies at 94
By DANIEL LEWIS APRIL 30, 2016
Daniel J. Berrigan gave an anti-war sermon at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New
York, 1972.CreditWilliam E. Sauro/The New York Times
Rev. Daniel J. Berrigan, a Jesuit priest and poet whose defiant protests helped
shape the tactics of opposition to the Vietnam War and landed him in prison,
died on Saturday in New York City. He was 94.
death was confirmed by the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and editor at
large at America magazine, a national Catholic magazine
published by Jesuits. Father Berrigan died at Murray-Weigel Hall, the Jesuit
infirmary at Fordham
University in the Bronx.
United States was tearing itself apart over civil rights and the war in
Southeast Asia when Father Berrigan emerged in the 1960s as an intellectual
star of the Roman Catholic "new left," articulating a view that racism and
poverty, militarism and capitalist greed were interconnected pieces of the same
big problem: an unjust society.
was an essentially religious position,
based on a stringent reading of the Scriptures that some called pure and others
radical. But it would have explosive political consequences as Father Berrigan;
his brother Philip, a Josephite priest; and their allies
took their case to the streets with rising disregard for the law or their
personal fortunes.
defining point was the burning of Selective Service draft records in
Catonsville, Md., and the subsequent trial of the so-called Catonsville Nine, a
sequence of events that inspired an escalation of protests across the country;
there were marches, sit-ins, the public burning of draft cards and other acts
of civil disobedience.
Berrigan and his brother, Philip Berrigan, seized hundreds of draft records and
set them on fire with homemade napalm in 1968. Credit United Press
catalyzing episode occurred on May 17, 1968, six weeks after the murder of the
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the outbreak of new riots in dozens of
cities. Nine Catholic activists, led by Daniel and Philip Berrigan, entered a
Knights of Columbus building in Catonsville and went up to the second floor,
where the local draft board had offices. In front of astonished clerks, they
seized hundreds of draft records, carried them down to the parking lot and set
them on fire with homemade napalm.
reporters had been told of the raid in advance. They were given a statement
that said in part, "We destroy these draft records not only because they
exploit our young men but because they represent misplaced power concentrated
in the ruling class of America." It added, "We confront the Catholic Church,
other Christian bodies and the synagogues of America with their silence and
cowardice in the face of our country's crimes."
a year sick with images of destruction, from the Tet offensive in Vietnam to
the murder of Dr. King, a scene was recorded that had been contrived to shock
people to attention, and did so. When the police came, the trespassers were
praying in the parking lot, led by two middle-aged men in clerical collars: the
big, craggy Philip, a decorated hero of World War II, and the ascetic Daniel,
waiting peacefully to be led into the van.
and Arrests
the years to come, well into his 80s, Daniel Berrigan was arrested time and
again, for greater or lesser offenses: in 1980, for taking part in the
Plowshares raid on a General Electric missile plant in King of Prussia, Pa.,
where the Berrigan brothers and others rained hammer blows on missile warheads;
in 2006, for blocking the entrance to the Intrepid naval museum in Manhattan.
day after I'm embalmed," he said in 2001, on his 80th birthday, "that's when
I'll give it up."
Berrigan being handcuffed in 2001 after he and others blocked an entrance to
the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in Manhattan. Credit Richard
Drew/Associated Press
was not for lack of other things to do. In his long career of writing and
teaching at Fordham and other universities, Father Berrigan published a torrent
of essays and broadsides and, on average, a book a year, almost to the time of
his death.
the more than 50 books were 15 volumes of poetry — the first of which, "Time
Without Number," won the prestigious Lamont Poetry Prize, given by the Academy of
American Poets, in 1957 — as well as autobiography, social criticism,
commentaries on the Old Testament prophets and indictments of the established
order, both secular and ecclesiastic.
he was known for his wry wit, there was a darkness in much of what Father Berrigan
wrote and said, the burden of which was that one had to keep trying to do the
right thing regardless of the near certainty that it would make no difference.
In the withering of the pacifist movement and the country's general support for
the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, he saw proof that it was folly to expect
lasting results.
is the worst time of my long life," he said in an interview with The Nation in
2008. "I have never had such meager expectations of the system."
made it bearable, he wrote elsewhere, was a disciplined, implicitly difficult
belief in God as the key to sanity and survival.
books by and about Father Berrigan remain in print, and a collection of his
work over half a century, "Daniel Berrigan: Essential Writings," was published
in 2009.
also had a way of popping up in the wider culture: as the "radical priest" in
Paul Simon's song "Me and
Julio Down by the Schoolyard"; as inspiration for the character
Father Corrigan in Colum McCann's 2009 novel, "Let the Great
World Spin." He even had a small movie role, appearing as a Jesuit
priest in "The Mission" in 1989.
his place in the public imagination was pretty much fixed at the time of the
Catonsville raid, as the impish-looking half of the Berrigan brothers —
traitors and anarchists in the minds of a great many Americans, exemplars to
those who formed what some called the ultra-resistance.
a trial that served as a platform for their antiwar message, the Berrigans were
convicted of destroying government property and sentenced to three years each
in the federal prison in Danbury, Conn. Having exhausted their appeals, they
were to begin serving their terms on April 10, 1970.
Berrigan, right, and a defense lawyer, William M. Kunstler, center, after he
was sentenced to three years in federal prison in Danbury, Conn. Credit Associated
they raised the stakes by going underground. The men who had been on the cover
of Time were now on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's most-wanted list. As
Daniel explained in a letter to the French magazine Africasia, he was not
buying the "mythology" fostered by American liberals that there was a "moral
necessity of joining illegal action to legal consequences." In any case, both
brothers were tracked down and sent to prison.
Berrigan had been the main force behind Catonsville, but it was mostly Daniel
who mined the incident and its aftermath for literary meaning — a process
already underway when the F.B.I. caught up with him on Block Island, off the
Rhode Island coast, on Aug. 11, 1970. There was "The Trial of the Catonsville
Nine," a one-act play in free verse drawn directly from the court transcripts,
and "Prison Poems," written during his incarceration in Danbury.
Berrigan on "Meet the Press" in 1972.
Credit Patrick Burns/The New York Times
Credit Patrick Burns/The New York Times
In "My Father," he wrote:
I sit here in the prison ward
nervously dickering with my ulcer
a half-tamed animal
raising hell in its living space
nervously dickering with my ulcer
a half-tamed animal
raising hell in its living space
in 500 lines the poem talks as well about the politics of resistance, memories
of childhood terror and, most of all, the overbearing weight of his dead
wonder if I ever loved him
if he ever loved us
if he ever loved me.
if he ever loved us
if he ever loved me.
father was Thomas William Berrigan, a man full of words and grievances who got
by as a railroad engineer, labor union officer and farmer. He married Frida
Fromhart and had six sons with her. Daniel, the fourth, was born on May 9,
1921, in Virginia, Minn.
he was a young boy, the family moved to a farm near Syracuse to be close to his
father's family.
his autobiography, "To Dwell in Peace," Daniel Berrigan described his father as
"an incendiary without a cause," a subscriber to Catholic liberal periodicals
and the frustrated writer of poems of no distinction.
on," he wrote, "we grew inured, as the price of survival, to violence as a norm
of existence. I remember, my eyes open to the lives of neighbors, my
astonishment at seeing that wives and husbands were not natural enemies."
With the Church
with weak ankles, Daniel could not walk until he was 4. His frailty spared him
the heavy lifting demanded of his brothers; instead he helped his mother around
the house. Thus he seemed to absorb not only his father's sense of life's
unfairness but also an intimate knowledge of how a man's rage can play out in
the victimization of women.
an early age, he wrote, he believed that the church condoned his father's
treatment of his mother. Yet he wanted to be a priest. After high school he
earned a bachelor's degree in 1946 from St. Andrew-on-Hudson, a Jesuit seminary
in Hyde Park, N.Y., and a master's from Woodstock College in Baltimore in 1952.
He was ordained that year.
for a year of study and ministerial work in France, he met some worker-priests who
gave him "a practical vision of the Church as she should be," he wrote.
Afterward he spent three years at the Jesuits' Brooklyn Preparatory School,
teaching theology and French, while absorbing the poetry of Robert Frost, E. E.
Cummings and the 19th-century Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins. His own early work
often combined elements of nature with religious symbols.
he was not to become a pastoral poet or live the retiring life he had imagined.
His ideas were simply turning too hot, sometimes even for friends and mentors
like Dorothy Day, the co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, and the
Trappist intellectual Thomas Merton.
Le Moyne College in Syracuse, where he was a popular professor of New Testament
studies from 1957 to 1963, Father Berrigan formed friendships with his students
that other faculty members disapproved of, inculcating in them his ideas about
pacifism and civil rights. (One student, David Miller, became the first
draft-card burner to be convicted under a 1965 law.)
Berrigan was effectively exiled in 1965, after angering the hawkish Cardinal
Francis Spellman in New York. Besides Father Berrigan's work in organizing
antiwar groups like the interdenominational Clergy and Laymen Concerned About
Vietnam, there was the matter of the death of Roger La Porte, a young man with
whom Father Berrigan said he was slightly acquainted. To protest American
involvement in Southeast Asia, Mr. La Porte set himself on fire outside the United
Nations building in November 1965.
according to Father Berrigan, "the most atrocious rumors were linking his death
to his friendship with me." He spoke at a service for Mr. La Porte, and soon
thereafter the Jesuits, widely believed to have been pressured by Cardinal
Spellman, sent him on a "fact-finding" mission among poor workers in South
America. An outcry from Catholic liberals brought him back after only three
months, enough time for him to have been radicalized even further by the facts
he had found.
the Jesuits, Father Berrigan was both a magnet to bright young seminarians and
a troublemaker who could not be kept in any one faculty job too long.
onetime or another he held faculty positions or ran programs at Union Seminary,
Loyola University New Orleans, Columbia, Cornell and Yale. Eventually he
settled into a long tenure at Fordham, the Jesuit university in the Bronx,
where for a time he had the title of poet in residence.
Berrigan was released from the Danbury penitentiary in 1972; the Jesuits,
alarmed at his failing health, managed to get him out early. He then resumed
his travels.
visiting the Middle East, he bluntly accused Israel of "militarism" and the
"domestic repressions" of Palestinians.
His remarks angered many American Jews. "Let us call this by its right name,"
wrote Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg,
himself a contentious figure among religious scholars: "old-fashioned
theological anti-Semitism."
was Father Berrigan universally admired by Catholics. Many faulted him for not
singling out repressive Communist states in his diatribes against the world
order, and later for not lending his voice to the outcry over sexual abuse by
priests. There was also a sense that his notoriety was a distraction from the
religious work that needed to be done.
the least of his long-running battles was with the church hierarchy. He was
scathing about the shift to conservatism under Pope John Paul II and the
"company men" he appointed to high positions.
of Father Berrigan's later work was concentrated on helping AIDS patients in
New York City. In 2012, he appeared in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan to
support the Occupy Wall Street protest.
also devoted himself to writing biblical studies. He felt a special affinity
for the Hebrew prophets, especially Jeremiah, who was chosen by God to warn of
impending disaster and commanded to keep at it, even though no one would listen
for 40 years.
brother, Jerry, died in July at age 95, and another brother, Philip, died in
2002 at age 79.
Berrigan seemed to reach a poet's awareness of his place in the scheme of
things, and that of his brother Philip, who left the priesthood for a married
life of service to the poor and spent a total of 11 years in prison for
disturbing the peace in one way or another before his death from cancer in
2002. While they both still lived, Daniel Berrigan wrote:
brother and I stand like the fences
of abandoned farms, changed times
too loosely webbed against
deicide homicide
A really powerful blow
would bring us down like scarecrows.
Nature, knowing this, finding us mildly useful
indulging also
her backhanded love of freakishness
allows us to stand.
of abandoned farms, changed times
too loosely webbed against
deicide homicide
A really powerful blow
would bring us down like scarecrows.
Nature, knowing this, finding us mildly useful
indulging also
her backhanded love of freakishness
allows us to stand.
Christopher Mele contributed reporting.
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives."
Eugene Victor Debs


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Speaker: All aboard: The choice for young New Zealanders
46 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 2 Newer→ Last
Sacha, in reply to
to contribute
Exactly. That potential is a casualty of the short-sighted decisions we've tolerated over the past few decades. Selfishness has been prioritised over a sense of service to any group larger than ourselves, including a professional field.
The conversational fixation on *tax* is a reflection of that narrow monetised and transactional focus that many seem to regard as quite normal in our neoliberal laboratory.
Alternative discussions about community and the satisfaction of doing good work have been inadequately led, supported and stewarded. I welcome The Voyage as a sign of change.
Sacha, in reply to
Rod Drury rightly believes
An interesting thing about that paper is that it marked a formerly-committed free market advocate recognising that there can be market failure in infrastructure provision unless government steps in and does its job.
chris, in reply to
Every country has diaspora, and I think we stand out simply because we have a smaller population
The OECD says New Zealand is the developed country with the highest proportion of its educated population living overseas.
Rated 24th out of 25 countries in terms of Children's Health and safety
sorry for the stat tsunami, but economics and employment is but one small fish, and it would seem that there are numerous starting points in terms of what can be done. -
Chris Waugh, in reply to
You're familiar with 'faux ami'
Very much so, having majored in French and studied German and Russian. I remember feeling a little silly in one Russian class hearing na primer (for example) and catching myself thinking it was the French word premier. I seem to remember my students stumbling across a Chinese-English faux ami earlier this semester, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was, and it seems I foolishly didn't go and blog about it at the time. Oh well, maybe I'll have the good fortune to stumble across it again one day...
Chris Waugh, in reply to
Could the NZ govt make it easier? I'm not sure they could, and even if they did, I don't know what proportion of people would still stay.
Yes, absolutely they could make it easier. Chris has pointed out some areas in desperate need of work. But even from a purely economics/employment point of view there is a lot of work that could be done. From my very narrow sinocentric language geek's point of view, I like the work I see the government doing on building up relations with China*, but I've heard too often that Kiwis are crap at doing business - they show up, sign a contract, then vanish, thinking they've done a deal, but blithely unaware that their Chinese partners are really confused, thinking they've tried to start a relationship only to have the other half vanish into the ether. My own boss, who has done business with NZ and has visited NZ many times, has been known to say that Kiwis are great farmers but crap at business. My own experience, from people asking me why the hell I would major in French, what could I possibly do with that (yeah, because communication is so completely unnecessary, right?) to trying to get jobs in NZ - and having a WINZ case officer tell me "Well, there's really nothing I can do to help, you're way overqualified to be here", or standing in the queue at WINZ listening to Manic Street Preachers' sing If you tolerate this, then your children will be next - to reading recently of the difficulties people with Asian names still have getting jobs in NZ, backs up the impression that NZ's business leaders grossly undervalue linguistic and cultural skills and knowledge. This has got to change, and fast, and the government could be playing a strong leadership role in driving that change, but the only good thing I hear or read about this government is what it's doing to build up relations with China - but even there it seems determined to shoot NZ in both feet. Of all the govt departments I've had to deal with, MFAT has been the best and the most consistently professional, and yet they want to cut their budget too?
I know I'm not the only Kiwi who racked up a huge debt getting an education and then found exile the only way to get ahead. Comparing what I read of the NZ government with what I see happening around me in China, I can think of a multitude of areas in which the NZ government could be showing some leadership for positive change, but isn't, and one area in which they've got the right idea, but I can only grade them with a "could do better".
*And the media could help, too. There's been quite a few local and central government and even National Party delegations visiting China this year, but you wouldn't know it from what Stuff, the Herald, TVNZ or TV3 have up online. Case in point: Celia Wade-Brown just visited Tianjin. Searching the Dom-Post gets me an article saying she will be leading a delegation to China, nothing about the trade fair she attended in Beijing, and nothing about what she actually did in China. Not for the first time, I get more information wading through stodgy as all hell Chinese government press releases. This one is as uninformative as always, but it does say that Wade-Brown said:
"Tianjin has a lot of experience in areas such as city-building that can be learned from, and hopes that through this visit we can increase understanding, deepen friendship, deepen cooperation in such fields as the finance trade, environmental protection, film and TV culture and creative industries, and develop together."
It ain't much, but it's more than I've found on Stuff. How are Wellington's business leaders supposed to know what to do in China when their local newspaper apparently can't inform them what their own mayor got up to over here? Heck, even asking my wife, whose work unit organised CIFTIS - the trade fair in Beijing Wade-Brown attended, gets me more information than I can find on Stuff - apparently she's quite beautiful and wore a white tiki to Wen Jiabao's speech. Not much use to anybody in Wellington, but something.
And of course it's not all about China. There are several other countries on the rise while Europe and America waffle themselves into obscurity. What are NZ's government, media and business leaders doing about them? I don't know, because there's precious little information available in the NZ media, and the rest of the world is only barely aware we exist.
Excuse the incoherence. This post was interrupted by a run around the corner for lunch, and there are several stacks of test papers and essays staring at me with increasing malevolence demanding to be marked and reminding me final exams are just around the corner.
Well, I've been in and out of business for many years and I've *never* come across an occasion where the travelling mayor of the town we were based, or indeed any other politician, has helped us get business.
If you make stuff people want to buy and have the sales/marketing skills to draw it to their attention, then generally they'll buy it. And for a company starting to export, it's way easier to start with the low hanging fruit of Australia, North America and Europe, usually in that order
Personally, I think Wade-Brown should stay back here and work on trying to stop the government despoiling the city with unnecessary road schemes, which I thought was what we elected her for?
Chris Waugh, in reply to
Well, alright, fair enough. But I woulda thunk that if she were going to the trouble of travelling all this way to help drum up a bit of business, then surely Wellington's local rag could've had the decency to report a bit more on her trip, perhaps even send somebody along with the delegation to see what she got up to.
But the point I was trying to incoherently make was that the government could be doing a lot more about leading NZ into the future, but they're not. And the media could be helping with that, but they're not. And our business leaders could be helping with that, but where are they getting their information from?
Kimberley Verburg, in reply to
Except that's not the choice. The reality is you can live your values anywhere. You can contribute to improving Australian or British or French or US society just as easily as you can contribute to NZ society.
Not quite, but I thank you for the hopeful words as I've just made the choice not to return to ANZ but to go to the Netherlands instead.
I will contribute to Dutch society but not as easily because I need to find my way first and because my best knowledge and experience is rooted in the English language. It's been preying on my mind a bit. Also, the Netherlands is so much richer that I feel like it doesn't need my contribution as much.
That said, Islander's post makes me want to cry. I will miss the home that formed me.
Sacha, in reply to
the government could be doing a lot more about leading NZ into the future, but they're not.
Yet they think they are. Need more voices pointing out they're not wearing any clothes.
chris, in reply to
then surely Wellington's local rag could've had the decency to report a bit more on her trip, perhaps even send somebody along with the delegation to see what she got up to.
Certainly following the Pansy Wong affair it would seem to be the very least they could do to protect New Zealand interests.
"cooperation in such fields as the finance trade, environmental protection, film and TV culture and creative industries, and develop together"
Predictably vaguely tailored for the local reader(s)? begging the question as to the expected benefits of this (I assume) ratepayer funded junket for Wellingtonians. I understand exactly where you're coming from Chris and agree that more needs to be done rather than just seen to be done.
Rich of Observationz, your admission that it's way easier to start with the low hanging fruit of Australia, North America and Europe (and in particular North America and Europe) somewhat reinforces Chris's prognosis that NZ's business leaders grossly undervalue linguistic and cultural skills and knowledge - In China the fruit is hanging so low you could call it Han.
chris, in reply to
It's been preying on my mind a bit. Also, the Netherlands is so much richer that I feel like it doesn't need my contribution as much.
The word contribute is fairly high frequency on this thread.
For the record I'd be interested to know whether returning home, paying taxes, paying off accrued interest on loans, paying off the late payment fees, paying off the late payment interest, paying off the loans themselves, renewing a passport, buying a drivers license, buying a firearms license, holding down a job, making a go of that, pumping money into the economy, recycling, voting, attending council funded firework displays and musical extravaganza, watching more of New Zealand on Air, voting for *winners* in New Zealand on Air funded shows, using public transport wherever possible, keeping healthy and generally just being a good enough person qualifies as a contribution or is it merely subsistence?
Ian Dalziel, in reply to
....qualifies as a contribution
or is it merely subsistence?the machine of state needs steady lubrication,
it's the maintenance of silence that leads to trouble...On November 18, 1982, Neil Roberts, a 22 year old Aucklander daubed a washroom wall with the graffiti slogan 'WE HAVE MAINTAINED A SILENCE CLOSELY RESEMBLING STUPIDITY' then placed a bomb outside the State Security Computer Centre at Wanganui – where files are kept on all citizens. The bomb blew Neil Roberts to pieces.
Or we could join the good life by helping the Profit in his South Auckland Walled City devil-opment.
Auckland councillor Dick Quax says Mr Tamaki's ambitious plans should be praised.
"He's looking at educating people, helping people with social problems," says Mr Quax. "No problems with that whatsoever."
Thanks Dick. It will have it's own university as well. PhD in Creation Science anyone?
In a couple of years time the taxpayers will be coping with broken families, ripped off home sellers and broken individuals as a result of this.
But the Life of Brian will certainly be enhanced. Do I see a Bigger boat? Bigger SUV? Bigger Harley?
Kumara Republic, in reply to
I was thinking more the Waco Siege or Jonestown. Still, we know where Cr Quax stands.
Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Still, we know where Cr Quax stands
By the Kool-Aid table, right?
Joe Wylie, in reply to
By the Kool-Aid table, right?
According to the ploddingly goofy Tahu Potiki, Tamaki's a victim of the chardonnay set's contempt for Kool-Aid, with extra demerits for being indigenous.
Instead he has adopted a very puritanical and rigid interpretation of scripture which utterly condemns the idea of any sexual relationship that is not between a man and a woman. This is pretty consistent with other conservative church positions,
Oh Right! so he's in line with other fucked up organisations. That's all right then.
The "City of god" is in Wiri... Who knew!
And as for Quax, Sharples and others fawning over this throwback with self-serving noises about all the good that will come of it....
More fool you. -
Amusingly Australia is currently suffering from a free market approach to training the trades over the last few years, and at the same time as they're gutting the tafe/polytech system they're trying to import tradespeople from China because there aren't enough ozzie kids with the skills. It's not just NZ. Australia also runs a big scam where they "sell" education and after qualifying you're at the head of the queue for immigration. So we have a lot of new hairdressers and gym trainers who really don't like their jobs but it beats living in Uzbekistan.
Me? I'll probably retire in NZ, but every time I look at working there the idea of halving my pay and limiting myself to a tiny pool of potential employers just seems like career suicide. Instead I contribute by sending money to various environmentalist groups :)
Chris Waugh, in reply to
The "City of god" is in Wiri
Ciudade de deus? Cool film, but something tells me that's not what Brian plans to build....
Islander, in reply to
According to the ploddingly goofy Tahu Potiki,
Tahu Potiki- bearer of an exceedingly illustrious name within Kai Tahu - has been a source of contention for some years. He's like Tipene - wealthy, with considerable clout historically, and - like Tipene - being withdrawn from, by the aunties.
I'm one of the aunties now - and I do not support fuckwits.
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CDC Recommendations for Diagnosing and Managing Shigella Strains with Possible Reduced Susceptibility to Ciprofloxacin
Distributed via the CDC Health Alert Network
April 18, 2017, 16:00 ET (4:00 PM ET)
This Health Advisory describes the identification of emerging Shigella strains with elevated minimum inhibitory concentration values for ciprofloxacin and outlines new recommendations for clinical diagnosis, management, and reporting, as well as new recommendations for laboratories and public health officials. Current interpretive criteria provided by the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) categorize these strains as susceptible to ciprofloxacin, which is a fluoroquinolone antibiotic and a key agent in the management of Shigella infections.
However, recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state and local public health partners show that these strains often have a quinolone resistance gene that may lead to clinically significant reduced susceptibility to fluoroquinolone antibiotics. Clinicians treating patients with multidrug-resistant shigellosis for whom antibiotic treatment is indicated should avoid prescribing fluoroquinolones if the ciprofloxacin MIC is 0.12 μg/mL or higher even if the laboratory report identifies the isolate as susceptible, and should work closely with their clinical microbiology laboratory and infectious disease specialists to determine appropriate antimicrobial therapy.
Shigellosis is a nationally notifiable condition, and all cases of shigellosis should be reported to local health departments.
CDC has identified an increase in Shigella isolates in the United States with minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values of 0.12–1 μg/mL for the fluoroquinolone antibiotic ciprofloxacin. Preliminary data suggest that all Shigella isolates with ciprofloxacin MICs in this range for which results are available harbor at least one quinolone resistance gene known to confer reduced susceptibility in enteric bacteria. Shigella isolates without a quinolone resistance gene typically have a ciprofloxacin MIC of ≤0.015 μg/mL. Current CLSI criteria categorize Shigella isolates with a ciprofloxacin MIC of ≤1 μg/mL as susceptible to ciprofloxacin (1).
CDC does not yet know whether fluoroquinolone treatment of a Shigella infection with a ciprofloxacin MIC of 0.12–1 μg/mL is associated with a worse clinical outcome for the patient or if such treatment increases the risk of transmission to other individuals. In Salmonella isolates, ciprofloxacin MICs of 0.12–1 μg/mL have been associated with reduced susceptibility, prolonged clinical illness, and treatment failures and are now categorized by CLSI as intermediate or resistant to ciprofloxacin in Salmonella species.
Fluoroquinolone resistance is of particular concern given that data from the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System indicate that many Shigella isolates with a quinolone resistance gene also are resistant to many other commonly used treatment agents, such as azithromycin, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, amoxicillin-clavulanic acid, and ampicillin. This susceptibility profile may encourage clinicians to prescribe fluoroquinolone antibiotics to patients who require treatment.
Rising fluoroquinolone MIC values among Shigella isolates may be related to the emergence of plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance (PMQR) genes in Shigella species in the United States. Shigella strains harboring PMQR genes were identified earlier this year following whole genome sequencing of isolates from a multistate outbreak of multidrug-resistant Shigella flexneri infections predominantly affecting adult men, many of whom identify as men who have sex with men, according to epidemiologic data collected by CDC's Shigella program as part of outbreak response. PMQR genes have also been identified in sporadic cases of Shigella sonnei. Plasmid-mediated resistance genes are of particular concern because of their ability to spread between bacteria and their ability to promote chromosomal mutations conferring quinolone resistance, potentially resulting in rapid spread of fluoroquinolone resistance within or between populations of bacteria. The prevalence of PMQR genes among all U.S. Shigella isolates is currently unknown.
Any patient with a Shigella infection could carry a strain harboring a quinolone resistance gene with a ciprofloxacin MIC of 0.12–1 μg/mL.
The emergence of Shigella species with ciprofloxacin MICs of 0.12–1 μg/mL and their association with quinolone resistance genes raises the following concerns:
- Fluoroquinolone treatment of Shigella infection with a strain harboring a quinolone resistance gene may be less effective and may increase the risk of a more severe clinical course for the individual (e.g., increased duration or severity of symptoms, increased need for hospitalization or admission to an intensive care unit, increased length of hospitalization, or increased risk of death).
- Fluoroquinolone treatment of Shigella infection with a strain harboring a quinolone resistance gene also may increase the risk of secondary cases, if the treatment prolongs the duration or increases the quantity of organisms shed in the stool, given the very low infectious dose required for transmission of Shigella bacteria.
Order stool culture for patients suspected of having a Shigella infection to obtain isolates for antimicrobial susceptibility testing.
- Culture-independent diagnostic testing does not provide an isolate and therefore cannot be used to assess susceptibility.
Order antimicrobial susceptibility testing when ordering stool culture for Shigella.
- When antimicrobial susceptibility testing is performed by broth microdilution, request ciprofloxacin testing that includes dilutions of 0.12 μg/mL or lower.
- Even when treatment is not indicated, identifying patients with drug-resistant infections (i.e., ordering susceptibility testing) will help to inform public health management, such as when to return to work, school, and group settings.
Do not routinely prescribe antibiotic therapy for Shigella infection. Instead, reserve antibiotic therapy for patients for whom it is clinically indicated or when public health officials advise treatment in an outbreak setting.
- Shigellosis is generally a self-limited infection lasting 5-7 days.
- Unnecessary treatment with antibiotics promotes resistance.
- Treatment can shorten the duration of some illnesses, though typically only by 1-2 days.
- Empiric treatment with an antibiotic to which the organism is resistant may worsen symptoms or prolong the duration of shedding of the organism.
- If empiric treatment is clinically indicated before antimicrobial susceptibility results are available, refer to recent hospital, clinical laboratory, or public health agency antibiograms.
- Antibiotic treatment is recommended for patients who are immunocompromised or who develop severe illness (e.g., patients requiring hospitalization, those with invasive disease, or those with complications).
- Local or state health officials may advise antibiotic treatment to mitigate or prevent outbreaks in certain settings (e.g., childcare, food handling).
When antibiotic treatment is indicated, tailor antibiotic choice to antimicrobial susceptibility results as soon as possible with special attention given to the MIC for fluoroquinolone antibiotics.
- Avoid prescribing fluoroquinolones if the ciprofloxacin MIC is 0.12 μg/mL or higher even if the laboratory report identifies the isolate as susceptible.
- Know the potential risks of fluoroquinolone treatment of Shigella infections with ciprofloxacin MICs in this range, including possible treatment failure and increased risk of secondary transmission.
- The interpretation of MIC values varies for the different fluoroquinolone antibiotics; if susceptibility results are reported for a fluoroquinolone other than ciprofloxacin, contact the microbiology laboratory for assistance with interpretation.
- If MIC values are not reported to the clinician with susceptibility results, consider contacting the microbiology laboratory where the susceptibility testing was performed to determine the ciprofloxacin MIC value before treating a patient with a fluoroquinolone agent. Some susceptibility testing methods do not produce a MIC value; the impact of a quinolone resistance gene on test results by other methods (e.g., disk diffusion) is not yet known.
- Consult an infectious disease specialist for cases where the Shigella isolate is resistant to multiple antibiotics and appropriate treatment is unclear.
- Obtain follow-up stool cultures in shigellosis patients who have continued or worsening symptoms despite antibiotic therapy.
- Consult your local or state health department for guidance on when patients may return to childcare, school, or work.
Counsel patients with active diarrhea on how they can prevent spreading the infection to others, regardless of whether antibiotic treatment is prescribed.
- Wash hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, especially after using the toilet, after handling a soiled diaper, and before eating.
- Avoid preparing food for others, when possible.
- Children with active diarrhea should not attend childcare, school, or group activities while they are ill.
- Wait to have sex (vaginal, anal, and oral) for two weeks after you no longer have diarrhea. Use safe sex practices for several weeks after resuming sex, because Shigella bacteria may still be in stool for several weeks.
- Shigellosis is a nationally notifiable condition. Report all cases of shigellosis to your local health department.
- Clinicians who identify a patient with shigellosis and a ciprofloxacin MIC of 0.12–1 μg/mL should include this finding along with other information regarding the case to their local health department to facilitate further testing of the isolate.
- Know that a Shigella isolate with a ciprofloxacin MIC of 0.12–1 μg/mL may be associated with the presence of a quinolone resistance gene.
- Test Shigella isolates using susceptibility panels that include 0.12, 0.25, and 0.5 μg/mL dilutions for ciprofloxacin, when using a commercially available automated system (such as BD Phoenix, MicroScan, Vitek 2, or similar system) for susceptibility testing.
- Include MIC values for fluoroquinolone agents in the susceptibility testing report for Shigella isolates.
- Report all findings of strains of Shigella with a ciprofloxacin MIC of 0.12–1 μg/mL to the state public health laboratory, and submit isolates to it to facilitate further phenotypic and genetic testing.
- Know that a Shigella isolate with a ciprofloxacin MIC of 0.12–1 μg/mL may be associated with the presence of a quinolone resistance gene.
- Contact CDC at firstname.lastname@example.com if you receive reports of patients with Shigella infection and possible fluoroquinolone treatment failure.
- Submit Shigella isolates with a ciprofloxacin MIC of 0.12–1 μg/mL to the state public health laboratory for whole genome sequencing, if possible. If the state laboratory does not have capacity to sequence the isolate, please notify CDC at firstname.lastname@example.com.
What CDC is Doing
CDC is working with state and local public health departments and clinical partners to investigate if clinical outcomes are worse for patients infected with Shigella strains harboring a quinolone resistance gene who receive ciprofloxacin treatment.
- CDC has notified representatives at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and CLSI, who will review CDC's findings to determine whether a change to the susceptible range of MIC values for ciprofloxacin in Shigella is warranted.
- CDC will continue to monitor trends in antimicrobial susceptibility of Shigella isolates and will perform genetic testing on select strains with ciprofloxacin MICs of 0.12–1 μg/mL or higher to confirm the presence and type of quinolone resistance genes.
For More Information
- For general information about Shigella or shigellosis, visit https://www.cdc.gov/shigella/.
- For technical information about Shigella or shigellosis, including information about national surveillance and other educational resources for medical and public health professionals, visit https://www.cdc.gov/shigella/resources.html.
- For information about prevention and control of shigellosis, including recommendations for men who have sex with men, visit https://www.cdc.gov/shigella/prevention-control.html.
- For more information about the serious public health threat posed by antimicrobial resistant Shigella, refer to "Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States, 2013" available at https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/threat-report-2013/pdf/ar-threats-2013-508.pdf.
- For more information about ciprofloxacin and azithromycin-nonsusceptible shigellosis in the United States, refer to previous Health Alert Network Advisory 379 at https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/han00379.asp.
- For specific inquiries related to this Health Advisory, email email@example.com.
- Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute. Performance Standards for Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing. 27th ed. CLSI supplement M100. Wayne, PA: Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute; 2017.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) protects people's health and safety by preventing and controlling diseases and injuries; enhances health decisions by providing credible information on critical health issues; and promotes healthy living through strong partnerships with local, national and international organizations.
Department of Health and Human Services
HAN Message Types
- Health Alert: Conveys the highest level of importance about a public health incident.
- Health Advisory: Provides important information about a public health incident.
- Health Update: Provides updated information about a public health incident.
This message was distributed to state and local health officers, state and local epidemiologists, state and local laboratory directors, public information officers, HAN coordinators, and clinician organizations.


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scientists and industry collaborators have successfully protected
laboratory animals from lethal hantavirus disease using a novel approach
that combines DNA vaccines and duck eggs. The work appears in a recent
edition of the online scientific journal PLoS ONE, published by the Public Library of Science.
to first author Jay W. Hooper of the U.S. Army Medical Research
Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), this is the first time that
the DNA vaccine/duck egg system has been shown to produce an antiviral
product capable of protecting against hantavirus disease.
causes a condition known as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS), which
has a case fatality rate of 35-40%. Currently there are no vaccines,
prophylactics, or therapeutics to prevent or treat this highly
pathogenic disease.
this study, the research team used a hamster model of Andes virus,
which is the predominant cause of HPS in South America and the only
hantavirus known to be transmitted person-to-person. Infection of Syrian
hamsters with Andes virus, as demonstrated in earlier studies at
USAMRIID, results in a disease that closely mimics human HPS in
incubation time, symptoms of respiratory distress, and disease
pathology. This makes it an ideal system for evaluating the feasibility
of postexposure protection strategies.
with Aldevron of Fargo, N.D. and the Universidad del Desarrollo in
Santiago, Chile, Hooper and his team first evaluated a natural product,
human polyclonal antibody, which was obtained as fresh frozen plasma
(FFP) from a patient who survived HPS. Their results indicate that FFP
shows promise as a post-exposure preventive treatment for HPS.
team then vaccinated ducks with a DNA vaccine against Andes virus. This
vaccine, initially developed and tested at USAMRIID, uses genetic
material, or DNA, that encodes a specific hantavirus gene to elicit an
immune response in the recipient.
they purified an antibody called IgY from the yolks of the duck eggs.
This purified IgY, as well as a similar version produced in duck eggs,
was capable of neutralizing Andes virus when tested in cell culture.
More importantly, it also protected Syrian hamsters from lethal HPS—even
when administered as a single injection several days after the hamsters
had been exposed to a lethal dose of virus.
work demonstrates the feasibility of using DNA vaccine technology,
coupled with the duck/egg system, to manufacture a product that could
supplement or replace FFP. Furthermore, the new approach can be scaled
as needed and eliminates the necessity of using blood products from HPS
survivors, which may be in limited supply.
to Hooper, another advantage of this technique is that duck IgY
naturally loses a part of the antibody that has been associated with
"serum sickness" when animal antibodies have been used in humans, making
the product potentially less reactogenic.
antiviral product, if fully developed and manufactured, has the
potential to be used in future outbreak situations," Hooper said. "It
also could be used to treat health care workers and others who have
close contact with HPS patients."
addition, the authors suggest, the flexibility of the DNA vaccine/duck
egg system could be applied to the production of antibodies against
other infectious agents and toxins.
Source: U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases


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Healthy, confident and comfortable—that's how you'll feel each and every time you visit Moon Family & Cosmetic Dental, experienced cosmetic dentists in Moon Township. We seek to provide the best in quality care for our patients that we would desire for ourselves and our own families. We do everything possible to make your dental visits as pleasant as possible by creating a stress-free dental experience combined with quality, compassionate care from our experienced Moon Township cosmetic dentists .
We offer a full array of treatments in our Moon Township office to bring you a beautiful, healthy smile. Our caring team will work with you to map out a dental plan that fits your personal needs, goals and lifestyle.
Our services include:
- Cosmetic Dentistry
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- View a complete list of our dental services
At Moon Family & Cosmetic Dental we believe patient education is the key to improving and maintaining the health of your smile. To help you reach your optimal health and understand your options, we've created this educational website. We encourage you to browse our patient education library, office details, services page and staff credentials for more information about our practice.
No matter the scope of your cosmetic dental problems, we will treat you with genuine concern and compassion. We want to be your lifelong partner in dental health. Feel free to contact our Moon Township office with any questions.


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Labrador Retriever Ranked Top Dog
According to the registration statistics compiled by the American Kennel Club, the Labrador Retriever is the most popular pure bred dog in the greater Milwaukee area.
In a recent press release, the American Kennel Club® (AKC) announced the Labrador retriever is, once again, the most popular purebred dog in the country. "Labrador Retriever lovers have again spoken – the playful, family friendly breed remains the number one most popular breed in the U.S. for the 22nd consecutive year, tying with the Poodle for the longest reign in the top spot." Read the rest of their article here.
"Bigger breeds are making their move," said AKC Spokesperson Lisa Peterson." The popularity of the pint-sized, portable pooch just gave way to a litter of larger breeds in the Top 10. These predictable, durable, steady breeds, like Labs and Goldens, are great with kids and offer the whole family more dog to love." More than twice as many Labs were registered than any other breed making it a likely leader for many years to come.
At Twin Lakes Kennel, we have been breeding and training world class Labrador retrievers for almost forty years. Our industry setting Puppy Guarantee makes buying one of our pure-bred Labrador retrievers one of the wisest decisions you will ever make. But don't take our word for it. Read the personal testimonials from prominent Labrador Retriever owners from around the country. Visit our Puppy Page or call Woody or Judi for up-to-the-minute puppy information at 910.462.3246.
Labrador Retrievers For Sale in Kenosha
Our Labs can be found across the states from Hawaii to Maine, from Alaska to Florida. Located near Laurel Hill, NC, we deliver our world class Labrador retriever puppies and adults to locations as far away as Alaska. We can easily deliver our guaranteed Labs to your location in or around Kenosha. For details, call Woody or Judi at 910.462.3246 or use our user-friendly Contact Us Page.
Labrador Retriever Puppies and Children
In a recent article, a licensed professional counselor for more than twenty-five years, explained how owning a Labrador retriever can help produce healthier, happier, more well adjusted children. Here is an excerpt from her article:
Dogs decrease loneliness in children.
When the older child (children) go off to school, often younger siblings experience loneliness and are sad from missing the older child. A family dog can serve as a companion and friend. A playful dog provides security that one is not alone, especially when Mommy is busy and cannot spend time reassuring the child. Children who come home to an empty house and have to wait for parents or other siblings to return have someone to share their time with. If they've had a bad day, they know that they can tell any secret to their canine friend. By having someone to talk to and play with, your child feels much more secure and less anxious about being alone.
Be sure to read the rest of her article, Ten Reasons to Own a Dog.


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Celebrity Watches Sold At Auction
The 10 Coolest Celebrity Watches Ever Sold At Auction
This is a good month to get your hands on a celebrity-owned wristwatch — if you're willing to shell out six figures, that is. One of the coolest Rolexes of all time and a rare Patek Philippe owned by Ringo Starr of the Beatles are set to cross the auction block in the next several weeks. The Rolex was worn by Roger Moore as James Bond in 1973's Live And Let Die, but a lot of its appeal comes from the fact that it's also one of the coolest Bond gadgets ever made, with a buzz saw bezel and a magnetic field that 007 uses to unzip a woman's dress. It fetched $363,000 at Phillips' Geneva sale on Nov. 7. Ringo's 18K gold automatic "Moonphase" Patek, meanwhile, could go as high as $100,000 at Julien's Auctions sale in Beverly Hills on December 4. Read on for the rest of the coolest celebrity watches ever:
Joe Dimaggio's Bulova Accutron
The baseball Hall of Famer who married Marilyn Monroe owned this technologically advanced (for its time) electronic wristwatch and kept it in mint condition. It sold for $20,000 at Antiquorum in 2013.
Sir Edmund Hillary's Rolex Oyster
This rare Rolex was given to the great mountain climber Sir Edmund Hillary in 1953 when he returned from conquering Mt. Everest. Slated to be auctioned in 2010, it became the subject of a legal battle.
JFK's Omega Ultrathin
Kennedy was presented with this elegant gold wristwatch in 1960, and wore it to his inauguration in January, 1961. In 2005, the Omega Museum acquired it at auction for $350,000.
James Bond's Rolex Chronograph
Worn by George Lazenby in 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service, it happens to be one of the most collectible Rolex chronographs. It sold for $41,000 at Christie's in 2003.
Steve McQueen's Heuer Monaco
The now-iconic square watch was worn by Steve McQueen while filming his 1971 racing flick Le Mans and has since been re-issued by TAG Heuer. In 2012, it sold at auction for a record-setting $799,000.
Steve McQueen's Rolex Submariner
Almost as well known is the King of Cool's stainless steel Rolex Submariner, which can be spotted in some of the most famous photos of the actor. It sold for $234,000 in 2009.
Elvis Presley's Omega Constellation
This rose gold wristwatch with an automatic chronometer movement is decidedly understated compared to Elvis's usual tastes. In 2012, it sold at auction for $52,500.
Dave Scott's Bulova Chronograph
The most expensive watch on the list, and the only watch that has been to the moon (Apollo 15), Dave Scott's Bulova Chronograph was offered at auction, and just sold for an astounding $1.6 million.
Eric Clapton's Rolex Cosmograph
Clapton has a watch collection to rival the best of them, and his rare 1971 "Albino" Rolex stunned the world with a $1.4 million hammer price this past spring.
Daniel Craig's James Bond Omega Seamaster
Daniel Craig wore this watch — a unique version built in titanium — in action scenes as 007 in Skyfall. In 2012 it was sold at auction for $254,000.
Men's Watches
Luxury Watches


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Are you interested in KONE as a corporate business or a career opportunity?
Corporate siteTall buildings can be viewed as valuable pieces of real estate, works of art or symbols of prestige. For David Malott, founding partner in the New York-based architectural firm AI and former Chairman of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), they're nothing less than humanity's future.
"From a planetary perspective, as the world's population grows, we need to compact the footprint of civilization," he says.
Urbanization, Malott points out, continues to be the global trend. Even in the developed world, cities that were once defined by post-manufacturing blight are now seeing a renaissance as they become hubs for technology and service-based economies. "People want to live in the cities again. That's where the energy is. That's where the opportunities are."
As these newcomers move in, the most energy-efficient and cost-effective way to accommodate them and the business they bring is vertically, in tall and supertall buildings (over 300m) with direct links to transport and other infrastructure, says Malott. That has already led to the ramping up of high rise construction as well as a massive interest among technologists in ways to build taller, smarter and more user-friendly buildings than ever before.
"I think we're still just at the beginning of it all. There are more tall buildings built in the last 20 years than in the preceding 100 years, and the pace of it only seems to be accelerating. The overall trajectory is one of moving upwards, not outwards," he said.
In terms of engineering, Malott says, we can soon achieve buildings that are a mile high (1,600 m) using the same fundamental technology that has been in use for the past 40 years. Incremental improvements in steel and concrete, the construction materials of choice, have been nudging the height ceiling upward over the decades, but now surpassing the current threshold would require what he calls a "quantum leap in innovation."
Malott cites the advent of KONE UltraRope, a carbon-fiber replacement for steel elevator cable, as one such leap.
He believes that other radical advances, only a year or two away, will similarly involve moving from steel and concrete to organic, carbon-based materials. One example is the renewed interest in wood, specifically wood combined with concrete to make composite structures, as a construction material for tall buildings. It has already been used to create buildings of up to 20 stories, he says.
Likewise, advances have been made in using crushed mushroom stems mixed with wood chips as a hardened, insulating material. Malott predicts that further in the future, perhaps in a couple of decades, buildings will feature bacteria-infused fabrics that can respond to heat by becoming porous.
"It's much more sustainable to grow materials instead of mining materials, and it's more sustainable to spin fabrics together into stronger structures than it is to melt steel," he says.
"I want to heal and repair our planet because we're beyond the point of simply sustaining what we have. We have to do something radically different. Growing and harvesting buildings is definitely going to be something of the future."
In the world of tall buildings, advances in construction materials and design software are certainly set to push the height boundaries ever further, a process that will drive innovation as designers are forced to work around new problems. But is that a good strategy? At what altitude will enough be enough?
"There might always be a desire to create icons and something taller than existed before, but at a certain point it's not what we need," says Malott. He doesn't believe that the mainstream of our future lies in these gargantuan projects, but rather in clusters of buildings in the 300 to 500m range.
As he explains, the efficiency gains derived from densely packing people into a skyscraper are offset as other problems arise, among them the need for users to take two or more elevator rides to reach the upper floors.
Other limitations are psychological and physiological. For example, occupants of upper floors often feel claustrophobic because they can't open windows and access the outdoors. To get around this, architects need to design sky gardens and other outdoor spaces at height that are protected from the wind. Fire evacuation is another issue when too many flights of stairs are involved. Buildings can be designed in a compartmented way that will make evacuation unnecessary, but that still might not make occupants feel safe.
Fortunately, development in tall buildings isn't just about setting new height records, but involves making the buildings themselves more capable with the help of improved computer power.
Malott predicts that, as machine learning and AI advance, the computers that were once the tools of the architect will become better than the architect at carrying out repetitive design work. The role of the architect will then shift to focus on user experience, a factor that itself will get a boost from improved sensor technology. An abundance of sensors, which are now cheaper and better than ever, will act as a building's central nervous system, Malott believes, making it far more responsive than before.
Not only will the building be able to measure and adjust for changes in light or check structural soundness, but also get to know its users, providing each with a customized experience, Malott says. "There's going to be a more intimate connection between building and user. Just like with our apps and our music, buildings will be able to tailor themselves to each individual user, and that is going to be a game changer."


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Paper or Plastic Cover reveal By @vivibarnes
Paper or Plastic
by Vivi Barnes
Release Date: 2015
Entangled Teen
Summary from Goodreads:
to SmartMart, where crime pays minimum wage...
Busted. Alexis Dubois just got caught shoplifting a cheap
tube of lipstick at the local SmartMart. She doesn't know what's
worse—disappointing her overbearing beauty-pageant-obsessed mother for the zillionth
time…or her punishment. Because Lex is forced to spend her summer working at
the store, where the only things stranger than the staff are the customers.
Now Lex is stuck in the bizarro world of big-box retail. Coupon cutters, jerk
customers, and learning exactly what a "Code B" really is (ew). And for
added awkwardness, her new supervisor is the totally cute—and adorably
geeky—Noah Grayson. Trying to balance her out-of-control mother, her pitching
position on the softball team, and her secret crush on the school geek makes
for one crazy summer. But ultimately, could the worst job in the world be the
best thing that ever happened to her?
Originally from East Texas (the accent comes out
more often than not), I now live in the magic and sunshine of Orlando, FL with
my very understanding husband and three kids. I'm an extrovert with awkward
blogging tendencies. My debut novel, OLIVIA TWISTED, comes out November 5,
2013 from Entangled Teen!
You can connect with me on Facebook,Twitter, Goodreads, Pinterest. Or visit the official Olivia
Twisted site atwww.oliviatwisted.com.


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Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
Mahabharata of Vyasa (Badarayana, krishna-dwaipayana) translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli is perhaps the most complete translation available in public domain. Mahabharata is the most popular scripture of Hindus and Mahabharata is considered as the fifth veda. We hope this translation is helping you.
"Gandhari said, Then the mighty Karna, that great bowman, lieth on the ground! In battle he was like a blazing fire! That fire, however, hath now been extinguished by the energy of Partha. Behold, Vikartanas son Karna, after having slain many atirathas, has been prostrated on the bare ground, and is drenched with blood. Wrathful and possessed of great energy, he was a great bowman and a mighty car-warrior. Slain in battle by the wielder of gandiva, that hero now sleepeth on the ground. My sons, those mighty car-warriors, from fear of the Pandavas, fought, placing Karna at their head, like a herd of elephants with its leader to the fore. Alas, like a tiger slain by a lion, or an elephant by an infuriated elephant, that warrior hath been slain in battle by Savyasaci. Assembled together, O tiger among men, the wives of that warrior, with dishevelled tresses and loud wails of grief, are sitting around that fallen hero! Filled with anxiety caused by the thoughts of that warrior, king Yudhishthira the just could not, for thirteen years, obtain a wink of sleep! Incapable of being checked by foes in battle like Maghavat himself who is invincible by enemies, Karna was like the all-destroying fire of fierce flames at the end of the yuga, and immovable like Himavat himself! That hero became the protector of Dhritarashtras son, O Madhava! Alas, deprived of life, he now lieth on the bare ground, like a tree prostrated by the wind! Behold, the wife of Karna and mother of Vrishasena, is indulging in piteous lamentations and crying and weeping and falling upon the ground! Even now she exclaims, "Without doubt, thy preceptors curse hath pursued thee! When the wheel of thy car was swallowed up by the Earth, the cruel Dhananjaya cut off thy head with an arrow! Alas, fie (on the heroism and skill)!" That lady, the mother of Sushena, exceedingly afflicted and uttering cries of woe, is falling down, deprived of her senses, at the sight of the mighty-armed and brave Karna prostrated on the earth, with his waist still encircled with a belt of gold. Carnivorous creatures, feeding on the body of that illustrious hero, have reduced it to very small dimensions. The sight is not gladdening, like that of the moon on the fourteenth night of the dark fortnight. Falling down on the earth, the cheerless dame is rising up again. Burning with grief on account of the death of her son also, she cometh and smelleth the face of her lord!"


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These are roughly rolled, extra long, dry italian cigars, a fairly inexpensive smoke running about 3.25 for a pack of 2. They are an excellent smoke for the price. Tasting of autumn, with some early spice and a smooth finish, mine had good ash and an even burn. I felt like an italian cowboy with one of these in my mouth. Suave and bad ass.
I don't have much to say here, except that this cigar would best be paired with activity, such as driving or riding on the range. A nice sweet drink, perhaps some fresh juice would also go well.


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We know trees can help address climate change. A forest sucks carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. That can be sold as a carbon credit to companies looking to offset their environmental impact. But the way those credits are calculated has long been scrutinized. And two groups want to put focus on urban forests. Bellamy Pailthorp of KNKX explains.
BELLAMY PAILTHORP, BYLINE: This is the sound of carbon credits being made at an urban forest north of Seattle. The Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust recently cleared out 2 1/2 acres of invasive weeds here and planted nearly 2,000 trees. Restoration projects manager Dan Hintz is grinning ear to ear as he looks up at a fast-growing black cottonwood, admiring how it soaks up carbon pollution.
DAN HINTZ: You can kind of see some of those really, really big leaves at the top of the tree there that are just soaking up sunlight, you know, going through the photosynthesis process, and through that, taking a lot of carbon dioxide out of the air.
PAILTHORP: The project is similar to many the group has done over the years, but this one is certified by a carbon registry for the service the new trees are providing, removing carbon from the atmosphere over the next 25 years.
HINTZ: A lot of the project funding you get for sites like this, you know, is maybe only for three or four years. But to have these credits coming in over a handful of years throughout that 25-year process will generate revenue for us to continue to maintain and take care of the site.
PAILTHORP: He has to monitor it and provide data to earn those credits over the life of the contract. A certain number of trees is expected to die. If the rest grow well, the value of the credits goes up, and their sales fund the conservation work. A Seattle-based nonprofit called City Forest Credits is the registry that calculated how much carbon is absorbed here. While the bigger registries tend to capitalize on large rural projects, City Forest Credits focuses exclusively on smaller urban forestry projects. Mark McPherson is the founder and executive director.
MARK MCPHERSON: Unlike almost every other kind of carbon credit, these are credits that have a community impact. I mean, these are right where people live and breathe, recreate, work. And there's a place for a smaller volume, really valuable and hopefully higher-priced credit.
PAILTHORP: That vision was realized in June, when the credits for this growing forest and 12 other projects fetched some of the highest prices ever for carbon capture. A company called Regen Network Development paid more than a million dollars to buy up all of the City Forest Credits available. That was nearly double the going rate for rural forest carbon credits. Regen is a blockchain company. It uses decentralized computer networks to provide permanent records that can't be altered. Carbon markets have been rife with questions about accountability. Regen's founders think blockchain technology can create more trust. They're building a new marketplace focused on smaller projects like urban forests. Anyone with questions about the credits can find the answers, says the company's Sarah Baxendell.
SARAH BAXENDELL: All of the credit information, the science methodology information, is both transparent and publicly available because all blockchain information is a permanent public record of anything that is added on to a blockchain.
PAILTHORP: How much value they've added will become clear once the new Regen Marketplace launches around October 10. For NPR News, I'm Bellamy Pailthorp in Seattle. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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With the end of the Mayan calendar now upon us, I would like to offer some thoughts regarding where we have been, where we are going, and what this may all mean for our present lives and the future of humankind. The more aware we are about the choices we make, the less likely we will contribute to the coming chaos and confusion that inevitably characterizes such periods of intense change. It is my hope that this will shed some light and facilitate healing during this time of transition.
The Old Ways No Longer Serve Us
Genuine science, once a valuable tool of inquiry, has been hijacked by corporate interests on the one hand and fundamentalists on the other. Scientific fundamentalism, or scientism, is a belief in science backed by religious fervor.
Scientism seeks to place science at the pinnacle as the one and only true source of knowledge. As such it sees itself as discreditor of all forms of religious authority and spiritual belief, which it deems superstitious.
In anointing science as the only source of reliable fact and truth, scientism ironically makes itself over into a fundamentalist form of religion. And one of its favorite targets has been alternative medicine, which it considers to be unscientific.
Several hundred years of scientific conditioning have convinced the majority of Westerners that they cannot trust their own internal sense of things, their own intuitive judgment, their own experiences. In short, we have come to believe that the only "facts" are the external facts "proven" by science.
The modern world is divided between reason and faith, as if there is no alternative to these two extremes of scientific certainty and blind trust. But there is another very simple and powerful form of knowing. This is the knowing that comes from personal experience.
This is the very same source of knowing that science has undermined by convincing us that our own subjective experiences are unreliable. If our experiences can't be verified by objective methods like the ones promoted by science, so the argument goes, then they can't be trusted. And many people have fallen for this deception.
In practical terms this means, for example, that the side effect we experienced from a drug can't be possible because it is not in the medical literature, or the autistic state that the perfectly normal child regressed into is not due to the vaccine administered 24 hours ago because there is no research to prove it, or the astrological influences of the cosmos upon our lives is superstition simply because science has deemed it so.
The net result is a vast database of fragmented scientific "facts" coupled with the barren landscape of emotional confusion and spiritual emptiness that constitutes modern materialistic consumer culture. It is the same landscape that religious conservatives have been railing against for quite some time now.
This state of affairs has given undue credibility to right wing ideology, which is justified in its criticisms of modern materialism, but goes too far in the other direction. Its equally distorted perspective on the nature of knowing would have us believe that we need to throw all of science out the window and leave everything to blind faith.
Consciousness, Experience, and Inner Knowing
Because we no longer trust our own internal knowing, we either defer to scientific authority or to religious authority, which, by the way, has also fallen for the very same grand deception. Religious leaders, too, feel inadequate in the face of science, and have downgraded the religious life to one of having "faith" because they cannot "prove" their assertions in scientific terms.
We, especially in the West, have fallen for the deception that we can't know spiritual truth through personal experience. The preacher says, "Just trust me," and we are encouraged to suspend our own capacity for judgment and discernment in favor of truths handed down by religious authority.
After all, who are we to claim that we can have first-hand knowledge of a higher power? Only a select few in positions of religious authority are supposed to be able to make such claims. And yet thousands of saints, sinners, mystics, and monks have described just such life changing experiences that attest to personal contact with their gods.
Many of us have had similar experiences but, sadly, we have convinced ourselves that they were just illusions or figments of the imagination. And this is just the way that materialist science would have it. It does not want us to recognize any source of truth other than the "data" provided by its reductionist worldview.
For many of us this may not be breaking news, but it is important news for the vast sea of Westerners searching for guidance and meaning in a spiritually deficient culture of materialism.
The dawning of the new cycle of cosmic change is all about overcoming the brainwashing that deceives us into believing that only scientific or religious authority can provide access to truth, fact, and/or knowledge. And while faith is better than nothing at all, there is a higher form of knowing that comes from both everyday personal experience and inner spiritual experience.
We have already begun the process of reclaiming the truth of our own personal experiences. But we are just beginning to comprehend the sense of empowerment that comes with trusting our inner knowing — a form of knowing that comes from a deeper place than logic and rational thought will ever be able to take us.
The entire manifest universe is endowed with varying gradations of consciousness, from the tiniest grain of sand to the wisest being. The entire universe is evolving in an arc from relatively unconscious matter toward greater degrees of conscious spirit.
We are all spiritual beings on this temporary, sacred, and profane journey through material existence. And the journey will continue after death once we have shed our physical exteriors.
Everything is a manifestation of energy, consciousness, chi, prana, spirit, soul, or whatever you wish to call it. In fact, the absolute solidity of matter is a mere illusion that even the science of physics now repudiates.
Medical science would have us believe that consciousness is produced by the brain. When the brain dies, so does consciousness. In actuality, the brain is merely a focal point of consciousness, a way station. It is a receiver and transmitter of consciousness, like a two-way radio. Consciousness carries on even after death.
In spite of seeming evidence to the contrary, and in spite of what the modern scientific worldview would have us believe, you are not alone, everything is ONE, and we are all connected. All thoughts, emotions, and actions have effects that ripple out into the surrounding universe.
Notwithstanding the fact that we are all ONE, each individual being constitutes a unique facet of the greater whole. This is the fundamental principle of unity through diversity. We maintain our individuality while at the same time remaining inseparable from that from which we came. Wave/particle duality is a concept in physics that aptly mirrors this paradoxical phenomenon.
All phenomena in the universe vibrate at their own unique frequencies and are capable of being in harmony or disharmony with other frequencies. When our personal lives resonate with the vibrations of our higher purpose and higher power, we maximize our potential for physical health, emotional maturity, and spiritual awareness.
It then becomes a matter of learning to tune in to our higher purpose and acting accordingly, even if that puts us at odds with the prevailing beliefs and practices of the communities and culture that surround us.
Karma is the self-correcting power of the universe that enables one who is out of tune with Cosmic Order to alter course when he or she has gone astray. Likewise, successive incarnations are opportunities to continue the unfinished work left behind in prior lifetimes.
The Directionality of Disease: Healing vs. Suppression
Healing is always a process that takes place over time. It is not something that occurs in a single moment by virtue of taking a pill or removing a body part.
Body, mind, heart, and soul are ONE and, as such, no part of the whole can be affected without influencing the rest of the whole.
We are transitioning away from the old paradigm of material medicine — which tends exclusively to the temporary needs of the physical body — to a new energy medicine paradigm that addresses the needs of the body-heart-mind-soul in a more holistic, comprehensive, and long lasting manner. This is the very essence of green medicine.
Pharmaceuticals and surgeries only address the body aspect of the body-heart-mind-soul, and they do so largely by a process of suppression. All forms of suppression eventually lead to an intensification of the same phenomenon, or a transmutation of that phenomenon into a new issue/problem of equal or greater strength.
The old medical paradigm seeks to suppress disease by stopping its symptomatic manifestations at every turn. It does so unconsciously, not understanding that the war against disease just leads to more disease. More enlightened approaches to illness facilitate genuine healing. They do not seek to combat the innate healing capacity of the body-heart-mind-soul.
In fairness, suppressive measures are sometimes necessary when faced with urgent life-threatening situations or unbearable suffering that have no holistic recourse. Even then, suppressive measures should be employed only as temporary stopgaps until less invasive, less toxic strategies can be employed in order to initiate a true healing response.
The universe exists as a spectrum at the bounds of which are polar complements, not polar opposites. One pole cannot exist without the other. Positive and negative poles — yang and yin, male and female, light and dark, spirit and matter, healing and suffering — cannot exist but as complementary pairs encompassed by the Great Tao.
Contrary to New Age bromides, suffering cannot be avoided. It is part and parcel of growth and healing. A painless existence would entail a changeless existence. Indeed, the very purpose of suffering is to provide the painful stimulus that leads to constructive change.
The general anesthetic nature of conventional medicine, with its body and mind numbing substances, is inimical to growth and change. It favors the status quo and impedes the path to higher consciousness.
The pull of evolution is toward greater balance. Likewise, healing is a process of achieving balance. Illness is a function of being out of balance. Health and happiness are the result of being in tune or in sync with personal destiny and the Cosmic Order.
Psychological Maturation and Spiritual Growth
Since all is ONE, all aspects of the universe are of equal value. No one person is of any greater or lesser value than any other person. Spiritual maturity does not translate into superiority. In fact, it entails greater consciousness, and therefore greater responsibility for our fellow beings.
No one religion or person has a monopoly on "God." In fact, our conceptions of higher being are as diverse and unique as the prints on our fingers.
Different forms of religious belief and practice can reflect different levels of spiritual maturity. Persons at different levels of spiritual awareness are best suited to religious forms that match their phases of development.
Together, the variety of religious beliefs and spiritual practices form a spectrum, no part of which is of any greater or lesser value than any other. They simply reflect the current level of spiritual development of different groups and individuals.
The minute some person claims to have the one solution to your health problems or the one key to enlightenment, turn and run the other way. There is no such person. There are those who may provide guidance, but the key to healing and wholeness can only be accessed from within.
Enlightenment as a moment of insight that results in permanent transformation into a more evolved being is a misleading illusion. Spiritual growth and emotional maturation is an unfolding process without an endpoint that takes time, perseverance, guidance, discipline, hard work, and some cosmic luck.
We are living during a phase of intense material emphasis in the evolutionary arc of the universe. It is a phase of striking imbalance, the consequences of which are desecration of the physical body and Mother Earth, emotional chaos and confusion, the neglect of spiritual wisdom, and the eclipse of the human soul.
As such, we must be ever vigilant to nurture all aspects of life that care for material existence, honor spirit, and feed the soul. Since all is ONE, care of the soul tends, sooner or later, to trickle down to greater health of the physical body.
The greatest impediment to positive growth and change is fear. Fear is encouraged by the ego's black and white thinking, which convinces us that we are alone and separate from others. I am of one persuasion; "they" are of another. They are therefore to be feared because they are different. But separation is only a materialist illusion.
Black and white thinking serves to engender evil. But evil is not some objectified external entity that threatens to infect us from the outside. It is an imbalance that occurs from within.
We have all perpetrated evils to greater or lesser extent at some point in our lives. To deny the darkness is to deny the part of the whole that needs to be healed. Likewise, to project blame for evil onto another is to deny personal responsibility.
The ego can easily convince us that some things and some people are good, while others are bad. In such cases, we may labor under the delusion that we are not susceptible to the darkness. We mistakenly believe that one pole is capable of existing independently without the other, as if pure good can exist without evil or vice versa. But pointing a finger at the enemy only perpetuates the darkness.
Perhaps the greatest indicator of human health and spiritual well-being is the capacity to give and receive love without attachment.
What Will the Future Bring?
The coming era will mark a return to a more mature manifestation of spiritual values. Good versus evil, right and wrong, black and white, and fire and brimstone projections of our own personal shortcomings onto others will give way to a more healthy and realistic acceptance of the limited and flawed human beings that we are.
The impulse to align oneself with the "one true religion" will give way to an understanding that all organized religions and spiritual callings are, in essence, valid attempts at expressing their unique and limited conceptions of the ONE Universal Great Mystery.
While one religious tradition may focus its efforts on meditation and self discipline, another may be adept at prayer and ritual, another may teach respect for Mother Earth, another may focus its energy on good deeds, and so on. All are right and none are wrong. They all bring something of value to the table of reverence for the One Great Being.
Similarly, on a smaller scale, humanity will come to recognize the inherent value of medical diversity. Knowledge of human health and illness is part science and bigger part mystery. There is no one true medical way that has a monopoly on cure. There are only the personal medical truths of individual circumstances.
All medical options have their flaws and reflect the values of the persons who choose them. It is our fundamental and inherent right to employ the healing modality that we believe suits our own needs. As such, when we make medical choices, we also acknowledge that there are no guarantees, and that we must accept responsibility for those choices.
Above all, the beginning of the new cycle represents a return to trusting our own experiences as valid sources of knowledge. We are not required to answer to the authoritarian and inquisitorial impulses of Western science. Science is a valuable tool, as long as it knows its bounds and respects the legitimacy of other sources of knowledge.
Our sense of meaning and purpose, our values, metaphysical beliefs, dreams, intuitions, epiphanies, revelations, spiritual experiences, and explorations into higher consciousness do not have to prove their validity to science. Such phenomena lie outside the bounds of conventional science, which has no business passing judgment upon them.
The dawning new cycle represents a transition away from knowledge based exclusively upon the rational mind and its offspring, science. Instead, we will begin to develop our capacity for inner knowing based upon personal experience. In time, evolution will favor a balanced union of analytical knowledge of the external world with experiential knowledge of the inner world.
Don't be fooled. There is no instant nirvana. These changes will take time, maybe millennia. We are only at the beginning. We have just turned the corner, and we may be lucky enough to catch momentary glimpses of humankind's great potential just waiting to be fulfilled.
There will likely be discord and unrest along the way, but the end result is an inevitability. Science and spirit will come to appreciate and respect one another. Left brain will cooperate with right. Balance will be the rallying cry of the future.
When we raise our collective vibration, humankind as a whole will then be prepared to take another step forward in its evolutionary destiny. We will then be able to assist all to aspire to the inner knowing that recognizes that all incarnated and all spiritual beings are but unique reflections of the One Greater Whole.
Peace and good health!