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Fathers of the Church
Letter CCLXVI: to Petrus, Bishop of Alexandria
by Basil the Great in 357-370 | translated by Blomfield Jackson, M.A
1. You have very properly rebuked me, and in a manner becoming a spiritual brother who has been taught genuine love by the Lord, because I am not giving you exact and detailed information of all that is going on here, for it is both your part to be interested in what concerns me, and mine to tell you all that concerns myself. But I must tell you, right honourable and well-beloved brother, that our continuous afflictions, and this mighty agitation which is now shaking the Churches, result in my talking all that is happening as a matter of course. Just as in smithies where men whose ears are deafened get accustomed to the sound, so by the frequency of the strange tidings that reach me I have now grown accustomed to be undisturbed and undismayed at extraordinary events. So the policy which has been for a long time pursued by the Arians to the detriment of the Church, although their achievements have been many and great and noised abroad through all the world, has nevertheless been endurable to me, because of their being the work of open foes and enemies of the word of truth. It is when these men do something unusual that I am astonished, not when they attempt something great and audacious against true religion. But I am grieved and troubled at what is being done by men who feel and think with me. Yet their doings are so frequent and so constantly reported to me, that even they do not appear surprising. So it comes about that I was not agitated at the recent disorderly proceedings, partly because I knew perfectly well that common report would carry them to you without my help, and partly because I preferred to wait for somebody else to give you disagreeable news. And yet, further, I did not think it reasonable that I should show indignation at such proceedings, as though I were annoyed at suffering a slight. To the actual agents in the matter I have written in becoming terms, exhorting them, because of the dissension arising among some of the brethren there, not to fall away from charity, but to wait for the matter to be set right by those who have authority to remedy disorders in due ecclesiastical form. That you should have so acted, stirred by honourable and becoming motives, calls for my commendation, and moves my gratitude to the Lord that there remains preserved in you a relic of the ancient discipline, and that the Church has not lost her own might in my persecution. The canons have not suffered persecution as well as I. Though importuned again by the Galatians, I was never able to give them an answer, because I waited for your decision. Now, if the Lord so will and they will consent to listen to me, I hope that I shall be able to bring the people to the Church. It cannot then be cast in my teeth that I have gone over to the Marcellians, and they on the contrary will become limbs of the body of the Church of Christ. Thus the disgrace caused by heresy will be made to disappear by the method I adopt, and I shall escape the opprobrium of having gone over to them.
2. I have also been grieved by our brother Dorotheus, because, as he has himself written, he has not gently and mildly reported everything to your excellency. I set this down to the difficulty of the times. I seem to be deprived by my sins of all success in my undertakings, if indeed the best of my brethren are proved ill-disposed and incompetent, by their failure to perform their duties in accordance with my wishes. On his return Dorotheus reported to me the conversation which he had had with your excellency in the presence of the very venerable bishop Damasus, and he caused me distress by saying that our God-beloved brethren and fellow- ministers, Meletius and Eusebius, had been reckoned among the Ariomaniacs. If their orthodoxy were established by nothing else, the attacks made upon them by the Arians are, to the minds of all right thinking people, no small proof of their rectitude. Even your participation with them in sufferings endured for Christ's sake ought to unite your reverence to them in love. Be assured of this, right honourable sir, that there is no word of orthodoxy which has not been proclaimed by these men with all boldness. God is my witness. I have heard them myself. I should not certainly have now admitted them to communion, if I had caught them tripping in the faith. But, if it seem good to you, let us leave the past alone. Let us make a peaceful start for the future. For we have need one of another in the fellowship of the members, and specially now, when the Churches of the East are looking to us, and will take your agreement as a pledge of strength and consolidation. If, on the other hand, they perceive that you are in a state of mutual suspicion, they will drop their hands, and slacken in their resistance to the enemies of the faith.
Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland, beginning in 1867. (PNPF II/VIII, Schaff and Wace). The digital version is by The Electronic Bible Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.


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447103 Leisure sofa
Interpret the example of tasteful life. The exquisite and authentic technique as well as the particular match of lines and colors manifest the charm and present the authentic modern life. This is Paiyun's "vital and pragmatic" fashion work.
Keywords: chair | sofa | table | coffee table
Product Details
Exquisite Craftsmanship, Tasteful Choice
There are many styles of modern furniture, which are loved by the masses. Although the materials used in the design of some modern simple style furniture are relatively single, they are formed by careful processing in color. Therefore, many modern furniture pay more attention to texture. Modern furniture divides art into multiple elements and uses them again, making modern furniture not only very exquisite in appearance, but also very economical. Whether it is a special chair or a sofa that emphasizes comfort, its functionality and decoration can be combined just right. For many young people, the fast-paced life makes them need a simpler environment to relax their body and mind. It pursues a kind of tasteful randomness. Therefore, modern minimalist style has become the main choice for many people to decorate. Its practical and beautiful features are deeply loved by young people and fashion people.
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subset: commoncrawl


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The phar extension provides a way to put entire PHP applications into a single file called a "phar" (PHP Archive) for easy distribution and installation. In addition to providing this service, the phar extension also provides a file-format abstraction method for creating and manipulating tar and zip files through the PharData class, much as PDO provides a unified interface for accessing different databases. Unlike PDO, which cannot convert between different databases, Phar also can convert between tar, zip and phar file formats with a single line of code. see Phar::convertToExecutable() for one example.
What is phar? Phar archives are best characterized as a convenient way to group several files into a single file. As such, a phar archive provides a way to distribute a complete PHP application in a single file and run it from that file without the need to extract it to disk. Additionally, phar archives can be executed by PHP as easily as any other file, both on the commandline and from a web server. Phar is kind of like a thumb drive for PHP applications.
Phar implements this functionality through a Stream Wrapper. Normally, to use an external file within a PHP script, you would use include:
Example #1 Using an external file
include '/path/to/external/file.php';
PHP can be thought of as actually translating
into a
stream wrapper as file:///path/to/external/file.php
, and under
the hood it does in fact use the plain file stream wrapper stream functions to
access all local files.
To use a file named file.php
contained with a phar archive
the syntax is very similar to the file://
syntax above.
Example #2 Using a file within a phar archive
include 'phar:///path/to/myphar.phar/file.php';
In fact, one can treat a phar archive exactly as if it were an external disk, using any of fopen()-related functions, opendir() and mkdir()-related functions to read, change, or create new files and directories within the phar archive. This allows complete PHP applications to be distributed in a single file and run directly from that file.
The most common usage for a phar archive is to distribute a complete application in a single file. For instance, the PEAR Installer that is bundled with PHP versions is distributed as a phar archive. To use a phar archive distributed in this way, the archive can be executed on the command-line or via a web server.
Phar archives can be distributed as tar
archives, or as the custom phar
file format
designed specifically for the phar extension. Each file format has advantages
and disadvantages. The tar and zip file formats can be read or extracted by any
third-party tool that can read the format, but require the phar extension in order to
run with PHP. The phar file format is customized and unique to the phar extension,
and can only be created by the phar extension or the PEAR package
» PHP_Archive, but has the
advantage that applications created in this format will run even if the phar
extension is not enabled.
In other words, even with the phar extension disabled, one can execute or include a phar-based archive. Accessing individual files within a phar archive is only possible with the phar extension unless the phar archive was created by PHP_Archive.
The phar extension is also capable of converting a phar archive from tar to zip or to phar file format in a single command:
Example #3 Converting a phar archive from phar to tar file format
$phar = new Phar('myphar.phar');
$pgz = $phar->convertToExecutable(Phar::TAR, Phar::GZ); // makes myphar.phar.tar.gz
Phar can compress individual files or an entire archive using gzip compression or bzip2 compression, and can verify archive integrity automatically through the use of MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256 or SHA-512 signatures.
Lastly, the Phar extension is security-conscious, and disables write access
to executable phar archives by default, and requires system-level disabling of the
php.ini setting in order to create or
modify phar archives. Normal tar and zip archives without an executable stub
can always be created or modified using the PharData class.
If you are creating applications for distribution, you will want to read How to create Phar Archives. If you want more information on the differences between the three file formats that phar supports, you should read Phar, Tar and Zip.
If you are using phar applications, there are helpful tips in How to use Phar Archives.
The word phar
is a portmanteau of PHP
and is based loosely
on the jar
(Java Archive) familiar to Java developers.
The implementation for Phar archives is based on the PEAR package » PHP_Archive, and the implementation details are similar, although the Phar extension is much more powerful. In addition, the Phar extension allows most PHP applications to be run unmodified while PHP_Archive-based phar archives often require extensive modification in order to work.


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All major hardware in our laptop and notebook systems is supported in Linux. The EmperorLinux research staff modifies all the popular Linux distros in many specific ways to provide the best possible portable Linux distribution. These include a customized kernel (packed with driver patches and half the size of distribution kernels); a chip-specific X-server with hardware acceleration; full support for PCMCIA, USB, and FireWire devices; full support for 10/100/1000 (gigabit) ethernet and 802.11a/b/g/n wireless; pre-configured power management; modem; stereo sound; and more. (There is extensive detail on the following topics in the supplied owner's manual.) Detailed information about mobile wireless broadband (EVDO, HSDPA, etc) and the Intel Core Duo is also available.
All this is done completely with GNU-GPL software. At EmperorLinux, you don't pay extra for commercial X-servers and sound support, because we only use laptops for which the hardware is known to be supported by truly free software.
Solid State Drives (SSD) are storage devices where the bits are stored in flash ram chips, and not on physically rotating platters. Since there are no moving parts, SSD drives are 2x-3x times faster than traditional 7200rpm drives. They are also much more robust to high G-loads, and have a longer lifetime MTBF than traditional drives.


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The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Curve Chair is perfect for your home office or poker table. Designed with an ergonomic curved back and a commercially rated base the Curve is designed for hours upon hours of comfortable and maintenance free use. The patented XZipit system provides endless logo options on the front of the chair and allows you to showcase your favorite team or interest.
Product Features:
Product Dimensions:
Shipping Dimensions:
Some Assembly Required
Available Logo:
Leaves Warehouse/Manufacturing Time: This is made to order, therefore there is a 5 to 7 days lead time to ship
Warranty Information:
Synthetic leather / leather One (1) year warranty on partsThe warranty covers against seam slippage, fraying or dye transfers from the product. The warranty does not cover tearing, pilling, or shrinking.
Frames and Springs Lifetime warranty on partsWood frames and springs carry a lifetime warranty against breakage. Springs are covered for breakage due to metal fatigue or pulling loose from wood frames. Metal frames are warranted against breakage for a period of two (2) years under normal household use.
Reclining Mechanism Two (2) year warranty on partsReclining chairs are warranted against material and manufacturing defects.
Electronic Components One (1) year warranty on partsElectronics are warranted for material and manufacturing defects.
Additional Information:


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We live in exciting times.
The unknown that lays ahead for all of us is both exhilarating and scary. Exhilarating in the long term, but rather scary in the short term. All empires eventually die and we're in the terminal phase of the New World Order that will not recover from the Russian roulette game it has been playing, for Vladimir Putin handed it a loaded gun and it pulled the trigger.
The last few weeks put everything in place for the last battle. There are so many different facts and events, left and right, and I will try to do my best to remain methodical in this complicated expose. Bare with me, I've been struggling for three weeks with this article because of the insane amount of additional details that each day provides. It might have been a wrong time to quit smoking, but I enjoy a good challenge.
Dropping dollars
A little context is required. The New World Order concept is simply the wish of a handful of international bankers that want to economically and politically rule the whole planet as one happy family. It started in 1773 and if it went through important changes over the years, but the concept and objective haven't changed an iota. Unfortunately for them, international banks that have been looting the planet through the US dollar since 1944 are now threatened by hyperinflation, as their printing machine has been rotating for years to cover their absurd spendings to sustain oil and resource wars that they've all ultimately lost. In order to prevent this upcoming hyperinflation, they generated a virus attack on four countries (China, Iran, Italy and now the United States) to spread panic in the population, with the precious help of their ignominious medias. Even though this corona virus isn't different from any new viruses that attack humans every year, the media scare pushed people to voluntarily isolate themselves through fear and terror. Some lost their jobs, companies are going bankrupt, the panic created a stock exchange crash that emptied wallets and dried assets, resulting in a few trillion virtual dollars off the market to release pressure off the currency.
So far, so good, but everything else went wrong in this desperate and ultimate banzai. The top virologist on the planet confirmed that chloroquine was being used by the Chinese with spectacular results to cure patients, then he improved his magic potion by adding a pneumonic antibacterial called azythromicin, and saved everyone of his first 1000 cases, but one. Donald Trump immediately imposed the same treatment through a fight against his own Federal Drug Administration, bought and owned by the deep state. This forced all medias to talk about Dr Didier Raoult's Miracle Elixir, signing the death warrant on our confidence in all Western governments, their medical agencies, the World Health Organization, and medias that were trying to destroy the impeccable doctor's reputation, while inventing sudden «dangerous side effects» of a nearly inoffensive drug that has been used for 60 years to treat malaria. Not so far away in Germany, internationally praised Dr Wolfgand Wodarg noted that the engineered panic was totally useless, since this virus isn't any different than the others that affect us every years. This has been an amazing victory for Trump and the general population on social medias, whom exposed together the pathological lies of the official communication channels of every New World Order country. De facto, the credibility's of these puppet governments have vanished in the air, and from the eye of the storm, Italy will surely exit the EU right after the crisis, which will trigger a domino effect running through every EU countries and NATO members. My friends, globalism is dead and ready for cremation.
Digging the abyss
International bankers couldn't see it coming in 1991, when they dominated 95% of the planet after the fall of the Soviet Union. It seemed that nothing could halt their ultimate mission to complete their Orwellian dream: destroy a few countries in the Middle East, enlarge Israel, and get the total control over the world oil market, the last piece of their Xanadu puzzle that they've been working on for a whole century, starting with the Balfour declaration in 1917.
When Vladimir Putin got charge of Russia, there was no sign that he would do better than the drunk he had replaced. An ex KGB officer seemed like a choice more driven by nostalgia rather than ideology, but Putin had many more assets going for him than first met the eyes: patriotism, humanism, a sense of justice, cunning ruse, a genius economist friend named Sergey Glazyev whom openly despised the New World Order, but above all, he embodied the reincarnation of the long lost Russian ideology of total political and economical independence. After a few years spent at draining the Russian swamp from the oligarchs and mafiosis that his stumbling predecessor had left in his trail of empty bottles, Vlad rolled his sleeves and got to work.
Because his opponents had been looting the planet for 250 years through colonization insured by a military dominance, Vlad knew that he had to start by building an invincible military machine. And he did. He came up with different types of hypersonic missiles that can't be stopped, the best defensive systems on the planet, the best electronic jamming systems, and the best planes. Then to make sure that a nuclear war wouldn't be an option, he came up with stuff which nightmares are made of, such as the Sarmat, the Poseidon and the Avangard, all unstoppable and able to destroy any country in a matter of a few hours.
With a new and unmatched arsenal, he could proceed to defeat any NATO force or any of its proxies, as he did starting in September 2015 in Syria. He proved to every country that independence from the NWO banking system was now a matter of choice. Putin not only won the Syrian war, but he won the support of many New World Order countries that suddenly switched sides upon realizing how invincible Russia had become. On a diplomatic level, it also got mighty China by its side, and then managed to protect independent oil producers such as Venezuela and Iran, while leaders like Erdogan of Turkey and Muhammad Ben Salman of Saudi Arabia decided to side with Russia, who isn't holding the best poker hand, but the whole deck of cards.
Ending in the conclusion that Putin now controls the all-mighty oil market, the unavoidable energy resource that lubricates economies and armies, while the banksters' NATO can only watch, without any means to get it back. With the unbelievable results that Putin has been getting in the last five years, the New World Order suddenly looks like a house of cards about to crumble. The Empire of Banks has been terminally ill for five years, but it's now on morphine, barely realizing what's going on.
Tragedy and hope
Since there is no hope in starting WW3 which is lost in advance, the last banzai came out of the bushes in the shape of a virus and the ensuing media creation of a fake pandemic. The main focus was to avoid a catastrophic hyperinflation of the humongous mass of US dollar that no one wants anymore, to have time to implement their virtual world crypto-currency, as if the chronically failing bankers still have any legitimacy to keep controlling our money supplies. It seemed at first that the plan could work. That's when Vlad took out his revolver to start the Russian roulette game and bankers blew their brains out upon the pressure on the trigger.
He called a meeting with OPEP and killed the price of oil by refusing to lower Russia's production, taking the barrel to under 30 dollars. Without any afterthought and certainly even less remorse, Vlad killed the costly Western oil production. All the dollars that had been taken out of the market had to be re-injected by the Fed and other central banks to avoid a downslide and the final disaster. By now, our dear bankers are out of solutions.
In the meantime, Trump also poked at the tie-wearing gangsters. While medias avoided the corona-killing chloroquine subject, an old pill designed to cure malaria, Trump imposed to the FDA the use of this life-saving drug on US infected patients. Medias didn't have any choice but to start talking about it, which ignited a chain reaction: big pharmas CEO's were fired because they had just lost the vaccine contract, countries like Canada looked like genocidal fools for not using the cheap and inoffensive medication, while a most outrageous criminal act by a government was exposed in full light: the Macron government had proclaimed in January 2020 that chloroquine was harmful and had restrained its use, just a couple of weeks before the burst of the fake pandemic! Russian roulette is a popular game in Western governments these days around.
On Saturday March 28th, Russia announced its own corona-killing brew, based on Dr Raoult's magic potion. Yet another Cossack blow, this time to the big pharmas jugular vein, while most Western countries now have to implement the good doctor's treatment, or face the slap of a Russian pill coming to save its citizen. Putin is in the lifesaving business these days: in the last week of March, he sent 15 military planes filled with doctors and supplies directly to North Italy, after an aid plane from China was blocked by the Czech Republic. We're about to learn that European countries fear that China or Russia finds the truth in the Lombardy region, where people are not dying from some corona bug, but probably from a deadly cocktail hybrid from two earlier vaccines for meningitis and influenza, that they were injected in separate vaccination campaigns.
The punchline
I said earlier that everyday brings amazing news. Well on Sunday March 29th, the most stunning of them all fell like a ton of bricks on social medias: confined onlookers learned that Trump had taken control over the Federal Reserve, that is now handled by two representatives of the Treasury of State. Of all the crazy news within the last month, this is by far the best and most shocking. After three years in power, Trump has finally fulfilled his electoral promise of taking private banks out of the US public affairs, ending a century of exploitation of the American citizens. He has put the infamous Blackrock investment group to start buying important corporations for the Fed, meaning that he's nationalizing chunks of the economy, while avoiding the crash of the market by implicating important private investors in the deal.
This outmost daring move comes at a crucial point in time, and faces us with the realization that Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump are united and have taken humanity to the crossroads of the New World Order and freedom. As I have stated often before, I thought that the world would deeply change between 2020 and 2024, because these would be the last 4 years of these two heroes in political power of their nations.
The New World Order is facing the two most powerful countries on the planet, and this fake pandemic changed everything. It showed how desperate the banksters are, and if we don't want to end up with nuclear warheads flying in both directions, Putin and Trump have to stop them now.
Terminate the BIS, the World Bank, the IMF, the European Central bank, the EU, NATO, now. Our world won't be perfect, but it might get much better soon.
Easter resurrection is coming. This might get biblical.


text: English Revised Version God Challenges Job 1Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, 2Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? 3Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. 4Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. 5Who determined the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who stretched the line upon it? 6Whereupon were the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; 7When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? 8Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb; 9When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddlingband for it, 10And prescribed for it my decree, and set bars and doors, 11And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed? 12Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days began, and caused the dayspring to know its place; 13That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it? 14It is changed as clay under the seal; and all things stand forth as a garment: 15And from the wicked their light is withholden, and the high arm is broken. 16Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in the recesses of the deep? 17Have the gates of death been revealed unto thee? or hast thou seen the gates of the shadow of death? 18Hast thou comprehended the breadth of the earth? declare, if thou knowest it all. 19Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and as for darkness, where is the place thereof; 20That thou shouldest take it to the bound thereof, and that thou shouldest discern the paths to the house thereof? 21Doubtless, thou knowest, for thou wast then born, and the number of thy days is great! 22Hast thou entered the treasuries of the snow, or hast thou seen the treasuries of the hail, 23Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war? 24By what way is the light parted, or the east wind scattered upon the earth? 25Who hath cleft a channel for the waterflood, or a way for the lightning of the thunder; 26To cause it to rain on a land where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man; 27To satisfy the waste and desolate ground; and to cause the tender grass to spring forth? 28Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of dew? 29Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? 30The waters are hidden as with stone, and the face of the deep is frozen. 31Canst thou bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? 32Canst thou lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season? or canst thou guide the Bear with her train? 33Knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens? canst thou establish the dominion thereof in the earth? 34Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee? 35Canst thou send forth lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are? 36Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the mind? 37Who can number the clouds by wisdom? or who can pour out the bottles of heaven, 38When the dust runneth into a mass, and the clods cleave fast together? 39Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lioness? or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, 40When they couch in their dens, and abide in the covert to lie in wait? 41Who provideth for the raven his food, when his young ones cry unto God, and wander for lack of meat? English Revised Version, 1885 Section Headings Courtesy BereanBible.com © 2013, 2014 Used by Permission Bible Hub |


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Earn bonus points and win! Points you will reveive by visiting eshops, promote your referral link or by adding a new offers and coupons. Each month 3 users will win US$ 30, US$ 20 and US$ 10!
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text:
Last night, I went to The Moth to tell a story with the theme "Duped." My name didn't get picked from the hat, so I couldn't share my tale with the crowd at Zanzibar in Santa Monica. I share it here instead.
In the summer of 1983, I worked in New York at Billboard covering MTV in its heyday. Back then, MTV held amazing contests – they actually gave away a little pink house to promote John Mellencamp! Houses were cheaper then, but still…a house! We're talking BIG.
MTV had a corporate PR person I dealt with all the time – I'll call her Cheryl. Cheryl invited me to go along on the Police Party Plane. In this contest, a winner got to take 25 friends on a private plane – with an MTV veejay – to see the Police anywhere in North America and meet the band. They advertised it as a party in the sky, better than first class. On the plane, they would watch the new movie National Lampoon's Vacation – and they'd all go home with a Colecovision video game system.
The contest winner was an engineer at the CBS affiliate in Philadelphia. He was married, around 30. He chose to see the Police at a festival in Montreal that also featured Talking Heads, English Beat and Peter Tosh.
The plan was that VJ Martha Quinn, some MTV executives including Cheryl, someone from the Police's management office, a couple others and I would go to Philly in two limos to join the winners on their flight to Montreal. None of us were paying attention – and apparently neither were the drivers – because at one point someone looked out the window and noticed we were well into Delaware. We got off at a rest stop, where Martha Quinn was mobbed at the Burger King. The drivers got new directions. It turned out we were about 100 miles off course.
We got to the airfield more than three hours after the contest "winner," who had been trapped on the plane with his 25 friends the entire time, unfortunately without any food other than pretzels, but with a full bar. They were all drunk, and they were all pissed at having to wait for us. Apparently an MTV lawyer was afraid that if they took off without a veejay, the guy might sue for not getting the full value of his prize. So they were stuck until we got there, and that meant the winner missed a big chunk of the festival that was his prize.
It was a short and unpleasant flight to Montreal. Sure, we were all given cool jackets merging the MTV and Police Synchronicity logos, and there was a huge round bed that slept about five, with a giant seatbelt, but otherwise there wasn't much to enjoy. I interviewed the winner, who complained that he had to pay a fortune in taxes for the value of the prize: renting and staffing a plane, concert tickets, the movie, 26 Colecovisions…it all added up. His friends had chipped in, spending hundreds of dollars apiece on, so far, just a lot of waiting around for a bunch of unnecessary strangers. No offense taken – I'd have been a raving lunatic in his position.
When we landed we were herded into a bus and taken to Montreal's Olympic stadium. We'd missed two out of the four acts, and were rushed past the band with no time for pleasantries. When we got to our seats, they were…crappy. I mean, there aren't a lot of good seats in a stadium, but these were pretty damn far away from the stage. To make matters worse, MTV had put its executives and guests right IN FRONT of the winner's group. It was like one more slap in their faces. Some of us decided to go the concession to get some food, but guess what – they didn't accept American dollars or credit cards!
While Talking Heads played some Tom Tom Club material that I never felt was their best work, the winner and his wife, who were sitting directly behind me, started fighting about what a waste of time and money this was, how they'd been duped by MTV. It escalated, until she said "Go fuck yourself," and he responded, "If I could do that, I wouldn't have had to marry you!" Silence fell over our group.
The Police put on a great show in those days, but honestly, I don't remember any of it. In part that's because – believe it or not – we had to leave early to get back to the plane! Yes, we missed the end just like we had the beginning. I think Cheryl was afraid we'd get stuck in the crowd if we stayed to the end. We trudged to the bus during the encore, not even objecting at this point, and back to the airport, where the private airfield was, yes, locked. We ended up waiting more than an hour in the bus, behind a chain link fence, while Cheryl argued with somebody. Let's just say no one suggested singing a few songs. By the time we got on the plane, it was probably 2AM.
The flight back was much longer than the flight there. Why? Because the MTV lawyer insisted National Lampoon's Vacation be shown in its entirety, to avoid a potential lawsuit. We circled the airport for an hour, Chevy Chase occasionally waking us up. Just to make the night complete, we were harassed by Philadelphia Customs agents suspicious of a private plane coming in from a rock festival in the middle of the night. I can still see the prison matron-type taking Cheryl's mascara apart looking for drugs.
I got home in time to change clothes and turn around to go out again to work, where my phone was ringing as I got to my cubicle. It was Cheryl, begging me not to write anything, or even tell anyone else what had happened. She promised to reward me with another trip if I kept quiet. I was immediately reminded of that W.C. Fields joke where first prize is a week in Philadelphia and second prize is two weeks in Philadelphia. I said another trip wasn't necessary - really! And I never did tell or write the story – until now.


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I hope this will make amends to Miss Peggy Schweain for not showing her face when she was crowned College High School Prom Queen in 1967. We ran this action shot of Miss Carol Keller helping Miss Schweain adjust her crown. To add insult to injury, the caption had her last named spelled both "Schwein and "Schweain." (The latter is correct.)
Miss Keller is the daughter of Mrs. and Mrs. Layton Keller, and Miss Schweain is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Schweain. Miss Nora Reynolds, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Reynolds, Jr., is at right. Click on the photos to make them larger.
College High Prom Court
Maybe I was trying to squeeze out an extra five bucks from the assignment, hoping the paper would run the action shot, then back it up with a group picture. I guess not. It was getting close to the end of the school year, so it was probably pushed off the page by the glut of school news to get in. (The New York Times motto was "All the news that fit to print." The Missourian came closer to reflecting economic realities: "All the news that fits we print.")
The May 13, 1967, Youth Page story said the ceremony was held in the Memorial Hall ballroom. In addition to Misses Keller and Reynolds, her attendants were Miss Judy Masterson, daughter of Mrs. Evelyn Masterson, and Miss Ellen Gockel, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Gus Gockel, Jr.
The queen's throne was placed on a platform decorated with a purple curtain held back with gold streamers. At the center of the curtain was a crown of purple velvet trimmed with gold tinsel.
Mr. and Mrs. E.J. Gilbert and the parents of the queen candidates were special guests of the juniors and seniors. The class sponsors were Wendall Wyatt and Mrs. Mary E. Magill.
(As an aside, I could have sworn that Carol Keller was a Cape Central High School student. I don't know what I assumed that.)


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On Aug. 3, a prescription for Zach Matheny's blood thinning medication was filled at his pharmacy and sent out for delivery via the U.S. Postal Service. It never arrived at his home in Columbus, Ohio.
"After a week I started to get worried, so I went ahead and called the pharmacy," Matheny says. "And after some back-and-forth, they essentially gave me the answer along the lines of, 'Well, it might be lost because of everything going on.'"
Recent delivery delays have raised concerns about the U.S. Postal Service handling ballots for November's election. They've also created immediate worries for those who rely heavily on the service to obtain lifesaving medications.
There have always been minor issues with medication delivery by mail, but that problem has been exacerbated by recent changes imposed by the Trump administration, such as limits on overtime and a requirement that trucks leave on schedule even if mail isn't loaded yet.
"We have heard some extreme anecdotes over the last couple weeks where patients are waiting one, two, three weeks for their medications," says Antonio Ciaccia, director of government and public affairs at the Ohio Pharmacists Association, adding that he has never heard so many complaints about delivery delays.
Matheny called the Postal Service about his prescription and was told that employees couldn't locate his medication. He called his insurer, but it wouldn't approve another refill because the medication is too expensive.
So Matheny has been buying a single blood thinner pill from a community pharmacy every few days, when he can afford it. He has spent more than $400 so far.
He's hoping that will tide him over until next month, but he's still worried about the consequences of skipping days of his medication.
"I could die," Matheny says. "The issue with blood clots is, if you do not catch it in time, they will move up through your body, get up to your brain and explode. ... I'm really worried."
Matheny is not alone. According to data from before the COVID-19 pandemic, collected by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Ohio residents rely on mail-order prescriptions more per capita than any other state in the country.
Nationally, an Ipsos poll foundthat 1 in 5 Americans got medication through the mail in the past week, and 1 in 4 of them experienced a delay or nondelivery. The USPS handles approximately 1.2 billion prescription shipments every year. That's nearly 4 million a day, six days a week, according to the National Association of Letter Carriers.
Among those who depend on the service are vulnerable residents: patients with chronic health issues, rural residents, veterans and the elderly.
"People who depend on this vital service to get their medications have a very significant potential for having negative health outcomes," says Dr. Rob Davidson, an emergency physician in Michigan and the executive director of the Committee To Protect Medicare, a nationwide group of physicians advocating for health care affordability.
Since the pandemic, even more people have opted to receive their medications by mail to avoid possible exposure in stores or to save money.
"People are being told to stay home, particularly elderly folks; people with preexisting conditions who are more likely to have prescription medications are being told to limit their contact in public," says Davidson. "All indications are that the utilization of mail-order pharmacies and mail-order prescriptions has gone up."
And the Postal Service's recent decision to decommission some mail-sorting machines could make delays even worse.
Though delays may be short — as in Columbus, where the delays are one to two days, according to Mark Camilli, Ohio's representative in the National Association of Letter Carriers — even a few days' delay can harm a person's health.
And Ciaccia, of the Ohio Pharmacist Association, says many Ohioans have no choice but to get their medications through the mail.
"A lot of mail-order uptake can be attributed back to requirements by pharmacy benefits managers or insurers," he says.
If medications arrive late, Ciaccia says, they may have been improperly stored and no longer effective. If the medications never arrive, as with Matheny's, the patient either goes without or pays out of pocket.
"This is not going to be life or death for everybody," Ciaccia says. "But for a significant amount of patients that rely on these medications to stay well and stay alive, any type of delay in drug therapy could mean the difference between a patient being in the hospital and a patient being in the ground."
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told a U.S. Senate committee on Friday that his agency won't make any more changes in service until after the election, and the House passed legislation to block operational changes and add $25 billion to the Postal Service budget. But some lawmakers fear damage already has been done.
This story was produced by Side Effects Public Media, a news collaborative covering public health.
Copyright 2020 Side Effects Public Media


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Xavier (Romain Duris) is headed for a business career, courtesy of his absent father's connections. Envisions his future, he's feeling just a little intimidated and anxious. Elevators, desks, suits. It all looks a little dreary.
To postpone what seems inevitable, Xavier takes a risk, leaving Paris, his "hippie" mother (her affection for tofu annoys Xavier), and his adorable girlfriend Martine (Audrey Tautou) for a year in Barcelona, via the university exchange program Erasmus. At the airport, Martine weeps, missing him before he even begins to walk away. He plays the man, reassuring her that all will be well, that they'll be back together soon. And then, as he heads to the plane, alone in the walkway, Xavier appears in mobile close-up, tears welling in his eyes. Perhaps this boy has something going for him besides a sweet face and a sometimes pained self-consciousness.
Xavier narrates his story in Cédric Klapisch's L'Auberge Espagnole, recently released on an extras-less VD. Like many 24-year-olds, he has a jumble of ideas in his head. Some are mundane (how to please his girlfriend, how to escape his mother); others are, indicated by speedy time-lapsing (denoting traffic, crowds, bureaucracy), simultaneous-action split screens, and a clever tendency to make literal (or very visible) emotional responses (a pile-on of forms he needs to fill out for the excursion cutely crowds characters out of the frame). Still, he's never too sure of himself, rather imagining that his year studying economics at the University of Barcelona will lead him to a revelation, a reason for his resistance to the life he's not quite chosen.
The moment he exits the plane in Spain, Xavier meets a French neurologist Jean-Michel (Xavier de Guillobon) who's working at the hospital in town; because the film is premised on things working out, the doctor and his beautiful but exceptionally dim wife (Judith Godrèche) invite him to stay with them while he looks for a place to live. Each morning he wakes on the couch, his face poofy as he agrees to whatever Jean-Michel asks him to do, mostly look after Anne-Sophie who hasn't yet picked up the language and is a afraid to leave the apartment. While this arrangement means decent food and a partner for exploring the spectacular Gaudí pavilions, Xavier knows he must find a bedroom of his own, and so, he answers an ad looking for a roommate.
This turn of events provides the place and circumstance that grants the film its title (in one meaning, it becomes "Europudding," in another, "free-for-all"). Before you can say The Real World, Xavier's been accepted by six multi-national roomies — Italian Allessandro (Federico D'Anna), Danish Lars (Christian Pagh), German Tobias (Barnaby Metschurat), Soledad (Cristina Brondo), and British Wendy (Kelly Reilly). In this cluttered, haphazard space, where much of the film's action occurs, he finds a sense of himself in relation to others, in particular others who are not Martine (their early, swoony phone calls grant the roommates endless ammunition for good-natured ridicule: "Je t'aime, mon amour!"). As it turns out, the thing that Xavier liked best about her was her tendency to reflect him, to make him look and feel good.
So, Xavier is a selfish boy. This makes him more ordinary than anything else, a product of his time and place, as well as his station. He will come to understand himself in another context, to appreciate that his desires are not all that matter. He will come of age, as they say, under the watchful eye of a high-def video camera. The apparatus grants the film a certain whimsy and keen sensitivity to place, both reminiscent of Klapisch's When the Cat's Away. Even when Xavier behaves badly, then pouts when there's a price to pay, you never feel he's at risk, exactly.
So, he learns to "appreciate" a woman from his Belgian roommate Isabelle (Cécile De France, who won a César for Best Newcomer), then embarks on a lazy affair with Anne-Sophie, because she's lovely and yearning, not because he actually thinks much of her. And it's all sort of okay, not egregious, because Jean-Michel doesn't pay enough attention to her. The guys argue when the truth comes out. But that doesn't mean Jean-Michel and Anne-Sophie won't come to Xavier's going away party at film's end. Sweet.
Xavier's does endure a couple of jolts. For one thing, he realizes soon that he will never win the heart of Isabelle because she is a lesbian. She offers him solace ("I wish you were a woman"), and he laughs at the cosmic glitch that seems to be his experience at the moment: "The world is badly made."
It's a clever line, but the world is actually quite fine in L'Auberge Espagnole, whose one-from-every-food-group approach leads to sketches more than characters, identified by cultural quirks, rather like Xavier sees the world. Soon he meets a much more egregious version of such thinking, in Wendy's younger brother William (Kevin Bishop), who makes fun of each roomie's accent, and makes Hitler jokes at Tobias, thinking his worldview is the one everyone shares, baffled when others are offended. Xavier's self-involvement is subtler (though he does through a period of believing he's seeing Erasmus, the historical figure, and visits Jean-Michel for a neurological exam, not even thinking that the man might know about and resent the affair).
But if Xavier remains annoyingly egocentric, the film is, on another and more remarkable level, about exactly that. It points out associations between commercial and cultural globalizations, but celebrates rather than laments the loss of fixed identities.


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Wapato's Dent Repair Experts
We know how the story goes. You have been a careful driver all your life. You've never taken an unnecessary risk or have done anything that would endanger the safety or well-being of you, your fellow passengers or other road-users. You buy a new dream car and are super excited, but then disaster strikes. You clip a corner too closely and feel a small bump. When you go to investigate, you notice a dent on the passenger-side panel. You're devastated, but there is no need for this incident to ruin your whole week.
The fact of the matter is that any Wapato driver will most likely experience a ding, clip or tip at some point. This is normal and to be expected. At Yakima Automotive & Collision, LLC we have been assisting drivers just like you for decades. We get that any dent or damage to your vehicle can feel like the end of the world but trust us, it's not. The expertly trained mechanics and dent repair technicians at Yakima Automotive & Collision, LLC have the skill and equipment to fix even the most complicated of dents effectively. If you have noticed a dent on your car then you can have it fixed right away by calling the dent repair team you can trust.
Wapato drivers have trusted in Yakima Automotive & Collision, LLC for years to have their dents repaired in an effective and affordable manner, and you should too!
Different Types of Car Dents
At Yakima Automotive & Collision, LLC we fully understand that as a Wapato driver who has just noticed a dent on their car or truck, the only thing you care about is getting it fixed. However, while most drivers aren't repair nerds like us, it doesn't hurt to have an idea of the type of dent you are dealing with. Providing your auto repair mechanic with a quick outline of what your dent looks like will allow us to treat and repair it more quickly and effectively than normal. In general, there are three main types of dent to look out for:
Car Door Dings:
As the name suggests, car door dings generally occur when another car door hits your vehicle. In most circumstances, you will see a slight dent on the middle of your car door. For the most part, these dents are straightforward for our team to repair. However, if significant amounts of paint have been removed then it may require extra assistance.
Round Dents:
Round dents are slightly trickier to repair than car door dings. Round dents generally occur when a football or baseball hit your car when thrown from a distance. However, depending on where you live, heavy hail storms and flash flooding could also cause this type of dent to occur.
Crease-Like Dents:
Our team would openly tell you that crease dents are the hardest to remove. They are longer and more serious dents that are generally the result of an auto accident. While they are difficult to repair fully, our skilled team of dent technicians have returned numerous vehicles with creased dents to their previous best.


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Duplicate tip
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Tip 1132 Printable Monobook Previous Next
created 2006 · complexity basic · author Georg Dahn · version 6.0
In some editors it is possible to make a block selection by holding the Alt-key and the left mouse key. Since <M-LeftMouse> is not used in Vim, nor is <M-LeftDrag>, it is reasonable to enable this behavior in Vim, too. To do this, just add the following mappings to your vimrc file:
noremap <M-LeftMouse> <4-LeftMouse> inoremap <M-LeftMouse> <4-LeftMouse> onoremap <M-LeftMouse> <C-C><4-LeftMouse> noremap <M-LeftDrag> <LeftDrag> inoremap <M-LeftDrag> <LeftDrag> onoremap <M-LeftDrag> <C-C><LeftDrag>
At least on gnome the alt+mouse-left key is used to move the application window around.
KDE too.
On X Servers in general that is alt+left mouse, but no one prevents you from using any mapping unused for you to do the same if you need it


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Airport Taxi Transfer Service Switzerland
Airport Taxi Service Switzerland
Airport Taxi Switzerland. Airport Transfer Service Switzerland and Airport Shuttle. Airport Transfer and Shuttle Service Switzerland with A1 Airport Transfer Service Switzerland. Chauffeur Service Switzerland with the driving Service from Switzerland and the Airport. Switzerland Airport Taxi Transfer Service. Limousine Business Travel and Bus Travel Switzerland. Limousines Transport Service for; Congress, Seminar, Symposium, Meeting, Festival, Event, etc. Switzerland VIP Limousine Service. Switzerland Hotel Airport Taxi Transfer Service. Hotel Airport Shuttle Service Switzerland. Airport Taxi Transfer Service Switzerland. The Airport Transfer Service Switzerland with the personal Service for your Airport Transfer. Switzerland Airport Shuttle and pick-up Service. If you appreciate the quality, choose the online Reservation from the A1 Airport Transfer Service Switzerland and you will drive a class of your own. A1 Swiss Airport Transfer Service Switzerland, the private passenger Transport Company with the personal Service.


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Not sure about the legal definition of "popular demand," but this might actually apply. At long last, They Shoot, We Score collects all of our music — plus outtakes — for the motion pictures Game 6, Junebug, Old Joy, and Shortbus.
Nearly an hour of instrumental music. 27 tracks — 26 of them previously unreleased. Eight-page booklet features posters from around the world. Four different front covers, as shown here, one for each movie. Don't collect them all, and don't ask for a specific one — they will be sent out according to a random-number generator by our blindfolded mail-order crew.
Also available in CD form.
OLD JOY 1. Leaving Home 2. Getting Lost 3. Path to Springs 4. Driving Home 5. Leaving Home (alternate version) 6. Old Joy: End Credits
JUNEBUG 7. Ashley 8. Meerkats 9. Madeline 10. A Roomful of Ladies (outtake) 11. David Wark 12. Aftermath (outtake) 13. George
GAME 6 14. This Could Be It 15. The Phantom Who Haunts Broadway 16. Game Time 17. Pharaoh Blues 18. Zoo Chant 19. Love Chant 20. Asbestos 21. Return of the Pharaoh 22. Spec Bebop 23. Buckner's Boner
SHORTBUS 24. Isolation Tank 25. Panic in Central Park (outtake) 26. Panic in Central Park 27. Wizard's Sleeve


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Sharapova says goodbye to the U. S. Open tournament after sustaining a shoulder injury
Third-seeded Russian Maria Sharapova has pulled out of next week's U.S. Open due to a shoulder injury, tournament organizers said on Wednesday.
The four-times grand slam winner, who triumphed at Flushing Meadows in 2006, fired coach Jimmy Connors last week after just one match together.
The 26-year-old world number three, who is suffering from inflammation in her right shoulder, said withdrawing from the year's final grand slam was "a really tough decision to make".
"I have done everything I could since Wimbledon to get myself ready but it just wasn't enough time," she said in statement on her Facebook page.
"I have done many tests, received several opinions and it all comes down to taking the proper amount of time to heal my shoulder injury properly.
"It's certainly not an easy decision to make ahead of one of my favorite tournaments, but I know it's the right one that will get me back on the courts soon.
"I plan on taking the next few weeks off, receiving proper treatment and rehabilitation."
Sharapova lost to 20-year-old American Sloane Stephens in the second round of the Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati last week in her only match since a second-round exit at Wimbledon.
Her absence from Flushing Meadows at least puts to rest widely reported plans she had to legally change her name for the U.S. Open in a publicity stunt for her candy business.
Defending champion Serena Williams is the top seed for the U.S. Open at Flushing Meadows in New York, ahead of Belarusian Victoria Azarenka and Poland's Agnieszka Radwanska, who now moves up to third.
Tournament director David Brewer had earlier announced Sharapova's withdrawal.
"We wish her a speedy recovery and look forward to her return to New York next year," he said in a statement.
(For more sports news and updates, follow Ahram Online Sports on Twitter at @AO Sports and on Facebook at AhramOnlineSports)


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One of my favorite movies of all time is The Big Lebowski. It's a brilliant comedy that's endlessly quotable and has some of the most memorable characters in recent film history. There is so much going on in this movie, that I could take up your whole browser trying to summarize it, so I'm just going to have to assume at this point that you've seen it. If you haven't, go rent it, watch it and come back to this web page. It ain't going nowhere.
One of the themes of the movie is unchecked aggression. Some direct parallels are made between Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and The Dude's harassment by Jackie Treehorn (his goons pee on The Dude's rug). At one point, The Dude's stoned brain rattles off a line from something he had overheard on TV: "this aggression will not stand." It's a line from George H.W. Bush's speech about Kuwait that the Dude heard as he bought some half & half from Ralph's grocery store. The Dude is so broke, incidentally, that he actually has to write a check for $0.69.
Watching The Dude try to piece together all the events of his life is fun to watch. He is such a burnout that his synapses don't always connect and he stumbles as he tries to solve the mysteries of the storyline. It's not entirely unlike watching George W Bush try to make his way through a press conference. Which brings me to Iraq again and our recent history with that country.
At this point the reasons for America's war with Iraq are so obscured by excuses and lies and manipulations that I sometimes feel like The Dude trying to piece it all together. 42% of Americans believe Iraq was DIRECTLY involved with the attacks of 9/11 (Newsweek poll from Sept '04, found on this page). Almost half the country believes something that has repeatedly been proven to be false. What the hell?
So, what am I talking about? Oh, yeah, the Big Lebowski, Iraq, Kuwait, The Dude, 9/11, etc. Well, imagine my surprise when it was pointed out to me today that there is a prophetic message in the Big Lebowski that ties all of this together (kind of like The Dude's rug).
Remember earlier when The Dude writes that check for $0.69 at Ralph's? Well, check out the date on that check:
September 11, 1991. Exactly ten years before the attacks. Coincidence? Yes. Weird? Definitely. I need to go sit down for a while. Mind if I do a J?


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September 11, 2018
Contact: Andrew Jerome, 202.314.3106
WASHINGTON – National Farmers Union's (NFU) Beginning Farmer Institute (BFI) convened this week in Washington, D.C., for the first of three learning sessions that will take place during the next year. Nineteen beginning farmers, representing demographical, geographical and production diversity in agriculture, traveled to the nation's capital for the two-day session.
"Aging demographics in agriculture is one of our nation's great challenges, and it underscores the importance of our BFI program," said NFU President Roger Johnson. "BFI builds on Farmers Union's commitment to developing leaders in the next generation of family agriculture and celebrating the diversity in agriculture production today."
The first session's agenda focused on advocacy, marketing, and farm credit. Participants also toured local D.C. Greens' K Street Farm in Washington, D.C., to learn about food access and insecurity. Several BFI members will stay in Washington for the NFU Fall Legislative Fly-In and lobby Congress on behalf of family farmers and ranchers in their communities.
NFU's BFI program also provides beginning farmers and ranchers with hands-on technical training that emphasizes many of the challenges beginning farmers may face in their careers, enabling them to be successful in their operations and in this industry.
The beginning farmers and ranchers participating in the 2018-19 BFI program are:
- Deanne Boyer, Pennsylvania
- Rachel Brann, Minnesota
- Leslie Caccamese, California
- Jill Chi, Minnesota
- Konnor Dehmlow, Colorado
- Danielle Endvick, Wisconsin
- Jesse Endvick, Wisconsin
- Kat Johnson, Virginia
- Amanda Martin, North Dakota
- Tyler Neubauer, North Dakota
- Christina Pegg, Hawaii
- Sarah Rachor, Montana
- Elliott Salazar, Colorado
- Rebecca Sheahan, Delaware
- Sara Stenuf, New York
- Dion Stepanski, Michigan
- Molly Stepanski, Michigan
- Olivia Terry, Colorado
The BFI program is made possible through the generous support of CHS Foundation, Farm Aid, Farm Credit and Farmers Union Industries Foundation. The next program session will be held in Salinas, California, in early November 2018.
Pictures from BFI's first session will be available soon on NFU's Flickr page.
About NFU
National Farmers Union has been working since 1902 to protect and enhance the economic well-being and quality of life for family farmers, ranchers and rural communities through advocating grassroots-driven policy positions adopted by its membership.
Stay Connected
Look for us online at NFU.org and on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.


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An edge-lit acrylic zoetrope based on the linux game Word War VI. The game was written by Steve Cameron, a fellow member of hackerspace TX/RX Labs. I was looking to do a zoetrope project and his vector based game was perfect for a straight forward laser etched animation.
The display is a series of 12 frames on a spinning acrylic disk with a ring of LEDs around the edge that are flashed every 1/12th of a revolution to make the animation appear. A stepper motor directly drives the disk which is being controlled by an Adafruit motor shield on an Arduino UNO. The LEDs are switched by one of the extra h bridges on the motor shield. All the timing is done open loop with the Arduino just counting nanoseconds between when to flash and when to step the motor.
[via Adafruit]
Join Make: Community Today


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Page content
Hunting for a Little Ladle
Tobacco Pipes
by Ivor Noël Hume
The author holds a long clay "churchwarden" pipe, which is among the most fragile of eighteenth-century artifacts.
Antiquaries of the 1860s attempted to date clay pipe bowls by their evolving shapes and sizes. Few makers included dates in their marks, however.
The author found this 1683 pipe in the River Thames. Makers often stamped their initials, though seldom on the bowl.
An unexpected use for broken pipes. More than 11,000 fragments were made use of in this ca. 1740 walkway beside Colonial Williamsburg's George Reid House on Duke of Gloucester Street.
Wig akimbo, a cleric is in his cups in this ca. 1795 woodcut. On such occasions, a shorter pipe stem made for easier handling.
The late Audrey Noël Hume had to measure the size of the hole through every one of the stem fragments from the George Reid House walkway.
In 1992, while searching for Sir Walter Ralegh's Lost Colony on Roanoke Island, North Carolina, excavators found fragments of aboriginal pipes smoked there by colonists in 1585 and 1586. From this small beginning the taste for "drinking tobacco" was born.
A jumble of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century pipes. Though identical to others excavated at Jamestown and Williamsburg, these were found in London.
Archaeologist Al Luckenbach, director of Maryland's Lost Towns Project, shows the author pipes and equipment found on a 1660s pipe maker's kiln site in Anne Arundel County. His is the most important contribution made to the history of colonial American pipe making.
In the eighteenth century, smoked pipes were sanitized in iron cradles called kilns and baked in ovens.
The stems of these English pipes from ca. 1690-1720 measure 11". The Dutch tobacco box is of the same period.
The pipe, so
lily-like and weak,
Does thus thy mortal
soul bespeak.
– Rev. Ralph Erskine, Gospel
Sonnets (ca. 1733)
Throughout Virginia's colonial centuries, tobacco was the economic lifeblood of the Old Dominion, and unless one rolled it to smoke as a cigar, or took it as snuff, a pipe was as necessary to its consumption as fire. Pipes are known in silver, brass, pewter, iron, and even lead, but clay was the primary material and so remained until the end of the nineteenth century. The clay pipes' fragility ensured that they were broken almost as fast as they were made, and fragments are strewn across every Virginia colonial home site. But just as few of us give much thought to what later generations might deduce from our discarded bottle caps, no one in the eighteenth century considered how a twenty-first-century archaeologist might use his broken pipe as a clue to his life and time. Especially time. The characteristics of tobacco pipes changed with the years, and if an archaeologist can date those changes, so can he date the objects with which they are are found.
There are thousands of pipe fragments found in Williamsburg. An early explanation for their ubiquity had it that in colonial-era taverns pipes passed from mouth to mouth, but that in the interests of hygiene the previously lip-gripped section was broken off and thrown away. There is no documentary support for that notion, but it is known that used pipes were placed in iron cradles and heat cleansed in bake ovens before being issued to the next round of smokers.
The real explanation for the ubiquitous pipe-stem fragments is more prosaic: they were easily broken. If you drop a typical seventeenth-century eleven-inch clay pipe - something that curators try to avoid - its stem is likely to fracture into six or seven pieces, and when you do the same for a long "churchwarden" pipe from the end of the eighteenth century, the fragments may run to as many as twenty. That all these little pieces might have something to say to archaeologists was first recognized in the mid-twentieth century when the National Park Service's archaeologist at Jamestown, Virginia, Jean Carl "Pinky" Harrington started studying not the stem fragments per se but the sizes of the holes through them.
By itself, this sounds like a lunatic occupation, and at the outset critics were quick to say so. Interest in the history of the evolution of the clay pipe's bowl, however, goes back a deal further and was the subject of scholarly interest as early as 1863. In that year a clergyman named Hume, no relation to me, began an essay on the topic by saying that "very small pipes are found all over these islands, which are known in Ireland as Fairy pipes or Danes' pipes." The pragmatic cleric was quick to add that "the Irish attribute any thing unusually small to the fairies, and anything very ancient or inexplicable to the Danes." Nevertheless, it was true that the most ancient of pipes were, indeed, very small. The question, of course, was how ancient?
Conventional wisdom - at least that to be found in the pages of the Encyclopaedia Britannica - credits the introduction of the tobacco pipe to Europe to "Ralph Lane, first governor of Virginia, who in 1586 brought an Indian pipe to Sir Walter Raleigh and taught the courtier how to use it." The Reverend Hume thought so, too, asserting that the use of American tobacco began in England around 1585. If one wishes to narrow the source down to a few square yards, it is to be found at the National Park Service's Fort Ralegh on North Carolina's Roanoke Island. On that site we found fragments of Indian tobacco pipes smoked by the colonists who were there in 1585 and 1586.
Among them was Sir Walter Ralegh's protege, Thomas Harriot, who on his return to England, wrote:
We ourselves during the time were there used to suck it after their maner, as also since our returne, & have found maine rare and wonderful experiments of the vertues thereof ...the use of it by so maine of late, men & women of great calling as else, and some learned Phisitions also, is sufficient witnes.
Harriot described the Indians' practice of "sucking it through pipes made of claie into their stomacke and heade; from which it purges superfluous steame & other grosse humors."
Like so much else in historical lore, the encyclopedia and the Reverend Hume were wrong. The Spaniards had known of the alleged benefits of tobacco smoking for close on a hundred years, having discovered its use from the conquered Indians of Central America. It was also known to the French in Florida long before Ralph Lane built his fort on Roanoke Island. Reporting on Sir John Hawkins's voyage to the West Indies in 1565, chronicler John Sparke wrote:
The Floridians when they travell, have a kind of herbe dried, who with a cane and an earthen cup in the end, with fire, and the dried herbs put together, doe sucke thorow the cane the smoke thereof, which smoke satisfieth their hunger, and therewith they live foure or five dayes without meat or drinke, and this all the Frenchmen used for this purpose.
Whether it was Hawkins and not Ralegh who introduced pipe smoking to England or some passing Frenchman, there is no doubt that eight years after Hawkins's voyage, "taking in the smoke of the Indian herb called tobacco by an instrument formed like a little ladle . . . is greatly taken up and used in England." So here we have two descriptions of tobacco pipes that precede the Roanoke voyages, the first a cup attached to a cane, and the second shaped like a little ladle.
The first reference is to something resembling the typical American pipe of the nineteenth century, one that had come to North Carolina with Germanic immigrants in the middle of the previous century. At that time Moravian potters at Bethabara were making clay pipe bowls in designs that included the feather-capped human heads that might or might not have been intended to resemble Indians. An example of this cane-and-clay style in my collection is amusingly anachronistic, having been made as a souvenir of the Jamestown Exposition in 1907, its bowl shaped to resemble the island's ruined church tower. No such combination was used at the settlement in the seventeenth century.
By the time the first colonists landed at Jamestown, the English already had thirty years in which to develop their own tobacco pipe technology. A disapproving German visiting in 1598 noted that the "English are constantly smoking tobacco adding that they have pipes on purpose made of clay." No archaeologist has found such a pipe in a context that can be dated with any certainty prior to about 1600. A pipe found on the foreshore of the River Thames at London may be as close as we can yet come to 1573's little ladle. Unfortunately, it does not follow that tiny pipe bowls fit for fairies are necessarily older than others that are larger. The smallest yet found in Virginia were discovered in a context of 1622 beside the River James at Martin's Hundred, near Williamsburg.
Nineteenth-century interest in the age of pipes and their shapes was purely antiquarian. No one thought that they might be of use to archaeologists. In truth, Victorian-era archaeologists had no interest in anything from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Nevertheless, antiquaries like the Reverend Hume picked up pipe bowls in their gardens and wondered how old they were and why they differed in shape.
Finding any answer, not necessarily the answer, wasn't easy. Unlike the seventeenth-century Dutch, whose artists painted virtually every aspect of contemporary life - including smokers - British artists found their markets as portrait painters, none of whose sitters posed smoking. But there were minute pictures of tobacco pipes stamped onto tobacconists' trade tokens. In most instances these emblems were miniature versions of the signs hanging over the doors of their establishments. Thus, for example, in the village of Eton in 1666, tobacconist Richard Robinson issued a token showing his sign depicting two pipes crossed. Someone, perhaps it was the Reverend Hume, came up with the idea of drawing all the more than forty pipes so depicted. But, as an illustration from the reverend's book reveals, the exercise got him nowhere. Copies from earlier seventeenth-century engravings and woodcuts were no more informative. Pipes were an accessory, and as long as they were shown having a stem with some sort of bowl on the end, the viewer got the idea.
Although the guild of tobacco pipe makers had been established in London as early as 1619, prompting makers to identify their products by inscribing their marks or initials on the bases of bowls, very few of them supplied a date. Most of those that did came from the pipe-making center at Brosley in Shropshire and were stamped with dates in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. As the bowls on which dates appeared varied in shape, and as the dates probably referred to the maker's acceptance into his guild and not to the pipes on which they appeared, all this evidence was as confusing as it was helpful.
More than eighty years would slip by before anyone else in England began to take an interest in clay pipes, and this time the clues were archaeological. From the slowly accumulated silting of the great ditch around the medieval city of London, which had been uncovered thanks to Hitler's bombing, came large numbers of seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century pipes. The then curator - they called him keeper - of the City's Guildhall Museum, Adrian Oswald, was the pioneer of postmedieval archaeology in England, and it was he who began to create a chronology of shapes on the basis of their location in the ground - those in the upper levels of the ditch being less old than those deeper down. If that sounds obvious, it is. All archaeological reasoning is firmly seated in common sense and is not nearly as abstruse as some practitioners might want you to believe.
Oswald published his landmark findings in 1948, and immediately curators and archaeologists began to use his chronology. Quite independently, however, at Jamestown, where serious excavations had begun in 1933, National Park Service archaeologists were digging up pipes of many shapes and sizes and wondering what to make of them. One of the ponderers was anthropologist J. Somerfield Day, who seems to have been the first to suggest "that the wide range of pipe bowl shapes unearthed" at Jamestown "might provide an evolutionary series that could be used to distinguish different depositional dates." He was right.
Day's successor at Jamestown, Harrington, began by publishing an evolutionary series of shapes akin to Oswald's, but he went further and began his sequencing by measuring the bores of the stem holes - big holes being early when the stems were short and decreasing in diameter as they were made longer and thinner. From that day onward, no self-respecting historical archaeologist has sallied forth without having at his disposal a set of wood drills graduated in sixty-fourths of an inch by which to measure the holes.
Harrington presented his sequencing in an easy-to-use chart showing the relative percentages of stem-hole sizes in five steps through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. That was in 1954. Almost immediately, Harrington's chart became the key to the grail. But how reliable was it?
As invariably happens, a mathematician, or nowadays a computer nerd, comes along to turn general trends into programmable numbers. In 1962, scholar Lewis Binford did just that, converting Harrington's modest progression into a mathematical formula that provided a mean or central deposition date for each assemblage of stem fragments. Nobody asked whether a mean date was really useful. But hailing it is as the DNA of historical archaeology, everyone used the formula - perhaps fearing that its neglect would be construed as not being on the cutting edge of the profession.
A year later, during Williamsburg excavations beside the Duke of Gloucester Street house occupied in the mid-eighteenth century by blacksmith Hugh Orr, today known as the George Reid House, we found a pathway paved with more than eleven thousand broken tobacco pipe fragments. Whether they represented a shipment that arrived shattered from England or had been discarded for some other reason, we never found out. But it was evident that they were related in time and origin, for many bore the same makers' marks. The late Audrey Noël Hume, in her role as archaeological curator, put the Binford formula through extensive testing and found that to arrive at a consistent mean date required more than 1,000 fragments, a number much larger than is usually found together on a colonial site. In this case, however, 1,100 were sufficient to arrive at a consistent mean date of 1740, which was probably about right for that context.
Thirteen years later, during excavations at Martin's Hundred, the Binford formula got another body blow. Pipes from a single pit, all probably deposited at about the same time, gave Binford dates of 1619 and 1617 down to the lowest level at 1616. This would have been joyous news had not all the pipes been sitting on top of a slipware dish dated 1631.
With the pipe stem holes and bowl shapes analyzed to a fare-thee-well, one detail remained unquantified, namely the interior diameters of the bowls, which evidently were made larger as tobacco became cheaper. I resolved to base a new and all-revealing study of bowl mouths on examples recovered from tightly dated shipwrecks, mostly from Bermuda. The initial results were sufficiently encouraging to merit rehearsing the word Eureka! while shaving. But when I added much larger samplings from the no-less tightly dated Great Fire of London in 1666, my thesis turned to ashes.
Since Day, Harrington, and Oswald did their pioneering studies, more ink has been devoted to the dating of tobacco pipes than any other artifact category. A study of Bristol pipes alone ran to five thick volumes. The rolls of pipe makers' apprenticeships, bills, inventories, church and court records, have been scoured to try to equate the names with initials on the pipes. Colonial Williamsburg's report on Martin's Hundred devoted forty-five pages to pipes and tried to separate one type from another, one date from another, and one manufacturing source from another - all the time blissfully unaware that buried beside a Maryland creek lay definitive answers to several of the questions.
In 1991, archaeologist Al Luckenbach discovered Emmanuel Drew's pipe-making factory site, active from 1661 to 1668, when a bulldozer scored the edge of a small hill and exposed artifacts that included a lump of burnt clay with fragments of tobacco pipe stems built into it. Drew's 1668 inventory listed "a payre of Brass Pype Moyldes" - the two-part molds used in shaping clay tobacco pipes.
There for the first time Luckenbach was seeing the scope of pipe-making designs and skills in a well-documented American context. The oldest tightly dated pipe-making site yet discovered, its fragments of kiln furniture, varieties of clays, and examples of the pipes themselves make this discovery of monumental importance to archaeologists on both sides of the Atlantic.
It also makes nonsense of many conclusions hitherto reached about the nationality or racial origins of contemporary pipe makers working in Virginia. Types that had been thought to be English made, weren't, and others believed to have been made only in Virginia were coming from Maryland.
Luckenbach's revelation made it crystal clear that an enormous amount has still to be learned about the history of tobacco pipes, and doubtless many more volumes to be published - none of them, one suspects, likely to make popular bedtime reading save as a substitute for counting sheep.
Williamsburg-based Ivor Noël Hume contributed to the winter 2002-2003 journal a story on Sir Francis Bacon.


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Chinese firm's robots in demand amid coronavirus outbreak
Beijing: While other industries struggle, Liu Zhiyong says China's virus outbreak is boosting demand for his knee-high, bright yellow robots to deliver groceries and patrol malls looking for shoppers who fail to wear masks.
Liu, CEO of ZhenRobotics Corp., is among millions of entrepreneurs who are gradually getting back to work after China declared victory over the coronavirus that shut down the world's second-largest economy.
ZhenRobotics' flagship model is the six-wheeled, 68-centimeter-tall (27-inch-tall) RoboPony. The self-driving cart is sold to retailers, hospitals, malls and apartment complexes.
Unlike airlines, hotels and other industries that face a long and uncertain struggle to recover, Liu said his orders have tripled since the outbreak began.
"The epidemic made people aware of the fragility of human beings," Liu said.
"Robots can make up for this vulnerability and provide services people can trust," he said. "Trust in robots has been enhanced dramatically."
Robots for use in factories and consumer industries are near the top of the ruling Communist Party's wish list for technology development.
Chinese leaders see them as a profitable export and a way to make up for a shrinking workforce as the population ages.
Beijing has spent heavily to set up robotics departments at universities and research institutes. Private sector developers can apply for research grants and other support.
ZhenRobotics, founded in 2016, does its research and development in the Chinese capital's Zhongguancun university district, a hub for tech companies. Liu said the company gets a break on rent and other official support.
Its researchers are working on technologies including machine learning, computer vision and autonomous navigation, according to Liu.
ZhenRobotics has a testing center in the southeastern province of Zhejiang, south of Shanghai. Manufacturing is in Shenzhen, adjacent to Hong Kong.
One of its robots patrols Shanghai's Taikoo Hui shopping mall. It can spot customers with bare faces and remind them to put on a mask. It gives out hand sanitizer and broadcasts anti-virus information.
The RoboPony has been used by Suning.com Group Ltd., one of China's biggest retailers, to delivery food and other necessities to households during the outbreak.
Demand for e-commerce soared after the government cut most access to cities with a total of 60 million people in late January. Hundreds of millions more in other areas were to told stay home whenever possible.
The Beijing city government gave ZhenRobotics a marketing boost by including it on an official list of "anti-epidemic new technology."
The RoboPony, which is controlled through a mobile phone app, can carry 40 kilograms (90 pounds) and travel at up to 10 kph (6 mph). Liu declined to say what the robot costs.
After shutting down for the Lunar New Year in January, Liu went back to work Jan. 26. Other employees started to return on Jan. 30.
All but two of the 50 employees were back by March 10, Liu said. The remaining two are working from home in Hubei province, where the coronavirus emerged in December and travel curbs still are in effect.
Liu plans to step up research into disinfection by ultraviolet light and other possible hygiene-related features.
The company plans to produce 90 robots in the next six weeks, Liu said.
"We placed a large number of orders for our suppliers," he said.


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By (Dr.) I. A. Arshed
(1) Rights of Parents (and Duties of children)
Islam recognises family as a basic social unit. Along with the husband-wife relationship the Parent-child relationship is the most important one. To maintain any social relationship both parties must have some clear-cut Rights as well as obligations. The relationships are reciprocal. Duties of one side are the Rights of the other side. So in Parent-child relationship the Rights of parents are the obligations (duties) of the children and vice versa, the Rights of children are obligations (duties) of parents. Islam clearly defines the Rights of Parents (which mean duties of children) and obligations of parents (which means Rights of children).
It is clear that after Allah parents are the persons who give us innumerable favors. They provide protection, food and clothing to the newly born. The mother sacrifices her comforts and sleep to provide comfort to her children. The father works hard to provide for their physical, educational and psychological (and spiritual) needs. It is a matter of common courtesy that if a person does you some favor you feel obliged to him. Verbally you say 'thank you' to him. You try to repay and compensate him for his gifts and favors. You feel a sense of gratitude towards him. So it is with Allah and with parents. Allah's favors cannot be counted or repaid except by thanking Him and obeying His orders. After Allah our parents deserve our thanks and obedience for the favors they had done us. That's why Quran lays stress on feeling grateful to parents, and doing good to them. "And your Lord has ordained that you shall worship none save Him and shall do your parents a good turn." What does a 'good turn' mean? It includes obeying them, speaking softly, avoiding harsh words or harsh tone, giving them company when they are lonely, caring for their physical and psychological needs (especially in their old age), and praying to Allah that He may bless them and have mercy on them.
As between parents the mother has more rights than the father. The reason is apparent. Mother has borne the child's burden during pregnancy, has undergone birth pains in delivering the baby, has sacrificed her own comforts to provide comfort to her children, has looked after them and felt worried for their well-being. That is why mother deserves our good treatment more than the father. A Tradition of the Prophet (PBUH) tells us that a Companion asked the Prophet, " Who deserves my good treatment most?" "Your mother", said the Prophet. "Who next?" "Your mother". "Who next?" "Your mother". "Who after that?" "Your father". This means that the mother deserves three times more good treatment from her children than the father deserves. Another Tradition wants us to extend kind treatment to close relations on the mother's side also (even to her friends). A famous Hadith (Tradition) says, "Paradise lies under the feet of the mother". This means doing good to our mother lead us to Paradise.
As to the reward for doing good to our parents a Hadith mentions the following story: "Three persons of ancient days were once travelling in a mountaneous region. The rain, thunder and lightning made them take refuge in a cave. Mudslide made a stone block the opening to the cave. The persons were entrapped inside. When the storm stopped they tried to push back the heavy stone to get out of the cave but they could not. They wondered 'what to do now'. At last seeing that their joint efforts also cannot move the stone they decided to pray to Allah sincerely. One of them suggested, 'each one of us should relate one good thing he has done in his life and beg Allah to move the stone. One said, "One night my old mother asked me to bring a cup of milk for her. During the time I milched the goat and brought it to her she had gone to sleep. I did not think it proper to disturb her. So I stood by her bedside for the whole night till she got up in the morning and then I offered her the cup of milk. O God, if this act of mine was approved by You please shift this stone." The stone slipped a little but not enough to let them get out. Similarly, the second and the third man mentioned an act of goodness and prayed to God to shift the stone. The stone slipped down and the entry to the cave opened up. So the men got out. This story shows how service to one's parents leads to blessings from God and rescue from troubles. Now let us summarize the Rights of Parents (Duties of children):
(1) Right to be respected and obeyed:
Parents have a right to be respected and obeyed by children. All parents are well wishers of children. They issue orders and instructions that are in the best interest of children (though children might think ottherwise). So it is the duty of children to obey their orders and act accordingly. Some children listen to parental orders but do not act upon these or show laziness in carrying out these orders. This causes annoyance to parents. Children should remember that annoying one's parents can lead to God's wrath.
(2) Right to scold and rebuke:
It is instinctive obligation of parents to protect their children from physical and moral harm. If a small child puts its hand in fire it is natural urge for you to push the child back, even if the child does not want. It is in child's interest. So it is with parents. They are duty bound to protect their children in every way, physical, intellectual, moral. If the children have a temptation to do an act that is not in their long-term interest it is the duty of the parents to keep them back from that act or behavior. To this end they may resort to advice, rebuke and scolding. Good children should take all this 'harshness' in their own interest. If parents scold them they should bear it calmly. No rude replies, no arguing, no explanations, no comments unless asked for. Parental advice should be listened to and acted upon, even if against children's own wishes.
(3) Right to be looked after.
Parents have looked after the children for decades. So it is the duty of grown-up children to repay them by way of caring for them and looking to their physical and financial needs. A Quranic verse says: "People ask you (O Prophet) how should they spend. Say, 'whatever you spend should be spent on Allah (in good cause), on parents, near relatives, on orphans, destitutes and travelers (who fall short of money in foreign lands)".
(4) Right to be helped:
As parents grow old their energies also decline. So it is the duty of children to help their parents in any household chore in which they can help. Sons can help in lifting heavy things, cleaning home, arranging things etc. Daughters can help in mother's household work—cooking, washing, cleaning, serving food etc. With good children such help should come automatically, not when asked for. Whenever you see your mother or father doing something extend a helping hand to her/him without their asking. This is what Islam expects from children.
(5) Right to kind words/good behaviour:
Quran urges children to be soft-spoken towards parents and show respect and kindness in their behavior towards parents.
Unforunate as it is, the Western societies have forgotten these lessons. Young children are rude towards parents and show disobedience. As the parents grow old they drive them out from their homes and put them in "Senior Citizens Homes". Grown up children cannot spare time to attend to the needs of old parents. The busy Western life has led to a break-up of the family unit (so much upheld in Islam). As Muslims we expect our children to adhere to Islamic values and show respect, obedience, kindness, leniency and care towards parents, especially in their old age. Children must not forget the favors and sacrifices of their parents. As good mannered persons they must feel and remain obliged towards parents and try to repay them by kind words and deeds, even with money and material needs. These are the Rights of Parents due from their children (or the Duties of Children towards parents). These Rights and obligations are not found in Islam only. Such values are to be found in all true religions. Quran mentions Hazrat Yahya (John the Baptist) as "kind towards his parents, not tough and disobedient". Similarly Hazrat Isa (Jesus) is quoted saying to his people, "God made me kind towards my mother (Mary) and did not make me tough and disobedient". Hazrat Yousuf (Joseph), as a royal Minister in Egypt, called his old, poor parents from their far off home and offered them seats on a high platform (he did not feel shy of behaving in a kind manner to poor parents in the presence of his officials).
(2) Rights of Children
Now let us see the other side of the coin. We have mentioned that Parent-child relation is a reciprocal one. The Rights of Parents (discussed above) are the Duties of children. Now let us see what are the Rights of Children (and Duties of Parents) in Islam. These can be summarized as under:
(1) Children have the right to be fed, clothed and protected till they grow up to adulhood. It is, primarily, the duty of the father to do that. Mother can provide help if necessary. Protection means protection against physical as well as moral and intellectual harm. Parents are duty bound to see that the child's personality develops in all fields. So if the parents have to resort to strictness for the sake of disciplining the children and protecting them from intellectually, morally and religiously undesirable behaviour, children should not resent their strictness. Let them perform their duty as parents. Children's duty is not to protest or be rude but to listen and obey. "Their's not to question why; their's but to do and die".
(2) Right to education.
In Islam education is not limited to bookish knowledge but includes moral and religious training also. It means healthy all-round growth of child's personality. Parents must not only provide for children's education in schools and colleges but should also take personal interest in their studies, helping them if they can. This gives children a feeling of 'working with the parents' and encourages them in studies. Parents should sacrifice their own comfort and social activities and must spare some time to take interest in children's studies, especially when they are young. Leaving children to the mercy of teachers or tutors is not a wise policy. And of course, parents should not forget or neglect imparting religious/moral training to children. A little sacrifice on part of parents will save children from moral disasters. Effective moral training comes not from sermons, advice and precepts but from parents' personal examples of good behaviour. It is a famous Tradition of the Prophet (PBUH) that acquisition of knowledge is a must for every Muslim boy and girl. Another Hadith says, "The best of you is one who gives a good education (intellectual and moral) to his children". Another Hadith lays stress on education of daughters. The Prophet (PBUH) once said, "He who provides good upbringing to 3 daughters shall go to Paradise". A man asked, "what if one has only two daughters". "He also shall go to Paradise". Another man asked, "and what if one has only one daughter?" "He too", replied the Prophet (PBUH).
(3) Right to love and affection:
Children have many psychological needs also. Small children need to be loved, caressed, kissed and hugged. The Prophet loved children greatly. He would allow his grandsons Hassan and Hussain (R.A) to ride his shoulders even during his prayers. In streets he would offer 'salaam' to children, play and cut jokes with them. Sometimes he would even kiss small children in the street. Once a Bedouin saw the Prophet kissing a small kid. Out of wonder he said, "I have eight children but I never kiss them". The Prophet remarked, "What can I do if Allah has taken away love and compassion from your heart". The Prophet would show special kindness to orphaned children. Some parents believe that being frank with children is not good from discipline point of view. This is wrong. Love and leniency can do much that fear and strictness cannot do. If leniency leads to rudeness on the part of children it should be mixed with strictness. That will tell the children that parents are basically kind but can be tough if children show rudeness and bad manners. Over-protection and over-care are undesirable. Let the child grow up as a responsible person. Only provide them guidance.
(4) Right to be well provided (materially)
A Hadith says, "It is better for parents to leave their children well provided (financially) than to leave them in poverty". This means that parents should not spend all that they have on their own comforts and luxuries but must make provisions for children's welfare after the parents die. These are brief outlines of the Rights and Duties of both parties in the Parent-child relationship. If the parents and children act according to these guidelines they can make the family environment most conducive to peace and satisfaction for the parents and healthy personality growth for children. May Allah bless us all. AMEN.