text:
Losses caused by natural disasters such as drought, excessive rains or hurricanes have had dramatic impacts on agricultural revenue and costs and the well-being of humans and animals. Losses of capital assets and other farm infrastructure have had far-reaching effects on economic viability. Louisiana State University Agricultural Center (LSU AgCenter) personnel are uniquely positioned and often called upon to assess the economic damage resulting after the occurrence of such natural disasters.
Unfortunately, Louisiana has had its share of natural disasters over the last several years. Since 2000, assessments of the physical damage sustained to the agricultural industry have been conducted and economic impacts have been estimated in eight out of 12 years for four major hurricanes, two tropical storms, three incidences of prolonged drought conditions, and one summer of excessive rains. The economic impacts associated with natural disasters have been estimated at nearly $5 billion to the Louisiana's agriculture, aquaculture, and fisheries industries.
Year | Event | Estimated Economic Impact (Million Dollars) |
Estimated Aggregate Louisiana Farm Gate Value1 (Million Dollars) |
Impact As a Percentage of Farm Gate Value (Percent) |
2000 | Drought | $571 | $4,039 | 14.14% |
2001 | Tropical Storm Allison | $225 | $3,900 | 5.77% |
2002 | Tropical Storm Isadore and Hurricane Lili | $540 | $3,490 | 15.47% |
2004 | Early Season Excessive Rains Followed By Drought | $232 | $5,035 | 4.61% |
2005 | Hurricanes Katrina and Rita | $1,500 | $4,685 | 32.02% |
2008 | Hurricanes Gustav and Ike | $1,100 | $5,320 | 20.68% |
2009 | Excessive Rains at Harvest | $363 | $4,855 | 7.48% |
2011 | Mississippi River Flooding and Drought | $436 | $6,086 | 7.16% |
Total | $4,967 | $37,410 | 13.28% |
While similarities can be found across agricultural disasters, the one thing that became increasingly evident over the years is that each disaster event has its own unique set of issues and impacts depending on the magnitude and duration of the event. In some cases, as with drought conditions, the impact tends to focus on lost revenue due to crop failure and lower productivity. In others, as was the case with the 2005 hurricanes, the number and extent of the impacts can be much more varied and challenging. Identifying these impacts and potential effects through assessments of physical and quality losses and estimates of resulting economic damages is important to policy makers, government agencies, and researchers in targeting assistance. Since these assessments are often requested of Extension with very short timelines, having a set of strategic procedures has proven to be necessary to meet deadlines and still maintain the reliability and accuracy of the assessment.
Damage assessment requests are typically made by government agencies and private organizations after a natural disaster. For Louisiana, these requests usually come to the Extension Service. The one common theme in the requests is that they all require the provision of estimates in a very short time, often less than a month.
The desire to respond quickly to these requests can compromise the ability to adequately and accurately depict the nature of the damage. Experience has shown that damage estimates calculated in haste can be significantly overstated. Overestimated damage does however provide additional political leverage to increase the money received from federal disaster programs (Kliesen, 1994). As such, there is a delicate balance that must be navigated between the timeliness and accuracy of a damage assessment.
Historically, agricultural damage assessments have been used to provide policy makers with a basis for seeking disaster assistance not provided in traditional farm policy legislation. The need to understand the depth and breadth of the impacts is critical to effectively assist the agricultural industry in formulating a plan to respond to and recover from a natural disaster. While the agricultural industry can experience multiple impacts, many such as crop failures, yield reductions, or liquidation of livestock typically have an effect of a year or less. Other impacts such as saltwater intrusion or coastal erosion resulting from hurricanes are longer run in nature and may need more comprehensive policy solutions to restore agricultural productivity or improve societal welfare. However, Extension's initial role in the time given is generally to come up with an assessment of more immediate agricultural damages.
The short timeframe often faced when developing damage estimates requires having a strategic plan or system for conducting an assessment. During the first half of the previous decade, damage assessments in Louisiana focused predominately on revenue losses associated with drought and excessive rainfall. Given the direct nature of these impacts, little thought was given to developing a strategic plan for addressing more complex issues. When two major hurricanes made landfall in Louisiana, one in 2005 and then again in 2008, this informal approach to developing damage assessments proved to be inadequate to address the numerous impacts associated with the storms within a two to three week time frame that was being requested by policy makers.
The sheer magnitude of the 2005 and 2008 hurricanes showed the need for a system that would allow for an effective flow of information from the parish (county) level to the state level. Information on the physical damages collected at the parish (county) level had to flow to the state level where it was collected, summarized, and used in developing economic impact estimates. Variability in data collection made it extremely difficult to quickly and accurately develop statewide economic impact estimates. It was found that having a system that provided guidelines to parish (county) level personnel in conducting the physical damage assessment and which provided uniformity in the type and amount of information being collected, increased not only the timeliness of the assessment, but also provided an avenue to increase the detail and reliability of the estimates.
It also became apparent during the hurricanes that decisions had to be made on what issues could and could not be adequately addressed. Unlike direct impacts, indirect impacts to rural economies were found to be more difficult to identify and often evolve more slowly over time. Also, depending on the severity of the storm, economic linkages used in the creation of an industry multiplier for a region may no longer exist making them invalid for assessment purposes (Guidry, Caffey, and Fannin, 2008; Fannin and Guidry, 2010).
Louisiana economic assessments of natural disasters were limited to estimating short-term direct economic damage to agricultural commodities, aquaculture, fisheries and agricultural industries. This was mainly because LSU Agricultural Center personnel had the greatest knowledge and expertise in these areas.
A step towards a strategic set of procedures to evaluate damages was to develop a survey through which information could be collected and organized to be used in developing direct economic impacts. This involved a collaborative effort including all levels of the Cooperative Extension Service.
Once evidence emerged that significant damage had occurred over a large enough geographic area to warrant an economic assessment, an initial standardized survey was sent to parish (county) level agricultural agents and state-level commodity production specialists to get an overview of the physical damage experienced. This survey was typically limited to gathering information regarding yield losses and impacts on major commodities affected by the natural disaster.
To ensure that economic damage assessments reflected a uniform consideration of losses, multi-year impacts were qualitatively identified and discussed but were not included in the economic damage totals. Indirect impact issues were also identified but not included in the economic damage totals provided by the assessment report.
The initial survey sent to parish (county) level and commodity production specialists provided a standardized approach for identifying commodities, acres, and the expected yield impacts. Yield impacts were requested on a percentage basis rather than per bushel or per pound basis. This was done to prevent the potential for over-estimation based on overly optimistic predisaster yield potential. Past experiences suggest that overly optimistic predisaster yield estimates can lead to overestimating yield impacts associated with the disaster.
The information collected from these surveys are combined with published data to develop economic estimates of losses. Where possible, U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) yield data is used to develop five year average yields that serve as a proxy for predisaster yields. Likewise, estimates from the World Agricultural Outlook Board's World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report are used to establish baselines for commodity market prices used in determining revenue levels. With the number of assumptions that must be made to develop damage estimates within a short time frame and the inherently subjective nature of physical loss assessments, the ability to supplement assessments with data that is widely recognized and accepted helps to improve the accuracy and credibility of estimates.
Louisiana is fortunate to have an annual publication developed by the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness that provides acreage, yield, and price data by parish (county) for every commercially grown commodity in the state. The Louisiana Summary: Agriculture and Natural Resources is a cooperative effort with parish and state level Extension personnel and has become one of the most frequently used and referenced publications developed by the LSU AgCenter. If available, these types of additional data sources can be used to supplement data from USDA to add accuracy and creditability to damage assessments.
While an initial survey can be accomplished and a damage assessment developed within two to three weeks of the disaster event, there is generally a need for one or multiple subsequent assessments. This is particularly true depending on the time of the year that the natural disaster occurs. Disaster events that occur early in the growing season can prove extremely difficult in assessing yield impacts. With several weeks or months before the commodity is to be harvested, weather conditions that follow the disaster event can have as much or more impact on the final yield. As such, a second assessment is typically conducted at or around harvest time.
A second survey is sent to parish (county) Extension personnel which requests much more detailed information for all impacted commodities on a wider array of issues. This survey asks for updated estimates for acreage and yield losses and for other information that can be used to develop impacts such as increased production costs and infrastructure losses. Again, this information is combined with USDA data along with other published data such as estimated commodity production costs and returns found in enterprise budgets developed by the LSU AgCenter. Once this information is collected and tabulated, it is sent to commodity production specialists that help to verify and validate the numbers.
Drought or excessive rain conditions can result in fields going unharvested but, more typically, will result in some percentage yield reduction and quality loss. Information is gathered on acreage that experiences a total yield loss as well as on acreage that experiences partial yield loss.
Events that prevent harvest in a timely fashion can often cause lower grain quality and test weights in feed grain crops and lower fiber quality in cotton. Given that estimates for quality losses are generally much more subjective than yield loss estimates, the survey only requests information on the number of acres that would be expected to have quality losses. This information is combined with information obtained from a survey of commodity buyers throughout the state asking for the range in price discounts being seen for quality damage. Once the average price discount is determined, it is used to adjust the assumed market price for the commodity to determine the economic impact of quality losses from the natural disaster. An important point here is that the price discounts for quality losses are only applied to those acres identified from the survey at the reduced yield levels. Since the yield loss is accounted for, applying a price discount to "normal" or predisaster yields would result in overestimating potential impacts.
Depending on when a disaster impacts the agricultural industry, prevented plantings can also be experienced. Excessive drought or rain at planting can push planting beyond recommended time frames. In these instances, surveys provide estimates on the number of acres that were not able to be planted to the intended commodity and were not subsequently planted to any other commodity. In this case, the impact is defined as a loss of net revenue to the producer. LSU AgCenter enterprise budgets are used to estimate net returns that would have been expected under normal conditions and are used to determine the economic impact associated with prevented planted acres.
Another issue that is typical of many of the disasters faced in Louisiana is increased production costs. Increased production costs are more typical with excessive rain events at harvest which reduce harvest efficiency and increase harvest time. However, in the 2011 drought, increased irrigation demand was a significant impact faced by many agricultural producers. Surveys provide information on acreages impacted by increased production costs as well as other information needed to estimate the economic impact of these increased costs.
Assessing economic damages resulting from natural disasters to a livestock industry requires a different approach than for row crops. Yield losses from hay production are accounted for in a similar manner to crop damage estimates as hay production may suffer a reduction in yield, but also a decrease in the number of annual cuttings. Prices from USDA AMS' Market News Service are used to calculate an economic estimate of the total decrease in hay production. Hay prices are also important to value the lost grazing potential associated with pastures. Parish (county) Extension agents provide state specialists with information on the number of acres and days that grazing was impacted which are then used to place an economic value on the lost grazing potential through increased feeding of purchased hay. Losses are assumed using typical stocking rates and consumption of forages per cow.
Reduced grazing potential and hay production are only two aspects of livestock disaster estimates. Direct impacts on livestock production are also assessed through forced liquation of breeding stock above normal culling rates. The value of those breeding stock which are forced to be liquidated is calculated, but this only accounts for part of the economic loss. Should producers who cull above normal rates wish to replenish their breeding stock, they typically have to pay higher prices than what the animal sold for. The difference per head between the replacement value and the cull value is used to determine the economic estimate for forced liquidation of breeding stock. Higher than normal mortality is also accounted for in calculated economic damages for all classes of cattle.
The drought that Louisiana experienced in 2011 added a new dimension to calculation of livestock damage estimates. Previous experiences with natural disasters had not led to accounting for early weaning of calves to help maintain available pasture for mature females. Extension agents provided state specialists with estimates on the number of calves that were early weaned and the average difference in sale weight due to drought compared to normal weaning weights. Using information from USDA AMS' Market News Service and selected auction markets in Louisiana, the reduced value of calves sold was calculated.
As in other states, one challenge that has arisen in developing economic damages for the cattle industry has been a lack of price information. Market News Service cattle prices for Louisiana have not been available since September 2010. The Market News Service is a partnership between USDA AMS and participating states to document prices and transaction volumes of agricultural commodities. Limited and sporadic pricing information is available from selected auction markets in Louisiana through the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry's (LDAF) website. However, available prices are self-reported by the sale barns and may not cover the bulk of sales as with the Market News Service. Additionally, those barns that self-report prices through the LDAF website do not offer unbiased, third party verification which USDA AMS' Market News Service provides. The result of using prices from biased sources is economic damage estimates that are less reliable than for other agricultural commodities. As sale barns infrequently post prices, important information on the number of head liquidated pre- and post-disaster and price of animals sold is lost.
While conducting damage assessments can be viewed as an inexact science, years of conducting assessments in Louisiana have provided several lessons which might be applied in other states. First and foremost, a strategic plan for conducting and implementing the assessment is critical to guard against potential biases as well as the temptation to overestimate damages. Also, a plan is critical to be able to address in as accurate manner as possible policy makers, industry leaders, and others with a vested interest in the assessment. Since moving toward a standardized, strategic approach after the 2005 hurricanes, the ability to quickly respond to Louisiana agricultural damage assessment requests has improved as has the level of detail and the number of critical issues that are able to be addressed. The strategic survey approach has accomplished this by creating an environment in which all personnel involved have a clearer understanding of why and how the assessment will be conducted.
Every attempt is made to balance accuracy with timeliness. Credibility of the disaster estimates is improved by limiting initial assessments to major commodities directly impacted and by supplementing assessments with published data from respected sources. Follow-up can be done at a later time to conduct a more detailed, comprehensive assessment of the impacts of a natural disaster. However, in the future proposals for reducing data collected and the number of reports provided by the USDA and by state agencies may make use of published data more limited.
Another lesson learned is that the timing of the natural disaster will likely impact the accuracy of assessments. If a natural disaster event is experienced during the early part of the growing season, the exact nature of the impact on yield and quality will not likely be known for several weeks or months until harvest is completed. As a result, initial estimates need to err on the conservative side. Impacts will likely look worst shortly after an event. Taking an aggressive stance in estimating damage at that time, particularly when harvest is still several weeks away can lead to over estimation. In addition, crops are remarkably resilient and often can and will recover considerably following a natural disaster particularly if ideal weather conditions follow the event.
Impacts on commodities from natural disaster can vary significantly from disaster to disaster and within a disaster event. For some commodities, the impact may be limited to yield losses while others may have experienced yield losses in addition to quality losses and increased production costs. Lumping all of the impacts into one single damage estimate may miss the fact that a commodity was faced with multiple issues and impacts. Where possible, assessments conducted by the LSU AgCenter are categorized by major impacts on specific commodities such as yield reduction, quality losses and increased production costs.
The same shortcoming of lumping different types of impacts into a single damage estimate can be found by combining both short-term and longer-term impacts. Potential multi-year impacts that seem evident during the current production year can change drastically in a few months as weather conditions change. For example, during the 2005 hurricanes one of the multiyear impacts expected was a reduction in yields on acreage that had been impacted by storm surge. However, the full nature of that impact depended on weather conditions in the subsequent year. A year with average to above average rainfall would likely mitigate the impacts of salt levels deposited by the storm surge. Including estimates in the assessment for the 2005 hurricanes on the potential of storm surge on subsequent production would have brought in an additional level of error to the assessment. To prevent this type of error, assessments by the LSU AgCenter limit estimates of economic damages to current year disasters.
Finally, as noted in the discussion of valuing the sale of breeding stock and its replacement cost, consideration is given to the values of stock and flows for capital assets. Sales of capital assets such as breeding stock will result in higher farm incomes in the year of a natural disaster, but farm incomes will decline in subsequent years unless that stock asset is replaced. Estimates attempt to account for the increased cost incurred by agricultural producers to replace capital assets where appropriate. While producers have an incentive to replace capital assets and restore production as quickly as possible following a disaster, each disaster is different in nature. As a result, it can be difficult to accurately determine the true length of the disaster's impact and how long it will take an operation to return to normal.
Fannin, J.M., and Guidry, K.M. (2010). Developing economic assessments in response to natural disasters: A strategic plan for executing extension's mission. Journal of Extension, 48(3), 1 – 7. Available online: http://www.joe.org/joe/2010june/tt1.php
Guidry, K.M. (2005). Assessment of damage to Louisiana agriculture, forestry, and fisheries sectors by Hurricane Katrina. LSU AgCenter Extension Service Report, October 2005.
Guidry, K.M. (2005). Assessment of damage to Louisiana agriculture, forestry, and fisheries sectors by Hurricane Rita. LSU AgCenter Extension Service Report, October 2005.
Guidry, K.M. (2009). Updated estimates of the impact to agriculture from excessive rains in September and October 2009. LSU AgCenter Extension Service Report, December 2009.
Guidry, K.M. (2011). Updated estimates of the impacts to agriculture from Mississippi River flooding. LSU AgCenter Extension Service Report, June 2011.
Guidry, K.M., and Caffey, R. (2008). Estimated impact to agriculture, forestry, and fisheries from Hurricane Gustav and Ike. LSU AgCenter Extension Service Report, December 2008.
Guidry, K.M., and Pruitt, J.R. (2011). Preliminary estimates of drought impacts to Louisiana agriculture in 2011 (staff report 2011-09). Baton Rouge, LA: LSU AgCenter Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness.
Guidry, K.M., and Shoalmire, L. (2004). Estimated economic damages sustained to Louisiana agriculture from adverse weather conditions in 2004. LSU AgCenter Extension Service Report, November 2004.
Guidry, K.M., and Shoalmire, L. (2001). Estimated losses to Louisiana agriculture from Tropical Storm Allison. LSU AgCenter Extension Service Report, September 2001.
Guidry, K. M., Caffey, R., and Fannin, J. M. (2009). How big is the number and why should we care? An evaluation of methods used to measure the economic impacts to the food and fiber sector from the 2008 hurricane season. Selected Poster Presented at the Annual Meetings of the Southern Agricultural Economics Association, Atlanta, GA.
Guidry, K.M., Shoalmire, L., and Johnson, G. (2002). Estimated economic losses to Louisiana agriculture from adverse weather events in 2002. LSU AgCenter Extension Service Report, December 2002.
Kliesen, K.L. (1994). The economics of natural disasters. The Regional Economist, April 1994. Available online: http://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/re/articles/?id=1880
Louisiana State University Agricultural Center Cooperative Extension Service. (2011). Louisiana Summary of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Available online: http://www.lsuagcenter.com/agsummary/
Ortego, A., Guidry, K.M., Dunn, M., and Shoalmire, L. (2000). Estimates of drought damage to Louisiana farmers, forest land owners, and aquaculture producers for 2000. LSU AgCenter Extension Service Report, December 2000.
United States Department of Agriculture World Agricultural Outlook Board. (2012). World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates. Available online: http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/MannUsda/viewDocumentInfo.do?documentID=1194


text:
Diplomats haven't made many inroads in relations between the Arab and Jewish populations of Israel. A Bedouin-Arab professor of social workbelieves better results would come from the collective wisdom of the educators and mental-health professionals who understand the situation's everyday impact on those populations.
"Human-service professionals and educators in Israel and Palestine possess untapped potential to positively impact peace-building and reconciliation in this most volatile region," says Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Department of Social Work Prof. Alean Al-Krenawi. "They have the potential to proliferate a message of understanding, tolerance, forgiveness and reconciliation."
The notion arose from eight years of researching the impact of political violence on Jews and Arabs, he tells ISRAEL21c from Canada, where he is finishing his newest book, "Psychosocial Impact of Political Violence: The Israeli Palestinian Case."
After interviewing people across the region, he concluded that the suffering among what he terms "tomorrow's players" on both sides is acute, and not much is being done about it.
Spread the Word
• Email this article to friends or colleagues
• Share this article on Facebook or Twitter
• Write about and link to this article on your blog
• Local relevancy? Send this article to your local press
"Many children are growing up impacted by ongoing political violence," Al-Krenawi says. "The level of post-traumatic stress disorder is very high, and there are a lot of psychological problems that affect family functioning. What will happen in the future to these youth who will be leading the region, if they're carrying psychological trauma?"
His solution is to gather professionals who have developed their own strategies for dealing with problems caused by conflict. "Rather than just talk about it, they will be using their knowledge as a lever to bring people together and open a dialogue."
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has gotten behind Al-Krenawi's "Building Peace Through Knowledge" proposal with a$760,160 three-year grant.
The empty chair
Al-Krenawi, born in the Bedouin Arab city of Rahat near Beersheva 50 years ago, earned his bachelor's degree in social work at Ben-Gurion, hismaster's from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his doctorate from the University of Toronto.
As an Arab, he has entrée to areas most Israelis cannot frequent, including Gaza and the Palestinian Authority-controlled territories. As a professor at an Israeli university, he has the trust of Jewish Israelis as well.
In Ramallah, the unofficial capital of the Palestinian Authority, a teacher told Al-Krenawi that when he sees an empty chair in his classroom, he wonders if the child's absence is related to the conflict. He wonders, too, if an Israeli teacher seeing an empty chair has similar thoughts. If he could talk to that teacher, he told the professor, they might find they have much in common.
"The idea of bringing Palestinians and Israelis together to talk about the effects of political violence and bereavement will lead to the sharing ofknowledge," he says. "My goal is to develop a model of intervention that is culturally and religiously appropriate to each side."
Al-Krenawi believes that the program will build strong ties between the professionals, helping them to deal with the trauma among their clientelewhile, at the same time, becoming ambassadors for peace.
Both sides eager to learn from each other
An orientation meeting of about 40 Israeli and Palestinian psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, school counselors, principals and teachers already took place in December, at East Jerusalem's Ambassador Hotel. "Many Israelis have said they've never stepped into a hotel inEast Jerusalem and certainly haven't stayed there overnight," he relates.
"In our first meeting, people started to say, particularly the Palestinians, that they were looking at Israelis differently," he reports. "Both sides wereeager to learn from each other. People were so busy talking they didn't want to break for dinner."
Al-Krenawi plans future meetings in Jerusalem or Bethlehem. Eventually he hopes to offer participants seminars at the university, which is in Beersheva. And he envisions adding policy-makers from both sides to the mix – "people with influence, to serve as stakeholders."
He's been interviewed on Israeli and Arabic radio stations to "market" the project which USAID is monitoring.
"USAID will work closely with me and my team, and the university will issue reports [to the agency] quarterly," he says.
Over the course of the three years, each participant will share knowledge and explore ways to facilitate reconciliation and forgiveness between their communities. They will also teach the tools and techniques they've developed to others within their respective communities. Politics will be left at the door.
"I spent several months on recruitment, trying to find the right people on both sides," says Al-Krenawi. "I was looking not just for coexistence advocates but adversaries as well. A psychologist living in Nablus told me he's 41 years old and has never sat side by side with a Jewish person. That's the kind of thing that assures me we are raising the unheard voice. These are the people suffering from the violence, regardless of whom to blame. That's the empty chair."

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Written by Gaiman; Art by McKean
A dark and frightening fully painted novella, MR. PUNCH tells the tale of a young boy's loss of innocence results from a horrific confrontation with his past. Spending a summer at his grandfather's seaside arcade, a troubled adolescent harmlessly becomes involved with a mysterious Punch and Judy Man and a mermaid-portraying woman. But when the violent puppet show triggers buried memories of the boy's family, the lives of all become feverishly intertwined. With disturbing mysteries and half-truths uncontrollably unraveling, the young boy is forced to deal with his family's dark secrets of violence, betrayal, and guilt.


text:
Users of Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows 7 and Server 2008 got an unexpected benefit from Microsoft recently.
All of the OS's mentioned above have reached the end of their support lives and the company hasn't been issuing new security updates for them. However, they made a rare exception in the case of patching CVE-2019-0708.
CVE-2019-0708 is a critical security flaw that allows hackers to exploit the Remote Desktop Service and gain access to a target system without any authentication.
Windows 8 and later versions are unaffected by this flaw, but there are millions of vulnerable users still on the older operating systems we named above who are vulnerable. Microsoft threw them a lifeline releasing the patch that addressed this issue, along with 79 other security flaws.
Last year, the malware strain known as Wannacry swept across the globe, infecting hundreds of thousands of systems, most of which were running older OS's. Fearing that something similar could happen this year, the company took the extraordinary step of issuing an unexpected security patch.
While the smart money says that you should already be well into making plans to migrate away from these older operating systems with little to no support, that may not be possible for everyone. At the very least then, be sure you grab the latest security patch from Microsoft, which will undoubtedly buy you at least a bit more time.
Honestly though, at this point, the only safe move is to migrate to a more modern OS with all possible speed, even if it means some short-term discomfort. Wannacry devastated thousands of businesses of all shapes and sizes. Microsoft isn't going to continue making heroic efforts to save a user base unwilling to migrate forever.


text:
Anyone bothering to spend twenty minutes on here should be readily able to grasp the gist of what drives me: I'm a devout believer in the gospel of Jesus Christ as restored through Joseph Smith. But since my religion relies for its claims to legitimacy upon divine revelation and nothing else, I am also skeptical of the many false doctrines that have accreted over the years like stubborn barnacles on a ship's hull.
Mormonism consists of a lot of wonderful teachings that come to us directly from God. But many of us have also come to embrace an assortment of "foolish traditions and vain assertions" that, over time and through constant repetition, have mingled with the divine until often we can't tell the true from the false. These traditions are like urban legends that refuse to die. I like to get in there and scrape those barnacles off so I can see the shiny surface underneath. That's kind of become my thing.
Since Nephi, Mormon, Moroni, and even Jesus Christ himself prophesied that this Church would stray from its mission and become polluted in our day, I would think it would be the desire of all good latter-day Saints to be on guard against the faith being diluted. But based on some of the feedback I sometimes get, perhaps not. In the comment section of my most recent piece, someone wrote, "you sound like a pure Mormon-Hater," and an angry woman who engaged me on Facebook recently insisted my blog is "driving people out of the church."
That latter accusation is news to me. I have yet to hear from one of these people who has been driven out of the church by something I've written.
On the other hand, I have received quite a few communications from members who have admitted they were considering abandoning the faith until something they read here persuaded them to stay. One particular email I treasure came from a young man from my old ward whom I knew since he was a child. Now a teenager, he had had his fill of the Mormon church and decided that atheism suited him better. But after following my blog for several months, he was persuaded that there were some things about the religion of his youth that still rang true for him, and he credited me with persuading him to let God have another chance at him.
Anyone giving my work here even a bit of a look would clearly see that I love the gospel of the Restoration, the Book of Mormon, the teachings of Joseph Smith, and the revelations God provided through him. Me? an apostate? You would have to redefine the word.
I have engaged in many fruitless discussions with these types who accuse me of being "out of harmony with the Church." They would never see it this way, but by my way of thinking, those guys are the real apostates.
Since the word "apostasy" has developed such a nasty stigma within the church, let's look at that word as it was understood at the time of the founding of our faith. According to Noah Webster's original 1828 dictionary, apostasy "in its original sense, applied to one who has abandoned his religion."
Well, that isn't me. I haven't abandoned my religion. I embrace it. I spend more time immersed in my religion now than at any time since my mission. I love the history, I love the theology; I love it all. I'm all in.
Apparently my dedication to the gospel isn't the issue with some people. Through my conversations with those who accuse me of apostasy, the thing that seems to frustrate them more than anything is that I don't appear to show what one commenter called "proper loyalty to the Church."
Well, he's got me there. I don't profess "loyalty to the Church." And for one very good reason: I don't really know what the heck "the Church" is anymore.
Definitions, Please
As LDS cultural anthropologist Damon Smith recently demonstrated, I am not alone in my confusion. This term "the Church," in modern Mormon parlance, has become virtually undefinable. Get a group of latter-day saints in a room together discussing the Church, and it's possible every one of them using that term will have in mind a vastly different meaning. One person may be referring to the local congregation, while another uses it to refer to Church headquarters in Salt Lake City. Another may have in mind the First Presidency and the quorum of the Twelve, and still another, when referencing "the Church," is actually thinking about the LDS religion as a whole with all its facets, tenets, teachings, and doctrines. Another may simply be thinking of Utah culture. Clearly we could use a better definition.
Well, it turns out we have one.
Almost never these days will you find a modern latter-day Saint using the term as it was originally defined by the Lord himself in D&C 10: 67. In that section He defined "my church" as simply all those who repent and come unto Him. That's right. The true church is little more than a group of people with shared religious values. Nothing much more complicated than that.
I love the church of Jesus Christ. Our paths through life are strewn with obstacles along the way, and the Lord in his wisdom knows the walk will be much more bearable when we are able to make the journey with others who share our values and beliefs. That's why "the church," this group of equals, this community of fellow believers, is such a blessing in my life. Having like-minded people share the journey with me has been an assurance during those times when God seemed distant, a reminder that I was not alone. The church exists so we can share each other's burdens.
But sadly, the Lord's definition of the Church is not what my critics usually have in mind when they use the term. They are usually referring to the entire mish-mash, especially the General Authorities headquartered in Salt Lake City. To them, "the Church" embodies the group of men who manage and administer the daily temporal affairs of the Church. And these critics usually demand -and I mean demand- that I cease my questioning and fall prostrate at the feet of these mortals.
Sorry, no can do, because I've read the rest of D&C 10. It turns out that just after Jesus defines the true meaning of his church -in the very next verse- He denounces those who would define his church or his gospel in the way some of my challengers have. Here it is:
Whosoever declareth more or less than this, the same is not of me, but is against me; therefore he is not of my church."If I'm reading this correctly, anyone who defines "the church" in any way other than the simple definition Jesus just gave it is, as He puts it, "against me."
You know, an apostate.
Don't Worry, There's Still Hope
In truth, we are all apostatizing. All the time. After all, we're only human.
Usually, being in apostasy simply means we've diverted slightly from our intended goal. That's why repentance is a daily process; it doesn't always have to be performed in sack cloth and ashes. If our foot inadvertently slips off the curb, it's usually no big problem to step back on the sidewalk and continue on our way We simply resolve to learn from our mistakes, make a slight course correction, and we're back on visual. Repentance doesn't always have to be that big a deal. It's often just a series of minor course corrections.
Lucky for us, the Book of Mormon provides a guide to help us recognize when we're headed into apostasy: the dream of Lehi. We all know the story, but some have misinterpreted a pertinent part of it: that part about the iron rod.
The short version goes like this: In his dream, Lehi saw a vast field. In the center of the field was a beautiful tree bearing some incredibly good tasting fruit. We learn that this fruit represents the love of God, and it tastes spectacular. It's like nothing else in the universe. Lehi sees other people in his dream walking toward that tree. That's where everyone was headed, to get a taste of some of that amazing fruit.
(I have heard some members assume the tree and its fruit represented heaven, or the celestial kingdom, or the reward at the end of our lives. But that does not appear to be the proper interpretation. The fruit represents the love of God, something within reach of all of us at any time while we're here, and which we can partake of daily if we want. We can take a break from life, be nourished and refreshed, then continue on. That tree is always there; all we have to do to experience that love is reach out and accept it. Neither is the tree described as being a great distance away. When Lehi saw it, he just went over and partook of the fruit. I take it that wherever we are or whatever we're doing, if we want to, we can take a moment and bask in the love of God at any time.)
To get to that tree, you have to stay on the path that leads to it, otherwise you could wander off, get lost, or simply overshoot the tree in the dark. Running parallel to the path, Lehi noticed a rod made of iron
-a handrail, if you will. Mists of darkness rose up around the people on the path, causing many to wander off, most not even realizing they were no longer even heading in the right direction. But those who clung to the rod were able to make it over to the tree and enjoy the sweet, delicious fruit.
Now, there is a lot more to that dream, but this much will suffice. We learn that the handrail, the rod of iron, has only one interpretation. Nephi tells us it stands for "the word of God." In order for us to experience the love of God, the safest way of reaching it is by grabbing hold and clinging to the word of God.
Note that the iron rod does not represent "the Church" (whatever meaning one might give to that term), nor Church leaders, general authorities, or any man or group of men. The only safe guide is the word of God.
Anyone letting go of that handrail and clinging instead to another person in hopes of being guided through the darkness is likely to end up in a ditch. The blind leading the blind, and all that.
Despite what any of us have been told, there is no place in the word of God that teaches there is safety in "following the leaders." Indeed, the scriptures specifically warn against depending upon what the Lord calls "the arm of flesh." God did not send you down here then assign leaders to be in charge of you. We must "work out our own salvation" by relying only on Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. This popular idea that the only true path to safety is in "following the Brethren" simply cannot be found anywhere in the revealed word of God.
For a group of people who claim a religion based solely on direct revelation, we Mormons sure seem ready to adopt a whole set of beliefs that can't be traced to any scripture or revelation. In my discussions with critics who insist I am in apostasy because my understanding of the gospel is not in alignment with their own, I find them often asserting the following points as if they were actual, revealed doctrines:
It is impossible for the president of the Church to ever lead the church astray.I can find no place in scripture to support any of these contentions; indeed, the standard works are replete with passages that would clearly refute them. Moroni lamented that we in the latter days would pollute the holy church of God, and Jesus himself assures us that the church in the latter days was indeed capable of failing.
This Church can never fall into apostasy.
The only sure safety is in following the leaders of the Church.
Whatever the Brethren speak over the pulpit at conference is the same as if it came from the mouth of God.
Whenever I ask to be provided a citation from the standard works that might support statements like those above, I am given instead endless quotes from general authorities; quotes that don't purport to be direct revelations from God, but are accepted by these people as such merely on the basis of their having been uttered by men with high callings and titles. Unless God said it, or the speaker claims to be relaying a direct revelation, such utterances do not constitute the word of God himself, no matter how much you may want to believe they do.
Joseph Smith taught that we need not heed the opinion of any professor of religion that contradicts scripture or previous revelation.
I have been asked by some of these challengers if I believe "the Church" is capable of apostasy. Allow me to defer here to a succinct reply given by my friend Mike Ellis to that same question. His feelings on the topic mirror my own, and he puts it better than I could have:
"I do not believe in a black and white apostasy as some do. I believe that there are varying degrees of apostasy and that all of us to some degree or another are in apostasy. That is the nature of the fallen man. I believe that the L-DS Sect of the church which was restored by Joseph Smith has rejected many of the principles restored by Joseph Smith. And in many cases prefers to live according to corporate policies and traditions rather than the previously given revelations. I do not believe that all light and truth is gone from the L-DS sect.
"I believe that the One Mighty and Strong will come to set in order the house of God and arrange by lot the inheritances of the Saints, as prophesied by Joseph Smith. In order for this to occur it necessitates that the church must be out of order and we can clearly see that the 1844 secession crisis was a major cause of this.It's clear to me that Brother Ellis has not apostatized from his religion. He has not turned away from it. On the contrary, he desires more than anything to see his fellow believers return to those fundamental teachings that were evident in the church at the time of its founding and which appear to be missing today.
"I do not believe that God has withdrawn his previous revelations and that he still wants us (or me at least, since I cannot speak for others) to obey them. I believe we must cast off the past hundred or so years of traditions, dogma, and creeds, and return to the basic, simple, pure teachings of the restoration. After we do that, then we can move forward again and receive those things God has in store for this people, including the establishment of Zion."
In his view -and in mine- the real apostates in the church are those who have supplanted the foundational religion with a different one; a religion that insists that obedience to earthly authority is the greatest measure of one's faithfulness to God. That is what apostasy looks like to me: a turning away from the accepted word of God in favor of clinging to the arm of flesh.
Brother Ellis happens to be the proprietor of the blog Zomarah, where he recently posted a side-by-side comparison chart showing the similarities of the Great Apostasy of the early Christian church with the direction the modern LDS Church seems to be heading today. He is not alone. In recent weeks the bloggernacle has come alive with essays lamenting the onset of the Next Great Apostasy, and proving how the scriptures have been warning us of that probability.
In the movie V For Vendetta, the title character addresses the people of Great Britain, saying, "And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there?" Something very similar could be said about the LDS Church, as growing numbers of members are awakening to a sense that something just doesn't feel kosher anymore in The Lord's True Church.
The internet is now overflowing with articles not only proving a modern apostasy is taking place right under our noses, but that our scriptures and teachings foretold it and warned us about it. You can see examples of this ongoing discussion here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. And that is only a small sampling I gleaned off the top of my head. There are many, many more. Clearly, there is a growing sense of unease in the church, a feeling that all is not going so well in Zion after all.
You will note that these bloggers rarely concern themselves with those among us who, for various reasons, have simply decided to leave the church. Although they certainly fit the dictionary definition of apostasy, they are not a threat to those who remain. In my opinion, their departure is symptomatic of blowback; of the unintended consequences resulting from the institutional Church having drifted from its core fundamentals.
The real apostates, the ones who pose an immediate danger to the community, are those who are undermining the church from within by advocating positions that are doctrinally indefensible. They simply cannot be supported anywhere in scripture. These are the "True Believers;" they who have set themselves up as defenders of the faith, yet exert themselves not in defending Christ, but in angrily attacking those whose focus is on Christ. Rather than being watchmen on the wall, they prefer to expend their energies rebuking the watchmen.
Simply Superstitious
"The church," which was widely understood in Joseph Smith's day to mean nothing more than a group of people with shared religious values, today represents, in the minds of many, something entirely separate from that body. Indeed, these days members of the Lord's "church" (lower case "c" as defined in D&C 10; i.e. the members) are now by and large considered subservient to "the Church" (which I differentiate here with a capital "C" in order to avoid confusing the two). The "church" and the "Church(TM)" have now separated into two separate classes, the leaders and the followers. As someone once explained the roles of this dichotomy (a leader -no surprise), "leaders lead, and followers are expected to follow."
The once egalitarian LDS Church is today manifested by a top-down hierarchy consisting of the First Presidency, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, numerous Assistants to the Twelve, the First Quorum of the Seventy and the Second Quorum of the Seventy along with their armies of staff and assistants, all housed in a 28 story skyscraper that is also home to teams of corporate lawyers, scribes, and public relations experts. It is my detached indifference to this institutional, corporate body that for some reason most annoys my critics.
This idea that the Church's "leaders" exist to hold our hands and guide our every step is contrary to the purposes to which God ordained them, and unsuitable to a people whose doctrine teaches that within every one of us lies the potential for personal godhood. These Church officers are ordained to very specific purposes, none of which is to give you your marching orders or to embody "safety from the storm." That role is reserved to Christ alone. The Brethren, though often inspired, are not what Nephi was referring to when he told us the interpretation of the rod of iron. The Brethren are human, just like you and me, and just as fallible. As Joseph Smith declared, "a prophet is a prophet only when he speaks as a prophet."
Sadly, many members of the church today believe the prophet is a prophet every time he opens his mouth, and often even when he doesn't. This has led to a disconcerting cult of personality within the church that is equaled only by some Catholics with their pope, as typified by FollowTheProphet.net, whose webmaster encourages members to write in and report every time they happen to get a glimpse of President Monson in public. Typical of the kind of embarrassing idolatry presented on that website is this entry that breathlessly announced, "A family had the chance to go to the airport on Saturday to see President Monson's jet fly in to Arizona."
The purpose of the institutional Church in our lives is similar to that of the role of our parents. It provides a certain kind of sustenance for us when we are in our spiritual infancy. But the idea is to quickly get to the point in our spiritual growth where we no longer need someone holding our hand when we cross the street.
In his famous conference talk "The Gospel and the Church" (the original, inspired version, not the one that was later changed and redacted), Elder Poelman reminds us that "as individually and collectively we increase our knowledge, acceptance, and application of gospel principles, we become less dependent on Church programs. Our lives become gospel centered."
The mantra we hear so often today to "follow the prophet-don't go astray" is a 20th century invention that was completely unknown in Joseph Smith's day. It would not have entered Brother Joseph's mind to have anyone "follow" him for their own safety, and none of his counselors ever took to the stand at conference and taught that principle. The very idea would have appalled the Saints who looked to Jesus Christ alone for their salvation.
In his new new book, The Most Dangerous Superstition, Larken Rose reminds us that one way to tell whether you are a child or an adult is to examine your dependency on authority figures:
"Though many imagine teaching obedience to "authority" to be synonymous with teaching right and wrong, the two are actually opposites...In fact, teaching obedience drastically hinders the social and mental development of children. After having grown up in a situation where they were controlled by others, rewarded for obedience and punished for disobedience, if they ever escape that situation they will have little or no training, and little or no experience or practice, in how to think or act from morals or principles.Certainly we should be willing to pay heed to the prophet of God when he is relaying a message directly from God. That is, after all, what a prophet is for. But when was the last time you remember that ever taking place? Where are the revelations?
"If their upbringings have been molded mainly by controlling "authority" figures, people become existentially lost if that control vanishes. In short, people trained to obey "authority" do not know how to be independent, sovereign, responsible human beings, because all their lives they have been intentionally and specifically trained to not use their own judgment.
"In a world without the "authority" myth, on the other hand, children could be taught to be moral instead of merely obedient."
How Long Will This House Remain Unoccupied?
Almost thirty years ago President Benson reminded us that early on in this church, the Lord placed the entire church under condemnation, and he told us why He did. President Benson further announced that this condemnation has not been lifted, nor will it be until we properly repent.
What exactly does it mean to be under condemnation? Well, what does it mean when a house is condemned? It means the house is not fit for the owner to live in.
We like to claim that Jesus Christ is the head of this Church, and that the Church is continually guided by Him through direct revelation. But is this still true? Where is the owner of this house, and why doesn't he seem to inhabit it anymore?
I would submit that Jesus loves what he calls "my house," but because of our collective sins he has been forced to become an absentee owner.
Certainly God still reveals himself to us as individuals. But isn't it curious that the very persons we are encouraged by our vain traditions to look to for collective guidance from the Lord never seem to offer any new communications from Him? Wouldn't the absence of continuous, regular institutional revelation be a clue that something is terribly wrong in the Church today? Shouldn't the very fact that the Lord has told us the Church as a whole is under condemnation be enough to give us pause and a reason to re-examine our collective assumptions?
And shouldn't it occur to us that perhaps, just maybe, one of the things God has told us to repent of when he said we are not taking seriously "the Book of Mormon and the former commandments which I have given them, not only to say, but to do according to that which I have written," might actually be to rely on Him rather than on our "leaders"?
We Mormons are very keen on saying we should rely on the word of God for inspiration and on saying we believe in seeking guidance from the spirit. But do we regularly "do according to what [God] has written"?
No. More often we take the easy way out and trust our leaders to tell us what we need to do. Rarely do we go home and take their words before the Lord, asking for confirmation through the Holy Ghost whether everything we just heard is true and valid for us. Instead we just trust them. They are the leaders, after all, while we are just the simple rank and file members.
Most of the time the counsel we receive from these men is sound, but sometimes it is not. Regardless, the word of God commands us to seek confirmation from the Holy Ghost regarding everything preached from the pulpit. If, however, we have been conditioned to believe that the "authorities" are always inspired and have got it all covered, why should we even bother checking in with heaven?
I believe this over-reliance on Church leaders has stunted our ability to be guided by the spirit. Nephi taught us that it is the role of the Holy Ghost to show us all that we should do. He didn't say it was the role of the prophet, or of his counselors, or the apostles, the seventies, or anyone else. Only the Holy Ghost.
I take my orders from the word of God, then seek confirmation through the Holy Ghost. That is how one maneuvers through the mists of darkness.
The Apostasy Trick
Of course, this kind of talk is blasphemy to the "Follow the Prophet" crowd. "How dare you," they demand, "ignore the Lord's anointed?"
Well, I don't ignore them. I simply take their pronouncements with a grain of salt until I have it confirmed whether those promulgations were sent forth from the mouth of God. If not, I may still find their opinions and teachings beneficial and worth considering, but so are many of the pronouncements of other religious leaders such as Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, and Alfred Edersham. I may abide by the suggestions of any of these men, but I'm not necessarily going to set my watch by them.
In short, I don't worship idols. Demi-gods may have their place in Greek literature, but they don't belong in the church of Jesus Christ.
Here is LDS theologian Denver Snuffer on the reason why Satan is able to successfully keep us from recognizing when we are slipping into apostasy:
"The trick to successfully pulling off an apostasy is to distract people into thinking there hasn't been one. The "believers" need to think everything remains intact.So, Is the Church In Apostasy?
"So the issue of "apostasy" becomes a discussion about individuals and individual conformity to the expectations of the group. The subject can then be a topic that polite, fellow-believers can discuss without ever searching into the overall condition of a fallen people.
"The Jews mocked efforts to tell them they were apostate. They thought it was humorous when Lehi preached the idea. (1 Ne. 1: 19.) Because they were so very religious, so devout, so unassailably active in following God, the idea was absolutely laughable that they were apostate.
"The Apostle Paul said the problem would begin at the top with the shepherds, who would teach them falsehoods as truth. (Acts 20: 29-30.) These new leaders would have only a form of godliness, without any real power to save. (2 Tim. 3: 5.)
"The Christian world adopted another, false replacement of the original church. It became so universal it was hailed as the Universal, or Catholic Church. It ruled from the rivers to the ends of the earth as the only official form of the faith established by Christ.
"To pull this off Satan must be concerned with the "macro" institutional failure, not just individuals falling away. It is the small, minor spirits who follow Lucifer who engage in petty tempting of individuals to sin. Success for the Adversary is not accomplished in petty enterprises. He wants failure for the whole, so none can be saved. For that, apostasy must be universal.
"He has never succeeded by admitting there has been a failure. The trick is always to have the apostasy come unnoticed, unacknowledged and from within. (See 3 Ne. 16: 10.)
"The topic is worth studying. When apostasy is noticed, acknowledged and exposed, then it is possible to repent and return. Until then, it progresses apace, discarding and rejecting what might have been given. All the while being happily ignored by "believers" whose devotion will not save.
"Since Christ predicted that at some point the latter-day gentiles would reject the fullness (Ibid.), we probably should consider what the Book of Mormon has to say about the subject.
"To finish the thought about the "trick to apostasy" the D&C has a remarkable statement. Lucifer succeeds when he manages to get us NOT to reject ordinances, but to change them. As soon as they are changed, they are broken. (D&C 1: 15.) That is an important step. Because then religious people can continue to claim they follow a true religion, while practicing one that has been broken. These practitioners become like the ancient Jews, who mocked Lehi because they knew they were still righteous. They knew Lehi was foolish, even fraudulent. They still had the truth, the ordinances, the temple, and the priesthood. Lehi was just a mistaken crank."
A better question to ask might be are you in apostasy, since you are the church. Are you seeking after the gifts of the spirit, or passively trusting in the arm of flesh? Have you sought the baptism of fire, that wonderful, glorious, ineffable experience that hits you like a rush and permeates you and surrounds you and infuses you with love and light and power?
Or have you bought into the modern fallacy that what the scriptures mean by "baptism of fire" is really nothing more than "a still, small voice" experienced over time?
If fleeting, whispering, tiny, occasional glimpses of the spirit are all you ever expect, that's all you'll ever get.
Seeing as how our scriptures warn us repeatedly that the church will indeed experience a falling away both individually and collectively, we would be foolish not to be checking ourselves on a daily basis and making those necessary corrections that keep us on course.
If Satan's trick is always to have the apostasy come unnoticed, perhaps we should put ourselves on notice to be ever watchful against it. The signs that we are well on the way seem pretty clear to me, but I also think the simple corrective is to first stop denying the possibility, and then repent and get back on track. In the words of The Spektator, proprietor of the website Just and True:
The scriptures warn us against being complacent; we should not be at ease in Zion. The scriptures warn us that we are under condemnation; we should individually and collectively seek to remove this burden. The scriptures warn us that, because of our pride and practices, we are to lose the fulness of the gospel and its covenant. If we are to regain that which is lost, we must take these warnings to heart, repent, and seek the Lord.If you love the church like I do, why not get serious and grab hold of that handrail? I return to that tree and taste of that fruit often, and believe me, it is amazing. You want some of this.
We must all cast off our sleepy rituals and awaken to the duty that must be ours. We must seek in the scriptures the true meaning of the fulness of the gospel. We must each be willing to approach the Father for the knowledge and confirmation of our path. We must, collectively, be willing to make the same covenants as did the people of King Benjamin. We must prepare ourselves to be a Zion people, individually then collectively.


text:
Vineyard Churches UK and Ireland (VCUKI) is a Charitable Company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales under Company No.4839046. Charity Registration No. 1099748
Here at Vineyard Churches UK and Ireland we take your privacy seriously. This policy together with our terms of use of any websites/App which you may visit sets out the basis on which any personal information we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed.
1) What Information Do We Hold?
a) Information that you give us. When filling in forms on our websites, through our App, at events we run, corresponding with us by phone, email or letter, it includes information you provide when you register to use our site, participate in discussion boards or other social media functions on our site, surveys, campaigns and when you report a problem with our site. The information you give us may include your name, postal address, e-mail address, phone number, the church that you attend, financial and credit card information, personal description and/or photographs.
b) Information we collect about you. With regard to each of your visits to our site we will automatically collect the following information:
- i) Technical information, including the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet, your login information, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, and operating system and platform;
- ii) Information about your visit, including the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL), clickstream to, through and from our site (including date and time), page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), methods used to browse away from the page and any phone number used to call our head office and staff members.
c) Information we receive from other sources. We may also receive information about you from our affiliated churches, other websites that we control, third parties who work closely with us including, for example, business partners, payment and delivery services and search information providers.
d) If you are a VCUKI employee, volunteer or 'Licensed Senior Pastor' (LSP) we may also hold certain categories of sensitive information such as personal financial details, age, gender, marital status, date of birth, full employment and educational history, references, medical and criminal records.
2) How Will We Use Your Information?
a) To administer our site and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes;
b) To improve our site to ensure that content is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer;
c) To allow you to participate in interactive features of our service, when you choose to do so;
d) As part of our efforts to keep our site safe and secure;
e) To measure or understand the effectiveness of advertising we serve to you and others, and to deliver relevant advertising to you;
f) If you sign up for electronic newsletters we will use your information to send you news and information about Vineyard Churches UK and Ireland and affiliated churches and organisations.
g) To maintain accurate and up to date records or our employees, volunteers and LSPs
h) To run Disclosure and Barring Service checks on employees, volunteers and LSPs in accordance with our safeguarding and employment policies
3) Where Do We Store Your Personal Data?
a) We are committed to holding your personal information securely. Only VCUKI staff, volunteers or LSPs (and the staff of our Partners) that need to see the data can access it.
b) We may store your information on computers, in paper form, or both.
c) All computers that store any personal data are password protected.
d) Laptop computers and similar devices that contain confidential information are, where possible, encrypted.
e) Any paper files that hold personal information (other than names and contact details) are kept on secure premises in locked cupboards and filing cabinets.
f) The data that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the United Kingdom. It will also be processed by staff operating outside the United Kingdom who work for us or for one of our providers. This includes staff engaged in, among other things, the fulfilment of your requests for services. By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy and in compliance with all relevant UK data protection legislation.
g) Information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password that enables you to access certain parts of our site or app, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.
h) Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the Internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.
4) What Is Our Legal Basis For Processing Your Data?
a) Our legal basis for processing personal data is different depending upon the purpose it was collected for. The following list covers the main types of data that we hold, for a full list please contact [email protected].
- i) Data collected for VCUKI news mailing and marketing lists is held on consent (unless otherwise stated).
- ii) Data collected through our booking systems for the events and courses that we run is held for our legitimate interests or because of a contractual obligation to do so.
- iii)Employee, volunteer and LSP data records are processed to comply with legal and contractual obligations and to fulfil our legitimate interests as a church movement.
5) How Long Do We Hold Your Data?
a) The length of time that we will retain your data will vary depending upon the purpose for which it is processed.
b) Data that is held by us on consent is only kept for as long as we have your consent to process that data.
c) For a full list of our data retention periods you can contact us at [email protected].
6) Your Rights
a) Under UK legislation you have a number of rights about how your data is processed. Full details of your personal rights can be found on the Information Commissioner's Office website – https://ico.org.uk/.
b) Your rights include the right to:
- i) Request access to the data we hold about you,
- ii) Have inaccurate and incomplete data rectified,
- iii) Have the personal data we hold on you deleted (except where we are required to hold the data by law),
- iv) To restrict the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.
c) Data that is held on consent will only be processed as long as we have your consent. To withdraw your consent you can contact us by emailing us at [email protected].
7) Other Websites
a) Our site may, from time to time, contain links to and from other websites, advertisers and affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.
8) Cookies
a) Our websites use cookies for the following reasons:
- i) To allow you to carry information across pages of our websites and avoid having to re-enter information when you return to one of our sites;
- ii) To measure our website traffic and analyse how our websites work. This will allow us to make changes to our websites in the future and make them easier to use;
b) You can accept or decline cookies by modifying the settings in your browser. Please note that if you disable all cookies then you may not be able to access some parts of our websites.
9) Changes To Our Privacy Policy
a) Any changes we make to our privacy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.
10) Contact
a) If you have any questions, comments or requests regarding this privacy policy please email [email protected] or write to us at:
Vineyard Churches UK and Ireland
Unit 8
K3 Business Park
200 Clough Road


text:
POST FALLS, Idaho - Personal incomes took a hit in the economic downturn across the nation. But according to the latest figures, no state has lower median earnings than Idaho.
A few years ago, James Drennen and his family left Lancaster, Penn., to start a new life in north Idaho.
"We figured we could come out here and live on a whole lot less money and my wife could stay home," he says. "But when we got here, we found out the jobs aren't paying as well."
Even as Idaho's job market shows signs of recovery, many people are running into the same problem. The number of jobs that pay enough to support a family of four has been declining.
"People have to have assistance through food stamps or some other program," says Bob Fick from the Idaho Department of Labor. "Or they have to put together several jobs and still raise their kids."
As a result, Idaho now has one of the highest rates of people working multiple jobs. And that includes James Drennen.
"It's what I have to do – and I don't even make ends meet, I just try to get them a little closer together," he says.
Drennen works as a janitor in the evenings and a security guard in the summers. But his main job is as a workforce consultant at the local employment office.
Meanwhile, Washington incomes rank 11th highest in the nation. Oregon incomes come in at number 44.


text:
Welcome to the Cool School!
Progressive, fun, and successful whitewater kayak instruction that gets you paddling or paddling better than you already do – this is what Northeast PA Kayak School is all about. Located on the scenic and clean Lehigh River, Northeast PA Kayak School exists for two reasons – kayaking and helping you learn how to do it the right way!
Well-thought-out progressions of skills are the hallmark of a Northeast PA Kayak School class. High quality equipment and gear, a flexible schedule, and a convenient northeastern U.S. location make whitewater kayaking classes very accessible for you. Here is some of what we offer:
- 2-Day Classes are available every weekend from April through October with select two-day classes on weekdays!
- One Day Classes are available at any time. First time kayakers must take the skill building flatwater practice day first. People who have gone through our 2-Day Class may come for any River Trip Day, which is every Sunday, and a number of days each week.
- Five and Ten day personal training programs for kayaking through our Fast Track – Whitewater Development Corporation.
- Are you interested in becoming an American Canoe Association certified kayak instructor? Learn about our ACA Whitewater Kayak Instructor Certification courses.
- Private Instruction? If weekdays are available to you, a private lesson might be the ticket! You'll spend up to 8 hours with your kayak instructor, working on anything you want. Learn the basics, fine tune your form, take intermediate lessons, get that solid Eskimo Roll… you name it. Your private lesson is YOUR day, and it makes a great gift for anyone learning to kayak.
- Our River Day includes Boat Rental, All Equipment and Lunch. Join in on any Sunday River Trip, or for the second day of any two-day mid-week group lesson. People who really want to hone their skills come back for a flatwater day on the Lake—and really fine-tune their strokes and skills.
If you have questions, click here to email us for more information!


text:
President Obama appeared in Normandy today to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. It's his fifth trip to France since becoming president, tying it with Mexico as the country Obama has visited most frequently.
Obama isn't the only U.S. president who's made repeat visits to France. It's the second-most popular presidential destination, behind the United Kingdom (and that tally includes several FDR fishing trips to the Bahamas). The cheese, baguettes and wine only explain part of the draw; the real reason for many of those trips is war.
Woodrow Wilson made the first presidential visit to France in December 1918 to attend a Preliminary to the Paris Peace Conference. It took him 10 days to get there. Over the next year, he returned to France three more times to attend the Paris Peace Conference, which resulted in the Treaty of Versailles, officially ending World War I.
Since then, there have been many more international meetings held in France and attended by American presidents.
Marking D-Day In Normandy
Obama is the fourth president to visit France to attend D-Day ceremonies, starting with Ronald Reagan who commemorated the 40th anniversary in 1984. Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush also attended D-Day memorial ceremonies during their presidencies.
Presidential travel overseas has become more frequent over the years as air travel has gotten easier. Air Force One is now a fully functioning office/living room. Long gone are the days of boats or trains — or unpressurized airplane cabins, as FDR had to endure.
But as much as ever, a visit from an American president makes a statement. It shows the U.S. values its relationship with that country or (like with Myanmar) the administration is pleased with the progress it has made. Often, though, it's in conjunction with a big international meeting.
Which countries have gotten repeat visits from U.S. presidents? Here's a list of the top 10:
And while we're at it, here are President Obama's top international travel destinations:
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


text:
The objective of this site is to help you to learn English for free. Free will never mean low quality.
Please note that you may use the materials displayed here for your own learning purposes only.
The keys to the exercises have been provided. However, please bear in mind that there might be other alternatives to the answers given.
Use the forum to find extra help. Registered users can receive notifications and updates, help others, post comments, queries or information...
In addition, the forum is also an excellent tool to obtain feedback from the users of this site. If you do not understand something, sign up and post a message.
We can give away all this time and effort thanks to our advertisers. Nevertheless, navigation will always be smooth, and you can always ignore the ads if you are not interested.
As time elapses, the site will be better, since new materials will be added regularly. We feel confident that you will love Polseguera.org. Besides, we are open to any suggestions that you may have so as to offer a better service.
Please feel free to write to us if you see any misprint or error. If you have a Hotmail/Live/Msn/Outlook email address, please click here to contact us, or you will receive no reply.
Please notice that this site is intended for adults. There may be advertisements not apt for minors.
Thanks for visiting us. Polseguera


text:
source: Dilbert, September 8, 1992
I'm hoping to add a new twist on the classic "Hello World!" program.
Code a program that outputs Hello World!
- String/Character literals
- Numbers (any base)
- Pre-built functions that return "Hello World!"
- RegEx literals
With the exceptions of "O"† and 0.
†"O" is capitalized, "o" is not acceptable.


text:
As new condition.
One owner and just 39000m.
We are a family run business established for over 35 yrs in St.Helens who offer only the very best used car examples available, most of our cars are supplied with a 2yr/24000 mile in house warranty. PLEASE ASK FOR DETAILS
We can also source vehicles directly for our customers, Please let us find your next vehicle by calling David on 01744 23456
*Includes cars with a CO2 figure over 225g/km but were registered before 23 March 2006.


text:
[Note: A version of this article appeared as my column in Gamasutra and GameSetWatch.]
Microsoft recently augmented their Xbox Live and Games for Windows services with something called "Game Room," which allows you to buy and/or play classic arcade games like Centipede, Space Invaders, and the like. Basically, it's just like when we used to hang out at the neighborhood arcade, only with fewer cigarette burns on the machines and no attendants selling weed out of the back office 1
What I thought was interesting, though, was the price structure for the games, which breaks down like this:
- 40 points – Play a game once on either Xbox Live or Games for Windows
- 240 points – Own the game on one platform but not the other
- 400 points – Own the game on both platforms
So if we rate those three options from 1 to 100 on an "Accessibility" metric and plot them out, they look something like this:
I don't think it takes much insight to guess that Microsoft would rather you not take the first option (about $0.50), since won't take long to figure out that playing like ONE game of Frogger is quite enough for you. They'd rather you spend the 240 points (about $3) to buy the game on one platform, or even better 400 points (about $5) to buy it on both. But I don't think these prices are optimal for that. I think there's a way for Microsoft to actually get more money out of people by raising their prices.
How? Well, I'll get to that. But first let's talk about magazine subscriptions. In his book, Predictably Irrational 2 behavioral economist Dan Ariely describes seeing an ad for the periodical The Economist with the following annual subscription options:
- Economist.com website only: $59
- Print edition only: $125
- Print edition PLUS website access: $125
Bluh? Why would they try and charge $125 for just the print edition and then at the same time offer that PLUS the website access for exactly the same price? It make no sense.
Or does it? These people know economics. It's RIGHT THERE in the name of their publication! To test things out, Ariely showed The Economist ad to 100 MBA students and asked them which they'd choose. He got the following results:
- 16% chose the Economist.com website access for $59
- 0% chose the print edition only for $125
- 84% chose print edition PLUS website access for $125
Okay, no surprises there. But then he removed the "print edition only for $125" option and asked the SAME students again. Same people, same choices –the results should have been identical, right? Nope.
- 68% chose the Economist.com website access for $59
- 32% chose print edition PLUS website access for $125
What? They flipped their preference even though the two remaining choices were the same as before! Why? (Click here to read about all this in an excerpt from Ariely's excellent book, or better yet go buy it –it's a great read.)
The reason, as usual, is because of how our brains are wired. We simply aren't very good at evaluating things in absolute terms, like the value of having a subscription to a Web site versus a print magazine. Instead, we tend to compare things to other similar things, especially when trying to quantify something abstract like value or fun. How good is this apartment for rent? Well, it's better than the last one you saw but worse than the first. How much fun is Game A? Well, it's more fun than Game B, but not as much as Game C. If you want to see this kind of thing in action, just ask ANY group of nerds to rank the Star Wars movies and then STAND BACK.
Decision making requires more deliberation and data when our evaluation of the options are spread out, as in the graph of Game Room purchase options above. But when some of the options cluster together, our decision-making process tends to exclude or downplay the options outside the cluster because including them in our evaluations makes things pretty complicated. For example, imagine you're trying to decide between three downtown restaurants for dinner after a movie. Two of them are nearby and one requires a bit of a walk. Let's assume your feet hurt and you're on a tight budget, so both distance and price are equally important. Most people will end up making their decision by going to the cheaper of the nearby places, despite the fact that the restaurant farther away may not only be cheaper than either, but enough so to warrant the walk.
Why? Because just using price to decide between the two otherwise most similar options is an easier decision to make than trying to figure out the relative value of proximity and price and combine those values in a precise weighted combination so as to come to a completely rational decision. People's brains tend to slide into the path of least resistance when making anything beyond the simplest of decisions. 3 So savvy companies like The Economist try to frame and simplify their sales pitches so that you glide right to where they want you.
This is why I think Microsoft could alter their Game Room pricing to something like this:
- 40 points – Play a game just once on one platform
- 360 points – Own the game on one platform but not the other
- 360 points – Own the game on both platforms
Which we could graph like this:
Do those two options on the right jump out at you more so than before? They do me. And I'd bet that a lot fewer people would be interested in just dropping two 40 points for a one-time play. Or maybe you could bring the price of both the "own on one platform" and "own on both platforms" option down to 240 points. Your choice! And you could take this concept even further –how do you think a fledgling MMO could benefit from pitching prospective players on monthly, quarterly, or annual subscription packages? Do you think you're any better equipped to avoid this kind of manipulation after reading about it?


text:
Turkey: Turkey ends headscarf ban in universities
A ban had been in place since 1997, brought in following pressure from Turkey's secular military. Some claimed the ban prevented many women in Muslim-majority Turkey from accessing higher education.
Under the new rules, women will be able to wear traditional headscarves, tied under the chin, BBC News reported. Headscarves covering the neck will not be allowed, nor will all-covering burqas.
Critics of the new law say it will religion to influence a strictly secular state.
"We say it will damage secularity," Ural Akbulut, rector of the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, told the BBC. "Once you do that - we believe you damage democracy."
But many Muslim women have welcomed the move, saying their dress is only a reflection of their personal beliefs.
By: Amana Staff
11 February 2008


text:
Locking Wheel Nut Removal Service
Are your locking wheel nuts damaged beyond repair? Perhaps you've lost your locking wheel nut key? Whatever the issue, our locking wheel nut removal service is just a mouse-click away.
Questions and Answers
Can you remove locking wheel nuts without a key?
Only with the correct removal tools.
What is a wheel lock key?
Wheel locks are designed to prevent thieves from stealing rims off your car. Wheel locks consist of four special lug nuts and one key. The lug nuts have a specific pattern that only the key that comes with the set can install or remove them.
Are wheel locks necessary?
No. But, it's important never to lose the key because you'll need it if you ever get a flat tyre. However, the locks greatly reduce your risk of losing your wheels and tyres.
- Opening Hours
- Monday 08:30 - 18:00
- Tuesday 08:30 - 18:00
- Wednesday 08:30 - 18:00
- Thursday 08:30 - 18:00
- Friday 08:30 - 18:00
- Saturday 08:30 - 18:00
- Sunday 08:30 - 18:00


text:
This SFP+ BIDI transceiver uses a 1310nm FP laser that is a class 1 laser compliant according to International Safety Standard IEC 60825. The receiver section uses a high-speed 1550nm InGaAs PIN photodiode (PD) integrated with a trans-impedance preamplifier (TIA). The BiDi SFP module is fully compliant with SFP Multi-Sourcing Agreement (MSA) and SFF-8472. For further information, please see SFP MSA and SFF-8472 standard.
A OPB1250-3520xCR is always connected with a OPB1250-5320DCR with a single fiber.
• Hot-Pluggable SFP package
• Up to 1.25Gb/s data links
• Compliant with SFP MSA standard
• Compliant with IEEE 802.3z
• Single LC or SC Connector
• Single 3.3V power supply
• Low power dissipation
• Metal enclosure provides lower EMI
• ROHS compliant and Lead Free


text:
Welcome to the Obama Haters Book Club—a parallel universe of fear mongering for fun and profit.
Over the past four years, no less than 89 obsessively anti-Obama books have been published, as now catalogued by The Daily Beast. I'm not talking about cool statements of policy difference, but overheated and often unhinged screeds painting a picture of the president as a dangerous radical hell-bent on undermining the Republic by any means necessary. It is hate and hyper-partisan paranoia masquerading as high-minded patriotism.
Here's the worst part—this steady drumbeat of incitement is having an impact on this presidential election because it has poisoned the well of civic discourse for many voters and those in their radius of damage. It has helped divide the nation beyond reason, distorting the president's real record beyond all recognition.
By their very nature, books offer the promise of education and enlightenment. These conspiracy entrepreneurs prey on the prejudices of their audience. This is high-priced hardcover bile, boasting titles like:
The Communist; The Muslim Brotherhood in the Obama Administration; Where's the Birth Certificate?; The Manchurian President: Barack Obama's Ties to Communists, Socialists and other Anti-American Extremists; The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama's War on the Republic; Trickle Down Tyranny: Crushing Obama's Dream of the Social States of America; Gangster Government: Barack Obama and the New Washington Thugocracy; How Obama Embraces Islam's Sharia Agenda; The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America; To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular Socialist Machine; The Blueprint: Obama's Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency; and what is still my personal favorite title: Whiny Little Bitch: The Excuse Filled Presidency of Barack Obama.
The titles themselves suggest palpable weirdness and un-wellness, a departure from reality commensurate with joining a cult. But the authors are not all fringe figures nervously typing up pamphlets in their basement. They include former elected officials, administration appointees, and at least one presidential candidate among with the parade of professional polarizers and right-wing shock jocks. You can check out our interactive gallery to figure out who is who, with their books helpfully divided into subject areas: Economy, Security, Media, HealthCare and, by far the most popular, Dangerous Radical.
They've been able to spread their message and make a lot of money in the process by hitting the hyper-partisan circuit with high-profile help. A stunning 56 of the authors in the Obama Haters Book Club have been featured on Fox News according to Lexis-Nexis searches, giving them valuable mass media exposure, the opportunity to preach to the conservative choir and sell books by the boatload.
As a result, the cottage industry of hating Barack Obama is now big business. Hack-ish screeds like The Amateur by Edward Klein outsell well-written and thoroughly reported books like Barack Obama: The Story by David Maraniss. Hate sells because it is simple.
Of course, President Obama isn't the first White House occupant to face unhinged hatred and conspiracy theories. It is in part a tradition going back to our earliest days, consistent with the First Amendment. But because of the pervasive nature of partisan media in the modern world, the problem has gotten demonstrably worse.
Two years ago, when I put together the first Obama Haters Book Club list, the number of titles was at 46, roughly half the current total.
Compare that to the literature of Bush Derangement Syndrome, which totaled just 5 at the midterm elections of 2002 and rocketed up to 46 by November of 2004. Obama Derangement Syndrome shares some of the same qualities—truthers and birthers are in some respects mirror images of each other; obsessed with their targets alleged tyrannical ambitions and core illegitimacy—but they are not remotely equivalent.
There have been twice as many Obama Derangement Syndrome books as specimens of Bush Derangement Syndrome. The cycle of incitement has gotten worse and more widespread because it's been semi-legitimized. Some of the same folks who called BDS treasonous see ODS as part of a patriotic resistance. This is more insidious than simple hypocrisy.
Barack Obama is the first Democratic president who has truly had to contend with the full spectrum of partisan media machinery. Hating Bill Clinton was an essentially analog event. Talk Radio was in its full glory, but Fox News was still in its infancy as was the Internet. So stories about Bubba's alleged propensity for Marxism, murder, and drug-dealing never really got beyond John Birch Society and Moral Majority mailing lists. And now Bill Clinton seems to be, hilariously, every Republicans' favorite living Democrat.
The core problem with Clinton for many conservatives seemed to be that they could not accept him as a legitimate president until he was out of office. The same is now true with Barack Obama but on steroids, with the added alloy of race inserted into the mix.
We will look back on birtherism and some of the other strange conspiracy theories that have clustered around him as, at the very least, vestigial remnants of racism. The sheer tonnage of hate and lies directed his way in the White House is stunning and it will seem somewhere between stupid, silly, and sad in the future.
But for now, we are witnessing the harvest of that hate. Talk to otherwise decent, well-intentioned citizens on the campaign trail and these themes keep creeping up in conversation: "Obama is a socialist" and "He wants to make us more like Europe" are among the most benign; "Muslim" and "Marxist" are not uncommon. This past Wednesday, I spoke with three tipsy middle-aged women who helped put on an Ann Romney rally in wealthy Winter Park, Florida, who did not hesitate to repeatedly describe the president of the United States as "evil." Members of Congress even repeat lines straight out the Obama Haters Book Club, talking about Obama's "Gangster Government," "Thugocracy," Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of his administration, his Communist influences and tyrannical ambitions. One Romney campaign ad even spoke of the president's "War on Religion."
This doesn't even qualify as dog-whistle politics—it directly repeats the core drumbeat of the Obama Haters Book Club: that President Obama is un-American and anti-American.
As a result of this constant drumbeat, many Americans have a hard-time recognizing President Obama's record for what it objectively is.
So a president who has presided over a doubling of the stock market is somehow seen as socialist and anti-business. A president who ordered the killing of Osama bin Laden and the systematic targeting of al Qaeda leadership while keeping America safe from subsequent terrorist plots is a secret Islamist-sympathizer.
Most significantly, a legislative record that led non-partisan political scientists at the respected blog VoteView to say "President Obama is the most moderate Democratic president since the end of World War II" is instead widely seen as a far-left radical. It is a lie told enough times that some people are convinced it must be the truth.
The most pervasive and troubling aspect of this election is the gap between narrative and fact. It is a direct result of the interplay between hate and the rise of hyper-partisan media. And it will have long-term repercussions after this election has passed. As I wrote two years ago in the first "Obama Haters Book Club" column, "We're getting caught up in the politics of incitement, becoming desensitized in ways that damage the institutions of our democracy. Because if any Republican thinks that this cycle will stop with the next president, they underestimate the ways that politics follows the lines of physics—every action creates an equal and opposite reaction. This will become the new normal…We need to stop this cycle of incitement before it destroys our ability to unite as a nation absent a disaster."
Healing after this election will take a long time—thanks in large part to the Obama Haters Book Club.