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The acts of those who spread violence, fear, and hate in the world make two things very clear. First, they show us that even if in one remote corner of the world there are people ready to act out violence, no part of the world can stay safe. No place is an isolated island anymore. Second, those who stand for peace, universal love, non-violence, cooperation, and human values, wherever we may be in the world, and whatever may be our background in terms of race, language, culture, religion, nationality, etc., we need to come together and make our voice heard.
A small group of people with their negativity and wrong thinking can do so much damage through their destructive actions. Imagine then, the power of positive transformation than can be unleashed when the good and decent people who care come together! Such people are the majority on this planet.
Incidents like the Paris attacks on 13 November are routinely followed by expressions of condemnation and diplomatic sympathy. Few people, however, look beyond, towards the root cause, which is a certain mind-set. Fewer still ask questions about the source of the funding and the arms supply.
A purely military response does little to nip the problem in the bud. It invariably leads to the "regrouping" of the ideology under a different banner as we have seen time and again. As has been pointed out, those who perpetrate inhuman acts with misplaced religious righteousness and pride do not care about compassion, common sense, reason and dialogue. Apart from military action, what is thus needed to combat the scourge of terrorism is a campaign of education.
People who choose the path of terrorism do not realise that existence and truth are so vast that one perspective alone cannot contain it. They do not understand that the world, with all its cultural and human diversity, is like a bouquet of flowers. So many cultural and religious traditions exist on the planet. But they think that they have an exclusive right to heaven, and so find justification to create hell for everyone else.
In today's world, everybody needs multicultural and multi-religious understanding so that they can have a broader vision of life. If these terrorists had been more knowledgeable about other religions, if they had grown up seeing all humans -- even those who seem different because of their appearance, culture and methods of worship -- as part of one human family, they probably would not have fallen prey to indoctrination and hate. If they knew the real purpose of religion, if they had been able to see divinity in others, even in those that they perceive as different from them, they probably would not have become so fanatical as to kill fellow humans so wantonly.
As global humanitarian leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar pointed out recently:
"We have to get rid of prejudices. There are many types of prejudices -- generational, class, gender, religious, cultural, linguistic, and more. Wisdom is to rise above prejudice and see the whole world as one family."
Here is another quote by him that is only too appropriate to any discussion on terrorism:
"There is a need to bring a shift from the idea of "sole ownership of heaven" to an ideology of "many paths to One Goal". Diversity is an essential characteristic of our planet and it is through an education that honours this diversity that children can grow into responsible global citizens."
There are three levels of peace, the first one being in the larger world environment and relates to harmony between nations, peoples, world regions, ethnic groups, etc. The second level of peace concerns harmony in our immediate environment comprising family, friends, neighbourhood and workplace. The third level is more personal and individualistic -- inner peace. We cannot underestimate the importance of this level. Sri Sri sums up the relevance of this level of peace to world peace most beautifully in the following way:
"Inner peace is the key for world peace. You cannot have world peace with individuals who are boiling from the inside, ready to explode. If such people are at the helm of affairs, then not only the person explodes, but the countries and communities also explode.
If people can get access to inner peace, then outer peace becomes a reality. Peace is not just absence of conflict or absence of violence; it is a positive phenomenon inside of us. Unless we inculcate the art of inner peace in human endeavour, we cannot achieve world peace."
This inner state does not necessarily dawn in us by itself. It has to be cultivated. Children today are exposed to a lot of violence in video games and movies. When impressionable minds are exposed to violence in the virtual world, they grow up thinking it is acceptable in the real world.
"It is absolutely necessary now to incorporate peace education in all our curricula, so that no child grows up thinking that he is doing the job of God when engaging in bloodshed and violence. If every nation in the world puts 0.1 per cent of its defence budget in peace education, this world of ours will be a far better place to live in. Peace education will be the greatest safeguard against war and terrorism." -- Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
A combination of out-of-the-box thinking involving fresh ideas about how to promote peace such as intentionally designed peace-education curricula and ancient wisdom as expounded by great teachers like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Sadhguru and others has the potential to eliminate terrorism in the long run. This is an idea worth spreading and something which we all must consider -- irrespective of our individual backgrounds -- for the sake of peace on planet Earth, our common home.
Contact HuffPost India


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JobTicket: The Business Subcription
Once your company and co-workers commit to purchase a certain number of JobTickets, you won't have to worry about parking again! Everyone with the subcription will have unrestricted travel round-the-clock within the VRS transit system.
The JobTicket is available for employees within organizations employees companies working within one enterprise. An employee's personal contribution towards the price of the subcription depends on:
- the firm location
- employer's contribution
- number of people within the organization who use the JobTicket
The price of a JobTicket is usually lower than other adult subscriptions.
Additional advantages:
JobTicket holders can also take advantage of the Ride-Along offer. On weekdays after 7:00 pm, one adult guest, three children (ages 6 to 14) and a bicycles. This offer applies all day on weekends and holidays.
For more information, please contact our Customer Consultants or our SWB Service Center.

subset: commoncrawl


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Click below to refine your search. Find, for example: a winery (or restaurant, accommodation, tour or whatever you are interested in - under 'what'), wherever you want (under 'where'), open on any day you choose, producing e.g. shiraz, or organic, or with childrens' facilities, a cafe or al fresco dining (under 'with'). Then simply press 'advanced find' - it's easy to find the right experience just for you .
Crittenden Estate is a small family-owned wine estate near Dromana on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, Australia. Crittenden's vineyard, which began life as ... read moreGartelmann Hunter Estate
Gartelmann Wines is a boutique, family owned cellar door and wine producer, based in the idyllic Hunter Valley in NSW. They specialise in fine hand crafted wines ... read moreWobbly Boot Vineyard
Wobbly Boot Vineyard is a boutique vineyard located in the Coal River Valley region of Southern Tasmania »Lakeside Villas at Crittenden Estate
Lakeside Villas at Crittenden Estate present the ultimate vineyard escape. Stylish villas built over the lake to give you the feeling of floating amongst the vines, ... read morePig In The House Organic Wine
Pig in the House Organic Wine is located in Billimari, about 20km from Cowra in the Central Ranges of NSW. The property was originally home to 20 free-range pigs ... read more
Stall Place Accommodation is ideally located in Tanunda in the beautiful Barossa Valley and offers three well appointed, modern self contained homes. read moreTanunda (SA): Barossa Best Bed and Breakfast
Nestled unobtrusively on Tanunda's main street is this beautifully restored cottage dating from 1856. Enjoy the ambience and charm of a bygone era »Adelaide Luxury Beach House
Adelaide Luxury beach House is a stunning multi award winning contemporary three storey home on the beachfront at beautiful Henley Beach, yet just 15 minutes from ... read moreDaisy Randall
Daisy Randall is your own bit of real Barossa heritage with a very modern twist. One of the oldest dwellings in the Barossa has been lovingly restored and furnished ... read moreKassebaum Wines
Kassebaum is now a little over 30 acres of which 17 acres are planted to Shiraz. It is located in Marannaga, in the heart of the Barossa Valley wine region of South ... read more
For any visiting artisan food lover, the idea of spending the night at Maggie Beer's place is surely one to put at the top of a Barossa Valley itinerary »South Australia – Barossa Valley – a global winner
Winding roads, bluestone cottages, outstanding wine and food and an abundance of things to do and see make the Barossa Valley not so much a destination as a way of life. Find out why the Barossa Valley wine region is so fabulous »South Australia – Barossa Valley – The best in a day
If you have one day to experience the best of Australia's wine scene, where would you go? Some say to spend it in the Barossa Valley, an hour north of Adelaide »
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I had swapped one form of body dysmorphia for another. First I hated myself for being too fat. Now I hated myself for being skinny. And for still having slight love handles. And for the stretch marks that came from losing weight so fast. And for the fact I was always hungry. The problem was, because of the fact I had been fat in the first place, the amount of work it would take me to get to - and maintain - that ideal bodyshape would be enormous. And so, reluctantly, I came to terms with the fact the ideal was unattainable.
Gay men of my generation have been surrounded by images of the idealised male form our whole adult lives. On the one hand we want that in a boyfriend and on the other, we want it for ourselves. And the two are not mutually exclusive. The assumption is that to get that coveted ripped boyfriend, you have to be ripped yourself and the better you feel about yourself, the more you look down on others who aren't trying as hard as you. It's a constant cycle of placing yourself in a pecking order, surveying the room and thinking "where do I fit here?" I had even come up with a system: Five Leagues of Attractiveness, in which you should aim for a partner within or above your own league. And what was it all based on? Entirely on looks.
Of course not everything can be blamed on the media. Walk down Canal Street on a Saturday night and you'll see men who possess that coveted bodyshape on full display, while those who don't are completely covered up. And even within a relationship, you find men comparing their bodies with each other's; sometimes in a rivalry to look the best, but more often self-conscious because of the issues with own their physique. And that's what I think is the saddest about this culture; the prized goal at the end of all this image-centric body obsession is a relationship that transcends aesthetics... but then people now seem to believe they can't maintain it on love alone. With the assumed probability of a direct body comparison within your own relationship, either by yourself or your partner, how could you ever actually be free of body dysmorphia, even when you've found that boyfriend? Because that was the goal, wasn't it? Or was it?
Of course fashions change and the idealised body image has swung in different directions even over the course of my lifetime. I see pictures of the boys I fancied in the 90s and their skinny androgyny is far from the bronzed and muscular ideal nowadays. For me, now the popularity of the brawny lumbersexual is in full swing, a bodytype that is both attainable and appealing to me is very much in fashion, but why does that matter? Why is there a changeable ideal for the shape of our bodies when surely fashion is about what we wear on them? So I guess we're right back where we started. We find attractive what the media shows us and for the last few years, brawn is back. But how long before it swings back to the emaciated heroin-chic of the 90s? Or the steroid-culture of the late 80s?
Now I'm not going to stop going to the gym anytime soon, nor am I going to say that people should live on a diet of Fray Bentos pies and Penguin bars (yes, this was me at 21), but wouldn't it be nice if people began to change the way they look at themselves? "Fat" is a word so laden with stigma that it's almost become a swearword. So let's stop using it and instead start looking at ourselves as healthy or unhealthy. Because to anyone watching Will & Grace, Will looked like a man who took perfect care of his health. The joke was that gay men hold themselves up to such high standards that they become impossible to achieve... sound familiar? I was straight skinny, but gay fat and still am. But to all intents and purposes I lead a very healthy lifestyle and it's time I took my own advice. Our general health is more important than just the way we look and the irony is, the healthier we are, the better we look and the better we look, the happier we feel. If we really are attempting to feel better about ourselves, then surely this is the best way at looking at things, right? Though I'd sincerely love to be able to practice what I preach.


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Friday, October 29
I know what I like and I like what I know. Getting better in your wardrbobe, stepping one beyond your show.
I'm all about left, all about four and all about green.
I'm all about Free Trade, all about tattoos and all about Marlboro Lights.
I'm all about boxers, all about Damien Rice and all about red wine.
I'm all about coffee, all about scented candles and all about brunettes.
I'm all about scars, all about cats and all about Johnny Depp.
I'm all about recycling, all about weed and all about independence.
I'm all about strings, all about curing cancer and all about Weetabix.
I'm all about lyrics, all about cheese-on-toast and all about watching movies where they belong; at the cinema.
I'm all about washing your hands, all about skirts and all about live concerts.
I'm all about glasses, all about freedom of speech and all about tulips.
I'm all about jeans, all about artistic talent and all about the Hammond Organ.
I'm all about horror movies, all about black & white pictures and all about long hair.
I'm all about music, all about music and all about music.
Friday, October 15
God bless us, everyone. We're a broken people living under loaded gun. And it can't be out-fought. It can't be out-done. It can't be out-matched,. It can't be out-run.
People I'd like to share a spliff with:
In no particular order....
Stan Laurel.
I'd like to tell him how much I love Laurel & Hardy movies. And how they helped me through a tough childhood.
Quentin Tarantino.
I'd like to ask him for a cameo in his next movie.
Damien Rice.
I'd like to ask him who she is.
Drew Barrymore.
I'd like to ask if I could do the music supervision on her next project.
Johnny Depp.
'Cos he's cool as fuck.
Howard Marks.
To listen to more of his fabulous stories.
Danny MacNamara.
I'd like to convince him to get the band back together.
Bruce Forsyth.
To see if he was still funny.
Zach Braff.
To just talk somethin' and nothin'.
The guy who created Chocolate Hobnobs.
And I'd shake that man's hand.
Angelina Jolie.
If I'm honest, to hopefully get into her knickers.
Robert Plant.
To thank him, for everything he's done and is still doing.
Robbie Williams, Kate Winslett, Dr Dre, Russell Brand, Lee Evans, John Cusack, Britney Spears, Foghorn Leghorn, McLovin, the Chief Of Police, Elbow, Al Pacino....Thom Yorke........my high school art teacher............Ziggy Stardust............Tom Baker....
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Theatre Calgary's endowment is a permanent, self-sustaining source of funding. Endowment assets are invested. Each year, a portion of the value of the fund is paid out to support Theatre Calgary's work on the stage, and any earnings in excess of this distribution are used to build the fund's market value. In this way, our endowment fund can grow and provide support for the theatre in perpetuity. When you contribute to our endowment fund, you create a permanent legacy of support for Theatre Calgary.
To contribute to Theatre Calgary's endowment or to learn more, please email or call Shirley Yurchi at 403-294-7440, ext. 1002.


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Decisions can sap energy and increase stress
I have a job which involves endless decisions, often when fatigued and at odd times of day such as the middle of the night. I am constantly having to problem-solve with high stakes at play.
I've been reading a book called The Power of Full Engagement. One point it makes is that decisions take energy from us. Our energy is finite.
President Obama has a compatible approach to lower-level decisions. He tries to minimize the effort he has to put into these decisions. For example, he only wears two colors of suits, blue or grey. I also like what Patrick Rhone had to say about sensible defaults. This eliminates active decision-makig on items you frequently use and purchase.
The more good habits we develop, the less conscious decision-making we must undertake. See the Zen Habits website for very good information on habits.
I like to automate as much as I can. This also helps to reduce active decision-making.
This is an area of ongoing research and consideration for me.


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Intro from Jay Allison: The thing about "Serial" is that it seemed so easy. That first season had such a simple narrative elegance in its tone and structure that it felt almost inevitable. It made you think: Hey, I could do that. I should produce a podcast like "Serial"! Then, if you did, you found out: Not so easy after all.
In her long-awaited Transom Manifesto, Sarah Koenig breaks down just how tricky it can be to tell a story in sound. By deconstructing the Leakin Park episode, by explaining all the things her team was unable to get to create the story, she reveals exactly how they did create it. This, fundamentally, is how non-fiction narrative works. You try to get what you want, but ultimately, you work with what you get. Sometimes the obstacles make you jump even higher. Sometimes they're just obstacles.
Sarah has given us an incredibly detailed map of the challenges of the documentary process. She even includes ACTUAL maps. And lots of audio. After you've absorbed all the lessons here, then, hey . . . you should produce a podcast like "Serial"!
You Can't Always Get What You Want:
Serial At Leakin Park
People often ask me: "How do you get people to talk to you? What's your trick?" And I have to break it to them: Alas, I have no trick. I wish I did. Because like every other reporter, sometimes I cannot get the interviews I want. I'm here to tell you that this is a solvable problem. I know, because I have constructed a story — a successful story, I thought — without the benefit of my own taped interviews. Done right, nobody really notices that you had a tape problem to begin with. I'm not advocating this method, mind you. Certainly you should try as hard as you can to get the principal people in your story to go on tape. It's just that sometimes, try as you might, you fail to persuade. But what I've learned is that when that happens, it doesn't necessarily ruin your story. You can still manage to tell it — narratively, with emotion — using other tools: research, non-tape reporting, and creative planning.
I'm going to take you through my interview-free story now, rip it apart before your eyes, and show you how I made it. Because it was a surprise, to all of us working on it, how it came together.
The story is from season one of Serial. In case you haven't listened to season one, it was the reinvestigation of the murder case of a guy named Adnan Syed, who was 17 when he was arrested for killing his former girlfriend. The episode I'm going to talk about here is episode 3, called "Leakin Park." Again, if you haven't listened, here's what you need to know: Back in January of 1999, in Baltimore County, Maryland, a high-school senior named Hae Min Lee disappeared after school. Nobody had any idea where she was. The cops were searching for her. They were questioning her friends, her boss, her boyfriends.
Then, on February 9, 1999, about a month after she went missing, her body turned up in a city park — Leakin Park — in Baltimore. She'd been buried behind a log, not far from a stream. A guy who said he'd gone into the woods to take a pee had found her there. He said he saw a bit of her black hair poking through the leaves.
I'm going to call that guy Mr. S. That's also what I call him in the story. The detectives spent quite a lot of time looking into Mr. S. He was their earliest suspect. So of course I really wanted to talk to Mr. S., too. But Mr. S. wouldn't talk to me. I tried and tried. I called him; I went to his house a few times; I wrote to him. But he wouldn't do it. Finally he asked me, by phone, to please leave him alone. Which I did. So, how do I get the story of Mr. S.? How am I supposed to figure out why the cops were so interested in him, and what they ultimately made of him?
Here's how:
This little icon on my computer desktop is the Adnan Syed MPIA. MPIA stands for Maryland Public Information Act — it's the public records law in Maryland that outlines what you or I or anyone can request from a public entity, such as a police department.
Inside this icon are all the documents the police decided could be released. They give it to you as a giant pdf, in no particular order. So we got this thing, and it was just massive. More than 2,000 unordered pages. It was like asking for a sweater and getting an enormous angry ball of yarn in return. It was, initially, defeating. Because it was so disjointed, there were a million repeats and redactions, and so many pages of stuff like this:
This is exactly what it looks like: A page from the Baltimore County phone book. There were people's elementary school records; people's timecards from work; reports on calls the cops got from people who said they were psychics, and could help with the case. There were weather reports and VIN numbers and subpoena requests and . . . you know . . .
An envelope! It's confusing, right? Because you're thinking, "Is this a clue?" Or . . .
Tires. That was on page 1,119, in case you want to know more about the tires. There were pages like this:
Which turned out to be incredibly important, once we figured out what it was: It's the way cell phone towers are oriented and labeled. But nobody tells you this stuff! You just have to figure it out. Anyway, this stack of documents, once we befriended it, became the backbone of the entire series, more so than the trial transcript of the case. And it started to tell us stories. Discrete stories, such as the one about Mr. S.
The MPIA is actually how I got really interested in Mr. S. Because look here, at page
767 of the MPIA:
This is from the Baltimore City PD. It caught my eye because, look at the date there: 1-13-99. That is the day Hae Min Lee disappeared after school.
And this is a police report by Mr. S., the man who found her body. So, you know, I wanted to know: Why was Mr. S. filing a police report on the day Hae Min Lee disappeared? Is there any connection? This report says he was working in the ladies' room of the school where he was a maintenance guy, and he went out to get a tool and when he came back, his walkie talkie was gone. So, a theft. He's reporting a theft.
But look again, to the left of the yellow part, where it says: "Date and time of original report: 12-8-98." Almost a month earlier. Ah. So this didn't happen on the 13th of January. It's probably not connected to the day Hae disappeared. Mr. S. is reporting this theft after the fact. Why? What happened on December 8th, 1998? The MPIA tells us what happened.
Here it is:
That day, Mr. S. filed another police report, saying he'd accidentally left his truck unlocked, and someone stole all this stuff out of it: cell phone, keys, work clothes, cash. So not only does stuff get stolen from his truck, it also gets stolen from the ladies' room the same day. When did all that happen? Well, let's look here, date and time occurred: 12-7-98.
Okay, so on its face, this is not interesting to me at all. I could care less if Mr. S. is reporting petty thefts. But the MPIA is about to change that. Because I keep reading, and I come upon a bunch of police reports, this time not filed by Mr. S., but filed about Mr. S. I find several reports for indecent exposure. And not just for peeing in public or something, but for streaking. Frequent streaking.
"The SWD [Southwestern District] has received numerous calls for service in the past three years to this area of the same incident, same description."
And then, I come upon this report. Check it out, page 684 of the MPIA:
This was written by a woman named Margaret. In this report she's saying Mr. S. ". . . dashed out in front of my car and began shaking his body in a up and down motion. The male had on no clothes." I love this story so much, because this lady, Margaret, is a police officer. In uniform! And it's high noon, in the middle of a busy Baltimore street, and he's totally naked, waggling in front of her car. And she's a cop, so of course she chases him down. Margaret reports here that she finds a pile of his clothes, including his phone and his cash. When did this incident happen?
December 7, 1998. That date looks familiar, right? That's when Mr. S. is reporting the same stuff as being stolen out of his truck. So that was the clincher for me. Because this guy, now I know he's crafty. He's got moxie. He is willing to lie to get out of his scrapes with the law.
But Mr. S. won't talk to me. Neither will the detectives who questioned him. The prosecutors on the case — I interviewed one of them on tape, but wasn't allowed to use the tape in the story. So no sound from them. I can't talk to Adnan Syed's attorney; she died back in 2004. But, the MPIA documents point me to some archival tape. The MPIA contains evidence review lists — basically a catalogue of all the evidence gathered during the investigation. And one of them lists a cassette tape of an interview with a person who has the same initials as Mr. S.
So we file a public information request with the Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office (that's the prosecutors' office). And after some weeks, they tell us there's a box of stuff we can look at. I travel down to Baltimore, and voila, inside was a stack of tapes, including one of Mr. S., being interviewed by the cops.
In this taped interview, Mr. S. tells the cops the whole story. So we get to hear his version of what happened the day he found the body.
"I think I may have discovered a body in Leakin Park." Mr. S. tells the cops he'd gotten a work order to shave down a door, but that the school where he worked didn't have the tool he needed — a plane. He had one at home though, so during his lunch hour, he said, he drove his truck home to get the plane from his basement. He tells the cops that while he was there, he grabbed a 22-ounce Budweiser from his fridge. Back in the truck, driving back to work — his route is through Leakin Park — he's drinking this beer, and suddenly he has to pee, badly, he says. So he stops on Franklintown Road, where there's a little pull-off, and he walks into the woods to find a place to pee.
The detectives are suspicious of Mr. S., because there are parts of his story that don't quite add up. The thing about the fallen tree is confusing, for one. Because the way Hae's body was hidden behind this log, it's not at all obvious that you'd see her if you were heading back into the woods, facing away from the street. The detectives are wondering: Did you really just stumble on this body, or were you looking for this body because you already knew it was there?
Which is a reasonable question, because Hae's body was very, very difficult to spot. How do I know? Well, when I went to look at that box of stuff we got from the State's Attorney's Office, there were a lot of photos from the scene, just as Mr. S. found it. Remember, the prosecutors wouldn't talk to me on the record. So to build this part of the story, I used tape of me and this other reporter, Justin George, from The Baltimore Sun (I'd roped Justin into maybe writing about the case, too), looking at the photos for the first time.
This is information I could have simply written about. I could have just said, "Looking at the photos, it seems as if Hae's body would have been really difficult for Mr. S. to spot," and then maybe described the photos in script. But this way, we've created a scene; we're having real-time, genuine reactions to what we're seeing, which is much more compelling to listen to:
Okay, so now I've got a sense of Mr. S.'s criminal history. I've got tape of Mr. S. being interviewed by detectives. I've got tape of Justin and me being shocked at how hard Hae's body was to see in the woods. What else do I need? Leakin Park. We need to understand better what Leakin Park was like at that time of year (winter), and whether Mr. S.'s story about walking so far back into the woods to pee makes any sense. We need to understand better why the cops are skeptical of his story. But how to convey that, aside from me just talking endlessly? Again, we're getting no help from cops or prosecutors. So we have to figure out the Leakin Park part ourselves. We create another scene:
In February, Justin and my producer, Dana Chivvis, and I went out to Leakin Park to see what we could see. To be clear, this trip wasn't manufactured just so I could have some tape. In fact, at this point in the reporting, I was still hopeful I would get the cops or prosecutors to participate. But we also taped anything we could while reporting this story, in case it became useful later. So here we were walking in the woods, trying to find the right spot.
We didn't guess at how far Mr. S. walked into the woods. We were trying to find the exact location where he found the body.
How did we know we were in the right place? The MPIA. In it, there was a map of the burial site, drawn up by the city surveyor. Here's what it looked like:
This map tells us Hae's body was found 127 feet from the road. It shows a 40-foot log (which was still there, 15 years later), and a stream beyond. There's no way we could have found this spot without this map. Here's another, cruder map from the MPIA:
I thought the snowflakes were a nice touch, until I realized they represent trees. If you look closely, you can see that the top of this map shows you where they found all the different items they collected from the scene.
I could have listed all this stuff in the script, but it might have been a little tedious for listeners, or hard to pay attention to. And that was a recurring challenge while reporting this story. The details mattered! We needed listeners to understand and remember the details for the story to hold together. So to make it a little more . . . lively, I guess, during the trip into the woods, I took the opportunity to lay out the evidence on that map for Justin, who was learning all this information for the first time.
This is a really small thing, but: How do I know it was a liquor bottle? The map above just says "bottle" (it's letter "I"). Again, I figured it out from the MPIA. Page 554, another evidence list:
I learned from the detectives' interview tape with Mr. S. that the cops were very interested in this liquor bottle. In fact, one of my favorite sections of tape is this part where they're trying to get Mr. S. to describe all the different types of alcohol he drinks. I love it because the way their impatience builds is so palpable. Here's a two-minute section of the episode, including my script:
How do I know they're waiting for him to say brandy? The evidence list reads "liquor bottle" — doesn't specify the kind. Well, among the cassettes we got from the prosecutors' office was a tape of some very bored-sounding police officers inventorying all the evidence from the case. I listened. Here it is:
Brandy, Coronet. VSQ. 200 ml. That's how I know. I didn't use this tape in the episode, because we didn't need it. But it allowed me to interpret what the cops were after, and write about that with confidence in my script.
What else do we need to solidify this story? So far all the "reaction" tape — especially about how hard it would have been for Mr. S. to see Hae's body in the woods — is coming from Justin and me, which isn't great. We're just reporters. We don't have authority or expertise about such things. And a listener could reasonably conclude that we were playing up our reactions for extra drama, to push the narrative forward. So how do I fix that? How do I get a more authoritative voice in here?
I found a solution sort of accidentally. I had videotapes of about a quarter of Adnan Syed's trial. One of the tapes turned out to be mislabeled though — instead of February 23, 2000, it was really from February 22. So I cross-checked the trial transcript from that day, to see who'd taken the stand as a witness. (I was trying to figure out whether I really needed to watch it; some of these tapes were four or five hours long.) I saw that some guy named Philip Buddemeyer had testified that day. And I thought . . . Buddemeyer, Buddemeyer . . . where have I seen that name before? And I remembered: the map! See his business card up there?
So I thought, hmm . . . lemme check it out. I had low expectations, because how interesting could that possibly be, a city surveyor's testimony. But lo and behold, kind of interesting. Because he's really emphatic. He says Hae's body was nearly impossible to make out. Here's that clip, with a bit of my script afterwards:
These elements were the building blocks of episode 3 of the podcast: documents from the MPIA; archival detective interview tapes; scenes of Justin and me investigating and discovering stuff on our own; and a pinch of trial testimony from the city surveyor. The episode covered a lot of ground, and had a lot of action. And zero interviews with the main characters. Which, again, not a fact I'm proud of. Just a fact.
Every story you do has obstacles of some sort. Things never come together perfectly. So the trick is to consider each obstacle, think through its particular, problematic features, and figure out if there's a workaround.
To hear how the entire episode turned out, you can listen here.
*Photo of Sarah Koenig by Elise Bergerson.
If you want more detailed, nuanced pieces like this one, please . . .
Help Transom get new work and voices to public radio by donating now.


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When it comes to going out to eat with young ones, you may think that the only nuggets that would do are the kind that come in a Happy Meal. Happily (ha) we have found that we can maintain our no-chain rule to dining out even with the twins if we know where to go, and what to do and bring.
Restaurant Checklist
What they should have for an experience that is pleasant for you, the staff, and fellow guests
Noise. It doesn't need to be obnoxiously loud, but a consistent buzz of music and chatter will help avoid stares should/when an outburst occur.
Other families. A good sign that you will be welcome and not glared at.
A changing table. Or I should specify: a clean changing table. This can make or break your experience. There really should be one in both the men and women's restrooms, though this is rarely the case. Just keep engaging the staff at ones that don't have them in each in fun conversations about gender roles, and maybe eventually this will change.
High chairs. Also: clean high chairs.
Your Checklist
What to do/bring to set yourself up for success
Embrace the sleepy stage. New babies usually sleep a lot. Use this to your advantage to enjoy peaceful meals out. We were even able to enjoy nice dinners at our favorite restaurant in those early months.
Embrace lunch. When this stage has passed, lunch has proven easier for a family outing. Bedtimes are not a concern, and you are less likely to interrupt romantic meals. (Although it is more likely you might get to eavesdrop on a Match.com date.)
Bring Supplies. Bring more diapers, wipes and extra clothes than you think they will need.
Bring Food. Same with milk/formula, puffs, etc.
Be adaptable. You may not get to finish your meal, or sit still the whole time and that is okay. You came, you saw, you ate (at least a little. Hopefully).
Become a regular. This is probably what most contributes to an enjoyable time. If your kids are comfortable in a space, you know what to expect. This also means the staff knows your kids, and will greet you warmly. There are a couple of places we go where they have watched them grow from the first time I refused a beer, to us proudly carrying newborns in car seats, to their first go in a highchair. We are lucky that this also comes with perks, such as being handed (without asking) a bag to stash recently vomited on clothes in (thank you Gritty's) to the restaurant owner holding a grumpy child so I could have a few bites in peace (thank you Orchid).
Wishing you happy eating!


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The Berenstain Bears' Trouble with Pets is a funny book about the realities of owning a dog. The cubs ask Mama and Papa if they can get a pet, like other cubs have. Farmer Ben just happens to have some pups he's getting rid of, and offers one as a gift to the cubs.
Mama and Papa talk about all the work that is involved with owning a dog, but the cubs promise that they will do all of the work themselves. Once they get the dog home, they make sure everything is set up for her and she seems to settle right in. At first, the cubs argue over who gets to do things like feed and walk the dog, but soon it turns into arguments over whose turn it isn't. Not only that, but the dog starts to get destructive when she is left inside all day. As a solution, Papa builds a doghouse and fenced area for her out in the yard.
The book doesn't say that she is an outside dog all the time, but it is implied. I'm not crazy about the end of the book because it seems to send the message that you should just send a misbehaving dog outside. It could at least talk about the fact that a bored dog is a destructive dog. Other than that, it's a cute book that does a fair job of talking about the responsibilities in owning a dog.
Until next time…


text: All releases of our game can be downloaded on the projects GitHub page. Follow the link below to download the game. Please note that because this is a prototype, there may be bugs in the game. You will need a computer running Windows 7 or newer with .NET Framework 4.6.2 or higher installed in order to run this program. Earlier releases have also been tested to run on a Raspberry Pi 2 with Mono installed.


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Director Reveals Plot Details: CIA Joins Forces With X-Men, Magneto Like Sean Connery Bond, Professor X A Womanizer
If you're anything like us you generally only like (and sometimes can only tolerate) realistic super-hero films. Granted, men and (sometimes) women running around in tights battling crime or fighting super villains is never "realistic," but the films that can manage to suspend our disbelief the most — "The Dark Knight," "X2" — tend to be our favorites.
So when (again, relatively) more realistic images — characters in street clothes — of Matthew Vaughn's "X-Men: First Class" surfaced recently, we were a a bit relieved considering the early images that had leaked, which Vaughn hated, looked like something out of the cornball "Fantastic Four" films. "Those costumes are hardly in the movie," Vaughn said. "The main costumes are like these cool '60s James Bond [costumes]."
While we love the idea of an early '60s prequel set in the middle of the Cuban missile crisis — which is the backdrop of "X-Men: First Class"; the first comics hit in 1963 — we never really got the Bond thing exactly. Bond? '60s? What does Bond have to do with the "X-Men" series? None of the comics have ever had much of a correlation to that spy franchise, right? Well, in a recent interview with EW, Vaughn detailed a plot point that made the Bond comparison make complete sense (mild spoilers ahead, though the basic synopsis says as much).
"Erik [Magneto] and Charles [Xavier] … meet each other and hook up with the CIA to try and prevent World War III," Vaughn told the magazine about the film's basic story. "You find out everything about what went on between Erik and Charles."
Ahh, the CIA. So presumably this is where the "X-Men" first get their technology, their outfits, their Blackbird jet and gadgets. Alright, this we can hang with and though that element of the story is not in the comics (or at least not the early comics we're familiar with), it seems like a very fitting story arc. Though because the "X-Men" and the government are on the same side during "First Class," presumably somewhere later down the road (by the end of the film? the next one if there is one?), there's some kind of fissure and this allegiance breaks.
"In the beginning of the film, no one knows that mutants exist, and all the mutants don't know that each other exist. They're all in hiding," Vaughn told EW. "Kevin Bacon plays a very megalomaniac mutant [Sebastian Shaw] who decides that he can take over the world and that mutants are the future." Well, that pretty much rules out — as we assumed — any appearance of the villain Apocalypse (the potential of WWIII is the apocalypse, obviously).
So the Bond stuff makes sense. To hear it from Vaughn, it's Micheal Fassbender as Magneto who is really the star of the film — or at least the leader of the group — and less so James McAvoy as Professor X. "I basically molded a young Magneto on a young Sean Connery. He's the ultimate spy — imagine Bond, but with superpowers," he said. "For me, Magneto is the good guy in the film, but he's a sort of a good bad guy. He literally kicks off the movie, and Xavier goes along on the ride trying to figure out what the hell is going on, and trying to persuade Erik that you don't have to kill everyone."
As for Professor Xavier, he's nowhere nears as saintly early on as he is in the series led by director Bryan Singer (now an exec-producer on this new prequel). And Vaughn and the actors really wanted to distance themselves from the films that arrived in the aughts — or at least provide their own stamp — so characters begin in unfamiliar places. "We have to show a journey – so he clearly has to start in a different place," McAvoy told Screenrant recently. "So the main things that we looked into are the fact that he is ego-less, selfless, a very good person, he's sexless – he's sort of like a monk [in the comics and the first "X-Men" films]. We thought of what the opposite of all of those things would be – so now he drinks a lot, chases women quite a lot, and doesn't mind sort of abusing his power to get ahead. He's definitely got an ego, and he's definitely a little bit selfish. So that's where we start with him, and so he's now got to grow towards [the character played by] Patrick Stewart."
And also, finally someone addresses the fact that Vaughn was supposed to direct "X-Men: The Last Stand," but bailed two months before cameras were supposed to roll, essentially because he thought at the time he wasn't going to have enough time to see his vision through — that and the fact that he still felt a little green.
"That's true. It was as simple as that. In retrospect, I probably would have had more time then than I do now, which is highly ironic. But I also have more experience now than I did then. And I had no idea how big-budget filmmaking worked, so I was just applying small-budget independent-style logic to the wrong equation. And when I saw the film, I realized that Fox would have given me all the tools I needed. I was just stupid enough not to take them. But we both decided to cross the bridge together again. I definitely had burned a bridge. But they asked, so we met and we both kissed and made up and went off to make the film."
Oh yeah, and Vaughn says tweens will cotton to the picture too. "It's got a lot of teenage angst. The 'Twilight' girls will like it."
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Sometimes you might believe that a diabetic has a lot more rewards when it comes to nutrition due to the fact they have to be healthy. Coconut sevai recipe aka thengai sevai is a single of the tastiest straightforward tiffin recipes amongst the many South Indian breakfast menu products.Coconut Idiyappam recipe. Another staple and well-liked Indian breakfast delicacy, it is made up of rice paste. Understand how to make poha at residence and discover recipes for poha which make for healthy breakfast products. It's a great issue that healthy straightforward breakfast recipes are now readily accessible.
There are breakfast recipes that are fast, can be produced ahead of time and are simple to take with you. The beauty of the breakfast salad is that most of the dish can be prepared day ahead, refrigerated, and pulled out in the morning. They are super simple to prepare and you can take them with you if you are in a hurry. You will uncover cost-free breakfast recipes for all periods and celebrations throughout the year, catering to various tastes.


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Groovekart Review
Groove Kart Review
This is a groovekart review of the best ecommerce platform created Mike Filsaime and John Cornetta. This ecommerce software helps you to build and import a complete shopify store. Groovekart has more built in features than most other similar software on the market and is considered the best shopify alternative.


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Last week, we hopped a plane to South Carolina to test out the 2015 Cadillac Escalade, the latest version of the luxury SUV that was a star in the early 2000s.
In recent years, changing tastes and stricter fuel economy standards have pushed the industry away from the big and boxy toward sleeker, smaller crossover vehicles.
We drove pre-production versions of the Premium Escalade and Premium Escalade ESV (extended wheelbase), worth roughly $86,000 and $89,000, respectively.
Both are powerful, surprisingly efficient, luxurious, and full of thoughtful touches.
And Cadillac isn't worried about the declining popularity of huge SUVs. While no longer the height of style, the segment is "still healthy and it's still important," communications manager David Caldwell said. There are still wealthy drivers out there who have a taste for luxury and lots of stuff to carry.
Based on what we saw down South, a lot of them will be bringing home a new Escalade in the next year.
Disclosure: Cadillac paid for travel and accommodations for our trip to South Carolina to test the Escalade.


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Happy to admit I spend way too much time on the internet.
Buzzfeed, yeah, I'm looking at you. Damn you and your "40 ways to..."
But when I'm using the internet as a news tool, what becomes key is tailoring your browser to be your partner in social sleuthing: tipping you off to new leads, checking if things add up, and ideally, not crashing regularly.
At a recent training session, after I'd demo'ed best practice for building a high octane browser (points for using a motorsport reference), I was asked to shed some light on what I use and at work and home.
Browser: Google Chrome.
The first thing I install on any machine when I use it. Google's browser wins hands down in the newsroom for many reasons: it's fast, using your Google logon is a boon for staff that hot-desk, but the greatest advantage lies in the extensions and apps a user can add to really build a powerful workspace for monitoring and working with social content.
Here's what I've added to my browser, which using the Google logon I just mentioned, means I have the same tools at my disposal at home and at work.
Chrome App: Tweetdeck for Chrome
In a March blog post, Tweetdeck (owned by Twitter) made it clear where their development priorities lie.
"We think these web and Chrome apps provide the best TweetDeck experience yet, and that they are the apps in which you'll want to see us add new capabilities first, followed closely by our Mac and PC apps."
In fact, features are updated so quickly that I was caught out by new tricks each day of the two day training.
Tweetdeck in my mind is unrivalled as a tool for monitoring Twitter: real time updating, a powerful search tool, and easily moveable columns make it the perfect tool for journalists and producers monitoring a number of different stories across the day.
Here's my current layout, working across from left to right.
- Timeline - the tweets of those that I'm following
- A list of compiled of global breaking news accounts.
- from:abcnews OR from:abcnews24 OR from:breakfastnews - a search pulling together tweets from our main news accounts.
- emergency from:cfa_updates OR from:nswrfs OR from:tasfireservice OR from:dfes_wa OR from:qldfire OR from:cfsalerts OR from:actrfs - a search to monitor emergency bushfire alerts, by scanning the tweets from these accounts for any containing the word
- Mentions of my handle, @moonytweets
- Direct Messages
- @abcnews24 OR #abcnews24 - a search to monitor what our audience is saying about the news channel I work for, ABC News 24.
- #NX lang:en - again, another search, this time to monitor tweets about our social media show News Exchange. I've applied a filter to find only tweets in English, as it's quite a common hashtag.
- Favourites - I use it as a way to flag content (mainly longer articles) I'd like to read later or keep a record of.
Download Tweetdeck as a Chrome app here.
Search by Image (by Google)
One of the first checks I do with images when verifying for broadcast is a reverse image search. In other words, instead of conducting a search for an image, I upload the image to a search engine to see if the image exists already elsewhere. The thought process being that if someone has just taken a photo of a freak storm, it shouldn't be elsewhere on the internet. It should be new content.
Google's Image Search made this super easy. You literally had to drag the picture file into the search field, and Google would look for that image on the web, or like images.
Now, that process got easier with a new Chrome extension, Search by Image (thanks Gary Kemble for the tipoff about this). This allows you to right click an image - on a Twitter page, on a Facebook profile, wherever - and select 'Search Google with this image'.
Google Translate
Website in another language? Never fear, Google Translate is here! While it's not word perfect, and can't translate written text embedded in images, it gives you enough to add to other checks when gauging the authenticity of content.
Download Google Translate for Chrome here.
Awesome Screenshot
Props to my colleague Alex Lee for putting me onto this one. Awesome Screenshot is a quick way to grab a screenshot of anything in your web browser. As a journalist, a very useful tool for getting a record of sensitive content before it might be deleted.
And you can annotate screenshots too - Alex Lee again gets kudos for this artwork.
Download Awesome Screenshot here.
As the name implies, say farewell to ads on websites. Do you need another reason?
Over to you. If you use Chrome, I'd love to hear what extensions and apps do you use daily. Or what web tools help you in your job? Share in the comments below.


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Healthy Eating for Mind and Body [Audio]
Published by Gildan Seminars
- Description
Gale Glassner Twersky, A.C.H., a Top Selling Audio/ Audiobook/ Book Author and Hypnotherapist (since 1999), is a Hypnosis Instructor, Creator of the Reprogramming Hypnosis System/Certification and is the honored recipient of the International Hypnosis Federation "Excellence in Communication" Award.
Following the intro, Gale guides you into a gentle, full body, muscle relaxation that allows for the peaceful hypnotic state of mind. Subsequently, the positive hypnotic guided imagery suggestions reach your subconscious to download your healthy eating program for mind and body.
Dr. Jshanna Simmons, a Naturopath physician has partnered with Gale to produce this healthy eating program.
Your subconscious programming is what ultimately motivates/directs/creates your food choices and eating behaviors. Unfortunately, the subconscious, although serving as your advocate and friend, may make unintended mistakes about your eating habits.
Importantly, the Reprogramming Hypnosis suggestions help you correct those mistakes by deleting and reprogramming them in your computer-like subconscious mind. You also benefit while asleep since your "Suggestible Subconscious" still hears and responds to the suggestions in this audio.
Some added benefits include:
- Practical guidelines for healthy eating and motivation to just do it;
- Tap into your Inner Wisdom to indicate why you sabotage yourself against your will;
- Self-esteem and self-confidence building for successfully attaining your goals;
- Forgiveness for you and for others who hurt you, which automatically releases past hurts;
- Identify emotional eating, learning the tools for reprogramming it;
- Release/ delete your toxic, negative emotions.
Listen to the sample here


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I recently backed a great Kickstarter project, Birth of Sake. Via the Cebu Osani Blog:
The Birth of Saké is a documentary film about the workers and production seasons at Tedorigawa, a fifth-generation, family-owned sake brewery in Ishikawa, Japan. Tedorigawa has been producing some of the world's top award winning sakés since 1870, and still relies on time-honored techniques to hand craft sake in a traditional way.
The sake featured happens to be my favorite brand in Kanazawa. I typically buy it by the case. You can find more information about the Birth of Sake project on Cebu Osani's Kickstarter page.
Additionally, check out the great shorts Eye What You Eat series that creates a vivid imaginary world to showcase popular culinary techniques. The films were created by Cebu Osani, a company founded in 2008 by Erik Shirai, the NYC based Director and Cinematographer. Erik's clients include Subway, Related, Walmart, Travel, Discovery and much more. Check out the Cebu Osani blog here. Follow Cebu Osani's Erik Shirai on Twitter via @iamwhatieatTV
BTW, the Deep Fry video gives you a whole new appreciation for chicken karaage. Other Eye What You Eat videos are shown below:


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Welcome to Green Hills Handyman
With today's busy lifestyle, the last thing you want to do when you get home is fix a leaky faucet or waste your weekend trying to paint the living room. It's tough enough just getting the kids to school, practice & music lessons, or the dog to the kennel before your trip out of town. Green Hills Handyman understands this and has more than 30 years of experience and knowledge in the area of home repair & maintenance: we are in the business of helping you love your home again. Our craftsmen are professional, reliable, and respectful of your home and its contents, which are invaluable.
Green Hills Handyman is a division of Broderick Builders, Inc., "The Remodeling Specialists." In the course of 33+ years of remodeling some of the finest homes in Nashville, Tennessee, our clients have requested everything from designing and constructing a one-million-dollar home addition to changing a light bulb. We have the expertise to get it all done; however, we now realize that the light bulb change can be as important to one client as the major home addition is to another. Unfortunately, most contractors & handymen never see it this way.
Green Hills Handyman can handle any wants or needs you have with regard to your home. (We can also handle repairs, maintenance, and addition work at your office!) Whether you want a small bathroom updated, need a ceiling fan installed, or simply require a floodlight to be replaced, we will be there for you. Many homeowners have an ongoing list of things they would like to have repaired or installed at home -- a perpetual list that tends to keep on growing and from which items are rarely checked off as completed! We would love to help you check a few items off this list, so please take a look at our Services page for a few examples of the tasks we frequently perform and jobs that we commonly handle for our valued clients.
Feel free to email us at email@example.com with any questions you might have; we want to help.


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Anthony Hart
Bowie High Bowie, MD Class of 2010
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Join us weekly for Sunday Worship
Summer worship hour: 9:30am
Nursery Care and Sunday School are available for
children of all ages during the service
What to Expect
Every Sunday we seek to honor and glorify God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in a service that mixes both traditional and contemporary styles. Dress is casual, and all are welcome.
We are located near Lynch Park in the historic, oceanside Beverly Cove, on the corner of Corning and Hale Streets
Children & Youth
Check out what's happening with Children & Youth events at Church in the Cove


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If food enhanced by wine (or vice-versa) is your thing, you will fit in just fine at AhSo. What we call "Micro Wine Dinners," a small, themed tasting menu with beverage pairings that can be enjoyed by as few as two guests or an entire table, will always be on the menu. This allows us to really take advantage of the products we source, as well as the great wines the world has to offer.
Drawing on the experiences and passions that Chef Jason Maddens has gathered over the years, AhSo is a...+ More
Things change often at AhSo -- we get bored quick! We source locally and base our menu on what the earth is providing us. Your dinner will most likely be different than your last one with us. If...+ More
You have selected to book a table for a party of 7-12. For parties of 12 or more or special events, please contact us at: [email protected].
Please note that this reservation requires a $5...+ More
Brunch at Ahso means a few reimagined brunch classics, along with some lunch staples and some great Brunch cocktails!
You are booking a reservation for 6 people or less. For parties of 7-14...+ More
Brunch at Ahso means a few reimagined brunch classics, along with some lunch staples and some great Brunch cocktails!
You are booking a reservation for a party of 7-14 for Sunday Brunch. For a...+ More
Come see what Lunch is all about! We're taking our standard upscale bistro-locally sourced-chef driven-emphasis on beverage pairing tendencies and applying them to the lunch hour!
If you are interested in learning more about our offerings, please fill out the request form and we will contact you to discuss details.


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The Wayfarer creative team is off to the Atlanta area today to meet with the North American Mission Board's student evangelism team. We've worked over the past three years with NAMB on evangelism-training curriculum for their PowerPlant church-planting camps as well as curriculum for the Connect evangelism initiative for students.
We're meeting with the NAMB team, including Chad Childress, Jonathan Wilson, and John Bailey, as we think and dream about ways Wayfarer can help NAMB's student initiatives develop more synergy in how they present their themes. We're excited to get to see our friends at NAMB and think about ways we can continue to partner together in the future.


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'I want a divorce!'
Nicole's cry hung in the air as she slammed out of the house. She flung herself into the driver's seat of her car, an Audi TT parked adjacent to its twin. After substantial and unnecessary, but therapeutic revving, the car shot out onto the road as Tom appeared at the front door, shouting something Nicole couldn't and didn't want to hear.
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The conservative management of a musculoskeletal injury should include a multi-modal treatment program that may include chiropractic care and physiotherapy to address different aspects of the injury. The initial treatment approach involves pain management and preventing further damage to the injured structures and tissues. This part of the treatment program may give the patient a pain-free period while able to return to activities of daily living. However, the rehabilitation exercises in the later part of the treatment program are needed so that the patient is able to return more aggressive sports injury and to prevent reoccurrence of the same condition.
Rehabilitation is necessary after musculoskeletal injuries and post-surgery. Rehabilitation allows a patient or athlete to return to aggressive activities of daily living or sports with full function in the shortest possible time. If rehabilitation after a musculoskeletal injury is not done properly, the damaged site may be re-injured again easily. Other than that, the joints or soft tissues adjacent to the damaged site are at a higher risk of injury as the patient may compensate with other parts of the body to perform the activities. An athlete may not be performing at his or her best state or even may not be able to perform at his or hers pre-injury standard.
Spinercise is a device designed specifically for musculoskeletal rehabilitation, especially for lower back and knee injuries. Spinercise helps to strengthen the specific muscles required to provide stability to the joints.


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'Elvis Romero and the Cosmic White Corvette': Meeting the Sun God
A serialized novel and podcast by Andrew Leo Lovato
Chapter One
I was born in 1955 at the La Casita Clinic under the watchful eyes of Catholic Nuns who, in addition to providing medical care for the working people of Santa Fe, were also skilled midwives.
As soon as I entered this world, my mother set her eyes on me and let out a loud laugh despite her weariness. She immediately jettisoned all of the proper Catholic names she had considered and christened me "Elvis" after she caught sight of the abundant mane of wavy black hair I emerged with.
My earliest memory in life is also probably one of my most profound. It's shaped the way I see the world and how I think about who I am. It was not a dramatic event or even particularly interesting by most standards. In fact it is one of the most mundane experiences imaginable but when it happened to me, I was transformed and it opened my infant eyes to the vast possibilities of my soul. So you may ask, what was this grand occurrence? Simply put, my mother placed my tiny, ten-day-old, naked body outside in the sun.
Let me explain as clearly as I can. You see, I can recreate that day vividly in my mind, so much so that it truly seems like it happened only recently. As I reminisce back through the ethers of the decades this is what floats back to me:
I lay dozing on clean, white sheets on a cool summer morning with a soft breeze whispering through an open bedroom window. My belly was full and I felt content after drinking my fill at my mother's breast. I lingered blissfully in that netherworld between sleep and consciousness trying to focus my untrained eyes on the light and dark shapes around me. The sweet perfume of my mother's skin hung comfortingly in the air. I felt her strong, warm hands slide under my head and the small of my back and gently lift me to her body. She carried me from the bedroom and we headed out toward our small front yard in the old, barrio section of the city. She placed a soft, white cotton blanket on the earth and lowered me down in the middle. Carefully and deliberately she removed my bedclothes and for the first time in my brief existence, I felt the overwhelming sensation of the rays of the sun pouring down on me. I began to vibrate with a glowing, radiant energy. My little heart expanded within my chest and I was filled with a feeling of indescribable joy and wholeness. Beneath my tightly shut eyelids a shimmering, golden face appeared and gazed down upon me with limitless love and compassion. A celestial memory from another realm and era emerged in me and I intuitively recognized the features of the Sun God. My benefactor, my source of being, and my eternal Father was once again looking over me to protect and nurture me through another lifetime.
I was too new (or not old enough) to the planet to know the names Ra, Apollo, or Osiris but like worshippers from past civilizations, I felt the power and illumination in his spirit and I shared the same conviction with these devotees that he was the source of life and vitality for me and all living beings. Whenever I felt the pangs of pain or sorrow as a young boy, I would close my eyes and conjure the image of the Sun God in my inner mind and the fear, stomach upset, or other distresses that I was experiencing would melt away with the power of the beneficent glow that healed me from within.
My mom and dad knew nothing of the strange pagan stirrings that coursed through my youthful psyche. They were more focused on the outer, material world. My dad's pride and joy in life besides his little family was a 1954 polo white, convertible Chevy Corvette straight-6, 155 horse-powered blue flame engine. It sported a black soft top, deep red seats and dash, whitewalls, and a power-glide transmission. He fell in love with the car after he had seen it in Hot Rod magazine when he returned from the Army. He took half of his G.I. Bill money and put it toward a down payment on a house and he used the other half for his dream car. He owned one of only 3,265 Corvettes made that year, selling at a base price of $2,774.
Gilbert and Evelyn were engaged soon after he returned home from Fort Hood Army Base in Texas after the Korean War. Fortunately, he was never called up for active combat but instead he remained at Fort Hood in his position as a Mail Specialist.
Evelyn knew better than to stand between Gilbert and his fantasy car even though there were more immediate practical concerns that the cash could have addressed. She knew that fulfilling dreams and passions were a vital part of a good husband's psychological make-up just as much as sacrifice and responsibility were; and her instincts were right. He was satisfied with this one-time indulgence and never again gave a thought to his own desires before considering the needs of Evelyn and his future family.
She never forgot the day that the Corvette arrived at the auto dealer's after a six-month wait. With a beaming face, Gilbert opened Evelyn's passenger-side door and gently kissed her on the forehead before proudly strolling around to the other side and settling into the driver's seat with a satisfied sigh.
"Mi amor, how does it feel to be sitting in the most beautiful car in Santa Fe next to the handsomest man?"
She threw back her head and laughed, her black locks shining in the sunlight, "Well at least you've got it right about being in the most beautiful car," she teased.
Gilbert snorted in feigned rejection and turned the key and the magnificent machine came to life.
"Chingada babe, listen to the sound of that motor purring!"
"Watch your mouth, Gilbert," Evelyn scolded but her voice was full of excitement.
They cruised slowly through downtown Santa Fe and then headed down Cerrillos Road. A clean, cool breeze fanned their faces as Gilbert smiled widely and waved to everyone he saw. He was like a boy on Christmas morning.
"Listen Ev, what a firme engine! Feel how smooth the transmission shifts and check out the steering, it's like butter!"
He cranked the hi-fi radio up and they sailed down the road with The Crew Cuts singing "Sh-Boom" on that magical afternoon.
They stopped for a milk shake at the Dairy Queen and all of the teenage vatos who were hanging out that Saturday afternoon gathered around and whistled and touched the car gingerly before wiping off their fingerprints with their tee-shirts. They looked at Gilbert as if he were a movie star like James Dean and made comments like:
"Hombre, cool ride! "
"Vato, you got to take us for a cruise sometime."
"Carnal, if you ever need someone to wash your chariot, let me know, no charge."
He reveled in the admiration and his newly acquired sense of abundance and status. Although the car had cost a pretty penny, Evelyn treasured the sight of Gilbert as happy as she had ever seen him.
Eventually, they made their way to Gilbert's parent's house where his brothers and sisters were anxiously awaiting his arrival and soon the whole scene began again. Only this time, it was even more auspicious as the whole neighborhood congregated to celebrate his great fortune.
The only voice of reason came from Gilbert's mother who warned, "This doesn't mean you can go tearing around town like a bat out of hell. Don't start acting like some kind of big shot."
He smiled and nodded his head sheepishly as he walked over to his mom and gave her a hug. She relaxed, knowing she had done her duty and the celebration went on.
Everyone had to climb into the driver's seat and clasp their hands on the leather-covered steering wheel. They marveled at the sound quality of the radio, and Gilbert's younger brother Tony made a joke that Evelyn didn't appreciate;
"Hermana, you're going to have to keep a closer eye on Gilbert now that all the girls see him cruising down the street in his chick magnet."
Finally, the day drew to a close and even Gilbert was weary of all the attention. He carefully parked the Corvette in his parent's garage, preferring to keep it there rather than in front of their casita across town. He continued to do this for a couple of weeks until the inconvenience became too much and he began to trust his car to the open air. When Gilbert and Evelyn eventually bought their own house, one of the sections that he focused special attention on was the garage that sheltered his precious ride.
In future years after my brother and I were born, our family always looked forward to our Sunday afternoon drives in the "vettie" as my brother Angelo called it. Since the corvette only had two seats, my mom had to hold little Angelo on her lap while I straddled the hump between the two front seats as we drove.
I always asked my dad the same question whenever we were out for a cruise, "Dad, can I drive?"
He would respond, "So Elvis, you think you're fuerte enough to handle a Corvette?"
I knew this was my cue to pull up my sleeve and cock my right arm while making a fist, to show him my tiny bicep. He would run his finger over it, whistle in admiration and comment to my mom, "This boy of ours is built like an adobe house. I bet he's going to be a heavyweight champion someday."
I basked in his praise and hopped on his lap, my little brown hands gripping the steering wheel as we rolled down the street.
In the early 1960's there were no seat belt laws enforced in Santa Fe and there were few cars on the road to worry about. We loved to drive all afternoon, waving at friends on the Plaza or in their front yards. Dad marveled at all the new tract houses that were going up courtesy of the G.I. Bill and the Baby Boom.
We always topped off our Sunday rides with a visit to 31 Flavors ice cream parlor. Angelo and I took an infinite amount of time peering through the glass panels at the buckets of ice cream with names like Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl, Dulce de Leche, and Peaches and Cream.
In desperation, my mom demanded, "You locos make up your minds before the ice cream melts in the buckets."
Inevitably, Angelo and I coveted the flavor that the other one chose and we ended up swapping. We sat in one of the porcelain table nooks and watched the sun sink in the dwindling afternoon. We were content and happy, perhaps with limited resources but with limited desires as well.
I came to love the Corvette as much as my father did. In the evenings after I'd finished my homework, I wandered into to the garage and sat in the Corvette caressing the steering wheel in the dark, taking in the magical sounds of rock n' roll on the dashboard radio and dreaming about the day when I had my own Corvette and people looked up to me in the same way they did my dad.
As a kid, I remember watching the men on Cerro Gordo Street congregating outside their homes on warm summer nights, huddled around transistor radios listening as heavyweight champ, Cassius Clay knocked out one seemingly invincible foe after another. They loved him not only because he was a great fighter, but because he had so much style. He was a champion of the people, Chicanos included.
They loved the clever things he said to Howard Cosell after his victories like "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee," or "When you're as great as I am, it's hard to be humble."
That Cassius Clay had real "cojones."
Everybody was also excited about the new, young President that was elected in 1960. John F. Kennedy spoke about equality and opportunity for all Americans. There was something about him and his beautiful wife, Jackie that you could trust. He had kids running around the White House just like regular folks and to top it all off, he was a Catholic. Yes, things looked pretty hopeful for awhile.
Of course, it all came to a screeching halt on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas. There was talk at school that somebody had tried to shoot the President. When I arrived home, my mom and some neighbors were transfixed on our twelve-inch black and white TV.
Mrs. Aranda from next door was weeping and exclaimed, "Sin veguenza, Mis Dios, what is this world coming to?"
The TV announcer, Walter Cronkite was crying too as he took off his thick, black-framed glasses, rubbed his temple and croaked out that President Kennedy was dead.
Over the next few days as the terrible drama unfolded, my family and I sat glued in front of the television. It finally ended with our hero, along with what seemed like our innocence being buried in Arlington Cemetery.
My young psyche was forever changed by these events. I began to understand that there might be evil in the world and as well as sunlight, there existed shadows. On the night President Kennedy was assassinated, for the first time in my life, I was afraid of the dark. The black outside my bedroom window was suddenly ominous like there was a sinister presence lurking. I pulled the covers over my head and fell into a troubled sleep. These events and others taking place in the larger world had a profound influence on me and all of the kids growing up in my little town.
You could say that my childhood was pretty typical for a Santa Fe muchacho. Aside from going to school, my best friend Rudy and I spent most of our time riding our bikes with high handle bars and banana seats around the narrow, winding streets of the city until the sun went down.
There was a belief amongst the adults that the children were being looked after by everyone in the community. Santa Fe was a safe place to grow up in and bad things only happened in places far away. The grown-ups possessed a sense of fatalism that provided a certain perspective when the occasional tragic event did occur such as a child being hit by a car or dying young due to an unfortunate disease. The good people of Santa Fe believed that it was all part of God's plan and even though some things were hard to comprehend, God had a greater purpose for everything that happened in the world. Perhaps a child was being called to heaven because there weren't enough angels or the beloved's passing was a lesson to the living about the transitory nature of life and how important it was to appreciate every day to its fullest.
These attitudes served to give the children in our town a great deal of freedom. We knew few boundaries as we cut across yards and parking lots in marauding gangs of shiny bikes. We had playing cards attached with clothes pins to the spokes of our tires. They produced a deafening clicking noise that sounded like an invasion of motorcycle outlaws descending on the quiet neighborhoods.
Rudy and I were especially fond of riding our bikes after the thunderstorms that blessed the town during the summer months. The day often began with glorious sunshine and as the morning progressed, big, billowing clouds formed and turned darker. By about one or two o'clock in the afternoon, the thunder rumbled in the distance and soon the skies let loose with torrents of cold rain that lasted for about thirty minutes before the clouds scattered and bright, yellow sunshine returned. This pattern repeated itself almost every day during the months of July and August, the time of the year that Santa Fe folks called the monsoon season.
After it rained, streets filled with small puddles of water that evaporated quickly. But before they disappeared, we'd hop on our bikes and hit the pavement. It was great fun splashing through the rainbow-colored pools that were formed by a mixture of rain water and car oil running down the street gutters. Riding directly through the puddles, we sent streams of iridescent droplets out from both sides of our tires.
"Ala Mocina, Rudy watch out!" I laughed as I rammed through a puddle of standing water, spraying him from head to toe.
"Jodido!" he shot back at me as he clipped my back tire sending me skidding to the pavement.
The showers were not only a treat for our eyes but equally for our noses. There was no smell as intoxicating as that of rain soaking into the brown earth. Sometimes if the rain was particularly intense and lasted long enough, the dry arroyos suddenly filled with torrents of rushing brown water and we'd stand on the banks watching in awe as the abundant tides flowed through our normally parched city.
Continue to Chapter 2: "Hunting La Llarona"
You've been reading from the book, Elvis Romero and the Cosmic White Corvette by Andrew Leo Lovato © 2012. Please join me for the next chapter of Elvis Romero's life and times at SantaFe.com. Until then, Buenos Días!


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Peter Scardino on A Century of Progress in Urologic Cancers 1915-2015 - MSKCC
Peter Scardino, Chair, Department of Surgery; David H. Koch Chair, shares the illustrious history of urologic oncology at MSKCC and discusses the upcoming Memorial Sloan Kettering Centennial Conference, Modern Management of Urologic Cancers: A Multidisciplinary Approach.
Thomas Keane interviews Peter Scardino about the contrubtions and accomplishments to the field of urologic oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Scardino shares that the specialty of urologic oncology in this country began at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center under the leadership of Willet F. Whitmore, Jr. Known as the "father of urologic oncology," Dr. Whitmore was named Chief of Urology in 1951 and served for more than 30 years. He had superb surgical skills, a brilliant understanding of the biology and natural history of genitourinary cancers, and a remarkable teaching ability. Dr. Whitmore initiated the first fellowship program specializing in urologic oncology, which attracted many leading young urologists to train as fellows at Memorial Hospital.
He went on to say that when Dr. Whitmore retired in 1984, William R. Fair was appointed Chief of Urology, and he expanded the scope of the fellowship to include a program of basic research within the Urology Service.
We note that Peter T. Scardino was appointed Chief of the Urology Service in 1998 and was awarded an NCI T32 research training grant in 1999, which has been continually funded. The T32 award cemented our commitment to training future generations of physician-scientists to conduct translational research in urologic oncology. James A. Eastham was appointed Chief of the Urology Service in 2009.
Dr. Scardino tells us that over the past 50 years Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center has trained more than 200 graduate urologists from around the world as fellows in urologic oncology. Many of the world's leaders in this specialty, who have contributed immensely to the field, have studied here. See all former fellows from the program.


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Photographed by Erin Yamagata.
You've figured out by now that most of us here at Refinery29 are proud lazy girls with the collective goal of looking as fabulous as possible with the least amount of time and energy spent. Of course, we love our pretty primpers, but we've also got better things to do than take three hours to paint our faces.
Lucky for us, pro makeup artist Benjamin Puckey knows a thing or two about getting a major beauty return on a minimal time/effort investment. First up: Faking perfect skin — fast. The key to smoothing things out on the fly? Skip the foundation altogether, and work with a thick concealer, like Laura Mercier Secret Camouflage, and a dense natural-bristle brush, such as Shu Uemura's Kolinsky Brush 11. "The combination of a dense natural-bristled brush and a full-coverage concealer works well, because this kind of brush deposits a finer layer of concealer than a synthetic brush." The result is flawless-looking skin and less spackle on your mug.
Another beauty move that gives you major bang for your buck — er, time: highlighter. "When you're in a rush and you look tired, a Champagne or gold highlighter is the way to go," explains Puckey. "It instantly makes you look fresher and more awake." Simply use your fingers to apply a cream highlighter above your brows, on your eyelids, to the inner corners of the eyes, along the cheekbones, and at the cupid's bow. (Puckey likes Jouer's version, which comes in three shades.)
Brows might be the last thing you feel like dealing with when you're in a rush, but, as Puckey points out, that's 20 seconds that will totally transform your visage. "When you're in a rush, grab an automatic (no sharpening!) brow pencil, such as my favorite Expressioniste brow pencil by Surratt; draw feathery strokes to fill in any sparse areas; and fix your brows in place with a clear brow gel." Puckey also swears by another Surratt favorite, the Smoky Eye Baton, to create a superfast smoky eye. "Line your eyes with the pencil, smudge, and then use the sponge-tip applicator on the other side, which is already dipped into shimmery smoky shadow, to add extra drama." Don't sweat it if you go overboard with the smoke, though — simply use your Champagne highlighter to soften any hard lines.
To finish off your lazy-but-still-lovely look, Puckey recommends a DIY lip stain. "Simply apply a dark berry shade, and press your lips together to absorb the excess color. Blot the excess, and either add a layer of translucent powder or a bit of lip balm, depending on the look you're going for." See? Who needs fussy brushes and annoying lip liners? You'll have a perfect pout that will last all day — plus, now you've got the time to grab your almond-milk latte in the morning. That, friends, is called #winningatbeauty.
Like this post? There's more. Get tons of beauty tips, tutorials, and news on the Refinery29 Beauty Facebook page!


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Triple Dresser
Product Description
The beautiful piece has 9 drawers embellished with graceful woodwork and hardware. The style of this chest is very popular, with custom hardware influenced by items in the Louis XVl Room and the garland design on the fireplace in the Raphael Room in Biltmore House. It was also designed to pay tribute to the feminine side of Biltmore, influenced by Edith Vanderbilt's taste.
Product Specifications
- Style: 1340-950, Vanderbilt Finish
- 70W x 20½D x 40½H
- Nine drawers
- One felt-lined jewelry tray
- Crafted exclusively for Biltmore by Fine Furniture Design


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UK: Government "gets" auto industry as Europe looks across Channel: SMMT
UK automotive body, the SMMT, says the UK government "gets it" when it comes to supporting the British motor industry as the sector continues to ride a wave of optimism.
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text: If you would like to test your code breaking skills, I can recommend a great web page by Elonka Dunin. It contains a large list of unsolved riddles in crypto history. If you can find a solution to any of these mystery's, you'll get famous in crypto world, and maybe even rich too! Let me know when you solved them all. Check out Elonk's nice blog also.


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Westcliffe House is a beautiful Country House that has been lovingly converted into stunning, luxury holiday homes. Nestled high above the Village of Rothbury and set in 2.5 acres of grounds, Westcliffe House offers some of the most spectacular views in Northumberland. Our five pet friendly, self catering holiday homes are furnished to the highest standard and offer the perfect base from which to explore all that Northumberland has to offer.
Cheviot View, Coquet View and River View are all at the front of the House and are South facing, with those stunning vistas out of almost every window. Who could resist waking up to those outstanding countryside views? Most of our guest comments include the phrase 'we didn't need the TV on' with so much wildlife to sit and watch from Roe Deer to Red Squirrels, Pheasants and an array of birds. All the patios are South-facing as well, so you can enjoy the sunshine almost all day long looking out over the tiered lawns into the Coquet Valley. Bluebell Cottage and Poppies are tucked away at the back of the main house and offers privacy, peace and quiet, with it's own charming countryside views.
The 2.5 acre grounds are maintained, planted, watered and manicured by myself, a labour of love that keeps the flowers and plants in bloom all year round (and keeps me fit!). We're more than happy to offer advice on where to go, where to eat or anything else you might like to know about the local area. We're so passionate about Northumberland we've even written a guide about it! You may have heard of the Your Northumberland Guide website, it's the most comprehensive independent online guide to the County and when you stay with us you'll benefit from all this local knowledge. A free copy of our Rothbury Area Guide is waiting for you in your holiday home, or we can email it to you in advance to help you plan your break.
We're very proud of our holiday homes, every one of our properties is rated 5 stars on Tripadvisor! We know and understand that your holiday time is sacred and we do all that we can to make sure that you have everything you need for the perfect break.


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Here's a recent post by Larry Hurtado on the Son of Man material in the NT.
"The Son of Man": An Obsolete Phantom
by larryhurtado
In recent comments, some have pointed to scholars who have posited that when Jesus used the expression "the son of man" he was referring to some other, future figure, not himself. This is a view that once was quite widely shared, and so will be found frequently in older commentaries and studies, and may still be found from scholars who haven't kept abreast of analysis of the evidence over the last several decades.
The reason that it no longer has the same appeal is that this view rested on the accompanying and likewise once widely-held assumption that "the Son of Man" was a well-known title for an eschatological redeemer figure, a heavenly being who supposedly was expected widely in second-temple Jewish tradition. So, on this assumption, when Jesus spoke of "the son of man," he obviously couldn't have been referring to himself as an earthly/mortal man. Indeed, so the assumption went, when he used the expression everyone then would have recognized that he was referring to this supposed other/future figure, for (to reiterate the crucial assumption) "the Son of Man" was supposedly a well-known appelative for this heavenly redeemer being.
But at least from the 1970s onward, it has become increasingly widely granted that, in fact, there is no evidence for the supposed use of "the son of man" as a fixed title for any figure in second-temple Jewish tradition.[1] There are texts that describe a heavenly being who will come and lead God's people in triumph, such as the Melchizedek figure in the Qumran text, 11QMelchizedek. But he's called "Melchizedek," not "the son of man"! And it appears that some expected the archangel Michael to serve in this role, but he too isn't ever referred to by the title "the Son of Man." As for the messianic figure of the Parables of 1 Enoch, I've repeatedly reminded readers that there too we don't actually have "the son of man" as a fixed title for this figure (e.g., here). (The English translations all too typically mislead readers by rendering several Ethiopic expressions used in the Parables by this one fixed translation.)
So, "the Son of Man" wasn't actually a familiar title for a well-known eschatological redeemer being/figure in second-temple Judaism.[2] And so when Jesus used the expression he can't have been referring to a figure using a title that people would have readily recognized as designating some other, future eschatological redeemer. You see? The crucial basis for taking Jesus' use of the expression as referring to some other figure was washed away. So the consequent structure built on that basis cannot continue to stand.We are left, thus, with what is rather clearly how the Evangelists read and intended the expression: a peculiar self-designation idiom used in the Gospels only by Jesus (some 80x). A "son of man" is, of course, an idiomatic way of designating a human being in ancient Semitic languages (Hebrew & Aramaic), and "sons of man" the plural equivalent. But the particularizing forms in Greek (ο υιος του ανθρωπου), or Aramaic (בר אנשא), or Hebrew (בנ האדם) are hard to find. So "the son of man" seems to have been something of a linguistic innovation, and would have had the sense of "the/this son of man" (in particular). All of the Gospel sayings where Jesus is portrayed using the expression are easily read as sentences where he simply refers to himself, making this or that statement about himself under this peculiar phrase. There is neither need nor (more importantly) any evidential basis for taking the expression as referring to some other/future figure. The expression "the son of man" itself simply has this particularizing force, isn't a title, and didn't carry any automatic referential force. It is the sentences in which it is used that make any statement about "the son of man," and in each case the statement says something about Jesus.
[1] Among early and crucial studies were Geza Vermes, "The Use of Bar Nasha/Bar Nash in Jewish Aramaic," in An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts, by Matthew Black (3rd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), 310-30; Ragnar Leivestad, "Exit the Apocalyptic Son of Man," New Testament Studies 18 (1971): 243-67. On the various linguistic issues and texts, see now the multi-author volume, Larry W. Hurtado and Paul L. Owen (eds.), 'Who Is This Son of Man?' The Latest Scholarship on a Puzzling Expression of the Historical Jesus (London: T&T Clark, 2011).
[2] Cf. John J. Collins, "The Son of man in First-Century Judaism," New Testament Studies 38(1992): 448-66, who argues that there, though "the Son of Man" was not a fixed title there was a "concept" associated with the figure of Daniel 7:13-14. Quite possibly so. But the crucial point is that Jesus' use of "the son of man" didn't reflect some supposedly recognized title. A crucial early study of how the Daniel 7 figure was treated in ancient Jewish tradition is Maurice Casey, Son of Man: The Interpretation and Influence of Daniel 7 (London: SPCK, 1979).