text:
Adam Gopnik
Paul Cézanne
Voltaire, like God, whom he patronized, is always there. "No authors ever had so much fame in their own life-time as Pope and Voltaire," Dr. Johnson dogmatized in the late eighteenth century, and though Pope still sings for those with ears to hear him, Voltaire still squabbles, a more lifelike sound, and does it everywhere. On the Op-Ed page of the Times, he can ornament Paul Krugman or offend William Safire, and he is fun to read about, no matter what he is doing. In fact, he is most fun to read about when what he is doing is doing good, since he does good without being pious, an unusual mixture. For all that he was a mad egomaniac and an unabashed self-promoter, he remains matchlessly entertaining company, incapable of either shame or shoddy thinking.
There are at least three distinct Voltaires. First is the scandalous Voltaire, who by the seventeen-twenties had become the leading controversialist in France, with a series of topically loaded plays and poems, only to be thrown into the Bastille twice for being generally annoying, and in 1726 get exiled to England, where he absorbed and wrote about English learning and English parliamentary institutions. Next, there is the scientific Voltaire, who returned to France in 1728 and eventually became the lover and disciple of the brilliant Mme. Châtelet, and who, closeted with her at her Château de Cire, wrote on math and science and did more than almost anyone else to bring the news of Newtonian physics to Europe. Then, from the seventeen-fifties until his death, in 1778, there is the socially conscious Voltaire, the Voltaire who became one of the first human-rights campaigners in Europe, and whose determination to remake the world one soul at a time W. H. Auden could still idealize in 1939, in his poem "Voltaire at Ferney." ("And still all over Europe stood the horrible nurses / Itching to boil their children. Only his verses / Perhaps could stop them: He must go on working.")
Although no single volume in English does justice to all the Voltaires, the second, scientific Voltaire, at least, inspired one of the most blissfully entertaining books in the language, Nancy Mitford's 1954 "Voltaire in Love," an account of his great affair with Mme. Châtelet and of their joint introduction to the pleasures of sex and calculus. It is de rigueur to dismiss Mitford as a reckless amateur who, as someone said, made the Enlightenment philosophes into members of her family. But they were members of her family—or more like them than they were like the kind of responsible, well-read, judicious dons, offering syntheses of current thought, beloved of academic historians. Voltaire spent his life with society people and show people, and lived in terror of boredom, not inconsistency. Mitford understands Voltaire's mixture of bad faith, irascible egotism, genuine altruism, and sporadic courage, all played out in an atmosphere of petty literary politicking—in part because the type remains intact in France to this day.
Ian Davidson, a longtime correspondent for the Financial Times, has, in his new book, "Voltaire in Exile" (Grove; $24), taken on the story of the last Voltaire. This Voltaire evolves out of the two others; in fact, they are still right there. The old, good Voltaire was exactly the same man as the young rascal, and the rascality fuelled the goodness with energy and mischief. Yet the transformation is complete: in 1753, at the beginning of Davidson's story, Voltaire was, in contemporary terms, like Michael Moore and Susan Sontag all mixed up: a provocateur who was also a universal literary celebrity. By the end, he was more like a cross between Andrei Sakharov and Mr. Toad of Toad Hall—a conceited grand bourgeois with a big house who was also one of the first dissidents, embodying a whole alternative set of values, and who came to be treated even by the government almost as an independent state within a state. How this came about, and without any Tolstoyan repentance or self-remaking, is one of the great stories of literary evolution.
Davidson tells it well, too. In 1753, Voltaire was in flight from Frederick the Great, of Prussia, who had taken him in as a kind of house philosopher at Potsdam. Voltaire may have imagined that he would rule hand in hand, philosopher and king, but soon discovered that he was there merely as an exotic intellectual toy. ("We shall squeeze the orange," Frederick had said, secretly, "then, when we have swallowed the juice, we shall throw it away.") Even after the falling-out with Frederick, Voltaire knew that he had some big guns on his side. The foreign minister of France, the Duke de Choiseul, was a fan, as was Mme. Pompadour, the King's mistress, not to mention the Empress of Russia. He was also, luckily, very rich, in no small part because of his participation in a bizarre swindle devised by a mathematician friend, who, back in 1728, realized that the French government had authorized a lottery in which the prize was much greater than the collective cost of the tickets. He and Voltaire formed a syndicate, collected all the money, and became moneylenders to the great houses of Europe.
During his escape from Frederick, Voltaire first thought of going back to France, which he loved as only Frenchmen who have been away from it can. But a message from his old friend Mme. Pompadour confirmed the stunning news that the King had exiled him and forbidden him to return. (This turned out to be not quite true; the old man had probably said something merely pettish, like "Tell him to stay away!") The terms of his exile were unclear, but Voltaire decided to move someplace close enough to feel like France and far enough away to keep him out of the official grip. He chose Geneva, which was then a small, suspicious Calvinist Protestant city-state. Through the good offices of a prominent Geneva friend, he found, and managed to rent, a small estate. He moved in with his new love, Mme. Denis, and renamed the villa Les Délices, the Delights. Although it was his later, sister retreat at Ferney that became legendary (he moved there in 1765, after a series of feuds with the Calvinist authorities in Geneva), it was his escape to Les Délices that marked a new epoch in his life.
Voltaire's work, to this point, consisted essentially of a mass of journalism, essays, poems, potted, vivid histories, and historical plays all pulled together in the public imagination by a single strong personality. The "philosophy" that ran through it, though allergic to sectarian piety, was still officially Deist—partly because this was insurance against accusations of atheism, partly because, in a slightly condescending spirit, Voltaire was in favor of a benign, supervisory God in the way that British leftists used to be in favor of the Queen, or in the way that Yankee free agents are in favor of Joe Torre; it's nice to think that someone genial is overseeing things. But there doesn't seem to be any evidence that he actually believed, with any intensity or appetite, in "spiritual" experience, or found the sense of God's presence even momentarily engaging. But then Voltaire was never exactly a "philosopher" in the conventional sense; his philosophy is almost always a moral instinct rendered as a dramatic gesture, rather than consecutive thoughts turned into a logical argument. As with Victor Hugo and Zola, his moral instincts were so good that we still intellectualize the dramatic gestures they became.
He quickly turned his exile into a desirable condition—a version of the ancient Horatian ideal of escape from the corrupting city into a small enclosed country house. Pope had done the same thing when he built his grotto at his little house in Twickenham, and wrote about it as enthusiastically. Yet Pope's grotto is playful, an obvious mock hermitage. Voltaire's ideas were far more bourgeois; he wanted to play host to as many people as he could, and to build the sweetest garden he could, and, after renting the villa, he started shopping like Martha Stewart newly freed from prison.
There are few more premonitory or touching documents than Voltaire's shopping lists. He demanded green olive oil, eight wing armchairs, rosewood commodes, and furniture covers in red morocco. He hired two master gardeners, twenty workmen, and twelve servants. He ordered the best coffee and crate after crate of wine (though, odd reminder of another time, he drank his Burgundies and laid down his Beaujolais). He decided to paint the trellises green, the tiles red, and the doors either white or "a fine yellow." He wrote to his agent asking for "artichoke bulbs and as much as possible of lavender, thyme, rosemary, mint, basil, rue strawberry bushes, pinks, thadicee, balm, tarragon, sariette, burnet, sage and hyssop to cleanse our sins, etc." When he wrote that it was our duty to cultivate our garden, he really knew what it meant to cultivate a garden.
It was a garden with a principle. It represented what he saw as a new, French ideal of domestic happiness, windows wide and doors open, "simplicity" itself. "We have finally come to enjoy luxury only in taste and convenience," he wrote in those years, in his history "The Age of Louis XIV": "The crowd of pages and liveried servants has disappeared." All that counted now was "affable manners, simple living and the culture of the mind." Of course, it was a very Petit Trianon simplicity. As Davidson shows, though, it was deeply, emotionally rich: "He was enjoying real happiness, for the first time in his life."
It was at this moment of delight and apparent retreat, of affable manners and simple living, that he began the series of crusades that eventually blossomed into the human-rights campaigns that came to dominate the rest of his life. It would be nice to say that Voltaire was a courageous man whom no amount of comfort could seduce. The truth is that, as his friend Condorcet wrote sadly, he was easily terrified, and often a coward: "He was often seen to expose himself to the storm, almost with temerity, but seldom to stand up to it with firmness." And, of course, no man of fewer sublime feelings has ever lived; he was baffled by religion and spirituality, materialist and carnal to the core.
What motivated him, then, to start up? Partly it must have been that he so much enjoyed vexing stupid powerful people that he kept forgetting that stupid people who had gained power were never stupid about threats to their power. Each time he poked the silly tiger and the tiger clawed back, he was genuinely shocked. And then there is a kind of egotism so vast and so pleased with itself that it includes other people as an extension of itself. Voltaire felt so much for other people because he felt so much for himself; everything happened to him because he was the only reasonable subject of everything that happened. By inflating his ego to immense proportions, he made it a shelter for the helpless.
But there was something else, too. His exile moved him away from court practices and court values, with their hypersensitivity toward status, toward family practices and family values, with their hypersensitivity toward security. (In these Délices years, he took in and later adopted a teen-age daughter, and began to sigh that he had never had children of his own.) As Tocqueville saw half a century later, home-making, which ought to make people more selfish, makes them less so; it gives them a stake in other people's houses. It is not so much the establishment of a garden but the ownership of a gate that moves people from liking a society based on favors to one based on rights. Enclosing his garden broadened Voltaire's circle of compassion. When people were dragged from their gardens to be tortured and killed in the name of faith, he began to take it, as they say, personally.
In those days, unspeakably cruel tortures were still routine in the French penal system. Condemned criminals were tortured by being broken on the wheel—that is, being bound on a scaffold to a wheel and then having their bones broken, one by one, with an iron bar. Davidson suggests (shrewdly and originally) that Voltaire's sense of outrage may have been galvanized by the hideous execution in Paris of the would-be assassin of Louis XV, the mad Damiens, in 1757. Damiens was pulled apart alive, his limbs attached to four horses and the horses driven in different directions, for public instruction in the center of Paris. Voltaire was no fan of regicide. It was because he was for the execution that the public torture frightened him: it was a sign of how quickly civilities could disintegrate under threat. ("Enlightened times will only enlighten a small number of honest men," he wrote. "The common people will always be fanatical.") He coined his most famous phrase, écrasez l'infâme—"Crush the horror"—and began to use it, in jauntily (and evasively) abbreviated form. Historians have fussed for centuries about exactly what Voltaire meant by it—the Catholic Church? the Court?—but it's clear. The horror was the alliance of religious fanaticism with the instruments of the state, and the two combined for torture and official murder.
It is against this background, of a garden built and the encroaching fanatics, that Voltaire wrote "Candide," in 1759. Two fine new translations of the book have just appeared, one by Burton Raffel (Yale; $22) and one by Peter Constantine (Modern Library; $19.95). The young Candide lives in the little German principality of Thunder Ten Tronck, under the guidance of his tutor, Pangloss, a theorist of optimism. A liaison with his beloved Cunégonde causes him to be exiled, and soon afterward the principality is sacked by the Bulgars, who rape Cunégonde and leave Pangloss for dead. Candide then encounters every kind of eighteenth-century horror, from enslavement by the Turks to bondage on a French galley, and ends up on a little farm near Constantinople, wisely counselling Pangloss that the only worthwhile thing for people to do is to cultivate their gardens.
"Candide" is such a familiar book that it is easy to miss its real target. What marks it off from most other didactic literature, as Davidson says, is its gaiety; the disembowellings and rapes are drawn with breezily overdone matter-of-factness. The tone is like that of the Monty Python movies, which are genuinely appalled by violence but register their shock by making it absurd. "Candide" is said to have been occasioned by the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, a tsunami-like event, and is meant to satirize the optimism associated with Leibniz. It is also usually said to be unfair to Leibniz, a great philosopher, who was among the inventors of calculus. Leibniz's view, after all, was not that everything was good but that our world was the best possible. Given that God could have considered every world before he made it, he must have chosen the best one—so that if there is suffering and evil in it, these things must have a cause in the mind of God. Given that the deity is benevolent, small-scale pain must be part of some universal balance, or, as Pope puts it in his "Essay on Man," "All discord harmony not understood; / All partial evil, universal good." Leibniz and Pope after him are arguing not that life will always be happy but that the world is optimally designed. Suffering is explicable—not defensible but explicable.
But Voltaire was not unfair to Leibniz. He understood exactly what Leibniz was saying, and has Pangloss say it. On the tutor's first appearance, he gives the classic instance: pigs are made to be eaten and so we have pork. It seems hard only from the narrow point of view of the pig. "Those who have suggested that everything is good have spoken obtusely," Pangloss explains, in Raffel's rendering. "What they should have said is that everything is for the best." Voltaire's point was that the two ideas are, in concrete terms, the same idea. Insisting that everything is for the best means finding the best in everything. To subsume individual suffering or pain within a larger equilibrium is to accept the logic of the slaughterhouse. The pig has a right to his protest.
Voltaire's target throughout "Candide" is not optimism in the sense of fatuous cheerfulness but optimism in the sense of optimal thinking: the kind of bland reassurance that explains pain with reference to a larger plan or history. In this way, the Christmas tsunami cannot have for Voltaire's readers today anything approaching the force that a natural disaster like the Lisbon earthquake had for the eighteenth century. Few people any longer believe in a benevolent nature—much less a benevolent nature sitting in for a providential God. We can feel comfortably superior to Leibniz's particular brand of optimism, which is centered on natural law of this kind, since we no longer believe that nature is part of an inherently balanced or benevolent system.
But almost all of us still do believe, stubbornly, in some kind of optimal thinking. We believe, vaguely or explicitly, that liberal democracy, with all its faults, is the best of all possible political systems, that globalization, with all its injustices, is the best of all possible futures, and even that the American way is the best of all possible ways—with appropriate cautious Leibnizian emphasis on "possible." (One can track the path, and the travails, of modern popular optimism just by following Thomas Friedman's columns in the Times, agonized Tuesday to hopeful Sunday.) We are all optimalists of this kind, perhaps reinforced by the doctrines of evolutionary psychology (which say exactly that all discord is harmony misunderstood) or by faith in an inevitable evolving "future of freedom." Attacks on these beliefs—September 11th was the most acute—shake us up the way eighteenth-century people were shaken by the Lisbon earthquake. The realization that all may not be tending toward the best, that religious fanaticism and tribal intolerance could prevail over liberal meliorism, is the earthquake of our time.
Voltaire's radicalism, then and now, lies not in his refutation of optimism but in his refusal of belief. "Candide" is not really, or entirely, a satire on optimism. It is an attack on organized religion. The joke about optimism in "Candide" is always the same joke: something terrible happens, and Pangloss gallantly rationalizes it. The jokes about religious cruelty are mordant, varied, and encyclopedic: every kind of religious intolerance—Muslim, Jewish, and, particularly, Christian, dignified, crude, and greedy—is trotted out and exposed. The one thing that Voltaire is sure of in "Candide" is the idiocy of theodicy. What drives him crazy is the ability of religious fanatics to exploit the fatality of the world in order to enact their own cruelties.
In the famous early chapter, the Lisbon earthquake makes a brief Terry Gilliam-slapstick, scene-setting appearance. What happens immediately afterward is the point of the satire: "After the earthquake, which had destroyed three quarters of Lisbon, the country's wise men could find no better way of preventing total ruin than to give the people a beautiful auto-da-fé." Voltaire goes on to detail the hideous theatrics of the Inquisition: the yellow robes, the burnings and flogging set to Church music, the whole choreography of Christian cruelty. The point of "Candide" is that the rapes and disembowelments, the enslavement and the beatings are not part of some larger plan, not a fact of the fatality of life and the universe, but fiendish tortures thought up by fanatics. They may be omnipresent; but they are not inevitable. Voltaire thinks optimism merely silly. It is the flight from failed optimism into faith that he fears.
Against the horrors of religious cruelty and the emptiness of religious apologia, Voltaire proposes—what, exactly? Burton Raffel, the more daring of the two new translators, takes that most familiar ending, "Il faut cultiver notre jardin," and translates it not as "We must cultivate our garden" but, startlingly, as "We need to work our fields." (Raffel is a translator who doesn't mind shocking his readers—his version of "The Red and the Black" was one long provocation.) His change of the book's famous moral is obviously meant, in one way, to protect Voltaire from the charge of Petit Trianonism. After so much suffering, cultivating our garden seems too . . . cultivated. ("Crush the horror! Crush the horror!" Voltaire's friend D'Alembert wrote to him once. "That is easily said when one is a hundred leagues from the bastards and the fanatics, when one has an independent income of a hundred thousand livres!")
But Raffel is wrong, surely, in thinking that by cultivating one's garden Voltaire meant anything save cultivating one's garden. By "garden" Voltaire meant a garden, not a field—not the land and task to which we are chained by nature but the better place we build by love. The force of that last great injunction, "We must cultivate our garden," is that our responsibility is local, and concentrated on immediate action. In the aftermath of the tsunami, William Safire argued that this "surge of generosity" actually "refutes Voltaire's cynicism," as expressed in "Candide." Yet American charity is not a refutation of Voltaire's cynicism; it isVoltaire's cynicism, an expression of the Enlightenment tradition of individual responsibility that he promoted. Voltaire was a gardener and believed in gardens, even if other people were gardening them. His residual optimism lies in that alone.
The horror that Voltaire wanted crushed, cruelty in the name of God and civilization, was a specific and contingent thing. His satire of optimism is in this sense an optimistic book—optimistic not only in its gaiety, which implies the possibility of seeing things as they are, but also in its argument. Voltaire did not believe that there was any justice or balance in the world, but he believed that bad ideas made people bad. The villains in the book are not, as in Samuel Johnson's exactly contemporary and parallel "Rasselas," the fatality of the world and the mortality of man. The villains are the villains: Jesuits and Inquisitors and English judges and Muslim clerics and fanatics of all kinds. If they went away, life would be much better. He knew that the flood would get your garden no matter what you did; but you could at least try to keep the priests and the policemen off the grass. It wasn't enough, but it was something.
Though "Candide" seems to retreat from a confrontation with human cruelty to an enclosed garden, its publication marked Voltaire's, and his age's, moral development away from a passive Deism and toward a faith in liberal meliorism. Voltaire went on to a series of confrontations with the consequences of human cruelty that, two hundred-odd years later, remain stirring in their courage and perseverance. It is in the years after the publication of the supposedly cynical and even quietist "Candide" that he began the campaigns against persecution—and, more broadly, against torture and cruelty in punishment—from which, as Davidson says, most civilized societies can trace their liberation from organized cruelty and state killing.
Voltaire was no mere petition signer; he was intensely engaged with individual cases, and deserves credit for exposing at least two horrible judicial murders. He first took on the case of Jean Calas, a Protestant in Normandy who was wrongly accused of murdering his own son (it seems likely that the son committed suicide) to keep him from converting to Roman Catholicism. Calas was executed: publicly tortured by a judicial lynch mob of priests and local officials, and then broken on the wheel. Voltaire, after years of work, was able to show that Calas's execution had been a frame-up, and even managed to get official recompense for his family. He did the same thing, at greater personal risk, in the case of the teen-age Chevalier de La Barre, who had been accused by the Catholic authorities of desecrating a statue of the Crucifixion, under the influence of Voltaire's Dictionnaire Philosophique. Voltaire could not save his life—La Barre was tortured, and sentenced to have his tongue cut out, before he was killed and burned, along with Voltaire's book—but his writings helped make certain that La Barre was the last man to be murdered in France for blasphemy.
As though these crusades were not enough for an old man who was still busy writing plays and arguing with his neighbors about leases and noises, he also tried to demonstrate the possibilities of a garden-centered life by creating his own light industry at Ferney. He took several dozen Protestant watch-making refugees and supplied them with venture capital to start a watch factory in the village of Ferney. The thing should have gone the way of most virtuous communal schemes devised by well-meaning literary people—but it was a huge success, making as much as six hundred thousand pounds a year, and supplying watches to the Empress of Russia. (Voltaire turned out to be a brilliant salesman, using his high connections to force watches on people on consignment, and then blandly sending them bills.) It was a proof that one could do well by doing good. Ferney watches became the Ben & Jerry's ice cream of the later Enlightenment, a luxury good that was also a sign of progressive values.
Of course, in the light of later horrors, the horror that Voltaire wanted to crush doesn't seem a horror at all. It was a half-aware, corrupt, guilty, placating horror, which watched nervously as he was fêted. His enemies were local lynch mobs, not centralized terror. A Nazi or Soviet regime would have crushed him, horribly, and everyone else with him. The argument has even been made that Voltaire's rejection of moral order and God helped lead to the later horrors. But unless one believes, against all the evidence, that faith in God keeps one from cruelty, this is a bum rap. There are absolutist and totalitarian elements in the Enlightenment, of the kind that Burke and Berlin alike opposed: the desire to rip up the calendar of the past and start over implies murdering whoever isn't with the program. This wasn't Voltaire's spirit by a mile. There couldn't be a better model of an improvisatory, anti-authoritarian intelligence, whose whole creed rests on individual acts and case-by-case considerations. He believed in the English model of trade and toleration, not the Jacobin model of ideology and intemperance. His intolerance of religion was nothing like religious intolerance; it was directed at institutions, not individuals. Even his notorious attacks on Judaism are largely of this kind. Like Gibbon, what he objects to in the Old Testament is the spirit of zealous intolerance it gave to the New; about the worst thing that he could say of the Jews is that they reminded him of Jesuits. Voltaire's spirit was one of tolerant cosmopolitanism, even though he didn't have the insight to see that one challenge for the cosmopolitan spirit would be how well it tolerated those who had no wish to be cosmopolitan.
It is still bracing, at a time when the extreme deference we pay to faith has made any attack on religious beliefs unacceptable, to hear Voltaire on Jesuits and Muslims alike—to hear him howl with indignation at the madness and malignance of religion—and to be reminded that that free-thinking, which inspired Twain and Mencken, has almost vanished from our world. (There is, after all, as much of Voltaire in American life as in French life. Benjamin Franklin went to him for a blessing, and got it.)
Voltaire made a good end. No Frenchman can keep away from Paris forever. When he was eighty-four, he made the trip back at last; although there was no official "pardon" (there had never been an official condemnation), he thought it unlikely that the authorities would try to do anything to him. Seeing how old he was, the Church sent emissaries to try to get him to recant. Voltaire had the priests in, and perhaps even entertained the idea of confessing—partly because he always liked toying with priests, partly because he was genuinely afraid of being thrown into a common grave, as happened to the unshriven. But finally he sighed on his deathbed, told the priest who had arrived one last time to urge on him the virtues of Jesus, "Sir, do not speak to me any more about that man and let me die in peace," and turned away. The priests, furious, and knowing that it was against the law both to bury an unsacralized body and to move it, cruelly insisted that his body could be taken from Paris to a quiet burial only if the corpse was dressed up in clothes and the pretense made that Voltaire was still alive. The joke, on them, was that he was.
Credits: Voltaire's Garden was originally published in 2005 in The New Yorker.


text:
The prospect of having brain surgery is a frightening, stressful, and overwhelming experience. Dealing with all the emotions that come with such a major procedure oftentimes takes precedence over the "who, what and where's" of the surgery. Most patients are not adequately informed to handle these particulars, and often assume there is little difference between one surgeon and another, or between one hospital and the other.
That is not always the case. In fact, there can be significant differences between surgeons and their teams, as well as facilities and follow-up care – all of which can affect the surgery's ultimate success. Here are five questions to ask if you've been told that you're a candidate for brain surgery:
1. Does the surgeon specialize in your condition?
Like many other physician categories, brain surgery is a highly focused practice. Finding a surgeon who is board certified by the American Board of Neurological Surgery is a step in the right direction. Beyond this, it's advisable to seek a surgeon who specializes in treating your specific condition. For example, a neurosurgeon who specializes in microvascular procedures may have more experience in surgeries involving aneurysms and arteriovenous malformations, or abnormal collections of blood vessels.
2. What is the surgeon's short- and long-term plan for you?
Try to get as many details as possible about your brain surgery, such as how to prepare for operation day; what will be done during the surgery; who are the other providers involved during and after the procedure; what can be expected in regards to long-term outcomes and care; and if there are any support groups available. You should also consider asking whether or not you can contact previous patients who've gone through similar surgeries, as references. The surgeon's answers may also give you clues about his or her level of experience.
3. Does the surgeon work with a regular team of specialists/physicians?
In addition to the surgeon, there should be several other people on your team, which may include neuro oncologists, neuroradiologists, neuropathologists, radiation oncologists, anesthesiologists, and physical therapists. Keep in mind that not all teams are the same. In addition to knowing who is on your team, ask whether or not they all meet on a regular basis and how often they work together. You want to be sure you have a collaborative team that treats patients together regularly.
4. Is the team part of a specialized center that is relevant to your condition?
Despite what most people may think, the level of care and expertise at even major hospitals can vary significantly. Some may have special centers recognized for exceptional patient care in certain health categories, such as stroke, spine disorders, or brain aneurysms. For example, my team at the Cedars-Sinai Brain Tumor Center gets together every Wednesday for a brain tumor board to review complex cases. Having your surgery at a medical center that is known for your particular condition or procedure may increase the likelihood of a successful surgery. If you are at one hospital and want to have your procedure done by another surgeon at a different hospital, you can request to be transferred.
5. Who is your primary medical contact after surgery?
Surgery does not end once you leave the operating room. In fact, having a well-qualified team in place for post-operative care is crucial. It's imperative to know what steps need to be taken after the brain surgery. What appointments do you need to have lined up? Who can you call if you have any questions or unanticipated post-operative issues? A good brain surgeon and surgical team will have all these details in place well before the day of your operation.
Mind your health,
Dr. Keith Black
Find out more on what to expect during brain surgery. For more information on brain tumors and treatment options, visit the Cedars-Sinai Brain Tumor Treatment Web site.
Important: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not Everyday Health.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
WILMINGTON, Del. — Snack-maker Hostess Brands won approval Tuesday of asset sales totaling more than $800 million.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain in White Plains, N.Y., approved sales to Flowers Foods, Grupo Bimbo, Apollo Global Management and C. Dean Metropoulos & Co. for most of Hostess's cake and bread brands.
Hostess attorney Lisa Laukitis told Drain the sales were in the best interests of the company and creditors, and there is "sound justification" for the deals, with "the highest and best offers" from "good-faith purchasers."
Before the sales were approved, lawyers for buyers expressed concern about possible liability after they acquire the properties. Drain suggested "wordsmithing" the sale agreements slightly to protect the buyers.
"If you don't, I will put it in," Drain said.
Hostess was given extra time by Drain to file a bankruptcy plan after arguing it still has significant assets to sell that may yield more than $100 million to help pay creditors. Hilco Trading was hired last year with court permission to sell real estate, leases, machinery, equipment and intellectual property not part of going-concern sales.
The asset sales will be supplemented by the Hilco proceeds, which might bring the total to more than $900 million, Heather Lennox, a lawyer for Hostess, told the court.
"We embarked on the sales process with one overarching goal — to maximize value for all of the company's stakeholders — and I am pleased to report that we have been successful," Gregory Rayburn, chief executive officer of Irving, Texas-based- Hostess, said in an emailed statement. "I'd like to thank all of the employees and advisers who supported the process and helped preserve the value of some of the most beloved brands in the U.S."
A joint offer from Apollo and Metropoulos was the only qualified bid received by the deadline for the assets they bought. The companies offered as much as $410 million for the Hostess snack-cake business, which includes Twinkies, CupCakes, Ding Dongs and Ho Hos, and other assets including five bakeries and equipment.
Flowers, based in Thomasville, Ga., will pay $360 million for Hostess's Wonder, Butternut, Home Pride, Merita and Nature's Pride brands, 20 bread plants, 38 depots and other assets.
Flowers, established in 1919, produces and markets packaged baked goods for retail and food-service customers. The company's top brands are Nature's Own and Tastykake.
Grupo Bimbo won an auction to buy the Beefsteak bread brand, beating an initial bid by Flowers with a $31.9 million offer.
McKee Good Corp., maker of Little Debbie snacks, made the only qualified bid for Drake's. McKee will pay $ 27.5 million for Drake's products including Devil Dogs, Ring Dings, Yodels, Yankee Doodles, Sunny Doodles, Funny Bones and Drake's Coffee Cake.
McKee, based in Collegedale, Tenn., will buy the brands and equipment, according to court papers.
United States Bakery won a March 15 auction with a bid of $30.9 million for the Sweetheart, Eddy's, Standish Farms and Grandma Emilie's bread brands, four bakeries and 14 depots, plus certain equipment.
An April 9 hearing is scheduled to approve the sale of those assets.
Hostess, founded in 1930, is liquidating its brands, recipes, plants and other assets after failing to reach an agreement with striking bakers on concessions to help the company emerge from its second bankruptcy.
"Today, the court brought further assurance that" several Hostess "iconic brands will return to the marketplace," David Durkee, International President of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, said today in an e-mailed statement.
"We share the enthusiasm, energy and passions exhibited by new ownership, and believe our highly motivated and skilled workforce will serve as indispensable partners in the seamless re-opening of factories," Durkee said.
With assistance from Phil Milford in Wilmington, Del.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.
New England Patriots
Cam Newton focused on improvement, not praise, with Raiders next up for Patriots
Boston Celtics
Heat have Celtics on the brink of elimination
Looking Back on Sept. 25
Dear Abby
Warring kids are barriers in couple's relationship
Information provided on ranked-choice voting, free TV viewing


text:
Code: CYO|FFE10 Arrow Angle Label
Size: 135 x 135mm
Material: Digitally Printed Label | Digitally Printed onto Self Adhesive Vinyl | Suitable for both indoor and outdoor applications.
NOTE: This product and associated images remain the property of Safety Sign Sales Limited and are protected by New Zealand Copyright Laws. No person or entity can profit from the use of this image or any other image shown on this site under New Zealand Copyright Law.


text:
|meatspace exhibit
The virtual world region is provided by the Linden Endowment for the Arts.
|Alpha Auer
A Russian news segment on the project.
|Bryn Oh - Tatlin's Tower
|Bryn Oh -Boys in the sandbox
As a part of the early Soviet youth movement, the constructivists took an artistic outlook aimed to encompass cognitive, material activity, and the whole of spirituality of mankind. The artists tried to create art that would take the viewer out of the traditional setting and make them an active viewer of the artwork. Their output covered a wide range of both art and design, as well as architecture - ranging from theater, film and photography, from fashion design to graphic design, as well as to fine art such as painting and sculpture. Alongside involving themselves in designs for the fledgling Soviet industry, the Constructivists also worked on public festivals and street designs for the post-October revolution Bolshevik government.
The constructivists tried to create works that would make the viewer an active participant of the artwork. This premise was tested in theatre, particularly through the work of Vsevolod Meyerhold, who had developed a 'biomechanical' acting style, which was influenced both by the circus and by the 'scientific management' theories of Frederick Winslow Taylor. Meanwhile the stage sets by the likes of Vesnin, Popova and Stepanova tested Constructivist spatial ideas in a public form.
|Nessuno Myoo


text:
Look inside: Dull exterior hides gem
ADDRESS: 217 Ninth Street NW
NEIGHBORHOOD: 10th Street/West Main
SIZE: 2201 fin. sq. ft.
LAND: 0.15 acres
CURB APPEAL: 6 out of 10
LISTED BY: Trey Durham of Century 21 Manley Associates 977-7300
With a perfunctory box shape and nearly flat roof, this house is like an unadorned music box that opens to reveal an alluring tinkling melody– albeit with a few notes off-key.
Though the exterior has no ornamentation or details (other than windows) to break up the monolithic stretches of white clapboard, the interior has many charming features common in homes of a century ago: pine floors, wood moldings, front hall stairway with handsome railing, ornamental wood mantles around the fireplaces, high ceilings, and tall doors and double-hung four-light windows.
A modern element is a fully redone and updated kitchen that replaced a no doubt scary predecessor, and two small bathrooms made cute by recent changes.
These features are a pleasant contrast to the house's exterior. Though the whole place is covered in what appears to be homogenous clapboard, the siding is actually a cacophony of hardiplank, aluminum, and wood, with a few small patches here and there in need of repair.
The two-story front porch has been completely rebuilt, but without detailing, so it just contributes to the perfunctory look of the rest of the exterior. The front and back yards of the oblong lot are scraggly, and a few nuisance trees are starting to encroach in the back yard. But a few attractive plantings give the yard potential.
This house is a traditional four-over-four. A one-story addition on the back of the original structure contains the kitchen, a dining/breakfast area, a utility room with the only full-size fridge, and a laundry room.
Significant upgrades have been done in the past 15 years, including some new plumbing, rewiring, and appliances, as well as renovation of both bathrooms and the kitchen.
Both bathrooms, one on each floor, are charming. The first-floor half bath is tiny, but its stone-suspended countertop is very nice, with an inset bowl sink. The upstairs full bath has a clawfoot tub with the typical clumsy shower conversion, and a sink cabinet made from an old piece of furniture that works well in its new position.
Some of the work has been done by the homeowners, but much was done by professional contractors, and the workmanship throughout the house seems solid. Renovation materials include light wood Ikea kitchen cabinets with blind hinges, a Thermidor convection oven/range, a Bosch dishwasher and washing machine, low-voltage halogen lights, solid stone countertops, and a few good quality replacement windows and doors.
The renovations have created an impressive yet functional kitchen washed in good lighting, and it's a high point of the house.
Though the majority of the house is in good condition, a few areas still beg for attention. The single-story back section has an entire window missing, which presumably will be replaced before the sale. Several of the plaster walls– especially upstairs in the two bedrooms and bathroom– have significant cracking. Many of the pine floors would benefit from refinishing, including the upstairs sections that are now painted.
Ninth Street is close to downtown, with a bus stop just down the block to make leaving the car at home that much easier.
Priced at a little over $120 per square foot, the house is between a half and a third the cost per square foot of other houses in the general Downtown area, perhaps because the neighborhood is still considered less desirable than tonier sections closer to the Mall or UVA. If house prices continue going north in Charlottesville, it's only a matter of time until this neighborhood is gentrified into a hot spot like Fifeville and Belmont. Prices will follow, so the property offers a long-term investment opportunity.
The current owners have done the bulk of a complete restoration over the past 20 years. A buyer who would enjoy wrestling with the odds and ends left undone, and who doesn't mind– or can think of a way to fix– the perfunctory exterior, will find the sound of its slightly awry tinkling music most appealing.


text:
DreamingDaemon wrote:Jumper wrote:WTF??????
so venan went to toys-r-us school for the mathematical illiteracy!!!!!
Please don't associate us with this sort of math. We can give you 50% sale price and an extra 30% off if you buy today, plus 10% off if you take out our loyalty card, and you'll still pay $98.99 for a $99.99 item.
Iolo_Ultima wrote:Why is it that I hardly see any post about SWs being op?
Jumper wrote:WTF??????
so venan went to toys-r-us school for the mathematical illiteracy!!!!!
Bbbb wrote:Iolo_Ultima wrote:Why is it that I hardly see any post about SWs being op?
But they are. Melee SW gets the least animations of any class by far and can do OS faster than anyone (though Mage gets better RPP/E).
EricM wrote:EinsteinLovesMe wrote:just a note on embarrassing math performed by eric.....smh
percentages are not additive...geesh, where did you go to school? toys-R-us academy of mathematical illiteracy????
first lets assume venan adds the dodge and block bonus due to defend right in your base stats
57% dodge + 10% defend = 67%
12% block + 20% defend = 32%
(I am making an assumption here that these are simply added when defend is pushed).
secondly, assume that if dodge is proced, there is no defend roll.
so 67% chance to dodge, then out of the remaining 33%, you have a 32% chance to block that, i.e. this occurs 10.6% of the time.
Therefore, you will avoid seismic 77.6% of the time....not 99% !!!!!!
Note that if block roll comes before dodge, nothing changes (you'll block 32% of time and dodge 45.6% of time for a total of 77.6%)
Think that even with lets say 75% dodge and 50% block, seismic would still land 12.5% of the time.
They're additive lol. Don't be doubting my math it's one of those little known boh pvp secrets. Confirmed with Dave a few weeks ago. I thought the same way you did until I realized seismic hits me a lot less often than 24% of the time through defends. So I decided to check. With enough dodge and block, you'd never get hit cleanly (except by crits, which can still occur.)
It's why my advice to every SW for the past few months has been to go shield + pump up dodge.
Think of it as a d100 roll. With 50% dodge and 30% block, the roll happens something like 1-50 = dodge, 51-80 = block, 81-100 = hit.
EricM wrote:Cleave is significantly faster for mobs than anything a SW can do. But I agree on the rest
Mithrid wrote:there is ALOT of behind the curtain tweaks, shifts and stats that go unmentioned but definitely affect game play.
Bbbb wrote:Mithrid wrote:there is ALOT of behind the curtain tweaks, shifts and stats that go unmentioned but definitely affect game play.
I've become convinced that elixirs affect crit rate (positively). Either that or I'm having really odd luck with the RNG. I talked to a couple of people and they suspect the same as well....
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests


text:
Shop by Categories
Store Categories
All Store Items on Sale Now
More items from this Store
Condition: 100% Brand New
Size: Free size (Stretchy), One size Fits Most Women
Item Includes: Leggings
1. When the order amount is up to $150, please choose "ePacket" or "China Post Air Mail" first, pay it directly. After you pay, we will ship your package by FedEx, UPS, DHL, TNT, EMS or Special Line, only takes 3-15 business days to arrive at your place after we ship.
2. Sometimes it may take up to 4-7 weeks due to strict custom Inspection.
3. Our price does not include taxes, VAT, or other charges.
About product size, the measurement allowed error is 1-3 cm.
Product Show
Color Mismatch
Maybe the color of real goods have a little difference from the picture as some other reasons such as color reflection in the monitor, lighting, background etc. please understand! However, if you believe that the item received is in wrong color, please contact us to see if a return or refund is possible.
About Us
We have the factory, so if you want to make a large order or make some products according to your design, please contact us. We are happy to deal with all of the world's customers.
China Wholesale | Security & Privacy | About Us | China Manufacturers | Seller Home | New Products | Top Searches | Products Online | Refined Products | Discount Products | Best Sellers | Customer Service | Terms of Use | Russian | Portuguese | Italian | Spanish | French | German | Turkey | 한국어 | العربية
Copyright Notice © 2004 - 2020 DHgate.com All rights reserved. License


text:
Vampyre for President Challenges Robert Pattinson to a Battle
Last time we saw literally blood-sucking Republican Jonathon "The Impaler" Sharkey, he was absconding with his child bride. Now he's back with a challenge for Twilight star Robert Pattinson: "Let him prove [his vampire credentials] on a field of battle!"
Responding to a report that Pattinson is related to Vlad the Impaler, the 15th century Transylvanian who inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula, Sharkey issued a press release:
I hope you will print this response to The Hollywood Reporter's story that Twilight Vampyre Wannabe Robert Pattinson is related to Vlad Tepes Dracula.
This is nothing more than a publicity stunt by Pattinson and the PR department for the Twilight movie to get extra attention for them.
As you can see from IMDb's STARmeter Pattinson is 5th, while Kristen Stewart is 1st - http://pro.imdb.com/people/
Pattinson is only trying to raise his STARmeter.
As a true descent of Vlad in more ways than one, I am appalled by Pattinson's stunt.
Personally if that boy thinks he's from Vlad's bloodline, then let him prove it, in the way Vlad would... On a field of battle! As the US Secret Service will attest, I am Vlad to the bone. Unlike Pattinson, I am a warrior and a true Vampyre.
If he truly wants to prove his Vlad heritage, then I challenge him to face me on a field of battle. Let see which one of us is "VLAD TO THE BONE!" Not a Hollywood pretty boy!
I hope you print this. I am sending this to other media sources I know. Next week I plan on doing a video and placing it on YouTube. Either Pattinson will prove he is a true descendant of VLAD, or he will show the world he is a wannabe!
Do Svidaniya,
Nel Sangue,
Jonathon "The Impaler" Sharkey (R)
Presidential Candidate
If you're not with me, then you're my enemy!
(My IMDb page) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2652647…
(My YouTube Page) http://www.youtube.com/user/JonathonT…
Sharkey's campaign platform: "I WILL IMPALE THEM! [criminals]"
Vampyre for President Absconded with Child Bride After YouTube Proposal


text:
B.J. Hoeptner Evans, Manager, Communications, Phone: (719) 228-6800, E-Mail: email@example.com
USAV Facebook - @USA_Volleyball - @USAV Beach
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (April 27, 2013) – The U.S. men's beach volleyball team of Sean Rosenthal and Phil Dalhausser won the first tournament of their partnership on Saturday at the FIVB Fuzhou Open in China.
Rosenthal (Redondo Beach, Calif.) and Dalhausser (Ormond Beach, Fla.), the tournament's No. 2 seeds, defeated Italy's No. 4 Nicolai Paolo and Daniele Lupo, 21-18, 24-22 in 43 minutes in Saturday's gold medal match.
"It was a great match; we match up similar," Rosenthal said in an FIVB press release. "Nicolai is a great blocker; he's great up there. And Daniele is a big defender; he's a tall kid in the back. They're young and they're getting better and better and it's a great win for us; I'm stoked. This first win and this whole season is dedicated to my grandma who passed away this year."
In the morning, Rosenthal and Dalhausser defeated three-time Olympian Ricardo Alex Costa Santos and his new partner Álvaro Morais Filho from Brazil, seeded No. 14, in the semifinal, 19-21, 26-24, 20-18 (1:07).
"We found the match against the Brazilians very tough. The new lefty, the young guy sided out time after time even after taking a ball into his face, but we were lucky enough just to pull it off," Dalhausser said.
In the women's bracket, the U.S. team of April Ross (Costa Mesa, Calif.) and Jennifer Kessy (San Juan Capistrano, Calif.) lost in the tournament's third round and finished tied for fifth. The Olympic silver medalists defeated No. 6 Kristyna Kolocova and Marketa Slukova of Czech Republic, 21-19, 23-21 (:42) in the second round on Saturday. But they fell to Germany's No. 5 Germany's Katrin Holtwick and Ilka Semmler, 17-21, 21-19, 15-11 (:53) in the third round.
"I'm pretty proud of us," Kessy said in an FIVB press release. "This is our first tournament of the year. Usually we have a couple of warm ups in the U.S. and we didn't this year so I'm really happy with the way we played. I think the German team played really well. We needed a little bit more wind to beat them today. Our serves weren't that great, so overall we're feeling ok.
"April and I have been playing together for seven years now and this is our last glory year together, so we're really enjoying playing with each other."
While Ross and Kessy are in their seventh year, Rosenthal and Dalhausser only began training together in January after successful careers with different partners. Dalhausser won gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games with Todd Rogers (Santa Barbara, Calif.), and Rosenthal played in two Olympics with Jake Gibb (Bountiful, Utah).
"We're feeling great. It's our first tournament together and we did what we've been training to do and it felt great, it's a good start," Rosenthal said.
"I'm finding the new partnership pretty good, we're one for one so I can't complain and I don't think Sean's complaining either," said Dalhausser, who may have had extra incentive to win the gold medal match. Italy's Paolo and Lupo defeated Dalhausser and Rogers in the first round of single elimination play at the London Olympic Games.
The bronze medal went to Austrians Alexander Huber and Robin Seidl, who bet Ricardo and Álvaro Morais, 21-18, 21-18.
U.S. beach volleyball teams will be back in action next week on April 30-May 5 at the FIVB Shanghai Grand Slam.
To view a video interview with Rosenthal and Dalhausser, click here.
For more information on the Fuzhou Open, click here.
All of the men's and women's semifinal and final matches (to be played Saturday and Sunday) will be shown live on laola.tv.


text:
Supporters and Partners
FORGE is grateful for our many supporters, who allow us to continue to do the work so vitally needed.
Federal Funders
Office of Violence Against Women – (Grants for Outreach and Services to Underserved Populations Program cooperative agreement) 2015 – 2018
Office of Violence Against Women – (Training and Technical Assistance cooperative agreement) 2013 – 2016
Office of Violence Against Women – (Training and Technical Assistance cooperative agreement) 2011 – 2014
Office for Victims of Crime – (Demonstration project and publications) 2009 – 2012
Office of Violence Against Women – (Sexual Assault Service Program award) 2009 – 2012
Office of Violence Against Women – (Sexual Assault Service Program award) 2012 – 2015
Administration on Aging (National Resource Clearinghouse on LGBT Aging) – 2010 – 2013
Office for Victims of Crime – HOPE II (2009)
Office for Victims of Crime – HOPE I (2006)
Foundations & other grants
Individual donors:
We appreciate the many individual donors who make it possible for FORGE to provide many of the not-otherwise funded programs available to transgender individuals, SOFFAs, service providers and other professionals.
Contributors/Contract work
International Association of Forensic Nurses
National Resource Center on Domestic Violence
In kind contribution:
Many generous individuals and organizations have contributed their time or resources at no cost, or in kind. We could not provide the quality services we do, without their help.
- Milwaukee LGBT Film and Video Festival
- Milwaukee Metropolitan Community Church
- Diverse and Resilient
- SHEBA, a program of Diverse and Resilient
- Milwaukee LGBT Community Center
FORGE would not be able to carry out our work without the help of many partnering organizations. We are grateful for the many people and organizations we have the privilege of working with. The following are just some of these outstanding organizations and committees…
1in6 (national)
International Association of Forensic Nurses (International)
Manpower, Inc. (International)
National Resource Center on Domestic Violence (national)
National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (national)
FORGE was the first national and first transgender-specific member of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, a coalition of more than 40 organizations serving LGBT victims of violence.
National LGBT Aging Roundtable (national)
FORGE's Transgender Aging Network (TAN) is an active member of the National LGBT Aging Roundtable, which holds monthly teleconferences and annual in-person meetings to identify and work toward achieving policy changes that could improve the quality of life for LGBT older adults. The Roundtable also sponsors an annual Aging Intensive at the Creating Change conference (http://www.creatingchange.org/) TAN also "caucuses" with Midwest LGBT aging organizations to share best practices and identify and pursue opportunities to change policies or practices to better serve LGBT older adults.
National LGBT Policy Roundtable (national)
FORGE is part of the National LGBT Policy Roundtable, which meets in person and by phone to: strengthen relationships between national LGBT organizations leaders; brief LGBT organization leaders on policy issues of common concern; strategize about pending challenges to the LGBT movement and mechanisms for response; and generate collaborative efforts among national LGBT organizations and associations.
National Resource Center on LGBT Aging (national)
FORGE's Transgender Aging Network (TAN) is honored to be one of SAGE's 10 partners in the groundbreaking, federally-funded National Resource Center on LGBT Aging (the "Center"). TAN is one of the "training partners," empowered to present any of four, 4-hour workshops. Two of the workshops are for LGBT organizations wishing to improve their services and programming for older adults, and two are for the aging network, to help it better serve its LGBT constituents. (If you're interested in sponsoring one or more of these trainings, contact FORGE.) We also assist the Center in developing its resource and reference materials, including those aimed at helping LGBT individuals plan for their future aging and long-term care needs. To find out more or to sign up for regular email updates on Center activities, go to http://www.lgbtagingcenter.org/.
New Beginnings Initiative (national)
FORGE is a member of the New Beginnings Initiative, an unprecedented collaboration of LGBT and allied organizations that have joined together to identify and press for pro-LGBT public policy changes the Obama administration can implement directly through federal agencies, without requiring Congressional approval.
Regional / Local
Community Health Workers Committee (Milwaukee)
This collaboration is developing a new cadre of health workers, trained to do health prevention and health navigation work in a variety of Milwaukee communities and populations.
Diverse and Resilient (Milwaukee)
Diverse & Resilient is one of FORGE's partners in our transgender jobs program.
Diverse and Resilient's LGBT Intimate Partner Violence Advisory Committee (Wisconsin)
FORGE Executive Director michael munson serves on the LGBT Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) Advisory Committee of a federally-funded project sponsored by Diverse & Resilient to increase recognition of the high incidence of IPV with LGBT communities and increase the capacity of LGBT and mainstream partners to address IPV as a critical health issues within LGBT populations. The project is developing a website with mental health resources available to LGBT individuals and couples; increasing the capacity of LGBT organizations, groups and individual leaders to respond to IPV within LGBT communities; and working with mainstream IPV providers to increase their ability to provide culturally-competent IPV services to LGBT people.
Froedtert hospital community advisory board (Milwaukee)
FORGE provides a transgender voice and expertise to the community advisory board of this large Milwaukee health care provider.
Homicide Review Team (Milwaukee)
Milwaukee has a nearly unique community-based homicide review team that helps identify measures the community can take to reduce the number of homicides. FORGE provides a transgender voice and expertise where useful.
Lesbian Alliance (Milwaukee)
Lesbian Alliance and FORGE go way back together, having partnered on numerous events and projects.
Midwest LGBT Aging programs (regional)
Midwest participants in the National LGBT Aging Roundtable (see above) meet by phone monthly to share ideas and coordinate projects.
Milwaukee LGBT Community Center (Milwaukee)
FORGE's meetings are held at the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center, and we partner with the Center on multiple events and projects every year.
Milwaukee LGBT Film and Video Festival (Milwaukee)
Milwaukee's LGBT Film and Video Festival is a highlight of our community's year, and FORGE proudly sponsors many of its transgender offerings, including hosting talk-backs.
Pridefest Health and Wellness Committee (Milwaukee)
Milwaukee's PrideFest is a huge, outdoor, 3-day event held every year at the Summerfest Festival Grounds in early June. FORGE proudly co-sponsors PrideFest's Health and Wellness Section. This growing effort offers free booth space and publicity to LGBT organizations that agree to sponsor interactive activities designed to increase participants' awareness of healthy behaviors. It's a creative, fun way to let our LGBT community know that it matters to us that they be healthy enough to stick around for a long while to come. The Health and Wellness Committee meets monthly (roughly) from January through June.
SHEBA, a program of Diverse and Resilient (Milwaukee)
SHEBA members were integrally involved in the Community Cares program that FORGE initiated after the death of Milwaukee transwoman (and SHEBA member) Chanel Larkin. We're using this base to build further FORGE-SHEBA collaborations.
Budding Partnerships
These are our partners-in-waiting. Each has partnered with us on at least one large pending funding proposal.
- Center for AIDS Intervention Research (CAIR)
- Williams Institute
- National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR)
Guest Speakers
- Nyle Biondi
- Helen Boyd
- Steven Brown
- Carla Clemons
- Brenda Coley
- Pat Connors
- Cary Costello & Beta
- Jim Cosenza
- Lynn Edwards
- Carol Feuerstein
- Laura Grimes
- Kara Luening
- Dr. Toby Meltzer
- Gwen Moore
- Tina Owens
- Barbara Richards
- Mark Robers
- Laura Sette
- Brice Smith
- Dr. Paul Steinwald
- Nikki Taylor
- Wendy Woodruff
- Dr. Kortney Ziegler


text: This video provides a basic description of the longwall mining method for extracting coal underground. It includes an explanation of the different products/key components of a longwall mining system (longwall shearer, automated plow system, AFC face conveyor, line pans, CST drive system, roof supports, longwall automation). Learn more at https://mining.cat.com/longwall


text:
We have a great neighbor who runs a small preschool with her son and a few other kids on the block, and she invited Jocelyn to join! It's very low-key, and if they're having more fun playing then the teacher doesn't force the lessons, but so far Jocelyn has loved it! They practiced the letter "J" for Jocelyn's first day. The teacher is very impressed with her, and though Jocelyn is the youngest in the class, she keeps up just fine with the other kids. The teacher said to me, "She's so smart! I was just amazed!.....but you probably already knew that." Yes. Yes I did. :) But at least now I know it's not a biased opinion!
Monday, October 5, 2009
Jocelyn's First Day of Preschool!!
Posted by Mig at 5:27 PM 0 comments
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)


text:
Subscription Agreement
This agreement ("Agreement") relates to your use of any products to which you gain access by subscribing to The Richard Simmons Clubhouse ("Clubhouse"), owned by Richard Simmons Inc. ("RSI"). By clicking on the "I AGREE" button at the end of this Agreement and subscribing to the Richard Simmons Clubhouse, located on the Richard Simmons Website, at www.richardsimmons.com (the "Website"),or by using any such products or offerings included therein (the Clubhouse, the Subscription Area, and any and all other products or offerings being hereinafter collectively referred to as the "Products"), you agree to the terms and conditions set forth in this Agreement. We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to change, modify, add or remove provisions of this Agreement at any time. Please check this Agreement periodically for changes. By using the Website or our Products after we post any changes to this Agreement or otherwise notify you of changes thereto, you agree that you accept such changes, whether or not you have reviewed them. If you do not agree to the terms of this Agreement, you should not use the Website and/or the Products, and you should cancel your subscription to the Clubhouse. In the event that you join the Clubhouse, you agree to be bound by both the Subscription Agreement and, by reference, the Terms and Conditions posted on the home page of the Website, outside the Clubhouse. In the event of any conflict between the two, this Subscription Agreement will control.
RSI and its affiliates are referred to collectively herein as "we," "us," or "our." "Affiliates" means any entity or person directly or indirectly owning a controlling interest in, or owned by, RSI, and/or any of our contractors or vendors providing services to the Products.


text:
Device Current Waveform Analyzers
The CX3300 series of Device Current Waveform Analyzers is the world's first instrument that clearly and precisely visualizes low-level current waveforms previously unmeasurable or undetectable.
The dedicated Current Sensors measure from 100 pA level dynamic current up to 10 A with a maximum of 200 MHz bandwidth. The mainframe acquires the signal from the sensors by a maximum of 1 GSa/s sampling speed and 14-bit and 16-bit wide dynamic range. This combination allows you to measure quite wide range of dynamic current, for example, from standby/sleep state to active state, at a single measurement. In addition, the wide bandwidth and the high speed acquisition enable you to measure high speed pulse response even less than 100 ns previously very difficult with existing instruments.
No manual will be necessary to start your current waveform measurements. The 14.1 inch touch-panel based display and familiar user interface do not waste your precious time.
With these unprecedented features and performance, the CX3300 series drastically accelerates your test and measurement efficiency and provides more in-depth insights for your research and development.


text:
Ida SaldanaSenior Lending Officer NMLS ID: 683589
5292 N Palm Ave, Fresno, CA 93704
Hi, I'm Ida, and I'm a local Senior Lending Officer in Fresno. This summer, take some time to review your home finances. Whether you're thinking about buying a home or already own one, I'm here to help you explore your options. In my experience, I've helped others finance their homes. As a part of your team, I'll be ready to guide you through the process every step of the way.


text:
skyBox render / drawclearZBufferworld render/drawshadowHelper.updateShadowMapshadowHelper.drawScenebuffer update/display
Is Config.useMultipleThreads enabled?
world render/drawshadowHelper.updateShadowMapshadowHelper.drawScene
Why are you actually doing this:
Try to remove that world render/draw part and see if that helps.
...and not very clear in docs
Quote from: EgonOlsen on March 13, 2013, 07:38:10 amTry to remove that world render/draw part and see if that helps.yes, seems as it helped. problem was undeterministic but never happened in last trials. thanks
Page created in 0.124 seconds with 18 queries.


text:
Item Description
Letter, Sophy [Sophie D. S. Goddard] to Sara [T. D. Robinson]
Author: Goddard, Sophie D. S.
Date: July 20, [1856]
This letter to Sara Robinson from her sister Sophie Goddard was sent in care of Miss Emily I. Hunt, since rumor had it the letters to the Robinson's and other prisoners were being confiscated. Goddard comments in general terms on a number of Kansas issues and developments, but her letter is one mostly to express concern for the plight of her sister.
Location of Original: KSHS Call Number: Charles & Sara Robinson Collection, # 488, Box 1, Folder 4
Item Number: 101123 Number of images: 4
Keywords: Brooks, Preston Smith; Free state; Goddard, Sophie D.S.; Robinson, Charles, 1818-1894; Robinson, Sara T. L. (Sara Tappan Lawrence), 1827-1911; Tappan, S. F. (Samuel Forster), d. 1913; Topeka Constitution
pg. 1
pg. 2
pg. 3
pg. 4


text:
CREATION Health is a faith-based wellness plan complete with lifestyle seminars and a special training program for those who want to live healthier and happier lives and share this unique whole person health philosophy. By consistently practicing the eight principles of CREATION Health – Choice, Rest, Environment, Activity, Trust, Interpersonal Relationships, Outlook, and Nutrition – we fulfill God's original plan for our lives, which is to live and be happy.
Serves: 2
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 4 minutes
Learn to Live & Teach CREATION Health
Incredible Bible stories, cool games, yummy snacks & much more!
Download Free App for iPhone & Android
Designed for the 3 & 4 year old classroom
Take this quiz to find out
Join thousands of members helping each other take small steps toward healthier living.
Sign up for our Newsletter


text:
The LCSH is a Thesaurus
Find new words for your topic
Sometimes no matter what you try, you can't find enough about your topic in the library catalog. Sometimes you get a word stuck in your head and you can't think of other words to try. It's times like these when the LCSH is a great brainstorming tool. Look through a copy and explore the vocabulary related to your topic.
Use the LCSH to pick up new terms for your topic, to get ideas for broader terms (useful if you can't find enough on your topic) and to find narrower terms (if you need to focus a topic).
When you find words in the LCSH books, you can search the words in the library catalog using either the subject or keyword search.


text:
Comedienne, and all around wonderful person who I want to be my secret BFF, Nicole Byer took to her tumblr to share her thoughts on Jerry Seinfeild's interview regarding race/gender and comedy. Here is what she has to say:
YES JERRY YES! FINALLY! Diversity doesn't matter in comedy or anywhere else in the world. The entertainment world shouldn't reflect the real world.
What a fucking weird thing to say that you don't care about diversity. Why wouldn't you want to enrich your comedy by having a different point of view to make your comedy better? I think funny to Jerry is white… I think I would be less offended if he straight up just said I have white people on my silly web series because I like white people my comedy is for white people and I AM WHITE PEOPLE! Then put on his hood and yelled WHITE POWER and burned a cross on stage. JK if he did the last part I might be offended… but not really. Theres no shame in liking what you like. Like that Duck Dynasty dude saying he doesn't like gays… well cool, now I never have to watch a show that I've never had an interest in watching. Know what I mean? This is the same… I've never seen a full episode of Seinfeld and I doubt I will… his funny isn't my cup of vodka.
I do think the funniest person should get recognition/work/whatever but as a minority its hard. Very hard… partly because no one is really looking for your story. Sure there were a bunch of black people movies this year… but where were the hispanic movies? The Asian movies? The hungarian american movies? UGH I COULD GO ON ALL DAY ABOUT ENTERTAINMENT AND RACE. However I will end on this… the race problem in america will be solved when there are more JLo movies.
Now if this is your first encounter with Ms. Byer, I am sorry you have lived such a sad and empty life. I will leave this hilarious YouTube video from the Upright Citizens Brigade to
help induct you into our burgeoning Nicole Byer cult make you laugh.
If you already love her, you and I have so much in common! Let's plan our hypothetical slumber parties in the comments!


text:
The last trailer explained the time traveling rules for Hot Tub Time Machine. But this trailer explains the why these four pathetic dorks were sent back into time. The answer: To fix their collective futures. Spoilers below.
This trailer doesn't explain all the characters' future issues, but Craig Robinson reveals that his future wife, whom he can't cheat on, was cheating on him. Also it seems like John Cusack missed out on "the girl of his dreams," while Rob Corddry, well maybe he was just sent back to have a three-way and "make Hitler president."
Who wants to bet money that they don't actually change their lives along the lines of Back To The Future? Instead, they probably learn to appreciate what they already have. Lets hope not, because I personally always lived by Biff rules: Steal the Almanac, become a millionaire and kill the competition. It's much more fun that way.
[via Apple]


text:
Maine Real Estate Brokerage
Maine Lifestyle Properties
Maine holds a special place in our imagination. For some, the state's name evokes personal memories of childhood vacations at a ramshackle lakeside camp, falling asleep listening to the wind in the pines, waking to the smell of the morning fire and the clank of the woodstove door. For others, it's the dream of taking a permanent vacation from the rat race, to live in a place without pretense where you can just be yourself. Maine, the way life should be. It's our state slogan.
Helping people achieve that aspiration is our business.
Maine is a big state with a diverse landscape. From the lush St. John Valley on the Canadian border to the sandy beaches of Scarborough, from the remote North Woods to the cosmopolitan streets of Portland, Maine has a place for everyone. Whether your version of the Maine lifestyle is buying a home, opening a business, or investing in a piece of Maine's 17 million acre forest land, we can help.
For sellers, we offer careful value analysis, detailed property depiction, custom marketing plans, and expert representation. We help buyers find the right property at the right price in the area of Maine that's right for them, and we offer professional representation through closing.
Thank you for visiting our website. Please take advantage of the resources and links we offer here, and give us a call if we can help.
George MacLeod, Broker / Owner


text:
Last fall, the theatre department worked closely with Tony nominee Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen to produce and present their musical, [title of show]. The musical is about four friends - a composer, a writer and two actresses - struggling through the process of creating an original musical for a contest. The end result is a show that tells the story of its own creation and features its authors in the lead roles.
Originally written for a cast of four, Hunter Bell was interested in creating a new version of the show that would be appropriate for larger casts in high school theatre. Bell approached Bill Church, director of the theatre program at Interlochen, to see if he would be interested in collaborating on a version of the show - and the timing couldn't have been better: Church was looking for an ambitious project to take on tour for the Academy's 50th celebration.
For the Academy students it was an opportunity to work closely with the creators and original cast of a successful Broadway musical. However, it also created the sometimes surreal situation where the students were actually interacting with the characters they were supposed to bring to life on stage.


text: You can have a distribution of a sealed packet in Rotterdam, but you can also choose to have the flyers distributed together with other flyers and/or a weekly (unsealed). Leaflet distribution Netherlands also offers the choice to distribute the flyers in Rotterdam together with the daily mail. In that case your flyer drops in the mailbox together with the 'ordinary' mail with at most 2 other flyers so the attention your flyer gets, increases considerably.


text:
Recently viewed
Ooly Sticky Note Pals - Rainbow Hearts
See what your label will look like...
Our current turnaround time is 2-3 weeks (this does not include shipping).
To receive your order within 1-2 days of ordering please purchase express postage or the RUSH MY ORDER service. Standard postage will take between 3-10 days depending on your location.
Instructions on how to apply your labels will be sent with your order. Please read carefully before applying labels
Please Take note of measurements as we do not offer a refund for Change of mind. All our products are prepared for shipping with due care.
If you require your order ASAP we will complete your order as a matter of priority.
Please note this does not include express shipping, just moving your order to the front of the queue.
If you require express shipping, you will need to purchase this separately.


text:
Bed and Bath
Contact Us
Customer satisfaction is truly their goal
"Duane McQuillen made the whole process of building our home very easy. He is patient and detail oriented which is, as we discovered, a very important thing to have in a builder. For anyone building a custom home, we would highly recommend talking with Duane McQuillen Construction. Customer satisfaction is truly their goal."
C&J Daniels
Building our home with you was so easy and stress free!
Duane – Words cannot express our gratitude for all you've done. We loved working with you and appreciate your very creative insight! Building our home with you was so easy and stress free! You did an incredible job and you build a gorgeous house.
Thank you for everything. – Dye
We knew right away that we had found the right person for the job.
Never in a million years did I think I'd be writing a testimonial about our experience in building a custom house. But then again, we never thought a company like Duane McQuillen Construction existed in the construction business. From the very first time we met Duane, we knew right away we had found our builder. Throughout the entire building process, Duane and his team went above and beyond the call of duty to make us happy. For our design meetings, Duane always came prepared with samples, house plans, what-if scenarios and cost-saving ideas that ultimately allowed us to build a gorgeous custom home on budget and on time!
Sincerely, L&C Hurtado
Simply hands down exceptional
I want to say "Thank You Duane" for the professional and friendly experience I received while building our home it was simply hands down exceptional. After looking at other builders in the area none compared to the custom home you built for my family, from the quality of materials used on both the interior and exterior to seeing you at the job site everyday which was most reassuring that the workmanship was going precisely as you said it would.
Sincerely – C Peters
Very happy with everything
Thanks so much for building us a beautiful home. We are very happy with everything and would gladly recommend you in the future. Sincerely – L&L M
We Love Our New Home
We found Duane to be honest, personable, kind and professional. He was able from the beginning to allow us the freedom to look at various house plans and develop a plan that seemed to best fit our needs. Duane was able to blend his years of experience in construction to help guide us and make the necessary suggestions that enabled us to have a truly "custom built " home to our liking. The finishing work, moldings, cabinets, details of which he upholds are remarkable and add to the beauty and design of the home. – The Daniels


text:
Code: MANNY30
Receive 30% Off Your Online Purchase. Use promotional code MANNY30 at checkout to receive discount. Not valid in combination with any other discounts or promotions. Not valid on gift cards, special orders, installed merchandise, commercial or fleet purchases. Excludes the following categories: Tires, Wheels, Batteries, Powerstop Brake Kits, Oil, Antifreeze, Refrigerant, Truck Boxes, Vent Visors, Bug Shields and BRANDS: Razor, Traxxas, Superchips, Hypertech, Edge, Bully Dog, Diablo, Edelbrock, Holley, NOS, Proform, Specialty Auto, Thule, Autometer, Accel, K&N, Kenwood, Pioneer, Sony, JVC, MSD and BBK Performance. Valid online until 2:59 am EST on 7/28/16. Online orders scheduled for in-store pick up must be completed by closing on 7/27/16 for discount to apply.


text:
Could you use D&D for a film noir setting? What would have to be changed?
By "film noir", I'm imagining something set in the 1940s, urban, dark, private eyes and all that. There would be cars, telephones, revolvers, all the technology of the time. And there would be no magic.
Edit: Thanks for all the suggestions, they basically confirmed what I suspected: that D&D is definitely not suited for a film noir game, and they gave me some clearer ideas of why.


text:
Maps-india - a complete guide for india travel maps - offers location map of Abhishek The Hotel. The following map shows the address of Abhishek The Hotel on mouseover (putting the cursor over the name of the hotel). Other hotels in Bangalore (of the same category) have also been depicted on the map.
Maps-india also offers maps on five star deluxe, five star, four star, three star and budget hotels in Bangalore. The links for them are given below the following map.


text:
Cequent Performance Products, Inc. is the industry's largest manufacturer of aftermarket/ OE towing and trailer accessory products. Each is engineered then tested to meet and frequently exceed the industry's highest standards. Product focuses include vehicle specific trailer hitches, electric trailer brake controls, trailer breakaway systems, fifth wheel hitches, gooseneck hitches & couplers, trailer weight distribution systems, cargo management, custom designed and standard electrical harnesses, trailer jacks, couplers and more. Key brands include: Bargman, Bulldog, Draw-Tite, Fulton, Hidden Hitch, Pro Series, Reese, ROLA, Tekonsha, Tow Ready and Wesbar. Visit Cequent at www.cequentgroup.com.
Showing 1–10 of 26 results


text:
Thorpe points finger at England finishing
Friday 13 July 2012
Article summary
Captain Thomas Thorpe believes the quality of "the final product" cost England dear as they lost to a dogged Greece side in the UEFA European Under-19 Championship semi-finals.
Article top media content
Article body
Captain Thomas Thorpe believes a failure to take their chances cost England dear as they bowed out of the UEFA European Under-19 Championship against Greece.
Noel Blake's team played for 75 minutes against ten men in their semi-final in Tallinn, Greece losing goalkeeper Stefanos Kapino to a red card in the final minute of the first half having been penalised for bringing down Benik Afobe. By then, however, England were behind to a Mavroudis Bougaidis header and when substitute goalkeeper Sokratis Dioudis came on to block Robert Hall's penalty with his first touch, it summed up their evening.
"It was a tough game but we believed we worked hard enough," Thorpe told UEFA.com. "We had a lot of the possession and created some very good chances. The problem was the final product, trying to convert those chances into goals. Greece worked extremely hard and when they went down to ten men their work-rate increased even further. They were pressing the ball a lot and it was difficult to play through them."
England did draw level early in the second half through Afobe's close-range header but were unable to add to that as the match moved into extra time. Blake's charges continued to enjoy the greater possession and outscored their opponents in terms of chances – but it was Greece who go the decisive breakthrough when Charalambos Lykogiannis lobbed Sam Johnstone 12 minutes from time. "We all stuck together and tried to play our way through to the final but it wasn't to be and we couldn't finish things off," Thorpe said.
Despite his obvious disappointment at England's exit, the Manchester United FC defender, who was pushed forward into midfield for the semi-final, feels there are plenty of positives to be taken from their time in Estonia. "It's been a good tournament and we've all enjoyed it," he added. "Unfortunately our final memoires will be the loss here. Hopefully we'll pick ourselves up and will be able to get back next season.
"After the match we spoke about how we played as a team and the good team spirit in the group," said Thorpe, whose side had been unbeaten in their first 12 matches of the season before their defeat by Greece and have the considerable consolation of a place in next year's FIFA U-20 World Cup in Turkey to look forward to. "We all hope to push up to the next level with the England Under-20s."


text:
Get on the path to results today.
Signed in as:
From the day a new business is conceived, it will encounter a host of legal issues. From selecting the optimal business structure to negotiating contracts, from ensuring that the company's name doesn't infringe on another business's intellectual property to hiring new employees--almost everything that small business owners do touches on some aspect of business law. As a company owner or manager, your focus should be on successfully running and building a business. A law firm that focuses on business law will have attorneys who have a broad cross-section of experience on the myriad legal issues that affect all businesses, large and small.


text:
This was published 7 years ago
Pell an 'embarrassment', says retired bishop
A retired bishop says Cardinal George Pell is an "embarrassment" to "a lot of good Catholic people" and should no longer be the voice of Australian bishops in the wake of his comments about child sex abuse within the church.
Cardinal Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, blamed a smear campaign against the Catholic Church for public pressure that led to a royal commission into child sex abuse.
He said on Tuesday that the commission would help separate fact from fiction after a "persistent press campaign" and "general smears that we [the church] are covering up and moving people around".
But Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, from Sydney, said on ABC radio on Wednesday that bishops had to confront Cardinal Pell at a meeting to be held at the end of the month.
He said Cardinal Pell was not a team player; that he had always done his own thing, and that he was doing it "very badly indeed".
"The other bishops would have to speak for themselves [but] I have to say that on this subject, he's a great embarrassment to me and to a lot of good Catholic people," Bishop Robinson said.
"You know, [bishops] need to take pretty decisive action. I mean, there's going to be a royal commission of course, and the thing there is to cooperate with it fully, and they need to make that resolution of course.
"But the other issue I think is that of having some united voice, having someone who does speak for them and in doing that, I do think they're actually going to have to confront George Pell head-on.
"I don't think he'd like it. He wouldn't, and he'd probably speak anyway, but at least it could be made clear that he's speaking strictly for himself."
Bishop Robinson said that while the role of archbishop was decided outside Australia, bishops could choose another person to speak on their behalf.
The Archdiocese of Sydney media office has been contacted for comment.
Cardinal Pell also said at a press conference on Tuesday that he supported the Royal Commission as it focused on abuse linked to other groups and not solely the Catholic Church.
"We are not interested in denying the extent of misdoing in the Catholic Church. We object to it being exaggerated. We object to being described as the only cab on the rank," he said.