text:
I wonder if India's lack of athleticism and competitive zeal, obviously, has something to do with yoga, an ancient Indian practice of mental discipline and physical flexibility, which I started taking 3 months ago at the age of 72. I've never been to India and what I know about India, besides yoga and the image of yogis in ashrams hypnotizing the western world's spiritual needy, is this: Gandhi was a great Pacifist whose philosophy is the most sensible in world history; some Indians around here have pink dots on their foreheads; most of the motels and hotels in this area are owned by Indians who do not permit dogs in their rooms; every time you need to know something on the phone when you're ripped off, a polite Indian who you cannot understand answers; just about every cold call on your phone is a fucking polite Indian; Indians and their spawn which I see walking around outside of their motels and businesses seem clannish and do not carry themselves with the swagger and light-footed rhythm of athletes; India children in America dominate national spelling bees, seeming to memorize entire dictionaries, destroying white brain-trust children; most Indians are named Patel; Indian yogi's lead the world in all phases of yoga and are idolized by their disciples and pupils; behind the sweet politeness of Indians is a ruthless mercenary streak that I suspect over-runs humanity.
Of course, most of the Indians I've come in contact with are probably not from the bottom of the caste system in India, because at least they have enough money to buy a plane ticket to America and buy all our motels and hotels, live in them in some cases, and make more money. They come from a country teeming with beggars and I wonder do the millions of impoverished in India give a damn about yoga and yogis or athletics when they're hungry and wasting away and on the verge of stealing a pig, a goat, an apple, a piece of bread.
I've read of a famous and fabulously rich India yoga guru in Beverly Hills who was trying to fuck all the pretty female acolytes in his classes who worshipped him and ended up getting sued for his millions. I once, as a cabbie, picked up an Indian man in a beautiful suit and drove him to a business conference at a snazzy hotel and he was very interesting and intelligent and friendly and tipped me well and even gave me some rupees which I still hold in my wallet in case I ever get to India; though I've never had any desire to visit a country that hot and over-crowded.
I probably wouldn't even give a second thought to poor feeble India garnering only one measly bronze medal from a country of 1.3 billion if it wasn't for my recent plunge into yoga, where everybody seems happily under the influence of its precepts and those precepts are from India. In many of my yoga articles I have admitted to the exercises softening my hard edge and rendering me less competitive, even if still do toss my tennis racket at times though not as often.
Speaking of tennis, this is the only sport where I recognize any professional India citizens, and what I read about the few who succeeded just a little on the pro tennis tour was that they were really nice guys, almost too nice, which leads me to believe further that a country with a vast yoga culture breeds a bunch of gawky nerds interested only in taming A type personalities while stressing non-confrontation.
What is shocking to me is that I have not seen one India person in any of my yoga classes, nor any India instructors or gurus, though I have read about big shot yogis spell-binding rich white people (mostly females) in Hollywood and Beverly Hills, which means that perhaps these India gurus are secretly trying to squeeze the aggressiveness out of our guilty aggressors and therefore undermine the maniacal aggressiveness of our country—probably a good thing. It also might be obvious that for the most part India people hate fucking yoga and think we're a bunch of idiots for adopting it in a manner that has caused it to take off as a business empire for the yogis who prey on our guilt and lack of spiritualism as we ruthlessly lead the world in finance as well as the Olympics.
I think I might ask one of my yoga instructors if there are any India people in their classes or if there ever has been. My guess is that most of the local India people are well-apprised of yoga and would be embarrassed to join a local class and observe our instructors and pupils, just as an American in India would laugh out loud at an Indian trying to hit a baseball when one of their national sports is cricket, kind of a foolhardy offshoot of baseball if not the outline of the beginning of that sport.
This morning, the day after I read about the Americans earning 93 medals to India's one, I picked up the paper and saw that we were up to 100 and the Indians still had only one pathetic bronze, but when I turned on MSNBC to see what Trump has done next, a gold medal lady's badminton game was going on between a Spanish woman and an India woman! The India woman was assured a silver, and for that I was glad, but I still rooted for her to beat the world class Spaniard to whom she was an under-dog, but she lost the second set after winning the first, and then I had to go to yoga class and therefore missed the final set, so I guess I'll have to read about it tomorrow.


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Watch out Feathers McGraw! Aardmans got a whole new flock. Andrew Osmond visits Aardman Animations as they put the final touches on Chicken Run, the studios first feature film.
Standfirst: Aardman Animations does The Great Escape. With chickens. For some readers, that will be all they need to know. For others, read on...
Let's get the bad news out of the way first. All the chickens in Chicken Run are bona fide fowl. There are no penguins stalking the shadows with strategically placed rubber-gloves on their heads. This is not Wallace and Gromit IV, though that may come in a few years' time. Sorry, Feathers McGraw fans.
The Characters
The good news is that Chicken Run, directed by Peter Lord and Nick Park, introduces us to a packed cast of Aardman newcomers, feathered, furry, nice and nasty. It's the 1950s in the North of England, and in the confines of Hut 17 on Tweedy's chicken farm, one fowl has had enough of her dark and dreary life. Ginger has a vision of escape to a better world, beyond the tyranny of cruel, chicken-hating Mrs. Tweedy. Unfortunately, she's no leader and can't convey her urgency to her apathetic fellow captives. These include the deeply dippy Babs, a featherbrain who asks, 'Have you had a nice holiday?' each time Ginger returns from solitary after a failed escape attempt. Then there's Bunty, stoical and realist, whose attitude amounts to: 'Our mothers were egg-layers, our grandmothers were egg-layers, what's the big deal?'
Old Fowler is the farmyard cockerel, an ex-RAF mascot and military bore, whose life is a litany of his former glories in the service. (Naturally, the chickens ignore him.) Ginger's only initial ally is Mac, a mad genius inventor and the brainbox who implements her escape schemes. Mac is a fast-talking Scot, but unlike a not too different Star Trek character, she has a good Scots accent. The rats Neck and Fetcher operate the black market economy, trading stolen goods in return for eggs. Presiding over all is the fearsome Mrs. Tweedy, scheming about how she can dispatch the loathsome chickens and make a buck in the process. The henpecked Mr. Tweedy (sorry) is a simple soul, with a slightly barmy belief that the chickens are up to something...
One of the most important characters makes a dramatic entry. Early in the film, Mrs. Tweedy disposes of a non-egg-laying chicken named Edwina. (Note to British readers: Aardman denies the name has any connection to a certain egg-phobic Tory politician.) The other fowl are traumatised, and Ginger, in utter despair, offers up a forlorn prayer for help, from anywhere. At that moment, there's a distant boom, a flash and a character drops out of the sky. It's Rocky the Flying Rooster -- at least that's what the poster with him says. Rocky is an all-American hunk, to the delight of the womenfolk and the dismay of Fowler. Unfortunately, as Ginger finds, Rocky is also an all-American sweet-talking total fraud. Or is he?
It's the friction between Ginger and Rocky which drives the story. After considering several movie couples, the creators decided to model the pair on Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, whose volatile screen chemistry delighted audiences from their first team-up in Woman of the Year (1942).
The cross-generation culture clash was inspired by films like Rock Around the Clock (1956), while the Anglo-American theme -- with plenty of digs at both sides of the Atlantic -- is in the tradition of pics like A Fish Called Wanda. The directors confess they were nervous how audiences would react to some of the American jabs, until they heard the laughs in preview screenings.
The Voices
Rocky is voiced by Mel Gibson, in his second animated feature role following John Smith in Pocahontas. According to Nick Park, "Peter Lord and me already knew Mel was a fan of Wallace and Gromit. We met up with him in Los Angeles a couple of years ago and he invited us out for lunch. We went wondering what it was about and it wasn't about anything really! But we knew we had a good contact. By the time we saw Gibson in Maverick we had created the character of Rocky, and made him as a model. So we took a bit of Gibson's dialogue from Maverick, animated Rocky to his lines, and it fitted perfectly."
"Working with a studio like DreamWorks gave us the opportunity to use someone who was already a star," Park continues. "For a long time we knew Rocky was going to be an 'outside' chicken but we couldn't decide what to make him. Then after Maverick it all seemed to fit: the proximity of the war, how the GI's came over to Britain... It made sense to have an American among these very English backwater chickens, who have no life. It reminded us of films where new music comes in and livens up the fuddy-duddies. With Rocky, we were thinking of a happy-go-lucky, loveable rogue, extremely likeable but very unreliable. We didn't just want the American to come in and be the hero!"
The female lead Ginger, perhaps the true 'hero' of the film, is voiced by Julia Swalha, well-known to British TV comedy fans as the long-suffering Saffron (the daughter) in Absolutely Fabulous. She's also appeared in TV dramatisations of Pride and Prejudice and Martin Chuzzlewit, plus Kenneth Branagh's film In the Bleak Midwinter. Swalha is joined by AbFab co-star Jane Horrocks. In fact the chicken Babs is very close to Horrocks' dimwitted Bubble in the live-action series. The actress is best known for her extraordinary multi-vocal performance in the stage and screen versions of Little Voice. The sinister Mrs. Tweedy is voiced by Miranda Richardson, recently seen in Tim Burton's effects-laden Sleepy Hollow. Her past films range from Damage and Tom and Viv to Interview with a Vampire and Spielberg's Empire of the Sun.
The Directors
Directors Peter Lord and Nick Park need little introduction to stop-motion fans. Lord co-founded Aardman with Dave Sproxton, though as Lord puts it, it was a matter of "Two schoolboys picking a name, little dreaming it would hang around so long." The pair's inspirations included Ray Harryhausen, Terry Gilliam's Monty Python animations, and stop-motion TV shows such as The Wombles and Magic Roundabout. Aardman was the name of an inept hero in one of the teenagers' early cel sequences, bought by the BBC in the late '60s. Subsequently, Lord and Sproxton focused on plasticine/clay animation, mainly because no one else was working in the medium. The duo have animated numerous acclaimed shorts, many now available on Aardman video collections, while Lord was Oscar-nominated twice for Adam (1991) and Wat's Pig (1996).
It was Aardman's films that in turn inspired Nick Park, who invited Lord and Sproxton to give a lecture at the National Film and Television School where he was studying. At the time, Park was working on his first Wallace and Gromit adventure, A Grand Day Out, in which the duo go to the moon. After Park left school, he was invited to complete the film at Aardman (it was released in 1989). A wild success, it was followed by Park's short Creature Comforts (1990) and the Wallace and Gromit sequels The Wrong Trousers (1993) and A Close Shave (1995). All three won Oscars, with Comforts beating fellow nominee A Grand Day Out. Park subsequently joined Lord and Sproxton as company director of Aardman. (A common mistake, even promoted by the UK press, is that Park is sole manager or founder of Aardman, which is like saying Lord created Wallace and Gromit!)
"The idea for an Aardman feature came up after The Wrong Trousers," says Lord. "It seemed a logical ambition, the next summit for Aardman to climb." There was discussion with Jeffery Katzenberg, who was with Disney at the time, but then things went cold until after Close Shave. The seed of Chicken Run was a doodle in one of Park's notebooks, showing a chicken digging under a wire-fence with a spoon, plus the idea of The Great Escape with chickens. "Armed with that, we started writing the story," says Lord. "Nick and I worked on it for the best part of a year before it became widely public. In that time we took the idea to sundry American studios and touted it around Hollywood style."
And why chickens? "Chickens are perhaps the most humble creatures on our planet," says Park simply. "Just think how often they're ridiculed in our language. It seemed natural to make a film about them."
By now, Lord and Park were working with Jake Eberts, founder of Allied Filmmakers and former founder and chief executive of Goldcrest Films. Eberts has been involved with two past animations. In 1974, he arranged the development finance for Mortin Rosen's Watership Down; two decades later he executive produced the stop-motion James and the Giant Peach (1996). "Jake was our contact with Hollywood," says Lord. "He helped us stay independent until we had a film in place that we wanted to make, which was very valuable. By the time we did the DreamWorks deal, we had the film treatment quite developed. At that point DreamWorks came on board for the pre-production, serious model-building, the scripting, storyboarding... all that was three years ago."
More recently, of course, DreamWorks announced a $250 million 'long-term affiliation' with Aardman, committing the Hollywood major to not just Chicken Run but four future Aardman movies. "It's an incredible deal," says Lord. "We have full creative control. We can choose our projects, stars, subject-matter..." Park and Lord have nothing but praise for Jeffery Katzenberg, DreamWorks co-founder and contact. "He lands here in his private jet every month or two months," says Lord. "What amazes us is his commitment, which not many studio bosses have to a single film. He doesn't tell us what to do -- he's said this is an Aardman film first and foremost -- but challenges us to get it better. The important thing is that we deal direct with him, not with a bunch of department heads. He's accessible, experienced and the only person we need to listen to." A smaller bonus: if Aardman produces 90 seconds of animation in a week, Jeffery Katzenberg pays for staff lunch. (Which is why this visitor can truly say he had lunch on Katzenberg.)
Park says of DreamWorks, "They respect what we do; they seem to love our shorter films, the comedy in them. It's a learning process both ways. DreamWorks learned about the kind of films that suit us, but at the same time we learned so much about making a long-format film. Keeping an audience hooked for 80 minutes is a very different ballgame from making a short film. Once upon a time, we were making films primarily for ourselves, for our own enjoyment. But if you want to work with Hollywood, you need regimentation."
The Challenge
Given that Aardman are known for shorts and mid-length films, what are the challenges in going to feature-length? "I always thought making a feature film would be about two-and-a-half times harder than a 30 minute-film," says Park. "But the amount of work and mental effort, the man-hours everyone puts in... it's easily twenty times as much. The story is the most difficult thing, getting it to work over eighty minutes. It's harder to hold in the head than a thirty-minute story, and you've got the audience attention span to consider; you have to take the viewer on a journey of ups and downs, fasts and slows. It's difficult to calculate, which is why we ended up making the film in story-reel form, basic moving drawings, which we use to judge how it's playing before we shoot." (More on this later...)
There have been excellent stop-motion features over the years, from Ladislas Staewich's French classic Tale of the Fox (1938) to the charming Norwegian film The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix (1975), directed by Iva Caprino. Yet only two have ever received international distribution: The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and James and the Giant Peach (1996), both directed by Henry Selick and distributed by Disney. Nightmare was a hit, but James barely broke even in Stateside theatres. And with computer animations like Dinosaur and Toy Story 2 grabbing the headlines, won't audiences find stop-motion passé?
"Computer animation is a big deal now," Lord agrees. "It's gone from a marginal, specialised area to a mainstream brand in ten years. Stop-motion's never really been mainstream since the days of Harryhausen, but I feel it's having a resurgence now. Chicken Run isn't spectacular in the blow-you-away sense of computer animation, where it's easy to have twenty thousand warriors rushing across the plain. It's more subtle than that, on the level of character. I think it's nice what we do is more human; you get tired of effects movies after a while." A rough version of the film's opening bears out Lord's point. It's a montage of Ginger's failed escape attempts, becoming increasingly outlandish and desperate. There are no jaw-dropping effects, at least to an audience used to Aardman's impeccable animation. What grips is the urgency, the pace, the atmosphere -- in short, the story.
"But we like spectacle too!" adds Park quickly. Indeed, the new film promises plenty of white-knuckle thrills, including a sequence in the tradition of Spielberg with conveyer belts, giant rollers and lots of blades. On new technologies, Park comments, "Computer animation would mean nothing if it didn't have good ideas, stories, direction and characters. Anyway, I think there's something very appealing about the use of plasticine. Every child has handled plasticine and relates to it -- it's so tactile, you can see the fingerprints. To see plasticine characters moving round in full animation is in some ways more impressive than computer animation, I think. It has an extra kind of appeal."
The Production
The final screenplay was written by Jack Rosenthal and Karey Kirkpatrick. Rosenthal has written for numerous UK film and TV titles, as well as co-writing the Barbara Streisand picture Yentl (1983). Kirkpatrick's credits include the cel Rescuers Down Under and the stop-motion James and the Giant Peach. The writer is now collaborating with Mark Burton on Aardman's second feature,The Tortoise and the Hare.
The music is by John Powell and Harry Gregson-Williams, who scored DreamWorks' computer-animated Antz. They're supervised by Hans Zimmer of Lion King fame.
The directors agree there's "distinctly more dialogue" than past Aardman films (think how many of the studio's past stars were mute). Asked whether the script was complete before filming, Lord admits, "You could say without great inaccuracy we're still working on it. We intended it to be complete before filming. That was the plan. We thought, We've got a long time, we'll get it all sussed, the script will be ready, ready, ready! But it doesn't work that way. Even now, about three weeks before the end of the shoot, it's possible a line or two will change. Certainly some shots have changed. The structure was tightly in place before the filming, but details and spoken words have changed a lot. It's a very fluid process."
At the time of writing (mid-April) the film is in its last weeks of production, with just a few shots to be filled. To house such an enormous production, Aardman took on new premises in the 'Aztec West' Business Park, eight miles from Bristol centre. The building is devoted to Chicken Run, while Aardman's regular output of shorts, commercials and TV work continues at its other sites. Neither Lord nor Park are doing any physical animation themselves. Instead their days are packed with approving rushes, consultations with individual animators and generally holding the film together. "A lot of the animators were quite inexperienced when they came," says Lord. "But now we learn from them, and some are quite brilliant. They're not technicians, but actors, performers. It's very collaborative in that sense." Not that a director's job is easy. "On a bad day we might cover ten sets," says Lord. "We'd be directing an action scene, a love scene, a slapstick scene -- it's mindboggling."
The pair have split duties down the middle: Park handles the chicken scenes, while Lord deals with the Tweedys and the 'spiv' rats. They see their skills as complementary. "The film would be impossible if one of us was doing it alone," says Lord. "It's been very interesting from the point-of-view of ideas and techniques. Nick and I come from slightly different backgrounds, and we're interested in slightly different techniques, which come together in this film. Nick is brilliant with facial stuff, while I enjoy more full-body animation." Viewers who've seen Lord's creations Morph and Adam, both built around gesture and mime, will know what he means.
As in cel animation, the animators 'act out' planned character moves before making a series of test animations leading up to the final product. Computer monitors give instant playback, a great aid to checking continuity. The work-in-progress storyboards the animators follow are stored in an AVID editing system, producing a rough animatic film that can be tweaked and reworked at will.
Despite all this, the directors stress it's never a computer-led operation. Instead it's an extremely manual process, requiring both space and a lot of time. There are vast hand-painted skies, depicting every kind of weather, on canvasses stacked sideways from floor to ceiling. Motion-control cameras sit on huge mobile arms, perched above scale farmyards and green rolling hills. The cameras and lighting take two days to set up for some shots. Character models are only partly plasticine. The non-moving sections are made of silicon, while the humans' clothes are foam rubber (watch out for minor details, especially the hidden chickens on Mrs. Tweedy's clothing). However the heads and hands are certainly plasticine and few viewers should notice the difference.
Park says, "When our films were first introduced into America, one festival presenter introduced them as, This is the smoothest claymation you've ever seen. It's odd, because the one thing we've never aimed for is smooth. Sometimes we even go for character above smoothness. The acting you get in this film is like nothing ever seen before in stop-frame animation. We've pushed the animators and they've risen to the challenge. When we started out, creating and working on our own characters, we always thought if we industrialize this process, there's a danger we'd lose the personality, and the feel and the style will change. But you can't see the joins."
Chicken Run premieres on June 23rd in America, and June 27th in Britain. DreamWorks is distributing in America, and Pathe in Europe. Four more Aardman features will follow, all distributed worldwide by DreamWorks. Contrary to previous reports, a Wallace and Gromit feature is not confirmed, but here's hoping.
Andrew Osmond is a freelance writer specializing in fantasy media and animation.
Super Mutants Everyone Can Relate To: The X-MenPrevious Post
Editor's Notebook

subset: commoncrawl


text:
by darshi
No comparison between
Sun & moon,
In my life,
U R lyk boon….
School is like my
2nd home,
Knowledge is given
To us on loan….
By achieving our goals
we can pay it wid interest,
East or West "my teacher"
Is the BEST…..
My teacher taught me
Sugar & salt of life
2gether wid studies,
Also taught me how to make
& remain BEST BUDDIES….!!
Mother has to take care
of her own baby,
So, teacher has
the toughest job may be….
No chocolates, No flowers,
No gift, No card, can thank my teacher,
I just wish GOD 2 be like them
with all their feature….
Join in and write your own page! It's easy to do. How? Simply click here to return to Teacher Resources.


text:
The Albany Times Union recently had a feature article on long-gone Tobin Packing of Albany.
They had quite a collection of pictures. The old First Prize Truck at the top is courtesy of Hanks Truck Pictures
The plant lasted from 1924 to 1981 and the ruins are still for sale.
As well as First Prize, meat processing was once a big industry in Albany. The Swift meat packing company was first founded in 1855 by 16 year old Gustavus Franklin Swift in Eastham, Massachusetts. It's early origins on Cape Cod, led to later Brighton, MA, Albany, NY and Buffalo, NY locations, It was finally in Chicago. Gustavus Swift also championed the refrigerated railroad car.


text:
As soon as Clark lowered Lois on the porch, she swung around, grabbing a pot of nasturtiums along the way. The pot met rather terrifically with Conner's face.
"I know that didn't hurt but I feel much better!" Lois snapped.
"Lois," Clark began but she stomped off inside the house. Just as he made a move to follow her, Conner's shoulders slumped and he supersped down the driveway. Clark blocked him as he hit the main road. "Do not go away."
"I mean it. You're in trouble but we don't hate you. Just go to your room until we can all talk, okay?"
"But, Lois--"
Clark pulled himself up and crossed his arms, implacable. With a sigh, Conner dragged his feet back to the house.
"Lois does too hate me," he muttered.
He patted Conner's shoulder. "What you did under the influence of Red K was very violating and frightening. Lois understands what Red K does but she's also reacting to what you did. Give her some space and a really heartfelt apology and everything will turn out. I promise, she doesn't hate you."
"I hate me! I hate all these stupid, creepy Luthor genes inside me that made me do things like... like like hurting Lois and stealing fur coats."
"Red K brings out the darkness in Kryptonians. I don't have Luthor genes and I do some pretty bad things when I'm exposed to it."
Conner wiped his sleeve across his nose. "But Lois said even when you're on it, you weren't as bad. And you and Tess didn't tell me about the whole Luthor thing because you knew it was bad."
Now it was Clark's turn to sigh. They'd reached the farmhouse by now
and he stared up at the north upstairs window, his parents' old room,
now his and Lois'. He willed all of their wisdom down on him right now.
"We all did and said things that were wrong today. Please, go to
your room and we'll sort this all out. Which isn't to say that you're
not in trouble."
He found Lois with a pint of ice cream in one hand and a bag of salt and vinegar chips in the other, glaring at the blank television screen. She didn't say a word until Conner went upstairs. Then what came out was, "You hid Call of Duty from me. You must be punished."
"Lois, you know what gory first-person shooters does to your sleeping patterns." Clark eased onto the couch beside her, easing his hands around her shoulders. "How's your throat?"
"Still throbbing, thanks to Mini-Me."
"I know! I know! Freakish allergic reaction to space rocks but ugh! Clark! He's like your son!"
"I prefer brother."
"Which makes me his stepmom. Life is spicy enough without throwing in a dash of American Pie in this alien beer batter. Although seeing Conn desecrate one of Mrs. K's pies would be infinitely more disturbing than what happened today; I love your mom's pies."
"Conner's very sorry for what he did," said Clark.
"So, why doesn't he say so himself?" Lois demanded.
"He will. You're just a little scary right now."
"I have only begun to scare!"
"I know. You're right to want an apology and maybe a little more. I'm so glad you're safe." He kissed her neck, right where it met her shoulder. She smelled like smoke and vanilla soap. He kissed her nape next then pulled her close so her head rested on his chest. "You kept the city safe by leading Conner away and you escaped--"
"Not quite in time."
"Most people wouldn't've been able to leave at all." He rubbed circles on her back, trying to broach the next topic diplomatically.
"Just spit it out, Smallville."
Or not.
"I just wanted to clarify something. Conner mentioned that while you were fighting him, you said that the Red K brought out the Luthor in him. Was that-- were those your exact words?"
"I don't know. Maybe? I was kind of fighting for my life, y'know."
"Your memory's almost as good as mine," he reminded her.
Lois shrugged. Her huff warmed his chest. "We all know only Luthors reach that level of wrong, Clark."
"Lois, I've done worse things on Red K and I don't have a drop of Luthor DNA. You and Tess have become pretty good friends--"
"Halt, right there." She sat up. "Tess and I are good co-workers and we agree on a lot of things concerning the league. She is, however, still creepy."
"Which is one of the things you like about her," said Clark.
"I plead the fifth. What exactly is your point, Smallville?"
"I really don't want Conner to think that just because he's half-Luthor, he's got a timebomb of evil in him."
He cupped Lois' face, needing the eye contact. "I believed that once about being Kryptonian. I caused so much pain and trouble for people around me because I labeled that part of myself as uncompromisingly evil. Dad did something similar when he first met Lex and look what happened."
"Hey, your dad had nothing to do with Lex turning out the way he did," Lois said, as fiercely protective of her adopted family as ever.
"Maybe not entirely, but that lack of trust fed Lex's downfall in part. I made that mistake with him; I'm trying to make up for it through Tess."
"And Conner?"
"In a way." She kissed his collarbone and he continued, "I'm not entirely innocent. I told Tess we had to keep Conner's heritage a secret. It was... I panicked. I saw what he could do, remembered what Lex and Lionel wanted to do with me, and I reverted. And look what happened. I am going to apologize to Conner for it and... and I think... I'd like to think that you might as well."
"Apologize that you kept a secret? Sure!"
"Clark." She sidled away but Clark chased her back, missing the warmth of her body. "I've put up with a lot including your dark doppelganger almost succeeding in what Conner was starting--"
"-- but it was like Chucky, y'know?"
He could be married to her for decades and still fall behind as her train of thought jumped tracks. "No?"
"Chucky. The cute doll that turns into a serial killer. Or those creepy children of the corn things. Or the M&M mascots which're supposed to be cute but are really pretty disturbing especially the one with the pretzel shoved inside him while still having eyes inside his stomach."
"I was trying to think of him as our kid, Clark! Then it got weird times ten squillion then I have to apologize for calling him out on being a Luthor?"
"I can't believe in someone being pure evil. And neither can Conner. Please understand, sweetheart. Just this one little thing. The rest you're right about, definitely and absolutely ."
"Damn straight."
"Considering this is your home now as much as it's mine, you will definitely have a say in Conner's punishment."
She reared back again. "You mean you haven't kicked him out?"
"Sweetheart, he doesn't have anywhere to go."
"Unless Tess has been keeping him in a cardboard box, he sure as hell does!"
"Clark! How am I supposed to sleep when-- argh!" Lois flung his arms away and stood, marching up the stairs moments later.
"Lois, please, let's not go to bed angry." But he saw that she was actually heading for the spare room-- Conner's room-- and he continued as she shoved the door open. "Lois, he was drugged and it was partially my fault for--"
But Conner was already sitting up at the foot of the bed. His eyes were red and wet, his posture utterly defeated. Clark wanted to embrace him and tell him that it would all turn out all right but Lois's expression didn't back up his words. He refused to lie any more.
"We need to talk," Lois told Conner. To Clark, she said, "Out. And don't listen in."
He tried with one last, "Lois," but she crossed her arms and
pointed so out the door he went.
"I'm so, so sorry and I'll leave right now!" Conner burst out.
Lois plastered herself against the door. "Oh no, you don't! You and Clark, whooshing away before I can finish talking. That's one thing that's definitely going to change around here: no super-speeding as an avoidance tactic or the super-speeder in question forfeits the argument."
"I... don't understand."
"You're not going anywhere until I hear a proper grovel."
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry I stole all that stuff and I'm sorry I kidnapped you and I'm sorry I hit you and I'm just... really, really sorry." Defeated, he dropped his head onto his heads. His shoulders shook a little. Lois was reminded of Shelby when he knew he wasn't supposed to snatch food off the table but the temptation to have a slice of ham was too much.
She gentled her tone. "As you should be. Anything else?"
Conner looked up. "I'm leaving?"
A smile tickled her lips. "Really, kiddo."
"Oh. Um." He scanned the room for inspiration. "I'll make it up to you?"
"Getting warmer."
"I'll do all your chores."
"Fair start."
"And I'll always give you the last piece of dessert."
"Excellent idea. And?"
Conner blinked. "I don't know. Tell me how to make it up to you and I'll do it, I promise. I want to stay here, Lois. I want--" His ears went visibly pink even in the dim light. "I'm sorry."
"Believe it or not, you've actually said that enough times to make me sick of it." Lois pulled the chair out from beside the study desk. She twisted it around to sit backwards, resting her chin on the backrest. "This problem I have with you? It's not going to go away quickly."
"Shush. Not done."
Conner nodded.
"Part of that is because I'm just not as trusting a person as Clark. Clark's willing to give Lionel Luthor a fourth chance which just tells you he was dropped pretty badly on the head before the invulnerability kicked in. Me, I withhold judgment. Another part of this issue is because of things I know about your past."
"You mean being a Luthor."
"Yeah. I have a metric fuckload of baggage against the Luthors."
"I can't help that!
"No, you can't," said Lois. "I'm sorry I implied that you were bad because you're a Luthor. That's not true."
Conner snuffled. He really did look like Shelby. A Black Lab Shelby.
"I'm friends with Tess now and she's a Luthor. Weird as hell though, don't tell me I'm wrong."
"I don't really think I'm supposed to point fingers at weirdness," he said.
Lois smiled, a genuine one. "Point. So here's the deal. You stay here, do my chores for a month, volunteer at the women's shelter thrift shop down the street from the Planet every Saturday, and write me a five hundred word essay on the theory of nature versus nurture."
"Then you'll forgive me?"
"Then I'll know enough about you to judge you according to who you are, not who jerked off in your test tube."
Silence rushed into the room.
"I'm so sorry for that," said Lois, after she'd gathered her wits.
"I only know what Lionel looks like so the mental image makes me want to die a little," said Conner.
"I think I already did."
"The psychological scarring should knock a week off my added chores."
"Don't push it, kid."
He grinned, reminding Lois of simpler days with meteor "freaks" and dunk tanks. "I won't let you down," Conner promised. "Not you or Clark or Tess."
"Good. And somewhere in all of that, don't let yourself down either."
Conner positively beamed and it was a little like watching a sunrise.


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Industrial Rust Inhibitor
HinderRUST: Rust Corrosion Inhibitor and Anti-Rust Lubricant
Rust is a disease that attacks metals. Like any other disease, the old adage applies: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. A process called oxidation is what forms rust. During the oxidation process, oxygen combines with moisture and forms an oxide known as Iron Oxide, better known as RUST.
The formation of Iron Oxide leads to weakening of the metal bonds, which causes damage to the metal structure or object and gradually leads to the disintegration of the metal, thus shortening the life of any metal object. It will substantially increase the maintenance cost of a metal object or structure.
Industrial and Manufacturing Equipment Maintenance
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"The chain had been stiffened by rust for over a year, rendering the machine inoperable. We applied HinderRUST to a heavily rusted folding machine feed roller chain. HinderRUST dissolved the rust, lubricated the chain and returned it to a usable state."


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Public Program Calendar
Events Calendar
Introduction to Orienteering
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Hits : 489
Come learn how to use a map & compass on our orienteering course. We'll show you the basics before you set out to try and find all the points. Space is limited – call early!


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Dr. Patrick Hager is a Corporate Scientist with 3M's Automotive Aftermarket Division. Since joining 3M in 1987, Hager has held appointments in the Corporate Laboratory, Consumer & Office group and Industrial and Transportation group working in the areas of film process technology, adhesives and adhesive coating and customer inspired innovation. He has been instrumental in the invention and development of several key 3M technologies including 3M Command brand adhesives, simultaneous film orientation, surface structure and functionalization.
In addition to his work in the lab, Hager is actively involved in mentoring new 3M employees and has served as a tutor and coach for at-risk students in St. Paul, Minnesota area high schools.


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Don't forget to check the website time and again for updates, because we flash latest news and updates of the university.
This is the website maintained by The Global Open University Nagaland for the adacemic purpose. You can take the best help / use from this website for your study and related works..
If you're having any problems please don't hesitate to ask for help on the topic.
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Work (BSW)
Objective : The three years Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) Degree conducted by The Global Open University, Nagaland has been designed for meeting the demand of the growing needs of experts in the fields of social welfare, labour welfare, social change, social organisation and disorganisation etc.
Eligibility : 10+2 in any discipline Duration : Three years
Award : Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) Degree shall be awarded to all the successful candidates by The Global Open University..
First Year
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Hindi / English
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Careers in Social Work
Social Work is a professional and academic discipline committed to the pursuit of social welfare, social change and social justice. This field works towards research and practice to improve the quality of life and to the development of potential of each individual, group and community of a society. Social workers perform interventions through research, policy, direct practice and teaching. Research in social work is focused on human development, social policy, public administration, programme evaluation and community development. There are ample opportunities in the field of social work even for those who complete their Bachelor's Degree in Social Work (BSW). Opportunities exists in the NGO sector besides independent and funding bodies. BSW Degree holders may also go for a Master's Degree in Social Work (MSW).
Total Fee : Rs. 18,125
Accordingly, the Application Form duly filled-in along with four stamp size photographs, copies of certificates and mark sheets and a Bank Draft for the full fee i.e. Rs. 18,125 in the name of "The Global Open University, Nagaland" payable at Dimapur must reach the Admissions Officer, The Global Open University, Sodzulhou Village, P.O. - ARTC, NH-39, Dimapur - 797115 Nagaland by speed post only.
Examination Fee : A fee of Rs. 250 per paper is to be paid before appearing in the Annual Examinations to be held at different Examination Centers within the State of Nagaland (Dimapur, Kohima, Wokha).
Bachelor's Thesis : Students are required to submit a Bachelor's Thesis at the end of third year.
Assignments : All admitted participants must submit subjectwise assignments based on the Mini Project Reports to be prepared by them on a topic related to each of the subjects.


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Author: Treasure Hernandez
Narrator: L. Steven Taylor
Unabridged: 5 hr 46 min
Format: Digital Audiobook
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing and Buck 50 Productions, LLC
Published: 08/07/2018
On the outside, Tone seems to have it all. He has a father he looks up to and an older brother who keeps him under his wing-until the day his father crosses a line that changes everything. Tone is forced to enter a world he knew nothing about. Detective Abraham is obsessed with power and money, so he has figured out a way to play on both sides of the tracks when it comes to organized crime. The only thing stopping him from making it to the top spot is Santiago, one of the most feared suppliers in the country. Santiago's only weakness is his daughter, Serena. Detective Abraham develops a plan that involves his son, Tone, getting close to Serena. Against his better judgment, Tone goes along with his father's plan and sets out to win Serena over with his charm. What he hasn't planned on is Serena turning the tables and stealing his heart. Now Tone is faced with choices that leave him questioning his loyalty to his family.
Seven Days in June
Tia Williams
Club: $12.99
The Son of Mr. Suleman
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A Love of My Own
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Your patient intake partner
Federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) like yours play a critical role in our health system, providing care to millions of patients living in underserved communities. At the same time, you also face a myriad of financial, competitive and operational challenges while working to meet your organizational goals and provide quality, affordable care for all. Phreesia understands these FQHC challenges and provides a comprehensive suite of tools to help you manage FQHC patient intake across a range of primary and specialty care settings.
Learn about the inspiring work of one of Phreesia's FQHC clients, Community Health Northwest Florida.
We know that every patient who walks through your door has unique needs. But managing all of the necessary intake tasks for each patient at every visit can seem impossible without an army of staff. Phreesia's automated platform streamlines patient registration by asking the right patients the right questions at the right time, enabling FQHCs to meet their organizational goals and provide quality, affordable care for all.
- Create a better patient experience
- Capture a complete patient record
- Offer flexible payment options and payment plans
- Use Phreesia to do it all at scale, with consistency and fewer staff
Say goodbye to clipboards and scanning
Phreesia is designed to save your team—and your patients—the headache of check-in forms. Whether patients register at home, in your parking lot or in your office, Phreesia's intake tools help streamline your operations, while giving patients the safe, contactless options they want and your providers the specific information they need.
Send texts or emails that let your patients register up to a week before their appointment. They can check in from their mobile device at home, in their car or in another designated area when they arrive at your office. Mobile offers patients a convenient and contactless way to update their medical history, sign consents, make payments and take photos to store in their patient record.
The right questions, the right answers
From behavioral health and pediatrics to oncology and internal medicine, FQHC organizations serve a wide range of patient types, each with their own specific health risks and needs. Phreesia tailors the patient experience to each individual, capturing medical, family and social history, payment information and consents. The data is automatically sent back to your EHR/PM system, allowing you to capture a complete patient record.
- Deliver patient-specific, guided intake interviews on any device
- Capture a complete patient record, including key data points such as sexual orientation, veteran status and gender
- Collect patient medical and social history, payments and e-signature consents
- Integrate patient data with your EHR/PM system
Activate patients throughout their journey
What if you could engage patients and empower them to take a more active role in their care? Phreesia Health Campaigns allows you to send targeted messages to the right patients at the right time and prompts them to self-schedule specific appointments, such as nurse visits for flu vaccines, mammograms, DEXA scans and other preventive screenings. Health Campaigns activates patients in their care and helps you improve clinical quality, boost patient recall, and align clinical operations with both fee-for-service and value-based payment models. This reduces call volume and scheduling workload for your staff, gives providers more time during the visit and encourages patients to take charge of their health.
- Identify target patient populations in need of specific appointment types
- Present custom messages to patients during intake or between visits, prompting them to request or self-schedule appointments
- Monitor and analyze outreach metrics and patient responses
- Enhance quality performance by driving preventive care
- Maximize time with patients to deliver quality care and a better patient experience
Insurance verification for government and private-payer patients
Need to verify a patient's insurance coverage? We'll tell you. Not sure who is eligible for a Medicare Annual Wellness Visit? We have that, too. While not all of your patients will owe a copay, Phreesia helps ensure you're collecting from those who do and automatically calculates the balance. Our automated Eligibility & Benefits application gives your staff the data they need in a manageable, simple-to-understand format.
- Automatically verify insurance before or during the visit
- Identify benefit information, such as co-insurance and deductibles
- Accelerate reimbursement by reducing pending and denied claims
Support your patients' behavioral health and wellness goals
As an FQHC, you take responsibility for your patients' behavioral health. Phreesia understands this, and our clinical support applications can help create a more systematic approach to managing mental wellness in your patient panel.
- Trigger clinical screenings for depression, anxiety, alcohol use and more
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Wondering if your patients are satisfied with their care?
What do your patients think about their visits? We know your staff doesn't always have the bandwidth to ask these questions, so Phreesia's FQHC patient satisfaction surveys do just that—collect patient feedback in real time for you, giving you a clear picture of what they think. As an FQHC organization, collecting patient feedback helps you improve services, generate patient referrals and boost reimbursement rates.
- Track patient perceptions
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Measure, understand and improve
Phreesia's robust suite of analytics tools empowers you to take control of your organization's financial and operational health, including revenue cycle management and reporting on the FQHC quality measures needed to meet grant requirements. Our permission-based reports give you the insights you need to make the decisions that drive accountability and success in your organization.
check-in rate
collection rate
Collect more patient payments—before and after the visit
We get it—asking patients for payment can be difficult, and not everyone can afford to pay. Using Phreesia's suite of payment applications, your practice can identify those patients with financial responsibilities and offer them flexible payment options.
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Your partner in security
We know you have to ask patients for sensitive financial information. At Phreesia, privacy and security are our top priorities—not boxes we check during a once-a-year review. At each and every level of our organization, we foster a culture of compliance focused on safeguarding patient data. Phreesia adheres to industry-leading regulations and requirements for securing and protecting health data, and we set best-in-class policies across our entire company. We're honored to have those efforts recognized with many of the industry's most well-known certifications, including:
- HITRUST CSF Certification
- Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)
- Point-to-Point Encryption (P2PE) Certification
- System and Organization Controls (SOC) 2 Reporting
Our bidirectional integrations
Want More?
Explore these additional applications for your practice
Consent Management
Capture e-signatures for HIPAA, financial and clinical policies
Manage online appointments and referrals for simple, streamlined scheduling
Custom Reporting
Review patient responses to intake questions


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Happy Thanksgiving from Ithaca's Food Web!
Foodies around Ithaca are cooking like crazy this week. Here's what they're up to:
Julie at Savvy Eats offers her Thanksgiving menu, complete with a plan for getting everything done, a holiday cocktail, and 13 ways to use Thanksgiving leftovers.
Emma at Cayuga St. Kitchen makes magical root vegetables.
Amy at Eggs on Sunday has a great collection of Thanksgiving recipes and even more ideas from around the web.
Also, anyone planning a vegetarian feast? Might be tough to imagine a meatless Thanksgiving, but The New York Times Well Blog does it every year, offering vegetarian holiday recipes and drool-worthy photos. (And, if any of you dear readers are high school science teachers, you might want to check out the vegetarian lesson plan I wrote for the NYT Learning Network. PS I like veggies. I'm not a vegetarian).
And, if you're still confused about what to serve (or eat), how about trying the NYT Thanksgiving-erator to help you plan your meal?


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Bridging the Confidence Gap
In the world of finance, the effects of the "confidence gap" can be especially apparent.
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CERI eco Technology Co. Ltd. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of CERI. Restructured from the Beijing Environmental Assessment Joint in 2005, CERI eco holds the class-A qualification on environmental impact assessment (covering metallurgy, electromechanical, building materials, thermal power generation, mining, transportation and social area category). Business scope includes Environmental impact assessment, Cleaner production audits and energy saving consulting, CDM and low carbon technolo...
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Seasonal organic deep cleaning in your home can make all the difference for a sanitized, clean smelling home – especially for allergy suffers! Most Jersey Shore home owners choose to have fairly regular professional deep cleaning in their home. Offshore…Read More
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The Unidentified Redhead (Redhead, #1)
By Alice Clayton
Release Date: February 16, 2010
Publisher: Gallery Books
Source: Personal Copy
Reviewed by: Nahomi
Links: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / IndieBound
My Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5 stars
Grace Sheridan is back. Ten years after discovering that looks and talent are a dime a dozen in Los Angeles, she's wriggling into a pair of badass jeans and ready to show the film industry that there's way more to her than just a head of gorgeous red curls. And Hollywood's newest Brit super-hunk Jack Hamilton certainly sees a lot to like. Grace is trying to restrain herself from jumping a man who is nearly a decade her junior, but Jack is making it clear that he personally has zero problems with that idea.
While Grace and Jack are still swapping innuendo-loaded quips and text sex though, the paparazzi have caught up with them, headlining the "unidentified redhead" who's been photographed trysting at a restaurant with the heartthrob of the year. Now Grace is in stuck in a double bind. She's head over heels in lust with Jack, but there's her own career to think of as well. A sizzling romance with the newest "it" boy may garner her industry attention...but is it the kind of attention she's always dreamed of?
Out of all of the adult books I've read, I would say Grace is one of the funniest, unconventional and confident main character out there. I love how comfortable she is in her own skin. Even though she has insecurities; Grace doesn't let her insecurities get in the way of what she wants. I really like that Grace is 33 years-old and although, she isn't a fresh out of college, still struggling to accomplish her dreams.
Jack Hamilton is the love interest, he's 24, HOTT, and has a British accent. I love me some Jack. He is sweet, romantic, but has just enough caveman in him to seem realistic. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention Jack has very talented hands among other things. There was plenty of screaming going on *wink wink*. Grace and Jack's relationship is honest, playful, and lacks all of the pretenses and expectations that normally accompany relationships in the beginning stages.
In certain sections I felt the story dragged a little. What kept me reading and engaged was the characters and the dialogue. The dialogue was interesting and funny, I found myself laughing out loud constantly. The characters are endearing; I was hooked and needed to know what happened to them. Alice Clayton does a wonderful job creating the characters and making this story realistic and humorous. I am looking forward to reading The Redhead Revealed.
Mini Review: The Unidentified Redhead by Alice Clayton
Posted by Nahomi at 9:00 AM
Tags: 3.5-Stars , Adult , Alice Clayton , Contemporary , Nahomi , Review , Romance , Series , Swoony Boys
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Opening Feb 14
Asian stock markets started in a cautious mood on Thursday as investors hoped for progress in the latest Sino-U.S. tariff talks while bracing for China trade data that are expected to show further falls in both exports and imports.
There was some hope another U.S. government shutdown would be averted as President Donald Trump edged toward backing a deal in Congress on funding for a border barrier.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was all but flat, having just touched peaks last seen in early October.
Japan's Nikkei edged up 0.3 percent to its highest for the year so far as a weakening yen boosted export stocks. E-Mini futures for the S&P 500 added 0.1 percent.
Chinese stocks were grabbing attention after the Shanghai blue chips index jumped 2 percent on Wednesday to levels last seen in late September.
With Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in Beijing for high level talks, investors were daring to hope for good news.
Trump said on Wednesday the talks with China were "going along very well" as they try to resolve the tariff dispute ahead of a March 1 deadline.
"Investors are once again cautiously optimistic that progress will be made and realistically an extension of the tariff deadline will be seen as a good result," SAID Nick Twidale, chief operating officer at Rakuten Securities.
"Longer term, only evidence of a solid deal going forward will dispel the investor caution and global growth fears that have been such a feature over the last year."
Data showing U.S. consumer price inflation rose at the slowest annual pace in more than 1-1/2 years supported speculation the Federal Reserve could stay patient on rates and helped lift Wall Street.
The Dow ended Wednesday up 0.36 percent, while the S&P 500 gained 0.30 percent and the Nasdaq 0.26 percent. [.N]
In currency markets, the improvement in risk appetite undermined the safe haven yen and propelled the dollar to its best levels of the year so far at 111.04.
The euro took a hit of its own from dire data on European industrial output which pushed long-term market inflation expectations to new lows, while putting downward pressure on bond yields in the bloc.
The single currency was last at $1.1259 and testing the floor of a $1.1213/1.1570 trading range that has held since mid-October.
Sterling was also on edge at $1.1846 ahead of another parliamentary vote on British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit plan.
All of which left the dollar firm on a basket of currencies at 97.243, near its highest since mid-December.
The dollar's gains kept gold restrained at $1,307.15 per ounce.
Oil prices found support as top exporter Saudi Arabia said it would cut crude exports and deliver an even deeper cut to its production.
Brent crude futures were yet to trade at $63.61.
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Of all the modifications one can make to a vehicle, an engine swap is the most interesting because it is the most radically transformative. It's akin to a heart transplant, except all too often the procedure is carried out by a mad scientist rather than by a skilled surgeon.
Results vary from hilarious to dangerous to certifiably insane. Fortunately, my first experience with a vehicle that had an engine swap done was none of those things, because Marc Lasky's LS1 powered 1976 Jaguar XJ Coupe a perfect example of an engine swap done right.
While there are many popular candidates on the market, General Motors' LS1—a V8 used in a ton of cars and trucks—is held in particularly high regard because it is affordable, reliable, and can be set up in nearly any vehicle. The LS1 has been shoehorned into Subaru Imprezas, Volvo wagons, and Volkswagen Golfs, but while those are all entertaining, they're not cars that possess the aesthetic that's well suited to a naturally aspirated V8.
An XJ Coupe, on the other hand... now that's a car begging for eight cylinders and a throaty exhaust note.
On its own it's a hell of a car to lay eyes on. But until I got behind the wheel of one, I didn't realize that they are as rare as they are attractive. Just 9,378 examples of the pillar-less hardtop beauties were built between 1975 and 1978, 6,505 powered by a 4.2-litre inline-six, and 1,873 by a 5.3-litre V12.
The XJ sedan, on the other hand, enjoyed a global production run from 1968 to 1992, and remain far more common than their British build quality should have allowed.
If one was to consider hot-rodding one of these classic Jaguars, as one naturally should, then it would stand to reason that the plentiful sedan platform would be the way to go. However, why should anyone, let alone a longtime enthusiast with his own paint and body shop let a little thing like reason get in the way of a good time? If you trust your skills, do the majority of the work yourself, then any concerns about ruining a rare vehicle can be put to rest.
If Marc was your average reasonable individual, then I would not have found myself behind the wheel of an XJ Coupe with a 365 horsepower Chevrolet LS1 stuffed under the bonnet. nor would the car be wearing gorgeous Porsche "Lapis Blue" paint.
The car was originally white, which is a fine color for an XJ Coupe, but this blue shade makes it look so deep and rich, almost like you could dive into it. The first time I saw the car it was still sitting in Marc's paint bay, having just had it's final coat put on a few days prior.
It struck me as one of the most beautiful cars I had ever seen and that was in harsh fluorescent light. Now having seen it out in broad daylight, I can say that it is without a doubt one of the most gorgeous vehicles I've had the good fortune to shoot, drive, and experience.
When Marc bought this XJ Coupe three years ago it had 33,000 original miles on it, but just about everything needed attention, you know, because 1970s British automobile.
Over 1,000 man hours went into building the car you see here, the majority of which were put in by Marc himself. Only the instillation of the supple, full Connally leather interior and alcantara headliner, Elm Burlwood dash, and Wilton Well carpeting were outsourced.
The moment I slid into the driver's seat, all these touches came together to welcome me. With one arm resting on the pillar-less sill and one hand on the thin rimmed classic Nardi steering wheel, I studied the rest of the cabin while the morning fog receded.
Burlwood trim in a mid-aughts GM vehicle is inexcusable, but in an old Jaguar, it's perfect. A little bit corny, a little bit classy, but it fits this car to a T. Same goes for the alcantara headliner that I kept running my hand over throughout the entire morning.
As we cruised along the Pacific with all the windows down, salty fresh air swirled around the cabin and I was moved to the point of exclaiming "this is why pillar-less coupes are the shit!"
I know, such a profound thought. In my defense, this being my first time at the helm of one of these beautiful cars I was hardly in the state of mind to make astute observations and contain my emotions. I did my best to think critically, but when I turned up one of my favorite sweeping canyon roads, any chance of that was toast.
With normal pressure from your right foot, you'd never know you were at the helm of such a rowdy vehicle, but be more liberal with the throttle and you'll get a quick reminder. Once I went full Bill Maher on the skinny pedal I found a whole new connection with the car. Sure, it's happy to cruise along and you'll be perfectly comfortable doing so thanks to a 1995 Jaguar XJS 355 posi rear end and a Series III XJ subframe, but it really wants to be turned loose.
When I decided to get after it, I was genuinely shocked by how much the car tightened up. It's by no means a canyon carver, but through the meandering curves on my preferred section of Mulholland Drive it displayed more prowess than I would have previously thought possible.
That being said, the rear end will break loose quite easily, as Marc was kind enough to demonstrate for me early on. If this was my car I'd have a hell of a hard time not tossing the ass out anytime I was making a turn from a dead stop.
With a much lighter V8 taking the place of the original iron lump inline-six, the car was doing it's best soft-roader impression, so Marc fitted King Springs to lower the car four inches up front and two inches in the rear, giving it a perfect stance. It's one of those rare cars that you can feel how good it looks going down the road when you're in it. Six Bilstein shocks (four in the back) round out the suspension upgrades and not having had the chance to drive a stock XJ Coupe I can only venture a guess to just how large an improvement it is.
The quick and direct steering pairs up with the suspension to make a surprisingly nimble car, yet it doesn't remotely ride harsh on the god awful surface streets around Los Angeles.
That's always one of my biggest concerns when driving or riding in a classic car out here, so it was a huge bonus to not hear shit rattling or have my teeth chatter when rolling over asphalt that's been around since the Raiders were in LA.
How any classic car rides around town is important, lord knows you'll be sitting in some concours traffic at some point, but what really matters is what it sounds like when you round a corner and some open asphalt presents itself. In Marc's XJ Coupe you can bury the gas pedal in order to treat yourself (and everyone in your general vicinity) to a bass heavy symphony that varies in tone. The sound is actually quite unique and completely fits the vibe of the car, more of a throaty growl that escalates to a trembling yell than the rasp that so many custom exhausts end up with.
This can be attributed to Marc's use of LS3 manifolds and a custom 2 1/4-inch exhaust running all the way to the back. At idle and when cruising, all you get it a nice THRUMMMMM, but give the throttle a stab and it'll command attention for miles around.
That anyone wouldn't approve of this car had not occurred to me until he said that, but it made sense, and more so when I learned about the low production figures.
Engine swaps, especially LS swaps, can quickly become a cautionary tale. Many builders tend to go the route of dropping an engine in, hooking it up and calling it a day. Marc's XJ Coupe is carefully considered, right down to the thick floor mats that have the Union Jack embroidered in the corners.
When I noted this detail Marc chuckled and said "Yeah, I like to have them down there to step on, because many Brits would consider sticking an American V8 in this thing equally disgraceful."
It's easy to picture Marc's XJ showing up in a Guy Ritchie film driven by Tom Hardy, Idris Elba or Thandie Newton. Out of the box it's a car packed with character and dripping with style, and adding this motor only cranks up the lust factor.
If you don't already have a tab open looking for Jags to do an LS swap with, check a mirror for your reflection, because you might be a soulless creature of the night.
Andrew Maness is a creative type who is especially good with words, photography, and video. Not much of a painter though. Contact him at firstname.lastname@example.com and follow him on Instagram @theroadlessdriven


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White swans on water / Marija Zaric / Unsplash.com
When I saw a tweet that claimed dolphins had returned to the Venice canals, my heart felt the lightest it had in quite some time.
I'm definitely not alone in saying that, for the sake of my mental well-being, I was in sore need of some positive news. My newsfeed was filled with little else but reports of death counts, supply shortages and governmental failures abroad.
A lot of the mood-lifting stories I've seen have been environmental silver linings. Lockdown orders have minimised the impact of usually-busy cities on their surrounding environment. Air pollution is at an all-time low in some locations, and waterways are clearing up. Deserted towns are being reclaimed by wild animals.
Except, not all of these stories are accurate. The adorable aforementioned dolphins? Unfortunately false. The swans returning to the Venice canals? Partly untrue (considering they are a year-round fixture of the Venetian island of Burano). The elephants that got drunk on corn wine and fell asleep in a Chinese tea garden (which, when you say it aloud, seems obviously bogus)? Most definitely fake.
Misinformation that has a lot of emotional value (like those linked to heart-warming animal antics) tends to spread rapidly. The supposedly miraculous impact on cities all over the world of a few weeks of inactivity speaks directly to what environmentalists have urged for years: we need great change to combat the climate crisis.
But a darker side of the environmentalist movement has also appropriated some stories to support opinions like: 'Coronavirus is Earth's vaccine. We're the virus.' and 'the human race is so shitty that when we're absent, the world begins to thrive again.'
It's easy to read such statements and attribute them to the same feelings of disappointment and urgency that lie behind the climate action movement. In many ways articles like these appear to want the same things as the climate strikers and other advocates — but they are not the same.
Extreme sentiments such as these are examples of ecofascism. Ecofascism is the use of authoritarian ideals in order to achieve climate justice. In discussions about Covid-19, ecofascism can look like claims that the pandemic is nature's way of restoring balance; or, believing the social impact of the pandemic to be a worthy tradeoff for a positive environmental impact. Using reports of decreased air and water pollution to argue that the planet would be better off if humans just vanished, is ecofascism.
Ecofascism has a long history. Fascist regimes in 20th-century Germany merged environmental concerns with growing nationalism, racism, xenophobia and eugenics, neatly emphasised by the Nazi slogan, "blood and soil". Protecting one's country came to be synonymous with defending natural resources and ecological splendour from foreign, pest-like invaders.
The Population Bomb, written by Paul Ehrlich and published in 1968, was one of the works that helped frame overpopulation as the main threat to the environment. Ehrlich said of Delhi in 1966, "[I saw] people defecating and urinating. People clinging to buses. People herding animals. People, people, people, people. . . . [S]ince that night, I've known the feel of overpopulation."
In 1966, Paris had about five million more people than Delhi. Then, and now — fifty years later — it's seldom heard that Europe or North America have 'too many people'. Conversely, the xenophobic idea of a resource-sucking wave of migrants still publically resurfaces every now and then.
So when I read posts that invoke the image of humanity being a scourge on the earth, I worry. Such sweeping statements seem to be politically neutral at first, but they fail to address that the climate crisis weighs more on some communities than others.
Those statements gloss over how capitalist economies are responsible for most of the world's carbon emissions. They gloss over the fact that developing countries — even with a high concentration of people — have such disproportionately low rates of resource consumption and will thus unfairly bear the brunt of climate change. Dennis Dimick writes, "our cumulative impact on the planet is not just in population numbers, but also in the increasing amount of natural resources each person uses."
The true fight for climate justice requires discussion on a range of complex factors. Neither overpopulation nor the existence of humanity are the sole cause of environmental degradation. It's our current way of life which has established an unnatural, unsustainable relationship between us and our planet, and environmentalists know that we are equally as capable of being the solution.
When individuals internalise ecofascism, it can be dangerous. Both the Christchurch and El Paso shooters were motivated by ecofascist ideals, having referenced overpopulation as a motive for race-based violence.
Just like feminism without intersectionality, ecofascism disguised as environmentalism — no matter how subtle — needs to be called out and rejected at every opportunity.Support Villainesse


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Chicago could soon embark on an eight-year, $8.5 billion effort to rebuild much of O'Hare International and turn it into a global aviation hub on par with those in Dubai and Hong Kong. While the airport is one of the world's busiest, with more than 78 million passengers in 2016, city officials including Mayor Rahm Emanuel say a major investment is needed to keep up with international competition. The hope is to add a brand-new terminal, more space, and more gates.
The plan has yet to be officially announced, but a recent Chicago Tribune story tells us what to expect should it get the green light: "The 55-year-old Terminal 2 would be torn down to make way for a new 'Global Terminal' with wider concourses and gates to accommodate the larger aircraft that embark on international flights to places like Hong Kong and Dubai. Terminals 1, 3, and 5 would be renovated, while two new satellite concourses would be constructed to the west of the existing terminals and connected to the new Global Terminal by an underground pedestrian tunnel." Those additions would nearly double the amount of space in the terminals, and the total number of gates at the airport would increase "from 185 today to roughly 220 upon the project's completion in 2026," the Tribune reports.
O'Hare has already been on an international tear in terms of flights, adding or announcing new service to Barcelona, Budapest, Helsinki, London, Panama City, Reykjavík, Taipei, and Venice in 2017. But it remains delay-prone because of both congestion and weather, and just 79 percent of departures were on time in 2017, putting it 17th among major airports, according the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. O'Hare also had the second-most cancellations of any U.S. airport last year, though on a percentage basis it performed slightly better than average. With a bit more space and about eight billion dollars, maybe they can improve those numbers—or at least make waiting out delays a bit more pleasant for all of us.


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Pressemeddelelse -
Multimodal heavy-lift moves: Panalpina offers hassle-free carrier solution
International freight forwarding and logistics company Panalpina has launched Panprojects Carrier. With this new carrier model, Panalpina can oversee multimodal heavy-lift moves from fabrication to installation sites under one single contract that clearly governs all modes of transport. For customers like EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) companies and oil and gas majors, this offering with its unique legal framework reduces to an absolute minimum the commercial, technical and contractual risks that are inherent to the multimodal transport of project cargo.
"We are closing a gap in the heavy-lift market that has existed for too long," says Erik Hutter, Panalpina's global head of marine chartering. "Panalpina now offers a unique, seamless solution for multimodal heavy-lift transportation where the ocean part represents the main leg. And by seamless I do not only mean a complete end-to-end service, but one that is also fully mirrored and governed by an absolutely consistent legal framework."
The single contract under which Panalpina offers its multimodal solutions is consistent with the released transportation documents such as bill of lading and the general terms and conditions. This greatly helps to avoid problems and disputes when exceptions occur during transport, especially when the transport mode changes. The new purpose-designed legal framework therefore ensures the best possible contractual clarity and one point of contact for the customer. "We consider the total scope of an assignment, identify all possible risks in the transport chain and then clearly define and stipulate in a single contract the responsibilities and liabilities applicable to each transport leg, including overland pre-carriage, port handling and stevedoring, the ocean main leg, and overland post-carriage," explains Michel Dubois, Panalpina's global head of Energy and Project Solutions. "Our approach reduces to an absolute minimum the contractual, commercial and technical risks that are inherent to the multimodal transport of project cargo."
Panprojects Carrier works closely with all leading multipurpose and heavy-lift carriers of the world. It has access to over 2,300 specialized vessels in the market. The most suitable carrier and vessel for each move is selected by Panalpina's Energy and Project Solutions experts. The company's stringent subcontractor management system additionally covers all companies and equipment that are employed for pre- and on-carriage of project cargo by road or rail. Furthermore, the company's transport engineers make sure that any technical issues are prevented.
"Our vast industry knowledge, profound expertise in marine chartering and transport engineering as well as our global network, have always put us in a great position to offer multimodal end-to-end solutions for project cargo. But with the carrier status and new contractual framework we are raising the bar even further," says Hutter. "The name Panprojects Carrier draws on our heritage in the projects sector and exemplifies the professionalism and commitment that our customers such as EPC companies, oil and gas majors and rig operators have come to expect from Panalpina."
Notes to the editor:
Panprojects Carrier does business under Pantainer (H.K.) Limited for special heavy-lift cargo – similar to the way that Pantainer Express Line does business under Pantainer (H.K.) Limited for standard containerized ocean freight. It acts as an in-house carrier for Panalpina with no assets of its own, but specifically chartered tonnage and/or hired equipment. As such, Panprojects Carrier always operates with a contractual framework consisting of two legal documents: booking note (contract of carriage with terms and conditions) and bill of lading (consistent with terms and conditions).
Related links
- Energi
- marine chartering
- multimodal
- oil and gas
- transport engineering
- overland
- panprojects carrier
- ports
- major move
- project transport
- 2017
- energy
About Panalpina
The Panalpina Group is one of the world's leading providers of supply chain solutions. The company combines its core products of Air Freight, Ocean Freight, as well as Logistics and Manufacturing to deliver globally integrated, tailor-made end-to-end solutions for eleven core industries. Drawing on in-depth industry know-how and customized IT systems, Panalpina manages the needs of its customers' supply chains, no matter how demanding they might be. Energy and Project Solutions is a specialized service for the energy and capital projects sector. The Panalpina Group operates a global network with some 500 offices in more than 70 countries, and it works with partner companies in another 100 countries. Panalpina employs approximately 14,500 people worldwide who deliver a comprehensive service to the highest quality standards – wherever and whenever.


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- 2 June, 2016, The University of Melbourne
- Organiser: Kostya Borovkov
Speakers and talks
- Kostya Borovkov (University of Melbourne). A refined version of the integro-local Stone theorem.
- Andrea Collevecchio (Monash University). Attraction properties for general urn processes.
- Daniel Dufresne (University of Melbourne). Discounted Sums with Renewal Times
- Jie Yen Fan (University of Melbourne). Limit theorems for the age structure of a population.
- Laurence Field (EPF Lausanne). SLE and conformally invariant loop measures.
- Greg Markowsky (Monash University). The planar Brownian Green's function, and a probabilistic proof of the Riemann Mapping Theorem.
- Nathan Ross (University of Melbourne). Limit behavior of some Polya urn models associated to preferential attachment graphs and random trees.
Kostya Borovkov. A refined version of the integro-local Stone theorem.
Let S_n be a random walk with i.i.d. jumps. We refine Stone's integro-local theorem by deriving the first term in the asymptotic expansion for the probability P(S_n \in [x,x+D)) as n–>oo and establishing uniform bounds for the remainder term, under the assumption that the jump distribution Cramer's strong non-lattice condition and E|X|^r=3. (Joint work with A.A. Borovkov.)
Andrea Collevecchio . Attraction properties for general urn processes.
We study attraction properties of urns composed of balls with two distinct colours and which evolve over time. This evolution may depend on the composition of the urn as well as certain other factors, external or internal depending on the history of the urn. We prove that, under mild conditions, the model localizes on one of the two colours. We extend our discussion to a system of interacting urns, and a general class of strongly reinforced random walks. Joint Work with Jiro Akahori, Tim Garoni and Kais Hamza.
Daniel Dufresne. Discounted Sums with Renewal Times.
"Claims" (= i.i.d. random variables) {X(k)} occur at renewal times {T(k)}; each claim is discounted back to time 0, by multiplying it by exp(-r T(k)), r the rate of interest. What is the distribution of Z(t), the sum of the discounted claims occurring between time 0 and a fixed time t? This problem originates in risk theory, when trying to improve the classical ruin model by introducing a non-zero rate of return. Up to now very few results were known about Z(t), except in the case where claim arrival times are Poisson. It is well known that the distribution of Z(t=infinity) satisfies an identity of the form Z=(law) B times (Z+C), where B, C and Z are independent; there is a literature on that problem, with a number of explicit solutions. We will show that there is a similar identity for Z(S), where S is a random time, and that this allows easier calculations of the moments of Z(t<infinity) and possibly its distribution. (Joint work with Zhehao Zhang.)
Jie Yen Fan (University of Melbourne). Limit theorems for the age structure of a population.
We consider a family of general branching processes indexed by the parameter K and whose reproduction parameters may depend on the age of the individual as well as the whole age structure of the population. The parameter may, for example, represent the carrying capacity of a population that is supercritical (resp. subcritical) when the population size is below (resp. above) the carrying capacity. The law of large numbers of the population, as index K increases, was established in a previous paper of Hamza, Jagers and Klebaner. In this paper, we give the central limit theorem result. We show the convergence of the properly scaled process to a distribution-valued process. Joint work with Kais Hamza, Peter Jagers and Fima Klebaner.
Laurence Field (EPF Lausanne). SLE and conformally invariant loop measures.
We will discuss some recent developments in the theory of SLE and conformal invariance. A basic conformally invariant object is the Brownian loop measure, first considered by Symanzik in the context of Euclidean quantum field theory, and later applied to the Schramm-Loewner Evolution in work of Lawler and Werner. The same loop measure was used by Sheffield and Werner to provide the first rigorous construction of the simple Conformal Loop Ensembles (CLE). We use a renormalized version of the Brownian loop measure to construct the unique conformally covariant measure on "SLE-type" loops rooted at a point in a simply connected domain that has a natural restriction property. We then describe a procedure for "unrooting" SLE curves to be independent of a base point by using the natural parametrization for SLE, and discuss work in progress applying this procedure to SLE loops. (Joint work with Greg Lawler.
Greg Markowsky. The planar Brownian Green's function, and a probabilistic proof of the Riemann Mapping Theorem.
It has been known for some time that the Green's function of a planar domain can be defined in terms of Brownian motion, and that this Green's function is conformally invariant. I will show how this conformal invariance can be generalized in order to calculate Green's function for stopping times more general than exit times, and how these considerations can be used to give a proof that any two simply connected domains in the plane (excluding the plane itself) are conformally invariant, also known as the Riemann Mapping Theorem.
Nathan Ross . Limit behavior of some Polya urn models associated to preferential attachment graphs and random trees.
I will discuss a family of Pólya urn models that arise when studying degree statistics in preferential attachment graphs and lengths of spanning subtrees in some generative tree models such as Rémy's algorithm for binary trees. The limiting distributions of the number of balls of a given color in the urn varies considerably across the family and can be difficult to describe. However, these limits are fixed points of certain probabilistic distributional transformations and this perspective provides proofs of convergence, sometimes with rates via Stein's method, and leads to further properties of the limits. Joint work with Erol Peköz and Adrian Röllin.


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Shiri (2002)
Movie Info
Watch it now
as Ryu
as Lee
as Hyun
Critic Reviews for Shiri
All Critics (37) | Top Critics (16) | Fresh (22) | Rotten (15) | DVD (5)
The acclaim is justified.
Features explosive effects and flashy action best viewed on a large screen.
Compelling, kinetic, fast and furious.
It's a post-Cold War action yarn with a nose for Hong Kong-style melodrama, and a loopy cop drama with undeniable entertainment value.
Suffers from all the excesses of the genre.
There's a neat twist, subtly rendered, that could have wrapped things up at 80 minutes, but Kang tacks on three or four more endings.
Audience Reviews for Shiri
A great action thriller set in South Korean with Yunjin Kim of Lost. A great script with a few twists and a great ending.
Super Reviewer
Hollywood action blockbuster, made in Korea. You will feel the strong influence of 90's Hollywood action flicks, just set in a Korean setting with Korean actors. You have your Hollywood staples; Doomsday bomb, rogue unit with questionable motives, countdown timer, troops with questionable aim. So, the question is, how does Shiri compare to the American blockbuster? The answer is, quite well. The film takes a definite shift in tone at The Big Reveal (which I predicted quite early). Both halves of the film are quite entertaining, and the ending is poetic. I wish Park's motives had been a little better established, but I'm probably expecting too much from a Hollywood; sorry, Korean action flick. Nice action, good special effects, and a surprisingly solid story with some nice twists and turns. I like how the action is able to slow down at times to allow us more attachment to the main characters. Recommended viewing for action fans.
Super Reviewer
Shiri. A fish that can be found in both North and South Korean fresh-water streams. A pretty appropriate title for this film. You'll understand if you watch it. Min-Sik Choi gives a nice monologue about it during the film as well.
What we have here is Korean's take on a cop action film. Now I have seen many Hong Kong films of this type, but what this film has on all of those, excluding Johnnie To films, is a good story.
The first half of this film plays out like a typical police film. It moves quite slowly, as to try and build up the characters, but it becomes a little boring at some points. Luckily, the second half of the film is much better. The action picks up and the story unfolds, leading to a pretty good ending. The fish concept for this film is also a unique touch.
Another place where this film excels is in the acting department. All main characters, Suk-Yu Han, Min-sik, Choi, Yunjin Kim, and Kang-ho Song put on better than decent performances. It is really nice to see Min-sik Choi and Kang-ho Song on opposite sides of the law.
There isn't a ton of action as you may be led to believe, not to mention the poster can be misleading, but there is enough of it. The shootouts are actually pretty good, especially the one that starts in the auditorium, but the shaky camera work takes away from them a bit. I know this is a technique used in these types of situations, but it isn't that successful here.
This film is no Heat by any means, but it is still a more than adequate action-flick. Should you find the time to watch this film, I would say go ahead.
Super Reviewer
Shiri Quotes
There are no approved quotes yet for this movie.


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Matthew Gifford, DDS 360-293-8737 | 601 O Avenue Anacortes, WA 98221
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MEMPHIS, Tennessee –Porter-Leath recently announced the Grand Opening Celebration and ribbon cutting for its Early Childhood Academy, to be held at 628 Alice Avenue on Friday, February 10 at 1:00 p.m. The Academy is a state-of-the-art preschool and teacher training institute that will provide comprehensive early childhood education and support services for 224 students as well as professional training and development for preschool teachers and educators across the early childhood landscape in Memphis.
The Early Childhood Academy
Designed by national early learning facility specialist RDG Planning and Design, the 16-classroom, 32,000-square-foot facility weaves local culture, history and geography into safe, inviting spaces that encourage play and exploration. Its child-friendly architecture utilizes natural light, lush landscapes and bright colors that enrich learning opportunities. The facility will serve 224 students and their families combined between Early Head Start and Head Start components.
The Teacher Excellence Program
In addition to the Preschool, The Academy will also include a laboratory teacher training center to equip early childhood educators with valuable skills that enhance teacher effectiveness, increase student achievement, and maximize classroom and family engagement. Developed in partnership with Shelby County Schools, the Teacher Excellence Program utilizes instructional coaches to provide continual professional development opportunities for early childhood educators.
Executive Leadership
Rafel Hart joined Porter-Leath in July 2016 as the Vice President of its Teacher Excellence Program, where he and partners have administered the program's design, implementation and evaluation. Hart will supervise the program's launch and continued development.
"The Early Childhood Academy is our next step towards revitalizing the Shelby County early childhood education system," said Sean Lee, President of Porter-Leath. "In the last two years, our dedicated educators have more than doubled the kindergarten readiness rate for children in poverty. The Early Childhood Academy will continue that work as we progress to ensuring every child enters school ready to learn. We look forward to making a meaningful and lasting impact on children and families in the Mid-South."
About Porter-Leath
For over 160 years, Porter-Leath has been the primary resource for Memphis' at-risk children and families. By focusing on the essential building blocks of healthy development, Porter-Leath not only gives them access to the tools they need, but also a sense of hope. Porter-Leath helps build stronger children, stronger families and a stronger Memphis through the mission of empowering children and families to achieve a healthy, optimal and independent lifestyle. For more information, visit or contact at 901-577-2500 or firstname.lastname@example.com.