text:
On Feb. 21, 2012, a group of five eccentrically dressed young women hurriedly set up microphones and loudspeakers in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior and launched into what they would later call a "punk prayer." Screaming, "Shit! Shit! The Lord's shit!" they pierced the sacred air of the church with their fists and with their sharp denunciations of both priestly finery and worshippers' cringing servility.
Clearly, these women had it in for the Russian Orthodox Church. Those in the cathedral that day seem to have thought so, as video of the physical and verbal violence of the band's ejection from the place testifies. A sizable number of the Russian people, when they came to learn of the act, seem to have thought so, too, according to poll data.
The church itself certainly thought so. Its leader, Patriarch Kirill, called for a day of prayer to defend the church against the attack, an event that drew tens of thousands of angry faithful to hear the Patriarch denounce the church's "persecutors."
Most critically for the women, the government of Russia thought so. Russian President Vladimir Putin was outraged. At his insistence, three of the women who had been disguised behind brightly colored balaclavas during the performance were identified, arrested and charged with "hooliganism," a crime that carries a sentence of up to seven years in prison. And Patriarch Kirill was not keen on affording them any leniency for their "devil's work." After all, punishment must be severe for church-hating vandals who strike at the heart of Russian faith.
But was the performance on that day in February 2012 really an attack on faith?
The women who took over the cathedral for those fateful 30 seconds prior to their removal are members of an artists' collective of young Russian feminists. This group, Pussy Riot, now famous the world over not only for the "punk prayer" but for the hooliganism trial that ensued and the global outpouring of support they received, understands itself as a band of guerilla artists who attempt to shock their fellow Russians out of their complacency. Steeped in art history, performance theory, feminism, French philosophy, and the aesthetic and political legacy of the punk movement, Pussy Riot stages performances designed to incite people to think about things they don't normally question: gender, politics, society and, of course, religion. So, what were they actually up to with that prayer in the cathedral?
Let's look at the lyrics. They were not able to perform the entire piece before they were escorted out. Had they been, here (in a literal English translation provided by Jeffrey Tayler in The Atlantic, a short article that includes a detailed explanation of what the women were referencing that is well-worth reading) is what worshippers that day would have heard:
Virgin birth-giver of God, drive away Putin!
Drive away Putin, drive away Putin!
Black frock, golden epaulettes
Parishioners crawl bowing
Freedom's ghost [to] heaven
A gay-pride parade sent to Siberia in shackles
Their chief saint is the head of the KGB [i.e., Putin]
He leads a convoy of protestors to jail
So as not to insult the Holiest One
Woman should bear children and love
Shit, shit, the Lord's shit!
Shit, shit, the Lord's shit!
Virgin birth-giver of God, become a feminist!
Become a feminist, become a feminist!
The Church praises rotten leaders
The march of the cross consists of black limousines
A preacher is on his way to your school
Go to class and give him money!
Patriarch Gundyay [i.e., Kirill] believes in Putin
Would be better, the bastard, if he believed in God!
The Virgin's belt won't replace political gatherings
The eternal Virgin Mary is with us in our protests!
Virgin birth-Giver of God, drive away Putin!
Drive away Putin, drive away Putin!
Wait a minute, this doesn't sound like an outcry against faith. Instead, it sounds like protest against the church's authoritarianism, its traditionalist anti-woman theology, its open and near-sycophantic praise of Putin, and its resulting co-option by the government. The fact that the church and state joined hands to persecute and prosecute these women for their feminist views, their supposed blasphemy, and their public "disturbance" of the Russian "peace" certainly appears to demonstrate with blazing clarity that Pussy Riot's criticisms in this regard were all too valid! All of this crap is the "Lord's shit" that they prayed to the Virgin to deliver Russia from.
Pussy Riot wants their co-citizens to remember that post-Soviet Russia is a secular state and that it must build and strengthen its society accordingly. They see the collusion of church and state to be a retrograde force that keeps Russia from progressing toward reforming deeply entrenched cultural ideas about the inferiority of women, the marginalization of minorities, the acceptability of authoritarianism, and the reduction of freedom of inquiry and expression. This is not anti-church or anti-faith. As one of the members of the group, who remains imprisoned, put it, "We are not enemies of Christianity. We care about the opinion of Orthodox Christians. We want all of them to be on our side—on the side of anti-authoritarian civil society activists. That is why we came to the Cathedral."
Pussy Riot, it seems, does not want to attack the faith. On the contrary, it wants to remind the faithful that, in Soviet times, the state controlled the church, resulting in its evisceration. The church and the state should be more autonomous in order to facilitate the authentic practice of the faith. In addition, Putin clearly grasps the challenge that Pussy Riot and all freethinkers pose to his political power, and he seeks to use all available means for squelching such dissent, including the church. The faithful should resist this, as well. Faith and society both flourish better when church and state are independent of, though not necessarily unrelated to, one another. That is the point that Pussy Riot and its prayer for Russia make. Calling for greater separation of church and state hardly seems like a condemnation of anyone's faith.
A powerful new documentary, "Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer," which will premiere on HBO on Monday, June 10 (access an earlier HuffPost story about this to view the trailer), documents the continuing story of Pussy Riot's struggle for human rights and freedom of expression in the new Russia. And it presents a number of reasons that Pussy Riot might, in fact, wish to condemn the Russian Orthodox Church. In this otherwise highly nuanced and profoundly insightful and moving film, believers are mostly portrayed as hateful extremists, religious fanatics who characterize Pussy Riot as "possessed" and quite possibly worthy of being burned at the stake. No person of faith is portrayed as reasonable. None seems to understand that Pussy Riot's prayer was for the purity of a faith free of patriarchy and governmental entanglement.
Yet, in their characteristically intelligent, thoughtful, clear-eyed way, the women of Pussy Riot themselves advance a more complex view of faith in the public sphere than the filmmakers. In a post-screening discussion at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema on June 5, two Pussy Riot members, Puck (Shaiba) and Headlight (Fara), disguised for their protection, explained that there were, in fact, many faithful Christian laypeople and lower-level clergy in the Russian Orthodox Church who did understand Pussy Riot's intentions and who do support them in their work.
(See here for more on the visit of these courageous women to New York City.) Katya Samutsevich, one of the three women who participated in the prayer, now released from confinement (two remain incarcerated) but not allowed to leave the country, also joined the conversation via Skype.
Ms. Samutsevich pointed out that new "blasphemy laws" in Russia have made it even harder to speak out against the mixing of church and state, but noted that the work of raising the importance of greater separation between the two must continue, despite the increased risk of imprisonment, for the health of the society and for the health of the church. For Pussy Riot, the faithful can be allies in building a new future.
So, when it comes to the relationship between Pussy Riot and the Russian Orthodox Church, it might not be true love, but it certainly isn't irreconcilable differences. Instead, it's complicated. Just as most true and meaningful things tend to be.
Photos © Michael Angelo 2013


text:
TOKYO — Japan expressed on Thursday its concern about a tense standoff between Iran and the United States over an international nuclear deal, while offering to work with Tehran to defuse tension in the Middle East.
"We are concerned that the situation in the Middle East is getting extremely tense," Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at the outset of their meeting in Tokyo.
Zarif traveled to Japan, a key U.S. ally that has maintained amicable ties with the Middle East country, at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is ramping up pressure on Iran through tighter sanctions and an apparent show of force by leaving the 2015 nuclear accord.
During a separate meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono, the Iranian foreign minister called the "escalation" of the situation by the United States "unacceptable" and said Tehran has exercised "maximum restraint" despite the development.
Iran last week reacted to the U.S. moves by announcing the suspension of some commitments under the deal, which was designed to curb Iran's nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
Zarif told Kono that Iran remains committed to the deal and sought international support to maintain the accord, but added his country "will certainly defend ourselves and respond to any threat against our national security."
Kono also expressed his concern to Zarif about the situation and promised to "spare no efforts to ease tensions and try to resolve outstanding issues."
The two agreed on the importance of maintaining the nuclear deal, with Kono saying, "It is essential to maintain this scheme, not only for our bilateral relations but also for the international non-proliferation regime and peace and stability in the Middle East."
According to the Japanese Foreign Ministry, Abe also expressed hope that Iran will keep its commitments under the deal.
On May 8, Iran announced it plans to keep more enriched uranium than allowed under the nuclear deal initially sealed with the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China. Tehran has set a 60-day deadline to negotiate new terms.
Tension has also grown, with Washington sending an aircraft carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf.
For energy-scarce Japan, Iran has been one of the major oil exporters, but this month the United States ended waivers granted to Japan and other buyers of Iranian oil to cut off Tehran's oil revenue.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Civil Rights
N.J. trans birth-certificate bill one step closer
Very few people know the ramifications, consequences and freedoms that come with a birth certificate.
Let's say for a minute that you are a transgender person — an individual who was born the wrong gender. You've seen a doctor and received hormone-replacement therapy, opting not to get gender reassignment for your personal reasons. The day you've been waiting for has finally come where you get to update your legal documentation to reflect who you are. Perhaps you hire a lawyer to help you navigate the arduous and antiquated laws of legally changing your name, or you seek out the assistance of one of our local nonprofits like Mazzoni Center. You get an affidavit from your doctor that confirms your hormone-replacement therapy, in order to change your records with the U.S. State Department. And yet, when it comes time to change the ultimate form of identification — your birth certificate — you are unequivocally unable to do so without undergoing gender-reassignment surgery.
The birth certificate is where all forms of identification originate and it is considered to be the gold standard of documentation.


text:
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
Litigation concerning standards-essential patents (SEPs) has become increasingly global, with parallel litigation occurring over the same issues in multiple jurisdictions throughout North America, Europe and Asia. As a result, litigants have sought mechanisms to coordinate these actions both to manage costs and to avoid inconsistent and incompatible results. One little-known procedural mechanism that has long been available to manage multi-jurisdictional litigation, and which is growing in popularity in SEP disputes, is the anti-suit injunction.
An anti-suit injunction is an interlocutory remedy issued by a court in one jurisdiction which prohibits a litigant from initiating or continuing parallel litigation in another jurisdiction or jurisdictions. Anti-suit injunctions thus contain litigation costs and reduce the likelihood of inconsistent results by ensuring that issues are resolved in one jurisdiction before they are litigated elsewhere. In the standards context, anti-suit injunctions can be particularly powerful tools for prospective licensees alleging that SEP holders have failed to comply with their FRAND licensing obligations. Specifically, a court reviewing a SEP holder's compliance with a FRAND licensing commitment may issue an anti-suit injunction to prevent the SEP holder from bringing foreign patent infringement claims (including injunctions against the sale of infringing products) until the FRAND licensing dispute has been resolved in the issuing jurisdiction.
This chapter discusses the historical development and procedural requirements for anti-suit injunctions in both the United States and Europe. It also reviews recent SEP cases in which anti-suit injunctions have been granted, including Microsoft v. Motorola, Vringo v. ZTE and TCL v. Ericsson.
Recommended Citation
The Anti-Suit Injunction - A Transnational Remedy for Multi-Jurisdictional SEP Litigation (May 10, 2017). Cambridge Handbook of Technical Standardization Law - Patent, Antitrust and Competition Law (Jorge L. Contreras, ed., 2017, Forthcoming)


text: Stress Test: 4 Scientist-Recommended Stress Busters By Carolyn Crist | May 17, 2017 | 8:30am Health Features Anxiety Share Tweet Submit Pin Stress Test is a series about the science behind our busy lives and how stress affects our bodies. The biweekly column uncovers the latest research and explains how to put it to use in a practical way. Look for the science behind epigenetic markers of stress, mindfulness, meditation and deep brain stimulation. In mid-April, I attended the Association of Health Care Journalists conference in Orlando. One of the sessions, "Science of Stress," was a perfect fit for this column. I'm bringing you advice from one of the top stress researchers in the nation. In recent years, Amit Sood, a doctor at the Mayo Clinic who wrote Mayo's Guide to Stress-Free Living, began noticing big differences between how his patients managed stress. One patient would be diagnosed with terminal cancer and spend the last six months enjoying life, yet another would be diagnosed with osteoarthritis and leave his office in tears. He began wondering, "Why do we have this disconnect between our external reality and our internal reactions?" Sood began pairing neuroscience and evolutionary biology in his studies and found the main culprit is the way our brain is designed. Our minds focus on eliminating stressors in our lives in order to survive. We focus on our issues, and the more we allow our brains to default to the status that revolves around fear, the more it leads to anxiety, depression and fatigue. "The brain has a way of finding problems and getting busier," he said at the AHCJ conference. Through his research, Sood found that resilience often made the difference between those who handled stress well and those who didn't. He then found that resilience can be trained, and it's related to the awareness, attention and attitude we give to our stressors. If we can give our brains a break with uplifting emotions and motivations, we can increase the capacity for resilience. "Take charge of your brain the way you would take charge of your heart if diagnosed with heart disease," he said. "If you take medication for your heart, you can take a few minutes a day for your brain." Sood recommends four steps to increasing resiliency and decreasing overwhelming stress. 1. Gratitude Intentionally focus on being grateful in the morning. Instead of looking at your phone as soon as you wake up, with thoughts of everything you must accomplish that day and adrenaline already surging through your system, take a moment. Instead, try this: Don't leave the bed until you think of five people you care about, and send them a positive thought. "Stress is worse than hypertension and diabetes for heart disease," he said. "Since 40 percent of us perceive we're lonely, this practice helps us to go deeper rather than live superficially." 2. Mindful presence This isn't another clichéd endorsement for "living in the moment," which Sood thinks has been corrupted from its original meaning. Instead, he means focusing on the actions that you're doing, rather than reaching for your smartphone every 12-15 minutes, which is now the average for Americans. Instead, try the Two-Minute Rule: Give two minutes to someone who deserves your attention but isn't receiving it. When he arrives home from work, for example, Sood looks at his emails in the garage for a final time and prepares his mind to see his wife and two kids. He gives each family member two minutes of focused attention when he walks in the door, which research says is the amount of time we have to capture someone's attention before they block us out. With his kids, he likes to ask open-ended questions such as, "What made you laugh today?" rather than, "How was your day?" He also recommends looking them in the eye, which boosts good-feeling hormones such as oxytocin in the body. "I also zoom out to a meaningful number, such as the number of days until my daughter goes to college," he said. "I won't regret it 20 years from now." 3. Kindness When our brain feels stress, the amygdala responds with a stress response while the prefrontal cortex responds with a rational response and the hippocampus supplies memories. Stress causes the amygdala to become more active and eventually atrophy, which sends us into a cycle of stress and anxiety when we worry. Instead, try this: Take five minutes per day to put yourself in someone else's shoes and imagine what types of stress and struggles they're having. Then wish them well in your mind. "In 10 seconds, we judge the trustworthiness, competence and aggressiveness of people we see," Sood said. "If you decide to be actively aware, instead of juding them, you can wish them well instead." 4. Resilient mindset All of us have the competing voices in our head — the reactive, short-term thinker who has fears and desires versus the rational, long-term thinker who has values and seeks meaning. The oldest part of our brain focuses on survival and care of the self, and the newest part of the brain thinks about community and taking care of others. Do this: Balance the two halves by setting a daily five-minute mindset practice. While driving to work or walking to the store, concentrate on a different resilience practice each day. Sood recommends reading small passages or quotes about the different aspects of resilience or finding a small way to extend it toward others, even if you're silently telling others you're thankful or patient. Monday: Gratitude. Tuesday: Compassion. Wednesday: Acceptance. Thursday: Meaning. Friday: Forgiveness. Saturday: Celebration. Sunday: Reflection. "We don't blame ourselves for back pain, which is a human health issue," he said. "Similarly, excessive stress is a human issue related to the design of our human brains." Image: Flickr, Irudayam, CC-BY Carolyn Crist is a freelance health and science journalist for regional and national publications. She writes the Escape Artist column for Paste Travel, On the Mind column for Paste Science and Stress Test column for Paste Health. Tagsanxietyevolutiongratitudekindnessmindfulnessmindsetneurosciencepresenceresiliencestressthe depressionGET PASTE RIGHT IN YOUR INBOXThe best music, movies, TV, books, comedy and more.Sign UpYes, I would like to receive Paste's newsletter


text:
Using Powerstore to Meet my Needs
I am in the beginning phases of development on a website that will have a ecommerce component. I have been looking at powerstore and wanted to see if it could meet my needs before I purchased.
I have attached a sample of the proposed index page. Does powerstore have the capability to function where I can modify page codes where I bypass the themes built in home page and other links and go back to my main dreamweaver design. I mainly want the backend, listing and product pages, while maintaining the flexibility of normal web design.
It is also my understanding is that I would need to download one of you preexisting free templates and modify it to achieve the best results for a custom theme. Is this correct?
I own the super suite extensions, but I think this can streamline my development process. Am I on the right track or completely off base?
Thank you,


text:
Yee Sang or Yusheng, A Unique Chinese New Year Food
Born and raised in Malaysia, Mazlan is proud of his Malaysian and Asian heritage. He likes to write about its culture and current issues.
Chinese New Year Food
Festivals and religious celebrations are always synonymous with certain foods. And for the Chinese, it must have symbolic meanings. So, the Chinese New Year food will be associated with happiness, wealth, prosperity, longevity and health. These foods include fish, noodles, spring rolls, dumplings, and niangao (glutinous rice cake).
Yee Sang or Yusheng
But there's a special dish unique only to Malaysia and Singapore that is served only during this festive season. This dish called Yee Sang or Yusheng, is a raw fish salad. It is an appetizer served before the multi-dish lunch or dinner course, available from the first to the 15th day of the Chinese New Year period.
What is Yee Sang
Yee sang or Yu Sheng is a raw fish salad and is never eaten alone.
You eat with a group of people as it meant to unite them during Chinese New Year.
Yee sang is a mixture of raw fish, cut in small strips, and mixed with shredded vegetables such as carrots, capsicum, kaffir lime leaves, young ginger, cucumber, red chili and Chinese parsley. It is then mixed with other condiments, which are chopped nuts, toasted sesame seeds, and pomelo wedges. It is then mixed with a special sauce, which is a mixture of plum sauce, sesame oil, kumquat paste, and rice vinegar.
The base ingredients can vary with different versions but fish, either salmon or mackerel, is always the main ingredient.
Yee sang, Yusheng is eaten only during the first 15-day of Chinese New Year celebration and is not available at other times of the year.
How to Serve Yee Sang
Yee sang is an appetizer and is part of a lunch or dinner course. This is a very symbolic dish that's geared towards abundance in wealth, luck and prosperity.
- The base ingredients comprising of shredded vegetables will be served
- The host or a restaurant server will then add the other ingredients while shouting auspicious wishes (yes, they usually shout!)
- The rest of the diners will then toss and mix the ingredients with the chopsticks while shouting all the auspicious wishes. The higher the toss, the higher these wishes will be. If it is wealth, then a higher growth in wealth!
Yusheng, Symbol of Prosperity
This is all very symbolic and is the highlight of the dinner or lunch. When all these are done everyone will sit down to eat yee sang and the subsequent courses.
Origin of Yee Sang
It was reported that yee sang originated from mainland China and was brought to Malaya (which later evolved into Malaysia and Singapore) by the Chinese immigrants in the early '20s.
The dish has subsequently changed with the addition of local ingredients and flavors.
Although reported to be from mainland China, this dish is not heard of or eaten in China and Hong Kong during Chinese New Year.
This is probably one of the reasons why Singapore and Malaysia are 'fighting' over the origin of this dish.
Singapore and Malaysia's Fight Over Yee Sang
Yee sang supposedly came from southern China, a Cantonese speaking region and eating yee sang is a Cantonese custom. In Malaysia, eating yee sang during Chinese New Year used to be a Cantonese ritual.
But the Singaporean Chinese are mainly of Teochew and Hokkien background. Singapore's claim to inventing yee sang has no merit as it is not a Teochew or Hokkien dish.
Singapore's claim is based on its four restaurant chefs' assertion that they 'invented' and popularized it in 1964. It was later clarified by one of the chef's son that they did not claim on its invention but on giving a new twist to the traditional recipe.
Reference: Straits Times newspaper published Feb 6, 2012.
Vegetarian Yee Sang Recipe
Irrespective of the origin of yee sang and who invented it, it is a popular dish during Chinese New Year celebration. So, various well-known chefs and restaurants have concocted several versions.
Yee sang is traditionally a raw fish salad dish but it does not stop others from reinventing it. I found this vegetarian version of yee sang on the web with an interesting combination of vegetables and fruits as its base ingredients.
The ingredients are radish, carrots, cucumber, green apples, pomelo wedges, unripe mangoes, jackfruit, turnip, toasted sesame seeds and peanuts, and crispy crackers.
For the sauce, it used plum sauce, honey, limes, five-spice powder, and pepper.
Significance of Yusheng's Ingredients
Have you wondered what are the reasons and significance for each of the ingredients in Yusheng?
Although the reasons for the various ingredients were not documented, Time Out magazine Malaysian edition (January 2013) came out with an interesting version and the following was their take:
- Lime and Pomelo: This is for prosperity
- Oil: Sprinkle oil in circular motion to get wealth in all directions
- Pepper and Five Spice powder: To attract wealth and health
- Plum sauce: For sweet times ahead
- Carrots: To welcome the arrival of good fortune
- Shredded green yam: For eternal youth (really?)
- Shredded turnips: For business and career success
- Peanut crumbs, fried crackers, sesame seeds and other condiments: For auspicious time and prosperity
Interesting observation and rationale, right?
Chinese New Year Traditional Food
Some of the common Chinese New Year traditional food will be dumplings (associated with wealth due to its shape that look like silver ingot), dishes that include fish (as it sounds like 'surplus'), spring rolls (associated with wealth/prosperity), and the glutinous rice cake, niangao (associated with higher income).
Read More on Chinese New Year here
Check out the significance and importance of Tangerines and Oranges or the use of flowers such as Plum Blossoms and Water Narcissus during Chinese New Year.
Want to know why and how the Chinese calendar year is named after an animal? Check out the answer here.
Tossing Yusheng, a Noisy and Fun Affair
This content is accurate and true to the best of the author's knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.
© 2013 Mazlan A
Mazlan A (author) from Malaysia on February 05, 2014:
Hi Suzanne, in Yee Sang, all the dishes including the fish are already on that one plate. Enjoy and have fun.
Suzanne, Hamilton, ON on February 05, 2014:
This dish looks beautiful with its vibrant colours! It shows here the base ingredients on a plate. I wonder if the Yee Sang/Fish is served on a separate dish? Centre? Can anyone tell me as I would like to make it this 15th day of CNY 2014. Thanks.
Nikolic Predrag from Serbia, Belgrade on February 05, 2014:
Looks delicious! Great an interesting hub. Thank you for sharing.
IslandBites from Puerto Rico on June 09, 2013:
Interesting. Nice hub!
Mazlan A (author) from Malaysia on May 09, 2013:
@kidscrafts & teaches12345, Thanks for dropping by and commenting. Sorry to take this long to respond. Yee Sang unfortunately is available only during Chinese New Year, so it is only for about 3 weeks in a year!
Dianna Mendez on January 31, 2013:
This looks very good and fun as well. I have never had fish salad, but I certainly would like to try it sometime. Thanks for the cultural experience.
kidscrafts from Ottawa, Canada on January 29, 2013:
It lo0ks just delicious! I love those kind of food :-)
Mazlan A (author) from Malaysia on January 28, 2013:
Hi Sarah, thanks for dropping by. Yes you can. Most corporate Chinese New Year lunches or dinners, as part of networking and keeping in touch with stakeholders, are done in restaurants.
sarahshuihan on January 28, 2013:
That looks so much fun! Can you eat that in a restaurant in Singapore or Malaysia?


text:
Listen to the Daily Audio Planet Pulse
securing a place among the top teams in the Western Conference
early in the season, Seattle has recently lost momentum, sinking
from super to just plain sonic. This is a team in trouble. Making
matters worse, the Sonics have dropped down to the dreaded eighth
seed in the Western Conference playoff race. Whats the point
of working all season to make the playoffs if you have to face
the Lakers at home in the first round?
is the wrong time of year to be slumping. Dissension is breaking
out in the ranks. A recent locker room brawl between Gary Payton
and Vernon Maxwell resulted in injuries to the impromptu peacemakers,
starting center Horace Grant and reserve Chuck Person. Perhaps
astrology can help to shed some light on how a team that started
out so right has gone so wrong.
Team has a Birth Chart
team is a corporate entity and has its own birth chart, but
what constitutes the birth of a team? In many cases, the league
votes at some point to grant a franchise to a particular city.
Until then, the franchise is more of a dream than a reality,
so thats not a bad starting point. However, many astrologers
prefer to use a chart set for the beginning of a teams first
regular season game. The NBA voted to grant a franchise to Seattle
on December 20, 1966, during a daytime meeting in Chicago. The
Sonics played their first regular season game on October 13,
1967, at approximately 7:30 pm in San Francisco.
order for an individual to succeed with a particular team, whether
as a player, coach, or otherwise, he needs to have some strong
connections between his birth chart and at least one (and preferably
both) of the team charts. Ideally, he would work with the team
during a time when the shared areas between their charts are
well supported by the current astrological conditions, such
as transits and/or progressions. Of course, this isnt always
the case. The astrological conditions surrounding the Sonics
and their key personnel currently leave a little something to
be desired.
Westphal: No Longer a Pluto Powerhouse
Sonics Head Coach, Paul Westphal, was born November 30, 1950,
at 5:05 am PST, in Torrance, California. With his Sun in Sagittarius
and Moon in Leo, he is a natural, fiery athlete, and not just
a little lucky. He has had a distinguished career as a player
and coach in both college and professional basketball. There
is no denying his drive, leadership and commitment to the game.
He does share some close connections with the Sonics team charts,
at least enough to have landed the job. However, the current
transits are not helping him much.
not easy fielding a winning team in any sport. The competition
is tough, and coaches and players need all the astrological
help they can get. The planets move constantly, even going backward
(retrograde) at times, and consequently, momentum shifts within
the league throughout the season. Things can go very well for
a team when the current (transiting) Jupiter and Mars are casting
supportive aspects (angles), while slower moving planets, like
Saturn, can dog you all season.
Coach Westphals case, he began the season with a lot of support
from powerhouse Pluto in Sagittarius. The planet Pluto has an
extreme, obsessive influence that intensifies whatever it touches.
In Sagittarius, a traditionally athletic sign, Plutos fierce
power can drive athletes to new heights of achievement. However,
Pluto has since moved on and left Coach Westphal behind. Its
not that Pluto is doing anything particularly bad to his chart
now, its just not making the same close connections that it
did earlier in the season. The result is a noticeable decrease
in power and intensity.
Payton: Stifled by Saturn
heart of the Sonics team is Leo Gary Payton, born July 23, 1968
at 12:52 am PDT, in Oakland, California (Source: BC). He leads
the team in points, steals and assists, but Payton earned his
nickname, The Glove, playing smothering defense. Payton is
in a similar astrological fix as his coach. He had more support
from transiting Pluto at the start of the season, while more
recently, he has had too much attention from transiting Saturn
in Taurus.
tends to be restrictive and limiting, and much of the responsibility
for the team has fallen on Paytons shoulders. No doubt his
role as the leader of this frustrated team was a factor in the
altercation with Vernon Maxwell (September 12, 1965, Gainesville,
Florida). While there is no denying Maxwells talent, Gary Payton
is hardly the first person in the NBA to find him annoying.
the Sonics are still a good team, and will advance to the playoffs,
they do make an interesting case for the power of astrological
influences. They have a good coach and good players, but theyre
not really in the right place at the right time. They are a
little thin on talent, and would probably need about three Gary
Paytons to keep up with the Lakers, Knicks, Pacers or even the
overachieving Phoenix Suns. Ah, but theres always next year!
Courtney Roberts, M.A.,is a writer, teacher, and consultant, originally from Miami, FL. Her work reflects a unique perspective: a real passion for the 'big picture' that combines cosmology, religious studies and history with a lifetime of observing the dynamic interaction of spirit and cosmos.
Other StarIQ articles by Courtney Roberts Conrad:
Copyright © 1999-2022 StarIQ.com, Inc.


text:
Different Types of Trampolines
Trampolines are so much fun and are great ways for kids to be out and be active. They're also great at helping you get in shape if you wanted to use one, too. The question is, how do you know what trampolines to choose? What are the types of trampolines? Is it based on the size of your backyard or is price more important?
Get to Know the Types of Trampolines
Here are some tips to help you get to know the different types of trampolines, so you know which one is going to suit your needs the best.
Trampoline Shapes
Most people think that all trampolines are all created equal, but the truth is that they're not. They do so much more than just make you bounce. The way they bounce is largely based on the way they are shaped.
Round Trampolines
Round trampolines are the trampolines that you will usually see in someone's backyard. These are largely used as recreational pieces of equipment.
Circular springs are meant to push the bounce back to the center of the trampoline. These trampolines are designed this way because it decreases the chances of getting or being hurt.
There is also a range of sizes available for them that start at around 8 feet and go all the way up to around 18 feet. Smaller ones are perfect for young children while larger ones are great for older kids.
Oval Trampolines
Oval trampolines have more surface area for jumping compared to round trampolines. As the design is similar to round trampolines, the bounce also points back to the middle of the mat.
Bigger bounces require more effort to get in the higher jumps. You'll also want to pay special attention to the frame upon assembly because certain parts have a slightly different curve to achieve the curve in the oval shape.
Square Trampolines
Square trampolines are extremely safe and offer a more explosive bounce than their round counterparts due to their design and are measured just like other trampolines – from frame to frame.
These trampolines also tend to have a higher weight limit due to being made of heavier weighted steel.
The shape also provides a greater amount of surface area available for jumping and bouncing. They are more affordable than rectangular trampolines and are often thought to be safer, too.
Rectangle Trampolines
If your child is in gymnastics, you have probably seen these rectangular trampolines at their gym. That doesn't mean they are restricted to professional athletes.
In fact, these might be great options for you if you have a smaller backyard but still want to give your children a place to bounce.
Spring Trampolines
Spring trampolines are the most common and traditional ones you'll see. They are trampolines that are made of a strong steel frame, steel springs, and a jumping mat.
These are the most affordable trampoline options, and also are the easiest to find. You can purchase spring trampolines in stores like Target, Walmart, or even online.
Springless Trampolines
If you're looking for something other than a traditional spring trampoline, you'll want to check out springless trampolines, too.
While they may be the most expensive trampolines available on the market today, they are also the safest for you and your loved ones.
They were designed in New Zealand originally and are taking the world by storm. They were intended as a response to the total number of injuries caused by trampolines as a way to remove the steel springs and frame that were usually behind the issues.
Inflatable Trampolines
Have you ever heard of inflatable trampolines? They're ones that you can blow up like a balloon and even put out on the water if you get the right model.
Large water versions are much more expensive, but if you have access to one, you're going to love jumping on them. Smaller, toddler-size inflatable trampolines can be found in stores like Target or on Amazon.
Chances are that you know them best as bounce houses or bouncy castles. You can rent them from various companies
Fitness or Mini Trampolines
These mini trampolines have so many fantastic applications. If you live in a smaller space or have kids that need the occasional jump, mini trampolines are an excellent choice.
If you're more into fitness, these offer a great choice to add to your personal in-home training. They can also be relatively inexpensive making it an even better choice.
Picking the Best Trampoline for You
When the time comes to go out and buy the best trampoline for you, make sure you know what you're looking for before you put your cash on the table.
Think about what you want, and read and research reviews before making your final decision. Once you do, enjoy jumping to your heart's content!


text:
TagsAATRH RHONJ exclusive all about the real housewives all about trh allabouttrh rhonj exclusive andy andy cohen bravo bravo andy bravocon caroline manzo danielle staub dolores catania gia giudice Jackie Goldschneider jacqueline laurita Jennifer Aydin joe giudice joe giudice deportation joe giudice italy joe giudice prison joe gorga margaret josephs Marty Caffrey melissa and joe gorga melissa gorga real housewives real housewives blog real housewives drama real housewives gossip real housewives news real housewives of new jersey season 10 real housewives update rela housewives of new jersey rhoc rhonj rhonj exclusive RHONJ season 10 RHONJ season 10 casting RHONJ season 10 delay RHONJ season 10 filming RHONJ SEASON 10 PREMIERE rhonj season 11 rhonj season 11 caroline manzo rhonj special joe and teresa unlocked teresa giudice teresa giudice prison The Lookover Ladies the real housewives the real housewives blog the real housewives of new jersey season 10
RHONJ Reunion Tea: Jennifer Adyin Shades Melissa Gorga Over Fake Chanel Being Sold At Envy Boutique!
March 16, 2020
You may also like
About the author
Lara Sophia
Lara began writing for AllAboutTRH in October 2014. Lara is a born and bred Jersey girl, who loves blogging and currently writes a lifestyle blog: ChicandSequined.com Beyond blogging, Lara enjoys traveling, fashion, beauty, and gossip. Lara is excited to get in on the gossip and put her own spin on things.


text:
It looks like Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher are still very much loved up, as they were spotted sharing a cheeky cuddle while taking some time out from their crazy filming schedules in Beijing, China.
The lovebirds didn't seem to mind the onlookers as they gazed into eachothers' eyes on the busy street, before heading off hand in hand down the Great Wall of China. It's all very romantic.
Ashton looked like he still couldn't believe his luck, as he clung to his long-term girlfriend who was voted as Maxim's Sexiest Women Alive this year. We came second, of course.
Their mini-break is probably giving the couple some much need quality time together, as Ashton is currently promoting his upcoming film Jobs across New York, whilst Mila has been shooting her new sci-fi movie Jupiter Ascending, in Chicago.
The pair kept things casual in matching navy cardigans (adorbs), with Mila wearing dark shorts and a cute scruffy top knot, and Ashton trying to be discreet in a not-so-chic baseball cap, following his inspirational speech at the Teen Choice Awards -which you can check out below;
Earlier this month, rumours were circulating that Ashton could be preparing to pop the question to Mila, who he has been dating for just a year after the pair originally met back in the 90s when they both starred in That 70s Show.
A gossiping insider told US Weekly that "They plan to get engaged soon. Being with Mila brought Ashton back to who he really is. He's not playing the field, he's focused on enjoying Mila and the happiness she brings."
And on that adorable note, are you a fan of Mila and Ashton as a couple? Drop us a comment below to let us know, or tweet us @CosmopolitanUK.
David Beckham takes Harper, Cruz, Romeo and Brooklyn to LA Dodgers baseball game
Khloe Kardashian returns to Instagram - as Lamar Odom returns home


text:
Sandoval Lake Full day
If you were going to choose a palm tree in Sandoval Lake to represent the Amazon Rainforest, it would definitely have to be the Aguaje. In Amazonian , where the people eat approximately twenty tons of this fruit per day, the women who sell this fruit, called "aguajeras", have turned into an important part of the local economy. The aguaje is a multiple use species since its leaves, inflorescence, fruit bunches, seeds, and even its roots are used by local populations. Parrots colonize the dead trees in order to build their nests, and it is food for the delicious American palm weevil. And if all that were not enough, its fruit pulp is one of the most nutritious tropical foods (its Vitamin A content is five times higher that of the carrot). Besides all the benefits it possesses, its environmental services are even more overwhelming. The aguaje is a large storehouse of carbon, which is why its role in lessening the world's climatic change is of great importance. It stores more than 600 tons of carbon dioxide per hectare, witch is three to five times more than any other tropical Amazon Sandoval Lake ecosystem. Additionally, it is very important in the foundation of the tropical If you were going to choose a palm tree to represent the Amazon Rainforest, it would definitely have to be the Aguaje. In Amazonian , where the people eat approximately twenty tons of this fruit per day, the women who sell this fruit, called "aguajeras", have turned into an important part of the local economy. The aguaje is a multiple use species since its leaves, inflorescence, fruit bunches, seeds, and even its roots are used by local populations. Parrots colonize the dead trees in order to build their nests, and it is food for the delicious American palm weevil. And if all that were not enough, its fruit pulp is one of the most nutritious tropical foods (its Vitamin A content is five times higher that of the carrot). Besides all the benefits it possesses, its environmental services are even more overwhelming. The aguaje is a large storehouse of carbon, which is why its role in lessening the world's climatic change is of great importance. It stores more than 600 tons of carbon dioxide per hectare, witch is three to five times more than any other tropical ecosystem. Additionally, it is very important in the foundation of the tropical amazon sandoval lake
Sandoval Lake Full day: Nobody is authorized to use outboard motors because it makes a lot of noise and the species that live there are not used to it. In Sandoval Lake reservation you will appreciate the beautiful landscape together with the songs of the birds and noises of the lake as species revolve around the lake. And a majestic sunset and looking at creatures resting or frolicking within the jungle and Sandoval lake.
Sandoval lake
- Duration: 1 days
- Service Type: Private or Group
- Location: Southern Peru, Department of Madre de Dios, Puerto Maldonado, Tambopata, Sandoval Lake Reserve
- Activities: Amazon Peru Sandoval Lake, lick palm, Sandoval Lake
- Altitude: 139-400 m.a.s.l.
- Best time to visit: March to October
- Departure: Daily
- Minimum participants: 2
- Maximum number of participants: 10
- Price per person: USD
- Service Level:
- We pick you up at your lodging in our bus
- We take our boat for about 45 minutes
- register in the book sandoval lake
- We'll walk 5 km approximately 2 hours
- We start our canoe ride where you can see giant river otters, alligators, turtles, birds, monkeys, macaws, ect
- Lunch is typical food of the Amazon and the name is juane
- Going back to the Madre de Dios River and board our boat to Puerto Maldonado to go back and finish our tour.
Sandoval Lake – Full Day Tours
After breakfast, we board the boat to sail for 10 minutes and then we board ground transportation for two hours to Puerto Maldonado harbormaster. There we will board a motor boat again and navigate the Madre de Dios River to see animals such as turtles, alligators, lizards and others around its shores. After about half an hour, we reach a checkpointat Sandoval lake.
At Sandoval lake, we check in and start to hike the nature trail for 5 km until you reach Sandoval Lake, this is where we will take a canoe to Sandoval Lake, There, we settle ourselves in and then after lunch, we return sailing the lake to see its typical inhabitants – giant river otters, black alligator a prehistoric hoatzin bird, herons, kingfishers, etc. We then return to the lodge for dinner. Soon after dinner we go back out onto the lake again, this time to experience alligator spotting at night due to their nocturnal behaviors. Our professional naturalist tour guide will show and explain about these animals. Afterwards, we prepare to board the canoe and sail again on Sandoval Lake, followed by a walk to the checkpoint and from there browsing Madre de Dios river by boat to Puerto Maldonado. We collect our luggage in our office and then move either to the airport or bus terminal.
End of service
Included in the Sandoval Lake
- A professional naturalist tour guide;
- Transport motorboat;
- Private land transport vehicles;
- Meals: 1x Breakfast, 1x Lunch, 1 Dinner and drinking water (Note: the vegetarian option on request at no additional cost!)
- First aid kit, including a venom extractor, mosquito bite treatment and an antidote for snakebite;
- Radio communications
- Rubber boots.
Not included in the Sandoval Lake
- Any flight or airport departure taxes;
- Travel insurance;
- vaccination;
- Breakfast on the first day ;
- Tips for local staff
- Entrance fee to Sandoval Lake Reserve
What to bring with you the Sandoval Lake
- Mosquito repellent (DEET 35 !! recommended minimum)
- Original passport,
- Small backpack,
- Long sleeve cotton shirts (preferably green),
- Cotton trousers,
- Long cotton socks (to be put on pants)
- Comfortable walking shoes,
- Sandals or light shoes,
- Rain gear (eg, rain poncho)
- Sweater (for the start of the tour in the Andes and the cloud forest only)
- swimsuit
- Binoculars (also rented)
- Camera and charger,
- Plastic bags to be used for clothes and camera
- One hat as protection from sun or rain
- Toiletries,
- Small towel,
- Toilet paper,
- Sunglasses
- Flashlight (with spare bulb and batteries)
- A bottled water (1 liter minimum),
- Pocket Money (Soles) to buy some drinks and souvenirs, as well as the tip.
- Sunscreen
Departure Every day to Sandoval Lake
Invalid Displayed Gallery
OVERVIEW TREES OF WETLANDS SANDOVAL LAKE[tab: description of the ]
Diversity of palm trees in wetlands amazon tours on reservation sandoval lake.
Amazonian palm trees are characterized more by their abundance and its diversity. Although estimates on the number of palm species vary significantly they could have between 2,300 and 2,600 species worldwide. The taxonomy of palms in the New World is relatively advanced, thanks to the recent work of Andrew Henderson and colleagues, although many species are divided as studies progress. Henderson and colleagues recently reduced to little more than half the number of palm species believed to exist in the tropics. They attributed this reduction to a broader species concept and the growing number of collections made in the past two decades. Finally, estimated that at least 10% of the species of Amazonian palm finding in Sandoval lake belong to "species complex", defined as "widespread species and variables usually contain forms more or less distinct, together with others for intermediariesin amazon peru Sandoval lake
However, the palm has been relatively little collected in the Amazon in Sandoval lake Basin of because of the vastness of the area involved, the difficulty of access to many areas and the fact that many plant collectors prevent the palms due to the difficulty of preserving and transporting such large fronds and fruit. shields paeru tours Brazil and Guyana have certainly collect and describe species for science.
Sandoval lake Floodplains and wetlands habitats are well represented in collections because of their palms like in amazon is finding in Sandoval lake ; Aguajal (Mauritia flexuosa) of the Middle River amazon of Peru and Brazil. This moisture is flooded with nutrients from a stream and rainwater from peruvian amazon in Sandoval lake
Relatively easy access. Analysis of diversity of wetland palms focus mainly on taxonomic opinions concerning Astrocaryum and Oenocarpus. For example, Andrew Henderson recognizes one species and eight varieties of Astrocaryum murumuru propose 13 separate species. If Astrocaryum murumuru division in several species is widely accepted the occasional presence of species in the western highlands floodplains near the Andes, subject only to minimal flooding, is added to the lists of wetland palms, then the diversity of palm trees growing in Sandoval lake of wetlands should be considered in greater species in peruvian amazon
As in most families of plants, palm trees are more diverse Sandoval lake in the highlands in wetland. This is probably due to the uplands occupy more space at least 95% of the Amazon basin and ecological constraints imposed wetlands. In general, the palms have shown to be within the top 10 families in the Amazon basin in terms of gender, but in western Amazonia, mainly in Peru to Sandoval lake this is not true nor gender nor species, because the great diversity of other plant groups in the Amazon and Sandoval lake
Lake Sandoval Its origin is due to strangulation of one of the meandering Madre de Dios River and is located on the right bank of the latter to 8 Km. Town of Puerto Maldonado. To reach this lake must ride a motorboat for 25 minutes following the flow of the river, then walk through the beautiful nature trail that moves through the woods for about an hour and thirty minutes. On the way, visitors can observe a variety of plants such as orchids, platanillos, ungurahuis and homiceas, into the lake itself islet full of grass marshes exist where the tree grows aguajein this reserve Sandoval lake . As for wildlife, there are plenty of ducks, otters, alligators, wild hens, tapirs, toucans, macaws, turtles water as the turtles. This lake is usually sport fishing catch a variety of fish such as paiche measuring from 1 to 4 meters in length. There is a section of the lake where the temperature ranges between 20 ° C and 26 ° C, here visitors can enjoy a refreshing swim exercise safely
AMAZON BIRD :It is commonly located on lakes, marshes, and swamps, between 200 and 4200 m. It has a long beak with small greenish reddish blue shades on top, brown plumage all over the back and in the front, chest and belly gray. The immature have a more subdued brown throughout the body; some also approach the gray color defined to adulthood
Travels in the Peruvian jungle with a full tour in the sandoval lake Day is a short tour for those who do not have much time and just want 1 day to visit the Sandoval Lake Reserve and observe wildlife that inhabits nature provides naturally, and to get there we have to take a motor boat and about a 5 kilometer walk where you will visit lake Sandoval in our typical native canoes and they will only use oars to mobilize from one place to another within the jungle in amazon peru Sandoval lake.


text:
Welcome, to "Would You Rather"! This game is similar to This or That, but is more detailed...
Here's an example of how it goes.
ToeFace: Would you rather spend Christmas with your grandpartents, or spend Thanksgiving with your aunts and uncles?
FingerFace: Spend Christmas with my grandparents. Would you rather choke to death on a sucker, or be eaten by a shark?
I'll start.
Views: 1825
Maybe the sea. I have a fear of heights. Lol.
WYR experience a old book for the first time or discover a new book?
Depends on the book, but I'll say old book :)
WYR find a new installment of your fav series or find a new series you'll like just as much?
...New series. That's a toughie.
WYR experience an old favorite game like it was your first time, or experience it in a whole new way?
Old fav.
WYR, play on the newest Xbox model or the new PS5?
PS5, easy.
WYR Play a new VR console, or an updated Switch?
Updated Switch?
WYR watch all the Marvel movies or all the DC tv shows?
I'm not sure... I'll go with Marvel movies.
WYR live in the desert or the rainforest?
The desert all the way.
WYR Control your dreams or remember everything?
Remember everything!
WYR have a phone or a PC?
I'd rather have a nice PC.
WYR be a skilled musician with no vocal talent or be an extremely talented singer with no instrumental talent?
I'll go with the second, because that's kind of me anyway ;)>
WYR take a Codebearers personality quiz or a Star Wars one?


text:
Video Production focused on driving traffic to your business
You have a message. You have a story to tell. Whoever your audience is: customers, employee's, students, or stakeholders, our Video Production Services can create content with your audience in mind. DizzyWeb SEO works with you to craft your message in video format, and communicate it to your audience. Quality video production services are a highly valuable component of an advanced Digital Marketing campaign. We execute content creation and also offer the SEO services to rank the Video so that more eyes can see it.


text:
I have never really liked the fact that I have a brain. The thought of it has always made me feel vulnerable and compromised and delicate, as if I am walking around with a glass of water balanced on my head, waiting for it to spill. And I now suspect that I am not entirely alone in this. When, recently, my daughter Leon first became aware of her own brain — when she first noticed the presence of her thoughts sounding inside her head — she assumed she was unwell.
One evening a few weeks back, I was drawn through the house by sudden sobbing. After I'd found Leon crying in the living room, and after I'd wiped her nose and pinned back her hair, she told me, with much floundering and fumbling to get the meaning out, that she had pictures stuck in her head and she didn't know why.
The pictures made her happy, she said. They were mainly pictures of Lego bricks, cluttered and colorful, spread across the floor of the living room. But she didn't understand where these pictures had come from, and they didn't seem to be going anywhere in a hurry. Now she was scared that she would always have pictures of Lego bricks stuck in her head. I think she even worried there might be a real brick or two lodged in there.
Leon was nearly 4 by the time of this revelation, and as soon as she understood that the pictures were called thoughts, and that thoughts are a very normal kind of magic, we decided to conquer this new information in the most direct manner we could both imagine. I sketched the basic perimeter on a piece of paper, and then my daughter took twenty minutes to draw a map of the kind of landscape that this book explores. It's a map of the interior of the skull, a map of the beautiful, maddening, difficult place that thoughts come from. Except, because she was nearly 4, the picture Leon drew is filled with features that do not appear in most neurological textbooks. There is a lot of lava inside her skull, apparently, and at least one waterfall. There are a surprising number of ponies knocking about too.
I was not surprised that this map helped to calm her down. When I was young, maps and stories were inseparable. Every book I read seemed to come with an outline of the territory that it covered laid out across the endpapers, and every atlas I owned was dense with little figures and scenes waiting to explain the history of an island or to give shape and weight to the science throbbing away beneath the pale surface of an ocean. The adventures I liked did not always require opposition — I was a nervous child and easily frightened — but they did require a journey, a sense of movement through a landscape cluttered with strange, promising names and the suggestion of sights that might be worth a visit.
A map is an adventure, but if you are nervous and easily frightened it is also a comfort. I could look at the map before reading a book and get a sense of the kinds of elements it would contain — the rough shape of the story, and perhaps a limit to its potential to scare me. Maps were a means of fixing things in place and making them safe.
An obvious question emerges from this, and I have been turning it over for the last few years. What does it mean to explore a terrain that resists most attempts to document it? What does it mean to find yourself without a map?
I know a few places like this, I think, and one of them is intimately bound up with Leon and those Lego bricks. Since the early days of our relationship, whenever the weekend came around, with Sarah still sleeping, Leon and I would get up together and head to the living room, where we would upend the Lego box. We would listen to that great collapsing splash that Legos create when they move en masse and then, Leon balanced in my lap, I would build. We would build. One piece connecting to another. Toys she was far too young for and I was far too old for. Toys that were suddenly perfect for both of us.
In my memory, this ritual started just months after Leon was born, as soon as she entered that glorious age when every experience is worth having. Your job, as a child, is to have no job. Your job as a child is to be roving eyes and roving hands. The world is a thing to be examined closely, and then it is a thing to be grasped. Our time with the living-room Lego set feels idyllic when I look back on it now. Maybe it is suspiciously idyllic. Sometimes I will tell this story to someone else and they will raise an eyebrow, unconvinced, and it will dawn on me that what I am telling them is not quite the whole story — that there is a more interesting aspect to our Lego mornings, and I have slowly, steadily, forgotten it.
I have forgotten that, for many months, it was me doing all the building. I think Leon just snoozed at first, strapped into a bouncy chair. As time passed, she would be a warm weight in my lap while my arms reached around her for bricks, her fragile head resting under my chin. Sometimes, she would tap her fingers on her palms with that look of amused indulgence that children often adopt when confronted with the behavior of adults. And the behavior she was witnessing is pretty simple for me to decode, frankly. I was Leon's father, but I did not know how to be myself around her. I did not know how to play with her yet, or even if she could play at this age. Things did not always come naturally to Leon and me in the early months. Legos became a thing to do that allowed us to spend time together so we could start to understand each other better.
To put it another way, I met my daughter in a delivery suite at Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, but I got to know her on the floor of the living room in our house, bricks scattered about and a strange landscape shifting around us.
Over the next few years, Leon steadily became more involved. She slowly moved from watching to wanting to take part — and finally to leading.
And I started to notice things too. I noticed the flickerings of her tentative nature as she reached for her first bricks and then tried to eat them. I noticed her easy smile and also her unpredictability, discovering that something that would make her laugh one day — clipping bricks around the ribbon of a helium balloon, say, to stop it from floating to the ceiling — would make her sob with fury the next.
Destruction was an early fascination. I would start constructing a building and she would take it to pieces, punching and giggling. It was a race to see who could work more quickly. Eventually, she wanted to put one brick on another herself. Gaining control of her hands and fingers eventually allowed her to twist one piece into the correct position and snap it cleanly into place.
The first time she put two bricks together like this she laughed for a full minute at what she had done. And then she gave herself a week off. The Legos have been like that throughout: a series of revelations for both of us. Simple blocks, and yet we use them to make endless tumbledown cities and bizarre, craggy mountain ranges that fragment into archipelagos of rubble. We have a real thing for rubble these days, almost a philosophy of rubble. We understand that you should never completely atomize the last thing you built. Instead, you should leave tantalizing hints of it in the storage box for the next time. Spars of old staircases; doors and windows bodged together in promisingly unpromising ways. Every disaster contains a glimpse of the thing that will follow it.
It helps that even now neither of us is ever trying to build anything specific in the first place. Our cities belong to some doodling realm that exists in the margins, beyond the concerns of form and function. My daughter and I have an established interest in fantasy buildings, in unreal estate, and in the lives of strange, quiet people who are only an inch or so high. And I have come to see that all the places we build are, in some way, the same unmappable place, regardless of what shape they might take from one minute to the next. Privately, I call this place The Inward Empire, an incongruously lofty name for a scattering of Lego bricks, perhaps, but a perfect fit for the kind of quiet collaborative discovery that building toys allow for.
And there are two tales to this city. The first is Leon's, of course. The lurching advances in building complexity match the explosion in her cognitive abilities as one idea connects with another, as plans form, as capabilities are discovered, as the images in her head have edged toward conscious thought. The first time we played, she gawped at the colors and shapes. Now, she stands bent over a box of bricks, searching through them for the single piece she is after. If it eludes her, she gets furious. When she finds it, she can ponder its optimal placement for the best part of a minute.
Then there's my story. For the first few months of our Saturday ritual, I now realize that I was witnessing something happening inside me. My fingers were growing numb, my limbs were getting heavier, I was becoming clumsier than usual. I picked up a slight quaver in my voice and injured myself in many small, stupid ways throughout the course of an ordinary day.
And then, at night I would sometimes lie back in bed and discover that my mind was suspiciously quiet. There was not a single thought strolling around inside my head. It was an ominous kind of calm.
Over time, these early symptoms would reveal themselves for what they were. They were the first signs of multiple sclerosis, a maddeningly unpredictable neurological disease that I would spend the next few years trying, and often failing, to get an understanding of.
But let the night retreat for a few moments longer. I am grateful to Leon for all the time I get to build Lego structures with her. For the obvious reasons, and for this secret reason too: without Leon, I know that I would always build the same kind of structure — a low, rambling sort of building, something a talentless Frank Lloyd Wright acolyte might bang out for an inattentive client.
Together, though, Leon and I build all sorts of things. She cannot settle, and she rarely plans. She is always changing her mind, expanding her focus. The buildings she creates are daringly lopsided, or exist as bursts of freakish minimalism. A brick here, another balanced over there and then: done. The purpose of these structures can shift very suddenly in the construction. A park becomes a prison when she adds a barred gate and then bricks in the see-saw. A skyscraper of mine can be utterly transformed by placing a single brick on top of it — she whacks on a ship's wheel and it's a galleon, set teetering through the seas.
This is the way she is with everything, going through that frantic period children have between two and four when everything is new, everything is possible, when everything is unprecedented and there is suddenly a real urgency to get it happening now, and all at once. I worry this will not last. I have seen the way older children play with Legos, when their parents visit us and the Lego box is hauled out to entertain them. They make very pretty things, older kids, but it is a stale kind of prettiness. It is in debt to symmetry, in debt to the architecture of pedantry. It's a reminder of that thing Tom Wolfe said, that the middle years of childhood are the most formal years of your entire life.
And then one day you're my age and, when faced with Legos, you behave as I do. No rocket ships or alien worlds anymore. Just pastiche, just real estate.
This is one of a million reasons why I need Leon. It is pure selfishness. She dreams of this stuff. And when she's awake, I now understand that she often thinks of it too.
And that worry of hers: I see pictures in my head, she explained to me through her tears, through her inability to land on the precise words. How did she know that? How did she know that the thoughts she was having were in her head?
What is multiple sclerosis? There are at least two answers to this question. The first is an attempt to explain the mechanism of the disease itself, a disease in which the body's own immune system decides to attack the fatty, insulating coating of the nerves in the brain and spinal cord. This coating, made of a substance called myelin, protects our nerves and speeds up those vital electrical pulses moving from one neuron to the next, kissing across synaptic gaps in a brisk burst of chemicals. Without myelin, crucial signals between the brain and the body become garbled or simply go missing entirely. The kisses go unmet, and over time you start to feel the consequences, in fingers, in toes, in glitch and twinge.
I envision the lightning-fast movement of these signals through my daughter as she learns to put nouns and verbs together for the first time, while I sometimes stumble over the simplest sentences. At times it seems that we are joined, the two of us, through the magical substance of myelin, as it advances through my daughter's brain and as it is attacked in my own.
Multiple sclerosis comes in a handful of different forms, depending on its severity. This book is concerned with relapsing-remitting MS. This is the most common form of the disease, in which new or worsening symptoms flare up in sudden attacks, or relapses, that can last anywhere from days to a few months before retreating. Over time, many people with relapsing-remitting MS go on to develop secondary-progressive MS, in which symptoms grow worse, with fewer periods of remission. In primary-progressive MS, the rarest and most aggressive form of the disease, symptoms grow steadily worse from the start, with no periods of remission. All forms of MS are powered by the same basic mechanism, however: it causes havoc wherever your nerves travel, and your nerves must travel everywhere.
This ties into the second answer: multiple sclerosis is a disease in which a diverse number of unpleasant things may or may not happen to you. It can affect almost every part of the body, causing anything from gently tingling fingers to full-blown paralysis, and in between you can get everything from incontinence to difficulty in swallowing, from fatigue to — in my case at least — bursts of euphoria. Multiple sclerosis can be life-shortening, but it is always life-altering.
Because of this, when someone first tells you that you have multiple sclerosis, it seems to me that they are not necessarily telling you very much. Over one hundred years after it was
first described, much about MS remains mysterious. There are lots of blank spaces left on the map. Somewhere within these neurogenic wildlands lies the mechanism through which this disease springs its nasty tricks. Somewhere, most importantly for me, lurk the tricks themselves: all the bizarre and alarming and fascinating things that MS may do to you, which no one can predict.
My favorite description of MS is one of the very first: marked enfeeblement. That was the phrase the great French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot used when lecturing the medical community in the late nineteenth century. Imperious and shy, a noble enigma, Charcot cared deeply for his patients, and yet he seems to have been able to view their suffering from a distinctly aristocratic distance. When he spoke of marked enfeeblement, he was referring to the various cognitive damages inflicted by a disease that he had been the first to accurately describe. Specifically, he was referring to MS's effects on memory, but he had time to address other problems too, such as the fact that new "conceptions" are formed slowly in MS patients, and that "the intellectual and emotional faculties are blunted in their totality." I can attest to all this, and I should add a reminder that, even then, this is just the cognitive side of things.
If I was lecturing, as Charcot did every Friday and every Tuesday to audiences that often included many outside the medical profession, I would have to speak from muddy personal experience rather than academic curiosity, and I would argue that neurological diseases are ultimately an attack on individuality, in the same way that streptococcus, say, is an attack on the throat. Neurological diseases like MS live within the central nervous system after all, that complex tangle of 100 billion cells — every one a lightning bolt captured mid-strike — that makes each of us, through thinking, the person we think we are. When these diseases attack the brain, they cannot help but attack the person being endlessly remade within it.
It is perversely fitting that MS should attack the individual in such a fiercely individual manner. Every case of MS is different, and the sheer scope of the trouble it can cause is impossible to adequately capture. MS has a destination, and one I am all too aware of, but it has no set timetable, and it has posted no itinerary.
And at its worst, multiple sclerosis is nothing. A literal nothingness: the stillness of spasticity, the quiet of an addled mind. Day to day, I sometimes feel I am chasing a little pool of nothingness around inside me, the way I might tilt an air bubble up and down through a spirit level. Sometimes this nothingness seems to gather in the fingers, a lack of sensation that feels implausibly, paradoxically, raw. Sometimes it pools in the brain, a wordlessness, a theft of language that, on reflection, makes me wonder if I need nouns and verbs and adjectives in order to have any thoughts at all.
Since the beginning, I have always wanted to see this nothingness. I have not needed to understand it, perhaps, but I have needed it to take some kind of a shape before me. Early on it became clear what shape it would take too. Landscape has a way of creeping into language and filling it out. I talk of a chilly coastal fog that descends and swallows words and entire thoughts. I talk of the sudden erosion of context, as if a stretch of cliffside has been yanked away by a fierce tide. I talk of a place that I am transported to when the truly weird stuff starts to happen: my own Inward Empire. And it's not just the weird stuff anymore. This landscape has become a way of thinking about what's going on with me day to day. It's a way of sounding out the boundaries of the world I now live in.
Perhaps the real change is in how I have come to see myself. I am a fretful man who has always dreamed of adventure. For thirty years I have doodled fantastical maps while talking on the phone or looking out of the window in class or at work; I have read books about experience while inching away from it whenever it seems to approach me in the real world. Now, experience is here and unavoidable: disease has forced me to become an explorer and a cartographer. Multiple sclerosis has ushered me into a new environment entirely, where the strange science of the brain intrudes into everyday life in unexpected ways and at unexpected times.
I'm not sure this perspective on disease is always the indulgence it appears to be. In the streets and intersections that Leon and I make of Lego bricks, places that grow, contract, and are endlessly being replaced, I get a fresh sense of the possibilities of space, of the ability of landscape to cope with change without any attendant need for understanding. You simply cannot get attached to what you have made when creating with a child. You have to learn to deal with the sort of unpredictability that can pull up entire neighborhoods with no warning, and that can then draw cathedrals out of the least-promising rubble.
And it's worth remembering that hidden within the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis is a second diagnosis: incurable. This is the one it can be truly mind-shredding to confront. Over the last three years I have come to comprehend what MS means on a day-to-day basis — the aches, the fatigue, the tingling moments when the whole world shifts briefly out of alignment — but it is much harder to understand that these things are going to continue, and only increase in regularity and force. Legs quake. Ribs creak. Sentences are cut short and plans are postponed as MS stages another guerrilla raid on context.
And so, in the months since my own diagnosis, my response has been to try and look outwards as well as inwards. My doctors have been working hard on me, establishing a treatment plan and plotting the likely course that this willful, unpredictable disease is likely to take this time around. I have been busy too. I have had to find a new place for myself, and what follows is the story of my search.
This has been the objective, really, to get a sense of where illness has left me, to understand what this kind of illness — one that lurks inside the territory of identity — actually means for me. And perhaps what its various iniquities reveal about the mind I've been living in for the last 38 years anyway — an idea of where the illness stops and I, often equally problematic, begin. I have seen so much, from the early sketches left by the first anatomists who sought to expose the godly architecture of the brain to the lunar world of today's MRI scans, silver and shimmering on computer screens. And I realize that over the last few years I've been slowly mapping my own body too. Alongside a growing familiarity with the buried treasures of the brain, I now know there are two nervous systems rather than one, for example, and I have a working understanding of the separate layers of the body's aggressive, and imperfect, immune defenses. My search for understanding has brought internal spaces out into the light. It has stopped me from being quite such a tourist in my own skin.
This, then, is a book about my attempts to navigate the world as it appears to a neurological patient — a neurological patient who has just become a father. It's a book about trying to meet an unpredictable and inventive disease on its own terms. And it's a book about the brain, and about the things I have learned about the people who have struggled, over the centuries, to bring this strange, ugly, fascinating organ into the light and understand the way that disease affects it.
Because of all this, it's also a book about something that my daughter's Legos seemed to be stirring within me as we first got to know each other, an inkling, probably foolhardy, possibly obnoxious, that my diagnosis didn't have to be a total disaster, that its destructive nature might have some errant creative potential hiding within it. After all, there is only one rule when Leon and I build with Legos: I must work with whatever she gives me. Even when she makes strange choices — such as deciding, halfway into a skyscraper, to stop adding new floors and turn the whole thing into a high-rise dog park — I must work with that and steer into it, rather than pretend it didn't happen or start again. Her gift is that she makes decisions I wouldn't think of, and so together we end up creating things that feel unprecedented to both of us.
I'm still doing all of that, I think, and it seems only right that Leon was there with me back at the start of all this. My daughter is my reason for exploring in the first place: I need to find a way to function as a parent with an encroaching disability.
People sometimes talk about how selfish having children is. They are talking, most often, about the planet, and they are reducing children to the barrels of oil they will consume, the plane seats they will fill, the beef or the quinoa that will have to be produced to feed them. I never argue with these people. Partly because I am timid, partly because I suspect they have a point, and partly because I have slowly come to recognize that having children is selfish in other ways too.
When I was young, 12 or 13, I had a very strong sense of what death would be like. Death would be like the evening of the last day of the summer holidays. Mawkishly you store your toys and you slump into bed. And then you lay in the warm, windless dark, staring at the ceiling or at the moon arcing slowly past an open window. And you think: I wasted all that. You think of the long summer days in which you got up late, in which you dawdled over breakfast, in which you could not make plans or decide, even, which direction to start out in for an aimless wander. You look back on this glittering opportunity and all you have is regrets at the things that didn't get done.
It never occurred to me that one day I might look back and feel that for every opportunity squandered there was one I decided to make the best of — or one, better yet, that I had no choice but to make the best of.
As I write this on a Thursday morning in the first half of 2017, I have just dropped Leon off at nursery. We rode the bus out there together — I'm sure we both chugged our way through some of the oil that should rightly belong to other people as we went — and she told me about Wonder Woman and Batman and a time, a few weeks ago, when she fell on the path outside our house and hurt her knee and felt, suddenly, that everything in the world was just terrible. Halfway through our journey, she zipped up her hoodie and then announced that she had forgotten what T-shirt she had decided to wear today and I had to try and describe it in great, forensic detail, the T-shirt under her hoodie, until she remembered that it was the one with the moose on it and that once she had put it on that morning she had had to take off her gold shoes and find a different pair because the gold shoes were just too much when combined with a moose.
We got off the bus and I explained, for the thousandth time, why she could not squirm out of holding my hand when traffic was nearby. We waited for the green man, we stopped in at the local Tesco to look at the new magazines, and she took the longest route to the magazine rack because, as she always does, she wanted to "zigzag there and back." We went to the nursery and found we were the first ones there today. She raced to a pole by the front door that holds up a small shingled roof, and she spun on the pole and then started to climb it.
She was too cool to let me kiss her goodbye when the doors to her nursery opened, so I waved her off from outside and got the bus home. As I creaked up the driveway a twinge in my upper leg announced that I was going to have to sit down for ten minutes fairly soon or I would pay for it later. I opened the front door on to the usual domestic crime scene: honey-flavored hoops exploded underfoot, My Little Pony underpants flung over the arm of a chair, and toothpaste smeared across a cushion. Beneath the sofa, kicked there by a tiny foot, were the gold shoes that my daughter had decided were too much to wear that morning. I sat down and stared at them resting in the gloom there, and felt a wonderful, rich kind of sadness that the house was so empty.
And I realized once again: my world used to be vast, but now it is small and strange and bright, and I exist within it in a way I never did before. This is despite my current compromises. Maybe it is even because of them. My daughter sends me out into the world just as my illness is starting to shut that world down. Together we explore a landscape so compact that I can imagine a map of it fitting into the endpapers of a novel, but simultaneously so vivid and interesting that it belongs there.
From The Inward Empire: Mapping the Wilds of Mortality and Fatherhood, by Christian Donlan. © 2018 by Christian Donlan.
Reprinted by permission of Little, Brown and Company, New York, NY. All rights reserved.