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For someone who lived in London for over 15 years – it's not very well covered on the blog at all. Last year, I left London altogether so…..yep, not likely to cover much more of the city after all!
There's something about where you live that everyone seems to recognise — you don't appreciate what's on your own doorstep. So, when I read other people's content about London and how useful it is….how creative and inspiring it is, I scold myself a little because, well, I could do that too. I have the means: I live here. I have the time: I'm freelance. And I have a cute dog who is super portable and loves exploring. So there's no excuse, right?
Pin me for later!
One of the things I always get asked by friends visiting London is this: Where should I stay? And that's often the most overwhelming thing about planning any trip.
Find the right location, and your trip elevates from good to awesome. Pick the wrong one, and you may never go back. Not always, of course, but often. So I thought I'd pour some of my, ahem, expertise into a post I can refer anyone asking that question to. Including you, dear reader!
Picking your perfect London spot
For those who live here, each neighbourhood has a personality and distinct characteristics but you'll mostly hear locals identifying where they live by the geographical direction. You might be a South London type, or perhaps you live East. Maybe you think West is best, or are staunchly North. Either way, start with that before you dig deeper.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- What are you planning on doing with your time? Are you wanting to live like a local, eschewing the 'sights' and tourists traps?
- Do you want to take any day trips from London?
- Are you the sort of person who likes walking everywhere, or do you like public transport options?
These questions will help you decipher which neighbourhood is best. Most of London is well connected, but there are some variations…..East can be well connected, but if you want to stay in hipsterville you probably won'y have a tube (aka a subway/metro). If you want to take a day trip to the seaside, then it may be worth staying somewhere with direct access to a mainline station like Victoria, Paddington or Euston — all of which have trains travelling across the country.
Where to Stay in London
Nestled in cosy South London, Balham is an underrated little spot filled with cute cafes, and fantastic pubs. On the Northern line which, full disclosure, is my least favourite tube line, you can get into central London in less than 20 minutes or so.
Best Restaurant/Café: Lavish Habit café
Tube: Northern
It's super close to Brixton, which is one of my favourite spots in London to eat out — it's like being in proper London, and what East London wishes it could be. But it's getting riddled with hipster types, so be warned….it's not as authentic as it used to be. But who cares! Brixton is also home to the BEST tube line — the Victoria line, where you can cross London in a record breaking 30 mins. Boom.
Best Restaurant/Café: I'm a sucker for fried chicken, so it has to be ChickenLiquor
Tube: Victoria
Clapham is bigger than you might initially realise, with LOADS of transport options. Clapham North, South and Common are all served by the Northern line but if you stay near Clapham north you can walk to Stockwell which has the Victoria line (the one I love!) You also have the luxury of mainline Clapham Junction, where you can catch aa train all over the country….well, not all over. But definitely to Brighton & Gatwick Airport 🙂
It's buzzy and filled with a mix of 'I've just moved to London and daddy still pays my rent' posho types, yummy mummies and young professionals who can't save a deposit for their first flat because there's far too many awesome places to steal their money in Clapham.
Best Restaurant/Café: Carmen de Tapas, opposite Clapham Common tube
Tube: Northern & mainline services from Clapham Junction
I used to live here, so I have a soft spot for little old Peckham. It used to be a lot more rough and ready (one of the only places I've lived before hipsters got to it) but it still retains stacks of charm. Loads of cool bars abound, and the Peckham Plex remains one of my favourite Indie cinemas. It's also walkable to East Dulwich, home to more yummy mummies than you can shake a stick at.
Best Restaurant/Café: I LOVE Persepolis, an Iranian food shop with an awesome little cafe attached
Tube: None. But you can get to London Bridge in about 10 minutes from Peckham Rye station.
Shepherds Bush
My ends, y'all! I lived around these parts for YEARS and I LOVE it here. But in truth, it's not the best place if you want nightlife. There's a bit, but it's mostly filled with drunk Antipodeans and post Shepherds Bush Empire goers.
Westfield shopping centre dominates where, of course, there are stacks of eating and drinking options there but I never think the mall is best place for an authentic London experience you know?
But, nearby Askew Road offers loads of cool bars and restaurants if you're up for a little walk and Hammersmith is home to an abundance of epic pubs. Proper boozers you know? And the jewel in Shepherds Bush crown is the transport links. You can get to Oxford Street in about 10 minutes, and way over to East London in about 30. And you can walk to Hyde Park in about 40 minutes…..or, obvs, just catch a bus!
Best Restaurant/Café: Adams Cafe, Askew Road for delicious Moroccan food.
Tube: Central line, yo. And Hammersmith & City/Circle line.
Notting Hill
Notting Hill is such a disgustingly Instagrammable place to stay, and truly — if you want to see how the other half live, head here. It's so pretty, and filled with quaint one off shops and cool, quirky cafes that you won't want to step on the tube to anywhere else. But if you do want to, it's well connected — on the Central, Hammersmith & City and Circle lines.
And obviously, there's the famous Portobello Road to wander down.
Best Restaurant/Cafe: Snaps & Rye, Golborne Rd
Tube: Central line, yo. And Hammersmith & City/Circle line.
Upper Street is one of the best, and easiest places to pub crawl. Get off the Tube at Angel and eat, drink and shop your way to the other end. If you want leafy, cosy London with a heavy dose of cosmopolis then Islington is for you. Expect cool, young things with dogs and gin fetishes.
You can walk to Kings Cross St Pancras easily (giving you easy access to……errwhere) and it's easy to get into Central and East London too.
Best Restaurant/Café: Le Mercury, Upper Street
Tube: Northern, Victoria, Overground
You will have heard of Shoreditch, the beating heart of the 'Dickhead' and an awesome place to explore a totally different side to London. Urban chic, I guess, is what you could give it as a moniker. There's plenty of art, shopping, eating, drinking and the transport is spot on. If you want leafy London and pretty architecture, this is not the place for you. But if not, and you want to eat bagels at 3am after partying in Hoxton all night then Shoreditch is the place for you. The hipsters have long departed to Haggerston, Dalston….or somewhere else I never visit, so if you want to be at the forefront of cool you're about five years too late.
Best Restaurant/Café: Pizza East is inside the super cool Tea building
Tube: Central Line,and mainline Liverpool Street
What are your favourite places to stay in London? What have I missed?
L x


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Domhnall Gleeson: The Revenant was tough
- Bang Showbiz
- 29 December 2015
Domhnall Gleeson found filming 'The Revenant' in freezing cold temperatures "tough as f**k"
Domhnall Gleeson found filming 'The Revenant' "tough as f**k".
The 32-year-old actor - who plays Andrew Henry, captain of the fur trappers - admits shooting the movie in -40 degree temperatures for eight months was the hardest conditions he's worked on, but thinks director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's vision was worth it.
He said: "It was... what's the polite way of putting it? Tough as f**k.
"But that was the plan! He told us at the beginning.
"We were never going to be strolling from trailers to an air-conditioned studio.
"He told us we were going places where not many people would go and he was going to put us in it. And the film is absolutely better for it.
"He didn't do it because he wanted us to be uncomfortable. He did it because he knew the film would be better. It's a cliche but they don't make movies like this any more.
"I'd do it again. Sign me up."
And Domhnall admits conditions were just as tough on the crew because of the long hours they had to put in setting up for filming just 90 minutes a day, when the director felt the lighting conditions were at their best.
He added in an interview with Total Film magazine: "The crew had it very, very tough and the way you describe it is the way for actors, always.
"But we were in and out of water at minus whatever, all day.
"I would say on this film, everybody had it tough and some days the actors had it worse."

subset: commoncrawl


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Related booklists: Vegetarian & Vegan Ethics, Baking and Cooking, Vegan Cookery, Vegetarian and Vegan Food - Cooking for Children, Vegetarian and Vegan Books for Children, Juices and Drinks,
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The Really Hungry Vegetarian Student Cookbook
Good Food Eat Well: Vegetarian and Vegan Dishes
Farm to Table Asian Secrets: Vegan and Vegetarian Full-Flavored Recipes for Every Season
Saffron Soul: Healthy, Vegetarian Heritage Recipes from India
Eat This, My Friend: Everyday Vegetarian Recipes for Sharing
Easy Vegetarian: Simple Recipes for Brunch, Lunch and Dinner
Quick and Delicious Vegetarian Meals: Easy, Healthy and Super-Fast Food
Veggie Fast Food
The Vegetable Sushi Cookbook
200 Juice Diet Recipes
The Mocktail Manual: Smoothies, Energisers, Presses, Teas, and Other Non-Alcoholic Drinks
Fermenting Foods Step-by-Step
The Cranks Bible: A Timeless Collection of Vegetarian Recipes
The Culinary Cyclist: A Cookbook and Companion for the Good Life
The Hungry Student Vegetarian Cookbook: More Than 200 Quick and Simple Recipes
A Lebanese Feast of Vegetables, Pulses, Herbs and Spices
The High-Protein Vegetarian Cookbook: Hearty Dishes That Even Carnivores Will Love
The Gluten-Free Italian Vegetarian Kitchen
Just 5 Vegetarian: Make Life Simple with Over 100 Recipes Using 5 Ingredients or Fewer
200 Light Vegetarian Dishes
Yogic Cooking: Nutritious Vegetarian Food
Fired Up Vegetarian: No Nonsense Barbecuing
Good Food: Veggie Dishes
World Food Cafe: Quick and Easy Recipes from a Vegetarian Journey
Vegetarian: 150 Delicious Dishes Shown in 200 Stunning Photographs
The Adventurous Vegetarian: Around the World in 30 Meals
The Global Vegetarian Kitchen
My Kitchen Table: 100 Vegetarian Feasts
Good Food: More Veggie Dishes
Veggiestan: A Vegetable Lover's Tour of the Middle East
New Vegetarian Kitchen: raw * grill * fry * steam * simmer * bake
Hamlyn QuickCook: Vegetarian
Veggie Burgers Every Which Way: Plus Toppings, Sides, Buns and More
Easy Vegetarian One-Pot: Delicious Fuss-free Recipes for Hearty Meals
Vegetarian Nosh for Students: A Fun Student Cookbook (2nd edition)
Ani's Raw Food Asia: Easy East-West Fusion Recipes the Raw Food Way
Art of Raw Living Food: Heal Yourself and the Planet with Eco-Delicious Cuisine
The New Students' Veggie Cook Book
Early Vegetarian Recipes: The English Kitchen
The Student Vegetarian Cookbook: 150 Quick and Easy Vegetarian Recipes to Suit All Budgets
Greek Vegetarian Cooking
Mediterranean Vegetarian Cooking
The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook: Recipes for Changing Times
The Vegetarian Low-Carb Diet Cookbook
Rose Elliot's Vegetarian Meals in Minutes
Raising Vegetarian Children: A Guide to Good Health and Family Harmony
Vegetarian Cooking Without
Real Food For Vegetarians
Baby and Child Vegetarian Recipes: Over 150 Healthy and Delicious Dishes for Your Young Family
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what a mess... :)
Passport control
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Web world is amazed me. email, internet, blog, it's a door to see and to know things that I never imagine before.. I'm not a good writer so most of time I probably just copy, paste and do small aditing. I want to share these to you and hope it worth to see or read. Thanks for stopping by..
what a mess... :)


text: "Troy Rollo" <wine at troy.rollo.name> wrote: > Even as things are now there is a disincentive to new developers. Some > developers don't bother submitting patches because they feel it's too much > work to get them accepted, Right, if the patch is a pure hack, or of a bad quality, it won't be accepted. If you insists, that that should not be an obstacle for accepting patches, or even that the patches can be committed without review and approval, then you don't understand something. > and sometimes the patch doesn't get written at all > because there is not enough certainty that it will be accepted. Before you > suggest that this is speculative, I have one developer here who has made > patches to fix Wine bugs experienced at home and not submitted them for that > exact reason. That's not Alexandre's problem at all. You blame him, that he doesn't accept patches of poor quality, or doing wrong things, or not properly tested. > You can try getting guidance on what is likely to be accepted, > but again you run into a bandwidth problem with Alexandre - one person cannot > effectively give guidance to everybody who needs it, and such guidance as he > is able to give doesn't always help that much. That's why we have wine-devel. If in doubt, or need a guidance - ask there, not blame Alexandre that you don't know how to fix a bug, or implement an API, that's simply not professional. > The process requires that > developers risk their work amounting to nothing because it won't be accepted. This is true for any other project as well. > How many times have you seen people say that "Alexandre doesn't always know > what he wants, but he knows what he doesn't want"?. Not true. Alexandre almost always tells everyone that Wine needs to behave like Windows does, and if in doubt - implement it the same way as in Windows. The only problem which arises with that aproach is that we often don't know how some functionality is done in low level in Windows. Alexandre sometimes doesn't know either, but that's not the reason to blame him for that. > That perception is partly > due to the fact that it is impossible for one person to take the time to > really understand what is wanted for every area of Wine that is being worked > on at any one time (humans are linear, it limits them). That's a pure speculation, I won't say more. -- Dmitry.


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From the producers!:
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Doors @ 8:30pm
Show @ 9:00pm
Party @ 11pm (this is when you buy the Whores lots & lots of Bud Light)
For more info, visit http://


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Blog by Mirjam van Praag
Does this sound familiar? Cycling through town, listening to a nice tune on your iPhone. Carrying a bag of documents you read the night before, while glancing at a news programme on the television, and listening to your children. Your phone rings. You replace the music with the caller, who asks your opinion about a topical theme. The caller also reminds you that someone else is still waiting for a response to a question and that you need to confirm an appointment. You cycle on, open your mail to send the confirmation and see you have 24 unread emails. You have a quick look, dodging other cyclists and trams. Thoughts pop into your head: what shall we have for dinner, when do I go shopping? Or: how will I respond to that article? It's what I normally do, switching between tasks, or multitasking. It makes you restless, but it seems that the constant stream of fresh stimuli is addictive. Perhaps it's productive?
What does organisational economic research tell us about the effectiveness of multitasking? Over the past few decades, a number of well-received articles have been published by researchers, including Holmstrom and Milgrom (1991). Impressively, most of these studies date from before the smartphone (and even internet and email). Unfortunately, multitasking in those studies is associated with a different issue, namely measuring the payment of variable rewards for employee performance.
Many employees perform tasks that cannot be measured or where individual contributions to value creation go unobserved. Take for instance researchers who must combine teaching and research tasks, but whose performance is measured mostly based on their research. This is easier, but means their teaching tasks go unnoticed. Or, recently in the news, researchers whose careers depend on the so-called publication credits indicator, but who can score with two different types of effort: the 'cheap' and unwanted manner (making up data) or the 'expensive' and wanted manner (collecting data). These studies about multitasking demonstrate the challenges of performance rewards in a multidimensional world. Having to give account based on measurements that do not reflect all of a task's dimensions will often, even if unintentionally, lead to behaviour that will effectively increase measurement scores, but not the value to the organisation. 'What gets measured gets done' but which tasks are used to achieve this, and which ones are ignored, is of secondary interest. It explains why performance stimuli in performance contracts are often not as pronounced as principal-agent models in a one-dimensional world would predict.
In the (organisation) economy, I believe there´s been only one (!) study, a very recent one, about the productivity of modern-day multitasking. Buser and Peter (2012) invited students to do word games and sudokus in the lab. The students were paid based on their performance. They were divided randomly into three study groups. The first group ('single') was asked to do one task first, and then the other, of twelve minutes or so each. Students in the second group ('multi') were asked to switch tasks every four minutes or so. Handy if you're stuck, but a nuisance if you're on a roll. The third group ('choice') was asked to switch between the two tasks at random.
The result? Multitasking is not productive! The 'choice' group showed that people switch between tasks more than is necessarily productive. And that's exactly what I experience: switching looking for stimuli. The Amsterdam researchers also distinguished between men and women. It's a well-known assumption that the latter group is much better at multitasking. But that didn't appear to be the case at all: men and women both did equally well. Of course, this is just one experiment and it is therefore difficult to draw general conclusions. Psychologist have done more studies into multitasking. The results are the same and seem to have some general validity: multitasking is productive for neither men nor women (Borst et al., 2010; Mäntylä, 2013).
We could use more research by economists in this little explored field. The social relevance is clear due to the possibly large influence on individual (labour) productivity and the organisation of work processes. And my new year's resolution: no more multitasking for me!
Borst, J., N. Taatgen en H. van Rijn (2010) The problem state: a cognitive bottleneck in multitasking. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 36(2), 363–382.
Buser, T. en N. Peter (2012) Multitasking. Experimental Economics, 15(4), 641–655.
Holmstrom, P. en B. Milgrom (1991) Multitask principal-agent analyses: linear contracts, asset ownership and job design. Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, 7(1), 24–52.
Mäntylä, T. (2013) Gender differences in multitasking reflect spatial ability. Psychological Science, to be published.


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The Doom of Listonshire was published by Necromancer Games for Dungeons & Dragons 3E.
Credits: Sole author.
Notes: I'm delighted to count my name among the Necromancer Games' authors. Necromancer's got an incredible reputation in the industry for producing modules of the highest quality, and I can only hope that you folks feel mine is a worthy addition. I made every effort to make The Doom of Listonshire really feel like 1st edition modules, while still keeping all that's best in 3E. It's available through Kenzer, one of several companies with whom Necromancer has partnered.
The Tome of Artifacts was published by Necromancer Games for Dungeons & Dragons 3E.
Credits: Primary designer, and one of nearly a dozen contributing authors.
Notes: A co-production of Necromancer Games and Lion's Den Press. I am insanely proud of the way this book came together. It was a heck of a lot of work, but I think it's one of the single finest books I've worked on in the last few years.


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If you don't find the product you're looking for, please call us @ (800) 200-3075 and we will be more than happy to help.


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Over the weekend I draped up this little pattern with the intent of making 2 tops and a dress from it's basic shape. I usually don't drape, flat patterning is how I roll, so I decided to switch it up here.
The muslin I bought this last time is really really stiff, so I decided to test the final pattern in something a bit softer but the only thing I had laying around was some army green silk habotai. I forgot the paper I usually cut silks through at my parents when I was out there cutting a boat-load of fayne tunics so this one is a little off kilter. I didn't bother finishing the neckline because 1 – I can't imagine wearing a shirt I know was made of lining fabric and 2 – cutting the bias to finish the neckline + armholes without cutting through paper was KILLING me. I have a no swearing rule in my studio (not really) so I had to stop. Plus I got the idea that the top worked so I consider things done here. Tops and dress to follow shortly-ish, after I make them.


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It is easy and convenient for a bank to improve its operational efficiency with bank queue system management in cost effective and quick ways. The prime goal of a smart queue management solution is to make sure that the movement of the customers is fast and hassle free. It is all about cut throat competition and having a competitive edge over and above your business rivals. A business can differentiate itself from its competitors by ensuring that its customers have a positive experience always and not just for the first time.
Virtual queuing versus linear queuing
A majority of the service-oriented organizations use a virtual queuing style. How is a linear queue style different from a virtual queuing style? In a linear queuing solution, the queuing management is done on the principle of first in and first out. Here, the customers are actually present physically and wait in a well-formed queue. The principle of a linear queue can be also extended into multiple lines apart from a single line. It will all depend on the flow of customers. This is a queuing strategy that can enhance the speed with which service is offered to the customers as the serving time and the waiting time is reduced for each individual customer. This queuing technique can be easily integrated into an electronic queuing solution. Electric queuing technique can enhance the operational efficiency by about 35 percent and also brings down the waiting time of the customers.
Virtual queuing
It is a queue management system that does not require your customers to physically stand and wait in a queue and yet they can actually wait for their sequence to come. This is a queuing system that operates by creating tickets or through notifications sent through text messages or SMS. Customers know when his or her turn will come in a virtual queuing technique and can utilize the available time being engaged in some other useful tasks.
Just imagine how disgusted you feel, when you have to stand hours in a queue to wait for your turn to come so that you can get your desired product or a service. A smart queue management system has changed all that as the wastage of time that a customer perceives while standing in a queue can be taken care of. What is interesting to note is that by deploying a smart queue system, the perception of your customers can be improved quite easily.


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But first , the tricky part is using Azure's CLI tool . I would suggest using node version:
Installing : npm -g install azure-cli
Once you're done, they require you to upload .publishsettings file , oddly named its also not easily accessible. Run the following command
azure account download
Above command will actually open a browser and if you're logged in (azure) you will be able to download it.
Next step is importing it
azure account import filename.publishsettings
At this point you want to switch to Resource Manager mode, its a newer API architecture where everything is configurable via JSON structure and this is inline with new Portal management. The following command will switch you to that mode:
azure config mode arm
Few more handy resources when dealing with azure-cli
Using the Azure CLI for Mac, Linux, and Windows with Azure Service Management


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A food cart is mobile kitchen that is set up on the street to facilitate the sale of food & drinks.Currently,the food cart concept has become an influential segment in the food service industry.It is more and more popular now.Because it is great for offering different and affordable options for those looking for a quick meal.Food carts give restaurant entrepreneurs a chance at their dream when they might not have the capital or credit to open full-fledged restaurants.While with a food cart,it is very flexiable to attend every big event for making money !
1. Square galvanzied pipes welding frame;2.Four layers wall:decorated external galvanzied steel sheet wall with painting +Veneer board + Intermediate insulation foam + Aluminum composite panel;3.Two sliding glass selling windows in front.4.Interior stainless steel working benches/shelf/counter/with two layer in front and back.5.High visibility tail light signal system indicating turning and braking.6.One door.7.One gas tank holder.8.Four lifting jacks.
Specializing in desidning and manufacturing of different types of food vending cart.
Two sides or one side opening window is OK.
Brake system:We have three braking systems,Touch brake, oil brake, electric brake,different brake,different price.


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Some possible options (depending on your comfort and his openness to further discussion) include:
- Offer encouragement for his willingness to consider a challenging question,
- Listen neutrally. Ask him what factors make him think it might have been abusive. Avoid defining what happened for him.
- Explore whether he feels there was a power imbalance in the relationship
- Offer to help him find resources to learn more about unwanted and abusive sexual experiences for males and why it might be difficult, but important for a man to address it.
- Do a safety check. See if he has healthy strategies to manage negative feelings when he starts thinking about this question. If not, help him a men's referral service should he start to feel overwhelmed.


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So, I'm not a Blogpoller -- but I'm striving to be one, and I'm starving for material in the parched Sahara of the offseason, so I thought I'd make myself at home and answer the questions posed by the sports guru of Duluth, Mr. Bruce Ciskie:
Which preseason college football magazine is your favorite?
You know, I read my first CFB magazine EVER on Sunday. The fiancee was wandering around one of the stores we went to that night and I halfheartedly picked up the Sporting News preview. It turned out that they didn't have much to say that I didn't already know. I guess I shouldn't paint all of these publications with a broad brush, but I have to imagine that they're all pretty much the same. I'm not sold on Phil Steele, either, despite the praise some blogger bestow upon him; to me, an in-depth preview of Florida International doesn't say "thorough," it says "waste of time." Why even read it? If you didn't already know they were going to suck, Steele's mag would probably tell you -- and if you did, you weren't going to care anyway.
What team is being supremely overrated in the preseason rankings?
Hmm. Can I pick "Almost Everyone?" We've got a preseason Top Ten this year, but there are not ten teams that should be regarded as "top." This year, we don't have a USC or a Texas, and the games will actually matter. It should be fun to see the extent to which the rankings fluctuate.
I'll go with the West Virginia Mountaineers as my pick. They return supposed sophomore sensations Pat White at QB and Steve Slaton at RB -- but not so fast, my friend! Certainly their effort against Georgia in the Sugar Bowl was impressive, but that was an aberration; Slaton rushed for over 200 yards against the Dawgs but was held to 71 yards against UConn and 86 by South Florida. It's not a stretch to say that this guy's consistency has not yet been established. In the case of White, well, when he played he generally threw on the order of 10 passes per game, and he was generally picked off at least once. Sure, he can run, and that might be all West Virginia needs him to do; if they weren't in the Big East Conference and if Eastern Washington didn't represent one third of their out-of-conference schedule, I'd boldly posit that someone would eventually figure White out. Either way, lightning will not strike twice in Morgantown. Even with double-digit wins, this team won't crack the Top Ten if the pollsters are smart.
Plus, a team that feels it has to spy on Marshall can't possibly excel.
From a Big Ten perspective, I think Iowa and Penn State are getting too much credit. Drew Tate has never done anything to impress me, and no amount of massaging by Ivan Maisel is going to change that. As for the Nittany Lions, the loss of Michael Robinson will be crushing, and no number of "Super Sophs" is going to change that. Period.
Turn the tables. Who is underrated?
Good question. At the risk of looking stupid, I'm going to go to the Big Ten and pick on Michigan State. Yes, the Spartans generally drop a couple of games every season in an insanely horrifying fashion (the botched FG against Ohio State and the baffling 49-14 loss at home to Northwestern come to mind from 2005), but do you really fail to rank a team that has Drew Stanton at the helm? He's got people to throw to and if a running back emerges (Jehuu Caulcrick, anyone?) this team won't need a defense. MSU won't win the Big Ten, but they're definitely Top 5 material -- maybe even Top 3.
Which conference will be the best in 2006?
Who won't it be: the Big East, of course, the Big Ten, and the Big XII. Each of those conferences will have one zero- or one-loss team by virtue of the weakness of the rest of the conference, and then a whole bunch of nobodies.
That leaves the ACC, the SEC, and the PAC-10. I think Florida State and Miami are going to come through like they used to and propel their conference to the top. The Canes are going to have to get used to a new offensive scheme, which will likely cost them their season opener against the Noles, but once they're locked in, they've got talent at every position. And FSU will have nowhere to go but up after last year. Mix in a good year from Clemson, UNC, or Georgia Tech, and you have a conference to be reckoned with.
Which "non-BCS" conference will be the best in 2006?
Where's TCU playing this year? OK, but seriously, who cares? Do you really expect the national champion to come from a non-BCS conference? Do you expect a win by a non-BCS conference team over a semi-competent major conference team to be characterized as anything other than an upset?
I love the mid-majors, don't get me wrong; they give a lot of people a lot of reasons to cheer, and every now and again they pop out a LaDainian Tomlinson, which is excellent. But I only have so many free hours a week, and damned if I'm going to spend them learning about Air Force's offensive line or SMU's new defensive scheme.
Which non-BCS conference team will have the best season?
Notre Dame's not in a conference, right?
Let's get your first read on this one...who will win the H*i*m*n? Oh, by the way, players whose last names begin with the letter "Q" are ineligible.
Then that makes this question irrelevant. If Notre Dame has 2 or fewer losses at the end of the season, Quinn will be given the award, whether he deserves it or not. This year is going to induce vomit if you hate the Fighting Irish -- mark it down.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
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Massive Teacher Layoffs Imminent
The ripple effects of the economic recession are continuing to surge through education as many public high schools are preparing to layoff tens of thousands of teachers nationwide, according to a recent article from The Washington Post. These layoffs will result in larger class sizes and some schools will be forced to cut certain programs and classes. California, Illinois, Michigan, New York and New Jersey are likely to be hit the hardest with the most faculty layoffs. Congress is currently considering impleme ... Read More About Massive Teacher Layoffs Imminent
Digital Learning Tools
Digital education: It's growing. It's exploding. It's the future of learning. But, what exactly is it and how can it help the classroom? Here are several digital tools that can be great resources to help teachers and students create successful learning environments. Feel free to add to this post with digital tools you have used or heard of. Electronic textbooks: Mainly used by college professors. These allow professors to digitally edit and change the information in textbooks. This helps professors create a textbook that is fully customized to each class. Al ... Read More About Digital Learning Tools
Arne Duncan On The Future Of American Education
Education Secretary Arne Duncan was featured yesterday on CNN's Fixing America's Schools. You can view the two video clips here. You can skip to the three-minute mark of both clips to hear Duncan's talking points. The setting was a town hall meeting at an Atlanta high school, and Duncan touched on issues ranging from education loans, tuition tax credits, and the FAFSA form. A few points of note: * Income-based loan repayments * Duncan touts junior colleges, for-profit universities as viable alternatives to traditional 4-year college * Assessing "growth" and "gain" instead of simply meeting a benchmark. Being a town hall setting, it ... Read More About Arne Duncan On The Future Of American Education
College Waiting Lists
Many students who are on the bubble of being accepted into a college will be placed on a waiting list. Students will have to sweat it out for months while that college makes its final decisions. Students can opt to stay on waiting lists; however, less than 30% of wait-listed students will eventually be accepted, according to The US News & World Report. Also, students' chances are significantly lower for Ivy League Schools and other elite colleges. Recently, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has accepted anywhere from 0-40 students from its waiting list that ... Read More About College Waiting Lists
Online Education Pitfalls
Online education: it seems so simple, so convenient. So perfect for you? It could be; however, there are several mistakes that online teachers frequently see students make, according to The US News & World Report. The US News & World Report published eight, common mistakes associated with online education. 1. Not verifying the school's credibility: Most students go to college and other schools to receive credits. However, some employers and colleges simply will not accept some online schools' credits. They put no credence in some of these unaccredited online schools. Therefore, attending certain online schools are a ... Read More About Online Education Pitfalls
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I saw The Nutcracker with my family last night, the perfect start to the Christmas season!
As my first fashion post, here is what I wore! I wanted to dress up a bit, but still be comfortable during the show. (Details below.)
Shirt: American Eagle
Skirt: Cotton On
Booties: DSW
Scarf: H&M
Clutch: Old Navy
Watch: Kate Spade
xoxo Ava


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You are here: Manchester Confidential › Entertainment & Sport › Events & Listings.
Manchester is set for a full day of top music with Carling Live 24 bringing some of the biggest names around to the city.
May 28th 2005 will go down as the day the Doves, Elbow, Ian Brown and Chemical Brothers all played the city across a number of different venues.
The event, which started last year in London, is also taking place in the capital in April, before expanding up to Manchester a month later. Venues getting involved include The Roadhouse, Manchester Ritz, Blueprint Studios, Carling Apollo and Manchester Academy.
If you want to get involved in the bank holiday weekend event, tickets are going to go on sale on Friday 18th March on www.carlinglive.com from 9am.
Like what you see? Enter your email to sign up for our newsletters which are chock-a-block with more great reviews, news, deals and savings.
Depends on the arse.Read more
As usual mancon make no reference at all to the Irish Festival again .Read more
Double whammy of good markets too - Levenshulme have a food and drink only market on Saturday and…Read more
There are no excuses for arse-kissing.Read more
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Sorry, we don't have a photo of Lena Kennedy.
Lena Kennedy (June 15, 1914 - August 1, 1986), was an English author. Her books were mostly historic romantic fiction set in and around the East End of London where she lived for all her life. Some of her books, including her autobiography, were published posthumously.She appeared, as a subject, on the television programme This Is Your Life shortly before her death in 1986 .
Source: dbpedia


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Dec 24, 2012
As you may already know, last week's "Dear Santa" show went long, so we kept the tape rolling and we put together this "Year In Review" for you guys this week! In this 191st installment of our show (and our last for 2012) join me, Tim, Hance, and Dougbo for a short review of all of the goodness that this year has had to offer!
Thanks to all of you that have made this year so much fun, from our supporters and prize sponsors, to listeners and all you folks that make this hobby the greatest in the world!
May God bless each and every one of you this CHRISTmas, and may 2013 bring tons of RC building and flying for all!!


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All you have to do to make this soup is boil the ingredients. Well, of course, some of them need chopping in advance, but once assembled and in the pot, they can just sit and bubble away for a few hours, then you can eat it. There are no thickeners so it is very low in carbohydrates. If you leave out meat, it is practically fat free. The only thing to worry about, if you are the sort that worries, is sugar, which is how you get the sweet part of the sweet and sour.
I started this soup with a recipe from Karyl Bannister's cookbook Cook and Tell based on her long-running newsletter from which she retired a few years ago. You need cabbage, the biggest onion you might have, two lemons, and a mix of white and brown sugars, plus beef broth and crushed tomatoes.
When I perused a few other sweet and sour cabbage soup recipes, I noticed a Hungarian version which called for paprika and balsamic vinegar. Since I am in love with smoked paprika, I added that, and also dribbled in some balsamic vinegar. Karyl's recipe offered meatballs as a possible addition, but I thought some kielbasa would taste good, and sliced some into the soup.
About the tomatoes: the original recipe called for a twenty-eight ounce can of crushed tomatoes. I used two home-canned pints of stewed tomatoes. Any quantity in the vicinity of four cups will work just fine.
Since, in winter, I keep a fire going in the kitchen wood and gas combination cook stove, a long-cooked soup like this is easy and economical for me to make. Large batches of soup, spaghetti sauce, chili, stewy concoctions of all sorts simmer away in cold weather. I freeze part of each batch for quick thawing and eating another time, essentially producing homemade fast-food. This recipe is perfect for slow cookers if you don't have a wood-burning stove to cook on and want to be sparing of your gas or electricity.
This is a pretty flexible recipe, so don't worry very much about proportions. You can always adjust the seasonings to work with whatever size cabbage you have. If you have a small cabbage, and a small onion, then you will end up with a small batch of soup, so you can imagine what will happen if you have a large cabbage and a large onion. You can use a spicy sausage like chourizo, or an Italian sweet sausage, or meatballs. Use vegetable broth, and leave the meat out and it is perfectly good as a meatless dish.
- 1 head of cabbage, around 3 pounds, finely shredded
- 1 large onion
- 4 cups of crushed tomatoes
- 1 quart beef broth or 3-4 bouillion cubes
- Water
- ¾ cup of roughly equal brown and white sugars mixed
- Juice of 2 lemons
- 1 tablespoon paprika, or to taste
- 1-2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, or to taste
- Sausage or meatballs, optional
- Put the cabbage, onions, tomatoes, and broth into a large heavy soup pot.
- Add water to cover the ingredients.
- Bring to a boil, then reduce the temperature to a steady bubbling simmer.
- Add the juice of one of the lemons and about half of the sugar mixture.
- Maintain a steady simmer for three to four hours.
- Add the rest of the lemon juice and sugar, the paprika and balsamic vinegar, and optional meat and cook for another hour.
- Taste and adjust seasonings.


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- 2 Bev Min
Internationally Acclaimed Jazz Cabaret
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Sue & Edd's Fabulous Christmas Show
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Purchase Tickets
Sue & Edd's Fabulous Christmas Show
Saturday, December 12, 2015 4:00 PM
Metropolitan Room, New York, NY
Show Details
- Ticket Price: $20.00 - $115.00
- Door Time: 3:30 PM
- Show Type: Cabaret
2 Bev Min
She's a multi-MAC Award winner and he's a Bistro Award winner; together Sue Matsuki and Edd Clark are three time MAC Award Nominees for this show!
Music Director Paul Stephan has created all the highly acclaimed arrangements.
"Like old friends hanging around the tree, singing favorites . . . these two genial singers would be welcome presences at any party or show celebrating the season." – Rob Lester, Talkin Broadway
"Sue and Edd held the room in the palms of their hands from the very beginning. What a tremendous show! If you think Suzy's an ordinary snowflake, - it's a Sweeney Todd Christmas! Pure theatre-lovers delight, especially when Sue becomes a Mrs. Lovett-like comic foil –attend the tale of Edd and Sue! The final group of songs showcased the range and power of both vocalists with Edd taking the lead with "The Little Road to Bethlehem." His classical voice and training made the flow and phrasing breathtaking. Sue then took the helm with another Stephan arrangement, this time of "Mary, Did You Know." The minor key and pathos of this Lowry and Greene song cut through the fun and frolic of the earlier parts of the show with another strong reminder of the purpose, for Christians, of the season. The passion in Sue's voice and the delicacy and dynamic range in such an intimate space, made the show feel more like an impromptu living room concert.- Sherri Rase, Qonstage.com


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City Lights 60th Anniversary celebrations tomorrow. In anticipation of that august occasion, we look back on (and draw your attention to) the four-part series that appeared on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary, in the "local paper", the San Francisco Chronicle.
Among those interviewed or mentioned - Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Shigeyoshi Murao, co-founder Peter Martin, co-owner, Nancy Peters, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, David Meltzer, Joanne Kyger, Diane di Prima, David Amram, Larry Keenan, Robert Creeley, Henri Lenoir, (founder of Vesuvio's), Enrico Banducci, (founder of the hungry i and Enrico's Sidewalk Cafe), Bruce Conner, Peter Coyote, Robert Scheer, Herb Gold, Robert Hass, Daniel Halpern, Andrei Codrescu, Lenore Kandel,Thom Gunn, Elaine Katzenberger (executive director of City Lights), Maxine Hong Kingston.. the list goes on....
The four sections - The first, "The Birth of Cool 1953-1960", a City Lights oral history is here.
The second, "And The Beat Goes On - City Lights and the Counterculture 1961-1974", here. The third, "Literary Mecca - "City Lights Enters The Modern Age 1975-2003", here.
Section four focuses on the proprietor, the lynch-pin, Lawrence Ferlinghetti - "Lawrence Ferlinghetti - A Portrait in Words - The Long Dream of Survival", here.
Ten years on, and neither Lawrence nor the store show any signs of flagging. Au contraire..
Here's a complete list of the classic City Lights Pocket Poets - (including Plutonian Ode, number 40, Mind Breaths, 35, Fall of America, 30. Planet News, 23, Reality Sandwiches, 18, Kaddish, 14, and Howl and Other Poems, 4)


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If, like me, you have a voice in your head that tells you off for paying attention to your own life, for saving boarding passes and scribbled-upon napkins, for stopping to write love letters in the sand, ignore it.
Happiness and creativity depend on valuing our lives. They depend on listening, watching, recording, remembering. It is easy to envy other people's lives — so exciting! Such superior children/holidays/houses/jobs/wardrobes/sex lives! Such a torrent of fabulous Instagram photos and witty Facebook status updates. We get so caught up peering through the virtual window of our neighbours' lives we forget to look at our own. We don't see the pathos, adventure, and pleasure of our own existence because we're not looking.
Two years ago I started a keeping a list of all the books I read. It seemed like a self-indulgent tic indicative of an unhealthy level of ego. Or, worse, a pointless exercise (who cares?) My delight in list-making narrowly trumped these niggles. Now a blue virtual post-it on my home screen contains a list of all the books I read in 2016.
The list reminds me not only what I've read, but how I read. It is a snapshot of the ebb and flow of time and energy. January 2016 was a book-heavy month, gobbling up a glut of Christmas goodies and biding a lot of time until my second date with the soon-to-be boyfriend. February was a respectable showing. March, the month I spent between London, Dominican Republic and Brussels, I read almost nothing. The next two months were spent in a miserable, unsuccessful attempt to assimilate into a receptionist job at an overrated luxury agrotourismo in Ibiza — it was bad enough I only read a book and a half. Finishing Anna Karenina took me through June. The rest of the year I read in fits and starts. What jumped out, reviewing the list, was how many books I reread. And, with the exception of High Tide in Tucson and Jane Eyre, not just for the second time.
Looking over my top ten rereads reminds me what I value and crave. The books on this list all offer, directly or through illustration, wisdom and encouragement to those trying hard to live by their own lights. From the esoteric musings of the Glass siblings to the tough-love advice of Cheryl Strayed, each book is, in its own way, a tonic. They were rocks in the fast-moving stream of a year where everything changed, stepping stones to a new life.
The summer I was 15 I lived with my older sister and worked at Wendy's. Every day on my break I hunkered down in store cupboard and read Franny & Zooey. To this day I'm not sure where I got the book, or why it grabbed me. What I do know is I've read it somewhere between 30-50 times, can quote entire sections of it verbatim, and reread it at least twice a year. In part it's the reflection of myself I see in Zooey who says "I'm sick to death of waking up furious every morning and going to bed furious at night", an echo of my relationship with my siblings in the narrator's aside that the Glass siblings share a "semantic geometry where the shortest distance between two points is a fullish circle", or descriptions like, "the Jewish-Irish Mohican scout who died in your arms at the roulette table in Monte Carlo." In part, because the wildly verbose, witty, strangely timeless sentences still reveal new flashes of character. The narrator says it is a "compound or multiple love story, pure and complicated" which is a fine description of the writing, too.
Ostensibly a book about writing, Bird by Bird is a wise, funny, heart-rending guide to living life when you don't fit in a box. The combination of Lamott's acerbic yet self-deprecating turns of phrase coupled with her palpable compassion is almost unbearable. I cry every time I read it, even though I've read it so many times I well up in anticipation. It makes me want to walk around hugging everyone and at the same time makes me want to be a blazing good writer. Every chapter is a gem, but "Jealousy" and "KFKD" are maybe the best things you'll ever read on, respectively, the eponymous emotion and self-doubt. And her advice about avoiding libel charges is hilarious, priceless, and involves the memorable comparison of a penis to a baby bird in its nest.
Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke
This I plucked off a library shelf in Tigard, OR on the strength of the fact that Lady Gaga has a Rilke quote tattooed on her upper arm — it reads in part, "confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write". The line, it transpires, is from Letters To A Young Poet which is so rich in exquisitely worded wisdom it flays me. Rilke's advice on sex, solitude, and seeking ones calling is so incisive it takes my breath away. And, as a poet, he makes every word count, crafting artful sentences that blow my mind on both a philosophical and aesthetic basis. I love it so much, I read it aloud and sent the recording as a gift to a friend.
A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf
Woolf's trenchent analysis of what women writers need is as relevant today as when she delivered the lectures from which it was drawn in 1928. We may have "come a long way, baby" but women are still underpaid, overworked, and too often cut off from the privileges that enrich men's prospects. Sexism may not be as crude as the beadle who ordered her out of the Oxford library, but it thrives in a thousand insidious ways that women internalise or ignore at their own risk. I also love Woolf's dazzling prose, which gave us, "one can not think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well."
Tiny Beautiful Things, Cheryl Strayed
This collection of Strayed's advice columns written for The Rumpus's Dear Sugar column breaks my heart wide open. I'm sobbing by the time I get through the second or third letter, whichever it is that is from the women who suffered a late-term miscarriage. It is hard to put my finger exactly on what it is about Tiny Beautiful Things that makes me gasp. Mostly, it's Strayed's unflinching willingness to examine the hardest things in her own life. She doesn't rush through awfulness, or glide past suffering, she stays, unafraid to study it and claim who and what she is in the wake of it. This solipsism is unexpectedly comforting. By inhabiting and sharing her experience she makes it okay to inhabit and unpick my experience. Line by line, she demonstrates the potential for growth and change in every life. If one is willing to embrace an almost Stoic determination to live well by doing what's right.
In 2015 I committed to memorising a poem per month, and did. Not all of them have remained word-perfect in my head, but it was an incredible experience with language. When you learn something by heart, you discover things. Cadence, repetition, punctuation, imagery all become vivid in an unpredictable way. I didn't set out to memorise poetry in 2016 but I read a lot of it — including fantastic collections by Jack Gilbert and CP Cavafy. My favourite reread, though, was this slender chapbook by an Oregon writer. She lost her husband to an unexpected heart attack when she was in her 30s with two young children and the grief of that loss reverberates through Endurance. These are poems about learning to live with the worst case, not with resignation but with courage and, ultimately, joy. It's another one I can't make it through without tears, but they're cathartic.
Of all the my rereads, this was the most fun because it was so different from my memory of it. I must have been 12 or 13 when I read Jane Eyre and I was bored witless. Years later, I read Wuthering Heights and hated it, confirming my prejudice against their weird, masochistic and wildly overrated Brontë sisters. Then on a whim I read Anne Brontë's Tenant of Wildfell Hall and liked it. And somewhere I heard that Jane Eyre was feminist. So I gave it another shot and fell in love. Bold feminism plus a terrific yarn? Brilliant.
Long Quiet Highway, Natalie Goldberg
I reread at least one or two of Goldberg's books each year. Most often Writing Down the Bones or Wild Mind, but this time I went for The Long Quiet Highway which is mostly about her study of Zen Buddhism over the years. Which of course means it is about writing, being, meaning, truth, acceptance, and everything else that matters. Writing is Zen; Zen is writing. Whatever we do is meditation if we allow it to be. The subtitle is Waking Up in America which is nearly what I named this blog because that's what I'm trying to do: wake up in a country I left 16 years ago; figure out what it means to be me in America in 2017, and how to do something good here.
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
Treasure Island has been a staple of my literary diet since I was 15 or so. I was a precocious reader, but not above devouring whatever I could get my hands on, and this yarn of seafaring and daring-do always hit the spot. Years later, when I moved to Ibiza, I started to think of it as treasure island — a supposed paradise guarded by dead men's bones and half-crazed exiles. Overly dramatic personal parallels aside, it is a fantastically fun book and an excellent template for writers looking to craft a fast-paced, unforgettable story.
High Tide in Tucson, Barbara Kingsolver
Kingsolver is the most recent addition to my personal pantheon of southern American writers (Carson McCullers, Hunter S Thompson, Eudora Welty, Truman Capote, etc etc) and possibly the one I'd Most Like To Meet. Writing implacably reveals character and every word I've read of Kingsolver makes me think she is a Good Person, smart as hell, and cracking company on a night out. Her fiction boggles me and this book of essays is one of the finest, sharpest, most humane collections I've had the pleasure of reading. The title essay alone is worth the price of admission; Buster the stranded hermit crab may change your life.
What were your favourite rereads of 2016? Share in the comments or tweet @CilaWarncke


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Kana Flash
Mac OS Education
Kana Flash is a flash card application to help learn Hiragana, Katakana and the Jouyou Kanji. The application contains all 2,136 Jouyou Kanji (1,006 from primary school and 939 from secondary school) including the 196 that were introduced in 2010. You can narrow your studies down to a particular grade level from primary school or tackle the entire set. Hiragana and Katakana are independent of Kanji so you can study those by themselves.
What's New
- Reverse option added to the toolbar, to show the romaji first, then reveal the kanji.
- English translation added. Characters where an English translation isn't easily possible are left blank.
- Hot keys added to buttons


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"Stakes Reflect Worldwide Growth," Ensign, Aug. 1971, 15
Stakes Reflect Worldwide Growth
The stakes of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are reservoirs of great strength to the Church. And in 1970 there were forty-one new stakes organized—a record for any one year. The previous high was twenty-nine new stakes in 1960. As of July 1, 1971, there are 549 stakes in the Church.
These ecclesiastical units bear the word stake in most parts of the Church where they are organized, but in Brazil the Portuguese word is estaca. The same word, estaca, is at home in Spanish, with the other stakes in Latin America. In German the word is pfahl, and the Dutch say ring. To the Tongans the word is siteiki, and the Samoans have a similar word, siteki. In Japanese it is pronounced "stake-bu."
But whatever the word, and whether the stake is situated in Africa, Europe, North America, South America, Australia, Asia, or the islands of the sea, to the resident members theirs is "the best stake in the Church."
The worth of souls is great, and each of the Father's children is important to the Church, but where there can be a stake, it represents maturity in the development of Church organization and program. In contrast to a mission district, which generally must receive strength and leadership from the Church, the stake is able to give strength and stability to the Church, just as stakes give support to a tent.
The scriptures have identified "stakes" as sources of strength. The prophet Isaiah, seeing the latter-day glory of Zion, wrote figuratively about her preparation for rejoicing: "Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes." (Isa. 54:2. Italics added.)
In this dispensation of the fulness of times, the Lord spoke of establishing a stake at Kirtland and said: "For Zion must increase in beauty, and in holiness; her borders must be enlarged; her stakes must be strengthened. …" (D&C 82:14. Italics added. See also D&C 133:9.)
In these stakes the Saints are to "stand in holy places" (D&C 101:22), and thus their light or example will be "a standard for the nations"; furthermore, the gathering of the righteous is to be "for a defense, and for a refuge from the storm, and from wrath when it shall be poured out without mixture upon the whole earth" (D&C 115:5–6).
The organization of the first stake in this dispensation dates from the calling of the high council in Kirtland on February 17, 1834.
At the April 1844 general conference, just before the Prophet Joseph Smith's martyrdom, he announced: "I have received instructions from the Lord that from henceforth wherever the Elders of Israel shall build up churches and branches unto the Lord throughout the States, there shall be a stake of Zion. In the great cities, as Boston, New York, &c., there shall be stakes." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith [Deseret Book Co., 1938], p. 353.) This prophecy was fulfilled with the organization of the New York Stake in 1934 and the Boston Stake in 1962.
All eleven stakes organized in Joseph Smith's lifetime were discontinued as the Saints journeyed west.
The Salt Lake Stake, created in 1847, is now the oldest stake functioning. Weber and Utah stakes (1851) come next. (There is still a Weber Stake in the Ogden area, but it is a new organization, not dating back to pioneer times.) In general, the early Utah stakes were given the same boundaries as the counties. But in time Tooele Stake had members residing in Idaho, and Cache Stake had members in southern Alberta, Canada.
The stakes organized during the last half of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth century reflected the concentration of Church membership in the intermountain area, a Mormon corridor extending from southern Alberta to the Church colonies in northern Mexico. Following World War I, Church members began moving into other areas in increasing numbers. This was reflected in the creation of three stakes in California during the 1920s. During the '30s stakes were organized in such other key centers as New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Denver, Seattle, Portland, and the Hawaiian island of Oahu.
A new era of international stakes was inaugurated in 1958 with the formation of the Auckland Stake, soon after the dedication of the New Zealand Temple. Elder Delbert L. Stapley of the Council of the Twelve recalls: "I remember the words of President McKay, as the New Zealand [Auckland] Stake was planned, that transportation has brought the far places of the world close to us. Added to that are the improved communications that permit us almost instantaneously to talk to the Saints in the far areas of the earth. The Church is being taken closer to the people because now all the helps of the auxiliary organizations and the visits of the General Authorities will be at their disposal, and in turn this will bring the Saints of these faraway lands closer to the Church. Truly it is a great blessing to the people to have a stake with all the blessings that are associated with stake organizations." (Improvement Era, June 1960, p. 420.)
One of the remarkable things about the Auckland Stake in its infancy was that often the various reports would arrive from Auckland at Church headquarters in Salt Lake City before the same reports from stakes in Salt Lake City.
Within three years of the Auckland Stake organization, other stakes were created in Mexico City, Germany, Switzerland, England, and Holland. In 1966 the first stake was formed in South America (Sao Paulo), and in 1970 the continents of Asia (Tokyo) and Africa (Transvaal) received their first stakes.
Stakes are organized only on the inspiration given to the General Authorities of the Church. President Harold B. Lee has explained some of the prerequisites to be met before a stake can be organized: "If you are now operating one mission so that it now has a full organization … with the distance problem pretty well solved, you have proved that communication now is possible, your membership is sufficient and you have the trained leadership, then we are prepared to talk to you about a stake." (Church News, August 26, 1961, p. 8.)
The frequency of new stake organizations reflects the quickening pace of Church growth. In contrast to the usual pattern, the rate of growth has actually increased as the Church has become larger.
The stakes organized during 1970 reflect the international character of the Church, with stakes being organized in Japan, Tonga, Samoa, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, South Africa, and Canada. In dividing the history of the Church into two periods of seventy years each, the number of stakes organized during the first seventy years of the Church (1830–1900) is almost equal (43) to the number created during the single year 1970 (41). This 4 43/41 ratio does not take into account the stakes that were organized, flourished for a season, but were discontinued before 1900.
The accompanying chart gives this remarkable growth.


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text:
Remarks by LSC Board Chair John G. Levi | Forum on Increasing Access to Justice
Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today for our 6th annual LSC Forum on increasing access to justice.
I am John Levi, and it is my honor to serve as the 10th Chairman of the Board of the Legal Services Corporation.
I particularly want to thank our host Dean William Treanor and the Georgetown University Law Center for providing us this wonderful facility for these discussions on the crisis that exists in access to our civil justice system for low-income Americans.
We will be privileged to hear shortly from Representatives Tom Emmer of Minnesota, who spoke so eloquently to our Board two years ago, and Joe Kennedy of Massachusetts, co-founder of the bipartisan House Access to Civil Legal Services Caucus.
ABA President Linda Klein, who has also been doing everything possible to defend LSC's funding, will provide closing remarks.
Before we begin our program, I want to recognize the Honorable Donald Rumsfeld, who, but for a lousy cold, would be here with us today, played such a significant role in the founding of LSC during the Nixon Administration.
In 1969, as the first Republican director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, Don saved the Legal Services Program, clearing the way for the formation of LSC five years later.
Testifying to Congress at that time on behalf of the program, Don powerfully observed:
"We cannot expect respect for the rule of law if we, as public officials, do not assure access to the legal process. To fail to do so would break faith with those Americans — rich and poor alike — who have confidence in our legal institutions and the notion that disputes are better resolved in courtrooms than on street corners."
I know that we wholeheartedly agree with these sentiments Don so eloquently expressed nearly 50 years ago. We inherit his vision.
In addition to our distinguished speakers, we have some extraordinary panels this afternoon.
The first consists of general counsel and business leaders who will discuss access to justice issues from the perspective of the business community. Home Depot's outstanding Vice President and General Counsel Teresa Wynn Roseborough will moderate the discussion.
The second focuses on the importance of access to justice to the judiciary and features distinguished state Supreme Court chief justices and a Federal Court of Appeals judge. LSC's remarkable Vice Chair and Dean of Harvard Law School Martha Minow will moderate the panel.
Our concluding panel will address the legal needs of low-income veterans through medical legal partnerships. LSC's very own longest-serving President, Jim Sandman, will moderate.
* * * * * *
This is the first time we have gathered in DC since the White House's budget proposal called for LSC's defunding. But LSC has enjoyed broad bipartisan support in Congress since it was created during the Nixon Administration, and as we actually receive our funding directly from Congress, we expect that support to continue.
Our mission to expand access to justice remains as clear and urgent as ever, because it embodies a core American value that should be — must be — impervious to bipartisan swings.
We are particularly grateful that at least 150 House members, including 13 Republicans, have already written letters in support of LSC funding in FY 2018.
We have also been heartened by the support from across the legal spectrum:
The State Conference of Chief Justices and Conference of State Court Administrators, in a letter to OMB, not only opposed defunding LSC but called for increased funding.
More than 160 law school deans and nearly 200 corporate attorneys from some of America's leading companies wrote to congressional leaders along similar lines.
The heads of over 150 law firms likewise warned that eliminating LSC funding would undermine their pro bono efforts since private lawyers partner with LSC-funded legal aid groups to provide such representation.
And there have been numerous op-eds expressing support all across the country.
These expressions are gratifying, but we must not allow this debate about eliminating LSC to alter our definition of success. Merely surviving elimination is not a victory for us. Robust funding must continue, and increased funding is what we seek, and on the behalf of future generations, must have.
Funding from our Congress for civil legal services stands at a near all-time low in inflation adjusted dollars — in actual dollars a mere $385 million, which is below the $400 million appropriated in the mid 90's.
The current appropriation is less than half of what in today's dollars would be the $880 million appropriated just two years after LSC's founding in the 1970s, when 12 percent of the country qualified for assistance. Today, sadly, that number is 20 percent of a larger population.
LSC funding is little more than a rounding error in the federal budget, less than 1/10,000th of federal spending.
At this wholly inadequate level of funding, our grantees are being forced to turn away droves of eligible low-income Americans who believe they have a legal need, and our courts are forced to absorb huge and increasing numbers of self-represented litigants.
* * * * * *
Ladies and gentlemen:
This is happening on our watch. In a few weeks, a new justice gap study will come out. I have no doubt what it will demonstrate: a widening — rather than a narrowing— justice gap.
LSC was founded with the recognition that equal access to justice is not only a core American value — it is essential to maintaining our democracy and the rule of law.
We need to continue to educate our citizens on the significance of this crisis and it can no longer just be the province of the lawyers.
When asked why he become so deeply involved in access to justice issues, football coach and LSC Leaders Council member Jim Harbaugh explained in a recent interview:
"Some people say, 'Why is a football coach concerned?' I explained I'm an American first and all Americans should care about justice. The idea, as you learn about our legal system, is the danger of not being able to have access to justice. From what I can see, it's that, if you have money you have access to justice. If you don't, it's becoming increasingly less and less access for low-income Americans and that's the crux of it."
And so, it is our responsibility — all Americans' responsibility — to rededicate ourselves to making our system of justice accessible to everyone irrespective of their economic means.
When my father, Edward Levi, ended his service as Attorney General of the United States in 1977, he reminded us in his farewell address to the Department of Justice that the values on which our country is founded "can never be won for all time — they must always be won anew."
At this crucial juncture, we must all do all that we can do to win this value once again and ensure that equal access to justice is available to all Americans.
Thank you.
* * * * * *
Now, it is my pleasure to introduce Congressman Tom Emmer.
Congressman Emmer has represented Minnesota's 6th District since 2015. He currently serves on the House Committee on Financial Services.
The Congressman served as a prominent radio host on the popular Twin Cities News Talk AM1130. He was elected in 2004 to the Minnesota House of Representatives and was reelected for another two terms in 2006 and 2008.
Prior to that, he was in private practice for two decades, eventually opening his own law firm, Emmer Law, in 2005.
Congressman Emmer holds a B.A. in History and Political Science from the University of Alaska and a J.D. from the William Mitchell College of Law.
Congressman, we know how busy you are, and we thank you so much for joining us for this important Forum.


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The people have spoken and someone was listening. Just received this e-mail from Scott Carter at Little Rock City Hall:
Today, Little Rock Vice Mayor Stacy Hurst announced that she was reimbursing the City of Little Rock for the costs associated with inclusion in the "Power Women" listing in the June issue of Soiree.
Soiree selected the honorees and contacted them individually. While Hurst agreed to be featured in the publication, the city was invoiced for the feature. The city paid for the ad based on the assumption it was an advertisement for promoting city service while honoring one of its own servants.
"After seeing the appearance of this feature in Soiree, I feel it is better for me to reimburse the City to remove any appearance of impropriety," said Vice Mayor Hurst.. "There are pressing issues such as public safety and economic development that deserve our full attention. Let us move forward together to ensure our City is safe, sound, and living up to its outstanding potential."
UPDATE: Following is a statement on the matter from Jeff Hankins, president of Soiree's parent, the Arkansas Business Publishing Group:
"We should have labeled the Soiree section on "Power Women" as a promotional feature. We made a mistake. We regret it for the women featured, all of whom were chosen by Publisher & Editor Becki Moore and were worthy of recognition.
"Becki selected Stacy Hurst and no other City Board members for inclusion, so the city was not showing any favoritism to her over the others.
"Our intent was to bring recognition to women and their businesses and organizations. We asked businesses and organizations to help pay for the section and photography."


text:
by Stanley McFarland
"We got another one, Reverend Strawberry."
I didn't have to ask Edith what she meant by another one. Panhandlers regularly visited the churches looking for money, and St. Stephen's was no exception. In the past, their stories varied: wounded veteran, laid off, cheated, bad divorce. Part of my job was to sort through the truth and the fiction and find the best way to minister to each. Most of them begged off when it became apparent that I was more interested in helping them put their lives together than giving out cash.
But things had changed in recent years. The stories were now remarkably the same. I ran out of gas down the road. I'm about a hundred miles from home, can you help me out? It was a pitch much more likely to discourage those prone to help people change and also more likely to produce cash. We got a couple of these a month now. Had some Tony Robbins of panhandling done a seminar in our town?
Ever since a frightening incident at a neighbor church, I'd had a camera installed on the front door and told Edith to keep the door locked until she knew who it was. She had a buzzer at her desk, but when panhandlers came, I went to the door myself.
As I opened the door, I wasn't surprised to see a gas can next to our guest. The guitar case was something new.
"May I help you," I said.
One method of detecting a con artist – at least a small-time one, is the speed of his delivery. A person who knows he's doing wrong tends to speak fast. He'll give you a rehearsed story in quick cadence so you'll hear his whole pitch before you shut the door. The tall, thin black man facing me smiled for a minute – then started laughing.
"I'm in a fix," he said.
"You out of gas?"
"No," he said, picking up the gas can and swinging it so that I could hear the gas swishing around inside. "I'm out of car."
"Out of car?"
"I suppose," he said, "you could say I'm like Miss Blanche Dubois. I'm depending on the kindness of strangers."
At worst it was a novel delivery – guitar, laugh, slow approach, paraphrasing Tennessee Williams. I was intrigued.
"Why don't you come in," I said, opening the door wider. "I'm Tom Strawberry. I'm the senior pastor here."
"Oh, Wilson Santone," said my guest putting down the guitar case he was in the process of picking up, and offering his hand. "Some people pronounce it Santone like Zamboni. I prefer Santone, like ham bone. I don't want people to think I'm Italian." He laughed again. It was a hearty, unaffected laugh, and I found myself laughing with him as I shook his hand.
He already held the gas can, so I picked up his guitar case. "There's no tommy gun in here, is there, Mr. Santone?"
He laughed again. "See, that's why I don't want people to think I'm Italian."
Edith had a wary look as she released the electronic latch to the office door. I couldn't blame her after what happened at First Baptist, and Wilson Santone showed no offence. I slid his guitar back over to him as we sat in the outer office.
"Would you like some bad coffee?" I offered.
Wilson laughed. "I would. Thank you."
Edith grabbed one of the guest mugs and buzzed herself out of the office to rinse it out. "So what's this about your car?" I asked.
"I'm not sure what happened to it," said Wilson. "You see I ran out of gas sometime last night. A police man came by and told me I had to move it in the next 24 hours or they'd tow it to the lot."
I nodded my head. It was starting to sound more like the standard line. Was Wilson just a better talker than the others?
"This morning," he continued, "I got my gas can and my guitar and walked down to that shopping center down the road. I played until I had enough money for gas and some breakfast. I ate, filled my can here, but when I came back, the car was gone."
Edith was back and punched the code before I could get up to buzz her in. She filled the mug and motioned to the sugar and powered cream.
"I just take it black, thank you," said Wilson.
"So you think they towed your car early?" I asked.
Wilson laughed. "I hope so, or I'll never get it back. Thing is, I don't know where it's gone."
"And you'll need money to get it out," said Edith in a flat tone.
"Maybe not," said Wilson. "That is, I might have some money at the post office in Winston-Salem. Is that far?"
"Not far," I said. "How will you know?"
"I gotta number I can call to find out," he said.
"Edith," I asked, "would you mind calling the police and see if they have Mr. Santone's car?"
"What kind of car?"
"It's a '87 Corolla wagon," said Wilson, "mostly white. Here," he stood and leaned over Edith's desk to grab a pen. Edith jerked back defensively. Wilson calmly wrote out his name and tag number on a scrap of paper.
I knew Edith wasn't trying to be rude; she was just scared. "Why don't we make your phone call in my office," I volunteered.
"Say," said Wilson as he stepped into my office and saw the vintage Les Paul hanging on my wall, "you're a git' man too?"
"That one's just for show," I said. I pointed at my Gibson case leaning against the wall. "I play that one when I get a chance."
"I knew there was somethin' right about you," he chuckled.
I handed Wilson the receiver and punched the button Edith wasn't on and hit 9.
"Hold on," Wilson said, digging into his back pocket. "I have one of those phone cards for this." He pulled out a slim worn wallet, extracted a card, and started punching in his numbers.
"You mind if I have a look?" I asked, motioning to his guitar case.
"No, Man, go ahead," he said, then straightened up like people do when someone picks up on the other end. He wasn't saying anything. He must have gotten a machine. The guitar was a Martin, good quality, but old and used hard. There were several unused strings sitting in the well of the case, not in the neck box. I picked up the instrument and strummed lightly. It held tune pretty well – even after Wilson carried it half a mile from the shopping center.
"This is Wilson calling for Mr. Kline," said Wilson in the over-loud voice people use for answering machines and at drive-throughs. "I'm in Winston-Salem at…" I scribbled the outside number on a scrap of paper. "At 336 – 555 – 3700. Is there money at the post office here? Don't know how long I'll be at this phone." It looked like he was going to say more, but he just shrugged his shoulders and laughed, then hung up the phone. He fiddled with his phone card, having trouble getting back into his wallet. "Get in there, Little Chain," he said. He gave me a shrug. "I never know what to say to machines. Am I talking to the people, or just a bunch of goo-gaws? Somebody oughta write a book."
I didn't have an answer for him so I just strummed a chord on his Martin. Wilson laughed. "Or write a song," he said. "You mind if I take a look at your Gibson – that is a Gibson in there, isn't it?"
"It's a Gibson," I answered. "Go ahead and pull it out. I have your Martin – it's only fair."
He took out the guitar and held it at arm's length looking down the neck. "This box's been played some."
"Youth group," I answered, "and when the sermon won't come together."
"Sometime's the tune calls the lyrics," he said, picking a couple strings and tuning.
It took us a minute tuning the guitars to each other, and then Wilson began picking out Tom Dooley. It was a song my father used to play all the time when I was a kid. We played through the chorus twice and he pointed to me. I shook my head, no and he started singing the first verse. His voice was rich and weathered, a lot like I'd hoped it would be. I joined in on the choruses, harmonizing as best as I could. I thought of those old Andy Griffith shows when Andy would throw someone in jail and end up playing guitar with them. I don't suppose that really happens in county lock-up, but there was no reason it couldn't at St. Stephens.
I never heard the phone ring. Suddenly Edith was standing in the doorway. Reluctantly, I put down Wilson's Martin.
"Call for Mr. Santone on one," said Edith as she handed me a note. I gave Wilson the receiver as I punched the lit button. I pushed a pen and scrap paper in front of him.
"Yeah, Mr. Kline?" said Wilson. He was silent for a while. Edith mouthed the words, "Tolands at eleven o'clock," to me, reminding me that I had a job to do. I nodded and she retreated back to her desk.
"Kinda like I'll fly away?" asked Wilson on the phone. "Yeah, I'll come up with somethin'." Then he scribbled on the scrap I left. "Yeah, well thank you, Mister Kline. I do appreciate it," and he hung up the phone and smiled at me.
"There's a money order waiting for me at the post office on First Street."
"Your car is in impound on Fifteenth," I replied.
"I guess I have some walkin' to do. You mind if I leave my guitar here?"
"It's quite a ways downtown," I told him. "Why don't you wait in the library while I have my eleven o'clock appointment? I can take you there at lunch."
"You don't mind?"
"Not at all."
It was the Tolands who first noticed the lingering smell that Wilson left behind, or at least pointed it out to me – in retrospect, I'm certain Edith did too. Among the many duties of a pastor's wife, my Abigail took on the test of smell inspector. Though I think I can smell things like coffee or paint thinner, my capacity for detecting body odor, (most particularly mine own,) is lacking.
It made sense. Wilson was living in his car. The 87 Corolla wagon did not come with a shower and washing machine as standard equipment.
Wilson's odor was confirmed in the line at the post office, where people left plenty of space in line. Once he got to the desk, he produced an ID and received a small package. I didn't see what it contained beyond the money order. Wilson signed the money order and the clerk counted out eight hundred dollars in cash. Wilson stuffed the money into the opened package like it was so much loose packing material.
"That should be enough to get the big chain," said Wilson, laughing.
The impound yard presented him with his keys and a ticket to appear in exchange for two hundred and forty-eight dollars. I found myself wondering how much more that towing fee was because the owner had no choice. If I had called from the side of the road for a tow truck, would it be even half as much?
"I sure do thank you," said Wilson.
"What will you do now?" I asked.
"Well, I guess I'll head down to City Hall and pay this ticket," he said.
"I was wondering if you'd like to have dinner at my house," I said. "Maybe you could catch a shower and do a load of laundry."
"That OK with the missus?"
"You're right," I said. "I better check."
Abby's always been a trooper. I knew she'd say yes, but since the cancer came back, she'd been tired a lot more often. Today seemed to be one of her better days.
"You're in luck," she said. "I was already making a post roast."
"You like pot roast?" I asked Wilson.
He smiled and said, "You know anybody who don't like pot roast?"
Abby took everything in stride, a strange man coming into our home – using the washing machine and shower, then sitting down to dinner in a pair of my old gym shorts and a t-shirt I got in the Bahamas for two dollars. I had a vision of Bob Marley sitting at my table, though Wilson lacked the dredds.
"You look a little tired, Ms. Strawberry," said Wilson.
Abby, who looked to be fading shrugged. "Actually, this is a good day."
"Abby's sick," I told him.
"You got the C?" asked Wilson.
Abby nodded.
Wilson shook his head.
"It was in remission," I told him. "We thought she was through with it."
"But it's back," said Abby.
"Let me ask you a question," said Wilson. "Might sound kinda strange."
"Go ahead," said Abby.
Wilson looked her in the eye. "You wanna get rid of the C?"
"Of course," she said.
"You sure?"
"Of course she does," I said. "We both want it gone."
"Ya know," said Wilson, "and I don't mean disrespect, but I don't know you well. There's a lot of folk feel more comfortable bein' sick than bein' well."
"Oh," I said. Then I shut up. I'd seen what Wilson was talking about a lot in the ministry. Some people weren't happy unless they were suffering – getting attention for their problems, but Abby? Abby wasn't like that.
"I'm not offended, Mr. Santone," said Abby. "I also don't take your question lightly. I want to be well."
Wilson stood up from the table. "You mind?"
I looked at Abby who raise an eyebrow. "What do you have in mind?"
"I'm jus gonna put my hands on your shoulders," he said.
"Alright," said Abby.
I didn't know what to expect – maybe I was looking for Wilson to turn into Reverend Ike and start yelling and stomping. Instead he just stood behind Abby with his hands on her shoulders. If he said a word, I didn't hear it.
Wilson's clothes were in the dryer as we sat on the front porch. He had his Martin and I had my Gibson. We played The Wreck of the Old 97, and Amazing Grace, then Wilson started fingering some chords around the tune of I'll Fly Away. I joined in, and soon our improvisation left the song completely.
"Hold on to that," said Wilson, and he opened the neck compartment in his guitar case. He took out something that looked like a thumb drive.
"What's that?" I asked.
"It's a recording doo-dad I get from the fella in New York that sent me the money." He flicked a small switch on the side. "Let's go back where we were," he said.
I felt self conscious for a while, but as we played, I forgot the device. Wilson brought out the best in me. Wilson started shaking his head up and down. "Fine, fine," he said in a low voice.
The jam wove down to a natural end like the best ones do. Wilson reached over and clicked the device. He smiled wide. "Mister Kline'll find something there he'll like, I bet."
"What does he do with it?"
"I don't know," said Wilson. "He just keeps sending me money and more of the doo-dads." Wilson started picking out a tune that sounded vaguely familiar. It reminded me of a salad dressing commercial I liked.
The dryer buzzed and we both got up. Abby was in bed, so Wilson and I were quiet as we folded his clothes. The dish washer buzzed, so I went to empty that as Wilson finished his laundry.
Wilson declined my invitation to stay overnight. I can't imagine an '87 Toyota was the most comfortable place to sleep, but I didn't press.
Over the next few weeks I kept hoping I'd see him again, or maybe get a letter. I saw a commercial for a travel website that had a musical background a lot like what we'd played on my porch, but no word from Wilson Santone.
When we got word that Abby was back in remission, I wondered if it had anything to do with what Wilson did that night after dinner.
"Cancer's like a chain," he said to me that night. "We own it, and it tries to own us – just like a car, or a house, or fear or what's comin'."
It didn't make much sense to me at the time, and I don't think I could explain it now. It just felt true, like a song means more than just the lyrics.
And those with hard-luck stories are a little more welcome at St. Stephen's these days.