text:
07887 561 908
Dance and Fitness classes throughout Leeds
The Zumba® program fuses hypnotic Latin rhythms and easy-to-follow moves to create a one-of-a-kind fitness program that will blow you away. Our goal is simple: We want you to want to work out, to love working out, to get hooked. Zumba® Fanatics achieve long-term benefits while experiencing an absolute blast in one exciting hour of calorie-burning, body-energizing, awe-inspiring movements meant to engage and captivate for life!
The routines feature interval training sessions where fast and slow rhythms and resistance training are combined to tone and sculpt your body while burning fat. Add some Latin flavor and international zest into the mix and you've got a Zumba® class!
The Total Dance Zumba Instructors are certified in Zumba, Zumba Kids, Zumba Toning, Zumba Gold, Zumba Sentao.
Zumba® - When participants see a Zumba class in action, they can't wait to give it a try. Zumba classes feature exotic rhythms set to high-energy Latin and international beats. Before participants know it, they're getting fit and their energy levels are soaring! There's no other fitness class like a Zumba Fitness-Party. It's easy to do, effective and totally exhilarating, often building a deep-rooted community among returning students.
Zumba Gold® - Zumba Gold targets the largest growing segment of the population: baby boomers. It takes the Zumba formula and modifies the moves and pacing to suit the needs of the active older participant, as well as those just starting their journey to a fit and healthy lifestyle. What stays the same are all the elements the Zumba Fitness-Party is known for: the zesty Latin music, like salsa, merengue, cumbia and reggaeton; the exhilarating, easy-to-follow moves; and the invigorating, party-like atmosphere. Active older adults want camaraderie, excitement and fitness as a regular part of their weekly schedule. Zumba Gold is the perfect fit. It's a dance-fitness class that feels friendly, and most of all, fun.
Zumba® Toning - When it comes to body sculpting, Zumba Toning raises the bar (or rather, the toning stick). It combines targeted body-sculpting exercises and high-energy cardio work with Latin-infused Zumba moves to create a calorie-torching, strength-training dance fitness-party. Students learn how to use lightweight, maraca-like Toning Sticks to enhance rhythm and tone all their target zones, including arms, abs, glutes and thighs. Zumba Toning is the perfect way for enthusiasts to sculpt their bodies naturally while having a total blast.
Zumba Kids® - Designed exclusively for kids (ages 4-12), Zumbatomic classes are rockin', high-energy fitness-parties packed with specially choreographed, kid-friendly routines and all the music kids love, like hip-hop, reggaeton, cumbia and more. Parents love Zumbatomic because of the effects it has on kids, increasing their focus and self-confidence, boosting metabolism and enhancing coordination. Zumbatomic rounds out family fitness goals by giving parents a great reason to head to the gym – for themselves, for their kids, for a totally fun family experience.
Zumba Sentao™ - The Zumba Sentao™ workout takes the thrill of the fitness-party and partners it with explosive, chair-based choreography to strengthen, balance and stabilize your core, and step up your cardio work in a whole new way. Grab a chair, feel the beat and learn how to use your own body weight to enhance muscle strength, improve definition and endurance, and tone your physique. Strut, shake and shimmy as you work your core (and work the chair) in a high-energy fitness-party that will keep you on the edge of your seat
See the Tariff page for fee breakdown and prepaid card options.


text:
Thickness: 32mm (Other options available at extra cost)
Edge Profile: Square (Other options available at extra cost)
Finish: Stained to standard colours and lacquered (Matt, satin or glossy)
All our solid wood table tops include battens as a protection against warping.
We offer full customisation of table tops. Please enquire for any other specification.
135 Glenthorne Road
London W6 0LJ
Telephone: 0800 8494 135
E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com

subset: commoncrawl


text:
|Cave of the Seven Sleepers, near Amman, Jordan
Photo from itsanillution
I said, 'What are you doing that for? Come and pray outside.'
'There is no God but God,' he replied. 'I must be a bastard then if I can't get through that narrow cleft!'
'What are you talking about?' I asked.
He said, 'This is a place that no son of adultery can pass through - he cannot enter.'
What he said forced me to get up, enter by that spot, pray and come out again without - God knows - believing what he said. Indeed, most of the troops came and entered and prayed.
Yet, in the army with me was Baraq al-Zubaydi, who had with him a slave of his, a black man - devout fellow, taken to praying a lot, and one of the tallest and leanest people. He came to that spot and tried with all his might to enter, but he could not get through. The poor fellow wept, moaning and sighing over and over, and then left after failing to enter.
- Usama ibn Munqidh, The Book of Contemplation, p. 23-24, Trans. Paul Cobb, 2008, Penguin Books.
This is one of ibn Munqidh's stories which has stuck with me. (Possibly because of his prompt emphasis on his own easy and unobstructed passage. Not that he believes in such superstition, of course.)
From a gaming standpoint, this is a helpful reminder to make a region feel alive through legends and folklore, stories tied to places. There doesn't always have to be anything major to the legends, mind you. It's completely legit to have an ancient hoary legend which doesn't actually have much backing it up! Certainly ibn Munqidh didn't encounter anything significant in visiting the cave...although perhaps Baraq's slave did.


text:
Medical Help & Safety
Cohutta Springs is proud of it's safety record. We meet the requirements of the American Camp Association (ACA) for medical supervision. A nurse is available at the camp clinic 24 hours a day. Cohutta Springs Youth Camp is not staffed to provide a full service special medical needs program.
Important: The camper's health history form (which you will receive along with your confirmation) must be completed by the camper's parent/guardian, no more than 7 days prior to camp. This form will be emailed to you the week before your registered week of camp. Please Note: Cohutta Springs Youth Camp has limited accident insurance. The camp will provide the primary coverage to a certain level and family insurance will be secondary. Health insurance remains the family's responsibility, i.e. flu, earaches, and other personal health issues. The specific coverage and limitations is available from the Georgia-Cumberland Conference Risk Management Department.
Food Allergies
Campers with special dietary needs due to allergies is a challenge, especially with the volume of campers being served each meal. We want all kids to be able to come to camp regardless of dietary needs. Click the links below to download and print guidelines on how we can partner to do this.
Staff Selection Process
Great camps start with the best staff. We never hire on a whim or perception, only with unquestioning recommendations of highly credible people who know them well. Staff employment requires a formal application, three recommendation forms, and interview with the Camp Director. A background check is run on each person hired.


text:
If you're like most parents, you don't think twice before having your children vaccinated. You want your kids to be healthy, so you make sure they get their shots. In fact, nearly 90 percent of kids in the United States are fully immunized against ailments that once killed thousands of children every year.
Yet despite the fact that vaccines can prevent many serious diseases, a small but growing number of parents are questioning the need for, and benefits of, immunization. Groups like the National Vaccine Information Center, a grassroots parents' organization that has publicized the possible risks of vaccines, are a source of increasing concern to public-health experts, since unimmunized kids can endanger a whole community.
"Some people don't believe that illnesses like measles and pertussis are still out there," says Benjamin Schwartz, M.D., of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in Atlanta. "So instead of focusing on the very significant risks of the disease, they focus on the very uncommon risks of the vaccine." It's easy to lose sight of the benefits of vaccination, especially when you hear rumors that it can cause everything from SIDS to brain damage. The conflicting information may have you wondering whether vaccines are really safe. To clear up some common myths, we asked the experts.
Vaccines often cause serious reactions and may even cause the disease they are supposed to protect against.
Vaccination by definition means exposing a healthy child to a weakened or dead virus -- a fact that understandably makes some parents nervous. Although no vaccine is 100 percent risk-free, the chances of major side effects from a shot are minuscule compared with the potential damage to your child's health if she contracted the disease itself.
One vaccine that is commonly associated with developing the actual disease is the oral polio vaccine, which contains live, weakened polio virus. Although vaccine-associated polio is incredibly rare (one in every 2.4 million doses), public-health officials were sufficiently concerned that they recently recommended a reformulated vaccine. The new, injectable polio vaccine contains an inactivated, or killed, virus and has not been associated with any cases of the disease.
Some antivaccination groups are concerned that DTP (diphtheria/ tetanus/pertussis) can cause brain damage and SIDS. But there is no convincing evidence to support these allegations, says Mark H. Sawyer, M.D., an associate professor of pediatrics at UC San Diego School of Medicine. However, since the vaccine on rare occasions causes such serious side effects as high fever and convulsions, a new, safer vaccine has been used since 1997. Research does not support the DTP/SIDS link. SIDS happens to strike most often at the precise age when the DTP vaccine is administered, and chance alone predicts that 50 cases of SIDS each year will occur within 24 hours of vaccination. "The best way to prevent SIDS is to be sure your child sleeps on his or her back," says Dr. Schwartz.
Since most children are already vaccinated, it's no big deal if a few kids aren't.
Immunization doesn't protect just individual children; it protects the entire community. Unvaccinated children and adults serve as a reservoir for infection, which they can then pass on to other susceptible individuals, including the small percentage of immunized kids who don't respond to a specific vaccination, children who are behind on their vaccination schedules, and those who can't be vaccinated because of medical problems. Pregnant women and babies are also at risk. "Children under 1 year old who are exposed to measles, mumps, and other vaccine-preventable diseases before they have been immunized are much less likely to survive the infection," says I. Celine Hanson, M.D., of Texas Children's Hospital, in Houston.
Diseases such as diphtheria and polio have been wiped out in this country, so there's no point in vaccinating a child against a disease she's unlikely to get.
Just because a disease is lying low doesn't mean it won't return. History has shown that when vaccination rates drop, disease rates rise, no matter how rare the illness may have seemed. With the rise in international adoption and travel, serious illnesses are only a plane ride away. "Until a disease is eliminated from the planet, we will have to continue immunizing against it," says Dr. Sawyer.
Chicken pox is a mild disease, so my child doesn't need the vaccine.
"Chicken pox is actually responsible for the death of one child every week in this country," says Dr. Sawyer. "It causes more deaths than any other vaccine-preventable childhood disease because complications like strep infection are so common." Chicken pox can also reemerge in adults as shingles, an extremely painful nerve and skin disease. Although the vaccine doesn't offer complete protection from shingles, experts believe the risk is greatly reduced. Parents who prefer to have their children acquire immunity against chicken pox naturally also face another hurdle: It's becoming harder and harder to find a sick child who can infect yours. In fact, the CDC recently recommended that all states require the vaccine for children entering day care or preschool. That dramatically lowers the chance that your child would catch chicken pox from a schoolmate or sibling during early childhood, explains Dr. Sawyer. "And the older your child is when he or she becomes infected, the more severe the illness is likely to be."
Good nutrition and natural remedies offer enough protection against disease, so vaccines aren't necessary.
"Natural stimulants of the immune system may help your child's overall health, but they don't provide the disease-specific protection you get from vaccination," says Dr. Hanson. For that, you have to challenge the child's immune system with the specific virus so that it can produce the appropriate antibodies. And it's much safer to do that with a vaccine than to let your child become ill from natural disease exposure.
Vaccine immunity wears off.
Vaccination usually provides lifetime protection against infection -- but it's not perfect. We need tetanus boosters every decade or so throughout life. And researchers recently discovered that immunity to pertussis may also wane with time. Vaccine failure sometimes occurs with the chicken-pox vaccine as well, but if an immunized person does develop breakthrough illness, it's usually very mild, says Dr. Schwartz.
Kids with certain health problems may need to avoid specific vaccines. The best way to tell whether your child is in a high-risk group is to talk to your doctor. He should carefully review your child's health history, explain all the potential risks of each vaccine, brief you on possible side effects, and give you the comprehensive Vaccine Information Statements, put out by the CDC. In general, children with immune deficiencies, seizure disorders, or neurological problems need to be carefully evaluated -- some vaccines may be appropriate and safe; others may not. Since vaccines can prompt severe allergic reactions in people who are hypersensitive to one or more of their components (e.g., eggs or yeast), parents of children with certain food allergies or drug sensitivities should consult their doctors before receiving some vaccines.
Be the first to comment!


text:
Butler outlasts Maryland to advance to Sweet 16
Buffalo, NY (Sports Network) – A.J. Graves had 19 points to help the fifth-
seeded Butler Bulldogs to a 62-59 win over the fourth-seeded Maryland
Terrapins in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in the Midwest Region.
Brandon Crone had 13 points, four assists and four steals and Mike Green added
eight points, eight rebounds and five assists for the Bulldogs (29-6), who
advanced to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2003.
Butler will next face the winner of the Florida/Purdue game, which will take
place on Sunday.
Mike Jones led all scorers with 21 points while James Gist had 13 points,
eight rebounds and four blocks for the Terrapins (25-9), who are now 36-21
all-time in the tournament.
The game was tight through the first 10 minutes of the opening half but
consecutive layups by Ekene Ibekwe gave the Terrapins a 19-15 lead with 7:45
to play.
The Bulldogs, though, responded by scoring the next 13 points, including a
pair of three-pointers by Graves, and had a 28-15 lead when Drew Streicher
capped the run with a layup with 2:27 left.
A trey by Jones in the final seconds of the first half got Maryland to within
six points, 31-25, at the break.
Butler got the first basket of the second half, but the Terrapins scored 11
straight points and a three-pointer by Jones four minutes in gave his team a
36-34 lead.
The Bulldogs regained the lead on their next possession, but the Terrapins
kept the game close over the next several minutes and a Gist jumper with under
10 minutes to play made it a 46-46 game.
However, consecutive three-pointers by Butler a bit later, with the last one
coming from the hands of Crone with under six minutes to play, gave the team a
54-48 lead.
Maryland hung in and a layup by Jones and a free throw from D.J. Strawberry
cut Butler's lead to 61-59 with 1:07 to play.
The Bulldogs turned the ball over on its next possession, but Strawberry was
called for an offensive foul as he drove in for a layup to give Butler the
ball back.
Julian Betko had a chance to seal the win with a three-point attempt but his
shot hit off the rim. The rebound, though, went into the paint and Green
pulled it down, drew the foul and hit a free throw with 3.6 seconds left.
Dave Neal grabbed the rebound after Green missed his second free throw and
took the ball down the court, but Crone stripped Neal of the ball to seal the
Game Notes
Butler shot 44 percent in the game, including 12-of-26 from beyond the
arc…Maryland shot 47 percent and outrebounded Butler, 37-23, but committed
17 turnovers that led to 20 points for the Bulldogs…Ibekwe finished with
eight points and nine rebounds.


text:
Precise acoustic control is now just a clip away. The sound absorbing qualities of Autex's 50mm Quietspace® Panel have been combined with a state of the art suspension system to deliver the high performing Quietspace® Horizon.
The Quietspace® Horizon system is your guaranteed approach to suspending acoustic absorbing panels. Tested for seismic compliance and simple to install; Quietspace® Horizon's adjustable system allows you to set the suspension height with ease.
Hung at various heights from the ceiling; Quietspace® Horizon gives you the ability to target multiple frequency levels across a single space. This provides complete acoustic control across numerous sound sources; perfect for the hospitality industry and commercial environments.
Manufactured in New Zealand and Australia under Autex's ISO 14001 accredited Environmental Management System; the Quietspace® Panel component contains a minimum of 60% post-consumer recycled material and is the obvious choice for sustainable acoustic control. Quietspace® Panel is a non-toxic, non allergenic and a non-irritable product making it ideal for environments where health and safety is key.
Key Benefits
© Potter Interior Systems 2019


text:
… to be continued.
— O'fieldstream
The world of fly-fishing is a complex, guarded – yet free-wheeling world of traditional feeding lanes that regularly conflict with edgy currents. Today's world of fly-fishing is that world: more so now, than ever before.
Yet, no matter how fluid the world of fly-fishing becomes, it's still – about The Fly.
A friend posted an interesting photograph the other day, that consisted of a number of old, broken, worn-out fishing flies, attached to a pole. He labeled it the 'Fly Cemetery'. I looked at the photo and was struck by the visual. I posted the following as a comment on that photo:
Cool idea! Never thought of it like this. But instead of cemetery .. I'd say it's more a Tribute Poll … to old friends who served you well. Flies are not just things. They are the connection between… between, the fisherman and the fish. The fly is the first thing that both fisherman and fish connect to and the parting point we both enjoy. Flies are special.
After writing this I got to seriously thinking about what I'd said .. and realized, this was an important point for fly-fishing. The part which caught my senses the most was the following:
Flies are not just things. They are the connection between… between, the fisherman and the fish. The fly is the first thing that both fisherman and fish connect to and the parting point we both enjoy.
Think about it. The one thing that is common to every fly-fisherman and every fish caught on a fly is – The Fly.
No wonder the person who ties their own flies, feels such a connection to their activity on the water. No wonder such a feeling of accomplishment, connection, deep-emotion is felt when a fish takes the presented creation.
This IS big; very big. It's just downright special.
So that pole-of-used-flies, truly is a Tribute Poll. Some may say a totem to their service as inanimate partners. If those flies could claim origin at your own hands, they are your children-in-collaboration. The combined effort of seduction and deceit – you and the fly – in a game as old as life itself.
Fly Tyers Supplicate
I think that I shall never tie,
The likeness of the Perfect Fly.
For flies are tied to lie you see,
Truth made plain, not readily.
To whom you seek reply,
Yet answer remains to be?
The fish, the fool and the fly, go Thee.
May we who choose to fly, do so with reverence for the bit of feather and fur which make it all possible to live such a wondrous life we lead.
For … The Fly is Special. Special indeed.
How important – TO YOU – is your ability to enjoy Outdoor Activities?
A LOT you say? Then you have the opportunity to PROVE IT.
Read this report as of August 23, 2011 – Fly-fishing industry threatened by Congress .
Now… you MUST DECIDE: What are YOU going to DO about it?
No, this is not a matter of letting 'others' … bear-the-burden, carry-the-load, fight-the-fight or launch-one-for-the-Gipper… NO, it's time YOU take a personal stand, make a personal investment .. or your TIME, ENERGY and SOUL …and if you can, money.
That's right, money is not the first thing requested, nor is it required. It is the last thing needed.
The cry of, 'Give now, to solve the problems we face…', has been the siren call that has become the ignition-booster in the fire that is ready to burst – out of control and onto the scene. This seek-for-money, has blurred our view, clouded our judgement and influenced our motives.
Money is not poison. But power is. In our society, money is the all perceived power. Remove the money and there is no power. Thus, we do not want to loose the Power of WE, when the money is gone. WE must exist and be effective through our personal investment of TIME, ENERGY and SOUL. It can be done. But will it be done. Time will tell.
So, if you think you can only give money, and leave the other three elements out – DON'T BOTHER ! You are part of the problem. WE do not need any part of the problem contaminating our efforts. Thanks, but, No Thanks.
Let's hope enough people are willing to get involved so that YOU and I can become a WE.
But, lets not deceive ourselves into thinking this all just started with the recent inductees into the inner-circle-of-great-discombobulation. It has been building for a long time.
There are also more players in the foil than the obvious reveals. This is a clear case of, "It's not what you see that hurts you nearly as much as what you do not see." There are forces, fired by agendas unrelated to each other, willing to ally to each other to accomplish their agenda-based goals. They are quite dissimilar, but the results will be identical. Those results will culminate in the loss of our two most precious commodities: Freedom and Natural Resource.
That the current warning flag comes from the fly-fishing industry does not mean the rest of the outdoor heritage activities will go unscathed. EVERYONE who enjoys a nice walk into the woods, meadows, plains, mountains, or deserts – as a refreshing break from the daily grind – is under-the-gun.
Whether you're just a casual stroller, bird-watcher, weekend or obsessed fisherman, occasional or life-long hunter, competition junky, or a tweed-donning-purist… each and every one – regardless of purpose in the outdoors – will loose. The will be no exceptions…!
At last count, that includes roughly 90% of the entire human population. THAT! … is a loss _TOO BIG_ to allow.
So, yeah. It's a big, scary, deal! I guess the only question left is this:
Again I will repeat: Let's hope enough people are willing to get involved so that YOU and I can become a WE.
This formula could be translated as: Unified Individuals Working Environmentally.
That acronymous statement may seem more an oxymoron and an impossible task. It may be, but …
Exceptional problems require exceptional thinking to produce exceptional solutions.
This would be a very good step toward an… Exceptional Outcome.
Arthur O'fieldsteam
WORDS … it is said, have launched ships, made and brought down nations and have inspired all, from kings to the common man. They are the currency of communication. As the old saw says, "Clothes make the man.", similarly words make the character of any person. For how we speak is more important that what we speak. Because what we speak is constructed of the How.
In my life words are a most important commodity. They are, after all one part of my biotope of creativity. I do enjoy creating imagery with the combination of words. Thus, there are sources of words which are especially important … even dear to me.
My family is a source of such words. My wife is my dearest friend and most invested colleague in life. She and I also share in the delights of being permanent partners in – post-parenting – for a fabulously wonderful young man. His offspring are the combination of his efforts and the woman whom he married and has become his best friend and colleague and our daughter. From their committed friendship have sprung two (thus far) children; the apples of all our eyes. Those two darling offspring are our most treasured treasures. They are Brooklyn and Wyatt.
BBW or, Before Brooklyn 'n Wyatt, there were many words, along with their connected moments, for which my wife and I consider as most treasured moments. Such things as the first 'I love you'; and the "Yes!" to an engagement request; and the "I do." promissory of a life-long commitment of love and devotion. Then as parents, the first words of our son, "Mommy", "Daddy". To a lessor extent for us – but monumental to both sets for grandparents – hearing his first terms of 'grand' applied to them and the follow-up whimsies he sent forth. As he grew and expressed his mind; even in the times of disagreement; we saw in his words, the character of the man he would become. The vocabulary he grew up with was not tainted in words that bring embarrassment and shame. But, rather with words that uplift, encourage and speak to a higher focus. He has, in life thus far, mirrored the pictures painted by those words. The pleasure we as parents derive from this, flows in an unspoken, yet not wordless, vocabulary of love and respect. For a parent, it truly – doesn't get any better than this!
Over the past 8 1/2 years – the time since Brooklyn came on the scene – my wife and I have been adding an entire lexicon of words we use to bring smiles, tears, warm-fuzzies, and moments of pure joy to our lives. Then 2 1/2 years later, our family increased by one, when Master Wyatt came along. He has been a remarkably wonderful addition; both to life and the now expanding B&W Lexicon.
Utterly astounding, it is, how a simple phrase such as, "That's not right!"; or a word like "Grandpa?"; can usher in both a concrete point of how to live a treasured life, or just warm the cockles of the heart. All the while bringing a smile – that heartily competes with the brightest of sunrises – on our faces. But it happens: daily!
Our B & W Lexicon of Endearing Words and Phrases is filling up with such treasures as:
With many more to come.
To you, the reader, there is little emotion stirred from the list above – unless you have a direct connection of your own. For me however, it's a world of metaphor. Each word and phrase telling an entire story. One which each time I see – I am taken back-in-time to the moment the memory was made. This is the power of words. Ad a series of musical notes to the mix and the memory is encased in neural concrete.
The name of our granddaughter, Brooklyn, for me conjures an entire book; literally. The story came to mind the minute I heard what her name would be. It has nothing to do with an urban landscape, nor the bridge so associated.
The scenic memory takes root in the first five letters of her beautiful name: BROOK. As an avid fly-fisher, I am also a lover of the colder water fish known to the fraternity of trout lovers as Salvelinus fontinalis. Or more commonly known as the Brook Trout. Not actually a trout, but a member of the char family, the brook trout is to the cold water fishes, what the wood duck is to waterfowl: shear unadulterated beauty. A magnificent array of color and beauty. My granddaughter is well named.
Within a few days of Brooklyn's birth I began fantasizing non-stop about a time in the not-too-distant future, when she would begin asking me to take her fishing; to teach her to fly-fish; and the days upon days of joy and excitement the two of us would share in pursuit of the finer, more artistic part of the wonderful event called fly-fishing.
My fantasy melded into the story of a little girl's journey along a stream in which a little brook trout emerges from it's egg sack learning to fend for itself; growing into a young parr and making it's way in the watery world of the stream, regularly visited by the little girl and her family.
The opening scene has the little girl riding in her car seat, along the winding road that parallels the mountain stream in which the little brook trout has just emerged. As the family car passes over the bridge spanning the soon-to-be-home of the tiny trout, the little girl; unable yet to speak or know the world about her, sees the colors of the newly emerged leaves and the light as it gently filters down from the blue sky above and she smiles. She has no idea why, but a feeling of comfort, warmth, belonging and home come over her. She's far too young to understand any of this beyond the sense of comfort and it makes her smile. Interestingly, this same feeling washes over her every time their family car passes over this bridge. No other. Just this bridge.
Three years later as she and her daddy walk along the stream, just down from the bridge, the fly her daddy had just dropped into a feeding lane vanishes. A few minutes later, the little girl and the now 3 year old brook trout meet. Immediately she falls in love with the brook trout; she wants to take it home. Her daddy tells her about the value of being selective and letting the trout go back to the water and live; to make more trout and maybe she'll visit again by taking another of daddy's flies. The trout, knowing nothing of love, but a lot about fear of predators, does not – when looking at the little human – feel the fear she has of the warm thing gripping her. The moment is brief, but forever in the minds of both entities.
The story continues to tell the interaction of the brook trout and the little girl, culminating in the day, 3 years later, when the little girl catches the little brook trout and the little girl must make her first life and death decision. You will have to read the book (and I will have to finish writing it) to find out the answer.
All of this washed over me -again and again – like an ocean wave. Each time bringing in more information, idea and energy. Somehow, I just knew Brooklyn would become my fishing companion. And now in her 8th year, she is beginning to make a move in that direction.
I was greeted with a phone call a few weeks back with a request from Miss Brooklyn. "Grandpa?" she asked.
"Yes, Miss Brooklyn, what can I do for my precious little lady?"
"Grandpa, would you take me fly-fishing?"
At that moment, somewhere in the realms of my heaven, angelic choirs lit off into a mighty Reggae line and the steel drums echoed among the mountain tops! Music to my ears! Bingo! I'd hit the lottery!! All of this and a thousand times more.
"Why, sure thing princess. When do we go?", I was able to gasp out.
"Oh, Grandpa, it's still too cold. But I want to go as soon as we can.", she intoned.
"We'll do it fist time we have opportunity. Maybe when you and Wyatt come stay with us this summer. How about that?", I added.
"Oh, can't we do it sooner? I really want to go fly-fishing.", she pleaded unnecessarily; I was totally sold!
"We will go fly-fishing at the very first opportunity and we'll do it as often as we can and you want to continue. How's that?", I committed.
"OK. That sounds great. I hope it's really soon.", she said with great plans and hope.
"Me, too, sweetie. Me too!", I said concretely.
Unlike the verse that greeted me, when I would take the final drink from my favorite Donald Duck whistle cup as a kid, "All Gone". This story, instead winds into another word phrase of memorable importance. I hear the musical refrain, the song which ushered my wife and I from our marriage ceremony, courtesy of Karen and Richard Carpenter, and remember – "We've Only Just Begun".
Oh! Have we ever …just begun.
OK.. time for some feathers to fly.
I just saw a post by one of my Facebook Friends (FBF), pointing to the now-running, National Geographic Photo contest.
As usual the thumbnail image, in the post's LINK, was too small for me to see clearly at first. But, I read my FBF's commentary. I couldn't agree more. A National Geographic photo contest should be pretty darned good and worthy of strolling through the galleries of photos.
Then I looked closely at the image headlining the LINK in the post.
What ?? !!!!!
This is NOT a slam on my FBF here. Let's get that out of the way first. It's not his fault the image contains the content it does. Nor was he condoning the specific content shown in the image associated with the link.
Besides, when you include a LINK widget this way in Facebook – and the linked-to-page has several images on it, a randomly chosen image appears. Unless you click-through the widget and choose a specific image – the first image (the fighting cock photo in this case) becomes the default. Just like what you see, when you click the link below.
The image, aside from the content, is – technically- a superb photo!
But – there's the rub: the content.
I ask you. Explain the difference
Both are abuses of animals, people and sensibility.
Both, by venue, promote such tragedy.
One is mediated as heinous conduct, while the other a potential International photo contest winner.
Tell me I'm missing something; please! Otherwise we're sinking deeper into the quagmire of duplicity.
I'm not squeamish about blood, death or killing. I am a hunter. But neither of the two scenarios mentioned above have anything to do with the natural actions of hunting or territorial protection.
What comes to mind when you hear or see this word, name, description? I'd dare say it is not what truly exists.
Michigan's state nickname? Evil-spirit? Legend? Phantom? Teeth? Danger? Hell-on-paw-w/-claws?
Yes, I believe the wolverine embodies all of these and so much more. If you'd like to see more and know more about this amazing creature – got to the PBS.org site and watch the full Nature program, Wolverine: Chasing the Phantom.
I have had a passionate love for these, largest of the weasel family, since I first saw a presentation of one on the old Mutual of Omaha, "Wild Kingdom" – back in the early '60s.
It was a frigid north woods winter in the late '60s, where I had the extremely rare opportunity – and privilege – to encounter and watch a pair of wolverines – in the wild – for over an hour. No camera. Nothing but my eyes and memory to record the experience. The sensation of that memory still sends chills up my spine every time I think of it; which is quite often.
I was never taken serious when I told the story of the encounter. I had no proof; only my story. Wolverines had not been verified as having been seen in that region in over 40 years. Yet, over the years reports of sightings have been persistent. Recently, with the advent of imaging technology, i.e., Trailcams, researchers are seeing verified proof of their return.
Many say the wolf, is the symbol that gives the wild in wilderness it's heart. I maintain that the wolverine is what gives wilderness its wild soul.
If the wolverine had a theme song, you'd likely find them hummin' Bosephus' – A Country Boy Can Survive – through a snarl, oozing attitude that would rock-the-world of a grizzly bear. Hiding their complex nature as a very social animal, has been a successful key in their survival.
But, for all the survival ability it embodies, the wolverine has one major flaw in their arsenal: they are heavily dependent on cold – really COLD – temperatures to survive. As the earths polar and altitude environments heat up, dependable cold temperature, heavy snows and long winter seasons are becoming an ever increasing problem across their more populated range: the Rocky Mountain glacial fields.
To loose the wolverine would be to loose the soul of the wild.
I -for one- am in total agreement with Aldo Leopold, as he poignantly announces, in the first line of his introduction to the book, that has become the repository of his writings, A Sand County Almanac – containing – as the last chapter – what I believe was his most important essay – The Land Ethic,
It is amazing just how comfortable we, in the fortunate minority of earth's population, can become with a way of taking for granted the most basic of life essentials.
We quibble about not having the right shirt, skirt, pants, shoes or whatever to wear. We chafe over the least little infraction of our personally imprinted mandate on time. Our fellow travelers on this road of impoverished awareness of the natural world and our tenuous – at best! – part in it, are no less complacent of their duty or complicit in their premeditated abdication of responsibility. And each one of us – barreling down this autobahn of destruction – is more likely than not to be clueless to the extremity of our minority value in this issue.
Yet, we certainly seem to be so morally bankrupt in this that we do not realize the extent to which we gorge our pursuit of pleasures at the incredulous expense of the rest of earth's citizenry; of which we are less than 5%. Yet, we control the use of 95% of the resources earth coughs up.
Could it be assessed – dare I say, assumed – that we just don't care? The evidence shows clearly there is no other choice of analysis. The bill for such a lapse in moral responsibility will come due and there will be no avoiding it at that time.
It will be a sad, sad day when this happens – and it's not likely that far off. On that day there will be many a lip uttering those damning lines from the morbid poem, Maud Miller –
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
John Greenleaf Whittier (Maud Miller)
We have been warned.


text:
'So... What Does Stuttering Feel Like?'
Although it's impossible to describe exactly what stuttering feels like, there are a few comparisons that closely resemble the struggle that takes place:
First, try thinking of the mouth as a "gate." Only once the tension grows strong enough to force open the gate do the words finally tumble out, much to the stutterer's relief. As you know, every sound requires its own unique formation in the mouth. Each of these sounds comes to the gate and pushes… and pushes… and pushes with all its might until it finally breaks through. This pushing causes a lot of tension in the mouth, neck, and shoulder area for the stutterer. I often feel my neck tighten, my shoulders scrunch together, and my tongue push against my teeth.
From this description, I'm sure you can imagine how exhausting it is to stutter. It is much more than just messing up words sometimes. It is a daily battle to break free and to make one's voice heard. But it is a worthy battle, a battle that strengthens character, teaches endurance, and reminds me of just how precious this life really is.
Secondly, try thinking of the mind and voice as two conflicting sides in this battle. Although stuttering mainly affects speech, it wages quite a war against the mind. The mind stands on one side, absolutely bursting with things to say. The voice stands on the other side, fearing it will crack under the weight of all those words. As I look at the person standing in front of me waiting for my answer, my mind screams out a beautiful response, but my voice freezes. My voice knows what to say, how to say it, and when to say it, but it just can't bear the load. Finally, my mind and my voice compromise, and I blurt out the first thing that will come out. Sometimes, this means that I end up with a caramel iced coffee instead of a vanilla iced coffee.
In the past, I really let moments like that get to me and make me feel like less of a person. As soon as I was out of sight, I would cry until I couldn't cry anymore, staring at an iced coffee I really didn't want. On the hardest days, my mom was right there to encourage me: "Kenzie, you may not be the average speaker, but why in the world would you want to be ordinary when you can be extraordinary? Of all the people in the world, your voice makes you uniquely unforgettable." I love you so much, Mom.
I would be lying if I told you I still don't have moments like this. I am still human, just like you. To be honest, there are days when I just want to scream. Stuttering makes me feel so vulnerable. But I'm slowly learning how to find beauty where I used to see brokenness.
All of us have struggles, but those struggles can be a gift we give to the world. If we can just learn to harness the stutter's incredible power and redirect it for good, we can encourage someone else who is struggling. We can remind them that they have every reason to dream big and give them the courage to say what is in their heart. I don't know about you, but I think that's pretty beautiful!
Follow this journey on Flawlessly Spoken.
Image via Thinkstock.


text:
Business Monday
Listening to the rest of the story
I'll be the first to admit that when I'm moving at the "speed of business," as UPS used to say, more often than not I'm looking for my team to cut to the chase. I need to know that they know all there is to know about what they need to know. I need to know that they've left no stone unturned, that every contingency has been accounted for, that risks have been assessed and properly mitigated, and that issues, especially recommendations, have been thoroughly vetted. I need to know they know all of this because, like you, I can visualize the big picture quickly — though that's not because we're special.
According to research by University of Washington psychologist, John Gottman, featured in Malcom Gladwell's 2005 bestseller, BLINK: The Power of Thinking without Thinking, every human being has the ability to make sense of something quickly. It's what Gottman calls The Theory of Thin Slices. "We thin-slice because we have to … and we come to rely on this ability because there are lots of situations out there where careful attention to the details of a very thin slice, even for no more than a second or two, can tell us an awful lot."
Business leaders — particularly entrepreneurs and founders — tend to grasp concepts relative to the day to day operations of their businesses quickly and efficiently, and it's precisely because of this "efficiency," and quite often for efficiency's sake, that more often than not we just want our team to get to the point and bottom line it for us. And that's OK, as long as it's not be the only way.
As presidents and CEOs of corporations large and small, we may want — at times we may even feel like we need — to simply get to the bottom line, but we can never allow ourselves to lose that sense of genuine interest in the full story — or like the late Paul Harvey, legendary radio newsman and broadcaster of the mid-20th century, used to call it, "the rest of the story." That was the name Harvey ingeniously gave his unique daily afternoon radio segment which he started broadcasting years after he became successful with his daily morning news segment. I remember enjoying The Rest of the Story even more than Harvey's news broadcast precisely because he went beyond the news of the day and touched upon what was personal and interesting and inspiring. It was as though this career newsman understood that behind the news were real people with real lives, and every one of them had a story that should be shared. Harvey not only kept us informed, he kept us connected — decades before Facebook and Twitter ever did.
I'm convinced that this is why social media has taken off the way it has — because each of us feels the need to stay connected. Sometimes we can do it in 140 characters or less, sometimes we can't. But we all have a story to share, and once in a while it's nice when someone else is interested in hearing that story.
This is especially true for the members of your team. More often than not they give their all for your organization. They work long hours and invest significantly in the success of your business. Sure, they're getting paid to do their work, but that shouldn't minimize the fullness of their contributions which go beyond compensation. They work with a sense of pride which fuels their purpose and gives meaning to their effort. There's a story behind those reports they're turning in. I'm often surprised by the gems my marketing team uncovers during research, tidbits of little-known yet relevant facts which always enhance my presentations and significantly improve my chances of closing a deal. The problem is that when all I'm interested in is the bottom line, I not only miss out on the opportunity to better prepare myself, I miss out on the opportunity to connect with my team. And why? For efficiency's sake? What good is efficiency to a team when the connections around it are weak?
Distinguished artist, writer and philosopher Makoto Fujimura talks about this need for the unnecessary in his theory, Culture Care, when he says, "art is useless which is why it is essential to humanity." During a presentation at a global Acton Institute event earlier this year, Fujimura said, "The bottom line of utility and efficiency has become the primary means by which we measure success, and we are all dehumanized in that world. We are all just machines or cogs of a machine which are only useful as long as we can keep rotating and spinning off efficiently for the purpose of the machinery."
There's more to business than just the bottom line, and there are real people with interesting stories behind those reports we require.
May we never be so efficient that we lose ourselves, our dignity and our humanity.
Manny García-Tuñón is a columnist for El Nuevo Herald and President of Lemartec, a design-build firm headquartered in Miami, Florida. He can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com and www.mgtunon.com


text:
- From Chapter 7:TRUE BEAUTY IS ON THE INSIDE! Inner Aziraphale screamed in rage as he beat down Inner Hastur with his umbrella.
Inner Aziraphale blushed. "You're not so bad yourself," he replied with a giggle. "Perhaps you have a spark of goodness as well?""So," Inner Hastur said awkwardly, staring at the ground as he shuffled his feet, "you you wanna go lurking sometime?"**The demonic equivalent of asking him on a date. Other acceptable phrases include: "Wanna go defile some innocents?". "Hey, do you want to go really haunt a haunted house with me?" and the ever-popular "Hey, I have someone I want to take some Glorious Revenge upon; would you like to come help me torment them?"****If Crowley were ever honest with himself which we all know by now doesn't happen often - "Can I tempt you to some dinner?" is another one.
- From Chapter 12:
- Note that it is better in context.Jesus looked at Crowley. Im sorry. Its really the only way
Crowley nodded, closed his eyes and let out a loud sigh of relief. Im not. Im done.
His acceptance of his impending demise and the peaceful feeling that came from it was rather abruptly interrupted by a brick to the face.
Are you shitting me!
- The fact Aziraphale's last name is "Crowley" coming back several chapters later.
- Ninety-two year old Sister Josephine, Patron Saint of Arse-kicking.
- Adam pulling two Your Mom lines to beings without such.
- How Crowley, Michael, and War enter HellCrowley cleared his throat. "HEY BELIAL!" he screamed at the floor, "LET ME IN, YOU BALL-LICKING ARSE-SUCKING BITCH, OR ARE YOU TOO BUSY 'CAUSE SATAN'S USING YOU FOR A SEX TOY AGAIN?
- From Chapter One:On High the Captain of the Host of the Lord, Patron Saint of Chivalry (one of two), Patron Saint of Warriors, He Whom the Holy Stick of the Lord Hath Had Up his Arse Since Before Time Beganeth*, Saint Michael the Archangel
- The responses to Zira's complete inability to act like a demon.Beelzebub: "That's it, he's not coming anywhere near my Hell."
- Crowley's hallucinated nightmares. They turn into what are essentially the worst types of fanfictions on the net. Everyone is Out of Character, established relationships were destroyed in order for new ones to spawn, Dream!Aziraphale was pregnant, and the poor demon wanted nothing more than to wake up out of that insanity.
- Even better, when he was arguing with Zira later, he tried to claim that the child was Anathema's. Then, Crowley admitted that part might have been a dream.
- After a kick causes Michael's breastplate to crack and fall open:Lucifer: At least you're wearing pants! I mean, I remember the old days where you all wore kilts and dresses! Who made up that dress code anyway? The Old Man was such a pervert!Michael: Oh, shut up! You always wore yours hitched up!Lucifer: And you always looked!Michael: Because you kept bending over in my face!Lucifer: How do you think I got to be His Second in the first place?Michael: You little slut!
Funny / Manchester Lost
Go To


text:
Preview Day 2 - Wizard of Oz Scarecrow
"If I only had a brain!"
The Wizard of Oz would have to be one of my favourite movies - even though I have only seen it a couple of times as a child and not once as an adult it is just one of the cult films that will stick with you for life and everyone seems to get it. So I asked Max if he could do some Zombie Wizard of Oz but they have turned in to normal WOO as they look fabulous this way.
Remember - Half of being smart is knowing what you are dumb at....!!!!


text:
Ed Steer this morning
posted on Jan 05, 2013 10:59AM
Golden Minerals is a junior silver producer with a strong growth profile, listed on both the NYSE Amex and TSX.
GoldCore: Gold in Manipulative Selloff? Nice New Year's Gift
"I'd just love to see what the COT structure looked like after Friday's trading day was done."
The engineered price decline in gold came to a halt less than half an hour before the noon London silver fix during their Friday morning...and the subsequent rally came to an end at the London p.m. gold fix...which was 10:00 a.m. Eastern time.
From there, the gold price got sold down a bit until about 11:35 a.m. in New York before resuming the rally...albeit at a much slower rate. Shortly after 3:00 p.m. the gold price jumped up a few more bucks, before trading sideways into the 5:15 p.m. electronic close.
Gold's low price tick of the day in London was around $1,625 spot...and the high tick of the day [$1,659.80 spot] came late in electronic trading in New York.
Gold finished the Friday session at $1,646.80 spot...down $7.00 from Thursday's close. Net volume was immense...around 230,000 contracts.
Of course it's always silver that JPMorgan et al are after...and they nailed it pretty good for the second day in a row. The actual low price tick [around 29.20 spot] came around 10:30 a.m. in London...the time of the a.m. gold fix. From there the silver price pattern pretty much followed the gold price pattern into the close of trading. And, like gold, silver's high print of the day [$30.38 spot] occurred in electronic trading just before the market closed.
Silver actually finished in the green at $30.18 spot...up 8 cents from Thursday's close. Volume was very heavy at around 72,000 contracts.
The dollar index opened at 80.50 on Thursday evening...and by 11:30 a.m. in London on their Friday morning, it had reached its high of the day, which was around 80.85. It hung in there at that value until just before 8:30 a.m. Eastern time...and then gave up all of those gains during the New York trading session that followed. The index closed almost where it started the day...at 80.49...down an eyelash from Thursday.
Not surprisingly, the gold stocks gapped down at the open...and spent most of the trading day down at least a percent. But the sharp rally in gold [and silver] shortly after 3:00 p.m. Eastern caused an equally impressive pop in the gold shares as well...and the HUI actually finished in positive territory...up 0.14%. Not a lot, to be sure, but better than the alternative.
With the odd exception, all the silver stocks finished in the green yesterday...but Nick Laird's Intraday Silver Sentiment Index only closed up the same amount as the HUI...0.14%...which I thought was rather strange.
(Click on image to enlarge)
The CME's Daily Delivery Report showed that 129 gold and zero silver contracts were posted for delivery on Tuesday from within the Comex-approved depositories. Merrill was the only short/issuer...and the lion's share [116 contracts] were stopped by the Bank of Nova Scotia and JPMorgan Chase. The link to yesterday's Issuers and Stoppers Report is here.
After the big withdrawal on Thursday, the GLD ETF showed that an authorized participant added 58,100 troy ounces of gold yesterday. Over at SLV, an authorized participant withdrew 628,824 ounces of silver.
The U.S. Mint had a sales report for the third day running. They sold 8,500 ounces of gold eagles...and another 1,500 one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes. For the first three days of the year, the mint has sold 65,000 ounce of gold eagles, along with 14,500 one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes.
In January of 2012 the mint sold 127,000 ounce of gold eagles...and 13,500 one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes. Based on mint sales to date, the January 2012 sales number should be beaten by quite a bit...and they already have in buffaloes. But it's still my opinion that most of these sales happened in December, but were shoved into January. And if I were an American citizen, I'd be buying 2013 silver eagles with both hands the moment they became available.
There was big activity over at the Comex-approved depositories on Thursday. They reported receiving 2,163,705 troy ounces of silver...and shipped 600,440 ounce of the stuff out the door. The link to all that activity is here.
The new Commitment of Trader Report came out yesterday at the usual time...and there were no surprises...and no big news. All the 'juice' will be in the next COT Report...as the engineered price decline began on Wednesday, the day after the cut-off for yesterday's report. As any long-term reader of this daily rant already knows, this is standard operating procedure for JPMorgan et al if they wish to hide their tracks for as long as possible.
In silver, the Commercial net short position declined by 1,372 contracts, or about 6.9 million ounces. Ted Butler says that it was pretty much all raptor buying during the reporting week...and that the 'Big 4' didn't change their positions by much. The Commercial net short position is now down to 226.7 million ounces.
The 'Big 4' bullion banks are short 239.8 million ounces of silver...which is 13.1 million ounces more than the entire Commercial net short position shown in the paragraph above. On a 'net' basis, these four traders are short 49.0% of the entire Comex futures market in silver...but the truth of the matter is that it's only two traders in the 'Big 4' bullion bank category that really matter...and they are JPMorgan Chase and the Bank of Nova Scotia. It's my guess that they are short about 45% of the entire Comex silver market all by themselves.
The '5 through 8' largest traders are short an additional 55.2 million ounces of silver...and on a 'net' basis are short an additional 11.3 percentage points of the entire Comex futures market in silver. Adding up the numbers, the 'Big 8' bullion banks are short a bit over 60% of the entire Comex silver market.
In gold, the Commercial net short position actually increased by 995 contracts, or 99,500 troy ounces...and now sits at 18.86 million ounces. The 'Big 4' bullion banks are short 11.81 million ounces of gold, which represents 33.3% of the entire Comex futures market on a 'net' basis. The '5 through 8' bullion banks are short an additional 5.01 million ounces. This represents 14.1% of the entire Comex gold market on a 'net' basis. The total for the 'Big 8' comes to 16.82 million ounces of gold...and 47.4% of the entire Comex gold market.
Here's Nick's most excellent "Days of World Production to Cover Short Positions" chart that shows 'all of the above' in graphic form...and the links to the historic [and interactive] COT Reports are here for silver...and here for gold. They take a while to load if you have an older browser.
(Click on image to enlarge)
Of course, this is all 'yesterday's news' as Ted Butler is wont to say...as the price action since the Tuesday Comex close has mostly relegated this last COT Report to the trash bin. I would love to have seen what a new COT report would have looked like if the cut-off was at the Comex close yesterday. I'm sure that with the big new low in silver...and the new low in gold...there were huge declines in the Commercial net short position in both metals, as the tech funds puked up their longs...and the Commercial traders covered short positions...and/or went long themselves.
I'll have more on this in 'The Wrap' section further down.
Since it's the weekend, I have more than the usual number of stories for your reading 'pleasure' today...and I hope you can find the time over what's left of your weekend to read the ones that interest you.
JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Bank of America Corp. won a delay of Dodd-Frank Act requirements that they wall off some derivatives trades from bank units backed by federal deposit insurance.
Commercial banks including the Wall Street firms may get as long as an additional two years -- until July 2015 -- to comply with the rules, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said in a notice yesterday. The so-called push-out provision was included in the 2010 financial-regulation law as a way to limit taxpayer support for risky derivatives trades.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and other regulators need to complete swap rules to allow "federal depository institutions to make well-informed determinations concerning business restructurings that may be necessary," the OCC said in the notice. Dodd-Frank requires that equity, some commodity and non-cleared credit derivatives be moved into separate affiliates without federal assistance.
Regulators including Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke had opposed the provision, saying it would drive derivatives to less-regulated entities. In February, the House Financial Services Committee approved with bipartisan support legislation that would let banks keep commodity and equity derivatives in insured units by removing part of the rule.
Well, dear reader, it's a good bet that if all of those listed above were opposed to it, it was probably in the best interests of the investing public. This story showed up on the Bloomberg website early yesterday afternoon...and I thank Manitoba reader Ulrike Marx for our first story of the day. The link is here.
Fed mouthpieces Bullard and Lacker are out in force [yesterday] morning talking the market back from the edge of yesterday's FOMC Minutes and reassuring us that the economy is going to be weak enough for a lot longer to justify the Fed's actions. However, right at the end of Jim Bullard's interview with CNBC's Steve Liesman, we got a glimpse of the reality behind the curtain as the St. Louis Fed president threw Bernanke under the purge-ry perjury bus.
Following a discussion of fiscal policy uncertainty and the need to carefully spend what money we have, Liesman jokingly commented to Bullard that it is "Easy for you to say, you have a lot of dollars to spend; you get to print them!" To which the now foot-in-mouth Bullard replied, "Aaahh; indeed we do."
This short piece, along with an embedded CNBC video clip, was posted on the Zero Hedge website yesterday...and I thank Matthew Nel for bringing it to our attention. The link is here.
Al Gore's Current TV was never popular with viewers, but it was a hit where it counted: with cable and satellite providers. When he co-founded the channel in 2005, Mr. Gore managed to get the channel piped into tens of millions of households — a huge number for an untested network — through a combination of personal lobbying and arm-twisting of industry giants.
He called on those skills again after deciding in December to sell Current TV to Al Jazeera for $500 million. To preserve the deal — and the estimated $100 million he would personally receive — he went to some of those same distributors, who were looking for an excuse to drop the low-rated channel, and reminded them that their contracts with Current TV called it a news channel. Were the distributors going to say that an American version of Al Jazeera didn't qualify, possibly invoking ugly stereotypes of the Middle Eastern news giant?
"The lawyers for the carriers couldn't find their way around it," said a person briefed on the negotiations who described them on condition of anonymity...and on Wednesday night, a deal was announced that will bring the Al Jazeera brand into at least 40 million homes in the United States. It will also make Mr. Gore, who is already estimated to be worth more than $100 million, an even richer man.
Gordon Gecko was probably right..."Greed is Good"...at least for the rich and well connected. This story was posted on The New York Times on Thursday...and it's Roy Stephens first offering of many in today's column. The link is here.
A federal judge issued a 75-page ruling on Wednesday that declares that the US Justice Department does not have a legal obligation to explain the rationale behind killing Americans with targeted drone strikes.
Siding with the defendants in what can easily be considered as cloaked in skepticism, Judge McMahon writes that the Obama White House has been correct in refusing the FOIA requests filed by the plaintiffs.
"There are indeed legitimate reasons, historical and legal, to question the legality of killings unilaterally authorized by the Executive that take place otherwise than on a 'hot' field of battle," McMahon writes in her ruling. Because her decision must only weigh whether or not the Obama administration has been right in rejecting the FOIA requests, though, her ruling cannot take into consideration what sort of questions — be it historical, legal, ethical or moral — are raised by the ongoing practice of using remote-controlled drones to kill insurgents and, in these instances, US citizens.
"The Alice-in-Wonderland nature of this pronouncement is not lost on me; but after careful consideration, I find myself stuck in a paradoxical situation in which I cannot solve a problem because of contradictory constraints and rules — a veritable Catch-22," she writes. "I can find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the Executive Branch of our Government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws, while keeping the reason for their conclusion a secret."
This article showed up on the Russia Today website early Thursday morning Moscow time...and is an absolute must read. I thank Roy Stephens for sending it...and the link is here.
These days, there are few things to admire about the socialist, bankrupt and culturally degenerating USA, but at least so far, one thing remains: the right to bear arms and use deadly force to defend one's self and possessions.
This will probably come as a total shock to most of my Western readers, but at one point, Russia was one of the most heavily armed societies on earth. This was, of course, when we were free under the Tsar. Weapons, from swords and spears to pistols, rifles and shotguns were everywhere, common items. People carried them concealed, they carried them holstered. Fighting knives were a prominent part of many traditional attires and those little tubes criss-crossing on the costumes of Cossacks and various Caucasian peoples? Well those are bullet holders for rifles.
Various armies, such as the Poles, during the Смута (Times of Troubles), or Napoleon, or the Germans even as the Tsarist state collapsed under the weight of WW1 and Wall Street monies, found that holding Russian lands was much, much harder than taking them and taking was no easy walk in the park but a blood bath all its own. In holding, one faced an extremely well armed and aggressive population Hell bent on exterminating or driving out the aggressor.
This well armed population was what allowed the various White factions to rise up, no matter how disorganized politically and militarily they were in 1918 and wage a savage civil war against the Reds. It should be noted that many of these armies were armed peasants, villagers, farmers and merchants, protecting their own. If it had not been for Washington's clandestine support of and for the Reds, history would have gone quite differently. [Emphasis mine. - Ed]
This is a must read for all Americans in general...and all students of the "New Great Game". Washington's support for the Communists during the revolution is covered in G. Edward Griffin's classic tome..."The Creature From Jekyll Island". It was posted on the pravda.ru Internet site on December 28th...and I thank reader U.D. for bringing it to our attention. The link is here.
Switzerland's oldest bank is to close after pleading guilty to helping some of the US's richest people evade paying taxes on at least $1.2bn (£750m) which was hidden in secret offshore accounts.
Wegelin, which was founded in 1741, said it would "cease to operate as a bank" after it admitted it had allowed 100 US taxpayers to hide their money.
The bank agreed to pay $57.8m in fines and restitution to the US authorities after admitting to conspiracy charges related to helping US taxpayers living overseas evade payments to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for almost a decade.
This short article showed up on the guardian.co.uk Internet site yesterday afternoon GMT...and I thank Swiss reader B.G. for sharing it with us. The link is here.
It's been a busy day at the market in downtown Volos. Angeliki Ioanitou has sold a decent quantity of olive oil and soap, while her friend Maria has done good business with her fresh pies.
But not a single euro has changed hands – none of the customers on this drizzly Saturday morning has bothered carrying money at all. For many, browsing through the racks of second-hand clothes, electrical appliances and homemade jams, the need to survive means money has been usurped.
"It's all about exchange and solidarity, helping one another out in these very hard times," enthused Ioanitou, her hair tucked under a floppy felt cap. "You could say a lot of us have dreams of a utopia without the euro."
This article was posted on The Guardian website early on Wednesday afternoon GMT...and it's courtesy of Marshall Angeles. The link is here.
Consider it a mea culpa submerged in a deep pool of calculus and regression analysis: The International Monetary Fund's top economist today acknowledged that the fund blew its forecasts for Greece and other European economies because it did not fully understand how government austerity efforts would undermine economic growth.
The new and highly technical paper looks again at the issue of fiscal multipliers – the impact that a rise or fall in government spending or tax collection has on a country's economic output.
That it comes under the byline of fund economic counselor and research director Olivier Blanchard is significant. Fund research is always published with the caveat that it represents the views of the researcher, not the institution itself. But this paper comes from the top, and attempts to put to rest an issue that has been at the center of debate about how fast countries should move in their efforts to tame large debts and deficits.
If fiscal multipliers are small, countries can cut spending faster or raise more in taxes without much short-term damage. If they are large, then the process can become self-defeating, at least in the short run, with each dollar of government spending cuts, for example, costing the economy more than a dollar in lost output and thus actually increasing debt-to-GDP ratios.
They didn't need to publish a fancy research paper to prove that. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has been saying that for as long as I can remember...and he's certainly not alone in that department. The IMF now has a keen grasp of the obvious. Let's see what they do now. I thank Ulrike Marx for her second story in today's column. It appeared on The Washington Post's website during the Thursday lunch hour...and the link is here.
The International Monetary Fund, at long last, has begun to open up. Gone are the days when it acted as a handmaiden of Western, mainly US, economic orthodoxy. It is even throwing a gauntlet down to the mighty US Federal Reserve, questioning the effects its constant monetary boosting has had on the rest of the world.
Given that the IMF is the key arbiter on many key issues of global finance and economics, and hence also over global fairness and equity, the change should be greatly welcomed. Over the past decade, the reform debate had centred mainly on giving emerging market economies more voting power, by commensurably reducing the voting shares of the "rich" world.
Given the global economic dynamics, the adjustment was of course long overdue. One clear indication is that the IMF's senior-level staff members have become much less American and less European. But now, the first substantive consequence of these shifts are beginning to emerge.
This story appeared on the asianewsnet.net Internet site yesterday...and international capital controls are discussed. It's worth your time, if you have it...and it's also Ulrike Marx's third offering in today's column. The link is here.
The end will justify the means to unite the Islamic peoples into a world of virtue and prosperity to where the Muslim Brotherhood says that it will bring them. Egypt is their launching platform. The entire Islamic world is their objective.
If they were running for office in the United States or any European country on their economic platform of job creation, the sanctity of private property, and a social safety net, they will likely win. It all sounds perfect. Then, you learn that you have just voted for the Muslim Brotherhood.
Members of the movement come from the upper levels of Egyptian society. They are the businessmen, doctors, university professors, military officers, and other professionals. Over their eighty four year history, they have infiltrated every area of government, education, and industry.
If its economic policies are all there is about the movement, it would pose no threat in the public mind. What does frighten so many is the secrecy that shields the organization from scrutiny and the negative propaganda spread by worried authoritarian regimes. Under such circumstances, it is understandable that the attacks by various governments would have forced the Brotherhood to protect itself beneath a cloak of secrecy.
Roy Stephens sent me this essay...and it's another must read for students of the "New Great Game". It was posted over at the oilprice.com Internet site on Wednesday...and the link is here.
Tensions between the United Arab Emirates and the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest Islamist movement, do not appear to be easing in the new year.
On January 1, Emirati newspaper Al Khaleej reported that authorities in the Gulf state had arrested 10 members of an Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood cell. "The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has conducted many courses and lectures for the members of the secret organisation regarding the election and the ways of changing regimes in Arab countries," the paper said.
The suspects are accused of holding "secret meetings" in the Emirates, recruiting "Egyptian expats in the UAE to join their ranks", and raising "large amounts of money which they sent illegally to the mother organisation in Egypt". The article also alleged that the suspects collected classified information regarding matters of UAE defence.
So, the game has obviously already begun...and it's another must read for students of the "New Great Game". Not surprisingly, it's another offering from Roy Stephens...and it was posted on the france24.com Internet site yesterday. The link is here.
Japan is in dire straits. Its economy recently entered its fifth economic recession in 15 years, and Beijing's claims to the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands proved more serious and costly last year than in any other time since the end of the Second World War. In addition, the recovery effort following the disastrous earthquake and tsunami in 2011 remains a monumental administrative and economic burden. Despite these daunting challenges, the political environment in Japan has been plagued by endemic indecision.
The result of the December general elections revealed that the hope invested by the electorate in the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has been exhausted. Since taking power in 2009, the DPJ's greatest accomplishment was arguably the deal between the Yoshihiko Noda administration and the now-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to double the consumption tax in exchange for an early election.
Despite the mandate that Shinzo Abe and the LDP won in the House of Representatives as a result of that early election (taking 294 seats out of 480), the fundamental problem that rendered the past three DPJ administrations ineffective remains in place.
This essay was posted on the Asia Times website early Saturday morning in Hong Kong...and it's also courtesy of Roy Stephens. The link is here.
The United States and China have completed their respective leadership transitions. Now the two powers can begin developing their ever-transforming relationship in an atmosphere of (relative) domestic political stability. Last year brought about important changes to the Sino-American dynamic - most notably the US's much-heralded "pivot" to Asia. The Chinese leadership is increasingly vocal regarding perceived US interference in China's strategic front yard. The major trends in the relationship will continue in 2013, although there are some potentially destabilizing developments afoot.
The US military "pivot" towards Asia, and American backing for Japan in the territorial dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands are causing serious and open strains.
Compounding these new sources of tension is a longest-standing disagreement over American weapons sales to the government of Taiwan. The stage is set for a period of increasing - and increasingly open - confrontation between the United States and China in 2013.
Another must read for all students of the "New Great Game"...and my thanks to Roy Stephens once again. It was posted on the Asia Times website early Saturday morning as well...and the link is here.
On New Year's Day, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for a "radical" economic renewal for his country and an end to decades of conflict with South Korea. Now, a German media report says he is moving quickly to fulfill at least the first pledge.
According to an article to be published on Saturday by the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the communist regime in Pyongyang is preparing to open up the country's economy to foreign investors. Moreover, it has enlisted the assistance of German economists and lawyers to lay the groundwork for the move.
"There is a master plan," one of the economists involved in the plan told the paper. "They want to open up this year." The FAZ did not identify the economist, but noted that he works at a respected German university and that he had advised other governments in Asia in the past.
This short article was posted on the German website spiegel.de yesterday...and I thank Roy once again for sharing it with us. The link is here.
3-D printing technology, used industrially for the last few decades, is poised to break into the mass market. Its endless and swiftly developing possibilities -- from entrepreneurial manufacturing to the potential sculpting of human organs -- could become the next industrial revolution.
When the TV series Star Trek first brought the starship Enterprise into German living rooms, the concept of a replicator was pure science fiction, a fantastical utopian vision we might experience one day centuries in the future. Replicators, something of a mixture between computer and miniature factory, were capable of creating food and replacement parts from next to nothing. They were highly practical devices, since Captain Kirk couldn't exactly take along a lot of supplies for his journeys through outer space. That futuristic vision, though, has receded far into the past -- overtaken by the present.
The real-world replicator-like technology poised to revolutionize the world is known as 3-D printing, though that term is misleading, since the process has little to do with printing. Three-dimensional printers can be as small as a suitcase or as large as a telephone booth, depending on the object they are meant to faithfully replicate from a 3-D computer blueprint. Inside the machine, the product is assembled by stacking extremely thin layers of material on top of one another, sort of like reassembling an apple that has been cut into super-fine slices.
I've been following this technology for a while...and had a hard time believing it, even when I saw it. But, it's the real deal. This fascinating 2-page essay about it appeared on the spiegel.de Internet site yesterday...and I thank Roy Stephens for digging it up on our behalf. The link is here.
The first is with James Turk...and it's headlined "A Black Swan Event, Global Monetary Reset & Chaos". The next blog is with Art Cashin. It bears the title "2013 Predictions, Warnings & Outlook". Lastly is this interview with Eric Sprott...and it's entitled "Fed has no Exit Plan & There is no Exit"
I can't believe the number of readers that sent me this story over the last few days. This has gone viral on the Internet...and it's being talked about even in a lot of main stream media outlets that normally wouldn't touch this sort of thing with a 20-foot barge pole.
Is it for real? I wouldn't bet a nickel on it...and I have no idea what's in the Kool-Aid everyone is drinking, as it sounds like b.s. to me...but it has developed a life of its own. If there was a grain of truth to all this, the platinum price would have blown sky high already...which it hasn't. I have four stories on this...and they're linked here, here, here...and here. And once you've read them, take two blue pills and call me in the morning.
Gold plunged over 3 percent yesterday after the release of FOMC minutes, which revealed that several members of the Fed wanted to end QE3 by the end of 2013.
Now, Dennis Gartman, publisher of The Gartman Letter, writes that gold bugs who have operated on the thesis that the Fed has lost control of money supply are in tatters.
"Commodity prices are falling and in some instances are falling quite sharply. Clearly that is the case with gold, for the minutes of the FOMC's last meeting have shaken the hopes of the most violent "Gold Bugs" malevolently, and have shaken our gold position rather materially. We are, however, rather nicely insulated from the real damage being done to the simplistic gold bugs who have owned and who still own gold predicated upon their thesis that the Fed has lost control of the money supply. That thesis is now in tatters... or at least has been very badly torn in the past twenty four hours... following the single sentence from the Fed's minutes noted at length above.
Dennis, the full moon was on December 28th. I can't believe anyone takes this guy seriously when he's talking about anything...especially gold. He, like Jon Nadler and Jeff Christian, have been mostly bearish all the way up during this 12-year bull market in the precious metals. He's very familiar with GATA's work...and knows better. If there ever was a contrarian indicator, Mr. Gartman's comments surely fit the bill. You should be buying with both hands when he's talking trash like this.
This article, if you can bear to read it, was posted on the businessinsider.com Internet site yesterday morning Eastern time...and I thank Roy Stephens for his final offering in today's column. The link is here.
Jim Sinclair wrote to a Comrade in Golden Arms yesterday:
"Have you ever considered how bad it must be out there if the Fed and gold banks are working so hard to paint gold bearish and the U.S. dollar bullish? It must be fundamentally the worst of the various economic crises in my more than 50 years in gold.
"There has never been this level of effort on all fronts to discredit gold. That must reflect the dire condition of the balance sheets of the Western world's financial industry. Anyone with eyes in their head can see this move has been contrived. In my opinion profit on the short side is a secondary motive."
I found this commentary in a GATA release yesterday. Sinclair's commentary is headlined "Jim's Mailbox" and it's posted at JSMineSet here.
Turkey's gold exports rose nearly 800 percent last year on the back of soaring sales to Iran and the trade will continue, despite tightening U.S. sanctions on Tehran, Turkey's economy minister said on Friday.
Turkish gold exports rose to $12.7 billion in the first eleven months of 2012 compared to the $1.47 billion exported in the whole of the previous year, Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan told a briefing in Istanbul.
Around half of the exports - $6.5 billion worth - went to Iran, while $4.2 billion went to the United Arab Emirates. Turkey exported just $54 million worth of gold to Iran in 2011.
This very short must read Reuters story was filed from Istanbul yesterday morning around 10:30 a.m. Eastern time. I thank Ulrike Marx for her final contribution to today's column...and the link is here.
Friday's commentary by GoldCore in Dublin notes the usual counterintuitive action with the gold price and raises the possibility of market manipulation.
"Bullion banks with large concentrated short positions," GoldCore says, "are using the pretext of the Federal Reserve minutes to manipulate the price lower, both to profit and to allow them to close out their significant short positions at more advantageous prices and possibly even go long.
...Gold has broken below the December low of $1,635/oz and below the 50-, 100-, and 200-day moving averages. However, technical analysis should be ignored in favour of fundamental analysis given that there are strong grounds for suspecting that the gold and silver markets are subject to manipulation by certain banks in the same way that interest rates were in the LIBOR manipulation."
I didn't see attribution given to Ted Butler [or GATA] in this article...as I'm sure he didn't come up with the words "large concentrated short positions" on his own.
But, he's speaking the unvarnished truth...so I guess we should be grateful for that. This commentary was posted over at the goldcore.com Internet site yesterday...and it's a must read. I found it embedded in a GATA release yesterday...and the link is here.
|Sponsor Advertisement
Aben Resources (TSX.V: ABN) is a Canadian gold and silver exploration company with a focus on developing properties in the Yukon and Northwest Territories. The Company owns a 100% interest in the 18,314 acre Justin Gold Project located in SE Yukon. A 2,020 metre diamond drill program was carried out in 2011 to test never before drilled zones. Aben made a significant new greenfields gold discovery when it intercepted 60m of 1.19 g/t Au in hole JN11009 at the POW Zone. Additionally, a new high grade silver-copper zone was discovered at the Kangas Zone with hole JN11003 returning 1.07m of 7320 g/t Ag (234 oz/ton) and 3.52% Cu. Aben carried out an aggressive exploration and drill program in 2012 to follow up on the initial discoveries. The first drill hole in 2012, JN12011, returned 46.4m of 1.49 g/t Au and extended the gold mineralization at the discovery zone 85 metres laterally. The Company has four other prospective Yukon and NWT projects in its portfolio along with a seasoned management and geological team. Aben's chairman, Ron Netolitzky, is credited with exploration success on numerous properties including three Western Canadian gold and silver projects which became producing mines. Please visit our website to learn more about the company and request information.
An idea not coupled with action will never get any bigger than the brain cell it occupied. - Arnold H. Glasow
I've got a couple of musical selections for you today...starting off with an 8-year old trumpet-playing prodigy. Here he is blowing a medley of old Herb Alpert tunes...and he sounds just like him, too. This kid is definitely going places...and once his physical size catches up to his playing ability...look out. It's posted over at the wimp.com Internet site...and it's courtesy of Roy Stephens. The link is here.
Going back a lot further in time is this short piano piece by French composer Claude Debussy. He started the composition on the suite that contains this work back in 1890, but he didn't finish or publish it until 1905...and this piece is the third movement of that suite. This as good a recording of this work as you will find anywhere...and you should know it straight away. It's posted on the youtube.com Internet site...and the link is here.
Without doubt, JPMorgan Chase et al managed to flush out a lot more of the technical fund long positions yesterday, as they hit new lows for both gold and silver for this move down. Although they're after as many of the technical fund long holders they can get in all the metals, it's more than obvious...as it has always been...that silver is the metal that always gets pounded the hardest.
Below are the 2-year charts for both gold and silver to put this last 30-day price move in both metals into a longer-term perspective and, as Ted Butler said once again on the phone yesterday..."Are they done to the downside yet???" Nobody knows, but we came a giant step closer with the early price action on Friday. The big surprise for me was that "da boyz" didn't press their advantage in the New York trading session.
And as I mentioned in my discussion on the COT Report, I'd just love to see what the COT structure looked like after Friday's trading day was done...because without doubt, it would look totally different than it did in the report from Tuesday's cut-off.
(Click on image to enlarge)
(Click on image to enlarge)
From a technical viewpoint, I really liked the 'positive hammers' that yesterday's price action painted on the charts above. But, as I've mentioned on many occasions in this space, the bullion banks can read these charts as well...and can paint any pattern they want when necessary.
But whenever the 'bottom' arrives, it always boils down to what JPMorgan et al will do on the subsequent rally. Will they become the short sellers of last resort once again...like they've been doing for 25 years...or will they stand there with their hands in their pockets, or maybe do some short covering themselves? What they do...and only what they do...will determine how high we go in price...and how fast we get there, once that day arrives.
That pretty much covers what I have to say for the day...and the week. I hope you had the opportunity to 'buy the dip' as I suggested...and if we go lower from here, you should be buying that dip as well. I certainly will be.
See you on Tuesday.


text:
This blog talks about ideas that catch my fancy: TED talks, books (including TED Book Club selections), movies (especially Hot Docs documentaries), travel, and other interesting things I read or hear about.
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
The Pope's Bookbinder
While I share Mason's passion for books and enjoyed the insight into how the rare and antiquarian book business was conducted, I did find Mason's personality rather tedious over the course of the book. He was clearly a bitter and vindictive opponent for those who opposed him, launching both legal threats and public vituperation. While it would be fascinating to talk about books with him, I can't imagine actually liking him very much, and over 500 pages is a long time to spend with someone you don't really like.
The biggest thing I learned about antiquarian bookselling was duh obvious once you think of it. Since you can't just order in the inventory for a new store, you have to collect for quite a while before you have the stock to open a store. Some people do this in their homes until they reach critical mass, others start as sub-stores within bigger stores. Booksellers can be quite generous in mentoring newcomers, and it helps that often the sub-store might have a different speciality than the main store, eliminating competition.
The book rambles on with many delightful anecdotes about people and books so it has the air of Mason just sitting there telling you stories. It's rather loosely connected in chapters. I was surprised to read it actually had an editor, as it's full of redundancies, references to people who haven't been introduced yet, and grammatical errors.
"Hm", you might say as you read this review. "She really hated the book. How did she ever get to the end?" Well, for one, I find it almost impossible to not finish a book I've started. Secondly, I have to admit that sniping anecdotes and acid descriptions of people can be entertaining to read when you aren't the target. And lastly, I kept thinking I might bump into a mention of my friend Mark Seltzer in the book.
Mark was a delightful guy I worked with many years ago at I.P. Sharp. Mark was a talented programmer, but he and his wife Marilyn Chan (also in technology) would work just long enough to support an extended exotic trip somewhere in the world. Mark probably wrung more flights out of the Aeroplan program than anyone else on the planet; he's even quoted in this New York Times article about how to be clever about airline points. Mark's other - related - passion was collecting old and rare travel books. I remember him describing a meandering six-month trip through Africa, where he and Marilyn carried only a back pack each. When I suggested that wasn't much space for clothes for six months, Mark retorted that the backpack was more than half full of travel guides. Such were Mark's priorities.
One day back in the early 80s, Mark and I spend a day walking along Queen Street from University to Spadina, where the Toronto antiquarian book stores were concentrated. Mark knew all the booksellers and had chats with everyone and that day is still a marvellous highlight of my life experiences. I'm guessing Mason's store was one of those we visited, and I thought Mark might appear in the pages of this book. Mark seldom left a store without buying something, which explained why every wall in his and Marilyn's home was covered with book shelves.
But the piece de resistance was his basement. As you walked past a world map with stick pins for the incredible number of places they'd visited, you entered a mesmerizing world. The floor was covered with shelving units that you could barely walk between without turning sideways. Filled with fascinating old books about travel and travel guides. I could have spent days in there browsing.
Being a technology guy, Mark was one of the early adopters of e-commerce and had started to sell and trade his books online from that basement back in the 90s. One day, Mark told me he finally had the stock assembled to open his own antiquarian book store and become a full-time bookseller. I was overjoyed for him. However, barely a couple of months later that dream was shattered when Marilyn and Mark were lost in a sudden storm while kayaking on Pond Inlet, one of their favourite places. They were travelling with other friends Rosemary Waterston and Phil King, and the harrowing story of their last days is here.
I often think of Mark and remember what a fascinating, smart, generous person he was and mourn his passing. And I wonder what happened to that fabulous collection of books. After reading The Pope's Bookbinder, I have a greater appreciation of the destiny of such collections, and I hope he had thoughtfully willed those books to a place that would appropriately care for them.
Just as Mark and Marilyn were lost in the sudden Arctic storm near Pond Inlet, antiquarian bookselling is doubtless doomed by the storm of electronic books. Mason describes how used book stores form the base of the pyramid for the rare book business - the place where 'scouts' find 'sleepers' of great value. With the disappearance of used book stores as so many move to e-books, it's hard to see how this little patch of nirvana - at least to book lovers - is going to survive.
Posted by Lib Gibson at 9:16 AM
Labels: antiquarian books, bookselling, David Mason, Mark Seltzer, Pond Inlet, rare books, The Pope's Bookbinder, travel books, used books
No comments:
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


text:
ACTS Program: An adult retreat experience which seeks to deepen one's faith and relationship with God and with a community of fellow believers. ACTS stands for adoration, community, theology, and service. ACTS Amarillo Website: https://actsamarillo.org/
Beginning Experience: A weekend retreat for anyone who has lost a spouse, due to death, divorce or permanent seperation. Beginning Experience Website: bdrc.org/beginningexperience. Or email at firstname.lastname@example.com
Cursillo: Begins with a 72 hour encounter with Christ. It is a means of deepening ones relationship with Christ and living it out within a community of fellow believers. Available in Spanish.
Marriage Encounter: A weekend experience for married couples that emphasizes communication between husband and wife. It teaches a nonjudgmental approach to communication. The weekend also provides the couple time together away from daily distractions to concentrate on each other. http://meamarillo.org
Retrouvaille: A weekend retreat for couples experiencing difficulty in their marriage. Peers minister to those who are hurting and provide them with examples and tools to deal with their marital situation. http://www.HelpOur Marriage.com.
Engaged Encounter: A weekend experience where couples planning marriage have the time, together, to concentrate on each other. It is designed to give couples an opportunity to dialogue intensively and honestly about their future life together. http://amarillodiocese.org/engaged-encounter
Day of Recollection: The retreat center is able to host or facilitate a day of prayer for any parish group (ex. Altar Society, Parish Council, Staff Members, etc) By prior arrangement.
Quiet Day(s) of Personal Prayer: Individuals are invited to spend an hour, day, weekend, or week in solitude, reflection, and prayer here at the retreat center. Meals and overnight lodgings can be provided. By prior arrangement.
Directed Retreat: Individuals are able to spend a couple of days, weekend, or week in prayer and reflection. Each day the individual meets with a qualified retreat director who accompanies the person on their spiritual journey during the time of retreat. By prior arrangement.
Spiritual Direction: A ministry of accompanying a person on his/her faith journey. A qualified spiritual director meets with an individual to listen, reflect, pray, and discern together how God is working in the person's life. Spiritual direction is a means to deepen one's relationship with God and is not counseling. Contact Linda Astuto for an appointment. (806) 383-1811
**The Bishop DeFalco Retreat Center also hosts a wide range of other programs.


text:
Today's Students — Tomorrow's Leaders
Supporting NYC public school students is supporting the future of our city.
Our Mission
The Fund for Public Schools has consistently and rigorously dedicated itself to supporting New York City's public schools since 1982.
Equity & Excellence for All
By 2026, 80% of our students should graduate high school on time, and college and career ready so that they are prepared to become contributing citizens and leaders of NYC. To that end, The Fund's work supports three key areas:
Academic Excellence
Supporting the DOE's work to meet diverse needs in ensuring every student is college and career ready.
Providing seed funding that allows schools and educators the flexibility and resources they need.
Student & Community Support
Sustaining the whole child, as well as their family, on their academic, social, and emotional journey.


text:
Do you want to work for a global brand that is well known and respected in it's field?
Then good news, because we are supporting our client in their search for a SuccessFactors Solution Architect to join them on a permanent basis.
As the SuccessFactors Solution Architect, you will play a key role in the company's transition from SAP HCM to cloud-based SuccessFactors. The successful candidate will support each Project Manager within the HR Programme Team to follow up in the project setup and be responsible for approving functional as well as technical designs.
To be successful in your application, you will have:
- Excellent working knowledge of SuccessFactors
- Clear, concise communication with a positive attitude towards work
- Experience in delivering ERP projects/programmes in a fast paced environment
- Understanding of SAP Cloud platform.
The package includes but is not limited to:
- Excellent salary
- Car allowance
- 25 days holiday
- Flexible working hours
- Annual bonus of up to 10%
If you are interested and have the relevant experience within SuccessFactors, please apply to this advert or call David Rolls on 0207 107 7656!