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I'm trying to take that convey strong emotional feelings, and I would like to know whether there is any particular color scheme or type of picture that would convey a feeling of power and/or splendor.
Very context dependant:
Knowing he more specific context(s) would help.
Note that "string emotional feelings" and "splendour" would not be a marvellously good match to many people. You may need to better convey what you want to achieve.
To some extent, as others have noted, "power" and "splendor" do mean different things to different people. But to some extent, we do mean more or less the same thing by them, or we wouldn't mostly use the same words to discuss what we mean.
Here are a few composition tips that can give a sense of power or splendor.
(1) Physical largeness speaks to power, so filling the frame with your subject is better than having it at a distance and small.
(2) Shooting from below, looking up at the subject (a [worm's eye view]1) also implicitly depicts the viewer as lower and perhaps smaller than the subject, conveying a sense of the largeness or highness of the subject.
(3) Strong contrast, as noted above, conjures a sense of dynamism and strength. Vivid colors lend themselves to this, I would believe, although low-key colors wouldn't necessarily be counterproductive. It would depend on the mood you want to create, I would think. A splendid think might also be languid, or old, for instance - and pale colors can convey either of those.
(4) The pose and attitude of the subject are also important. Sprawling on the floor doesn't scream splendor, except maybe a dissipated or languid splendor; likewise, teddy bears are going to be hard pressed to seem powerful or splendid in any circumstance. On the other hand, though, a bride in elegant dress and with grave (but not somber) expression will come across as very splendid or dignified. Shot from a low angle, she could even seem powerful - think of a fairy-tale snow queen. An odd wedding photo, but maybe what you're looking for. I would avoid anything that could be construed as cute or cozy (contrary to powerful) and anything that could be trendy or chic (because these don't speak to the timelessness we feel in the present of much that we usually consider splendor).
Well, those are the thoughts that come to mind for now, thinking of the pictures I've seen or shot of things like big trees, business executives, cathedrals, and the such that we might describe as powerful or splendid.
Hope it helps!
I think it is more about the context of the image. Take a look at any "most powerful images for year 20xx" and you will see the context and how it plays the part. For example, a little girl crying with the destructive path of a tornado in the background would evoke certain emotions from most people.
Another example would be after the recent Haiti earthquakes, this story emerged. Obviously these images(both of them) convey strong emotional feelings.
This is a tough one, and I'm no expert. Usually I think of nature and beautiful waterfalls or majestic scenes. I would try to capture the scene free of people, and very calm if possible. I would try to get the most vivid coloring possible, or potentially any warm colors.


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PlayOn/Roku LT Combo for $79.99
Watch Hulu, CBS.com, MLB.tv, Netflix, and more
From the site: "Buy a PlayOn Lifetime license and get a free Roku LT. Replace your cable and your DVR for a one-time cost of only $79.99. How does it work? When you buy a Lifetime license for PlayOn we'll send you a free Roku or an Amazon Gift Card for the value of a Roku LT*. It's that simple. Get in on this deal today. "
"Buy a lifetime bundle of PlayOn + PlayLater and get a free Roku 2 XD. Replace your cable and your DVR for a one time cost of only $129.99. How does it work? When you buy the PlayOn+PlayLater Lifetime Bundle we'll include a gift card good for the value of a Roku 2 XD* from Amazon.com. You can use that card to buy a Roku 2 XD, or apply it toward the higher-end Roku 2 XS. It's that simple."
I already have playon it's a pretty good service.
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I'm not sure I understand the Benefit
I can currently play Hulu Plus, Netlflix, Youtube, Pandora, etc on my TV through my Roku without Playon. I can play them on my Iphone and Andriod with nothing else (Except I can not get Hulu Plus on my Galaxy Tab)
So why do I need PlayOn? What will it do for me that I'm not aware of. Seems it uses your computer to put these same channels on my TV that I already have on my TV. I'm just not getting it....
@kelliedn: I suggest trying the 2 week free trial of playon and see how much it offers. Hundreds of online networks. I've had it for over 3 years and there is more than I could watch in a lifetime. I love having access to all of their services. They have scripts to add many, many websites/channels. If you forget to watch something and don't have a dvr (like me), most shows are available the next day. Most of my friends who have tried it, keep it and cancel their cable before the trial is over. Keep in mind you need fairly fast internet access. I love streaming my own media through the interface. The only real downside is if you are big on sports you may another service(cable/satellite) for those. I haven't paid a TV provider for over 6 years. Has allowed me to use the money for other things.
I agree with @oscaroni, try the trial if your not sure. There are hundreds of channels available through playon and most aren't on any of the services you mentioned. And as a side note playon streams hulu, so you don't need hulu plus.
@oscaroni: Thanks, I think I'll do that. I don't have cable anymore, only high speed internet and I love my Roku. If I could love my Roku more, that would be something! I'll check it out.
I wonder if I can request the Amazon card rather then a new Roku as I have Roku's at both my TV's now.
Ok, downloaded the trial and I think I'm sold
Basically CURRENT TV shows like what's on Hulu Plus, but I can pay ONE time and have it forever...for 79.99 which is like 10 months of HULU PLUS? Looks like it doesn't have everything but I think it's looking good for me.
Thanks!! Off to cancel Hulu Plus!!! Only thing is, doesn't look like it has a user queue...oh well.
Okay, that's it, I'm sold. I can now watch ALL my stuff and more on my Galaxy Tab. thank you so much for posting this. Now I hope I can request the Amazon card instead of the Roku.
(and in case anyone didn't notice the timing...it took me less then a half hour to download, set up and start watching on both my Roku and my Tab. Easy Peasy set up and interface)
This is not sanctioned nor promoted by the folks at Roku, they know nothing about it, and the PlayOn channel is still banned from the store and forums. Once again PlayOn is using someone else to promote their product without that other company's knowledge, making money off others work.
PlayOn is a rip-off. They are underhanded and make their money off the work of others. They steal copyrighted video from the websites of the folks who produce and publish it without their knowledge or consent, and they make money off of it by fleecing you, the user. There are so many updates to the software due to the fact that they need to keep finding work arounds for the protections of those sites.
PlayOn is a parasite. IMHO.
Imagine you produce an incredible video, and rely on revenue from that video or ads on your site, now along comes PlayOn and allows users to download, transcode, and display or serve it, bypassing your copyright, ad revenue and rights.
Avoid this.
I have it directly from Roku staff that this is not sanctioned nor promoted by Roku. PlayOn is still banned from the forums and store. The parasites over at PlayOn, in a desperate attempt to make money, probably bought a bunch of these from Woot or another site and are giving them away so they can use the Roku brand name to promote their product.
The private, user created PlayOn channel is buggy and continually fails, right now it is having audio issues. The PlayOn forums say it is a Roku "BUG", however since the PlayOn channel is not supported by Roku at all and is banned, that would mean it is not a bug, and there is no support from Roku for it. Good luck on getting support for it from PlayOn, since they just blame Roku.
Avoid this deal.
I would hope (not fact) that the Roku legal department looks into this.
What are you talking about @y0himba? As far as I've seen Playon doesn't stop pre-roll, mid-roll or post-roll ads. More or less the only reason the product is needed is because some sites detect PS3, Boxee, Ruku, etc and refuse to serve the same content they would serve a computer. I'm not shedding a tear over that.
@y0himba: Do you go around to every single website you can find doing this? Is this the job the cable companies gave you since they are now losing $100 per month for each person who says "forget those high ridiculous bills"
I did a little search and I see you post this EVERYWHERE with the same name. And YOU are the only one that I can see who does.
Comparing my Hulu account and my Hulu plus accout (different emails and accounts), there are some major differences besides just being able to stream to my TV.
Many of the shows I watch, the episodes come out much sooner on Hulu Plus, and many of them don't expire, or take a long time to expire, whereas on regular Hulu most of them appear to be expiring soon.
Some shows that I haven't watched yet on my Hulu Plus account are expired on the other account. I will have to do some serious catching up if I want to cancel Hulu Plus and use Playon....so I'm going to sit on it for a bit. Being a single mom, it's not always easy to watch TV whenever I want.
But, this does sound like a good idea overall, and, some of these shows may be avaialbe on Playon through the Network, I'll have to check....
*edited to say, nope, not available from the Networks either. They have about what Hulu (regular) has
I got my lifetime license back when PlayOn was still in beta. I've never regretted it. It's very convenient to be able to stream all the services it offers. I don't use it for Netflix since that already streams on everything but it let's me watch Hulu and many other "channels" on my Xbox. What's really awesome is that it let's me watch everything on my phone too when I'm away from home.
@kelliedn: You can setup your user profiles so that they automatically log you in. I subscribe to video channels (TED, Science, etc.) on YouTube and watch them on my TV.
I have not used PlayOn, but in response to y0himba it seems that since you have to log in to your account on the Roku site to get the private channel, that Roku is aware of it and they could refuse to host the channel if they saw something wrong with it. Am I correct?
Also wondering if you get Hulu Plus content or just the regular Hulu content and if you can get a lot of content in hi-def with PlayOn?
@bitterpoet: Me too! Best $40 I ever spent. Not only can you watch it on your phone, but I have android on my Nook Color and use it while I'm working. I use my work PC for, well, work - but have the nook setup right by it and can watch/listen to documentaries without sacrificing space on my monitor.
@motytrah: I agree. I have my PS3 hardwired to my router and never get buffering , plus I use the fast-forward feature to zip through "network sponsored" ads.
..and I will continue to voice my opinion on any site. I PMed a staff member at the Roku forums, giving him the link to PlayOn's "deal". I asked him if this deal was sanctioned by Roku, and if PlayOn was now allowed in the channel store or on the forums, if they were "playing nice". He told me specifically, No and No.
This company makes money by selling a product that uses the copyrighted content of others without permission or license. That is fact. Roku wants nothing to do with them, that is fact. Roku cannot control private channels that users choose to load, but they do not support the channel, that is fact. PlayOn is banned from the channel store and from even being mentioned on the forums at Roku, that is fact.
The deal here is just another attempt by PlayOn to attach itself to a product that it has no license or right to, using Roku's brand name without permission to pedal it's software. Fact.
PlayOn, pirating and the like give Companies good cause for using DRM.
@kelliedn: PlayOn will let you stream regular Hulu content if you don't have a Hulu Plus account.
PlayOn will also stream several channels of content you otherwise AFAIK cannot get on Roku, listed here: http://www.playon.tv/content-channels
The reason I got this deal was that PlayOn will also transcode any media files on your computer and stream them to the Roku. There are probably other ways to do this, but this seemed like one of the easiest and given the other features, it's well worth the price.
Also, PlayOn can make your media library accessible from anywhere and for many devices, which is nice.
Does PlayOn have to run through a computer and then through the roku, or is it straight through my roku? Having to go through the computer is the only thing holding me back on this(if that's how it works).
@y0himba: I don't know how you come up with this piracy claim.
I bought this deal as a gift so I haven't used the setup too much, but I know that it doesn't strip all, if any ads. I can't honestly say for sure that it doesn't strip ads, but for Hulu content I know the ads remain. For the stuff that doesn't have ads, I don't know if it had ads to begin with. I've never seen it strip ads that I expected to get.
All PlayOn really does is take content that I can watch for free legally and legitimately on my computer and make it accessible on other platforms. I can hook up my laptop to my TV with a VGA cable and get all of this content. PlayOn is just more convenient.
@nchittenden: It runs as a server on your computer and serves the media you choose to your Roku and other devices.
@kelliedn: I can say I agree with this. PlayOn streams local media to your devices quite easily, although since Plex added DLNA, streams and transcodes more formats, and is free I prefer it.
@nchittenden: PlayOn does run on a computer because for certain content it is transcoding the media, so it needs more power than the Roku has.
The content it is pulling in won't natively play on the Roku, so if you want a Roku, this is your best bet. Also in general I think this is your cheapest option.
They give you an Amazon gift card by default which was awesome for me because I won a Roku in a raffle after I bought the PlayOn deal but before I bought the Roku.
Thanks for the help, that's how I thought it went. Don't want to burn up my laptop streaming this though. Roku itself was a great investment for me just for mlb.tv
If you just want to stream content from your computer to your Roku I can't say enough good things about Plex. Plex is free, will stream a wide range of content including .avi and .mkv, and works great. When you add content to your PC, Plex has agents that look up the metadata for the TV show or movie, and get the cover art and plot synopsis. It's not perfect, but it is the best solution I have found.
@jebuswankel: I'm aware of that
I was considering that this would be better then paying monthly for my Hulu Plus account, but Hulu Plus is still better because it has the shows earlier, keeps them long and has more shows. If I cancel my Hulu Plus account I will use some programming is all I was saying. I don't want to have to keep Hulu Plus AND pay for the Playon Subscription if I don't have to, but it looks like I will if I want to keep certain features.
@jebuswankel: "They give you an Amazon gift card by default which was awesome for me because I won a Roku in a raffle after I bought the PlayOn deal but before I bought the Roku."
I contacted them and they did not tell me this. They said that they couldn't guarantee me a gift card, it all depended on the stock of Roku they had. How do you know they give you the Amazon card by default?
The more I'm looking and the more I'm checking this out the more I'm wondering why yOhimba thinks this is ILLEGAL.
Playon is getting the shows directly from legal sources. I have to have a Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, HBO account to get that content and it's perfectly legal for me to watch those on my computer. So it's being transferred to my Roku onto my TV...what is the big deal?
All the other shows are directly from the channel or networks websites and what they are currently offering as free content for me to watch as I see fit on my computer...same thing, only thing Playon is doing is giving me a way to watch FREE content or content I PAY for on my TV instead of my computer...I have NO clue how this could prossibly be considered illegal.
Why do people get their panties in a bunch over stuff that doesn't even make sense
Oh, and as far as offering a free Roku. Playon is NOT saying they ARE Roku, they are offering a promotion to pull people in. Nothing wrong with that....cont
there is nothing wrong with that, it isn't illegal and Roku doesn't have to give thier OKAY for something to give their items away. NOW, if they were giving away something saying it was a Roku and it's actually a Chinese made knock off THAT would be wrong, but any company can give away any item as part of their advertising campaign without prior approval from that items company. I mean, if they were giving away BIC pens, would you honestly expect BIC to have to give their blessing and okay for that to be an acceptable marketing tactic, no, of course you wouldn't. This is perfectly acceptable and reasonable marketing and I say...bravo Playon! Love it!
I also think that, if Playon is actually banned from the Roku site, and forums that it may actually be for the following reason:
More then likely Roku gets a Kickback from Netflix, Hulu and others when people add those channels to their Roku lineup. If Playon were able to tell people HEY you don't have to add those channels, now you can have it ALL in one easy to use format, then Roku would lose those kickbacks and would not be happy. That is the only reason I can think that Playon would be "banned"
PlayOn has not licensed the content they use to sell their software. If you read the Roku forums, staff mentioned 'legal issues' and questionable legality of the PlayOn software. Discussions and mentions of the PlayOn software were banned. Others said it was due to the recent licensing by Hulu to allow Hulu Plus to be used on the Roku.
Content that is displayed on web sites is licensed by the copyright holder for display and use by that web site and the owner decides whether it can be downloaded, transcoded and served dor display on other devices or mediums.
PlayOn rips the content without permission and uses it, charging the user to do it. In essence charging you for the content of others.
Not to mention you already pay for content like Hulu Plus, then pay PlayOn again, when the Roku already has it. A simple, inexpensive cable or adapter can display the rest as well as software such as Plex which is free.
Thanks, decent service to know about. Doubt I'm getting the deal, though.
@nchittenden: Does the Roku work well for mlb.tv? I use my laptop with an hdmi out to the tv, but that leaves an open laptop in range of my 2 and 4 year olds.

subset: commoncrawl


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Restriction enzymes usually cut only at palindromic sequences. Is there any specific reason for that ? Is there any advantage for bacteria if it cuts up virus at this type of sequences ?
First, not all restriction enzymes cut at palindromic sequences. A lot of them do though, simply because it is more effective. Recognising a palindromic sequence enables them to cut both strands of DNA at the "same" site, because the strand will have the same sequence only in different directions at that site.
See Wikipedia for example.
These REs, that recognize palindromes, are mostly homodimers and hence the same sequences (for each monomer)for recognition, only they are reversed. This explains the palindromes.


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Throwback Thursday (Halloween Edition): The scariest film of all time?
The Exorcist is a movie that could perhaps count as many viewers as people who have refused to see it. It's a movie you'd watch only if dared, on Halloween night. It has been famously called "the scariest movie of all time." It makes visceral a very old question: Does The Devil exist?
The film was of course based on William Peter Blatty's 1971 novel, and for this Halloween Throwback Thursday we're linking to our archived writing on both the book and the 1973 film that came of it (and that made Linda Blair infamous). Reviewing the movie, Colin L. Westerbeck found director William Friedkin successful in "possessing" his audience:
The keystone of the film is not in any of those scenes where Regan (Linda Blair) is being exorcised, spewing bile and howling blasphemies, but much earlier when doctors think her fits result from a brain lesion. In scenes where her brain is being X-rayed, Friedkin depicts with documentary explicitness the injection and insertion into her neck of probes for a spinal tap. As she cringes with pain, enormous machine lurch and clank with a mechanical vengeance more horrific than anything unseen spirits have done to her so far.
When indeed the X-rays do not turn up any brain damage,"Life becomes unbearable," Westerbeck wrote. "It's enough to make you nostalgic for the Devil."
Raymond A. Schroth, S.J., an associate editor of Commonweal in the '70s, and William O'Malley, S.J., the actor who played Father Dryer in the movie, both wrote articles in Commonweal's pages either trying to redeem or to exorcise the aim of Blatty's novel. Schroth argued that, regardless of what Blatty set out to write, what he ended up bringing forth was a "piece of Catholic nostalgia of more service to the cause of supersititon than to true religion." O'Malley (admitting first his role-in-the-movie bias) contended:
Even Father Schroth can't deny that this novel has drawn many readers at least to consider the possiblity of a personal reality transcending our senses. If one can make an audience, jaded by immensity, do that, he deserves better treatment -- and deeper study -- than Ray Schroth gave Bill Blatty.
To which Schroth responded:
The sense of "awe" brought on by the sight of human suffering is a poor gimmick to inspire faith...Blatty's "devil" in Regan did not increase the faith of any character in the novel. It killed two priests and got Regan's mother to believe in Satan, not in God. Nor has it increased Father O'Malley's already strong belief in God nor helped him make up his mind on whether there are devils. That's not religion. That's not awe. That's Show Biz."
About the Author
Kaitlin Campbell is Commonweal's Assistant Digital Editor.
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Best line I've seen so far about the two decade anniversary of this movie:
"'The Exorcist' Still Turns Heads at 40"
I was going to contribute this comment to the "Looking for a Good Scare" thread below, but figured it wasn't high-brow enough to qualify. Like Dominic, I read a book as a 7th grader that scared the pants off me - in my case, it was The Exorcist. All I can tell you is, after reading it, I became a believer. And it's stayed with me.
I've never seen the film. There aren't many films I've seen of books I've liked that haven't disappointed me (certainly, the Lord of the Rings trilogy is in this category), so I tend to stay away from them.
The Bells of St. Mary's.
I had to take a shot of insulin after watching it.
An earlier thread: https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/your-scaredest-moment
And it wasn't even Hallowe'en.
And yet, the book was based upon a true story per a graduate course at CTU taught by one of the Jesuits involved in the case. The actual case was a young boy in a hospital in St. Louis. Our primary goal in this course was to explain what we believed about a physical manifestation of the devil or evil - does it happen?
Fr. K, thanks for that link to the previous thread. Man, there are some commenters from 2009 that I miss. I note, too, that Jean surprisingly missed the bulls-eye with this: "Pleasantly surprised by LOTR. Sure beat reading those damn books." :-)
That William O'Malley SJ certainly was a snide and nasty little writer!
Of course, I may be biased. Colin Westerbeck taught me creative writing and Ray Schoth taught me journalism when I was an undergraduate at Fordham in the late seventies. I found both of their reflections much more incisive and persuasive than anything O'Malley said in the essay linked above. Ugh. But then I think the fame of the Exorcist had very little to do with the quality of the work itself. Fame is a false gauge of importance.
NPR had a 40th anniversary interview with director William Friedkin today. There were several interesting tidbits about the production of the movie, but Friedkin was candid to admit that he believed that there had been some sort of evil presence in the person whose true story formed the basis for William Peter Blatty's book. Friedkin also related that though he was raised as a Jew, his research for the movie exposed him to the New Testament. Friedkin said that he he was greatly affected by the Jesus he met in the Gospels and that his great admiration for Jesus continues these 40-plus years later.
The Schroth piece is quite interesting. Equally interesting - and perhaps an even more enjoyable read - is a negative book review by Mark Taylor, part of which appears on the last page of the Schroth piece. It begins, "These dreadful books deserve review (if at all) only because two reputable, commercial publishers have seen fit to stamp them with their imprimaturs ..." Those poor poets!
My old Greek teacher, Father Bermingham, was in that movie, too. He mentioned the director a few times in class; I think Father Bermingham spoke highly of him, and Fr. Berminham was a pretty great guy himself. Bermingham would get interviewed about exorcism from time to time after that movie, though I don't think it was anything he knew all that much about- he was a classicist.
"The Haunting" (orignal version with Claire Bllom) I thought was really scary. But when I was a very little girl, I saw a B-movie on TV, "Picture Mommy Dead" that gave me nightmares for months. Also a movie about a killer wig had the same effect; I had to sleep with the lights on.
My husband talks about a movie about a giant crawling eye that he saw as a kid that was really scary for him.
In the little town of Mt. Rainier, MD, a suburb of Washington, D.C., there was a vacant lot where, the story was, an exorcisim had had to be performed some decades ago. All that was left was the short set of concrete stairs leading to nowhere and nothing. I seen to recall this possessed house was said to be connected to "The Exorcist."
The story behind The Exorcist is drawn from the stories of a boy in Mt. Ranier, MD, as mentioned by Fr. Komonchak, and the story of a boy in St. Louis, as mentioned by Bill deHaas. As a Fordham undergraduate, I got to play a Georgetown student in the flim, ironies of ironies. Many of the movie's interior scenes were filmed in New York. The scene I am in was shot on the top floor of the old Fordham Prep building. Since they had a new schoolby then, the building was empty and not being used. I was unaware that it had been forty years, the time has sure flown by. All I got for my part was $38 and lunch with the stars.
Alan C. Mitchell and Fr. Komonchak (and anyone else who wants to answer),
Do demons or devils exist? Is demonic possession possible? Was the case on which The Exorcist was (loosely) based a credible case of possession?
Jesus performed many healings and many exorcisms, and he is depicted as giving his disciples the power to do both. Exorcisms are still performed, but I am unaware of any attempted healings by bishops or priests. Why did exorcism continue as a rite but not healing? (Yes, there is the anointing of the sick, and prayers for the sick, but I am unaware of any Catholic clergy claiming the power to heal the sick.)
The Humanities are slowly being dropped in many universities. Too bad that movies with important themes and which inspire serious discussion aren't routinely made part of the curriculum. Some movies are as provocative as some novels. Granted, movies and novels do different things well, but both raise important existential questions. I say include, for instance, The Exorcist movie in Freshmen Humanities. Kids these days are much more open to movies than to lit. And why not? Not that movies alone are enough, but they belong in a liberal education.
Do you think demons exist?
1) In the early 60s (and probably before and after), if you went into the College Church at St. Louis U. during the afternoon, there would always be at least one green light on above a confessional. Father Bowdern (on whom The Exorcist was based) was always there, waiting to hear confessions.
2) I read that he believed the boy was really possessed, but the other priest involved expressed doubt later.
3) David N., it doesn't hurt to have some holy water around or to say the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel.
4) I didn't think The Exorcist was scary at all. (As a little child I was scared by the headless horseman in the Disney version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.)
I wouldn't say yes and I wouldn't say no. I find the idea of demonic possession one of the most frightening things imaginable. Clearly many of the people involved in the actual case The Exorcist was partially based on thought it was an authentic case. ("Nine priests and 39 other witnesses signed the final ecclesiastical papers documenting Roland's experience, with Halloran, Bowdern and Bishop all going on record as to believing Roland's case to be one of actual possession.") The fact that the Church still carries out exorcisms in the 21st century indicates to me that somebody believes in demons.
Strange and inexplicable things do, it seems to me, happen. I am skeptical about the paranormal and supernatural, but I don't rule out any possibilities.
I am extremely skeptical about Satan, fallen angels, and hell. That whole business makes no sense to me at all. And accepting for the sake of argument a lot more of the story of Christianity than I actually do, I can't for the life of me see why God would allow demons to roam the earth and tempt people, let alone possess them. However, I was a very serious pupil in Catholic school in the 1950s, and it left its mark.
I am reminded of a Jewish guy I once knew who said that "Catholic hell" was such a potent concept that as a kid he was convinced he was going there.
So my answer is, "I don't know." I can say that if a Catholic priest called me up and invited me to witness an exorcism, I would be absolutely terrified by the thought and would decline, no matter how skeptical I was about the existence of demonic possession.
Grant, do you think demons exist? And did you think I raised the question with Alan C. Mitchell and Fr. Komonchak so I could scoff if they said demons do indeed exist? If so, you misjudged me. I think very highly of both of them and genuinely want to know what they think, Professor Mitchell being a New Testament scholar and Fr. Komonchak being a theologian who has always given extremely thoughtful answers to questions I have raised in the past.
As a little child I was scared by the headless horseman in the Disney version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
I was absolutely petrified by the headless horseman, and there was a large evergreen tree about 30 feet from my bedroom window that I associated with him. I suppose I thought he was in it or behind it. I was a kid, but I wasn't all that little.
When I was a kid, I was obsessed with Ruth Manning-Sanders' Book of Devils and Demons. She produced dozens of books for young readers, but that one I read incessantly (I told my school guidance counselor, on career day, that I wanted to be a demonologist when I grew up).
I love the Exorcist, and am downright embarrassed for Schroth. I would like to give a brief shoutout to the Exorcist III. For a host of reasons, it could never be the sort of zeitgeist phenomenon of the 1st, but whereas the first sequel was just abysmal*, III actually has some legitimately scary stuff. The staircase scene was a horror touchstone for my fellow kids. Also: Brad Dourif.
*The first sequel really is just awful, but let the record show that John Boorman (who has directed a lot even worse than Exorcist II) followed the stinker up with Excalibur, which is really Boorman-ish, but also really good.
David - if you haven't seen it already, you might be interested in this 2006 lecture by Philip Jenkins entitled "Believing in the Global South". Beyond the passage I'm pasting here, there is a bit more on the belief in evil spirits, and a lot of other interesting stuff.
Demonology is credible for African and Asian churches in a way it can scarcely be for most educated westerners, and so are ideas of exorcism and healing. A leader of the West African Musama Disco Christo Church preaches: "We are all here in this church because we have found healing here. But for this church, the great majority of us here assembled would not be alive today. That is the reason why we are here." The point is so obvious in Africa, and so very strange to western believers.
Spiritual healing is accepted across most denominations, including those that in North America would be regarded as strictly mainstream. At a healing revival in Uganda, a woman reported being cured of a spinal complaint. After this event, "a whole stream of people . . . stood up one by one to declare joyfully what Jesus had done for them. They had been dumb, mad or psychologically disturbed; crippled, epileptic, hemorrhaging; they had had cancer, epilepsy and asthma. By turns they declared that they had been healed by prayer and the power of the Lord Jesus. So many people wanted to testify that in the end the parish catechist simply resorted to calling out the afflictions and doing a head count of those who had been healed." This may sound like the typical currency of charismatic movements the world over, except that this particular example occurred in a Roman Catholic church, through the ministry of an Indian priest, and the initial miracle described took place during the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament.
Good summary: http://diabolicalconfusions.wordpress.com/2011/02/16/the-story-of-r-the-real-life-story-that-inspired-the-exorcist/
Exorcism took place in St. Louis.
St. Louis University (Jesuit) had a convocation on the anniversary of this 1949 event - Thomas Allen who wrote the book from Bowdern's diary and Halloran's notes, was present as were a number of Jesuit theologians including one of my profs from CTU.
David - not sure I can answer your direct question. Even like Rev. Halloran during the event, I am extremely skeptical. But, our graduate course used actual records/data/documentation that came from Bowdern's diary; Halloran's observations, etc. Basically, the final exam question was personal - do you believe in the devil? What I can say, is that the course forced me personally to analyze my own feelings, thinking, and experience of and about evil. Would offer that, IMO, evil exists in this world and others experience it in different ways; through different expressions, people, events. Do I think that there is a physical being - devil - who roams the world? Well, now my doubts and skeptism come into play.
Irene - "The Crawling Eye" (original title: "The Trollenberg Terror") was a staple on WPIX's Chiller Theater up to and thru the mid 70s. Forrest Tucker's best work outside of "F Troop."
Bill DeHaas
I am wary of the blog post you linked. The guy quotes Thomas Eutneuer who is an unreliable witness. He tried to revitalize exorcisms until he sexually abused a woman during one and that was the end of him. Also the author identifies the Jesuits as "brothers" and (monks). Furthermore, he cites Tom Allen whose book is filled with errors.He interviewed me for it and sent me a copy of it when it was published. The exorcism was begun in DC as the author notes. Blatty himself claimed the story was based on the boy in MD and the exorcism in St. Louis. For a good long while people have tried to unravel the riddle of the Exorcist (hence, Allen's claim to know the true story), and I am not sure we know the full story yet.
David Nickol,
The questions you posed for me and Father Komonchak are excellent and challenging. I do not think I can answer all of them.
Just as I do not beleive that God intervenes directly in the world or in peoples' lives, because that would compromise the freedom of the world and of humans, I cannot believe there is a devil who does that either.
I believe in good and evil, and that people can fall in love with good and become enamored with evil. Some people can internalize the evils of society and its chaos as to become "possessed" by them. Is this what happenes to individuals like Adam Lanza and others who commit atrocities similar to his? There is much about the human psyche that we do not know. I do not think there are actual demons in the world as the ancients believed, but still we can speak of metaphorical demons which "possess" us to one degree or another, some people more some people less. Obsessions and compulsions are real phenomena in our world. In the ancient world exorcism was a pre-scientific form of psychotherapy. Auto-suggestion is real, and so in treating "possessed" people today, in my opinion, psychotherapy should be preferred over exorcism.
On Jesus' miracles and demons I could do no better than to recommend to you the chapter on Jesus' miracles in Gerhard Lohfink's excellent book on Jesus, the best available to us today. it is Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was? http://amzn.to/1hAzoyr
I was wrong in what i wrote earlier to Bill deHaas about Blatty's claim that The Exorcist was based on the story of the boy from Mt. Ranier, MD. Blatty actually denied that claim and aaid he made the story up, according to this Washington Post story: http://wapo.st/11hIUxC. I had always thought he was infuenced by the boy's story when he was a studnet at Georgetown.
What a richness in this post. The exchance between O'Malley and Schroth is classic Jesuit repartee. From the time you are a novice you cut your teeth among the best and the brightest. In the pit of the dining room or the recreation room you master the skill. Sometimes you bottom out and at others you succeed until eventually you master the art. What better way to be prepared for the world ahead than to go toe to toe with smart people, who help you to become smarter. And, in it allm you cannot help but notice the deep affection O'Malley and Schroth have for one another. AMDG.
Alan C. Mitchell,
Thanks for your very thoughtful and interesting response to my questions. I bought the Lohfink book about a year ago, quite possibly on your recommendation. Now that I am retired, I should be able to find the time to read it.
Thanks again!
I think "The Blair Witch" project was one of the scariest movie I've ever seen ... because you don't really see anything. The horror is mostly left to your imagination, but you have a sense that some unseen presence is slowly drawing people toward it. I agree that "The Haunting of Hill House" is also pretty scary for the same reason. Ditto the original "Halloween."
Doesn't context have a lot to do with how you react to a movie? I saw "The Exorcist" at a late-late showing, and a lot of the audience had had quite a bit to drink. When Linda Blair was floating and Max von Sydow tells the devil, "I compel you to leave!" somebody in the back row yelled, "She ain't being compelled, honey!" it went on like that, and really took away most of the scares for me.
I'd never seen "Deliverance," so I was stupid enough to watch it on DVD at home alone when Raber was out of town. I always thought hillbillies were mostly figures of fun (like here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtkflEaeGjo), but I found the movie pretty scary.
Alan - agree with you and hesitated but reviewed a number of links and this one seemed to convey the best historical explanation based upon my memories.
Agree about Enteneur - what a mess.
Agree also that Allen may have had some gaps but then remember my prof saying that there were some differences of opinions about even the happenings - the memories were different; etc.
But, thanks - your post gives good caution.
The sheer diabolical inhumanity of many human beings points to the existence of some exterior force. I don't think people created in the image and likeness of God could be so very bad without help.
I haven't spent much time thinking about the devil, but I don't believe that we can easily dismiss the weight of the biblical testimony or of the Church's tradition. I get concerned, however, when people conceive or imagine him as almost an equal to God or Christ in a great cosmic combat. The devil is a creature, no match for the Creator, and Christ has triumphed over all forces of evil by his death and resurrection. In addition, he has no power over our wills that could lead us where we do not ourselves choose to go. So I do not give him anything like the significance some presentations of Christianity assign him.
Luther is said to have been haunted by the thought of the devil, but his great hymn declares the great Christian conviction:
1. A mighty fortress is our God,
a bulwark never failing;
our helper he amid the flood
of mortal ills prevaling.
For still our ancient foe
doth seek to work us woe;
his craft and power are great,
and armed with cruel hate,
on earth is not his equal.
2. Did we in our own strength confide,
our striving would be losing,
were not the right man on our side,
the man of God's own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is he;
Lord Sabaoth, his name,
from age to age the same,
and he must win the battle.
3. And though this world, with devils filled,
should threaten to undo us,
we will not fear, for God hath willed
his truth to triumph through us.
The Prince of Darkness grim,
we tremble not for him;
his rage we can endure,
for lo, his doom is sure;
one little word shall fell him.
To which I add the caution for those Catholics who think it enough to sing only one verse of a hymn. If one were to do that with this hymn, one would have the devil winning: "On earth is not his equal."
I remember the time that great hymn was sung in my parish. The rule had recently been changed allowing some of the great old Protestant hymns to be sung in Catholic churches. But I have never heard the hymn repeated in a Catholic church. I assume it's because Catholics these days don't really believe in Satan so it has become irrelevant.
I'm not sure what sort of principle of evil Satan really is, but it seems to me that because my generation witnessed the uncovering of the Holocaust and the participation of some ordinary Germans in it, it became impossible for us to deny that terrible evil is indeed possible in this world but also that, paradoxically, it is possible for ordinary people to ignore evil when it occurs around them and to deny their responsibility when they are "required" to participate in it.
What I think we are seeing around us these days is the rejection of the idea that people are capable of being very evi. If we don't sin badly, it follows that there's no reason to think there's a devil who helps us to do so. Oh, terrible things are done, but we assume they're the result of mental problems, not palpable temptations and moral choices. In such a framework "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" doesn't say anything of interest.
Yes, our whole concept of sin needs rethinking, including the concept of very evil human choices. Not to mention the old idea of "temptation". That too seems to have been lost in the mists of history. I don't think I've heard the word used in decades.
Bill deHaas,
I am curious about one thing. How did they arrive at the boy's name, Robby Mannheim? In DC his identity was hidden under a pseudonym, Roland Doe. I have read that it was local Church authorities, which I take to neam the Archbishop or the Chacery, that gave him that cover. His name should never been used in any Church documents. Did you run across it in the material you perused? An excerpt from the diary of Fr. Raymond Bishop, SJ, that I have seen, refers to him as Roland.
That brings up another point. Was it Allen who claimed the diary belonged to Bowdern? The diary was kept by Bishop.
I watched a TV movie adaptation of "The Turn of the Screw" as a child and it haunted my memories for a long time. There was also another TV movie about a child who is bullied at school and finally commits suicide, with his parents madddeningly oblivious to the situation all along. And another one about a woman who is pestered by anonymous phone calls, figures out the source, starts giving him anonymous calls herself to get back at him, then is horrified when she witnesses her calls driving him to a sudden suicide, and the movie ends with her picking up the phone and the anonymous calls resuming - she had picked the wrong guy!
But even worse than all of those was the "Holocaust" TV series which I saw as a young teen. For me that was the scariest movie of all times.
My son watched "Jaws" with me when he was about 7 years old, and it stunted his swimming: for many years after that he was deeply reluctant to go into open water. But once he grew out of it, I got him to see another horror movie: he watched "An inconvenient truth" with me when he was about 12, and had trouble sleeping for days after that.
Pope John XXIII is often accused of "naive optimism," as is the Council's Gaudium et spes. I don't agree with either characterization, but it has made me wonder why no one ever speaks of "naive pessimism," by which I would mean the tendency to attribute responsibility of evil to the devil instead of to human beings who are, as Ann says, capable of extraordinary evil--as the twentieth century has super-abundantly demonstrated. It's like Flip Wilson's Geraldine: "The devil made me do it!" As long as we palm the evil off on the devil, we don't have to face up to the evil in human wills and in human institutions.
Btw, me gustan los jueves de nostalgia.
I think the devil can provide a mythological construct for our understanding of incomprehensibe evil. I agree, however, that this way of formulating it lets humans off the hook. This is what I tried to express in my earlier post. The biblical understanding of demonolgy shoud not be absolutely dismissed, but we need a hermeneutic to help us understand how that configuration of evil is present in a post biblical world.
Alan - if I could find my class notes from 36 years ago, probably could answer your question. Thought that after so many years, the diaries of both Revs. Bishop and Bowdern were the source of the actual records of the events including the real name and that the request to the STL archbishop did include the actual name of the child.
Dark Shadows pretty much rocked, though. All of the kids on my block would watch it at 4 :00 pm after school. The episode where Anquelique the Witch got what was coming to her, we all poured out into the street to celebrate.
The radio also could be a medium of terror. When I was a boy, we (my siblings and I) would be sent to bed at 8:00, and of course we'd talk for a while in bed, but I always hoped to be asleep by 9:00 because there was a mystery drama that ended just before 9:00 with a warning: "Be on the lookout for So-and-so (supply the worst-sounding name you can imagine) who was convicted of murder but has escaped from Sing-Sing (which was just across the Hudson from our home) and is believed to be in neighborhood and is presumed to be armed and dangerous." I kept expecting to see him peering in our bedroom window.
And then there was a show in which the bad guy has a wooden leg. Terrifying sound effects would tell us when he was approaching to do some dastardly deed.
I might suggest "I, Lucifer," the novel by Glen Duncan to conversants here. I think it's overly long (a criticism I seem to be throwing at a lot of books these days). The ending ***SPOILER TO FOLLOW; DON'T READ MORE IF IT'S ON YOUR TBR LIST*** is that Lucifer only thinks he is orchestrating any of the evil of the world; complete impotence is his true punishment. Lucifer exists, but he is made to understand that the horrors he believes he has inspired and suffered agonizing pain through the ages for, have been concocted by humans alone. It's his final punishment--that he is completely irrelevant and pointless, his physical sufferings now compounded with psychic ones coming from the knowledge that he is useless.
Wonder if any theologian has come up with a similar idea or has worked over the novel. I thought it was a pretty interesting idea.
I like the way Jim Mc Crea put it;the shear diabolical inhumanity of people, made in God's image, [ their behavior] points to the existence of an exterior force.I believe that Demonic reality is present in acts of great cruelty. I believe I felt it when I read a magazine article on the Cambodian genocide;the shear cold cruelty of the tortures as presented in that article made me aware of the reality of the devil.I regret I read the article[the Atlantic Monthly, I believe it was. It was left at my work station while I was on the night shift, and I read it during my breaks in the middle of the night.I hesitated to read it because I knew it would be horrible but the temptation to know was there and i gave in to it as the magazine cover headlined "the Tortures" and I had to know]. The man and woman who ran the place pictured in the magazine LOOKED SO ORDINARY and that they could do such horrors is beyond human[IMO].I wish I had never seen the article. That it was placed in front of me is itself demonic ,I believe. So too seeing a simple black and white pencil drawing ,depicting the prisoners and the prison camps of North Korea and reading the acompanying article[on a web site,another thing I wish i never came across] for me anyway, revealed the reality of the devil.I also believe that the devil is involved in the bizarre fact that Assad has managed to get the right, left and center to side with him after he has gassed his own people and is comitting a holocaust. The movie The Exorcist did not scare me ,the Headless Horseman did as a child as did that Chiller Theater monster eye and the Twilight Zone music.
Irene, didn't Angelique wind up being a quote good guy endquote?
-- The radio also could be a medium of terror. --
"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!"
To a young whippersnapper in the rural Midwest in the early 1950s, that opening line of each radio show could cause goosebumps.
Abe: I think Angelique did turn out good in the end. Same with Quentin the werewolf. who was a really bad guy when he first showed up- kind of like the ghost in Turn of the Screw - I 'm not sure he was still a werewolf at the end, but he was a good guy.
I just loved that show when I was little.
My dad told me about his uncle, a presbyter, called to a farmhouse to investigate a levitating bed in the dead of winter (the locale may have been rural Ontario or Kentucky). I don't recall what my great uncle may have found or determined, but, upon looking out the bedroom window, he noticed footprints in the snow. He went outside, followed the tracks --- until they suddenly disappeared in the middle of a field! I remember the good sisters teaching us in the 1950s/early 60s that the devil didn't need to tempt us to sin: Being lazy, all he had to do was sit back, relax, and watch us sin well enough on our own!
the locale may have been rural Ontario or Kentucky
Same difference.
The (London) Tablet in its Oct 26 issue has a book review of "The Devil Within: Possession and Exorcism in the Christian West."
"In the end, this book is a study of strangeness . what Freud called Das Unheimliche ("the uncanny") - as it erupted in the early modern period, specifically the seventeenth century. That which was repressed in society, its fears and fantasies, was manifest in a repetitive series of religious reactions and counter-responses. The mistake which is all too easy to make is to imagine that the possibility for similiar epidemics to resurface is past. But Levack (the author) is surely right to insist that when those forces lurking in the underground break through to the daylight, they always take a form that is born of a particular age and speak in a dialect that has been crafted by a specific community."
I just came upon these comments of St. Augustine:
"Hereafter I will not talk much with you; for the prince of this world is coming"–who is this but the devil?–"and in me he has nothing" (Jn 14:30), that is, no sin at all. Thus he indicates that the devil is the prince, not of creatures, but of sinners whom he here calls "the world." Whenever the word "world" is used in a negative sense, it refers to lovers of this world, of whom elsewhere it is written: "Whoever would be a lover of this world would become an enemy of God" (Jas 4:4). We must not, then, understand the devil to be the prince of this world as if he somehow wielded power over the whole world, over heaven and earth and all that is in them, the world, that is, of which it was said, with a reference to Christ, "And the world was made by him" (Jn 1:10). The whole world, then, from the highest heavens to the lowest earth, is subject to the Creator not to the deserter, to the Redeemer not to the destroyer, to the Deliverer not to the enslaver; to the Teacher not to the deceiver.
And in what sense the devil is to be understood as the prince of the world is still more clearly unfolded by the Apostle Paul, who, after saying, "We wrestle not against flesh and blood," that is, against men, went on to say, "but against principalities and powers, and the world-rulers of this darkness" (Eph 6:12).4]. For in the very next word he explained what he meant by "world," when he added, "of this darkness;" so that no one would understand "world" to mean all of creation of which in no way are the fallen angels the rulers. "Of this darkness," he says, that is, of the lovers of this world. Some of these lovers were chosen, not from any merit of their own but by God's grace, and to them Paul said: "You once were darkness but now you are light in the Lord" (Eph 5:*). For all were once under the rulers of this darkness, that is, of wicked men–darkness under darkness, as it were. But "thanks be to God, who has delivered us," says the same apostle, "from the power of darkness and has brought us into the kingdom of his beloved Son" (Col 1:12-13), in whom the prince of this world, that is, of this darkness, had nothing. (Augustine, In Ioannem Tr. 79, 2)


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7 Celebrity Hairstyles We'd Like to Make Over
A wish list of (unsolicited) celebrity hairstyle tips for some of our favorite A-list stars
You know how your best friend Michelle has had that same old feathered Sammie Jo Carrington haircut since 1987? Well, flip through the pages of any celebrity magazine and you'll quickly realize that there are more than a few big name stars who are stuck in that same sort of groove. Sure, there are some, like Drew Barrymore and Scarlett Johansson, who mix up their hairstyles and color with alarming regularity, but many others have stayed with the same look for most of their careers.
Clearly, they (or their stylist) found a look that worked for them and they're sticking with it come hell or high water. Whether it's because they think the public only wants to see them a certain way or because they've become complacent, some just don't seem to want to transform their signature celebrity hairstyle in the slightest.
Well, in the interest of shaking things up a bit, we'd like to (gently) suggest that a certain few should step out of the past and grab hold of a bold new look. To that end, we've combed through hundreds of photos to find the seven female celebrity hairstyles we think could really use a boost. We're not talking about overhauling their fashion senses or revamping their entire makeup palettes � we just want to recommend a new hairstyle and/or color that (we think) would work wonders for modernizing their entire appearance.
So, just which celebrity hairstyles could use a little love? We've pegged Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Rachel Zoe, Angelina Jolie, Demi Moore, Courteney Cox and, yes, even Jennifer Aniston. Curious to see what they'd look like transformed? Start clicking and see if you agree that they could stand to embrace some big time change.
SEE NEXT PAGE: The target: Demi Moore
Older comments
Jennfier should go darker with her haircolor, i didnt saw Horrible Bosses but i saw pics and that color and the bangs looked great on her. it looked more like her younger self at the beginning with friends, less the aged blonde hollywood barbie who wants to be loved by everybody. she looked younger with the bangs and the darker her. And i love what you did with all the other woman, great job!
by anna_windsor Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 02:42AM Report as inappropriate
Im sorry but Jennifer is a B+Celeb but sure not A-List. Nobody pay her 20 Million for a movie nor thinks anybody that shes a good actress. shes the female adam sandler. Her Movies bomb all the time. Shes A-List at the tabloids, sure, but not in Hollywood. Shes not unimportend, but shes no Sandra Bullock, Kate Winslet, Natalie Portman or Angelina Jolie. Thats what you call A-List honey.
by anna_windsor Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 02:28AM Report as inappropriate
IMHO, all of these already gorgeous women look 10 to 15 years younger in the "makeover" photos! Amazing what the right haircut does for a person. I hope at least some of them decide to take the plunge and go for an updated do! Nice article! It shows us girls at home what the right haircut can do for your looks. Thanks, TB!
by kimber314 Wednesday, February 13, 2013 at 06:10PM Report as inappropriate
No Lindsay look better with long hair.
by EricaF123 Tuesday, February 12, 2013 at 04:26PM Report as inappropriate
Yes! I'm so tired of some of these celebrity "styles" which really arent's styles at all. They are old and tired. Only one problem; I'm not a fan of super-short hair. I do love your makeover on Jennifer Aniston.
by GigiSD Tuesday, February 12, 2013 at 01:08PM Report as inappropriate
This was fun
by kimihavens Friday, November 2, 2012 at 01:02PM Report as inappropriate
Some of these were a little not so great looking to my eyes, but I loved looking through them! So fun!
by schien Thursday, October 18, 2012 at 08:00PM Report as inappropriate
the majority of them I didnt like but some were nice
by talecon Thursday, October 18, 2012 at 07:35PM Report as inappropriate
I like Rachel Zoe's and Demi's makeovers. The other's are either just OK or I don't like 'em at all!
by asiagirl4ever Monday, July 16, 2012 at 07:24PM Report as inappropriate
I really like the Angelina makeover. Its time she updates her look. Demi Moores makeover made her look so much younger. Her dark hair color is pretty harsh for her age. Some of the other makeovers were only so/so.
by flirtygirl214 Friday, June 29, 2012 at 09:22PM Report as inappropriate
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Series 10 2013
Winner: Sam Bailey
Remember Sam Bailey, the powerhouse singer who'd sewn up the competition when her first audition aired in the first episode of 2014's series? Of course you do. Her first single Skyscraper sold 149,000 copies to become the first X Factor Christmas number one in three years (since Matt Cardle, fact fans) Wasting no time, Bailey hit the studios pretty much immediately, releasing her debut album The Power of Love in March; the record became the fastest-selling album of the year at that point, making Bailey the first X Factor winner to hit the top spot with a debut since Alexandra Burke. A 15-date tour was announced for 2015 but before that, Bailey could be found on the billing at one of Beyoncé's UK shows. Did we mention she quit her job at the prison?Picture: Rex Features


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The Vine - July 2011 - 07-23-2011, 05:37 PM
Hello and welcome to another edition of the Vine! I bring you the usual: news, monthly awards, birthday gifts and predictions of your gruesome, yet hilarious deaths- er, I mean, horoscopes.
And as for news, well, the second Miss TDP pageant has finally begun (for real this time)! The first round has just ended and the results should be up soon. It remains to be seen whether new entrants will be accepted in subsequent rounds, but in the meantime, you can cheer for the participant most deserving to win (and by that I mean me).
Doll of the Month
Queen or harlequim by HisLilPrincess - This beautiful baseless doll caught my eye with the wonderfully detailed folds on the skirt and the interesting, not to mention very well shaded hairstyle. The chess-piece shaped hat is also lovely and very fitting. Congratulations!
Want to comment? Her doll thread is here.
Peacock by eros - eros takes the dollmaker award with this simple and elegant doll. It is beautifully put together, the doll fitting in so perfectly with the background that one might believe they were part of the same picture to begin with. The only thing that looks slightly out of place is the peacock prop, but it doesn't detract much from the overall image. Congratulations!
Want to comment? Her doll thread is here.
Art of the Month
Bucaneer Boardwalk by noirmali - And this month's award goes to - surprise! - noirmali again, for this amazing and emotion-filled piece. There are too many good things in this picture to list them all, but personally I love how the sea and sand are drawn - almost looks like it's been painted with watercolours. Be sure to read the post accompanying the picture on her thread - it explains the background behind the image, and is an enjoyable short story in and of itself. Congratulations!
Want to comment? Her thread is here.
Happy birthday to angel_deceiver, jojopanda213, Silent_Wolf, Elanorea (that's me!) and Mathiea29!
Happy birthday to Barbarinha, bell_6, xJESSiCA and nikkolai!
down with the character limit!
Horoscopes by Miranda
Apparently there's no business like showbusiness, at least according to the song. You consider yourself a born leader. Others think you are pushy. You are the logical type and hate disorder. This nit-picking is sickening to your friends, who like to get together to plot your doom. Dogs love you, but only when they hump your leg. Don't do something stupid like the last time; try to control your temper, and perhaps things will turn out better than you expect them to. When Mars aligns with Venus, you will die. Everyone will attend your funeral to make sure that you're really dead and not just pretending you are to garner attention.
On Monday next week your day will go from crap to total crap. You will get sworn at and have a dead rat thrown at your head by a crazy bag lady. The next day, you will hug a puppy and catch fleas. Your sign suits you cuz you are a wet fish and your skin is like scales. When people look into your eyes, they get the feeling someone else is driving. You have the rare ability to sneeze with your eyes open; there is no danger that your brain will fall out when you do this, cuz you don't have one. Your lucky food is cheese. Pro-tip: Mind the gap.
Do NOT, under any conditions, use the remaining toothpaste in your medicine cabinet. Quick to chastise others for their tardiness, you ought to take a look at your own track record. You are like fresh mountain spring water: cold, transparent, and tasteless. You are a sheep and follow others blindly; this will one day next week result in you walking straight into a lamp post and breaking your nose. Don't worry; this can only be an improvement to your looks. You will attempt to sing kareoke on Saturday night and get bottled off the stage as your voice is reminicient of cats screeching on the fence.
People think you are stupid. This is being overly generous to you; your head, rather than being filled with brains, instead contains a handful of sawdust, some cobwebs and a few dead flies. Your identity will be stolen in the next seven days. The identity thief will quickly realize that your identity is so miserable that he will immediately return it to you. You have the power of conversation but not of speech. You like to gaze off into the distance due to the fond imagining that it makes you look as tho you are writing poetry in your head. In actual fact, it makes you look as tho you are experiencing braindeath.
Admit the truth in what you do and you won't lose that close friend you are unconsciously hurting. After all, someone as two-faced as yourself needs all the friends you can get. When people attempt to reach your mind, they can never find it. You sometimes find it difficult to put one foot in front of the other and occasionally have the suspicion that you are in actual fact walking backwards. Potatoes are unlucky for you. Do you split the month up between soup kitchens and playgrounds or is it more of a Jekyll and Hyde thing? Tip: Wash your hair; there's enough oil there to drown seagulls in.
You are obsessed with perfection. However, the only thing you are perfect at is being a self obsessed bit'ch. You are more of a disaster zone than Chernobyl. You are fantastic in bed this month but your personality more than counteracts this. When you feel that constant mirror gazing becomes boring, you like to go out and steal people's wallets, particularly the wallets of Virgos. Be sure to acknowledge the existence of certain loved ones, before they get hurt by your oblivion. You are vain and have an extremely unpleasant habit of pointing out the faults of others. Puddles are nowhere near as shallow as you are.
Your symbol is the lion, however you are more of an alley cat. Consider yourself lucky - a jail cell is better than a park bench. It's said that little things affect little minds. You have nothing to worry about because you have no mind. Chances are that you'll do nothing of any merit this week. You are inclined to be careless and impractical, which causes you to make the same mistake over and over again. However, you are unlikely to learn from this due to your lack of any intellect whatsoever. The trees are out to get you. Warning: Beware of the dog.
Your wallet will be stolen on every Friday of this month. You will suspect the wrong person and get beaten to a pulp for your pains, while the real culprit just stands on the sidelines and laughs at you. Your mind is like a soggy rag. Peanuts are unlucky for you, as is the colour green. You will be kicked by a horse next week. Luck carries vaseline. Tomorrow night, you will have a sudden inspiration to start a new business selling liberally-biased stories to the news media. The rumor that Virgos are virgins is true. However, you are far from pure. You have a dirty secret that will be a secret no longer by the end of the month.
You have a reckless tendency to rely on luck, since you lack talent. Take care of yourself in all that you do, because you are going to need extra support in the time to come. Your life will be miserable this month, and you will feel as tho you do not have a friend in the world. While this is true, you can comfort yourself with the thought that at least you are safe from being backstabbed by false friends. Perhaps this month we should focus on your other qualities and interests. You are a fascist and you are obsessed with shopping. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all...
Your good business mind will make you a great crack dealer. You're also proof that God doesn't exist, otherwise he would have killed you by now. You are an arrogant jerk and one day, you will finally get what's coming to you. Your great great grandchildren will come back from the future and visit you on Tuesday or Thursday. Make sure you stay home all day so you do not miss them. An army of soldier ants will invade your home at the end of next week, so you will be forced to move out of your house and sleep in the garden til they have gone. This week you will find out that you are the product of the furtive imagination of a bath sponge.
Remember, all glory is fleeting. Beware the Ides of March. You will be involved in a disastrous incident involving falling. A Canadian will stand next to you on a train and repeatedly poke you with a pencil til you get off at the wrong stop and lose yourself completely. The stars are not aligned for you. The tea leaves in the bottom of your cup do not bode well for you. You will be driving down the road and swerve to avoid hitting a rabbit, and will subsequently hit a tree. The squirrels are out to get you. Welfare is not a job. Am I making myself clear on this? Practice makes perfect, cept in your case. Pro-tip: Avoid applesauce and alliteration.
You have a face that people always remember, even though they try hard to forget. You are known as the goat due to the fact that you are ugly, stubborn and smelly. Your birth certificate will expire in six days. The computer systems at your work will crash the following day because they will be unable to handle your expired birth certificate. So you've made a few mistakes, and now you're stuck with the consequences. You should never have stuck your fingers up at that guy who cut you up in traffic the other day. You don't do much of anything and are lazy. You remind people of a dog that gets its head stuck in a bucket. Warning: Stay inside during adverse weather conditions.
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I'm in the middle of the Virmire Assault quest. During the battle, I chose to go help my people at the bomb site. After clearing out the enemies, the game seems stalled now.
I can wander between the bomb site and the Breeding Trench to the west, but I can't take the elevator up from the Breeding Trench, and no other exits from the bomb site are available. Nothing in the bomb site seems available for interaction, and I can't find anything to kill.
Is my game bugged at this point?
I'm going to try reloading and playing through here again, to see if the problem recurs. I just wanted to check to see if this is a known bug and if there might be some workarounds (other than save/reload) I could use if it happens again.


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I don't remember a hint on the movie how Jason Bourne found the home of Jarda, the only other living Treadstone assassin. Is it mentioned somewhere or are we just supposed to assume that Bourne simply used his amazing resourcefulness to find him?
I didn't notice that the glossed over this the first time I watched it, but I see two possible explanations.
This seems to indicate that Jarda was counting on Bourne's memory loss to keep him safe. This is probably a bigger plot hole than Bourne suddenly remembering where Jarda lived. I'd think that a trained assassin would make himself disappear once all of his colleagues started turning up dead.
I'm starting to think he didn't lose his memory and it was a plot by Treadstone to set him on a path he never lived. Such as his apartment in Paris. He doesn't remember it because he was never there before. It was all a plot to set him up.


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My kids (7&9) are starting to ask for their own cellphone. Right now, they don't need one. When is a good time for a first phone?
Ideally, when they are old enough to raise enough money, on their own, for buying the phone and paying of the monthly plans.
This will change with the child's lifestyle and community though. A cellphone is a useful way to keep track of where your kids are, and is incredibly useful in emergencies. If you're living in a highly urban area and your children spend significant time unsupervised or in transition, a cheap phone and plan can become a necessity.
My theory is, when a kid needs it, they will get one.
What does needing a cell phone entail? They must be in some kind of a situation that requires it. This can include driving, frequent after school activities, school projects, etc. But if they pretty much just go to school and family activities, then there isn't as much of a need.
Our own thoughts regarding this: when our son is old enough to go to and from school on his own, at which point we'd want him to have one. We've tentatively put this at 12 (but we've reserved the right to push that out further :). He is 8 at the moment and has been asking for a cellphone for about a year.
In 2007 Belgian pediatricians seeked media attention to state that children younger then 16 should not have a cellphone. Here is a description in Dutch Brief translation: Belgian doctors would like to forbid cellphone use by children younger then 16. Although there is no scientific sound proof, they still deemed a warning appropriate. Apparently some study showed an increase in brain temperature in kids. I did a quick google search and found an english page on the matter. When I searched Pubmed I did not find conclusive evidence against cellphone use.
"How old" can't be said in a numerical answer, but rather in terms of maturity. Above all though, if there's no real need for a phone, the child shouldn't have one.
Parents must decide case-by-case, depending on how they thnk the kids will use the newfangled technology. Is the child mature enough to use it in time of need, and not just to gossip with peers?
To minimize cost and bad behaviour, make sure the phone can call and send texts, and nothing else! (At the risk of being teased for only having a stone-age phone.) Cameras, games, etc. are dangerous distractions to young minds.
... and remember, we all grew up without cell phones and we managed fine anyway.
When their privileges dictate a need for one. I would say when you feel your children are mature enough to be allowed to do certain events without adult supervision, or events a substantial distance from you, get them a phone to use during those events. These events could be hanging out at the mall or participating in after school events, either way this gives the initial impression that a phone is a tool and not a toy. Then from that point progress to full time phone possession as you see fit.


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Rudi van Dantzig (1933-2012)
Posted 19 January 2012 - 11:21 AM
Posted 19 January 2012 - 01:54 PM
Posted 19 January 2012 - 07:06 PM
Posted 23 January 2012 - 11:10 AM
I did not see this elsewhere so am posting here. The great choreographer Rudi van Dantzig passed away this morning. R.I.P.
Thank you for posting this sad news.
I saw Mr.van Dantzig's work as a dancer and choreographer and witnessed the success he had on his first visit to London all those years ago.
Mr van Dantzig was more than talented, he had a gentle but somewhat intense charm when speaking to you that was almost overwhelming. As I write, I think of him not just at Sadlers Wells, but greeting Rudolf Nureyev at the Royal Opera House stage door and the pair of them walking away laughing and gesticulating together in a completely free manner as only close friends can.
Mr van Dantzig's works from "Monument..." onwards shook the London dance scene and it gives me such a warm feeling thinking how lucky I was to have been around at the time.
Posted 23 January 2012 - 11:14 AM
Van Dantzig was born in Amsterdam to strongly leftwing parents. He was six when Germany invaded the Netherlands and grew up under the occupation. He was separated from his parents and sent to the countryside where conditions were safer. There, after the liberation, he encountered a Canadian soldier with whom he formed a relationship. This provided the inspiration for his prizewinning novel For a Lost Soldier, published in the Netherlands in 1986, and later filmed and translated into English.
Returning to school in Amsterdam, Van Dantzig proved a poor scholar, uninterested in most of his schoolwork. When he wandered into a cinema showing Michael Powell's The Red Shoes, his future path was decided. He took lessons with Anna Sybranda and then with Sonia Gaskell, a former Ballets Russes dancer who ran a school and a small classical company.
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LOS ANGELES — Al Gore has taken a lot of heat since finalizing a deal to sell his struggling cable network Current TV to al-Jazeera, the Qatari news service.
Predictably, the backlash started on the right, with numerous outcries from the pundits at Fox News, but Tuesday on "Today," Matt Lauer pressed the climate-change activist on whether it was hypocritical for him to sell Current to a network financed by fossil-fuel money.
And last night it was noted interrogator David Letterman holding Gore's feet to the flame.
On "The Late Show" Tuesday, the former vice president said he and partner Joel Hyatt founded Current to "have an independent voice for news and information." Although he is "very proud" of what the network accomplished, Gore chalked Current's failure up to the difficulty of being an independent network "in an age of conglomerates."
Letterman asked about the stigma attached to al-Jazeera, which particularly during the early years of the Bush administration was seen by many as a platform for anti-American sentiment. Gore countered that it's "certainly not" a propaganda outlet and that its coverage, particularly on the subject of climate change, is highly regarded.
From there he pressed Gore about selling Current "to a gas- and oil-supported emirate."
"Is that one of the problems with global warming? Our dependence on petroleum-producing countries?" he asked.
After Gore replied in the affirmative, Letterman pushed on: "So you, Al Gore, are doing business with this country that is enabling your ultimate foe, climate change."
Gore, who seemed prepared for Letterman's line of attack, politely argued that Qatar has "ambitious plans" to develop solar and wind energy in the region, and once again cited al-Jazeera's coverage of issues related to global warming.
Letterman managed to stump his guest with one, seemingly simple question: What does al-Jazeera mean in English? Gore confessed that he didn't know, then joked he could Google it on his phone.
Wait, so does this mean "Jazeera" isn't Arabic for "Gore"?