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Civilization: Recovery, Reconstitution, and Reconstruction
31 December 2015
As an addendum to my On the Longevity of Submerged Civilizations I am going to here lay out some terminological conventions that I will observe in future discussions of civilization, and especially in relation to submerged, suboptimal, lapsed, or otherwise failed civilizations. I am calling these "terminological conventions" because the science of civilization is yet in its nascent state, and not only will others use these terms differently, but the concepts for which the terms are here used are unfamiliar and will not be generally recognized.
In particular, I will try to describe the difference between the recovery of a civilization, the reconstitution of a civilization, and the reconstruction of a civilization. In the concluding remarks below we will see how these concepts are related to the existential status of a given civilization, and how each is related to the other by incremental gradations.
The term "recovery," as in "recovered civilization," I will use to describe the full restoration of a civilization that has been submerged or otherwise in abeyance for a period of time, but has never fully failed or been entirely extirpated, which upon its recovery returns the civilization to active participation in history in actual fact, and primarily for the peoples who were the original source of the civilization. (It might also be interesting to consider the possibility of the recovery of endemic civilizations for non-endemic populations.)
There are several problematic instances of recovery; it is difficult to point to an unambiguous example that captures the concept in its strongest form. I previously cited the partial recovery of Mayan civilization as the Mayan peoples of Mesoamerican, who have kept alive the spoken language and many of the cultural traditions of ancient Maya civilization, having now been given the written language and the history of Mayan civilization through the resources of scientific archaeology, as an instance of long-term submergence and recovery. The reader could formulate the objections to this as easily as I could. There is also the example of colonialized civilizations in Africa and Asia. One could argue that colonization isn't a submergence as much as it is a temporary bureaucratic overlay of the colonizing civilization.
The re-assertion of the rights of indigenous peoples, once dismissed as savages possessing no civilization, could be understood as the first stages in the recovery of a range of traditional civilizations that nearly vanished under the unstoppable tide of modernism and industrialism. Industrialization occurred so rapidly in many parts of the world that traditional civilizations had no time to gradually fade, but appeared to be catastrophically swept away. In at least some cases, rather than being swept away these traditional civilizations were submerged, and some of these submerged civilizations may experience a limited recovery.
The term "reconstitution," as in "reconstituted civilization," I will use to describe the attempt to completely recreate in actual fact a vanished civilization of the past that has completely lapsed and no longer exists even in submerged form. In the case of reconstitution, a civilization has passed the point of possible recovery (in the sense used above) and must be counted as having failed decisively. A reconstituted civilization is a civilization brought back from the dead. Little reflection is needed to see that there are many interesting problems involved in this concept, first of all whether it is even possible.
I do not know of a single example of a reconstituted civilization, or even of a single thorough-going attempt to reconstitute any civilization. The idea is included here for the sake of completeness, and because I intend to develop this idea in much greater detail in the future. I have a lot of notes on the reconstitution of civilization that I hope to turn into a paper or into a long blog post. The idea is particularly relevant for the future of terrestrial life and civilization in the cosmos. Of the short list of possible strategies for interstellar expansion without spacecraft capable of relativistic speeds, along with robotic probes ("Bracewell probes") and generation ships, there is the possibility of reconstitution. That is to say, a spacecraft could be sent to a distant world without any living beings other than frozen or otherwise preserved cells, and upon arrival at the destination terrestrial life would be reconstituted. The accounts of such missions usually fail to note that not only must human beings and their food sources be reconstituted, but their civilization must also be reconstituted.
If such a spacecraft took tens of thousands of years to reach its destination, the source civilization would almost certainly have lapsed, so that the reconstitution of the civilization would be a "classic" reconstitution scenario of a failed civilization. However, there are some very interesting insights that can be derived from treating this mission structure as a thought experiment. It would be entirely possible to reconstitute a civilization at a distance while the original civilization was still in existence. However, the reconstitution would be of an earlier stage of the civilization of source, so that the civilization of source will have presumably continued in its development, and perhaps it will even have evolved into some other kind of civilization, so that the reconstitution of an earlier state of that civilization still represents the reconstitution of a now-vanished civilization.
Another possible consequence is that a civilization that produces such a mission may have failed at its source, but is reconstituted at a new location, and in this sense lives again and is no longer a failed civilization. If this process is iterated, one can imagine a series of reconstituted civilizations, each reproducing the original civilization of source, and doing so ad infinitum, so that new iterations of this civilization are always appearing somewhere in the universe — perhaps even multiple representatives at any one time — so that this civilization continues to produce copies of itself. Of such a civilization, even if every individual instance ultimately and eventually fails, it could be said that the civilization on the whole could continue in this way indefinitely, and must then be accounted the most successful of civilizations, in so far as it never entirely goes extinct. It would be a reasonable question in this context to ask whether the mission was a method for the reconstitution of the civilization, or whether the civilization was a method for the reconstitution of the mission (and I hope that the reader will understand the relevance of this to Richard Dawkins' conception of the "selfish gene").
The term "reconstruction," as in "reconstructed civilization," I will use to describe the scientific delineation of a vanished civilization of the past, pursued for scientific purposes, i.e., pursued for the sake of scientific knowledge and understanding. As with reconstitution, reconstruction concerns failed civilizations that are beyond the possibility of recovery. However, instead of seeking to revivify a failed civilization, a reconstructed civilization is an intellectual exercise in understanding and does not, generally speaking, seek to bring back a failed civilization.
This is a fairly conventional sense of "reconstruction" as employed by historians and archaeologists in the study of past civilizations. Archaeologists do not concern themselves with the recovery of submerged civilizations or the reconstitution of failed civilizations; their concern is the assemble all available evidence concerning a civilization of the past and to bring that civilization alive again in the mind the scholar, and not in actual fact. However, there are extensions of historiography and archaeology that do involve a limited reconstruction in actual fact, as in experimental archaeology and historical reenactment, which will be considered further below in the concluding remarks.
Concluding Remarks
A civilization might be definitively and decisively brought to a sudden end by a catastrophe of sufficient magnitude, but civilization-ending catastrophes are uncommon (there is the possibility that Minoan civilization was brought to an end by the Thera eruption), while much more common are civilizations that yield slowly to the ravages of time — so slowly that it may be extremely difficult to choose even a symbolic date for the termination of a civilization. The lingering of decaying civilizations results in several ambiguities in the recovery, reconstitution, and reconstruction of civilizations.
In the definitions above of recovery, reconstitution, and reconstruction the distinction is made between civilizations living and dead, but this distinction, crucial to the definitions, is by no means absolute. As implied in my post on the longevity of submerged civilizations, a civilization might lie dormant in submergence only to be later brought out of dormancy. But how long can this dormant period in submergence go on? One can readily see that the longer a civilization is held in abeyance by adverse circumstances, the more is lost. At some point (and this involves a sorites paradox) a submerged civilization becomes unrecoverable. But it would be unlikely that this transition is a matter of a black-or-white distinction. There is probably an extended period of time during which a civilization is partially recoverable, so that the resultant civilization is part recovery and part reconstitution.
The incremental gradation between civilizations living and dead introduces an incremental gradation between recovery and reconstitution, which are distinguished by the attempt to return to life a submerged civilization and a lapsed civilization, respectively. There is also a gray area between reconstitution and reconstruction. Archaeological reconstructions of vanished civilizations of the past may involve experimental archaeology, which is, in effect, a strictly limited form of the reconstitution of a civilization. Open air museums, such as I described in The Technology of Living, sometimes have working farms with individuals living the historical roles (at least part-time) required for this kind of experimental archaeology. This is generally called historical reenactment, which is also used to describe the reenactment of particular historical battles, or even the reenactment of particular forms of combat, outside the context of a particular battle. The latter is the case with the reenactment of medieval combat, which I discussed in Falling in Love with Medieval Armed Combat.
The project of attempting to recover a submerged civilization may seek the resources of scientific historiography and archaeology in order to better understand those elements of a submerged civilization that have suffered the greatest degradation over time, so that even between recovery and reconstruction there are graded degrees of separation that may be more or less close or distant. A scientific reconstruction of a civilization may be undertaken in the purest expression of disinterested knowledge, or it may be undertaken with the ulterior motive of the reconstruction being useful to the recovery of a civilization understood as a political project. Politically motivated historiography and archaeology are relatively commonplace in a scientific civilization still captive to nationalism and ethnocentrism, which is the reality of the world we live in today.
What I have written here in regard to civilization may be equally well applied to any of that cohort of emergent complexity we know from Earth: geology, biology, intelligence, technology. The more we focus on the natural history end of this continuum the more difficult it may be to see the applicability of recovery, reconstitution, and reconstruction to geology, for example, though in the distant future we may possess the technological agency to reconstitute worlds in various stages of development. Indeed, one can imagine virtual reconstitutions in computer simulations as being nearly within our present technological ability. With human artifacts like technology it is a bit easier to imagine the parallels of technological recovery, technological reconstitution, and technological reconstruction.
Also, what I have written here in regard to vanished civilizations of the past may be extrapolated to nascent civilizations of the future. In Experimental Archaeology of the Future and Portraying the Future: 'Historical Pre-Enactment' I discussed displacing experimental archaeology and historical reenactment into the future. In so far as these are tools of reconstruction, and in so far as reconstruction in related to recovery (as a project of politicized science) and reconstitution (as also being concerned with definitively failed civilizations), there may be a way to formulate the above concepts in a way that is as relevant to the future of civilization as to the past of civilization. I have not yet attempted this formulation, but will save this as an inquiry for a future time.
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I am always puzzled when I read commentaries like this one from Charles Krauthammer. There is an almost frantic tone of issuing a wake-up call, but one has to ask, wake up to what action? So there is a mad man in charge of Iran. He's about to obtain nuclear weapons. He was democratically elected. He paints, "Israel must be obliterated" on his missiles. So what are we supposed to do about this?
He acknowledges that the chances of anything happening in the United Nations is nil. Yet we are supposed to support the United Nations, and our lack of enthusiastic participation so far, or our taking measures into our own hands when the United Nations fails to act, has been considered bad behavior. We could bomb their nuclear facilities, as is Israel's wont, or take out their president in an assassination, but these would constitute military actions and lead to a war. But war is bad. It seems to me that if we do anything except ask very nicely in the United Nations, the same commentators will take us to task for militarism or being cowboys, and will start publishing the American body count on day two.
The same issue occurs with respect to a bad conscience about our actions or inactions in Rwanda. We feel badly, and wring our hands about standing by while Rwandans killed Rwandans, but what were we supposed to have done? The United Nations acted as the United Nations always acts. Nothing else could have been realistically expected. Does anyone really think that Americans would have tolerated the sending of American troops to rescue black Rwandans? Do we think that it would have been a quick in and out operation? Really, the murderers are on the street with their machetes, and what kind of effective action could have been taken other than sending troops?
I would love to know what Charles Krauthammer thinks we should actually do about the Iranian President.


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Is Cough and Cold Medication Good for CKD Patients
2015-06-21 17:13
Is cough and cold medicine good for CKD patients? If you are suffering from kidney disease, you should take steps to protect your kidneys. You should be cautious about the medicines you eat and are clear what cough and cold medications are safe for your kidneys.
Once your kidneys are damaged, they are able to filter blood as well as they did in the past. This can cause an unsafe buildup of medicines in your blood. Many cough and cold medications contain agents that can narrow blood vessels and raise blood pressure as well as creatinine.
If you have headache or colds, you may take nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) to control the issues. NSAIDs are over the counter (OTC) medicines that can be harmful to your kidneys. Common NSAIDs medicines include ibuprofen and naproxen.
Additionally, some cough and cold medications may interferer with the medications you are taking for Kidney Disease. You should ask your pharmacist how the product may interact with other medicines.
What you can do when you pick up a prescription or buy OTC cough and cold medications as a kidney disease patient.
1. You can take the medicines you are taking in a bag and take them with your to the pharmacy.
2. Ask your pharmacist if the cough and cold medications affect your kidneys or interact with other medicines. If they are harmful to your kidneys, you should switch to alternatives.
The above are some important tips for kidney disease patients when buying OTC cough and cold medications. Hope they are helpful for you.
Any problems or doubts about your own or our therapies, please Email to email@example.com or leave message on below, we are glad to offer you more professional guidance quickly for free.
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OmegaEPA Fish Oil is an excellent source of fish oils, rich in omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3's have been the subject of intensive research, due to repeated observations that people whose diets are high in fatty fish tend to be healthier than other populations. The most important omega-3 fatty acids are EPA and DHA. Preliminary scientific evidence suggests EPA may help maintain normal cholesterol levels when consumed as part of a low fat and low cholesterol dietary program. DHA is an important component of brain tissue.
* [1] Note: Unless otherwise noted, this product has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Our natural products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.


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Dr. Sassi,
I found a great tutorial teaching about using alpha to show displacement in certain areas. Learned a lot from it. I decided I wanted to give it a go and what I want is to have clones of an object i model to show only in the alpha areas. So in my scene file I made a sphere and I have a head bust. Both have the same materials. the base to show whatever color. the second is the blue color with alpha out areas. I then made a cloner with object mode and dropped in the objects. Used a shader material and copied the alpha channel from the material. If you look at the scene file you will see the clones are not following correctly at all. I cannot figure this one out! anyone have any ideas?


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Monday, April 5, 2010
A.C Ace At Acer
3 comments:
- nonnapat said...
Thank You Anthony for singing your beautiful new song " I'll be the One " at the Whitney Houston concert. It is so beautiful and powerful and you sing it with such passion. It gave me goosebumps and bought tears to my eyes at its beauty and your heavenly amazing voice singing it.
- April 6, 2010 at 4:40 AM
I love 'I'll Be the One'. I love the courage it takes to sing such an intense song with minimal accompaniment in a big stadium primed for a Whitney Houston concert. Very few people could pull that off. I'm really looking forward to hearing it live with an audience that isn't talking.
- April 7, 2010 at 12:21 AM
- salso said...
Simply amazing. Even though I must have seen every freakin' video of Anthony on the WWW, this guy never fails to amaze me with his appearance, performance and, of course, voice. Way to go Anthony and may your star shine even brighter than the stage spotlights.
- April 8, 2010 at 5:56 AM


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Quote:Cannabis 'preferred to other medications'By Miranda Wood, Health ReporterAugust 15, 2004The Sun-HeraldNearly two-thirds of people using marijuana for medical reasons had decreased or stopped taking other medications early, results of a State Government survey show.The survey, an Australian first, was conducted by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre.Participants reported cannabis was useful in preventing side effects caused by conventional medicines.The most common medical conditions the cannabis users suffered were arthritis, chronic pain, depression, nausea, muscle spasms and weight loss.More than 70 per cent were concerned about marijuana's illegality and 54 per cent were scared of being arrested, but were willing to take the risk for the benefits of the drug.The centre's information manager, Paul Dillon, said: "Some say they believe that if they get caught it won't be that bad because they are using it for a medical condition."Preliminary findings show that 70 per cent of those using medical marijuana would be willing to be involved in a trial of an alternative form of cannabis, such as a spray.Mr Dillon said some believed a tablet or spray would be less effective than natural cannabis, but they wanted to experiment because of their concerns over smoking it.He said a young man suffering fibromyalgia, a chronic illness causing muscle aches and fatigue, said in the survey: "I would rather risk being arrested than not being able to function in a normal state."The drugs that I take for pain are bad enough as it is. If cannabis helps and I can function a hell of a lot better, then I am going to use it and continue to use it."Last year NSW Premier Bob Carr announced a trial of the therapeutic benefits of cannabis.The survey was one of the recommendations of the NSW working party on the medical use of cannabis.To participate in the mail-out survey, contact the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre on 9385 0333 or email Peter Gates at p.gates@ unsw.edu.au.
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Thursday, January 5, 2012
Happy New Year & An ST Sketch Challenge!
Happy 2012 to everyone! Hope you had a good time ringing in the new year. Ours was nice and mellow which was fine with me. (a change from when I was younger and had to be doing "something" or I wasn't cool!)
I hope to organize a bit this year. I say it every year but this house needs some major organizing so we have a bit more room for things. Wish me luck...i'm going to need it.
I plan on scrapping a lot this year too! Between scrapping and my Project Life I should have a lot to work on. If you are in the scrapping mood head on over to the Sketchy Thursdays Blog and get some inspiration. This weeks sketch is another great one. Make sure, when you create a layout based on the sketch you link your layout to the site for a chance at to win a prize. We love seeing everyone's work! Here's this week's sketch and my take on it.
The deadline to turn in your layout is Wednesday, January 11th!! Happy Scrapping!
Posted by janet at 1:57 PM 4 comments:
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I've seen several web applications implementing the user session ID (or token) in a custom HTTP header parameters thus avoiding to store the session ID in cookies. Additionally, some public web platforms save the same kind of token to track their user analytics. For instance, recently I notice that this mechanism was utilised by the New Relic REST API platform which is storing the user ID in a HTTP parameter called X-NewRelic-ID.
During testing of an application, I have found both a cross-site scripting and the session ID sent as HTTP header parameter . My goal was to steal the user's session ID, which was sent to the application as X-Auth-Token in a custom HTTP header parameter.


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A delightful vintage shop, selling pretty painted & vintage furniture and home accessories, alongside a range of handmade goods & gifts. An eclectic mixture all put together in an attractive & interesting fashion, with little cameos of teamed together pieces, to complement and enhance. Yours eyes are darting from the moment you see their stock spilling out under the arches, enticing you to come in.
Alongside furniture, they also sell the fantastic Annie Sloan chalk paint, brushes, wax and stencils, in fact all you need to up cycle your furniture into trendy shabby chic pieces for your home! Stoneware from greyhound standing dogs to unusual gargoyles, bird feeders and gothic Windows which come in twice a year, Spring & Autumn. They have our own vintage clothes emporium that is Vintage Quine, with accessories, jewellery, brick a brac, candles & scarves.
Their handmade range includes bespoke hand painted furniture, cushions, lampshades table runners and canvases from the sisters, who are Rosiemays. They have colourful Braided Rugs, soaps, bath bombs, and candles. Wooden gin boards & unique boiled egg boards. Handmade whisky barrel houses, and cottage industry tea. A feast for the eyes.
Both Joanna & Lou have magpie eyes, and are always on the look out for the interesting, unusual, quirky things to fill the shop, be it from private sales, auction houses, car boots and vintage fairs....even skips have been known to be investigated! The love of vintage, the thrill of seeing the potential of a tired worn out piece and the pleasure in bringing it back to life are what makes them both tick and why they enjoy our job so much.
Joanna and Lou have turned their passion into a lifestyle choice of work. They also offer painted furniture commissions, having undertaken painted kitchen chairs for Scone Palace, whisky boxes for shop displays, full coffee shop table & chairs re-vamps and many home pieces around Perthshire.
Underneath The Arches also source specific items for our customers, so if there's something in particular you're on the hunt for just let them know and they will track it down!
Joanna & Lou's path finally crossed at of all places a car boot sale, with their love of a similar passion a friendship was struck up and in Nov 2014 they joined forces and opened UNDERNEATH THE ARCHES. Cramming it with a feast full of goodies, nostalgia at things from the past, and an appeal for both men and women, old and young. They pride themselves in the laying out of the shop, with a high attention to detail, the use of seasonal colours, and marrying furniture with accessories to complement each other.
Their aim is to provide the customer with a somewhat magical experience... In the words of the song underneath the Arches.......where we dream our dreams away.


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there is so much more than this for me. my desires outweigh my grasp, my true meaning revolves beyond my reach. i get the feeling my hopes mocks me.
"getting by" never has been a plan of mine.
i prefer to thrive than survive; in career, in love, in friends, in status and in all aspects of life that involve change and purpose. what will awaken my true ability? a goal? a worthy motive? another person to love? to impress? to carry? perhaps failure itself?
those who have never met me believe me to be amazing.
those who have think differently.
how can they all be wrong?


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It's really amazing how differently people greet each other (or don't, as I discussed in the "Greetings from Finland" post) around the world. Saudi men place their right hand on their chest when they meet you. It is a sign of respect, and to me when I lived in Saudi Arabia it always made me think the person was saying, "You're in my heart."
In America we have a variety of greetings, some regional or even generational. When I lived in a rural area of South Carolina it took some time for me to get used to another driver raising his hand to me in greeting as we passed each other. ( Someone's hand coming up from a car in your peripheral vision field may have another meaning in the Northeast, and it's not a welcome.) I still recall observing two young men on a college campus walk by one another and just nod as they passed. Not a word was uttered.
Yesterday I was discussing greetings with my French colleague. He had "Enchante" written on the board when I walked in. I asked him if that was a greeting and he indicated it was. I said in English it sounded like it meant, "I am enchanted to meet you", a rather elite sounding sentence. He told me that in France it was used by the lower classes. Now I learn today that the current swine flu pandemic has not only produced hand sanitizers and experimental vaccines, but has also affected French greetings. The French have been warned to avoid pecking each other on the cheek — "la bise" — to avoid passing on the disease. I guess they definitely won't revert to the greeting gentlemen had for ladies in the late 18th century. Gentlemen in that day kissed ladies on the neck to avoid messing up their painted faces.
Perhaps the swine flu will make a lot of cultures come up with new forms of greeting. I can think of a few cool ones already.
Amid swine flu French kissing goodbye to "la bise"


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Stepping up to Summer'15 release frenzy stage scene, in its fourth and hopefully last act,
Qtractor is an audio/MIDI multi-track sequencer application written in C++ with the Qt framework. Target platform is Linux, where the Jack Audio Connection Kit (JACK) for audio and the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) for MIDI are the main infrastructures to evolve as a fairly-featured Linux desktop audio workstation GUI, specially dedicated to the personal home-studio.
As a major highlight to this release, there's the advent of regular MIDI controllers mapping/assignment to main application menu command actions, just like normal PC-keyboard shortcuts, is being introduced (cf. main menu Help/Shortcuts...).
Have a hotta Summer'15 ;)
Hi everyone,
The Vee One Suite of old-school software instruments, aka. the gang of three have gone through yet another milestone: synthv1, as one polyphonic synthesizer, samplv1, a polyphonic sampler and drumkv1, as one drum-kit sampler, are now part of the Summer'15 release frenzy :)
Still available in dual form:
Common change-log follows:
The Vee One Suite are free and open-source Linux Audio software, distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2 or later.
The Summer'15 release frenzy continues... ;)
On the wake of LinuxSampler 2.0.0 release,
And it lands at the precise moment sourceforge.net outage disaster is still going through hopefully out of recovery hell. Also worth noting is that Qsampler is now raked as a genuine Qt5 application, leaving Qt4 behind but still an option.
Qsampler is a LinuxSampler GUI front-end application written in C++ around the Qt framework using Qt Designer.
Enjoy && have fun!
Hi all,
as in through the hottest of summers--as southerners can't even wait--here comes part one:
though aside that everybody knows this already,
QjackCtl is a (maybe not so any more but) simple Qt application to control the JACK sound server, for the Linux Audio infrastructure.
Enjoy && have a whole hotta Summer'15 fun!
It's alive!
Release highlights:
and yet more tiny lurking critters swatted ;)
Well, the major highlight to this release is in fact this brand new and way long overdue feature, seamlessly integrated to the faithful and regular audio track export function: MIDI track instrument plug-in rendering and mix-down (aka. freeze) is now real, as long their audio output goes onto selected buses, aka. stems, mix-groups, whatever a mix/mastering head would name it! nb. on the (very exquisite) Qtractor arch-model parlance, those are just called "audio output buses" and that ain't gonna change, any time soon, so stop it! A word of caution must be told by now: dedicated (JACK) audio output ports are off-the-grid, so sorry.
Maybe this silently makes a notch towards the DAW epitome, though Qtractor still claims to be just a plain and honest sequencer--with yet another DAW-like feature addition--the same as it ever was.
Nuff said.
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I have been living full-time as a man now for a year and a half. I was raised a girl with aspirations of one day becoming a woman, and though I certainly no longer hesitate to credit myself with giving a convincing performance until my late 20s, living as a woman was, for me, really just a spectacle designed to distract both audience and actor from one of many deeper truths hidden beneath the veneer. Something about my experience of girlhood—and of womanhood—was always fundamentally different from other females living as women. I am a transgender person.
Despite knowing this about myself for as long as I have had memories of knowing that I had a gender at all, this isn't the sort of experience that comes with a handy instruction manual. For a lot longer than is not the case, I didn't have the vocabulary to frame my thoughts with, and without that framework, I faced invisible barriers every time I felt around for the words to describe my experience. For instance, I knew about trans women from an early age, but I didn't even know that it was possible for trans men to exist until I was in my early twenties. And as if solely for the express purpose of complicating matters further, I have never thought of myself as either a girl or boy, woman or man. My subjective experience of gender has always been decidedly mismatched with my body. Something paradoxical, like being both female and male, while simultaneously being neither. I struggled profoundly with a need to understand and express this conscious experience, while also fighting to bury it and fit within the expectations formed on the basis of my body's features and laid out for me daily by family, friends, and lovers. I have since arrived at understanding my own experience as a non-binary gender identity (masculine of center, but not male).
When I finally came out of the closet about this (when I felt safe enough to commit to staying out), I believed that being forthcoming and open about this aspect of my life would make things easier. I believed that the people who were closest to me would believe that if anyone knows what my gender identity is, it's me. I believed that embodying the ambiguity I felt within, and projecting it outward to the external world, would create space within my social circles and support networks for me to finally be myself. I soon found out firsthand that who I really am upsets a lot of the people I cared about and was emotionally invested in at the time, even despite the fact that I was immediately happier overall and have remained that way ever since. Even despite the fact that I am noticeably more emotionally consistent than I have ever been in my life. I found out years after establishing inevitably much-needed distance from the people who were more invested in my continued performance than in my sense of well-being, that in fact the subject of my being transgender was the topic of a sort of informal debate club, during which decidedly cisgender people decided that, between my identity as a cisgender woman and my identity as a transgender person, it was my identity as a transgender person that wasn't real.
I struggled with too many of these kinds of experiences with too many people, some of which played out in a distinctly hypersexualised manner that for the first time in my life I was able to assert myself against — sometimes much more vaguely or less committed than saying no, but nevertheless still being received as permission denied. I also faced continued violence of a completely different nature than I have ever faced before, as presenting myself as best I could as a decidedly gender-ambiguous individual (though still female-bodied, sometimes more or less evident) quickly became tangled with the experience of being perceived as a trans woman, and being targeted for particularly sexualised violence as if I am one. Many cisgender women can certainly relate to the experience of men approaching them in public, seemingly transforming right before their very eyes, from friendly and sociable to threatening and volatile, all within the space of 30 seconds, all because the sexual interest projected at them is not reciprocated back to the men who feel entitled to behave this way towards complete strangers. But there is a whole other complex at work when a man believes, with conviction, that he has just tried to make a pass at a man masquerading publicly as a woman.
I have now experienced both, and can say with confidence that transgender women are in far greater and more imminent danger of immediately and irreversibly escalating violence than cisgender women are in identical situations in public. If you've never believed it when a trans woman said it on her own behalf, because she "lived as a man" first (despite the fact that it matters that she lives as a woman now, while she's telling you this herself), then take it from a trans man who "lived as a woman" first. Where a cisgender woman may be able to assert herself and exit the immediate danger of the situation, a transgender woman in identical circumstances behaving in an identical manner is far more likely than not to be met with being immediately physically brutalised.
Make no mistake. No one in the world would choose to be transgender if simply continuing to perform indefinitely as a cisgender person was in any way easier.
And this is where I get to the part where, after grappling both within myself and with the daily external consequences of outwardly projecting gender-ambiguity full-time, I decided to start keeping my non-binary gender identity relatively private, and begin living full-time as a man. It started when I moved onto a reserve. People in mainstream society generally have an inconsistent or unreliable degree of consciousness as to the existence of transgender people, and for the most part, this also holds true away from mainstream society. Some people read me as a woman in settler spaces despite my multiple prominent physical features that normally identify me to other people as a man, and the same is true of indigenous spaces. Likewise, most people read me as a man and a few particularly astute observers read me as gender-variant in settler spaces, and the same is true of indigenous spaces. However, there are (usually, but not always) distinct qualitative differences between how this plays out in settler spaces, versus how it plays out in indigenous spaces. Those differences led to my decision to live full-time as a man.
In spaces within the settler mainstream, people have always made apparent to me how they perceive my gender. In fact, if it wasn't obvious before, let me just say it like this: with rare exception, they have always made this very directly apparent to me. Whether I was being misgendered by being read as a woman, misgendered by being read as a man, or accurately identified as a gender-variant person, there was never any room for doubt in my mind about how the person I am interacting with is interpreting my identity. More often than not, this would result in me offering a concise but revealing statement, because I desire, as I think most people generally do, for my gender identity to be honoured; the way cisgender women desire to be acknowledged with feminine pronouns and cisgender men with masculine pronouns. But this sort of interaction, which I cannot emphasise enough how commonplace, is also a breeding ground for conflict around the very notion that my gender identity is incongruous with social norms of gender. The conclusion that I have reached about this is that from the very start, this sort of interaction is inherently confrontational, and so as long as I continued to present myself externally as gender-ambiguous, I was going to continue to experience these interactions escalating into conflicts and sometimes even violence. If I could sum up this experience in a single word, it would be alienation.
But in indigenous spaces, by which I mean physical locations such as communities like the reserve I moved to, or ceremonial spaces in which the marked majority of people are of indigenous ancestry, people don't say things to my face that indicate their confusion about my gender. If they felt driven by a need to know, they would talk to my family members when I wasn't in front of them, and my family members would more often than not give them indirect answers or tell them to ask me directly if they wanted to know that badly (and at the end of the day, exceptionally few people did). It didn't take much longer than a few months before my confusion about what was happening around me or in front of me, and the hurt that it brought up for me to hear my family members being interrogated about my body, began adding up to a transformative experience. I realised for the first time that I'm not going through being a transgender person all by myself. My family are going through it right alongside me.
It was one of those family members who I finally started to talk to about this, who said that I will be perceived in these spaces as a woman as long as I keep embodying, especially in my choice of attire, what is expected of women. She said that if I am more comfortable being perceived as a man, then I need to do what the men do. And she said that if I am making decisions that confuse people about whether I'm a woman or a man, they will make efforts to avoid gendering me at all so that they don't hurt my feelings by potentially misgendering me. Suddenly, it was like a dense fog lifted. I soon found that I don't necessarily disappear as a transgender person simply because I dress, dance, sing, and otherwise present myself consistently as a man. I can in fact be both, and in various ways, I am acknowledged as one or the other or even both at different times. I am respected as a man, and as a person who crosses the gender binary (a fact about my identity that is important within certain cultural contexts). I have found roles in the community that I can serve in, that positively affirm my sense of self.
Now that I have been living as a man full-time for a year and a half, away from the settler mainstream, my arrival for finite periods of time back into that mainstream has been received in qualitatively different ways than it ever was before. People rarely made eye contact with me before I began living as a man. I would often feel as if I must be invisible, because people would try to walk right through me in public, whereas now, they make eye contact and actively try to stop themselves from violating my physical space. I am no longer approached for sexual attention, either as a perceived professional or as somehow inherently sexually available, like I frequently was while living full-time as a woman, regardless of what I was doing or wearing. For the first time in my life, I can just walk around and not worry about a john pulling up beside me and creeping along for several continuous minutes with his passenger window rolled down while I deny him my attention. I can just walk around and not repeatedly disengage my attention from men who can barely keep their dick in their pants because I'm passing by them wearing a sleeveless shirt. I have room to breathe when I'm in public.
But there is another side to this new experience as well. I often notice women suddenly transforming in front of me from apathetic to alarmed or uncomfortable, if I look just about anywhere except at my smartphone, other people's shoes, the ground, or the floor. I feel a conscious shift in how I am perceived by people in general, almost as if I have transformed from prey to predator. When people tried to walk through me before, they'd treat me with complete disregard, but now, if and when it happens, they act like we're about to be in a fistfight over it. When I try to engage with women who perceive me as a man, I am much more frequently answered with suspicion, hostility, or volatility, compared to when I was perceived as a woman. When I engage with men who perceive me as a man, I am much more frequently met with either indifference or confusion about how my perspective is constructed so differently, compared to when they perceived me as a woman and met me with suspicion, hostility, or volatility. I'm suddenly forced to tip-toe around differences that once were a place of common ground between myself and women, while deliberately choosing to vocalise less and engage even more carefully with men than ever before, for every word I say to them needs to mean something now that each word takes up more space for both the men listening and the women watching.
I feel like I'm entering a state of emotional triage, both with women leaving abuse and the men perpetrating it against them, every time that moment when I'm perceived as a man becomes palpable. I can finally breathe, but there are everyday moments now that take my breath away for reasons I have never experienced before.


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Everything you need to know about Paradise Island Exotic game for iPad, iPhone and Android is here!
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Piastres Cheats and Tips on Paradise Island Exotic iPad
Make sure to build the Business Center and the Bank as soon as possible.
The Business Center will give you 1 piastres in 24 hours initially, but if you upgrade it to level 5, you can collect it every 18 hours. The bad news is, you can only build 1 Business Center for your island.
The Bank will give you 2 piastres in 36 hours, but the time to collect the 2 piastres will go down once you upgrade the facility. Unlike the Business Center, you can partially collect 1 piastres in the bank (yellow peastre).
Of course, this game was designed in such a way that gamers addicted to this game buy piastres with real money, real dollars. That's the reason why they didn't leak any cheats at all because the developers are earning a lot of from selling piastres online to speed up the development of your island. That is why even if they distributed this game application in the app store, they still earn a lot from it.
What players love about this game is that it is very addictive. And many who are playing this also survived even without buying piastres with real money. You don't have to play
13 comments:
I would live to try this game. I´m always looking for new ones, especially when I travel because I need some distraction. The next country I´m going is Argentina and I already have the apartment rental in Buenos Aires booked and I heard it comes with a new TV and computer so i guess I will play a lot!ReplyDelete
Are buildings built faster when you update the Administrative building? If not, what is the point in updating this building other than getting more workers?ReplyDeleteReplies
- AnonymousJanuary 18, 2013 at 4:05 PM
Once you upgrade to the 30th level, you receive an award (the great administrator) and get piastres.Delete
Why are there business men and maids walking around ?ReplyDelete
As you continue to build up your buildings and add new ones, you will need the extra workers. I agree, though. It stinks having to do seemingly worthless upgrades to this building, but they are a must.
i saw a profile with >5 business centers, does anyone know how to do this?ReplyDelete
I'm with mars...how do u get 5 business centers? It's a cheat app I think but how to find?ReplyDelete
I JUST FOUND THAT MY BANK AND BUSINESS CENTRE WERE STOLEN.HOW?????!!!!ReplyDelete
What needs to be done for the these 2 new secret awardsReplyDelete
"The dictator" &
The thanksgiving event 1 "thankful"Replies
- AnonymousJanuary 18, 2013 at 4:09 PM
The dictator- refuse request from 100 touristsDelete
I havnt had tourist at my island for about a week? my paradise island notification says ...go to your island and build a pair of buildings your tourists are missing you? can anyone help me get my tourists back?ReplyDelete
- AnonymousFebruary 28, 2013 at 2:26 PM
how do you get crystals for the world wonder?ReplyDelete


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Okay so since yesterday I've been feeling filled with creative energy so I'm declaring today a Writing Day.
But before I go off to be a creative I have to point out that I'm super pissed at Ron Moore's new show Virtuality. This is one of the new sf/f shows coming up that I wanted to try out until I read spoilers on io9.com.
This is particular pisses me off:
2) The crew are all spending time in virtual reality "modules," including everything from a restful seaside scene to a Civil War battle where Confederate troops attack Union soldiers, only to fall into an ambush. In all their "modules," a mysterious figure known as the Green-Eyed Man shows up and kills the humans in gruesome ways. (Unlike in The Matrix and other scifi classics, being killed in VR doesn't harm you in real life, but it's jarring.) Is the Green-Eyed Man a hack by one of the crew members? A computer glitch? Or something else? Everybody suspects Billie, the computer geek — until she's raped by the Green Eyed Man, in a brutal and horrible scene. (io9.com)
Seriously, Rom Moore? Seriously?!? Didn't we already do the gratuitous rape scene in BSG with Athena? Yes it was cut from the broadcast version but it's there on the DVD set. What is up with you and rape? It's super-skeezy and the same old misogynistic shit we see all the time. Making her the computer geek just serves to reinforce the message, it doesn't matter how powerful you may be (and when one of the storylines of the show is about virtual reality the computer geek is pretty damn powerful) you're still vulnerable to this. It's an old and tired sexist trope to bring the strong woman down with rape and it makes me nauseous. Yeah I was thinking of watching this show when it premiered, now I don't know if I can stomach it.


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Chat <
Babies <
of 9
03/06/2012 at 21:38
i have had the coil fitted for 7 months now following the birth of my second baby, i have changed emotionally so much and i am finding it so hard to deal with my emotions from day to day, has anyone experienced this? i have an appt with my doc in 2 weeks, the first i could get but i cant help thinking he will fob me off, i was fine until just after xmas, nothing in my life has changed and we have no worries at all so i cant help thinking that it must be this? help!
10/06/2012 at 10:08
10/06/2012 at 10:12
Hey sweety - I haven't got it but do know of friends struggling with this coil. Also found this link to another forum about it.
10/06/2012 at 20:26
I cant say for sure about the coil, but I can not take the pill because it affects my emotional state so dramatically I become a different person. Mycrogynon made me paranoid and depressed, Cilest made me tearful all of the time, the Mini-Pill made me depressed, and there was another one I tried that made me angry (and depressed - they all seem to do that!). My doctor tried to fob me off telling me that it would settle down (and one doctor actually insinuating the real reason I was complaining was because I had gained weight and should just eat less!!). I gave each pill at least 6 months before deciding I couldnt take anymore and stopping. The emotional issue was the only side effect I had (other than sore boobs with Cilest), I never actually gained any weight at all. The emotional issue almost cost me my relationship with my now husband. I ended up going on to the depo injection which suited me very well emotionally, but stopped my periods for 2 years. It took me 10 months to get my cycle back to normal before we could try for Phoebe. This time around I have had the depo again but will shortly be having the implant fitted, purely because it lasts for three years so I dont have to remember to book an appointment to have another injection. Anyway, my point is, do not let the doctors fob you off. You know your own body and what is normal and what isnt. If you feel it is the coil demand it is removed and your other options explained to you. My doctors would not allow me to try a pill called 'Yasmin' because it was so expensive to perscribe, even though research had shown that it had virtually no emotional side effects. The doctors will try and save money where they can, but you should not have to live with something that can be fixed. Hope you get it sorted soon. xx
11/06/2012 at 20:19
I had the Mirena for a year and notice HUGE difference in my emotions and abilty to cope with normal stuff - even had some time off of work as thought was depressed - had panic attack type symptoms and very jittery had it taken out in January and felt almost instantly better - doc did say that they had had some women with same issues - prob was string was lost and had to go to docs to have it out but I would do it all over again - just didnt work for me whilst it is fine for many of my friends - i was on the pill for years before having my two children and never expereinced this kind of thing - if you look at the leaflet that came with it or google the side effects it does include mood changes so you are well within you rights to ask to have it removed even if you have not had it for long - not worth the emotional rollercoaster! G
- I meant had to go to hospital to have it out by consultant!
11/06/2012 at 21:52
11/06/2012 at 22:53
exactly how i felt - sometimes felt so strange - almost out of body - we are relying on condoms while i work on hubby to have the snip!!! about time the boys steppedup i think !!! good luck
12/06/2012 at 07:37
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Weekend Adventure
So, a funny thing happened to me this weekend. I was looking for a way to try out ChaCha and lo and behold I woke up to find that my car was the victim of a hit-and run:
Incidentally, if anyone happened to be in the vicinity of Hillman and Chestnut Streets in Springfield on the night of Saturday May 3 and saw anything, please let me know.
Anyway, I foolishly didn't have my insurance info with me, so I sent off an SOS to ChaCha to get the number for making a claim in Mass. Within 3 minutes I was sent the number, along with a URL I could have used as well (alas no wifi where I was). Not the best of circumstances for a test, but I was happy with the results, less so with the state of my car.
Tags: ChaCha, Hit and Run, Mass, Massachusetts, Phone reference, Springfield, wifiYou can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.
One Comment on "Weekend Adventure"
May 8, 2008 at 7:15 pm
[…] ♦ My car got hit, what's the insurance company claim number? […]


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Sergei Karpukhin / Reuters
Strobe Talbott and Jessica Brandt, The Atlantic: What Putin Is Up To
And why he may have overplayed his hand.
Each year on December 20, the Russian intelligence community pays homage to its enduring guardianship of the Motherland. It was on this date in 1917, six weeks after the Bolshevik Revolution, that Vladimir Lenin established the Cheka, an acronym for "Emergency Commission." Over the ensuing decades, the commission's nomenclature and organization chart mutated: It became the OGPU from 1923 to 1934, the NKVD until the early 1950s, and then the KGB for nearly 40 years. After the collapse of the USSR, the sprawling institution was split into separate foreign and domestic agencies. Operatives of both are still called chekists, and they share Lenin's original purpose: countering Russia's enemies at home and abroad.
President Vladimir Putin was a KGB officer for 15 years leading up to the fall of the Soviet Union, and the director of domestic intelligence in the late 1990s during his meteoric rise to power. He regularly throws a gala at the Kremlin on December 20 to extol the "sacred mission" of the state security services, recall their past heroes, and highlight their latest exploits. For the last 22 years, Chekist's Day has been an official holiday in Russia.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: Strobe Talbott and Jessica Brandt are buying in on the allegations that Russian President Putin was (and is) directly involved in the uproar that is besetting the Trump administration and its contacts with Russian officials. Has the Russian government tried to influence elections ... including the U.S. election .... I would not be surprised. But to believe the premise that the Kremlin and its intelligence agencies are brilliant thinkers and strategists who have the power to influence who will be the next U.S. president .... I hate to burst everyone's bubble .... but they are not that smart or resourceful .... Russian President Putin included. I have listed before a long list on Russian intelligence failures .... from predicting the fall of the Soviet Union, to their involvement in the current wars and conflicts that now beset Russia (i.e. Syria and in Ukraine). In this context .... Russian intelligence does not have a record that I would be proud of. And as for the U.S. election .... where the idea that Russian intelligence has the ability to subvert and influence with its limited resources and media coverage a U.S. election where billions of dollars are spent in advertising and where the main stream media with its massive audiences covers the stories 24/7 .... it stretches my imagination. Bottom line .... the Kremlin is not responsible for what is happening in Washington today .... the ones who are actually responsible are the ones who have the resources, contacts, and reasons for this current chaos .... and they live and work in Washington .... not Moscow.


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In remembrance of everyone who died on September 11, 2001, the nation honors the deceased, the first responders, and all those who lost friends and loved ones that infamous day fifteen years ago…
The following is a brief description of my day on September 11, 2001:
I was a single parent living in Bonham, Texas, with my youngest child, daughter Carley, who was seventeen years old and in school that morning. My oldest son Scott and his wife Brianna were living in the Los Angeles area. They had a son on the way and a nearly four-year-old daughter. My son Chris had joined the Air Force a little more than seven months earlier in 2001 and was permanently assigned to Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, Texas.
I had a one-and-a-half-hour one-way daily commute to work from Bonham to Plano. I worked directly for the owners of the company. I was on my way to work the morning of September 11, 2001, and I was listening to my favorite local morning radio program Kidd Kraddick in the Morning on 106.1 KISS FM. Kidd Kraddick interrupted their usual morning banter with a news bulletin of a small plane that just flew into the World Trade Center. Fifteen minutes later, as I was arriving at work, the second plane hit the second tower, and it was now obvious that the planes were not small. I thought to myself, "We are being attacked." When I heard subsequent reports about the third airplane that hit the Pentagon and the fourth that went down in Virginia, the horror and uncertainty of what was happening began to sink in, and my thoughts immediately turned to family.
Finally seated at my desk at work, the first telephone call I made was to my son Scott's home in California. With a two hour time difference, I guessed they might still be asleep and not know what was happening. My daughter-in-law Brianna answered the phone, yet unaware of the catastrophic events unfolding. She turned on her television as I bluntly gave her the alarming news. We did not talk long, because she wanted to call my son Scott, who had already left for work.
I had no way to call my son Chris at Dyess AFB in Abilene. I wasn't concerned for his immediate safety, but I was concerned because I had no idea how this would affect him. Being a good son, however, he soon called me at my work and quietly and calmly said in a very serious tone, "I knew you'd be worried about me." Understatement. It was a relief to hear his voice. I had not expected to hear from him so soon, and I loved him so much at that moment for calling me. He didn't really know what was going on either, so I told him what I knew from listening to the news, which wasn't much. He told me that alerts had been sounding on base to increase the security level – one alert right after the other – and they were already at the highest level. When Chris asked his supervisor what was going on, he was told that nothing like this had ever happened before in his military career.
While I was thinking about what to do next, my daughter Carley called me from school deeply distressed, and I immediately knew it was time to go home. With barely a word to anyone, I left work and drove home to Bonham to collect my frightened daughter from school and check on my aging and now dependent parents who lived a couple of blocks from us. I listened to the radio all the way home with a growing sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I couldn't get home fast enough. I really was scared, and although I might have been the only one who left work that morning, I am very grateful that no one ever directly criticized me for it.
My parents were upset but calm. While watching the constant unimaginable images of the event on television with them a day or two later, I felt the inexplicable protective urge to apologize to them for their being confronted with such evil in the world. Mother replied, "Oh, we've seen some pretty terrible things in our lifetime." At nearly 89 years of age, that, they had.


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To go off my capitalism post I'd like to talk about the consumer society surrounding Batman. Bob Canes concept first appeared in 1939 in DC's detective comics #27 (Batman). Since then Batman has become a cultural icon, the concept has been licensed and adapted into a variety of media including television programs, stage shows, film and radio but it does not stop there. You can own Batman in more ways then that, come on this is a consumer society we live in remember? You can also have Batman in a wide variety of merchandise. Such as figurines, toys, video games, plushies, posters, costumes and clothing! You would not believe the clothing (or maybe you would) but as someone who works in retail, I can tell you that manufacturers took very little time between the release of each Nolan Batman movie, to come out with products that have Batman's face on it. I'm talking everywhere from slippers to pajamas to t-shirts to hats. One could literally be head to toe Batman without wearing the costume, because wearing a costume every day isn't socially acceptable, but this is… right?
"When Marx undertook his critique of the capitalistic mode of production, this mode was in its infancy. Marx directed his efforts in such a way as to give them prognostic value. He went back to the basic conditions underlying capitalistic production and through his presentation showed what could be expected of capitalism in the future. The result was that one could expect it not only to exploit the proletariat with increasing intensity…" (Benjamin).
The sales of Batman product rely on the fact that someone is selling and reselling product for gain and media is the weapon deployed by society in order to have gain. Almost anything these days that becomes a hit or a fad is blown completely out of proportion by the media. When was it ever cool to be a nerd? Was it not the nerd that got picked on all these years, was the nerd not a classic victim of the bully? I believed this to be the case. Yet suddenly it is cool to read comics and watch Batman. Being a comic nerd can be cool, even sexy! So how did this happen? Via the media. The media decided to buy into the idea of Batman and in turn society and the proletariat bought into it as well.
"In principle a work of art has always been reproducible. Man-made artifacts could always be imitated by men. Replicas were made by pupils in practice of their craft, by masters for diffusing their works, and, finally, by third parties in the pursuit of gain" (Benjamin).
Every remake of Batman has been precisely that, in the pursuit of gain. Allow me to show you a brief history of The Batman. When Bob Kane's version of Batman was running dry in 1964 DC was going to kill of Batman all together. That was until Julius Schwartz stepped in and decided to reinvent Batman in order to keep him alive. Fallowing this, in 1966 a television series starring Adam West was released and the success increased sales throughout the comic book industry and Batman reached sales close to 900, 000 copies (Batman). But as Julius Schwartz noted, "When the television show was a success, I was asked to be campy, and of course when the show faded, so did the comic books" (Batman). Fallowing Julius Schwartz's lead was varies artists including Frank Miller who brought back the dark side of Batman in 1986's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. In 1988, DC comics utilized the media to get the public involved doing a call in and vote for as to whether or not Jason aka Robin should be killed off (Batman). 1989 was the release of Tim Burton's Batman which brought back the public attention and brought in millions of dollars at the box office, and millions more in merchandising (Batman).All leading up to Christopher Nolan's trilogy starting in 2005 and ending in 2012.
People want to believe in the Batman, they want him to be real and the media preys on these people. They create this merchandise so that you can have and hold Batman, dress like Batman BE Batman. The idea is to make him as real as possible "…the desire of contemporary masses to bring things "closer" spatially and humanly, which is just as ardent as their bent toward overcoming the uniqueness of every reality and accepting its reproduction" (Benjamin).
If this wasn't true, if media is not deploying a weapon to rake in some money then why was Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns redesigned in 2002 for resale? Why did Christopher Nolan dedicate a decade toward redoing Batman in film? Why do I see children who have never read a comic, or even been allowed to watch a Christopher Nolan Batman movie (due to the obvious rating) wearing Batman logo's and dressing up for Halloween as super heroes? It is because the media has made Batman something bigger, Batman has become a possibility because he isn't "super" he has no powers, he is a man with money and knowledge, and technically this is possible. And he is popular and being popular means making money, right? Fact is we are a consumer society, capitalism is in full swing and it all happens subconsciously, everyone buys into this often without even realizing, or if they do without caring.
OH and if that is not enough proof for you, please take a brief moment and click here, and you will get another glimpse at the kind of people who are helping keep the gears of this consumer society a-turnin'.
- "Batman," Wikipedia. 2012.
- Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." Marxists Internet Archive. Web. 29 Nov. 2012.
- Miller, Frank. Batman: the Dark Knight returns. New York, N.Y.: DC Comics, 2002. Print.
- The Dark Knight Rises. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Perf. Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway. Warner Bros., 2012. DVD.


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Oruga, the Spanish word for 'caterpillar,' developed from the synonymous Latin noun ūrūca. That Latin noun had another form, ērūca, and another meaning as the name for a certain plant in the cabbage (crucifer) family. The American Heritage Dictionary explains that it was "perhaps… so called from its hairy stems resembling caterpillars, or from the fact that cruciferous vegetables are often infested with caterpillars." One name for that edible plant in English is colewort, the first part of which is a cognate of Spanish col 'cabbage.' Various other English names for the plant show an etymological connection to Latin ērūca—rucola, rucoli, roquette, (salad) rocket, and rugula. If that last seems almost familiar, it's probably because of its better-known form in American English, arugula. Apparently that version of the word came from a dialect of Italian, as opposed to the rucola in standard Italian. Notice how standard Italian retained the k sound between vowels in ērūca, while the dialect picked up the voicing of the vowels that surrounded the k and turned it into a g sound. Spanish did the same thing as ūrūca became oruga.
© 2015 Steven Schwartzman


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Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Official NHL Facebook Page now Up
Kudos to the NHL for launching their Facebook Page. As of 4:36 P.M. the page has 1,841 fans.
For a page that was just launched last night at 7:29, and for that matter a page that has not even been up for 24 hours, its a pretty big accomplishment.
NHL Facebook Page:
Posted by Tim Rosenthal at 4:40 PM
Labels: Facebook, NHL, Social Media
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In the March of Bissel
Thorbadon Entwhistle The Fifth III
Leader of the Merrie Fellowes Adventuring Company
Short even for a halfling, Thor barely scrapes 3' tall. His blonde hair is unkempt but clean, a stylistic choice he feels gives him an avant garde flair.
His full name is Thorbadon Entwhistle the Fifth III, being the third to be called The Fifth. He's touchy about the subject, but rumor has it his grandfather got drunk, lost a bet, and had to visit the Elmshire clerk to have his name changed permanently to Entwhistle the Fifth. Rather than deal with it, subsequent generations have simply pretended it's always been that way.
Ridiculous name aside, Thor is a bard who's fortunes are on the rise, and he's quick to regale friend, foe and commoner with tales of his and his adventuring company's deeds. The Merrie Fellowes are currently operating out of Thornward, hoping to secure fame and fortune at the crossroads of the world.


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Walnut Valley Festival
(620) 221-3250Visit Website
1105 W. 9th Ave., Winfield, KS 67156
1105 W. 9th Ave., Winfield, KS 67156
The Walnut Valley Association was formed in 1972, with its sole purpose to produce the Walnut Valley National Guitar Flat-Picking Championships Festival, also known as the Flat-Picking Championships, currently known as the "Walnut Valley Festival" or simply "Winfield" to the long time attendees. Evolving from three days in 1972 to its current five days the 3rd weekend of September annually, it endeavors to produce "family fare" entertainment on four stages simultaneously, a juried arts and crafts fair, workshops, and acoustic instrument contests. What began with 10 acts and two contests now boasts 30 to 40 acts and eight contests, including two international contests, five national contests and one Walnut Valley contest. The contests are a major part of the Festival. Along with the National Flat Pick Guitar Championships and the International Finger Style Guitar Championships, the Walnut Valley Festival hosts the International Autoharp, National Mountain Dulcimer, National Hammered Dulcimer, National Bluegrass Banjo, National Mandolin and the Walnut Valley Old Time Fiddle Championships. Over the years, the contests at Winfield have attracted more than 5,600 contestants from all 50 states as well as many foreign countries including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Scotland, Sweden, England, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Caledonia, and Switzerland. Well-known Winfield winners include Mark O'Connor of New York, New York, who has won or placed in more Walnut Valley Festival contests than any other contestant. Mark won the National Guitar Flat-Picking Championship in 1975 and 1977, and also won the Walnut Valley Fiddle Championship in 1974 and 1977. Alison Krauss of Nashville, Tennessee won the Walnut Valley Fiddle Championship in 1984. Steve Kaufman of Alcoa, Tennessee and Jason Shaw of Lincoln, Nebraska are the only three-time winners of the National Guitar Flat-Picking Contest, Kaufman having won in the years 1978, 1984, and 1986 and Shaw having won in 1993, 2004 and 2010. Jason Shaw is also a two-time winner in the Walnut Valley Old Time Fiddle Championship. In 2009, Bryan McDowell from North Carolina became the only contestant to win three contests in one year, Flat-Pick, Mandolin and Fiddle. Other Winfield winners include mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile, the Mandolin Champion in 1993 and Dixie Chicks fiddler Martie Erwin Seidel who placed second in 1987 and third in 1989. Festival attendance has averages between 11,000 and 15,000 annually. It is a "participation" event in that most people who attend play an instrument of some kind, and a good portion of them bring their instruments and participate in the campsite picking. Hired artists who appear on stage also go into the campgrounds and join around campfires to pick with everyone else. In 1991, our 20th annual Festival, an attempt was made to host the world's largest acoustic string band. When the time came, 770 musicians held their instruments skyward and played "Will the Circle Be Unbroken." Lots of family reunions happen there, and many weddings have taken place at the Festival. The Walnut Valley Festival has always been a place to make new friends and renew old acquaintances. Though the Festival is called "bluegrass", it has never been JUST bluegrass. It now is a blend of all kinds of acoustic music: bluegrass, folk, Americana, old-time country, a little bit cowboy, some Celtic, blues, jazz and more; and the bluegrass is both traditional and progressive. Among those who have appeared on stage at the Walnut Valley Festival are: Lester Flatt, Doc & Merle Watson, Mark O'Connor, Alison Krauss, Mike Snider, Byron Berline, Dan Crary, Norman Blake, John Hartford, Tom Chapin, David Grisman, Merle Travis, Mike Cross, New Grass Revival, Hot Rize, Nickel Creek, David Holt, DeDannan (Irish), Tony Rice, Jim & Jesse, Jimmy Driftwood, Don Reno, Buck White, Red Clay Ramblers, Gamble Rogers, Joel Mabus, Bryan Bowers, Front Porch String Band, Robin & Linda Williams, The Dixie Chicks, Doug Dillard, Tom Paxton, John McCutcheon, Tommy Emmanuel and many more. The Walnut Valley Festival was honored in 1999 by the International Bluegrass Music Association. Being selected to receive the first ever "IBMA Bluegrass Event Of The Year" award was a proud moment for everyone who has worked to make the Walnut Valley Festival a success. Still the third week-end in September, in Winfield, Kansas, at the Winfield Fairgrounds, the Walnut Valley Festival has long prided itself on being educational as well as enjoyable, but most of all, the Festival is a homecoming. And a homecoming not just because of the music, but a coming home to a place in the soul and the heart with a spirit of celebration.


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Wednesday July 24, 2013
|Dennis shows students where he comes from.
Greetings from Macha, and from MICS!
We have had a run on sick or injured students lately. There is a virus moving its way around the boarding students particularly. We don't think it is serious but more like the common cold and flu. Because the students live, study and play together the viruses are easily transferred.
|Teachers going to bridal shower.
We only have 1 ½ days of school left so we are hoping that the month long term break will cut off the spread of these germs. One student bumped his head and lost a front tooth, another had a wound become infected and we took him home so his mother could get him to the doctor and another student was hit by a car on his way home from school. He spent a few days in the hospital before being released to go home and recuperate.
|Mixing cement the Zambian way!
|The big kitchen after sorting & organizing items from the container.
|Mike pours the shower base.
|The "mums" dance in laptop return celebration!
While Kathy keeps the school running & meets with teachers and service staff, LeeAnn is teaching in the classroom each morning and helps keep boarding students busy and occupied in the afternoons, Greg runs errands, meets with community leaders, searches for and buys building materials, disciplines misbehavior, Dennis can be found running a skill saw or a drill and playing Frisbee golf, and Mike is busy laying block, brick or tile, replacing flooring and eating nshima with the kids at dinner. We try to eat one meal together each day but even that proves to be impossible on many days.
|Mike grouts the tile.
Here's some of what we've been up to recently: tracking down student's stolen items &
|Dennis works on shelving.
police investigate then hold our entire staff for 7 hours in jail, getting them released, have a prayer service for the return of the computer, computer is found early next morning at the base of the playground slide by two kindergarteners and an older brother. Then, welcoming our team, remodeling two bathrooms, installing closet shelving, giving out cough syrup and Panadol, bandaging wounds and pulling out slivers, breaking up fights. Fixing floorboards so teacher's kids aren't falling through, diverting drainwater away from the building, making crosses with the kids, walking the dog and keeping Dennis from eating all the fresh baked buns!
1 Corinthians 13:1-8, praying and announcements.
|PTR with the younger kids.
|Working on dribbling.
|"1, 2, 3, Push the Rock!"
Please pray for us; to finish crucial projects, put the campus in proper order, and close up buildings. Most days there is far more to do that we can get to or have energy for! So please remember us, that we'd be strengthened physically, personally and spiritually.
Standing together for the cause,
Kathy, Greg and the team
If you made it this far in our post you get to see how the staff welcomed our team. This is the traditional Zambian welcome dance. They are singing in Tonga; saying "our visitors, our visitors, we welcome you!" You might even see someone dance that you'd never expect!


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A few weeks ago, we asked for your Anniversary Box stories to be featured on our blog. Here is a story from Katie Wright of Richmond, VA:
I bought an Anniversary Box for a long-time friend prior to her wedding. Knowing that we were not able to attend some of the special events leading up to her wedding, we chose one card, wrote our message and sealed it. We then sent the box with instructions so other cards could be completed at her showers & rehearsal dinner. My boyfriend and I strategically picked out Anniversary Year #7 and decided to have our message be a little different for the Bride and Groom. We wrote about Lucky #7 and how lucky in love they must be to have found each other. We encouraged them to remember how blessed they are and though times are not always easy to remember that others are not so lucky. Then, we put a "game" on the back for the two of them to complete together…to list the 7 things they love most about each other. Great thing about this game? Everyone wins, and they are reminded of why they fell in love in the first place. I won't know for several more years, but I can't wait to share their reaction when they open the card.
Visit Happily Ever AfterWords today to begin your Anniversary Box story.
E-mail us at email@example.com to share your story.


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Even if you don't use e-cigarettes now and you don't plan to, you still need to know the following so you never fall into the same nicotine trap:
1. Are electronic cigarettes (e-cigs) legal all over the world? Australia and Canada have banned e-cigs, classifying them as a tobacco product. Though the e-cig does not contain tobacco, those governments won't make the exception. As far as the U.S. is concerned, National border security is confiscating e-cigs, but there is no law banning their use yet, but since they're quickly depleting Big Tobacco's profits, the FDA will likely step in very soon!
2. What happened to the guy in Florida whose e-cig blew up in his face, and was that a cheap version? Tom Holloway of Niceville, Florida, is still alive, but is missing half his tongue, all of his front teeth, and has permanent burn scars on his face. Contrary to what the "e-cig community" would like to believe, it was not some cheap version of an e-cig, but a faulty, over-charged lithium battery that caused the life-threatening explosion.
3. What are the side effects of nicotine? Nicotine by itself causes an increased heart rate, heightened blood pressure, narrowing of blood vessels (leads to heart attacks and strokes), gastrointestinal problems, depression, mood swings, sleep disturbances, headaches, the loss of sex drive (libido), insulin resistance, and vision problems.
4. How do you quit nicotine forever, one of the most addictive drugs in the world? (Nicotine running a close third behind heroin and cocaine) The physical addiction is actually broken in 3 to 4 days, but the cravings for the feelings that nicotine brings can take weeks, months, or even years to break, without the proper nutritional and herbal replacement and replenishment supplements (explained further in the 14AndOut nutrition chapter later).
5. Why do stop smoking pills like Chantix and Zyban contribute to suicides? Again, remember, these pharmaceutical toxins not only block nicotine receptors in the brain, but also block naturally occurring dopamine, so the patient suffers from heightened depression and anxiety, which fuels feelings of suicide and can even lead the patient to commit suicide. Never forget this advice!
14AndOut addresses the chemical addiction, behavioral patterns and rituals, and nutritional guidance, which is all knowledge and skills that are needed to quit smoking for good. By weaning yourself off poison, and following up with organic nutrients, especially "ramping them up" at the beginning! Mucuna works to level off your dopamine, and it will be discussed with nutrients later. You will be done with this horrible habit in 14 days or less. This is the most inexpensive, comprehensive method to stop smoking, and it comes highly recommended by the Health Ranger, Mike Adams the Editor of Natural News, himself.
The Stop Smoking King! http://stopsmokingking.wordpress.com/
Quit Smoking in 14 Days! https://14andout.wordpress.com/
Don't Eat Cancer: http://donteatcancer.blog.com/


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Discussion in 'Sports Bar' started by Rimbaud82, Nov 6, 2015.
Actually that's unfair - Davis has done well, T'eo less so.
AB's teaching the Lions a lesson there.
Lions played okay and were still well beaten.
I fear worse is to come, too.
In the Pro Rugby era Lions don't have enough time to gel as a team.
Te'o was alright just, didn't see much of the attacking threat he showed in the other games (and he's certainly capable), but he did a job on Sonny Bill. Two of them seemed to neutralise one another.
Yeah, that's part of it...certainly not as simple as "oh these are the best players from five countries, they should beat one country". Even disregarding how good that one country is.
Fair point, didn't see an awful lot from SBW either. Was a decent battle, that.
Second row has to change next week. AWJ out, Itoje in. I'd also make a case for Lawes over Kruis, who was poor in the loose today. Also might be worth bringing Marler back in - think they missed his bite, if not his infringement count.
Yeah definitely agree about Itoje, AWJ was very poor. Though Itoje is another penalty machine, he needs a cooler head which will come with time tbf.
He won't be, but even though he is tour captain Warburton should be replaced on the bench. Absolutely useless today when he came on, zero impact, I like him a lot but he is really not in form.
And am biased and all but I also think Rory Best needs in the squad for the next test, his throwing can be iffy (not sure why, he is mostly solid for Ulster and Ireland, it must be some psychological thing) but at the breakdown and in the loose he is one of the best hookers in the world.
What a fucking try this was though -
Agreed on Best. I didn't think Owens looked all that hot when he replaced George, and George struggled a bit in the scrum today.
Warburton's funny. He's been well off form recently, but I wouldn't put it past him to explode out of nowhere and put in a world class 40 minutes at some stage.
Williams was absolutely otherworldly there.
What a fucking try this was though -
Sad to see a poor crowd for the Wallabies... Rugby Union is having a bad time in Australia.
Exciting game in the end, tbh the draw was probably a fair result. Suppose the lions should be more disappointed to throw away the lead though. A few great performances, Hendo and Lawes were both immense. Thought Hendo was better but the fact that Lawes was taken off early might suggest he will be picked for the test, and Hendo's yellow card might cost him.Hope not though. And tbh Joseph lifting his other leg is what caused the player going over the horizontal I think. North is pretty much a beast at centre as well.
But what the fuck was Gatland doing picking a bunch of shithouse welsh players on the bench and then not being able to bring them on because they mostly weren't even good enough to be there??? Could have made a difference anyway, I am sure loads of those guys are shattered.
Also one thing this tour has shown is that the depth in NZ rugby is just ridiculous. Of course you can criticise the best of Ireland and Britain struggling against the Super Rugby club sides (even discounting the importance of team cohesion/partnerships) and the Lions should be expected to beat them, but you can't deny their quality either and most of the games have been fun. The NZ club sides are so far ahead of everyone else in Super Rugby.
Ngani Laumape is some player as well, he's been tearing up Super Rugby this year. Think he'll find a spot in the ABs for one of the tests. I knew him already from watching the Warriors, they'll be sorry he left and are stuck with Solomone Kata :lol: Though I think he always wanted to go back to union.
Im a Hurricanes fan born and bred. And Laumape, Aso and before he got injuried Proctor( another league convert ) have been playing lights out for us. But with that said I do not believe Laumape should be in the starting side, as Ive seen many people online clamoring for. Sure he smashed tackles on Tuesday, but he also turned over ball, played selfishly at times and lacked vision when he had the ball. I think he will be better off the bench possibly replacing Sonny Bill at the 65 minute mark when the Lions are tired from all that tackling around the ruck.
It's actually a pretty decent Lions squad, imo........just unfortunate to come against this NZ machine.
If they were against South Africa or Australia they'd probably win 3-0, imo.
Nah no way would he start, but replacing Sonny Bill late in the match would be a perfect introduction for him (unfortunately for us). He is a great player, he did play union first of all but was poached by league. Like a lot of the top kiwi league players lol.
Agreed especially with how shit both of those two have been performing recently. Though SA played a bit better vs France.
Separate names with a comma.


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Let Our People Grow
In a state that has sold over a billion dollars in legal pot, it is a felony by law for a person here to have a single Cannabis plant.
ashington state is the only one to have "legalized" while maintaining a felony for average citizens to grow their own plants. This is a massive fraud against the people of Washington, and perpetrates the continuation of the War on Drugs and a new tax on drugs. We must end this system that still disproportionately targets the poor and people of color for arrest, and free our people and plant from laws that violate our humanity and fundamental freedoms.
Washington citizens absolutely should not live in fear of growing a plant that is proven to have massive medical and recreational benefits. Especially when we have an overregulated and overtaxed system that controls the legal dispensing of the plant. The Liquor and Cannabis Board currently rules over a hegemonic cartel of pot, creating rules for their special class of license holders, while directing law enforcement towards the dangerous "black market."
Why would the state want to continue their War on Drugs? Why do certain 502 businesses spend tens of thousands of dollars lobbying each year to make sure our people don't have the right to grow a plant? Because they want to control it, tax it and be the only ones to profit from it.
The Washington State constitution states clearly that no corporation shall be granted special rights or privileges not available to citizens, but 502 has done exactly that. It has created a special class of citizens who are encouraged to grow pot for massive profit and tax while our state denies that right to its constituents. When you criminalize nature, you criminalize humanity. It is as simple as that.
Our experiment with legalization has shown that growing or selling pot has no negative effects, and we need to stop pot arrests. Every other state that has legalized has given their citizens the right to harvest their own plant, and it is time that Washington state caught up with the times.
What bills are pending?
HB-1092, introduced by Rep. Sherry Appleton (D-Poulsbo), would legalize up to six plants in a home and up to 24 ounces of usable Cannabis. This would effectively give all adults and those choosing to use Cannabis medicinally the right and ability to meet their needs and exercise their freedoms.
Northwest Leaf supports HB-1092!
HB-2629 is sponsored by Reps Blake, Condatta and Farrell and would also legalize up to six plants and 24 ounces for personal use. Northwest Leaf also supports HB-2629! Both bills would deliver the freedom and rights that our citizens need!
What can you do?
Call, email or set an in-person appointment with your legislator to let them know you support and want the right to grow a plant! Our lawmakers are often disconnected from the laws they vote on, and even hearing from as few as 5-15 citizens can be enough to sway their vote. It is our duty in a democracy to inform them of our opinions, feelings and desires, and this is how we can create meaningful representation in Olympia for all matters, not just Cannabis. Please reach out to bring freedom to our people and plant and end arrests for pot prisoners.
Speak out! Tell your representatives you support HB 1092 for home grow: App.Leg.WA.Gov/DistrictFinder


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I'm pretty terrible at staying committed to any one thing: types of cereals, favorite fruits, television shows...usually I just stop caring and move on to the next.
Today this all changes!
This marks the significant day that I:Amye Parker, and Her:Marie Powell have started a commitment to each other that has been a long time in the brewing.
But this ain't just any old blog! This is a place for memories, reminders, inspirations, stories and ridiculousness. I'm attempting to keep borrowed photos to a minimum and instead will try to convey every tiny detail from my everyday life.
I get a little awkward posting random minutia about myself but, gawd, everyone's doing it! And I think it makes this whole thing a bit more personal and entertaining....yeah, definitely entertaining. With stories like earring-swallowing and face licking, there is nothing BUT entertainment coming up.
So to mark an occasion, a truly remarkable time in history, please allow me to make the first post of many. Baby, I will not let you down.


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sur la plage
Manhattan Beach. January 11, 2010. 4:30 pm.
Just got back from the Lyon Shop 3 in LA. It was amazing. Too short. Too fast and just awesome. More images to come from that, but I wanted to post these today as I am already missing the sun!


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With some of my volunteer friends we like to go to El Cuco, a small town and beach in El Savador. By car, it's just a couple of hours away from San Lorenzo, so it's perfect when one needs to relax, swim, sun bathe and surf. Yes, that's right! I've tried surfing! I'm terrible at it, and my body is always covered with bruises after each time, but I love it!
When we go to El Cuco, we stay at a hotel called La Tortuga Verde. It's pretty, it's quiet, it's friendly and it's cheap! The hotel is also a turtle sanctuary. The owner, Tom (or Don Tomas, as he is called by the hotel employees) is a far-out New Yorker, passionate about turtles. We heard that he saves turtle eggs from being stolen from poachers and he had mentioned that it's possible to see turtles get out of the sand and help release them to sea.
Even though we know that incubation time for turtle eggs is approximately 40-50 days, it's really hard to plan our weekends to coincide with when the eggs hatch. You kind of have to be there when it happens…One day we were!
That Saturday afternoon, two weeks ago, we were about a dozen people at the hotel. Suddenly, Don Tomas (or Tom), told us that it was time! So we all rushed to the beach. We watched Tom as he got ready to do a promotional video. With his thick American accent, he spoke to the camera in Spanish and told viewers…err…to be honest I'm not sure what he said! It probably had to do with turtles and how El Salvador is great. He was very enthusiastic though, I can tell you that!
We all observed in awe as Tom was digging out the turtles and putting them in a paila (a plastic container). Then we brought the turtles closer to the sea and let them out one by one. We watched them crawl towards the water and seconds later get swallowed by the waves. There were a little more than 100 turtles. I couldn't believe what I just witnessed!
Later that night, Josiane (a friend of Fabrizio's, visiting from Montreal) and I were chilling near the beach when Tom came to see us again with his paila full of baby turtles. What?! More?! We followed him and helped him release one hundred more turtles. So in all, we released a little more than 200 turtles.
It was night. The moon was huge and bright. I was still in a state of wonder. Josiane looked at the sand beneath our feet and said to me: "Hey! Look! We have a moon shadow!" Yup, turtle power is magic!


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Rachel and Steve should get to meet with the doctor today. I'll update as I can. Got to hold the little one last night and sing "Jesus Loves Me" to him. Kinda hard to rock him with all the wires hanging out though. He looks like Rachel did when she was little except he's dark complected. I guess every grandmother thinks her grandkids reminds them of their parents when they were born. Takes me back several years.
He is so beautiful!! Don't you know God looks down and smiles!