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"Who Is Jesus Christ?" Ensign, Mar. 2008, 12–19
Who Is Jesus Christ?
Meeting with the Twelve at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asked, "Whom say ye that I am?" Simon Peter, the chief Apostle answered, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matthew 16:15–16). Peter later testified that Jesus "was foreordained before the foundation of the world" (1 Peter 1:20). He was "in the beginning with the Father, and [is] the Firstborn" (D&C 93:21).
When the Father's plan—the plan of salvation and happiness (see Alma 34:9)—was presented (see Alma 42:5, 8), one was required to atone to provide redemption and mercy to all those who accepted the plan (see Alma 34:16; 39:18; 42:15). The Father asked, "Whom shall I send?" He who was to be known as Jesus freely and willingly chose to answer, "Here am I, send me" (Abraham 3:27). "Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever" (Moses 4:2).
In preparation, the earth was created: "By the Son I created [the earth], which is mine Only Begotten," declared the Father (Moses 1:33; see also Ephesians 3:9; Helaman 14:12; Moses 2:1).
Titles of Jesus Christ
He was known as Jehovah by the Old Testament prophets (see Abraham 1:16; Exodus 6:3). The prophets were shown of His coming: "Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father!" (1 Nephi 11:21; see also John 1:14). His mother was told, "Call his name Jesus. … He shall be … called the Son of the Highest" (Luke 1:31–32).
Many titles and names are descriptive of His divine mission and ministry. He Himself taught: "I am the light and the life of the world. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end" (3 Nephi 9:18). "I am … your advocate with the Father" (D&C 29:5; see also D&C 110:14). "I am the good shepherd" (John 10:11). "I am Messiah, the King of Zion, the Rock of Heaven" (Moses 7:53). "I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger [or] thirst" (John 6:35). "I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman" (John 15:1). "I am the resurrection, and the life" (John 11:25). "I am … the bright and morning star" (Revelation 22:16), "Jesus Christ, your Redeemer, the Great I Am" (D&C 29:1).
He is the Mediator (see 1 Timothy 2:5), the Savior (see Luke 2:11), the Redeemer (see D&C 18:47), the Head of the Church (see Ephesians 5:23), its Chief Cornerstone (see Ephesians 2:20). At the last day, "God shall judge … men by Jesus Christ according to [the] gospel" (Romans 2:16; see also Mormon 3:20).
"God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son" (John 3:16); "wherefore, redemption cometh in and through the Holy Messiah; for he is full of grace and truth" (2 Nephi 2:6).
The Prophet Joseph Smith was often asked, "What are the fundamental principles of your religion?"
"The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it."1
Humility of Jesus Christ
At the time of His arrest before His Crucifixion, the Lord had come from Gethsemane. At the moment of betrayal, Peter drew his sword against Malchus, a servant of the high priest. Jesus said:
"Put up again thy sword into his place. …
"Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?" (Matthew 26:52–53).
During all of the taunting, abuse, scourging, and final torture of crucifixion, the Lord remained silent and submissive—except, that is, for one moment of intense drama which reveals the very essence of Christian doctrine. That moment came during the trial. Pilate, now afraid, said to Jesus: "Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?" (John 19:10).
One can only imagine the quiet majesty when the Lord spoke: "Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above" (John 19:11). What happened thereafter did not come because Pilate had power to impose it but because the Lord had the will to accept it.
"I lay down my life," the Lord said, "that I might take it again.
"No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again" (John 10:17–18).
Atonement of Jesus Christ
Before the Crucifixion and afterward, many men have willingly given their lives in selfless acts of heroism. But none faced what Christ endured. Upon Him was the burden of all human transgression, all human guilt. And hanging in the balance was the Atonement. Through His willing act, mercy and justice could be reconciled, eternal law sustained, and that mediation achieved without which mortal man could not be redeemed.
He by choice accepted the penalty in behalf of all mankind for the sum total of all wickedness and depravity; for brutality, immorality, perversion, and corruption; for addiction; for the killings and torture and terror—for all of it that ever had been or all that ever would be enacted upon this earth. In so choosing He faced the awesome power of the evil one, who was not confined to flesh nor subject to mortal pain. That was Gethsemane!
How the Atonement was wrought we do not know. No mortal watched as evil turned away and hid in shame before the Light of that pure being. All wickedness could not quench that Light. When what was done was done, the ransom had been paid. Both death and hell forsook their claim on all who would repent. Men at last were free. Then every soul who ever lived could choose to touch that Light and be redeemed.
By this infinite sacrifice, "through [this] Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel" (Articles of Faith 1:3).
"Atonement" in Scripture
The English word atonement is really three words: at-one-ment, which means to set at one; one with God; to reconcile, to conciliate, to expiate.
But did you know that the word atonement appears only once in the English New Testament? Only once! I quote from Paul's letter to the Romans:
"Christ died for us.
"… We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
"And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement" (Romans 5:8, 10–11; emphasis added).
Only that once does the word atonement appear in the English New Testament. Atonement, of all words! It was not an unknown word, for it had been used much in the Old Testament in connection with the law of Moses, but once only in the New Testament. I find that to be remarkable.
I know of only one explanation. For that we turn to the Book of Mormon. Nephi testified that the Bible once "contained the fulness of the gospel of the Lord, of whom the twelve apostles bear record" and that "after [the words] go forth by the hand of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, from the Jews unto the Gentiles, thou seest the formation of that great and abominable church, which is most abominable above all other churches; for behold, they have taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken away" (1 Nephi 13:24, 26).
Jacob defined the great and abominable church in these words: "Wherefore, he that fighteth against Zion, both Jew and Gentile, both bond and free, both male and female, shall perish; for they are they who are the whore of all the earth; for they who are not for me are against me, saith our God" (2 Nephi 10:16).
Nephi also said, "Because of the many plain and precious things which have been taken out of the book, … an exceedingly great many do stumble, yea, insomuch that Satan hath great power over them" (1 Nephi 13:29). He then prophesied that the precious things would be restored (see 1 Nephi 13:34–35).
And they were restored. In the Book of Mormon the word atone in form and tense appears 39 times. I quote but one verse from Alma: "And now, the plan of mercy could not be brought about except an atonement should be made; therefore God himself atoneth for the sins of the world, to bring about the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice, that God might be a perfect, just God, and a merciful God also" (Alma 42:15; emphasis added).
Only once in the New Testament but 39 times in the Book of Mormon. What better witness that the Book of Mormon is indeed another testament of Jesus Christ?
And that is not all. The words atone, atoneth, and atonement appear in the Doctrine and Covenants five times and in the Pearl of Great Price twice. Forty-seven references of transcendent importance. And that is not all! Hundreds of other verses help to explain the Atonement.
The cost of the Atonement was borne by the Lord without compulsion, for agency is a sovereign principle. According to the plan, agency must be honored. It was so from the beginning, from Eden.
"The Lord said unto Enoch: Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency" (Moses 7:32).
Whatever else happened in Eden, in his supreme moment of testing, Adam made a choice. After the Lord commanded Adam and Eve to multiply and replenish the earth and commanded them not to partake of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, He said, "Nevertheless, thou mayest choose for thyself, for it is given unto thee; but, remember that I forbid it, for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Moses 3:17).
There was too much at issue to introduce man into mortality by force. That would contravene the very law essential to the plan. The plan provided that each spirit child of God would receive a mortal body and each would be tested. Adam saw that it must be so and made his choice. "Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy" (2 Nephi 2:25).
Adam and Eve ventured forth to multiply and replenish the earth as they had been commanded to do. The creation of their bodies in the image of God, as a separate creation, was crucial to the plan. Their subsequent Fall was essential if the condition of mortality was to exist and the plan to proceed.
Necessity of the Atonement
Jacob described what would happen to our bodies and our spirits except "an infinite atonement" was made. "Our spirits," he said, "must have become like unto [the devil]." (See 2 Nephi 9:7–10.)
I seldom use the word absolutely. It seldom fits. I use it now—twice:
Because of the Fall, the Atonement was absolutely essential for resurrection to proceed and overcome mortal death.
The Atonement was absolutely essential for men to cleanse themselves from sin and overcome the second death, spiritual death, which is separation from our Father in Heaven, for the scriptures tell us eight times that no unclean thing may enter the presence of God (see 1 Nephi 10:21; 15:34; Alma 7:21; 11:37; 40:26; Helaman 8:25; 3 Nephi 27:19; Moses 6:57).
Those scriptural words, "Thou mayest choose for thyself, for it is given unto thee" (Moses 3:17), introduced Adam and Eve and their posterity to all the risks of mortality. In mortality men are free to choose, and each choice begets a consequence. The choice Adam made energized the law of justice, which required that the penalty for disobedience would be death.
But those words spoken at the trial, "Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above" (John 19:11), proved mercy was of equal rank. A redeemer was sent to pay the debt and set men free. That was the plan.
Alma's son Corianton thought it unfair that penalties must follow sin, that there need be punishment. In a profound lesson, Alma taught the plan of redemption to his son and so to us. Alma spoke of the Atonement and said, "Now, repentance could not come unto men except there were a punishment" (Alma 42:16).
If punishment is the price repentance asks, it comes at bargain price. Consequences, even painful ones, protect us. So simple a thing as a child's cry of pain when his finger touches fire can teach us that. Except for the pain, the child might be consumed.
Blessings of Repentance
I readily confess that I would find no peace, neither happiness nor safety, in a world without repentance. I do not know what I should do if there were no way for me to erase my mistakes. The agony would be more than I could bear. It may be otherwise with you, but not with me.
The Atonement was made. Ever and always it offers amnesty from transgression and from death if we will but repent. Repentance is the escape clause in it all. Repentance is the key with which we can unlock the prison from inside. We hold that key within our hands, and agency is ours to use it.
How supernally precious freedom is; how consummately valuable is agency.
Lucifer in clever ways manipulates our choices, deceiving us about sin and consequences. He and his angels tempt us to be unworthy, even wicked. But he cannot—in all eternity he cannot, with all his power he cannot—completely destroy us, not without our own consent. Had agency come to man without the Atonement, it would have been a fatal gift.
Created in His Image
We are taught in Genesis, in Moses, in Abraham, in the Book of Mormon, and in the endowment that man's mortal body was made in the image of God in a separate creation. Had the Creation come in a different way, there could have been no Fall.
If men were merely animals, then logic favors freedom without accountability.
How well I know that among learned men are those who look down at animals and stones to find the origin of man. They do not look inside themselves to find the spirit there. They train themselves to measure things by time, by thousands and by millions, and say these animals called men all came by chance. And this they are free to do, for agency is theirs.
But agency is ours as well. We look up, and in the universe we see the handiwork of God and measure things by epochs, by aeons, by dispensations, by eternities. The many things we do not know, we take on faith.
But this we know! It was all planned "before the world was" (D&C 38:1; see also D&C 49:17; 76:13, 39; 93:7; Abraham 3:22–25). Events from the Creation to the final, winding-up scene are not based on chance; they are based on choice! It was planned that way.
This we know! This simple truth! Had there been no Creation and no Fall, there should have been no need for any Atonement, neither a Redeemer to mediate for us. Then Christ need not have been.
Symbols of the Atonement
At Gethsemane and Golgotha, the Savior's blood was shed. Centuries earlier the Passover had been introduced as a symbol and a type of things to come. It was an ordinance to be kept forever. (See Exodus 12.)
When the plague of death was decreed upon Egypt, each Israelite family was commanded to take a lamb—firstborn, male, without blemish. This paschal lamb was slain without breaking any bones, its blood to mark the doorway of the home. The Lord promised that the angel of death would pass over the homes so marked and not slay those inside. They were saved by the blood of the lamb.
After the Crucifixion of the Lord, the law of sacrifice required no more shedding of blood. For that was done, as Paul taught the Hebrews, "once for all … one sacrifice for sins for ever" (Hebrews 10:10, 12). The sacrifice thenceforth was to be a broken heart and a contrite spirit—repentance.
And the Passover would be commemorated forever as the sacrament, in which we renew our covenant of baptism and partake in remembrance of the body of the Lamb of God and of His blood, which was shed for us.
It is no small thing that this symbol reappears in the Word of Wisdom. Beyond the promise that Saints in this generation who obey will receive health and great treasures of knowledge is this: "I, the Lord, give unto them a promise, that the destroying angel shall pass by them, as the children of Israel, and not slay them" (D&C 89:21).
I cannot with composure tell you how I feel about the Atonement. It touches the deepest emotion of gratitude and obligation. My soul reaches after Him who wrought it—this Christ, our Savior, of whom I am a witness. I testify of Him. He is our Lord, our Redeemer, our Advocate with the Father. He ransomed us with His blood.
Humbly I lay claim upon the Atonement of Christ. I find no shame in kneeling down in worship of our Father and His Son. For agency is mine, and this I choose to do!


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When people refer to "Android tablets" they may soon just be referring to the Amazon Kindle Fire.
According to the latest data released by comScore today, the Kindle Fire captured a 54.4% market share among Android tablets sold in the U.S. in February, up from a 41.8% market share in January. The only other Android tablet to even crack a 10% market share was the Samsung Galaxy Tab line of tablets, which accounted for 15.4% of all Android tablets in February. Rounding out the top five were the Motorola Xoom (7%), the Asus Transformer (6.3%) and the Toshiba AT100 (5.7%).
SLIDESHOW: First look: Amazon Kindle Fire
RELATED: Kindle Fire now king of Android tablets
The Kindle Fire has proved to be one of the few success stories for Android tablets, as it sold an estimated 4 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011. While this is impressive as far as Android tablets go, the Kindle Fire's sales still paled in comparison with the Apple iPad, which sold around 15 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011. Even so, market intelligence firm iSuppli said earlier this year that low-cost tablets such as the Kindle Fire and the Barnes & Noble Nook have knocked down Apple's total share of the tablet market to 57.6% in the fourth quarter of 2012 from 64% in the third quarter of 2012.
Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet was hyped as the first tablet to give the iPad a run for its money when it was released last year because of its lower $200 price tag, its integration with Amazon's cloud services and its unique Android interface designed by Amazon. Amazon created a Web browser called Amazon Silk that utilizes Amazon's cloud capabilities to speed up page load times by tracking your Web browsing patterns and preloading pages you typically visit through Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). In other words, Amazon's cloud requests your frequently visited pages before you even ask for them so they're ready to go.
Read more about anti-malware in Network World's Anti-malware section.
This story, "Kindle Fire accounts for more than half of U.S. Android tablets" was originally published by Network World.

subset: commoncrawl


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12 Ways to Save on Health Costs
Save money at the pharmacy, gym and doctor's office
En español | 1. Use baking soda for indigestion. Packaged remedies like Alka-Seltzer are largely baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and aspirin. So if you don't have a headache, drink ¼ teaspoon of baking soda dissolved in ¼ cup of water. Save $8 per 36 doses.
2. Buy pills to split. Ask your doctor if it's cheaper to get half the amount of double-strength medication and split each pill into two doses with a $5 device. For instance, 60 tablets of the 20mg Paxil cost $14.17 at Costco, according to GoodRX.com, but 30 tablets of the 40mg Paxil cost $11.87. You could save $80 to $100 a year.
3. Join Silver Sneakers. Ask your health care provider if you are eligible. The program offers free gym memberships to folks 65-plus. Save $700 per year, on average.
4. For some meds, skip your insurance. Ask your pharmacist about the retail price of your prescription medication; it might be cheaper to pay that price. For example, the diabetes medication metformin costs about $4 for a month's supply, while the average copay is $11. Savings: $7.
5. Suspend your gym membership this summer, and take your exercise outdoors. You'll save around $58 a month.
6. Check supermarket pharmacies. Some national chains and discount stores offer common medications for free. If your deductible is $10, you'll save $120 a year on just one prescription.
7. Stream fitness classes online. Online fitness classes such as Daily Burn, Crunchlive and YogaToday typically cost around $15 per month for unlimited access — about what you'd pay for a single in-person class. Use a $15 subscription 12 times a month and you'll save $165. Plus you get to decide when class starts.
8. Buy glasses online. It can be 70 percent cheaper to buy at sites such as zennioptical.com than at a store. That's $210 off a $300 pair of specs. AARP members can save at EyeMed.
9. Shop around for meds. Area drug prices can vary widely. For example, a customer in Raleigh, N.C., was quoted $249 at a national chain for duloxetine. Costco charged $43 for the same prescription. Savings: $206.
10. Get help on drug costs. Medicare beneficiaries may qualify for the Extra Help program to cover prescriptions. Savings: up to $4,000 a year. Apply at socialsecurity.gov/extrahelp or call 800-772-1213.
11. Call in a medical bill negotiator to review your bills for errors and overcharges, and save up to $3,000.
12. Apply for free meds. Through the Partnership for Prescription Assistance (pparx.org), qualified patients can get help. A free 120-day supply of the diabetes drug Victoza would save $2,096.


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The infographic here reminds me of the 1970's movie Rollerball, in which the world was controlled by seven corporations: food, energy, entertainment, transportation, etc. It seemed at the time, when I saw it, like a reasonable guess at the future.
But then there's the change led by technology, which seems to splinter the world and allow for millions upon millions of individual business and smaller companies. So who knows?
I like the collection of related facts in this infographic.


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A 2-day history of fever and sore throat and an erupting rash prompted the mother of a 5-year-old boy to bring her son into the office for evaluation.
A 2-day history of fever and sore throat and an erupting rash prompted the mother of a 5-year-old boy to bring her son into the office for evaluation. This case demonstrates typical aspects of a disease now seen far less often than in the past-scarlet fever.
The physical examination revealed intensely injected, enlarged tonsils with purulent exudate in the crypts (Figure 1). The soft palate also was intensely erythematous. On each side of the tongue blade, a "white strawberry" tongue is evident as the reddened edematous papillae project through the tongue's white coating. Anterior cervical glands were enlarged and tender.
A day before presentation, a fine, sandpaper-like rash erupted in the genital area (Figure 2). The rash spread to the patient's anterior trunk, back, and upper thighs.
A test for rapid identification of group A β-hemolytic streptococci was positive, confirming the diagnosis of scarlet fever. A 10-day course of amoxicillin, 250 mg three times a day, was prescribed.
Two days later, while his condition was improving and the exanthem was fading, the skin of the youngster's genitalia began to desquamate; this is a characteristic feature of scarlet fever. The hyperpigmentation of the skin and the Pastia lines in the inguinal areas also are seen commonly in this disease. This boy completed the antibiotic therapy, and his recovery was uneventful.


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Interview: Bishop TD Jakes on Hell, Politics, Film Projects
NEWARK, N.J. – Bishop T.D. Jakes, chief pastor of The Potter's House, a 30,000-member nondenominational megachurch in Dallas, Texas, has been called the "black Billy Graham."
In addition to being a world-renowned pastor, Jakes is also a Christian author, entertainment entreprenuer, speaker and also a minister to President Barack Obama at prayer breakfasts and private services.
On June 18, Jakes was the featured speaker at the 28th annual McDonald's Gospelfest in Newark, N.J., the largest Gospel talent competition and celebration in the New York Tri-State area.
In an interview with The Christian Post before taking the stage at Gospelfest, Jakes spoke about the changes in Gospel music, his latest movie projects, and why nondenominational churches are the fastest growing churches. He also addressed which issues he feels the next president should tackle, the Rob Bell hell controversy and how Christians should respond in the Eddie Long settlement case.
CP: This is your second time speaking at Gospelfest and you've spoken at several others, including ones with Kirk Franklin, whose style has been considered more of a modern take on Gospel music. What is Gospel music and how has the face of Gospel music changed over the years? How are those changes reflected in Gospelfest?
Jakes: I think the amazing thing about Gospel music is that not only does it lift up the death and resurrection of our Lord, which is consistent with the Gospel, but it is uniquely communicated depending upon the generation. It's not locked to sheet music, it's not held in a box. Many times the singer will take it someplace on stage and everybody falls into it. So there's going to be diversity. As diverse as we are, as the people are expressing it, they are going to be equally diverse. And there are rooms for traditional and contemporary and hip hop Gospel music. The methodologies are always different but the message should be the same.
CP: And that's what you've been doing through TDJ Enterprises, through your movies and Sacred Love Songs CD release. What has been the feedback you've received on "Jumping the Broom," which you told The Christian Post in an earlier interview was a movie that spotlighted the message on abstinence before marriage? There are many people who comment about the movie on your Twitter, so what has the response been?
Jakes: It has been amazing. I mean, it's been incredible. The response was so unpredictable and unprecedented that Hollywood has green lighted for us to do three more movies .They've decided to go international with Jumping the Broom is being played in Nigeria, it's been released in South Africa. Normally, a movie of its genre would not go internationally but it has gone international. We are just looking forward to more and more positive things with the platform that God has given us.
CP: You're currently working on script for "Heaven is for Real" and are in the process of developing that. I'm curious to know how you're going to portray heaven in the movie because the main point of the book is about the journey of a 4-year-old boy to heaven. So do you have any ideas on how you're going to be portraying that?
Jakes: Right now, it is quite intimidating. It's funny that you should bring that up because I just left Beverly Hills where I had I meeting with Sony Pictures and where we were discussing what a tightrope that is to walk, not only in being consistent with the young man's interpretation of what he saw in heaven but even from a Biblical perspective to do ... for man to imitate what only God can do with always intimidating. But I think the real splint of Heaven is for Real, it's not so much in the images that we see but in the fact that this young boy has brought us back this unbelievable account of something that is so euphorically and amazing to us. I think it's going to be relevant to people, of course to Christians, but even for people who are not Christian, who have lost children or loved ones of any kind, we are very interested to know there is something beyond this life. We know that there is as Christians but this is an opportunity that translates that message into a broader audience.
CP: Speaking of "Heaven is for Real," there's been an explosive debate about hell based on Rob Bell's book Love Wins. He has said that he believes in a literal hell but has questioned the eternity of hell and suggested that in the end God wins. What are your thoughts on hell and that debate?
Jakes: I probably take a pretty traditional view about hell. I'm not very contemporary in terms of that. I had not read the book so let me say that right off the top but my views about hell are very traditional. I think, when we start dealing with heaven or hell issues, what we really need to gravitate toward is that man is an eternal spirit. And if you believe that he is an eternal spirit then all it does, it abandons the body. And the debate is what happens to the spirit, the essence of the man after death, be in heaven or hell? As a Christian, Christ died so that we will have eternal life in him in heaven. What it looks like doesn't matter, what it smells like doesn't matter, as long as Christ is there it will be heaven to me.
CP: You've spoken at a lot of church and collaborated with a lot of different churches. There are reports that white mainline churches have experienced a decline in membership and baptisms. Based on your observations, have you seen a similar trend for black churches? What are some of the challenges of the black churches and are they different?
Jakes: That's interesting. I think that we are all over the place. The more contemporary churches are evolving and doing very well. The traditional churches are having to transition into new methodologies and new ways of reaching people and they are starting to understand that and looking for ways they can increase their relevance to the contemporary society.
CP: Does it matter whether they are nondenominational, evangelical or denominational in terms of their growth and flexibility to reach people?
Jakes: Most of what I have seen, the churches that are growing are the best are those that are nondenominational. But I don't think it's because they are nondenominational. I think that there's a certain method by which they go about reaching out to people that are not as traditional as your mainland churches generally do.
And another thing is that I think as a church whenever we become politically driven, we alienate at least 50 percent of the people that God called us to reach with our political orientations. I think that it's unfortunate that we have allowed politics to use theology to hit areas that we sincerely want to support. But I think that they are using us to some degree because they are using what concerns us to isolate us. Our membership is showing only the consequence of being only able to reach out to certain groups of people who think like you think.
CP: Speaking about politics, Republican candidates are making their bid in the 2012 race for president. What issues should the next president tackle that are important to Christians?
Jakes: I think there are many, many issues that the next president needs to tackle.
CP: What issues specifically, gay marriage, the economy, foreign policy?
Jakes: I think if we don't fix the economy and if we don't fix foreign policy, we won't have the luxury of dealing with domestic issues that may be important to Christians but we have to understand that in my view, we've taken our eyes off the ball a bit. We have gotten so nuanced into social issues that we fail to understand that China is buying up our country, we have fallen into debt in such a pervasive way that social security is compromised, we are living longer than we lived before and in order to secure the kind of healthcare that we need without the deficits on our budget, we need really strong leadership that is focused only on the plethora of issues and not just the traditional concerns that have driven us to the ballot box.
CP: Which moral issues would need to be dealt with?
Jakes: Well, when you are talking about moral issues you are talking about same-sex marriage, which has been relegated over to the states. It's no longer a federal issue and yet, we are dealing with it like it's a federal issue but for a large degree it has become a state issue. When you start talking about same-sex marriage, you start talking about abortion, and I think those issues are very very important and very interesting and very right for us to talk about, but when we allow those issues to cannibalize all other issues we find ourselves homeless while we debate about it. I think we have to find a leader who reflects all of our concerns and not just some of them.
CP: I've read that your church, The Potter's House, is a sister church with Eddie Long's New Birth Missionary Baptist Church?
Jakes: That is not true.
CP: Okay. In September, when allegations against him came out, you commented that Christians should pray for Eddie Long that one person if not all people involved will need the blood of Jesus after it's all done. His case was recently settled out of court and he's returned to pastoring his church. There's been a lot of conversations questioning how Christians should respond now?
Jakes: We should still pray. We have no other authority but to pray. The New Birth church is a church unto itself who has a board and it has a membership. How they choose to handle their leadership issues it's not something that we can control regardless of which side you stay on that issue. It is their church issue and their responsibility and their response. And I'm saying what I always said that we should just keep on praying for the New Birth church family.
CP: The theme of this year's Gospelfest is "Men of Valor" and this weekend is also Father's Day. Can you comment on the theme and also share with us what you will do tomorrow for Father's Day?
Jakes: "Men of Valor" is so very, very important. I'm so pleased to see us talking gender specific messages that are focusing on men on a way I think it needs to be focused in on and I think it's important. I want to congratulate all the men out there who are working diligently to be good fathers whether they are stepfathers, or biological fathers or just spiritual fathers. I just congratulate any kind of way that you are encouraging people to be all that they can be.
Secondly, I'm going to go home and let my kids take over, however they celebrate me that's how I'm going to be celebrated. My church family and all of that is a wonderful thing but my children are already beginning to celebrate me and I'm already feeling that.
CP: What are your tips for being a good Christian father?
Jakes: I think being a good Christian father, your responsibility varies with the age and the stage that your children are at. Instilling values of faith at an early age is important. Listening them through adolescence comes more important than teaching because if you haven't instilled in them at early ages now it's time to listen and get your report card and let them find their way and then as an adult let them stand aside. My children are now adults and just kind of guide them while they allow you to have input in their lives without controlling them the way you did when they were toddlers. These are good steps to use for fathers at each step of their children's lives.
I think being a good Christian father, your responsibility varies with the age and the stage that your children are at.
Instilling in them the values of our faith is important at early ages. Listening to them through adolescence becomes more important than teaching because if you haven't instilled in them at early ages now it's time to listen and get your report card and let them find their way.
Then as an adult, to stand aside, as my children are now adults and just kind of guide them as they allow you to have input in their lives without trying to control them in the way that you did when they were toddlers.
These are good steps for fathers to use at each stage of their children's lives.


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TART, BUT TASTY The Rare Barrel, a new endeavor that plans to make hand-crafted sour beer aged in barrels, is coming to Berkeley, according to a posting on the group's website (and first spotted by Diablo Magazine). The father and son brewing team of Brad and Jay Goodwin and sales and marketing director Alex Wallash will begin renovation of a warehouse at 940 Parker Street next week, with the aim of starting beer production in early 2013, according to Wallash. Sour beer is a beer whose "character profile has a tart and acidic flavor, sometimes fruity," he said. While most hand-crafted beer is fermented in steel tanks and aged a couple of weeks to two months, The Rare Barrel will age its beer in oak barrels from six months to three years. The trio chose Berkeley because the cooling fogs that are pulled in through the Golden Gate create a perfect climate, according to an announcement on The Rare Barrel blog.
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME The Chronicle's Inside Scoop has more details on the restaurant Lisa Holt and David Shapiro are opening in the old Pasand space at 2286 Shattuck (which prompted the landlord not to renew the lease of the Shattuck Down Low nightclub). It will be a Roman-style pizzeria called A90, referring to the road that circles Rome and the number of seconds it takes to cook a thin-crust pizza. The restaurant will be "something unique that has not been seen in the Northern California area at all," Holt told Inside Scoop, and will let diners "be individual and creative about their food." The chef will be Brian Langevin, a pizzaiolo trained by Tony Gemignani, the paper reports. [Update: The name has been changed to Build Pizzeria.]
CHANGING FASHIONS Sala, a hip clothing store run by Racheal Matthews and Dielly Diaz for three years at 1746 Shattuck Ave., shut its doors September 30, according to its Facebook page. Now the space seems to be morphing into Foxglove, another clothing store. There is still a nicely dressed mannequin surrounded by paint cans in the front window and a sign reads "Coming Soon, Foxglove. Happy Sunday Streets."
Shop Talk is Berkeleyside's regular column in which we post updates on Berkeley businesses — openings, closings, new directions, relaunches, relocations. If you're a Berkeley business with news, or a Berkeleysider who has spotted a change in your neighborhood or on your travels, shoot us an email with the details. Read previous Shop Talk columns here.
Berkeleyside publishes many articles every day. To see all our stories in chronological order, and read ones you may have missed, check out All the News.


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Ever wondered what the name of your car means? Jalopnik readers are here to tell it's probably just nonsense.
Welcome back to Answers of the Day - our daily Jalopnik feature where we take the best ten responses from the previous day's Question of the Day and shine it up to show off. It's by you and for you, the Jalopnik readers. Enjoy!
There are thousands of acceptable words for automakers to choose from when naming a car. I don't know of a single car named "Ophion," the Greek titan who once ruled Earth, which I just thought up right now. If you're a car company reading this, consider that one a freebie. You can even make up compound words that sound awesome if you feel like it. For instance there was the Dodge RAMCHARGER, which makes sense, even though it's not a real word.
There are also many car names that have meanings in obscure languages, like the Holden Malloo (an aboriginal word for 'thunder'), the Pagani Huayra (Quechua for 'god of wind'), or my personal favorite, the Renault Koleos, which means 'sheath' in Greek, but means 'testicle' in Latin. It also shares the same root with 'coleocystitus,' an inflammation of both the vagina and the bladder.
Still, you'd be surprised how many car names that sound like nonsense actually do have a little-known meaning. Post your favorite in Kinja below and see if your nothing-word does have a secret definition.
Photo Credit: Mitsubishi
10.) Kia Sportage
'Sportage' is kind of evocative for pseudo-sportiness, but doesn't really mean anything.
Suggested By: Andrew Figueiredo, Photo Credit: Cyril Attias
9.) Kia Cee'd
Just call it a seed, Kia. Don't give us this apostrophe BS.
Suggested By: Tumeke, Photo Credit: Top Gear
8.) Volkswagen Routan
This is reportedly a combination of "route" and "an," which means…nothing.
Suggested By: AGirlsBestFriendIsHerSTI, Photo Credit: joyride1x1
7.) Oldsmobile Toronado
Though you might think it means some kind of super Spanish tornado, it's just another nonsense word thought up in GM's golden years.
Suggested By: McPherson, Photo Credit: George Thomas
6.) Nissan Sentra
The closest Jalopnik readers came to a definition of Sentra was that it sounds similar to Latin's "sentire," to find one's way.
Suggested By: revoknucklereturns, Photo Credit: Eric Malette
5.) Any Alphanumeric
If you can piece together the meaning of BMW's Z4 sDrive35is, congratulations, you're a mega-nerd.
Suggested By: thedarkestofallcodes, Photo Credit: BMW
4.) Toyota Previa
Previa appears to be a misspelling of the Latin 'praevia,' meaning 'going before.' However, if you stick to Latin, you will also find that 'previa' refers to something obstructing a baby's path in the birth canal. Typically this is 'placenta previa,' or when the placenta is too low in the uterus, and is against the cervix.
Suggested By: YesILoveCars, Photo Credit: Guian Bolisay
3.) Toyota Venza
Venza is supposed to be a nonsensical combination of 'venture' and 'Monza,' the Italian Formula One circuit. In Japanese, however, it sounds just like the word for toilet seat. That's why in its home market, Toyota calls the thing the 'Mark X ZiO.'
Suggested By: Gimmi, Photo Credit: Tino Rossini
2.) Mazda Miata
Mazda claims that Miata comes from an archaic German word for 'reward,' which would absolutely trigger the bullshit meter in any game of Scrabble worth a damn. It also sounds like a girly name, especially compared to its name in Japan "Roadster' or 'MX-5' in Europe.
Suggested By: Viperfan1, Photo Credit: Otis Blank
1.) Mitsubishi Starion
According to Mitsubishi, Starion is a combination of 'star' and 'Orion,' which doesn't make any sense, but isn't any more nonsensical than its other offerings at the time, the Tredia and the Cordia. Others have argued that the car is perhaps the greatest example of Engrish, where the car was meant to be called 'stallion,' but a mispronunciation from the Japanese office came out in a rather unfortunate manner. This is backed up by the early advertising for the car, which featured a big picture of a stallion with 'Starion' below it. This image was quickly taken out of all Mitsubishi advertising.
The engrish explanation sounds too apocryphal to me, and it's quite likely that Mitsubishi just thought 'Starion' would be a fun make-up version of Stallion, that just ended up sounding very unfortunate to casually-racist 1980s America. Either way, it's a nonsense word, even if the car was super cool.
You can find a more in-depth discussion of the Starion name here at Curbside Classic, as well as on Snopes.
Suggested By: eNZo288, Photo Credit: Calvin Kim


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Which one of these two albums looks better?
Flickr (the same view since 2004)
Google+ (with added infinite scrolling this week)
You know what? It doesn't matter. It's totally irrelevant. The Google one looks far better, but that's so beside the point at this point.
Last night I realized for the first time that Flickr really was dead.
Where did this realization come from?
It had nothing to do with the fact that Google Photos is rolling out new innovation on a weekly basis while Flickr is still stuck in 2004. I realized it when I went to Trey Ratcliff's photowalk at Stanford. There were over 200 people there. *200 people*! It was the largest photowalk I've ever been on and I've done dozens over the years. And what was everybody talking about at the photowalk?
Not only was *everyone* talking about Google, there were tons of people from Google who were there at the walk.
Google Photos Community Manager Brian Rose was there (along with his sexy moustache). The Photo Team guy who built their lightbox Vincent Mo was there. Google+ Community Manager Natalie Villalobos was there (she used to work at Yahoo). Chris Chabot was there (and he was at Wednesday night's photowalk in SF too). Mike Wiacek was there.
And these are just some of the people at Google that I know better than others.
There were so many more Googlers there as well. Lisa Bettany and Catherine Hall from TWIT Photos were there too.
I remember back when Flickr used to feel like this. Back when Stewart Butterfield used to show up at the SF Flickr Social meetups. Even though those were smaller meetups, they were full of the same high energy and spirit. Now the SF Flickr Group is basically dead. The meetups that used to happen every month don't happen anymore. There are only three posts to the group in the past year and one of them is about reviving the group. I haven't seen a Flickr employee in years. I'm still banned from their help forum for two years now — thanks alot guys.
Meanwhile I visited the Google Campus last week and got to spend an entire afternoon with an excited and engaged team who are full of energy and charged up about building the next great thing in photos.
Earlier this week, the Yahoo exec who is in charge of Flickr, Blake Irving, sent out an interesting tweet. He linked to an article that talked about the tipping point. The gist of the article was that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society.
While it would be easy to point to the fact that there are more photographers and photographs still on Flickr than the fledgling Google+, the fact of the matter is that the most resolved 10% have now moved on from Flickr to Google+. It will take time, maybe even a few years for the rest of them to follow, but follow they will. I've seen this movie before. I blogged the tipping point back in 2005 before Flickr overtook Webshots for the first time.
Webshots is still around of course, but they are entirely irrelevant at this point. Remember how excited we all were about flickr back then? Sort of like how we are about Google Photos now.
And like Flickr killed Webshots, Google+ will kill flickr.
When we look back 5 years from now at the downfall of Flickr there will probably be plenty of people to blame.
Was it simply ineffective Yahoo management? Were the execs too demoralized about underwater stock options?
Carol Bartz still doesn't have a Flickr account. Meanwhile Sergey Brin posted shots earlier this week of some kick ass underwater photography from a trip of his to Egypt.
Was it all of the turnover, including the layoffs themselves in the flickr group and lack of any meaningful Yahoo investment?
Was it the rotating team leadership after Stewart the problem? Was it the attitude coming out of Community Management that photographers were more of a nuisance to put up with and talked down to than a community worth engaging?
Who knows.
But Flickr is very much dead in the water. It will take time to really see it happen, but they've lost the soul of photosharing. They've lost the spirit of photosharing — the zest and passion and love — and while they got away with that for a long time due to lack of competition, things have now changed with Google Photos arriving on the scene, and to a degree 500px as well.
I'm sure I'll get a bunch of haters responding to this post. Flickr is still beloved by so many of us. Myself included. I still upload photos up there every single day. Don't hate me for sharing this opinion. And don't bash Google Photos for whatever features you think they lack compared to flickr — but, but, but, Google+ doesn't have groups, blah, blah, blah.
All that's coming.
As I mentioned before, it's not about the features, it's about the spirit. And with weekly innovation on their invite only beta product, Google+ is far more likely to get the final product right than Flickr is to innovate at this point.
Please keep in mind that this is just my personal observation after watching the photo sharing space very closely over a long period of years. I very well could be wrong.
Mark Twain's famous quote "the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated," in fact comes to mind.
Update: This post was on hacker news this morning and as such is getting a lot of traffic.
If any of you don't have Google+ invites and want one, I've got 38 of my 150 left and you can get one here. First come, first serve.
The comments on this post on Google+ itself are also worth reading.
Update #2: Peter Adams got a great group photo from last night. He was shooting with a Phase One system which is pretty awesome. Check out his group photo here — be sure to actually click on the photo to see it huge in the lightbox view.
Update #3: My Google+ invite link ran out of invites above, but Mike Wiacek sent me his invite link which should be reloaded with another 143 or so if people still need them, just click here.
Update #4: Looks like Mike and I are both out of invites now. David Miller just emailed me his invite link. You should be able to get one here if you still need one until they run out.
Update #5: TechCrunch picks up on the Flickr story here. Looks like we're out of invites again. Instead of me posting more links in the body of this post, if you have an invite link and want to share it, post it in the comments and people can use them there if they still need an invite to sign up.


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Ron Paul effectively ends presidential campaign
The Texas congressman and libertarian favorite is still urging supporters to argue for his principles.
Ron Paul, the congressman from Texas and a favorite of tea partyers, effectively ended his presidential campaign Monday but urged his fervent supporters to continue working at the state party level to cause havoc for presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
In an email to supporters, Paul urged his libertarian-leaning backers to remain involved in politics and champion his causes despite the apparent end of his presidential aspirations. Paul has found success in wrecking the selection process for delegates to the party's late-summer nominating convention in Tampa, Fla., and trumpeted that he has delayed Romney's expected nomination.
"Moving forward, however, we will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted," Paul said in his statement. "Doing so with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have. I encourage all supporters of liberty to make sure you get to the polls and make your voices heard, particularly in the local, state and congressional elections, where so many defenders of freedom are fighting and need your support."
RECOMMENDED: Why Ron Paul's 2012 effort may not really be over
Paul's supporters have proved successful in winning state GOP conventions in places such as Maine and Nevada. His supporters in Iowa and Nevada were chosen to lead the state central parties.
Paul's flock is likely to make similar inroads this weekend in Minnesota, which Paul was slated to address. Paulhas already dominated the state's congressional district conventions, winning at least 18 of the 24 national delegates selected, even though he finished a distant second to Rick Santorum in local caucuses in February.
"Our campaign will continue to work in the state convention process. We will continue to take leadership positions, win delegates and carry a strong message to the Republican National Convention that liberty is the way of the future," Paul vowed.
Primaries have not been Paul's strong suit — he hasn't won a single primary or caucus. But Paul's supporters have successfully navigated the convention process in a number of states, adding to Paul's delegate total while gaining influence over state parties.
Romney, however, is on pace to capture the nomination this month. He has 973 of the 1,144 delegates required to formally become the GOP's nominee, according to an Associated Press tally. Vanquished foe Santorum has 264 and Newt Gingrich has 130. Paul badly trails with 104 delegates.
Romney already is campaigning against Obama, and Paul's announcement does little to change the head-to-head campaign in November.
Paul is unlikely to endorse Romney as the party's nominee. The pair strongly clashed during the debates over foreign policy, and in interviews Paul has refused to say he would champion Romney's campaign.
Many of Paul's libertarian views dovetail nicely with mainstream Republican ideas on limited government and low taxes. But Paul breaks with much of his party when he rails against American intervention abroad and government efforts to fight terrorism at home — positions that earned him a loyal following.
Paul, a longtime congressman, is not running for another term to represent his Texas district.
RECOMMENDED: Why Ron Paul's 2012 effort may not really be over


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Jun Märkl
Oliver Condy talks to the German-Japanese conductor about his Prom that unites Eastern and Western cultures
Where does your interest in Japanese music come from?
Well, my interest stems from my personal background – my mother is Japanese and I work a lot in Japan too. I see my function in Europe and Japan as being someone between the two cultures. I'm always trying to find out what might be interesting for the Japanese from Europe and vice versa. And I'm also interested in discovering new musical ideas in Japanese culture since classical music in Japan has been imported from the West for such a long time. So I'm now trying to research traditional Japanese music and bring it over to Europe.
Has the reception in Europe been favourable?
Yes, but I've found it helps to tell a story with the music. And that's what I've tried to do in the programming. In Prom 10, the first piece is Takemitsu's Ceremonial: An Autumn Ode which starts quite extraordinarily with the traditional Japanese shõ, an 11th-century imperial court instrument. It'll start the concert and after a couple of phrases, the orchestra will join and play the same music and material in a different style, a European, quite French style; and then at the end the shõ will play once more. Later in the programme we have another piece with this combination of shõ and orchestra, Hosokawa's Cloud and Light, but it's more like a concerto or a dialogue between the two. Introducing a new sound world to the audience is important to me – I like the idea of taking some traditional imperial court music and searching for a connection with European culture.
So you're presenting Japanese music to a European audience. How does European music go down in Japan?
Western classical music was introduced to Japan at the end of the 19th century, and the Japanese played it exactly how we would play it, but 20 years behind in terms of development. But now, starting back in the 1980s, they've tried to develop their own style, injecting the music with a Japanese flavour. And also I think it's remarkable that our two featured composers, Takemitsu and Hosokawa, have studied in Europe. Hosokawa has studied in Berlin and has commissions from top European orchestras; while Takemitsu studied in Paris. So I think the cultural exchange is back and forth.
Debussy's La mer features in this Prom – it will surprise the audience to learn that the composer was very much influenced by Japanese culture, I think.
Debussy learned about Japanese music in one of the Paris World's Fairs in 1889 before which he had already learned about Indonesian gamelan music. When he first wrote his La mer, he always had the wood print of Hokusai's Great Wave beside his desk – it had a very strong influence on his work. But Debussy was one of those composers who tried to find a new identity but still wanted to work within his own composing style. It was the same when he was trying to introduce Spanish elements into his music – in Iberia, for example. So he doesn't write Japanese music and he doesn't write Spanish music either – he's a very French composer who takes strong elements and builds them into his music.
Clearly Debussy was keen not to compromise the 'French' identity in his music. Why do you think that is?
Before Debussy came along, French music was leaning heavily towards a German Wagnerian style – it was so strong and so many composers at the Paris Conservatoire were under the Wagnerian spell. The political situation at the time was that Germany was kind of against the French and the French against the Germans. Debussy thought he had to create a distance between Wagner and France. He didn't want his music to be a lesser imitation, an epigone if you like, of Wagner's style. And this thinking carried on through Messiaen and Boulez and so French music developed very differently to that of Germany. Japanese art was a help for Debussy to discover tools to create different sounds. Although he went to Bayreuth twice to see Tristan and Parsifal (and was overwhelmed), Debussy become convinced that he had to separate himself from the German tradition.
Interview by Oliver Condy
Prom 10: Jun Märkl conducts the Orchestre National de Lyon in music by Takemitsu, Debussy, Ravel, Sarasate and Hosokawa at the Royal Albert Hall on 24 July at 7:30pm
• Take a look at our exclusive guide to the world's greatest classical music festival in this month's issue
Related links:
Proms Diary: Music for the soles
Pianist Stephen Hough on Tchaikovksy's Piano Concertos
Paul McCreesh conducts Haydn at the Proms
Proms/August 2009 issue
Image: Alex Berger


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In her hit single "Baggage Claim," Miranda Lambert sings about the kind of luggage you wish would get lost. "I have been dragging around your sensitive ego," she tells an ex-friend or lover — soon concluding, with characteristic swagger, that she'll "drop your troubles off at the conveyor belt/I hand you a ticket to, go get it yourself." Mr. Needy is left doing loops on the suitcase carousel while Lambert's rocking out in the unloading zone.
With the release of Four the Record, Miranda comes bearing some baggage of her own – the precious kind, well-earned over the course of three highly loved (and unanimously platinum) prior albums. Her accolades could fill a whole set of trunks.
To point out just one carry-on case's worth of kudos: Miranda made history when Four The Record debuted at Number 1 making her the first artist in the 47 year history of the Billboard Top Country Albums Chart to have all four of their first four albums debut at that spot. Lambert is country's reigning female vocalist of the year, as bestowed by both the Country Music Association (for the second straight year) and the Academy of Country Music. She's won the prized album of the year trophy from both organizations, as well – from the ACMs for her second record, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and from the CMAs and ACMs for her third, Revolution. She received the top country female vocal performance honor at the most recent Grammy Awards for "The House That Built Me." And, lest all her honorifics be so high-minded, she's been named one of People magazine's Most Beautiful People and one of Maxim's Hottest Women of Country. Frequent flyers can hardly rack up more awards points than that.
So when "Baggage Claim" was released to country radio stations in August, Lambert realized she was something she'd never expected to become: an automatic add.
She's thrilled with her own radio success because, prior to Revolution, she'd never even had a top 5 single. Two years ago, as that make-or-break effort was prepared for takeoff, you didn't have to listen far to hear whispers that maybe those same cutting-edge qualities that made her an award-show queen and press darling would be the kiss of death when the commercial rubber hit the road. But in 2010, she finally earned the triple crown – love from industry orgs, critics, and radio – when she bagged her first three No. 1 singles with "White Liar", "The House That Built Me" and "Heart Like Mine."
Naturally, with "Baggage Claim" burning a kerosene-fueled trail up the chart in advance of Four the Record, she approached the impending release of this album with a good deal more certainty. Not that anyone would have called her unconfident before now, mind you. But…
"I've never had an album release coincide with a hit, ever," she points out, in the midst of her enthusiasm about the success of "Baggage Claim" as a teaser for the new album. "Revolution came out on a single that died in the 30s." (For the record, that would be "Dead Flowers," which marked the very last time that programmers were unsure whether to take a chance on Lambert.) "So I'm excited and so thankful. Because I don't blame the program directors and DJs who used to have to put my songs on and have the listeners go, 'What the hell is this?' I am different, and I am a little edgy. But I've played so many tours and been on the road so much, I feel like people get me now. Or else they think, 'She's not going away, so we might as well just start liking it'," she laughs.
Of course, merely being worn down has nothing to do with what made America fall in love with 'Ran, as she's known to her fans.
The fascination began in earnest when she was a humble yet feisty runner-up on Nashville Star in 2003, standing out as the most independent and least likely of all reality-show contestants. Sony Nashville quickly signed her with the understanding that, even though she was still a teen, she had the moxie and know-how to write many of her own songs and pick her own team, like co-producer and fellow Texan Frank Liddell. Reflective singles like "Famous in a Small Town" proved her wise beyond her tender years, and rowdy ones like "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" proved her bold beyond all expectations of just how fresh a country freshman should be.
Her recent nuptials to fellow country star Blake Shelton only heightened fans' natural curiosity: Is she really a raging, red-hot rock & roll mama or blushing country bride?
The answer, of course, as heard in Four the Record, is all of the above and then some. The new 14-song set is epic in its range of musical styles and even the varied expressiveness in Lambert's unmistakable voice. She's clearly in a class with the slim handful of superstar "album artists" whose every full-length release is anxiously anticipated as an event that's much more than just the sum of its singles.
"My sole mission with the Revolution album was to go 'Hey, get me out of this corner you're pushing me in. I'm not just 'Kerosene' and 'Gunpowder & Lead' and all that.' I mean, that's part of me, but I have so much more to say, and I definitely think I've been able to do that." The sense of "mission Accomplished" was cemented when, against all odds, it was two of the last album's most subdued and sensitive songs, "The House That Built Me" and "Heart Like Mine," that were the ones to take her to the top of the country chart (for four solid weeks, in the case of "House").
When it came time to record Four the Record, the methodology wasn't much different. As before, Lambert did a lot of the writing herself or in tandem with friends, while also picking selections from Music Row's favorite tunesmiths (including Chris Stapleton and Lady Antebellum's Charles Kelley) and the leading lights of alt-country (this time, Gillian Welch and Allison Moorer).
But while Revolution was recorded in two sessions of a week or less, the recording of Four the Record was even more compact, taking a mere five days from start to finish. Needless to say, getting things done in such a hurry represents an artistic choice, not an economic one.
"If everybody can get in one vibe and stay there the whole week, it makes it sound like an album, instead of chopped up," Lambert maintains. "I'm a creature of habit, so I feel that, if this is working, let's do it the same way. We started at 10 a.m. and went to midnight every night, and after the first night, everybody got so comfortable." It didn't hurt that the vast majority of musicians had worked on her previous three albums, too, as had trusted co-producer Liddell.
Even after recording Four the Record all day Monday through Friday, most of the same reconvened on Saturday to record the four songs that were needed to wrap up the Pistol Annies' previously-in-progress album.
As most country fans know by now, the Annies are the all-gal trio that Lambert formed with friends Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley, and their frisky debut came out in August… released by Sony as a digital-only album. Expectations were modest. So when Hell on Heels debuted at No.1 on the country sales chart and in the pop top 10, the pressing plants got to work trying to meet the demand from retail stores who wanted to carry the disc, too.
What's nearly comical is how the recording of Four the Record, not to mention the Annies' Hell on Heels, came right on the heels of Lambert's short honeymoon. She went into the studio just a week after her wedding. For most mortals, recording a solo album or finishing up a group album or exchanging vows with the love of your life would be pressure enough, without combining those three things into a potentially lethal cocktail.
But, as most of the watching world has figured out by now, Lambert is not the type to easily buckle just because she's squeezed three major life events into the middle of her tour schedule. "My goal was to have everything lined up and have the songs picked out before the wedding," she says. (It came down to the wire: At her rehearsal dinner, Miranda was still doing some business, as she took songwriter/friend Kasey Musgraves outside to beg for permission to cut "Mama's Broken Heart," a song without which she felt she couldn't make the album.) Remarkably, anyway, everything went according to plan, and Lambert wasn't putting pen to paper or dialing up publishers during her newlywed week off. "It was great, because I got to clear my head a little bit before going in," she says.
So if you hear some tranquility in the album—from, you know, a woman whose popular image hasn't always shouted softness—that's not an illusion. You might sense that peace most in the closing "Oklahoma Sky," which Allison Moorer wrote specifically for Lambert.
There are other guests on Four the Record that meant a lot to Miranda, including guest vocalists from Patty Loveless to the women of Little Big Town. But Moorer's "Oklahoma Sky" was the ultimate wedding present: a country benediction for the bride's new beginning.
"I'm from Texas," Lambert says—perhaps you've heard?—"and we're Texas-proud and annoying and all that. I will always be from Texas. But now with this new life, I've moved away from my family and started my own and married an Okie. I feel like it's my ode to my beautiful new home state. Just as much as I love Texas, I now love Oklahoma, and it's my song for my life there now."
Whatever sky she's under, fans in all 50 states (and beyond) will want to share the vista with her. And they'll surely let Lambert bring all the bags.


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Madame Meng's Soft Custard Bread with images
The other day a friend sent me an intriguing recipe and I just had to give it a try. This bread looks very much like Milk Bread, only it uses a "custard" as a base that is mixed with the dough. It is ultra soft and squishy.. and my family really went nuts over it. I did a ton of hunting on the web and only could find it is a Chinese recipe and came from a book that is roughly translated Madame Meng's 100 Recipe Book, or 卡士达超软土司 . She sounds very mysterious and exotic to me.. and this intrigued me even more! (When I first did the translation of the book title, I think I used the wrong linguistics tool. It translated the title to "Bangladesh's 100 Bread Loaves". Weird... but I laughed, imagining myself lost in China with only my handy dandy translator to get me on the right road!)
I had a couple of concerns with the recipe because of the venacular for some of the instructions. It called for the bread to be baked in a Pullman Pan, but obviously from the measures, this dough wouldn't make enough to fill a pullman pan. So, I called a friend of mine who is Chinese and asked her if the term "pullman" could mean a standard bread loaf pan and she guessed it did. I followed her advice and it turned out to be just right. The other issue I had was this dough seemed a bit dry as it was coming together in the mixture. I had to add a bit more water and then all of a sudden, it became way too wet, with just a couple of tablespoons of water.. so I added more flour. I thought I really messed it up, but it actually turned out perfectly. The dough I was working with was quite sticky.. so you decide. It is not intended to be a high hydration dough, but the dough was so dry at first that it refused to come together. When it did, however, it was beautiful and silky to work with.
Here is the formula. Would love your feedback on this. It was truly easy to make, with the exception of a few minor tweaks. It was a very fun loaf to put together and the taste and texture are outstanding. We had pot roast last night and it was the perfect accompaniment with the beef gravy. The rising did take alot longer than I'm used to and the dough is a tad sweet like a dinner roll. Even though there is 1 tsp of yeast in this small batch, each rise took at least 70 minutes. The second rise took a full 1.5 hours, but it was well worth the wait. Next time I think I will double and make dinner rolls or even cinnamon rolls.
Makes 1 small loaf
- 1 large egg yolk
- 10 grams white sugar
- 15 grams bread flour
- 65 grams fresh milk
- 250 grams bread flour
- 30 grams white sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp instant yeast
- 15 grams milk powder
- 100 grams lukewarm water
- 25 grams unsalted butter, softened
To make the custard:
In a small saucepan add egg yolk, flour, sugar and milk. Using a wire whisk, stir together all ingredients over medium low heat. Keep whisking until a paste forms and becomes stiff enough that it no longer drips off the whisk. Transfer the custard using a spatula to a small bowl and let cool slightly. Cover with plastic wrap and store in refrigerator for one hour.
To mix the dough and custard:
In a mixing bowl with a dough hook attachment, mix the custard and all dough ingredients except for the butter. Knead well, keeping an eye on hydration. Dough should be quite sticky, but pull clean from the sides of the bowl. When window pane test has been achieved, mix in the softened butter using the dough hook. Mix butter thoroughly. Transfer dough to a greased bowl and allow to rise for at least 60 minutes. Mine took about 70 minutes on the first rise.
Shaping, rising and baking:
When dough has risen, gently fold dough to remove air bubbles. Divide dough into three balls, dusting lightly with flour. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 10 minutes. Prepare a standard bread pan by lightly greasing and setting it aside. Using a rolling pin or your fingers, flatten out the first ball to an oval shape.. about 6-8 inches long. Roll up jelly roll style and pinch ends and seam together. Place first roll seam side down in pan on one end. Repeat with the second and third dough balls, placing each roll into the pan, spaced fairly evenly apart.
Let rise, covered with a tea towel, in a warm place for at least 60 minutes. Mine took 1.5 hours, but dough should fill 90% of the pan.
Set oven to 375 and if desired, brush with an egg wash before baking. Total baking time is 30 minutes. Check loaf after the first 20 minutes.. If it is browning too quickly, cover loosely with aluminum foil. Bake for 10 more minutes.
Above is the custard. Using a wire whisk makes it easy, cook over medium low heat - more low than medium. After a few minutes, it just seizes up like this.
Shaped dough... as you can see, very small!
Rolling, shaping and placing in a standard bread pan
Ready to rise
Not much oven spring, I'm afraid
Just out of the oven. A really cute little loaf!
And yes, it was THAT SOFT and squishy!


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Fujitsu has developed stamp-sized wearable sensor tags that can detect whether users have changed their location or posture, fallen down or are experiencing high heat.
The tags transmit data via Bluetooth Low Energy and can be worn as wristbands or location badges on lapels or breast pockets. They could be used by people including hospital patients and infrastructure workers to relay data to supervisors.
The tags can also be attached to objects such as shopping carts or walkers for the elderly. They're part of a cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT) platform from Fujitsu called Ubiquitousware that's aimed at making IoT applications easier for businesses.
At a Fujitsu technology expo in Tokyo this week the company is showing off the prototype tags. They contain various sensors commonly found in smartphones such as accelerometers, barometers, gyroscopes and microphones. They can also house heart rate sensors and GPS modules.
The sensors are being housed in stand-alone tags to better promote IoT apps, according to Fujitsu.
Algorithms that are part of the platform analyze the sensor data and can automatically send alerts to supervisors when a patient has fallen down, for instance, or if a worker is experiencing a heavy physical load and heat while working on a tower for high-voltage cables.
"These sensors stand out for the many business apps such as medicine or security that are easily incorporated through our cloud solutions," said Tatsuhiro Ohira, a general manager in Fujitsu's Ubiquitous Business Strategy Unit.
As an extension of a company's awareness of its staff, the tags could raise privacy concerns. Fujitsu said the wristbands could also be used to estimate whether the wearer is taking breaks, or to help manage workers' health.
The sensors are to be rolled out beginning in December but the cost has not been determined yet, Ohira said.
Ubiquitousware has also been implemented in the latest version of Fujitsu's head-mounted display for workers. The device has a 0.4-inch display in front of one eye for looking at assembly manuals, as well as a camera, microphones and sensors such as an accelerometer to detect falls. Aimed at infrastructure and assembly workers, it can be attached to a hard hat and operated through voice commands or a wearable keyboard.
The display follows a prototype shown off earlier this year that works with a gestural ring and NFC technology.


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My kids are in the kitchen all the time to help cook. Even if they're just stirring the pancake batter, the early exposure and incrementally increased responsibility helps them understand the basics of cooking. That means they're not going to be the ones in college that have to call and ask how to bake a potato.
I have the same philosophy about computers. Expose kids early, and expose them to more than just using a computer to run apps. Think of it like learning about baking bread instead of just buying pre-sliced loaves. So when our ancient PC stopped working this winter, I knew that I wasn't going to build another computer this time. My daughter was.
She was relieved to find out that building a computer didn't involve soldering.
I could have recycled my old case, but I figured that my daughter's first build was not going to be on a case with a lot of sharp metal parts. We chose a nice case with plenty of room, cord management, and screw-less hard drive rails. I made the rest of the choices, but I talked through them with her so that she'd see why I chose the way I did.
I really tried to have her do as much of the work as possible. That's the point, right?
There are a few things, like getting the screws loose on the case or seating the video card that just require some serious muscle power, but she tried to do those things, too. She was a natural at seating the processor, but she had to be coached into getting the RAM installed – as do most first time builders and upgraders. It took me a couple of tries to learn I wasn't going to break the motherboard when I first started upgrading RAM.
We had to make a second trip to the store to get a DVD drive after everything was assembled. Turned out I couldn't recycle the one from our old computer after all. Oops. We'd already gone through the process of installing things several times at this point. I handed the new DVD to her with no instructions and asked her what she should do. She replied that she needed to put it in the bay and hook it up to the power and "the brain." And then she did it. She rocks.
I probably spent more money on that computer than I would have if I'd just shopped around and snagged a cheap refurb, but it is a nice system. More importantly, it's the computer my daughter built, and that's an experience that doesn't come preassembled.
A version of this story originally appeared on GeekMom in January.


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Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī
Our editors will review what you've submitted and determine whether to revise the article.
- Born:
- February 18, 1201 Khorāsān
- Notable Works:
- "Akhlāq-i Naṣīrī"
Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, in full Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī, (born Feb. 18, 1201, Ṭūs, Khorāsān [now Iran]—died June 26, 1274, Baghdad, Iraq), outstanding Persian philosopher, scientist, and mathematician.
Educated first in Ṭūs, where his father was a jurist in the Twelfth Imam school, the main sect of Shīʾite Muslims, al-Ṭūsī finished his education in Neyshābūr, about 75 kilometres (50 miles) to the west. This was no doubt a prudent move as Genghis Khan (d. 1227), having conquered Beijing in 1215, turned his attention to the Islamic world and reached the region around Ṭūs by 1220. In about 1227 the Ismāʿīlīte governor Nāṣir al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm offered al-Ṭūsī sanctuary in his mountain fortresses in Khorāsān. Al-Ṭūsī in turn dedicated his most famous work, Akhlāq-i nāṣirī (1232; Nasirean Ethics), to the governor before being invited to stay in the capital at Alamūt, where he espoused the Ismāʿīlīte faith under the new imam, Alauddin Muḥammad (reigned 1227–1255). (This Ismāʿīlīte state began in 1090 with the conquest of Alamūt by Ḥasan-e Ṣabbāḥ and ended with the fall of the city to the Mongols in 1256.) During this period, al-Ṭūsī wrote on Ismāʿīlīte theology (Taṣawwurāt; "Notions"), logic (Asās al-iqtibās; "Foundations of Inference"), and mathematics (Taḥrīr al-Majisṭī; "Commentary on the Almagest").
With the fall in 1256 of Alamūt to Hülegü Khan (c. 1217–1265), grandson of Genghis Khan, al-Ṭūsī immediately accepted a position with the Mongols as a scientific adviser. (The alacrity with which he went to work for them fueled accusations that his conversion to the Ismāʿīlīte faith was feigned, as well as rumours that he betrayed the city's defenses.) Al-Ṭūsī married a Mongol and was then put in charge of the ministry of religious bequests. The topic of whether al-Ṭūsī accompanied the Mongol capture of Baghdad in 1258 remains controversial, although he certainly visited nearby Shīʾite centres soon afterward. Profiting from Hülegü's belief in astrology, al-Ṭūsī obtained support in 1259 to build a fine observatory (completed in 1262) adjacent to Hülegü's capital in Marāgheh (now in Azerbaijan). More than an observatory, Hülegü obtained a first-rate library and staffed his institution with notable Islamic and Chinese scholars. Funded by an endowment, research continued at the institution for at least 25 years after al-Ṭūsī's death, and some of its astronomical instruments inspired later designs in Samarkand (now in Uzbekistan).
Al-Ṭūsī was a man of exceptionally wide erudition. He wrote approximately 150 books in Arabic and Persian and edited the definitive Arabic versions of the works of Euclid, Archimedes, Ptolemy, Autolycus, and Theodosius. He also made original contributions to mathematics and astronomy. His Zīj-i Ilkhānī (1271; "Ilkhan Tables"), based on research at the Marāgheh observatory, is a splendidly accurate table of planetary movements. Al-Ṭūsī's most influential book in the West may have been Tadhkirah fi ʿilm al-hayʿa ("Treasury of astronomy"), which describes a geometric construction, now known as the al-Ṭūsī couple, for producing rectilinear motion from a point on one circle rolling inside another. By means of this construction, al-Ṭūsī succeeded in reforming the Ptolemaic planetary models, producing a system in which all orbits are described by uniform circular motion. Most historians of Islamic astronomy believe that the planetary models developed at Marāgheh found their way to Europe (perhaps via Byzantium) and provided Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) with inspiration for his astronomical models.
Today al-Ṭūsī's Tajrīd ("Catharsis") is a highly esteemed treatise on Shīʾite theology. He made important contributions to many branches of Islamic learning, and under his direction Marāgheh sparked a revival of Islamic mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, and theology. In the East, al-Ṭūsī is an example par excellence of the ḥakīm, or wise man.


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We all know how muck feels in our toes and that it can be pretty stinky, but what exactly is muck?
What is Muck?
Muck is made up of plant and animal waste. It is caused from dying and decaying organics. If you feed your fish, any uneaten fish food will end up decaying at the bottom of the pond. Remember, feeding fish too much or using a low quality food will increase the amount of fish waste, adding to that muck layer. Other animals, such as ducks and geese, add their waste to the muck as well. Even without fish or other animals, dead algae and weeds, twigs, grass clippings, and leaves naturally contribute to the accumulation of muck. It is always a good idea to prevent organics from entering the pond and to remove as much as possible. Over time, with layers of leaves and other debris building up, the sludge can build to be inches or more thick.
What is Muck's Purpose?
Muck undoubtedly is a food source. "A food source for what?" you may ask. Muck contains high levels of nutrients that feed algae and aquatic weeds. As the muck layer grows, so will your problems with these aquatic nuisances. Muck can also be a breeding ground for leeches as they love to grow and burrow in the muck.
Why is Muck Stinky?
Muck tends to have a rotten egg smell to it. Those odors are common in ponds that are not aerated, particularly during certain times of the year. In the summer and winter, non-aerated ponds stratify into layers of water with distinct temperature differences. While the water is stratified, the oxygen in the lower portion of the pond is used up quickly. This causes it to go from an aerobic environment (an oxygen-rich environment) to an anaerobic environment (a low-oxygen environment) – which is perfect for slow-moving anaerobic bacteria that use enzymes to ferment and digest the decaying muck on the bottom. Those microorganisms ultimately produce waste products, including carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, which is that lovely rotten egg smell.
In the spring and during strong weather events, the water column turns over; the anaerobic layers on the bottom rise to the top, bringing with it all those foul-smelling odors. Melting ice releasing all those gases at once can help make a big stink!
Pond Life Cycle
Understanding a pond's life cycle will help to better understand when and how muck plays its part. From small ponds to large lakes, all water bodies encompass an ever changing ecosystem struggling to find balance. To help you better understand the life cycle of your pond, we'll break down the process into two basic stages:
Stage 1 – A freshly dug pond is free from weed and debris caused by wildlife, waste, plant decay, and other organic material. The water is generally clean and clear and there is minimal algae and weed growth. New ponds typically remain in Stage 1 for 3 – 5 years.
Stage 2 – Over time organic debris begins to accumulate and the pond becomes overabundant with nutrients. These excess nutrients become an effective plant fertilizer, causing weeds and algae to grow prolifically. You may begin to notice emergent weeds, like cattails and shoreline grasses, growing along the shoreline and a foul smell emanating from the water. Pond owners tend to use reactive treatments like aquatic herbicides and algaecides during this stage to kill existing growth. These reactive treatments provide a temporary fix to weed and algae control. If left in the pond, the decaying plant material turns into nutrient-rich pond muck that continues to fuel weed and algae growth. The pond then enters a continuous cycle of reactive treatments, leaving you, the pond owner, to use chemicals to control growth. A pond at this point is said to be eutrophic or teeming with enough excess debris to support algae and weed growth.
Aeration and beneficial bacteria, such as the products in the ClearPAC Plus, can be used to reduce current muck and prevent build up. Read more here: How to Eliminate Muck.


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Rent a Car Rent a Car
Lake Charles Regional Airport (LCH)
500 Airport Blvd,
Lake Charles, LA, Louisiana, 70607, United States
(1) 337-477-7976
Location Type:
Hours of Operation:
Sun 11:00 AM - 11:00 PM; Mon - Fri 9:30 AM - 11:00 PM; Sat 12:00 PM - 5:30 PM
If flying in, the rental counter is within the terminal with a short walk to the car lot.
Fastbreak ServiceProceed to the Budget counter Fastbreak line/or normal line if no Fastbreak line designation/or follow directions to the Fastbreak Kiosk. Present identification and receive your rental agreement. The counter representative will give the customer the keys & directions to their car.
FASTBREAK RETURN: Follow the airport signs for Car Rental return. You do not need to return to the counter to complete your rental. Record your mileage and fuel level on the rental agreement and drop it in the Budget Fastbreak return box. A closed rental agreement will be mailed to you within 48 hours.
General DirectionsCOUNTER: Located inside the airport terminal (west wing).
CARS: On-site.
RETURNS: Same as pick-up.
AFTER-HOURS RETURNS: Drop box is available at the Budget office.
After-hours ReturnsPark & lock the car. Place the completed contract & the keys in the Drop Box located in the Returns area. Remember to take your personal belongings with you.
Terms and Conditions
Terms & Conditions
Build #:
Revision #:
Build Date: