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COMMON PLACE No. 4 | July 2010
I got a big laugh and a lot of nodding heads when I said to some writing colleagues that I realized I often write in a polemical vein. To do so, I think, requires a certain measure of self-regard: you have to believe both that the topic that exercises you is worth discussing publicly and that your opinion will be of interest to others. This also motivates memoir-writing, it seems to me. A diary is not quite the same, although people publish them, too, and their spontaneity, if this is allowed to surface, can make them valuable (as Nassim Nicolas Taleb noted about the Berlin Diary of William Shirer). Memoirs may refer to diaries, or not, but they're a different animal, closer to polemics both in displaying the self and in the arguments they make for and/or against one's life. One could call a memoir an apologetic, but I think that calling it a kind of polemic suggests that polemics are a kind of memoir. The polemicist is present, whether the cause is "out there" or wrapped up in the life, the psyche, the bodily equipment. It's the polemicist who takes it all in and, having done so, argues for a way of seeing it or framing it. This "way" is always tentative, no matter how forcefully stated. There is no black-and-white in life, in actual fact. — John Parman 1
1. The diarist Samuel Pepys describes London's Great Fire, during which King James II, besmirched with soot, made sure he was seen helping to put it out. Large swathes of San Francisco burned down following the 1906 earthquake, although a few landmarks survived. In 1968, the tenements of Newark were set aflame by rioters and then left by the city as burnt-out shells, much as the corpses of the condemned were displayed at the gates of medieval towns. Tokyo burned in the wake of the 1923 earthquake. Rebuilt, it was destroyed again by US bombs. German cities were whipped into firestorms. The Italian journalist Curzio Malaparte filed a story on the aftermath, when those left for dead were shot pointblank by the authorities. A man who survived the atom-bomb attacks on Japan died recently. Fleeing Hiroshima for Nagasaki, he was trying to describe the light the bomb made to a friend when the other A-bomb fell. "Like that," he said. Napalm rained down on hapless villagers in Vietnam. Lately in Gaza, phosphorus is the rain of choice. Each storm has its screaming child. That a generation separates them shows how little we are moved by these images to put a halt to the barbarous calculations that engender them. Smart bombs and drones now personalize the delivery; instead of the countryside, it's an apartment in Belgrade or a schoolhouse in Pashtun. The replies, too, are personal, wrapped around the body. 2. "Give tongue" is the phrase that my father's book of World War II photographs used to caption one of an English battleship engaging a German foe. "Fire!" belongs to the sphere of warfare, but has spread to terror and judicial murder. German firing squads used machine guns in France. As Goya depicts, French firing squads used muskets in Spain against loyalists fighting for the king. Gary Gilmore chose a Utah firing squad rather than the noose. "Let's do it," he said. Spies and deserters, once hanged, were by World War I mostly shot. In China until recently, a 45 to the back of the head was the means of dispatch for literally thousands. Someone told me that it's the quickest death, more humane than the poison drip that's replaced it, even there. The drip puts some distance between us and the condemned, but his or her consciousness agonizingly persists.
Sometime in the 1990s, "Ready, fire, aim!" emerged as a business buzz-phrase. Marx's "MCM," as explained by Giovanni Arrighi in The Long Twentieth Century, describes how capitalism goes back and forth between a money focus (M) and a commodity focus (C, like China now). "Ready, aim, fire" is a commodity formula; whereas "Ready, fire, aim" describes money's endless innovation. Fire is the key word in both phrases, however. It connotes a commitment to action that, once taken, is hard if not impossible to undo. "Fire sale" is a potential outcome for both C and M, although (as Nassim Nicholas Taleb points out) the purveyors of M are not always willing to admit it. 3. The oil crisis of the mid–1970s led me to stay in graduate school as job prospects for architects dropped off drastically. Arriving in the Bay Area in 1971, I was able to find work, but was also laid off twice—once because the client didn't pay, and then (in my own opinion) because I was too slow. I would count the second layoff as a firing. Firms staff up and use downturns as the occasion to pare. Tough times are when they're forced to pare more than they'd like, making "hard choices," as they like to say, among the deserving. It's not anyone's favorite process, but firing and being fired are the truest expressions of the nature of work in these United States, which is always a mash-up of trajectories, yours and theirs. As with any relationship, expectations abound and delusion is endless: the territory of ego. We are exhorted to "work on it," too, making ourselves "fireproof" by constantly upping our game. Yet the bigger picture of the workplace is fuzzy at best. You specialize and find there's no more demand. You refuse to specialize and are penalized for failing to be team player. Similarly, you decline to move to where the work is—or you move and they decide the market isn't worth it. Being fired can be liberating. It invites us to wonder about them and us. Even if our being fired was lunatic, what do we do with that—seek out new lunatics? What if the whole field abounds with lunacy? As Rahm Emanuel put it, "A disaster is a terrible thing to waste." And keep I.M. Pei in mind. "I retired from my firm in 1990," he told Fumihiko Maki in 2008. "I decided then to devote the rest of my life—I didn't know at that time it would last so long—to do projects of interest only to me. It's very selfish." Emerson called it self-reliance: Hitch your wagon to a star. 4. In the mid-1970s, I read some 120 building-fire case studies. This left me with a lifetime habit of noting exits and an aversion to IKEA stores, which are designed like roach hotels. (Casinos also fall in this category, and they encourage smoking!) Another takeaway: the best thing you can do in a fire is get out as fast as possible. (So the best thing you can do beforehand is to simulate getting out quickly until it becomes second nature.) The principal victims of building fires are the old, the infirm, and the very young—anyone likely to become disoriented by smoke, or to be incapable of saving themselves in a hurry or at all. Fire is an accompaniment to domestic life. Clothes dryers are a frequent source of fires in nursing homes, while still plugged-in irons, pots left burning on the stove, etc., also do their part. Candles on the Christmas trees of my father's childhood burned some neighbor's house down often enough to be a distinct memory for him. When my daughter lights candles in her room when she meditates, and then forgets to blow them out, my father's stories come back to mind. Sometimes I wish I'd never read those case studies. My father-in-law used to set up a barbeque in front of our front door—a hibachi, actually, that sat on the walk, the kids circling around it. He was usually having a drink at this point in the party sequence. When I was a kid, a neighbor squirted lighter fluid into his barbeque and it blew up the can. Or so I heard. I must have a genius for storing away these 3
events. In Barcelona when my oldest son was two, every affordable hotel had the only stairs and the elevator joined to form a single "chimney," with no second exit. I took the front room closest to the ground, figuring we'd escape with our lives if we had to jump. When my father-in-law died, he was cremated and his remains were buried in a box about the size of a concrete block. He'd been an All-American football player in college, so it was odd to see him so diminished. I have a theory that there's a certain amount of residual consciousness once you're dead. Fire, once again, puts an end to it. I think I'd prefer a .45 to the head. NOTES Written for Arcade in response to a blanket request for contributions from its editor, Kelly Rodriguez, and published as the fourth issue of a volume on alchemy, June 2010. This version is slightly modified. I wrote this, unusually, in one sitting, and just sent it off. I still don't know what to think of it. The editor liked it—apparently, it was the first piece to come in. I feel that it responded to the alchemical theme, which to me is about transmuting what we know intuitively—what we grasp—into something else. The firing squad, the .45 to the back of the head—they speak to the raw matter at the starting point. Life often appears leaden, weighed down. Viewed through the lens of having, as Stephen Batchelor points out in Alone with Others, life is just slogging to a blank wall. We collect stuff, and then it all gets taken away. Alchemy gives some of what we accumulate a life of its own. Fire is part of that process. As my illustration suggests, one could extend this essay. I'm thinking of phrases like "playing with fire." Stolen from the gods, don't forget. Eve also engaged in thievery. The Big Bang is still visible, still reverberating. The earth's core is molten because of it. Fire is the alpha and omega, as Böhme knew. SOURCES Among the sources of things mentioned in the piece are: Henry B. Wheatley, editor, The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Volumes 4–6, G. Bell & Sons, 1962 Curzio Malaparte: Kaputt, NYRB Classics, 2005 The War's Best Photographs, Odhams Press Limited, 1944 Giovanni Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century, new edition, Verso, 2010 Nassim Nicholas Taleb: The Black Swan, Random House, 2007 Fumihiko Maki, interviewer, "I.M. Pei—Words for the Future," A+U Special Edition, August 2008 Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance," Emerson: Essays & Lectures, Library of America, 1983 Other things, like the last words of Gary Gilmore, were drawn from a lifetime of reading periodicals.
On April 15, the San Francisco Planning Commission will again take up the proposed 38-story 555 Washington Street Tower, designed by Heller Manus for AEGON, Lowe Enterprises, and Liberty Hill. At its 18 March meeting, the commission certified the project's EIR. (Because of a public notice problem, the rest of the agenda was held over, but my sense is that the tower already had the votes going in.) At an earlier hearing, on 11 February, venerable community activist Sue Hestor asked the commissioners, "Does 'new urbanism' say that we have to fight suburban sprawl by putting 400-foot buildings everywhere in San Francisco?" Ms. Hestor had a point. For far too long, smart growth has meant "density über alles" on both sides of the Bay. The result is a dog's breakfast, for the most part, much of which has little to do with walkable urbanism and nothing to do with urbanity. It's time to get nuanced about density! As 555 Washington demonstrates, density's context is not just the block itself—the immediate environs of the tower—but what is influenced and perhaps threatened by allowing its increased height. The 555 Washington tower disregards current zoning for the block it shares with William Pereira's 1972 Pyramid, still the tallest building in the city. Next to it, the new tower doesn't look so big, of course, and it comes with a packet of ground-level amenities. For Heller Manus, best known for its political acumen, the design is OK: cribbed from the late-modern playbook, but OK. All of this has won it an endorsement from SPUR, an important advocacy group for urban planning and policy in San Francisco. So far, so good—I can imagine the trail of logic that brought SPUR on board. It all seems fairly harmless, and if it violates the planning code in the process, well, the code's out of date anyway. So why should the Planning Commission hesitate to move ahead with 555 Washington when it takes up again in midMarch? Here are three good reasons for them to slow the tower down and reconsider its larger context.
1. Put a halt to case-by-case rezoning Dropping a housing tower into the Pyramid block seems benign, but it continues a sorry tradition of case-by-case rezoning. Back in May 2009, San Francisco Chronicle critic John King—addressing the 555 Washington tower specifically—spoke up for "a re-imagined, focused plan for the financial and retail district." He also noted the price the city pays for not having one: "As long as downtown is up for grabs, in effect, count on the process to grow more strident and cynical." San Francisco's Planning Department may be hobbled by the downturn, King observed, but isn't the real opportunity of a downturn to plan intelligently for the future? Given the state of the housing market, there's no urgency at all to approve the tower. By delaying it, the commissioners can avoid repeating the travesty of exempting Heller Manus's Folsom/Spear Towers, now the Infinity, from the Rincon Area Plan. (They were approved, and then the new area plan was announced—with a dotted line around the towers that suggested that its eastern boundary had been hastily redrawn.) 2. Add density to the core, not the edge The Pyramid block is on the northern edge of SF's Financial District, considerably past California Street. To its north, the buildings are much lower, an eclectic mix whose tenants benefit from its current density. This is where you find two of the region's best bookstores, City Lights and Stout's, and many of its best dealers in the decorative arts. You want urbanity? It starts here, yet the area clearly thrives because of its proximity to the financial district. Shanghai, facing the same dilemma, has opted to preserve similar areas like the Puxi district, recognizing—as Singapore did not—that they are irreplaceable. This is why SF's planning code sought, a generation ago, to preserve them. Let's give its framers some credit for foresight. The question that 555 Washington raises is not whether it's inappropriate for its site, but what happens next. As UC Berkeley's Peter Bosselmann, a professor of urban design, once pointed out to me, adding density at the edge puts pressure on the lower-density neighborhoods that adjoin it. He was talking about the Rincon area, but the comment is even more applicable to the north end of the central business district, where recent and proposed projects along Kearny Street are also testing the higher-density waters. A generation ago, KPF's building at 600 California had to step down to blend in with lower buildings to the north. That's the power of a planning code that's actually enforced. If enough exceptions to the existing planning code like the 555 Washington Tower get approved, the current 200-foot "wall" along Washington Street is unlikely to hold. 3. Focus on urbanity, not just density The question to ask of density is: what does it really contribute to the city? This takes in everything— scale and mix, design quality, effect on microclimate, synergy with surrounding uses, transit access, etc. As we rezone, so shall we reap. Instead of giving 555 Washington a pass, the Planning Commission still has the opportunity to send a much-needed message to the mayor and the developer community: No more case-by-case! Now, in the lull before the resumption of business as usual, is the right time take a comprehensive look at how the central business district should grow, gaining rather than losing urbanity, and how much added density, if any, the districts north of it should absorb. These are the real and pressing issues, which the EIR did not address. The commissioners have one last chance to do so. They should take it. NOTES This was written for the California edition, Architect's Newspaper, 31 March 2010. The tower's EIR was certified by the Planning Commission, and then decertified by the Board of Supervisors, killing the project. I didn't really like the tower's design, but the issue here was its impact on the larger area. 6
I winced when I saw the Times' headline, "Next to MoMA, Reaching for the Stars." Jean Nouvel's new 75-story tower alongside the Museum of Modern Art reached back to Lyonel Feininger for inspiration, finally realizing his vision of an expressionist tower. It's hard to imagine a stronger contrast to Cesar Pelli's safely office-like MoMA housing or Yoshio Taniguchi's recent, buttoned-down expansion. "To its credit, the Modern pressed for a talented architect," Times' critic Nicolai Ouroussoff wrote, but he goes on to praise Hines, the tower's "remarkably astute" developer. "Hines asked Nouvel to come up with two possible designs, and made the bolder choice." That's Hines in New York. This fall, Hines also won the right to develop the Transbay Tower in downtown San Francisco. Pelli's proposal for the transit hub component of the project is well done, but the tower is a version of his International Financial Center megatower in Hong Kong. As usual for Hines—they really are "remarkably astute"—Pelli was a smart choice. The Airport Express station that serves Hong Kong's financial district anchors the twin-tower IFC complex. From a credentials standpoint, that's valuable experience. Plus a tower that's up and running is easier to price, even with differences in construction, than one-offs like Richard Rogers and SOM's competing proposals. Armed with that knowledge, Hines played its trump card, offering up to $350 million for the land—more than twice what the other two developers were prepared to pay. That's Hines in San Francisco. Hines is Hines—the same smart operators, east and west. Given what they're proposing for New York, blame San Francisco's less-than-stellar tower falls somewhere else.
Jokingly called Dean Macris' last erection, the Transbay Tower benefited from the recently-departed planning czar's determination to fulfill his long-time vision of a city skyline marked by three accentuated "hills"—two real and one manmade. This is the same vision that gave us One Rincon Hill, the first in a two-tower wonder by Chicago's Solomon Cordwell Buenz. Compared to it, Pelli's proposal is definite progress. A lot of people have questioned the logic of Macris' idée fixe, but that's another article. The question here is how a competition that was advertised as being all about design proved to be all about money. Not that this is surprising, but—in light of promises made—it feels like bait and switch. And if I feel this way, imagine how SOM feels! I wasn't privy to the jury's deliberations, but a few things stuck out along the way. In the initial interviews, Norman Foster failed to appear and his team was eliminated. While eliminating starchitect noshows is a standard m.o. for competition juries, confirming Woody Allen's maxim that "85 percent of life is showing up," the jury's reaction struck me as a surefire sign of provinciality. Another sign of that was the dearth of interesting architects in the mix. Again, I didn't make the rules, but at roughly the same time that the Transbay schemes were being unveiled, Thom Mayne won a competition at La Défense in Paris that clearly breaks new ground. This was another reason to wince, since a second major work by Mayne might finally have put San Francisco on the architectural map.
Of course, Calatrava made the cut, only to have a falling out with his developer. Perhaps he was chosen, like Icarus, to exemplify the dangers of the creative edge. That left SOM., whose tower—while drawing on a Chinese precedent—alone showed the originality that the competition promised. With its blend of structure and sustainability, it presented a credible future for tall buildings in the earthquakeprone West Coast. Plus, it was new, and that seemed to be what was wanted. (Unlike SOM's, Richard Rogers' peculiar tower was a throwback to his high-tech, frame-and-infill days, but vastly toned down, with no real gain in use value, especially as office space.) SOM's tower fit the bill, if the object had been to build a tower in San Francisco that broke the mold. In retrospect, no such luck. The Transbay Tower reminds me of the new east span of the Bay Bridge, a chance squandered to do something on a par with the Golden Gate Bridge. San Francisco rises to its own occasions with about the same frequency as its earthquakes—maybe less frequently. In that sense, there's no real mystery about the latest outcome. Still, it makes me wince. NOTES This also ran in the California edition of Architect's Newspaper, 30 January 2008, page 22. Nouvel's tower for MoMA was subsequently cut down a bit. Neither tower is really underway, but the transit terminal and park that accompanies Pelli's is moving ahead. This piece was also a fast burn, as I found the much-hyped Transbay Tower's outcome deplorable, despite its utter predictability. AN is great about running criticism. This version amends a few edits in the original that distorted my meaning.
Over the Christmas holiday in late 2008, I read two book-length interviews with Ivan Illich by David Cayley , a Canadian broadcast journalist. In passing, Illich mentioned Leopold Kohr, an Austrian political theorist best known for the phrase, "Small is beautiful." In a talk that Illich gave at Yale University in October 1994 , he noted that Kohr advocated for proportionality rather than smallness. As Illich developed Kohr's main themes, I saw his relevance to how we think and talk about urban density. 1
Kohr argued that everything that exists has natural limits, and that cities arose and thrived thanks to a widely shared "common sense" about the limits of their pieces and parts, and the ways in which they properly related to each other. Proportionality for Kohr meant "the appropriateness of the relationship." Another key word for him was certain, as in "a certain way." Kohr would say that bicycling is ideally appropriate for one living a certain place. This statement reveals that "certain," as used here, is as distant from "certainty" as "appropriate" is from "efficient." "Certain" challenges one to think about the specific meaning that fits, while "appropriate" guides one to knowledge of the Good. Taking "appropriate" and a "certain place" together allows Kohr to see the human social condition as that ever unique and boundary-making limit within which each community can engage in discussion about what ought to be allowed and what ought to be excluded. In other words, we cannot meaningfully discuss density except in relation to a certain place. One question that density poses is, "What relationships are appropriate to that place?" It's not a question that is meant to be posed or discussed in abstract. "Who is the community?" is also a relevant question: in relation to a certain place, "community" is no abstraction, either. In his talk, Illich noted that, with the Enlightenment, we began to lose our grasp of proportionality in this sense.
The price of modernity "Plato would have known what Kohr was talking about" Illich said. "In his treatise on statecraft he remarks that the bad politician confuses measurement with proportionality. Such a person would not recognize what is appropriate to a particular ethos, a word that originally implied a dwelling place, later something like 'popular character.'" Also lost is paideia, "the attuning of the common sense to the ways of a certain community, and tonos, which one can understand as 'the just measure,' 'reasonableness,' or 'proportion.' A hundred years before the French Revolution, proportion as a guiding idea, as the condition for finding one's basic stance, began to be lost." This disappearance has hardly been recognized in cultural history. The correspondence between up and down, right and left, macro and micro, was acknowledged intellectually, sense perception confirming it, until the end of the 17th century. Proportion was also a lodestar for the experience of one's body, of the other, and of gendered relations. Space was simply understood as a familiar cosmos. Cosmos meant that order of relationships in which things are originally placed. For this relatedness—this tension or inclination of things, one to another, their tonos—we no longer have a word. Tonos was silenced in the course of Enlightenment progress as a victim of the desire to quantify justice. Therefore we face a delicate task: to retrieve something like a lost ear, an abandoned sensibility. Illich also pointed to temperament, which went from being "the combination of qualities in a certain proportion, determining the characteristic nature of something," as medieval philosophy defined it. "To temper was to bring something to its proper or suitable condition, to modify or moderate something favorably, to achieve a just measure." At the beginning of the 18th century, it "came to mean to tune a note or instrument in music to fixed intonation," Illich said. The universal and general thus replaced the local and specific. "Proportionality being lost, neither harmony nor disharmony retains any roots in an ethos. The Good, Kohr's 'certain appropriateness,' becomes trite, if not a historical relic." The result is a shift from "the Good" to "values." An ethics of value—with its misplaced concreteness—allowed one to speak of human problems. If people had problems, it no longer made sense to speak of human choice. People could demand solutions. To find them, values could be shifted and prioritized, manipulated and maximized. Not only the language but the very modes of thinking found in mathematics could norm the realm of human relationships. Algorithms "purified" value by filtering out appropriateness. Modernity, that child of the enlightenment, comes with a price. How we think and talk about density today is symptomatic of what it has cost us. This is what I take from Kohr and Illich. While there are proponents of higher-density urban development who speak eloquently about urbanity and manage to achieve it, density in practice can be a diktat of abstract values that leads more often than not to a redeveloped cityscape that is placeless, generic, and disharmonious. Reframing density Cities like San Francisco and Berkeley exemplify our current dilemma around density. On one side are the advocates for what might be called "regional, long-term values ." On the other side is the local community, appalled by redevelopment proposals that disregard current zoning and posit a radically altered fabric than what exists. The typical context is a drawn-out and politicized entitlements process, fought as a zero-sum game. Reading Illich on Kohr, I wondered if what's broken isn't the way we think of density in an urban context. How might we reframe it? Three changes seem crucial: 3
First, we need recognize that density's effects are always specific. Another question to ask of density is, "What will it actually contribute to this place—this site, block, neighborhood, district—in terms of livability, urbanity, and sustainability?" It's also important to ask "Who will benefit from any changes
to the existing fabric that alters its density?" Especially so when the changes proposed will undo existing agreements on the character of that fabric. Second, we need to revive the rule of law in urban redevelopment. In San Francisco and Berkeley, its loss has led to a politicized, case-by-case entitlements process. Glacial and expensive, it makes every project a protracted struggle, while undermining the existing planning framework that, at least in theory, codifies good practices and precedents. Third, we need to restore a "common sense" about proportionality and appropriateness, so that density regains its innate connection to actual settings and to those who live and work in them. There is a supposition that ordinary people cannot be trusted to make decisions about density, yet the results of a process dominated by experts don't inspire much trusted in their greater wisdom. By rooting density in the specifics of a place, the larger principles that make a higher density desirable can be considered in application. Is this the place to shift the density higher, and if so, then how and how much? What will this imply for adjoining areas? Do we need new rules—or old rules reaffirmed—to maintain these areas as they are or ensure their future redevelopment is appropriate? Restoring common sense These are obvious questions, but they are not being posed. Density is considered a value for its own sake, socially useful. The actual results are often a disaster. Ordinary people are up in arms, because they recognize that their own cities have turned against them. That's steadily breeding a reaction, even in leftwing cities like San Francisco or Berkeley, which accept that higher density is necessary. It's not just "Not in my backyard!" The reaction is "common sense," the desire to preserve the quality of the city against incursions that undermine it. There's no confidence that what's being proposed won't result in a net loss of urbanity for a neighborhood or a district. We all know of places that, by adding new density thoughtfully, have gained hugely in urbanity. These are the benchmarks to which Smart Growth advocates point, but they're the exception. Every time mediocrity gets a pass in the name of higher density, the case for it gets weaker in the public's mind. Every time some out-of-scale project emerges from entitlements, bloated by the need to recoup what politicians have managed to extract from it, the public sees higher density as yet another form of corruption. The divide will get worse, not better, until density is reframed. Cities will get worse, too, until urbanity is seen as the necessary outcome of redevelopment. Behind urbanity are the place–specifics of proportionality and appropriateness, as Kohr and Illich noted. Without that sense of tonos, we are not as smart about growth as we need to be. NOTES 1. David Cayley, Ivan Illich in Conversation, Anansi, 1992, and The Rivers North of the Future: The Testament of Ivan Illich, Anansi, 2005. 2. Ivan Illich, The Wisdom of Leopold Kohr, 14th Annual E.F. Schumacher Lecture, Yale University, October 1994, E.F. Schumacher Society, 1996. 3. This was neatly illustrated in an article on 4 July 2010 by Jonathan Weber in the New York Times, quoting Smart Growth advocate Peter Calthorpe, who spoke approvingly of such proposed megaprojects as the environmentally-vulnerable Saltworks in Redwood City, seeing that partial wetlands redevelopment as responsible in the longer run, as against the short-sightedness of their local critics. Still unpublished, this was written for a Smart Growth advocacy group in Manhattan that put out a call for papers during the late December 2009 break. This is the sixth draft, considerably cut down. 12
1. I sometimes think that if reincarnation is real, the twin poles of our moving across time are absolute masculinity and absolute femininity. Each step in one direction or the other gives us a different mix, but our subsequent associations—who we fall in love with, for example—color what comes forward. Biology is never precisely destiny, as long as our human imaginations are intact. Our nature is innate, but it is also situational—malleable in response to people and events. It's one of our compasses, but the courses we set vary immensely over the expanse of our lives. I sometimes weary of being a man, but I know well that being a woman is a good deal harder, actually. They must weary of being women, too. Growing up, I constantly had to come to grips with my own nature and decide, if that's the right word, what to bring forward and, having done so, how to stay on good terms with the rest. I think that's an important point, how easily we imagine that the rest can be ignored or repressed. The constant unearthing of proof of the folly of doing so is one of the great themes of our times, a cautionary tale that too often is also someone's nightmare. Making the world safer for human nature is a worthy project. We would all benefit. It's still tipped in the other direction, but that simply doesn't work. The politics and the landscape of sexuality began to change when I was in high school. I worked for two gay florists who lived together above their store in the next town. In the company of my Iowa cousins, I visited Fire Island, where a friend from their town was the island doctor during the summer. This was before AIDS. Gay men took to the beach in the same way that women did on the French Riviera, I observed, barely clothed, their bodies buffed. In men, it felt like childhood. I remember the impulse to remove my clothes, at that young age, and the frisson of running around naked with other boys. Sexual license in general increased dramatically while I was an undergraduate. What was seen as the hypocrisy of our elders was thrown off. Youth, propelled both by the war and by drugs, hit the streets. In white America—not black America—this was mostly nonviolent. Black America set out to burn the house down. They had less to lose, and good reasons to disbelieve in nonviolence, especially after King was assassinated in 1968. Whites—those whites that turned out—were tired of the line of reasoning that led to a pointless war to which they might be sacrificed. We were close enough to our fathers' war to know that this one didn't add up. As children of war survivors, we took staying alive as a birthright. My generation, which came of age in the 1960s, is often pilloried by succeeding ones for our hubris and narcissism. I remember a writer for a national magazine, Life, perhaps, telling us that we risked being
remembered only for smoking dope and making love. Not so bad, my cohorts replied. It seems an odd charge given what we knew even then about our parents' generation. Didn't he read the New Yorker? One difference was that sexual license "came out." That process always overshoots, but its origins go back to World War II, when everyone turned a blind eye to everything. Our parents tried to button it down, but they also knew what that could mean—the Nazis being the prize example. Coming out is a theme of the second half of 20th-century America. It took myriad forms, but the instinct was the same. 2. For my mother, being modern meant embracing modern conveniences, like instant foods. In the tropics, canned or frozen foods were a necessity to eat a Western diet, but my mother saw them as a time saver. I don't begrudge her this, although over time her penchant for prefabricated foods fell out of favor. Pop artists made hay with this aspect of 1950s American modernism. As captured by Roy Lichtenstein or the deadpan Andy Warhol, it was pretty funny. My mother was modern to the end. I never asked her about Pop Art, but I imagine she thought it was modern, too. People look back at the midcentury as a high water mark of design. In Europe in 1960, my parents bought some fine pieces of Scandinavian modern furniture for their modern house. Modernity came easily to them, because they'd experienced the modern world directly. They saw the claims of our small town as momentary, however much they might get caught up, day to day, in the mechanics of the plot.
Work is tantalizingly close to done. You eat your sandwich at your desk, munching. Evenings and weekends always promise fun. And your book suggests some weekday lunching, But then those plans fall through. It starts to rain. On the train, one woman bores another. "You're not looking at me," she says, her pain unleashed, but then she hurries to smother any trace of it, plugs noise in her ears and stares into the middle distance, dead to the other, like one who disappears. (A still-permitted death let it be said.) Life has an eternity left to run. It's raining out, but they predicted sun.
NOTES A Memoir in Time is an attempt to write autobiographically and place what I experienced personally in a cultural, political, and social context. (Don't all memoirs do this?) I started writing sonnets after reading Invitation to the Dance by Mary Oliver—a book on poetic structure. To be honest, I couldn't figure it out from this book, although I learned a lot of other things, and I ended up looking at a sonnet by Shakespeare and applying his structure and rhyming pattern. I'd never written poems to this kind of constraint before, and it's proven interesting. I also discovered that I have a knack for rhyming. 14
COMMON PLACE All articles © 2010 by John Parman Website: http://complace.j2parman.com Contact: email@example.com


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Well God, I'm awfully glad you are in control. Because the anticipation of giving a homily is terrifying me. Fr. Swan keeps mentioning "picking a Sunday.". And each time I feel green to the gills.
Some self examination is due. I am a regular public speaker even impromptu. I am on stage 6-10 times a year in rivulets characters in community theatre shows. I have worn a fur bikini in front of an audience. So why oh why am I so daunted by this task. This regular task of ministers everywhere?
In all its recognition that I am inadequate to the task, and lack of acceptance that He is completely adequate. As my dear confessor tells me, I have control issues.
Last Sunday, I was speaking at a church in Paris, IL for work. The lectionary was colossians 2. And Luke's teach us to pray. Both of which are about giving up control and trusting his plan.
I wonder if I'll battle this issue for the rest of my life. Is it odd to hope so? I hope I'm always a bit daunted and awed by the idea of giving a homily. If I give one where I'm not, perhaps I'll retire.

subset: commoncrawl


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Home > General Updates > Standing and Bigger
Standing and Bigger
April 27, 2011 Leave a comment Go to comments
B is standing more and more on his own. No supports, just surfing on his own feet.
He's also in 12 month clothes now. He still has 2 weeks until he's 9 months.


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This week has been moving so quickly I barely know where the time goes. This season literally always flies by for me. Does anyone else feel that way?
This morning I got to sleep in a little bit since I was hitting the treadmill up on my lunch break. I forget how good it feels to actually wake up at a normal time for work. It is possible to not feel like a complete zombie when I wake up? 🙂
That run was absolutely amusing considering I only had 11 minutes of the movie "Office Space" left to watch on my iPad and my shuffle starting warning low battery….Obviously I need as many distractions as possible when i'm running on the treadmill but thats besides the point 😉 I love running outside since the outdoors is my distraction but being inside is just so ridiculously boring. I lucked out and my shuffle only died when I had 10 minutes left. Longest 10 minutes of my life I tell ya. I did 5 miles in total.
I had to run to Michaels right after work because I needed supplies to make Elmo Cake Pops for Kevins nephews 2nd birthday on saturday. I was prepping tonight and I have backup in the form of Dema and Nina to help me tackle this project tomorrow night. Somehow I managed to spend a decent amount of money in Michaels and I couldnt help but laugh…it happens to me everytime no matter what when I walk into that store. Maybe i'm too creative for my own good sometimes!
On a random side note…its officially Christmasface around here. Its me and Kevs favorite term for the holiday season…and it means that the season is in full swing. We are totally starting to feel the anticipation of Christmas now:
We had to put our smaller tree in the dining room and reorganize things a bit. We cant have the cats near the tree or the presents because they would rip it all to shreds. I'm seriously not planning on getting a nice christmas tree until these two get old and fat and have no motivation to cause mischief anymore 😉
I whipped up a delicious dinner…stepped a little out of the box..hahaha. I saw fresh butternut squash and felt inspired. I decided to roast it and adapted this recipe from allrecipes.com:
- 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley (I used 1 teaspoon)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil ( I used 1 tablespoon)
- 2 garlic cloves, minced (I used 1 clove)
- 1 teaspoon salt (sprinkled lightly)
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper (sprinkled lightly)
- 3 1/2 pounds butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes (I used about a cup and a half)
- 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese (I grated as much fresh parmesan as I wanted…we still had good quality parm left from dinner on sunday night!)
- In a large bowl, combine the parsley, oil, garlic, salt and pepper. Add squash and toss to coat.
- Transfer to an ungreased shallow 2-qt. baking dish. Bake, uncovered, at 400 degrees F for 50-55 minutes or until squash is just tender.
It came out really delicious. It was my first time ever working with it and I am a happy camper.
I also had half a pita pocket with lemon hummus and olive tapenade spread inside:
Also a bottle of blue moon to wash it down with:
Then it was finally time to make the cake:
Its out of the oven and cooling now. I'll be crumbling it up and rolling it into balls in an hour or two. Cake pops are time consuming but I think its worth it in the end. Cant wait to show you guys how they come out tomorrow. Wish me luck!
Do you like cake pops? Have you ever tasted one before?
Have you ever eaten butternut squash before? How do you like to cook it?
Do you need distractions while running on the treadmill too?


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On our last day in Tacloban before heading to the airport for our 4:30PM flight back to Manila, our gracious hosts, Gerry & Ludette Ruiz, together with their vivacious daughter Nani (family owners of Leyte Gulf Travel & Tours), treated us to a sumptuous lunch at the San Rafael Farm & Restaurant located about 30 minutes away from downtown Tacloban. It is located in the hilly area of Babatngon in Leyte.
San Rafael Farm is more of a park rather than an actual farm – the wide open green spaces, beautifully landscaped by the owners, are so inviting and picture-perfect. No wonder this place has been, of late, a favorite venue for wedding receptions for Leyte couples. The place is simply so romantic!
There are plans to put up cottages within the farm so guests can stay overnight or even longer, and enjoy what the farm has to offer. Or just prabably meditate in any one of the pocket gardens all over the place.
Oh, I forgot about the FOOD… it was so good. But my wife would have to make a separate blog about that here.
If you want to have a hassle-free vacation in Leyte and Samar, try the Sudoy Ha Leyte Tour. You can contact:
Leyte Gulf Travel and Tours
c/o Calle Zaragosa
Independencia St
Tacloban City, Leyte 6500
Tel. No: +6353.321.7966
Fax: +6353.523.7966
We promised, just like General Douglas McArthur, "I (we) shall return" … probably in June, in time for Tacloban's fiesta next year.
back to HOMEPAGE


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Oklahoma is expected to announce a punishment for Mayfield sometime today.
Baker Mayfield apologized for grabbing his crotch and yelling expletives at the Kansas Jayhawks on Saturday, but for some, that's not enough.
Berry Tramel of The Oklahoman is calling for Lincoln Riley to make an example of the Heisman frontrunner.
Oklahoma's quarterback embarrassed himself Saturday night in Lawrence, Kansas. Embarrassed himself, embarrassed his team, embarrassed his school, embarrassed his adopted state. Standing on the field, yelling obscenities and making obscene gestures, is not acceptable and Mayfield himself said so with his postgame apology.
But Mayfield apologies are wearing thin. Which is why it's time for Lincoln Riley to show he's serious about running a class program.
Mayfield must be suspended for the West Virginia game Saturday.
Saturday's lopsided victory over Kansas was full of drama. It started when the Jayhawks' captains refused to shake Mayfield's hand after the coin toss. Then on the Sooners' final drive of the first half, cornerback Hasan Defense delivered a late hit on Mayfield. While the defender was flagged and given a 15-yard penalty, Defense was not ejected for what many believed should have been a targeting call.
At one point during the 41-3 victory, Mayfield grabbed his crotch and appeared to yell, "F— you!" at KU's sideline.
Baker Mayfield didn't feel like taking the high road today pic.twitter.com/30Q5UFk264
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) November 18, 2017
Post-game, the Sooners signal caller apologized for getting caught up in a chippy game, saying his behavior was "unacceptable."
"It's disrespectful. It's not the example I want to set. It's not the legacy I want to leave at OU. I truly do apologize. Thinking about the kids that are watching this now, it's not something I want to do to the parents out there. I'm sorry," he told reporters.
Tramel adds that the program has already dealt with the QB's indiscretions. Mayfield was arrested last February for public drunkenness and his discipline was not made public. According to Tramel's piece, Mayfield hasn't learned and Riley must send a message that winning is not above creating a culture of class at Oklahoma.
You can read Tramel's full piece here.


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Yesterday, three years of my life ended in five minutes as I turned over my position (as well as my place) in GUIDON to KC Felix. I tried to force the tears out just for added impact but my tear ducts were as dry as my wit. So, my fake symbolisms, such as my blank USB (disguised as full of digital files) and my old envelope of History readings (disguised as hard copies) had to do.
I know the staff and section are in KC's good and able hands. >:D<


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Good to Know
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Large Dresser
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|8.6 lbs. without drawers/shelves; 9.9 lbs. with drawers/shelves
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Medium Dresser
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|7.8 lbs. without drawers/shelves/garment bag; 8.9 lbs. with drawers/shelves/garment bag
|Maximum Capacity:
|Approx. 50 lbs.
|Reinforced double anti-puncture dyed-to-match exterior zippers with oversized pulls
|Telescopic, 3-position adjustable recessed handle Easy-access handles; Saffiano leather top handle and Tufftech fabric bottom handle
|Recessed 360-degree SpinBall wheels and Spinline wheels
|Exterior Pockets:
|2 gusseted zipper pockets (6-1/2"W x 13-1/2"H)
|Roomy interior; 1 zippered mesh pocket (19"W x 13"H); 1 elastic sidewall pouch pocket Removable garment bag (18-1/2"W x 39"H) with 1 mesh pocket (18"W x 14"H), 1 frosted pocket (18"W x 11"H); self-repairing dyed-to-match zipper 2 removable/collapsible/packable pocket drawers (12-1/2"W x 7-1/2"D x 8"H) with easy-view mesh windows and self-repairing dyed-to-match zippers; 2 detachable shelves
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Joy Lightweight Nylon TuffTech Luggage Set
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text:
Ujjain: In a shocking incident, a man was stabbed after a disagreement over Sonu Nigam's rant on azaans.
The victim, Shivam Rai, wrote a Facebook post in favour of Sonu Nigam infuriating Mohammad Nagori and Faizan Khan who threatened him over the phone.
The post reportedly said that 'now he (Rai) will only listen to Sonu Nigam songs'.
The two men threatened Rai over the phone and the ensuring altercation led to the alleged stabbing.
The stabbing incident took place in Ujjain's Freeganj area.
Reportedly, Faizan came with 7-8 friends and fled from the spot after he stabbed Shivam and attacked his friend Ayush Shreewas.
Police officials have registered an attempt to murder case in this regard.


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Playing college baseball was a high point for me after leaving high school. A local junior college, somehow in their great wisdom, gave me an opportunity to play and I was grateful. I was not short on confidence or desire, but I was, sadly, short on skill. But I learned many lessons over the next four years of college baseball that helped me later in life.
Lesson No. 1: To improve, you must be able to self-evaluate.
My freshman year in college as a baseball player was an eye-opener. I became aware the first day of practice that the competition was stiff and that my skills as a baseball player were way behind those of my teammates.
To improve as an athlete, in the workforce or as a person, you must be able to take an honest appraisal of your skills and set about improving those skills.
I always thought of myself as a pretty good second baseman. However, one week into practice and it was clear to me that there were several fellow competitors who were a lot better and had more skills and talent as a middle infielder. This ability to realize this about myself was useful when the coach approached me about taking a different position, which leads me to a second lesson.
Lesson No. 2: Adapt.
During batting practice, I would shag fly balls in the outfield and realized I had a knack for chasing down a batted ball. The coach noticed and moved me into the outfield, and I was on my way. Being a good teammate or employee may mean moving to a different position at your place of employment that will benefit both you and your employer.
Lesson No. 3: Learn from your peers.
Upon moving to the outfield, I realized that there was a whole new group of skills to be learned. Using the same old skills and techniques in the outfield that I used in the infield was not going to help me carve out a starting position. I remember that our right fielder was a sturdy-looking fellow who could really run and had a great arm. He could throw the baseball and make it actually rise—a skill I did not possess—so I approached him and asked him to show me the technique that he used to get the baseball to do such a thing.
Do not be afraid to approach your peers for help; most people are willing to help others be successful. Use the power of observation, watch how successful people get things done and put those skills to work for yourself.
Lesson No. 4: Success does not come overnight.
My first couple of years were a learning experience with many ups and downs—probably more downs. It took me two years to get my skills to the level where I was a good college outfielder.
There will be many successes and setbacks as you move forward in your career. Keep in mind that we learn far more from our failures than our successes.
Whether you are a college athlete or just starting a new job, consider the four lessons outlined above, and keep improving and adding new skills.
John Pierce was born and raised in Chattanooga. He was a teacher, coach and principal in the Hamilton County school system for 30 years. He can be seen running the bridges downtown, kayaking or paddleboarding on the river, or playing golf on one of Chattanooga's municipal golf courses. His blog can be viewed at EdStalker.net, and he welcomes a Twitter follow @stalker_ed.


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Spring: Starting Anew…
The sun is out and the snow is melting as long nights exchange for long days. Budding trees and chirping birds are upon us as spring dawns and the world starts anew.
We bask in the glow of fresh sunshine and ponder what lies ahead. As winter retreats, spring beckons to cast shadows where shadows have yet cast. From the darkness of mid-winter contemplation, comes the spring of new beginnings. What aspirations that may have stirred, it's spring that calls them to life.
We weave life's fabric through the change of seasons, but it is spring that spells our genesis. With certainty, strength and anticipation, it draws us into a world of opportunity. Flush with color, multitude and variety, it appeals to our senses, heightens our feelings, and broadens our horizons. It is within and without, recognizing no boundaries and creating no barriers. It is spring and it is life.
Are we up to it? Do we accept the newborn challenges? If not now, then when? Fraught with disarray, spring is no cinch. Beginnings aren't easy and there are no guarantees. Struggle and strife are its harbingers and not all that sprouts lives to blossom. Survival is the name of the game as competing agendas plead their time under the sun.
Endurance and resilience (see Resilience: The Path to a Gifted Life…) are the hallmarks of a successful spring. The former brings the strength to bear; the latter gives the courage to continue. The beauty lies not so much in the serenity, but in the hardship encountered on the path there. In spite of wind, rain and anguish, trial and error become the victors of it, and when we stay the course the prize is ours to gain.
Spring arouses hope and optimism as the bleak and cold yield to awakening and light. The sky seems bluer, the air fresher, and the water clearer. Humankind feels the hug of warmth and at long last hibernation has concluded.
English-American writer Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) wrote: "If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome."
And so it is, as we leave winter behind and embark upon this spring of 2017. It is time to break out of our shells and embrace it with our hearts. We mustn't doubt nor hesitate, lest we let it pass us by. The season waits upon no one, but welcomes all who dare take up its command.
It's time to make the most of it. It's time to start anew. Spring is here…
For more check out the Global Ebook Awards GOLD & SILVER Winner of 2014 & 2016, The C.A.T. Principle: Change, Action, Trust – Words to Live By available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. See the latest Amazon reviews here.
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Book: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
This is one of those books that nearly everyone except me has read. Long on my list, I've started it many times but just couldn't get into it. Finally I saw it as an audiobook at the library and thought I would give it one last go.
Thankfully, this book is easier to listen to than it is to read. I can definitely see why I had a hard time reading it — the language is so blunt and straightforward, and, due to the narrator's autism disorder, full of so many repetitive details that my attention kept wandering. However, via audiobook, the words take on a rhythm that I found engaging, and I was finally able to enjoy the book.
Christopher Boone is a teenager living with his father in a small suburb in England. He has Asperger's Syndrome and displays many developmental and behavioral issues, of which I was actually rather glad to get an inside perspective. Having an over-developed sense of empathy and *always, always* keeping in mind what other people are thinking or feeling, it was very interesting to get a glimpse into what it would be like to have nearly no empathy for other people — in fact, to wish to be completely detached from others. At one point, Christopher describes his favorite dream, in which almost all the people of the world have died or disappeared, and he is left gloriously alone, with no one trying to look at him or touch him, and he doesn't have to worry about what other people's faces are doing, and he can just do what he likes without being bothered by other people at all. The way this is described, I can totally understand why this would be his favorite dream.
This starts out as a murder mystery, about what happened to the neighbor's dog, but then it becomes more about Christopher, and what happens when certain things he's counted on as stable and real get upended. He goes out on an adventure, a very scary one, and is very brave. People whom he trusts prove to be rather untrustworthy (in his eyes) and he has to stretch a little to get back on what he feels is safe territory. This ordeal is hard to listen to, because the author has done a very good job of writing about what it would be like to be this sort of person, with very little context for the mysteries and experiences of the fast-paced world; a person for whom being touched by someone induces a screaming fit, a person for whom new experiences are sensory overloads. It would be very scary and overwhelming.
Some reviews I've read talk about how people found Christopher's lack of empathy to be disturbing, and found him unlikeable. I disagree — I actually liked him quite a bit and his worldview made sense to me. If you can't stand being touched, and it's not really your fault that your brain works in a different way than most people's, then I felt like he got on fairly well in the world and was figuring things out so that he could function. Of course, the way he is is very difficult for other people, who like to be hugged and like new experiences, but that's not his concern.
This won't rank up there in my Favorite Books Ever list, but I did enjoy it and I feel like I have a better understanding of why people who have an autistic disorder may act in ways which are hard for non-autistic people to understand. And I can finally knock it off my list.
(RIP list coming this weekend!)
September 1, 2011 9:49 pm
i read this one and my thoughts are very similar to yours. definitely not an all time fave, but i enjoyed reading it. it was a very unique read.


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Bob Fawcett (thepetset.com) has been a stalwart of Atlanta's LGBT community since he opened the doors to his first location of The Pet Set in the '80s. He's since gone on to operate locations in Midtown and the Briarcliff area, in addition to offering mobile grooming services for coifed canines and kitties around the city. Visit either location for trims and facials to leave your fur baby looking and smelling fabulous. Coming in second and third place were Gabrielle Claiborne and Craig Bates.
Party Promoter
Georgia Voice columnist Bill Kaelin (www.billkaelin.com) wins this category again in 2016, as he has done in multiple years past. His company, Bill Kaelin Marketing, provides "one stop" shopping for "all your marketing, branding, consulting and event needs." He has been making the scene(s) in Atlanta for nearly a decade now.
In second place is Lando Gonzalez, with Barry Brandon (www.barrybrandonmarketing. com) rounding out the list in third place.
A former Freedom Rider and peer of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis (https:// johnlewis.house.gov/) has spent a lifetime fighting for the rights of the underprivileged and shows no signs of stopping. His efforts have earned him a special place in your hearts as the top LGBT-friendly politician in Atlanta. Lewis is a longtime supporter of LGBT rights and even in his '70s, continues to speak out for a broader, gay-inclusive concept of civil rights in America.
In second place is Alex Wan, with Nathan Deal and Park Cannon coming in third and fourth place respectively.


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Today I go a tad off topic and review a television show. I'm tempted to say that I'm one of those people who's so cool that I don't even own a TV. The reason I don't is because people like that, instead of being cool, are usually total douchebags. Instead, I admit to watching a healthy amount of television and that my favorite shows usually have a science fiction or fantasy theme. I'd say my current favorites are Heroes, Doctor Who, Torchwood, Battlestar Galactica and Lost. Lost is especially important on that list as one of its creators, J.J. Abrams, is also one of the creators of a show that premiered last night on Fox called Fringe.
Fringe is an X-Files style show about an FBI agent who investigates strange phenomenon that exist on the -- wait for it-- FRINGE of science. This is the type of science fiction that posits science's only purpose to be finding newer and better mutant viruses and doomsday devices.
Fringe opens on an airplane where everyone on board suddenly and grossly discovers that their skin is falling off. I suppose there's no way to have your skin fall off and not have it be gross, but we didn't have to see every second of it. After everyone on the plane turns to goo, FBI agents Olivia Dunham played by newcomer Anna Torv and John Scott played by some goob are called in to investigate. John happened to be penetrating Olivia in some motel room when they got the call which made it inconvenient when they had to show up separately at the crime scene and pretend that they hadn't just seen each other naked. Olivia meets the agent in charge of the investigation, Phillip Broyles, who hates her because she sent a buddy of his to jail. The two act like assholes to each other, setting a pattern for the show. Pretty much every character in the show is an asshole to every other character.
Olivia and John are sent off to follow up what they believe is an obscure lead but surprise happens to be the big break in the case. Unfortunately, John gets exposed to the same face melting chemicals that killed everyone on the plane just as he sees the guy who did it. Olivia decides to put the fate of the man she loves into the hands of a scientist who did some work in the exciting field of face melting research 2 decades earlier. The one flaw in this otherwise perfect plan is that the scientist, Dr. Walter Bishop, has been in a mental institution for 17 years. Olivia is told that, to visit Bishop, she must be escorted by a family member since things like subpoenas and court orders apparently don't exist in the world of Fringe. This plot point allows the show to introduce another regular character, Walter Bishop's son, Peter Bishop played by Joshua Jackson from Dawson's Creek (he was the dark haired guy, not the blond guy who looked like Helen Hunt).
Peter and Olivia immediately go into asshole mode when they meet and Peter only agrees to help her out when she threatens to tell some gangsters who are after him where he is. Walter says sure, he can help, but only if he's in his old lab at Harvard. Despite the fact that he hates her, Broyles agrees to every single one of Olivia's crazy and probably extremely expensive demands which includes getting Dr. Bishop a cow. It turns out that the cure for Skin-Melting-itis can only be developed is you happen to know the exact chemicals used. Golly, says Olivia, John was the only guy who saw the face of the guy who made the compound so I guess we'll never know but then Dr. Bishop casually mentions that he knows a procedure that will allow Olivia to enter John's dreams and see the criminal's face. Damn, that sure was handy. The method involves Olivia injecting LSD and stripping down to her sexy black underwear, something I think will end up being a solution to loads of plot conflicts in later episodes of Fringe.
After all this, plus a few plot points I'll leave as surprises for anyone who may have Tivo'd this and hasn't seen it yet, Broyles, even though he hates her, invites Olivia to come work for him in what turns out to be some super secret organization that investigates weird stuff like Face Melting Disease. Thus, the basic plot model of Fringe is set.
Man oh man, this was the height of TV silliness. I'm really annoyed since I expected more from the guy who created Lost and Alias. Of course, the show's other two creators are Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci who were writers on the Transformers movie. You all may remember that as the movie that chose to waste loads of time showing us giant robots taking time out from their mission to save all humanity from the evil Megatron to help Shia Lebeouf outwit his parents and to nail the hottest girl in school. I didn't even mention when crazy Dr. Bishop gets to utter that immortal line of dialogue, "I pissed myself." This could be one of those cases where the pilot episode blows but the series in general vastly improves after that. I may give it one more episode or I may not. It depends on how much time I have and what else is on next Tuesday.
Oh, after Bishop said, "I pissed myself," he followed it up with, "Just a little squirt." I guess I wouldn't want to miss moments like that.


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Last Saturday I was privileged be in the Cathedral for the Ordination of Deacons. It was an occasion that was formal but intimate, grand and personal, exciting and, for me, humbling. One of the people being ordained was Allison Twigg who is spending her curacy at St Peter's. As her Incumbent I helped her on with her stole (the coloured scarf we wear). Just as I got up from my seat Michelle Cotton leant over to me and whispered 'Left shoulder'. And I remembered how four years ago I'd been at Michelle's ordination and there was a kerfuffle (is that how you spell it?) over which shoulder it went over. Deacons, who are ordained but not yet priested, that'll happen for Allison next June, wear the stole diagonally.
It was humbling to hear again the words the Archbishop of York spoke at my deaconing about service, words about service and self giving.
Deacons are ordained so that the people of God may be better equipped to make Christ known. Theirs is a life of visible self-giving. Christ is the pattern of their calling and their commission; as he washed the feet of his disciples, so they must wash the feet of others.
Deacons are called to work with the Bishop and the priests with whom they serve as heralds of Christ's kingdom. They are to proclaim the gospel in word and deed, as agents of God's purposes of love. They are to serve the community in which they are set, bringing to the Church the needs and hopes of all the people. They are to work with their fellow members in searching out the poor and weak, the sick and lonely and those who are oppressed and powerless, reaching into the forgotten corners of the world, that the love of God may be made visible.
Deacons share in the pastoral ministry of the Church and in leading God's people in worship. They preach the word and bring the needs of the world before the Church in intercession. They accompany those searching for faith and bring them to baptism. They assist in administering the sacraments; they distribute communion and minister to the sick and housebound.
Deacons are to seek nourishment from the Scriptures; they are to study them with God's people, that the whole Church may be equipped to live out the gospel in the world. They are to be faithful in prayer, expectant and watchful for the signs of God's presence, as he reveals his kingdom among us.
To be a Deacon is a very high calling. As Allison starts her ministry we need to hold her, as well as her husband Matt and children Megan and Ted, in our prayers.
The other Sunday, when we welcomed Kathy Hale as Lay Pastoral Minister, I promised to put a link to the information from the Diocese about LPMs. Well, here it is – the Diocesan web page with a film that we made a few years ago about this very wide-ranging ministry.
This Lent the Readers of Peterborough Diocese are offering 40 reflections on Suffering with Christ. You might like to use them to help your thinking during the season. Keep an eye out for the contributions of all three of our Readers and the handiwork of Tom Kirby and his team who produced the series.
We held our Memorial Service last week. It is always a moving occasion. If you would like to hear my talk you can find it here..
Last Saturday I was privileged be in the Cathedral for the Ordination of Deacons. It was an occasion that was formal but intimate, grand and personal, exciting and, for me, humbling. One of the people being ordained was Allison Twigg who is spending her curacy at St Peter's. As her Incumbent I helped her on [...]
I haven't done this for awhile but here's the sermon I preached on 8th February 2015.


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Street View is the best available vantage point looking, if possible, towards the location of the building. In some locations, Street View may not give a view of the actual building, or may not be available at all. Where it is not available, the satellite view is shown instead.
Latitude: 51.5082 / 51°30'29"N
Longitude: -1.5307 / 1°31'50"W
OS Eastings: 432666
OS Northings: 178912
OS Grid: SU326789
Mapcode National: GBR 6Z0.HT7
Mapcode Global: VHC1D.FC44
Entry Name: The Red Lion Hotel
Listing Date: 10 September 1951
Last Amended: 11 July 1983
Grade: II
Source: Historic England
Source ID: 1113699
English Heritage Legacy ID: 39456
Location: Lambourn, West Berkshire, RG17
County: West Berkshire
Civil Parish: Lambourn
Built-Up Area: Lambourn
Traditional County: Berkshire
Lieutenancy Area (Ceremonial County): Berkshire
Church of England Parish: Lambourn
Church of England Diocese: Oxford
(east side)
4/24 The Red Lion Hotel
(formerly listed as
the Red Lion Hotel
10.9.51 (No 1))
Hotel. Market Place front - C19 block two storeys, slate roof, flanking chimney
to left. Squared sarsen with brick quoins and dressings, 1st floor band, brick
and sarsen plinth. 4 tall vertical sliding sash windows with glazing bars, near
flush frames to 1st floor, 3 mullion and transom casements ground floor, 2nd from
left incorporates door. Double door in 3 centred arched opening with stone key
and imposts, radiating fanlight to right.
To right of this, fronting Newbury Street, C18 block. 3 storeys, vitreous brick
with red brick pilasters to full height of building. Hipped tiled roof central
chimney, overhanging eaves. 1 window to Market Place, 4 vertical sliding sash
windows, with glazing bars, in reveals to Newbury Street. Double doors in simple
surround 2nd bay from right.
Listing NGR: SU3267478918
This text is from the original listing, and may not necessarily reflect the current setting of the building.
Other nearby listed buildings


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Silence does not equal ignorance!
by admin • July 24, 2011 • * Safe for Work *, To You • 0 Comments
I know, so why bother going through all of this?
Your choice your life and mine belongs to me and my choices.
True strength is showing weakness and you are mine!
Don't say that you love me unless you mean it like I do.
Don't say that you care unless you are willing to prove it.
Don't say that you miss me unless you care enough to show it.
Those 'words' have a profound meaning to me.
Don't insult my intelligence, please.
Is that too much to ask?
You don't need to fake and stage to 'make' me love you, either I do or I don't and there is nothing you can do to change either except, feel the same.
Be yourself, but that scares the hell out of you, doesn't it?
It shouldn't because I know 'who' you are without any rose colored glasses.
You may feel it, most likely ignore it, but just don't know it


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ink, gouache
Please scroll down. It gets better.
some scribbles and about five different filters later, my guy has a personality.
I remember, as a kid, "Drawing The Lepechaun" (or the deer / lumberjack, etc.) that as soon as I got the eyes in something magical would happen. Olaf calls this the "dot of Life". So true! So now I stick faces on all sorts of things.
And finally, le piece de resistance de procrastination: Blending modes! Yay Photoshop! Let your inner printmaker out. Now, I'd better get to work!


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So many times you felt like turning your back and walking away
Will you be blamed? WhO is to say?
Life has so many ups and downs- just turn and look around'
With a short time to live – just to have your problems
"What they would give ".
You still have a lifetime that you can hold a loved one or a friend
And not have to think that tomorrow your life will end.
A lifetime has to be crammed into a short period of time
Because you'll be leaving your loved ones and friends behind.
What was once insignificant is now a priority in your mind
Which will outweigh the hands of time?
Life is not measured in minutes, hours or days
But in the way you live your life and when you do things that are right.
A smile, a thank you, a little hello, that is the way to go.
How good you feel when you're told "a job well done" and
The smiles from every one.
Learn to love everything that GOD has given and you will
See how much life is worth living.
short time to live
So many times you felt like turning your back and walking away


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I just thought I would share a few thoughts on Pinterest here today to give you some inspiration.
I joined Pinterest about 6 months ago and at first I wasn't sure about it. What was the point? All you did was like and pin pictures you like. Wow, big deal. But, after seeing what is actually out there, I have changed my mind about it.
I still don't get the social element of it if I'm totally honest. But. I do see the creativity part of it now.
So, what are the benefits of signing up to Pinterest?
It allows you to show off your creations, your blog posts, your links, your pictures.
Searching for inspiration? Follow your friends and people you admire to see what is on their boards. The amount of ideas I have got for things like Halloween, Christmas etc. from Pinterest is vast. OK, maybe I haven't actually DONE many of them…but you know where to go if you're stuck for ideas.
It is especially good for people with children. Need to know how to keep them occupied on a shoestring? There are hundreds of ideas here. Need to know where to go for free educational / fun printables? Pinterest has lots of links.
There are free crochet and knitting patterns on there.
You can find deals / bargains / coupons to help you save money.
Keep up to date with latest trends – not that that is me, but still.
I have been looking lately at ideas for writing, blogging and earning a living online. Loads of ideas here. Some do get repeated, or there is a crossover in some lists, but the general advice and the amount of it is quite good. Often you click on one link, follow it through and read more articles on that website, then see something that catches your eye and before you know it you have found something really good about 3 websites away from the original link on Pinterest (some people would call that getting distracted – I would call it research!).
Another thing you can do with Pinterest is document your life in a visual way. Holidays you been on, activities you have done…all on a virtual scrapbook.
And on the flip side you can document your dreams and goals. What do you want to own / achieve / have in your life? You can create an inspiring dream board here and keep looking at it when times get tough.
I came across this website which has an interesting article about Pinterest.
Another way of looking at Pinterest is as an organisational tool. There are pins about budgeting, lists, making money, saving money, getting ready for things (like Christmas), to-do lists…and the best part? You can make a board and keep all of your favourite links in one place.
I think the important thing to take away from this is you can use the other social networking sites to actually network, where Pinterest is more be inspired, look at a pin and see where it takes you!
I still don't go on it too often but I am definitely warming to it more than I was!
Ellen x


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Waiting at the princess hall to see the characters from frozen was over 4 hours...Disney is suppose to be a time of magic not to wait over 4hrs....It has been a waste of time and money...definitely it would an unforgettable horrible time here at Disney. ...
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I have no sympathy regarding this situation. It's Frozen...what did you expect? Of course the wait time to meet Anna and Elsa are going to be ridiculous.
Disney does not force anyone to wait in line, you choose to wait or not. You could have gotten a fastpass 60 days in advance for this and cut the wait time down to 5 or 10 minutes. Your kid is not the only kid who wants to see Anna and Elsa so there is going to be a long line.
You have to realize that there are thousands of customers to make happy every single day of the year and that you are not the only person *choosing* to wait to get what they want. It's called patience and is part of the growing up process in the big boy/girl world.
I hate to say it, but you are not the only or most important person in the world and must wait your turn in line like everyone else. Want to get in earlier, get there earlier.
Disney is not forcing anyone to stand in a 4 hour line. There are plenty of other activities to do and things to see.
If you don't want to wait in a four hour line, don't.
But obviously plenty of other people are willing to do so. Not really sure what you expect Disney to do about it.


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any word to see the explanation.
"There are some who, because the point
is the limit and extreme of the
line, the line of the plane, and the plane of the
solid, think there must be real
things of this sort."
"We do not know a truth without knowing its
"The mathematical sciences particularly
exhibit order, symmetry, and
limitation; and these are the greatest forms of the beautiful."
"Education is the best provision for the journey to old age."
"Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work."
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Being the wife of a Veteran that served in the Viet Nam War, I want to thank Rudy and all Veterans for what they have done /are doing for our country.
Rudy served our country for 5 years, Basic at Fort Ord, California, AIT at Fort Knox, Kentucky, a year in Viet Nam (he was only 18 when he went over there), Fort Carson, Colorado, California National Guard, then finally Fort Lewis Washington.
Alot of people don't know what the Veterans have sacrificed doing their duty for our country.
I just hope the Veterans coming home these days do not have to suffer like the Viet Nam Vets have. They came home to no welcome, no jobs, no help from the VA, struggling to get their lives put back together. Some are still struggling today!
Thank you to all of the Veterans!


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Hot on the heels of Foreign Minister Murray McCully's announcement last week on New Zealand's support of solar energy in Samoa (read the blog post here), over the weekend Mr McCully visited the site of New Zealand funded Te Mana o te Ra solar array in Rarotonga.
The contract for constructing the solar array in Rarotonga has been awarded to New Zealand Company Infratec Renewables Limited, however significant parts of the construction and electrical works will be carried out by Cook Island subcontractors.
Once completed, the solar array will generate 5 per cent of Rarotonga's electricity needs. New Zealand's support in the construction of the Rarotongan solar array further demonstrates New Zealand's commitment to furthering use of renewable energy in developing companies.


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EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. (AP) — The Minnesota Vikings have claimed tight end Blake Bell off waivers from San Francisco.
The Vikings waived rookie tight end Bucky Hodges on Monday with an injured designation, meaning he can be placed on injured reserve if he clears waivers. The sixth-round draft pick from Virginia Tech suffered a concussion in the team's final exhibition game Thursday.
Bell was a fourth-round draft pick out of Oklahoma in 2015. He totaled 271 yards receiving over the past two seasons for the 49ers.
The Vikings also filled their practice squad with quarterback Kyle Sloter, center Cornelius Edison and offensive tackle Cedrick Lang. They previously signed defensive tackle Dylan Bradley, tight end Kyle Carter, running back Bronson Hill, wide receiver Cayleb Jones, linebacker Elijah Lee, defensive end Ifeadi Odenigbo and cornerback Horace Richardson.
(© Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)


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This will be my last full-time semester at my home for the last few years; the place where I have been fostered and fed, challenged and even frustrated. It has been a time that has absolutely reshaped the core of my being and where I have learned who I am truly am. Before going to graduate school I did things out of a sense of empty obligation because of how people saw me, and of course this perception varied, not wanting to disappoint. I now know better how to reflect upon, calculate and put into action what is most effective, what justice calls for, and what I am most able to do well, putting people in touch with others with particular giftedness and/or abilities where I can. I have learned these things from making mistakes myself and from watching many wiser than than myself during the past 5 years or so.
This semester begins in a few days and I am genuinely excited. My books have been ordered; two are on my Kindle and these have been skimmed. The bulk of my time will be spent on my independent research class for which I will be submitting a 30 page paper. My research proposal was accepted so now I must narrow my thesis as I read all of the related journal articles. As of now I have over 40 saved. Though I will read them all, sadly, I cannot incorporate them all.
This summer I will, God willing, do CPE at Wake Med. Fall Semester I will begin a job search in earnest while completing my last and final component required, our Senior Synthesis. In December I will graduate. I will be both happy to complete my course of studies and extremely sad to leave my student body and the professors who have fostered my faith and some days almost an entire lack thereof for so long now. It will be quite a change, but I was certainly meant for something, have been preparing for something, and am looking forward to finding it.


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Keystrokes and Voices
Any unit of time spent online yields numerous examples of poor reporting going unchecked or, worse, being rewarded. Harry Knowles, the capitalization-crazy and ellipsis-obsessed webmaster of Ain't It Cool News, has actually been brought on as a producer for a major Hollywood studio picture. This isn't Jayson Blair- or Stephen Glass-level stuff, but it's not good.
While the internet is certainly a boon to the information delivery capabilities of modern civilization, it also aggrandizes the authority of dubious experts and gives weight to the half-assed masses. Information travels like word-of-mouth. Today's news might as well be heard from a coworker or overheard on the train for all the credence it deserves. The skill of the reporting is becoming less important than the simple act of reporting.
Today, CNN.com posted a story about the international reactions to various kidnappings in Iraq. The story contained this credibility-eroding passage:
"Japan also advised its citizens to leave while Russia announce it is sending planes to evacuate its citizens while France and coalition partner Japan are urging their citizens to leave."
Wired News features a terrific article about news agencies around the world reporting unconfirmed stories about Al-Qaeda telemarketing operations and a new congressional building with a retractable dome, among others. These articles didn't just appear in small-town papers (though they did appear in small-town papers), but were reported by the likes of the Beijing Evening News and MSNBC's Deborah Norville. The source for these stories was, of course, The Onion, "America's Finest News Source."
These are further examples of mass communications creating a global village. This could be bad for news. Like any other village, the global village gets its news from whichever blatherskite sits on the most porches come tea time. Getting into print has become so easy that any rumormonger can make a statement in his parent's basement and be taken seriously half a world away. The easiest way to be heard and recognized is, once again, to be the loudest or the most shocking. It's too easy, now, to hollar and be heard across town. Being heard has become more important than being correct. Audiences have become more important than the show.
It's time to stop awing at the ease with which keystrokes and voices can cross the globe and resume the celebration of the words being written and said. Don't celebrate what isn't praiseworthy. The sheer volume of news sources means the audience can't trust the show anymore. Sample the best, compare, and decide for yourself what's going on. Chew, swallow, and digest. Don't eat empty calories.
What do you think?


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Metal Injection has published an article detailing 40 highly anticipated metal albums for 2017. Here are the ones that stand out to me:
The Contortionist. Album expected late 2017. These guys have a fantastic song in my playlist, From Mercy to War. I have high hopes for this album too!
Fear Factory. Their work on Genexus in 2015 was my favorite yet. I hope they can build on that work in 2017. Due out late summer 2017.
Ne Obliviscaris. One of my favorite bands of all time. Three years after Citadel, sometime in 2017 they are expected to release their third album. Of all the albums that may arrive in 2017, this is the one I look forward to the most.
Suicide Silence. I've never been a fan, but this article piqued my interest with the comment that this band is introducing clean vocals for the first time. I'll be checking it out on or around 2/24!
Notable absences:
- Betraying the Martyrs, due 1/27
- Mutiny Within, due 2/10
- Persefone, due 2/24
- Within the Ruins, due 3/3
Which metal albums are you looking forward to in 2017?


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Question: Do you have a go-to meal that you make when you take dinner to someone? I would love to have 2-3 dishes that can be my standard "baby meal." In the past, I've made a big pasta salad (this is great in the summer when it's hot) or Pioneer Woman's chicken spaghetti, but would love another suggestion or two. Other ladies in my church have the rotisserie chicken and roast departments covered. :)
What do you take? If you have been brought a meal for a new baby or illness what have you enjoyed the most?
I have so been blessed by this ministry at my church - after the birth of each of my girls and after my husband broke his elbow last year and required unexpected surgery. This is one small way that as a mama to littles (where it's sometimes hard to do something) I can show I care.
PS. I was moving some blog posts this morning so please forgive me if you get all sorts of random posts in your feed reader. I need to do some bloggy maintenance at some point and keep putting it off!
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Hospitality Out of the Home
2 comments:
A lot of times I take a crockpot recipe all mixed up in a ziplock and ready for them to either go ahead and use or freeze for later.ReplyDelete
Another easy dish is swiss steak that simmers on the stove top for a while so you don't have to fuss over it, (plus it reheats well).
Swiss Chicken, because I can make it up ahead of time and freeze in an aluminum foil tray and I can just pull it out for whenever I need it.
I don't have links to the recipes because I'm spouting this off the top of my head, but I'd be glad to pull them together for you if you're interested.
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