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The music has prepared us for the Word of God this morning as we consider together the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our text is Matthew chapter 25, the first thirteen verses. And I invite you to open your Bible, if you will, and look to that text, Matthew 25. I want to read to you this marvelous parable and then to teach the things that God has given us contained in it. Beginning in Matthew 25 verse 1:
Then shall the Kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins who took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them. But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him.
Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps and the foolish said to the wise, Give us of your oil for our lamps are going out. But the wise answered saying, No, lest there be not enough for us and you, but go rather to them that sell and buy for yourselves.
And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Truly I say unto you, I know you not.
Watch therefore for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man cometh.
This parable is taken from the great Olivet Discourse. The Olivet Discourse of Matthew 24 and 25 is the Lord's own sermon on His Second Coming. And this particular parable is a warning parable. There are several such warning parables in this section of the sermon. In the early part, He gave the signs of His coming and now in the light of that He warns the world to be ready for when it happens.
The disciples had said to Him, to begin the sermon really, "When shall these things be?" In other words, they wanted to know the time of the Second Coming, the time of the establishing of the Kingdom, the time of setting up the Messiah's rule on the earth. His answer came in chapter 24 verse 36, "Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven nor the Son, but My Father only." He repeated it in verse 42, "Watch therefore, for you know not what hour your Lord doth come." He repeated it in verse 44, "Therefore be ye also ready for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man comes." He repeated it in verse 50 where He says, "In an hour that he is not aware of."
Four times already the Lord has said He is coming in an unknown moment. And now He gives a parable and concludes the parable by saying, "You know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man comes." The disciples said, "When will it be?" And He said, "No one will ever know." It will be sudden and it will be unexpected. You will know the general time because I'll give you the signs, which He did in chapter 24 verses 4 to 31. You will know the general marks of that time which He called "birth pains" leading to the birth of the Kingdom. But the exact moment and the exact hour you will never know, for as the epistles tell us, the Lord will come as a thief in the night, unexpectedly and suddenly.
This parable is a parable with the intent of teaching us the suddenness and the unexpectedness of the coming of the Lord which therefore should call us to preparedness so that we are not caught in that unexpected moment unprepared for His coming.
Notice verse 1. It starts with the word "then." Then takes us to a time. What time? The time when the Lord comes that He has just been speaking of in the prior passage closing chapter 24. The time when He comes to reward the faithful servant and to punish the unfaithful servant. It's at that time that the Kingdom of heaven, that is the sphere of God's rule, will be like this. So here is a parable to illustrate the time period of the Second Coming. That's the intent of the opening of verse 1. It takes us to the time of the coming of the Lord and calls for readiness, preparedness, alertness on the part of all of us for that time will come unexpectedly and suddenly.
It goes without saying, I guess, that we're aware of the fact that the first time Jesus came the world was not ready. They should have been. The prophets had marked out very clearly the signs to look for. They said there would be a forerunner. There was. They identified him as a voice crying in the wilderness. That's exactly what John did. They said the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. He was. Born of a virgin. He was. Of the line of David. He was. They said He would come to Galilee. He did. They said He would have great power. He had it. But the world still was not prepared and not ready. And so He came unto His own, says John, and His own received Him not. He was in the world and the world was made by Him but the world knew Him not. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, He said, how oft I would have gathered thee as a hen gathereth her brood but you would not. And in Luke chapter 19 and verses 41 and following, we read, "And when He was come near, He beheld the city and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known even thou, at least in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace but now they are hidden from thine eyes." If you had only known what time it was, if you had only known that I was here and now it's too late.
And this parable warns the world not to let that happen again. For there will be no recourse in the future.
Now the theme of the parable is very simple. It is not complex. The parable is meant to teach us that Jesus is coming. That He is coming to judge sinners and to reward the righteous. That He is coming in a sudden and unexpected moment and everyone should be prepared. And afterward there will be no second chance. People may knock all they want, but the door will be shut. The day of opportunity will have come and gone forever.
Now the parable is very simple. It's rich. It's exciting. And I think its marvel is in its...it's in its simplicity. As you read the many many writings that have been written around this parable, it can get very confusing. There are the allegorists who want to turn it into an allegory and give every single thing in it a mystical meaning so that you get lost in a mass of verbiage of hidden secret spiritual ideas. That is not the intent of a parable.
And then there are the devotionalists who want to see in every single thing something applicable to the Christian life. And that's wrong as well.
And then there are the critics who just want to deal with the data and say it's a confusing parable because they can't figure out who the bride is and even where the bride is since there's no bride mentioned. Where the bridesmaids at the bride's house or the groom's house or were they out in the street and if they were out in the street did they sleep in the street or did they go into a house and sleep? How heavy were the poles that they carried with the lamps on them? And could young maidens do that? Who are the young maidens? And on and on and on and on it goes.
But all of that just needs to be set aside. The message is in the simplicity and clarity of the parable, not in the confusion brought to it by allegorists and devotionalists and critics. All we need to know is four things: the wedding, the bridesmaids, the bridegroom and the warning.
Let's look, first of all, at the wedding. It is a wedding scene, after all. And only that which is significant to the application is drawn from the wedding scene. Let me tell you a little bit about the setting, if I may.
It would be a very typical wedding in a typical Israel...typical Palestinian village or Israel town in the time of our Lord...very typical. A wedding was THE greatest event in a village or a town. It was the greatest single social celebration those people knew anything about. Everybody got involved, friends, family, extended family, everybody. It was a time of happiness. It was a time of festivity. It was a time of celebration. And that's the scene we have here.
But it's essential for us to know that in a Jewish marriage, there were three elements. The first is engagement. Long before the scene here there was an engagement. And the engagement was an official contract between the two fathers who were giving their daughter and their son to each other, as it were. So engagements weren't really made with the couple, they were made with the fathers.
A little while after that, there would be what was called the second phase of the wedding or the marriage and that was a betrothal. Now the betrothal was the official ceremony. The couple would come together before friends and family and they would make vows and covenants and binding promises. They had an actual marriage ceremony and they made their commitments. They were then officially married. And any breaking of a betrothal period was a divorce. There had to be an actual divorce, that was that binding. And if the husband happen to die during that period, the wife was considered a widow even though the marriage had not been physically consummated nor had they come to live together.
The point was this. The fathers made an initial engagement for the children to be married. The children then made their vows to each other which were binding. And then there was up to a year for the young man to get things ready to take the bride to be his own. He had to provide a place for her, perhaps to build an addition on his father's house, or a house of his own, or to purchase land and cultivate a field and show that he could care for her. And so he had a year to prepare his home for her, to prepare his life for her. At the end of the time that he needed he would go to take her and she would become his own and live with him. There was no ceremony to that. That was just the official wedding. And that's the third phase and that's what we see here.
By the way, it was a very good principle. It was a very good way to set up a marriage. Parents who very often have a little longer range view than their children were involved. Secondly, the betrothal was a wonderful thing because when the vows were made they were absolutely binding because certainly a man didn't want to spend a year getting ready for a girl to come and be his wife and have her say at the end, "I don't know how to tell you this but I found somebody else." So once the betrothal was made, it was absolutely binding and all of his preparation would indeed lead to fulfillment.
But you can imagine, can't you, the anticipation in the heart of a bride and a bridegroom having to go through the process of finally getting to the culmination, of finally coming to the place where the marriage was going to be consummated. Great anticipation. And the scene here is phase 3, the actual gamos, in the Greek word, which is the wedding festivity, the wedding feast, the wedding celebration itself where he comes to her house and she's waiting there with all of her bridesmaids and he arrives with all of the men that are with him and they...he collects his bride and her maids and they all go with torches, parading through the night sky and through the village in a celebration of singing and talking and joy that is just unequalled in their social life. It's finally come to that. Everything is ready. He has prepared a home for her. He is now going to get her and take her to that place. And when they arrive at his home that night, and they always started those weddings at night so that they could have a processional through the village and everyone in the village could enjoy the joy and the festivity, then the wedding party would go into the house and celebrate as long as seven days.
At the end of that period of celebration, the friend of the bridegroom, who was like the best man, would take the hand of the bride, place it in the hand of the bridegroom and everyone would leave...hopefully. Enough is enough. And so it would be a marvelous evening, a marvelous beginning to a glorious celebration for which this bride and bridegroom had waited a long, long time.
And that's the wedding. And everything is ready. And we join in on the beauty and the wonder of the festivities. A second thing we need to know to understand this parable is the bridesmaids. Notice verse 1. "Ten virgins," it says, "took their lamps," actually the Greek word means torch. It is not the word lamp, for example, used in Matthew 5:15, you remember, where our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount said a man does not take his lamp and hide it under a bushel. That's a lamp. This is the word torch, a different word. It is used, for example, in John 18:3 to speak of the torches that the Romans carried when they came into the Garden of Gethsemane to take Jesus prisoner.
There was a long wooden pole. On the top of the wooden pole would be some kind of a wire mesh apparatus attached, filled with cloth. That cloth would be soaked in oil and then lit to give a flaming torch. They would carry on their person somewhere a little flask of oil so that they could keep that lit for as long as was necessary. So here are ten virgins who take their lamps and go forth, no doubt to the house of the bride, waiting to meet the bridegroom. They are her chosen ladies. They are the young girls who will attend to her. It calls them virgins, by the way, that is the way for virgin, parthenos which means an unmarried girl who is a virgin. They were young in those days when they married and these were her friends who as yet were not married, chosen because they were sisters or cousins or very dear and close and intimate friends. And it was a special joy and a special thrill to belong to her special group in anticipation of this glorious evening.
By the way, there's nothing intended in the fact that they were virgins regarding the morality of the people they illustrate. In other words, the fact that you have virgins here is not to say something spiritual about the people they represent. It simply fits the wedding pattern. They were just ten bridesmaids. And the custom was that virgins were the bridesmaids. That is not to say that though they represent others...that is to say, rather, that though they represent others, the others they represent in the parable are not necessarily pure and spotless and undefiled. So we don't want to draw any spiritual conclusion.
By the way, as a footnote, you want to avoid doing that as you work through the parables. Unless the Lord gives the meaning, you're really on your own if you start giving meaning to other things. They are intended to convey very simple direct truth which the Lord explains.
Notice how many of them. There were ten. Apparently the Jews were really delighting in the number ten. It took ten men to eat the paschal supper, according to Josephus. It took ten men to constitute a synagogue. It took ten men to give a wedding blessing. And apparently ten bridesmaids was just the proper number. So she had what seems to be a rather customary number of people in many of the Jewish festivities and rituals, ten of them.
Now they take their torches. On the wooden pole, they have the torch, they bring it because that's sort of like their invitation. Just like perhaps at a wedding today bridesmaids may carry flowers or light candles or whatever, this was the symbol that they belonged to the wedding party. And they brought their torches along to light the night sky in the wonderful procession that they would all enjoy...when the bridegroom finally came.
It says they went to meet him. The word "meet" is interesting. Technically it's the word used to refer to greeting an official newly arrived dignitary. So it's kind of an official term. This was a very official event, a very special event.
Now we ask ourselves the question: who are these girls? And it's very obvious from what our Lord says who they are. They are professed Christians. They are those who claim to belong to Christ. They are those who have gathered with the assembly of Christian people to await the coming of the Lord. They are those who say they know Christ. And they anticipate His coming. Who say they believe and they know about the wedding and they know the time is near and they even say they've made their preparation. They have on their wedding garment and they have their torch.
Their presence symbolizes their interest and their torch symbolizes their profession of faith in Christ. They show outward marks of watching for the coming of the bridegroom. They show outward marks of readiness. They show outward marks of commitment to Jesus Christ. Their part of the believing community. They're gathered as bridesmaids, as it were, ready to be received into this glorious marriage celebration. They profess to love Christ's appearing. They profess to hear the gospel and believe. They profess to be disciples to wait for the Son, to desire the Kingdom.
And, frankly, when you just see the ten of them, they're not very easy to distinguish. They all have on their wedding garments. They're all chosen bridesmaids. They all attend to the bride. They all have their torches. And they are at first indistinguishable but they are not alike. And this is the message of the parable.
Verse 2, five of them were wise and five were foolish. The searcher of the heart knows. It may not have been clear initially but the searcher of hearts knows. And there is a characterization in verse 2, as He looks into the heart of these ten and five were phronimos, having to do with the brain, thoughtful, sensible, prudent, wise. And five were moros from which we get our word moron, stupid. So they are very different. Not outwardly distinguishable, but inwardly very different...very different, as different as you can be...wise and stupid.
One commentator, I believe, draws a very interesting picture for us at this point. He writes, "There is not a more grand or a more beautiful spectacle on earth than a great assembly reverently worshiping God together. No line visible to human eye divides into two parts the goodly company. Yet the goodly company is divided into two parts. The Lord reads our character and marks our place. The Lord knows them that are His and them that are not His in every assembly of worshipers," end quote.
And He can look down on this assembled group, if you will, of bridesmaids, all of you saying we wait for His coming, we have our garments on, we have our torches in hand. But He knows whether you're wise or whether you're stupid. We may not. He knows. And the differentiation here is preparedness, verse 3 and 4. Here's where their wisdom and foolishness manifests itself.
"They that were foolish took their torches and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels," that is those vessels they carried on their person to pour onto the torch along with their torches. The wise, they carried the flask with the oil. The fools had no oil at all. They made no proper preparation. It was all outside. It was all external. But they hadn't cared for the most necessary thing and that is the oil so they could light the torch. They all made profession but only five had the genuine oil of preparedness.
Now what is that oil? It is the necessary reality of saving grace that distinguishes people. There may be a crowd of people all of whom outwardly ostensibly apparently honor Jesus Christ, but there will be different hearts, some prepared and some unprepared. The oil is like the garment of Matthew 22:11, you remember that the wedding feast there, the king calls a wedding for his son and he sees the guests and he finds a man without a wedding garment. He is also unprepared. He tries to crash the Kingdom, as it were, without a prepared heart. And so, the oil is the necessary grace without which no man shall see the Lord. It is true salvation. It is imputed righteousness. It is genuine holiness granted by faith in Jesus Christ. It is a transformed inward life.
But some of them were like those of whom Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:5 and says they had a form of godliness but without power. The foolish virgins were outwardly attached. They were committed intellectually. They were committed socially. They were even committed religiously. But they had no light and they had no life. They had no ability to be conformed to the law of God. Their faith in terms of James 2 was dead faith. It was faith that had no product, that could do nothing. And the purpose of the parable is to warn us not to be caught in such unpreparedness when the Lord comes.
Now I hasten to say to you that this is a ringing repeated theme of our Lord's ministry. He over and over again speaks to this issue. He says, for example, that in the Kingdom there will grow together wheat and tares, right? And they will look so much alike that we don't dare start pulling them out lest we pull up the wheat but wait until the coming of the Lord when He will make the distinction. And He talks about soil that looks good and the seed is planted and the plant comes up and flourishes but it has no deepness of earth or it is strangled out by the roots of weeds and found to be dead and non fruitbearing. But at first we can't tell the difference. This is a repeated message of our Lord and it points up the fact, and I think this needs to be emphasized in every church across this world that the church is filled with people who are unredeemed and unprepared for the coming of the Lord. It's filled with them.
I am interested in the...that in this particular parable of ten virgins, the Lord didn't say one of them didn't have any oil, He said five of them didn't. And although I don't want to take something and make it a mathematical conclusion out of that, what that says to me is that He sees a large number of people like this. It isn't to say that half of everybody in the church is unredeemed but it's surely is to say that it's a common issue, it's not isolated. And I believe the church is filled with these kinds of people who are unredeemed people, who are unprepared and whether they meet the Lord at His Second Coming should He come in their life time or whether they meet Him in death, and they will one or the other, they will be at that moment unprepared though they have been religious and though they have been involved in Christian people and though they have nice feelings toward Christ and though they may be self-deceived into thinking that all is well.
This is not a popular message, by the way. I wrote an article on this and publishers refused to publish it in a magazine. They said it would upset people. And so we let people go to hell in self-deception? Our Lord warns over and over and over and over about this.
The extremity comes in verse 5. "While the bridegroom tarried, they all dozed and finally fell asleep." The bridegroom tarries, in this particular analogy that our Lord is drawing, the bridegroom doesn't come when they expect him. It's later and later and later and later. And this is a rather subtle hint to the disciples who think that Jesus is going to establish His Kingdom immediately that it's going to be longer than they think. But more than that, I get the feeling in the context of Matthew 24 and 25 that the Lord is saying even when you've seen the signs given in 24:4 to 31, even when you've seen all those signs that will happen in the time of the Tribulation, even when you've seen the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, it's still going to be a time before He finally comes. There's a gap of time in there and people are seen waiting and waiting and waiting and then sort of just going back to the normal things of life, they doze off and go to sleep. Some people are so excited at the thought of a wedding that they can't sleep for a long time before. But these people have waited so long and they finally just settle. They can't keep themselves awake and they fall asleep.
What our Lord is saying is there will be a time of waiting before He comes. And it will be a time that will sort of lull people into "Well, we have to go on with routine as usual." Nothing wrong with sleep. Sleep's a wonderful thing. Nothing wrong with that at all. But there's something wrong with it if you're not prepared for what is going to waken you out of your sleep. That's the issue. Sleeping is not condemned. The wise were asleep like the foolish. And when the bridegroom comes and they wake up, the rest of the wise was sweet rest because they're ready. The rest of the foolish was folly indeed because they're caught unexpectedly.
What it's saying to us is that in waiting for the Lord, you know, we can't all the time be on our tip toes. We can't spend all our lives on the roof in our pajamas singing "The King is coming." I mean, life goes on, right? And some of us have said we've been waiting and we've been waiting and we've been waiting and where is He? And so you sort of settle back in to the fact that you have to eat and sleep and work. It doesn't mean that we're not waiting. The fact that we're not all congregated on a hill somewhere doesn't mean we're not waiting. It means that while we wait we go on. That's why, as we saw in chapter 24 verse 40 it says that when He does come two will be in the field and one will be taken, the other left, two will be grinding at the mill, one will be taken and the other left. They'll be going on with the routine things of grinding and plowing and planting. And some will be in business and some will be at the farm. And our Lord said, didn't He, in chapter 24 that it would be like it was in the days of Noah, verse 38, there will be eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage. In other words, life as usual.
And so, he tarries and the girls fall asleep. That's how it is in human life. We have to take care of the human things. It doesn't mean they weren't prepared. Five were, five weren't. The ones who were prepared could well afford to go on with the routine of life. The ones who weren't prepared could ill afford to go on with the routine of life, they should have taken care when they could, when they had opportunity. Their false security let them sleep through their day of opportunity. And that's the tragedy.
Let's look at the bridegroom in verse 6. "And at midnight there was a cry made." Now he has tarried a long time. That's a funny time to start a wedding...at midnight. But for the point that our Lord wants to make, He is simply saying it's an unexpected time. And now we understand more why they were asleep, right? Sleep is wonderful and sleep is where you're supposed to be at midnight. But the tarrying was so long that now at midnight when no one expects the wedding to start is exactly when he comes. And it's kind of fascinating in a way, I guess, that in Exodus 12:29 it tells us that the deliverance of Israel from Egypt began at midnight, also in an unexpected time. Maybe that's why the rabbis used to say that the Messiah would come when He came at midnight.
It's a late hour. An unexpected time reminds us, doesn't us, of the epistles where it says He will come as a thief in the...what?...in the night. The world somehow is lulled into complacency and He comes in an unexpected moment, even after all the signs. I mean, the bridesmaids knew the wedding was near. They could read the signs. They knew it was time to gather at the bride's house and the festivities were going to occur. They knew the preparations had been put in place. We might say if they were living in the Tribulation time, they had seen the birth pains. They knew it was time but they still wasted their opportunity. And at midnight there was a cry. And the cry obviously was to announce his approach. And I suppose there will be such a cry when He comes finally to set up His Kingdom in that last and glorious moment, a cry out of heaven. And the cry is this, "Behold, here comes the bridegroom. Go out to meet him." And this is, of course, the moment, the glorious moment that begins the wedding. And even though it's late, it's going to go on for seven days anyway so it's...it's wonderful that it should start even then. The procession is collected as the bridegroom comes with his ten attending men, perhaps. Meets the bride with her ten bridesmaids together with their lamps, they are ready to light them and proceed to his prepared home for her. This is the Second Coming. This is the Second Coming, the very moment of it.
Verse 7 says, "Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their torches." Perhaps they readied all of the cloth and the ones with the oil poured the oil on ready to go and lit the torch and it flamed in the night sky. Those who had no oil, they knew it now. Oh, maybe they thought they could just go down the street just before he got there. Maybe they didn't think it would be midnight when he came and everything would be closed. Or they hadn't even bothered to think about that, maybe they thought they could just sort of borrow that, nothing is said about that, we don't know, they were just unprepared.
They certainly didn't do what 2 Corinthians 13:5 says, "Let a man examine himself." Examine yourself to see whether you be in the faith. They were deceived. And now when everything is revealed, they're naked. They have no oil. They possess not the necessary internal grace of holiness. They can't light the torch. And verse 8, "The foolish said to the wise, Give us of your oil for our lamps are going out," the Greek says. They no doubt lit the dry brittle cloth and it smoldered for a little while and then went out. It won't burn. Ours are going out. Give us some of yours.
But you know something? If the call to go to be at the judgment seat of God came to you whether in death or the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, and it came to you when you were not ready and you were not prepared, all the saints in heaven and all the people on earth could stand weeping in your behalf but could never save you...never. You see, salvation is non-transferable. That's the point. It is not to interject into this that the wise were selfish, that's not the point. The parable is not intending to teach selfishness. It is intending to teach the non- transferable nature of salvation. The saved can't save the lost. Give us your oil is a request that no one can answer. Every person must have his own salvation. Every person must make his own life right before God. You can't grab my arm and be dragged into the Kingdom. You can't share my oil.
I have a little object lesson sometimes I use with children. Take an eight and a half by eleven piece of paper and I fold it a certain way and I say to the kids, "Do you have a ticket to heaven?" And they'll say no. And I say, "Well, I'd like to give you a part of mine, I'm sorry you don't have one, I'll share mine with you." And I tear it and hand them their part. They open it up and it spells "hell." What's left in my hand I open up and it's a cross. And the lesson is very simple. You don't get to heaven on anybody else's oil. That's what our Lord is saying. In that moment, if preparation has not been made, there is no preparation possible. We can't impart our salvation as much as we might like to anyone.
So, the wise answer in verse 9 and say, "No, lest there be not enough and you. Go rather to them that sell and buy for yourselves." The idea here is simply to teach that you've got to procure your own. The buying does not assume that you have to pay a price for salvation, that it's not a free gift. You do pay a price in a sense, you pay the price of giving up your whole self, right? Like the man who sold everything he had to buy the treasure hidden in the field and the other man who sold everything he had to buy the pearl of great price. Or Isaiah's chapter 55 verse 1 invitation, come and buy without money and without price. The idea here is simply to say you've got to go procure your own. No one can give it to you.
Oil was plenty. And oil was available. But not at midnight and not right now. You had equal opportunity but you slept away the day of grace and you slept away the time of opportunity. The sellers of oil you know, the Scriptures, the apostles, the prophets, teachers.
And the implication here is that no one is allowed into the festival without a lit torch. It was sort of like the symbol that you were a part of the wedding party. And there was no way in without it. And they didn't have it.
People, I tell you, this is the most fearful teaching the Bible gives. And Jesus gave it over and over and over again that there are in the church myriads of people who are unprepared to face God. And they are deceived about that. And in a moment when they face the reality of their unpreparedness, it will be in that moment that it's too late.
In Luke 6:46, the Lord said, "Why do you call Me, Lord, Lord and do not the things which I say? Whosoever comes to Me and hears My Word and does them, I will show you to whom he is like, he is like a man who built a house and dug deep and laid the foundation on a rock. And when a flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon the house and could not shake it for it was founded upon a rock. But he that hears and does not is like a man that without a foundation built a house upon the earth against which the stream did beat vehemently and immediately it fell and the ruin of that house was great." It's the same thing. There are people who have built their religious house but have no foundation. That necessary grace isn't there. That reality of imputed righteousness isn't there. That resident holiness of God isn't there. That transformed character isn't there. Salvation isn't there, no matter what appears on the outside. Oh, they are happy about Jesus. Oh, they may like to belong to the community of believing folks but they are not prepared.
And in that last moment when they are told to go and get their own, it says in verse 10, "While they went to buy, the bridegroom came and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage and the door was shut." No teachers now. The teachers are silent. No place to buy the oil now and the door is shut. What a thought. There are those moments of sheer terror immediately after the awareness that you have met holy God and are unprepared. The feeling that must have been in the hearts of the people in Noah's time as the water started to go over their heads and they beat on the door of the ark to no avail. And their mockery had ended and was replaced by the sheer terror of their foolishness.
The door's open now. It will be shut then. Some will not be ready. Some in that time of Tribulation will see all the signs. They'll see the sign of the Son of Man in heaven and then they'll go to sleep when they should be preparing. And it is so even today. The lesson is the same for us. Every one of us meets God at the moment of death if we're not alive in that time of His great coming. And it is in that moment when we will be awakened to the unpreparedness and the shock of all shock is those who will stand there as Matthew 7 says and say, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name and in Thy name cast out demons and in Thy name done many wonderful works? Then will I profess to them, Depart from Me, I never knew you. Depart from Me, He says, you workers of iniquity."
Frightening...it's frightening. But I believe the church is filled with those kinds of people. Listen to the warning as it comes again in the thirteenth chapter of Luke, the same thing only at this time in another setting all together. Jesus has just said strive to enter in at the narrow gate. And then He says when once the master of the house is risen up, Luke 13:25, and has shut the door and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. And He shall answer and say to you, I know you know from where you are. And then you shall begin to say, We've eaten and drunk in Your presence and Thou hast taught in our streets, but He shall say, I tell you I know you not from where you are, depart from Me all you workers of iniquity, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Well, notice verse 11 in the parable. They're gone. The marriage begins. And it says, "Afterward came also the other virgins saying, Lord, Lord, open to us." They want in. No oil, they want in though. I mean, we're Your friends. We're part of the wedding party...we...we belong to...in the fellowship. We were involved, see.
And so He answered in verse 12 and said, "Truly I say to you, I know you not." It's incomprehensible. There's no second chance. You see, the only sure way to be ready on the unexpected day is to be ready every day...every day.
I don't know, I thought about it the other night when that guy drove down the sidewalk and plowed down a group of people in Westwood. I mean, you never know. It may be your day. The day when the Lord comes or the day when the Lord comes to you and you face the inevitable hour of judgment and you can knock all you want and you will know you are not prepared but to no avail.
And that brings us finally to the warning which makes a lot of sense after the parable. "Watch therefore." Literally, keep on the alert. Be ready. Based upon this, be ready "For you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man comes." You don't know that exact moment. That's true in terms of the Second Coming. Yes, the era we know, immediately following the Tribulation. Yes the signs we know, immediately after the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. But how far, how much space, how many moments, how many days, how many months? We don't know. But in an hour when men think not. This is the fifth time He has said it in this sermon. You don't know, you don't know, you don't know. So be ready all the time. You see, to be a little late is to be late forever.
In Luke 21 and verse 34 we hear it again. "Take heed to yourselves lest at any time your hearts be sort of overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness." In other words, you're sort of encased in the things of this world, the cares of this life. "So that day come upon you unawares." In other words, you live for this world and you're caught in the moment of confronting God. And it comes, verse 35, like a trap on all them that dwell in the face of the whole earth. So watch ye therefore and pray always that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass and to stand before the Son of Man.
Don't be caught unawares. Don't be caught unprepared. That's the message of the parable. Alfred Lord Tennyson took this parable and turned it into a song for a Queen Guinevere who had learned too late the cost of sin. Listen to what he wrote.
"Late, late so late and dark the night and chill, Late, late, so late but we can enter still. Too late, too late, you cannot enter now. No light had we for that we do repent. And learning this the bridegroom will relent. Too late, too late, you cannot enter now. No light, so late and dark and chill the night, O let us in that we may find the light. Too late, too late, you cannot enter now. Have we not heard the bridegroom is so sweet? O let us in though late to kiss His feet. No, no, too late, you cannot enter now."
Let's bow in prayer.
It is a sobering word, our God, that we have heard. The enigma of it all when we sang "Jesus is coming again," when we heard sung of His coming, we shall behold Him, our hearts were filled with overwhelming joy. But now they're filled with fear. And like the Apostle John, thoughts of the Second Coming are sweet in the mouth and bitter in the stomach for on the one hand it means Your glory and our redemption, on the other hand it means judgment and damnation to the unprepared. And, O God, may it be that no one here is deceived, that there are none here who have their torch and not the oil, who are outwardly professing Christ for the approval of men or the salving of their wounded conscience, but who do not hunger and thirst after righteousness in their hearts. I pray for those oil-less torches who have no prayer life, who have no hunger for godliness, who have no love of obedience, who have no passion for the lost, who give evidence of no oil, who are tares, who are shallow soil, weedy soil, who are houses with no foundation. O God, by Thy grace open their hearts, fill the vessel with oil that they may be a part of the joy of the Kingdom celebration of the wedding of the Son and His bride.
This article is also available and sold as a booklet.
This sermon series includes the following messages:
Please contact the publisher to obtain copies of this resource.Publisher Information


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Some courses in the Senior School have compulsory work placement as part of the course. The Vocational Education and Training (VET) courses have a requirement that you must do at least one week of work placement in the industry related to that course (per year). These placements are organised for you and you will be learning specific skills while you are there. See the Careers Adviser, Work Experience Coordinator or VET Teachers.
What's the difference between Work Experience and Work Placement?
|Work Experience:
|Work Placement:
|If you want to know more about Structured Workplace Learning, we
have answered all the common questions that students seem to have.
Click here to see these questions and all the answers.
If you are still unsure or have questions, please see the Careers Adviser, Work Experience Coordinator or VET Teachers.

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Manufacturer: National Geographic Snorkeler
Product Code: Marlin-2MS
Highest quality and comfortable equipment intended for extended range and depth. Dive Industry appropriate quality and equal to or greater than products found at dive retailers, appropriate for most recreational activities.Please remember take only pictures and remove only memories from our earths waters!National Geographic Snorkeler Marlin 2 Snorkeling Combo Mask:CE Tempered Lenses for safe distortion free clarity. Lightweight Delrin™ and advanced lightweight plastics frames. Feathered edge mask skirt seals comfortably and distributes sealing pressure. Pliable non feathered nose piece for ease of equalization and mask clearing. "Ratchet quick lock" masks strap adjustment. Flexible replaceable mask strap with "3 point hold" design.National Geographic Snorkeler Marlin 2 Snorkeling Combo Snorkel:Orthodontic designed mouth pieces to avoid jaw fatigue. Easy mount snorkel tab to secure snorkel to mask. Wide bore tube for proper air displacement and exchange. Properly sized components to accommodate widest range of snorkelers. Variety of splash guards to keep the snorkel "dry" under most conditions.The National Geographic Snorkeler Carry Bag:The National Geographic Snorkeler "Carry Bag" or day bag packaging is designed to minimize waste from reaching our landfills while maximizing utility. The Carry Bag can also be comfortably used to carry your Snorkeler equipment to and from your water based activities time and time again! This packaging is in keeping with National Geographic™ Snorkelers commitment to protecting the environment.
Please remember take only pictures and remove only memories from our earths waters!
Why does National Geographic™ Snorkeler fit so much better than other equipment available♠...it's the match and fit!
At National Geographic™ Snorkeler great care has been taken to consult with Dive Industry professionals to assist us in creating and matching appropriately sized equipment. Each set and combo is carefully matched to give you the best comfort and fit for your size. The convenience of a customized "Dive-Pro Fit" is in every set and combo package.


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Saunders College of Business at Rochester Institute of Technology ranked No. 35 of schools listed in U.S. News & World Report's Best Online Graduate Business Programs for 2014.
"Looking at those 35 schools, among those that offer online Executive MBA programs, Saunders would be fifth," said Saunders College Dean dt ogilvie. "Our strategy is to redefine executive excellence with a flexible online program that emphasizes the rigor of RIT. Saunders overall rankings rising from No. 41 last year to No. 35 this year is a testament to the increasing quality of our online Executive MBA program and an excellent reflection of the high quality of Saunders faculty and programs."
The RIT online Executive MBA is an accelerated degree program that delivers 49 credit hours in 17 months of study. The small class sizes coupled with the cohort-based learning model and highly committed faculty creates a collaborative experience as students progress through the program together. In addition to pursuing excellence through coursework, Saunders EMBA students are required to participate in two residencies: one on the RIT campus and another in an international immersion experience focused on innovation and technology. Locations for previous classes have included Prague, Milan, Munich, Budapest, Istanbul, Dubai and China.
"Our mission is to deliver graduates with a competitive edge in the market," said Marty Lawlor, director of Saunders Online Executive MBA program. "This ranking is strong validation that we are executing our plan—attracting high-performing students and engaging them with a relevant curriculum and exceptional faculty."
U.S. News sent statistical questionnaires to more than 200 regionally accredited public, private and for-profit institutions that offer master's degree programs online. The methodology for computing overall scores has undergone a significant change for the 2014 rankings—with decreased emphasis on admissions selectivity and peer reputation and increased weight on student engagement, faculty credentials and training, and student services and technology.


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Alaska Ulu Manufactures
6131 A St., Anchorage, AK 99518
(907) 563-4464
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According to our records, this business is located at 6131 A St. in Anchorage (in Anchorage County), Alaska 99518, the location GPS coordinates are: 61.165463 (latitude), -149.880842 (longitude). Alaska Ulu Manufactures is categorized under Cigarette and Cigar Products and Accessories (SIC code 3999). Known organization president is Jeff Kolean. Current estimates show that the unit has a sales volume of $600,000 and staff of approximately 9 people. You can contact the company by phone at (907) 563-4464.
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Cover Shot! is a regular feature here at the Café. I love discovering new covers, and when I find them, I like to share. More than anything else, I am consumed with the mystery that each new discovery represents. There is an allure to a beautiful cover. Will the story contained under the pages live up to promise of the gorgeous cover art?
I enjoyed Rachel Hawkins Hex Hall series, so I was geeked to discover that she's working on a spin-off. School Spirits has an awesome cover! I am so looking forward to reading this!
In stores May 2013
Fifteen-year-old Izzy Brannick was trained to fight monsters. For centuries, her family has hunted magical creatures. But when Izzy's older sister vanishes without a trace while on a job, Izzy's mom decides they need to take a break.
Izzy and her mom move to a new town, but they soon discover it's not as normal as it appears. A series of hauntings has been plaguing the local high school, and Izzy is determined to prove her worth and investigate. But assuming the guise of an average teenager is easier said than done. For a tough girl who's always been on her own, it's strange to suddenly make friends and maybe even have a crush.
Can Izzy trust her new friends to help find the secret behind the hauntings before more people get hurt?
Rachel Hawkins' delightful spin-off brings the same wit and charm as the New York Times best-selling Hex Hall series. Get ready for more magic, mystery and romance!


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The WordsRSS
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Aspiring writer Rory Jansen (Bradley Cooper) finds another man's haunting memories in a collection of lost stories and claims them as his own, propelling him to literary stardom. Now feeling as if he's on top of the world, Rory discovers there is a price to pay for stealing someone else's work. Also starring Zoe Saldana, Dennis Quaid, Jeremy Irons & Olivia Wilde.
The Words Reviews
2012-09-17 16:38
Movie Review: "The Words"
-- Rating: PG-13 (brief strong language, smoking)
Length: 97...
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International News
National HIV/AIDS Monitoring Important in MENA Region, UNAIDS Report Says
February 6, 2009
National HIV/AIDS monitoring should be stressed in the Middle East and North Africa region, according to a report recently released by UNAIDS, RTT News reports. The assessment -- which examined the 35,000 new HIV cases and 25,000 AIDS-related deaths in the region in 2007 -- also looked at the National AIDS Coordinating Authorities in 16 MENA countries.
Back to other news for February 2009
Middle Eastern, North African Countries Should Acknowledge Drug Use, Sex Industry to Prevent Spread of HIV, U.N. Official Says
This article was provided by Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. It is a part of the publication Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report. Visit the Kaiser Family Foundation's website to find out more about their activities, publications and services.


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Heads of Department: Professor Sarah Tabrizi and Professor Nick Fox
The Research Department of Neurodegenerative Disease, together with the UCL Institute of Prion Diseases and the Dementia Research Centre, is recognised as one of foremost international centres for the study of dementia and other neurodegenerative disease. The research portfolio encompasses prion diseases, Alzheimer's disease and related disorders, Huntington's disease, motor neurone disease and frontotemporal dementia, and studies of the pathways of cellular senescence.
Highly multidisciplinary and interactive studies span structural and molecular biology, neurogenetics, cellular and transgenic mouse models and the full spectrum of clinical research including major cohort studies and therapeutic trials. The research philosophy is to combine basic and clinical translational research; many of the key contributions towards understanding the basic biology of these diseases have come from clinical and neuropathological observations, and efficient translation of basic laboratory research to the clinic is essential to provide benefits for patients at the earliest opportunity.
Major contributions include the world's first blood test for vCJD (Lancet, 2011), a genetic resistance factor for prion disease (New England Journal of Medicine, 2009), characterisation of two distinct phases of prion propagation (Nature, 2011); blocking interaction between cellular prion protein and toxic Aβ oligomers by monoclonal antibodies (Nature Communications, 2011); discovery of a novel prion disease presenting with diarrhoea (New England Journal of Medicine, 2013); ground breaking cohort studies in HD (TRACK-HD; Lancet Neurology, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013); key international biomarker study in AD (New England Journal of Medicine, 2012).
Impact case studies (from the UCL Impact website)
- vCJD prion infection
- Assessing atrophy progression in Alzheimer's disease
- Developing conditionally immortalised cell lines
Meet the researcher videos of staff talking about their research.
Dementia Research Centre
The possibility of disease modification therapies in the degenerative dementias has accelerated the pace of research into improving early diagnosis and monitoring of disease progression. The Dementia Research Centre (DRC) has a number of multi-disciplinary research projects with a tight clinical focus. Structural and functional brain imaging techniques are being used to identify the earliest features in familial Alzheimer's disease and familial frontotemporal dementia cohorts. Image analysis techniques developed at the Centre have been adopted by a number of research groups worldwide to analyse multi-centre trials where rates of brain atrophy have been chosen as outcome measures. An active programme of neuropsychological research at a group level, as well as single case studies, has helped to characterise cognitive and behavioural profiles of some of these diseases as well as providing insights into the neurobiology of dementia and cognitive function more generally.
The DRC has been involved in a number of important multicentre treatment trials, including ongoing studies of immunotherapy in Alzheimer's disease. Studies in collaboration with the MRC Cyclotron Unit at the Hammersmith Hospital are producing exciting results on imaging amyloid burden in vivo. Strong and longstanding collaboration with other departments at the ION, particularly in the fields of pathology and genetics, have continued to prove very productive. The research programmes within the Centre are all very closely linked with our clinical practise and this includes work on improving care and support for patients and families affected by these devastating disorders.
The Centre is leading a new MSc in Dementia which will be run jointly by the UCL Institute of Neurology and Division of Psychiatry. Dementia: Causes, Treatments and Research (Neuroscience) started in 2016.
For more information see the Dementia Research Centre website


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Shane Watson's desire to become a specialist batsman has paid immediate dividends.
The Australian vice-captain broke into the top 10 of the ICC rankings released yesterday.
Watson, who has shelved his bowling duties until the Ashes tour starting in England in July, starred with the bat in the back half of Australia's 5-0 thrashing of the West Indies, scoring 198 runs at an average of 66 on return from a calf injury.
The 31-year-old jumped six places to eighth in the batting table and be Australia's top 50-over batsman, with captain Michael Clarke dropping two spots back to be tenth.
Watson's fast-bowling teammate Clint McKay broke into the bowlers' top 10 for the first time, moving from 14th to seventh.
Mitchell Johnson is the next best Australian bowler, moving up five spots to be equal 15th.
McKay took nine wickets at an average of 21.88, while teammate and player of the series Mitchell Starc jumped 30 players to be 38th after claiming 11 wickets at an average of 9.27.
Phil Hughes moved up 31 places into 42nd on the list, while George Bailey was another big mover - rising 27 places to be 21st following his maiden ODI century in the second game of the West Indies series.
South African pair Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers remain first and second on the batting list, while Pakistan's Saeed Ajmal retains his spot at the top of the one day bowlers.
Originally published as Watson climbs ODI batting rankings


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In the days following Adolf Hitler's suicide in 1945, amid the rubble of Allied aerial bombardment, the Red Army's westward advance and Nazi surrender, a company of American infantrymen made their way up Munich's Prinzregentenstrasse, toward the late Führer's personal residence. Hitler had owned a second-floor luxury apartment in Munich. The soldiers' mission was to commandeer important Reich documents that might be stored there and to locate Hitler's will. In the apartment, they found a sculpture and a painting of Hitler's niece and love interest, Geli Raubal. (Hitler was rumored to have murdered her in the bedroom.) They found costly furnishings, spacious rooms and state-of-the-art gadgetry. They did not find important Reich documents, nor did they find a will. Several floors below there was a bomb shelter. There was also a safe, which an Army mechanic managed to force open. Save for twelve first-edition copies of Mein Kampf, the safe contained not a scrap of paper.
Hitler bequeathed many contortions to modern history, but none were so sharp and so horrific as Nazism's animating idea, its blueprint, as expressed in his notoriously tortured prose, laid out in searing hatred and sketched across the vast catalogue of political ravings and paranoia that compose his "reckoning." The twelve volumes of Hitler's book were a disappointing discovery for the infantrymen who stumbled upon them in his Munich apartment; in the war's immediate aftermath they were undoubtedly of little use. But the manner in which Hitler's personal copies of Mein Kampf were entombed and protected was consistent with the idolatry bestowed upon the books throughout the Reich. In Nazi Germany, Hitler's writings evolved beyond their message into the realm of revealed scripture. They became totems that were worshiped in their own right. Mein Kampf was used in wedding ceremonies. In 1935 senior Nazi officials commissioned calligraphers to painstakingly transcribe every one of its 782 pages onto parchment, in the style of a medieval Bible. The project took eleven months, and when the edition was finally completed, it was bound in heavy iron sheaves and weighed seventy pounds.
Organized political violence, by definition, must be directed by ideas–ideas about the use of power, about society fallen from grace, about revolutionary upheaval and the promise of a utopian future; ideas that are at once urgent, intoxicating and sweeping, even when they are used to justify the smallest and dirtiest of objectives. Manifestoes and political doctrines can be propagandistic and mired in tactical minutiae, but at their core they are intended to reflect deep, timeless truths. For Hitler, Mein Kampf was immutable. (To a journalist who once suggested revision, he scoffed: "I enter my corrections in the great book of history.") Mussolini, who was not so steadfast, banned earlier writings when they were inconvenient or contradictory. Stalin wrote at such mind-numbing length–his complete works fill more than a dozen tomes–that it is doubtful even his staunchest supporters read everything he put to paper. The act of writing, in Stalin's case, seemed to be its own truth.
Since the end of the cold war, a new ideologue has joined the literary canon of American enemies. His full name is Osama bin Muhammad bin Awad bin Laden. During a recent address, George W. Bush described bin Laden as one of history's "Evil Men, obsessed with ambition and unburdened by conscience," and one can find both truth and hyperbole in this assessment. Men like Hitler and Stalin wrought catastrophic ruin upon their societies and were responsible for the deaths of millions of people. So far, bin Laden has proved to be much less adept at mass murder and physical destruction. Nevertheless, he demands our attention, and for obvious reasons. Bin Laden leads a sophisticated global insurgency that is largely unseen, profoundly violent, hostile to Western values and full of rage and bloodlust. More important, he has come to personify a dark strand of modernity, one that fuses austere religious ideas from eighteenth-century Saudi Arabia with recent innovations in political Islam. He has drawn the United States into a worldwide conflict. He hopes to kill on an unimaginable scale.


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Ten Years in September
This season's must-Skip series!
Kausfiles' Series-Skipper™ lets concerned citizens avoid actually reading award-winning newspaper series—without fear of missing anything good. (For more on the rationale for Series-Skipper™, click here.) Responding to massive public demand, this edition summarizes the Washington Post's 8-part instant history of the Bush administration's reaction to 9/11.
* * * * *
Series: "Ten Days in September," by Dan Balz, Bob Woodward, and (on Part 3) Jeff Himmelman, Washington Post, eight parts, Jan. 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, and Feb. 1, 2, and 3.
Semi-banal "billboard" paragraph: "The president and his advisers started America on the road to war that night without a map. They had only a vague sense of how to respond, based largely on the visceral reactions of the president. But nine nights later, when Bush addressed a joint session of Congress, many of the important questions had been answered."
Bush, sounding like he's writing a sexier billboard paragraph:
"Nor does the nation, by the way, understand what it's like to have a commander in chief tested under fire like this. No one knew."
Basic picture of Bush: Reacts emotionally, but keeps his head. Knows immediately the direction he wants to go in (war), though he tries to avoid being too war-like in public for the first few days. Lets his Cabinet figure out the details.
John-Wayneish moments:
"Let's pick them off one at a time."—Bush, upon being informed on the evening of 9/11 that al-Qaida was a "60-country problem"
"We will find these people. They will pay. And I don't want you to have any doubt about it."—Bush, at the end of the 9/11 NSC meeting
" 'Whatever it takes,' the president said."
"I'm not leaving. … And by the way, I'm hungry."—Bush, when the Secret Service wants to evacuate him to the bunker after receiving a warning on 9/13
"We're going to rain holy hell on them. … I want to have them quaking in their boots."—Bush, at a 9/17 meeting
" '[Expletive] pilot discretion,' Mineta yelled back. 'Get those goddamn planes down.' "
"They'll have flies on their eyeballs."—CIA counterterrorism operative Cofer Black, in a colorful Cabinet briefing that "had a huge effect on the president, according to his advisers"
"We may have been the targets … but we are not victims."—Karen Hughes, striking the word "victims" from a draft presidential statement
"The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today"—Bush dictating to his daily diary the night of 9/11
Non-Wayneish moments:
"I wish I was visiting under better circumstances. But it will be a chance for all three of us to thank and hug and cry with the citizens of your good area."—Bush in a televised 9/13 conference call with New York officials, after which his eyes teared up
"It's a wild card that could change the dynamics in ways that could alter our calculus."—Rumsfeld response (at Camp David) to the possibility that Osama Bin Laden has weapons of mass destruction
Major themes: 1) Bush in charge. 2) The ascendance of the CIA, which gets credit for devising unconventional approaches in Afghanistan. Bush adopts CIA Director Tenet's plan, freeing the agency "to operate without restraint" in what looks like a blanket license to kill. 3) Bush's Manichaeanism, in which he "describes the conflict in the starkest possible terms, as one of good versus evil, light versus darkness." His speechwriter believes this language is "rooted in his … belief that all things happened for a reason."
Epistemological status: Uncertain. Woodward and Balz were granted interviews with "the principals involved in the decision-making, including the president." In addition, notes of National Security Council meetings were "made available" to the Post. This situation magnified two potential sources of inaccuracy: 1) Woodward and Balz could be fed a sanitized or distorted version of events, designed to make the Bush administration look good; 2) W & B could be tempted to put the most pro-Bush face on events for fear of losing future access, or simply out of gratitude for having been granted access.
In previous series, Woodward had leverage to extract damaging truths by playing off participants against the other, and by arguing that since he was going to write the story anyway, the "principals" might as well cooperate. But here Woodward and Balz are coming in almost immediately after the fact, while the military campaign is still unfolding and the impulse to tattle and backbite is most likely to be suppressed in the interest of wartime solidarity. Nor is it clear that W & B could have written this series at all without White House cooperation. Their truth-extracting leverage was at a minimum.
Pervasive failure of the series: To give readers evidence that W & B weren't spun. True, on occasion they refer to NSC notes and other contemporaneous documents that confirm their account (which is otherwise written from Standard Woodward Omniscient p.o.v.). But basically they ask us to trust. There are precious few admissions against the speaker's self-interest—admissions that might raise a reader's confidence level (e.g., a Bushie saying "I screwed up" or a congressional Democrat saying "I was shocked that Bush was actually running the show").
Why the author of Series-Skipper™ nevertheless tends to believe its basic picture of Bush: Because on 9/13, when I was disoriented by the attacks—and by Bush's shaky early appearances—I got an e-mail from a trusted Republican friend with similar worries but much better contacts reporting that despite Bush's public unease he was a "steely-eyed rocket man" behind the scenes. That's not wildly powerful confirming evidence, but it's something. And it's more than W & B offer.
Main reasons the series lacks dramatic tension: 1) W & B focus on the "principals," who debate and fret and meet. But the main action Bush actually takes is to adopt, pretty much whole, a plan presented by CIA chief Tenet. Maybe there was drama in how this plan was put together, but we don't see it because it didn't involve the "principals." (An excellent Time account from late last year provided a few more details than W & B). 2) Although W & B present a highly useful paragraph listing the things Bush could have done that would have delayed his response (e.g., "The administration might have waited ... for the evidence to become ironclad, ... might have waited until the Northern Alliance was better trained"), basically, as his advisers tell the Post, "there was really no other choice than the path he adopted." 3) Given what actually, eventually, happened, what W & B report took place behind the scenes is pretty much what you'd expect had taken place behind the scenes. 4) By restricting themselves to 10 days in September, W & B miss some of the drama that came later, as in October when the Northern Alliance seemed to bog down, and Bush had to stop internal second-guessing, according to Time. ("We should all have confidence in this plan. Be patient, people. It's going to work.")
Best tick-tock details: Reading the series is like drinking a 50-gallon vat of watery soup. Every now and then a piece of carrot or some other minor morsel drifts by. Here they all are.
1) At 9:45 on 9/11 Secret Service agents evacuate the White House, "first telling staffers there to file out in an orderly way, then screaming at them to run as fast as they could across Pennsylvania Avenue to Lafayette Park on the other side. At one point, some women were told to remove their shoes so they could run faster. Some staffers were advised to remove the White House identification from around their necks so they couldn't be singled out by possible snipers outside the White House gates."
2) Sen. Don Nickles says that, as members of a separate branch of government, Congressmen don't need White House's approval to leave their secure bunker outside Washington and return to the Capitol. "Don," Vice-President Cheney replies, "we control the helicopters."
3) A CIA report says "a bin Laden associate—erroneously—'gave thanks for the explosion in the Congress building.' " Another Bin Ladenite reportedly claimed "the White House has been destroyed.' "
4) The preening, prickly Robert Byrd pulls a Constitution from his pocket to emphasize that Congress won't give Bush a Gulf of Tonkin-style blank check to wage war. Then Byrd gets either religious or condescending, depending on how you read it, telling Bush. "You stand there. Mighty forces will come to your aid."
5) Bush gets annoyed when Andrew Card climbs into Bush's limo in the White House drive to pass him a (false) CIA warning of an attack. Bush worries the assembled press might see Card's unusual move. ("Why are you telling me in here?")
6) Bush abandons his light, healthy diet in a bit of who-knows-when-they'll-blow-us-up fatalism. "Well, you might as well have cheese," Hughes tells him.
7) At a 9/13 cabinet meeting: "Bush was tired of rhetoric, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell thought; the president wanted to kill somebody."
8) At a later Cabinet meeting, Powell, worried that Bush will get weepy, passes Bush a note suggesting some tricks to avoid becoming emotional. Bush reads the note, immediately holds it up for the room to see, and says: "Let me tell you what the secretary of state told me. 'Dear Mr. President, don't break down!' "
9) Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld's deputy, annoys Camp David participants by showing up at meetings of "principals" to push his attack-Iraq cause. At one point, he interrupts Rumsfeld. Bush looks to Card, who takes Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz aside and says, "The president will expect one person to speak for the Department of Defense."
10) After the crucial Camp David meeting, Ashcroft sits at the piano and plays "Old Man River" and "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen." Rice is the "principal vocalist," while "Bush was at a table nearby, joining in trying to assemble an elaborate wooden jigsaw puzzle."
11) Powell worries to Hughes that a line in the 9/20 speech comparing the Taliban to the Mafia will offend "the anti-'Soprano' " crowd.
12) Bush has a scorecard in his desk—three pieces of paper with photos and bios of al-Qaida leaders. When one of them is killed, he marks them with an X.
Details with policy implications:
1) Rumsfeld recalls telling Bush that "whenever the United States was attacked or threatened, the Clinton Administration had followed a pattern of 'reflexive pullback.' … I left no doubt in his mind but that, at that moment where something happens, that I would be coming to him to lean forward, not back."
2) Cheney consistently pushes to broaden the targets of the anti-terror campaign to include states—"It's easer to find them than it is to find bin Laden."
3) Daschle cautions Bush to "use care" in his rhetoric. "War is a powerful word."
4) Bush: "My attitude all along was, if we have to go it alone, well go it alone, but I'd rather not." Later he says, "At some point we may be the only ones left. That's okay with me. We are America." Powell thinks Bush "made such statements knowing they might not withstand a second analysis." Cheney takes Bush at his word.
5) Rumsfeld, as reported elsewhere, repeatedly brings up the possibility of attacking Iraq, while his deputy Wolfowitz pushes it insistently. Powell ("What the hell, what are these guys thinking about?") and outgoing Joint Chiefs chairman Henry Shelton oppose him. At the crucial Camp David meeting, Rumsfeld abstains, with Cheney, Powell, Tenet, and Card opposing an attack.
6) Bush has "strong reservations" about attacking Iraq. He says he worried that doing too many things at once would mean a loss of focus. At a 9/17 meeting, he says, "I believe Iraq was involved, but I'm not going to strike them now. I don't have the evidence at this point."
7) Secret CIA paramilitary teams had been "going in and out of Afghanistan without detection for years."
8) A slide, slated for inclusion in a Pentagon briefing for Bush, has as its subject: "Thinking Outside the Box—Poisoning Food Supply." The slide is pulled at the last minute by a shocked NSC aide, who notes such a "chemical or biological attack" is banned under various treaties. Pentagon officials tell W & B they were going to pull the slide anyway. But that doesn't answer the question of what it was doing there in the first place.
9) Rice says the problems of Afghanistan are so complex, "We're going to wish this was the Balkans."
10) Bush says of the Taliban government, "We're going to hurt them bad so everyone in the world sees, don't deal with bin Laden." Is this a principle he will be able to extend to, say, al-Qaida sanctuaries in Lebanon? (Bush explicitly says one purpose of the Afghanistan attack is "to cause other countries like Syria and Iran to change their views.")
What Norman Podhoretz was worried about:
"In his memo to Bush, Blair had emphasized the importance of making a concerted effort to restart the peace process in the Middle East as a way to solidify support in the Arab world for the war on terrorism."
Suspiciously self-serving (but not necessarily untrue!) accounts:
"Through much of the summer, [C.I.A. Director George] Tenet had grown increasingly troubled by the prospect of a major terrorist attack against the United States …"
"Tenet said ... information collected before Sept. 11 but only now being processed indicated that operatives had expected something big. But none of it specified the day, time or place of the attacks in a way that would have allowed the CIA or FBI to preempt them."
Suspiciously Bush-serving (but not necessarily untrue!) account:
Joint Chiefs chairman Shelton initially worries that Bush might "be heading down the same path that the Clinton administration had followed: Strike quickly, but with no follow through." He's "relieved as he rather quickly realized Bush was not looking for an easy or obvious response."
Examples of Bush being in charge: 1) He rejects as "way too vague" a draft text that says he would punish those who "permitted or tolerated or encouraged" terrorists. 2) He hands Hughes notes with the themes he wants her to sound on 9/12 ("No kind of enemy that we are used to—but America will adapt"). 3) He comes up with the phrase to broadens the NSC mission statement beyond U.S borders ("eliminate terrorism as a threat to … all nations that love freedom").
Bush sounding a bit like Bill Maher:
"The antiseptic notion of launching a cruise missile into some guy's, you know, tent, really is a joke. … I mean, people viewed that as the impotent America ... of a flaccid, you know, kind of technologically competent but not very tough country that was willing to launch a cruise missile out of a submarine and that'd be it. …
"You've got to put lives at risk. We've got to have people on the ground."
Non-micromanagement: 1) "It's a day of national tragedy, and we'll clean up the mess, and then the ball will be in your court and [incoming Joint Chiefs chairman] Dick Myers's court to respond."—Bush to Rumsfeld, afternoon of 9/11. 2) "Do what you have to do."—Bush to Powell, who realizes he has a "blank check" to make up a list of demands to give Pakistan without interagency haggling. Later, at an NSC meeting, other officials have to ask for a copy of the list.
Possibly-alarming instances where Bush appears to have been 'winging it': 1) Why did Bush say that terrorism "will not stand"? He tells W & B that "maybe it was an echo from the past. I don't know why … I'll tell you this, we didn't sit around massaging the words. I got up there and just spoke." 2) The decision to announce the "Bush Doctrine' ("We will make no distinction between the terrorists … and those who harbor them") was made on the night of 9/11 by Bush with Rice's advice but "without consulting most of his national security team, including Cheney and Powell."
And you thought it would be the other way around? President Bush makes a "comforting call" to his father on the afternoon of 9/11.
Actual internecine conflict: Not much. 1) Ashcroft interrupts FBI Director Mueller's presentation to say he shouldn't focus on convicting terrorists any more, but rather on disrupting them and stopping them. 2) Rumsfeld has a Queeg moment when he gets "furious" that someone on his staff has called the White House, without his knowledge, to see if the president wants a fighter escort. "I will not have that!," he says, seeing a violation of the chain of command. 3) Powell rolling his eyes at Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz's Iraq talk and lobbying Shelton to "get these guys back in the box."
Which "principal" comes across as having blabbed in the least team-playerish fashion: Powell.
In the most team-playerish fashion: Rice.
Least dramatic sentence: "For more than an hour, Daschle's staff did not know where he was."
Bush barking orders that don't get carried out: "We won't be held hostage. We'll fly at noon tomorrow."—Bush on 9/11. It actually took "three more days for commercial flights to resume."
Do W & B make sense of Bush's peregrinations before returning to the White House Sept. 12? Yes. The perceived threat to Air Force One, which caused the plane to sharply change course and fly to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, was prompted by a common game-of-telephone foul-up. "Someone inside the White House had heard a threat to Air Force One, perhaps in a phoned-in call, and passed it up the line using the code word 'Angel.' Others thought the threatening caller had used the code word ... "
But her husband didn't send around a boastful e-mail: Cheney's wife Lynne worked on the statement Bush was to read on 9/11 when he landed at Barksdale.
Signs of Bush subtlety: 1) As early as the evening of 9/11, he notes that "this is a great opportunity" to improve relations with other nations, including Russia and China. 2) He worries as early as 9/12 that the public's short attention span might be a problem—that soon Americans would be "watching football and the World Series," in W & B's paraphrase. 3) He tells W & B he was concerned that Powell, Cheney, and Wolfowitz—who had all been involved in the 1991 Gulf War that failed to oust Saddam Hussein—might let "their previous experience in this theater" distort their advice (presumably, by spurring them to go back and finish the job they left undone).
Possibly troubling Bush virtue: "You've got to be careful what you tell him, because the next day he'll ask you about it," says one aide. Do aides eventually learn not to tell him? Bush says, "I ask Bob [Mueller] every day, 'What have you done about, you know, Mohammed Jones, or you know, some guy you're following?' " Is this relentless follow-up the reaction of a man who knows too much, or too little (so he latches onto the bits he's given)? "The president finds out what he wants to know. But he does not necessarily find out what he might need to know," says a "senior administration official" who requested anonymity from W & B.
Untapped source of dramatic tension #1: The White House's failure, for several days, to erase the contrast between Bush's behind-the-scenes firmness and his public shakiness. Bush aide Karen Hughes' televised 9/11 statement, which conspicuously failed to close the confidence gap, gets only a short, bland mention. (You don't want to piss her off!) Readers can figure out how the private/public split happened—how Bush's personal desire to avoid early talk of war, plus a not unClintonian initial desire to comfort ("our mission is reassurance") made him seem vague and unfocused. But we don't see administration aides (except, in one instance, Powell) worrying that the president is flopping in public, and trying to correct it—though it's hard to believe that wasn't going on. Nor do W & B make Bush's 9/14 speech at Ground Zero into any kind of pivotal finds-his-voice moment in their narrative, though it was a turning point in the public campaign.
Untapped source of dramatic tension #2: Did we really want the Taliban to comply with our demands, thereby forestalling an attack? What if they seemed to comply and dragged out the process? Again, it's hard to believe nobody in the administration worried about this, although nobody in this series does. (Bush says only, "If they don't comply, we'll attack them.")
Untapped source of dramatic tension #3: Who got to get into what bunker? W & B report that some "who were told to go to the bunker Sept. 11 had no idea where to find it and still others who should have been on the list were left off until they received authorization. …" Was there no unseemly status-jockeying and rank-pulling? Similarly, "At the secure location outside Washington, there were too few phone lines for the congressional leaders. … Coordinating with lawmakers left behind in Washington was difficult, sometimes contentious." Embarrassing details, please!
Media-centric distortion factor: We learn a lot more detail about "communications"—how Bush's big congressional address was written, for example—than about military strategy or foreign policy. That may be because it's easier to get speechwriters to talk. Or it may be because Bush sees his main job as communicating.
Major mystery the Post doesn't even try to clear up: W & B report that Cheney's "true role—power behind the throne or simply the sage, confidential adviser—remained a mystery to outsiders." Also to W & B's readers! What do the insiders know that the "outsiders" don't about Cheney? We're never told. But it's interesting to note that when Bush finally takes action—dictating an 11-point one-page war plan to Rice—it's on Sunday, Sept. 16, shortly after an "extended" meeting with Cheney that both men won't talk to W & B about. (This sequence of events is obscured, in the W & B account, by an unusual, non-chronological presentation. Coincidence? You make the call!)
Does anyone in the administration, during this unexpected, unprecedented, dramatic and confusing 10-day ordeal, make a mistake? Well, there's that Pentagon slide about "Poisoning the Food Supply." Also, Karen Hughes misreads a handwritten Bush note, substituting "harbors" for "havens." That's about it.
Estimated time saved by reading Series-Skipper™instead of the actual series: 6.092 hours. You may think this summary is long, at 3,692 words. But the series is 40, 244 words! Which means a net savings, to you, of 36,552 words.
Sixth in a series.
Previous applications of Series-Skipper™:
"Hello, Saylor!" Feb. 7, 2002.
"There's a Scanadal in Here Somewhere!" July 18, 2001.
"They Don't Pay kausfiles Enough To Read This Series!" April 16, 2001.
"Shaw Must Go On!" Feb. 20, 2001.
"The Post's Deadly Deadlock," Feb. 14, 2001.


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A New Way To Measure Spread- Standard Deviation
Lesson 3 of 6
Objective: Students will be able to find the standard deviation of a population or a sample of a population.
Big Idea: Students move away from quartiles as a measure of spread and develop an intuitive approach to standard deviation.
Warm Up and Homework Check
I include Warm ups with a Rubric as part of my daily routine. My goal is to allow students to work on Math Practice 3 each day. Grouping students into homogeneous pairs provides an opportunity for appropriately differentiated math conversations. This lesson's Warm Up- Standard Deviation asks students to evaluate whether the mean, median or mode is the most appropriate measure of center. This is a direct introduction into the day's lesson.
I also use this time to correct and record the previous day's Homework.
Resources (5)
Standard Deviation
My goal for this lesson is to re-access my students' prior knowledge on basic statistics and then extend into standard deviation. The first Task gives the last five test scores for three separate students. I ask them to identify the statistical information that can be used to compare the test scores. My goal is that they come up with the mean, median, mode, range, and inter-quartile range. I have set up these data sets so that the mean and median are identical on all three. The students will see the need for another way to compare the data. The inter-quartile range is informative, but it only gives a certain picture of how the data is spread. Here is where I introduce standard deviation as a new measure of spread.
I then demonstrate the method of finding standard deviation with a simple set of data about number of Pets. Please watch my Video Narrative explaining how I maximize student thinking during a demonstration. We then formalize the formulas for finding standard deviation for both a population and a sample.
Next, I give them some experience finding standard deviation using the original test samples from the beginning of the lesson.
Students often wonder why the square and square root are used when the absolute value seems more intuitive. I pose this question to the students if they haven't already asked it. After they have discussed it with their partner, I offer a Problem that demonstrates the effectiveness of square roots verses absolute value (Math Practice 7). My example was based on the a wonderful example from the website Math Is Fun.
The final task uses data gathered from the class. This type of problem is very powerful in getting student buy-in as well as to increasing engagement.
Detailed presentation notes are located in the PowerPoint.
Resources (5)
Exit Ticket
I use an exit ticket each day as a quick formative assessment to judge the success of the lesson.
Today's Exit Ticket asks students to find the standard deviation of a data set.
Resources (1)
Resources (1)
This assignment allows students to practice finding the standard deviation. They find the standard deviation of a population and then for two samples from another population. They compare and contrast the results of the two samples (Math Practice 3).
The problems on this assignments were adapted from a great problem from the CK12 website. This website offers amazing online textbooks for mathematics.


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The Alpine Town of the Year Association
Send us your film clips and win an invitation for you and your friends to the GaYA Film Festival from 30 November to 1 December 2018 in Chambéry, France.
Tolmin is the "Alpine Town of the Year" 2016
The Slovenian town has been awarded with the title of "Alpine Town of the Year 2016", mainly in recognition of its nature protection and social policies.
Workshop on sustainable building: from strategy to realization
Around 40 percent of our energy consumption is related to buildings. Municipalities in the Alps and other mountain regions in Europe have already shown that the construction and occupancy of houses is possible with significantly less energy. They presented their know-how in Idrija. More »
Towards Carbon Neutral Alps - a guideline
The strategies for carbon neutrality are numerous. Municipalities and regions all over the Alps are confronted with various challenges and opportunities on the way to carbon neutrality. The Alpstar-Guideline provides an overview. More »
«Mélodies de France»
After having performed together during the AlpWeek 2012, the Tétras Lyre Orchestra and the Miner's Brass Band had another common concert in the Alpine Town of the Year Chambéry on November 30.


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Electives exclusive to Study Abroad and Exchange students
Over the past decade, the school has listened to the needs of incoming Study Abroad and Exchange students. The result is range of units of study, each of which is specifically designed for international students. All revolve around the same basic structure:
- a robust academic platform
- supported by real life experiences
- about the Australian culture
- in the Australian environment.
What this means for Study Abroad and Exchange students is that they can now live in and learn about Australia ... and receive academic credit for it.
As well, participating students have access to guided real-life experiences related to the Australian outdoors, Australian sports and Australian arts. Experiences included in the units include visiting the theatre to view Australian performances (Australian Theatre, Film and Learning EDUF3034); having adventures in the World Heritage listed Blue Mountains and Royal National Parks (Learning and Outdoor Education EDUH4052); and/or attending a variety of sports to support local teams (Sport and Learning in Australian Culture EDUH4058).
A benefit of this experiential teaching and learning is not only a deeper understanding of the content, but increased and better interaction between the students, often resulting in strong friendships. Each unit is worth six credit points, and all units are offered in both semesters.
Units of study
Australian Theatre, Film and Learning EDUF3034 examines the nature of theatre and film in Australian cultural and educational settings. A particular focus is placed on theatre and film for and by young people, and the range of learning that takes place through young people's engagement in, and appreciation of, theatre and film.
Learning and Outdoor Education EDUH4052 examines the nature and significance of learning that takes place through experiences natural environments in Australia, with a particular focus on how and what children and young people learn in outdoor education.
Sport and Learning in Australian Culture EDUH4058 provides students with a socially critical perspective from which to appreciate the meaning, practice and place of sport in Australian culture.


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Members of the Storm Troopers (SA), with boycott signs, block the entrance to a Jewish-owned shop. One of the signs exhorts: "Germans! Defend yourselves! Don't buy from Jews!" Berlin, Germany, April 1, 1933.
National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md.
Copyright © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC


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As you may know MS Teched is two weeks this year and is being held in Orlando. Turns out that they have it leased for two full weeks, but nothing planned for the middle weekend. That presented an opportunity for the local MS communities to do something with the space. Joe Healy, our local Developer Evangelist (DE of the year in 2007 even) got a bunch of email going with the various community leaders, did a conference call, and things were moving!
The outcome is that we'll be doing SQLSaturday#4 on June 7. One DBA track, one Developer/Data Access track, and one BI track. We're using speakers that have done well for us at previous events because we don't have a lot of time to get everything set up. MS is handling the food and other logistics, so for once we don't have to find sponsors, figure out shirt sizes, and all the rest that goes into a 'normal' SQLSaturday. We didn't want to pass up the opportunity to participate in a huge community event (there is also a Code Camp plus some other stuff going on at the same time) and it's a chance to try a SQLSaturday with a slightly different formula.
On Sunday Brian & I will be hosting what is for now called SQL University, and that will be hands on training - bring your laptop. Half a day of SSIS and half a day of DBA Admin. Should be fun!
Schedule isn't quite complete but registration is open for both events at www.sqlsaturday.com. If you're going to both please register twice so we can make sure we have lunch for you.


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NRel beside case number indicates slip opinion not yet released for
Official Reports indicates the final, released version of the opinion.
For additional information, please read A Caution on Court Opinions.
Sorting Opinions: Opinions may be sorted by 'Posting Date', 'Filing Date', 'Docket #', 'Public Domain Citation #", or 'Case Name.' Click on the column name/header, the opinions will sort in descending/ascending order.


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BRISTOL, Tenn. – In their second cyclocross race of the season, King Cycling put together another strong showing at the Cobra-Tornado Classic. King co-hosted the event with Virginia Intermont College on Dec. 8-9 in Erwin, Tenn. Megan Rogers led the way with two victories in the 'B' category cyclocross races while Reuben Dupre won his first collegiate in the men's 'B' class.
In Saturday's action, Rogers, a freshman from Soddy Daisy, Tenn., won her first of two women's 'B' class races while placing third overall in a mass start in the ladies race. Dupre, a freshman from Mobile, Ala., took his first collegiate victory by finishing first in the men's 'B' race while crossing the line 12th overall.
Casey Stallard (Bristol, Tenn.) finished 10th overall in the men's 'A' division, also placing him 10th overall.
Rogers continued to ride strongly in Sunday's cyclocross races by finishing first in the women's 'B' category for the second time in as many days. She finished fourth overall in Sunday's race, completing two top-5 placements over the weekend.
On the men's side, Julian Cabra (Medellin, Colombia) placed eighth in Sunday's men's 'B' class race while Dupre placed 11th.
Rogers now has a total of three victories in just two race weekends after taking first at the Mars Hill Cyclocross race on Dec. 1.
King Cycling has announced a small schedule change for its next competition. The Tornado will compete next on Feb. 16-17, though the location has changed. The Georgia Southern University and Florida State University meets have switched dates, placing King at GSU on Feb. 16-17. They will travel to Tallahassee, Fla. the following week.


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A significant increase in poverty among the working age population is one of the most tangible social consequences of the economic crisis. A gradual reduction of unemployment levels may not be enough to reverse this situation if wage polarisation continues, notably due to a rise in part-time work.
This is one of the main findings of the 2013 Employment and Social Developments in Europe Review, which also looks into the positive impact of social benefits on the likelihood of getting back into employment, the consequences of persistent gender imbalances, and the social dimension of the Economic and Monetary Union.
The review shows how taking up a job can help people to get out of poverty, but only in half of the cases: much depends on the type of job found, but also on the household composition and labour market situation of the partner.
The review highlights that:


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Phone: 503-823-7300
Email: email@example.com
1900 SW 4th Ave, Portland, OR 97201
Phone: 503-823-7300
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
1900 SW 4th Ave, Portland, OR 97201
devTeam Portland - an innovative program created in collaboration with our customers.
devTeam Portland is a group of bureau employees known as Development Liaisons who are committed to helping customers navigate the City permitting and construction process. Your devTeam Development Liason is your City "project manager" throughout project development from early design concept through final inspection. Your Development Liaison is a single point of contact between the development team and the City permit review and inspection staff.
Our customers have told us how important predictability is to the success of a project. We know clear communication, early identification of issues and continuity of the process are key elements for predictability.
Communication: Your Liaison works in partnership with your development team to ensure timely and effective communication with City staff. An essential component of this partnership is open, ongoing communication and a commitment to problem solving.
Early Identification of Issues: You need to know right from the start if there are any issues or conflicts between the proposed design and code requirements. Your Liaison is there to discuss the project with you and bring key players together early to identify and resolve issues.
Continuity: Your Liaison will routinely check the review process, working with you and City staff to avoid breakdowns or gaps in your critical path timelines. Our goal is to keep the review on track and completed in a timely manner.
Who do you contact to begin working with a devTeam Liaison?
For more information or to request the assistance of a Liaison please contact Alice Callison at (503) 823-3448 to discuss your project and help to determine whether the assistance of a Liaison is the right approach for you.
|devTeam Contact Information
|Alice Callison
|devTeam Liaison
|(503) 823-3448
|Brett Hulstrom
|devTeam Liaison
|(503) 823-7593
Mid-size, shared courtyards and common greens, major projects, etc.
Work with the devTeam Liaison during all phases of your project
devTeam Liaison helpful links
Send us an email - online form


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For a perfect result:
- Wash under warm water, detergent is not necessary.
- Place on line to drain for the time begin.
- For extra shine, steam over boiling water.
- To polish use microfiber polishing cloths.
- Hold glass by base and polish.
- Use left hand to cradle the bowl and polish with your right hand. Never twist the base and bowl.
To avoid scratches: Avoid contact with other glass or metal. lf available use a stemware rack.
To avoid stains: Use soft water (low mineral content).
To remove stains: Use white vinegar.