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Stephen Jones
ENGLAND women have achieved a Grand Slam in European rugby for the fourth time in five years, in the process clinching their fifth consecutive RBS Six Nations title with an 11-10 victory over France in front of a hostile crowd in Rennes on Friday night. The win conceivably establishes England as favourites for the women's Rugby World Cup, to be played on home soil later in the year.
But this was no easy passage. France had lost earlier in the tournament to Scotland, a team subsequently thrashed 51-0 by England, but urged on by the raucous crowd France gave it everything, leading initially and making light of the dismissal of their leading forward, Claire Canal, who was red-carded at the end of the first half.
France had a chance to cause a remarkable upset when Aurelie Bailon, their fly-half, kicked for goal in the closing stages, but she fell short and England managed to scramble the ball away.
Gary Street, the England head coach, was apparently unflustered at the end. "Even though this was a tough game, victory was never in doubt in my mind. We knew that France would throw everything they had at us, but we showed great character and mental strength to turn this around."
France took an early lead with a penalty from Bailon but England regained their composure and a forward drive by the pack gave them an attacking position. Amy Turner, the scrum-half from Richmond, crossed for the try despite a populous cover defence and it was 5-3 to England at half-time.
They gained breathing space with a penalty by Katy McLean, of Darlington Sharks, but as errors were made in the wet conditions, England dropped the ball in midfield and France launched a thrilling counterattack. French wing Celine Allainmat scored with the loose ball and the conversion by Bailon took France into a 10-8 lead.
At this point, England's composure served them wonderfully well. They were reduced to 14 players when Karen Jones was sent to the sin-bin for a late tackle but McLean added her second penalty to take England into an 11-10 lead and, once Bailon's late kick missed the target, England were able to scrape home.
England had already beaten Wales (31-0), Italy (41-0), Ireland (22-5) and Scotland (51-0) so the Grand Slam was one of the most convincing in the women's game.
Catherine Spencer, the England number eight and captain, who passed 50 caps during the season, was particularly impressed by the team's attitude in the final stages. "We kept our composure and control, the attitude on the pitch was fantastic and when we look back, we can conclude that this was just the tight game we needed. You learn so much more from close games of this sort and you find out about your own weaknesses.
This team wants to improve all the time, and it was good to be in a good contest."
The England players now return to their clubs for the climax of the domestic season before gathering in the summer for a series of squad camps in preparation for the World Cup. The traditional dominance of New Zealand was exploded by England's win over them at Twickenham before Christmas. If the seedings for the World Cup work out as planned, the two teams at the top of the women's game will meet again in what will be a charged final at Twickenham Stoop in August.
Spencer's next priority was more mundane. "Now it is back to work on Monday," she said. This has been an outstanding season for her team, with England producing a series of results that put the exploits of the men's team in the shade. The best news from France is that there was no easy victory, just England glory.
SIX NATIONS PW D L F APts England 5 5 0 0 156 15 10 France 5 3 0 2 97 47 6 Ireland 5 3 0 2 69 52 6 Scotland 5 1 1 3 31 108 3 Wales 4 1 0 3 34 76 2 Italy 4 0 1 3 25 114 1
Up with the cup: England's all-conquering women celebrate their victory in Rennes; Photographer: DAVID ROGERS
Sunday Times (London, England) (March 21, 2010): p5.
Sunday, 21 March 2010
Women show the way to go; England get a fright before clinching the Grand Slam
Posted by John Birch at 15:16
Labels: England, Five/Six Nations
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text:
Amnesty International
Founded in London in 1961, the nonprofit organization draws attention to human rights abuses around the world. Its symbol, a lighted candle surrounded by barbed wire, was reproduced during a 50-year-celebration church service in London in May.
Ben Stansall / AFP/Getty Images
Copyright © 2018, Los Angeles Times

subset: commoncrawl


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Catechists and Teacher Aides (School of Religion)
Do you love your Catholic faith and have a wholesome desire to make a difference in the lives of young children? Every year, over 400 students come through our School of Religion program for religious education and sacramental preparation for the sacraments of First Reconciliation, First Eucharist, and Confirmation. In order for that to happen, 65 – 70 dedicated volunteer catechists and teacher aides are needed in a variety of grade levels on Sunday mornings or Tuesday afternoons. Orientation and training provided. For more information, and to discern your call to this ministry, please contact Michelle Balch, Director of Religious Education.
To sign up as a catechist or aide, please click here.
Archdiocesan Catechist and Religion Teacher Certification Program
Parish and school catechists of adults, youth and children teach teh faith in service of the Church's mission to pass on the faith to all generations. Knowledge of the faith is essential to the New Evangelization, for only faith that is known can be lived with confidence and shared with others. The Archdiocese of Washington has revised certification requirements for all catechists, including elementary school of religion teachers and parish religious education catechists.
Certification: The strength of our parish and school catechetical efforts is dependent on the strength of our catechists. The Office of Catechesis provides excellent and accessible courses for catechists to gain the necessary knowldege to fully implement the archdiocesan curriculum guide Forming Disciples for the New Evangelization, as well as required training in catechetical methodology. Live in parish courses and on line courses are available in English and Spanish.
To be Certified as a Catechist
*Take part in an initial interview with the catechetical leader
*Fulfill the Virtus screeing/fingerprinting process as outlined by the Archdiocese of Washington Child Protection Policy.
*Complete Living Catholic at the parish where the catechist wills serve
*Complete the five core courses of Faith Foundations on line through My Catholic Faith Delivered or in parish from and archdiocesan approved teacher
*Complete the catechist formation course Catechesis 101 on line through My Catholic Faith Delivered or in -parish from an archdiocesan approved teacher, and
*Participate in a one-day Archdiocese of Washington catechist formation retreat, offered throughout the year in regional locations by the Office of Catechesis


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The 96% pure Australian superfine Merino provides a luxurious next to skin feel, while the 4% Elastane gives you a full four way stretch for complete freedom of movement.
Perhaps, most importantly, Enigma265 delivers all that extra warmth and comfort without the bulk of other fabrics that offer similar levels of warmth. This helps prevent bunching, chaffing and rubbing when it's on, and keeps things light and easy to pack when you're on the go.
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Sizing given in Australia, UK, American, and European standard sizes
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|Main » Files » Site Script » Chat
|[ Add new entry ]
Step 1
Upload all the files to your host You don't have to upload the trhis file and upgrade.txt.
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Directors of Amsted Industries Inc. have put up another defense against a potential unfriendly takeover by issuing a ``poison pill`` in the form of a special dividend of common-stock purchase rights.
The move came after last week`s filing by Amsted of a lawsuit against Charles Hurwitz, a Houston-based financier, and entities he controls. Amsted is a Chicago-based diversified manufacturer.


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Myrdle Court Press welcomes submissions that are inter-disciplinary and contribute to critical understandings about cities.
To propose a book, please ensure that your application includes the following:
- A brief outline of the book's main themes and arguments
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text:
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
review : girl saves boy
This debut novel is alive with humour, verve, friendship and romance - not to mention lashings of garden gnome theft and lobster liberation. It is also unabashedly teenaged; the smart and snarky characters are delightfully kooky and have a lot of heart.
Girl Saves Boy begins with Jewel Valentine – loner, painter and head case – saving Sacha Thomas' life when he comes close to drowning in the same lake where Jewel's brother drowned a decade before. Jewel's family broke down following the tragic death of her brother, and she has grown up prickly and independent. At the book's open she is trying to adjust to life back with her mother, while mourning the death of her grandmother. Sacha has a complicated mess of problems of his own: a life-threatening illness, the death of his mother and his father's new partner (one of his teachers from school). Sacha's friends provide a good foil for the main characters: Little Al is a genius bogan - whose family are delightful and the comic relief - while True Grisham is an intelligent, driven young woman who came across to me as a bit superior and rather unlikable character but who relaxes and comes through at the end.
The opening chapters, in particular, were great - understated and engaging – and the dialogue was very good. Maybe being a teenager yourself helps your characters sound right…as much as Steph Bowe claims she is not your average teen! I thought it was funny, to the point of a bit strange, that we kept being given the characters heights; the characters were always talking about so-and-so being taller, or shorter and it made me giggle. The book suffers a little as a result of the almost overwhelming array of problems each character faces, but there is no doubt teenagers will enjoy the drama. The funny thing is, if this was real life I probably wouldn't bat an eyelid, but reading it I kind of felt like the characters were almost one-upping each other with family issues and deaths.
Nevertheless, Girl Saves Boy is an excellent first novel by young author Steph Bowe, and I know that as she continues to write she will develop and hone her already considerable skill. She is certainly a very welcome addition to Australian YA.
I received this book for review from Bookseller+Publisher magazine. You can read my shorter review (though I've nabbed bits from there to put here) and also my interview with Steph in the current (September) edition.
12 comments:
- AnonymousSeptember 1, 2010 at 6:18 PM
Ohhh, I bought this yesterday and am now even more excited to start reading it (just finished Mockingjay after a four day Hunger Games binge so can now return to regular reading). Stupidly I forgot to bring it with me to get Steph to sign, but I did say hi and was totally herp-derp though.ReplyDelete
Very nice review Kate, and it was lovely to meet you today!
cool review - i have this book sitting on my bedside table - yay! but have a few library books to get through first...ReplyDelete
i love your sentences here - very succinct and gives the book a certain flavour - good job.
This sounds really interesting, and I love the general off-the-wallness. I'd been wondering about it and your review has made my mind up - I'll be importing this one.ReplyDelete
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Rory McIlroy, the world's top-ranked golfer who withdrew from the Honda Classic last week because of an apparent toothache, said on Wednesday that he could have played through the pain.
"But it wasn't bothering me enough to, probably, you know, quit," McIlroy said on Wednesday of his toothache. "It was a mistake, and everyone makes mistakes, and I'm learning from them."
Last Friday, McIlroy walked off the golf course after playing nine holes. An hour after, he said he had to abruptly quit because of unbearable pain in his wisdom tooth.
Rory protested the red card Nani received in yesterday's Manchester United loss in the Champions League to Real Madrid. McIlroy, an avid Manchester United fan, "said he was giving himself a red card for the bruises to his reputation and the game's honor resulting from his abrupt withdrawal."
"I learned that when the going gets tough, I've got to stick in there a bit more and I've got to grind it out," McIlrory said, echoing his remarks earlier about how he needed to have a bit more of Tiger Woods's mental toughness. "I realized pretty quickly that it wasn't the right thing to do. No matter how bad I was playing, I should have stayed out there."
McIlroy said he was not struggling because of his new Nike golf clubs and debunked rumors that relationship problems with his girlfriend, star women's tennis player Caroline Wozniacki, were contributing to his problems.
Rather, McIlroy said he was putting pressure on himself to live up to his record-setting Nike golf contract and acknowledged that "most of my mistakes are in the public eye" and Friday's mishaps could be a "blessing in disguise" because "it just sort of released a valve."
"All that sort of pressure that I've been putting on myself just went away," McIlroy said. "And I was like, just go out and have fun. It's not life or death out there. It's only a game. I had sort of forgotten that this year."
After adding that there was "no excuse for quitting" and he did not "set a good example for the kids watching me," McIlroy said he is working to right his golf swing.
"You just have to get to the root of the problem," McIlroy said. "No pun intended."


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Russia's imposition of a ban on most food imports from the West should have minimal effects on Louisiana agriculture because Russia has been a relatively minor customer for most U.S. agricultural products, LSU AgCenter economist Kurt Guidry said Thursday.
But officials with the World Trade Center in New Orleans noted that Russia is a key market for Louisiana poultry farmers and the ban hampers the potential for Russia to be a bigger market of Louisiana farm products.
The U.S. and European Union have accused Russia, which annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March, of supplying arms and expertise to a pro-Moscow insurgency in eastern Ukraine and have responded by slapping sanctions on Russian individuals and companies.
The food import ban, announced Thursday by a somber Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev at a televised Cabinet meeting, covers all imports of meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, milk and milk products from the U.S. and Canada; all 28 EU countries, plus Norway; and Australia. It will last for one year.
That retaliation, however, could hurt Russia as much as the West. With the inclusion of Ukraine, most of whose food products also have been banned, Russia has now cut off 55 percent of its agricultural imports, including about 95 percent of its imported milk, cheese and yogurt.
In 2013, the EU exported $15.8 billion in agricultural goods to Russia, while the U.S. sent $1.3 billion in food and agricultural goods, including about $300 million worth of poultry. Russia accounts for about a tenth of EU agricultural exports, its second-largest market after the United States.
Louisiana was ranked 20th in terms of states sending exports to Russia, according to officials with the World Trade Center in New Orleans. Texas exported the most commodities to Russia, sending nearly $1.85 billion worth of products in 2013.
While the value of Louisiana exports to Russia topped $281 million in 2013, a 41 percent increase over the year before, the value of exports is actually down 16 percent for the first half of this year.
Louisiana's agriculture and food exports to Russia reached $117 million in 2013, a 35 percent increase from 2009. That's small compared to the total $15.8 billion in agriculture products and $4.7 billion in food and kindred products Louisiana exported worldwide in 2013.
Russia is Louisiana's second-largest market for poultry exports at more than $40 million in 2013. Trade Center officials said it was a growing market for Louisiana condiments and sauces, and the sweet potato industry was beginning to look into export opportunities there.
"Our loss of exports to Russian is a concern, but the ripple affect it will have on global markets is a larger one," said Jerry Hingle, World Trade Center board member and chair of its agriculture committee. "They also cut out imports from the European Union, Canada and Australia — all important markets for the U.S. that are now facing excess supply and scrambling to find alternative export markets. It won't be long until our exports to these markets are squeezed."
Guidry noted that even though Russia was a large consumer of American poultry and beef, there is still more domestic consumption than export demand.
"While there may be some short-term effects to poultry and livestock prices, my guess is that the impact will be minimal and likely short-lived," he said.
Washington dismissed Moscow's ban as trivial to the U.S. but destructive to Russia's own population.
"What the Russians have done here is limit the Russian people's access to food," said David Cohen, the U.S. Treasury undersecretary in charge of economic sanctions. He said the U.S. is ready to impose more sanctions against Russia if it doesn't de-escalate the conflict in Ukraine.


text: good morning! here's aven + i over the weekend... shockingly i'm actually terrible about taking out the camera on a regular basis to take pictures of her... but i've had in mind for a while that it'd be fun to set up my wedding photobooth in my living room + do some snaps of her. here's my fave... it's so americana. speaking of shooting for myself, i'm a huge huge huge fan of instagram. it's hands down my favorite app + way of following those i love through their daily photos! i love how it's made all sorts of people fall in love with photography all over again... + trains the eye to shoot square. lately i've been really taken with shooting a whole lot of NYC with my phone. i feel like one day if i move, i'm going to regret not having taken more street photography while i lived here... so i'm curating a little obsession with instagram-ing my daily brooklyn life. i thought i'd share some of my recent snaps here... + yes, i drink a lot of coffee + love taking photos of it. so cliché i know... anyways, if you're not on instagram you can follow my feed here... or by clicking the button below. happy monday! xo, brooke


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I believe in Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, my elder brother, my lord and master; I believe that he has a right to my absolute obedience whereinsover I know or shall come to know his will; that to obey him is to ascend the pinnacle of my being; that not to obey him would be to deny him...
I believe that Jesus Christ is our atonement; that through him we are reconciled to, made one with God. There is not one word in the New Testament about reconciling God to us; it is we that have to be reconciled to God...
In his sermon entitled The Mirrors of the Lord, George MacDonald states that "of all writers I know,{the apostle}Paul seems to me the most plainly, the most determinedly practical in his writing. What has been called his mysticism is at one time the exercise of a power of seeing, as by spiritual refraction, truths that had not, perhaps have not yet, risen above the human horizon." Just the same could be said of MacDonald himself, and nowhere more so than in the three volumes of his Unspoken Sermons...
While George MacDonald began his career as a minister in 1850, he eventually had to face the fact that no church denomination would then sanction his belief in a God who is literally Love, who will redeem all His creation...
Business is too often regarded as the hindrance to the spiritual life. I regard it as among the finest means the world affords for strengthening and causing to grow this inner real life...
"You must give yourself up to the obedience of his Son entirely and utterly, leaving your salvation to him..."
Come one, come all! Join Michael and Judy Phillips, Joseph Dindinger, and others October 12-14th in Folsom, California.
I have long been a fan of MacDonald's literary and theological works. My wife, an avid reader of webcomics, has always wanted to create her own. As a result, we decided to join forces and start with 'The Golden Key' due to its spiritual undertones, rich imagery, and relatively short length.
---Ryan Jaroncyk
The bond of the universe, the harmony of things, the negation of difference, the fact at the root of every vision, revealing that love is the only good in the world, and selfishness the one thing hateful, in the city of the loving God, is the devotion of the Son to the Father....
Let us not forget that the devotion of the Son could never have been but for the devotion of the Father, who never seeks his own glory one atom more than does the Son; who is devoted to the Son, and to all his sons and daughters, with a devotion perfect and eternal, with fathomless unselfishness.
There is always something deeper than anything said, something through which the central reality shines more or less plainly. Light itself is but the poor outside form of a deeper, better thing, namely, life. The life is Christ...
We must be sons and daughters in our will. And we can be such only by choosing God for the father he is, and doing his will. Therein lies human bliss. The working out of this our salvation must be pain, but the eternal form of the will of God in and for us, is intensity of bliss...
Jesus rose to the height of his being, set himself down on the throne of his nature, in the act of subjecting himself to the will of the Father as his only good, the only reason of his existence...
The life of Christ is this—negatively, that he does nothing, cares for nothing for his own sake; positively, that he cares with his whole soul for the will, the pleasure of his father. Because his father is his father, therefore he will be his child.
The doctrine of hell, as no other component of Christian orthodoxy, determines the nature of the God we believe in.
Is he, or is he not, a God who could, a God who would, a God who will send sinners to everlasting torment because they do not believe in him or in his Son?
Nearly everything in my belief system has ultimately come under the light of MacDonald's probing scrutiny, there to be re-fashioned, re-structured, re-oriented in the dazzling light of an infinitely loving and forgiving Fatherhood...
It is not too much to say that MacDonald's perspectives form the foundation for a wholesale redefining of the parameters and perspectives of faith for many Christians the world over. For these, everything in their belief system ultimately comes under the light of MacDonald's probing scrutiny, there to be re-fashioned, re-structured, and re-oriented in the dazzling light of an infinitely loving and forgiving Fatherhood.
--Michael Phillips, from his introduction to George MacDonald's Spiritual Vision
It has been the desire of my heart since reading this prayer forty-one years ago that I would be a "child of God" with a heart of love for Father in all situations. Twenty-four years later, that desire was tested when I read this prayer at my son's funeral...
"O Lord Jesus, be near when it seems to us, as it seemed to thee once, that our Father has forsaken us, and gathered back to himself all the gifts he once gave us...
Melissa Alvey is making fourteen of the original watercolor paintings available in combination with her book, 40 Dawns & 40 Dusks. You can choose the watercolor(s) you prefer at the Works of George MacDonald bookstore!
Melissa Alvey's 40 Dawns and 40 Dusks is an extraordinary combination of watercolors, meditation, scripture, and prayer. In her acknowledgments, Melissa wrote of George MacDonald being a source of inspiration who guided her to hope; he would be most pleased to be associated with this wonderful book.
Ultimately, this collection is a meditation on hope: as surely as dawn turns to dusk, so, too, dawn resurrects from dusk. Even when darkness presses in, the promise of grace shines bright. After the long night, morning comes.
Lilith was the first MacDonald book I ever read, and has remained my favorite. Mr. Vane's eerie experiences in The Evil Wood, the mystery of Mara, and the affluent yet drab and oppressive existence of the people of Bulika, all of these ideas have always intrigued me. A few songs were written but they never found a home on any other release. i was always unwilling to part with them because of my love for the book so I finally decided to write some more songs also focused on and inspired by the book itself. Over the next few years I would revisit the book and find something new, and that eventually became this tribute album.
As a pastor, I devoured MacDonald's sermons, for I found his words displayed like a stroke of paint on canvas...
When I read Phantastes the first time, I was so enchanted by the Beech tree that I found myself writing her song to Anodos. It wasn't too long after that I decided Phantastes was the book I needed to put to music...
MacDonald's sonnets catapult me to the True. The rose, endowed with beauty and thorns, is a figure of the True: the Christlike accord of gentleness and severity.
George MacDonald opened my eyes to Christian mysticism, to the reality of the presence of God in the things he has made. Through his writings, and those of other great mystics and thinkers, I learned and am learning to see more deeply into the world around me, to look with spiritual eyes on what seems everyday and insignificant. The deeper I go into this way of seeing, the more I perceive the hand of God in in the natural world...
My collaborator Katie and I were scouring several sources in the public domain to adapt into a musical, and we found The Day Boy and The Night Girl in an anthology of Victorian fairy tales, edited by Jack Zipes. We were impressed by how different it was from all the others we read...
When I write, whether spontaneously or intentionally, I am keenly aware that I am stepping into a River that is already running...
I began reading George MacDonald soon after my conversion through the influence of C.S.Lewis, who I discovered through the rock band from San Diego, California named Switchfoot. In MacDonald's sermons, fairy tales, novels, and fantasy works, I found myself having a deeper understanding of the fatherhood of God...
Reading MacDonald's fantasy works such as Phantastes, Lilith, and At the Back of the North Wind, and his poetry and Unspoken Sermons greatly influenced my faith. I came to understand why he was C.S.Lewis' literary hero, and he came to be one of my literary heroes as well. ..
I was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2003. I have had a good time of it, and I have worked and felt good most of those years. However, I had finally gotten to a point where the breast cancer had gone into my lungs, and then into my liver in May 2016...
As a young girl, I could never find enough to read. My mother, who passed her love for reading on to me, had gathered a library of books. Most of the books were old fashioned novels, innocent love stories, cowboy thrillers, and random stories. Apart from the standard books I read for English class, they were all I knew of literature...
Then I had a dream that stopped me cold; I thrashed on my bed and woke in terror as I tried to escape the nightmare. Upon waking the dream did not fade as usual, but kept replaying whenever my mind was not otherwise occupied. Here is the dream...
Everything MacDonald is intended as the ultimate research resource, listing and whenever possible providing links to books, articles, videos, stage productions, etc. relating to works by, about, or inspired by George MacDonald. Links to audio versions are in the works; to bring anything we've missed to our attention, please email firstname.lastname@example.com. Below is an example from the interactive PDF titled Novels:
Alec Forbes of Howglen
Originally published in 1865 by Hurst & Blackett, London
Scottish Brogue
From WisePath Books
From Johannesen Printing & Publishing
From Amazon
Edited versions from Michael Phillips:
The Maiden's Bequest
Alec Forbes and His Friend Annie, Young Reader's Edition
Essays and Articles:
"When Bad Girls Go Good: Stereotype Reversals in George MacDonald's Alec Forbes of Howlgen" by Ginger Stelle
"1865 Review" Wingfold: Spring 2006
For back issues of Wingfold contact Barbara Amell at email@example.com
There cam a man to oor toon-en',
And a waesome carl was he,
Snipie-nebbit, and crookit-mou'd,
And gleyt o' a blinterin ee.
There came a man to our town end,
And a woesome man was he;
With a turned-up nose, and a crooked mouth,
And a cock in his left eye.
Below David Jack's recitation of George MacDonald's Gaein' and Comin' you'll find the original poem, in Scots, followed by David's English translation. You can find this and many other poems in both Scots and English in the Sunrise edition of The Disciple and Other Poems, available from Wise Path Books. It is based on the original 1867 publication; but we note that the Johannesen edition, which is based on an 1893 publication, has some interesting variants near the poem's end. To avoid any spoilers, see below for details.
'That's no that ill,' ("That's not that bad,") remarked the farmer. 'But eh! man, ye suld hae heard yer gran'father han'le the bow. That was something to hear—ance in a body's life. Ye wad hae jist thoucht the strings had been drawn frae his ain inside, he kent them sae weel, and han'led them sae fine. He jist fan' them like wi' 's fingers throu' the bow an' the horsehair an' a', an' a' the time he was drawin' the soun' like the sowl frae them, an' they jist did onything 'at he likit. Eh! to hear him play the Flooers o' the Forest wad hae garred ye greit.' ("But eh! man, you should have heard your grandfather handle the bow. That was something to hear-once in your life. You would have just thought the strings had been drawn from his own inside, he knew them so well, and handled them so fine.)
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
By salvation, Wesley meant: 'not barely, according to the vulgar notion, deliverance from hell, or going to heaven; but a present deliverance from sin…'" (Melvin E. Dieter)
With regard to the Hymns to the Night and the Spiritual Songs of Friedrich von Hardenberg, commonly called Novalis, it is desirable to mention that they were written when the shadow of the death of his betrothed had begun to thin before the approaching dawn of his own new life. He died in 1801, at the age of twenty nine...
"...And now, when a fellow feels miserable, he is to cry to that dead man, who said of himself that he was meek and lowly in heart, and straightway the poor beggar shall find rest to his soul! All I can say is that, if he find rest so, it will be the rest of an idiot! Believe me, Helen, a good Havannah and a bottle of claret would be considerably more to the purpose;—for ladies, perhaps rather a cup of tea and a little Beethoven!..."
Sometimes George MacDonald expressed humor through light-hearted poetical nonsense. In the excerpt below, from At the Back of the North Wind, Little Diamond, a young sickly child, has just returned from driving his father's cab all day to make money for the family while his father was ill. Diamond is so happy at the end of the day that, after giving the day's earnings to his mother, he goes to his baby brother, picks him up, and begins to sing a nonsense poem to him...
In the excerpt below from St. George and St. Michael, vol. 1, George MacDonald presents a humorous situation. For protection during the danger of brewing war, Dorothy Vaughn, because of family relations, goes to live in a castle with the Marquis and his family, attendants, and servants. Shortly after Dorothy's arrival, her dog, who had not come with her in the move, finds a way into the castle in search of her. The humor comes in the fact that the dog's name is Marquis, so when Dorothy calls the dog, the Marquis of the castle thinks she is calling him...
Hello. I was wondering if you knew what MacDonald's thoughts were on the relationship of God and time (i.e. if he thought God was "outside" of time or in time.) It seems to me this is a very important question, and, given the fact that MacDonald stressed God's humanity and also his real relation to and interaction with creation, he would tend toward thinking God was in time rather than outside it, since if the latter is true he cannot be really affected by the creation. Thank you!
MacDonald's thoughts on God's relationship to man are so different from anything that I've encountered elsewhere...
How did GM's theology and/or fiction (hard to separate!) evolve over his life, or did he achieve his mature style and theology early on?
A most fascinating question. It is a query to which I have given much thought over the years. I am interested both as a writer and a Christian in precisely the two elements you highlight—MacDonald's style and his theology...
George's Baby makes a Babies collection
Mary stopped by on her way to her new home
Where there is Hope there is (Hidden) Life (GM Fans get it)
It wasn't long after becoming a Christian that I started losing things. My job. My fairy-tale home in the mountains. My horses. A marriage. My health. The losses just kept coming. At a certain point, I got mad. What the heck, God? I thought you were going to make everything better, instead you're taking my life apart, making a heaps of ashes out of every one of my ideals...
In the summer of 1990, my husband and I traveled to Romania, and with the help of a Romanian Believer, returned home with our new son, Samuel. Abandoned at birth, he had lived in an orphanage in Iasi, in Northeastern Romania. There were about one hundred children in the orphanage, and, sadly, there were only three women to care for all of them...
While the Gospel has always provided a safe haven for sinners from all walks of life, calling them to a richer, fuller life in Christ, a life that promises full redemption, the gospel of this age is preaching deliverance from the "ills," if not "evils" of the Christian Hope...
Do you really care about my suffering and my loss? My fear and my pain? Where are you? How can this, the story of my life crumpled and broken, bring you glory?
"God is good. " "Everything happens for a reason." These are things we often hear and say ourselves when tragedy is averted, when a venture appeared to fail, but is pulled from the flames at the last moment to become a success--when darkness threatened but did not consume us. But what about when the church youth group bus does go over a cliff with no survivors? What do we say when the innocent suffer in place of the guilty? When we find, in place of our dreams, a pile of ashes that cannot be reformed? Do we say God is good, or do we say nothing at all?
For those who have received and believe the words of the Gospel, one of the greatest sources of regular self-disappointment is the frustration of losing perspective. Alas: we hear the words, we feel the spirit, we commit our minds and hearts to following His will - and then, some time later, we come to our senses and realize we have been drifting about in reaction to our worldly cares, our bodily desires, and the actions of our neighbors. Again.
Violin lovers: be afraid. Be very afraid...
Have a peek at one of the fifteen illustrations by Leighton Isaacs that will grace our new edition of Robert Falconer, with side-by-side Scots-English dialogue translated by David Jack. And featuring a comprehensive introduction by Michael Phillips!
"Sometimes, again, he would throw down his book, and, sitting up with his back against the stake, lift his bonny lady from his side, and play as he had never played in Rothieden, playing to the dragon aloft, to keep him strong in his soaring, and fierce in his battling with the winds of heaven..."
Getting to know you......getting to know all about you.....
One Life
Twelve CDs
"The paper on The Fantastic Imagination," wrote George MacDonald in 1893, "had its origin in the repeated request of readers for an explanation of things in certain shorter stories I had written. It forms the preface to an American edition of my so-called Fairy Tales."
There are many Psalms by King David where he expresses his anguish and struggles, and then he cries out to God for help and deliverance…
C.S. Lewis echos this same concept in Mere Christianity:
"Faith is the art of holding on to things in spite of your changing moods and circumstances…"
Who did Jesus appear to after He was resurrected? It wasn't a righteous woman to whom he appeared, but a sinner who had been set free from the demons of her past…
Curdie and Princess in the soup, making those Goblins Loop de loop
Art begets art
This year, we're including a beautiful musical setting of George MacDonald's A Christmas Carol.
I have long been a fan of McDonald's literary and theological works. My wife, an avid reader of webcomics, has always wanted to create her own. As a result, we decided to join forces and start with 'The Golden Key' due to its spiritual undertones, rich imagery, and relatively short length.
---Ryan Jaroncyk
The purpose behind the research for this infographic was to find out if writing styles have changed drastically over time. Reading MacDonald and his contemporaries led me to think we moderns don't write, read, and think with the complexity of the Christian authors of that day. This graphic backs that up.
"For the Reformers, purgatory represented nothing less than a denial that the death of Christ was sufficient to save us from the guilt of our sins and the punishment we deserve." But, points out Wells, "to reject the satisfaction model of purgatory is not necessarily to reject the sanctification model," which is "entirely compatible with Protestant theology..."
This volley of proof texts has the ECT contingent on their feet cheering: Burk appears to have Parry in a full nelson: is it all over for the defender of UR?
George MacDonald, contemplating the scenario that a sinner might refuse to ever repent, agreed that annihilation would be an appropriate fate; but such a defeat for God seemed to him unimaginable. Nonetheless, I think he'd agree in principle with what Stackhouse writes early in his essay: "Hell is not a destination that God arbitrarily assigns to the recalcitrant sinner. Hell is simply the natural result of a moral agent choosing to separate from God, the source of life, and go some other way…"
"There is an impassable chasm," Young writes, "...between a God who takes ownership for the Creation along with the havoc we have produced, and One who authors the evil itself…"
"God doesn't have a low view of humanity, because God knows the truth about us. God is not fooled by all the lies we have told ourselves and each other. Jesus is the truth about who we are--fully human, fully alive. Deeper than all the hurt and broken bits and pieces is a 'very good' creation, and we were created in the image and likeness of God..."
The "lies" that this book set forward are perceived as lies through the lens of Jesus's identity and what His identity shouts to us about God, about ourselves, about creation, about our destiny, and about our future...
"Heaven is likeness to Jesus Christ; and likeness to Jesus Christ is undying sympathy with the lost; is love unquenchable towards his worst enemies. But the heaven which the traditional creed...offers to us is a thing so hardened, so awful that merely to think of it fills the mind with horror. Deadened sympathies...pity forever withered...'it is a mystery,' they reply. It is hell, I answer, disguised as heaven."
Allin begins with a powerful theme that, in our own day, Robin Parry has extensively developed: "We shall find-and the fact is a striking confirmation for the larger hope-that the great verities of our faith grow into a living unity in the light of the great purpose of restoration. Creation, incarnation, resurrection, judgment, etc., thus assume their places as parts of one great whole, the 'one thought of the one God.'"
The church Fathers for the first few centuries wrote and spoke in Greek, and this was the time period when belief in universalism was widespread. But as the Italian churches rose to power and Greek became an unfamiliar language, "no obstacle was left to stem the fast rising tide of Augustinianism, naturally triumphant in an age cruel, corrupt, and superstitious...the whole framework of Western theology, to its infinite loss, bears to this day the imprint of... [this] pitiless creed, which slanders at once God and man..."
Jesus' sanctity lies not in being set apart from the world, but in being set apart from the distinction between the sacred and the secular. The author of Hebrews proclaims Him the new high priest, who has entered into the Most Holy Place "once for all" (9:12) by means of His own blood, which will "purify our consciences from acts that lead to death," or "from useless rituals" (9:14). A certain double meaning is probably intended here...
Like a lot of people throughout Western culture, I used to think that struggle, frustration, confusion, and failure were a sign that something was wrong. In my schooling, as in my spiritual life, I've always been attracted to the easiest way of doing things. Consequently, whenever I found myself involved in protracted struggle, I assumed something was wrong with me...
As a child, I enjoyed reading stories of saints. I was particularly impressed with St. Therese of Lisieux, (d. 1897) also known as "the Little Flower." Her way was the "little way" of making small sacrifices and offering up the small hurts, trials and insults of life which allow us almost constant opportunities to grow in sanctification! Nearly a hundred years after her death was the death of Mother Theresa of Calcutta (d. 1997). Mother Theresa, who will be declared a saint this September by Pope Francis, also found her way in simply "doing small things with great love." Catholics and non-Catholics alike were drawn to these women who lived out their faith simply, but heroically and without compromise...
Those who say justice means the punishment of sin, and mercy the not punishing of sin, and attribute both to God, would make a schism in the very idea of God.
Some readers are left cold by Lilith--where do you stand on the novel and why? What scenes and characters from both Lilith and Phantastes have had the greatest impact on you? How shocked were you by the revelation of the Raven's identity? What are the most perplexing aspects of either work?
Whether you're reading Guild Court for the first time or would enjoy revisiting it, join Joseph Dindinger of WisePath Books, Jess Lederman, and others in sharing your thoughts, observations, favorite passages, and questions about the novel MacDonald subtitled, A London Story.
Two winners will be able to direct a $2,500 donation, made in their names, to a 501(c)3 charity of their choice! Categories:
- Best original essay
- Best original art
Entries are due by February 17, 2017.


text:
Hey, world! Guess what? I'm getting a puppy! That's right. A big-eyed, floppy-eared, shit-eating puppy. I'm gonna become the most irritating puppy owner you've ever met and I can't wait.
I've taken quizzes. Yes, hundreds of online quizzes and they all tell me I need a "spunky" puppy. And you know what I say to that? Fuck yeah! I love spunk! I'll even name the dog "Spunk." I've already legally changed my own name to "Spunk" 'cause that's how committed I am to this rock star shit-kickin' puppy.
photo courtesy sparkyhub.com
There will be photos. Thousands upon thousands of nobody-else-can-tell-the-difference-between-these photos. And outfits. Oh god, the outfits! Do you know they have a little outfit that has a tiny toy mouse attached to it so it looks like the mouse is riding the puppy? Well, they do. And I bought 10 of them! Because we have fucking spunk!
I'm gonna take my puppy to the dog run and let him hump the living hell out of everything: your dog, your leg, your kid, everything! And as the horror disfigures your face I'm gonna sit back, laugh, and put out a cigarette on my own arm 'cause we're a spunky pair of badasses and there's a new top dog in town.
At night I'm gonna spoon with my puppy. I'm gonna whisper secrets into those over-sized ears that nobody else knows about including the weekend Sandra and I "experimented" at summer camp (ahhh, Sandra...).
I'm gonna buy a little stroller and push that adorable puppy ass around and tell people I gave birth to this angelic creature because puppies love you no matter what and they don't talk back to you or tell you to stop day-drinking even though you've assured your sponsor that you're just being "French."
This puppy is gonna be my goddamned world and yours too. He's gonna explode like a supernova and suck us all into his black hole of oh-my-god-how-can-anything-be-THIS-cute?!?! We're gonna float through puppy dog space where stars are squeaky toys and comets are giggles and the only sound is the haunting memory of the perfect puppy dog bark, riding on celestial wings of love.


text:
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text:
Cervus nippon
|Scope: Global
Language: English
|Scientific Name:
|Cervus nippon Temminck, 1838
Common Name(s):
|Taxonomic Notes:
|This species was reviewed by Feldhamer (1980) and Banwell (1999). Native and introduced populations seriously threatened by genetic pollution; numerous populations are of uncertain provenance or have mixed ancestry; the status of C. n. hortulorum is particularly uncertain. Groves (2006) reviewed the species' taxonomy and concluded that four species are involved, C. nippon of southern Japan, C. yesoensis of central and northern Japan, C. taiouanus of Taiwan, and C. hortulorum of the mainland range. However, we consider all of these as subspecies of C. nippon, pending further information. The following subspecies are also widely recognized:
C. n. aplodontus (North Honshu Sika);
C. n. mantchuricus (Manchurian Sika): former USSR;
C. n. mandarinus (North China Sika) China (considered extinct);
C. n. grassianus, (Shansi Sika): China (considered extinct);
C. n. sichuanicus (Sichuan Sika): China;
C. n. yesoensis (Hokkaido Sika): Japan;
C. n. taiouanus (Formosan or Taiwan Sika): Taiwan;
C. n. pseudaxis (Viet Namese or Tonkin Sika): Viet Nam;
C. n. kopschi, (South China or Kopschi Sika): China;
C. n. keramae (Ryukyu or Kerama Sika): Japan;
C. n. pulchellus: Japan - Tsushima Islands.
|Red List Category & Criteria:
|Least Concern ver 3.1
|Year Published:
|Date Assessed:
|Harris, R.B.
|Brook, S.M. & McShea, W.J.
|Duckworth, J.W. & Wang Ying
Listed as Least Concern because of its abundant, increasing population in Japan, and stable population in Russia. The subpopulation in Taiwan is evidently holding steady. However, all other free-ranging subpopulations are very seriously threatened. In China all subpopulations are small (the largest numbering about 500) and fragmented, and the species appears to be in danger of extirpation in Korea and Viet Nam (possibly already extinct). In terms of applying the Red List Criteria to the species globally, the large subpopulation in Japan masks all population trends from elsewhere within its range, leading to a Least Concern listing. However, it is a priority to conduct new assessments of the mainland subspecies as soon as possible.
|Previously published Red List assessments:
|Range Description:
|The Sika was distributed across east Asia, from central China in the west to Japan and Korea in the east, and from the extreme eastern tip of Russia in the north to southern China and Viet Nam. Specifically, it was originally found in China (formerly from Manchuria south to Guangxi, and Sichuan to Anhui), North and South Korea (including Cheju Island) (but now probably extinct in both countries), Japan, Russia (a few places in Primorsky in the Far East), Taiwan (extinct in 1969, but subsequently re-introduced), and Viet Nam (probably now extinct). Wild populations are now very localized in China. In Japan, the species ranges widely from Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, islands in the Seto Inland Sea (Awaji, Shodo, and others), Goto Islands, Ika, Yakushima, Mageshima, Kuchinoerabu-shima, Tsushima, and the Kerama Islands (introduced) (Okinawa Prefecture) (Abe 2005).
In China, C. n. mandarinus probably ranged across much of northeastern China, but by the mid-1930s its range had contracted to northeastern Jilin (IUCN 1972, Guo 1992), and is now believed to be extinct (Hu 1998, Smith and Xie 2008). C. n. grassianus ranged throughout western Shanxi Province, China (Ohtaishi and Gao 1990, Guo 1992), and is now believed to be extinct (Hu 1998, Smith and Xie 2008). C. n. kopschi ranged from the Yangtze River Basin eastward to the coast, and south as far as northern Guangdong Province (IUCN 1972); it remains in small numbers in southern China. C. e. taiouanus was widely distributed throughout Taiwan (Green 1989). Free ranging populations were extirpated in 1969, but captive individuals were re-introduced in 1989 (Smith and Xie 2008). C. n. pseudaxis was recorded from Cao Bang, Quang Ninh, Thanh Hoa, Hanoi, and Nghe Tinh provinces in Viet Nam (Dang Huy Huynh et al. 1990), but is probably now extinct in the wild (captive animals remain).
The species has been widely introduced. In the Philippines it was anciently introduced to Solo Island, with questions remaining as to its continued existence there. It was introduced in 17th century to Kerama Islands (Ryukyu Islands, Japan); and introduced in 19th-20th centuries to British Isles, mainland Europe (Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, western Russia, and Ukraine), New Zealand, USA, and small islands off Japan (Whitehead 1993, Wemmer 1998, Grubb, 2005). It is also widely farmed in Asia, particularly in China (Green et al. 2007, Smith and Xie 2008). Only the native, extant range is included in the distribution map.
|Countries occurrence:
Native:China; Japan; Russian Federation
Possibly extinct:Korea, Democratic People's Republic of; Viet Nam
Regionally extinct:Korea, Republic of
Reintroduced:Taiwan, Province of China
Introduced:Armenia; Austria; Azerbaijan; Czech Republic; Denmark; Finland; France; Germany; Ireland; Lithuania; Madagascar; New Zealand; Philippines; Poland; Ukraine; United Kingdom; United States
|Additional data:
|Range Map:
|Click here to open the map viewer and explore range.
|There are no global population estimates. However, in summary, there is a large and growing population in Japan, and a stable population of 8,500-9,000 in Russia, but the species is in serious trouble in the rest of its range. There are probably fewer than 1,000 left in China, scattered in a few subpopulations across a once vast range. It is extinct in South Korea, and probably extinct in North Korea and Viet Nam. It also became extinct on Taiwan, but has been re-introduced there. More detailed information is provided below.
China: Four subspecies of Sika are present in mainland China of which three are threatened and one, C. n. mandarinus, is probably extinct. There are 400-500 C. n. sichuanicus in the extreme north of Sichuan and in southern Gansu Province (Hu 1998), as well in two other areas (Baxi and Beihe) of Sichuan (Guo 2000). C. n. kopschi occurs as five isolated small populations: in the Tianmu Mountains region of northern Zhejiang (less than 30 animals); in southern Anhui (70-100); near the border with Jiangsu, in Pengze, Jiangxi (150 animals); in southern Guangxi; and possibly in northern Guangdong. C. n. grassianus occurred in two separate and declining populations in western Shanxi but has not been reported for some years and may now be extinct (Ohtaishi and Gao 1990; Sheng Helin and Zhang Endi pers. comm., 1990). The total number in China was estimated to be no more than 1,000 animals, with populations fragments (Hu 1998). Sika are believed to be declining in all of their remaining range within China (Hu 1998, Guo 2000), although analyses of survival of C. n. sichuanicus in Tiebu Nature Reserve during the late 1980s suggest a possible reversal of that trend (Guo and Zheng 2005).
Korea: Sika was reportedly common and widespread in north and central Korea but declined severely during the Japanese occupation of the country. After liberation it proved impossible to rebuild populations naturally from the surviving dispersed animals in Hamgyong North province, so the DPRK government initiated a captive breeding programme (Won Hong Koo 1968). The genetic purity of these animals is unclear as is their relationship to the Sika held captive in DPRK nowadays. Sika is either very rare or extinct as a wild animal in DPR Korea (J.W. Duckworth in litt. 2008). If it survives in DPR Korea, it will be in the extreme northeastern part of the country (Won and Smith 1999). It no longer survives in the wild in South Korea (Won and Smith 1999), including on Cheju Island.
Japan: The species survives near heavily populated areas of Honshu, and their populations had been severely fragmented and reduced due to human activities (Yuasa et al. 2007). However, the Sika Deer population has been conspicuously increasing throughout Japan in recent years as hunting has been brought under control. On Hokkaido, for example, Sika have increased greatly during the last decades of the 20th century and the early 21st century (Agetsuma et al. 2007), and are now considered an agricultural and forest-plantation pest (Uno and Kaji 2006). Experimental hunting of males began in the 1950s, culling of females in the 1980s and hunting of females in the 1990s (Halley et al. 2006). C. n. keramae was introduced to the Kerama Islands from the Japanese mainland during the 17th century, and is reported to have subsequently developed as an insular form (IUCN 1972).
Russia: According to Kuzyakin (n.d.), there are 8,500-9,000 Sika Deer in Russia, and the population is stable.
Taiwan: C. n. taiouanus is endemic to Taiwan. It was extirpated by 1969 and re-introduced to Kenting National Park in 1988 (Green 1989).
Viet Nam: The species may now be extinct in the wild in this country. In 1990, two to four animals were reported from the western Nghe Tinh Mountains (Dang Huy Huynh et al. 1990), but it is highly doubtful that they survive there. Captive populations are present in Cuc Phuong National Park and Cat Ba National Park (Dang Huy Huynh et al. 1990).
|Current Population Trend:
|Additional data:
|Habitat and Ecology:
|This species prefers woodlands and forest with dense understorey, but forages in open grassy areas (Smith and Xie 2008). The main diet includes grass, some browse, and even fruit. The species is crepuscular, but sometimes active by day and night, and forages singly or in small herds, with dominant males with harems. Herds migrate to lower valleys in winter. Adults can live up to 25 years. Typically, mating occurs in autumn and gestation is about 210-223 days with young being born in April and May.
In Tiebu Nature Reserve, Sichuan, Sika were reported to forage preferentially in small patches of subalpine shrub and subalpine brush mixed with forest (Guo 2002). Sika fed on a wide variety of plant species in Teibu. In Viet Nam, diet of C. n. pseudaxis was reported to included browse and fruits (Dang Huy Huynh, Tran Van Duc, and Hoang Minh Khien pers. comm.). In Taiwan, C. n. taiouanus inhabited open forests and grasslands of valley bottoms and foothills below 300 m (McCullough 1974, Horng-jye Su undated). C. n. mandarinus and C. n. grassianus probably occurred in upland forests (IUCN 1972). C. n. keramae favours lowland forests and plains (WWF 1984). In Viet Nam, C. n. pseudaxis group size was 5-30 animals (Dang Huy Huynh, Tran Van Duc, and Hoang Minh Khien pers. comm.). In China, C. e. sichuanicus forms large aggregations during May-August (Sheng Helin and Zhang Endi pers. comm.). In Viet Nam, C. n. pseudaxis was thought to be primarily sedentary, although some seasonal movement took place depending on water availability (Dang Huy Huynh, Tran Van Duc and Hoang Minh Khien pers. comm.). In China, rut occurs during September-November. Fawning occurs in May-July following a 210-213 day gestation. Single fawns are the rule, but twins are sometimes observed among prime-aged females (Guo and Zheng 2005). Sexual maturity is reached at 1.5 years (Sheng and Ohtaishi 1993).
|Use and Trade:
|See Threats for details on Use and Trade.
|Major Threat(s):
This species is threatened by habitat loss and hunting, particularly in Viet Nam, China, and the Koreas. The species is increasing in Japan (where it is hunted and culled to reduce crop and forest depredation), and stable in Russia and probably Taiwan. The subspecies in Viet Nam (C. n. pseudaxi) and Taiwan (C. n. taiouanus) were hunted for meat and antler velvet for use in traditional medicine (Dang Huy Huynh et al. 1990, McCullough 1974). In Viet Nam, velvet from Cervus nippon is traded in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (Dang Huy Huynh, Tran Van Duc, and Hoang Minh Khien pers. comm.). All subspecies of Sika have been hunted widely in China during the past 100 years (Ohtaishi and Gao 1990) and in Korea. In Japan, Red Deer farming used to be very popular, but now animals are being released into the wild raising the risk of hybridization in the wild with Cervus nippon. Native and introduced populations are threatened by hybridization, with numerous populations of uncertain provenance or mixed ancestry (Grubb 2005). In China, in addition to continued loss of habitat, loss of genetic diversity through anthropogenic population subdivision is also a conservation concern (Lu et al. 2006).
C. n. pseudaxis in Viet Nam, and C. n. mandarinus and C. n. taiouanus in China, were probably extirpated in the wild as a result of hunting and habitat conversion for agriculture (Ratajszczak 1990; Dang Huy Huynh, Tran Van Duc and Hoang Minh Khien pers. comms.; IUCN 1972). The small captive population of C. n. pseudaxis in Cuc Phuong National Park is presently threatened by poaching. In China, C. e. sichuanicus is threatened by poaching outside Tiebu Nature Reserve (Sheng Helin and Zhang Endi pers. comm. 1990), and by encroachment on their habitats (including by deer farms; Hu 1998). In Japan, C. n. keramae has been almost extirpated by hunting, and remains only on unoccupied islets where competition with feral goats and habitat change constitute serious threats (Anonymous 1990). Water pollution is a serious problem for the deer (WWF 1984).
|Conservation Actions:
The species is heavily depleted in the wild in China, and two of the Chinese subspecies may be extinct (mandarinus and grassianus), and others are threatened. However, large herds exist in captivity in China to meet the demand for velvet antlers used in traditional Asian medicine.
The species occurs in a number of protected areas, including: C. n. sichuanicus in China's Tiebu Nature Reserve (Guo 2000, Guo and Zheng 2005), and Baihe Nature Reserve (Hu 1998); C. n. kopschi in China's Taohonglin Nature Reserve (Hu 1998); C. n. hortulorum in Russia's Dalnevostochny Morskoy, Kedrovaya Pad, Khankaisky, Lazovsky, and Sikhote-Alinsky Nature Reserves; and C. n. taiouanus in Taiwan's Kenting National Park, as a result of The Formosan Deer Restoration Project was initiated in 1984 to re-establish subspecies (Green 1989). Management activities for C. n. keramae have included filling of mine shafts, which posed threats to the deer, as well as the construction of drinking water facilities (IUCN 1972).
C. n. pseudaxis
The Vietnamese Sika Breeding and Conservation Programme was initiated in 1991 with a shipment of ten animals to Europe on breeding loan (Ratajszczak and Smielowski, undated). Recommended conservation actions include improving protection of Cuc Phuong National Park, with particular emphasis on control of poaching and development of a conservation education programme.
C. n. taiouanus
Recommended conservation actions include:
Recommended conservation actions include:
Recommended conservation actions include surveys to determine whether or not these two subspecies survive. If populations can be found, activities should include field reconnaissance, population censuses, demographic surveys, ecological studies, and investigations into human use of the deer.
C. n. kopschi
Recommended conservation actions include securing protected habitat, and encourage community development options to mitigate threats, especially poaching.
C. n. sichuanicus
Recommended conservation actions include the implementation management plans in Tiebu and Baihe Nature Reserves, with a particular focus on combating poaching. In 1990, the management plan for Tiebu was being implemented and protection was adequate (Sheng Helin and Zhang Endi pers. comm.).
Abe, H., Ishii, N., Ito, T., Kaneko, Y., Maeda, K., Miura, S. and Yoneda, M. 2005. A Guide to the Mammals of Japan. Tokai University Press, Kanagawa, Japan.
Agetsuma, N., Takafumi, H., Okuyama, S., Oikawa, Y., Okuda, A., Sato, T., Motomae, T., Miyoshi, H., Kumikawa, S., Ishii,T., Ichikawa, K., Naniwa, A., Takanishi, T., Yanagida, T., Udou, H. and Aoi, T. 2007. Re-establishment process of ezo sika deer (Cervus nippon yesoensis) in Iburi district, western Hokkaido. Research Bulletin of The Hokkaido University Forests 64(1): 23-28.
Banwell, D.B. 1999. The Sika: New Zealand Big Game Records Series.
Dang Huy Huynh, Tran Van Duc and Hoang Minh Khien. 1990. The status of endangered species of deer in Vietnam. Unpublished. National Centre for Scientific Research, Hanoi, Vietnam.
Feldhamer, G.A. 1980. Cervus nippon. Mammalian Species 128: 1-7.
Green, M. 1989. Re-introduction of sika to Kenting National Park. A report to the Formosan Sika Deer Restoration Project. Unpublished, Taiwan, Republic of China.
Green, M.J.B., Taylor, P.M., Xu, H.F., Yin, F. and Lee, S.K.H. 2007. Part of the Solution or Part of the Problem? Assessing the Role of Captive Breeding for Conservation of Wild Populations of Animals Used in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Traffic East Asia, Hong Kong.
Groves, C. 2006. The genus Cervus in eastern Eurasia. European Journal of Wildlife Research 52: 14-22.
Grubb, P. 2005. Artiodactyla. In: D.E. Wilson & D.M. Reeder (ed.), Mammal Species of the World. A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed), pp. 637-722. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, USA.
Guo, Y. S. 2000. Distribution, numbers, and habitat of Sichuan sika deer (Cevus nippon sichuanicus). Acta Theriologica Sinica 20: 81-87.
Guo, Y.S. 2002. Determination of sika deer's food resources and loading capacity in Tiebu Nature Reserve, Sichuan [In Chinese]. Acta Theriologica Sinica 22: 254-263.
Guo, Y.S. and Zheng, H.Z. 1992. On the geological distribution, taxonomic status of the species, and evolutionary history of sika deer in China [In Chinese]. Journal of Sichuan Normal University 13: 1-9.
Guo, Y.S. and Zheng, H.Z. 2005. Life table and the rate of natural increase in Sichuan Sika Deer [In Chinese]. Acta Theriologica Sinica 25: 150-155.
Halley, D.J., Kaji, K. and Masao, M. 2006. Variation in stable isotope ratios of carbon and nitrogen in Hokkaido sika deer Cervus nippon during 1990-2000: possible causes and implications for management. Wildlife Biology 12: 211-217.
Horng-jye Su. Unpublished. Vegetation analysis of the native habitat of Formosan sika deer and proposal for its re-introduction to Kenting National Park: summary. Unpublished.
Hu, J.C. 1998. Cervus nippon. In: S. Wang (ed.), China Red Data Book of Endangered Animals: Mammalia, pp. 266-269. Beijing Science Press, Beijing, China.
IUCN. 1972. Ryuku or Kerama sika. Red Data sheets on threatened deer, IUCN (unpublished), Gland, Switzerland.
IUCN. 2015. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2015.2. Available at: www.iucnredlist.org. (Accessed: 23 June 2015).
Kuzyakin, V.A. Undated. Wild ungulate animals in Russia affected by carnivores. Available at: http://www.cic-wildlife.org/uploads/media/Kuzyakin-BigGame.pdf.
Lu, X.P., Wei, F.W., Li, M., Yang, G. and Liu, H. 2006. Genetic diversity among Chinese sika deer (Cervus nippon) populations and relationships between Chinese and Japanese sika deer. Chinese Science Bulletin 51: 433-440.
McCullough, D.R. 1974. Status of larger mammals in Taiwan. A report to WWF, Washington, D.C. USA Tourism Bureau, Taipei, Taiwan.
Ohtaishi, N. and Gao, Y.T. 1990. A review of the distribution of all species of deer (Tragulidae, Moschidae and Cervidae) in China. Mammal Review 20(2-3): 125-144.
Ratajszczak, R. 1990. The distribution and status of the deer in Vietnam.
Ratajszczak, R. and Smielowski, J. Unpublished. The Vietnamese Sika (Cervus nippon pseudaxis) Conservation Program report.
Sheng, H.I. and Ohtaishi, N. 1993. The status of deer in China. In: N. Ohtaishi and H.I. Sheng (eds), Deer of China: Biology and Management, pp. 8. Elsevier, Oxford, UK.
Smith, A.T. and Xie, Y. 2008. A Guide to the Mammals of China. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.
Uno, H. and Kaji, K. 2006. Survival and cause-specific mortality rates of female sika deer in eastern Hokkaido, Japan. Ecological Research 21: 215–220.
Wemmer, C. 1998. Deer Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK.
Whitehead, K.G. 1993. The Whitehead Encyclopedia of Deer. Voyageur Press, Inc, Stillwater, MN, USA.
Won, C.M. and Smith, K.G. 1999. History and current status of mammals of the Korean Peninsula. Mammal Review 29(1): 3-36.
Won Hong Koo. 1968. Mammals of Korea. Science Institute Publishing House, Pyongyang.
World Wildlife Fund. 1984. Conservation of the Nansei Shoto: Part 1. WWF Japan Scientific Committee, Japan.
Yuasa, T., Nagata, J., Hamasaki, S., Tsuruga, H. and Furubayashi, K. 2007. The impact of habitat fragmentation on genetic structure of the Japanese sika deer (Cervus nippon) in southern Kantoh, revealed by mitochondrial D-loop sequences. Ecological Research 22: 97-106.
|Harris, R.B. 2015. Cervus nippon. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2015: e.T41788A22155877. . Downloaded on 22 August 2018.
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(Coaching gaffes aside, the green jersey really brings out his eyes. Pic: TheMMANews)
At least one thing was abundantly clear Wednesday night about the debut episode of "The Ultimate Fighter," season 13: Brock Lesnar has obviously never seen this show before. Forget for a minute all the silly squabbling over the former heavyweight champ's credentials as a coach and whether or not his inclusion on the UFC's popular reality show will be good for ratings and/or the sport. The real question this morning is whether or not Lesnar even owns a television, because the dude played the "TUF 13" season premiere like a straight-up rookie. Things snowballed so quickly and decisively in the favor of Team Dos Santos, that by the end of the first 60 minutes we had to wonder if this season will be another one-sided ass-kicking on the order of those handed out by Team GSP on "TUF 12" and Team Rashad on "TUF 10."
We don't want to totally bury Team Lesnar this early on because – let's face it – a lot can happen between now and the end of the season, especially since producers appear to have done an uncharacteristically good job making the actual cast of "TUF 13" look evenly matched. There are only two dudes on board we've ever heard of before – Shamar Bailey and Ryan McGillivray, both snapped up quick-fast by Team JDS – so maybe Brock's picks will surprise us. Still, we couldn't help but notice that Lesnar didn't exactly pin episode one to the mat and give it a Heath Herring-style beatdown. Here are the multiple ways Coach Brock screwed things up …
1. Fumbling the coin toss.
Dude. Everybody knows if you win Dana White's opening flip-off, you choose to pick the first fight. You do this because if you do even a halfway competent job picking your team, you should be able to win at least the first 2-3 fights on matchups alone. Giving the opposition "the hammer" (as Ken Shamrock dubbed it during season 2) really only invites them to pick your team apart piece by piece, getting their best fighters into the second round ASAP while formulating the best matchup against your top guys. The most telling part that Lesnar bungled this was that after he quickly opted to have first pick of the fighters, he looked over at dos Santos like, "Right?" Wrong.
2. Offering half-assed "personality evaluations" of the fighters.
If the UFC wanted to underscore for us exactly how awkward Lesnar's one-on-one interactions with other human beings are, it couldn't possibly have done a more effective job than to show those short clips of the impromptu "interviews" he tried to conduct with his prospective team members. During these exchanges, Lesnar asked such probing questions as, "So buddy, what are you here for, buddy?" and "Are you here to win the show, buddy?" and "Are you here to win the show, buddy, or are you here to be a TV star?" What did he learn from this? Nothing, except that after 12 seasons of "TUF" the dudes on the cast know how to regurgitate answers the UFC wants to hear. What did viewers learn? Well, if Brock Lesnar can't remember your name, he's just gonna call you "buddy." The Wonderlic this shit was not.
3. Not just ignoring the "evaluation period."
As Dana White pointed out early on in episode one, coaches and their staffs had just two hours to evaluate the cast of "TUF 13" before making their picks. This is problematic for a couple reasons: One, because it's probably hard to accurately scout a whole room full of talent in just 120 minutes. Two, due to a lot of unrelated issues (stress, nerves, jet lag) guys may not be giving you an accurate picture of their abilities during this time. In the past, maybe this hasn't been an issue because most of the coaching staffs at least knew of the top contestants before the process even started. You think the coaches of previous season didn't know who Joe Stevenson was before they even walked in that room? Or Mac Danzig? Or Michael Bisping? Or Nate Diaz? C'mon, son. Of course, Lesnar probably had no idea who any of these dudes were and in the end may well have given the two best prospects (Bailey and McGillivray) to Team JDS right out the shoot.
4. Staying too close to home.
In the past, when guys with somewhat dubious coaching credentials have landed starring roles on "TUF" they've at least tried to compensate by bringing along all-star coaching staffs. Koscheck brought the guys from AKA. Evans brought Team Greg Jackson. Forrest Griffin had the whole crew at Xtreme Couture to fall back on. Lesnar? It looks like he just brought Erik Paulsen and Marty Morgan over from DeathClutch. That's not to say those guys aren't high-level coaches (they are), but doesn't it kind of also give you the impression that it's going to be all catch wrestling, all the time over on Team Lesnar? And isn't one of the biggest knocks on Lesnar as a fighter that he hasn't really gone out of his comfort zone, spread his wings and improved his skill set by training with the best in the world? If you needed a clue where Lesnar's focus is going to be during this season, you had to look no further than his speech to his charges immediately following their first loss of the season: "Wrestling is powerful in this sport, fellas." Oh, boy.
5. Acting like he expected to lose.
Not only has Lesnar never seen "TUF" before but he's also apparently unfamiliar with any show or movie where an inspirational coach lifts up his team and motivates them through undying confidence and hard work. And really, isn't that like every movie ever made? Granted, fight No. 1 featured JDS' top pick (Bailey) against Lesnar's last pick (Nordin Asrih), but watching at home you got the impression the boys on Team Green had thrown in the towel on this one before it even started. During the bout itself, it sounded like there was a whole lot of silence coming out of Lesnar's corner, except for the occasional "Up, up, up!" and "Underhook, left side!" Then, after Bailey had thoroughly outwrestled his German Muslim opponent (certainly Lesnar didn't secretly enjoy that, right?), Lesnar quipped: "They put their best guy against our last pick, so it (the loss) was to be expected." Damn, Nodrin Asrih, how does that feel? Sorry about your life's dream, bro.


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Introduction to how to choose a career
You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.
Steve Jobs
Many students don't have much time to spend in career planning during their degree course. You may be too busy working to earn money to pay your way through university, or perhaps you are a mature student with a young family that you need to support. You may be too busy to regularly visit the Careers Service. These pages will allow you to do much of this career planning via the web.
First let's look at what factors go into choosing a career:
Choosing a career involves 4 main stages:
- Self Awareness
- Opportunity Awareness
- Decision Making
- Taking Action
Sometimes these stages will overlap and sometimes you have to return to a previous stage Be aware the cycle is not always as linear and consistent as it is presented here.
Self Awareness
The first stage of Career Choice is Self Awareness. This involves looking at your SKILLS, VALUES, INTERESTS and PERSONALITY and analysing where your strengths and weaknesses lie. This is important both in choosing the right career and also for success in applications and interviews where you will find many questions which test whether you have been through this process.
You can start with looking at your SKILLS here. You can now also look at your INTERESTS , VALUES and PERSONAL STYLES on the web.
Opportunity Awareness
Once you have done some preliminary self analysis, the next stage is to gather information on the opportunities open to you. There is a range of resources to help you here:
There is a range of general careers talks each term which are listed here
There may also be specific careers education programmes for your degree subject, usually during your second year of study.
Information on what you can do with your degree subject
A major recruiter of graduates, annoyed with the great expense of running their annual graduate recruitment programme, decided on a radical new approach to save money. When the student arrived for interview they were taken to a room with just a table and two chairs. They were then left alone for two hours for two hours, without any instructions. At the end of that time, the HR manager went back and see what the student was doing.
If they had taken the table apart, they were put in Engineering.
Many jobs are open to graduates of any degree subject, and it's important not to only focus on the jobs related to your degree, but if you are doing a vocational degree, or simply want to find out what previous Kent graduates in your subject have gone on to do, the following resources should help.
- What can I do with my degree in ......? information on careers from all Kent degree subjects.
- Careers open to graduates with any degree subject
Early in your course you should look at the Work Experience open to you. As well as allowing you to earn money, they may allow you to gain relevant skills and perhaps an insight into the types of job you are interested in, putting you at the head of the queue when you eventually apply for jobs.
The Careers Information Room has a wide variety of booklets, reference files, books, DVD's and computer programmes you can use.
You may like to enter Postgraduate Study instead of directly entering a job, or it may be required for a particular career such as law or teaching. Here it may be important to apply early in your final year and to look at whether funding will be available to pay for the course.
We try to cater for all Kent students whatever their needs: Mature Students, Students with Disabilities, International Students, Ethnic Minority Students, Women Students. Sometimes this may affect your career choice - for example, mature students often enter public sector jobs and the helping careers where greater life experience may be to their advantage.
Unusual jobs entered by Kent graduates
- "Career Management Skills" - a profiling and self-awareness booklet for 1st Year students. See our web version
- "Postgraduates and Contract Researchers" - a booklet specifically for these groups. See our Web version.
Making Decisions
The computer programs below allow you to put in a number of factors on what you want in a career (such as helping others, promotion prospects) and will give suggestions of possible careers which might match these. Regard these as useful suggestions rather than gospel truth, but they should bring up some possibilities that you haven't considered before.
Prospects Planner www.prospects.ac.uk/links/Pplanner is a powerful program to help you choose a graduate career. It allows you to answer questions about your values and interests and then to relate these to a database of hundreds of occupations to get suggestions on appropriate careers.
Alternatively Careers Explorer is a quick and simple program which will also suggest graduate careers
Talk to graduates already working in your chosen career area. You can use the Kent Alumni Careers Network to contact a graduate directly. Work shadowing (spending a day with) a person in the career you are considering is the next best thing to actually doing a job, to find out what it is like. If you have done this, you will come across as much better prepared at interviews.
Of course, the other important part in making decisions is discussing it with other people. Friends, family and tutors can all play an important part here . The Duty Careers Adviser is available every day without an appointment for a short discussion and can often help to inject reality into your ideas for example, pointing out that you may need to fund your way through a postgraduate course to enter your chosen career.
Taking Action
This is the final process of career planning. It involves:
- Finding out about the EMPLOYERS that offer the types of jobs you are interested in.
- Search our VACANCY DATABASE
- Preparing APPLICATIONS and attending INTERVIEWS
- Perhaps taking APTITUDE TESTS and attending SELECTION CENTRES
First look at the Timeline, which gives you an idea of what you should be doing when during your time at UKC in terms of Career Planning.
Sometimes you may have to return to previous stages in the process, for example, if you are not able to get into your first choice career
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
From Steve Jobs address to Stanford University graduates in 2005


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Babies are exposed to toxins all day and night wearing plastic disposable diapers, and I would've never used them for Landon if I had realized that when he was a baby.
I tried one cloth diaper brand when he was a newborn, but they leaked. I should've tried out others and found the brand that worked best for him.
If I had another child, I'd use cloth diapers for sure. Nowadays there are so many companies to choose from, and the designs are so stinking cute!
Here are 4 additional advantages you should consider about cloth diapers I wrote down for EverydayFamily.com