text:
WPSU-TV to premiere 'Music Theatre Spotlight' on Oct. 3
WPSU-TV to premiere 'Music Theatre Spotlight' on Oct. 3
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- The 2013 senior class of Penn State's Musical Theatre Program performs a selection of broadway and pop tunes in this week's broadcast premiere of WPSU's "Music Theatre Spotlight." The program debuts at 8 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 3, and includes solo and group numbers from all 12 members of this past spring's graduating class. It will repeat at 7 and 11 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 6.
The annual production, in its seventh year, provides the opportunity for students to showcase their talents in a television studio setting in front of a live audience. Penn State's bachelor of fine arts program in musical theatre is a challenging program that strengthens students' singing, dancing and acting skills in order to make them viable candidates in the field of performing arts.
"It's been really amazing to see the success of Penn State's musical theatre program, and I hope that this television show plays a small part in that," said Jeff Hughes, producer/director of "Music Theatre Spotlight."
Students' participation in the production adds a unique component to their professional portfolios, Hughes explained. Additionally, their performances, posted to YouTube, often attract the attention of casting agents.
Alumni of "Music Theatre Spotlight" have landed roles in Broadway shows and other well-known productions.
"A number of them of have said that this show was a major consideration in their decision to come to Penn State," said Hughes. "As a performer, it's very valuable to them to be involved in a professional broadcast production."
"Music Theatre Spotlight 2012" received a Mid-Atlantic Emmy nomination in the entertainment category.


text:
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Tool Deal | May 20, 2010 | Comments 0
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text:
This is My Brain at 3 AM
July 10, 2012
(Click to embiggen.)
(You'll never guess what time it was when I made this. NEVER.)
(Click to embiggen.)
(You'll never guess what time it was when I made this. NEVER.)
Thanks for the laugh! I hope a nap is in your future (or Baby Ike's)!
this is perfection
Sweet lord I am so with you right now. Spoiler for my life: IT'S ALWAYS THE BABY! Actually right now it's always the two year old who is trying to kill me with his bullshit. The baby sleeps most nights, until she doesn't in which case there is a ton of cursing and EVERYONE IN THE HOUSE IS AWAKE INCLUDING THE CAT OMG.
I love this so much and now I'm furious that I can't just cut and paste it onto my own blog. WTF?
Elaine, you are my favorite, and my doppelgänger
No, you just have the thought processes of a serial killer. THERE'S A DIFFERENCE! Also, yes, it's always the baby (or a serial murderer trying to get in through the basement, don't you hear that, do you, do you, do you hear...fuck it, let 'em kill us). Also, the funny shit is always hilarious and then BAM! you hear "You're too late!" as Swiper done swiped that shit clean out yo mind.
Also, I'm sorry. Have a nap.
Very funny. And yes it's always the baby. That is unless it's my asshole 50 lb dog walking back and forth and back and forth up and down the hardwood floor on his tip toes making the loudest and most obnoxious noise in the world at 4 in the morning in an evil attempt to wake the baby and thus destroy my sleep. Did I mention that I love my dog and my baby but sometimes they exist just to torture me?
Oh, so much. I am so awake at 3am, baby or no.
Barbara, let's be friends forever. I like people who give me complements and who share my specific brand of misery ;)
Aaaaaaaamzing. Thank you for documenting the 3am brain track in those of us who, after putting the baby back to sleep, can't put ourselves back to sleep.
It's a particular brand of insomnia torture, but it's nice to know we're not alone.
But, if it IS one of the kids and you DON'T get up, all sorts of chaos ensues (except for in the case of the baby who is trapped and can't cause physical trouble--just the psychological kind...).
I'm suffering with the opposite problems. Without fail baby wakes between 4-5am and it takes me 45 mins to get him off again. I am soooo ready to go back to sleep, it's him who refuses!
I'm suffering with the opposite problems. Without fail baby wakes between 4-5am and it takes me 45 mins to get him off again. I am soooo ready to go back to sleep, it's him who refuses!
PREACH! I'd also like to join the pet bullshit chorus, because when it's 3 AM and I'm being woken up by a CAT who should be embracing life as an independent woman, it's all I can do not to throw her out the window. (I usually have more sympathy for the baby.)
Sarah, hell to the yes on the cat being an asshole at 3am. Ours starts stirring up shit around 4am because she wants to be fed. IT'S NICE TO WANT THINGS CAT NOW GO AWAY BEFORE I LOSE MY COOL.
God, I'm extra capslocky today. It could have something to do with the fact that it has now been 11 days since I got more than 2 hours of consecutive sleep.
@David: YES!! What is it with the particular nature of dog nails on hardwood that is the EXACT sound needed to wake the baby??? I can have dropped practically every dish in the kitchen and the smaller one will have slept through it, but the Corgi starts hopping around and it is all over.....
Oh, yes, it is up at 3 am to pee and then the cats chasing and/or insistently purring in my face. And I cannot yell at the cat jumping on my dresser for fear of waking the baby!
Me too! I turn off the lights and my brain turns on! This results in not enough sleep at night, the necessity to take a nap, which then keeps me from going to sleep the next night and so on and so on. My apartment is the one with the lights on all night and where UPS deliveries sit outside for two days because I never hear them knock.
A serial killer, or a schoolteacher. You know, one of those.
Haha! Yes! The night's I sleep worst are usually the night's the baby sleeps best as well. It's like my brain is unsure what to do with sleep now and WANTS to plan a week's worth of meals and outfits at 3am.
Ha! Except the its the baby turns into "is that my teenager sneaking in and/or out?" Or maybe it was someone breaking in? Your brain will never stop!!!!!
I think you forgot two steps. The one where you stub your toe just as all is quiet, and the one where the smoke detector gives out a low-battery signal just as all is finally quiet.
OMG this is me all the time. Only my baby is now 5 so he doesn't wake me up. Much. But they sleep with us so instead of getting woken up by a crying baby, I get woken up with a swift kick to the head by a child who should really really be in either bunk of the awesome bunk bed that they own.
Last night at 3 am I also composed a really awesome blog post and I cannot remember any of it. *sigh*
You get a prize for that, it's so impressively spaced and bubbled and logical! Champion flowchart. Well done.
OMG! This was so me (up until a few weeks ago), well, except for the awesome bit about blogging, I'm never that good outside of my own mind.
I love this so much. Perfection.
I seriously thought I was the only one who woke up in the middle of the night and composed funny blog posts and then totally couldn't remember them in the morning.
I've always wondered what your handwriting looked like..awesomeness
Sadly, for me it's never the kids. It's ALWAYS my cat taking a crap at 2 am. Where ya digging to? China? And why do you spend 15 minutes digging in your litterbox for the perfect place to crap but you refuse to cover it. wtf.
Stellar flow chart though! Seriously. Shiny gold star sticker worthy.
My mother always called these nights the two o'clock devils. SO love the flow chart!
Oh god. Were you in my house last night?
Poor thing. I hope you got a nap!
You're too twisted for color tv!
You're too twisted for color tv!
Bahaha. Yes except replace Fruit Ninja with Text Twist because I'm scholarly, yo.
Wow! You're pretty darn coherent at 3 am. My thoughts would consist of: Mmmph, shut the hell up snoring husband, shut the hell up bladder, Goddamn it, I can't tell the baby to shut up.
Hey! Me tooo! Except add one more tier of husband poking you at 6.30 when everyone is fiiiiinaly good and properly asleep to say... I forgot, the car has to go into the shop - you need to get up, get up the baby, and drive me.
I loved all my kids as babies. But this I don't miss. Not for a second.
This shit is rocking my morning. "dammit. always." I can concur on so many levels.
That is awesome!
I so get this. I am impressed that nowhere on there was the, okay so if I fall asleep right this second then I have 2.6 hours until some child will wake me up. Oh I mean 2.3 hours. Hmmm 2 hours.
I so get this. I am impressed that nowhere on there was the, okay so if I fall asleep right this second then I have 2.6 hours until some child will wake me up. Oh I mean 2.3 hours. Hmmm 2 hours.
I love you, except in my world it's 3 a.m., the toddler is climbing into my bed, I just let her because WTF I am too tired to march her back to her room, fall asleep for 10 minutes, then it's the baby (of. Course. Dammit!) and by the time I get the baby back down, the toddler has taken my spot, I mean totally, and now it's 4:15 and I have to get up at 5:30 to feed my friend's horse for her and let the chickens out because what the hell, THEY'RE UP TOO) so I go sleep on the couch. (God Forbid I wake them all up again when I get up.) Wake up on couch with both (both?) hands and one foot asleep. Dammit. Feed sundry animals while darned kids (and my husband) sleep until 7, when I get back in the house to feed them all. MOMMY NEEDS HER COFFEE NOW, 'KAY? So, I needed this post this morning. Love it . Thanks!!!
Hm, I think there are some random un-closed parentheses in there somewhere. This is my brain on who-know-how-much sleep!
Love it. I want another kid, but I don't miss the sleep deprivation.
Yep, that could be my flowchart--the only thing I'd add is a bubble wondering if I can possibly fit in a nap or asking when is the earliest I can get to bed.
And I thought *I* was the only one who used naughty words in lullabies. Ex: (to the tune of lullaby) "Go to sleep, go to sleep, cuz you're DRIVING me fucking crazy...go to sleep, go to sleep...won't you ever fucking go to sleep?"
And I thought *I* was the only one who used naughty words in lullabies. Ex: (to the tune of lullaby) "Go to sleep, go to sleep, cuz you're DRIVING me fucking crazy...go to sleep, go to sleep...won't you ever fucking go to sleep?"
Ouiser, you have the handwriting of a serial killer :)
The comments to this entry are closed.


text: Herman Cain on Monday at the Tampa Convention Center. Mark Memmott/NPR hide caption toggle caption Mark Memmott/NPR It's All Politics Herman Cain And His ABCs: He Sees Blacks Turning To The GOP August 27, 2012 "A lot of people in this country have not realized or it does not get picked up in the polls [that] some black people can think for themselves," the one-time presidential contender said Monday. And there are more "American Black Conservatives," he said, than most people realize.


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Lockdown at St. John Vianney in Holmdel
St. Vianney High School in Holmdel was evacuated over an "unsubstantiated threat" made to the school on Wednesday morning.
Acting Prosecutor Christopher J. Gramiccioni tells Townsquare Media the threat, claiming a bomb was inside the building, came into to Holmdel Police via 911 around 11:40 a.m.
SJV was immediately put into lockdown and students & staff evacuated to the football field as police and tactical teams rushed to the private Catholic high school's campus on Line Road as roads surrounding the school were closed off.
Students were then taken to St. Benedict's School where they are being picked up by their buses according to the school website. Parents will be allowed to pick up their children after the buses leave.
K9 and tactical teams completed two sweeps of the school before declaring the threat to be a hoax. Holmdel Fire Department personnel will do one last sweep of the school on Wednesday afternoon.
One parent tells Townsquare students were searched as they entered St. Benedict's.
In a statement on the Diocese of Trenton website, Bishop David M. O'Connell said, "I want to express my deepest gratitude to the administration, faculty and staff of St. John Vianney High School for their prompt and immediate actions to keep our students safe. I also want to thank St. Benedict's Parish and School community for providing a safe and comfortable shelter for the evacuated high school students.
O'Connell says the quick evacuation of the school prevented staff from sending any immediate alerts to parents of the situation because the needed equipment was inside the building. "Technology staffers were able to set up remote capabilities and an alert did go out in the afternoon," explained O'Connell.
Gramiccioni says no arrests have been made for the threat. Anyone with information about the incident should contact the Prosecutor's Office at 800-533-7443.
Approximately 1,000 students attend the school, which sits on 38 acres of land on Line Road according to the school website.
- Police respond to St. John Vianney High School / Asbury Park Press
- St. John Vianney Evacuated Following Bomb Threat / Holmdel-Hazlet Patch
- St. John Vianney High School in Holmdel evacuated for bomb threat / Star-Ledger


text:
PROGRAMMERS SPEND A considerable amount of time working with sets of related data. The names of all employees at the XYZ corporation, U.S. Presidents and their corresponding birth dates, and years between 1900 and 1975 are all examples of related data sets. Because working with such groups of data is so prevalent, it might not come as a surprise that a means for managing these groups within code is a common feature across all mainstream programming languages. This means typically centers around the compound data type array, which offers an ideal means for storing, manipulating, sorting, and retrieving data sets. PHP's solution is no different, supporting the array data type, in addition to an accompanying host of behaviors and functions directed towards array manipulation. In this chapter, you'll learn all about those array-based features and functions supported by PHP. Although it is beyond the scope of this book to provide a comprehensive list of all predefined functions, you'll nonetheless find information regarding the majority of array functions in this chapter, because PHP's array-handling capabilities are just so darned useful.
Because I introduce so many functions in this chapter, I thought it wise to divide them into the following categories:
- Outputting arrays
- Creating arrays
- Testing for an array
- Adding and removing array elements
- Locating array elements
- Traversing arrays
- Determining array size and element uniqueness
- Sorting arrays
- Merging, slicing, splicing, and dissecting arrays
Rather than simply list them alphabetically, the categorical division should aid in later reference when searching for a viable solution to some future problem. Before beginning this review, I'll start the chapter with a brief recap of the array definition and structure.
What Is an Array?
An array is traditionally defined as a group of items that share the same characteristics and are distinguished by their lookup key (more about this key in a bit). I use the word traditionally because you can flaunt this definition and group entirely unrelated entities together in an array structure. PHP takes this a step further, foregoing the requirement that they even share the same datatype. For example, an array might contain items like state names, zip codes, exam scores, or playing card suits. Each entity consists of two items: a key and a value. The key serves as the lookup facility for retrieving its counterpart, the value. These keys can be numerical, and bear no real relation to the value other than the value's position in the array. As an example, the array could consist of an alphabetically sorted list of state names, with key 0 representing "Alabama", and key 49 representing "Wyoming". Using PHP syntax, this might look like this:
$states = array (0 => "Alabama", "1" => "Alaska"…"49" => "Wyoming");
Using numerical indexing, you could reference the first state like so:
|NOTE PHP's numerically indexed arrays begin with position 0, not 1.
Alternatively, key mappings can be associative, where the key bears some relation to the value other than its array position. Mapping arrays associatively is particularly convenient when using numerical index values just doesn't make sense. For example, I might want to create an array that maps state abbreviations to their names, like this: OH/Ohio, PA/Pennsylvania, and NY/New York. Using PHP syntax, this might look like:
$states = array ("OH" => "Ohio", "PA" => "Pennsylvania", "NY" => "New York")
You could then reference "Ohio" like so:
Arrays consisting solely of atomic entities are referred to as being single-dimensional. Multidimensional arrays consist of other arrays. For example, you could use a multidimensional array to store U.S. state information. Using PHP syntax, it might look like this:
$states = array (
"Ohio" => array ("population" => "11,353,140", "capital"
=> "Columbus"),
"Nebraska" => array("population" => "1,711,263",
"capital" => "Omaha")
You could then reference Ohio's population like so:
This would return the following value:
In addition to offering a means for creating and populating an array, the language must also offer a means for traversing it. As you'll learn throughout this chapter, PHP offers many ways for doing so. Regardless of which way you use, keep in mind that all rely on the use of a central feature known as an array pointer. The array pointer acts like a bookmark, telling you the position of the array that you're presently examining. You won't work with the array pointer directly, but instead will traverse the array either using built-in language features or functions. Still, it's useful to understand this basic concept.
{mospagebreak title=Outputting Arrays}
Although it might not necessarily make sense to learn how to output an array before even knowing how to create one in PHP, this function is so heavily used throughout this chapter, and indeed, throughout you daily programming life, that it merits first mention in this chapter.
boolean print_r(mixed variable [, boolean return])
The print_r() function takes as input any variable and sends its contents to standard output, returning TRUE on success and FALSE otherwise. This in itself isn't particularly exciting, until you take into account that it will organize array contents (as well as an object's) into a very readable format before displaying them. For example, suppose you wanted to view the contents of an associative array consisting of states and their corresponding state capitals. You could call print_r() like this:
This returns the following:
Array ( [Ohio] => Columbus [Iowa] => Des Moines [Arizona] => Phoenix )
The optional parameter return modifies the function's behavior, causing it to return the output to the caller, rather than sending it to standard output. Therefore, if you want to return the contents of the above $states array, you just set return to TRUE:
$stateCapitals = print_r($states, TRUE);
This function is used repeatedly throughout this chapter as a simple means for displaying the results of the example at hand.
|TIP The print_r() function isn't the only way to output an array, but rather offers a convenient means for doing so.You're free to output arrays using a looping conditional (such as while or for), and in fact these sorts of loops are required to implement many application features. I'll come back to this method repeatedly throughout not only this chapter, but also throughout the entire book.
Creating an Array
Unlike other, much more annoying array implementations of other languages, PHP doesn't require that you assign a size to an array at creation time. In fact, because it's a loosely-typed language, PHP doesn't even require that you declare the array before you use it. Despite the lack of restriction, PHP offers both a formalized and informal array declaration methodology. Each has its advantages, and both are worth learning. We'll examine both in this section, starting with the informal variety.
You reference the individual elements of a PHP array by denoting the element between a pair of square brackets. Because there is no size limitation on the array, you can create the array simply by making reference to it, like this:
$state[0] = "Delaware";
You could then display the first element of the array $state like this:
echo $state[0];
You can then add additional values by referencing the intended value in conjunction with the array index, like this:
$state[1] = "Pennsylvania";
$state[2] = "New Jersey";
$state[49] = "Hawaii";
Interestingly, if you assume the index value is numerical and ascending, you can choose to omit the index value at creation time:
$state[] = "Pennsylvania";
$state[] = "New Jersey";
$state[] = "Hawaii";
Creating associative arrays in this fashion is equally trivial, except that the associative index reference is always required. The following example creates an array that matches U.S. state names with their date of entry into the Union:
$state["Delaware"] = "December 7, 1787";
$state["Pennsylvania"] = "December 12, 1787";
$state["New Jersey"] = "December 18, 1787";
$state["Hawaii"] = "August 21, 1959";
Next I'll discuss a functionally identical, yet somewhat more formal means for creating arrays: via the array() function.
array array([item1 [,item2 … [,itemN]]])
The array() function takes as its input zero or more items and returns an array consisting of these input elements. Here is an example of using array() to create an indexed array:
$languages = array ("English", "Gaelic", "Spanish");
// $languages[0] = "English", $languages[1] = "Gaelic", $languages[2] = "Spanish"
You can also use array() to create an associative array, like this:
$languages = array ("Spain" => "Spanish",
"Ireland" => "Gaelic",
"United States" => "English");
// $languages["Spain"] = "Spanish"
// $languages["Ireland"] = "Gaelic"
// $languages["United States"] = "English"
void list(mixed…)
The list() function is similar to array(), though it's used to make simultaneous variable assignments from values extracted from an array in just one operation. This construct can be particularly useful when you're extracting information from a database or file. For example, suppose you wanted to format and output information read from a text file. Each line of the file contains user information, including name, occupation, and favorite color, with each piece of information delimited by a vertical bar ( | ). A typical line would look similar to the following:
Nino Sanzi|Professional Golfer|green
Using list(), a simple loop could read each line, assign each piece of data to a variable, and format and display the data as needed. Here's how you could use list() to make multiple variable assignments simultaneously:
// While the EOF hasn't been reached, get next line
while ($line = fgets ($user_file, 4096)) {
// use explode() to separate each piece of data.
list ($name, $occupation, $color) = explode ("|",
// format and output the data
print "Name: $name
";
print "Occupation: $occupation
";
print "Favorite color: $color
";
Each line would in turn be read and formatted similar to this:
Name: Nino Sanzi
Occupation: Professional Golfer
Favorite Color: green ====================================================
Reviewing the example, list() depends on the function explode()to split each line into three elements, which in turn uses the vertical bar as the element delimiter. The explode() function is formally introduced in Chapter 9. These elements are then assigned to $name, $occupation, and $color. At that point, it's just a matter of format- ting for display to the browser.
array range(int low, int high [,int step])
The range() function provides an easy way to quickly create and fill an array consisting of a range of low and high integer values. An array containing all integer values in this range is returned. As an example, suppose you need an array consisting of all possible face values of a die:
$die = range(0,6);
// Same as specifying $die = array(0,1,2,3,4,5,6)
The optional step parameter offers a convenient means for determining the increment between members of the range. For example, if you want an array consisting of all even values between 0 and 20, you could use an step value of 2:
$even = range(0,20,2);
// $even = array(0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20);
The range() function can also be used for character sequences. For example, suppose you wanted to create an array consisting of the letters A through F:
$letters = range("A","F");
// $letters = array("A,","B","C","D","E","F");
{mospagebreak title=Testing for an array}
When you incorporate arrays into your application, you'll sometimes need to know whether a particular variable is an array. A built-in function, is_array(), is available for accomplishing this task.
boolean is_array(mixed variable)
The is_array() function determines whether variable is an array, returning TRUE if it is, and FALSE otherwise. Note that even an array consisting of a single value will still be considered an array. An example follows:
$states = array("Florida");
$state = "Ohio";
echo "$states is an array: ".is_array($states)."
"
echo "$state is an array: ".is_array($state)."
";
The results are:
$states is an array: 1
$state is an array: ====================================================
Adding and Removing Array Elements
PHP provides a number of functions for both growing and shrinking an array. Some of these functions are provided as a convenience to programmers who wish to mimic various queue implementations (FIFO, LIFO, and so on), as reflected by their names (push, pop, shift, and unshift). Even if you don't know what queue implementations are, don't worry; these functions are easy to use, and examples are provided for each.
|NOTE A traditional queue is a data structure in which the elements are removed in the same order that they were entered, known as first-in-first-out, or FIFO. In contrast, a stack is a data structure in which the elements are removed in the order opposite to that in which they were entered, known as last-in-first-out, or LIFO.
This isn't a function, but a language feature. You can add array elements simply by executing the assignment, like so:
$states["Ohio"] = "March 1, 1803";
In the case of a numerical index, you can append a new element like this:
$state[] = "Ohio";
Sometimes, however, you'll require a somewhat more sophisticated means for adding array elements (and subtracting array elements, a feature not readily available in the fashion described for adding elements). These functions are introduced throughout the remainder of this section.
int array_push(array target_array, mixed variable [, mixed variable…])
The array_push() function adds variable onto the end of the target_array, returning TRUE on success and FALSE otherwise. You can push multiple variables onto the array simultaneously, by passing these variables into the function as input parameters. An example follows:
$states = array("Ohio","New York");
// $states = array("Ohio","New York","California","Texas");
mixed array_pop(array target_array)
The array_pop() function returns the last element from target_array, resetting the array pointer upon completion. An example follows:
$states = array("Ohio","New York","California","Texas"); $state = array_pop($states); // $state = "Texas"
{mospagebreak title=Locating Array Elements}
Often, the value of data can be determined by the ability to easily identify items of value, rather than the amount accumulated. If you aren't able to quickly navigate the information, little good is done accumulating it. In this section, I'll introduce several functions that enable you to sift through arrays, in an effort to locate items of interest efficiently.
boolean in_array(mixed needle, array haystack [,boolean strict])
The in_array() function searches the haystack array for needle, returning TRUE if found, and FALSE otherwise. The optional third parameter, strict, forces in_array() to also consider type. An example follows:
$grades = array(100,94.7,67,89,100);
if (in_array("100",$grades)) echo "Somebody studied for the test!";
if (in_array("100",$grades,1)) echo "Somebody studied for the test!";
Somebody studied for the test! =====================================================
This string was output only once, because the second test required that the datatypes match. Because the second test compared an integer with a string, the test failed.
array array_keys(array target_array [, mixed search_value])
The array_keys() function returns an array consisting of all keys located in the array target_array. If the optional search_value parameter is included, only keys matching that value will be returned. An example follows:
$state["Delaware"] = "December 7, 1787";
$state["Pennsylvania"] = "December 12, 1787";
$state["New Jersey"] = "December 18, 1787";
$keys = array_keys($state);
// Array ( [0] => Delaware [1] => Pennsylvania [2] => New Jersey )
boolean array_key_exists(mixed key, array target_array)
mixed key(array input_array)
The key() function returns the key element located at the current pointer position of input_array. Consider the following example:
$capitals = array("Ohio" => "Columbus", "Iowa" => "Des Moines","Arizona" => "Phoenix");
echo "
Can you name the capitals of these states?
";
while($key = key($capitals)) {
echo $key."
";
This returns:
Arizona ====================================================
Note that key() does not advance the pointer with each call. Rather, you use the next() function, whose sole purpose is to accomplish this task. This function is formally introduced later in this section.
mixed reset(array input_array)
The reset() function serves to set the input_array pointer back to the beginning of the array. This function is commonly used when you need to review or manipulate an array multiple times within a script, or when sorting has completed.
array each(array input_array)
The each() function returns the current key/value pair from the input_array, and advances the pointer one position. The returned array consists of four keys, with keys 0 and key containing the key name, and keys 1 and value containing the corresponding data. If the pointer is residing at the end of the array before executing each(), FALSE will be returned.
Array_Walk ()
boolean array_walk(array input_array, callback function [, mixed userdata])
The array_walk() function will pass each element of input_array to the user-defined function. This is useful when you need to perform a particular action based on each array element. Note that if you intend to actually modify the array key/value pairs, you'll need to pass each key/value to the function as a reference.
The user-defined function must take two parameters as input: the first represents the array's current value and the second the current key. If the optional userdata parameter is present in the call to array_walk(), then its value will be passed as a third parameter to the user-defined function.
You are probably scratching your head, wondering why this function could possibly be of any use (c'mon, you can admit it). Admittedly, I initially thought the same, until I did a bit of brainstorming. Perhaps one of the most effective examples involves the sanity-checking of user-supplied form data. Suppose the user was asked to provide six keywords that he thought best-described his state. That form source code might look like that shown in Listing 5-1.
Listing 5-1. Using an Array in a Form
{mospagebreak title=Determining Array Size and Uniqueness}
A few functions are available for determining the number of total and unique array values. I'll introduce these functions in this section.
integer count(array input_array [, int mode])
The count() function, quite simply, returns the total number of values found in the input_array. If the optional mode parameter is enabled (set to 1), the array will be counted recursively, a feature useful when counting all elements of a multidimensional array. An example follows:
$locations = array("Italy","Amsterdam",array("Boston","Des Moines"),"Miami");
echo count($locations,1);
This returns:
You may be scratching your head at this outcome, because there appears to be only five elements in the array. The array entity holding "Boston" and "Des Moines" is counted as an item, just as its contents are.
|NOTE The sizeof() function is an alias of count(). It is functionally identical.
array array_count_values(array input_array)
The array_count_values() function returns an array consisting of associative key/value pairs. Each key represents a value found in the input_array, and its corresponding value denoting the frequency of that key's appearance (as a value) in the input_array. An example follows:
$states = array("Ohio","Iowa","Arizona","Iowa","Ohio"); $stateFrequency = array_count_values($states);
This returns:
Array ( [Ohio] => 2 [Iowa] => 2 [Arizona] => 1 ) ============================================================
- SORT_REGULAR: Sort items by their ASCII value. This means that B will come before a, for instance. Search the Internet for ASCII table to view a comprehensive character ordering.
- SORT_STRING: Sort items in a fashion that might better correspond with how a human might perceive the correct order. See natsort() for further information about this matter, introduced later in this section.
Consider an example. Suppose you wanted to sort exam grades from lowest to highest:
$grades = array(42,57,98,100,100,43,78,12);
The outcome looks like this:
Array ( [0] => 12 [1] => 42 [2] => 43 [3] => 57 [4] => 78 [5] => 98 [6] => 100 [7] => 100 )
It's important to note that key/value associations are not maintained. Consider the following example:
$states = array("OH" => "Ohio", "CA" => "California", "MD" => "Maryland");
Here's the output:
Array ( [0] => California [1] => Maryland [2] => Ohio ) ===========================================================
To maintain these associations, use asort(), introduced later in this section.
void natsort(array target_array)
The natsort() function is intended to offer a sorting mechanism comparable to those people normally use. The PHP manual offers an excellent example of what is meant by this; Consider the following items: picture1.jpg, picture2.jpg, picture10.jpg, picture20.jpg. Sorting these items using typical algorithms results in the following ordering:
void asort(array target_array [,integer sort_flags])
The asort() function is identical to sort(), sorting the target_array in ascending order, except that the key/value correspondence is maintained. Consider an array that contains the states in the order in which they joined the Union:
$state[0] = "Delaware";
$state[1] = "Pennsylvania";
$state[2] = "New Jersey"
Sorting this array using sort() causes the associative correlation to be lost, which is probably a bad idea. Sorting using sort() and then outputting the results using print_r() results in the following:
Array ( [0] => Delaware [1] => New Jersey [2] => Pennsylvania ) ===========================================================
However, sorting with rsort() results in:
Array ( [0] => Delaware [2] => New Jersey [1] => Pennsylvania ) =======================================================
If you use the optional sort_flags parameter, the exact sorting behavior is determined by its value, as described in the sort() section.
boolean array_multisort(array array [, mixed arg [, mixed arg2…]])
The array_multisort() function can sort several arrays at once, and can sort multidimensional arrays in a number of fashions, returning TRUE on success and FALSE otherwise. It takes as input one or more arrays, each of which can be followed by flags that determine sorting behavior. There are two categories of sorting flags: order and type. Each flag is described in Table 5-1.
Table 5-1. array_multisort() Flags
|Sort in ascending order
|Sort in descending order
|Compare items normally
|Compare items numerically
|Compare items as strings
integer krsort(array array [,int sort_flags])
The krsort() function operates identically to ksort(), sorting by key, except that it sorts in reverse (descending) order.
void usort(array array, callback function_name)
The usort() function offers a means for sorting an array using a user-defined comparison algorithm, embodied within a function. This is useful when you need to sort data in a fashion not offered by one of PHP's built-in sorting functions.
The user-defined function must take as input two arguments, and must return a negative integer, zero, or a positive integer based on whether the first argument is less than, equal to, or greater than the second argument. Not surprisingly, this function must be made available to the same scope in which usort() is being called.
A particularly applicable example of usort() involves the ordering of American-format dates. Suppose that you want to sort an array of dates in ascending order:
< ->php
$dates = array('10-10-2003′, '2-17-2002', '2-16-2003', '1-01-2005′, '10-10-2004');
// Array ( [0] => 10-01-2002 [1] => 10-10-2003 [2] => 2-16-2003 [3] => 8-18-2002 )
// Array ( [2] => 2-16-2003 [3] => 8-18-2002 [1] => 10-01-2002 [0] => 10-10-2003 )
function DateSort($a, $b) {
// If the dates are equal, do nothing.
if($a == $b) return 0;
// Dissassemble dates
list($amonth, $aday, $ayear) = explode('-',$a);
list($bmonth, $bday, $byear) = explode('-',$b);
// Pad the month with a leading zero if leading number
not present
$amonth = str_pad($amonth, 2, "0", STR_PAD_LEFT);
$bmonth = str_pad($bmonth, 2, "0", STR_PAD_LEFT);
// Pad the day with a leading zero if leading number
not present
$aday = str_pad($aday, 2, "0", STR_PAD_LEFT);
$bday = str_pad($bday, 2, "0", STR_PAD_LEFT);
// Reassemble dates
$a = $ayear . $amonth . $aday;
$b = $byear . $bmonth . $bday;
key that already exists in the resulting array, that key/value pair will overwrite the previously existing entry. This behavior does not hold true for numerical keys, in which case the key/value pair will be appended to the array. An example follows:
$face = array("J","Q","K","A");
$numbered = array("2″,"3″,"4″,"5″,"6″,"7″,"8″,"9");
$cards = array_merge($face, $numbered);
This returns something along the lines of the following (your results will vary because of the shuffle):
Array ( [0] => 8 [1] => 6 [2] => K [3] => Q [4] => 9 [5] => 5
array array_merge_recursive(array input_array1, array input_array2 [, array…])
The array_merge_recursive() function operates identically to array_merge(), joining two or more arrays together to form a single, unified array. The difference between the two functions lies in the way that this function behaves when a string key located in one of the input arrays already exists within the resulting array. array_merge() will simply overwrite the preexisting key/value pair, replacing it with the one found in the current input array. array_merge_recursive() will instead merge the values together, forming a new array with the preexisting key as its name. An example follows:
$class1 = array("John" => 100, "James" => 85);
$class2 = array("Micky" => 78, "John" => 45);
$classScores = array_merge_recursive($class1, $class2); print_r($classScores);
This returns the following:
Array ( [John] => Array ( [0] => 100 [1] => 45 ) [James] => 85 [Micky] => 78 ) ===========================================================
Note that the key "John" now points to a numerically indexed array consisting of two scores.
array array_slice(array input_array, int offset [, int length])
The array_slice() function returns the section of input_array starting at the key offset, and ending at position offset + length. A positive offset value will cause the
This returns:
Array ( [0] => Alabama [1] => Alaska [2] => Arizona [3] => Arkansas ) Array ( [0] => California [1] => Connecticut )
You can use the optional parameter replacement to specify an array that will replace the target segment. An illustration follows:
$states = array("Alabama", "Alaska", "Arizona", "Arkansas", "California",
$subset = array_splice($states, 2, -1, array("New York", "Florida"));
This returns the following:
Array ( [0] => Alabama [1] => Alaska [2] => New York [3] => Florida [4] => Connecticut ) ===========================================================
array array_intersect(array input_array1, array input_array2 [, array…])
The array_intersect() function returns a key-preserved array consisting only of those values present in input_array1 that are also present in each of other the input arrays. An example follows:
$array1 = array("OH","CA","NY","HI","CT");
$array2 = array("OH","CA","HI","NY","IA");
$array3 = array("TX","MD","NE","OH","HI");
$intersection = array_intersect($array1, $array2, $array3); print_r($intersection);
This returns:
Array ( [0] => OH [3] => HI ) ===========================================================
Note that array_intersect() only considers two items to be equal if they also share the same datatype.
array array_diff_assoc(array input_array1, array input_array2 [, array…])
The function array_diff_assoc() operates identically to array_diff(),except that it also considers array keys in the comparison. Therefore only key/value pairs located in input_array1, and not appearing in any of the other input arrays, will be returned in the result array. An example follows:
$array1 = array("OH" => "Ohio", "CA" => "California", "HI" => "Hawaii");
$array2 = array("50" => "Hawaii", "CA" => "California", "OH" => "Ohio");
$array3 = array("TX" => "Texas", "MD" => "Maryland", "KS" => "Kansas");
$diff = array_diff_assoc($array1, $array2, $array3); print_r($diff);
This returns:
Array ( [HI] => Hawaii ) ===========================================================
{mospagebreak title=Other Useful Array Functions}
In this section I introduce a number of array functions that perhaps don't easily fall into one of the prior sections, but are nonetheless quite useful.
mixed array_rand(array input_array [, int num_entries])
The array_rand() function will return one or more keys found in input_array. If you omit the optional num_entries parameter, only one random value will be returned. If num_entries is set to greater than one, that many keys will be returned. An example follows:
$states = array("Ohio" => "Columbus", "Iowa" => "Des Moines","Arizona" => "Phoenix");
$randomStates = array_rand($states, 2);
This returns:
Array ( [0] => Arizona [1] => Ohio ) ===========================================================
array array_chunk(array input_array, int size [, boolean preserve_keys])
The array_chunk() function breaks input_array into a multidimensional array consisting of several smaller arrays consisting of size elements. If the input array can't be evenly divided by size, the last array will consist of fewer than size elements. Enabling the optional parameter preserve_keys will preserve each value's corresponding key. Omitting or disabling this parameter results in numerical indexing starting from zero for each array. An example follows:
$cards = array("jh","js","jd","jc","qh","qs","qd","qc",
// shuffle the cards
// Use array_chunk() to divide the cards into four equal "hands"
$hands = array_chunk($cards, 4);
This returns the following (your results will vary because of the shuffle):
Array ( [0] => Array ( [0] => jc [1] => ks [2] => js [3] => qd )
[1] => Array ( [0] => kh [1] => qh [2] => jd [3] => kd )
[2] => Array ( [0] => jh [1] => kc [2] => ac [3] => as )
[3] => Array ( [0] => ad [1] => ah [2] => qc [3] => qs ) )============================================================
Arrays play an indispensable role in programming, and are ubiquitous in every imaginable type of application, Web-based or not. The purpose of this chapter was to bring you up to speed regarding many of the PHP functions that will make your programming life much easier as you deal with these arrays.
The next chapter focuses on yet another very important topic: object-oriented programming. This topic has a particularly special role in PHP 5, because the process has been entirely redesigned for this major release.


text:
Department of Justice Agent Involved in Shooting While Assisting in Apprehension of Parolee-At-Large
February 18, 2004
(916) 324-5500
(SAN JOSE) An agent with the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Tuesday afternoon fatally shot and killed Rodolfo Cardenas, 43, of San Jose following a pursuit and confrontation.
The agent, whose name is being withheld pursuant to office policy, is a 12-year law enforcement veteran. He has been placed on administrative leave, pursuant to Department policy. The investigation into the shooting is being conducted by the San Jose Police Department and the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office. The Department of Justice has also initiated its own administrative review.
Agents with the DOJ's Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement had been asked by an agent with the State Parole Fugitive Apprehension Team to assist in the apprehension of David Joseph Gonzales, 37, of San Jose who was a parolee at large.
DOJ agents observed Cardenas drive by Gonzales' home, then speed off unexpectedly. DOJ agents activated emergency equipment including lights and sirens and a vehicular pursuit ensued. The pursuit continued on foot, ending in an alley in the 100 block of N. Fourth Street where the shots were fired. Cardenas was taken to San Jose Medical Center, where he later died.
In light of the pending investigations into the shooting, further details cannot be provided by DOJ at this time.


text:
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LawAtlas is the central, authoritative place for systematically collecting, measuring and displaying laws.
LawAtlas is a tool designed to help policy-makers, advocates and researchers understand what the laws are on a given topic, know how the laws differ over time and across jurisdictions, and evaluate their impact.
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The U.S. federal government has not endorsed the medical benefits of marijuana, and the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 makes marijuana use illegal on the federal level, classifying it as a Schedule I drug with no currently accepted medical use. Despite the federal ban on medical marijuana, this map explores the 24 jurisdictions that have passed laws explicitly legalizing medical marijuana use. Read more
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Unintentional drug overdose is now considered to be a leading cause of preventable death in the United States. Administering naloxone hydrochloride ("naloxone") can reverse an opioid overdose and prevent these unintentional deaths. Read more


text:
Alisa Messeroff, a native of Baldwin, gave up a solid, American dream-type life to pursue an even more fabulous fantasy in Australia. This week, the 2002 Baldwin High School graduate, whose last name was Fogelberg in her BHS days, is one of 25 finalists for the dream job of outback adventurer in Tourism Australia's Best Jobs in the World contest.
Right out of the gate, the 29-year-old's adult life followed a popular path: She got a college degree from Salisbury University, joined the business world and married Mike Messeroff, 30, from nearby Bellmore. The couple spent five years, as Alisa puts it, "sitting behind a desk," but then shocked their friends and families by pulling up stakes and shipping out to the U.S. Virgin Islands.
"As a child, I always thought I knew what I was going to do with my life. I would go to college, find a job, get married, buy a house, have children, and eventually retire," Alisa told the Herald. And indeed, for a time, she did pursue that course, working in advertising for Titan Worldwide and then in publishing with Time Inc. for four years. Eventually, however, she and Mike, an airline executive, made the move to the Caribbean, where Alisa worked as a tour guide and helped crew a 50-foot catamaran.
"I loved going to work — it was so refreshing!" she said of her Virgin Islands experience, adding that an outdoorsy, adventurous lifestyle suited her and her husband. Eventually they decided to make another transition and moved to Australia, because the country offered a working holiday visa for visitors 30 and under. Last November the couple embarked on a backpacking trek around the country that is still under way.


text:
Also see: 2014 Top 50 Preseason Junior College Teams
Pitchers Stand Atop List
Nation's Top JC Prospects
is safe to say on the eve of the 2014 season that there are no
players of Bryce Harper's unparalleled stature in this year's
junior college prospect ranks, nor any players with realistic
expectations of even climbing into the first round of the this year's
draft—unlike a year ago when fast-rising East Central (Miss.)
outfielder Tim Anderson was taken by the Chicago White Sox with the
17th pick overall.
then a catcher out of the College of Southern Nevada, is the
most-acclaimed junior college player of all-time after being taken by
the Washington Nationals with the first overall pick in the 2010
Game has unveiled an updated ranking of the Top
200 Prospects in this year's junior college draft class, and
it is headed up by three pitchers whose appearance on the list is
noteworthy because they were all relative unknowns at the conclusion
of the 2013 college season.
(Texas) Junior College righthander Robbie Dickey has the distinction
of being the nation's top-ranked JC talent, though his hold on that
spot is tenuous as Seminole State (Fla.) righthander Jake Cosart and
Oxnard (Calif.) righthander Patrick Weigel both throw harder and may
have better overall raw stuff, though lack Dickey's command and his
more-advanced feel for pitching.
relative unknown in 2013 after posting a modest 6-6, 3.82 record with
63 strikeouts in 73 innings as a freshman at Blinn, the 6-foot-3,
205-pound Dickey became a marked man among Texas-based scouts last
fall when the velocity on his fastball, typically in the 89-91 mph
range last spring, spiked to the mid-90s. With greater arm speed in a
loose, easy delivery, his secondary pitches also became much sharper.
Cosart and Weigel are all projected second- or third-round picks in
this year's draft. Unlike Dickey, Cosart and Weigel are transfers
from four-year programs. Cosart, a red-shirt freshman, is a transfer
from Duke, Weigel from Pacific.
recruited to Duke as an athletic, two-way player with significant arm
strength, the 6-foot-1, 180-pound Cosart (younger brother of Houston
Astros righthander Jarred Cosart) left that program without even
playing a game as a freshman. He has since focused on pitching only
in junior college, and his fastball velocity saw a steady climb to
93-96 mph last fall, topping at 98, though his secondary stuff needs
went 0-2, 8.02 while pitching in a variety of roles as a freshman at
Pacific, but made significant strides with both his stuff and command
during the summer for the California Collegiate League's Santa
Barbara Foresters, working mostly as a closer. He soon began throwing
strikes with a 93-97 mph fastball and 80-83 mph slider, and his
overnight transformation into a coveted prospect prompted him to
transfer to a nearby junior college to become draft eligible a year
ahead of schedule. The 6-foot-6, 210-pound righthander still has
plenty of work to do in refining an inconsistent delivery, but his
size and impressive stuff should make him a hot commodity for
California scouts this spring.
righthanded pitchers appear most in demand at the junior college
level with the 2014 draft still more than four months away, two
athletic outfielders from Nevada—Southern Nevada's Grant Heyman,
a transfer from Miami, and Western Nevada's Conor Harber—rank as
the top position players.
This is Premium Level content. You must be a Premium subscriber to read the rest.
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text:
Dates set for campuswide bystander intervention training
WMU students and employees are encouraged to become Western Heroes by learning how to safely intervene when they see potentially harmful behavior, lessening the "bystander effect."
WMU students and employees are encouraged to become Western Heroes by learning how to safely intervene when they see potentially harmful behavior, lessening the "bystander effect."
Students will be handing out candy in their decorated residence hall from 5 to 7 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 28. The event, hosted by Eicher/LeFevre Hall, is open to children in grades K-8.
WMU's precision flight team took third place in the National Intercollegiate Flying Association Region III competition, qualifying the team for next spring's national competition.
Dr. Janice M. Brown, executive director of the Kalamazoo Promise, will give a talk as part of the Keystone Community Bank Breakfast Speaker Series at 8 a.m. Friday, Oct. 26.
Buster's Family Weekend Adventure, set for Oct. 26-28, is a fun way for parents and family members of students to experience what college life is like at WMU.
On-campus open houses for high school students and their families are scheduled for 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 26, Nov. 9 and Nov. 30 in the Bernhard Center.
Dr. Mark Embree, professor of computational applied mathematics at Rice, will speak at 4 p.m. Friday, Oct. 26, in 1110 Rood Hall. The talk is free and open to the public.
The speaker series, sponsored by the University Center for the Humanities, will bring several speakers to campus to discuss the 2012-13 theme of "Power and Publics."
The Euclid Quartet will perform at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 24, in the Dalton Center Recital Hall. A 7 p.m. discussion hosted by Dr. Dan Jacobson, WMU professor of music, will precede the concert.
Chris Wallace will open the show for Grammer at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 24, in the Bernhard Center Ballroom. Admission is $1 with a valid student Bronco Card and $2 without.
WMU partners with Open Doors Kalamazoo and the Kalamazoo Neighborhood Housing Services to provide non-credit history, literature, philosophy and writing courses free of charge to area residents.
Applications will be accepted through 5 p.m. Friday, Nov. 2, for sponsored programs and activities for the 2013 campus celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Free tickets are available to hear Olympic runner and World War II hero Louis Zamperini speak at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 23, in the Bernhard Center's North Ballroom.
The film "Mooz-lum" will be shown at the Little Theatre at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 23. A Skype discussion with the film's director, Qasim "Q" Basir, will follow the film screening.
Kirk D. Arnold, a staff member in building custodial and support services, died Wednesday, Oct. 3, at age 58. A private memorial service is planned at a later date; memorial guestbook entries may be made online.
The University Symphonic Band will perform a free concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 21, in Miller Auditorium. The band will perform a work by Christopher Biggs, WMU assistant professor of digital composition.
Sections of WMU's cable television system, EduCable, will be interrupted for varying periods of time between Oct. 15 and Nov. 15 due to the demolition of the old Sangren Hall.
WMU students can get a little extra help with their research papers and projects during the Halloween-themed "Night of the Research Paper" from 4 to 10 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 23, at Waldo Library.
National Campus Sustainability Day is Wednesday, Oct. 24. Events at WMU include a student luncheon, campus sustainability tour, project showcase and keynote address by the Planetwalker.
Nominations for the fall round of Western Michigan University's semiannual Make a Difference awards are due by Wednesday, Oct. 31. Nomination instructions and forms are available online.
Deborah Jack, an artist whose work is based in video and sound installation, photography, painting and text, shows her exhibit "Shore" in the Monroe-Brown Gallery through Nov. 9.
"Safety not Guaranteed," a comedy about a mysterious classified ad that claims the ability to travel through time, will be screened at the Little Theatre Friday through Sunday, Oct. 19-21.
A campus memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 21, for Dr. Van Cooley, interim dean of the College of Education and Human Development, who died July 31.
A TRiO Student Success Program duo meets the challenge to maintain a 4.0 GPA and earns lunch with President John M. Dunn along with kudos from state Sen. Debbie Stabenow.
Dr. Hal B. Jenson, founding dean of the new WMU School of Medicine, announced that preliminary accreditation has been granted, allowing for recruitment to begin for the school's first class.
Based on the individual performances of cadets, the WMU ROTC topped other Michigan programs at a 29-day leadership training course held in Washington.
The food drive, benefitting the Loaves and Fishes food pantry, runs through Nov. 4. Donations are welcome at the box office or at performances of "The Three Musketeers" or "Spring Awakening."
Wayne Muller, bestselling author and inspirational speaker, will be on hand for the celebration of the Integrative Holistic Health and Wellness program's 30th anniversary Saturday, Oct. 20.
MarAa Isabel Berbes Ribeaux, researcher of popular religion at the Casa del Caribe in Santiago de Cuba, will deliver a lecture in Spanish at 11 a.m. Friday, Oct. 19.
Jen Randall, co-founder of the Kalamazoo-based from Maestro, will kick off the first session of the new Entrepreneurship Forum at the Haworth College of Business Friday, Oct. 19.


text:
Visit our main website at www.StDavids.com
Debra Wood, RN
See also:
Heartburn is a burning sensation in the lower chest. Heartburn can be caused by different conditions, but most often it is related to gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).
Copyright © Nucleus Medical Media, Inc.
Heartburn is caused by stomach acid that moves up into the esophagus. A muscle at the top of the stomach allows food to enter the stomach. This muscle also closes to prevent food and acid from moving back up into the esophagus. Certain conditions can keep this muscle from closing completely, which allows acid to flow out. This causes heartburn.
Factors that may increase your chance of heartburn include:
Foods and beverages associated with heartburn include:
Medications and supplements associated wtih heartburn include:
Heartburn symptoms usually occur after overeating or lying down after a big meal. The symptoms may last for a few minutes or a few hours.
Common heartburn symptoms may include:
Other symptoms and complications of reflux include:
If reflux persists, the acid can damage the esophagus. Symptoms of esophageal damage include:
It is common to experience heartburn occasionally. If you have heartburn at least 2 times per week, make an appointment to see your doctor. Call your doctor if you have any symptoms of heartburn complications.
Heartburn and chest pain due to a
heart attack
can feel similar. Call for emergency medical services right away if you have:
If you are not sure of the cause of any pain in your chest, call for emergency medical services right away.
The doctor will ask about your symptoms and medical history. A physical exam will be done. Your doctor may be able to make a diagnosis based on your symptoms. Your doctor may also take images of your esophagus or stomach with an
upper GI series. A sample of your esophagus may be taken and sent for examination. This is often done during an
Other tests may include:
Talk to your doctor about the best treatment plan for you. Treatment will depend on what is causing your heartburn. Treatment may focus on preventing heartburn from occuring or repairing damage causing the heartburn.
To help decrease the indicidence of heartburn:
Medication may help relieve symptoms and repair any damage to the esophagus. Many prescription heartburn medications are available over-the-counter. Your doctor may recommend the following.
If symptoms are severe and you cannot tolerate medication, surgery may be an option.
The most common surgery for heartburn is
fundoplication. The doctor wraps the stomach around the esophagus. This creates pressure on the muscle at the opening to the stomach.
An advantage of endoscopic techniques is that they do not involve incisions in the skin. Instead, the doctor inserts a lighted device called an endoscope through the mouth and down the esophagus. The doctor can perform one of a variety of procedures with this scope to decreases the backward flow of stomach acid into the esophagus.
If surgery or endoscopy is successful, you may no longer need heartburn medication.
There are no current guidelines to prevent heartburn.
Please be aware that this information is provided to supplement the care provided by your physician. It is neither intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. CALL YOUR HEALTHCARE PROVIDER IMMEDIATELY IF YOU THINK YOU MAY HAVE A MEDICAL EMERGENCY. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider prior to starting any new treatment or with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
Copyright © EBSCO Publishing. All rights reserved.
Women's Center of Texas12221 N. Mopac Expwy.Austin, TX 78758Telephone: (512) 478-3627Map & Directions


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Suset and JesusSunday, April 8th, 2012
[ngg_images gallery_ids="75″ display_type="photocrati-nextgen_basic_slideshow"]
I know I know I know…. its been since forever that I have had a chance to blog. Its been a crazy in 211 and 2012. Not only did we do 28 events last year, but I gave birth to the most perfect little boy! He is the pride and joy of my life and it has been the most amazing experience I have ever had. Needless to say I've been a tad busy so I have not had the chance to blog in a long while but I'm back at it. There have been sooooo many amazing events in the last year I dont even know where to start but here is one of my favorites, Suset and Jesus' wedding which we put together in less than 6 months! Martha and Jesus Ramirez from UDS Photo captured these great images! As always, thank you so very very very much UDS Photo.
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The wedding ceremony took place at Coral Gables Congregational Church and at the Beautiful Biltmore Hotel. Thanfully it was such a beautiful day. Being that October is so unpredictable, we were blessed with bright blue skies and great weather. It was a tad hot, Im not going to lie but I rather it be hot than rainy! We had guests and the Bridal party walking across the street to the church so great weather was a huge relief!
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What girl doesn't love a little bling, well okay fine ALOT of bling? … lol
Las damas y los caballeros =)
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Suset getting herself ready to meet the man of her dreams down the aisle. I helped her with her dress, she had about what seemed to be a thousand buttons in the back lol. Anything for my "bruji" (a nickname we call each other- come to think of it Im not even sure how we came up with it…). I am so thankful to have such a unique relationship with my brides. Its something I look forward to and enjoy throughout and after the wedding.
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Suset and Her Hubby Jesus took a couple of minutes to take pictures at the church just them too. Its such a special moment and really just about the only couple of un-interupted, silent, and peaceful alone time that they have for the rest of the night. The couple left in their car (one of my "favs" I ust add) back to the hotel where the party was already on its way, and did this crowd know how to party!
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HUGE Kudos to the design team- this was not-so-simple undertaking! Rick Interian, Yani, and the Team at Avant Gardens did a spectacular job in the decor of this wedding. Suset wanted something "different and unique"… honestly most brides want that too. Suset was so great in letting us "run" with our ideas. W wanted to something that was a huge wow factor but still keeping in mind that she wanted it not to look "over done". We knew exactly what she wanted and with her giving us creating freedom, this is what came of it. The base of the tall centerpiece in the middle of the clover table was covered in hydrangeas and curly willow and dendrobium orchid sprays flourished the top of the design. Any table with such "top heavy" decor needs a strong floral base to compliment it. A combination of roses, hydrangeas, orchids, and callas were placed in a lush design to balance the center of this massive 18 guests table. Each of the tables also had their own centerpiece- this is a very important part of THIS table design. Of course candles were used throughout for lighting and to give the element of romance that this bride wanted in her reception. The Alhambra ballroom is so stunning that simple, saturated lighting can make a great impact.
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The round tables in the clover clusters were dressed in ivory ruffle linens and complimented with gold chivari chairs. The 8 foot royal tables were dressed in a gold and ivory modern damask pattern and ivory chameleon chairs. The royal table design was a long centerpiece as a runner on the table matching the lush floral design on the clover tables. The third table design was a smaller and a bit different version of the large center design in the clover tables. It all flowed perfectly and looked absolutely stunning!
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The couple shared their first dance and family formalities at the beginning of the night in order to make sure that right after dinner it was time to party! hey partied until the morning hours. We had a blast planning this wedding. Thank you Bruji for trusting in me and the team so much. Te quiero!
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As always, I HAVE to give credit to every one who was such an important part in making this wedding day dream come true. I am HUGE believer in You are as good as the individuals in your team". So here it goes! To the Biltmore Hotel staff, Bruce Barbaree and Deborah Scherling – my dear friends and ultimate wedding gurus, Martha and Jesus Ramirez from UDS Photo, Rick Interian, Yani, and ALL of the Avant Gardens Team, Leo Espinosa and his team at DVP Studios, The very talented Rosie Cunil at Elegant Temptations, Nuage Designs for manufacturing the most amazing items for us to be able to rent for our events, Ubi Merrero aka "Jubes" for mixing his latin beats, and all of the other people who work so hard with us, Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Hugs <3


text:
Note added Oct. 4: I have revised this post so as to make the rationale, such as it is, for Christian's astrological assignments clearer at the end.
"Paul Christian" was the pseudonym of Jean-Baptist Pitois, who lived from 1811 to 1877, mainly in Paris. He was of some importance as a contributor to the occult tarot as initiated by Eliphas Levi.
Why this topic is of interest is that it suggests that the occult tarot of the 19th century may not have been the first to associate certain works and ideas to the tarot. Whether that means that there was an "underground stream" of tarot interpretation going from the late 15th century to the 19th, or merely that one 19th century occultist resurrected works not similarly appreciated since the Renaissance, I cannot say. But it fits with the correspondences I find between Etteilla's interpretations of the number cards and the Sola-Busca imagery of c. 1491, of Neopythagorean origin (http://neopythagoreanisminthetrot.blogspot.com/), and his appreciation of the "Zodiacus Vita" of 1535 Ferrara (http://zodiacusvita.blogspot.com/).
Two questions:
(a) What does the PMB 2nd artist have in common with the 19th century French occultist Paul Christian?
(b) What does the Schifanoia "room of the months" have in common with Christian's History of Magic?
Short answer: (a) Both the PMB 2nd artist and Christian used, in relation to the tarot, information in a book published by Johann Engel in 1488 containing allegorical depictions of the astrological degrees and decans as described in the work of a 13th century astrologer. The PMB 2nd artist used Engel's picture of the 26th degree of Libra as the design for his Strength card. Christian included a short version of Engel's list of degrees and decans in his 1863 L'Homme Rouge des Tuileries; in his 1870 []Histoire de la Magie[/i] he used the decans from that list in his astrological assignments to the tarot suit cards. He was the first, at least in print, to use the decans to interpret the tarot suit cards. I suspect that the reason he did so was that decans are a peculiarly Egyptian, or perhaps more properly, Greco-Egyptian, contribution to astrology, inspired by the 36 gods of the decans, or 10 day weeks, of the Egyptian calendar.
(b) Both the Schifanoia artists. c. 1470, and Christian, 1863 and 1870, used the same passage of the Astronomica of Marcus Manilius, a 1st century text lost until 1417 and generally ignored by astrologers after that. The Schifanoia used it in its association of gods to zodiacal sigms; Christian used it in his general presentation of astrology..
Long answer:
1. The PMB Strength card in relation to Engel's Astrolabium Planum.
Ross Caldwell wrote, quite some time ago, about the PMB Strength card (http://www.trionfi.com/0/i/r/11.html):
The page with Angelus's image of the 26th degree of Libra is below (from http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k591202/f136.item). Next to it I have put a 1655 translation into English that I found on the internet (https://app.box.com/shared/znpd10kqft).Another possible interpretation of the card is that it represents an image from the astrological tradition, so beloved of the Renaissance, including the courts of Pavia and Ferrara. When Iohannis Angelus published Petrus de Abano's images of the decans and degrees in his Astrolabium Planum in 1494, he depicted the 26th degree of Libra as "Victor Belli", The Victor in War. The translations and original works of Petrus de Abano (1250-1316), are considered the sources of the astrological imagery in the Palazzo della Ragione in Padua and the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara. Angelus' depiction of the symbol for 26 Libra is remarkably similar to the VS [Visconti-Sforza] card, both in the overall simplicity of its design and in such details as the shape of the man's garments and the lion's tail between its legs.
The correspondence is to the image when reversed, as Ross showed:
A problem is that most tarot researchers writing about the PMB 2nd artist cards think they were painted earlier than 1494. Ross himself suggests 1475 in his caption to the card. The 1494 is for the Venice edition. There was an earlier printing in Augsburg of 1488. But most people, except for the art historians, think that the card is earlier than 1488, too. Is it possible that the the images were already available in 1470, for use in the Schifanoia, as Ross suggests? The problem is that the decans of the Schifanoia are based on the Picatrix, not the Astrolabium. Compare Engel's illustrations of the decans of Aries, supplemented by Engel's text (of which the 1655 translation follows, with those of the Schifanoia (on top). (I have omitted Engel's pictures of the first two degrees, to which the words on both sides of the ram refer)
The fit of Engel's images and Latin with the words in English of "John Angelus" is good. But the fit of either to the Schifanoia images of the same decans is not very close. As we will see, the Schifanoia decans' fit to the Picatrix is much better.
2. The Schifanoia and the Picatrix
What the decans of the Schifanoia actually are based on is the Picatrix. This is a work originally in Arabic, translated into Castilian in the 13th century and then into Latin for the rest of Europe. The Castilian translation was done for Alfonso the Wise; the translator for the Latin has not been identified. Here is the Latin text of the Picatrix, describing the three decans of Aries (https://warburg.sas.ac.uk/pdf/fbh295b2205454.pdf, pp. 75-76). Above it I have put the three images as they appear in one of the Latin manuscripts (reproduced at http://www.engramma.it/eOS2/index.php?id_articolo=1244).
Here is my attempt to translate the Latin. It is not a language I have studied, so there are sure to be errors. I hope and expect that it is close enough for our purposes.3. Prima facies Arietis est Martis, et ascendit in ea secundum opinionem magni sapientis istius sciencie forma hominis nigri, inquieti et magni corporis, rubeos oculos habentis et in eius manu ascionem incidentem tenentis, panno albo precincti; et est magni precii in se. Et hec facies est fortitudinis. altitudinis et precii absque verecundia. Et hec est eius forma.
[start p. 76]
4. Et ascendit in secunda facie Arietis mulier viridibus pannis induta et una tibia carens. Et hec facies est altitudinis, nobilitatis, precii et regni. Et hec est eius forma.
[p.127] Et in tercia facie Arietis ascendit vir inquietus, in manibus auream armillam tenens et pannis rubeis indutus, cupiens facere bonum et non potest. Et hec facies est subtilitatis et subtilium magisteriorum et rerum novarum et instrumentorum et istis similium. Et hec est eius forma.
Here the fit to the Schifanoia decans is much closer than for the d'Albano text published by Engel.3. The first face Aries is in Mars, and there ascends, in the opinion of great men of this science, the image of a black man, of restlessness and great size, red eyes, and having a hand ascionem incidentem (?) holding a white cloth near him; And there is great good in it. And this is the face of strength, loftiness, and good, without shame. And this is its image.
[Start p. 76]
4. And in the second face of Aries is a woman wearing green [or youthful] clothes and separated leg. And this face is lofty, noble, and regal. And this is its image.
[P.127] and the third face of Aries is of a restless man, in his hands holding a golden bracelet and dressed in red clothing, wanting to do good but not being able to. And this face is of keenness and of subtle teaching and a thing of newness and usefulness and the like. And this is its image.
There is also a version given by Agrippa, written around 1530. He says his source is "the Arabians". Here is the 18th century English translation (http://www.esotericarchives.com/agrippa/agripp2c.htm, ch. xxxvii):
This is obviously based on the same Latin text of the Picatrix that I have already quoted, or similar.Therefore it is said, that in the first face of Aries, ascendeth the image of a black man, standing and cloathed in a white garment, girdled about, of a great body, with reddish eyes, and great strength, and like one that is angry; and this image signifieth and causeth boldness, fortitude, loftiness and shamelesness; in the second face ascendeth a form of a woman, outwardly cloathed with a red garment, and under it a white, spreading abroad over her feet, and this image causeth nobleness, height of a Kingdom, and greatness of dominion: in the third face ariseth the figure of a white man, pale, with reddish hair, and cloathed with a red garment, who carrying on the one hand a golden Bracelet, and holding forth a wooden staff, is restless, and like one in wrath, because he cannot perform that good he would. This image bestoweth wit, meekness, joy and beauty:
For the degrees, Agrippa cites "Petrus de Abano" but only gives a few of the images, without saying which degrees they are for. That of Hercules, as Ross notes, "giveth victory in war" (http://www.esotericarchives.com/agrippa ... htm#chap37), Agrippa says, without mentioning the lion. The Schifanoia does not have illustrations of the degrees.
Given that the Engel was not available until 1488, in an edition at Augsburg, it seems to me likely that the PMB Strength card was made after that, perhaps even after the 1494 Venice edition. Even if the text by Albano was available in 1470 Ferrara--which is speculation--the fit to the image is too close to have been based on just that text. Since most art historians (all, in fact, that I am aware of, most recently Bandera in "Quelle carte de triumphi che se fanno a Cremona": I tarocchi dei Bembo, 2013, p. 50) attribute the PMB 2nd artist cards to Amtonio Cicognara, a painter documented from 1480 to 1515, this conclusion should not be too shocking. Had Engel's images been available for use on the Schifanoia in Ferrara, one would expect them to have been used. Ross says that it is generally understood that they were used; if so, he has to say which decans in particular; Aries doesn't work.
3. The Schifanoia and Manilius's Astronomica
Besides the Picatrix, the Schifanoia's other main source is the Astronomica of Manilius, as Aby Warburg shoed in a famous lecture of 1912. Manilius wrote in Latin in the first century b.c. He associated a different Olympian god with each of the 12 signs of the zodiac. That is the explanation for why so many gods which are not planetary gods are at the top of the 12 sections of the walls in the room. For example, the presiding deity over Aries is Athena. Manilius says (pp. 117-119, Goold translation):
The Cytherean is Venus; the Mother of the Gods is Cybele.Pallas is protectress of the Ram, the Cytherean of the Bull, and Phoebus of the comely Twins; you, Mercury, rule the Crab and you, Jupiter, as well as the Mother of the Gods, the Lion; the Virgin with her sheaf belongs to Ceres, and the Balance to Vulcan who wrought it; bellicose Scorpion clings to Mars; Diana cherishes the hunter, a man to be sure, but a horse in his other half, and Vesta the cramped stars of Capricorn; opposite Jupiter Juno has the sign of Aquarius, and Neptune acknowledges the Fishes as his own for all that they are in heaven.
Besides influencing the Schifanoia, it has been speculated that the prominence of these Olympians in Manilius might have contributed to the formation of the first known deck with a permanent fifth suit, that of Marziano in Milan c. 1420, inasmuch as Poggio, who had found the manuscript in a monastery near Basel in 1417, passed through Milan with the papal entourage in 1418.
There is the difficulty that Manilius's list is not exactly the same as Marziano's (compare at http://trionfi.com/martiano-da-tortona- ... -16-heroum). Notably, Vulcan is missing from Marziano, while Bacchus is missing from Manilius. In fact all 13 were members of the 12 at one time or another: it was held that Dionysus replaced Vesta, who preferred not to be at Olympus. Marziano, for his scheme to work, needed 4 virgins and 4 gods of pleasure. Both pleasure-loving Baccjis and virginal Vesta were useful for that purpose, but not dour and married Vulcan.
Besides the Schifanoia in Ferrara only one other fresco cycle was influenced by Manilius, the Room of the Winds at the Palazzo Te in Mantua, done for a ruler who was also the son of Isabella d'Este (Kristen Lippincott, p. 96 at http://www.kristenlippincott.com/assets ... graphy.pdf). In Florence, however, Ficino repeats Manilius's associations of gods with zodiacal signs in his famous De Amore, with important additions. There Ficino says (quoted by Lippincott on p. 103)
So in the Schifanoia, we have, for Aries, Athena and her friends:...Pallas, through Aries, teaches the art of weaving; Vulcan, through Libra, teaches bronze-working; and the others teach the rest of the arts.
It was Ficino, in this work on Plato's Symposium published in 1484, who spelled out the gods' gifts to humanity in so many words. But someone (Ficino or some other) had already made both the connection to Manilius and that of the gods to the various arts, because Cybele is featured prominently at the Schifanoia in connection with Leo but not mentioned by Ficino (see Lippincott note 3).
Finally, Agrippa quotes Manilius (http://www.esotericarchives.com/agrippa/agripp2d.htm, ch. LVIII) in c. 1530 to describe the rulers of the zodiacal signs:
After Agrippa these sources were not exactly lost (Manilius in particular was never lost, contrary to what Tyson says in his note 3 to Book 3, chapter LIV, of his edition of Agrippa), but also do not much influence the practice of astrology. Who would use a book that failed to discus the astrological role of the planets?Pallas doth rule the Ram, Venus the Bull,
Phebus the Twins, and Mercury doth rule
The Cancer, and the Lyon [The Lion, i.e. Leo] guides doth Jove,
Ceres doth Virgo, Vulcan Libra move.
For Scorpion Mars; for Sagittarius faire
Diana cares; for Capricorn doth care
Vesta; Aquarius Juno doth protect;
And Neptune Pisces -----
4. Paul Christian's use of Manilius and Engel
The French occultist and tarotist Paul Christian (1811-1877) repeats the same material in Manilius that we see in the Schifanoia and perhaps in Marziano, and the same material in Engel that we see in the PMB Strength card. But now it is in the context of cartomancy. Here is Christian on the protector gods, p. 507 of Histoire de la Magie:
This is essentially the same as Manilius. Christian could have gotten this by way of Agrippa, but Manilius himself was commented on by some astrologers directly, e.g. Scaliger. On the internet I found this book cover:
"Paul Christian" was the pseudonym of Jean-Baptist Pitois. The "Ch" stands for "Christian"; so apparently he adopted "Christian" as his first name, then reduced the "Pitois" to "P" (as his early works are by "P. Christian") and finally made it "Paul". The attached blurb refers us to L'Homme Rouge des Tuileries (https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-husvGUvX0wI/ ... eIntro.jpg). It also states that the images were in fact included in the Augsburg first edition, i.e. the edition in 1488, something I had been wondering about.
Christian also has a list of the 36 decans and their interpretations, among other things for use in interpreting the suit cards; this list of decans corresponds to to that of Engel and not Agrippa. In conformity with the Egyptian origin of the decans, he has an Egyptian-sounding name for the "protector god" for each. Whether these names have any historical basis is not clear, but since none of the sources have them, I'd guess he made them up.. He gave the list twice, once in his 1863 L'Homme Rouge des Tuileries and again in his 1870 L'Histoire de la Magie. Since they are not quite the same, I give them both. L'Homme Rouge pp. 139-141 (cut and pasted, since they are stuck in among the degrees), p. 507 of Histoire, and the English, p. 476 of History .
The principle about decans is that they follow the planet they are assigned to as well as the zodiacal sign under which they are subsumed. So in Aries the first decan is Mars, the second the Sun, and the third Venus. Anger befits Mars, nobility the Sun, and love of pleasure Venus. The translator has made a mistake in translating "supplesse" as "quickness"; it should be "flexibility", thus "flexible spirit" rather than "quick brain".
As for the 360 degrees, the English translation of "John Angelus", dated 1655, contains descriptions of both the 36 decans and the 360 degrees. This matches the 360 plus 36 given by Christian in his 1863 work, Homme Rouge des Tuilleries. Someone has actually put the list from that work online, in French; I invite you to compare "Angelus" (https://app.box.com/shared/znpd10kqft) ... ain_fr.pdf). Christian's is surely derived from Engel's.
Here are the 23rd through 26th degrees of Libra in Christian's 1863 list, below the pictures from Engel 1494 and the 1655 translation.
One thing is clear, that Christian's formulation does not derive from a version of Engel that had the pictures. The dragon becomes a serpent, symbol of cunning, and the peacock is now fanning his tail, unlike what is pictured.
Christian himself mentions neither Engel nor Manilius by name. I would guess that his immediate source had copied them out without giving the source.
It is a striking coincidence that Christian should have quoted both Manilius and Engel, both texts that had been part of the environment of the tarot in the decades around 1500 and then of little interest except by a few. Neither was well known in Christian's time. It took the scholar Aby Warburg, for example, to see the connection of Manilius to the Schifanoia. Engel was equally obscure.
5. Christian's use of Engel's decans in the context of Levi's Sefer Yetzirah
In his system of cartomancy, Christian takes from Engel only the decans, and then only in relation to the suit cards. He is thus the first tarot theorist to have used the decans in a presentation of the tarot. The Golden Dawn's later use of decans, although different, simply recycles Christian's idea (if in fact it is his and not someone else's before him). However I should point out that in Christian's "Egyptian" context, it is not cards he is thinking of, but rather metal plates with images engraved on them. To get a "reading", as they say, one does not shuffle and deal these plates, but rather uses Christian's system of astrology to get a set of numbers which then correspond to the numbers on the corresponding plates. I do not understand his system at all, but it is vaguely reminiscent of Etteilla's in his 4th Cahier. It depends on converting the person's name into numbers, by a special method of reduction, and looking for these numbers (plural, since a person has more than one name) in a table corresponding to the birth year. Years go in seven year cycles, starting with Saturn, ending with the Moon, and then repeating the process; he has a table that goes as far as 2016, beyond which he does not think it will be necessary (little did he know!).
To understand the principles behind Christian's astrological assignments, we have to first understand the Sefer Yetzirah's division of the 22 letters of the Hebrew letters into 3 mothers, 7 doubles, and 12 simples (never mind what these are!), and the astrological assignments for each of them as Levi understood them. The Sefer Yetzirah, a work from late antiquity, is a source that does not seem to have been well known to Renaissance Christians. Pico makes I think one reference to it; Lazzarelli makes important reference to a commentary on the Sefer Yetzirah but not the book itself. I find it highly unlikely that the Sefer Yetzirah had anything to do with the tarot during the 15th century, and probably not after that, until Eliphas Levi (birth name Alphonse Constant; despite the name change he was a devout if eccentric Christian) and his student Paul Christian (another ex-seminarian). One reason is that before Levi, if anyone tried to assign astrological entities in the order suggested by the Sefer Yetzirah, they would have come up with a rather poor fit. The first planet the Sefer Yetzirah gives is Saturn, for the letter Beth, according to Papus's translation (Qabbalah 1891, 1977 English translation pp. 119-120,) and all historical versions translated since (see Ariyeh Kaplan, Sefer Yetzirah, 1993, pp. 174-176, pp. 264, 275, 290 ). That assignment may possibly fit the Magician (if alpha is assigned to the Fool) or the Popess (if alpha is assigned to the Magician), but surely the next planet, Jupiter, assigned to Gimel, would fit neither the Popess nor the Empress. Nor would a suitable fit be found to other early orders: two of the first four cards were female, but all of the first four planets, Saturn through the Sun, were rather assertive males.
Levi changed all that by fiat. Beth in the Sefer Yetzirah was the Moon, he said, and Gimel was Venus. So if Beth, which did double duty as both the second letter of the alphabet and as the number 2 in Hebrew, was the Popess, it would all work out fine. Hopefully no one would look. There was at the time no French translation. (Westcott later was to pull the same trick for the Golden Dawn, but with a different set of assignments, again pulled out of what appears to have been thin air.)
Here is Levi's discussion of mother, double, and simple letters. He addressed all three, but only assigned specific letters to the doubles (below, from Clef des Mysteres, 1861, downloaded from Gallica; followed by Crowley's translation, p. 85, of Key of the Mysteries, online).
The cards are not mentioned per se, but since we know what letters Levi assigned to each of them, we can at least assign planets to the cards with the seven double letters assigned to them. The Arabic numbers are what correspond to the ordinal placement of the letters in the alphabet (e.g. Aleph is first, so = 1). We have
BETH = 2 High Priestess, Moon
GIMEL = 3 Empress, Venus
DALETH = 4 Emperor, Jupiter
KAPH = 16 Tower, Mars
PE = 17 Star, Mercury
RESH = 20 Judgment, Saturn
TAU = 21 World, Sun
These assignments do fit the corresponding cards, even if they have nothing to do with the Sefer Yetzirah's actual assignments. That Levi gave no astrological assignments to the mother letters carries over into Christian's not giving the corresponding cards any either. But for the 12 simples, there are too many to ignore; also, they fit more easily into the three dimensional map of the cosmos. Christian simply uses those in the Sefer Yetzirah as then available, starting with Aries and ending with Pisces.
At one time the Sefer Yetzirah was thought to be very ancient, from the time of Abraham, if not by that patriarch himself. If so, it could reasonably be thought to have been the way the Egyptians connected their 22 golden plates, on which the tarot images were inscribed, to the elements, planets, and zodiacal signs of astrology. Of course the whole idea is absurd, because there is no evidence for the tarot before the 15th century, and the Sefer Yetzirah was written after Egypt was Chistianized, but let that not stop us.
Below is Christian's list of astrological assignments to tarot subjects (gold plates, that is: he never mentions cards) for the birth year of Saturn, the first birth year in the seven year cycle; I take it from pp. 495-496 of Histoire, 1870. It will be in two parts, starting with the majors. For them, he tells us, the assignments are the same in every birth year. On the right in red I have put a translation of the card's name and the associated planet or sign of the zodiac. On the left I have put the type of letter it is for that card, starting with alpha for the Magus. Then the planet or zodiac can be that of the associated letter in the Sefer Yetzirah, using Levi's version of its assignments of double letters to planets. There are no assignments for the mother letters.
Then we come to the suit cards. Here on the right I have translated the name of the card and the main planet or zodiacal sign assigned. On the left I have given, for the number cards, the type of letter pertaining to that card (Egyptian being the same as Hebrew), and for the court cards the season and the zodiacal sign pertaining to that season. I will explain more fully after giving the list. Except for the planets added as an additional "influence", this list, too, is the same for all the birth years. I have no idea what rationale, if any, he had for these planets and their assignments. They are in most cases not the planet typically associated with that decan.
For the Kings (which he calls "maitres", masters), Christian is using the 4 brightest stars of the zodiacal constellations, as indicated by their associated signs (I get this point from Decker, Depaulis, and Dummett, Wicked Pack of Cards p. 211). For Leo the star would be Regulus. Then for the rest of the court cards (Mistress, Combattant, and Slave) he uses the zodiacal signs associated with each of the four seasons. For scepters, it is the spring signs.
Then for the number cards he repeats the sequence of planetary and zodiacal associations that he has already used for the triumph sequence, using either Arcana I-X (in Scepters and Blades) or Arcana XI-XX (in Cups and Shekels). Two of the Arcana have no astrological association, where Arcana I and XIII would be (see his list for the Majors). Instead of using the zodiacal signs over again, after having used them once for the major arcana, he is using their decans instead. In the case of planets, there is no equivalent substitute, so for them he simply repeats the appropriate planet.
For the majors, Christian's assignments, and lack of them, are repeated faithfully by Papus, in both of his books on the tarot (Tarot des Bohemiens, 1899, and Le Tarot Divinitoire, 1910), and Robert Falconnier, 1896, who provided actual cards done in an Egyptianized style done for him by the artist Maurice Otto Wegener. For the minors, however, Papus used the spring decans for the 1-9 of Batons, the summer ones to Cups, and so on. The King, Queen, and Knight then took the seasonal zodiacal signs themselves, while the Pages and 10s were transitions to the next series and left unassigned (Tarot of the Bohemians pp. 235-237 of Waite translation).
The advantage of Christian's system for the suit cards, as opposed to the Golden Dawn's, is that the minors reflect on a lower level what is already in the majors, which in turn reflects the yet higher level array of the Sefer Yetzirah, which in turn is derivative from the 10 sefiroth. Unlike the Golden Dawn's versions, it does so in a way that does not involve seeing the majors as paths between sefiroth and the minors as the sefiroth themselves. The minors, and especially the number cards, are clearly derivative from the majors and not the other way around. It at least has that to be said for it.
But what a particular order of elements, planets and zodiacal signs, as generated by the Hebrew alphabet in around 600 a.d., has to do with a particular sequence of Christian allegorical cards generated in the 15th century, not generated with it in mind, is something I have yet to understand. In my opinion, if the tarot is a mystery, the Sefer Yetzirah is one of the biggest red herrings, i.e. false leads, in its solution.


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Home > News & Events > Wayland Press Release Archives > 2001 Press Releases > December 2001 > Education students get taste of teaching during Ash partnership
Education students get taste of teaching during Ash partnership
A group of students from Ash Sixth Grade recently got a taste of college life when they spent half of their day on Nov. 14 at Wayland Baptist University. The culmination of a 10-week partnership, the Wednesday visit introduced the sixth-graders to various disciplines within the university and helped them apply skills they'd learned during the program with Wayland students.
The benefits were mutual. During that ten weeks, Wayland students enrolled in the education course "Principles and Practices in Education" were paired with Ash students as "buddies" who worked together on special lessons designed to build math skills.
The Wayland students would spend part of their class time on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings at Ash, working with students and taking turns leading a particular lesson. At the beginning, students designed games that would help teach math concepts. Then they were paired with Ash teachers to come up with their lesson plans.
On one day, for example, Wayland students Amanda Gonzales and Lydia Martin have the floor, leading a lesson on the metric system. Foregoing the traditional overhead and markers, the pair leads the class through each of the major metric measurements using cut pieces of red string. They then must measure each other's smiles with the appropriate string.
When the bell rings, the Ash students depart for their next class. The Wayland students remain for a time of debriefing with their peers and Dr. Jim Todd, professor of education. In this brief period, students share positive comments about the lesson with Martin and Gonzales.
The end result, Todd said, is improved scores for the sixth-graders and a different perspective on creative teaching for the WBU education students.
"One of the focuses in this class is that teaching is a relationship, not a theoretical construct but a reality. When we pair the kids at Ash with students at Wayland it gives them extra help and attention to improve their TAAS scores," he said. "I can stand up and talk about innovative ways to teach, but the best way is to do it themselves."
The Ash Math partnership is in its 10th semester. Originally, the program was developed by Todd and Ash teacher Amy Manchee, and the pair have refined the model into what it now is. He said sixth grade was ideal because of it demonstrates the gamut of developmental levels and represents one of the hardest levels to recruit teachers: middle school. Todd said while the program is fun for students of both age groups, the proof really is in the pudding.
"We've been able to show that the kids' TAAS scores improved," he said. "We've even shown this model at two national conferences."