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Wedding Accessories, Custom Wedding Sets, Flower Girl Baskets, Ring Pillows & more by Minali Design
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Welcome to WeddingsByMinali.com. You can buy one of our beautifully designed Wedding Accessory Sets, you can customize your own, or you can purchase items individually. Our Wedding Accessories are made with care from high quality materials and delivered to your door at discount wedding supply prices.
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What we do - We provide you with excellent service and affordable prices. Here you can find everything for all of your bridal and wedding needs. Our accessories are quality products at discount wedding supply prices. We also give you the option of custom creating your wedding accessories by choosing different styles and colors. You can purchase a whole matching wedding accessory set or mix and match individual items.
How It Works - When you decide to purchase an item click "Add To Cart" then choose to check out or keep shopping. Once you have added all your wedding accessories to your cart just proceed to checkout. All online transactions on WeddingsbyMinali.com are done through a secure server, you can be sure that your information is safe. View our privacy policy for more information. You can always view your cart while you are shopping by clicking "View Cart" in the left hand navigation. We accept Visa, Mastercard, Discover , American Express, e-checks, and Paypal. Wedding accessory purchases are shipped quickly and your item(s) should arrive within -14 business days.
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Colors include Black, Blue, Baby blue, Royal blue, Navy blue, Periwinkle, Pool blue, Brown (chocolate brown), Burgundy, Fuchsia, Gold, Green, Mint green, Lime green , Hot Pink, Hunter Green, Ivory, Lavender, Lilac, Mauve, Orange, Olive green, Peach, Pink, Plum, Purple (Eggplant, Plum), Red, Apple Red, Sage, Moss, Silver, Turquoise, Teal, White and Yellow.


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Name: Immorals 2
Director: Bill Margold
Duration: 70 min
Year: 1989
Language: English
Country: United States
Categories: Free vintage black porn, 1989, United States, English, Bill Margold, Lynn LeMay, Viper, Renee Summers, Lee Caroll, Alex Storm, Joey Silvera, Jerry Butler, Ray Victory, Bill Margold, Hank Rose, Bald, Black
Actress: Lynn LeMay,Viper,Renee Summers,Lee Caroll,Alex Storm
Actors: Joey Silvera,Jerry Butler,Ray Victory,Bill Margold,Hank Rose
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subset: commoncrawl


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Tuesday, August 24, 2010
'Sweetheart Suzy' Revisited
I decided to see what it would look like with a tiny bit of fiberfill added to the petals .
The petals now look like little puffy pointed pillows. I like it.
Instead of a tufted center, I went with a stack of coordinating buttons.
Although the method is similar to the original, the end product looks slightly different. It now has a really nice chunky feel to it. I hope that you give this a try.
It has been a very busy past couple of weeks for our family. My son is now settled in his dorm room and my hubby and I have become temporary empty nesters (if you exclude the fur and feathered babies that also call this place home). It has suddenly become very quiet around here and something that the hubs and I will need to get used to.
I hope you have a wonderful and creative day!
17 comments:
- Annette said...
Wow I love it.. also the new version... Soon I will give it a try,
Do you have something for the fall in mind... I'm out of inspiration..
- Tue Aug 24, 12:26:00 PM 2010
- Vicki said...
I love it too and think that the puffy petals look great and I also like how you have got the buttons. :) Its great :)
- Tue Aug 24, 01:44:00 PM 2010
- Merry said...
I really like both versions...
- Tue Aug 24, 02:20:00 PM 2010
- Nile e Richard said...
Oi Arlete.
Lindas flore de tecido.
Flores sempre são bem vindas.
- Tue Aug 24, 02:29:00 PM 2010
- sweetiepie said...
Lettie, I think both flowers are beautiful!!
Take care.
- Tue Aug 24, 05:50:00 PM 2010
- Gra said...
What a great idea!!! I love your blog, so full of beautiful tutorials and pictures. You are so creative!!
Your son will be ok and both you and your husband will be too! Just take your time, one day at a time. And fill your day with more of these beautiful works.
Greetings from Argentina
- Tue Aug 24, 06:43:00 PM 2010
- Amy said...
What a cute flower! We've been empty nesters for a little over a year. At first it is really strange and sad. But then you realize this is you and your husband's time. Relax and enjoy!
- Tue Aug 24, 08:11:00 PM 2010
- Barb said...
Tooo cute!
The ladies here in Amerika Samoa love flowers so one night about 30 women showed up and I taught them how to make your beautiful flowers...they had an awesome time.
I also teach a group of ladies to sew and crafts....and these gals just took off with these flowers, they had them in their hair, on their totes, on their shirts....it is just amazing how you have touched so many people with your creativity. Thanks soooooooooooo much!
- Wed Aug 25, 01:55:00 AM 2010
- Rumi said...
They look great either way!
- Wed Aug 25, 06:17:00 AM 2010
Hello! My name is Luciana, I am Brazilian and I would say I'm addicted to crafts. Whenever I go into the Internet for news and those that are more like those related to the tissues. Your blog is undoubtedly the most beautiful I have ever seen and explanatory. Thank you for gifting us with so many beautiful things. I'm sorry if there are any errors.
- Wed Aug 25, 09:37:00 AM 2010
I would also ask, if not others, to make a step by step teaching how to put elastic, and sew the elastic in the pants, shorts. Aloha!
- Wed Aug 25, 10:44:00 AM 2010
- Kristin said...
I really love the new version! Great job Lettie.
- Wed Aug 25, 02:05:00 PM 2010
- SewCalGal said...
I liked your original tutorial and I like what you did with this one. Lovely.
- Wed Aug 25, 10:00:00 PM 2010
- Kim D. said...
Really pretty Lettie!! I've made a similar flower, but I love your centers.
- Fri Aug 27, 12:19:00 PM 2010
- emy said...
Beautiful s new version!!!
Grazie Lettie!!!
- Sat Aug 28, 08:49:00 AM 2010
- Sammy said...
This is beautiful. You tutorial is very easy to follow, and
you have a lovely blog.
I invite you to visit my blog, and zI hope you like it.
Marie and I would love to hear from you.
-Samya :-)
- Sat Aug 28, 12:40:00 PM 2010
- Nana's Fun Stuff said...
I found your blog through one of my email alerts and am so glad I did. You have adoreable ideas and I just love your tutorials. I am now your newest follower :) Have a great day!
- Tue Aug 31, 09:01:00 AM 2010


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Trading Card UpdateOct 22nd, 2008 | By Krystal | Category: Featured Articles, Merchandise, Movie News
According to an Inkworks email, the Twilight trading cards will be released on November 19. There was also a little more detail on the trading card binder. Apparently, the front will feature the Bella & Edward poster image and the back will be a group shot of the cast. Less than a month you guys!
[continue reading…]


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Advising Center Founded, Aug. 15, 2000
SOCORRO, N.M., August 2, 2000 -- Administrators at New Mexico Tech have reallocated some of the university's current resources -- both human and fiscal -- in order to establish an on-campus Advising Resource Center for its students.
The new Advising Resource Center, which was created in response to directives spelled out in the university's Strategic Plan, is being developed as a centralized counseling and tutoring center and resource library for both students and faculty.
A recent internal study focusing on students' "First-Year Experience" at New Mexico Tech also recommended that the university take immediate steps to form an advising center as a means of increasing both student enrollment and retention at the state-funded research university.
"In order not to reinvent the wheel, we first looked at models of advising centers which already had been established at other universities," says Herbert M. Fernandez, New Mexico Tech's Vice President for Institutional Development. "We then took what was best about these other programs and custom fit it to New Mexico Tech and to the particular needs of Tech students."
Ultimately, it was Tech President Daniel H. López who made the final decision to go ahead with creating the school's new Advising Resource Center, but only under the stipulation that it be done with current resources in a cost-effective manner.
"In order to make the Advising Resource Center a cost-effective proposal, we merged the Admission Office with Student Services to come up with an entirely new umbrella organization -- Student Affairs," explains Fernandez. "After examining the implications of this initial reallocation of human resources, President López then furnished the remainder of the financial resources needed to establish the Advising Resource Center. . . . If he hadn't acted decisively in a timely manner on the proposal, New Mexico Tech would have had to wait several more years before it could implement a new advising center."
Elaine DeBrine Howell, who previously served as a counselor and coordinator of academic support at New Mexico Tech, has been picked to head Tech's Advising Resource Center.
"The Advising Resource Center currently is in a transition period between development and implementation," DeBrine Howell says, "but we're moving forward with a lot of good ideas for programming. Right now, I'm in the process of meeting with the chairpersons of the academic departments to determine how the Advising Resource Center can assist the faculty in their delivery
of advising."
DeBrine Howell envisions the center as a place where Tech students can come to get answers to questions about academic issues, preliminary class schedules, study skills, time management, coping with stress, and establishing career goals.
In addition, a planned resource library will lend technical support to faculty advisors, as well as students.
"A student who wants to build up his or her study skills will be able to come in to the center and check out books, view videos, and work with interactive software programs," DeBrine Howell points out.
"Since we are a small school, we have the advantage of offering one-on-one interactions between students and the faculty," she says. "Our students are able to be guided by the experts in their fields from the very beginning. The Advising Resource Center will be able to facilitate that very important relationship between students and faculty.
"Using the Advising Resource Center won't be a one-shot deal for most students," DeBrine Howell continues. "We're really set up to be a multi-resource center which focuses on problem- solving. And, that's something a student can use throughout his or her career. Although we may not be able to solve all the problems a student might encounter here at Tech, we will at least be able to find out who can."
DeBrine Howell says she and her staff will continue to coordinate their efforts with all of Tech's various academic departments, student organizations, and individual students and faculty members.
"Retention is a big issue at this university and most others around the country," DeBrine Howell adds, "and the single most important factor in ensuring students stay to complete their education is providing them with a personal connection to your campus. . . . A student's advisor can be that connection."
Although the Advising Resource Center is not yet set up to deliver all the services that DeBrine Howell and other Tech administrators foresee, the new center is scheduled to be fully operational about the same time New Mexico Tech's First-Year Experience student retention program begins building up steam -- sometime prior to the 2001 fall semester.
As for the other new campus office which was created by the recent reorganization -- the Student Affairs Office -- former director of Tech's Admission Office, Melissa Jaramillo Fleming, is now in charge of overseeing that newly created organization.
"In establishing the new Student Affairs Office, it was our hope to also contribute more to the Strategic Plan's goal of increasing student retention at New Mexico Tech," Jaramillo Fleming says. "As such, we will now be able to concentrate on enrollment management by combining and directing our efforts toward improving both recruitment and retention at the university."
The Student Affairs Office -- which includes Tech's Admission Office, Minority Programs, International Programs, Career Services, and the Student Health Center -- is destined to play a larger role in Tech students' lives, Jaramillo Fleming points out, since by its very nature, students will tend to have more contact with the Student Affairs Office from the time they are first recruited to the time they prepare for graduation and begin looking for jobs.
"The real beauty of this merger of the Admission Office and what used to be Student Services into Student Affairs is that it was all done with personnel and money that were already there," Jaramillo Fleming says.


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Boulder-based climbing advocacy organization Access Fund, along with Patagonia and several other groups, sued the Trump administration late Wednesday for what they alleged is the "unlawful dismemberment" of the Bears Ears National Monument.
The president moved on Monday to shrink that monument by 85 percent and cut another, Grand Staircase-Escalante, by about half. Both are in Utah, and the two reductions represent a historic action by the administration that is already setting forth major legal battles — Access Fund's suit included.
Monday's announcement could open other preserved public lands in the United States up to similar cuts, potentially followed by gas extraction and coal mining, among other uses.
Access Fund and Patagonia are joined by co-plaintiffs Utah Diné Bikéyah, Friends of Cedar Mesa, Archaeology Southwest, Conservation Lands Foundation, the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Brady Robinson, executive director of Access Fund, said his organization is concerned by cuts to both monuments, but is focusing its suit on Bears Ears because it is "one of the most iconic climbing areas and landscapes in the world."
"We want to make sure," Robinson said by phone Wednesday night, "that these specific climbing sites stay open and protected, but we also want to make sure the overall climbing experience is protected: the pristine air quality, soundscapes, not having to negotiate around oil derricks."
On Monday, environmental and conservation groups and a coalition of tribes filed lawsuits that ensure Trump's announcement is far from the final word in the yearslong battle over public lands in Utah and other Western states.
The court cases could drag on for years.
A coalition of the Hopi, Ute Indian, Ute Mountain Ute, Zuni tribes and Navajo Nation sued late Monday to challenge the Bears Ears reduction.
At least two lawsuits also have been filed to try to block the Grand Staircase decision. Grand Staircase contains scenic cliffs, canyons, waterfalls and arches — and one of the nation's largest known coal reserves.
The two monuments were created by Democratic Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton under a century-old law known as the Antiquities Act, which allows presidents to protect sites considered historically, geographically or culturally important.
Trump acted on a recommendation by Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, who also has urged that two other large national monuments in the West be reduced in size, potentially opening up thousands of acres of land revered for natural beauty and historical significance to mining, logging and other development.
The interior secretary's plan would scale back Nevada's Gold Butte and Oregon's Cascade-Siskiyou, in addition to the two Utah sites.
Rose Marcario, CEO of Patagonia, said of the suit filed Wednesday, "Americans have overwhelmingly spoken out against the Trump administration's unprecedented attempt to shut down our national monuments.
"The administration's unlawful actions betray our shared responsibility to protect iconic places for future generations and represent the largest elimination of protected land in American history. We've fought to protect these places since we were founded and now we'll continue that fight in the courts."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Alex Burness: 303-473-1389, email@example.com or twitter.com/alex_burness


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After Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall wrote on Twitter that no one should celebrate the death of Osama bin Laden, and questioned whether the collapse of the World Trade Center towers was really caused by hijacked planes, the athletic apparel company Champion ended its sponsorship relationship with him. Mendenhall responded by filing a lawsuit, and a judge has now decided to let that lawsuit move forward.
Whether Mendenhall's lawsuit against Hanesbrands, the parent company of Champion, will ultimately be successful is a long way down the road. But the judge has ruled that Mendenhall has a plausible claim that Hanesbrands breached its contract with Mendenhall.
The Hollywood Reporter says Mendenhall's lawsuit is being watched closely in the entertainment industry, where many celebrities have endorsement deals that contain clauses stipulating that the celebrity can't do anything that would make the company he endorses look bad. The result of Mendenhall's lawsuit may make companies and celebrities re-think the wording of those contractual clauses.
And for Mendenhall, the judge's ruling is a step toward making Champion pay him the rest of the money on his endorsement deal, even though it's probably safe to say we won't see him appearing in any Champion ads again.


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Q: How do I recognize a mouse click on a line?
A: Lines, once drawn, does not exist as a separate entity in Visual C++ applications, unlike CAD-like drawing applications. If you want to detect / select a line using mouse click, you will have to store the line details in the application and draw them on screen when it has to be displayed.
Easiest method to store a line is by storing its end points. I defined a convenient class CLine for this
where the end points are declared as data member of POINT pair. The constructor stores the parameters as its end points:Code:class CLine { friend CDC& operator<<(CDC&, CLine&); public: POINT Pt[2]; CLine(POINT, POINT); double Dist(POINT); };
The function Dist returns the perpendicular distance from the point parameter to the line. The perpendicular distance is calculated using Analytical Geometry asCode:CLine::CLine(POINT start, POINT end) { Pt[0] = start; Pt[1] = end; }
Here, it is also calculated whether the foot of the perpendicular is within the bounds of the line also. If it is, actual value of perpendicular distance is returned. Otherwise, -1 is returned to indicate that the point is before the starting point or after the end point.Code:double CLine::Dist(POINT pt) { int DelX = Pt[1].x - Pt[0].x; int DelY = Pt[1].y - Pt[0].y; double D = sqrt(pow(DelX, 2) + pow(DelY, 2)); double Ratio = (double) ((pt.x - Pt[0].x) * DelX + (pt.y - Pt[0].y) * DelY) / (DelX * DelX + DelY * DelY); if (Ratio * (1 - Ratio) < 0) return -1; return (double) abs(DelX * (pt.y - Pt[0].y) - DelY * (pt.x - Pt[0].x)) / D; }
In the view, we can check whether the perpendicular distance from the mouse cursor point to the line is less than a pre-defined distance, in which case, you can say that the mouse is over the line. You can determine whether you are clicking on the line or not in your OnLButtonUp message handler function of WM_LBUTTONUP message.
Code:void CClickLineView::OnLButtonUp(UINT nFlags, CPoint point) { // TODO: Add your message handler code here and/or call default double D = pLine->Dist(point); int Size = min(GetSystemMetrics(SM_CXCURSOR), GetSystemMetrics(SM_CYCURSOR)); if (D >= 0 && D < Size / 10) { // Mouse is over the line ... } CView::OnLButtonUp(nFlags, point); }


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Browsing Vanderbilt Alumni Publications by Author "Branscomb, Harvie"
Now showing items 1-1 of 1
The Peabody Reflector; Vol. 15, No. 01, 1942 Vanderbilt University. Peabody College; Garrison, S. C.; Bishop, W. W.; Carmichael, O. C.; Kuhlman, A. F.; Wilson, Louis R.; Branscomb, Harvie; Stahlman, James G.; Brown, Charles Harvey; Lester, Robert M. (1942-01)


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Sherry Hunt never expected to be a senior manager at a Wall Street bank. She was a country girl, raised in rural Michigan by a dad who taught her to fish and a mom who showed her how to find wild mushrooms. She listened to Marty Robbins and Buck Owens on the radio and came to believe that God has a bigger plan, that everything happens for a reason.
She got married at 16 and didn't go to college. After she had her first child at 17, she needed a job. A friend helped her find one in 1975, processing home loans at a small bank in Alaska. Over the next 30 years, Hunt moved up the ladder to mortgage-banking positions in Indiana, Minnesota and Missouri, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its July issue.
On her days off, when she wasn't fishing with her husband, Jonathan, she rode her horse, Cody, in Wild West shows. She sometimes dressed up as the legendary cowgirl Annie Oakley, firing blanks from a vintage rifle to entertain an audience. She liked the mortgage business, liked that she was helping people buy houses.
[Related: Bank of America whistleblower receives $14.5 million in mortgage case]
In November 2004, Hunt, now 55, joined Citigroup (C) Inc. as a vice president in the mortgage unit. It looked like a great career move. The housing market was booming, and the New York- based bank, the sixth-largest lender in the U.S. at the time, was responsible for 3.5 percent of all home loans. Hunt supervised 65 mortgage underwriters at CitiMortgage Inc.'s sprawling headquarters in O'Fallon, Missouri, 45 minutes west of St. Louis.
Avoiding Fraud
Hunt's team was responsible for protecting Citigroup from fraud and bad investments. She and her colleagues inspected loans Citi wanted to buy from outside brokers and lenders to see whether they met the bank's standards. The mortgages had to have properly signed paperwork, verifiable borrower income and realistic appraisals.
Citi would vouch for the quality of these loans when it sold them to investors or approved them for government mortgage insurance.
Investor demand was so strong for mortgages packaged into securities that Citigroup couldn't process them fast enough. The Citi stamp of approval told investors that the bank would stand behind the mortgages if borrowers quit paying.
At the mortgage-processing factory in O'Fallon, Hunt was working on an assembly line that helped inflate a housing bubble whose implosion would shake the world. The O'Fallon mortgage machinery was moving too fast to check every loan, Hunt says.
Phony Appraisals
By 2006, the bank was buying mortgages from outside lenders with doctored tax forms, phony appraisals and missing signatures, she says. It was Hunt's job to identify these defects, and she did, in regular reports to her bosses.
Executives buried her findings, Hunt says, before, during and after the financial crisis, and even into 2012.
In March 2011, more than two years after Citigroup took $45 billion in bailouts from the U.S. government and billions more from the Federal Reserve -- more in total than any other U.S. bank -- Jeffery Polkinghorne, an O'Fallon executive in charge of loan quality, asked Hunt and a colleague to stay in a conference room after a meeting.
The encounter with Polkinghorne was brief and tense, Hunt says. The number of loans classified as defective would have to fall, he told them, or it would be "your asses on the line."
Hunt says it was clear what Polkinghorne was asking -- and she wanted no part of it.
'I Wouldn't Play Along'
"All a dishonest person had to do was change the reports to make things look better than they were," Hunt says. "I wouldn't play along."
Instead, she took her employer to court -- and won. In August 2011, five months after the meeting with Polkinghorne, Hunt sued Citigroup in Manhattan federal court, accusing its home-loan division of systematically violating U.S. mortgage regulations.
[Video: Madoff Whistleblower: Big Banks Are Ripping Off Pension Funds]
The U.S. Justice Department decided to join her suit in January. Citigroup didn't dispute any of Hunt's facts; it didn't mount a defense in public or in court. On Feb. 15, 2012, the bank agreed to pay $158.3 million to the U.S. government to settle the case.
Citigroup admitted approving loans for government insurance that didn't qualify under Federal Housing Administration rules. Prosecutors kept open the possibility of bringing criminal charges, without specifying targets.
'Pure Myth'
Citigroup behaving badly as late as 2012 shows how a big bank hasn't yet absorbed the lessons of the credit crisis despite billions of dollars in bailouts, says Neil Barofsky, former special inspector general of the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
"This case demonstrates that the notion that the bailed-out banks have somehow found God and have reformed their ways in the aftermath of the financial crisis is pure myth," he says.
As a reward for blowing the whistle on her employer, Hunt, the country girl turned banker, got $31 million out of the settlement paid by Citigroup.
Hunt still remembers her first impressions of CitiMortgage's O'Fallon headquarters, a complex of three concrete-and-glass buildings surrounded by manicured lawns and vast parking lots. Inside are endless rows of cubicles where 3,800 employees trade e-mails and conduct conference calls. Hunt says at first she felt like a mouse in a maze.
"You only see people's faces when someone brings in doughnuts and the smell gets them peeking over the tops of their cubicles," she says.
Jean Charities
Over time, she came to appreciate the camaraderie. Every month, workers conducted the so-called Jean Charities. Employees contributed $20 for the privilege of wearing jeans every day, with the money going to local nonprofit organizations. With so many workers, it added up to $25,000 a month.
"Citi is full of wonderful people, conscientious people," Hunt says.
Those people worked on different teams to process mortgages, all of them focused on keeping home loans moving through the system. One team bought loans from brokers and other lenders. Another team, called underwriters, made sure loan paperwork was complete and the mortgages met the bank's and the government's guidelines.
Yet another group did spot-checks on loans already purchased. It was such a high-volume business that one group's assignment was simply to keep loans moving on the assembly line.
Powerful Incentive
Still another unit sold loans to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae, the government-controlled companies that bundled them into securities for sale to investors. Those were the types of securities that blew up in 2007, igniting a global financial crisis.
Workers had a powerful incentive to push mortgages through the process even if flaws were found: compensation. The pay of CitiMortgage employees all the way up to the division's chief executive officer depended on a high percentage of approved loans, the government's complaint says.
By 2006, Hunt's team was processing $50 billion in loans that Citi-Mortgage bought from hundreds of mortgage companies. Because her unit couldn't possibly review them all, they checked a sample.
When a mortgage wasn't up to federal standards -- which could be any error ranging from an unsigned document to a false income statement or a hyped-up appraisal -- her team labeled the loan as defective.
Missing Documentation
In late 2007, Hunt's group estimated that about 60 percent of the mortgages Citigroup was buying and selling were missing some form of documentation. Hunt says she took her concerns to her boss, Richard Bowen III.
Bowen, 64, is a religious man, a former Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps cadet at Texas Tech University in Lubbock with an attention to detail that befits his background as a certified public accountant. When he saw the magnitude of the mortgage defects, Bowen says he prayed for guidance.
In a Nov. 3, 2007, e-mail, he alerted Citigroup executives, including Robert Rubin, then chairman of Citigroup's executive committee and a former Treasury secretary; Chief Financial Officer Gary Crittenden; the bank's senior risk officer; and its chief auditor.
Bowen put the words "URGENT -- READ IMMEDIATELY -- FINANCIAL ISSUES" in the subject line.
"The reason for this urgent e-mail concerns breakdowns of internal controls and resulting significant but possibly unrecognized financial losses existing within our organization," Bowen wrote. "We continue to be significantly out of compliance."
No Change
There were no noticeable changes in the mortgage machinery as a result of Bowen's warning, Hunt says.
Just a week after Bowen sent his e-mail, Sherry and Jonathan were driving their Toyota Camry about 55 miles (89 kilometers) per hour on four-lane Providence Road in Columbia, Missouri, when a driver in a Honda Civic hit them head-on. Sherry broke a foot and her sternum. Jonathan broke an arm and his sternum.
Doctors used four bones harvested from a cadaver and titanium screws to stabilize his neck.
"You come out of an experience like that with a commitment to making the most of the time you have and making the world a better place," Sherry says.
Three months after the accident, attorneys from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, a New York law firm representing Citigroup, interviewed Hunt. She had no idea at the time that it was related to Bowen's complaint, she says.
Home Computer
The lawyers' questions made her search her memory for details of loans and conversations with colleagues, she says. She decided to take notes from that time forward on a spreadsheet she kept on her home computer.
Bowen's e-mail is now part of the archive of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, a panel created by Congress in 2009. Citigroup's response to the commission, FCIC records show, came from Brad Karp, chairman of Paul Weiss.
He said Citigroup had reviewed Bowen's issues, fired a supervisor and changed its underwriting system, without providing specifics.
One change resulting from Bowen's e-mail affected Bowen himself. He went from managing 220 people to overseeing two, according to the FCIC report. By January 2009, Bowen no longer worked for Citigroup, he told the FCIC.
"More people haven't come forward because they saw what happened to me," says Bowen, who's now an accounting and finance professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. He says Hunt is the exception. "Sherry is an absolutely fantastic lady who knows what she's doing. She has a conscience. I have the highest regard for her."
One Person
Bowen declined to comment on the circumstances of his departure from Citigroup. The bank denies any retaliation against him.
After Bowen left, Hunt had only one person she could confide in: her husband. She and Jonathan, 51, met in 1998 at a Minnesota casino. He trained search-and-rescue dogs for a living. They share a love of animals, especially horses. She says she was attracted to his sense of humor. He would quote country songs to make her laugh. They were married in 1999.
When Sherry worked for U.S. Bancorp in Missouri, she and Jonathan bred and raised horses. As members of the Old West Society of Minnesota, the couple performed in re-enactments of 19th-century events, such as the shootout at the O.K. Corral.
Sometimes she dressed up as a society woman, wearing a bustle. When she played Annie Oakley, she wore a buckskin outfit with a bullwhip coiled around her shoulder. She galloped into the arena on her horse -- but never too fast, her husband says.
'Don't Get Along'
"Sherry and speed on a horse don't get along," he says with a grin.
Every workday for eight years before winning her lawsuit, Sherry Hunt left their house on its 10-acre (4-hectare) lot and drove along a dirt road where cows and horses grazed in pastures. She turned onto a two-lane county highway that passed over a river bridge barely wide enough for two cars. About 45 minutes later, she'd arrive at the office.
After Bowen went public with her findings, Hunt says she was transferred to the quality-control group on April 1, 2008. She went from supervising 65 people to managing none.
"What I saw there was 10 times worse," she says. "Every time I turned over a rock, I found a snake."
One place where she uncovered flaws was in the fraud prevention and investigation group. That's where Hunt's team shipped questionable loans, with issues such as obviously forged signatures, whited-out income lines on tax forms or misspelled bank names on borrower bank statements.
No Notification
The group was supposed to investigate the mortgages for fraud and notify the FHA within a month when it found it. In November 2009, Hunt says, she came across a list of about 1,000 loans that the quality-control team had identified for possible fraud.
The fraud prevention and investigation group had left some of the mortgages in the queue for more than two years without checking them, Hunt says. Not one notification went to the FHA before July 2011, when the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan issued a subpoena to the O'Fallon office, the government's complaint says.
In 2009, different teams began feuding, internal e-mails made public in the Justice Department case show. That's when CitiMortgage created yet another team whose mission was to challenge the findings of Hunt's quality-control group and persuade her and her colleagues to change their decisions on the suitability of loans.
'Brute Force'
In November 2010, Ross Leckie, a senior director of CitiMortgage's retail bank mortgage unit, sent an e-mail ordering his staff to meet its goal of a maximum 5 percent defect rate on home loans. Quality-control employees had identified 10 loans with severe flaws from a pool of 138, Leckie said, for a rate of 7.25 percent.
"Drive this rate down by brute force," he wrote. "We need three loans to be removed to get to 5.07 percent."
CitiMortgage defect rates did plummet, according to notes Hunt kept. It wasn't because there were fewer bad mortgages, she says.
"It's because they were beating us up over the quality- control reports," she says.
In late 2010, Hunt began studying the new federal whistle- blower rules that Congress had just enacted in July as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
[Related: Dodd says JPMorgan loss proof of legislation need]
'You've Had Enough'
The stress had been mounting for Sherry and Jon. Conflicts at the office, the physical pain that lingered from the car wreck and growing anxiety over Citi's bad mortgages were taking a toll. The Hunts say the laughter they often shared had faded.
Sherry says she drew inspiration from a country song by Rascal Flatts called "Stand."
"Decide you've had enough," it goes. "You get mad. You get strong. Wipe your hands, shake it off, then you stand."
Hunt says she pinned the lyrics to her cubicle wall.
"It made me stronger," she says.
Hunt needed the strength on March 22, 2011. That's the day Polkinghorne, who was three levels above her in the chain of command, called her and a colleague aside and told them their asses were on the line if the defect rates didn't fall.
Polkinghorne couldn't be reached for comment, and Citigroup declined to make him available for an interview.
That night, she and Jon agreed the time had come for her to take a stand. So Hunt decided to follow the first step prescribed by Dodd-Frank: formally complaining to the company. The prospect kept her awake at night.
'My Life Savings'
"I was ready to give up my career and my life savings to get this done," she says.
On March 29, 2011, Hunt walked into CitiMortgage's human resources department in O'Fallon and told them everything: how the bank had been routinely buying and selling bad mortgages for years, how the fraud unit wasn't doing its job and how the quality-control people were being pressured to change their ratings.
Whistle-blower rules mandate that Hunt had to notify the Securities and Exchange Commission, the government regulator that oversees Citigroup's mortgage business, within 90 days of reporting her concerns internally.
"I am afraid of what I know," she wrote the SEC on May 24, 2011. "I do not want to know what I know. I have nothing to gain from coming forward and have no hidden agenda."
Hunt hired a lawyer, Finley Gibbs of Rotts & Gibbs LLC in Columbia, Missouri. He had represented the Hunts after their car accident. Starting on June 27, 2011, Hunt and Gibbs shared details from her spreadsheet in four conference calls with Justice Department investigators.
Had to Do It
The officials made no promises about whether they would take action against Citigroup.
For two months, Sherry and Jon sweated over what could happen if she sued Citigroup without help from the government. They concluded she had to do it, Hunt says. On Aug. 5, 2011, Hunt filed a false-claims complaint in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
"I still had to go into work," Hunt says. Because the complaint was sealed, no one in her office knew about it. She pinned a postcard of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa next to the Rascal Flatts lyrics. Like Mona Lisa, Sherry Hunt had a secret.
She knew her chances of winning were slim because she couldn't match the resources of a big bank. Just 20 percent of whistle-blowers get help from government prosecutors, and without that, success is rare, according to the National Whistleblowers Center in Washington.
A Ghost
After filing the lawsuit, Hunt says, she felt like a ghost navigating the cubicles of CitiMortgage. Nobody knew, she says, yet she felt vulnerable, as if she could lose her job at any moment.
Sherry and Jon were elated on Jan. 3, 2012, when she got a call from her lawyer: U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan had decided to join her on behalf of the Justice Department in the case.
There was no testimony and no trial. Citigroup admitted wrongdoing on Feb. 15 and paid the $158.3 million to settle. In a press release the same day, Citi said it was pleased to resolve the matter.
"We take our quality-assurance processes seriously and have proactively undertaken process improvements to ensure that they are as robust as possible," the bank wrote. The statement didn't mention Hunt.
Bank of America
Citigroup isn't the only bank that's been held accountable for processing bad mortgages. In February, Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corp. settled a false-claims case with the government for $1 billion, without admitting wrongdoing.
In May, Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank AG agreed to pay $202.3 million for endorsing unqualified mortgages for FHA insurance, and admitted wrongdoing.
What continues to set Citigroup apart is that the bank approved flawed loans well past the 2008 financial crisis. A battleground over loan quality persisted at CitiMortgage even as the settlement was signed in February, the complaint says.
Just months after Citigroup settled with the Justice Department, another big financial institution, JPMorgan Chase & Co., announced a multibillion-dollar trading loss -- helping to rekindle the debate over regulation of so-called too-big-to-fail banks.
Dodd-Frank Debate
President Barack Obama invoked the JPMorgan loss as more evidence of the need for tighter regulation of Wall Street. Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has meanwhile continued to call for the repeal of Dodd-Frank, the law Sherry Hunt followed when she blew the whistle on her employer.
If Citigroup has learned anything from Sherry Hunt, it's not clear from the comments of CitiMortgage CEO Sanjiv Das, who's based in New York. He says his division does terrific work.
"We are focused on making sure we manufacture loans the right way," he says. "This is a complex industry. It's a complex process. It takes time. We're heading down a trajectory that I'm incredibly proud of. Is there something that is systemically wrong? Absolutely not. Absolutely not."
Citigroup CEO Vikram S. Pandit declined to comment for this story. In a video recorded in 2010 and posted by Citi on the Internet, Pandit pledged that his bank was turning over a new leaf.
'Making Sure We're Honest'
"We're going to stand for the financial services company that practices responsible finance -- making sure we're transparent, making sure we're honest, making sure we manage our shareholders' money prudently," he says.
Citigroup repaid with interest the $45 billion in government bailout loans it took in 2008, as well as all of the money it borrowed from the Fed. The bank reported profits during each of the nine quarters ended in March 2012. Yet shareholders remain restive. Citi's stock fell 92 percent from Dec. 11, 2007, when Pandit became CEO, to May 30.
Three weeks after Citigroup settled the Hunt case, the bank's board of directors awarded Pandit $14.9 million in compensation for 2011. The pay was tied to Pandit's push for ethical conduct, the bank said in a March 8 regulatory filing.
The filing specifically cited Pandit's success in improving Citigroup's U.S. mortgage unit. On April 16, in an unprecedented move, Citi shareholders voted to reject Pandit's compensation by about 55 to 45 percent. The vote was nonbinding, and the bank's board of directors has final say on pay.
'There's a Basis'
"We gave this guy a pretty substantial incentive award, and there's a basis for it," says Richard Parsons, who was Citigroup's chairman and a member of its compensation committee until he retired in April. "Our view was, under Vikram's leadership, we did a pretty good job of moving Citigroup forward in the year 2011, but there was still progress to be made."
The amount Citigroup paid in the settlement amounts to 1.4 percent of its 2011 net income of $11.2 billion.
"It's about more than dollars; it's about the reputational risk of the enterprise and how we do business," Parsons says. "Getting our arms around the problem and getting it fixed has been a top priority."
Hunt says she hopes her victory inspires others to take a stand.
"I want people to know they can come forward," she says. "If I can do it, they can do it. We need to change what's wrong in our own backyards, and that's how we end up changing the big things."
Donating Home
After they received their share of the settlement, the Hunts decided to donate their house in Missouri to the Troy First Baptist Church and move to a warmer climate. Sitting at the kitchen counter, Jon calls Sherry over to watch a video on his tablet.
It's the Zac Brown Band doing a song called "Knee Deep," which is about the dream of a permanent vacation.
"Listen," Jon tells his wife, pointing to the video. Then he sings along: "Only worry in the world is the tide gonna reach my chair."
Sherry Hunt tips her head back and hoots.
Editors: Jonathan Neumann, Gail Roche
To contact the reporter on this story: Bob Ivry in New York at firstname.lastname@example.com.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jonathan Neumann at firstname.lastname@example.com
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What is circumcision?
Circumcision is a surgical procedure that involves partial or complete removal of the foreskin (prepuce).
How common is circumcision?
About one-fifth of men worldwide have been circumcised, mostly for religious and cultural reasons when the procedure is commonly performed shortly after birth or around puberty.
Although adults are occasionally circumcised as an act of religious dedication, adult circumcision is most commonly performed for medical reasons.
Non-retractable foreskin in children
Contrary to common belief, the foreskin cannot be pulled back (retracted) in almost all newborn babies.
About 50 per cent of one-year-old boys will have a non-retractable foreskin, 30 per cent of two-year-olds, about 10 per cent of four-year-olds and about 5 per cent of 10-year-olds.
It's not necessary to try cleaning under the foreskin until it has become fully retractable of its own accord because attempts to pull back a non-retractable foreskin can result in pain and possibly injury.
The small percentage of adults who have a persistently non-retractable foreskin have a slightly increased chance of developing phimosis (see below). But this persistence is not a reason for circumcision.
A non-retractile foreskin does not of its own accord require circumcision unless it's causing symptoms.
Why circumcise?
Reasons for circumcision fall into three broad groups:
- for an medical indication
- to prevent future disease
- as an act of religious dedication.
Circumcision for a medical reason
Medical reasons for Circumcision include phimosis, acute balanoposthitis or paraphimosis.
In phimosis the opening of the foreskin is narrowed, preventing retraction. Occasionally, the edge of the foreskin has a white, scarred, inelastic appearance and will not pucker open as it is retracted.
Between 1 and 1.5 per cent of boys will develop this condition by the time they are 17 years old.
Symptoms can include:
- irritation or bleeding from the edge of the foreskin, particularly during sexual intercourse or masturbation
- stinging or pain on passing urine (dysuria)
- inability to pass urine if the foreskin is very tight.
The changes in the prepuce are due to a condition known as balanitis xerotica obliterans. Circumcision is advisable in most cases.
Acute balanoposthitis
This condition involves redness and swelling of the foreskin, together with a discharge of pus from the space between the foreskin and the glans.
Sometimes the whole penis may be swollen and inflamed. Between 3 and 10 per cent of boys will develop this condition, depending on how the condition is defined.
Balanoposthitis is very occasionally the first sign of diabetes. If there is no underlying cause, simple hygiene measures, mild painkillers and the avoidance of tugging the foreskin are the only necessary treatments. Most cases will recover without further intervention.
Circumcision is only done for recurrent and troublesome cases.
This condition is caused by pulling back the foreskin behind the coronal ridge of the glans or head of the penis, without its subsequent replacement to its normal position.
The foreskin then forms a tight tourniquet around the glans, causing severe pain. The condition can sometimes be treated by firmly but gently squeezing the trapped glans until the foreskin can slip over it again.
If this is not possible, the paraphimosis needs to be reduced under a general anaesthetic.
Circumcision is not usually performed at this stage because of the associated inflammation, but may be required later if the foreskin remains tight.
Circumcision to prevent future disease
Prevention of disease is the second most commonly given reason for circumcision after religious reasons, although the evidence that it has any beneficial effect on future health is very poor.
The practice is, more likely, rooted in cultural traditions, although western societies may find this an uncomfortable conclusion.
Penile cancer
Cancer of the penis is an extremely rare disease and, in the early part of the last century, was almost unheard of in circumcised men.
However, there is some evidence that circumcision may only offer protection from penile cancer if done in childhood, and adult surgery may not offer any protection.
Poor personal hygiene, smoking and exposure to wart virus (human papilloma virus) increase the risk of developing penile cancer at least as much as being uncircumcised.
Circumcised men are more at risk from penile warts than uncircumcised men, and the risk of developing penile cancer is now almost equal in the two groups.
Therefore, routine circumcision cannot be recommended to prevent penile cancer.
Sexually transmitted diseases
Sexually transmitted diseases that cause ulcers on the genitals (syphilis, chancroid, herpes simplex) are more common in uncircumcised men.
However, urethritis or inflammation of the tube that carries urine through the penis (caused by gonorrhoea and non-gonococcal urethritis) is more common in circumcised men, as are penile warts.
Yeast infection (caused by candida or thrush) is equally common in circumcised and uncircumcised men, although circumcised men are less likely to have symptoms with this infection so they are more likely to unknowingly pass on thrush to their sexual partners.
Far more effective and reliable methods than circumcision exist to reduce the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, such as the use of condoms and adoption of safer sexual practices. Thus circumcision cannot be recommended to prevent these infections.
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection
Views conflict on whether circumcision can prevent HIV infection.
A recent review in the British Journal of Urology concluded that there is no link between having an intact foreskin and HIV infection, whereas another paper in the British Medical Journal takes exactly the opposite view.
Circumcision may be appropriate as a routine preventive measure only in regions that have a high rate of HIV infection, such as sub-Saharan Africa. The existing evidence is inadequate to recommend circumcision as an HIV-preventive measure in the UK.
Cervical cancer
A study in 1947 reported that Jewish women rarely developed cervical cancer and the author attributed this finding to the fact that their sexual partners were circumcised.
Further studies over the past 50 years have had contradictory conclusions, with experts enthusiastically championing the case for and against circumcision. The evidence is inadequate to recommend it as a preventive measure against cervical cancer.
Urinary tract infection (UTI)
Since 1987, several studies have suggested that uncircumcised male infants are up to 10 times more likely to contract a urinary tract infection (UTI). One in 100 uncircumcised infants will develop a UTI, compared with 1 in 1000 circumcised infants.
A UTI is not usually a great risk to health, so it does not seem reasonable to perform a surgical procedure on 100 infants to reduce the risk of one developing UTI.
Circumcision as an act of religious dedication
The circumcision of male children is a central feature of both Judaism and Islam. It is also important in many African and New World cultures.
An increasing number of committed Jewish and Muslim people reject circumcision on ethical grounds, although they are certainly the minority at present.
Attitudes to circumcision may provoke fierce hostility within families and among communities. In the past, wars have been fought, and thousands have died, to preserve the right to circumcise when rulers from other cultures forbade it.
In the book of Genesis (17: 10-14), circumcision represents the covenant made by God with Abraham and his descendants.
Traditional religious circumcision is performed by a mohel (pronounced mo-hell in Hebrew or moyle in Yiddish). It is usually carried out on the eighth day after birth, unless there is a danger to the child's health, in which case it should be delayed until that danger has passed. In the UK, mohelim attend 40 to 50 circumcisions and have to pass practical and theoretical examinations during their training before performing circumcision alone.
The divine law or sharia defines every aspect of Muslim life. It is based upon the Holy Koran, the hadith (the sayings of the Prophet Mohammed) and the sunnah (Prophet's tradition).
All Muslims agree that these are the three sources of Islamic law, but different groups interpret their application in different ways. Circumcision is not mentioned in the Koran, but has the status of sunnah. Only the Shafiite school of law regards circumcision as obligatory (wajib), while the Hanafite, Jafarite, Malikite, Hanbalite and Zaidite regard it as only recommended, because it is sunnah.
Even those who consider circumcision an obligatory duty for themselves do not see it as an essential requirement for others to become a Muslim. However, the procedure is very commonly practised and is certainly seen as an important external symbol of submission to God's will.
Should we avoid circumcision?
The foreskin is not simply a useless piece of skin, to be disposed of without careful thought.
It forms the covering of the head (glans) of the penis in men and the clitoris in women.
It is very rich in nerves responsible for touch and the movement of the foreskin backwards and forwards over the glans provides some of the pleasurable sensation experienced during sex.
Adult males that were circumcised as infants do not usually report sexual problems linked with their circumcision, perhaps because they have never experienced sexual sensation with a foreskin.
However, men circumcised as sexually active adults quite frequently complain of sexual problems arising from either reduced or altered penile sensation.
How is circumcision performed?
Circumcision is usually performed as a day case procedure under a general anaesthetic.
There are many different techniques to achieve the same effect, which is to remove the foreskin and suture the skin on the shaft of the penis to the remaining mucosal lining beneath the head of the penis. The sutures used are absorbable and do not need removal.
Complications of circumcision
Happily, complications of circumcision are relatively rare, although they may be under-reported following religious or cultural circumcision.
For this reason, figures on the rate of complications may not be reliable.
Complications include:
- swelling of the penis which may last a few days (common)
- bleeding, infection, reduced penile sensation (less common)
- tenderness in the scar, poor cosmetic outcome (rare).
Can circumcision be reversed?
Attempts have been made to restore the foreskin following circumcision since ancient times. Unfortunately, no procedure had satisfactory results.
Modern surgical procedures may have more success, but they are still experimental and the long-term results are unknown. If foreskin restoration is being considered, a urologist should be consulted.
Female circumcision is not required by any religious group and is a traditional practice prevalent in Africa, Southeast Asia and South America.
It's far more disfiguring, disabling and potentially dangerous than male circumcision so cannot be viewed in the same light. The original author fully supports the World Health Organisation's policy that this procedure should cease throughout the world.
Original author's note
The author wants to emphasise that he holds a deep respect for all religions, including Judaism, Islam and the many other religious groups that practise circumcision as an important feature of their faith. He regrets any distress that this article might cause but hopes that it might be a useful stimulus to thoughtful reflection on such a long-established traditional practice.
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Open Data in the Public Administration of the Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC) countries.
The purpose of this forum is to bring together an international group of open data/ open government practitioners from different parts of the world to share their collective experiences and provide insights on implementing open data applications and transforming governments into open government champions. These practitioners will come from both the public and private sectors in order to obtain a wide range of inputs on the benefits and challenges of introducing open government within the public administration.
A special focus will be on introducing Open government in the GCC and identify opportunities for EIDA and other institutions in the GCC to benefit from the presentations and develop their own regional and international open government networks.
Conference Organizers
UNDESA has mandated to the Division for Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM) the task to strengthen the various capacities of governance and public administration systems and institutions are guided by resolutions and decisions adopted by the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) as well as recommendations from Global Conferences as well as DPADM's Capacity Development Strategy.
Conference Venue
The plenary sessions of the conference will be held at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
More Information about the forum
Final program, hotel and travel arrangements will be soon available at the conference website.


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Announcing Towns!
(And for those of you who've been following along since the beginning of this blog, when it was just me and my cats and yarn and wine, this is kind of unbelievable.)
Townsend Hall Bartlett was born on May 4, 2011 at 12:12 p.m. He weighed 7 lbs 1 oz and was 20.5" long.
Yes, we decided on Townsend. It was my grandmother's maiden name and my father's middle name, and I think the nickname of Town/Towns is super cute and yet mostly unheard of. Hall is Ish's great-GREAT grandfather's middle name, but he went by Hall. And even though this gives our kid the sort-of name of Town Hall, we're okay with that. Maybe he'll become President someday. (Thanks to West Wing, we already know how good the term "President Bartlett" sounds.)
The birth itself was as smooth as a c-section could possibly be, at least, certainly it was compared to the first time we did this.
And not that I ever, ever, ever doubted scheduling a c-section, but I'm so glad I did. I planned to use the side-hatch originally because Eve was a c-section, and because there was no reason to believe that my body would have a successful "traditional" birth this time. Then when I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, I was a little concerned that this baby would be big. (If you Google GD, you don't have to look far before you find mothers telling horror stories about their big babies and terrifying delivery experiences.)
THEN we found out that this little dude was breech, and that just solidified our decision. By the time we went in for the delivery, they did the final ultrasound and discovered Townsend was no longer breech but entirely transverse -- which is to say, wedged in sideways.
Sidenote: no WONDER I've been so uncomfortable.
Thus, the c-section was a good decision and made everything much less stressful than it would have been. Especially when we learned that the umbilical cord was wrapped around Towns' neck twice. Phew.
So I don't have a lot more to report about the experience. We were in the hospital from Wednesday to Saturday, while our BELOVED nanny and in-laws stayed with Eve.
Frankly, the hardest part of the whole thing was being away from Eve for three days. Ugh.
Not that there weren't smaller challenges/moments of uncomfortability/sleep deprivation/etc. For example, waiting on the operating table for the procedure to begin is much harder when you're starting off well rested and totally unmedicated -- in fact, hyper-alert -- and you find yourself staring at the ceiling, counting the minutes until you can't feel your legs. (The first time I went through that I was distracted by having been in labor for over 24 hours, and was still having contractions, totally exhausted, starving, and on painkillers.)
Breastfeeding has gone a lot more smoothly this time around, too, since T latched immediately and never seemed to mind chomping away at my pre-milk-producing boobs (unlike Eve who SCREAMED for hours and hours and days and days when I was only producing colostrum for a full WEEK). In fact, he was so persistent that my milk came in on Friday.
Being home with the baby has, thus far, been great. I understand NOW why people (who have more than one child) would say things like "newborns are easy!" when I would talk about being totally scared of Eve. Because newborns are easy...you know, when A) you're not afraid of them and B) you are comparing them to, say, teething toddlers.
Note the unshaven face, the worn-in pajamas, the pacifier backwards-in-the-mouth,
the near-shut eyes, and the SportsCenter.
Townsend seems to be a typical newborn, based on all my experience of uh, the one other kid. He hasn't figured out any kind of sleeping/nursing schedule yet: everything is totally unpredictable still. But after the first three days and nights of waking up every hour to eat, he's started sleeping in four-hour jags and everyone is happier for it.
He does prefer to be held. In fact, unless tightly swaddled and clearly SUPER tired, he finds not being held unacceptable. He has a screechy cry that sounds like a pterodactyl and is ridiculously loud, so we choose to hold him as he wishes. Because we are tired and weak and I am in no way exaggerating about the pterodactyl thing.
He does not like his bassinet, either. Which is how we, as the aforementioned tired and weak sort, discovered that he is perfectly calm and happy sleeping in our bed with us, even if unswaddled.
Who is this happy, nursing, baby-wearing, newborns-are-delightful, bed-sharing hippie mother? I DON'T KNOW.
In the meantime, Eve seems to like the baby. HI, BABY! she says in the morning. She brings him diapers and "bo" (pacifier, don't know where "bo" came from), and blankets. She asks where he is when she can't see him. She is gentle with him and likes to point to his ear, eyes, and nose. We are working very, very hard to make it seem like our attention is not divided, and Eve always has the full attention of at least one adult (for the first few weeks, that is).
However. Eve does NOT like that her routine has changed. She does NOT like that Mama and Dada were gone for three days -- she wouldn't let me hug her when I came home from the hospital, but also tried to send our replacement sitter home. (GO! NO! BUH-BYE!) Mostly, though, she REALLY does NOT like the six teeth that are currently jutting their way through her gums. (Timing? Awesome!) They have given my darling daughter an occasional monster of a personality, that rears its cranky, chewing head when you least expect it. This is especially awesome when it coincides with a pterodactyl sighting.
So, well. While the baby himself doesn't seem to be the root of the problem, we don't have what I would consider a perfectly happy almost-two-year-old at home, either.
Overall, this birth experience -- my second and last, mind you -- has been fantastic from start to finish.
The planned nature of it was surreal, but I felt safe and well taken care of and never had any scare. The actual procedure is a lot easier to withstand when you're well rested and well nourished and your body hasn't been in labor for hours and hours. And while it's still major surgery, I was up and moving and disconnected from all the tubes and wires by Thursday afternoon. (I was even able to shower on Thursday, all by myself!)
And while this may seem like a small point, I'm on a totally different painkiller this time around, and that has made a WORLD of difference. Instead of feeling simultaneously drunk and underwater (the way Vicodin did), I just feel like I'm managing my pain but operating at nearly full capacity mentally.
Add that to the fact that I feel about a thousand times more confident and assured about what to DO with a newborn, and I would say that I have been having a totally enjoyable, happy, loving, awesome time with my new family of four.
Sleep deprivation and all, this? This adding a fourth member to our wacky little clan? This is the best thing I've ever done.


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Our granulated onion is a kitchen staple. Simply made from onion that has been dried, it contains no additives. Granulated onion is excellent for any dish that requires that signature onion flavor.
Minced onion is perfect to add to any recipe. Use on breads, rolls, or even bagels. You can even make your own onion dip for vegetables.


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There are many types of pain namely:
- Primary pain during itercourse- appears after the first intercourse;
Secondary pain during intercourse – appears after a certain period, the woman had a sexual relationship but the pain is caused by psychological trauma;
Superficial pain during intercourse- appears at the beginning of penetration;
Deep pain during intercourse – occurs when the penetration is complete.
Superficial pain during intercourse is manifested by early discomfort, at the beginning of the intercourse, discomfort felt in the vulva, with burning and stinging sensations. The causes are vaginal infections, irritation, trauma, radiation therapy and in most of the cases insufficient lubrication.
There are many possible causes that can leat to pain during intercourse, which vary depending on the nature of the disease.
The superficial causes of pain during intercourse are:
- Lubrication failure – due to a short prelude, for women who have passed to menopause due to the low estrogen levels;
An inflammation or infection in the genital area – they can affect the vulva or vagina
Urinary tract infections;
Genital herpes
Allergic reactions to latex condoms;
Antihistamines (drugs against allergies) – causes temporary dryness of the vagina;
Menopause – one of the most common causes as vaginal thinning and estrogen level decrease (this phenomenon is called atrophic vaginitis care)
Profound causes of pain during intercourse
Infection or inflammation of the cervix (cervicitis), uterus or fallopian tubes
Endometriosis (inflammation of the uterus);
Pelvic tumors;
Ovarian cysts;
Uterine prolapse;
Radiation – used in cancer treatment.
Psycho-social causes of pain during intercourse
All these factors must be made aware at first through a personal evaluation of the situation made by the person concerned, then by a discussion with a specialist. Untreated in time, pain during intercourse will make sexual activity to be associated strictly with pain, and interest in intercourse would drop dramatically.
Pain During Intercouse Treatment
Mild pain during intercourse, which usually occurs during penetration can be minimized by applying an ointment with anesthetic effect. It is also helpful to apply a water based lubricant before intercourse. Why water-based lubricants? Because oil-based ones can affect the quality of contraceptives such as condoms or diaphragms. For better lubrication of the vagina, enough attention to foreplay and deep pain can be lessened or eliminated by careful choice of positions during intercourse.
Pain during intercourse due to menopause and all that implies it can be treated with estrogen-based creams ( hormone replacement therapy). Inflammation and / or an infection is treated using antibiotics or antifungal drugs. In case of inflammation of the vulva, , wet compresses with aluminum acetate solution are verry effective. Surgery removes cysts or abscesses and can even repair some anatomical abnormalities relieving the pain during intercourse.
Last but not least, couple psychotherapy can be very effective in identifying negative or pessimistic attitudes about intercourse and improve communication between the couple, thus solving the problems that can cause the appearance of pain during intercourse.


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Here's what happened.
I was unloading the car full of beer and chicken wings and chili dog stuff for the next day's Super Bowl party when I got a burning in my chest that felt like really bad heart burn. After it didn't go away for about a half hour I asked my girlfriend to take me to the hospital to get checked out.
The EKG was fine and the nurses were pretty convinced it was acid reflux and were just checking some blood enzymes before they released me. I was feeling as good as usual. The second blood test came back with a positive for an enzyme related to heart attacks. They decided to keep me overnight. I was extremely pissed and swore that I would have to be on the ground clutching my chest before I would ever get checked out again and that they better have me out of there by noon! I wasn't going to be late for my party because of gerd!
The next morning the enzyme had gone up and they decided I needed an angiogram on Monday. Super Bowl out! Possible stints and home by Tuesday. More cursing and mild threats.
The angiogram showed severe blockage in the main artery to the heart. The doctors had a cute little name for this particular blockage. They called it The Widow Maker! Seems this is the one that most people just drop over dead from. They needed to get the blood thinners out of my system and were cracking the chest for the big triple bypass on Wednesday.
Holy hell! I just went from a beer guzzling, pizza eating, partier to a decrepit old man with heart disease in three days! And to top it all off, I JUST MIGHT DIE!!!
Truth be told, the docs assured me that they do hundreds of these a month and that it's relatively easy and routine. But when it's YOUR heart that they are going to pull out of your chest, the term routine loses all meaning. This was big serious stuff.
Tuesday night before the surgery was like no other night. My girlfriend and I had some very close time together. There's nothing like impending doom to add some spice to a relationship. She left for home about 11:00 and I was alone with a ticking clock counting down to slice time. This must be pretty close to what it feels like to wait on death row for your execution, except that I had a good chance of coming out the other side.
There are very few times when fate closes in and the inevitable stands squarely before you. At 9:00 the next morning I was going to be wheeled into the operating room, I would be sedated, become unconscious and at that point I have no control over what happens next. Nothing was going to change that reality, it was inevitable.
One of two things will happen: either I will wake up or I won't. It's that simple. Needless to say I was more concerned with the "won't" option. I spent a lot of time thinking about what the "won't" option might actually entail.
If I were a Christian, it seems like there will be some kind of review of my life and a judgement. There's a lot of variations on that theme depending on which particular flavor of Christianity you're buying, but that's a pretty standard scenario. The most popular idea is that your life flashes before your eyes like a film and you assess each moment. How freaking annoying does that sound? Most of our lives are spent watching TV or bored to tears. I have to go back through all that again? I have to relive every embarrassment? Every time I bombed? Every lousy thing I did to someone? And then I'm going to be judged on this? Do I have to defend myself?
Because I really can't. I was an asshole a lot and there really is no excuse. Everybody's an asshole sometimes, some more than others. But the penalties for this judgment thing are Draconian at best and the whole thing is Pass/Fail. If I pass I go to a happy place where everything is always nice but if I fail, I get tortured and punished for eternity. Eternity is the mandated sentence, no plea bargains allowed. Now I've done some crummy things, but nothing that would warrant an eternity stretch. And depending on your particular brand of Christianity, the threshold on the crime ranges all the way from genocide to masturbation. Eternity for whacking off!
So when Christians are wheeled through the operating room door this is the stuff they have to be concerned with. Uh.. No thanks.
Judaism and Islam both have variations on this same idea with different window dressing, but it still boils down to reward and punishment which is a pretty heavy thing to be worried about.
Buddhists have a whole different idea, re-incarnation. The end of one life is just the beginning of a new one. You die here, you're born there. This would be great if there wasn't a sneaky little complication called Karma. Westerners oversimplify this to fit their crime and punishment theme but it's not that straight forward. What I understand it to be is that you are re-incarnated until you have experienced all possible re-incarnations. That sounds fun until you realize that the woman who was kept in a dungeon for 19 years by her father is a re-incarnation. All the people who burn up in fires are re-incarnations. Every birth defect and horrible disease is a re-incarnation. I have those things to look forward to? So when I go through this death door and get dropped on to the big Karmic roulette wheel I could drop into the Bill Gate's grandson slot or the Somalian refugee born with aids slot. It's a total crap shoot.
Too much stress.
What I think will happen if I don't wake up is.. I'll never know I didn't wake up. I won't be here to know. I won't miss anything and I won't regret anything because I'm not here. I have no responsibilities regarding my death. Nothing more is demanded or expected of me. No judgment, no rewards, no punishment. If there is something more, I'll deal with it but if not, it was fun. This is a comforting scenario. I can handle this.
And that's how I rolled through the operating room door and that's what I was thinking as I went under. It was still scary, but not terrifying.
There are those who will convince themselves that God let me live. Let me say this to you.
I am alive today because Galileo refused to give in to the Inquisition, and because countless brave doctors defied the church to dissect cadavers to build the science of anatomy, and because of all the midwives and folk medicine practitioners that the church burned at the stake, and because of every scientist, doctor, psychologist, and astronomer who pushed back against the ignorant superstitions that worked tirelessly to suppress reason and logic. And because of all who fight today to research stem cells and cloning and biotech against the punishing tide of ignorance and lunacy that would have us all living in the Middle ages many more will live tomorrow. I'm alive because of that quality of a rational mind that demands that it call Bullshit when confronted with absurdity regardless of the consequences. I'm alive today in spite of God.
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I love your story!! Very awesome, I am happy that you are doing well.
I have thought long and hard about death and more or less reached the same conclusions. Either way, I have no intentions on worrying over it. I am more concerned about what they will do with me after I am dead. I know it may seem trivial to some since I technically no longer exist but that body is mine! Whats worse is I know that my smart ass family will push like crazy to have some church crap ceremony put on with a preacher to pray for my heathen soul.
So I have put an action plan into place to guarantee nothing of the sort happens. They just don't know it yet. My husband will have complete control and he loves my plan. I am going to be cremated and either turned into a kick ass statue of my own design or a giant block with something awesome written on it. Once I am ready I will then be dropped into the ocean where they are trying to get coral reefs to stabilize and grow. I'll become part of a coral reef, what could be better than that? Well besides being shot into space that would be pretty cool. As for my send off, I want a party, no preachers are not aloud, and if anyone gets caught praying for me they get a pre-written letter from me. Ahh, I love it!
Either way I am going out my way!
your experiance is very comforting i don't no why it just is, glad you were alright.
Glad your here mike. In the bhagavad Gita It suggests that through out your life you should strengthen or let go of the impressions that life leaves in your mind (samskaras, a group of samskaras makes Karma) so at the point of death you are thinking of what you would choose in your next reincarnation. so if you believe in reincarnation or not , Its just good practice to let your mind rest on what is good for you and makes you really happy. So my question is why would anyone choose to focus on the fantasy of god when you could be thinking ROKU.
Okay for those that do not know me , a joke between me and Mike , whom I thank for the intro to the group.


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Reviewed by Shelby G. (age 8)
Santa Claus Doesn't Mop Floors is a really good book because some of the characters don't listen and do really weird things like when Eddie and Howie put peanut butter on the stair railings. My favorite in part is when Eddie and Melody put whipped cream on the hallway walls because, later in the book Mr. Jolly (the new janitor) says "whipped cream sure doesn't look like snow!" like he knew it was them. They did that because they wanted to get rid of Mr. Jolly, so they tried reminding him of home.
I recommend this book to kids who like to spy on people like their parents, and like to go undercover. If you see a book title and it's sort of like a question? Well this is a book that is sort of like a question. And if you want to know the answer, you have to read the book. Kids who are in second grade and third grade should read this book. When the book ended I thought there would be more, and I wanted more. I bet the same thing will happen to you. There is much more of these Bailey School books like: Vampires Don't Wear Polka – Dots, Dracula Doesn't Drink Lemonade, Wizards Don't Need Computers, Knights Don't Teach Piano, Skeletons Don't Play Tubas, and so much more!


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Briars Lane - Burscough - Lancashire - L40 5TG
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Typical Taylor Wimpey home
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The Alton is a delightful 3 bedroom home, providing everything you need for modernliving and more.The ground floor is home to the spacious living room which features French doors to the rear garden – flooding the space with natural light and perfect for bringing the outside in. The open plan dining/kitchen is ideal for day-to-day living and added convenience comes in the form of a handy downstairs cloakroom and storage cupboard.
Upstairs you'll find two bedrooms, with the master bedroom having an entire floor and benefiting from its own en suite. The family bathroom serves the other two bedrooms.
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Where given room dimensions are maximums, ± 50mm, and include any fitted wardrobes or similar features.
Back to development
Easymover is available here, which means you could reserve a new Taylor Wimpey home at this development - even if you haven't sold your existing property.
And that's not all. With easymover, we'll make your house move as stress free as possible. We'll liaise with your estate agent on your behalf, we'll pay their fees and we'll manage the whole house selling process - making your life so much easier! Take a look at our easymover page for more information.
Terms and conditions apply to the Easymover scheme.
The Government backed Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme is available here. The scheme is open to both first time buyers and home movers alike, and means you'll need just 5% deposit to buy a new home.
With Help to Buy, the Government will lend you up to 20% of the value of your new build home via an equity loan. You will need to secure up to a 75% mortgage and put down a 5% deposit. You'll own 100% of your home from day one.
Find out more about how the Help to Buy scheme works.
Help to Buy: Equity Loan – Terms and conditions apply. Applicants should seek independent financial advice, and get information and guidance on applying for a Help to Buy: Equity Loan at www.helptobuy.gov.uk.
This development is managed by the North West Taylor Wimpey regional office


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Here are eight steps foodservice operators and their service agents can take to help ensure a longer service life for their garbage disposal.
Garbage disposals can help foodservice operators reduce the amount of solid waste that goes out their back door, potentially lowering hauling fees and labor. Like any other piece of commercial kitchen equipment, though, garbage disposals require some preventative and planned maintenance to ensure they have long, productive service lives.
With that in mind, the Commercial Food Equipment Service Association offer the following eight-point checklist of steps to take to make sure a garbage disposal remains in good working order.
- Check to see if hoses and neck pieces are in place
- Check for tight belts
- Check for water leakage
- Check for excessive wear
- Check operation of controls
- Check for proper amperage draw
- Check for proper water flow when on
- Check for vibration or noise
Additional service related information is available on the CFESA website.


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James Gandolfini who worked with Jim Carrey in his latest movie The Incredible Burt Wonderstone has passed away on June, 19. suffering heart attack......Reast in peace man (((((((
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R.I.P. James Gandolfini :(
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R.I.P. James Gandolfini :(
James Gandolfini who worked with Jim Carrey in his latest movie The Incredible Burt Wonderstone has passed away on June, 19. suffering heart attack......Reast in peace man (((((((
"It's Going To Be LEGEND wait for it DARY.....LEGENDARY"-Barney Stinson (How i met your mother!)
Re: R.I.P. James Gandolfini :(
This is so sad!
My sympathies to his family, friends & fans. Look up tonight people. Another star has risen 2 the sky.
I'm a guardian of the spark...
I'm a God damn and proud good fan... and I love it! = )>
Re: R.I.P. James Gandolfini :(
Wow, I bet the crew that worked with him
are pretty upset
My condolences also to family, friends and
"They say, you saw his heart in his eyes"
He was younger than some of us on here
One never knows when our number is up
Reaffirms, we should live each day as if it were our last
Re: R.I.P. James Gandolfini :(
R.I.P. I send my prayers to the family and friends. He will be missed!
"everything was going so well, why are you doing this Stephen? I made you breakfast, and we were eating and...... The scramby eggs!" -Chip Douglas, the cable guy
Re: R.I.P. James Gandolfini :(
I was extremely saddened to hear about Mr. Gandolfini's passing yesterday. His show "The Sopranos" radically changed TV for the better. If it wasn't for "The Sopranos," there'd be no "Breaking Bad," or "Boardwalk Empire" or "Dexter."
I'm going to miss him. Even in the movies that weren't so great, he still brought something unforgettable to them. Like "The Mexican." Pretty bad movie, in my opinion. But his role as the gay hitman was absolutely superb and three-dimensional.
Follow me on Twitter: @RealJackBristow
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Volunteer Committees
The Office of Institutional Advancement welcomes individuals who want to serve on committees that help advance the mission of Thomas More College. Approximately 160 volunteers contribute their time and talents through committee service. More than 100 of them are alumni of the College. If you want to find out more about serving on a committee, contact the IA Office at 859-344-3344.
Bishop Hughes Committee
As a Bishop Hughes Committee member you are asked to review nominations and select nominees for the Bishop Hughes award. You will be asked to assist in planning the annual dinner by securing sponsorships, planning the menu, and assisting in other aspects as needed.
Mary Brown
Jim Dressman '74
Gabrielle Hils '81
Susan Neltner
Pat Sommerkamp '71
College Correspondence Committee
Many TMC items you receive in your mailboxes are assembled by our College Correspondence Committee. As a College Correspondence Committee member you are asked to volunteer your time and efforts to assist the Office of Institutional Advancement with several mailings and special projects throughout the year.
Marilyn Esselman
Joyce Ginney '54
Tom Ginney '52
Juanita Hanna '58
Jeanne Jacobs '51
Carol Jansen '51
|Janet Mentrup '54
Tom Mentrup
Marg Middendorf '52
Ginny Murphy '53
Mary Elise Regan '66
Pud Vogt '51
IA Committee of the Board
Members of the IA committee are charged with examining and making recommendations regarding the development and public relations programs of the College. They will assume leadership with other members of the Board in acquiring necessary funds for the maintenance and progress of the College and its programs.
| Mary Brown
Jim Dressman '74
Dr. Cari Garriga
Sarah Giolando - Chair
Kim Halbauer '00
|Dr. Daniel J. Hiltz, '71
Carolyn Kallmeyer
James McNutt
D. Lynn Meyers '77
Marna Zalla
Corporate Campaign Committee
As a Corporate Campaign Committee Member you may be asked to review probable donor lists, identify contacts and help secure meetings with donors. When appropriate you may be asked to attend stewardship meetings.
|Don Benzinger
Rich Cross
Adam Davey '97
Matt Dietz
Jim Dressman '74
Dr. Jerry Franzen '64
Joe Geraci
Dan Groneck
Kim Halbauer '00 - Chair
Dennis Helmer '73
Dale Henson
Paul Hillenmeyer
| Dan Hiltz '71
John Hodge
Emir Hodzic
Marshall Liberman '94
Pat Raverty '73
Brian Roomes
D. Bruce Ross '72
Charlie Rowe
Frank Sommerkamp
George Thelen '58
Andy VonLehman '75
Ted Zalla '90
Planned Giving Advisory Board
As a Planned Giving Advisory Board member you may be asked to facilitate introductions to estate planning professionals, potential donors and attend a meeting with the Planned Giving Coordinator when appropriate. Also, you can identify or compose estate planning articles of interest that can be used to benefit Thomas More College.
|Donna Bloemer '91
Paul Carl '86
Ken Dorger
Jim Dressman '74
Gerry Dusing '71
|Jeff Lawson '97
Mike Murray
Andy VonLehman '75
Wonda Winkler '90
R. David Zerhusen
President's Society Committee
Marna Meier Zalla, Chair
Leslie Hafenmaier Armstrong
Virginia Bensman
Marilyn Esselman
Jean Germann Hengelbrok '56
Carol Walsh Jansen '51
Elaine Rabe Kohlhepp '64


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National & Global Home Search
GARDNER's strategic connections make us a national and global - not just local - real estate company working on your behalf.
Our national and global home search is provided to empower local buyers looking for real estate outside of our local market areas. We have strategically partnered with the top 500 local (non-franchised) real estate companies in the world to provide this exclusive search functionality. Additionally, it gives our GARDNER listings international exposure and has proven to be a very beneficial source of buyers.
With over 70 years of proven success, GARDNER is the largest and most successful local (non-franchised) real estate company in the Metro New Orleans, Greater Baton Rouge, and Mississippi Gulf Coast Region. As the prominent local/regional brand, GARDNER was chosen to represent Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, a 50-year old invitation-only international network, which is responsible for more transactions each year than any other real estate network. Our network is comprised of over 500 real estate companies with 4,000 offices and 120,000 real estate professionals in over 50 countries.
Where Do I Go Next?
Meet Our Relocation Team
Our Relocation Department provides the most professional, informative, and dedicated service to each agent, transferee, corporation, or relocation management company.


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Quote from: jenkins on July 01, 2017, 01:24:11 AMyou guys are hilarious and kisses to all the haters. the hate is gonna die out like that, live it up while you can.Or maybe this doesn't have to be a battle and we can just handle a difference of opinion.
you guys are hilarious and kisses to all the haters. the hate is gonna die out like that, live it up while you can.
I think the majority of the criticisms here are valid, they just didn't matter to me.
There is one cute moment where he gets into a new car and can't start driving until he finds a good song on the radio which does the most with this idea. It's fun. But it doesn't have any real dramatic function in the film. And thus, the hero essentially has no arc.
The ending is unearned. Instead of coming up with a plan to outsmart the other dudes, why does he just go along with it and then go to prison? I get it's the unexpected thing to do, but again, dramatically it doesn't really make sense. He's been blackmailed by these dudes essentially that he has to be their driver, so why not have some agency and fuck them over instead of just turning yourself in for something that you weren't entirely responsible for?
Lily James is cute and charming and unfortunately a placeholder for where an actual character should go.
I sympathize with mod here, because it's hard to balance that fine line of explaining why you liked but didn't love a movie without coming across like you're slamming it. I also sympathize with him because I largely agree with his take on the movie. Technically brilliant, ridiculously fun, sloppy plotting, thin characterization, boring and ugly Atlanta, Wright's third-best movie.I would like to focus my attention on the film's most glaring issue, which is that Ansel Elgort is not nearly a good enough actor to carry this movie. Watching and reading interviews with him, you get the sense he's a bit of a dim bulb, and that really came across in his performance. He can generally read a line the way it's supposed to be read, he can sit still when the script says he sits still, he can act flirty when the script says he acts flirty, he can arrange his facial features into moderately convincing simulacrums of various human emotions, but I don't get the sense he has any deeper understanding of the character he's playing. There's no light behind the eyes. When his face isn't moving, there's no inner world on display, no gears turning inside his head. I would kill to watch a version of this movie with someone like Dane Dehaan, or Michael B. Jordan, or Nick Robinson, or fuck, if Anton Yelchin hadn't died. Someone who could make me feel this character's internal struggle even when there wasn't a flashback to tell me about it. That to me was the biggest roadblock to getting fully invested in the film, that there was this empty void parked right of the middle of the whole thing.
But I sincerely did appreciate this as a uniquely blank performance. I read him as at least somewhat autistic.
Then, I think he really does open up and come alive with Debora. I would definitely not describe him as an empty void in those scenes.
Anyway, I'm just going to leave this here:
I think, for whatever reason - we're running outta young white dude stars - I just saw Free Fire and it was like 12 Actor Dudes all trying their darndest to be eccentric and characterly. meanwhile I was just on my friend's set where Lakeith Stanfield and Steve Yeun are doing a dystopian Oakland comedy with tinges of Office Space and Idiocracy - I dunno, there are certain actors you meet in real life and they're much more handsome and stylish than how they look on screen, but recently it just feels like there are all these actors I see in films and music videos where they just look like bros on your lyft line when you go to Brooklyn or LA. maybe it's like lack of good acting schools? no improv training? I dunno but c'mon this Ansel Backup Dancer Looking Guy whose last name I already forgot just isn't someone who deserves an Edgar Wright lead. Even Michael Cera barely cut it.
It was surprising to hear an instrumental from Pet Sounds and to have a character actually talk about Beck's Debra. I am one of the few who seems to love Mutations and Midnite Vultures. I still have not seen Scott Pilgrim. His other films I've seen are a little too British and heavy on techno music for my tastes.


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An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights
A democracy presupposes an informed citizenry. The First Amendment mandates the right of all persons to free expression, and the corollary right to receive the constitutionally protected expression of others. The publicly supported library provides free, equal, and equitable access to information for all people of the community the library serves. While the roles, goals and objectives of publicly supported libraries may differ, they share this common mission.
The library's essential mission must remain the first consideration for librarians and governing bodies faced with economic pressures and competition for funding.
In support of this mission, the American Library Association has enumerated certain principles of library services in the Library Bill of Rights.
Principles Governing Fines, Fees, and User Charges
Article I of the Library Bill of Rights states:
Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves.
Article V of the Library Bill of Rights states:
A person's right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.
The American Library Association opposes the charging of user fees for the provision of information by all libraries and information services that receive their major support from public funds. All information resources that are provided directly or indirectly by the library, regardless of technology, format, or methods of delivery, should be readily, equally and equitably accessible to all library users.
Libraries that adhere to these principles systematically monitor their programs of service for potential barriers to access and strive to eliminate such barriers when they occur. All library policies and procedures, particularly those involving fines, fees, or other user charges, should be scrutinized for potential barriers to access. All services should be designed and implemented with care, so as not to infringe on or interfere with the provision or delivery of information and resources for all users. Services should be reevaluated regularly to ensure that the library's basic mission remains uncompromised.
Librarians and governing bodies should look for alternative models and methods of library administration that minimize distinctions among users based on their economic status or financial condition. They should resist the temptation to impose user fees to alleviate financial pressures, at long-term cost to institutional integrity and public confidence in libraries.
Library services that involve the provision of information, regardless of format, technology, or method of delivery, should be made available to all library users on an equal and equitable basis. Charging fees for the use of library collections, services, programs, or facilities that were purchased with public funds raises barriers to access. Such fees effectively abridge or deny access for some members of the community because they reinforce distinctions among users based on their ability and willingness to pay.
Principles Governing Conditions of Funding
Article II of the Library Bill of Rights states:
Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.
Article III of the Library Bill of Rights states:
Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.
Article IV of the Library Bill of Rights states:
Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.
The American Library Association opposes any legislative or regulatory attempt to impose content restrictions on library resources, or to limit user access to information, as a condition of funding for publicly supported libraries and information services.
The First Amendment guarantee of freedom of expression is violated when the right to receive that expression is subject to arbitrary restrictions based on content.
Librarians and governing bodies should examine carefully any terms or conditions attached to library funding and should oppose attempts to limit through such conditions full and equal access to information because of content. This principle applies equally to private gifts or bequests and to public funds. In particular, librarians and governing bodies have an obligation to reject such restrictions when the effect of the restriction is to limit equal and equitable access to information.
Librarians and governing bodies should cooperate with all efforts to create a community consensus that publicly supported libraries require funding unfettered by restrictions. Such a consensus supports the library mission to provide the free and unrestricted exchange of information and ideas necessary to a functioning democracy.
The Association's historic position in this regard is stated clearly in a number of Association policies: 50.4 "Free Access to Information," 50.8 "Financing of Libraries," 51.2 "Equal Access to Library Service," 51.3 "Intellectual Freedom," 53 "Intellectual Freedom Policies," 59.1 "Policy Objectives," and 60 "Library Services for the Poor."
Adopted June 30, 1993, by the ALA Council.