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Let's turn in our Bibles to Revelation chapter 20 verses 11 through 15, a marvelous and familiar text, giving to us the most serious and sobering scene in all of the Bible because it describes the most tragic event in the history of mankind, the Great White Throne Judgment. Revelation chapter 20 verse 11, "And I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it from whose presence earth and heaven fled away and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne and books were opened, and another book was opened which is the book of life and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them, and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire."
We come this morning, in our ongoing study of Matthew's gospel, to a very, very wonderful passage, chapter 10 - part of our Lord's instruction to the Twelve as He sent them out. It tells us yet more about our Christ, and gives us more to be grateful for, and I trust that the Spirit of God will use this study this morning as a preparation for our time at the Lord's Table.
I confess to you an ongoing frustration that verses 16-23, like so many other texts, are units of thought and really should be understood as units. But time is the enemy in so many ways, and we cannot cover all of verses 16-23 in one lesson. So, in order to understand the fullness of impact, you must wait until next time. It's kind of like the serials you used to see when you were little, leaving you in suspended animation until 'to be continued' came to pass.
This particular portion of Scripture is a tremendous portion. We're looking at Matthew 10:16 and following, and beginning today to introduce its truths. Let me read to you Matthew 10:16-23 so that in your mind, you'll have the setting.
Jesus says, "I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves; be ye, therefore, wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men; for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues, and ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, be not anxious how or what ye shall speak; for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child; and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake, but he that endures to the end shall be saved. But when they persecute you in this city, flee into another; for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come."
We are in the tenth chapter of Matthew, looking, as it were, over the shoulder of our Lord as He instructs the Twelve on their first missionary venture. It is a part of their training. Before they are ultimately and finally sent out after the resurrection and ascension, they need to have some anticipation of what it will be like when they face a hostile, Christ-rejecting world. So the Lord sends them out ever so briefly, and not very far, but at least to give them a taste of what they will face. As He sends them, He gives them instructions.
I want to add, at this very point in the beginning of the message, that the instruction our Lord gives to the Twelve has some very specific reference to them. But beyond that, it telescopes beyond this, their first mission, to give them principles that will only be related to their full mission after the ascension. It goes beyond that to touch all who represent Christ in the church age, and it even goes into the period of the Great Tribulation. There is a telescoping effect.
If you'll look at verse 23, you'll notice that it ends with the coming of the Son of Man. That is an eschatological term used by Matthew to refer to the return of Christ. So what He teaches here has immediate import for the Twelve as they go out, such as the statement of verse 6, "Go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." That is a very dispensational statement related to a specific time in which they lived. But it begins from there to telescope, and it touches the time in which they will fully be sent, and it touches all of those who are ever sent by our Lord, even those who will be sent against the terrible opposition of the Great Tribulation prior to the return of Christ.
What we see here is a span and a sweep of all of the history of God's people from the time of Jesus' first coming to the time of His second coming. He sees the Twelve on this first mission, but with His marvelous, omniscient, prophetic eye, He sees the Twelve again in their full mission. Then He sees all those who represent Him, and then He finally sees them who will be in the great holocaust known as the Great Tribulation, and the terrible opposition they will face.
Remember, the first 15 verses of the chapter gave us insight into who the Twelve were and the fact that Jesus called them. Verses 5-15 gave us Christ's specific instructions to them. Verses 16-23 describe how the world will react to them, and how they are to react to the world. Finally, in verses 24 through the end of the chapter, we see the cost of discipleship. So we see who they are, what they are to do, how the world will react, and what the price is that must be paid for representing Christ.
So you see here, starting with the Twelve, this marvelous telescoping effect that encompasses everyone who represents Christ until the Second Coming. I say that now to let you know that we're here, we who represent Christ. There are some very specific things that related to the apostles. For example, it says in verse 8,"Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons."
You might want to know, interestingly enough, there is no indication in Scripture that they actually did raise the dead on this first, brief mission. But they would in their full and final sending after the resurrection when the Spirit came. It also says in verse 17, "They will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues." That also did not happen on this, their first mission. They weren't persecuted at all until after the resurrection of Christ. So, you see, there are some specific things that fit then, such as, "Go now to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," some that fit later for them, such as,"Raise the dead," and, "You will be persecuted in the synagogues," and some general things that sweep through history for us. Some, perhaps, that are uniquely fulfilled by those who will live in the Great Tribulation.
The reason I take the time to explain that to you is because people misunderstand this chapter, and particularly this section, wondering why the disciples didn't do all these things that were done, and wondering how and where these all apply. But that is a common biblical pattern. Many times in the Old Testament, the prophet will make an immediate prophecy that also has fulfillment in the future. David often spoke of some event coming to pass, or an attitude that he has, or something about himself, yet ultimately have in mind the Messiah. So there is this very common fulfillment.
For example, in Micah 5:2, it says that the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem. Verses 3-4 tell us He will reign as King of the earth. Micah is saying, "Soon, the baby will be born, and then He will reign." Yet he says nothing about the thousands of years between His birth and His kingdom. It is common in the prophetic literature for predictions to have both an immediate and future fulfillment, and that is what our Lord is doing. He is predicting the role and the place of the apostles, but also has in mind the ultimate sense that this will sweep clear through history up to the time of the Great Tribulation.
If you don't understand that, you will not understand this chapter; if you do, you will. Otherwise, you can't explain why the disciples didn't raise the dead and weren't thrown into the synagogues and beaten during their first mission. But if you understand that it is an unfolding all the way into the future, you have the right thought.
This, then, is our Lord's ordination of the Twelve and sending them out on their first internship, if you will. I want you to see this morning, and we'll just deal with the groundwork, the opening statement in verse 16, and what it means. "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves."
That is a very interesting statement. In fact, I got so interested in that statement that I didn't get much past it. I am not an expert on sheep, and am less of an expert on wolves. But when I was in high school, I had the occasion to be in the desert for a few days herding a flock of sheep. In that brief experience, I was exposed to the helplessness, stupidity, dependency, and timidity of sheep.
In fact, sheep are so easily scared and panicked that even a jackrabbit jumping out from behind some brush is enough to cause a whole flock to stampede. They are extremely edgy animals, and it's a good thing, because when danger comes, they are utterly helpless. They are totally defenseless, with no weapons at all, and the only thing they can do is run, but they aren't built for speed. They have big fat bodies and four toothpicks for legs. Yet all kinds of dangers face sheep.
Phillip Keller's book, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, has tremendous insights gained from his experience as a shepherd. He said that sheep need to be protected from poisonous weeds, so the shepherd has to go ahead of the flock and make sure there are no weeds. They are also vulnerable to weather, parasites (which attach themselves to the sheep's body), all kinds of diseases, and especially insects. In fact, there are certain flies that are so much a problem to sheep that sheep have commonly been known to beat their heads against rocks or trees until they are dead because of the annoyance of flies buzzing around their eyes and ears. Very often, flies will land in their eyes and lay eggs there, and ultimately, it will cause blindness. Sometimes, sheep will panic and stampede in an attempt to elude the flies, but in the stampede, ewes will loose their lambs and will become exhausted, lose weight, and some will even die.
Beyond all of these, the most severe enemy of sheep is the predator, the flesh-eating wild animal, the wolf. There is record that two wild animals, wolves or wild dogs, that have been known to kill as many as 292 sheep in a single night. Philip Keller writes,"Ewes, heavy with lamb, when chased by dogs or other predators, will slip their unborn lambs and lose them in abortions. A shepherd's loss from such forays can be appalling. One morning at dawn, I found nine of my choicest ewes, all soon to lamb, lying dead in the field.
"On several occasions, these cunning creatures came in among my sheep at night, working terrible havoc in the flock. Some ewes were killed outright, their blood drained and livers eaten. Others were torn open and badly clawed. Some had huge patches of wool torn from their fleeces. In their frightened stampede, some had stumbled and broken bones or rushed over rough ground, injuring legs and bodies.
"Yet despite the damage, despite the dead sheep, despite the injuries and fear instilled in the flock, I never once actually saw a predator on my range, so cunning and so skillful were their raids, they defy description."
If you had lived in Palestine in the Lord's time, you would have understood this. You would have understood the severity of the task of the shepherd, who had to defend his sheep against all of these things. And the shepherd didn't even own the sheep; he worked for the owner. In fact, if a shepherd reported that a sheep had been killed, he had to show a piece of flesh from that sheep to prove that a wild animal had killed it, even if it meant pulling the evidence out of the wolf's mouth. The shepherd might loose his own life if he didn't show proof because the sheep owners feared their sheep would be stolen unless they required evidence of a killing.
The conflict between sheep and wolves was familiar to the disciples. So the Lord says to them, "I'm going to send you out. To give you a perspective of how it will be, it will be like sheep in the midst of wolves. Not sheep in fear of wolves arriving, but sheep among wolves that have already arrived." That is not exactly the most thrilling call to the ministry I've heard.
Sending them out as sheep is a wonderful thought; Christ is the Good Shepherd, He knows His sheep, He loves and cares for His sheep, they know His voice. John 10 talks about all that wonderful stuff. But the idea of them being among vicious, destructive, deadly wolves was the Lord's way of graphically illustrating the helplessness and fearfulness of confronting a Christ-rejecting, God-hating world with the message of the Kingdom.
Sometimes the wolves are among us, friends. In case you haven't remembered, in Acts 20:29, Paul said to the elders of the Ephesian church, "I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock." In Romans 8:36, Paul says, "We are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." Some people just view Christians as sheep to be slaughtered. Sometimes the wolves are on the outside, but sometimes they are on the inside masquerading as sheep. Remember the wolf in sheep's clothing in Matthew 7:15? We'll get into that next week. "The wolves are out there," Jesus says, "And you're defenseless in and of yourselves." But that's how it will be; you'll be victims, in a sense.
Frankly, that would be enough to panic anyone: helpless, defenseless apostles going out among rapacious, vicious, wicked, God-hating men. Is it any wonder that the first word in verse 16 is'behold?' That's a word of amazement, "You won't believe this! This is astounding!" You would think the Lord would say, "Men, we are going out as wolves among the sheep. Get 'em! Tear 'em up for the Gospel!"
After all, in Matthew 9:38, Jesus refers to the multitude as sheep without a shepherd. It would seem that they're the sheep and we're the wolves, and we have the power of God. But no, they're the wolves and we're the sheep. It doesn't mean that we're going to loose, it just means we don't have the resources in ourselves. That's why it's so wonderful when we read in John 10 that the Good Shepherd gives His life for the sheep; He will defend us.
Jesus' honesty is so refreshing to me. I don't believe He'd be at home in contemporary Christianity because there's not enough honesty in it. We are so concerned about getting people saved that we pretty well water down the Gospel. We don't talk about repentance or confession of sin or humbling oneself or hungering and thirsting for righteousness. We don't talk about the lordship of Christ, or obedience and the narrow way, or the cost and the price. Then, when someone becomes a believer, we don't talk about going out into the world as sheep among wolves. We say, "Let's go share." We've got nice little formulas that we use. We aren't as honest as Jesus was; we don't recruit people for evangelism and say, "There are some rapacious, wild wolves out there. Are any of you sheep who would like to volunteer?"
It isn't the world's way to win adherence; the world talks about ease, comfort, riches, advancement, and ambition. But Jesus offered hardship and death - such honesty. Listen, we might as well tell the truth, because if we are dishonest in our presentation of the Gospel and of what service to Christ is, people will come to Him on false pretenses and not the truth anyway. What have we gained? It just clouds the issue for them and everyone else. That's why it's so clear to me that we have so many on the broad road and so few on the narrow road. But so many on the broad think they're saved because we have so watered down the reality of the Gospel.
When Jesus called people into His service, He initiated them by saying, "You're going to go out and get ripped to pieces. It isn't easy; they're going to cut you up out there. They don't agree with you or believe your message or want to hear your message."
Giuseppe Garibaldi, in 1849, after the siege of Rome, said this to his soldiers, "Men, all our efforts against superior forces have been unavailing. I have nothing to offer you but hunger, thirst, hardship, and death. But I call on all who love their country to join with me," and they came by the hundreds. After Dunkirk, Churchill said, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat." Similarly, our Lord offers blood, sweat, tears, hunger, thirst, and death. That's the way it is, and He never sends anyone out without telling them the full truth.
Life is tough on the mission field, but it's also tough to be a missionary at home. If you're not suffering much persecution, it could be the result of not being definitive about your faith. II Timothy 3:12 says, "All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." God also may be gracious in giving you a time of respite. But somewhere in the world, at all times, the church is suffering persecution and being devoured. One day we may experience it here. We can thank God for this breath of fresh air, but in the midst of it, don't be under the illusion that there is no persecution.
A woman came to me Wednesday night and said, "I have a job where I counsel people with social problems. The only solution I've found for the people I counsel is Jesus Christ, so I've told them of Christ. But now, they've told me that I cannot speak of Christ to anyone. What do I do?" The answer is to ask them whether you ought to obey God or men; you have a mandate from God. She said, "I accept that even if I loose my job." And it may come to that, but that's how it is out in the world.
If we are definitive with our faith, there will always be a price to pay. You cannot confront a God-hating world without a reaction. So much of our Christianity is locked up inside church walls that I often wonder if the world even knows who we are.
Let's look at the passage and at least ask some basic questions. First of all, who are the wolves? The Twelve are told that they will be persecuted, and it didn't happen until after the crucifixion. Even when Peter cut off Malcus' ear, they didn't arrest him. The disciples didn't experience any persecution until after the Resurrection, but it is going to come, and it will come from the wolves.
We know who the sheep are; they are the apostles. "I send you forth as sheep." But who are the wolves? Verse 17 tells us. Men are the wolves, human beings. It's true that we wrestle, "Against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Yes, we wrestle against a demonic foe; yes, Satan, the prince of the power of the air, the ruler of the darkness of this world, is behind the system. Yes, it is supernatural, yes it is hellish and demonic. But its agents are human, and the enemy is men.
Throughout the years of God's people, it has been men who have slaughtered the saints, who have imprisoned, crucified, burned at the stake, and stoned the saints of God. Men have snuffed their lives out, and still do it, even to this day, in places behind the Iron Curtain, and Ethiopia, and Uganda, and other parts of Africa. Men are the enemy - men who talk about the milk of human kindness yet who are the dupes of Satan.
Matthew 5:10-11 says, "Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake." The assumption there is that men do those wicked things, that's why it's in italics - it's on the human level. It had already begun coming down around our Lord, if not His disciples.
Go back into chapter 9, for example. Once He forgave the sin of the paralyzed man, the Pharisees moved in. In verse 11, they went to the disciples and said, "Why does your Master eat with tax collectors and sinners?" They began to react against Him, the plot began to brew, and in verse 34, they said, "He casteth out demons through the prince of the demons, He is demon-possessed." There was a wolf even among the twelve disciples named Judas. He was one of those like Paul spoke of, who arise from the midst. He ultimately betrayed Jesus, delivering Him to be murdered. He is responsible for the destruction from the physical, human side of our Lord, as well as others.
That's why verse 17 says to beware of men. Keep your eye out for men; they're not your friends, in one sense. This is not to jade you. I don't want you to forget to reach people and love them as God does. We are to, "Do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith." We need to keep a balance, but realize that the enemy will attack through human agencies. Don't be shocked when you are criticized. Don't be surprised when you are fired for articulating your faith. Don't be surprised when you're not invited to parties or certain activities, or when some girl or guy dumps you because of your faith. Don't be surprised, because human agents represent the kingdom of darkness.
You say, "Is it very widespread?" Look at verse 22. "Ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake." It isn't isolated, it's standard fare.
'All' doesn't refer to every human being who ever lived on the face of the earth. Everyone doesn't hate me; they don't all know me. Maybe if they all knew me, it would be a different story. It's not an 'all' in that sense any more than when it says, for example, in Jeremiah 3:6 that, "Israel played the harlot under every green tree." Well, you understand that the author takes literary license; it doesn't mean they actually left no tree on the planet without an adulterous affair. It's a generic, general, sweeping statement.
David said, "Every night I make my bed swim, I dissolve my couch with my tears." Give him a break, that's literary license. In a sense, you have it here. According to Mark 11:32, all men believed John the Baptist to be a prophet. That's obviously a general statement - all classes, races, nationalities, and cultures. What He's saying is, "I'm not just talking about the Jewish people being antagonizing, I'm talking about all kinds of people through all ages of history reacting negatively to the Gospel when it is lived and presented."
A question always comes up in my mind at this point, and I ask why we don't experience it. If I was preaching this sermon in Uganda, I wouldn't even need to illustrate it. I think some of it has to do with the sovereignty of God and the fact that He knows how much we can bear, and He shortens the length of trials for certain people in certain places, and He has His purposes. But I actually believe that part of the reason we don't experience more overt persecution is that we have so altered our message to accommodate rather than to confront men.
The Gospel begins with lostness, because you don't even know where the Gospel begins unless you understand that the first thing Paul says is, "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness." How would you like that for the next class in evangelism training? You go up to someone and what do you say first? "The wrath of God is revealed against you for your ungodliness. You know what is true of God by the creation around you, but you have turned the truth into a lie and worshiped the creature more than the Creator. God has given you up to your own lusts."
Then you could go on to point two after you pick yourself up of the floor. That is so different from the way we normally present the Gospel. But Jesus said, "When you preach repentance, and that the Kingdom is at hand, you are actually confronting people with their sinfulness; you are confronting the dupes and agents of Satan the world across, and through all of human history, and you can count on them to react."
It doesn't mean you are looking for this, and we'll see that next week as we see the proper response. But when we recruit for the ministry, people need to be reminded that they are going out as sheep among wolves. People will misunderstand you, misrepresent you, criticize you. You have to accept that as part of it. Sometimes I think the physical suffering would be easier to handle than the emotional and mental anguish.
Look for example at I Corinthians 4. This will give you the perspective of one of the apostles added to the Twelve, by the name of Paul, who was no less an apostle. In verse 9 he says, "I think that God hath set forth us, the apostles, last." He's saying,"Sometimes I get the idea that we're the bottom of the whole barrel." Then, he gives all kinds of interesting terms. "We were appointed to death; for we are made a spectacle. We are fools for Christ's sake, and are naked, and are buffeted. We are made as the filth of the world, and are the off scouring of all things."
How's that for recruiting? "All of you who would like to be appointed to death, made spectacles, fools, naked and buffeted, filth and off scouring, line up to the right. Welcome to the mission field, the ministry, the representation of Christ."
'Made a spectacle' is a very interesting term. When a Roman general won a battle over another nation or city, he was given the privilege of parading his army through the streets; this was called'triumph.' He would parade his army, and they would have all the spoils, the wealth, and all of the fare that they had taken from the defeated foe. At the end of the parade followed a group of captives, tied together, being led to certain death in the arena. That is the term that is used here for spectacle. Moffat's reads,"God means us apostles to come in at the very end, like doomed gladiators in the arena." That's us; set for doom.
Then he says, "Appointed to death." Jesus told Peter he would die, and almost all, with a few exceptions, were martyred. Verse 10 says, "We are fools." The world thinks us fools; I Corinthians 1 says, "They think our message foolishness." Verse 11 says we will be 'buffeted,' a word which means 'to strike someone with your fist.' It was used of beating slaves with the fists.
It says we are 'filth,' and that is a word that means a dirty scab, and 'off scouring' is what would be wiped off a dirty dish; that's us. How's that for a call to the ministry? Paul says,"That's a good definition of an apostle." What is an apostle? He is a spectacle appointed unto death, the fool who is knocked around with people's fists, one who is considered filth and something to be scrubbed off a plate.
Who are the wolves? Men. Let me ask you a second question, looking back at Matthew 10. Why are they so vicious? Why are the wolves so vicious? It's very simple. Verse 18 says, "Ye shall be brought before governors and kings for My sake. Ye shall be hated of all men for My name's sake." They are vicious not because they really hate you, but because they hate Christ.
Look at verse 22 again. "You shall be hated of all for My name's sake." The concept of 'name' there refers to all that Christ is.'In the name of Christ' is the sum of all that He is. It's because of who He is and what He's done that we are persecuted. Mark this: if we are persecuted because of who Christ is and what He has done, it has to be very obvious that we and Christ are doing together what we are doing. In other words, if Christ is not made manifest, no one will persecute Him in me. But when I am persecuted, it is because I represent Christ; it is because He is in me, living His life. It is because I reflect Christ in the world that I am persecuted.
In Galatians 6:17, Paul said, "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Visible on Paul's body were the marks and scars from the stonings, whippings, and beatings he endured. To him they were the marks of Christ; they weren't intended for him. People weren't angry with Paul - he wasn't that big of an issue; they were upset at Christ. Since they couldn't strike Christ, they got to His emissary. Twice they actually took his life; once he came back. Finally they chopped his head off with an axe, but it wasn't because of him. It was because of who was living in him.
The same thing is in Colossians 1:24. Paul said, "I fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh." Paul took blows meant for Christ. I guess that's kind of an exciting thing; Paul wanted to know the fellowship of His sufferings. He prayed his highest prayer, "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings." Paul really identified with being able to be punished, not for what he did, but for what Christ was doing through him, in confronting the world of darkness.
You can actually get excited; Peter said, "If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you." When the Kingdom is built, Satan will cause people to react; they will rebel, ostracize, criticize, condemn, turn you away, and falsely accuse you. But it's OK for us to stand and take the blows meant for Him who took the blows meant for us. In fact, that's a joy.
The Apostle Paul really understood this principle. Look with me at an illustration in Acts 9. As Paul was on the road to Damascus, literally his breath was a breath of threat and slaughter as he killed Christians. So he comes along the road, and the Lord strikes him down and blinds him. He's on the ground, and verse 4 says, "A voice saying unto him, 'Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?'" He might have said, "What do you mean 'you?' Have I persecuted you?" In effect, that's what he did say. "He said, 'Who art Thou, Lord?' And the Lord said, 'I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest.'"
Now Paul had never met Jesus, and Jesus was not on earth, He was in Heaven, so how was Paul persecuting Jesus? Because Christ was living His life through His people, and when Paul persecuted His people, he persecuted Him. Paul never forgot that. That thought stuck in his mind so that when he recited his testimony in Acts 22:7, he said, "I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?' and I answered, 'Who are you, Lord?' and He said to me, 'I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting.'" In Acts 26, when he was talking to Agrippa, he said, "I heard a voice saying in the Hebrew tongue, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?' and I said, 'Who are you, Lord?' and He said to me, 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.'"
Beloved, we are sent into the world as were the Twelve, and as will be the people who come in the tribulation time, to represent Christ as sheep among wolves. The wolves are men, and the reason the wolves are so vicious is that they hate Christ. Jesus said, "He that is not with me is against me." There is no middle ground.
How do the wolves attack? I'll answer that next time, and I'll also answer the question, "What is our response?" I believe it is one of the most rich passages you'll ever see in the Bible about how we react to a hostile world. I believe it will become more hostile in our own country if we will be faithful to declare the truth with the same honesty our Lord and His disciples declared it.
Jesus gathered the Twelve and told them, "Men, I'm sending you out as sheep among wolves." Later, He told them, "I'll be with you. I'll never leave or forsake you, and you'll win in the end, and the sheep will defeat the wolves." It's a great promise. Not in their own strength, but on the basis of Christ's power.
The disciples wanted to stay close to Jesus because they knew He was their resource; they never wanted to drift away. They huddled around Him, hung onto Him. When He said He was going to leave them, they panicked. When He told them to go away, they said, "Where will we go?" He was the source of their food - He fed them on the side of the hill. He was the source of their tax money; on at least one occasion, He provided it from the mouth of a fish. He was the source of their human need for love - He poured His love on them and cared for them.
He turned nature into one huge parable, so that every time they saw a field, a tree, a mountain, an animal, a leaf, a flower, or a piece of grain, they instantly thought of spiritual truth. He taught them. He was everything to them. When He told them He was going to go away and leave them to the wolves, they panicked because they so longed for His fellowship. But He also told them He would send His Spirit to dwell in them. He would become their strength and power to overcome the world. Through the resident Spirit in the life of a believer, he communes with the living Christ.
Jesus gave them a way to remember that in this, the Lord's Table. He said, "Come to the table and remember Me, the Good Shepherd who gave His life for the sheep. Every time you do this, remember that I died to save you from the wolves. Someday, I'll come again, to take you to Myself." This becomes not only a table of remembrance, but a table of fellowship. It says, "This is what Christ did in the past, and this is our living communion in the present until He comes again." He said, "Someday, I'll come back and we'll do it together in My Kingdom," but until then, He communes with us here.
As close as we ever come as a family, as close as we ever come to each other, as close as we ever come to Christ, as intimate as we ever get with our Shepherd, we get at His Table, because here, we partake of His body and His blood in memory, in remembrance, and in living communion as He meets us here. So, as we stand in our world, sheep among the wolves, we need His presence, and we need to come back for the cleansing, the reaffirmation of our faith, the reuniting of our fellowship to this Table. Let's bow in prayer, preparing our hearts.
Father, thank You for meeting us in Your Word, in prayer, in the praises of Your people, and at Your Table. Oh God, we pray that our hearts might truly be committed to You in this moment. Lord Jesus, we know that we cannot come to this table with sin in our lives. We pray that we might examine ourselves, and if there be anything in us that stands between us and full communion with You and with the fellowship of believers, that we might confess it, put it away, see it cleansed.
Pardon all our sins, known and unknown, felt and unfelt, confessed and unconfessed, remembered and forgotten. Make us clean. Thank You that we can meet You here in a special way, commune with Your presence, come into the fold, as it were, for a moment of respite with the Good Shepherd before we go back among the wolves. Infuse us with Your strength, cleanse us with Your power, blend us into one, give us courage to speak knowing that You have died for us and the victory is ours. Give us the boldness we need to confront the world. As we take the bread, may we remember Your body, the incarnation that God became a man. As we take the cup, Your blood, that You died, our substitute for sin.


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2016-07-21 15:03
Quality: SD
2016-08-08 Cadillac Is Your Great-Grandfather's Car, and Here's Why Its CMO Is Cool With That
Uwe Ellinghaus hates clichés. As CMO of Cadillac, his main directive is to avoid them: no ads with SUVs zooming down a mountain, or a litany of hot features. Some of Cadillac's latest ads don't even show a car. When your sales lag far behind your ... Read more
2016-08-08 Dealer groups open fire on Cadillac retail plan
to obtain the higher per-car incentive." A Cadillac spokesman confirmed that de Nysschen received the letters and said he was reviewing them and planned to respond. He declined to comment on the issues raised. Already, concerns among dealers about how they ... Read more
2016-08-07 What makes a car 'sexy'?
You could think of car parts as jewelry -- sort of like designer accessories for cars. Example: the taillights on the 1959 Cadillac Series 62. These beauties, seen in the first photo above, have transcended manufacturing and entered the world of pure art. Read more
2016-08-05 Cadillac's Rear Camera Mirror
Backing up in a new car is definitely more of a challenge than it used to be, and these companies compensate with technology such as park sonars and cameras. Luxury brand Cadillac is taking those innovations to a new level with their Rear Camera Mirror. Read more
2016-08-03 Ratings and Review: 2017 Cadillac XT5 is an evolution, not a revolution.
When it premiered at the Los Angeles Auto Show last fall, Cadillac's latest crossover was a bit of a polarizing design. The toothy front end with full-height LED running lights and an angular design made for one of the more striking debuts at the time ... Read more

subset: commoncrawl


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Nick Sergeant and Pete Karl, designed and developed an application during the two-day conference, An Event Apart Boston, and took it live during the event. The application, A Feed Apart, was created using Django, django-syncr, and the Twitter and Flickr APIs in order to aggregate all attendee-posted information in one place.
Sergeant, a front-end web developer from Rochester, New York, works for Dumbwaiter Design as the sole developer, wearing many and all the hats at the company. He worked directly with Pete Karl II, an engineer, who works in social media marketing at Digital Influence Group in Boston. Both Karl and Sergeant work together at Lion Burger, a side project, whose motto is "Rare web apps, well done."
"Word spread of a newly-built site called A Feed Apart while we were onsite in Boston," said Eric Meyer, co-founder of An Event Apart. "It turned out to be the work of two of our attendees. Although it came out of the blue, so to speak, it wasn't entirely a surprise; we already knew our attendees are creative, brilliant folks. Eager to learn more, we contacted them after the show to gather the details and share their work and experience creating A Feed Apart."
"The excitement the A Feed Apart app generated was the fuel that kept us going. In the beginning, we thought it was just a simple little app that a few folks would really enjoy and use," said Nick Sergeant. "By the end of the first conference day, so many folks were using it that we focused almost entirely on fixing the bugs, cleaning up the code, and building new features to make A Feed Apart (AFA) more useful for everyone. By the end of day two, we'd served 140,000 updates to AFA users."
"Once we had Tweets flowing into the A Feed Apart app, we saw opportunities for different ways people could interact with the site. Rather than just aggregating Tweets, we'd like to see links to live blogs, posts related to sessions, and maybe some instructions on how folks can contribute to the social media atmosphere of the conference - that is official photo pools, maybe a del.icio.us aggregator, that kind of thing," said Pete Karl. "We'd really love to give An Event Apart attendees the opportunity to contribute information directly to the site in the form of links, photos, or on-the-fly feedback. We're definitely going to rework it for An Event Apart Chicago!"
The creators of An Event Apart, Jeffrey Zeldman and Eric Meyer, believe that A Feed Apart is the kind of positive outcome that occurs when you create a community that recognizes and champions great web design and development. "The evolution of open tools, APIs, and web standards means that smart and creative people, the kind of people who attend An Event Apart, can and will create when inspiration strikes," says Eric Meyer. "We love that the Boston show provided the inspiration that launched Nick and Pete's project."
The entire interview with Sergeant and Karl detailing A Feed Apart is available online with live links to other applications Lion Burger has created and details on how the AFA application was built. A Feed Apart supports the conference series, An Event Apart, which delivers two days of the greatest minds and hottest talents in web design today. Speakers cover creating the right content and features for your audience, designing pages that are a pleasure to read and use, and beating browsers and web gadgets into submission. Both An Event Apart and its presenters are gung-ho about web design and development. Each speaker has made genuine contributions to the industry and each is a star.
An Event Apart takes place in Chicago, October 12-13, and finishes the year in San Francisco, December 7-8, 2009. These two-day events all take place in one room, one track, for a shared and concentrated learning experience multi-track events cannot deliver. To register for the conference, visit the website.
Talking Shop Interview
An Event Apart: www.aneventapart.com
From the makers of A List Apart, An Event Apart is an intensely educational two-day conference for passionate practitioners of standards-based web design. If you care about code as well as content, usability as well as design, An Event Apart is the conference you've been waiting for. Founded by web visionaries Eric Meyer and Jeffrey Zeldman, and dedicated to the proposition that the creators of great web experiences deserve a great learning experience, An Event Apart brings together twelve of the leading minds in web design for two days of non-stop inspiration and enlightenment. An Event Apart receives support from A List Apart, Happy Cog, GoodBarry, and Media Temple.


text: Check your kernel config, you need the kernel timer set to 1000Hz to play a game like UT2K4 and not have the system lag behind. On 30/04/07, Peter Hoff <petehoff at pacbell.net> wrote: > > Don't know if there's anything to be done about the map thing. That used > to happen to me, too. Maybe downloading all the maps you can find so it > doesn't have to download them from the server? Dunno, just an idea. > > The second thing could be a video issue. Maybe try reinstalling or > updating your video drivers. Or it might be that your video card is > overheating. You could get a can of compressed air and blow all the dust > bunnies out of your machine. > > The last one could be due to your mouse. Sometimes my mouse wheel gets > stuck between points on the roller and things get crazy as it tries to > decide what's going on. > > > ----- Original Message ---- > From: Ketzerei/Deafmonkey <h3adbanger101 at gmail.com> > To: ut2004 <ut2004 at icculus.org> > Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2007 6:25:22 PM > Subject: [ut2004] Video > > Ok, I'm not sure if it's my comp, or the game, but (this is only in > Instant action) the game will spend like 20 minutes loading a map while all > the other maps before that loaded fine. It's not one specific map either. > Also, the game will randomly lag for like half a second every 3 seconds for > like a minute. And, (yes there's a lot to this) the view will occasionally > sputter and cause me to look either straight up or down instantaniously. > Dunno if it's me or what, but if you have a suggestion, please tell me. > > -- Alex Boag-Munroe Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://icculus.org/pipermail/ut2004/attachments/20070430/7992e6d5/attachment.htm>


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SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) - China's central bank faced down the country's cash-hungry banks on Friday, letting interest rates again spike to extraordinary levels as it increases the pressure on the banks to rein in rampant informal lending and speculative trading.
The banks have been using cheap official funds to finance the vast "shadow banking" market, which Beijing worries is siphoning credit from industry and creating asset-price bubbles.
The People's Bank of China (PBOC) has tried to put an end to this over the past three weeks, declining to inject significant funds into the money markets even as the interest rate for some banks to borrow short-term funds has soared to 25 percent or higher.
"They are trying to take a different approach to rein in shadow banking activity," Charlene Chu, senior director at Fitch Ratings, told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Sydney.
"This new approach, where you are trying to tighten the funding in the system available for that type of credit, is much more effective, but it is also taking the market by surprise."
Cash remained expensive at least for the smaller banks, though the weighted average overnight bond repurchase rate — a measure of the cost of funds — fell to around 9 percent by midday from Thursday's close of 11.62 percent.
Some worry the PBOC's hardline approach could be a risky strategy, creating the potential for defaults and gridlock in the money markets of the world's second-largest economy, as happened in the West after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.
Some calm returned on Friday after rumors of some major banks needing emergency funding were quelled. There was also market talk the central bank had guided the biggest state lenders to provide more short-term funds to smaller banks.
The central bank has so far issued no official statements on the episode. However, sources said on Friday that at a meeting earlier this week, the PBOC told banks it was not changing its prudent stance and they should not expect plentiful liquidity conditions forever.
"Some banks were blindly optimistic on the loose liquidity conditions...," said a banking source who saw internal minutes of the meeting.
"The central bank gives clear information that they will keep policy stable without sudden changes in (policy) direction," added another source, from a state-owned bank, who also saw the minutes.
In a sign of the problems Beijing is trying to tackle, shadow-market lending has contributed to a sharp decline in the dividend the economy gets for each yuan of credit extended.
In 2008, only 22 yuan in corporate fundraising — mostly in the form of borrowing — was required to produce 100 yuan worth of economic output, according to a Reuters calculation based on central bank data. By the first quarter of this year, 52 yuan was required for the same amount of output.
"One consensus among many government officials and policy advisers is that tough decisions on economic reforms could no longer be delayed and that taking some short-term pain is necessary for healthy long-term growth," Barclays economist Yiping Huang said in a research note on Friday.
China's cabinet this week affirmed its commitment to reducing financial risks and ensuring that credit growth supported the real economy.
The central bank is loathe to take actions such as cutting banks' required reserves to ease the cash crunch, as it is concerned that might only exacerbate problems such as the high property prices it is trying to tame.
A flurry of panicked comments on Chinese social media sites in the wake of the spike in rates and the rumors of emergency cash injections attests to the risk that any miscalculations by the central bank could potentially have unintended consequences.
Zhu Jun, CEO of online game developer and operator The9, posted on his Twitter-like Weibo account an article that laid out the idea that a financial crisis was at the doorstep, with a comment already reposted nearly 5,000 times: "This scary article woke me up. Get ready for a nightmare."
Additional reporting by Lu Jianxin and Anita Li in SHANGHAI, Bi Xiaowen in HONG KONG, and Ian Chua in SYDNEY; Editing by John Mair


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So Where Are Your Most Important Estate-Planning Documents?Posted March 2018
For most of us, encountering one of life's milestones prompts us to prepare a will—and we finally go through the process of assigning assets to our loved ones and charitable beneficiaries. Often, however, the will is then tucked away in a desk drawer or safe-deposit box, all but forgotten.
Where should you store your will and other important estate-planning papers? If a will cannot be found, an estate will be distributed according to the often inflexible intestacy rules of state government.
You should keep your original will in an attorney's vault—or in a bank vault if the bank is acting as executor. Keeping your will in a safe-deposit box can create delays, since many states restrict access to such boxes without court approval. See the list below for how to safeguard your records and documents.
Gifts by will are an integral part of the American philanthropic tradition. Our tax laws encourage our support of charitable institutions through tax deductions and estate-tax savings. Through your will you can continue to support us and the other organizations that you have assisted during your lifetime.
In addition to your will, your personal and financial records, legal documents, and tax returns are all essential to an efficient settlement of your estate. As such, they should be safely stored but readily accessible when needed. The following list shows those records and documents that will prove helpful, suggests where they should be stored, and explains why they are important.
Original Will/Trust, Power of Attorney, and Health Care Directives
- Location: attorney's vault or bank vault; retain copies at home
- Value: irreplaceable documents, essential for carrying out your estate plan
Investment Documents (stock certificates, bonds, CDs, deeds, and titles)
- Location: safe-deposit box
- Value: required for sale, distribution, or collection
Insurance Policies
- Location: safe-deposit box
- Value: required to make claims
Tax Returns
- Location: file at home (keep irreplaceable records and receipts in safe-deposit box)
- Value: helpful to executor when filing final income-tax return and estate-tax return
Asset Inventory
- Location: safe-deposit box
- Value: necessary to locate and collect property
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Next Steps
- Request a confidential conversation with a gift-planning
officer about gift plans or other options
- Read about our donors and the gifts they've made
© Pentera, Inc. Planned giving content. All rights reserved.


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WGSS Brochure (April 2012)
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Publication Manual (2011)
Strategic Plan (28 May 1996)
Orientation Guide for Committees and Officers (July 2005)
Committee Member Responsibilities (from ACRL Guide to Policies & Procedures)
Committee Member/Intern Responsibilities (an ACRL Tip Sheet)
Meeting Highlights Form: html (an ACRL form)
"Women's Studies Section: 25 Years of History, Connections, Resources and Professional Development" (June 2008)
Due to ALA's tax exemption as a 501(c)(3), ALA resources cannot be used to support or oppose any candidate for public office. Nor can they be used to link to other sites that contain such support or opposition. Neither can ALA's resources be used to suggest or support boycotts or to make defamatory remarks.


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Topic: Epidural Follow-Up: What to ask, check. Troubleshooting Epidurals and Other Catheters.
Location: VUH 3rd floor Rm. 3015
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Through the exceptional capabilities and caring spirit of its people, Vanderbilt will lead in improving the healthcare of individuals and communities regionally, nationally and internationally. We will combine our transformative learning programs and compelling discoveries to provide distinctive personalized care.
Vanderbilt University is committed to principles of equal opportunity and affirmative action. Copyright 2019 © Vanderbilt University Medical Center.


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Calendar view all >
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Walkabout Tremont - September
Sep 13, 2019
Every second Friday of the month, all year! 6pm-9pm
About Walkabout Tremont
Walkabout Tremont honors the artistic vision of Jean Brandt, who started the Tremont ArtWalk in 1993, with open galleries on the second Friday of each month. Walkabout Tremont expands the eventâs focus with music, street entertainment, local history, restaurant and bar specials, and pop-up tents featuring art and artists from within and outside Tremont. Special Walkabout Tremont events will be staged throughout the second weekend of each month. More specifics, an event map, neighborhood tours and gallery/store/restaurant hours are posted on WalkaboutTremont.com.
Visit Tremont ArtWalk's website, for an archive of 23 years in Tremont.


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Faculty Concert - IKIF
17th International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Hunter College
July 27th, 2015
Scriabin: Prelude in B Major, Op. 16, No. 1
Scriabin: Prelude in G-Sharp Minor, Op. 22, No. 1
Scriabin: Impromptu in B-Flat Minor, Op. 12, No. 2
Scriabin: Étude in F-Sharp Major, Op. 42, No. 3
Scriabin: Étude in D-Sharp Minor, Op. 8, No. 12
Dmitry Rachmanov
Chopin: Nocturne in D-Flat Major, Op. 27, No. 2
Chopin: Nocturne in F-Sharp Major, Op. 15, No. 2
Chopin: Mazurka in C Major, Op. 24, No. 2
Chopin: Mazurka in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 50, No. 3
Chopin: Mazurka in A Minor, Op. 59, No. 1
Chopin: Mazurka in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 59, No. 3
Chopin: Mazurka in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 63, No. 3
Nina Lelchuk
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12 in C-Sharp Minor
Mykola Suk
Albeniz: Iberia, Book III
José Ramos Santana
Mason: Silver Spring
Bernstein: The Masque from "Age of Anxiety"
Dixieland Jazz Band: Hold That Tiger
Steven Mayer
Messiaen: Vision de l'Amen
V. Amen des Anges, des saints, du chant des oiseaux
Gabriele Leporatti, Gesa Luecker
Bizet/M. Wilberg: Fantasy on Themes from Carmen for 2 Pianos, 8 Hands
Gabriele Leporatti, Gesa Luecker, Claire Huangci, Eduard Zilberkant
Last night's program began with a disappointment, as well as a pleasant surprise. The disappointment was that Yuan Sheng would not be appearing. I had been looking forward to hearing him play a Bach Partita, as he is a wonderful Bach pianist. The pleasant surprise was that his place was taken by Dmitry Rachmanov, who performed a Scriabin group. Mr. Rachmanov is known for his performances of that composer, and, indeed, I heard him play an all-Scriabin recital last season at Zankel Hall. His playing of this music was very cultured and refined, yet strong, and always convincing.
Nina Lelchuk, as one could tell from the audience reaction, is a highly respected pianist and teacher. She is an assertive and idiomatic Chopin player. Her performances of the first and last Mazurkas were particularly fine.
Mykola Suk is a very individual pianist who reminds me, in some ways of Robert Goldsand. He has unusual ideas about pacing, and played parts of the 12th Hungarian Rhapsody of Liszt at remarkably slow tempi, yet got the piano to "roar," and produced great excitement at climaxes.
José Ramos Santana gave a warm, elegant and loving performance of the three works from Iberia. One wonders if the atmosphere of a country could be expressed any better than that of Spain in this work?
I always get a kick out of Steven Mayer's performances because of his innate musicality, combined with terrific technique and a high energy level. The lovely, flowing Silver Spring gave way to the jazzy (sarcastic? neurotic?) Masque from Bernstein's Age of Anxiety and that, in turn, led to Hold That Tiger, which was a wonderful romp. If Mykola Suk reminds me in some ways of Robert Goldsand, Steven Mayer makes me think of Earl Wild, in whom virtuosity, popular themes and high culture all came together.
Gesa Luecker and Gabriele Leporatti gave a performance of the Messiaen work which was spiritual yet intense, and exotic, with beautiful, subtle shadings.
The final work on the program was the Wilberg arrangement of Themes from Carmen, played by Ms. Luecker and Mr. Leporatti, plus Claire Huangci and Eduard Zilberkant. With some added harmonies, it was played with great spirit and energy, and the ensemble was excellent. Perhaps the only way to hear this music with even more strength and electricity would be to hear the recording of Horowitz playing his own transcription at the famous Carnegie Hall televised concert!
Donald Isler
Faculty Concert - IKIF
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Re: Faculty Concert - IKIF
What a lineup! You must have been in your glory. It's events like this that truly make me miss NYC!
Lance G. Hill
When she started to play, Mr. Steinway came down and personally
rubbed his name off the piano. [Speaking about pianist &*$#@+#]
When she started to play, Mr. Steinway came down and personally
rubbed his name off the piano. [Speaking about pianist &*$#@+#]
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Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Speaking Of Which…
Patrick Byrne is one clever fellow.
The voluble, erudite CEO of Overstock.com has a way of presenting himself at conferences that appears reasonable, informed, and responsive to questions—even when he is saying nonsense.
I saw Doctor Byrne two weeks ago at the Bear Stearns technology conference—the summer kick-off for tech investors at the Grand Hyatt in sweltering New York City. I don't know why, but New York City weather is always especially miserable during Bear Stearns; nevertheless, the conference always brings together a worthwhile variety of interesting companies with plenty of opportunity to for Q&A.
After all, nobody wants to go outside the building in that kind of heat.
Thus it was that I found myself in the Schubert Room of the Grand Hyatt, listening to the CEO of a public company—namely Patrick Byrne—repeat a false rumor about eBay and Yahoo rather than answer a question.
The question he didn't answer was about what it might mean to Overstock's faltering auction effort that Yahoo had waived listing and transaction fees on its own auction site.
"I'm surprised" at Yahoo's moves, Byrne told the small room of investors, before cleverly shifting everybody's attention away from the actual question—that is, how Yahoo's moves might affect Overstock—by saying the following:
"The scuttlebutt in the industry is that there was a private understanding" between eBay and Yahoo, "where eBay would leave Yahoo alone in Japan and Yahoo would leave eBay alone in the U.S."
Having grabbed everybody's attention with a fake rumor that had no bearing on the actual question, Byrne repeated the rumor that there was some kind of illicit under-the-table deal between Yahoo and eBay, and concluded the non-sequitur by saying, "The rumor is that goes back five years or so."
Then it was on to the next question, and yet another non-sequitur—this time intimating that Overstock is an acquisition target, even though the next question wasn't about Overstock itself being acquired (it was, as I heard it, about whether further eBay-for-Shopping.com-type acquisitions are likely in the industry):
"The number of phone calls I get where it sounds like that's what's on people's minds [acquisition of Overstock] is starting to pick up…" Byrne said. "But I'm not interested in selling at anywhere near this price."
All in all, during both his Ballroom D presentation and his Schubert Room Q&A session, Byrne made a money-losing hodge-podge of backwater technology ("We got to where we are on a shoe-string") supporting me-too jewelry/auction/travel offerings sound vaguely sexy, alluring, and ripe for a takeover—while deflecting one of the better questions by repeating a false rumor.
Meanwhile, he casually dropped a bomb that nobody in the Schubert Room seemed to grasp—probably because they were still fantasizing about the takeover inquiries Byrne intimated he was starting to get.
The bomb being Overstock's cost of acquiring new customers—which is, to continue the metaphor, exploding.
Overstock's cost of attracting new customers (called CPA), hit $21 in the first quarter of 2005: asked about this, Byrne—who has always focused Wall Street's Finest on Overstock's low CPA—talked about the rising costs of attracting customers and said:
"I don't want to chase it [CPA] over the mid-$20's."
This is the same man who 24 months ago bragged, "we basically have the lowest customer acquisition cost on the internet," when the CPA was $8.69 per customer.
This is the same man who explained away an $18.30 per customer CPA in October 2004 by saying "remember, we're coming into the fourth quarter…I suspect that you see it drop." The same man who called that $18.30 CPA "the high end of respectable."
Now he says he doesn't want to go over $25?
As usual, Byrne had a ready comeback to the notion that maybe $25 a customer is not economic:
"We're getting a lot more lifetime value in a customer."
Right. Okay, Patrick. Whatever. I didn't want to disturb the fantasy by reminding Byrne that large catalogue retailers view $2 a customer as a reasonable CPA.
Oh—one thing more.
Shortly after the Overstock Q&A broke up, I had the chance to ask somebody about Patrick's "rumor." That somebody was Rajiv Dutta.
Rajiv is the CFO of eBay, and he happened to be conducting a Q&A about an hour after Doctor Byrne. So I asked Rajiv about Doctor Byrne's rumored illicit agreement between two of the most successful companies in the world.
After smiling with incredulity as I read him Byrne's absurd remarks, Rajiv became sober and firm: "There is no agreement, tacit or otherwise," he said.
His face hardened: "this is an extremely competitive market," he went on, getting very sober and very firm. Leaving no doubt that eBay and Yahoo were engaged in a high-stakes internet version of Mortal Kombat, Rajiv added, "If we see them doing something well, we will look at it."
I left the Grand Hyatt for the hazy, hot and humid streets of New York, debating which guy to believe: Patrick Michael Byrne of the tripling customer acquisition costs and the "decrapitating" technology and the $7 million diamond "steal of a lifetime" and Project Ocean and Project Rocket and Project Whatever…or the CFO of one of the most successful Internet companies ever.
It wasn't much of a debate.
Jeff Matthews
I Am Not Making This Up
The content contained in this blog represents the opinions of Mr. Matthews. Mr. Matthews also acts as an advisor and clients advised by Mr. Matthews may hold either long or short positions in securities of various companies discussed in the blog based upon Mr. Matthews' recommendations.
20 comments:
- DaleW said...
I didn't want to disturb the fantasy by reminding Byrne that large catalogue retailers view $2 a customer as a reasonable CPA.
At a 2% response rate and 100% conversion of those responses and $0.45 per mailed piece, it costs $50 per gross add.
At a 2% response rate and 100% conversion for a middle market drive-time radio ad at $125 CPM, CPA is $20. These are obviously high conversion rates and response rates. How do we get to the $2 CPA for catalog retailers? Not that Dr. Byrne isn't on Mars. Dude's a freak. Just wondering how we get to the $2 number.
- Jeff Matthews said...
"dalew" raises an excellent question and has his facts entirely straight regarding catalogue retailer customer acquisition costs: the cost to acquire a retail customer via catalogue mailings is far higher than the $2.00 figure I quoted as a "reasonable CPA" for a catalogue retailer.
The $2.00 CPA that I quoted is not the cost of acquiring a catalogue customer by mailing catalogues: it is the INTERNET acquisition cost of a new customer for certain well-managed catalogue retailers.
I used the $2 internet CPA because it is an apples-to-apples comparison with Overstock's CPA: it costs Overstock.com north of $20 to get a customer via online marketing; it costs well-run catalogue retailers $2 to get a customer via online marketing.
Thanks to "dalew" for highlighting my unclear data.
Unlike "dalew," however, "mw blogger" has his facts entirely wrong when he suggests I have confused the term "CPA" and refers to it as "cost per action"--whatever that actually might mean.
"CPA" is in fact the term Patrick Byrne uses to define the cost of acquiring a customer for Overstock.com. There is no such thing as "cost per action" that I am aware of, even in the zany world of Patrick Byrne.
And Overstock's CPA--its "customer acquisition cost" as defined by Doctor Patrick Michael Byrne--is now $21 and climbing.
I have not followed Amazon closely enough lately to know their CPA, and welcome anyone with that knowledge to remind us how much it costs Amazon to get a new customer, vs. Overstock.com.
- The Sandman said...
Patrick Byrne is certainly one very clever fellow.
Apropos another conference (the Piper Jaffray Internet conference) I was surprised when reading the WSJ's orginal story on Google's online payment system that Mr. Byrne had a hand in it, and wondered about it, but then thought that it was the Journal and they must have got it right (doesn't figure I know but anyway).
Your latest post has me re-visiting the story. The last 3 paragraphs are intriguing: (the italics and emphasis are mine)....
"Rumors about a new Google payment service escalated following a panel discussion at a Piper Jaffray Internet conference on Thursday. At the conference, Scot Wingo, chief executive of ChannelAdvisor, a Morrisville, N.C., e-commerce consulting firm, said he believed the payment service would be launched soon.
In an interview, Mr. Wingo said he based his statement on questions from retailers with which his company works. Mr. Wingo said the retailers have asked him whether ChannelAdvisor would support the service, which some believe goes by the code name Google Wallet.
During the discussion, Patrick Byrne, president of online retailer Overstock.com Inc., recalls saying, "Yes, this Google Wallet sounds like it might be great. But is all this public yet?" In an interview, Mr. Byrne says he hasn't had any "substantive discussions" with Google about a payment service."
Interesting how that last paragraph is constructed (in more ways than one but I leave that for now).
I take it to mean that Mr. Wingo based his observations (on the new Google service) on the discussions he had with retailers he works with, and that is was during these discussions with (these) retailers that one of them turns out to be none other than Mr. Byrne. The very same Mr. Byrne mentioned many times in this blog as being someone who " has a way of presenting himself at conferences that appears reasonable, informed, and responsive to questions—even when he is saying nonsense."
Not sure that Google cares one way or another that the Wall Street Journal has been seen to run an exclusive on them, but think the Journal should take more care basing it's stories on anything Mr. Byrne has had to say, espicially third hand.
Talk about being conceited: "hasn't had any "substantive discussions" with Google...." I mean, why would they even approach him in the first place?
Orginal sub only WSJ article on JUne 20 Google Plans Online-Payment Service
- DaleW said...
From what I have seen, cost per action is a results-based fee for something. Contrast this with impressions or click-throughs. CPA is a pricing term like CPM whereas CPGA (cost per gross add) is not really a pricing term but is a ratio of two things. CPA (cost per action) is a real term while CPA (cost per add) is shorthand for "cost per gross add." "Cost per action" has muscled in one all of this as a new term.
OSTK's CPGA is going up because it's maturing. Pure denominator effect. Well, that and paid search prices are up as well. Perhaps their reputation is also poor (likely) and they are burning through trial users with diminishing returns. I think the site is poorly done and I believe based on Jeff's work the thing will eventually just wither away unless Byrne does something spectacular to put it on a different trajectory.
- Kevin H. Stecyk said...
Jeff, I thoroughly enjoy reading your blog. You're a terrific writer with a keen sense of observation and a wry sense of humor. I think everyone who reads your blog will come away a better and smarter investor.
Thank you for sharing your insights!
- tiddman said...
I am also not sure if Patrick Byrne is a loon or not. But in the meantime until we decide (those of us who are undecided that is), let's stick to unbiased facts and figures.
Regarding customer acquisition costs, Overstock broke this out by quarter in their last 10-K, and the same figures are available on page 8 of their investor presentation:
Byrne was boasting about their CPA of $8.69 in Q2 2003, and he should have, since it was the lowest they've ever reported. The average for the last 9 quarters is $14.51.
They reported $21.14 in the last quarter, though backing out spending on auctions, it was $19.54. It isn't that the dollars spent on auction marketing don't count, but obviously auctions are a new business, and the cost to acquire customers for that business are going to be higher than the rest of their business.
That's an increase of less than 8% from the previous quarter, which I don't think is something to jump up and down about.
Byrne mentioned two marketing "experiments" that he did last quarter which apparently did not turn out well, and the dollars spent on those experiments goes into this CPA figure, so one could deem that number to be skewed.
Oh and about CPA, Jeff there is in fact a term called "cost per action", just Google that phrase and you'll get bazillions of hits. However I don't think that is what Byrne is talking about, he is talking about cost per acquiring a customer.
That said, I'm waiting for an explanation for how a "well run catalog retailer" can acquire customers for $2. Like the previous poster here, I don't think there are any well run catalog retailers these days with that new fangled thing called the internet, and $2 per customer sounds like it is measuring a different thing entirely.
- gmghk said...
On Yahoo vs Ebay in Japan: strange way to go about things if they had an under-the-table deal.
1st: Yahoo only owns 33% of Yahoo Japan, isn't the largest shareholder, and doesn't control it. (http://docs.yahoo.co.jp/info/investor/en/holder/status.html)
2nd: Ebay has already had a try at the Japan market, but left in 2002, pushed out by Yahoo Japan, as it happens. (http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/news/news/article.php/981061 or http://www.thebostonchannel.com/money/1697666/detail.html).
- Jeff Matthews said...
I was wrong: "Cost Per Action" does exist, even outside the zany world of Patrick Byrne.
According to "Website Workshop":
"In Web advertising, CPA ads are ads that require the user to perform an action before you receive a comission. This action is typically one of the following:
1. Filling out a form (cost per lead). You are typically paid a set amount for each user that completes the action.
2. Making a purchase. You are typically paid a percentage commission on each item sold.
CPA ad programs are also known as affiliate programs."
My apologies to "mwblogger," who confused "Cost Per Action" as defined above with Overstock.com's customer acquisition cost, which Patrick Byrne abbreviates as "CPA."
The two meanings are entirely different, and I should have googled before responding.
"mwblogger" mistakenly, however, lumps together all of eBay's sales and marketing costs to come up with an inflated customer acquisition for eBay. Companies spend money on sales activities and they spend money on marketing activities, but the two are distinct spending items.
What Overstock is talking about as customer acquisition costs are strictly its marketing costs.
Apples-to-apples, one needs to know how much eBay spent in online marketing to attract a new customer. Any informed opinion on that topic is welcome.
As for 3 year old customer acquisition data for catalogue companies--that's irrelevant because it's not online marketing cost per new customer. Google and Overture were mere pups in the online marketing game three years ago.
Speaking of Google, "the sandman" is absolutely correct in pointing out Doctor Byrne's role in bringing "Google Wallet" to the Wall Street Journal's attention.
I did not mention it in my "Speaking of Which" post on Byrne's appearance at the Bear conference, but Byrne did--in the interest of evading questions about the poor showing of his own company--hint at Google's plans for something big.
"They're working on something really big," he told us knowingly. Nobody followed up on it because it was totally irrelevant to whatever the questions were--but it did, I suppose, provide him with his own feeling of self-worth by intimating that he was privy to Google's secret projects.
After all, his own secret projects haven't come to much.
Remember "Project Ocean"? The auction site involved in "a long war of attrition with eBay"?
According to today's Wall Street Journal front page story regarding eBay's problems...it appears to be Amazon, not Overstock, winning that war.
- DaleW said...
It means Jeff is 1) back to shorting OSTK (or frustrated that their stock hasn't collapsed yet) or 2) he's supporting friends that are doing (1).
I'd say the move from $70 to $40 is pretty satisfying.
What is wrong with shorting, anyway? Only an amateur or a very dim professional would fail to believe there are lots of ways to make money in the markets. As long as Jeff's or anyone's analysis (long or short) is reasonable and well thought-out, who cares about the direction of their bet?
- DaleW said...
As for 3 year old customer acquisition data for catalogue companies--that's irrelevant because it's not online marketing cost per new customer. Google and Overture were mere pups in the online marketing game three years ago.
This is why Google trades at $287. If the CPGA of a customer via paid search is $2 or $8 or whatever and it costs $30 to acquire a customer through traditional advertising or marketing, all else being equal the dollars are going to flow to the lower cost channel until that difference is arbitraged away. I don't think they're apples and oranges at all.
Now, if the customer is worth 10x as much "offline," then a $20 or $80 CPGA is justifiable relative to a $2 to $8 online CPGA.
- DaleW said...
Just as a benchmark, by the way, subprime credit card companies claim CPGAs of around $80-90. Maybe $60 when things really accelerate off a cyclical bottom. Super-prime card companies claim around $250-350. MBNA is probably around $250 -- which is why they get killed when they re-price customers. The lifetime of the customer drops off the cliff, making that investment worthless. Margins go to hell and they hurt their reputation with customers. All of which indicates hair-trigger re-pricing of good customers, just because MBNA wanted to play the yield curve, is about the most braind-dead tactical choice the company could make.
- bsilly said...
For all the naysayers, do you think the online closeout industry isn't viable in the lon run? If you do think it's a viable industry, then who is gonna be the top dog or dogs? Ostk dominates right now.
Thanks for any responses.
- mfairview said...
"What is wrong with shorting, anyway? "
Absolutely nothing. I've been making money on the long and short of PM stocks lately. I was merely pointing out Jeff's alterior motives behind his Byrne tirade. Looks like I'm not alone here.
- Its_strange said...
When does spin become a lie ? Well i hate to say it but when the stock price is the game you gotta figure they ALL are lying...Sad , ain't it ?
- Jeff Matthews said...
I take no issue with "dalew" and his analysis of the cost/benefits of online customer acquisition costs vs traditional catalogue customer acquisition costs.
I was merely using the $2 CPA cited by catalogue retailers who use internet search to generate customers in comparison with the $21 it costs Overstock.com to generate a customer via online marketing.
To say that Overstock is doing okay getting customers for $21 a pop using online marketing simply because catalogue retailers pay $20 or $30 a pop through traditional offline means is not apples-to-apples.
What matters is how much does it cost Amazon and eBay and LL Bean to get customers via online marketing, compared to Overstock's $21-and-climbing bogey.
As for "mw blogger," he is getting increasingly hostile and less value-added with each post, and any further posts along the Infantile Yahoo Message Board lines will be deleted.
Regarding Overstock.com's $21 cost of customer acquisition, the bulk of their money is in fact spent online, despite the TV ad campaign.
I'll quote Patrick, from his appearance at JP Morgan recently, regarding this topic [keep in mind, when Byrne uses the term "CPA" he is talking about his customer acquisition cost]:
"The cost of acquiring customers is definitely going up—it's going up dramatically online. I kick myself, oh, we didn't have the capital, but 4 or 5 years ago we were just the only guys who were completely focused online, so we were paying $75,000 for a space that 3 years ago we would occasionally pay $120,000 for and feel ripped off, that last year was $300,000 and they now want $700,000 for it. By the way, this is the portal negotiating season, so the portals are—what's happened is the branding money, the GM's the Coke, Visa, they're coming in with money, especially the portals… all that money is floating into the top 50 sites, and the prices, especially for the big, key placements are getting out of control. … So you see our CPA drifting up there. On the other hand there are areas where our CPA is drifting down. If you take out auctions and a little travel that we do and see what we spending online to push shopping, that's really stayed around the $19 level…"
The above quote was one month before the Bear conference, where he talked about his acquisition costs heading towards $25.
As for "bsilly"'s question regarding whether online closeout is viable or not, the answer is absolutely yes.
eBay, obviously, is highly successful in the closeout field using the auction model. And check out "liquidation.com" for another successful inventory liquidation model.
- bsilly said...
Liquidation.com is B to B, whereas ostk is primarily B to C. Also I don't see ebay as a direct competitor.
It looks to me as though ostk has an insurmountable lead and will be the top player in the industry. Given the fact that scale advantages tend to widen the moat over time I would expect ostk to be the main player for many years into the future. That's my take anyway.
- DaleW said...
Liquidation.com is B to B, whereas ostk is primarily B to C. Also I don't see ebay as a direct competitor.
They're not? How? Sears has an unbelievably successful, low-cost liquidation model going on eBay:
Overstock.com's auctions are terrible, they have a very high proportion of very junky risk-based merchandise, the diamond thing is atrocious, and by Jeff's work, their systems are terrible. Plus Byrne is obsessed with the shorts and sounds like he has emotional problems. Not a great combo.
- Tom said...
"What matters is how much does it cost Amazon and eBay and LL Bean to get customers via online marketing, compared to Overstock's $21-and-climbing bogey."
Fair enough. You're suggesting that the current numbers for those three companies are very low, in the range of $2. Using specific, current data for eBay, I've logically argued that your suggestion has to be very wrong.
There's simply no way that eBay can be acquiring customers online at an average cost near $2. They spent $271M in sales and marketing last quarter and only added 11.6M customers. If your thesis was true, they must be spending less that 10% of their sales and marketing dollars acquiring customers online. Why in the world would they do that, quarter after quarter, when they could pump more dollars into acquiring customers online so cheaply?
The only answer must be that your thesis is very wrong, and that it does in fact cost eBay *way* more than $2 to acquire customers online.
- DaleW said...
I agree with MW here. No one is acquiring customers for this amount these days. Maybe way back in 1997/1998, where the natural growth in customers made marketing investments appear unusually productive. No large company is generating customers for this amount of money on a large scale. Perhaps for specialty retailers who have hit upon a nice thing with paid search, but not national/international scale companies. As we hear from Byrne, the arbitrage is underway as well. Coke, GM, P&G, etc are going to drive up CPGA on the internet.
- Jeff Matthews said...
"mwblogger": read this entirely, please. Don't start writing until you have read it entirely. Don't respond by re-printing old posts of yours. Read it, go back and get better data, and then respond. Otherwise, post your nonsense on Yahoo because it will not appear here.
"Sales and Marketing" is a P&L entry that encompasses more than marketing costs, and way more than online advertising costs.
For starters, the word "Sales" should give a clue that this category covers ALL costs of selling your products, above and beyond "marketing" to attract new customers.
Here's how eBay defines it: "Sales and marketing expenses consist primarily of advertising, tradeshow and other promotional costs, employee compensation for our category development and marketing staff and certain trust and safety programs."


text:
I love to decorate for Christmas! Red is my favorite color, so I was pretty much made for Christmas! I decorate with tradition colors (red/white/silver) in our living room which fits in perfectly with our chocolate brown couch and red coffee table. This year, I decided to add a rustic winter Christmas theme to our living room … think pine cones, birch bark and winter animals like deer, foxes and cardinals!
I wanted to create some winter art work and when I received a box full of sparkly, glittery Tulip goodness from ILoveToCreate, I knew the Tulip Shimmer Sheets were the perfect product to use for this … DIY glitter reindeer art with Tulip Shimmer Sheets!!
Before I get started with the tutorial, take a look at all the awesome crafty treats that showed up on my front porch!! Santa came early to my house … and he brought shimmer!! Tulip Shimmer Sheets, Tulip Metallics fabric paint, Tulip Fashion Glitter, Tulip Fabric Markers and more!
Alright, now back to our glitter art … time to {create this}!
Materials Needed:
- frame (thrifted or new)
- fabric scrap to fit inside the frame (I used an old cozy sweater!)
- Tulip Shimmer Sheet (I used the silver shimmer sheet)
- Reindeer head silhouette (I used this one) or your favorite holiday shape
- Cardstock & Sharpie
- Iron (set on dry) and a thin cloth to use for pressing (I used muslin)
I started with one of my favorite chunky red frames – I found two gold frames at a garage sale spray painted them red. They made their debut with some Valentines art here and here. I also hunted up a charcoal gray sweater from my fabric scrap stash. I cut a piece of the sweater to fit over the cardboard insert … I love the cozy feel of the sweater fabric in the frame!
Next, I did an online search for deer head silhouettes and found this free graphic. I love the rounded face and the ears 🙂 I resized it in a Word document and printed it on card stock. I cut it out and double checked one last time that it would fit …
Then, I used a regular black Sharpie to trace around the deer head onto the silver Shimmer Sheet and used regular scissors to cut just inside the marker lines.
Then, following the simple directions, I laid a piece of muslin over the shimmer sheet deer and used a dry iron to iron the shimmer sheet deer onto my sweater scrap. I pressed down for 40 seconds on each section of my deer and carefully checked to make sure the deer was ironed on … it sure was! This could not be easier!
Once my glitter reindeer was ironed on my sweater fabric scrap, I slid the fabric around the frame inserts (I removed the glass and actually tucked it between two of the cardboard inserts) and secured it inside the frame.
This project has inspired me to add a little more sparkle and a lot more glitter to my rustic winter decorating this year … stay tuned for another project or two using all of these amazing products!!
You can find inspiring projects, tutorials, how-to videos and creative ideas by connecting with ILoveToCreate on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest!
Want more shimmery, glittery fun?! Take a look at these projects and tutorials!
Disclosure: I wrote this post as part of a paid campaign with Tulip and Blueprint Social. The opinions in this post are my own.
This project or recipe was shared at all the blogs on my Link page! Go take a peek … they rock!


text:
XL Sketch Pads
by Canson
The XL Sketch Pad (formerly the Biggie Sketch Pad) is very popular with artists because of its high grade writing surface and bright whiteness. 100-sheet and 125-sheet value pads allow enough paper for sketching freedom. Just enough tooth for pencil, crayon, charcoal or pastel.
Ask a question about XL Sketch Pads Ask a question about this product
Average User Rating: Based on (8 Reviews)
5 8
Amy H. from Etna, CA says:
This pad was PERFECT for my son's farm equipment drawings. In the past, he had to tape two pieces together to accommodate his tractor and implement drawings. Now they both fit on one page!
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Reviewed by Luis A. (age 12)
My favorite part of the book is when Carter overcomes his fears and defeats the god, Set, with his magical eagle warrior. Carter changes from wimpy and fearful to confident and fearless.
This book is like the other series, Percie Jackson and the Olympians. I enjoy reading the books written by Rick Riordan because he makes kids have magical powers.
I recommend this book because of all the adventure involving gods and goddesses. The readers who like these books are adventurous people and like leaning about gods. Also, I think the readers would like the character Carter because he evolves into a confident and fearless kid.


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Passengers on Friday enjoyed what will be one of the last direct flights from Jacksonville to Washington D.C.
Passengers on Friday enjoyed what will be one of the last direct flights from Jacksonville to Washington D.C.
As American Airlines and U.S. Airways begin to merge, a divestiture of flights to Washington Reagan National Airport in Washington D.C. will be made, American Airlines announced this week. The divestitures were mandated by the Department of Justice to regulate the number of airline flight slots at the Washington D.C. airport. Jacksonville is among 16 destinations that will no longer have direct daily flights to the nation�s capital through U.S. Airways or American Airlines.
�These flights are very convenient for me,� said Janice Williams of Jacksonville, who took the first flight out of OAJ Friday morning at 6:15. �I will greatly miss them because it makes it so easy for me to go see my daughter. It beats driving about five hours and dealing with traffic. I will certainly miss this.�
The combination of low cost flights and a quick commute make the non-stop flights to D.C. an easy choice for Williams, she said, but now that they will soon be going away, she will need to weigh her other options. Layovers in Charlotte or driving are two of the possibilities, she said.
�I�d like the airline to know that they are supposed to serve the people,� she said. �If this is something that is good for the people then they should keep it. All they are doing is inconveniencing us.�
Christopher White, director of Albert J. Ellis Airport, said the change wasn�t expected, but is always a possibility in the airline industry.
�The airlines change and subtract destinations all the time,� White said. �It doesn�t even make the news at larger airports but it�s an important thing at smaller airports like ours.�
With expansion in the foreseeable future, White said the loss of D.C. flights will not affect the airport�s growth or their ability to meet customer travel needs.
�It�s going to be a big deal for our customers because they are losing that direct destination flight,� White said. �They'll still get to D.C. by air, it just won't be direct.�
The current terminal, he said, has room for two airlines whereas the new construction project, which will be completed in the summer of 2015, will have the possibility of hosting a third airline.
The airport is unaware of any plans on behalf of the airlines to add additional direct flight locations at this time, according to White, who added additional options are being pursued by the airport and the county.
Onslow County Board of Commissioners Chairman Paul Buchanan said in a Friday release the airport continues to be a cornerstone of stability and growth in the county and while it�s �disheartening� that flights have been discontinued, the county will continue to establish routes.
Commissioner Vice Chair Barbara Ikner said the county remains �fully committed� to the continued growth and development of the airport.
�We will continue seeking additional air service to our community and remain optimistic that this service will be re-established sometime in the future,�Ikner said.
While the flight was less than half full on Friday morning, a U.S. Airways representative said the aircraft can hold up to 50 customers on any given flight.
One of them, Hope Jones, of Alexandria Va., is a frequent red-eye passenger. At least once per month she flies to Jacksonville from Washington D.C. to visit her Marine boyfriend stationed aboard Camp Lejeune. The flights average her $140 round-trip and are much cheaper and more cost-effective than driving, she said.
�These flights make my life so much easier,� Jones said. �When you�re trying to span the distance to support your loved one and be part of this community this flight is truly crucial to making that happen.�
When the flights are no longer running Jones will more than likely drive depending on the cost of flights that connect through Charlotte, she said.
�Setting aside the price, this service takes a huge burden off of my relationship,� Jones said. �It allows me the opportunity to be a bigger part of his life and be more involved with him. It gives us the chance for more one-on-one time and that�s always nice.�
Contact Daily News Military Reporter Thomas Brennan at 910-219-8453 or email@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @ thomasjbrennan.


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So I get a ton of questions about curling my hair with a straightener. It's all I ever curl my hair with. So I finally got around to making a video of it. Here are a few reminders.
I hate my voice.
I look like a freak.
Anyways, the key is to pull your hair through the straightener while you turn the straightener. I have found that if I just blow dry my hair and then curl it this way, it takes about 15 minutes less than straightening it all since it's okay if there are kinks and it's messy. I've been doing this since my freshman year of college. I can't even use a curling iron to curl it with big curls! They always come out droopy.
The tighter you turn the straightener the more tight the curls will be, the looser you turn it the bigger the curls will be. I usually try to go right inbetween and just mix it up with all different ones since the finished product is just curly anyway. So without further ado. Here's the video. I started off with just blow dried hair. I didn't use a brush to blow dry it, just made sure it was totally dry which takes me about 10 minutes. Then I just curl it like so.
Here are some pictures:
This is a little bit tighter of a curl, you can tell on the right side how it's more corkscrew than just wavy. So I would have had to turn the straightener more to make it like that.
This is a very loose curl. This would be turning the straightener once and pulling it through my hair.
This is another big loose curl. You can make it larger and a longer curl by starting more at the top of the head if you want too. If you start higher up you can get more volume in the curl.
I hope that was helpful to anyone who has asked me how I always curl my hair!


text:
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reiterated on Monday his call for bold monetary easing by the central bank, big fiscal spending and an economic growth strategy as steps towards conquering deflation.
"Above all, the urgent task is to beat deflation," Abe told a meeting of officials from the government and ruling parties.
"A bold monetary policy, a flexible fiscal policy and a growth strategy are aimed at stimulating private investment. With these three pillars, we must aim to beat deflation."
Abe also said the government would do its utmost to quickly enact an extra budget for the current fiscal year and a budget for the next fiscal year to shore up the economy.
Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto; Writing by Kaori Kaneko; Editing by Chris Gallagher