text:
Readers of Vogue know what they want from a photograph. Leaf through the recent December issue, for instance, and you will come across Mario Testino in spanking form. Italian locations, winter-busting sunlight, and a trunkful of everyday essentials, including low-slung Gucci jeans and a Vera Wang evening dress in "ivory georgette," which sounds like a rising porno star. The lucky few who manage to clamber into the crisscross black swimsuit by Michael Kors are urgently advised to "Go bronze with Neutrogena's Sunless Tanning Foam in Deep." As for the model, what can you say? Loveliness, like namelessness, is part of the deal, and, while nobody would be so cruel as to call her thin, I like to think that, should the modelling jobs ever dwindle, she could carve out a second career as a spring onion.
There is, however, another option open to you. Stroll over to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and confront the work of another regular from Vogue. Consider "Nude No. 98," an image so ferociously up to the minute that it can only have been taken at least half a century ago. This model is equally nameless, but she is headless, too, and, as she lies on her side, she is cut short, along the left-hand frame, just at the meeting of her thighs. As for her clothes, she is at that unutterably fashionable stage of wearing none at all. And this is what we find: breasts the size of boxing gloves that slump away from the rib cage, plus a crease of flesh along the upper stomach, matched farther down by a kind of long smile where the navel must be concealed. If this lady ever got hold of the Neutrogena, she could Foam in Very Deep Indeed. Finally, the pubic area is tucked away in the discreet bay of shadow formed by the surrounding hills: a touching show of unwitting decorum. All in all, you might have trouble squeezing this woman into Vera Wang, and, although she gives off a sexual languor, the person most qualified to seduce her, Marcello Mastroianni, is no longer with us to try his luck. The photographer, it goes without saying, is Irving Penn.
The Met show is entitled "Earthly Bodies," and it brings together a selection of Penn's nude studies from the years 1949 and 1950. Anyone who knows anything of Penn's career will be moved to ask not "Why did he take these pictures?" or "How do they feed the flow of his aesthetic career?" but "Where on earth did he find the time?" By the summer of 1949, Penn, who was born in 1917, in New Jersey, was hitting his indefatigable stride. Having moved on from posts at Saks Fifth Avenue (where he was the advertising art director) and at Harper's Bazaar, he was now—under the aegis of Alexander Liberman—a formidable fixture at Vogue. Readers had already been treated to his covers, one of which had served as the first still-life to front the magazine; his great series of portraits had unveiled the royalty of the art world and other cultural domains—Miró, Balthus, Capote, Cocteau, Graham, Schiaparelli, and a couple of heavyweight sluggers called Nathan and Mencken. Yet here he was, sneaking away to make peculiar art from women who bore neither the stamp of perfection nor the burden of fame. There were at least eight sessions, with a number of different models; Penn toiled at his task during the evenings and weekends, in the way that more diffident souls practice their woodwork or their golf swing. You don't give up the day job when the day job is at Vogue; still, one quite understands how a ceaseless supply of physical flawlessness—one beauty after the next, strung out like pearls—might drive even the hardiest of fashion snappers to take a walk on the plump side. Looking at the show, I began to envisage Penn as a quiet American cousin of the Catherine Deneuve character in "Belle de Jour." She, blessed with a husband who looks like a male model and behaves like a perfect gent, seeks afternoon solace in the paws of the misshapen and the voluminous, as if to reassure herself, like Penn, that beauty is not always truth, and that truth comes in different sizes.
The camera that Penn used was a Rolleiflex, which means that the format is uniformly square. Most of us, like many professionals, use the rectangle of thirty-five millimetre: excellent for the prone human form, the row of family grins, or, when tilted ninety degrees, the full-length portrait. Squareness, on the other hand, imposes its own rules. If you are photographing a naked woman, something has to give: you must push the lonely figure back and strand her in space, edit out her neck or her knees, or else scrunch her into the format as if packing her into a box. The one thing that is ideally fitted to the square negative is the face—and that, needless to say, is the one thing for which the Penn of "Earthly Bodies" has no use. There are no faces on show here; if you had walked past these women on the street, you would never have recognized them, although so closely are you urged to inspect them that one can easily imagine a doctor, or a fellow-swimmer in the locker room, glancing at a Penn model and crying out helplessly, "Hey, I know you!" One woman has the neat dot of a mole on the lower east side of her belly, like a landmark on a map, and you find yourself seeking it out, as if to get your bearings.
The earliest pictures are uprights; that is to say, the subject is standing, sometimes against a wall. The first model is slim and small-breasted; one image of her, alone of all the nudes that Penn would take in the ensuing months, was actually printed in Vogue, to illustrate a July, 1950, piece on "Skim-Milk Diet X." I would give half my kingdom to have seen the faces of the dietary queens when the later shots came in: frame after frame of full-cream women, no longer erect but lying or sprawling on the floor, their bodies—and therefore their consciences—untroubled by diets from either end of the alphabet. In the event, Alexander Liberman, whose tastes were honorably catholic, smelled something blasphemous in the pictures, and no more were reproduced in the magazine. Even Edward Steichen, then heading the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, was ruffled. He asked Penn to contribute a selection of work to a forthcoming symposium but added, conspiratorially, "None of those nudes." Thus rebuffed, or simply misunderstood, Penn chose not to exhibit more than a few of them for thirty years.
At first glance, these pictures bear scant relation to Penn's more acceptable obsessions. Most people know—even if they could not name the photographer—the fashion shots with which Penn sanctified the pages of Vogue, starting at the end of the nineteen-forties. They just happen to be the most beautiful pictures ever made of the most beautiful clothes ever sewn—clothes that the owner could don and shed by herself, that is, as opposed to the gowns of a Watteau fête galante, which could be applied only by a complex pulley system, and which required the wearer to hold her breath for the entire month of August. In an added twist, many of the images that Penn created in the fifties feature the most beautiful woman of the fifties—Lisa Fonssagrives, whom he took the hugely sensible precaution of marrying. (They had a son, born in 1952, and remained happily married for forty-two years, until Lisa's death, in 1992.) The very title of a Penn shot releases the sniffable air of a more tempting age, stoppered and sealed on film: "Woman in Dior Hat with Martini." It sounds as distant as Pompeii.
The radiance, though, is hardly straightforward. We want glamour and a fingertip precision from Penn, and, ever the professional, he delivers; and yet, staring at the outlines of Lisa and the others of her cheetah-like breed, you also catch a sobriety that, under the influence of a thousand framed posters, you might not expect. It has something to do with the steadiness, the reluctance to flirt or flatter, in the models' expressions: the half smile, the one-thousandth of a smile, the no smile at all. Then there are the backgrounds, with their clouded, plastery grays and freckles of dust; for every image that blinds you with Arctic whiteout, there are two that resemble stage flats, or a building under construction. At the fringe of the frame, you catch yourself on cables, and on other paraphernalia of the working studio. It is as if Penn were saying, Look at this—at this luscious fur and feather, the tensed bow of those lips—but don't imagine that the rest of life has anything to do with it. Style may have an aura, true, but, like perfume, it stretches maybe five yards around you; beyond that, things get real. Hence, perhaps, his fondness for veils: with their capacity both to show and to secrete, they are alluring, but it's hard to ignore their funereal rustle. Fashion magazines, these days, are so agog at youthfulness, and at the eternal appeal of the ephemeral, that readers could be forgiven for believing that the girls will never grow old; an Irving Penn fashion shoot, however, scratches away at an unthinkable taboo, and leaves us with the twilit—and, to commercial advertisers, dumbfounding—thought that even models are mortal.
And that is where the nudes come in. The women you will see at the Met know all about the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, and, if you lean in close enough, you can trace the fault lines of the shocks for yourself. One model has faint stretch marks, and the fact that she has given birth removes her from the false timescale of fashion—where everything is outmoded and instantly replaced but never actually allowed to mature—and shifts her into the rhythms and wrinkles of real time. As a result, the success of the exhibit will be tested and proved not by critical response but by the reactions of ordinary female visitors. On the one hand, these awkward bodies, presented without compunction to the lens, may come as a relief to all those (especially the freaked parents of teen-agers) who despair at the corporeal standards that prevail in movies and magazines—the itty-bitty, the proto-bulimic, the anti-Newtonian bust. On the other hand, those who take against these nudes—and one hopes, as with any important show, for a stream of turbid complaints—will storm down the steps of the Met, cursing Irving Penn as the Henry VIII of the Rolleiflex. How about this guy? A woman catches his fancy, he takes her picture, and then he chops her head off.
It is a fair point. If feminist art criticism unearths in the baseness of the male gaze, however sophisticated, a wish to treat the female body as no more than an object, then a Penn nude may be a public offense. All that acreage of bosom and hip, with no defiant eye or withering smile to put the photographer in his place, no face to confirm the crowning presence of a person: how can one defend such blatant elision of identity? You might as well tie a tag to one of these women's toes and flourish her in court as Exhibit A in the case against the artist. And yet, although the figures are laid out on a floor, that floor is not a slab, and, if there is one thing you would swear on oath, it is that they are alive. You don't just sense this; you see it. Penn had his models twist and swivel, locking and unlocking their poses, and, in one marvellous instance, the woman's knee is blurred, not because it has dropped out of focal range but simply because it is on the move. She is big, but she is too damn quick for the man with the camera, and, if he can't keep pace with her motions, well, that's his problem. He just clicks, but she rocks and rolls.
So why not concede the feminist case and take the argument from there? Let us admit that, yes, in some of these photographs the bodies are no more than objects; but they are also no less than objects, and what Penn does, with an honesty that few of his peers can muster, is to remind us that a body, rounded and grounded, is one of the more enthralling objects on earth—indeed, the more earthbound, the better. To perceive and inspect it as a thing, a moving mass, is not to look down on it, still less to leer at its blandishments, but to be struck afresh by its gravity and bulk. There is a notorious and baffling phrase of Donne's, in "The Second Anniversary," when he is commemorating "the Religious death of Mistress Elizabeth Drury," who was, he says, "richly and largely hous'd":
Her pure, and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought,
That one might almost say, her body thought.
We are at the limits of logical sense here, and yet the mystery is one that we instinctively pray to be true, of the living as much as the dead: "Her body thought." Rather than shrinking this paradox, photography has served to magnify it, and from its most primitive days the medium has thrown up images that stir us with an intensity that outweighs their value as social documents; we can be rattled into brief intimacy with persons of whose acquaintance we will never have the pleasure. The camera is overrated as a psychological weapon; I am never wholly convinced by the theory that a "personality"—that vaguest and least easily classified of interior beasts—can be caught and tamed in a sixtieth of a second. The emulsion on a strip of film is such a thin skin that the most we can ask of it, perhaps, are textures and hints—gestures toward what such-and-such a person, at this time, might be like to know.
When we look at Penn's portrait of S. J. Perelman, say, taken in 1962, what do we get? The rim of the hat, like a dark halo; the heavy stitching of the suit, the button-down shirt, and the eyes wet and rheumy behind the wire of the spectacles; the mustache that could so easily double as some new generation of industrial scouring brush. All this would allow me to point Perelman out across a room, but, beyond that, all I could add for sure is that, with the high rise of his eyebrows, the guy who wrote so much for Groucho Marx is himself in danger of turning into Groucho. Put the two of them in nightcaps and they could rerun the mirror sequence from "Duck Soup." But what of the sadness in Perelman's face? Is that the melancholy that is rumored to dog every comic, or is he pulling a fast one on Irving Penn? The point is that, under interrogation, Perelman is keeping back more than he is betraying, however definitive we want Penn's portrait to be; whereas the nudes, who are denied even the right to smile, somehow wind up seeming twice as expressive as any formal head shot. Although the psychological profile of "Nude No. 42" must remain a closed book, the cocked jut of her pelvis has suddenly become an open secret, and it seems no less revealing, no less an index of her uniqueness, than the rise and fall of her voice. We have no clue about these women's hair color or their political leanings, but we notice how they act and react, and how they come to rest—moments that would normally be the province, or the privilege, of a lover lying beside them. And what could be more knowing than that?
Penn is hardly the first to visit this tricky terrain. The best approach to his show would be to detour into the Met's Dutch galleries and get a dose of Rubens and Rembrandt into your system. From Bruegel to de Kooning, it is the artists of the Low Countries who have carved the most rewarding paths onto and under the skin of their fellow-citizens. Rembrandt lavished as much care on the pillowy upper thighs of Hendrickje Stoffels, his maid and mistress, as he did, in the late self-portraits, on the wintry mottling of his own cheeks. It is Rubens, of course, who has traditionally administered the most Penn-like shock; there are passages of paint in "Fall of the Damned" in which the artist seems indifferent to anything but the arrangement of bodies, in all their swagger and swarm. (That is what will make people blush at the Penn show: not their own embarrassment before nudity, which most of us have mastered by now, but the near-ecstatic lack of embarrassment on the part of the photographer himself.) Svetlana Alpers, in "The Making of Rubens," points out the curious sexual slippage in a Rubens nude; the cowlike, lurching hero of "Drunken Silenus" is male, but he has certifiable breasts, just as the stocky trunks and pitted limbs of Rubens's naked women could easily belong to Bacchic gentlemen of leisure, caught in mid-debauch. It makes you realize how profitably Penn himself could photograph the male nude; after all, flesh is flesh (a little more hairiness would pose a fresh challenge), and anyone who could summon, as Penn did in his portraits of the sculptors Jacob Epstein and David Smith, such a portly and proddable magnificence—swollen enough to be funny, and yet not funny at all—could certainly find and photograph a modern Silenus. One might almost say, men's bodies think, although most women would sharply disagree.
What kind of man would revel in the folds and escarpments of the body, in the human capacity to become half-landscape? Rubens's dashing brush was wielded by a decorous, even puritan, stalwart of the upper bourgeoisie; he was as moderate in his tastes as his paintings are florid and full-blown, and, three centuries on, it is noticeable that all accounts of Irving Penn, likewise, stress his patient craftsmanship. Few photographers have left a more reliable record of their times, and yet few have taken such pains to wipe from their work any trace of photojournalism. Penn is widely travelled, as witnessed by his studies of local people—haughty children, gentle-humored elders—in lands as far apart as Peru (in 1948) and New Guinea (in 1970). Yet there is no glimpse of either place; in the first instance he rented a studio, in the second he took his own, in collapsible form, as if to convince us that these individuals required no social context—as if, in the minutiae of dress and demeanor, they were like countries in themselves. You can see why they trusted the man with the camera; in his perennial jeans and sneakers, and with the soft tenor of his voice, Penn is apparently, at the age of eighty-four, the model of courtesy, and, according to Maria Morris Hambourg, who curated the show at the Met, his New York studio is so efficiently ordered that it is known to some as "the hospital."
His greatest still-lifes, taken in the nineteen-seventies, are dirty pictures: nothing carnal, merely a sequence of half-smoked butts, flattened cigarette packs, and run-over coffee cups—trash, hooked as fresh as trout from the flow of New York streets and scrutinized in unforgiving closeup. It is as if Penn were preëmpting the work of future archeologists, collating the flotsam of a lost imperial city, whose inhabitants marked their most precious artifacts with the image of a Camel. This brand of lyric pedantry is essential Penn, and you see it most frostily purveyed in his color closeups of the late seventies, when he somehow succeeded in lighting and shooting frozen foods—small bergs of beans and raspberries—without having them melt all over his feet. That may be why his nudes press themselves upon us with such force: not that they are sterile, let alone surgical, but precisely because they represent a cool and careful soul—someone whose most effective technique as a portraitist is to hem his subjects into a specially constructed corner—reaching out, for once, beyond the natural confines of his temperament. His recollection of the sessions, more than fifty years ago, is marked by an undiminished warmth. As he told Hambourg, "I kept talking all the time, being very supportive, not so much verbally but with coos, murmurs, and supportive breathing to convey that everything was wonderful, just right." The smell, he remembers, was "sweet, powdery, a little sweaty. Very good."
Look at the prints themselves and you realize that the will to break established habits did not end when the models got dressed and went home. A Penn print is often impossibly refined; his densest portraits, whether of Paris pastry cooks or of Asaro mud men in New Guinea, tend to take advantage of the platinum-palladium process, which builds up a classical wealth of deep and sculpted tones. Some of the nudes duly ended up as platinum prints, but most in the exhibit are gelatin-silver prints—more granular, more open to manipulation, and thus to unevenness and risk. Many have a bleached appearance, and the contours of the body crumble softly, like dunes; it appears that Penn deliberately tried to lose the image through overexposure in the darkroom, then wrenched it back to life with a cocktail of chemicals. The results look stunned or spooked, and the models turn into heavy ghosts, their distinguishing features burned away by the acidic baths; one woman is a block of clean white, the undercurves of her breasts and waistline etching out a kind of unexpected face, as simple as a child's sketch. Best of all, perhaps, is the short series of velvet shots; the model is supine in a gray armchair, her legs and torso lapped at the side by waves of lustrous black fabric. She is pure form, shorn of detail, while the velvet is nothing but detail, right down to the wink of a safety pin at the top left. The effect is bewildering—a tense portrayal of a relaxed being, a world of erotic suggestion conjured electrically from the rubbing together of surfaces. Anyone who thinks that photography, like painting, must suffer a grim division between figurative and abstract should pay a visit to these pictures and think again.
Are we ready for "Earthly Bodies"? Was Penn wise to bring his nudes out of storage? Years of debate over the depiction of gender may have softened us up, but, more important, gallerygoers are likely to have kept pace with artists like Lucian Freud and his young British follower Jenny Saville; her proud and livid nudes, many of them bereft of heads, make you wonder whether she studied reproductions of the Penns. As for Freud, he possesses, for all the slowness of his creative practice, a dash of Penn's impatience—the curiosity that compels both artists to try new angles of attack, and to happen upon harmonies of mass and line where the rest of society would not dream of seeking them. It was Freud who painted Jerry Hall not in her heyday as a supermodel but when she was pregnant: a very Penn-like delay, waiting for the body to slacken, stretch, and fill with extra life. That Irving Penn, the leading light of Vogue, chose to exchange all those wasp-waisted paragons for human bumblebees may have annoyed his mentors, but it both secured and perplexed his role in the story of photography. Only now, long after the experiment is over, do we have the opportunity to look at the product of those sweaty afternoons, listen to the music of its forms, and know, beyond all question, that the fat lady sings. ♦


text:
Corn farming on a gardener's mind
A late night at the grocery store: I'm picking up the kind of things one typically buys after the hardest day of the week: gelato, and silly candy, and maybe a few staples. And in conversation with my checker — one of the jobs a U-Scan-It computer cannot and will never duplicate — he tells me that he's leaving in a week to go back to school to study ag and ag business under a USDA program to help beginning farmers.
He's surely in his 50s. But he has that gleam that people have on the cusp of a new adventure. He has friends with land and cattle. He knows that when he goes into a barn at night, there won't be any time clock hanging from the rafters. He's going to spend his days outdoors, in connection with animals and the soil, and eating the best food he's ever tasted. "Our beef is really good," he confides, "but it can't touch my friends' beef." His optimism is like a virus, and I walk out of the store, into the summer night, grinning.
I have farms on my mind this week. Colorado seems carpeted in cornfields this year, which is both nostalgic and worrisome to me. I come from corn farmers. We'd drive south from the Chicago suburbs to my grandfather's 80 acres in central Illinois, 80 acres that had fed and clothed and sent to college two sons and two daughters. All the long summers, I'd watch the rows of corn fly by in my car windows like spokes of some giant wheel. The smell of corn pollen filled the air. As teenagers my cousins made their summer money on detasseling crews, or leading detasseling crews. My uncles made good livings selling DeKalb and Pioneer seed corn, in the days when hybridized seed was the latest innovation and GMO wasn't even a glimmer in the brain of an undergrad.
But for my grandfather, it wasn't an easy life. My mother began her life during the Depression. She was 16 before the farm got indoor plumbing, and she remembers my grandfather wrapping the kids' legs in newspaper to insulate them against the Illinois winters on their walk to the school he'd helped to build. She remembers eating home-made sausage preserved in fat through the winter. She helped my grandmother can vegetables and fruit in a steamy kitchen, by necessity, not by inclination. I learned only recently that, through some disaster or crop failure, my grandfather had to sell some piece of the farm that was to have been passed on to my Uncle Vernon, and my mother sat him down and told him that he should go to college at the nearby University of Illinois. He followed her advice and, nearing 80, is still grateful to my mother.
Farming, of any kind, is still not an easy life, and that's why I shop at farmer's markets all summer and fall. I know promising, eager young farmers who've left Colorado because of the high price of land. The fields of corn around me — a patchwork alternating with fallow land, soybeans, acres of sunflowers — look good now, tasseling out above my head, filling my nighttime commute with their scent. A cornfield is a big presence. It towers above you. Sweet corn or field corn, once it gets a good start it grows inches overnight. You can almost watch it. It changes the landscape. But there is nothing sadder than flooded, or drought-starved, or ailing corn. That's what Oklahoma and parts of Texas have now. Corn is a thirsty, hungry crop. It's the crop people think of first when they think of all of the evils of big Ag: subsidies, chemical pesticides and fertilizer, soil erosion, genetic modification, and what we "shouldn't" be feeding to beef cattle. And at the price it's selling for now — which is a dollar less a bushel than it was selling for in spring — you can't blame farmers for planting it.
We'll see how this corn-ucopia changes Colorado. Corn stubble, left in the field, helps hold snow in a field to provide winter moisture, cover for wildlife. Corn cash might help some farmers hold their land. I'll remember my childhood summers, running across the furrows to help my grandfather pull sweet corn from the stalks once the pot to cook it in was already boiling.
And I'll brake for combines.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Mark Cavendish's Specialized McLaren Venge – first look
BikeRadar checks out Specialized's latest before its race debut
In advance of Milan-San Remo on Saturday – and our first ride of it later this weekend – BikeRadar took a closer look at the latest string to Specialized's bow – the McLaren Venge.
And not just any McLaren Venge, but the one Mark Cavendish will be riding in pursuit of his second victory at Italy's biggest one day race.
He will be riding the version with Shimano Dura Ace groupset – the one available in the UK from late September. The standard S-Works Venge, available in the UK from the end of May, will also have Dura Ace, plus a DI2 version. The US models will be available at the same time, but with SRAM Red groupset.
Check back on Sunday evening for our first ride of the bike.


text:
Free Shipping
Over $30
Show off your little miss' individuality with the Mikayla's unique and stylish purple design. Light grey minky dots the interior. Made for year-round use—the fabric not too heavy for summer and not too thin for winter. We've got your baby covered!
*Minor alterations may be needed on some makes and models
Carseat Canopy™ products are made for "year-round" use—fabrics not too heavy for summer and not too thin for winter. Each one of our canopies has bold, fresh, cutting-edge prints on 100% cotton outers with soft, snuggly, lovable 100% polyester minky interiors. We've got your baby covered!
Car seat NOT included


text:
While trying to find their way to Rockland from Scituate, two men stopped to ask a Scituate police officer for directions. Unfortunately, cans of beer on the console inside the vehicle were clearly visible to the officer, Norton said.
At 9:06 a.m. Thursday, July 17, two men in a gray Hyundai Sonata approached Officer Jeffrey Ciulla who was working a traffic detail at the intersection of Rebecca and Lighthouse roads, Norton said.
"The passenger side window was down and while Officer Ciulla was conversing with one of the occupants, he saw two open cans of beer on the center console of the vehicle," Norton said.
Norton said Ciulla also noticed that the driver of the vehicle, Jeffrey Lincoln, 20, of 132 West Water Street in Rockland, seemed to be impaired.
As he was working the traffic detail, Ciulla requested a marked unit to the location.
"He detained the vehicle and requested assistance," Norton said.
Norton said Officers Brendan McAuley and Suzanne McDonough arrived at the scene, and that Lincoln was removed from the vehicle and given a field sobriety test.
"Based on the observation of McDonough, she placed Lincoln under arrest for Operating Under the Influence (OUI)," Norton said.
He was also charged with being a minor transporting alcohol.
Lincoln's passenger, Jason O'Brien, 19, of 31 Turner Road in Rockland was charged with being a minor in possession of alcohol.
"Detail means there are more officers out on the streets," Norton said. "Clearly there is a benefit of having more officers out in the streets. This was a good heads-up work by Officer Ciulla. It prevented a potential accident with an impaired driver at 9 a.m. in the morning when there are a lot of people out — joggers, people walking, cyclists, and children. Officer Ciulla took a dangerous driver off the road."


text:
Raising awareness and support for the three Asian Rhino species
The Greater One Horned rhinoceros, Sumatran rhinoceros and Javan rhinoceros are all seriously endangered due to rampant poaching and habitat loss caused by human encroachment. Poached for their horn, the rhino are caught by snares, pit traps, poisoned or electrocuted by wires hung from overhanging power lines.
The horn is used in traditional Chinese medicines and in Yemen to make dagger handles. The illegal trade in wildlife is second only to the trade in illegal drugs and firearms and is the primary threat to rhino in Asia. Illegal logging and human encroachment is seeing the rapid destruction of Asia's forest and all its inhabitants.
Conservation of these flagship species in the wild not only ensures there will be rhino around for future generations, but will also assist to ensure the survival of other threatened species of Asia's rainforests such as the orangutan, sun bear, gibbon, elephant, tiger, rafflesia flower and many, many more. But we have to act now!
The Asian Rhino Project (ARP) is an Australian non-profit, volunteer organisation raising awareness and support for the three Asian rhino species. By actively seeking funding from donors, corporate sponsors and memberships, merchandise sales and funds raised through events and educational programs; we contribute to programs in-situ through partnerships formed with conservation organisations in the field.
Donations to the ARP over $2 are tax deductible and are directly committed to the conservation of this flagship species. So please donate today, become a member or adopt a rhino and help us help them!
Latest NewsView more news here >>
Notice of Annual General Meeting
Read more >> Added: Mon Oct 2016 Relating to: All Species
The Hornless Rhinoceros Book
Read more >> Added: Mon May 2015 Relating to: Javanese Rhino Sumatran Rhino
Join Director Clare Campbell on the trip of a lifetime!
Read more >> Added: Thu Dec 2013 Relating to: Sumatran Rhino
Happy Birthday to Us!
Read more >> Added: Sat Nov 2013 Relating to: Sumatran Rhino


text:
HP 45A Black Original LaserJet Toner Cartridge. Printing colours: Black, Compatible products: LaserJet M4345 MFP, LaserJet M4345x MFP, LaserJet M4345xm MFP, LaserJet M4345xs MFP, Quantity per pack: 1 pc(s). Weight: 2.44 kg. Package weight: 3.4 kg
When productivity counts, you need low-maintenance cartridges that keep your printers working hard. Fewer, reliable supplies reduces interruptions. And saving time saves money. The true value is original HP LaserJet toner cartridge technology.- Consistent quality, no problems. The HP toner cartridge just works – so well that the technology has earned HP #1 rated reliability (PC Mag 8/05). Fewer interruptions keep your workgroups productive, save time and lower your overall printing costs.- The HP LaserJet toner cartridge includes the toner and imaging drum in one supply. To minimize interruptions, HP Smart technology sends alerts when supplies are low. Simply choose your preferred reseller and place your order through HP SureSupply.- HP LaserJet Q5945 Family Print Cartridges' all-in-one design allow effortless installation and maintenance. Smart printing technology features monitoring of supplies status and usage information via the printer's control panel or web browser.


text:
Tag: buy watches online india
Top 3 Ticwatches to Buy this Cyber Monday
1. Ticwatch E most comfortable Smartwatch-Shadow Android Wear 2.0. Get your favorite apps and watch faces. Request a car ride. Perfect your golf swing. Explore a new neighborhood. With thousands of Android Wear apps, there's no limit to what you can do with your Ticwatch E. Follow your fitness.Track walks, runs, rides, heart rate and strength training with Google Fit and your favorite fitness … Read More Top 3 Ticwatches to Buy this Cyber Monday


text:
^^Politics I understand, that brings out the CRAZY in people... but dating... MEH.
^^Politics I understand, that brings out the CRAZY in people... but dating... MEH.
Phil W2GE
2010 R1200RT 2011 Husqvarna TE310 'Woods-Weapon'
New Sweden BMW Riders
iPhone5-> Zumo 660->SENA SMH10, Nuvi 500,
Look... It's pretty innocuous.
Some lonely heart places an ad and he/she starts receiving private messages.
Tell me please... This effects YOU how? (You being the membership... Not the quoted.)
This is One Adult Member reaching out to another.
If yer married... Why would you even be in there looking?
Sheesh... Talk about beating the _______ out of a dead horse.
Jerry Dockery
309 N. 3rd. Ave.
Kure Beach, NC 28449
2009 R 1200 RT,1996 R1100RT, 1985 K100RS...too fast to believe.
As a guy fifteen years out of a nine year marriage, I say get yer butt out there in the world and start doin' YER own thing, and dating will follow after that!!! Have never understood the guys who hunker down over their computers to get dates! And don't forget...the same folks you meet in bars go to churches for the same reasons for both, so be's careful about whom ya meet in either!!! Especially the churches...
I have no problem with a Beamer Dating Forum.
Don't have an interst in the S1000RR...don't visit the RR forum...are not looking for that special Beamerite...don't visit the dating forum.
I met my wife at a BMW event.
I got lucky.
With the typical man/woman ratio at rallies, you are more likely to win the lottery then to find a life partner. Many of the women at rallies are there with their SO. This would be a great way for like minded guys/gals to get together.
Damn the torpedoes (lawsuits)...full speed ahead...
My Guzzi is a 2007, far too young to date.
The Bumblebee is an 1989, so it is 22 years old, so dating at OK, but only with my permission. No choppers need apply.
Personally I don't understand. I have been married for almost 17 years now.
I just have one question, If you go to doctor to get a growth removed, do you go right back out and try to get something to grow on you again? Or do you enjoy life now without the intrusive growth?
Hmmmm... 74 posts and I only see two women involved in the conversation.
How many married men?
GrafikFeat...at least one...me...and happily.
I have nothing against lonely riders hooking up with other lonely riders.


text:
Norbulingka is a palace and surrounding park in Lhasa, Tibet which served as the traditional summer residence of the successive Dalai Lamas from the 1780s up until the PRC takeover in the late 1950s. The gardens are a favourite picnic spot and provides a beautiful venue for theatre, dancing and festivals, particularly the Sho Dun or 'Yoghurt Festival.
Tibet Autonomous Region is situated at the southwest border, southwest of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, longitude 78 ° 25 'to 99 ° 06 ', latitude 26 ° 44 'to 36 ° 32 ' between. It is bounded by the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Qinghai Province, northeast connecting the east of Sichuan Province, Yunnan Province, south-east and connected; south and west with Myanmar, India, Bhutan, Sikkim and Kashmir and other countries and regions bordering China and the formation of national and Border lines of all or part of a total length of 4,000 kilometers. Tibet, with its magnificent, magical magnificent natural scenery known. Her vast territory, spectacular landscape and abundant resources. Since ancient times, people of this land to create a rich and splendid culture.


text:
I am trying to prove that a certain sequence of Markov chains $x^N_k$ converges towards a diffusion process. The invariant measure of $x^N$ is $\pi^N$ and the Markov chain $x^N$ is started in stationarity $x^N_0 \sim \pi^N$. It is also assumed that $\pi^N$ converges (in laws) to a limiting probability distribution $\pi$.
The idea of the diffusion approximation is then pretty simple, and runs roughly as follows: we can write $$x^N_{k+1}-x^N_k = \mu(x^N_k) \Delta_N + m^N_k \sqrt{\Delta_N} $$ where $\Delta_N$ is a time step that goes to zero as $N \to \infty$ and $\mu(\cdot)$ is a deterministic function and $m^N_k$ is a martingale difference with respect to the natural filtration generated by $x^N$. It happens that a martingale central limit theorem applies in this case and that it can be shown that $$W^N(t) = \sqrt{\Delta_N} \sum_{k < [\frac{t}{\Delta_N}]} m^N_k$$ converges in laws to a Brownian motion $W$. This is why the sequence of rescaled Markov chain $U^N(t) = x^N(t/\Delta_N)$ should converge in laws to the diffusion $$dU_t = \mu(U_t) \ dt + dW_t, \quad U_0 \sim \pi,$$ where $W$ is independent from the initial position $U_0$.
If we can show that the couple $(x^N_0, W^N)$ converges in laws to $(U_0,W)$ where $U_0$ is independent from $W$, a continuous mapping argument gives the conclusion.
Question: in short, it is assumed that $x^N_0 \sim \pi^N$ converges in law to $U_0 \sim \pi$ and it can be shown that $W^N \to W$. This seems always true that $W$ is independent from $U_0$, is it ? How can one ensure that $W$ is adapted to a filtration $\mathcal{F}_t$ with $U_0 \in \mathcal{F}_0$ ?
Rephrasing: consider a sequence of martingales $M^N$, not starting from $0$, adapted to the filtrations $\mathcal{F}^N$. Let us also assume that the distribution $\pi^N$ of $M^N_0$ converges in law to a distribution $\pi$. If a martingale invariance principle applies to the sequence of martingales $X^N_k = M^N_k - M^N_0$, is it true that the original sequence $M^N$ also converges in laws to a modified "Brownian motion" $W$ with $W_0 \sim \pi$ ?
Ps: the whole point of this pedestrian approach is to avoid the usual generator-based theorems that ensure that a diffusion approximation is valid.re


text:
ORLANDO, FLA. — The Broncos are likely to pick up the fifth-year team option on the contract of linebacker Von Miller.
Exercising the fifth-year option would keep the pass-rushing strongside linebacker with the club — and away from free agency — through the 2015 season.
The Broncos must exercise the option by May 3. Miller will make $3.239 million in 2014. As a top-10 pick in the 2011 draft, the fifth-year option would entitle Miller to a transition tag salary of $9.754 million in 2015. The option year is guaranteed against injury until the first day of the season, at which point it becomes fully guaranteed.
The fifth-year option for first-round picks was added to the collective bargaining agreement that was negotiated in 2011.
In Miller's case, there is benefit to both parties. For the Broncos, they can wait to see how well Miller bounces back from his disappointing 2013 season before committing to a long-term investment. Miller was suspended from the first six games this past season after he violated the league's drug policy, then missed the final four games, including three in the postseason, after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee on Dec. 22 at Houston.
The benefit for Miller is he now has two seasons to fully recover from his ACL injury and prove his off-field transgressions are behind him before hitting the free-agent market in 2016.


text:
We're sorry – it seems the page you were looking for may have been moved. Let's try and get you back on track
Beyond pizza, there are cookies – we use the non-edible kind on this site to help you get the most out of it. If you're happy with that, keep on browsing.


text:
This is another late post. Over a few months back, I went out on a night out with my friends. It felt good to get dolled up again!
I wore red lips paired with black and white eye shadow and I tried to go for flawless skin by applying my MAC foundation. For my outfit, I wore my dark red, bodycon dress from Miss Selfridge and jazzed it up with my coin necklace.
Enjoy the pictures below:
Let me know in the comments section below, what you think of my look.


text:
Welcome to Blooming Bouquet
Specializing in Floral Design for Weddings, Corporate and Special Events. If you want to make your event spectacular, contact us and our amazing design team will work with you to create an event that will be remembered by all. We are a one stop shop, to compliment our Floral Designs, we have linen rentals, chiavari chairs, pipe & drape, lighting, stage, dance floors, chair covers, everything you need to make your event Spectacular.
All of our customers are important, our professional staff is dedicated to making your experience a pleasant one. That is why we always go the extra mile to make your event perfect Please call us today to book your 1 Hour free consultation.
Let Blooming Bouquet be your first choice for wedding or event flowers.


text:
Tomorrow, Move to Amend's WE THE PEOPLE AMENDMENT will be introduced in Congress!
The We the People Amendment is the only amendment that deals with both Supreme Court doctrines that grant constitutional rights to artificial entities and that define spending money as free speech.
There are still many steps along the way, but this is a major milestone for the movement to amend!
Move to Amend will not now become a Congressional lobbying effort (not at this point). In fact now more than ever it is critical that we reach and educate the American people -- letting them know that there is a movement to get corporations out of our Constitution and big money out of our political process, and getting them involved.
What you can do:
- On Monday go to http://WeThePeopleAmendment.org for photos, video and updates on the coverage of the amendment drop. SHARE THESE UPDATES WITH YOUR FRIENDS via Facebook, Twitter and email! Let's make this viral!
- Ben Manski will be on Reddit.com at 1pm Eastern / 10am Pacific doing an "Ask Me Anything" interview about the We the People Amendment and Move to Amend. Tune in here: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/18bfp8/i_am_ben_manski_of_the_move_to_amend_national/
- Ask your friends to sign the Move to Amend petition to get involved in the campaign.
- If you're not already active in Move to Amend -- now's the time. Sign up to volunteer with an existing local MTA group or start one in your community.
- Make a donation to Move to Amend to support our work. We are a grassroots organization supported by donations from individuals like you.
We are proud of this significant success, but you won't see us resting on our laurels in the weeks and months to come. We know there is still work to do to ensure victory and we know you are with us to see it through to the end. Thanks for that!


text:
Kurds on Verge of Calling Cease-Fire in Turkey
A historic call for peace by the Kurds in Turkey will signal the latest phase of a peace process seeking to end a three-decade-long conflict that has left 40,000 dead. WSJ's Joe Parkinson reports. Photo: Getty Images
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
... I ... the guy to me in the Avoca ... and hundreds of thousands maybe mole people ... streaming into the city ... from far and wide to celebrate ... and be witness to what they believe will be a historical piece ... of dough in July and ... the PKK the debt has been fighting a guerrilla war against psyche that Betsy is ... today is a bicycle for a ceasefire ... if that comes ... it'll be the most concrete step yet ... towards a solution to this three decade conflict ...


text:
What Motivates a Doctor Mom to Work Out?
In our September "Dr. Mom Knows Best" feature, internist Katherine Chretien, M.D., offered smart advice on making a nutritious dinner in a pinch, the #1 thing you can do for your health and more. For this guest post, Dr. Chretien reveals what inspires her to exercise. And it's probably not what you think.
I lost my regular exercise motivation for the same reason I lost the will to wash and blow-dry my hair every day: pregnancy. Was it the fatigue or the mobility of a beached whale? I'm not sure I'll ever know. But I do know that my once-regular habit of exercising several times a week went missing and I didn't go looking for it.
Meanwhile, my husband, also a doctor, is a bit of the overachiever when it comes to exercise. He's run many marathons and even competed in a couple of IRONMAN triathlons (that's code for races for the insane). He had been trying to get me back into some kind of regular exercise for years. Not because I let myself go—at least I hope not—but because he felt it was important for my health. After all, he would be the one pushing me around in a wheelchair someday. I agreed in theory, but when, pray tell, would I exercise in between caring for all these kids and working? The whole idea sounded unpleasant, if not impossible.
Then one day, I came across research that showed people who engaged in regular exercise were less likely to develop dementia. As an internist who takes care of hospitalized patients, many of whom are elderly, I am terrified of developing dementia and not knowing where I am, who I am or what decade I'm living in. Sure, there are sweet-as-pie patients with dementia, "pleasantly confused," as they are often described. But there are also mean ones who try to take out the staff with cans of Ensure, as if they're at a booth at a county fair. If exercise can stave off dementia, please pass my sneakers.
So, I decided it was time to get back into the exercise habit. I started S-L-O-W, riding the recumbent bike at the gym while reading guilty pleasure celebrity magazines a few times a week. I didn't sweat a single drop, mind you, but it felt somewhat nice to be moving with purpose. I further motivated myself by purchasing a few cute new workout outfits to replace the tent-like leftover maternity yoga tops I had been wearing.
It's been a couple of months now, and I've progressed to running a few miles a few times a week. Don't get me wrong: an elderly person using a walker might lap me, but I'm sweating now and getting a serious workout. It feels GREAT. I'm making time for it and hoping this habit sticks (and dementia doesn't). The added benefits of a healthy heart and stress reduction are nice bonuses. More importantly, I feel like I'm making regular deposits in the long-term investment that is me. Body and mind.
Need motivation to get exercising again? Visit a local nursing home. It worked for me.
How do you keep yourself motivated to work out? Post a comment and let me know!
Katherine Chretien, M.D., is an internist, mother of three and associate professor of medicine at George Washington University. She is editor/founder of the group blog, Mothers in Medicine (www.mothersinmedicine.com) and runs very slowly.


text:
Spillman helps Coeur d'Alene Tribal PD organize data
SALT LAKE CITY –January 11, 2007 – A new public safety software system will enable the Coeur d'Alene Tribal Police Department to share information with neighboring agencies and easily generate reports for crime analysis.
The Idaho agency is adopting innovative solutions from Spillman Technologies, a leading public safety software provider headquartered in Salt Lake City.
Spillman's Integrated Hub and Law Records module will help the Coeur D'Alene Tribal Police Department expand its law enforcement capabilities and better serve its jurisdiction.
Using the integrated technology, the Coeur D'Alene Tribal Police Department will have the ability to create reports for crime analysis and easily equip records with visual alerts to indicate a dangerous, wanted, or missing person.
With Spillman's Integrated Hub, the agency can enter data into the system once and have it automatically populated into related fields.
The Coeur D'Alene Tribal Police Department will share a system with the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office, allowing the two agencies to share records, data, and other critical law enforcement information. The department will become one of 36 public safety agencies in Idaho and more than 700 agencies nationwide already using Spillman products. They plan to go live with the system in the first quarter of 2008.
Spillman Technologies provides a full range of software solutions for public safety agencies, including Records Management, Computer-Aided Dispatch, Mobile Communications, Corrections Management, Fire/EMS Management, Resource Management, and Data Sharing.


text:
Jörg Heiser
|Robert Stadler, Alexis Vaillant (Eds.)On Things as Ideas
Contributions by Carl Andre, Charles Baudelaire, Walter Benjamin, Barbara Bloemink, Jan Boelen, Louise Bourgeois, Sheldon Cheney and Martha Candler Cheney, Alex Coles, Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, Hal Foster, Sigmund Freud, Dan Graham, Isabelle Graw, Sebastian Hackenschmidt and Dietmar Rübel, Graham Harman, G. W. F. Hegel, Martin Heidegger, Dave Hickey, Matthew Higgs, Donald Judd, Immanuel Kant, Frederick J. Kiesler, Sven Lütticken, Alessandro Mendini, W. J. T. Mitchell, Jasper Morrison, Bruno Munari, Robert Nickas, Alice Rawsthorn, Jeff Rian, Richard Rinehart, Anthony Vidler
This collection of more than thirty texts, which were originally published between 1790 and the present day, explores man's rich relationship with material things. Devised largely in response to the gradual breakdown of the divide between art and design that began over a century ago, this book sheds light on the ways that the concept of the thing as idea has been considered over time. Writers from different fields explore how things interact with materials, structures, and production processes while defining and registering the intangible qualities of the material world. Each author considers the different relationships between the context of a thing and its thingness, describing the ways in which things and ideas intersect.
Copublished with MUDAM Luxembourg
Design by Florence Richard


text:
So I decided I'm gonna start updating on this thing once a week. Sound good? Well if you don't think it does then you can stick your head somewhere smelly, sticky, wet and cramped. I've been busy with school and a secret comic project that you will all find out about soon. But I'll try to make it a goal to post atleast once a week.
Here are some brown paper sketches.
This is a character I drew a couple times in some previous sketch books. He's some kinda ghoul. His name is Mope. I like his moooouth.


text:
Alligator Gar
Atractosteus spatula
About This Animal
SIZE: Up to 10 feet in the wild
RANGE: Found in the waters of the Mississippi River basin from southwestern Ohio and southern Illinois south to the Gulf of Mexico.
HABITAT: Freshwater; brackish
DIET: Juveniles feed on plankton, invertebrates, amphibians, and fish before transitioning to almost exclusively fish.
ON EXHIBIT: River Giants exhibit in River Journey
This North American fish can reach lengths of up to 10 feet in the wild. These toothy fish can attain beastly sizes. In 2011, an alligator gar was caught that tipped the scales at an astounding 327 pounds! According to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, this was the largest alligator gar ever caught, beating a 302-pound gar caught in 1963.
Recent surveys suggest populations are far below historic levels and could be declining further. In some northern states, they are believed to have been extirpated or reduced in number to non- viable populations requiring reintroductions through stockings in some locations. For these reasons they have been identified as an imperiled species by the American Fisheries Society and a focal species of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Numerous states have already or are in the process of increasing conservation and management through regulation, habitat restoration and stocking.


text:
After long layoff, Landon Donovan has his swagger back
BALTIMORE — Forget any lingering talk that Landon Donovan isn't in love with soccer anymore.
Donovan scored and notched three assists in Sunday's 5-1 win over El Salvador, clinching the U.S. a spot in the Gold Cup semifinals.
"I'm just having a lot of fun," Donovan said after the match. "I'm enjoying myself."
His goal in the 78th minute was proof the 31-year-old hasn't lost a step since his self-imposed sabbatical.
A U.S. goal kick from Nick Rimando was flicked into open space by teammate Eddie Johnson. With one man to beat, Donovan turned on the afterburners. He took a perfect touch at the top of the penalty area, getting around Salvadoran goalkeeper Dagoberto Portillo before coolly slotting it home on an open net.
Donovan slid to his knees in the pouring rain, reaching his hands to the heavens in celebration.
"Today was my mom's 60th birthday so I was pushing hard to try and score a goal and it finally came," Donovan said. "It was a nice present for her."
He extended his own U.S. records, tallying his 54th career goal and reaching 55 assists, in his 149th appearance for the national team. Donovan is the only player in Gold Cup history to score in six separate tournaments, his first back in 2002.
Donovan was omitted from the team's roster for World Cup qualifiers in June and coach Jurgen Klinsmann has said time and time again that the playmaker has to earn his way back.
He's certainly made his case since joining up with the team for the Gold Cup, scoring five goals in five matches. Still, Klinsmann won't say definitively how – or if – Donovan will fit into the squad once World Cup qualifying resumes in September.
"For us we take it one game at a time and Landon again proved today how valuable he is," Klinsmann said. "For coaches, it's important to see who's a difference maker out there, who, when things go a little bit the wrong way, they take the game on themselves and Landon was one of those players."
Donovan was in the middle of an ugly incident in the match's dying minutes, when Salvadoran fans were "throwing a bunch of stuff" at him as he prepared to take a corner kick.
"We were fine and ready to play, the ref wanted it to stop. Fortunately some of their players came over and settled the crowd down."
With his team leading 5-1, Donovan had some fun with the situation, snatching up a pair of sunglasses that were chucked at him. The veteran of three World Cups had them just about all the way on his face before an assistant referee took them away.
After the match, Donovan took a jab at the largely pro-Salvadoran crowd that filled a sold-out M&T Bank Stadium.
"My experience in these games is they show up with their El Salvador jersey on and once we score a few goals they rip it off and have a USA jersey on."
Whether he figures into the team's plans for September and beyond remains to be seen, but it certainly seems Donovan has his swagger back.


text:
Surgery on the veins to keep them from draining blood
Surgery to repair blood vessels may be done for some men
who have
erection problems (erectile dysfunction).
This surgery generally is
done in younger men who have injuries that affect blood flow to the penis.
During surgery, a portion of a blood vessel from elsewhere in the abdomen is
used to bypass the damaged portion of the artery that supplies blood to the
Next Section:
Previous Section:
Last Revised:
May 14, 2012
Healthwise Staff
Medical Review:
E. Gregory Thompson, MD - Internal Medicine & Christopher G. Wood, MD, FACS - Urology, Oncology
This information does not replace the advice of a doctor. Healthwise, Incorporated disclaims any warranty or liability for your use of this information. Your use of this information means that you agree to the Terms of Use. How this information was developed to help you make better health decisions.
To learn more visit Healthwise.org
© 1995-2012 Healthwise, Incorporated. Healthwise, Healthwise for every health decision, and the Healthwise logo are trademarks of Healthwise, Incorporated.


text:
Page | Site
Top Baby Names UK welcomes you to our Baby Walker page.
Below you will find links to the best UK online shops offering baby products
at some of the cheapest prices available. Our search results are
automatically sorted by price, showing the cheapest baby products first, allowing
you to make the best buy possible. Thanks for visiting Top Baby Names UK, and
we hope our Baby Walker page helps you find what you're looking for.
Back to Top
If you run one of the best Baby Walker sites,
you may request a link to appear in the section above. Firstly, please
add the below link to a Google-indexed page on your site as follows:
Baby Walker page
at Top Baby Names UK
Then contact us to request
your link. Please note that placing a link to us is no guarantee that
we will reciprocate. We will only create a link to you if we deem
your site
be suitable (i.e. has suitable Baby Walker related
Page | Site


text:
Latest News
Alaska Bar urges court to strip Stevens of law license
The Alaska Bar Association says that U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens' plea to keep his law license is based on a faulty reading of the rules and a mischaracterization of the seriousness of his conviction for lying on his Senate disclosure forms.
The bar, in a pleading filed this week, urged the Alaska Supreme Court to reject Stevens' arguments that he wasn't really convicted and that his crime was not a crime under Alaska law. The association said that even as an "inactive" member of the bar, Stevens is a danger to the public and an embarrassment to the legal profession.
The state bar initially sought a suspension of Stevens' license shortly after his conviction Oct. 27. Stevens opposed the suspension in a pleading to the supreme court, which regulates attorneys in Alaska. His license has already been suspended in two other jurisdictions, California and Washington, D.C.
Read the full story at adn.com


text:
Regular price
Chocolate Sprinkles
North Lime Donut Penny Earrings Torch Fired Enameled Penny Earrings with Sterling Silver Earwires and microbeads
Aren't these delicious! I love my donuts and jumped at the chance to create this new line when I found out I was chosen as the November Artist of the Month at one of my favorite places in Lexington Kentucky.
These donuts will be "fresh out of the oven" when they arrive to you, so be prepared for a bit longer arrival. They will take about 9 days, but will be fresh! If you need them faster please let me know and I will create as quick as I can.
Thank You- Jody Jaques (the artist)
Metals have always been a favorite medium of mine and transparent layers of glossy color only enhance the beauty of the metal. I broke down and invested in a torch and enamels after my Dad gave me a Dapping & Forming set for shaping metals. While investigating enamel torch firing, I discovered I could enamel older pennies due to the existing copper in pre-1981 pennies. I've always been a vintage and upcycling girl!My goal is to create handmade art that is affordable, beautiful and USABLE!These are created to be worn and look better with movement. The ear wire is shaped specifically to balance in your ear while performing all activities. Enamels and metal can withstand soakings and changing environments. I wear mine while exercising vigorously, performing motherly tasks, throwing on the potter's wheel, enameling and hammering metals, teaching art in elementary school, hiking in random environments and occasionally when washing my hair.Beautiful creations are meant to be worn!Frankfort Local ShippingRemember to use Coupon Code LOCALFREESHIPPINGAny Questions? Contact me at PocketofPenniesJewelry@ gmail.comFrankfort Local ShippingRemember to use Coupon Code LOCALFREESHIPPINGAny Questions? Contact me at email@example.com


text:
Important Links
Hock's Blog
Hock's Downloads
Hock's Facebook
Hock's Seminars
Hock's Shopsite
Hock's Web Page
New Products
Combat Kicks VID
Critical Contact VID
Death Grip of Knife VID
Dominant/Counter VID
First Contact VID
Impact Weapons Book
Knife Book
The Other Hand VID
Alan "Colorado Warrior" Tafoya is a full blooded Jicarilla Apache. He is a direct descentant of the famous Apache Chief, Magnus Colorado. Colorado means "Red," and Magnus Colorado means "Red Sleaves." Alan's father was the Police Chief of the Jicarilla Apache Reservation for over 20yrs before he passed away in 2000. One of Alan's uncles was also on the Police force and his other uncle (which I've met) is a Medicine Man. Alan Tafoya won the 1999 and 2000 Soldier of Fortune Knife Championship in Las Vegas, Nevada and he has studied martial arts and kickboxing since he was a child. He received his first bow and arrow set when he was just 4 years old.Alan is also an actor, musician and song writter. He was featured in the book, "Vital Point Strikes by Sang H. Kim, Turtle Press (416 pages) which came out this year. His girlfriend is actress, Cynthia Straus. Alan has two beautiful daughters (both in their 20s) and one grandson. I've met his entire family and girlfriend and they are the nicest people. Alan has been featured in several Native films, magazines, and short films. He just completed a role in Spec Ops which will air in July of this year on television (produced by Morining Star Entertainment). Alan's biography was featured on the film, "Dancing on the Edge," which talks of his world on the reservation and shows his victory win for the 2nd time as S.O.F. Knife Champion. Alan and I did a 30 mins interview this week on KCIE 90.5 FM (Public Radio) in New Mexico. Alan and I completed the 14th Annual Apache Knife Fighting & Battle Tactics seminar on the Apache Reservation last month. He is a great friend and brother to me. The information we teach at these seminars are based on information we receive from elders of the Apache bands...stories that were passed down from Great-great grandparents to great grandparents to grandparents, and so on. These are stories of Apache fighting that you will not get from history books. Many Apaches believed that having pictures taken of them took a piece of their spirit also, so few historic pictures are available. One of the great-grandsons and great-great grandsons of Goyathlay (aka: Geronamo) lives in Colorado. I met the great-great grandson, and he too is one of the nicest guys around. Most of society knows very little of the Apaches, because they only know what they see on western movies or a few documentaries. The Apache history goes so much deeper than that, and that is why 15 years ago I started researching and teaching our culture. Those that really reasearch our culture will be facinated at what they'll find.
In fact Sayocs were laughed right out of some FMA circles for advocating their multiple knife and training belt tactics. Maybe other people would like to chime in on this since I have people trying to school me on the subject, Does anyone advocate the carry of more than one or two knives?
The second thing that stands out is the claim that Native Americans would carry multiple blade weapons and tend to throw them and use them in similar fashion as advocated by Sayoc Kali. I am no fan of Sayoc and believe they lost the plot in modern training crossing from training based on facts into training based on comic book illustrators personal fantasies of what knife combat should look like.
I would also like to see the pictures of any Native American wearing the Sayoc Rig either afoot or on horseback.
Of course, the aformentioned Sayocs wanted a pint of blood, a tattoo, some 1-3 years and $5,000 for a basic instructorship:odd people and curious people went to them at first, and then their business plan was apparently ...suicidal. Hock
Sun Hemlet whats so different about sayoc training methods compared to other fma systems i been to a sayoc seminar and a hock seminar the experience i had was hocks was nearly 9 months ago and i can still remember everything.The sayoc seminar i didnt pick up much but tom kier was a nice guy and amazing martial artist.
-Rafael- Start a new thread if you want to send up smoke signals promoting Sayoc Kali.


text:
Justin Bieber Accused of Assault in Argentina
And the hits keep on coming…literally. Justin Bieber has been accused of assaulting an Argentine photographer while on tour in Latin America.
The snapper's lawyers claim that The Biebs and his security detail attacked him while he was trying to take pictures of the teen.
Sounds like an occupational hazard to us. Just sayin'. Remember, earlier this year a pap in L.A. was killed trying to obtain pics of the singer. That was not The Biebs' fault, but it still reflected on him.
Assault is not the extent of the charges, either. The photographer is also accusing Team Bieber of robbery. The lawyers filed paperwork with Interpol and are looking for The Biebs to be arrested, according to WENN.
Poor Biebs. Allegations of graffiti, more graffiti, making negative comments and a video of him sleeping, which spurred rumors of him being with a hooker or a porn star, marred his international touring itinerary in recent months.
He also posted a photo of himself offering up a two-hand salute to the haters. Yep, he flashed the bird.
Let's remember that The Biebs spent some time visiting with the people of the Philippines who were affected by a typhoon. No, it's not as juicy as possibly assaulting a pap, but it's important to note.


text:
We've handed out over $700 million in discounts! Quote and get yours!
Snapshot means BIG discounts for good drivers
Snapshot is a program that personalizes your rate based on your ACTUAL driving. It's technically called usage-based insurance. That means you pay based on how and how much you drive instead of just traditional factors. It's simple. Drive safe and save. Drive extra safe and save even more. There are still other pricing factors, and your rate may increase with high-risk driving. But you're in control of what you pay for car insurance, and most drivers earn a discount. In fact, Snapshot rewards the average driver with a $145 discount.* Plus, you'll get an automatic discount just for signing up.
How does Snapshot work?
Sign Up
Get a quote and then choose the Snapshot mobile app or plug-in device.
Drive with Snapshot for your first policy period (usually about six months).
You can check progress to see how you're doing in the app or online.
Just download the mobile app, register, and drive
If the mobile app isn't available in your state, you can use the plug-in device instead. Questions? See our Snapshot FAQs.
Your main view. From here, you can go to your driving status, most recent trips, and ways to improve your driving.
Trip details
Shows more info about a specific trip with a map that highlights where you had a hard brake, fast acceleration, or used your phone.
Trip log
Shows all your trips. We only count trips when you're the driver, and you can recategorize as needed.
Driving tips
Get pro tips based on your current driving to boost your score and possible discount.
Just sign up, plug in the device, and drive
The plug-in device works similarly to the mobile app, and you'll still get details on your progress. Questions? See our Snapshot FAQs.
Easy to plug in
The device plugs in to your car's OBD-II port, which is usually under your steering wheel. Believe us, it's super easy to plug in. See exactly where Snapshot plugs into your car.
Beeps for hard brakes
Every time you have a hard brake, the device beeps so you know how you're doing. Fewer beeps could get you a bigger discount.
Just log in to your account on progressive.com, and you can see all your Snapshot info (trip logs, driving tips, your progress, etc.).
How to maximize your Snapshot discount
These tips can help you save money and drive more safely. It's the best of both worlds!
Limit hard brakes
The same goes for hard accelerations. Go easy on the gas and avoid slamming your brakes.
Avoid late night driving
Limit trips between 12-4 a.m. on weekends, as the roads can be more dangerous then.
Drive less overall
This one is tough. But if you're a low-mileage driver or can carpool, you could save more.
Stay off your phone
Avoid texting, calls, or other handheld phone activity to stay safe and boost your discount.**
The discounts you can earn with Snapshot
$26 Average discount at program sign up†
You'll get an automatic discount just for signing up. It's credited on your very first policy period (before you start your Snapshot program) and expires when you renew. Then, you'll get a rate based on your actual driving.
$145 Average discount at program completion*
This discount is credited when you complete the Snapshot program and then renew your auto policy with Progressive (usually after six months).
Looking for even more savings? See our car insurance discounts.
Your rate may increase with high-risk driving. But, only about 2 out of 10 drivers actually get an increase.


text:
SCAD Women and Fresno Pacific Men Win NAIA Swimming and Diving National Championship
March 6, 2010
ST. PETERS, Mo. - One repeat champion and one first-time champion were crowned on Saturday night at the St. Peters Rec-Plex during the final night of the 2010 NAIA Swimming and Diving National Championships. Savannah College of Art and Design was unranked in the final women's poll but it successfully defended its 2009 championship. Fresno Pacific University won the school's first swimming and diving national championship on the men's side of the competition.
SCAD finished the event with 540 points, 68 ahead of runner-up California Baptist University. The Bees did not win a single event on the women's side but used its depth for the second national title in program history. Rounding out the top five were Fresno Pacific with 451 points, Concordia University with 393 points, and Simon Fraser University with 354.
Fresno Pacific won five men's events and finished with 659.5 points. Defending champion California Baptist was runner-up with 488.5 points, followed by Lindenwood University with 477, Concordia with 428.5, and SCAD with 421.
Two records were broken on the final day of competition, both in the 200 fly. Azusa Pacific's Kaylen Hewko won her second national championship of the year with a national record time of 2:02.57. Lindenwood's Javier Hernandez captured the men's title with a national record mark of 1:46.74.
Other top highlights of the final day of competition came from four other swimmers, along with Hewko, winning their second individual national title. Fresno Pacific's Cheyenne Coffman won the 100 free, Simon Fraser's David Hibberd won the 100 free, SCAD's Alex Graudins won the 1,650 free, and Fresno Pacific's Erik Thiessen won the 200 back.
Other women's individual champions on the night were Fresno Pacific's Brook Turner in the 1650 free, Biola University's April Smith in the 200 breast, and California Baptist's Lara Pease in the 200 back. The other men's individual champion was Lindenwood's Sergio Molina in the 200 breast. In the relay events, Fresno Pacific completed a sweep of the five women's relays by winning the 400 free relay. The men's 400 free relay went to Concordia.
The women's Outstanding Swimmer of the Meet was Fresno Pacific's Cheyenne Coffman, and the men's Outstanding Swimmer of the Meet was California Baptist's Kevin Sellars. The women's Outstanding Diver of the Meet was Concordia's Christine Runkle, and the men's Outstanding Diver of the Meet was California Baptist's Trevor Graifman. Women's Coach of the Year honors went to Fresno Pacific's Peter Richardson, and the Men's Coach of the Year award went to Lindenwood's Craig Penrose.
2010 Men's Meet Records: Kevin Sellars, California Baptist (200 IM, 1:49.44), Kevin Sellars, California Baptist (400 IM, 3:53.86), David Hibberd, Simon Fraser (200 free, 1:38.08), Javier Hernandez, Lindenwood (200 fly, 1:46.74), Fresno Pacific (200 medley relay, 1:29.86), California Baptist (800 free relay, 6:42.98)
2010 Women's Meet Records: Cheyenne Coffman, Fresno Pacific (50 free, 22.90), Cheyenne Coffman, Fresno Pacific (100 back, 55.39), Kaylen Hewko, Azusa Pacific (200 fly, 2:02.57), Fresno Pacific (200 medley relay, 1:45.04), Fresno Pacific (400 medley relay, 3:50.75)


text:
IndiaEducation.net provides students and parents with detailed information on colleges, courses, exams and careers in India and abroad. Get exam results, download free e-books, read expert advice from educational professionals, and learn how to transition from secondary school to college to first career and beyond. What education to pursue and where to pursue it is a very important decision-making process and we want to give you as much information and as many perspectives to make your decision more informed and comforting.
Severity: Warning
Message: Invalid argument supplied for foreach()
Filename: home/home.php
Line Number: 89


text:
Friday, April 26, 2013
We Have A Winner!!!
Posted by Shirlee at 11:33 AM 6 comments
Thursday, April 25, 2013
I Went Clothes Shopping Today
After 3 days of medical appointments, John & I left home again this morning just to run a few errands in Lexington. One of my personal quests was to find some new t-shirts to wear. Unless you've tried to shop for them yourself, you can't imagine how difficult it is to find plain t-shirts (no designs, logos, pictures, beads, or studs) made with quality fabric & crew necks.
Even though it was early on a Thursday morning, the mall was a hub of activity. Everywhere I looked I saw happy ladies gleefully looking at & purchasing lovely things. I was pretty excited seeing their happy faces & their bags crammed full of new clothes! I just knew I was going to have bags crammed full of new t-shirts & maybe even more! Some of the ladies were kind enough to stop for a moment so I could take a photo of them.
Doesn't La-Teesha look happy? She found some great bargains!
Posted by Shirlee at 9:01 PM 25 comments
Monday, April 22, 2013
April IHSW Report
Life around here has been quite busy lately for a number of reasons, & it's going to be even busier these next few weeks, but all things stop for IHSW : ) I worked as much as I possibly could on Christmas Tea by Plum Street Samplers. I had hoped to finish it, but I've still got a few snowflakes to take care of. Despite the drastic color difference between the model photo & what I'm ending up with by following the designer's suggestions, I think I'm going to like it : )
Posted by Shirlee at 9:32 AM 25 comments
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Prayer Request
Posted by Shirlee at 11:37 AM 24 comments
Monday, April 15, 2013
That Little White Box Again
I have mentioned a few times about how suddenly, just before Christmas, I was no longer able to post comments on blogs that have the little white comment box appearing directly underneath the posts. For comments on these blogs, you see that little white box & you just click into it & start typing. When you finish your comment, you simply click Publish & your comment is accepted .. unless you're me. Maybe if you're other people, too. I don't know. What I do know is that it makes me (& possibly other people) sad that I (they) can't leave a comment on a blog when I (they) want to leave one.
There is a way for you to fix this, if you want to. Here are step-by-step directions for you to follow should you so desire.
1. Go to your Dashboard. Next to the name of your blog, you will see 3 little rectangles that you can click. The first one is orange & it has what looks like a drawing of a pen or pencil in the center. The middle rectangle is not orange & it has 2 parts to it. The left part of this middle rectangle has a drawing of what looks like a notebook or some pages. The right part of this middle rectangle has a little drop-down arrow. Click that arrow & move your cursor down to the very last choice, which is Settings, & click on it. This will take you to your Settings screen.
2. On the left side of your Settings screen, you will see a list of Blogger choices. The word Settings will be colored orange. Underneath the orange word Settings, you will see another orange word, Basic. Just underneath the orange word Basic, you will see the words Posts & Comments which will appear in black. Move your cursor down to Posts & Comments & click on it. This now takes you to your Settings/Posts & Comments screen.
3. The first section in the center of your Settings/Posts & Comments screen will be titled Posts. The next one will be titled Comments. The first line of this Comments section says Comment Location, & next to that is a little rectangle with a drop-down arrow. If you have that little white comments box appearing directly underneath your posts, then you will see the word Embedded in this little rectangle.
4. Click the drop-down arrow in this little rectangle next to Comment Location. You will be presented with 4 ways to choose from for your followers to post on your blog ... Embedded, Full Page, Popup Window, & Hide. Move your cursor to Popup Window & click on it. Then move your cursor to the top right corner of the page where you will see a little orange rectangle that says Save Settings. Click on that. You will get a very brief flash message box at the top center of your screen which will say "Settings were saved successfully." Then just click to go back to your Dashboard by clicking on the orange Blogger logo at the top left corner of the screen (the orange rectangle with the white letter B in the center), & that's all there is to it!
What will now appear at the bottom of your posts is a little link for your followers to click on that says Post a Comment (like you see at the bottom of this post). Your followers will click on this link, be taken to a popup box in which to make their comment, & they will still be able to scroll up & down your post to see what you've written & the photos you've included ... & we will all get up out of our chairs & dance about the room in wild abandon, celebrating the fact that we can now comment on your posts!
Posted by Shirlee at 6:36 AM 14 comments
Friday, April 12, 2013
A Blanket, a Cross Stitch Start, & a Couple Birds
I decided it's about time for me to share a photo of my crocheted blanket progress which I've promised to do a time or two recently. These photos aren't great. Maybe I need a new camera? Please try to ignore any mess that is so obviously apparent.
Posted by Shirlee at 1:51 PM 17 comments
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Life and Other Stuff
Up at 5 a.m. Trouble breathing, left arm/hand/fingers kind of numb. Psychologist who did neuropsych evaluation a couple weeks ago to check my memory issues said my mind is great but my fine motor skills are the pits. Didn't bother to do any tests for my lousy balance but suggested that my ever more frequent episodes of numbness/tingling/weakness in said arm/hand/fingers are probably due to a pinched nerve in my neck, quickly adding "of course I'm not a doctor." I get to visit a neurologist next Monday to talk about these things, then a GYN the following week (upper body issues), then a vascular surgeon (bad leg issues), & hopefully I'll get a rheumatologist referral as well (lupus & arthritis issues). What fun!
Posted by Shirlee at 9:51 AM 44 comments
Friday, April 5, 2013
Easter Revisited
I have finally downloaded the photos from my camera of my very few but much cherished Easter decorations this year. Yes, I have others, but we all know where they are : )
The 2 large stitched cards you see here are from my friend Paula who lives in Portugal (no blog). Last year she sent me the blue one, this year the green one. Aren't they pretty? The card in the middle is pretty too! That card was made for me last year by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching as a thank you for being in her Easter Treasure Hunt Blog Hop : )
Posted by Shirlee at 3:50 PM 17 comments
Monday, April 1, 2013
Last summer, I wrote a blog post titled Perfection in a Yarn Shop. You can click on the title & read the post if you are so inclined. I ended that post by stating that I was thinking about knitting covers for all the mirrors in my house. I did not knit those covers. Therefore, I have no one to blame but myself for what I am now going to share with you.
Last night when I stepped out of the shower, I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror.
Posted by Shirlee at 5:11 PM 17 comments


text:
Really nice Dolcetto & good value. Great balance & no tannin, but not too jammy. Very nice.
More posts
- Blackberries, cassis, soft, balanced. Pleasantly tart finish. Love it.
- Birthday wine at Liverpool.
- Super juicy Mild acidity and very strong tone. Same appellation as the roagna but like day to roagnas night. High tone.
- Dolcetto d'alba Italian * funky, petrol nose. * tight acidity and mild tannins making for a great food wine.
- One of my fav producers! Chewy red cherries.