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Allergies and asthma are associated with an overreaction of the immune system to everyday environmental factors such as chemicals in the air, certain foods, pet dander, or pollens. It is not clear what makes the immune system begin to overreact but many believe people start with a genetic tendency to develop allergies or asthma and something in their environment triggers the change. Since the immune system develops most in infancy, many have looked at diet and environment in young children to look for trends that may contribute to the development of allergies or asthma.
Researchers in Finland conducted a large study to look for potential associations between a child's early diet and the development of allergies and asthma. The data collected from the study, published in Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, suggested that low food diversity in the first year of life may increase the risk of future allergies or asthma.
About the Study
The large cohort study included 3,142 children whose parents kept a food diary. Information for this study included data on 856 children whose parents maintained food diaries during the child's entire first year of life. Questionnaire's were sent when the child reach 5 years of age to assess development of asthma, wheezing, atopic eczema, and allergic rhinitis. The data found that:
- Less food diversity at 3-4 months of age was not associated with increased risk of allergies or asthma
- Less food diversity at 6 months of age was associated with increased risk of allergic rhinitis
- Less food diversity at 12 months of age was associated with increased risk of asthma, atopic asthma, wheeze and allergic rhinitis
How Does this Affect You?
Cohort studies are simply observational studies. This means that researchers simply observe events to look for potential links, they can not determine cause and effect. This study found that there may be a connection between food diversity in the first year of life but the reason for this connection is not clear. More studies will need to be done before the connection will be confirmed.
Work with your child's doctor to plan a schedule for introducing foods. In the first six months, exclusive breastfeeding or formula is most often recommended for most babies. Once your child begins to eat solid foods, gradually introduce them to a variety of food choices to help get optimal nutrition.
- Reviewer: Michael Woods, MD
- Review Date: 04/2014 -
- Update Date: 04/29/2014 -


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When Cody Kessler, a redshirt sophomore quarterback now battling for the starter's job at Southern California, was invited to play in the 2011 U.S. Army All-American Bowl , an all-star prep football game for top recruits, he remembers being asked for his autograph – by the company producing his commemorative trading card.
"We get to the site and (signing autograph sheets) is one of the first things we do," Kessler said. "We sign like 200 in a row. I didn't think twice about it. You just sit down and sign autographs. I thought it was going to the soldiers or something like that."
MORE: Preseason American Family Insurance ALL-USA Team
Like most or all of the other players in that game, Kessler signed autographs that would end up as part of a set produced by the Leaf Trading Card Company, which has been selling autographed trading cards from the U.S. Army game since 2009.
The practice is not a violation of NCAA rules and does not endanger the players' amateur status. The players are not paid to sign and do not get royalties from the card sales. Yet as name-and-likeness issues have turned into lawsuits against the NCAA and sparked debate about college athletes' rights, the prep cards illuminate another cottage industry that capitalizes on the notoriety of amateur athletes.
The autographed cards from the U.S. Army game hit the market every spring and are snapped up by collectors. If a player hits it big, the price on the secondary market can skyrocket.
PHOTOS: Preseason ALL-USA Team
An autographed Leaf card of Kessler in his U.S. Army jersey was being offered Sunday on eBay for $29.99. That's a pittance compared to the $499.99 asking price for a signed card featuring an action picture from the 2012 U.S. Army game of running back T.J. Yeldon, who shot to stardom on a national championship team at Alabama with a 1,000-yard freshman season.
Leaf, which also is one of the game's sponsors, tells parents the autographs are an opportunity, not a requirement. Most often, high school players enjoy the early taste of celebrity, those involved with the game say.
ANALYSIS: a look at the Manziel case
"Some of the parents have asked the Leaf people, 'Why should my kid sign?'" says Doug Berman, chairman of All-American Games, the company that owns and produces the all-star game. "The answer is, 'Well, you don't have to.' But for many of these players, this will be the only time in their athletic careers they are on a trading card. To be singled out at that point in time for their athletic achievement is not a bad thing."
Are the players specifically told that they are signing cards the company intends to package and sell?
Leaf CEO Brian Gray says there is no pressure put on the high school players and they have the option to decline. "But really," he says, "If you don't want to be on the card, there's something wrong with you."
Berman says the players are told that the signing is being done "as part of the issuing of the cards. I don't know that we sit there and say, before you sign, 'Now you understand that this will be sold . . .' It's not like they're unaware it's being used as a commemorative set of trading cards."
Not NCAA turf
Gray said he hates it when he sees people "try to gouge. We have no control over the secondary market. I hate that people charge high prices for these things. Now there are a lot of questions about Johnny Manziel, and that tells you a lot about the demand in the marketplace."
Manziel, the Texas A&M quarterback who won the Heisman Trophy as a freshman last season, is being investigated for allegedly receiving money for signing autographs, which is an NCAA violation.
"These (All-Star game participants) are not even in the NCAA yet," Gray says. "It doesn't have anything to do with the NCAA."
NCAA spokesperson Emily Potter declined to comment on the practice of selling high school players' autographs.
Kessler and two other current college players said they were fairly uninformed about how the autographs they signed at the U.S. Army game would be used.
"That whole day, we were trying on jerseys, trying on shoes, sitting down and signing autographs. I don't remember if they said anything," Kessler said.
USC freshman safety Su'a Cravens, who was USA TODAY Sports' prep defensive player of the year in 2012, played in the U.S. Army game last January and says he signed autographs for about 90 minutes.
"I didn't know what the autographs were for," Cravens says. "They didn't tell us anything. They just sat us down and said, 'Sign this.'"
Asked if he might want a piece of the pie if his card was being sold, Cravens said, "I don't think so. My card is probably worth about 99 cents."
Told that somebody was selling Yeldon's card for $500, Cravens said, "Really? Maybe I do want a piece of the pie."
UCLA sophomore cornerback Ishmael Adams told a similar story about his participation in the 2012 game.
"I didn't really think anything about the signing," Adams says. "I guess I thought somebody was going to sell them. It didn't bother me."
Limited, and popular
Leaf's cards are snapped up pretty quickly by collectors because the company produces relatively few sets.
"The rarity is what makes them so popular," says Eddie Martinez, owner of The Old Ballpark Sportscards & Collectibles in Alvin, Texas. "They only make 80 to 100 sets each year. So people grab them because they're rare, and because one of these kids might turn out to be Johnny Manziel. Imagine if you had a trading card of Michael Jordan when he was in high school."
A full set is comprised of 12 boxes, each of which contain a dozen autographed cards and retail for about $120 per box. That works out to $10 per autographed card, with collectors betting that individual cards of future stars will make up for those that don't hold their value. An ad on eBay offered a case price of $1,200, which lowers the per-price card to about $8.33.
On its website, Leaf said it produced only 99 sets of the 2013 collection.
Both Berman and Gray argue that the money made off the players' autographs and pictures is not exploitative.
"Our view is that this is a great opportunity for the players," Berman says. "When they're in our game, their name and likeness has zero value. I think Leaf has done a good job. They're very respectful to the kids. It's a very high-quality product. They make every effort to celebrate the kids as U.S. Army All-Americans. The kids are excited to be treated as a nominal celebrity as opposed to thinking of themselves as being exploited."
Leaf got into a spat last year with Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck when the company released a U.S. Army card of Leaf, who played in the 2008 game before going on to become a star at Stanford. Luck objected to the card being issued, saying he had never approved it.
CRITIC: Ricky Williams blasts fellow Heisman winner Manziel
MORE: Manziel linked to other autograph sessions
Leaf responded by suing him, saying it had a First Amendment right to do so, claiming that the game operators had granted Leaf the license to player likenesses. The 2008 game was before Leaf began issuing sets of trading cards from the game, but it has issued alumni cards – such as the 2008 Luck card.
The matter was settled out of court and both parties agreed not to comment on it, but Gray did issue an apology "for moving this dispute to the legal venue for resolution."
Gray says that the point of the game – and part of Leaf's interest in being involved as a sponsor – is to promote a positive message about the U.S. Army.
"If that's a bad thing," he says, "then we are screwed. I think what we're doing is right and stays well within any moral, ethical and legal boundaries."
Kessler sees one positive if his card becomes worth a lot more money — he must be playing pretty well.
"Big-time athletes know that people are going to want to associate with you and get anything they can from you," Kessler says. "So if someone makes it big, then they can sell the card for a lot of money? That doesn't bother me. If that happens to me, it probably means I'm doing something good."

subset: commoncrawl


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Facebook and "The Social Network" may not have ever become a reality without him. And now Eduardo Saverin is reportedly being paid for his efforts.
The first investor in the Palo Alto-based social networking site, and the first person officially to be pushed out of Facebook, is turning his worth as a billionaire into reality.
Business Insider reports that one of the world's youngest billionaires is selling about $500 million worth of his Facebook shares on a private market.
Even with the sale, Saverin will still have plenty of Facebook stock left over. While he has invested in other companies, most of his $2 billion estimated worth comes from Facebook stock.


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Sunday December 8, 2019; 11:36 am EST
Colonial Players' two-person show Trying will surprise you in a good way
Trying will surprise you in a good way. Colonial Players is promoting this delightful two-person show as a work rich in history and contrasts, and it is. It is also a love story, refreshingly sweet and platonic.
Judge Francis Biddle, a national and international statesman, needed a personal assistant as he gathered his memoirs and responded to requests for information on the Nuremberg Trial, which he presided over, and the Japanese Internment of World War II, which he had argued against. A patrician advancing in years, Judge Biddle's curmudgeonly ways ran off several secretaries before 25-year-old Sarah Schorr of Saskatchewan.
A Family of Achievers
Francis Biddle's cousin, Livingston Biddle, drafted the legislation for the National Endowment for both the Arts and the Humanities. He was also the NEA's third chairman.
Feb. 24
Despite contrasts, Biddle and Schorr forged a friendship that is the real focus of this play, written by Joanna McClelland Glass, the real Schorr.
Director Darice Clewell — a veteran at Colonial Players on stage, off-stage and on the Board of Directors — has a unique talent with two-person shows. (Her last was Dignity Players' Stones in His Pockets.) She makes stage movement seem natural and gives her actors business that rings true to their characters. Most admirably, she helps her actors be comfortable listening to each other, a rare skill when standing in the middle of a stage.
Michael N. Dunlop, most recently seen in To Kill a Mockingbird at Compass Rose Studio Theater, doesn't act Judge Biddle; he inhabits him. Every breath, every groan as he laboriously bends down, even as he falls asleep on stage, rings true. His every word sounds genuine; he can take an unobtrusive line and spin it into both laughter and sadness, as when Judge Biddle reads his address book noting with astonishment that, "all the Bs are dead." His mesmerizing performance is fully realized and charming.
Karen Grim, seen recently in The Spitfire Grill, the shape of things, and The Crucible, balances Dunlop with Schorr. Hers is the kind of performance that can be debated: Perhaps the interpretation could have been bigger in showing more emotional values. But that's a debate. It does not mitigate the honesty of her performance, which is as valid, moving and enchanting as Dunlop's.
Trying doesn't have any climactic moments, but Director Clewell does slowly, gently raise the drama to a profoundly moving final speech from Judge Biddle for his young friend.
As Colonial Players' President Terry Averill writes in the program, this show is about empathy: "Through it we find grace, trust, hope and finally love." That concisely describes the arc of emotions in Trying. What a sweet and touching Valentine Colonial Players has provided this spring.


text: We're back with another installation of this 4-part BTR Hear & There video series with Maine artists. Last week, we gave you if and it performing "Undone" at Bunker Brewing Company in Portland. Today, we take things down the highway to Biddeford, dropping in at one of our favorite venues, The Oak + The Ax, . . . → Read More: BTR Hear & There MAINE #2: Rural Ghosts – "Limbo"


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When I try to format my text in the submission details, primarily with italics (that's 9/10 times what I'm trying to do), I'll set up the <'i> format (sans the ' ) properly, and the ending <'/i>, and it'll display properly in the preview box over X many stanzas, but when I submit or save, on the site it only displays the first stanza as being italicized, and the rest aren't, despite the fact that the ending <'/i> is at the tail end of the final stanza. The formatting treats them, let's say 3 stanzas, as a single blocked area of text to format, but doesn't behave as such when saved. I have to put the italics code in from of each stanza. I can completely ignore the end code for that as well, because it automatically just cuts off after that stanza ends, and a <'br> begins.
Is this related to the site switching to Pyramid? I've only recently noticed this. It doesn't impact functionality, it's just annoying to deal with for text formatting. I can't remember if I experienced this when making journals or not, but I'd be willing to bet it happens there as well.


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Available at leading hotels around the world, this service ensures your confirmed room reservation will be kept for you, no matter how late your arrival.


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Posts Tagged 'national sale'
RV Care network of dealers is holding its national sale of RV parts and supplies this week with over 40 dealers across Canada participating. The event will run through May 20 during Canada's Victoria Day extended weekend.
RV Care said that a selection of popular products are featured at excellent retail prices in all participating locations. In addition each location has their own in-store specials and spring service specials to help customers prepare for the start of the Canadian RV season.
"We're a national dealer network so it makes sense to offer our customers a national sale," said Don Sneyd of Ruston RV Center in Burlington, Ontario. "Using our collective volume and working with our partners at Coast and Dometic, we're pleased to provide our customers with the best prices they'll see all year on products they need to start the season."
Parts managers and dealers throughout the network will be utilizing marketing materials provided by RV Care in store while also promoting the event on their websites and sending emails/mail-outs to their customers. "Being part of something bigger truly is better when it means we can provide our customers with the best prices on products they want and need," said Peter McAuliffe, parts manager at Vellner Leisure Products in Red Deer, Alberta.
In addition to the local advertising by the dealers, all national online advertising done by RV Care has been converted to promote the sale. Website activity has spiked as a result indicating strong interest and the potential for strong sales over the next 10 days.
The RV Care network is the largest network of independent RV dealers with locations across Canada that are committed to helping the traveling customers of all RV Care and Priority RV Network dealerships.


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Sweet Chili Sauce Sugar Free, delicious with less calories. It can be used the same way as regular sweet chili sauce. You can enjoy dipping with fried chicken, egg roll and many more. Net weight 7.5 oz. Ingredients; Sweetener Syrup, Water, Red chili, Garlic, Salt, Thickener, Acidity Regulator. Product of Thailand.
Copyright © 2004 - 2019 GroceryThai.com


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Former ACORN Official Condemns Pledge of Allegiance
Summer is ending and fall is in the air. Before you know it, Christmas will be here, a time when much of the world unites to celebrate the love of family, the generosity of the human spirit, and the birth of the Christ-child in Bethlehem.
For one night only at the Kingsbury Hall in Salt Lake City, on December 7th, join internationally-acclaimed radio host and storyteller Glenn Beck as he walks you through tales of Christmas in the way that only he can. There will be laughs, and there might be a few tears. But at the end of the night, you'll leave with a warm feeling in your heart and a smile on your face.
Reconnect to the true spirit of Christmas with Glenn Beck, in a storytelling tour de force that you won't soon forget.
Get tickets and learn more about the event here.
The general sale period will be Friday, August 16 at 10:00 AM MDT. Stay tuned to for updates. We look forward to sharing in the Christmas spirit with you!
Ryan: Elizabeth Warren does the Wing Ding
Staff Writer
Two thousand people yipped and howled as Elizabeth Warren bounced onto the stage like it was a stairmaster and she was a gym rat.
Sold out. Maximum capacity. Whole place writhing, all 30,000 square feet, with tight rows of folding chairs like checkers on the dancefloor big as a Walgreens.
Photo by Sean Ryan
Under the disco ball that hung from the dark blue ceiling, the crowd screamed like Warren was Led Zeppelin and the year was 1970, when really she was a 70-year-old Senator and this was a fundraiser called Wing Ding, in Clear Lake, Iowa, at the Surf Ballroom, where Buddy Holly spent the last few cold hours of his life.
Photo by Sean Ryan
Warren did not stand behind the podium like Biden or Bernie Sanders.
She was a yoga grandma! A rapping pastor! A beat-boxing cop! An energetic manager! A cat who thinks it's a puppy!
It was like she needed to move around the stage and wave her arms and fire up the congregation or else the floor would belch into lava.
Photo by Sean Ryan
Iowa would work its magic on Warren. By the end of the weekend, she emerged as a top contender, a position she'd maintain with alacrity, then build on.
In her turquoise blazer and her shoes-that-meant-business, she strolled out to the edge of the stage and gave her speech like a natural-born specialist of hootenanny.
Only thing missing was The Who's "Teenage Wasteland," or, better yet, that "Sail away, sail away, sail away" song by Enya.
Warren was a car commercial, the kind directed at Millenials, with plastic indie rock and a phony "who gives a shit" vibe. She was expensive cheese from right around the corner. She was Nancy Sinatra, but without Lee Hazelwood.
Photo by Sean Ryan
Voice like a stack of hay catching fire, she made promises. She riled the crowd. And it was an odd sight, the way these meek folks attempted to get rowdy. The way they grimaced and writhed, it was like seeing the reclusive kid volunteer to be the mascot.
It was like they were trying to match the intensity of Trump rallies. No politician has been able to do that so far. The man fills arenas, for God's sake. And his supporters wait for hours outside hoping to get inside. Then he makes them wait. Let's the place get feverish.
Until people are so psyched that they literally cannot remain seated, and they stand their eagerly for thirty minutes, gasping every time a song ends with the hope it means he has arrived.
The Wing Dinger — God bless them — just didn't have that dragon energy, that ravenous devotion. Have you ever seen that show "Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job"? The people in the ballroom were hyperventilating and spazzing like characters from Tim & Eric. The whole occasion would have been a pickpocket's dream.
Variously, they bulged and shuffled and freestyled to themselves. Who gave the kids sugar cookies at the Baptist youth sleepover? You know they can't handle it, you know they get twitchy, so manic it's almost violent.
And that fed Warren, revved her manic engines.
Full speech: Elizabeth Warren speaks at the Iowa Democratic Wing Ding www.youtube.com
If this had been the 1980s, I would have suspected everyone there had spent all day railing cocaine. And Warren would be the Sly Stone of the event, guarding the vault full of drugs.
If only she could have pulled out a guitar and played AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" or performed a duet with a cat on a keyboard. My dad and I had arrived late, and both of us struggled to relax our eyebrows because this scene was unbelievable. It must have been especially odd for my father, who emigrated from Ireland at 33.
And right now he was frowning because it was so loud in there.
As Warren shouted into a handheld mic, my dad turned to me, almost upset, "Who is she?" he asked, but before I could answer, he said, "I do not like that woman."
When Warren was 12 years old, her father suffered a debilitating heart attack.
He didn't die, but he wouldn't be able to work for years.
The medical bills got so bad that Warren'sfamily nearly lost their home. The car was repossessed. Those were gritty, emaciating days.
Her older brothers joined the military. Her mother got a minimum wage job at Sears. And, at 13, Warren started waiting tables.
She grew up in Oklahoma, where I myself was raised, so I can tell you that it is the Cinderella of States. My personal favorite. At night, the stars croon down over you like they are checking on their infant in its crib and you are that infant. Much like Iowans, people from Oklahoma tend to be kind, and patient, and wild like Americans ought to be.
When Warren was growing up, Oklahoma was a Blue State. Her family wasn't Republican. And, these days, Warren is considered a progressive.
But her worldview has evolved over the past few decades.
Photo by Sean Ryan
As a girl, she had seen the effects of bankruptcy firsthand. But her early conclusions led her to personal responsibility. After all, she had taken a job at 13 to help pay her dad's medical bills.
One of Warren's former students, told reporters that, "What changed [Warren's ideology] was the stories of ordinary people filing for bankruptcy. That speaks really well of her that she was presented with information contrary to her worldview and adopted it."
Before that, she leaned right, politically. Or, in the words of one of her best friends growing up, "Liz was a diehard conservative in those days."
Another friend called her an "ice-cold Republican."
A colleague at the University of Texas in Austin, where she worked in the early 1980s, said that "Liz was sometimes surprisingly anti-consumer in her attitude."
Another colleague said "I remember the first time I became aware of her as a political person and heard her speak, I almost fell off my chair. She's definitely changed. It's absolutely clear that something happened."
Until 1996, when she was 47 years old, Warren was a registered Republican.
And I do not mean this in a snarky way. Opposite. It's admirable when people undergo personal change. We have to. It's a matter of survival. A person who never evolves is blinded by hubris and destined to fail.
Longtime Warren collaborator Jay Westbrook has told reporters, "It drives me crazy when she's described as a radical left-winger.
She moved from being moderately conservative to being moderately liberal. When you look at consumer debt and what happens to consumers in America, you begin to think the capitalist machine is out of line."
At some point she got pregnant for the first time, setting in motion a series of events that may have involved discrimination, or may have been a fabrication she has since used in stump speeches as a heart-tugging anecdote.
As far as controversies go, it's as goofy and PG-rated as her onstage persona.
Who cares if she lied for the sake of a story and the benefit of victimhood? Trump lies constantly. Politicians lie constantly. It's part of the reason public trust in government has sunk lower than ever before.
No, it's not morally acceptable that politicians are habitually dishonest. But the outrage aimed at Warren isn't actually about that, is it?
Warren won state debate champion in high school. Shortly after graduating, at 19, she married Jim Warren, a mathematician who worked for IBM, then NASA.
The two dated when Elizabeth was 13 and Jim was 17. Warren chose marriage over a full-ride to the prestigious George Washington University.
Three years later, she gave birth to her first daughter. You can find the picture of her in the hospital bed, surrounded by white sheets, her eyes an oceanic blue, glowing as she holds her baby for the first time, a technicolor sash around her left shoulder.
She focused on being a mom for two years, then put herself through law school at Rutgers. At her graduation, she was eight months pregnant. Most airlines won't allow women so close to their due date.
After ten years of marriage and two children, her husband divorced her.
Warren hadn't expected it. One night, she asked her husband, "Do you want a divorce" and he said yes, even though she'd been asking in that, "Something's wrong but surely things aren't so bad" kind of way.
Imagine the enormity and disbelief she must have felt as her husband said he'd be leaving her. The kind of moment that gives a person vertigo.
Warren tried to revive the marriage, but her husband had given up. Before long he moved out, quit smoking, got super into dancing, then remarried.
Politicians tend to mention tragedies only as evidence for a policy stance. Or occasionally these stories will appear in a candidate profile. Or you can read the ice-cold Encyclopedia version.
I always wonder about the desperation people suffered in those moments that must have seemed so long, the quiet after bitter words or desperate outbursts. The enormity they must have felt.
In moments of trauma, we become intensely aware of the noises and smells and colors and momentos around us. What was the first object Warren noticed after hearing her husband say, "Yes"?
She has since said that she and Jim never really fought. That she didn't blame him for leaving. But that they just didn't work out. "I can't imagine anybody putting up with me over long periods. It's why I can never be cranky about Jim. I get it."
Still, a marriage has to be fairly bad for a couple with young children to divorce. But even an amicable divorce is devastating. It marks the death of a love that had once been good enough and deep enough for two people to bind themselves together, if only by law.
Photo by Sean Ryan
Now, Warren was a single mother. Surely, at times, that was lonesome. She must have felt moments of intense waywardness.
There must have been anxious nights, lonely mornings, swarming with memories about life as it was, all those plans for the future that must feel so naive in hindsight.
Warren's quirkiness has made her an easy piñata for her rivals.
But I just think about her, alone in a room, folding clothes or staring off, blinking and slouching there alone, and I feel disgust for politics as a bloodsport.
What do rancor or invective get us in the end? A winner who trounced a loser? What is the human cost? Not just for the people being targeted, but for the world as we'd like it.
Why isn't it enough to disagree with an opponent? Why does there have to be humiliation?
And if it's wrong from one politician, it's wrong from them all.
A person can't decry the abuse that President Trump faces — which is daunting in intensity and volume — then cheer him on when he's doing the same exact thing.
Somebody is going to have to take a slap or two to the face and not react, but it would accomplish far more than a vitriolic comeback.
At this point, three years into Trump's Presidency, there was no way to tell who started it and who was just reacting, so everyone involved in the fight was guilty.
In other words, people could no longer blame Trump for how the selfsame persona they had taken in response.
To quote Morrisey, "It's so easy to laugh, it's so easy to hate. It takes strength to be gentle and kind."
When the ram charges straight for you, all you have to do is take a step to the left or the right and off the angry bastard goes, headfirst into the ground. Do that a few times and you'll get more support than you might expect.
Which, I'm not saying to never fight. Conflict is healthy. Passivism can be worse than violence. To fight is to live honorably. But only if justice is the reason for fighting.
If the ram is coming at you because it wants to silence or control you, grit your teeth, chalk up your horns, lower your head, and go to battle. Courage and morality are vastly different than bravado and self-righteousness.
As Tolstoy wrote in his novel War and Peace, "If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war."
Two years later, Warren married Bruce Mann, a law professor. They've been married ever since.
For nearly three decades, she taught law, mostly at Harvard.
Then, she shifted to politics. In 2008, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid appointed her to a congressional panel. Two years later, she became a special advisor to Barack Obama, who had selected her as special adviser to the Treasury secretary, but stopped short of nominating her as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Shortly after, she resigned. A month later, she announced her Congressional bid, which gained momentum after her speech at that year's Democratic National Convention.
In 2013, she was elected senior Senator of Massachusetts after beating Republican incumbent Scott Brown with 53 percent of the vote. She would go on to win a second term in 2018, this time with 60 percent.
Every candidate has a stain. Warren's happens to have led to mockery. For years, she claimed Native American heritage. For many of the right, it was yet another example of the left's allegiance to identity politics.
The left was more concerned with the way the issue come to attention to begin with, after remarks President Trump made during an event honoring Navajo code talkers. As has become the norm, many of the country's leading news outlets ran scathing anti-Trump op-eds that they labeled as hard news.
In other words, opinion was being packaged as fact. In other words, propaganda. Like the passive-aggressive tone of this Washington Post article.
Which is certainly not the right way to handle injustice. And is certainly not journalistically sound.
Once again, the media's blatant disdain of Trump only served to further empower him. Gave him more proof of fake news. And allowed him to justify, in the eyes of his followers, the repeated use of the Warren's nickname.
Worst of all, it widened the distance between the news media and the portion of the American public they'd long ago lost access to.
Likewise, conservative news outlets pounced with an air of, "See? I knew it all along?"
And responded with a different version of the same aggression used by the media. Outlets like FoxNews played up their masterful victim narrative, the idea that the mainstream media has a stranglehold on America, despite the fact that FoxNews has long been the dominant news source of the mainstream media they claim to be a victim of.
Photo by Sean Ryan
This feedback loop played out until Elizabeth Warren's genetics became a national conversation.
Last year Warren released a DNA test that revealed sher to be only between 1/64th and 1/1,024th Native America. Fellow democratic candidate Corey Booker — a Senator from New Jersey — has more Native American DNA than Warren. And, unfortunately for Warren, the nickname that President Trump gave her gained more power.
During an interview on MSNBC, Warren said, "It is deeply unfortunate that the President of the United States cannot even make it through a ceremony honoring these heroes without having to throw out a racial slur. Donald Trump does this over and over thinking somehow he is going to shut me up with it. It hasn't worked in the past, it isn't going to work out in the future."
In a bizarre twist, Warren's ex-husband was a pioneer in the field of genetics and helped make the technology accessible to the public when he co-founded FamilyTreeDNA, which sells genetic testing kits.
Across the street from the Surf Ballroom, 300 yards from the entrance, a Trump 2020 sign the size of a front door glared out, impossible to avoid.
Photo by Sean Ryan
It's a power play in line with Trump's own combat style — which, again, there's nothing wrong with a good fight, even if there is some dirty fighting, but why did it have to be all of the time? And why had everyone joined in on it?
Warren began her presidential campaign on Febraury 8, 2019, with a rally in Lawrence, Massachusetts, at the site of the 1912 Bread and Roses textile strike, a two-month-long standoff that led to 296 arrests.
Three people died, an Italian immigrant, who was shot in the chest. A Lithuanian immigrant who was beaten to death for wearing a pro-labor lapel pin. And a Syrian boy who was bayoneted in the spine.
The strike takes its name from a James Oppenheim poem.
"As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,For they are women's children, and we mother them again."
As Warren drove her speech to a close, Kamala Harris paced down the long ramp by the side of the stage, then walked through a curtain that divided the hallway from backstage, then into the crowded ballroom, immediately surrounded by cameras, lights, hands, selfies.
Ten feet behind the curtain, Joe Biden shifted at the side of the stage, chatting with several people in brand-new Biden 2020 shirts, and waiting to go on.
Photo by Sean Ryan
Each candidate had 10 minutes or so, which Biden, like most of the other candidates, would use to insult Trump and fumbled through his "President's words matter" speech, two days after his "poor kids are just as talented as white kids" comment, and I wondered if everyone else found the irony as hilarious as I did.
Now Warren was pounding her fist.
The already hysterical crowd became even more incensed with each of her words. It was the first moment I realized that Warren actually had a shot at winning the nomination.
Of all the towns we visited while in Iowa, Clear Lake was the most puzzling. It didn't feel like the rest of what we'd seen. It didn't resemble any other town in the country, far as I can say. Just a general ideal for "lovely American town."
Maybe Clint Eastwood's Carmel, California, or the wealthy part of Charlotte, North Carolina, or the gorgeous shaded Rice Village neighborhood of Houston, Texas.
Warren shuffled offstage and shook hands with Biden.
Then cue the Bruce Springsteen song. And somebody hurry up and push the button that activates Biden's facelift.
"The words that Presidents speak matter," said Biden. And some of the crowd were hearing him say it for the first time.
Warren gabbed with a lady in a floral dress backstage. They held hands like sisters. After a minute or so, she vanished backstage. Then the whole gig was finished. Closing time had come.
Andrew Yang hung out in the lobby after all the other candidates left. He took selfies. Talked policy. Behind him, young people in Yang 2020 shirts and hats that said "MATH" handed out Yang money.
He hugged. He laughed.
People puttered out of the Surf Ballroom in no sort of hurry, giddy in their candidate t-shirts, ready to effect change, to dethrone Trump.
The air had a gentle sway, tilted by a northern cold that felt winter-like, especially for August.
Right as the last big group of Wing Dingers walked out of the Surf Ballroom, a small car drove by, windows down, packed with young men who kept shouting, "Vote for Trump, baby!"
Then, stalled at a stop sign, the driver revved the engine and spun the tires, and as it sped off, one of the guys in the back seat shouted "Trump 2020, bitches."
New installments of this series on the 2020 elections come out every Monday and Thursday. Check out my Twitter. Email me at firstname.lastname@example.com
He may not be a super hero like he plays in the movies, but Chris Pratt is proving once again why he's a hero to so many. The silver screen protector of the universe announced on his Instagram page a contest that will benefit the Brain Treatment Foundation, who is a partner of Mercury One that does amazing work with veterans. The Brain Treatment Foundation specializes in helping combat veterans who are suffering from traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder.
The contest asks fans to donate $10 to the foundation for a chance to win a trip to drop in on the Guardians of the Galaxy star on the set of his new film Tomorrow War.
Watch his video below to hear all the details.
Ryan: The Ascent of Kanye West
Staff Writer
Apollo, god of poetry, light, prophecy, dance. Star of Greek mythology, rivaled only by Zeus, his father. God of justice. God of purification, knowledge, healing. God of the Sun. But most of all, god of music. So they called him the Leader of the Muses.
And on a bright Sunday morning midway through November, at the tail end of a decade, Kanye West looked out at the congregation of Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church, a 16,000-seater originally built for the Houston Rockets, and said, "Jesus has won the victory: Now the greatest artist God ever created is now working for him."
Photo by Caroline Ryan
Kanye's newest album, Jesus Is King, had been out for three weeks, and like every Kanye album, it was controversial, as adored as it was unaccepted.
Critics had shown a mostly tepid response, but nobody could tell if their disinterest was genuine, or if it was politically motivated.
After all, for the past year, Kanye had once again managed to penetrate the epicenter of American society. The last two Presidents had literally shamed and cursed Kanye, but, still, who could've guessed he would befriend this one?
Photo by Caroline Ryan
The week after Kanye's Olsteen appearance, at the House impeachment hearings, as the entire country watched and listened, Congressmen and diplomats would mention longtime Kanye collaborator A$AP Rocky no less than five times, in casual reference to the Kardashians and the deal between Trump and Sweden, struck at the urging of Kanye West.
Meanwhile, Jesus is King became the ninth consecutive Kanye album to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 — a feat he shares with Eminem and The Beatles — and the sixth time in the 2010s alone. And, to be fair, his only studio album not to debut at number one was The College Dropout, his first, which went triple platinum and earned the third-most Grammy nominations in one night, winning Best Rap Album and Best Rap Song with "Jesus Walks."
Photo by Caroline Ryan
Jesus is King was also the first record ever to top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, Rap Albums, Christian Albums, and Gospel Albums simultaneously. All eleven tracks charted on the US Billboard 100, joining the other 96 Kanye songs to have landed on the Top 100.
Photo by Caroline Ryan
This album was different, and not just because of Kenny G. For the first time, Kanye was not a god or a self-destructive fallen angel. He was a father, a husband, a son, and, most important, a man full of belief, with his hands outstretched, surrounded by a choir.
"I remember sitting in the hospital at UCLA after having a breakdown," he told the congregation, "and there's documentations of me drawing a church and writing about starting a church in the middle of Calabasas."
That night, following an afternoon of ice-skating at the Galleria, Kanye returned to Lakewood Church and performed a concert. Imagine hearing a his electro-gospel opera in an arena designed, acoustically, for professional basketball games. Only better, because everything had been padded. With LSD graphics on the swirly blue carpet.
Photo by Caroline Ryan
When we experience art, it changes us.
So there I was, four rows from the stage, crying in front of FoxNews. Because Kanye had brought his Sunday Service choir with him, and they were singing "Ultralight Beam," one of the few perfect songs ever made, a song that played during my wedding ceremony, the song my daughter, God willing, will be born to, a song I have never once listened to without at least tearing up.
"Jesus Is King" A Sunday Service Experience at Lakewood Church with Kanye West youtu.be
"This is a God dream, this is a God dream. This is everything."
Kanye was the only person onstage dressed in his own clothing, a neatened blazer. The choir were draped in grey, like holy silhouettes.
Photo by Caroline Ryan
So who cares about FoxNews and their snotty reporters in their shoulder-padded blazers. The rest of us had drifted into the immediacy of it all. And I wasn't about to play stoic journalist here. I wasn't a reporter first and a human or an American later.
The choir zigzagged on the loft flanking the stage. Each of them had a headset microphone, like Garth Brooks.
God only knew how they sang so perfectly. How did they project their voices like that? More beautiful than anything we had ever heard, more beautiful than water.
After "Ultralight Beam," it was "Every Hour," the mesmeric opening track of Jesus Is King.
Sing every hour, Every minute, Every second, Sing each and every millisecond, We need you
Every Hour youtu.be
The performance felt all the more sacred because this was church, where people gathered to lose themselves, to sing as a chorus, to confront who they really are.
Across the street, one protestor stood hollering.
Meanwhile thousands of people waited at the entrance, giddy to get in. They would join us in no time. Soon, they would fill every seat in this church.
That morning, Kanye told Olsteen,
"It's like the devil stole all the good producers, all the good musicians, all the good artists, all the good designers, all the good business people and said, 'you gotta come over and work for me.' And now the trend, the shift, is going to change."
Jesus Is King was the result of a new cultural and artistic movement that more or less started with 2016's Life of Pablo, Kanye's closeted gospel album. Which was a surprising departure from 2013's Yeezus, with its tangled social commentary and fashionable solipsism. And that drum sound, the one every half-decent producer has spent the last six years failing to emulate.
The 2010's saw him grow more cerebral. He even teased a book of philosophy titled Break the Simulation.
Then, in 2018, he released Ye, the second of five albums in a Kanye-produced series, all recorded at his Wyoming studio. In keeping with the criticisms of hip-hop he voiced on "Ye vs. The People"
Photo by Caroline Ryan
Kanye eschewed many of the themes he'd embraced for so long, replacing them with meditations on mental illness, fatherhood, suicide, love, and addiction. The album's working title had been "LOVE EVERYONE."
On "I Thought About Killing You," he raps,
The most beautiful thoughts are always beside the darkest.
The title "Ye" is not just the diminutive of "Kanye."
As he said in an interview
I believe 'ye' is the most commonly used word in the Bible, and, in the Bible, it means 'you,' so it's [saying] "I'm you, I'm us, it's us." It went from being Kanye, which means the only one, to just ye – just being a reflection of our good, our bad, our confused, everything, that I'm just more of a reflection of who we are, just as beings.
Philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer wrote that
All individuality is a manifestation of universal life, and hence everyone carries a tiny bit of everyone else with him, so that divination is simulated by comparison with oneself.
In the months following the release of Ye, Kanye would live out this idea, and build his own movement, a reflection of who we are, then begin his church in Calabasas.
At 10:30 that morning, the three of us — Samantha Sullivan, my wife Caroline, and me —- strolled into the arena and claimed seats in the media section.
That place resembled the inside of an ant colony. We were three ants.
The service began with errorless music, then shifted into a quick, stirring message by Osteen, who always seemed to appear onstage from nowhere, privvy to the kind of big-money stage tricks you find at a Shania Twain concert.
The entire place and all the Jumbo-Trons and all the people, it all had a cinematic presence.
Photo by Caroline Ryan
A preliminary giddiness spread through the room. Then, Kanye emerged, there on the stage, and the place erupted.
A man in a "Jesus is King" shirt danced around his seat.
Photo by Caroline Ryan
Everyone took their seats, but one man standing in the crowd shouted affirmations. "Speak truth my brother," he shouted.
The man shouted several more times, then Kanye politely told the guy to hold off on the support because it wasn't helping, because Kanye needed relative quiet to capture and release his flow.
The ceiling glowed in skittish purple.
Photo by Caroline Ryan
Kanye described the corrupting force of the media. A chill came over the room. Behind him, the unapologetic blue of Jesus Is King.
It was my first encounter with Joel Osteen, and I was surprised and somewhat baffled to find him likeable, based on everything I'd ever heard about the man.
Kanye said as much, that Osteen is nothing like the version of Osteen many people have broadcast.
Photo by Caroline Ryan
Osteen laughed, "When you've got Kanye defending you, you've made it, man."
Rays of light danced through the arena. I'm talking Pink Floyd light show levels.
Photo by Caroline Ryan
With 21 Grammys, Kanye is tied with Jay-Z as the most decorated hip-hop artist of all time.
Osteen asked Kanye what he would say to his younger self, if he could go back in time.
"You know, it's nothing I can say to the younger Kanye through words," he said. "I could speak to the younger Kanye through music."
Osteen played the middle section of "God Is," arguably the focal point of the album.
And Kanye danced and rapped along with it. And the surreality of the situation was daunting. Was that really Kanye West up there? with Joel Osteen? dancing to his gospel song?
Six or seven years ago, I saw Kanye a mile away at the Toyota Center — coincidentally, the current home of the Houston Rockets — for his and Jay-Z's Watch the Throne tour. It was a much different experience than this.
Photo by Caroline Ryan
When Kanye finished, the media flooded out. As did a quarter of the people in the congregation. This bothered many of the regulars.
Security and ushers yanked big grey mop buckets from cabinets, and dispersed them down aisles, and money music played.
Photo by Caroline Ryan
Then the time for prayer. Prayer leaders lined the walls and pews. And anyone could walk over to them and pray. Men and women clung to strangers, crying sometimes, hugging. Holding hands, whispering phrases.
One of the media coordinators pulled us out of the sermon, led us through passageways and elevators, past classrooms and security guards, through a black sheet, then behind a barricade.
This is where all the media had rushed off to like old folks trying to get the best seat for bingo.
Each news outlet was allowed one question.
After 15 minutes, the energy changed and you could tell they were near.
Then, Kim Kardashian-West was walking our way, holding her daughter's hand, followed by Kanye, who was followed by Osteen.
Photo by Caroline Ryan
"Nice tags," Kanye said, referring to my "GOOD" necklace.
Brief interview with Kanye West and Joel Osteen at Lakewood Church, Nov. 17 in Houston, TX www.youtube.com
Some of the outlets asked more than one question, but that was on them. They were the ones sinning in church.
As Kanye and Olsteen shuffled away, down the line of journalists, I said hello to a small crew from FoxNews as they packed their equipment.
"We're from TheBlaze," I said, smiling. To which they sneered and glanced at one another then got back to their conversation.
Samantha rolled her eyes and the three of us wandered around for an exit.
"Did we just get stiff-armed by Fox News?" Said one of us. "I didn't think they were allowed to look down on anybody."
"I've had that with people from Fox on several occasions," one of us replied.
"I mean, I thought I was doing them a favor a favor by acknowledging them. Nobody else does."
Then it happened again, a few minutes later, this time with someone we had worked with, someone who knew us.
You bet we were salty.
Bad as it felt to be judged like that, it was good to be underestimated. A relief. It meant we could perform without anyone caring or watching.
They had no idea who we were or what we were really doing. Good.
In November 2007, Kanye's mother died during a routine surgery. He and his mom, Dr. Donda West, had always been incredibly close. She raised him alone, after Kanye's father left, when Kanye was three.
A few months later, his engagement with Alexis Phifer abruptly ended.
He was 30 at the time.
Oddly, this tragic sequence of events would cause the birth of auto-tune in rap. Broken-hearted, Kanye wanted to sing. So he ran his voice through a vocoder.
Kanye's album 808s & Heartbreak, which like Jesus is King has no curse words, shoved music ahead at least two decades, into a world of synth-driven robotic R&B/Rap love songs belted out in janky auto-tune. That description doesn't sound ridiculous today. But that's only because Kanye eschewed the stale hip-hop of the early 2000s and reinvented the genre, something he has accomplished with every album.
Photo by Caroline Ryan
Then, he went on tour. But he never took off any time following his mother's death. And, by the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, he'd fallen to what he calls his sunken place.
He and then-girlfriend Amber Rose brought a bottle of Hennessy with them to the award show. They took slugs in the limo. Then on the red carpet.
When Taylor Swift won the award for Best Female Video, Kanye stormed the podium, sunglasses on, and grabbed the microphone, said "Imma let you finish," then let everyone know the award should've gone to Beyoncé, for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)."
He was kicked out immediately. He tweeted, "Everybody wanna booooo me but I'm a fan of real pop culture... I'm not crazy y'all, I'm just real."
Followed by an apology. Then a few days later, during an appearance on debut episode of "The Jay Leno Show"
Leno asked Kanye, "What do you think [your mom] would have said about this?"
That hit Kanyelike a punch to the jaw. He teared up, froze.
He publicly apologized to Swift. Several times.
But it did little to quell the blowback. Once again, it felt like the entire nation hated Kanye. Compounded by a hot-mic recording of Barack Obama — the country's first black President — calling Kanye a jackass.
So the embattled Kanye retreated to Hawaii to record a masterpiece, 2010's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
"We are a Christian country," Kanye said at one point, to uproarious applause.
The vast majority of Americans, 90 percent, believe in a higher power.
Photo by Caroline Ryan
And America has the largest number of Christians in the world, with roughly 167,000,000, comprising 65-to-70 percent of the population. But that's down from 80 percent, as part of a downward trend over the last two decades.
The percent of Americans who attend a religious service of any kind — church, synagogue, or mosque — is even lower, less than half.
Photo by Caroline Ryan
One political scientist blamed the public's growing distrust in institutions. Another blamed conservatives. A writer from New York Magazine took it a step further.
Meanwhile, David French.
As always, the issue is far more nuanced than either side will admit.
Somehow, in the last twenty years, church and religion had become not just uncool, but slightly villainous.
All day, every time I looked around — at people singing, at people dancing, at people crying in joy or in the relief and recognition of their pain — I thought, "How could this ever be a bad thing?"
Photo by Caroline Ryan
I had spent my life going to concerts, had seen Kanye West numerous times, and this was something other than a concert, and unlike anything I'd seen from Kanye. It was also more than just religious or spiritual.
A family of strangers in a city of 6 million, in a world of 7-and-a-half billion, broadcast live, led by a man who fought off the devil in front of us for years. Who struggled with life just like we do, only we could nitpick through the one-way mirrors of our phones and our TVs.
But, now, he had been baptized in public.
Photo by Caroline Ryan
Some people were still negative about Kanye's recent faith, especially Christians. As Kanye raps on "Hands On"
What have you been hearin' from the Christians?
They'll be the first one to judge me
Make it feel like nobody love me
Consensus was, they couldn't believe him. As a Kanye fan since I was 13, I can tell you that he is genuine. It's really his only setting. Plus, his spiritual transformation has been building for quite some time.
By the time we returned to Lakewood that evening, the sky had turned dark blue, and frantic with airplanes.
The sidewalks around the arena overflowed with people. Police cars jutted out in crooked lines to block entrances or exits, the strobe of red-white-blue whirling onto pedestrians' faces.
Across the street, facing the giant arena, a man with a bullhorn ranted about the evils of sinful music.
Earlier that day, sheepish protestors had occupied the spot, holding red poster-sized letters that spelled out "I M P E A C H." There were only four of them, though, so they had to double up and share, and sometimes the "H" slanted down or the "I" slipped loose.
"Impeach Kanye?" one of us said, laughing.
"Kanye 2020," shouted someone.
The air was electric. People bounced when they stepped, or walked faster than normal, or turned oddly as they spoke like a third-year professor.
They sang along as they passed traffic-jam cars, most of which were blasting Kanye.
A chorus of police whistles and the usual rumble of semi-trucks passing on US-59. Just down the street, porn shops and strip clubs and a Ferrari dealership. Immediately Southwest, the Mahatma Ghandi District. West, the Galleria, home of the opulent Galleria mall, where Kanye and Kim and family gone ice-skating earlier.
Inside the arena, a different world, low-lit and glowing. A dreamscape of lambent crimsons and violets, a deeper, warmer, slower take on the lights atop the police cars outside. Globular squares of blue were arrayed along the ceiling.
Photo by Caroline Ryan
When the musicians emerged to their instruments, the arena was still half-empty. The show had already been delayed 40 minutes. The demand to get in was so ferocious that the security gate was jammed up like a glass Ketchup jar.
Then, like spirits, men and women drifted onstage in all-grey uniforms and matching hats that looked like they should say "VIETNAM VETERAN" but actually said "Sunday Service."
Every single member wore brand-new grey YEEZY Boosts.
From the start, the performance was cinematic, a sort of new-world opera sung by a chorus of young American muses with nose rings or gold chains or dreadlocks or pink hair.
Photo by Caroline Ryan
From the huddle, a young man rose, and began reciting a poem. It was the invocation of the muse.
Gadamer wrote that poetry "becomes a test of what is true, in that the poem awakens a secret life in words that had seemed to be used up and worn out, and tells us of ourselves"
After a whirling rendition of Carl Orff's "O Fortuna," the choir began "Ultralight Beam."
They let the song spread. It grew enormous.
The air swirled as the song widened.
Kanye waited out of view, then appeared without ceremony.
A collective gasp when people recognized the melody of Stevie Wonder's "Overjoyed." Which sounds like a dream already, with all that wilderness.
So it was even stranger when the song morphed into SWV's "Weak," a skating rink anthem written by Charlie Wilson of the GAP Band. A classic.
The choir were their own countervailing force. Yet they also connected us to the drama of the performance.
Looking back, I wish I could live in those moments forever.
Then came their cover of "Father Stretch My Hands" by Pastor T.L. Barrett And the Youth for Christ Choir.
Father Stretch My Hands www.youtube.com
Kanye has paid homage to Barrett's track on two different songs, from two different albums.
It was his prayer.
Pastor T.L. Barrett, a man who's lived an exciting and at times difficult life, only to become a Pentecostal preacher on Chicago's south side, and form a choir of 40 teenagers from his weekly choir practice.
If you dive into Barrett, you'll better understand what Kanye is doing.
Ten seats from Kim Kardashian-West, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (TX) stared ahead in a neat grey suit, occasionally poking at his phone and blasting people on Twitter.
Which means there were at least two people in the building who have appeared on Saturday Night Live.
There were other politicians, including Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick. And even more at the earlier service. You could tell they were politicians the same you can tell a vegan burger from a real Whopper. Several times, Kanye held up his phone up and read the words from his newer songs.
Like "Selah," which built into "Hallelujah"s at the end, intoxicating and perfect, like being sucked into an undertow. Which led into "Follow God," a continuation of "Father I Stretch My Hands."
Kanye uses the image of stretched hands to express his own submission and the process that leads to his healing. As a reference to John 21:18
Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.
But the song is also about Kanye's literal father, and an argument they had. Then, under it all, he adds a sample of "Can You Lose By Following God" by Whole Truth. He ended the song with his Kanye shriek, somewhat confusing and abrasive with a choir present.
Then — something I did not expect. The thumping bass of Cajmere's "Brighter Days (Underground Goodie Mix)."
And now this was cosmic gospel.
It felt like a rave. Have you been to a rave? It's people dancing, taking MDMA. That is what it felt like.
Flourishes like that were part of Kanye's genius. No other gospel performance would dare. You won't find that kind of diversity at any other hip-hop show, either. The acoustic instruments, the choir. Maybe during a set by electronic musicians like Moodyman or DJ Koze. But, no choir. Yet here Kanye was, at Joel Osteen's church, blasting classic techno.
Oddly enough, though, the most popular song of the night was "Closed on Sunday," Kanye's ode to Chic-Fil-A.
Everyone in the arena knew the words. So then there were two choirs, in a dialogue. I didn't think it was possible, but the collective harmony got even more intense and engulfing than it had all night. So much so that the house speakers started to peak in one corner of the arena.
Photo by Caroline Ryan
The Ancient Greeks were the first to use a chorus. In the 5th Century B.C., 50 actors would gather in the orchestra pit and sing in unison, commenting on the action of the play, describing scenes to the audience. They were a collective force. They represented one character, who was able to connect the audience to the characters and events onstage.
Kim Kardashian was front and center filming with her phone, as two of the West kids jumped around on the trippy blue carpet.
The performance was nearing its end, and suddenly Kanye was dressed like everybody else in the choir. Grey Yeezy kit and the Sunday Service hat. His transformation. From Kanye West to Pastor Ye, stretching hands.
Then, he was gone.
One by one, the choir began fluttering off the stage, to the Clark Sisters' "You Brought the Sunshine."
Half were gone, when I noticed the singer with braided hair crying. With every exhale, she collapsed her hands into the floor. Let them fall like tired flowers. Arrayed in fitful blue. She gasped. She heaved her shoulders like a wingspan. For a moment it was like she would actually take flight.
A security guard peered over the railing from above the stage. He looked like God.Symbolically, he was.
New installments of this series on the 2020 elections come out every Monday and Thursday. Check out my Twitter. Email me at email@example.com


text:
I decided to try both options for repairing the rubbers and injected silkaflex into the leaking section as well as wolding it over the same section. I have added some photos to show what I did. So far everything seems to have worked out OK. I'll leave for another few days to make sure that there are not further leaks and then tidy up the work for a better finish.
Its not pretty but it works, no more leaks. My local Nissan dealer quoted $460.00 (supply only) Sikaflex cost $19.95.


text:
I know part of it was that we could never go anywhere or do anything without a little voice inside my head saying, "Oh take a picture of this! Take a picture of that! It would be a good post for the blog!"
I was ready to just enjoy the moment. To be in the moment. Not trying to take pictures of the moments.
But the thing that keeps bringing me back, is the desire that I have to share what I think, and what I feel. About anything. Not about the flowers Derek got me, or how in love we are. Although, if you dare to look back to the beginning of this blog, you might throw up.
Well instead of rambling about my thoughts and opinions (i'll let you off easy this time), I will give an update! Probably to cyber space because I don't know that there is a soul out there that still reads this thing.....because there is nothing to read. Oops.
What have the Walkers been up to?
We moved back to Utah from New York the beginning of September. I was heart broken. But now that we're here, I've come to appreciate our time we've had with family. I don't know that I'll ever get over that great city and the even better friends we created out there. They were like family, and we will always love them. BTW - I'm coming to visit in a couple of weeks! Shake Shack. Be there, or be Square. I want to hug and kiss your beautiful New York faces.
What are we doing here?
Derek is working in Real Estate development and investing in Salt Lake. He loves his work. He spends much of his time reading books on books on books and is such a hard worker. I didn't realize that when I married him, I'd be in a polygamous relationship with Derek, and books.
I decided that if I couldn't live in NY, I would work for an airline that would fly me out there whenever my heart so desired. So...I applied for a job at JetBlue a couple weeks before we moved here, had an interview days after we arrived, and started work a couple of weeks later. I love it. If you ever need a travel buddy, I'm yours baby.
Do you guys have
As you probably have already seen, we got a dog! He's the sweetest guy. He's going through an awkward teenage phase, getting a beard (seriously, it's hilarious), his changing voice (that he is so proud of and thinks he needs to bark at everyone and everything), and some other not so cute changes that will be cleared up come his neutering appointment in March.
Where do we live?
We live in an apt in Murray while we find a home. Any suggestions on where to buy? We don't have a clue where we want to live. Somewhere between Draper and Salt Lake. Do we get a new home? Or an older home with character? A starter home? Or a house we can grow into for 10+ years? A home with a basement apt for renters? Or a home that's all to ourselves so we don't have to share walls or floors or ceilings or ANYTHING with ANYONE ever again? Can you tell I'm ready for some privacy? ;) I just want to sing and not worry anyone can hear me. And play the piano without worrying I'm disturbing the neighbors. And go to sleep without hearing conversations, or other things, that I'd rather not be falling asleep to. Ya get me?
Well, there you have it. We're back in Utah, and would love to explore Utah, food, and events with you.
Who's in?


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The Sole S77 is a step up from the S73 with a more powerful motor and a user capacity of up to 400 lbs. As with the S73 the treadmill is built to last and should provide years of trouble free exercising. It has many features like those found on commercial treadmills:
- Starts from a gentle 0.05 mph and rises to a challenging 12 mph
- Long running surface at 60″ for a safe, confident run
- Built in cooling fans, mp3 station and water bottle holder
- Quality durable materials and construction for long lasting use and a long warranty
Sole S77 Treadmill review
The Sole S77 is like many of the treadmills you find in fitness suites of some of the most expensive hotels. That's because Sole provide all the treadmills for the Hilton Hotel group and others. The hotels trust the Sole treadmills to be built to last and Sole have use that philosophy for the in home S77.
The S77 can be adjusted manually for your own speed and incline at the touch of a button using the console or the controls on the hand rails. Alternatively for some variety or a challenge there are 6 workout programs available from fat burning to hill courses. The hill courses adjust the incline as you run as if you're running through a trail.
With the treadmill comes a heart rate chest strap which is 99% accurate. The results are displayed on the display to give you an accurate guide on how you're performing. This information is there along with time spent, distance covered, calories burned and more. A heart rate program can also adjust the incline as you run to a predetermined heart rate, a great feature for the hard core fitness runners.
The S77 at under $2,000 is the ideal treadmill for repeated running on a secure, shock absorbing running surface in the home. It's a popular unit for those who have room in the home. This is because the S77 is non folding which is often a better choice as the mechanics involved in a folding treadmill can make it less sturdy and reliable. Overall the S77 is a great treadmill to consider for some good in home exercising.


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A few weeks ago everyone went gaga for this thing, called Barry M Instant Nail Effects Polish (ok I nearly linked to the Barry M page but the music was so irritating I had to close it. It was like Tetris music, but not good Tetris, crap replica Tetris like on those crappy 15 games in 1 consoles your cheap ass uncle would buy you).
But I digress.
I am not immune to hot products of the moment, so I bought a bottle of this Instant Nail Effects stuff whilst I was in Superdrug – £3.95.
The premise is simple, even for a nail dummy like me – paint your base coat, add the top coat and just wait for it to shrink and create a unique grungey -giraffey type of effect.
Base coat:
I don't know what I was expecting – either something rather childish that I would never wear out the house or, that it just wouldn't work on me. If there is someone who can make something not work, it's me.
So I slapped on the black:
Urgh I thought, urgh. But it kept going and eventually transformed into a crackly effect, matte finish – I LOVE it! I think it looks really good on the pale green too.
It's totally idiot proof – you can have hours of fun with this! It was so cool even Mr C came over to watch. "Huh, that's clever" he said.
Nail Effects is on sale at Boots and Superdrug where there are Barry M counters, of course!


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2012 Daktronics-NAIA Women's Cross Country Scholar-Athletes
VANCOUVER, Wash. - The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) has announced that 317 women's cross country student-athletes have been named 2012 Daktronics-NAIA Scholar-Athletes. Spring Arbor (Mich.) leads all institutions with 12 individuals on the list.
In order to be nominated by an institution's head coach or sports information director, a student-athlete must maintain a minimum grade point average of 3.5 on a 4.0 scale and must have achieved a junior academic status to qualify for this honor.
To learn more about the Daktronics-NAIA Scholar-Athlete award, click here.
2012 Daktronics-NAIA Women's Cross Country Scholar-Athletes - PDF


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Kenya: Somalis Face Urban Ejection
Kenyan authorities have demanded the return of Somali urban refugees to camps such as Dadaab. But will the controversial policy really improve internal security?
Kenya has experienced a spate of terrorist attacks in some of its major towns and cities since the Kenya Defence Forces intervened in Somalia in October 2011. Following the army's invasion to root out al-Shabaab, the militant Islamist group – which had been dominant in southern and central Somalia – vowed to retaliate.
Over the last year, the group seems to have made real on its threats, claiming responsibility for a string of violent attacks in many parts of Kenya, especially Nairobi and the northern town of Garissa.
Explosions in Eastleigh
Most of the attacks in the capital Nairobi have occurred in Eastleigh, a residential and commercial estate predominantly populated by ethnic Somalis. In responding to the threat, the police has been accused of heavy handedness and targeting innocent citizens instead of carrying out genuine investigations and apprehending the real criminals.
Since October 24, 2011, when the first grenade attack occurred in a bar in downtown Nairobi, similar violent strikes have become more frequent. Many of the blasts towards the end of 2012 happened in Eastleigh. In November alone, three explosions rocked the area, the worst killing at least seven and leaving scores wounded after an explosive device was detonated on a minibus full of passengers.
In a grenade attack on December 7, also in Eastleigh, local MP Yusuf Hassan was among those targeted. The grenade was hurled at him and others as he walked out of Al Hidaya Mosque on Eastleigh's Jam Street after evening prayers. The incident killed three, injuring the MP and several others.
Sending back Somalis
With attacks such as these on the increase, the Kenyan government has turned to radical measures. Somali urban refugees (who are mainly based in Nairobi) have predictably born the brunt. The government of Kenya has demanded that they all to go back to Dadaab, a settlement near the Somali border that hosts the largest refugee camp in the world.
In a press conference in December, Mutea Iringo, Kenya's Internal Security Permanent Secretary, told reporters that most Somali refugees were illegally roaming the country instead of being at the refugee camps in which they are registered, and blamed them for the deteriorating security situation. "We will conduct countrywide operations to ensure all refugees are taken back to Dadaab", he said.
This proposal has attracted a great deal of criticism, particularly from human rights organisations. In a press release on January 21, for example, Human Rights Watch (HRW) expressed concerns that "the plan would violate refugees' free movement rights and would almost certainly involve the unlawful forced eviction of tens of thousands of refugees from their lodgings in the cities".
In a news release on January 16, HRW then reported that the Ministry of Provincial Administration and Internal Security had written to the Ministry of Special Programmes, saying that the first phase of "rounding up" would "target" 18,000 people, starting on January 21. The letter said they would be taken to Thika Municipal Stadium, which would act as a "holding ground" pending transfer to the camps.
For many Somali urban refugees, however, the prospect of living in Dadaab is unpalatable. In the camps, refugees face insecurity, sexual violence, and police harassment.
oThere is also a shortage of basic necessities, with many living in overcrowded, makeshift homes with little educational or health services. These conditions were what forced many refugees to escape the camps and move to urban areas in the first place. They moved to the city in the hope of finding a sense of community, safety and economic independence.
Now, faced with the threat of return, there are already indications that Somali refugees are opting to return to their unstable homeland. "Reports from the Somali Embassy in Kenya, airline companies and aid workers on the Kenya-Somali border near the Dadaab camps say that since December over a thousand Somalis have returned to their country every week, either by air or overland", claims the HRW news release.
An inside job
Aside from this resistance to return to Dadaab and the human rights problems a forced return would involved, it is highly questionable whether the policy would even end the terrorist attacks.
Firstly, the Kenyan police, supposedly responsible for implementing the process, seem incapable of moving urban refugees back to Dadaab due to inefficiency and corruption.
Somali urban refugees have always 'survived' in the city by paying bribes, and there appears to be nothing to prevent them doing the same this time to remain in Nairobi and other cities. On being arrested or detained by the police, it is reasonable to assume that a good number of these refugees – including the criminal elements among them – will buy their freedom from corrupt policemen.
Furthermore, the refugees being targeted are not the only section of society causing unrest in Kenya, and even if their removal to Dadaab were feasible, it would be unlikely to guarantee Kenya's security.
There are other elements and actors involved. For example, Elgiva Bwire, sentenced to life imprisonment in 2011 for a grenade attack on a bus station, was not a Somali refugee but a Kenyan convert to Islam, who had been indoctrinated by al-Shabaab.
Ultimately, even if the government is determined to regard these urban refugees as a threat to Kenya's security, there are other ways to resolve the issue than sending them back to Dadaab.
One thing the government could do would be to demand all urban Somali refugees register with the local chief in their area. This way the daily activities of the urban refugees could be more closely understood and monitored, and insecurity perpetrated by them could be reduced if not eliminated.
Kenyan authorities are deluding themselves if they think forceful eviction of urban Somali refugees from towns and cities in Kenya to the Dadaab complex would help the security situation.
Furthermore, enforcing this planned eviction would result in Kenya violating its international obligations to protect refugees under the 1951 United Nations Convention Related to the Status of Refugees, the 1967 Protocol, and the 1969 Organization of African Unity (OAU) Convention. Another altogether more intelligent and progressive solution needs to be reached.
Abdullahi Abdille is a researcher and a political analyst. He holds a degree in International Relations with a focus in Peace and Conflict Studies. You can reach him at firstname.lastname@example.com.
We enjoin our readers to send their stories/articles/reports, including pictures to firstname.lastname@example.com
Category: Africa News


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This week, Adventure Base 100 splashes into Chattanooga, Tenn., an "outdoor mecca" full of fun opportunities for Scouts and Scouters.
AB 100 is visiting during the nine-day Riverbend Festival, which draws up to 100,000 visitors a day. That means thousands of prospective Scouts will be exposed to the exciting opportunities that young people can enjoy as part of the Scouting program.
One of those high-adventure thrills is whitewater rafting, and it happens right in the back yard of Tennessee residents.
In the video, you'll be taken along as Scouts head down the Ocoee River, which features some Class IV rapids. Boys who live in the area use that river as their classroom for the Whitewater merit badge. Check it out!
Adventure Base 100
stop: Cedar Rapids, Iowa, June
deck: East Hartford, Conn., June 27
the jump for links to previous AB 100 videos.
Adventure Base 100 videos:
19: Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn.


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Lincoln University – Fox Chase Partnership
Under the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) "Feasibility Studies for Collaborative Interaction for Minority Institution/Cancer Center Partnership (MI/CCP)"
The objectives of the partnership are designed to train Lincoln students and faculty capable of conducting first-class biomedical and population-based research and to implement joint research projects that attack cancer health disparities. A secondary objective is to develop collaborative faculty pilot projects enhancing Lincoln faculty's ability to pursue NIH funding to support discrete, specified, circumscribed projects in areas representing their specific interests and competencies.
This effort is led by Co-Principal Investigators J. Robert Beck, MD, at Fox Chase Cancer Center (an NCI-designated Cancer Center) and Anna Hull, PhD, at Lincoln University (a Historically Black College/Institution).
Lincoln University, located in Chester County, PA, is the first historically black university in the country. Lincoln University demonstrates a longstanding history of preparing students for leadership roles. Noted Lincoln alumni include US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, poet Langston Hughes and educator Melvin B. Tolson, portrayed by Denzel Washington in the 2007 film The Great Debaters.
Fox Chase is the region's only hospital devoted entirely to cancer treatment, research and prevention. U.S. News and World Report consistently ranks our 100-bed hospital, located in Philadelphia, among the top cancer centers in the nation. Our nationally and internationally recognized staff provide consultations and treatment recommendations for all types of adult cancer.
Lincoln University Summer Internship
The overall purpose of the collaborative summer internship between Fox Chase and Lincoln University is to create an opportunity for selected students and faculty to train at the Center with experienced cancer researchers conducting first-class biomedical and population-based research, utilizing equipment and techniques otherwise unavailable. As a result, both the students' and faculty members' experiences will be evaluated for future program development.
The summer program provides a comprehensive orientation and training in areas of cancer biology and population science, including:
- The undertaking of scholarly research
- Health literacy, cultural competency and health disparities
- Biostatistics and bioinformatics
- Bioethics and biotechnology
- The understanding of cancer
- Navigation of resources, prevention, detection, treatment and control
- The undertaking of basic science and clinical trials
- Regulatory compliance through the IRB, IACUC and Radiation Safety
The 2010 interns were given an additional three-day orientation at Lincoln University to prepare them for their internship. At the end of the 10-week-long summer program, the original goals and measures will be evaluated through questionnaires and interviews looking at the participants' knowledge and understanding, as well as the program's effectiveness.


text: The D-Max Hot Sprue Bushing assembly is not to be used in applications that exceed 20000 PSI injection pressure. However please note that if you are approaching 20000 PSI injection pressure, the injection processing window for a typical injection molding machine will most likely become significantly reduced, which may affect your ability to mold good parts. In such cases it is recommended to refer to your injection molding machine specifications or to speak to a technical representative for the manufacture of your injection molding machine.


text: › Academics » Classics » About Us About Us Faculty and Staff Richard Prior 1962-2010 Where we are Policies Contact Us Image Gallery Meet Our Faculty Students Clubs and Groups News and Events Department News Classics Blog Student News Courses and Requirements Majors Concentration Programs and Research Research Opportunities Study Away Beyond Furman Graduate Programs Careers Financial Aid Financial Aid Department Plan a Visit ›Apply Now ›Give to Furman › Main Content Column 1About UsWhy Classics?To Prepare Yourself for the World"What do you do with a classical education?" This is a natural question, and the answer is, "Whatever you want, only better."There is a difference between education and training. Training teaches you to do a specific task well; education improves your life. You need both to be effective at any job and to have a good life.A classical education can prepare you for the world of business by sharpening your ability to read and analyze information, by improving the clarity and persuasiveness of your speech and writing, and by making you a more interesting, flexible, cultured person.Students interested in professional school — medical or law school in particular — should remember that their applications will be competing with thousands of others, most of which will look tediously similar. An undergraduate transcript that includes a number of Classics courses will show you to be an interesting, intelligent student, devoted to learning and unafraid of hard work.To Make the Most of Your EducationEvery discipline, every subject taught at Furman owes a debt to the civilizations of Greece and Rome. By studying Classical antiquity, you will get more out of your other courses.Art, religion, music, philosophy, political science, health and exercise science, literature, drama, communications studies, the physical sciences and mathematics, as we study them today, are heavily influenced by ancient Greece and Rome. Take classics courses to understand those influences.Students of non-Western cultures — Asian, Middle Eastern, Indian or African civilizations — can study classics to find shared origins and significant points of difference.To Master Your Own LanguageThere is no better way to master English than to study Latin or Greek. Studying classical languages will give you a command of grammar and expression that will serve you well, whatever you do in life.A knowledge of Greek and Latin will broaden your vocabulary and refine your style. Greek and Roman authors were masters of rhetoric and persuasion. Students of those classical authors wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. The great presidential speech writers have all been indebted to Latin and Greek. Whatever you want to do in life, you will profit from a classically trained style of writing and speaking.Even apart from studying the languages, your command of English will be well served by taking classics courses. A course or two in Greek or Roman civilization or mythology will lead you to understand what "ostracism," is why you should "beware of Greeks bearing gifts," and what it means to be "between Scylla and Charybdis." And how else will you know whether or not you are "as rich as Croesus" (or even if that is a good thing!)?Why Not?During your four years at Furman, you have the opportunity to educate yourself broadly, to pursue subjects that will enrich your life, regardless of the career you choose.In high school, you learn the basic skills necessary to proceed with your education and professional training. In professional school, graduate school or on the job, you learn skills specific to your chosen pursuit.


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Pacifica (Colombia) : Valle del Cauca : Buenaventura
Buenaventura is a city in the Valle del Cauca department of Colombia. With a population of 324,207 (most of city development lies on Cascajal Island), it is the size of Los Angeles metropolitan area. Most of the city's land is rural with small villages scattered throughout. It is located a few miles from the western cordillera of the Andes mountain range and the major city of Cali, the department's capital. Buenaventura is one of the rainiest cities in the world with 6000-7000 mm precipitation annually.
Get in
By bus
The bus station is close to the city center. There are frequent buses to and from Cali which is a 4 hours ride away for around 20,000 COP. Direct buses to Bogota leave at 7 am and 7 pm. If you're heading north, avoid going through Cali and catch a bus to Buga instead (16,000 COP).
By boat
The docks for cargo boats are on the way in to town. There are boats to most places along the Pacific coast. Fast boats (lanchas) to Ladrilleros and close destinations leave from the Muelle Turistico in the center of town (4,000 COP taxi ride from the terminal).
Get around
You can catch a boat to nearby towns like Juanchaco and Ladrilleros in Bahia Málaga (Málaga Bay). It is humpback whale season between july and october, there you can get a boat for whale seeing.
Fruit called Chontaduro.
Lenos y Mariscos and La Casa are recommended restaurants.
Agua de Coco (coconut water).
For the most part, if you have to stay any length of time in Buenaventura then you should head to Calle 1 where there are a number of decent and safe hotels and restaurants in front of the park at reasonable prices
There are also some cheap hotels near the bus station.
Buenaventura has had a notorious history plagued by drug trafficking, violence, and the presence of guerrilla and paramilitary groups. In the last two years, the amount of reported homicides has doubled. The murder rate that is 24 times that of New York City. To counter the violence, the Colombian government has set up a marine special forces unit in the worst area of the city.
Get out
One reason for passing through Buenaventura is to get to the resort areas of Juanchaco and Ladrilleros. These towns found to the north of the city are pleasant places to visit catering to package tourists and those interested in watching the annual marvel of migrating humpback whales in the months of July to late September through the waters of Bahia Malaga.