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This January, the Department of Housing and
Urban Development proposed a regulation to prohibit discrimination in HUD programs on
the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or marital status. Under the new rule, FHA-insured
mortgage lenders would not be allowed to take a borrower's sexual orientation or gender
identity into account when deciding their eligibility. Eligible families could no longer
be excluded from HUD programs for having LGBT family members or relationships, and owners
of HUD-assisted housing would not be allowed to ask about an applicant's sexual orientation
or gender identity. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops responded to this proposal
by claiming that it "may force faith-based and other organizations, as a condition of
participating in HUD programs and in contravention of their religious beliefs, to facilitate
shared housing arrangements between persons who are not joined in the legal union of one
man and one woman." In other words, participating religious groups wouldn't be allowed to treat
gay people differently. And while this might be contrary to their religious beliefs, it's
also beside the point. The bishops' counsel has stated that "faith-based and other organizations
should retain the freedom they have always had to make housing placements in a manner
consistent with their religious beliefs". But participating organizations are already
subject to nondiscrimination regulations, regardless of their religious beliefs. Discrimination
on the basis of race, sex, color, religion or national origin is already prohibited,
and there is no exception for religious organizations – nor should there be. Holding a particular
religious belief does not exempt someone from following the applicable regulations just
because they think they shouldn't have to. When they choose to participate in these programs
and accept federal assistance, they're subject to the same rules as everyone else. Religious
beliefs that are racist or sexist in nature don't make racial or sexual discrimination
in these programs any more acceptable. So why should this be any different? The bishops
have cited the Defense of Marriage Act as requiring the federal government to treat
only opposite-sex unions as marriages. But nowhere does it limit how HUD regulations
can interpret the meaning of a family, which doesn't require marriage and can even consist
of single people. As the proposal notes, the composition of families isn't limited to the
statutory examples. And it doesn't mandate that these regulations must permit discrimination
on the basis of marital status, or sexual orientation, or gender identity. The bishops
further claim that this proposal would itself constitute "a type of discrimination" against
participating religious organizations that seek to discriminate against gay people. But
a prohibition of discrimination is not discrimination against religion just because someone's religion
may advocate for discrimination. They would still be subject to these nondiscrimination
provisions whether their religion is the cause of this, or they're just plain stupid. The
very intention of such regulations is to exclude groups that insist on discriminating, so leaving
them out of these programs is kind of the point. Religion is irrelevant to this, and
refusing to allow special exceptions for religion is not a form of discrimination. But allowing
religious groups not to follow the rules that everyone else does *would* be discrimination.
Finally, the bishops suggest that "Given the very large role that faith-based organizations
play in HUD programs, the regulation, by infringing upon that freedom, may have the ultimate effect
of driving away organizations with a long and successful track record in meeting housing
needs, leaving beneficiaries without the housing that they sought or that the government intended
them to receive." In essence, they would rather quit these programs entirely and serve nobody
instead of being required to include gay people. They would actually prefer to leave people
out in the cold if they aren't allowed to keep gay people from getting a mortgage or
renting an apartment. Is that the kind of value system they want their religion to be
known for – closing down all of their services just to make sure that gay people can't even
have a roof over their heads? If that's their attitude, why should they have any place in
these programs? If they insist on tipping over the chess board if we don't let them
have their way, maybe they shouldn't be a part of this. A group that intends to actively
obstruct federal regulations by holding federal programs hostage should not be supported by
federal funding. As long as discriminatory religious groups are the ones providing these
services, the government will be supporting programs that refuse to treat gay people equally.
And why should anyone be kept out of government housing programs for completely irrelevant
reasons just because someone else's religion says so? The dictates of private, personal
faith have no place in federal regulations, and it makes no sense for religious groups
to be the ones deciding what kind of discrimination is acceptable. They are not the ones who should
be in charge of this. If they can't do the job, they can be replaced – and they should
be. But don't tell me I can't have access to housing because someone thinks their god
is more important than the people whose needs they serve. If they honestly believe their
faith requires keeping people homeless, they need to take a hard look at themselves and
stop pretending they have any interest in helping people.


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DENTON, Texas (AP) Will Neighbour, Josh Hagins and James White scored 11 points apiece and UALR defeated North Texas 62-57 Saturday night.
Neighbour also led UALR with six rebounds and four steals. The win was the third straight for the Trojans (14-9, 8-4 Sun Belt) and gave them a season sweep of the Mean Green.
Jordan Williams led all scorers with 22 points, and Roger Franklin had 20 points and 12 rebounds for North Texas (8-14, 3-8). Tony Mitchell had 13 points, six rebounds and three blocked shots for the Mean Green.
The Trojans won the earlier meeting between the schools 67-53 on Jan. 10 in Little Rock, Ark. White was the top scorer for UALR in that game with 16 points.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Journal for Information Professionals
Asia Pacific Journal of Information Systems (APJIS), a Scopus Indexed Journal,
is published by the Korea Society of Management Information Systems (KMIS),
which is the largest professional institute in the field of information systems in Korea.
ISSN 2288-5404 (Print) / ISSN 2288-6818 (Online)
Editor : Hee-Woong Kim
News Letters
Home l Site Map l Abstracting/Indexing l FAQ l Publisher l Contact Us l Admin Login
© 2013 The Korean Society of Management Information Systems. All rights reserved.


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Stem Stumper's on the InterWebs
by Kwasi Mensah
March 3rd, 2014
Stem Stumper's on the Interwebs We've been working hard over at Ananse Productions now that SpellStack is out the door. Of course, we're still working on updates for it(and a new one with leader boards, achievements and daily challenges should soon be hitting iOS). But we're also looking at cool new ways to let people […]


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Alabama is a great tourist destination, if you are looking for an enjoyable getaway with entire your family or with someone special to you. It is a great place that offers marvelous attractions right from mountains at the north to several beaches to it Gulf Coast. The entire state offers a range of world class golf courses, pristine sandy beaches and exotic natural wildlife.The state of Alabama is also quite often referred as the Yellowhammer State due to the state bird. The meaning of the word Alabama is a Tribal Town in language of the Alabamian tribe. This is one of the oldest states of United States exhibiting a rich and varied historical background. Agriculture was a major occupation of the people up to nineteenth century. But it developed rapidly as a commercial center with mining, scientific centers and education as its major industries soon after World War II. In the year 1960, the African-American people got the right to vote after the Civil Right Movement creating a great political change.The state of Alabama is full packed with a range of attractions and marvelous sightseeing that certainly make your trip a memorable one. Visiting any of the Alabama beach is a great way of getting away from the hustle and bustle of the busy urban life. The beaches of Alabama have become the hottest tourist spots for many couples and families requiring much needed rest and break from their busy life.Gulf Coast beaches are the most sought after and must visit beaches of Alabama as it exhibits white sand with sparkling and crystal clear water. One can also visit Orange Beach that is also famous for family vacations.Gulf Shores is a great place to visit as it offers a range of shops, specialty stores with restaurants and hotels. Golf Shores offers you an opportunity to dive into deep-sea either for fishing or for swimming. The entire shore area is full of attractions and guarantees that you will never get bored during your visit to this marvelous place.Orange beach is situated just few miles drive away from Gulf Shores. This beautiful beach is situated ideally in Baldwin County on the Gulf Coast. One can enjoy several exciting activities that include catch and release of the tropical fishes that are available in abundance at this place. This place is great for snorkeling and anyone having interest in it would not afford to miss to enjoy the pleasure.The Museum of East Alabama is another must visit attraction of the state. This place is great to visit as it is home to some of the most exciting artifacts that represent the life of the people of East Alabama and the Southeast. Few of the most prominent attractions of the state are the Sports Hall of Fame in Alabama, the Arlington Antebellum Home and Gardens, the Center of Dixie Railroad Museum and many more to add to the list.Alabama also exhibits some very fascinating events and festivals that take place all round the year attracting a lot of tourists from all round the globe. Some of the festivals such as National Shrimp Festival, City Stages 20 and Alabama National Fair are worth watching.
Bad Graphic Design – A Must Read Guide For Serious Web Masters and Graphic Designers | design web
Bad graphic design is obviously something you want to avoid at all costs. Sometimes when you hire an individual or a graphic design or web design agency or artist to do a graphic design job for you, as a client you end up with an unprofessional website or design, leaving you without a proper website or design and without the money you initially invested in the web project. If you are a graphic designer or web designer, then make sure to give a 100% on every design project that comes across your desk. If you get a reputation for creating awesome work, you'll be able to charge a substantial amount more, which would then lead to the occasional referrals from the business's. If you create poor web design or poor graphic designs than you probably won't get any business or will have to retain your business at much lower rates than your competitors.What you can do to beef up you're graphic designs or web design business, in order to retain a larger clientele, is to start a small marketing campaign. Try experiment with new things, adjust what works and what doesn't You can also create ads and distribute them through various mediums like e-mail, door 2 door, flyers, banner ads, etc. When doing so make sure you are targeting the correct audience. It's important for every business to learn about demographics and analyze and research what you're client's are looking for and trying to fulfill your clients actual needs.The method to obtaining business and retaining it is real simple; it's a combination of many types of marketing strategies and having a great web presence and company Identity. Many companies have a professional web designer or graphic designer to design a corporate identity package for them because its permanent. You're identity cannot be changed later down the road, if a company changed their logo or identity than customers would not recognize or identify the old company identity with the new one, this can be extremely damaging for a business. Having a poor Identity design or web design from the start can ruin a business for life and anyone who has a business should avoid having a non professional design their identity or website at all cost.What set's a great graphic designer apart from a poor graphic designer is the motivation and the willingness to complete the work that's needed to be done. Ambition is the key to my success as a designer I enjoy what I do and am constantly investing in my skill by learning new graphic design and web design software, tips and tricks or whatever I need to know to make my designs better. It's important that potential clients, or anyone in the web design or graphic design business understand that while some individuals may have been trained and hold degrees as graphic and web designers, It does not certify them as a good designer. A professional web designer or graphic designer already knows the concepts of good design this cannot be taught in a classroom. So if you are looking to hire someone to design websites or graphic design make sure you review their online graphic design or web design portfolio before you go into a contract for web design or graphic design services or pay them to complete any design services.If you are looking to hire a graphic designer as a part of your full time staff, then a suggested practice is to give them a demo or dummy project to design as a test of skill. There is nothing worse than hiring an individual on the basis of their online portfolio but only later to find out they did not design what was In their portfolio. When hiring anyone its best to check their previous employment background and preferably you should require a letter of recommendation from either their University or their previous employer, this ensures you're recruiting efforts are a successful one.Why is bad graphic design all over the web? This is mainly because business do not want to invest the initial cost in creating a proper web presence or corporate identity. Many companies don't realize how important the two really are. Bad graphic design or bad web design gives you're customers a cheap impression. Would you buy from a physical store that was messy dirty or had an unprofessional look or feel? No you wouldn't, you probably keep your physical place of business in tip top shape. So why wouldn't you want to do the same for your web presence and Identity?You must understand as a business your identity and web presence is just as important as your physical presence if not more important. Studies show that more than 90% of the population do online research of a business before they buy. If you're business is non-existent or you're site is poorly designed, chances are that potential client or business will not even consider buying anything from you.Think about bad graphic design for a minute, than browse the web for at least an hour go ahead and randomly type different words in the search engine, visit as many sites as you can. Then go ahead and write down what the first thing comes into your mind when you see these sites copy the URLS as well. Then go back and review the information you collected.You will realize from the study that opinions are formed based on the visually appeal of site and not necessarily on products offered. So having bad graphic design or web designs associated with you're business identity is not a very profitable one at all. What is even more potentially damaging to a company is having no identity or online presence at all.Bad graphic design and bad web design can be prevented by investing in the right graphic designer or web design freelance contractor, or graphic design agency. Bad graphic design or bad web design can potentially harm or put you at risk of losing potential customers or clients. Avoid bad graphic design or web design at all costs. For more information and more articles containing valuable free Graphic design Resources please visit 99 Graphic Design Resources.Click here to get instant access to cutting edge graphic design resources: Bad Graphic DesignCharlotte Payan-salcedo has over 10 years of experience in web design, web development, and the Graphic design field. Please visit a popular blog created by the infamous Digital graphic artist Charlotte Payan-salcedo.
Common Livestock Diseases | Livestock
Raising livestock is one of the main sources of income and livelihood for many people living in rural or farm areas. Most people get their food from the animals that they are tending. But because of certain diseases, many of these animals are dying. Here are some of the most common diseases that cows, cattle, and sheep may acquire.Blackleg is very fatal young cattle disease. This disease is caused by bacteria called Clostridium chauvoei. These bacteria may enter your cattle through ingestion and is able to penetrate into the body through small holes in the digestive tract. The disease cannot be acquired from infected cattle to a healthy one just by mere contact. Some of the early symptoms of infection of this disease are loss of appetite, fever, depression, lameness, and quick breath rate. Swellings may also occur in the hip, chest, back, neck and all around the body. Death for the animal may occur from 12 to 24 hours upon infection. Vaccines are already available against this deadly disease.Bangs Disease aka brucellosis of cattle or contagious abortion is a disease caused by a bacterium called Brucella abortus. An animal infected with this disease will suffer from premature calving, usually on the 5th or 8th month of pregnancy. Milk coming from an infected cow may contain the bacteria and may present harm to humans, because this is the bacteria that causes undulant fever in humans.Caseous Lymphadenitis is a highly contagious infection in goats and sheep. The bacterium is able to enter the animal through open wounds, punctures, shearing, and oral ingestion of pus from abscess that has ruptured.Mad Cow Disease is caused when abnormal proteins occur in the cow's brain, spinal column, small intestine, and even in their blood. They can also be found in lymph nodes, and bone marrow. It is believed that this disease is able to enter a cow when that cow is able to eat a product which is made from other animals that have the mad cow disease. Humans are also vulnerable to this disease. Humans may acquire this disease by eating a meat or drinking the milk of the infected animal. Some of the early symptoms that cow displays if they are infected with mad cow are: difficulty in standing and walking, poor muscle coordination, changes in behavior and attitude, sudden weight loss, and lesser milk production.Knowing the symptoms of some of the animal diseases will greatly help you prevent an outspread of that disease. Once you find out that your animal has a disease, immediately ask for help from your veterinarian.


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Change Your Employee Recruitment and Interview Mindset
Rory Lewandowski, Agriculture Extension Educator, Wayne County, Ohio State University Extension ... detail, and protocol. Improving employee recruiting and interviewing skills increases the chance of ... hiring the right employee for your farm situation. For many farms, employee recruitment, interviewing, ...
Winter Calf Management
Jason Hartschuh, Extension Educator, Crawford County, Ohio State University Extension Winter ... calves warm will be beneficial. Studies show that calf jackets improve gain by 0.22 lb/day compared to ... between your normal feeding times. Another beneficial practice is to provide warm water at 63 to 100⁰F ...
2018 Dairy Farm Business Summary Now Available
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Milk Prices, Costs of Nutrients, Margins, and Comparison of Feedstuffs Prices
Milk prices In the last issue, the Class III futures for September and October were at $17.48 and ... $17.82/cwt, respectively. The Class III component price for September closed about $0.80/cwt higher at ... $18.31/cwt and was slightly higher in October at $18.72/cwt. The Class III future for November is similar to ...
Ohio AgrAbility in Action: Fitness for Farm Life – One stretch, 3 ways
to hunch your shoulders and back, just trying to stay warm, and a stiff back and upper arms can be ... fencepost to give your back a good stretch. Upper Back/Triceps Stretch (back of upper arm) To do this ... throughout the day to keep your back and upper arms from getting stiff and sore. Please do not do these ...
December 2019
activities that may be re-published in your own newsletters or programs. If you have safety-related questions ...
Thoughtful Gifts for the Season
show your family, friends and employees how much you value them. Stocking stuffers include new work ... a retrofit suitable to your model. Prepare for safety and have a happy holiday season! For more information ...
Dressing for Cold Weather
hypothermia. Clothing should be your first consideration when working in cold weather. Clothing should be ...
CD Wire- December 2, 2019
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The Silent Killer, Carbon Monoxide
replace the battery when you change the time on your clocks each spring and fall. The Centers for Disease ...


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Let's Ask Marion Nestle: Is Stealth The Way To Healthy Eating for Kids?Submitted by KAT on Mon, 10/25/2010 - 3:48pm.
(With a click of her mouse, EatingLiberally's Kerry Trueman, aka kat, corners Dr. Marion Nestle, NYU professor of nutrition and author of Feed Your Pet Right, Pet Food Politics, What to Eat, Food Politics, and Safe Food):
KT: NPR's Morning Edition ran a story today about "stealth" strategies that some schools and researchers are employing to get kids to eat healthier foods--for example, by sneaking pureed vegetables into a line of cafeteria foods being marketed under the name "Hidden Healthies."
But doesn't this approach reinforce the perception kids have that vegetables taste lousy? David Just, co-director of the Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition, pointed out that "Taste is a suggestion more than anything else. If you think something is going to taste really good — if you've been told by others that it tastes good — you build that into your head when you eat it."
A researcher who's experimenting with enhanced cafeteria lighting to make healthy foods appear more appealing to kids told NPR, "We got to figure out some things so that the last thing in the world they know is that we're trying to get them to eat well."
We know that kids (and plenty of grown-ups!) turn up their noses at foods that are presented to them as healthy. Kids have also come to expect that their preferences should be catered to, which is why carrot and apple growers have begun packaging their products to resemble snack foods like potato chips.
In short, veggies have a serious pr problem. Do these strategies strike you as a good solution?
Dr. Nestle: Oh no! Not stealth again. I thought we were done with that in 2007 when we had to live through the plagiarism fight between Jessica Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious, and Missy Lapine's Sneaky Chef, both of them pushing stealth strategies.
I remember being given hamburgers as a kid and how betrayed and condescended to I felt when they turned out to contain ground spinach—a vegetable I detested at the time but now think is terrific, especially when young and tender. Kids' tastes do change, and should be encouraged in an honest way.
That is why I am so intrigued by the approach shown in the New York Times "Lunch Line Redesign" op-ed last week. Check out the way that Brian Wansink and his colleagues suggest redesigning lunch lines. These do nothing draconian or deceitful. Instead, they gently nudge kids to made healthier choices on their own.
How? By doing such things as putting salads near the cash register, using bowls instead of trays, and describing the foods more attractively. My favorite of these strategies is simply to ask the kids whether they would like a salad. All of these increase kids' selection of healthier food choices.
But will the kids eat the foods? Of course they will. From my observations of school meals, the single most important indicator of whether the kids are eating healthfully is if the school food service people know their names and talk to them about what they are choosing. It helps a lot if the food tastes good, but kids respond to adults who care about what they eat.
When I hear parents say that the kids won't eat anything healthy, I suspect that I'm talking to someone who isn't willing to take adult responsibility for what kids eat and finds it easier to be stealthy than direct. Kids need to trust the adults in their lives and food should be used to instill trust, not destroy it.
Let's Ask Marion Nestle: Is Wal-Mart's Sustainability Strategy For Real?Submitted by KAT on Fri, 10/15/2010 - 12:20pm.
(With a click of her mouse, EatingLiberally's Kerry Trueman corners Dr. Marion Nestle, NYU professor of nutrition and author of Pet Food Politics, What to Eat and Food Politics:)
KT: Why do you think Wal-Mart has decided to throw its colossal weight behind sustainable agriculture, both domestically and globally, in such a seemingly significant way? Is it a strategic pr move, a better-for-the-bottom-line calculus, or a bit of both? Is it too good to be true?
Dr. Nestle: I, of course, am a skeptic. Of course Wal-Mart wants to get into the business of sustainably and locally grown food. Wal-Mart is the largest grocery chain in the world, the 800-pound gorilla in the industry. It can demand whatever it wants from its suppliers, and at the lowest possible cost.
With these new initiatives, Wal-Mart suppliers will have to figure out ways to produce foods sustainably--without increasing the cost to Wal-Mart. So this move costs Wal-Mart nothing. It gains plenty. This move should recruit supporters of sustainable and locally grown food and induce them to overlook the company's retrogressive labor practices.
Will these initiatives help farmers? Maybe, but only if Wal-Mart pays them decently for what they produce. As for Wal-Mart employees? Ditto. But I want to wait and see how it all plays out before making a final judgment.
The Myth of the Rabid LocavoreSubmitted by KAT on Fri, 08/20/2010 - 7:09pm.
Stephen Budiansky, self-proclaimed "liberal curmudgeon," has stuffed together another flimsy, flammable straw man out of boilerplate anti-locavore rhetoric on the New York Times op-ed page, with the patronizing title Math Lessons For Locavores.
It's a familiar formula: start by establishing yourself as the voice of reason by professing your own deep appreciation of the merits of locally grown food as evidenced by the bounty of your own back yard. Then, launch into a diatribe against a mythical army of dour, sour food mile nazis, including 'celebrity chefs and mainstream environmental organizations,' whose support for local farmers is based on wildly misguided and naive notions about curbing one's carbon 'foodprint.'
Throw in a bunch of dubious and/or irrelevant statistics that appear to be truly locally sourced -- i.e. pulled out of your own behind. Add a few disingenuous claims about the environmental benefits of industrial agriculture. Wrap things up with a statement so ludicrous that you have to publish it on your own website because hey, the New York Times is only willing to go so far:
Budiansky's argument tars all eat-local proponents with the same broad brush, warning us that we're turning into a bunch of joyless, sanctimonious schmucks who are flimflamming an unsuspecting public:
Sinful according to whom? As I wrote on page 27 of Rodale's Whole Green Catalog:
But hey, what do I know? I'm just one of those local-food advocates who brandishes statistics that are "always selective, usually misleading and often bogus" to back up our "doctrinaire assertions."
That describes Budiansky's own modus operandi in a nutshell. His op-ed focuses almost exclusively on the question of how much fossil fuel is used to grow and ship food, and concludes that the amount of energy used is negligible in the grand scheme of things.
Sure, and because eggs weigh less than the grain it costs to feed the factory farm hens that produce them, it was presumably quite energy efficient to ship those 380 million factory farmed eggs that have since been recalled for possible salmonella contamination from Iowa to fourteen other states.
But energy efficiency is only one small part of the equation when you add up the reasons to buy local. Other factors include: flavor and nutrition; support for more ecological farming practices; reduction of excess packaging; avoidance of pesticides and other toxins; more humane treatment of livestock and workers; preservation of local farmland; spending one's dollars closer to home; the farmers' market as community center, and so on.
Budiansky totally ignores these issues, except to challenge the assumption that sustainable agriculture is better for the environment than industrial agriculture. After establishing the folly of food miles, he goes on to note:
Again with the energy usage! Geez. As if that were our big beef with fertilizers and chemicals. What about soil erosion, pollution, loss of biodiversity, the rise of superweeds and antibiotic-resistant infections, the dead zones in our oceans and rivers, exposure to contaminants, and all the other environmentally disastrous consequences of 'conventional' farming?
According to Budiansky, the real culprit, when it comes to squandering energy, is us:
He cites the miles we drive to do our grocery shopping and the energy it takes to run our fridges, dishwashers, stoves, etc. But what do any of these things have to do with whether you choose to buy food locally? Your fridge uses the same amount of energy regardless of where the food you put in it came from.
If Budiansky sincerely cares to examine what constitutes a truly low-impact diet, why does he ignore one of the biggest sources of food-related wasted energy in the average American household? As New Scientist recently noted:
What's so maddening about sloppy op-eds like this is that they give fodder to folks who hate the very notion that their food choices have any consequences beyond their own waistlines and bank balances. At a time when global warming is surely fueling fires, floods, and drought all over the world, we need to have an honest conversation about how the way we eat contributes to climate change.
What we don't need is dishonest misrepresentations and tiresome stereotypes about the eat local movement. If you actually read what us good food folks have to say about eating ecologically, you'll see that the emphasis is on adopting a predominantly plant-based diet, eating foods when they're in season, limiting your consumption of animal products and processed convenience foods, and avoiding the chemicals and pesticides that are used in conventional farming.
Buying local produce is obviously a part of the equation. But to portray it as the sole consideration of sustainable food advocates is to adopt a lazy contrarian position that is guaranteed to generate controversy, and just as sure to do absolutely nothing to engender a meaningful discussion about these issues. Budiansky needs to be taken out to the foodshed and pummeled with his own lousy logic.
At the end of his blog post elaborating on his op-ed, he writes: "More seriously: environmentalism ought to be about pragmatism, not dogmatism."
Seriously? Such a deeply unserious piece such as his doesn't deserve to take up valuable real estate like the Times op-ed page. Though, like most real estate, it's worth less than it once was. Publishing stuff like this doesn't do much for the Old Grey Lady's property values.
Chelsea Clinton: Hudson Valley Girl? And a Vegan, Too!Submitted by KAT on Sat, 07/31/2010 - 12:24pm.
Chelsea Clinton is so definitely getting married in Rhinebeck today. All the signs point to it -- like the one two miles down the road from Astor Courts (the presumed wedding locale), which reads: "Chelsea and Marc -- congratulations from Rhinecliff's Morton Memorial Library! Stop in for your wedding gift -- your own free-for-life library card!!!"
What better way for the happy couple to become card-carrying members of the "un-Hamptons?" And in this era when sub-literate slogans and mindless mantras have dumbed down our political discourse, it's a timely reminder that a century or so ago, Republican Vice President Levi P. Morton valued literacy so much that he chose to honor the memory of his daughter Lena, who died tragically young, by erecting the Morton Memorial Library. (Excuse me, the Morton Memorial Library and Community House -- apparently he valued community, too -- must have been a closet socialist.)
I happen to be the proud owner of a Morton Memorial Library card myself, because our humble Hudson Valley hovel is across the street from the library, and a quick bike ride to Astor Courts, where I've been many times.
So, how does a scruffy activist with soil-encrusted fingernails get to set foot in such a swanky setting? Well, "Dutchess County" may have the ring of royalty, but really, most folks in this neck of the woods -- including Astor Courts owner Kathy Hammer, who painstakingly restored the historic Stanford White pavillion -- are actually pretty down-to-earth. No red carpet for the glitterati, here; just greener pastures for the literati. Give us the life of the mind over the mindless life, any day.
Kathy frequently hosts fundraisers for Democratic candidates and graciously opens the doors of Astor Courts to artists, writers, activists, scholars, architects, students, and others who share her appreciation for this architectural gem and her passion for progressive causes.
As she told the New York Times in a 2008 article about the restoration of Astor Courts aptly titled "A Fixer Upper to End Them All," "We are using it the way it was intended, as a social gathering place."
Chelsea Clinton's wedding won't be the first time Kathy has played host to hundreds: In 2006, she threw a fundraiser for 400 Planned Parenthood supporters, and during the 2008 election season, she invited 350 neighbors to a screening of Pete Seeger's documentary, The Power of Song in Astor Courts' cavernous indoor clay tennis court.
Kathy has also become a champion of local and sustainable agriculture. Back in 1904, Astor Courts "was part of a gentleman's working farm," sending produce and meat down to the Waldorf-Astoria hotel. One of Kathy's goals is to revive Astor Courts' agricultural heritage and promote our local Hudson Valley Farmers.
I should think she must be thrilled that Chelsea and Marc are rumored to be sourcing the food for their wedding from some of our fabulous local farmers. And I'd love to give them a shout-out, too, if only I were allowed.
But all I can say is that Chelsea's choice to make the menu mostly vegan, including the wedding cake, is maybe the best PR break an advocate for a plant-based diet could ask for. And the inclusion of pastured beef will do wonders to spread the grass-fed gospel.
I can, at least, share a few of my favorite things about Astor Courts:
1. The indoor swimming pool, reportedly the first-ever indoor swimming pool in the U.S. With its arched, robin's egg blue ceiling and giant windows overlooking the surrounding woodlands, it blows Hearst Castle's indoor pool out of the water.
2. The natural light that floods Astor Courts. Stanford White designed it to let in so much natural daylight that you barely need to flip a switch all day. There's an enormous skylight in the entrance hall which Kathy rescued from ruin and restored to its original glory.
3. The photographs. Astor Courts' walls display an extraordinary collection of early 20th-century American photography that would be the envy of any museum.
4. Brooke Astor's awesome library. The legendary philanthropist and socialite revered the written word, just as Levi P. Morton did.
I hope Chelsea and Marc share that passion, too, and will accept our hamlet's humble gift of a lifetime library card. I've got a couple of suggestions for how they can put it to good use:
For Marc, I recommend Woody Tasch's Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered, because it's high time we put unfettered capitalism out to pasture, and Woody shows the way.
For Chelsea, who may be craving a mental health break after all the hoopla and hype, I suggest Maya Rodale's just published, perfectly timed A Groom of One's Own?
Like Chelsea, Maya belongs to a legendary American family -- she's the great granddaughter of J.I. Rodale, pioneer of the U.S. organic farming and gardening movement, whose motto was "Healthy Soil = Healthy Food = Healthy People."
Maya is Rodale's director of communications, but when she's not promoting sustainable agriculture, puttering in the family garden or whipping up wholesome comfort food with her mother, Maria, she's writing ripping yarns about the winding, wayward path of true love.
In real life, Maya's walking down the aisle soon with her own dashing world-traveller and tech genius, Tony Haile. Here's wishing both these couples a happy, healthy future filled with delicious, fresh, locally grown veggies!
America: Too Big To Flail?Submitted by KAT on Fri, 07/09/2010 - 7:09pm.
If correctly identifying your problems is the first step to solving them, I'm afraid we'll all be peeling tar balls off our heels before we get a handle on the BP blowout.
"Please stop calling it a leak!" Bill KcKibben pleaded at the Slow Money conference in Shelburne, Vermont last month. A leak, after all, suggests a kind of dribble. A spill sounds like something you might mop up with a towel.
"We've punched a hole in the bottom of the ocean," McKibben added. "Is a knife wound a 'blood leak?'"
We're hitting some fundamental limits, he added, citing the 'thousand year' storms that seem to come every four or five years now, and the fact that we're facing the hottest year on record, so far (and that was before the heat wave that hit the whole Eastern seaboard this past week).
Yes, we need to plug that hole in the ocean floor before the entire Gulf becomes one gigantic dead zone. But there's an onshore contaminant threatening our future, too, and it's called fast money.
Fast money spews from the wells of Wall Street and spatters the globe from Beijing to Bangalore to Bentonville. It creates land-based dead zones filled with underwater mortgages and sinking businesses. Fast money "does violence to the web of relations on which the health of communities and bioregions depend," according to Slow Money founder Woody Tasch.
Tasch shares Bill McKibben's fervent belief that you can't have a truly sound economy unless you practice sound ecology. The subtitle of Tasch's book, Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money, says it all: investing as if food, farms, and fertility mattered.
But don't expect Tasch to declare war on Wall Street. In a statement to the six hundred or so farmers, philanthropists, investors, eco-preneurs and real food rabble rousers (like me) who came to historic Shelburne Farms for Slow Money's second annual conference, Tasch explained why he's not going to pick that fight--or any fight, for that matter:
Peace. Health. Fertility. Too bad our current notions of how to keep America secure and prosperous have brought us just the opposite: war, disease, barren seas and soil.
And how do you sell the virtues of "small acts of care and restraint" to a nation that prides itself on living large and thinking big?
Except that we really don't think big, anymore, when we think at all. We have a shockingly defeatist, "can't do" attitude when it comes to tackling our current crises. Hence the mindset that we can't afford a moratorium on deepwater drilling because it will cost even more jobs than BP's disastrous deepwater drilling has already destroyed. We need the oil and the jobs, come hell or high, oily water. As Tasch wrote in his book:
The Slow Money conference showcased the socially responsible investors, sustainable agriculture proponents, and ecologically savvy entrepreneurs who have not only dared to imagine another way, but are actively pursuing it.
No, I'm not going to claim that all our problems will be solved by backing the manufacture of such locavore luxuries as organic kale chips and granola bars, or artisanal grass-fed sausage sticks, or (my personal favorite) a chia-based beverage that was delicious in a viscous way.
But I was impressed and inspired by the presentations from a variety of innovators: Midwestern Bio Ag, Terra Green Biologics, and Marrone Bio Innovations, who've found environmentally safe ways to boost soil fertility and control pests; City Fresh Foods, Peoples' Community Market, and Home Town Farms, who are improving their communities' access to fresh, healthy food; and Farmland LP and the Carrot Project, dedicated to fostering the growth of sustainably farmed land. And as a dedicated DIYer, I was delighted to learn about a totally non-toxic but super durable varnish from Vermont Natural Coatings that is made from whey, a by-product of the local cheese industry.
Together, these trail blazers, among others, made a compelling case that nurturing the kinds of small, regionally based businesses that they exemplify could not only create jobs and revitalize our economy, but also address what Bill McKibben called our "social deficit...the ecological and psychic wounds that we've inflicted on ourselves."
As McKibben noted, anything that's "too big to fail" is, by definition, too big, period. That goes not only for our financial system, but every other system we rely on, including our food and energy systems.
How many more fast money blowouts can we afford? Slow Money, on the other hand, is about growing things, not blowing things up, whether it's in pursuit of the coal beneath a mountaintop or the oil at the bottom of the sea.
McKibben ended his keynote by saying that we need to "take very drastic action, now." Is it time to put a cap on capitalism? You can help bring our economy back down to earth literally, now, by signing on to the Slow Money Soil Trust.
America's Auto Asphyxiation: We Put the Loco in LocomotionSubmitted by KAT on Sun, 05/23/2010 - 7:24am.
Our demented devotion to the car and disdain for trains drives me nuts, so I thought it was awfully fitting that National Transportation Week happened to coincide with National Mental Health Month. This ironic bit of synergy was brought to my attention by Aaron Woolf, the acutely observant producer/director of King Corn whose latest documentary,Beyond The Motor City, boldly repurposes Detroit, home of the auto industry and spawner of sprawl, as the potential birthplace for a mass transit revival.
Sounds incongruous? Improbable? In fact, as Beyond The Motor City reveals, Detroit, like so many other American cities, had an excellent public transit system before the car became king and our railways plunged into a steep decline that continues to this day.
The eternally underfunded Amtrak limps along on life support despite six straight years of record ridership. Some stimulus money has been allocated for what passes for high speed transit in this country, but too many folks who live in rural regions where there are no trains at all begrudge the very notion that their tax dollars ought to help fund mass transit in more densely populated states.
So, while China's poured $350 billion dollars over the past decade into a high-speed rail system that can go up to 220 mph, the nation that gave the world Back To The Future lurches Forward Into The Past (apologies to The Firesign Theater).
It's shocking to see the once-glorious Michigan Central Station looking like some kind of Roman ruin, decayed and abandoned. But it's equally eerie to see large swaths of open land in the middle of downtown Detroit where houses once stood. Wide boulevards evoke phantom drivers who abandoned Detroit as its fossil fueled fortunes declined.
But where some see only decay, Woolf envisages renewal. Like his fellow filmmakers Mascha and Manfred Poppenkso, whose documentary Grown In Detroit focuses on a high school program that teaches pregnant teens how to farm on a former playground, Woolf has faith in Detroit's ability to rise from the ashes of the auto industry's flame-out and reinvent itself.
Is that really so crazy? I'd argue that it's even crazier to insist that we can go on worshipping at the altar of the auto.
Albert Einstein famously defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Our stubborn reliance on fossil fuels and apparent allergy to alternative transportation are a slight variation; we do nothing, over and over again. Coal mines blow up, oil rigs explode, we just keep truckin', uh-huh.
I bet you didn't evenknow this was National Transportation Week. Maybe you missed the stirring proclamation that President Obama phoned in from some socialist parallel universe where American tax payers are willing to pony up for progress:
Well, sure, because who would want to leave our kids the crappy, bottom-of-the-barrel system we have now? Tom Vanderbilt, the author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), studied pre-war train schedules and found that there are trains in this country that actually take several hours longer to reach their destination now than they did seventy or so years ago.
So, while Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan and most of Europe all have high speed rail systems or are in the process of building them, we remain as mired in oil as the fossils stuck in the La Brea Tar Pits.
Rachel Maddow ran a devastating segment on her show recently entitled "Doomed To Repeat It" documenting decades of oil-fueled disasters. Watch it and weep as presidents from Nixon to Bush make phony pledges to wean us off fossil fuels, and current politicians still chant "Drill, Baby, Drill."
As Maddow noted, the 1969 Union Oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara helped launch the birth of Earth Day the following year. Maddow wasn't even born yet, but I was a kid growing up in the suburbs of Los Angeles, so I remember the 1973 "oil shock," the gas rationing, the smog alerts--just a regular part of the weather forecast--telling us not to play outside.
Most of all, though, I remember the feeling of being trapped, stranded in the suburbs; it drove me crazy that my mom had to drive me pretty much everywhere. You've heard of early adopters? I was an early rejecter; a kinder Kunstler, deeply alienated by our car-centric culture.
We equate cars with freedom, but how liberating is it, really, to be saddled with a long commute, or stuck circling around the block hunting for a parking spot?
Woolf gave a terrific interview to the St Lou Jew recently (gotta love their motto--"young. yid. younited") to whom he expressed a similar sentiment:
National Transportation Week may be over, but we still have another whole week to celebrate National Mental Health month. So if you're feeling depressed about our ongoing failure to address our energy needs in a rational way, allow me to prescribe a viewing of Beyond The Motor City--you can watch it in its entirety on PBS's Blueprint America website, or better yet, see if it's coming to a big screen near you.
As Woolf told stloujew:
When it comes to meeting our energy needs, take it from one of the filmmakers who brought you King Corn: ethanol ain't gonna cut it. Can we train the masses to embrace mass transit? Aaron Woolf thinks so, and I hope he's right.
Rachael Ray's Radical EVOOlutionSubmitted by KAT on Wed, 05/12/2010 - 11:28am.
Remember when Fox pundit Michelle Malkin accused Rachael Ray of being a terrorist sympathizer because she wore a Middle Eastern-ish scarf in a Dunkin' Donuts ad? I'm not sure what was more absurd about that episode: Malkin's unhinged hysteria, or Dunkin' Donuts' profile in cowardice (they yanked the ad.)
But Malkin got one thing right: Rachael Ray is far more radical than I even dared hope. She took Capitol Hill by storm yesterday, armed with some very sharp talking points, and fired them directly at the lawmakers who actually have the power to improve the lousy school lunches we're dis-serving our kids:
And does it make any sense that anyone could object to the idea of America's farmers growing more fruits and vegetables, as recommended in the White House's just-released report on childhood obesity? Yet, as the Washington Post's Jane Black reported yesterday, the suggestion that our agricultural policies should support the production of fresh, wholesome foods is sure to be controversial.
Why? Because the USDA has a bad case of schizophrenia: it's supposed to look out for the 'little people'--presumably that includes our school children--by helping us eat healthy, but it's simultaneously tasked with championing the interests of Big Ag, which profits from turning commodity crops into cheap processed foods that cause ill health.
So the USDA has historically marginalized fruits and vegetables as "specialty crops" and encouraged our farmers to grow more feed corn and soy. And Congress won't allocate sufficient funds to pay the cost of feeding those "special" fruits and vegetables to our apparently not-so-special kids.
Ray reportedly told Congress, "Find the money now and get it done or you are going to be part of sinking our ship down the line."
Ray teamed up with another powerful New Yorker, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, to lobby the folks who hold the purse strings to the Child Nutrition Act. I had the opportunity, thanks to my Living Liberally colleague Claire Silberman, to meet Gillibrand at a private lunch in NYC last week, and was gratified to hear firsthand about all the initiatives she's spearheading to transform the way we feed our kids.
Why do we even have to debate the notion that we should feed our kids real food? It shouldn't be a partisan issue, and it shouldn't be a regionally divisive issue pitting the Corn Belt against the Arugula Belt (i.e., any community with a population dense and affluent enough to support a farmers' market and/or a Whole Foods.)
But we live in such a bizarrely partisan era that a humble salad green like arugula has become shorthand for supposed liberal lunacy. James Godsil, the Milwaukee mover and shaker behind the awesome urban ag project Sweet Water Organics and Growing Power board member, is on a mission to rescue arugula, aka "rocket," as it's known in Europe, from its current status as a symbol of all things socialist and restore it to its rightful place on our plates, regardless of region or social status. As he wrote on the Milwaukee Renaissance website:
Godsil's "Arugula as Birthright" campaign seeks to get kids all over the country psyched about growing, and savoring, fresh salad greens, while also learning invaluable lessons:
We need grassroots activists with Godsil's vision and passion, we need celebrities like Ray who is willing to use her star wattage to turn up the heat on Congress, and we need politicians like Gillibrand, a mother of young children who appears willing to challenge our long-entrenched Iowa-based cornarchy.
To to see Ray bounding through the Beltway demanding that our politicians start showing true family values by allocating more money to give our kids better food is a dream come true for me.
Will Agribiz astroturfers accuse her of treason for conspiring in a a terroirist plot--with a Brit, no less--to foist fresh, healthy foods on America's youth?
When Oliver appeared on Ray's show recently to talk about 'his' Food Revolution and his desire to support Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign, Ray told Oliver:
I was duly impressed by her genuine enthusiasm for the First Lady's endeavor, and I also applauded her for enlisting the resources of her non-profit Yum-O! and the powerful platform of the Rachael Ray show to reward one of my own personal heroes, Pressure Cooker star Wilma Stephenson.
But I had no idea Ray would put her money where her self-proclaimed "big Sicilian mouth" is. Will wonders never cease? Let's give Ray a shout-out, and while we're at it, let's let Senator Gillibrand know we're thankful for her efforts as a member of the Ag Committee to bring "specialty crops" out of left field. And speaking of bringing greens out of left field, won't you please join James Godsil in his quest to stop shameless partisans from soiling arugula's reputation? Please email him at [email protected] if you share his conviction that arugula should be a uniter, not a divider.
Cast Your Vote For a Hip Hop Video That Captures the "Abnormality" of Junk FoodSubmitted by KAT on Thu, 05/06/2010 - 10:08am.
Chicago hip hop artist D-Nick The Microphone Misfit teamed up with B-Boy Super inLight to create "Abnormality", a track for the opening of Graffiti and Grub, the Chicago health food store founded by activist LaDonna Redmond. Their video highlights the physical health issues brought on by artificial, processed foods and encourages us all to look at what we're putting into our bodies.
D-Nick and Super inLight both embrace the acronym HIP HOP for "Healthy Independent People Helping Other People" and they are doing just that, using their talents to get the word out that "Eating healthy is the first step in disease prevention." D-Nick has entered the video in The One Chicago, One Nation film contest, whose goal is to reward "videos that tell the stories of people in Chicago from different backgrounds working together for the common good."
Please watch "Abnormality", share it with friends, and show your support by voting for D-Nick--voting ends on May 9th.
Lyrics to "Abnormality" by D-Nick The Microphone Misfit:
Freedom from disease and abnormality/
I was Chillin' with my brother Super InLight/
And then Super all of a sudden got an urge from his tummy/
There ain't nothing in here except for junk food/
I had no idea you were eating like this/
C'mon Super don't you think you're jumping the gun/
Eating healthy is the first step in disease prevention/
Freedom from disease and abnormality/
You wouldn't pay your bills with counterfeit money/
Now that's something to think about/...
While information is leaking out /
You want...
Freedom from disease and abnormality/
Rachael Ray Honors a Tough-But-Tender TeacherSubmitted by KAT on Sun, 05/02/2010 - 5:22pm.
Wilma Stephenson and Rachael Ray
Philly high school teacher Wilma Stephenson is what you might call a benevolent bully. Pressure Cooker, a just-out-on-DVD documentary about Stephenson's "culinary boot camp," gets some laughs from her drill sergeant-style tactics.
But there's nothing funny about all the obstacles facing her inner-city students in their efforts to win scholarships to the country's best culinary academies. Having a mentor like Stephenson to goad and guide them gives her kids opportunities that would more likely pass them by were it not for her passion and dedication.
Seeing Pressure Cooker made me fall in love with Wilma Stephenson, and Rachael Ray did, too.
Ray was so impressed by Stephenson's success rate with her students that she enlisted the resources of her non-profit Yum-O! and the Rachael Ray Show to honor Stephenson for her extraordinary devotion to her students.
So, on Monday, May 3rd, the Rachael Ray Show will air an episode entitled "Room 325," which will introduce the tender-hearted terror of Frakford High to the rest of America. By a happy coincidence, Eating Liberally is hosting a screening of Pressure Cooker here in NYC on the same evening. Please come if you're in our neck of the woods, and if you're not, get a copy of the DVD--you'll see why Rachael Ray wanted to go and meet Stephenson for herself!
I asked Ray to tell me a little more about why she chose to feature Stephenson, and she kindly took time out to answer my questions via email:
Kerry Treuman: You snuck into culinary teacher Wilma Stephenson's Philadelphia high school over spring break like some kind of Secret Santa, and gave her kitchen and classroom a total makeover with state-of-the-art equipment. What inspired you to do this?
Rachael Ray: Wilma inspired us to do this! This is one of the few culinary programs left in public schools and they are so important. I was interested in Wilma's program as a whole because not only is she teaching kids values and a vocation, but she is also a mother figure and a mentor to her students. You have to celebrate someone like that!
In a school where 40% of the students don't graduate, 100% of Wilma's students graduate with the ability to get a decent job in the food service industry if they don't pursue college. That's amazing!
KT: You've never made any bones about the fact that you had no formal culinary training yourself (and it doesn't seem to have, um, held you back, exactly.) But in addition to giving Wilma an "extreme kitchen-classroom makeover," you awarded each of her 10 graduating seniors a $5,000 scholarship. What do you hope this will do for them?
RR: These kids have so much stacked against them that the scholarships are a small gesture. They are an ingredient dropped in the recipes of the next step in their lives!
KT: Michelle Obama is inspiring millions of Americans to get off the sofa, bag the chips, get digging, get cooking, and get healthy. As one of America's best-known celebrity chefs, you have an incredible platform from which to help her rally the troops.
Clearly, you're stepping up to the plate. So I'm gonna pitch you a softball--do you have a strategy to help the First Lady hit this campaign out of the park?
RR: Healthy eating has to be a conversation. My approach to getting families to eat healthy is multi-pronged -- I believe everyone must become an activist in their community around the concept of good health and nutrition. In order to achieve substantial changes, you need to take baby steps.
People want food that is familiar to them. It's very hard to ask families to stop eating burgers, fries and macaroni and cheese all together, but you can arm them with information in order to do so in a slightly healthier way. Making simple changes in peoples meal routines, such as switching out white bread for whole wheat bread and white pasta for whole grain pasta. Whole grain pasta alone is a great source of protein and fiber.
Another example is instead of making regular mashed potatoes, you can make mashed sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes are the number one most nutritious vegetable in the produce department -- and they are delicious! Small steps can add up to big changes in the overall health of an entire family.
It's also very important to give your kids ownership of the food they eat! Let them get involved in the process. Whether it's in your yard or in your windowsill, introduce growing fresh vegetables to them. By helping grow what they eat, kids know where food comes from and they can choose to eat what they watched grow.
How Can You Have A Tea Party If You Won't Share The Pie?Submitted by KAT on Fri, 04/30/2010 - 8:46am.
I'm sorry, but I just can't sit idly by and let the Tea Party stain the reputation of a beverage beloved by cultures the world over for centuries. How did a delightful afternoon ritual steeped in civility and gentility become a synonym for angry mobs of Fox populi with holsters on their hips and foam on their lips? Give me clotted scones, not sotted clones.
Don't get me wrong; I feel the Tea Party's pain. Hey, I'm angry, too. There's a lot to be angry about. As New York Times columnist Bob Herbert noted recently, "People are upset because they are mired in economic distress and are losing faith that their elected representatives are looking out for their best interests."
So it's no wonder that populist rage is all the rage; pundits and politicians have brought the Tea Party to a boil. Sadly, much of their anger is a toxic brew of bigotry, ignorance, and fear. And many tea partiers suffer from what Barbara Ehreinreich has aptly dubbed "an empathy deficit," a belief in the notion that if you're poor, or sick, or otherwise challenged, you must have brought your misfortunes upon yourself and are therefore to be despised and mocked.
The Tea Party ridicules the notion that government could be--or should be--a force for good. It also maintains that the media (with the exception of Fox News, of course) cannot be trusted.
How ironic, then, when one of Glenn Beck's sponsors turned out to be a con artist who'd been fined $400,000 by the FTC back in 2005 for making false and unsubstantiated claims for the "Himalayan Diet Breakthrough," a dietary supplement containing Nepalese Mineral Pitch, "a paste-like material" that "oozes out of the cliff face cracks in the summer season" in the Himalayas.
This miraculous product supposedly enabled you to achieve rapid and substantial weight loss without dieting or exercise, while still consuming unlimited amounts of food. I asked:
An indignant tea bagger named 'Richard' responded:
And there you have the Tea Party philosophy in a wingnutshell:
1. I should stop worrying about our decaying, woefully neglected infrastructure, because the odds of a bridge falling on me are slim to none;
2. I shouldn't care that our kids are lagging behind the children of other industrialized nations, because the fault lies primarily with their parents;
3. I shouldn't be concerned about, say, the disastrous oil spill off the Gulf Coast, or the fact that an unprecedented 33 retired US military generals and admirals declared yesterday that "Climate change is making the world a more dangerous place" and "threatening America's security," because 'Richard' lives in a lovely place untainted by environmental degradation.
4. If I just gave up my cell phone and cable TV, it would free up the $600 a month I need to be able to afford a decent heath insurance plan;
5. Richard is sick of having to work so hard to support all the freeloaders who are dragging our country down.
Hey, Richard, you know what's really dragging our country down? The Tea Party's selfish, misanthropic mindset.
You know what would lift our country up? A groundswell of support for Drinking Liberally, the social network that has led to 353 Living Liberally chapters, giving progressive-minded folks in all fifty states a place to hang out and chat in a convivial environment.
Living Liberally is the antidote to the Tea Party; as my mentor and super hero Justin Krebs, co-founder of Drinking Liberally, says in his soon-to-be-published 538 Ways to Live, Work, and Play Like a Liberal:
Another one of my Liberally colleagues, Baratunde Thurston, the self-proclaimed 'vigilante pundit' and tweet-happy stand-up who's also Web & Politics editor at The Onion and author of the forthcoming book How To Be Black, (see preview from SWSX), wrote a post yesterday to spread the word about Living Liberally's 4th Annual Spring Celebration & Fundraiser and why Living Liberally merits your support:
Baratunde adds that:
This year, Living Liberally is honoring SEIU, the Service Employees International Union, "for promoting a progressive America and being a great ally to the netroots," and my beloved mentor Dr. Marion Nestle, for her "fearless championing of the grassroots good food movement."
In keeping with Eating Liberally tradition, the menu will pay tribute to our honorees. Here's a partial list:
César Chávez Salad
Laura Flanders of GritTV is our special guest host, and you can bet that a fine time will be had by all. If you're leery, or weary, of the Tea Party and its enraged citizens, come join Living Liberally and raise a toast to the engaged citizens!
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Welcome to my playlist, where I discuss the music which is currently entertaining me. Below you will find a video, press play to begin the song and then read my feelings on the album.
Today's music is selections from the video game band The OneUps
As I've said numerous times before, one of my favorite genres is soundtracks. One of my favorite sub-genre of soundtracks is game soundtracks. And my favorite sub-genre of game soundtracks is orchestral/band/piano arrangements. The OneUps is a band comprised of people I've been following since 2000. While their instrumentation (sax, guitars, trumpet, violin, etc) leads to more "jazzy" arrangements, the band tends to avoid that description when defining their genre.
I first heard the name "The OneUps" on a collaborative CD of fan arranged Final Fantasy music and loved the bossa nova performance of Costa del Sol. It was soon after that I learned the band was based out of Fayetteville, Arkansas (and one of my high school band rivals played trumpet for them) which blew my mind!
I couldn't believe it: one of the top video game bands was based just a few hours away from me. This was during the a time when the vast majority of game bands were either based in Japan or at least the west coast. A few years later my next door neighbor (who I used to jam with playing FF arrangements on the piano while he played guitar) during high school joined the band and has been their lead guitarist ever since. As such, I keep up with the band as much as possible and see them perform live whenever they hit the San Fran area:
And if that connection wasn't odd enough, a few months ago I went a party here in California at my current neighbor's house and met another connection to the band. My Cali neighbor had a friend visiting who she met in Florida but he currently lives in Fayetteville, AR. When his phone went off and played Final Fantasy music I mentioned the OneUps and he said he knew them personally and was soon joining them. Sure enough, the next concert I went to he was now a part of the band. Just to make this clear as mud: My current neighbor in California has a friend she met in Florida who now lives in Arkansas and just joined my favorite video game band which includes my Arkansas high school neighbor who I used to perform video game music with. Small world...
When the band was last here I also had a chance to take some photos for them:
Friday, May 7, 2010
Jay's Playlist: The OneUps
Posted by Jay E. at 7:36 PM
Labels: blast from the past, game, music
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BOISE, Idaho -- The U.S. Forest Service, through the National Interagency Fire Center here, has directed the repositioning of military Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System aircraft from Colorado Springs, Colo., to Mesa, Ariz.
"The weather and progress on the ground have helped us in the Four Corners region," said Col. Charles D. Davis III, the commander of the Air Expeditionary Group (Provisional) - Wildland Fire Fighting. "By (July 10), we plan to have relocated all four airplanes and their crews to Arizona." One MAFFS aircraft departed Colorado Springs July 8 to drop fire retardant on the Dean Peak fire, a wildland blaze burning east of Kingman, Ariz., in an effort to draw suppression lines and help contain the fire.
The AEG intends to have all four MAFFS aircraft ready to make drops in Arizona July 10. They will operate from Phoenix-Mesa Gateway. Two aircraft are from the Air Force Reserve Command's 302nd Airlift Wing, and two are from the California Air National Guard's 146th AW.
"The relocation of the MAFFS resources does not mean MAFFS aircraft will be unavailable should they be needed in the region again if the USFS determines that is necessary," Davis said.
Four additional MAFFS-capable C-130s are operated by Air National Guard units in North Carolina and Wyoming and can be called on if needed.
MAFFS initially activated June 11 to assist in fighting forest fires in Southern Colorado after USFS officials sent a request for assistance to the Department of Defense though U.S. Northern Command. USFS requested two additional MAFFS tankers June 21. Since activating, MAFFS aircraft have made 70 drops on Colorado and Arizona fires using some 190,000 gallons of fire retardant. MAFFS is a self-contained aerial firefighting system owned by the USFS. MAFFS modules are loaded into the cargo bays of military C-130 aircraft. Following USFS lead planes, military aircrews can discharge 3,000 gallons of water or fire retardant from the MAFFS modules along the leading edge of a forest fire in less than five seconds, and cover an area a quarter of a mile long by 100 feet wide. Once the load is discharged, ground crews at a MAFFS tanker base can refill the modules in less than 12 minutes. A joint DOD and USFS program, MAFFS provides aerial firefighting resources when commercial and private air tankers are no longer able to meet the needs of the USFS. The military AEG exercises control over MAFFS resources at the direction of the USFS. Four C-130 units perform the MAFFS mission, each providing two MAFFS-capable aircraft, and the air and ground crews needed to operate them. They are the North Carolina Air National Guard's 145th AW; California ANG 146th AW; Wyoming ANG 153rd AW; and the Air Force Reserve Command's 302nd AW, in Colorado.
The Colorado- and California-based units are currently activated. USNORTHCOM is the joint combatant command formed in the wake of the Sept.11, 2001, terrorist attacks to provide homeland defense and defense support of civil authorities. USNORTHCOM provides DOD capabilities for disaster response operations in support of the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency, National Interagency Fire Center, and state and local officials.


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Gospel Music According To Fred Hammond
Gospel Night enlightened the hearts of many attendees at Wingate Field in Brooklyn recently as Fred Hammond and The Radical for Christ, Israel and the New Breed, and special guest Keith "Wonderboy� Johnson performed their uplifting songs.
Gospel Night is part of the ongoing Martin Luther King Concert Series hosted by Borough President Marty Markowitz and sponsored by Health Plus, the managed care organization. The series provides the community with performances by top-tier performers for free.
R&B, funk, and gospel acts will perform on the stage at Wingate Field in the Crown Heights area of Brooklyn every Monday, throughout the summer, closing on August 23rd with the three divas of En Vogue performing their silky soulful hits.
"Health Plus, as always, is proud to show its commitment to Brooklyn by sponsoring the Martin Luther King Jr. concert series,� says Tom Early, Chief Marketing Officer of the Brooklyn-based HMO, Health Plus. "This gospel concert, in particular, does a great deal to strengthen and encourage the community.�
Health Plus, a not-for-profit, multi-cultural organization, is one of the fastest growing managed care organizations in New York City. It was established in 1984 with a commitment to provide coordinated quality healthcare and improving access to healthcare for uninsured and underserved families. In its annual review of managed care plans, the New York State Department of Health ranked Health Plus as the top plan for quality in its 2002 and 2003 "Consumer's Guide to Medicaid Managed Care in New York City.�
Health Plus is New York City's leading provider of Child Health Plus, a New York State Department of Health program that offers parents FREE or affordable health insurance for children under the age of 19. "CRAIN'S New York Business� magazine ranked Health Plus the fifth largest among health maintenance organizations in the New York area.
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- Ann GarrisonFebruary 22,2018 @ 08:03 PM
I think you have "Filtered HTML" turned on here. If you switch to "Full HTML," it will probably...
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Bumble bees, wasps, and all other kinds of insects that sting are probably some of the most annoying pest ever to encounter. This lesson is going to show you "how to draw a hornet" step by step. The hornet looks a lot like a bee except they are skinnier and longer then the bee. Hornets do sting and when they do, it is very painful to humans. The ones that look like bees are called "yellow jackets". How about that age old question, "what is the difference between a wasp and a hornet"? The answer to that question is simple, but before I go there, let me say that two insects are from the Vespa family. Hornets and wasps are very similar in size and shape. The hornet that I will be showing you how to draw is really cool and animated instead of realistic. Hornets are probably one of the popular insects that are used as mascots, for body art, and for clothing art as well. I think that this bug came out awesome and I personally recommend that you guys tackle this lesson on "how to draw a hornet" step by step. I shall leave once more but have no fear I will return. Peace out and happy drawing.
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That interview makes something inside of me die
Argentina te ama Deryck, fuerza!!! estamos todos con vos ojalá vuelvas pronto a los escenarios!
l really admire the honesty in this and also the CBC interview, through all of this you have grown so much as a person and probably also as a musician … and always remember "The best is yet to come" -This holds true now more than ever <3
Omg, thank you sooooooooo much for this! I've been dying to read the interview, but I didn't have the magazine and I could only read little parts of it online. The full interview was too small to be able to read well enough. This helped A LOT. Man, I knew that you were very much near death, but I had no idea you were that close. I'm glad you made it.
Damn you, Deryck! I have hit a new low and become a sheep. I joined Instagram today so I could "follow" you. Baaaa lol But I will NOT give into #hashtags. It is my belief a brain cell is lost every time someone uses a pointless hashtag. hahaha
LMAO!!! I feel your pain! It physically pained me to create an Instagram, but I too, did it. The things we do for you, Deryck. XD
Thanks for speaking out about this. Alcohol abuse has been glamourized for way too long, and too many people suffer the consequences. Get well soon.
Russia loves you,Derick
So while I was changing my cover photos and profile pictures for the various social media accounts I have, I had a thought that maybe it would be a good idea to put your album cover out there the week before you plan to put it out and ask fans to put it up as their profile photo AND cover photo. Just make sure they have access to a high quality photo because Google Plus doesn't like low resolution photos. It would be a good way to promote your new album that costs nothing but a photo and a request of fans. If you wanted to give them incentive, turn it into a contest and you can pick like 10 random fans to give away a signed copy of the new album to. *laughing at myself* I just realized I am referring to your fans as "them" and not "us". Doh!
You gotta be strong, gotta move on. We all support you. Waiting for you on the stage. The best is yet to come
Argentina te ama Deryck, fuerza!!! estamos todos con vos ojalá vuelvas pronto a los escenarios!
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[…] You're making a wise choice butterflychef to go to detox. I agree with IAO22's response. One of the news stories that inspired me to get sober this year was Deryk Whibley. He is several years younger than myself and almost died of alcoholism. I didn't think it was possible to almost die of alcoholism that young. You don't want to wait until you're in almost the same state he was. » Deryck's Kerrang Interview Deryck Whibley […]


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Affectionately known as Coochie, this small sub-tropical island is just a short 10-minute ferry ride from Victoria Point in Redland City. The island is only 5 square kilometres in size so there is no need to take a car - just pack a picnic and go for a walk. If you are looking for something a little more active, try your hand at paddleboarding, tandem bike-riding, kayaking or jump on an old-fashioned aqua-bike and cruise around the calm waters of Moreton Bay.
Coochiemudlo's peaceful atmosphere and stunning views have inspired many artists and a range of arts and crafts are on offer at the regular Coochie Craft Markets. The island has a range of accommodation including resorts, cottages and holiday homes.
The passenger ferry service runs every half hour.
Note: Information on listed products and services are provided by the operator and were correct at the time of publishing. Rates are indicative based on the minimum and maximum available prices of products and services. Please visit the operator's website for further information. All prices quoted are in Australian dollars (AUD).


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Quick Snaps: John Elway is no figurehead; Peyton Manning's rituals; more Broncos thoughts
1. Can John Elway continue Denver's winning ways?
"Three years ago, John Elway's hiring brought questions of Denver's intent. Would the former face of the franchise just be a figurehead? Three straight playoff appearances and a Super Bowl berth later, the answer is clear: Nope."
—Joan Niesen, MMQB
2. Peyton Manning's offseason rituals
"How do you reboot the game of a legendary competitor coming off the most epic disappointment of his career? This is how …"
—Jeff Legwold, ESPN.com
"3. As always, a Manning team has a shot
"But there are whispers in Denver that Seattle exposed some weaknesses in Manning's game at this stage of his career — namely, his inability to create plays once the original play breaks down."
—Jeffrey Flanagan, Fox Sports Kansas City
4. Bobby Wagner: Broncos were intimidated
"Seahawks middle linebacker Bobby Wagner believes the Denver Broncos were intimidated by his team's defense from the start of their 43-8 Super Bowl XLVIII loss to Seattle."
—Terry Blount, ESPN.com
5. Elway still working on deals for top weapons
"The Denver Broncos have made contract offers to star wide receiver Demaryius Thomas and tight end Julius Thomas and will continue negotiating with both players after training camp opens July 24, Broncos general manager John Elway said Wednesday."
—Lindsay H. Jones, USA Today Sports
6. Von Miller: Swagtastic at ESPYs?
The second-best part of the #ESPYS2014? The "always swagtastic" Von Miller @Millerlite40 (photo via @BarstoolBigCat). pic.twitter.com/WG6Q5juj2Z
— Laurie Volkmann (@docllv) July 17, 2014
7. Peyton Manning wins 2 ESPYs
The Broncos' star quarterback was named by ESPN as the best NFL player of the year and won the award for record-breaking performance.
—Beth Harris, The Associated Press
8. Emmanuel Sanders: Broncos offense fits 'my style'
"'I'm finally entering a season where I'm in an offense that's going to sling it around,' Sanders said. He added that he meant no disrespect to the Pittsburgh Steelers, but to him, the Denver offense 'is football.'"
—Alex Gelhar, NFL.com
9. Analyzing the Broncos' pass-catching corps
"But what of the newcomers? The future of the unit might rest in the hands of free-agent pickup Emmanuel Sanders and second-round pick Cody Latimer as much as it will with the Thomases."
—Andrew Mason, DenverBroncos.com
10. Top 10 training camp storylines
"With no team having lost a Super Bowl and then bounced back to make amends the following season since Don Shula's 1971-72 Dolphins, will the Broncos — humiliated by 35 points on the big stage — suffer from any lingering Super Bowl shellshock this season?"
—Don Banks, SI.com


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The Aldrich Alert
A Publication of the Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty
by Gary Aldrich - Volume 2, Issue 42
This article was written shortly after the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 and first published on WorldNetDaily.com - September 18, 2001.
Several days have passed since the most outrageous act of terrorism in the history of the world. The clearance of the wreckage has just begun. Meanwhile, thousands of innocent victims lie beneath smoldering rubble. It will take weeks until the last girders are lifted from the sub-basements of the World Trade Center buildings in New York City. We weep for the victims and pray that more of them will be found alive.
But there will be no peace, and there will be no rest. Rescue workers toil to bring to us what they can, but most victims were reduced to ash or destroyed beyond recognition by the compressions, the explosions and the inferno that followed.
Fall rains will wash American blood and ashes down into the storm drains of New York City, and the essence of American lives lost will move down the Hudson River to the Atlantic Ocean, sent around the globe by the ocean currents. Their innocent blood will someday reach the shores of nations that nurture and harbor terrorists – to join the bombs that we'll soon send there to extract our retribution.
We now learn that these animals were trained on our soil. They attended flight training schools in our country, they lived among us as our neighbors. Their children attended schools with our children.
They came across U.S. borders with "papers" that allowed easy entry and exit. There are hundreds – perhaps thousands – of these terrorists here today. About 50 of them have surfaced to carry out these evils acts. The rest await orders from abroad.
I submit that these terrorists enjoyed more freedom and liberty than we did. After all, while we were being questioned about our baggage, X-rayed and searched, real criminals came and went as they pleased. And then these murderers boarded jetliners with their knives, phony bombs and threats. Grandmothers and teenagers presented photo IDs and put their keys and change in a dish while extremely dangerous men carried on long-distance conversations about jet fuel and potential body counts.
They drive effortlessly through our cities and towns and eat our cheeseburgers, while we dodge concrete barriers and walk around black, metal pylons. We must go miles out of our way so that we can get from one end of the District of Columbia to the other. That's because Bill Clinton closed Pennsylvania Avenue to achieve a symbolic security everyone knew was as flimsy as an eggshell.
I hope we now realize that combating terrorism with feel-good, symbolic gestures won't work. Perhaps a significant number of our citizens are fooled, but the terrorists are smart. They laugh at our feeble attempts to create the illusion of safety.
We, as a nation, were led to believe that the liberals' way of dealing with terrorism was preferable to the conservatives' gut feelings. My friends know that the only effective way to deal with an obvious threat like the one we're facing is to squash these bugs like a farmer would apply his boot to a scorpion – and for the same reason: If you don't kill the damn thing, sooner or later you or one of your loved ones will be bitten.
We were even given a new set of "enemies" to consider. Call it a distraction. We were told that the real threat was not from some Islamic fundamentalists who vowed to commit terrorist acts to bring us to our knees, no, Bill Clinton and Janet Reno, and their friends on Capitol Hill and in the media, spoke as one voice about the homegrown threat posed by church-going Americans protesting against partial-birth abortion.
And then they demonized well-organized militia groups with – gasp – actual guns who were complaining about Clinton's liberal agenda. They were considered suspicious because they expressed absolute disgust for our commander in chief.
I'll bet that these same bearded, flannel-shirted "suspicious characters" are now running the backhoes and girder cutters in New York City, working around the clock until they drop from exhaustion.
Meanwhile, the "girly-men" liberals and their strident molls scratch their heads and wonder how and why Tuesday happened. After all, weren't they nice to these terrorists? Didn't they display the correct amount of tolerance for another people's religious beliefs? Didn't Hillary Clinton actually embrace and kiss Arafat's wife?
Yes, she did – and this is the thanks she gets! Why, Hillary even helped release Puerto Rican terrorist bombers in a symbolic display of healing and forgiveness! Talk about being blindsided after you've gone out of your way to be nice!
Liberals are not the only ones blindsided. Apparently, the FBI and CIA were absolutely clueless that the terrorists were here and had a well-organized, well-funded plan to commit the worst act of terrorism in our nation's history.
Is it possible that the FBI was too busy keeping an eye on so-called "domestic terrorism" to notice? Could it be that the CIA was unable to penetrate this awful plan because a former Clinton appointee, who happened to be the CIA director, decided that CIA agents could no longer recruit spies who were suspected of illegal activity?
We are a country confused about who our enemies are, and what we are to do about them. Until now, we have not been able to distinguish a real threat from a paper tiger. Even when our embassies have been bombed, our Navy attacked, and our allies terrorized by the same religious fanatics, we have been unable to come to a solution.
That is, until now. Now we get it. Now we see what's real versus what's concocted for political gain. Somehow the terror of "air rage" takes on new meaning. So, now we will do the real work – to protect our citizens "against all threats, foreign and domestic."
For eight long years the liberals partied – and they have run up an enormous tab. Thousands of American lives have been cashiered for the liberals' asinine, childish approach to national security. The warnings about their "Age of Aquarius" approach to the protection of our lives were being sounded as early as 1993. Clinton's participation in the unraveling of our nation's national security was well known by the summer of 1996. Still, so many of our citizens wanted to believe Bill Clinton.
There were many terrorist events along the way, some of them terrible to behold – but nothing was as horrible as this past Tuesday. Nevertheless, many Americans had already died at the hands of religious fanatics residing on foreign shores, coming and going from the U.S. whenever they pleased, photo IDs in hand.
The liberals' solution was always to make nice with terrorists while whittling away at our liberties and freedoms with symbolic rent-a-cop checkpoints, laughable metal detectors and meaningless photo ID checks. Thank God adults have returned to our White House. Now, if only they can find a way to keep the liberals at bay while a man's work finally gets done. Too late for the victims in New York and Virginia, I'm sorry to say.
Excuse me if I absent myself from the national political group-hug that's going on. You see, I believe the liberals are largely responsible for much of what happened Tuesday, and may God forgive them.
My job, and the job of all conservatives now, is to keep liberals out of power as long as humanly possible. Our country is not safe when liberals are in power. How much more evidence do we need?


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Quote:This should be called "The Better Late Than Never" section of this blog. This past January 29th marked Gary's tenth year in the L/L office. Ten years ago Carla finally came to the conclusion that she was overworked trying to keep books for L/L, the household, and Jim's Lawn Service. She asked Gary if he would be willing to become her administrative assistant so that she could work on more creative projects.
At that point in his life Gary had a lot of desire and very little experience. But he was very game to give it a go. And go he did, quickly getting a handle on what needed to be done and how to do it. Through the succeeding years he has grown adept at doing an ever expanding job of getting the L/L material out to seekers all over the world. He has made an indelible and unique contribution to the Law of One. He produces homecomings, workshops, coordination of editors and translators in a dozen languages, the Tilting at Windmills interview and book, building and articulating L/L Research's first online community, reworking the Law of One into THE RA CONTACT, managing our financial life, tax prep, and much, much more.
He has found so many ways to share L/L's spiritual information that he was able to offer Austin a position in the L/L office nearly two and one-half years ago. Together they are an unbeatable tag team that gets our books and channelings out to all the corners of this planet. As our Director Gary is the engine that makes our boat go. If you have a moment, send him a little "thank you" note for the ten years of high-powered love energy that he sends out every day, not to mention his wicked sense of humor. Thank you Gary Bean for being. . .Gary Bean.
(02-18-2016, 12:02 PM)Bring4th_Jade Wrote: I know not everyone reads Jim's blog daily, so this little piece of history may go unnoticed.
GLB Wrote:And, if you'll forgive me for stepping outside of the unified Bean-Bridges presentation for a moment again to speak from a personal perspective regarding an interesting date that elapsed just last week. On January 29, 2006, Carla approached me and asked me to serve in the newly minted administrative assistant position. I had been living with Carla and Jim for 2.5 years while volunteering for L/L Research, when Carla decided that she could entrust me with her L/L Research duties so that she could be freed to focus on creative work - like writing Living the Law of One 101 - placing greater faith in me than I could myself. That was ten years ago last Friday that I took my first tentative seat behind the wheel.
A decade of my life has passed now doing what hindsight reveals was presumably a function of pre-incarnational design - that which is the only thing I can imagine doing anymore. From then until now it has been an intensive process of learning and growing, gradually enduring over great inner, personal distances.
Each year that cycles, the work deepens, intensifies, and evolves. It consistently challenges and tests me to reach new levels of competency, complexity, and understanding, it engages me on every possible level, and it continually unveils new facets of myself, especially that which was unknown to the younger me: self-trust and self-confidence.
The 2016 me and the 2006 me are at base the same, of course, but have a difference in perspective that the tall tree has relative to the short tree still aspiring and struggling in the shadows of nearby things; unsure of what sort of tree it is and what sort of fruit, if any, it will bear.
It is an extraordinary philosophy, the Law of One, and a particularly extraordinary opportunity, this work for L/L Research, but what makes it most incredible are the true souls with whom I've been granted a moment in time to share energy and emails, smiles and stories. It is the sound of their voices, the unique character of the face they present the world, and the spirit which shines through their own attempt to navigate the illusion that places mirrors all around me, reminding me of how good life is, and why it is worth the living.
If those who measure the world could meet the cross-section of people who intersect with L/L Research, there would be no cynic remaining among them.
There is no exaggeration in my expression of undying gratitude to Carla Rueckert for the many things she gifted me, not least of which is the life that I lead. I miss her easy, generous laugh, and the small moments when her affection traveled on a simple term of endearment like "bud."
The road stretches and beckons onwards. May we all find our feet upon it.
(02-23-2016, 11:56 AM)Bring4th_GLB Wrote: Thank you so much Jade and Minyatur. This thread has been of a healing influence on a few different levels.
And to you, Billy - you have with considerable courage and honesty metaphysically undressed yourself on this forum, a level of vulnerability and openness I find personally challenging in my own life. (I have strong partitions between public/private, though the work of L/L Research is inherently public.)
And where you see cause for self-criticism, I see cause for admiration in the act of opening yourself, and I see the inner light shining in your fidelity to present yourself as you are, with light and seeming dark mixed together.
Jade we hope to get the audio of the pre-1980 recordings available within the next month. They offered a deepened contact with the Questioner. The pictures we hope to include as many as possible in the new Ra Contact book, which if we're lucky will be published before the year is out.
Tanner, I to this day retain a Ninja Turtles pillow case that covers a pillow sitting on one end of my futon. It might alone serve as the basis for the (I hope pizza) party.
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As always, click the pic to see it larger.
Daddy and Ava having deviled eggs.
And now for more egg hunt pictures than you ever cared to see! Ava enjoyed finding the eggs so much (and mommy enjoyed taking pictures) that we had to do it twice. 😉
And lastly, Ava sitting with mommy, checking out her egg hunt loot. (Pay no attention to my nappy, growing out, looks like crap hair. I am SOOO in need of a haircut, it's not even funny.)