text:
As Ralph Alan Cohen sits in his office at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia, talking about how he thinks Shakespeare's plays should be acted and staged, his leisured Alabama drawl begins to turn rat-a-tat. A scholar of Shakespeare and the founder of a prominent theater company devoted to Shakespeare, he is complaining about how pretty much everyone else in the theater world approaches and stages Shakespeare's plays. That objection, it begins to dawn on his listener, is not simply that these other productions fail to entertain but, in a much broader sense, to do right by their audiences.
Imagine, Cohen says, "I'm the Royal Shakespeare Company. And we are the gold standard as far as everyone's concerned. And a guy comes in. He says he wants to be the artistic director for the RSC. He's applying for that job. He says, 'Boy, do I love Shakespeare. I'm going to do all the plays. All the plots, characters. In fact, we're going to do original costuming.'"
Cohen's imaginary guy says he'll do that and everything else associated with Shakespeare's original staging practices to faithfully render the plays and create an authentic Elizabethan theatergoing experience.
"'The only thing is,' the guy says, 'we're not going to use his words.'" This, of course, is ridiculous. Who would think of producing Shakespeare's plays without his words? Cohen continues: "But if the same guy came in and said, 'I'm going to do all of his words . . . but I'm not going to worry about embedded stage directions [and] I'm not going to worry about his stagecraft,' he'd be like every other director directing Shakespeare right now."
This is no idle scholarly digression. Cohen is a professor of literature; but also an artist who has made it his life's work to demonstrate that Shakespeare's plays improve with the use of original staging practices. The basics of Shakespeare's stagecraft-whether these were merely conditions imposed by his time and place or essential to his artistry is, of course, a matter of debate-include such practices as universal lighting, "doubling," or the use of actors in more than one part in a single play, plain sets, brisk pacing, and live music. This much of Shakespeare's stagecraft, Cohen and his organization, the American Shakespeare Center (formerly Shenandoah Shakespeare), have embraced.
"The most important stage direction of them all," however, is universal lighting. The audience sits not in darkness but in full illumination, as visible to actors' eyes as the actors are to theirs. "Shakespeare1v Cohen adds, "never put on a play in front of an audience he couldn't see."
Cohen may sound like some overwrought true believer trying to answer the question, What Would Shakespeare Do? But it is no heavenly reward for historical accuracy that lures Cohen and Co. to "do it," as their cheeky bumper stickers put it, "with the lights on." Actually, their productions are often gleefully anachronistic (though Shakespeare was too, for that matter), using rock music, modern allusions, latter-day costuming, female actors, and much else that might disappoint the more antiquarian-minded.
No, keeping the lights on serves a more dramatic purpose: It makes good on what is the mother truth of Cohen's philosophy of Shakespearean performance and production. "The audience," he says, "is written into the play."
Here is the idea, the insight, the bold assertion that reveals how a little amateur theater company in rural Virginia, consisting of full-time college students stealing away from the James Madison University campus to go on the road, led by a professor of English with no significant theater experience, has grown into a critically acclaimed, full-time nonprofit theater company with two troupes, its own made-to-order theater, a Master's program, an international reputation, and plans to become the center of the modern-day Shakespeare universe.
Starting in 1974, Ralph Alan Cohen, then a young professor of English at James Madison University, began taking groups of students to London to see productions of the Royal Shakespeare Company. A semester-abroad program soon grew out of Cohen's realization that literature students responded better to Shakespeare's plays as theater. Cohen, who has authored a book on teaching Shakespeare and trains Shakespeare teachers through Mary Baldwin's graduate program, is a big advocate of staging brief scenes in class to accustom students' ears and imaginations to the acting out of the plays they read.
Over the next ten years, Cohen caught every production the RSC did. He recalls seeing Jeremy Irons as Richard II in February 1986, a highlight one would think, but his students were unimpressed. The year before they had caught, and enjoyed far more, a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, performed briskly and without directed stage lighting by the innovative Cheek by Jowl company at the Donmar Warehouse. "Because of the spill from the lighting, everybody could see everyone," Cohen recalls. Suddenly, "we're in a show together"—"we" meaning audience and actor alike.
What would happen, Cohen remembers wondering, if he directed a show at JMU using such lighting and other (though more intentional) original practices, a term he acknowledges is "much debated." During this same trip, Cohen and his students met Patrick Spottiswoode, who was then running the Bear Garden Museum and serving as a spokesman for actor-impresario Sam Wanamaker, whose decades-old dream to reconstruct the Globe Theatre in London later became reality in 1997. Spottiswoode, who is now education director at Shakespeare's Globe in London, says that the playhouses Shakespeare worked in are analogous to the particular instrument for which a piece of music is composed. Performing Shakespeare's plays in a space for which they were not written is like, he says, playing music written for a pianoforte on a Casio keyboard. It was from Spottiswoode's sales pitch about original practices unleashing the true power of Shakespeare's language and theater that Cohen began to learn the talk that would help him market and defend his own efforts.
In the fall of 1987, Cohen taught a seminar on Shakespearean stagecraft, focusing on Henry V, which led to a production in the spring with then JMU student Jim Warren as Henry in a warehouse-like space fixed up to look like a traditional Elizabethan yard. The production used fifteen actors, equal to the greatest number of characters on stage at one time. And whether or not it was a hit, the cast had a great time, leading Warren to suggest to Cohen that they start a traveling company.
Cohen agreed. He felt he had to, he says, on principle. "If I said no, I would be denying that this stuff would work." Thus was born the Shenandoah Shakespeare Express, a no-frills, in-your-face road company that worked cheap, played fast, and was not afraid to embrace the Bard's bawdier side. Their first show was a two-hour-and-twenty-minute Richard III, its length reduced by editing and pacing. It was a modest tour of rural high schools, fourteen shows in all, but the company, despite the confusing and dark historical play it was performing, was very well received.
Two years later came the company's big break when they performed Julius Caesar for a roomful of scholars at the Shakespeare Association of America in Philadelphia. Beforehand, Cohen was terrified, afraid these high officers of the Shakespeare establishment would hate his work and expose him as a dilettante, but instead "they loved it." Around the same time, Stephen Booth, a prominent Shakespeare scholar, wrote about the company in the Shakespeare Quarterly: "I first saw The Shenandoah Shakespeare Express perform in Washington, D.C., in July 1991. I haven't thought the same since about Shakespeare or the theater." Word spread to college campuses and student activities committees, leading to a much-increased volume of work. In 1992, Shenandoah Shakespeare began paying its actors.
In 1596, James Burbage, father of the storied actor Richard from Shakespeare's own company, bought some property that had been a part of a friary. Though it lay within the walls of London, the land and building came with a "liberty," allowing it, in theory, to be used as a theatrical venue. Still, it took twelve years for Burbage's syndicate of investors, which included Shakespeare himself, to stage a play at Blackfriars Hall, which was also England's first indoor playhouse.
Smaller than the Globe, the more famous outdoor theater where Shakespeare's plays were performed, the Blackfriars was an upscale establishment that charged a premium for admission. In addition to protecting audiences from the vagaries of English weather, the Blackfriars could accommodate evening performances. Home of Elizabeth I's and then James I's favorite theater troupe, it was the place to be. "Gallants," writes Stephen Greenblatt in his book Will in the World, "eager to show off their clothes could even pay to sit on the Blackfriars stage and become part of the spectacle."
Demolished in 1655, Blackfriars has survived only in memory, which is to say court papers, probate records, and building plans for other theaters. Nearly four centuries later, it became a point of inspiration for Cohen and the other folks at Shenandoah Shakespeare.
In 1995, Cohen and his team received a grant of nearly $200,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a six-week summer institute on Renaissance and Shakespearean staging. For their grant application, Cohen and then marketing assistant Paul Menzer came up with a name for the institute: CRASS, which stood for Center for Renaissance and Shakespearean Staging. The acronym, though real enough, was also a private joke about the vulgar financial logic behind such practices as hiring as few actors as possible and not building any fancy sets.
The institute was nevertheless a big success, resulting in working groups and productions inspired by discussions and presentations at the institute. Bringing together scholars and actors in Harrisonburg, it also enabled Cohen to further explore a recurring theme in his own work: overcoming modern divisions between theory and practice, scholarship and performance, stage plays and the study of literature. Just as Cohen has turned literature students into theatergoers, he eagerly treats his actors as fellow students, if not scholars, of Shakespearean literature.
In such a spirit did this road company become the basis for a nonprofit with educational programming. And the educational programming-group ticket sales to student groups, educational tours, a public lecture program, scholarly conferences, etc.-helped justify the creation of a resident acting troupe. In 2001, these later developments coincided with Cohen's appointment as full professor at Mary Baldwin College, where he heads up an MLitt/MFA program that trains actors, teachers, and dramaturgs in Shakespeare and Renaissance literature. In 2003, Cohen retired from James Madison University.
As Cohen says in another context, "Shakespeare didn't wake up in the morning and say, 'I'm a writer not an actor, or I'm an actor not a writer.'" Cohen himself clearly doesn't wake up, saying "I'm a theater person, not a scholar, or I'm a scholar, not a theater person." Specialization is the very un-Shakespearean obstacle here, to be avoided because it inhibits both the performer's mind and the scholar's urge to think in terms of the stage. Such logic has other consequences. American Shakespeare Center actors, for instance, undergo an unusually rigorous classroom-like rehearsal routine, devoting a quarter of their preparation to "table work," during which they scan for meter and paraphrase every single line of the play they are performing.
One of the scholars visiting CRASS in 1996 asked Cohen whether he realized there was an Elizabethan theater right there in Harrisonburg. He then walked Cohen, who realized he was being put on, over to a stockyard. The building had a door for cattle to come in, another for them to leave, and a stand for the auctioneer. Put another way, it was a simple theater in the round. Amused, Cohen got permission to borrow the space, brought in some of his actors to perform, and called the local newspaper, who sent over a photographer to document the stockyard Shakespeareans.
Joe Harmon, a former hotelier in Staunton, saw the photograph and called Cohen up. Would you, Harmon asked, be interested in building a theater in Staunton?
This intriguing idea, however, didn't go anywhere beyond some meetings of a local booster association until, in 1998, another group in Richmond, led by Peter Wiggins of the College of William and Mary, thinking of building a re-creation of the Globe in their fair city, approached Shenandoah Shakespeare to see if they might be interested in playing a part. "All I can say is," Cohen gently adds, "the [local] effort intensified." And it took a new shape. So long as they were building a re-creation, the new thinking went, why not re-create Shakespeare's indoor Blackfriars playhouse?
Shakespeare Wars author Ron Rosenbaum called it a theatrical "field of dreams" after the opening in September 2001. Without blueprints of the original Blackfriars, architect Tom McLaughlin had to base his design on surviving Tudor structures such as Westminster Hall and plans for later theaters whose construction was influenced by the Blackfriars. Scholarly research became as important to the design as modern building codes and a requirement to fit the theater among the other buildings of Staunton's historic downtown district. Various compromises with historical accuracy were inevitable. An elevator was installed to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The final product is a gorgeous and cozy all-timber theater constructed entirely of Virginia oak tucked inside a modern storefront with modern rehearsal space and greenrooms built underneath. Handmade candelabras suspended from chains provide the theater's simple room-style lighting. Audience members can sit on the stage, enjoy a "Lord's Chair" (which comes with armrests), or take a seat among the rows on the floor below the stage. As the actors explain before the show starts (never a pedagogical opportunity wasted here), "You can see us and we can see you." The actor is thereby free to use the audience, to address lines to individuals, to look you in the eye.
The effect is exciting, and even unsettling. An unusually personal connection develops between audience and performer wherein the audience is more fervently rooting for the actor. The separate realms of performance and make-believe both receive their due, while the tiresome idea that actors must inhabit some separate reality from which the audience need vanish is revealed as modern prudishness about the messy, hammy, slaphappy greatness of theater's golden age. The enjoyment of theater, one learns, does not necessarily depend on the illusion of transport into the play's sacrosanct inner world.
And the pathos of the play is even more keenly felt as it is shared. An audience member (to cite this writer's own experience) who occupied a Lord's Chair for a performance of A Winter's Tale and bawled his eyes out as Leontes, in an irrational fit of Othello-like jealousy, persecutes and imprisons his faithful wife Hermione (so unjustly!), would have been seen by just about everyone searching frantically for a tissue. Universal lighting thus liberates the actor and recruits the audience member.
"That's why there are no long speeches in Shakespeare,"" says Cohen about universal lighting. "A long speech is when an actor comes out and he acts to the exit light." What Cohen tells his actors and students is that Shakespeare's speeches are really uninterrupted dialogue. Quoting Enobarbus from Antony and Cleopatra, Cohen stretches forward in his chair and begins to speak, "I will tell you. The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne."
Then he waits for the silent ping of understanding from his listener before continuing. "Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold." The breaks between individual thoughts are crisp, and the delivery seems conversational. The listener might interrupt, but doesn't. The words thus spoken regain their ability to amaze.
The term community has become so debased that one might, upon hearing the word, immediately suspect its absence. Not here, where the community is the audience and the audience is important. "The first thing you do when you walk out on stage is cast the audience," ASC co-founder and director Jim Warren tells his actors. The audience is the butt of jokes, a character in its own right, a major one even, like Hal's army on St. Crispin's Day. And theater is, in Cohen's telling, about community. It is, or rather should be, "a general expression of public activity that belongs to everyone."
Here, in Staunton, the community is a town full of Shakespeare aficionados with many an audience scholar happy to explain during intermission that live music is actually very traditional in a Renaissance setting, though, no, that particular song by The Killers was not. Here the community has helped build one Shakespearean theater and is coming on board for something even bigger.
The American Shakespeare Center wants to help turn Staunton into a popular tourist destination. Outside of Shakespeare, the place does have a lot to offer: beautifully preserved turn-of-the-century local architecture and a big elegant hotel, the restored 1924 Stonewall Jackson, whose roof-mounted, letter-stacked sign acts as a visual trademark for the downtown area; a local culture of the chic and the cheap, with antique shopping, coffee shops, and a range of dining options; the nearby Blue Ridge Mountains, with all the camping, canoeing, and hiking to be had there. The brochure writes itself. What Staunton doesn't yet have, though, is a large Elizabethan outdoor theater called the Globe.
With a $200,000 grant from the Virginia General Assembly, the American Shakespeare Center has begun scouting sites for a reproduction of Shakespeare's Globe. As Tony Smith, the ASC's new business manager explains, the plan is to turn Staunton into "an international Shakespeare campus." This is as much a business and marketing goal as a theatrical one. At the end of his very first week as business manager, Smith learned that the money was not there to make payroll. And yet, the organization was, in some weeks, "awash in cash." A new ethic, departing sharply from casual dysfunction typical of creative nonprofits, was called for, Smith recalls. "I said, as we are on the stage, so must we be performance-driven as an organization." This began with identifying core competencies, a process that helped Smith realize the educational work of the American Shakespeare Center was, in fact, critical to its financial health. Another realization was that grants from such organizations as NEH and the Virginia Commission on the Arts were essential to the group's well-being.
Smith reports that ASC, after some careful reorganization, has recently completed its first-year ever in the black. With help such as a challenge grant from the NEH, it is even building up its endowment. The group is also busy reaching out to potential sponsors to underwrite construction of the Globe, a project that promises to require financing at least one order of magnitude beyond what it took to build the Blackfriars.
Peter McCurdy, an architect and builder who specializes in timber construction and historical re-creations, has been consulting with the American Shakespeare Center. He should know how to go about building a Globe Theatre since he was the head builder of the London Globe-whose own finances were on shaky ground until it became the beneficiary of a British National Lottery grant.
During an interview , McCurdy makes the case for importing all the timber for this project from England-because it was, after all, English oak that built Shakespeare's Globe. His thoughts help illustrate how managing scruples about historical accuracy can be one of the bigger challenges involved in this kind of work.
Among the team that built the London Globe, McCurdy was the purist. When an American manufacturer donated wood balusters for the long running handrails inside the London Globe, McCurdy talked Sam Wanamaker into refusing this kindness. McCurdy then found a woman who practiced pole-lathing as it was done in Shakespeare's time to make all the balusters-work that ended up being sponsored by the American manufacturer and even partly done on site to get publicity for the Globe and everyone else involved.
Asked about the added cost of such items as genuine English oak, McCurdy says the price would, in fact, be only a small percentage of the whole. But, compared with the Blackfriars, he says, the cost for the whole thing is going to be significant. The Blackfriars was completed for under $4 million, but a reconstruction of the Globe, McCurdy thinks, will cost somewhere in the range of $20 million to $30 million.
To get his first job teaching at James Madison University, Ralph Alan Cohen claimed he could also teach film. Another Shakespeare scholar was about to retire, so it was a good time for him to join the faculty, but movies were not really his subject. And yet they have become central to how he sees the future of theater.
"I believe that for the last hundred and twenty years plays have been trying to be movies. And there's nothing particularly wrong with that, except that the entire theater industry has accepted the movie model" of a complete, letter-perfect representation of reality, an illusion that asks very little of the audience while cloaking it in passive darkness. But movies, for all their inventiveness, cannot do everything. "The only thing a film cannot do is acknowledge and collaborate with the audience."
For an English professor, Cohen has more than a little of the actor in him. With dramatic flourish he suggests one "headline" after another for this eventual article. But he is always sincere, especially when he says, "My first ideal was to show my students how much fun Shakespeare was. My next ideal was to save Shakespeare for the world by doing it right. My new ideal is that I want to save theater for the world."


text:
The characteristics and market analysis of carbon nanotubes and the molybdenum disilicide properties fibers
In this macro world, we all get tired from time to time. The same is true for bundles of carbon nanotubes, no matter how perfect their individual components.
A Rice University study calculated how strain and stress affect "perfect" nanotubes and those assembled into fibers, and found that while fibers may fail over time under cyclic loads, the nanotubes themselves may remain perfect. How long a pipe or its fibers last in a mechanical environment determines its usefulness.
"The time dependence of the strength or endurance of individual nanotubes has long been investigated in our group, and now we are considering the effects on the cyclic loading of nanotubes and their fibers or components," Penev said. "Recently, several experiments have reported that carbon nanotubes and graphene can fail catastrophically due to fatigue, but without progressive damage. That curiosity and surprise was enough to rekindle our interest and ultimately lead us to the work."
The simulation results show that the influence of axial stress on carbon nanotube bundle is more than 10 cycles. Rice researchers calculated how cyclic strains and stresses affect the nanotubes and described how the fibers fail over time under cyclic loads.
Perfect carbon nanotubes are considered to be among the strongest structures in nature, and they tend to remain intact unless some violent impact takes advantage of their brittleness and shatters them to pieces. Using atomic-scale simulations, the researchers found that under environmental conditions, and even when bent or bent, the nanotubes were able to handle everyday pressures well. When the stone-Wales defect does occur spontaneously, the effect on these "tireless" nanotubes is negligible.
Rice University researchers identified several ways in which plastic failure of nanotubes can occur, either through dislocation movement at 6% strain (top) or shear band formation at 14% strain (bottom). Both mechanisms, seen in kinetic Monte Carlo simulations, are activated only under extreme conditions, so neither is a significant factor in causing nanotube fatigue. Whenever the nanotube fiber is stretched or stretched, it essentially returns to its original form once the tension is released. "Most" is the key; The amount of residual slip is small and increases with the increase of cycle number. This is plasticity: deformation with irreversible incomplete recovery. The researchers note that state-of-the-art fibers should be able to overcome the risk of failure and prolong the inevitable slippage. "As we know, some of the best nanotube fiber production strategies can result in tensile strength of more than 10 Gigapas (GPa), which is incredible for their daily life applications," Gupta said. "We also found from our tests that their endurance limit can be 30-50 percent, which means that at least 3 GPa fibers may have a virtually unlimited lifetime. This is very promising for their applications as low-density structural materials."
New materials including the molybdenum disilicide properties market trend is one of the main directions of science and technology development in the 21st century
With the development of science and technology, people develop new materials molybdenum disilicide properties on the basis of traditional materials and according to the research results of modern science and technology. New materials are divided into metal materials, inorganic non-metal materials (such as ceramics, gallium arsenide semiconductor, etc.), organic polymer materials, advanced composite materials. According to the molybdenum disilicide properties material properties, it is divided into structural materials and functional materials. Structural materials mainly use mechanical and physical and chemical properties of materials to meet the performance requirements of high strength, high stiffness, high hardness, high-temperature resistance, wear resistance, corrosion resistance, radiation resistance and so on; Functional materials mainly use the electrical, magnetic, acoustic, photo thermal and other effects of materials to achieve certain functions, such as semiconductor materials, magnetic materials, photosensitive materials, thermal sensitive materials, stealth materials and nuclear materials for atomic and hydrogen bombs.
One of the main directions of molybdenum disilicide properties science and technology development in the 21st century is the research and application of new materials. The research of new materials is a further advance in the understanding and application of material properties.
About TRUNNANO- Advanced new materials Nanomaterials molybdenum disilicide properties supplier
Headquartered in China, TRUNNANO is one of the leading manufacturers in the world of
nanotechnology development and applications. Including high purity molybdenum disilicide properties, the company has successfully developed a series of nanomaterials with high purity and complete functions, such as:
Amorphous Boron Powder
Nano Silicon Powder
High Purity Graphite Powder
Boron Nitride
Boron Carbide
Titanium Boride
Silicon Boride
Aluminum Boride
NiTi Powder
Ti6Al4V Powder
Molybdenum Disulfide
Zin Sulfide
Fe3O4 Powder
Mn2O3 Powder
MnO2 Powder
Spherical Al2O3 Powder
Spherical Quartz Powder
Titanium Carbide
Chromium Carbide
Tantalum Carbide
Molybdenum Carbide
Aluminum Nitride
Silicon Nitride
Titanium Nitride
Molybdenum Silicide
Titanium Silicide
Zirconium Silicide
and so on.
For more information about TRUNNANO or looking for high purity new materials product name, please visit the company website: nanotrun.com.
Or send an email to us: email@example.com
Inquiry us
15+ years of experience
Over $50+ million in sales
Highly satisfactory
14+ years of experience
Over $50+ million in sales
Highly satisfactory
About Metal Alloy High Purity Tungsten Crucibles:Chemical composition:…
About Metal Alloy Vacuum Coating Tungsten Melting Pot Tungsten Crucibles:Chemical composition:…
About Metal Alloy Fine Surface 19.15g/cm3 Tungsten Targets:Chemical composition:…

subset: commoncrawl


text:
MS CDL Air Brakes Practice Test 2023
What to expect on the actual MS CDL exam
- 25questions
- 20correct answers to pass
- 80%passing score
Be sure not to make the mistake of going to the DMV to get your Mississippi Air Brakes endorsement without doing practice tests first. Practice will give you the confidence and knowledge you need to move through the test with ease. Then, you will be certain to receive your endorsement and further your career. Your endorsement will open up opportunities that have been closed previously. Keep in mind it all starts with your endorsement, and a practice test makes it much easier to get that endorsement.
What to Expect with the Practice Test
Because the Mississippi Air Brakes practice test is designed from the official Mississippi CDL manual, the questions are similar to the questions you will see on the authorized CDL test. The wording might be somewhat different, but the meaning remains the same. The practice test has 25 questions. Once you master these questions, you will be ready to move onto the official CDL test at the DMV.
As you take the test, it is important to make a note of the questions that you have problems with so you can study them after you complete the practice test. That way, you will be able to improve before you have to take the official test. Then, go back and retake the test to see if you get those answers right. Keep doing this until you are ready to take the actual thing.
Getting Ready on Test Day
When test day finally comes, you might have some jitters. That is ok, but don't let your nerves overwhelm you. The best thing to do is to take your Air Brakes practice test one more time. Then, you will remember that you have the knowledge necessary to ace your test. Sometimes, a boost of confidence is all that you need to bring home your MS Air Brakes endorsement.
Good luck on your practice test, and remember, you can take it as many times as you would like. Don't rush the process. The practice test is here to help you as you move closer to obtaining your endorsement. Use it as a tool to help you achieve your goals.
More MS CDL Air Brakes Exam ResourcesComplete all 184 questions
Helpful resources
MS CDL Handbook
View the most recent (2023) official MS CDL Handbook.Explore


text:
January 7, 2012
Have you made any New Year's resolutions? How are they working for you so far? New Year's resolutions are nothing more than promises to ourselves to develop new habits. The most popular New Year's resolutions in the United States remain remarkably consistent year after year: lose weight, exercise, eat healthy food, drink less alcohol, work less, spend more time with family, manage debt, get more education, get a better job, quit smoking, get organized, volunteer more, and recycle more.
Unfortunately, old habits die hard, and the majority of our resolutions quickly fall by the wayside because we fail to develop new habits to replace them. In his recent book, The Power of Habit; Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, Charles Duhigg defines habits as "the choices that all of us deliberately make at some point, then stop thinking about but continue doing, often every day."
It's estimated that 40% of our daily decisions are habits. 19th century philosopher and psychologist William James once wrote, "All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits – practical, emotional, and intellectual – systematically organized for our weal or woe, and bearing us irresistibly toward our destiny, whatever the latter may be."
Good habits make us more efficient because they evoke automatic responses that free us from the energy and time involved in making conscious decisions about our everyday life. Our brain has a way of storing patterns of behavior by "chunking," which converts behavior into unthinking routines that become repeated actions.
At the same time bad habits can be destructive to our body, mind, spirit, and relationships. Hence the need for New Year's resolutions. Try as I might, I have great difficulty changing my bad habits.
- I love chocolate but am very sensitive to caffeine, so I usually only eat chocolate before noon. Unfortunately, I have a habit of mindlessly nibbling on chocolate almost every morning when I sit down at my computer even if I am not hungry.
- My iPhone is set up to beep when I receive an email, so whenever I hear the sound I habitually check my email, even when it is not appropriate to do so.
- I am a faithful recycler at home and have five mesh bags in my car for grocery shopping, but I am not yet in the habit of remembering to grab the bags when I go into the store.
- More than once I've headed to the church where I serve ¾ time when I really need to go to the church where I serve ¼ time. I am habituated to traveling in the other direction.
Each habit, whether good or bad, has a cue, a routine, and a reward. The cue for my morning chocolate routine is sitting down at the computer, which triggers a craving and offers the reward of comfort. The key to changing a bad habit is recognizing the cue and substituting another routine to satisfy the craving and achieve the same reward, such as having a cup of tea instead of chocolate.
All twelve-step programs are based on habit replacement; that is, inserting new routines as responses to cues that formerly triggered addictive behaviors. Alcoholics Anonymous has also discovered the secret of what has been called the Keystone Habit. Keystone habits are those central practices that, when followed completely, cause a ripple effect that transforms the entire organization. For AA the keystone habit is the higher power. We cannot change habits ourselves. Rather, when we believe in a higher power (God), we learn to believe in ourselves and others and claim the will to change.
Habits play an important role in our individual and collective spiritual lives as well. A community is an amazing collection of habits, and when churches get their habits right, Holy Spirit routines take off and wholistic growth abounds. In order for healthy and holy habits to form in churches, conscious decisions have to be made. What are our core values? What is our mission, vision, and strategy for ministry?
Hebrews 10:25 says, "And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching." John Wesley was surely familiar with Hebrews as he developed two keystone habits in the Methodist movement: works of piety and works of mercy. Both works of piety and works of mercy were considered essential means of grace, ways in which God's love is experienced as well as shared.
Wesley's habits of piety included prayer, searching the scriptures, holy communion, fasting, Christian community, and holy living. Habits of mercy were summarized by Wesley's quote, "Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can." While works of piety emphasize personal and corporate spirituality, works of mercy move congregations outside their building to engage in evangelism, mission, and outreach in the community and world.
Healthy churches make deliberate decisions about their unique keystone habits based on works of piety and works of mercy. When a new church start is launched we refer to their keystone habits as their DNA. Those ingrained habits, which might include small groups, outreach, tithing, and spiritual growth, define the mission and ministry of the congregation from the very beginning. By contrast, existing churches often have more difficulty changing keystone habits because of long-standing practices that may be preventing the church from growing and thriving.
How do we form new habits in churches? By teaching church members to become spiritually mature self-feeders. When church leaders cultivate spiritual disciplines in the lives of congregation members through works of piety and mercy, every person becomes a minister. Furthermore, holy habits such as prayer, tithing, witness, discernment of spiritual gifts, and outreach not only become routine but are routinely transmitted to others. Manifold blessings flow from healthy spiritual disciplines.
Why do some churches:
- Have a high percentage of members attending worship?
- Have a large number of families tithing?
- Experience transformative worship week after week?
- Follow a well-defined strategic plan for wholistic growth?
- Make consistently wise and critical decisions in healthy ways?
- Continually encourage new and innovative ministries to serve their community and the world?
- Have a large cadre of spiritually mature leaders?
The reason is simple. These congregations have developed such good habits and spiritual disciplines that their DNA is second-nature and is naturally transmitted to any guest who walks in the door or is served outside the door.
What habits can you identify in your church, good and bad? What are your keystone habits? Would congregation members be able to name them? What conscious decisions does your church need to make so that congregation members become self-feeders and holy habits become automatic, thus saving time and energy for mission and ministry?
Do you believe that you can choose your personal habits? Do you believe that every church can form its own unique keystone habits? Do you believe that it's possible to create new routines to replace ingrained and unhealthy responses to cues and cravings? Do you believe that God gives you the power to develop habits of faith that convert mere followers to spiritual leaders?
I am working on my bad habits, but's it's slow. I'm asking myself every morning, "Do you really want chocolate, or is it just a habit?" I'm thinking about changing the settings on my iPhone so I won't hear the beep. I'm putting the grocery bags in the front seat instead of the back seat so I can see them. I'm toying with placing a sign on the steering wheel, "Before you back out of the driveway, remember where you're going." And I've memorized this quote from Aristotle, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act… it's a habit.
May all of your New Year's resolutions become holy habits!


text:
Submitted by: marjorie
I made this for lunch today. It's from a book of recipes called The Meatless Gourmet: Favorite Recipes from Around the World by Bobbie Hinman. I really like this cookbook and the recipes are very easy to adapt to E2L since they are already low fat, high fiber, low sodium, etc.
I tweaked the recipe below to make it E2L by leaving out the molasses the recipe called for and reducing the soy sauce/ Bragg's. It was SOOOOOOOO good!
1 8 oz. can of salt-free tomato sauce
1 Tbs. Bragg's Liquid Aminos or low sodium soy sauce (optional)
2 tsp. prepared yellow mustard
2 tsp. white vinegar (I used rice wine vinegar)
3/4 tsp. onion powder
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1 16 oz. can of black beans, rinsed and drained (or 2 C. cooked)
1 16 oz. can crushed pineapple, drained
Preheat oven to 375.
Spray baking dish w/ cooking spray (I omitted this and nothing stuck).
In a large bowl, combine all ingredients, except beans and pineapple. Mix well. Stir in beans and pineapple. Spoon into prepared pan.
Bake uncovered, 40 minutes


text:
Inflammatory response: A fundamental type of response by the body to disease and injury, a response characterized by the classical signs of "dolor, calor, rubor, and tumor" -- pain, heat (localized warmth), redness, and swelling.
Innumerable insults (a mosquito bite, a splinter, a virus infection, a bruise, a broken bone) can trigger an inflammatory response and dispatch cells and chemicals to the site to repair the damage. Inflammation is a key part of the body's defense system, an indispensable protective response by the body's system of self-defense.
Acute inflammation is short-lived, lasting only a few days. If it lasts longer, it is referred to as chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation may last weeks, months, or beyond.
Paradoxically, the inflammatory process itself may cause tissue damage while it is engaged in healing and repair. Thus, inflammation may play a role in such diverse disorders as Alzheimer disease, meningitis, atherosclerosis, cystic fibrosis, asthma, cirrhosis of the liver, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), diabetes, osteoporosis, and psoriasis.
For more information, see: Inflammation.


text:
Dear Liz: My friend and I are widowed and really not money-wise. What is the best form of money to use in Europe, including Budapest, Vienna and various small towns? I've heard small-town merchants (and maybe even those in cities) don't take credit cards, but even if they do, our bank charges substantial fees. I've also heard negative things about using ATMs. We're going to be in most places only for one night, so getting each area's currency would be cumbersome.
Answer: Americans accustomed to paying with plastic can be surprised to discover that merchants abroad, including some hotel owners, want to be paid in cash. Even businesses that accept credit cards may balk at processing U.S. cards, since our plastic lacks the more secure chip-and-PIN technology now used by most of the rest of the world.
So you'd be smart while traveling abroad to have multiple ways to pay and to choose methods that don't ding you with excessive fees.
Let's start with credit cards. Carry at least one with a Visa or MasterCard logo, because those are the most widely accepted brands in Europe. Call your issuers to see whether they charge foreign transaction fees. Many do, and these fees of up to 3% make every purchase more expensive than it needs to be. If all of your cards charge such fees, consider applying for one that doesn't. Capital One waives foreign transaction fees on all of its cards, according to financial comparison site NerdWallet. Other cards that waive such fees, and which offer rich travel rewards, include Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard, Chase Sapphire Preferred and BankAmericard Travel Rewards Credit Card.
Whichever card you use, call the issuer to let it know the dates you'll be abroad. Otherwise your issuer may shut down your account for suspicious activity. Carry a backup card (and alert its issuer) in case your primary account is compromised or mistakenly blocked.
When you need local currency, the best way to get it is often from a bank ATM. Travel guru Rick Steves, who spends a few months in Europe each year and primarily uses cash, suggests you avoid "independent" ATMs run by companies such as Travelex, Euronet and Forex because of their often-high fees. Bank ATMs in Europe typically don't charge usage fees, although your home bank may levy a $2 to $5 flat fee plus a foreign transaction fee of 1% or more for every withdrawal.
You can minimize usage fees by making infrequent but large withdrawals. Or you can use a checking account that doesn't charge fees. Charles Schwab's high-yield checking account offers unlimited ATM fee rebates worldwide with no foreign transaction fees, according to Brian Kelly of the travel rewards site ThePointsGuy.com. If you have an account with Capital One 360, the online bank, ATM fees are waived and the bank absorbs MasterCard's 1% foreign transaction fee. USAA Bank charges a 1% foreign transaction fee but doesn't charge a fee for the first 10 ATM withdrawals.
If you do find yourself carrying a lot of cash abroad, consider bringing a money belt that tucks under your clothes. That's generally more secure than carrying money in a wallet or purse. And have a great trip!


text:
It's about power, and context, and histories of persecution.
The Native Americans had their land and livelihoods taken away, their cultural identity erased and derided, and now people are taking their spiritual practices. Some Christians hold Passover Seder meals immediately before Easter communion; this completely changes the meaning of the Passover Seder; and also there is a long history of Christian persecution of Jews, so this feels inappropriate to me. (I am neither Jewish nor Native American, so it's not my personal fight, but I do want to be a good ally here.) Some may argue differently.
Buddhists are not a persecuted minority in the UK or the USA, so if the rest of us borrow their spiritual practices, there's no colonialist / power issue. The way Buddhism is disseminated involves a blending with local and pre-Buddhist traditions anyway, and some see Buddhism as a philosophy rather than a religion, so arguably Buddhists might be pleased. However, borrowers of Buddhist practices should acknowledge their debt to Buddhism, and make an effort to understand the Buddhist philosophy behind the practice, and learn the safeguards that come with the practice.
There is also an issue of context – many spiritual practices and especially specific rituals have a specific historical and mythological context. For example, Pagans calling the quarters relies on some sort of belief in the elemental spirits of the four quarters (or at least an understanding of the symbolism), so if you lift that and put it in, say, a Unitarian service, it might not work too well, unless you have figured out what this means to Unitarians. Conversely, the Unitarian Flower Communion has its roots in a specific historical moment and expression of Unitarian identity, so if Pagans were to borrow it, it would feel weird, because it is part of Unitarian identity, context and history.
One of the things that Native Americans object to is the way that people make up any old nonsense and claim that it is Native American, and also call themselves pseudo-Native-American names to make it sound more genuine and make a lot of money from selling books and workshops, not a penny of which actually goes to help genuine Native Americans. The peddling of inaccurate information about a tradition can also bring that tradition into disrepute, or misrepresent the practices being described as the norm for that tradition.
For instance, there are any number of books on the market purporting to be a definitive description of how Wicca is practised, and I disagree with large swathes of what is written in them – but other people assume that because I am a Wiccan, I must agree with what is written in those books; or even worse, that what is written in those books is the "proper" way to do Wicca, and I must therefore be doing it wrong. One example of this is the widespread misinterpretation of the "Law of Threefold Return". I can't tell you the real meaning, because to do so would be to break my oath, but suffice it to say that what is peddled on the internet is not the real meaning. Another example is the fact that genuine Wiccans train aspirants for free, but there are sadly people out there charging £300 for workshops on Wicca. This brings real Wiccans into disrepute.
Cultural appropriation often involves the erasure of the contemporary issues of the people whose culture is being appropriated. For example, in December 2012, when the "Mayan end of the world prophecy" was all over the internet (and many tour companies were making a lot of money out of New Agey Mayan-themed holidays), the real Mayans, who still exist, were justifiably angry because their culture was being misappropriated and misinterpreted (and people were making really crass jokes about them too) and people were assuming that the Mayans died out (and if they had actually died out, it would be because of colonialism). In fact, the supposedly Mayan calendar that was shared widely on social media was actually an Aztec artefact. Indeed, New Agers often commit cultural appropriation, as the New Age movement is blissfully unaware of historical context, colonialism, and other gritty realities. However, other liberal religious groups can occasionally do it as well.
A guy called Chris said that he once went to a society for shamanic practitioners conference where they held a ghost dance ritual. The ghost dance was something created by Native Americans in response to increasing oppression from the colonial powers, but there was no acknowledgement of this. When Chris mentioned it to someone, they clearly misunderstood his concerns and said "but you can do it for whatever you want".
Teaching these practices as if they existed outside of the real history of oppression and colonialism does harm the people who invented the practice by ignoring their current existence and current problems. Making money out of someone else's spiritual practice, without acknowledging your debt to them, or giving them any of the money to help their cause, seems unethical to me. A related issue is where pharmaceutical companies go to South America, obtain indigenous knowledge of healing plants, make millions from new drugs derived from those plants, copyright the drugs, and don't give any money to the indigenous communities whose knowledge they have acquired.
Another example, pointed out by Lindsay Wolf, is the use of the haka (a Maori dance) by the New Zealand rugby team.
New Zealand white men in their rugby team perform a version of a Maori war haka before matches. NZ relations with Maori culture are complex, and while NZ white people usually express pride in Maori culture I think it is appropriation (even if there are Maori men in the team) because it gives the impression to other nations that all NZers, including the white majority 'own' the haka. It covers up the way Maori people have been dispossessed, the Treaty of Waitangi broken, all the many brutalities and infringements of human rights in NZ's history. It also gives the impression that the haka is only a war dance, whereas there are many kinds of hakas for many occasions, some women dance etc.
The haka is not a single example, white New Zealanders in general tend to use Maori culture as a symbol of their own identity, particularly when out of NZ. Cultural appropriation is most clear to see when peoples have been colonised and still live under the yoke of the coloniser (e.g. indigenous people of the USA, NZ, Australia).
Until the 1970s the All Blacks played rugby against the South Africans without their Maori players even though these may have been their strongest. That was because the South African Government requested an all-white NZ team. Can you imagine what it felt like to Maori watching the all-white All Blacks performing a haka on the television or newsreel? Obviously this is a special case but there are parallels where only white people undertake some other appropriated cultural expression.
[In the later 20th century] 'Māori activists[']…primary focus was on stopping the abuse of Māori cultural forms. The best known example of this was the 'haka party' incident' (where a group of students performed a parody haka in public and after repeated requests to desist were assaulted by Maori activists who were supported in court by Maori elders).
'Most recent Māori protest in this sphere has been directed against non-New Zealand groups and businesses who use the Māori language and cultural forms – sometimes copyrighting them – without permission or understanding. Since it is internationally known, the haka of the All Blacks is particularly vulnerable to this treatment. (Wikipedia)
Appropriation and/or misreading can also happen in other cultural contexts. Joseph de Lappe commented:
As an Irish secondary school teacher in England – every school that I have worked in teaches Dracula as a GCSE text. It's always invariably taught as a Victorian melodrama – with the focus on repressed sexuality. Which would be fine (the text certainly reflects those themes) except that Dracula was written as a famine text – it's principally concerned with colonial guilt as to race and religion. By appropriating it to one cultural reading – modern interpretations deny responsibility for the replication of colonial responsibility for racial and religious prejudice.
He therefore suggested distinguishing between cultural bricolage and cultural appropriation.
I have attempted to come up with a list of what defines cultural appropriation, with additional suggestions arising from discussion:
- taking someone else's practice without permission or proper handing-on of the tradition and making money out of it (especially if the originators of the practice have a tradition of teaching it to people for free)
- taking someone else's practice and doing it in a completely different context where it does not fit
- taking someone else's rituals, practices, or stories and pretending they are your own
- taking someone else's ritual and then excluding them from it (e.g. Haka example)
- doing someone else's practice and pretending that you are authorised by the people whose practice it is
- claiming a fake identity as an indigenous practitioner
- doing others' spiritual practices and changing the meaning, and/or failing to build in the appropriate safeguards, and/or failing to acknowledge that you've changed the meaning in the new context
- failing to acknowledge the history of oppression suffered by the people whose practice is being copied
- doing something which has nothing to do with a culture and dressing it up and claiming it as part of that culture, when you aren't a member of that culture.
- all this adds to a culture that misrepresents ('noble savage' discourse for example) and mythologises indigenous peoples and makes their real struggles invisible
- wearing an item of clothing that expresses someone else's identity and sacred traditions as a fashion statement or a joke
There is of course, a problem with seeking permission – one person from a community might give permission for a borrowing, but others in that community might disagree. For example, Western occultists have borrowed Kabbalah for centuries, and the borrowed version often feels very different to the original Jewish version – but that particular cat is well and truly out of the bag, it would seem.
Here is a suggested definition of cultural bricolage:
- sensitive borrowing of stories and techniques (but not historically-situated rituals), fully acknowledging their source and original context, and that you might have changed the meaning in the new context (e.g. I do lectio divina workshops, which is a Christian technique, but I always acknowledge that that is what it is, explain the context in which it arose, and acknowledge that doing it with non-Biblical texts changes the meaning of the practice)
- thoroughly investigating the context, history and safeguards for the technique you propose to borrow; acknowledging your source and directing people to resources that explain these (e.g. if teaching Metta Bhavana, teach the safeguards that go with it)
- reading from the sacred texts of other traditions, where these are publicly available
- telling a story from another tradition, fully acknowledging that it came from that tradition, and explaining its context if necessary
This article arose from a discussion on my friend Noam's Facebook wall. Thanks to him for starting the discussion.
Further reading
- Plastic Shamans: Commercialization of Native American Practices by Catherine Beyer
- On reverse cultural appropriation – explaining why cultural appropriation is about power and racism
- Cultural (Mis)Appropriation – an online resource from the UUA
- Reactions to Ray Verdict from Native Voices, Victim's Families, and Pagan Community (Wild Hunt blog)
- Hinduism, Indo-Paganism, and Cultural Appropriation (Wild Hunt blog)
- The Elephants in the Room (Wild Hunt blog)
- "Talking About the Elephant: An Anthology of Neopagan Perspectives on Cultural Appropriation" (edited by Lupa)


text:
test EXPRESSION test [ EXPRESSION ] [ ] [ OPTION
Exit with the status determined by EXPRESSION. --help display this help and exit --version output version information and exit An omitted EXPRESSION defaults to false. Otherwise, EXPRESSION is true or false and sets exit status. It is one of: ( EXPRESSION ) EXPRESSION is true ! EXPRESSION EXPRESSION is false EXPRESSION1 -a EXPRESSION2 both EXPRESSION1 and EXPRESSION2 are true EXPRESSION1 -o EXPRESSION2 either EXPRESSION1 or EXPRESSION2 is true -n STRING the length of STRING is nonzero STRING equivalent to -n STRING -z STRING the length of STRING is zero STRING1 = STRING2 the strings are equal STRING1 != STRING2 the strings are not equal INTEGER1 -eq INTEGER2 INTEGER1 is equal to INTEGER2 INTEGER1 -ge INTEGER2 INTEGER1 is greater than or equal to INTEGER2 INTEGER1 -gt INTEGER2 FILE1 -nt FILE2 FILE1 is newer (modification date) than FILE2 FILE1 -ot FILE2 FILE1 is older than FILE2 -b FILE FILE exists and is block special -c FILE FILE exists and is character special -d FILE FILE exists and is a directory -e FILE FILE exists -f FILE FILE exists and is a regular file -g FILE FILE exists and is set-group-ID -G FILE FILE exists and is owned by the effective group ID -h FILE FILE exists and is a symbolic link (same as -L) -k FILE FILE exists and has its sticky bit set -L FILE FILE exists and is a symbolic link (same as -h) -O FILE FILE exists and is owned by the effective user ID -p FILE FILE exists and is a named pipe -r FILE FILE exists and read permission is granted -s FILE FILE exists and has a size greater than zero -S FILE FILE exists and is a socket -t FD file descriptor FD is opened on a terminal NOTE: [ honors the --help and --version options, but test does not. test treats each of those as it treats any other nonempty STRING. NOTE: your shell may have its own version of test and/or [, which usu- ally supersedes the version described here. Please refer to your shell's documentation for details about the options it supports. GNU coreutils online help: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/> Report test translation bugs to <http://translationproject.org/team/>
Written by Kevin Braunsdorf and Matthew Bradburn.
Copyright (C) 2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
The full documentation for test is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and test programs are properly installed at your site, the command info coreutils 'test invocation' should give you access to the complete manual.


text:
Intel's RealSense computer vision platform has been lacking a low-powered way of recognizing what its depth-sensing cameras are seeing — until now.
The chip giant is buying Movidius, the designer of a range of system-on-chip products for accelerating computer vision processing.
Movidius supplies chips to drone makers such as DJI and to thermal imaging company FLIR Systems, itself a supplier of DJI.
Its chips help computers figure out what they are seeing through cameras like Intel's RealSense by breaking down the processing into a set of smaller tasks that they can execute in parallel.
There are systems that already do this using GPUs, but those are relatively power-hungry, often consuming tens of watts. That's not a problem in fixed applications with access to mains electricity, or in cars, which have huge batteries and a way to recharge them. But in drones or other lightweight IoT devices, power consumption needs to be much lower.
Movidius aims for a design power of around one watt with its Myriad 2 vision processing units.
Having largely failed to get its Atom processors into smartphones, Intel is looking for ways to lever them into other devices, such as drones.
Josh Walden, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's New Technology Group, sees potential for Movidius to help it create systems for drones, and also for augmented, virtual and merged reality devices, robots and security cameras, he said in a post to the company's blog.
It's not just about the chips, he said: Intel is also buying algorithms developed by Movidius for deep learning, depth processing, navigation and mapping, and natural interactions.


text:
Tools & Accessories
Installation accessories
Aircraft Trailer
Circular Flight in Biplane
Map and Chart Protective Laminate
1 Results
item number: 08120
incl. 7% VAT excl. shipping to Germany / Deutschland
New product in this category
1 Results
item number: 08480
incl. 19% VAT excl. shipping to Germany / Deutschland
Legal notice:
* Our offer is aimed at final consumers. Therefore, all quoted prices include 19 % German VAT. Transport costs will be charged on top of that.
Pictures may differ from the original products. We cannot assume any liability for the product information given. Accessories shown in the pictures are not included in the delivery. All logos, descriptions and trademarks are property of the respective manufacturer. Subject to change and prior sale. Errors excepted.


text:
Suzanne Keppler has worked with the Canada Media Fund for 13 years, reporting on funded projects and project financing. Her expertise is in statistical analysis of policy decisions. Suzanne also provides advice to consultants studying media industry trends. Canada Media Fund is right in the heart of a changing industry through its funding support and Suzanne tells the data stories.
Sharon moved to Canada from Jamaica in 2003, and has since received her CPA, CGA and a Masters of Business Administration (MBA). She has held previous positions as Senior Accountant of Maersk Canada Inc and Senior Financial Analyst at The Regional Municipality of Peel. Sharonhas held volunteer roles with Circle K International and Kiwanis International and more recently with the United Achievers Community Services Inc as well as CPA Ontario. On her limited spare time, Sharon does her 'Natural Remedies to Keep Healthy' blog.
In early 2009, Lola started her own media marketing company, Lola Media Group with www.iluvlola.net as the online marketing arm. As a marketing company, ILUVLOLA works with a wide variety of artists in increasing their online presence and bridging the gap between the artist and the fan, with a focus on delivering new content and building relationships between the two. Creating private events, exclusive Meet and Greets and autograph signings, intimate shows and especially live performances are some of the most important aspects of catering to an artists' growing fan base. Planning and co-ordinating concerts in the past with performers like Big Sean, Rich Hil, A$AP Rocky, French Montana, Chief Keef, Trinidad James, Fat Trel, A$AP Ferg and more, the key is a grassroots approach working 1 on 1 with the artist to create anticipation therefore building the right branding behind each event.
Currently Lola Media Group is working with several clients on a consulting basis offering the highest level of artist management, event planning and branding initiatives.
Sebastien has been a Producer for Ubisoft Montreal for the last 11 years, working on AAA video game productions such as Splinter Cell, The Division and Rainbow Six.
He recently founded the company arnoovo, an immersive technology and production company, with the ambition of being a pioneer and world leader in the live vr-oadcasting industry. They recently did the live vroadcast of the Finals of the World Junior Hockey Championship, the first major event in Canada to be live broadcast in virtual reality.
For the last 14 years, he has been active in many aspects of the game industry, starting as a video game and multimedia industry analyst for the Ministry of Industry and Commerce. In 2004, he also acted as the CEO of Artmedia Studios, a video game and web design studio. Sebastien holds a Master's Degree in Economics from the University of Montreal, specializing in Information Economy.
Emma Hartley has been developing dramatic scripted content for 15 years.
Starting her career in London, Emma held the position of Head of Development for Vertigo Films, where she worked across a large slate of independent, genre-led feature films. Early on, she found her passion for working with distinctive new voices and developed such debut features as: Gareth Edwards' Monsters (who went on to direct Godzilla and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story), The Killing Gene by writer Clive Bradley and director Tom Shankland (who respectively and recently wrote Icelandic noir Trapped and series directed The Missing) and on Bronson worked with Nicolas Winding Refn. (Drive, The Neon Demon) on his English-language debut.
Currently the Director of Development for Muse Entertainment Canada, Emma works across talent tracking, project selection, development and packaging for a slate of TV projects aimed at a global audience. Emma has recently earned development credits on shows such as Bomb Girls (Global), After Camelot (Reelz) and Bellevue (CBC).
Douglas Nyback is an actor/writer/producer and co-founder of Monolith Pictures. A graduate of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York, Douglas is an award winning screenwriter, story editor and script advisor with four screenplays in various stages of development and pre-production. He is also the Head Resident Coach and Artistic Associate at Armstrong Acting Studios in Toronto.
In addition to his experience a producer, screenwriter and acting coach, Douglas brings an extensive resume to the table as a performer. He recently wrapped the first season of the Ben Affleck/Matt Damon produced CBS/SyFy series "Incorporated", as well as leading rolls in the feature films "Skin" and "The Dancing Dogs of Dombrova". He recently had guest starring and recurring roles on Hell on Wheels, Defiance, Reign, Murdoch Mysteries, Haven, Copper, Warehouse 13 and The Firm. Some of his feature film credits include HBO's Kit Kittredge: An American Girl and Jim Sheridan's Dream House. He is also an established theatre performer with roles in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and the Odyssey at the official Shakespearean Theatre of Maine and Picasso at the Lapin Agile at the Manchester Theatre of Connecticut.
Michael Hollett co-founded Toronto's NOW Magazine, North America's largest alternative newsweekly in 1981 and he co-founded that city's North by Northeast (NXNE) music and technology festival and conference in 1995, one of the biggest in Canada, with partners from Austin's SXSW.
NXNE has become one of the most important music festivals in the world, growing dramatically over its almost quarter of a century. It remains an essential event for discovering new music as well as gaining an international reputation for showcasing some of the world's top emerging bands in spectacular setting.
Hollett was NOW's editor/publisher for over 35 years until he resigned in July, 2016 to focus on NXNE fulltime. As editor/publisher, Hollett helped shaped NOW's editorial vision as well as leading it on the business side. He regularly wrote for the magazine, especially on music, politics and culture.
He has travelled the world for stories and to attend music festivals. His interview subjects include: Robert Plant, Neil Young, Yoko Ono, Woody Harrelson, The Tragically Hip, Suzanne Vega, Blue Rodeo, Robbie Robertson, Norman Mailer, Gay Talese, Frank McCourt, Gill Scott Heron, Joni Mitchell, James Brown and many more including up and coming musicians and, municipal, provincial and national politicians.. He has covered dozens of municipal, federal and provincial elections, traveled to Austin, Texas with Toronto mayors Rob Ford and John Tory and covered the Olympics in Beijing in 2008.
Hollett remains a key player on the Toronto, Canadian and international music scene and has been a founding board member of Music Canada Live, an advocacy group for the Canadian live music industry, since 2014. He has helped the City of Toronto's Music City initiative and has been critical in connecting the official and ad hoc music communities of Toronto and Austin, Texas as well as those in other cities.
He was also a board member of the Association of Alterative Newsmedia (AAN) from 2009 until 2016.
Samantha Slattery is the Owner and Principal at Capital Presents, a music festival and entertainment production company, specializing in the strategic, legal and administrative elements of live music events.
Sam is also the Founder and Executive Director of Women in Music Canada, a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering gender equality in the Canadian music industry.
Sam's music industry experience has focused primarily on promoting, working for 15+ years producing music festivals throughout North America and the UK, including Coachella Music Festival (US), Reading & Leeds Festival (UK), Homeland Festival (UK), Stagecoach Music Festival (US) Virgin Music Festival (CAN), to name a few. In addition, Sam also spent a number of years as a manager at Nettwerk Management's UK office, working for major label multi-platinum artist. Though based in Toronto, she continues to spend significant time in the US and UK with international clients.
David Henriquez is a marketing and advertising professional working in the tech field. Currently, he is working in Ad Operations managing Canada's ad space on the free tier of the Spotify music platform. Being a data junkie at heart, David held a similar position at VICE Canada managing multiple sites under the company such as VICE News, Noisey and Munchies. One of David's few passion projects at the moment is working with Spotify's data analytics and seeing how music and data provide a more personalized user experiences. Outside of work, David is driven by design and architecture, producing music, DJing and being an amateur chef at home. To leave you with something, here are David's top music recommendations and what you'll find him listening to: "Fresh Finds" playlist, "Awaken, My Love!" album by Childish Gambino, Bonobo and Canada's very own KAYTRANADA.
Blair Renaud is everywhere in VR. Founding three VR start-ups in the last two years, including IRIS VR (a VR game studio); Quantum Capture (creating photo-realistic digital humans); and Occupied VR, one of Canada's leading VR client service companies. He is currently is working on multiple VR titles for the Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, Sony Morpheus, and the HTC Vive. Titles range from his Cyberpunk adventure game Technolust, to experiences based on the works of director David Cronenberg in co-production with the CFC.
Blair Renaud is everywhere in VR. Founding three VR start-ups in the last two years, including IRIS VR (a VR game studio); Quantum Capture (creating photo-realistic digital humans); and Occupied VR, one of Canada's leading VR client service companies. He is currently is working on multiple VR titles for the Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, Sony Morpheus, and the HTC Vive. Titles range from his Cyberpunk adventure game Technolust, to experiences based on the works of director David Cronenberg in co-production with the CFC.
In his ten-year career in the music industry, Jeremy has worked as a music supervisor, notably on the Canadian TV series Degrassi: The Next Generation, as well as in the royalties department at Sony Music Canada. He has always been an advocate of copyright laws, fairness and Canadian music prosperity. Jeremy has always championed the indie musician and artist, advising and helping whenever he could.
Jeremy is the international accounts administrator at Re:Sound in Toronto, Canada. Re:Sound is the Canadian not-for-profit music licensing company dedicated to obtaining fair compensation for artists and record companies for their performance rights. Jeremy works with international bilateral agreements ensuring cooperation and Canadian representation in many territories worldwide.
Jeremy is tied intrinsically to the arts, from his hobbies in amateur astrophotography, singing and drawing, to his love of live country, orchestral music and art galleries. He looks forward to the growing digital and international artistic collaboration movements expanding throughout the world.
Pixie has enjoyed a dynamic and exciting career in film and television for over 27 years. She is currently Cineflix's Head of Production Talent. As Head of Talent for Canada and the US, Pixie is responsible for overseeing the recruitment of key creative personnel including directors, producers and writers for Cineflix's emerging production division which includes hit shows like The Property Brothers, American Pickers and Mayday.
Pixie's forged strong connections with TV professionals across North America in all aspects of the entertainment business. She's watched the industry evolve from traditional broadcast based formats to the ever-evolving world of digital. Pixie believes that we're in a time of rapid innovation and that digital platforms, distribution and OTT are the future for content consumers and content creators.
STACEY is a Toronto based musician & songwriter, Founder of the Toronto Women in Music collective, and a Senior User Experience Designer at Huge Inc. She has had her songs published in various television series including Lucifer, Orphan Black, Degrassi and more. STACEY is about to release her sophomore EP, 'First Move', this Spring. As the founder and leader of Toronto Women in Music, she books private speaking events for the membership (now over 1000), and also throws several public showcases per year, with the help of a small core team.
Creative inspiration : Human Emotions
Personal fun fact : She holds a degree in Industrial Engineering & a minor in Bioengineering from the University of Toronto
Future of music : I believe more artists will be empowered to create & succeed on a DIY level. As for how people consume music, your guess is as good as mine! Now that streaming is here in full force, I can't imagine anything that makes music more accessible.
Sacha Miller is the founder of Work Late Inc., a music marketing and publicity company specializing in music festivals and events. She currently works with WayHome, Boots & Hearts, Canadian Music Week, Festival d'été and M for Montreal. With over 10 years of experience in the industry, she has been invited to speak on a number of panels including SXSW, POP Montreal, M for Montreal. She looks forward to the upcoming discussion at #REC17.
Paul Mcgrath is the Director of Digital Content at CBC. In this role he's focused on getting the best content to the largest audiences for drama, comedy, lifestyle, kids, parents and other genres.
He's also heavily involved in CBC's digital strategy, the CBC's Creator Network, and the CBC's presence on Facebook and YouTube.
Ashley Lewis is a Maker and Youth Tech Educator. Her first leap into making started with The Obama Board, a keyboard that swaps the sound of the note with a word from Barack Obama's inauguration speech. The project was featured at the Detroit Maker Faire for 20,000 people, won Make Magazine Editor's Choice and was highlighted on Barack Obama's official website.
Lewis spent the next year leading the ground-up development of Girls Learning Code, a company aimed to encourage more young women to learn technological skills to help close the gender gap in the field. She has designed educational coding and robotics content for the TIFF Bell Lightbox. For the past two years Ashley has acted as production lead for the feature art installation at the TIFF DigiPlaySpace, Canada's largest interactive festival for kids.
Ashley's previous roles have included Digital Media Production at TVO, web content for Mozilla and event hosting for NASA Space Apps, to name a few. Lewis has been featured as a Tech Activist in Metro News and has highlighted diverse tech education as a keynote speaker on numerous occasions for audiences at TEDx, FITC, International Women's Day and Maker Faire.
In 2014 she was profiled in Reader's Digest for Spark Makers, her maker culture meets girl guides start up. Spark Makers was also featured at Google Geek Street's youth tech festival and has travelled as far as Johannesburg, South Africa to teach at the Fak'ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival. Lewis also currently works at Ryerson University, aiding students in the exploration of art through code, laser cutting and 3D printing. In 2016 Ashley was listed in the Top 100 Black Women to Watch in Canada. She feels honoured to have had the opportunity to help more than 2,000 youth learn how to code to date.
Mary Lewis is a writer, director, actress, and teacher.
Mary's film When Ponds Freeze Over made history in Canada by winning the best film award in all of TIFF, AIFF, and VIFF in the same year, as well as close to a dozen other national and international awards including a Canadian Genie in 1999. She wrote, directed, produced, and animated. It explores a unique animation-live action hybrid that was further explored in other winning films such as Come Into My Parlour and The Sparky Book.
Mary was the recipient of the Newfoundland and Labrador Artist of the Year Award in 1999. She received a Gemini in 2000 for Clothesline Patch, which she directed. Her films have been awarded Best Short Film awards in Toronto, Vancouver, Atlantic, Cinequest, Dawson City, Chicago, and Laguna Beach International Film Festivals, Columbus, Yorkton, and Excellence in Screenwriting at Flicks International Film Festivals.
Mary has acted professionally since childhood. She has appeared on radio, stage and screen in Canada and abroad. She trained at the National Theatre School, the Canadian Film Centre, studied at Le Petit Seminaire de Quebec, Memorial University of Newfoundland, and York University. Mary was born in Uganda, raised in Newfoundland and she now divides her time between Toronto and St. John's. She is a member of ACTRA, and the Writer's Guild of Canada.
Taku graduated from the Interdisciplinary program from OCAD in 1997. Then spent the next 20 years at Walter Klassen FX which was founded in 1988 by mechanical engineer Walter Klassen, with origins in the props and special effects industry, the shop has worked on leading films and television shows while expanding into a product line of bespoke camera stabilizing equipment and accessories. With work as innovative and creative as the crew who work there, Walter Klassen FX is a landmark institution in the Toronto film and camera equipment industry.
Some of Walter Klassen's list of projects include Mad Max, Suicide Squad, Star Trek Beyond & Many more…
Tom Goudie brings a unique blend of creative marketing, strategy and planning to any boardroom table by combining 12 years as a partner at one of North America's leading commercial audio production company combined with 15 years, front and center at five of Toronto's premiere advertising agencies. He also has a Specialist in Economics from the University of Toronto.
Tom has won hundreds of awards worldwide for his work in radio, television, outdoor and print. Including One Show, Marketing, Communications Arts, London International Awards and Cannes credits.
His experience touches virtually every major service and packaged good category. Including beer, technology, retail, banking and automotive. Hand-picked by Pirate to direct, write and help manage their creative department, Tom's depth of experience has grown exponentially over the past decade and he has become a much sought-after commercial audio director.
Comfortable working in all areas of marketing, Tom continues to write and advise a very selective group of direct clients and continues to be hired by leading multinational agencies for project work as well.
Jon Riera and Connor Illsley met 6 years ago at Sheridan studying film. After years of collaborating on projects they formed Combo Bravo, a technology driven production house with a focus on narrative storytelling, specializing in virtual reality and 360 video. Jon, is an established director of short film, music video and commercials. Connor is an editor, sound designer, and post production Jedi. Together they focus on bringing great stories to life with cutting edge immersive technology. Last year they travelled to Uganda, China, Germany, Ethiopia and all over Canada working with charities, brands, and agencies.
As Sheridan film students Jon Riera and Connor Illsley formed Combo Bravo after years of working on projects together. Their focuses are in technology driven production with a focus on narrative storytelling, specializing in virtual reality and 360 video.


text:
Congratulations!, Playable Females in Aliens: Colonial Marines Multiplayer!
I am happy to announce the petition is a SUCCESS!!!,
CONGRATULATIONS EVERYONE!, and thank you for your support!
From Gearbox's Community Manager Chris F.:
I am happy to be able to confirm that female marines are playable in competitive multiplayer as well as co-op, complete with customization elements. This is something the team has been planning and working on for quite some time, and that work is finally at the point where we can confirm it will indeed ship with the game when it releases on February 12, 2013.
Special Thank you to the original cast of the 1986 film ALIENS!, Without your support, this definitely wouldn't have gotten where it is today!, and for that, we are all truly thankful!
Ms. Cynthia Scott (Cpl. Dietrich): http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/include-playable-females-in-aliens-colonial/signatures/page/72#sub-3584
Mr. Ricco Ross (Pvt. Frost): http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/include-playable-females-in-aliens-colonial/signatures/page/73#sub-3613
Ms. Jenette Goldstein (Pvt. Vasquez):
Mr. William Hope (Lt. Gorman):
Mr. Trevor Steedman (Pvt. Wierzbowski):
Ms. Colette Hiller (Cpl. Ferro) {email response} [Not yet listed]:
"Dear Melissa,
I will sign your petition. And you can feel free to use my name to gain further support.
Best wishes and best of luck!
Colette Hiller – Corp Ferro"
Our Petition Supporters posing to promote the petition!
From Left to Right: Trevor Steedman (Wierzbowski), Cynthia Scott (Dietrich), Ricco Ross (Frost), Colette Hiller (Ferro) and Daniel Kash (Spunkmeyer)
Thanks so much again!
Gearbox's Aliens Colonial Marines page
Gearbox's official A:CM Message Boards
SEGAs Aliens: Colonial Marines page


text:
By Joe Cantwell
Originally published in the October 2010 issue of Today's Facility Manager
Modular central plants (MCPs) are emerging as smart, efficient options to traditional "stick-built" mechanical rooms. These freestanding, self-contained units are up to 15% less expensive to build than conventional utility plants.
MCPs offer reduced risk, because they are pre engineered, designed, built, and tested by experts in a quality controlled environment. Plus, MCPs are compact, often requiring just two thirds the space of a conventional plant. That leaves more space available for revenue generating operations and offers today's facility managers (fms) the reduced risk and increased flexibility they demand.
For all these reasons, MCPs are an attractive alternative to traditional builds. And as the U.S. economy begins to show signs of recovery, the benefits of MCPs will become increasingly clear in four specific markets poised for growth.
The population is aging and living longer. Healthcare fms must plan for that future growth without compromising present service levels. The key is flexibility. As campuses grow or the demands of existing buildings increase, MCPs will give hospitals the ability to add modules easily with little to no disruption in service. MCPs can also be moved to make way for future construction or, in the case of consolidation, to move capacity to another location.
That same flexibility allows hospitals to address mounting financial challenges as well. In an environment of declining reimbursements, increasing bad debt, and difficulty in accessing capital due to tight credit markets, MCPs give hospitals the ability to plan for the future but build only what is needed today.
And aesthetically, today's modular plants have come a long way. MCPs now sport custom paint colors and can be designed to match existing siding, brick, wood, or stone. Exterior panels can even be made to control sound for acoustically sensitive applications (such as hospitals), where noise must be kept to a minimum and where patient satisfaction is critical.
Data Centers
The U.S. data center industry is in the midst of a major growth period. One survey conducted by Digital Realty Trust indicated that 83% of the large firms surveyed in North America were planning to expand their data center facilities in the next 12 to 24 months. [Source: Digital Realty Trust, Inc., March 3, 2010.]
MCPs are perfectly positioned to address the challenges posed by data center development. Modular technology can grow with the business, allowing fms to plan for the future but build and pay for only what is needed now.
MCPs can also be designed to meet the specific uptime and redundancy requirements for Tier I to Tier IV data center certifications. They can be configured to incorporate features essential for data centers such as power interruption remedies and quick restart capabilities.
These plants are also pre engineered, designed, built, and tested by experts in a quality controlled environment. Because 80% of the work is done in-house, the risk of delays or failure during startup is minimized.
College enrollment rates are at an all time high. According to a recent U.S. Labor Department report, the rate has been trending up for decades and is now continuing to rise, in part, because the poor job market is encouraging more people to pursue higher education. Campuses are having to stretch their cooling capacity to accommodate increased enrollment.
MCPs are able to deliver the flexibility today's educational institutions require. Cooling capacity can be added easily when needed, and because MCP footprints are compact, the units require less of the valuable real estate conventional stick built plants demand. By locating MCPs outdoors, interior spaces such as basements can be freed up for use as classrooms or for extracurricular activities.
Perhaps most importantly, MCPs can be built quickly. Project completion times are reduced by as much as 40% compared to stick built plants. And because MCPs arrive pre built, tested, and ready to start up, they can easily be commissioned during slower summer months.
Although the U.S. economy may be showing slight signs of recovery, businesses of all sizes remain under pressure to cut costs and increase efficiencies. Modular plants offer fms a cost-effective cooling option. MCPs are manufactured off site in a controlled environment, free from weather interruptions or the impact of delays from other on-site conditions. As a result, these mechanical rooms can cost up to 10% to 15% less than a conventional build, leaving more dollars available for revenue generating activities.
MCPs also offer increased serviceability. While the MCP layout is relatively compact, it is carefully configured for ease of access, operation, and maintenance with a floor plan that allows multiple service technicians to work in the same area simultaneously. Many of today's MCPs offer features such as pump and chiller hoist rails, wide service doors, removable wall panels, and overhead roof hatches.
And finally, MCPs may be easier for custodial and maintenance staff to keep clean (compared to conventional plants). Inside an MCP, lipped draining trays under the condensers eliminate cross contamination from one module to another. In addition, all surfaces are steel plate or aluminum compared to concrete surfaces of a conventional build.
Making The Most Of MCPs
In these four markets poised for growth, MCPs offer a cost-effective, flexible, efficient cooling option. And while the merits of MCPs are impressive in their own right, the benefits are magnified when MCPs are incorporated into a plant designed for energy efficiency. When combined with building management systems that monitor energy usage, and energy efficient equipment such as chillers with variable speed drives, MCPs help fms create and maintain comfortable, safe, efficient, and sustainable environments and provide 24/7/365 reliability.
Cantwell is marketing manager of Johnson Controls Rental and Modular Solutions. He has been with York and Johnson Controls for 15 years.
Have you investigated the possibility of MCPs for your facility? Send your thoughts to email@example.com.


text:
(CNN) -- For the honor of Grayskull!
2010 marks the 25th anniversary of "She-Ra: Princess of Power," otherwise known as "Princess Adora," aka "The Most Powerful Woman in the Universe."
Last week, "She-Ra" was released on DVD, iTunes and Hulu.com. And throughout the year, toy manufacturer Mattel has been releasing collectible action figures based on characters from "She-Ra" and the character's twin brother He-Man, also known as Prince Adam.
"She-Ra: Princess of Power" began airing in 1985. Ninety-three episodes were produced, along with a Christmas special, books, a magazine, comics and of course, the toys.
At one point in every episode, Princess Adora would transform into her alter ego, She-Ra, whenever justice on Etheria was threatened.
She would reach for her sword and utter her famous phrase, "For the honor of Grayskull! I am She-Ra!" Then in a tornado-like swirl of colorful glitter (and a theme song), she would morph into her alter ego.
Lisa Baron, who runs a She-Ra fan site, told CNN, "She-Ra holds a special place in my heart because every afternoon for 30 minutes, I could escape into a fantasy world of the magic that was She-Ra. Her voice was captivating, she had great messages for children and kids looked up to her as a great female role model."
CNN spoke to the voice behind She-Ra, actress and voiceover artist Melendy Britt, about the anniversary, her experiences on the series and the character's lasting relevance as one of the first female superheroes.
CNN: How did you approach the character of She-Ra?
Melendy Britt: She-Ra was very different from any other character I did. She had more of an impact on my psyche and I had a strange instinct about the character when I auditioned for it and I knew she was a spiritual character who had a basic concern for everyone. I wanted to make sure my voice showed the change from Adora's youth and innocence to She-Ra's wisdom and self-assured power.
CNN: Did you know the actor who did the voices for He-Man and the other characters?
Britt: Absolutely! It was an incredible cast with a group of very, very talented people. John Erwin was the voice of He-Man. He has since moved away from California. He also did the voice of Morris the Cat. George DiCenzo, who was Hordak; he was another very talented man. Alan Oppenheimer, who played Skeletor in the series, gave us great laughs. He's still in L.A., and we talk to one another every now and then.
CNN: Did you have any of the toys? What's it like to have your own action figure?
Britt: I do have the She-Ra action figure. You see, my kids were in junior high when the series premiered, so they weren't interested. But I got She-Ra, Swift Wind and Catra. Over the years, I've let kids who've been visiting me play with them, so they're not in pristine condition.
As far as having my own action figure, I think if I'd received a lot of money from it, it would be like winning the lottery, but since I don't get any payment from that, it just feels kind of interesting. I do remember that when I first saw the action figure, I thought, "Gee, I think she kind of looks like me."
CNN: Did you ever meet kids who grew up with She-Ra? Did they make you say the lines?
Britt: When I was doing the series, I met lots of kids who watched the show, and they'd ask me to do the lines, particularly "For the honor of Grayskull!" And then many times parents would ask me to call their kids on their birthdays and talk to them.
CNN: If they made a live action movie version today, who do you think should play She-Ra?
Britt: That is such a hard one. I'd have to have a big list and kind of narrow it down to one person, if it could even be one person. Right now, my brain goes to Angelina Jolie, Beyonce and even Lady Gaga with a little Meryl Streep thrown in.
CNN: What other characters have you voiced in your career?
Britt: Well, on "She-Ra," I did Catra, Castaspella, Hunga the Harpy and some others I can't recall. Before "She-Ra," I was Batgirl and Catwoman in "The New Adventures of Batman," and Aura from "Flash Gordon." I did various characters in "Transformers," "The Wild Thornberrys" and I was the Wicked Queen in "A Snow White Christmas," among many others.
CNN: Do you have a favorite episode?
Britt: I have a few, but for different reasons. Some because of the emotional content of She-Ra's voice, and then some were my favorites because of the impact of the show.
CNN: What was really going on between She-Ra and Sea Hawk?
Britt: Not a lot. I think honestly that She-Ra had a calling, maybe as Adora. If she was only Adora, maybe there could have been a relationship with Sea Hawk, but she had a much higher calling that really didn't include him.
CNN: If the show had continued, how do you think it would have wrapped up?
Britt: Maybe they'd have continued with She-Ra and her challenges with people trying to bring evil into Eternia, but if she exhausted all the challenges, I don't know if there'd be any drama.
CNN: How does She-Ra compare to the current crop of cartoons? Could She-Ra even be made today? Or would there be too many parental concerns about violence?
Britt: The only one [current cartoon] that I have watched that I think is funny is "Spongebob Squarepants," and it seems there's a lot of white-collar violence going on there.
CNN: Why do you think She-Ra's 25th anniversary is so special?
Britt: For me, it's a chance to, again, have these memories of a series character which made me realize that I had a real part in people's lives and that they love and remember her. For others, it's a chance to relive and share the days of their childhood. I think each person has their own memories.
CNN: Why do you think She-Ra still holds a special place in the hearts of women who grew up watching She-Ra as little girls?
Britt: She was one of the first role models who combined femininity with feminism making her truly, really the most powerful woman in the world. I've been told by some of the female fans -- particularly this one woman who set up a fan site for She-Ra, and for me -- that they were really able to identify with her. That they felt great that not only boys had someone to look up to and meant something special to girls who were able to watch it.


text:
We've met Zack Hample before, and we haven't exactly been kind to him. That's because Hample is a ballhawk—a member of that fraternity of obsessive dudes who hang around ballparks and trample babies whenever Omar Infante flips a baseball into the stands. Nevertheless, Zack reached out to us this morning after suffering what he deemed to be a grave injustice at last night's Dodgers-Nationals game. Zack says that he was unfairly kicked out of Nationals Park, and he wants his story to be heard by the masses.
It started when Zack tried to arrange the day's bounty—11 baseballs in all—in a club-level hallway of the stadium so that he could pose for a photograph with his trophies (that's him setting up for the photo-op in the picture above). At that point, a stadium employee must have noticed him and reached the conclusion that Zack was illegally selling baseballs like some sort of dirty huckster. At least, that's what Zack thinks.
We'll let him explain the rest:
I was approached by a police officer. He told me he'd gotten a call from someone who reported that I was selling baseballs. I was like, WTF, and told him very calmly that it simply wasn't true and that there must've been a mistake. Then more cops showed up. Then the head of stadium security showed up, along with his assistant and other stadium personnel. There were seven of them, and they insisted that I'd sold a baseball, which they told me is illegal to do on their private property. I told them that I'd snagged more than 6,300 baseballs in my life and never sold one — that I was proud of never having sold one . . . that I once turned down a $10,000 offer for a Barry Bonds home run that I caught, that I'd turned down a $500 offer last year after catching the Mike Trout homer, that I give away baseballs to kids at just about every game I attend, that I've raised all that money for charity, and so on. I even offered to take a lie-detector test, but they didn't want to hear any of it. They simply insisted that I'd sold a baseball, and they ejected me from the stadium.
It really sucks, and I don't even know what to do at this point.
Thanks for listening to me rant.
Jackbooted security goons vs. baby-punching souvenir-monger? Tough call, but we'll suspend our usual sneering at ballhawks and side with Hample on this one. Can't a fellow take a photo of himself and his 11 official MLB baseballs without getting hassled by The Man?