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In his introduction to this particular Fighting For The Faith program, Chris Rosebrough gives a serious warning to those who twist God's Word.
Chris begins:
"In my lecture I delivered in Norway on "sola scriptura", my primary text was the Great Commission. Let me read what the Great Commission says …"
Matthew 28:18-20: "And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me."
That's an important statement right there, and a lot of people, when they look at the Great Commission, they often ignore that. Ok, Jesus isn't speaking his opinion, he's speaking what he's giving us to do now that all authority, yes all, there's no authority in heaven or on earth that hasn't been given to Christ. He is the head not the tail, if you know what I mean and He has willed for His church to do something very specific. Here's what it says,
"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations."
What is a disciple? A disciple is a learner. What are they to be learning? Well, Jesus answers, he says:
"…make disciples of all nations, baptising the in the name of the Father, Son and. Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all I have commanded you."
Yes, in other words, in the Great Commission, you actually hear the doctrine of Sola Scriptura writ large by Jesus himself because in His church, according to the authority that has been given to Him, Christ has said to go and make disciples. And what is it we're supposed to be teaching them? All that Christ has commanded.
Now you're thinking "well, where do I find that?" Yes, that's a great question, I'm glad you asked. The only place I know of that you can go with any certainty and know that you are actually teaching the words of Christ, is all of the written word of God. And you're thinking, "Woah, wait a second there Chris. You know Jesus is a New Testament guy, you know. He doesn't even show up until, you know, the beginning of the Book of Matthew!"
And I would say, "if you think that, then you don't know your bible." Because Jesus is all over the Old Testament, all over it. He's right there in Genesis chapter 1, verse 1. He was the one who said: "Let there be light". He was the one who said: "Let the earth produce vegetation and plant and seed bearing trees according to their kinds." He is the one who spoke the universe into existence, that's right, Jesus is the one. And so, he makes appearances all throughout the Old Testament. He's all over the place and really the whole Old Testament is about him.
And so I know with certainty because Jesus says, Jesus himself. When he was doing his earthly ministry here, when he was incarnate in his humbled state, to come and to die on the cross for our sins and to obey God's Law perfectly. Jesus himself makes it clear that the Old Testament as we have it, that would be the Pentateuch, you know, the first five books of the bible, the writings of the prophets. That this is the Word of God. He always refers to it as that and quotes it authoritatively. So I know the Old Testament, that the Word of God, those are words of Christ. And I also know that the writings of the Apostles we find in the New Testament, those are also authoritative . And they are the words that Christ would have us learn because Jesus Himself, He personally didn't write any books. We don't have a single book that Jesus wrote Himself during his earthly ministry. In fact, He left that up to the Apostles and He tasked them with the job of making disciples of all nations. And the disciples are discipling the nations even to this day, through the Apostolic records.
So yes, I'm sorry but if you believe that we've been commissioned to go make disciples, learners, of all nations, baptising, teaching all that Christ has commanded, well then that demands Sola Scriptura. Not only does it demand Sola Scriptura, it also demands that the one who gets up and speaks in Christ's church, remember all authority has been given to Him, the one who gets up and dares to speak in Christ's church had better only speak what Christ would have us speak.
And that is what He has revealed in His written Word, rightly understood and correctly taught. Otherwise that person, who is speaking his own words, his own doctrines, his own ideas and supplanting what Christ has commanded us, with their own ideas, oh, that it a wicked servant, that is the type of servant that is discussed well in John chapter 10, the hireling who jumps the fence and doesn't come in by the gate. Yes those are the ones you need to beware of and over and again we show here at "Fighting For The Faith", day in, day out, week in, week out, month in, month out, and now year and year and year – you know we've been on the air for almost ten years, I cannot believe we're coming up on ten years but still have a little ways to go.
We're not quite there yet but we demonstrate that so much of what passes for preaching today in Christ's church, the one to whom all authority has been given in Heaven and on earth, it doesn't actually square with what Jesus has told us to teach. It isn't an historical biblical Christian orthodoxy, it's not sound doctrine at all, it's something completely different and that is dangerous and not only that, that is flat out rebellious.
You call yourself a Christian? You call yourself a Christian and you twist and mangle God's Word without any pangs of conscious? Beware, that is sin of the highest order, it's treason in Christ's church and it is a sin for which many will find themselves in the lake of fire. So repent. Don't listen to the bible twisters. Christ doesn't want you to listen to them. He only wants you to listen to those faithful shepherds who rightly handling His Word and proclaiming the Truth and proclaiming Christ and truly making disciples of Jesus by only teaching what He has commanded….something to think about."
The particular sermon delivered and reviewed in this program is from Caley Korocz, a young woman who attends C3 Oxford Falls in Sydney, the same C3 led by Phil Pringle.
Chris asks us to,
"note the pattern of how God's Word is twisted, very similar in each of our segments. [see program below] Not exactly sure how to describe what we are hearing but it's a far from a correct handling of God's Word. It's like the exact opposite of what that would supposedly sound like. But then again, the C3 folks, you know, they're not really into that "God's Word" much thingy at all. No they twist it and and disobey it and ignore parts of it and all this kind of stuff including the part that actually forbids who it is you're going to be hearing, from doing what it is that's she doing.
Yes, Gods Word certainly forbids what it is we're going to hear Caley do but apparently that has not stopped the folks over there at C3 church to give her the stage, the podium and let her preach a sermon and twist God's Word, (which of course she will not be disciplined for, but I will be called a "hater" for pointing out that what's she done is sinful and wrong)."
We here at ChurchWatch are saddened to see this young woman, (who is obviously a talented communicator), believe she is called of God to preach a false message that brings no hope. A false message that burdens its hearers with Law, Law, Law and no gospel. All this happening under the watch of Phil Pringle (and yes, he has told the church he watches online whenever possible). A hireling who, rather than take up the task of preaching faithfully through the sound text of scripture week by week as a faithful shepherd would do, allows the "summer Session" attendees be exposed to a message that brings "death", not LIFE as found in Christ and His Word faithfully preached.
A hireling who draws disciples after himself.
"Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore be alert." Acts 20:28-31
Dr. Paul Kretzmann in his Popular Commentary noted:
[Paul] knew that after his departure from them, in a future which was not greatly distant, there would enter into the flock from without grievous, ravening, ferocious wolves, false teachers that would have no mercy on the flock, but would use every means to disrupt the congregation, to murder the souls by trying to persuade them to accept false doctrine. And in addition there would be factionists from within, out of their own membership, men that would arise…with a doctrine full of perverse and antichristian matter, with the intention of drawing away those that were already Christians, the latter thereby becoming guilty of apostasy from the truth and from the true Church of Christ. These two dangers looming up before them, the elders of Ephesus should watch, be on their guard, exert constant vigilance." [Source]
Click on the link below to listen to the FFTF Podcast, "What Noise Will you Make in 2016?"
What Noise Will You Make in 2016?
00:12:14 – Lou Engle The Call Azusa Now
00:34:15 – Tammy Southerland Fire House Prayer and Revival Hub Launch
00:39:37 – Tim Philip Believing is Seeing
00:57:34 – Bobby Schuller Interviews Brian Houston
01:16:39 – Sermon Review: What Noise Will You Make in 2016? by Caley Korocz of C3 Sydney
Source: Chris Rosebrough, What Noise Will You Make in 2016?, Pirate Christian Radio, http://www.piratechristian.com/fightingforthefaith/2016/1/what-noise-will-you-make-in-2016, Published 25/01/2016. (Accessed 29/01/2016.)
Categories: C3 Church


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BERLIN – The state Medical Examiner's Office on Monday positively identified the human remains discovered near a vacant residence in Somerset County last week as a former Ocean City resident who went missing in February 2006 and her suspected murderer was identified and arrested a short time later in North Carolina.
Using dental records, the remains found in the backyard of a vacant home in rural Somerset County on April 10 were found to be Rhonda Lee Parks, whose last known address was on 4th Street in Ocean City. Parks, a Crisfield native who had lived at different times all over the lower shore, was believed to have been living in Ocean City at the time of her disappearance in February 2006.
She was last seen at a Shore Transit bus stop behind the District Court building in Salisbury around 10:30 a.m. on Feb. 3, 2006. Four days later, Parks' pocketbook and a pair of jeans she was believed to have been wearing at the time of her disappearance were found along Route 13 in Westover just four miles from where the human remains were found on April 10, leading police to believe the remains could have belonged to Parks.
Parks, who was five months pregnant when she went missing, was a certified nursing assistant working at PRMC in Salisbury at the time of her disappearance. Her disappearance remained a cold case until the Somerset County Sheriff's Office received a tip from police in North Carolina about possible remains in the Manokin area in Somerset.
On April 10, the Somerset County Sheriff's Office along with Maryland State Police and Maryland Natural Resources Police responded to the residence in question and found Parks' remains on the property. About 10 feet from the vacant house, investigators discovered in a 55-gallon steel drum the burned and badly decomposed remains of what turned out to be Parks.
Parks' alleged killer, Joseph Olandis Walter Hayman, Jr., 35, previously of Manokin in Somerset County who now lives in Charlotte, N.C., was arrested there this week and was charged with first- and second-degree murder, first- and second-degree assault and handgun violations. He was taken into custody without incident and is being held in Mecklenberg County, N.C. while awaiting extradition, which is being prepared by the Somerset County State's Attorney's Office.
It is not known if Hayman was Parks' boyfriend, but he is definitely considered an acquaintance according to police reports. Another report suggested Hayman might have lived with Parks in Ocean City prior to her disappearance.

subset: commoncrawl


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|XIE, ZHUOHONG - University Of Maryland
|ZHAO, YANG - University Of Maryland
|Chen, Pei
|YU, LIANGLI - University Of Maryland
Submitted to: Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/28/2010
Publication Date: 10/12/2010
Citation: Xie, Z., Zhao, Y., Chen, P., Yu, L. 2010. Chromatographic fingerprint analysis and rutin and quercetin compositions in the leaf and whole-plant samples of di- and tetraploid Gynostemma pentaphyllum. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. 7:3042-3049.
Interpretive Summary: Gynostemma pentaphyllum (Thunb.) Makino is a traditional Chinese herb that has shown antioxidant and anticancer activity and decreases inflammation. Flavonoids, chemical compounds found in this herb, are considered to be contributors to these beneficial effects. To obtain the chemical pattern of flavonoids present in different types of G. pentaphyllum (those with two or with four sets of genes or genotypes) and in different parts of plants, an approach called fingerprinting was used requiring the use of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with diode array detector (DAD) and mass spectrometry (MS). Eight flavonoids were identified, among which rutin and quercetin were quantified. The data on flavonoid content was translated into chemical patterns by principal component analysis (PCA), a statistical method of looking at the data. The 8 flavonoids identified were used as characteristic peaks for all the tested samples. Chemical patterns from the two different genotypes were significantly different. Combining the fingerprinting with the analysis for content can be used for quality assessment of materials used in G. pentaphyllum-derived dietary supplements.
Technical Abstract: Gynostemma pentaphyllum (Thunb.) Makino is a traditional Chinese herb that has shown antioxidant, antiproliferative, and anti-inflammatory activities. Flavonoids are considered to be major contributors to these beneficial effects. To obtain chemical pattern of flavonoids in G. pentaphyllum of different genotypes (diploids vs tetraploids) and different parts of plants, the extraction condition was optimized and a fingerprinting approach was established by means of high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with diode array detector and mass spectrometry (HPLC–DAD–MS). Eight flavonoids were identified, among which rutin and quercetin were quantified. The chemical patterns were further analyzed by principal component analysis (PCA). Eight common characteristic peaks were found in all the tested samples. the chemical pattern of the tetraploid genotype was significantly different from diploid whereas different parts of plants showed less difference. The pattern of standard reference was similar to diploids. The combination of chromatographic fingerprint and quantification analysis can be used for quality assessment and verification of G. pentaphyllum-derived dietary ingredients.


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A congressman who spent this past weekend at the border with Mexico came back with a chilling story about a barrage of high-caliber gunfire that scattered U.S. Border Patrol agents while at least 40 illegal immigrants emerged from the weeds of the Rio Grande River.
Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, says he's worried about what else may have come into the country as those border agents were occupied taking in and processing the illegal aliens from Central America. And he believes the gunshots were fired by smugglers more than likely as a diversion tactic and not meant to actually kill any U.S. border agents.
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Yet, Gohmert says, he was not surprised that the gunfire, confirmed by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, drew no response from the White House. Same for leaders of both parties in Congress.
Other than a report by Fox News Monday, the story got no coverage from mainstream media outlets. Out of that silence, Gohmert hears a message.
TRENDING: Ivanka Trump made a quiet visit to Maui after the wildfires
"The Department of Homeland Security didn't want an issue made of this, and if I were not out there on the ground in the area where this happened Friday night, you probably would have never heard of it because Homeland Security doesn't want a big deal made out of it," Gohmert told WND in a phone interview Tuesday. "Our president doesn't want a big deal made out of it, our leaders in Congress don't want to make a big deal out of it, because that would mean they would have to do more to secure our border."
Gohmert said he arrived at the Texas border about 30 minutes after the shots rang out, and was able to get a first-hand account of what happened. He spent two days and two nights there, returning to Capitol Hill on Monday. It was at least his third trip to the border in the past few months, he said. But he did not expect to hear that Border Patrol agents were taking heavy machine-gun fire.
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"In the case of a .50-caliber gun, the noise is so earth shattering that, unlike a .223-caliber round that can sometimes go unnoticed, it's very clear – you know immediately it's indeed gunfire," he said.
He said he's not surprised the high-caliber rifle fire met with a low-key response from official Washington.
"I understand there may be a more official position, that it was gunfire but that it may not have been directed at our guys," Gohmert said. "In our case we were in a position where you could talk to people right there as it happened and get their stories before their superiors could help them with their stories."
The gunfire broke out between 8 and 9 p.m. Friday, just before darkness descended on the area.
Gohmert said the border agents were positioned near two large oil or gas tanks. There will often be two or three vehicles parked there because it's a good place to interview people coming across the border. It's less than 50 yards from the banks of the river.
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"They said they were hearing .50-caliber rounds and ricochets came up in their direction and they immediately sought cover, and they remained behind something protecting them until it stopped," Gohmert said, relating the story as it was told to him by the agents. "Our Border Patrol has nothing to stop a .50-caliber round, and when it stopped they immediately came from behind their cover and 40 to 50 people came up from the water."
Gohmert said he believes the purpose of the shots "was to cause our Border Patrol to have to seek cover and clearly they did not want anyone seeing or stopping what was coming across. And then they will be tied up processing the illegals and so they didn't have the manpower to go through the brush and the trees, the heavy brush along the river banks there, to see what else may have accompanied the 40 or so illegal immigrants that gave rise to the .50-caliber fire.
"We're told they were not firing directly at our agents, but they were firing toward them, in their general direction, and caused them to seek cover," Gohmert continued. "They weren't firing at but toward, in the general area and they accomplished apparently what they wanted, which was to keep them (border agents) from seeing what had crossed over the border after the illegals."
The Obama administration has said the numbers of illegal crossings have begun to slow down, and Democrats in Congress such as Rep. Joachin Castro, D-Texas, have lashed out at Texas Gov. Rick Perry for sending 1,000 state National Guard troops to help patrol the border. Castro, the brother of Obama's secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Julian Castro, and son of a woman who helped found the radical Chicano socialist group Council for La Raza, called Perry's move a "militarization" of the border that is unwarranted by crime statistics in the border areas, which he says show no increase or cause for concern.
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"Militarizing our border is the wrong response to the arrival of children," Castro said in a July 21 email to Politico. "I remain hopeful that our state can provide a more helpful response than to send armed soldiers to greet children seeking refuge from violence."
But Gohmert doesn't buy that argument. He doesn't believe all those crossing over are innocent young children seeking refuge from violence. The majority are teenage boys with unknown backgrounds, and he praises the actions that Texas has taken to help protect the state from potential criminal elements.
"The administration will say the numbers are down now. Well, I would submit that the reason the numbers are down is because Texas has been doing something about it," Gohmert told WND.
"They've spent millions on boats going up and down the river, they've brought in the Texas Rangers, we've have already been supplementing the federal government with significant state assets and if the coyotes [smugglers] know they can't get the people they're smuggling to the border then they won't bring them. So the president can say the numbers are down but he's taking the credit for what the state has accomplished. Make no mistake about our Border Patrol agents, they are doing a great job with what they've been given, but they need help and they're not getting it from this administration in the White House."
Gohmert also addressed the role that the Texas National Guard will be playing at the border when those troops arrive over the next 30 days. Some conservatives have criticized Perry's deployment of the National Guard because they haven't been given authority to arrest or detain illegals.
"The lack of authority to detain people will not be a problem so long as they can meet them on the border and refuse them entry into the United States if they are attempting to come in illegally," Gohmert said.


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§29B-1-3. Inspection and copying of public record; requests of Freedom of Information Act requests registry.
(a) Every person has a right to inspect or copy any public record of a public body in this state, except as otherwise expressly provided by section four of this article.
(b) A request to inspect or copy any public record of a public body shall be made directly to the custodian of such public record.
(c) The custodian of any public records, unless otherwise expressly provided by statute, shall furnish proper and reasonable opportunities for inspection and examination of the records in his or her office and reasonable facilities for making memoranda or abstracts therefrom, during the usual business hours, to all persons having occasion to make examination of them. The custodian of the records may make reasonable rules and regulations necessary for the protection of the records and to prevent interference with the regular discharge of his or her duties. If the records requested exist in magnetic, electronic or computer form, the custodian of the records shall make copies available on magnetic or electronic media, if so requested.
(d) All requests for information must state with reasonable specificity the information sought. The custodian, upon demand for records made under this statute, shall as soon as is practicable but within a maximum of five days not including Saturdays, Sundays or legal holidays:
(1) Furnish copies of the requested information;
(2) Advise the person making the request of the time and place at which he or she may inspect and copy the materials; or
(3) Deny the request stating in writing the reasons for such denial. A denial shall indicate that the responsibility of the custodian of any public records or public body to produce the requested records or documents is at an end, and shall afford the person requesting them the opportunity to institute proceedings for injunctive or declaratory relief in the circuit court in the county where the public record is kept.
(e) The public body may establish fees reasonably calculated to reimburse it for its actual cost in making reproductions of records. A public body may not charge a search or retrieval fee or otherwise seek reimbursement based on a man-hour basis as part of costs associated with making reproduction of records.
(f) The Secretary of State shall maintain an electronic data base of notices of requests as required by section three-a of this article. The database shall be made available to the public via the Internet and shall list each freedom of information request received and the outcome of the request. The Secretary of State shall provide on the website a form for use by a public body to report the results of the freedom of information request, providing the nature of the request and the public body's response thereto, whether the request was granted, and if not, the exemption asserted under section four of this article to deny the request.


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NEW ORLEANS — From the moment Summer Duskin arrived at Carver Collegiate Academy in New Orleans last fall, she struggled to keep track of all the rules. There were rules governing how she talked. She had to say thank you constantly, including when she was given the "opportunity"—as the school handbook put it—to answer questions in class. And she had to communicate using "scholar talk," which the school defined as complete, grammatical sentences with conventional vocabulary. When students lapsed, they were corrected by a teacher and asked to repeat the amended statement.
There were rules governing how Summer moved. Teachers issued demerits when students leaned against a wall, or placed their heads on their desks. (The penalty for falling asleep was 10 demerits, which triggered a detention; skipping detention could warrant a suspension.) Teachers praised students for shaking hands firmly, sitting up straight, and "tracking" the designated speaker with their eyes. The 51-page handbook encouraged students to twist in their chairs or whip their necks around to follow whichever classmate or teacher held the floor. Closed eyes carried a penalty of two demerits. The rules did not ease up between classes: students had to walk single file between the wall and a line marked with orange tape.
And there were, predictably, rules governing how Summer dressed. Carver Collegiate's coed code called for khaki pants pulled up to the hip; a black or brown leather (or imitation leather) belt; a school-issued polo shirt with the collar turned down; a white or black undershirt; and no hats, sunglasses, sparkles, flash, or bling of any kind. Students could be barred from class for wearing the wrong kind of shoe, such as the popular Air Jordans; the code mandated specific colors, styles, and brands, Adidas and Chuck Taylor among them.
Summer was a high school freshman, 14 years old. "It felt like I was in elementary school," she said, where in fact she had had it easy by New Orleans standards: she'd been spared the silent lunches and embarrassing punishments her peers at some other schools had endured. At Carver, Summer quietly rejoiced whenever she discovered a way to assert her individuality without breaking code, like wearing purple lipstick.
Related: Why are black students being paddled more in the public schools?
Over the past two decades, hundreds of elementary and middle schools across the country have embraced an uncompromisingly stern approach to educating low-income students of color. But only more recently have some of the charter networks that helped popularize strictness, including the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP), opened high schools—an expansion that has tested the model in new, and divisive, ways. There's no official name for this type of school, and not all of the informal terms please the educators in charge: the ethos is often described as "no excuses," "paternalistic," or devoted to "sweating the small stuff." The schools, most of them urban charters, share an aversion to even minor signs of disorder and a pressing need to meet the test-based achievement standards of the No Child Left Behind era or else find themselves shuttered. Front and center in their defense of intensive regimentation for their predominantly minority students is a stirring goal beyond that bottom line: to send all their graduates, many of them first-generation college aspirants, on to higher education.
Yet a growing array of critics is concerned that the no-excuses approach more effectively contributes to very different results: a flagrant form of two-tiered education and a rise in racially skewed suspension and expulsion rates for low-level misbehavior—a trend that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has railed against repeatedly over the past year. Some go further, arguing that those taped lines point the way to prison rather than to college—that the harsh discipline is a civil-rights abomination, destined to push too many kids out of school and into trouble with the law. For the families involved, particularly the students, the story is more complicated. Many of them come to appreciate the intense structure, but only if they also come to trust the mostly young educators who enforce it. As school leaders in New Orleans are discovering, forging that trust is far harder than teaching someone to say thank you and toe an orange line.
New Orleans schools, which have taken the experiment with paternalistic public education to a new extreme, have been at the forefront of extending regimented discipline to the high school level. After Hurricane Katrina devastated the region in 2005, the city became a proving ground for the most popular and contentious reforms. The charter school movement grew, spreading a heavy reliance on alternative teacher recruiting programs like Teach for America—and a commitment to comprehensive, punitive discipline policies very different from the pedagogical flexibility and emphasis on individual expression favored by many traditional education schools.
In step with an energetic breed of charter advocates nationally, the reformers who descended on New Orleans were convinced that progressive pedagogy and discipline had an especially sorry record in low-income districts, where many children faced more than their share of disorder and violence. Chaotic classrooms, the newcomers argued, were a major reason schools floundered and failed. The controversial broken-windows theory—which holds that a firm response to minor signs of disarray, like broken windows, is essential to inhibiting more-serious criminal activity— was the reigning analogy, invoked by top administrators on down. No infraction was too small to address. A uniform violation, I heard one high school teacher remark, "means a broken window, which means a broken path to college."
There was no better place to apply this theory than in New Orleans, where, the year before Katrina, about two-thirds of schools failed to meet Louisiana's standards for acceptable performance, defined largely by test scores. By one estimate, based on a combination of local, state, and federal data, 5 percent of the city's black public school students went on to graduate from college. Former students and teachers told too many stories of decrepit buildings where hallways reeked of marijuana, burned-out teachers slept through class, frightened students carried weapons for self-protection, and few people talked about college.
Almost a decade has passed since reformers began overhauling the school system, and academic performance has improved citywide: nearly two-thirds of students in grades three through eight currently meet state proficiency standards. Graduation-rate data, several researchers agree, still isn't solid enough to cite. Yet along with the growth in achievement has come plenty of debate about what is driving it. As New Orleans students who entered kindergarten after Katrina make their way into the city's new high schools, Summer Duskin isn't the only one questioning the doctrinaire approach to discipline. Some educators themselves are wondering whether it has become an obstacle to progress.
Related: Special education too often leads to jail for thousands of American schoolchildren
Idealistic and ambitious young charter-school leaders like Ben Kleban and Ben Marcovitz arrived in New Orleans as fervent believers in an unwaveringly firm approach. "In 2007–8, if a student had a stripe on their sock or a mark on a shoe, there was a consequence," says Kleban, who was 27 when he founded New Orleans College Prep seven years ago, admitting sixth-graders who this year became the first batch of 12th-grade graduates at Kleban's high school, Cohen College Prep. As a student named Erin Lockley quickly discovered upon her entry into the New Orleans College Prep network in 2008, her teachers meant business. After hastily pulling on a green undershirt on the first day, rather than the requisite black or white one, she was barred from class until she changed it— and she had to write out her multiplication tables (from one to 14) 10 times that night as punishment.
Ben Marcovitz—now 35 and the CEO of Collegiate Academies, which runs three charter high schools, among them Carver Collegiate, Summer's school—embraced stringent discipline and character education, too, when he launched the first of his trio, Sci Academy, in 2008. And in 2010, KIPP opened a high school in New Orleans, among the first for the charter network, which initially focused just on the middle grades and now encompasses more than 160 schools nationally. As part of its college push—KIPP's current, ambitious target is bachelor's degrees for three-quarters of its graduates—the network decided to extend its hyper-structured approach straight up to the college door.
At the inaugural parents' meeting, in late August of 2010, the administrators of the new KIPP high school, called Renaissance, didn't have a hard sell. Dozens of eager mothers, plus a few fathers, had climbed two flights of stairs on that sweltering evening to listen to the school's 31-year-old principal, Brian Dassler, describe his vision for the school. Several parents fanned themselves with copies of the school's so-called discipline matrix, and the audience cheered him on as he outlined the school's "no idling" policy. After Dassler noted that the Renaissance staff hadn't been vigilant enough about preventing the students from rolling up the sleeves of their uniforms, a mother shouted, "Get even stricter, Mr. Dassler! Do it!" Another chimed in, "You have to be hard and strict. You can't be soft, because you know how these kids are."
For the many parents who shared the charter founders' big dreams of college, those hopes went along with a more immediate concern: keeping their children safe. As the sociologist Annette Lareau documents in Unequal Childhoods (2003), low-income parents as a group tend toward a firmly directive approach with their children, whereas middle-class parents typically favor a more solicitous tack, encouraging their kids to question adult authority. Lareau takes note of the different effects on behavior: dutiful respect versus a sense of entitlement.
As adolescence arrives, strict enforcement gets harder, but no less urgent in the eyes of many families in urban settings like New Orleans—and for good reason. Children growing up poor and black in the city are more likely to witness gun violence and street drug sales than their middle-class peers are. Once teens, they are more likely to attract the suspicion of the police, to be arrested if they break the law, to spend their lives behind bars, and to die young. If they make a mistake—fall in with the wrong crowd, antagonize the wrong adults, drop out of school—they are less likely to get a second chance. One study found, for instance, that marijuana use among whites is slightly higher than among blacks, yet blacks are arrested for it nearly four times as often. "The margin for error is much smaller in black communities, especially for black boys," Troy Henry, a New Orleans parent, told me, defending an even tougher approach to keeping kids on the straight and narrow at the mostly black Catholic school where he served as a board member until this summer: corporal punishment.
Worries about jobs play a role, too. For generations, the New Orleans public schools have graduated countless students straight into low-paying work in the tourism business. With only a few exceptions, the industry's dishwashing, house- keeping, and other positions are nonunionized and come with little job security. Employees who make even a small misstep can be speedily replaced with new hires who don't show up late, forget their uniform, or talk back to customers—as anxious parents are well aware. "If you mess up once at Harrah's [a New Orleans casino], you are going to be fired!" a parent called out during the KIPP Renaissance meeting. A sense of entitlement, she knew, wouldn't take these workers far; a willingness to learn and follow the rules was essential.
Students at KIPP Renaissance liked to joke that the charter's acronym stood for the Kids in Prison Program. But a slim 15-year-old I met in 2010 shared some of the same hopes nursed by resolute reformers: that the no-excuses ethos could be the key to rescuing, rather than winnowing out, the toughest cases. Brice, whose last name I agreed not to publish, signed himself up for KIPP Renaissance because of—not in spite of— the rules. He'd already been expelled from one school and could feel himself getting pulled into the drug scene in Hollygrove, the working-class New Orleans neighborhood where he lived with his mother. He was desperate for structure that would keep him from getting into more trouble, and keep other troublemakers away from him. Brice told me, "You got to be really big and really on top of your game to make me do what you want."
Yet a rigid focus on rules also turns out to put students at risk in ways that they and their parents, and educators as well, don't always anticipate. The use of out-of-school suspensions has soared at schools of all types since the 1980s, when a "zero tolerance" policy similar to the no-excuses approach became popular in non-charter schools. Drawing on suspension and test-score data in North Carolina, one economist recently concluded that the approach can help principals "maximize achievement," because students profit when disruptive classmates are removed. But an American Psychological Association report in 2008 offered a different view. The authors found no evidence that high rates of suspension or expulsion improve either student behavior or school safety, much less the educational climate: even controlling for a variety of demographic factors, the research they cited showed declines in academic achievement.
Related: Do 'zero tolerance' school discipline policies go too far?
And the zealous disciplinary tactics at the paternalistic charters that are overrepresented in poor urban districts contribute to persistent racial gaps in students' experience. Starting in preschool, black children are suspended and expelled at far higher rates than white students are, despite little objective evidence that they behave any worse. The discrepancy persists as children get older and the number of overall suspensions rises. In high school, black students are more than three times as likely as white students to get suspended at least once. Untangling causation and correlation is obviously no easy matter, but one statewide study in Texas reported that students suspended or expelled for a "discretionary violation"—having a bad attitude, for example—were nearly three times as likely to come into contact with the juvenile-justice system the following year. Ramifications like these have spurred several large urban districts (Baltimore, Los Angeles, Chicago) to take aggressive measures over the past couple of years to curb discretionary discipline tactics. Schools have begun banning suspensions, for instance, for vaguely defined offenses like "willful defiance," which can contribute to the troubling racial disparities, several experts have concluded.
In New Orleans, too, alarming numbers have begun to prompt challenges to and reassessments of charters' no-excuses regimens. In 2012–13, their first academic year, Carver Collegiate and its sister school in Ben Marcovitz's trio, Carver Prep, led local high schools in suspension rates—this in a city where suspending more than a fifth of a school's students each year is not uncommon. At Carver Collegiate the figure was 69 percent, and at Carver Prep it was 61 percent; the national average for high schools was 11 percent. School officials said 80 percent of suspensions lasted for just a single day. Yet several students complained that they were sometimes sent home "off the books," with nobody documenting the dismissal and minimal or no inquiry into the circumstances that led to the misbehavior. Disputing their accounts, Marcovitz emphasizes that Collegiate Academies strives to be as accurate as possible with its data. At KIPP Renaissance, the discipline so eagerly welcomed soon proved ineffectual, and many parents' support eroded. Several years after he founded New Orleans College Prep, Ben Kleban became disturbed by a suspension rate that exceeded 50 percent as his first students made their way into Cohen College Prep High School.
Some have called the problem "the progress trap": when systems designed to help students catch up start holding them back instead. As Elizabeth Green recounts in her new book, Building a Better Teacher, educators in some charter schools around the country quietly began questioning the rigidly rule-based mentality—in themselves and in their students—around the time reform in New Orleans was getting under way. If mutely regimented middle-school students turned into rowdy bus riders a couple of years later, what did that say about the no-excuses theory in practice? The students were testing boundaries, as of course older kids do, yet the no-excuses culture was intended to be cumulative. The overarching goal was not to exact obedience for obedience's sake, or merely to chalk up short-term gains in test scores, and it certainly was not to encourage teachers to be tyrants. The point was to develop increasing self-control in students en route to graduation. In college, after all, the ability to think critically and navigate coursework independently counts for much more than reflexive compliance.
Kleban, who faced a 62 percent suspension rate at Cohen College Prep in 2011–12, found himself reexamining the behavior policies at his charter chain with such concerns in mind: he wanted to prepare his oldest students for autonomy—without scaling back too much on structure. Besides, suspensions weren't working for many students. Fourteen percent of students were barred from campus just once, a single suspension was all it took to jolt them into improved behavior; another 13 percent were suspended twice. But 35 percent of students were sent home three times or more; they clearly weren't getting the message.
"There's a value in being consistent," Kleban says, and the no-excuses and zero-tolerance approaches have the benefit of clear-cut implementation—a tidy matrix or rulebook. "But the reality is, kids are different," and problems arise "when students feel like something is being done to them and they don't understand why." At Cohen, the principal and other administrators held town hall meetings where they solicited students' views on school rules, and then hammered out compromises. The student government drafted a new outerwear policy (more sweatshirt options) and spelled out the penalties for breaking the revised rules. Behind the scenes, the principal has gotten to know the students well enough to customize discipline when appropriate—overlook a uniform violation, for example, and help a student get an item of clothing when a family is going through a rough patch financially. School officials also inaugurated extracurricular activities students said they wanted, along with more pep rallies and other celebratory events.
Erin Lockley, who had bridled at the punishment for wearing the wrong undershirt as a sixth-grader, is now a senior who credits the no-nonsense ethos with teaching her self-discipline. She feels the approach can work if students are given a voice, particularly as they get older. Teachers—"most of the time … coming from New York or further out," she says—understand that "they have to meet us halfway." Sometimes that's as simple as talking less and listening more. Kleban and his staff still wrestle with the appropriate balance of structure and flexibility. But he says he hears fewer complaints about the charter network's disciplinary practices. And by 2013–14, the suspension rate at Cohen had fallen to 37 percent, with the proportion of repeat offenders plummeting.
A rocky first year at KIPP Renaissance exposed the discipline matrix as no guarantee of the orderly school parents had been hoping for. Brice was an extreme: a repeat offender who eventually goaded a frustrated young principal to enforce a 45-day suspension, a rare move at even the strictest schools—and a patently risky one. As Brice himself could have predicted, a month and a half at loose ends all but ensured that he would fall deeper into a dangerous scene in his neighborhood, which he did. He returned to school, but soon ended up in jail, and has been in and out of prison ever since. KIPP, meanwhile, has struggled with staff turnover—five principals (among them, one interim and two who shared the role)—further eroding something no less important than disciplinary consistency: a sense of a school community. A spokesperson for KIPP New Orleans says the school has made significant progress in staff retention over the past year, and adds that the school has modified its disciplinary practices, learning from past mistakes. With the goal of suspending students "only as a last resort," a team of administrators now decides whether the move is warranted. The suspension rate has fallen dramatically, and Renaissance, he says, is in a "very different place than it was in 2010."
Related: New Orleans schools should stop hiring so many teachers who don't understand the students' cultures or backgrounds
At Collegiate Academies, where Summer Duskin had balked at strictures she felt she'd outgrown, Ben Marcovitz has been struggling too. On the positive side, he points to Sci Academy, the first high school in his network, as proof of success: though attrition has been high (its initial class shrank 37 percent over the school's first two years), some of the students who make it through end up accepting—even appreciating—the strictness, and more than 90 percent go on to graduate and enroll in college. Yet last winter, Marcovitz and his staff faced a series of student protests at Carver Prep and Carver Collegiate. At the same time, a civil-rights complaint filed by students and parents asked state, federal, and local authorities to investigate the schools' disciplinary policies, alleging abuse of students with special needs and overuse of suspensions for trivial matters. Marcovitz says the allegations "were shocking to me and completely uncharacteristic of our entire philosophy and approach."
Summer—who had received countless demerits and three out-of-school suspensions in her first semester as a freshman— was among the roughly 60 students who walked over to a nearby park wearing orange wristbands that read "let me explain." In a letter of demands she helped write, the teenagers lamented, "We get disciplined for anything and everything." High on their list of complaints were the stiff penalties for failing to follow the taped lines in the hallways, for slouching, for not raising their hands with ramrod-straight elbows. "The teachers and administrators tell us this is because they are preparing us for college," the students wrote. "If college is going to be like Carver, we don't want to go to college."
Marcovitz believes some of the students' claims were exaggerated, and he makes a point of noting the praise that counters the stern rebukes, the warmth that accompanies the structure. But by the summer, he was ready to tackle what he casts as the next challenge in the reform project: if Sci Academy was evidence of what stringent discipline could help achieve, now his high schools would pursue the same results through gentler means. "While it was extremely tough to hear so much concern about our program, we took it as a mandate from the community," he says, and maintains that high suspension rates already had his attention. He committed the Collegiate Academies leaders to zero out-of-school suspensions in the 2014-15 school year. "We don't know how to do this yet," Marcovitz admitted before classes began. There will inevitably be stumbles, he acknowledged, as they explore an array of alternatives, from partnerships with juvenile-justice groups in the city to "restorative justice" strategies that get students talking through problems rather than simply paying penalties. The new ethos will require "relationships being very clearly built" and "love being very clearly expressed." But apart from that, he and his staff are forging ahead largely without a rulebook, and so far they report having issued a handful of suspensions.
The change came too late for Summer, who had already transferred to McDonogh 35, which opened nearly a century ago as the city's first public high school for black students. Many of the city's young school reformers dismiss the contemporary McDonogh 35 as chaotic and poorly run, and its academic reputation has slipped in recent years. But its legendary history— Ernest Nathan Morial, the city's first black mayor, was one of many local African American leaders nurtured within its walls— undergirds an ethos of pride and engaged purpose that Summer and her family had lost sight of at Carver Collegiate. The strictness wasn't the main issue, at least not for Summer's father—he attended an all-boys Catholic high school in New Orleans that was, if anything, stricter. The problem, as he puts it, is that "I can't get my mind around these folks to see what's the point." School disciplinarians had failed to cultivate a shared sense of direction and the trust that goes with it. When that happens, he agrees with his daughter, even the most well-intentioned system can end up feeling like "a blind application of rules."
Hechinger report staff writer Sarah Butrymowicz contributed material to this report.
Reproduction of this story is not permitted.


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"The Lord Poured Out Blessings," Liahona, Dec. 2011, 49
How I Know
The Lord Poured Out Blessings
I wondered, "Who is God? Is it Buddha, Jesus Christ, or some other god?"
I was born in Cambodia, where most people are Buddhists. After the Khmer Rouge regime killed so many people, many of the survivors didn't understand why, if there was a God, He would let this happen to our people. At 14 years old, I wondered the same thing.
After the regime ended, several religions began taking hold in Cambodia. I was confused because the churches taught so many different things. My family remained Buddhists, but I wanted answers to the questions of my soul: where did we come from, why are we here, and where are we going after this life?
One day as I returned from school, my aunt told me that two young men wearing white shirts and ties had come to her home talking about Jesus Christ. She was surprised because they spoke good Cambodian. I wanted to learn about Christ. I wanted to know who created us. I wondered, "Who is God? Is it Buddha, Jesus Christ, or some other god?"
My aunt and I accepted the missionaries. During the first discussion, we felt the Spirit telling us that what they said was true. They gave us a Book of Mormon and promised that if we read it, pondered it, and asked God with a sincere heart, having faith in Him, He would manifest the truth unto us. It made a lot of sense to me. I accepted the gospel, along with my aunt and her children. About a month later, we were all baptized and confirmed.
I attended seminary for four years and institute for one year and served as a seminary teacher. When I was 19, I felt I should go on a mission. I talked to my parents, and they said perhaps it was a good idea, so I put in my application. A month later I received my call to serve in the Sacramento California Mission, English and Cambodian speaking.
Because I accepted my call, God has given me many blessings. My younger brother wasn't making the best decisions. I fasted and prayed for him, and a miracle happened before I left for my mission. I baptized him, and he is now active in the Church and attending seminary. My family received many other blessings, and the Lord also poured out blessings upon me during my mission.
Jesus is the Christ. He lives. He loves each of us and knows us by name. He knows our challenges and obstacles, and I know He'll bless us as we strive to keep His commandments.


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It's Game Time
Both teams, coaches and dignitaries
As part of the Tomodachi program, the Punahou Intermediate baseball team is being matched up against a local Ishinomaki team on this afternoon. We had just visited the tsunami-devastated areas of Ishinomaki and are well aware of our purpose: to offer support, camaraderie and hope. We are also looking forward to seeing how the two teams play and interact with each other cross cultures and languages. And, it kicks off a string of events that take place with both teams of kids, coaches and parents together in the days ahead. So, needless to say, it's an important day.
We drove through heavy rain to get to Ishinomaki Kanan Baseball Stadium, so we were unsure whether or not our teams would be able to play. But, when we arrived, the rain had stopped and the Ishinomaki team had already started soaking up the puddles of water on the muddy field. The Punahou players joined them, in what would be their first interaction with the Japanese players.
Attending the games today was a long list of VIPs: the Mayor of Ishinomaki Hiroshi Kameyama, the US Ambassador for Japan John Roos, the VP of MLB Asia Jim Small, the Commissioner of Professional Baseball Ambassador Kato, the scouting director of the Japanese professional baseball team Rakuten Golden Eagles, Hiro Abei, and Akihito Sasaki also of the Rakuten Golden Eagles. Good thing it stopped raining.
The boys shaking hands with John Roos
The first game was a competitive one and both teams put forth their best effort. I sat in the dugout with the Punahou players, and realized that this game felt like any other game of baseball among kids. The Punahou players cheered on loudly for their teammates from the dugout and gave words of encouragement to fellow players who struck out. The Japanese team across the field looked slightly intimidating at first, but both teams warmed up to each other by the end. Final score: 5-1, Ishinomaki.
The Punahou team in the dugout
Afterwards, the players were mixed up into two new teams—determined by jan-ken-pon, another game known by all—and, suddenly, the mood shifted. This new baseball game was far less competitive in spirit and more about having fun with their new teammates and forming a bond through baseball. This time, I decided to sit in the Ishinomaki team's dugout to watch how the Hawaii players communicated with the Japanese coach. He turned out to be very jovial, and assigned players to positions they didn't normally play. This brought big smiles to the kids' faces, especially for the players who were assigned to pitch. Interactions between the two teams were less tense, adding for time to joke and laugh together on the field, with parents cheering from the stands. The game was cut short because of time, but it was clear that relationships between the Japanese and Hawaii players was forming with handshakes, smiles and waves.
The day was capped off with an incredible evening at an Ishinomaki restaurant with both teams, coaches and parents invited. The Mayor of Ishinomaki also joined us and thanked everyone for making the trip. "I greatly appreciate the Tomodachi program and hope that the baseball games will continue and act as a bridge between the U.S. and Japan," he said.
The rest of the night's lineup included an ukulele performance by Punahou players' Shane Yasunaga and Zack Uchima, an exchange of gifts, aio chairman and CEO Duane Kurisu leading the room in song and dance to The Hukilau Song and a haka performance by the Punahou team, which culminated into two more performances with the Japanese team and a fourth, and final, haka performance with the coaches. The audience went wild, but not as wild as the last performance of the night—a German song and dance number led again by Kurisu.
Everyone raved about the sashimi, how wonderful a day they had and, best of all, how the Japanese and Hawaii players are building friendships and experiences to last a lifetime.
(Edited 7/28/13)
Follow the hashtag #honolulu2sendai on Instagram for live updates.


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Impression Books Online
Kingdom Keepers : Kingdom Keepers Book 2 of 7 (paperback) Ridley Pearson
Kingdom Keepers : Kingdom Keepers Book 2 of 7 (paperback) Ridley Pearson
Kingdom Keepers Book 2 of 7
It's supposed to be a happy day at the Magic Kingdom—the return of the teenaged holographic hosts. But things go very wrong when a sudden lightning storm disrupts the celebration, and Amanda's mysterious sister, Jez, disappears. The only clue is the sighting of a wild monkey in the Magic Kingdom during the storm. The mystery deepens as Finn is contacted by Wayne, an old man he hasn't heard from in months. Wayne tells Finn that there's trouble at the Animal Kingdom: the evil Overtakers have gained control of one of the computer servers that will be used to operate Daylight Holographic Imaging there. That means that if any of the holographic hosts fall asleep, they will go into comas—permanently. Filled with action and brimming with the same meticulous detail as The Kingdom Keepers: Disney After Dark, this second book in the series—Disney at Dawn—is the result of hands-on research behind the scenes at Disney's Animal Kingdom Park. Young and older readers alike will get a glimpse into a second Disney kingdom. The wild rides have only just begun; and the clock is ticking.
April 2023


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Casey Affleck's messy legal battle is getting worse. Another lady who worked on the set of his Joaquin Phoenix doc is suing him for being a sexual freak, allegedly sneaking up on her in the middle of the night and getting into bed and demanding to sleep with her. Casey's team is accusing this second lady of opportunism on the heels of the first suit, denying everything.
So now we wait to see how Summer Phoenix responds. And Joaquin too. Is he down with his bff betraying his sister? I'm still not convinced Casey's that kind of pervert, but I'm less unconvinced that I was last week. Here are Casey and Summer in April at the premiere of The Killer Inside Me.
And here's Casey's brother Ben this weekend with his wife Jennifer Garner and their girls, the perfect happy family at the park in Santa Monica kicking a ball around spending quality time together after Jennifer's week in New York shooting Arthur with Russell Brand. That night Ben took Jen out for a romantic dinner at Nobu in Malibu. Click here to see those shots. Well now they look content and full of domestic bliss, don't they?
Ben's The Town is scheduled for release on September 10th, his directorial follow-up to Gone Baby Gone, and with quite the cast. The Town will premiere at the Venice Film Festival. Casey's The Lost Year of Joaquin Phoenix is also supposed to be screened. So it's not a bad idea to remind people which brother is drama-free now, non?
Photos from Flynetonline.com and Wenn.com and Bryan Bedder/Gettyimages.com and Splashnewsonline.com


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The Golden Bough/Adonis in Syria
The myth of Adonis was localised and his rites celebrated with much solemnity at two places in Western Asia. One of these was Byblus on the coast of Syria, the other was Paphos in Cyprus. Both were great seats of the worship of Aphrodite, or rather of her Semitic counterpart, Astarte; and of both, if we accept the legends, Cinyras, the father of Adonis, was king. Of the two cities Byblus was the more ancient; indeed it claimed to be the oldest city in Phoenicia, and to have been founded in the early ages of the world by the great god El, whom Greeks and Romans identified with Cronus and Saturn respectively. However that may have been, in historical times it ranked as a holy place, the religious capital of the country, the Mecca or Jerusalem of the Phoenicians. The city stood on a height beside the sea, and contained a great sanctuary of Astarte, where in the midst of a spacious open court, surrounded by cloisters and approached from below by staircases, rose a tall cone or obelisk, the holy image of the goddess. In this sanctuary the rites of Adonis were celebrated. Indeed the whole city was sacred to him, and the river Nahr Ibrahim, which falls into the sea a little to the south of Byblus, bore in antiquity the name of Adonis. This was the kingdom of Cinyras. From the earliest to the latest times the city appears to have been ruled by kings, assisted perhaps by a senate or council of elders.
The last king of Byblus bore the ancient name of Cinyras, and was beheaded by Pompey the Great for his tyrannous excesses. His legendary namesake Cinyras is said to have founded a sanctuary of Aphrodite, that is, of Astarte, at a place on Mount Lebanon, distant a day's journey from the capital. The spot was probably Aphaca, at the source of the river Adonis, half-way between Byblus and Baalbec; for at Aphaca there was a famous grove and sanctuary of Astarte which Constantine destroyed on account of the flagitious character of the worship. The site of the temple has been discovered by modern travellers near the miserable village which still bears the name of Afka at the head of the wild, romantic, wooded gorge of the Adonis. The hamlet stands among groves of noble walnut-trees on the brink of the lyn. A little way off the river rushes from a cavern at the foot of a mighty amphitheatre of towering cliffs to plunge in a series of cascades into the awful depths of the glen. The deeper it descends, the ranker and denser grows the vegetation, which, sprouting from the crannies and fissures of the rocks, spreads a green veil over the roaring or murmuring stream in the tremendous chasm below. There is something delicious, almost intoxicating, in the freshness of these tumbling waters, in the sweetness and purity of the mountain air, in the vivid green of the vegetation. The temple, of which some massive hewn blocks and a fine column of Syenite granite still mark the site, occupied a terrace facing the source of the river and commanding a magnificent prospect. Across the foam and the roar of the waterfalls you look up to the cavern and away to the top of the sublime precipices above. So lofty is the cliff that the goats which creep along its ledges to browse on the bushes appear like ants to the spectator hundreds of feet below. Seaward the view is especially impressive when the sun floods the profound gorge with golden light, revealing all the fantastic buttresses and rounded towers of its mountain rampart, and falling softly on the varied green of the woods which clothe its depths. It was here that, according to the legend, Adonis met Aphrodite for the first or the last time, and here his mangled body was buried. A fairer scene could hardly be imagined for a story of tragic love and death. Yet, sequestered as the valley is and must always have been, it is not wholly deserted. A convent or a village may be observed here and there standing out against the sky on the top of some beetling crag, or clinging to the face of a nearly perpendicular cliff high above the foam and the din of the river; and at evening the lights that twinkle through the gloom betray the presence of human habitations on slopes which might seem inaccessible to man. In antiquity the whole of the lovely vale appears to have been dedicated to Adonis, and to this day it is haunted by his memory; for the heights which shut it in are crested at various points by ruined monuments of his worship, some of them overhanging dreadful abysses, down which it turns the head dizzy to look and see the eagles wheeling about their nests far below. One such monument exists at Ghineh. The face of a great rock, above a roughly hewn recess, is here carved with figures of Adonis and Aphrodite. He is portrayed with spear in rest, awaiting the attack of a bear, while she is seated in an attitude of sorrow. Her grief-stricken figure may well be the mourning Aphrodite of the Lebanon described by Macrobius, and the recess in the rock is perhaps her lover's tomb. Every year, in the belief of his worshippers, Adonis was wounded to death on the mountains, and every year the face of nature itself was dyed with his sacred blood. So year by year the Syrian damsels lamented his untimely fate, while the red anemone, his flower, bloomed among the cedars of Lebanon, and the river ran red to the sea, fringing the winding shores of the blue Mediterranean, whenever the wind set inshore, with a sinuous band of crimson.


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Insperity Announces Preliminary Results of Dutch Auction Tender Offer
Insperity Announces Preliminary Results of Dutch Auction Tender Offer
HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Insperity, Inc. (NYS: NSP) , a leading provider of human resources and business performance solutions for America's best businesses, today announced the preliminary results of its modified "Dutch auction" tender offer, which expired at 11:59 p.m., New York City time, on Dec. 21, 2012.
Based on the preliminary count by Computershare Trust Company, N.A., the depositary for the tender offer, 80,983 shares of common stock, including 34,100 shares that were tendered through notice of guaranteed delivery, were properly tendered and not withdrawn, all of which were tendered at a price at or below $31.00. Based on these preliminary results, we expect to purchase 80,983 shares at a price of $31.00 per share for a total cost of $2.5 million, excluding fees and expenses relating to the tender offer.
The number of shares to be purchased in the tender offer and the price per share are preliminary. The determination of the final number of shares to be purchased is subject to confirmation by the depositary of the proper delivery of the shares properly tendered and not withdrawn. The actual number of outstanding shares properly tendered and not withdrawn, the number of shares to be purchased in the tender offer, the final price per share for shares purchased in the tender offer and the number of shares of our common stock that will be outstanding after payment for the tendered shares will be announced promptly following the completion of the confirmation process. Payment for the shares accepted for purchase will occur promptly thereafter. Payment for shares will be made in cash, without interest. We will fund the purchase of the shares in the tender offer from cash on hand.
As noted in the Offer to Purchase, we may purchase additional shares in the future in the open market subject to market conditions. We may also purchase shares in private transactions, tender offers or otherwise. However, under applicable securities laws, we may not repurchase any shares until after Jan. 8, 2013. Any possible future purchases by us will depend on many factors, including the market price of the shares, the results of the tender offer, our business and financial position and general economic and market conditions.
Georgeson Inc. serves as information agent for the tender offer. The dealer manager for the tender offer is Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated. Questions and requests for assistance may be directed to the information agent at (800) 509-0917 (toll free) or the dealer manager at (414) 298-7382.
About Insperity
Insperity, a trusted advisor to America's best businesses for more than 26 years, provides an array of human resources and business solutions designed to help improve business performance. InsperityTM Business Performance Advisors offer the most comprehensive suite of products and services available in the marketplace. Insperity delivers administrative relief, better benefits, reduced liabilities and a systematic way to improve productivity through its premier Workforce OptimizationTM solution. Additional company offerings include Human Capital Management, Payroll Services, Time and Attendance, Performance Management, Organizational Planning, Recruiting Services, Employment Screening, Financial Services, Expense Management, Retirement Services and Insurance Services. Insperity business performance solutions support more than 100,000 businesses with over 2 million employees. With 2011 revenues of $2 billion, Insperity operates in 56 offices throughout the United States. For more information, visit http://www.insperity.com.
Information on Forward Looking Statements
Certain statements in this news release are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These statements include assumptions, expectations, predictions, intentions or beliefs about future events, including the completion of the offer. Although Insperity believes that such statements are based on reasonable assumptions, no assurance can be given that such statements will prove to have been correct. A number of factors could cause actual results to vary materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements. More information about the risks and uncertainties relating to Insperity and the forward-looking statements are found in Insperity's SEC filings, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended Dec. 31, 2011 and its Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarters ended March 31, 2012, June 30, 2012 and Sept. 30, 2012, which is available free of charge on the SEC's web site at http://www.sec.gov. Insperity expressly disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this news release to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this release, except as otherwise required by applicable law.
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The article Insperity Announces Preliminary Results of Dutch Auction Tender Offer originally appeared on Fool.com.
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Robert C. Cefalo House Officer Awards Nomination Form
Complete the form below to nominate a member of the housestaff for the Robert C. Cefalo House Officer of the Year Award. Nominations may be submitted by UNC Hospitals physicians and dentists and UNC Health Care employees. Please explain in short essay form how this nominee meets the award criteria. Cite specific examples. Letters of support may be attached but are not required. Please attach files as needed. The entire nomination should not exceed six pages in length. Deadline for submission is October 4, 2019.


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|Sweet Susanna!
I did actually make her a quilt before she was born. Before we found out that she was a little girl. It is pretty gender neutral. In some ways, I wish I could go back in time and make it a little more feminine. It would have been a great excuse to actually cut into my HR Far Far Away. Anyway, here it is...
|Susanna's Quilt
I started collecting blue/aqua and yellow fabrics as soon as I found out I was pregnant. Let's just say that this part of my stash is now overflowing. I decided to make a very simple quilt as my pregnancy brain couldn't handle much more. Each block has a fussy cut centre of some of my favourite fabrics.
|My favourite block
I backed the quilt with a cozy Robert Kaufman flannel. I bought it at our local LQS and it cost me an arm and a leg. (No really, it was tres, tres cher...). But it was worth it. It is so, so, so cozy.
|Flannel backing
I just quilted it with simple diagonal straight lines. At first I was disappointed that I cut through the centre of each square with my quilting lines...wasn't there a reason that I fussy cut all of those centres??? but now that it is done and washed, I've come to terms with it and I'm pretty happy.
|1 month old already!
And now just a bit of housekeeping...you may have noticed that this blog was pretty silent during the SMS Give-away Day (the first I've missed since I started this blog). I decided not to participate this time around, but I will have a give-away very soon. Any suggestions on what you'd like to win?
Happy Thursday!


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Care for horses & livestock/farm animals
Care for cats, dogs & other companion animals
A CVT is a Certified Veterinary Technician. Other synonymous credentials are LVT and RVT, licensed and registered respectively. The type of credentials issued is dependent on which state a veterinary technician becomes credentialed in. In Pennsylvania veterinary technicians become certified, in New York veterinary technicians are licensed.
Prerequisites for obtaining credentials as a veterinary technician include graduating from an AVMA*-accredited veterinary technology program, and passing the veterinary technician national exam. In order to maintain credentialed status, veterinary technicians are obligated to complete continuing education as determined by their state's Board of Veterinary Medicine. In Pennsylvania technicians are expected to complete 16 hours of continuing education every 2 years in time for the renewal of their credentials.
* AVMA = American Veterinary Medical Association
If you are looking for the best health care for your animal...
You should seek certified health care providers (veterinarian, vet tech, nurse):
A VTS is a Veterinary Technician Specialist. There are about a dozen technician specialties in veterinary medicine, and they usually correlate with an area of board certification for veterinarians. Some of the more common specialties include:
Emergency and critical careAnesthesiaEquine veterinary nursingLarge and small animal internal medicineDentistryNutritionBehaviorClinical practice
Prerequisites for obtaining VTS status vary by specialty, but most require at least four to five years of experience in the field, completion of advanced skills in the field, case logs, case reports, documentation of continuing education, good standing credentials, and finally an exam after acceptance of the application.
Once VTS status is granted, the credentialed technician must complete advanced continuing education including mentoring others in the field, lecturing, and publishing articles relevant to the field.
Want to know more about Veterinary Nursing? Check out these websites:


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iPad Mini: What we expect
Apple's next event looms, and it looks like the iPad will be part of it. What will the Mini have? Here's what we anticipate so far.
Editors' note, October 16, 2012: Updated after the release of Apple's October 23 invite.
There have been rumors of a smaller, 7-inch iPad since...well, since there was an iPad. The iPad Mini, as it's being called lately, initially seemed to some like a silly idea: why would you need a smaller iPad? It's actually a logical idea: make an iPad even more portable and more affordable than before. The only question is, when would such a product finally exist?
Now that Apple's sent invites for its next event, the iPad Mini seems to have become a very real product, yet we still know very little about it. Here are our best guesses.
Related stories
- Apple sends invites to iPad Mini event
- iPad Mini: Ultimate rumor roundup
- iPad Mini: what we don't know
A 7-inch screen with the same aspect ratio and screen resolution as on the iPad 2. Rumors say the iPad Mini will end up having a 7.8-inch display, making for a larger tablet than typical 7-inchers. The iPad Mini needs to run iPad apps seamlessly out of the box, and keeping to the iPad 2's 1,024x768-pixel resolution makes the most sense. Depending on the screen size, it shouldn't interfere with the ability to easily use apps. The third-gen iPad's 2,048x1,536-pixel Retina Display is likely to be the key difference between it and the Mini, similar to the difference between the Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD.
A smaller bezel. A smaller tablet wouldn't necessarily require the same size bezel to hold it. Mock-ups and rumors (hardly anything to hang your hat on) suggest a design that's more like that of the iPod Touch. The best reference would be other 7-inch tablets, which don't have extra-large bezels.
An October debut...right around Windows 8. Microsoft has a big product debut around the corner. Apple's new iPad could end up hitting stores before the October 26 debut of Windows 8, stealing a bunch of the hype around Windows RT tablets and Surface.
An affordable price. Rumors suggest that the iPad Mini's entry price could be as low as $249. That would let it compete directly against tablets like the Kindle Fire HD and Google Nexus 7. Yes, it would be more expensive than both of those products, but not by much. In standard Apple pricing math, expect the price of the highest-configured iPad Mini to come close to or overlap with the price of certain configurations of the third-gen iPad, but stay logical in relation to the $299 fifth-gen iPod Touch.
It'll replace the iPad 2. Speaking of Apple's venerable $399 tablet, expect it to go bye-bye. An iPad Mini would meet or exceed the iPad 2's capabilities in a smaller form, and probably cost less.
Front and rear cameras. The iPod Touch has a camera. The iPhone has a camera. Alleged iPad Mini cases have shown a camera, too. We'd expect rear- and front-facing cameras for FaceTime, considering that the ever-more-affordable iPhone 4 includes the same. Just don't expect a camera as good as that on the iPhone 5. The fifth-generation iPod Touch camera seems like a safer model to replicate: HD front iSight camera, 5-megapixel back camera with 1080p video recording.
The absence of a few features seen on the larger iPad. If the iPad Mini were everything the larger iPad was but smaller and less expensive, who would buy the larger iPad? An iPad Mini will have to satisfy a certain audience while maintaining a different feature set, just like the iPod Nano and Mini did with the larger iPod. The question is, what would those absent features be? Maybe the smaller screen and lack of a higher-res Retina Display could be enough. Or, perhaps it doesn't have 4G LTE or 3G, although the latest rumors suggest the iPad Mini will come in wireless broadband flavors.
A Lightning connector. Apple's new, smaller Lightning connector port has already emerged on the iPhone 5, iPod Touch and iPod Nano. All iOS devices going forward will have Lightning, including an iPad Mini. This would give the iPad Mini a feature the third-gen iPad lacks, but it makes total sense: a smaller connector port would help the Mini be even more compact.
A use case for the iPad Mini as a second iPad. There's a question many might ask: why make a smaller iPad? Well, why make a larger Kindle Fire? Why make different iPods? A lower-priced, smaller iPad feels positioned as a secondary iPad, or an iPad best suited for kids. Expect Apple to clearly explain what an iPad Mini is best used for, and why it's a compelling device in its own right.
A big educational push. The iPad has been a big factor in schools, and Apple's iPad-themed education in New York earlier this year shows how serious the school initiative is. iPads are used in classrooms, for special-needs students, and for a massive variety of apps. Making a smaller and more affordable iPad means it'll be a big, big product in school systems. Perhaps textbooks would be discussed as well.
Candy colors? If the iPad Mini has a design that looks, based on photos, to be very similar in spirit to the latest iPod Touch, could a variety of colors be part of the iPad Mini game plan? It sounds like a frivolous detail, but brightly-colored iPads would make them stand out from the more "pro"-oriented third-gen Retina Display models, and perhaps be more appealing to kids. Then again, the latest rumors suggest black and white only.
Will it even be called the iPad Mini? That's just one of the uncertainties surrounding this mystery device. Stay tuned for more details as we count down to next week.
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We make finance personal
United is an independent provider of finance and trust services with a truly personal approach. All of us, including our management, do business directly with and for you, actively and on your behalf. We unite disciplines, connect networks and cross borders to bring you the services you need and deserve.
As a company or a wealthy individual, you have a global perspective, but nation states still define the legal environment in which you operate. Based on your story and depending on your needs, we provide financial and legal solutions that ensure you a seamless experience.
Company size, net worth, the country you are based in – they make no difference to United. Whoever you are, whoever you represent, you earn the right to the same quality of personal service the moment you choose us.
And whatever your question about the latest market developments, it is one we have already asked ourselves. Our experts are on top of changing legal requirements around the globe. We can help you deal with them - before they become issues. So you can focus on what really matters to you.


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CRS: AGRICULTURE AND EPAS PROPOSED AIR QUALITY STANDARDS FOR OZONE AND PARTICULATES, March 24, 1998
From WikiLeaks
About this CRS report
This document was obtained by Wikileaks from the United States Congressional Research Service.
The CRS is a Congressional "think tank" with a staff of around 700. Reports are commissioned by members of Congress on topics relevant to current political events. Despite CRS costs to the tax payer of over $100M a year, its electronic archives are, as a matter of policy, not made available to the public.
Individual members of Congress will release specific CRS reports if they believe it to assist them politically, but CRS archives as a whole are firewalled from public access.
This report was obtained by Wikileaks staff from CRS computers accessible only from Congressional offices.
For other CRS information see: Congressional Research Service.
For press enquiries, consult our media kit.
If you have other confidential material let us know!.
For previous editions of this report, try OpenCRS.
Wikileaks release: February 2, 2009
Publisher: United States Congressional Research Service
Title: AGRICULTURE AND EPAS PROPOSED AIR QUALITY STANDARDS FOR OZONE AND PARTICULATES
CRS report number: 97-670
Author(s): James E. McCarthy and Jeffrey A. Zinn, Environment and Natural Resources Policy Division
Date: March 24, 1998
- Abstract
- This report discusses potential impacts on agriculture of the new air quality standards for ozone and particulates promulgated by EPA on July 18, 1997. Legislation has been introduced in both the House and Senate (HR. 1984/S. 1084) to block implementation of the new standards, and the Senate has approved an amendment to the surface transportation bill, S.Amdt. 1687, to address a limited set of implementation issues. At the request of agricultural interests, the amendment includes a requirement that EPA report to Congress on the ability of its sampling and analysis methods to differentiate types of fine particles.
- Download


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Vehicle Locator Service In San Antonio, TX
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With so many different makes and models to choose from, we are sure to have the perfect car for you. If we don't have it in stock, we'll put our extensive network of resources to work and find it for you. So what are you waiting for? Start your search now!


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Stand up for the facts!
Our only agenda is to publish the truth so you can be an informed participant in democracy.
We need your help.
I would like to contribute
It's a statistic that President Barack Obama and gun control advocates like to repeat again and again: Forty percent of gun purchases are made without background checks.
It's true that purchases at gun shows and via the Internet typically go without background checks. But is it 40 percent? It's difficult for us fact-checkers to say, because it's based on a telephone survey from 1994 — almost 20 years ago.
That's about the time federally sponsored research on guns and gun violence virtually ground to a halt.
The stoppage was intentional — and political. The National Rifle Association successfully lobbied members of Congress to cut the budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and to pass amendments discouraging gun research.
For years now, congressional directives have stated that money for research may not be used "to advocate or promote control." Researchers are warned that no money may go to activity designed to affect the passage of legislation that restricts or controls firearms.
The NRA has proudly claimed credit for these moves, saying that federally funded research was biased against gun ownership.
"The problem that I see with what the CDC is doing is that they are not doing medicine, they're doing politics. And they shouldn't be doing politics," NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre said in 1995.
For years, the CDC has given the NRA a courtesy "heads up" any time it publishes studies related to firearms.
The dwindling federal research complicates efforts to fact-check claims about gun statistics. PolitiFact rated the 40 percent gun statistic Half True, after one of the original study's co-authors told us he had "no idea" if the "very old number" was still a good estimate.
Since the federal government was elbowed out of the gun-research business, nonprofits that advocate against gun violence are now the main funders. This means that much of today's research is being funded by groups that have staked out clear positions on gun policy.
For instance, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, one of the nation's leading voices for gun control, has given so much to Johns Hopkins University that it named the public health school in his honor. Johns Hopkins and a host of other universities that study gun policy have received funding from the Joyce Foundation, a Chicago-based philanthropic group concerned about the toll of gun violence.
In the wake of the shootings of elementary school students in Newtown, Conn., Obama ordered federal agencies to restart funding on gun research, noting that basic research should be neutral, neither favoring or opposing specific policies. After Obama directed that research resume, the CDC issued a contract to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences — a widely respected scientific forum — to identify research priorities for studying firearm-related violence.
The institute held its first hearing Tuesday, attracting both academic researchers and the NRA. In other words, research on guns — whether funded by government or private groups — seems to be on the verge of a comeback. But the return of federally sponsored research comes at a time when the sponsors of gun research have strong views about gun control, raising questions about whether the findings are — or seem to be — influenced by policy positions.
• • •
At the Institute of Medicine meeting, John Frazer, director of the NRA's legislative research and information division, told the group it needs to ensure that new research is "balanced."
"We should study the benefits as well as the costs of gun ownership, and the costs as well as benefits of any proposed restrictions," he told PolitiFact.
Other gun-research heavyweights from around the country attended, including researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Harvard University School of Public Health, the University of Chicago Crime Lab, the University of California at Davis Violence Prevention Research Program and the Firearm & Injury Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
Those institutions have something in common: They've received grant money over the years from the Joyce Foundation, which also funds advocacy for gun control policies, including the Violence Policy Center and Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Obama served on the board from 1994 until 2002, before he ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004.
The Joyce Foundation has spent more than $53 million over 15 years on advocacy and research for gun violence prevention, according to data we compiled from its annual reports.
To put that in context, it's more per year on average than the CDC spent on "firearm injury prevention activities" in the early '90s, before the congressional clampdown. Not to suggest that it's a lot of money in the research world, indeed, the opposite: "That's the joke — they were hardly doing anything to begin with," said David Hemenway of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center.
Still, the foundation's contributions grew as federal funding fell away. It invested millions in jump-starting a state-based National Violent Death Reporting System that's now part of the CDC.
After the Newtown shootings, Joyce Foundation president Ellen Alberding penned an op-ed for the Chronicle of Philanthropy, arguing for stronger gun laws.
"It's time for everyone in philanthropy to do what's right and participate in a solution," she wrote.
She called for strengthening the background check system, requiring universal background checks for gun purchases and banning military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines — all part of the president's plan.
Hemenway at Harvard said the foundation didn't seek to influence their work.
"They just wanted us to do good firearms research," he said.
• • •
How should fact-checkers approach research paid for by groups with a stake in the fight? Traditionally, we've been skeptical of polls and research sponsored by such groups. But in today's gun-research environment, it's not easy to tell how much influence a funder has on the final results.
This became an important issue for us recently when we looked at Obama's claim that a "wide majority of NRA households" supported legislation on gun background checks.
One of the surveys we found was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine and conducted by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and its Center for Gun Policy and Research.
Bloomberg's relationship with Johns Hopkins has made him "the most generous living donor to any education institution in the United States," according to the New York Times. The particular study we were looking at was released in conjunction with a Summit on Reducing Gun Violence in America, at which Bloomberg offered opening remarks.
Given Bloomberg's close affiliation with the school, we wondered whether the Johns Hopkins study should be treated more like an independent media survey, or more like the one sponsored by an advocacy group?
The answer, it turned out, is anything but clear cut.
Daniel W. Webster, who directs the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, told us the study was not influenced by Bloomberg's support for the public health school.
"The scientific research that we do at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research is not dictated, controlled or biased by any funding source," he said.
We also asked a range of experts in scientific ethics about their thoughts on the matter. Some expressed little concern, while others saw red flags.
Jonathan Moreno, a professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, was among several experts who said the relationship with Bloomberg should be acceptable as long as certain protections are in place.
"As long as the research is peer-reviewed and sponsored at arms length, including without influencing the questions asked or the way the questions are framed, I'd be happy for any institution — including the NRA — to sponsor any research on gun safety," Moreno said.
Some experts also drew a distinction between money given directly to a researcher (which is typically disclosed in published papers) and that given to the author's institution (which is not necessarily disclosed).
"Money going to a university generally introduces little or no bias into the performance and findings of scientists," said Kenneth D. Pimple, an ethics researcher at Indiana University. "Money given directly to a researcher might be a different matter."
Others are not convinced. Gary Kleck, a Florida State University criminologist who has studied gun policy, said it's "naive to think that information generated by employees of an academic program endowed by the nation's most powerful, or second most powerful, advocate of strict gun control will be received with the same trust as information from other sources."
• • •
Others say a complicating factor is that research funded by a vested interest can still be good science.
"If I'm funded by the pecan industry and publish a paper that says pecans are good for you, it doesn't necessarily mean the study is bad science," said Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at New York University's Langone Medical Center.
Jay Corzine, a sociologist with the University of Central Florida who has done gun-related research, said that in his experience, sponsorship does not necessarily mean meddling. If anything, he suggested, it's the exception to the rule. Corzine recalled never having been pushed to certain conclusions back in the 1980s when he was doing research on drunk driving funded by the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.
Having a sponsor with a stake in the fight "opens the door for criticism that may or may not be justified, but it doesn't mean the research will be biased," Corzine said.
That's why it's important to have both strong disclosure and a diversity of research projects being undertaken. Yet in recent years, gun-related research has been hampered by the federal ban, and disclosure systems have been imperfect.
For instance, conflict-of-interest forms tend to focus on direct financial conflicts for the researcher, not on the institution, or potential political gain.
In the case of the New England Journal of Medicine paper, the journal's mandatory conflict-of-interest disclosure form for the paper did not make any reference to Bloomberg (though the researchers' affiliation with the Bloomberg School was mentioned in their biographical writeup). "We ask authors to disclose their personal conflicts, not the associations/affiliations of their organizations," Jennifer Zeis, a spokeswoman for the journal, told PolitiFact.
Complicating matters further, Caplan said, is that one of the most valuable ethical backstops in scientific research — peer review — is not always robust enough to uncover biases, especially when they are well hidden.
Ultimately, not even the most rigorous vetting will satisfy everyone.
"On some issues, including tobacco use and firearms, it's probably a safe bet that to some people there will be an appearance of a conflict of interest in any research that challenges their stance," Pimple said. "People who are on one side of the issue will see all findings that go against their stance as biased."
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