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In the middle of December, I pilfered some of my son's leftover Halloween candy; I had been craving sweets, and his box of purple NERDS looked strangely enticing. I dumped the entire box in my mouth and proceeded to chomp down on the little pellets, which turned out to be grape-flavored rocks in disguise.
Seriously, those things were friggin' ridiculous.
I had hoped for sweetness – and initially, they were sweet — but I was utterly unprepared for the unyielding, rock-hardness of those tiny artificially flavored stones.
I felt my teeth crunch against something unnaturally hard, but my sweet tooth was unrelenting.
At some point, it occurred to me that my particular pack of NERDS had come from somebody's leftover Halloween candy from one maybe two years ago, and I just so happened to be the unlucky recipient of that box.
Nevertheless, I kept chewing until every last bit of tart purple goodness had been devoured.
Later, my husband came home after an unseasonably warm day. The world was clearly confused. There was no snow. The sky was blue and tiny flowers were trying to bloom in my garden.
My husband asked me if I had heard that The Pretty People had separated.
I hadn't heard.
I opened my mouth but there were no words.
"What's wrong with your teeth?" he asked.
I stood in front of the mirror and stared at my teeth, or rather, the now missing parts: the pieces that had been there but that had disappeared at some point along the way without my even noticing it.
I started to weep.
Partly for my broken teeth, but mostly because of The Pretty People.
Early the next day, I made an appointment. I couldn't wait to see my dentist so he could get his gloved hands all up in there and make things right again; it didn't seem like it would be too hard.
But it was.
My appointment lasted over an hour during which time I lay back in the chair and listened to the dental assistant go on about another employee whose dog had recently run away, how devastated she was to have had him unexpectedly wander out of her life.
When the dentist finished shaping and bonding, I had two new teeth: nearly as good as the originals – but not exactly the same. I kept looking at them.
"Will they last forever?" I asked my dentist when he finished.
"They'll be good for a while," he said, "but once something has broken… well, all fixes are temporary."
I thought of The Pretty People.
I've always assumed every marriage has cracks and weak spots, but that these minor imperfections are things we can excuse in our spouses. Short of infidelity or abuse, I've believed most grievances are petty things that we can forgive in each other because we all possess our own heinous fault lines.
I mean, on any given Thursday I want to strangle my husband after I have punched him in the throat and given him a Super-Atomic wedgie.
But Lord knows, my husband is a patient man.
It is January now, and I can't stop thinking about the impermanence of things.
I can't stop thinking of friends who are wrestling with health related issues; another friend whose son had to be airlifted from Bolivia to Miami to receive treatment for something doctors have not yet diagnosed. I am thinking about the dental office worker whose puppy ran away. And I am thinking about the Pretty People – their children, their home, their lives.
An eternal optimist, I'm hoping the best for all of them. I'm praying that a Divine Spirit will cure my friend's tumors, that my friend's son will miraculously turn around so that his father can stop worrying about diarrhea and measuring urine output. I'm hoping that The Pretty People will rediscover what they once saw in each other after a little time away from their daily routine. I'm hoping that dental assistant's puppy will find his way home.
Also, I'm hoping that my new teeth will hold.
I know nothing is solid, but I suppose in matters of the heart I prefer the illusion to reality.
Up until that December day, my biggest worry had been getting my sugar fix.
Who knew I had it so sweet?
What has rocked your world lately?
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Herv. teol. stud. vol.64 no.2 Pretoria jun. 2008
Elders as leaders in 1 Peter and the early Church
John H Elliott1
University of San Francisco, USA
Addressing a hostile situation that called for courageous and exemplary leaders, the letter of 1 Peter employed in 5:1-5 a cluster of vocabulary and images (elders, overseers/exercise oversight, shepherds, flock) representing a growing coalescence of terms for leaders and their functions in the early Jesus movement. As one of the earliest witnesses to this constellation and its symbolization of community leaders as elders-pastors-overseers, the text of 1 Peter 5:1-5a deserves more attention than it has hitherto been accorded in the study of early Christian ministry and church order.
In studies on ministry, leadership and order in the early church, 1 Peter often is given less attention than it deserves. Even when the content of the letter is examined for its bearing on this theme, relevant statements of the text (e.g. 1 Pt 5:1-5a) are sometimes misconstrued or, in other instances, passages irrelevant to the topic of ecclesial leadership, such as 1 Peter 2:4-10 and 1 Peter 4:7-11, are used to develop theories unsupported by the evidence and inconsistent with the content of the letter as a whole. Examples of such exegetical Abwege (errors) will be mentioned in due course. Our main focus of attention in this essay, however, will be the instruction of elders in 1 Peter 5:1-4, its unique blend of traditions and motifs, and its significance for a general understanding of the role and responsibilities of elders as leaders in the New Testament period. Most of the exegetical underpinning of what follows is presented in various sections of my recently published commentary on 1 Peter in the Anchor Bible series (Elliott 2000). Given the space limits of this essay, I shall regularly refer the reader to the commentary for exegetical support of the points presented here in summary form.
2.1 1 Peter 4:7-11
At the outset it is important to be clear that 1 Peter 5:1-4(5a) is the only passage of this letter in which the issue of leadership is addressed. Every reader of 1 Peter knows, of course, that significant mention of charismata is made in 1 Peter 4:7-11. This passage, however, has no relevance to the issue of leadership or to charismatic forms of authority, however much this has been assumed in earlier scholarship. 1 Peter 4:7-11, a unit of the letter addressed to the entire community, encourages of all members actions that will strengthen the solidarity of the community in its struggle with a hostile society (Elliott 2000:743-56). This includes "exercising sound judgment and being alert" (v 7b), maintaining constant love toward one another" (v 8a), "being hospitable to one another" (v 9), "speaking" (v 11a) and "rendering service" (v 11b). All these various activities are interpreted theologically as "charisms," exercises of gifts of grace conferred by God: "Inasmuch as each has received a gift of grace (charisma), serve one another with it as honourable household stewards of God's varied grace" (v 10). The several references here to "each," "anyone," and "one another" and the fact that "each" is said to be a beneficiary of God's grace make it clear that all members of the community are in view, with no distinction between some who are charismatically endowed for leadership and others who are not. The concern is not with leadership by some, but mutual service by all. Thus the charisms of which 1 Peter 4:7-11 speaks have no bearing on the issue of leadership and authority (cf also Elliott 1966:192-196).
Accordingly, the theory that 1 Peter 4:10-11 and 1 Peter 5:1-5 derive from different letters of different authors envisioning contrasting forms of leadership and that leadership by elders was intended to supplant leadership by charismatics (Schröger 1976) is sheer speculation with nothing to commend it.
2.2 1 Peter 2:4-10
A second passage of 1 Peter that often is claimed to bear on the issue of authority and leadership, is 1 Peter 2:4-10. But again the case is otherwise. This ingeniously constructed passage constitutes a powerful conclusion to the first major section of the letter (1: 3-2:10), which emphasises the divinely conferred dignity of the reborn people of God. Beginning at 1 Peter 1:3, the course of Christian conversion and growth is traced from the believers' rebirth through the mercy of God (1:3-12) to the hope and holiness of God's reborn children, who are redeemed by the holy Christ (1:13-21), the mutual familial love required of those reborn through the word of the Gospel (1:22-25), their nourishment on and continued growth through the word (2:1-3), to their consolidation as the "household of God", which embraces now the elect and holy people of God of the end time. In this depiction of the rebirth, growth, and consolidation of the reborn as the household or family of God, diverse traditions and images are merged to affirm the family's divine regeneration, sanctification, and election, its union with God and Jesus Christ, and its distinction from all nonbelievers (Elliott 2000:406-449). In 1 Peter 2:9-10, several honorary epithets of ancient Israel, all corporate in nature, are used to affirm the believing community as God's elect and holy people: "elect stock" (genos eklekton), "royal residence" (basileion), "priestly community" (hierateuma), "holy people" (ethnos hagion), "people for [God's] possession" (laos eis peripoiêsen), "God's people" (laos Theou). All these epithets are corporate in nature and express not the qualities of individuals but rather the privileged character of the community as God's elect and holy people. Drawn mainly from Israel's exodus and covenant traditions (Ex 19:3-6; Is 43:20-21; but also Hs 1-2), these communal epithets identify the believing community as the eschatological covenant people of God, elected and sanctified by God from among all the peoples. Like the expression "elect stock" derived from Isaiah 43:20-21, the terms basileion (royal residence), hierateuma (priestly community) and ethnos hagion (holy people) deriving from the LXX version of the covenant formula of Exodus 19:6, all emphasize the elect and holy character of community.
This emphasis on election pervades the entire unit of 1 Peter 2:4-10, as its structure as well as its terminology make clear. In verse 4 Jesus the Lord (cf 2:3) is declared, in terms derived from Isaiah 28:16 (quoted in 2:6), to be the "living stone" that was rejected by humans but who is "elect (eklekton), honoured in God's sight." In verse 5 where the focus shifts from Jesus to the community, the election and covenant terms hierateuma and hagios (deriving from Ex 19:6, cited in verse 9) supply the terms of verse 5e ("holy priestly community"). Similarly, the associated election and covenant term basileion (Ex 19:6, cited in verse 9) is interpreted in verse 5d as "house(hold) of the Spirit." In verse 6 the citation of Isaiah 28:16 speaks of a stone set by God in Zion that is "a cornerstone, elect (eklekton), honoured." Finally in verse 9 those who believe in Jesus Christ as the "elect stone" and who are honoured as he was honoured (vv 4d, 7a) are themselves declared to be an "elect stock" and God's elect and holy people with terms deriving from Israel's election and covenant tradition ("royal residence," "priestly community," "holy people"). This emphasis on the divine election of the household of God relates this passage to both the opening and close of the letter, where both addressees and the brotherhood at Rome are described as the "elect" or "co-elect" of God (1:1; 5:13). Thus the theme of election weaves through this letter from beginning to end and in 2:4-10 receives its fullest explication.
This passage was read in quite a different light by Martin Luther who was interested less in the meaning of 1 Peter 2:4-10 as a whole than in the term hierateuma (2:5, 9) and the theological use to which this term could be put in the formulation of a new, more biblically based doctrine: das Priestertum aller Gläubigen, the priesthood of all believers. In criticism of the cleavage between the clergy and laity of his day and a monopolization by the former of the means of grace, the great Reformer insisted on the equality before God of all the baptized. Through baptism, he asserted, all believers are consecrated as priests (WA 6.407.22-25; cf also 6.564.6-7), pointing to 1 Peter 2:9 (and Rv 5:10) as the biblical basis for this thought. This priesthood of all believers complements the priesthood of the officially ordained, he maintained, and both general and specific priesthoods participate, each in its own fashion, in the priesthood of Christ. (For relevant texts and for a fuller discussion of this doctrine in relation to 1 Pt 2 see Elliott 1966:2-5; Elliott 2000:449-455).
In general it must be acknowledged that Luther's thoughts on this subject were prompted more by theological than exegetical concerns. Detailed, exegetical investigations of 1 Peter 2:4-10 in modern time (e.g. Cerfaux 1939:5-39; Blinzler 1949:49-56; Elliott 2000:406-449 among others) have shown that this passage has little if anything to do with the notion of a priesthood of all believers as expounded by Luther and those following his lead. (For the numerous treatments of this doctrine see Elliott 2000:455, n 73). The focus of 1 Peter 2:4-10 is not on individuals but on the believing community as a whole, as all the collective terms of verses 5, 9 and 10 make clear. The term employed in verses 5 and 9 is not hiereis ("priests") but hierateuma, a collective term ("body, community of priests"), as are most nomina actionis ending in the suffix -euma; e.g. strateuma ("army", "body of soldiers"), techniteuma ("guild of artisans") (Elliott 1966:64-70). Luther's choice of Priestertum as a rendition of hierateuma is, like the English "priesthood", an abstract noun that fails to convey the collective force of the original. Moreover, it is not priesthood, but rather election that is the central and unifying concept of this passage. And whereas nothing is said of priestly community or priesthood elsewhere in 1 Peter, election constitutes a major theme from start to close. The term hierateuma derives from the ancient covenantal formula of Exodus 19:3-6, whose focus is the divine election and sanctification of the household of Jacob (Ex 19:3). In this covenantal formula hierateuma expresses the sanctity of the covenant people and its immediate proximity to God, not the individual status of individual priests or kings. No mention is made in 1 Peter 2:4-10 of baptism or any baptismal consecration to priesthood. Nor is any mention made here of believers participating in the priesthood of Jesus Christ, another element of Luther's doctrine drawn from an entirely different writing, namely the Epistle to the Hebrews.
In sum, the claim that 1 Peter 2:5 and 9 constitute the locus classicus for the notion of a "priesthood of all believers" is exegetically unwarranted. That the doctrine of a priesthood of all believers may have other biblical moorings is a possibility worthy of consideration. That it reflects the sense of 1 Peter 2:4-10, on the other hand, is out of the question. Since 1 Peter 2:4-10 is focused exclusively on the community and not its individual members or leaders, it must be concluded that the passage contains no information relevant to the issue of leadership. 1 Peter 5:1-5a, on the other hand, is the one and only passage that deals directly with this issue and so it is this pericope to which we now turn.
2.3 1 Peter 5:1-5a and context
1 Peter 5:1-5a, containing an address to elders (presbyteroi, 5:1-4) and younger persons (neôteroi, 5:5a ) forms part of the concluding section of the letter (4:12-5:11) , which speaks of honour and joy in suffering (4:12-19), responsible elders and subordinate younger persons (5:1-5a) and the mutual humility of all, resisting the Devil, and trusting in God (5:5b-11) (Elliott 2000:809-844). In 1 Peter 5:1-4, the author addresses the elders (presbyteroi, 5:1) in his capacity as a "co-elder" (sympresbyteros, 5:1a), "and witness to the sufferings of the Christ" (5:1b), "and sharer in the glory about to be revealed" (5:1c). These characterizations relate to important themes developed throughout the letter; for the second designation see 1:11; 2:21b; 23; 3:18a; 4:13; for the third, 1:5, 7-8, 11, 13; 4:13, 14. The use and perhaps coinage of "co-elder" (attested nowhere else in Greek literature), in particular, rather than "apostle" (cf 1:1), underlines the collegiality that the author wishes to establish between the elders he addresses and himself as fellow elder. As the details of verses 1 Peter 2-5a make clear, these elders were not simply persons older in age, but seniors in households (and in all likelihood seniors in their longevity as believers) who, because of their prestige and status in the household churches of which they were the household heads (Campbell 1994), were recognized and respected as leaders of their respective household churches.
As leaders, these elders are exhorted to "shepherd the flock of God among you", (v 2a) by "exercising oversight" (v 2b) in a responsible manner spelled out by a triad of qualities unique in the New Testament (vv 2c-3). As a consequence of their responsible leadership, they are promised that when the "chief Shepherd" (Jesus Christ, cf 2:25) is manifested, these "under-shepherds" will receive "the unfading crown of glory" (v 4). To these honourable elders-leaders, the younger persons (i.e. the recent converts of the community, the novices in faith) are to be subordinate (v 5a).
Throughout the ancient world, both in Greco-Roman and Israelite circles, heads of households respected for their age and prestige were known as "elders" (zekanim, presbyteroi, gerontes, seniores) and exercised the role of local leadership (Campbell 1994). By the time of 1 Peter (ca 73-92 CE), this traditional form of leadership also was firmly in place among the households of the messianic movement. Although Paul makes no explicit mention of elders in his letters, their presence in areas visited by Paul is likely, given the leading role of household heads like Stephan, a senior in the faith (an "early convert in Achaia," 1 Cor 16:15), whom Paul calls a "fellow worker and labourer" (1 Cor 16:16) but who was an elder in all but name. This likelihood is strengthened by the fact that the author of Acts notes that the earliest Jerusalem church was led by "apostles and elders" (Ac 15:2, 4, 6, 22, 23; 16:4; cf 11:30; 21:18) and that Paul and Barnabas appointed such elders in each congregation on their first missionary journey (Ac 14:23). Elders also functioned as leaders in Asia Minor, the area to which 1 Peter was addressed (1 Pt 1:1), as attested by a variety of writings including Acts (20:17), 1 Timothy (5:17-22), 2 John (v 1), 3 John (v 1) and the later letters of Ignatius (Magn 2:1; 3:1; 6:1; 7:1, 2; 12:2; Phld inscr; 7:2; 10:2; Pol. 6:1) and Polycarp (Phil inscr; 5:3; 6:1). They likewise functioned as leaders at Corinth (1 Clem 1:3; 3:3; 21:6; 44:5; 47:6; 54:2; 57:1) and Rome (1 Clem 21:6; 44:5; Herm Vis 2.4.2, 3; 3.1.8).
A noteworthy feature of our Petrine passage is the pastoral imagery and verb episkopountes used to describe the task of these elders. The Christian community is referred to as "the flock of God" and the elders are urged to "shepherd" (poimanete) this flock (to poimnion) "by exercising oversight "(episkopountes) (5:2). To "exercise oversight" or to be an episkopos, involves "the responsibility of safeguarding or seeing to it that something is done in the correct way", to function as a "guardian" (BDAG, under episkopos, 379). Thus the verb episkopountes fits well both with elders and especially the function of shepherding. The depiction of God's people as a "flock" or as "sheep" under the guidance and care of God or human leaders as "shepherds" (poimanes, poimainein) has familiar Old Testament roots. (On the pastoral metaphor in general and its use in 1 Peter, see especially Bosetti 1990). Jesus applied the pastoral metaphor to himself and his disciples (Mk 6:34/Mt 9:36; Mk 14:27/Mt 26:31; Jn 10:1-18) and, according to John 21:15-17, commissioned Peter in particular to "feed my lambs shepherd my sheep feed my sheep". In 1 Peter, the pastoral metaphor is used of Jesus Christ in 2:25 and 5:4.
As a term for Christian leaders, "shepherd" as either a verb or a noun, is employed in other texts as well (Ac 20:28; Eph 4:11; Ign, Phld 2:1; Rm 9:1; Ascen Isa 3:23-27; Herm, Vis. 5.5; Sim. 9:31.5-6). Acts 20:17-35, recounting Paul's farewell address at Miletus to the elders of Ephesus, is particularly noteworthy because of the cluster of terms it shares with 1 Peter 5:2. Here the Ephesian "elders" (presbyteroi, Ac 20:17) are urged to "take heed to yourselves and to all the flock (tō poimniō) over which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers (episkopous) to shepherd (poimainein) the church of the Lord" (Ac 20:28). While the similarities suggest the influence of common tradition, 1 Peter and Acts, both composed in the final third of the first century, provide the earliest evidence of a developing trend to attribute to elders the function of oversight and to portray elders and overseers as shepherds of the flock. Three terms are brought together here elders (presbyteroi), overseers (episkopoi, episkopein), shepherds (poimanes, poimainein) in a manner that indicates their initial synonymous use as designations for Christian leaders. The somewhat latter writings of 1 Timothy (3:1, episkopos; 5:17-22, presbyteroi) and Titus (1:5, presbyteroi; 1:7, episkopos) still attest a similar synonymity of "elder" and "overseer" and the singular episkopos still appears to be one of the several elders. The diakonoi of which the Pastorals also speak (1 Tm 3:8-10, 12-13; cf 2 Tm 4:10) appear to constitute a further emerging group of functionaries known as "deacons" (cf Ac 6:1-6 and Phlp 1:1; 1 Clem 42:4-5; Polyc, Phil 5:2; Ign, Eph 2:1 and passim; Herm, Vis 3.5.1; Sim 9.26.2). Clement of Rome (ca 96 CE) likewise describes elders functioning as episkopoi (1 Clem 44:1-6) and in 44:3-5 "flock of Christ", "oversight", and "elders" occur in tandem similar to 1 Peter 5 and Acts 20. The fact that 1 Clement, Didache and the Shepherd of Hermas speak only of overseers in the plural (with the exception of 1 Clem 59:3 where God is identified as ktistên kai episkopon) is consistent with their equation of presbyteroi and episkopoi. It also indicates that among the churches producing these writings (communities at Rome in the case of 1 Clem and Hermas [mid-second century]) nothing is known of a monepiscopate.
The letters of Ignatius of Antioch (c 106 CE), on the other hand, marked a new and different concept of order presumed among the churches addressed. Ignatius distinguished between a plurality of elders and a singular episkopos (Ign, Eph 1:3; 4:1; Magn 2:1; Trall 1:1 Phld 1:1; Smyrn 8:1 and passim). It is the bishop (episkopos, Rm 2:2) of Antioch in Syria who first makes a distinction between the roles, titles, and statuses of presbyteroi, episkopoi, and diakonoi and who describes the pattern adopted more universally in later time. Ignatius advocated a pattern aimed at strengthening the unity (Eph 5:1; Phld inscr; 3:2-3) and orthodoxy (Eph 6:2; 16:1-2; Magn 11:1; Trall 6:1-2; Smyrn 6:1-2 etc) of the churches and warranted by divine authority (e.g. Eph 3:2; Trall 3:1; Smyrn 9:1). In this pattern, certain persons from among the presbyteroi and the college of presbyteroi (presbyterion, Eph 2:2; 4:1) were chosen as primi inter pares, first among equals, to preside over all other presbyteroi and diakonoi (Magn 2:1; 4:1) and for them the title episkopos was reserved. To this local episkopos and the college of elders all believers were to be subordinate (Magn 13:1-2; Trall 2:1-2; 7:2; 13:2; Phld 7:1-2; Smyrn 8:1-2). This shift in the status and role of the episkopos to presiding and superordinate elder is usually indicated by a concommitant shift in terminology whereby episkopos can be rendered "bishop" rather than "overseer". The term diakonoi, in turn, designated subordinate ministers assisting the bishops and presbyters as "deacons" (Magn 6:1; Trall 7:2; Phld 4:1; 7:1; Polyc 6:1). This reflects for the first time a hierarchical structure demarcating three distinct levels of authority and competence:
subordinate to episkopos/bishop
subordinate to bishop and elders
In this arrangement, the role of shepherd/pastor (poimên) appears reserved for the episkopos/bishop alone (Ign, Phld 2:1; cf Rm 9:1-2), an additional harbinger of later development following the Ignatian pattern, and topos ("position") takes on the sense of "office" (Polyc 1:2; cf Smyrn 6:2).
This stratified Ignatian arrangement is a more elaborated and rationalized form of church order than anything found in the New Testament, though the Pastorals come closest. In fact it differs also from 1 Clement, the Didache, and the Shepherd of Hermas, all of which speak of episkopoi only in the plural (1 Clem 42:4, 5; Did 15:1; Herm, Sim 9.27.2) and equate episkopoi/overseers and presbyteroi/elders. It is also noteworthy that while Ignatius refers to Polycarp of Smyrna as episkopos/bishop (Polyc inscr), Polycarp himself in his letter to Philippi makes no use of the term episkopos, but identifies himself only as "Polycarp and the elders with him" (Phil, inscr). Such diversity in the nomenclature for ecclesial leaders and the equation or demarcation of their functions and statuses reveals a concomitant diversity in the structure and order of the early churches that prevailed down through the mid-second century. While 1 Peter and other New Testament writings contain the building blocks for a hierarchical pattern as advocated by Ignatius, it is only with Ignatius that these building blocks are integrated into a pattern that can be described as stratified or hierarchical in nature. Accordingly, only with the point of development reflected by Ignatius is it appropriate to speak of an attempt at the "institutionalization" and rationalization of distinctive modes and levels of leadership involving distinct levels of authority, distinct roles, and differentiated "offices". One important implication for this state of affairs is that the term "office", which presumes the institutionalization of a bureaucratic form of governance, is a historically anachronistic and sociologically inaccurate designation for the roles and functions described in the New Testament and ought to be avoided in all discussions of New Testament leadership and church order.
1 Peter, in particular, reflects no such stage of institutionalization and addresses persons who are not "office-holders" but rather heads of household churches known traditionally as "elders," who as "shepherds" are urged to "oversee" (not "act as bishops of") the flock of God in a manner befitting "under-shepherds," as it were, of Jesus Christ, the Chief Shepherd. The "serving" of which it speaks (diakonein, 4:11) is not reserved to functionaries known as "deacons," but is an activity made possible by the divine grace conferred on all believers (4:10).
The mode and motivation for responsible leadership is spelled out in a triad of negative-positive antitheses (1 Pt 5:2c-3) that is unique in the New Testament while also reflecting a blending of tradition:
Not because compelled [to do so]
but willingly in accord with God
not for shameful gain
but eagerly
not as domineering those allotted [to you]
but being examples for the flock
The point made here is that pastoral leadership must be freely and willingly undertaken "as God would have you do it" (NRSV), with no trace of self-serving or "lording it over" the flock.
Elders/shepherds exercising oversight are to act in accord with God's will, ever mindful of the fact that the flock is not theirs to dominate but God's (cf v 2a) and that it is God who has "allotted" these sheep to their charge (v 3). Their task is to lead by example and not as overlords. A domineering mode of leadership can be avoided only when elders "walk the talk" and lead not by domination but by inspiration. The final member of this triad (v 3), with its term katakyrieuontes ("domineering") and its call for serving by example has linguistic and conceptual affinities with Jesus' instruction of his disciples concerning the nature of appropriate discipleship (Mk 10:35-45/Mt 20:20-28/Lk 22:25-27). Since Mark 10:42/Mt 20:25 are the only other New Testament occurrences of the verb katakyrieuô (cf kyrieuô, Lk 22:25), it appears that the Petrine author has incorporated a reminiscence of this dominical logion into his triad of antitheses. The disciples, Jesus insisted, are not to be concerned with precedence, power, and who among them is greatest. In contrast to Gentile rulers who "domineer" or "lord it over" (katakyrieuousin) their subjects, Jesus' disciples to take Jesus their leader as their example and to serve as did the Human One who "came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mk 10:45/Mt 20:28; also John 13:1-15 for a similar emphasis on Jesus as humble servant and example). According to the Petrine author, as Jesus was God's humble servant and example for believers (see the same thought in 1 Pt 2:21-23), so leaders, like all believers, are to "follow in his steps" (v 2:21d) and as leaders provide a similar model for all believers to follow (v 5:3). The emphasis on humility implied in Jesus' instruction and example is echoed here and is expressed explicitly in 5:5b-7 where the entire community is addressed and the mutual humility of all believers is enjoined. When elders conduct themselves as instructed in verses 2-3, these faithful "under-shepherds" can be confident that when the chief Shepherd is manifested at the close of the age, they shall receive "the unfading crown of glory" (v 4).
A final reference to these elders occurs in 1 Peter 5:5a. In this accompanying address to "younger persons" (neôteroi), best taken as a reference to recent converts, these persons who are young in the faith are instructed to maintain order and unity within the community by subordinating themselves to the elders and giving them the respect they deserve (Elliott 2000:836-841).
When 1 Peter 5:1-5a is seen in connection with 5:5b-11, which addresses the entire community, a relativization and limitation of the authority of these elders/leaders becomes even clearer. Here elders/leaders are included among all believers who are enjoined to "clothe yourselves with humility in your relations with one another because 'God opposes the arrogant but gives grace to the humble'" (5:5c, citing Pr 3:34 LXX). Elders, like household slaves (2:18-25), wives (3:4), and all the believers (3:8; 5:5b-7), are to exemplify in their lives and conduct the humility manifested by the Christ (2:21-23), for humility is a fundamental characteristic of those favoured by God.
The cluster of vocabulary and images (elders, overseers/exercise oversight, shepherds, flock) contained in 1 Peter 5 represents a growing coalescence of terms for Christian leaders and their functions that will continue far beyond the time of this letter. As one of the earliest witnesses to this constellation and its symbolization of Christian leaders as "pastors", the text of 1 Peter 5:1-5a deserves more attention than it has hitherto been accorded.
The traits of leadership which the Petrine author outlines had a direct relation to the precarious situation in which the addressees of the letter found themselves. For communities of believers under pressure from Gentile outsiders to compromise their exclusive allegiance to God and Jesus Christ, to soft-pedal the holiness that set them apart from others, to "go along in order to get along" in order to avoid insult, reproach, public shaming and the suffering such mistreatment entailed (1:6, 14-17; 2:11-12, 15-16, 18-20; 3:9, 13-17; 4:1-4, 12-19; 5:8-9), courageous and competent elders were needed to lead the way and help "take the heat" of society's scorn. The maintenance of the social cohesion and religious commitment of God's flock required pastors who willingly accepted the role of leadership, who were committed to carrying out the will of God, who sought not their own personal gain but rather the welfare of the flock, and who exercised their oversight not as overlords but as under shepherds of the Chief Shepherd. In emulating the humility of the Christ, they, in turn, would be examples of the humility that was to characterize and bond the entire community.
5.1 1 Peter 5 and the church today
The church of the present finds itself in a situation far different from that faced by the beleaguered addressees of 1 Peter. No longer a minority messianic sect threatened by social absorption and extinction, the church today has a firm place and a respected voice in the corridors of power. Accordingly, one might claim that only in those exceptional instances where pockets of the church encounter hostile opposition and persecution could these Petrine words to elders be found "relevant" and "empowering". On the other hand, could one not also propose that 1 Peter 5 also speaks to issues of ecclesial leadership typical of each and any generation, differences in political and social conditions notwithstanding? This would include instances where leadership roles are foisted upon the timid rather than accepted willingly by the courageous; where there are self-appointed pastors-for-profit and merchandisers of God's grace; where pastors treat the flock not as God's but as their own; where overseers and bishops attempt to command from top down like princes of the church rather than as shepherds who lead by humble example? With regard to such instances of corrupt leadership, would it be that much of a hermeneutical leap to suggest that these words of 1 Peter continue to indicate the qualities, spirit, and motivation that should mark the leaders of the church in any age?
5.2 A cautionary afterthought
After the completion of this article, I happened to glance through some recent issues of The Lutheran, a parish magazine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Virtually every issue carried some report about the ELCA's recent full communion agreement with the Episcopal Church, Called to common mission. These reports often mentioned objections to that agreement by a minority within the ELCA who discount the historic episcopate as an authentic element of the ministry and structure of the Church Catholic and hence of both Lutheran and Episcopal communions. Suddenly it occurred to me that a final comment in this present essay was necessary to forestall any misunderstanding and misuse of this essay by persons opposed to the historic episcopate on the grounds that it is not present in 1 Peter or the rest of the New Testament, and since non-biblical, therefore not an authoritative element of the church's heritage.
Therefore I wish to make perfectly clear that nothing stated in this article supports such opposition. What we see in 1 Peter is one early phase of a long development. What Paul, 1 Peter, Acts, the Pastorals, 1 Clement, Hermas, the Didache, and Ignatius of Antioch say about leadership/ministry and order in the early Church represents different steps on a journey taken at different times and in different places under differing sets of historical and social circumstances. These diverse writings give witness to a historical, social, and theological process in which over the course of several centuries a form of ministry and order took shape which eventually settled on a threefold form of leadership (bishop, elders and deacons) and an Episcopal form of church governance. The regularization of the transmission of personal authority from bishop to bishop constituted one of three interrelated means for measuring and maintaining the truth of proclamation and practice throughout the church. Preaching, teaching, confession, worship and behaviour had to be in conformity with the authoritative written Scriptural canon, the living canon of the confessing and worshiping community, and the personal authoritative witness to the Gospel commencing with the apostles and transmitted thereafter to their personal successors in diverse localities. In the regard to the personal witness by the episkopoi succeeding the apostles, Irenaeus of Lyons (ca 180 CE) underlined both the historical actuality of this succession, as 1 Clement had earlier (42:2-4; 44:2-3), and its function of maintaining the truth of the faith: "It is within the power of all, therefore, in every church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times" (Against the Heresies 3.3.1). This threefold constellation of canonical authority assured a system of checks and balances preventing, or at least limiting, the dominance of only one norm of the faith over the others, thereby forestalling a fall into sheer Biblicism, or heterodox confession and worship, or Episcopal domination and monopolization of authority. Each was essential to keeping the faith faithful to its origins while also responsive to ever new exigencies of the present.
In particular, the threefold ministry, including the episcopate, was adopted and institutionalized as the most effective means for coordinating and ordering the ministries of the church in its proclamation of the gospel, its sacramental activity, and its evangelical witness and service to society. (For studies of these developments see, inter alia, the several relevant essays in Eucharist and Ministry 1970; Goppelt 1970; Delorme 1974; and Lienhard 1984; Noll 1993.) The fact that neither 1 Peter nor any other New Testament writing reflects such an ecclesial structure cannot be used to reject this structure as "unbiblical" or "anti-biblical" or inconsistent with Lutheran history and theology. This is the case for at least three reasons.
Firstly, this structure is the end result of a process, a historical and ecclesial development, of which the churches of the New Testament did have a part. As noted above, elements or building blocks employed in this structure were already in place in various ways among the New Testament communities. What the threefold ministry represents is a structure in which these building blocks of roles, functions, and terms have been employed, modified, and consolidated. As early as Ignatius it was also believed that this structure assured the unity and orthodoxy of the church and that it had divine warrant. To ignore or dismiss this fact of historical process would be to discount the church as a historical entity which grew and developed variously over time.
Secondly, to insist that only that structuration of Christian ministry that is found in the New Testament is valid, would amount to the rankest form of Biblicism. For Lutherans to so argue would be to espouse a position at complete variance to their own theology, their embrace of the ecumenical creeds of the 4th and later centuries, their liturgy which is an amalgam of several post-biblical rites, and their own Lutheran symbols of the faith.
Finally, the threefold ministry is part of the historical and ecclesial development in which the present Lutheran Church and the ELCA currently stand. To deny this would be to deny the catholic roots and heritage of the Lutheran church a move that would have been abhorrent to Luther and his fellow reformers and a position never taken by them.
The minority within the ELCA who today persist in questioning or rejecting the threefold ministry and the historical roots of the episcopate as realities that have shaped the Lutheran church from Luther onward run the grave risk of succumbing to an anti-historical and Biblicist mentality at complete odds with the historical consciousness and catholic theology of the Lutheran church from the 16th century to the present.
Works consulted
Blinzler, J 1049. Episcopus: Studien über das Bischofsamt. Michael von Faulhaber Festschrift, edited by the Theologische Fakultät der Universität München, 49-65. Regensburg: Gregorius. [ Links ]
Bosetti, E 1990. Il Pastore: Cristo e la chiesa nella Prima lettera di Pietro. Associazione Biblical Italiana. Supplementi alla Rivistas Biblica 21. Bologna: Dehoniane. [ Links ]
Campbell, R A 1994. The elders: Seniority with earliest Christianity. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. [ Links ]
Cerfaux, L 1954. Regale Sacerdotium. Revue de sciences philosophiques et théologiques 28 (1939), 5-39; reprinted pp 283-315 in vol 2 of Recueil Lucien Cerfaux: Études d'exégèse et d'histoire religieuse. Gembloux: Duculot. (BETL 6-7. [ Links ])
Danker, F W (ed) 2000. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. [ Links ]
Delorme, J (ed) 1974. Le Ministère et les Ministères selon le Nouveau Testament. Parole de Dieu 10. Paris: Seuil. (BDAG. [ Links ])
Elliott, J H 1966. The elect and the holy: An exegetical examination of 1 Peter 2:4-10 and the phrase Basileion Hierateuma. Graduate Study VII of the Concordia Seminary School for Graduate Studies. Leiden: Brill. (Suppl to Novum Testamentum Vol XII.) Reprinted by Wipf & Stock, Eugene, Oregon, 2005. [ Links ]
Elliott, J H 2000. 1 Peter: A new translation with introduction and commentary. New York: Doubleday (Random House). (The Anchor Bible 37B. [ Links ])
Empie, P C & Murphy, T A (eds) 1970. Eucharist and ministry. Lutherans and Catholics in dialogue, IV. New York: U S A National Committee of the Lutheran World Federation. [ Links ]
Goppelt, L 1970. Church government and the office of the bishop in the first three centuries, in Asheim, I & Gold, V R (eds), Episcopacy in the Lutheran Church?: Studies in the development and definition of the office of church leadership, 1-29. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress. [ Links ]
Lienhard, J T 1984. Ministry. Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier. (Message of the Fathers of the Church, 8. [ Links ])
Noll, R R 1993. Christian ministerial priesthood: A search for its beginnings in the primary documents of the apostolic fathers. San Francisco, CA: Catholic Scholars Press. [ Links ]
Schröger, F 1976. Die Verfassung der Gemeinde des ersten Petrusbriefes, in Hainz, J (Hrsg), Kirche im Werden, Studien zum Thema Amt und Gemeinde im Neuen Testament. Munich: F Schöningh. [ Links ]
1 Dr John H Elliott is Professor Emeritus of New Testament, University of San Francisco, California, USA. Permission granted for publication by Dr Ralph W Klein, Christ Seminary-Seminex, Professor of Old Testament, Editor of Currents in Theology and Mission. This essay appeared originally in a Festschrift honoring Everett Kalin of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Berkeley, California (Currents in Theology and Mission 28/6 (2001), 549-559.
For as long as our honoree, Ev Kalin, and I have been good friends and colleagues over forty years from Concordia Seminary, St Louis, onward 1 Peter has been a constant focus of my research and I offer this morsel of my Lebensarbeit to Ev as a token of my esteem and friendship and in gratitude for Ev as a pastor faithful to the spirit of 1 Peter.

subset: commoncrawl


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In many ways, Google's Chrome OS platform is really starting to feel like a desktop version of Android. It looks like Android, it acts like Android, and it even runs Android apps. But for all their similarities, Chrome OS and Android still differ in some pretty significant ways.
One of those is how the two operating systems handle upgrades. Software updates on Chrome OS are much simpler, more frequent, and more consistent than what you see on Android — to put it mildly — and you as the user have far more visibility into what exactly is happening and what's ahead.
Whether you're already using Chrome OS or just thinking about giving it a whirl, here are some important things to know and remember.
1. Chrome OS upgrades happen automatically and quietly, with no annoying delays or notifications.
The first rule of Chrome OS upgrades is that your device doesn't talk about Chrome OS upgrades. Google's software updates itself automatically in the background while you're using your Chromebook; the system won't pester you to reboot or make you wait while it applies new software at startup (with the exception being the very first time you power up and sign into a new Chrome OS device).
You'll see a small arrow icon in the lower-right corner of the screen, near the clock, whenever a new update has been downloaded and is ready to go. If you open it, the system will offer you the opportunity to apply the update immediately; otherwise, it'll just take effect on its own with no fanfare the next time you restart.
You can manually force a Chromebook to check for updates by going into its Help screen (chrome://help) — but unless you're just impatient and itching for something new, there's really no need to do that. The updates will always show up and take care of themselves in short order.
2. Chrome OS upgrades arrive every two to three weeks — sometimes even more frequently — regardless of what device you have.
Software updates on Chrome OS are delivered multiple times a month — and since they're sent to all devices directly from Google, they generally show up for everyone at more or less the same time. Device-makers can't modify the operating system as they can with Android, so there's no real variance in the software from one device to the next and thus no need for manufacturers to be involved in the rollout process.
Officially, the regular stable version of Chrome OS is updated every two to three weeks with minor fixes and every six weeks with more significant revisions. Sometimes, though, upgrades arrive even more frequently than that.
3. You can step up your Chrome OS update schedule and get early access to new features if you want.
Like Google's Chrome browser, Chrome OS has three different channels from which you can choose: the Stable channel, which provides fully tested and polished software and is the best bet for most users; the Beta channel, which is updated every week or so and sees new features more than a month ahead of their Stable channel release; and the Dev channel, which is often updated multiple times a week and includes cutting-edge stuff that's still actively being developed (and often rough around the edges or sometimes even completely nonfunctional as a result).
If you want to try out a different channel, type chrome://help into the address bar of a browser tab on your Chromebook. Click "Detailed build information," then click "Change channel." Select the channel you want and follow the steps the system provides to complete the process.
Just be aware that anything other than Stable can — by its very nature — make your system less stable to use, since it relies on software that's still being tested and developed instead of a polished final release. The Dev channel in particular comes with a warning that it's subject to bugs and should be selected only by advanced users who are interested in seeing what's in the works and don't mind the occasional glitch.
4. You can always find out what's new in a Chrome OS update — if you know where to look.
Even though Chrome OS itself doesn't typically jump and shout about incoming upgrades, Google does make detailed info about what's new readily available for the curious among us. The easiest way to keep tabs on releases is to follow the official Chrome Releases blog. Look for the posts involving the Chrome OS channel you use ("Stable Channel Update for Chrome OS," for instance), and click inside to find out what's changed with any given update.
5. Chrome OS devices don't receive updates forever, but they do get them for a pretty long time.
Google says all Chrome OS devices now receive regular upgrades for a minimum of six and a half years from when their chipset first appeared on the platform — which usually ends up meaning any given device will be updated for at least five years from its initial sale date. In some cases, the window ends up being even longer.
(Note: An earlier version of this story stated that the upgrade guarantee was six and a half years from a device's launch date, but Google has clarified that the term is actually now tied to the launch of the chipset, not the device itself — a change from the way things used to be handled.)
6. You can check to see how long any Chrome OS device will receive updates right now — or even before you buy it.
Google maintains a Chrome OS end-of-life database that lists out exactly when every Chromebook (and Chromebox) will stop receiving OS updates. It tends to be updated quite quickly as new devices launch — so anytime you're thinking about buying a Chrome OS product, mosey on over to that page first so you'll be fully informed about how long it'll remain current.
One important footnote to keep in mind: Devices' end-of-life dates do sometimes end up being pushed back later than what's initially listed — thus giving you a longer than expected period of updates — but Google promises it'll never go the other way, and you'll never end up receiving a shorter window of support than what that page had promised.
And with that, congratulations: You're now officially a Chrome OS Upgrade Expert. Please pick up your certificate of completion on the way out (optional) and bring me a cookie and/or freshly baked pie (strongly encouraged).*
* Hey, it's part of the job description. Don't look at me — I don't make the rules.
Sign up for my weekly newsletter to get more practical tips, personal recommendations, and plain-English perspective on the news that matters.
[Android Intelligence videos at Computerworld]


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Got Questions
The Bible does not explicitly state on which day of the week Jesus was crucified. The two most widely held views are Friday and Wednesday. Some, however, using a synthesis of both the Friday and Wednesday arguments, argue for Thursday as the day.
Jesus said in Matthew 12:40, "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Those who argue for a Friday crucifixion say that there is still a valid way in which He could have been considered in the grave for three days. In the Jewish mind of the first century, a part of day was considered as a full day. Since Jesus was in the grave for part of Friday, all of Saturday, and part of Sunday—He could be considered to have been in the grave for three days. One of the principal arguments for Friday is found in Mark 15:42, which notes that Jesus was crucified "the day before the Sabbath." If that was the weekly Sabbath, i.e. Saturday, then that fact leads to a Friday crucifixion. Another argument for Friday says that verses such as Matthew 16:21 and Luke 9:22 teach that Jesus would rise on the third day; therefore, He would not need to be in the grave a full three days and nights. But while some translations use "on the third day" for these verses, not all do, and not everyone agrees that "on the third day" is the best way to translate these verses. Furthermore, Mark 8:31 says that Jesus will be raised "after" three days.
The Thursday argument expands on the Friday view and argues mainly that there are too many events (some count as many as twenty) happening between Christ's burial and Sunday morning to occur from Friday evening to Sunday morning. Proponents of the Thursday view point out that this is especially a problem when the only full day between Friday and Sunday was Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. An extra day or two eliminates that problem. The Thursday advocates could reason thus: suppose you haven't seen a friend since Monday evening. The next time you see him it is Thursday morning and you say, "I haven't seen you in three days" even though it had technically only been 60 hours (2.5 days). If Jesus was crucified on Thursday, this example shows how it could be considered three days.
The Wednesday opinion states that there were two Sabbaths that week. After the first one (the one that occurred on the evening of the crucifixion [Mark 15:42; Luke 23:52-54]), the women purchased spices—note that they made their purchase after the Sabbath (Mark 16:1). The Wednesday view holds that this "Sabbath" was the Passover (see Leviticus 16:29-31, 23:24-32, 39, where high holy days that are not necessarily the seventh day of the week are referred to as the Sabbath). The second Sabbath that week was the normal weekly Sabbath. Note that in Luke 23:56 the women who had purchased spices after the first Sabbath returned and prepared the spices, then "rested on the Sabbath." The argument states that they could not purchase the spices after the Sabbath, yet prepare those spices before the Sabbath—unless there were two Sabbaths. With the two-Sabbath view, if Christ was crucified on Thursday, then the high holy Sabbath (the Passover) would have begun Thursday at sundown and ended at Friday sundown—at the beginning of the weekly Sabbath or Saturday. Purchasing the spices after the first Sabbath (Passover) would have meant they purchased them on Saturday and were breaking the Sabbath.
Therefore, according to the Wednesday viewpoint, the only explanation that does not violate the biblical account of the women and the spices and holds to a literal understanding of Matthew 12:40 is that Christ was crucified on Wednesday. The Sabbath that was a high holy day (Passover) occurred on Thursday, the women purchased spices (after that) on Friday and returned and prepared the spices on the same day, they rested on Saturday which was the weekly Sabbath, then brought the spices to the tomb early Sunday. Jesus was buried near sundown on Wednesday, which began Thursday in the Jewish calendar. Using a Jewish calendar, you have Thursday day (day one). Thursday night (night one), Friday day (day two), Friday night (night two), Saturday day (day three), Saturday night (night three). We do not know exactly what time He rose, but we do know that it was before sunrise on Sunday. He could have risen as early as just after sunset Saturday evening, which began the first day of the week to the Jews. The discovery of the empty tomb was made just at sunrise (Mark 16:2), before it was fully light (John 20:1).
A possible problem with the Wednesday view is that the disciples who walked with Jesus on the road to Emmaus did so on "the same day" of His resurrection (Luke 24:13). The disciples, who do not recognize Jesus, tell Him of Jesus' crucifixion (24:21) and say that "today is the third day since these things happened" (24:22). Wednesday to Sunday is four days. A possible explanation is that they may have been counting since Wednesday evening at Christ's burial, which begins the Jewish Thursday, and Thursday to Sunday could be counted as three days.
In the grand scheme of things, it is not all that important to know what day of the week Christ was crucified. If it were very important, then God's Word would have clearly communicated the day and timeframe. What is important is that He did die and that He physically, bodily rose from the dead. What is equally important is the reason He died—to take the punishment that all sinners deserve. John 3:16 and 3:36 both proclaim that putting your trust in Him results in eternal life! This is equally true whether He was crucified on a Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday.


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Snack foods present specific challenges to the packaging process. Snacks tend to be fragile with a light density, and on top of those two hurdles, snacks often are terribly irregular. Their inherent fragility and odd shapes make potato chips, tortilla chips and other snacks difficult to package quickly without damage.
Vertical form/fill/seal (f/f/s) systems and pillow pouch packaging have answered this challenge. The air-filled pillow pouch provides protection for the fragile product, and the vertical nature helps speed the process along.
Spicing up bag styles
Most snack manufacturers package their products in weights ranging from ½ oz to 1 lb or more, and they don't want to waste floor space or money on packaging machines dedicated to each size and bag style. According to Mark Lozano, sales manager for TNA North America, Coppell, TX, versatility is the No. 1 priority for snack producers looking at vertical packaging equipment.
"To address versatility, a machine has to be able to do traditional American bags, which are the larger bags, while still being able to do the smaller bags," he said.
Meeting the needs of different customers and consumers goes beyond bag sizes and also into bag style. Snack producers are looking for bags to fit product variations in regional preference, serving sizes and dietary needs, according to Tom Egan, vice-president of industry service, PMMI. As snack producers also look for ways to stand out from the competition on supermarket shelves, moving away from traditional pillow pouches is a way to do that.
"Flexible packaging formats with the ability to produce four-sided bags, block-bottom bags and different sizes of pillow bags on the same machine are very important because they improve production flexibility and reduce costs for equipment and floor space," said Jeff Almond, snack food industry manager for packaging systems, Heat and Control, Inc., Hayward, CA. Having vertical packaging systems that build multiple sizes and styles is a snack producer's packaging dream. Heat and Control's Ishida Atlas Flex bagmaker produces a variety of formats, including four-sided hem seal, block-bottom and pillow pouch bags.
Add-on equipment can save snack producers money by enabling existing equipment to handle new bag styles and sizes. Heat and Control offers upgrade kits to retrofit machines to produce gusseted, block-bottom and four-sided hem seal bags. The vertical f/f/s can also convert back to pillow pouches efficiently.
Kliklok-Woodman, Decatur, GA, also designed its machines to handle a variety of packaging styles including a new way to package multipacks of product, opening new marketing doors for snack companies. Small snack bags have often been confined to end-of-aisle, convenience stores and vending machines. Multipacks of smaller snack bags can open additional channels for snack producers to get these products into consumers' hands. Packaging multi-packs, however, creates challenges with using excessive packaging material and streamlining the system with the rest of the packaging line. Kliklok-Woodman developed its Woodman Vantage Multi-Bag Baler to offer solutions to these issues.
"Snack producers are looking for ways to differentiate themselves on the grocery shelf as well as get a large single ring up at the register for small bags," said Ross Long, vice-president of marketing and sales, Kliklok-Woodman. "They have been looking for ways to bring a different presentation of their small bags into the marketplace." This multi-pack equipment wraps traditional single-serve or 100-Calorie snack bags into a tight single pack with greater pack density. This increased density makes snack bales easier to store, stack and transport. According to the company, it also uses less material than other multipack formats.
The baler is produced in a vertical f/f/s format so it easily adds onto a snack producer's existing bagger.
Speeding up packaging
Saving space while offering bag flexibility may be a top priority for most snack companies, but speed is always right behind it on the list of things needed from packaging equipment. Varying bag sizes on the same equipment, however, can limit the speeds at which baggers operate. Large 1-lb bags have to be run at a slower speed than smaller bags. Finding ways to run larger bags faster brings the whole operation up to speed.
"As you look at infrastructure in existing plants, real estate is limited, and we're set up to run large formats at rather moderate speeds. What TNA has done recently is a pretty significant development where we can run the large bags at higher than moderate speeds," Mr. Lozano said.
The company's equipment can run packs of traditional single-serve potato chips at speeds of up to 130 bags per minute (bpm), while 1-lb family bags can run at 60-70 bpm. Before, the machines could only reach speeds of 45-50 bpm. Extruded products can be bagged at 170 bpm. "In the same footprint that you were usually locked into speeds of 80-100 bpm, we can increase that with the same floor space used," Mr. Lozano noted.
TNA reached such speeds by improving the geometry of the product flow between the scale and the bagger. The company also improved the chutes between the scale that weighs snacks to incorporate and control the natural parabolic flow. "If you control that and cut out all the swirling and bouncing the product does, that's how you gain your speed and control product flow," Mr. Lozano said.
Continuous motion instead of intermittent motion also helps baggers reach higher speeds. "Continuous motion allows us to feed film or advance the packaging material at the same time that we're sealing the material," Mr. Long said. The company can upgrade an existing intermittent motion machine to continuous motion, so snack producers can increase their packaging systems' speeds without the added costs of a new vertical f/f/s machine. Heat and Control's Atlas 233 and Atlas 223 vertical baggers use continuous motion to reach speeds of 80-120 bpm and 200 bpm, respectively.
According to Mr. Long, however, there is such thing as too fast in vertical packaging. Because of the irregularity of snack packaging, problems can occur when trying to bag snacks too quickly. Once product variability comes into play, at high speeds, the time to adjust to variability diminishes.
"If you time the machine to run very well on a potato chip with a 2-in. average diameter, and suddenly the potatoes coming through the fryer are 3 in. in diameter, you're going to increase your packaging waste unless you slow it down," Mr. Long said. Keeping these real-world production challenges in mind, Kliklok-Woodman pursues speeds of 90-110 bpm.
Automating further
A major hurdle in vertical f/f/s machines is the human intervention necessary to run these systems. Operators must oversee changeovers of films for different products, which open the door to mistakes. To eliminate human error and further automate the packaging process, TNA introduced a bar-code-reading system on its equipment that matches the product being bagged with the UPC of the correct packaging film. Before, matching the product with the right packaging was up to an operator.
"If someone put a film that said there were no peanuts or no dairy in a bag and they ended up putting sour cream and onion or some type of peanut product in that bag, it could wind up in the marketplace and someone could get hurt," Mr. Lozano said. "It can't happen when you're running the UPC code; it's not going to happen. The machine will not run the wrong film with the right recipe." The machine continuously verifies the packaging and recipe match.
A sensing system on TNA's equipment detects failed seals and rejects those bags immediately. If several bags get tagged as rejects, the system alerts the operator. By further automating the process, the company reduces waste and also streamlines the rejection process.
The new technologies in vertical f/f/s save resources, time and labor and improve versatility, speed and automation, which is every snack producer's end goal.


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Influential metalcore band Underoath takes No Fix Tour to Sands Bethlehem Event Center on May 6
From a press release:
After disbanding in 2013 and reuniting in 2015, Underøath are officially back with a new album next month, and the Florida metalcore band will take their national No Fix Tour with Dance Gavin Dance, Veil of Maya, and Limbs to the Sands Bethlehem Event Center on Sunday, May 6 at 7 p.m.
Tickets, which are $29.50, plus applicable fees, go on sale this Friday, March 2 at 10 a.m. and can be purchased at sandseventcenter.com, the Event Center box office (77 Sands Blvd., Bethlehem), ticketmaster.com, all Ticketmaster outlets, or by phone at 800-745-3000.
With eight years having passed since we last heard new music from Underoath, that near decade-length absence weighed heavily upon music lovers' hearts. When you consider all of the bands that formed using their idiosyncratic power and texture as blueprints (and then hearing those pretenders fail anyway), you can clearly see the hole Underoath left behind. Whatever real-life worries, psychic baggage, or other concerns plagued Spencer Chamberlain, Aaron Gillespie, Tim McTague, Chris Dudley, Grant Brandell, and James Smith at the time of their 2013 farewell tour, Underoath's collective consciousness has been fortified by a renewed commitment to their art and, more importantly, themselves.
"We had been doing this for 13 or so years," says Chamberlain, the band's dynamic frontman, about the respite that got them to where they are now. "We were just done by that point. We never knew how long it was going to last. How many hardcore bands last? It's not like we hated each other, the music or the industry. We blinked and a decade went by of never being home. But we needed that break, otherwise now wouldn't have been possible."
"We got about two weeks into the Rebirth Tour," remembers drummer/vocalist Gillespie, "and thought, 'Waaaaait a second. This is too important. It's too important to our fans and it's too important to us and the feelings we have playing together are too important to ignore.' And then we slowly asked the question: What's next? Then we did Rebirth all over the world. Then we toured with Bring Me the Horizon. Then we did festivals. All along, there was this nagging thought: Are we going to make a record? It was a weird question to impose upon ourselves."
Never was an imposition more on point. On their Fearless Records debut, "Erase Me," Underoath have added another crucial chapter to their formidable legacy. When the band went into the studio in the summer of 2017 to record their sixth album with producer Matt Squire (Panic! at the Disco, 3OH!3), they knew exactly what they wanted to do as well as what they needed to do. Having already established themselves both as melodic songwriters (2004's RIAA-certified gold record "They're Only Chasing Safety") and as ambitious power merchants (2006's stentorian, gold-selling "Define the Great Line" and its majestic follow-up, 2008's "Lost in the Sound of Separation"), the evolution detailed on "Erase Me" finds them using the sonic dialects they've crafted to reveal where they are now.
Assisted by Squire's sonic psychology and enhanced with a wildly vivid mix from Ken Andrews (co-founder of acclaimed Los Angeles outfit Failure), "Erase Me" never equates getting older with being complacent. Right out of the gate, "It Has to Start Somewhere" burns like a rail dragster achieving top speed before hurling itself straight into the sun. "Wake Me" is almost pop that overshadows whatever manufactured nine-person co-writing session is currently being marketed on streaming service playlists. "Rapture" feels like prog rock that traverses generations near and far, while Dudley's electronics drive "No Frame" into universes unknown. Even the first single, "On My Teeth," seemingly sends a warning to listeners to protect their necks. Underoath may have tempered the punishing riffage of their previous releases, but they doubled down on the urgency via every scream out of Chamberlain's face, guitarist McTague's sense of the appropriate, and Gillespie's frenetic thrashing of his kit. When considering the pretenders that came to fill the void during their absence, "Erase Me" inarguably proves that Underoath's only true competition is themselves.
"The only rule we had on this record was to reject the phrase we said about our previous records," says Chamberlain. "'That's not Underoath enough.' We left that shit in St. Petersburg when we played that last farewell show. To say something's 'not Underoath enough' robs us of growing. We didn't say we were going to make an artsy record, a melodic record, or a record our fans will like. We made a record that stokes us out that we love. And, in my whole life, I've never said that on any record I've ever been on. That's us growing up and progressing, not just as musicians but as human beings."
Clearly, "Erase Me" is the apex where melodic heft, indefatigable power, spatial resonance, and arcane electronic textures converge to reveal a band that's positively fearless. But like Chamberlain says, Underoath's creative and personal growth manifests itself in more ways than the stuff coming out of the speakers. For the singer, it meant him coming to terms with his struggles with chemical dependency and his quest to rise above it. In addition, the band who once openly – and without apology – professed their faith-based worldview onstage nightly, have since moved beyond the realm of seemingly impenetrable polemics. At various junctures, "Erase Me" illustrates those moments of sanctuary, anxiety, betrayal, and conflict that inevitably arise when humanity grapples with belief systems. Underoath are not being provocative to create shock value, faux-hipster smugness, or revisionist history toward their accomplishments. This is where their reality has taken them. That such a narrative exists in the first place is a true manifestation of their personal growth.
With all the accolades, the history, the fandom, as well as the hardships and growing pains in their psychic rearview mirror, Underoath are just as committed to their legacy as much as their friendships. "Erase Me" is a bold step for a band who want to preserve their integrity in a world where cashing in is a false equivalence for actively delivering mediocre art. When asked if he feels his band still has something to prove this far in, Gillespie is lucid.
"We've had success and we've come through a lot of waters," he offers plaintively. "There's been 11,000 things we've been through. So, you would think, almost rhetorically, 'What do you need now?' All of us are finally in that place in our lives where the only thing we care about is inclusion for everybody – for the world. For me, exclusion is the scariest thing in the world. And I think as Underoath are coming back now with a new record – which none of us thought was possible – we want people to know that this is your music and you can feel however the fuck you want about it. I just want to prove that we are doing everything in the most honest way we ever have. This is the healthiest we've ever been as a group of people, as musicians, and in our worldview."
Don't kid yourself – even with a comeback title seemingly marinating in self-fulfilling prophecy, nobody in their right mind would dare delete Underoath's measurable contribution to the advancement of post-hardcore and heavy rock. The only thing you need to erase is your patience with their pretenders. Accept no substitutes and your culture won't feel destitute. It's great to have Underoath back – especially on their terms.
This post was compiled by the staff of NEPA Scene.


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Official websites use .mil
Secure .mil websites use HTTPS
The Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing since World War II, have been identified and are being returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
U.S. Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Stephen V. Biezis, 23, of Chicago, will be buried Aug. 14, in Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington, D.C. His co-pilot, 1st Lt. James F. Gatlin, 25, of Jacksonville, Fla., was buried Jan. 30, in Bushnell, Fla. On Dec. 23, 1944, Biezis and his crew of five were assigned to the 575th Bombardment Squadron, 391st Bombardment Group, 9th Air Force and were deployed to Germany. Biezis was the co-pilot of a B-26C Marauder that crashed after being struck by enemy fire while on a bombing mission against enemy forces near Ahrweiler, Germany. Biezis, Gatlin and three other crew members were reported killed in action. His remains were not recovered during the war.
One of the crew members parachuted from the aircraft but was captured and held as a prisoner of war by German forces. Following his release, he reported to U. S. officials that he had no knowledge of the fate of the remaining crewmen.
Following the war, the American Graves Registration Command (AGRC) conducted investigations on the loss of Biezis and his crew and successfully located the crash site, near Manderscheid and Bettenfeld. The remains of two crewmen were recovered.
On May 27, 1999, a U.S. team investigating World War II losses in Germany visited a crash site near Bettenfeld. Two German nationals had researched the crash site and showed the team artifacts that were found and turned over remains collected from the site. Those remains were identified as Army Air Forces Staff Sgt. Joe R. Sanchez, 20, of Los Nietos, Calif. He was accounted for in March 2011 and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
Between 2011 and 2014, the Department of Defense teams traveled to Bettenfeld and conducted operations at the crash site.
To identify Biezis' remains, scientists from DPAA and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) used forensic identification tools to include mitochondrial DNA, which matched his sister and cousin.
Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, more than 400,000 died. Today, more than 73,000 are unaccounted for from the conflict.
For additional information on the Defense Department's mission to account for Americans, who went missing while serving our country, visit the DPAA website at www.dpaa.mil or call (703) 699-1420.


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In a thousand years archaeologists will go into the ruins of this office building, find desks and copy machines and computers...and these. Good job guys. Way to mindfuck the future.Iapyx
Paper disguises itself as rock and beats the shit out of scissors!!!Thomas Calnan
Hopefully David Blane's stuck in one of these.Brett-Butler
Well, how would you hide a body??Thomas Calnan
Guys, you did it all wrong! Make the middle one long, and the flanking ones small and spherical!RileyHart
RUN! I THINK THAT ONE'S HATCHING!!CavalierX
Amy Winehouses's GroceriesSUPERNAUT44
Failed Pokemon #467: Plasti-ball.Brett-Butler
Laughing to himself Dave writes out the ransom "Your snowman will be sent to you piece by piece if I dont get the money by tomorrow"Laurara
"Alright, which one of you idiots used an ORANGE piece of paper!?"jessen
Moments later, several dozen customer service representatives hatched.jessen
Are you sure that's where the condom goes?Minimee99
Recycle now and that will be the end of it... but don't and we will find you... and we will recycle you...Sev Squad
this what happens when you don't touch your penisjonhapimp
"hey Jeff you seen Denny the midget?" "no not as of late, you know come to think of it i haven't seen Justin or Tom in a while either..."Sev Squad


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Christmas Science 1: Frankincense
According to the Christmas story, one of the Magi brought a gift of frankincense to the infant Jesus shortly after his birth. It is an aromatic resin that comes from trees of the genus Boswellia and is used in perfumes and incense.
The bark of the tree is slashed to release the resin which hardens on the bark of the tree.Depending on the location of the tree and the climate, different grades and quality of frankincense can be produced, its quality based on colour, purity, aroma and age.
Frankincense was used in religious rites and ceremonies and the Egyptians ground the charred resin into a black powder called kohl. This was used to make the distinctive black eyeliner seen on many figures in Egyptian art.
Frankincense has been investigated as a treatment for ailments from Crohn's disease and arthritis to various cancers.


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1267 Item(s)
Shimano is synonymous with cycling at all levels. It is the number 1 reference in world cycling, when it comes to components and technology as well as footwear, clothing, glasses, wheels and tools. Since it was founded by Shozaburo Shimano in 1921, Shimano's mission has been to provide the best solutions for everyday cyclists and also for the most professional expert ones. Shimano is service, quality and customer focus. Shimano is direct professional assistance in all kinds of sporting events, from popular races to the Vuelta a España and all the UCI world trials.
Categories related to Shimano


text: Nikon Releases 6 New Coolpix Cameras February 8, 2014 By Eric Reagan Nikon Coolpix P600 Nikon has announced six new Coolpix point-and-shoot cameras, covering everything from the superzoom P600 to the rugged AW120 to the advanced P340. A quick rundown of each of the new cameras is below. [Read more…]


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There were officers at every intersection in the area around the Metro Convention Centre. Two officers were chatting with each other at Front and York Sts. while a lone cop was checking his BlackBerry at University and Wellington Sts. Just west of that, near the CBC building, three cops stood around a car parked on the street. At John and Wellington Sts., an officer was walking out of a Starbucks. A few metres west, two cops were quietly watching as a group of guests were unloading their bags from a cab right outside Soho hotel.
The G20 is eight days away but in many ways, it's already here.
- Raveena Aulakh


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Hotel reservation site Booking.com has offered to settle antitrust cases brought against it in Sweden, France and Italy, and on Monday antitrust authorities invited hotels to give their views on the settlement.
Antitrust authorities in those countries targeted Booking.com because its contracts oblige hotels to offer it the same or better room prices as the hotels offer other distribution channels, online or offline.
These so-called "parity clauses", or best price deals, harm competition in the sector and are in breach of national competition laws as well as European Union antitrust rules, the countries' antitrust authorities concluded in preliminary investigations. They are in particular concerned that the deals hamper competition between Booking.com and other online travel agents, while they also could make it hard for new companies to enter the market.
The European Commission is coordinating the national investigations but has not as yet opened its own investigation. It did however launch market tests on Monday to see if Booking.com's proposed antitrust remedies suffice.
Booking.com has proposed abandoning the best price requirement in respect of prices offered to other agents, which would result in hotels being free to sell rooms more cheaply on other sites. However, Booking.com will still require hotels to offer it the same room prices, or better, as they offer through their own online and offline booking channels.
Hotels and other affected parties can submit comments to the national competition authorities until Jan. 31.
Similar antitrust investigations are ongoing into best price deals demanded by other online travel agents. In Sweden for instance the competition authority is also investigating Expedia, which so far has not offered any antitrust remedies, spokesman Martin Mandorff said. The Swedish investigation started in January 2013.
The Italian antitrust authority is also investigating Expedia's pricing deals and conducting a separate investigation into TripAdvisor's efforts to eliminate fake reviews. In France, Expedia and hotel reservation service HRS are also under scrutiny from the competition authority, which said it will continue its investigations into those companies.


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Soros et la CIA tentent d'influencer les élections au Brésil !
Allez, encore les magouilles et complots organisés contre les politiques au Brésil par le sioniste Soros et la CIA.
Le Brésil fait partie des BRICS et en nuisant à sa présidente, les criminels nuiraient à la Russie, l'Inde, la Chine et à l'Afrique du Sud.
Ils ne savent plus quoi inventer, ces malfaisants, pour nuire à autrui et pour conserver le pouvoir par l'argent sur le monde, quitte à faire éliminer les gêneurs dans des accidents d'avions voire de les empoisonner lorsqu'ils s'opposent à leur dictature et à leur impérialisme !
L'article rédigé par Veterans Today est en anglais.
Mettre la traduction : ICI
Soros and the CIA Now Banking on Neves to Defeat Rousseff
President Rousseff's policies have created powerful enemies within the walls of the CIA in Langley, Virginia and among the board rooms of Wall Street and the West's most powerful corporations. She succeeded in proving the polls and pundits wrong on October 5 but October 26 remains yet another hurdle. The people of Brazil will be voting on October 26 as if their lives depend on it. For Brazil's poor and new middle class, a Neves victory will destroy their livelihoods, as well as their very lives.
by Wayne MADSEN
After the corporate media and the CIA and George Soros manipulators tried to engineer Green Party-turned-Brazilian Socialist presidential candidate Marina Silva into the Brazilian presidency after the classic CIA textbook aerial assassination of Socialist Party presidential standard bearer Eduardo Campos, these same forces are at it again on behalf of Social Democratic Party candidate Aecio Neves.
Although Neves was polling in second place to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff before the first-round presidential election on October, the death of Campos and his senior aides in a highly suspicious plane crash on August 13, forced Neves into third place in polls.
Silva, a favorite of Soros and his international network of cash-flush non-governmental organizations, was propelled into second place.
However, thanks to an aware Brazilian investigative journalism press corps, Silva's connections to Soros and his team of interventionists and hedge fund tycoons was exposed.
With Brazilian voters wise to Silva's puppet strings to Soros and other global bankers, she managed to only come in third on October 5. Silva subsequently endorsed Neves, Soros's second selection to take over the reins of presidential power in Brazil from Rousseff.
Neves's chief economic adviser and the man who would become Finance Minister in a Neves presidency is Arminio Fraga Neto. A former close friend and associate of Soros and his Quantum hedge fund, Fraga is hoping that a Neves presidency will open up Brazil to "market forces," the very same forces that have declared economic war on Venezuela and are attempting to swindle Argentina through vulture funds run by Soros's Wall Street friends. Fraga, a habitué of the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is also a former executive with Salomon Brothers and a former president of the Brazilian Central Bank. Fraga has also been linked to Goldman Sachs through a Manhattan real estate deal involving the purchase of a $7.5 million condominium from a former Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers executive.
Fraga's membership of the elitist Council on Foreign Relations and Group of 30 puts Fraga in the same camp as such Wall Street villains as Alan Greenspan, David Rockefeller, former Bank of Israel chairman Jacob Frenkel, and Wall Street apologist/columnist Paul Krugman, and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.
Rousseff's easy first place victory on October 5 sent Wall Street and its owned-and-operated media outlets opposed to Rousseff's plans to create an alternative development bank among Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa to compete with the World Bank into extreme propaganda mode.
Questionable polls suggesting that Rousseff and Neves are running neck-and-neck as the October 26 second round election approaches were featured as credible news stories by the usual Wall Street pathetic "stenographers" masquerading as journalists at The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg News, and Forbes.
Neves's grandfather, Tancredo Neves, a left-of-center threat to the longtime Brazilian military dictatorship, fell seriously ill just as he was to be sworn in as president on March 15, 1985. Neves's illness resulted in his lackluster and more conservative vice presidential candidate José Sarney being sworn in as president. Tancredo Neves never recovered from what was said to be diverticulitis and he died on April 21. Later, it was revealed that Neves had a cancerous tumor that was not discovered until it was too late. Rousseff's sudden illness after her October 16 televised debate with Aecio Neves alarmed a number of Brazilians who remember the fate of Tancredo Neves.
In addition to the Central Intelligence Agency arranging for convenient plane crashes such as those that killed Portuguese Prime Minister Francisco Sá Carneiro, Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos, and Ecuadorian President Jaime Roldos all within a six-month period between December 1980 and April 1981 [after the election of Ronald Reagan as U.S. president and the return to power within the CIA of George H W Bush's and William Casey's infamous gunslingers], the agency's Technical Services Division continued to develop biological weapons, including cancer weapons, to assassinate its political targets.
In recent years, a number of Latin American leaders have been felled or have been stricken with cancer or heart attacks. The two most notable victims were Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Argentine President Nestor Kirchner. Kirchner's wife, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, was reported to have thyroid cancer, later denied by her spokespersons. The sudden onset of varying degrees of cancer also plagued such Latin American leaders as former Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo (later ousted in a CIA-engineered coup), Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos (after he signed a peace agreement with the left-wing FARC guerrilla movement), former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and Bolivia's recently-reelected President Evo Morales.
Guyana's President Forbes Burnham died from throat cancer and Nauru's President Bernard Dowiyogo died from a sudden heart attack while being cared for in Washington, DC hospitals. Suspicions surrounded the two deaths at Georgetown University and George Washington Hospitals, respectively.
The CIA's macabre Jewish-Hungarian chief scientist Dr. Sidney Gottlieb developed a host of biological weapons for the CIA's MK-ULTRA program during his over 20 years of service with the agency. One was a biological toxin that was put inside a tube of toothpaste that was to be used by Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and another was a botulism-infected handkerchief that was to be handed to Iraqi leader General Abdul Karim Kassem.
As for Aecio Neves abandoning the left-of-center credentials of his grandfather, this represents another aspect of CIA influence operations. Aecio Neves represents the interests of Wall Street, which is manifested by the presence of Fraga as his chief economic adviser. Wall Street vultures, including Soros and Fraga's other associates in New York, want to privatize the Brazilian state-owned Petrobras oil corporation. Therefore, Aecio Neves has been handsomely bought off by the same globalized financial interests who attempted to engineer Marina Silva into office. With her defeat, these same forces have unsurprisingly rallied behind Neves.
For the CIA, blood is not thicker than water. It actually doesn't matter to Aecio that the CIA may have played a part in assassinating his grandfather. Omar Torrijos's son, Martin Torrijos, became president of Panama only to sign a pro-Wall Street free trade agreement with Washington. Martin Torrijos also gladly followed the global bankers' orders to increase Panama's retirement age and reform social security. Martin Torrijos also became a close ally of U.S. President George W. Bush even though Bush's father, George H W Bush, likely signed off on the CIA's operation to assassinate Torrijos's own father.
George Soros's favorite Asian opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, does not seem to mind the fact that it was Soros's friends at the Office of Strategic Services/CIA who ordered British intelligence to assassinate her father Aung San. Aung San, a founder of the Burmese Communist Party, was slated to become independent Burma's first post-independence leader. Aung San was killed by terrorists working for pro-British former prime minister U Saw. The weapons for the assassins came directly from British Army Captain David Vivian, who managed, with high-level "assistance" from the Burmese government, to escape from a Burmese prison in 1949.
Canada's Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau, the son of former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, has, unlike his father, warmed up to the United States, Wall Street, and the cause of globalization.
Justin Trudeau and Aecio Neves are prime examples of how the CIA eagle will take under its wings the progeny of leftist icons to achieve its goals.
President Rousseff's policies have created powerful enemies within the walls of the CIA in Langley, Virginia and among the board rooms of Wall Street and the West's most powerful corporations. She succeeded in proving the polls and pundits wrong on October 5 but October 26 remains yet another hurdle. The people of Brazil will be voting on October 26 as if their lives depend on it. For Brazil's poor and new middle class, a Neves victory will destroy their livelihoods, as well as their very lives.
Wayne MADSEN is Investigative journalist, author and syndicated columnist. Has some twenty years experience in security issues. As a U.S. Naval Officer, he managed one of the first computer security programs for the U.S. Navy. He has been a frequent political and national security commentator on Fox News and has also appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, and MS-NBC. He has been invited to testify as a witness before the US House of Representatives, the UN Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and an terrorism investigation panel of the French government. A member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) and the National Press Club. Lives in Washington, D.C.
19:54 Publié dans Actualité, politique ou géopolitique, Economie, Banques, Banksters, Paradis fiscaux, Dollar, Bours, Conspiration, Complot, Corruption, International, Poutine, Russie, Crimée, Ukraine, Chine, BRICS; Sy, Rockfeller, Rothschild, Mafia Kazhar, USA, Israël | Lien permanent | | del.icio.us | | Imprimer | Digg | Facebook | | |
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Friday, July 8, 2011
Covetous Eyes
With Vernon Wells in LOLeft and Torii Hunter in right, the Angels have lots of money tied up in two outfielders in dire need of plate appearances to justify their contracts. Trout must play because calling up a 19-year-old from Double-A only to sit him on the bench too ludicrous for even the Angels to consider.
As such, the not great but certainly not awful Peter Bourjos is just sort of...hanging out. Perhaps there is a team — a team without a proper center fielder on the immediate horizon ‐ who might dash in and steal him away. Can you think of a such a team?
Bourjos might be proto-Anthony Gose. Is he an improvement over Rajai Davis? I think so. A better fielder and, this year, better hitter. Under team control for another decade or so, he won't come cheap.
Just a thought. Bourjos is crazy exciting and fun to watch. If Tony Reagins even takes AA's call, it could be a nice preview of the player Anthony Gose may one day become.
Image courtesy of Halo Hangout.
14 comments:
Dunno, he's fast but isn't a base stealer. 79 K's, 18 BB'sReplyDelete
Base-stealing ability is only relevant if the player can actually get on base.ReplyDelete
I'd take Bourjos over Davis in a second, especially considering the defensive limitations of the Jays' corner outfielders.
He's a league-average hitter right now (101 wRC+) and hit decently in the minors.ReplyDelete
And he catches everything. EVERYTHING.
I'm Brandon Morrow, and I approve this message.ReplyDelete
Given the last trade between Jays and Angels, I think any such trade would have to be retribution for the Angels GM.ReplyDelete
Rivera for Bourjos? Make it happen, AA.ReplyDelete
- King_CatsJuly 9, 2011 at 12:11 AM
Dude, it's like your reading my mind. The only thing different is the soundtrack.ReplyDelete
The lack of plate discipline is pretty scary on Bourjos. For a guy with 0 power he strikes out more than Snider. He can't take advantage of his speed cause he doesn't walk, and all those K's take away chances for base hits. The D is incredible, no doubt, but the overall package isn't very good.ReplyDelete
It's a good idea to go after a blocked player/prospect. I'm just not sure this particular blocked player is the guy to go after.
- AnonymousJuly 9, 2011 at 10:59 AM
How does a Snider - Bourjos - Bautista OF sound? Pretty damn fantastic if I say so! Make it happen and as long as we dont have to trade anything valuable (Snider, Drabek, Stewart, D'Arnuad or Gose) I'm good. Thames is likely part of this deal. Bourgos in CF makes us a better team and if he is taken under Joey Bats wing we might just have a solution to the his travesty of OBP.ReplyDelete
I like rest of you, have been drooling over the glut of true
OF talent in the ANGELS system.
- AnonymousJuly 9, 2011 at 11:49 AM
Heres the thing with this deal, it doesnt actually work. For one, AA fleaced the Angels aready, dont count on it happening again but more over Bourjos only looks great for this year and next, Gose will be up and ready by the time Davis's contract expires ie 1.5 years from now.ReplyDelete
Then there is Thames, if hes not included his development at the ML level is blocked. Keeping the stat quo we go with Snider, Davis, Jose, Thames. Snider might now wow you in C but he can get the job done.
Trade Hill, sign Reyes or the O's 2b, with Lawrie at 3rd Escobar at 2, lind at first in a 70-30 split with Cooper / dh. Buy a closer, there is your Toronto Blue Jays.
- AnonymousJuly 9, 2011 at 11:50 AM
*might NOT wow you in CReplyDelete
AA didn't fleece the Angels. They knew exactly what they were getting in Wells. It's not like the contract was some kind of secret the Jays hid from the rest of the league. If anything, the Wells deal makes it seem MORE likely the Angels go for another retarded trade. The Jays should offer Patterson. :PReplyDelete
Or maybe Aaron Hill? I don't even know what he's worth right now...ReplyDelete
- AnonymousJuly 12, 2011 at 9:02 PM
hahaha...this is never happening. Keep dreaming. Go halos!ReplyDelete


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Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso defended his country's fight against deflation this week, saying that the yen's decline is an unintended consequence of policies designed to boost growth.
Japan is using a combination of monetary policy and government spending in an effort to beat 15 years of deflation. But the actions have also weakened the yen, raising the specter of retaliatory action and a currency war in Asia.
"The yen's devaluation against the dollar is just a by-product," Aso told CNN on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Washington Thursday.
"What we would like to do is to get out of the recession caused by the deflation," Aso said. "That's our target."
Deflation, or falling prices, has a chilling effect on economic growth. It can encourage consumers to hold back on spending in the belief that prices will fall.
So the Bank of Japan, led by new Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, is injecting money into the economy on a massive scale. Earlier this month, the central bank said it would start purchasing longer-term debt and securities like ETFs at an annual pace of 60 to 70 trillion yen.
The more assets the bank buys, the more yen it pushes out. The point is to drive up annual inflation to a target of 2%.
Related: Time to kick the easy money habit?
But the actions have also contributed to a sharp decline in the yen's value. The yen has slumped by around 25% in six months, falling to 100 against the U.S. dollar in recent days.
A weaker yen is good news for Japan's exporters, which will see increased demand for their products and more selling opportunities abroad as the yen swoons.
But a sustained drop in the currency's value also raises the possibility of tit-for-tat retaliatory actions by other countries.
Related story: Is the Bank of Japan done?
The BoJ has found support from the International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Federal Reserve, which has carried out an aggressive bond-buying program of its own in recent years. But others aren't so pleased.
South Korea, for one, is sounding a note of caution. Finance Minister Hyun Oh Seok, also in Washington for the G20 meeting, said that Japan was doing its bit to help the world economy recover but the weak yen was having a bigger effect on his country's economy than tensions with North Korea.
"Compared to the North Korea risk, a sliding yen is having a considerable impact on the real economy of South Korea," Hyun told Bloomberg. "Depreciation of the yen has caused the spillover-effect phenomenon so this is worth discussing."
-- CNN's Jill Dougherty and Yoko Wakatsuki contributed to this report.