text:
Fish soup with moringa leaves … mmm!
CFCA serves more than 43,000 sponsored children and elderly in the Philippines. Our staff members there sent us this lovely recipe for fish soup!
This can serve a family of 6.
- Sliced fish (any kind)
- 1 plate of moringa leaves (substitute spinach or chard as moringa leaves are almost impossible to find in the U.S.)
- 8 cups of water
- 5 leaves of lemongrass
- 10 slices of ginger
- 1 whole onion slice
- 6 pieces of green onion stalks
- 3 regular-size tomatoes, sliced
- 2 tablespoons of salt and seasoning to taste
Boil 8 cups of water and mix onion, tomatoes, ginger and lemongrass in it for 10 seconds.
Add the fish and let it boil for 2 minutes.
Add salt and seasoning to taste.
Add moringa leaves and onion leaves to the soup and leave for 10 seconds. Serve hot.


text:
For families of Newtown victims, watching the Senate vote down gun control wasn't easy.
They had met with senators to press for new restrictions on gun sales, but on Wednesday, the upper chamber rejected its likeliest chance for compromise on gun control: a bipartisan deal between Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., to expand federal background checks to gun shows and online sales of guns. Family members of gun-violence victims were on hand for the vote.
After the vote, the victims' families spoke with ABC's Jonathan Karl in an exclusive interview.
"I think we kind of had known that it probably wasn't going to pass. I was kind of disappointed, because we worked so hard trying to maybe, I don't know, like really get our ideas across because -- it shouldn't be a partisan issue, it's just common sense," said James Barden, 13, whose 7-year-old brother Daniel was killed in the horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
"I feel that we owe it to Daniel cause his life needs to mean something," Barden said, on why he pushed for gun legislation after the Sandy Hook shooting.
"I've never done anything like this before, it's different," 11-year-old Natalie said. Asked what she wants the world to know about her brother, Natalie told ABC, "He was just so thoughtful and he thought about everybody. He was always happy."
Newtown family members stood behind President Obama Wednesday afternoon as he admonished lawmakers for siding against new limits on gun sales. Mark Barden, Daniel's father, introduced the president and pledged that the fight over gun legislation isn't over.
Jimmy Greene, whose daughter Ana Marquez-Greene was killed in the shooting, echoed his point.
"If 90 percent of Americans favor these common-sense solutions, then it follows that 90 percent of their elected representatives should vote that way," Greene told ABC. "We're in this for the long haul. We don't have the choice of turning around. We need to honor the ones that we've lost and to move forward to make sure that no other families have to suffer the way we are."
After Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., suggested Wednesday morning that Newtown families were being used as "props" in the debate over gun control, family members took offense.
"He's wrong. We lost our son. Jeremy lost his only child. Jimmy lost his daughter. We don't need anybody to tell us what to do," Greene said.
"We don't have a political agenda, we just don't want other people to have to suffer through this. We want their passing to mean something to them, to have a purpose," said Jeremy Richman, whose 6-year-old daughter Avielle was killed in the shooting.
"When people say we are being used, it's--we don't understand it because it's just--we don't want other families to go through what we are going through, its awful," said Jackie Barden, mother of Daniel.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
EVERY Monday
Glo Dance Fitness - Glow in the Dark Dance Fitness - Lights are low, tunes are high and set to all of the latest dance chart hits and dance hits through the decades from 70's, 80's, 90's 00's Club Anthems and Mini-Mix Mash Ups! Routines have been designed to allow you to Master the Moves to Maximize on your Results with cutting edge fitness style moves, core, strength & conditioning moves with fresh dance moves using glowsticks adding extra arm workouts and providing a disco and club style setting. TIME: 6.30pm-7:30pm
Please arrive 10 minutes early for check in!!! CLASS PRICE: £5 (pay on the door, this ticket is to guarantee your place only) DESTINATION: Great Barr Comprehensive School DRESS CODE: Supportive Fitness Clothing & Please wear sensible fitness trainers. Please bring a towel and plenty of water. First class you will need to purchase your own set of Glow Sticks £4 per pair these are reusable and battery operated for future classes.


text:
When it's time to pack suitcases and head off on vacation, Alicia Rockmore and her family think big. They take a more-the-merrier approach, joining as many as 20 relatives for what she calls "our annual family getaway." One year the group enjoyed skiing in Park City, Utah. This year they'll relax at a resort in Scottsdale, Ariz.
"My husband, daughter, and I love these vacations," says Ms. Rockmore, CEO of Buttoned Up, an organizational firm in Los Angeles. "It's a time for deeper interaction and conversation than just a dinner here and there."
Extended-family vacations such as hers are growing in popularity, travel specialists say. Although no statistics quantify the trend, the travel industry has a name for it: "togethering." Such trips offer a way for time-short, far-flung families to connect and forge new bonds. Groups can include everyone from grandparents, parents, and children to stepparents, in-laws, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Some families vote for cruises or resorts. Others prefer tours or adventure travel. Still others keep trips low-key and low-budget by heading for state parks or lakeside cabins. Many avoid cities, where logistics can be daunting.
Whatever the destination, careful planning is essential. Rockmore's family begins by soliciting e-mail suggestions from everyone about preferred destinations. After they agree on a place, one person makes the reservations.
In other groups, each family books its own reservations.
Occasionally grandparents foot the entire bill. Martha and Ed Monaco of San Antonio just returned from an Alaskan cruise with 17 relatives, paid for by Mr. Monaco's parents to celebrate their 60th anniversary. His parents also hosted trips to mark their 40th, 50th, and 55th anniversaries. They choose the cruise line and destination. Each family pays for its own shore excursions and gratuities.
"My darling mother-in-law said, 'We decided we'd like to enjoy some of your inheritance with you,' " Mrs. Monaco says. "Cruises work out nicely because you don't have to worry about food. Everyone can do different activities. Teenagers can sleep late, and parents can stay up late."
For some families, adventure is the lure. "Over the last two to three years we have seen a noticeable increase in large family groups," says Steve Markle, marketing director for O.A.R.S. in Angels Camp, Calif., which offers river rafting.
His family groups average 16 to 20 people. "About 40 percent have never done anything like this," he says.
Next month Kristi Mendez of North Aurora, Ill., will drive with her husband and son to Rend Lake State Park in southern Illinois for a four-day weekend with 19 relatives. Last year the group met at a state park in Kentucky.
"Because our family is so spread out, we traditionally get together only for weddings and funerals," Mrs. Mendez says. "We decided that really wasn't enough."
She reserves the lodges, then sends an e-mail giving dates and costs. Each family pays the lodge directly.
"This year it'll be a little more expensive, gas being what it is," Mendez says. "But we're not staying in a five-star hotel and getting room service." They keep expenses down by cooking two dinners.
Family members enjoy playing golf, renting a pontoon boat, and "hanging out" at the pool. "We all get together so rarely that it doesn't really matter what you're doing," Mendez says.
What does matter for every group is having activities to suit all generations.
Sarah Clark-Lynn of Silver Spring, Md., her husband, two children, and two dogs just returned from a vacation with 24 relatives in Deep Creek Lake, Md.
Activities included white-water rafting, boating, swimming, and cookouts. Although family members could go their separate ways during the day, everyone had to show up for dinner. "It was a way to make sure the family was together every day," Mrs. Clark-Lynn says.
The week was so successful that her husband has asked his family to meet in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and her family hopes to gather again in three years.
Still, supersize vacations have their pitfalls. Some participants complain of too much togetherness and too little privacy. John, a hair stylist in Boston who does not want his full name used, spent 10 very long days in Florida with 12 relatives. "It can be a real nightmare if you're with people who don't like to do the things you do," he says. "I was with people who love to cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I like to go out. Some people don't like to spend two cents. Others like to spend all their money."
But when groups are compatible, warm memories linger on.
Every August, Belinda Rachman, her husband, and assorted relatives travel from California, Michigan, and Illinois to a family camp north of Toronto.
"The kids are in camp all day and are with us for meals and at night," says Ms. Rachman, a divorce lawyer in Carlsbad, Calif. "The adults can swim, boat, and play tennis, but usually we sit around and visit. I love these times together. It's an amazing way to stay in touch."
She adds, "Time is precious. If you don't make a concerted effort to get together, it's very easy to drift apart. That's sad. You only have one family, so you have to take care of your relationships."


text:
Federal agents have arrested four southern California men over an alleged plot to provide material support to terrorists and join al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan in order to strike American targets.
The four men, one of which was a former member of the U.S. Air Force, conspired to provide material support to terrorists who planned to commit "violent jihad," including the bombing of military bases and government facilities and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, officials said.
The FBI claims the group had conducted training including going to shooting ranges and were planning on traveling to Afghanistan to bomb and kill U.S. soldiers.
According to the complaint, which was unsealed Monday, Sohiel Omar Kabir, a 34-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Afghanistan, introduced Ralph Deleon, 23, and Miguel Alejandro Santana Vidriales, 21, to radical and violent Islamic doctrine, including essays by Anwar Al-Awlaki, a Yemeni-American leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Awlaki was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen last year.
Deleon and Santana posted radical content to Facebook, while engaging with Kabir and others online in discussions about violent jihad. According to the complaint, Santana told undercover agents both online and in person that he planned to engage in jihad once he converted to Islam.
Kabir traveled to Germany in December 2011 and in July 2012 to Afghanistan, and continued to communicate with Santana and DeLeon to arrange for their travel to join him in Afghanistan, officials say. Kabir told the two he had contacted people in terrorist organizations and said he would wait for them to arrive before departing to an Afghanistan training location, according to the complaint.
Arifeen David Gojali, 21, was recruited by Santana and Deleon, the complaint states, in September 2012 to travel with then to Afghanistan. The three allegedly trained at firearms and paintball facilities to prepare for terrorist training abroad and made plans to join Kabir in Afghanistan, where they would attend terrorist training, according to the court document. They had made flight arrangements and obtained the required passports and visas, the complaint states.
A confidential FBI source met with the trio several times over the course of the investigation. In May, the source traveled with the trio to Las Vegas to attend a conference, recording many of their conversations throughout the trip. Speaking of law enforcement during the trip, Deleon said he'd "cut their throats if I had the chance."
While on the trip, the men revealed to the FBI source that they planned to travel to Afghanistan to meet Kabir and commit acts of jihad.
Last week, the three men, along with a confidential FBI source, bought plane tickets for a flight from Mexico City to Istanbul on Sunday. From there they planned to fly to Kabul.
The tree men were apprehended without incident by members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. Kabir is currently in custody in custody in Afghanistan.
If convicted, each defendant faces a maximum of 15 years in federal prison. A preliminary hearing is slated for Deleon, Santana and Gojali for Dec. 3, and an arraignment is set for Dec. 5.


text:
Going through some documents I came across this extension for GLES. In a nutshell:
Now, I've searched for something similar on desktop GL and there's nothing I could find even in the latest 4.5 specs. I'm wondering if there's anything stopping Khronos from adding this extension (or something similar) to desktop GL.This extension provides a mechanism whereby a fragment shader may read existing framebuffer data as input.
I realize the same (and much more) can be achieved with render targets so it is somewhat redundant, but often times one finds the need to simply use blending operations and this seems like the perfect way to detach blending from the application logic, which might be a desirable choice for some designs.


text:
2011-05-25 / Opinion
Take time from the BBQ to remember the price of freedom
This Memorial Day, there are numerous parades and events to commemorate a day set aside to honor those who lost their lives in the service of our country. We would ask our readers to make time that day or over the Memorial Day weekend to attend at least one of these events.
You must be an online subscriber to view this story.


text:
Milk-alkali syndrome is a condition in which there is a high level of calcium in the body (hypercalcemia). This causes a shift in the bodys acid/base balance toward alkaline (metabolic alkalosis). As a result, there can be a lossof
Alternative Names
Calcium-alkali syndrome; Cope syndrome; Burnett syndrome; Hypercalcemia
Milk-alkali syndrome is almost always caused by taking too many calcium supplements, usually in the form of calcium carbonate. Calcium carbonate is a common calcium supplement. It is often taken to prevent or treat bone loss (
A high level of vitamin D in the body, such as from taking supplements, can worsen milk-alkali syndrome.
Calcium deposits in the kidneys and in other tissues can occur in milk-alkali syndrome.
In the beginning, the condition usually has no symptoms (asymptomatic). When symptoms do occur, they can include:
- Back, middle of the body, and back pain in the kidney area (related to kidney stones)
- Confusion, strange behavior
- Constipation
- Depression
- Excessive urination
- Fatigue
- Irregular heart beat (
- Nausea or vomiting
- Other problems that can result from kidney failure
Exams and Tests
Calcium deposits within the tissue of the kidney (
- X-rays
CT scan
- Ultrasound
Other tests used to make a diagnosis:
- Electrocardiogram (
ECG) Kidney function Blood gas Blood calciumlevel
Treatment involves reducing or eliminating calcium supplements and antacids that contain calcium. Vitamin D supplements also need to be reduced or stopped.
Outlook (Prognosis)
This condition is often reversible if kidney function remains normal. Severe prolonged cases may lead to permanent kidney failure requiring
Possible Complications
The most common complications include:
- Calcium deposits in tissues (calcinosis)
- Kidney failure
- Kidney stones
When to Contact a Medical Professional
Contact your health care provider if:
- You take a lot of calcium supplements or you often use antacids that contain calcium, such as Tums.
- You have any symptoms that might suggest kidney problems.
If you use calcium-containing antacids often, tell your doctor about digestive problems. If you are trying to prevent osteoporosis, do not take more than 1.5 grams of calcium per day unless instructed by your medical provider.
Felsenfeld AJ, Levine BS. Milk alkalis syndrome and the dynamics of calcium homeostasis. Clin J Am Soc Nephrol. 1006;1:641- 654.
Grubb M, Gaurav K, Panda M. Milk-alkali syndrome in a middle-aged woman after ingesting large doses of calcium carbonate: a case report. Cases Journal. 2009;2:8198.
Patel AM, Goldfarb S. Got calcium? Welcome to the calcium-alkali syndrome. J Am Soc Nephrol. 2010;21:1440-1443.
Yoshizawa H, Morishita Y, Kusan E. Renal injury in calcium-alkali syndrome. J Nephrol Therapeutic. 2012. dx.doi.org/10.4172/2161-0959.S3-006.
Review Date:
Reviewed By:
Brent Wisse, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of Metabolism, Endocrinology & Nutrition, University of Washington School of Medicine. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Bethanne Black, and the A.D.A.M. Editorial team.


text:
A feisty, punchy melodic skater rock, Power-Pop, free and indie in spirit, with vibrant energetic and youthful punk overtones. Pop Skater-punk !
... a positive, chirpy motivational trippy-pop song. It's Rock – but with a quirky pop-punky spirit!
Has a jumpy youthful 'cheerleader' sort of theme.
Recorded in pristine 24bit/96khzx, the included files are 16bit/44 .wav and mp3 at 320k.
- Please help support the Envato Community. If you like purchase this file and like it, please remember to Vote *
If you require any more versions, please feel free to contact me.


text:
Qty :
Price : $18.99
Product Code : SASCRC-CREATEA619
Create your own homecoming, fair, pageant or any other special event sash! Our exclusive interactive design features makes it fun and easy for you to create your own sash. With hundreds of borders, graphics, type styles and colors, the possibilities are endless. Creating a customized sash is fast, easy and fun! Your custom sash will include your choice of one - king, queen or court pin in gold or silver, a star pin in gold or silver or you may choose Velcro closure instead. Photos can not be used in design.
Please allow ample time for delivery. Our ship date for this product is noted in your shopping cart. Many items are shipped separately, so please allow extra time for these items to arrive. Shipping charges are based on the value of the merchandise and not the number of shipments. For additional shipping information, please contact our Customer Service Department at (firstname.lastname@example.com or 1-800-314-8794).


text:
Let God Love Gene Robinson
Five years ago, Gene Robinson was elected the first openly gay Christian bishop, causing the greatest crisis the modern Protestant community has ever faced. Will his love for another man rip the church in two We're about to find out
even before he could speak, he knew it and felt it: knew he would never be separated from it; felt it in the form of light and heat. actually, light and heat belittled what he felt. They were just words, and words were small, man's way of knowing; words could point and suggest, but never apprehend. When he was old enough to search for better ways to convey what he felt when the love of God came upon him, he would tell his mother and father and minister and anyone else in Nicholasville, Kentucky, that it was like butter, liquid-warm, luminous, drizzled atop his head and descending over and through him in a seamless golden coat to his feet.
As a child, he prayed the way he breathed, and for the same reason. His Sunday-school attendance record was unblemished, from toddlerhood to the time he left for college. One Sunday morning, he woke feeling that his insides were being dry-baked. "Nothing's wrong," he told his mother when she saw the color of his face. "Let's go to church!" So off they went, where he passed his measles on to every student in his Sunday-school class. Weighed against the prospect of not getting his Sunday fill of Jesus, the reprobation that came from being a Patient Zero was a small price to pay.
The Love of God! If you paid the right kind of attention—and there wasn't anyone around him during his childhood who didn't—you could see it everywhere you looked, in every person, in every little thing. The women who cooed over him the first time he was brought to church as a newborn—there it was!The distinct reddish inking, a grain of beauty, on his infant nape, marking him as Christ's own forever, even before he'd been baptized—there!The tender and ravishing attention—the way, a generation later, on the day that boy brought his own progeny to that church, those women were able to recall that birthmark to his children. There!
Actually, at the very beginning, the boy hadn't been so much marked as maimed. After Imogene and Charles Victor Robinson were told their newborn, mangled by forceps during delivery, was partially paralyzed, probably brain damaged, and likely to die, they were asked to put a name on the birth certificate. What did a name matter now the Robinsons asked themselves, providing one that combined her first and his middle names.
Vicky Gene Robinson spent his childhood wondering what his parents were thinking when they saddled him with a name like Vicky. Only in high school, after a case of strep brought him face-to-face with one of the doctors who'd treated him as a newborn, did he get an explanation. Odd, how the explanation for his unmanly name came just as a larger question about his manhood, thick with terror, was rising within him. Truth was, in the years Vicky Gene Robinson had been on the earth, the Love of God had not been the only certainty of his life. There was another. Fear. As with the Love, he had been marked with it from the beginning. But…how How could the fear dwell in him along with the Love of God, which banishes all fear This was the conundrum of Gene Robinson's youth. He's 61 years old now, and there hasn't been a day in his life as a considering person that Gene Robinson hasn't thought about fear, what it creates and what it takes away, how it feeds on itself while devouring everything it touches. As he sees it, God is love, and the only thing that can displace that love is not doubt, or faithlessness, or even evil, but fear. And the thing that occurs when God is absent Call it the Devil if you must. But if you want to call it by its name—and as far as Gene Robinson is concerned, you should, because limited as human language is, words are powerful, words are actions—you must call it fear.
During his childhood, there was another word for it, thanks to an uncle. The uncle, he was a smirker. He knew. At get-togethers, he would sidle up to the nephew named Vicky—always clean, nicely dressed, getting straight A's; always good—and wait for his moment. Then the words would ooze out.
Not much of a boy, are you
Vicky Gene would sit ramrod straight with his hands in his lap, eyes forward, listening to the questions and waiting for the word they always worked their way to.
But what did that mean Gene didn't know. He knew only that when he was 12 and a buddy produced a Playboy, the half-dozen boys who gathered to gaze were awakened, electrified, and he wasn't, and that it could be dangerous, perhaps physically, to point out this contrast. The Playboy brought a half clarity: He realized he was afraid, and that—even if he couldn't name the thing he feared—he had always been afraid.
So he stayed quiet, compartmentalized the love and the fear. Until he couldn't. Until, when he was 16, the matter and antimatter of his love of God and his fear were forcibly merged under the ice-cold shower water of a high school locker room. For whatever reason, God had seen fit to place Vicky Gene Robinson, the neat little boy who would become not only his class's valedictorian but also the top graduate of all high schools in larger Lexington, Kentucky, and whose birdlike frame contained not a single athletic bone, in phys ed with the juvenile-offender brigade. The thugs were so hopeless with the academic Health Class that went with PE, though, that V. Gene Robinson was assigned to tutor them, and the word went out: _Gene's gonna keep us out of summer school, so anyone who messes with Gene answers to us. _
All well and good, except when it came time for the showers. Because these hoodlums.… How to put it They were bigger. And older—many of them grade repeaters. And muscular. And fearless.
No matter what he did to keep these sulking, sultry hoodlums out of summer school, an erection, an erection, would not be overlooked. So it was that one day, shortly after Gene Robinson had been teaching his charges about the endocrine system—about hormones, for Christ's sake!—he found himself in the locker-room shower, rotating the metal handle clockwise, colder, colder, until the water shocked his skin. And praying.
God, please. Don't let me get an erection.
Colder. Colder.
Please, God.
Such a sad and feeble vision. And in hindsight, such a funny one. And so hard to reconcile with what Gene Robinson has become: a man of the cloth who doesn't seem to communicate so much as embody his love of God; the first openly gay bishop in the history of Christianity; a man subject to constant death threats and scorned by the chief Anglican archbishop of Nigeria—perhaps the second-most influential figure in Christendom after the pope—as "a Satanic attack on God's Church" whose behavior is beneath that "of animals, dogs, cows, lions"; a disciple whose elevation has brought on the Church the greatest crisis since the Protestant Reformation some 500 years ago, and may well lead to a worldwide Christian schism; a man whose life and works are going to determine, for better or worse, how the world's 77 million Anglican Christians comprehend their god over the next hundred years; a marked man.
He didn't think anything of the same-sex experiences he had in his later teen years. Literally—he didn't think of them. They occurred, and after, he would pray…
God, please don't make it true. Show me I am not one of them. Make this a phase I'm going through…
…and they would recede from consciousness, perhaps because there wasn't yet a real word to anchor them there. Just it and this. The contradictions! The compartmentalizations! Even as he stowed the wordless it in the cellar of his soul, Vicky Gene's mind blazed with questions about words, and the Word. According to the Disciples of Christ church in which he was being raised, the Bible's every word was literally true and therefore final—to be received rather than engaged. When the boy read the Book, though, it wasn't the words that brought the stories alive; it was the wrestling.
If God didn't want His heart broken, why did He place the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden
If every word of the Word is factually true, what to make of the di__ff__erent versions of the same stories about Jesus' ministry in the Gospels
Why was his critical eye, his willingness to wrestle with a text, welcome when it came to reading a book like Huck Finn but a problem when it came to the Book Moreover, what was that business whereby a preacher, a parent, a teacher, even another child, would assert three words—The Bible says—and then read or quote this or that passage from memory Was this what God wanted his children to do with the Bible This way of reading didn't seem to do anything with the Book.
By the time he entered high school, he'd begun to wonder if there wasn't an arrogance to The Bible says, a presumed mastery of the Book's manifold mysteries—and of the Mind behind them. The three words even seemed to discard the Book, seal it in a tomb. Dead. Done. Nothing to discuss.
But Gene couldn't ever get done with the Book. Nor it with him. It left him blissfully undone, because what he dared not to think about his own soul and what it longed for, he dared to think about the Book: that it was unstill, uncontainable, wildly alive with the Holy Spirit, which, in its infinite and terrifying way, wanted what it wanted and went where it wished.
_How to read. _The questioning and doubt Gene Robinson brought to the Word didn't alienate him from it. Just the opposite: They kept him connected to the Love as the realization dawned throughout his high school years that his church abominated him.
"From time to time, we would get the sermon about the passage from Leviticus or Corinthians," he says, referring to the texts most often cited as proof that GOD HATES FAGS, as the chanting protesters at Robinson's consecration put it. "But when I heard God's voice, it was not from the pulpit but through the Scripture I read. And the voice I heard was God saying to me what God said to Jesus at his baptism: 'You are my beloved, in you I am well pleased.' Now, that is a total miracle. That as a kid I could discern that God's real voice was not what my church was telling me it was, even though I didn't yet know how that distinction applied to me. And I can't explain that other than to say that I already had a relationship with the living God, and that that relationship came from my reading, and that my reading convinced me that the ministry of Jesus was about inclusion—that God makes holy what people shove away."
Six generations of sharecropping Robinsons had worked the tobacco fields around Lexington. Gene, whose mother laundered clothes in a cast-iron pot over an open fire in the front yard, and who didn't experience running water until he was 10 years old, was the first to attend college. For purely financial reasons, he chose the -University of the South, in Sewanee, Tennessee, which gave him a full ride; it was only a coincidence that Sewanee was an Episcopal school, and all-male. In Tennessee, terrible and wonderful forces began to work on Gene Robinson's mind.
"One of the great sadnesses of my life is that I can hardly remember college," he says. "I know I was there. I can remember having crushes on guys and never acting on them, and being hard hit by that. But I literally can't remember who any of them were or what they were like. It's just a big blank. I think that's because when you repress, you can't do it selectively." He went through the motions of dating women. "None of it went anywhere. People often ask me if any of the women I dated in college ever said, 'You know, Gene, you might be gay,' and why I didn't ever ask myself if I might be gay. Well, where I came from, gay wasn't anything you were. 'Gay' didn't really become the word as we now know it until the '70s."
While Robinson put one part of his brain into a deep freeze, another was awakening. From an intellectual and theological point of view, Anglicanism (known as Episcopalianism in the States) off ers an exceptionally supple approach to worship. Born of the need to keep England's mid–sixteenth-century Catholics and Protestants from escalating their religious spats into civil war, Anglicanism has always tolerated and even encouraged divergent notions of what it means to be a Christian. For centuries Anglicans have used the term "three-legged stool" to describe their theology, which places equal value on Scripture, tradition, and reason. It's a theology that presaged, and therefore survived, the rupture of the Enlightenment.
The third leg of that stool, the reason, both rocked and affirmed Gene Robinson's world—the notion that God's revealed truth worked in tandem with humankind's own advancements, that it was ongoing, in play; that what The Bible says could change as new information became available; that it was God one was meant to worship, not a book. It was so simple, but until his immersion in Anglican theology, Gene Robinson had never given himself license to consider it: God's revelation hadn't stopped after He'd gotten the Book published; God could do new things in the world.
And so could he. In his final year at Sewanee, he knew he'd been called to create a life as an Episcopal priest. "I had been trying to reconcile the loving God I knew from my reading of Scripture with the God I'd heard about in church who would send everyone who didn't believe in Jesus to hell. There were an awful lot of Jews and Buddhists and Muslims and Sikhs and other non-Christians in the world, and I just didn't see how a loving God could condemn them. At Sewanee, I began to see a much more diffuse God—diffuse in the Creation, and able to reveal God's self in all kinds of ways. And while I still believed Jesus Christ was the most perfect revelation of God, I also began to think: What a small God it would be if God were unable to reveal God's self in some other way, through other people and other sacred texts. I began to think I'd been on the right track about God not condemning most of the world."
The third leg of that stool—it was a beautiful thing.
In the fall of 1969, Robinson entered the General Theological Seminary in New York City—eighteen blocks north of where the Stonewall Riots had gone down two months earlier. He registered that event as a story in the newspaper, nothing more. "Chelsea wasn't Boys Town, like it is today," he says. "I might have figured all this out a little sooner if it had been."
In New York, Robinson became unrecognizable to himself, descending to a place he'd never known, for reasons he couldn't fathom. He holed himself up in his dorm, sleeping through his days and staring at the wall of his room at night. His mind—built to seek the what and why of all things, barred from seeking the what and why of Gene Robinson—became roaringly inert, like a car with the accelerator and brake simultaneously floored. Then it happened.
"I couldn't afford to go home for spring break, so I went to the home of a fellow student. And I fell madly in love with him." The feeling was mutual. "It immediately brought me out of my depression. We had a wonderful three months together." Problem was, Robinson's boyfriend had a fiancée. "During the summer, he told her about us. She said, 'This will stop now.' And he never spoke to me again. It broke my heart. That's when I started the therapy." Robinson believed what the church had been teaching for centuries about what causes a man to "lay" with another man—an extrinsic thing, a kind of infection that distorts the soul's natural workings. So he entered psychotherapy to get the gay out.
"Lord, I tried," he says. "Nobody could have prayed harder than I did. Nobody could have wanted it more. I desperately wanted to be married and have kids."
After a year of twice-a-week sessions aimed at unearthing his "primary" condition (of which it was presumed the same-sex yearnings were a mere "symptom"), Robinson believed himself ready to date straight. While chaplaining in Vermont, he met a woman named Isabella Martin, whom everybody knew as Boo.
"Ten minutes after meeting him, I thought, That's the man I'm going to marry," Boo recalls. "So smart and clear and faithful. He was so articulate and fun, and he just preached from the heart."
Shortly after they began dating, Gene told Boo that his only serious relationships had been with men. "I've been working for more than a year to cure myself," he said. "I think it's under control, but I'm scared to death that it could rear its head."
She told him that if he loved her enough, it wouldn't matter. They married a year later.
There is a turn of phrase, as reflexive in its way as The Bible says, applied to stories of gay men who marry and have children. _He was living a lie. _Is there any other way to size up, say, the Colorado preacher Ted Haggard, who, when not busy excoriating gays, was scoring meth and sex from them in no-tell motels
The uncanny thing about Gene Robinson is that he never lived a lie, before or even during his marriage. He lived a delusion. But lying requires intent, and intent requires consciousness. And there was never a time when Robinson was not sharing, with himself and his wife, all he knew of his interior goings-on.
"I think that's why there's no bitterness now," Boo says. "What was happening was certainly traumatic, but in the long run it wasn't damaging. There was never a feeling of betrayal. If anything, Gene felt betrayed by this thing going on within him that we were both trying to understand."
After two years during which Gene worked as a curate in Ridgewood, New Jersey, the Robinsons bought part of her parents' New Hampshire farm, where Boo opened a horse-riding camp at which Gene ran Episcopal youth retreats. It was in New England as it had been in New Jersey: Everyone who met the man saw that he was touched. Parishioners came away from his sermons and pastoral visits feeling loved, which was something. But there was also an unmistakable sense of love—no _d—_as diffuse as it was palpable, which was…unfamiliar. At least to adults. Children knew—teenagers in particular. "They clung to him," says Boo, observing none of the personal space they accorded other adults they regarded as authority figures. They'd take hold of his forearm, because they knew they could, and tell him about their lives. "He was so candid and down-to-earth with them," Boo adds. "His own time as a teen had been so stormy, he could relate to their angst." Once parents saw their kids doing it, they started doing it, too. Father Gene, he was a man of hugs, not handshakes, and of laughter. Always, always, laughing. The grace was in the laughter.
In 1978, Robinson became the head of youth ministries throughout all seven of New England's Episcopal dioceses. "That's when I started to see that it was secrets that make families crazy, not the subjects of their secrets." Which was why he wound up formulating not only New Hampshire's but also the national church's policies of transparency and investigation for accusations of sexual abuse, whether they involved churchgoing families, clergy, or both.
The Robinsons had a daughter, Jamee, then another, Ella, whose arrival, early in the morning of Christmas Day, 1981, transformed Robinson's understanding of the Virgin Birth. Seven hours earlier, as Gene prepared for a Christmas Eve service, a parishioner ran into the sacristy to announce that Boo had gone into labor in the parking lot. A ride to the hospital was arranged; Gene stayed to celebrate the Eucharist.
"I got to the hospital by ten o' clock, and by midnight Boo was in hard labor, and then at 1:07 a.m. Ella was born," he says. "And the whole time, I was having this mystical connection across time to Joseph. The experience of birth for women has changed, but for fathers it has remained the same. You're excited. You're scared. You're wondering if this baby's gonna have ten toes. You want to do something, but you're helpless. And that's how it is, whether you're in the back of a stable or in a modern birthing suite. I kept thinking that I was feeling just what Joseph was feeling, to the very moment, almost 2,000 years before. Ever since then, I've been a man of the cloth who spends his Christmas days, and a lot of his other days as well, thinking not just about Jesus, not just about the miraculous presence on earth that is God, but about Joseph, that earthly man."
Joseph—the father regarded by many of his peers as something other than, or less than, a father, and even less than a man.
"I think Joseph must have been amazing," says Gene. "Otherwise, Jesus wouldn't have been able to so lovingly connect God to father."
The wife, the daughters, the church, the farm, the horses…all was well. Nothing was well. "He could be so intimate with a whole congregation, and he could preach with his whole heart and soul," Boo says. "But we didn't feel very intimate. I kept thinking if I was smarter or thinner or prettier or if I cooked better, Gene would love me more and it would feel better." After several years of marriage, Gene told Boo he realized something about the deprogramming therapy. It had blocked the gay—Boo and the girls proved that, right—but not eradicated it. The gay, it seemed, behaved a bit like hepatitis A—giving you a single bout of sickness, then staying in your system, dormant and harmless, for the rest of your life.
"I just need to admit that it's there, so I can make my peace with it," he told his wife, acting on his own belief about secrets in families. "So there it is: There's a part of me that will always be gay. But it's a small part. No threat to the main part. I don't have to ever act on it."
Once this awareness was incorporated into their marriage, there was peace. Until there wasn't. Gene prayed on it daily.
_Make this not be true, Lord. Show me how I can change it. _
When Gene realized it was a bigger slice of the pie than he'd initially thought, he told Boo. When he realized he couldn't have peace with it—even as he was convinced he would never act on it—he told Boo. When he realized it was not only present but no longer dormant, that it was awake, pushing, he told Boo.
Then, one night in 1983, he shot up in bed and, at long, long last, uttered the word.
Gay. My God. I'm gay.
In the mid-'80s it wasn't a given, as it more or less is now, that a heterosexual marriage with a gay man in it couldn't be sustained. Two more years passed before the Robinsons decided they had to let each other go. Jamee was 8 years old; Ella, 4.
A friend, another priest, attended their final divorce hearing at a county courthouse. After signing, they retired to their friend's church to celebrate the Eucharist and perform a homespun liturgy that traced in reverse the vows they'd taken before another altar fourteen years earlier. Both of them felt that the only way they could honor their wedding vows—I give you this ring as a symbol of my vow; with all that I have and all that I am, I honor you in the name of God—was to release, not renounce, them.
"I know it may seem counterintuitive," says Gene, "but we took our vows very seriously. We had sworn an oath in front of God, and we just didn't want to slink away in the night. We both felt that if the church was going to bless marriages, it ought to be around in some liturgical way to bless divorces, too. It's easy to be there when it's all happy and there's a big party. But it's more important for the church to be there when it's painful. There's a lack of integrity about this. I can't help but imagine that someone who is getting married the second time who has not put an end to the first marriage before God must feel creepy about saying those same words the next time. You make these promises in front of God, you ask God's blessing on them, then you never mention to God or to the community that you're no longer holding yourself to these promises Then you show up in church making identical promises to somebody else You'd think God might interrupt and say, 'Um…could we finish the last one before we do this one' "
The day they divorced, Gene and Boo knelt before the altar, asked for each other's forgiveness, and pledged themselves to the joint raising of their children. Then they re-exchanged their rings, as symbols of the vows to which they no longer held each other. He still has hers, and she his.
"One thing I say to couples in premarital counseling is that the church isn't kidding when they say this is forever," he says. "Even if you're divorced in less than a year and you don't see them for the rest of your life, you'll always be emotionally connected to this person. I say this because I know. Boo and I divorced in 1986, and I still love her." By the time Gene Robinson ended his marriage and came out of the closet, New Hampshire's Episcopalians had known him for eleven years. They were shocked but, with a few exceptions, not up in arms. The man had brought love, transparency, and the truth as he knew it to their children and their families for more than a decade. Why would he stop now
One of those exceptions was a fellow priest named Ron Prinn, whom Robinson had known and worked with for years.
"I understand you've done this because you're a…what" Prinn demanded.
"A homosexual, Ron. I'm a homosexual."
"I just don't understand it," Prinn said. "Boo. The girls. I don't understand."
Robinson said he wasn't demanding or even asking Prinn to understand. "Just be in communion with me. That's all I ask."
"I don't think I can," Prinn said. "I just don't know if it's permissible."
Terrible words. To the unchurched, "in communion" is the kind of term that can pass through the senses without finding purchase. But to those who have grown up in the church, not to mention those who devote their lives to it, to be told by a man of the cloth that you are not worthy of sharing Communion is to be cast out by one's own flesh and blood; it is to be told that you are unworthy of salvation.
And then there was that word. Permissible. It was a word that implied the primacy of doctrine—canons, rules, rote adherence to the letter of the law—over the kind of questing, empathetic faith Robinson had practiced all his life. Not only was Gene Robinson being told he was unworthy of communion but also that he fundamentally misunderstood what it represented.
Boo remarried in September 1987. Two months later, Gene met a Peace Corps worker named Mark Andrew while vacationing in St. Croix. Andrew was a distance runner, a marathoner, intelligent in a practical and unassuming way, and terribly shy. Robinson was a charismatic, a radiant who'd rarely known the ertion of his own spirit to be met with a like force, yet something about Andrew's presence, an attention—nonverbal, evident in the handshake—instantly and fully measured him, held him.
"I don't know where this is going," Robinson told Andrew just days later. "But you need to know I'm not leaving my kids. If it goes anywhere, it's going to come to New Hampshire. If that's not an option for you, we should stop this right now."
It was an option. After a year and a half of long-distance dating, Andrew moved from Washington, D.C., to New Hampshire, where he and Robinson built a house.
"My dad never said or implied, 'This is an important person in my life, so he's going to be an important person in yours,' " says Gene's younger daughter, Ella, now a movie-industry publicist in New York. "He just introduced him into our lives and let us come to our own conclusions. From the beginning, Mark was this quiet, powerful presence. His love was all in the details. Mark was the one who always remembered to have cottage cheese on hand if SpaghettiOs were being served, because I had this disgusting taste for the two mid together. He paid attention. Not loud attention, but the kind that makes a big difference at the end of the day. With Mark and Gene, and with my mother and her second husband, I grew up with this loving feeling of having all four of my parents there at every parent-teacher conference and every horse show and every play."
Not long after moving into his new home with Mark Andrew, Robinson sent Ron Prinn a letter. The two had worked for several months on a committee, after which Gene and Mark hosted a dinner for committee members and their spouses. Prinn had answered the invitation with silence, so Robinson sat down and wrote everything he'd learned about fear.
"I told him what I'd learned from my own life, and from those of everyone to whom I'd ever been a pastor—that the fear is always worse than the reality. You know how when you're a kid lying in bed and you just know there's something in the room with you, and how frightening that is—but how the thought of turning on the light is somehow even more frightening So I wrote, 'Ron, I don't think you're afraid of what you think you'll see if you come to my home. You might think you are—that you're afraid of all the pictures of naked men we must have on every wall. But I think you're afraid of what you won't see. I think you're afraid that you won't see those pictures, that what you'll see is actually quite boring. Which it is. And I think you're afraid of what that might mean. So let me tell you now: What you will see when you come here is a Christian home. You have a standing invitation.' "
Prinn never acknowledged the letter, but a year later the two men met at a clergy conference. Robinson was now Canon to the Ordinary—the New Hampshire diocese's second in command. Prinn took Robinson's extended hand but said nothing in response to his hello. Something was very wrong—he wouldn't let go of Robinson's hand. Just kept it gripped while gazing into Robinson's face. His voice trembled when he spoke.
"I have done everything the church has asked me to, I have believed everything I have been told to believe, and I am unhappy." He seemed to be talking at himself as much as at Robinson. "And here you are living your life the way the church says you shouldn't. And…look at you." Before Robinson could muster a response, Prinn withdrew his hand, turned, and left the room.
"Later in the conference, the bishop got called away, so it fell to me to celebrate the Eucharist," Robinson recalls. "I was halfway through the prayer of consecration when I realized he was going to have to present himself to me for Communion. Sure enough, I looked down and there he was in line. When he knelt, I thought he might cross his hands over his chest, so as not to receive the host from me. But then he put out his hands. Not for the host but for me. So I knelt with him, and right there at the altar rail he took me into his arms."
Several years later, Prinn worked on a committee tasked with deciding whether the diocese's annual clergy and spouse retreat should be renamed, with "partner" replacing "spouse." Prinn was torn. Though he had come back into communion with Robinson, he still didn't approve of what he saw as the man's poor decisions—and he still hadn't brought himself to cross his doorstep. As Prinn saw it, a gay clergyman, an individual, was one thing; the institutionalization of "gayness" in the church, even semantically, was another. Grudgingly, he placed a call to Mark Andrew.
"Would it even mean anything to you" he asked. "I mean, you already attend the conference. It's just a word, right"
"A word is never just a word," Andrew said. "It would mean everything."
Prinn made the change.
By the time Prinn finally accepted one of Gene's group-lunch invitations, three years ago, Parkinson's disease had ravaged his body. He could no longer eat—liquid nutrients had to be pumped directly into his stomach through a stent—and had neared the point where he could no longer walk or talk. Another of the guests ushered Prinn and his wife, Barbara, through the garage, where Gene and Mark had installed a handicap lift years before. When he rolled his walker into the kitchen, Prinn beheld Gene with a bewildered look. A gurgling sound emerged from his throat. Barbara put an ear to her husband's mouth, then translated.
"Ron wants to know who in your family is handicapped." No one, Gene said.
It clearly pained Prinn to muster the words, but he managed.
"Who did you build that lift for"
The lift had been used only once before. Gene hadn't thought twice about installing it. His theology of inclusion had structured not only his ministry but his idea of what a living space should be; the lift hadn't been built with anyone particular in mind.
"We built it for you," Gene said.
Prinn began to cry quietly, then motioned for Gene to come close. When he did, Prinn whispered that he wanted Robinson to kiss him.
Barbara Prinn says that in her husband's final months, when he could no longer speak, Robinson would sit with him in silence for hours at a time, holding his hand and, before taking his leave, kissing the dying, smiling man on the crown of his head.
In 1998, at the once-a-decade gathering of the world's Anglicans known as the Lambeth Conference, it was resolved that homosexuality is "incompatible with Scripture." By 2001, Robinson was a nationally known figure within the church, in part because of the open way he lived—a matter-of-fact defiance of the Episcopal Church's widespread practice of ordaining gay clergy only if they committed to a life of celibacy. Mostly, though, he was known for his reputation in New Hampshire as an inspired preacher and pastor who happened to be a homosexual rather than vice versa, and for the nationwide adoption of the conflict-resolution policies he'd authored. By 2002, when he became a candidate to replace his retiring boss, he'd already been considered for seven other bishop openings. Robinson says that in one of the dioceses, the man he'd fallen in love with back in his seminary days was on the search committee—and still married to the woman he'd been engaged to at the time.
"I don't think anyone other than his wife knows that I was a part of his life. The thought of my being his bishop must have scared him to death. Since [that search process], he and I have actually spoken quite often. He's a terrific priest. But he's never been able to discuss it."
On June 7, 2003, New Hampshire's Episcopal laypeople and clergy elected Robinson the ninth bishop of their 201-year-old diocese. His candidacy had generated no organized opposition. When the results were announced in St. Paul's Church in Concord, the jubilation was deafening, even primal. "Ten years ago, I would not have been happy about this, because I would have felt it's clearly contrary to the Bible, contrary to the traditions of the church," the search committee's co-chair said at the time. "It's all because I've experienced the ministry of this man and a couple of others that I think I was mistaken."
Shortly after Gene and Boo had told their children that their father was a homosexual and that they would be separating, Gene drove to Kentucky to tell his parents face-to-face. Imogene and Charles told their son they didn't understand what he was telling them, but that they loved him all the same.
"But they kept it a secret all those years because they figured that no one would talk to them again, that their lives would be over," Gene says. The election was national news, however. "They were totally blown away when their friends kept saying, 'We just saw another talk show! You must be so proud!' You know that thing you fear so much that you can't even turn the light on to look at it They were amazed to learn there was nothing there."
Robinson's election didn't make him a bishop; confirmation was required. Two months later in Minneapolis, 900 lay and clergy leaders considered the question. Meanwhile, the postcards began to pour in.
_•__You fornicating, lecherous PIG. How dare you split the Anglican Church You dumped your wife & daughters to live with a homosexual pig. _
_•__I hope that someone stones this faggot to death. If they did, I would be the first person to congratulate the assailant and pat them on the back for a job well done. _
_•__Hi Gene hows the corn holing Bishop doing, you son of a bitch…still spreading aids is the only thing you are good for. _
_•__If you had any courage, you would kill yourself, like all queers. _
_•__You vain, arrogant, self-aggrandized OLD COCKSUCKING FOOL! God will curse you and your HERESY! _
_•__God said: DEATH TO THE FAGGITS. _
In Minneapolis, Robinson, who had then been with Mark Andrew for sixteen years, testified to the delegates that sexuality, in all its forms, manifested God's having made humankind in God's own image. Fundamentalists who claimed to "love the sinner, hate the sin" when it came to homosexuality made the same false distinction inherent in the Episcopal Church's practice of ordaining homosexuals only if they were celibate; both presumed homosexuality to be something one did, not something one was. A God who formed a human being with a same-sex attraction and then forbade him or her to act on it would be a cruel God, he told them, and he did not believe in a cruel God. "What I can tell you is that in my relationship with my partner, I am able to express the deep love that's in my heart, and in his unfailing and unquestioning love of me I experience just a little bit of the kind of never-ending, never-failing love that God has for me. So it's sacramental for me."
The allegations of sexual misconduct hit on the eve of the final confirmation vote, when each of the attending bishops received an e-mail from a Vermont man claiming Robinson had made a pass at him a couple of years earlier at a church conference. Within hours, another allegation—that Robinson had "links" to a pornographic Web site—emerged.
The bishops immediately postponed their vote and began investigating Robinson—per the very policy Robinson himself had created. Gene, who was forbidden to comment publicly during the investigation, holed up in his hotel room with Mark and Ella, who was handling media requests for the event. Mark "just held Dad's hand and quietly said, 'We are doing this the right way, and this is going to be okay,' " says Ella.
Within thirty-six hours, the "porn link" was debunked, and the Vermont man conceded that the "sexual harassment" consisted of Robinson patting him on the back during a public assembly in a way that might have appeared "normal and natural" to anyone present.
After a slim majority confirmed Robinson's election, twenty bishops rose in protest. As their spokesman, they had selected the Episcopal bishop of Pittsburgh, Robert Duncan, who, oddly enough, had been an old seminary classmate of Robinson's in New York. "With grief too deep for words, the bishops who stand before you must reject this action," he said. "This body has denied the plain teaching of Scripture and the moral consensus of the church throughout the ages.… I will stand against the actions of this Convention with everything I have and everything I am. I have not left, and will not leave, the Episcopal Church or my apostolic role as Episcopal Bishop of Pittsburgh. It is this Seventy-fourth General Convention that has left us, betrayed us, undone us. May our merciful Lord Jesus have pity on us, His broken bride."
The breaking of the worldwide Anglican Communion had officially begun.
Gene Robinson does not fear God. Nor does he fear for his soul. He never has. During his childhood, words preached from the pulpit of his church sometimes struck fear into his heart, but never a fear of God. Because almost as soon as he could read, he noticed a recurring melody in the Gospels—it was constant, like a tic—and began to follow it.
_Do not be afraid. _
There hardly seemed a passage in the New and even the Old Testament that didn't carry the injunction, either explicitly or between the lines. It wasn't just the injunction, though. It was the way the Book invariably linked fear and love—the way people quailed in terror whenever the Love of God on earth was imminent. After informing Mary she had "found favor" with God, the angel took one look at her face ("troubled") and added Fear not before laying on her the fact that she'd be mothering the Love of God. So it was when the angel broke the news to Joseph. Fear not. And to the "sore afraid" shepherds abiding in the field. Fear not.
"Jesus' whole life was bookended by that phrase," Robinson says. "Every single one of the Resurrection experiences began with Jesus saying, 'Don't be afraid.' Perfect love, in the form of Jesus Christ, literally casts out fear wherever it goes. So do I fear God Not at all. I do have a sense of judgment. I do believe that after death there will be some piece, some moment, when we will see our lives for what they really were. And I believe that's going to be pretty hard on all of us. But I also believe nothing can separate us from God's love, that our worth in God's eyes is a done deal. So fear does not enter into it."
Gene Robinson has hid nothing and feared nothing for his own sake in more than twenty years. The man carries no secrets. When, for instance, he became uncomfortable with his reliance on wine to decompress at the end of his workdays, the last thing he did before checking in to rehab in early 2006 was to write an open letter to New Hampshire's Episcopalians, explaining where he was going and why. The effects of this fearlessness now seem less psychological than musical: He will describe a terrible memory such as the collapse of his first marriage with a grief that is clearly genuine and still present, yet something in the telling—his speaking voice is reedy and crisp; his grammar is unerringly precise—feels shot through with hope, feels upcast, and brings to mind nothing so much as a contented, chirping robin. It seems peculiar to describe the absence of something as palpable, but this small, bespectacled, unremarkable-looking man has about him an absence of fear so entire that it is palpable. Or, rather, the thing that's rushed in to fill the vacuum where fear once dwelled—fear's opposite: love—is so complete that it's palpable. Unnerving, even. He's a "loving person," of course, who says and does loving things—unassumingly spending every Christmas Eve in prison with New Hampshire's worst women offenders, to cite one of hundreds of examples. But the love one feels in his presence is too diffuse, too invisibly luminous, too strange, to originate in anything he says or does. It's simply something that he is—or for which he serves as a vessel.
Love casts out fear: Between the confirmation in August and the consecration ceremony in November 2003, the calls for Robinson to stand down turned to howls. It wasn't just Bob Duncan's group in the States, and the primates, as Africa's chief archbishops are known. It was the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams—Anglicanism's spiritual figurehead—who publicly opined that Robinson shouldn't be made a bishop. The death threats picked up, too. Scores of them, the creepiest featuring a photo of Gene and Mark—a joyful image, both men bent back with the force of their own laughter—beneath a message comprising block letters cut from magazines. i have a bullet for each of your heads when you least expect it.
To which Robinson's response was, simply, What will be will be.
He "slept like a baby" the night before his consecration, and woke with a deep calm that "might better be described as an absolute stillness." Which was saying something, given that security before and during the ceremony, held at the University of New Hampshire hockey rink in Durham, cost the Diocese of New Hampshire $100,000. In the preceding month, armed bodyguards accompanied Robinson on his pastoral visits. In the preceding week, bomb-sniffing dogs patrolled the Durham facility. On the day of, snipers took positions atop the roofs of adjacent buildings. The clergyman in the red stole who processed behind Robinson was no clergyman but an armed bodyguard; Robinson wore a Kevlar vest, as did Andrew, as did the then presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Frank Griswold. Medics typed Gene's and Mark's blood ahead of time; both men were assigned three-person triage teams. An escape plan was established, replete with an idling car and a secret location where, if Robinson were still alive after an attack, three bishops would complete the consecration rite. A cameraman perched on a catwalk directly over the spot where Robinson was to kneel before the consecrating bishops, to ensure visual proof of the instant they laid their hands upon his head and officially made him a bishop. And through it all, the absolute stillness.
There was no bomb, no shots. Just polite objection: After Frank Griswold duly asked if anyone present knew of "any reason why we should not proceed," an Episcopal priest from Pittsburgh named Earle Fox took the microphone. As he later revealed on his Web site, God had told him the day before to drive to New Hampshire with a Message.
"For males, around 99 percent engage in oral sex," Reverend Fox informed the assembly, citing a twenty-four-year-old tome called The Gay Report. "Approximately 91 percent engage in anal sex. Eighty-two percent engage in 'rimming'—touching the anus of one's partner with one's tongue and inserting the tongue into the anus.…"
"We know where you are headed," said the presiding bishop.
"You know where I am headed"
"You can spare us the details."
Fox later wrote a rueful blog entry completing the Message—"golden showers," "fisting," "scat eating," "mud rolling"—that Bishop Griswold had cut off.
In time, Robinson's family—Imogene, Charles, Boo, Mark, Jamee, Ella—presented him with his new vestments. He then knelt as forty-four bishops encircled him and laid their hands upon his head, adding him to the apostolic succession, the unbroken line of Anglican bishops going back to the original twelve apostles. An unbroken line straight back into the hands of Jesus.
"Brothers and sisters in Christ," Griswold said, "greet your new bishop!"
After three minutes of the kind of high-pitched pandemonium normally afforded only to pop idols, 4,000 Episcopalians and Anglicans, some of whom had come from around the world, and all of whom had passed through protesters bearing god hates fags and fag church placards, as well as metal detectors and handbag searches, launched into the Ralph Vaughan Williams hymn "Sine Nomine," whose lyrics compare the Christian saints to soldiers.
"I only gauged the full impact all this had on Mark about two and a half years later," Gene says. "I did a service at a church in Portsmouth, which had a three-sided balcony. Afterwards, Mark said, 'Halfway through the service, I realized that for the first time since the consecration, I wasn't constantly watching the balcony for someone with a gun.' "
The Anglican primate of Uganda announced the day after the ceremony that his primacy was breaking communion with "that man." Within a year, twenty-two of the thirty-seven overseas branches of the worldwide Anglican Church had severed relations with the U.S. branch. Bob Duncan, with financial support from the same conservative foundations associated with Richard Mellon Scaife that financed the movement to impeach Bill Clinton, had actually begun the plan for global "realignment" months before Gene Robinson was made a bishop. Within two months of Robinson's consecration, Duncan's Anglican Communion Network was up and running. Its premise was radical: that it was not Duncan and his conservative supporters who were schismatic but those who had elevated Gene Robinson; the ACN was aiming not to reform but to replace the Episcopal Church outright. What The Bible says about a man laying with another man was plain, according to Duncan and his backers, and by electing an openly gay bishop the Episcopalians had willfully forgotten how to read.
Since then, thirty-two Episcopal congregations, some of them the largest and wealthiest in the country, as well as one entire diocese, have "seceded" from the American church. Declaring themselves under the "jurisdiction" of ultraconservative overseas bishops, they've begun sending the money they once tithed to the national church to Africa and South America. And although Episcopal dioceses hold the deeds to their congregations—the idea being that parishioners are not owners but caretakers for succeeding generations—many breakaway churches have sued for ownership of their buildings, some of which are worth eight figures. (Bob Duncan has been trying to subsume the Diocese of Pittsburgh under the church of Kenya, whose archbishop routinely refers to Gene Robinson as "the Devil.") Some of the dissident churches have won in court; others have been forced to move. The question is no longer whether the property issue will wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court, but when.
At this point, Bob Duncan is an inconsequential figure next to the African primates, whose followers—18 million in Nigeria alone—are growing exponentially and numerically dwarf the 2.4 million Episcopalians in the United States. The Africans are only a few generations removed from the English missionaries who converted their ancestors; the fundamentalist zeal they bring to the Word still has the feeling of first things, and their reading of Scripture is almost uniformly literalist. To them, "interpreting" or "rethinking" Scripture is, well, unthinkable, and Gene Robinson and his sympathizers blaspheme when they claim that a proper reading of the Bible requires asking if "a man lay[ing] with another man" meant the same thing to Saint Paul and his audience that it means in the twenty-first century, and if the "abomination" mentioned in Leviticus meant then what it means now. (The scholarly consensus is that Paul was referring not to amorous "laying" but to the punitive raping of enemy soldiers by conquering armies, and that the "abomination" in Leviticus simply means "nontraditional.")
"I sincerely don't want this to sound condescending, but I do feel sympathy for these conservatives," Robinson says. "They are only believing what we've taught them to believe for centuries. Why wouldn't they be angry about what I represent But I can't not talk about discrimination in the church. Because this is about far more than the church. This is a secular issue as well. Ninety percent of government-sponsored oppression of homosexuals and suppression of gay civil rights is church-related. It's the church that has taught the larger culture to feel comfortable making homosexuals second-class citizens. This makes it distinct from racism and sexism. The church is the source when it comes to the secular culture's attitudes about homosexuality—and it's going to take church people to change it."
Robinson won't likely live to see the change. His diocese is healthy, but nationwide membership in the Episcopal Church is in drastic decline. Meanwhile, the power and prestige of African-style Anglicanism shows no signs of slowing—in no small part because animosity toward Gene Robinson has proved remarkably profitable for a number of primacies. Which may explain why Nigeria's archbishop, Peter Akinola, who claims to love homosexuals while hating homosexual acts, supports a proposed law in his country that would make it a crime to provide food or lodging to any gay or lesbian person, or even to discuss homosexuality in a public venue.
"For six years now, I've listened to African leaders say that I am lower than a dog and that Satan has entered the church," says Robinson, who, incidentally, believes in sexual abstinence before or outside of marriage or a committed relationship. "Now, I want to be in communion with these people. I want it to work out. Still—and I never thought I would come to feel this way—I've come to believe that it is time for the American church to be who it is. And if the fact that God is doing a new thing in our church gets us kicked out of the Anglican Communion, so be it. I would never advocate for our leaving, because I think leaving the table is the ultimate sin. It should be as it was with Ron Prinn and me—the way we held on to one another for dear life while we tried to figure it out. I would never walk away."
Nor will he stand down. A few weeks ago, thanks to a new New Hampshire law, Robinson and Mark Andrew entered into a civil union. And this month, he will attempt to step into Canterbury Cathedral to attend this decade's Lambeth Conference, along with the more than 800 bishops and primates who represent the 164 countries of the Anglican Communion. He may or may not be barred entry. Gene Robinson is the only Episcopal bishop from whom Rowan Williams has withheld an invitation. (This distinguishes him even from Philadelphia's Episcopal bishop, Charles Bennison, who was recently revealed to have concealed the sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl—by his brother—in one of his former parishes.) The snub is a sop to the primates of the global south led by Akinola, who had called on the archbishop to blackball the entire American church from the conference "unless they truly repent" for having elevated Robinson. (After overseas primacies declared themselves in "impaired communion" with the Episcopalians due to Robinson's consecration, Williams commissioned an inquiry. The resulting report called on the Episcopalians to refrain from consecrating any more gay bishops and to express regret for their actions; the American church apologized for any grief it had caused, but not for making Robinson a bishop.)
"I think the only way you can be a disciple is to not be fearful," Robinson says of his plans to crash Lambeth. "I have no idea what goes on in the Archbishop of Canterbury's mind—I can't get him to return my calls or e-mails or letters—but doesn't it strike you that he's a fearful person So often, the thing we fear is what we create when we're fearful. There's no question in my mind that he wants to save the communion, but by his being fearful, he may be bringing about the very thing he most doesn't want to happen."
"You know, Jesus was always in trouble. And I think it's an indictment of us as Christians that I wear this around my neck"—his cross—"and police don't follow me wherever I go. I tell my clergy that if they're not in trouble, they're not preaching the Gospel."
Robinson has been in touch with the London office of the security contractor that handled his consecration in New Hampshire, to make the proper arrangements.
It ought to go without saying that as the Lambeth Conference looms, and the pressure and scorn and death threats mount—yes, the death threats have picked up again—Robinson's prayer life is filled with pleas for his physical well-being and for the power of persuasion in the face of all the questions he's bound to be asked. A funny thing, though, about Gene Robinson, a man whose name has become inextricably linked to the Word, and what the Word does or doesn't say, in the minds of millions of Christians: His prayer life has become almost entirely void of words. Every morning, as early as four and no later than dawn, he wakes, descends to his living room, sits on the couch facing the hearth with his hands on his knees, his back straight and his eyes closed, begins his prayers, and, more often than not, says nothing.
"I find myself saying a lot less to God than I used to. I've come to realize that God doesn't need me to remind God of what God already knows. God doesn't need to be briefed." Instead, Robinson's prayers now return him, in a way, to the feeling he used to try, try, but fail to describe to anyone who would listen to him when he was a child—to the Love of God. "Except for the intercessory prayers I offer up on behalf of those who are sick and troubled, I try to use my prayer as a space and a time in which I let God love me. I close my eyes, and I think of light, and I think of warmth, and I think of God's Love, and I feel it, starting at the top of my head and dripping over me like melting butter. You see" Robinson closes his eyes, turns the plane of his face up, and lifts his cupped palms nearly to the level of his chin. "It's when I let God love me that I remember who I am."
Andrew Corsello is a GQ correspondent.
Click here to listen to Gene Robinson talk about his faith, his sexuality, and the church that is dividing around him on GQ Radio.


text:
R. J. Laudenbacher 6/29/2012 3:28:11 AMWhat wonderful details. Love how you got down on the ground with it! #1471926
Tammy M. Anderson 6/29/2012 3:39:56 AMExcellent details and colors, Jeff. Good to see you back. #10205604
Tiia Vissak 6/29/2012 3:41:05 AMa beautiful close-up! #10205607
Jyri Vissak 6/29/2012 3:53:16 AMI agree with my daughter. Well seen and presented! #10205639
Mary K. Robison 6/29/2012 4:08:58 AMI see why its name includes Emperor, Jeff. What a regal little butterfly --- its patterns and colors are really lovely.The colors throughout this capture are a feast for the eyes.
Ann Coates 6/29/2012 4:25:57 AMI wonder if the butterflies can still fly after drinking all that nectar. If it's anything like the bees that used to eat our plums, they were in quite a drunken state and couldn't fly. A beautiful capture here Jeff. #10205681
Julie Burnett 6/29/2012 4:38:13 AMLOVE your pov, and the colors and details are exceptional, excellent capture, Jeff!! #10205699
Robert R. Goodman 6/29/2012 4:57:56 AMHi Jeff,So good to see you back my friend.Stunning capture!!!! #10205715
Lynn M. Whitt 6/29/2012 4:58:13 AMBeautiful colors and details. #10205716
Danny B. Head 6/29/2012 5:31:37 AMCool capture! #10205768
Monnie Ryan 6/29/2012 5:53:15 AMTerrific capture, Jeff - and great to see you back! #10205805
Amanda J. Tanner 6/29/2012 6:16:47 AMWonderful detail and color. Very nice work Jeff! #10205839
Gail Vitikacs 6/29/2012 6:21:27 AMRefreshing to see on a HOT day like this! Well done Jeff! #10205850
Mary Beth Aiello 6/29/2012 6:26:04 AMA beautiful capture of nature, Jeff. And the detail is gorgeous, Welcome back. We missed you. #10205866
Michelle Alton 6/29/2012 6:32:03 AMWonderful, Jeff. Suddenly in our neighborhood, there is a small invasion of Red Admiral butterflies. One landed on my shirt! Boy, was I surprised! #10205887
Claudia Kuhn 6/29/2012 6:35:35 AMBeautiful capture Jeff. Lucky butterflies to have the rabbits help them out. #10205895
Debbie Bray 6/29/2012 6:48:54 AMThat is one beautiful butterfly, Jeff!! Love the comp, with the colourful peach, but the butterfly takes the cake! #10205929
Val Feldman 6/29/2012 8:21:22 AMMy favorite butterfly of all time! Love the intricate wing patterns - excellent clarity and details and beautiful, beautiful color! Good to see you back, Jeff! #10206043
Rony Sagy 6/29/2012 8:28:48 AMWhat a wonderful crisp colorful capture, Jeff. Welcome back. We missed you. #10206052
Bojan Bencic 6/29/2012 8:47:14 AMFantastic color and details, Jeff. Perfect title for this beautiful photo. #10206071
Patrick Rouzes 6/29/2012 9:03:25 AMGlad to see you back, Jeff!
Rona L. Schwarz 6/29/2012 9:41:42 AMWelcome back, Jeff! We've missed you! What a natural beauty this is - love the comp, DOF, stunning colors, detail and clarity. #10206143
Mike Clime 6/29/2012 11:10:40 AMExcellent capture, colors and details, Jeff! You're right about them being sweeeet! #10206202
Tammy Espino 6/29/2012 11:51:48 AMYOu never take a bad photo :) Excellent! #10206242
Ellen Hodges 6/29/2012 12:23:27 PMSuper WOW colors and awesome detail and pov, Jeff!! #10206281
Phillip R. Connolly 6/29/2012 2:06:53 PMAn excellent capture, Jeff! These guys don't hang around long for you to take the photo! Well done!
Phil #10206398
Jill Odice 6/29/2012 2:17:19 PMWow! Amazing clarity and detail here Jeff! Gorgeous shot! #10206423
John Connolly 6/29/2012 2:47:44 PMNice work here Jeff! The color and detail are superb!
Terry Cervi 6/29/2012 3:33:04 PMWelcome back, Jeff! I love the beautiful colors in this as well as the fantastic detail in the butterfly. That's a beautiful specimen! #10206520
Martha R. Mazon 6/29/2012 3:39:41 PMA beautiful and unusual butterfly portrait, Jeff, taken with fine detail and lighting! Great title, too. #10206533
Thomas E. Hinds 6/29/2012 4:55:45 PMIncredible capture, Jeff! Love the color and comp! Remarkable detail as well! Great to see you posting again! Love this image! #10206646
Carol L. Fowler 6/29/2012 4:58:03 PMBeautiful colors. Hope you get plenty of peaches for yourself. #10206652
Carol Quina 6/29/2012 6:13:49 PMLove it Jeff! My husband would be really jealous of your peaches if I showed this to him. Ours still only grown small and the birds/squirells get them all! #10206775
Heather Loewenhardt 6/29/2012 6:23:57 PMWow what a stunning composition. You have a wonderful setting in your yard for nature at its finest. #10206794
Barbara Waldoch 6/29/2012 6:41:47 PMBeautiful capture, Jeff! #10206841
Daniella Puente 6/29/2012 7:51:54 PMAMAZING details Jeff, great capture! #10206929
Robert K. Bemus 6/29/2012 11:09:14 PMBeautiful color, comp and info, Jeff!! Good to see you back!! #10207108
Jeff Robinson 6/30/2012 3:08:49 AMThanks Everyone Very Much!! Jeff #10207195
Boyd L. Alexander 6/30/2012 6:07:21 AMThis is an exceptional macro Jeff! Love the comp and details. That lens really rocks! #10207327
Nadine A. Lewis 6/30/2012 7:29:57 AMGREAT lighting, detail, and capture, Jeff!!! LOVE the title!!!! <>< #10207428
Stephen Zacker 6/30/2012 8:22:24 AMTerrific perspective and capture #10207472
Katherine Kuhn 6/30/2012 8:51:37 AMExquisite detail on this beautiful butterfly, Jeff. Wonderful symbiosis between rabbits & butterflies!
Nancy L. Green 6/30/2012 9:42:51 AMAWESOME macro work Jeff,I love the amazing clarity, I bet we see this beauty again!!! <>< #10207579
Emile Abbott 6/30/2012 1:42:28 PMGood to see you back Jeff, Work does have a way of cutting into fun/creative time. Glad you had time to watch nature in action again. Colorful Peach and tack sharp details on the butterfly. #10207739
Marijana Fajgl 6/30/2012 1:56:08 PMGlad to see you back, Jeff! Amazing capture! #10207761
Jeff Robinson 7/1/2012 3:35:12 AMThank You! Jeff #10208555
Mike F. Anderson 7/1/2012 12:35:10 PMThe color combinations are a feast for the eyes, Jeff. Beautiful composition in all ways! #10209280
Liz blahh 7/1/2012 11:19:21 PMNature is amazing and you have captured it beautifully! #10209970
Jeff Robinson 7/2/2012 3:11:36 AMThank You Mike and Liz! #10210057
Jean-Pierre Ducondi 7/3/2012 5:31:45 AMNature at its best. Great capture and details. Well done Jeff.
Mitch Spence 7/3/2012 10:51:17 AMWhat a terrific view you have of this in your own back yard, Jeff. It's a lovely image. The butterfly has found a feast here. #10212474
Jeff Robinson 7/4/2012 2:29:05 AMThank You JP and Mitch! Jeff #10213467
Jennifer L. Alder 7/5/2012 12:11:29 AMBeautiful capture, Jeff. Nice exposure and colour. #10214774
Jeff Robinson 7/5/2012 3:22:25 AMThanks Jen! Jeff #10214873
Patricia White 7/8/2012 2:45:33 PMYou just have some wonderful nature in your backyard. Love your closeness to this as well. Great detail and beauty. #10220064
Jeff Robinson 7/9/2012 6:27:51 AMThank You Patricia! #10221111
Marilyn K. Lincecum 7/10/2012 10:14:38 AMBeautfiul close up..excellant DOF, light, color and detail. This looks like my tomatoes. Went out to check them the other day and half of one had already been eaten..by what I am not sure. #10223254
Jeff Robinson 7/10/2012 4:43:08 PMThanks Marilyn! Jeff #10223820
A Hackberry Emperor Butterfly enjoys the fallen peaches from our tree in the backyard - The Bunny Rabbits start to eat the peaches and then the butterflies come in and drink the nectar - Nature is amazing to watch!
Canon 100-400L IS at 400mm. ISO 400, Early-Evening, 1/1,000 @ f7.1, EC 0 Adjustments with PSE9 and Topaz HDR (CA)
Exif: F Number: 7.1, Exposure Bias Value: 0.00, ExposureTime: 1/1000 seconds, Flash: did not fire, compulsory flash mode, ISO: 400, White balance: Auto white balance, FocalLength: 400.00 mm, Model: Canon EOS 50D
Uploaded on 6/29/2012 3:21:13 AM
Camera: Canon EOS 50D Digital SLR Camera
Copyright for this gallery photo belongs solely to Jeff Robinson. Images may not be copied, downloaded, or used in any way without the expressed, written permission of the photographer.
Contact photographer via gallery.
Log in to follow or message this photographer or report this photo.


text:
Reis Magos Church was completed in 1580, listed by IPHAN and recently restored, is one of the best examples of Jesuit architecture in Brazil. The church boasts, at the altar, a carved wooden altarpiece of great artistic value. The altar of the church, built in 1701, has carved wooden altarpiece and in the center a work of painter Fra Belchior Paulo, depicting the Adoration of the Magi. The board is considering an early oil paintings Brazil, since the Jesuit painting in Brazil begins in 1587, with the arrival of Father Melchior Paulo(NovaAlmeida.com) Concluída em 1580, tombada pelo IPHAN e recentemente restaurada, é um dos melhores exemplos da arquitetura jesuítica no Brasil. A igreja ostenta, no altar, um retábulo entalhado em madeira de grande valor artístico. O altar da Igreja, construído em 1701, apresenta retábulo entalhado em madeira e, no centro uma obra do pintor frei Belchior Paulo, retratando a adoração dos Reis Magos. O quadro é considerando uma das primeiras pinturas a óleo o Brasil, já que a pintura jesuítica, no Brasil, se inicia em 1587, com a chegada do frei Belchior Paulo.
Here's your soundtrack. Okay, maybe they're not exactly brazillian but their music is awesome and their live shows legendary.Now, Brazil covers almost half of South America and its Amazon rainforest is the world's largest jungle... which is rapidly getting cut down. The country is basically one giant botanical garden with some bangin' cities on its edges.Brazil was colonized in 1808 by the royal court of Portugal, which was fleeing Napolean's troops. They didn't stay long, and Brazil won its independence in 1822.Its biggest city, Sao Paulo, is the financial hub of South America. Brazil is the "b" in BRIC -- Brazil, Russia, India and China. These four were labeled the world's fastest developing large economies in the year 2001.Brazil is known for three things: amazingly beautiful women, carnival, and Pele -- King of Football, Athlete of the Century, football ambassador of the world and a declared national treasure.Brazillians can tell foreigners a mile away, by the way their hips move. Samba is built into the soul of brazil and carnival is when it bursts out into twenty-four hour undying explosions of sound on every street.This picture of mask diving at the Taipus reefs makes me shed hot and salty tears all over my calendar, which is set on "January" right now.Text by Steve Smith.


text:
Arron Afflalo, shooting guard
HT: 6-10 WT: 240 COLLEGE: California AGE: Turns 24 on May 6, 2012. NBA SEASONS: 2011-12 is his fourth TWITTER HANDLE: @ryananderson33 HOW HE CAME TO ORLANDO: Traded from the New Jersey Nets with Vince Carter and Jason Richardson for Rafer Alston, Tony Battie and Courtney Lee on June 25, 2009. SCOUTING REPORT: Anderson shared the power-forward spot last season with Brandon Bass. Anderson will have the same role this season, splitting time with Glen "Big Baby" Davis, who was acquired in sign-and-trade deal with the Boston Celtics for Bass. Last season, Anderson had his best year as a pro, averaging 10.6 points and 5.5 rebounds per game. His challenge is improving on the defensive end. ODDS & ENDS: Anderson grew up in a family that seldom, if ever, watched sports. "If Michael Jordan walked past my dad, I don't think he'd recognize him," Anderson once said. Anderson spent much of his youth kayaking and hiking on nature trails. . . . He grew up in a suburb of Sacramento, Calif. Click here to see our Ryan Anderson photo gallery
Joshua C. Cruey
Copyright © 2018, The Morning Call


text:
It must have been sweet music to Arthur J. Rowbotham to hear his name called on Thursday night. The president of Lakeland-based radio group Hall Communications is the 2013 recipient of the George W. Jenkins Award.
LAKELAND | It must have been sweet music to Arthur J. Rowbotham to hear his name called on Thursday night.
The president of Lakeland-based radio group Hall Communications is the 2013 recipient of the George W. Jenkins Award.
The honor, given by the Lakeland Chamber of Commerce, is named after the founder of Publix Super Markets Inc. and awarded for exemplary service within the Lakeland community and the Chamber. The award was presented to Rowbotham during the Chamber's annual meeting at The Lakeland Center Thursday night, before a crowd of roughly 900 people.
Hall Communications operates four stations in the Lakeland area and 17 others spread throughout markets in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont. Rowbotham, a Youngstown, Ohio native, started out as a lawyer but found the family radio business more exciting.
Rowbotham is current chairman of the Lakeland Regional Medical Center Foundation and a member of Florida Southern College's board of trustees. He also is a past president of the Imperial Symphony Orchestra and Lakeland YMCA.
Receiving the Jenkins award, Rowbotham had special thanks for his wife, Bonnie — board chairman of Hall Communications — and praised the Lakeland community.
"Lakeland is a wonderful community to live in ... we have such a special place, so many friends and supporters," he said. "We appreciate all of the support you've given us over the years ... thank you."
The night's other big winner was Scott Orthodontic Associates, which took home the Scott Linder Small Business of the Year Award.
The business opened in 1987 and owner Gregory Scott has been noted for his charitable dental work. Scott has received the Dentist of the Year award from Lakeland Volunteers in Medicine, and he works alongside student dental assistants at Traviss Career Center with the Give Kids a Smile program.
He also has been recognized within his field for providing dental care to underserved populations, including reconstruction procedures for children and young adults with facial deformities.
"This is an outstanding honor," Scott said Thursday after receiving the Linder award. "I'm honored and humbled, and I appreciate this very much."
[ Kyle Kennedy can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com or 863-802-7584. ]


text:
Taylor Swift has landed the coveted opening performance spot on Sunday night's 55th Annual Grammy Awards, where she's up for three awards including Record of the Year for "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together."
Taylor's Grammy appearance comes on the heels of her performances at awards shows in France and Spain just last week. She's also preparing for the launch of her Red tour next month. In the midst of this crazy schedule, Taylor relies on her friends to keep her grounded.
"My friends don't treat me like anything different than who I am," Taylor says, "which is their friend who goes through things the same way that they do, and vents the same way, gets off of work and calls them and it's like, 'We've got to get together. I have to tell you about this.'"
Granted, some of Taylor's girlfriends are celebrities, like Selena Gomez or Dianna Agron from Glee. She also maintains relationships with other pals who are in college right now or pursuing jobs outside the music industry.
Taylor says of her friends, "It doesn't really matter what they do with their life. We're probably just gonna talk about boys and feelings anyway."
Of course, Taylor turns those conversations about boys and feelings into multi-platinum hits. Her latest album, Red, has been certified quadruple platinum for sales of four million copies, and it's moved 5.4 million copies globally.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Recent posts in Music News


text:
This forum section is for posting about things you wish to buy. Only post items related to the subject matter of this forum, or things that might be of interest to forum members. Any listing that is deemed to be unrelated will be deleted without warning.
Please remember that any exchange of goods or money is the sole responsibility of the parties involved. Any disputes must be settled between them. This forum is just here to facilitate communication.
Note: It really helps when you post a notice in this section if you have filled out your profile (see this post [1]) so we know at least what country you're in.
The Big Onigiri.
- Wherever you go, there you are. -
[1] http://justbento.com/forum/enhanced-profiles


text:
The guys at D6 have put together a point-by-point transcript of the interview, and most likely, video will follow later. According to the transcript, Ballmer said we would get to see "just a snippet" of Windows 7. That snippet was presented by Microsoft's Julie Larson-Green, who demonstrated Windows 7's multitouch features. The transcript notes:
To give you an idea as to how the multitouch features work in Windows 7, here's a video of them - note that the new interface, with the dock, doesn't appear yet to be part of this particular video - or it must be those three floating icons right before the piano application loads. Note that the demo is done on a Dell Latitude model which ships today.
Video: Multi-Touch in Windows 7
According to Larson-Green, multitouch will be implemented system-wide, and according to Gates, it will herald in a new era of computing based on a hierarchy of input systems. "Today the machine is really set up for one person to sit at a keyboard," the transcript reads, "Soon it will be set up for voice and gesture." Windows 7 is about 18 months away.
Note that we'll keep you updated on this one, and will let you know as soon as the videos of the actual interview, including the new Windows 7 interface, are posted online at the D6 website.


text:
The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) held a ceremony on Oct. 1 to honor those Enforcement Division agents who have died in the line of duty. The ceremony took place beside the "Fallen Agents" statue that was erected outside of the LDWF HQ building in Baton Rouge earlier this year.
The ceremony included a prayer by Louisiana Wildlife Agents Association (LWAA) Chaplain Senior Agent Byron Cammack, and speeches by LDWF Secretary Robert Barham, Col. Jeff Mayne, LWAA President Davis Madere and Lt. Col. Joey Broussard.
The statue depicts an LDWF Enforcement Division agent in an honor guard uniform with his head bowed honoring fallen agents. The statue sits on top of a granite pedestal that is engraved with the names of the seven LDWF agents that have been killed in the line of duty.
"This statue will permanently serve as a reminder of those agents who have paid the ultimate sacrifice while enforcing our conservation game and boating laws," said Col. Jeff Mayne, head of the LDWF Enforcement Division. "This statue also emphasizes how dangerous an agent's job can be on a day to day basis."
The Louisiana Wildlife Agents Association (LWAA) purchased and donated the statue to LDWF where it will permanently stand at their headquarters building.
The following are the agents who are engraved on the pedestal and honored by the statue:
Sgt. Paul Stuckey, 47, end of watch (EOW) Sept. 30, 2011. Sgt. Stuckey was an 18 year veteran and is survived by his wife and three children.
Agent Jim Matkin, 30, EOW March 2, 2005. Agent Matkin was a six year veteran and is survived by his parents, two sisters and a step-son.
Capt. John Garlington, 53, EOW Feb. 10, 2000. Capt. Garlington was a 14 year veteran and is survived by his wife and son.
Agent Leon Henderson, 36, EOW March 30, 1996. Agent Henderson was a 15 year veteran and is survived by his wife and daughter.
Agent Ricky Dodge, 37, EOW Jan. 21, 1992. Agent Dodge is survived by his wife, son and daughter.
Agent Kenneth Aycock, 35, EOW July 6, 1991. Agent Aycock is survived by his wife and two sons.
Agent Frank Fagot, 31, EOW Nov. 29, 1927. Agent Fagot was survived by his wife and two children.
For more information, contact Adam Einck at 225-765-2465 or firstname.lastname@example.com [4].