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For three decades, the "Brinsmead Agitation" challenged Adventist leadership on several continents. During the years I was growing up, the conflict over his teachings became so intense that showing any agreement with Brinsmead's heresy could get one expelled—and this I saw firsthand. Many pastors lost their jobs or left the ministry voluntarily because they espoused Brinsmead's theology. For his followers, even mentioning the name of Brinsmead could put one's membership at risk. Moreover, much Adventist literature published in the 1970's was aimed at correcting Brinsmead's influence. Then, in the late 70's, he began not merely "working within" but separating from Adventism, and by 1990, he had moved entirely out of the Christian faith.
Robert Brinsmead had begun his career as a conservative Adventist. As the years passed, however, he morphed, slowly becoming liberal, then radical, and finally moving from devotion to hostile rejection. Along the way, he covered much of the territory of Adventist thought that still flourishes today. Robert Brinsmead's Awakening movement reveals not only a microcosm of Adventism but also gives insight into its nature.
Some say Brinsmead left Christianity because he abandoned Ellen White's prophetic authority and the pillars of the Adventist faith. She had, after all, predicted that Adventists who rejected her would abandon God. In this study, I avoid that superficial analysis and will attempt to show that Brinsmead did not abandon the Christian faith because of Ellen White or the "pillars"—or because he was somehow corrupted. Rather, I believe he was unable to submit personally to the true Lord Jesus Christ revealed in the Bible.
Questions at Avondale
Robert Brinsmead was raised in Australia in a family of eight children who helped operate the family farm. In 1955, the 22-year-old Bob entered Avondale College in Cooranbong to earn his theology degree. As an energetic, earnest student, he was quickly recognized for his intellect and potential. While at Avondale, he also met his wife Valorie.1 Raised with a thorough knowledge of Ellen White's writings and the Bible, he had a passion for the Adventist doctrines of the last days. Chief among these doctrines was the investigative judgment, and it became his focus for more than a decade.
While Brinsmead was at Avondale, Adventist leaders produced the book Questions on Doctrine [QOD] to answer the common evangelical accusation that Adventism was not a Christian evangelical movement. Conservatives felt that the book compromised or hid the core doctrines of Adventism in order to impress the evangelical world and to avoid the label of "cult."2 Adventists believed they had been entrusted to proclaim the message for the last days—a gospel that apostate Protestantism had rejected. At the foundation of this last-day message were the nature of Christ and the atonement, and these two were points of contention with the evangelicals.3 Did Christ have a sinful or sinless nature, and was the atonement completed at the cross?
When QOD was published in 1957, many historic Adventists felt that the church's core message had been weakened.4 There were evangelical-sounding statements on the nature of Christ: "We emphasize again that in His human nature Christ was perfect and sinless."5 Moreover, some statements on the atonement appeared to support the common Protestant understanding of a completed atonement: "On Calvary, the all-sufficient atoning sacrifice of Christ was offered for our salvation." However, this "all-sufficient sacrifice" did not include "the application of the benefits of the atonement made on the cross, to the individual sinner."6 Did "all-sufficient" mean the atonement was finished, or merely that the sacrifice was sufficient? The book's wording seemed to finesse the questions rather than to answer them clearly.
The investigative judgment, Adventism's unique fundamental belief, shaped the responses to these questions. Adventist pioneers patterned the doctrine after the ancient Jewish sanctuary, said to be a model of the sanctuary in heaven. They taught that on the ancient Jewish Day of Atonement, the high priest would enter God's presence to remove Israel's sins that had accumulated in the sanctuary during the year. (Scripture, incidentally, does not teach that sins accumulated in the sanctuary during the year. See Proclamation!, April–June 2010.) Adventists believe this yearly "cleansing of the sanctuary" removed the record of sins and made atonement for Israel. As our high priest, therefore, Christ entered the Most Holy Place of the sanctuary in heaven in 1844 and began a judgment of all those who profess God.7 The records in heaven are now being examined so that all those who have confessed and overcome every sin will have the evidence of their sins removed from the records.8 Only then will the atonement for sin be accomplished.
However, if Jesus finished the atonement on the cross, there is no need for this judgment.
Brinsmead felt that judgment readiness was urgent, that God's professed people were not ready. Anyone's name could come up for review at any time, and the standard of readiness was nothing less than perfection of character. Ellen White had made that belief abundantly clear. Yet how were the faithful to be able to attain the spotless characters necessary to stand in judgment today?9
Following are the historic Adventist doctrines of salvation that shape Adventists' understanding of how they can achieve judgment readiness.
An Immutable Law of God
A central premise of historic Adventist doctrine is the eternality of "God's Law", or the Ten Commandments. This law has been referred to as the "transcript of God's character," the eternal moral law, and the image of God.10 To be right with God, one must be in right relationship with the law, to "satisfy," "please," and "answer to" this law. Often the language that Adventist authors use for the law is personal, as though it were a divine person.
Original Sin
Adventist literature lacks a consistent doctrine of original sin. Some authors denied the existence of original sin, while others said it is removed at conversion. Still others said our natures are gradually cleansed over our lifetimes.11 The argument over Jesus' sinful nature also continued. Historic Adventist authors, such as M.L. Andreasen, believed Jesus shared our propensities to sin.12 Ellen White statements can support all sides.13 All agreed, however, that Jesus is our example for overcoming. If He shared our sinful desires and could overcome all temptation, with His help we could also.
Righteousness By Faith [RBF]
In Adventism, RBF includes both justification, what God has done for us, and sanctification, what He does in us. Justification initiates the process of salvation, and it refers to the forgiveness of past sins only.14 At the moment of justification, Christ's righteousness is imputed to the believer, meaning that God counts him as righteous as Christ.15 When the sinner has fully surrendered to Christ and lives a holy life, his sins will remain "pardoned," and "the blessing of justification is retained."16 Pardoned sin, however, is not full forgiveness; forgiveness is only granted on condition of passing the investigative judgment.17 God eventually grants full forgiveness to those who have cooperated with Him in becoming righteous, not merely counted righteous. Justification is only maintained by continual surrender and obedience. Justification is called the believer's "title for heaven."
Sanctification was always the most important aspect of Brinsmead's early understanding of RBF. By God's imparting righteousness over the believer's lifetime, he is made righteous. This righteousness is defined as obedience to the Ten Commandments. God will not pronounce us righteous when we are not; that would be only a "legal fiction." Imparted righteousness in the believer's life is called the "robe of Christ's righteousness." Wearing that robe means obeying the law with the Spirit's help, and this obedience is acceptable to God as righteousness.18 Imputed righteousness makes up the deficit that may exist in an Adventist's personal growth at the time of his or her death.
Christ looks at the spirit, and when He sees us carrying our burden with faith, His perfect holiness atones for our shortcomings. When we do our best, He becomes our righteousness. EGW, Letter 22, 1889.
Sanctification is a higher state of salvation that lifts us above the need for forgiveness and imputed righteousness. In other words, sanctification is not only our "fitness" for heaven, it is our robe or "wedding garment" for the judgment. In summary, by justification one becomes merely a candidate for final sealing, but only through sanctification can one achieve true fitness for passing the judgment.19
Moral Perfection
According to Ellen White, Christ's character must be perfectly reproduced in His people before He can return.20 Therefore, believers must, by God's help and their own "diligent effort," overcome all sin in order to be sealed for eternity. The underlying explanation for this compulsion to attain moral perfection is the investigative judgment. Once Christ's atonement is completed at the end of this judgment, believers are no longer covered by Christ's mediation in the sanctuary. When all the names have come up for judgment, Christ's mediation ends, and He will no longer plead His blood for anyone in the Most Holy Place. Their sins will no longer be covered; thus, those who will be fit for salvation will have overcome all sin so they can stand before God without a mediator.21
Many Adventists live in fear of judgment, knowing they have not reached the required character perfection. Perhaps, many have thought, they are better off going to their graves, believing that for dying sinners, the terms are more favorable. Christ's righteousness would somehow make up for their deficiencies if they die before He returns. Even though Christ's second coming should be a joyful event, a deep inner awareness whispers to Adventists, "I am not ready." Even so, they bravely sing these words,
Are you ready to stand in your place? Are you ready to look in His face? Can you look up and say, "This is my Lord!" Are you ready for Jesus to come?22
Against this backdrop, Brinsmead was troubled by the problem of innate sin and concluded that sinless perfection was "impossible and futile." We are crippled by the "scars of sin," or our "subconscious sin." As long as these sinful propensities remained, one could not be "ready to stand in [one's] place." No amount of overcoming sin could qualify one for judgment.23
Yet, if the investigative judgment has continued since 1844, our names could come up for review at any time. Our holiness will be compared to nothing less than the absolute perfection of Jesus Christ. What good is a gradual sanctification if, at that final moment, it is incomplete? Brinsmead found a Protestant answer to this dilemma. In the judgment, Christ must be our righteousness. Only He possesses the infinite purity needed, so He is our substitute. His righteousness justifies us at the end, just as His righteousness justifies us now.24
Moreover, the teaching that Christ will blot out the record of sins at the end of the judgment answered the need to live without a mediator after probation closed. Finally, Brinsmead taught that as a last work of grace to the saints, Christ will perform a "final atonement" by removing their sinful nature. As in the ancient Day of Atonement, believers were to "gather at the sanctuary," afflicting their souls, to be one with Christ in this great and final work. The door to the Most Holy Place was now open, and they could boldly enter into the place of judgment. When their sins are finally blotted out, they will receive the "latter rain," a special outpouring of God's Spirit.
This was the original "Awakening Message." For many Adventists who had lived in dread of God's judgment, this was good news. As Brinsmead later described,
…it was the most sweet and joyful news that many had ever heard. Neither time nor circumstances…can efface the memory of souls weeping for joy at the simple revelation that Christ is our righteousness in judgment (Review of Awakening, Pt. 1).25
Brinsmead decided to leave Avondale in 1958 to speak independently and to publish. His following soon became a significant movement in Australia. By 1960, they called themselves the "Sanctuary Awakening Fellowship." Even though the Australian Adventist leadership strenuously opposed the Awakening, the movement spread.26 Inevitably, on December 19, 1960, the Awakening message came to America, and the General Conference had no idea what was about to hit them.
"A Cult Within a Cult"
In 1961, a young mother of three named Iris Carey was among those who heard and "wept for joy." She lived a few blocks from the Review and Herald building in Tacoma Park, and she began excitedly and widely circulating Brinsmead sermon tapes. Some caught that excitement, others strongly resisted. (Indifference was not a typical Adventist reaction to Brinsmead.) Meanwhile, for the three of us who were kids of Iris Carey, tension with our church and the world was a constant reality. In spite of its polarizing message and charismatic leader, the Awakening movement never tried to be a separate denomination. Indeed, Brinsmead's purpose was not to destroy Adventism but to restore it to its original judgment day urgency. In the 1960's, most Awakeners, as we called ourselves, remained members of Adventist churches—that is, as long as they would have us.
Even so, the Adventist leadership's reaction tended to be emotional and oppositional. A vigorous propaganda campaign warned pastors of those fanatical Brinsmead followers who must not be tolerated,27 and we learned to mention the name Brinsmead only to the receptive. Iris was expelled from several churches for giving out Brinsmead literature and for holding unauthorized Bible studies. For her, this persecution confirmed the prophetic status of the Awakening message, and throughout the movement it unified Awakeners into a distinct Adventist subculture.
Awakening's culture had three characteristics. First, it had a charismatic leader; Brinsmead's energy and personality always carried the movement, powered by his strong mind, exceptional communication skills, and an independent spirit. In addition, his informal persona added to his appeal. Many Awakeners believed that Brinsmead was sent, like William Miller, as a messenger to awaken a sleeping church, and some sent him their tithes. The resulting abundance of literature and tapes galvanized our movement's mission and kept it moving. Additionally, Bob Brinsmead was constantly adjusting his message. Whenever Awakeners would meet they would ask one another, "Have you heard the latest?" We always looked for the next church-shaking new emphasis. Brinsmead had a genius for building elaborate theological structures, getting everyone excited, then tearing them down28 for a "new framework." He often said, "Like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I keep moving my tent in faith." There was no resting for the devoted Awakener following Brinsmead's mercurial leading.
The second cultural feature was our movement's elite remnant identity. We were to awaken Laodicean Adventism by our teaching and example. In fact, we felt we were the most Adventist of all Adventists in our knowledge and zeal. Though we believed perfection would be a gift of grace, we strove hard for it. We learned to quote Ellen White extensively, especially her statements about getting ready, and we zealously perfected our remnant diet. We gathered in homes, and frequently we made pilgrimages to Brinsmead's summer institutes. In 1968 we had our own song book, Awake and Sing, with titles such as, "Jesus Stands for Me in Judgment", and "The Truth is Marching On".29 Adventism never had more loyal agitators.
A third feature of the Awakening culture was its intellectual system-building. We loved our speculations about the nature of Christ and the end times, projecting our notions in lurid, apocalyptic detail. I remember our Sabbath afternoon potlucks, heavy with rich vegetarian food, followed by arguments in which we tossed "Sister White hand grenades" at one another. Hidden under our smug intellectualizing, however, we also had breaking families and abused children. By 1968, Iris had become a most on-fire Awakener, but she had seen divorce, poverty, and severe depression. The Awakeners desperately needed the living person of Christ, but instead we received one clever "framework" after another. We gloried in charisma and brilliance, but we ached for the confidence and rest found in the presence of the Lord Jesus.
"For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God" (I Cor. 2:2-5).
Half a Reformation
In 1971, Brinsmead scheduled a flurry of summer institutes to bring us his latest emphasis. There was more excitement than usual; the latest round of tapes had prepared us for something big. Bob had been studying the Reformation doctrine of justification by faith, comparing it to Roman Catholic doctrines. Reading Luther, he saw that justification is not just a means to the end of perfect sanctification. When we are justified by faith, not only does God impute Christ's righteousness to us but we also possess Christ Himself—all His righteousness and all His perfection.30 Eternity flows from that fact. The apostle said,
"And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified" (Rom. 8:30).
The same ones he justified he also glorified. We began to realize we had inserted extra steps into Paul's chain of salvation: sanctification and a final atonement brought about by blotting out sins. Those added steps, in fact, were the heart of the Awakening message—but we had ignored the heart of the real gospel: being justified by faith, we "rejoice in hope of the glory of God."31 Our righteousness is in heaven, said Brinsmead:
"The righteousness by which we become just in God's sight, remain just in His sight and will one day be sealed as forever just in His sight, is an outside righteousness. It is not on earth, but only in heaven…only in Jesus Christ."32
This Reformation truth was truly good news for afflicted souls, but we still loved our elite remnant identity. We collectively dismissed the "old" perfection baggage as "subjective clutter" and congratulated ourselves that these new discoveries confirmed we were still following "present truth". There was no talk of repentance for having believed a false gospel, but instead, we swam in a flood of re-explanations for the past. Repentance didn't cross our minds; that was for the Adventist leaders and fallen Protestantism, not for us. The truth was marching on, so again we fell in line behind our leader.
Brinsmead tried to show that this new Reformation emphasis was a continuation of the Awakening's mission, and during the early 70's, he worked hard to reconcile the Reformation gospel with the pillars of Adventism, especially the pre-advent judgment.33 There was, in fact, even talk of reconciliation with the Adventist church.34 The Adventist pioneers had clearly grasped justification, Brinsmead said, but the church had fallen into legalism. As loyal Adventists, however, we Awakeners still clung to the investigative judgment as a protection against heresies we feared in the Protestant churches—while concurrently trying to attach the Reformation doctrine of righteousness by faith on top of it.
The Awakeners now saw how Adventist righteousness by faith resembled Catholic teachings. Present Truth, Brinsmead's new magazine, summarized historic Catholic doctrine this way:
1. Justification is a process of inner renewal in us. 2. Justification is given to us by an infusion of God's grace. God looks at what the Holy Spirit has done in us, and justifies us. 3. Justification is how man becomes just and pleasing to God in his person.35
Both Rome and the reformers said that salvation was all of grace. However, for Rome, the work of grace was in man's experience, a subjective work. Conversely, the reformers said the grace that saves us is outside man's experience in the person of Christ, an objective work. Struggling sinners are not to look to their own experience for hope and acceptance with God. Everything Christ did as our representative is now counted as ours by faith. Luther said,
"Mine are Christ's living, doing, and speaking, his suffering and dying, mine as much as if I had lived, done, spoken, suffered, and died as he did."36
Many rejoiced at this clear proclamation of Christ's finished work for us. So this is what a completed atonement looked like! But critics asked, "What about holiness?" The reformers were unanimous; only because of Christ's virtue is the Spirit given to the justified sinner to regenerate him for good works. True sanctification looks away from self and flows from the finished, objective work of Christ. In those who hear and believe, Christ's Spirit reproduces His life. Paul told the Ephesians,
"In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit…" (Eph. 1:13).
Growing Antipathy
Sadly, Brinsmead's antipathy against the Christian church would only intensify from this point forward. Though a student of the Reformers, he still believed that Protestantism was lost in a fog of man-centered gospels. Still an Adventist at heart, he maintained that Protestantism was joining with Rome to bring the mark of the beast and assailed Protestants' Greek paganism, their Calvinism, and worst of all, their subjectivism.
Paganism: Brinsmead always held to the Adventist view that man is a unified being who becomes only dust at death. He attributed an immaterial human spirit to Greek influences in the medieval church. If our life is only in Christ, we cannot have any life intrinsic to us. Otherwise, he asked, why have a resurrection?37
Calvinism: For Brinsmead, eternal security here and now was "Calvin's error," even though eventually he saw that justification was an eschatological verdict given by God. If we are justified today, we have the verdict of the final judgment today. Brinsmead, however, kept Adventism's doctrine of a radical free will which can nullify God's adoption and new birth. Eternal security was a dangerous doctrine that led to antinomianism, he said, because the believer would lose his fear of judgment. To protect the doctrine of man's free will, he rejected the security and reality of Christ's completed work of atonement on our behalf.38
Subjectivism: For many Christians, the glory of the crucified Christ is not their focus; instead they seek internal experiences that eclipse the cross. The Awakening rightly opposed the subjective, human-centered emphasis found among some groups within Christianity. Wrongly, they reacted with a cerebral, spiritless gospel. Brinsmead strongly opposed the charismatic movement's emphasis on experiences as a return to the theology of Rome. However, going to another extreme, Present Truth magazine decried "the false gospel of the new birth," and offered a new birth that was merely a corporate, objective blessing, not an individual experience.39 The concept of the indwelling Spirit was interpreted as a cerebral enhancement. As Awakeners, we learned to recoil from anything that felt subjective or "touchy-feely", and we avoided any talk of the Spirit in us.
The Awakening's Jesus was also "objective," not personal and powerful in everyday life. We resisted saying "Jesus is in my heart," and we resented simple, childlike questions about our "personal relationship" with Jesus. To our amusement, Brinsmead recounted meeting an enthusiastic Christian man who patted his very large belly and said, "I've got Jesus right in here!" Increasingly, Jesus was depersonalized and the Spirit was weakened; we thought of them as external entities and did not relate to them as real Persons with authority in our lives.
Adventist leadership was not delighted with Brinsmead's new theology. Even though he now agreed with some of their scholars, he was also a greater threat. They believed his justification-centered gospel encouraged spiritual laziness. The Review and Herald began publishing articles on Christ's sinful human nature, victory life piety, and "sinless demonstration" people who would, in the last days, finally achieve perfection.
They objected to Brinsmead's fine theological distinctions between sanctification and justification. In 1974, George Vandeman wrote that RBF is "…more than a doctrine, it is a relationship with a purpose. And if we…let Christ live His life within us, it doesn't matter what we call the process." A justification-centered gospel encouraged a lax attitude towards sin, he explained.40 As C. Mervyn Maxwell said, justification is "…much more than forgiveness of sin; it is also victory over sin."41 Again, Adventism reaffirmed its historic roots: we are justified initially by faith, but ultimately saved by our good works and moral fitness.
Falling Pillars
In the late 1970's, Brinsmead began publishing a barrage against the Adventist doctrinal pillars. In 1979, 1844 Reexamined struck the main pillar, the investigative judgment. Jesus the Messiah fulfills all the law and the prophets, he explained. Therefore, the pre-advent judgment occurs when the believer hears and believes the Messiah's gospel, and justification is the verdict of that judgment.42 Shortly after, in 1980, his Judged By the Gospel surveyed Adventist history and theology, questioning Ellen White's authority and citing her literary dependency and theological errors such as the "shut door." Even more pointedly, Brinsmead criticized the Adventist leadership for their "cult of Ellen White."43
Then he shocked us; Brinsmead came out against seventh-day Sabbath observance. His magazine, now called Verdict, stated that the Sabbath was given for Israel as a shadow of things to come, but it was fulfilled by Christ, the substance.44 Stabilizing ourselves after the disorientation of these sudden revisions, Iris Carey and most of us Awakeners finally followed Brinsmead in leaving the Adventist pillars. We enjoyed a giddy feeling of freedom, casting off regulations about food, drink, and holy days and "joining the human race." Preoccupied with our new freedom, we barely noticed Brinsmead's hints of his growing doubts about the Bible. We did not see the ominous signs of Bob's next "framework".
Being Truly Human
In 1987, Brinsmead was still the editor and chief writer for Verdict magazine. For some years his views had become increasingly liberal. First, he accepted the historical-critical method of biblical interpretation which assumes that the Bible is only written by man with man's words, and is subject to man's rational criticism. His doubts about Scripture were now on the surface, but those cracks had been laid deep in his Adventist foundation.
Secondly, Brinsmead now had a new gospel with a new Jesus. The gospel is not a legal transaction but a story, he said. God did not require Jesus' death to pay a legal penalty for sin; He isn't like that. Moreover, he explained that the legal gospel of Christianity, "Christian nomism," derives from the Roman justice system. It is designed, he claimed, to maintain church power by members' guilt.45 Brinsmead railed against the "barbaric" doctrine of the blood-atonement in which God required His son to die for our sins. Humane ethics, he claimed, were about being "truly human" and celebrating what is best in man without religion, especially Christianity. His 1987 essay, "Farewell to Religion—A Manifesto of Christian Atheism," invited us all to the bonfire of our old faith.46 "Christianity is the Antichrist," he said; "we" needed a new beginning.47 Brinsmead's god would now become a distant, benevolent evolutionary influence that said, "Fear not."48 This faceless god is of little comfort to the losers in Darwin's survival lottery. This god does not sacrifice himself to save the lost. Where is the comfort in a faceless god who has not borne our griefs or carried our sorrows?
By 1990, Brinsmead had stopped writing and publishing Verdict, instead pursuing business and political interests back in Australia. His Awakening movement had scattered; some returned to Adventism, others became agnostics, and for a very few, Jesus Christ came and found them.
Iris the Awakener now lived alone in a mobile home with her cats and her Brinsmead collection. She had obediently followed her leader for nearly 30 years, and now he had abandoned both Jesus and her. She wrote long letters to him, urging him to defend the original gospel, but it was for naught. In 1984, Brinsmead had said this to all of us:
Yes, some want security…I say fine; but if you want that, read some other publication. We are involved in something that will continually disturb you and perhaps even make you feel angry with us. I don't know how we continue to exist, because we continually operate on a program of doing ourselves in. But we continue to fly.49
The movement had finally ended; Brinsmead was done with his Awakening. He had burnt down the whole house to "get the Sabbath mouse."50
This is the Judgment!
Now looking back, what shall we say of our Awakening experience?
1. We bowed before a graven image, a faceless deity called the Law, which aroused our elitist cultic pride. Because we believed the Law defined
what God is like, we couldn't see the real transcript of God's character, Jesus the Word.
2. We rejoiced in the truth that Christ is our Righteousness, that His work for us was complete, that He has blotted out our sins. Yet we denied we had immaterial spirits separated from God that rendered us dead in sin and needed to be born of the Spirit.
3. By resisting the Spirit's power, we denied Christ's sovereignty in our personal lives. We embraced the gifts but not the Giver, and we refused to submit our mind and hearts to Him. "Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him" (Rom. 8:9).
While condemning the blindness of others, we were perishing. We needed the Person of Jesus Christ to break us, own us, and live in us through His Spirit.
There was a certain blind beggar whom Jesus found by the road one day, and He put mud in his eyes. When the light came blazing in, the man suddenly saw the face of Jesus, who then disappeared. That day hostile Pharisees arrested the man, and after losing a debate with him, they expelled him.
"Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, 'Do you believe in the Son of Man?' He answered, 'And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?' Jesus said to him, 'You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.' He said, 'Lord, I believe,' and he worshiped him" (Jn. 9:35-38).
We beggars will never see the Son of Man until He comes to us and opens our eyes. We may know all about Daniel 7, where the Son of Man appeared before the Ancient of Days and was given dominion and glory. Yet, we need to ask, "Who is he sir, that I may believe in him?" When you see that bloody, disfigured man lifted up for your sin, you can look on Him and believe—or you can hide your face in fear and disgust. Seeing the Son of Man is the moment of judgment: look upon Him and believe, or hide in the dark. Believing, you are not condemned, for you have already passed from death to life. Jesus told Nicodemus,
"Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world" (Jn. 3:18,19).
After decades of feverish preparation, we Awakeners had missed the first meaning of the judgment. Eternal life turns on one thing: how we respond to the crucified Jesus. Submitting to Him makes us judgment-ready, but as a group we had resisted His dominion over our doctrines, our minds, and our personal lives. Our movement ended with a whimper; now without Brinsmead, most of us drifted into self-protective, prideful despair.
Where can abandoned cult members go? Iris was one of the few who fled to the one reliable Source: Jesus and His word where she could see Him. At last my mom, the old Awakener, was ready to be with her Lord. This note, handwritten in her raggedy old Bible, revealed that she had looked on the real transcript of God's character and found the anchor for her soul:
"It is only by looking in the face of Jesus that we can rightly appreciate the character of God—always and forever!" †
Copyright 2011 Life Assurance Ministries, Inc., Casa Grande, Arizona, USA. All rights reserved. Revised July 27, 2011. Contact email: email@example.com
Martin L. Carey grew up as an Adventist in many different places, including Washington D.C., Missouri, and Guam, USA. During daylight hours he works as a psychologist for a high school in San Bernardino, CA. He is also a licensed family therapist. He is married to Sharon and has two sons, Matthew, 10, and Nick, 23. He continues to search for clear, dark skies with 7 different telescopes up to 20". The study of intelligent design takes up his remaining energy. You may contact him at email@example.com.


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Volkswagen's Slovak Unit Doubles Output to Record on New ModelsRadoslav Tomek
Volkswagen AG doubled output of its Slovak factory to a record last year as the introduction of new models offset slowing demand for cars across Europe.
The plant located just outside the Slovak capital, Bratislava, assembled a 419,888 vehicles, compared with 210,441 in 2011, the unit's chief Albrecht Reimold told reporters today. New Small Family models, which were introduced in late 2011, accounted for almost one-half of shipments.
Europe's largest carmaker is boosting output in the eastern country, seeking to benefit from its euro adoption combined with lower labor costs than in western Europe. Volkswagen's Slovak unit will seek to maintain the record production volume, depending on market conditions, Reimold said.
"In 2012, we operated on the edge of our production capacities," Reimold said. "The worldwide market is developing positively. So far this year, we have been doing quite well."
In addition to the New Small Family line of cars, made for the Volkswagen, Seat and Skoda brands, the Slovak company also makes Volkswagen Touareg and Audi-brand Q7 SUVs as well as bodies for the Porsche Cayenne. More than one-third of SUVs produced in Slovakia were shipped to non-European markets, led by China and the U.S.
Exporting outside Europe helps Volkswagen counter slumping sales on the continent. European car registrations dropped 10.2 percent in February, led by General Motors Co., Fiat SpA and PSA Peugeot Citroen, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association, as concern over the euro-region's economy prompted consumers to defer purchases. Volkswagen's European sales declined 7.2 percent.
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Initially, I was willing to cut her a break when she asked the "what would you say to those who think..." question. There's nothing wrong with urging the interviewee to address those concerns...
When she proceeded to opine that the increasing number of missiles was a result of a failed Israeli policy, she broke it for me. American reporters often sit in and "report" from comfy hotel rooms. They can't begin to identify with the experiences of those truly affected by conflict.
I have to say that I don't like questions that begin, "What do you say to those who say/think...." My response would be: "Gather them up and I will address their concerns face to face," or "Just who are those who say/think this? Are you one of them?"


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Chapter 1 : My Wedding...
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Viktor Krum, International Quidditch Star.
The thing is, there was a certain Red-Headed man, who still was in my thoughts and dreams, Ron and I had gone out for about a year and a half, then everything fell apart,
"Hermione?" Ron had asked quietly, and I sat on a windowsill, two letters clutched in my hands, silent tears pouring down my cheeks, "Hermione! Tell me, what's wrong?"
"I got a job offer Ronald…"
"Oh? Mione, that's brilliant news, I'm telling Harry and Ginny," he made to move to the fireplace, he suddenly stopped, "Where exactly do they want you to work?" he asked with his back still towards me
I leapt down from my seat, "Bulgeria, and... it's not the only offer I've got," I quietly held out the letters to him, one contained an acceptance to the Bulgarian Ministry Of Magic, and the other-
"Dear Hermione." Ron read aloud, "I hope you are well. Having friends at the Ministry has its benefits; I heard you got accepted as an auror here, I want to be the first to congratulate you. I realise if you accept it you'll need somewhere to stay, and I want to offer my place for a home to you, maybe as more than friends? You're welcome here any time, all my love Viktor." He finished by looking around at me in horror and hurt,
"Are you going to accept this?" He asked quietly,
"I don't know Ronald, I mean, where exactly do you see this relationship going?"
He gaped at me, "You have no faith in us…in me…"
I sighed miserably, "Ron, I have all the faith, but when was the last time you told me you loved me?"
He didn't move "you know I love you Mione."
I shook my head carefully "No." I said simply, "Ron I love you, but I need someone who'll love me back, you do not seem to love me back" I let out a sob, "and I've tried to change that Ron, I have."
Tears were now silently rolling down my cheeks onto the wooden floor.
I shook my head, and then ran to our bedroom, whipped out my wand and all my clothes scrambled to get into my suitcases, then I waved it again, and all my personal items zoomed into more bags.
For the first time in my life, I felt nothing for a while, then it all hit me, I doubled over in pain as memories flashed back to me, all of them including Ron and I.
I snapped back to reality when I heard my name, the priest was speaking "Do you, Hermione Jean Granger, take this Viktor Grudulf Krum to be your law-fully wedded husband?"
I don't know what made me say it, I guess I realized Ron wasn't there for me, he had gone, and this was my life I had to live.
I gulped, "I do."
I glance to the front row, my mother and Viktor's mother were both crying quietly into scraps of lace, I then glance at Ginny, my Bridesmaid, she smiled at me in a re-assuring way, she knew, somehow she knew I still loved Ronald.
"And do you, Viktor Grudulf Krum take this Hermione Jean Granger to be your lawfully wedded wife?"
He looked deep into my eyes, "I doo," he said loudly, his accent strong and clear,
"Is there anyone, who knows of any lawful impediment, why these two people, should not be joined in holy matrimony speak now, or forever hold your peace." The priest said as he looked at the guests,
Silence rang through the crowd, people looked shifty, as though the person next to them was going to jump up and say-
"I object." Said a strong voice, everyone turned, standing there in the open church doors, was Ronald Weasley, the sunlight making his red hair look angel-like, his mouth was smiling slightly, but the smile didn't reach his eyes,
My heart started beating wildly, my breath caught in my throat, Viktor had squeezed my hand so forcefully, that I had to put my other hand on his to remind him I was there, he loosened his grip.
Turning to Ron, Viktor said loudly "Eet iis roode too arrive laate to a vedding,"
Ron advanced up the aisle, completely ignoring the man who had just spoke to him, "I love you Hermione Granger." He said quietly, but loud enough for everyone to hear, the paparazzi started taking photos quickly.
I didn't know what I had to do, so I let go of Viktor's hand, it was an impulse,
"I-I object too." Ginny said quietly,
Slowly, people started rising from the crowd, these people included Harry, Fred, Bill, Percy, Mr. Weasley, Mrs. Weasley, My Mum, my Dad, all of them saying the same things "I Object too." Or "it has nothing to do with Viktor, but I do too." Or "our baby girl isn't happy, sorry, but we do too" (my parents),
I stared around in horror. I couldn't believe this. All these people knew I wasn't happy, they knew I still loved Ron.
The priest looked shocked, this had obviously never happened to him before; he looked to me, "Miss? What are you going to do?"
I looked around, "I'm sorry Viktor," I said, turning towards my fiancé, "I can't marry you." He looked so hurt, for a second I thought he was going to break down and cry, but then his face brightened considerably,
"Tamora Vincent?" I asked him, grinning slightly, Tamora Vincent is the woman he loved first, before me, he wanted to marry her, but his parents forbade him to, she is Viktor's Father's enemy's daughter.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his parents stand up furiously "No!" his father shouted in Bulgarian, I had learnt the language when Viktor and I first started dating, "I forbade you to go to her. You will not speak to her again!" he screamed, Viktor's face looked impassive, Ron's looked confused but happy at the same time, and everyone else looked simply baffled at what was going on.
"You can not tell me what to do anymore Father!" Viktor screamed at his Father in Bulgarian "I love her, and nothing will stop me this time!"
His Father whipped out his wand "Are you so sure of that boy?" he snapped back,
"Yes." Viktor whispered, his Father raised his wand, and screamed "Avada K-" but before he could finish the curse, I heard someone yell "Expelliarmus!" and Viktor's Father's wand flew out of his hand, into Ron's,
"Mr. Krum," I said loudly in Bulgarian, "Love is a powerful potion; one cannot stop its path, weather it's a path of destruction or not... You have no power over Viktor anymore, and there is nothing you can do about it." Everyone turned to me in surprise, wondering how I knew Bulgarian, I shrugged it off, and Viktor's Father sunk down in his seat, eyes blazing.
I knew Viktor needed comfort as the fact that his father had publicly humiliated him, so I turned to him and pulled him into a hug, side on to the crowd, I could see peoples ("people" being Ron.) minds whirling as I stroked Viktor's head softly, in a comforting way, I think my relationship with Viktor is more of a sibling than romantic one...
So here I sit, two days after my called-off wedding, reading the Daily Profit,
Member Three Of The Golden Trio Does NOT Wed Today- by Lavender Brown.
Shock waves were sent through the wizarding world when the wedding of Hermione Granger (member of the golden trio, and well known auror) and Viktor Krum (International Quidditch Star) was stopped half way through the ceremony when Ronald Weasley (a well known auror too, and a part-time owner of Weasley's Wizarding Weases) barged through the doors, objecting to the two getting wedded in holy matrimony, it came as more of a shock when Joseph Krum (Viktor Krum's Father) attempted to use an unforgivable curse on his only son.
Joseph Krum was taken to Azkaban last night by all three members of the Golden Trio (people have mentioned they hadn't even heard of some of the curses used on Mr. Krum senior, many said they could use with learning them.), and is now a convicted Death Eater who did not surface until now.
What you may ask has happened to Viktor and Hermione? Well rumors have emerged that Viktor proposed to his ex-girlfriend Tamora Vincent last night, telling her he never should have left her.
And Hermione? Well she is now living with Ronald, friends and family have reported that its: "About bloody time too!" (Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived.) And "they've been in love for years, everyone knew it but them." (Arthur Weasley, retired worker in the Ministry of Magic, and Father of Ronald.) And "everyone who knew Ron or Hermione at Hogwarts would immediately tell you they were destined to end up together." (Dean Thomas, St. Mungos Healer.)
All of us here at the Daily Profit would like to offer our congratulations and condolences to Mr. Krum and Miss. Vincent. And we wish Hermione and Ron all the best for the future.
Lavender Brown.
Sighing happily at the fact that a magazine had finally got its story right, I put the article down and got more coffee.
Darn these muggle inventions, I couldn't figure my one at my apartment for weeks, so I whipped out my wand from my dressing gown's pocket and tapped it impatiently, it sprung to life.
I heard someone fall out of bed in the room next to the kitchen, grinning I counted down silently in my head three…two…one
"Morning Mione," Ron said sleepily as he walked over to the coffee machine,
I didn't answer, he must have noticed this because he turned to me and said "you okay darling?" his face was full of concern,
I smiled slightly at him, "I'm fine Ron, just-" I waved the Daily Profit in my hand "Lavender (or previously known as Lav-Lav) has finally gotten a story right, a real shocker."
He frowned slightly "I thought we came to a mutual agreement, no mentioning 'Vicky' or 'Lav-Lav'?"
I grinned at him, then putting the newspaper down I walked slowly up to him, stopping inches away from his face, "Yessss…. We did, but I like seeing you jealllllous," I purred softly,
He grinned mischievously, I realized seconds before he did it what he was going to do,
"No Ron, please, no." I gasped as I wrapped my arms around my body,
"Ah-HA!" he cried as he started tickling me,
I squealed happily.
He suddenly stopped tickling me, and in one swift movement he picked me up in a hug, lifting my feet inches off the ground, I smiled happily into his hair, really this Love thing, it was all worth it in the end, no matter how long you have to wait, someone will always love you, for who you are, and never change that….
(AN: WELL?!?!?!? What do you guys think? Should I have stopped at the end of Lavender's article? Please! Give me your feed-back, and please! Use the little gray box down there *points downwards* and leave me a review! I'll reply to everyone! AND... I'll give you a cookie! Kisses! Lisa.)
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Today I Thee Wed-A Love Story, Hermione, Viktor Krum, and Ron.: My Wedding...
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''Taboo'' was the first, but it won't be the last.
That was the consensus around Broadway yesterday after the winter's first unexpected casualty, ''Taboo,'' announced that it would close on Feb. 8 because of disappointing ticket sales with no sign of improvement. It was the first Broadway show produced by Rosie O'Donnell, who invested $10 million of her own money in it, bringing the music of the 1980's pop star Boy George to the stage, not to mention Boy George himself in a leading role.
Winter on Broadway usually means a winnowing of shows as tourists leave town after the holidays and the audience in the New York region tends to stay home. Several shows, like ''Cabaret,'' closed in early January in expectation of the long, fallow cold months. But the first weeks of this winter, after a fall season crowded with money losers and critical pariahs, look a bit grimmer than usual because of bitter weather and continued doubts about the economy and tourism.
Jed Bernstein, the president of the League of American Theaters and Producers, Broadway's leading trade group, cautioned that it was far too early to be worried but allowed that ''a little warmer weather wouldn't hurt.''
Beyond ''Taboo,'' ticket sales last week for several other big-budget musicals, including ''Gypsy,'' ''42nd Street'' and ''Thoroughly Modern Millie'' (winner of the 2002 Tony Award for best musical), fell by more than $300,000 each from the giddy receipts of the week before, which included the usually lucrative New Year's holiday. The new dance musical ''Never Gonna Dance,'' which opened in December, had an even tougher time, recording only $350,000 in sales last week, which shows a significant weekly loss. Things have been more harrowing for Broadway productions of straight plays, which had a terrible fall, with one closing in previews (''Bobbi Boland'') and another (''The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All'') closing after opening night.
A production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama ''Anna in the Tropics'' by Nilo Cruz has particularly struggled. The play, which received mostly positive reviews after opening in November, played to a mere 41 percent of its capacity last week at the Royale Theater. Another new play, William Nicholson's ''Retreat From Moscow,'' starring John Lithgow, Eileen Atkins and Ben Chaplin, was playing to only 55 percent at the Booth.Continue reading the main story
The negative climate for plays may be beginning to have a chilling effect on other potential productions. The playwright Neil LaBute (''The Mercy Seat,'' ''The Shape of Things'') said last week that though some producers had expressed interest in his newest play, ''This Is How It Goes,'' a drama about a troubled marriage, it would probably not be seen on Broadway because of the commercial risks of staging new dramatic work.
And the producer Roy Gabay said on Tuesday that he would not try to bring Amy Freed's Shakespearean comedy, ''The Beard of Avon,'' to Broadway, dashing speculation that the play, a hit Off Broadway at the New York Theater Workshop, might make the transfer. ''With what's happening to plays on Broadway -- good plays with stars like 'The Retreat From Moscow,' 'Anna in the Tropics' -- producers are getting nervous,'' Mr. Gabay said.
Producers who have committed to Broadway, meanwhile, are working hard just to keep their shows afloat. Daryl Roth, a producer of ''Anna'' -- a tale of Latino tobacco workers with an all-Latino cast, led by Jimmy Smits -- said yesterday that the production had invested in a new advertising campaign.
Other shows are facing challenges unrelated to the weather or the calendar, including the inevitable attrition of original cast members. ''Thoroughly Modern Millie,'' for example, which opened in 2002, is losing its original leading lady on Feb. 16, when Susan Egan takes over for Sutton Foster. Ms. Foster won a Tony for her performance as the show's puckish title character.
Industry leaders were also expressing hope that Broadway's popular Season of Savings campaign, which offers discounts to shows, would once again help sales. Mr. Bernstein said he also hoped that the weak dollar might encourage more foreign tourists to visit the United States.
Not all Broadway shows are suffering. ''The Producers,'' with the return of its original stars, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, broke Broadway box office records this month and continues to bring in more than $1.3 million a week. At least one new musical, Stephen Schwartz's ''Wizard of Oz'' tale, ''Wicked,'' seems to have struck a chord with ticket buyers, grossing more than $1 million a week since Thanksgiving.
As for new plays, one small surprise has been the increasing success of ''I Am My Own Wife,'' the one-man show starring Jefferson Mays at the Lyceum. It played to nearly 80 percent of capacity last week, helped by discounted tickets but still a strong improvement over its sales last month.
''It's a little too soon to declare anything, one way or another,'' Mr. Bernstein said. ''We have not had a rash of closings. And the next opening is only four or five weeks away.''Continue reading the main story


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The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr. Dermot Ahern, T.D., today announced that Ireland has signed the Council of Europe's Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism 2005. The purpose of the Convention is to further increase the effectiveness of existing international action in the fight against terrorism. It provides for the creation of offences relating to public provocation to commit terrorist offences and recruitment and training for terrorism.
Welcoming the signing of the Convention by Ireland the Minister said: "Ireland is committed, with our partners in Europe, to taking a strong approach to combating terrorism. We cannot forget that terrorism constitutes a gross violation of the core values of peaceful, democratic societies. The international terrorist threat has evolved rapidly in recent years and international co-operation is essential in standing up to it."
The Convention was adopted in May 2005 and entered into force in June 2007. Ireland is the 42nd Member State to have signed the Convention; 14 Member States have ratified it. Although some of the offences necessitated by the Convention substantially exist in Irish law already, it is intended to legislate specifically for the various offences necessitated by the Convention and by a complementary EU Council instrument currently under negotiation.
The Convention was signed in Strasbourg on 3 October 2008 by Ireland's Permanent Representative to the Council of Europe.
6 October 2008


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Nicolas Roche: 'An Italian who had nowhere to go hit me'
Tuesday, March 19 Stage 2: Girona-Banyole 160.7km
With a 12.50 start, the official wake up time for the team was 9.0 this morning but as usual I got up a few minutes earlier.
As I was shuffling around the room trying to find my stuff to get dressed for breakfast, my Danish room-mate Nicki Sorenson lifted his head off his pillow and looked at his watch.
"Nico, will you f***ing go back to bed. It's eight o'clock."
At 37, Nicki is a three-time Danish champion and was having none of his new Irish team-mate mooching around in the mornings and wanted another hour of rest before the stage start.
To be honest, I hadn't realised it was so early and felt like a school kid who had got up too early for Santa as I sheepishly crept back into bed.
It was nice to catch up with my uncle Neil and aunt Maria, who had come to see their son Dan Martin start the stage in their adopted hometown of Girona, and there were a few Irish fans at the roadside today including An Post rider Ronan McLaughlin, over here for warm-weather training.
The break went almost straight from the gun but the first 40km were pretty stressful, with a really strong side wind causing a lot of jostling for shelter in the peloton.
Things settled down, however, as three escapees opened a lead of three minutes over the peloton and myself and Dan carried out a mobile autopsy of the opening stage as we rode along.
While I had missed the all-important split on Monday and lost 28 seconds, Dan had made the move and finished fourth on the stage, although he hadn't even realised there was a split until ages after it happened.
He was just focused on the climb and when they got to the bottom of the descent he was amazed at how big the gap was. He also said he misjudged his sprint for the finish as there were no markers in the final kilometre and started his kick for the line too far out.
A few hours later, the break was reeled in with two of the five 9.2km finishing circuits left to complete and the pace went up as the sprinters' teams tried to get their men to the front. The circuit was so narrow and twisty, with lots of traffic islands and roundabouts, that you needed to be near the front to see what was coming.
Every year I've ridden this race there has been a crash on the finishing loop but everyone managed to stay upright as we headed towards a mass bunch sprint to the line. Lately, I haven't been doing any sprinting and I feel like I've lost a bit of my finishing kick.
Today I figured it would do me no harm to get involved in the gallop and try to get the speed and rhythm of sprinting back.
I got boxed in a bit on a right handed bend in the final 500m but was keen to keep going until a big smash on the final corner, over to my right-hand side, frightened the crap out of me with about 300m to go.
Instinctively, I switched away from the side the crash happened and moved across the road to the left, pulling my brakes at the same time.
As I changed direction, an Italian who had been sprinting right behind me had nowhere to go and literally bounced off my a**e at 60kph. He must have been a good bike handler, though, because he didn't fall off.
I wasn't going to kill myself for eighth or ninth place and just freewheeled to the line for 14th as race leader Gianni Meersman of Lotto took his second stage win in a row.
Tactically nothing changed today. There was no point in me sitting up and losing 10 minutes in the hope I would be allowed into the breakaway tomorrow because there are so many guys that lost 28 seconds on day one there is bound to be at least one of them in the break tomorrow and they wont be allowed much leeway anyway.
I think tomorrow's mountain-top finish is definitely going to be one for the GC contenders. I could take an easy day and ride within myself but I want to ride hard in the mountains. My legs weren't great in Paris-Nice and if they're crap here I'll change tactics but for now, I need to push myself against the best riders and see how they are.
Usually at my new Saxo-Tinkoff team we have our own team chefs who cook us up breakfast and dinner each day but they're not with us on this race.
The food has been decent so far but tonight we're staying with six other teams in a hotel in Girona that has no restaurant. We'll all be eating dinner in a tent in the car park.
The same thing happened last year and the riders organised a petition in the hope it wouldn't happen again after some of them got sick. Obviously nobody took much notice. At least it's not snowing outside this time.
Tour of Catalunya,
Live, Eurosport 2, 2.30
Irish Independent


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Kataky, R. and Morgan, E. (2003) 'Potential of enzyme mimics in biomimetic sensors : a modified-cyclodextrin as a dehydrogenase enzyme mimic.', Biosensors & bioelectronics., 18 (11). pp. 1407-1417.
This paper reports the application of a dehydrogenase enzyme mimic as a biomimetic sensor. The model compound investigated was a beta-cyclodextrin (P-CD) derivative with a nicotinamide group attached to the secondary face of a P-CD (Fig. 1g). It was envisaged that the nicotinamide group would act as the electron transfer agent and that the cyclodextrin would provide a suitable hydrophobic cavity for the reaction to take place in. Ethanol, propranalol, dopamine and acetone were used as substrates in backgrounds of hydrophilic and hydrophobic anions. Electrochemical and fluorescence techniques were used to study the catalytic effects in solution. It was found that the size of the analyte and the hydrophobicity of the anion affected the catalytic activity of the dehydrogenase mimic. Catalytic effects were most enhanced with ethanol and dopamine in presence of larger and more strongly SO42- solvated anions, SO42- and H2PO4- which are excluded from the cavity. The molecule was also immobilised in a sol-gel matrix and investigated as a sol-gel electrochemical biomimetic sensor. Concentration dependence with increasing aliquots of ethanol was observed. These results indicated that a re-usable biomimetic sensor is indeed feasible.
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COMMENTS (6 to date)
mjh writes:
If the point of elections is to keep the masses quiet while the elite rule, then restricting the franchise is going to be every destabilising. It would give those who are unhappy no outlet other than armed revolt.Really? Why wouldn't they just have incentive to get educated enough to pass the franchise joining test? Or is this only a one shot deal?
We already have license requirements for driving a car - based on the premise that you can hurt others. Why not licensure for voting? Bad policies certainly cause damage.
Posted February 26, 2008 6:06 PM
Mensarefugee writes:
mjh: So...who gets to write and grade the test?
Arnold, the idea of fending off revolution - in my mind, in at least one manifestation implies that a democracy signals the coming death and decay of a culture and/or nation-state.
Posted February 26, 2008 8:47 PM
BGC writes:
"It would give those who are unhappy no outlet other than armed revolt."
Well, no.
Elections are primarily about getting rid of incumbents - but most of politics happens during the life of governments, between elections, and consists of many tupes of lobbying and pulic opinion brought to bear on goverment to influence policy.
Exclusion from elections does not imply exclusion from power, and (especially) vice versa.
As an (extreme) example, voting members of the House of Lords in the UK government cannot vote in general elections.
Posted February 27, 2008 1:14 AM
mjh writes:
Mensarefugee: I don't know. Ask Bryan. It's his idea. I'm just saying that if there were such a test, I don't see why it would cause any more revolt than licensing requirements to drive a car.
Posted February 27, 2008 3:11 PM
Bernhard writes:
I read the article, in which "interesting economics" is mentioned as a research agenda.
I like "useful economics" as a research agenda better.
I think it's better to judge value of the scientific contribution not on the feeling of surprise caused in the reader, but rather in its potential use to make the game of society "better".
of course, if you can enhance the understanding of economics of the normal layman by "interesting" research, that's a good thing in itself and might have beneficial longterm effects on economic policy in the long run over the voting mechanism.
but one could ask whether one could not achieve this "teaching" effect by writing about relevant problems as well.
but "pirates"?...
another interpretation of the motivation of this research agenda of "interesting economics" would be that its main goal is not to contribute to the solving of societies relevant problems, but rather to raise interest in the authors themselves, in order for them to get better jobs/more citations.
Posted February 28, 2008 10:12 AM
George writes:
mjh wrote:
Really? Why wouldn't they just have incentive to get educated enough to pass the franchise joining test? Or is this only a one shot deal?
Clearly you've never read a civics textbook. Armed revolution, with all its risks and hardships, may be a more rational choice than wading through one of those.
Posted March 1, 2008 7:32 PM
Comments for this entry have been closed


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In the spring, Brunswick was found cast in his stall with his left rear leg caught
under a stall door. This injury could have ended both his show career and his life, but through the expertise of the team at Cornell's Equine Hospital, Brunswick was back in the show pen 4.5 months after his injury. Brunswick and Nicole were able to go to the AQHA Congress in 2012 and show everyone what a great team they are, placing top 5 in both classes.
Owned by Nicole and Cindy Griffo
of MP Show Horses


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Meri Aashiqui Tumse Hi: Ishaani finally meets RV but is held by Milan at gunpoint
The much awaited integration episode of Meri Aashiqui Tumse Hi and Naagin was showcased last night
The track of Milan has been irritating loyal viewers of Meri Aashiqui Tumse Hi to no end. While Shakti Arora's acting has been appreciated, the fact that Ishveer (Ishani and Ranveer) have been separated after such a brief union has not gone down well. However, the two will unite on the festive occasion of Karva Chauth. Last night, we saw how Ishaani (Radhika Madan) observes fast for Ranveer even though she is extremely weak. Milan tries to break her fast but to no avail. In the evening, Ishaani will decide to surprise Ranveer by going to his office to break his fast.
On the road, she sees Ranveer eating vada pav from a stall. She is shocked as RV i.e. Milan had promised that he is also fasting. She decides to chase him but accidentally locks her car. Then, she gets a lift from an unknown girl who introduces herself as Shivanya.
This is Mouni Roy who places a good Naagin in the upcoming supernatural show of the same name. After a while, Ishaani spots RV's car in a lane and tells Shivanya to stop. There, they see people attacking a snake and Shivanya tells them to stop. Thereafter, she narrates the tale of the Icchadhari Naagin to them. Ishaani tells her that she also believes in eternal love like a Naagin does.
In tonight's episode, we will see Ishaani accidentally discovering the spot where RV has been held captive. She goes to him and is shocked to see wounds on him. She will faint and RV will give her water. In this way, she will break her fast with Ranveer only (fans rejoice!). However, Milan will come and hold a gun on Ishaani's head. Will RV manage to save her or beg Milan to spare their lives? We are guessing that Shivanya aka Naagin might make a grand entry to protect the love birds. Naagin stars Arjun Bijlani along with Mouni Roy.
Source (Bollywoodlife)
Bigg Boss 9: Prince Narula HITS Mandana Karimi repeatedly – find out why!
Naagin: Arjun Bijlani says his son is his lucky charm


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Promoting Inclusive Markets and Financial Systems
Mastercard Foundation works with visionary organizations to provide greater access to education, skills training and financial services for people living in poverty, primarily in Africa. As one of the largest private foundations its work is guided by its mission to advance learning and promote financial inclusion to create an inclusive and equitable world. Based in Toronto, Canada, its independence was established by Mastercard when the Foundation was created in 2006. For more information and to sign up for the Foundation's newsletter, please visit www.mastercardfdn.org. Follow the Foundation at @MastercardFdn on Twitter.
Mapping Tandas in the US: Cells of Savings Security
In this paper, the author attempts to gain a better understanding of savings group operations and benefits, the motivations of the participants and their intended use of the lump sum proceeds. In order to gather information for this paper, the author conducted either phone or face to face interviews with Maria Alba, her brother Luis Alba, her first cousin Ernesto Sanchez and her aunt Veronica Chavez.
Maria is 33, unmarried and has one child. She owns her own home. She is employed as a nanny, and also has a house cleaning business. She has both a personal checking and savings account. Luis is 30, unmarried and has no children. He rents a room from Maria. He owns a deli and has both business banking accounts as well a personal checking and savings account. Ernesto is 33, married and has two children. He rents, but is saving for a home. He is employed as a chef in a restaurant. He has both a personal checking and savings account. Veronica is 56, married and has seven children some of whom are adults. She owns a home. She also owns a restaurant. She has business banking accounts along with a personal checking and savings account.


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A man on the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation's "Most Wanted" list was arrested Tuesday night in Knoxville.
Keith Thomas was arrested around 9:30 p.m. after authorities received a tip.
The 25-year-old man was taken into custody at a home located on Tarlton Avenue without incident.
Prior to his arrest, Thomas was wanted by the TBI and the Cocke County Sheriff's Office for a deadly robbery that occurred on June 1, 2012.
He faces felony murder, conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery and attempted aggravated robbery charges.
Thomas was transported to the Knox County jail and will soon be extradited to the Cocke County jail.
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Our vision
Our vision is a world in which Russian-speaking Jews around the globe readily identify and engage with Jewish values, culture, and ethics.
As we recognize the unique challenges facing Russian-speaking Jews, we place emphasis on the agenda of identity-building and community transformation. In order to achieve systemic change within Russian-speaking Jewish populations, Genesis is committed to going beyond the practice of isolated, one-time grants. Instead, GPG prioritizes capacity-building funding for long-term, wide-scale initiatives.
We believe
Genesis Philanthropy Group believes that achieving a paradigm shift in the field requires entering into strategic partnerships with established non-profits and foundations. We seek to work with the entities that share our mission and that can meaningfully and effectively engage Russian-speaking Jews.
GPG is a proactive grant-making institution that invites organizations to submit proposals based on the needs and trends the foundation identifies in the Russian-speaking Jewish community in accordance with its mission. We do not accept unsolicited proposals.


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September 11, 2008
Democratic Policies Costing Colorado Big Bucks
By Charles Newton
The sale of Roan Plateau natural gas leases on public land netted Colorado about $2,000 per acre. Nearby private land was leased for 20 times that amount. Why the difference?Public land is encumbered with almost impossible environmental red tape promoted by people like Democrats Bill Ritter and Mark Udall. Private land is not. (Note to Gov. Ritter: Don't ever complain about Colorado's state budget. Your party's policies just cost Colorado 900 million big ones.)No sane company is going to spend much money on drilling when they might not get through the red tape.Democrat Ken Salazar refuses to allow development of Colorado oil shale which has more energy than Saudi Arabia's oil fields. He wants to form a committee to talk about it. These are typical Democratic reactions to the energy crisis. Until we elect people who are serious about getting energy prices down now, we all will suffer. Pray for a warm winter.Originally published by Charles Newton, Highlands Ranch.
(c) 2008 Rocky Mountain News. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.


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Clermont County's varsity golf teams have completed their respective league tournaments.
Southern Buckeye Conference National Division
Batavia easily gained the SBC-N crown. After the five-round tournament, the Bulldogs had taken 923 strokes, Georgetown 1,069, and Blanchester 1,090. Felicity and Georgetown did not compete in the fifth round and thus did not compile a full team score.
Round One was played on the par 36 front nine at Elks Run. Batavia's Tyler Hawk and Brent Boggs shared the medalist honors with a 37. The Green and White's Bill Braselton was third (38), Felicity's Tyler Utter, fifth (42), the Bulldogs' Brent Braselton and Erik Hughes, sixth (43), and teammate Phil Heckle, eighth (44). Team scores: Batavia 155, Georgetown 179, Felicity 196, Blanchester 202, and East Clinton 203.
Round Two was played on the par 36 back nine at Wilmington Elks. The Braselton brothers were co-medalists with 36, Hawk and Hughes, third (39), Boggs, sixth (41), and Heckler and Felicity's Alex Jarman, 10th (43). Team scores: Batavia 150, Blanchester 170, Georgetown 174, Felicity 189, and East Clinton 201.
Round Three was played on the par 35 front nine at The Pines. Boggs was medalist leading all with a 35, Hawk was runner-up (37), the Braseltons tied for fourth (38), Jarman, seventh (40), and Hughes, eighth (41). Team scores: Batavia 148, Georgetown 167, Blanchester 173, Felicity 177, and East Clinton 178.
Round Four was played on the par 35 front nine at Snow Hill. Boggs, the medalist, stroked a 37, Bill Braselton, second (39), Hawk and Heckle, third (40), and Brent Braselton, seventh (45). Team scores: Batavia 156, Blanchester 182, Georgetown 183, East Clinton 188, and Felicity 214.
Round Five was played on all par 71 eighteen holes at White Oak. Hawk stroked a 76 to earn medalist laurels, Boggs was second (77), Brent Braselton, third (80), and Bill Braselton and Hughes, fourth (81). Team scores: Batavia 314, Blanchester 363, Georgetown 366. Felicity and East Clinton did not field complete five-man squads.
Overall, Boggs, a junior, was the medalist with a five-round total of 227, Hawk was runner-up (229), Bill Braselton, third (232), Brent Braselton, fourth (242), Hughes, sixth (250), Heckle, seventh (255). Jarman paced Felicity by finishing 11th overall with 271.
"I'm proud of the way all six of our golfers were in the top seven (in the conference tournament). They played well," said coach Brett Harris of his conference titlists. "Tyler (Hawk), Billy (Braselton), and (Derek) Boggs really stepped it up for us. We had the top four in the league and I'm very proud of that."
Southern Buckeye Conference American Division
Bethel-Tate earned the championship after the five-round showdown. The Tigers totaled 1,031 strokes, Western Brown shot 1,037, Goshen 1,075, New Richmond 1,132, and Clermont Northeastern 1,206.
Going into the tournament, Western Brown appeared to be the favorite to win the title, but the Red and Gray came on strong.
"We had the lead going into that final round. It was originally scheduled to be played at Wilmington Elks, but it rained and was postponed," said Harold Messer, coach of the SBC-N champions. "When it was rescheduled to be played at White Oak (Western Brown's home course) I was concerned. But the playing conditions were not that good and neither us or Western played that well and we were able to hang on."
Messer noted that Tyler Pace "came through for us" with his results noticeably improved from regular-season scores turned in.
Kevin Hornsby, Goshen junior, was the medalist with a 241. Bethel-Tate's PJ Canter was second (248), Tyler Pace of Bethel-Tate, fifth (265), Zach Stiers of Bethel-Tate, seventh (268), Tommy Galea of Bethel-Tate, eighth (270), and Quenton Simpson of Bethel-Tate, ninth (272). Josh Erdman turned in New Richmond's best score of 277 and Mitchell Werner registered Clermont Northeastern's best total with 306.
The first four rounds were nine-hole battles.
Round One was played at Friendly Meadows. Canter was the medalist with a 38 on his home course, Hornsby, was second with a 40, Stiers and Galea tied for third (43), Travis Tolin of Bethel-Tate, fifth (44), and Nick Keller of Goshen and Pace, seventh (45). Team scores: Bethel-Tate 168, Western Brown 179, Goshen 180, Clermont Northestern 203, and New Richmond 212.
Round Two was played at Cedar Trace. Hornsby's 39 earned medalist honors. Canter was runner-up (40), Galea, third (42), Keller, fifth (43), and Simpson and Stiers, eighth (44). Team scores: Bethel-Tate 170, Western Brown 172, Goshen 179, Clermont Northeastern 192, and New Richmond 193.
Round Three took place at Deer Trace. Hornsby made a 37 to be the medalist on his home course. Simpson was second (38), Canter, fourth (40), Keller and Tolin, fifth (42), Josh Erdman of New Richmond and Stiers, eighth (43). Team scores: Bethel-Tate 163, Western Brown 167, Goshen 171, New Richmond 189, and Clermont Northeastern 208.
Round Four was played at White Oak. William Tedrick of Goshen and Pace paced the Clermont countians by placing third (42), Simpson, fifth (43), Hornsby and Erdman, seventh (44), and Denver Young of New Richmond and Hornsby and Stiers, tenth (45). Team scores: Western Brown 165, Bethel-Tate 175, New Richmond 176, Goshen 184, and Clermont Northeastern 191.
Round Five was an 18-hole match at White Oak. Hornsby led the SBC-N with his 10-over 81 that tied him for fourth place overall in combination results with the SBC-A linksmen. Canter was ninth with 85. Rusty Simmons led New Richmond with 88 and Werner was best for CNE with 96. Team scores: Western Brown 354, Bethel-Tate 355, Goshen 361, New Richmond 362, and Clermont Northeastern 412.
Fort Ancient Valley Conference Cardinal Division
The final team totals were Wilmington 318, Turpin 321, Kings 329, Amelia 347, Little Miami 358, and Walnut Hills 402.
Eric Fedus paced Amelia with his seventh place overall finish with an 81, Ahren Kirschner made an 87, Billy Rhinehart 89, and Joshua Kellerman 90.
Fort Ancient Valley Conference Girls Tournament
The final team totals were Mason 326, Kings 389, Anderson 424, Turpin 433, Wilmington 444, Harrison 445, Glen Este 477, Little Miami 483, Northwest 497, and Mount Healthy 538. Amelia did not field a team.
Lacey Smith turned in GE's best score with a 112, Hannah Macke had 115, Sophie Charlton 121, and Paige Boso 129.
Greater Miami Conference
The final team totals were Lakota East 608, Fairfield 622, Sycamore 624, Colerain 641, Oak Hills 642, Lakota West 672, Middletown 676, Milford 691, Princeton 709, and Hamilton 744.
Jeremy Nichols and Kyle Jones turned in the best scores for Milford with 164 and 166, respectively. Jacob Losser shot 181, Jordan Burger 185, and Tyler Regueyra 190.
Greater Miami Conference Girls Tournament
The final team totals were Lakota West 659, Colerain 749, Sycamore 751, Middletown 802, Lakota East 820, Oak Hills 822, Milford 841, Princeton 907, Fairfield 930, and Hamilton 969.
Jackie Toth's 202 was the E-Gals' best score. Kelsee Muldoon putted 205, Nicole Stephan 219, Sydney Anderson 220, and Audra Wade 221.
Fort Ancient Valley Conference Buckeye Division
The final team totals were Harrison 333, Loveland 334, Mason 337, Anderson 367, Glen Este 377, and Winton Woods 383.
Kyle Sizemore paced GE with an 18-hole score of 91, Tyler Hughes stroked 92, Chris Sunderman 95, and Devin Stanton 99.
Regular Season
Batavia 158, Milford 165
The Bulldogs' Billy Braselton shot a one-over 37 on the front nine at Elks Run. Teammate Tyler Hawk shot 38.
Harrison 163, Glen Este 173
This game took place on the front nine at Circling Hills.
Girls Golf
Mariemont 197, Taylor 198, Glen Este 240
This game took place on the front nine at California.


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April 2017
Summer Programs at Inly School in Scituate
2017 Summer Camp Guide
2017 April Vacation Guide
Looking for something to do during April Vacation Week? We're building a list of fun local things to do next week including events, local activities, day camps and more! Whether you're looking to spend the day or just drop in for an hour, there is something out there to suit your needs and fit your schedule. Check it out!


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Gretchen Mol welcomed her second child with husband, Paranormal Activity 2 director Tod "Kip" Williams, People reports.
Daughter Winter Morgan Williams was born Feb. 17 in New York City. "Everyone is happy and healthy and resting at home," their rep told the site. "The whole family is overjoyed."
Catch up on today's latest news
Mol, 38, wed Williams in June 2004. They have a son, Ptolemy John, who is 3.
Mol can currently be seen in the HBO drama Boardwalk Empire.


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Hillary Clinton Criticizes Obama's Foreign Policy in Syria and Iraq
Inevitable Democratic candidate for president in 2016 Hillary Clinton rocked Matt Drudge's world this weekend when she criticized President Obama's foreign policy in an interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg. Clinton, who gave the interview before Obama authorized airstrikes on ISIS in Iraq, said the president's "failure" to intervene in Syria allowed jihadists to come to power in the region.
When Goldberg asked Clinton, "Do you think we'd be where we are with ISIS right now if the U.S. had done more three years ago to build up a moderate Syrian opposition?" she responded:
Well, I don't know the answer to that. The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against [Syrian President Bashar al] Assad—there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle—the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled.
This is the strongest criticism Clinton's made of Obama's presidency so far, and according to Politico's Maggie Haberman, Clinton's people warned the White House that the interview was coming out. Obama has said before that there's no way the U.S. could have "changed the equation on the ground" in Syria without "committing U.S. military forces."
All this goes to show that Clinton is more hawkish than Obama on foreign policy, which we knew. In the interview, Clinton also strongly defended Israel's military actions in Gaza and said that the public's reaction to them has been "uncalled for and unfair."
[Image via AP]


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I am a Bot...Beep
I have DW Gulpin up for trade, I'm looking for Kalos DW Pokes in return.
I'm looking for Kalos DW females! I am breeding these guys if anyone wants one:
Chespin (Bulletproof) | Fennekin (Magician) | Froakie (Protean) | Fletchling (Gale Wings) | Bunnelby (Huge Power) | Scatterbug (Friend Guard) | Litleo (Moxie) | Skiddo (Grass Pelt) | Espurr (Own Tempo) | Swirlix (Unburden) | Binacle (Pickpocket) | Helioptile (Solar Power) | Dedenne (Plus) | Goomy (Gooey) | Phantump (Harvest) | Pumpkaboo (Insomnia) | Bergmite (Sturdy) | Noibat (Telepathy)
Also have plenty of Gen 1-5 DW Pokemon too. PM me for a full list of what I can breed you.
Shinies I'm offering: Gulpin, Conkeldurr, Gogoat, Espurr
Friend Codes
Friend Safari - Ground
White 2: 3354 2323 4227
I have a shiny Gulpin up for trade. Make me an offer
White FC: 3396 4570 2170
3DS Friend Code: 2320 6126 6746
Spoiler:- Looking For:
Any Shiny, Non-5th Gen Legendaries
Breeding with Roost, Brave Bird, and Whirlwind
Have UT Shiny for trade.
I have Friend Safari Swalot. Pm offers! Looking for a variety of things.
~Disclaimer: Signature very out of date~
~~What I what/can trade is listed here! (My Trade Shop)~~
Looking For:
Shiny Legendaries ()
Event Pokemon
Celebrate /
Shiny Lotad/evolution with ID: 11142 and OT: Jasmine (I can give something good)
Events, Legendaries
5-6IVs: Ask for list
Shiny: Check my Shop for list
Shiny Legends: , Terrakion, and possibly more
Various Legendaries
Other things as well
PM me!
Need I say I only want legit pokemon?
I have a Shiny Gulpin up for trade. Looking for other shinies mainly but will consider other offers. PM me if you are interested.
I am the Master of Arcanine and Boy do I love this Big Dog
I am a Christian and proud of it! Copy and paste this if you are too.
50% of Serebii users are relapsing pokemon fans...if you are among those that never got off the band wagon...copy and paste this in your sig (started by CyberBlastoise).
3ds friend code: 3265-5471-9696.
shiny Swalot for trade pm if interested, from safari


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New York Jets Have Become NFL's New Age OutlawsDecember 18, 2010
In a season best described as "Super Bowl or Bust," the New York Jets have made a habit of generating more headlines for antics unrelated to their play on the field.
Prior to the start of the season, controversy arose when Inés Sainz, a reporter for Mexico's TV Azteca, was subjected to footballs being thrown in her direction during a team practice and players' catcalls inside the locker room afterwards.
As a result, the NFL launched an investigation in the wake of a complaint made by the Association of Women in Sports Media against Gang Green.
This embarassing incident came on the heels of the Jets' highly publicized appearance on HBO: Hard Knocks, which served to highlight the arrogance, boldness and confidence of the front office, the coaches and the players.
But although the aforementioned complaint had the potential to rock the team's foundation to its core, the Jets emerged from the ensuing melodrama virtually unscathed.
However, less than two weeks later, enigmatic wide receiver Braylon Edwards was arrested for driving while intoxicated (DWI). Police officers initially stopped Edwards for excessive tinting on his white Land Rover but Edwards' bloodshot, watery eyes and the strong smell of alcohol in the vehicle prompted further investigation.
Subsequently, Edwards consented to and failed a breathalyzer examination, where it was determined his blood alcohol content was twice the legal limit, leading to his arrest. Among the four passengers in Edwards' vehicle at the time of the arrest were teammates D'Brickashaw Ferguson and Vernon Gholston.
The Jets disciplined Edwards with a token first quarter suspension against the Miami Dolphins and his case has been adjourned until January 11, which also happens to be the week of the AFC Divisional Playoffs.
So in a span of ten days, the Jets organization found itself ensconced in two scandals that could have sent their season into an unrecoverable tailspin. But undaunted, Gang Green regained their swagger by winning eight of its next nine games as the aforementioned cases gradually dissipated from the public consciousness.
Unfortunately, while in the throes of a two-game losing streak, the Jets have become the subject of an NFL investigation for the third time in three months, including the ongoing Brett Favre-Jenn Sterger inquest.
During last Sunday's game against Miami, Jets strength and conditioning coach Sal Alosi deliberately tripped Dolphins rookie cornerback Nolan Carroll as he was running near the sideline on a punt return. In response, Alosi issued an immediate apology before being fined $25,000 and indefinitely suspended from the team.
The Jets maintain Alosi acted alone despite player testimony and visual evidence suggesting head coach Rex Ryan and special teams coordinator Mike Westhoff were fully aware Alosi engineered the formation of a wall along the sidelines, leading to the tripping fiasco.
Thus, while Alosi seriously contemplates a name change to Lee Harvey Oswald, the Jets have once again stained the NFL's image with behavior that reflects the personality of their head coach.
In the 1970s and the 1980s, Oakland Raiders general managing partner Al Davis transformed the "Silver and Black" into a cast of mavericks and outlaws with trademarked slogans such as "Commitment to Excellence," "Just Win, Baby" and "Pride and Poise."
Now it appears the Jets have become the league's "New-Age Outlaws," which, for professional wrestling fans in the know, happened to be the name of a popular WWE tag team in the late 1990s that ran with a stable appropriately dubbed Degeneration X.
Degenerates? Outlaws? Is this how owner Woody Johnson wants the New York Jets to be remembered in this decade?
Click here to read the original article on Examiner.com, which includes relevant links and a recap of the notorious 'Tripping Incident'.


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Wayland royalty
Published 6:00 pm, Saturday, February 27, 2010
WAYLAND ROYALTY: Senior psychology major Whytney Mask of Whitewright (front) was named Homecoming Queen 2010 during halftime of the Wayland Baptist men's basketball game on Saturday. Mask was representing the Council of Student Organizations at WBU. Her court includes first runner-up Kendra Ortego, (back left) a senior music education major from Marble Falls; second runner-up Mary Beth Arnold, (front right) a junior Spanish education major from Waxahachie; and third runner-up Kydia Echols, a senior physical education major from Harleton. Twelve coeds vied for the title during the two-day homecoming slate.


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Watch Km. 0 NOW or Any Other Movie in Best Quality
Staff rating
Km. 0
Good-natured romantic comedy takes its title from the marker in Madrid's Puerta del Sol plaza that designates the spot from which all road travel is measured. It's a popular meeting place as this mixed bag of stories show. Actress Silvia (Pons) forgets she's to meet her sister's friend, Pedro (Fuentes), and Pedro mistakes hooker Tatiana (Matilla) for Silvia. Tatiana thinks Pedro is her new client, but that's actually virginal Sergio (San Juan), who's comforted instead by kindly gay Maximo (del Rio). Lonely Benjamin (Garcia) is mistaken for the Internet date of hottie Bruno (Ullate) and neglected wife Marga (Velasco) finds her meeting with escort Miguel (Cabrero) doesn't go as planned. Amor in all its follies. Spanish with subtitles.
TLA Releasing, 234 Market St., Philadelphia, PA 19106, Phone: (215)733-0608, Toll-free: 800-333-8521, Fax: (215)733-0637, Email: email@example.com, URL: http://www.tlareleasing.com
Available on Running time 108 minutes. Originally from Spanish.
There haven't been any movie reviews written yet. Be the first to write a review!


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The dastardly drops didn't simply drop; they pelted Broncos fans from a sky as gray as grandpa. It was a peculiar, high-50s midsummer day in Denver on Wednesday, and this bundled bunch in blue and orange pressed against the first-row railing at Sports Authority Field at Mile High, because there they were — the Broncos — and they were coming right toward them!
Players signed autographs after practice, and these sardined fans leaned over the railing with shrieks and Sharpies, waving jerseys and footballs and hats and, wait — was that a prosthetic leg?
"That's a first," said Pro Bowl guard Louis Vasquez. "That's for sure one of a kind. I don't know if you'll ever see that again."
I had to find out about this leg. Just who was this gray-haired woman clutching an artificial leg — with the Broncos logo on it — attached to a fake foot in a shoe?
"True fan," Vasquez said.
Her name is Barbara Shore, and she has a story to tell. She has been a Broncos fan since, fittingly, 1977, the team's first Super Bowl season — though as she says with a strong guffaw: "The first Super Bowl for me is the first one they won." She skipped work for both victory parades and collected these very newspaper pages for years, preserving mementos of memories.
"You get that attachment," she said of her relationship with the Broncos. "I've been connected for a long time — once I got hooked, I got hooked."
She lives in Niwot, a few Peyton Manning passes from Boulder, and on June 8 last year, she scooted across Colorado 66 in Lyons upon a 250 Vespa when it happened.
A truck. A 16-year-old driver. She soared 77 feet from the collision.
"I don't remember anything from the point of impact until about 4 a.m., when I woke up," she said. "I had a huge wound in the interior side of my left calf. I'd broken the tibia and fibula."
In the past, she had driven motorcycles in Alaska, across Canada and down the West Coast, and here was her first accident, on a scooter 10 miles from home. She was bounced from hospital to hospital, and spent five long weeks at Boulder Memorial Rehab. And with her fractured leg still part of her body, she finally went home.
One day, a week and a half later, Shore's home-care nurse found her in a coma.
Staph infection. She remained comatose for eight days at St. Luke's Presbyterian. She awoke, and the doctors scurried. They tried external fixation, surgical treatment that attempts to stabilize bones. But ultimately, on Oct. 1, while the Broncos prepared for that Sunday's game at Dallas, Shore's left leg was amputated, starting 3 inches under the knee.
"I was a teacher, I was a coach, and 75 percent of my career, I worked with handicapped people," Shore said. "And here I am, and I am one. But it just shows you that you don't have any control, you don't know what the (heck) is going to happen.
"I went through some rough times; there were times I didn't know …" she said, her voice trailing off. "I was thrown 77 feet from the point of impact. You never know what's going to happen. There were times that I didn't want to be here anymore."
Friends were her strength, the Broncos were her faith and her sense of humor was her medicine. Speaking with the man who would design the "bucket" of her new leg — which screws into an apparatus connected to the remainder of her leg — Shore had an idea. Cover the thing with the Broncos logo.
"Let's do that," she told him, "and maybe we can get them to the Super Bowl."
Her first game back was the playoff game against San Diego. She was back home, in Section 114 at Mile High.
At that point in January, she could only wear the leg for four-hour durations.
"So I took it off at halftime," Shore said, "and in the second half, all my friends were making me hold it up and wave it anytime the Broncos did something cool."
She was there for the AFC championship game too. She didn't need her leg that day — like all of Denver, she was floating.
But while the city eagerly awaited the Super Bowl, she couldn't breathe. She was experiencing respiratory issues called pulmonary hypertension — high blood pressure in the arteries of the lungs. Her Broncos were in the Super Bowl, and she was in the hospital.
"But," the huge Broncos fan said with a laugh, "it was probably a good place to be, in case I had a heart attack during the game."
The loss to Seattle stung. When you pour this much faith into something, and this something lets you down, it can drain your soul. But perspective was attached to her knee. She soon spoke with her old students who were handicapped. She felt lucky to be alive. Soon, she grappled with the reason why she did survive. Seventy-seven feet. She consulted ministry. She pondered questions and wondered if they had answers.
"What's my purpose? What am I supposed to learn from this?" she said. "There were days that were just difficult. Some days were just awful. But if you don't have the bad days, you don't appreciate the good days.
"I can sit here and feel sorry for myself, and there are times that I do, but I have those other things to look forward to in life. I don't know how much longer I'm going to be here, but I'm going to try to get the most out of whatever I have left."
She drove her car through the rainstorm Wednesday to see her boys. When she arrived at the stadium, sure enough, the rain stopped. But soon, it poured again, and toward the end of practice, she rammed her walker to the railing while flanked by fanatics. She was being pushed and smushed. She flailed her upper body over the rail.
One by one, the Broncos made eye contact, and misery never felt more comfortable.
Benjamin Hochman: firstname.lastname@example.com or twitter.com/hochman


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It's not "Desire" that makes people suffer...
Buddha was wrong. People try to get rid of their desires and that's what makes them suffer, they only care to HAVE, not to WANT.
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