text:
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is paying tribute to John F. Kennedy two days before the 50th anniversary of his assassination by honoring two of the slain president's lasting initiatives and visiting his grave at Arlington National Cemetery.
At the White House on Wednesday, Obama is to bestow the Presidential Medal of Freedom on more than a dozen prominent Americans, including former President Bill Clinton and Oprah Winfrey. Kennedy established the modern version of the medal in the months before he was shot in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.
It's the highest award the U.S. gives a civilian.
Afterward, Obama, Clinton and their wives will take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at Kennedy's grave.
Obama also plans an evening speech highlighting Kennedy's legacy of public service.


text:
Masters Programmes
Masters Programmes
- Masters Programmes home
- Executive Master of Public Administration (EMPA)
- Masters of Public Administration (MPA)
- MSc Democracy and Comparative Politics
- MSc European Politics and Policy
- MSc Global Governance and Ethics
- MSc International Public Policy
- MA Human Rights
- MA Legal and Political Theory
- MSc Public Policy
- MSc Security Studies
Postgraduate modules
Modules are available to MA/MSc students outside of the department but
are subject to numbers and are allocated on a first-come first-served
basis. If you are a student from outside the Department, interested in
taking a Political Science module, please register for your choice on
The Department will review availability on your chosen module and approve or reject on PORTICO accordingly.
About the Department
The Department of Political Science / School of Public Policy began as Britain's only department focused on graduate teaching and research.
Located in the magnificent Tavistock Square, one of London's most beautiful squares, our ten Masters degrees and doctoral training programme offer a range of opportunities for post-graduate study.
The School's academic discipline is political science, including the fields of international relations and political theory.
From 2001, the School has built up a core faculty of many academic staff across these fields, with a Department of Political Science coming formally into being in 2005.
Events and seminars
The Policy and Practice Seminar Series includes presentations of
scholarly research and talks by high-profile policy makers,
practitioners and academics.
They take place each weekand are are public events: all students and the general public are welcome to attend.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Geocaching Games Find Growing Popularity
The treasure-hunting adventure of geocaching is finding its way into more community events, adventure games, and even school competitions.
Malibu Creek State Park in California, USA is combining geocaching with mountain biking, trail running, and rock climbing for its first ever "Malibu Adventure Games." The event is a community effort to raise the funds needed to help keep Malibu Creek State Park protected and open for the public.
Daniel Weissauer with Malibu Adventure Games says geocaching is a perfect fit to showcase all the park has to offer, "We were interested in creating an exciting scavenger hunt for the Malibu Adventure Games using a format anybody could participate in, something combining technology and nature. Racking our heads together, we'd all heard of geocaching from word-of-mouth experiences and knew it'd be perfect"
He adds, "The Geocache Hunt is designed to highlight the beauty of the park."
Others events, like the Wild Canyon Games in Oregon, USA use a geocaching course to challenge athletes. Geocachers are timed. Teams have five hours to hike, run, and scramble over rocks to accumulate geocaches worth the most points. 350 geocaches are hidden across 169 square miles of wilderness. The geocaches further from the start are worth more points.
Some schools are seeing the academic potential of geocaching. High School science students in Illinois are judged on their geocaching skills. The JV Science Team from New Trier Township High School outside of Chicago just placed first in the state in a geocaching competition.
Geocaching is trial event in the Illinois Science Olympiad. Teams are given a GPS device and allowed 30 minutes to follow a sequence of waypoints to a location. At each way point the students must answer a question related to geocaching or earth science. A couple sample questions are, "What does hitchhiker mean in [geocaching] slang?" or "Who is considered the "Father of Geology?"
Weissauer with the Malibu Adventure Games says awareness of geocaching is gaining ground. He says it was an easy decision to make geocaching part of the Malibu Creek State Park event, "We included geocaching because
of its huge popularity, the unique location and history of the park, and the amount of families coming out. We believe the Geocaching Hunt will grow over the next few years as word gets out."
If you find yourself in Malibu, California this weekend, space is still available to register for the event.


text:
13th Azerbaijan International Stomatology Exhibition
5 - 7 November 2019 • Baku Expo Center
Premier Tour is one of the leading travel agencies in Azerbaijan. The company is run by professional management striving to provide custom tailored services round the clock.
Premier Tour owns three 4 star hotels in Baku, Azerbaijan. The strategic plan of the company envisions launching hotels in the region spanning Azerbaijan, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
Premier Tour provides following services:
Contact person:
Mrs. Telli Huseynova
Mob: +994 50 263 38 78


text:
What You Can Do
Become an Eco Rep
An Eco Rep is a First Year Johnnie who promotes sustainability and environmental awareness in his resident hall
Save resources in the classroom, office, and residence halls
As a community which cares about sustainability, help create a culture of sustainability by doing these simple things to cut waste and energy use.
Read the SJU Green Guide
This guide was created by students with the help of campus staff to provide some easy tips for living a sustainable lifestyle at Saint John's.
Take a class
The College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University offer a number of courses and programs focusing on the environment and sustainability.
Take part in a club
There are a variety of clubs which take part in sustainability efforts on campus such as the Sustainability Alliance.
Submit a proposal for a Revolving Loan
Anybody can submit a proposal for a sustainability project through SJU's green revolving loan fund. Projects will be audited, and the results will be posted on our website to prove the viability and legitimacy of the fund. A committee of faculty, staff, administration, and students govern the fund.
Start something you are interested in
The possibilities are endless. We want to work with you to take your sustainable idea from concept to reality. Back in 2011, Stephen Johnson approached Nick Moe at the SJU Office of Sustainability with his idea of building a greenhouse on campus. Just two years later, the Refectory started buying lettuce grown right at SJU. Another example of student-led initiatives was the idea of an intern in the Office of Sustainability. Michael Lockwood wanted to reduce phantom energy on campus. During the summer of 2013, 125 phantom energy-reducing powerstrips were distributed across campus.


text:
Coaching Career
After spending 35 years in the Kansas City organization, Luis Silverio joined the Pirates Major League staff on November 24, 2010. In addition to his role as the First Base Coach, he will serve as the Club's Outfield and Baserunning Coach. Silverio was Kansas City's minor league outfield coordinator in 2010 after spending the 2009 season as the club's Special Assistant to Player Development. Luis spent six seasons (2003-2008) on the Royals Major League coaching staff, manning the first base coaching box three years and the third base box for three. Prior to joining Kansas City's big league staff, Silverio worked as the Coordinator of Dominican Republic Operations (2000-02) as well as serving as the Minor League Outfield Instructor in 2000-01. He also served as general manager for the Royals Dominican League affiliate in Salcedo from 1990-2002 while also overseeing the club's player development operations and scouting in the Dominican Republic and Panama. Luis also served as a scout for the organization during his tenure with Kansas City.
Playing Career
Originally signed by the Royals as a non-drafted free agent on November 12, 1973, Silverio played in the minor league system until 1982. During that time, he was named to the Gulf Coast League All-Star team in 1975 after leading the circuit in home runs and played on championship teams in 1976 (Waterloo), 1977 (Jacksonville) and 1978 (Omaha). During the summer of 1975, while he was leading the Gulf Coast League in home runs, his teammate, Clint Hurdle, led the league with 31 RBI for a team that went 31-18. Silverio, who was a teammate of Hurdle with the Royals in 1978, appeared in eight games for the American League West champions that September and went 6-for-11 with two doubles, a triple, three RBI and seven runs scored. He made his Major League debut as a pinch runner at California on September 9 and collected his first big league hit the following day (in his first Major League at bat) with a single off Nolan Ryan. After missing the 1979 season due to right knee surgery, Luis played parts of three more minor league seasons before retiring as a player following the 1982 campaign.
Luis Pascual Silverio...Wife's name is Yenny...Has five children; daughters Jennifer (3/20/81), Alison (5/20/85), Julia (9/12/96) and sons Louis (12/15/93) and Luis Jr. (6/27/95)...His daughter, Jennifer, is married to former Royals shortstop Angel Berroa... Has two grandchildren; Angel Luis (11/15/06) and Angeles Maria (6/14/08)...Comes from a family of 15 (seven girls and eight boys)... Received offers from the Montreal Expos and Philadelphia Phillies in the summer of 1973 before signing with the Royals...Has participated in the last two PirateFest and Caravan events.


text:
20487 Surnames | 134591 Records | 2764 Reunions
Dead Fred asks:Are you a Desperate Genealogist?
Click the e-book above for details!
Dead Fred's Genealogy Photo Archive, a free, fun photo genealogy research web site devoted to helping you visualize your heritage!
Photo Thumbnail
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larger view.
Order The Desperate Genealogist's Idea Book: Creative Ways to Outsmart Your Elusive Ancestors (eBook).You can also order The Desperate Genealogist's Idea Book in hardcopy format by clicking here.
Photo #34536
Last Name: Blaker
First Name : Henry
Middle Name: J.
Subject's City: Barlow
Subject's State: Ohio
Subject's County: Washington
Subject's Country: United States
Date: 1851-1900
Photographer's City:
Photographer's State:
Type** : CC
Comments: Henry J. Blaker (Nee: ) | Barlow Ohio United States | 1851-1900 | Comments: Henry Blaker was born in Maryland in 1832 and died in Barlow, Washington Co, OHio in 1908. His parents were Henry and Mary Catherine, both born in Germany. Henry served in the Civil War in the 6th WV Infantry. He living in Preston County, WV for a while.
Archive Note 1/1/2005 Found! Discovery 667th Finder writes **This is my gggrandfather, his daughter, Margery, was my great grandmother, her son Dayton Trotter was my grandfather&&
Digital Image Only? YES
Everyone Listed In This Photo:
To view all records posted by this submitter, click here:
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text:
aturko necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 212 diseños de 55 diseñadores freelance.
Dappa (if said in an Australian accent, Dappa is the phonetic spelling of the word "dapper" meaning stylishly dressed)
Dappa is a mens clothing retail website in its very early days based in Melbourne, Australia. The site (currently in development) aims to help guys look their best through selling great looking clothing that fits well.
Customers are free to pick and choose items such as tshirts, shirts, pants, jackets and shoes but where Dappa differs from other stores is helping the customer to pick the right clothes that suit them. This is done through several features that will provide the same experience as having a personal stylist.
The clothing provided can be categorised from casual to smart casual. So for example from what you would wear day to day, to what you would wear when you're trying to impress someone at a bar. Some of the well-known brands Dappa will sell include:
Ben Sherman - http://www.bensherman.com/
David & Goliath - http://www.davidandgoliathtees.com/
Everlast - http://www.everlastusa.com.au/
G-Star - http://www.g-star.com/en/
Henleys - http://www.henleys.com.au/
Industrie - http://www.industrie.com.au/
Mooks - http://www.mooks.com/
Mossimo - http://mossimo.com.au/
Onitsuka Tiger - http://www.onitsukatiger.com/en-au
Superdry - http://www.superdry.com.au/
Zanarobe - http://www.zanerobe.com/
Dappa is not a bargain clothing site. It has reasonable prices but isn't going for the 'cheap' aspect. Dappa is all about style.
The demographics of the target audience would be males aged around 18 to late 30's. The site is based in Australia and although Dappa will happily deliver overseas, some of the labels sold may not be recognised in countries outside of Australia.
Some common traits of this target audience would be:
- Guys who want to save time; they don't want to spend their whole Saturday shopping for clothes to wear on a Saturday night out.
- Are web savvy and are familiar with purchasing items from other online sites.
- Guys who just want a great looking outfit, that might not be skilled at putting an outfit together themselves but want to improve their appearance.
- The site is not a bargain clothing site. It has reasonable prices but isn't going for a target audience that's after cheap clothing.
- Im not too fussed whether the logo is an icon, stylised text, a custom font of some sort or all of them combined!
- Although the logo can use colour, I don't think it should rely on it. If the logo were to be converted to black and white it should still be recognisable.
- The website is currently being coded. No interface or any graphical elements have been created yet so feel free to choose any colours for the logo you think are right. That being said this is a male clothing site though so I wouldn't think something like a pink and lavender colour scheme would work.
- Once the contest is won, the files required from the designer will be:
- Print file format - .ai (CMYK)
- Web file format - .jpg and layered .psd (RGB)
I haven't come across any specific logos that I could use as examples to copy the style of. I do love all of the following logos though, hope they provide some inspiration:
If you have any questions or need me to clarify something please ask. Private Message me and I can give you my skype or IM details if you want to chat.
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


text:
Customer Reviews
All reviews are from people who have redeemed deals with this merchant.
What You'll Get
A good night's sleep is necessary if you want to be at your best and keep having those dreams in which you drive a monster truck over a mountain range. Dive into your subconscious with this Groupon.
Choose Between Two Options
- $399 for $1,700 toward memory-foam and spring mattresses, sized twin through king
- $50 for $100 toward sheets, pillows, and other bedding

Zen Bedrooms stocks Classic memory-foam mattresses ($899.98 for a twin, $1,099.98 for a queen), Luxury memory-foam mattresses ($1,600 for a queen, $1,700 for a king), and spring mattresses. Other bedding items include down alternative comforters in summer and winter weights ($149.98+), memory foam pillows ($179.98 for two), and cotton bed linens ($139.98+).

The Fine Print
Promotional value expires 90 days after purchase. Amount paid never expires. Limit 1 per person, may buy 2 additional as gifts. Limit 1 per order. Valid only for option purchased. Online only. Shipping included for memory foam mattresses; extra $199 shipping fee for spring mattresses. Extra fee for shipping for all other items. Must use promotional value in 1 order. Merchant is solely responsible to purchasers for the care and quality of the advertised goods and services.
About Zen Bedrooms
Online retailer Zen Bedrooms curates a small, hand-selected collection of bed frames, mattresses, and bedroom accessories. Focusing on quality rather than quantity, the owners set out to cobble together a kind of online boutique that features a healthy dose of old-fashioned customer service. The shop traffics heavily in memory-foam mattresses, which are designed by sleep scientists to contour to the body like a pool of Silly Putty, providing enhanced cushioning and support across the entire body. Other items, such as feather comforters, memory-foam pillows, and egyptian-cotton bed linens, assuage restlessness so customers can enjoy deeper sleep.


text:
Kane, as always, lives
It's the 12th birthday of Command & Conquer today – which means you only have to wait another four years until you can sleep with your copy of the first game (according to UK law, in case you're a shocked US reader. Although I'm not rightly sure if any country actually has laws about physical intimacy with plastic discs).
But what if you don't own a copy of the first game? Well, then you'll be wanting to download it for free from here. Somewhat uncharacteristically, EA is now offering the entire game (both GDI and NOD campaigns) for non-bucks, to anyone. It's like Satan offering to give Sisyphus a lift up that hill in his Satanmobile.
So, go for it. Just don't come moaning to us about the archaic interface.


text:
Heading OrderJuly 19, 2004
What's up with heading order? Tomas Jogin wants to know. A "Web Standards Solutions" Q&A session if there ever was one.
Ironically using author Dan Cederholm's SimpleBits as a test case, Tomas points to the W3C Outliner version of the site and reasons that perhaps there's a more logical way.
And after seeing it visualized, Tomas seems to have a strong point. Without the outliner view though, in authoring mode it's hard to make these sorts of choices correctly. Best intentions don't always lead to proper choices, as evident by the case studies he links (including this site).
What's particularly frustrating is that the spec itself doesn't offer clear guidance on semantic issues like this; we are given overly simple usage guidelines, and actual implementation is left to author discretion. And that leads to confusion and individual interpretation of the specs by those who didn't write them. We'd be hot and fast on the case of a browser vendor who took liberties in implementing the specs; why should content authors be any less accountable?
Anyway, the issue at hand is headings and there are a myriad of possible opinions here. The outliner appears to offer a firmer guideline than the spec, from a W3C voice, so armed with this tool perhaps we can move the discussion out of the realm of personal preference, and toward something more precise. Commentary follows at Tomas' site.


text:
The Times, St. Petersburg, FL, 10/12/84
Tuesday, January 1, 1985
Thursday, April 18, 2019
Today, the California Department of Justice issued a "Notice of Modification" to their proposed regulations regarding the soon to be implemented ammunition background check procedures. As a result of these changes, a second 15-day public ...
Friday, April 19, 2019
Proving there is no statute of limitations on political opportunism, this week former President Bill Clinton used the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the tragic school shooting in Littleton, Colo. to pen an op-ed pushing ...
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
On April 22nd, the Maine Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on Legislative Document 1312, which would allow for firearms to be seized and Second Amendment rights to be suspended without due process.
Friday, April 19, 2019
The New York Times – the "paper of record" – reports that "Gun Research is Suddenly Hot." While we're happy to see the Times has finally acknowledged that "gun research" can survive federal restrictions on taxpayer funded gun control ...
Friday, April 19, 2019
When it comes to the wellbeing of today's youth, one would think that all could agree that provoking unnecessary fear should be avoided. That apparently is not the case, however, when it comes to pushing ...
Monday, April 22, 2019
On April 22nd, both chambers of the Indiana General Assembly voted to concur with the amendments made to House Bill 1284 during the conference committee process. HB 1284 has been amended to now include many ...
Sunday, April 21, 2019
The California Legislature returns from spring recess this week and seven different committees are considering bills that could impact your rights.
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
With support from the NRA, gun owners challenging Pittsburgh's ban on publicly carrying loaded magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds filed a motion today seeking a preliminary injunction. If the motion is granted, ...
Thursday, April 18, 2019
On Thursday, the Texas House gave final approval to House Bill 1177 by a vote of 102-29.
Friday, April 12, 2019
NRA reacts to New York City's attempt to avoid having the NRA-supported Supreme Court case N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Association, et al. v. City of N.Y., et al heard in DC.


text:
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text:
Kurt Angle (WWE Wrestler) Arrested For Violating His Abuse Order From His Ex-Girlfriend / Wrestler 'Rhaka Khan' & Harassing Her Again!
4 News reports "According to the police criminal complaint, Angle, 40, was arrested on charges of driving with a DUI suspension and violating a protection from abuse order obtained about an hour and a half earlier. Angle was taken to the Allegheny County Jail. He posted bail and is scheduled to appear for a hearing Tuesday on the drug and harassment charges and Wednesday on the charge of violating the protection order, a court clerk said."
Please click the "Report" button below if the video on this page is not working properly.
Comments will only be displayed by verified emails. No Spamming or Racism.


text:
Injen Hydrosheild for Infiniti M35x
Reviewed By Ryan B (Charlotte, NC) Reviewed for a 2007 Infiniti M35 —8/10/2009 8:32 PM
The hydrosheild arrived in as little as 3 days. Product was in original packaging and was priced cheaper than I could find it anywhere else! Absolutley no complaints and I look forward to ordering from autoanything again! RB


text: After his studies in Decorative Arts in Genève, Pascal Habegger, who signs his work Ab'Aigre, became an illustrator of advertisements and postcards. In 1974, after a trip to the US, he decided to start his own magazine, Swing, which lasted for only one issue. After some contributions to Swiss magazines, he proposed his work to the publisher Glénat. His series 'La Route des Goélands' appeared in 1980 in Circus. In the early 1980s, he worked for the French periodicals Okapi, Métal Hurlant and Zoulou. He also started new comics and series like 'Le Chaman' (with Frank Giroud in Ice Crim's), 'Nombre' (with Thierry Smolderen for Humanoïdes Associés) and 'Blues' (for the publisher Paquet) during the 1980s and 1990s. Ab'Aigre has earned himself several prizes for his oeuvre.


text:
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It's Christmas time!During this holiday season, everyone here at The Designer Diva is preparing to spend time with famiy, loved ones and friends. I am sure there will be a lot of exchanging of gifts and parties to attend!I hope that everyone is done with their Christmas shopping! If you still have a thing or two left on your list, do not fret, the malls are still open for the last mad rush. It's a probably a big zoo by now, and most likely filled with men looking for a gift for their significant other.If you think you might have forgotten to remember someone this year, here are some ideas on what to bring extra when attending a party:
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text:
Nick: misinamisina
Email: visible only for registred users
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Uživatel nehodnotil žádnou epizodu.
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text: On 10 Apr 2007, at 11:52 pm, Donald Becker wrote: > > > Survey on beowulf.org -- video iPod > > For those who haven't checked out the beowulf.org web pages recently, > we've > put up a survey about HPC. > > You can find the link on the home page of > http://beowulf.org > or go directly to the survey at > http://www.beowulf.org/community/survey.php I find the initial question essentially impossible to answer. The whole point of beowulf computing is that you can build it out of almost anything. Most of the software is community driven. The ideas are community driven. The leaders are the community, not any one company. The hardware is commodity. I can't even name one when pushed to; I don't use any cluster software I had to buy, and the vendors who made my hardware are pretty much incidental - I could have used anyone. And that answer to the first question makes the subsequent questions even more impossible to answer. Looks like I don't get the video iPod. :-) Tim


text:
by Elisabeth Torg
Eric Toensmeier has a vision for how we can take better care of the planet. He's a plant guy — a permaculturist to be exact — and he believes that the solution to climate change lies not only in clean energy, solar panels and wind turbines, but also in leafy greens and how we grow them. In other words, if we change the way we farm and grow food, then we can sequester carbon, slow climate change and address other world problems at the same time. Problems like feeding people and the disparities between the rich and the poor.
An award-winning author who writes about permaculture (that's short for permanent agriculture) and perennial plants, Toensmeier's first two books, "Perennial Vegetables" and "Edible Forest Gardens," have received multiple awards, including the American Horticultural Society Garden Book of the Year, the Foreward Magazine Home and Garden Gold Medal Book of the Year Award and the Garden Writer's Association Silver Medal. And on May 11 of this year, an interview with Eric was aired on National Public Radio in Boston.
His most recent book, "Paradise Lot: Two Plant Geeks, One-Tenth of an Acre and the Making of an Edible Garden Oasis in the City," was recently featured in The New York Times in garden writer Anne Raver's article, "Their Trip to Bountiful" (New York Times Home and Garden section, Feb. 13, 2013).
As a permaculturist, Toensmeier studies the interrelationships between different plant species and understands how to create carefully designed ecosystems that are self-sustaining, pest-resistant and food producing. He believes that the solution to saving the planet is by changing both the types of crops we grow and the way we plant them. In essence, he wants to turn the globe into "an edible paradise." "Perennial and regenerative food production systems have tremendous potential to help stabilize global climate and provide fair access to food," writes Toensmeier.
The prolific 42-year-old author currently resides in Holyoke, Massachusetts, but his childhood roots are in the Chestnut Hill area. Raised Quaker as a member of Plymouth Monthly Meeting, he grew up in Lafayette Hill and attended Plymouth Meeting Friends School (PMFS) for 5th and 6th grades and then Germantown Friends School (GFS) for 8th grade through 12th, graduating in 1989.
It was as a PMFS fifth grader that Toensmeier participated in a week-long program at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education (SCEE) with his classmates. Pick up "Paradise Lot," and you'll find mention of that SCEE experience. In the introduction, he describes his first magic spot moment. "This simple exercise as a child sparked my curiosity and wonder for the natural world for years to come," he writes.
"That was through Plymouth Meeting Friends School. That was the start of a lot of things for me." He shares that in addition to learning outside the classroom, the experience was "not just learning names of plants, but about the relationships between plants and animals and the role they play in ecosystems."
At GFS, Toensmeier remembers having the opportunity to pursue his interest in plants and the natural world at a deeper level. He took coursework in biology, ecology and more. Thirty years after his SCEE experience, ecosystems are what Toensmeier's work is all about. The garden in "Paradise Lot" is one such ecosystem. Toensmeier and his permaculture partner, Jonathan Bates, converted a barren, rubble-strewn lot in Holyoke, Massachusetts into an "edible garden oasis." Over 160 varieties of edible plants grow there, including pawpaws, Asian pears, gooseberries, edible flowers and more. Now Toensmeier, his wife Marikler Giron Toensmeier, a native of Guatemala, and Bates' family share the garden. (The Toensmeiers have one son, Daniel, 16 months.)
Today, Toensmeier travels the world to give workshops and lectures about sustainable agriculture, edible landscapes and edible forests. He presents information on perennial food production systems to groups ranging from Mexican agronomists, Mayan villagers, seed bank directors, urban farmers and aspiring permaculture entrepreneurs. To date he has educated about 1500 to 2000 farmers on sustainable agricultural practices.
Some of his workshops are held in the Philadelphia area. Twice a year, spring and fall, Toensmeier offers workshops in West Chester. (See his website for his schedule). The next book on the horizon focuses on carbon farming.
Toensmeier learned recently that part of the fifth grade curriculum at Plymouth Meeting Friends School includes learning about food sustainability issues and the connection between farming practices and climate change. "As they grow up," he said, "they get to decide how we run the world and feed people. We can do it in good ways or bad ways. Getting educated early will help with that conversation. They are going down the right road."
Eric's book is available on amazon.com for $9.99 (Kindle edition) or $16.23 (paperback). For more information, visit www.perennialsolutions.org or call 413-695-6115.
Elisabeth Torg is a freelance writer with over 25 years of professional writing and communications experience. Her work has been published in the book, magazine, newspaper, newsletter, and web markets. She lives in Chestnut Hill with her husband and two daughters. Elisabeth's home garden includes only two perennials — strawberries and mint. With only 1/3 of her garden planted as of late April, she is starting to appreciate the wisdom of Eric's focus on perennial fruits and vegetables.


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Amazon could be about to buy webOS from HP according to sources in the US.
"A well-placed source tells us that HP is currently looking to rid itself of Palm as soon as possible, and that Amazon is the closest to finalising the deal, among a handful of contenders," explains business focused website Venturebeat.com.
HP bought Palm last year for $1.2bn, but has had a rough time with the company and its operating system.
That rough time culminated in HP halting sales of its webOS tablet, the HP Touchpad, and webOS smartphones shortly after launch after they failed to ignite an Apple and Android loving public into switching.
Since then the industry has been looking to see who would buy the business be it the hardware or the operating system that has failed to attract developers.
Names have included HTC, Samsung, Qualcomm and now the latest in the rumour pot Amazon.
According to Venturebeat's sources and a healthy dose of speculation, Amazon is the perfect partner for a number of reasons.
The first is that such a deal might be possible as Palm's former CEO, Jon Rubinstein (who is now at HP), is on the board at Amazon.
The second is that The Kindle Fire has been so heavily customized from Android that they might as well use an OS like webOS.
And thirdly an off the cuff remark to tech site Thisismynext.com earlier in the summer pulls the rumours together nicely:
"So, we'd like a partner that would allow us to expand the webOS ecosystem… There's a variety of different sets of a characteristics to qualify as a good partner. I would say Amazon would certainly make a great partner, because they have a lot of characteristics that would help them expand the webOS ecosystem. As to whether there's been discussions or not… that's obviously not something I'm going to comment about," Rubinstein said in July.
That those three together, a bit of guess work, and some rumouring and you get the confirmation that Amazon will buy webOS for its Kindle devices of tomorrow allowing it to dodge having to use Google at all.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.
Amazon could be about to buy webOS from HP according to sources in the US.


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This Is a Huge Week for LGBT Equality!
March 26, 2013
This article was provided by the National Minority AIDS Council; Paul Kawata is the organization's executive director.
This is a watershed week for the LGBT community and its allies. The Supreme Court is considering two cases on marriage equality -- the first a challenge to California's Proposition 8 and the second a challenge to Section 3 of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Considerable -- and merited -- attention has been devoted to the fairness, dignity, and equality at stake in these cases. And while these reasons alone should be sufficient to ensure same-sex couples' right to marry, it is important to note that marriage equality also promotes LGBT health and strengthens our ability to combat HIV/AIDS.
Marriage is unequivocally a health issue. A study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that gay men in Massachusetts were in better physical and mental health after that state became the first to recognize same-sex marriage in 2003. Notably, researchers concluded that both partnered and single gay men in Massachusetts experienced health benefits to the tune of a 13 percent reduction in clinic visits for medical problems in the 12 months after the marriage law passed. Another report published in the American Journal of Public Health held that legally married gay men are less likely to be depressed, a key factor influencing HIV vulnerability. These findings suggest that when institutionalized forms of stigma are eliminated, such as gay marriage bans, a reduction of intolerance and the frequency of mental health stressors that gay men experience follow.
Nearly 7,000 gay men die of AIDS each year in America, while nearly 30,000 become newly infected. The potential for same-sex marriage to ameliorate new HIV infection rates among gay men, by legally affirming committed unions and removing codified intolerance to impact public perception of gays, should be heralded by all supporters of same-sex marriage. The public and individual health benefits associated with reduced stigma accompanying legalized same-sex marriage should complement arguments for fairness and equality so regularly espoused by national gay rights groups. We hope that supporters of same-sex marriage will also cite the attending health benefits to gay marriage and its contribution to reducing gay and bisexual men's chances of contracting HIV. While fairness and dignity are undeniably core components of marriage equality, treating gay men unequally has lasting repercussions on their health and vulnerability to HIV.
Personally, I never thought the Supreme Court would hear a case on marriage equality in my lifetime. I also never thought I would have the opportunity to vote for, and witness the first African American president take the oath of office. If these two milestones can be achieved during my life, I cannot help but wonder if I will have the similar fortune to witness an end to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The last five years have offered unprecedented moments to reflect on our role and contribution to our country's progress: What are you doing to support marriage equality? What are you doing to ensure equality for all Americans, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity? And what are you doing to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic?
Yours in the struggle,
Paul Kawata
Executive Director
National Minority AIDS Council
More From This Resource Center
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Do HIV-Negative Gay Men Need Condoms if They're on PrEP? Here's What I Tell My Patients
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adding your comment, please read TheBody.com's Comment Policy.)


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A panel of top US experts on Taiwan has praised President Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) cross-strait policies, but warned that contingency plans were needed in case China should suddenly turn aggressive.
"Ma and Taiwan may not be ready for political talks, but the other side is sure interested in moving in that direction," former US deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia Randall Schriver said.
He said that in relations with China, Ma's plan was to deal with easy issues first and "the hard stuff" later.
However, there was a growing lobby in China that argued Beijing had given Ma a lot and that it was now time for him to reciprocate.
"As we get closer to the end of Ma's term, particularly if the polls remain where they are at, you can see a great deal of pressure coming from Beijing to move in the direction of political talks, not just to institutionalize what has been accomplished," Schriver said.
China will want to go further and "lock something in" before Ma leaves office, he said.
The panel was meeting at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Tuesday to assess the videoconference given earlier in the week by Ma and which was hosted by former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice at Stanford University.
Schriver stressed that Ma did not talk about China's military buildup during his videoconference.
"Despite all the progress, the agreements and the improved political environment, the military buildup has continued and not retreated in the slightest," Schriver said.
"You can see the potential for an unhealthy dynamic," he added.
Schriver said that Ma had broken with a pattern set in other videoconferences to the US and had not mentioned the sale of any specific weapons systems.
"I think Taiwan would benefit from some of the major systems, like F-16C/Ds or submarines," he said.
"If you look at how long Taiwan could hold out should there be conflict, that period of time is moving in the wrong direction and we need to arrest that and deal with it," Schriver added.
Professor of international affairs at George Washington University Robert Sutter said that Taiwan depended on China holding to a steady course in cross-strait relations.
However, Chinese actions in foreign affairs were constantly changing and shifting, he added.
"I am nervous about this," Sutter said
Sutter added that China was showing a new pattern of assertiveness along its eastern rim, as witnessed on the Korean Peninsula as well as Vietnam, the East China Sea and the South China Sea, the Philippines and Japan.
"China is using coercion and it is using intimidation and it is often extralegal," Sutter said. "It is not something that is in line with international norms. Taiwan should keep this in its calculations because we will see more of it."
"The leaders of China have a sense that they have been taken advantage of by the leaders of these countries along the periphery. They don't want it to continue," he added. "Ma should get ready for a China that is determined to be a bit more tough on key issues."
"We are dealing with a rising China that is more assertive in a whole range of sensitive areas. I don't want to be a nay-sayer, but this is something that needs to be dealt with," Sutter said. "I would be careful, folks, this is something that is around the corner."
Sutter said it was a situation that the US and President Ma needed "contingency plans" for to deal with.


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Logo handmade by Bannister
Column by Scott Green
Manga Spotlight: Ghost Talker's Daydream
Volume 5
Story by Okuse Saki
Art by Meguro Sankichi
Released by Dark Horse
Ghost Talker's Daydream lands squarely on of my target manga interests. Where many "horror" manga just leverage genre tropes, Okuse Saki is a career horror writer, with works like Twilight of the Dark Master and Yato no Kamitsukai - released by Tokyopop as Blood Sucker. Rather than action with vampires or the like, Ghost Talker actually aims to disturb its reader. More than that, its particularly transgressive take on dead wet girl "J-Horror" is written for, if not adult, at least older audiences.
The number of North Americans with those interests who buy manga is slight, not supporting many releases. So, I'm happy to some extent whenever I see a manga like this released in North America. I'm less than thrilled that the often lacking Ghost Talkers is one of the few survivors left representing the genre. It lacks humanity; being brutal in a way that more often feels cruel than meaningful. And, it lacks cohesion; offering a composite of elements that neither effectively mixes its elements nor capitalizes on the contrast. That one of its distinguishing characteristics is a flaunted, leery sexuality doesn't inflate my opinion either.
That said, it's gotten better. It's calmed down its juvenile sense of humor and it's started using its AHDH as a strength.
Our Ghost Talker was largely absent from the last volume. As the dominatrix/medium Misaki vacationed, the slack she left behind got rather tangled. Investigating a string suicides that were either suspect or supernaturally problematic, Detective Gada responded with violence and a drugged medium, while the results that Misaki's partner, bureaucrat/incongruously martial arts bad-ass Kadotake Souichirou manages with the EPSer he ropes equally rather ugly. This time around, the still dizzied investigations cross paths with the still off-the-clock Misaki. The joint effort hardly yield better results. Little good comes of the encounters with the bloated, water logged restless dead. But, disaster and highly mitigated success turn out to suitable.
The manga has maintained its strengths. In particular Meguro Sankichi can do disquieting, with naked, morbid forms finding troubling spots to lurk. And, it still has its questionable qualities. It skids around. Here's an Initial D street racing reference. There's a fist fight. And, I don't trust Ghost Talker's handle on touchy issues, whether the subject concern is bullying or its frequently approached gender/sexual identity matters. It is quicker to evoke than intelligently delve into, better at sparking flames than cooking with the fire. But, the story has caught up with the quality. Cluster *expletive* isn't a bad mode for horror to operate in, and despite Misaki getting into a geared up rally, still the results here are bowling shoe ugly. The complement of disturbingly unordered situation and chaotic storytelling has begun to shape a suitably fright-inebriated horror.
Manga Spotlight: Chi's Sweet Home
Volumes 3 and 4
By Konami Kanata
Released by Vertical
Is "winningest" reserved for sports, or can it be applied to manga too? If so, Chi's Sweet Home might be a contender for that title.
One of manga's claims to fame is that it can convince its audiences to be interested in a subject they would normally avoid. Hence, the hit manga about wine (Drops of Gods; wine is a beverage that has not been historically popular in Japan), or the Shonen Jump series about American sports like basket ball (Slam Dunk) or football (Eyeshield 21) .
Chi's is about cats. Or, specifically the lost kitten Chi, taken in by a couple and their young son. This really isn't an unusual subject for manga. Plenty of manga artists and manga readers are cat fans, so, cat manga is hardly a rarity. Even horror master Junji Ito (Tomie, Uzumaki) wrote a jokingly disturbing semi-autobiographical one. Personally, I'm indifferent to animals and disinclined to be interested in manga about them. The two times that I've sat down to read chunks of Chi's, I approached it with a cold regard. It didn't immediately warm me up either. But, as good manga is able to do, both times, I was eventually won over.
In the scope of manga's aims, Chi's falls into a particular niche. It's an all ages comfort series.
Chi's ran in the anthology Morning, which is ostensibly for older male audience, but, in practice as eclectic as any. Morning has run Makoto Kobayashi's cat based What's Michael?, published in North America by Dark Horse and the first manga to be nominated for Eisner Award. That series mixed Chi style pet stories, with more anthropomorphic ones, with more bizarre or pop-culture parody comedy sequences. And, Morning is the anthology that housed perennial kids' recommendation Gon; Masashi Tanaka's wordless, painstakingly rendered nature studies, humorously intruded upon by a micro t-rex. However, it's also home to soccer title Giant Killer, the anime of which is streaming in North America, Monster/20th Century Boys creator Naoki Urasawa's look at the significance of symbols, Billy Bat, Youji Fukuyama's manga version of Don Giovanni, Kaiji Kawaguchi's provocative look at World War II Zipang, Go Nagai's older audience revisitation of a classic Devilman Lady, Takehiko Inoue's much praised look at the life of "Sword Saint" Miyamoto Musashi, Vagabond, Moebius and Jiro Taniguchi's Icaro, Mkoyoko Anno's look at the life of a career woman, Hataraki Man , and many other notables.
There have been situations where publishers have been burned trying to market manga to younger readers than the publication's original demographics, particularly involving works from Morning's sister publication, Afternoon. But, the idea of Chi's turning sexual or violent is laughable. Frederik Schodt noted in Manga! Manga! that Morning's slogan is Yomu to genki ni naru - "You'll feel great if you read it."That's basically the simple operating principle of Chi's.
Chi's rhythm charms. Each story is about eight pages, and might feature the cat and boy trying to be held still for a photograph, or Chi's nails being clipped, an encounter with a dog or the like. There are consistent mannerisms. There's definitely a discernable personality to the kitten. While Chi acts like Chi, the manga does not fall into a bad comic strip routine grind. Even as it capitalizes on its simplicity, Chi's has its own narrative continuity.
The manga establishes the threat that Chi's family can be evicted for breaking their apartment complex's prohibition against pets. While that's a familiar parameter for situation comedy, Chi's antics, especially the explorations with the block's older black cat really do seem to be escalating over the course of the volume. At the same time, while this potential for consequence is a catalyst, Kanata manages to avoid shifting the manga's light simplicity such that reading Chi's never feels terribly pressing.
I don't love cats, or the bundle of ideas and traits that they've come to represent. And yet, after a couple of stories, I find Chi's to be cheering and comforting. The well observed credibility and creativity that Kanata brings to episodes of a little kitty doing little kitty things, whether it's pawing at a piece of fried chicken or interpreting a thumbing noise as being caused by a sort of drooling dog centipede, is winningly darling. Effectively, the manga distills why people have affection for critters.
Manga Spotlight: Blade of the Immortal
Volume 23: Scarlet Swords
By Hiroaki Samura
Release by Dark Horse
For better or worse, Blade of the Immortal is no longer in the dungeons of Hiraoki Samura's interests. On one hand, I don't feel entirely great about the excitement to welcome back Blade of the Immortal's battle royale of exotic swordsmen after Samura's highly exceptional exploration of the human potential for horror in the more bolted down, remarkably subversive even by Blade of the Immortal standards, the Prison Arc. Then again, this is Samura, and what Blade of the Immortal does is still brilliantly abnormal. It's still quite a particular, political take on period action, and still incomparable in a way that makes this scrapping, long running (been released in North America since 1996) manga vigorously competitive in the crowded action media landscape.
Blade of the Immortal is reliable for its "wow, THIS happened" scenes. Even in its less action driven phases, you can regularly describe some moments of Blade of the Immortal and reflect a bit of their amazing spectacle. While it does boast an impressive set piece turned duel, Scarlet Swords doesn't have much in the way of those on paper, out of context marvels. And yet, there's still enough emblems, ninja gadgets and uniquely designed swords to establish the manga's appeal.
The new story line it still showing signs of mustering and drawing battle lines. What the volume does feature is a bit of vanguard action, with slow walks and old weapons unearthed. Old favorites inch onto the scene while newer operative begin showing what they're capable of.
True to the dynamic nature of the manga, in what's supposedly its final stages, Blade of the Immortal is driven by a fight between once object of the series' vengeance hunt Kagehisa Anotsu backed by his once-series antagonist renegade swords school itto-ryu and government heavy puppet master Habaki Kagimura with his own cadre of ninja and freaks, the now-renegade Rokki-dan. The title's immortal swordsman is largely sidelined, and, ever the target of lectures intended for the audience, it's pointed out that the girl he was to protect, along with another sub 90lb, knife armed young woman were the ones who recently saved the day by storming Edo Castle.
Samura has shown every sign of being restless in his approach to Blade of the Immortal, with little interest in perpetually doing what made Blade of the Immortal popular on day one. The manga is back to featuring oddly armed, oddly behaved individuals hunting each other to resolve matters on swords' edges, and yet, even beyond the fact that many of the current set of hunters and queries haven't populated Blade for too long, the manga is still mutating. Exemplifying how the manga is back to square one, in a completely reworked way, the long absent death murals, extravagantly depicting the fatal results of a settled conflict make a return... after a fashion... with a kimono blanketed sexual mural.
Beyond the headier elements of Blade of the Immortal, that sometimes seem profound and, sometimes seem maybe there just to keep Samura himself interested, if you just want a violent story, there's nothing better. Samura changes focus, changes subtext and experiments, but his manga continues to distinguish itself with precise, artistic rendering, anarchic battles and rebellious sentiments. Beyond the visual strength of Samura's work, beyond his proclivities to overload the conflict with some interesting political implications, Blade of the Immortal is simply a top action serial. Except maybe in that intentionally frustrating Prison chapter, Blade is consistently satisfying. In each phase, Samura makes the point he wants to make. Sure, plot threads tether current events to future ones, but he doesn't rely on the readers faith that what he is developing will pay off down the road. Rather than teasers and dangling, incomplete ideas, the momentum that carries Blade of the Immortal forward is the enticement to read more.
This commencement of Blade of the Immortal's new, possibly final chapter, gives every indication that Blade will continue to be the primary manga to read if you have any interest in its domain of wandering warriors, ninja and the like.
Manga Spotlight: Gantz
Volume 15
by Hiroya Oku
Released by Dark Horse
Gantz was recently the subject of plenty of internet chatter thanks to the one-night cross-country screening of its live action adaptation. I question the point of producing live action adaptations of manga like Gantz, or, it has never been put on the table, but if it were, I would, Black Lagoon. Manga like that make it their mission to out-do Hollywood blockbusters. Attempting to hold a mirror to the magnifying lens is bound to either blur the picture or prove redundant.
Informed by movies like Die Hard, Oku has been quick to establish a counterpoint to Gantz's spectacles. Much of that has been a function of making its teenage protagonist Kei Kurono and the rest of the cast of unlikely action heroes/anti-heroes appear vulnerable. After 14 volumes of people being given sci-fi accoutrements and sent into the street of Japan to bleed or worse, Kurono and company have figured out how to start winning the game. So, Gantz has shifted its track towards different stakes, threatening wider consequences and not just mortal dangers.
With the need to establish what Kurono cares about, or, given his history, that he is actually capable of caring, Gantz takes a step back to invest in the character and his relationships. This involves the elimination of any doubt that Gantz would be trading in unadulterated wish fulfillment. More is being done with Kurono's geeky (a manga artist), but very cute girlfriend. And, beyond that, a popular idol/comrade in arms, has fallen for him, such that the two are even appearing in tabloids... a sort of status achievement that would be unthinkable in early Gantz.
This direction yields a novel volume of Gantz. For probably the first time in the manga's run, the volume lacks begging to be recounted wow moments. The rumble between spandex super-suited gantz resurrectees and the Tarantino talking nano-tech vampires is wrapped up surprisingly quickly, and I'm guessing that the abruptness was to deny the audience for a change. The titanic Death Dealer looking aliens had the makings of one of Gantz's "hell yeah!" confrontations, but they're quickly shown the exit. There's a point being made by the rapid egress, but it might have been nice if it wasn't something as cool looking as the Death Dealers being sacrificed to make it.
With Kurono holding his own against Gantz's old rule, the manga has turned to new ways to screw with the hero and, through that proxy, the reader. As such, Gantz 15 is the rare, maybe first, volume of the series that appears to lead to something more exciting than it is in and of itself.
Manga Spotlight: Genkaku Picasso
by Usamaru Furuya
Volume 1
Released by VIZ Media
After reading manga for a while, some of my reactions have gotten a bit muted. My jaw with drop at bad decisions, but I don't think I'm sledgehammered as I once was by simply WTF manga. While Genkaku Picasso is Usamaru Furuya work with some training wheels on it, when I stop to think about it art/psychoanalysis manga Genkaku Picasso is strikingly odd.
With underground verve, Furuya takes a outsider stance as he lobs pot shots at popular culture. At its best, as jokes loop back on themselves, the humor is darkly clever and not just malcontent. Cute things are really dark, and yet, rather than a bleak nihilistism, there's often ultimately something to smirk about.
Until recently, regrettably little of Usamaru Furuya's bitingly weird work made it to North America. A sample of his Palepoli coming strips, featuring subjects like a pair of boys setting Jesus to fight against a stag beetle, made it from the avant-garde anthology Garo into Secret Comics Japan. His Short Cuts strips, featuring an excoriation of the ko-gal sub-culture among other trends, was released by Viz's defunct mature audience Pulp label. Post earth quake survival manga 51 Ways to Save Her a is lamented loss from the CMX shutdown. But, the lack of Furuya is being rectified. Beyond Genkaku Picasso, Vertical is slated to release his Lychee Light Club and manga adaptation of Osamu Dazai's novel No Longer Human.
Genkaku Picasso ran in Jump SQ, a slightly odder, slightly more fantastically inclined monthly in the Jump family (of shonen mega-hits like Dragon Ball and Naruto fame) . Jump SQ, has also featured one-off work by popular, established manga authors like CLAMP's Gate7, Yasuhiro Nightow's Kekkai Sensou and Akira Toriyama and Masakazu Katsura's Sachie-chan Guu!!
17 year old Hikari "Picasso" Haruma is introduced sitting in the back of his class drawing. Though he is teased for it, his classmates' jabs are mostly good natured, and thanks to his bad reactions, his alienation is largely self inflicted. The one connection he has is to attractive classmate Chiaki Yamamoto. The two spend their afternoons on the river bank with Chiaki reading books on psychology or the like while "Picasso" sketches. It's during one of those outing when the two are struck down by... what's the inverse of a miracle? Against all probability, a helicopter drops out of the sky, onto the pair. Chiaki dies... Picasso winds up, not quite dead.
After life returns to semi-normal, as Picasso morns Chiaki, a mini-angelic version of the girl appears and informs him that unless he can do good in the world, his body will rot away. Stopping to considered a troubled peer, he begins sketching out a surreal scene, featuring a tiny figure on a crumbling ledge, a titanic man carrying a bound sack looming above him, a giant wall with a similarly immense scale bird peering over boxing the scene in, and a carnival down bellow. With Chiaki's help, Picasso begins trying to figure out how this art can clue him into solving his classmate's troubles.
There are the makings of a remarkably smart, thinking manga here. Early on, Picasso presents the idea that art is an expression of insight. That would seem to set up the manga along the lines of interpreting images and, at the same time, the psyche of the person who inspired it. This is perfect for manga: a sequential, narrative visual medium that allows its reader to stop is consider a single image as long as they desire. Elevated by Usamaru Furuya's skill at rendering the surreal and trangressive, Genkaku Picasso could have encourage the reader to stop, think and interpret the images themselves . That would have been a unique approach to conventions of manga about teen personal problems.
Unfortunately, Genkaku Picasso prompts more head shakes than head use. The problems are both conventional and particular. The manga uses the frequently used anime/manga reductive approach that there's an identifiable pivot point to personalities/problem's development. That simplification is fair enough if the manga is driven by discovering the source of its subjects woe. In practice, it's less about Picasso and Chiaki deducing than it is them lobbing guesses at what, in many cases, they have no reasonable expectation of knowing. Often, their sensible, relevant to reader guess prove far off the mark.
In his comedy manga Usamaru Furuya joined the familiar with the outlandish to great effect. Here, he throws in the uninteresting, but bizarre at inappropriate times. He doesn't succeed in making the problems ones with which the reader can indentify. And, he doesn't succeed in making the problems so exotic that the pronounced strangeness becomes part of the appeal. Instead, the subjects have issues that are laughably weird in such a way that one has to question the author. Or, they're sketchy in a way that, again, one has to question the author.
If Genkaku Picasso is as subversive as a Usamaru Furuya fan might want from one of his manga, then it's approaching that aim in a difficult to detect, terribly meta way. Maybe the oddity would be enough, and it would work better if you're a younger, fresher manga reader. It really is strange, and maybe the less jaded one is, the more effecting Genkaku Picasso would be. However, compared to what Usamaru Furuya is capable of, and compared to what the manga itself sets up to be, Genkaku Picasso is disappointingly uninvolving.
Manga Spotlight: Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan
by Hiroshi Shiibashi
Released by Viz Media
To be a bit reductive for a moment, Naru Rise of the Yokai is the Shonen Jump version of Casper the Friendly Ghost... or, maybe, an updated version of Gegege no Kitaro. As it opens, its subject is a child of the supernatural world who basically just wants to make nice to the normals, despite the expectations that he'll carry fear into the world. In practice, it's both a lot better and as problematic as that sounds.
The Japanese title for this series is Nurarihyon's Grandchild; Nurarihyon being an elongated headed old-man like being from the Japanese yokai supernatural folklore, known for inviting himself into human company to partake in tea, food or other niceties, and, because he acts like he's the boss, he's the head of the yokai congregation known as the Hyakki Yako or Night Parade of One Hundred Demons.
Rikuo Nura is the 3/4th human grandson of Nurarihyon, and heir to the Nura Group, a yokai syndicate that controls Japan's Kanto region. The twelve year old lives in a mansion full of snake women, ice spirits, crow men, sandals come to life, various goblins, floating heads and the like. He'd mostly like this host of strange beings to keep a low profile so that he can live a normal human life, by normal human rules and have normal, human friends. Yet, when rebellious yokai get out of line or yokai factional turf wars spill over, Rikuo is able to transform into his temporary, fear inspiring night alter ego.
Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan has appealing elements to work with.
It effectively evokes the fascinating qualities of the nightmare weirdness of the yokai. In theory, familiarity should undercut the draw of this sort of class of exotic spirits. And, they are familiar. Yokai forms have largely become standardized, and if you catch much Japanese pop media from Pokemon to Inu-Yasha, you've seen what you see here. The manga looks back to the classic scroll illustrations of yokai, and all the manga the had already looked back to those illustrations. Hiroshi Shiibashi doesn't put a personal spirit into the spirits the way that greats like Shigeru Mizuki do either. But, fundamentally, yokai are marked by their disconcerting physical elements, such as animal features, missing, extra or split off body parts and the like; and Shiibashi knows how to work violation of natural order. And, more importantly, he introduces a sufficient degree of personality to the yokai design. The creatures each have a spark of individuality.
An evident formula is laid out in Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan. Like the yokai design it's familiar. It's a customized version of text book action serial stuff. And, like the design, it looks successful if not inventive. Beyond the host of allies, the hero is accompanied by an odd pair of assistant/underlings, specifically an ice spirit and a hulking, violent fire. I can't help thinking of a Shonen Jump yokai Shadow or Doc Savage. There's two sides of a conflict working together with a yokai banishing onmyouji mystic in Rikuo's class, seemingly set up to be an uneasy partner his efforts. In that case, I can't help thinking of Batman and Catwoman. With all the evident internal politics and conflicts between the yokai clans, there seems plenty of material to run through this formula. Hopefully, even if it's not entirely covering new ground, the mileage it gets out of the yokai clan conflict will mean that it will not entirely need to resort to the Jump-overdone tournaments.
Unfortunately, there are elements that don't' fall into this fun, if unexceptional, set up. One of the chief issues seems likely to be mitigated. The other, the series might be stuck with.
Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan launches along the lines of shonen manga that involve school, plus something else. Rikuo is in school, and he has to deal with an adolescent's school problems... bullies, girls and the like; plus, he's 1/4 yokai and has to deal with the supernatural world. Unlike picking up the adventure standards or the yokai standards, picking up the school conflict standards doesn't made for an exciting addition to the series. Jhonen Vasquez mentioned on an Invader Zim commentary track that he wanted to take the series off Earth and into space, while Nickelodeon wanted it more grounded in school. He mused, what would kids rather watch, adventures in space, or characters stuck in classrooms? What's good about Rikuo in school is mostly just smirk inducing at best and doesn't outweigh the problems that the school bits are largely dull in and of themselves, and, less interesting than the yokai conflicts.
Given how deemphasized the school aspect was in a sampling of the first three episode of the anime adaptation suggests that this flaw was recognized, and maybe correctly in manga itself.
Probably more intractable, while Rikuo's circumstances are interesting, he isn't. The unexceptional yokai Rikuo fails to offset the dull human one. In his bespectacled every-kid schoolboy form, he's not much to look at. In his long, silver haired, traditionally garbed yokai form, he's still one of the least attention commanding supernatural beings on stage. Unlike other unassuming/super heroic characters, Kenshin and the like, the effect of him in the midst of a confrontation is not memorable... Literally, I couldn't remember. On a refresher, it proved to be mostly posturing with a host of yokai in the background. So, the hero is the comparatively normal looking one in the middle of the colorful ghoulies. Nor is Rikuo particularly endearing. He lives in a mansion, the master of a clan of yokai. A kid, or even an adult, is apt to feel at bit jealous of him. Since Rikuo is put off my the place and its residents and the yokai Rikuo appears lordly, the characters seems slightly spoiled rather than sympathetic.
With the yokai mythology laid over the right gears to keep an action serial running, Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan has the making of a strong second tier Shonen Jump. Even if the lead doesn't have the pull to make it another Dragon Ball, Naruto or One Piece, it appears ready to provide plenty of formula entertainment.
Manga Spotlight: Bunny Drop
Volume 2
By Yumi Unita
Released by Yen Press
There's a scene in Durarara!! in which a couple of pathological otaku muse about adopting a cute daughter like the eponymous manga star Yotusba. This isn't necessarily creepy in a pedo way. It's a male and female set of geeks who, at least in the anime, are pretty much asexual. Instead, what's off putting about the mention is how the it points to the idealized notion, not unique to DRRR and Yotsuba, that children are simply embodiments of energetic innocence.
Bunny Drop is an antidote to this 2D notion of kids, and it also contrasts ideas presented in manga like Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys, which is rightly praised, but again, subject to an idealized version of parenthood, especially unconventional parenthood, in which the hero's adult actions taking adult responsibility for his sister's abandoned infant daughter registers as a sign of messianic potential.
At the funeral for the old man, Daikichi discovers that his grandfather had a secret, illigitimate six year old daughter. With the family in a fuss over this apparent black mark, and not endeared to the sullen little girl, Daikichi objects to their dehumanization of the child and then, after telling them off, shocks the family by taking her in.
Bunny Drop begins contending with the complexities and responsibilities that are necessary and rewarding, but also difficult and unheroic. Daikichi has to figure out how to arrange for her needs: get her into school, and more crucially, figure out how a 30 year old man can arrange his career in such a way to be there where/when the child requires his presence. At the same time, though the child, Rin is precocious, she is still a child. From night terrors to shyness to peer pressure, things get to her.
As life goes on in Bunny Drop's second volume, matters are put in order. Rin is listed as the grandfather's adopted child. It was Daikichi's maternal grandfather, so, she has the same name as his living uncle, but not Daikichi himself; an issue that leads to some concerns. Daikichi also finds a cable modem while cleaning out his grandfather's apartment. And, while taking care of Rin, being mindful not to upset her, Daikichi begins following the clues to track down Rin's mother.
Bunny Drop is not some mystery drama. The mother search is in the background. And, with a harried Daikichi, neither the character nor the manga itself have the time or interest in hooking Daikichi up with obvious matches, such as his single mom neighbor.
Despite the gender of its lead, Bunny Drop is josei; written by a woman, and serialized in an anthology for women (Feel Young, home of Moyoko Anno's Happy Mania - one of the first josei to be released in North America). Despite some attempts to correct it, representation of that manga segment in North America is slight. As such, Bunny Drop is offering a sharp take on perspective and concerns that don't recieve much attention in the English language manga landscape.
Even among josei, Bunny Drop is distinctive. Balancing personal and professional life is some of the most common grist for the genre. That the subject is male, and that balancing is actually sacrificing in the name of responsibility is something different
Though intriguing, wading into the gender politics of Bunny Drop without the proper cultural familiarity looked treacherous in the first volume. Volume two elaborates on the concerns, making them more evident, and, in doing so, making the series more provocative. More so, because while the issues are more resoundingly dropped on the table, the characters are complicated people and not simply standard bearers.
Down to the TV that they watch Daikichi's parents are decidedly old fashion, and yet, they aren't the villains who initially reacted badly to Rin. His mother in particular has a remarkably multi-faceted relationship to feminism. Daikichi's sister voices the perspective of a younger person who, more than being unwilling to sacrifice a career to raise a child, simply doesn't want a kid to crimp their lifestyles. Though at the same time, the observation is made that Daikichi and hia sisters are themselves no longer as young as they like to think they are. Feminism, responsibility and age start feeding into each other in a relevant, interesting dynamic.
The ultimate introduction of Rin's mother turns out to be quite the thought provoker. Knowing that she abandoned her child sets her up to be judged. Daikichi certainly works up some righteous anger. Yet, meeting her, and in particular, learning her occupation sets up a more nuanced consideration.
It's gratifying that a Production I.G (Ghost in the Shell) animated Bunny Drop adaptation is planned for Noitamina, a programming block that seeks to air anime that appeal to audiences traditionally not served by the medium. Manga and anime are joined that the hip. That doesn't mean that they're twins. While there is plenty of manga for a spectrum of ages and interests, anime is largely for kids and anime fans. And, so much of the latter is couched in the arrested development of geeks getting to be geeks. Like anime, manga in North America is largely for self-identifying fans. As such, it's remarkable to get a work about people unglamorously struggling with their responsibilities. Drama and joy do exist in Bunny Drop, but it's the questions that the manga provokes about raising children and being a productive member of society that make it a particularly compelling point on the English manga landscape.
Upcoming in North America (and Other English Speaking Territories)
British Museum Press is selling an English edition of Professor Munakata's British Museum Adventure, the archeology manga by sci-fi creator Yukinobu Hoshino
Bandai Entertainment
Bandai Entertainment announced the specs today for April 7, 2011 release of Mobile Suit Gundam UC (Unicorn) Vol. 3 "The Ghost of Laplace" Blu-ray.
Mobile Suit Gundam UC (Unicorn) Vol. 3 Blu-ray will be released April 7, 2011.
It will be available at the Bandai Entertainment Store, http://store.bandai-ent.com/and Amazon
Marketplace and other select online retailers. The SRP is $59.98. The pre-order price on the store prior to street date is $39.98. From street date, the Bandai store price will be $44.99.
The episode will also be available as a download rental through PlayStationNetwork and Zune (an entertainment platform by Microsoft for Xbox 360) in the USA and Canada.
The story continues from the last volume.
The detailed specs of the Blu-ray are as follows:
1. Japanese Dolby TrueHD 5.1ch
2. Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0ch
3. English Dolby TrueHD 5.1ch
4. English Dolby Digital 2.0ch
1. Japanes
2. English
3. French
4. Spanish
5. Traditional Mandarin
6. Traditional Cantonese
Dark Horse
Dark Horse will be collaberating Nickelodeon on an Avatar: The Last Airbender series
The first installment of this new series will be released on Free Comic Book Day, May 7, with two introductory short stories—the unpublished tale "Relics" and the iconic Dirty Is Only Skin Deep... This free comic will be packaged with Lucasfilm's Star Wars: The Clone Wars in a special flip-book comic, available only at your local comic book shop.
Avatar: The Last Airbender—The Lost Adventures will be released on July 13. This all-new 240-page comic book contains over 70 pages of never-before-seen material in addition to long-out-of-print comics previously published in Nickelodeon Magazine. With 26 stories set in Airbender continuity and created by a host of top-notch talent, many of whom worked on the original animated series, this is an essential addition to any fan's bookshelf.
Additionally, Dark Horse will create all-new Airbender stories that will be published as digest-style original graphic novels—conveniently sized paperback collections—in early 2012. Picking up where the season three finale left off, this new series will follow the further adventures of Aang and his friends, as they help to rebuild a world torn apart by 100 years of war.
Sentai Filmworks
Sentai Filmworks has picked up by the license to Yumekui Merry, to be released as Dream Eater Merry
Based on the hit manga by Ushiki Yoshitaka, directed by Shigeyasu Yamauchi (Street Fighter Alpha, Boys Over Flowers,) using scripts and story compositions by Hideki Shirane and character designs by Masahiro Fuji (both Hayate the Combat Butler,) the 12 episode DREAM EATER MERRY series rolls out the unique premise of a boy with the ability to predict dreams who becomes the focus of the ambitions of a unique race of demons who use dreams to access our world!
Sometimes daydreaming can get you into trouble, but what do you do when it's OTHER people's dreams that you have to watch out for? For the last 10 years Yumeji Fujiwara's life has been getting progressively stranger, beginning with suddenly gaining the ability to predict what kind of dreams other people will have! Then his own dreams took a bizarre turn in which he was being pursued by armies of cats! Now, however, the weird-o-meter has just maxed out: Not only has Yumeji learned that the leader of the dream cats needs Yumeji's body to access the real world, but a beautiful girl suddenly drops on top of him and announces that she's a Dream Demon who needs to return to HER world! There are a lot of sleepless nights ahead, as Yumeji has to deal with the dream stalking, a dream walking and the little bitty problem of the fabric separating reality and fantasy being torn to shreds in DREAM EATER MERRY!
New and Upcoming in Japan
Satelight's Ikoku Meiro no Croisée
Mai no Mahou
Japan Animation Creators Association's Project A - to air on Japanese TV March 5th
IDA's (Cat Shit One)
Preview for Hiroyasu Ishida's (Fumiko's Confession) new short, Rain Town
Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society 3D
Last Exile ~Ginyoku no Fam~
Gaku - Minna no Yama - live action adaptation of the climbing manga
Latest live action adaptation of Junji Ito's Tomie
Historical figures as anime-esque girls pachinko games Sengoku Otome are getting an actual anime series, Sengoku Otome ~Momoiro Paradox~, scheduled for April
Sunrise will be adapting sci-fi light novels Kyokaisen-jo no Horizon
Girl's basket ball comedy Ro-Kyu-Bu! will also be getting an adaptation
NEET light novel mysteries Kami-sama no Memo-cho will be turned into anime
Sgt Frog is ending its seven year run on March 27th.
"Reverse harem" PSP game series Uta no Prince-sama will be getting an anime series
Shaft's adaptation of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei author Koji Kumeta's earlier Katteni Kaizo will be released as an OVA April 27.
Studio 4°C will be animating a music video based on Hands from Rhymester's Pop Life, to be included with a limited edition of the album
Shinya Tsukamoto's (Tetsuo movies) animated short
Political/military manga writer Kaiji Kawaguchi (Zipang, Eagle, The Silent Service) launched his new manga Hyoma no Hata ~Revolutionary Wars~ (Hyoma's Flag ~Revolutionary Wars~ in Big Comic. The series is about a French educated officer in the Bakumatsu conflict that ending shogun rule
Yukinobu Hoshino (2001 Nights) will be adapting James P. Hogan's Inherit the Stars in Big Comic
After its hiatus and departure from Ultra Jump, Yukito Kishiro's Battle Angel Alita: Last Order will be hitting its new home in Evening in its March issue.
K-on! will be back in Manga Times Kirara this spring.
Makoto Raiku's Zatch Bell is returned for a one shot in Bessatsu Shonen Magazine this March
Live Action
Leiji Matsumoto revealed in an interview that a live action adaptation of his space opera Galaxy Express 999 is in development. The Captain Harlock character is planned to appear in the movie.
His next anime project is Zero Desigze, which be released this year.
The interview appears on Starblazers.com and Otaku USA
Emi Takei will be the lead in the adaptation of an adaptation of josei tech/vocational high school manga Asuko March
Classic masked wrestler manga/anime Tiger Mask will be getting a live action adaptation, slated for a November release. The character, who wrestled to support an orphanage, recently inspired a charity giving trend
Digital Distribution News
Funimation.com has begun streaming Hero Tales, Murder Princess and Strike Witches 2
Anime News Network has begun streaming the dub of Moribito
Gainax's Hokago no Pleiades is now streaming with English subtitles
Viz Media is launching shoujo titles for their iPad manga reader Matsuri Hino's shojo fantasy fairytale, MERUPURI, and NATSUME'S BOOK OF FRIENDS, by Yuki Midorikawa on February 21st.
MERUPURI, Vol. 1 • Rated 'T' for Teens • Available Now!
All high school freshmen Airi Hoshina ever wanted was to someday live in a cozy home with a loving husband and find joy in the little things in life. As a result, she makes it her daily mission to get to school on time because school legend has it that the longer one's non-tardy streak is the better boyfriend one will find. But just when her daily routine is working like clockwork, an occurrence of fairytale proportions threatens to disrupt her grand plan.
NATSUME'S BOOK OF FRIENDS, Vol. 1 • Rated 'T' for Teens •
Available February 21st
Takashi Natsume can see the spirits and demons that hide from the rest of humanity. He has always been set apart from other people because of his gift, drifting from relative to relative, never fitting in. Now he's a troubled high school student who has come to live in the small town where his grandmother grew up. And there he discovers that he has inherited more than just the Sight from the mysterious Reiko.
Additional new manga volumes available by the end of February include:
BLEACH Vol. 8
CAPTIVE HEARTS Vol. 2
CLAYMORE Vol. 3
D. GRAY MAN Vol. 4
DEATH NOTE Vol. 7
DRAGON BALL Vol. 13
MERUPURI Vol. 2
NARUTO Vol. 14
ONE PIECE Vol. 14
OTOMEN Vol. 3
OURON HIGH SCHOOL HOST CLUB Vol. 3
RUROUNI KENSHIN Vol. 7
TORIKO Vol. 2
VAMPIRE KNIGHT Vol. 3
Event News
Takeshi Miike's 13 Assasins will be getting a screening in select cities April 29th
April's Anime Boston will be hosting music acts Visual Kei band girugamesh and STEREOPONY, whose music was using the anime Bleach, Gundam OO and Letter Bee.
Toronto Comic Arts Festival will be hosting manga creator Usamaru Furuya
Usamaru Furuya launched his comics career within the legendary pages of GARO magazine with his debut work Palepoli. He would follow that experimental work by vigorously releasing a number of titles that displayed his elaborate artwork, and exceptional creativity. A unique ability to render a wide range of designs earned him the undying support of readers across the globe. Furuya has penned more than a dozen series since his debut, including – The Lychee Light Club (Vertical, Inc.), Genkaku Picasso (Viz Media), The Children's Crusade, The Music of Marie, Teiichi's Empire, and Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human. Furuya's Lychee Light Club will be receiving a theatrical adaptation in the winter of 2011.
Furuya's work in English includes selections from the manga Palepoli in the anthologies Secret Comics Japan (2000, Viz Media) and Japan Edge (1999, Cadence Books), and his hilarious look inside Japanese youth culture Short Cuts (2 volumes, 2002-2003, Viz Media). 2010 saw the beginning of the publication of his young-adult horror series Genkaku Picasso, part of the Shonen Jump Advanced line from Viz Media. A three-volume series (completing in May 2011), the series' dual settings of a mundane junior-high classroom and the rich inner dream worlds of its young inhabitants perfectly suit Furuya-san's abilities to expertly render reality and fantasy.
The Toronto Comic Arts Festival
At the Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge St.
Saturday May 7th 2011, 9am-5pm
Sunday May 8th 2011, 11am-5pm
Upcoming New People screenings at the Viz Cinema in San Francisco include
Saturday, 2/19 at 5:00pm – ONE NIGHT ONLY!
Tickets: $12.00
(Directed by Kim Ki-duk, Korea, 83min, 2007, Digital, Korean with English subtitles)
On a cold winter day, after learning her husband has found a new woman, Yeon absent-mindedly heads for a prison where an inmate name Jin is confined. Although she doesn't know him personally, repeated news of his suicide attempts on TV have subconsciously grown in her mind which now is leading her to seek him. Jin has no visitors and normally would not agree to meet a complete stranger, but hearing that it's a woman, he accepts her request out of curiosity. Their first encounter is awkward. Yeon treats Jin like an old friend whereas Jin doesn't open up so easily. To Jin's surprise, Yeon comes back for a second visit…One day her husband follows her to the prison and witnesses an intimate exchange between Yeon and Jin. The jealous husband drags her home and tries to separate the new couple. While forced to be apart, time winds down for Jin's execution. But the two are already attached to one another more than her husband assumed – more than life and death. And desperate Yeon finds a way to elude her husband and help Jin out of his misery.
GANTZ (English Subtitled Version)
Saturday, 2/19 at 7:15pm – ONE NIGHT ONLY!
Tickets: $12.00 (attendees will also receive a special GANTZ poster)
(Directed by Shinsuke Sato, Japan, 129min, 2011, Digital, Japanese with English subtitles)
GANTZ is based on a hit manga series created by Hiroya Oku and stars leading Japanese actors Kazunari Ninomiya (Letters from Iwo Jima) and Kenichi Matsuyama (Death Note, Detroit Metal City). The film tells the story of two childhood friends that are accidentally killed while trying to save another man's life. Rather than find themselves in the hereafter, however, they awaken in a strange apartment in which they find a mysterious black orb they come to know as "GANTZ." Along with similar abductees, they are provided with equipment and weaponry and manipulated into playing a kind of game in which they are sent back out to the greater world to do battle with alien beings, all while never quite knowing whether this game is an illusion or their new reality.
CINEMA ASIA RELEASING, ELEVEN ARTS and FUNimation Entertainment announced that the new release schedule of the second of the EVANGELION film series in the U.S. EVANGELION: 2.0 YOU CAN (NOT) ADVANCE has been expanded
The schedule can be seen here
2011/3/1 MN Woodbury Woodbury 10 Theatre
2011/3/4 MA Boston Brattle Theatre 3/3-
2011/3/4 MI Detroit Burton Theatre Detroit
2011/3/11 MN Minneapolis St. Anthony Main Theatre 3/
2011/3/11 PA Pittsburgh Oaks Cinema -
2011/3/18 OK Oklahoma City Oklahoma City Museum of Art
TBA TX San Antonio Santikos - Rialto
TBA IL Chicago Music Box
TBA DC Washington DC Alexandria Old Town Theater
Pre-Registration for Anime Festival Orlando 12 is now live and offering a special price of $40.00 for a 3 day membership lasting only until March 31, 2011. Anime Festival Orlando (AFO), Florida's Favorite Japanese Animation Convention, is being held August 5-7, 2011 at the Wyndham Orlando Resort on International Drive.
Pre-Registered Attendees checking into the Wyndham Orlando Resort on Thursday August 4, 2011 or earlier will receive exclusive access to Special Events on Thursday night. Details are available on the AFO 12 website.
Anime Festival Orlando 12 is pleased to announce Wendee Lee, Reuben Langdon, Dan Southworth, Dr. Jason Narvy and Jason David Frank as honored guests.
The Business
VIZ Pictures, Inc., the film distributor and producer behind the Japanese pop culture venue in San Francisco known as NEW PEOPLE, has announced that it will now operate as a newly established company, NEW PEOPLE, Inc.
The company's film distribution and licensing division will now operate as NEW PEOPLE Entertainment.
NEW PEOPLE Entertainment is complemented by the launch of another dedicated film and event production division – NEW PEOPLE Productions – that will organize and manage the annual J-Pop Summit Festival as well as future film premieres, live events, and the development of original programming. The J-Pop Summit Festival takes place in San Francisco every summer and has become one of the largest events in the U.S. devoted to Japanese pop culture, film, fashion, food, art, and music. The 2010 festival attracted over 40,000 people. The 2011 J-Pop Summit Festival is currently being planned for August. More information on NEW PEOPLE Entertainment is available at: www.NewPeopleEnt.com.
NTV will make anime studio Madhouse its subsidiary with 85% ownership of its stocks.


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In Taiwanese animators's perception of the current NBA lockout, commissioner David Stern wields a chainsaw, cries when the Detroit Pistons flat-line in a hospital bed, guards Derek Fisher and gay marries Time Warner Cable. Also, LeBron James wears a lil-boy crown and gets shattered-backboard dunked on in Taiwan.
Sounds about right.
NBA lockout spoils start of 2011 season [Twitter]


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Gas Stoves in Leeds
Wharfe Valley Stoves provide an extensive range of Gas Stoves. We understand that you want a top quality stove and aim to provide our customers with only the best brands including Gazco, Yeoman, Bosca and more.
We have a fantastic selection of Gas Stoves in our purpose built showrooms. Our Stove collection includes Wood Burning, Gas and Multifuel Stoves. We also take pride in supplying our customers with a number of different designs to choose from, we have traditional and modern Gas Stoves in stock.
Please feel free to contact us with any queries you may have in regards to our products.


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Watch what happened on 11.11.11 - 1 story, 1 day, women around the world have their say
In honor of today being International Women's Day, we would like to share the final product of a World Bank-wide film initiative, which is a part of the One Day on Earth campaign. The video shows women from all corners of the world: Laos, Bolivia, Iraq, and Tanzania - highlighting their work and emphasizing the importance of being able to get involved outside their homes and help the community. It shows snapshots from over 45 countries in a 24-hour period on November 11, 2011. It captures real results on a global platform and brings together working women talking about their jobs. Women business owners, construction workers, doctors, farmers and more explained to us why their work matters―to them, to their families, and to their communities.
Watch below and listen to what they have to say!
VIDEO in French-Spanish-Arabic
Check out snapshots of our One Day on Earth participants from China, Honduras, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Laos, Mexico, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uruguay and Uzbekistan on Facebook. Watch all of our testimonials from One Day on Earth.


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Max B, French Montana, N.O.R.E & Roxy Reynolds "We Don't Do Kanye. I Heard Alot Of Gay Rumors About Kanye. Heard He Takin D*ck In Your Butt. We Not Doin That Wave"
NORE TV reports "You never know who you will bump into while in the Big Apple. Check out as NORE runs into the waviest himself Max B., Cocaine City's French Montana and Roxy Reynolds in the lobby of the W. Hotel. While NORE is there on business, Max & French are there for a different reason. Check it out! "
Please click the "Report" button below if the video on this page is not working properly.
Comments will only be displayed by verified emails. No Spamming or Racism.


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Africa's big gender gap in agriculture #AfricaBigIdeas
Also available in: Français
Women are less productive farmers than men in Sub-Saharan Africa. A new evidence-based policy report from the World Bank and the ONE Campaign, Leveling the Field: Improving Opportunities for Women Farmers in Africa, shows just how large these gender gaps are. In Ethiopia, for example, women produce 23% less per hectare than men. While this finding might not be a "big" counter-intuitive idea (or a particularly new one), it's a costly reality that has big implications for women and their children, households, and national economies.
The policy prescription for Africa's gender gap has seemed straightforward: help women access the same amounts of productive resources (including farm inputs) as men and they will achieve similar farm yields. Numerous flagship reports and academic papers have made this very argument.


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Nicola Morgan, the Crabbit Old Bat, is an award-winning author of around 90 books across many genres. For the last few years, she has given crabbitly honest advice to determined writers, here and in her books, WRITE TO BE PUBLISHED, WRITE A GREAT SYNOPSIS, DEAR AGENT and TWEET RIGHT.
Sunday, 2 January 2011
GIFT NO 18: Ready for work?
CAUTION: please don't watch if you have heart problems. Or take your medication first or whatever you need to do.
Click here.
23 comments:
- Miriam said...
Wonderful! I'll go and do that right away.
And thanks for being on this list I received from Wordpress today: The top referring sites in 2010 were blogger.com, karenjonesgowen.blogspot.com, google.co.uk, twitter.com, and helpineedapublisher.blogspot.com.
- 2 January 2011 at 08:12
- Juliet Boyd said...
- 2 January 2011 at 08:34
- Nicolette said...
So funny!
- 2 January 2011 at 09:03
- Colette McCormick said...
First came the scream, then came the laugh and now I am ready to go back to work.
- 2 January 2011 at 09:41
- Jesse Owen said...
hehe, very funny :D
- 2 January 2011 at 10:36
- Sally Zigmond said...
I think I must scare too easily. I jumped a foot in the air and haven't stopped trembling for the past half hour.
So ye, Miss Crabbit, I'm off back to work right now. When I've had a strong cup of coffee.
- 2 January 2011 at 10:47
- Keren David said...
- 2 January 2011 at 11:32
- Kate said...
Yes, of course! Whatever you say! I'm onto it...
- 2 January 2011 at 11:35
- adele said...
By heck, I'm all of a frazzle. And I'm not going to work today but will resume tomorrow, promise!
- 2 January 2011 at 11:52
- Barb said...
He he. Even when you know it's coming, it still scares the bejesus out of you.
I entered the Pratchett contest that closed on New Years Eve. So I'm allowed a couple of weeks off first, yes?
Please say yes, there's boots that need to bought.
- 2 January 2011 at 12:15
- Bernadette said...
Despite the warning, I'm with Sally Z on that one.
Have a Happy New Year - I'm off for a cup of tea and a lie down!
- 2 January 2011 at 12:17
- Border Reiver said...
You're cruel!
- 2 January 2011 at 12:28
- Derek said...
Reminds me of a novel rejection I received once.
- 2 January 2011 at 13:12
- Mary Vaughn said...
I think I'm ready to work now.
- 2 January 2011 at 13:14
- Nicola Morgan said...
Miriam - wow! Am delighted.
Everyone - apologies! I am ashamed to say that I've watched it lots of times and it scares me every time.
- 2 January 2011 at 15:13
- Fran said...
Very funny. (Once the shaking had stopped.)
- 2 January 2011 at 16:01
- Helena Halme said...
I know you warned us - but I still jumped up from my chair. Shock treatment for 2011?
I look forward to more.
Helena xx
PS. I love the new look of your blog.
- 2 January 2011 at 16:06
- Elen Caldecott said...
Yep, jumped!
But then sat down with second draft of manuscript intending to make it thrid draft and rejigged first two chapters. Yay! Now I just need to keep going right through January.
- 2 January 2011 at 16:23
- Clare said...
Well, I was planning on working after I'd read your blog but you've just woken the dog and he needs his walk. Not sure I'm in the right frame of mind for going for a walk in the dark now, feeling a bit jumpy for some reason......
Happy New Year to you too - hope it's a screamer!
- 2 January 2011 at 16:34
- catdownunder said...
My fur is on end...despite that I have laid in a large supply of excellent cat hairs and I intend to lay them out carefully. (In human terms...I have a new novel planned.)
Still wondering what is going to happen to last year's cat hairs...am waiting for young readers to tell me what they think of the coat I made.
So, ready for work ma-am!
- 2 January 2011 at 21:04
- womagwriter said...
LOL! I called my teenage sons in to see it, but of course they'd both already come across it!
I jumped a foot as well. Definitely getting back to work today!
- 3 January 2011 at 12:32
I nearly died.
All horror memories from my childhood came rushing back to get me. I'm still shaking (after nearly ten minutes)as I record this. I think the thing to do now is watch the white christmas video and calm down.
- 3 January 2011 at 22:25
It's gone! No more singing Santa...
- 3 January 2011 at 22:28