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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – UMBC junior Eric Schuler (Columbia, Md./Reservoir) has been named the America East Men's Cross Country Scholar-Athlete for the Fall 2013 season, the conference office announced on Thursday afternoon.
Schuler becomes the fourth UMBC athlete to earn an America East Scholar-Athlete award in the last three years as women's basketball's Michelle Kurowski (Hicksville, N.Y./Hicksville) earned the honor in 2011-12 while swimming and diving's Andrew Eckhoff (Chelmsford, Mass./Chelmsford) garnered the accolade a year ago and men's soccer's Liam Paddock (Worcestershire, England/Chase Technology College) received the award in both 2011-12 and 2012-13.
This past fall, Schuler was a part of a record-setting and America East championship-winning Retriever men's squad. In the first meet of the season, the America East Pre-Conference Meet at Binghamton, the junior runner took the top overall spot as UMBC put the league on notice by winning the team competition. Schuler completed the course with a time of 25:33.1, the second-fastest in course history at the time of the race.
Schuler's success continued as he scored for the Black and Gold in each of the next two meets, the Navy Invitational and the Paul Short Invitational at Lehigh.
In November, Schuler was selected to the America East All-Academic Team for the second consecutive year. He holds a perfect 4.0 grade-point-average (GPA) while majoring in computer science. During his first three years at UMBC, Schuler has earned a spot on the President's List for his academic work after each of his five semesters.
America East Fall 2013 Scholar-Athletes
Men's Soccer: Anthony Santaga, Hartford
Women's Soccer: Lisa Bijman, Maine
Field Hockey: Daphne Voormolen, Albany
Men's Cross Country: Eric Schuler, UMBC
Women's Cross Country: Olivia Burne, Stony Brook
Volleyball: Viktoriia Stroilo, Albany
The Scholar-Athletes were members of teams in the six championship sports which America East sponsored in the fall season including men's and women's cross country, men's and women's soccer, field hockey and volleyball. Member institutions of the America East Conference for the 2013 fall season included Albany, Binghamton University, University of Hartford, Maine, UMBC, UMass Lowell, University of New Hampshire, Stony Brook and University of Vermont. Fairfield University was an associate member in the sport of field hockey, while Providence College competed as an associate member in volleyball.
Nominees were put forward by their institution, which could nominate up to one student-athlete per sport. Then, a committee of athletic administrators and NCAA Faculty Athletics Representatives chose an honoree in each of the six fall championship sports. Each America East Scholar-Athlete was a starter or prominent reserve and carries a minimum cumulative grade-point average of 3.50. They will automatically be eligible for the America East Female or Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year award to be announced this summer.
About America East: The America East provides its member schools and their athletic programs a platform upon which student-athletes can achieve both collegiate and life success through the promotion and nurturing of athletic excellence, academic achievement and leadership, on and off the field.


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Teflon® Encapsulated Viton O-Rings
A Teflon Encapsulated o-ring is a circular shaped seal with a round cross section consisting of two components, a Teflon® jacket and an internal (core) energizer, which imparts memory to the seal. The encapsulated O-ring is intended to close off potential leak paths between mating surfaces in both static and dynamic applications.
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Teflon FEP Encapsulation with Viton® Core: 300F/149C to -10F/-23C
Size not listed, special requirements or large quantities please click this link to Request a Price Quote.

subset: commoncrawl


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Ten years ago this month, Portugal rejected the conventional approach to drug policy–more laws, stiffer prison sentences, more police–and went the other way by decriminalizing all drugs, even cocaine and heroin. The drug warriors predicted a disaster. They said drug use would spike and there would be a public health crisis. That did not happen. As Glenn Greenwald showed in a 2009 Cato report, Portugal is doing better than before and in many respects is doing better than other countries in the European Union that take the hard-line, criminal approach to drug use. The buzzword in Washington these days is "evidence-based research." Well, there you have it.
More here and here. Thanks to the Huffington Post for the pointer.


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A four-part series on player health and safety with reporter Andrea Kremer aired Tuesday through Friday on NFL Network:
Tuesday: Football's safety issues
Wednesday: Virginia Tech's helmet technology, The "Hit System"
Thursday: Inside Darrelle Revis' rehab
Friday: The lack of common safety standards in youth football
» For more information on player health and safety, visit NFLEvolution.com.
Quarterback injuries were the big story in the NFL two weeks ago when Jay Cutler, Ben Roethlisberger, Alex Smith and Michael Vick were all injured. Cutler made it back to the lineup first.
NFL Network's Stacey Dales reported early Sunday that Cutler would start against the Minnesota Vikings. Cutler was indeed active, and piloted the Bears to a 28-10 victory over the Vikings. Smith is active for Sunday's game against the New Orleans Saints, but he will come off the bench. Colin Kaepernick started for the 49ers, as Albert Breer reported.
Here are the other injury stories we're tracking Sunday morning. Refresh often because we'll update who is starting and who is sitting right up until kickoff.
1. Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown (ankle) missed Sunday's game against the Cleveland Browns, as NFL.com's Aditi Kinkhabwala reported.
2. Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Julio Jones (ankle) was active and played in his team's 24-23 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Linebacker Sean Weatherspoon (ankle) and Asante Samuel (shoulder) were also active.
3. Vikings wide receiver Percy Harvin (ankle) was officially ruled out on Saturday. He didn't make the trip to Chicago.
4. Indianapolis Colts tight end Coby Fleener (shoulder) was out against the Buffalo Bills.
5. Cincinnati Bengals slot receiver Andrew Hawkins (knee) was out again against the Oakland Raiders, as expected.
6. Bills running back Fred Jackson was active after returning from his concussion.
7. Knowshon Moreno was active and started at running back for the Denver Broncos against the Kansas City Chiefs.
8. More bad news for the Chiefs offense. Left tackle Branden Albert was inactive with a back injury.
9. Darren Sproles (hand) was active for the Saints, as FOXSports insider and NFL Network contributor Jay Glazer reported.
9. Greg Jennings (groin) will be out for the Green Bay Packers' tilt against the New York Giants on "Sunday Night Football," Glazer reported.
Follow Gregg Rosenthal on Twitter @greggrosenthal.


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eSources is the largest trade directory of wholesale suppliers, distributors, manufacturers, importers and wholesalers in the UK. If you are looking for reliable narcisse designs suppliers, eSources is the ideal resource for your sourcing needs.
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How to play Song Poem 3 Game
Click on the drums to listen. Drag and drop each character onto the correct drum. The poem will gradually reveal itself each time you clear the board.
Song Poem 3 game controls
fire = na;jump = na;movement = na;
Game Description
Learn how to pronounce Chinese with this game ! Match Chinese characters with the correct pronunciation to improve your listening skills. Get familiar with Chinese sounds and tones as you learn your basic Chinese vocabulary. Song Poems is the first game in a set of three. This is the last part of our set Song Poems.
Note that you must be able to play audio files for this game. This game is part of our Mandarin Language Curriculum.
Free Chinese learning game
Build your vocabulary and learn to listen to Chinese and identify the correct characters!


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Last week this great store in Port Moody became the latest partner in the Black Cloud Pinot Noir quest for world wine domination.
If you haven't been to this store I encourage you to drop in. It's a great spot with friendly, knowledgeable staff. Say hi to Janice and John and all the rest. And the neighbourhood is quite nifty with lots of other stores and services within walking distance. You can easily spend a couple hours exploring, grabbing a meal and buying wine around this spot.


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The recent discovery of a star with spiral arms startled researchers using the Subaru telescope in Hawaii. The star, SAO 206462, is more than four hundred light years from Earth in the constellation Lupus, the wolf. Two spiral arms, acquired by the Subaru Telescope and its HiCIAO instrument, emerge from the gas-rich disk around SAO 206462. This image is the first to show spiral arms in a circumstellar disk –some 14 billion miles across, or about twice the size of Pluto's orbit in our own solar system.
Researchers strongly suspected that new planets might be coalescing inside the disk, which is about twice as wide as the orbit of Pluto. But when they took a closer look at SAO 206462 they found not planets, but arms. Astronomers have seen spiral arms before: they're commonly found in pinwheel galaxies where hundreds of millions of stars spiral together around a common core. Finding a clear case of spiral arms around an individual star, however, is unprecedented, The arms might be a sign that planets are forming within the disk.
"Detailed computer simulations have shown us that the gravitational pull of a planet inside a circumstellar disk can perturb gas and dust, creating spiral arms," says Carol Grady, an astronomer with Eureka Scientific, Inc., who is based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "Now, for the first time, we're seeing these dynamical features."
Theoretical models show that a single embedded planet may produce a spiral arm on each side of a disk. The structures around SAO 206462, however, do not form a matched pair, suggesting the presence of two unseen worlds, one for each arm.
Grady's research is part of a five-year international study of newborn stars and planets using the giant 8.2 meter Subaru Telescope. Operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Subaru scans the heavens from a perch almost 14,000 feet above sea level at the summit of the Hawaiian volcano Mauna Kea. From there it has a crystal-clear view of innumerable young stars and their planet-forming disks throughout the Milky Way.
"What we're finding is that once these systems reach ages of a few million years—that's young for a star–their disks begin to show all kinds of interesting shapes," says John Wisniewski, a collaborator at the University of Washington in Seattle. "We've seen rings, divots, gaps–and now spiral features. Many of these structures could be caused by planets moving within the disks."
However, it is not an open and shut case. The research team cautions that processes unrelated to planets might give rise to these structures. Until more evidence is collected–or until the planets themselves are detected–they can't be certain.
The Daily Galaxy via Science@NASA


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We know that Grover's algorithm can speed up cracking symmetric keys. Basically the key space is halved. This means we have to use at least a 256 bit key (to get 128 bit security).
I heard somewhere it also has an effect on the block size (so we should use 256 bit blocks instead of 128)!
Is that true?


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A new book edited by Dr. David Ryden of the Hope College political science faculty looks beyond the voting record and stereotypes in seeking to understand the policy views of evangelical Christians, a group whose rise he considers the most significant occurrence at the intersection of politics and religion in the past three decades.
The volume, "Is the Good Book Good Enough? Evangelical Perspectives on Public Policy," collects analyses by 13 scholars regarding evangelical approaches to topics ranging from environmentalism, immigration and criminal justice, to the war in Afghanistan, same-sex marriage and racial reconciliation. It was published in January by Lexington Books of Lanham, Md.
"The emergence of evangelicals in politics is the biggest development in terms of religious influences on politics in the last 30 years, if not more," said Ryden, who is a professor of political science. "You're looking at a group that represents anywhere from a quarter to a third of the voting population."
While he noted that evangelicals' voting tendencies have been closely scrutinized, the thinking that informs their policy views has not. He said that evangelicals are more inclined than any other religious tradition to see their faith as impacting their politics. At the same time, he finds they are often unfairly caricatured as simple-minded and single-issue.
"One tends to see evangelicals portrayed as single-issue types, but that doesn't capture a much more complex lay of the land," Ryden said. "Contemporary evangelicalism is so much more than just this static approach to abortion or same-sex marriage. Rather, their policy views are evolving on a whole range of domestic and foreign policy debates. There's just a lot more going on."
"I was interested in providing a more nuanced portrait of evangelical policy perspectives," he said. "At the same time, I wanted to offer a serious critique of evangelical approaches to public policy."
On environmental issues, for example, he said that evangelicals continue to be stereotyped as resistant to concepts such as climate change or conservation. Yet, he said, there are many serious evangelical scholars, to say nothing of lay evangelicals, who consider environmental stewardship as a biblical calling. "There's been genuine movement, and there's a good, healthy range of opinion," Ryden said.
Similarly, with respect to immigration, where he said that evangelicals are characterized as "anti-immigrant, if not actually nativist," Ryden finds that thinking within evangelical faith communities tells a different story. "Much has changed in the past few years," he said. "Indeed, evangelicals arguably find themselves uniquely positioned to balance biblical values - the rule of law, justice, and care for the least among us."
While Ryden believes that evangelicals are misunderstood, he also feels that they could be more effective in the policy realm by engaging the issues intellectually, in addition to biblically. "Scriptural authority ought to be augmented by resort to reason, science and other policy appeals, so that evangelicals aren't so easily dismissed by people those don't share their theological views," he said.
Moreover, Ryden argues that evangelicals need to recognize that their biblically grounded views ought not to place them automatically in one political camp or the other. He believes that they also need to be aware that they are always in danger of being co-opted for partisan political purposes.
"They need to be evangelical Christians first, and their partisan or ideological commitments subordinate to scriptural authority," he said.
While Ryden has seen significant shifts in evangelical thinking on a host of issues in recent years, he finds that the shifts haven't necessarily produced major changes in voting patterns. In the most recent election cycles, he said, evangelicals remained firmly in the Republican voting column. Yet he sees a new breed of evangelical leaders who are less overtly partisan, and feels that younger evangelicals who don't necessarily share their parents' cultural conservatism may be less inclined to affiliate with the Republican party. He noted that while it's too early to foretell big shifts in voting among evangelicals, the answer will matter a great deal.
"It's hard to make very firm predictions as to whether evangelicals will become less reliably Republican as their policy attitudes change," he said. "But given their importance to the Republican voting bloc, it's something that bears watching."
In addition to editing the volume, Ryden wrote the introduction and two chapters, and co-authored another chapter with Hope colleague Dr. Jeffrey J. Polet, professor of political science and chair of the department. Other contributors include Mark R. Amstutz, Timothy J. Barnett, Francis J. Beckwith, Zachary R. Calo, Ron Kirkemo, Jacob Lenerville, Ruth Melkonian-Hoover, Stephen V. Monsma, Eric Patterson, Noah J. Toly and Jennifer E. Walsh.


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Cumulative Effects of General Anesthesia?
This is probably a dumb question, but I`m going to ask it anyway. My teenager has had general anesthesia 5 times now for various procedures. Are there specific risks related to repeated general anesthesia? I ask because much of my son`s general anesthesia has been related to eye surgeries which, in older patients, are often done under local anesthesia instead of general anesthesia. My son has always had general because of his young age, but soon he may be nearing the age where he could handle the procedure with just a local. Is this always preferable? My son, having had only good experiences with general anesthesia so far, says he would not want to be awake and I think he would have anxiety about it, so I`m thinking alot about risks vs. benefits. We obviously want to make him as comfortable as possible but also without any more risk than is necessary.
Not a dumb question at all.
General anesthesia is extremely safe, especially for generally healthy young people. Complications do occur, on occasion, but the risk of serious harm to life or limb is rather low, of the order of 1 in 200,000 in such individuals. More minor problems can happen with greater frequency.
As far as we know, each time you have an anesthetic you subject yourself to the same degree of risk. The risk is not increased just because you had anesthesia recently or in the past.
Local anesthesia does have less risk for eye surgery which is why by far the majority of eye operations are done this way, including many procedures done on elderly and sick patients.
In my personal opinion, the emotional and psychological trauma in a teenager of anticipating and then actually being awake for a procedure on such a sensitive part of the body is not worth any small gains in terms of the potential avoidance of minor complications such as postoperative nausea. Especially in a teenager who has already had several general anesthetics without noticeable ill-effect.
For more information:
Go to the Anesthesia health topic.


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Best running shoes on earth
I bought my first pair of On Cloud 5 years ago n then I deeply fell in love with it. I saw the ad in a triathlon magazine and as a triathlete, I love no shoe lace runners. Not only is there no shoe lace theme super convenient, their styles,colour choices, lightness, comfy level, is the best n no other brand I wore before could be compared. I recommended to fds and they all love it.


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Dear Daddy's GirlDear Naive 15,:thumb334224517: :thumb295284712:
You're ignorant as Hell.
You dress in baggy blue jeans, wear an oversized hoodie every day, and never let your hair down. Students at school, and even your mom, think you're gay… and you don't even know.
All of your classmates blame you for a burn book that circulated after that Mean Girls movie. Everyone thinks you're a jealous bitch and secretly they mock you. How can you not see that?
Your teachers are all positive that you cut yourself and that you're always on drugs. Even now you have no idea why they ask you to take your jacket off during class. Could it be that you always wear long sleeves?
It's okay, sweetheart. I had to find out the hard way, too.
Right now you're probably wishing your dad was home. He's the only one that will read your stories and tell you how creative you are. You don't have to beg him to watch movies with you, and he'll listen to your favorite songs without calling you suicidal. Right now, living wi


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Latest News
Kurdish-Nusra battle becoming war within a war in northern Syria
Arab Islamists and Kurdish militants, two of the most controversial armed groups in Syria's civil war, for the past week have been battling each other for control of key towns close to the Turkish border after the Kurds announced a plan to declare local autonomy.
The United States views both sides in the conflict, the Kurdish Democratic Union and the Nusra Front, as terrorist organizations, and the prospect of either prevailing is causing deep concern in Washington and Ankara, the Turkish capital.
Dozens have died in fighting and Nusra Front suicide bombings in what threatens to become a war within a war.
The Kurdish militia captured the border town of Ras al Ayn on Sunday, which had been under rebel control since last November. A day later, the United States said it was "very concerned" at reports that the militia was about to declare self-rule in northern Syria. "Such a declaration is highly provocative, as it will certainly exacerbate tensions between Arabs and Kurds," Jen Psaki, a State Department spokeswoman, said Monday.
Turkey, which embarked on a broad peace process in March with Kurdish militants at home, has warned that it won't tolerate an autonomous Kurdish province across the Syrian border. This week, the Turkish army warned that it had taken "all necessary precautions against threats across the border" and the deputy prime minister, Bulent Arinc, implied that the establishment of a de facto Kurdish entity in northern Syria might put Syria's territorial integrity in jeopardy.
"We have said that we are not going to accept any de facto entities that would be established in Syria by any ethnic groups or sects," he said.
The fear is that a Kurdish entity in Syria would revive demands for a Kurdish nation made up of predominantly Kurdish areas of Turkey, Syria and Iran in combination with the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq.
The other risk in the fighting is that if the Nusra Front prevails, it might be able, with the area's mineral resources, to set up a self-sustaining autonomous al Qaida state.
Gen. Salim Idriss, the head of the Syrian rebels' Supreme Military Council, which the United States has said should be the primary recipient of military aid, issued a warning about the risks of either the Kurdish Democratic Union, known by its initials as the PYD, or Nusra prevailing.
"The main goal of the PYD is to found their own state, 'Western Kurdistan,' " Idriss said Monday on Turkish television. "They are receiving support from the Syrian regime and Kurdish militants based in Iraq and Iran, and the PKK," a group that's been fighting the Turkish government for three decades seeking Kurdish autonomy.
Idriss said his group "won't ever accept or recognize such a state" and "will fight anyone who is making efforts to divide Syria." He said his group, whose loosely affiliated rebel units are referred to as the Free Syrian Army, was sending fighters to the region.
What precisely happened in Ras al Ayn is unclear. Idriss said the Kurdish Democratic Union had taken advantage of rebel forces being distracted by battles at al Malikiyah and over a military airport at Qamishli to take control of the town.
Turkish news media reported that Idriss traveled to Ankara to confer with Turkish officials. The Syrian Opposition Coalition, the political wing of the opposition, said Idriss then went to France to inquire why it hadn't yet shipped the sophisticated French-produced Milan anti-tank missiles that had been expected.
The Kurdish group that helped provoke the crisis is the Syrian branch of the PKK, whose name in English is the Kurdistan Workers' Party. The United States and the European Union list the PKK as a terrorist group.
Controversy surrounds the Kurdish Democratic Union, because although it says it opposes the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, it's widely suspected that the group coordinated with the Syrian government when the regime withdrew its soldiers from large parts of the predominantly Kurdish area last year and allowed the Kurdish militia to fill the vacuum. The Kurdish force operates only a short distance from Syrian state security in Qamishli, the most important Kurdish city in Syria.
Kurds are about 10 percent of Syria's 23 million population, and Kurdish Democratic Union officials have been saying for some time that they intended to set up what they described as "an independent council to run Kurdish regions."
Salah Muslim, the head of the Kurdish militia, reaffirmed the plan Friday, which was to have been the day for the declaration. "This is not a call for a separation," he said in an interview with France 24 television. "It's just that for a year now we have been on our own in our own territories, and people have needs. They want some kind of administration to run their issues. They can't be left like that."
July 19 is the anniversary of the militia's takeover of the first Kurdish city in Syria, but it wasn't clear if the militia followed through on its plan to declare a local entity.
The Nusra Front, which has pledged allegiance to al Qaida leader Ayman al Zawahiri, has been the most militarily effective of Syria's anti-Assad rebel groups. This year it's seized much of Syria's oil and gas reserves, which are largely in the country's northeast.
Shortly after rebels seized control of Ras al Ayn from government forces last November, it became clear that Nusra made up the bulk of the fighters that had taken over. Within days, Nusra and Kurdish militias were battling.


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Reviewed by Sloane B. (age 12)
You'll be sad to learn about what happened when slaves got caught running away. Allison Lasseiur also writes about Harriet Tubman. She mentions some of the slaves that Harriet brought to freedom, and how she risked her own life for other slaves because she knew how bad life in slavery was for them. She understood living your life everyday knowing that you're someone else's property. Slave catchers went around at night looking for runaway slaves, and it they were found, they could be whipped, even killed. But, some were lucky to make it through the Underground Railroad.
When I read this book it made me think about treating others better. Even if someone is different from me, I need to treat them like any other person.
The only thing I would change about this book is I wish it wasn't an Adventure book. When you choose your own adventure it goes the way you pick it to and not how it happened in real life.
I recommend The Underground Railroad because it is exciting when the slaves are able to escape. It tells you a lot of facts about the Underground Railroad like how the slaves followed the stars in the sky to find their way. Reading about how the slaves are treated when they are caught will make you feel sad.
If you like learning about slave life, then you could look for more books about the Underground Railroad in your school library.


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Discuss about admissions, courses/programmes, exam schedules, results and entrance exams at IGNOU, one of the most popular universities in India.
Indira Gandhi National Open University or IGNOU offers a wide variety of subjects and courses at different levels. Check out this sub-forum and post/reply to threads related to courses of IGNOU.
The assignments of IGNOU help the students to acquire both theoretical and practical knowledge about their subjects. Go through this sub-forum and know all about IGNOU assignments and question papers.
Curious to get updates on IGNOU exams and results? If yes, then check out this sub-forum to get updated with information about the exams and results of the exams conducted by IGNOU.


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Posts Taggedlogos
I've been slowly putting together a website and a brand for the creative firm that I'm starting (it hasn't launched, but if you're curious, feel free to check it out). Branding is not an easy thing. It's a large, multifaceted process that requires a lot of time, effort and yes, Photoshop skills.
That's why I admire any company or app that tries to make certain parts of the task easier. I love playing around with text, but I don't have weeks and weeks to make a great logo. And sometimes, I just need an easy way to experiment. That's where Logoist comes in. The app makes it as easy as possible to put together a logo by eliminating a lot of the cumbersome heavy lifting Photoshop mandates. Let's take a look and see if it's worth your time and money.


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|About us | Contact us | Site Map
18 May 2010
A. Below is a list of official
documents. For background documents, normally in English only, please
go to B.
B. Following is a list of background documents and room documents. These are not formal documents of the session and are generally in English only.


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Mads Mikkelsen (I)
STARmeterTop 5000
Down 86 this week
Mads Mikkelsen is a synonym to the great success the Danish film industry has had since the mid-1990s. He was born in Østerbro, Copenhagen, to Bente Christiansen, a nurse, and Henning Mikkelsen, a banker. Starting out as a low-life pusher/junkie in the 1996 success Pusher (1996), he slowly grew to become one of Denmark's biggest movie actors. The ... See full bio »
Born:in Østerbro, Copenhagen, Denmark
More at IMDbPro » Contact Info: View agent, publicist, legal on IMDbPro


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In June 1976, while serving as past president of the New Bern-Craven County Chamber of Commerce, Doug Davis conceived the idea and provided the leadership that led to the creation of the Downtown Revitalization Committee (DRC), the forerunner of Swiss Bear.
Editor�s note: The history of the revitalization of downtown New Bern appears every other week.
In June 1976, while serving as past president of the New Bern-Craven County Chamber of Commerce, Doug Davis conceived the idea and provided the leadership that led to the creation of the Downtown Revitalization Committee (DRC), the forerunner of Swiss Bear. This small committee with a representative from the Chamber (Doug Davis), Downtown Merchants Association, Redevelopment Commission, City of New Bern and a Craven County commissioner had gained broad-based community-wide support of people who had a vested interest in downtown.
At their July 12, 1977, meeting, Doug Davis told interested citizens, merchants and landowners, �this Committee was given the mandate to see that a Central Business District Revitalization Plan, to include architectural study if necessary, was accomplished. With help from the Board of Aldermen, City, Merchants and Land owners, this step has been completed and we are now ready to turn our responsibilities over to another entity that will work with local government and proceed implementing the plan, if this is the wish of those present.� Moving forward was enthusiastically endorsed by all attendees.
On April 5, 1979, during a public meeting in the Tryon Palace Auditorium, the DRC�s responsibilities were transferred to the new, yet to be named 501(c) 3 nonprofit to reflect its status as a nonprofit, community-based organization that would:
n Actively work in partnership with local government to tap the resources of the business community in carrying out the redevelopment of the downtown area and its waterfront.
n Develop a vision and plan of work with achievable short and long term goals and objectives.
n Promote cooperation between the local government and downtown business community.
n Solicit and receive contributions, gifts, property and grants, exclusively in furtherance of the purposes of the corporation.
The proposed new board members were introduced, and attorney David Henderson carried out the task of filing Articles of Incorporation and obtaining IRS tax-exempt status. John Green suggested Swiss Bear, Inc. for the new organization�s name as it related to the founding of the city by a native of Bern, Switzerland.
Per the by-laws, the Board of Directors consisted of nine members by virtue of their office; New Bern Historic Foundation (New Bern Preservation Foundation), New Bern Historical Society, New Bern City Government, New Bern City Administration, Craven County Government, Craven County Administration, Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Merchants Association and the New Bern City Planning Board. Nine additional at-large members representing a broad cross-section of the community were appointed to serve three-year terms.
Over the years, representation was amended and expanded to include CarolinaEast Health System, Craven Arts Council & Gallery, Craven Community College, Municipal Service District Advisory Committee and City Department of Development Services and Public Works, Craven County Economic Development Commission and the Tourism Development Authority, 18 at-large members and 10 with the designation of Emeritus. In the 1990s, the name was changed to Swiss Bear Downtown Development Corporation for more clarity.
In 1981, when New Bern became a Main Street City, Swiss Bear and the local government determined the 501(c) 3 organizational model should continue. As a free standing private nonprofit Main Street organization, it could qualify for grants, solicit tax deductible contributions for projects and fundraising campaigns and it would force the organization to remain focused on its role/mission. In comparison, as a City Department, the downtown director would be a city employee with either a department of their own or be within a department such as Planning or Public Works and with a change in political leadership programs could be eliminated. Currently 21 of the 58 N.C. Main Street Cities have the 501(c) 3 designation.
As a 501(c) 3 nonprofit, the challenge to insure the organization�s sustainability is having the continuity of stable board, staff, volunteers and adequate funding. Membership restrictions, allowing only friends of the organization, prevents raising revenue though membership dues. From its beginning, the city and county supported Swiss Bear by providing annual appropriations for two thirds of the budget and the organization raised the remaining third. For the past two years, for economic reasons, the county denied our request for an appropriation. The city�s annual appropriation funds 30 percent of the budget and Swiss Bear raises the remainder through private contributions and MUMfest proceeds. Swiss Bear�s long term sustainability, without government support, is questionable.
Since its founding, the volunteer Board of Directors meets the third Thursday of every month. A draft Program of Work, presented for Board approval in January, summarizes current/on-going and new projects, defines goals and objectives and assigns deadlines and responsibilities for each project. Because local government plays a major role in downtown�s economic growth, the city, county and Swiss Bear have worked closely to restructure downtown�s economic base. By collaborating with the business community and community groups, developing innovative solutions, initiating and facilitating projects and fundraising campaigns, Swiss Bear facilitates projects that assist local government in creating a vibrant downtown district.
Over the past 35 years, Swiss Bear raised in excess of $8 million (directly or played a vital role) for downtown projects through fundraising campaigns, grants and property donations to the city. This does not include attracting development projects that added millions in public and private investment, increased sales and tax revenues and property values, the expansion of tourism into a major industry or the creation of hundreds of jobs.
Entrepreneurial in its approach, Swiss Bear�s reputation for seizing opportunities, developing projects, and taking the necessary risks to effect change is widely recognized and respected. Swiss Bear�s tangible and measurable accomplishments clearly demonstrate the value of a nonprofits service to the community and the broad based renewal that began in 1970s is having a positive economic impact on all of Craven County.
Since 1979, eight community leaders have served as chairman: Doug Davis, Joe Stallings, Harold Talton, Lonnie Pridgen, Ricky Brown, Marvin Raines, Alex Badger, Al Coley, Ernie Richardson and Bob Mattocks (currently).
Executive directors; Kay Williams (1981-1983), Marvin Davis (1983-85) and Susan Moffat Thomas (1985 to present).
Susan Moffat Thomas is executive director of Swiss Bear Downtown Development Corporation.


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8 25
Race in one of France's most beautiful cities. Vichy, known as the "Queen of Spa Towns" offers a trip filled with relaxation, fun, art and great racing.
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*Click here for the full list of the 2017 IRONMAN Athletes' Choice Award winners.
Nestled in a bend in the Allier River, Vichy is one of France's most luxurious locations. The peak era of this Auvergne spa town saw visitors flocking there to drink its healing waters and bath in its thermal springs. Vichy has kept its reputation as a health retreat, helped along by the reputation of the cosmetic brand named for the town. Tree-lined boulevards laid out in the 19th century, and art-deco buildings such as the Opéra de Vichy, add to the town's nostalgic feel. Among Vichy's turn-of-the-century mansions and riverside parks, there's a rich collection of confectionery shops as well.
Why race with us?
Queen of Spa towns
Both distances on the same weekend
Crazy Finish line Atmosphere
Athletes will swim in the beautiful Lake Allier, using the rowing race infrastructure to guide themselves through the course. The bike course in the countryside offers exceptional views of the Chaine des Volcans d'Auvergne. The day ends with a run course on the shores of Lac d'Allier and through historical Vichy, where hundreds of spectators will line the course to cheer the athletes to the finish.
All the activities for IRONMAN Vichy will be located at the Centre Omnisports Pierre Coulon (registration, expo, transition area, the pasta party, the awards ceremony, the swim start, the finish line and the food court), making this an ideal venue for spectators.
2019 IRONMAN Vichy offers 40 qualifying slots for the 2020 Vega IRONMAN World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawai'i.
Watch the race video:


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When Food for Thought Ojai (FFTO) began its work in 2003, there was a different food culture in America. Before films like Supersize Me, Fast Food Nation and Food, Inc. became parts of our collective consciousness, serving fast-food in public schools didn't invite the same reproach you can expect now. There was a time when kids in the Ojai Unified School District quite happily chose from a cafeteria stocked with weekly enticements from Domino's Pizza and Taco Bell.
These days, it's hard to say if kids in Ojai schools would even enjoy that fat- and sodium-laden filler. For the past 10 years, Food for Thought Ojai has worked in OUSD elementary schools to instill in children and their families an awareness of healthy eating and ecologically minded food production.
On Friday afternoon, FFTO will celebrate its 10th anniversary at the school garden at Topa Topa Elementary school in Ojai. Joining the festivities will be slow-food luminary Alice Waters, whose 40-year culinary and environmental advocacy career includes the creation of the world-famous Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse, and the formation of The Edible Schoolyard Project at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, which has served as a model for a growing number of classroom garden programs across the country.
The idea for FFTO came when the late environmental advocate Marty Fujita and farmers Jim Churchill and Steve Fields began discussing ways they could positively influence nutrition in Ojai schools.
"We wanted to have more fresh, prepared food [in school cafeterias], as opposed to fast food," said Jim Churchill, the organization's co-founder, who is also known for growing and popularizing the Pixie tangerine. Just two years after creating the first school-garden at Topa Topa Elementary, all elementary schools in Ojai had salad bars featuring school-garden-grown produce.
In 2008, the program hit a bump in the road when OUSD had to end the FFTO salad bars, despite their popularity among students. "We were pretty naïve; we didn't understand the ramifications of it being a federal program," said Churchill. "It's not as simple as saying, 'Yeah, let's make some salad!' There are complex regulations, and school budgets are tight."
So early on, the organization had to re-define its aims. Rather than focusing on school lunches as a primary vehicle for raising food literacy, it intensified efforts to have the garden become a part of the classroom, in much the same way that Alice Waters has done with The Edible Schoolyard Project. With the cooperation of OUSD, what FFTO has helped build is a curriculum built around California State Content Standards for grades one through six.
Children in these grades learn the scientific method through hands-on work in school gardens. They gain an understanding of agriculture through visits to local farms. They study nutrition in class with their teachers. Composting and recycling are taught as methods of resource conservation. And the kids learn to appreciate the taste of fruits and vegetables picked at the height of their flavor.
Some may wonder whether kids aren't daydreaming about Cheez-Its while chewing on chard, but with nearly every child in OUSD having participated in the FFTO curriculum, their awareness of healthy food now is surprising.
"[When] we served hummus and pita bread 10 years ago, I probably would have answered about 50 times the question 'What is this?' " said Lori Hamor, executive director of FFTO. "Now you serve it, and kids run up to you and say, 'Oh, hummus! I know what this is!' "
Getting kids and their families pumped about healthy food choices and locally produced food isn't the challenge it once was. Cooking shows are popular family entertainment. People show off their meals on Instagram. Restaurants are touting the use of farmers market produce. And the first lady is setting the tone for federal efforts that encourage healthy eating choices.
"There's not as big of a hard sell on what we're doing. You don't have to convince people that eating well and supporting our local farmers are good things anymore," said Hamor. "But the realities of financing it are still very much going to be on our plate."
One exciting branch of FFTO's efforts is its work to facilitate a collaboration between OUSD and school districts in Ventura, Oxnard, El Rio and Port Hueneme to pool their needs and resources through setting up a farm-to-school produce purchasing partnership that will be sponsored by a USDA grant.
New federal guidelines mandate that half of lunch plates be fruits and vegetables, and thanks in part to FFTO, schools in these districts will be meeting that through providing produce from local farms, which also helps keep money in our local economy.
"[We're looking at it as] McGrath [Family Farms] has this much lettuce available at this time of the year, and these school districts need this much. Is that the right match? Who are the other farmers that can help fill in?" said Hamor. "We're putting in systems that haven't been in place before."
Having Alice Waters join in celebrating FFTO's progress makes sense from many angles. Waters has urged Americans to eat local, organic produce for decades. According to 60 Minutes, she has done more to change the way Americans eat than anyone else. When she founded The Edible Schoolyard Project in 1996, Waters set off a wave of school-garden instruction in the United States. And she gave Ojai agriculture a big leg-up when she used Jim Churchill's Pixie tangerines on the Chez Panisse menu alongside his name.
"For farmers who are taking particular care with the quality of what they are growing, she has created the possibility of an existence," said Churchill, adding, "I'm honored to know her and I'm honored to have her come to Ojai for us."
Food for Thought Ojai, 10 year celebration on Friday, April 26, 4 to 7 p.m. at Topa Topa Elementary School, 916 Mountain View Ave., Ojai. It's free and open to the public. There will be garden tours, live music and prizes from sponsors such as Dole Organic, Patagonia and Nutiva. For more information, visit www.foodforthoughtojai.org.


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Brussels, 14 July 2004
Commission approves Belgium Flemish aid for the inland navigation sector
The Commission authorised today a Flemish aid which intends to guarantee the access to the Port of Antwerp through inland waterway during the reconstruction works on the Antwerp Ring[1].
The scheme will bear the additional costs for the loading and unloading of containers on inland vessels during the night shift[2] and the two weekend shifts (1st shift Saturday and 2nd shift Sunday) so as not to discourage the inland waterway traffic from and to the Port of Antwerp during the works.
The additional costs for the loading and unloading of containers on inland vessels during the night shift will be partially borne by the Belgian authorities: 1/3 by the Flemish Region[3] and 1/3 by the municipal port authority of Antwerp Gemeentelijk Havenbedrijf Antwerpen (GHA). The remaining 1/3 of the additional costs will be borne by the private container handling companies from the Port of Antwerp.
The aid regime will be applicable for the period 2004-2005 to all EU container inland waterways vessel operators loading or unloading in the Port of Antwerp, irrespectively of their origin and place of destination. The expected budgetary allocation is € 1,788,000.
The Commission has examined the scheme and found it compatible with the common market[4] since it will not distort trade between Member States in a way contrary to the common interest.
[1] The motorway around Antwerp consists of four lanes in each direction. During the works, the number of lanes will be reduced to two in each direction.
[2] Between 10.00 pm and 6.00 am.
[3] The practical organisation and coordination has been entrusted to the public waterway authority N.V.Zeekanaal (NVZ)
[4] By virtue of Article 3 (1) b of Regulation 1107/70 in conjunction with Article 73 of the EC Treaty
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CHANEL QUILTED BOWLING BAGCategories:Other Brands
Haven't you spotted this bag yet? Well, then it's time to visit the Chanel boutique to discover more surprises. Not all the handbags are shared on their official website, so going to the boutique is always like opening a surprise box.
Meet the fresh Chanel Bowling Bag for the Fall Winter 2017 Collection. I really love the half-moon shape because it reminds me of the discontinued Mademoiselle Bag. The Mademoiselle Bag was a gorgeous feminine handbag and it was as popular as the GST or the PST.
The Design
Maybe it's really an updated version of the Mademoiselle Bag, who knows? But the shape and the hardware can't let me stop thinking that it is the her, it is her. Or maybe I have been captivated and can't let go the thoughts – just like the girls that have felt in love with the GST and then the bag got discontinued.
This latest bowling bag is crafted in half-moon shape. It's crafted in diamond quilting, but the bottom edges are refined with leather patches. The top features the signature CC logo charm and also a leather handle for tote carry. But what's also stunning is the large bold chain that comes with it, which resembles to the chains of the classic Boy Bags. And as you can see on the Instagram picture, this bag goes well with Chanel Espadrilles.
The Sizes And Prices
Because this is a new bag, we do not have the style code, sizes or the prices. Check with the SA for the latest details.
So what do you think? Is this bag inspired by the Mademoiselle Bag or not?


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The Deaths Of Dr. Zhen
Started by Drez_Zipper , Apr 09 2014 05:20 PMafterlife ghosts death near death experiences fiction short story
No replies to this topic
Posted 09 April 2014 - 05:20 PM
The Deaths of Dr. Zhen
a short story by Brian Osburn (2012)
Blink on. Blink off.
Takes no faith at all
for the lost soul on a journey
Up the ivy-covered wall.
It would be hard to find anyone as smart as Dr. Gilbert Zhen. While a young man, Zhen had steadily climbed to the top ranks in his graduating class at Princeton. During those days, he dated a beautiful girl from nearby Smith College. Her name was Elizabeth Morgan, but he called her Betty. They fell deeply in love, and married each other as a graduation present.
Gilbert took a teaching position at the University of Maryland and not long into his tenure, they had their first child; a boy they named William. A year later, they got their baby girl and named her Antoinette.
Zhen worked tirelessly; continuing to teach while pursuing his doctorate. In no time, Zhen received a PhD in biology and considered entering medical school.
His young family was poor, but they were wealthy with love for each other. Betty encouraged Gil to follow his goal and attend medical school. Gil carefully considered all his options and agreed that it was the right path for him and their family. He had always been interested in research, so perhaps he could get a job with a drug company after medical school and earn a nice living for his family.
His choice was set and he began medical school that August. Once again, he worked as hard as any man could. It would have been easy for him to put all of his efforts into his work and his studies, but Gil was an amazing man. Incredibly, he still found the energy to enjoy his growing family and share precious time with them. The Zhen's were on target to fully experience the American dream.
Gil was able to take off from his studies for only one full day during that semester. That day happened to be Christmas Eve. He and Betty decided that a perfect way to spend the day was to visit the grandparents who only lived a hundred miles away. So off they went as a family.
Towards the end of their journey, the Zhen's were on a charming two-lane New England back road. The kids were singing Christmas carols. Betty sang with them. Gil smiled with a deep contentment. He was about to finish his first semester of medical school with top-of-the-class marks. It was Christmas and all was right with the world.
Just minutes later, as their minivan crested a steep rise in the road, Gil's heart stopped. A large pickup truck traveling at a very high rate of speed was also at the top of the hill with Gil, but the truck was in Gil's lane and driving in the opposite direction. Zhen could do nothing. The two cars hit head-on at a speed that sent the minivan's hot engine into the passenger compartment.
Betty, Will and little Toni were killed instantly. Zhen was brutally injured, but lived. The driver of the truck, a drunken city-councilman who was headed for another bar down the street, was not hurt except for a scratch to his forehead. It had taken Zhen five years of tireless effort to create a perfect life for his family; one horrific moment to lay it all in ruin.
The next two years of Zhen's life were spent in living nightmares.
The first of these terrible times was the funerals for his family. Zhen could not walk on his broken legs. He had to be wheeled into the funeral home and to the grave site.
Zhen's parents, Betty's parents, and everyone in attendance wept uncontrollably. It was weeks before either he or anyone on either side of the family could feel anything other than overwhelming grief. Gil wept openly for a month. As time passed, his broken body began to heal.
He was learning how to walk again when the trial of the city-councilman finally began. The proceedings were not conducted before a jury. The judge alone would determine the outcome. The trial was over in a single day. The councilman was found guilty of vehicular manslaughter, yet received only three years in prison.
Not long after that, Zhen learned that the defendant only carried the state minimum on his car insurance, so Zhen received only twenty-five thousand dollars for the death of his entire family. He sued the councilman, and was awarded a three million dollar judgment. Predictably, the councilman promptly filed for bankruptcy.
In the span of two years, Zhen's life had been laid waste. In that second year, the city councilman was given probation and released from prison, the civil trial ended, and the final payment to the cemetery and funeral home was made. Zhen was a broken and hollow man. He took what was left of the twenty-five thousand dollar insurance payment and put it into some stocks and forgot about it.
After a total of three years had passed, Zhen went back to teaching at the University of Maryland, but never returned to medical school.
And for years after that, his life consisted of going to work and then going back home to an empty and sad house.
In his twentieth year at Maryland, Zhen was well known as a hard, cold teacher of biology. Those students who worked hard, he fairly rewarded. Those who shrugged off his class, he burned.
For a man who knew practically everything on the subject of being biologically human, Zhen was becoming less humane with each passing day. He was an expert in anatomy and could recite for hours, if encouraged, the litany of body parts to be found in a man, and the function and possible malfunctions of each of said parts.
However, Zhen's soul had become comatose long ago. He denied that he even had a soul as a human soul was nowhere to be found on the finite list of human body parts.
Slowly and steadily, Zhen had traveled to a dark destination.
He was unforgiving of everyone who had offended him. The drunken city-councilman, the lenient judge, the students that mocked him in class; Zhen held them all in utter disdain.
The students who did not know of Zhen's tragic past wrote off his behavior as the mannerisms of a bitter, old man. In reality, Zhen was the epitome of hatred itself, though he hid his feelings as best he could from those around him.
Still, he remained a complex and thoughtful individual, and it was during this, his twentieth year at the University of Maryland, that Dr.Zhen began to seriously consider the final fate of his long dead family.
His strong, natural curiosity began to focus on human consciousness and death. He read hundreds of books on any subject dealing with the afterlife and even took a lengthy sabbatical to travel the world in search of the answers to the questions that had formed in his mind. He spoke with holy men from all the world's faiths and searched among their ancient texts. He even became a student again and took graduate-level theology classes. Of course, he attended these classes at another college some distance from his own so as not be discovered on his admittedly personal quest.
His zeal (if he had ever had any since the accident) for teaching students had waned. He was no longer confrontational in the class, and his students suffered from his lack of interest. Whereas before he had produced hundreds of some of the most respected physicians in the country, he would be lucky if now only a handful in any semester would rise up to achieve "top" status. His attention was still on his quest for answers to questions that had no answers to be found except, possibly, through direct personal experience.
It was based on this revelation, that some things could only be "known" experimentally through an experience of human consciousness, that Dr.Zhen hatched a desperate plan. If his questions about death needed experience to provide answers, then experience is what he would seek. And after all these years and all this pain, why not!
Dr.Zhen was fortunate in the timing to seek an experience with death. Advances in medical knowledge might well enable him to have that death experience and still live to tell the tale.
His journey to the other side of life would be lengthy and fraught with danger. The plan for such an endeavor was simple enough; die, stay dead, and then return to life with the answers to his questions. The devil was going to be in the details because what Dr.Zhen was attempting had never been done before without the person permanently becoming a fixture in the afterlife, if it existed, which he highly doubted.
Dr. Zhen did not intend to merely poke his head in death's door. He wanted to stick around for awhile.
An acquaintance who was an expert in the care of trauma patients; the exact type of specialist that Dr.Zhen needed to successfully conduct such a bizarre experiment was Dr. Ben Friedberg. Friedberg worked in the emergency room of a prestigious Baltimore-area teaching hospital and had once been a student of Dr.Zhen. In time, Zhen contacted Friedberg, briefly laid out his idea, and proposed a meeting to discuss "certain details."
Friedberg accepted to meet on short notice with his old college professor, yet there was an uneasiness in his acquiescence to discuss "something that was both intriguing and important to mankind." Those were Zhen's words.
He remembered Dr.Zhen to be, in a word, eccentric. And that was being kind. It would never have been his first choice in how to spend an evening, but he would have to speak face-to-face with Dr.Zhen about this plan of cheating death.
Dr.Zhen was wet and haggard when he limped inside the late-night coffee shop in downtown Baltimore. A strong Nor'easter had swept in earlier that evening. Accompanying the strong rain was copious lightning and thunder. As Zhen shook out his over-coat and hat at the establishment's threshold, a large bolt of lightning hit somewhere close by. It was quickly followed by the crack of powerful thunder.
Not one to be frightened by a simple thunderstorm, Zhen had a moment of whimsy. Another bolt of lightning lit up his countenance, revealing a barely detectable smile as small rivers of rain water ran down his wrinkled face. Zhen mused that this would be a perfect night to have a macabre conversation, for Baltimore was the hometown of Edgar Allen Poe, nineteenth-century America's most renowned poet of darkness.
Downtown Baltimore had been Poe's haunt. Zhen wondered if perhaps Poe had ever visited this particular building back in the early 1800s when it housed some other business. Zhen mused that Poe would have enjoyed eavesdropping on the conversation to come.
Dr. Friedberg was already seated and enjoying a latte. As Zhen took his seat opposite him, Friedberg made a hand gesture to the bored counter-help to set both men up with a round. The server nodded and went to work frothing foam. Friedberg offered his hand then to his former professor. Zhen accepted Friedberg's open hand and gave it a strong, brief shake. "You're never late, are you professor?"
"Never," replied Zhen, "You know how I feel about such things." Friedberg smiled. Indeed, Zhen was adamant about punctuality. He was once known to frequently lock the doors of his class to keep out late-coming students. "I believe I was once a victim of your locked door policy."
"And you never were late again, were you Dr. Friedberg?"
"Never," he replied as two hot lattes arrived at the table. Friedberg took a spoon to his and stirred it as he tried to formulate a way to start a dialog with his strange mentor. Another bolt of lightning struck outside, more distant this time. A second or two passed before its thunder rattled the plate glass window they were seated against. "Professor," Friedberg began hesitantly, "what you propose is quite, uh, very..."
"Yes," he replied, but that wasn't the word he had in mind.
"Yes." That word was more like it, he thought.
Friedberg shifted uncomfortably in his seat, raised an eyebrow and nodded his head. "I'd like to try and understand your motivation for attempting a stunt like this," he said with a tone that bordered on chastisement.
"And that is why we're here tonight, Doctor Friedberg, although I can assure you, this is to be no stunt." Zhen put his cup down and continued. "Let's begin with a question to you," he suggested. Friedberg agreed with a nod and returned the steely gaze of his mentor head-on. "Tell me of your experiences during the Great Depression."
Friedberg smiled, let loose a chirp of a laugh and put down his cup. "Tell me of your own, Professor," he replied. The year was two-thousand eight and Friedberg was barely forty years old.
Zhen himself was barely in his sixties. "I cannot," Zhen replied in earnest. "I wasn't born yet."
"Nor I," stated Friedberg.
"Tell me of your adventures during the French revolution, then."
"Professor! What?"
"The Middle Ages, perhaps? What about the time of Christ? Tell me what it was like to walk amongst the dinosaurs, Ben."
Friedberg didn't say a word. He put his elbow on the table and used his hand to hold his head in a thoughtful pose.
"You find my questions senseless, don't you?" Zhen coyly said.
"Professor, they're ridiculous."
"Before you lose interest, let me further explain." Zhen paused and bent over the table. His pause was long enough for the sound of the rain hitting the plate glass window to briefly take over the conversation. "You can't tell me about these things because you were not conscious during them."
"Professor, you're testing my patience now. We've covered that."
"Wait let me finish my thoughts and you'll understand." Zhen leaned back and took a quick drink of his latte and then continued. "Each person who has ever lived never had any memorable experiences before being born. It's quite impossible to describe, the nothingness before memory. That is why my questions do not make any sense. Until a person's memory kicks in, there is no sense of time, no sense of anything at all."
Friedberg slowly nodded. "That is understandable. You really cannot describe anything before your own personal memory engages. Even the first two or three years after birth are a blank to most people because their means of storing data at that time is incompatible with, shall we say, subsequent iterations of operating system software."
"You were always quick, Ben," Zhen said with a wry smile. "In a nutshell, humans blink on."
"Okay, I agree. What we mean by the human experience, it blinks on."
"There's more! Humans blink off, too! And you'll know this to be true when I explain. Human consciousness and the unconscious are closely tied to memory. They're all intertwined like ivy." Zhen interlocked his fingers to illustrate the point. "Now, imagine this human ivy on the side of a wall, which represents time in human terms. The ivy crawls up the wall, which supports it. As long as there is wall to climb, the ivy attaches itself to it and continues. However, and this is the key, the ivy cannot go through the wall to the other side. The wall itself which supports it acts as a barrier to prevent it from crossing over."
Friedberg continued to listen intently.
"What I'm trying to say is this. Human consciousness is a function of time. When time is up, so is human consciousness. There's nowhere else consciousness can go. It was supported by time and when the wall ends, the ivy necessarily ends. Do you understand?"
"Yes, and professor, I must tell you that what you're suggesting here flies in the face of what every major religious faith on earth teaches. What you're telling me is that just as human blink on, when they die, they also blink off."
"I don't subscribe to that professor. I always believed that human consciousness extends beyond this plane of existence."
"And what proof do you have that a heaven or hell exists? None. And what proof do you have that human existence extends beyond our own time and space? None."
"Thus, you have the mystery of faith, Professor."
"I know darn well what it's called, and I have none, you hear!" Zhen barked.
He had become visibly agitated. A long silence ensued as Zhen realized he had crossed a line that could endanger his relationship with his former student. Things needed to calm down, but as if to put the exclamation point on his rant, another bolt of lightning with powerful thunder struck nearby.
Friedberg felt that he had heard enough and rose from his seat. "Perhaps it is best if I..."
"Wait, please Ben." Zhen had reached out to Friedberg's hand and was holding onto it.
A pained expression crossed Dr. Friedberg's countenance. He sighed and slowly sat back down.
Zhen let go of him to search for a handkerchief to wipe his head, but settled for a napkin that had accompanied his coffee. He regained his composure and then continued. "I want to find out if what you believe is the truth, Ben. I have to know. Because I fear that our conscious, subconscious and memories are all as mortal as the human body itself."
"Professor, you know I respect you to the utmost degree, but I'm about to end this discussion."
"Don't pull the plug on the discussion, Ben. Pull the plug on me, instead."
Friedberg was not amused by Zhen's last comment. "People have died before and been brought back, professor. You'll discover nothing by doing it yourself."
The professor sat back and left his hands on the table. 'I want to be dead longer than any of those people. I want to be dead for at least an hour."
The trauma doctor sat back in his seat and left his hands on the table. He let out a long breath. This last statement of Zhen's was beyond the pale of reason.
Friedberg was well aware of the new medical breakthroughs that showed human heart muscles and brain cells were non-necrotic even after an hour of clinical death and that it was actually the re-infusion of oxygen that caused sudden, massive cell death. The answer to bringing someone back from the dead after an hour had passed would be to reintroduce oxygen to the body in diluted amounts and slowly raise its concentration over time. Of course, some chemical or drug regimen and a lowered body temperature would be factors to consider in developing the overall processes for bringing someone back who had been dead for so long. All this flashed through the trauma doctor's mind in an instant. "What you propose, Professor, has never even been attempted before. You don't just expect me to lay you down on a gurney, kill you off, and then try to bring you back to life an hour later, do you?"
"No Ben, certainly not. This project will require intense and dedicated research."
Friedberg continued with his misgivings. "Even if I could figure out a way to revive you, after an hour or more, you might have severe brain damage, and if not, then severe heart damage." Friedberg's expression softened. He looked thoughtfully at his old college professor. "Why do you need to seek this particular information that you will naturally find out in the course of time?"
Zhen thought back to that terrible day when the lives of three people he deeply loved were snuffed out in an instant. As sure as he was of his own existence, Zhen was also sure that if there were ever three people who deserved an eternity in heaven, it was Betty, William and Toni. But over time, Zhen had convinced himself that had God truly existed, He never would have allowed such a horrific event to have occurred. So Zhen denied God's existence. He entertained no visions of his family waiting for him in a 'heaven-like' place.
Zhen paused for a long time before responding to Friedberg's query. "I can't explain that to you. Suffice it to say, I'm strongly motivated from within. But before you make your final decision, let me offer you an enticement to help me with this project."
The trauma doctor's response was instantaneous. "I'm ready to say 'no' to you now, Professor, regardless of anything you could offer me."
Zhen smiled a little and bobbed his head. "I can offer you the use of the medical facility at the university and two million dollars to conduct research for one year to discover the secrets of bringing someone back from the dead after an hour."
Friedberg was shocked! "What funding agency has endorsed that?!"
"I'm funding this project myself, Dr. Friedberg. But so that you'll know where the money came from, I will tell you that I made a fifteen thousand dollar investment over twenty years ago." Zhen shrugged and smiled. "Who knew Microsoft would become so successful?"
"How did you get the university to allow you to use the medical center?"
"The very same way I'm getting you to help me, Doctor; with a little donation."
"So you're offering me the use of the university's medical center and two million dollars for one year of research?"
"That's the deal."
"And if I am unsuccessful in discovering the methods you seek?"
"Then we'll reevaluate after a year. But I'm hopeful that you'll figure everything out well within that time frame. Will you accept?"
"I'll have to take a sabbatical from my work," Friedberg said, before pausing a moment. "I would want a quarter of the money to support my family for a year," he said, then paused again. "And I would need a small staff and complete autonomy within the medical facility to conduct experiments without any attention being drawn to me or my work. If it got out that I was trying to do something as unethical as this, I would be ruined."
Zhen tilted his head and smiled. "You'll have to report to an Institutional Review Board, who by the way, doesn't agree that these experiments are unethical. But other than that I can guarantee secrecy for you and your work and I agree to everything else. Will you think about it?"
Friedberg bit his lips hard and slowly nodded his head. "Alright, Professor. I will think about it."
A weird thrill surged through Dr.Zhen as he rose from his seat and stuck out his hand to his former student, which was politely accepted and given a firm, brief shake in return. Zhen quickly dawned his hat and coat and paused to say, "Please call me at your earliest convenience with your answer," before leaving into the wind and rain outside.
Friedberg left the establishment a short time later to return to his home. A powerful bolt of lightning struck somewhere well off in the distance. Booming thunder followed. The eeriness of the night and the conversation with Dr.Zhen had spooked Friedberg to the bone.
In a short time, he decided to accept the offer, but in his heart, he had the most serious of concerns. Nonetheless, he called Zhen the next week and agreed to his proposal.
Within six months, and after many attempts, Dr. Friedberg managed to resuscitate a trained rat after it had been dead for an hour. It took another month of tests on the rat to determine that had suffered no apparent organ damage of any kind. It was a milestone in biological science, yet Friedberg did not celebrate the success. He knew that Zhen's reaction to the experiment would be, and it came to pass.
Zhen ordered Friedberg to begin conducting experiments on chimps right away. Friedberg argued that it was too soon, but Zhen, of course, won the argument.
Friedberg's work was secret to practically everyone, but his experiments were still subject to the scrutiny by the Institutional Review Board. Zhen warned Friedberg not to skew his results or to try and unduly influence the board when he presented his findings to them. Friedberg did as he was told and presented his preliminary findings without bias. Nonetheless, he was still shocked when he was given authoritative direction from the board to proceed with experiments on primates.
It took two months and the lives of several chimpanzees before Friedberg was able to bring one of them back from the dead. Friedberg tested the chimp for a week and found no damage to any organ. So he tried again on another chimp. This time, Zhen was in attendance for the experiment.
Even though he wore a surgical mask, one could still see the amazement in Zhen's expression when Friedberg successfully resuscitated the chimp after an hour of its being dead. Subsequent tests on this chimp proved that it too survived the ordeal no worse for wear.
Zhen was ecstatic, but Friedberg was not. A rat and a chimp are complex life-forms, to be sure, but they are not human. To Zhen, it was all a wash. Zhen believed that all that had to be done was to ramp up the chemical regimen using a simple body-mass ratio calculation (which Friedberg had used to determine between the rat and the chimp), and then duplicate the procedures for inducing death and then life. In Zhen's mind, it was so easy and straightforward that he wanted to proceed immediately. Friedberg advised him one last time against this unwise decision, but Zhen again stayed true to his course. This decision, of course, was made without the consent or knowledge of the review board.
Within a week, two nurses placed Zhen within a special container located in one of the medical center's operating rooms. They were gowned from head to toe. He could only see their eyes. This was a precaution taken by Dr. Friedberg; the three of them were gowned in such a way so as to not be identified should something bad happen during the experiment. No video cameras were allowed, and Friedberg had personally ensured that none had been secretly hidden within the room. Friedberg made sure that this was Zhen's moment, and Zhen's moment alone.
The container Zhen had been placed inside was similar in size and shape to an Egyptian sarcophagus. He was kept warm using heated towels placed from chest to toe. These towels were replaced with new ones frequently. Dr. Friedberg administered a tranquilizer to Zhen. He asked, "How are you feeling today, Professor?" while leaning over the coffin-like container.
"I'm well," he replied. Zhen could see the frown in Friedberg's eyes above the mask.
"This is your last chance to change your mind."
"I'm not doing that," Zhen flatly replied.
"Okay, Professor. Let me tell you again what to expect. I've given you a tranquilizer that will prepare you for the anesthesia. Once you're fully under, we're going to lower your body temperature using this vessel you're inside. Next, we will slowly introduce the chemicals into your bloodstream using the IVs we've placed in your veins. The chemicals will act as an insulator and anti-oxidant in your blood. As we do this, we will slowly begin to decrease the amount of oxygen you breathe. We will also introduce helium into this mixture. Finally, once your body is perfectly prepped, we will stop your heart and you will die."
Friedberg pause for effect, but Zhen remained calm and focused.
"An hour later, we'll begin to warm you and reintroduce oxygen into your system, but only in small amounts. We'll do this while slowly cleaning your blood of the chemical agents. At the critical point, we will restart your heart and begin ventilating your lungs again. God-willing, you will recover consciousness. Do you have any questions?"
"No, but I do want to thank you for doing this for me, Ben." Zhen could sense the frown fade from behind the mask.
"Alright then, we'll proceed," Friedberg said with authority and commitment.
That was the last memory of Dr.Zhen...
...until he awoke. Zhen fought to regain consciousness in the same manner as someone who had just had surgery would; while in a fog. Friedberg was there standing above him, still fully gowned. Zhen coughed a few times and then settled down with steady respiration and eyes seeking focus.
Friedberg smiled. "I think you're going to be alright, but you need to rest for a long time. I'm looking forward to hearing what you have to say about your time away from us," he said to Zhen knowing that the professor was still officially unconscious from the experience and could not yet see or hear him. Friedberg turned and walked away.
Zhen fought his way back, slowly. He could barely sense the ventilation tube that was stuck down his throat. A few more minutes passed and then Zhen blinked on.
And then with equal suddenness, he began to thrash about on the gurney. His IV tower crashed to the ground and as it fell, it pulled the needles out of his arm. He pulled hard on the tube down his throat, and out it came, but it hurt for it to do so. When it popped out, Zhen screamed. "Nooooooo!"
Friedberg had not yet left the room. He quickly rushed to Zhen's side and tried to hold him down, but it took him and the two nurses together to stop his apparent convulsions. "Professor!" cried Friedberg. "Professor! What's wrong?"
"Oh no," Zhen said as he blankly stared at the ceiling with eyes glazed over with tears. "I was right!"
"What do you mean?" asked Friedberg while noting that every muscle in Zhen's body was as wound up as a rubber band.
"I was right about death, Ben." Zhen turned his gaze to the horrified countenance of Friedberg. "I was right Ben. There is nothing out there! There's nothing out there at all!" he exclaimed.
Many years later, Dr.Zhen was ready to die for good. His palatial home that he had purchased from the royalties earned from the sale of his numerous books had become his hospice.
His books on the absence of life after death had sold millions. For years now, Zhen had been the bane of every religious faith on earth. His books had caused the start of numerous suicidal cults around the world. There was one cult in particular that took the lives of five-thousand men, women, and children. Many people were glad to know that he was finally dying.
A staff of nurses cared for him around the clock. Of course, they were there only to see to his comfort. Zhen was dying for real, and nothing was going to stop that.
It was on the last day of Zhen's life that a much older Dr. Ben Friedberg happened to show up for a visit to his old college professor. He was a heavier man now, and his hair had fully turned to silver. As he was brought in, the nurses excused themselves from Zhen's room. Friedberg settled in for a quiet chat with his one-time mentor. "Professor, how are you feeling?"
"I feel terrible, Ben. But I'm glad that all this is about to blink off for me."
Friedberg tried to manage a smile, but it was more like a wince. He drew in a deep breath and exhaled the following sentence. "Professor, I need to tell you something important. You didn't die before."
Zhen, who could barely see through swollen, red eyes, turned and faced Friedberg, who was gently nodding. The look on Zhen's face was one of complete confusion.
"It's true," continued Friedberg. "You didn't die. I didn't kill you. All we did was put you out with anesthesia."
"But no, you didn't..."
"Yes, Professor. I came here today to tell you the truth after all these years. You never died before. It was all a hoax."
"But...why?" Zhen managed to hiss.
"The truth is I really didn't think I could bring you back at that time. I didn't want to take the chance with your life. In the end, the techniques were sound, and I've become a wealthy and important man because of its success. I just wanted to come and tell you the truth, and to thank you for having given me the opportunity to discover the secrets of bringing people back from the dead."
Zhen's mind was fine; it was his body that was dying. And in that instant, Zhen hated Friedberg as much as he had hated anyone; including the drunken city-councilman who had killed off his family. His final, awful wish was that Friedberg would be the one to die today.
That moment of realized hatred passed away quickly and was replaced by stark fear and dread. Friedberg's revelation meant that Zhen was clueless about death. Where once existed a calm ocean of assured knowledge inside of Gilbert Zhen, a boiling cauldron of doom and fear now erupted.
A single tear fell from his eye and he drew in his last breath. The tear was shed in absolute terror and fear. His whole body shuddered for just a second as Zhen fought to live on, but he failed to do so. His last memory was the blank expression of his former student staring at him as he died.
Per his instructions, Zhen's ashes were interred with those of his wife, Betty, his son, William, and his daughter, Toni. No one save for a funeral home employee was in attendance when Zhen's ashes were placed in the vault with the other three containers within. Zhen's parents had long since died themselves and he had no brothers or sisters. He had no friends. Zhen had lived his miserable life as alone as if he'd lived in a prison's solitary confinement cell. No one cared that he had lived, and no one cared that he had died. Not even Dr. Ben Friedberg made an appearance at Zhen's entombment.
The funeral home employee turned the key to the small vault to lock it and then placed a new bronze plaque over the door to forever seal it. The plaque now showed the name of GilbertZhen along with those of his family. Once again, they were together and this time, it would be for eternity; but they would be together only as urns of ash.
It was ironic that even though Zhen had been tricked and had never died before, in the end, he was proven right; at least for him as an individual. He did blink off when he died, but not because that was the only option in the afterlife that was available. No, Dr.Zhen blinked off because he was full of hatred. He blinked off because he had never shown mercy or kindness. He blinked off because he did not have any faith in a conscious eternity.
For if Dr.Zhen had discovered faith, mercy, and unconditional love, he would have also discovered this fact; that his family continued to exist in a wonderful place and that his absence from them would provide the only disappointment they would ever know in their new life, a life he could have enjoyed himself for all eternity.
And had Zhen visited his family's vault more often at the cemetery while he was alive, he would have seen the analogy he presented to Friedberg years ago play out.
He would have noticed the ivy covered wall that stood behind their interment site. He would have seen that over time, the ivy steadily climbed the wall and yes, it could not break through to the other side.
But after time had passed, when the ivy reached the end of the wall, it was not the end of its journey.
It simply crawled over to the top to get to the other side.
"The Deaths of Dr. Zhen" is a short story by author Brian Osburn and is featured in the compilation work entitled "Tales of Fear, Fantasy, and Fiends – Volume 1."
Search your e-Book retailer to read the other short stories "The Clone – In Vitro" and "The Juniperus Chronicles."
Thank you for reading this work of fiction by Brian Osburn.


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As I'm writing this, our eldest dog, Vincent, is having lots of treats and being pampered. But by the time you're reading it, he will be gone. He has had a number of medical and mental problems over the past few months, which have been getting steadily worse. The vet has been seeing the change in him, and presented us with a realistic but very grim picture. Essentially, all of the options of what could be causing his problems are non-curable or the treatments would be very difficult for a dog his age to survive (such as surgery). Further, his quality of life has drastically decreased over the spring, and it is extremely unlikely that it will go back to an even keel, let alone improve. In a very emotional discussion, we decided that the best course was to euthanize him so that he doesn't have to live in more pain and mental confusion.
Tag Archives: tragedy
A Garbage Bag of Bottles
I wrote a draft of this blog post last weekend, while sitting in an apartment in Lakewood, Ohio — the apartment my mom and my Uncle Tim rented. It was a beautiful two floor house with each floor divided into a separate living unit. The layout was surprisingly similar to the one Michelle and I had when we first moved to St. Louis nearly nine years ago. The place felt comfortable, and it felt natural to throw my coat over a chair and sit at the table to write, just like I did when I was starting as a freelance writer.
It was also the apartment my uncle's corpse was found in, surrounded by empty vodka bottles, the carpet black with his own bloody vomit.
As Mom's boyfriend, Bill, drove us back to his house from the plane, she told me what had happened. Uncle Tim had come home drunk again. "It's like he's two different people," she said, "and I can't stand the one that drinks." She left to spend a few days with Bill, afraid of what she would say or do if she stayed and watched him drink again. By the time she came back, he was dead, face down on his bed. All of the empty bottles of alcohol around him filled a garbage bag by themselves.
Her voice was sad and a little shaken, but mostly she sounded resigned. This is an old story with our family. Uncle Tim once tried to commit suicide with pills while drunk. My Uncle Mike succeeded — the same Uncle Mike who encouraged me when I was very young to make art and follow my dreams. The same Uncle Mike who walked in on his father, my grandfather, after he had drunk himself to death. As my mom tells it, Grandpa picked up a bottle right after Grandma's funeral, and proceeded to drink for the next two years until he was dead.
Bill's a nice guy — I really like him, and I think he's good for my mom. I haven't seen my mom in years, and as we talked we fell back into old, comfortable rhythms. I've missed her, and she's missed me. But she suggested quietly that I could stay at the apartment if I wanted, and I agreed. I needed some time alone, time to think things through, time to sweep my metaphorical bottles into a garbage bag.
Since I found out what happened last week, I've mostly just felt numb. I haven't seen Uncle Tim in the flesh for 20 years, since I took a train with my mom to visit him in Colorado in 1992. He's not a total stranger to me, but I have trouble calling his face to mind. I can't say I feel a loss for something I barely had in my life. But I do remember all the phone calls from my mom over the past few years, all of the frustration and hurt and confusion of watching him drink himself to death. All of the lies about missed bills, all of the failed jobs, all of the fights with bosses and crushed fenders and empty bottles.
Really, I think I'm angry at him, at the men in my family, at the steady parade of death that comes one drink at a time. Three of the men in my family were plunged into depression, gripped by a dark mood that prompted them to kill themselves sip by sip. The Sweeney legacy: a garbage bag of bottles.
All that said, I'm generally at peace right now. I know I'm not them, not held in the same grip as they were. For all the darkness surrounding this, I think things will improve from here, for me and my mom. I certainly have the occasional moment when I'm not sure what to feel, when my mind is a little cloudy and I wonder what I'm really feeling. But all in all, I'm just relieved that my mom doesn't have to go through any of this ever again.
About my emotional meltdown
I originally debated just not talking about this, but I need to get my head wrapped around it, and I do that best when I write things down for other people to read (which explains why I'm a writer, I guess). I then debated being very casual and flip about it, but I'm not there yet. So I'm just going to lay it out straight.


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Roads Being Fixed After Rainy Weather
Read the story. Click the "LISTEN" button at the bottom of the page to hear the story. When you are done, click the "NEXT" button.
There have been many weeks of rainy weather in one area of California. The rain has a tendency to seep into the cracks of the road. When cars and trucks drive on these wet roads it breaks down the base. This causes potholes to develop.
Potholes can cause a lot of damage to cars. Auto repair experts said the holes in the roads have been causing more damage than usual to cars. They said that they have already seen many bent and cracked wheels.
The rain has caused over $70 million in damage to roads in California in just one month. When the rain finally stopped for a bit, many workers began trying to patch the holes in the roads.
One area actually lost a 40-foot section of road. The heavy rains washed it away. Crews have been working hard to try to fix it.
A new lane is being built around the damaged area. People will have to use this for a little while. Permanent repairs will begin later in the year.
(This was adapted from an original story provided by News10 KXTV Sacramento.)


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World Bulletin/News Desk
The Pentagon's F-35 program office on Friday said it was "laser-focused" on finishing development of the software needed for the U.S. Marine Corps to start using its Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jets from mid-2015.
The Pentagon's chief weapons tester warned in a report obtained by Reuters and published on Thursday that a possible 13-month delay in F-35 software development, coupled with maintenance and reliability problems, could delay the Marine Corps' plans.
But Air Force Lieutenant General Chris Bogdan, who runs the Pentagon's F-35 program office, says he remains confident that Lockheed will complete the Block 2B software that gives the jet its initial combat capability in time.
Bogdan restructured the F-35 program office last year to put a greater emphasis on software, which he considers the No. 1 technical risk to the $392 billion program, said his spokesman Joe DellaVedova.
As part of the changes, he said Bogdan had named a number of people or "czars" to oversee the range of efforts linked to the Block 2B software and later software versions, as well as the drive to reduce the F-35's maintenance and operating costs.
"Lieutenant General Bogdan and the F-35 program are laser- focused on delivering the Block 2B capability to the warfighter," DellaVedova said. "We track and review F-35 software development data religiously and we're confident we'll deliver Block 2B in time to meet the Marine Corps' needs."
Lockheed is developing three models of the new warplane for the U.S. military and eight partners: Britain, Canada, Australia, Turkey, Italy, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands. Israel and Japan have also placed orders.
Marine Corps officials had no immediate comment on the new report, but the service has not revised its plans to declare an F-35 "initial operational capability" by July 2015.
The report, which was delivered to Congress on Friday, got a muted reaction from the countries that helped pay for development of the new plane or placed orders.
Britain is expected to announce orders for 14 F-35 jets and the associated infrastructure, training and maintenance services, as early as next week, Reuters reported on Thursday. It is buying the same short takeoff, vertical landing B-model jets that will be operated by the Marines.
The Dutch, who have ordered 37 planes, said they had not received the report, but did not expect any major surprises.
"The problems raised are well known and are being addressed," said Defense Ministry spokeswoman Sacha Louwhoff.
The Dutch are testing two trial planes and expect delivery of their first production plane in 2019. The first Dutch F-35 pilot completed his training at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida on Friday, DellaVedova said.
Endre Lunde, spokesman for Norway's defense ministry, said the F-35 program office was already taking steps to fix issues raised by the report, including software development.
"The information presented in this report has been briefed to all international partners at various points over the past year," Lunde said, adding that he did not expect the issues raised to affect Norway's participation in the F-35 program.
At the same time, Lunde said Norway viewed the report as a "very valuable" tool and "an important external reference in our efforts to keep the development of the F-35 on track."
Belgium is also weighing F-35 orders, but will not make a decision until after elections in May, one official said.
In Israel, one defense official said he did not see any problems for his country's order of 19 jets. "There is no delay (for Israel)," said the official, who declined to be named.
An official at South Korea's arms procurement agency said any delays beyond an intended 2018 delivery date would be "problematic". Seoul has said it would buy 40 of the F-35s, although it still has to finalize this order, a move that could come in February, according to two sources familiar with the issue.
A senior Japan Defense Ministry official said: "We can do nothing but ask the JPO (Joint Program Office) to speed up the program." Tokyo plans to buy 42 of the stealth fighters, with the first four due for delivery by March 2017.Last Mod: 25 Ocak 2014, 12:54