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A contradiction in terms? Perhaps, however, what word would be used otherwise to describe the state of, in a sense, being aware of being the universe, being aware of its self? And further of that awareness being an influential factor in a persons behavior?
Or in other words what word to use, to describe someone whose fundamental interpretation of reality, is an active part of their awareness? In non-atheists it is called spirituality, personally I have no problem with atheistic spirituality, it seems to do the job for me; however it could be problematic. I'm curious what other folks here think.
I too have no problem with the idea of atheistic spirituality. For myself I feel (although my thoughts and beliefs are ever evolving) that being atheist means the belief that there is no one god or gods above me. If we have to use the idea of god, then I believe that we are all gods capable of creating and manifesting our own reality without the help of any fictional god. Where I get "spiritual" is that I believe in my own "higher self" which is a collective of my past selves, more commonly called "intuition". For me, religion is myth created by humans of long ago who did not understand their reality in terms of science. I don't believe in myth as reality but I do believe myself to be more than just rational mind.
I am unclear what you mean Valerie by past selves, do you mean as in reincarnation?
Also what do you mean by "more than rational mind?"
If your answer to either of these relies on something, other than that which is produced by the physiology of the brain/mind, and ends when that physiology ends, then your definition of atheist is apparently accurate, but different than what I think most people mean by it.
Also I'm curious about this statement, "...then I believe that we are all gods capable of creating and manifesting our own reality..." This sounds like multiple solipsism to me, I'm nearly certain I've misunderstood you.
i like the thinking part of this however the word spiritual implies god..i think maybe use the word 'awareness' or perhaps' energy ' might be better ; but the use of the word spirituality simply does not apply...... AND ( get this) might mix up the goofball religious people who are not affiliated with any organized religion...but define themselves as 'spiritual' but not 'religious'. Frankly i dont want them around mucking things up.
interesting topic, and one i've been thinking about lately.
@albert I'll defintely listen to that podcast tomorrow, which I'm sure will affect my perspective.
@serena Great point
@heather I totally understand what you're saying and what I have to say I think is similar.
I think, like others have said, that the problem with the term "spirituality" is that it seems to be tied too closely to non-materialistic world views. It seems that the most common connotations of the word "spiritual" itself set it directly against "material." And yet, even though I am strongly materialist, I have a hard time just giving the word up.
I mean i think of everything as being material, i don't think there's anything that is not a part of the physical universe, like a soul or whatever, it's all physical, consciousness, all of it. We may not know exactly what thought is, but I just see it as a material phenomenon that we are still working on figuring out. Just like answering the question that comes up when talking to theists, "well if there is no god, then how did we get here?" I guess it's really hard for most people to accept that we just don't know, but we're working on it, and that's the best we can do at the moment.
But I've had experiences like being outside at night, looking up at the stars, and being overwhelmed by the reality of it, that above my head and all around me was an infinity of space, and that i was a part of it, directly connected, an inseparable part of it. And yes, while some of these times have been while under the influence of mind-altering substances (and I don't necessarily discount altered states of perception as being invalid), not all of them have. If it can be put into words it's something like: i am in the universe, of the universe and an inseparable part of the universe. all things are one, the perception that there are separate things is an illusion. But yet, I have no sense of there being any kind of "higher power," or "universal consciousness," or "god" or anything like that at all. Just that the universe is immense beyond our wildest abilities to comprehend, yet it is real, right there in front of our eyes, and that through completely natural processes, we, as complex conscious beings are able to contemplate all that.
So like heather said, "is this spiritual?" If not, what? I don't know what else to call it.
Last year I spent a month in the forest sleeping on the ground under the stars. I did go back to town once a week for a shower and supplies. It took me a few days to get used to being out there alone, and it took the animals about the same amount of time to get used to me being there. Anyway, once I was comfortable, each night I would lay there watching the stars move past the black silhouette of a pine tree that stood in a convenient spot for my line of sight. It continually struck me how amazing it was that all of that had led to me laying there staring back at it, aware that it was there, like the universe reflecting upon itself.
I often think of those fractal graphics that zoom rapidly in or out, revealing the details as being a reverberation of the greater part which itself is a reverberation of the greater part and it gives me a rush. I sometimes wonder if Moses didn't experience the same thing while laying by a little fire, but upon returning just couldn't find any way for people to grasp what the hell he was talking about. He could have been saying, "All these little fucking idols and god-concepts you have are just childish, there are such more incredible things to contemplate that you can't even imagine." Perhaps all they caught out of his ravings was the bit about the fire and receiving these incredible feelings from overwhelming thoughts, only to turn around and attribute them to Yahweh, one of the bigger god-concepts they had at the time.
wow! a month in the forest sounds AWESOME! I would so love to be able to do that.
You know, theoretically, your musing about moses may not be too far from the truth. Maybe the experience we're talking about essentially the same as someone who feels that they have experience god (or whatever), the difference being into what paradigm of reality they interpret the experience. I mean, so maybe moses did have a profound experience of being united with a single reality, but the only intellectual framework he had to put that experience in was yaweh, the one god. maybe?!
Hi Heather, I can easily see your ancestors having a much better possibility of such an experience, given the close ties of native Indian spirituality with the natural world.
As far as the mental experience of people ten thousands years ago goes, there is actually a lot of reason for it to be vastly different than ours. According to one theory of the origin and evolution of consciousness, it may be only around 8000 years old. I'll be bringing that up in another thread.
I should have called it a hypothesis, even though its author thinks it is a theory. One of the problems I've had with it is, it only accounts for the development in the fertile crescent and areas directly effected by what went on there. I would not propose that consciousness developed by the same manner, or at the same time everywhere. You raise one of the questions I have of the theory as well, what about the far east, and the Americas, these are not covered. If you think what you've heard of it thus far is profoundly difficult to believe, and while I found the age estimate similarly startling, it is not the most startling claim of the theory. The problem is that, the theory hangs together pretty tough. I would welcome your comments on it, whether you read the book, or when I figure out how I want to post on it.
The book that explains the theory is, "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind", it is by Julian Jaynes. But please remember it is only one theory. Regardless of the theory though, the book is well worth reading for the first few chapters discussion of what consciousness is and is not, as well as a fascinating delineation of characteristics, and behavioral construction. It is however only one theory, I've found one other that I'm reading now, there do not yet seem to be many available.
I am relatively new here, and am still feeling my way around, I have many things I want to bring up for discussion. My experience thus far with forums has been unsuccessful, due to a variety of reasons; however, this one looks promising. Part of my motivation is selfish, I need rational discussion of many points in order to have any hope of advancing my understanding of the issues of interest to me. At the same time I am compelled to want to share some of these issues as I consider some of them paramount to the future of the species. (sorry if that sounds amazingly arrogant it really isn't as it is the work of men like E. O. Wilson, and Richard Dawkins*, that compels me.)
Let me assure you, I respect your question, and appreciate your participation; however, I am trying to learn how to keep threads to specific topic, I should have known that reference would be provocative, I will cover it though.
*Lumsden and Wilson, "Genes, Mind, and Culture"
Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene", I've read some of his other books, this however was the first of his I read, and contributed to guiding me onto the course I've followed for 25 years in regards to my investigations.
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NFFE Calls for Conference on Tobacco Bill
Thursday, June 11, 2009
RELEASE Contact: Randy Erwin,
Legislative Director Phone: (202)
257-0948 Washington,
D.C. � Today, Richard
N. Brown, National President of the National
Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), a union
representing 100,000 federal employees
nationwide, sent an urgent letter to House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi calling for the conference
of H.R. 1256, the Family Smoking Prevention and
Tobacco Control Act. The bill,
passed by the House in early April, contains a
number of provisions concerning federal
employee retirement, leave, and recruitment
policies. However, the Senate version (S.982),
passed earlier today, was stripped of these
crucial provisions, leaving essential federal
workforce issues off the
table. �The House
version of the bill contained several
provisions that are of great importance to the
federal workforce, and they are too important
to let fall by the wayside,� said Brown in his
letter to the Speaker. �We are very discouraged
to see these critical provisions excluded from
the Senate version of the bill, but we believe
they will be agreed upon and included in a
final version of the bill should it go to
conference.� The House
could move forward with the Senate version of
the bill as early as tomorrow should conference
not be held. NFFE strongly supports the House
version of the bill. �This
bipartisan legislation addresses chronic
federal workforce issues that have weakened
recruitment, undermined retention, and
shortchanged retirement annuities for years,�
said Brown in a separate statement. �We can�t
continue to sweep these problems under the rug
and hope they will go

subset: commoncrawl


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Birthday eCard - For The Birthday Girl
Cover Text:
Birthday celebrations
for the Birthday Girl
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a marvellous day
Full of wonderful surprises
To make you smile.
Happy Birthday!
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Monthly Archives: June 2011
OLTL Recap: Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011 6:05 PM EDT
(SoapOperaNetwork.com) -- "One Life to Live" Episode Recap - Wednesday, June 8, 2011.
Natalie expresses her gratitude to John for his role in bringing Liam back safely. She tells John she remembered having Marty's tape recording with her when they argued on the roof. John and Natalie share a close moment that's broken when Brody returns.
Meanwhile, Todd is about to tell Téa about Marty's secret of having switched Liam's paternity records, but he changes his mind when he hears Brody tell Téa how much Liam means to him. John's return and continued suspicion and antagonism toward Todd convinces Todd to keep Marty's secret at least a little longer.
Starr tells James about taking Hope to see Cole and that Hope didn't want to leave her Daddy. James offers to help in any way he can. Things turn romantic, but Starr has to go home to Hope before...
GH Recap: Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011 6:00 PM EDT
(SoapOperaNetwork.com) -- "General Hospital" Episode Recap - Wednesday, June 8, 2011.
While Jason convinces Michael it is a bad time to join the mob, Anthony sets his sight on getting Abby to work for him. He wants war with Sonny.
Elizabeth's grief is triggered when she sees Robin and Patrick with Emma.
Robin and Patrick make efforts to safeguard their lives.
Matt helps out at Crimson, to Maxie's delight. Spinelli daydreams of being a gumshoe.
On the Next General Hospital...Sam talks with Jason about his future in the mob.
Michael discovers he was accepted to PCU, but there's a bigger question at hand.
Is Elizabeth losing her mind? General HospitalRecaps
Y&R Recap: Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011 3:28 PM EDT
(SoapOperaNetwork.com) -- "The Young and the Restless" Episode Recap - Tuesday, June 7, 2011.IT HAPPENED TODAY...At Crimson Lights, Diane spotted Nick there and tried to cozy up to him. When he showed annoyance rather than kindness, Diane was quick to bring up how the two of them had sex the night before. Unfortunately, Nick could have cared less, telling Diane that the sex they had was a one time thing. Their conversation was interrupted when Adam arrived with the news that the two of them did a great job in getting Sharon's name cleared. Showing him an Internet news story, it pointed out that Sharon's accident was just that: an accident.Sharon was in the barn reading the Internet article about herself with Sam arrived inviting her to dinner. She quickly declined him and he soon received a phone call. While he was gone, she wondered what it would have...
Y&R Recap: Monday, June 6, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011 3:17 PM EDT
(SoapOperaNetwork.com) -- "The Young and the Restless" Episode Recap - Monday, June 6, 2011.IT HAPPENED TODAY...Jack informed Ashley that Tucker was doing alright and that the authorities are aware that no foul play was involved. She shared her frustration at the way Katherine was treating her, which prompted Jack to break the news that Katherine offered her job to Victoria.At Crimson Lights, Lauren and Jill bonded over coffee. She shared that she wanted to do something special for Colin; and that was setting a trip up for the two of them to go to Australia. The two stopped talking on the trip when Colin arrived. Lauren quickly excused herself and talked to Kevin about the courtcase. She hoped that Phyllis would drop her obsession with luring Daisy back. She suggested that Kevin go to the courthouse to give his support. Meanwhile, Jill shared the news with Colin that she...
OLTL Recap: Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011 2:29 AM EDT
(SoapOperaNetwork.com) -- "One Life to Live" Episode Recap - Tuesday, June 7, 2011.
John questions Todd. Todd has the truth about Liam's paternity on the tip of his tongue but John's aggressive tactics ultimately lead him to keep quiet. John arrests Todd.
Meanwhile, Téa confronts Tomas about his and Todd's involvement with Marty and Liam. Tomas denies all, but Téa is skeptical, and her misgivings grow when she gets a call from Todd saying John arrested him. Téa arrives at the police station to bail out Todd. Blair calls Tomas a hero for bringing Liam to the police.
Natalie and Brody discuss their surprising second kiss. At first they explain it away as a side effect of their relief at having Liam returned safe and sound. But they quickly admit there might be more at play. They agree on several points, most of all that it would be too complicated.
CONFIRMED: Vanessa Marcil Giovinazzo Leaving 'General Hospital'
Tuesday, June 7, 2011 11:48 PM EDT
On Monday, May 23, three days after news broke that Ingo Rademacher (Jasper 'Jax' Jacks) had been fired by ABC's "General Hospital," Soap Opera Network tweeted that we had exclusively learned that Vanessa Marcil Giovinazzo (Brenda Barrett Corinthos) would be the next actor leaving the daytime drama series. On Thursday, May 26, just before the long Memorial Day Weekend, the actress confirmed our report when she revealed that her days with the soap were numbered via her Twitter page. Interestingly, the actress has been tweeting up a storm since revealing the news while keeping mum for nearly 3 months on her twitter account (it had previously been crickets since February of this year). Marcil Giovinazzo's confirmation follows months of rumors since she revealed in an interview with Access Hollywood Live back in March that she was on her way out.
AMC Recap: Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011 6:10 PM EDT
(SoapOperaNetwork.com) -- "All My Children" Episode Recap - Tuesday, June 7, 2011.
Griffin lays into Cara for almost sleeping with Jake. Tad asks Jake if he's done with Cara after admitting his feelings for her. Jake says yes. Cara tells Tad what happened between her and Jake and says she still wants Tad if he still wants to be with her. Tad convinces Cara to go back to work at the hospital. Tad and Griffin share a drink and toast to Cara working back at PVH and Tad hopes Griffin will stick around town as well. Cara and Jake toss their old wedding rings into the hazardous materials container.
Greenlee struggles to keep her relationship with Ryan alive. She tries to plan a night alone but they're interrupted by Kendall and Spike. Jackson consoles Greenlee when she panics that she's turning into her mom. She vows to keep fighting...
GH Recap: Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011 6:00 PM EDT
(SoapOperaNetwork.com) -- "General Hospital" Episode Recap - Tuesday, June 7, 2011.
Jason and Sam discuss whether he should leave the mob – especially if they plan on having children together. Sam maintains that quitting the mob will not bring Jake back. Jason gets called to investigate a shipment that has been blown up by Anthony.
Devastated by Maya's "affair," Ethan returns home determined to get a divorce in the Dominican Republic.
Dante and Lulu make love, and we see Lulu get some perspective on her father's addiction despite struggling with codependency. Lucky realizes where Luke has gone – the Bordello he grew up in. Lucky and Siobhan take off to find him.
Spinelli and Maxie share a sentimental cross at Jake's with Patrick and Robin, but Matt ends up saving the day when Maxie starts to choke on her drink.
On the Next General Hospital...Johnny help an unlikely ally.
Matt helps...
'All My Children' Confirms that Josh Duhamel is Coming Home
Tuesday, June 7, 2011 5:56 PM EDT
(SoapOperaNetwork.com) -- Soap Opera Network first reported news of a Josh Duhamel return being in the works at "All My Children" in May following the 38-year-old actor making curious comments relating to the cancelled ABC soap on "The Ellen Degeneres Show," Twitter and Facebook. On Monday, June 6, ABC confirmed speculation with the announcement that the "Transformers" star will indeed return to the serial drama that started his acting career this summer.
Entertainment Weekly reports that Duhamel will make a cameo appearance in one or potentially two episodes this August. The Daytime Emmy Award winner, who aired on "All My Children" from November 1999 to October 2002, has not taped the aforementioned appearances yet. There is no final word out on if Leo du Pres, who disappeared into the raging waters of Miller Falls while attempting to rescue his wife Greenlee (Rebecca Budig) from his deranged mother, will return as...
Tognoni & Degnan Bid Llanview Adieu
Tuesday, June 7, 2011 4:34 PM EDT
(SoapOperaNetwork.com) — With only seven months left to go before the show becomes a part of television history, two more actors are about to depart from "One Life to Live." ABC Soaps in Depth reports that Gina Tognoni (Kelly) and Tom Degnan (Joey) will be both be leaving Llanview behind later this summer as their storyline winds down.
But there is some good news for Joey and Kelly fans, however, as both characters expected to ride off into the sunset together. The news comes only weeks after their co-star Robin Strasser (Dorian) tweeted that Tognoni, who returned to "One Life" in February 2010, was leaving the show. Tognoni originated the role of Kelly back in 1995. Degnan, meanwhile, became the seventh actor to take over the role of Viki and Clint's youngest son Joey on November 24 of last year.
Final airdates for the actors have not been announced, however, look...


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Seriously? Tony Robbins? Tony Robbins is going to be the voice of reason at the beginning of the next bear market leg down. I don't know, folks. I mean, this is world-renowned Tony Robbins warning me that my $80 stocks that went to $8 are now going to $1 or even $0. Is this really the kind of video that shows up at market tops? C'mon! It's Tony Freaking Robbins! He's telling people to sell stocks! Okay.
Let me just say this: If Robbins' advice here is correct, then selling stocks here is actually the least of our worries. This is only the kind of thing that happens if we really are entering a Prechterian Wave 3 point of recognition collapse and supercycle depression.


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Already a paid subscriber but not registered for online access yet? For instructions on how to get premium web access, click here.
Supreme Court sends employers scrambling
Just hours after the Supreme Court's decision on helath care, concerned clients of the Alcott HR Group were looking for answers to what the ruling meant for them.


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This is one of the best news for those who are stuck on locked iPhones and are looking for a free unlock solution. The official statement by AT&T mentions the date as well.
The official statement says that come Sunday, April 8th, they will offer qualifying customers the ability to unlock their AT&T iPhones. The only requirements they stated are that a customer's account must be in good standing, their device can't be associated with a current and active term commitment on an AT&T customer account, and they need to have the contact term fulfilled, upgraded under one of their upgrade policies or paid an early termination fee.
What does this mean? Users who have finished the two year contract with AT&T can now unlock their iPhones and the best thing is that they can do this for free. Although this is great news for the users stuck on locked iPhones ( most of users with 4.11.08 and 4.12.01 baseband), it might not be that great for those unlocked on iPhone 4 with 4.11.08 baseband.
Free Unlock all AT&T iPhones Starting from April 8 |


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Whale Watching- Huell's Whale Adventure Special (1)
Episode #1 is a one-hour whale watching tour.
It all took place in San Ignacio Lagoon halfway down the Baja Peninsula on the Pacific side. It's here the mammoth gray whales come like clockwork each year to birth their calves. The winter migration down the coast from Alaska is a journey of more than 5,000 miles one way and is one of the longest migrations made by any mammal.
And for some reason these huge gray whales, one of the oldest species on earth dating back at least 30 million years, actually seem to seek out and enjoy human contact once they reach the lagoon.


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Edited by Jean-François Roulet
ISSN (print) 1461-5185 • ISSN (online) 1757-9988
Publication: Spring 2001 Volume 3 , Issue 1
Minimally Invasive Operative Care: II. Contemporary Techniques and Materials: an Overview
Peters, Mathilde C.; McLean, Mary Ellen
Summary: Restorative dentistry has experienced a shift from the mainly reparative dentistry of the 20th century towards a minimal intervention approach. Contemporary operative treatment incorporates the Ml philosophy in cavity design. Currently available techniques lo pursue minimally invasive restorative treatments are highlighted. Characteristics of adhesive materials that facilitate minimally invasive operative care are discussed. Conclusion: When operative intervention is the designated treatment for initial canes, currently available operative techniques and contemporary materials warrant a minimally invasive approach. Minimal intervention applied to the operative field keeps the options open for long-term preservation of the restored tooth.
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Pekin Police, and Fire, Tazewell County Sheriff, and Fire |
Listen | Feed | Genre | Listeners | Player Selection | Links | Status |
Pekin Police, and Fire, Tazewell County Sheriff, and Fire East Peoria Police and Fire, Morton Police and Fire, Washington Police and Fire, Northern Tazewell Fire, Creve Coeur Police and Fire, Pekin Police and Tazewell County Police and Fire. This is a county wide feed. |
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Hotel Fly View
- Restaurant
TripAdvisor Reviews Fly View Hotel Jaipur
Travel Blogs from Jaipur
... hilltop, overlooking the palaces and city of Amer. The world's biggest cannon on wheels- the Jai Ban is positioned here, built during reign of Maharaja Sawai Jaisingh. It has a twenty feet long barrel �
Kicking back in Jaipur
... lucky.
Along the journey we got to see green open fields but this was contrastred to the passing towns covered in litter and people using the tracks for toilet facilities in daylight. Not being used to seeing this is quite wierd but its how some people live.
We were met at the station by our driver having avoided all the touts en route. It was pouring with rain and ...
Day 10 Sher Bagh to Jaipur
... chap who then took things out of my locker for my swim, a chap who kept an eye on me to ensure that I was safe in the (four foot deep) water, a chap who spent his time waving a white flag to warn off the pigeons, a chap who adjusted the jacuzzi power after my swim, a chap who.......you get the idea!! We're dining tonight in the restaurant that is found in the 75 year old steam train (British built) located on ...
To the textile workshop
... it was free time for the group we all split and myself and Kushal spent the rest of the afternoon cruising the streets with me buying framed pictures of Hanuman and Shiva for 100 rupees! Which was a total bargain. Then around the corner we went to a shop where it was a whole heap of Ganesha, Hanuman, Shiva devotional and decorations for the wall at home so many good things but again I have to make sure I don't buy too many heavy things or I'll be over the limit with luggage on the way ...
Completing the Golden Triangle!
... seeing planned for tomorrow. We arose early had a quick breakfast, today marking a full week without eating any meat what so ever. Then off to meet our driver/tour guide for the day. His English wasn't so great which was a shame, but what he lacked in vocabulary he made up for in effort. We entered the walled Pink City (old Jaipur) where perhaps unsurprisingly every building was pink! our first stop was the Wind Palace aka ...


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4/6/2017WASDA Spring Regional Meeting - Rhinelander
4/7/2017WASDA Spring Regional Meeting - Eau Claire
4/19/2017WASDA Spring Regional Meeting - Richland Center
4/20/2017WASDA Spring Regional Meeting - Pewaukee
Your attendance requires the commitment of less than a full day and promises value to you individually and to your profession. This meeting is specifically designed to accomplish two things. First, to support you in your responsibility to be current in your knowledge of critical legal issues that are significant to the success of your district and its risk management. Second, it is structured to elicit your professional participation in creating the credible "voice" of your professional in shaping the next biennial budget for education and any education policy that might emerge from the current legislative session.
Registration Fee
Registration fee is $95 per registrant.
Full refunds will be issued if cancellation is made in writing to the WASDA office (email@example.com) by noon on Monday, April 3rd. No refunds will be issued if cancellation is received after this date or if the registrant is a no show.


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(17 quotes found)
"The new, young, chic and acquisitive rich, the restless young Europeans and the beautiful people still flit from Palm Beach's polo fields to Newport's yachts with refueling stops at Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and Tiffany."
Charlotte Curtis
"I don't do glitz, I do reverse chic."
Eileen Krutchik
"Chinchilla is said to be more chic than mink, though personally it reminds me of unborn burlap."
Patrick Dennis
"Vulgarity is, in reality, nothing but a modern, chic, pert descendant of the goddess Dullness."
Dame Edith Sitwell
"It's also very chic to put outdoor furniture inside."
Terri Jordan
"With the first 'Pirates,' we believe we elevated pirates to pirate chic. It's not about the pirates you knew about 10 years ago. It just seemed these things were meant to be together, these movies and this race."
Donald Evans
"I'm not about showing you how to crochet a dog bed, ... But I'll show you 10 chic dog beds, where you can get them and how to put them in a room."
Chris Madden
"I'm not chic, I could never be chic."
Sid Vicious
"The idea is treating lingerie like a real garment - it's very chic to see your underwear now, especially a bra. I wear great bras I know people will see under sheer blouses."
Lauren Goodman
"The hair is really wonderful. Just very simple, very chic. In a ponytail where it's long, just so you can see the detail of the jackets and the detail of the clothes."
Richard Tyler


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So this is not where I imagined I'd be on my 35th birthday - but I couldn't be happier.
We've wanted another baby for the past 10 years - so to nearly be there is amazing! Although I am struggling in the heat. I've only had winter babies before.
So today - I am spending it in the air con. As I did yesterday.
And enjoying my birthday present from my beautiful hubby (I think he got sick of rubbing my feet)
And my sweet mumma bought me a pregnancy massage - that will be happening on Wednesday. Cannot wait for that!!
This year is going to be amazing. Such big changes. And I'm really looking forward to them all.


text:
BOSTON (AP) – Massachusetts will pay the lead contractor on the state's hobbled health insurance website an additional $35 million to close out the contract.
That means the CGI Group, which has already been paid $17.3 million, will end up receiving about $52 million of the original $89 million contract.
Health care officials said the $35 million will compensate CGI Group and subcontractors for meeting certain milestones since November, when they were last paid.
The agreement signed Friday with CGI also allows the attorney general to recover up to $12 million, based on the results of an ongoing false claims investigation.
Massachusetts announced in March that it was dropping CGI after the state's updated health care website ran into serious troubles.
Health care officials said CGI will continue to provide "critical transition services" over the next several months.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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11. Powerful Presentations
Today's presentation tools offer many fun features. It is tempting to use too much when you first start making presentations. In this Quest, you will discover what makes a good Prezi and use your knowledge to compare and contrast several Prezis.
iPad Alternative: Introduction to Prezi on the iPad
Key Vocabulary:
Concise: give a lot of information clearly and in a few words; simple
Rationale: a reason or set of reasons
1. View the Prezi above to find out about five things you should consider when making a Prezi.
2. View the Prezis listed below using this template (.doc file, or this Googledoc file) to compare and contrast (identify the strengths and weaknesses) of each presentation.
- Michigan Prezi 1
- Amazon Animals Prezi 2
Additional Resource: how to embed a prezi
Completing this Quest
When you finish your template, upload or turn in your document as your teacher directs.
Check off this Quest on the 21t4s Roadmap
I am ready for Quest 3 --Creating Your Prezi
ISTE and Common Core Standards
ISTE Standards•S
1. Empowered Learner
a. Articulate and set personal learning goals, develop strategies leveraging technology to achieve them, and reflect on the learning process itself to improve learning outcomes
c. Use Technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways


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Parks, Recreation, Human Services & Public Safety Committee
The Parks, Recreation, Human Services, and Public Safety Committee (PRHSPSC) reviews issues related to these particular areas. Items considered by PRHSPSC include development and construction of parks and other city facilities, human services, diversity and public safety issues.
The following commissions report to PRHSPSC:
- Arts Commission
- Diversity Commission
- Human Services Commission
- Parks and Recreation Commission
- Youth Commission
- 5:00 pm
- Second Tuesday of each month
- Hylebos Conference Room
33325 8th Ave. S.
Federal Way, WA 98003


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I love books. Not just reading them, but how they smell, the weight of them in my hands, the feel of the pages when I turn them. So naturally, I have a lot, culled from all stages of my life.
Even the ones I didn't like and have no intention of revisiting (I'm looking at you, "Moby Dick"), I am compelled to keep. After all, the books we read are more than just things. Somehow, they become a part of who we are. A little piece of our soul.
"I think when you spend time with a book, when you invest the time to sit and read something for however long it takes, it's very hard to let go of that," said Jill Goldberg, the founder of Hudson Interior Designs in Boston. "It's just like a little kid with a stuffed animal that they want to hold onto."
At some point, though, I realized that the way my books were crammed into every available space, spilling haphazardly out of my bookshelf and stacked on the floor, didn't accurately reflect their importance to me.
They also looked like an afterthought, when really, they're anything but.
I was in desperate need of an intervention.
I sent photos of my "bad bookcase" to several designers and certified professional organizers to get their suggestions of how best to display my book collection. (If you can even call it that; the only value in my beat-up stacks of Penguin Classics is sentimental.)
Then I spent an afternoon pulling everything off the shelves, trying different arrangements, and identifying what should stay in the living room and what could be boxed away. The marked-up copy of Shakespeare's complete works that saw me through college is now stashed in the basement, because I almost never find a reason to crack it open. I moved cookbooks off the shelves and into a cabinet in the kitchen, and relegated piles of magazines to the recycling bin.
No one I spoke to suggested getting rid of books, which was good, because that's not an option for me.
This wasn't an exercise in de-cluttering; it was an attempt to find a way to cohabitate with my books and let them shine. Because, like I said, I love them.
That's a sentiment Tracy Morris, principal designer at Tracy Morris Design in Washington, often hears from her clients.
A book lover herself, Morris is happy to incorporate books into design.
"As long as you do it tastefully, so it's beautiful and clean, you can put them anywhere your heart desires," she said. "Books are an enormous part of creating texture and warmth in a house."
And displaying books artfully, in combination with other meaningful treasures from your travels or childhood, can turn them from clutter into a conversation piece, said Andreas Charalambous, principal architect at Forma Design in Washington.
"If you provide someone with the infrastructure or backdrop to place things in an orderly manner, it ends up being pleasing to look at," Charalambous said.
"You don't want to just hide these things behind a closet door, because then they lose the importance that they have."
So how can bibliophiles strike that balance between hanging on to their treasures and keeping their house from looking like something that should be featured on an episode of "Hoarders"? Here are suggestions from professionals on how to incorporate your book collection into your home design, many of which I used in my bookcase overhaul.
• Organize in a way that works for you
Books can be organized alphabetically, or by size, subject, author or color. As long as it works for you and reflects how you think about and retrieve your books, it's fine, said Cynthia Lindsey, the president of Organizing Ease in Nashville.
The methodical reader might want to start in the top left corner and go across each shelf in alphabetical order, either by title or author. Those who are more expressive and don't care about the content may choose to sort the books by color, starting with red and going through the spectrum to violet, creating a rainbow of book spines. This can work well for people who have a lot of books, said Goldberg, who helped a family with hundreds of books stage them by color in their home library.
Other clients prefer to display books of one color, such as white or blue, to create a calming feel, Morris said.
But some people – myself included – prefer to organize their books by subject, to make them easier to find when they need them. It's hard for me to imagine separating the brown-spined "Jane Eyre" from her black-spined Bronte cousins.
That's fine, too, Morris said. She suggests ordering books by size within those categories to keep the finished product looking neat and organized. Either put the tallest books on the outside and work toward the smaller, or put the tallest in the middle of the shelf and have them get smaller as they fan out.
• Find a way to neutralize them
Amy Trager, a certified professional organizer based in Chicago, suggested flipping the books around so the pages are facing out, instead of the spine, to cut down on the visual clutter of the books' different colors and sizes.
That only works, of course, if you don't need to quickly access specific books, but it's a great way to add texture and a neutral, toned-down feeling to your space, Trager said.
Trager had another client who needed to keep her books in the living room but hated the way they looked. She created covers for each of her recessed shelves out of thin paperboard. When she wanted a particular book, she could pull the covers down, but when they were up, it looked like a solid colored wall, fading into the background.
• Mix it up
Blend horizontal and vertical stacks of books to create visual interest on your shelves, Morris said.
She suggested arranging vertical books on the ends of the shelf, with horizontal stacks in the middle. Or using a few art books stacked on their sides as a bookend. Leave a few inches between the horizontal books and the side of the bookcase, she said. Art or coffee table books are perfect for stacking horizontally, because they are often too tall for the shelf.
Stacking books horizontally on top of your vertical books, though, like I had done to cram more books into the space, is a no-no, Morris and Lindsey agreed. That just makes the shelves look cluttered. Duly noted.
• Integrate some meaningful or beautiful objects to break up the books
Those horizontally stacked books can be a great place to put a small frame or vase, Morris said.
Choose a variety of items or art that is meaningful to you, and try to keep things around the same size, she said. If you are using framed photos or art, use the same color frame throughout.
Group objects on the top of the bookcase in sets of odd numbers, such as three or five. Or, Lindsey said, keep the top of the bookcase empty for a clean, uncluttered look.
• Find balance
If you have a bookcase with more than one column of shelves (like mine), Morris suggested using the same pattern in opposite corners to create a balanced effect.
For example, on the top left and bottom right shelves, she said, you could pull the middle books out and turn them so they are horizontal, then put a small picture on top.
• Think beyond the bookcase
Book collections don't have to be limited to a traditional shelving unit. We've seen them thoughtfully stacked inside a fireplace, or used as an end table next to a chair.
Morris said she once had a client who had a shelf across the top of a headboard for a line of shallow books. She has also seen books stacked above and below coffee tables and on ladders that lean against the wall.
Lindsey once placed books stacked kitty-corner to one another in a transition area between floors, to create a sculptural display of large art books. She encourages clients to get creative with the placement and design of their books, she said, so they enhance their homes.


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The World's Largest Coalition of Nontheists and Nontheist Communities!
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The search for clues to the source of the E.coli outbreak which has killed 19 Europeans and infected more than 1,700 worldwide was concentrated yesterday on a restaurant in the northern German town of Lübeck.
Some 18 people, including Danish tourists and a party of tax officials, fell ill after eating there. One has since died, and two others are in a critical condition.
It is not thought the eatery is directly to blame for any contamination, but, according to Werner Solbach, a microbiologist at the University Medical Centre Schleswig-Holstein: "The supply chain could give us important clues about how the pathogen was passed along."
If it is possible to track down where the restaurant obtained its salad, fruit and vegetables, then the source of the mutant E.coli bacteria might be found. This has so far eluded health officials. Efforts to identify the source of the outbreak have been complicated by the fact that salads include a variety of ingredients from different producers and, often, different countries.
Joachim Berger, proprietor of the Kartoffel-Keller (Potato Cellar) said last night he was devastated to hear that many of his guests had been struck down by the virulent bacteria. "It was like a blow to the head when I heard the news," he said. "We had everyone here tested and everything was disinfected. I paid for the tests myself because safety is important for our guests and employees."
But the Lübecker Nachrichten newspaper reported that scientists had identified the restaurant as a possible spot where the bug was passed on.
The German tax officials who fell ill after eating there belonged to a group of 34 female officials who were attending a trade-union seminar in the port city of Lübeck from 12 to 14 May. At least eight of them became infected with the E.coli bacteria after eating a meal on 13 May in the Kartoffel-Keller, which specialises in potato dishes. Many of those infected have developed haemolytic-uraemic syndrome (HUS), a potentially deadly complication that affects the kidneys. One of the women who contracted HUS died last Monday. The condition of two of the women is critical and a third needs daily kidney dialysis.
The group has been questioned extensively by investigators from Germany's Robert Koch Institute, which is trying to trace the pathogen. The women are reported to have told the Robert Koch team that they ate mostly salad – cucumbers and tomatoes. Hence, German official health warnings against eating such vegetables.
Mr Berger told Reuters: "We had a group of women here from the tax authorities and they ate à la carte. They enjoyed their meal. But the group was in town for quite a few days and also ate elsewhere. None of our employees is sick. No diarrhoea. And they all eat salad and everything we have here."
Mr Berger said his main food supplier was based in the city of Mölln, which is between Hamburg and Lübeck. He said his restaurant was "booked out – thank God", when the IoS spoke to him yesterday evening.
While Germany is at the centre of the outbreak, people have become ill in 10 other European countries and the United States, probably from eating lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers or other raw salad vegetables in Germany. Other places where people have fallen ill include Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
Britain has 11 cases, all of whom are German or have recently visited that country. The food contamination is believed to have been caused by poor hygiene at a farm, in transit, or at a shop or food outlet.
The National Farmers Union warned that vegetable producers could see prices slump as salad produce went unwanted on the Continent and flooded the UK market. The NFU has held talks with supermarkets to ensure they pay British farmers "a price that reflects the quality of the product". Morrisons said it did not import any salad vegetables from Germany, while Tesco said it imports only cauliflower from the country. Waitrose said the majority of its vegetables are home-grown, so are not affected.
E.coli normally lives harmlessly in our gut, but this strain has the ability to stick to intestinal walls where it pumps out toxins, sometimes causing severe bloody diarrhoea and kidney problems. Many patients have needed intensive care, including dialysis due to the kidney complications. The World Health Organisation said the strain was rare, had been seen in humans before but never in this kind of outbreak.
- More about:
- Biology
- Germany
- Hamburg
- Restaurants


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Sentinel Online FAQ
Data Access/General QueriesWho can access Sentinel data?A free, full and open data policy has been adopted by the EU for the Copernicus programme, which foresees access by all users to the Sentinels core products. The different Sentinels data use typologies and the corresponding access rights are documented in the Data Access web pages. The use of Sentinel data assumes acknowledgement of the general Terms and Conditions for the use and distribution of Sentinel data. Registration is required to download the products. When was Sentinel-1A imagery made available to users?The full data stream was opened on 3 October 2014 via the Copernicus Open Access Hub, which contains the full archive of Sentinel-1A data available since then. Users will be informed when the rolling policy will be activated in parallel to an archive data access. Which Sentinel-1A imagery is available to users?All data sensed on-board Sentinel-1A is systematically processed according to the Sentinel-1 production scenario and made available online within 24 hours from sensing. When was Sentinel-2A imagery made available to users?The full data stream was opened on 3 December 2015 via the Copernicus Open Access Hub. A reprocessing campaign, using the latest processor baseline is on-going to provide access to all useful data from the Commissioning phase acquired before 3 December. It should be completed by the end of 2016. Which Sentinel-2A imagery is available to users?Sentinel-2A data are systematically processed to L1C products and made available online between 2 and 12 hours from sensing (on average 5 hours after sensing). Which are the Sentinel-3A data product types, and when do they become available to all users?The Sentinel-3A products are progressively released upon product validation; up-to-date information about the mission status and data availability can be found in the periodic status reports. How will Sentinel-3A data products be available to users?S3A products are made available to users by ESA (L1 products and L2 Land products) and EUMETSAT (L1 products and L2 Marine products). ESA is making S3A products available on the Copernicus Open Access Hub, at this preliminary location. The publication on Open Access and ApiHub will follow at a later date. All registered users of Open Access Hub are able to use their existing credentials, and in addition there is a guest account: S3guest/S3guest What is the cost of Sentinel data?As per Sentinel data policy, data are distributed free of charge. Is any tool available for working with Sentinel products?ESA makes available free open source toolboxes for the scientific exploitation of the Sentinel missions. Detailed information is available in the Sentinel Toolboxes page. Copernicus Services Data HubWhat is specific about the Copernicus Services Data Hub?The Copernicus Services Data Hub is an access to Sentinels data dedicated to Copernicus Services. All functionalities are the same as on the Copernicus Open Access Hub, though with restricted access by few users, and availability of the whole missions archive. What is the registration process in the Copernicus Services Data Hub?Only members of Copernicus Services (defined on the CSCDA website) are eligible for access to Sentinels data via the Copernicus Services Data Hub. These users shall first register to access CSCDA services and contact the Services Coordinated Interface at firstname.lastname@example.com to request an account on the Copernicus Services Data Hub. Copernicus Open Access Hub QueriesWhat is the registration process in the Copernicus Open Access Hub?Access to Sentinel products available in the Open Access Hub requires the user to self-register. A guide to the registration process can be found on the Open Access Hub website. How can a password be reset for a Copernicus Open Access Hub account?The following instructions should be followed to reset the password of an account in the Open Access Hub:
To change your password instead, after logging in, click on the User profile button in the top right corner of the Access Hub and fill in the information required under 'Edit Profile'. Can the Copernicus Open Access Hub time out?Once you are logged in to the Copernicus Open Access Hub, a long period of user inactivity will cause a timeout. However, the account will still be logged in but when a search is done, an error will be returned instead of the search results. The solution is to log out of the Copernicus Open Access Hub and then log in again. How to use the Copernicus Open Access Hub?A guide to the search terms which can be used for data searches is available on the Copernicus Open Access Hub website, and a guide to using the advanced search functionality is also available. Additionally a guide to the graphical user interface of the Open Access Hub is available. How many images can be downloaded simultaneously from the Access Hub?Users are able to download two images simultaneously. If a third download is attempted when two are already on-going, the system will return an error of 'An exception occurred while creating a stream : Maximum number of 1 concurrent flows achieved by the user "<username>"' (though 2 concurrent downloads are accepted). Is batch downloading available in the Copernicus Open Access Hub?The capability for users to define a script in order to automatically download certain product types over selected areas of interest is available in the Open Access Hub. This batch scripting is available thanks to the exposed Open Data Protocol (OData) interface for accessing the EO data stored on the rolling archive. This protocol is based on the well-supported HTTPS/ REST transfer protocol that can be handled by a large set of client tools as simple as common web browsers, download-managers or computer programs such as cURL or wget. The Odata protocol provides easy access to the Access Hub and can be used for building URI for performing search queries and product downloads offering to the users the capability to remotely run scripts in batch mode. A user guide can be found on the Open Access Hub. How much of the acquired imagery is made available in the Copernicus Open Access Hub?All acquired Sentinel imagery are made available for user download in the Open Access Hub. Is it possible to shift Sentinel-1 frames along track?It is not possible to select or shift frames along the track. Products are available as shown in the Copernicus Open Access Hub. Planning/Observation ScenarioWhat is the observation scenario of Sentinel-1A?The Sentinel-1A SAR observation scenario implements a baseline pre-defined mission observation scenario, making optimum use of the SAR duty cycle within the technical constraints of the overall system. This scenario aims at fulfilling in priority the observation requirements of the Copernicus Services. High-level details of the Sentinel-1A observation scenario are available on the Observation Scenario page, along with the daily detailed observation plan. What is the observation scenario of Sentinel-2A?The Sentinel-2A observation scenario implements a baseline pre-defined mission observation scenario. Sentinel-2 is currently in its Ramp-up Phase; the acquisition plan is published weekly. What is the observation scenario of Sentinel-3A?S3A operates continuous and systematic observations over a 27 days repeat cycle. More information is available on the Observation Scenario page. Products/ProcessingWhat are the processing levels of Sentinel-1A?Sentinel-1A imagery is processed to three levels: Level 0, Level 1 and Level 2. More information on each processing level is available in the Processing Levels section. An overview is provided here:
Sentinel-1 orthorectified products are currently not part of the operational products. ESA's NEST tool offers functionality for the orthorectification of imagery, and is available for free. Where are Sentinel-1 interferometric/InSAR images available?Sentinel-1 acquisitions over land masses are systematically processed and made available as L1 SLC products for Interferometry/InSAR applications. The evolution of SLC availability since June 2014 and the current operational configuration is available on the Production Scenario page. Where are Sentinel-1A Level-2 products available?For data acquired in IW and EW modes, Level-2 OCN products are available over regional ocean areas since 26 July 2015 while Wave Mode Level-2 OCN products are available to users since 02 July 2015. What DEM is used in the processing of Sentinel-1A imagery?Details on the DEM that is used in Sentinel imagery processing can be found in the Technical Guide. Why is there an overlap between Sentinel-1A Level-0 products?Level-0 (RAW) products constantly have an overlap at the beginning/end of each scene. The seconds of the overlap are described in the product annotation in the "generalProductInformation" section. The "s1sar:sliceOverlap" parameter is defined as follows: "Overlap (in seconds) of input data between adjacent slices within the L0 segment to which the slice belongs (applicable if the current L0 product is a slice)" and it provides the information on the overlap between the consecutive products. There are no overlaps between Level-1 images. What are the processing levels of Sentinel-2A?Sentinel-2A imagery is processed to two levels: Level 1B and Level 1C while users can generate L2A products using the Sentinels toolbox. Full qualification will be achieved at IOCR+9 months. More information on each processing level is available in the Sentinel-2 Data Products section. Are common products made available by ESA and EUMETSAT identical?S3A level 1 products are produced and made available both by ESA and EUMETSAT. So they are referred as "Common products". These products are generated using the same processors so the products are identical except for operational contingencies which may affect one or the other centre, e.g. differences in the dynamic auxiliary data used, different creation/publication times, slight shifts on the adoption of new processing baselines, etc. Such information are detailed inside the product manifest. Data QualityHow can Sentinel-1 images be un-flipped?Some Sentinel-1 images may appear mirrored when opened in the Sentinel-1 toolbox. This is an effect of the acquisition geometry: the mirroring effect may be present or not depending on the combination of orbit (descending or ascending) and looking side (left or right). If an image is mirrored it is possible to flip it with the NEST toolbox using the Data Flip tool in the Utilities menu. Alternatively, the image can be flipped and, at the same time, re-projected in a desired geographic projection with the following procedure: Utilities > Reprojection > fill in the input/output boxes in the first tab and chose the projection in the second tab. Then click OK. It is recommended to launch this time-consuming process on small sub-datasets. Are there known Sentinel-1 product quality issues?In case there is an issue identified in the quality of the Sentinel-1 products available to the users, a quality disclaimer is available for user information. The quality disclaimer documents the affected products and the quality impact. Processing related informationIs Sentinel-1 orbit information available to users?The following types of Sentinel-1 orbit information are available for user download on the Sentinel-1 PDGS website:
In addition, Sentinel-1 attitude information will also be available in the future. Are the Sentinel-1 processing auxiliary files available to users?The Sentinel-1 processing auxiliary files are available for user download on the Sentinel-1 PDGS website. |


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Growing the Sustainable Brands Revolution...Will You Help?
The Sustainable Brands community is driving a revolution in how business and brands will succeed in the future, and we are honored to be stewards of this community as it moves forward. You can help support our effort to enable more brands to succeed by leading the way to a better future by voting for Sustainable Brands in the Chase/LivingSocial Small Business Grant Competition. Ask your friends to do the same! It won't take more than 30 seconds and the support from this grant would allow our team to significantly improve our services to you, our community.
Please accept our thanks, and remember, you need to vote BEFORE JUNE 30!
Here's how:
- Log in with Facebook
- Search for "Sustainable Brands" and vote for us!
See our founder's response to Chase's qualification questionnaire below, and thanks for your support and for helping us spread the word!
Launched in 2006, Sustainable Life Media is a change making business that is working to drive the global shift to a sustainable economy. We are doing so by building SustainableBrands.com, a global learning, collaboration, and commerce community of business, marketing and innovation professionals who are leading the way to a better future. Our customers are environmental and social entrepreneurs committed to serving and enhancing local sustainable economies, such as Taylor Guitars, Chipotle, Lush Cosmetics and SustainU.com, or to driving business model disruption for sustainability such as ZipCar and AirBNB, or to enabling consumer behavior change in their local communities such as RecycleBank, GoodGuide, PracticallyGreen.com and Earth 911. We also serve innovation leaders within many of the world's best known global brand companies such as Starbucks, Target, Coca-Cola, Green Mt. Coffee, Timberland, Patagonia, Kendall Jackson, and countless others who are seeking to understand sustainability as a driver for business and brand innovation. They recognize that success in the 21st century will be predicated, among other things, on their ability to find new ways to drive meaningful value to the local communities in which they operate. And finally, we serve the eco-system of service providers supporting the shift to sustainable business, such as academic institutions like Stanford, MIT, Wharton and UC Berkeley, local and national governmental agencies and NGOs, and solution providers seeking to help.
We generate revenue by producing live events large and small, convening and supporting a paid membership networking group, stewarding an online news and information portal, and designing educational resources of various sorts (webinars, online learning, public seminars in various cities around the country and in-house training,) all of which leverage our market knowledge, connection to experts, and growing global network of buyers and sellers of sustainable business solutions.
Beginning in 2006 with the launch of our website, and proceeding in 2007 with the launch of both a city-by-city roadshow to engage local stakeholders in the community and the launch of our flagship international conference, we have grown from a team of 3, touching perhaps 1000 people in 2007 online and at face to face events, to a team of 17 that has achieved international visibility and will touch more than 300,000 unique business leaders worldwide in 2012.
We have done so by uniquely understanding the needs and practical realities of business today, as well as the powerful market drivers of tomorrow, and by excelling at stakeholder engagement, at curating world leading ideas and information, and at create productive conversations and networking spaces that generate value for all members of the community as well as for the communities in which our brands operate, their customers, their suppliers and their investors.
How is your business involved with the community you serve?
The Sustainable Brands Community is home to passionate individuals whose purpose is to deliver exceptional business performance AND shared value for society. We equip them with the inspiration, information, networking platforms and solutions necessary to successfully drive big ideas into reality. At the same time, we also directly drive change in the physical communities within which we operate. We do so by working with management teams at the venues where we host our events, as well as with officials in city government and other local businesses to help instill new sustainability practices that last after we leave. We teach new venues how to become zero waste facilities, for example, by engaging them in partnerships to deliver zero waste events which we have acheived each of the last 3 years. As a result, we impart knowledge and system change that lasts after we move on.
What would a $250k grant mean to your business plan and how will you utilize the funds to ensure long-term growth and stability?
While we received a small amount of financial support from friends and family in 2008, this funding was exhausted by the end of that year, and we have grown our business since then based entirely on our own steam, with the help of great partnerships and word of mouth. Even though we launched with only about 20% of the funding we initially identified as ideal, thanks to several years of incredibly hard work, and a passion for our vision and purpose on behalf of our team and our extended community of supporters, our business, and therefore our impact has grown by double digits every year since we launched in 2006 (except in 2009, post stock market crash.) We expect to achieve 100% growth in revenue in 2012, and believe the business is set to explode, however despite our growth, we continue to be under-resourced relative to the demand and opportunity in front of us, and we are struggling to keep up with our potential. In response to demand, and with the support of Unilever and others, we are expanding to launch a conference in London in November, and in Brazil in Q1 2013. In addition, we are currently fielding interest from readers from many other locations around the globe – including China, Japan and Turkey, India, Thailand and Argentina, Mexico and Canada, Norway, Eastern Europe, South Africa and beyond. $250k would allow us to right size the salaries of our core team, therefore insuring continuity, to secure our trademarks world-wide (we have secured marks in the US, and registration in the EU and Brazil is underway) as well as to add 4 much needed headcount to support these expansion opportunities. These funds would allow us to reach a stable base of operations so that our decisions can be more strategic and less driven by the need to satisfy our cash flow requirements. This grant is exactly what we need to ensure our ability to leverage these many years of knowledge, market and brand building work into significant expansion of both our business and our global impact.
What types of challenges can you identify with your plan and how will you overcome them?
As we have been executing on our plan by putting one foot in front of the next over the past 6 years, and have seen our success continue to build upon itself, we have validated without a doubt that we are on the right track. We have a highly recognized and respected customer facing brand (Sustainable Brands), a global reputation and an amazing global network of people of influence pulling for us. Our main current weakness is cash flow and the lack of bandwidth for fund-raising. We are hopeful that Chase will see our business as a perfect grant recipient , and thus help us overcome this single biggest challenge. With your support, we are excited by the prospect of continuing to drive global change at the local level by expanding our on-the-ground presence in local communities through more local events, training, and business networking groups. Many of our global brands have expressed interest in working toward this end (including Staples and UPS for example, each of whom have local outlets in many many communities in the US and around the world) by hosting local Sustainable Brands meet-ups which we could support with communication, educational content, speakers and so forth.
Describe the talent on your team and how they make your business successful.
One of the biggest strengths of Sustainable Brands is our team. The company founder, Koann Skrzyniarz is a former SVP at United Business Media, a multinational business to business media company where, during her 18 year career, she repeatedly launched and built multi-million dollar businesses very similar to the one currently being developed by SLM. She has a track record for having delivered the fastest revenue and margin growth rates at the company for 10 years in a row thanks to her passion for leading from purpose, and for driving continuous innovation in markets, business models and delivery mediums. Our team comes from five countries, and diverse fields, and yet we are united behind our pledge to drive the world toward a sustainable economy. 6 of our team have MBAs in sustainable business, each coming from a different discipline (brand management, energy, economics & policy, operations and business.) We have a sustainable design expert, a master's grad in integrated media marketing, and folks who have worked inside government and NGOS -- each bringing a different perspective and specialty -- and yet we move as a unit to turn continuous learning and into action. We are teachers, leaders, listeners, communicators, writers, marketing specialists, engagement experts, engineers, designers, sales professionals, logistics ninjas, and social media gurus, and we have come together to make a marked difference in the future. In addition to our immediate team, we have an actively engaged advisory board that includes top industry authors, thought leaders and practitioners from companies including many of those above and many others. And we have an amazing network of entrepreneurs, all of whom we engage with continuously to assist us in taking our mission forward.
Additional relevant information you would like to share.
We believe that business is best equipped to drive the innovation needed in the world in response to increasingly complex global environmental and social problems, and that brands are uniquely equipped to define and deliver value to society by creating cultural aspiration (demand), and by aligning business resources and value networks to effectively meet that demand. The successful, sustainable businesses of the future will recognize the needs of individuals and communities in addition to their direct financial stakeholders, and will work to reshape the future by recognizing, respecting and delighting all their stakeholders both today, and in the future. By seeking what is good for society as whole, they will win in the marketplace by capturing the hearts, and loyalty of their customers. We ask you to consider supporting our vision and early success and momentum by helping us invest into the demand we have created for more tools to help businesses drive the shift to a sustainable future.


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Monday, March 7, 2011
An Open Letter to the Nurse at Cedars Sinai Who Called Me a Failure
When the midwife told me I had three strikes, that my baby would need to be born at the hospital, I was calm. I have spent enough time with lambs to tell you that I went like a lamb. Innocent. I trusted her perfectly. I trusted God and the blessing I had received that morning that specifically mentioned my midwife's judgment. And I trusted my baby. Trust itself is a miracle.
It was this trust in my caregivers that allowed me to divert all my resources to the soul coming through me. I held onto the car handles, half-robed, and stared dreamily out the window at La Cienega Boulevard and Los Angeles blue skies, while everyone else worried about getting there in time. I was only half aware of their concern. I knew she wasn't going to come in the car. I knew her heart rate would remain steady.
You couldn't have known that because I was using all my resources to transition a soul from inside out, I had none left to protect myself. I had no shield to deflect your thoughtless words. And so they dropped like a clumsy rock into a still lake: no shore was left untouched by the ripples. If I had been hooked up to a biofeedback machine, I'm sure you would have seen gauges and needles spike or plummet. Even Dr. Chin commented on my apathetic pushing. "I'm going to give you one more chance. I know you can do better," he said.
You are lucky that Davi didn't hear you. My midwife, whose name means Goddess, who wears a turban and meditates 3 hours every day, probably would have punched you.
I'm sure it was nothing personal. You were probably just using the language someone trained you to use. And your tone of voice was probably just your tired feet talking. It was, in fact, almost 3 o'clock and time for a shift change.
My angel baby was born about 20 minutes after we arrived. No one bothered to look at the clock, so we guessed it was 3:19 p.m. She was a little blue form the cord around her neck, and cone shaped from the vacuum--which Dr. Chin did end up using--but perfectly healthy and normal in every way.
I immediately forgot about you as I latched her onto my breast. Skin to skin, everyone else disappeared.
And yet. For years afterward I found myself having imaginary conversations with you. "I'm not a failed home birth, I'm a successful home birth transfer. Aren't all people who come to the hospital transferring from home at some point or another? Did I not have a natural, vaginal, peaceful birth?" This was useless.
I didn't write my birth story for years--I think because on some level, I did feel I had failed, and your words gave voice to those fears. I am not one to face things, so I continued arguing with you.
It wasn't until Phoebe was 3 years old, during a re-birthing meditation, that I got divine clarity about her birth. I now understand that I did everything exactly as I was inspired, my baby was born exactly how she needed to be born, and I had the exact experiences I needed to have. Not accepting this was my real failure.
And so I want to thank you, dear nurse, for being at the right place and the right time on your tired feet to teach me a lesson about forgiveness and success.
22 comments:
I thank you for this, I am just four months out from a home-to-hospital, transfer, after 3 days laboring at home with ruptured membrains, not progressing even though this is my fourth child, I have had other natural births and this one was except for a little pitocin. My partner and my birth team just seem to hang up their gloves when we got to the hospital, and left my open to the whims of the staff, which meant yelling at me during my drug free transtion and pushing stages ... I still feel Robbed, I worked so hard, I knew what I was doing ( even if it's not what you wanted me to be doing) And you robbed me of my power and my birth of it's beauty ...But maybe one day
ReplyDelete- AugustaMarch 8, 2011 at 5:15 AM
Beautiful! One of the things I remember most from my hospital experience with my first birth (after arriving at the hospital at 9 cms) was a nurse the day after who said, "What were you THINKING, trying to have a home birth?"
ReplyDelete Thanks for your comments. Kimberly, I will pray you get nice nurses, too. I actually had a few angel nurses after the delivery. They do exist. I hear the trick is to go in with gifts, and they'll be extra nice to you.
Stephanie, I am so sorry. Forgiveness takes time. It took me 3 years. Just keep trusting God. The Atonement can heal all things.
Love and Light.Hmm. You are making wonder. I didn't ever thinking of sending it. But now I think I might just mail it to the president of the hospital and the L & D department just for the heck of it. They probably won't respond, but Cedars is actually known for being a pretty progressive hospital as far as birthing goes. In the last few years they have gone to all in-room care (no nursery any more) and they have birth balls and stuff you used to have to bring yourself. They still have a way to go, but you never know--maybe it might change one nurses heart. Or language.
ReplyDelete- AnonymousMarch 10, 2011 at 1:28 PM
Beautiful, thank you for sharing your beautiful & natural birth story ~~ pure inspiration ;-)


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August 30, 2011
How to Paint Your Cabinets
38 comments:
This post really is hugely informative! THANK YOU for sharing all of your efforts and experience! I appreciate the picture in the end of the cabinets without any beveling- more like what I have and it's nice to see them painted too! Hope you have a great rest of the week and thanks again!
ReplyDeleteI have painted the cabinets in 3 houses. I'll tell you how we had the best results. Step #1 - Sand, you don't have to do super heavy sanding but definitely buff it up really good #2 - wipe with TSP, this had really good results. We used it at double the strength it said to in the directions. #3 - prime, we used an oil based primer. LET IT DRY overnight. #4 - Paint, we let it dry for about a week before refilling the cabinets and using the kitchen as normal. We also used a brush and a foam roller. The paint really did dry pretty smooth on it's own, just don't over brush. Better to do 2 or 3 light coats rather then 1 heavy coat. We got the best results with Bher latex paint. We bought fancy expensive paint from Benjamin Morris for one kitchen and it chipped worse then the bher. This last kitchen has been looking great for 3 years with minimal chipping :-) I will be painting cabinets once again this fall. Can't wait!
ReplyDeleteWe are in the middle of repainting our kitchen cabinets. (literally---there are doors and drawers all around my family room waiting to get painted, glossed, and hung.) We bought the kitchen cabinet kit by rustoleum at lowes and for the most part, we really like it. The deglosser isn't as great as I thought it would be, but it works. I have found that we need two layers of top coat, however, just to make sure that everything is protected. The kit we bought was $150 and, when you think about how much you can spend in a kitchen, $150 is nothing.
Our cabinets were crappy...sorry, but they were. They looked fine, but when you got up close you could see that they were fake wood :( They are some type of laminate. To make things worse, they were fake oak. I HATE oak! Now they are transforming into a beautiful warm almond color that looks more cherry in the daytime and more almond-y in the evening. Absolutely lovely.
Let me know if you want before and after photos to further your research for the best method of re-doing cabbies :) I'm sure I can find some.I've found some of the really high quality Polys (such as General Finishes) don't yellow. GF is a bit persnickety about what goes on underneath, but its worth all of the trouble of finding out what works with it because the results are beautiful and it will last FOREVER. You really must have a top coat of some type if you want the cabs to hold up to any sort of use.
ReplyDeleteWhen my parents wanted to do their kitchen cabinets, they had a lot of work ahead of them because the fronts were covered with a very THICK grease buildup.
After using TSP first (to remove most of the buildup), they used a sander on the larger areas and hand sanding the grooves. They then put a few coats of primer/paint on, and that was it (well, they put on new hardware too of course). Years later the cabinets are fine even though there was no topcoat applied.
The before and after of their kitchen was incredible! It went from a very dark floor, dark cabinets, dark light fixture, etc, to a medium-colored floor, light cabinets... :)google "rustoleum cabinet transformations"
the kit is $80 at home depot and comes with everything you need. there is no sanding and it is very self explanitory. We have painted the cabinets in 3 houses and with the last house we used this kit. It was well worth it!
rustoleum's website has an instructional video and lots of pictures!Great post. I actually just found your blog and I am already loving it! You are so talented and have such a variety of things. I have a question about the bleach pen. I did your quicksilver COOP shirt and it didn't goo exactly white. There is still a lot of red in the bleached area. Did I do something wrong? Did I not wait long enough or did I wait too long? I know this doesn't have anything to do with your post so if you would rather send me an e-mail that would be fine. (If you have time, I know you are probably crazy busy)
barnumgk at gmail dot comSomeone sprayed our interior doors too, and it all peeled off too. And we were infuriated too. Latex over oil. You'd think professional painters would test if they didn't know.
We don't paint, so we had our kitchen cabinets painted by someone else (someone awesome, actually). Oil, tons of coats, sprayed, and they still chipped. Pretty bad. Some of the chips might be unavoidable. :( Or, at least, that's what I'm choosing to believe.
At any rate, the kitchen looks amazing, as does the rest of the makeover. I wish I had you girls in Tennessee.Yeah I bet the kit is more expensive, I had no clue what i was doing so i was happy for the one stop. I wonder if the difference in the deglosser was the brand or the finish on the cabinets? I'm going to try the kit on my railing that has a much more glossy finish and see if it works as well... I'll let you know how that goes! ;)
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your thoughts, what a service to all cabinet re-doers.
I redid our cabinets inside and out, doors and all and can definitely recommend one product in particular - the Kilz low VOC / Low odor (I think they were both low and not "no", definitely an improvement over regular primer). Primer is SMELLY and the Kilz stuff worked great under the semi-gloss latex paint I used. I didn't degloss either, I didn't know about the product but our doors were flat so I just used the hand sander to rough each one up. It has been a year since I did the work and they still look great.
http://www.buildsewreap.com/2011/02/new-kitchen-part-7-wrap-up_08.htmlWe painted and we have brush strokes and it feels like it took forever (see a pic, actually in my latest post) but I still love them. I need to someday go back and touch them up, then do a few coats of poly since right now it's just primer and paint and it scratches pretty easily. I sanded like a crazy person, though, so it's more durable than I thought it would be.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful kitchen re-do. We just finished doing my daughter's kitchen, cupboards and all. I agree it is worth the work to sand. And definately use TSP. We used Martha Stewart paint and it is great. Also we used something different than Urathane. We used the water base and it is great. No yellowing. Her cupboards are holding up very well. Karie
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info, this is a project I intended to do before the year is out and I have to say I totally agree with everything you said. The liquid sandpaper is a joke and I painted a floor once and really liked the TSP and primer always makes things better! That's what it was invented for!!! But I have to say I really admired your kitchen the other day and thought good for you, you have beautiful cabinets! I am only painting mine because they are ugly! Are you sure you want to paint over your pretty wood, or maybe leave the bottoms and paint the top ones?
ReplyDeleteThanks for this post. I've been trying to talk my husband into doing ours. He isn't want to do anything on the house which is odd because he is the one who has been bugging me about it for a couple years. I think now that i want to, he doesn't want to do the work! This seems like A LOT of work. I'm thinking maybe I'll give up on it for now since I don't plan on living in this house the rest of my life. (I think I would pull all of my hair out and cry if I was living here forever. not that it's a bad house, it's just small and not very functional!) So anyway...maybe you should have stopped reading at the "Thanks for this post..." part since I'm sure I have given you way more info that you wanted!
ReplyDeleteLove the post, thanks for sharing. I am currently getting ready to do this to the cabinets in my bathroom. They are really old and gross. We just bought this house and can't afford to redo the bathroom right now so I think I'll just do the sanding, TSP, and semi-gloss paint for now and spend the bucks to redo the whole thing in a couple of years. Didn't even know where to start though, this post is a huge help!! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteWow your cabinets look awesome! We recently refinished our kitchen cabinets using Rustoleum's new system of cabinet transformation. The whole kit is only $149 at Lowe's and it includes the deglosser, paint, finish, and top coat.
It was a lot of work but worked really well. I would highly recommend!We're painting our now "white ugly cabinets" RED! They are all torn apart. Boxes are sanded, and the doors we started to sand, and it all just got to be too much when we read about the Prep Rite Problock primer, and that if we used TSP, and that primer we wouldn't have to sand into the tiny groves of the doors fronts. At the rate we were headed the kitchen would have been done sometime next year. We plan on doing at least 2 coats of the paint, and doing a Poly Acrylic. We have Behr Semi Gloss. Hoping for as shiney as possible. If I could have afforded all new cabinets, or fronts I would have gotten the red glass ones, but this will be fine. I'll just be glad when I get to the painting part. Priming starts tomorrow! I just ordered back splash as well.
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The sequel to the smash hit "Damian's Oracle" is finally here!
Full length fantasy romance novel Damian's Assassin is now available for your Kindle, iPad/iPhone, Nook, eReader or Kobo.
Sequel to Damian's Oracle. With the White God in Europe, Dustin is left alone in Miami to protect the Grey God, a man-god struggling with his identity, and the White God's mate. One of the Black God's vamps in Miami suddenly goes rogue and starts killing humans by the dozen. Dustin initially doesn't think much of the ruthless, human-hating thug, Talon, until it becomes clear that the vamp is receiving help from otherworldly beings whose intentions are nothing short of destroying humanity. To make matters even worse, Dustin's begun to dream of his dead sister, who tells him he'll be seeing her soon.
Dustin rescues Bianca and her troubled brother, a Natural whose mysterious talent makes him vital to Talon's plans. Bianca, a woman as sunny and sweet as Dustin is hard and cold, has the rare Natural gift of healing. She can bring the recent dead back to life or turn a vamp back into a human. She can even reach Dustin's heart, which he locked away long again after his sister's death. Convinced he'll be killed soon, Dustin won't risk his heart or Bianca's, despite their mutual attraction, and Bianca discovers even her incredible talent can't save both the men she loves.


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Anne Lamott's overrated and over-emoted writing brings our fin-de-siècle values into question
By Paulina Borsook
When I was 17, I spent a summer in Marin County, where as often as I could I'd wander into Tiburon, to rejoice in the views of the bay. I was an au pair for my sister who lived in Mill Valley, and I spent a lot of time in the tree-shaded public library of that bohemian burb. It was there I found a book that made me feel less alone, written by someone named Lamott, a book which spoke exactly to where I was and how I was feeling, confused and despairing. It was startling in its candor and it got me shaking my head and saying "So true, so true" as I went along reading it. What courage the author had, to write what so many people feel but never have the nerve to say!
Kenneth Lamott, this remarkable writer was. The book was Anti-California and it spoke lyrical hard truths with a strong personal writerly voice. It never occurred to me that today's "West Coast Live" regular, Salon columnist, best-selling professional single-mom-and-Christian Anne Lamott could have been any relation to this man who so moved me 25 years ago. Could such a tough-minded dad have created such a tender-minded daughter?
Indeed he had. The daughter of Ken has gotten down with the '90s as her dad was up with the '60s. Unlike her dad, she and I live our grown professional lives in the era of memoir, where the mushy, the middlebrow and the squishy female sell. More women now buy books than men, and even the Holocaust can have a value proposition if it's made to be heartwarming.
Her father's strong feelings constrained by language, the deployment of the personal only to sustain larger discourse about society, the power of emotional continence--so dated, so '60s, so dead-white-male canonical, n'est-ce pas? In a time when Kathie Lee Gifford can write in her own bestselling song about how she commented to darling husband Frank that post-birth-of-son-Cody her breasts had gotten droopy like lamb's ears, Lamott senior's passion restrained by decorum is as dated as expecting women to dress up in stockings and high heels to go shopping at I. Magnin.
Next to Anne, a woman of my own cohort, I feel so deficient--as a person, as a writer. I have always wanted to be bulimic or anorexic or do too many drugs or drink too much or have too many affairs with married men--then it would be easy to explain what was wrong with me and I could get into a 12-step program and I would know just what to do then and who to do it with and how to name it. I wish I could have a life so cinematic in the American way that I could find redemption in an African American church with a female preacher. I was married in a synagogue by a Reconstructionist rabbi and I sing the white gospel music that's called Sacred Harp, but nothing works, nullis pretti, there's no commercial potential, as Frank Zappa used to say, honoring the spirit of Edgar Varese--and even he, in the last years of his life, had taken to calling himself an entrepreneur.
Packaging is everything, and as hard as I've tried to sell out, I just don't have Lamott's grasp of the master narratives of our time, those classic Gentile-American ones of waywardness and redemption. As the chairman of my M.F.A. program used to say, some people have a gift for being famous, just as some people have perfect pitch or the gift for making money.
In Anne's life, as it's supposed to be, when someone close fails and fades with terminal illness, it's with grace and humor and all are hallowed when angels bear the gallant afflicted to their rest. In my life, when that soulmate of mine lay dying of AIDS before it was fashionable to do so, he was scared and angry and increasingly deprived of the grace he'd had as a well man. He pleaded and wept and remained in denial and there were no spiritual revelations for the taking. And I was terrified at his leaving--how could I know I could exist without the exchange of the nasty exclusionary-to-others remarks we made whose real purpose was to reassure the other that "I see what you see"? When I held his hand for the last time as he sat in a wheelchair in the hospital garden, I told him how furious I was with his dying--how dare he?
My victim of a catastrophic disease didn't have the literary good taste to repent or conform to any of the current acceptable genres: either the beautiful soul tragically abandoned by a heartless society (no, his family and friends stood by him) or that of the innocent (whether simply a homophilic bon vivant or, better still, a photogenic mother or child who obtained the virus sex-free) suffering with the piety of a lamb. Nope, the Jesus in my Pietá set about acquiring the disease as methodically as he could, following always in his useless, dissolute older brother's footsteps, who had taken his life so much more directly (an overdose in a bathtub did nicely) several years before. Not bestseller material, this: AIDS as suicide just won't sell. A fatal failure of nerve can hardly inspire one (either the sufferer or the chronicler) to turn to the grace of God.
So that's the difference between me 'n' Anne on death. What about life?
Kids! What a concept! Anne has it right: take on the role of valiant life-affirming mother, never mind if the right partner-relationship can't be found. It's all for the sake of the child. It's a story that's now, that's true, that's Oprah. Me, I'd be too worried that the dysfunctional childhood of mine might not give me the right idea how to do it, that my parents' deep narcissism and harmful inattention might have meant some important lessons might not have gotten transmitted, that perhaps my long series of failed relationships was telling me something, that my father's psychotic callousness might have left a residue I might well consider not letting any child voluntarily get contaminated by. Worse, any child of mine might be like Pynchon's Slothrop, his childhood cannibalized for his father's greatest work. We know what monsters writers are, where everything is material and no one and nothing is beyond use. No one has any privacy anymore anyway, so why should her son?
When I contemplate my penury and obscurity, but with Anne as my current inspiration, I think of all the kindly friends who have advised me to mine my own Rotten Childhood (second-trimester barely legal abortion, a gunshot wound to the head inflicted accidentally on purpose by a very close friend, running away, familial physical and mental cruelty, madness and death aplenty). Surely, these well-wishers have said, there's enough for a movie of the week? Or at least to do a treatment for the options for one?
But you know, I just don't think What Happened to Me is intrinsically interesting--which used to be the criterion for what got written and published. But no more. Service journalism/news-you-can-use (in Anne's case, how to dry out, how to be a single mom, how to find sops for the holes in your soul and, best of all, how to be self-referential and write about how to write--all hot topics), not intrinsic interest, is the order of the day. So wrongheaded of me ('twas always thus, lacking the good luck or good sense to be deviant in socially sanctioned ways--saying "No thank you, I'll think I'll save it for later" when offered a tab of windowpane in the midst of anti-war demonstrations is such proof if there ever needed to be any) to believe that trading on things as an adult that made you miserable as a kid was letting them run/ruin your life twice.
So hail, Lamott Junior! So fresh, so phat, so au courant! Marla Maples and Madonna have spiritual advisers, literature has become an endless stream of "that reminds me of me" for both reader and writer, and auditionees for MTV's Real Life can only be lauded for at least putting some bounds on their needs to get attention. She's got it all: clichés, self-absorption, sentimentality, the piety of a Victorian angel-mother of the hearth, children as the self-regarding prop to a life saved from a seedy past of toxic parents, bad choices and poor impulse-control. Lamott pere would be proud of the success of Lamott fille.
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Explore Audio Augmented Reality With Toozla
Submitted by lester on Thursday, 27 May 20102 Comments
As part of our count of all the mobile applications that make claim to being 'augmented reality' applications we counted over 340 for the iPhone alone. Of those 340 at least 140 are augmented reality browsers that display POIs in the camera view. While we are on course for hitting 200 browsers by the end of the year, its reassuring that some companies are bucking the trend and trying something different. Toozla, a Russian company is one such company who have decided that the camera enabled AR market space is a crowded one and are investigating new ways to deliver content to users.
With Toozla there is no map or camera view, instead when you come in range of something interesting Toozla will tell you about it by speaking an overview. If you stick around in the area then Toozla will continue speaking giving you more details about the POI. Toozla users have access to around 171,000 Wikipedia articles which are converted to audio using text to speech technology, and better yet, users are able to record their own reviews of attractions for others so the content will just grow even larger. In addition to the Wikipeda or Wikistreams as they are called, users can subscribe to other 'channels' such as Tourism, Hotels, or even the Weather and Chat channel.
Toozla could be indispensable for travellers looking for their own personal travel guide, particularly as the Tourism channel is a professionally produced multilingual audio guide that cover the most popular cities. As Tooza is designed to be a platform individuals and companies are able to create audio guides for others to enjoy, so I'm sure that it will only be a matter of time before we start to see Lonely Planet style channels with even richer content.
I like the application, it's a really interesting idea and I feel safer somehow not waving my phone around and advertising it to potential thieves. It would be nice however to have a map view that indicates where you can find content. Without a visual indication locating content, I feel like I am missing out just by being on the wrong side of the road.
Get Toozla
Toozla is free and available on a variety of devices, including the iPhone, various Nokia's, Sony Ericsson's, and the Palm Treo, which we don't get to say very often. (full list check here). Toozla will be available on the Android very soon.
Toozla in action