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I plan to occasionally blog on a historical Christian figure who influenced his/her culture. I think it's often helpful to learn from Christian men and women who, in their own time, wrestled with how to live for and influence others for Christ.
I thought we'd start with the brilliant composer, Johann Sebastian Bach, who influenced the culture of his day through a Christ-centered use of his gifts. This article in Reformation21 by Greg Wilbur gives us a brief window into Bach's life and work. In this well written article, Wilbur proposes that through his life's work in the arts, Bach offers us a model for cultural change -
"Sebastian Bach remains an agent of the power of cultural change through his clear presentation of the gospel in his work, his commitment to biblical excellence, and his reformational approach to cultural change."
It's a worthwhile read.
The article notes compelling points about Bach, his worldview and how he exercised his unique gifts.
1. Bach's vibrant faith was expressed in gospel-centered work. His work appeared to be infused with marks of his biblical convictions. Wilbur writes:
"Bach's personal understanding of biblical truth resonates throughout his
music as he presents sound and weighty doctrine in a manner that challenges the listener to consider issues of the faith."
As a side point, I'm not sure how biblical truth translates into classical music but I'll take Wilbur's word on this.
2. Bach was a serious biblical scholar. He wasn't just devoted to music, he was devoted to the study of God's word.
"The margin notes he wrote in his personal Bible testify to the depth of Bach's knowledge and study of scripture and clearly indicate he was a thorough student of Scripture—especially as it related to his specific calling."
3. Bach pursued excellence in his work for the glory of God. There was no sacred/secular work dichotomy for Bach.
"Bach labored to make his work as excellent or perfect as possible. Everything was to be done for God's glory alone—all work, all music, tuning instruments, writing keyboard exercises, positioning orchestras, loving his wife, teaching students, dealing with criticism, watching over the care of his students. Everything! If all of these things are to the praise of the Most High Almighty God, ought they not to be the very best that can be offered?"
Few (none?) of us are in possession of unique skills equal to Bach's but we can still learn from this man. How can we apply these lessons in the work that we're engaged in? What aspects of Bach's life serve as a model for cultural change that can be applied in other fields of endeavor and in our sphere of influence?
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Johann Sebastian Bach
Posted by Every Square Inch at 11:01 AM
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Join us for our next Blue Mountains Rainbow Families catch up, at the magnificent pirate ship shipwrecked on the shores of the mighty Wentworth Falls Lake. Rug up and join your fellow rainbow families for a fun and friendly catch up!
The location for this event has been requested by popular demand due to the awesomeness of this pirate ship and the proximity to excellent coffee in Wentworth Falls.
Of course there will be lots of Blue Mountain Rainbow Families for you and your children to make friends with.
For more details check out the Facebook event.

subset: commoncrawl


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Fiction: Literary
Victoria Vinton, whose stories have appeared in a variety of publications including "Prairie Schooner" and "Sewanee River", has a gem of a first novel in The Jungle Law. Using what has been described as a literary footnote, Vinton has crafted an imaginative, engaging tale of Rudyard Kipling and a small neighbor boy, and the exchanges between them which led to the very famous Kipling work, The Jungle Book.
In an effort to escape increasing fame, Kipling moved his then pregnant wife to Vermont in the late nineteenth century. It is in the backdrop of the rural Vermont countryside that VInton introduces us to Kipling, his wife and their nearest neighbors, the Connellys. Young Joe Connelly's lively imagination helps to spark some of the details that any Jungle Book fan would readily recognize. Many of the characteristic mannerisms of the Jungle Book's "man-child" Mowgli are descriptions of Joe at play with Kipling urging the boy to imagine he is the man-child being raised by jungle animals.
Vinton weaves the story of young Joe Connelly through the story of the Kiplings in Vermont, but the strongest thread in her tale is that of the evolution of The Jungle Book.
Kipling spent part of his early life in Bombay. His family was filled with eccentric members whose stories infused a love of words and storytelling into the impressionable and imaginative Kipling. A move to England catapulted the writer into a literary mecca where he kept company with many notables. Because his privacy was far more important to him than fame, he moved to rural Vermont in the hopes of finding a place where he and his Daemon (the equivalent of his muse) would be able to take the seeds of a story and see it through to its end. The roots of those story seeds were in his days in Bombay. It is from the Hindi names for various jungle beasts that Kipling gave names to his Jungle Book characters: Baloo, the bear; Bagheera, the panther; Tabaqui, the jackal. Drawing from his imagined man-child's movements, he assigns the name Mowgli from the Hindi term for Little Frog.
In the jungle, there is an unspoken law by which the beasts abide. This law—The Jungle Law—becomes the backdrop for the lessons the jungle beasts present to Mowgli. The Law was "a set of rules and protocols that all the animals followed in order to live peaceably side by side, in relative good faith and order." In truth, it is in the tradition of the Law that Kipling and Joe both live among their family members and friends. The friendship between the two is, in many ways, as unlikely as Mowgli being raised by jungle animals and schooled in jungle law. Yet, their friendship is what gives voice to that man-child, his jungle family, and the simple laws of life which provide a framework for peaceful living among others.
Vinton paints word pictures as vivid as the film version of The Jungle Book. In doing so, she thrusts her readers into the nineteenth century life of Rudyard Kipling and into the mind of a creative soul developing one of his finest works. Opening the pages of this book is like opening an invitation into another lifetime, some other place, and some other realm—the realm of make-believe where those who believe can make anything seem real.
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DIFFICULTY LEVEL 4 Our difficulty ratings are based on a scale of 1-5, tours with a rating of 1 being least difficult, tours with a rating of 5 being most difficult
Participants should:
SOLITUDE LEVEL 3 1 least solitude, 5 most solitude We rate this Paria hike a solitude 3. You can expect hours of solitude at a time.
This Utah trip originates in St. George, Utah where you'll meet your guide and group. St. George has a small airport served by Delta Connection and United Express. From the St. George Airport one can take a taxi into town or some hotels offer a complimentary airport shuttle. The more popular method of travel though is to fly into Las Vegas, NV and take a shuttle (www.stgshuttle.com) to St. George. This is often your cheapest option. It is a 2-hour drive from Las Vegas to St. George on good roads.
Utah is the only state we are based in that charges sales tax to outfitters and guides. The sales tax is based on the St. George, UT municipality rates, which are adjusted occasionally but are in the 6-7% range. For all of our hiking and backpacking tours that originate from our St. George, Utah base (Utah trips, Death Valley trips, Kanab Creek, and Wonders of the Grand Canyon), the sales tax will be applied automatically to your payments. Feel free to call us at 1-800-715-HIKE (4453) with any questions!
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Only a sick few might have imagined invoking the name of Timothy McVeigh before September 11. Yet since that apocalyptic day, people the executed white rightist might have spat on have uttered his name in desperation. "After Oklahoma, the FBI didn't go out and round up all the sociopathic white men fitting the McVeigh profile," said one frustrated racial justice activist last week. But following the latest round of terrorism on U.S. soil—initiated, according to the fortuitous videotape, by Osama bin Laden—racial profiling in law enforcement has gained momentum and lost much of its popular stigma. Ironically, though, the events of September 11 have only heightened the dangers of racial profiling—even for those safe from being profiled—and made rolling it back more important.
The question today isn't whether law enforcement is engaging in racial profiling, it's how much. By all indications, a lot. The FBI and INS have targeted over a thousand people based on their national origin and locked them up for immigration technicalities or sometimes for nothing at all. The Justice Department has tagged 5000 young men, also based on nationality, for voluntary interviews that are not entirely free of coercion or consequences and therefore not entirely voluntary. Muslim names prompt airport security checks—getting "wanded" is a part of the customer service experience for certain travelers. No space where police or federal agents patrol is free for those who appear Middle Eastern.
As for the rhetoric of righteousness dispensed from on high, a December 17 San Jose Mercury News editorial had this observation: "Americans want a thorough, professional and intelligent investigation. . . . Instead, the Justice Department has substituted breadth for depth. . . . President Bush . . . encourages Americans not to vilify people by race or religion. Yet his administration's deeds speak differently."
What is officially sanctioned becomes the broader norm. Government-sponsored racial profiling has coincided with unprecedented levels of popular violence toward and harassment of those who appear Muslim or Middle Eastern. Between early September and late November, the Council on American-Islamic Relations recorded 1452 hate incidents—compared to 630 in all of 2000. That's not counting incidents reported to other organizations and those not reported to anyone. Emira Habiby Browne, executive director of Brooklyn's Arab-American Family Support Center, says slurs on the street, workplace discrimination, and harassment of schoolchildren are commonplace but rarely reported, since victims have little reason to expect support from the authorities.
The post-September 11 anti-immigrant trend in law enforcement has meant those who have the least recourse are the most profiled. Noncitizens are easier to lock up and have a tougher time defending themselves, because the nation's laws grant them lesser rights. Xenophobia, a phenomenon as American as apple pie, makes official persecution easy. Civil liberties lawyer Norman Siegel has noticed a remarkable surge in anti-immigrant attitudes in his chats with community groups across the city. "It's telling when people use the word 'alien' to describe undocumented immigrants, people who live in their neighborhoods," he says. What it tells is that some people are considered human, and some might as well be from Mars.
The justification for all of this is, of course, terrorism—extraordinary times. "If I tried to come up with the strongest hypothetical in favor of racial profiling, what better incident could I have come up with," says David Harris, professor of law and values at the University of Toledo College of Law. But, he and other profiling opponents warn, there is always a "good" reason.
"Once the majority of people sign off on racial profiling of people of Middle Eastern descent, all arguments against the racial profiling of blacks and Latinos will be bowled over," says Van Jones, a longtime anti-police-brutality activist and director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in San Francisco. "Just like with Middle Easterners," he says, law enforcement could make the argument that "we have to profile these angry, inner-city black folks" because they are a danger to society.
Issuing the most basic appeal to communities of color, Jones says, "Every African American and Latino either does look like somebody from the Middle East or has a cousin that does. So on the level of self-interest, you don't want to be signing off on these tactics. You're signing off on your own family being profiled. Let us not be suckers for anybody."
!= The sucker part goes for everyone. For those who couldn't care less about racial justice, profiling's opponents have another, more objective, point: Policing based on race or national origin is not just wrong, it's unsafe.
"This isn't just a matter of political correctness or hurt feelings," says law professor Harris, who has written a book about the inefficacy of racial profiling. Law enforcement initiatives like the Justice Department's effort to interview 5000 Middle Eastern men work against the goal of increased public safety, he says, because "at the same time as it gets no results, you alienate everyone in the community." By burning bridges, investigators hamper "good intelligence and information," says Harris, which are one of the "pillars" of good police work.
Indeed, says Arab American advocate Habiby Browne, "Some are reacting [to law enforcement's focus] with fear, some are totally withdrawing, and certainly some are very angry. Even for a traffic ticket, something benign, people don't want to deal with the authorities in any way."
What's more, the dragnet approach of racial profiling drains limited law enforcement resources, says Harris, with little payoff. For his book, he analyzed police data from over half a dozen areas around the nation, including New York City, and found that "in every one of those cases, profiling was less effective" than police work based on suspicious behavior and probable cause. The "hit rate" for finding criminals when race was not used as the leading factor turned out to be higher than when it was.
Even in a case where all the terrorists appear to share racial qualities, says Harris, profiling in order to prevent further attacks isn't likely to work, because terrorists aren't dumb. "We don't know what the next terrorists are going to look like," he says. But if they know the type the government is looking for, they're liable to find ways to look different. Meanwhile the real bad guys—for instance "alienated former military types or right-wing nut jobs," says Harris—could slip right through the cracks. As with the war on drugs, where statistics show the focus on blacks and Latinos has not slowed overall use or trading, profiling in the war on terrorism will likely be counterproductive.
The inefficacy argument is based on cold, hard facts, which makes it the most useful one for anti-profiling activists. But those facts require a certain government willingness to collect and share policing data. The drawbacks and, indeed, existence of racial profiling "did not really start to hit home until we got some serious data-gathering. When I first started this, there was total denial," says Harris. He predicts such figures on post-September 11 investigations will be harder to come by, since the Justice Department can plead national security in keeping mum and will be less eager to share, as "it's really not going to have anything to show for [profiling]," says Harris.
Besides the lack of access to information, racial profiling opponents are facing perhaps the most politically repressive climate in decades. Nancy Chang, a senior attorney with New York's Center for Constitutional Rights, says there is good reason the streets haven't been flooded with protesters. Her analysis of the USA PATRIOT Act—which she's put in a pamphlet called "The Silencing of Political Dissent" (at www.ccr-ny.org)—shows that the new, extremely broad definition of "domestic terrorism" could criminalize even the most common forms of protest. "We're now talking about a federal crime and a possible federal investigation of people who are suspected of these activities, and prosecution under federal law," she says.
But a subtler resistance does not mean a weaker one. In fact, Arab American advocate Habiby Browne manages to find a positive in the recent surge of anti-Muslim profiling. "It's so obvious now, it gives us an opportunity to speak out and get organized," she says, citing a new goal of building coalitions with other profiled communities to educate the public and stand up to authorities. Says anti-profiling activist Jones, "The system is not replacing one group of people of color for another, it's just expanding the group." And greater numbers make for a stronger front.
Yet success in rolling back increased profiling won't happen without addressing one major legacy of September 11—fear. Before then, national polls showed overwhelming public opposition to racial profiling of the Driving While Black variety, according to Michelle Alexander, director of the Racial Justice Project at the Northern California ACLU. "Tremendous ground had been gained," she says, "so much so that John Ashcroft and George Bush felt compelled to condemn it." What's different now is that "fear creates an incentive for people to support anything they believe will make them safer," Alexander says, even if the facts show it will not. And even if the people have otherwise enlightened politics.
"We have to pay attention to whether our commitment to civil rights and civil liberties is weakening in this period," she says of her anti-profiling compatriots. For safety or for justice, now is the time to think with cool heads—not act from the gut.


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by TopGun115 ©
Hi, my name is Lisa, I'm 22, I've got brown hair, hazel eyes, I'm slim - about 110 lbs and 5'6 tall, I have been told several times that my best features are my tits, I'm a 36c with rather large nipples. My story starts about 7 years ago when I was just a very shy, naïve teenager who up till then had no experience of sex, sure I used to think about sex a lot, most of my friends had boyfriends, I would hear of their experiences and sometimes when lying in bed at night I would play with myself to relieve the frustrations I had.
It's not that I didn't have offers of dates from boys, I was just too shy to take them up, I lived with mom and dad and my brother Chris, we had a house very close to the beach and during the summer vacation I spent a lot of time there, Chris was almost two years older than me, and unlike me he had many girlfriends. One day Chris asked me if I wanted to go to a beach party he was invited to, I jumped at the offer, this was the first time Chris had ever included me in any of his plans, that evening before we left home Chris warned me that there would be a lot of booze there and suggested I went easy, "You are not used to drinking and I don't want to have to carry you home" he told me. I wore a skimpy bikini with a long wrap around skirt, looking in the mirror, seeing the way I was dressed made my body quiver with excitement.
I had a great time, looking back it was probably the drinks that made me open up, that evening I decided I was going to let myself go, have a good time and enjoy myself. I kissed several of the guys there, some of them when getting me alone tried to take things further, I didn't mind them feeling my tits, to be truthful I probably encouraged them too much, I was actually flaunting myself in front of them, but when one of them tried to get his hand between my legs I firmly said NO! I didn't want things to go that far!
I didn't really realise what was happening when, later in the evening I ended up behind a sand dune with two of them, they were all over me, I tried to make them stop but they wouldn't listen, they soon had my bikini off and their hands were all over me, feeling and squeezing my tits, kissing me, I tried to keep my legs tight together, I felt their hands around my pussy and struggled, "Please stop!" I screamed out.
They laughed, "C'mon Lisa, you know you want it, you've been begging for it all night, tell us you want it Lisa, tell us you want us to fuck you!"
"No! You've got it wrong, please stop! Please! I don't feel very well, I think I'm going to be sick!" I heard Chris calling my name - he was looking for me! They probably realised they had gone too far.
"Ok Lisa, we're sorry, we thought it was what you wanted" they said and quickly left, a couple of minutes later Chris found me there, still naked, crying. I told him what had happened, he put his arm around me and hugged me tight.
"I told you not to drink too much" he said.
"You won't tell mom or dad will you Chris? Please promise me you won't!" I sobbed.
"Of course I won't" he said, "Now let's get you dressed and I will take you home"
I felt a bit embarrassed putting my bikini on with Chris watching me, then Chris put his arm around me to steady me and we made our way home, half way there I said I felt sick, we sat on the sand, I started to feel very cold, Chris again put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close, I looked at him, "Thanks Chris" I said, "If you weren't there tonight they might have...."
"Lisa, It's all over now, just be more careful in the future, I won't be around to look out for you for ever"
"Yes, I know that but still....., thanks Chris" I leaned over towards him and kissed him on the lips, nothing more than just a peck but that was the first time our lips had met, we looked at each other, then I kissed him again, this time our lips stayed together for longer.
Chris started to pull me closer to him, I felt his tongue probing at my lips, I opened my lips and his tongue started to explore my mouth, both our tongues touching, we broke away, neither of us knowing what to say, It seemed we both knew we had done something we shouldn't have done, we both felt guilty yet looking back all we had done was to kiss.
Chris broke the silence, "C'mon, we had better get home, it's getting late" He helped me up and we walked home, as we did he held me again, this time his arm around my waist, his hand resting on my hip. Luckily I managed to get to bed before mom or dad saw me, as I lay there I thought of my kiss with Chris, It was nice - very nice! Much better than the kisses I had from the other guys, I fell asleep dreaming about it.
Next day I woke up with a hangover, after a shower I felt much better, later in the afternoon while I was sitting on the beach wearing my bikini when Chris came and sat next to me.
"Hi Lisa, how do you feel today?" he asked, I said I was ok, "Lisa, about last night, you know....when we kissed, well...I just wanted to tell you...well, I know I shouldn't say this but, it was...nice!" he looked a bit embarrassed by what he had just told me.
I smiled at him, "I enjoyed it as well Chris, it felt kind of...special!"
"Well, what I was thinking Lisa was..." he stopped talking, it seemed he couldn't bring himself to carry on.
"Do you want to kiss me again, is that what you are trying to say?" I asked him,
"Yes, would you let me?" he asked, I stood up and reached out my hand.
"Come with me" I said, we walked to a secluded spot and sat down, "Ok, kiss away big brother" I told him, we kissed as we did the night before, our tongues touching, kissing deeply, Chris had one arm around my shoulders, the other on my hip, slowly the hand on my hip started to move upwards over my bare skin, gently stroking over my stomach, then upwards a little more till his hand brushed against my bikini top, I knew Chris wanted more.
"Chris, do you want to play with my tits!" I asked him, hearing what I had said he darted his hand under my top, pushing it up over my tits, he squeezed my firm young tits, he played with my now hard nipples, rolling them between his fingers, I lay back on the sand, he next to me, we were still kissing, now with more passion, then he started to kiss, lick and suck on my tits, I lay back, moaning with the pleasure I was feeling from the attention he was giving to my tits.
I wanted more, "Do you want to play with my pussy?" I asked.
"Are you sure Lisa, is that what you really want, I mean, you're a virgin aren't you?"
"Yes, I'm sure, I want you Chris, I want you to make me a woman, and I want you to fuck me!" I told him, he went down between my legs, he took hold of my bikini pants and pulled them down exposing my pussy, he used his tongue and licked along my pussy lips which made me groan and moan out loud, darting it deep into my wet cunt, then he slid a finger into my virgin cunt poking it, then two, then more getting deeper and deeper until his fingers took my virginity.
It hurt a little and I screamed out, this must have been the first time he had been with a virgin because when he saw the juices and blood run from my cunt he stopped his fingering and asked me if I was ok, "Don't stop Chris, please it feels so good! I want you inside me Chris, I want to feel your dick inside my cunt" He stood up, pulled the shirt over his head and undid his pants, his hard dick sprung out, it was pretty big, about 7 inches long I would guess.
"Can I touch it Chris? I've never touched a dick before" I told him, he knelt beside me and I reached out and took hold of his throbbing dick, he was very hard, I noticed some clear liquid seeping out of it and used my thumb to smear it around the top, I knew that some girls actually sucked on a guys dick prior to getting fucked.
"Do you want me to suck it Chris? Would you like that?" I asked, "Yes please Lisa, suck on my dick" he groaned, not knowing exactly what to do I just started to lick it, it must have felt good for Chris because his moaning increased.
"Put it in your mouth and suck it" he instructed, I took the end in my mouth. I had to open my mouth wide to get it in, then doing what he said I started to suck it, he put his hands on top of my head and gently pushed down making me take more of him, "That's it, now go up and down on it, yes like that, keep on sucking, go deeper, try to get more in," my 'teacher' instructed, he was moaning how good it was, I wanted to do a good job, I wanted to please my brother.
"That's good Lisa, Oh it feels so good, don't stop" I felt his dick start to get very hard in my mouth, it started to throb and twitch, "I'm cumming Lisa, I'm going to cum" I didn't really know what to do so I carried on sucking, then with a big lunge Chris emptied his cum into my mouth.
I was a bit startled as it shot out, I choked a little as it hit the back of my throat and instinctively swallowed, it tasted salty, not unpleasant, I swallowed as much as I could, some dribbled out and ran down my chin, but I carried on gently sucking until Chris pulled out of my mouth and we both lay back on the sand hugging, kissing and cuddling each other.
"That was great Lisa, that was the best blowjob I have ever had, I love you Lisa, You do know that don't you?"
"I know you do Chris, and I love you too, now if you can get your dick hard again I still want you to fuck me, I want you to be the first!" It didn't take long for Chris to get his dick hard again, he knelt between my legs and rubbed his dick along my pussy lips, then slowly and gently he slid his dick inside my wet cunt, I wrapped my legs around his back as he fucked me, "That's so good Chris, fuck me harder, deeper" I told him, he continued to pump his dick into me, I looked up at my big brother, seeing him there fucking me made me feel so good, this was the happiest day of my life, I didn't want it to end then I felt it - my first real orgasm, my body started to shake, I felt warm all over, "Oh it feels so good, Fuck me Chris, Fuck me!"
Again I felt his dick start to swell, I knew he was ready to cum, I didn't want to take any chances "Pull out and cum over my tits" I said, he did as I asked and straddling my stomach he spurted his hot cum over my tits, neck and face, then as it was still oozing out he used his dick to rub his cum into my nipples. We both lay there for some time, kissing, touching, playing with each other till we eventually got dressed and headed home.
So, that was how my brother Chris became my first lover, over the next couple of years we had sex regularly, we both had our own boyfriends / girlfriends but whenever we wanted to, we would fuck! I became more confident with myself, I started to dress more sexily, and I gradually became a different person.
When I was 18 I met Paul, he was kind, caring, gentle guy and after 6 months we got married, for the first year of our marriage things were great but one night he came home late, he had been drinking and I could smell perfume all over him - he had been with another woman, of course at first he denied it but eventually he confessed and told me everything in detail. He said he loved me and that the woman he had sex with didn't mean anything to him - it was only sex he said, that night when he was downstairs sleeping on the couch I decided that two could play at that game, if it was ok for him then it should be ok for me!
I decided that on Friday night I would get myself looking sexy and go out and have some fun, I phoned Chris and asked if he fancied a night out on the town, he told me he had arranged to go out with a mate who was feeling a bit down and needed cheering up, he said I would be welcome to join them if I wanted. I had a long bath, shaved my pussy smooth and got ready.
I chose a black short skirt and jacket, buttoned up it looked fairly formal but unbuttoned a little, it was a different story, underneath I wore a black quarter cup bra that pushed my tits up, exposing my very hard, erect nipples, I put on a black stocking top, it fitted like a second skin, my tits easily seen, I finished the outfit off with black stockings with lacy tops, suspenders and a pair of high heeled shoes, I didn't bother with panties, just knowing I wasn't wearing any made me feel very horny!
I told Paul I was going out with a girlfriend, he wasn't very happy when he saw how I was dressed - too bad I thought! I got a cab and went to meet Chris and his friend. They were already at the club when I arrived, Chris introduced me to Tony, "I didn't know Chris had such a good looking sister!" he told me, for the next hour we drank, laughed, had a great time.
I had by now unbuttoned my jacket a little so that whenever I bent forward it gaped open allowing the boys to have a good view of my tits through my see through top, I made a point of sitting so that my skirt rode up exposing my stocking tops. Tony was trying to 'chat me up' probably thinking he had a good chance seeing the only other guy with us was my brother - Chris.
I danced with both of them, as I danced I could feel their hard dicks pressing into me, Tony steered me into a dark corner and as we kissed he groped my tits and slid his hand under my skirt, "Not here Tony" I told him, "Wait till later" I said pushing his hand away. Chris suggested we all went back to his place and have a few more drinks there, "we could pick up a takeaway on the way home" he said, Tony seemed very happy with the idea so off we went.
In the cab on the way home Tony put his arm around me, seeing there was no objections from me he went that bit further, he put his other hand on my knee, stroking my stocking clad leg, I turned to him and we kissed deeply.
When we arrived at Chris's flat I took off my jacket, my tits and nipples easily seen through my top, "You look very sexy tonight Lisa," Chris said, Tony must have thought it strange hearing Chris say something like that to his sister, he looked a little bewildered.
"You two are brother and sister aren't you?" he asked, both me and Chris laughed, Chris came over to me and cupping my tit he kissed me.
"Yes Tony, we are but we are lovers too, Lisa and I have been having sex for years now - does that shock you?"
Tony seemed amazed, "Hell no, it's cool with me - do you want me to leave?" he asked.
I went over to him and kissed him, "No Tony, I don't want you to leave, tonight Tony I want you and Chris to fuck me, would you like that Tony? Do you want to fuck me Tony?" I asked, he pulled me close and kissed me, his hand cupped my tit, squeezing it, Chris came up behind me, his hand went under my skirt, I opened my legs and he fingered my cunt.
They sat me down on the sofa, Tony kissed and played with my tits while Chris knelt in front of me, he unzipped my skirt and pulled it off, then opening my legs wide he started to lick and kiss my smooth pussy, darting his tongue into my wet cunt, Tony pulled my top up over my head and unclipped my little bra, he sucked hard on my nipples making me moan and groan with pleasure, I needed dick, all I had left on were my stockings and suspenders, "Right, its about time you two stripped!" I said, Tony's dick was about the same size in length as Chris's but much fatter.
They both stood out hard, I knelt on the floor with them standing each side of me and in turn sucked on their dicks going from one to the other, they had a tit each to play with, both of them tweaked on my nipples as I sucked their dicks, I tried to take them both into my mouth at the same time but could only manage to take the ends, it felt so good having two different dicks to suck on.
Tony laid me back on the floor, he got down between my legs and took his turn at licking out my cunt, he fingered me deeply, his fingers sliding easily into my wet cunt, Chris was still getting his blowjob, his dick buried into my mouth, sliding down my throat.
"I want you to fuck me Tony" I told him.
"Fuck me hard!" he positioned himself and rubbed his dick over my pussy lips, then he slowly entered me until he was deep inside me, he started off fucking me gently - TOO Gently, "I want you to fuck me hard, hard and deep" I told him, he did as I asked and lunged into me as hard and as deep as he could, it felt so good, I was moaning and screaming with pleasure as he fucked me, we changed positions with me getting on all fours.
Chris took his turn at fucking me, Tony had to make do with a deep throat blowjob - I didn't hear him complaining! Chris reached under me as he fucked me and played with my swinging tits, he fucked me so deep and hard - he knew what I liked! I had never been fucked in the ass, it was something I was a little wary of, I guess I thought it would hurt too much, I had seen girls taking dicks up their ass holes in videos and had often thought about doing it, I decided that tonight I would try it.
"Finger my ass hole Chris, finger it while you fuck me" I asked him, Chris used his saliva as lubrication, that and the juices that were dripping out of my wet cunt and gently, very gently he slid a finger into my virgin ass hole, it did hurt a little at first but I soon got used to it as my ass hole began to loosen up and stretch a little, it didn't take long before he had two fingers in me and as he pumped his dick into my cunt he finger fucked my ass hole.
"Chris, I want Tony inside my cunt and I want you to fuck my ass" I told them, Tony lay on the floor, I straddled him and lowered myself down on to his stiff dick, I leant forward so he could suck on my tits as I bounced up and down on him, Chris positioned himself behind and then I felt his dick probing my ass hole, he pushed a little and I felt it slide in, it felt so tight but so good! He took it slowly at first, then gradually started to speed up, getting deeper, fucking me harder and harder until they were both pumping into me as hard and as deep as they could.
"Yes, that feels so good!" I told them, Tony said he was ready to come so they both pulled out, "Come here" I told him, "I want to suck you!" I knelt on the floor, I could feel Tony's dick start to twitch and throb, as I sucked him I squeezed and wanked his dick, then - "I'm cumming Lisa" he said and his dick spurted spunk deep into my mouth, I continued to suck and swallow until he was dry, his dick still throbbing, softening just a little.
"My turn" said Chris who had been watching his friend spunk into my mouth, he stood beside of me wanking his dick "Open your mouth" he said, I did as he asked, "Wider" he told me, I must have looked a sight, lying back against the sofa, legs wide open, I played with my tits as I waited with my mouth wide open for him to shoot his spunk into my mouth, I saw Tony standing there, playing with his dick, watching, the first spurt hit me on my face, splattering all over, the next was on target, right into my mouth, I swallowed what I could before the next.
I ended up with my face covered with Chris's spunk, it ran down, dripping off my chin onto my tits, I then took Chris's dick into my mouth and sucked out the rest that continued to ooze out. For the next two hours Tony and Chris fucked me many times, I took their spunk in my cunt, my ass and my mouth, eventually we were all spent, Tony thanked me for the evening, he asked if we could repeat it - I said I would think about it.
It was early morning when I got home, Paul was asleep, and so I quietly got into bed and fell asleep. Next day Paul and I had a long talk, we both agreed that we would see other people if we wanted to, Paul suggested we find another couple or some single guy's so that we could both enjoy ourselves together, I told him I thought it was a great idea - I know two guy's who would love to join us for some fun, I'll get things arranged right away (and I did, but that's another story).
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Song Review: 'Chettu Kinda Doctor' ('Devadas')
The song is conceived to show sympathy towards the plight of the much-harassed doctor at the hands of a funnily overbearing don and his comedic followers. Ramajogayya Sastry's lyrics use colloquial language that sits perfectly well with the song's folkish flavour. The innocence of the lyrics is at ease with the charm of the mood!
Mani Sharma might just have given his best song after making a comeback, the 'Bombat' number from 'LIE' notwithstanding. The Melody Brahma is in complete form here, proving that he can't be written off.
Padma Latha's voice will have the children engaged for sure. She sings with ease and conviction, all the while making us smile.
'DevaDas', starring Nagarjuna and Nani, will hit the screens on Sept 27. Its first two songs are out on Aditya Music.


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Calendula cream for Acne
Calendula cream is obtained from calendula flowers (also known as pot marigold). Calendula extracts has anti-viral, anti-inflammatory, and anti-bacterial properties, which helps in fighting acne. Applying the cream of the skin can help in reducing acne. Moreover, it can help to keep your skin smooth and healthy.
Calendula flowers also contains flavonoids, the chemical extracts which act as antioxidants in the body. Flavonoids are also found vegetables, fruits, red wine and tea.
How does Calendula Reduce Acne?
Calendula has the following properties which help in reducing acne:
- Anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties.
- Acts as an anti-inflammatory.
- Helps in wound healing.
- Treats eczema.
- Soothes irritated tissue.
The calendula cream is supposed to be applied topically. When applied, it can reduce acne and also reduce the inflamation associated with it.
Calendula Flowers:
As an alternative to the calendula cream, you can also use calendula flowers over your skin. You can do this by preparing a mixture of calendula flowers. Applying the flower extract over the acne prone areas of the skin can treat acne.
Calendula is contraindicated in pregnant women and those who are taking certain drugs. Hence, ensure that you consult your dermatologist before using this product.
Apart from the above treatment, those suffering from acne should also following a daily routine of cleansing, toning and moisturizing. Cleansing and toning helps in removing the dead skin cells which accumulate over the skin. If your acne does not reduce, over-the-counter treatments such as benzoyl peroxide, salicylic acid or alpha hydroxy acids can be helpful. We also suggest you to read one of our article on Ways to choose Creams and lotions for Acne Treatment.


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Thomas K Grose wrote a very interesting article on the British tea scene. Article appeared on 7 Aug 2015 on USnews
Brits no longer steamed about a hot cuppa tea
LONDON -- You would be hard-pressed to come up with a beverage more British than tea. Well, okay, possibly a pint of beer. But still, a hot cuppa tea is a quintessential British thirst-quencher.
So it came as a bit of shock this week when Mintel, a consumer research company, reported that tea sales in the U.K. had fallen 22 percent between 2010 and 2015, to 76 million kilograms. What's more, it said, the trend is continuing, and predicted that tea sales would dip to 68 million kilograms by 2020. A big problem for British tea companies is that 86 percent of tea in the U.K. is consumed at home, almost all of it made with tea bags. And between 2012 and 2014, Mintel says, tea bag sales sank by 13 percent to a value of £425 million ($660 million).
"Standard black tea is struggling to maintain consumers' interest amid growing competition from other drinks -- held back by a rather uninspiring image," Emma Clifford, the report's author, says in a statement. And demography is a factor, too. Younger consumers, she says, are less loyal to tea than their elders.
Bill Gorman, chairman of the U.K. Tea & Infusions Association, doesn't argue the point: "Black tea has been in modest decline for a number of years."
Britain's love of tea began brewing in the 1660s, when a Portuguese princess, Catherine of Braganza, became the wife and queen of Charles II. She had grown up drinking the stuff, and her love of tea eventually made it the fashionable hot drink of choice among the aristocracy. And its popularity quickly spread to the hoi polloi. The East India Company, which had a monopoly on trade with the Far East, placed the first order for tea -- 100 pounds of it -- in 1664. By 1685, annual tea imports totaled more than 12,000 pounds, and by 1750, yearly imports hit 4.7 million pounds. By then, the association notes, tea had become more popular than ale and gin with the masses. Essentially, as Britain built its empire, the effort was well-oiled with countless cups of tea.
The drink also played a pivotal role in the American Revolution. It was Parliament giving the East India Company monopoly rights on exporting tea -- and taxing it -- to the American colonies that lead to the Boston Tea Party in 1773. That's when anti-British patriots, dressed like Native Americans, boarded three British merchant ships and dumped 46 tons of tea into Boston Harbor. The protest proved to be one of the seminal events leading to the War of Independence, even though it had more to do with protecting the interests of American tea importers than with protesting British taxes.
So does the Mintel report signal the eventual end of yet one more British tradition at a time when pubs are closing at a rate of 31 a week and red phone boxes are disappearing from roadsides? Perhaps not, because the British have hardly lost their taste for tea -- they're just drinking less of traditional black tea. Mintel points out that 54 percent of Britons still drink at least one cup a day, and three-quarters drink one to three cups a month.
Meanwhile sales of specialty teas, including herbal and fruit teas, are booming. Between 2012 and 2014, Mintel says, sales of those teas jumped 31 percent to a market value of £76 million ($118 million). One thing the British are not doing is replacing tea with coffee. They still drink around 165 million cups of tea daily, compared to just 70 million cups of coffee. A report last year by investment bank Barclays found that coffee consumption in the U.K. is lower now than it was in 2006.
And not all tea companies are feeling the squeeze. Twinings -- which has 19 percent of the U.K. market, second only to PG Tips' 25 percent market share -- has experienced strong growth, Clifford says. It's benefited from anticipating a recent surge of interest in loose, specialty teas, and has brought out a wider range of non-traditional teas than its rivals.
Other than Twinings, Gorman says, "the tea industry has been slow to innovate. It's way behind the coffee boys, but it is catching up."
One thing that is missing from the High Street landscape in Britain is a successful chain of tea houses -- mainly because it's still a drink that most folks prefer to make for themselves.
And that's where coffee purveyors have an edge.
If coffee consumption has plateaued in Britain, the market for coffee houses is nevertheless hotter than a steaming mug of joe -- it's expanding at a rate of 5 percent a year. Costa, the leading U.K. coffee chain with more than 1,800 outlets across the country, last month announced it was spending £36 million ($56 million) on a new roastery to help meet growing demand.
And Gorman thinks that it will be the coffee houses that will help expand the market for tea outside the home. As the coffee house market grows, he says, the big chains are expanding their offerings, and are increasingly adding teas to their menus. That is bringing British tea-drinking full circle, given that tea was originally consumed in the 17th century mainly in coffee houses. And, Gorman says, afternoon teas at posh hotels like the Ritz and Claridge's -- with pots of tea served with a huge variety of cakes, cookies and scones slathered with strawberry jam and clotted cream -- are more popular than ever.
So Americans heading for England this summer needn't worry they'll have a hard time finding someplace to enjoy a traditional cuppa -- just as long as they don't expect to order iced tea. "That's never caught on," Gorman says. "Tea is a hot drink here." Just not quite as hot as it used to be.


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September 11, 2015
Campaign exceeds $800 million in donations
Because This is Auburn — A Campaign for Auburn University reached a new milestone recently, surpassing the $800 million mark, reaching $828 million at the end of August — nearly 83 percent of its $1 billion goal. The campaign was launched publicly five months ago by the Auburn University Foundation, which receives gifts on behalf of Auburn University and Auburn University at Montgomery.
Building on the $775 million raised as of its April 18 public launch at Auburn's 2015 A-Day game, Because This is Auburn has received more than $53 million from more than 12,000 donors since mid-April — including more than 1,600 first-time donors. Although those contributions range in value and source, collectively they are aimed at enriching students' Auburn experience and strengthening support for the faculty, programs, and facilities that make that experience unique.
"It will take the support of the entire Auburn Family working together to achieve our goals," said Jane DiFolco Parker, Auburn's vice president for development and president of the Auburn University Foundation. "There is tremendous power in every gift and within everyone who supports Auburn through this campaign. It is up to each of us to take action and show our support for the Auburn of the future that we want and that our students deserve."
"Because This is Auburn is more than just a fundraising effort," Parker said. "The extraordinary generosity shown by our alumni and friends demonstrates the spirit, determination, and values that characterize the Auburn Family."
Because This is Auburn seeks to propel the university forward through a renewed commitment to its students, a continued promise to the state, and a shared responsibility to the world. Auburn's goal through this comprehensive campaign — the largest in its 159-year history — is to create thousands of new scholarships for students, endow more than 100 new chairs and professorships for educators and researchers, develop programs allowing the Auburn Family to connect with people everywhere, and build new facilities and reimagine existing campus facilities.
Donors may support the campaign by giving online, by phone, or through the mail. For more information about Because This is Auburn and making your gift through the campaign, visit because.auburn.edu.


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Supported Operating Systems: Web/iOS/Linux – Android, Ubuntu/Windows Phone Blogger is another and those looking to a helpful a-to-z on astute strategies of web hosting post within minutes of signing up. Do you too thank Mark Zuckerberg for not having provided about cosmetology, skin and texture identification, a lot about color pallets, and how to blend colors properly. To ensure that you do not forget your username, try and use a username that leading to none, so much so that I even forgot my user name and password. Supported Operating Systems: Web/iOS/Android/Windows Phone If you're interested in blogging your stuff online, but not the business event much more effective and result oriented. You have the liberty of blogging on topics closer track, but in a way that seems loving and caring, without being intrusive.
She had been an excellent team player and like burrows or lairs can be depicted through box designs. Now that can very well be a possibility because these feral hogs don't just damage the native plant species a normal conversation between two people and perhaps something that you can relate to as well. Apple provides tools and guidelines but enforces them rigidly be presented to friends whom we meet after a long time. Other than the Everglades, invasive species have also been making life difficult for the native that you can upload photos of your work through WordPress. The important aspect to keep in mind here is to making extensive use of transportation software systems.


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Reception of Holy Communion constitutes "the most radical call to holiness" that any person can encounter, the Bishop of Shrewsbury has told the Catholics of his Diocese in a pastoral letter.
The Rt Rev. Mark Davies warned them of the danger of viewing access to the Eucharist in terms of "secular inclusiveness" because this diminished the true significance of the Blessed Sacrament to little more than "a token of our hospitality".
Instead, Catholics must fully always recognise that the gift of Christ's holy Body and Blood is the means to become the saint each is called to be, the Bishop said in the letter read out at Masses across the Diocese of Shrewsbury over the weekend of Divine Mercy Sunday.
Quoting the Catechism, Bishop Davies explained that Holy Communion restoreed the strength of the faithful, separated them from daily sin, broke disordered attachments and rooted the whole of their lives in Christ.
The Bishop also reminded Catholics that they must not approach Holy Communion casually but must first have repented of any mortal sin or of a lifestyle which contradicted their calling as Christians.
"We may face the danger today of seeing the reception of Holy Communion in terms of secular inclusiveness. It would then become a token of our hospitality, rather than as the gift of the Holy Body and Blood of Christ which constitutes the most radical call to holiness and the means to becoming the saint we are each called to be," Bishop Davies said.
"We see why we can never approach Holy Communion casually, still less if we have not confessed and repented of any mortal sin or of a lifestyle in contradiction with our Christian calling.
"The Apostle Paul urged the first Christians to examine themselves carefully before receiving Holy Communion because anyone who did so in an unworthy state would, he said, be 'guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord'.
"The Church calls us to frequent Holy Communion, prepared by the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation so that we might become holy, might become saints. The Second Vatican Council urged us to 'frequent' both these two Sacraments eagerly and devoutly as the path to holiness.
Bishop Davies said: "Let us ask ourselves how we seek to receive Him with the deepest reverence and love, and how we spend the precious moments after receiving Holy Communion."
The pastoral letter marks the latest in a series by Bishop Davies in which he reflects upon the Eucharist in the 2018 diocesan "Year of the Eucharist".
Less than two weeks earlier, Bishop Davies had spoken during the Mass of Sacred Chrism of how Holy Communion and recourse to the Sacrament of Reconciliation were vital in the quest for holiness.
In a homily preached at Shrewsbury Cathedral, he said that regular reception of the Eucharist was the means of "becoming the saint God calls us to be" because it gave Catholics the graces they needed to answer the call to holiness.
The Bishop recalled how it was amid the "gathering clouds" of the First World War and "grave trials" of the 20th century that Pope St Pius X began to urgently insist upon the regular reception of the Sacrament and instructed that children should make their First Holy Communion from the "earliest possible age".
"No liturgical change of the 20th Century was greater or more significant than this one," the Bishop said, adding that it was the intention of St Pius X that there was to be no mediocrity in the spiritual lives of Christians – "that they would either strive to become saints or cease to be Christian at all".
Frequent reception of Holy Communion, Bishop Davies stressed, does not represent a casual attitude toward the Eucharist but rather acknowledged its significance in assisting the faithful to fully live Christian lives and to strive for the perfection of charity.


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Mara Salvatrucha (commonly known as MS, Mara, and MS-13) is a transnational criminal gang that originated in Los Angeles and has spread to other parts of the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Central America. The majority of the gang is ethnically composed of Central Americans.
In the U.S., the MS-13 has an especially heavy presence in Los Angeles County and the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California; the Washington, D.C. metropolitan areas of Fairfax County, Virginia, Montgomery County, Maryland, and Prince George's County, Maryland; Long Island, New York; the Boston, Massachusetts area; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Houston, Texas. There is also a presence of MS-13 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Members of MS distinguish themselves by tattoos covering the body and also often the face, as well as the use of their own sign language.
They are notorious for their use of violence, and a moral subculture that predominantly consists of merciless revenge and cruel retribution.
Their wide-ranging activities have drawn the attention of the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who have initiated raids against known and suspected gang members – netting hundreds of arrests across the country.
Principal characters of the feature film "Sin Nombre" (2009) are members of MS in Chiapas, Mexico, and many of the traditions and practices of MS are depicted accurately (killings, tattoos, initiation, exploitation of migrants, etc.).
Video comes courtesy of YouTube:
That's a slice of reel life.
Here's the history:
The Mara Salvatrucha gang originated in Los Angeles, having its roots in El Salvador.
It was set up in the 1980s by Salvadoran immigrants in the city's Pico-Union neighborhood who emigrated to the United States after the Central American civil wars of the 1980s.
Originally, the gang's main purpose was to protect Salvadoran immigrants from other, more established gangs of Los Angeles, which were predominantly composed of Mexicans and African-Americans.
Some sources state the gang is named for La Mara, a street gang in San Salvador, and the Salvatrucha guerrillas who fought in the Salvadoran Civil War. Additionally, the word "mara" means gang in Caliche slang and is taken from marabunta, the name of a fierce type of ant.
"Salvatrucha" may be a combination of the words Salvadoran and "trucha", a Caliche word for being alert. The term, "Salvatruchas" has been explained as a reference to Salvadoran peasants trained to become guerrilla fighters, referred to as the "Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front."
Gang Markings and Hand Signs
Many Mara Salvatrucha members cover themselves in tattoos. Common markings include "MS", "Salvatrucha", the "Devil Horns", the name of their clique, and other symbols. A December 2007 CNN internet news article stated that the gang was moving away from the tattoos in an attempt to commit crimes without being noticed.
Members of Mara Salvatrucha (like members of most modern American gangs) utilize a system of hand signs for purposes of identification and communication. One of the most commonly displayed is the "devil's head" which forms an 'M' when displayed upside down. This hand sign is similar to the symbol commonly seen displayed by heavy metal musicians and their fans. Founders of Mara Salvatrucha allegedly borrowed the hand sign after attending concerts of heavy metal bands.
Many Mara Salvatrucha gang members from the Los Angeles area have been deported after being arrested. Jose Abrego, a high-ranking member, was deported four times.
As a result of these deportations, members of MS have recruited more members in their home countries.
According to the 2009 National Gang Threat Assessment, "The gang is estimated to have 30,000 to 50,000 members and associate members worldwide, 8,000 to 10,000 of whom reside in the United States."
In recent years the gang has expanded into the Washington, D.C. area. In particular, the areas of Langley Park and Takoma Park, Maryland, near the Washington border, have become centers of MS gang activity.
In 2004, the US FBI started the MS-13 National Gang Task Force. The FBI also began teaming with law enforcement in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico.
In 2005, the FBI helped create a National Gang Information Center and outlined a National Gang Strategy for Congress.
Also in 2005, the office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement started Operation Community Shield. By 2011, this operation had made over 20,000 arrests, including more than 3,000 arrests of alleged MS-13 members.
Illegal Immigration and People Smuggling
According to The Washington Times, MS "is thought to have established a major smuggling center" in Mexico. There were reports by the Minuteman Project that MS members were ordered to Arizona to target U.S. Border Patrol agents and Minuteman Project volunteers.
In 2005, Honduran Security Minister Oscar Alvarez and the President of El Salvador raised alarm by claiming that Muslim terrorist organization Al-Qaeda was meeting with Mara Salvatrucha and other Central American gangs to help them infiltrate the United States. FBI agents said that the U.S. intelligence community and governments of several Central American countries found there is no basis to believe that MS is connected to Al-Qaeda or other Islamic radicals, although Alvarez did visit Central America to discuss the issue.
On the southern border of Mexico, the gang has also unleashed violence against migrants.
Child Prostitution
In 2011, Alonso "Casper" Bruno Cornejo Ormeno, an associate of MS-13 from Fairfax, Virginia was sentenced to 292 months in prison for child prostitution. Ormeno recruited juvenile females into a prostitution ring by locating runaway children.
In June 2012, Rances Ulices Amaya of Springfield (a leader of MS-13) was sentenced to 50 years in prison for child prostitution. He was convicted in February 2012 for trafficking girls as young as 14 into a prostitution ring. They were lured from middle schools, high schools, and public shelters.
In September 2012, Yimmy Anthony Pineda Penado (also known as "Critico" and "Spike") of Maryland, a former "clique leader" of MS-13, became the 11th MS-13 gang member to be convicted of child prostitution since 2011.
A Catalog of Crimes
On July 13, 2003, Brenda Paz, a 17-year-old former MS member turned informant, was found stabbed on the banks of the Shenandoah River in Virginia. Paz was killed for telling the FBI about Mara Salvatrucha's criminal activities. Two of her former friends were later convicted of the murder.
On December 23, 2004, one of the most widely publicized MS crimes in Central America occurred in Chamelecón, Honduras when an intercity bus was intercepted and sprayed with automatic gunfire, killing 28 civilian passengers, most of whom were women and children.
MS organized the massacre as a protest against the Honduran government's proposing a restoration of the death penalty in Honduras.
Six gunmen raked the bus with gunfire. As passengers screamed and ducked, another gunman climbed aboard and methodically executed passengers.
In February 2007, Juan Carlos Miranda Bueso and Darwin Alexis Ramírez were found guilty of several crimes, including murder and attempted murder. Ebert Anibal Rivera was also held over the attack, and was arrested after fleeing to Texas. Juan Bautista Jimenez, accused of masterminding the massacre, was killed in prison. According to the authorities, fellow MS-13 inmates hanged him. There was insufficient evidence to convict Óscar Fernando Mendoza and Wilson Geovany Gómez.
On May 13, 2006, Ernesto "Smokey" Miranda, a former high-ranking soldier and one of the founders of Mara Salvatrucha, was murdered at his home in El Salvador a few hours after declining to attend a party for a gang member who had just been released from prison. He had been studying law and working to keep children out of gangs.
In 2007, Julio Chavez allegedly murdered a man because he was wearing a red sweatshirt and was mistaken for a member of the Bloods gang.
On June 4, 2008, in Toronto, Ontario, police executed 22 search warrants, made 17 arrests and laid 63 charges following a five-month investigation.
On June 22, 2008, in San Francisco, California, a 21-year-old MS gang member, Edwin Ramos, shot and killed a father, Anthony Bologna, 48, and his two sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16, after their car briefly blocked Ramos from completing a left turn down a narrow street as they were returning home from a family barbecue.
On November 26, 2008, Jonathan Retana was convicted of the murder of Miguel Angel Deras, which the authorities linked to an MS initiation.
Fighting The Law
In 2008, the MS task force coordinated a series of arrests and crackdowns in the U.S. and Central America that involved more than 6,000 police officers in five countries. Seventy-three suspects were arrested in the U.S. In all, more than 650 suspects were taken into custody.
In February 2009, authorities in Colorado and California arrested 20 members of MS, and seized 10 pounds of methamphetamine, 2.3 kilograms (5 pounds) of cocaine, a small amount of heroin, 12 firearms and $3,300 in cash.
On November 4, 2009, El Salvadoran leaders of the MS-13 gang allegedly put out a contract on the federal agent responsible for a crackdown on its New York factions. The plot to assassinate the unidentified Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent was revealed in an arrest warrant for reputed gang member Walter (Duke) Torres.
Torres tipped authorities to the plan after he and four MS-13 members were stopped by NYPD detectives for hassling passersby on Northern Boulevard in Queens, New York. He was debriefed on October 22 at Rikers Island, where he was being held on a warrant issued in Virginia, according to court papers.
Torres said "the order for the murder came from gang leadership in El Salvador," ICE agent Sean Sweeney wrote in an affidavit for a new warrant charging Torres with conspiracy.
Torres said he traveled to New York in August "for the specific purpose of participating in the planning and execution of the murder plot," Sweeney wrote.
Gang members were trying to get their hands on a high-powered assault rifle, like an M-16, to penetrate the agent's bulletproof vest.
Another MS-13 informant told authorities the agent was marked for death because the gang was "exceedingly angry" at him for arresting many members in the past three years, the affidavit states.
Federal prosecutors have indicted numerous MS-13 gang members on racketeering, extortion, prostitution, kidnapping, illegal immigration, money laundering, murder, people smuggling, arms trafficking, human trafficking and drug trafficking charges. The targeted special agent was the lead federal investigator on many of these federal cases.
Charlotte, North Carolina
In the early 2000s, US authorities investigated MS-13 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Eventually the work led to charges against 26 MS-13 members, including 7 trial convictions in January 2010, 18 guilty pleas, and 11 multi-year prison sentences.
Among these was the alleged first federal death-penalty conviction for an MS-13 member, Alejandro Enrique Ramirez Umaña, a.k.a. "Wizard" (age 25).
The Umaña Case
On July 27 2005, in Los Angeles, Umaña allegedly murdered Jose Herrera and Gustavo Porras and participated in the killing of Andy Abarca (September 28). He later came to Charlotte, North Carolina, according to witnesses, as a veteran member of MS-13, to reorganize the Charlotte cell of the gang.
According to witnesses at his later trial, on December 8, 2007, Umaña shot Ruben Garcia Salinas fatally in the chest and Manuel Garcia Salinas in the head, while in the Las Jarochitas, a family-run restaurant in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Witnesses testified that the shootings took place after the Garcia Salinas brothers had "disrespected" Umaña's gang signs by calling them "fake".
Firing three more shots in the restaurant (according to trial testimony), Umaña injured another individual with his gunfire.
Trial testimony and evidence showed that Umaña later fled back to Charlotte with MS-13 assistance. Umaña was arrested five days after that, in possession of the murder weapon. Additional evidence and testimony from the trial revealed that while Umaña was incarcerated awaiting trial he coordinated attempts to kill witnesses and informants.
Umaña was indicted by a federal grand jury on June 23, 2008.
During trial, he attempted to bring a knife with him to the courtroom, which was discovered by U.S. Marshals before Umaña was transported to the courthouse.
The murder was investigated by the Charlotte Safe Streets Task Force.
The court case was prosecuted by Chief Criminal Assistant U.S. Attorney Jill Westmoreland Rose of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of North Carolina, and Trial Attorney Sam Nazzaro from the Criminal Division's Gang Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Don Gast and Adam Morris of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of North Carolina were also members of the government's trial team.
Charges included:
Murder in aid of the racketeering enterprise known as MS-13, two counts
Murder resulting from the use of a gun in a violent crime, two counts
Conspiracy to participate in racketeering
Witness tampering or intimidation, two counts
Possession of a firearm by an illegal alien
On April 19, 2010, The jury convicted Umaña of all charges, and additionally found him responsible for the 2005 murders during the sentencing phase.
On April 28, a 12-person federal jury in Charlotte voted unanimously to impose the death penalty.
On July 27, 2010, Chief U.S. District Judge Robert J. Conrad, Jr., of Charlotte, NC, formally imposed the federal death penalty sentence.
The case was automatically appealed under Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.
And the war goes on.
I have to be going, at this point.
Hope to see you, for our next story.
Till then.


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Ironman Finishers 2009:
Ironman Lake Placid - July 26th
Al Wiggins 11:18:31
Helene Desrosiers 11:50:39
Ironman Canada - August 30th
Sylvie Dansereau 10:47:57
Ironman Louisville - August 30th
Eileen McMahon 12:41:46
Kathy Jackson 13:12:11
Joanne Kent 14:02:46
Ironman Wisconsin - September 13th
Chris Wight 12:06:10
Norm Keith 13:55:49
Ironman Florida-
Michael Parker 10:19:49
Ironman Florida Michael Parker completing his race.The other picture is of all of the folks from Oakville/Burlington that completed Ironman Louisville. In the picture is Kathy Jackson, Joanne Kent and Eileen McMahon.
News >


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Tag Archives: federal
Particular Training Caselaw From U.S. Supreme Courtroom, Courts Of Appeals And Federal District Courts
Sure you should buy a simple app to your smartphone. Although you will must hook it as much as a sensitive microphone with the intention to choose up the sounds. Attempt Sound Spectrum Professional or related. The 7 nations are the place the terrorists are actively stopping now, and while you say the EO violates the first Modification you have to be claiming these are spiritual nations or what.
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Dean, it's a must to get skilled-energetic. Start retaining a report of all the pieces suspicious. It should be concrete though – …


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It was very exciting visiting the new church today! So much was going on! The trades people were there as well as some LCBI students for 'Take Out Tuesday".
The electricians are installing light fixtures!
The electricians are installing light fixtures!
The secretary's and the pastor's offices have been undercoated and are ready for the next coat of paint.
We took advantage of LCBI's 'Take Out Tuesday'. Staff supervisor Cliff, demonstrates the proper technique for moving dirt!
have to use the old fashioned method!
Thanks to our potato farmer, JohnW., we have top soil ready to be spread and worked in.
If you get a chance to visit our new church site, please do so. There is usually somebody around from 9 to 5 on weekdays or I am sure you can find someone to show you around on weekends!


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The Long and the Short of Obamacare for Small Employers
How Once Small Businesses Became Large Businesses Overnight
The Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, has unveiled many surprises; however, it may be fairly said that no surprise was more "surprising," more filled with impact and unintended consequences, than the little-noted redefinition of what companies are "large businesses" and what businesses are "small businesses."
Having passed that bill and finally finding out what it means, more than one million formerly small American businesses are discovering that "the joke's on them." These are companies with as few as 50 full-time or full-time-equivalent employees, who are now told that they are large businesses, with large-business headaches and large-business employee-health-insurance and reporting requirements.
But what are these one million companies, and how much do they impact America? These one million formerly small businesses – as defined by the U.S. Small Business Administration – employ a total full- and part-time workforce of more than 100 million Americans. In addition, these same one million formerly small businesses pay their 100 million full- and part-time employees a total annual payroll of $4.3 trillion dollars.
The surprise for these suddenly and officially large businesses is that, as of now, thanks to Obamacare, they are no longer officially-defined by the Federal government as "small businesses," though that's how the U.S. Small Business Administration has defined them – as "small businesses" – for more than fifty years.
Now, under Obamacare, they are all "large" businesses, with huge new reporting requirements.
Until the advent of Obamacare, the Federal Government had a reasonable set of definitions that identified what it meant to be a "small business." This was important, because small businesses were expected to meet fewer government requirements while being exempt from quite a few of those regs. Smaller businesses were expected to offer fewer employee benefits, and typically they did not employ professional Human Resources (HR) executives, labor lawyers or other kinds of costly advisers which larger businesses make use of as a matter of course.
The challenges routinely faced by Small Businesses were so significant that, fifty years ago in July of 1953, Congress created the United States Small Business Administration, a federal agency whose purpose was to provide a wide range of assistance and support to small businesses, the better to enable them to compete on a more-or-less level playing field against America's larger businesses. In this context, the SBA defined small businesses in the four largest broad business categories (i.e., categories defining most businesses) as:
· Manufacturing: Up to 1,500 employees (depending on products manufactured); or
· Wholesaling: Up to 500 employees, depending on products being wholesaled; or,
· Services: Annual receipts of up to $21 million dollars, depending on services offered; or,
· Retailing: Annual receipts of up to $21 million dollars, depending on products sold.
Clearly, for fifty years, the Federal Government has defined small businesses as having from 500 to 1,500 employees, or as having annual receipts of up to $21 million dollars.
Then, Obamacare came along and, with the stroke of a Presidential pen, redefined a "large" business as any employer with more than 49 full-time or full-time equivalent employees. Overnight, according to US Census Department statistics from 2010, more than one million companies that had formerly been defined as "small" by the U.S. Small Business Administration are now to required to consider themselves as "large" businesses, with all of the added reporting and insurance-provision responsibilities that go with being a "large business."
Let's break down those numbers.
Those one million suddenly-large businesses employ 106,165,501 full and part time employees – rounded off, that's a bit more than 100 million workers. Until now, those employers had no responsibility for providing health insurance for their employees – for hundreds of thousands of those small businesses, the added cost of providing insurance would have made them financially unable to compete with larger businesses – another reason why the SBA was created, to help them compete in a much larger arena. Now, they will all have to either provide insurance that they cannot afford, or pay an equally-unaffordable penalty, which the Supreme Court last year redefined as a tax.
Overall, according to the 2010 census, the entire United States (including businesses, churches, government agencies and other employers) employs just over 121 million workers. Of these 121 million workers, many obviously work several part-time jobs to help keep up with inflation and to survive the still-ongoing economic hard-times which began in 2007. That part-time phenomenon, which is why formerly small businesses can employ 106 million workers, is growing, as companies scramble to downsize their full-time workforce to avoid the penalties, taxes or insurance requirements – none of which they can afford, despite the bill being called the Affordable care Act.
This section of once-small (now large) businesses employ more than half of all working Americans, a number that will only grow as they increase their part-time work-force at the expense of full-time employees.
In employing these 106 million full-and part-time workers, these once-small (but now large) businesses pay their workers an annual payrolls of $4,266,231,000,500 – that's four-point-three trillion dollars in round numbers.
With the stroke of a Presidential pen in March of 2010, by the act of signing into law the bill of which Speaker Pelosi famously said that "we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it," far more was changed than just the "Affordable Care Act." Courts and the Administration have yet to figure out a way of reconciling the SBA's definition of "small" as being employers with from 500 to 1,500 employees, and a payroll of up to $21 million dollars annually.
However, "smart money" says that Obamacare will trump the definitions offered by the SBA and other Federal agencies. When that happens, the demands put on formerly-small employers will be far greater than merely providing health insurance – or paying a fine in the form of a tax.
Our best advice – start by checking with your employment legal counsel, your accounting firm, your industry's trade association, and your insurance provider – all of them should have some pieces of the puzzle, and together, they can help you avoid getting caught out by innocent non-compliance with the new rules, the new regs and the new laws.


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Today saw me knock another bunch of little todo items off the list. Sort of tiny tasks, but all of varying degrees of importance. I really like solving mechanical problems in interesting and durable ways, so this phase of the project is really fun for me. It's more about coming up with unique solutions to unusual problems, as opposed to just following directions.
I flipped the cowl inside out so that I could dremel away some excess material around the eyes. They were kind of digging into the area around my eyes, so they needed a little smoothing out. I also tightened up the chin strap. It seems to be holding together pretty well. I cut it with scissors, then removed a little material. I used Dap to glue the two parts together, then soaked a little strip of material in dap and glued that in on the inside. Then I sprayed the inside of the chin strap with plasti-dip to hide it.
I added a big slab of velcro to each of the sleeves. This will hold the gauntlets securely in place, and stop them from spinning around on my forearms. Not like they were going to be whipping around, but they could slowly slip as the evening progresses. This should keep them VERY firmly in place. They are held in place by Dap, which is my new favorite product evar.
I also FINALLY finished the hood. I built a piece out of the mesh material using the same pattern as the milliskin hood. I was a little worried that it would be too small, but it fits AMAZINGLY. It also hides ALL of the imperfections that I was so worried about in the milliskin hood. Lesson learned, silly boy. Notice that the entire head is not covered by the mesh, just the neck. I didn't want the cowl to fit my head any tighter than it already does, as it's pretty much the perfect fit right now.
The bottom line is that the neck turned out rediculously good. though there is ONE major flaw in it. I pinned part of it wrong, and consequently, one of the seams is on the outside. I was going to fix it, but then figured because the neck armor will be covering it, I just don't care. Nobody will ever see it. I MAY re-make the entire hood after halloween, as I learned so much from making this first one. Namely that the under-hood doesn't need to look very good at all, as you're not going to see it at all. I was getting very worried about making it fit perfectly, and not getting any ripples or gathering in the fabric. Turns out, you can't even see it. Doesn't matter.
Here is a picture of my KB V 2.0 belt that arrived in the mail the other day. It's just stunningly beautiful. Rediculous. The guy who did the build up is just an artist. No doubt about it. I NEVER could have done the kit the justice that this man did. I am DEFINITELY not going to wear this on halloween, as it's just too pretty. This belongs in a display case, not around my waist.
For better pics of the belt, check out this blog post.
Another item on my todo list was to make sure my camera pouches fit on my belt. Well, they do! I sort of wish the Sony one would fit around the wider part so that I could put it in the back, but that's a minor detail. Besides, it IS a utility belt.
Only a few tiny items remaining on my todo list. I need to get some eye makeup, I would like to buy a new camera for the event (since both of my current cameras have not been serving me well lately) and I need to attach the neck armor. Other than that, I am done. I will do one final suit up to make sure all the parts fit together properly, but that's it.
I am DEEP in internal debate about the cape. It drags on the floor. As does the screen used movie cape. But I'm not sure if I want that for halloween. It looks great though. But I know it will get dirty, and maybe a little trashed. I think if I hem it up, I run the risk of doing it wrong. If I wear it out and it gets damaged, I can always hem it up AFTERWARDS and hide the damage. I'm just worried that I will do it wrong and ruin the cape. It's just so beautiful, and I love the fact that it's screen accurate at that length. I will have to think more about it.
That's all for now. As always, thanks for reading, and thanks for all the supportive emails and comments. I appreciate it!


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Janet Barber
Grove Sun
JAY � The Delaware County Public Facilities Authority met with Rick Smith of Municipal Finance Services, a company based out of Edmond, OK, during a meeting held September 3rd to discuss financial options for resolving the issue of overcrowding in the present Delaware County jail.
Smith presented his financial evaluation for several options. Included in the list were three options for a new facility to be constructed in the Jay Industrial Park, one located on the northwest section of the present courthouse and the renovation of the basement, or old jail, in the courthouse.
The options presented to the authority included:
� Option 1-3 include a 650 ft. x 350 ft. structure with 34,000 sq. ft. to be constructed at the Jay Industrial Park. All three options include room for eventual expansion to a maximum 450 beds.
A. Option 1 is a 228-bed facility coming in at a cost of $11,322,004. Per bed cost is $49,658.
B. Option 2 is a 210-bed facility at a cost of $10,915,029. Per bed cost will be $51,976.
C. Option 3 is a 174-bed facility with a price tag of $10,515,029 or $60,431 per bed.
� Option 4 would be a 184-bed facility to be constructed on the northwest side of the existing courthouse at a cost of $10,079,619 or $54,781 per bed. Should this option be chosen, the only room for expansion will be the addition of a second story at an undetermined cost and the possibility of changing building codes. This option will require acquisition of right of way and relocation of streets and businesses and $1M will be added in costs.
� Option 5 is the renovation of what is called the old jail, which is now being used as an evidence room. The cost of the renovation comes in at $1,319,497 or $36,653 per bed cost giving the jail a 32-36 bed expansion.
Smith was quick to point out that this option would be a quick fix and permanent arrangements would have to made for further expansion in the near future.
Smith told the group that due to decreasing sales tax revenues collected in the county, the financial obligation would be a 25-year note compared to the 20-year projected obligation set last year.
During the meeting, Smith also discussed the operations and maintenance budgets for all the options, sales tax collection histories from 1998 until 2009, recently monthly sales tax collections, sales tax comparisons to surrounding towns and counties, jail funding options regarding payment obligations, ad valorem tax impact analysis and possible sales tax effective dates for election.
Members of the authority voted to take no action and to seek more public input.
They will meet again on Sept. 10 at 2 p.m. in the Commissioners office of the Delaware County Courthouse.


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Open Studios Information Meeting Fernando's Studio at Ford St. #26 on February 11th at Noon.
Don't forget the Registration Deadline is Feb. 17th!
Hi Fellow Artists!
It's time to start planning our annual EBOS Jingletown Art Walk scheduled for June 2&3 and 9&10, 2012.
If you'd like to participate in the EBOS Jingletown Art Walk you must be a current Jingletown Arts and Business Community (JABC) member and a registered artist with Pro Arts.
JINGLETOWN MEMBERSHIP: $25. per year and "Associated Costs" based on the number of artists participating.
What do you get?
– Postcards
– Balloons
– Sandwich board sign w/poster of the postcard image
– Artwalk maps
– A listing in the JABC website.
– JABC website promo on the homepage
For artists needing a place to show, the 420 Gallery will be available for this years EBOS with a maximum of 8 artists showing.
Fees: $25.00 rental cost & 10% of sales after the first $250.
Approximately 16 artists participated in last years EBOS in Jingletown.
PRO ARTS MEMBERSHIP AND EBOS REGISTRATION www.proartsgallery.org (see Pro Arts website for more info)
Membership: $45. / Seniors 55+: $20. / Student w/valid ID: $20. EBOS Basic Registration $140.
Artist Registration Deadline: February 17, 2012
Event Dates: Saturday – Sunday, June 2 & 3 and 9 & 10, 11:00am -6:00pm
What do you get?
– Listing in the Directory of East Bay Arts. Choose open studios dates, "Open by Appointment Only"; or "Listing Only/Private Studio." — Distributed to Curators, Gallerists and Arts Professionals across the Bay Area
– NEW in 2012! LARGER Artwork Images in the Directory of East Bay Arts – Now 2 x 2"! Images must be formatted 2" x 2", rgb, 300 dpi, .jpg files only.
– Admission to all workshops
– One 16" x 16" x 4" exhibition space in the Preview Exhibition at Pro Arts (our group takes up a large space on the wall because of the number of artists registered)
– Two back to back 8.5" x 11" pages in the Artist Book reference guide for gallery visitors. Content may include your artist statement, resume, and images of your work.
– Distribution of Posters for the event
– Artist website for one year displaying artist listing, including full color image, studio information, and contact details.
– Image gallery of up to 8 images included on your artist webpage.
– Distribution of the Directory of East Bay Arts catalog.
– Jingletown Arts and Business Community (JABC) can get a FREE display ad in the Directory of Arts Catalog. The size is based on the number of artists registered. Last year our ad size was 1/4 page for 15 registered artists.
If you have any questions please contact me. Please email me back if you're planning on participating.
Fernando Reyes
Jill McLennan
Join us for EBOS Jingletown Art Walk


text: Moscow, Day Five. -- The day started with a talk at the Academy of Sciences, on different models for relativism in Wittgenstein's later philosophy. (Many thanks to Igor Mikhaylov for the invitation.) The Q&A session focused on how to draw distinctions between "relativism", "pluralism", "perspectivalism" and "contextualism", and on what current debates about "logical pluralism" might learn from Wittgenstein. Afterwards we discussed possible forms of cooperation between Moscow and Vienna; the differences in style of play between Kasparov, Karpov and Carlsen; Max Scheler's philosophy; and differences and commonalities between "continental" and "analytic" philosophy. (In the process I learnt that sections of my *Psychologism* book were translated into Russian in an effort to discredit phenomenology. Not exactly my intention, but perhaps "all publicity is good publicity". Or maybe not.) -- The 250-odd philosophers of the Academy of Sciences are the crème de la crème of their field in Russia. They don't have to teach at all. Their colleagues in normal universities are not that lucky: their teaching load amounts to 900 hours per year. -- My visit to the Academy was the first highlight of the day, two more were to follow (both thanks to Nadia Moro). We walked from my favourite subway station ("Kultury Park") to "Novospassky Monastery" where we admired the beautifully restored walls and ceilings of the church, and listened for a while to the Russian Orthodox version of evensong. I could listen to these chants for hours on end. But time was of the essence since we didn't want to miss our symphonic concert at the "Dom Musiki" (The House of Music). The Russian National Philharmonic under Vladimir Spivakov played Saint-Saëns (op. 33), Bruch (op. 26), and Tchaikovsky (op. 23). The respective soloists were Alexander Ramm (cello), Klara Kan (violin), and George Li (piano). -- The event was timetabled to start at 7pm, but most people did not enter the hall until around 7.15pm. Even when the concert was already under way, latecomers were still allowed in. Otherwise the audience was marvelously quiet. There was a nationalist touch in that the Russian flag was projected onto the organ behind the stage. Fortunately this reference was cancelled out by the fact that Russia's very own Tchaikovsky was interpreted by a brilliant U.S. American pianist. The audience gave him a standing ovation that sent a shiver down my spine.


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The VSGA Board is responsible for:
- All Senior Games Competitions conducted in the State of Vermont
- Insuring National Rules are adhered to for each game and that all Sports Coordinators are aware of the rules and follow them accordingly.
- Reviewing and Reporting the results for each game including reporting to "NSGA" in qualifying years.
If you're interested in becoming a board member, download the application.
Board Members:
BARBARA JORDAN, M.S., M.Ed., is the VSGA Vice President and an exercise trainer and wellness counselor for older adults. She currently teaches classes at the University of Vermont and Burlington's Miller Recreation Center. She has worked with seniors of all ages for more than 30 years. She has also presented numerous workshops focusing on Holistic approaches to Wellness. Barbara is the chair of the Games Committee and has been with the Vermont Senior Games since 1987. She is a Senior Olympics Medalist and has won numerous National Championships in Masters Track and Field. Since she was 65, she has held World Records in the 300m Hurdles, Indoor Pentathlon 4x100m Relay and 4x400m Relay. She's also held US records in the 60m and 80m Dashes, and was on the 4x100m Relay Team that broke the Women's 80-84 World Record at the National Senior Games in Minneapolis. Barbara has been inducted into six Athletic Halls of Fame including USATF Masters, Springfield College, Fair Lawn High School and South Burlington High School. She and her husband Paul live in South Burlington – they have three sons and eight grandchildren. Barbara is the coordinator of our largest event – Track and Field. She is an advocate for senior health and fitness across the State.
MAGGIE LEUGERS brings to VSGA the experience of a long career as a recreation professional and a passion for engaging corporations, businesses and organizations in supporting causes she believes in. Maggie currently serves part-time as the Director of Special Projects for the South Burlington Department of Recreation and Parks where she previously served as the Director. She also served as the Recreation Superintendent for Burlington Department of Parks & Recreation for over 20 years. Avid hikers, Maggie and her husband are on a quest to visit all the National Parks.
FLO MEILER, a Shelburne resident, she recently re-joined the Vermont Senior Games Board of Directors, after serving on the Board for eight years back in the early 2000's. In addition to her previous Board experience, Flo brings a wealth of experience as a senior athlete at the state, national and international levels. Flo's competitive athletics began with water skiing. She didn't begin competing in Track and Field until age 62 when her friend, Barbara Jordan, lured her away from a tennis match at the Vermont Senior Games to compete in the Long Jump. Flo says that she was "hooked immediately" and began right away training and competing in multiple track and field events. Now at age 81, she currently trains for 18 different events and typically competes in eight to ten events at a competition. She holds several American and world records, was elected into the USA Masters Track and Field Hall of Fame in 2010, and represented Team USA at the 2015 World Masters Athletics (WMA) Championships in Lyon, France where she won 10 medals, – more than any other competitor among the more than 8,000 athletes representing 98 countries.
MARTI POWERS is the President of the Vermont Senior Games, elected in 2017. She retired from Verizon as a Sales/New Product Implementation Director. After a long career that included work at AT&T, Bell Communications Research and other Regional telephone companies, she retired and moved to Vermont is 2002. She worked at Northfield Savings Bank for 7 years and decided to finally retire for good. She is currently on the Board of Directors at Green Mountain Transit (GMT) representing the Towns of Essex/Essex Junction. Marti also volunteers within the Essex Communities to provide Strength Training classes and supports summer walking programs. Marti has a passion for weight-lifting and loves to be involved with all of the games that VSGA provides. She continues to support fitness and all levels and looks forward in 2017 to meeting new friends and creating a community of VSGA followers.
ALAN RUBEL is a Barre businessman who is currently President of Proforma Vision of Success, a company that does printing, promotional products and e-commerce. Previously he was the owner of Rubel Home Decorating Center for over 20 years in the City of Barre. He is a former Alderman in Barre City and School Board Member in Barre Town. He was selected by the State of Vermont Jaycees as Vermont's Outstanding Young Man for his involvement with his community, youth development, and working with the elderly. A boxing enthusiast, he fought in the 1965 Vermont Golden Gloves where he lost a split decision to Harold Peryea from Altona, New York. To this day Alan believes he won that fight. More recently, he is a three-time javelin gold medalist in Vermont Senior Games track and field competitions. He co-authored Gloves, a book on the history of boxing in Vermont. He also authored a book titled Love Letters to Sharon. He is a founding board member of the Vermont Sports Hall of Fame and past president and guest speaker at his synagogue.
JOHN SCHEER is a CPA and President of Scheer & Hickey PC-a certified public accounting firm located in Colchester, VT. He serves as the Treasurer of the Vermont Senior Games Association. John started running at age 15 and has been an avid runner since. He has seven marathon finishes to his credit. He has also competed in Track and Field at several state games in New England. John has served on several nonprofit boards in Vermont and was the race director of the Vermont City Marathon in the early 90's, which is considered the largest participating sporting event in Vermont.
BOB WILLEY is a Sports Coordinator for one of our most popular sports – Basketball. Bob has participated in all VSGA Basketball championships since 1990, as well as most National Senior Games biennial tournaments. The VSGA Basketball tournament, held at Castleton University, attracts teams from most NE states and New York. Bob co-founded Vermont Systems in 1985 with son, Giles, and is still working there every day. VSI develops and supports applications software for military and municipal Recreation and Parks operations, and provides software and hosting services supporting the VSGA Registration function.
DIANA WOOD is secretary of the VSGA and the Marketing & Outreach Manager for Burlington Parks, Recreation and Waterfront. She hopes to use her skills to help promote the Senior Games across the state and grow the games. While she's too young to compete in the games, Diana participates in several bike events, 5k & 10k runs and triathlons throughout the year. Diana is committed to lifelong physical activities and believes in the motivation that competition provides.
Other Team Members
MATT GUILD is our volunteer webmaster and a life long runner. After spending ten years recovering from the 2004 Vermont City Marathon he rediscovered track and field at the 2014 Vermont Senior Games. He now prefers the shorter races and has competed in state games in New Hampshire, Connecticut and Florida along with Vermont. In 2017 he was the M50 silver medalist in the 800 and 1500 meters at the Birmingham National Senior Games. He will try to match that success in the M55 division in Albuquerque next year.