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Wiretaps Raise New Problem for Colombia's Uribe
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
BOGOTA, Colombia, May 15 -- Opposition politicians in Colombia demanded an explanation from President Álvaro Uribe's government on Tuesday after it was revealed that an elite police intelligence unit had for two years been illegally tapping the phones of opposition figures and journalists.
The disclosures, made late Monday by Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos after a long meeting with Uribe, was embarrassing for an American ally that has received upwards of $4 billion in mostly military and anti-drug aid. Democrats on Capitol Hill have expressed reservations about supporting a free-trade pact with Colombia, citing its troubling human rights record, and some in the U.S. Congress are pushing for more restrictions on military assistance.
The government said the attorney general's office would immediately open an investigation into the wiretapping.
Carlos Gaviria, who ran second to Uribe in last year's presidential election, said in an interview that opposition parties -- including his Democratic Pole -- would press for a hearing in Congress to learn what the government knew about the operations. Santos told reporters on Tuesday that Gaviria was among those whose phone calls were intercepted.
"Somebody ordered the taping, and this information then goes to someone, for some particular purpose," said Rafael Pardo, a former senator and defense minister. "The question is not who was taping, but what is the bigger reason for this?"
Opposition politicians said they were particularly troubled by the revelations because Uribe himself had suggested last month that he knew about at least some operations involving surveillance of the opposition. At a news conference, he accused his opponents of attempting to doom a free-trade agreement that his government wants with the United States.
"I have proof, which I am not going to reveal -- it is from military and police intelligence -- that some of those who have gone to the United States say, 'We're going to attack the treaty by accusing this guy Uribe,' " the president said in a televised briefing.
"Many of the critics that go there to defame the government are the adversaries here" of the free-trade pact, Uribe said. "And I have specific proof. In order not to reveal them, I will not make any personal references."
On Monday night, the government moved quickly to distance itself from the wiretapping disclosures. Santos, the defense minister, suggested that the National Police had mounted a rogue operation. He also said the police had tapped the phones of some members of Uribe's government, though he did not name the targets.
"The procedure is totally unacceptable, illegal and contrary to the policy of the government," Santos said in a statement. As in the United States, tapping a phone requires a judge's order. Without an order, it is considered a crime punishable by one to three years in prison.
The government removed Gen. Jorge Daniel Castro, the head of the National Police, and Gen. Guillermo Chávez, the chief of police intelligence. Ten other generals were also removed as part of a shake-up. Gen. Oscar Naranjo, a legendary police official who has worked closely with the Americans in the dismantling of cocaine cartels, was named the new police director.
The revelations come in the midst of the "para-politics" scandal that, as of Monday, has led to charges against 14 congressmen, all but one of them allies of Uribe, for alleged ties to illegal paramilitary groups. Those groups have been accused of operating as death squads.
Officials said they learned of the wiretapping after Colombia's leading newsweekly, Semana, on Sunday published transcripts of secret conversations in which jailed paramilitary members ordered murders and ran drug-trafficking operations. The disclosure of those recordings, which were made by the police, prompted the government to warn paramilitary commanders that they could lose legal privileges they had been granted in exchange for disarming and entering into negotiations with the government.
Uribe's government has criticized journalists for reporting that the secret police, known as the DAS, were providing intelligence data to paramilitary warlords. And government officials have said little about persistent complaints from opposition figures that their phones were tapped. On Monday, opposition officials questioned why the government disclosed the wiretapping only after the tapping of paramilitary members had been made public by Semana.
"The president of the republic only acted when it was shown that the police intelligence was working not just against the opposition but against the paramilitaries," said Sen. Gustavo Petro, who held a recent congressional hearing and accused Uribe of being soft on paramilitary groups. "The question is why didn't he react two years ago? And why didn't he react when the DAS was doing it and then giving the intelligence to the paramilitaries?"


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Accommodations for:
Hiking Tours
Hiking Tours & Routes in Sölden
Sölden has a lot to offer also in summer: together with the hamlets of Zwieselstein and Hochsölden, the unrivaled Hot Spot in the Alps boasts a huge variety of walking routes for all preferences. Sporty ascents beyond 3000 meters altitude or leisurely mountain gondola rides up to lofty heights. Discover splendid mountain lakes, snow-capped peaks, quaint mountain huts and inns linked by the ultimate ALMZEIT theme hiking trail for families.


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The Sleeveless Top, White Hemp/Peace Silk
A sleeveless top with a high crew neckline and slightly longer in the back. Interior french seams with side slits. The top has an invisible zipper in the back making it easier to get on and off. Made with Hemp/Peace silk. Hemp is durable, fast-growing and a soil-replenishing fabric. Peace silk is harvested after the silkworm has left it's cocoon, giving the worm a chance to live out their full lifecycle.
Eenvoud's mission is to create minimal and well-made women's garments using the most sustainable and ethical methods. Eenvoud uses fabrics colored with non-toxic, less water-dependent dyes and that are less harmful on the environment and our bodies.


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Devastated By An Alcoholic-Family Falling Apart
When I attended my first support group meeting, I was totally devastated. The out of control alcoholic in the immediate family was causing our happy home to denigrate. The children covered their real emotions well with smiles on the outside, but I knew on the inside the relationship with their mother was falling apart.
She had always liked to drink and until a couple of years ago, she seemed to have a handle on balancing the party life with family life. Alcoholism and drug addiction are like a deadly cancer that slowly eats away at the body without any immediate symptoms.
I began to pick up on a few warning signs that something was wrong, but had no idea what that something was. At first, I thought that she was having an affair with another man. I allowed my mind to wonder into many different places trying to figure out why my wife's behaviors had changed so much. She seemed so distant from expressing the love toward me that I had become so accustom to.
This was the beginning of the cancer eating away at our relationship or at least working on changing the way I went about my daily routine. Prior to her acting funny, I would get up in the morning, take care of my responsibilities of getting the kids off to school and then focus on work. When my spouses affections toward me and the children began to change, my thoughts were overtaken with obsessing over her behaviors. I was constantly plagued with wondering what was going on? Why was she acting so distant?
I recall doing things like driving by her work to see if she was really there. I started listening to her saved phone messages and checking some of her emails. I was even looking through her paper mail to try and get some clue as to why her personality had changed so much. I remember listening in on phone conversations hoping she wouldn't catch me. I was totally obsessed and concerned about how my wife had been acting. It was insane behavior on my part that had slowly become a way of life for me over time.
Eventually…her secret was out. She was a nurse and had begun to steal pain pills and any other type of mind altering drug she could take without getting caught. Even though I knew she was doing this, I was not educated in understanding alcoholism or drug addiction. My mind was still internalizing everything like it was something that I had done to cause her to act so oddly removed from the family. Somehow all of this was my fault. I think the reason I thought this is because she began blaming me for everything. If I even said one thing about here problem, she would twist things around and make me feel, think and act as if it was all my fault.
Until you have experienced the drastic mood swings an alcoholic or drug addict has, you may not fully understand how devastating an alcoholic disorder in the family can be.
After a couple of years of this strange behavior, I finally found myself in an Al-anon meeting. After that first hour of interacting with others who understood what I was going through, little did I know that my life would change for the better. I had begun a journey that would take the rest of my life to learn all of the different signs of alcoholism.
The first thing I learned was that I did not cause my wife's addiction problems. The second thing was that I could not control her alcoholism. Finally, I left that first meeting with a small understanding that I could not cure her disease.
The first step in a twelve step program says that we are powerless over an alcoholic's behavior and that our lives have become unmanageable. I immediately identified with this because of the devastation that had been occurring in our family. The kids and I had been wondering why mom had been acting so strange and treating all of us with little respect. We begged and pleaded with her to stay at home sometimes, only to be left without her presence for days on end. We truly were powerless over her and had driven ourselves batty trying to control her. In the midst of the madness, we had been yelled at, physically hit, emotionally and verbally abused by her. No matter how hard we tried to get her to realize how crazy she was acting, nothing changed. She continued to steal prescription medications from work and party every chance she could get.
What started out to be an undetectable cancer was now so evident that it was having devastating affects on everyone's lives in the immediate family.
There were several car wrecks, two arrests, marriage counseling and even a full-term stay in a twenty eight day program and she still chose to live a life filled with self-destruction that was having devastating affects on us all.
In Al-anon, I learned how to detach from my alcoholic wife. There are thousands of coping skills I've been taught through the years that have transformed how I interact with people, not just the alcoholic. The process of gaining the skills necessary for setting boundaries, learning how to love myself, detaching from an addict and loving an alcoholic unconditionally was lengthy.
Just as the cancer of alcoholism had slowly destroyed my life, the healing process was slow too. It takes a while to learn coping skills to be used with alcoholics. I've heard it said: "you can't walk a long way into the woods and expect to get out quickly."
Perhaps you have identified with a little of my story. You can learn how to love an alcoholic and stay married to them if they are not horribly abusive. All is not hopeless for you. You just need to learn a few coping skills for dealing with alcoholics.
Make a decision to do something today to start the process of change. Like I said earlier, we cannot change the alcoholic. So, who does that leave that needs to learn how to change?
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Hello, Crafty Friends!
This week I have a collage layout in my A5 planner to share with you, using the wonderful collage sheets from Anna's Patreon account. Each month she shares wonderful printables that can be used and adapted in many different ways, including in planners.
If you haven't already visited her Patreon page, you should definitely check it out!
This layout was all about being colourful and bold. I don't normally decorate my planner this way, but it seemed like a good opportunity to try something new.
The printable I used was actually a complete art piece that I cut into smaller pieces and then put together in an order of my choice, creating this weird and wonderful floral garden that really stands out.
The washi strip is something I've had in my collection for a while, but provides a nice, smaller floral print. There's a lovely contrast in the size and style of the floral prints that really appeals to me, as well as the contrast between the black and white and colours.
Finally, I used a large chisel-tip Sharpie to create a border and do some lettering on my page. I love how it turned out.
You can view the process video here:
As always, I hope this has inspired you to get creative in your classroom: be bold and bright and joyful!


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Glasgow SEO Can Help Your Business Thrive
If you have been paying keen attention to online marketing trends, you will have noticed that search engine optimisation offers more benefits than ever before. With the increase in the use of mobile devices to carry internet searches, Google and other search engines are making the top search results spots even more lucrative. Today, ranking high in search results guarantees that your websites get huge amount of traffic from search engines. On top of this, users trust your website when it ranks on the first results page.
How do you get to the top? Well, there is only one way to get to the top and it is through carrying out a vigorous search engine optimisation campaign. SEO can be extremely beneficial to Glasgow businesses that wish to enhance their outreach to their target audience. If you have been wondering how you jump-start an effective marketing campaign for your business or brand, you should immediately stop doing so because the answer to your problem is right before you.
SEO Resources
Glasgow SEO experts can help you to come up with a comprehensive search engine optimization campaign for your business or brand. Setting up your SEO campaign all by yourself is not the wisest thing you can do as there is so much you do not know about online marketing. If you want to see results from your SEO campaign, the best thing you can do is to leave it in the hands of trained, skilled and experienced professionals. They can handle every aspect of search engine optimization from on-page optimisation to off-page optimisation, content management, social media marketing, email marketing, konker, keyword research and many more.
When working with the right Glasgow SEO experts, you can be able to take your business to heights it has never been to before.


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Showcasing two renowned and architecturally unique locations, The Contemporary Austin brings multidisciplinary exhibitions, engaging programs, and enticing special events to the city's visual arts landscape.
Jessica Stockholder: Relational Aesthetics, on view at the Jones Center on Congress Avenue, September 15, 2018 – March 3, 2019.
Visit us at the Jones Center downtown and at the lakeside Laguna Gloria! Photo: Michael Moran, Left
The Contemporary Austin offers diverse, engaging ways to explore contemporary art and culture, including innovative opportunities and experiences for families, young people, artists, and educators.
The acclaimed Art School at Laguna Gloria offers classes for ages four through adult in painting, drawing, ceramics, printmaking, photography, sculpture, digital media, and more. Summer 2019 registration begins Friday, February 22!
(For Museum Members only. Public registration begins Monday, February 25.)
As part of International Museum Day, The Contemporary is pleased to offer free admission to both museum sites. See the exciting new exhibitions and explore the family-friendly interactive activities at both locations.


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As my families permaculture journey continues we knew that this would be a concept that we would want to apply this year. Last year, during the drought here in California, we planted in rows. The weeds grew tall and once picked the plants baked in the dry soil. We also were very efficient at creating a bug oasis given that everything else around our garden was dead. Don't get me wrong we harvested all we needed for the year but we were unable to provide the assistance that we normally do for other families.
So this year we are learning and applying some of the permaculture principles to our garden in hopes of getting a better yield, having healthier plants and making our job easier because less weeds will be growing. That's right more yield and less weeds! Who could ask for more?
In this blog I am going to show you the setup that we have chosen to fit our needs. We have our own tastes and we grow the maximum amount of items that we know we can easily preserve for the year. I am sure you may want to delete some items and add some others in their stead.
Here is what our garden plot looks like and what we have planned:
This image is just one of our many gardens on our property but it is our main annual producer. We have raised beds at an alternate location on the property. I have carrots producing seeds there now. The seeds will be resown into that bed. I also have volunteer tomato (and cucumber) plants that pop up there and are good producers. That being said, we are only going to add basil, lettuce and thyme to this bed and let the annual seeds that volunteer grow up big. Research has shown that tomatoes and carrots grow well together (and they sure did last year). Plus, I found out that lettuce grows well with both of these and basil not only improves the flavor of these plants but it is also a great pest deterrent.
Moving into the main garden, my family loves corn, fresh and canned. We are increasing our corn production in a big way this year. Last year my squash and cucumbers were torched by the sun and didn't produce well at this site. Upon researching these companion plants I found out that squash and cucumbers both grow well with corn. The corn will provide them shade and a place to climb without hurting the corn plants. In the past though, I have noticed that when you plant cucumbers and squash together sometimes you end up with a weird high-breed. To avoid this, we are going to separate the two with bush beans which also enjoy growing with the corn. The corn will still be planted in rows with the ground plants staggered in between them. Having these low growing plants in between the corn will greatly reduce the amount of weeds growing in between the corn plants.
The areas marked as green rectangles will not be planted as rows but rather as a random conglomeration of vegetable plants, herbs, and marigolds (which help keep bugs away). You may notice that many of the squares contain tomato plants. We love tomatoes as well, both fresh and canned. We can chili sauce, stewed tomatoes for tomato based meals and whole tomatoes to use whenever. While I was researching permaculture I came across the idea of spreading out your tomato plants rather than planting them in a row. This way if you get tomato worms (which we do every year) they can't just crawl down your row of tomatoes, eating as they go.
You will also notice that herbs are included in every box. This is because many herbs can be very beneficial to your vegetables. Basil make the flavor of tomatoes and lettuce better. That's why it's going up to the upper bed. Parsley is beneficial for corn and tomatoes so we will plant it by our tomatoes in the beds. Oregano, thyme, marjoram, and tarragon are good to plant with all your vegetable plants so we are going to do a mix-up of these herbs throughout. Dill needs to be kept away from carrots so it will not be in the upper bed but we can mix it freely in the main garden.
Starting with the box on the top left we will grow two tomato plants mixed with beets and garlic. Beets don't necessarily benefit either of these plants but we had space and beets is another item that we can heavily for the winter months. In the top right box we will grow two tomatoes, eggplant and spinach. Eggplant is beneficial to tomato plants and spinach is beneficial to the eggplants. The box in the middle on the left will have mostly just potatoes in it. Potatoes should not be planted by cucumbers, as cucumbers will cause blight in late potatoes. Basil is very beneficial to potatoes as it deters potato beetles and marigolds are also very efficient at deterring bugs from potatoes so these two plant types will be the main accompaniment in this bed.
In the middle right bed we will have two more tomatoes which grow well with peppers (type is not specified but we grow green, sweet peppers). Peppers also grow well with onions and basil but we will include other types of herbs as well. In the bottom left bed we will grow onions and more beets, which are a good accompaniment, with chard and dill. All of these plants are companions. The final bed on the bottom right will have more tomatoes and beets.
I hope I have given you some food for thought for growing your own garden. If you would like to see a full list of companion plants, the Mother Earth Website has a great guide that you can print out and plan you own companion garden full of the goodies your family loves to eat and preserve.
Sara F. Hathaway
Sara F. Hathaway is the author of the The Changing Earth Series: Day After Disaster and Without Land. She also hosts The Changing Earth Podcast which blends her fictional stories with educational survival tips. Sara grew up in the country where she developed a profound interest in the natural world around her. After graduating with honors from The California State University of Sacramento with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, she launched into a career in business management. In her fictional novels her research and experience with survival techniques and forgotten life-sustaining methods of the generations past come to the forefront in a action packed adventures. She has used her background in business management to pave new roads for fictional authors to follow and she delights in helping other achieve the same success. She currently lives with her husband and two sons in California where she is at work on the sequel to her first two novels. For more information and a free copy of "The Go-Bag Essentials" featuring everything you need to have to leave your home in a disaster visit: www.authorsarafhathaway.com
|Purchase Without Land
|Purchase Day After Disaster


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Circulating Biomarkers for Cardiovascular Diseases
Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) remain the No. 1 killer in industrial countries and a main reason for frequent re-hospitalization. Biomarker testing may play a central role in promoting improved clinical outcome, better quality of life, and alleviated socio-economic burden of CVD. Even in this post-cTn (cardiac troponin) and post-BNP (B-type natriuretic peptide) era, there are still significant gaps and demands for more reliable and innovative biomarker-based tools for diagnosis and evidence-guided management of CVD. This Special Issue of Acta Pharmacologica Sinica consists of 18 original research or review articles authored by 108 scientists from 15 countries to showcase recent advances in translational and clinical investigations focusing on biomarkers that are released from injured cardiovascular tissues into circulation during various CVD events, such as acute myocardial infarction, heart failure, aortic aneurysms, carotid restenosis, pulmonary hypertension, and cardiac amyloidosis. These collective efforts can benefit future technological development of novel tests for CVD biomarkers.
In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), the main therapeutics is the unique TCM medicinal formula, so called Fangji, which is usually composed of multiple herbs and medical materials with integrated multiple therapeutic objects. The modern pharmacological approach to the study of Fangji, however, has been focusing on the isolation and identification of individual active components within a Fangji for cellular and molecular targets. This not only has led to the misinterpretations of mechanisms of Fangji's therapeutic actions and clinical effectiveness but also has seriously hampered the scientific research and development of TCM in general. Clearly, new omic/systematic and networking paradigms are urgently needed for deep understanding of the unique composition theories and mechanisms of effective combination therapy through TCM Fangji. In this special issue, we continued to introduce Fangjiomics-based combination therapy applications to the discovery of rational combination therapy and precision medicine.
Frontier in Medical Research and Drug Development
This special issue attributes to the 2017 China-Canada-USA Pharmacology/Physiology Conference (CCUPPC), one of the largest initiatives promoting scientific exchanges and research collaborations in the field of pharmacology, physiology and drug development. Specifically, this special issue features review and original articles highlighting the most recent innovations in drug discovery and drug delivery in stroke, mental health, and neurodegenerative disorders; potential mechanisms of novel endogenous peptides, and natural products broadly used in metabolic, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disorders; and organ preservation, etc. The conference brought scientists from China, Canada, and USA together, and created a new platform for international interaction and collaboration. The conference took place at the University of Toronto, known as the birthplace for insulin, the alma mater of Dr. Norman Bethune, and one of the world's top research-intensive universities.
APS Special Features on Exosomes
Extracellular microvesicles (MVs) and exosomes (EXs) are the major types of extracellular vesicles (EVs) which can carry and transfer molecular messages (proteins, mRNAs and microRNAs,etc). Thereby, EVs could serve to mark the changes of the producing cells and to function on the recipient cells. These features deem EVs as potential biomarkers and pharmacological targets for various diseases including metabolic, vascular and neurological diseases and tumors. The current special feature provides reviews and original research articles on novel pharmacological studies of MVs and EXs.
Cancer Nanobiotechnology
Nanobiotechnology plays a more and more important role in combating cancer. Ideal delivery should maximize drug accumulation at tumors while minimize the unwanted drug exposure to the normal tissues, thus executing cytotoxicity specifically in cancer cells and sparing the healthy cells. Nanotechnology-based targeting delivery has been generally believed as the most promising method to achieve this ultimate goal of pharmacotherapy. Nano drug delivery systems can improve the pharmacokinetics profiles and tumor biodistribution of the antitumor drugs, and enhance their intracellular delivery as well; in addition, the drug instability and water insolubility problems can be solved by encapsulation into nano carriers.
Ion Channels
Ion channels are integral membrane proteins that catalyze the flux of ions across cell membranes, and play fundamental roles in a wide variety of functions throughout the body. In this post-genomic era, when the genes encoding most ion channels have been deciphered with their function remaining elusive yet, a full exploration of the channel proteins has become a new frontier of biological and biomedical research. The present ion channel study is a multidisciplinary research embracing various fields of science. We wish that the Ion Channel special issue would provide new insights into ion channel research and drug discovery.
Cancer Precision Medicine
In this special issue, we have invited 7 reviews to discuss recent advances in precision cancer medicine, which include new PI3K/mTOR pathway inhibitors, endogenous angiogenesis inhibitors, NK cell-based cancer immunotherapy, microRNAs and alternative splicing as potential new diagnostic markers and cancer drug targets, and intra-tumor heterogeneity of cancer cells and their implications in cancer treatment. All of these studies support the new exciting development in cancer medicine in order to tailor effective cancer treatment precisely based on the molecular signatures of cancers in target.
Fangjiomics in Traditional Chinese Medicine: Progress and Perspective
In the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), diseases are treated with a combination of herbs (Fangji) according to the Jun-Chen-Zuo-Shi principle for well-defined roles of targeting major and minor problems. While the empirical Fangji therapy of disease has been proven clinically effective the underlying mechanisms for the combined targets remain mysteries. Fangjiomics systematically studies myriad compatible combinations that act through multiple targets and balance on- and off-targets. By prioritizing targets, Fangjiomics addresses the key components and issues in combination therapies and may lead to novel controllable array-designed therapies to combine less potent elements with more on-target and fewer off-target effects. This forthcoming Special Issue of Acta Pharmacologica Sinica assembles a series of updated omic studies on several famous Fangjis from view of systems biology and network pharmacology.
Nuclear Receptors: Biology, Structures, and Drug Discovery
Nuclear receptors are DNA-binding and ligand-regulated transcriptional factors that play crucial roles in many aspects of human physiology and consist of an important family of drug targets. This year marked the 30thanniversary of the cloning of the first member of the nuclear receptor family and 25th year of the discovery of orphan nuclear receptors, for which no cognate ligands were known at the time of their cloning. Since then we have witnessed a tremendous expansion of our knowledge of this family of receptors. In this special issue, 11 review articles highlight our key understanding of structure, function, disease relevance, and drug discovery of nuclear receptors.
Stem cell therapy and Drug Discovery
During the past few years, we witnessed explosive progress in the field of stem cell research, leading to an increasing hope for more effective cell replacement therapies to treat various diseases. The self-renewal capability of stem cells, combined with their ability to differentiate into different cell types under programmed conditions, enables improved models for drug discovery and mechanism-based studies of diseases, hence laying the foundation for their therapeutic applications. In fact, induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-based transplantation therapy has already been performed in rodent models.
This special edition of Acta Pharmacologica Sinica on "stem cell therapy and drug discovery" includes 11 articles that highlight both new findings and emerging ideas in different aspects of stem cell technologies, clinical therapies and drug discoveries. The collection of these impressive articles provides an excellent reference map for experts and a point of entry into this exciting research field for the novice.
Autophagy and Drug Discovery
The word autophagy is derived from the Greek roots "auto"(self) and "phagy" (eating) and broadly refers to the cellular catabolic processes, in which cytoplasmic materials are transported to lysosomes for degradation.
Important progress has been achieved in the recent years in defining the role of autophagy in human diseases such as cancers, cardiovascular diseases, metabolism disorders, immune-mediated diseases, and neurodegenerative diseases. In addition, a number of drugs in the clinical trials against cancers, immune diseases, and neurodegenerative diseases affect or act through autophagy. It is conceivable that exploring the molecular mechanisms of autophagy opens an avenue for development of novel drugs to treat these devastating diseases.
In order to give a broad picture on recent progress in autophagy research and help deliver a deep insight into autophagy biology and the related disease, Acta Pharmacologica Sinica launched this special issue on "Autophagy and Drug Discovery". As the editors for this special edition, we invited several experts in China and abroad to contribute 13 articles, which cover the important aspects of basic and clinical research on autophagy and reflect on recent developments in this field.
This issue covers our current understanding of the pathophysiological roles of the ion channels and exchangers involved in non-glutamate mechanisms in cerebral ischemia and stroke, as well as their potential for therapeutic intervention. These non-glutamate mechanisms include TRP channels, KATP channels, chloride channels, acid-sensing ion channels, hemichannels, volume-regulated anion channels, adenosine receptors, nitrogen species, neural precursor cells, retinal ischemia, and neuron glial cells. The articles highlight novel therapeutic strategies for targeting non-glutamate mechanisms to prevent neuronal damage in stroke and to promote neuronal survival, regeneration and functional recovery after stroke, thus providing long-term economic, social, and healthcare benefits worldwide.
G protein-coupled receptors
G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are the largest family of cell surface communicating molecules. They facilitate diverse extracellular signals and, therefore, play a crucial role in numerous physiological processes and diseases. Subsequently, GPCRs have become drug targets for many major diseases. To date, however, only a small proportion of GPCRs have been investigated as targets, so this area still shows great potential in combatting many other diseases. The March 2012 issue contains a special feature on GPCRs including articles by leading experts on GPCR structures, biology, diseases, and drug discovery. Further background information on this important topic is available through the accompanying web focus which links to related articles from across Nature Publishing Group.
Obesity is the primary health threat of the 21st century. The last 30 years have seen a dramatic increase in the prevalence of obesity, especially in the developed countries. Such an increase has played a significant role on the overall health of these nations, and, in turn, has led to significant increases in healthcare expenditure. The February 2012 issue contains a special feature on Obesity including articles by leading experts on several topics that relate to obesity etiology, animal models, therapeutics and clinical implications. Further background information on this important topic is available through the accompanying web focus which links to related articles from across Nature Publishing Group.
Channelopathy and drug discovery
Channelopathies are diseases that result from functional disturbances of ion channels or the proteins that regulate them. The June special issue brings together a selection of articles dealing with the various ion channels, including aquaporins, potassium channels, chloride channels, sodium channels and calcium channels, that are involved in maladies such as cardiovascular disease, brain injury, reproductive disease and kidney disease and the recent advances that have been made in identifying potential drug targets for treating these diseases. The accompanying web focus presents additional links to related articles in this area from across Nature Publishing Group.
APS Highlights 2010
Covering the latest in pharmacology, Acta Pharmacologica Sinica is proud to present some of the most accessed articles during 2010, as chosen by the Editor. These articles highlight the latest within pharmacology and the life sciences, covering a range of topics including cardiovascular medicine, neuroscience, cancer, immunology, molecular cell biology, endocrinology, chemistry, and methods and protocols.
Vascular Biology and Vascular Disease
The October special issue on vascular biology and vascular disease brings together the latest reviews and articles in the field. Together with this web focus APS delves into our current understanding and investigates recent advances in various aspects of vascular injury, including vascular stiffness, vascular aging, phenotypic alteration, lipid transportation, and endothelium dysfunction.
Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of APS
The 30th Anniversary Special Issue (September 2010) of APS brings together a series of thought-provoking Perspectives, Reviews and Original Articles on various outstanding issues in pharmacology today. This accompanying web focus provides a collection of recent developments in these fields. Select articles have been set free for a limited time.
Nicotinic Receptors and Nicotine Addiction
Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) are a superfamily of ligand-gated ion channels which mediate nicotine reward, dependence and addiction. Throughout the central nervous system, neuronal nAChRs exist as multiple, diverse subtypes comprising unique pentamers of genetically distinct subunits. These subtypes each exhibit different function and pharmacology, but their precise roles in nicotine addiction remain elusive. This special issue and accompanying web focus provide an overview of the possible mechanisms of different nAChR subtypes in the mediation of nicotine reward and reinforcement.
Editor's Choice
Spanning a range of topics from bioengineering to neuropharmacology, cardiovascular pharmacology, cancer chemoprevention research and calcium signaling, APS is proud to present a collection of top review articles from recent years, as chosen by the editor. Complementing this collection, the January issue also includes the latest reviews covering various aspects of pharmacology.


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FVCC's Music Program offers an unparalleled educational experience with small class sizes, personal attention from instructors and public performance opportunities. Our faculty are world-class musicians who bring national and international teaching, conducting, performing and composing experiences into the classroom.
Our classes will take your vocal and instrumental skills to the next level. We cater to all skill levels, from entry level to advanced.
FVCC provides emphasis and transfer degrees in:
- Music Performance
- Composition
- Music Education
- Music Minor


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GRADING CHELSEA TRANSFER TARGETS – Their need and Probablity of Getting Them
Transfer window time. Probably the most enjoyable time for us after, say, winning a trophy.
We being European Champions have been linked with almost every football player on the transfer market in recent days.
So lets look at a few of the names, see how much we NEED them and what's the probability of getting them.
A field that god has blessed us with tremendous depth and quality, this is the last position we want to make an addition in.
With Petr 'Batman' Cech showing no signs of slowing down, An Europa Cup Winner, 19 year old successor in Thibaut Courtois and one of the best young goalies in Jamal Blackman, an addition is the goalkeeping department will make us look like dorks really.
Anyways, with media upto it's usual tricks, we've been linked with Newcastle United's Tim Krul.
A pretty good goalkeeper, good height, easily amonsgt one of the best goalies in the EPL last season. BUT we don't need him. Neither are the Toons mad enough to sell him.
Need : -5/10
Probability : Have a Laugh.
Again a field that we are stacked up pretty nicely, defense is Chelsea's forte. With Cahill, JT, Luiz, Ivanovic as Center Backs, we don't need any more central defenders.
However, we are thin on the fullback department. With Cole and Bertand to fill up the left slot, that position is secure. But with nobody for the right (Ivanovic can play of course), we could certainly do with a right fullback.
We've been linked with all sorts of RB's in recent days. Debuchy, Piszczek, Da Silva, Azpilicueta, Van Der Weil – we've got a nice bunch of guys to choose from. According to requirements, Ivanovic is doing a great job, so we need just one RB. Of all these targets, Debuchy is the most logical and economical choice.
However, if we don't get him, Azpilicueta is the next best option. Van Der Weil should be avoided. He's just another Bosingwa.
Need : 10/10
Probability : 7/10
Need : 1/10 (Who wants a Man Utd Defender in our team ?)
Probability : 0/10
Need : 8/10
Probability : 7/10
Need : 5/10
Probability : 8/10
We shouldn't be adding any more fire-power in the ATTACKING core. Mata, Hazard, Marin, Ramires, KDB are a very good bunch. What we need is to add in the DEEP-HOLDING role.
We don't need a Defensive Mid because Mikel is doing great and Romeu is an awesome back-up.
But we are thin in that Deep-lying role, we need someone to support Lampard, someone who can pull the strings from the back.
The most perfect guy for that role would be Modric. Other than that we've been linked to Hulk, Joevtic, Moses, Ben Arfa and Schurrle.
While Hulk is a must-need for the right wing, Jovetic would be a disaster. He's injury plagued and 25 million is his cost. We paid 24 million for that gem, Juan Mata, so nowhere in hell are we playing 25 million for Joevtic. 10-15 million is okay.
Rather than Jovetic, I would prefer Ben Arfa, Moses or Schurrle. They are cheap, great dribblers and will compliment the expensive signings of Hazard and Hulk(hopefully) perfectly.
Another guy we were linked with was Fellani from Everton. Great player. But we don't need him now, Since Mikel is playing good. However if Mikel goes off the boil this season, then next season Fellani should be a must buy.
Need : 10/10
Probability : 9/10
Need : 3/10
Probability : 6/10
Need : 8/10
Probability : 8/10
Need : 7/10
Probability : 6/10
Need : 6/10
Probability : 6/10
Need : 6/10
Probability : 4/10
Need : 9/10
Probability : 6/10
One department which we seriously need to beef up, beacuse the current resources that we have are not that convincing.
Torres, Sturridge and Lukaku comprise the entire strike force. Not a very impressive reading for the Defending Champions of Europe. Torres is still recovering, You can't expect Studge to pass and Lukaku will probably go on loan. That leaves us with just two strikers and there is no Drogba to save us this time around.
We've been linked with Falcao, Pato, Higuain, Cavani, Rondon and Huntelaar. Don't be surprised, but I actually think that HUNTELAAR might be the perfect signing of all these.
With Fernando destined to be our top striker, we need someone who would be willing to accept the side-kick role. I can't see Falcao, Higuain or Cavani acccepting that. Pato is likely to spend half the season in a hospital and Rondon seems to be a risky buy. He's had a great season.
But ONE good season shouldn't be enough to pay 20million for a guy. We don't want a Andy Caroll now, do we ?
15-17 million is Huntelaar's buyout clause. Affordable.
We can negotiate further because of Dutch's pathetic EURO campaign.
Need : 6/10
Probability : 5/10
Need: 5/10
Probability : 3/10
Need : 5/10
Probability : 4/10
Need : 2/10
Probability : 7/10
Need : 8/10
Probability : 7/10
Well, that ends our transfer round-up.
Hope it was informative enough. Let me know your thoughts.
PS : It's good to be back.
– RR2(Chelsea360)
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Following are backstories from J S Kingfisher for each track on From the Moon to the Earth. Clicking a title in the index at left takes you right to it.
From the Moon is the oldest track, composition-wise, on the record: I wrote it while living in San Francisco in 2004. The hey-dey-yay riff was written much later, however, and the lyrics were being tweaked up to a few days before Maiya Sykes tracked her vocal.
I met Maiya through vocalist Katrin Kern (who sings Changeling on the project). When Maiya came to the studio for the first time, we discovered wed had a mutual friend in the late Jeffery Smith (who sang North). From the Moon also marked my first meeting with trumpeter Jeff Bunnell, who introduced me to saxophonist Jay Mason and trombonist Charlie Morillas; all three became the horn section on the rest of the project.
Initially, I had my own vocals on From the Moon, recorded in the mid-aughts. I didnt yet have my voice back when I began the final production, however, and decided to hire a female vocalist, which required putting it in a faraway key and reworking many of the background lines. Im glad I did.
The crashed in a tranquil sea, a girl barely alive lyric was originally a boy barely alive.
Nosferatu was begun sometime in the early aughts in Sacramento; the lyrics, final form, and arrangement, however, didnt fall into place until the month of its final production.
Nosferatu was my first opportunity to work with saxophonist Jay Mason, who ended up doing a lot of solo work on the album. It was also my first meeting with Charlie Morillas, and the first time I recorded a horn section in my small studio. Brad Dutz added a great deal of energy to the track with his bongos, and we had a great time with the cuica and whistles at the end.
Dalibor Banovic shot and edited the Nosferatu video after the final single from the project was released on September 27, 2015, while the discs were in manufacture just in time for Halloween.
The opening section of The Weave had been floating around my studio for years; the verses and choruses that came after were written in the late aughts. The instrumental break and the outro were written just a couple of weeks before the tracks release.
The Weave marked my first meeting with violinist Peter Kent, and my second meeting with Maiya Sykes, who came in with her friend and colleague Nicki Gonzalez for backing vocals. Tony Blöndal, Brad Dutz, and I guitar, vibes, and piano, respectively had great fun with the bent harmonies in the piece, and Dave Stone really took a bite with his bass, especially in the instrumental sections. Those same sections allowed me to sing some scat for the first time on record.
I had forgotten about Jonathan Kings 1965 hit Everyones Gone to the Moon until I heard Nina Simones cover of it in the mid-seventies. The song had struck me lyrically since I first came upon Gurdjieffs cosmology it was a natural for the album.
It wasnt until after the single had been released that I heard of the controversy surrounding songwriter-turned-pop-mogul Jonathan King apparently hes a bit overfond of teenage boys, or was in the seventies and eighties. His trial was a tabloid extravaganza, and though he was convicted of pedophilia still maintains his innocence (the young men in question were above the age of consent by todays laws, but not under the laws of the time.) King has since written musical about the whole affair called Vile Pervert.
The music of the opening chorus and verse of Flying Machines were written in 2007; I only had the lyrics for the chorus. The rest of the music and lyrics were written in the month before its release.
LaVance Colley was another vocalist I met through LA Craigslist. I saw some of his videos on YouTube, and was impressed with his dazzling range and chops. Still, I had planned on a long vocal session: the song is very chromatic and tricky, as well as rangy. I had no reason to worry he nailed it in a couple of takes. Then he said he had a couple of ideas for background parts, and proceeded to lay down all the lush, complex harmonies you hear by ear, and in short order. It was a great day.
Ive always loved classic Latin rhythms and the dances that accompany them: mambos, rhumbas, beguines I was intrigued with the idea of making up a new one. My attempt at doing so was how Dancing on the Moon came about. (Im still waiting on the choreography.) The whole thing came together tip to toe a couple of weeks before its release.
Some of my very earliest gigs as a teenager were playing cabaret piano for vocalist Dan Evans. One of the songs we did together was The Man in the Moon, from the Broadway musical Mame by Jerry Herman.
Dan and I have remained good friends since then, and when it came time to record it for the album it had to be done, it fit right in conceptually and brought some needed levity to the project I called him straight away. I enjoyed adding a bit more in-your-end-o to the lyric, and Dan sang it with relish it was great fun.
Blue Earth began as a piano piece entitled Joplinesque, for obvious reasons; Id had it around for quite some time. It was rattling around in my head when the lyric and the blues that go with it came to me, a couple of weeks before the full Moon when the track was due.
I met guitarist Joe DiBlasi through pianist Ron Feuer. Joe has an amazing list of credits from major motion pictures and television to Pink Floyd, and he brought just the sort of half Spanish, half Django-esque feeling I was imagining to the track. Brad Dutz congas, vibes, and guiro give things a nice, laid back feel I could play that outro riff all day.
From the Moon and To the Earth, two halves bridged by a single piece, Tellurian Passage: that was the planned structure for the project since its inception. Tellurian Passage was conceived as an orchestral piece; a sketch of it was one of the first things I had in place. Its release date was to be on the eleventh Full Moon in the schedule the center point of the twenty-one moons in the project and the moon just before the Winter Solstice.
As I began work on the final orchestrations in the month preceding its release, it became clear that the orchestral piece Id envisioned was the wrong call. It was lovely and lush and dramatic and didnt fit. (This sort of thing often happens within a project, and even within a single song: once things are underway, the work itself begins to dictate whats next, and it becomes my job to listen and respond rather than force preconceived ideas.)
The new piece I wrote instead came together entirely in a couple of days. The piano came first, then the first verse lyric, then piano, then lyric... its a bridge piece built like a bridge. The bass flute was in my head from the start Id been haunted by its sound and compelled to use it since Sara Andon played for me after our Night Bird session a few months earlier.
Dalibor Banovic shot the video in my studio a few days before the projects release.
The Stranger, originally titled The Stranger Within, was written in my early days with the Gurdjieff work. It was a working title for the album before the From the Moon to the Earth concept fell into place. Before I recovered a voice and started singing again, I considered pitching it to Marianne Faithfull.
North, along with From the Moon, was one of the two tracks that I began serious production on before the project had a name.
I moved back to Los Angeles from my home in the northern Sierra Nevada in February of 2012, and began work on North in a small space I had rented in Hollywood. At that point I still didnt know if Id ever sing again my voice was still weak from prolonged illness, my confidence and energy were frail, and I was pretty much resigned to hiring other singers.
Jeffery Smith and I had been good friends and occasional colleagues since 1982. Id always loved his voice, and sent him a demo of North, hoping hed be interested. He was, and drove up from San Diego in his giant Lincoln Miss Daisy for a few days of recording and hijinks. That was near the end of June, 2012. July 5th or 6th we got the call: hed passed away in his apartment on July 4th.
North is song about transition: what sort of transition changed over the course of the years during which it was penned. Mount Shasta has always been a spiritual home for me: it houses the headwaters of the Sacramento River, which feeds the valley in which I was born, and I think of the mountain as a kind of ancestor. At first, the song was about moving back to Northern from Southern California. Later, it became about retreating to a place of healing at the end of a long relationship. Later still, when Jeffery sang it, he made it his own, and it became his story. When he left us just afterward, it became something else entirely.
North was the first recording in which I made extensive use of the harpejji, a 24-string tap instrument that has since become a close ally. John Magnussen played vibes; the french horns were provided anonymously (as not to raise the ire of the union <sigh>.) Brad Dutz came in just before mix and added conga and hand percussion.
The video for North was shot at Mount Shasta and all along the Sacramento River by Dalibor Banovic. I wander through it as a sort of silent witness.
Beloved was inspired by the longing for the Beloved, the intimacy with the ineffable, found in the poetry of Rumi. It was originally conceived as a bossa nova.
I had only recently discovered Jacob Colliers work online when I began putting together the arrangement for Beloved. I had found his now famous split-screen videos, and from the moment I came up with the opening vocal riff imagined his voice and his singing head floating about in bubbles on the screen. I knew he was based in London, but I figured what the hey, and I sent him an e asking if he might be interested in doing some vocals on the track remotely. To my surprise and delight he was, and I sent him charts and the track. He recorded his parts at his place and sent them back over (sans bubbles) and bada bing there you have it. It was a great pleasure working with him, and Im thrilled to see him enjoying such success his is a dazzling talent.
Theres quite an array of marimbas on the track, some synthesized and some authentic. It was the first time Id worked with Brad Dutz, and we had a good time making it all happen. One thing we recorded that didnt make it to the track was bass marimba. I had rented one, thinking it would play that big-as-a-house bass line, and actually, it was too big it was so boomy and resonant I couldnt get it to sit in the track. It was a great sound, just not the right one. It took up half the studio for 3 days, but I didnt mind it was so much fun to bang on I was sorry to see it go.
Before I began singing regularly on the project, I was always on the lookout for new singers. Id gone through the usual channels seeking session singers, but what I was really looking for was voices of unique character. One of the places I hit pay dirt was, surprisingly, LA Craigslist there was a lot to weed through, but I heard back from some really talented people. One of them was Katrin Kern.
Katrin has done a lot of film and commercial work, and has a very ethereal voice just the right call for the otherworldly Changeling. Katrin also turned me on to her friend Maiya Sykes, who ended up singing on two other tracks on the project, including the title track.
Changeling also marked my first opportunity to work with cellist Stefanie Fife. Shes a wonderfully sensitive and expressive player, and appears on several tracks throughout the project. Guitarist Tony Blondal lends his gentle acoustic here as well.
Night Bird was written in the spring of 2008 in Studio City, California. It was during the beginning of a series of illnesses that would almost claim my life a few years later, and I was drifting often between worlds, especially at night. That one nights adventures were accompanied by a particularly pestilential mockingbird an experience to which anyone whos lived in LA can probably relate. (One time I got out of bed and chucked a wet towel at one in a tree, but thats another story.)
Night Bird marked my first chance to work with harpist Gayle Levant since 1998s Vesica Piscis, and she created a seamless, airy, and utterly lovely track. It was also my first time ever working with flautist Sara Andon, which was a delight. (When we were done recording, Sara brought out her alto and bass flutes and pretty much sent me to another planetand greatly inspired Tellurian Passage, which I recorded with her not much later.)
Brad Dutz came in last and added his vibes magic, along with a bit of glockenspiel. I had great fun adding in all the bird and bug samples and loops they make up much of the percussion bed.
"Sabbatum Sanctum means Holy Saturday, which is the day before Easter; that was the day of this Full Moon release. (It was also the first day of Passover, and there was a lunar eclipse.) The spring festivals that celebrate rebirth have always marked an inspirational time for me.
The initial melodic idea for Sabbatum Sanctum grew out of a piano/organ jam between myself and pianist John Steiner in 2009; I developed it into a song a meditation, really shortly thereafter. The lyric, however, wasnt entirely complete until a couple of weeks before its release. In earlier incarnations, the track had gotten quite large; in the end, I pulled everything out but the bare minimum.
Sabbatum Sanctum marked the first time Id written for and recorded bansuri flute; Neelamjit Dhillon is a very fine and sensitive player, and took the track to unexpected places. I hadnt worked with oboist John Yoakum since 1998s Vesica Piscis; he brought his own sensitivity to the track as well, and blended perfectly with Neel. Brad Dutz came in last and added a tabla/udu track, as well as some magic sparkle using a twisty little metal thing he found or made.
In addition to piano, I play quartz crystal bowls on the track I have a full chromatic set.
The Rhythm Line was penned a couple of weeks before its release. Since recording Do I Love Well? a few months earlier, I was hot to get back into the studio and record a live track again. I did it this time with a rhythm section plus horns, again at Big City. A couple days later I went over to Ron Feuers studio and tracked him on his Hammond B3. Sizzlin!
In 2008, I released an intuitive/compositional tool called Muzoracle, a kind of musical cross between the Tarot and I Ching. One of the many concepts I explored in its mythos was one I dubbed the rhythm line. In brief, it goes like this: Our experience of pitch is not time-based. Pitches do occur in time, of course, as we inevitably begin and end them at some point, but our experience of them while theyre happening is more as if they are living objects. If we, however, lower a pitch in frequency beyond a certain point, we begin to experience its vibration as a series of beats, of events, and time for us, experientially enters the picture: it crosses the rhythm line.
SOUS LA BELLE LUNE BLEUE (Under the Beautiful Blue Moon)
Sous la Belle Lune Bleue was released under the only Blue Moon during the project (a Blue Moon is a second full moon in one month). I met my husband under a Blue Moon, so this was an opportunity for me to record a love song something I rarely do. The romantic imagery in the song is drawn from things as they actually happened.
Sous la Belle Lune Bleue was written, arranged, recorded, and mixed in four days. I had originally planned on recording a cover of Blue Moon, by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart I had a very dreamy, Satie-like version arranged and a recording date set at Big City for a rhythm section. Two days before the session, however, I decided to bail on it I loved the arrangement, but just couldnt get behind the lyric. Lorenz Hart was an amazing lyricist, but the song was written in 1938 as an upbeat ditty; the music lent itself to a sensitive, gentle treatment, but the lyric didnt. (I just couldnt sing I heard somebody whisper, Adore me! with a straight face if someone whispered that to me Id run like hell!)
Id had the musical beginnings of Sous la Belle Lune Bleue floating around for a few weeks. Id been playing it as a straight waltz, not a swinging one, and imagined it as an oompah/calliope sort of thing I thought it might work in a film somewhere. But when the time crunch hit, it was there, so I started monkeying with it. I tried swinging it, which grew on me, and got busy with the lyric. The French seemed a natural choice to me the song had a bit of a 60s Michel LeGrand sort of vibe.
Did I Love Well? was a question I came across reading Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfields A Path with Heart in the mid-nineties I never forgot it. I wrote Do I Love Well? on a wet morning in LA a few weeks before the tracks release.
I had met Ron Feuer, Sr. several times I went to music school with his son, Ron Jr., and he and his wife are close with my good friend and colleague, guitarist Tony Blöndal; and he had worked quite a bit with my good friend Jeffery Smith, who also sang on this project. Ron is an amazing keyboardist, and has a great affinity with singers; I knew he would be just the right call for this trio I was imagining if I could get him. To my delight, he was available and enthusiastic, and actually put the trio and the studio together for me. Chris Colangelo played some very fine bass and Paul Tavenner, who owned the studio, played drums just right and ran the session from the drum booth. I sang live with the band whats on the record is the first take.
I ended up doing another three tracks on the project with Ron, recording them all at Pauls studio and Paul ended up mastering the project. This session also marked the beginning of the end of my love affair with holing up in the studio and stacking overdubs the more live, the better. Old school is best.
The music of To the Earth was written in December of 2014; it was under my fingers alternately with Tellurian Passage, which I was in the process of recording at the time. I had considered lyrics for it, and it was to be the closing piece of the project; neither of those things came to pass. As much as I love penning lyrics, sometimes melodies say more without them. The last three songs on the project this, Moon in the Mirror, and Harvest Moon all have a closer quality. I just had to pick which one went where; this one ended up the first of the three.
To the Earth was the last piece I recorded with the full band at Big City; the last piece I recorded at all but for a final overdub on Moon in the Mirror, and Harvest Moon, which I performed and recorded entirely on my own. It was bittersweet, as farewell sorts of things can be but mostly sweet. I love all the performances on this track Jay Masons shimmering alto especially stands out. It was also a chance for me to contribute an improvised vocal solo, which was great fun.
True story, cinematic though it is: One summer evening in the late aughts, I was driving down Route 395 through the high desert east of the Sierras, and noticed the full moon rising over the hills to the east. As the road curved, the moon appeared in the rear view mirror. The idea for the song came to me, and I pulled over and switched places with my partner and let him drive. I grabbed my usb keyboard, laptop, and phones from the back seat, and wrote the whole thing in the passenger seat before we got back to LA.
When Moon in the Mirror was released as a single, it was just piano and vocals. Listening down to the final album masters, however, I felt the track was shy of something. The last recording session of the project was with Stefanie Fife, who came in while Paul Tavenner and I were mastering the album and laid down the lovely cello you hear.
I spent the last few months of the project mostly in Sacramento my mom had broken her leg and was unable to drive, and my husband and I were up lending her and my father a hand. I had brought all of my recording essentials up from LA in a U-Haul truck, and set up camp in their game room it was there a lot of final touches on the project, and the final auditing of the masters, took place. Harvest Moon was recorded and mixed in its entirety there.
Harvest Moon began as an instrumental piece. I had a few different songs in the running for the final track, but I kept returning to this one. It wanted lyrics, though, and I was having a hard time getting started. On one of my whirlwind trips back and forth to LA, I decided to take the coast route up to Sacramento and see what I could shake out; the piece had always evoked the coastal hills for me, and the time of year was right. I stopped in many places along the way, jotting down the phrases that eventually became the lyric. The light, I remember, was extraordinary.
The Full Moon of September 27th was an ideal one on which to close the project. It addition to being a Supermoon and an eclipse, it was the Harvest Moon (the full moon after Autumnal Equinox) and the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, a harvest festival that also commemorates 40 years of wandering in the desert after the Exodus. Though we weren't able to make a sukkah (a shelter of organic materials with a palm roof traditionally built for the week of Sukkot) we did manage a magical viewing of the Blood Moon Eclipse (we filmed it - it's in the Nosferatu video) and a healthy dose of chamgagne.


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What's in a name?
Name-appropriate jobs (aka nominative determinism):
1. Many years ago we had a client who was a Southland Farmer named Ivor Draught! Dark humour from his parents that's for sure!
2. Back in the 70s, the council official in charge of rubbish collection in Norwich was J.H.Smellie.
3. Tainui Intermediate, Tokoroa in the late 70s. Woodwork teacher by the name of Mr Forest, and he had a wooden leg ...
4. Who can forget our very own expert gardener and author of several gardening books "Jonathan Spade".
5. The surname of a friend of ours in Australia - Bill - is Drain and, yes, he not only owns a large plumbing company but also his initials are "W.C."
6. In the 1950s my husband worked for a firm of architects in the Midlands UK. Whenever his boss wanted to call the firm of plumbers they used, he would dissolve into laughter. His secretary knew who he meant and would ask "do you want me to contact Allcock and Tinball, Sir?"
Spotted: A Rocky Road
Causing a stir
In a cringe-making onstage appearance, the Governor of Illinois Bruce Rauner became part of a clunky corporate metaphor - the brainchild of a bloke who was a diversity and inclusion executive named Tyronne Stoudemire, who appeared alongside Rauner to discuss workplace diversity at a Black History Month event. The Chicago Tribune reports: Enlisting Rauner as his lanky magician's assistant, Stoudemire, who is black, poured a glass of milk to represent the white men who lead most organisations (including, um, the state of Illinois). "This chocolate syrup represents diversity," Stoudemire said, before squirting a healthy dash of brown syrup that immediately sank to the bottom of the glass. "When you look at most organisations, diversity sits at the bottom ... " Stoudemire continued. "You don't get inclusion until you actually stir it up." Rauner then stirred the syrup into the milk, turning it brown, and he took a sip and pronounced it good.
Got a Sideswipe? Send your pictures, links and anecdotes to Ana at firstname.lastname@example.com


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Favorites from Merci Bisous
We recently came across the adorable shop Merci Bisous and just had to share our favorites from them! There's something so special about a shop that carries a unique variety, but yet has a single vision and Merci Bisous does just that.
Owner, Charlotte Vinciguerra, selects from the best French brands that offer beautiful designs and high quality materials for her shop. You can find clothing, accessories, toys and decoration for your children from 0 to 8 years old.
Take a look at how we styled some of our favorites below and be sure to sign up for their newsletter to get 15% off your entire purchase! Shop here!
Also, be sure to follow them on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram for more inspiration!


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The Master's Imperial Brandy Experience
A rich three years matured Napoleon French Brandy, Master's Imperial Brandy is made from the best grapes of the French Cognac fields. The brandy is smooth,tasteful and offers a good sensation to the trained palate. Adding water and ice to our liquid gold, transports your taste buds to an extremely exclusive and exotic complexity that few would have experienced.
"Master's imperial Brandy is a perfect balance for the perfect man & women"
90ml x 100 bottles
180ml X 48 bottles
375ml X 24 bottles
750ml X 12 bottles
42.8% v/v
75% Proof


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Head of parents' advocacy group joins Ontario PC leadership race
The head of a parents' advocacy group has joined the race for the leadership of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party.
Tanya Granic Allen, president of Parents As First Educators (PAFE), announced her bid in a post on the organization's website on Thursday.
"That's it — I'm in," she wrote.
"We have to make sure that the protest of parents across this province isn't falling upon deaf ears. We have to make sure the social conservative voice is being respected. We need our message to be conveyed loudly and clearly.
"I'm not sure any of the three declared candidates are going to be that strong voice — at least not yet."
Granic Allen has been an outspoken critic of the Ontario Liberals' sex-education curriculum — and former Ontario PC leader Patrick Brown.
"I've always said that we need to get rid of the Kathleen Wynne Liberals," she said in her post. "And you will remember my constant refrain: that the PC Party is not Patrick Brown's property, and that sooner or later he would be gone. Well he's finally gone! Now the PC Party needs a new leader — a leader who will STOP KATHLEEN WYNNE!"
So far, the province's patient ombudsman Christine Elliott, lawyer Caroline Mulroney and former Toronto councillor Doug Ford have announced their intention to run.


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|Mongolia: Livestock and Agricultural Marketing Project (LAMP)
The project development objective of the ILBLSP is to improve rural livelihoods and food security in selected soums through enhanced productivity, market access and diversification in livestock-based production systems. To achieve this objective, the project will be implemented under the following three components: (i) Linking Farmers to Market; (ii) Improving Livestock Productivity; and (iii) Project Management, Technical Assistance and Donor Coordination. The first two components are referred to as the investment components while the third one is identified as the technical assistance component, which will be provided by FAO. The project will be implemented for a period of four years by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Light Industry (MoFALI) and five aimag governments of (i) Arkhangai; (ii) Bayankhongor; (iii) Govi-Altai; (iv) Khovsgul; and (v) Zavkhan and the target around 15 soum governments.
Lead Technical Officer: Dr. Joachim Otte
|Mon Feb 18 to Fri May 31
20th Batch of International Field Epidemiology Training Program - Thailand (English Program), June 12, 2017 to May 31, 2019
|This week
|This month


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If the Miami Heats wins its playoff game in Philadelphia Tuesday night, give a loud cheer for South Florida's team. Then, if you have any business at all in downtown Miami Thursday night, make sure to write out a will and goodbye letters to your loved ones and stick them in your pocket, so that decades from now, when archaeological crews finish excavating the Great Miami Traffic Jam Of 2018, they'll be able to identify your dusty skeleton, hands still clutching your rusting car's desiccated steering wheel.
Because that victory would mean that the Heat, instead of being eliminated from the NBA playoffs, would play again on Thursday night at the American Airlines Arena — literally right in the middle of the Mercedes Benz Corporate Run.
That will mean about 20,000 basketball fans will be scrambling to enter the same few blocks of downtown Miami at the same time as 25,000 or so runners. (Never mind the crowds to see the Broadway musical Fun Home at the Arsht Center or a concert by mambo artist Tito Puente Jr. at Government Center.) And they'll be doing it on a mangled gridscape of 13 street closures.
Miami police and the race organizers breezily insist that there won't be any traffic problems at all. South Floridians themselves, accustomed to the bizarre transportation whimsies of a region where automobiles sometimes come equipped with female twerkers on the roof, where a (presumably) irate customer tossed an alligator into the drive-in window of a Wendy's. and where a dead shark was discovered riding a Miami Metro Mover train, were less certain.
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"Even on a regular day, the police are already reduced to doing traffic triage downtown," said Miami filmmaker Billy Corben.
Cops, nonetheless, say they're been preparing for heavy traffic on Thursday for a long time and they aren't worried even a little bit.
"We're ready for it, we have plans in place for these types of events," said Freddie Cruz, commander of the Miami Police Department's public information section. "We'll have the personnel on hand — there will be police officers assigned to each event, and they'll deal with it accordingly...
"One year, the corporate race came during the middle of the Ultra Music Festival, and that worked out. Everything will work out this time, too."
Laurie Huseby, the owner of the South Miami running store FootWorks and the organizer of the Corporate Run, is equally confident — maybe even a little more so, since she thinks the Heat are going to lose the Tuesday night game and be eliminated. ("Yeah, and I don't care if it makes Heat fans mad.")
"We went up against a [popular New Age artist] Yanni concert during the race one year and it went OK," she said. "I worry a lot more about rain. That's fun for the runners, but it's a nightmare for the organizers."
This is the 34th year of the Corporate Run, and Huseby has seen plenty of near-disasters, including the infamous raising of a drawbridge just as the runners were approaching it. The bridge stayed up just two minutes or so, but when you've got runners stacking up on one another from the rear, that's a lonnnnnng time.
"I remember my [run co-organizer] husband John saying, 'If I didn't die of a heart attack here, I will never die of a heart attack,'" Huseby said. "Of course, he did die of a heart attack a couple of years later."
Tipoff time for a prospective playoff game hasn't been set, but is expected to be somewhere around 7 p.m. The Corporate Run, which covers 3.1 miles, will start at 6:45 p.m. But for some of the plus-size folks who participate it's more of a corporate waddle and the last one will probably finish around 8:15. After there's extensive partying at the buffets and bars inside the huge tents companies set up for their runners. The crowd won't dissipate much before 9 p.m.
"I think people will plan for this, and they'll come early, by Metro train or Uber or whatever," Huseby said. "Everybody will try to get to the run by 4 p.m. instead of 5 or 5:30....Leave work early. It's only one day! Tell your boss to let out everybody early."


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The Overflow's Blog
When was the last time you simply worshipped with the Holy Spirit?
I mean really placed all of your cares and worries down at the feet of the Father.
Do you remember where you were when God first became real to you? Can you think back to that first supernatural experience you encountered with Him?
Do you remember where you were when God first became real to you? Can you think back to that first supernatural experience you encountered with Him?
You wanna know why I gave up on mainstream Hip-Hop? I can tell you in four simple words….Garbage In/Garbage Out
Why do we have Tori Kelly and others on The Overflow?
Three of the top all-time Christian rock crossover bands of all-time – SKILLET, Needtobreathe & Switchfoot are BACK on The Overflow
I've been reading the news lately, and have been somewhat surprised at the shock and surprise expressed regarding the alleged actions of Harvey Weinstein. I am not shocked. In parallel, we also hear Donald Trump saying Opioids are the "worst drug crisis in American history". Is there a connection in all of this to the music we listen to?
Here's the reality: if your kids are on Spotify, Apple Music or another service, chances are they're listening to very little Christian music, and likely a lot of secular music. What music do you listen to, and make available for your kids?
Now you can stream all day, from your desktop! The Overflow has been a mobile music listening experience since we launched in 2015. We have had a web listening experience that we have now re-released as a native desktop app for MacOS and Windows operating systems. You can listen to life-giving Christian music on […]


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Monday, 22 April 2013
Mixed Media Background with Stamp, Stencil & Book Pages
Inkido, where the challenge was to use stenciling and stamping for the background, and Scrap for Help, where book pages were the thing of the month.
This will be a title page for a travel album, so there is no journaling. I printed the photo in black and white to highlight the skyline and the ironwork on the bridge rail.
I also wanted to try making my own embellishments from scratch. I made the book page flower first, starting from this yoghurt foil lid with a pretty flower pattern.
The lid was like this, but a different colour.
I used decorative scissors to cut circles of book pages in different sizes. Then, to accentuate the borders, I coloured them with a pearlescent chalk ink and Promarkers.
I liked the look of the scraps that were left after cutting the circles, so I decided to use these as well. I glued them onto the page and then used similar circles for one more thing: stenciling partial circles. For this, I used first Distress Inks and then acrylic paints for more vivid colours.
The two other flowers I cut from scraps of my mixed media experiments. The puzzle pieces were first gessoed and then painted with acrylics. Lastly, I wrote the year with a white gel pen.
6 comments:
Lovely flowers Sala, although I really LOVe the little jigsaw pieces best, an inspired idea, these ideas can be used for all sorts of mixed media work!! Thanks so much for sharing! :)ReplyDelete
Thanks so much Morag, you are such a faithful reader and quick to comment. Really glad to have inspired you. I'll visit your blog real soon again, too, just not now as I'm falling asleep after making such a long post!ReplyDelete
Voi miten kekseliästä! Itselläni ei ole kärsivällisyyttä - eikä taitoakaan tehdä tuota. Hieno sivu tuli :)ReplyDelete
Beautiful work,Thanks for playing whit us at S4HReplyDelete
Hi Salla. What a cute layout you created . Thank you s much for playing along with our challenges at Inkido as well as S4H.ReplyDelete
Good Luck to you! :-)
Pretty layout you've made! Thanks for joining us at our inkido challenge! :)ReplyDelete