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Hand Me Down Life
By Roy L. Pickering Jr.
"Why would he do such a thing?"
Austin expected no response to the question. Evelyn put a hand on his shoulder. There was little else his wife could do and absolutely nothing she could say that would bring clarity. The confusion felt by Austin, like the pain, had been selfishly handed down to him by his brother Allen. Neither gift could be refused.
Downstairs, the humble home of his parents was teeming with mourners. Rather than mingling amongst them at the wake, Austin had brought Evelyn to the bedroom shared by he and Allen in childhood. The room appeared much as it did way back when. Their parents were the nostalgic type and had found no better purpose for the space than to keep it as a sort of museum.
Numerous sports trophies earned by the brothers in high school gleamed from the shelf their father had built to showcase them. The dates on Allen's trophies were all three years earlier than the dates on Austin's. For every race that Austin finished first in or championship game his team had come out on the winning end of, he was breaking no new ground, but merely duplicating the accomplishments of his big brother.
Turning to face his wife, Austin found himself hurtling through a time warp. Evelyn was standing in nearly the exact same place as when he laid eyes on her for the first time. It had been love at initial sighting, in spite of the words of introduction spoken by his brother.
"Austin, this is my girlfriend Eve. Eve, meet my little brother."
"Hi," she said, capturing his heart and imagination with a single syllable. But Austin put his desire on hold, for he was given little choice. This was his brother's girl, and as it would turn out, she remained so for nearly two years. After their break-up, nine months passed until Austin crossed paths with her again. Now that she was finally available, he vowed not to let her get away. Charming her was the easy part. They already knew their personalities to be a good match. Mustering the courage to ask Allen if he had a problem with his little brother dating his ex-girlfriend was considerably more difficult. But once the words were out, Allen simply tousled his air and congratulated him for landing such a great girl.
Austin picked up a photograph taken back when he was six years old, Allen half a foot taller at the age of nine. The height disparity would be bridged in the following years, though Allen did manage to maintain a half inch advantage. In the picture, Allen was staring straight ahead at the camera with a look of extreme confidence, as if knowing that he would come out looking great, both in the photo and in life. Austin was captured in profile, gazing admiringly at his big brother, his mentor, his hero.
Allen wore a red cap, a plaid shirt, and a pair of dungarees. The outfit was quite familiar to Austin, for these items were among several pieces of clothing that came into his own possession later on. This was a pattern that would repeat itself throughout their lives. Allen would acquire something, eventually outgrow it, and then it would be Austin's turn to walk the same mile in inherited shoes.
Evelyn was looking at a photograph that was hanging on the wall. It had been taken when the brothers were grown men. Even as adults, Austin a family man and Allen a carefree bachelor, the two of them still saw each other nearly every day. In the picture that had grabbed Evelyn's attention, the brothers posed side by side in the uniforms of their chosen trade, two handsome young men who fought fires and saved lives.
Noticing his wife's gaze, Austin could not help but wonder if she was comparing the two great loves of her life; the very first one who ushered her into womanhood and called her Eve; the latter who gave her his name, fathered her children, and chose to call her Evelyn.
"It's amazing how strongly Lucas resembles him," she said, speaking of their second born son, reminding Austin of how awful a chore it had been to tell his kids that their uncle had died. There was a brief moment of hauntingly still silence, then Lance erupted with a wail of anguish, echoed a second later by his little brother. Austin instantly knew that Lucas was crying more in reaction to Lance's pain than to the sad news about Uncle Allen. Lucas was too young to fully comprehend the nature of death yet. He was the lucky one.
"Mandy seems very nice. What did she tell you?"
Mandy was Allen's girlfriend. Neither of them had met her prior to the day of the funeral. It was Mandy who found Allen's body hideously splayed on the floor of her walk-in closet, the white carpeting already turned mostly crimson.
"Nothing that explains anything," Austin answered. "She said he didn't seem any different lately. He didn't appear to be unhappy. He was a little withdrawn, a little quiet, but he'd been that way for as long as she'd known him. I don't think her shock has fully worn off yet."
"Has yours?"
"I've spoken barely a dozen words to Allen in the last six months. Things changed between us after the fire at Briarwood Towers. I don't think he ever got over it. Hell, how are you supposed to get over something like that?"
Allen had gotten within eight feet of the three children trapped in the blaze, within a few seconds of rescuing them from the merciless blaze, when a beam suddenly gave way and a large portion of the ceiling came crashing down upon them before his disbelieving eyes. Shortly afterwards, he announced his resignation from the fire department. Austin's last extensive conversation with him had taken place when he dropped by to talk his brother out of the hasty decision.
"Why don't you just take a long vacation, take some time to get your head together. You're great at your job, Allen. The rest of us all look up to you. You're a real live hero, man, and there's far too few of those. You did everything you could to save those kids. There just wasn't enough time to get to them. You more than anyone knows the nature of the work we do. Sometimes the fire gets too big of a head start. Sometimes the fire wins."
"Don't lecture me with my own words, little brother. I know what I'm doing. I know why I need to do it. I'm no hero. I've done nothing to warrant being anybody's role model." Allen then lifted the bottle of vodka he was holding up to his mouth, taking a long swig.
"I thought you didn't drink anymore. Didn't you learn your lesson after drinking yourself out of college?"
"Never you mind what I learned," Allen spewed. "That's your damn problem. Always minding what I do, imitating what I've experienced instead of looking for your own way to live."
"I'd almost forgotten how stupid alcohol makes you. First comes the self-pity, then the lashing out at people who love you and have your best interests at heart."
"Let's not change the subject. We were talking about you. About how you've spent your whole life snacking off of my leftovers. You had good grades in school. You could have gone to college, become whatever it is you wanted to be. But instead you followed me into the fire department, just as you've always followed behind me. You've never made your own choices. You've never even bothered to search for your own way. You just hitched onto the tail end of mine."
"If that's how you feel, that's how you feel," Austin said, hearing the quaver of hurt in his voice, unable to control it. "How come you never told me you felt this way about me before? You might have spoken your mind about it a lot sooner."
"Why? To make you stop following me like a puppy dog? Sure, I could have swatted you on the nose and sent you scurrying away. But I didn't want to embarrass you and make you feel like shit. I kept waiting for you to outgrow it, to finally step out of my shadow and become your own person. I figured that had to happen eventually. But it didn't. You've been content being the poor man's version of me."
"Fuck you, Allen. I came here to give you my support. I came because you're my brother. I love you, and I don't want you to screw up your life. The bottle has always made you an asshole. Don't put yourself through that hell again. Don't put your family through it again. What happened in that building was a terrible thing. That fire claimed three innocent lives. Don't let it destroy yours as well. Putting that bottle to your mouth is no different that putting a gun barrel to you head. It's only a little slower."
"Before you start acting holier than thou, make sure you have your facts straight," Allen said. "I didn't start drinking again because of those kids dying. If you must know, I started back drinking more than a month ago."
"I was drinking the night before the fire. And I drank earlier that morning too. I wasn't completely sober when I was trying to get to those kids. I was doing my job as well as I could do it under the circumstances, and maybe they would have died on me no matter what. But there's no way for me to know for sure. What I do know is that I won't ever be able to put on my uniform again without the question coming to mind. So I won't be putting it on any more. I want that chapter of my life behind me for good. You can have my share of the superhero business."
"I think you're being a fool," Austin said, for he was too stunned to say much of anything else.
"You going to judge me, little brother? Well if you are, at least have the courtesy to judge yourself first. Figure out why you've spent your life copycatting me. Figure out just what you're so insecure about. Why is it that you can't take a road unless it already has my footprints on it? Hell, you even married one of my castoffs."
The punch that Austin threw with perfect form landed flush on his brother's jaw, knocking him to the floor. Allen looked up in a daze as the liquor bottle by his side emptied its contents and Austin walked out of the apartment.
Austin never revealed in full to Evelyn the specifics of the argument. It was the closest thing to a secret that he had kept from her since the days of not revealing his desire while she was dating his brother. One week later Allen apologized for his behavior, laying the blame on drunkenness and bad timing. True to his word, he did not return to work. From that point on he made his presence increasingly scarce, as if hoping that absence would make the heart grow amnesia. Austin was convinced that he continued to drink, but had no idea what if anything could be done about it.
Six months passed quietly by. Then one day Austin received a phone call from his father. His obviously distraught mother could be heard in the background. A woman named Mandy had just contacted them. She said that Allen had been living with her. She said that earlier that day she had gone out for half an hour to do some shopping. In the time that she was gone, Allen stepped into a closet with a loaded pistol and shot himself in the head.
A few days later, Austin found himself staring at a photograph in his old bedroom. It depicted two boys whose lives were ahead of them, siblings often likened to peas in a pod, the younger idolizing the elder. For as far back as he could remember, Austin had wanted to be just like his big brother. He emulated Allen's actions, mimicked his choices. Allen served as a dependable roadmap, showing a shy child how to be a brave boy, an easily intimidated youth how to become a courageous man. Yet that map had led to this strange and awful place, so far away from the aura of optimism exuded from Allen's eyes in the childhood snapshot.
Physically, there was no mistaking Austin and Allen for anything but brothers. They shared the penetrating eyes of their father, the full lips of their mother, and possessed identical sets of dimples. But when Austin compared the photo of he and Allen as boys to the one of them as men, he saw that their resemblance to one another was stronger in youth. This he attributed to a small change in Allen's features that had not yet occurred at the time of the earlier picture. The small scar just off to the side of his left eye had been earned when he was fifteen years old. On that long past but most memorable night, Austin made the regrettable mistake of succumbing to curiosity and examining their father's prized collection of baseball memorabilia. He had been told time and time again that the items were for display purposes only, but examining the mythical objects of sports lore up close seemed harmless enough, a victimless act of rebellion.
Less than fifteen minutes after their father arrived home that evening, he summoned his sons to the study. In his hand was the top half of a uniform autographed by the great Lou Brock. The jelly stain unknowingly left behind on the collar stood out blatantly to the boys as they stepped timidly forward.
"Which one of you did this?"
Austin took a moment to catch his breath. He had been a witness to his father's hairpin trigger temper often enough to have a fair idea what was in store for him. The stutter that he was still years away from overcoming was always at its worst in the unforgiving presence of his father.
"It was me, Dad."
For a second Austin thought that he had managed to speak without opening his mouth or willing the words to be uttered. But in the next second he grasped that it was actually Allen who had confessed, even though he was guiltless.
"Boy, how many times have I told you that these are not toys?"
"Many times."
The backhanded slap that followed rivaled the swiftness of a cobra's strike. It knocked Allen to the floor, and because of the ring on their father's finger, it inadvertently drew blood.
"Then you should know better, shouldn't you?"
"Yes sir," Allen answered.
His lesson taught, their father walked out of the room, dropping a handkerchief on the floor as parting gift. Austin retrieved it and handed it to his brother, who dabbed at the fresh wound that would mark him for life.
"Thanks," Austin said.
"Don't sweat it. That's what big brothers are for."
As grateful as he was for Allen's playing the part of sacrificial lamb, Austin did not fully understand why his brother had volunteered for undeserved punishment. Now these many years later, he could not fathom the pain his brother must have been in over the past several months, perhaps much longer. Nor could he make sense of Allen's decision to take his own life rather than waiting for better days to come. Then again, his brother had never been particularly patient.
Tears began to fall onto the picture frame in Austin's hand. His father and brother always said that tears were a sign of weakness. But what did either of them know? One had no idea how to be a father. The other quit on things when they got too tough. These had been Austin's shining examples of manhood.
Austin let his tears flow, because crying at least gave him temporary respite from trying to figure out what had gone so tragically wrong. He had grown uncertain of all things, except for the leaden realization that there would be no more footsteps for him to follow throughout life. Only open road.
Just because...
A beautiful, and heartbreaking, remembrance of Prince: His original studio recording of Nothing Compares 2 U, set to footage of Prince & the Revolution rehearsing in the summer of 1984 when the song was recorded. https://t.co/5n6K0VFRuA 🙏🏾💜 @therevolution— Anil Dash Dot Com (@anildash) April 19, 2018
Book Review
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I was vaguely aware that a movie adaptation has been made of this novel when picking it up to read. I have yet to see the movie, but in general when I see that a book has been made into a movie, I figure the book must be pretty good. This way of thinking can prove to be false of course. At most it's probably a solid indicator that the book sold well. We know that plenty of lousy movies have been adapted from far superior books, and perhaps less frequently but it does happen, a pretty good movie sometimes can be the result of adaptation from a so-so book. In the case of Water for Elephants since I haven't seen the movie, I can't speak as to which version I enjoyed best. I can only speak to the novel which I thought was mediocre. It's the story of a man in his nineties living in a nursing home who thinks back on his days spent working as a veterinarian in a traveling circus. The setting jumps back and forth from Jacob being a young man on a train with a bunch of circus folk to being an old man dealing with the erosion of his body and mind. Most of the book is dedicated to his circus days and how he ends up with the woman who would become his wife and mother of his children. These sections are where most of the action takes place. In the present it doesn't get more dramatic than Jacob being cranky about nursing home life, him becoming disoriented sometimes, and family members forgetting to visit him on the one day when a circus happens to be nearby. Yet I found the writing to be more engaging in quiet scenes set in the present where nothing much took place than the portions dealing with circus life. Plenty of elements are in place for intriguing storytelling. We have a circus owner with a complex over not being the Ringling Brothers Circus who is willing to cut losses of human lives if that's what it takes to keep the show going on. There is the paranoid schizophrenic boss who switches from charming to psychotic on a dime. His beautiful headline act wife whom Jacob can not stop thinking about. Also aboard the train are performers, some more freakish than others, and animals, some more dangerous than others, that are in Jacob's care. The scenes taking place during Jacob's youth felt rushed to me. It was as if the author wanted to include as many eventful happenings during this period as could be crammed in, but she dwells on none of them for long because it's already time to move on to the next one. Everybody seemed to be a character sketch of a personality type rather than a fully fleshed out human being. The lone exception is Jacob, but only because the book focuses on him in his senior years along with his adventurous youthful days, giving us a little more time to learn what makes him tick. Water for Elephants is an easy read that covers some interesting territory, but it fell well short of being the greatest show on earth. I wouldn't be surprised if I enjoy the movie more than the book if I ever get around to watching it. I've rounded up from 2-1/2 to 3 stars because I like the title of this book and that's as good a reason as any.
View all my reviews


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Last autumn I expanded the orchyard by planting several new perennials. While the pears and quince seem to have come through the winter OK, the rest of the group seem to have not done as well. Of two hazelnut plants, one is nowhere to be found (my bet is on deer) and the second was suspiciously reluctant to push out any buds… On closer examination it turned out to be dead. The English walnut, which was planted mainly to provide grafting stock so that my wild black walnut seedlings could produce useable nuts, has yet to show any signs of life. The Darrow blackberries remain as unproductive sticks in the ground, and the Rosa Rugosa has yet to show any signs of life. All of these arrived in a single shipment which showed up in a torn package, but two lilacs from the same order survived the winter in good shape so at least something from the order survived.
My early spring planting has also had some challenges. The "Jersey" blueberry bush, which I bought in a dried out paper pot mainly out of pity for the plant, appears not to have survived, while the "Hardiblue" seems to be doing well. The Swiss Chard came up and I have gone ahead and thinned it, but there is nary-a-sign of the basil. The basil seeds were some I found in a drawer, and looking at the seed package it appears to have been packed for the 2001 season, so I think I'll give old seeds the credit for that failure.
Despite these initial setbacks, I decided it was time to press ahead with at least some more planting, and last weekend I put in rows of pea, okra, and habanero seeds. After the basil experience I am somewhat guarded with my outlook on the habanero, as they were also of the 2001 vintage.

subset: commoncrawl


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I have a creative hands on approach with the projects I'm working on.
Expect me to lead and inspire, not to file powerpoint 😉
Working as a freelance consultant with companies (from startups to big corporates) to achieve the following:
Innovation management
Innovation is not only new technology and products but also a mindset your company can adopt to cut costs, develop new products, attract millennials, … Influence your corporate culture and process to reach new highs is a real challenge that often needs an external look.
Digital transformation
Analyze your processes and communication habits to find the best tools and optimize processes to facilitate them and enter the 21st century for real. Digitization does not necessarily need less work but more efficient work with a focus on crucial tasks.
Customer experience
Do you need a community? where do you put the customer? How do you let him inspire you?
It's not easy as it sounds to adopt a bottom up approach and put your client in the center to respond more closely to their needs. There are a lot of ways and tricks to reach a close relationship with your customers and improve their experience and closeness with your brand
Business development & Crowdsourcing
Specialized in lean startup approach, let the people help you.
Even if you are in a big corporation, I can help you develop projects in a more agile way and/or in partnership with smaller entities like startups.


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It might have been a normal Saturday for all the other shoppers in Chester, but for three members of Spice, an activities and social club, it was a shopping trip with a difference - they were hunting for love on a flirting safari.
The safaris are run around the country by dating guru Peter Spalton and aim to turn shy people into 'flirting gods' by teaching them how to strike up conversation with strangers in shops.
'Though flirting is a very natural skill, most of us need a bit of coaching and encouragement to overcome the fear of rejection and to make that vital first step,' said Peter.
As the group gathered under the Eastgate Clock, shoppers around them were blissfully unaware that they could soon be testing out their skills on them.
The two men taking part, Julian from Manchester and Oliver from Dusseldorf, chatted animatedly among themselves, joking about finding nice women around the city.
Julian was married for 22 years and is now single. 'I came along today because I am fascinated how people interact when flirting and I want to learn some new skills.
'It's a chance to push myself to talk to strangers.'
Oliver, 30, explains he is over from Dusseldorf visiting his parents in Birmingham.
'I have never really hit it off with anyone in particular and wondered if I'm doing anything wrong,' he said.
Finally, there is Debbie, a 40-year-old from Manchester. She said: 'I've been approached by guys before but I get scared and put up my barriers. I'd like to learn how to chat to them more.'
Peter tells us: 'You're going to learn to shop differently. You won't be looking at the product, you'll be looking at the people.
'You are going to learn to think about where the person you want to meet is going to be.
'Guys go to gadget shops so all you need to do is slide up next to him and say 'that's a nice screen' when they are looking at a television'.
'To meet girls, it is no good going into a shoe shop. The girls will only care about the shoes in there. The best place to go is gift shops and places like Habitat.
'It's all about confidence. If you appear confident then you come across as a more friendly and warm person.'
Another way of striking up conversation, he says, is commenting on the situation - noting something they are wearing or what they are doing.
'If someone was to yawn, ask them if they've had a long day,' he said.
Our first destination is the perfume counters at Debenhams where 'it's easy to approach people because they are friendly' Peter says confidently.
As I enter the shop my first thought is to admire the colourful make-up and as my hand reaches to pick up a Lancôme Juicy Tube, I force myself to remember why I'm here.
I saunter around for a few minutes until an assistant approaches and sprays me with a new scent.
After a quick chat about the fresh summery smell, I ask her if she's hot working on the warm perfume counters and the conversation flows from there for a few minutes.
Feeling proud to have chatted to at least someone, I join the others out-side to see how they got on.
Debbie says she chatted to two men on the pen counter but didn't really like them. Julian has bagged the perfume assistant I was chatting to and is still in conversation with her.
When their conversation is over he comes out smiling. 'The only problem was that she was married!' he jokes.
Next stop is Waterstones bookshop. Julian has his eye on a blonde girl in the travel section and works up the nerve to chat to her, only to discover she is standing next to her mum.
'It was nice to talk to them,' he said. 'But more awkward because of the mother and daughter situation.' Meanwhile Debbie has lost her nerve and together we browse and chat.
In WH Smith, Oliver strikes up conversation with a woman looking at wedding cards. 'I said you never know which card to pick, and we chatted from there,' he said.
We move on to Lush. Oliver peers over the bath bombs and says: 'There are some interesting ones here,' which gets him into conversation with another woman.
Deciding I should put a bit more effort in, I chat to some people in Music Zone, although it is difficult due to the noise.
Seeing a young attractive man kneeling down looking at some DVDs, Peter urges me to 'get down to his level' and speak to him. I kneel down and pretend to browse.
'These are really cheap aren't they!' I comment cheerfully. The man looks at me and smiles nervously. 'Yes, yes they are,' he says quickly and gets up and walks away. Not quite the impression I wanted to make.
Next we pop into Dixons. I linger around a large TV screen for a while before working up the courage to comment to a young man: 'What a big screen!'
Immediately, I kick myself for sounding so stupid but the man smiles and we have a chat for a while.
The last stop we make is HMV - a tricky place to chat due to the noise and the way people shop. Nevertheless Oliver finds an attractive young woman to chat with called Rachael. I watch them flirt for a while - Rachael is fiddling with her hair and necklace and smiling and chatting with him. Success at last! When Oliver emerges from HMV triumphant he admits he didn't have the courage to ask for a number.
We may not have found that special someone we were looking for, but we definitely learned some new skills for meeting people, and had fun at the same time.


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In compliance with Mayor Muriel Bowser and the District of Columbia, both Doyle and The Pembroke will be closed from Monday, March 16 until further notice due to precautions related to COVID-19.
The Pembroke
Described by The Washington Post food critic, Tom Sietsema, as "a cut from a different cloth," The Pembroke is Washington's latest dining sensation. Featuring contemporary American cuisine with global influences, join us to see how The Pembroke "makes Dupont Circle a destination again."
Contact Us
Call: +1 202-448-4302
Email: email@example.com
Harkening back to the era of crisply tailored suits, ice-cold martinis and mid-century sophistication, Doyle, designed by the renowned Martin Brudnizki Design Studio, is a warm, lounge-like bar with panoramic views of Dupont Circle.
Contact Us
Call: +1 202 448 4301
Email: email@example.com
for comparison


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Thursday, Dec 14, 2017
Low-cost silicon-based biosensor chip for medical diagnostics has been developed by Prof. Kaushik Sengupta and his team. It has been featured among eight inventions for this year's Celebrate Princeton Invention.
Wednesday, Dec 13, 2017
Three graduate students have been awarded the Yan Huo *94 Graduate Fellowship in Electrical Engineering: Yushan Liu, advised by Prateek Mittal, Prashanth Venkataram, advised by Alejandro Rodriguez, and Ross Kerner, advised by Barry Rand. The fellowship is for the 2017 - 2018 academic year and is used to support post-general exam PhD students.
Tuesday, Dec 12, 2017
EE Senior Hans Hanley '18 was named Sachs Scholar at Oxford's Worcester College.
Tuesday, Dec 12, 2017
Prof. Paul Prucnal has been named a 2017 Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.
Monday, Dec 11, 2017
Prof. Vincent Poor has been elected as Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) for his scientific achievements and contributions to the promotion of the development of science and technology in China.
Monday, Dec 11, 2017
Prof. Kaushik Sengupta was awarded the 2017 Bell Labs Prize for his invention of a radical new transceiver chip technology that could power a truly universal software-defined reconfigurable radio. More details can be found here.
Tuesday, Dec 5, 2017
Prof. Jeff Thompson has received a Young Investigator Program (YIP) award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) for his proposal "Scalable Quantum Networks and Devices using Erbium Ions Integrated with Silicon Nanophotonics".
Friday, Dec 1, 2017
EE Graduate Student Ross Kerner has been selected as a 2018 Siebel Scholar in energy science.
Friday, Dec 1, 2017
To the current and future electrical engineering community at Princeton:
As we respond to the recently revealed case of sexual harassment within our department, I want to reiterate the importance of treating each other with the greatest humanity and respect. Any behavior or attitudes that lessen the dignity of another human being...
Friday, Dec 1, 2017
Princeton researchers (Prof. Prateek Mittal, Prof. Niraj Jha, EE Grad Students Arsalan Mosenia and Xiaoliang Dai) have found that smartphone data can be used to track users even when the phone's GPS is off.
Tuesday, Nov 28, 2017
Prof. Bede Liu is the recipient of the 2018 IEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal "for sustained contributions to the analysis and the development of low-complexity realizations of digital signal processing algorithms".
Tuesday, Nov 21, 2017
An international team of researchers including Princeton (Prof. Antoine Kahn, graduate students Xin Lin, Kyung Min Lee, Michael A. Fusella, and Fengyu Zhang) have used ultraviolet light to split molecules that had been added to a semiconductor. The reaction involves transferring an electron from the added molecule to the semiconductor. This...


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We hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday. So far we've enjoyed a few days off at the office and are starting to get into the swing of things before New Years. We had a wonderful Christmas party at the Pulqueria, a delicious mexican restaurant hidden in a basement in Chinatown. Follow the agave flower.
After gorging ourselves and downing a few shots of Tequila, we danced the night away at the adjoining bar/dancefloor at the Pulqueria.
Want to enjoy some great brownies? I believe we may have found the most mouth watering, super delicious, organic brownies that have existed thanks to Choc Brownies.
To give you something to celebrate for, we are also having a 30% off promotion online. Use the code: TAKE30 during checkout.
Ends January 1st!
We hope you all are enjoying this time of year, where everyone is so cheery with chocolate and smiles all the time.
Happy New Year!


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More on:
I generally try to mark my views to the latest data ---
And while the US net international investment position didn't deteriorate as much as I expected, the latest IMF data on global reserve growth didn't contain any surprises.
The IMF reports that reserves grew by $177b in the first quarter, with roughly ½ the increase coming from countries that report the currency composition of their reserves to the IMF and ½ coming from countries that don't (hint: China).
I make two adjustments to this number. First, I add in Taiwan's reserves and the growth in non-reserve foreign assets of the Saudi Monetary Authority. That adds $28b to the total. And then I make adjustments for valuation changes. For the first quarter, that means subtracting $30b for the total.
The result: I estimate that central banks added $175b to their reserves in the first quarter (a $700b annual pace – not much of a change). And I further estimate – using a complex proprietary RGE formula that about $131b of that increase went into dollars … (a $520b annual pace). I am kidding about the complex formula – if anyone can back out the relatively simple rule I am using, I'll give you brownie points! $130b or so is still more than the $75b in official inflows recorded in the US data for the first quarter; I still think the US data understates official inflows from the emerging world.What of the second quarter? The latest Chinese and Saudi data (Saudi foreign assets increased by around $9b in May) allows me to update my estimate global reserve growth in April and May. The set of countries that I watch added around $83 billion to their reserves in April and another $93b in May.
The May total is more impressive. The April total was swollen by large valuation gains from the euro's 4% rise against the dollar.
The euro appreciated in May, but not by as much – so why reserve growth picked in May? Simple: China and Saudi Arabia. They combined to add only $23b to their reserves (counting all Saudi foreign assets) in April, and up to $12b of that may have come from valuation gains. The $10b combined increase in Chinese and Saudi reserves in April (after adjusting for valuation changes) is suspiciously small. Their May reserve growth was more like $40b. The pair may not be good for $40b every month, but they should be good for $30b given the size of their respective trade surpluses.
June could be interesting. It may be a tale of two cities, so to speak. Or at least two regions.
Emerging economies with large current account surpluses should still be adding to their reserves. China's reserves should continue to grow –though with valuation losses rather than gains, I would expect the headline number to fall from back from$30b to around $20b. The Saudis certainly have plenty of cash coming in, though there is no guarantee it will show up on the balance sheet of the Saudi Monetary Authority.
However, the big fall off in capital inflows implies that emerging economies with current account deficits presumably aren't adding to their reserves. India's reserves are not growing. The value of India's foreign currency reserves fell by about $2.5b between June 2 and June 23 (though that may reflect valuation changes as much as any thing else –India has reported that it lost $5b because of adverse valuation changes between the end of q1 2005 and the end of q1 2006; the RBI has a substantial non-dollar portfolio. Brazil's reserves fell by 0.7b in June. Korea is down $0.3b, Taiwan is down $0.6b and Turkey is selling its reserves at a fairly rapid pace.
Russia's reserves are flat in the first three weeks of June – a big change from the $20b increase in both April and May. Why? A fall off in capital flows during the big emerging market sell-off, and maybe even some outflows. Plus valuation losses … Russia, like India, has acknowledged that it holds lots of euros and pounds. I suspect it will show a bit of a gain in the last week in the last week of June as the euro rallied just before the month ended. That should push Russia's overall reserve growth back into the positive territory. UPDATE: Russia just reported its reserves rose $3.2b in June, to $250.6b.
Indeed, I think the oil exporters and China – countries that, Russia excepted, generally report their reserves with a lag -- should be good for a June increase $40-50b without adjusting for valuation. That would push the q2 total for my set of countries up toward $215-$225b. In the first quarter, countries that I don't track added $35b to their reserves. That total should go up – lots of valuation gains on the euro reserves held by various folks.
Consequently, I would estimate a global increase of $260b, without adjusting for valuation. Valuation changes may account for $65b of that. If I am right, central bank reserve accumulation would be in the $190-200b range – with most of the increase coming in April and May.
$200b should generate $150b or so in dollar reserve growth. Particularly if central banks act like they did in 2003 and 2004 and increase the portion of new reserves that are invested in dollar assets when the dollar is falling.
Why would they do that? Simple: they are trying to keep the dollar's share of their portfolio constant in the face of rises in the dollar value of their euro reserves.
Sum it all up, and I would estimate that the headline increase in global reserves – counting Taiwan and the Saudis – for the first half might approach $465b ($930b annualized), with an underlying pace of growth (after adjusting for valuation changes) or more like $370b ($740b annualized) and dollar reserve growth of $280b ($560b annualized).
Big bucks. And that doesn't include the funds flowing into the Gulf's oil investment funds with oil at $70.
Why does this matter? Simple: the US needs to place nearly $ 1 trillion in debt with its foreign creditors to finance its 2006 current account deficit and net equity outflows of over $100b. That's what it takes to sustain the current equilibrium in the global economy. And I don't think private investors abroad are willing to $1 trillion in US debt to their portfolios, even with US treasuries at 5.25 … not after seeing how well Americans did investing abroad …
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I've been wild about Damask for some time now, using it over and over again for sample tables at expos and such, but, admittedly, it can be a bit overpowering for some. So I was just delighted to see some great Damask details out there to add a chic touch of this awesome pattern.
Here is a great guestbook from Lilyelles's shop on Etsy that can be customized with your accent color.


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Last Sunday, October 7, it felt like summer when Steve Tirone and I went looking for Armillaria in Schenley Park. We didn't find any honey mushrooms but Steve found an amazing insect along the Beacon-Bartlett meadow trail.
This praying mantis (possibly Tenodera sinensis) was not alone. When we paused to take photographs, we saw another mantis perched nearby and a third one flew away from us. Gigantic flying bug!
Fall is mating time for praying mantises. The adults will die but their egg masses will survive the winter. Here's what the egg sac looks like. Don't take one home until you've read these Praying Mantis Egg Sac instructions. They will hatch in your house!
Last weekend was a busy time for praying mantises, hanging out in Schenley Park.
(photo by Steve Tirone)


text: Alberto Barrera (b. Caracas, 1960) is the author of the novels "También el corazón es un descuido" (The Heart is Also an Oversight), "La enfermedad" (The Illness) (Herralde Prize for the Novel, 2006), and "Rating", and of the short story collections "Edición de lujo" (Deluxe Edition), "Perros" (Dogs), and "Crímenes" (Crimes), as well as two poetry collections. In conjunction with the journalist Cristina Marcano he published the first documented biography of the ex-President of Venezuela, "Hugo Chávez sin uniforme. Una historia personal" (Hugo Chávez Out of Uniform: A Personal History) (2005). He earned a degree from the School of Letters of the Central University of Venezuela, where he teaches classes in the professorial chair called Chronicles. For years he has also been a television scriptwriter for series shown in various countries. He contributes frequently to print media such as El País and Letras Libres, among others. He has written a Sunday column for the newspaper El Nacional since 1996.


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Try It! The New 3S80 Fitness Knee from Ottobock
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Adventure Based Counseling is a group-counseling program which utilizes experiential learning pedagogy with novel and engaging group adventure activities which are systematically debriefed to help group participants develop pro-social behaviors and achieve personal growth and behavior change. The workshop is designed to help educators, facilitators, counselors, and therapists develop a deeper understanding of how to use our program model approach and learn skills and techniques, so the transfer of learning with clients is more applicable, meaningful and relevant in meeting your program objectives.
Participants will:
PLEASE NOTE: This workshop doesn't cover any challenge course facilitation skills. To learn basic challenge course facilitation skills, participants should take our Adventure Programming workshop.
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This weekend, enjoy Completely Student Productions' staging of "Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead" by Bert V. Royal, an "unauthorized continuation" that re-imagines characters from the popular comic strip Peanuts as degenerate teenagers. Directed by sophomore Theatre Performance major Ian Dembek.
- This event has passed.
CSP's 'Dog Sees God'
September 29, 2019 @ 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
Harbor View Hall Gatehouse Lounge
Event Navigation
- Sunday, September 29th 2019


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St. Andrew's Church, Leyland
About Us
> What Is Christianity?
What Is Christianity?
The message at the heart of Christianity is pretty simple. On this three-minute video, find out what it's all about. Turn on your speakers!
There is a form to ask any questions you have at the bottom of the page.
Who is Jesus?
He's the Christ. The King who God himself had promised to send, who would put everything right by setting up a kingdom of justice and love. He's also the Son of God. God himself, entering the world as a human being. Jesus proved who he was by what he did. He healed people. He calmed storms. He raised the dead.
By doing these things, the King was giving a glimpse of life in his kingdom. A perfect place, with no suffering, fear or death. It's the world we all want.
Why did Jesus come? To be rejected
But many people rejected Jesus. They thought they'd be happier making their own rules and living outside his kingdom. This rejection of the King is something we all do. Jesus called it sin.
It damages our lives and will eventually leave us separated from the joy of being in the kingdom.
God won't let those who reject the King live with him. So we face what Jesus called hell. An existence without anything good, forever.
Why did Jesus come? To be killed
People rejected the King so violently that they killed him by nailing him to a cross. But his death wasn't a mistake by God – it was a masterstroke.
On the cross, Jesus was cut off from God's friendship and goodness. He chose to experience hell – so that we don't have to. The sinless King died to take the punishment sin deserves.
Jesus was opening the way into his kingdom.
Why did Jesus come? To rise again
Three days after his execution, his tomb was found to be empty. Over the next few weeks many ate with Jesus. Dozens spoke with him. Hundreds saw him. Jesus the King could not be contained by death.
He had risen!
What does is mean for us?
So, today, right now, Jesus is inviting people to come into his kingdom. He tells us to repent and believe the good news.
Repent means to turn around, to live with Jesus in charge instead of ourselves. Believe means to trust that Jesus has done everything we need to give us a place in his kingdom.
Living with Jesus as King isn't easy. His followers will be rejected, just as he was. But they also live a life of deep security, satisfaction, and joy, knowing God and his forgiveness, being helped by his Spirit, and looking forward to the King's return, when he will finally establish his loving kingdom forever.
Jesus offers all this to anyone and everyone who repents and believes.
How about you?
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When I was in college in the early 80's, a new minor was offered - Racial and Ethnic Understanding. As a soon-t0-be unemployed teacher, I was anxious to expand my repertoire of certifications to make me more attractive to a potential school district. I worked to tutor minority students, took classes with a focus on cultural diversity, and was released into the workforce with a greater appreciation for minority students and their challenges.
Where was my first job? Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. While most of the world considers the minority in Lancaster to be the Amish, it's no secret that the bulk of the population in my district when I started in 1999 was white. Needless to say, my minor in Racial and Ethnic Understanding was, well, pretty minor.
The Te@chthought Blog Challenge question of the day:How do you meet the needs of a diverse student population?
The diversity defined in the coursework in the early 80's didn't begin to touch the diverse populations today. There was little discussion about LGBT, and only marginal discussion about anything related to special needs populations. Sensitivity allegedly existed, but only for discussions that people would consider having in actual public forums, rather than whispered. The city of Lancaster, which really is classified as a CITY, despite what the folks in Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia may think, has become much more diverse in its ethnicity as well.
Oh, and academic diversity? That, too, was not as expansively recognized either. There were the kids that "got it" and the kids that didn't. The discussion pretty much centered around what kinds of worksheets would be gathered and copied and placed in colored folders marked "enrichment" for the lil rocket scientists who finished their "regular" classwork early.
Given that I work with the upper level kids, most of the diversity that crosses my threshold deals with diversity in interest or opinion, in the form of a multiple menu of special passions or interests. My one section of Information Literacy does contain a variety of abilities, from students with IEPs to those identified gifted. My intentional planning of the scope and sequence of the course includes an intentional transparency. The students are able to see what is due when, are able to project what they're working on, and adjust their focus or advocate for themselves.
One of the biggest keys to success for high school students is the ability to self-advocate. We focus on speaking up, instead of speaking out. Being mature, instead of being a clown, and being a responsible learner, instead of making excuses. I ask them to own their learning and their assignments, and include me in the structure and planning of their timelines. (Isn't this what business and industry does with adults? Why don't we teach this explicitly?)
Students with data that support a higher level of understanding are permitted more independence, often working collaboratively or individually in the library. Their projects are held to a higher standard, require a bit more in the way of research, and often address a thesis statement with a supported argument rather than a specific, informative assignment.
Students at the lower level are supported with my wonderful colleagues in the special education department, who help me to modify assignments by creating graphic organizers, word banks, and the ever-popular "madlib", allowing for student research to be inserted into the shell of an essay, proving they know the content, even if writing skills are not top notch.
It's exhausting, it's exhilarating, and proof to me that I always have something to learn, and will never claim to be a master teacher.


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Cornell College Events
Saturday, September 8th (link)
|Event Title
|9:00 am
|Women's Tennis at Lawrence University Appleton, Wis.
|10:00 am
|Volleyball at UW-LaCrosse Minneapolis, Minn.
Augsburg Tournament
|12:00 pm
|Volleyball at St. Thomas Minneapolis, Minn.
Augsburg Tournament
|12:30 pm-5:00 pm
|Get Outta Town - trip to Coral Ridge Mall
Students: Looking for a FREE way to get off campus for a few hours? A $5 refundable deposit will get you a seat on a van to do just that. Saturday, Sept 8th a van will take you to Coral Ridge Mall and back. There you can shop, see a movie, ice skate, etc. Visit the info desk to sign up!
|1:00 pm
|Women's Soccer at Blackburn College Carlinville, Ill.
|2:00 pm
|Women's Tennis at Ripon College Ripon, Wis.
|3:00 pm
|Men's Soccer at Bethel University Saint Paul, Minn.
|7:00 pm
|Football vs. Coe College Mount Vernon
|8:00 pm
|DJ Spin's Musical Roulette Thomas Commons
Join PAAC for a night of music and dancing with DJ Spin's Musical Roulette. Imagine "Wheel of Fortune" but with music; it varies from pop, EDM, 90s hits. Every 15 minutes, students spin the wheel and everyone dances to the new beat.
ics format for events on Saturday, September 8th rss format for events on Saturday, September 8th


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Having steeped their weapons in the ancient magic of Thassilon, Ezren, Merisiel, Harsk and Valeros prepare to confront the newly risen Runelord Karzoug at the seat of his power. To do so, they must travel high into the mountains, to the fabled city of Xin-Shalast, where they are confronted by enormous giants and dragons before they can finally confront the mad wizard of greed in his mountaintop palace. Yet can defeating Runelord Karzoug stop the rise of the Runelords? Or are there more terrors yet to come?
We love StoriesBig Finish produce great full-cast audio drama for CD and download, featuring many popular television fantasy series.
Pathfinder Legends
1.6. Pathfinder Legends - Rise of the Runelords: Spires of Xin-Shalast
Released January 2015
Written by Greg A Vaughan
Adapted by Cavan Scott
Starring Trevor Littledale Ian Brooker
From US $2.99
6 Listeners
recommend this
Recorded at: The Moat Studios
- Trevor Littledale (Ezren)
- Ian Brooker (Harsk)
- Stewart Alexander (Valeros)
- Kerry Skinner (Merisiel)
- John Banks (Karivek Vekker)
- David Dobson (Silas Vekker / Bjormundal)
- Mark Donovan (Ghost)
- Harry Myers (Ghost)
- Yuriri Naka (Ameiko Kaijitsu)
- Nicholas Rowe (Karzoug)
- Steven Wickham (Ghost)
- Cover Artist Wayne Reynolds
- Director John Ainsworth
- Executive Producer Nicholas Briggs Jason Haigh-Ellery
- Music Steve Foxon
- Producer John Ainsworth
- Sound Design Steve Foxon
- Written by Greg A Vaughan
- Adapted by Cavan Scott
- Product Format: 1-disc CD (jewel case)
- Number of Discs: 1
- Duration: 60 minutes
- Physical Retail ISBN: 978-1-78178-328-3
- Production Code: BFPPATH006
Previous release in this range: Pathfinder Legends - Rise of the Runelords: Sins of the Saviors
Next release in this range: Pathfinder Legends - Mummy's Mask: The Half-Dead City


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Mr. Sayed Zaman Hashemi Chief Executive Officer met with H.E. Aleemkhan Yisingildiyov Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Afghanistan at the embassy and discussed on pertinent issues relating to trade, boosting bilateral cooperation, exports and visas.
At the very outset, Mr. Hashemi appreciated the opportunity for having a meeting. He underlined, in order to reap the benefit of available plethora opportunities and potential, it's prerequisite to work together and establish conducive business environment for both business communities. He underscored, ACCI strongly committed to foster the cordial business ties between the two countries' private sector but it requires reciprocal intention. Mr Hashemi, shared the barriers that hinder our efforts for boosting business relation also requested preferential tariff for Afghan products, ease of business visas and signing of bilateral and trilateral transport and transit agreements.
Respectively, H.E. Ambassador congratulated Mr. Hashemi as a new CEO of ACCI and wishing him success in his new tenure and vowed for strengthening business cooperation. He talked about disparity between the import and export of Afghanistan and promised continues support.
At the end, Mr Hashemi said; the dark decades are behind us. ACCI have taken great strides toward regaining Afghanistan's central position for trade and exchange within the larger region.


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Picture credit: "Google Logo in Building43", by "Robert Scoble", used under CC BY / Modified from original
Google has announced the latest price drop on its Compute Engine cloud infrastructure, keeping in line with its Moore's Law theory of cloud pricing.
"As predicted by Moore's Law, we can now lower prices again", wrote Urs Hölzle, Google SVP technical infrastructure in a company blog post. "Effective immediately, we are cutting prices of Google Compute Engine by approximately 10% for all instance types in every region.
"These cuts are a result of increased efficiency in our data centres as well as failing hardware costs, allowing us to pass on lower prices to our customers," he added.
The latest price drops are likely to set off similar attacks from the competition, namely Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. Back in March Google set things off by slashing costs on Compute Engine, dropped by a third, and a two thirds drop for Cloud Storage, with Hölzle saying at the time you needed a PhD to work out the best option.
Amazon and Microsoft swiftly followed suit. At AWS Summits in San Francisco, SVP Andy Jassy noted that lowering prices was not new for Amazon, although admitting previous price drops came largely in the absence of competitive pressure.
Low prices don't mean anything unless you've got customer support, mind you, and Google also took the time to focus on a couple of case studies. The Snapchat case study got wheeled out again – the search giant is fond of telling anyone who would listen about that – while two more interesting customers got mentions. Google Compute Engine powers Workiva, which processes financial reports for 60% of the Fortune 500 saving nearly $1m annually, and Coca Cola, running the Happiness Flag campaign for the World Cup.
Last month Google announced a scheme for $100,000 (£61,500) in Cloud Platform credits to eligible startups, again seemingly taking a shot across the bows of AWS and its Portfolio Package initiative.
You can find out more about the latest cuts here. How will this influence your usage?


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Hi and thanks for stopping by. Here you'll find images of new work, personal projects, and wobbly steps into unknown territories. You'll also see some old favorites that have been dusted-off and set on top the mantle for a while.
You can see more of my work at robcardillo.com
Please remember that all these images are copyrighted to the full extent of law and protected from any reuse or republication without prior permission.


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Overlooking the Hutchinson River in the Bronx, NY, you'll find Equality Charter School, where the students are all referred to as "scholars" and the academic rigor is challenging. The school welcomes all students, regardless of prior academic performance or needs, and provides a fully inclusive learning environment to help each achieve success and ensure college or career readiness. Equality is centered around a unique hands-on learning progression. Despite the fact that the school is relatively new, it boasts many success stories of students who've moved beyond the Bronx into successful, productive lives in college and career.
When Cara Fitzgerald, Librarian/Literacy Coach and Academic Coordinator, first joined ECS in May of 2014, the library was really not what she wanted it to be. "There was a small collection of books that were spread out across the school in classrooms, cabinets and scholar backpacks," said Fitzgerald. "A great deal of time and energy had been devoted to collecting and sorting the books we had, but limited resources and an ineffective tracking system made organization challenging." As Fitzgerald explained, there was a room that housed the majority of the independent reading books, but the setup was not conducive to student selection.
Soon Fitzgerald received the green light to expand the library, and began researching software programs, speaking to local librarians and testing various interfaces. "It quickly became clear that Follett offered all of the services we were looking for, as well as phenomenal customer support," she said. "We made the move to Destiny® and relied heavily on Follett's help in 'genrefying' the library. In October 2015, with scholars, staff, parents, board members and donors present, we celebrated the official grand opening of our library – a fully cataloged and carefully curated collection located at the very center of our school."
As Fitzgerald dove headfirst into her new job and new software, she continually asked herself myriad questions in an effort to make Equality's library the best it could be for her students. Her primary goal was to promote a culture of reading and create the most authentic reading experience Aossible. This included using "genrefication," a technique in which library books are shelved and arranged by genre, rather than the Dewey number, to increase circulation and encourage further reading.
Without any previous experience as a librarian, she called upon her background as a middle school ELA teacher. "In the classroom libraries I created as a teacher, I always avoided organizing books by level," she explained. "Instead, I wanted the library set up to reflect the questions I asked of my students: What kinds of books do you like? Do you like to laugh when you read or do you like an adventure? Do you want to read about kids who live like you or do you want to read about a different time and place? What's the best book you've read recently? Is there a particular author you like? As a teacher, I used these questions to better understand my students' preferences. In order to honor those preferences, to respect all of my students as more than Lexile bands, I had to have books at every level in every genre. I wanted our new library to offer the same diversity, the same level of universal accessibility. I wanted our scholars to feel like they were walking into a bookstore, where there is something for every type of reader."
Fitzgerald's goal was to pull together a genrefied library over the summer of 2014, but quickly found that deadline to be a bit overly ambitious. "I was lucky to have the full support of the administrative team, but as enthusiasm spread, so too did the extent of the undertaking," Fitzgerald said. "Our original goal was just to relocate all of our books to one place and organize them by genre and Lexile, but as I became more familiar with our collection, I realized it did not meet the needs of our varied readers. Our executive director, Caitlin Franco, told me to go ahead and dream big, so I put together a proposal, an 'if I could have anything' proposal, for a literary sanctuary to be housed in the school's largest space, which was, at the time, our main office. Instead of telling me to come back with something more realistic, Ms. Franco said, 'make it happen.'"
The main office moved, and the creation of the student-friendly library began. Fitzgerald enlisted the help of former and current colleagues, family, friends, local librarians, as well as Follett team members. "When we began using Follett Destiny Library Manager™, I found a fast ally in the Follett regional sales consultant. Their customer service went far above and beyond their normal job responsibilities to support my every nagging inquiry and connect me to a network of experts," Fitzgerald said. "Through 'emergency' phone calls, on-site visits and endless email chains, the Follett team answered questions, offered suggestions and resolved challenges. When I realized that the cataloging process itself was more than I could tackle on my own, I turned to Follett for the next phase of the project. We carefully shopped around to explore all of our options, but Follett was the only company that offered all of the services – including help with genrefication."
Fitzgerald explained that the process slowly took shape over the course of the 2014–2015 school year, and the entire school community watched as the pieces of the library came together. New books, delivered weekly, sat in piles on specially-ordered shelves, but until they were cataloged, scholars couldn't check them out. "We finally had the resources, but we couldn't capitalize on them until they had been properly curated and organized," she said. "When scholars left at the end of June, I promised them a completed library by September. Follett helped me keep that promise."
Fitzgerald worked with her inhouse colleagues to assemble a diverse array of complete collections by genre, all of which supported standards and curriculum at the school. Together, school staff and the Follett team tackled brainstorming, tweaking, drafting, revising, and organizing and shelving, which helped move Equality toward success at a quick pace. "During the last week of July, the team met for the first time here in the Bronx. Follett folks worked with our team to manage logistics – they sorted thousands of titles according to our unique genre specifications; and they helped lead a team of approximately fifteen people through the tedious cataloging process," Fitzgerald said.
Overall, Fitzgerald admits the genrefication of the new library was time-consuming, yet rewarding. "Everyone involved labored tirelessly on behalf of 270 middle school scholars they had never met," she said. "Throughout the entire process, we took turns reminding each other how important this work was, how special its reveal would be. What a beautiful, selfless gift the Follett team helped us give our students!"
When school resumed in the fall of 2015, Fitzgerald spent the first full week introducing scholars to the library, teaching them how to use the signage and pairing them with titles appropriate to their interests and reading levels. She also held the aforementioned grand opening of the library in which volunteers, parents, educators and benefactors shared in the excitement. One scholar, Chizara Kwubiri, gave a speech that night, and Fitzgerald fondly recalls how the girl's comments made all the effort worthwhile. "Reading can create new worlds for you. It can help save the one you live in!" said Chizara in her speech in front of a packed house. "That is why having this library in school is a gift I will cherish forever. Take last year, for example. I used to come in early nearly every day, just to see if the library was open. And now that it is, I have the epitome of anticipation at my feet."
Today, Fitzgerald sees her scholars looking forward to independent reading time, creating lists of books they want to read next and recommending texts to each other. "Instead of hearing excuses like, 'There aren't any good books here,' I am bombarded with requests to take out an additional book or visit the library more often."
Perhaps scholar feedback of this type is the most satisfying outcome of Equality's new genrefied library. "The other day, I was in the library sorting through a new donation when one of our eighth grade scholars walked in," shared Fitzgerald. "I asked her if she had a pass, and she said, 'Well, sort of, but it's to the bathroom. I just walk through here every chance I get. I just love this place!' These are the small moments from which educators source their motivation."
Pull up a seat at the table and join our team as they discuss our Curriculum Alignment services, see how they make decisions and the impact it has on schools.
Sheila Carr shares how libraries can utilize technology to its fullest in helping students prepare for the challenges ahead.
Hear about fruitful partnerships, engaging programming, and creative strategies to get kids reading.
Shannon McClintock Miller explains the importance of learning to code and how to work it into the classroom and library.
Get lessons to help students critically evaluate their search results – distinguishing fact, using visual clues to infer purpose, recognizing bias, and identifying what helps them learn more.
Presenters share examples of how they setup the program to help the district make the transitions from previous technologies to new ones.
Learn several ways to enrich students' learning via a strong school librarian and how these impressive librarians keep the spotlight on their programs throughout the year.
Review what makes an excellent IB Library. You'll learn how you can effectively build your collection over time to best meet the specific needs of the IB curriculum across PYP, MYP and DP programmes.
Hear how changing standards are a great opportunity to advocate for the valuable role that school libraries play in developing 21st century learning skills.
Based on the top Titlewave questions from our customers, we've created some helpful tips, and we'll introduce some more recent features you may not have tried.


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Miami's music scene continues to grow and expand, with new venues opening and big-name artists making their South Florida debuts relatively regularly. But plenty of times through the years, local longtime music lovers' hearts have been broken when their favorite stages have shuttered for good. This town might not have always been a music mecca, but it's always had lovable spots where fans found community. Cheers to these Miami music venues — gone but never forgotten.
Heart. In 2015, downtown Miami was blessed with the opening of Heart. Operating in the former Nocturnal space, the club spent three years giving locals FOMO by hosting, for instance, a Halloween soiree with Gesaffelstein, Valentine's Day with Seth Troxler, and tons of late-night sets from Ibiza-level heavy-hitters. Creating healthy competition for Space, Heart often delivered a varying array of techno and house mainstays playing anywhere from six to 12 hours. Remember that legendary 25-hour set by Joseph Capriati? Or that 40-hour party during Art Basel 2016 when icons such as Aphrohead (AKA Felix da Housecat), the Martinez Brothers, Erick Morillo, Lauren Lake, Lee Foss, and Mike Servito played nonstop? Heart fought the good fight, but the club was unceremoniously killed in the city's war with venues. Condo developers, grumpy residents, and the City of Miami united to break our Heart this past March right after Miami Music Week.
Tobacco Road. The iconic bar made it 102 years at its Brickell location, but even a legacy of that magnitude couldn't survive Miami's penchant for killing things that locals love. The bar's liquor license was issued in November 1912 (though records show the building was erected in 1915), and during the Prohibition years, Tobacco Road was shut down briefly at times for running afoul of Johnny Law. In later years, the once-infamous speakeasy upstairs became one of Miami's favorite stages for local acts, incredibly drawing an estimated 4,000 fans on closing night. Sadly, the venue was shuttered after the property was purchased for a cool $12.5 million. Though Tobacco Road is gone, rumors of its grandeur have been mostly unexaggerated.
Bardot. Opened by hotelier and restaurateur Amir Ben-Zion in 2009, Bardot was an instant hit with Miami's hipsters and clubgoers alike. The club hosted shows ranging from pre-Pitchfork-fame Grimes to Odesza's earliest set with a then nearly obscure and pretransition Sophie, who at the time had only "Bipp" to her name and an early EP, Numbers, that no one remembers. Bardot's tenure brought Miami many great shows, and its hush-hush, backdoor strip-mall digs helped make it the talk of the town.
In 2010, when David Sinopoli (who would go on to found III Points and take over the storied Club Space) became Bardot's music director, Miami was blessed with the yin to Poplife's yang, often booking shows that wouldn't work at a larger venue such as Grand Central or that simply wouldn't otherwise be booked in this market. Anoraak, Jon Hopkins, Étienne de Crécy, Brodinski, Diplo, and the late, great DJ Mehdi are only a few names on a list that goes on and on. After eight years of bringing fans euphoric carpet sets from bands and DJs, the venue shuttered under the pretense of renovations. Miami might not have anything else quite like Bardot, but Floyd, the venue beneath Space, is giving us carpet nostalgia.
Grand Central. It was March 2010. As Winter Music Conference descended upon Miami, a new venue opened in an old train station on the corner of North Miami Avenue and NW Seventh Street. Grand Central's team might not have known it then, but over the next five years, the club would become a shining beacon of live music and dance parties in downtown Miami. Eric Lespagnon (AKA Rico), Brad Knopfler, Brian Basti, Barbara Basti, Aramis Lorie, Mario Arango, and Jake Jefferson delivered unforgettable shows like they were flipping a switch. Artists such as A$AP Rocky, Big Sean, Joey Bada$$, Chief Keef, Juicy J, and many others graced the stage before their commercial success (most of those names on one bill, no less). Hip-hop royalty wasn't the only thing GC gave fans either. Explosions in the Sky, Sebadoh, Mogwai, James Murphy, Dinosaur Jr., Cut Copy, Twin Shadow, Caribou, Skrillex, Diplo, Sleigh Bells, Glass Candy, the Chromatics, Battles, and Ladytron were among countless electronic acts to perform at the club.
But to try to sum up Grand Central in a list of names or concerts would be to deprive one of Miami's most iconic venues of a eulogy that does it any justice. From presenting Peachfuzz and Way Up to offering a New Year's Eve With Peaches and all the Winter Music Conference shows, including Fool's Gold and Bromance & Friends, Grand Central's venue-within-a-venue — the Garret — stood alongside its downstairs counterpart in every way. Between both rooms and certain events that used both interchangeably, Miami has never seen anything quite like Grand Central, and its absence is one of those voids that places like the Ground and 1306 have been trying to fill. The Magic City might never see a venue of GC's magnitude again. Buried in September 2015, Grand Central went out with an epic party that included an evening of staffers from throughout the years singing karaoke, trying to empty the remaining bottles from the bar, and paying homage to years spent creating and maintaining a venue dedicated to giving club-goers nights they still reminisce about to this day.
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The Stage. If you remember the Miami rock band Radioboxer, you remember how many times it absolutely shredded the Stage. The band and the venue went hand-in-hand; some fans remember more Radioboxer shows at the Stage than anything else. That's saying a lot, considering acts such as Ty Segall, St. Vincent, and Wu Tang's GZA and Ghostface Killah also performed there. Talented locals at the venue are what really made it shine.
Since opening its doors in November 2010, the Stage gave fans an alternative to Churchill's and place where local acts could really nab the spotlight. With its location in the Design District, the Stage was a one-of-a-kind spot with a beautiful open layout and a staff that really made the place feel like home, not to mention a colorful array of events and gigs that kept concertgoers coming back. While the focus on live music slowly fades in today's age of DJs and electronic-based bands, plenty of Miamians fondly remember when guitar rock was alive and well at the Stage. It gave us a good five-year run before closing in May 2015.
Editor's note: A previous version of this story neglected to mention Mario Arango as one of Grand Central's co-owners.


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Charles Austin Beard (November 27, 1874 – September 1, 1948) was, with Frederick Jackson Turner, one of the most influential American historians of the first half of the 20th century. He published hundreds of monographs, textbooks and interpretive studies in both history and political science. His works included a radical re-evaluation of the founding fathers of the United States, who he believed were motivated more by economics than by philosophical principles. Beard's most influential book, An Economic Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution (1913), has been the subject of great controversy ever since its publication. While frequently criticized for its methodology and conclusions, it was responsible for a wide-ranging reinterpretation of American history of the founding era.[1][2][3] He was also the co-author with his wife Mary Beard of The Rise of American Civilization (1927), which had a major influence on American historians.[4]
An icon of the progressive school of historical interpretation, his reputation suffered during the Cold War era when the subject of economic class conflict was anathema to most historians. Richard Hofstadter concluded in 1968: "Today Beard's reputation stands like an imposing ruin in the landscape of American historiography. What was once the grandest house in the province is now a ravaged survival".[5] Hofstadter, nevertheless, praised Beard, saying he was "foremost among the American historians of his or any generation in the search for a usable past".[6]
Charles Beard was born into a well-to-do family in the Indiana Corn Belt in 1874. His father was a banker and farmer. In his youth he did hard physical labor working on the family farm and attended a local Quaker school, Spiceland Academy. He was expelled from the school when he and his brother Clarence printed a pamphlet criticizing the faculty and administration of Indiana University, where Clarence was a student. Charles graduated from Knightstown High School in 1891. For the next few years the brothers managed a local newspaper. Their editorial position supported the Republican Party and favored prohibition, a cause for which Charles Beard lectured in later years.[7]
Beard attended DePauw University, graduating in 1898. He edited the college newspaper and belonged to the debate team. He married his classmate Mary Ritter in 1900. As a historian, Mary Beard's research interests lay in feminism and the labor union movement (Woman as a Force in History, 1946). They collaborated on many textbooks.[8]
Beard went to England in 1899 for graduate studies at Oxford University. He collaborated with Walter Vrooman in founding Ruskin Hall, a school meant to be accessible to the working man. In exchange for reduced tuition, students worked in the school's various businesses. Beard taught for the first time at Ruskin Hall and he lectured to workers in industrial towns to promote Ruskin Hall and to encourage enrollment in correspondence courses.
The Beards returned to the United States in 1902, where Charles pursued graduate work in history at Columbia University. He received his doctorate in 1904 and immediately joined the faculty as a lecturer. In order to provide his students with reading materials that were hard to acquire, he compiled a large collection of essays and excerpts in a single volume: An Introduction to the English Historians (1906).[9] That sort of compendium, so commonplace in later decades, was an innovation at the time.
An extraordinarily active author of scholarly books, textbooks, and articles for the political magazines, Beard's career flourished. Beard moved from the history department to the department of public law and then to a new chair in politics and government. He also regularly taught a course in American history at Barnard College. In addition to teaching he coached the debate team and wrote about public affairs, especially municipal reform.[10]
Among many works he published during these years at Columbia, the most controversial was An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (1913), an interpretation of how the economic interests of the members of the Constitutional Convention affected their votes. He emphasized the polarity between agrarians and business interests.[11] Academics and politicians denounced the book, but it was well respected by scholars until challenged and discredited in the 1950s.[12]
Though he completely supported American participation in the First World War, he resigned from Columbia University on October 8, 1917, charging that "the University is really under the control of a small and active group of trustees who have no standing in the world of education, who are reactionary and visionless in politics, narrow and medieval in religion. I am convinced that while I remain in the pay of the Trustees of Columbia University I cannot do effectively my part in sustaining public opinion in support of the just war on the German Empire."[13][14] Following a series of faculty departures from Columbia in disputes about academic freedom, his friend James Harvey Robinson also resigned from Columbia in May 1919 to become one of the founders of the New School for Social Research and serve as its first director.
Beard never sought a permanent academic appointment. Living on lucrative royalties from textbooks and other bestsellers, the couple operated a dairy farm in rural Connecticut that attracted many academic visitors.
The Beards were active in helping to found the New School for Social Research (a.k.a. The New School) in Greenwich Village, New York City, where the faculty would control its own membership. Enlarging upon his interest in urban affairs, he toured Japan and produced a volume of recommendations for the reconstructing of Tokyo after the earthquake of 1923.[15] His financial independence was secured by The Rise of American Civilization (1927), and its two sequels, America in Midpassage (1939), and The American Spirit (1943), all written with his wife, Mary.
Beard had parallel careers as a historian and political scientist. He was active in the American Political Science Association and was elected its President in 1926.[16] He was also a member of the American Historical Association and served as its president in 1933.[17] In political science he was best known for his textbooks, his studies of the Constitution, and for his creation of bureaus of municipal research and his studies of public administration in cities,
Though he had been a leading liberal supporter of the New Deal, Beard turned against Franklin Delano Roosevelt's foreign policy, consistent with his Quaker roots. He became one of the leading proponents of American non-interventionism seeking to avoid American involvement in Europe's wars. He promoted "American Continentalism" as an alternative, arguing that the United States had no vital interests at stake in Europe and that a foreign war could lead to domestic dictatorship. He continued to press this position after the war. Beard's last two books were American Foreign Policy in the Making: 1932–1940 (1946) and President Roosevelt and the Coming of War (1948). Beard blamed FDR for lying to the American people and tricking them into war, which some historians and political scientists have disputed.[18]
Beard died in New Haven, Connecticut, on September 1, 1948. He was interred in Ferncliff Cemetery, Hartsdale, Westchester County, New York, joined by his wife Mary a decade later.[19]
By the 1950s Beard's economic interpretation of history had fallen out of favor; only a few prominent historians held to his view of class conflict as a primary driver in American history, among them Howard K. Beale and C. Vann Woodward. Still, as a leader of the "progressive historians", or "progressive historiography", Beard introduced themes of economic self-interest and economic conflict regarding the adoption of the Constitution and the transformations caused by the Civil War. Thus he emphasized the long-term conflict among industrialists in the Northeast, farmers in the Midwest, and planters in the South that he saw as the cause of the Civil War. His study of the financial interests of the drafters of the United States Constitution (An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution) seemed radical in 1913, since he proposed that the U.S. Constitution was a product of economically determinist, land-holding founding fathers. He saw ideology as a product of economic interests.[20]
Historian Carl Becker in History of Political Parties in the Province of New York, 1760–1776 (1909) formulated the Progressive interpretation of the American Revolution. He said there were two revolutions: one against Britain to obtain home rule, and the other to determine who should rule at home. Beard expanded upon Becker's thesis, in terms of class conflict, in An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (1913) and An Economic Interpretation of Jeffersonian Democracy (1915). To Beard, the Constitution was a counter-revolution, set up by rich bondholders ("personalty" since bonds were "personal property"), in opposition to the farmers and planters ("realty" since land was "real property"). Beard argued the Constitution was designed to reverse the radical democratic tendencies unleashed by the Revolution among the common people, especially farmers and debtors. In 1800, said Beard, the farmers and debtors, led by plantation slave owners, overthrew the capitalists and established Jeffersonian democracy. Other historians supported the class-conflict interpretation, noting the states confiscated great semi-feudal landholdings of loyalists and gave them out in small parcels to ordinary farmers. Conservatives, such as William Howard Taft, were shocked at the Progressive interpretation because it seemed to belittle the Constitution.[21] Many scholars, however, eventually adopted Beard's thesis and by 1950 it had become the standard interpretation of the era.
Beginning about 1950, however, historians started to argue that the progressive interpretation was factually incorrect because it was not true that the voters were polarized along two economic lines. These historians were led by Charles A. Barker, Philip Crowl, Richard P. McCormick, William Pool, Robert Thomas, John Munroe, Robert E. Brown and B. Kathryn Brown, and above all Forrest McDonald.[22]
Forrest McDonald in We The People: The Economic Origins of the Constitution (1958) argued that Charles Beard had misinterpreted the economic interests involved in writing the Constitution. Instead of two interests, landed and mercantile, which conflicted, McDonald identified some three dozen identifiable interests that forced the delegates to bargain.
Evaluating the historiographical debate, Peter Novick concluded:
It should be noted that, in a strong sense, this view simply involved a reaffirmation of the position Beard had always criticized by saying that parties were prone to switch rhetorical ideals when interest dictated.[24]
Beard's economic determinism was largely replaced by the intellectual history approach, which stressed the power of ideas, especially republicanism, in stimulating the Revolution.[25] However, the legacy of examining the economic interests of American historical actors endures. Recently, in To Form a More Perfect Union: A New Economic Interpretation of the United States Constitution (2003), Robert A. McGuire, relying on a sophisticated statistical analysis, has shown that Beard's basic thesis regarding the impact of economic interests in the making of the Constitution is not off the mark.[26]
The Beardian interpretation of the Civil War was highly influential among historians and the general public from its publication in 1927 until well into the civil rights era of the 1950s. The Beards downplayed slavery, abolitionism, and issues of morality. They ignored constitutional issues of states rights and even ignored American nationalism as the force that finally led to victory in the war. Indeed the ferocious combat itself was passed over as merely an ephemeral event. Much more important was the calculus of class conflict. The Beards announced that the Civil War was really a "social cataclysm in which the capitalists, laborers, and farmers of the North and West drove from power in the national government the planting aristocracy of the South".[27]
The Beards were especially interested in the postwar era, as the industrialists of the Northeast and the farmers of the West cashed in on their great victory over the southern aristocracy. Hofstadter paraphrases the Beards as arguing that in victory:
Dealing with the Reconstruction era and the Gilded Age, disciples of Beard such as Howard Beale and C. Vann Woodward focused on greed and economic causation and emphasized the centrality of corruption. They argued that the rhetoric of equal rights was a smokescreen hiding their true motivation, which was promoting the interests of industrialists in the Northeast. The basic flaw was the assumption that there was a unified business policy. Scholars in the 1950s and 1960s argued that businessmen were widely divergent on monetary or tariff policy. While Pennsylvania businessmen wanted high tariffs, those in other states did not; the railroads were hurt by the tariffs on steel, which they purchased in large quantity.[29] Beard's economic approach lost influence in the history profession after 1950 as conservative scholars suggested serious flaws in Beard's research, and attention turned away from economic causation.[30]
The unapologetic isolationism that Beard espoused in the final decade of his life was disputed by many contemporary historians and political scientists. However, some of the arguments in his President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War influenced the "Wisconsin school" of New Left or revisionist historians in the 1960s, among them William Appleman Williams, Gabriel Kolko, and James Weinstein. On the right, Beard's foreign policy views have become popular with "paleoconservatives" like Pat Buchanan. Certain elements of his isolationism, especially his advocacy of a non-interventionist foreign policy, have enjoyed a minor comeback among a few scholars since 2001. For example, Andrew Bacevich, a diplomatic historian at Boston University, has cited Beardian skepticism towards armed overseas intervention as a starting point for a critique of post–Cold War American foreign policy in his American Empire (2004).
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