text:
Hello again!
This may be one of the last blogs that I write about Africa and the amazing trip that I have had here. Things are wrapping up so quickly here and I feel like our time is being cut shorter that it already is. The day before our big presentations to the community, we had to meet in the morning and talk about what to expect for the full day of presentations. We pretty much worked all day on slideshows that simplified the messages of our results of research so that the community could understand what we did and what we found in the process. We had to practice the speeches in the afternoon, but it was literally a disaster. We practiced with a translator that was not the best at doing so, so one presentation alone took over an hour. Trying to words things in a way that the translator understands is harder than it seems, and we had to write down scripts of how to word things for the next day. As soon as we got the presentation together, we hit the sack in preparation for what was sure to be a very full and very long day.
We woke up the next day, ate a quick breakfast, and started preparing for our guests to arrive. We had to move tables and chairs all over camp to have enough room for the people that we invited. We had to set up a projector in the dining hall, curtains to block out the bright sunlight and some heat, and food tables since we would be serving our guests lunch. I also had to meet with the translator we would be using and go over the PowerPoint with him so that he would be able to make sense of it when explaining it to the community. It was a very full morning, and by ten when the guests started arriving, I was so excited to get things moving.
My group was the first group to go and we all gave our presentation together because each of our studies supported one giant finding at the end. Our presentation took a total of 45 minutes and I loved every second of it. The translator we had was fantastic at understanding what we were trying to say, and I felt like it was so great to be sharing all this information we collected with the people who it affects the most! I couldn't help but be happy to see over 50 community members looking back at me and wanting to know what we had been working on for the last several weeks! Never did I think I would have the chance to present research in a different country with a translator assisting me, and I was so thankful for the experience to do so, even though it was more difficult than I thought. The community really seemed to appreciate the hard work we had done, and they asked great questions that we did a pretty good job answering overall.
There were 6 other groups besides us, so it was destined to be a really long day from the start. We started our presentation around 11 and everything did not wrap up until at least 4:30 pm. It's really difficult because everyone is so excited about their study and every little thing that they found, but it was definitely necessary to summarize main findings to try and keep things concise and not dragging on forever. As soon as we were all done, you could feel the sign of relief that fell over the room, and we were just looking forward to finally having lunch.
Our guests went first, of course, but the kitchen staff did an amazing job cooking for that many people, and we were so thankful for everything they made that they knew the community would like and so would we. I felt like I was at a summer barbeque and it made me look forward to hamburgers and hotdogs when I get home in a couple days. It was so great to sit in the grass with all of the community members that had come to support us.
We finished eating, spent tons of time cleaning up the mess that was inevitable with so many people coming to our camp, and started a huge volleyball game. By the time dinner came around, each team had around 9 people, including lots of the staff members! It was so fun playing with so many people and you could just tell the weight that was off everyone's shoulders! After all, we were now officially done with ALL assignments and grades in Africa and now we just had time to enjoy the little time that we have left here! That night, we had a huge dance party that every single person came and joined in on! We danced for about two hours straight to the most ridiculous things like MC Hammer, Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, and Usher. I am still amazed at how long it feels like I have known this group of people. I don't think there is anything I could do that would ever embarrass me in front of them, so I was dancing like a freak and everyone would just laugh and join in with me. It was so great and carefree and a great way to celebrate DR being over and what a great group we really are. We ended the night on a fitting Whitney Houston song and called it a night before the early hike we were having the next morning!
Unfortunately, the hike was cancelled because of the pouring rain, and I also slept half way through cook crew for the last morning we had it! Oh welllllll! Wouldn't be the last cook crew without keeping up the tradition of one of us sleeping a bit through it (usually me hahaha). After cooking a crazy breakfast with the most random concoctions we could think of, we had a few hours to start packing and getting things ready for us to leave in a few days. Anyone that knows me knows that I hate packing more than anything, and I was dreading getting started. I made a few strides, like picking out what to wear on the plane, but other than that, I was happy to just drink some chai and talk with some friends. When it got to be lunch time, we had great chapati like always and got ready to once again leave and head into Karatu!
I was a little worried about all of the mud that would be in Karatu, but of course, my rain boots don't fit on my gigantic feet!!! When I first arrived, I had to run to the ATM to get a few more shillings out before I could get the last minute things I wanted in town. My first task was to get a full shuka to use a beach blanket for the summer, and that was super successful. I found one I liked in the first 15 minutes and got it for the price that I wanted! Next, I found a few friends that were looking for random touristy things like I was, and we found the best cart on the side street to get a few little wood carvings and things. I traded my shoes for a couple things and was happy to not spend as much money on them. Finally, I found these amazing beaded sandals that were the first ones I have ever seen in my size. My Yeti feet are even bigger compared to a lot of the local people, so when I found shoes that fit/would fit in the US when my feet were normal again, I had to get them. I love them so much and even though I didn't want to spend any more money, I had to get the one pair that I loved and that fit me!
After trekking through the mud for an hour or two in town, we were headed to Happy Days again. It was my friend Jen's birthday, so we were all excited to celebrate with her as well as celebrate being done with all classes and DR!!! It was so fun to hang out with all 26 of us and drink our new favorite thing, Amarula! I had a blast, but started getting so sad realizing that I wouldn't get to spend every day with this group of people much more… I had to stop thinking about it and enjoy every second that I did have with them in Africa!!!!
After leaving Happy Days, we got back and enjoyed the amazing popcorn the staff made for us, complete with random cookies on top! Hahaha Then we had a giant volleyball tournament that was staff versus students. Usually the staff is not the best at volleyball here, but surprisingly they brought their game today. We went all the way to three games to determine the winner, but after all of that, the students came out on top! It was so fun because we had music blasting, the sun was out, and everyone was having a great time. Our WE professor had it out for me though, and would switch places with the other staff to get right in front of me so we could have spiking battles. It was so fun and I think we all loved a little friendly competition! We played until we couldn't see the ball anymore, and went straight in for dinner and birthday cake! We even had some closing activities to help us get ready to go home, and it was a great feeling to know that we are all in the same boat with one another in the ways we are feeling about going back to the US.
After that, we had our last cook crew clean-up of the entire trip and we were all excited to get it done and over with. But when I walked outside to see the load of dishes that we had waiting for us, I was completely shocked!!!! It was by far the most dishes I have ever seen that needed cleaned. They had let some of the dishes sit from the day before when they cooked for all of the people we presented to and we were somehow supposed to get burned rice off that had been stuck there for two days. We ended up asking if anyone would help us because it would have easily taken 3 hours if only the five of us were out there. Luckily, a bunch of people jumped up and helped us, and I have no idea what we would have done without them. Thank goodness for all of the amazing people that I have in this group as my best friends here with me!!!
The rest of the night, I turned up my ipod as loud as it could go and got all of my packing done!!! I was so proud of myself because I really didn't think it all would fit. As I finished up all of the last little things, I knew I could sleep soundly and was happy that my last full day in Africa could be enjoyed as opposed to dreaded because of the packing!
The next morning, I woke up with excitement of everything that the day would hold, but also with dread of it being our last full day in Africa. I woke up at 5:50 am to do a sunrise hike with one of our camp assistants and the few other students that woke up in time! It was still super muddy out from the rain the few days before, so throughout the hike, my shoes gained about 10 pounds in weight in the stickiest mud ever from here. The hike was to the top of Moyo Hill, which is the hill that our camp is named after, and it is about a 40 minute hike at a normal pace. But because we knew the sun was rising, we pretty much ran up the entire hill! I think we made it in less than 25 minutes and when I made it to the top, I had to catch my breath before I could really admire the view. The view was incredible though! You could see all the way down to Lake Manyara and Mto wa Mbu, and across the rolling hills to the left and right of town. It was so beautiful, but kind of cloudy so we couldn't see the sunrise to its fullest. The sky was still glowing this amazing peach color and was so beautiful. But my favorite part of the morning was the amazing fog. It would come out of nowhere and one second we could see for miles and miles, and the next time I looked up, I couldn't see three feet in front of me! It was incredible and I loved the amazing weather that we could see from the top of the hill.
We climbed back down, taking our time a little bit, and then I took an hour nap before it was time for breakfast! We had one of our last two breakfasts, and then we had the rest of the morning to get our things together and make sure we were all packed. Since I was all packed, I spent the morning making preparations for later that day! The biggest task I was in charge of again was making cards for all of the staff to let them know how much we appreciate them. I decided to make coloring sheets for all of the staff and then use my huge supply of crayons to color them. Luckily, because it was such a fun activity and took people's minds off of packing, I had a lot of help! We colored all 13 sheets and then started passing them around the bandas for everyone to sign! We also got to plant trees in the morning! It was our way of giving back to camp and making it more beautiful for the future students that come here. We planted a lot of little acacia trees to help plant indigenous plants in the community as opposed to exotics!
The rest of the morning I spent checking my flight reservations to make sure everything was good for the next day and hanging out with the other people that were done packing. Finally it was time for lunch, and I was happy to get my regular seat in the dining hall surrounded by all of my friends. We had lunch, talked about cards, traded pictures, and kept packing until it was time for the part of the day that I was looking forward to the most: The staff versus student soccer game that we had planned. Our camp director rented us one of the big fields down in Rhotia with real goals and nice grass! AND they got us these amazing jerseys to play in. If I told you that the name of our team was the Pepto Bismols, I am sure you can guess the color of the jerseys.
Our jerseys were hot pink, with lovely black stripes, while the professors had blue jerseys that were quite boring compared to ours! We got down to the field, and to our surprise, we had a referee and everything. And by the time we started, we had a huge audience that had come to watch us!!! We had enough players to play 11 vs. 11 and still have subs, and it was the best game ever. Surprisingly, we kept up pretty well and I got a major workout in the process. Not playing on a normal size field started to wear down on us quick though, and we ended up losing 3 to 1. Not too bad against a country that is obsessed with their soccer! Out of nowhere after the game, a truck showed up with 5 cases of soda for all of us!!! We all got fantas and cokes and everything in between and sat in the warm sunshine drinking our sodas and hanging out with the staff and local community. I couldn't have been happier at that moment. What else can you ask for on your last day than an amazing game of soccer with the staff, a cold soda, hot sunshine, and some amazing friends to enjoy it with?!
After we wrapped everything up, we had a present to take to the tailors really quickly with scraps of fabric and pens and pencils and things. We were so excited to drop it off and you could definitely tell how thankful they were for everything! We walked back to camp for the last time, and when we got back, it was crunch time for everything else we had to get done. Our bags had to be packed by 6 pm and in the car, we were cooking another big feast with a bunch of random foods, and we needed to decorate the dining hall for our last meal! We immediately got to work, and a lot of people were so willing to help with everything! The dining hall looked amazing by the time we were done with it! We tied balloons everywhere from every place possible and hung up streamers both in celebration and to thank the staff for everything they have done for us! It made the dining hall look so great, and really added to the festivities the rest of the night!
We had our amazing feast, including barbeque chicken pizza, black bean burgers, snickerdoodles, brownies, cake, and lots of other good things and by the time I was done, I thought I was going to explode! We then had our final RAP, including a reflection about the entire trip, and then several announcements. We talked about what time we would be leaving in the morning, and then the staff thanked us for being here with them and being one of the best groups they have ever had, which is definitely true hahaha! Then our SAM was presented with a cake to thank her for everything and a gift from the staff. Patrick and I decided it was a perfect time to give out the cards, so we ran to my banda and handed out all of the staff cards. They were thankful, yet questioning of the weird North American animals that we put on them, but started to laugh when they realized how ridiculous the pictures were.
The rest of the night was spent in looking back through the semester. Katie made this amazing video that was a combination of pictures and videos all wrapped into one. We set up chairs and the projector and watched it like it was movie night. We also had yearbook pages that we were all signing for each other to take home with us for the next few days that are destined to be pretty tough leaving everyone. It was a really great night spent with everyone, just talking and reminiscing about the semester, and it made me realize that maybe I wasn't ready to go home as much as I thought I was.
Our flight tomorrow is out of Arusha at around 6pm, but we are heading out early since Arusha is a little bit of a drive and we want to make sure everything is running smoothly. I plan on writing one more blog entry to close things up, but it will definitely be back in the United States. I want to thank you again for still reading my blog throughout this semester. It has been honestly the most amazing three months of my life and I am so happy that I was able to share it with you.
Talk to you from the US!!!
Mollie Ann


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A creative blog where I share with you my projects and cards and also tutorials I have completed... I hope it inspires you to get crafty! Debbi
Sunday, 26 January 2014
14 comments:
love em! first one is my absolute fave tho xxReplyDelete
What a great selection! XReplyDelete
Lovely projects Debbi. And the black and gold are a great combination for men's cards. Thanks for the inspiration!ReplyDelete
Three fabulous card Debbie - the grunge one is my favourite.ReplyDelete
Great projects.
Lovely makes Debbi. Anne xReplyDelete
Great projects Debbie. My favourite is the Banner Blast. XReplyDelete
Love ALL your projects, especially the pretty watercoloured flowers :) xxReplyDelete
Fabulous projects and gorgeous papers and designs.ReplyDelete
Linda xxx
What gorgeousness Debbi.... That LOVELY stamp is definitely beginning to hit a special spot in me..... Thanks for organising us all...ReplyDelete
The water colour Be Lovely is my fav, but they are all lovely, another stamp set added to my list LOL :)ReplyDelete
Gorgeous cards , I have the be lovely stamp but not had chance to use it I definitely will make time now thanks for the inspiration xReplyDelete
How pretty! Those flowers are lush!ReplyDelete
Gorgeous cards Debbi:) Thanks for organising the blog hop, it's been fab xReplyDelete
Can't decide which I like best, they are all beautiful xReplyDelete

subset: commoncrawl


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From the days of the apostles, Christians have often found themselves opposing unjust laws of government with this response: "We must obey God rather than men."
Today, the state often demands more than the Christian conscience can give. Ninety years ago, Catholics battled to the U.S. Supreme Court in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, for the right to educate their children in parochial schools.
So it has always been.
It was the summer of 1865. The American civil war was over and the radical reconstructionists held the state of Missouri tightly. A new state constitution, the "Drake" or "carpetbagger" constitution, was forced on the citizens, narrowly passing by a margin created by the "yes" votes of the occupying Union soldiers. The purpose was to punish and remove from public view those who had favored the southern cause in the newly-ended war. The new constitution required a loyalty oath to the United States in which the oath-taker swore that he was loyal to the Union during the war.
Giving aid and comfort to the enemy and avoiding the draft were cited as disqualifiers, but the oath went much further. Anyone who had ever made a mere suggestion of sympathy with those engaged in the rebellion were considered disloyal. An example of such disloyalty was seen in a man who had brought his dying confederate brother home for burial. No one was allowed to vote without swearing the oath.
Missouri made it a crime for any officeholder, lawyer, teacher, corporation director/manager or member of the clergy to practice their profession after September 2, 1865, unless they had taken the oath. Missouri Gov. Fletcher took a hard line on enforcement, suggesting that the state penitentiary at Jefferson City be enlarged to accommodate all the clergymen and teachers who refused to take the oath. [Donald Rau, "Three Cheers for Father Cummings," 1977 Yearbook, Supreme Court Historical Society. See a copy of the oath below.]
Archbishop of St. Louis, Peter Kenrick, viewed the oath as an infringement of religious liberty and determined to resist. Believing the oath to be unconstitutional, he instructed the priests of the state not to take the oath, saying "The next thing we know, they will be dictating what we shall preach." Rau, "Three Cheers."
On September 3, 1865, Father John Cummings, the young pastor of St Joseph Catholic Church in Louisiana, Missouri said his regular Sunday mass and preached from the pulpit. He had not taken the oath. The next morning a grand jury–convened under Judge Thomas Fagg–indicted Father Cummings for preaching the Gospel. A contemporary account takes up the story:
[A] Radical Sheriff, one Wm. Pennix (give all their names to infamy), once a strong pro-slavery man, arrested Father Cummings and lodged him in jail, consigning him to the 'felon's cell' and the association ot thieves. Said one of the felons to the priest as he entered the cell, "What are you put in here for?' 'For preaching the Gospel,' replied the priest. 'Good,' said the man, 'I am in here for stealing horses."
The arrest and imprisonment of Mr. Cummings produced vast excitement. Men and women crowded around the jail, and the commotion was so great that the Judge and his men were anxious to bail him out, but he would not be bailed out. Then they were anxious that he should run off, and gave him a chance to do so, but even this poor boon he declined, preferring to remain in jail. In a few days Archbishop Kenrick, of St. Louis, sent up and had him bailed.
~ W.M. Leftwich, Martyrdom in Missouri, 1870
Soon after, Father Cummings appeared before the court. He pled guilty to preaching without taking the oath, but complained that the law was wrong. Fagg accepted the plea and readied to sentence the priest. The proceedings were surprisingly halted, however, because a solidly pro-union lawyer and U.S. Senator from Missouri, John Henderson, happened to be in the courtroom that day on other business. Henderson rose and objected, pointing out that Father Cummings had actually pled "not guilty" since he claimed the law was invalid. The court had to agree and allowed withdrawal of the guilty plea. A bench trial was held and Judge Fagg convicted the priest, sentenced him to pay a $500 fine and to be held in jail until it was paid.
It was to be another day of surprises for the Radicals. Much to their chagrin, Father Cummings refused to pay his fine or to post bond for an appeal, and refused to permit anyone else to pay his fine for him. The reaction of Father Cummings' parishioners at Louisiana must have added considerably to the discomfort of the Radicals. They refused to accept the imprisonment of their pastor without protest. "Father Cummins' [sic] parishioners came up from Louisiana, and camping about the dungeon of their beloved shepherd, were in much the same frame of mind as the children of Israel when they set down and wept by the rivers of Babylon."
~ Rau, "Three Cheers for Father Cummings."
The Catholic priest remained imprisoned in the Pike County Jail at Bowling Green for more than two years, while his conviction was affirmed by a Missouri Supreme court (just fifteen years after its decision in the Dred Scott case). With the support of Archbishop Kenrick and the assistence of nationally respected lawyers, Cummings finally won his freedom in the Supreme Court of the United States. In addition to denouncing the odiousness of all loyalty oaths, the court noted that other countries at least limit their loyalty oaths to contemporaneous conduct, but here "the oath is directed not merely against overt and visible acts of hostility to the government, but is intended to reach words, desires, and sympathies, also. And, in the third place, it allows no distinction between acts springing from malignant enmity and acts which may have been prompted by charity, or affection, or relationship…." Cummings v. State of Missouri, 71 U.S. 277 (1866).
The Court found the law to be an unconstitutional ex post facto law enacted to punish past conduct that was not a crime at the time. The Court also held the law to be an unconstitutional "bill of attainder" which is any legislative act which inflicts punishment without a trial. Father Cummings was then released and resumed his duties.
Other priests and ministers had also been convicted under the law and some of those also imprisoned for a time.
Missouri's second-most famous Supreme court litigant died young, just ten years after his famous defiance of the state. Father Cummings is buried at St. Louis, Missouri in Calvary Cemetery, just 500 yards from Missouri's most famous litigant, Dred Scott.


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To do their jobs well, military personnel, law enforcement officers, and even professional hunters should wear boots that can provide them with safety and security while still giving them comfort. Tactical boots are specifically made for people who work in these fields to give them durability, flexibility, and protection during every tactical situation they may encounter.
We made a list of the best tactical boots to help you get the most suitable pair that will get you through the stickiest situations you may find yourself in.
Table of Contents
To give you more perspective, check out this video.
5.11 Tactical Taclite
Best for Hot Climates
Rated by: George
Thorogood GEN-FLEX
Most Stylish Pick
Rated by: George
5.11 Tactical EVO
Best for Heavy Duty Jobs
Rated by: George
Quick Summary
Rated by: George
These boots are well-equipped with all the features you need to get you ready for heavy-duty assignments.
They come with D30 Decell heel cushions, OrthoLite insoles, and full-length EVA midsoles to give you the most comfortable, durable, and driest tactical boots.
The ankle area feels tight, so, you need to break them in to get the snug fit you need to maintain balance and stability.
The 5.11 Tactical EVO boots are waterproof so you can go through heavy rains and muddy terrains without a worry.
They will keep your feet dry and protected because they are good at keeping moisture out, which also means the sweat from your feet will stay in as well. Nevertheless, these boots are ready for the rough and tumble demands of your job.
Quick Summary
Rated by: George
Built to last, the 5.11 Tactical A.T.A.C. Sage 8" CST boots are made of a combination of full-grain leather and fabric.
Designed with 5.11's trademark Shock Mitigation System that equally distributes impact, stress, and shock to protect your feet when treading on uneven and rocky terrains.
The 5.11 Tactical A.T.A.C. Sage CST boots are ASTM certified thanks to the safety toes and puncture resistant midsoles that they come with.
These boots come in a sage green color that may not be compliant with any U.S. military regulations. So, you need to check before getting these as they do not come in any other colors.
Certainly, one of the best tactical boots. These offer comfort, protection, and stability. Plus, they have a stylish design that can be appreciated even by those not in the military or law enforcement.
Quick Summary
Rated by: George
The Thorogood Men's 8" Side Zip Jump Gen-flex boots use Goodyear Welt construction which means they are more durable because they use a reliable technique of stitching.
With a very reasonable price of just under $140, these boots are on the mid-range price scale but offer features that are almost the same as those on the more expensive ones.
These boots come with a Dri-Lex Aero-Spacer lining that keeps moisture away from your feet, so you feel dry and cool.
The removable footbeds are made of polyurethane and have EVA cushions to provide support for your arches. The EVA midsoles give you shock absorbency that will take on the impact of working heavy duty tasks.
If you are looking for a tough pair of boots but do not want to compromise fashion, these are your best bets. However, the shiny veneer on the tip of the toes can get easily damaged. Also, these boots are not recommended for wearing over muddy and wet environments.
Quick Summary
Rated by: George
The 5.11 ATAC 8 Inches Men's boots are so comfortable right out of the box; the break-in time is so minimal, you don't have to worry about them hurting your feet.
If you stand for long hours each day, the midsoles and insoles provide support where you need them, plus the Shock Mitigation System provides stability and enhanced balanced whatever surface you are walking on.
Made of full-grain leather that is durable and rugged, these boots will give you years of good service even when used in harsh conditions.
But despite that, there are complaints of these boots not performing well in temperatures below 40 degrees F. Because they are not waterproof, they are not recommended for use on ice and mud.
But when used in the right situations, the 5.11 ATAC 8 Inches Men's boots will keep your feet comfortable, dry, and will be durable for a long time.
Quick Summary
Rated by: George
Ultra-light and very comfortable, the Danner Men's Tachyon 8" Duty boots come with full rubber outsoles to protect your feet from abrasion and give you excellent traction on a wide range of surfaces.
Although not waterproof, these boots will keep your feet dry as long as you don't submerge them in water or snow.
The EVA midsoles have shock-absorption capabilities but not much ankle support. To make up for this minor flaw, the rubber outsoles provide excellent traction thanks to the pentagonal lugs they come with to give you superior surface contact.
These boots will protect you from slipping and sliding on your hunting and hiking expeditions. They are designed with Danner's Speed Lace System that lets you tighten the laces easily from top to bottom to give you a rigid and snug fit.
Quick Summary
Rated by: George
If you work in hot and humid environments, the 5.11 Tactical Taclite 6" Coyote boots are perfect for you. They come with tan suede uppers and breathable air mesh panels that offer breathability and comfort.
Your feet won't be sweating in these boots. These boots have air vents on the side that allow the air to flow freely to keep your feet cool and dry.
One feature we loved about these boots is the no-squeak outsoles that also give great traction and speed. The OrthoLite sock liners act as shock absorbers to take on impacts from going through tough terrains.
The Zonal Lacing System of 5.11 ensures a snug and a tight fit that secures the boots firmly on your feet.
What we did not like was the fact that the color fades easily. Also, these boots only come in tan; you will not be able to use them if your job requires black boots.
Quick Summary
Rated by: George
One of the best tactical boots, the Under Armour Men's Valsetz RTS Side-Zip guarantees excellent durability and reliability on all your walks or runs.
With Under Armour's ClutchFit technology, your ankles are well supported because it wraps them with a lightweight "second skin" that feels snug and comfortable.
These boots feel like you're wearing running shoes instead of work boots because they are lightweight. Made of synthetic leather, you won't get foot fatigue with these boots, so you can walk all day and not feel a thing. They are breathable so you won't suffer from excessive sweating.
Although not ANSI certified, some users work as firefighters and still find these boots appropriate for the job. They are water resistant but not recommended for exceedingly wet and muddy environments.
Quick Summary
Rated by: George
Designed to withstand rough and tough work conditions, the Bates Men's Ultra-Lites 8 Inches Tactical Sport Side-Zip boots will protect your feet while giving you comfort with your every step.
These boots will keep your feet safe from sharp objects, extreme heat, or even hunting on rocky terrains.
The combination of leather and nylon makes these boots a lightweight choice for people who do a lot of walking or hiking.
They have a mesh lining that allows air to flow so you won't have to endure sweating on your feet.
However, these boots are not waterproof but still gives you resistance to water and moisture, just don't let them get into deep waters.
Depending on your profession, you have to know exactly what features you should be looking for in a pair of tactical boots. Some boots are not for use in cold weather while some are built with good traction for walking on ice and snow.
If you do a lot of standing, choose tactical boots that give your ankles and arches the support they need. If your purpose of getting tactical boots if for treading on unfamiliar or uneven grounds, look for boots that offer excellent traction and a snug fit.
Getting the perfect fit for your boots can mean comfort and stability whatever tactical operations you may get yourself into. To start with, always assume that when you buy footwear online, you won't get your exact size. Read online reviews to know if you should order one size smaller or larger.
If you can, go to your local boot shops to try out the ones you like to give you a feel for what the particular boots are like. You can even see if the width would fit you as some boots are designed to be narrower to give ample support.
Generally, tactical boots are designed to withstand extreme conditions. However, some boots are made to last while some are not. Make sure you check the quality of the materials used in your tactical boots. You do not want substandard boots to suddenly die out on you while on a tactical mission.
The market offers an astounding number of choices so a tight budget won't keep you from getting the best tactical boots. There are low-priced tactical boots that offer high-performance and comfort, buying the most suitable pair does not have to break the bank.
Furthermore, you may need to think of tactical boots as an investment and not something you need to skimp money on. After all, a decent pair can save you from foot fatigue, slips, and falls, and can even save your life.
This list of the best tactical boots will help guide you in choosing the one that would suit the kind of work that you do. Whether you are in the military, law enforcement, or you just want a rugged pair of boots for your hunting and hiking adventures, there is something for you in this list.
We highly recommend the Under Armour Men's Valsetz RTS Side Zip Boots as they have features that give protection, comfort, and flexibility at a very affordable price of just around $125. Not only are they good at keeping your feet protected, but they also look good as well, something that we all would love to have.


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Pretty neat!
A downloadable game for Windows
Note: This title was made nearly 10 years ago. While it has been released on Desura for two years previously it was encrypted making it annoying (but not impossible) to access under the hood of Peekaboo in RPG Maker VX.
This download does not have an encrypted game.rvproj file meaning anyone with RPG Maker VX can open it up in the editor to see the methods used to create the title. This might be useful for those wishing to learn RPG Maker VX or RPG Maker VX Ace since both eventing system are similar. I encourage you if you wish to look through as you might perhaps learn a trick or two to be more than creative in your eventing and do things you might of thought weren't possible.
Just do me a favor and don't upload Peekaboo elsewhere as your own work. That would just be rude.
And give credit to any script creators whose scripts I used in Peekaboo if you use them for your RPG Maker Project! Credit is given in the original game at the end.
Peekaboo is a psychological horror game lasting roughly 20-30 minutes or less. You play as James, a freelance journalist hired to go on out to the Halloway Mansion to write a ghost story. The last of the Halloway line has perished and so it would be quite a tabloid sort of affair! However the simple task is a bit more horrifying than initially intended. James finds himself able to die in 9 unique ways, through puzzle based game.
No pop out scares.
Custom sounds and soundtrack (some sound effects are royalty free, most are custom).
Hand drawn bloody graphics.
30 minutes or so in bite sized length (you can save of course at any time).
|Adventure, Puzzle
|Made with
|RPG Maker
|Atmospheric, Exploration, Horror, RPG Maker, Singleplayer, suspense, Top-Down
|Average session
|About a half-hour
Install instructions
Extract the zip folder anywhere you'd like
Run Game.exe to play
Open Game.rvproj if you want to see under the hood (assuming you have RPG Maker VX, sold seperately)
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Peekaboo was made 9 years ago so considering that I'm impressed people still find it neat. I was 15 years old at the time.


text:
Best Films of the Year – 2017
Das unmögliche Bild / The Impossible Picture
D. Sandra Wollner
Sandra Wollner's debut feature talks of movies, family and national histories, the acts of creation and revelation. Seems she wandered off from Paris, Texas and found herself in a different and more interesting place than Wim Wenders and Sam Shepard.
Lois Patiño
Lois Patiño continues his investigations of man and his relationship to the landscape. This installation/short film invokes silence, moods and mysteries that ground Patiño in a formalist humanism akin to Kiarostami.
Visages, villages / Faces Places
D. Agnes Varda, JR
Agnes Varda and JR traverse France doing a bit of a photo op, but creating spontaneous art, bringing people together, and developing and building bonds – something which Godard seems to have forgotten about.
Alexander Payne
Alexander Payne takes a deep – and bitterly humorous – journey into a little world, reflecting on big issues, and creating, finally, a male character who manages to take a tiny step into a bit of self-realization and positive action. A small step for a man. A giant leap for Alexander Payne.
The Square
D. Ruben Östlund
What was promoted as a facile put-down of the pretentiousness of the art world brings into finer focus the compromises, the cynicism, the vapidity of buttering up to the 1% for the to keep culture alive. From confrontation (Terry Notary's and Ruben Östlund's brilliantly performed, choreographed, and edited sequence) to The Square itself – the simple, quiet peice that stands at the moral center of the movie, Östlund cleverly and cogently speaks to pressing issues of our time.
Montañas ardientes que vomitan fuego / Burning mountains that spew flame
D. Helena Girón, Samuel M. Delgado
Robert Smithson had some ideas of what underground cinema should be. Helena Girón and Samuel M. Delgado make it manifest in their brilliant film that fuses history, geology, mythology and more in their igneous approach to cinema.
Montañas ardientes que vomitan fuego / Burning mountains that spew flame (Trailer) from Samuel M. Delgado on Vimeo.
D. Lynn Siefert
Lynn Siefert's counterpoint to Mauro Herce's Dead Slow Ahead shows the other side of dead end capitalism at sea. Rather than the deadening beauty of the dystopian supply world of Herce's masterpiece, Siefert captures dystopian consumption as the world comes to end – and it's just as beautiful and banal.
方繡英 / Fang Xiuying/ Mrs. Fang
D. Wang Bing
Wang Bing's Mrs. Fang works its slow, burrowing depth concentrating on the face of dying. Isn't that what cinema ultimately is? Death in motion? As Mrs. Fang dies and Bing unflinchingly makes us watch her sad passing, the world, her family continue on in cliched ritual. The sadness runs deep.
Nuevo Altar / New Altar
D. Velasco Broca
The devil probably? The devil definitely in Velasco Broca's twisted Gnostic parable. The probable heir to Buñuel, Velasco Broca is the only real surrealist working in cinema today.
Get Out
D. Jordan Peale
I add this, not because it's a great movie – the ending falls into some predictable and cliched turns. No, I add this because it's a great movie and Jordan Peele deserves all the accolades and more that have come his way.
Best Films of the Year – 2016
A little behind in some ways. Still haven't seen the likes of Tony Erdmann or Moonrise. I live in Tokyo, after all, which is always a little behind.
A little ahead in other ways. I get to go to film festivals. I track down filmmakers who interest me and make sure I see their work.
And I saw a lot of good films this year. Some, that have made the general best of lists, I liked. I actually really liked The Man in the High Castle – the first season. But apart from just liking films, I'm always looking for the ones that excite me, challenge me, make me stand up and salute and keep me interested in the art and the edges of cinema. These are the ones that make my own best of list.
It's been a great year.
Herewith is my somewhat obscure list of my favorite films of the year. All very much worth tracking down, seeing, living with, remembering.
Bad Black (2016)
Nabwana I.G.G.
I was introduced this year by Miguel Llansó to Isaac Nabwana's Who Killed Captain Alex, his 2010 calling card that introduced him to world via youtube. The delirious mix of no budget production, over-the-top action and cheesily transparent computer-generated effects – all with the icing-on-the-cake of a benshi-like "video joker" in the form of VJ Emmie, giving commentary, shout-outs, promotions and hilarious asides over the whole thing. Captain Alex was great. The question was: Where would Nabwana go next? He's made many a film, most unavailable since Captain Alex. Bad Black, though, played Austin this year. And what a film. His filmmaking prowess, already steady, has leaped and bounded. The agency of his critique and exposure of life in the slums of Kampala more pointed. His filmmaking even more delirious and joyful. Word up is he's made at least a couple new films since the September premier of Bad Black and started production of a TV serial. I can hardly wait to see them.
Hele Sa Hiwagang Hapis (2016)
A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery
Lav Diaz
A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery, Lav Diaz's meditation on a key moment in Filipino history rides the line of late Carl Theodore Dreyer, Miklos Jansco, and Tomas Gutierrez Alea's Memories of Underdevelopment. The black and white cinematography is mesmerizing. The 8 hours of screen time reveal an almost clinical focus on the time, the people, the events and the myths that make up a key moment in the history of an uprising against colonialism that continues to haunt Diaz – and his intrepid viewers.
Nuestra amiga la luna (2016)
Our Friend the Moon
Velasco Broca
Velsco Broca's welcome return after a long absence finds him pushing his vision in new directions. The film, ostensibly a reflection on the 3rd century Gnostic text The Hymn of the Pearl at first viewing seems less accessible that his Echos der Buchrücken trilogy. But the images sear. Parts of it look like long lost outtakes from Renoir's The River. Other parts go to some sort of Gothic otherworld. The parable of the pearl, the elusive and ephemeral treasure of this world is given a transcendent and mysterious take through Velasco Broca's fecund imagination.
Qingshui Li De Daozi (2016)
Knife in the Clear Water
Xuebo Wang
Xuebo Wang was the producer of Pema Tesden's Tharlo. Behind the camera for the first time he takes a bit of Tesden, with his look into the little seen corners of China's minority communities. But he also shows his own complete vision, less reliant on making the viewer feel like an outsider, marveling at this strange place in China, or pounding on big thematic tropes. Instead he brings a profound humanism to the story of an old man facing the end of his life. The film is almost ethnographic, concentrating on the rituals of life, the steady beat of it ebbing from a man's very full life. Beautifully shot in 1:33 (just like Diaz's and Velasco Broca's films!) it acts like a window on a different world while highlighting the intimacy of a singular drama.
Lampedusa in Winter (2015)
Jakob Brossmann
I have yet to see Rosi's Fire at Sea, the other, more famous film on the refugee crisis on the island of Lampedusa, but if it's half as good as Brossman's take, it's probably all right. Lampedusa in Winter is a pretty classically structured documentary. But what stories! What people! Between refugees, fisherman, the mayor (one of the most honest and embattled politicians ever seen on film) and a host of other good people stuck between a rock (the island of Lampedusa) and a hard place (the machinations of the government, industry and the horrific detritus – manifesting itself in boatloads of desperate refugees) of globalization, the film shows a very human and clear-headed take on the human condition circa 2015.
Lucifer (2014)
Gust Van den Berghe
Tondo-riffic! Gust Van den Berghe's sly parable on the bringer of light/evil into the world is presented in a rigorously and beautifully composed round frame. The conceit works! The beguiling frame limits the viewer's vision like a telescope, focusing on faces, feelings and philosophy with a clinical and purely voyeuristic gaze. Somewhere up in heaven B Traven and Bunuel are having a good laugh at what Van den Berghe's showing them.
The Other Side (2015)
Roberto Minervini
Roberto Minervini's harrowing document of life in the hinterlands of East Texas and Louisiana shows why Trump won. It may be America's most important movie of 2016, dissecting and exposing what's at the rotten core of America with unrelenting and troubling honesty. Not a pleasant experience, but necessary viewing. Minervini, who's been making fascinating, but uneven portraits of lumpen America, finds his dark center in the swamps of drugs, guns, patriotism and sentimentality that informs how fucked up much of America is.
Noite Sem Distância (2015)
Night Without Distance
Lois Patiño
A formalist romantic, Lois Patiño takes his austere vision to explore the borderlands of Galicia and Portugal – the myths, the people, the economy of smuggling. Midnight is exposed, dare I say magically, through the entire film being shown in negative. What was in the shadows becomes the objects of focus, chimeras of the night are made perceptible. The sheer beauty of the images, the beyond Bresson narrative and directorial methodology, bring a sense of transcendence to Patiño's continued exploration of the landscape and how humans relate to it.
Pow Wow (2016)
Robinson Devor
Rob Devor got lost somewhere on the way to Vernon, Florida. But he found himself in the Coachella Valley, where he met a mess of folks who make up a richly-textured collage of of a place caught in a world of betweenness. Between the desert and the golf course, between a Fordian steamrolling of manifest destiny over the wilderness of the western landscape and the native Americans who originally conquered it. Tell them Willie Boy was there. And Shecky Greene too.
Heart of a Dog (2015)
Laurie Anderson
Lolabelle, Laurie Anderson's rat terrier (played by a number of stand-ins and seen in real documentary footage) is the focus and the metaphor for Anderson's meditation on loss – the dog, the victims and survivors of 9/11, Lou Reed, America. Her abstract sensibility, her way of making connections, spoken with her steady, familiar, transfixing voice, provide a contemplative balm for the losses we all feel. The visuals, the anecdotes, the meditations and the music come together brilliantly, reminding me that Laurie Anderson's art, which has alway had a bit of a veneer of art damage pop superficiality, has always been, and has gotten even more, profound.
Chatting with Michael Snow
In February, I had a few brief minutes to talk with Michael Snow when he was visiting the Punto de Vista Film Festival in Pamplona. They were having a rare screening of La Region Centrale, his three and a half hour opus documenting a landscape in northern Quebec. La Region Centrale is one of the monuments of avant-garde cinema – austere, uncompromising in its vision/obsession, stunningly beautiful, intriguing and ultimately an exciting piece of filmic and conceptual exploration.
Mr. Snow was suffering from an intense bout of jet lag, something that hit his 86 year-old body stronger than he expected. However, he's a generous soul, witty,engaged and engaging – and one of the greatest artists (not only in film, but in photography, sculpture, music and more) of our time. I was honored to have this short, if somewhat insubstantial, chat with him.
NV – Why did you chose that area (the place where he shot La Region Centrale)?
Michael Snow – It could have been anywhere in a sense. I wanted something that was visibly unpopulated, and then, not touched by man in any way. But I also didn't want it to be really picturesque. It wasn't about exploiting the beauty of the place. So, I searched by looking in… The province of Quebec has a place where you can get aerial photos of the province and the machine that I used was made in Montreal, so I wanted to be able to go from Montreal as easy as possible. And I found a couple of areas by looking at photographs and I went to one of them and rented a helicopter. So we went out, and I asked them to land here and land there. And it happened when it landed there. I like the fact that there was glacier residue. The rocks are very interesting. They punctuate the space into the complete distance. And then there's a big rock. But I really didn't want it to be too appealing, but to be wild looking in some ways. It could have been something else, but that's what it was.
NV – Is there some historical. mythic or personal relationship to the place?
Michael Snow – No
NV – Have you been back since?
Michael Snow – No. I suppose it could be found again.
NV – We have to turn it into a pilgrimage spot – a Michael Snow place for people to visit.
Michael Snow – Sort of related to what you're saying – the loft I shot my film Wavelength in – I've heard back, that the owners of the building have cut that room in half. So that now some windows are in this room and some are in this room. And somebody wrote to me that they got permission to have a look at it and they were appalled. So they thought they'd share their appalledness with me.
NV – Scratch marks, dirt and dust that create this other level. While the camera's panning you are very aware that the film is running vertically
Michael Snow – It makes another reference, similar to the frame in some senses. But that was a digital version. It wasn't 16mm.
NV – But there are still some scratches and dirt on it.
Michael Snow – Yeah, it's a copy of the original film.
NV – The scenes going to the blue of the sky, more field of color, that the emulsion of the film had a kind of liveliness to it.
Michael Snow – Yeah.
NV – I think it's that films age. It's not exactly texture, but it's kind… it creates yet another plane of…
Michael Snow – It's partly when you photograph the sky, something that is basically white it affects the recording aspect in a different way. Something that's just eliminated. It's just direct light that's coming through. I don't think I can pin that down, but I think it makes a different effect technically.
NV – It strikes me as the film ages, as it gets a little dirty it is actually adding more stuff.
Michael Snow – There are relatively new prints. It was made in 1971 but the prints are not from 71. The original negative is, from which new prints can be made. That's getting more and more scary. Pretty soon you won't be able to make prints anymore.
NV – Another thing that I loved about the film was the moon shots. I don't know if you had this in mind, or if it was bit more of a happy accident, I noticed in the screening room here the moon became like a spotlight on the audience.
Michael Snow – Oh yes, it's like a beam.
NV – As it went, the proscenium has a couple of reveals and there are some light fixtures on top and it was casting shadows into the house.
Michael Snow – (Laugh)
NV – And I thought it just broke open the frame completely to a whole new level.
Michael Snow – Yeah, that's true.
NV – I don't know if you had seen this happen in other screenings
Michael Snow – Well, you noticed that you see it as a beam. Of course I didn't think of that when I was making it, but it's another sort of byproduct of doing something.
NV – You talked about, today, about your controlling the machine in a sense of playing the machine.
Michael Snow – As an instrument.
NV – But you had in your mind a kind of larger structure for the piece, or was it pretty random in some ways?
Michael Snow – I worked for months and months on trying to find ways to imagine the movie and how to motate what I imagined. And some of it's simple, in a way, the beginning, the first 20 minutes. I knew exactly what I wanted to do there. It's like the St. John Passion by Bach. It starts low and it gradually goes higher and higher. So I knew the speed that I wanted to… It's actually after that that it becomes complicated because it became more subtle in a certain sense. But I did try to imagine it and I did write a score, which I tried to follow. But I found that I really got immersed in imagining what was happening, because obviously, we couldn't see results of the piece. That could be done with the attaching of a video camera, but I didn't do that, or perhaps I couldn't have. Anyway. And so, after playing it, so to speak, for a few hours, I started to feel a little more comfortable. I don't why, because I didn't see the results, but it was just, I thought that I could… when I wanted to change the speed from 2 to 3, I felt that I knew what I was doing. And it's true.
NV – As I was watching the film, by the end, the last few movements, as it may be, after the sunrise and the next day, it was kind of like, and maybe it's me projecting some feelings on to it, but it felt like the film was easier, in the sense that it kind of learned how to make itself, for lack of a better way to say it.
Michael Snow – I think that's in way that I said it was. I started to feel a little bit more comfortable about how I was playing the instrument, despite the fact that I couldn't see any results. And there were many difficulties. We shot one 400-foot roll and went to look at it in the camera and it was jammed full of broken film. The film had broken and it filled the camera. We had spent hours trying to clean the camera. So, stuff happened that got in the way, but obviously, it did get done.
The Devil Made Me Do It
"I work for people. I do what they need."
Lucifer, Gust van den Berge's tondo-cropped pearl of a film, loosely adapted from the 1645 play of the same name written by Joost van den Vondel, describes the descent of Lucifer from heaven, where he touches the Earth for a little while, leaving his mark on humankind, before moving on to his his new kingdom – Hell. Lucifer, the bringer of light, as his name states, is described by van den Berg as "once God's favorite – [he] has been banished and is on his way to Hell. He is no longer an angel, but isn't yet a devil and is therefore never depicted as such in the film. He was the first being to carry within himself both the knowledge of good and of evil. It is Lucifer who gave us this knowledge. And therefore it is he who is responsible for the original sin and also for the emergence of human free-will and consciousness."
I beg to differ. At least with what I saw in the film. In van den Berge's parable, Lucifer (Gabino Rodríguez) comes down a ladder from heaven – unseen, but believed in by the villagers living near Parícutin, one of the newest volcanoes on Earth. A place where time seems to have stood still. He comes across Lupita (María Acosta) and her granddaughter Maria (Norma Pablo), who live with Lupita´s brother Emanuel (Jeronimo Soto Bravo), an old geezer who pretends to be bedridden so he can avoid work and spend his days gambling with and fleecing his buddies. Lucifer sees this sham clearly and says he will deliver a miracle of healing to old Emanuel. His miracle is simply to threaten Emanuel with spilling the beans. Blackmail is the devil's work. And it's also miraculous. The idea of Lucifer giving us po' folk knowledge of sin, belies the fact that Emanuel knows he's doing wrong. He's got the knowledge. Perhaps Lucifer shines his light on sin, making us, reluctantly, good.
He proceeds to knock up Maria, kinda Holy Spirit-like – we don't see it, but we acknowledge the miracle, one of the tenderest and most subversive reconsiderations of the God/Lucifer/Christ myth that van den Berge illustrates with the simplest economy. That along with equating Lucifer with Christ – rescuing a lamb – van den Berge posits a sort of structuralist continuum of myth and symbols. That's where Lucifer shines – not in any straight reading of what's largely be relegated to the Apocrypha and pushed into some sort of simplistic dichotomy of good and evil.
Lucifer soon disappears from the scene. Maria is quickly castigated, by those not touched nor direct witness to, as the seductress of the delivering angel, blamed for his leaving. Things fall apart within the widening gyre. The Federal Marshal (Fernando Silva), with the most insincere and devilish smile appears, demanding back taxes from Lupita, a result of her brother's duplicity. In the meantime the village priest (Sergio Lazaro Cortez) is on the rampage to get a new church built, with a speaker tower – a newer, crasser Tower of Babel.
We will wait for you here
Miracles, though will happen. The birth of Lucifer's son. The deaths of Emanuel and Lupita, ripped out of a B Traven dream. And sacrifice and redemption, though not necessary for the miracles, seem to be the misapplied logic to seal the deal. In the denouement, the villagers make a surreal and wondrous pilgrimage to around the rim of the volcano with Lupita joining a group of prisoners, of her own volition, to walk on their knees until one of them dies, giving absolution to the villagers. It's heroic and meaningless. It keeps the myth and the reason for being alive.
Van den Berge shot Lucifer in what he calls tondoscope, a circular format. He has a rather hilarious website devoted to it here. There are a few scenes that are shot in genuine tondoscope, a fish-eye-like process. But most of the film is matted, shot through normal lenses. He justifies the use of this format by saying, "The film is shot in a circular format because for me paradise is enclosed, with Heaven at its centre. The approach is philosophical, connecting the micro cosmos with the macro cosmos: we look at the world, as if from heaven, we see it in its true planetary form. At the same time we find ourselves looking at the world through a periscope, and experiencing it as molecular tissue."
Which I would suggest is pure bullshit. Though his explanation doesn't demean the effect of watching his genuinely intriguing meditation on myth, faith and the propensity for humans to construct stories and justifications for the facts and mysteries of everyday life. However, the very thing he doesn't allude to, the elephant in the screening room, is the iris shot. One of the mainstays of silent film grammar, and an effect still used – and brilliantly used by the likes of Sam Fuller and Francois Truffaut and Chuck Jones.
Sam Fuller / Forty Guns
Francois Truffaut / Tirez sur le pianiste
Chuck Jones / Wiley Coyote
The iris. The direct relation of the camera lens to the eye. The camera has a mechanical iris that mimics the human eye. Do we see paradise through this eye? With heaven at it's core? Apart from the willful confusion of two different ideas – heaven above, paradise below, heaven the place we (Christians) aspire to go to, paradise the place that we will never return to – the tondo, the circle, the iris speaks of limiting the vision (despite what renaissance artists may have said in justification). Sure, the metaphor of the circle – completeness, the world, the whole – but the fact is the limited, the micro, the specific. Van den Berge is a little more truthful in the second last part of his statement, short of the periscope metaphor. I prefer the telescope for my metaphor. He suggests running silent, running deep. I suggest the tool of the voyeur. Which is what cinema is really all about – despite all those WWII movies about submarines.
Robert Wise / Run Silent, Run Deep
Alfred Hitchcock / Rear Window
Not to denigrate van den Berge's accomplishment. It's a beautiful and intriguing movie. He presents his case as slyly as Lucifer. His justifications, his words hide what lies behind. There are myriad explanations for phenomena, for how the world works and functions, for why we make movies. Ultimately, words fail us. And justifications too. What's left is the light on the screen, on the monitor, that illuminates a few things, that casts a new light on the world. The way Lucifer and savvy filmmakers like van den Berge do.
Pressentimentos, figuras, apariçoes, desenhan, no ar, as suas formas incendidas…
As árvores falam, no ermo, e a noite parece ouvir as árvores…
extáticos vultos montanhosos esculpem a face da distância,
marejada de estrelas.
Há rastos de almas na paisagem…
Teixeira de Pascoaes
Lois Patiño's films exist less in the realm traditional filmic interventions and more in the tradition of landscape painting and photography. He relies on structuralist methodology – forefronting film and video apparatuses, lenses and filters; unmotivated zooms and/or "still" shots from stationary cameras; manipulation of film and/or digital information through exposure (or under-exposure) and selective manipulation. In short, making the viewer manifestly aware of the ways and means of production. But with his magnificently composed and downright luscious shots, he adds a mysticism and reverie to his films that draw directly from German Romanticism. Countering the anti-human, anti-artist, anti-creative impulses of structuralism, Patiño brings a welcoming – and sometimes counter-intuitive – human element to his filmwork that puts his films within a tradition (think Caspar David Friedrich, Michael Snow, James Benning) that he's working through with intellectual and filmic rigor.
Noite sem distância (Night Without Distance) begins with a poem by Portuguese modern mystic poet, Teixeira de Pascoaes. It concludes with the line, "There are trails of souls in the landscape." Here begins Patiño's document/fiction of a night in the Gerês Mountains that straddle the border of Portugal and Galicia. Historically this a place where the economies of small villages exist because of smuggling. Patiño follows a nocturnal smuggling operation. There is almost no action. There is the sound of wind and water and whispering voices. It is all shown in negative, with stunningly unreal and intense colors. It is profoundly evocative.
Where's Waldo?
The first challenge of Noite sem distância is distinguishing the people, the lone hidden smugglers standing stock still, some with rifles, hiding among rocks and trees, keeping their silence, among the landscapes, lightly animated by shivering leaves in the constant wind and the sounds of nighttime noises. A series of shots highlight the players in this silent drama, each in their position for the task at hand. A hushed conversation or two from unmoving figures, break up the night for brief seconds, only to return to stillness. A sheet (a flag?) flapping in the wind, two women nearby, in front of a stone wall signals the border of the village. The village is a asleep apart from a couple of dogs, sheep and men standing, watchful, intent. The action, if that what you can call it moves down to a river, down to the Portugal side, where men wait quietly. Somewhere along the way we see the loot, signifying bags of stuff, hidden in a crevice in some rocks. But in negativland, the bags are clearly visible, glowing with power and value. In a moment, there's movement. From the river up to the village. Signals are passed from flashlight to flashlight from lookout positions scattered throughout this landscape. In the village, men leave their positions. Mission accomplished. The women push take down the sheet. Back to stillness. A long shot of rock-strewn hillside suddenly becomes animated by figures coming out from their hiding places and moving slowly up the mountain. To black. The blackness of the screen.
The landscape hides the living and its ghosts. The night, like in the Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, reveals its mysteries only to those attuned to it, which the negative eye of Patiño's camera has special privileges. Not only commerce, but history, takes place at night. Patiño's image of the lives of smugglers is not only romantic, harking back to simpler lives more attuned to nature that those of contemporary city folk, but also lives mundane, fixed in patterns, clinical. Perhaps another bit of romanticism about the need for those things in contemporary life. Patiño's very austere post-whatever film hides a bit of a sentimentalist and reveals a lot of a romantic.
The Year's Best Films 2015
I originally made my 2015 10 best list for Senses of the Cinema World Poll, which I sent to them in mid-December. Since then, I saw a couple of other films that rocked my world. So my ten and a half best turned into a dozen +.
I fell down the rabbit hole of el otro cine Español this year – a recent flowering of new cinema talent in Spain. Many of these filmmakers are still struggling to get their films made and seen, but what else is new? La lucha continua. But what an amazing bunch of talent! Five and a half of my favorite films from this year came from this crew. The rest include some amazing docs – Patricio Guzmán's gloriously moving El botón de nácar, a continued exploration of the national trauma of the Pinochet years and their effect on his homeland; Citizenfour, Laura Poitras' chilling – and dare I say, inspirational – chronicle of Edward Snowden's release of classified documents; Sean McAllister's A Syrian Love Story, which gave a human dimension to the tragedy of what's happening in Syria; and Todo comenzó por el fin, in which Luis Ospina opened up a whole world of cinema history I knew nothing about – Caliwood, the Colombian film movement of the late 70s and 80s centered in Cali. And then there was Boyhood, Rick Linklater's masterpiece, which didn't hit the screens in Tokyo until this year.
Auteurs working in Sci Fi seem to be a recurring theme on my list this year. Even Dead Slow Ahead, Bugarach and Timbuktu seemed to show visions of alternative universes. Perhaps this genre is a new form of neo-realism – at least in the hands of folks like Llansó, de Sosa, Garland and Caballero.
Crumbs (Miguel Llansó, 2015)
Miguel Llansó's quirky film came out of left field – a post-apocalyptic journey, shot in Ethiopia, done in Amharic, featuring the most unlikely of heroes (beautifully enacted by Daniel Tadesse). It's a world of shrines to Michael Jordan, space age Tuetonic Nazi horsemen, an ill-spirited Santa, where the detritus of our civilization becomes the talismans of the future. Beyond that, it's a world of wonder and surprises, where the connections between people and the world we inhabit is infused with mystery and in the end, love.
Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
Rick Linklater's 12-year project reaffirms essentially cinema's main intention – documenting time. Time passing. Lives happening. History. His low drama spectacle catches growing up and growing older in the very faces of his amazing cast.
Ex Machina (Alex Garland, 2015)
Alex Garland essay on what makes one human pulls from the essential myths and stories of our collective humanity. From Prometheus to Aristotle to Shakespeare's Tempest to Walter Benjamin, Ex Machina builds a set of arguments and conundrums that question much of what we know and feel about humanness. As exemplified by the very human Ava, its a brave new world we are entering.
Timbuktu (Abderrahmane Sissako, 2014)
Abderrahmane Sissako's Timbuktu reminds me of Mosen Makhmalbaf's Kandahar. Both show the absurdity, the duplicity and the horror of what happens when you get power-hungry fundamentalists pushing their insane agendas on the world. Sissako's vignettes of lives in these extreme times highlights the chains of tragedies that come of this all too prevalent insanity.
Sueñan los Androides – Androiden Träumen (Androids Dream, Ion de Sosa, 2015)
Ion de Sosa's take on Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep rivals Ridley Scott's Blade Runner in taking great source material and coming up with a completely different interpretations. de Sosa brings Dick's vision of the future and grounds it in contemporary reality. The question of what makes us human still is at the film's heart. But here replicants is us and the so-called human is the monster.
La distancia (The Distance, Sergio Caballero, 2014) / Ancha es Castilla (Sergio Caballero, 2014)
Sergio Caballero's La distancia, an odd Tarkovskian vision of a trio of paranormally-powered dwarves doing a Mission Impossible mission, somehow makes perfect sense. Adding a Joseph Bueys-like artist going mad, trapped in a nuclear installation for decades is just a bit of icing on the cake. Anche es Catilla, is an inspired and hilarious short films that goes to the extremes of cine-povera. Animated (if that what you can call it) trash heaps and the most obvious and low-budget of effects are a perfect antidote to CGI-laden crap that passes for cinema these days.
El botón de nácar (The Pearl Button, Patricio Guzmán, 2015)
Patricio Guzman continues his inspired and inspiring excavation of the tragedy of Pinochet's destruction of Chilean democracy and life. In El botón de nácar, Guzman connects the tragedy of colonization and the extermination of Chile's native people to the methodical terror and fascism of the Pinochet regime.
Dead Slow Ahead (Mauro Herce, 2015)
Mauro Herce's Dead Slow Ahead takes the viewer on a ride on the tanker, Fair Lady, through a certain present and future of the world. Hauntingly beautiful, the film highlights stark, empty places that become a chilling metaphor for the future of humanity – and how that humanity feebly asserts itself against a relentless and unfathomable trajectory.
Citizenfour (Laura Poitras, 2014)
The how of how Edward Snowden broke open the depth of the U.S. surveillance state is shown in all it's planning an improvisation in a real-life thriller reminiscent of 70s era Alan Pakula.
Bugarach (Sergi Cameron, Ventura Durall, Salvador Sunyer, 2014)
I thought Bugarach was pure fiction until about 3/4 of the way through when I realized it was all true. The media circus and the mass hysteria that happened there in 2012, when some New Age cultists decided that this little town in southern France would be saved from the upcoming apocalypse is distilled by Sergi Cameron, Ventura Durall and Salvador Sunyer into an amazing portrait of a place and all the characters involved in this strange and wonderous event.
A Syrian Love Story (Sean McAllister, 2015)
Sean McAllister humanizes the tragedy of contemporary Syria in A Syrian Love Story by focusing on his friends, Amer Douad and Ragda Hassan and how their relationship is torn apart by the tides of history. Their adorable kids take much of the brunt of the goings on, but show amazing resilience.
Todo comenzó por el fin (It All Started at the End, Luis Ospina, 2015)
Luis Ospina documents Caliwood, a short but important film movement of Columbian cinema. Being a part of the whole thing – the sex, the drugs, the fervor – he has a personal interest in documenting his many amazing and amazingly self-destructive friends who built their own film movement. Todo comenzó por el fin is a bit like Roberto Bolaño's The Savage Detectives, but the names haven't been changed to protect the innocent or the guilty.
The Pearl Button / Nostalgia for the Light
Chilean filmmaker, Patricio Guzmán has put together, brilliantly, a pair of documentaries, Nostalgia for the Light and The Pearl Button, that attempt to resolve a tragedy, the great rift that tore his nation apart, leaving unhealed wounds – the US-backed military coup by Augusto Pinochet in 1973. The coup ripped up the foundations of a socialist democracy, replacing it with a state of right-wing terror. Thousands of people were jailed, tortured and disappeared. The history, legacy and the absence of those disappeared lie at the heart of these two profound and heart-breaking documentaries. Nostalgia for the Light takes place in Chile's Atacama Desert, where super-telescopes scan the ultra-clear night skies in search of meanings to and answers of the Universe. It's also the place where Pinochet set up a prison camp, where countless people disappeared. It's also the place where mothers, sisters and wives of these disappeared now traverse the barren expanses of sand in search of a bone fragment of any evidence of what happened to their loved ones. Guzman documents these impassioned women on their "fool's errand" as they wander the desert. The Pearl Button, his follow up to Nostalgia for the Light, takes place in a world of nearly constant inclemency, facing the Pacific – Chile's southern Patagonia. Here also, Pinochet disappeared his state's victims by taking still-living persons, binding iron rails to them, helicoptering them over the ocean and dumping them. Guzmán reenacts these painful procedures to devastating effect. Guzmán explores these dark years of contemporary Chilean history, countering it with an equally dark side of Chile's older colonial past – the eradication of Patagonia's indigenous tribes. Their rich heritage, illustrated by the amazing turn-of-the century photographs of Martin Gusinde was pretty much wiped out by genocide, disease and faux assimilation. Guzmán also interviews some older natives, who speak in the ancient tongues of their forefathers – perhaps the last recordings on film of their disappearing languages. He connects this continuum of disappearance through the images of two pearl buttons. One was the payment given to an indigenous Patagonian to go to England to be prodded, studied and displayed. He finally returned to find his people almost gone. The other button was a piece of evidence, found amid the barnacles and encrustations on a piece of rail found in the ocean – proof that a person was attached to it. From the cosmos to the oceans, from the stark landscapes of Atacama to the lush forests of Patagonia, Guzmán paints stunning images of beautiful and impassive natural places and forces, contrasting them with the terrible cruelty of humanity – and the stubborn goodness and intent of those who care. He offers few answers and asks many questions, but his search for a bit of understanding and truth testify to the human race's better intentions.
Originally published in EL Magazine, October 2015


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Representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Iraq, Fadel Ghraoui, says more than 21,000 Iraqis have either lost their lives or sustained injuries due to acts of violence and terrorism in the embattled Arab country since the beginning of the current year.
Ghraoui, in a statement released on Thursday, pointed to the dramatic rise in the number of Daesh operations against Iraqi people, noting that a total of 6,238 Iraqis have been killed and another 14,933 injured between January 1 and October 1, 2015.
The senior UN official added that while the number of killed Iraqi people stood at 12,282 the previous year, the number of those injured hit 23,126, making the year 2014 the bloodiest year for Iraqis.
Ghraoui added that violence also claimed the lives of 8,645 Iraqis in 2013, leaving 23,460 others injured.
The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq says a total of 1,325 Iraqis were killed and another 1,811 wounded in acts of terrorism, violence and armed conflict in August alone.
According to the UN mission, the number of civilian fatalities stood at 585. Violence also claimed the lives of 740 members of the Iraqi security forces. A great portion of the fatalities was recorded in Baghdad, where 318 civilians were killed.
The northern and western parts of Iraq have been plagued by violence ever since Daesh Takfiri militants began their march through the Iraqi territory in June 2014.
Army soldiers and Popular Mobilization units have joined forces and are seeking to take back militant-held regions in joint operations.


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Inclusive Church needs your money. There is much work to do. Here's a good summary:
We find ourselves up against people who, quite simply, insist on excluding themselves from the most inclusive church that has ever been. That is not, of course, how they would put it. On the contrary, they keep on wanting to exclude others from the church. They call themselves names like 'Reform'. They issue grand-sounding Covenants. But in the end, they want to slam their church doors shut. They don't much want women priests, they certainly don't want women bishops. As for gays, it seems that they don't want them in church, or in the community, or in the country.
Interested? You can find details here.
29 January 2007
26 January 2007
Special guests in Tanzania?
So you might think the Primates' Meeting would be just for primates. Wrong. Apparently +Rowan has invited three bishops from the US to attend. News comes today that +Bob Duncan, +Bruce McPherson, and +Christoper Epting will be there. What does this mean? Cynically, we might think it means +Rowan doesn't think our Presiding Bishop can represent the breadth of the US. Maybe there's a better explanation, but I'm stuck in cynical at the moment. One wonders if other bishops (say, moderate bishops working under conservative primates) will be invited.
Posted by Scott Gunn at 6:54 PM No comments: Links to this post
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Hawkins Agrees to Oct. 25th debate in Syracuse on Hydrofracking and Energy
Howie Hawkins for Governor Media Advisory
www.howiehawkins.org - www.gpny.org
For Immediate Release:
October 16, 2010
For More Info:
Howie Hawkins, 315 425-1019, 315 317-5084
Mark Dunlea, 518 860-3725
Hawkins Wants a Ban on Hydrofracking, Cuomo wants to Study
Howie Hawkins has agreed to participate in a Monday October 25th debate on hydrofracking and energy policy at Nottingham High School, East Genesee St., Syracuse NY.
So far, Libertarian candidate Warren Redlich and Freedom Party candidate Charles Barron have also agreed to debate. Sponsors have requested all the candidates to attend. CNY PBS is doing a 30 minute show on Central Issues next Thursday 21st at 7pm on this debate
Hawkins has called for a ban on hydrofracking for natural gas. In addition to the public health and environmental problems posed, natural gas is just another fossil fuel that contributes to global warming. Funds should instead be invested in a rapid transition to a carbon free economy. Cuomo instead has merely called to see what the study being done by EPA proposes.
Hawkins released his energy plan (http://howiehawkins.com/2010/media-releases/289-hawkins-on-jobs.html) as part of the 10-10-10 International Day of Action on global warming. It calls for a massive investment in renewable energy and conservation to enable New York to transition to a carbon free economy within a decade. Cuomo's plan is for more vague, lacking the force and scale of the public investment necessary to move rapidly to a carbon-free energy system based on renewables.


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Heritage Category: Listed Building
Grade: I
List Entry Number: 1379062
Date first listed: 10-Jun-1954
Statutory Address: CHURCH OF ST PANCRAS, UPPER WOBURN PLACE
The above map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale. For a copy of the full scale map, please see the attached PDF - 1379062 .pdf
The PDF will be generated from our live systems and may take a few minutes to download depending on how busy our servers are. We apologise for this delay.
This copy shows the entry on 19-Dec-2018 at 03:40:08.
Statutory Address: CHURCH OF ST PANCRAS, UPPER WOBURN PLACE
The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.
County: Greater London Authority
District: Camden (London Borough)
National Grid Reference: TQ 29817 82577
Legacy Record - This information may be included in the List Entry Details.
Reasons for Designation
Legacy Record - This information may be included in the List Entry Details.
Legacy Record - This information may be included in the List Entry Details.
TQ2982NE UPPER WOBURN PLACE 798-1/89/1657 (East side) 10/06/54 Church of St Pancras
Church. 1819-22. By H and HW Inwood, restored 1951-3. Portland stone with stone coloured terracotta detailing. Single storey, rectangular plan; nave of 6 bays plus vestibule with tower over and portico at west end; east end with apsidal sanctuary and rectangular tribunes to north and south. Greek Revival style, general plan and form influenced by St Martin-in-the-Fields, but rich detailing influenced by, and in some cases copied from, casts of the Erechtheum, Athens. EXTERIOR: west end, hexastyle Ionic portico approached by 2 steps. 3 trapezoid architraved doorways with heavy, panelled wooden doors. All heavily enriched. 4-stage tower over vestibule, a free adaptation of the Tower of the Winds, with octagonal ashlar drum, columns supporting an octagonal entablature, repeated above in diminished scale and surmounted by an octagonal drum with cornice and pointed finial with a cross. North and south facades with trapezoid, architraved, recessed windows, smaller similar windows below, Ionic half columns marking the vestibule and palmette brattishing above the cornice. Projecting near the east end, rectangular tribunes facing north and south; each with Ionic portico supported by 4 caryatids copied from the Erechtheum by John Rossi (formerly a modeller at Coade's Manufactury) built up in terracotta pieces around cast-iron columns; behind the caryatids, a sarcophagus. 2 leaf doors with roundels in the high podium. Apsidal east end with tetrastyle in antis Ionic half columns supporting an entablature and trapezoid, architraved, recessed windows. One similar window each side of the apse, to the nave, and one similar but smaller window to each east facade of the tribunes. INTERIOR: entrance via the west end through an octagonal vestibule corresponding with the tower above and ceiled over a ring of dwarf Doric columns standing in a frieze. Nave has flat, coffered ceiling with galleries supported on lotus columns around 3 sides. Apse with 6 verd-antique scagliola Ionic columns on marble podium in the curve of the apse. Some early memorial tablets in Grecian style. Clerk's vestry in the north tribune with Ionic columns supporting an oval ceiling. Fine mahogany pulpit carried on 4 Ionic columns. High altar, 1914 by Adams & Holden. Stained glass by Clayton and Bell. HISTORICAL NOTE: the earliest Greek Revival church in London, built as part of the southern expansion of St Pancras and superseding the parish church, St Pancras Old Church, Pancras Road (qv). (Survey of London: Vol. XXIV, King's Cross Neighbourhood, St Pancras IV: London: -1952: 1-9).
Listing NGR: TQ2981882578
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
Legacy System number: 478428
Legacy System: LBS
Books and journals
'Survey of London' in Survey of London - Kings Cross neighbourhood The Parish of St Pancras Part 4: Volume 24 , (1951), 1-9
This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.
End of official listing


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On sunny days when the beach is beckoning, I find that my normal gym workouts can start to feel a little dry.
In Orange County, activities like cycling and yoga, traditionally done only on solid ground, are making their way to the water. Not only are the workouts fun and picturesque, they add a new dimension of resistance and balance.
I invited my friend and fitness instructor, Ruth Bain, to join me for 90 minutes of hydro biking in Newport Beach and a 75-minute paddleboard yoga class at Lake Mission Viejo. Bain teaches cycling and yoga, and I thought she would be perfect to weigh in on the benefits of these versions on the water.
First we pedaled around Lido Isle. I was barefoot, Bain wore athletic shoes. We waved at boats, admired architecture and spotted jumping fish. My heart rate went up, especially when pushing through water chopped in a boat's wake. At Bain's suggestion, we also tried a sprint. A sea breeze dried the sweat that I would normally mop with a gym towel.
"It's like riding a fixie bike," Bain said. "If you stop pedaling, you stop."
Veronica Rodriguez, owner of Pacific Coast Hydrobikes, said the devices provide a deceptive workout. While they can go up to 10 mph, most people ride at 2 or 3 mph.
"They're working out, but at the same time they don't feel like they're working out," she said. "They're enjoying the view. Sometimes sea lions pass by. It's more therapeutic than sitting at a stationary bike."
The floating bikes are already balanced for you. But there's no such thing as coasting.
"When you're going against the current, you really work out your quads," Rodriguez said.
Dina Khoury, 21, of Newport Coast brought her cousin, visiting from Canada, to try the bikes. She said she could feel the work in her thighs as they pedaled around the boats and homes of Newport Island.
"It's fun," Khoury said. "I don't exercise, so I do get something out of it."
When we stepped onto the dock after our rides, it took a moment to recover our land legs. The next day, my glutes were sore from the saddle. I asked Bain what she thought of the workout.
"It doesn't require a lot of skill," she said. "You can make it as challenging or easy as you like. It doesn't require a lot of training. I think any activity that gets you out of the gym is therapeutic."
A few days later, we met up with Erin Nealy, a former professional snowboarder, who started Sunset Standup Paddle last summer. We joined her in the placid waters of Lake Mission Viejo, where she teaches yoga and CrossFit style workouts on a paddleboard.
"You're literally immersed in nature," Nealy said. "That backdrop gives people a better ability to plug into themselves, their body, their environment."
We started with a lesson in paddle technique and how to engage our hips, along with our arms, shoulders and core, for the best mobility. The boards are outfitted with a thick mat to provide softness and grip for the yoga postures.
"You can attempt any yoga pose on a paddleboard," Nealy said. "Every pose is going to be harder because of the balance component. You can't be in a down dog thinking about going to shop at Whole Foods. You have to be really present and use all your facilities to stay on your board."
We began with a series of squats and ab exercises, including burpees, where we moved from a push-up to standing. I was too unsteady to jump as I would on solid ground, but Bain achieved the hop.
The first time we moved into downward dog I was in awe of my upside down view – blue water behind me, puffy white clouds above. The hardest positions were lunges and warrior stance, when I would feel the gentle wobble of the board in the water.
Still, we managed sun salutations, triangle pose and pigeon. Each posture required intense concentration to work with the dynamics of a floating mat.
Regulars can get really advanced on the water. Sarah Willett, 27, of Dana Point first met Nealy in a traditional yoga studio but has loved the transition to the outdoors. She has mastered headstands on a paddleboard.
"I really like the adventure of it, something really new," she said. "If you fall, you're in the water. It's not a big deal."
We ended our class with the most tranquil final relaxation ever. We sprawled on our backs on the boards, eyes closed, finger tips trailing in the water.
"That sense of being rocked by the motion of the water was very soothing," Bain said. "I loved that."
It was a magical pause before we climbed back on our boards and paddled our way to shore.
Contact the writer: email@example.com or 714-796-3686


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I decided to do a photo recap to catch everyone up on one of the more entertaining shows airing this summer.
ABC Family's Twisted stars Avan Jogia as Danny Desai, a convicted murderer who comes back 5 years later to the town that he grew up in after being released from juvie. When Danny was 10, he strangled his aunt to death – leaving childhood besties Jo and Lacey traumatized and haunted forever by Danny's actions.
Let's get to the recap, shall we?
Related Links


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Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.
What: Shares of Boston Private Financial Holdings (NASDAQ:BPFH), a private banking, investment management, and wealth advisory firm that caters primarily to New England, Southern California, and the Pacific Northwest, rose as much as 17% after reporting its fourth-quarter earnings results after the closing bell yesterday.
So what: According to Boston Private Financial's report, the company delivered a 3% increase in sequential quarterly deposit growth and 5% year-over-year deposit growth as fees from its wealth management business grew by 10% from the sequential quarter. Overall, adjusted EPS for the fourth quarter came in at $0.20, $0.01 higher than Wall Street had anticipated, but were still down 10% from the sequential third quarter when it earned $0.22. In addition to boosting deposits and total assets under management, Boston Private Financial also raised its dividend by one penny to $0.08, pushing its yield to 2.5% as of this writing.
Now what: All told this was another solid quarter for Boston Private Financial with organic loan and assets under management growth. To boot, shareholders also were privy to a dividend increase. But Boston Private Financial is also getting near the magic mark of two times book value that often stops most banking institutions in their tracks. Based on its current price and its year-end book value of $7.34, the company may have little upside left before skeptics return. Personally, even with the company at a reasonable 15 times forward earnings, that gives me enough pause to stick to the sidelines and wait for a sizable pullback before considering its shares a bargain.
Fool contributor Sean Williams has no material interest in any companies mentioned in this article. You can follow him on CAPS under the screen name TMFUltraLong, track every pick he makes under the screen name TrackUltraLong, and check him out on Twitter, where he goes by the handle @TMFUltraLong.
Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.


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After refusing to wear heels for a job at PwC, Nicola Thorp, a 27-year-old temp worker from Hackney, was sent home without pay.
The outsourcing company, Portico, said that Thorp signed the "appearance guidelines," but Thorp says that the dress code was "not a PwC policy".
PwC, a finance company located in London, required Thorp to wear two to four inch heels working as a receptionist that required quite a bit of walking.
"I said 'if you can give me a reason as to why wearing flats would impair me to do my job today, then fair enough,' but they couldn't," Thorp told BBC Radio London. "I was expected to do a nine-hour shift on my feet escorting clients to meeting rooms. I said 'I just won't be able to do that in heels.'"
When she brought up the fact that men were not forced to follow the same dress code, they laughed.
After posting about her experience on Facebook, Thorp realized that this was a widespread issue; many of her friends and family members came forward with their own stories of similar occurrences. She decided then and there to bring light to the subject, and hopefully change the law that makes these kinds of regulations perfectly legal.
That's when the petition started.
"I was a bit scared about speaking up about it in case there was a negative backlash," she said. "But I realized I needed to put a voice to this as it is a much bigger issue."
Thorp explains that her beef isn't with the company—it's with the societal pressures that influence dress codes like the one at PwC.
"I don't hold anything against the company necessarily because they are acting within their rights as employers to have a formal dress code, and as it stands, part of that for a woman is to wear high heels," Thorp said.
As it stands in England right now, it is perfectly legal for an employer to dismiss an employee that doesn't live up to "reasonable" dress code demands—just as long as they've been given enough time to buy the right shoes and clothes.
"I think dress codes should reflect society and nowadays women can be smart and formal and wear flat shoes," Thorp continued. "Aside from the debilitating factor, it's the sexism issue. I think companies shouldn't be forcing that on their female employees."
The managing director at Portico, Simon Pratt, explained to BBC News that while the guidelines are in line with the law, they will take the comments about footwear into consideration.
A spokesperson for PwC said that they were discussing the guidelines with Portico, and that they do not "have specific dress guidelines for male or female employees."
Banner Image Credit: Reuters


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How pathetic and desperate is Jeb Bush? Well as we found out yesterday, he is pathetic and desperate enough to send one of his staffers into an event where Donald Trump was speaking and tried to derail him.
Lauren Batchelder, 18 years old, the woman who made media waves with her televised harsh questioning of Donald Trump during a Jon Huntsman "No Labels" campaign event in New Hampshire, was just outed as a paid political operative of the Republican Party and a campaign staffer for White House hopeful Jeb Bush.
Batchelder quizzed Trump at his campaign stop on his views of women, demanding he give an example of how exactly he respects the female gender.
Batchelder stood with her hands on her hips and told Trump, "I don't think you're a friend to women."
She then asked, "If you become president, will a woman make the same as a man, and do I get to choose what I do with my body?"
This was a funny question for Batchelder to ask especiallysince she has worked for many pro-life candidates including Kelley Ayotte.
"Within minutes of her scripted performance at the event," the news site wrote, "the producers of CNN were quickly editing soundbites and framing a narrative. That story was pushed into the media stream within hours. CNN's Jeanne Moos was the delivery vehicle for the hit piece."
There are eight candidates remaining in the race specifically
- Jeb Bush
- Marco Rubio (FL)
- Carly Fiorina (VA)
- Chris Christie (NJ)
- John Kasich (OH)
- Lindsey Graham (SC)
- Mike Huckabee (AR)
- George Pataki (NY)
- Jim Gilmore (VA)
A vote for any of these fraud candidates will only result in a later endorsement of Jeb Bush and the transference of delegates to assist his nomination efforts. This was/is the original design of the road map created to help Jeb win in 2016


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Tod here! I've been hard at work on a full, 20 page coloring book full of art, puzzles and cut-out crafts! It's available to purchase as a pdf download.
Need a good stocking stuffer or last minute gift for the kids in your life? Go to your local copy shop, get a nice copy printed out on card stock, and pick up some crayons to go with it! You can also print out multiple copies of your favorite pages, so you can make as many chicken-themed ornaments as you want!
Check out the link to learn more – http://thestorydragon.com/product/lucky-pennys-winter-adventure-holiday-coloring-book-download/