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Honor Event INFO Sign up
Empowering organizations to meet their full potential!
Thanks for thinking out of the box to reach churches and pastors in your area.
This will be a great event honoring ministry leaders in your area AND
Connecting them to Your Center.
Please fill out the form and we will be in touch to nail down one
of our limited dates we have for 2020!
How does the HONOR EVENT work?
The Heart Share Group, LLC is excited about the opportunity to partner with you on bringing The HONOR Event to your city/cities. HONOR has been used by God to strengthen relationships between local Pregnancy centers and the local Church — for that we are humbled and thankful.
The details below help outline how a successful, efficient, and smooth flowing event will happen for all parties involved
We have had a great time of ministry over the last eight years doing these events.
In addition to a delicious meal, exceptional networking, "life-giving" fellowship (so we've heard), an encouraging and challenging message presented to those in attendance, we will also have a headlining musician/artist/speaker, etc. We are in the process of finalizing who our special guest will be for the 2018 Fall series of HONOR Events.
As always, we are also very excited to be able to bless all of our HONOR Event guests with an attendee resource bag and several opportunities to receive additional resources throughout the Event.
Your part in helping to make this event successful is simply the promotional part. Make this event your own. Our team will play a "behind-the scenes" role. We will be on hand to be a liaison between the HONOR Team: running sound, helping with set up, etc. but promote this event as a gift you are providing from your station to area pastors and ministry leaders.
We will cooperate together with you on registration online through the HONOR site portal and give you weekly updates on numbers through email so you can know how to push as we get closer to the event. Web links (graphics provided by us), Facebook posts, tweets, etc. should all be used to drive ministry leaders to register.
We need you to make this a major promotional event on your calendar. Our team has raised the money and will have resources to bless up to 100 ministry leaders in each city. We want every resource that has been provided to be given away. So, we want to fill every slot. To do that, get creative. Utilize Facebook, Twitter, email blasts, YouTube/GodTube/Vimeo, church flyers, etc. to get the word out. We will provide you digital media that you can use to promote the event.
We need you to use the graphics we provide as well. We require this as a means to present a consistent brand and "customer" experience for our HONOR Event guests. If you provide us with accurate dimensions (size and or pixels) for your website and other promotional channels (social media, online streamer, app, email blasts, etc.) we are glad to produce the digital assets that you what you need to properly promote HONOR Event.
In coordinating the resources needed to produce these events with excellence, we need to maintain consistent branding. We will produce a to air on your local station. You can also air your own spots/promos ALONG WITH the one we provide. In addition, we are happy to line up interviews for you any of the HONOR Team and/or the Special Guest.
For our HONOR Event guests to have the best possible experience and to feel appreciated and loved by you and your team, we ask that we provide them with a simple, catered meal (no-frills is best). We usually can help line up someone who will donate meals for this event. We have worked with everyone from local restaurants to national chains to partner with us.
You will be responsible for providing hotel rooms for the HONOR Team & Artist (2 rooms max) for at least one night in your city. Many s trade these out with an area hotel that they frequently use.
We will provide tons of resources to go in the bags that we will be giving out at the close of the event. Also, any other community partner that will give you giveaways can be a great touch to add. (We can provide you with example copy if you need assistance with this.)
HONOR Event is FREE for the Pastors and Ministry Leaders that attend. We ask that your center provide a $2000 honorarium to help offset the expenses our team will incur (shipping materials & postage, honoraria and travel for talent, travel for our team, additional supplies, and incidentals, etc.).
HONOR Event is a large undertaking on a national scale. It takes lots of people doing many different things to produce a successful HONOR season. One of the critical pieces to the puzzle is our Ministry Partners that underwrite the cost of HONOR Event. One of the benefits that they receive is the opportunity to exhibit at HONOR. We work closely with them to insure that there presentation (materials, speech, attitude, etc.) is not overly commercial. We want to protect your interest, the Hosts interests, and the integrity and legacy of HONOR Event. We will coordinate Ministry Partner tables in a similar fashion to the description of Merch Tables below.
We would like for your center to have a table with resources from your center: whatever you can have available would be great. We can discuss this further to firm up specific details. In addition, as we get closer to the event, we will send you a sample agenda and have you help tweak it for the event. Your staff will emcee and "make the event your own." Have your staff interact and love on these pastors and ministry leaders. We would like as many of your staff involved as possible in the welcome, opening and closing prayers, introduction of guests, and giveaways, greeting, helping direct parking if necessary, etc. Refilling their drinks and taking their finished plates, etc. is a simple way of showing them love and appreciation.
Thank you for your partnership in refreshing and equipping pastors and ministry leaders in your city. You are investing in the Kingdom!


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These Awesome HP Products Need to Be On Your Must-Have List/
***Disclosure*** This is a Sponsored post. Don't worry, the featured products are the bomb.com!
Are you guilty of having hundreds of pictures stored in your phone, but you never print them out? I am! I've gone on incredible vacations, and captured great moments, but a vast majority of my photos stay trapped in my phone's gallery. I recently joined the HP Millennials Panel which allows me to try many of their new and innovative products. One of my faves is the HP Sprocket Photo Printer.
The HP Sprocket is a game-changer. It's a mini portable photo printer that allows you to print photos from your social media channels and your phone's gallery. It took less than 5 minutes to set up and the HP Sprocket App is very easy to use. After getting your Sprocket connected, simply load it up with Zink Photo Paper and you're good to go. You can even edit photos within the app.
I plan on doing so much with my Sprocket. I love that it's portable so I can easily put it in my purse or carry on. When you need to power it up, simply plug it up to a USB port and you've got power.
Another great compliment to the HP Sprocket is the HP Mini Roar speaker. I've tried other portable speakers and have been less than impressed. However, the Mini Roar packs a really good punch.
The HP Sprocket and HP Portable Speaker are awesome gift choices. Have you used any of these products? If so, drop a line and let me know.

subset: commoncrawl


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Got a new board today. I had been wanting a new board for a while but I kept putting it off. Boards are expensive and I already have a few. But, I really wanted a new shortboard shape. High performance but for smaller, more average waves. Tri fin, not a quad. I also knew I wanted to get another JS model.
I saw this one at Surf Ride and did a bit of reading online and found that 5'6 was probably the right size. Perfect! Took me two weeks to pull the trigger though, this puppy was a bit expensive. I'm not really an impulse buyer.
Anyway…took it out tonight for a sunset session. It catches waves so nicely. It turns on a dime though, have to get used to that. Much more responsive than my other board. Generates speed well too, but I have to figure out foot placement and how it responds. So, first session down and I'm really stoked! The waves weren't that great so I can't wait to take it out into some better surf. This board is for junk surf though, so it probably will be too squirrely if the waves are bigger than 4ft. Thankfully, it doesn't get over 4′ here that much at all.


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In what appear to be the desperate final acts of a dying dictatorship, police have been filmed beating people they suspect of protesting.
Nobody is spared the brutality of these police officers in Zimbabwe as they go around beating men, women and children who were apparently in the wrong place at the wrong time.
With no money left and facing a severe drought, Zimbabwe is going through one of its worst periods as it faces the possibility of revolution.
Wages are not being paid to government workers and there is real hope in the country what is currently happening spells the end of Robert Mugabe's dictatorship.
Public shows of dissent have been rare under Mugabe's decades-long oppressive rule, but they have erupted regularly in recent months as the battered economy has ground to a virtual halt.
Video posted on Facebook by Ezra Tshisa Sibanda also shows a group of protesters cowering in the back of a police truck. They are lying silently after being arrested and are keeping quiet to avoid being beaten.
Mr Sibanda said: 'This is abhorrent, barbaric, utmost evil & senseless brutality by people who call themselves law enforcers.
'These animals are shaming the real Zimbabwe Republic Police and don't deserve to put on that uniform. The sick idiots savaging people including women with children for going around with their daily activities believing they were part of protesters.
'They went for easy targets just to be seen to be doing a good job. Thank God one of their own filmed this evil practice by some imbeciles masquerading as Police. The real ZRP should disown this sick practice and protect their profession.'
Political analyst Rushweat Mukundu, who is based in the country's capital Harare, said: 'People are beginning to ask who the source of their problems is. The anger is mounting.
'The spontaneous acts we are witnessing now may escalate into mass uprisings.'


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LEAKY HOMES? . . . we will provide you with :
This serious problem emerged during 2002. Full marks to the Government for quickly taking steps to set up an easier way of resolving disputes than the use of the normal Court procedures.
Read these Press Releases first -
MEDIA RELEASE – October 2008
"It's time to do the right thing by New Zealand's homeowners, says Local Government New Zealand Vice-President Kerry Prendergast.
"We need to fix the thousands of leaky homes that still exist, over a decade after the leaky homes problem erupted. This has to be an urgent priority for the incoming Government."
Local Government New Zealand today released the costs of a new model it has proposed to central government to resolve the leaky homes crisis.
The first part of this topic has been displayed free of charge. Join up for $45 to have access to this and all other topics!


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Pastor's Blog
Created on Friday, 30 August 2019Read more...Family, Nehemiah 8:10 NKJV states … for this day is holy to our Lord, do not sorrow, for the joy of theLord is your strength. Therefore, what does that mean? When Ezra read God's laws, the people wept openly because they realized how far they were from obeying them. Ezra told them they should be filled with joy because the day was holy a...
Created on Thursday, 01 August 2019Read more...Body of Christ, If we are truthful with ourselves, we would admit from time to time we worry. We worry about employment, family, finances, relationships, our physical health, etc. When our thoughts are consumed with worry, it disrupts our productivity, damages our health, causes us to speak abruptly to others and reduces our ability to t...
Created on Monday, 20 May 2019Read more...First and foremost God says 'Let everything that has breath, praise the Lord". Therefore asGod's creation and breath is in our bodies, we should have the desire to praise and worship God in spirit and in truth. Meaning, we should not do so in pretense but with a sincere heart. Praise and worship to God should not be something we do only ...
Created on Monday, 29 April 2019Read more...Scripture says: Philippians 4:6-7 NLT 6. Don't worry about anything, instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank Him for all He has done. 7. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. In knowing this, why do w...
Created on Wednesday, 02 January 2019Read more...Family, As we enter year 2019, the Lord desires for us to know that He is our redeemer. He will set us free from situations that have us in bondage. He will break the oppression that the enemy has over us. God has done many great things for us during the year 2018. He's brought us through sickness and disease; kept his hedge of protectio...
Created on Saturday, 15 December 2018Read more...Family, 10. And the angel said unto them, fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 11. Foe unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. (Luke 2:10-11 KJV) This is the time of year that we take time to remember the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus ...
Created on Monday, 10 September 2018Read more...Family, Isaiah 43:18-18 NKJV 18. Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. 19. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The month of September often marks a new beginning. Students return to school anticipa...
Created on Monday, 02 July 2018Read more...Body of Christ, We are living in a day where there is a falling away from the church. Many no longer hold the Lord's command of remembering the Sabbath day and to keep it holy. There are some who have received Jesus as their Savior and deliberately choose to sin after receiving knowledge of the truth. Yet, there are others who believe th...
Created on Monday, 04 June 2018Read more...Family, Webster defines forgiveness as the ability to stop feeling anger toward someone who has donewrong toward you, to stop blaming someone and to stop requiring payment of money that is owed. God is very clear about forgiveness. He gives us specific instructions through numerous scriptures which can be summed up in one word-forgive. G...
Created on Wednesday, 02 May 2018Read more...Family, Tina Turner wrote a song "What's Love Got to Do With It". The thrust of the song was that love was nothing but a second hand emotion. Tina was speaking of Eros love or romantic love which could be fleeting. But, the Agape love of Christ has everything to do with how we conduct our daily lives. Agape love, which is Christ centered...
Created on Friday, 06 April 2018Read more...Family, John 4:23-24 records Jesus saying, "But the hour is coming and is now here, when the trueworshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth", Many equate worship with singing music in church. This i...
Created on Saturday, 03 March 2018Read more...The Cross During this season, as we remember the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord and Savior,Jesus Christ, we may watch movies such as the Ten Commandments and Passion of Christ. However, as we remember, let us focus on the cross. For the cross was the focus of Jesus' mission while He was here on earth. On the night Jesus was bet...
Created on Thursday, 01 February 2018Read more...Family, May we shout for joy when we hear of your victory and raise a victory ban ner in the name of our God…. (Psalm 20:5 NLT) Some of you may have asked the question, why have we incorporated the use of flags during praise and worship? We have done so as an act of worship to demonstrate our adoration to God. In ministering with flags, ...
Created on Thursday, 04 January 2018Read more...Family, "Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all." -Psalm 34:19 Indeed, year 2017 had many afflicting situations. But, yet, the Lord enabled us to come through each of them. As we enter year 2018, the Lord says it's a new beginning. It is of utmost importance that we no longer permit troubling...
Created on Friday, 08 December 2017Read more...Family, As we enter this month of December, the last month of this year, many begin to make preparation for the celebration of Christmas. In preparation, there is often much focus on baking cookies, cakes and pies, purchasing of gifts and hosting or attending parties. But as the body of Christ, let us remember that Christmas is a time of...
Created on Wednesday, 01 November 2017Read more...Family, Psalm 103:1-5 NKJV Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: Who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, Who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies, Who satisfies your ...
Created on Monday, 02 October 2017Read more...Family, As we progress in our 19th year of ministry, God is calling us to the Great Commission. Just as Jesus instructed His disciples, He is instructing us that under His authority, we are to make disciples, baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach new disciples to obey Christ. We are also to tell the new d...
Created on Tuesday, 12 September 2017Read more...Family, Although a spiritual battle between good and evil is constantly going on around us, it's easy toneglect giving it our attention since the spiritual forces at work are usually invisible. The Bible urges us to pay attention to the battles taking place in the unseen spiritual realm. Thus, we as the body of Christ can no longer ignor...
Created on Tuesday, 11 July 2017Read more...Praise the Lord Cornerstone Family, But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement fo r our peace was upon Him and by His stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5 NKJV) God is indeed pouring out His healing virtue within the body of Christ. Many of us are still seeking God for supernatural heali...
Created on Wednesday, 21 June 2017Read more...Family, Scripture states in Genesis 2:2 that "on the seventh day, God finished His work of creation, so He rested from all His work". Leviticus 23:3 states "six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest". In the New Testament, Jesus even encouraged His disciples to rest. For, Mark 6:31 states "Because so...
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Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Down By The Riverside
Rosetta Tharpe--Down By The Riverside
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Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Godmother of Rock and Roll
Labels: Rock and Roll, Sister Rosetta Tharpe
A blog dedicated to preserving the beauty and delicate ecosystem of the River Ribble, and opposing the Riverworks 'vision' to build a barrage on our River and develop on our riverbanks, floodplains and green spaces, causing damage to wildlife and the environment and increasing the risk of flooding to our homes. Save the Ribble Campaign is not responsible for the content of external blogs or websites which link here.
Labels: Rock and Roll, Sister Rosetta Tharpe
"The care of rivers is not a question of rivers, but of the human heart" Tanako Shozo


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|Re: CL package serious deficiencies
|Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:53:37 +0800
|Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.4 (Mac OS X 10.6.8)
On 2012-02-08 05:42 +0800, Tom Tromey wrote: > I think the existence of EIEIO makes the documentation objection > especially moot. EIEIO is basically CLOS and has a manual of its own, > but AFAICT doesn't have the same use restrictions as cl.el. I have > never understood this discrepancy. > > Tom I agree. I think it is a mistake to object cl.el and let every package author re-invent their own half-baked solution. If cl.el gets more use, I am sure its quality will improve. The status quo is partly due to the objection. BTW, I have (require 'cl) as the first thing in .emacs since a few years ago and never had a problem. Leo
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Towards a Poetics of Audio: The Importance of Criticism
It is an exciting time for audio. The tumultuous growth of podcasting and the concomitant development of digital channels, multiple platforms, and user-driven content has not only expanded and re-energized the form, but forced public radio to loosen its stays and let down its hair.
Where once we might have talked of "the system" or "the industry," we can now confidently say we are part of "a culture." But—we are missing two important components of a vital culture: a critical language, and with it, a critical practice. The language should be expressly designed to describe our forms, tropes, and themes, but with reference to the larger culture and world of ideas. And the practice should be constant, robust, and open, with critical tools wielded to help us better understand our work, and ourselves, and to help our public to better understand us as artists.
In presenting this argument, I am indebted to A.O. Scott's vibrant defense and exploration of the topic, Better Living Through Criticism.
A Microscope, Not a Bludgeon
Before I can urge the importance of criticism, it will help to define it, or at least, since there is a lively and abundant discourse about this, to erect some tent poles. First, criticism does not imply negative criticism. It is an act of engagement and assessment, with myriad roads to comprehension, appreciation, and investigation of a work. Or, if you will, it is a Swiss Army knife with multiple extensions.
Here are some of them: there are some external standards to which works can be held; creative works have not only "content," but meaning. A dimension in which how something is said, as well as what is being said, is important. Criticism both holds the creator to account and places any individual work in a landscape of other works. And good criticism educates the audience.
People have been discussing and debating this topic for ages. Alexander Pope actually devoted an entire epic poem to the subject (now, those were the days!). His Essay on Criticism (1711) emphasizes the importance of standards, which in the 18th century often looked to the authority (a version of the Platonic ideal): "First follow NATURE, and your Judgment frame by her just Standard, which is still the same…"
A.O. Scott, writing in our own product- and media-saturated time, talks about criticism's role in helping to make sense of the bewildering cornucopia of stuff that's on offer. (The subtitle of his book promises as much: "How to Think About Art, Pleasure, Beauty and Truth."). In an imaginary dialogue with a skeptical alter-ego, he observes: "There are so many demands on our attention, so many offers of diversion and enlightenment on the table, that choosing among them can feel like serious work. Q: And that work—the winnowing and contrasting, the measuring and interpreting—is what you call criticism."
So a critic has an obligation, a mission, a calling. And to answer it, he or she wields an instrument: it can be likened to a microscope, or a telescope, or calipers, but it is definitely not a bludgeon. Through regard and analysis, it helps us to understand the creative properties of works and to deepen our experience of these works. The taxonomies that result serve the further purpose of extending the possibilities for the form. Even though artists often say they are not influenced by critics, they are influenced by an intellectual climate that extends the understanding and meaning of forms and practice. In other words, artists wind up thinking differently because of the way things are thought about.
Then there is the issue of securing the place of audio in the larger culture. As Tom Stoppard famously writes in his radio play Artist Descending a Staircase (an homage to transgressive artist, Marcel Duchamp, whose work wasn't taken seriously either), "There are two ways of becoming an artist. The first way is to do things by which is meant art. The second is to make art mean the things you do." Either way, we need criticism.
Greener Grass
For almost all other mediums, there is a parallel critical dimension. And while it is beyond the scope of this essay to exhaustively review the ways in which other arts and disciplines have been served by critical discourse, we need only be reminded of a few examples to recognize the bounty that our own fallow ground has failed to yield.
A disclaimer: As A.O. Scott points out, much of what we now regard as "art" came into being without the existence of formal criticism, often in contexts that were either ritual (Greek theatre) or so strongly imbued with particular values (the Renaissance) as to shape artistic intuition with an unmistakable identity.
Even so, subsequent development of the field of criticism has helped to illumine many arts, and many individual works of genius, in ways that help to guarantee their transmission and relevance. Bernard Berenson's many books brought the Italian Renaissance into the 20th century; Cezanne was virtually unknown until the English critic Roger Fry began to champion him. In the theatre, just to cite one of many examples, Harold Pinter's "The Birthday Party" (1957) was almost universally reviled, except for the lone voice of reviewer Harold Hobson, who wrote: "I am willing to risk whatever reputation I have as a judge of plays by saying ... that Mr. Pinter, on the evidence of this work, possesses the most original, disturbing and arresting talent in theatrical London." Without someone to say "Look again," or just "Look," paradigm-shifting work is in danger of remaining marginalized, or rendered invisible.
In addition, the creation of critical contexts and a language shaped towards definition and explication means that practitioners are given different ways to access and understand their disciplines.
The media arts have also been strengthened and enriched by criticism. The intellectuals of the French New Wave helped to establish Hollywood B pictures of the 1940s as a distinct genre worthy of reverence and imitation. And that reassessment lead to the creation of new works that drew on the conventions and tropes of the older forms.
Something similar has happened to television in the last decade or so. A combination of new platforms and economic determinants have made television—particularly cable television--the eminent domain of complex programs and outstanding acting ensembles, and critical writing has risen to the challenge, creating a vital symbiosis. An appreciation of the fact that this 60- something entertainment genre has re-invented itself resulted in a re-assessment by professionals: Suddenly you weren't selling out if you did TV; you were going to a source of plum roles, complex writing and compulsive viewing. Who wouldn't want to be there?
These examples can be our beacons, because now it's audio that is at a tipping point, now audio that is the mature form experiencing a rebirth. So now is the time for us to act to make sure our new culture is fully enfranchised.
The Path Not Taken: Where Was Radio Criticism?
I've been thinking about this issue—the paucity of a critical tradition in our field—for a while. Before I became a producer, an age-revealing eon ago, I was a dance and theatre critic, and when I began to work in broadcast, I was amazed to find radio so clumsily situated among the arts, which is how I thought of it since I produced radio drama. And coming from a field rich in critical journals and outlets for criticism, I was bemused to find that the only organ that served the public radio system was the trade journal Current. In 1988 I was involved in the formation of AIR, which struggled to gain respect for practitioners in a largely invisible profession. I started to see a relationship between the marginalization of producers and the lack of discourse about their work. The gap was brought home also in 2002 when I started teaching at The New School in New York. I couldn't find any critical texts to work with, and I had to re-purpose film studies texts.
So calling for the establishment of a critical tradition isn't just an intellectual exercise, any more than criticism itself is. There are practical ramifications. If we don't encourage criticism (and I'm not talking about peer or editorial review, which I'll address below) we aren't sufficiently valuing our work. And if we don't, neither will others, and neither will history. Despite the "hot" nature of audio now, this has been a problem since the inception of contemporary radio—it is ephemeral. And greater access alone doesn't guarantee endurance. The more crowded the field becomes, and the more varied and complex the work, the more we need to be able to assess and explain it.
A Little History: Golden Age to NPR
It is worth reviewing the history of our field to help us understand why there is such a meager critical framework, no Oxford Book of Audio Prosody, if you will. Then we can look at what developed instead, at the nature and function of criticism, and at long-term benefits.
Radio broadcasting began in America in the early 20th century; by the 1920s it was the dominant entertainment medium of its day, empowered by major corporate networks. At the same time, a parallel universe of university and municipal stations—local and with modest resources—grew up and would eventually become the basis for the public radio system. Neither the robust commercial world of the 1920s-1940s nor public system that emerged in the late 1960s were environments conducive to audio criticism.
In the so-called "Golden Age" of American broadcast radio, the medium evolved from being a backwater to being a vast prolific cash cow and entertainment medium. A tremendous amount of programming was produced, some of it justly cherished today, but it was not situated as a fine art, and no critical field evolved in response to it. The cessation of that world, and the moving of its talents and energies to the nascent medium of television is not our subject here, but suffice to say it opened up the avenue for the creation of public radio (in response to a rightly perceived threat to news and educational broadcasting).
The new form, however—as initially embodied by National Public Radio—defined itself primarily as a news service for member stations, and for its first decade had limited resources and little artistic centralization. Despite the fact that the public radio system that eventually emerged has been the source of extraordinary work, there was little opportunity or impetus here, either, for critical review. (Sound art—situated with the world of conceptual art and galley spaces—developed independent of broadcasting in the 1990s. It, too, has also only recently become part of arts' critical discourse.)
So some of our problems are in public radio's DNA. There are standards, but they are often the standards of good journalism, with its constraints and formulas, in addition to opportunities and remarkable craft. And they are almost always applied internally, in the course of production, not externally as part of a larger critical discourse.
NPR, of course, came to produce and embrace many types of programming, and the public radio system itself grew well beyond the confines of NPR, but the pattern had been set: radio/audio is about programming, and it lives in an eternal present. And you can't have an artform without artists: for many years public radio submerged the identity of its creators, other than high-profile hosts of national shows.
Heard, But Not Seen: The Consequences
We have other problems: we have been disconnected from our own history, with few ways to trace the development of our form, to recognize its practitioners, to classify and analyze them. And by "our form," I am referring specifically to work done since the creation of NPR, in, or in some measure derived from, the public radio system and its descendants. (The current audio boom includes work that does not derive from the public radio culture and its practitioners, but still exists in an environment that is affected by its gaps and lapses.)
This is in stark contrast to the history of old-time radio. Want to know how many radio dramas were produced by Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre and its successor the Campbell Playhouse? There's an entire website devoted to this, and many mentions of Welles' radio work in books about him and in those chronicling the Golden Age broadcast era. Want to know how many plays were produced and/or acquired for distribution by National Public Radio's now defunct NPR Playhouse? And who wrote them? Or acted in them? Good luck with that. There are several substantial books about NPR, but they are primarily corporate histories, focusing on NPR as an institution, and highly visible tent-pole programs like All Things Considered and Morning Edition. For the most part they leave in the literal dark the vast body of work created by independents in and for the system.
It is a pervasive problem. Golden Age Radio has a legion of fans, sacred texts, and a clear taxonomy. There is no defined curatorial practice for contemporary radio and audio. New York City's Paley Center for Media (formerly the Museum of Television & Radio) for example, has extensive holdings related to commercial and Golden Age radio; its contemporary collection is insubstantial by comparison.
We are missing some of the important building blocks of a critical system: models from the past, and what A.O. Scott calls "a pantheon"—artists about whose excellence there some general agreement, and whose influence can be clearly articulated and traced. He says, "every generation of artists seeks to crawl out from under the overhang of past masters." Except ours, which does not identify, recognize, or aggregate them.
Imagine teaching theatre with no access to Euripides, or Shakespeare, or Arthur Miller? Or Suzan Lori Parks? Imagine grasping art, and art history, if you weren't able to see works any older than Andy Warhol's? And there was no one to explain those.
You get the idea.
A Call to Arms
Here's a specific example: Reply All producer PJ Vogt gave a fascinating and intense presentation at the Third Coast Radio conference this past November (2016) about a feature he'd done on LSD microdosing ("Shine On You Crazy Goldman," November 2015). At no time did he refer to the infamous model for explorations of this type, Hunter Thompson's 1971 Rolling Stone article (and subsequent novel) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Did Vogt know the work? Or the tradition of Gonzo journalism to which all public radio is indebted? Or did he and his fellow producers arrive at their decisions and conclusions in a way that at least felt to them sui generis? Any answer would be interesting. The point is where is our forum for asking the question, pursuing the poetics, comparing and contrasting? Oh, of course, we can 'tweet' PJ, or post something to his Facebook page, but social media is not a critical tool.
What exactly would critical discourse gain us that our theoretically transparent world can't offer? Well, for one thing, the ability to move beyond the creator to the world of the creation itself.
It is a sign of maturity in an art form when it moves beyond the works of the doers into the realm of the thinkers. Harold Clurman has guided successive waves of theatre directors with his brilliant book On Directing, in which he wrote, "Theater is not an accumulation of ingredients: it is a composite organism greater or lesser than its several components." But, as he went to write, it is the theatre critics who help us understand the choices they make, how we perceive their productions, and how those choices reflect a culture at work.
A.O. Scott points out that one of the first models for this came from inside the poetic process and has given us one of our more resonant expressions for what we might be looking for in the act of critical appreciation. It's Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn (you read it at school, but here it is again):
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
You don't have to be a fan of Romantic verse to grasp the essence of Keats model. If you regard something long enough, with real attention, it will yield up "truth and beauty." And even if, as Scott cautions, there is a danger in the "subjective universality" of believing there is agreement about these terms, the inquiry remains important.
If we don't have criticism, we will never be anything but a craft. And if we don't have criticism from outside our own community, we will remain a club. Discussions of radio and audio work tend to focus on technical issues because we have an established technical vocabulary (flanging, distortion, masking, peaking, etc.), or structure (Is there a good story arc? Are there good characters? Are the stakes high?), or on socio-political factors (Is there a proper gender/racial/socio-political mix?), or journalist issues (Is it well sourced, unbiased, etc.?). These are highly evolved criteria that we inherited from print and that were refined in the crucible of NPR.
Show Me the Poetry
But what of our ability to discuss the psychology, or philosophy, or metaphorical constructs in radio and audio work? One function of good critical language is to give us an enlarged understanding of something more—the aesthetic underpinnings of a creation, and something to aspire to other than the technical means by which that work is created.
The Mona Lisa would not be the icon she is today without the romantic writings of Walter Pater, the 19th-century esthete who created a mysterious persona for her. The films of Alfred Hitchcock are marvels of cinematic craft, but are just as often discussed in terms of the psychological clues that are embedded in the mise en scene. Sex, dread and disorder are key themes for Hitchcock, and dozens of books and essays discussed them in every way imaginable.
The only work in the history of radio to reach unassailable iconic status is Orson Welles' War of the Worlds, which is soon to be celebrating its 100th anniversary. A critical tradition will help us to swell those ranks. Our medium itself is getting on for 100. And yet we have few great works universally shared and recognized. Where are our Canterbury Tales, Hamlet, Ulysses, Guernica, Sense and Sensibility, Godfather, Take the A Train, 9th Symphony? (Make up your own list—that's the point,)
There is, as yet, no book exploring the ways which Jad Abumrad and Radiolab have reconfigured the landscape of radio using the tools of musical composition (and so much more) in the service of arcane facts, scientific conundrums, and complex moral issues. In the world of cinema, Jad might be termed an auteur—a term crafted by film critic Andrew Sarris in the wake of that French New Wave movement. What would happen to our understanding of his work, and of the cadre of producers who have followed his lead, if we could avail ourselves of that tradition and its language, or find new language that responds to the challenge of that complex work? And what if we could learn about seminal radio programs as schools and movements?
There are also (now) dozens of books on the feminist dialectic in literature and cinema, belatedly though those fields came to it. The Heart (Kaitlin Prest; Mitra Kaboli) is the closest thing we have to works of Anais Nin, not to mention elements of Gertrude Stein, Virginia Woolf, and its creators' kinship with ground-breaking women directors like Catherine Breillat and Barbara Hammer. When will we see The Heart investigated with the care and curiosity that has insured a place in the academy for feminist work in other disciplines? Close analysis of the show's productions would be illuminating, and help place them in this larger frame.
Criticism is a hedge against invisibility. It gives mass and intellectual weight to existing forms that help them to thrive. The radio theatre director and writer Arthur Yorinks, who has been laboring for many years in the salt mines of radio drama (until recently a virtual endangered species in the U.S.), has this to say about how a critical culture could help: "It is a deep belief of mine that one of the reasons radio drama, audio theater, whatever one calls it withered in America is the near total absence of informed criticism of the field. I think it's vitally important to the health of our field, not only for my own work, but for ANY work—it creates a conversation and like all conversations, some of it might be off the mark, but it's crucial for innovation and the health of the field. There's a long and interconnected path that criticism (informed, of course, which is crucial) helps to create between the artist and the audience lending a form of respect that can push the artist and the audience to realize there are standards--standards we take for granted in other artistic fields—but are lacking in ours."
Not a Club
We do a disservice to the serious work of all radio and audio artists—and certainly can't help disseminate their values—if we discuss them only in their own contexts, and among ourselves.
Which is one of our other problems: as a culture, we're a coterie. In the past decade, some great resources have become available that have done much to surface and share our culture, but most of them are generated from within, and are self-directed.
To name only a few: Reality Radio, that fine collection of essays, was a welcome addition to the scene, but it is one half of a whole: it offers important reflections by major producers, editors, and creative sound artists about their work, but no critical appreciation by an objective, or even subjective, third party.
Third Coast's Re:sound has proved to be a tireless excavator of the treasure trove of modern audio works, but this act of reclamation is still coming from within the field. And Transom's HowSound is a similarly precious collection of encounters with significant producers and their methods. Ironically, the spread of radio/audio/media courses in colleges has insured that individual teachers are creating an awareness of the culture, but this is a diffuse phenomenon that still lacks a core curriculum or resources. (When I propose a new course, I often feel like Harold and the Purple Crayon—if there isn't a road, draw it.)
With the Internet and social media, we are only just beginning to see the creation of a common culture. Still, without an independent critical awareness, we're stuck with what Scott calls "the language of the initiated" or the "genius of the hive." Scott references an article by Jacob Silverman, published in Slate, that addressed this issue. It was called "Against Enthusiasm," and warns against "clubbiness and gladhanding."
Let's face it: we are sometimes guilty of this (clubbiness and glad-handing) although for many defensible reasons: in part because for a long time ours has been an under-appreciated, under-recognized, and under-paid field, so the twin instincts of solidarity and insecurity reign; in part because the few forums that exist are more like a marketplace, or a town square, than an environment for critical debate. Longing for inclusion and fear of exclusion in the system is understandable, but shouldn't prevent us from taking control of our aesthetic cultural history as much as we have tried to take control of our markets and programs.
The trick is, we must do this by cultivating a language beyond our own, and voices beyond ourselves, or at least work on adding to our language and urging some of our own to take that step.
Critical movements evolve with the engagement and collusion of individuals, but then grow into transmittable systems of thought. That happened in literature with the Aesthetic movement and the Practical Criticism movement; and, as noted, in film with the French New Wave (among others). (Incidentally, there is an Oxford Dictionary of Film Studies; where is ours?)
Our problem isn't that we can't converse or analyze, but that we don't allow ourselves the kind of discourse in which aesthetic disagreement is encouraged and practiced regularly in any independent organ. We don't have forums that imagine and examine aesthetics, instead, we have passionate debates about vocal fry, or coding, or representation—incredibly important, but limiting. Let's move on, also, to talking about how diversity has changed us aesthetically, not just politically/socially. And confront how complicated cultural confluence is and why the act of creation is alembic.
We've established that critical appreciation in the context of a defined culture differs from having editorial standards (a profession coming into its own in this country) or technical standards. And it sure as hell differs from our landscape of app- and social-media dominated selections. Criticism is not a matter checking the iTunes charts, or of swiping right or left, or of tweeting, or sharing. I don't want to "like" something. I want there to be a coherent universal reason why and I want that reason to be bigger than the artist, the work, or me. And I want whatever it is to be accessible and transmittable to the general public.
Proliferation brings its own challenges. "Groping in an epistemological fog just about defines today's podcast environment," Scott observes wryly. And the proliferation is not just of content, but of the commodification of it; the growth of networks, the tendency to regard works as products, assessed in terms of performance and income. "Marketplace values," instead of "intangible values," notes Scott. Before audio once again (as in the old days of broadcast radio, with its architecture of gatekeepers and concentrated sources of funding) comes to be all about the survival of the fittest. We owe it to ourselves to take that important next step of ensuring the survival of the best. If we help to empower better listeners, people will make better work.
When thinking about who might fulfill these roles, I of course thought of editors, who do perform this function, albeit for individual works, and presumably do so with some standards in mind. The excellent editor Julia Barton, to whom I put this question, comments: "I do think editors are ideal critics in many way, since when it comes to audio, one has to have a good ear trained to hear the decisions that producers and programmers make (and most importantly, what they leave out of stories, their shortcuts and paths not taken)."
But Barton also makes the salient point that the media industry generally does not seem ready to give elbowroom to a new form of criticism: "Until, say, The New Yorker wants to add an audio critic to its staff, there's just no safe haven for people qualified to do this work. It's a shame, but that's how things currently stand."
Absolutely. But it's worth noting that this situation can change and evolve—indeed, is changing. This essay is being presented on a site for audio fiction, a form that existed in the shadows ten years ago. There was no formal dance criticism in newspapers until the explosion of the field in the 1930s and 1940s made it essential to respond. Then existing critics in other fields (like the New York Times' music critic John Martin) began to learn new languages, and at the same time writers drawn to the newly emerging dance forms began to self-identify, and this is happening, to a modest degree, already in existing print and some online outlets (see below).
It's A Start
There has always been a spotty and vestigial "literature" of radio and audio. There were fanzines in the Golden Age, and the UK publication Radio Times has covered programming for years. But its content is more in the spirit of the TV Guide—fulsome features, rather than criticism. In the realm of public radio in this country, certain shows, by virtue of novelty, excellence, and a critical mass that makes them hard to ignore, have pushed through the ceiling to garner media attention: Prairie Home Companion in its '80s heyday; This American Life; Radiolab; Serial.
Recently, however, The Guardian has begun to publish reviews of individual programs and podcasts its editors seems to feel tap into the zeitgeist. In November 2016, the Arts section of The New York Times ran a feature entitled "11 Fiction Podcasts Worth Listening To," though its one-paragraph encomiums can hardly be considered reviews. In January 2015, The New Yorker, an important cultural bellwether (as Julia Barton indicated in her comment), published an appreciation by Sarah Larson of the NPR program Invisibilia that does address radio as an artform—indeed, it is entitled "Invisibilia and the Evolving Art of Radio." But these are the exceptions that prove the rule, with much of the vast landscape of radio and audio still excluded, and no regular platform for these discussions.
As Devon Taylor reminded me in a peer review of this essay, an encouraging development was the creation, several years ago and now defunct, of The Timbre, an online critical site she co-founded, which specifically aimed to fill the gap between creation and criticism with deep dive podcast reviews. It was, perforce, sui generis, and still not reflective of a shared critical language, but heartening in its assumption that—as in Scott's earlier contention—audio is worthy of this level of attentive listening, regard, and discernment. And while earlier schools of criticism evolved from the traditional cultural essay form, in the realm of print journalism, reviews were often the first step to more mature and nuanced forms of criticism. So efforts of this kind, anywhere, are welcome. Practice makes perfect.
But for these efforts to "take," criticism still needs to happen more comprehensively. Public radio really came into its own when it was simultaneously embraced institutionally at the station level, and a first generation of producers, performers and journalists identified with it as a professional sphere. Audio criticism needs this kind of stimulation.
What Do We Want, Then?
Well, we know (or at least I think we know) what we don't want. We don't want to create monsters, certainly, the sort of windy self-aggrandizers Pope warns against in his Essay on Criticism:
But as the slightest Sketch, if justly trac'd,Is by ill Colouring but the more disgrac'd,So by false Learning is good Sense defac'd.Some are bewilder'd in the Maze of Schools,And some made Coxcombs Nature meant but Fools.In search of Wit these lose their common Sense,And then turn Criticks in their own Defence.Each burns alike, who can, or cannot write,Or with a Rival's or an Eunuch's spite.All Fools have still an Itching to deride,And fain wou'd be upon the Laughing Side;If Maevius Scribble in Apollo's spight,There are, who judge still worse than he can write
Some have at first for Wits, then Poets past,Turn'd Criticks next, and prov'd plain Fools at last;Some neither can for Wits nor Criticks pass,As heavy Mules are neither Horse or Ass.
And we don't want a vast self-justifying reviewing afflatus of the kind that plagues consumer entertainment.
What would be our aspirations for this new realm? Not to practice "meanly" but not to forget, either, that what criticism does is to reaffirm the importance of the thing itself, even if it means we take issue with a particular example. Our field should be inclusive, but our pantheon cannot be, or this is a futile exercise. Otherwise we're all just in one of those kindergarten classes where everyone is a special snowflake, or gets a rosette. Let's have the courage to discern and then we'll have the possibility of a wider platform for excellence without having to either embrace or apologize.
And wouldn't it be good to add another professional dimension to a field that is only beginning to realize that different skills mean different kinds of contributions to the form? In discussions about radio/audio production, in the structure of startup programs, and networks, and in job listings, there is much more emphasis now than there used to be on the separate and interconnected contributions of producers, editors, sound designers, musicians, actors, and how these roles are distinct.
So why shouldn't we also have our Hilton Als, Bernard Berenson, Pauline Kael, A.O. Scott, Susan Sontag, Edmund Wilson?
Our critical language must be organic and fertile; our critics courageous and acute. We tend as a community to be anti-doctrinaire, but maybe we do need at least a little bit doctrine, the way Bill Siemering's visionary National Public Radio Purposes (1970) paved the way for the system. A practice that avoids glibness and vagueness, that goes beyond hype and narcissism, that is rigorous, but embracing, that give us a way of describing things that opens them up and spreads them around. Surely we can do better, for example, than to term the subtle, community-creating, elegant technique of juxtaposing voices in features by the unlovely name of "butt cut"?
Scott says one important job of the critic is to look for "larger ideas." What might those be in our brave new world of critical appreciation? Well, something that moves us, as Keats' Ode to a Grecian Urn urges, to look beyond the physical to the metaphysical. So—to conclude by honoring just one work that I admire hugely—Scott Carrier's "The Test" could be discussed in terms of the existential questions it clearly raises, not just as an adroit and tactful piece of journalism and personal narrative. Pick your own cherished example. Start spreading the news.
Before we become completely commoditized, we owe this to ourselves. We know we offer Truth and Beauty. Let's invite someone else to say so: out loud.
Sarah Montague is an award-winning public radio producer and director of documentary, spoken word, and drama programs, including SELECTED SHORTS, the national broadcast series featuring short fiction in performance, and an award-winning revival of Archibald Macleish's The Fall of the City. She has also produced audio theatre readings and live drama at WNYC's Jerome L. Greene Performance Space. She has contributed features to Morning Edition, On the Media; Only a Game; and Studio 360, and wnyc.org. She is an adjunct professor of culture and media at Eugene Lang College/The New School, where she co-founded the Internet radio station newschoolradio.org. and teaches courses in media, audio theatre, and journalism.


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We believe in conserving our planet and giving fair wages and fair living condition to the people that produce this amazing product.
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- avoidance of synthetic chemical inputs (e.g. fertilizer, pesticides, antibiotics, food additives), irradiation, and the use of sewage sludge;[1]
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You can find out more about Organically Certified and the practice here:
Fair Trade
Fair trade is a social movement whose stated goal is to help producers in developing countries achieve better trading conditions and to promote sustainability. Members of the movement advocate the payment of higher prices to exporters, as well as improved social and environmental standards.
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Dog Days: Dispatches from Bedlam Farm
Dog Days: Dispatches from Bedlam Farm
Jon Katz writes dog stories from the heart. His warm anecdotes of life with multiple animals at Bedlam Farm, in upstate New York, fill the reader with peace. Wrung emotionally and physically from living in the big city, Katz has bought Bedlam Farm and become a gentleman farmer. His choice brings with it new realities. Life on a working sheep farm is a far step from that of an apartment in Brooklyn. His wife Paula, a working woman in her own right, respects her husband's move but does not embrace the radical change for herself. She keeps a home in the city and hibernates to the farm on most weekends.
The reality at Bedlam Farm is that much work needs to be done. Strong border collie stock, led by a dog named Rose, is the heart of the operation. Katz mourns the loss of his first dog-love, Orson, whose tumultuous life is chronicled in A GOOD DOG. Katz makes the best decision for the good of both the farm and the dog when Orson is put down. Orson's memory creeps onto the pages of DOG DAYS but in no way diminishes Katz's love for his remaining animals, of which there are many.
Katz realizes early on that the key to a successful operation is having good people in charge. Trained as a writer, not as a farmer, he sees in Annie DiLeo his strong counterpart. She's compassionate and a balance for his pragmatism. He has the ultimate say, however, when tough decisions are required. When Katz becomes impatient, Annie communicates with the animals. Pearl and Clementine are two lovable Labs, while Rose (and soon Izzy) claims a border collie's right to sheepherding. Elvis, a new arrival to Bedlam Farm, creates a clamor of his own. He's a lumbering piece of flesh, a gigantic, apple-loving Brown Swiss steer. Four donkeys, a herd of sheep, a rooster, chickens and a barn cat complete the menagerie at Bedlam. Katz's limitation is his arthritic back. He finds the feeding, care and clean-up an increasing chore, especially in winter, so Annie's help is a daily welcome.
When Katz receives a phone call from a friend, rescue-person Amy, he's hesitant to respond positively. Katz is drawn to rescue but realizes that it could become a preoccupation. He has helped Amy place a number of animals but has not welcomed one to Bedlam. A farm has sold; puppies need a home as does their parent, a three-year-old border collie named Izzy. Never housebroken, and raised mostly in a caged area outside, the dog's plight tears at Katz's sense of right. Izzy is an out-of-control hurler who thrives on human attention. His first ride in a car is home to Bedlam Farm with Katz. It's to be a temporary solution, but Izzy becomes a permanent fixture there. He even learns from Rose to herd the sheep and becomes quite good at it. According to Katz: "I loved him very much, and he had strongly attached himself to me."
The clever chapter titles mislead. "The Whore of Bedlam" reminds one of saloons and devious living. Katz's whore turns out to be a lovable Labrador named Clementine. By definition, Katz conjectures that a prostitute is one who sells his or her favors. Clem, according to her owner, "will give it up --- anytime, anywhere --- for a sliver of beef jerky." He sees her love of all people not as disloyalty to him but as the quality he loves most about her.
Katz's half-dozen books about animals throw his audience a bone that continues to please. His self-learned expertise on the rigors and joys of owning dogs, sheep, cows, donkeys and smaller farm animals is a story told with ease. I am an avowed Katz fan at present and eagerly anticipate more tales from Bedlam Farm. DOG DAYS is a book to warm the soul when one is weary.
Reviewed by Judy Gigstad on June 26, 2007
Dog Days: Dispatches from Bedlam Farm
- Publication Date: June 26, 2007
- Genres: Nonfiction
- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Villard


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Primer: Dmitrii Mendeleev November 5, 2008Posted by Will Thomas in EWP Primer.
Tags: Dmitrii Mendeleev, Michael Gordin, Stanislao Cannizzaro
Today's Hump-Day History post has been guest written by Michael Gordin of Princeton University, author of A Well-Ordered Thing: Dmitrii Mendeleev and the Shadow of the Periodic Table, and Five Days in August: How World War II Became a Nuclear War. In presenting "The Multiple Biographies of D. I. Mendeleev", Michael has taken the opportunity to explore whether or not we can biographically encapsulate an individual.
Is it possible to write a blog post on the biography of Dmitrii Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834-1907)? This is not just an issue of whether one can shrink the life of any human being, let alone someone with a long life and a string of significant achievements, to under 2,000 words. Even on a broader scale (say 100,000 words), could one really do it? This might seem like a non-serious point, since I have in fact published a book in 2004 on this very same Russian chemist, the man most often credited with the formulation of the periodic system of chemical. The point, however, is serious: can one simply write a biography? Can you break down a person into one single narrative, one which builds up a picture of a story with no axe to grind, no preconceptions, no grand story? Well, you might think you can, but that only means you aren't paying attention. Let me illustrate this with four possible "biographies" of Mendeleev, each based on documented facts from his life, and each with rather different plotlines.
The first biography focuses on the periodic table. The story begins in September 1860, at a congress of chemists gathered in Karlsruhe to discuss the fundamental issues of chemistry. Before the speech of Italian chemist Stanislao Cannizzaro (1826-1910) at that Congress, there were several different systems for correlating atomic weights, with hydrogen typically set equal to 1. Depending on how you measured, and what you considered the chemically "relevant" part of an element in a chemical reaction, you could have carbon equal to 6 or 12, oxygen to 8 or 16, and even elements that had only one atomic weight assigned to them might have some uncertainty about them (for example, uranium was generally believed to weigh 120 hydrogen units; we now think it is closer to double that). Mendeleev, then a postdoctoral student at Heidelberg University, attended the Congress, and he always claimed that Cannizzaro's speech about standardizing atomic weights left a deep impression on him. Shortly after the Congress, atomic weight tables began to increasingly adhere to Cannizzaro's proposals, and by the end of the decade, there were at least five competing periodic systems of chemical elements. All of them used the new atomic weights.
Mendeleev's own periodic system was developed in a distinctly pedagogical context. He returned from Heidelberg to St. Petersburg in February 1861, and began to scramble for any means to earn a living as a chemist. He took basically three approaches to this goal: consulting for industry, teaching at educational institutions, and writing textbooks. His first textbook, Organic Chemistry, was published in Russian in 1861, to local acclaim (he won the 1862 Demidov Prize from the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences for it), but it was soon eclipsed by innovations in the science. He relied more on his job search, and in 1867 he became professor of general chemistry at St. Petersburg University, which meant he had to teach the very large introductory chemistry class. (Part of the reason the class was so large was that enrollment both overall and in the natural sciences faculty in particular ballooned in the 1860s following a series of liberalizing "Great Reforms" promulgated by Tsar Alexander II.) He had to assign a textbook, and his options were either to translate a current text from English, French, or German (which would have been difficult to do and more likely to be obsolete before he was done) or write one in Russian on his own. He decided on the latter course.
The final result, The Principles of Chemistry (Основы химии) appeared in two volumes, the first in 1869, and the second in 1871. The first volume covered hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and four halogens (fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine). Eight elements, leaving fully 56 of 63 elements then known to the following volume. He realized early in 1869, after sending volume 1 to the press, that he needed a better organizational system. His first periodic system was a solution to this dilemma. By organizing the elements into families, he managed to treat the rest of the elements in a coherent and rational manner within the span of a single volume.
The first biography just takes off from there. By 1871, Mendeleev had predicted three elements that were yet undiscovered but which ought to exist to fill the gaps in his system. In 1875 gallium (Mendeleev's eka-aluminum), in 1879 scandium (eka-boron), and in 1886 germanium (eka-silicon) were discovered. By 1882 Mendeleev had shared the Davy Medal of the Royal Society of London with Lothar Meyer for the system, and by the end of the century it was a staple of chemical pedagogy and research — as it has remained ever since. The first biography, thus, is a story that starts low and rises.
The second biography focuses on Mendeleev and the discipline of chemistry in the late nineteenth century. Chemistry starts out triumphant. It achieved coherence in Karlsruhe as the most professional, most organized, most innovative science in Europe (and thus, for people at the time, the world). The 1860s saw coherent systemizations of both organic chemistry (August Kekulé's structure theory) and inorganic chemistry (the periodic system). Everything seemed good. And then physics got in the way. With the discovery of radioactivity in 1896 and the electron in 1897, both of those achievements of chemistry were subsumed into physics by being explained as a consequence of the interaction of subatomic particles.
In this biography, Mendeleev becomes increasingly angry and grumpy. He refused to acknowledge any substructure to atoms, and he resisted both radioactivity and the electron as spurious discoveries, better explained through the interactions of matter with the luminiferous ether (which he also thought he could locate on the periodic system, as the lightest noble gas). Chemistry came to be displaced as the most fundamental science by physics, and Mendeleev remained resolutely a chemist. He died on the cusp of his own great discovery being subsumed by another science. This second biography starts high and declines into disappointment.
The third biography focuses on Mendeleev as a civil servant of the Russian Empire. As a professor at Petersburg University, Mendeleev was a servitor of the Tsars ex officio, and a willing one. From 1863 — when he began consulting with private industry on the exploitation of the Baku oil fields — until his death, Mendeleev worked with the Ministry of Finances, the Ministry of Education, and many other state and non-state organizations on the development of Russia into a modern, capitalist economy. In particular, he was an ardent defender of protectionism as a way to shield fledgling heavy industry within Russia from foreign competition in the early years of its development. A biography centered on Mendeleev as civil servant would track his activities in all of these domains, culminating in his crucial work in composing and then defending the highly protectionist tariff of 1891.
At that moment, Mendeleev was at the peak of his influence in the Ministry of Finances, and his star rose with that of Sergei Witte, the leading architect of Russian industrialization in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Even after he retired from St. Petersburg University (amid some controversy) in 1890, he worked for the Navy developing smokeless gunpowder, and from 1893 to his death was the director of the Chief Bureau of Weights and Measures, charged with standardizing the Russian Empire toward the metric system. The goal had always been to stabilize the autocracy through the turbulent transition to capitalism. The dashing of his hopes for unfettered monarchy with the 1905 Revolution — which instituted the first parliament (Duma) in Russian history — left Mendeleev angry and embittered, especially with his (former) friend Witte's advocacy of this very move. This biography starts low, rises high, and then crashes at the very end.
The fourth biography focuses on Mendeleev as a private individual with his own troubles. Mendeleev's career started auspiciously — the Demidov Prize, the position at Petersburg University, the consulting contracts — but then began to slip in the 1870s. He personally felt frustrated with his new research project, which sought to investigate the behavior of gases under very low pressures in order to attempt to detect the ether, and he was irritated by the popularity of spiritualist séances in the capital. He spent much of the 1870s prosecuting both the failing gas project and the uppity Spiritualists, and collapsed exhausted at the end of the decade with the ultimate insult: his rejection (by one vote) from membership in the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, the pinnacle of the scientific structure of Imperial Russia. (He never did become a member.) He spent the early 1880s in a tumult of distraction: he got divorced and remarried (but not exactly in that order); he abandoned gas work for table-top experiments on solutions; and he nursed his wounds. He emerged in the late 1880s as a heroic figure again, a titan in the popular imagination of what it meant to be a scientist, but the trials of the late 1870s always left their mark on him. This biography starts high, collapses, and then rises like a phoenix from the ashes.
Which of these is the true biography? Well, of course, none is. But we might as well say each one is, because there is no Great White Whale out there of the True Biography that is to be hunted. To pick another cultural metaphor, there is no spoon.
That doesn't mean that Mendeleev didn't exist or that all of the facts of his life are just out there for us to pick and choose. It does mean that we need to recognize that whenever we try to make sense of the past — which is what history is about, after all — we are fundamentally telling stories that emphasize certain features of the documentary flotsam that emerges in archives. We are also deemphasizing others.
It's pretty likely that Mendeleev would have been irritated by the fact that he won't have a single biography written of him. He could, on the other hand, be encouraged by the fact that we can write many. As many stories as there are people willing to write them.
- 1. Bits and pieces « Evolving Thoughts - May 24, 2009
[…] Wave has a nice guest article by Michael Gordin on the biographies of Mendeleev. I count him as the founder of etiological […]
- 2. Eric Robert Scerri - June 10, 2011
Thanks for an interesting perspective Michael. I think you did an excellent job of blending your four versions in your book on Mendeleev. I suppose we all have good and bad periods and it's not essential for a biographer to commit themselves on a clear trajectory in the life of the person they are depicting. Not that I have ever undertaken the writing of a biography.
all the best,
Eric Scerri, The Periodic Table, Its Story and Its Significance, Oxford University Press, 2007. http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Chemistry/?view=usa&ci=9780195305739
UCLA faculty website: http://faculty.chemistry.ucla.edu/institution/personnel?personnel_id=294334
- 3. Bits and pieces – Evolving Thoughts - June 21, 2018
[…] Wave has a nice guest article by Michael Gordin on the biographies of Mendeleev. I count him as the founder of etiological […]


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Rational SelfCooking Centre SCC62g
£10,073.79 Ex VAT
£12,088.55 Inc VAT
Stylish and intelligent, this Rational SelfCooking Centre SCC62g boasts a wide range of self-cooking and combi oven modes for different foods and cooking styles.
Ideal for high-output restaurants and food services with a variety of dishes, the CalcDiagnosis and Carecontrol intelligent cleaning process identify limescale build-up and maximise operational reliability.
The delay start function also provides the opportunity to prepare in advance, removing the need to monitor the cooking process and enhancing the operation of your business.
1/1 and 2/1 gastronorm compatible options are also included.
• Product features
• Capacity 6x 2/1GN
• Dimensions 782(H) x 1069(W) x 971(D)mm
• Material Stainless steel
• Output 60-160 meals per day
• Power Type 28kW, 1.6A, single phase
• Supplier Model Number NO-0118300.30
• Temperature Range 30°C to 130°C (steam), 30°C to 300°C (dry heat & combination)
• Voltage 230V
• Warranty 2 Years Parts & Labour
• Weight 169.5kg
• 9 unique selfcooking & 3 combi modes
• 6 point IQT sensor
• CalcDiagnosis® system identifies limescale build-up
• Carecontrol intelligent cleaning process maximises operational reliability
• Delay start function
• 1/2 energy saving function
• Full HACCP download function
• Banqueting/finishing modes


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01 Aug
The oil and gas industry relies heavily on pipelines to transport fuel. This is particularly true now, as the domestic energy boom continues to heat up and place additional demand on existing infrastructure. However, some stakeholders are beginning to learn that this can cause problems.
For example, the Associated Press reports that flooding and erosion have exposed pipelines along the Tamarac River in Minnesota. The pipelines, operated by Enbridge Corporation, carry crude oil from Canada across the state. Now that they are exposed, some experts believe that the risk of a leak is significantly elevated.
The trouble is that even if a leak occurs, it can be difficult to identify the problem and pinpoint its location with accuracy. Pipelines are quite lengthy, and inspecting them can be time consuming. That's why researchers at MIT have developed a robotic system that can check for pipe leaks automatically.
According to an article released by the MIT News Office, the new system senses pressure changes with high accuracy, and can sense leaks as small as 1 to 2 millimeters. This is a far cry from previous leak detection methods that rely on acoustic tests, which work reasonably well on metal pipes but are ineffective on plastic, which quickly dissipates sound.
An improved detection system could prevent oil pipelines from experiencing toxic spills and natural gas pipelines from exploding. It is in the best interest of the energy industry to invest in this area and working with an environmental consultant can help stakeholders utilize this technology in the most effective manner.


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Tracy Harris
Rockhound Brewery owner Nate Warnke is prepping for a March opening.
Rockhound Brewing prepping for March opening
Construction is moving along at Madison's newest brewpub. Rockhound Brewing is planning to open in early March at 444 S. Park Street. Owner Nate Warnke says his brewing equipment will be installed over the next couple of weeks, and finishing touches on the bar and restaurant's 1,800 square feet are nearly completed.
Warnke has over a dozen recipes already figured out and is just waiting for the brewhouse to become operational. He'll start with a stout, a porter, a pale ale, an IPA and possibly a farmhouse ale.
An Indiegogo campaign has over $5,700 in pledges, nearly twice what Warnke expected. That should help with the final push to open the pub. Warnke is also selling lifetime mug club memberships, which offer perks like discounts on beer, food and advance tastings of new beers.
Viking begins in-house brewing
The brew kettle is running hot at Viking Brewpub in Stoughton. Viking opened in summer 2014, and had relied on the House of Brews in Madison to make its core beers. With the installation of its equipment finally completed in late 2015, it started making its own beers in-house.
Local homebrewer David Worth of Stoughton is doing the brewing. Worth has won many local homebrew competitions, including the 2014 Grumpy Troll Challenge for his German schwarzbier. Worth brews part-time for Viking and holds down a second job in medical equipment sales.
Robin Shepard
Viking's beers are now made in-house.
Among the beers currently on tap at Viking are Nordic Blonde lager, a holiday spiced amber called Jule Ale, Land Ahoy American pale ale, Soot in My Eye Black IPA, and Winter Wonderland Warmer (a doppelbock).
Also on tap is one of Worth's signature beers, a variation on an imperial-strength saison called Norsk, to which he adds fruits like yuze (which is similar to grapefruit), lime and passion fruit to different batches.
Later this year Worth, who says he likes bold flavors, plans to offer a spruce ale, a chocolate porter, a chocolate peanut butter porter and a mango wheat beer. "If it's a chocolate porter it's going to taste like chocolate," he says.
Beer to watch for
If you like Russian imperial stouts, you're in luck. Both Next Door Brewing and One Barrel Brewing have their own takes on the style. Next Door is offering a rye version called Vampire Cosmonaut, while One Barrel's Ya Gotova, aged in Old Sugar Distillery whiskey barrels, falls on the sweeter side. Both finish strong at over 9.5% ABV.


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The Most Powerful Image From Last Week's DNC Is This America Made Of Guns
Though both were massive successes — the DNC and Rock The Vote's Truth To Power at 10th & Spring Garden — it's hard to say which event last week featured more people actually getting shit done. Across a week's worth of panels, talks, performances and activities, Truth To Power got to something neither party is getting, to their eternal detriment — that young people are active, are engaged with the political sphere on a massive and emotional level. It's just that what they've got to say scares the shit out of the political establishment.
And it's not always said with words. Consider perhaps the most powerful piece of the concurrent Truth To Power pop-up art exhibit: Michael Murphy's Identity Crisis, pictured above. The artist says the following about it, and we'll let him have the last word here.
"Identity Crisis is about the United States rooting its image in violence and intimidation. By persistently sustaining the largest military in the world we have accepted violence as a our primary solution; being not only viewed as the strongest country but also occupying this role is fundamental to Americans' national identity . In order for taxpayers to support funding the military, militarization must first be normalized in our homes, on our streets, and in our backyards. Once violence is normalized as a part of everyday life, it is a only short step to accepting violence as an inherent facet of human existence. Which in turn allows the excuse for our government's continual murder of civilians at home and abroad."


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Whether or not you had an inadvertent overnight guest, take a few minutes and flap some jacks this morning. Pancakes aren't complicated, and if you make them a semi-regular part of your morning routine (say, perhaps, a weekend tradition) you'll find you know the formula by heart in no time. I threw some bananas into the mix, but if you don't have any on hand, skip 'em. Pancakes ahoy!
- 2 Bananas
- 1 Egg
- 1/2 cup Milk (alternatives will work)
- 2 tablespoons Brown Sugar
- 1 tablespoon Safflower Oil
- 1/2 teaspoon Salt
- 1/2 cup Corn Grits
- 1/2 cup Millet Flour
- 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
- Mash bananas in bowl, whisk in egg, milk, sugar, oil, and salt.
- Stir in grits, millet flour, and baking powder.
- Heat griddle over medium-high flame and ladle batter onto surface.
- Cook pancakes for 2-3 minutes, until bubbles appear around edges, then flip.
- Cook for another 2 minutes, then remove to plate and enjoy.


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The network rankings told us a lot about the inadequacies of speculation dominant in other approaches, as well as the dangers of formal models based on limited and incomparable observations. This ranking has never placed USC, Alabama, Oregon, or Kansas State at #1 (yet) not because it is a predictive genius, but because the evidence was simply never consistent with media hype.
As a comparison going into this week:
BCS: Kansas State #1, Oregon #2
AP Poll: Oregon #1, Kansas State #2
Coaches Poll: Oregon #1, Kansas State #2
Network Rankings: Oregon #5, Kansas State #8
Let's be clear, no one could have predicted what happened on Saturday with Oregon and Kansas State. In the pdf explanation linked below, I am very explicit that the rankings are not intended to make predictions and attempting to predict is the problem with the other approaches. What it does tell us is that rankings based on speculation are dangerous and inaccurate. However, what the Network Rankings show is that based on the evidence going into this weekend, Oregon and Kansas State had not demonstrated they were #1 and #2.
The BCS Rankings released later today will most likely have Notre Dame #1 and Alabama #2, which are what the Network Rankings had last week and this week (Ohio State isn't bowl eligible). The Network Rankings have had Notre Dame #1 or #2 since the first week all the teams in the FBS were connected to one another by wins and losses (Week 7).
- I've gotten some great question from people about how this all works and I'll keep addressing them. Keep the questions coming. One of the motivations for doing this is the lack of transparency in existing approaches. This ranking is intended to be both conceptually and methodologically simple and clear to anyone interested in college football.
- Why do you get extra points just because you've played more games? Shouldn't you standardize the ranking by games played? This is a question sparked by my comment a few weeks back that Ohio State had played one more game than other top ranked teams resulting in a slightly higher ranking, and other teams were likely to catch up after Ohio State's bye week. Methodologically, this isn't inherently a bad idea, and something I've thought about a lot. My answer at the moment, however, is no. The underlying rationale behind the rankings is to base a rank purely upon a team's body of work. The value of the approach is it uses the network of wins and losses between teams in the FBS to determine the relative value of each team's "work". If you've won more games, you've done more work, and your ranking should reflect that additional work scaled by the quality of the teams you defeated (which is in turn determined by their "work", see the pdf). To be clear, the number next to each team is the "average reciprocal distance" across the network of wins minus the network of losses - an indicator of how central a team is in the web of college football victories - or in other words, their total body of work.
- Well, what about conference championships? The above answers the conference championship question. If you are in a conference that has a conference championship, and you win it, you should be ranked higher. Why? You've done more work and you've earned it - and that's the point of this exercise. I doubt anyone would say that if you are forced to play one more game than everyone else and that game is against a team like Alabama or Georgia and you win it, that somehow that game shouldn't count.
- What about FCS victories or losses? This is also a great question. To my knowledge, all of the rankings essentially ignore FCS games. The conceptual reason is pretty simple, the purpose of the ranking is to determine the best team in the FBS, and so the ranking is limited to FBS games. Alabama doesn't win anything for crushing the Catamounts. So if the goal is to rank FBS teams, this is fine. If a team loses to an FCS team, yes, they should be punished severely, and by ignoring FCS teams we're not capturing that. But in practice, this is rare, and more importantly it is unlikely to effect anything as a team that loses to an FCS team is probably going to lose to a lot of FBS teams in their regular schedule. So, we're alright considering these games irrelevant exhibition activities. That said, I'm not conceptually opposed to an undertaking where the goal is to create a full ranking of all college football teams, where every game, regardless of division, is an interesting piece of evidence. Hypothetically speaking, if we were to do this, I'm sure there are a number of FCS teams that are better than the bottom ranked FBS, and it would be fun to see how that breaks down. But, if we're going to be non-arbitrary, we'd have to go a few steps further. FCS teams schedule I-AA teams, so we'd have to include them under the same logic of including FCS teams because they're scheduled by FBS teams. I-AA teams schedule I-AAA teams, so we'd have to include them as well. Before you know it, we now have hundreds of football teams in our ranking, from Alabama to the Rhodes College Lynx-cats. I think this would be a fun exercise, but unless someone wants to fund this project enough to hire a few people to code all the wins and losses each weekend, I don't have the time on Sundays to do it myself. Time constraints aside, it is extremely unlikely (if not impossible) that it would meaningfully effect the top 25 teams in the FBS.
Explanation: A Simple and Fair Ranking Based on Wins and Losses
Top 25 (Full Rankings)
Each team's value of wins minus value of losses in parentheses.
- Notre Dame (51.37)
- Ohio State (44.36)
- Alabama (44.02)
- Florida (43.44)
- Georgia (40.25)
- Texas A&M (38.83)
- South Carolina (37.93)
- Mississippi State (31.91)
- Oregon (27.33)
- Stanford (26.26)
- Kansas State (24.85)
- Oklahoma (22.88)
- Oregon State (22.87)
- Texas (20.59)
- Nebraska (19.37)
- Clemson (18.18)
- Michigan (17.97)
- Arizona (17.41)
- Rutgers (17.03)
- Iowa State (16.77)
- Washington (16.21)
- San Jose State (14.69)
- Baylor (14.58)


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Amazing quotes and images
Love Quotes
Motivation for Success – Another Quote
"You must be very patient, very persistent. The world isn't going to shower gold coins on you just because you have a good idea. You're going to have to work like crazy to bring that idea to the attention of people. They're not going to buy it unless they know about it." – Herb Kelleher
"Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals." – Jim Rohn
2 thoughts on "Motivation for Success – Another Quote"
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Amazing quotes and images


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I beg and really caution every pious Christian not to be offended by the simplicity of the language and stories encountered there, but fully realize that, however simple they may seem, these are the very words, works, judgments, and deeds of the majesty, power, and wisdom of the most high God.
For these are the Scriptures which make fools of all the wise and understanding, and are open only to the small and simple, as Christ says in Matthew 11:25.
Therefore, dismiss your own opinions and feelings, and think of the Scriptures as the loftiest and noblest of holy things, as the richest of mines which can never be sufficiently explored, in order that you may find that divine wisdom which God lays here before you in such simple guise as to quench all pride.
Here you find the swaddling cloths and the manger in which Christ lies, and to which the angel points the shepherds (Luke 2:12). Simply and lowly are these swaddling cloths, but dear is the treasure, Christ, who lies in them."


text: I've picked up a couple of nice awards recently with two Silvers at the Australian Professional Photography Awards (APPA's) and best image from the recently held Strand Ephemera outdoor sculpture exhibition. Thanks to Stephen Lane and Katrina Logan for letting me throw green paint at them in my studio. I don't often enter awards but I must say its nice to receive some recognition and its given me a boost to have a crack at the awards again next year.


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Epic Fails : Job
Do you ever look at some people's lives--a co-worker, family member, neighbor--and convince yourself their grass is greener? You witness God's blessings on their life, marriage, family, and job, all the while wishing you could have the same favor. I've done that a few times--or a lot--in keeping up with the Jones' and chances are you have as well. I can't help but think many people looked at Job and use to have these same thoughts.
Job had it all: the large family, comfortable lifestyle, cushy bank account, respect in the community. Job seemed to have the favor of God in his life, and indeed, he did. In fact, in the very first verse of Job we learn so much about his character.
Job was blessed because his heart was in the right place--focused on God. He was a man known for his character and passion for God, even when no one was looking. If the Bible credits him with such words he was no doubt a man of integrity both in front of and behind the curtains.
Most of us know the story of Job and the long-suffering he endured. As it goes, Satan was at the throne of God and God points out the character of Job. It's incredible to read how God pointed out this man and yet sad to hear true commitment to God was so rare. Satan comes back and says that of course Job is upright because he hasn't had to suffer. So God allows Satan to test Job, to in fact prove his commitment to God, up to the point of death. So Satan goes to work.
Satan takes away all of Job's property and children [his legacy]. That would be devasting to anyone and certainly push may of us to the brink. But Job holds firm to God in the darkest of hours. It doesn't stop there either; Satan then proceeds to do the worse he can to Job physically so he covers Job in very painful boils all over his body. I cringe when I read that he uses broken pottery to scrape at the sores.
Job would be in this dark place for a while and people would try to discourage him along the way. His wife tells him to curse God. His friends tell him there must be some sin in his life to experience such turmoil. For much of the trial Job tries with all his might to hold true to God. But as many of us have done, we've broken under the weight of our trial.
I've shared my own experience of hitting rock bottom and trying the world's way of healing many times; I tried so hard to hold on to what I knew about God and under the pressure I cracked. I look back and wish I had stayed true that month I gave up, but I did learn so much from it and hope I can choose differently in the future.
Job has a breaking point and he calls God out, asking for an opportunity in court to take up his cause because he felt God had dealt with him unjustly. God goes into this eloquent comeback that how could Job be His equal in court if he cannot comprehend all that God has done. I could go on about this, but for the sake of time, Job realizes his sin and repents with great conviction.
You and I don't and won't have all the answers. You will go through seasons or experience situations you don't understand in that moment so your faith will be required of you. When understanding runs out faith makes its greatest appearance. Take what you know about God--that He is always good, that He has a bigger plan in the works, that He loves you--and rest in that knowledge. It doesn't mean things will immediately get better but it will carry you through the trial.
Job was upright and passionate about God, but he still had so much he could learn about his mighty God and had a greater intimacy to still experience. He found that in the storm. And when he came out of that storm, God blessed Job more than ever before.
Hold tight, my dear friend. God has not forgotten you and He will not forsake you. Our God is always good and because He loves you, will weave every moment of your life into a beautiful tapestry.
Have you experienced your own moments of questioning God? How did you deal with it and how would you respond differently in the future?
Do you believe God is good and loves you? Spend some time in prayer reflecting on HIs awesomeness and intimate love for you.