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Change the way you work – what does this actually mean?
I often use the phrase " we need to change the way we work " when I respond to conversations about solving problems in the workplace, especially regarding cyber threats, team collaboration or improving communication between teams and clients. The phrase itself, however, is very broad, with a variety of meanings, which brings about the question about its true meaning.
One is limited with what one can say in a social media thread, which is why I wrote this article to explain myself in more detail. When I get asked to explain myself, I can simply reply with the link to this article.
The chances are good you have been a recipient of one of these very links. If so, thanks for clicking through, I sincerely hope I give you the answers you seek.
Change the way you work. What does this mean?
What exactly is it that needs changing? Well, firstly, a simple change in the way you do things won't help much. A paradigm shift in the way you think is required to inherit a mindset of continuous improvement, a deep desire to do things better. In my mind, this is when innovation takes place – when you start doing things better than you've been doing them before. It was this line of thinking that lead to the birth to our slogan – " Work Better " ( the short version ) and " A Better Way To Work " ( the longer version ).
I used to think of this new way of working as the " Future of Work ", however, with the launch of ydox 2 ALASKA approaching, it is no longer the future of work. We are already there.
It is the present.
ydox allows you to improve the way you work, right now.
To get back to the topic, what does it mean to work better?
I have asked this question to various people and my consolidated results are fascinating, to such an extent that it gave me absolute certainty that what I have set out to achieve with ydox will, in fact, change the way people work.
My findings in this article is a result of working with professionals from various skill sets, executive levels and industries from South Africa, Europe, Australia, USA and the United Kingdom.
Here is my conclusion on what it means to " Change the way you work " and effectively " Working Better ".
- Centralised and connected working
- Automating processes and workflows
- Instant access to information
- Efficient Teamwork
- Better Security and less risk
- Consolidated Communication
- Real-time Collaboration and Co-Working
- Less time spent on email
- Effective Remote Working
- A single version of files
- Third party integrations
- Saving Time
- Go paperless
From the workshops and brainstorm sessions, the end goal of "Working Better" is a more connected and efficient workforce in order to increase revenue and maximise profit margins.
Before I go into detail on the above, I want to present you with the value proposition of ydox first. Understand what ydox is first so that you can see the critical role ydox plays in "changing the way you work".
ydox is all your work, in one safe place. It is where you share and safeguard your files & work, co-author and sign documents while having critical company information at your fingertips. All work communication takes place in ydox – notifications, reminders, instant messaging, voice & video calling & digital conference meetings and feedback from clients on service deliverables. Notes, thoughts, ideas and minutes get captured on a digital whiteboard where everyone participates.
ydox creates a more connected & efficient workforce that drives exceptional results. Transparent client feedback transforms digital conversations, into actionable, measurable & audit-able task boards.
Your people, their work, their ideas, their communication, the mind of your company – all in the palm of your hand.
Project discussions, files, agreements, designs, spreadsheets, announcements: they all live together in the safety of ydox. With your team, work and information in one safe & easily searchable place, remote working is like working in the same room.
ydox is all of your business, in one safe place – accessible from anywhere in the world.
Centralised and connected working.
Work today is scattered all over the workplace and sometimes even outside of it. An organisation's work exists across multiple devices, local and cloud storage facilities and mailboxes. Some companies have storerooms filled with physical folders and documents and some even have remote locations for physical storage, either in the same city or another.
ydox consolidates every aspect of work and brings it all together into the same room, including the people. All the stakeholders of a business – connected in ways they have never worked before. Company employees can access company information and work from any device, anywhere in the world. Management can pick up a friend's laptop, log in to their own secure ydox account and have access to all the work they need, right at their fingertips. It makes no difference where in the world you are. If you don't have a laptop, a mobile phone will do just fine.
Automating processes and workflows
When it comes to processes, most of them are manual and driven by people. ydox allows you to automate the flow of documents and the communication around it, from the creation and co-authoring of documents to automating the approval process and closing off with digital signing. In many more ways, ydox automates your workflows and keeps the user activity trail for auditing purposes. Nothing happens without anyone knowing about it.
Instant access to information
Company files, communication threads between employees and clients, notes, chats call logs and user activity are all available to management staff at arm's length, from any device via a secure login, changing work in a big way. In fact, it revolutionises work.
The younger generation has instant gratification built into their DNA, therefore this new way of working allows teams of all sizes to work the way they were born to work. Instant access to whatever they need to get the job done in the most efficient way.
Imagine how this impacts client satisfaction?
Efficient Teamwork
Getting people to work in a team is one thing, but getting a team to work efficiently is an entirely different feat. ydox allow teams to work together in a much more connected way. Team members can see the communication threads between clients and other team members and everyone is aware of what is going on at any given time. Having a team on the same page, especially where remote workers are involved is gold in this day and age of remote working.
Better Security and less risk
The enterprise-grade security of ydox combined with the security processes to secure the way people use the platform makes it one of the safest work tools in the world today. It is one of the few work tools with end-to-end file encryption at rest and during transit. With most communication between employees and clients happening inside of ydox behind closed, secure doors, the need for email decreases. All the risk that email poses to a business can be mitigated by effectively using a tool like ydox for communication between business stakeholders.
Consolidated Communication
I briefly touched on this earlier, but just to reiterate, communication in an organisation is scattered between many people, devices and inboxes. Finding a mail in a large inbox is like searching for a needle in a haystack. ydox keeps all communication boxed in, secure and easy to search and easy to manage. Everyone on the team that needs access to certain levels of communication has it, at their fingertips. Imagine how this will impact the gap in communication when staff go on leave or better yet – resign. It won't have any impact, as all communication is in one secure place, categorised and easy to find with state of the art platform-wide tagging, pinning and search tools.
Real-time Collaboration and Co-Working
Our integration with Microsoft's Office 365 has changed the way our users work with files. You can open and edit Office files if you have an Office365 license. Secondly, multiple people can open the same file and co-work on it, with live viewing of the other's changes, while having an audio or video call to talk about the work at the same time. I absolutely love this. It really has such a great impact on the efficiency and quality of work. Mailing a document, waiting for the recipient to read and make edits and receiving back the file takes time. Repeat this cycle again and you end up with 4 versions of the file. With ydox, you connect on one call, discuss the changes, do them in real time while both participants are looking at the exact same file. This gives you one version of the file behind secure doors and you're done in just a few minutes.
Less time spent on email
This might sound a bit repetitive, but it is an important point. Email is a big threat to business and that will never change. I don't believe the cyber threats can be resolved with tech as threats evolve faster than the solutions. The right way of solving this is taking the critical communication and handling of sensitive files outside of email and safekeeping it in the secure environment of a platform like ydox.
Actively using ydox for business communication can remove 80% of your need for email, that in itself is an 80% drop in your cyber risk and a massive time saver.
What cybersecurity software can match this?
Effective Remote Working
Remote working is a topic for another day – one that is already covered on our blog, click here.
The reality is that remote working is a real thing, and ydox superchargers the effectiveness of remote working by bringing all business stakeholder into the same room – digitally. With ydox, you can run teams of hundreds from remote destinations and be more effective than having everyone in the same office. Yes, there are many communication tools out there, but not one that has all of your company inside it too.
Single version of files
By keeping one version of the file in ydox for everyone to view, share and edit, you have one true version of the file and not 6 different versions in mailboxes across the office. Sending off the wrong file to a client or signing an outdated version is a common problem in offices around the world. With ydox, this is impossible. One file, one version and relax, you have access to all the historical versions of that file just in case you need it.
Third party integrations
Companies work with many tech tools to solve various organisational problems. It is the vision of ydox to integrate with the tools you already use to make life easier for you. An integrated workplace rather than a scattered, disconnected workforce.
Saving Time
There are various ways in which you save time with ydox. Effective working, clients having instant access to files, instant digital conference meetings, converting audio meeting notes to text files in seconds, sharing files and notes with clients to co-author and collaborate. The list of time-saving aspects is long. Time is money, and saving time can increase profits.
Go paperless
With the entire document process living in ydox, from creation to signature, why the need for print. We are currently running a few case studies on how some of our users are taking their companies paperless. One of them being a law firm which is one of the most paper-heavy industries in the world. Paperless. This is innovation.
The true meaning of innovation and entrepreneurship is not building a new business or creating something new, but rather to simplify things that already exist and doing them significantly better. Uber did not introduce anything new to the world, but they significantly changed the way we use public transport.
I believe that a platform like ydox allows a company to work significantly better, by empowering workers with the tools they need to change the way they work, significantly.
ydox – a better way to work.
Try ydox with your team for free
No matter your role or job title, ydox can help you work better in ways you have never imagined.
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This work describes a fluorescence microscopy-based method for the study of platelet adhesion, spreading, and secretion under flow. This versatile platform enables the investigation of platelet function for mechanistic research on thrombosis and hemostasis.
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Barendrecht, A. D., Verhoef, J. J. F., Pignatelli, S., Pasterkamp, G., Heijnen, H. F. G., Maas, C. Live-cell Imaging of Platelet Degranulation and Secretion Under Flow. J. Vis. Exp. (125), e55658, doi:10.3791/55658 (2017).
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Blood platelets are essential players in hemostasis, the formation of thrombi to seal vascular breaches. They are also involved in thrombosis, the formation of thrombi that occlude the vasculature and injure organs, with life-threatening consequences. This motivates scientific research on platelet function and the development of methods to track cell-biological processes as they occur under flow conditions.
A variety of flow models are available for the study of platelet adhesion and aggregation, two key phenomena in platelet biology. This work describes a method to study real-time platelet degranulation under flow during activation. The method makes use of a flow chamber coupled to a syringe-pump setup that is placed under a wide-field, inverted, LED-based fluorescence microscope. The setup described here allows for the simultaneous excitation of multiple fluorophores that are delivered by fluorescently labeled antibodies or fluorescent dyes. After live-cell imaging experiments, the cover glasses can be further processed and analyzed using static microscopy (i.e., confocal microscopy or scanning electron microscopy).
Platelets are anucleate cells that circulate in the blood stream. Their main function is to seal vascular breaches at sites of injury and to prevent blood loss. At these sites of injury, subendothelial collagen fibers become exposed and are subsequently covered by the multimeric protein, von Willebrand factor (VWF). VWF interacts with the platelets in circulation in a mechanism that depends upon the glycoprotein Ibα-IX-V complex on the cell surface1, slowing down the speed of the platelets. This is particularly important at high shear rates. The platelets subsequently undergo morphological changes while receiving activating impulses from collagen. This leads to irreversible spreading and eventually to platelet aggregation. Both processes depend upon the secretion of granule contents to facilitate platelet-platelet crosstalk. Amongst others, platelet α-granules contain fibrinogen and VWF to assist platelet adhesion and to bridge platelets together in an integrin-dependent manner. The platelet-dense granules contain inorganic compounds2, including calcium and adenosine diphosphate (ADP), which help to reinforce platelet activation. Furthermore, platelets contain mediators of (allergic) inflammation3, complement-controlling proteins4, and angiogenesis factors5,6, raising the questions of whether and how these contents are differentially released under varying conditions.
Since the 1980s, the study of platelet function in flow models has been valuable to the investigation of thrombotic mechanisms7. Since then, much technical progress has been made, and flow models that include fibrin formation are currently developed to assay the hemostatic potential of therapeutic platelet concentrates ex vivo8 or to investigate the influence of disturbances in shear rates on thrombus morphology9. The differences in the molecular and cell-biological mechanisms that drive stable adhesion and physiological thrombus formation (hemostasis) versus pathological thrombus formation (thrombosis) may be very subtle and motivate the development of flow models that allow for the real-time visualization of these subcellular processes.
An example of a process for which such a setup would be valuable is the (re)distribution of intracellular polyphosphate and the recruitment of clotting factors to uncover the time-dependent impact that this has on fibrin ultrastructure10. Studies are often limited to end-point analyses. The main aim of the described method is to enable the real-time visual investigation of dynamic subcellular processes that take place during platelet activation under flow.
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The local Medical Ethical Committee of the University Medical Center Utrecht approved the drawing of blood for ex vivo research purposes, including those of this study.
1. Solution Preparation
- Prepare a 4-(2-hydroxyethyl)-1-piperazineethanesulfonic acid (HEPES) Tyrode's buffer by dissolving 10 mM HEPES, 0.5 mM Na2HPO4, 145 mM NaCl, 5 mM KCl, 1 mM MgSO4, and 5.55 mM D-glucose in distilled water.
- Make two variants of the buffer: set the pH levels at 6.5 and at 7.4, respectively. Make fresh buffer for each day of experiments. Supplement with 10 ng/mL prostacyclin where indicated.
- Prepare TRIS-buffered saline (TBS) by dissolving 50 mM Tris and 150 mM NaCl in distilled water and adjust the pH to 9.0.
- Prepare acid citrate dextrose (ACD) by dissolving 85 mM Tri-sodium citrate, 71 mM citric acid, and 111 mM D-glucose in distilled water.
- Prepare a fixative solution by adding 2% (v/v) paraformaldehyde (PFA) to HEPES Tyrode's buffer, pH 7.4. Heat to dissolve (50 - 70 °C) and set the pH to 7.4. Aliquot and store at -20 °C. Thaw at 37 °C before use.
- Prepare blocking buffer by dissolving 1% (m/v) human serum albumin (HSA) in HEPES Tyrode's buffer, pH 7.4
- Make a polyvinyl alcohol solution by adding 4.8 g of polyvinyl alcohol to 12 g of glycerol and mix well. Add 12 mL of distilled water and leave it on a rotator at room temperature overnight.
- Add 24 mL of 0.2 M Tris-HCL, pH 8.5. Heat to 50 °C while mixing for 30 min. Add 1.25 g of 1,4-diazabicyclo[2.2.2]octane (DABCO) and mix well. Centrifuge at 1,500 x g for 5 min. Aliquot the supernatant (1 mL is sufficient for 15-20 slides) and store at -20 °C. Use the aliquots once.
2. Cover Glass Preparation
- Degrease cover glasses (25 x 50 mm2) by incubating overnight in undiluted chromosulfuric acid. Rinse the cover glasses with distilled water and dry them overnight at 60 °C in an oven.
- Adhere a strip of a paraffin film (10 x 15 cm2) on top of a laboratory bench with a drop of water and remove the air by smoothing the paraffin film. Pipette 80 µL drops of 10 µg/mL VWF or 100 µg/mL fibrinogen onto the paraffin film. Place the glasses onto the drops; the protein solution will spread between the two surfaces to cover the whole back side of the glass. Incubate for 1.5 h at room temperature (RT).
- Remove the paraffin film and block the cover glasses by placing them, with the coated side up in a 4-well plate with blocking buffer. Incubate for 1 h at 37 °C or overnight at 4 °C. As a control, block a cover glass that has not been coated with VWF or fibrinogen.
3. Preparation of Platelet-rich Plasma (PRP)
- Collect citrated whole blood (final concentration: 0.32% sodium citrate (M/V)) by venipuncture.
- Centrifuge the blood for 15 min at 160 x g and RT without brake. Collect the supernatant (i.e., the PRP) with a plastic Pasteur pipette.
NOTE: After centrifugation, three layers can be observed (from top to bottom): PRP, white blood cells, and red blood cells. Make sure not to include the white and red cells. Typically, 3 mL of PRP can be collected after centrifuging of a 9-mL blood tube.
- Continue to section 4 if the experiment will be performed with washed platelets. If PRP is desired, continue with the next step.
- After PRP collection, centrifuge the remainder of the blood (containing the red cell pellet) again for 10 min at 2,000 x g without brake. Collect the supernatant containing the platelet-poor plasma (PPP).
NOTE: Typically, 2 mL can be collected after this second centrifugation step.
- Count the number of the platelets in the PRP on a cell analyzer and dilute it with the PPP (step 3.4) to a concentration of 150,000 platelets/µL.
NOTE: The total volume of diluted PRP depends on the platelet count of the donor. Platelet counts vary widely between donors, and PRP dilution requires assessment on an individual basis. Platelet counts are considered normal when within 150,000 and 450,000 platelets/µL.
- Continue to section 5.
4. Preparation of Washed Platelets
- Determine the mean platelet volume (MPV) in the PRP using a cell analyzer.
NOTE: This is an indicator of platelet pre-activation11. A normal MPV for resting platelets is 7.5-11.5 fL11. The MPV should not increase by more than 1.5 fL during the platelet washing procedure.
- Add a 1/10 volume of ACD to PRP to prevent platelet pre-activation and centrifuge for 15 min at 400 x g and RT without brake. Remove the supernatant and re-suspend the pellet carefully in HEPES Tyrode's buffer, pH 6.5, to the original volume of PRP.
- Thaw an aliquot of prostacyclin by adding TBS to a concentration of 10 µg/mL; keep it on ice.
- To prevent platelet activation, add prostacyclin at a final concentration of 10 ng/mL to the re-suspended platelets and immediately centrifuge for 15 min at 400 x g and RT without brake. Remove the supernatant and re-suspend the pellet carefully in HEPES Tyrode's buffer, pH 7.4.
- Count the number of platelets (step 3.5) and determine the change in MPV (step 4.1) (the MPV should not change more than 1.5 fL).
- Adjust the number of platelets with HEPES Tyrode's buffer, pH 7.4, to a concentration of 150,000 platelets/µL. Leave the platelets to recover for 30 min at RT prior to the experiments. Use washed platelets for experiments within 4 h after isolation.
5. Flow Chamber Assembly
NOTE: These experiments make use of an in-house developed flow chamber12. A variety of commercially produced flow chambers can be used, as long as they can hold a cover glass, which preferentially is removable for further analyses. The flow chamber used for the described experiments is made from poly(methyl methacrylate) to precisely fit a microscope insert stage. It contains an inlet and outlet (Figure 1A-C; 1, 2), as well as a vacuum connection (Figure 1A and C; 3). A customized silicone sheet (Figure 1A and D; 4) is placed on top. Two cut-outs form vacuum channels (Figure 1A and D; 5) to attach the cover glass (Figure 1A; 6) tightly to the chamber. A central cut-out forms the flow channel (Figure 1A and D; 7; 2.0 mm width and 0.125 mm height). The inlet and outlet are connected to the flow channel, and the vacuum is connected to the vacuum channel.
- Cover the top of the flow chamber with distilled water and place the customized silicone sheet with the smooth side down on the water. Float the sheet into position by removing excess water while keeping the sheet in position.
NOTE: This silicone sheet is re-usable (silicone is known for its inert properties); generally, platelets have not been observed to attach to it. The sheets can be cleaned with detergent and re-used until the material becomes damaged (i.e., tearing, especially in the area between channels). Generally, a sheet can be used for 20 days with multiple experiments per day.
- Incubate the flow chamber for 1 h at 60 °C to evaporate the residual water to firmly adhere the silicone sheet to the flow chamber.
- With a plastic Pasteur pipette, add a drop of HEPES Tyrode's buffer, pH 7.4, onto the flow channel. Place the cover glass (see section 2) with the coated side down, onto the flow channel. Attach the vacuum pump to the vacuum connection (Figures 1A and C; 3). Apply ~10 kPa pressure.
6. Pre-staining of the Platelets and Preparation of the Antibodies
- Platelet staining
- Incubate the washed platelets with 10 µg/mL DAPI for 30 min at 37 °C in the dark. To wash away unbound DAPI and to prevent platelet activation, add prostacyclin at a final concentration of 10 ng/mL and immediately centrifuge for 15 min at 400 x g and RT without brake.
- Reconstitute the platelet pellet in HEPES Tyrode's buffer, pH 7.4, to a platelet concentration of 150,000 platelets/µL.
- Preparation of antibodies
- Mix biotin-labeled antibody with Alexa-labeled streptavidin at a molar ratio of 1:1. Incubate for a minimum of 10 min at room temperature before use (step 7.6).
NOTE: Biotin labeling efficiency can vary between different batches. Should there be problems with the visualization of target molecules, control experiments should be performed to confirm successful biotinylation, as well the target-binding properties of the specific biotinylated antibody.
- Mix biotin-labeled antibody with Alexa-labeled streptavidin at a molar ratio of 1:1. Incubate for a minimum of 10 min at room temperature before use (step 7.6).
7. Perfusion
- Start the fluorescence microscope, as well as the microscope software. Use the microscope settings listed in Table 1.
NOTE: Initiate the microscope and recording settings for the live-cell visualization and recording of the platelets and the chosen fluorescently labeled antibodies and/or dyes by loading an appropriate experiment in the microscope software. Perform flow experiments at RT.
- Block the inlet tubing by connecting a 10-mL syringe to the tubing and aspirating 1% HSA blocking buffer into the inlet tubing. Incubate for 15 min at RT. Rinse the inlet tubing by aspirating HEPES Tyrode's buffer, pH 7.4, into the inlet tubing.
- Connect the blocked inlet tubing and the untreated outlet tubing, both with a diameter of 1.02 mm and a ~20-30 cm length to the inlet and outlet of the chamber. Connect a 10-mL syringe (or lower volume for more accuracy) to the outlet tubing. Power on the syringe pump.
NOTE: The diameter of the syringe, in combination with the flow rate set on the pump, determine the volumetric flow rate. Together with the surface area of the flow channel, the shear rate can be calculated according to the formula13 below. Hence, it is possible to manipulate the shear rate by changing the flow rate of the syringe pump or altering the dimensions of the flow channel. A shear rate of 800-1,600 s-1 typically models for arterial blood flow, while 25 - 100s-1 models for venous blood flow. For this setup, a flow rate of 7.5 µL/min results in a shear rate of 25 s-1.
Shear rate = 6Q / h2w in s-1
Wherein: Q = volumetric flow rate (mL/s), h = height channel (cm) (0.0125 cm; this is the thickness of the silicone sheet), w = width channel (cm) (0.2 cm in this chamber).
- Place a drop of immersion oil on a 100X objective (total amplification of 1,000X) and mount the chamber on the microscope with the glass surface down.
- Place the inlet tubing into a tube containing HEPES Tyrode's buffer, pH 7.4. Manually pull the plunger of the syringe connected to the outlet tubing and pull the solution through the chamber to remove the air from the system. Place the syringe into the syringe pump (Figure 1B and C; 8) and run the pump briefly to tighten the plunger and ensure stable flow.
- Add antibodies and/or dyes to the platelet suspension or PRP, carefully mix with a plastic pipette, and transfer the mixture to a 1.5-mL tube.
NOTE: For a typical 30-min perfusion at shear rate 25s-1 (7.5 µL/min), a minimum of 225 µL of platelet suspension is needed. The antibodies used for the representative results are shown in Table 2.
- Move the inlet tubing, while squeezing, from the HEPES Tyrode's buffer, pH 7.4, to a 1.5-mL tube containing either PRP or the washed platelets and the antibodies and/or dyes (Figure 1B and C; 9).
NOTE: It is important that, when transferring the tubing, the tubing is squeezed (pressing out the air) to prevent air from entering the tubing. It is possible to treat adherent platelets with a variety of reagents in a subsequent step by moving the inlet tubing to another tube in a similar manner. A list of potentially useful reagents is provided in Table 3.
- Select the "live visualization" option in the software, focus the microscope on the surface of the coated cover glass, and start the pump at a shear rate of 1,600s-1 (484 µL/min) until the platelets reach the flow chamber. At this moment, reduce the shear rate back to 25s-1 by changing the settings of the syringe pump to a flow rate of 7.5 µL/min.
- Monitor the surface of the coated side of the cover glass, wait until the first platelet starts to adhere, focus the microscope on this platelet, and start recording by initiating the experiment in the software. See Table 1 for the recording settings used here.
- Follow the live recording visually. After 30 min, stop the syringe pump.
NOTE: Ensure that the platelets stay in focus during the course of the experiment. Typically, 20-30 platelets attach in the field of view at a magnification of 1,000X; this is about 2,000-3,000 platelets in the whole flow channel.
- Fixation using the flow chamber (optional).
- When the flow has stopped after the syringe pump is stopped, transfer the inlet tubing (air-free) to the fixative solution. Restart the pump and flow the fixation buffer through the channel for a minimum of 10 min at the same flow rate as mentioned in step 7.8.
- Remove the chamber from the microscope, clean the immersion oil from the glass, disconnect the vacuum, and carefully remove the cover glass from the chamber with an 18 G needle.
NOTE: Prevent the cover glass from breaking and damaging the silicon sheet.
- Place the cover slide (with the cells directed upwards) in a 4-well plate on top of a tissue, pre-wetted with distilled water.
NOTE: This prevents the cover glass from adhering to the well surface and prevents drying.
- Pipette 750 µL of fixative solution on top of the cover glass and incubate for 1 h at room temperature. In case the samples cannot be analyzed directly, store them in 0.5% PFA (diluted by HEPES Tyrode's buffer, pH 7.4) at 4 °C to ensure stable fixation. Proceed to section 8 to process the cover glass for imaging.
- After use, rinse the chamber, tubing, and sheet with distilled water and incubate overnight in a detergent solution. Before the re-use of the chamber and other components, rinse with distilled water.
- Save the microscope raw data files containing all the metadata. When needed, export the movies to .MOV, h.264 compressed, or .AVI uncompressed. Save separate frames as JPEG or TIF files.
8. Sample Preparation for Confocal Fluorescence Microscopy
- Transfer the cover glasses to new 4-well plates and rinse 5 times with 3 mL of HEPES Tyrode's buffer, pH 7.4. Add 3 mL/well of blocking buffer and incubate for 1 h at RT.
- Remove the blocking buffer; add 3 mL/well of 0.15% glycine (M/V) in HEPES Tyrode's buffer, pH 7.4; and incubate for 15 min at RT.
- Remove glycine solution and wash 5 times in 3 mL/well of blocking buffer. Optionally, add fluorophore-conjugated antibodies diluted in blocking buffer for additional staining. Incubate for 1 h at RT in the dark.
- Wash 5 times with blocking buffer and 2 times with distilled water. Dry the glass by removing excess liquid with a tissue (from the edges inward), without touching the cells.
- Pipette 60 µL of polyvinyl alcohol solution onto a microscope slide. Place the cover glass, with the cells down, on top of the drop and let the polyvinyl alcohol spread between the two surfaces. Incubate overnight at RT in the dark.
- Analyze the cells by confocal microscopy14.
- Save the raw data files of the recorded stack data containing all the metadata. When needed, process the raw data files into MOV, h.264 compressed, or .AVI uncompressed files. Save separate stacks as JPEG or TIF files.
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Representative Results
Figure 1 shows images of the flow chamber and experimental setup; the position and dimensions of the silicon sheet; and tubing connections. Figure 2 provides details on the dimensions of the flow chamber. Figure 3 and Movie 1 show a time-series of images of platelet adhesion and spreading on immobilized VWF. CD63 is a transmembrane protein that is inserted into the membrane of intracellular dense granules of resting platelets15. Its time-dependent mobilization onto the platelet surface is shown in green. Similarly, P-selectin (Psel) is a transmembrane protein inserted in the membrane of intracellular α-granules of resting platelets. Its time-dependent mobilization onto the platelet surface is shown in orange. Figure 3B shows a representative image at a 45° angle, acquired by confocal fluorescence microscopy after a flow experiment. Movie 2 shows a tilt series of the same experiment. Note that CD63 is mainly located at the central granulomere, while P-selectin is distributed over the entire cell body and appears concentrated at the edges. Figure 4A and Movie 3 show the time-dependent mobilization of CD63 onto the platelet surface (green). In these experiments, platelets (which do not have nuclear DNA) were pre-incubated with DAPI (blue), which stains polyphosphate in dense granules16. Remarkably, despite clear signs of dense granule release (single-cell analyses are shown in Figure 4B and Movie 4), polyphosphate is retained within or on the outside of these platelets. Figure 5 and Movie 5 show time-dependent mobilization (or recruitment) of VWF, a thrombogenic multimeric protein17 stored in α-granules, to the platelet surface (green). Similar to polyphosphate, VWF remains associated with the surface of the activated platelets.
Figure 1: Flow Chamber and Experimental Setup. (A) Image of flow chamber design with an inlet and outlet (1 and 2), a vacuum connection (3) on which the silicone sheet (4) is placed. Two outer cutouts (5) in the silicon sheet form the vacuum channels to attach the cover glass (6). A central cutout (7) forms the flow channel (B) Image of the experimental setup. Inlet and outlet (1 and 2), syringe pump (8), and sample holder (9). (C) Schematic overview of the experimental setup; the numbers are identical to those in A and B. (D) Schematic overview with the dimension of the customized cut silicone sheet. (E) General schematic overview of the poly(methyl methacrylate) flow chamber. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 2: Detailed Blueprint of Flow Chamber. The flow chamber consists of a poly(methyl methacrylate) block (1), one straight polyoxymethylene insert for the vacuum inlet (2), and two angled polyoxymethylene inserts for the sample inlet and outlet (3). The angled polyoxymethylene inserts contain metal capillary tubes, with diameters of 1.07 mm. The straight insert contains a capillary tube with a diameter of 1.3 mm. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 3: Platelet Spreading and Degranulation on Immobilized von Willebrand Factor. (A) Time-dependent mobilization of CD63 and P-selectin onto the surface of spreading and degranulating platelets. The white scale bar (upper left) indicates 10 µm. (B) Representative confocal fluorescence microscopy image at a 45° angle. The white scale bar (lower left) indicates 2 µm. Green, CD63; Orange, P-selectin. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 4: Platelet Spreading, Degranulation, and Mobility of Dense Granules on Immobilized Fibrinogen. (A) Time-dependent mobilization of CD63 and polyphosphate onto the platelet surface. The white scale bar (upper left) indicates 10 µm. (B) Time series of a single platelet (t = 0 represents the first adhesion to surface). The white scale bar (lower right) indicates 2 µm. Green, CD63; Blue, DAPI. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 5: Surface Association of von Willebrand Factor onto the Platelet Surface of Immobilized Fibrinogen. Time-dependent mobilization (or recruitment) of VWF to the platelet surface. The white scale bar (upper left) indicates 5 µm. Green, VWF. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
|Exposure time FITC (Alexa488)
|200 ms / 300 ms
|LED 488 intensity FITC (Alexa488)
|Exposure time DIC
|30 ms
|Voltage halogen lamp
|4.5 Volt
|Exposure time TRITC (Alexa 546)
|400 ms
|LED 555 intensity FITC (Alexa546)
|Exposure time DAPI
|500 ms
|LED 365 intensity
|Filterset FITC
|Filterset 10
|Filterset TRITC
|Filterset 20
|Filterset DAPI
|Filterset 01
|Alpha Plan-Fluar 100x/1.45 Oil
|Frame rate, recording time
|1 frame / 10 s, 30 min
|File compression movies
|MOV (h.264), AVI(uncompressed)
|File compression pictures
Table 1: Microscope settings. Settings used for the representative experiments.
|Antibody / Dye
|Anti-CD63-biotin *)
|325 ng/mL
|Anti-CD62P-biotin **)
|90 ng/mL
|10 µg/mL
|Anti-human VWF- FITC
|5 µg/mL
|*) anti-CD63-biotin antibody is mixed with streptavidin-Alexa488 in a molar ratio of 1:1 before use
|**) anti-CD62P-biotin antibody is mixed with streptavidin-Alexa546 in a molar ratio of 1:1 before use
Table 2: Antibodies and Dyes. Recommended antibody and dye concentrations for the shown representative experiments.
|Reagent category
|Example compounds
|Platelet agonists
|Thrombin, ADP, PAR-1 or -4 activating peptides, U46619, Thromboxane A2, ADP
|Enzyme inhibitors
|Hirudin, PPACK, heparinoids (indirect), corn trypsin inhibitor, soy bean trypsin inhibitor
|Receptor antagonists
|anti-Glyprotein 1bα, anti-Glycoprotein VI; clopidogrel, (cyclic) RGD-containing peptides
|Activation inhibitors
|Aspirin pretreatment, fixation
Table 3: Potentially useful reagents.
Supplemental Movies: Movie 1: Time-series of images of platelet (see Figure 1), Movie 2: tilt series of Figure 3B, Movie 3: Time-dependent mobilization of CD63 onto the platelet surface (see Figure 4), Movie 4: Time series of single-cell analyses (see Figure 4B), Movie 5: Time-dependent mobilization of VWF (see Figure 5).
Please click here to download Movie 1.
Please click here to download Movie 2.
Please click here to download Movie 3.
Please click here to download Movie 4.
Please click here to download Movie 5.
Subscription Required. Please recommend JoVE to your librarian.
Worldwide, thrombosis is a leading cause of death and morbidity, and platelets play a central role in its development. This work describes a method for the live-cell imaging of platelet degranulation under flow. It is generally assumed that, when platelets become activated, all granular contents are directly released into solution. The accompanying results suggest that this is not necessarily the case. During adhesion and degranulation, platelets retain a significant amount of polyphosphate (Figure 4). Additionally, the multimeric protein VWF is associated with the platelet surface after degranulation (Figure 5). This indicates that the molecular mechanisms that control platelet granule degranulation are subtler than generally assumed.
To enable the live-cell imaging of platelet degranulation under flow, the experimental conditions were selected to keep platelet aggregation to a minimum. Platelet counts of 150,000 platelets/µL were used. This is at the lower end of the normal range (150,000-450,000 platelets/µL). Furthermore, platelet adhesion and spreading were studied on immobilized VWF or fibrinogen, which led to mild platelet activation (in contrast to, for example, collagen). In studies with washed platelets, increased shear rates move these cells to the center of the flow. This interferes with adhesion and subsequent spreading and complicates the investigation of degranulation.
In physiological hemostasis, platelet margination is important. This process is driven by erythrocytes, explaining why low anemia is sometimes accompanied by a bleeding diathesis. A limitation of the presented technique is that the visualization of platelet degranulation (with the presented materials and reagents) is disturbed by red blood cells. Platelet function is influenced by shear stress, which is a function of the viscosity of the fluid (µ), as well as of the shear rate. Hence, it is recommended to study platelet function in flow models in solutions with comparable viscosities (i.e., washed platelets, reconstituted blood, PRP, or whole blood).
There are several practical factors to take into account when performing these experiments. First, fluorescence signals are strongly influenced by the focus area. If the microscope is not in focus, the signal is easily blurred or even lost. Prior to the arrival of platelets into the flow channel, it is best to focus on the channel itself (begin at the edge of the silicon sheet/flow channel wall). When platelets start to adhere, focus on this adhesion event. A second point of concern is the bleaching of certain fluorophores (e.g., FITC). Repeated excitation will lead to a loss of signal, disturbing the investigation. These obstacles can be overcome by using more stable fluorophores, reducing the intensity of the exciting LED light, shortening the exposure times, and/or lowering the frame rate.
The model described here is very useful for performing a detailed study of platelet responses to a wide variety of immobilized proteins and at different flow rates. Potentially, this method can also be used to study their interaction with activated endothelial cells18. The technical advances that allow for the flexible designs of the special flow chambers are currently opening avenues for biocompatibility studies19. The live-cell imaging of platelet reactivity under flow will reveal valuable insights on the complexity of the platelet adhesion response. Ultimately, these experiences should lead to the development experimental flow models that allow for the combined investigation of platelet function and influence on the coagulation system.
Subscription Required. Please recommend JoVE to your librarian.
The authors have nothing to disclose.
CM acknowledges financial support from the International Patient Organization for C1-Inhibitor Deficiencies (HAEi), Stichting Vrienden van Het UMC Utrecht, and the Landsteiner Foundation for Blood Transfusion Research (LSBR).
|Catalog Number
|4-(2-hydroxyethyl)-1-piperazineethanesulfonic acid (HEPES)
|Merck KGaA
|Merck KGaA
|Cayman Chemical
|Tri-sodium citrate
|Merck KGaA
|Citric acid
|Merck KGaA
|Cover glasses
|24 x 50 mm, No. 1 = 0.13 - 0.16 mm thickness.
|Chromosulfuric acid (2% CrO3)
|Riedel de Haen
|Von Willebrand factor (VWF)
|in-house purified
|Enzyme Research Laboratories
|4 well dish, non-treated
|Thermo Scientific
|Human Serum Albumin Fraction V
|Haem Technologies Inc.
|Blood collection tubes, 9 mL, 9NC Coagulation Sodium Citrate 3.2%
|Greiner Bio-One
|Cell analyser
|Abbott Diagnostics
|CELL-DYN hematology analyzer
|Syringe pump
|Harvard Apparatus, Holliston, MA
|Harvard apparatus 22
|10 mL syringe with 14.5 mm diameter
|BD biosciences
|Luer-Lok syringe
|R&D Systems
|4',6-Diamidino-2-phenylindole dihydrochloride (DAPI)
|Polysciences Inc.
|Streptavidin, Alexa Fluor 488 conjugate
|Thermo Scientific
|Immersion oil
|Detergent solution
|Unilever, Biotex
|Polyvinyl alcohol
|Mowiol 40-88.
|Tris hydrochloride
|1,4-Diazabicyclo[2.2.2]octane (DABCO)
|Sheep Anti-hVWF pAb
|Alexa fluor 488-NHS
|Thermo Scientific
|Parafinn film
|4 in. x 125 ft. Roll.
|Silicone sheet non-reinforced
|200 mm x 150 mm x 0.125 mm.
|Customized cut silicone sheet with perfusion and vacuum channels
|in-house made
|Made of Silicone sheet non-reinforced (Nagor, NA 500-1)
|1.5 mL tubes
|Eppendorf AG
|Fluorescent microscope
|Zeiss Observer Z1
|Equiped with LED excitation lights.
|Microscope software
|Zeiss ZEN 2
|blue edition
|18 G needle (18 G x 1 1/2")
|BD biosciences
|Riedel de Haen
|Plastic pasteur pipet
|7 mL non sterile, graduated up to 3 mL.
|Silicone tubing
|Inner diameter. x Outer diameter x Wall thickness = 1.02 x 2.16 x 0.57 mm.
|Microscope slides
|Thermo Scientific
|76 x 26 x 1 mm, ground edges 45 °, frosted end.
- Springer, T. A. von Willebrand factor, Jedi knight of the bloodstream. Blood. 124, (9), 1412-1425 (2014).
- Fitch-Tewfik, J. L., Flaumenhaft, R. Platelet granule exocytosis: a comparison with chromaffin cells. Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 4, 11 (2013).
- May, B., Menkens, I., Westermann, E. Differential release of serotonin and histamine from blood platelets of the rabbit by aliphatic and aromatic amines. Life Sci. 6, (19), 2079-2085 (1967).
- Schmaier, A. H., Smith, P. M., Colman, R. W. Platelet C1- inhibitor. A secreted alpha-granule protein. J. Clin. Invest. 75, (1), 242-250 (1985).
- Battinelli, E. M., Markens, B. A., Italiano, J. E., et al. Release of angiogenesis regulatory proteins from platelet alpha granules: modulation of physiologic and pathologic angiogenesis. Blood. 118, (5), 1359-1369 (2011).
- Kamykowski, J., Carlton, P., Sehgal, S., Storrie, B. Quantitative immunofluorescence mapping reveals little functional coclustering of proteins within platelet α-granules. Blood. 118, (5), 1370-1373 (2011).
- Sakariassen, K. S., Aarts, P. A., de Groot, P. G., Houdijk, W. P., Sixma, J. J. A perfusion chamber developed to investigate platelet interaction in flowing blood with human vessel wall cells, their extracellular matrix, and purified components. J Lab Clin Med. 102, (4), 522-535 (1983).
- Van Aelst, B., Feys, H. B., Devloo, R., Vandekerckhove, P., Compernolle, V. Microfluidic Flow Chambers Using Reconstituted Blood to Model Hemostasis and Platelet Transfusion In Vitro. J Vis Exp. (109), (2016).
- Nesbitt, W. S., Westein, E., et al. A shear gradient-dependent platelet aggregation mechanism drives thrombus formation. Nat Med. 15, (6), 665-673 (2009).
- Mitchell, J. L., Lionikiene, A. S., et al. Polyphosphate colocalizes with factor XII on platelet-bound fibrin and augments its plasminogen activator activity. Blood. 128, (24), 2834-2845 (2016).
- Park, Y., Schoene, N., Harris, W. Mean platelet volume as an indicator of platelet activation: methodological issues. Platelets. 13, (5-6), 301-306 (2002).
- Sixma, J. J., de Groot, P. G., van Zanten, H., IJsseldijk, M. A new perfusion chamber to detect platelet adhesion using a small volume of blood. Thromb Res. 92, S43-S46 (1998).
- Slack, S. M., Turitto, V. T. Flow chambers and their standardization for use in studies of thrombosis. On behalf of the Subcommittee on Rheology of the Scientific and Standardization Committee of the ISTH. Thromb Haemost. 72, (5), 777-781 (1994).
- Oreopoulos, J., Berman, R., Browne, M. Spinning-disk confocal microscopy: present technology and future trends. Methods Cell Biol. 123, 153-175 (2014).
- Nishibori, M., Cham, B., McNicol, A., Shalev, A., Jain, N., Gerrard, J. M. The protein CD63 is in platelet dense granules, is deficient in a patient with Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome, and appears identical to granulophysin. J. Clin. Invest. 91, (4), 1775-1782 (1993).
- Ruiz, F. A., Lea, C. R., Oldfield, E., Docampo, R. Human platelet dense granules contain polyphosphate and are similar to acidocalcisomes of bacteria and unicellular eukaryotes. J. Biol. Chem. 279, (43), 44250-44257 (2004).
- Tersteeg, C., Fijnheer, R., et al. Keeping von Willebrand Factor under Control: Alternatives for ADAMTS13. Semin Thromb Hemost. 42, (1), 9-17 (2016).
- Tersteeg, C., de Maat, S., et al. Plasmin cleavage of von Willebrand factor as an emergency bypass for ADAMTS13 deficiency in thrombotic microangiopathy. Circulation. 129, (12), 1320-1331 (2014).
- Basir, A., de Groot, P., et al. In Vitro Hemocompatibility Testing of Dyneema Purity Fibers in Blood Contact. Innovations (Phila). 10, (3), 195-201 (2015).
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Onam is celebrated as
Kerala's national festival. It is the biggest festival in the Indian state of
Kerala. Onam Festival falls during the Malayalam month of 'Chingam' (Aug – Sep)
and marks the homecoming of legendary King Mahabali. Carnival of Onam lasts for
ten days.
Mahabali was a dalit
king. If you go by the Aryan hierarchisation, lower castes and tribals often
took on the comportment of 'asuras' and 'dasyus'. There are two
ways in which Dalits see Onam. For one, it is the day on which one of their
kings, Mahabali, was murdered. Both in Dalit and tribal folklore, the Dravidian
king known as Mahabali was their king. He was a good king, who strove for
equality and fraternity among his people. For an Indian king to establish
equality, fraternity and liberty… he could only have come from the Buddhist
tradition. But as a consequence of Aryanization, in the struggle for
Aryanization, many kings like Mahabali were slaughtered.
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So you have this folk narrative among Dalits, among tribes,
the folk songs of the adivasis in Wayanad, for instance, that their king
Mahabali was killed by Vamanan (a dwarf brahmin).
As far as Dalits and adivasis are concerned, Onam is a Black
Day, the day their king was murdered, a day of mourning. But for the upper
castes, it's a happy day, a day to celebrate, the day their power was entrenched.
With the murder of the most powerful king in the land, they had nothing left to
Having killed the king, they brought the natives, the tribes,
into the lowest level of their caste system. They introduced slavery. Onam
marks the age when slavery and the caste system were introduced into Kerala, an
age which began with the killing of Maveli (Mahabali).
The historicity is very evident. Mahabali is an Asura, Vamana
is Vishnu. Mahabali, the Asura, treated all his subjects as equals but Vamana,
the avatar of Vishnu, came and stamped Mahabali into the earth.
So the Dalit's question is, how can we celebrate as a
'festival' the day our king was murdered? How do we celebrate the death of our
forefather? For us, it is a day of mourning, not for festivities. But the
Brahmins, using their power and influence, especially over the media, have
suppressed the real history of Onam and turned it into a festival for all
It is also told as
harvest festival which is again a lie. The time when onam is celebrating is not
a harvest season. It is the time just after the rainy season in Kerala and
farmers sow the seeds in their fields.
system in Kerala
of Kerala, began in the 3rd century B.C. following the advent of Jains and
Buddhists. It was a slow but steady progress resulting in far-reaching changes,
in all spheres of human activity. The Aryan immigrants who were generally
Brahmins and who stabilized themselves as the Nambudiris of Kerala were of two
typos. There were those who had taken up small trades and practically settled
down in Kerala.
'jati' system had its own peculiarities because the system that evolved here
was a form of hierarchy based on rigid codes of purity and pollution. Elamkulam
Kunjan Pillai (early historian of Kerala) argues that during Sangam age there
was no caste in Kerala but later, the land grants to the Brahmins by the ruling
kings led to Aryanisation of Kerala. After the fall of Perumal rule in Kerala
the Brahmins acquired vast tracts of land and became wealthy and powerful
landlords called 'Janmis'. The Brahmins thus starts dominating and introduced
the caste system and Janmi-centres land system in Kerala. In course of time
numerous rules and restrictions became the order of the day. These were popularly
known as "Maryadas". Numerous 'maryadas'
were formulated to maintain the caste hierarchy system.
The 'Pulayars' were the lowest
caste in Kerala, they were the agricultural labour force. Pulayars were
considered as 'slave caste'. They were brought and sold along with the land.
Dalit women were not allowed to cover their breasts and if they tried to wear
cloths, they were punished severely by the upper caste men. Dalits were not
allowed to walk freely on roads, when any upper caste person is coming on the
way there will be a person (from shudra caste) to announce the arrival of the
Nmboothiri so that the lower castes have to maintain a distance. This distance
is different according to the hierarchy of caste. A dalit person is not allowed
to see Namboothiri and even if Namboothiri saw a dalit he/she considers as
polluted and have to undergo purifying rituals. Also this dalit will be
punished severely even it can be death. They were also prohibited the free
entry to the market. Ezhavas were also an untouchable caste but they also
treated Pulayar caste as untouchables.
The false story
Story goes that during the reign of mighty asura
(demon) king, Mahabali, Kerala witnessed its golden era. Everybody in the state
was happy and prosperous and king was highly regarded by his subjects. Apart
from all his virtues, "Mahabali had one shortcoming. He was egoistic".
This weakness in Mahabali's character was utilized by Gods to bring an end to
his reign as they felt challenged by Mahabali's growing popularity. However,
for all the good deed done by Mahabali, God granted him a boon that he could
annually visit his people with whom he was so attached. It is this visit of
Mahabali that is celebrated as Onam every year. People make all efforts to
celebrate the festival in a grand way and impress upon their dear King that
they are happy and wish him well. In this story the King Mahabali is said to
But the other story which I heard from my childhood was
that the Gods became jalousie in Mahabali's growth and popularity. They felt
threatened about their own supremacy and began to think of a strategy to get
rid of the dilemma. They fear that the people will forget to worship them. So
they conspired to kill Mahabali.
It was said Mahabali was very generous
and charitable. Whenever anybody approached him for help or requested for
anything he always granted. Disguised as Vamana, Vishnu said he was a poor
Brahmin and asked for a piece of land. The generous King said, he could have as
much land as he wanted. The Brahmin said that he just wanted as much land as
could be covered by his three steps. The King was surprised to hear but agreed.
A learned adviser of the King, Shukracharya sensed
that Vamana was not an ordinary person and warned the King against making the
promise. But, the generous King replied that it would be a sin for a King to
back on his words and asked the Brahmin to take the land. The King could not
imagine that the dwarf Brahmin was Lord Vishnu himself.
Just as King Mahabali agreed to grant the land, Vamana
began to expand and eventually increased himself to the size of cosmic proportions.
With his first step the Brahmin boy covered the whole of earth and with the
other step he covered the whole of the skies. He then asked King Mahabali "where
is the space for him to keep his third foot?"
The King realised that he was no ordinary Brahmin and
his third step will destroy the earth. Mahabali with folded hands bowed before
Vamana and asked him to place his last step on his head so that he could keep
the promise. The Brahmin placed his foot on the head of the King, which pushed
him to patala, the nether world. There the King requested the Brahmin to reveal
his true identity. Lord Vishnu then appeared before the King in his person. The
Lord told the King that he came to test him and the King won the test. King
Mahabali was pleased to see his lord. Lord Vishnu also granted a boon to the
King. The King was so much attached with his Kingdom and people that he
requested that he be allowed to visit Kerala once in a year. Lord Vishnu was
moved by the Kings nobility and was pleased to grant the wish.
So Keralits celebrate Onam as welcoming of Mahabali.
But gradually the story seems to change according to upper caste interest.
Ever since the 10th century the dominant
castes have established many myths as history. They said that the Kerala was
created by Parasuram (an Avatar of lord Vishnu). The mythology of Parashurama
tells that he recoveres Kerala from Kanniykumari to Gokarnam from the see with
the help of his axe. If we take the chronological order of Dashavatara is
Matsya, Kurma, Varaha, Narasimha, Vamana, Parashurama, Rama, Krishna, Balarama
and Kaliki. Here in the dashavatara
itself we can see the irony, Vamana came before Parashurama and Kerala was
created by Parashurama. Mahabali ruled Kerala and Vamana killed Mahabali.
Before creating the Kerala how Mahabali ruled Kerala? If Mahabali ruled Kerala
how Vamana can kill him?
Genesis of Onam
It is the day of the visit of King Mahabali to Kerala
that is celebrated as Onam every year. The festival is celebrated as a tribute
to the sacrifice of King Mahabali. Every year people make elaborate
preparations to welcome their King whom they affectionately call Onathappan.
They wish to please the spirit of their King by depicting that his people are
happy and wish him well. The second day, Thiruvonam is the biggest and the most
important day of this festival. It is believed that King Mahabali visits his
people on the second day.
Onam celebrations are marked in Trikkakara, a place 10
km from Kochi (Cochin) on the Edapally- Pookattupadi road. Trikkara is said to
be the capital of the mighty King Mahabali. A temple with a deity of
'Trikkakara Appan' or 'Vamanamurthy' who is Lord Vishnu himself in disguise is
also located at this place. Nowhere else in Kerala can one find a deity of
'Vamanamurthy'.This fascinating legend is artistically depicted at the
Suchindram Temple in Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu.
What is the truth?
The two well-known and deep rooted mythologies are;
one the victory of Vamana over the king Mahabali and the other on the victory
of Parashurama over the see. Both Vamana and Parashurama were glorified as
incarnation of lord Vishnu. Though Onam is celeberated as national festival of
Kerala, it is all about greatest tragedy of the people of Kerala, surrender and
introduction of caste system, making the Brahmins the supreme owners of the
entire land, cows, gold, and women and making the natives mere slaves.
Historians of the ancient and medieval Kerala being whitewashing the brutal
crime committed against the people of Kerala by the Brahmins invaders. They
have deliberately been fabricated evidence to glorify the invaders and degraded
the people of Kerala.
The history of Kerala is very much related to the
arrival of Brahmins, the prolonged slavery of Pulayas the rise of Nairs, the
emergence of Ezhavas or Thiyas, the growth of Christians and Muslims and the
declaim of Brahmins that have lasting impact on the making of the present
Kerala society – its socio political development. Two major invasions had taken
place in Kerala – the first one was aimed at destroying the prosperous
Dravidian kingdom of Mahabali and the second one was the exterminate Buddhism
from Kerala and to establish caste system with external dominance of Brahmins
over the entire Kerala society, as narrated in the mythology of Parashurama who
recovered Kerala from the sea with his axe.
The lasting impacts of those two invasions can be seen
in the 21st century. Even though Buddhism was totally annihilated
from Kerala, the second invasion paved the way for emergence of Muslims and
Christians on the one hand and a divided Hindu society with the Nairs and
Brahmins at the top with greater freedom, Ezhavas at the middle with limited
rights and Pulayas at the bottom as slaves.
The Pulayas, originally the most prosperous and
cultured people of Kerala, have been subjected to slavery worse than African
slaves in America. While the African slaves in America could raise to any
level, the Pulayas still remain socially economically and politically backward
for they had been disintegrated besides denying education, social mobility and
ownership of land. Nobody in the human history had such a dreadful and
prolonged oppression and exploitation, in which both Islam and Christianity or
even communism become helpless witnesses.
The mythology of Onam tells the story of the glory and
prosperity of Dravidian or Pulayanar kingdom under Mahabali in Kerala where
everybody lived prosperity and high culture without any caste or creed
differences. The Bhramins and Kshathriyas, originally the 'Semitic people', had
invaded the north India and establish their supremacy. They were jealous of the
king Mahabali the ruler of Kerala and they with the help of treacherous and
cunning Vamana dethroned Mahabali, put him in dungeon, looted his precious
wealth, raped the women and the entire people were made slaves and scattered in
different parts of Kerala. In order to glorify Vamana, the Brahmins had
elevated him as the incarnation of the Lord Vishnu.
In an interview with Kafila, dalit activist MB Manoj
says, "Onam is a black day for Dalits, a day of murder, even as it is a day of
happiness for the upper castes". According to him, Onam marks the beginning of
caste system and slavery in Kerala. He speaks of folk songs which criticise
Onam's upper-caste comportment. There are also songs which talk about the
temple entry proclamation of Kerala. Dalits believe that Onam celebrates the
murder of their king by upper castes.
According to the Hindu Mythology the king Mahabali,
also known as Maveli, was a benevolent Asura King in ancient Hindu mythology. Mahabali was
the great great grandson of sage Kashyapa, great grandson
of Hiranyakshipu,
the grandson of Prahlada and
son of Virochana.
Present Debates on Onam
The Hindu Right's engagements with Onam and associated
images like Mahabali continue to generate heated public debates in Kerala. The
latest example was a legal suit filed by the Hindu Aikyavedi (Hindu United
Front) against the
setting up of a Mahabali Memorialat
the Vamana Murti Temple at Thrikkakkara in Ernakulam district. The Aikyavedi
argued that Mahabali 'the demon' can't share the sacred space with Vamana, who
is not only Mahabali's annihilator but also a god. The presence of Mahabali is
said to have polluted the ritual hygiene of this Vamana temple complex.
According to the Puranas, Hindu gods were threatened
by the popularity of the charismatic leadership of Mahabali. But the
Brahmanical narratives consider Mahabali an impure asura and the rustic 'other' of pure Hindu divinities.
Consequently, Vamana pushed Mahabali to pathala – the nether world – after granting him the
consolation of being allowed to visit his confiscated land once in a
year. Thus, Onam has broadly been celebrated in anticipation of Mahabali's
'annual return' to his own annihilated self.
In Kerala, Mahabali – the asura-avarna who is a victim of Brahmanical manipulation –
and his kingdom have been postulated as models of progressive emancipation.
This belief is prominent among the Shudra caste groups and many Dalit/marginal
communities. However, on the eve of Onam last year, Shah wished everyone a 'Happy Vamana Jayanthi' with the image of
Mahabali under Vamana's feet, thus changing the narrative. That was a
strategic visual imposition which suits the ongoing political agenda of
Hindutva leaders. Through that singularity, the Hindutva groups intended
not only to redesign Onam as a Brahmanical victory over 'lower' caste groups,
but also remake the festival as an exclusively Brahmanical and 'Hindu'
Nevertheless, Onam's lived experiences and narratives
– which vary among communities and in micro-regions of Kerala – defy such
singularity. Hindutva narratives of Onam, its images and experiences have been
significantly different from Adivasis, Dalits, and intermediary castes groups
like Izhava, Muslims and Christians. However, one dominant factor that stood
out in the multitude of non-Brahmanical narratives is Vamana's act of
betrayal, who removed Mahabali, or 'Maveli' as he is locally known, as an
autonomous ruler who defied the Brahmanical order. And that Maveli's trusting
magnanimity caused the destruction of a non-Brahmanical Kerala past. Thus,
representing Onam as the celebration of Vamana's victory over a Dravidian
cultural domain is seen as unpardonable. Critics have also warned of
Hindutva's desire to weaken the region's specific style of community
engagements and civic spaces that emerged through the multiple possibilities
that such festivals offer.
The trajectory of Hindutva's expansionist agenda and
machinery at work in Kerala over a period of time proves that the 'Vamana'
valorisation is not the product of some unthinking individual or
certain frontal organisations. The homogenising attempts of Hindutva groups
around festivals such as Onam and Pongal through such re-descriptions show the
umbilical relationship between the sustenance of its ideology and the
reinvention of myths. There is no Hindutva without myth, but the fact remains
that the multitude of myths – and the persistent paradoxes through which they are
born – threatens its very existence. Thus, calibrated attempts are being
made to create a grand narrative around Onam, along with other divisive
Successful at selling festivals through assertive
description, Hindutva uses Onam as an instrument for establishing itself in the
micro-regions of Kerala, following North India where it earned huge dividends
through such tactics. Instilling a hegemonic Brahmanical image through
Vamana as the conquistador of the subaltern has the intent of
tapping into the politics of emotion in Kerala. Through reassembling the
scattered Puranic and emotive imagination of the 'upper'-caste population of
Kerala, Sangh parivar organisations try to construct an 'upper'-caste Hindu
solidarity. Such Puranic signs and symbols can also be used to garner
ideological support and spiritual solidarity from upwardly moving intermediary
caste groups as well. Along with it, the persistent presentation of the ruling
Left as those who hold an anti-Hindu ideology has been part of the same
agenda which attempts to earn a long-term emotional dividend for the BJP
in the state. Through the continuous denial of narrative possibilities,
Hindutva has opened up a culture-based political strategy in the state as well.
The relative importance of Mahabali could be a recent
phenomenon—primarily as a result of increasing lower-caste assertions in
Kerala. Dalits and other dispossessed groups of Kerala have, over the years,
continued to express their trenchant critiques against the savarna ethos of
Onam. If on the one hand the festival celebrates the ostracisation of Bali, on
the other, it is marked by vegetarianism and other upper-caste cultural tropes.
The myth of Bali strikes a chord with the marginalised of Kerala, who
rereads Bali as a Dalit-Bahujan king who is subjugated and dispossessed of his
land like them. If Mahatma Jotiba Phule used the term Dalit to denote the
suppressed and broken people of his land, he also reread Bali as the king of
the indigenous people who were usurped of their land by the invading Aryans.
Thus Vishnu, in the form of the Brahmin Vamana, came to represent the usurper
of the land of the indigenous people. Similarly, Dalits use terms like Adi
Dravida, Adi Andhra, Adi Karnataka etc., across South India, to mark their
indigeneity. In short, in this lower-caste appropriation of the myth the
death of Bali coincides with the birth of the caste system or the emergence of
all moral ills that plague the society now.
The Dalit Federation of Kerala, over the years, has
conducted hunger strikes against the alleged cultural violence of Onam.
This is also partly due to the resonances that the Onam myth has on their
material lives. Thus a Syrian Christian family, which claims Brahmin status,
keeps the maximum average land holding of 126 cents in Kerala. An upper-caste
Hindu family, on the other hand, holds 105 cents and a Dalit family a meager 27
cents. Dalits are also relegated to colonies numbering about 13,000 in
Kerala. These colony formations were the result of the skewed implementation of
the celebrated land reforms policies of Kerala. The land reform and the
education bills proposed by the first communist government of Kerala faced
massive resistances from the entrenched Catholic Church (the poor Latin
Catholics were subsumed under the over-arching term) and Nair leadership
(representing 'Hindus') that the first government was dismissed by the central
government and president's rule was imposed on 31 July 1959. Known as the
'liberation struggle', this resistance ensured that the first systematic
struggle against upper-caste dominance was neutered and watered-down for a
conceivable future. Incidentally, it was the death of a pregnant Latin Catholic
fisher woman named Flory that turned the resistance decisively in favor of the
upper-caste forces. The continuing and unfinished contestations over land
rights by the Dalits and Tribals of Kerala in the form of Chengara and Muthanga
land struggles etc., should be understood in this light.
It is no accident, therefore, that Onam, until
then a largely provincial festival, was elevated to the level of a national
festival by the succeeding government led by Pattom A. Thanu Pillai in 1960.
For Onam's national status marked the victory of the upper-caste against the
marginalized once again in the history of Kerala. Therefore, it comes as no
surprise that a state known for its high levels of social development still
harbors 13,687, mostly 'Tamil' families who depend on manual
scavenging for their livelihood. These families represent everything that the
state has relegated to its unconscious to construct the secular Malayali
identity that Kerala is now famous for. Like Mahabali, the 'Tamil' Dalit
scavengers visit Kerala households only once a year to clean the shit in their
septic tanks, or are found cleaning municipal areas marked as 'public' commons,
only to be relegated back to a hellish life and forgotten for most part of the
year. Thus, the celebration of Onam every year marks a symbolic violence
against the lives of the marginalised in India. While Onam is celebrated on the
29th of August in 2012, the birthday of Ayyankali, one of the greatest Dalit
leaders of Kerala, falls on the 28th of August and remains forgotten. The
insistence to continue the celebration of Onam, therefore, is an insistence to
celebrate the defeat of the struggles of the untouchables and the lower-castes
of our country.


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Our Shul
Come join us for our exciting Shabbat Services:
Chabad of Chatsworth
- Special Children's Program
- Kiddush following Services
- Hebrew/English Prayer Books
- Prayer Explanation
- Weekly Torah Insights
Warm & Friendly Atmosphere
Followed by a delicious "family style" Kiddush.
To sponsor a Kiddush click here
Chabad of Chatsworth
20735 Devonshire St .
(Between Oklahoma & Lurline on north side)
Join Chabad in our effort to help build a vibrant Jewish Community where everyone feels welcomed and at home.
Click here for more information and partnership opportunities
Upcoming events
Apr. 10, 2020
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Join us for a family friendly Shabbat experience.
Apr. 17, 2020
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Join us for a family friendly Shabbat experience.


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Liposuction and its quality service to all income brackets
Out of 100 people today, more than 75% most of the people are suffering from excess fat accumulation today. They are trying to reduce weight through various ways whereas some are trying to cut down the excess fats out from their body through surgical methods. One such method is the surgery through Liposuction. There are various pros and cons of the surgery depending on how good your body reacted to the operation.
Weight loss strategies are on the top list
The weight loss strategies are always a hot topic and it is one of the most preferred formulae of today. Liposuction surgery is being taken care of at reasonable costs if proper channelization is done.
- Lipo refers to the fat that is accumulated inside your body and is damaging the efficiency within you. There are loads of evidences that are working in support of the weight loss. If you are still thinking about getting liposuction surgery then you are lucky that you are waiting now too.
- The result of the liposuction is greater and tighter skin with less mark of bruises but faster recovery. Laser lipo is one such option. The prices of the Liposuction are heavily dependent on the individual who will be taking the surgery and cut down the excess fats.
- Before the operation is done, there happens t be an addition of the tumescence, injecting which the pain gets reduced. The bleeding is also controlled and the pain also becomes almost negligible.
- It all depends on the quality service that you are receiving after your surgery is done. The art of liposuction therapy has become modern in the recent years, therefore trust of the people have also become quite vibrant in this process.
You can compare the prices in different regions based on their location as well as their quality of service. The best part is to get in touch with a doctor who will take good care of the service so that it is available to the people with all income brackets.


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No cardboard cut-outs of Trudeau, Canada diplomats told
Canadian diplomatic missions in the United States have been told to stop using life-size cardboard cut-outs of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to promote the country.
The two-dimensional Trudeaus have been spotted at a number of promotional events in the US, most recently at a tourism stand at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, CBC News reports. But while they seem to be popular with visitors who share photos on social media, the government department Global Affairs Canada is less than impressed.
"We are aware of instances where our missions in the United States had decided to purchase and use these cut-outs," spokesman Michael O'Shaughnessy tells CBC. "The missions have been asked to no longer use these for their events." CBC says the department did not respond to questions about why the instruction was given.
The decision comes after a freedom of information request by the opposition Conservative Party revealed emails sent between embassy and consular staff. They show that the embassy in Washington DC paid for express delivery of a Trudeau cut-out last summer so that it would arrive in time for Canada Day celebrations, The Canadian Press reports.
The Washington embassy's interest was apparently piqued by the presence of a cardboard Trudeau at the consulate in Atlanta. Some staff were concerned that the idea was not very prime ministerial, but the embassy's events production manager said it would be "a hoot" and prove popular on Snapchat. Photos from the day show visitors to the embassy posing for pictures alongside the cut-out.
While some saw it as a bit of fun, the Conservatives didn't miss the opportunity to take a dig at the real prime minister, MP John Brassard telling CBC: "A life-size, two-dimensional cut-out is probably a perfect metaphor for everything that Justin Trudeau represents."
Next story: Outcry over Italian TV show on foreign women
Use #NewsfromElsewhere to stay up-to-date with our reports via Twitter.


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One of the subjects I come back to again and again on this blog is the doctrine of "American exceptionalism"; the idea that the United States — and only the United States — can preemptively invade any country on Earth in the name of fighting terrorism, promoting democracy, or securing "national interests". This perverse view, held by the vast majority of lawmakers in both major political parties, can more appropriately be described as the barbaric philosophy of "might makes right", but can more often be found cloaked in the rhetoric of "freedom" and "liberation" by good, respectable men and women at institutions such as the Brookings Institute and the New York Times.
It should come as no surprise that this almost religious belief in the goodness of American military power is merely a rehashing of age-old rationalizations for militarism and empire, but I was nonetheless surprised to find that George Orwell not only nailed down this prevailing imperial mindset in 1939, but that he did so in a review of the book by Bertrand Russell that I just mentioned the other day.
If there are certain pages of Mr. Bertrand Russell's book, Power, which seem rather empty, that is merely to say that we have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. It is not merely that at present the rule of naked force obtains almost everywhere. Probably that has always been the case. Where this age differs from those immediately preceding it is that a liberal intelligentsia is lacking. Bully-worship, under various disguises, has become a universal religion, and such truism as that a machine-gun is still a machine-gun even when a "good" man is squeezing the trigger, and that in effect is what Mr. Russell is saying, have turned into heresies which is it actually becoming dangerous to utter.
As a senior in high school in late 2001, I remember wearing a shirt to school that pointed out, without further comment, that more civilians had died from the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan than had died in the 9/11 attacks. My purpose was not to diminish the tragedy of 9/11, but merely to note that the pain and anguish most Americans felt from those terrorist attacks was also being felt by Afghan mothers who may have lost a husband or child (or family) from a U.S. bomb dropped by a "good" American soldier in the name of a "good" cause.
As a result of wearing the shirt, I remember one girl at my school, who I had never talked to before, coming up to me and declaring, "you're not an American for wearing that shirt" — the idea being that caring for the dead of non-Americans was, well, patently un-American. Now, that wasn't the most popular response by any means ("oh well" was), but I raise it because the incident made me truly aware of the degree to which militarism had become prevalent in the United States, even among typically non-political high schoolers. That became even more evident to me when a friend, who but two years earlier had joined me in denouncing the Clinton administration's aerial bombardment of Serbia (yes, I was one of those outspoken do-gooders, or at least I tried to be), now felt it necessary to heap vitriol on the French for their opposition to the Iraq war. So it goes.
One would hope that outlook has changed in the years since 9/11 , but it seems more likely that those considered "anti-war" now — especially so-called "anti-war" politicians — are merely reacting to the results of the Iraq invasion and occupation rather than having come to any epiphany about the nature of the U.S. war machine and the justness of maintaining a world empire. I'll be convinced otherwise when the anti-war movement (I use the term loosely) denounces President Obama for keeping tens of thousands of troops in Iraq for "peacekeeping" and for bombing Sudan to "liberate" Darfur — but I'm not holding my breath.
(Thanks to Tom Stanley at the Bertrand Russell Society Library for sending me the Orwell review.)


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SCRA as a Corporate Parent
On 1 April 2015 we became a proud Corporate Parent.
By law (the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014) Corporate Parents must carry out special responsibilities. We also have a moral duty to provide the best possible support and care we can to the children and young people we are involved with.
SCRA's Corporate Parenting duties are:
- to be alert to matters which might adversely affect the wellbeing of looked after children and young people.
- to assess the needs of looked after children and young people for services and support they provide.
- to promote the interests of looked after children and young people.
- to provide opportunities for looked after children and young people to participate in activities designed to promote their wellbeing.
- to take action appropriate to ensure looked after children and young people access these opportunities and make use of our services and support.
- to take any other action considered appropriate to improve organisational functions to meet the needs of looked after children and young people.
Our plans
We initially published a three year Corporate Parenting Plan in 2017. This plan sets out the commitments that SCRA will be making to children and young people over the three years to improve their individual experiences of the Hearings System.
Then in April 2018, we published our second Corporate Parenting Plan specifically aimed at young people. This covers the second year of our three year plan and sets out our Corporate Parenting actions for 2018-19.
Our next plan covering the final year (2019/2020) was published in spring 2019.
Reporting on our plans
Information for young people – We published our first Annual Report for Young People in January 2018. This looked at some of our corporate parenting activity in 2017. Our second Annual Report for Young People was published at the end of January 2019. You can see both these reports in the young people section of our website.
Information for partners – In October 2018, we published for the first time a new report within our Annual Report focusing on our corporate parenting activity during 2017/18.
Want more information?
To support the Corporate Parenting Plan, we have a website aimed at young people. The website – www.mycorporateparents.co.uk – is a joint initiative with Children's Hearings Scotland. The site provides young people with a more interactive version of our corporate parenting commitments and activities.


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President Obama - The Red, White, and Blue - Unisex Crew
Regular price $24.95 Sale price
Unit price
Show your pride in the USA with this custom art of President Barack Obama.
All prints are done on Next Level brand 100% cotton shirts. The pre-shrunk shirts are a soft cotton, instantly loved by those who wear it. All original art and printing is done by "Androo" Murray.


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UPF 50 UV Beach Umbrella for maximum protection
Looking for a UPF 50 UV beach umbrella? Introducing this superb quality, stylish and modern UPF 50+ rated UV protective sun umbrella from German umbrella specialist, FARE. So, this means the protection afforded is actually higher then UPF 50 (Ultra-Violet Protection Factor 50). Look cool and feel cool on the beach under this super sun umbrella. Suitable for beach, picnics, camping and garden. The sturdy steel frame is coated with a titanium coloured finish for quality and longevity.
All of the models are fitted with a smooth action safety runner, so operating these beach umbrellas really is very simple. There are eight panels and eight sturdy steel ribs to support the 177 cm diameter canopy. The telescopic steel pole is in two pieces offering fully variable height adjustment. The diameter of the upper pole is 22 mm and the lower pole is 25 mm. In addition, a simple twist lock facilitates the ability to set and secure the canopy to the desired height.
UPF 50 UV Beach Umbrella – Look Cool, Feel Cool!
This super stylish UPF 50 UV beach umbrella also features a clever tilt mechanism so that you can angle the polyester canopy to find the optimum level of sun shade.
The lower pole is approx. 120 cm long and the length of the umbrella when closed and folded away is approx. 122 cm. The net weight of the product is approx. 2150 g.
What's more there are 5 smart colour choices: apricot, white, beige, navy and grey. So, just select your desired colour from the Canopy Colour drop down menu above.
Finally, you'll find this beach umbrella is easy to carry around thanks to it's convenient shoulder strap carry case.
In summary:
- UPF 50+ rated sun protection
- Choice of 5 colours
- Height adjustable
- Angle tilt canopy
- Shoulder strap carry case
- High quality steel frame
Note: price excludes umbrella base.
Delivery on this product can take a little longer than our normal lead time. Allow an extra 5 to 7 days.
And finally, finally, if you would prefer a valance around your beach umbrella then
Click to view an alternate version of this UPF50 UV beach parasol.


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Stephen Sells
Notify the user when they are about to be logged out of a Salesforce community.
Currently, if I am in a Salesforce community, I can let the page sit inactive for a while. When I try to edit the page, I can do so but when I try to save my changes, I lose the information I entered and am redirected to the Salesforce login page without any warning. In standard Salesforce, the user is notified of being logged out so they don't lose any productivity time in trying to enter data and then losing it. The experience should be consistent in a Salesforce community.
Ultimately, we'd like the same warnings given in standard salesforce about being logged out to also be available to users in a Salesforce community.
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This post most likely contains affiliate links to things such as tours, transport, accommodation, products & amazon associate links. I may receive a small commission if you use the links which costs you no extra, but helps keep this blog going.
I've been looking back at my photos from when I visited Petra in October 2015 (a selection of these photos are at the bottom of this post) and my first thought has been 'Wow that's really incredible..'
Now I know that often I tend to appreciate a place more after I have left and everything has sunk in and I would say this is the case with Petra too because at the time of visiting I actually left pretty annoyed and I intended to write a blog post about why this was so here it is…
First up, I had read a few blogs on the realities of Petra and how to visit Petra so I didn't arrive there thinking it was going to be all rainbows and rock carvings but I was doing fine for time and had just checked into the lovely Saba's Hotel which is a guesthouse/hotel run by an English Women and her Jordanian Husband in the town of Wadi Musa, just up the road from the entrance to Petra, so on the day I visited Petra I decided to buy a 2 day pass as the 1 day and 2 day passes were only £5.00 difference so I thought if i ended up wanting to go back for a second day I can but if I don't then its not much money wasted!
After visiting Petra I really can see why its a Wonder of the World. Similar to Machu Picchu its a lost town full of an incredible amount of history but also a lot of mystery as people still aren't sure what exactly it was used for and when it was built. When you look at the carvings in the rocks and think how they wouldn't of had any machinery to help them then it really is astounding.
However Petra now, of course is a tourist spot, a tourist trap and this is what I didn't like.
I made an effort to get there early and I was so happy that i did, I walked though the famous and incredible Siq and barely saw anyone else. When I arrived at the Treasury which the Siq opens out to there were just a few camels and one other tourist, the vendors were yet to open their stalls and it did feel very special and even quite magical.. Fast forward a few hours though and this area is packed with people!
Of course I expected there to be a lot of tourists, groups of people following a flag and constant selfie sticks but what actually got to me were the locals.
I was there on my own, a girl, a blonde girl and a fairly young blonde girl so naturally, this being the Middle East (unfortunately) attracted a lot of male attention. I was constantly shouted at, to buy things from the stalls, to hire a guide, to go into a restaurant, for a camel ride, for a donkey ride, for a horse and carriage ride and it made me feel quite uncomfortable.
And it wasn't just the men that were trying to get you to buy things, there were a lot of children around too, of course this wasn't intimidating but it's hard to see. Unfortunately I'm used to seeing children selling things from travelling around Asia and although its hard to say no I know that you have to, you shouldn't be creating demand, they should be in school and while they're earning money out of school in these tourists spots they're parents won't encourage them to go to school.
The other main reason I didn't like Petra was the use of the animals. Donkey rides are predominantly used to help tourists reach the Monastery because with an 800 step uphill climb it really isn't easy but after seeing an incredibly large man sat on a tiny donkey which was definitely struggling i came to the conclusion that if you can't walk up there yourself you just shouldn't go!
Why should an animal have to suffer because of your laziness and unfitness. You don't go to Petra thinking it is just a walk in the park, after a quick bit of research you'll realise that Petra is a big site, getting to the Treasury via the Siq from the Main entrance is a kilometre walk in itself and thats literally just the start. I think I walked the equivalent of half a marathon that day!
Then there were the horse and carriages, on my way out whilst being shouted out to get in a carriage by one of the guys he then went on to whip his horse multiple times and this wasn't the only occasion i saw this. I admit, I have a soft heart for animals and particularly horses and I have strong opinions that animals should not be used for and in tourist attractions and here were these men just beating their horses in front of us all.. at a Wonder of the World!!
Once I had arrived back at the main entrance and had decided that I wouldn't be returning tomorrow, I did think that maybe I was being a bit silly and I also understand that the lively hood of the people that live around here depends on their children selling trinkets, they're horses, donkeys and camels being riden but then I saw this poster and it cleared up that actually everything that annoyed me about Petra were reasonable issues and issues that they were trying to stop.. although in my opinion they weren't trying quite hard enough.
All those things aside Petra is an incredible place, and of course not all the locals are annoying, I had a lovely conversation with a local women whilst I stopped and had a tea with her at her stall and she told me about her family, a guide who had just finished with a couple he was showing round stopped and gave me some tips on how to get to the high view point of the Treasury which I wouldn't of found on my own and I do believe that the majority of people look after their animals well therefore I would recommend going, its a Wonder of the World of course but just be conscious of the men, the children and the animals!
For more information on Petra, how to get there, what time I got there, costs, what i'd recommend seeing ect see my blog post here.
And here are a selection of photos that i took which now make me look back and think 'wow'!


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Forget senior slide. Some Rutherford County seniors are in a sprint to graduation and beyond.
Tag Archives | College and Career Readiness
Turning Remediation into College Credit
posted by Cathy Pressnell on February 25, 2014 in In the Classroom
A new program helps seniors get college ready.
Five Things to Consider When Choosing a College
posted by Cathy Pressnell on January 10, 2014 in Uncategorized
A Vanderbilt admissions counselor lists her best advice for finding the right college.
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