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New VOD and Streaming Movies, Plus: How to Watch 'Rush' and 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2' Before Disc
Check out what's new to rent and own this week on the various streaming services such as cable Movies On Demand, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, and, of course, Netflix.
Cable Movies On Demand: Same-day-as-disc releases, older titles and pretheatrical exclusives for rent, priced from $3-$10, in 24- or 48-hour periods
Carrie (horror remake; Chloë Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore; rated R)
Fruitvale Station (drama; Michael B. Jordan, Octavia Spencer; rated R)
Lee Daniels' The Butler (historical drama; Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey; rated PG-13)
Riddick (Unedited Director's Cut) (sci-fi/action sequel; Vin Diesel, Karl Urban, Katee Sackhoff; unrated)
20 Feet from Stardom (music documentary; Darlene Love, Mary Clayton; rated PG-13)
A.C.O.D. (comedy; Adam Scott, Amy Poehler; rated R)
I'm in Love with a Church Girl (drama; Jeff "Ja Rule" Atkins, Adrienne Bailon; rated PG)
Short Term 12 (drama; Brie Larson, John Gallagher Jr.; rated R)
The Spectacular Now (coming-of-age romance; Shailene Woodley, Miles Teller; rated R)
Streaming/Digital Download: Rent from $4-$7 or own from $13-$20 (HD may cost more than SD)
Offers the same movies as cable Movies On Demand for rent and/or download. Plus:
Rush (Formula One action and adventure; Chris Hemsworth, Daniel Brühl, Olivia Wilde; available now to download to own—not rent—two weeks before disc; rated R)
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (animated comedy; voices of Bill Hader, Anna Faris, James Caan, Will Forte, Andy Samberg; available now to download to own—not rent—two weeks before disc; rated PG)
Rush, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2
Offers the same movies as cable Movies On Demand for rent and/or download except for 20 Feet from Stardom. Plus:
Netflix Watch Instantly: $7.99 per month
Recent additions:
Spy Kids 3: Game Over (adventure; Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino, Alexa Vega, Holland Taylor, Sylvester Stallone, Salma Hayek; available 1/16; rated PG)
Follow Robert B. DeSalvo @zuulboy
Movies.com, the ultimate source for everything movies, is your destination for new movie trailers, reviews, photos, times, tickets + more! Stay in the know with the latest movie news and cast interviews at Movies.com.
Copyright © 2020 FANDANGO MOVIES.


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Still waiting
The species tulips are not to be seen thus far. There are leaves, but of the three or four varieties that usually perform very well, we've seen just one example of one kind: a single Lilac Wonder (tulipa bakeri). Nothing in the side yard, apart from Dutch hyacinths, grape hyacinths, ipheieon, pink oxalis, and quite a few geranium narcissi, has done well so far this year. In Mack's yard, the show-stoppers these last few days have been bright sulphur or saffron-yellow ranunculous flowers along with the continuing red-orange ones; and the red and red-and-white St. Brigid anemones are still showy. And this has been the best year for Thalia in ages. Alliums are past their peak. Fennel wintered over in the ground has just been loving this weather. Milkweed (the plain yellow variety) in pots is about to bloom. Our neighbor's spirea is the most spectacular we've seen, just made for the overcast days we've been enjoying.

subset: commoncrawl


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Jill Badonsky's Awe-manac : Sneak Preview of The Awe-Manac
Exclusive Slip to Creativity Portal
Sneak Preview of The Awe-manac: A Daily Dose of Wonder by Jill Badonsky
Hi. Be cool. Don't look suspicious. I'm letting some of my new book leak out before it is released this December 8 because you Portal Peeps are fun and creative readers that appreciate a little playful mischievousness. The book is designed to create less crankiness and more creative joy in the world (i.e. it's a great holiday gift for irritable, thoughtful, unsuspecting, unpredictable, quirky, passionate, thrifty, keen, size 14, or all other types and sizes of people).
Here's a description:
The Awe-manac: A Daily Dose of Wonder is a playfully practical guide that's a refreshing twist on the revered Old Farmer's Almanac. It provides daily forecasts, irreverent astrological advice, metaphorical planting instructions, and other directives to help readers make life more creative, amusing, gratifying, and extraordinary every day of the year! With art on every page and words marinated in mirth and inspiration, you will be encouraged to think more brilliantly, laugh more often, make art or write creatively, and simply add a lot more "awe" into daily life.
Shhhh, Don't tell my editor, but here's a whole page from the introduction:
Welcome to The Awe-manac.
The afternoon glow is brightening the bamboos, the fountains are bubbling with delight, Let us dream of evanescence, and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things. ~ Okakura Kakuzo
Ahhh, "the beautiful foolishness of things." Foolishness can indeed be beautiful in moderation and at times, with safety gear. It's all how you look at it.
You have entered The Awe-manac, sort of like an "almanac" but with that sublime state of "awe" instead of the overwhelming state of "all." Awe, in this particular awe-rena, means the wonder and cultivation of the mind's possibilities. A rock pile can become a cathedral if your mind has the right combination of perspective and possibility.
The Old Farmer's Almanac was invented in 1766 by Robert Bailey Thomas. As you may know, The Old Farmer's Almanac is still published annually and provides information about the weather, sunrises, moon cycles, tides, crops, gardening, astrology, and things like that. Almanacs have also been known to advertise potions, magic elixirs, and special products that claim everything from making you younger and smarter and curing your ailments to ridding your house of dust bunnies.
Genuine Claim:
There is 439 more pages filled with daily whimsical illustrations, Aha-phrodisiacs (creative prompts for writers and artists), Awe-servances, Soul Vitamins, Toasts of the Day, Journal Juju, Doses of Mirth, advertisements for nine Anti-aging Potions (and a Spot Remover), Viewfinders, running gags, a Creativity Crash Course and more.
Don't look obvious, but peruse this excerpt from The Awe-manac's November 15th page:
Daily Soul Vitamin
Dose of Mirth
The Awe-manac will keep you inspired every day of the year. I give you permission to leak this out to everyone you know immediately only if you think they can remain cool. •
Next: More Awe-manac Excerpts »
Copyright © Jill Badonsky, 2008. All rights reserved.[an error occurred while processing this directive]


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Another week is at an end and it's been a week of change here at MarketingPilgrim. Out there, in the rest of the digital marketing world, not so much. Seems like everyone is caught in the January slump. . . .or worse.
eBay gave their state of the union address and it wasn't good. They used phrases like "going to get worse before it gets better" and capped it with layoffs for 2,400 workers. Later this year, eBay will be splitting from its sister company Paypal and though Paypal is expected to grow after the split, eBay is headed into dark waters. The hope is that someone will buy the company and return it to its former, collectible auctions, glory. I hope so because I can't go a day without eBay.
Twitter announced a few new tweaks this week. The "while you were away" feature will push important Tweets you might have missed to the top of your timeline on mobile. This goes against Twitter's real time philosophy and makes them more like Facebook in that they're going to decide what's important to you and what isn't.
Si usted puede leer esto. . . you might be using Twitter's new translation tool. Click the globe in the corner of any foreign language Tweet and the Bing translation pops up right below it. It's a nice feature not just for the casual user but for social media managers who need to keep an eye on what people are saying about a company.
I tested a few Tweets and the translations are pretty good, especially when they were coming from professionals. As expected, casual Tweets with a lot of slang, didn't always make sense.
In another part of the web, Amazon shut down the Amazon Wallet app this week after a short, 6 month beta test. The digital wallet should have caught on by now but everyone's still struggling to make the idea work. I wonder why. . .
My favorite story of the week has to be this one from Pinterest where they try to convince you that a lot of manly men hang out on the site.
More men use Pinterest in the U.S. every month than read Sports Illustrated and GQ combined.
They also say that men are the fastest growing demographic on the site – but of course they are. They're the only demographic left that isn't already using the photo pinning site.
That's it for me this week. I'm off to the Lost in Space reunion convention. Hope your weekend will be just as fun. See you back here on Monday.
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Headstones, tattoos, ashes in objects, memorial runs and benches: How to memorialize and remember a loved one. The choices are many and is there more guilt if you don't do it right?
It is impressive how much good and how much craziness comes from memorializing our loved ones.
Each religion has it's own traditions for the passing of our family members. In Judaism the body is buried immediately and the family sits shiva for one week. The word "shiva" means seven for the 7 day mourning period and mourners are supposed to sit low to the ground. Mirrors are covered which symbolize the absence of vanity and self indulgence in a place of grief. People are expected to stop by and may bring a meal or a cake and then sit with the family.
In the Christian religion there could be an open casket wake where mourners view the dead body at a funeral home for one or 2 days. Then a religious service and burial ceremony in a cemetery may follow.
If the body is cremated the ashes can be interred in a mausoleum or scattered outside. According to an article by Cremation Solutions, the extreme heat of cremators means that absolutely no organic material remains after cremation so human ashes do not present any sort of health hazard to the living or the environment. According to the EPA burial at sea of human remains – cremated or not – is permitted if placed in the ocean at least 3 miles or more from land.
But once the body is gone, what do we do to help us remember our loved ones?
Throw a party
Or a memorial celebration or something like that. Many people loved and miss the person too so create a way to celebrate their life. Invite family and friends and ask people to make speeches and focus on wonderful memories. Share photos and stories with family and friends.
Ceremonial Goodbye
Sending off flowers in the sea, releasing butterflies or even doves can be a beautiful way to represent letting go and new beginnings. It is environmentally not a good idea, even illegal in some states, to let go of balloons. Some companies claim to make a biodegradable balloon so that could be a solution. In China, flying kites at funerals is a way to honor the loved ones. Flying kites with messages tied to the tails in Guatemala brings hope of communicating with the departed to those grieving.
Donation or Scholarship
Asking for donations in lieu of flowers can help support a worthy cause that your loved one would appreciate. Raising funds for a scholarship is another way to memorialize someone especially a younger person.
Memorial Run or Walk
Organizing the community to support a Memorial Run in the name of a loved one is a big undertaking but can bring awareness to the cause of death. Additionally, you could organize a group and wear matching t-shirts to participate in an organized walk for research in curing diseases like Breast Cancer or Alzheimers.
If you bury a body you could purchase a headstone and place it on the ground above. A plot must be purchased at a cemetery and you will have to decide if there will be spots for additional family members. This can be a healing way to memorialize a loved one by having meaningful words and designs placed on the stone. It also gives the family a place to visit which can help them feel connected to the dead.
Take a trip
When my grandmother died, my mom used the money she inherited to take her 3 kids on a "Legacy Trip". I met my mom and brother and sister in Rome during my semester in England. We took the Eurail train from Rome, to Nice France, to Paris and then to Norway where my grandmother's family was from. We will always remember that trip and what a nice tribute.
Get a tattoo
This seems to be a thing on the Facebook widow and widower pages that I read. Some people design a tattoo with their loved one's name and a graphic that is meaningful to them. Some people, like me, just get a tattoo to remind them to keep breathing. What happens in Atlantic City sometimes stays on your wrist
Buy a bench or plant a tree
I see this a lot. It seems like a nice thing to do. Purchase a bench for a park that people can use to sit on and rest and dedicate in your loved one's name. Maybe there is a special place that you could plant a tree in memory of a loved one or purchase a brick at a college or sports arena.
Ashes in objects
Of course, many people purchase a beautiful urn and keep the urn in their homes on a mantle to remember their loved one. Several places, take the ashes and design them into lovely shaped decorative glass art. You can even have jewelry made to hold some ashes of your loved one so that you are always close to them.
Write a book (or a blog)
Journaling has been recommended by many therapists as a way to process the loss. Sharing your story with others can help them to understand that they are not alone on this unexpected journey and that they will, one day, be OK. Sharing stories about your loved one, either written or photo stories, keeps their memory alive.
A namesake
Maybe someone will name a child after a loved one. Having that piece of family history that children are named after a respected loved family member is another way to continue the legacy.
Passing on a special piece of jewelry or other valued objects like silver or china is another way for the family to remember the loved family member. I recently had my grandmother's wedding ring refitted and am wearing it – no longer as my wedding ring, but as a beautiful heirloom. Do Widows Wear Wedding Rings?
Each family is different and so whatever helps you to remember your loved one is the right way to do it for you. Do not let those feelings of guilt sneak up. I know I have sometimes felt I did not do everything right after Mike died, but it is not like I had any experience doing this. I wish I had played more music at the wake. He loved music and I would have wanted him to be serenaded. I would have hired someone to play bagpipes too. Thanks readers for letting me brainstorm. Can you think of any other ideas?


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My first post in our series about our Utah trip covered Arches National Park. Part two will be about one of our other favorite stops – Zion National Park!
Zion is a breathtaking location, located right by the town of Springdale, Utah with hikes galore! We went to Zion in March and the weather was warm during the day and cool at night. It was the beginning of Zion's busy season but the crowds were manageable as long as you planned ahead. With this guide you'll be prepared for a kid friendly trip to Zion any time.
This post may contain affiliate links, for more information you may read the full disclosure here.
My biggest over night advice continues to be..
Stay In The Park
To stay in the park you will have to plan ahead. Campsites in the main campground – Watchman Campground – can fill up as early as six months in advance but are easy to reserve online here. I promise, pre-planning for this is worth it. Our campsite was shaded and gave us a great place to park our car right in the heart of the park. This made it easy to stop for lunch or dinner without having to go into town if we didn't want to because the line to get into the park can get long during the main part of the day! Also, there is walking path that leads straight from the campground into the town of Springdale so we were able to walk in for gift shopping, ice cream, and showers one day when we took a break from hiking.
Things to know: There are bathrooms but no showers in the park. At the visitor center you can get a list of recommended places to snag a shower in town. We ended up showering at a rock climbing outfitter who had showers you could buy tokens for. It was clean and warm and got the job done!
This is the desert – days are warm but evenings are cool and night time can be cold. We were tent camping but had a propane powered tent heater that we turned on for about 15 minutes before crawling into bed for the night and for about 15 minutes before getting out in the morning. We also used sleeping bags designed for temperatures down to zero degrees and all cuddled up together. If you go in summer you may not have as cool of nights, but honestly we stayed plenty warm with some advanced preparation and were rewarded with gorgeous hiking weather all day long.
Things you will want if you go in spring are a smaller tent than normal — smaller tents heat faster and hold heat better, a tent heater, and zero degree sleeping bags. All of these things can be purchased at decent prices. My suggestions (and exactly what we used on our trip) would be:
Enjoy the visitor center and sign up for the Junior Ranger Program on your first day at the park.
Zion has a decent visitor center and I would always recommend stopping at the visitor center first when you go to any National Park. The National Park System has a Junior Ranger program in place that is great for kids from 4-12 years old. You simply stop at the visitor center information desk and ask for details on that park's program. Most parks have a booklet of various activities children need to complete based on age during their visit. When you finish your activities you can return to the visitor center to be sworn in by a ranger as a Junior Park Ranger and receive a really neat badge to go with. Our daughter loved this at all of our stopping points on this trip. It was a great way to get her to really learn about the park we were in from the ecology to the history of each place.
If you stay at Watchman Campground you can walk right to the visitor center from your camp site whenever it is convenient for you. Staying at the park was extra nice because parking in Zion is VERY limited – they don't allow cars into the main part of the canyon much of the year – so we never had to worry about waking at the crack of dawn and hauling our kids around in a car just to try and find a parking space for the day.
Drink LOTS of water!
This is the desert and it can be surprisingly dehydrating. My husband and I both carried water in our packs and my daughter has a small Camelbak that she has started carrying her own water in as well. Fill up any time you see a water station because you won't find many sources out on the trail. These are the packs we carried during our trip. Small and manageable for the day hikes we were doing. They held water bladders, snacks, and our layers we shed as the day heated up. Karrigan loves her small pack, that can be purchased in multiple colors – hers is pink- it is designed to hold a water bladder, snacks, and she loves pinning her Junior Ranger badges to it!
Be Aware Of Drop Offs and Steep Climbs
The National Parks do a great job of ranking trails and being honest about their difficulty. Make sure to pick up a trail map at the visitor center! The number one hazard we found in this park was drop offs on many trails. Yet our seven year old handled them fine as long as one of us walked in front to feel out any tricky spots we came to. It is worth it but you will want to keep your child in eyesight and remind them to stay away from edges as you hike!
Dress In Layers
We were visiting over spring break and definitely ran into spring like weather on this trip. Our mornings were cool and often called for leggings and light jackets but by afternoon we were glad to be able to strip down to something cooler. Layers are the key to comfort on almost any hiking adventure and without the ability to change her clothing items our kiddo would have definitely become whiny and uncomfortable.
You will see from our photos we often started in hats and jackets and by the end of the trip were in sweat shirts or t-shirts!
Zion Park Shuttle System
Zion National Park is located in the bottom of Zion Canyon. Most of the year they prohibit driving through the main canyon and instead use a shuttle system to get visitors from the shuttle starting point at the visitor center to various trail head destinations. You will want to get in this line early or be prepared for quite a wait. The system is efficient but crows in Zion can get huge. Patience is key if you don't want to be up early enough to catch one of the first shuttles. That being said, if you are willing to wait a bit – you can enter Zion at any time of day. You can get on and off the shuttle going either direction as many times as you want.
Insider Tip: If you don't mind walking (and lets be honest you are going to be doing tons of it anyways) you can get around the long line at the visitor center by simply walking on foot to the next stop or two down the line! We did this one morning when the line was long. We walked the Pa'Rus trail on to the next stop and caught a bus quickly! We got to see some mule deer up close and personal on the Pa'Rus trail and the walk was a quick and easy warm up during the cool morning hours.
Zion's website has a lot of great information and maps for the shuttles here.
Our Favorite Hikes
Zion is internationally known for its adrenaline pumping hike called Angel's Landing. This is the extreme hiker's paradise. However, we wanted trails that would challenge us and keep us safe with our kiddo in tow. When we return at a later date we may have to check this one off the bucket list. Even without Angel's Landing there were a ton of fun hiking options for us!
Emerald Pools Trail – Including Lower, Middle, and Upper Pools
This was our favorite trail! The hike from the shuttle stop to the lower pool is easy and doable by just about everyone. We saw some great water features on our way to this pool and this would be terrific for families with kids under 5. Looking for a bit of adventure we continued past the lower pool on to the middle and upper pools. The hike to these two locations is a bit more strenuous. We were glad we had water, and while we had to slow down a time or two the hike was doable for all of us as a family. The end result at the upper pool was a fantastic water fall into the upper pool. It should be noted that this waterfall is not an all year/all the time feature as it does get dry. The pool is always present but the water fall is not. Even without the waterfall this would be a great spot to snag a picture and a snack. The views on the trail are fantastic too!
Kayenta Trail
After hiking to the Upper Emerald Pool you can return the way you came or do as we did and take the Kayenta trail down to ground level. I strongly suggest Kayenta trail for the beautiful change of scenery and a bit of extra fun. I would consider this a moderate trail but after making it to the upper pools you will find it an easy trek down. Do be careful of drop offs on this trail and stay to the middle of the path.
Canyon Overlook Trail
This a trail that shouldn't be missed! I highly suggest waking up one morning and trying to get there at or right after sunrise. To get to this trail you drive on the Zion-Mt.Caramel highway toward the park's east entrance. The drive alone is tons of fun with breathtaking views and a trip through the long Zion tunnel (our daughter LOVED this). Right when you get through the tunnel there will be a parking lot for you to park your car and access the Canyon Overlook Trail – be ready! If you go mid-day the lot may be full – another reason to go early. Park your car and start your breath taking one mile walk. I love that this trail is shorter but packs a punch for each foot step in the awe and wonder department. Great for us on our third day in Zion when feet were starting to feel a little weary.
Insider Tip: There is an east entrance to Zion National Park on the Mt. Caramel Highway. The main entrance from the city of Springdale can get huge lines while this side of the park stays quiet. We came in this way our first day and had no wait getting into the park while other people were in a very long line to enter!
Note: Another popular trail in Zion is The Narrows. We did not venture through the narrows on this trip but will update this post should we do so in the future. We DID do the River Walk trail which was a GREAT all ages and all ability trail that leads you right to the start of the Narrows hike!
Visiting Springdale
Springdale is the town right outside the park. Staying in the park, there was a footpath that led us right into town. You will find people saying to eat ice cream at Zion Lodge in the park but the real gem for a sweet treat is right in town at Springdale Candy Company. Seriously, from one ice cream lover to another – you NEED to go here once on your trip. You can thank me later!
Springdale is also where you can visit to find showers, hotel accommodations if you aren't a camper, and great restaurants if you need a break from the camp fire food!
Overall, we did three days at Zion and could have done more and still had plenty to do. I can't wait to go back as our troop ages and see some more sights. I hope this guide will help you and I can't encourage you enough to visit Zion no matter your age or the age of your kiddos!
Have you been to Zion? What was your favorite part? If you are planning to go and have any questions don't hesitate to ask in the comments – I'm here to help!!


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Monday, September 28, 2015
Goals Define How Much You'll Move the Needle
This week I want to spend a little more time talking about the first and highest of the three elements: the goals.
I've already written about our success indicators, the final element of our Board's Strategy Agenda, and to which our goals, the first element of our Operational Plan, are linked. As I've written before, if the success indicators are the gauges that measure key areas of organizational performance, the goals are the distance we want to move the needles on those gauges in a given plan cycle.
Here's the concrete example I previously provided. One of our success indicators is "Industry Donations: The number of NFPA Foundation donors and the amount of total donations that support fluid power education and research in universities is increasing," and the goal that we've linked to it is "Compared to last fiscal year, increase the number of Foundation donors from 154 to 160, and the amount of donations received from $817,000 to $828,000."
The piece of the puzzle that I want to dig into more deeply here is how important it is, in my opinion, for the Board to have free reign in determining the success indicators, but how equally important it is for the staff executive to have free reign in setting the associated goals. This may sound like heresy to some, stripping the Board of its power to hold the executive accountable for performance, but in my experience, it is the rare Board that understands the on-the-ground environment enough to set realistic goals.
Take the example I provided above. By identifying donors and donations as indicators closely associated with organizational success, the Board has already exerted tremendous influence over what the focus of staff activity is going to be. We are going to be fundraisers and, indeed, in the three years since this indicator was first identified, my organization has been building an increasing staff infrastructure around that function.
But building that infrastructure, and determining how successful it can be, has to be the job of the staff executive. In our case, once the Board had identified fundraising as key to our overall success, I had to take a hard look at the capacity of the organization to do it. In that first year, there was frankly very little capacity. Our Foundation was four years old, and a few dozen members were writing three- or four-digit checks in support of it. Knowing that this was not enough to fund the strategic objectives of the organization, the Board could have given me a goal in that first year, a goal to double or even triple donations, but it is unlikely that we would have been successful. Such a goal, relatively easy to toss off at a Board meeting, would have been unconnected to the reality of the organization. We were already raising as much money as we could with the fundraising mechanisms that we had.
What was needed, and what I identified as the goal in that first year, was to build new fundraising mechanisms and capabilities within the association. Instead of raising more money, we actually had to spend more money so that we could start raising more money in the future.
It was not what the Board would have chosen on its own, but it was what was needed at that moment, and it is only the staff executive that can see that landscape and make those kinds of calls.
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This post was written by Eric Lanke, an association executive, blogger and author. For more information, visit www.ericlanke.blogspot.com, follow him on Twitter @ericlanke or contact him at email@example.com.
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Labels: Associations, Strategy and Execution
Monday, September 21, 2015
Your Moment in the Spotlight
Waiting for that moment to arrive creates anxiety. And if you let that anxiety show when your moment comes, you'll waste it. People won't hear your message, they'll only hear your anxiety.
So, as anxious as you feel, and as unexpected as your time to shine hits you, when your moment arrives, you must look and sound effortless.
How do you do that? In my experience you do two things. You make sure you know the facts of the situation, and you make sure your message is directly on point.
And then you practice, practice, practice. So when your time comes you can say what needs to be said, clearly and calmly.
It works for me, whether I have a week, a day, or even five minutes to prepare. Time and again, it works, especially when I only have five minutes to prepare.
So take my advice. When you see your moment approaching, calm down, decide what you need to say, and speak slowly. Far more people will actually hear you.
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This post was written by Eric Lanke, an association executive, blogger and author. For more information, visit www.ericlanke.blogspot.com, follow him on Twitter @ericlanke or contact him at email@example.com.
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Labels: Associations, Leadership
Saturday, September 19, 2015
Kepler's Witch by James A. Connor
I got more than I bargained for.
In its own way, the Lutheran church of Wurttemburg was undergoing a recapitulation of the Catholic experience. Catholics always believed that the faith was a matter of individual conscience, because one had to stand alone before God to be judged. But for the faith to be preserved through time and not dissolve into a battle of confusion, with each individual coming up with a personal interpretation of the Scripture, the church needed to establish some uniformity of doctrine. This meant a unified interpretation made by an exclusive group of official interpreters. This also meant that the church had to have authority, which included the power to compel its members to comply with its teachings, rather than their own consciences.
Wait. Hold on. Is this the biography of an astronomer or a treatise on religious history?
Well, it's both. Actually a bit more of the latter than the former. And this little piece of exposition, which I finally came across on page 246, would have saved me a lot of trouble if it had come on page 24.
I'll try to explain, but let's get through this explanatory passage first.
In keeping with this line of reasoning, only three hundred years after the founding of Christianity, Augustine of Hippo encouraged the persecution of the Donatists, because they would not conform to the church's teaching about baptism. They insisted that all those who had fallen away from the faith during the waning years of the Roman persecutions needed to be rebaptized. Augustine disagreed. Subtly, in any organization, religious or otherwise, solidarity becomes ossification, the faith becomes orthodoxy, and compliance becomes more important than conversion of spirit. By the time of the Reformation, Christianity had gotten to the point where authority itself had become the problem.
To reform Christianity, Luther and his followers returned to the idea of individual conscience and individual faith, ideas that had been asleep in Christianity for a thousand years. Luther and his followers, and the pastors who followed them, took the title "Doctor" rather than "Father." They wanted to be seen merely as educated men rather than men who possessed semidivine authority. Kepler was very much in line with this Reformation thinking. The Lutheran church of Wurttemberg, however, in order to survive intact in the noisy marketplace of religious ideas, had to begin to develop an orthodoxy. Without it, what Luther and his followers had taught would have disappeared, dissolving into thousands of smaller denominations, each one based upon some private interpretation of Scripture. Lutheranism would have dissolved into the religious landscape altogether.
As briefly mentioned above, Kepler was a Lutheran in these challenging times. But he was, in the opinion of the author, a very special kind of Lutheran.
The very nature of human organizations creates orthodoxy, and orthodoxies, in turn, give birth to reformers and mavericks, men such as Luther and Kepler. Kepler, as a good Lutheran, found himself at odds with the Lutheran church, but as a thinking Lutheran he almost had to. He believed that to be a good Lutheran, he had to follow his faith, which meant attending to his own conscience, which also meant that if he did not agree with the Formula of Concord in every detail, then he must not sign it. This did not mean that he stood against his church; it meant that he participated in it more fully. For the Wurttemberg consistory, however, if anyone, especially a famous man such as Kepler, were to be allowed that kind of freedom of conscience, it could eventually spell the end of the church itself.
And understanding that this is how the author views Kepler--as a Martin Luther-like figure, reforming his own church along the lines of his personal conscience--would have been much more helpful to know on page 24 instead of page 246. Because up until that point, I had pretty much been pulling my hair out trying to understand what all the fuss was about.
And I still am, to a certain extent. If Kepler didn't like the orthodoxy of the Lutheran church, I kept wondering, why didn't he just stop calling himself a Lutheran?
Kepler was a believing Lutheran and would never become a Catholic, even when it would have benefited his career to do so. People all around him were jumping from one church to another. Kepler's father-in-law did it. So did many of his acquaintances and rivals, simply to better their political or social position or not to lose their earthly possessions.
This comes on page 3, and is indicative of the premise that the author seems to set. Kepler is not just a believing Lutheran, he is a principled one, and the odds of him betraying his Lutheran principles are absolutely zero. The author seems eager to praise Kepler for this conviction, evidently viewing such a position as more noble than that held by Kepler's acquaintances and rivals, those "jumping from one church to another." From my modern and secular perspective, it's not clear to me why one form of hierarchical social construction is preferred over the other, but okay, I can accept it. Kepler is a man of strong Lutheran principles.
Except the author then goes on to stress again and again Kepler intellectual and principled battles with the hierarchy of the Lutheran church. Here's a typical example. Through familial and academic connections, Kepler has just received an exemption from a royal order for all non-Catholics living in a certain region to either convert to Catholicism or leave.
Kepler's own openness did not sit well with his fellow Lutherans any more than his stubborn Lutheranism sat well with Catholics. The other teachers at the Lutheran school resented his exemption, wondering if he had compromised his faith along the way just to please the papists. He had certainly broken ranks with the other teachers by petitioning, but there was more to it than that. His beliefs, like his thoughts, were subtler than theirs. Some later scholars accused Kepler of indifference to dogma, but this too was unfair, for he did believe that there is but one truth, and he pursued that truth, which he identified with God, with all his heart all his life. Kepler had to go his own way, for the truth he pursued was inside his own conscience and did not float outside him among the dogmas of the churches. Sometimes he accepted the teachings of his church, and sometimes he did not, for he had to find the authentic truth for himself, and no one could find it for him. This meant that he could not accept the truth of others just because they told him to, no matter how authoritative they were. Neither armies nor pulpits could sway him by themselves, but only reason and faith.
Maybe you can see why I started having trouble with this. The author, or Kepler, or both, seems to want to have things both ways. I think those later scholars were right. Kepler was indifferent to dogma, and claiming the reverse because Kepler was busy building his own personal dogma doesn't prove them wrong. Especially when you follow that claim with the admission that your subject only follows the teachings of his church when he personally agrees with them.
And, his thoughts we subtler than theirs? Really? That was part of the problem? None of the smart people around him could see the nuance of his position? I have a hard time accepting that, knowing that there is a difference between being blind to subtlety and rejecting it as a molehill instead of a mountain.
But, evidently, I'm not the only person who views things this way.
Kepler's doubts about the ubiquity doctrine and about the sacrament had been paddling about in his head for years, since the days he had first studies at Maulbronn. Now they came to the surface. Perhaps unwisely, he confessed his doubts to the exiled church members, who were shocked and suddenly suspicious. Those who had envied his return and suspected him of compromise suddenly had new ammunition. The others merely shook their heads, wondering. None of them really understood him, though. His theological meanderings were well within the bounds of the Lutheran faith. Or so he thought. But differences over what constitutes the heart of the faith are often the source of schism and heresy. Kepler never quite understood this for himself, but others did, and from that day on they watched him carefully.
Or so he thought, indeed. I would say that the thing Kepler never fully understood was that it wasn't up to him to decide what a Lutheran was and wasn't. That was up to the Lutheran church, and they pretty consistently said that what Kepler believed wasn't Lutheranism.
Which just adds to the overall confusion. Given the pivotal role the author seems to think Kepler played in the "noisy marketplace of religious ideas," one has to question why, in the face of all this opposition, he didn't just start a "Kepleran" church the way Luther had started a Lutheran one.
Well, here's one reason.
The city was now open, defenseless. The Spanish commander Gian d'Urbina led his men through the Borgo, butchering everyone, armed and unarmed alike. They broke into the Hospitale de Santo Spirito and threw the patients into the Tiber while they were still alive. Then they murdered all the orphans. Once across the Ponte Sisto, the plunder started in earnest. Palaces, monasteries, churches, convents, workshops--they attacked them all, broke down the doors, and scattered everything they could find into the streets. Money, booty, plunder was everything to them. They dragged citizens, even those who supported the emperor, even their own countrymen living in Rome, and tortured them until they handed over whatever money they had. They assumed that everyone in the city was hiding some secret treasure and pulled them, beat them, burned them until they handed it over. Those who suffered to most were those who had nothing to give.
When they found a priest, they cut him open until his guts ran out onto the street. Some they stripped and at sword point commanded to blaspheme the name of God. They held satiric masses and forced what priests they could find to participate. The Lutherans killed one priest who refused to give Communion to a donkey. The marauders then shot at holy relics, spat on them, and played football with the severed head of St. John. They tortured on, grabbing any man or woman they could find, still searching for hidden riches. Some they branded with red-hot irons. Others they tied by their genitals. Some they hung up by their arms for hours, some for days. Others they forced to eat their own severed ears, noses, or penises. They raped every woman they could find, young and old, married and single, including nuns. Especially nuns. Many they sold at auction or as prizes in games of chance. They forced mothers and fathers to watch the rape of their daughters. Some they forced to assist in it. The city had collapsed; it was violated, alone, without hope.
Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, an enemy of the pope, rode in with two thousand men to join the attack. He wept when he saw the state of affairs in the city, but his men soon joined the revelers. Most of the soldiers were half-starved peasants who robbed people as poor as they were themselves. Soon the city was empty, and the invaders weary. The noise died down; the exhausted revelers gathered in stupefied clumps, heavy with wine, hung over, bleeding in places from wounds. No one seemed to notice anything. Grandmothers wandered through the streets looking for their children. Babies cried for their mothers. Children stood in the middle of the streets, stunned. Spot fires burned here and there in the city. Over all was the buzzing of flies and the stench of the dead. Here and there dogs gnawed upon corpses.
These were extremely violent times, in which allegiance to one religious dogma or another was literally a matter of life and death. The split between Catholics and the different Protestant churches was dangerous enough. Casting oneself outside the protection and influence of these dogmas was probably more than is fair to ask of anyone of that time.
But, you know what? It was a line that Kepler's scientific predecessors and contemporaries were able to walk. The following allusion to Copernicus…
The Reformation, like an earthquake, had cracked Western Christianity, stable since the fifth century, into Catholics and Protestants, and the Protestants into Lutherans, Zwinglians, Calvinists, Anglicans, and Anabaptists, with the many camps drifting away like tectonic plates. Even the heavens had been changing, and Kepler had been part of that change. Copernicus, and obscure Polish priest, had published his On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, which had dethroned the earth from its place at the universe center and sent it spinning through the heavens like a top revolving around the sun. Fear ruled Europe--fear of difference, fear of change.
...can't help but remind me of that obscure Polish priest's savvy equivocation. "Mathematics," Copernicus said in his prelude to that famous work, "is for mathematicians," by which he meant that although the math of his heliocentric solar system was simpler and more predictive of planetary movements than the convolutions and contortions mathematicians were forced into by placing the earth at the center, that shouldn't be interpreted as him advocating for the view that the sun actually was at the center of the solar system. That, after all, would be blasphemy, and that could get an obscure Polish priest into a great deal of trouble.
Kepler seemed incapable of employing similar strategies, sometimes even going out of his way to rub the noses of the Lutheran magisterium in his independence of thought and action.
And I'm left wondering whether I should respect that or not. Being oppressed for your principled views is one thing. Running away from the neighbor's dog after you threw a stick at it is another.
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This post was written by Eric Lanke, an association executive, blogger and author. For more information, visit www.ericlanke.blogspot.com, follow him on Twitter @ericlanke or contact him at firstname.lastname@example.com.
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Labels: Books Read
Monday, September 14, 2015
An Example of an Operational Plan
1. SUCCESS INDICATORS, the directional metrics of success determined by our Board, from which we identify our
2. GOALS, the degree or distance each success indicator will be advanced in a given plan cycle, from which we determine our
3. PROGRAM OBJECTIVES, the controllable things staff will achieve in our attempt to accomplish the goals, for each of which we set our
4. ACTION PLANS, the tactical steps we'll take throughout the plan cycle to achieve each program objective.
This week I wanted to provide a concrete example of each of those elements, based on the actual terminology and language my association leadership and staff have determined. As described above, each element is derived from and nests within the element that comes before it. Visually, this can be represented as a kind of organizational chart with our 22 success indicators at the top (we've had a strategic Board retreat and some resulting refinements to our success indicators since I last wrote about 26 of them on June 1, 2015). For each success indicator, at least one specific goal, and sometimes several, is identified, giving us 33 goals on the next level of the organizational chart, followed by 106 program objectives, at least one, and usually more, focused on each of the goals. And finally, supporting each program objective, 106 detailed action plans, describing the work that will be performed to accomplish each objective.
What follows, therefore, is one of 106 possible journeys down that organizational chart, from one specific success indicator to one particular goal to one particular program objective and action plan.
I'll choose the success indicator I ended my June 1 example of our Strategy Agenda with: "Industry Donations," which our Board has recently re-defined as "The number of NFPA Foundation donors and the amount of total donations that support fluid power education and research in universities is increasing."
This gives us the metric we're trying to affect (donors and donations) and the direction we're trying to make them go (increase). From that information, we next have to identify specific goals (how much we want to affect the metric in a given period of time). In this example, we looked as the number of donors and the amount of donations received in our previous fiscal year, and set modest increases as our goal for the current fiscal year: "Compared to last fiscal year, increase the number of Foundation donors from 154 to 160, and the amount of donations received from $817,000 to $828,000."
With the goal in hand, the next step is to identify the program objectives, the controllable things that will be accomplished in order to bring about the goal they are aligned with. We have three program objectives aligned with our example goal. We call one of those objectives "Pascal Society," named after one of the major fundraising programs of our Foundation, and that objective is defined as "Seek to renew membership and grow participation in the Pascal Society."
Finally, aligned with that program objective is a detailed action plan, the discrete tasks that will be performed throughout the year and that will be necessary to achieve the objective. The specific action plan for "Pascal Society" looks like this:
1. After renewal invoices are sent, confirm renewal status of all existing Pascal Society members.
2. Write and produce the 2015 Donor Impact Report.
3. Disseminate 2015 Donor Impact Report at 2015 Industry and Economic Outlook Conference and recognize Pascal Society donors there.
4. Mail 2015 Donor Impact Reports to all renewed Pascal Society members, including personal notes of thanks for specific company employees engaged in specific programs.
5. Send new Pascal Society logos to all members with instructions for use.
6. Identify candidates within the NFPA membership—those who have made large single donations and those with interest/connection to our research goals—and solicit them for Pascal Society membership.
7. Organize Pascal Society recognition and recognition activities at the 2016 Annual Conference, including the special VIP event for Pascal Society Gold members.
With these concrete examples I hope the linkages between the elements of our Operational Plan are more clear. By doing the tasks listed on the "Pascal Society" action plan, we will achieve the program objective of renewing membership and growing participation in the Pascal Society. By achieving that program objective, we increase our chances of achieving our goal of securing 160 donors and $828,000 in donations to our Foundation. And by accomplishing that goal we keep advancing the indicator our Board has defined as closely correlated with the organization's overall success.
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This post was written by Eric Lanke, an association executive, blogger and author. For more information, visit www.ericlanke.blogspot.com, follow him on Twitter @ericlanke or contact him at email@example.com.
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Labels: Associations, Strategy and Execution
Monday, September 7, 2015
What Are You Looking For In Your Next Board Member?
So, what kind of individuals am I looking for?
It's a great question. And the responsibility associated with the position has made me stop and think more critically about it than I otherwise might have. As I find myself chatting with nominees, essentially interviewing them as I might interview job candidates for my own association, I find my mind and my questions focusing on three key areas. And they may not be what you expect.
1. What do you do in your day job? I'm a firm believer that the world a nominee lives in is the world they will bring to the Board table. If their day job has them tactically executing someone else's strategy, then tactical is the mindset that they're going to have in Board meetings. They'll end up arguing with staff over how programs should be executed rather than working with their fellow Board members to decide which programs produce the results we're looking for. Very few of us in the association world have jobs that are 100% strategic, but experience formulating strategy, and adjusting that strategy when the envisioned tactics meet the real world, is an absolute prerequisite.
2. Who do you blame when things go wrong? To me, the most often correct answer is "no one." When things don't go according to plan, the simple and usually wrong answer is that it is some one person's fault. It's often not even a team's fault. When things go wrong, it is almost always due to a deficiency in the overall system. The organization lacks the resources. The people in charge of execution lack the competencies. The strategy itself was not well matched to the reality of the situation. Board members need to be looking to these three options before deciding to assign blame. They are far more often the real root of the problem, and people who don't recognize that and don't know how to deal with those problems will make poor Board members.
3. Do you control your own calendar? In other words, if the Board decides to add another meeting to its calendar, and that meeting requires an overnight stay away from your hometown, do you need to get permission from someone else, or can you commit your own time and resources to that meeting? Professionals who lack the freedom or authority to make those kinds of decisions are also usually not ready to be making the kind of decisions that need to be made around a Board table. That may sound harsh, but it's the truth. A Board needs to be comprised of people in charge of their own careers, not people who need permission from their supervisors before making any new commitments.
Do you agree with my areas of emphasis? What else do you think is absolutely necessary in new Board members? Let me know you're out there by leaving a comment.
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This post was written by Eric Lanke, an association executive, blogger and author. For more information, visit www.ericlanke.blogspot.com, follow him on Twitter @ericlanke or contact him at email@example.com.
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Labels: Associations, Leadership
Saturday, September 5, 2015
Closing Time by Joseph Heller
It starts with real promise.
Outside the hospital it was still going on. Men went mad and were rewarded with medals. Interior decorators were culture heroes, and fashion designers were the social superiors of their clientele.
These are the observations of Yossarian, Catch-22's Assyrian anti-hero, now sixty-eight years old, and a wealthy man living in the 1990s.
There were still plenty of poor people.
Yossarian looked askance at a bunch sprawled on the sidewalk outside the hospital as he strode out to the curb and the stretch limousine with black windows waiting there to transport him to the luxury high-rise apartment building across town in which he now made his home. He had reserved a sedan; they had sent the limousine again; there would be no additional charge. The high-rise apartment house he lived in was called a luxury building because the costs of living in it were large. The rooms were small. The ceilings were low, there were no windows in his two bathrooms, and no space in the kitchen area for a table or a chair.
And Yossarian's view of his world is somewhat unique.
From the lofty picture windows in his high-rise apartment, Yossarian commanded an unobstructed view of another luxury apartment building with an even higher rise than his own. Between these structures ran the broad thoroughfare below, which teemed more and more monstrously now with growling clans of bellicose and repulsive panhandlers, prostitutes, addicts, dealers, pimps, robbers, pornographers, perverts, and disoriented psychopaths, all of them plying their criminal specialties outdoors amid multiplying strands of degraded and bedraggled people who were now actually living outdoors. Among the homeless were whites now too, and they also pissed against the walls and defecated in the alleyways that others in their circle eventually located as accommodating sites to bed down in.
Even in the better neighborhood of Park Avenue, he knew, women could be seen squatting to relieve themselves in the tended flower beds of the traffic islands in the center.
It was hard not to hate them all.
And right now I'm thinking, good, Heller is going to skewer the madness of modern life the way he skewered the madness of war in Catch-22, and I am very much looking forward to that indeed.
Nowhere in his lifetime, Yossarian was bound often to remember, not in wartime Rome or Pianosa or even in blasted Naples or Sicily, had he been spectator to such atrocious squalor as he saw mounting up all around him now into an eminent domain of decay.
Because, of course, our modern tug-of-war between the haves and the have nots is another kind of Catch-22, isn't it? Perhaps Catch-23 or, with a nod to Douglas Adams, Catch-42. And Heller knows just how to reveal it.
For things were good, he reminded her: as measured by official standards, they had not often been better. This time only the poor were very poor, and the need for new prison cells was more urgent than the needs of the homeless. The problems were hopeless: there were too many people who needed food, and there was too much food to be able to feed them profitably. What was wanted was more shortages, he added, with just a small smile. He did not volunteer that by now he was one more in the solid middle class who was not keen to have his taxes raised to ameliorate the miseries of those who paid none. He preferred more prisons.
Especially if Yossarian turns out to be the Milo Minderbinder of this tale--not the radical trying to disrupt the system, but the businessman trying to turn it to his own profit.
But this does not adequately describe the novel that Closing Time is.
It struck him all of a sudden that overnight everyone he'd known a long time was old--not getting old, not middle-aged, but old! The great entertainment stars of his time were no longer stars, and the celebrated novelists and poets of his time were of piddling significance in the new generation. Like RCA and Time magazine, even IBM and General Motors were of meager stature, and Western Union had passed away. The gods were growing old again, and it was time for another shake-up.
Snippets like this appear again and again in the text, constantly reminding me that this is a book written by an older generation and, I fear, for an older generation.
Because Heller constantly plays with the cultural touchstones of that generation, naming one of his characters Strangelove, and including a curly-haired writer named Vonnegut in several scenes. And like Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five, Yossarian seems to move through time throughout the course of the novel.
From the physicists on the plane, Yossarian also thought he heard, without understanding any of it, that in the world of science, time continuously ran backward or forward, and forward and backward, and that particles of matter could travel backward and forward through time without undergoing change. Why, then, couldn't he? He also heard that subatomic particles had always to be simultaneously in every place they could be, and from this he began to consider that in his nonscientific world of humans and groups, everything that could happen did happen, and that anything that did not happen could not happen. Whatever can change, will; and anything that doesn't change, can't.
This is exactly what I think Heller is doing throughout the book, moving Yossarian around, if not physically from time period to time period like Billy Pilgrim, than at least from subplot to subplot, experiencing everything that can be experienced, and being everywhere that it is possible for him to be.
It gets confusing, and much would probably be revealed on a close second read. Surely someone (if not Heller himself) has diagrammed the novel, and such an exercise would undoubtedly reveal that Yossarian is both the cause and effect of the novel's action, with effect probably preceding cause in at least one situation. At least things feel that way.
This surrealness reaches it's peak when Yossarian interacts with the character Gaffney, a god-like real estate attorney who tails Yossarian throughout the novel, bugging his phone and apartment to eavesdrop on all his conversations, and, as a result, seems to know everything about him. Here's a typical exchange between Yossarian and Gaffney, occurring near the end of the novel while Yossarian attends a wedding with several of his current and former wives and mistresses.
Dancing with Frances, for whom he preserved that special shared friendship some might call love, he felt only bone, rib cage, elbow, and shoulder blade, no fleshy thrill, and was uncomfortable holding her. Dancing equally inexpertly with pregnant Melissa, whose plight, stubbornness, and irresolution were agitating him at present into an almost ceaseless fury, he was aroused by the first contact with her belly in her sea-green gown and lusting to lead her away into a bedroom once more. Yossarian peered now at that belly to ascertain if the plumpness was fuller or whether the corrective measures restoring her to normal had already been taken. Gaffney regarded him with humor, as though again reading his mind. Frances Beach at the wedding spied his difference in response and ruminated dolefully on her sad facts of life.
"We're unhappy with ourselves when we're young, and unhappy with ourselves when we're old, and those of us who refuse to be are abominably overbearing."
"That's pretty good dialogue you give her," Yossarian challenged Hacker, with belligerence.
"I like that too. I got it from Mr. Gaffney here. It sounds pretty real."
"It should sound real." Yossarian glowered at Gaffney. "She and I already had that conversation."
"I know," said Gaffney.
"I thought so, you fuck," Yossarian said without anger. "Excuse me, Olivia. We say things like that. Gaffney, you still keep monitoring me, Why?"
Pay attention to what comes next.
"I can't help doing it, Yossarian. It's my business, you know. I don't make information. I just collect it. It's not really my fault that I seem to know everything."
"What's going to happen to Patrick Beach? He isn't getting better."
"Oh, dear," said Olivia, shuddering.
"I'd say," answered Gaffney, "he's going to die."
"Before my wedding?"
"After, Mrs. Maxon. But, Yo-Yo, I would say that about you also. I would say that about everyone."
"About yourself too?"
"Sure. Why not?"
"You aren't God?"
"I'm in real estate. Isn't God dead? Do I look dead? By the way, Yossarian, I've been thinking of writing a book too."
"About real estate?"
"No, a novel. Maybe you can help. It begins on the sixth day of creation. I'll tell you about it later."
"I'm busy later."
"You'll have time. You're not meeting your fiancee until two."
"No," said Yossarian. "And I have no fiancee."
"Yes, he is," answered Gaffney.
"Don't listen to him."
"He doesn't know yet what he's doing. But I do. On with this wedding, Warren."
Yossarian, of course, has always been Heller's alter ego, but in Closing Time, Gaffney takes the navel gazing to a whole new level. One can only interpret Gaffney as Heller himself, interacting directly with his famous character both within the text and at the level of the text's creation. Heller is more or less manifesting himself within his work as he creates it.
Still, despite these parlor tricks, sometimes Heller's satire is razor sharp. Here's an exchange between the Vice President of the United States--given the moniker "Little Prick" in the novel--and Yossarian's friend and business partner Noodles Cook, as he applies for a job in the Vice President's office.
"You've been to college, Mr. Cook? You're an educated man?"
"Yes I have, sir. I have my graduate degrees."
"Good. I went to college too, you know. We have much in common and should get along--better, I hope"--and here a sound of the querulous crept in--"than I am getting along with those others. I have a feeling they make jokes about me behind my back. Looking back, I should have pursued philosophy and history and economics and things of that sort in college more. I'm making up for that now."
"How--" Noodles started to ask, and changed his mind. "Sir, my experience has been--"
"I'm not going to cry over spilt milk, and that's past."
"My experience has been," Noodles threaded his way onward obsequiously, "as a student, and even when teaching a bit, that people do what they are. A person interested in athletics, golf, and parties will spend time at athletic events, golf, and parties. It is very difficult in later life to grow interested in subjects like philosophy and history and economics if one was not attracted to them earlier."
"Yes. And it's never too late either," said the Vice President, and Noodles did not know whether they were in agreement or not. "Lately I have been studying the Napoleonic Wars, to sort of round out my education."
For a second or two Noodles sat motionless. "Which ones?" was all he could think to reply.
"Was there more than one?"
"That was not my field," answered Noodles Cook, and began to give up hope.
"And I'm doing the battle of Antietam too," he heard the man who was next in line for the presidency continue. "And after that I'm going to have a crack at Bull Run. That was really a great war, that Civil War. We've not have one like it since, have we? You'd be very surprised, but Bull Run is only a short car ride from here, with a police escort."
"Are you preparing for war?"
"I'm broadening myself. And I believe in being prepared. All the rest of the work of a President is pretty hard, it seems to me, and sort of dull. I'm having all of these battles put onto videocassettes and turned into games where either side can win. Varoom, varoom, varoom! Gettysburg too. Do you like video games? Which is your favorite?"
"I don't have a favorite," Noodles muttered, downcast.
"Soon you will. Come look at these."
On a cabinet beneath a video screen--there was a video screen with game controls in many recesses in the office--to which the Vice President walked him lay a game called Indianapolis Speedway. Noodles saw others, called Bombs Away and Beat the Draft.
And one more, called Die Laughing.
His host gave a chuckle. "I have nine college men on my staff with eleven doctoral degrees, and not one has been able to beat me at any of these a single time. Doesn't that tell you a lot about higher education in this country today?"
"Yes," Noodles said.
"What does it tell you?"
"A lot," said Noodles.
"I feel that way too. There's a new one coming out just for me, called Triage. Do you know it?"
"Triage is a word that comes from the French, and in case there's a big war and we have to decide which few should survive in our underground shelters--"
"I know what the word means, Mr. Vice President!" Noodles interrupted, with more asperity than he had intended. "I just don't know that game," he explained, forcing a smile.
"Soon you will. I'll break you in on it first. It's fun and challenging. You would have your favorites and I would have mine, and only one of us could win and decide who would live and who would die. We'll enjoy it. I think I'll want you to specialize in Triage because you never can tell when we really might have to put it into play, and I don't think those others are up to it. Okay?"
"Yes, Mr. Vice President."
And a page or two later, an exchange that may be even more evocative of the dreadful political times in which we live.
"I believe in the flood," the Vice President replied.
"I don't think I heard that."
I believe in the flood."
"What flood?" Noodles was befuddled again.
"Noah's flood, of course. The one in the Bible. So does my wife. Don't you know about it?"
Through narrowed eyes Noodles searched the guileless countenance for some twinkle of play. "I'm not sure I know what you mean. You believe it was wet?"
"I believe that it's true. In every detail."
"That he took the male and female of every animal species?"
"That's what it says."
"Sir," said Noodles, with civility. "We have by now catalogued more kinds of animal and insect life than anyone could possible collect in a lifetime and put onto a ship that size. How would he get them, where would he put them, to say nothing of room for himself and the families of his children, and the problem of the storage of food and the removal of waste in those forty days and nights of rain?"
"You do know about it!"
"I've heard. And for a hundred and fifty days and nights afterward, when the rain stopped."
"You know about that too!" The Vice President regarded him approvingly. "Then you probably also know that evolution is bunk. I hate evolution."
"Where did all this animal life we know about now come from? There are three or four hundred thousand different species of beetles alone."
"Oh, they probably just evolved."
"In only seven thousand years? That's about all it was, as biblical time is measured."
"You can look it up, Noodles. Everything we need to know about the creation of the world is right there in the Bible, put down in plain English." The Vice President regarded him placidly. "I know there are skeptics. They are all of them Reds. They are all of them wrong."
"There's the case of Mark Twain," Noodles could not restrain himself from arguing.
"Oh, I know that name!" the Vice President cried, with great vanity and joy. "Mark Twain is that great American humorist from my neighboring state of Missouri, isn't he?"
"Missouri is not a neighboring state of Indiana, sir. And your great American humorist Mark Twain ridiculed the Bible, despised Christianity, detested our imperialistic foreign policy, and heaped piles of scorn on every particular in the sort of Noah and his ark, especially for the housefly."
"Obviously," the Vice President replied, with no loss of equanimity, "we are talking about different Mark Twains."
Noodles was enraged. "There was only one, sir," he said softly, and smiled. "If you like, I'll prepare a summary of his statements and leave it with one of your secretaries."
"No, I hate written things. Put it on a video, and maybe we can turn it into a game. I really can't see why some people who read have so much trouble coming to grips with the simple truths that are put down there so clearly. And please don't call me sir, Noodles. You're so much older than I am. Won't you call me Prick?"
I told you people in the novel call him Little Prick.
"No, sir, I won't call you prick."
"Everyone else does. You have a right to. I have taken an oath to support that constitutional right."
"Look, you prick--" Noodles had jumped to his feet and was glancing around frantically, for a blackboard, for chalk and a pointer, for anything! "Water seeks its own level."
"Yes, I've heard that."
"Mount Everest is close to five miles high. For the earth to be covered with water, there would have to be water everywhere on the globe that was close to five miles deep."
His future employer nodded, pleased that he finally seemed to be getting through. "There was that much water then."
"Then the waters receded. Where could they recede to?"
"Into the oceans, of course."
"Where were the oceans, if the world was under water?"
"Underneath the flood, of course," was the unhesitating reply, and the genial man rose. "If you look at a map, Noodles, you will see where the oceans are. And you will also see that Missouri does border on my state of Indiana."
It's passages like these where Heller's genius as a satirist comes shining through.
+ + +
This post was written by Eric Lanke, an association executive, blogger and author. For more information, visit www.ericlanke.blogspot.com, follow him on Twitter @ericlanke or contact him at firstname.lastname@example.com.
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text: This article is about the basic theory of chords and how to read chord charts. So let's talk about chords. A chord is a combination of notes forming a magical harmony, which lies at the basis of Western popular music. Ever asked yourself why we call an E-major an E-major, or why the note B is so important? Maybe it sounds a lot like difficult mumbo jumbo at the moment, but believe me, at the end of this article you'll be going: well, is that all there is to it?! Basic chord build up Before we get started, go and grab your guitar. It's going to make things a lot easier to explain and you'll learn faster, if you put theory straight into practice. But if you're reading this during working hours with no axe in sight, no worries. Just try to picture the guitar neck in your hand and you'll be fine. All set? Let's get this party started. All good things come in threes, or so they say. This definitely applies to the theory of chords. The most frequently encountered chords are triads, so called because they consist of three distinct notes: the root note, and intervals of a third and a fifth above the root note. Changing major into minor Let's start with that E-chord we mentioned earlier. Does our E have an uplifting vibe or does it sound a bit down; major or minor? That's all up to the moody third. To help yourself understand this better, grab your guitar and position your fingers on the open E-major chord as shown on the chord chart below. Give it a ring. Oh yeah, that's an E-major alright. If correctly positioned, the lower E-string is open, this is your root note. Your middle finger is on the second fret of the A-string, right next to the ring finger on D. Your index is holding down the G-string on the first fret. Now that's the moody third. The moody third Why do we call it moody? Release the G-string with your index finger. Now that's a G-note. Give the whole chord a firm strike. Sounds a bit down, doesn't it? You just changed your E-major to an E-minor by switching between thirds. Feeling a bit confused? Don't worry. For now it's important to remember that the difference between a major chord and a minor chord is just one fret away. Or better put: one blue note. So, why do we call a third a third? Good question. Here's an extremely simplified answer. Forget the guitar for a minute and picture a piano keyboard instead. The octave, or the distance from one E to the other, is exactly eight whole notes; eight white keys. If the root note E is our first key, then the second is an F followed by the third, a G. The octave If you want to sharpen that G hit the adjacent black key. Unlike the white ones, a black key is half-tone. There are no black keys on the guitar neck, that's why you switched from major third to minor third by going up or down a fret. Similar to what you would do on a piano keyboard. Makes sense, right? To add a little bit more body to our E-chord we use the octave. As explained above, this is the same note played eight tones higher or lower. In this case your ring finger is holding down a higher E. If your guitar is tuned in E, striking the chord will sound very powerful. You're hearing three different octaves: the open lower and open upper E-string, plus the E-note under your ring finger. The fifth is your muscle So let's talk about that middle finger holding down the B-note on the second fret of the A-string. This is what we call the fifth. The root note combined with the fifth creates a solid sound. Adding a fifth is like adding some muscle to the chord. The combination of these two notes is also known as the power chord. In short: a basic chord consists of a root note, an octave, a third and a fifth. That's all there is to it. And here comes the fun part: you can apply these rules for any chord. Let's put this knowledge into practice. Move your E-major one note up, which is one fret down the guitar neck. Your fingers are still in the same position, placed on different frets. Check out the chord chart below. Going down the guitar neck Yes, this is an F-major. Because you moved up a note all the strings open in E-major are now covered by your index finger. Remember, that's one key on the piano keyboard and one fret on your guitar neck. If you move this position one fret down the guitar neck and strike the strings, the chord you're hearing is a sharp F-major. Another fret down you'll hear a G-major. And so on. Every time you release your middle finger (a.k.a. the moody third) you change the chord into a minor. It's as easy as that. The only thing you have to do is practice your grip. Yeah, I know, it hurts like hell. For now. But if you go down that guitar neck in this position once a day, by the end of the week your fingers will get used to it.


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He spent two years at PBN as head of the company's financial communications department after joining from The Policy Partnership in 2006.
Leasor is one of the industry's leading names in the emerging market's space and has built with significant experience in Russia, the CIS and the Gulf since the early 1990s.
High profile clients he has represented include Telenor and Renaissance Group, and he has worked on the IPOs of M.video and Bank Saint Petersburg.
Leasor said: 'I have watched M: achieve truly spectacular results for many clients over recent years and it's good to be part of the team again. I've also been impressed by M:'s stellar growth over the last two years, in particular the benefits that being part of Sage Holdings has brought.'
He was at M: from 2003 to 2006 and has also worked as head of developing markets at FD.


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Good morning and welcome to Bear Bites, your morning rundown of Chicago Bears news. Read on for the latest on Jay Cutler's thoughts on Matt Forte, two videos that will make you smile and where you can buy a Bear's house.
- On second thought, Jay Cutler isn't sure when Matt Forte will report to camp. (ESPN Chicago)
- Gabe Carimi and Nick Roach surprised some season ticket holders to say thank you. Only watch this video if you want to smile. (CSN Chicago)
- You can buy former Bear Trumaine McBride's house. (Chicago Tribune)
- Check out Lance Briggs' clowning around with the Harlem Globetrotters. Another video to make you smile. (Windy City Gridiron)


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Distance Between Concord Grape Vines at Planting
Growing your own delicious Concord grapes (Vitis labrusca "Concord") at home is achievable if you know what they need to not only survive, but thrive. Concord grapes are traditionally used to make grape jelly and grape juice. They grow on the vine in large clusters of blue-black grapes. The Concord vine typically grows 5 to 6 feet tall and grows best in U.S Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 5 through 9.
Get your new vineyard off to a great start by planting vigorous 1-year-old Concord grape vines. If you can't plant the vines immediately after buying them, keep the roots moist by first covering them in damp sawdust or sphagnum moss and then wrapping them to keep the moisture in. Dig a hole deep enough to plant the vine to the level it was planted at the nursery. Space each vine 6 to 8 feet apart to give ample room for the vine's root system to spread and grow. Rows of Concord grapes should be spaced 9 feet apart.
Soil and Sun
For the best possible crop of Concord grapes, make sure the vines have what they need to thrive. Soil should be well-draining, with a pH of between 5.5 and 7.0, and shouldn't be too rich in nutrients. Overly-rich soils encourage excessive vine growth but do little to produce a good crop of grapes. What does help those delicious grapes to grow plump and juicy is full exposure to sunlight, so choose a sunny spot away from trees or large buildings that will shade your vines.
Wait to add fertilizer to your newly-planted vines until the Concord vines have settled into the soil via a good downpour of rain. Once this has occurred, add a ¼ to 1/2 cup of 10-10-10 fertilizer around the base of each vine, keeping the fertilizer 6 inches away from the vine itself, to avoid burning the vine with the fertilizer. Repeat this every month for the vine's first year. Once your vine is 2-years-old, you'll double the amount of fertilizer your vines received in their first year, still applying every month. Once vines have begun to bear fruit, apply 1 to 2 lbs of 10-10-10 fertilizer per plant in March; repeat the sprinkling of an additional 1 lb of fertilizer per vine in mid-June.
Trellis Systems
In order to grow a strong and healthy Concord grape vine, you'll need to support and train it properly in its first year. Choose a trellis system that allows for maximum light into the canopy of your growing vines. You'll also need to sink a 4- to 5-foot-long stake 10 to 12 inches into the soil beside each of the vines. As the first two or three shoots begin to grow from your vine, tie these shoots to the stick, also called a training stake, to encourage these shoots to grow upright. Pinch off any excessive growth that emerges from these canes.
Photo Credits
- Eising/Photodisc/Getty Images


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Information in this article may not be canonical to the storyline of the games or any other Sonic continuity.
Alexander Acorn was the first of the Acorn lineage and the first monarch of the Kingdom of Acorn.
As the various species on Mobius began to develop following the devastation of the planet caused by both the Xorda's destructive attack and the natural disasters around the planet that followed, Alexander noticed that the various species had particular skills and unique abilities. He decided that if the various Mobian species were to work together, substantial progress could be made. Alexander had hoped to include the Echidnas in his community, but they chose to isolate themselves and form their own colonies, as they had not only developed at a far greater rate (by this point in time, the Echidnas in Albion had already ventured out into space), but felt the knowledge they could provide might be more harmful to Alexander's community than good. Additionally, Alexander attempted to appeal to the Overlanders, but their aggressive tendencies proved them incompatible with the Mobians. However, the various other Mobian species which did ally under his banner formed the first multicultural city on Mobius, Mobotropolis. Due to his insights and his leadership, the Mobians made him king following the creation of Mobotropolis.
External links
- Alexander Acorn at Mobius Encyclopaedia, the Archie Sonic wiki.


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Home > Departments > Mother Tongue
Mother Tongue
Our Vision and Mission
A community of learners who appreciate Mother Tongue Culture and excel in the use of the language.
Enabling pupils to be effective communicators and inculcating in them the love and confidence in the usage of Mother Tongue Languages.
Department Members
Professional Learning Circles
International Sharing


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600 Years of Peking Duck Thursday, January 12, 2017
This is our 6th year of Departure featuring Chef Gregory's Peking Duck and it is off to a wonderful start!
The tradition of preparing and serving duck in this style has its origins in the Ming Dynasty of China, between the years 1368–1644, and in 1416 it was served at Bianyifang, a restaurant in Beijing that was the first to specialize in the dish. In what would be its 600th anniversary of that first service this year, Chef Gregory is highlighting the complex practice by curing and drying the duck for 5 days, before serving it with a bone broth soup, duck fat fried rice and the magical accompaniments: candied kumquats, mandarin pancakes, sweet and sour cherries, scallions and cucumber.
We are proud to be carrying on this tradition and look forward to championing it here in Portland for years to come.


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Heart Diamond Stud
Heart-shaped stud with dreamy Gilson opal inlay and a sparkling white diamond accent. A whimsical everyday option perfect for helix, lobe and tragus piercings.
Available in recycled 14k yellow gold. Sold as a single.
Closure: internally threaded heart back
Measurement: heart: 4 mm
threaded back post thickness: 19 gauge (0.95 mm), length: 6.5 mm


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Tag Archives: Isaura Garcia
No to 'Secure Community'
From the September-October 2011 issue of News & Letters: No 'Secure Community' Los Angeles–On Aug. 13 the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, Los Angeles (CHIRLA), held a press conference against Secure Community (SC), the federal government program that allows local … Continue reading
Posted in Marxist-Humanism Tagged car impoundment, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles (CHIRLA), domestic violence, Homeland Security Task Force Advisory Council, ICE, immigrants' rights, immigration, Isaura Garcia, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Times, Mayor Villaraigosa, New York Times, Police, R.I.P. S.O. 40, San Bernardino Police, Secure Communities, South Gate, Southern California Immigration Coalition, Special Order 40, street vendors, Task force, Terminate Secure Community, United States, United States Department of Homeland Security Leave a comment


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Archive for December, 2010
FREE Hook & Needle Inventory Chart (PDF)
Simply print on paper and use to manage your hooks and needles.
Includes Yarn Weight guide and Wraps per Inch.
Hook & Needle Inventory Chart (PDF)
Easy to Crochet Gift Idea ~ $1.00
Betcha can't make just one ~
Frilled About Crochet Scarf – Crochet Pattern
Any Worsted Weight yarn.
The sample scarfs in the photos was were made using:
Lily Sugar 'n Cream #01712 Hot Green (Spring Green)
and #02020 Coral Swirl (ombre).
Royal Shell Stitch Right Angle Button-Up Scarf – Crochet Pattern
Right Angle Scarf Crochet Pattern was designed stay in place so don't have to keep re-wraping the scarf around my neck. It fits nicely under my coat or jacket in cold weather. No dragging scarves. The scarf stays close to your neck to keep you warm.
Crochet Pattern in Vanna's Choice® or Vanna's Baby®
Requires only 2 Skeins (select colors of your choice)
Scarf shown was made using
1 Skein #180 Cranberry (MC) and 1 Skein #145 Eggplant (CC)
Perfect colors for "Red Hat Society" Ladies!
Get your Royal Shell Stitch Right Angle Button-Up Crochet Scarf Pattern now.
This pattern will be e-mailed as a PDF file within 1-2 business days of cleared payment. No shipping charges apply.
FREE Yarn Sample Tags (PDF)
Simply print on card stock, cut out and use.
Awesome for organizing your yarn collection and products.
Get your FREE Yarn Sample Tags (PDF)
A Man's Scarf ~ Right Angle Knit Scarf Knitting Pattern
This scarf was designed to pull over my head so when I ride my scooter I don't have to keep re-wraping the scarf around my neck to keep it in place. It fits nicely under my coat or jacket in cold weather. The scarf in the photo was designed as a men's scarf. Guys love this! No dragging scarves. The scarf stays close to your neck to keep you warm.
Men especially seem to love the Right Angle Knit Scarf. Also, since the scarf is reversible you could begin and end the scarf using different colors, that way you can choose to face one side (color) out at a time. Also great to knit in your favorite team or college colors.
Yarn Lover's Theme Desktops for December 2010
Yarn Lover's Desktop Calendar for December 2010
Hope you like!


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Not content to let the annually busy fall season see any dull moment, Sony has been changing up the PlayStation 4 quite a bit over the last few weeks. PSN ID changes, a cross-platform play beta, huge updates to PS Now, and more changes have been announced in the last few weeks.
It's a surprising rush of tweaks to a console so late in its life cycle, but it's a trend that many fans have taken notice of over the last few days. And while each announcement on its own has come as a surprise, taken all together they seemingly show quite clearly how PlayStation is setting itself up for the PS5.
The biggest surprise of all may be, in hindsight, the one we should have expected the most — the ability to change PSN IDs. This feature has been a major request of PS3 and PS4 owners basically since the PlayStation Network launched. (It's been a long-standing tradition of our PlayStation show, Beyond, to question the lack of name changes for years). The first, real glimmer of hope came last year, when Sony Worldwide Studios Chairman Shawn Layden hinted PSN name changes were not so far off.
Combined with that mysterious PSN 6.00 update, which seemed oddly hollow but was hinted at as having larger ramifications — the timing now seems obvious. But what's also obvious is that there are some technical hurdles saddled alongside this good news.
Chief among them is that not all games will easily support ID alterations, and that users may encounter issues with older games when trying to apply their new, more sensible names. What exact technical hurdles there are we may never know, but it seems likely that the way the PSN architecture was originally designed and employed makes forcing this new mechanic into it difficult. The addition is, for now, a clearly forward-minded one, one that will allow all games from the launch of the next PlayStation onward to support this feature.
The same could very much be said for cross-platform play, which is currently in an open beta for an undetermined amount of time, solely with Fortnite. It's unclear what plans, if any, Sony has to support other games with cross-play. Even if we don't see another game approved to support cross-play this generation, the door has now been opened for Sony to bill that as an established part of the PS5 from day one. It is a bummer for existing PS4 players to only just be getting certain features other console owners enjoy. But rather than playing catch up to everyone else mid-generation in certain regards, again, Sony can establish its next platform as feature-ready from the start.
The major changes to PlayStation Now, while somewhat different, also feel like stage setting for what's to come. Being able to download PS4 and PS2 games offline is a huge step in making the service more appealing to new subscribers and more in line with services like Microsoft's Game Pass and even Netflix. But more importantly, in a world where streaming has continued to become a bigger buzzword, with Assassin's Creed Odyssey now even playable in your Google Chrome browser, playing into a streaming service PlayStation has had for years seems like an obvious move.
It also, going forward, could solve a big issue of an oft-requested feature — backward compatibility. While hoping for that to follow all of these other announcements for the PS4 is a bit of wishful thinking, PS Now is largely set up to act as a one-stop shop of nostalgia. A streaming catalogue of hundreds of games, especially ones from previous consoles, will be a hell of an attractive day one purchase for a new console, especially if Sony wisely couples it with PlayStation Plus (as the free offering platforms dwindle).
All of these changes Sony has been making to the PlayStation 4 feel like first steps — advancements to systems that have largely functioned the same way. It's a surprising amount of shifting around so late in the life of a system, especially given that these changes come saddled with caveats or appear to be works in progress. Though some Reddit PlayStation users have smartly pointed to behind-the-scenes changes that could be major influences.
But, hopefully, with the arrival of the PS5, these features won't be so much in progress but enticing reasons to make the leap to a new system. If we don't see a huge graphical leap from what we have now to what we could have in a couple years, than certainly offering a console with a huge array of intriguing, fleshed out features is a great way to entice new and existing PlayStation players.
Jonathon Dornbush is IGN's News Editor and PlayStation Lead. Talk to him on Twitter @jmdornbush.


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Infographic: 3 Powerful Ways You Can Fight Breast Cancer Right Now
Breast Cancer Awareness Month is here! How are you joining the fight?
We all want to help, but it's difficult to know how. Check out the infographic below for 3 powerful, tangible ways you can help fight breast cancer — this month and all year round. (No pink ribbons required!)
(Click infographic to enlarge.)
Spread the message! Download your own copy or embed on your own blog with embed code below:
Share This Image On Your Site
Please include attribution to blog.thebreastcancersite.com with this graphic.
Veteran and His Loyal Dog Pass Away Within Hours Of Each Other: Click "Next" below!
G. H. was raised in Minnesota, but currently calls Seattle her home. She's a blogger, editor, and journalist, and she's written everything from news reports to restaurant reviews. If she's not putting pen to paper, G. H. is probably experimenting in the kitchen, chilling out on her yoga mat, or running through a city park.


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Islamic Date09 Shawwal
English Date31 May
Lifting of Knowledge
The Messenger of Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said: "Verily, Allah does not take away knowledge by snatching it from the people, but He takes it away by taking away (the lives of) the religious scholars till none of the scholars remains alive. Then the people will take ignorant ones as their leaders, who, when asked to deliver religious verdicts, will issue them without knowledge, the result being that they will go astray and will lead others astray." [Sahih Bukhari]
It is a sign of the nearness of the Day of Judgment that the world will be deprived of genuine religious scholars, and illiterate people will become leaders who will have neither the knowledge of the Quran nor that of the Hadith. Despite their ignorance of the Quran and Hadith, they will be called Mujtahid (jurist entitled to independent reasoning) and Imam (leader) and will mislead people with their legal opinions.
This hadith warns us against ignorant, self-styled Ulama and against entrusting religious leadership to them. Such scholars are abundantly found on T.V. these days, who make halal that which for centuries has been known to be haraam and confuse people about their Deen. The Muslim masses are also so ignorant that such "scholars" are able to find an audience and admiration while they clearly contradict the Quran and hadith.