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Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Just A Little Bit Of Nothing
I'm in the process of setting up a new business which is taking up a lot of my time. So now I'm not adapting to the fall as well as I hoped this year. That leaves me with a bit of a problem. I'm looking for a good idea or two for my nature adventures. I need something that might inspire me.
I also have some trees to cut down once they are ready. Maybe I'll show you my evil destruction of my small forest. It won't be pretty, but it will be interesting. Or maybe I could just get out and have some fun. Hmm, I didn't think of that before. That might be just the thing. I'll talk to you later.
Posted by Ratty at 6:00 AM 9 comments:
Friday, October 20, 2017
Why I Don't Eat Wild Apples
I have to say that I do like free apples, and I do like the green ones, but sometimes there is just a good reason not to eat them. Maybe you know that reason. But if you don't then let's scroll down to the page just a little further to find out.
I will say that every once-in-a-while you can find good wild apples. I had three good apple trees in my yard when I was a kid. The apples were sour, but they were very good. And they made excellent objects to throw at the other kids. I'll talk to you later.
Posted by Ratty at 6:00 AM 11 comments:
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Peace In The Country
I'm not so sure I was able to duplicate in these pictures the beauty I found here. For some reason, it never seems to work out that easily. Maybe you just have to be there, or maybe I just need to be better at taking the pictures. I'm not sure either one of those will happen anytime soon though, so this is it.
When I lived in the city I used to say that everyone can do this. But country living isn't for everyone. But you can visit the country from time to time. A good relaxing drive along some old country roads might be fun. You won't know that it's true until you try it. I'll talk to you later.
Posted by Ratty at 6:00 AM 9 comments:
Friday, October 13, 2017
Old 79
I wasn't quite sure what to do with these pictures until I saw Old 79 staring back at me as my camera clicked away. So I focused my camera right on her. I had to do it because she was the one who wanted to be a worldwide star.
That's strange. I don't think I've ever imagined what it would be like to be a cow before. It must be kind of boring, just standing around and eating grass all day. I'd go kind of crazy. What would I do without access to the internet? I'm glad I'm not a cow. How about you? I'll talk to you later.
Posted by Ratty at 6:00 AM 10 comments:
Monday, October 9, 2017
Okay, look at the center of this top picture. Does that look like a fish there on the end of that log to you? It did to me. So I took a few pictures to get a closer look and to see what I had there. But what was this thing really?
This gives you an idea of what can happen with nature watching. Sometimes you think you have a fish, but then you only have a piece of wood. That kind of thing happens a lot to me. I'll talk to you later.
Posted by Ratty at 6:00 AM 10 comments:
Monday, October 2, 2017
This Is My World
So, what could I do? Well, the first thing I did was I spent the first few years here in a confused and frustrated state. I didn't know what to do or where to go. Nature was so different. I liked it, but I loved my forests. And I had none here.
Then this year I finally accepted things the way they are. I love it here too much to go somewhere else so I decided to learn more about nature here and learn to love it too. So that's what I set out to do, and it has worked excellently. But I do still miss my forests. So I decided to do something about that too.
I often fantasize about building a shack in the middle of one of these forests and just living there forever. Maybe I should buy a big place with a small forest in it and do that at least part of the time. I don't have the means for that quite yet, but I am getting closer. One of these days I'll be ready.
And I love my computer too. Oh, and money. I love money. I can't make money on a nature trail. But I can come back out to the nature trail more often if I have more money. And one day I can just buy my own nature trails if I have enough money. So the practical world calls me to work. Then I can come back out here as often as I want. I'll talk to you later.
Posted by Ratty at 6:00 AM 10 comments:
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This is a fantastic opportunity to become involved with a recognized leader in the most effective and satisfying model for primary care delivery. R-Health, a leader in Direct Care, is seeking a compassionate and customer-service oriented Medical Assistant to join our Direct Care practice in West Orange, NJ.
Providing excellent patient care and service is at the core of the R-Health Medical Assistant's role. The MA performs administrative, certain clinical duties, and healthcare coaching and care coordination under the direction of a physician.
- Greet and log in patients arriving at R-Health office.
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- Obtain patient vital signs, weight, and height, and document in chart.
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- Close care gaps by working through lists of patients with required services that have not been completed, scheduling and ensuring completion of the necessary services.
- Prepare and administer medications as directed by a physician.
- Collect blood, tissue, or other laboratory specimens, log the specimens, and prepare them for testing.
- Perform EKGs, and spirometry.
- Perform general office duties, such as answering telephones, taking dictation, or completing insurance forms.
- Triage and process messages from patients and front office staff to physicians
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subset: commoncrawl


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About this item
This is the epic story of how African-Americans, in the six decades following slavery, transformed themselves into a political people--an embryonic black nation. As Steven Hahn demonstrates, rural African-Americans were central political actors in the great events of disunion, emancipation, and nation-building. At the same time, Hahn asks us to think in more expansive ways about the nature and boundaries of politics and political practice. Emphasizing the importance of kinship, labor, and networks of communication, A Nation under Our Feet explores the political relations and sensibilities that developed under slavery and shows how they set the stage for grassroots mobilization. Hahn introduces us to local leaders, and shows how political communities were built, defended, and rebuilt.


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Are you thinking of having a Botox treatment? Continue reading to learn more about some of the common myths about Botox treatments and their truths.
Below are 4 common Botox myths:
Botox Treatments are Toxic, Unsafe and Dangerous
FACT: With nearly 20 years of use for a range of different conditions, Botox has a long and well-established safety history. More than 16 million treatments have been performed since it was first introduced in the marketplace. No long term side effects have ever been seen in users of the treatments even in studies that followed people who received thirty or more injections over a period of 9 years. It would take a dose of more than 100 times the average dose given for cosmetic use for cosmetic Botox treatments to be fatal. Source: DrSpiegel
Botox is Just for Wrinkles
FACT: Botox is not just cosmetic — far from it! Botox injections have been used to treat migraines by reducing muscle tension and creating less strain on the nervous system. Botox can also be used to temporarily block sweat glands to stop excessive sweating, and even might help patients who suffer from depression. Source: RealSelf
Botox Can Be Used Anywhere On the Face
FACT: There's a filler and injectable to treat just about every line and wrinkle on the face, but Botox cannot be used for everything. Although it is FDA-approved to treat crow's-feet and lines between the eyebrows, many doctors use it off-label to address lines on the forehead, on the sides of the mouth, on the neck and to lift the brows. While it may seem like Botox can be used all over the face, there are only certain areas where it works; other injectables are an option for problems that Botox can't correct. Source: NewBeauty
Botox is Very Expensive
FACT: It used to be very expensive previously but with advancing uses and technological advancement, botox has become affordable to a lot of people. In a nutshell it can be stated that botox injections are undoubtedly a scientific wonder. It is used in the treatment of various medical ailments and is known for its impeccable uses in making your face young and attractive. We would love to hear your ideas and experiences of Botox, please leave us a comment and let us know. Subscribe our RSS to receive skin care updates. Source: StylishAndTrendy
If you would like to know more about Botox treatments, please give us a call or contact us here.
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PRNewswire-FirstCallMILWAUKEEOct 31, 2006
Manpower Inc. (NYSE: MAN) announced today that it has expanded its social responsibility program to encompass a broader range of initiatives that build upon its heritage as the industry leader in workforce development for more than 50 years. The company's expanded social responsibility platform leverages Manpower's history of innovation in providing a bridge to employment for disadvantaged individuals and extends these efforts to additional groups of people in need of assistance. It also focuses on increasing awareness of, and opposition to, labor practices that exploit individuals, particularly those who are vulnerable.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060221/CGTU012LOGO )
"We strive to be socially responsible in every aspect of our business and we focus our resources primarily on where we can have the most impact -- connecting disadvantaged people to jobs, job training and education," said Jeffrey A. Joerres, Chairman & CEO of Manpower Inc. "In our expanded program, we are extending these efforts to help disaster survivors, refugees and victims of human trafficking."
The four pillars of the company's social responsibility platform are: workforce development, disaster recovery, reaching out to refugees and combating human trafficking.
The newer pillars include Manpower's engagement with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and its ninemillion.org campaign, which is focused on providing education to the world's nine million refugee children, many of whom are living long term in refugee camps without adequate schooling in order to provide them with the skills they will need when they are eventually repatriated. In addition to Manpower, the companies engaged in the ninemillion.org initiative are Nike Inc., Microsoft, Right to Play, Earth Water International, Merck & Co. Inc. and Procter & Gamble.
"The refugee problem is one that has no end in sight, but one in which Manpower can make a difference by helping to provide the education that children require in order to someday succeed in a world outside of the refugee camps," said Joerres.
Manpower is also engaged in the End Human Trafficking Now! campaign, championed by the Suzanne Mubarak Women's International Peace Movement. This campaign strives to put an end to modern-day slavery, which forces an estimated 12.3 million people each year into forced labor or sexual servitude. Manpower Inc. was the first signatory of the Athens Ethical Principles, which declares a "zero tolerance" policy for working with any entity that benefits in any way from human trafficking. In addition, Manpower is leading the global campaign to get 1,000 of the world's leading corporations to join in signing the Principles by the end of 2007 and declaring that they, too, will have zero tolerance for this inhumane abuse.
"Trafficking human beings is now the third largest illegal industry on the planet, following only arms and drug smuggling, and it is present in every country and territory in our network," said Joerres. "As one of the world's largest employers, we cannot sit idly by as millions of people -- mainly women and children -- are forced into modern-day slavery. We believe in this campaign against human trafficking and we encourage other companies to join us in standing up against the trafficking industry."
The company's disaster recovery efforts were expanded in 2005 to help victims of the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina in the U.S. to rebuild their lives. After the tsunami, Manpower partnered with Hope International to build two vocational training centers in Tamil Nadu, India, which are providing job training to approximately 1,000 people per year to enable survivors to begin anew and support their families. The company has partnered with the U.S. Department of Labor to help Katrina victims, who remain displaced due to the storm's damage, to find short and long-term jobs, and transition back to their home communities when the rebuilding efforts are completed.
"The work we are doing in our vocational centers in India is truly inspiring," said Joerres. "For decades, Manpower has been the unparalleled world leader in providing innovative workforce development programs in the communities in which we live and work, and now we are able to make a big difference to help people feed their families and rebuild their lives when disasters leave them without a means of employment."
The company's heralded workforce development initiatives include Working Links in the UK and TechReach in the US, which have won many accolades for their results in connecting the long-term unemployed and under-employed to decent jobs. In Mexico, Caminemos Juntos has grown a national reputation for its success in connecting people with disabilities to jobs.
Manpower Inc. participates in the United Nations Global Compact and endorses the Global Sullivan Principles. The company will issue a social responsibility report in July 2007.
For more information on Manpower's global social responsibility program, go to the Social Responsibility section on the company's corporate website, http://www.manpower.com/ .
Notes to editors
-- Please see http://www.ninemillion.org/ for more information on the
campaign to help the nine million children living in refugee camps via
the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). The founding
partners of the UNHCR-led ninemillion.org initiative are Nike Inc.,
Microsoft and Right to Play.
-- Please see http://www.gcwdp.org/index.html for more information on the
End Human Trafficking Now campaign with the Suzanne Mubarak Women's
International Peace Movement.
About Manpower Inc.
Manpower Inc. (NYSE: MAN) is a world leader in the employment services industry; creating and delivering services that enable its clients to win in the changing world of work. The $16 billion company offers employers a range of services for the entire employment and business cycle including permanent, temporary and contract recruitment; employee assessment and selection; training; outplacement; outsourcing and consulting. Manpower's worldwide network of 4,400 offices in 72 countries and territories enables the company to meet the needs of its 400,000 clients per year, including small and medium size enterprises in all industry sectors, as well as the world's largest multinational corporations. The focus of Manpower's work is on raising productivity through improved quality, efficiency and cost-reduction across their total workforce, enabling clients to concentrate on their core business activities. Manpower Inc. operates under five brands: Manpower, Manpower Professional, Elan, Jefferson Wells and Right Management. More information on Manpower Inc. is available at http://www.manpower.com/ .
First Call Analyst: FCMN Contact: email@example.com
SOURCE: Manpower Inc.
CONTACT: Britt Zarling of Manpower Inc., +1-414-906-7272,email@example.com
Web site: http://www.manpower.com/http://www.ninemillion.org/http://www.gcwdp.org/index.html


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Winter Hummer
Exif: F Number: 6.3, Exposure Bias Value: 0.00, ExposureTime: 1/80 seconds, Flash: did not fire, compulsory flash mode, ISO: 2000, White balance: Manual white balance, FocalLength: 300.00 mm, Model: Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Uploaded on February 06, 2013
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The #1 source for Android RUU files!
Welcome to the new Android RUU site. Formually Android Files RUU. This is now run as a sister site to Android File Host. We thank you for your patience while we cleaned up the code and fixed some issues. We have great plans for the site and hope you like what we have done. Thanks AFH.


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Author Archives: psarode
Readying our kids to compete with peers – humans and complex algorithms
An interesting (and later a bit scary) thought dawned upon my morning commute to drop my son to his bus stop. I was doing the usual concerned dad thing, inquiring him how he thought he was doing in his class relative to his peers. I was asking him about who his toughest peers were and what unique advantages they had in terms of intellectual (hard skills) and emotional (soft skills). I was after all trying to set some healthy competition in him and see how he evaluated his peers.
The conversation ended quickly with his drop, but it gradually hit me that by the time he joins the workforce, his peer competition will be humans and complex computer algorithms. In advanced college years, students are making significant time and economic investments in choosing courses that they are passionate about and that simultaneously have the best career outcomes.
A decade back the conversation in leading western economies was that simple, repetitive & low value work goes to developing nations—known as east economies. High value, complex, high touch, and high emotion work gets done in western leading economies, therefore student decisions a decade ago, were then driven by what humans in western world, can & cannot do compared to humans in eastern world.
In current state of global work force distribution, much of that skills delta is erased and arguably the playing field is leveled, but again we are comparing what can humans across different geographies can do, and associated demand-supply by geography.
In another decade or so, computer algorithms will be a formidable new addition to global work force choice. It is not a net new idea itself, but we will definitely have a new class of complex computer algorithms which can do highly complex, non-repetitive, predictive and emotionally aware work—something that has been forte of highly skilled, educated & judgment savvy experienced humans.
Channeling & inspiring kids to finish college and getting higher education is not enough. Career decisions of future need to be savvy to figure out what is that these new species of complex computer algorithms can't do and hence humans will be still relevant (and needed).
Early school career's counselling needs a massive upgrade—they seem to be focused on extracting what a student's core passion and excellence lineage is and then based on that they map potential areas to build career in. Nothing wrong with starting with a student's passion first; after all if you love what you do then work will not seem like work and one will a have fulfilling career, but then what you are passionate about should be still a relevant career choice available for humans and not taken over by complex computer algorithms.
Launching new Kids-teach-Kids Summer Program for HTML5 and CSS3
Summer is here and its a good time to get kids into coding grove. We are starting a new summer only Kids-2-Kids program in which C2PKids in advanced levels will teach HTML5 and CSS3 using C2P materail curated from codecedmy.com, w3cschools.org and projects built by c2pkids coaches who are practitioners in industry.
The program is unique in sense that it will be guided and monitored by adult coaches but delivered by other C2PKids studying advanced stuff. This creates interesting internship opportunities for c2pkids in advanced curriculum all while addressing shortage of skilled coaches to teach coding for free.
Tentative start date June 19th @ 3:00p.m on your PC
If you have additional questions please use contact us form below with your questions:
What should Public Schools Teach? Vocational OR Fundamental Computer Science.
Well currently they don't teach either (at least majority of Public Schools in US). I was listening to this NPR Story from this morning about the state of Computer Science (CS) education within Public Schools in US. Their is debate and growing angst on how little Public Schools do to teach Computer Science while the experts project how many unfilled computer science jobs will stay unfulfilled.
Lets assume if policy is fixed and Public Schools do decide to teach Computer Science but what should they be teaching in computer science curriculum. I think there is wide confusion between vocational Versus fundamental teaching of CS. Teaching a particular language or toolkit in CS is really vocational teaching geared towards a particular outcome –build skills for specific employment , job role or deploy them to actually build/solve a particular problem.
With shelf life in technology being so short, Public Schools should concentrate on non-vocational focus & teach basic design skills & logical thinking. IMHO, Public School should focus on reasonably stable and perpetual CS ideas like Turing Machine, Algorithms, Data Structure, How Internet Works etc. They need to focus on making theses dry & seemingly uninteresting ideas entertaining to learn for kids. For e.g. here is intro from Thinkersmith.org –very interesting way of teaching logic without use of computers. See the intro video below:
Expecting Public School CS teachers know latest and greatest difference between HTML 5 & CSS 3 over prior version or latest way to build mobile apps tricks seems like a stretch goal for Public School Teachers who are already burdened to do more with less (pay). I think vocational enterprises (non-profit or for profit) are best tuned to keep up with latest and greatest in languages, platforms and toolkits. Non-profits can use grant power & SME volunteers while commercial enterprises use power to pay qualified teachers for covering this gap.
Is giving on your mind?–Consider giving Tech Skills this holiday season.
Image Credit: 2013 Agni Sarode @c2pKids.org
Its this time of the year when your conscience gets challenged every time you enter the grocery store & are greeted by an ever cheerful Salvation Army guy looking for you to make some "giving" contribution for those who are in "need".
There are many forms of "giving" —-"teaching" can be one of the most rewarding & fulfilling things to give this season.
C2PKids.org started as a simple side project this summer. Today we have 2 clubs launched within 3-months of start of our first club (in late sept 2013). We have made enormous strides in liberating the physical location dependency for kids and volunteers to take up a C2P club. Kids and Coach volunteers need NOT to be in same geo-location & even in same time zone. So location is no longer a prohibitive factor to consider C2P. As testament to this–first club (aka Batch 1) has kids & coaches that are separated by both timezone and cities ( 800 miles between Charlotte , NC and Bloomingdale, Illinois). While C2P Club of RTP-area (official name C2P Glenkirk Pros) has club members separated in cities of Cary, NC and Charlotte, NC–some 200 miles.
We are also not gated by content or curriculum course ware. Focus on Ed-Tech has created many teaching platforms for computer science–from Khan Academy, Codecademy, AppInventor, W3CSchool etc. So much of teaching content and teaching tools are now already available online that we have been able to quickly create a "course in a box"—based on student levels , teachers interest and style of teaching.
While we are no longer gated by location and teaching content but we are constrained by number of skilled volunteers who can coach C2PKids clubs. Too much focus & promotion on learning to code (thanks to recent Hour Of Code event ) has a created massive interest to take up coding early on, but we now need to focus on finding people who can teach. In the end there is no escape from the human element of teaching—field experience , wisdom around choice, design skills and motivation/encouragement.
An Appeal
All my tech friends on Linked & Facebook –1st degree through 3rd degree , please seriously consider giving of different kind this season. Give your technology experience and wisdom that you have acquired over years–be a C2PKids Volunteer Coach.
Top 5 reasons to be a C2P Club Volunteer Coach
- "Getting" more than "Giving"
Technology is constantly changing. Trying to teach elementary and middle school kids technology involves interesting learning experiences. You will come witness new Gen-Z behaviors, attention spans and you learn how these Gen Z kids learn from each other. Kids learn from short videos while you might have learned from massive manuals. Your own tech skills will get updated. You will be able to learn new trends and tools which you can apply at your work (and brag and look smart :)).
- Corporate IT Boredom
Are you someone who want to do more or try out new cool stuff but are held back by typical corporate technology hurdles? At C2PKids there are no preset rules and approved-only technology stack to use. C2P Batch1 club did its first project on Cloud IDE called Codenvy.com. The idea to use Codenvy.com for shared development came out kids stepping on each others work. We ended taking a detour to solve joint code development problem and choosing a tool that fits behavior patterns of these kids and which is also free. Another example, is building mobile apps–so many choices to build an app– which one is fastest and cheapest?–AppInventor.
- Flavor of Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is adventurous and unpredictable. Running a C2PKids club is exactly the same way. You will run into kids and parents of varying levels and reasons for sending kids to a C2PKids club. The entire process of planning and commissioning a club is nothing short of running a miniature start-up.
- Bragging and Networking
Education Tech and Civic Tech are very hot fields and lot of public , private and philanthropic initiatives intersect in this space. Being a C2PKids Volunteer coach opens up lots of networking opportunities in your immediate locality or your expanded region. Not to mention all the bragging rights you get 🙂
- Relevant for your house-hold
In addition to being a high flying tech professional, if you are also parent with abundance of technology within your household then C2PKids movement will be very relevant topic for your house-hold. You may have had failed attempts at getting your kids excited about technology when you dealt with them individually. Teaching them in a C2P club changes the dynamic. Peer dynamics brings different results with your own kids versus you trying to teach them individually.
Please contact me if you would like to engage into C2P Style of Giving.
What can broadband + collaboration tools + light encouragement do?
Its about 7 weeks since we first started Jammin with the very first Batch of c2pKids.org. Batch1 has an interesting profile – 2 alternating coaches, 4 kids, 2 time zones, kids-n-coaches from 2 separate states (NC & IL) & kids from 3 separate schools. All of these differences close out every Sunday sharp @7:00p.m. EST on Google Hangout. We took our first break after 7 consecutive weekly Jams. We learned a lot along with kids participating in these Jams. One concrete thing that we learned (rather witnessed) is the future of learning and how it is rapidly changing. As we ( I and my buddy coach Hemanta) tried our hands at teaching, we realized how much we had to learn to "unlearn" how to teach and instead just coach.
The role of teacher is gradually un-bundling and becoming one of a coach, no different than a soccer coach. The traditional teacher is gradually having to move from the front of white board and is having to move on the sides —so kids can watch a highly immersible and targeted video delivering a near perfect instruction for a chosen topic. The teacher is now really a coach to summarize that targeted video and to add more color from his/her experience to the topic. Beyond this , the coach (aka former teacher) now has to set up a problem and strategy to solve it–very much like a soccer coach explaining each players the game, the position basics and how to execute the game strategy. After that, our coach, is once again on sides–letting the players execute the game and watch them either struggle or succeed with the planned strategy.
As we tried to get our Jams operational , we struggled to get up the learning & productivity quotients of our Jam sessions. Our course content is from Codecademy.com, so we resorted to their teaching resource kits as our best practices guide. However, we had limited success following their advise, as much of that advise was hard to apply to our virtual Google Hangout based learning experience. I am sure that advise will do magic for After School In-person setting.
It was around this time we ran to this very interesting and inspiring work done by Sugata Mitra (a TED Prize Winner) –on Building School on Cloud. Here was a career educator , a Ted Prize winner and someone who had applied very statistically rigorous methods in studying some of the same teaching ideas that c2pkids.org (aka Jam Method) was flirting with. Sugata codified his work into a methodology called SOLE (Self Organized Learning Experience). As I kept on studying SOLE , I kept on realizing that JAM and SOLE had so much of a common DNA…the ONLY difference was SOLE was creation of a career education scientist while JAM-method was an improvisation of c2pkids coaches when they failed to attract enough local interests in parents to send their kids for an in-person face-2-face after school coding program. Sugata's SOLE-ideas inspired and validated many assumptions that c2pkids coaches were making. JAM method started appearing more of a specific application of SOLE-philosophy–viz teaching kids to code. We had concluded that c2p Batch size should not be more than 4-5 kids per batch–based on technology limitations , kids maturity and overall experience that we could support.
Like SOLE, our success is based on volunteers –we are trying very hard to devise a model in which volunteer coaches find teaching c2pkids enriching and learning experience. We are happy to inspire more kids , parents and more parents who wish to volunteer to start their own c2pkids Batch with few kids from their own community , home and blend with other kids from distant. We are very close to launch 2-3 more batches by Dec-January time frame.
Net-net: unknowingly, we had adopted SOLE philosophy . So –What can broadband + collaboration tools + light encouragement do?
For c2pKids.org's Batch-1, in 7 jams, we are witnessing kids showing some early signs of producer kids. Our Batch1 kids understand how to learn , collaborate , decompose work online. They know etiquette of participating in a Hangout, they know how to write minutes of meetings, they know how to track and integrate work done in a distributed mode.
They are experiencing the Future of Learning & Working on Cloud. Thanks for reading this far.
C2PKids.org proud to promote computer science education week
It's a one-hour introduction to computer science, designed to demystify "code" and show that anyone can learn the basics to be a maker, a creator, an innovator.
We'll provide a variety of self-guided tutorials that anybody can complete, with just a web-browser, tablet, or smartphone. We'll even have unplugged tutorials for classrooms without computers. No experience is needed.
Watch this "how to" video for more information.
Please contact us if you would like to host a "Hour of Code" event in your school or your community. Use the following form


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Several years ago, I lost in a lesbian Halloween costume contest to a Sexy Vampire (and also a Sexy Dinosaur, which if you want to know how I feel about that is that I most definitely don't think about it in an existential way on a monthly basis). Then again, the very combination of the words "sexy" and "vampire" is almost redundant.
Beginning during the Romantic Movement in the late eighteenth century, vampires have become synonymous with an illicit and sensuous sexuality. They represent, at least on the part of the female reader or viewer living vicariously through the "victims," a willingness and even desire to be seduced; a secret craving to transgress sexual mores using victimhood as a fig leaf for sublimated desires. While technically framed in literature as "monsters" preying parasitically on virginal victims (as much to the titillation of readers of the 1700s as today), nowadays it seems like the average person would totally stick up a "Sparkly Vampires Come Here" sign in their yard if they could buy such a sign on Amazon. Or Etsy.
The (at least subtextually) lesbian vampire has been around since the beginning of the vampire craze, tracing its roots to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's late 18th-early 19th century long narrative poem "Christabel" and the 1872 novella "Carmilla" by Sheridan Le Fanu, both of which featured an exotic and mysterious bloodsucker targeting an innocent young virgin (at the time, the female vampire drew blood from the breast, not the neck, which when you think about it, is pretty much thinly veiled 1800s erotica).
With the dawn of the film age, the Sexy Lesbian Vampire character was a no-brainer, both for the titillation aspect and because of the embedded warnings about the dangers of lesbianism. In the advertising for "Dracula's Daughter" (1936), for example, Universal used the tag line "Save the women of London from Dracula's Daughter!", which carried an intentional double meaning. The lesbian vampire returned in 1957's "Blood of Dracula," and then again in 1960 in a "Carmilla" adaptation titled "…Et Mourir de Plaisir" ("…And to Die of Pleasure," literally, but rendered in English as "Blood and Roses").
It's Mrs. Steal Your Girl!
In the early 1970s, when the West decided the objectification of women was both awesome and desirable, the Sexy Lesbian Vampire became a staple trope for European sexploitation and horror movies (most of which were inspired by "Carmilla"). The Sexy Lesbian Vampire appeared in such melodramatically titled movies as "The Velvet Vampire," "The Vampire Lovers," "Lust for a Vampire," "Twins of Evil," "Vampyros Lesbos," "Daughters of Darkness," "The Blood Splattered Bride," and "Countess Dracula."
These movies implied that lesbians, in these movies literally vampires but metaphorically so in real life, were predatory and intent on converting hapless heterosexual women. Portrayed as poor and aberrant substitutes for male sexuality, they were permissible targets for men to attack and kill, symbolically reasserting their dominance over women. Of course, at the same time, their costuming and sexualized actions simultaneously offered gratuitous nudity for the heterosexual male gaze.
This week on Maury: "Vampires and the Women Who Love Them"
1983's "The Hunger," which starred Catherine Deneuve as an omnisexual female vampire who seduces and converts Susan Sarandon, attempted to make the vampire genre more classy again, although the film ultimately received highly mixed reviews. For the next two decades, sexually fluid female vampires were used by filmmakers in a variety of new situations, including in the Deadpan Noir genre ("Nadja," 1994), as a metaphor for substance abuse and being closeted ("The Addiction," 1995), and as satire ("Vampire Killers," originally titled "Lesbian Vampire Killers," 2009). Then, in the 2010s, the Sexy Lesbian Vampire returned to its roots with the sleek, hedonistic lesbians of "We Are the Night" (2011), bringing the trope full circle.
I feel like the lesbian vampire to the left looks shocked. Does she look shocked?
The lesbian vampire has also had recent exposure on TV, starting with a cameo by Evil Sexy Lesbian Vampire Willow in season three of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (which aired in 1998 and in which we receive the first inkling that Willow will later date women) and culminating with appearances on "True Blood" (2008-2014, whether you identify them as lesbian or sexually fluid, they include Pam, Tara, Nan, and Sophie-Anne) and "The Vampire Diaries" (Nora and Mary Louise in 2015/16).
Although the TV lesbian vampire today tends to still be "sexy," she is no more objectified than the heterosexual female vampire (progress?), and the trope of a parasitic vixen intent on corrupting heterosexuals has been dropped. Instead, today she represents the romanticization of immortality and power. Put another way, power is sexy.
I want so much to like them. But GAWD those British accents. I can't. Not to mention they don't pass as lesbians.
Today, the Lesbian Vampire trope has largely co-opted and reclaimed the negative themes that formed the basis of its origins. The lesbian vampire is sexy because she is physically and emotionally powerful and chooses to be sexy (for example, Nora and Mary Louise's Sexy Angel and Sexy Devil costumes). She encourages or allows her objectification as a manifestation of her own agency in the process, a paradoxical side effect of feminism, if you will. Her victim, if there is one, is largely willing, and the courtship between them is presented as valid love, not as a threat to masculinity.
Or at any rate, that's an optimistic view of the direction of these historic trends. If we're honest, we must admit there will always be a Sexy Lesbian Vampire on screen who wears skimpy clothing and leers at straight women, representing the male fear that lesbians are out to steal their women. And if we're even more honest, we'll admit that at some part of us wants to see that Sexy Lesbian Vampire. After all, there's a reason Sexy Vampire beats Sexy Dinosaur every time.


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Archive of the blog of The Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the Methodist Conference from 2007 - 2017
Tuesday, 30 April 2013
VP - in the Liverpool District
No two District visits have been remotely the same this year, so it was with great anticipation that we made our way to Trinity Church, Ellesmere Port on Friday afternoon. An extraordinary journey over the last decade, helpfully documented on Friday by different speakers, has resulted in a church space being opened up every weekday to serve the community, with 50 volunteers a week serving healthy snacks and drinks, working with NHS well-being professionals and the local council - but still keeping the Cross central to all that's going on. Great vision and drive - community and Circuit - alongside huge grace from the senior members of the church, as they seek to meet community needs. We were hosted by Steve and Suzanne Cooper, and on Saturday Steve took us to Hoylake for Synod, where we met up with Jim Booth and Mark Wakelin. The day was largely taken up with discussion about mission (local, national, global) and it was both a privilege to be part of it, as well as extremely stimulating. I look forward to seeing what happens in the next 12 months. On Sunday morning I was planned for Prescot and Whiston, arrived about 50 minutes prior to the service to be greeted by a large number of the congregation! I have rarely seen such a large proportion of worshippers gather so early, but it created a lovely warm atmosphere; and was carried on afterwards, not least by some of the young people proudly showing me their Sunday room, one that they had been allowed to decorate, and awaiting its official opening in two weeks' time. The church was a good example of what can be achieved by two congregations joining together and drawing on each other's strengths. A delicious, if hasty, traditional Sunday lunch with Carole and Jim in Mossley Hill was followed by a journey to the seaside at Southport. At Leyland Road, in cafe style, the three ordinands, Ruth, Ruth and Jan, gave their heartfelt, sometimes emotional, testimonies to a full church of all ages. It was a meaningful end for me to a full week-end where so many, directly and indirectly, spoke about getting out of the church buildings and into sharing and meeting the needs of the communities around them.
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Wednesday, 24 April 2013
Coventry, Sheffield and Durham
The 70th Anniverary of Methodist Homes took place in the grand surroundings of Coventry Cathedral on Wednesday 17th, where Keith Albans led the service and many voices were heard, including Susan Howdle, an ex-VP. Baroness Kathleen Richardson preached a sensitive and powerful sermon, and many friends made it a very happy occasion. On a personal note, I think the Joshua 14 reading that I was asked to read was not my easiest assignment of the year! On Friday we were off to Sheffield and an excellent question and answer evening with Methodist Women in Britain, chaired by Mary Jefferson, mainly with a world church theme. This subject was further explored at Synod the next day; and there were also impressive contributions from Ian Bell on Pioneer Ministry (see photo).and Steve Hucklesby (JPIT) opening up a very good discussion on the use of drones in warfare. Vernon Marsh led us purposefully, and Ric Stott's thread of meditative prayer centred us on God's grace throughout an excellent day. The day was rounded off perfectly for me by wins for both Birmingham City and Warwickshire - the sun shone! On Sunday I was planned for Loundsley Green in Chesterfield, at the LEP there. With Diane still in hospital, I was impressed by just how much ongoing work was being continued and developed by a faithful and prayerful fellowship. A day in the Banbury circuit was followed by an evening ride up the M1 for Isabel to attend a family funeral in Leeds on Tuesday, and for me to continue to Durham and the Wesley Study Centre. Calvin Samuel arranged a very full programme which enabled me to meet many of the Methodist tutors (including Jocelyn Bryan, Julie and Andrew Lunn) some of the diaconal and ministerial students, and also staff from Cranmer Hall and St John's College (notably David Wilkinson). It was also interesting to attend a postgraduate seminar led by Joel Edwards on prison ministry. It was a day primarily for listening. Time and again this year I have heard, both expressed and not spoken, the tension of the Covenant Service prayers - with God apparently calling us from where our inclinations might naturally lead. Not easy at all. Altogether, another week of being with lovely, gracious and committed people in Cathedral grandeur, representing Circuits and Districts, engaged in first-class ministerial formation, and working tirelessly at local mission. What a privilege!
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Monday, 15 April 2013
VP at Methodist Council
Methodist Council at High Wycombe was a very good meeting. Embraced in Nigel Hardwick's prayers there was real quality in the papers, considered questions and comments that showed careful study of an extensive agenda, and moments of real inspiration. I was so impressed by the contributions of the younger reps, including Hayley Moss, our Youth President. The Church has been so blessed by the YP postholders over the last couple of years. Council still has a tendency to micro-manage on occasions, perhaps understandably re the Discipleship and Ministries Learning Network (resulting from the Fruitful Field report); but no one present at Council could doubt the thoroughness of the examination of a subject that is still proving contentious to some in the Church. The same degree of scrutiny was afforded to a variety of papers, all of which are in the public domain via the Methodist website. Personally, I am pleased to see the progress being made by the MMS Working Group, as well as for Council to have been involved in shaping the legacy of the important Belonging Together project team; lots of synergy in these two reports re the local/global links in our understanding of mission today. This morning Paul Morrison introduced the work that JPIT have done since Conference on Poverty and Inequality, and it was so pleasing to hear Council affirming that we are a Church that can still speak prophetically and boldly. There will be many reading this who have never been to Methodist Council and I would want to reassure those people that Council treats the subjects seriously and carefully; and that the Conference continues to be served by a Connexional Team with ingredients of intellectual quality, theological underpinning, hard work and grace.
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Wednesday, 10 April 2013
VP over Easter - home and away
On a bitterly cold Palm Sunday I made my way, extremely cautiously, to a church anniversary at Trinity, Leicester West circuit. My friend Joseph Suray had invited me. The church had also invited the mums and tots group to the worship, specifically to help distribute the palm crosses - and several stayed for a delicious lunch. Holy Week itself was in my home circuit; a tenebrae service at Adderbury, Maundy Thursday at Greatworth, Good Friday at Hornton and a new ecumenical walk of witness at Boddington. Then Easter Sunday at Chacombe where, because the chapel heating wasn't working, we turned it into a cafe-style worship. It had the feel of the room where the disciples were huddled together, wondering just what was going to happen next! It also enabled some deep sharing over coffee. On Tuesday it was off to Scarborough and ECG, and the expected good mix of vibrant worship and teaching. It was a privilege to be asked to lead three seminars this year and we explored the 'Kingdom of God is...' through conversation with three Methodist presbyters - Eunice from Kenya, Francis from Sierra Leone and Adolf from Guyana/St Vincent. The Methodist Church is blessed to have such talented and dedicated ministers and lay people to enable such an event as ECG to be such an inspiration every year. Now Isabel and I are having a few days of holiday near Salisbury to get better acquainted with Alfred Wlliam, our newest grandson. Or it could be recharging the batteries before Methodist Council starts on Saturday!
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One wouldn't necessarily expect to find The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) Maastricht to be bursting at the seams with faith. If the art auction and fair worships at any altar, it would be Mammon's rather than Apollo's. The notion that a camel has a better chance of crawling through the eye of a needle than a rich man does of setting up shop in heaven couldn't be further from the culture of TEFAF, whose press releases talk of 170 private jets descending on the Maastricht airport and about 65,000 tulips adorning the halls of the convention center.
The scenery one sees as one nears the end of the two-hour drive from Amsterdam to Maastricht, a historic city located in the southern-most tip of the Netherlands, doesn't necessarily inspire one to anticipate great art. One enters Maastricht on a highway flanked by an industrial skyline panorama of smokestacks and warehouses. But as one gets closer to the city center, one encounters a much more picturesque vision of medieval battlements and the dominating presence of the Meuse river.
At the fair–which is celebrating its 25th anniversary, and which opened on March 16 and closes tomorrow–more than 250 dealers from nearly 20 countries sell their wares, which span from Greek and Roman antiquities to contemporary sculptures. Calvin Klein was among the collectors at the fair, which draws museum acquisitions staff and other purchasers with deep pockets. One early sale, for example, was a Peter Paul Rubens Crucifixion, which had an asking price of €3.5 million (Bernheimer Fine Old Masters).
But whatever the odds, there was a lot to be said about religion and religious art at TEFAF. In virtually ever section of the fair–paintings, antiques, modern, manuscripts, classical antiquities, design, works on paper, and jewelry–there were at least dozens of examples of fascinating works with religious content and themes (and, to be fair, many not so interesting works). Here are three noteworthy trends:
1. Obscure Old Testament scenes galore
In the set of biblical paintings, New Testament scenes tend to overwhelmingly dominate Old Testament depictions, and even in the relatively small set of scenes from the Jewish bible, some biblical episodes are rarely portrayed. The scene that Matthias Stomer renders in his painting Sarai Offering Hagar to Abram (Galerie Sanct Lucas) is based on Genesis 16.
Sarah (then named Sarai) realizes that she's barren, so she somehow musters the courage to offer her husband, Abraham, her handmaiden Hagar as a second wife. It's an awkward scene to be sure, and it's no surprise that artists have latched onto other scenes from the chapter, including Sarai dismissing Hagar and Ishmael, Hagar's isolation in the desert with Ishmael, and Hagar's conversation with the angel.
Half a century or so later, the Dutch painter Adriaen van der Werff would render the same scene with a voluptuous and nude Hagar sitting on a bed beside Abraham, who is young and muscular. But there seem to be very few versions of the work before Stomer tackled it. And Stomer's choice to depict Abraham as the old man he was–86 according to Genesis 16:16–stands in sharp contrast to the decision van der Werff would make.
It's hard not to imagine a wealthy old man with an attractive girlfriend who looks old enough to be his daughter (or granddaughter) when one studies Stomer's painting. Sarai looks to be of Abraham's generation, and her modest attire is intentionally juxtaposed with Hagar's exposed cleavage. It's far easier to read Genesis 16:16 and to gloss over the words, but it's difficult not to be troubled by the view that Stomer presents.
Other notable mentions in the Old Testament art department are Domenico Gargiulo's The Gathering of the Manna (Galleria Silvano Lodi & Due), another rarely depicted scene, and a particularly dramatic Judgement of Solomon (by Gaetano Gandolfi, at Jean-François Heim). A discovery of Moses by Nicolas Colombel (c. 1680-90) at Richard Feigen & Co. depicts a most un-Egyptian Egypt (complete with a a decidedly un-biblical reclining river god), and two Delftware dishes (one with Adam and Eve, and the other a sacrifice of Isaac) at Aronson Antiquairs are particularly gorgeous. And Galerie Eric Coatalem's seven-part series on the biblical Esther and Mordecai (Histoire d'Esther) by Jean François de Troy alone was worth the trip.
2. Biblical Hebrew is anything but a dead language
Not only did Old Testament scenes show up in a big way at TEFAF, but Hebrew inscriptions could be found in several of the booths. A silver supremacy medal for Henry VIII at Nomos contains Hebrew, Greek, and Latin inscriptions, which basically declare the king–portrayed on the front of the medal wearing what appears to be the Order of the Golden Fleece–the "supreme head of the Church of England and Ireland."
Henry VIII needed all the help in this regard as he could get, as he was trying to justify his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, and subsequent marriage to Anne Boleyn.
A close inspection of the Hebrew inscription reveals some pseudo-Hebraic words and the prominence of the word Messiah, but, as Richard Bishop observes in a Hebraica Veritas essay on the subject, the Hebrew was an attempt to marshal Old Testament legitimacy for his controversial divorce.
"No doubt Henry greatly approved of this medal. The message was loud and clear. His title 'Supreme Head' spelt out in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, proclaimed to the world that the combined learning of all traditions, Hebraic, Greek and Roman, the Old and the New Testaments, all supported his claim to be God's appointed Head of the Church," Bishop writes.
Another medal with Hebrew inscriptions appears in the Tradart booth–this one a bronze plate commemorating the inauguration of Frankfurt's synagogue. The Hebrew inscription, "house of prayer of the upright" (depending on how one translates Yeshurun), appears above a sun setting (or rising) over the Frankfurt synagogue. Some of the floral details adorning the arch over the Hebrew inscription and along the sides of the plate resemble the shape of the Hebrew letter Shin, the first letter of one of the divine names. And beneath the synagogue representation, another Hebrew inscription offers the Hebrew date of the inauguration.
Two other pieces merit attention–a 1699 Sephardic Jewish prayer book from Venice (yours for €42,000) at Kunstzalen A. Vecht, with a silver cover by Atonio Poma, and another Tradart masterpiece, an 1806 bronze medal depicting Napoleon I holding the 10 Commandments. The personification of the Jewish community (portrayed as Michelangelo's Moses with horns) bows at Napoleon's feet, signifying his/its appreciation of the emancipation (relatively speaking) of the Jews in the French empire.
3. Whatever happened to Islam?
If TEFAF can be applauded for its comprehensive showcase of Christian art, and it's surprising attention to Jewish art, it comes up very short in the third Abrahamic faith. Although some booths–notably Gregg Baker Asian Art, Marcel Nies Oriental Art, Vanderven & Vanderven Oriental Art, and Jacqueline Simcox–showed stunning Buddhist and Hindu art, an inspection of every booth didn't turn up a single work of Islamic art.
A search of the TEFAF catalog for the terms "Islam," "Muslim," and "Islamic" yields no results. One dealer, Sam Fogg has a focus on Islamic art, but the gallery didn't respond to interview requests. The closest pieces (which are far afield indeed) are a watch with "Islamic" numerals made for the Turkish market (Somlo Antiques) and another watch at Crijns & Stender with Arabic numerals.
Excuse the pun, but it's high time for a major art fair like TEFAF to show more Islamic art than a couple of watches.
Full disclosure: This writer's trip to TEFAF was funded, in large part, by the Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions, which, however, had no role whatsoever in or oversight over this article.


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A distinction without a difference
I've noted before, based on instinct that, when it comes to substance, nothing distinguishes Obama and Clinton from each other, in that they're each extremely liberal. That, I said, is why they've had to fall back so frantically on their racial and sexual identities. It's not just the "identity politics" chickens coming home to roost; it's also the only way you can tell the two apart. My instinct regarding this matter is right on the money: according to the National Journal's nonpartisan rating of Congress people, both are to the far left politically. In addition, "'The policy differences between Clinton and Obama are so slight they are almost nonexistent to the average voter,' said Richard Lau, a Rutgers University political scientist."
Also according to the National Journal, McCain has a lifetime rating as a conservative, although he's grown less conservative with the passage of time. He is something of a centrist which means, ironically, that if he's elected, he could be the uniter, which is the mantle Obama currently claims for himself. That is, Obama speaks unity, but operates at the fringe. McCain really does seem to function out of the center.
Hat tip: Captain's Quarters


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Bad news…
I think I may have gotten sick from the salad after all. It started bothering me after dinner on Saturday night and by Sunday my stomach was turning over itself all day long. I won't go into details.
Still, it wasn't bad enough that I couldn't go out and about. After I met Raj for lunch to discuss some business, Garland and Esther joined us and we all went out to go shopping at Spencer Plaza (a really *big* mall in Chennai). It's full of little stores and big stores, food vendors, service providers (like dry cleaning)… pretty much everything you'd need! Garland and Esther got some lunch at Mary Brown while I grabbed a smoothie at a juice store (they only use mineral water and "safe" ice as it says on their menu – they better not be lying!). After buying a present for Rachel (hmmm… wonder what it could be, honey??) everyone bought some cookies at Cookie Man. Except me… my stomach was getting worse.
After Spencer's Plaza we hit up a street market where Esther wanted to buy some bracelets like the ones she bought on her last trip to Chennai. Garland and I wandered up and down the block looking at the various goods people were selling. Everyone was begging us to come and look at their stuff.
I was pretty eager to get back to the hotel and take a nap. Esther was tired, too (since she just arrived late the previous night) so her and I conked out while Garland did some work. I slept restlessly until I had to leave for my flight.
I waited at the airport for about an hour and a half for Albert and Lara to deplane and get through customs. They had flown Lufthansa from Frankfurt, but one of their bags got damaged. After figuring out how to report it to the New Delhi Lufthansa office, we made our way to the domestic terminal to take our SpiceJet flight back to New Delhi through Hyderabad. I barely noticed the flight – thankfully I was sleeping the whole time. Mahindra picked us up from the airport and we went straight home and passed out after talking to Rachel for a bit on our new wireless connection with my PDA. It's great to be connected at home.
See all my Chennai pics.
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Old friends Capac reveal some new ideas and archive jams fresh for 2013.
It's been some considerable time since we last heard from Capac.
Last we heard from the Liverpool-formed electronic outfit they were playing superlative sets with Barbieshop vocalist Kate Smith at Sound City 2011.
Now, Gaz Solomon, Stu Cook and Joshua Davenport, have dispersed around the UK, and just in time for New Year have returned with a new malevolent drone dub jam entitled Nine3Nine.
They've also lashed online a couple of older tracks harking back to their Liverpool days where they created the much-loved Pastels EP; both of which combine Gaz's guitar lines with delicate dance textures.
We love 'em, we hope there's more to come.
Getintothis on Capac debut Pastels.
Capac named in Getintothis' Top 10 acts of Liverpool Sound City 2011.


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Imagine my shock when Ash called to tell me he got home and found her struggling to breathe. He rushed her to the vet (and then to an emergency vet when the first place wouldn't see her without appointment--don't get me started on that piece). I got in the car to rush there myself and as I sat in traffic, Ash and the vet called to say she'd stopped breathing and her heart stopped.
I asked them to give her CPR and continued my drive, devastated. Twenty minutes later, they called me back to say her heart briefly started again but then stopped again. They would wait for me to come in and fill out forms before taking any other steps.
I pulled up to the vet with a sense of emptiness. She'd been my baby since my teen years. I couldn't fathom that she was gone. I walked in and the vet greeted me with news that her heart restarted but that she was barely holding on. I went in to see her holding on to a bit of hope but when I saw her laying there—essentially lifeless—that drained out of me. They unhooked her and let me hold her, which I did until her heart stopped and she drew her last breath.
It was a horrible moment for me. We filled out the necessary paperwork, made decisions about cremation and went home. I got there and the silence pressed down on me. Her things were there but she wasn't. Even Lola (our puppy) quietly approached and just cuddled up through my intermittent moments of crying. The next day after Ash cleared her things out (at my request), I was even more distraught. The empty place where her house was, the empty corner of the ottoman she loved to lounge on, the absence of her food and water bowl…it just all took my breath away and led to another sobbing session.
Some might say we were on borrowed time with Storm. I mean, she was 18. Truthfully, 2 years ago, a vet told me she had 4-6 weeks to live after I took her in for throwing up. He couldn't tell me why. He just said, she'd old. She probably has cancer. Two years later, she seemed to have more energy than she did in her younger years. So it never felt like
borrowed time.
borrowed time.
Ash and I are dealing with things differently. He was there to see her scared and panicked and is a bit traumatized by it. He feels like he should have been able to do something. I'm dealing with not being there to comfort her while she was scared.
It all brings up a weird thing for me. When I was young, I sympathized for people who lost pets but I never really got it. As much as I love my pets, I imagined I'd be a little sad but would be ok. I mean, animals live relatively short lives. It's a known thing. Over the years though, they've come to represent something else to me. They are a constant and they love unconditionally. Through my illnesses and changed life plans, they took on more significance. The cuddling meant more while I was bed ridden—if that makes sense.
I don't expect non-pet lovers to understand—nor do I need it. I just needed to put out there that my little Storm will be missed. She was in my life against all odds. I was dropping off donations to an animal shelter in connection with some work I had to do for honor society. As I helped the manager bring the supplies in, I passed the cat cage and Storm was the only cat left. She was tiny and jet black and just started at me. The manager asked if I'd consider adopting her as she was coming close to the euthanasia period. She said she wasn't getting adopted because she was the runt of the litter and people are leery of black cats.
I don't believe in superstition and even though I wasn't a cat person (and wasn't supposed to have pet in the on-campus housing I lived in), I couldn't imagine the tiny little thing getting killed. I took her. As I filled out the adoption paperwork, she pooped in the mail tray on top of the manager's desk.
I giggled and thought, at least she's litter trained. I took her home and headed out for supplies. She's been with me ever since. I love her for all of the terrible boyfriends she hissed at, the ankles she nibbled and cords she destroyed in her youth, the nuzzles and purrs when I was bedridden and the eventual acceptance of Lola. I miss her today and I'm sure there will always be a little twinge of sorrow every time I wake up and she's not there nudging me or licking my arm to let me know she's ready for breakfast. Rest in peace," Storm-baby." I'll never forget you.


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I watched Will Smith's movie Pursuit of Happyness on TV again this weekend and I got teared up. I don't know why but I have seen the movie three times now and each time I get a little misty eyed.
Something about the struggle, desperation, and dedication that is soul stirring. I put it right in line with Cinderella Man as a movie that goes against the grain of our culture's massive wave of portraying men and fathers as apathetic, disengaged, and unwilling to fight for their families.
Both movies though ended with salvation being financial. While I see how the financial achievements of both men in these movies alleviates the suffering of their lives and families; I am more moved by the men they are and the love they have for their families. It sounds corny but the blessing is in the bond, and the journey which creates it.
I do not know if most of us will face such trying circumstances as these two movie characters in our lives, but I do know we will all make daily decisions in the pursuit of happyness. And as the apostle Paul tells us in his wonderful letter to the Phillppi, our joy (and happiness to a certain degree) does not come from our circumstances but from love; love from our Heavenly Father, and love from our community.
Filed under: theology |


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Gunshots rang out as a brown Jeep approached a massive police roadblock.
The driver hit the gas and swerved around the police cars. Cops took off after the fleeing vehicle and a TV news camera crew was rolling the entire time.
Cops say the stolen car was driven by a real-life Bonnie and Clyde. Their names are Michael Bagwell and Diana Dayton.
The couple had allegedly gone on a crime spree from Georgia to South Carolina to North Carolina.
Police set up a roadblock near Charlotte to bring the odyssey to an end. But Bonnie and Clyde have other ideas.
They plowed through the grass, oblivious to police gunfire. One rear tire was flat and there were bullet holes in the bodywork of the Jeep.
It was a scene straight out of the classic Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway movie. But in the movie, Bonnie and Clyde die in a hail of bullets.
These guys were luckier. They were captured alive further down the road. After facing down that barrage of bullets, they now face a barrage of charges.


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Honors College adviser leads double life
Megan Boyer is the lead singer of the Megan Boyer Band.
Aug. 31, 2010
Megan Boyer flicks her cigarette and prepares to go inside. For Boyer, this afternoon break is not remotely different from an interlude during a performance by her band. But instead of retreating inside to end a show by the Megan Boyer Band, she grabs the door of the Lowry Hall building where she works as an academic adviser.
Coaching students to academic success and belting blues vocals in a microphone have their similarities, said Boyer.
"I like working with people and both jobs involve that," Boyer said. "Part of being an adviser is getting to know the student and figuring out classes that suit them. At shows I get to meet people who came to hear the band perform."
Boyer has always had an interest in music but did not assemble a professional blues band until November 2007.
"I play guitar but I learned the instrument to accompany my voice," Boyer said. "In a band I can do things musically I could never accomplish solo. I enjoy the dynamic between all the musicians and the different instruments."
The Internet was the birthplace of the Megan Boyer Band. Guitarist Jimmy Steffan wanted to start a band so he sifted through a Columbia music site and found an ad posted by Boyer.
"We got together and played some songs," Steffan said. "I thought it sounded really good. Megan is probably the best singer I've ever been in a band with."
The band's bassist, Mike Tripp, also connected with the band online. Steffan found Tripp on Facebook and asked him to fill in for a show, Tripp said.
Tripp, who is a freelance musician and 44-year-old music student at Truman State University, enjoys the other band members as much as the music.
"They are very cool people who appreciate each other," Tripp said. "The music is just the icing on the cake."
Blues stereotypically carries the stigma of an older generation's genre of music. The genre originated in the 19th century in the Deep South among the African American community. And although an older couple swayed on the dance floor of The Tiger Zou Pub & Grill at Friday's show, the music played by the Megan Boyer Band was not tired or elderly.
"Blues can be simple but it has a lot of soul to it," Steffan said.
Soul is undoubtedly present in the band's music and in the rough voice of Boyer.
"As a female blues singer, I have a wider range of songs," Boyer said. "Female blues lyrics are sexy, empowering and sometimes raunchy."
On stage Boyer is as nonchalant and modern as she is in her office. It would be no surprise to find Boyer advising a student wearing her patched jeans, graphic tee and Vans which she wore at her show.
While Boyer loves music and her band, she does not have plans to seek fame.
"I realize the reality that I need to pay my student loans, insurance and live a comfortable life," Boyer said. "I try to maintain a balance between life, music and work. My goal is not to be a rock-star; I simply enjoy music."
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The Disney character Stitch (from the 2002 animated movie Lilo & Stitch) appears in the Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep video game for PSP. Also called "Experiment 626", Stitch sometimes makes use of a ray gun. This paper model of Stitch's ray gun is based on a 3D model from KHBBS. The gun is full scale and measures about 7"(17.8 cm) in length-TektontenStitch's Ray Gun Papercraft
Stitch's Ray Gun PapercraftPosted by Michael James | Thursday, September 01, 2011 | Kingdom Hearts, Lilo and Stitch, papercraft, weapons | 0 comments »
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This is the 10th edition of the 'Maxwell Instruction Book' which was published around the year 1920.
Published for the purpose of providing Maxwell car owners with detailed information on their vehicle instructions on how to take care of it. It provides information on general operating instructions, lubricant, the engine, electrical system and much more. The book also contains descriptions, diagrams, and coloured advertising illustrations.
This ebook is a the same as the CD version from Archive Digital Books Australasia which is available from Gould Genealogy & other retailers. This CD contains high quality scanned images of the whole original volume, and has been bookmarked for easy navigation. Pages can be searched, browsed, enlarged and printed out if required.
Also available:
|Archive Digital Books Australia
|(c1920) 2009
1/1257 North East Road,
Ridgehaven SA 5097
Mail to: firstname.lastname@example.com
Phone: +61 8 82632055


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I probably get asked about lunch ideas more than anything else on social media. It's hard to come up with healthy, cheap lunch ideas when you're working, or at home with the kids – and having the same thing gets really boring.
I once read an article that said that the average UK worker spends around £2,500 a year on lunches, snacks and drinks. My husband laughed when I read it out loud to him, until I pointed out that this actually works out at £9 a day. By the time you've bought a cup of coffee, lunch, maybe a bottle of water – £9, although at the steep end – probably isn't far off. It's easy to lose track of small purchases, but they're the ones that add up.
We all know that the best way to save money on lunches, is to make our own. This won't be a revelation to anyone! I hate making lunches. Breakfast, dinner, I have no problem with, but for some reason, making lunches the night before, seems like a real chore. So, if i'm taking the time to make a lunch, it needs to be quick, healthy (ish) and better than anything I can buy from the shops.
So here are some ideas and recipes to help make lunch planning a little bit easier……
Meal Prep: Planning out 5 days of lunches doesn't have to be stressful. You can have roughly the same lunch for the week and prep it on a Sunday. Cook up batches of rice, noddles, couscous or pasta that can form the basis for your lunch and vary what you have with it. Store in Tupperware containers and freeze what won't keep for the week. Think about the dinners you'll be eating and the leftovers you might have to work with.
Invest in some good quality Tupperware containers, with clip fasten lids, that are dishwasher safe and BPA free. These are the ones I have and they're ideal for dividing portions or storing different types of food.
If you're looking for a great Sunday recipe to batch cook for the week, try my Pork Ragu It will feed the family and give you plenty of leftovers for lunch.
Heatproof mugs: These are ideal for storing noodles, stews and soups, keeping them hot until lunchtime. Alternatively, you can use it for hot drinks, rather than buying from coffee shops. They're less bulky and more convenient than a flask. A great way to save money, especially if you're out and about during the day, without access to a kitchen.
If you don't have a heatproof mug, think about getting a good quality one that's spill resistant. There is nothing more annoying than knocking over a leaky mug of soup in the car when your driving – trust me! I've found this one it ticks all of the boxes and it's a really good price – I've seen some that are over £20!!
Bread: Most of us who take a lunch to work, or make packed lunches for the kids, will have a sandwich. You can obviously vary the filling to make it more interesting OR, you can vary the bread! Wraps, bagels, sandwich thins, croissants, pitta bread and ciabatta, can make sandwiches more exciting and a great accompaniment to soup. If you're looking for something a little bit different, have a look at my Red Pesto & Ham Bakes they're so easy to make and they freeze really well.
I love croissants with ham and cheese, popped in the oven for a few minutes so that the cheese melts. Sandwich thins are perfect to use in toastie bags or if you're at home, add the sandwich filling, before frying them in a griddle – not massively healthy, but a wonderful Friday treat!
Toasties can make a nice change to a plain old sandwich. I do like toastie makers, but I can't bear cleaning them afterwards! I use Toastie bags If you've not used them before, they're heatproof pouches that you can put sandwiches in and can go in the toaster – you can also wash and reuse them.
If you're just sick and tired of bread, why not try my Lentil, Tahini and Tomato Bake it's really easy, totally veggie and you can prep it on a Sunday and freeze individual portions.
Buddha Bowls: If you've not heard of these before, the idea behind Buddha bowls is: Greens + Grains + Protein. They're a great way to use up leftovers and an easy method of putting together a healthy balanced lunch. Think about preparing extra vegetables and grains when you make dinner, to set aside for lunches. Then you just add your protein. Here are a few ideas for ingredients:
- Couscous
- Quinoa
- Kidney beans
- Chickpeas
- Brown rice
- Tinned Tuna
- Cold roast chicken
- Butter beans
- Steamed green beans or spinach
- Avocado
- Unsalted nuts
- Hardboiled eggs
- Roasted vegetables
- Houmus
- Smoked mackerel
The photo below is of my very unimaginative Buddha bowl, but you can make it much more interesting! Tupperware with different compartments is a useful thing to have for these, as are salad dressing bottles to stop your salad from going soggy in transit!
Snacks: It's not just lunches we spend our money on, it's snacks. The cost of buying individual snacks every day, can really add up. Go to work prepared. Buy multi packs of crisps, dried fruit, such as raisins and apricots and snack bars when you do your supermarket shop. Big bags of nuts and crackers can be portioned into individual containers.
Salads are great for warmer months, but a plate of lettuce rarely fills us me up until dinner time. Think of carbs like potato, pasta or rice that you can add to a healthy salad to make them a bit more satisfying. Homemade croutons are a great way to use up stale bread and make salads more filling and exciting. Just cut the bread into cubes, drizzle with olive oil and season, before baking in the oven for a few minutes. They will get crispier as they cool.
One of my favourite salad recipes is the Fiery Peanut & Honey Chicken Noodle Salad from my cookbook if you don't have it yet – here's the recipe:
- 2 nests of medium dried noodles
- 2 carrots
- 4 spring green leaves
- 3-4 cold cooked chicken breasts (or equivalent leftover roast chicken)
- Salt and ground black pepper
For the dressing:
- 4 tsp smooth peanut butter
- 4 tsp honey
- 4 tsp soy sauce
- 2 tsp olive oil
- 2 tsp cold water
- 4 spring onions very finely chopped
- 1-2 red chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
- Put the noodles into a saucepan, cover with boiling water and simmer for 4 minutes, with the lid on. Drain the noodles and immediately immerse them in cold water. Leave them in the water for a couple of minutes, before draining.
- Chop the ends off the carrots and peal them. Discard the skin and continue to peel, creating ribbons, using as much of the carrot as you can. Add to the noodles.
- Put the spring green leaves together, fold them in half length ways and then in half again. Slicing width ways, cut the greens into thin ribbons. Add the greens to the noodles.
- To make the dressing, combine all of the ingredients together in a bowl. Pour the dressing over the noodles and, using your hands, combine all of the ingredients, making sure that they are all coated in the dressing.
- Divide the noodles between 4 bowls, then slice or tear the chicken over the noodles. Season with salt and pepper.
Couscous makes the perfect lunch. It's cheap, filling and only takes 10 minutes to cook. Place 100g of dried couscous, in an airtight Tupperware container and add to it a handful of greens such as spinach or shredded spring greens. Then add whatever dried spices or herbs you like. You can then add either feta or mackerel or tuna as the main ingredient. Stir the ingredients together, season and pour 230ml of boiling water into the tupperware container and put the lid on. You can eat it 10 minutes later, or take it with you and eat it at lunch time. It's a great lunch if you're short of time and need to put something together before work or the school run.
Spiralizing is a quick way to make a salad with a bit more bite and a great way to use up vegetables. Usually you would boil or steam the spiralized veg, but, if you're prepping them to eat later in the day just work the dressing through them, place them in a sealed container and they will be the perfect texture by lunch! I love raw courgetti with shredded spring greens, tossed in pesto and a little olive oil. Then, just crumble some feta cheese over the top!
Essential Lunch kit:
If you're spending more money than you want to on lunches, it's worth investing in a bit of kit. There is a bit of outlay to begin with, but in the long run it's going to make lunches quicker, easier and cheaper.


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Also known as Lemurian Seed Crystal, Lemurian quartz is a type of laser quartz crystal mined in the Diamantina region of Brazil. Crystals often display a characteristic pink caste due to a coating of oxidised hematite or similar iron-containing mineral. Lemurian quartz is believed to hold the wisdom of ancient Lemuria, a civilisation pre-dating Atlantis (information originally channelled by Madame Blavatsky of the Theosophy Society in the late 18th century), which, like Atlantis, is said to have sunk beneath the waves as a punishment for misuse of power. Like other quartz from the Diamontina Complex, it is exceptionally clear (beneath the coating and striation), and has a warm, friendly energy. Lemurian quartz makes an excellent control crystal.
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Academics are, by nature, hand wringers. We worry about the decline in the humanities. We worry about grade inflation. We worry about the troubles of academic presses. Once in a while we worry about the state of teaching. Or, to paraphrase our former president, "rarely is the question asked: is our professors teaching"?
Quite often the appraisal of teaching is negative, though academics and non-academics offer different points of view. In the popular imagination, the old stereotypes persist, as Anthony Grafton points out, with tongue firmly in cheek:
We don't teach undergraduates at all, even though we shamelessly charge them hundreds of dollars for an hour of our time. Mostly we leave them to the graduate students and adjuncts. Yet that may not be such a bad thing. For on the rare occasions when we do enter a classroom, we don't offer students close encounters with powerful forms of knowledge, new or old. Rather, we make them master our "theories"—systems of interpretation as complicated and mechanical as sausage machines. However rich and varied the ingredients that go in the hopper, what comes out looks and tastes the same: philosophy and poetry, history and oratory, each is deconstructed and revealed to be Eurocentric, logocentric and all the other centrics an academic mind might concoct.*
Across the water, historian and filmmaker Tariq Ali and and Harvard historian and teledon Niall Ferguson speak to the BBC about what they see as the abysmal state of history teaching. (Hat tip to the AHA.) Students stop pursuing history in England at an early age, says Ferguson. And what history is taught is "too fragmentary." Ali agrees, saying that what is presented is, basically, "worthless," and hobbled by a chasing after so-called relevance. They both argue that the old anachronistic, triumphalist, island history of Britain, should be avoided, but students need a larger narrative. "It could hardly be worse than what is going on in schools today," concludes Ferguson.
How does history teaching fare in America's colleges and universities? Are teaching awards more than a feather in the cap? Do promotion and tenure committees value persistently good evaluations and commend teaching effectiveness in the same way that they reward scholarship? Do peers sit in on classes and make assessments? Do departments do anything when a professor continues to receive poor teaching evaluations one semester after another?
Nearly ten years ago Daniel Bernstein and Richard Edwards proposed that we need more peer review of teaching in the Chronicle. "[I]f educators are going to sustain the progress made, we will need to move toward a more rigorous and objective form of review," they wrote. "The goal of peer review has been to provide the same level of support, consultation, and evaluation for teaching that universities now provide for research." I can't imagine what the results of such efforts have been. Certainly, peer evaluation can turn into a messy, political business.
Does graduate training in history prepare men and women for classroom success? Budding historians spend far more time in graduate school working on research, parsing theory, and getting the historiography down. Less time is devoted to developing teaching skills and, at least as it was in my case, there is not much mentoring on teaching. (Most grad students I encountered came prewired with an interest in teaching. So, that was a plus.) Could graduate training be better oriented to prepare good history teachers? What would that look like?


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Unless you've been huddled in a corner for the last few years, you may have stumbled into a little website called Smashing Magazine. All sarcasm aside though, Smashing is one of the most popular and fastest growing websites in the design community. It has become a source of inspiration and education to thousands of designers and developers—beginners and professionals alike.
It only makes sense that a website producing such an incredible amount of great content would decide to compile and publish a book. My expectations in the beginning were mediocre at best; I wasn't sure how a website producing content that almost required you to be at a computer (a lot of articles consisted of external links and examples) would create an equally content-rich book. When I got this particular book in the mail; I was surprised, excited and more importantly—proven absolutely wrong.
Binding, Paper & Print Quality
A beautiful book. Let's me say this right out of the gate: This book is gorgeous. That was literally my first thought when I got mine. The front is very simple with the logo blown up past the edges of the cover. The thickness of the paper stock and the strength of the binding makes it feel very solid for a paperback book. The pages themselves are a very high-quality stock as well. There's a slight satin finish giving them a slightly glossy feel, but definitely not too glossy. All of this, combined with the very vibrant print quality, makes The Smashing Book a fantastic looking book.
QUICK NOTE: If you got the first edition of this book you'll notice that the binding and print margins were incredibly bad. I had to pull the book open to see the rest of the content buried in the margin of the book, causing the pages to start falling out. I assure you though, the new edition has fixed both of these issues and the book is holding up much better!
The Smashing Content
Super-rich and detailed. Enough about what it looks like, let's get to the meat of this thing. If you're anything like me, you immediately read/retweet almost every article that Smashing Magazine produces. Each one of them is rich with inspiration and content and the book does not disappoint in this respect. If I could pick one major aspect about the book that is different than the website, it's that the website is very focused on inspiration while The Smashing Book focuses almost entirely on educating.
Design and usability. The first half of the book (about 170 pages) is all about design and usability. User interface design, CSS layouts, typography, usability principles and a huge guide about color usage. All of these chapters are rich and informative; I found myself highlighting some great snippets of information (something I haven't done in years).
Optimization & branding. A lot of the second half of the book (about 60 pages) focuses on optimization, conversion rates and branding. This is an excellent guide if you're looking to create something similar to a Smashing Magazine or other business-centric online brand. My only complaint with this section is that they don't put too much emphasis on social media. Being that it's growing at an incredible rate and such a huge part of most of our lives these days, it would be nice to have some kind of social networking guide when it comes to branding and optimization. That of course could be a whole book by itself.
Interviews and insights. Another large part of the book gets into interviews and insights, which was actually one of my favorite parts. I love hearing from fellow designers and developers; hearing their stories and learning from their accomplishments and mistakes. Almost thirty pages of questions and answers really helps this book become more real. Reading these intelligent responses from so many great people makes you feel like your part of something bigger, something more than just reading a great book.
The Smashing story. And then interestingly enough, the end of the book tells the story of the beginning. The Smashing Magazine story is incredibly entertaining; particularly because they didn't even mean to create something as big as they did. I won't spoil the good parts, but it's definitely worth a read-through at least once.
Final Thoughts
If someone were to ask me today: "What book would you recommend to me if I wanted to improve my skills as a designer?", I would absolutely recommend The Smashing Book. This isn't necessarily a book for absolute beginners because it doesn't teach you how to be a designer—which would be impossible. What it does do is gives you the knowledge, recommendations and examples you need to become a better one.
I've been designing and developing for over 15 years now and like I mentioned before; I was highlighting sections of the book that I found insightful and interesting. Some of the information I had never thought of or seen anywhere else. If you are a designer, beginner or advanced; I cannot recommend this book more. It deserves to be on every designer's bookshelf.
You can purchase The Smashing Book for $29.90 from Smashing Magazine's site: http://bit.ly/9p7JZD