text:
The American Psyche: A Noirish History of the Industrial Era
Which of us was willing to turn, to look the future in the face, to mutiny if necessary and oblige the Captain to put about, return the thing to where we had found it? The last of our mean innocence tolled away ship's bell after bell. Even if we could not predict in detail what was about to happen, there could have been no one among us, not even the most literal-minded, who did not feel that something, down there, below our feet, below the waterline where it lay patient and thawing, was terribly, and soon to be more terribly, amiss.
—Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day
There has always been a fine line between reason and madness, logic and affect, one that once crossed can lead into strange and bewildering worlds. The Left prides itself on critiquing capitalist social and cultural systems to the point of resistance, revolt, and total destruction. As Andrew Culp in his manifesto for destruction of our current civilization tells us, what we need is to enter that realm of destructive "polemics, recovery, and creativity" of which Deleuze and Guattari's work was both a sign and a promise: "I argue against the "canon of joy" that celebrates Deleuze as a naively affirmative thinker of connectivity. Second, I rehabilitate the destructive force of negativity by cultivating a "hatred for this world." Third, I propose a conspiracy of contrary terms that diverge from the joyous task of creation".3
Against connectionism, a reaffirmation of violence and destruction of "worlds" in which hatred (a strong affect) suddenly blossoms, and a dark turn toward conspiracies against the "joyous task of creativity". Read this against the long note left by A. Joseph Stack III, who on February 19, 2010, a fifty-three-year-old software engineer, crashed a private plane into the Internal Revenue Service offices in Austin, Texas, killing himself as well as one worker inside the building. He left behind a statement that was six single-spaced pages long. It had clearly been worked on for a long time. As Stack himself stated: "The writing process, started many months ago, was intended to be therapy in the face of the looming realization that there isn't enough therapy in the world that can fix what is really broken." At the same time, he acknowledged "the storm raging in my head." Unlike the manifest conspiracism in Richard Poplawski's Web postings, Joseph Stack's final statement, lengthy though it is, implied a conspiracy rather than stating it directly. In his polemic against the tax system, his real enemy was what he saw as a larger political structure rigged and operated by the wealthy for their own benefit. George W. Bush is "the recent presidential puppet." The law comes in two versions, one "for the very rich, and one for the rest of us . . . and the monsters are the very ones making and enforcing the laws."4
A sense of utter futility and despair pervades these texts, a hate that would destroy all external supports to the point of annihilation. The Left seems prepared to annihilate the world if need be to create a new one. Why? How have we come to the point of willilling the sacrifice of all life on the planet in the name of some ideological system of abstract thought? Some seem to be already doing this on a personal scale (i.e., Berardi's work), but the big question is if this turns to collective action will we begin a course toward total annihilation from which there is no escape?
Mayhem in the Streets
In his recent book Heroes: Mass Murder and Suicide Franco "Bifo" Berardi reminds us that we are living in the ruins of capitalist civilization, a global civilization and multiplicity of cultural complexes all meshed in establishing an era of a completed nihilism. As he tells it in his "book is not merely crime and suicide, but more broadly the establishment of a kingdom of nihilism and the suicidal drive that is permeating contemporary culture, together with a phenomenology of panic, aggression and resultant violence".5
A sense that something terrible has happened already, that the apocalypse is already begun or over or in-between, that the drift of the world into the sinkhole of a timeless void has indeed replaced the two-hundred cheery eyed optimism of progressive dreams, idealism, and hopes of a better Tomorrowland. As I was reading Anna Greenspan's book on neomodern revivalism in Shanghai with its glitz and glamour worlds of retro-futurism in which the city becomes an assemblage of time vectors leading into an absolute time without beginnings or endings I was reminded of the rest of the planet of slums and decay, crime and dark collective suicidal madness. I could not even with the help of Zizek's notion of the parallax gap bring these two worlds together, enframe their strangeness, their weirdness. It's as if most of the planet is not only bent of self-destruction and collective suicide but that the very denialism of this fact has sponsored a new world of hope on the far shores of an artificial island world beyond time.
How to reconcile the seemingly two worlds of dark and light we seem to live in? Maybe this is just where the power of the negative, the dialectic falls short and begins to implode in its own vicious circles of hate and destruction. Isn't it more to the point that the whole Hegelian and Marxian tradition is washed up, useless in diagnosing the problems of our neomodernist era? Didn't we learn from a Sartre (Critique of Dialectical Reason) or an Adorno (Negative Dialectics) that the extremes of the negative always lead back to God (i.e., a stand in for the great unknown and unanswerable, the darkness that will not go away, the unity that will not be subsumed: the Absolute)?
One can read thousands if not tens of thousands of critiques of capitalism that have been published since the death of Marx. What impact have they had in solving the problems we face on this planet? We've seen both enactments of Marx's inverted idealism in both Soviet Russia and Maoist China fail in their bid to oust Global Capitalism. Why? Why such a failure if communism was to be the shining light of the progressive mind and its inheritance? Citing Fredrich Jameson's remark (?) that postmodernism is the 'cultural logic of late capitalism', the late Mark Fisher in his Capitalist Realism: Is there no alternative? tells us that Jameson "argued that the failure of the future was constitutive of a postmodern cultural scene which, as he correctly prophesied, would become dominated by pastiche and revivalism. Given that Jameson has made a convincing case for the relationship between postmodern culture and certain tendencies in consumer (or post-Fordist) capitalism, it could appear that there is no need for the concept of capitalist realism at all. In some ways, this is true."6
Pastiche and revivalism? Fisher citing the example of Kurt Cobain's suicide as the outcome of this dark turn tells us that this Rock Star found himself living in a world in which stylistic innovation is no longer possible, where all that is left is to imitate dead styles, to speak through the masks and with the voices of the dead like puppets in a Was Museum. Fisher says: "Here, even success meant failure, since to succeed would only mean that you were the new meat on which the system could feed. But the high existential angst of Nirvana and Cobain belongs to an older moment, what succeded them was a pastiche-rock which reproduced the forms of the past without anxiety. (CR)
Berardi twenty-years after Cobain's death will uncover the darker side of this pastiche culture of mimicry, puppets, and repetitive time travel scenarios to nowhere:
I don't care about the conventional serial killer, the brand of secretive sadistic psychopaths who are attracted to other people's suffering and enjoy seeing people die. I'm interested in people who are suffering themselves, and who become criminals because this is their way both to express their psychopathic need for publicity and also to find a suicidal exit from their present hell. I write about young people like Seung-Hui Cho, Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, and Pekka-Erik Auvinen, who killed themselves after trying to attract the attention of the world by ending the lives of innocent people. (H)
This sense that ultra-violence of mass violence from the lone wolves among us is more about a desperate last ditch cry from the void of hate and despair, a final narcissism of the lost soul seeking to be recognized knowing full well that the soul does not exist, that nothing exists, that we are all dead in a world of death. This is the pit of hell and noir in our age.
American Cities: Or, How the Violent Die
Something about crime and noir fiction brings to life the sociopathic and psychopathic, street level view of American Cities that nothing else can. One can read sociology all day long and not get descriptions like this from James Lee Burke:
I had a whole file drawer of misery to look at, too: a prostitute icepicked by a psychotic John; a seventeen-year-old runaway whose father wouldn't bond him out of jail and who was hanged the next morning by his black cellmate; a murder witness beaten to death with a ball-peen hammer by the man she was scheduled to testify against; a Vietnamese boat refugee thrown off the roof of the welfare project; three small children shot in their beds by their unemployed father; a junkie strangled with baling wire during a satanic ritual; two homosexual men burned alive when a rejected lover drenched the stairwell of a gay nightclub with gasoline. My drawer was like a microcosm of an aberrant world populated by snipers, razor-wielding humanoids, mindless nickel-and-dime boost artists who eventually panic and kill a convenience-store clerk for sixty dollars, and suicides who fill the apartment with gas and blow the whole building into a black and orange fireball.1
From Hammet to Ellroy to the Irish wonder, Ken Bruen, or any number of the countless works from the early pulp era to our own one enters the dark psyche of our age. Philosophers of late have spent a great deal of time on horror and science fiction, but as I've been reading Frank Ruda's work on fatalism and freedom where he tells us:
Today freedom has become a signifier of oppression. In this historical situation fatalism is the only possible stance that allows us to think freedom without being indifferent. We must affirm the position of a comic fatalism, whose slogans are: Start by expecting the worst! Act as if you did not exist! Act as if you were not free! Act in such a way that you accept the struggle you cannot flee from! Act in such a way that you never forget to imagine the end of all things! Act as if the apocalypse has already happened! Act as if everything were always already lost! Act as if you were dead!2
As I reread such noir authors as Joe R. Lansdale, Ken Bruen, James Ellroy, James Lee Burke, Megan Abbott, Patricia Cornwall, Charles Wiilleford, Daniel Woodrell, Jim Thompsan, C.J. Box and many others this comic fatalism pervades their fiction with explorations of how humans negotiate freedom and fate in our difficult times. These fictions portray the underbelley of life, the worlds of those left out in the cold, the rejected, the angry and violent, the people who do not fit into the perfect world of Capital's Neomodernity. Marginal, transgressive, outsiders who walk in the shadowlands below the surface of our consumerist paradise these fictions open us to that which we want to forget about ourselves, the darker side of our own affective lives that we like to sweep under the rug of civilized sublimity.
Freedom can be a form of oppression, a false belief system that locks us into notions of free-will that are actually traps that keep us caged in mental prisons that control our minds and guide our lives along carefully scripted and habitual tracks laid out by a dark socio-cultural dynamics that produces what we know and believe about agency and self. We are the fictions of a demented civilization, locked into a suicidal pact that will ultimately lead us to the utter destruction of both humanity and our planet unless we wake up from this mad dream. When will the sleepers awaken?
The Private Dick: Pulp Culture Explosion of the 50's
As America dreamed of a future that would wipe out the memories of war torn Europe, Fascism, and the Nuclear winters of its own death machines dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki a new culture of fantasy and optimism arose in the birth of consumerist society. Yet, even as Television suddenly captured the minds and hearts of the American psyche, reformatting and manipulating the collective mind set toward a future fantasia filled with gadgets and technological wonders, something was brewing in the dark cages of our inner cities. As Woody Haut, exploring the pulp cultural worlds below the surface of our glitz and glamour society would tell us, enclosed within a political strategy consisting of containment abroad and repression at home, pulp culture private eyes were rarely at ease negotiating the rapids of post-war political waters. As investigators drifted towards privatization — typified by secrecy, enclosure and financial agreement — their emblematic 'eyes', no longer open as they had been when the insignia of the strike-breaking Pinkerton Agency, had begun to wink in the direction of the state. With the Cold War contributing to an atmosphere of fear and suspicion, public investigation was best avoided. Amidst a shrug of the shoulders and a shot of rye, private eyes plying their trade on anyone who failed to represent the interests of the state risked engaging in a subversive activity. As for private eye writers, their precarious situation meant following one of two paths — the classicism of Raymond Chandler, or the manic right-wing fantasies of Mickey Spillane.7
Speaking of Raymond Chandler Fredric Jameson in his remarks that it was during this period that the postmodern turn, the turn toward a new cynicism and metafictional desperation came to the fore:
Language can never again be unselfconscious for him; words can never again be unproblematical. The naive and unreflective attitude towards literary expression is henceforth proscribed, and he feels in his language a kind of material density and resistance: even those clichés and commonplaces which for the native speaker are not really words at all, but instant communication, take on outlandish resonance in his mouth, are used between quotation marks, as you would delicately expose some interesting specimen: his sentences are collages of heterogeneous materials, of odd linguistic scraps, figures of speech, colloquialisms, place names and local sayings, all laboriously pasted together in an illusion of continuous discourse. In this, the lived situation of the writer of a borrowed language is already emblematic of the situation of the modern writer in general, in that words have become objects for him.8
The writer would use language as a form of pastiche mimicry rather than as the medium of defining or creating a world of parallel or parallax vision onto society and the lives of its inhabitants. Bound by the thick fantasies of a rising Technocommercium that would reframe the modern American psyche, Chandler and others like him would be hard pressed to create or invent narratives that would inform and entertain us about the bottom feeders or even the hidden corridors of power, sex, and violence hiding behind the façade of its pop cultural glitz and glamour.
Lifestyles of the Rich and Artificial
As Virginia Postrel in The Power of Glamour comments:
Glamour. The word itself has mystique, spelled even in American English with that exotic u. When we hear "glamour," we envision beautiful movie stars in designer gowns or imagine sleek sports cars and the dashing men who drive them. For a moment, we project ourselves into the world they represent, a place in which we, too, are beautiful, admired, graceful, courageous, accomplished, desired, powerful, wealthy, or at ease. Glamour, the fashion writer Alicia Drake observes, offers "the implicit promise of a life devoid of mediocrity." It lifts us out of everyday experience and makes our desires seem attainable. Glamour, writes the fashion critic Robin Givhan, "makes us feel good about ourselves by making us believe that life can sparkle."9
Since the 1950's America has pursued this world of glamour, sought the Good Life – a specifically American Utopia that yearned for both beauty and things. In some sense America sought to become the first completely artificial nation, created ex nihilo ("out of nothing"). During this early age of consumerist society modernist art and its techniques would enter the arena of the ad men and mediatainment complex to rewire the psyche of men and women toward the endless vistas of technological progress. Money. Power. Things. All would bring you happiness if only you would accept the promise we offer you, work hard, become that which is potentially residing in your own life.
Yet, all was not light and roses, there was a dark world laying in wait, a realm of madness and violence, paranoia and fear situated in our night of zombies, Twilight Zones, and the broken worlds of the noir silver screen. For the patriarchal and Freudian mindset of a male dominated economy where men ruled the world and women stayed at home and became good little Stepford Wives, the world below the surface of the glitzy streamlined decopod realms was more sinister.
It was in this pulp world that the lure of the femme fatale – the deadly woman of the noir screen would become the symbol and icon of this illusive world of beauty and nightmare in the American psyche. As Camille Paglia reminds us it all began with Medusa. The permanence of the femme fatale as a sexual persona is part of the weary weight of eroticism, beneath which both ethics and religion founder. Eroticism is society's soft point, through which it is invaded by chthonian nature. The femme fatale can appear as Medusan mother or as frigid nymph, masquing in the brilliant luminosity of Apollonian high glamour. Her cool unreachability beckons, fascinates, and destroys. She is not a neurotic but, if anything, a psychopath. That is, she has an amoral affectlessness, a serene indifference to the suffering of others, which she invites and dispassionately observes as tests of her power. The mystique of the femme fatale cannot be perfectly translated into male terms. I will speak at length of the beautiful boy, one of the west's most stunning sexual personae. However, the danger of the homme fatal, as embodied in today's boyish male hustler, is that he will leave, disappearing to other loves, other lands. He is a rambler, a cowboy and sailor. But the danger of the femme fatale is that she will stay, still, placid, and paralyzing. Her remaining is a daemonic burden, the ubiquity of Walter Pater's Mona Lisa, who smothers history. She is a thorny symbol of the perversity of sex. She will stick.10
As Robert B Pippin in his Fatalism in American Film Noir: Some Cinematic Philosophy comments, on the black and white screen the femme fatale entrances in noirs often suggest the extreme view of a magical spell or mysterious erotic power that can render the male forever afterward a mere dupe, a passive victim of such power, a nonagent. The femme fatale theme is far and away the most written-about issue in film noir criticism, and there is much more to say about it, but at least these entrances do demonstrate how utterly a life can be altered in a single moment. Even doing nothing about what one feels still alters everything, because doing nothing now becomes a fateful decision, an event that then shadows everything else one does. One cannot now act in complete indifference to how one's fate has been altered, where "cannot" in this one of its many fatalistic senses means that such indifference would make no sense in one's life. The depth of the feeling is such that one could not recognize oneself in any such picture of indifference and so cannot act indifferently.11
The notion that noir is more about the conflicts of a male dominated society based on power, mastery, and dominion in both the spheres of public and private life of capitalism come to the fore in such critiques. Between fatalism and freedom the world of male domination is played out over the dark secret that men are not truly in control, that under the façade of this bright and glitzy even glamourized realm is all fantasy and mime. That in truth the artificial worlds men have built full of glamourous architecture, stylized automobiles and perfect women dressed in the latest fashions, situated against the Hollywood facades of yachts, skyscrapers, and internationalism is the stark reality of the Medusa.
Rita Hayworth in The Lady from Shanghai would become the epitome of such femme fatales. In her entrance in this classic noir film Hayworth sparkles with that dark sensual allurement. "It has been said that the most extraordinary quality of the dance number is that Hayworth seems to be dancing wholly for herself, luxuriating in herself, almost in indifference to and with contempt for the pathetic males around her, who we can see are both rendered screaming adolescents by the boldness of the number and, for some, quite angry at its freedom and its contempt for male standards of conduct." (FAF) This sense of the unknown power of woman that plays itself out in the male psyche of the American seems almost a pure adolescent reversion to ancient mythic cycles based around the natural order of creation and sacrifice that have their basis in a temporal order of which America and Capitalism are the opposing system. America and Capitalism have always been artificial rather than natural environs, a society that has sought to rid itself of the dark undertows of ancient European spectres and ghosts, both political and religious. And, yet, in this puritanical riddance it pursued a course of authoritarian male domination through its Puritan heritage that is still with us.
Puritan Reform and the Politics of the Pure
In 1630 John Winthrop and a band of Puritans would migrate to America. As the historian Francis J. Bremer tells us
They had decided to uproot themselves and their families in order to found a colony where they could not only preserve the religious reforms they had managed to achieve in their native land, but also further advance the purification of worship and belief. (The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism: p. 135)
Some have seen within this incipient world of reform and purification the beginnings of an American Enlightenment. In their ultimate bid to purify worship and belief of the rituals and traditions of Catholicism in an extreme form the modern world of capitalism would unleash its atheistic credos and begin to purify the world of religion itself. Reformism would become liberal reformism and become the new political religion of America, shaping and regulating its psyche and collective will, determining its future and the scope of its spiritual capital. Money and success, glitz and glamour: the American Dream of rags to riches, western expansion, and the power of modern industrialism would empower this new born land and its fantasy life.
Yet, by the end of the millennium it was apparent that something dreadfully had gone wrong with this dream turned nightmare, that America had failed its children and become not the land of promise but the land of mass suicidal psychopaths and bedlam. As Berardi expounds, ours is a world appended to the kingdom of nihilism, this "form of nihilism assumes that the conceptual activity is based on the ontological nihil". (ibid.) He goes on to say,
In this conception, this form of nihilism has a positive and constructive implication, as the condition of moral freedom and of conceptual creation. Nihil is the starting point of the conceptual and practical process, and from this starting point the conceptual and historical activity of men is responsible for the creation and meaning of the world as we know it. The form of nihilism that seems to prevail in the culture and practice of the ruling class today is quite different from this constructive, hermeneutic nihilism. We could call it a form of 'annihilating nihilism', since it actively produces nihil as its effect. (H: KL 1096)
Anna Greenspan would ponder the notion of modernity. Modernity is a notoriously difficult concept to define. Inextricably bound to the interlocking and revolutionary processes of globalisation, urbanisation and mechanisation, it also encompasses the cultural impulse to express, process and understand these vast material transformations. Yet, in addition to these socio-economic and cultural conditions, modernity can also be apprehended philosophically, as a particular conception of time. Martin Jacques, in his book on China's rise, adheres to this definition. Modernity, he writes, quoting the sociologist Goran Therborn, marks 'the arrival of an epoch turned to the future'. To be modern, according to this understanding, is to be in the present just on the cusp of its erasure, to be necessarily and always, at the most urgent edge of now. In a piece entitled 'Neomodernity', Shanghai-based philosopher Nick Land elaborates on this conception:
Modernity dates awkwardly, and intriguingly, because it positions itself upon the leading edge of time expressing an infusion from the future. In its vital, colloquial sense, the 'modern' is an indexical term that describes what is happening now, or recently. It is in this sense that modernization remains irrepressibly up-to-date, anchored, indexically, to the contemporary. To slip unanchored from the 'now' into the dead waters of history is thus to forsake the claim to modernity. What is distinctively past cannot be modern, and the modern cannot be simply past.12 (SF: p. 3)
In this sense we are always entering the modern, a process rather than a static time zone, a temporal movement that is always making and unmaking the world, erasing the past and making way for the new. Ultimately modernity as Land testifies "resists absorption into accomplished history, because it relates to an absolute future. The dynamized now of modernity is irreducible to a period or moment in time. What modernity discovered, and perpetually recalls, was not just the next thing up the road, but the road ahead in general, and perhaps even the road". (ibid.)
Maybe in the end our love/hate relationship with America comes down to its overly male dominated and puritanical systems based as they are in a world of make-believe and artificial technological wonders and escapism. We are a nation of escape artists and braggarts, carnivals and popcorn, a world where from its beginnings civil strife and mayhem pervaded its public and private spaces. Our literature is more comic fatalist than romantic. As Frank Ruda reminds us "Comic fatalism affirms such an impossible position of articulation as both absolutely necessary and impossible. Only such a gesture liberates us from all givenness, from all possibilities of realizing a given capacity. Only such a gesture can provide a precondition for thinking and enacting freedom."13
This interplay of Freedom and Justice have played themselves out in our democratic politics floating between those who seek an extreme freedom from social and political constraints and regulation or reform, and those who seek social justice for the weak, poor, and excluded. There has never been a happy medium, a balance of forces. There has only been armed peace among warring parties, a world where crime and violence live in the dark streets while in the Hollywood stage sets of the rich and famous a world of glitz and glamour virtualize life purified of its tainted realities. At the core of the American Psyche is a denialism of the Real or the unknown, a need to stall the course of progress in an eternal wonderland of disneyfication, while at the same time denying the noirish underworlds of its own repressed perversities, sexual and power based politics and lifestyles. We ritualize our violence in arenas of violence: Football, Saturday night car races, World-wide wrestling, mixed martial arts…. etc. all to codify the male psyche and its need for start and unadulterated aggression and dominion over all competitors. We are a nation of gamblers, pirates, thieves, and scoundrels all dressed up in the glitz and glamour of Wall Street Tychoons, philanthropist software moghuls of Californian neomodernity with the streamlined high-speed loops and ray-gun gothic entrepreneurship. We are a multiethnic multiplicity of diverse and rich intercultural hates and fears, a realm where day to day tribalism and ultra-modern escapism intermingle. Coke and heroin, pharmaceuticals and paraphernalia tease us out of street and skypad into the heart of an accelerating voyage into the void. We have no destination only a hellish need to get there in style, wherever it is we're going… and, no one knows exactly if that is the myth of the Open Road or some Pynchonian time spiral into chaosmosis. As one of the characters in Thomas Pynchon's tells us,
Randolph had a sympathetic look. "At least they tell you where it is you'll be sent off to. After the closing-day ceremonies here, our future's all a blank."14
This sense that the future is unwritten, unscripted, blank and incomplete and open is at the bottom of neomodernity. A need to open the door and let the sun in again, to allow reality to break into our fantasy worlds and give us back all that we fear with such horror that we've enclosed ourselves in a horror show of abstraction and pure fantasy. Until we can step through that door into the Real we will wander in a realm of night and noir till all that is left is the pitch black screen of a final dark gesture of noise. It'll be the sound of your brain imploding. The notion of modernity as unfinished and incomplete, always beginning, and beginning again. This openness to the past in the future, of the unbidden worlds of creativity and innovation within us.
Conflict and change will always be with us, the universe is not a friendly place but rather full of violence and changes that can at times be catastrophic. Our home on planet earth is one of continuous eco-catastrophe, and we ourselves have contributed to this in ways we have yet to fully understand or document much less analyze and interpret. We term it the Antrhopocene, but such categories only hide what is bound to their reductions rather than opening up a way out of the problems they present. There are and never will be any fast easy solutions to our earthly problems. Trying to repress or forget the past we create and recreate it in misery and detail over and over again. Seeking a future through some linear fantasy has driven us to create a world filled with annihilation and nuclear wastelands. Even now our American leaders seek to dominate the world through rhetoric and fantasy that might suddenly open up a nuclear nightmare and apocalypse the likes of which might bring about the end game fantasies of our Puritan ancestors. End times? A mix of biblical madness and modern politics meshing in a global melt down? Only time will tell… and time isn't speaking.
- James Lee Burke (1987-01-02T08:00:00+00:00). 01 The Neon Rain (Kindle Locations 154-160). Pocket Books. Kindle Edition.
- Ruda, Frank (2016-05-01). Abolishing Freedom: A Plea for a Contemporary Use of Fatalism (Provocations) (Kindle Locations 76-83). UNP – Nebraska. Kindle Edition
- Culp, Andrew. Dark Deleuze (Forerunners: Ideas First) (Kindle Locations 72-74). University of Minnesota Press. Kindle Edition.
- Barkun, Michael. A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America (Comparative Studies in Religion and Society) (p. 195). University of California Press. Kindle Edition.
- Berardi, Franco "Bifo". Heroes: Mass Murder and Suicide (Futures) (Kindle Locations 54-55). Verso Books. Kindle Edition. (H)
- Fisher, Mark. Capitalist Realism: Is there no alternative? (Zero Books) (p. 7). NBN_Mobi_Kindle. Kindle Edition. (CR)
- Haut, Woody. Pulp Culture: Hardboiled Fiction and the Cold War (Kindle Locations 1167-1174). 280 Steps. Kindle Edition.
- Jameson, Fredric. Raymond Chandler: The Detections of Totality (p. 2). Verso Books. Kindle Edition.
- Virginia Postrel. The Power of Glamour (Kindle Locations 67-73). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.
- Paglia, Camille. Sexual Personae (p. 15). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.
- Pippin, Robert B.. Fatalism in American Film Noir: Some Cinematic Philosophy (Page-Barbour Lectures) (Kindle Locations 481-488). University of Virginia Press. Kindle Edition. (FAF)
- Greenspan, Anna. Shanghai Future: Modernity Remade (p. 3). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
- Ruda, Frank. Abolishing Freedom: A Plea for a Contemporary Use of Fatalism (Provocations) (Kindle Locations 2688-2690). UNP – Nebraska. Kindle Edition.
- Pynchon, Thomas. Against the Day (p. 52). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.


text:
Aboriginal Art Directory | 03.07.10
It was tough, but the judges of Australia's biggest indigenous art award have culled more than 300 entries down to 96 pieces which will soon go on display at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.
Indigenous artists from every state and territory in Australia will be represented in the Telstra Art Award exhibition.
Yesterday staff from the art gallery let the media have a peek at some of the selected entries which will go on display from August 13.
They included a sculptural work inspired by the traditional fire making tools used in the Girringun rainforests in North Queensland.
Eleven artists from the Girringun Arts group created Bagu with Jiman which is 14 figurines made from clay, timber and string which represent spirits who are the "Keepers of the Fire".
Curator Kate Podger said the exhibition covered the entire spectrum of indigenous art from traditional bark paintings and works on paper to new media creations.
The exhibition will run until November 7.
The winner of the $40,000 Telstra Award will be announced after the exhibition is launched on August 13.
URL: http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2010/07/01/160511_entertainment.html
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Gallery: Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award
Address: Conacher Street Bullocky Point Darwin NT
Gallery: Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory
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Address: 19 Conacher Street Fanny Bay 0820 NT
Gallery: Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
"Gone Away Backward" drops Aug. 27. The 12-song album - and his first on the label since 2001 - was recorded and mixed by Steve Albini (Nirvana, Pixies, The Breeders) at Electrical Audio in Chicago, and will be available on CD/LP/digital.
"As opposed to this idea that I'm 'coming back to Bloodshot' (the verb 'crawling' has also been muttered behind sleeves) I don't feel like I ever left," said Fulks with his trademark humor. "For sure, I never slammed the door behind me in proud, valedictory defiance. Well, not since 1997 anyhow. Since then, I've co-released two records with them ("Very Best of [me]" in 1999 and "13 Hillbilly Giants" in 2001), doing separate runs on my imprint and theirs. I used their retail distribution network and other resources on "Couples in Trouble" in 2001. I contributed to compilations they put out in 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006, and played for their 15th anniversary in 2011. Also in '11 they helped me market my little tribute to Michael Jackson."
"Most people would pick 'Put out a Michael Jackson tribute record' as the best definitive answer to the question, 'How do I make Bloodshot Records go away?' However, Bloodshot Records won't go away. I see them at shows and seminars and parties and, in the case of Rob (part owner Rob Miller), wherever liquor is sold. When I go down to the Bloodshot office to buy records from my catalogue, there they are. Bloodshot. One reason I see Nan and Rob with some frequency is that we live in the same general area. Chicago is a big place, but the country music community is quite small. When you exclude style-hopping working stiffs who occasionally slap on Stetsons,and the usual corporately polished radio-imitation nonsense, there's maybe 10 of us. No, there's 9 - Kelly [Hogan] went to Wisconsin. So fate has really thrown us into the same cramped cauldron. Not a bad place to be at all. At this point, I think we're kind of impressed, with each other and ourselves, that we're still in the game; the smart money 20 years ago was on our being wards of the state by now."
The disc features Mike Bub (banjo, bass fiddle, vocals), Robbie Gjersoe (guitar, mandolin, vocals), Jenny Scheinman (fiddle) and Ron Spears (bass fiddle, mandolin, vocals).
Songs on the CD are:
I'll Trade You Money for Wine
Where I Fell
Long I Ride
That's Where I'm From
When You Get to the Bottom
Snake Chapman's Tune
Pacific Slope
Sometimes the Grass is Really Greener
Guess I Got It Wrong
The Many Disguises of God
Rose of the Summer
Fulks, 50, released 1 album on Geffen ("Let's Kill Saturday Night" in 1998) and three on Yep Roc.


text: Hi, I'm creating a Graph data structure, and I want to use the array list approach, implemented as an Array. I need my Nodes to be instances of Ix for this to work and my Node type is roughly as follows: data Node = MyNode Int [Int] Type1 Type2 (Type1 and Type2 are nullary algebraic datatypes--enumerations in other words) How can I "index" the Array with an instance of a Node. I think I need to make Node an instance of Ix somehow?? Is this a sensible approach? Sample code of the instance declaration for Ix would be helpful. Thanks Mark Spezzano


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I never thought I'd really get into tending to a garden. My hubby really wanted to have a garden so he and his mom planted a few things this spring. I've been tending and watering the plants all summer and get great joy when something is ready to pick! I was elated the other night to see one cucumber growing and getting ready to ripen. I don't even like cucumbers. Anyway, the main reason we wanted to have a garden was to make homemade salsa. This was our first attempt. Everything came from our garden except the onion, lime and cilantro.
We cut up all the ingredients and put them in the food processor.
Salsa Recipe
3 tomatoes
1/2 onion
2 jalapeno peppers (one w/ seeds and one w/out)
1 green pepper
cilantro to taste
1/2 lime (squeezed)
Let her rip! We thought next time we would chop the veggies less to make a chunkier salsa.


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The net fall in the number of high street charity shops has almost doubled over the last year, according to latest figures.
Research carried out by the Local Data Company for accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) into High Street retail trends found that 271 charity shops closed in 2017, but just 202 opened.
This net decline of 69 is almost double the net fall of 37 in the number of charity shops, when the same research was carried out in 2016.
The figures, which only include shop chains of five or more, also show that more charity shops than pubs and convenience stores closed in 2017.
Last year 212 pubs closed with a net fall of 66, and 175 convenience stores shut their doors leading to a net decline of 59.
The only retail sector to see more closures and a greater net decline in units than charity shops is fashion and clothing. During 2017 this sector saw 713 closures and a net fall of 314 stores.
Last year the Charity Retail Association's 2017 Charity Shops survey reported that the number of charity shops had failed to rise for the first time in 14 years.
PwC retail strategy director Kien Tan says that the decline in the number of charity shops reflects wider trends affecting High Street retailers across a number of sectors, in particular the increase in online shopping.
In total the number of new high street stores opening fell from 4,534 to 4,083 between 2017 and 2016.
"Charities are not immune to the same trends that affect consumer behavior across all retail and hospitality sectors," said Tan.
"As consumers do more shipping online there are fewer people on the high street in general. There has been a reduction in footfall and charities are evolving in the same way.
"If you shop on Ebay many charities have a big presence there, particularly for items that are more collectable. They are better off putting those items online to target collectors."
The research shows that the retail sectors that are growing are those that have a strong focus on providing consumers with an "experience", says Tan.
During 2017 beauty product shops saw 107 openings but just 77 closures (net gain 30) and 153 coffee shops opened, compared to 128 closures (net gain 25).
In addition, the book shops also saw a net gain of 20, with 37 opening and 17 closures.
Tan said: "If you look at the ones that are growing they are mostly experience shops. The reason why bookshops are growing in spite of more books being bought online is because they offer an experience that can't be replicated online."
"There has to be a reason for people to go onto the high street so the retailers that are being most successful are those that are creating something that can't be done online. It's not just a transactional experience. So if you want to buy the latest Jamie Oliver cookbook that's something you can get on Amazon. But if you want a recommendation of what book to read next that is something that you can only get from a human being."
Tan added that while the net fall in the number of charity shops is high, the large number of openings "suggests that there's a renewal. They are moving to a different part of town, possibly nicer locations".
Decline in the number of charity shops worsens
The net fall in the number of high street charity shops has almost doubled over the last year, according to latest figures.


text:
The Story
Caleb Dume's first days in The Clone Wars continue…Master Billaba brings her Padawan and their clones to the Battle of Mygeeto. Separatist Generals Sear and Grievous lay in wait…
Free Marvel Comic Download
Kanan #10
Language : English | Year : 2016 | Size : 37 MB
Screenshots :
Notes :
- If you have any difficulties to download the files, please refer to this how-to download page.
- All of the comic files are packed on .CBR and/or .CBZ file formats. Here are some of the reader apps that i can recommend : YAC Reader (Win, OSX, Linux, iOS), ComicRack (Win, Android, iOS), CDisplayEx.
- To extract any compressed files, I recommend using 7-Zip.
- If you encounter any broken links or corrupt files, please write on the comment section or message me through the contact form.
- Want to see all the comic list? Please go to this page.


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A5 White Box with Lift Off Lid
Ream Boxes, Flat Pack Box, Postal Box, Lidded Box
Supplied flat, these boxes are easy to self assemble (no glue / tape / staples are required) and are ideal as greetings card or storage boxes.
We can be produce in your own design for orders of 500 (price on application – please contact us) for the Ream Boxes, the minimum order for printed is 10,000. Please note, as board is produced from a natural source, there may be slight colour/texture variations between boxes/lids in each batch.
Dimensions = length x width x height


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Our team of professionals and staff believe that informed patients are better equipped to make decisions regarding their health and well-being. For your personal use, we have created an extensive patient library covering an array of educational topics, which can be found on the side of each page. Browse through these diagnoses and treatments to learn more about topics of interest to you.
As always, you can contact our office to answer any questions or concerns.
Are you receiving targeted therapy to treat skin cancer — or any other cancer? If so, dermatologists recommend that you pay close attention to your skin.
Skin reactions are the most common side effect of targeted therapy.
When cancer spreads and becomes life threatening, drugs known as targeted therapies may be an option for some patients. Targeted therapy can stop cancer from growing and spreading — at least for a while.
Oncologists (cancer doctors) prescribe target therapy to treat some skin cancers. It may be prescribed to treat melanoma, the most-serious skin cancer, when it spreads. Targeted therapy can also treat basal cell carcinoma (BCC), the most-common skin cancer. It may be prescribed when BCC has spread and surgery or radiation treatments can no longer treat it.
Some patients with dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans (DFSP), a rare type of skin cancer, also receive targeted therapy.
Targeted therapy can give cancer patients remissions that last for months — and sometimes years.
Paying close attention to your skin will help you notice the first signs of a skin reaction.
Even if the reaction seems mild, it's important to tell your dermatologist or oncologist about it. When caught early, most reactions can be managed.
Looking closely at your skin will also help you find a possible new skin cancer early. Although targeted therapies can treat advanced skin cancer, some can cause more skin cancers. Caught early, most skin cancers can be successfully treated.
Early treatment of a skin reaction can also help prevent a worsening reaction. If the skin reaction becomes too severe, a patient may have to stop targeted therapy.
To give you an idea of what you may see, here's a list of common skin reactions from the targeted therapies approved to treat skin cancer.
Dabrafenib (Tafinlar®) or vemurafenib (Zelboraf®) – Prescribed to treat advanced melanoma, the most common skin (and hair) reactions from these drugs are:
More serious skin reactions are:
Trametinib (Mekinist®) – This may be prescribed to treat advanced melanoma. Common skin (and hair) reactions that occur while taking trametinib include:
Ipilimumab (Yervoy®), nivolumab (Opdivo®), or pembrolizumab (Keytruda®) – Patients with advanced melanoma may be prescribed one of these targeted therapies, which can cause the following skin reactions:
Vismodegib (Erivedge®) – Prescribed to treat advanced basal cell carcinoma, some patients experience the following side effects:
The right skin care can reduce your risk of developing some skin reactions. If a skin reaction develops, good skin care may lessen your discomfort. That's why dermatologists recommend the following skin care for patients on a targeted therapy:
To keep your skin care gentle, dermatologists also recommend that you:
You want to apply the sunscreen to all skin that clothing won't cover, such as your face, neck, ears, and hands. A separate lip balm with SPF 30 or higher and water resistance is best for your lips. You'll want to apply sunscreen and lip balm thoroughly to give yourself good protection.
Because skin reactions are so common, some patients see a dermatologist before starting targeted therapy. It can be helpful to have a thorough skin exam and get skin care tips beforehand.
If you develop a skin reaction, it's helpful to have a skin expert to contact for a diagnosis and treatment.
Image of vitiligo: Thinkstock
Collins LK, Chapman MS, et al. "Cutaneous adverse effects of the immune checkpoint inhibitors." Curr Probl Cancer. 2016 Dec 14. [Epub ahead of print].
Macdonald JB, Macdonald B, et al. "Cutaneous adverse effects of targeted therapies: Part I: Inhibitors of the cellular membrane. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2015;72(2):203-18.
Macdonald JB, Macdonald B, et al. "Cutaneous adverse effects of targeted therapies: Part II: Inhibitors of intracellular molecular signaling pathways." J Am Acad Dermatol. 2015 Feb;72(2):221-36.
Patterson S, "Cutaneous reactions to targeted therapy." Presented during focus session: Update on cutaneous reactions to targeted and immune cancer therapies. 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology; 2017 March 3-7. Orlando, FL.
Sibaud, V, Meyer N. et al. "Dermatologic complications of anti-PD-1/PD-L1 immune checkpoint antibodies." Curr Opin Oncol. 2016;28(4):254-63.


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Kask Valegro Helmet matte black (2020)
30 day return policy
Free delivery for small parts from £991
40,000 items
600 brands
The profile of VALEGRO's polycarbonate shell has been tested and refined by KASK's engineers in conjunction with a wind-tunnel to get the best results in terms of thermo-cooling performance. The VALEGRO offers advanced ventilation and an impressive weight of just 180g (size small). This new design offers maximum cooling through 37 ventilation holes with new breathable and quick-dry padding. The 5mm layer of fast-wicking thermoformed tri-dimensional padding is antistatic, bacteriostatic, heat regulating and moisture transferring using Resistex Carbon. Alongside this cutting edge technology, the chin pad with eco-leather strap contributes to a helmet that's comfortable to wear, all day.
- HyVent - provides increased airflow and reduces exchangeable heat
- The innovative "In Moulding" technology, which combines the polystyrene inner shell with the polycarbonate outer shell, provides improved shock absorption
- Chin pad with chinstrap made of eco leather


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Bob Bossin returns to Innis to perform "Songs and Stories of Davy the Punk" as part of 50th Anniversary
As part of the continuing 50th anniversary celebrations, Innis College was delighted to be the exclusive host for Bob Bossin's Toronto performances of his one-man musical, Songs and Stories of Davy the Punk. Based on the story of his father Davy Bossin, a colourful character in the gambling underworld and Jewish subculture of Toronto the Good in the 1930s and 1940s, Bob drew sold-out crowds for each of his six nights at the Deluxe Studio Theatre. The performances also served as a week-long reunion as many of Innis' earliest graduates returned to their alma mater to celebrate and reconnect.
A noted graduate of the College, Bob is an award-winning folksinger, writer and performer that now makes Gabriola Island off Vancouver Island his home. He is the founder and front-man of the legendary Stringband and has been performing all over the world since the early 1970's.
To read a complete bio of Bob Bossin, click here.
To read more about Bob and "Davy the Punk", visit his web site at www.bossin.com or www.davythepunk.com.


text:
It's no secret that I'm a big Deftones fan – have been since I was 16/17 – and to say I'm saddened by Chi's passing is an understatement. Condolences go out to his hard-working family, friends and Deftones themselves. They all worked incredibly hard in keeping Chi as comfortable and safe as they possibly could during the years since that tragic accident that rocked everyone who knew him.
I remember reading/hearing about something Chi would often do in his community: he'd gather all his instruments, take them down to his local community and would teach people how to play music. It's rare you'd ever find that real sort of kindness and goodwill in anyone who has managed to sell Platinum records.
We're all going to miss you Chi, and you'll forever live through the great music you played. One Love For Chi.


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Launch will Showcase World's Best Selling Bottled Water Brand
Stamford, Conn. – (July 31, 2017) – Under the banner of "Pure Life Begins Now™," Nestlé Waters North America today announced the launch of a global advertising campaign focused on its Nestlé®Pure Life® brand, the world's leading bottled water brand.
Since its launch in Pakistan in 1998, Nestlé® Pure Life® has become the global category leader, and the new campaign reaffirms the brand's leadership and its purpose: "to inspire a healthier and brighter future that starts with pure quality water."
The global advertising campaign, which will launch on U.S. digital channels beginning today, is a major initiative designed to drive brand awareness and elevate the importance of water in people's lives. The campaign will come to U.S. television beginning Tuesday, September 12, when the new Nestlé® Pure Life®TV advertisement begins airing in every major metropolitan area in the United States.
In the U.S., the campaign will include the national television advertisement, all-new packaging for the bottles and multipacks, new point-of-sale (POS) display materials, web-based videos, digital and social media communications, and a new Nestlé® Pure Life® web site.
"Our new campaign is highly inspirational and has the ability to deeply connect with parents on the importance of pure quality water," said Antonio Sciuto, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Nestlé Waters North America. "Over nearly two decades, Nestlé® Pure Life® has evolved into a leading global brand, and we now have an opportunity to express the brand's purpose in a way that inspires parents and adults to choose quality water and a future full of possibilities."
Research conducted by Nestlé Waters revealed that consumers understand Nestlé® Pure Life®'s message of the relationship between water and quality, health and the environment. However, it also indicated that there is an opportunity to raise awareness of the brand's purpose, as well as the new design, a strong visual representation of the new purpose, and a range of packaging options.
The campaign will bring the Nestlé® Pure Life® purpose to life as it shows ways in which the brand is, "Acting for Water Now to Help Inspire a Bright Future." This includes:
- Employing a 12-step quality process to achieve the brand's high standards for drinking water and deliver a taste that meets consumer preferences;
- Educating consumers on the benefits of hydration on the body;
- Encouraging drinking water as part of a healthy lifestyle;
- Efforts to help improve the collection of recyclable plastic.
With the launch of the new Nestlé Pure Life bottles, Nestlé Waters becomes one of the largest companies active in the How2Recycle Label Program – the only U.S.-based standardized labeling system designed to help consumers understand how to recycle, with prominent information on the packaging. All Nestlé Pure Life bottles can be recycled. In addition, the company has reduced the amount of PET plastic in Nestlé Pure Life half-liter bottles by 40 percent since 2005.
"Today, we recognize quality water for its positive benefits to both our bodies and the world, and we embrace our role in helping to respect this precious resource," said Andrius Dapkus, Vice President and General Manager for Nestlé® Pure Life® at Nestlé Waters North America. "That's why we provide Nestlé® Pure Life® Purified Water in a range of formats that enable the choice for quality water anytime, anywhere. It's why we have a water stewardship mindset everywhere we have operations."
EDITOR'S NOTE: A full range of high-resolution images of Nestlé® Pure Life® and related artwork is available for download here.
About Nestlé Waters North America
Nestlé Waters North America provides people with an unrivaled portfolio of bottled waters for healthy hydration. Brands such as Arrowhead®Mountain Spring Water, Nestlé® Pure Life®, Perrier® and San Pellegrino® have driven Nestlé Waters to be the third largest non-alcoholic beverage company by volume in the U.S. Based in Stamford, Connecticut, with about 8,500 employees, Nestlé Waters is committed to responsible environmental and community stewardship and management across its operations. The company is also committed to creating shared value and being a good neighbor in the 140 communities where it operates in the U.S.
Media Coverage
Chiefmarketer (August 3, 2017): Education Is The Focus Of Nestlé Waters New Pure Life Campaign
Advertising Age (July 31, 2017): With Water Fantasy Ad, Nestlé Begins New Pure Life Push
Media Contact
Christopher Rieck
Director of Media Relations
(203) 629-7243
[email protected]


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Pongal releases, 2010
Pongal and Deepavali are two festivals in Tamil Nadu that excite filmmakers as well as film watchers. Sometimes, you see a flood of films during Pongal and at other times dry (though it rarely happens).
While 2010 falls in the latter category, with only four films releasing, the selection is varied. The most anticipated film, however being Selvaraghavan's long awaited Aayirathil Oruvan.
Aayirathil Oruvan is said to be the most ambitious project of Selvaraghavan who has so far made only simple but realistic films. It is said to be a period film with a lot of fantasy elements in it.
Karthi, who shot to fame with Paruthiveeran, is returning with his second film after a hiatus of two years. Giving him company are Reema Sen and Andrea. Music by G V Prakash is brilliant.
Image: A scene from Aayirathil Oruvan
It is a strange coincidence that there is going to a royal battle at the box office between brothers Selvaraghavan and Dhanush. It was Selva who launched Dhanush and gave him a name as an actor.
Dhanush's last films -- Yaradi Nee Mohini with Nayanthara (a remake of Selvaraghavan's Telugu hit Adavari Matalaku Ardhale Verule), Polladhavan with Divya Spandana (an adaptation of Bicycle Thieves) and Padikathavan with Tamannah, were commercial successes. Kutty is also a remake of Allu Arjun's Telugu film, Arya.
Hot and happening Shriya Saran is Dhanush's heroine. The film is directed by Mithran R Jawahar who earlier directed Dhanush in Yaradi Nee Mohini. Devi Sri Prasad, who composed music for the original, does the music of Kutty also.
Kutty, a commercial film is expected to do well.
Image: A scene from Kutty
Nanayam, an action thriller produced by S P B Charan and directed by Shakthi stars Prasanna, Sibi Raj and S P Balasubramaniam. It was supposed to reach the theatres last Christmas.
This can be the dark horse this Pongal.
Image: A scene from Nanayam
Porkkalam (Battlefield) is directed by 24-year-old debutant director Bandi Sarojkumar. With Kishore, the coach of Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu in the lead, this film is described as a "high voltage action thriller."
With a title such as Porkkalam, plenty of action is expected. The action sequences are said to be choreographed by the director "in a natural and exciting way, without including the regular irritating commercial fantasies.
The story tels of the battle of a "single man for love, revenge and destiny against many".
Image: A scene from Porkkalam


text: [vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Many people are unaware of exactly what is HR software. We are here to solve your doubts about HR software. There are multiple software offering HR & Payroll that make lives easier for HR teams at your organization. But there are always questions, like What is HR Software? Uses of HR Software. Do you know what features these software provide? Do you know what are...Read More


text:
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$60 per 1,000 inserts (single page)
$100 per 1,000 inserts (multiple pages)
Minimum/maximum number of inserts – 5,000
Maximum folded size – 8.5"x11"
Newsstand Advertising
Advertise your business throughout our campus on The Prospector Newsstands.
Get your poster on 20 stands for only $25* per stand for the semester.
Rates include color printing and design costs.
*Restrictions apply.


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Dear Q&B,
I'm in the process of getting a divorce some from my service member. We have two kids together, and I can't find any information on exactly what military benefits they'll still have after our divorce.
I would love to still shop in the commissary for their food so I can save some money. Can you tell me what they'll get?
Sincerely, Almost Former Military Spouse
Dear Almost Former,
When I saw your question I did some quick googling -- you're right, there's not a lot out there on this. So I asked our benefit guru friends over the Military Officers Association of America (MOAA) if they could point me to the regulations.
The good news is, regardless of how long your service member has been in or whether he retires from the military, your children can continue to have some military benefits until they turn 21.
Before anything else, though, your children must both get military dependent ID cards as soon as your divorce is final and you turn in your dependent ID. That will help you make sure they can access the benefits they have.
In general, children do not get IDs until they are 10-years-old. However, that rule is waived for children who do not live with an ID card holder. When your husband (or you, if you still have the current power of attorney) apply for their ID cards, you will fill out a "remarks" section and note whether the service member is providing more than 50 percent of child support. Whether he is providing more than 50 percent changes which benefits the children can receive.
The good news is that while your husband is active duty, your children can continue to be on Tricare for their healthcare without issue until they turn 21 (or longer if they are a student or incapacitated child).
The rest of the benefits depend on that 50 percent statement. If he is providing more than 50 percent, the children can continue to use all Morale, Welfare & Recreation (MWR) benefits and base exchange stores. If less, they won't have access to those things.
Unfortunately, dependent children of divorced service members are not able to use the commissary under their own ID cards regardless of how much support they receive.
If your divorce was to occur after he retired from the military with 20 years or more of service, and you had been married for at least 20 years with at least 20 years of your marriage overlapping his service, you and your children would retain all of your benefits after the divorce. (This is often referred to as the "20/20/20" rule.) If you were to divorce and your marriage had overlapped only 15 years of his service, your children would receive the same benefits as all other children of military divorcees.
Good luck!
Sincerely, Team Q&B
-- Do you have a question about your benefits? Email the Military.com Questions and Benefits team at firstname.lastname@example.com.


text:
I've never made a Bucket List. The concept never really interested me as I've seen one too many shows and/or movies where someone's really disappointed in themselves for not crossing off like 5 out of their 10 items. My thought about that is, 'Why would I want to get into my 60s and then be sad I never made it over Australia? Sounds like a pretty big bummer." But Amanda over at Life With A Double Buggy put a spin on having a Bucket List: Instead of making a list of things you hope to do, make a list of things you've already done.
That didn't sound like such a bummer, so I tried it out to see what I could come up with. This particular reverse bucket list is specifically an expat list – things I've been given the opportunity to do as an expat living in Vienna, Austria:
1. Learn a second language
2. Develop friendships with amazing locals
3. Learn to live simply
4. All yourself to be uprooted from what's familiar to somewhere unfamiliar
5. Quit your job, sell everything and move to another country
6. Survive without air conditioning.
7. Refrain from giving (fully) into homesickness
8. Learn how to make Schnitzel
9. Celebrate your birthday in another country
10. Drive to another country with friends for a haircut
11. Spend a week speaking only German with 15 other women in the Austrian Alps
12. Hike up a huge mountain to see a rewarding view of Austria's countryside
13. Survive a week of kids camp speaking only German
14. Conduct daily life tasks (doctor appointments, food orders, etc.) entirely in German
15. Find out you're pregnant in Vienna
16. Live in an apartment in Vienna
17. Attend a German-speaking church
18. See Sigur Ros in Vienna
19. See Other Lives in Vienna
20. See Tallest Man On Earth in Vienna
22. Experience different cultures
23. Enjoy a babymoon in Turkey and Greece
24. Develop friendships with others in different countries
25. Have a bible study in 3 different languages
26. Attend church in Croatia
27. Eat a fish with its eyes still intact in Zagreb, Croatia
28. Witness a beautiful Slovenian sunset
29. Learn how to cook with ingredients different from what you're used to
30. Learn how to make ingredients from scratch
31. Loosen up
32. Appreciate the closing of stores on Sundays
33. Learn how to slow down and relax
34. Appreciate the importance of meals with friends
35. Live without a car
36. Celebrate two Christmases – Austrian and American
37. Go to a Viennese Christmas market
38. Drink coffee in Vienna's most famous coffee houses
39. Tour friends and family around Vienna
40. Watch movies in German and understand enough to laugh at the funny parts
41. Understand a Garfield comic in German
42. Read medical information about babies and understand
43. Be able to translate for others who don't understand German
44. Use Austrian home remedies to help with illness
45. Learn to love crafting (parts of it, anyway)
46. Survive playing rounds of Taboo in German
47. Take intensive German classes
48. Be told you sound fluent in your 2nd language by a local
49. Try to learn bits and pieces of Austrian dialects
50. Love your job in Vienna
51. Eat lots and lots and lots of gelato
52. Get everywhere by train, tram, bus, bicycle, or foot
53. Expand your global perspective
54. Understand Austrian politics – as much as one can
55. Walk through Vienna and never tire of it
56. Watch others fall in love with Vienna and appreciate it as much as you do and cry as you witness such things
57. Show your parents your new life
58. Appreciate where you come from
59. Learn German phrases to most definitely never, ever say to someone
60. Develop a bad habit of speaking English with German verbs and nouns randomly thrown in
61. Forget the English words to songs you now only sing in German
62. Think in 2 languages
63. Dream in 2 languages
64. Scream "I love Vienna!" in a field of flowers
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