text:
100 African Writers of SFF
Volunteer at Strange Horizons
100African, Non-Fiction
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Odafe Atogun
By: Geoff Ryman
Issue: 100 African Authors of SFF - Part Ten: Abuja
He found a bench on the street. He knew he had to sit down to play the kind of music he wanted to play. So he sat down on the bench. Lela's mother joined them with a look of horror on her face, sensing that trouble was on their doorstep. She sat on the pavement and folded her arms across her breasts. And as the first chords echoed from Taduno's guitar, her conscience began to torment her.
Slowly, the music spread throughout the neighbourhood, soft and colourful. The people began to gather one by one, cautiously knowing soldiers were nearby. They remembered that the President had proscribed all association through music, but they were enthralled by the melodies that suddenly filled the empty spaces in their lives. So they came.
Among those gathered were Vulcaniser and several others from his street, who had not ventured out of their homes in days. They all came out to listen. And as they did, they shook their heads in wonder and joy.
Judah placed his palms on his little cheeks and stared at Taduno in astonishment: how could his parents ever think of giving such a wonderful man away?
Taduno told simple stories with his music, shifting from one story to the next with glorious ease. He spoke in the tone of a folksinger through his guitar to the large crowd that had gathered and they understood the meaning of the music and the flow of his emotions.
He did not chastise Lela's parents with his music. Instead he attempted to stir the conscience of all. And so he played beautiful wordless songs that his listeners would remember for a long time.
The soldiers soon showed up, causing many to take to their heels. They came with guns and tear gas and grenades, but Taduno's music softened their hearts and they lowered their guns and opened their mouths in amazement. Those who had taken off came back when they saw that the soldiers were not attempting to arrest anyone.
Momentarily transformed by the music they were hearing, the soldiers took off their helmets. They wiped the soot from their faces with their bare hands. They wanted the people to see them as human beings, not monsters. But it was nothing more than a fleeting transformation. Soon, it occurred to them that in the end they had to answer to the President, not to the people, and certainly not to some musician, however brilliant he was. And so, they pushed through the crowd and arrested Taduno.
From Taduno's Song.
Taduno's Song by Odafe Atogun is a romance of music, love, and resistance. Heartfelt, occasionally sentimental, it pulls off the trick of communicating the emotional power of music. Many good novels fall apart at the end but this climax draws its bowstrings tight. It's written in pared-back, international style that reaches out to a wide audience. It's been published by important houses in both the UK and the USA and earned its author a two-book deal in both markets, and went on to sell to be published in Germany.
In essence it's about Fela Kuti. Though it follows aspects of the real Kuti's biography—the regime really did throw Fela's mother off a roof—the character of Taduno is totally unlike Fela Kuti both in personality and music. Fela played political Afro-jazz; Taduno plays what seems to be a kind of guitar folk music. Fela Kuti was also incomparably wilder than Taduno regarding women and drugs.
Odafe: "This is not a biography. And when in fiction when you carry a real-life personality to create your fictional character, I don't use the minutiae of real life to create my character. What I do is to take the crux of his vision, and his vision was to transform society through his music. That is the aspect of Fela Kuti that I took for the character called Taduno.
"You find artists that come once in a lifetime. Fela Kuti is such an artist. It's a fact that no other artist had as big an influence on the Nigerian society like Fela Kuti did, so we could call him a genius in that sense. We could say that he has a unique voice that could be identified first time. We are not talking about an ordinary musician here. We are talking about Fela Kuti.
"Fela is unique. He shared his home with anyone who strayed there. All you had to do was stray to his house and you find a place to put your head. Stray to Fela's house and you'll find something to eat. You could count the clothes he had or the material possessions he had. Which is why this story was necessary for me to tell to bring certain revelations to the readers."
A banner on Fela Kuti's house in Lagos
Taduno's Song has a very romantic vision. The hero's voice has been destroyed through torture, but his guitar playing channels the despair of the poor, the homeless with whom he sleeps rough in a park. Yet, even the people in his old neighbourhood turn on him.
Odafe: "It's allegorical. When you are an artist struggling to find your form, struggling to find your place in society, it's seldom that you find many friends. It's seldom that you find love.
"I went on holiday to Ireland, Dublin, and I went sightseeing to the house of Bono, the U2 musician, and while I was in front of his gate I was reading a passage engraved on the gate and it occurred to me that musicians are powerful activists and that their work transforms society. So my mind went to Fela Kuti and I realized that he did so much through his music to promote social and political change. I decided to write a story premised on his struggles and his music. I realized that his voice was a lone voice in the fight against brutal dictatorship of those days."
Taduno's Song was not Odafe's first attempt to sell to Random House.
Odafe: "I had written the first four chapters of another story and it sent to an editor of Random House. He liked it, and within four hours of receiving the manuscript, he requested the rest of the manuscript. I was still on the first four chapters.
"I told him OK, I was finished, but I wanted to edit, and told him to give me two weeks. So I went out and bought a power generator and wrote three hundred pages in two weeks. But of course when I sent it to him he was not impressed with the rest of the book, as it was a very rushed work.
"That was a learning curve for me. What I did was compare the first four chapters with the rest of the manuscript and saw through my own eyes what I was doing wrong, what I was doing well.
"That experience of writing furiously in two weeks came to my aid because I was able to write Taduno's Song in three months."
The speculative element is that somehow, almost magically, everyone has forgotten who this Fela Kuti is. He gets a mysterious letter that tells him his sweetheart Lela has been imprisoned just for knowing him. Taduno goes back to his old house. No one recognizes him, not his neighbours, not his friends, and not Judah, the young brother of his beloved Lela.
The regime has destroyed every copy of his records, every poster, burned his house, removed his name, and this has somehow destroyed the memory of him. But the regime finds they need his music too—they want him to sing praise songs. And they hold Lela hostage to make him.
The now voiceless ex-singer plays for the poor or the homeless, almost magically channelling their histories through wordless guitar. Can he bring himself to praise dictators even to save Lela?
The book compresses so much stuff together—voicelessness, celebrity, politics, the birdsong of beauty and love. But I'm not sure I ever quite squared how Taduno could be forgotten with the regime's determination to use him for their propaganda.
Odafe: "That's the aspect that typifies the story as a myth. What I was trying to explore is that when society is against you, they forget you. When you are a threat to the government and the government is after you and your supporters, then everybody shies away from you. The government pretends you no longer exist because it's afraid of you. You continue to inhabit the space in their mind so that they never know rest.
"Taduno, once so very famous, is becoming anonymous, unknown. I think it tells us how our art, our vision, could alienate us from society."
GR: "It's like his spirit has moved into a different body …"
Odafe: "Yes…"
GR: "And nobody recognizes him."
Odafe: "Sure. Let's assume Taduno was forgotten, had died. His reincarnation shows how much he believes in his art.
"In society out there, there are lots of people, talented people, who have been driven into a state of homelessness by pursuit of their dreams. These are not vagrant dregs of society, but people who are burdened with the need to transform society for justice, equality, and peace.
"Sometimes the burden we carry on our shoulders in our desire to see a transformed society can drive us into a state where we are vagrants."
GR: "Have you ever been a vagrant?"
Odafe: "Yes, I say in some way a vagrant, in some way. When you don't know what tomorrow or today holds, when you are in restless state of existence, with a vision you cannot share with the world because the world will laugh at you, I would say you are a vagrant …
"As a writer in the beginning, I told my friends I am a writer. They laughed at me. So I stopped telling them am a writer. But deep down I was pursuing literary success with every drop of my blood. In that state I would say I was a vagrant because nobody believed in my vision."
I double-check that he hadn't ever really been a vagrant, and start trying to explore a bit more about his life. The book is so convincingly set in Lagos. Had he ever lived there?
Odafe: "I lived in Lagos or about four years between 1990 and 1994. That was during the period of the military dictatorship and June 12."
Western readers might not know that June 12, 1993, is the date of a general election that was annulled by the dictatorship. It is a date deeply engraved in Nigeria's consciousness. There is a highly regarded graphic novel by Abraham Oshoko about the events, called simply June 12.
June XII is another comic featuring a violent and vengeful sort-of hero named after the date, and developed by Ibrahim Ganiyu and still published by Vortex Comics.
Odafe knew the very different Lagos of twenty-five years ago.
Odafe: "A lot has changed in Lagos in terms of development and infrastructure and in terms of the way the people engage the government. But some of the inequalities and social injustices that Fela Kuti sang against still exist.
"For instance, it's still difficult for a poor man to send his children to school. It's difficult for a poor man to get a power supply because all of the rich people use power generators. Fela sang about a society without light, a society without water. You think 'Oh, we are in the twenty-first century, things should be better,' but they are getting worse.
"But in the way people engage the government, now we have social media. We have multiple avenues to disseminate news. So people are better able to engage the government. But government remains powerful and that engagement is not yielding the desired result, so we are still facing the negativity that Fela Kuti sang against."
I keep asking him about his life then and his previous fiction.
"When I was twenty years old, I was still in school in my higher education, at A levels then. I was reading a lot at that point—James Hadley Chase, a lot of crime thrillers, Frederick Forsyth, Jeffrey Archer.
"The first story I wrote was around that period. It was a crime thriller that I destroyed years later when I was more mature. I thought this is not what I want to write so I just burnt it up, a book of about three hundred to four hundred pages.
"By twenty-five, I was studying for accountancy. I wrote a collection of short stories, five short stories which I self-published. But it had no impact. That was about 1992 or 1993. I have the soft copy; I have it on computer. I had to do marketing myself. I had to give out a lot of complimentary copies, to say, 'Look I'm a writer.'"
That was the era when publishers like MacMillan or Longman's started to pull out of Africa. What had been a thriving reading and publishing culture, with figures like Chinua Achebe or Wole Soyinka editing, publishing, or translating works ebbed away under the feet of a whole generation.
Odafe: "I never worked as an accountant. I worked in communications. After accountancy, I studied journalism for a while in Lagos at a journalism school. I worked briefly for a magazine that is defunct now. The proprietor died so it closed down. That was many years ago—Classic magazine. It was a soft-sell magazine like … like News of the World and all that."
I ask Odafe how it feels to become suddenly so successful and at forty-nine. He avoids answering by joking, "I don't look my age. I look thirty-five, thirty-six." It tell him it's because he so evidently works out. Then he gets serious.
Odafe: "At first I plunged into depths of depression with success, because I felt, 'Oh, this will be so brief a success after all.' This sense of doubt, of disbelief—'Is this really happening?'
"But what got me going was that both Canongate (in the UK) and Random House (in the USA) signed me to a two-book deal without saying a word about the second book. I felt this was a challenge, and it helped me to come up with a book in record time, which I've submitted to Canongate.
"It took me four months and eighteen days precisely. There was so much power outage that sometimes couldn't write for a day or two, so that slowed me down a bit. I was able to send it to them on 19th of May (2016) and I did not get any response for a while. Then one day I got a message on my phone to say that they have paid the advance fee for the second book. 'So OK they like it.' I spoke to my agent (Toby Mundy) and he said, 'Yes, we've done it again.'
"It's about the place of orphans in our society, in a society that believes so much in tradition and the place of a single mother struggling to raise her only child in that evil society."
The next part of the recording goes in circles as I try to sort out that he'd really called his own society evil. I thought he'd said "Igbo." Evil?
Odafe: "Yes, an evil society. That tradition exists. Orphans are seen as outcasts. It still exists in Nigerian society of today even though it's not so prevalent. Orphans are treated as evil. Some say, 'Oh, they killed their parents,' so they believe them to be evil children. So they can't live normally. They cannot interact normally. They are not allowed to play with other children. They are treated basically as slaves. At every opportunity, they are beaten and ill treated in so many terrible ways.
"The story is about a widow who had lost her husband at a very young age is afraid that if she should die, her son will be treated like other orphans in the village.
"I titled it Wake Me When I'm Dead but my publishers … we have agreed to change it to Wake Me When I'm Gone. They think 'gone' is more appropriate and on second thought I agree with them."
He mentions in passing that his wife is a great support to him, which sounds lovely, so I ask him a bit more.
Odafe: "I will make that very brief. Every artist needs support or you lose belief in yourself and what you want to achieve as a writer or artist. When you have a supportive spouse I think it helps. Who understands your need for solitude to develop your art. Who understands the need for you to be persistent to attain success.
"Most spouses would say you are wasting your time trying to be a writer or trying to be a musician. And that would dampen your spirits really. But when you have someone supportive, it goes a long way. Which is what I enjoyed.
"My earlier reference to being a vagrant. For so many years I was a vagrant. Because I was moving within different spaces in society without being able to express myself openly as an artist because many would laugh at me. Many would see me as being lazy or mad dreamer. So I was a vagrant artist, so to say.
"I was going various jobs but beneath it all but every night I would get to my computer to write or write in my notebooks. I was still pursuing and developing my art as a writer without anyone knowing about it. Being a vagrant artist, I could not share my dreams with anyone. Can you imagine someone that's homeless, a dreamer going around telling people on the street, 'Look I'm going to be Bill Gates one day, I'm working to become a scientist one day.' He cannot. Because they will see him as a madman. We experience vagrancy as human beings at different levels and forms."
Odafe did a range of jobs in journalism or consultancy, freelancing as an editorial consultant. He wrote for Nigeria Link magazine and for The Melting Pot.
Odafe: "I was basically writing news articles and fiction. I was not a reporter, so to say. I was writing features. I remember one particular story I did for Trumpet newspaper way back in the late nineties. Before Obasango became civilian president in Nigeria, I wrote an article 'Obasango the Second Coming.' In that article, I predicted he would come back as civilian president and he did. I said the military would like to hand over to someone they can trust, so that they can remain protected."
We then talk about football, and its influence for good on young people, and which premier league team he supports, and the price of tickets and how fans are short-changed. He suggests a lottery to make an individual football fan a millionaire, then talks about the books that influenced him as an adult. There are four particular books:
"Those that prompted and deepened my art, I would say four. First, Marquez 100 Years of Solitude. The second is Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and the third is J.M. Coetzee Disgrace.
"The fourth I won't pin down to a particular book, but the whole range of his books influenced me and that was Ben Okri (author the Booker Prize-winning The Famished Road).
"I wasn't located in any particular space of creativity all through my fruitless years. I did a lot of writing, enormous amount of writing. I don't advise any writer to try this, but I wrote so many stories and destroyed each one of them.
"I would write a story, read it and then destroy. Because I felt it was not good enough. Each time I wrote, I experimented. I see what I don't like in the first story and I try to improve in this one. And I did that consistently for years. So in that way, I was distilling my art in a very painful and slow way. And that is what permits me to write a story in four months and three months.
"In those years I was plagued by self-doubt. I didn't like my style, I didn't like this, I didn't like that. It was like training, every day, every single day in solitary confinement. And nobody knows what you are doing. So when you now reveal to the world what you are doing, it comes as a huge surprise.
"I wanted a style that would be unique. Not just unique but consumable by readers. I wanted to develop a timeless, universal classic. Whatever I write, I must be sure it's timeless. Every generation can read and connect with it, of any nationality. Taduno's Song is talking about tyranny because tyranny has the same face everywhere in the world. Because tyrants have the same ambition anywhere in the world. Classic is a story that you feel is worthy of being read. That's my goal, timeless, universal classics."
We talk a bit about his earlier reading.
"My first romance with literature began with Chinua Achebe in secondary school, then Gulliver's Travels, and Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton.
"At six years old? I can't remember reading much fiction. I had a very difficult upbringing, which I don't like talking about because as a child I lived away from my parents.
"I attended six different primary schools. You spend six years in primary school in Nigeria, right? Each of those years I experienced a new primary school, so I did not have the time to settle down to make friends. Each year we moved to a different village, a different town. And I lived away from my parents.
"It's weird. Those years gave me the power to look at things in very fluid forms. I tried to retain things as much as possible from the previous experience. It made it possible for me to write a story that is very complex, but look, there is a thread that runs though it all. So that experience really helped me as a writer.
"It was there that the power of my imagination began to form because whenever I was sad as a child with no parents to console me, I would imagine myself in a place where everything was beautiful. I would try to live the reality to escape my difficult realities. I would imagine a world where I could find happiness.
"I was the best in literature in secondary school, the best in English. I would always get the highest score. I went to two different secondary schools, but that was much better than six primary schools. There were a few very close friends but I left them behind each time I moved, so there was nothing like building a friendship from that stage of my life.
"I have one brother and one sister, but we were all separate. My brother lived in a different place; my sister lived with my mother. My parents were divorced. I was living with parents' friends whom I didn't know from before. It was a very harrowing experience.
"My father was a headmaster. My mother was a trader, basically uneducated though she could speak English and Pidgin. My father was very tough, the way he raised us with strict discipline. A headmaster back in those days. He felt that if he was disciplining school people, his own child should get twice that amount of discipline.
"So I was never able to impress him enough; he never said 'Well done, my son.' It was always, 'You're not doing enough.' It was like placing a burden on a child. Which is what I've avoided most with my own son. What I desired most was to form a friendship with my father, but I could not, say, 'Hey, Daddy,' and tap him on his shoulder. I didn't see much of my mother until I was seventeen. In his final years he tried to sit down with me and have a proper chat, but the gulf was too wide. The intimacy was not there.
"In later years we related in cordial manner. In the end I discovered a good man who could not draw a line between discipline and affection for his child. One should have room in your heart to shower children with affection. But he saw affection as discipline, felt that discipline expressed love, but for a child that is not good enough.
"I'm a full-time writer at the moment. I reached that decision when I got the two-book deal, and then the German publishers did the same, and I thought, 'Why not go for it?'
"Before that I was working as editorial consultant for the magazine of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory. I did a bit of printing for them. I did a bit of promotion stuff for them like producing gift items for the Minister. I was getting to the finishing line of my self-training as a writer. I said to people, 'I'm not a contractor, I'm a writer.' I would say that. People would laugh, just snigger, and never take me seriously.
"A chap was asking me, 'You say you are a writer, so are you publishing any book at the moment?' And I said, 'No, but I have one that will soon be published.' And he asked which publisher and I said, 'Faber and Faber' and he said, 'Wow, that is big.' And he asks me when it's coming out. And I kept keeping up with that lie. (Laughs).
"My success has made me humbler than ever before. One thing I have realized is that I am very fortunate. There are other writers out there who are very good but fortune has not smiled on them the way it's smiled on me. I see myself as an artist. I am supposed to portray, typify humility as an artist. I can't go around carrying myself like a star. Like, 'Oh, I'm a great writer.' Whatever I've achieved I got from society. Whatever stories I told, I told them by drawing from society, so I need to reflect to society a picture of humility and compassion and simplicity."
© Copyright 2018 By: Geoff Ryman
About Geoff Ryman
Geoff Ryman is Senior Lecturer in School of Arts, Languages and Cultures at the University of Manchester. He is a writer of short stories and novels, and science fiction and literary fiction. His work has won numerous awards including the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award (twice), the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award, the Philip K. Dick Award, the British Science Fiction Association Award (twice), and the Canadian Sunburst Award (twice). In 2012 he won a Nebula Award for his Nigeria-set novelette "What We Found." His story "Capitalism in the 22nd Century" is part of Stories for Chip , edited by Bill Campbell and Nisi Shawl and published by Rosarium.
Regret, Return, Reignite
By: Audrey R. Hollis
Art by: Vlada Monakhova
Podcast: Regret, Return, Reignite
Podcast read by: Anaea Lay
Fune-RL
By: Emma J. Gibbon
Podcast: Fune-RL
Podcast read by: Ciro Faienza
Monday: The 2019 Arthur C. Clarke Award Shortlist: Part I
By: M.L. Clark
Wednesday: The 2019 Arthur C. Clarke Award Shortlist: Part II
Friday: The Spirit of Science Fiction by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer
By: A. S. Moser
Read Issue
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Susan Näsström on Border [Gräns]
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DynamicAlpha(double min_alpha, const std::string &file)	learnpnp::DynamicAlpha

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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: Can a Docker container (and its Python script) be a RESTful API? I have a python script that will take a single argument. The script makes calls to 3rd party APIs, which obviously need to be server-side because of the API keys.
I want to make a website that makes an ajax call (or similar) to run the python script and give it some browser-side data.
I thought this would be a good project to use Docker for, but I can't find anything to indicate that this will work.
Is python not the right tool? Is Docker not the right tool?
Any help is greatly appreciated!
Edit (also in comments)

I've deployed a test image/service/cluster successfully on DigitalOcean, but I don't see how I can configure the endpoint to be RESTful

Edit (for source code)
To test the setup, I've been using a Docker-provided tutorial.
Dockerfile
#use an official Python runtime as a parent image
FROM python:3.6.2-slim
WORKDIR /app
ADD . /app
RUN pip install -r requirements.txt
EXPOSE 80
ENV NAME World
CMD ["python", "app.py"]

docker-compose.yml
version: "3"
services:
  web:
    # replace username/repo:tag with your name and image details
    image: username/repo:latest
    deploy:
      replicas: 5
      resources:
        limits:
          cpus: "0.1"
          memory: 50M
      restart_policy:
        condition: on-failure
    ports:
      - "80:80"
    networks:
      - webnet
networks:
  webnet:

app.py
from flask import Flask
from redis import Redis, RedisError
import os
import socket

# Connect to Redis
redis = Redis(host="redis", db=0, socket_connect_timeout=2,
socket_timeout=2)

app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route("/")
def hello():
    try:
        visits = redis.incr("counter")
    except RedisError:
        visits = "cannot connect to Redis, counter disabled"

    html = "
Hello {name}!
" \
           "Hostname: {hostname}
" \
           "Visits: {visits}"
    return html.format(name=os.getenv("NAME", "world"), hostname=socket.gethostname(), visits=visits)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run(host='0.0.0.0', port=80)

It suddenly seems like I probably just need to change @app.route("/")...

A: Short answer, yes, its possible.
I recommend you first run your Python code outside of a container and try to connect to the droplet before putting in Docker, just to make sure it works.
Once you have the basic connection working, you can move into a container, and build out the REST API. (or GraphQL, if you're into that)
Containers aren't RESTful, the app they host can be. You don't have any REST endpoints yet, looks like, though.
Anyways, you've mapped the port
ports:
   - "80:80"

And the app in running there
if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run(host='0.0.0.0', port=80)

Assuming you have opened your firewall to allow port 80 on DigitalOcean, that's all you need
Just fire up your http://digital-ocean.address

Is python not the right tool?

Use whatever you're comfortable with. For example, if you just want make HTTP requests,  straight shell commands to do cURL commands and echo HTML responses would work.

Is Docker not the right tool?

It's not required. Even if you have keys, placing them within a container just adds a layer of redirection, not obfuscation

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A new study by researchers at the University of Oxford shows that mental illnesses reduce life expectancy by 10-20 years, a loss of years that's equivalent to or worse than that for heavy smoking. Why then, ask the researchers, is mental health much less of a public health priority?
Immune cells triggering anxiety symptoms?
Single dose of magic mushrooms "may create lasting personality change"
Scientists manipulate immune system to produce "anti-Prozac"
Do antidepressants work through personality change?
Trauma The Major Cause Of Schizophrenia?
Microorganisms Behind Schizophrenia And Alzheimer's?


text:
<?php

namespace Resque\Logger\Handler\Connector;

use Monolog\Handler\MongoDBHandler;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Command\Command;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Output\OutputInterface;

/**
 * MongoDB monolog connector class
 *
 * @author Michael Haynes <mike@mjphaynes.com>
 */
class MongoDBConnector extends AbstractConnector {

	public function resolve(Command $command, InputInterface $input, OutputInterface $output, array $args) {
		$mongodb = null;
		$dsn     = strtr('mongodb://host:port', $args);
		$options = array();

		if (class_exists('MongoClient')) {
			$mongodb = new \MongoClient($dsn, $options);

		} elseif (class_exists('Mongo')) {
			$mongodb = new \Mongo($dsn, $options);
		}

		return new MongoDBHandler($mongodb, $this->replacePlaceholders($args['dbname']), $this->replacePlaceholders($args['collection']));
	}

}


We are so glad you have found our way to our website, seeing as you have made the effort its only fair to tell you all about us!
My name is Jamie I am a trained chef and I started The Greedy Fox back in 2016 with my wife Gemma. We have two children Lilly is 11 and loves makeup and has bags of attitude! She has also recently been diagnosed as celiac so that's brought us a whole new host of foodie challenges so you will find that many of our recipes are naturally gluten-free or can be easily substituted. Noah is 6, football and lego crazy and a real little gentleman! It was just two weeks after Noah was born that our lives changed forever. To be fair I think the jump from one to two children changes everyone's lives forever!!! But this was a little different, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.
To be honest we had no idea what Multiple Sclerosis was so I don't expect anyone else to either! Essentially it effects your nervous system, so anything that has a nerve attached to it! Some days it'll be my eyes, other days my legs or my hands just don't work properly. On other days I just have such extreme fatigue that I literally feel empty. But a couple of years ago I made the decision that I could no longer let his control my life, with two little rugrats on the loose, it's just not an option.
When I was first diagnosed, over a 6 month period I ended up taking 15 pills per day and disease modifying drugs which for 1/2 the week left me with chronic flu-like symptoms, in turn I lost all passion. Especially for food. 1 long sleepless night I began searching the internet for alternative ways to treat my MS after bypassing thousands of snake oil remedies and potions I noticed diet kept cropping up. It was at this point I made a decision, I needed to get my life back. I decided overnight to stop taking the medication [which knowing what I know now I would strongly advise you see your dr first] and manage my MS through diet alone. So I started cooking again.
However everyone in this room has probably been on a diet of some sort at some point and its the repetition that is the downfall the food can get pretty bland and pretty boring very quickly and this needed to be a change for life so I began to create seasonings to not just create flavour but for ease of use, reducing the time spent in the kitchen. This brought my passion for not just food but life back!!!!!!!
Using no little hidden nasties We now have ten flavours in our range with special merchandise such as greedy fox aprons in the pipeline. In essence what I created was a multiple use meal kit which each pouch of flavour last for 4-5 meals each without being tied to just 1 recipe, at the moment we have over 100 recipes on our website all suggestions to accompany the flavours and adding more every week.
Follow us on our social media channels and watch our adventure unfold.


The following is an article written by Ethan Pheister, assistant volleyball coach at the University of South Carolina, for the American Volleyball Coaches Association.
As I sit here and reflect on the time spent in Minneapolis for the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Convention, I am reminded of the fact that our profession continues to evolve and develop. Its really easy to sit back and say to ourselves that if something worked once, it'll continue to work. That sentiment isn't inherently wrong. We don't want to chase the next big thing, so much so that we aren't giving our players a consistent message. However, just as it is important to give our players a consistent message, it is also important that we are showing them that we are willing to grow and evolve.
1. We are always asking our players to trust us and try a new technique(s). Whether that is the player that has always used a jump float serve, but we want to see a jump top spin in there. Or it's the attacker that has always had success hitting line, but teams are starting to catch on. We as coaches are always asking players to step out of their comfort zone and try something new with hopes that it'll pay dividends in the long run.
2. Expressing the same idea, but with different wording could be just the spark needed to spur on a change that could mean a few extra points for the team. We have all felt the sense of banging our head against the wall, feeling like we have said it a million times and it just isn't getting through. Our profession is incredibly open, with a lot of successful coaches willing to share things that have worked for them. So, instead of getting frustrated and saying the same words again, we can look outside, reach out to coaches that we respect and see if we can look with a new set of eyes.
One parting thought, if you get an opportunity to talk with a coach that you respect, take that opportunity. Likely they will be very open and honest about what has been successful for them, and things that maybe didn't go as planned. The best coaches, no matter the sport, see something that works for someone else, and then put their own spin on it to make it their own. That give and take, and continued development is what makes our sport so exciting to be part of.
Click here to see more from the American Volleyball Coaches Association.


conceived by Matteo Scaioli and David Loom.
Produced by Ravenna Festival, NekoLaboratoires™.
I'm only trying to be objective in a different way.
not worrying about the consequences.
what we have and what we think to have in front our eyes.
toward conventional icons even when these are not explicitly represented.
for an old hidroelectrical central facade.
to the promotion materials used for the Fies Factory One event.
has been my first short duration video composition (one minute).
and more articulated project Additions and subtractions (see details on Artworks).
and digital paintings techniques (view the making-of images gallery).
Husmus Media (Gothenburg), Universal Records (Philippines).
Fully designed and animated using personal handmade drawings.


text:
Leaping with the Angels, Leaping for the People
Home/Leaping with the Angels, Leaping for the People
Leaping with the Angels, Leaping for the People	theleap	2018-07-31T19:04:24+00:00
By: Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
Last weekend, nearly 80 local leaders gathered at Debs Park in Los Angeles, to begin framing a justice-based vision of how the second largest city in the United States can go fossil fuel free by 2025. We brought together a spectrum of organizers from the frontlines of Indigenous rights, environmental justice, labor and food justice, and more. Over two days, we commenced a collective process of defining the Los Angeles we want and know is possible.
While on my flight to Los Angeles from Miami, the passenger seated next to me noticed my pile of reading: The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin; Urban Alchemy by Dr. Mindy Fullilove; a report highlighting the homeless crisis in Los Angeles; and a paper on decarbonizing the city by our friends at The Climate Mobilization. She tapped me gently on the shoulder and asked, "Are you flying out to be a contestant on Jeopardy or something?" To which I quickly replied, "In a way, yes, actually." Because that's what it felt like.
For communities next door to fracking operations, or Black and Brown children living near freeways with higher rates of asthma than their white counterparts, a lot was riding on the success of the convening. Climate change, and all the injustices that are exacerbated by it—systemic racism, the genocide of Indigenous people, massive income inequality—put Los Angeles (and the entire planet) in jeopardy. In thinking about all of this, I was brought back to what sparked the convening in the first place.
From a Cup of Coffee to Wartime-Level Mobilization
On a hazy and overcast Saturday morning in early May, my colleague Rajiv Sicora and I ventured out into the streets of Toronto. We were taking a scenic route across town to meet with Andy Schrader, who serves as Los Angeles Councilmember Paul Koretz's Director of Environmental Affairs. Andy happened to be in Toronto on a family trip; he was working with Climate Mobilization on an emergency decarbonization plan for Los Angeles, and wanted to discuss what the spirit of the Leap Manifesto might bring to the effort.
Raj and I emphasized that in Canada, the Leap Manifesto was an attempt to seize the political moment—plummeting oil prices, an upcoming federal election—to tackle multiple crises at once. We argued that radical climate policy is not only an opportunity to reduce emissions, but to also increase justice in Los Angeles and far beyond.
Shortly after our meeting with Andy, Councilmember Koretz scheduled a big announcement at Los Angeles's City Hall. It was there, on a sunny day in June, that Naomi Klein and I joined local leaders who have been working for years to bring about systemic change in their city. At the press conference, we officially launched a working group for a "wartime-level climate mobilization, consistent with the tenets of the Leap Manifesto." As Koretz explained, "When I read the Leap Manifesto, I knew right away that this is the type of plan we need in Los Angeles. It embodies the urgency this crisis requires, it has justice at its core, and it has the power to inspire."
What came next was a blur, and an immense leap of faith.
Naomi Klein and Councilmember Paul Koretz at the June press conference.
Anthony Rogers-Wright and Councilmember Paul Koretz at the June press conference.
A Process, Not an Event
For those of us on the planning committee, the days leading up to the weekend were a mix of skepticism, stress and flat-out fear. This was the first time that a process modeled on Canada's Leap Manifesto would be attempted in the U.S.
The 1995 movie Canadian Bacon, which satirizes U.S.-Canada relations, has to be one of the worst moments in cinematic history. That said, there's a quote from one of the characters, named "Boomer," that resonated with me on the morning of the convening: "There's a time to think, and a time to act. And this, gentlemen, is no time to think." I thought of the film because there we were, about to bring a Canadian idea to the U.S.—and there are so many examples of this process not working out. Look what happened when Canada imported hip-hop: we ended up with Snow's "Informer." What if the same thing happened this weekend?
I felt the same anxious question being asked, in one way or another, by each attendee as they began to trickle in: could we pull this off? With so much at stake for so many, taking on all of Los Angeles' crises at once felt like a dangerous, exhilarating gamble.
But once we settled down, we were grounded by a beautiful territorial blessing offered by an elder from the Tongva people, who originally inhabited the Los Angeles area. It became clear that we had succeeded in assembling a remarkably broad coalition, and that folks were ready to dig deep.
This was a major victory in itself, and a testament to the shared concern that Angelenos have for their local communities and for the city as a whole. The co-facilitators of the convening, Rev. Eddie Anderson and Clare Fox, each offered some words to invite us into a collective process with the potential to change Los Angeles and perhaps even the world. Rev. Eddie asked us "to be aware of what is joyful, challenging, and crying inside of you. Bring it so that you may offer your whole self to the sacred space we have created." Clare added, "We are here to hold space with each other — this is a process, not an event."
Convening participants break the ice on Day 1.
To Envision The Yes, Face the No
On the way to the convening, thanks to LA traffic, I was able to review some of the many crises that form the city's cycle of "no" we've been fighting against—from a homeless rate that jumped 23% from 2016 to 2017, to mass incarceration that primarily targets Black and Brown people, to over 15 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted from the city annually.
During his poignant and powerful opening remarks, Councilmember Koretz went right to the heart of the need to come to terms with this cycle of "no": "I want us as Angelenos to come clean right now. We have powered ourselves with coal extracted from lands of the Navajo nation. Our energy use has destroyed their water table, their way of life. Navajo jobs are being lost, and these jobs are necessary to sustain the lives of extended families on the reservation. Our extractive economy has failed humanity."
"LA was built on oil, it was built on inequality. We have an opportunity to create a new economy right now," added Martha Dina Argüello, Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility-LA.
As these statements remind us, it was not small steps that got us here. And because this is true, small steps will not deliver us to where we need to go.
No More Small Steps
"'Nothing else will do.' These words help frame what we are doing together," remarked Rev. Eddie. It's true: from a policy standpoint, incrementalism is not going to get us to the world we want in the little time we have left. Nothing less than a bold leap away from fossil fuels will address all the urgent and intersecting issues that we face. And it's not only in the policy realm that we must embrace this truth, but also in the processes that we use to organize together. To me, that's what the weekend was about.
Rev. Eddie's remarks were taken from an inspiring poem that he and Clare composed, using only the words of attendees (on why they were attending the convening). Here's an excerpt from the poem:
Now is the time for justice
We cannot afford to fail
Connected through a reimagined society
We have to remove the veil
Healing, rooted in our intuition
Inspired by our fear of gambling on the right thing
Curious by the earth child's conjuring
We are motivated to find the path beyond limitation
Over the course of two days together, we allowed ourselves to have difficult discussions about the role that racism, classism, and hetero-patriarchy play within our movement spaces. We discussed what the term "just transition" means and what it should encompass. We listed preliminary demands that ranged from a just transition for bodies returning from the prison industrial complex, which includes immediate restoration of their voting rights, to developing a framework for financial reparations to Indigenous people and the descendants of African slaves.
We heard the powerful poems of local writer Olga Garcia; took part in a communal laughing yoga session; and heard stories from Chef E-Double, who prepared our food all weekend, about why he set out to address racial justice through cooking and bringing healthy food to people living in food deserts. As a group, we knew we needed to live in this process, and to take in the idea of building transformational relationships between our movements—rather than purely transactional ones, where we're trying to get things from each other from our separate silos. We need to build much more common ground together. Here's how scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the phrase "intersectionality," puts it: "A key aspect of intersectionality lies in its recognition that multiple oppressions are not each suffered separately but rather as a single, synthesized experience. This has enormous significance at the very practical level of movement building." I don't think it can be stated any better than that.
Opening ceremony on Day 2 of the convening.
Almost immediately after our closing ceremony, I boarded a red-eye flight back east. I noticed the beaches, the mountains, the water and, of course, the smog as the aircraft gently reached cruising altitude. In many ways, the takeoff was analogous to the process we had just completed over two days. That said, while my flight had a definitive landing spot, this process does not—and that's a great thing.
At one point in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, speaking to the daughter of a slain Klingon Ambassador, Captain Kirk says this: "Some people think the future means the end of history. Well, we haven't run out of history quite yet. Your father called the future the undiscovered country." We have to leap ahead with our vision of what that future could be, as well as a clear-eyed analysis of all the challenges that might prevent us from getting there. This weekend was about facing those challenges directly. What comes next—the meetings, the hard conversations, and the local, frontline leadership—will determine where we land, now that we've leaped.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Research Article| July 01, 1968
Structural History and Tectonics of Iran1: A Review
Jovan Stöcklin
https://doi.org/10.1306/5D25C4A5-16C1-11D7-8645000102C1865D
Jovan Stöcklin; Structural History and Tectonics of Iran: A Review. AAPG Bulletin 1968;; 52 (7): 1229–1258. doi: https://doi.org/10.1306/5D25C4A5-16C1-11D7-8645000102C1865D
The structural development of the Iranian ranges has certain peculiarities which contradict the conventional geosynclinal theory of mountain building.
Early orogenic movements resulted in the consolidation of the Precambrian basement and the formation of a vast Iranian platform considered to be an extension of the Arabian shield. Only epeirogenic movements affected the region during the Paleozoic, which is represented by typical platform deposits. However, most of Iran went through all stages of a complete Alpine orogeny in spite of the prevailing platform character in preorogenic time. Important trends in the Alpine structural plan clearly were inherited from Precambrian structures.
Precursory Alpine movements in Mesozoic time were strongest in Central Iran, although this region and the closely related Alborz (Elburz) Mountain area generally retained their epicontinental character, allowing for only a rudimentary geosynclinal development. More clearly geosynclinal conditions developed in peripheral fold belts: the Zagros, the Kopet Dagh, and the East Iranian ranges.
Strong folding and thrusting during the Alpine orogeny proper in Late Cretaceous-Tertiary time affected most of Iran except the rigid Lut block in the eastern part of the country.
The conventional tripartite division of Iran into an extensive median mass and two bordering ranges of geosynclinal origin (Zagros, Alborz) cannot be maintained. The writer replaces this oversimplified interpretation by recognizing the existence of more structural zones which differ in structural development and present tectonic style.
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text:
Rabbi Lisa Rubin
Director, Center for Exploring Judaism
Rabbi Lisa Rubin joined Central Synagogue in June 2010. She was ordained from the New York campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 2006. As a rabbinical student, Rabbi Rubin served congregations in Brookhaven, Mississippi, and Worcester, Massachusetts, co-edited the HUC student publication, and trained as a chaplain at the Jewish Healthcare Chaplaincy in New York City. After ordination, she served Temple Beth-El of Great Neck for three years. In each of those years, she was selected as the Jewish leader for Project Understanding, a foundation on Long Island that sends Catholic and Jewish teens to Israel after a period of interfaith study.
Rabbi Rubin graduated from the University of Michigan with honors, after which she worked in youth marketing and advertising at Leo Burnett in Chicago before beginning her rabbinical career.
Rabbi Rubin currently serves on the boards of Elem, a nonprofit organization that aids youth in distress in Israel, and United Hatzalah, a nonprofit organization of first medical responders in Israel.
She resides in Westchester with her husband and three children.
Clergy Study
LCLJ (K-12 Education)
Operations & Events


Designed by acclaimed architecture firm ODA, 51 Jay Street sets a new standard for luxury living in DUMBO. Every detail throughout this brand new residence speaks of expert craftsmanship and fine materials that exude the industrial charm of this warehouse conversion. Two walls of casement windows fill this spacious corner loft with abundant southern and eastern light, which highlights the oak herringbone floors installed throughout. The oversized chef's kitchen is open to the expansive great room and showcases custom cabinetry by Aster Cucine, La Rochelle Gris marble slab countertops and Gaggenau appliances. The luxurious master suite includes a large walk-in closet and marble bathroom featuring a glass-enclosed wet room with a walk-in shower and soaking tub.


text:
The Sixties Radical-Azriel
April 16, 2017 Bobby Gee	Leave a comment
It is okay to ask G-d questions. I should always believe in G-d's redemption, kindness, and goodness. It is plain and simple as that. Hard? Yes? Easy? No!
Yet this is a must if I want to help bring the Messianic Redemption.
"At the end of the previous section, Moses was troubled by the seeming contradiction between his faith in G‑d's goodness and G‑d's apparent mistreatment of the Jewish people. G‑d therefore told Moses: "You must learn from the patriarchs and matriarchs. They believed in Me unquestioningly, even though I made promises to them that I did not fulfill during their lifetimes."
G‑d spoke to Moses, saying to him, "I am G‑d. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." Exodus 6:2-3
When it appears to us that something is wrong in the way G‑d runs the world, G‑d wants us to question Him. But at the same time, we must continue to believe absolutely in G‑d's reality and goodness.
From where can we draw the power to believe in G‑d so thoroughly that we virtually see Him even in the darkest moments of exile? G‑d answers this question by saying, "I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." The patriarchs and matriarchs possessed this unshakable faith, and we inherit it from them. If we nurture it properly, we, too, will "see" G‑d even when His goodness is not readily apparent.
This faith enables us to live out the final moments of our exile yearning for its end – and demanding it! – while maximizing our use of its remaining moments. In this merit, we will hasten the Messianic Redemption.1 Hitva'aduyot 5743, vol. 2, pp. 823–830.
http://www.chabad.org/dailystudy/dailywisdom.asp?tdate=01%2F22%2F2017


Gibson Custom Limited Edition Silver Burst les paul custom Electric Guitar The limited edition Gibson Les Paul Custom Electric Guitar features a one-piece mahogany neck, carved maple top and warm-toned mahogany body.
Find great deals on eBay for les paul silverburst and les paul custom. Shop with confidence.
Guitar Center: Shop for Gear. Open in the Guitar Center app. With a beautiful Silverburst finish and ebony fingerboard, single-bound mahogany body, high-end hardware, and '57 Classic humbuckers with "Patent Applied For" tone, the Classic Custom looks as amazing as it sounds.
The limited edition Gibson Les Paul Custom Electric Guitar features a one-piece mahogany neck, carved maple top and warm-toned mahogany body. A Richlite fingerboard with pearl block inlays gives it a bright attack. 490R and 498T Gibson humbuckers deliver warm rhythm and hot, solid lead sounds.
Series 10 Professional Electric Guitar Ibanez Artcore Hollow Body Electric Guitar While the guitar world is full of wonderful instruments at every conceivable price point, we wanted to take some time today to highlight a few high-quality yet affordable guitars … Artcore Rounding … One of the guitars to be given away at the festival is an Ibanez Artcore Series.


text:
Q: RxJava: How to postprocess subset of items, but return full list to caller I am writing a REST client that talks to a remote server and needs to do something similar to this:

*

*Retrieve list of items from remote server

*Compare received list with local data

*For any items that have been modified locally (possibly none), submit changes to server

*Finally, return the complete list of items to the caller

I am using RxJava (2) and I am struggling a bit with the implementation. I think it should be more or less like this (pseudo code):
public Single<List<Item>> synchronize()
{
    return server.fetchItems().flatMap(receivedItemList -> {
        List<Single<Item>> syncList = new List<>();
        for (Item item : receivedItemList) {
            if (item.needsSync()) {
                Single<Item> modifiedItem = server.updateItem(item);
                syncList.add(modifiedItem);
            }
        }

        if (!syncList.empty()) {
            return Single.zip(syncList,
                              items -> {
                                  // Changes have been sync'ed,
                                  // return full list to caller
                                  return receivedItemList;
                              });
        } else {
            return Single.just(receivedItemList);
        }
    });
}

I am not sure whether this is the right approach: For example the zipper function is returning the full list if items to the caller -- I am using zip mostly to make sure that all updates are done before completing operation. Also the fact that I am calling Single.zip() in one case and Single.just() in the other feels a bit wrong.
Does this look correct? Is this the idiomatic way to do this with RxJava? Is there a better approach?

A: you'r close to the Rx way of doing this, however some changes to the code may enhance it a little, so those some notes on your code, I'll follow this with my humble implementation.

*

*each time you think to use a for loop in Rx, try fromIterable() operator, this operator emit item by item so you could do your logic on it like filtering.

*there is a lot of filtering operators in Rx, so you don't have to write checks in the stream. the most popular one is filter() which take predicate as argument and rturn an Observable type.

*if you want to collect emissions in one list there is an operator called toList() to emit the whole list.

now to the implementation
  public Observable<List<String>> fetchNetworkItems() {
    return Observable.just(Arrays.asList("A", "B", "C")); //maybe retrofit
  }

  public Observable<List<String>> localItems() {
    return Observable.just(Arrays.asList("A", "B", "C")); //maybe Room
  }

  public Completable updateRemoteItem(String localItem) {
    return Completable.create(emitter -> {
      //update logic if things are going well use emitter.onComplete();
      //catch any exception  or errors --> use emitter.onError() to throw it
    });
  }

  public Single<List<String>> updateRemoteItems() {
    return fetchNetworkItems().flatMap(Observable::fromIterable) //iterate over the remote items
        .flatMap(remoteItem -> localItems().flatMap(Observable::fromIterable) //iterate over the local items
            .filter(localItem -> !localItem.equals(remoteItem)) //decide which one need to update
            .flatMap(localItem -> updateRemoteItem(localItem).andThen(Observable.just(localItem))) //update then get the local item
            .defaultIfEmpty(remoteItem) //since no need to update it doesn't matter which item we return, we have access to the remote
        ).toList();
  }

with the help of fromIterable() and flatMap() and filtering operators you can achieve the nested loop logic in a functional way.

Edit: the following implementation, if you want to update all items in
  parallel, note that with zip() if one api call fail, that cause all
  other calls to fail.

  public Observable<List<String>> fetchNetworkItems() {
    return Observable.just(Arrays.asList("A", "B", "C")) //maybe retrofit
        .subscribeOn(io.reactivex.schedulers.Schedulers.io());//do work in background

  }

  public Observable<List<String>> localItems() {
    return Observable.just(Arrays.asList("A", "B", "C")) //maybe Room
        .subscribeOn(io.reactivex.schedulers.Schedulers.io());//do work in background
  }

  public Observable<String> updateRemoteItem(String localItem) { //may be retrofit
    return Observable.just(localItem)
        .subscribeOn(io.reactivex.schedulers.Schedulers.io());//do work in background
  }

  public List<Observable<String>> generateApisCall(List<String> remotesToBeUpdated) {
    return Observable.fromIterable(remotesToBeUpdated)
        .map(this::updateRemoteItem)
        .toList()
        .blockingGet();
  }

  public Single<List<String>> getItemsToUpdate() {
    return fetchNetworkItems()
        .doOnNext(strings -> {/*may be save the list to access later*/}) //side effects is not a good thing, but that's best what I thought for now.
        .flatMap(Observable::fromIterable) //iterate over the remote items
        .flatMap(remoteItem -> localItems().flatMap(
            Observable::fromIterable) //iterate over the local items
                .filter(localItem -> (localItem/*.id*/ == remoteItem/*.id*/) /* && remoteItem.old()*/)
            //decide which one need to update
        ).toList();
  }

  public void update() {
    getItemsToUpdate()
        .subscribeOn(io.reactivex.schedulers.Schedulers.io())
        .observeOn(io.reactivex.android.schedulers.AndroidSchedulers.mainThread())
        .subscribe((strings, throwable) -> {
          Observable.zip(generateApisCall(strings), objects -> "success").subscripe(string -> {}, throwable -> {});
        });
  }

this is more like a pseudo code, so try to test it, and the type Item here is replaced by type String.


Equestrian and philanthropist Georgina Bloomberg, along with Event Co-Chairs, cordially invite you to be part of Jump for Home Safe – a new and exciting equestrian event supporting Home Safe. The event takes place Saturday evening, February 5, at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center.
Home Safe is a vitally important non-profit organization helping victims of child abuse and domestic violence. Each year, Home Safe serves over 14,000 people in Palm Beach County and surrounding areas.
A fun warm-up to Jump for Home Safe is the Country Western Kick-off Party at the White Horse Tavern on Friday, January 7. The happy hour party, from 6-9 p.m., serves as the start of the official countdown to the February 5 event. Admission is only $20 and offers a great selection of hors d'oeuvres, plus energetic live music by Uproot Hootenanny. The kick-off party is an excellent opportunity to socialize and reunite with your equestrian friends and business colleagues from past WEF seasons.
Jump for Home Safe is limited to only 225 people, so secure your seats and sponsorship packages as soon as possible. For more information, visit www.JumpForHomeSafe.org or call 561-383-9800, ext.1309.


In this article I want to display the basics of starting your extremely personal company on the web operating from home. This article can also be utilized as a check list to assist you stay targeted and make it easier to set up and improve your company.
Now all that was left to do was to get people to my site and see what a great chance it was. I have to inform you this process took much lengthier than 3 hours. If you remember the ad boldly stated I could make $500 in the subsequent 3 hours. Nicely it took a litter lengthier than I predicted but now I'm ready, nothing can quit me now.
One national well being club chain has chosen to poor mouth, make enjoyable of, laugh at, a particular section of health club members. The humorous thing is that the national chain performing all the unfavorable talking/Free advertising site claims to operate a "judgment free" club. Of program, absolutely nothing could be much more hypocritical than claiming to be judgment totally free, and then judging somebody could it?
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There's nothing quite like watching a sloppy, beer-induced rendition of a classic tune. Some liquid courage is all that most men need to stand up in front of a crowd of strangers and belt out semi-faithful covers of their favorite songs. Musically speaking, this tends to be a dicey proposition, but for the purposes of a good Monday morning story, there's nothing better than the fine art of karaoke — especially when our top 10 karaoke songs for guys are thrown into the mix.
What makes a karaoke song suitable for men? It needs to be upbeat, it needs to be singable and most importantly, it shouldn't make you want to stick your head in the sand and disappear to the bathroom right afterwards. That is, unless you're going for a sloppy rendition of "Hit Me Baby One More Time" to make a special someone laugh.
Chosing the right song will also most likely depend on your current blood alcohol level. You won't want to attempt Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" stone cold sober, or stumble through Eminem's "8 Mile" when you've had one too many. So be careful, and take a moment to ask yourself: are you sober (or drunk, depending on the situation) enough for this particular song?
Just as important as judging your level of inebriation is to read the room. The best songs to chose for when your best buds are out on a fun and uncontrolled binger are not the same as when you're out on a work function and your boss is listening.
So, without further ado, here are some legendary tunes that will make any guy stand out at the next karaoke night. The spotlight is on you, so make the next three minutes the most epic and memorable out of the whole night.


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A Sense of Place II: Anniversary of Oak Ridge Mercury Declassification Anniversary Today
Environmental Racism: Warning Signs Belatedly Placed at Oak Ridge's East Fork Poplar Creek, Thirty (30) Years After Mercury Pollution Began from Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Plant
Unlined S-3 Ponds Contained What Tennessee Regulators Called "A Witches' Brew" of Poisons
Oak Ridge Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Plant Today (a/k/a "Y-12 National Security Complex), Looking Much Cleaner After Billions of Dollars of Environmental Cleanup
Radionuclides dumped in groundwater at Oak Ridge nuclear weapons plants
It was 28 years ago today (May 17, 1983) when the United States Department of Energy Oak Ridge Operations Office press detail called our Appalachian Observer weekly newspaper to ask me to send someone to Oak Ridge to pick up some documents we'd requested 182 days earlier under the Freedom of Information Act.
In response to our October 1982 FOIA request, the DOE declassified the fact that the Atomic Energy Commission, its predecessor, and Union Carbide Nuclear Division "lost" 4.2 million pounds of mercury into creeks, groundwater and workers' lungs and brains. We have since learned this was 10% of the mercury in Oak Ridge, used at the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Plant in the manufacture of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).
According to the National Archives, this information was even kept from President Jimmy Carter when it was stamped "business confidential: in 1977 by Union Carbide and the Department of Energy.
The declassification rocked the world of the Oak Ridge oligarchy of atomic blunderers. Who were they? Mendacious mediocrities and lugubrious authoritarian goobers – scientists, engineers and bureaucrats who exemplified the "banality of evill" that Hannah Arendt wrote about the Adolf Eichman trial for war crimes.
What can you say about a small group of secretive men, people who put their own children in harm's way with rampant pollution from mercury, radionuclides and other toxicants into creeks where children played, swam and caught fish and turtles?
At hearings chaired by then-Rep. Al Gore, Jr., DOE and Union Carbide, Gore swore in all the witnesses, at my request (and that of Anderson County Attorney David A. Stuart), in hopes of filing a sworn public nuisance suit. I was the only witness to call for criminal prosecution.
Some of the perpetrators briefly feared they would go to federal prison for their environmental crimes – no one ever spent a day in jail for their "crimes against nature" and against Oak Ridge employees.
Upon seeing the news coverage on the front pages of newspapers around the Nation (and all over the world), I was humbled, feeling love and gratitude for the many mentors who taught me well – people who taught me not to take no for an answer, taught me to be a "pest who never rests."
I recalled the words of the Bhagavad Gita, quoted by scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer when the first nuclear weapons was exploded in New Mexico: "I am become death, destroyer of worlds."
The sleepy, corrupt small town world of Oak Ridge, Tennessee would never be the same again. As Al Gore has written, in Earth in the Balance, America is not unlike a "dysfunctional family" in dealing with environmental problems (not talking about them). In Oak Ridge, fear of prison kept workers from speaking the truth about environmental crimes.
Today, Oak Ridge has a thriving economy, thanks to the ongoing environmental cleanup. DOE started its Environmental Safety and Health program in response to the declassification. Billions of dollars have been spent on cleanup at DOE sites in eleven states.
Like Gettysburg, Oak Ridge and other nuclear weapons plant sites have earned a place of honor for the sacrifices of the people who helped win our wars. Unlike Gettysburg and other battles, the dead, sick and maimed at nuclear weapons plant sites went without honor for years. That's changing.
My May 2000 Oak Ridger column is reprinted below.
Oak Ridger Guest Column: Persistence may pay off for sick workers
Story last updated at 3:34 p.m. on Monday, May 29, 2000
Guest Column: Persistence may pay off for sick workers
On this day in American history (May 17): In 1946, President Harry Truman seized control of America's railroads.
In 1954, the United States Supreme Court ordered American schools desegregated, in Brown v. Board of Education.
In 1973, the U.S. Senate began its Watergate investigation.
In 1983, in response to a November 1982 Appalachian Observer newspaper declassification request, the DOE Oak Ridge Operations office admitted it "lost," emitted and dumped 2.4 million pounds of mercury in Oak Ridge.
The DOE ORO telephone call came at about noon on our weekly deadline day, requesting I send someone to DOE HQ in Oak Ridge to pick up a FOIA response.
Some said that I was "crazy" and "out to destroy Oak Ridge" for seeking this information, and that no one would care. They were wrong. Others in Oak Ridge shared information confidentially, and encouraged me to seek the truth.
DOE now admits that there were 4.2 million pounds of mercury "lost."
Since 1983, DOE has spent some $4.5 billion on "cleanup" in Oak Ridge, with no end in sight. DOE and its allies euchred ATSDR into changing the cleanup standard for mercury, and serious problems remain as a result.
On May 17, 1983, few of us envisioned just how widespread DOE and contractor misconduct had been, or the vast numbers of people affected by it. While I predicted "a potential environmental health disaster" in AO editorials, and was churlishly chided by DOE for "alarmist language," the simple truth is that I did not then imagine just how big that DOE "environmental health disaster" might become.
Seventeen years later, our leaders need the steely determination of Harry Truman, Earl Warren, Thurgood Marshall and Sam Ervin.
Seventeen years later, that 26-year-old Appalachian Observer newspaper editor is a public interest lawyer representing whistleblowers and other DOE victims. He is still hated by DOE Oak Ridge managers. He is still seeking the truth. I am now honored to have my views shared by DOE's victims -- workers and residents from across the country, with an apology by the Secretary of Energy and bipartisan compensation legislation supported by editorial writers and Congressmen. This is a very special day, with meaningful legislation possible, if not this year, then next year.
The lesson of history: Never give up. Individual efforts can change history.
See, e.g., Jimmy Breslin's book on Watergate, "How the Good Guys Finally Won."
In tribute to all of the DOE/AEC victims whose sacrifice made victory in the Cold War possible, Congress should pass full and fair compensation legislation for all of DOE's Cold War radiation and toxicant victims, whether babies with genetic damage, Downwinders/residents, plant workers, Atomic Veterans or Gulf War veterans.
Our struggle is righteous and it can and should be won. The bill should not be limited only to plant workers, but should include family members and residents poisoned by DOE or suffering genetic abnormalities.
Rep. Zach Wamp pressed the need for compensating residents at the April 12 press conference held by Secretary Richardson, televised by C-SPAN: Secretary Richardson only frowned at these words.
In my humble opinion, if Congress has to kill a bad bill now to pass a good bill later, then so be it. DOE should not control compensation of its own victims, or pick and choose which victims it will compensate. This is a blatant conflict of interest.
Longtime Oak Ridge lawyer Gene Joyce made excellent suggestions on enacting compensation legislation in his column, and I salute him.
If hindsight is 20/20, it is only reasonable that DOE should not be allowed to rush things so as to make the nuclear weapons compensation bill a joke, covering only a few people, holding out cash over their heads and then dashing peoples' hopes and prayers in the details. What do you think?
For more information online, visit www.downwinders.org/victims.html
Edward A. Slavin Jr. [was] an attorney who represents Oak Ridge whistle-blowers and sick workers. He lives in St. Augustine, Fla., and can be reached by writing him at P.O. Box 3084, St. Augustine, FL 32085-3084 or via e-mail at easlavin@aol.com
All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger


Tuomas Holopainen's 3-track demo earned him his first record deal with his freshly founded band NIGHTWISH back in 1996. 20 years later – with over 2,000 shows played and more than 8 million records sold – NIGHTWISH are the biggest European symphonic metal band. Reason enough for Nuclear Blast to celebrate this huge anniversary by releasing a 2CD compilation titled »Decades«, on March 9th, 2018.
Today, the pre-order for »Decades« has started!


Frank O' Brien and the Cratloe team!
All those animals who have sadly crossed the Rainbow bridge, missing you still- Danny the Dog, Jamesie, the best dog in the world, Perplext, angel of Love, Ferral, Rebel, Kuthumi, Venus, Black cat, Smidgeon, Stripe, Ted, Arlene, Iggy, Skinny, St. Francis, Birdy, The Twins, Victor and those who never returned home, thank you for the joy you brought, the love and kindness you showed.. May you all enjoy the Heaven of the Fully Delighted Gods, in love and joy forever.
All those who remember the animals here with a prayer and a smile, we love you!


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Kansas' Day: KU basketball routs Kansas State, 70-56, at hostile Bramlage Coliseum
Matt Galloway themattgalloway
Jan 29, 2018 at 10:23 PM Jan 30, 2018 at 9:20 AM
MANHATTAN — The pregame atmosphere Monday night at Bramlage Coliseum was many things — raucous, venomous and flat-out loud to name a few.
In the eyes of at least one visiting Kansas basketball player, though, it wasn't intimidating.
KU guard Malik Newman soaked in the surroundings ahead of the Sunflower Showdown clash at rival Kansas State, observing everything from signs and chants targeting the non-collegiate career of departed freshman forward Billy Preston to jeers and mock free-throw gestures directed at 7-foot center Udoka Azubuike, who heard roar after roar following each practice miss from the stripe.
Intimidating? Perhaps to some. Not Newman, though, particularly the Azubuike hazing.
"That was by far one of the funniest pregame moments I've ever had," Newman later said with a smile. "Like, by far."
If the sellout crowd intimidated any of Newman's teammates after the ball was actually tipped, well, it certainly didn't show Monday.
The No. 7-ranked Jayhawks dominated their in-state rival Wildcats, 70-56, racing out to a huge lead and holding on through the Wildcats' only true push early in the second half. K-State, playing for a tie atop the Big 12 standings at the midpoint of conference play, trailed by double digits six minutes in, 13 by halftime and led for all of 22 seconds.
"I don't know that (the crowd) was ever out of it," KU coach Bill Self said, "but this was the best job that we've done since I've been over here that the crowd didn't become a big factor late."
The victory ensured a Sunflower Showdown season sweep for KU, which will retain at least a share of the conference lead when the week's action is finished. Svi Mykhailiuk had a game-high 20 points for the Jayhawks (18-4, 7-2 Big 12), while Devonte' Graham (16 points, 11 assists) and Newman (13 points, 10 rebounds) finished with double-doubles.
"We was just trying to stick together," Newman said of tuning out the crowd. "We knew it was just us in here and we had our backs against the wall. We put our heads down and just fought. We did that the whole 40 minutes and it turned out great for us."
There would be no "Sandstorm" by Darude over the loudspeakers or accompanying "(expletive) KU" chant from the student section, the former banned and the latter strongly discouraged by Wildcat athletic director Gene Taylor. And while K-State (16-6, 5-4) cut the Jayhawk advantage to five early in the second half, the Wildcats would get no closer.
Graham, who moved to 3-1 in his career at the "Octagon of Doom," said taking the crowd out early was a "big part" of the Jayhawks' game plan.
"It can get real crazy up in here," Graham said. "I think we did a good job coming out, jumping on 'em, getting that early lead and kind of keeping them not as crazy as they usually get."
Dean Wade had a team-high 20 points for the Wildcats, who entered the game in a four-way logjam for second place at one game behind the Jayhawks.
"I think we were just not in a rhythm the whole game," Wade said. "We did not get it inside enough. There are a lot of different things that did not happen that we could have done better."
Lights-out shooting lifted KU to its halftime lead, but the team's stroke betrayed it just as quickly to start the second period.
KU made 12 of its first 14 field-goal attempts and 6 of its first 7 shots from beyond the arc en route to a 31-16 advantage with 7:47 left in the first half. K-State cut into the deficit with an 11-1 rally, but the Jayhawks answered with an 8-0 finish to go into the half leading 40-27. A 13-0 advantage in transition points and a 70-percent shooting performance helped the Jayhawks overcome 12 first-half turnovers. The Wildcats, meanwhile, shot just 25.7 percent from the field in the opening period.
The second half, though, was a different story.
KU missed its first 11 field-goal attempts to start the period, allowing the Wildcats to claw back within five on an 8-0 rally. But K-State committed back-to-back turnovers after a KU timeout, and a Mykhailiuk 3-pointer with 12:53 to play represented the team's first bucket of the half and again built the Jayhawk lead to 10, where it hovered the rest of the way.
Mykhailiuk's fifth and final 3 gave KU a 14-point edge with just over three minutes to play, effectively icing the team's third straight victory at Bramlage.
"First half we shot it great but played bad offensively — I mean, we had 12 turnovers," Self said. "Second half we took care of the ball but shot it miserably. … Somehow we were able to keep the lead and win both halves, but it was certainly some great shooting the first half and very poor the second half."
It was another solid performance for KU on the road, where the Jayhawks have dropped only one contest this season, the Jan. 23 tilt at Oklahoma where Azubuike missed six free-throw attempts in the final four minutes en route to an 85-80 defeat.
It's too early for Self to declare the Jayhawks are a better team on the road, but he acknowledged his squad certainly seems more focused away from Allen Fieldhouse.
"Something about traveling, eating all your meals together, doing scout and having unlimited time to do it, that kind of stuff," Self said. "Even though it's only 30 hours together or whatever, I do think we've certainly seemed more focused on the road."
For Graham, playing the role of villain seemed to sharpen that focus.
"It's a tough place to play, especially when we come here," Graham. "It's always just good when you're playing your rival team to beat up on 'em."
No. 7 KANSAS 70, KANSAS ST. 56
KANSAS (18-4)
Azubuike 2-2 2-5 6, Vick 4-7 2-4 11, Graham 3-10 8-8 16, Mykhailiuk 8-18 1-2 22, Newman 3-7 6-7 13, Lightfoot 0-0 0-0 0, De Sousa 0-0 0-0 0, Cunliffe 1-2 0-0 2, Garrett 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 21-46 19-26 70.
KANSAS ST. (16-6)
Mawien 1-6 1-2 3, Sneed 4-12 1-2 10, Wade 8-18 1-2 20, Diarra 1-4 2-2 5, Brown 4-16 1-1 9, Stockard 1-1 0-0 2, Patrick 0-3 0-0 0, McGuirl 2-4 0-0 5, Wainright 0-1 2-2 2. Totals 21-65 8-11 56.
Halftime — Kansas 40-27. 3-Point Goals — Kansas 9-20 (Mykhailiuk 5-9, Graham 2-5, Vick 1-2, Newman 1-3, Cunliffe 0-1), Kansas St. 6-27 (Wade 3-6, Diarra 1-3, McGuirl 1-3, Sneed 1-7, Mawien 0-1, Patrick 0-3, Brown 0-4). Fouled Out — None. Rebounds — Kansas 34 (Newman 10), Kansas St. 29 (Wade 8). Assists — Kansas 17 (Graham 11), Kansas St. 12 (Brown 5). Total Fouls — Kansas 16, Kansas St. 20. A — 12,528 (12,528).


Group 1 Automotive Inc. has named a new director to its board seven days after another director resigned.
Houston-based Group 1 said today its board of directors appointed longtime banker Doyle Arnold, 66, as a Class I director, effective immediately. He will stand for election by Group 1's shareholders at the 2015 annual meeting on May 19.
"Doyle brings a wealth of large corporation and financing industry experience to our Board," Group 1 Chairman John Adams said in a statement. "This will be extremely valuable as we strive to continue to further grow our automotive retail business in the future."
Beryl Raff gave up her seat on the board Feb. 20, citing a potential conflict of interest related to her employer, Berkshire Hathaway, and its pending purchase of the Van Tuyl Group. Bloomberg estimates her age at 63.
Arnold has served as the CFO of Zions Bancorporation in Salt Lake City since 2005. Before that, he held "a variety of increasingly responsible positions" in banking, Group 1's statement said. Those include jobs with the U.S. Treasury Department, Wells Fargo & Co. and BankAmerica Corp., Group 1 said.
Arnold will serve on the audit and nominating/governance committees of Group 1's board.
Raff, who served on the Group 1 board of directors since 2007, is CEO of Helzberg Diamonds, of which Berkshire Hathaway is the parent company.
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway agreed to buy Van Tuyl Group, the largest privately owned U.S.-based auto dealership group, in October. The deal is expected to close soon, sources said.
Group 1 ranks No. 3 on the latest Automotive News list of the top 125 dealership groups based in the U.S., with retail sales of 155,866 new vehicles in 2013.