text:
Actually, the 1 Percent Are Still The Problem
The Atlantic trots out a familiar argument blaming the upper-middle class for income inequality. It's wrong.
By Jordan Weissmann
The lady with the yoga mat heading to Whole Foods is not destroying America.
TIMOTHY A. CLARY/Getty Images
One of the nice things about Occupy Wall Street was that it provided a tidy shorthand to describe the problem of income inequality at a moment when the world didn't really have one. Today, it's a cliche: the 99 percent vs. the 1 percent. But at the time, that brief phrase awakened many people to the idea that America's riches were distributed more unevenly than they thought, and that an increasingly outrageous share was being concentrated at the very top. The winners in this story were corporate executives, business owners, and highly paid professionals—especially bankers. The losers were just about everybody else. Like all shorthand, this tale was a bit oversimplified. But in the wake of a financial crisis brought on by the greed and recklessness of those 1 percenters, it felt apt.
Back then, the people who took issue with framing America's economy as a tug of war between the ultrarich and the rest of us generally fell into two camps. They were either inequality skeptics, who insisted unconvincingly that research showing the rise of the 1 percent was flawed, or inequality apologists, who argued that letting some people get exorbitantly wealthy was good for the economy, since it rewarded hustle and entrepreneurship (basically, Paul Ryan during his peak makers-vs.-takers period).
Lately, though, a few writers have tried to play down the idea of the 1 percent for a different reason: They say it's making us miss the real story of class and inequality in America. Last year, a Brookings Institution scholar named Richard Reeves published a book titled Dream Hoarders, in which he argues that America's upper-middle class is rigging the economy in its own favor. Our national focus on the very rich, he suggests, is blinding us to the reality of how well-off soccer moms and dads in places like Arlington, Virginia, are killing the American dream for everyone but their own kids. "Too often, the rhetoric of inequality points to a 'top 1 percent' problem, as if the 'bottom' 99 percent is in a similarly dire situation," he writes. "This obsession with the upper class allows the upper middle class to convince ourselves we are in the same boat as the rest of America; but it is not true."
Reeves' book received a brief burst of national attention after David Brooks used it as a launching point for a weird and widely pilloried New York Times column, in which he recounted a story about seeing his friend get flustered by the selection of Italian cold cuts at a sandwich shop. (He assumed this was because she only had a high school education, since you apparently need a philosophy degree to be familiar with soppressata.) But this week, the Atlantic published a long feature more or less rehashing most of Dream Hoarders' arguments. In "The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy," writer Matthew Stewart argues that aside from a small sliver of true plutocrats who can actually afford to buy an election or two, the top 10 percent of wealthiest Americans are all essentially part of the same highly educated and privileged group—the "meritocratic class"—which has "mastered the old trick of consolidating wealth and passing privilege along at the expense of other people's children."
Reeves and Stewart are both attempting to give us a new shorthand for who is ruining the economy. Instead of the 1 percent, they would like us to talk about the dream hoarders, or the 9.9 percent. But in the end, both authors fail by lumping together large groups of Americans who haven't really benefited equally from our winner-take-all economy. As a result, their stories about how the country has changed, and who has gained, just don't track.
Reeves and Stewart are both concerned about serious issues in the economy.1 We have a housing crisis thanks to the ridiculously restrictive zoning rules favored by many politically liberal, upper-middle-class homeowners. As a result, the poor and working class are being pushed to the urban fringes and less-resourced suburbs, away from jobs or decent transportation. By closing off their communities, upper-middle-class families are also segregating their public schools by both race and income. Then there's the college-admissions process, which at elite schools is an expensive circus that favors kids whose parents have money to send them to SAT prep or pay for a French tutor. America favors those with money for lots of reasons, and the upper-middle class is not blameless. They (and I, and maybe you) deserve to be harangued once in a while.
Reeves' and Stewart's arguments start to fall apart, however, when they try to explain why we should supposedly pay less attention to the 1 percent. In Dream Hoarders, for instance, Reeves argues that the biggest cleavage in American class is between the top 20 percent of highest-earning households and the bottom 80 percent. "Americans in the top fifth of the income distribution—broadly, households with incomes above the $112,000 mark—are separating from the rest," he writes. (As of this year, the figure is closer to $121,000.) But even a cursory glance at how America's income distribution has changed over the past three decades shows why it doesn't make sense to talk about the whole top 20 percent as a cohesive group or to give short shrift to the rise of the 1 percent. According to the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, the share of after-tax income going to households in the 81st to 90th percentile dropped a bit between 1980 and 2014. The share belonging to the 96th to 99th percentiles rose slightly. And the most dramatic change, by far, has been the rise of the 1 percent.
Jordan Weissmann / Slate
The most recent pre-tax income data from Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman tell a similar story. The upper half of the upper-middle class fares slightly better, but the great change is the rise of the 1 percent. It's hard to miss who is actually pulling away in this graph.
World Inequality Database
Reeves tries to scoot around these realities in a few ways. He argues that "class is not just about money" and that we need to take into account factors like education, health, parenting styles, marriage, and security—which is all well and good, except those things tend to correlate pretty strongly with having cash. He notes, weakly, that while the top 1 percent increased their total incomes by $1.4 trillion between 1979 and 2013, the next 19 percent of Americans increased theirs by 2.7 trillion. (There are, of course, many, many, many more people in the second group than the first.) Finally, he more or less tells us that 1-percenters are figments of our collective imaginations. "There is another reason why the top 1 percent should not be our primary focus. Far from being some kind of permafrost on top of the income distribution, the top 1 percent is a changeable group. The 'upper class' actually consists of an annually revolving cast of families from the rest of the top quintile, according to work by Mark Robert Rank of Washington University in St. Louis," he writes. "In other words, the top 1 percent is not 'them'—it's us, having a good year."
In some ways, Reeves is just making an intuitive point here: People's incomes change. A young i-banker pulling down low six figures today will be tomorrow's managing director with a house in the Hamptons. Law-firm associates become partners, then burn out and go to work for nonprofits. A writer might publish a hit novel, then never do it again. People move up the income ladder. They move down it too.
But Rank's research—which I've written about a few times in the past—also shows that some people have much more staying power at the top than others. Reeves cites the finding that 20 percent of American adults will enjoy a household income of $250,000 or more during at least one year of their life. But he fails to mention that exactly 1 percent of adults earn that much for at least 10 consecutive years during their liftetime. Rank's findings do suggest the line between the 1 percent and everyone else is a bit thinner than Occupy protesters may have led the world to believe. But they also show how the rich really are different from you and me: They make more money, year after year after year.
Again, Reeves ultimately wants his readers to pay less attention to income concentration at the very top for a well-meaning reason: He's worried that we're overlooking behavior of the upper-middle class that is making it harder for children of poorer families to join them. But even there, the data don't firmly support his concerns. While there's still lots of debate about the subject, research led by Stanford's Raj Chetty has shown that relative income mobility—essentially, the likelihood that a child will end up higher on the income ladder than her parents—has been essentially flat for decades. What irrefutably has been changing isn't people's ability to move up and down the ladder, but rather the space between the rungs. And that story has much more to do with the rise of the 1 percent than dream hoarding by a poorly defined upper-middle class.
In his Atlantic article, Stewart tries to define his "new aristocracy" using wealth (what people own) rather than income (what they earn). The result makes even less sense than Reeves' efforts.
By Stewart's account, there are really three classes in America. First, there's the 0.1 percent, the "big winners in the growing concentration of wealth" who have "the kind of money that can buy elections." Then there's the bottom 90 percent, who are busy getting screwed by the system. Finally, there are the winners of American meritocracy:
In between the top 0.1 percent and the bottom 90 percent is a group that has been doing just fine. It has held on to its share of a growing pie decade after decade. And as a group, it owns substantially more wealth than do the other two combined. In the tale of three classes (see Figure 1), it is represented by the gold line floating high and steady while the other two duke it out. You'll find the new aristocracy there. We are the 9.9 percent.
And here's the graph:
This gold line hovering above the others may look reasonably convincing, but there are problems. First, the 9.9 percent aren't really who Stewart claims them to be. He describes the cohort (based on what, I don't know) as "a well-behaved, flannel-suited crowd of lawyers, doctors, dentists, mid-level investment bankers, M.B.A.s with opaque job titles, and assorted other professionals—the kind of people you might invite to dinner." He neglects to mention that many of them are actually just retirees. According to Saez and Zucman, whose data Stewart uses, more than 40 percent of all wealth belonging to Americans between and 90th and 99th percentiles is held by the the elderly, meaning age 65 or older. This is what makes wealth data a tricky way to measure class below the very tiptop of the distribution. Stewart's "9.9 percent" includes a lot of working professionals and business owners with gilded academic résumés, sure. But it also probably encompasses a lot of 75-year-old former accountants and nurses and guys with construction businesses who made a comfortable living decades ago, bought a house, and paid down the mortgage while saving for retirement. There's no real way to tell a consistent story about who these people are, which makes it a bit hard to blame them for the death of opportunity in this country.
It isn't even accurate to say that the 9.9 percent has collectively held on to its share of America's wealth. Here's what happens when you break the group down into smaller chunks:
It turns out that this "new aristocracy" isn't a coherent group at all, even if you just look at trends in wealth. Instead, it's really three groups: one whose share of the pie is shrinking, one whose share is holding steady, and one whose share is growing. Stewart is hiding those differences by blending winners in the post-Reagan economy with some of the losers.
In an age when the likes of Jeff Bezos, the Mercers, and Sheldon Adelson are accumulating dynastic fortunes, it's also just a bit precious to declare that the new "aristocracy" is made up of people who pay too much for yoga classes and buy their groceries at Whole Foods. The average net worth among adults in the 95th to 99th percentile is about $1.7 million. Among the 0.1 percent, it's about $60 million. Who, exactly, are the aristocrats again?
It doesn't help matters that while Stewart claims to be writing an article about, roughly, the top 10 percent of Americans, his article is chock-full of cultural signifiers and complaints that largely apply to people at the much richer end of that range. The corporate lawyers and midlevel investment bankers he references? They're frequently 1 percenters, as measured by income. He decries how Republicans pared back the estate tax last year, a move that only helped multimillionaires. He focuses relentlessly on the college-admissions gauntlet typical of the top 30 or so most selective institutions. He sheds tears over the fact that Harvard and Princeton admit more than one-quarter of their students from private schools, as if 90th percentilers are the ones sending their children to Andover and Choate. It's almost as if Stewart has no idea who he's actually writing about when he needles the "9.9 percent"—which isn't shocking, since his stats don't really tell him.
The broader problem with Stewart's article isn't his sloppy data analysis, his social reference points, or his awkward use of the phrase aristocracy, however. Rather, it's how he collapses class distinctions that matter a great deal to people for the sake of a catchy headline. To put it bluntly, a doctor or lawyer who makes $400,000 is a whole hell of a lot richer than a doctor or lawyer who makes $120,000. Those two people are not living the same life, and they're not necessarily benefiting from the same economic forces.
Stewart and Reeves are right to point out that the American upper class is bigger than just the top 1 percent. There are, indeed, many layers of economic privilege in this country. But they're doing it in a way that essentially asks us to forget a lot of what we've learned about how income and wealth are really concentrating in this country. The 1 percent vs. the 99 percent may not be a perfect shorthand for what ails the economy, but it's a whole lot more useful than what they've offered up.
1 Really Reeves, since I can't find a single original idea in Stewart's piece.
Economy Income Inequality Journalism
Jordan Weissmann is Slate's senior business and economics correspondent.


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There were numerous ways of interpreting the orientation of space, and different navigators interpreted it differently based on their needs at the time, but most people generally thought of it in terms of north and south, like looking at a globe. The Unknown Region consisted of just over a 3rd of the stars in the galaxy, and very few of them had been substantially charted, but the region was still subject to the North/South rule. The lead that brought the intrepid group of searchers to the vast emptiness of the Unknown Region on that particular and fateful occasion had been reported by a smuggler passing through the North of the region. And so it was in the North that the Sun Flare, a hybrid corvette/gunboat of mandalorian design and special commission slammed out of hyperspace, surrounded by seemingly infinite stars, and began to drift ever so slowly "west".
With that she snapped the intercom off and gave Mission a pleased nod. "I definitely like this arrangement."
Pax quickly checks the time on his datapad. It was almost 1800 Coruscant Universal Time. This should be about the right time this cycle.
"Mission, I'm going to take a break for few minutes, if nobody minds, OK? Master, Commander, permission to exit the cockpit?"
Pax waits for a nod, and then he slips out to a small sleeping quarters, and sits cross legged on the floor closing his eyes. He reaches out, feeling the universe around him, a shallow touch of the force as a whole, living entity, connected to every other living being. He can vaguely sense how everything is connected to everything else, but some bonds are stronger than others.
Nomi Are you out there? Can you hear me yet? It's your brother. I know you know I'm here. I can sense you sensing me. We're getting closer, I know it. Just let me know you're ok.
Pax senses the bond he has in the force to his sister, and he can see she is alive, awake, and that she knows he is as well. If only he could say that he knew the same for his brother, or his parents.
After about 20 minutes, Pax comes back to the cockpit and quietly sits down.
Riding in the Sun Flare was always much more of an experience than some other trips. Normally, when Mission traveled alone she spent her time reading with her heels up on the console or journaling with her calligraphy supplies - Maybe the odd sketch every once in awhile. It was a very benign experience by contrast. Traveling on the Sun Flare was different mainly because of the company that was kept on it. Castio - the self appointed Commander but not Master of the ship - was absolutely full of stories from her extremely eventful life. Most of them had to do with piloting and the absurd things she'd seen in the service of her clan across the galaxy, but there were others as well. She was a gifted storyteller.
As so MIssion had sat with her feet still on the tactical console and listened, chiming in herself once in awhile, and deferring to Pax when the occasion suited as well. The three of them were very well traveled individuals, and these trips gave them a chance to swap notes and stories. Pax eventually quipped his way out of the room just as they were entering normal space, however, and Mission grinned at his request, poking her tongue out through her teeth. The period of his absence was spent by both Mission and Castio poring over the navi-computer as it reconstructed their maps.
The practice was as old as spacing itself, and most of the individual bits of data that made up their current star-chart were hard won prizes - some of them not willingly given. The cumulative result of the pieces was a map of the region more thorough than any that existed in mainstream cartography databases. It highlighted smuggler trade routes, hidden space stations, danger zones such as stellar calamities and sections of space or planets marked WDD- Where Dragons Dwell. The chart was kept in pieces so that it couldn't be easily seized by unfriendly individuals who might use it against the owners. The star-chart finished compiling in good time though, and Mission was just plugging Huilo's coordinate data in to be reconciled against it when Pax returned. Mission glanced up at him curiously.
His entrance having caught Mission's attention, Pax smiles and nods.
"Nothing new, but no bad news either."
Before the change in itinerary due to Mission's rally signal on Ilum, the Koht-clan group on the Sand Dragon had been running more or less on Ansion-time for the last few days. Evander had been up and moving for 20 hours by the time they'd scrapped the old plan and reached Ilum; although thankfully Kellan had not been awake quite so long.
There was nothing remotely abnormal or uncomfortable about any of that. Nevertheless, Evander had sensibly banished himself and his son to one of the Sun Flare's cabins shortly after they reached hyperspace. He'd turned off the lights, hummed a melody to the small boy who was already nodding off against his shoulder, and then the two fair-haired Mando'ade had fallen deep into sleep for a few hours.
Shortly before 18:00 Coruscant-Standard, Evander woke up from the telltale jolt-and-catch of the ship reentering normal space. Quietly moving around the cabin, the father briefly exercised, and then utilized the assorted supplies his youngest brother had tossed into a duffel bag for him. Evander took a shower, shaved, dressed in the spare set of clothes, and ate an apple. By 18:30CS, the man was back in his armor and accessing his comm-relay . He felt disconcerted to note that there hadn't been contact from the Tuur Tracyn in several days; when in most circumstances he would have expected to receive a dump of any messages from the week… usually yesterday. But that wasn't especially uncommon. They'd had a change in mission recently, from what he'd gathered.
After recording the brief message and sending it, along with a few files, to the secure drop he shared with his wife, Evander left a second quick message on his sleeping son's comm, and then wandered out, refreshed and bright-eyed within his armor, to see what everyone else was getting up to. He found Castio, Mission, and Pax in the cockpit.
"Good evening, ladies and Jetii! Castio, thanks for the wakeup call. Pax, did you do the thing yet? How is she?"
Pax sighs. It rankles Pax that Evander so brazenly chirps in about his private attempt to commune with his sister. He's a very private person, and this feels as though his personal space is invaded, at least mission knew to be gentle about it. But when he made is as much of a habit as he has, people were bound to wonder what he's doing, and he wouldn't dare stop, lest Nomi think he's dead or something.
"She's still alive out there ... Somewhere. Beyond that, I don't know."
Evander's nostrils flared under his second skin at Pax's sigh, as he realized he'd hit a nerve again. The slightly younger man took off his helmet and stowed it on the rack just outside the cockpit door, and put his earpiece in instead so that everyone present could see him.
"She's alive. She's strong. The others are, too."
Once again, Evander found himself not envying all the Force users in his life. The idea of losing everyone was bad enough, but he couldn't imagine the rawness of being able to just barely tell they were alive for years on end.
"You know they're fighting this thing just as hard on their end. We're gonna get them back."
The revelation of consciousness didn't great Talmai with a friendly embrace after her reset nap. Perhaps she'd neglected her hydration; maybe it was because she'd slept in full armor apart from her helmet, while she usually stripped the beskar plates off her armorweave suit down to the waist for sleep; it could have also just been that she'd been in a very warm and humid place for the past few days and had suddenly flash-frozen her senses on Ilum. Whatever the case, Talmai woke up with a headache, and she didn't like it. She groaned quietly in the privacy of her little sleeping pod and grabbed her helmet, pressing its cool forehead against her own hoping for some relief. It was marginal. glancing down onto the lower tiers of the four-tiered sleep pod, Talmai noticed that Evander was gone, while Kellan remained a sleep on the lowest tier. That was the problem, Talmai realized - she'd overslept! She was always the first out of bed.
The mandalorian woman pivoted carefully out of her bunk and lit quietly on the deck of the ship, doing her best not to wake her nephew's nephew. Even so, she knelt down to kiss his forehead before slipping out of the room, still pinching the antihelix of her ear to dull the throbbing headache. She habitually retraced several of the steps Evander had a few minutes earlier, deigning to take a cold shower in hopes of further alleviating her headache - it helped a bit. Finally settled back into her armor and having downed a bottle of water from the coldie, Talmai slapped on her helmet and found her way to the greatest source of sound and activity just in time to catch the gist of Pax and Evander's exchange rolling down the hall. She arrived at the close of Evander's comment and wedged herself into the door-frame with him. Her hands flickered quickly at him.
"We're probably going to be picking them all up today anyway." She commented, her voice issuing forth in clear notes of cal confidence from the external speaker of her helmet.


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"Having been a liability adjuster for many years, I believe the SCLA courses should be required material for anyone starting a career in this field. This program is great for laying a solid casualty insurance foundation for a new adjuster."
"The courses and programs are a great learning tool. The material is presented in a way that is easy to understand and the tests do a great job of helping you dig a little deeper into the material. It has been a fun way to continue my education in insurance and the information is relevant to my day to day job."


Do Politics Even Matter Today?
This week, I bought my wife a present for her birthday: a glass-blowing class. The teacher was, predictably, an eclectically artistic type in Los Angeles, and a down-the-line liberal. As with most conversations these days, the talk turned to President Trump. She quickly let me know her opinion of him (it wasn't high); she then turned to bashing Vice President Mike Pence and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Not once did she raise a policy consideration. Virtually every statement revolved around her personal characterization of political actors — as good people, bad people or indifferent.
That's particularly true with Donald Trump. In today's political environment, your feelings about Trump actually have an impact on how people feel about you.
Among many conservatives, your support for Trump marks you as a hard-nosed patriot; you're willing to go any distance to defeat the left. If you're among liberals and moderates, your support for Trump marks you as a scurrilous ne'er-do-well who's beneath contempt; you're willing to greenlight any vile behavior so long as you get what you want.
But in purple districts, it does. If you have friends on the other side of the aisle, it's uncomfortable to defend Trump's excesses and idiocies.
All of which means that if President Trump truly cares about retaining Congress, he has to stop thinking about his base and start thinking about those in the competitive districts. How can he make their lives easier? That's not about policy. At the very least, it's about generating fewer headlines.
Trump's base is rock-solid, and it's not going anywhere. But he needs more than his base to win in 2018 and 2020.


text:
module ActionView
  module Helpers
    class FormBuilder
      def field_set(legend = nil, options = nil, &block)
        @template.field_set(legend, options, &block)
      end
    end

    module FormHelper
      def cute_admin_form_for(record_or_name_or_array, *args, &proc)
        options = args.extract_options!
        if options[:html].nil? then
         options[:html] = { :class => "cmxform" }
        else
         options[:html][:class] = (options[:html][:class].nil?) ? "cmxform" : "cmxform #{options[:html][:class]}"
        end
        options[:builder] ||= CuteAdminFormBuilder
        args << options
        form_for(record_or_name_or_array, *args, &proc)
      end

      def field_set(legend = nil, options = nil, &block)
        content = capture(&block)
        concat(tag(:fieldset, options, true))
        concat(content_tag(:legend, legend)) unless legend.blank?
        concat(content_tag(:ul, content))
        concat("</fieldset>")
      end
    end
  end
end

class CuteAdminFormBuilder < ActionView::Helpers::FormBuilder
  helpers = field_helpers +
            %w{date_select datetime_select time_select} +
            %w{collection_select select country_select time_zone_select} -
            %w{hidden_field label fields_for} # Don't decorate these

  helpers.each do |name|
    define_method(name) do |field, *args|
      options = args.extract_options!
      label = label(field, options[:label], :class => options[:label_class])
      errors = error_message_on(field)
      @template.content_tag(:li, label + " " + super + " " + errors)
    end
  end

end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
, pen name of , was a Japanese writer, playwright, musician, photographer, and inventor. He is best known for his 1962 novel The Woman in the Dunes that was made into an award-winning film by Hiroshi Teshigahara in 1964. Abe has often been compared to Franz Kafka for his modernist sensibilities and his surreal, often nightmarish explorations of individuals in contemporary society.

Biography
Abe was born on March 7, 1924 in Kita, Tokyo, Japan and grew up in Mukden (now Shenyang) in Manchuria. Abe's family was in Tokyo at the time due to his father's year of medical research in Tokyo. His mother had been raised in Hokkaido, while he experienced childhood in Manchuria. This triplicate assignment of origin was influential to Abe, who told Nancy Shields in a 1978 interview, "I am essentially a man without a hometown. This may be what lies behind the 'hometown phobia' that runs in the depth of my feelings. All things that are valued for their stability offend me." As a child, Abe was interested in insect-collecting, mathematics, and reading. His favorite authors were Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, Franz Kafka, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Edgar Allan Poe.

Abe returned to Tokyo briefly in April 1940 to study at Seijo High School, but a lung condition forced his return to Mukden, where he read Jaspers, Heidegger, Dostoyevsky, and Edmund Husserl. Abe began to study medicine at Tokyo Imperial University in 1943, partially out of respect for his father, but also because "[t]hose students who specialized in medicine were exempted from becoming soldiers. My friends who chose the humanities were killed in the war." He returned to Manchuria around the end of World War II. Specifically, Abe left the Tokyo University Medical School in October 1944, returning to his father's clinic in Mukden. That winter, his father died of eruptive typhus. Returning to Tokyo with his father's ashes, Abe reentered the medical school. Abe started writing novellas and short stories during his last year in university. He graduated in 1948 with a medical degree, joking once that he was allowed to graduate only on the condition that he would not practice.

In 1945 Abe married Machi Yamada, an artist and stage director, and the couple saw successes within their fields in similar time frames. Initially, they lived in an old barracks within a bombed-out area of the city center. Abe sold pickles and charcoal on the street to pay their bills. The couple joined a number of artistic study groups, such as Yoru no Kai (Group of the Night or The Night Society) and Nihon Bungaku Gakko (Japanese Literary School). Their daughter, Abe Neri, was born in 1954.

As the postwar period progressed, Abe's stance as an intellectual pacifist led to his joining the Japanese Communist Party, with which he worked to organize laborers in poor parts of Tokyo. Soon after receiving the Akutagawa Prize in 1951, Abe began to feel the constraints of the Communist Party's rules and regulations alongside doubts about what meaningful artistic works could be created in the genre of "socialist realism." By 1956, Abe began writing in solidarity with the Polish workers who were protesting against their Communist government, drawing the Communist Party's ire. The criticism reaffirmed his stance: "The Communist Party put pressure on me to change the content of the article and apologize. But I refused. I said I would never change my opinion on the matter. This was my first break with the Party." The next year, Abe traveled to Eastern Europe for the 20th Convention of the Soviet Communist Party. He saw little of interest there, but the arts gave him some solace. He visited Kafka's house in Prague, read Rilke and Karel Čapek, reflected on his idol Lu Xun, and was moved by a Mayakovsky play in Brno.

The Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 disgusted Abe. He attempted to leave the Communist Party, but resignations from the party were not accepted at the time. In 1960, he participated in the Anpo Protests against revision of the US-Japan Security Treaty as part of the pan-ideological Young Japan Society. He later wrote a play about the protests, The Day the Stones Speak, which was staged several times in Japan and China in 1960 and 1961. In the summer of 1961, Abe joined a group of other authors in criticizing the cultural policies of the Communist Party. He was forcibly expelled from the party the following year. His political activity came to an end in 1967 in the form of a statement published by himself, Yukio Mishima, Yasunari Kawabata, and Jun Ishikawa, protesting the treatment of writers, artists, and intellectuals in Communist China. According to translator John Nathan, this statement led to the falling-out between Abe and fellow writer Kenzaburō Ōe.

His experiences in Manchuria were also deeply influential on his writing, imprinting terrors and fever dreams that became surrealist hallmarks of his works. In his recollections of Mukden, these markers are evident: "The fact is, it may not have been trash in the center of the marsh at all; it may have been crows. I do have a memory of thousands of crows flying up from the swamp at dusk, as if the surface of the swamp were being lifted up into the air." The trash of the marsh was a truth of life, as were the crows, yet Abe's recollections of them tie them distinctively. Further experiences with the swamp centered around its use as a staking ground for condemned criminals with "[their] heads—now food for crows—appearing suddenly out of the darkness and disappearing again, terrified and attracted to us." These ideas are present in much of Abe's work.

Career
Abe was first published as a poet in 1947 with Mumei-shishū ("Poems of an unknown poet"), which he paid for himself, and as a novelist the following year with Owarishi michi no shirube ni ("The Road Sign at the End of the Street"), which established his reputation. When he received the Akutagawa Prize in 1951, his ability to continue publishing was confirmed. Though he did much work as an avant-garde novelist and playwright, it was not until the publication of The Woman in the Dunes in 1962 that Abe won widespread international acclaim.

In the 1960s, he collaborated with Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara on the film adaptations of The Pitfall, Woman in the Dunes, The Face of Another, and The Man Without a Map. Woman in the Dunes received widespread critical acclaim and was released only four months after Abe was expelled from the Japanese Communist Party.

In 1971, he founded the Abe Studio, an acting studio in Tokyo. Until the end of the decade, he trained performers and directed plays. The decision to found the studio came two years after he first directed his own work in 1969, a production of The Man Who Turned Into A Stick. The production's sets were designed by Abe's wife, and Hisashi Igawa starred. Abe had become dissatisfied with ability of the theatre to materialize the abstract, reducing it to a passive medium. Until 1979, he wrote, directed, and produced 14 plays at the Abe Studio. He also published two novels, Box Man (1973) and Secret Rendezvous (1977), alongside a series of essays, musical scores, and photographic exhibits. The Seibu Theater, an avant-garde theater in the new department store Parco, was allegedly established in 1973 specifically for Abe, though many other artists were given the chance to use it. The Abe Studio production of The Glasses of Love Are Rose Colored (1973) opened there. Later, the entirety of the Seibu Museum was used to present one of Abe's photographic works, An Exhibition of Images: I.

The Abe Studio provided a foil for much of the contemporary scene in Japanese theater, contrasting with the Haiyuza's conventional productions, opting to focus on dramatic, as opposed to physical, expression. It was a safe space for young performers, whom Abe would often recruit from the Toho Gakuen College in Chofu City, on the outskirts of Tokyo, where he taught. The average age of the performers in the studio was about 27 throughout the decade, as members left and fresh faces were brought in. Abe "deftly" handled issues arising from difference in stage experience.

In 1977 Abe was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Awards
Among the honors Abe received were the Akutagawa Prize in 1951 for The Crime of S. Karuma, the Yomiuri Prize in 1962 for The Woman in the Dunes, and the Tanizaki Prize in 1967 for the play Friends. Kenzaburō Ōe credited Abe and other modern Japanese authors for "[creating] the way to the Nobel Prize", which he himself won. Abe was mentioned multiple times as a possible recipient, but his early death precluded that possibility.

Bibliography

Novels

Collected short stories

Plays

Essays

Poetry

References

External links

Abe Kobo at ibiblio.org

Kōbō Abe's grave

Japanese fantasy writers
Japanese science fiction writers
Japanese male short story writers
Writers from Tokyo
1924 births
1993 deaths
University of Tokyo alumni
Magic realism writers
Akutagawa Prize winners
Yomiuri Prize winners
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Postmodern writers
20th-century Japanese novelists
20th-century Japanese dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Japanese short story writers
20th-century Japanese male writers
20th-century pseudonymous writers

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Live from Scotland Volume 1 was a 1974 album by The Corries recorded at the Glasgow City Halls.

Line-Up
Roy Williamson
Ronnie Browne

Tracks
Side One:
1. Fallaldy, R.G. Browne/trad. Arranged The Corries. Pub. The Corries (music) Ltd. R. Williamson Flute, R. Browne Guitar.
2. Mingulay Boat Song, Words Sir Hugh S. Roberton. Arranged The Corries. Pub. Roberton. R. Williamson Mandoline, R. Browne Mandoline.
3. Lads Among The Heather, Trad. From the Singing of Jock Anderson. Arranged The Corries. Pub. The Corries (music) Ltd. R. Williamson Mandoline, R. Browne Mandoline.
4. A Scottish Holiday, Parody of words by J.W. Hill. Pub. The Corries (music) ltd. Music: Road to the Isles by kind permission of M. Kennedy Fraser Est. Pub. Boosey & Hawkes Ltd. R. Williamson Guitar, R. Browne Guitar.
5. Hugh The Graeme, Trad. Arranged The Corries. Pub. The Corries (music) Ltd. R. Williamson Guitar, R. Browne Guitar.
6. Maggie Lauder, Trad. Arranged The Corries. Pub. The Corries (music) Ltd. R. Williamson Banduria, R. Browne Guitar.
Side Two:
1. The Roses of Prince Charlie, R.G. Browne. Arranged The Corries. Pub. The Corries (music) Ltd. R. Williamson Guitar, R. Browne Guitar.
2. Dark Lochnagar, Lord Byron. Arranged The Corries. Pub. The Corries (music) Ltd. R. Williamson Guitar, R. Browne Guitar.
3. Loch Tay Boat Song, Words: McLeod and Boulton. Arranged The Corries. Pub. J.B. Cramer. R. Williamson Combolin R. Browne Combolin.
4. The M.hm Song, Trad. From the Singing of Jock Anderson. Arranged The Corries. Pub. The Corries (music) Ltd. R. Williamson Mandoline, R. Browne Mandoline.
5. Flower of Scotland, R.M.B. Williamson. Arranged The Corries. Pub. The Corries (music) Ltd. R. Williamson Guitar, R. Browne Guitar.

Sleeve notes
The Corries.

Well known in many lands through their fine performances and records, they have adopted a philosophy to their music which, apart from technique, relies to a large extent on instinct. The Celtic 'More', or instinct, one link with the ancient past which can guide the treatment of an old song today. Their interpretations are creative in the broadest sense, and sincere, in that they compose what they feel is 'naturally' right. They take their music seriously, but are not afraid to have a good laugh with their audience. People are important to them and if they have brought an audience down with a sad ballad, will cheer them up again with something else. This after all is what music is about; expression, entertainment, stories told, battles recalled, bizarre, situations recounted and above all the enjoyment of doing it.

References

External links
The Corries Official Website

The Corries albums
1974 albums


Any drive that is not the primary boot drive of that system is referred to as a secondary drive.
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text:
Financial Training Mandate
Fishers Public Library, 5 Municipal Dr, Fishers, IN 46038
Government Employee Fee/Nonmember – $85.00
Member Fee – $75.00
SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT DISTRICTS ARE REQUIRED TO FOLLOW A NEW LAW GOING INTO EFFECT JUNE 30, 2016.
In 2015, the Indiana General Assembly passed language that requires each political subdivision to adopt and follow a set of internal control standards as defined by the State Board of Accounts (SBOA) (IC 5-11-1-27). As a result, every Solid Waste Management District in the State of Indiana will be required as of June 30, 2016, to:
Develop a written plan for their own internal control standards
Have that plan adopted by their Board of Directors
Certify in writing that the standards have been adopted and that all district personnel whose official duties include handling funds have received appropriate training that covers the adopted internal controls
HOW DO I COMPLY?
The statute specifies five main components of internal control standards, and the SBOA has identified 17 principles that must exist within each policy. Each District must write a plan specific to their own operations that includes each of these points and the Board of Directors must approve and adopt it.
The fiscal officer of a political subdivision must certify in writing that that minimum internal control standards have been adopted, and that any personnel whose official duties include handling funds has been trained.
WHEN DOES IT TAKE EFFECT?
Districts' Boards of Directors must adopt the policy and train personnel "after June 30, 2016." June 30 is not a hard deadline, however. AISWMD has been given clarification by SBOA that they will not take audit exception to the adoption of standards in July or August of 2016.
AISWMD CAN HELP.
AISWMD is hosting a training to explain exactly what is expected of you and provide a guideline for the final plan that you can present to your board for adoption. The first two hours of the training will review every component and principle that is required to be included, and the last hour will include a workshop where you can begin to develop your own plan and get feedback. This training is open to anyone.
Fishers Public Library
AISWMD Member Districts and personnel: $75
Non-Member Districts and members of the public: $85

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The Sydney Health Literacy Lab is a world-leading health literacy research group based at the University of Sydney, School of Public Health, and led by Professor Kirsten McCaffery.
Our goal is to support empowered patients and consumers to make better health decisions and achieve better health outcomes for all.
Working in collaboration with the Western Sydney Local Health District Health Literacy Hub and other partners, we develop and test interventions and practical solutions to improve health literacy in a range of community and health settings.


The MA will help further career opportunities within commercial design practice.. Graduates will improve their chance of employment in the games industry with their demonstrated enhanced specialism and understanding developed on the course. Graduates will also find themselves strongly placed to develop their own practices and consultancies.
Time will tell us if we continue to succeed, but without AAS and its wonderful staff I certainly would not be where I am today. For that I will be forever thankful".


This PDF 1.2 document has been generated by CorelDRAW Version 9.397 / Corel PDF Engine Version 9.397, and has been sent on pdf-archive.com on 25/04/2013 at 08:28, from IP address 210.184.x.x. The current document download page has been viewed 314 times.
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Ensure new business, maintenance and payments teams comply with expanded regulatory requirements.
Update existing work instructions to ensure existing teams comply with additional regulatory requirements.
Develop work instructions for a new team established to provide support for the additional regulatory requirements.


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The iPhone 5 was announced on Wednesday as we all knew it would be. We are ordering Mike's on Friday as his early b-day present. He's been working with a busted @$$ Droid, complete with cracked screen and no case for 2 years now, so he deserves it. But I am SO jealous.
I just got the iPhone 4s back last October, so I am nowhere near due for an upgrade. Getting the iPhone 5 would cost me nearly $700 and that's just not in my cards.
I have been in serious pout mode.
What do you guys think? Are you getting it? I have to wait until at least August, and by then the iPhone 6 will be half way here. It is impossible to keep up with technology!
I have the 4S and am not due to upgrade til Jan; my boyfriend just ordered the 5 (he has the regular 4 now). Honestly, I'm not jealous at all, and here's why: The only thing that he's gonna have with the 5 that I don't have on my 4S is the "pretty factor". The new phone is going to LOOK NICE. And it's going to have a slightly bigger screen. But? He's going to have a case on it (for protection). So the beauty factor goes away. The biggest things that are good about the iPhone 5 is all in the operating system (iOS), and guess what? That gets pushed to us with the 4S's also! :)So really, girl, it's not so bad. Our phone rocks. Seriously.Plus, a little secret: I work for one of the two major wireless telecommunications companies, in IT, in headquarters. So I have some insider info. we're not really missing out. I promise.
I think I'm going to get it. Sprint, my carrier, has iPhones now and my contract with them is up for renewal at the end of October. They're pretty good about offering fatty discounts when you renew so I'm hoping they'll hook a sistah up. This will be my first iPhone. I've been waiting SO LONG so my Sprint loyalty better effing pay off!
I got my 4s in Nov and am dying for the 5. booo!
its crazy how much they are!!


A welterweight rematch between UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz will headline UFC 202 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Aug. 20.
The UFC announced the bout on Saturday night. The 170-pound rematch was originally scheduled to headline UFC 200 on July 9, but the UFC pulled McGregor off the card in April when he refused to fly to Las Vegas to appear in a commercial shoot and news conference.
In mid-May, McGregor (19-3) met with UFC president Dana White and CEO Lorenzo Fertitta in Los Angeles to discuss rebooking the fight at UFC 202. Days after that meeting, however, the bout hit another bump when Diaz, who submitted McGregor at UFC 196 in March, asked to renegotiate financial terms of the rematch.
McGregor, 27, is coming off the first loss of his UFC career. He still holds the 145-pound championship he won in December by knocking out Jose Aldo in a UFC title fight-record 13 seconds.
McGregor was scheduled to fight 155-pound lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos in March, but dos Anjos withdrew with a foot injury. That opened the door for a nontitle welterweight fight against Diaz (19-10), who accepted on 11 days' notice.
Fighting out of Dublin, McGregor told ESPN.com he wants the rematch to take place at 170 pounds again so that nothing would be different from their first fight.
Diaz is coming off back-to-back wins against McGregor and Michael Johnson. Fighting out of Stockton, California, Diaz is a UFC veteran since 2007. He fought for the lightweight championship in December 2012 but came up short in a five-round decision loss to Benson Henderson.
Diaz attended the UFC 199 card Saturday night in Inglewood, California. Earlier Saturday in an Instagram post, he indicated that a rematch with Diaz had been agreed to again, showing a video with Dana White.
Next articleIs Randy Orton a WWE Locker Room Bully?


text:
Dana Gould to Write and Star in 'The Last Larry'
Dana Gould to Write and Star in The Last Larry
The Comedian faces a zombie holocaust!
Proving that the zombie genre isn't dead, Dana Gould has set up the sitcom The Last Larry at Comedy Central. Based on an idea partially inspired by Shaun of the Dead, the half-hour comedy will revolve around a group of friends trying to get on with their lives after a zombie apocalypse.
Gould said, "It's a very traditional sitcom set in the world of a zombie holocaust. I felt fairly positive after I pitched it that I wouldn't hear a lot of 'Not that idea again.' " Gould will write and star in the project.
The Simpsons writer/producer has also been tapped to write the comedy Alternadad for Warner Bothers. According to Variety, the film will be based on Neal Pollack's memoir of the same name. It revolves around a guy who attempts to remain hip and cool while facing fatherhood.
There is no word on when The Last Larry will premier on Comedy Central.


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text:
SOCLIM: Collecting never-before-available climate change data from the Southern Ocean
Teams from the Laboratoire d'Océanographie Microbienne – LOM, UPMC-CNRS [Microbial Oceanography Laboratory], Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique – LMD, ENS-CNRS-UPMC-Ecole Polytechnique [Laboratory for Dynamic Meteorology] and Laboratoire d'Océanographie de Villefranche – LOV, UPMC-CNRS [Villefranche Oceanography Laboratory] in France launch the Southern Ocean and Climate (SOCLIM) project with support from the BNP Paribas Foundation.
The Southern Ocean plays an extremely important role in the climate of our planet. This is due firstly to its geographical location at the centre of the world's oceans, linking the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Ocean and cooling over half of total ocean volume by 2°C; and secondly to the fact that a large proportion of the 50% of total anthropogenic CO2 which is absorbed by the oceans is absorbed by the waters of the Southern Ocean, which are cold but low in marine phytoplankton. Today these natural mechanisms risk being disturbed by climate upheavals linked to human activity.
In order to gain a better understanding of exactly what is happening, the SOCLIM team, led by Stéphane Blain (LOM, UPMC-CNRS), Hervé Claustre (LOV, UPMC-CNRS) and Sabrina Speich (LMD, ENS-CNRS-UPMC-Ecole Polytechnique), is deploying a new generation of cutting-edge instruments.
The processes to be investigated are:
Heat and carbon exchanges between the atmosphere and the ocean. Quantifying these processes requires parameters such as temperature, salinity, wind speeds and CO2 pressure in the air and the water to be accurately measured. Measurements must be made with sufficient granularity over time and space to be able take into account the very small-scale variations in the processes. Only autonomous observations as planned under the SOCLIM project are capable of attaining this objective.
Carbon storage/sequestration mechanisms in the ocean. SOCLIM will study two types of mechanism: carbon storage through oceanic circulation (physical pump) and carbon storage through biological activity (biological pump). The biological pump is the process by which CO2 is transformed by micro-algae into particulate carbon, some of which then forms sediment in the deep ocean.
The bio-optical anomaly observed on the surface of the Southern Ocean. In addition to the measurements taken on site, satellites are essential tools for studying the ocean's surface. For example, observing the colour of the water enables the researchers to determine the quantity of chlorophyll present and thus the extent of micro-algae in the surface layer. Algorithms are used to calculate the amount of chlorophyll present on the basis of water colour data. The Southern Ocean is a special case where the algorithm currently in use tends to underestimate the quantity of chlorophyll. SOCLIM will look into the reasons for this anomaly and endeavour to develop an algorithm specifically for use in the Southern Ocean.
In order to investigate these processes, SOCLIM will deploy new state-of-the-art instruments: profiling floats and moored instruments.
The mon océan & moi ('my ocean and me') learning programme: www.monoceanetmoi.com
The SOCLIM project team intends to share its research with the general public, especially young people and school students. Accordingly, SOCLIM is taking part in the 'mon océan & moi' (monoceanetmoi.com, @monoceanetmoi), (my ocean and me) programme, an initiative led by LOV and its partners, which seeks to raise public awareness of the issues, with the aim of promoting the inclusion of marine sciences in school activities.
The programme is based on two pillars:
Free access to teaching resources devised by the researchers in close collaboration with schoolteachers. Together with their teachers and with support from scientific researchers and coordinators, the pupils can explore a range of ocean-related topics and interact via the special 'Ocean Voyagers' website.
The 'Adopt a Float' initiative, which encourages schoolchildren to 'adopt' a submarine robot (a Bio-Argo profiling float) and follow it on its scientific voyage via the dedicated website. Students have direct access to the data gathered, some of which they are able to study.
Laboratoire d'Océanographie Microbienne – LOM [Microbial Oceanography Laboratory]
The Microbial Oceanography Laboratory is a joint unit of the Pierre and Marie Curie University (UPMC) and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). Enjoying a worldwide reputation in the field of microbial ecology and marine biogeochemistry, LOM currently has around fifty researchers, technicians and students. Over the last ten years LOM researchers have led international research projects and participated in major oceanographic projects in the Southern Ocean.
Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique –LMD [Laboratory for Dynamic Meteorology]
Founded in 1968 as a unit of France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), the Laboratory for Dynamic Meteorology has since 1998 functioned as a mixed research unit spread over three university sites in Paris and its surrounding suburbs: the École Polytechnique, the École Normale Supérieure, and the Pierre and Marie Curie University. LMD is a member of the Pierre Simon Laplace Institute (IPSL), a group of six state-run laboratories in the Greater Paris region which carry out environmental science research. The laboratory carries out research into climate phenomena, pollution, planetary atmospheres and, more generally, the hydrosphere covering the earth's surface. Its work combines theoretical approaches and practical developments in observation and digital modelling. Work at LMD currently focuses on two main themes: anthropic causes of climate change; and the dynamic physical processes in the hydrosphere.
Laboratoire d'Océanographie de Villefranche – LOV [Villefranche Oceanography Laboratory]
The Villefranche Oceanography Laboratory is a joint unit of the Pierre and Marie Curie University (UPMC) and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). With around a hundred researchers, technicians and students, the laboratory has an international reputation in the fields of biogeochemistry, marine optics, and zooplankton and microbe ecology. LOV hosts a large number of international conferences and participates in many European and international research projects.
The BNP Paribas Foundation – www.fondation.bnpparibas.com
Established under the aegis of the Fondation de France, the BNP Paribas Foundation has been engaged in major philanthropic works for 30 years, encouraging and contributing to the BNP Paribas Group's charitable and community support initiatives in all parts of the world where the Bank does business.
The BNP Paribas Foundation's activities are focused on supporting and assisting innovative projects in three main fields: Arts & Culture, Social Inclusion and Environmental Care. The Foundation's policy is to provide optimal support to its partner organisations, through a commitment to working with those partners and their projects over the long term. Dialogue, loyal support and a relationship based on trust are the hallmarks of that commitment.
The year 2014 marked the 30th anniversary of the BNP Paribas Foundation. Since it was set up in 1984, the Foundation has provided support to more than 300 arts & culture projects, some 40 scientific research programmes and around one thousand education and social inclusion initiatives, in France and across the world.
The Climate Initiative programme – http://bit.ly/ClimateInitiativeEn
The BNP Paribas Foundation is providing assistance to SOCLIM as part of the Climate Initiative, a corporate philanthropy programme launched by the Foundation in 2011, in close liaison with the BNP Paribas Group CSR department, to support research into climate change. A total of ten climate change research projects have received, or are currently receiving, financial support under the Climate Initiative.
BNP Paribas Foundation -
Florence Bardin:
florence.bardin [at] agencef (dot) com
BNP Paribas -
Anne-Sophie Trémouille:
anne-sophie.tremouille [at] bnpparibas (dot) com


A lot of people would like to see Christmas cancelled, not exactly the feast itself, but the hoopla with which we surround it. What is being argued for is a strippeddown Christmas, a feast without trimmings, decorated shops, excessive dinners, expensive presents, bright lights, trees and carols.
The whole event, it is argued, has become too drawn-out, too over-done, too expensive, too commercialized, and has too little to do with the birth of Jesus or anything else religious: Stores and shops start putting up decorations, playing carols, and specially marketing items nearly two months before the actual day.
Advent, which is supposed to be a time of preparation for the feast, is an exhausting ordeal of parties that bring us to Christmas on celebration overload, already saturated with what we were supposed to be building up to.
And finally, there is the issue of the poor—we are celebrating in excess while they have too little.
Is not this the antithesis of what Jesus' birth into our world is supposed to mean? Do our Christmas celebrations not serve more to obliterate our awareness of Christ's birth than to highlight it?
There is much truth in this. Our Christmas celebrations, admittedly, do start too early (a fault in our chastity), are too commercially-driven, do focus too little on anything religious and do not take the poor sufficiently into account. Too often too they serve to obliterate religious awareness rather than highlight it. Graded purely on a religious and moral scale, our Christmas celebrations would not get a passing grade.
But, this being acknowledged, we must be careful not to throw out the baby with the bath water. Because something is being done badly does not mean it should be cancelled. What is called for is not the cancellation of the tinsel, lights, socials, food and drink that surround Christmas, but a better—more religious, moral, communitarian and inclusive—use of them. There are good reasons to cancel our celebrations, but there are even better reasons to keep them.
What reasons? Why continue all the hoopla—the lights, the trees, the cards, the partying?
First of all, because we need to celebrate. As human beings we have an irresistible, healthy, and God-given need to make festival, to have un-ordinary time, to have carnival. Christmas is sabbath, sabbatical, in the true biblical sense . . . and also the only sabbatical most of us will ever get! There are seasons in life, and these should be regular, meant solely for enjoyment, for color, for tinsel. There is even the occasional time for a bit of excess.
Jesus voiced that when his followers objected to a woman's excess in anointing him. All cultures, whether poor or rich, have always had times of festival where, spoken or unspoken, they took seriously the words: "The poor you will always have with you" but today it is time to celebrate! Christmas is this time.
There is a God-given press within human nature that pushes us to celebrate and this is a healthy pressure because it keeps us aware that we are not meant for gloom but that we are destined for more, much more, than our poor lives can give us just now. The excess of carnival, of festival, of Christmas, teaches its own lessons in faith and hope.
To make a festival of Christmas, to surround the marking of Jesus' birth with all the joy, light, music, gift-giving, energy and warmth we can muster is (and the Gospel makes for strange paradoxes) a prophetic act. It is, or at least it can be, a radical statement of faith and hope.
It is not the person who says: "It's all rotten, let's cancel it!" who radiates hope. At the end of the day, that's despair masquerading as faith. No. It's the woman or man, who, despite the world's misuse and abuse of these, strings up the Christmas lights, trims the tree and turkey, pours gifts and drinks all around, turns up the stereo which is playing the carols and flashes a smile for the whole world, who radiates faith, who says that we are meant for more than gloom.


The world rings with praise -- lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favourite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favourite game -- praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars. I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious, minds, praised most, while the cranks, misfits and malcontents praised least. The good critics found something to praise in many imperfect works; the bad ones continually narrowed the list of books we might be allowed to read. The healthy and unaffected man, even if luxuriously brought up and widely experienced in good cookery, could praise a very modest meal: the dyspeptic and the snob found fault with all.
It is a curiosity of literature how often what one says of another seems applicable to oneself.
I find this appreciation of things positive inspiring. The epigrams and your poem are worth cutting out, and taping on the fridge.


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Jamie Lincoln Kitman
A Pointy Headed New Yorker Reviews the Ford F-150
Jamie Lincoln Kitman | Oct 19, 2016
I may have more cars than most of my neighbors but I remain a not untypical pointy headed New Yorker, in that I share the view of many here, thinking that extra-large pickup trucks are not the ideal vehicle genus for personal transportation. And I say this as a committed believer in automotive tolerance, the idea that (broadly speaking) with the exception of your coal rollers and other gross polluters, people should be able to drive whatever they want to drive.
Not ideal for commuting. But people like these things for a reason. (Ford Photo)
But, even so, the way I see it, there's just no societal upside wherever you might live, to commuting to work in lumbering, 15 mpg trucks that take up as much space as tract houses, unless it's involved in your work or regular recreational habits. Fortunately for the shareholders of the big car companies, many Americans disagree. They think pickups are sensible transport for all occasions. It's this belief that makes it profitable to build this category of machines because they sell so well--in the millions--year in, year out. Pickups are the industry's biggest, most reliable economic pick-me-ups, too, and surprisingly impervious to whether gas is cheap or not.
Having said all that, I just spent a week with a 2016 all-aluminum Ford F-150 Limited Edition. And I am duty bound to tell you that while very large (over 20-ft. long) and quite thirsty (15.1 mpg overall in roughly 500 miles of driving), this truck reminded me that there are times when there is nothing better than a great big American pickup. Such as when you have something genuinely heavy-duty to do. No wonder people like these things so much. They may not have anything heavy-duty to do, but boy, if they did.
Rare footage of a pickup truck being used as intended. (Jamie Lincoln Kitman Photo)
I did: booking my 1967 Triumph TR4A IRS into the northern Connecticut workshops of DB Enterprises for a rebuild of its tired independent rear suspension – so enterprising for its day that they'd made IRS part of the car's name – I wanted to borrow a pickup so I might pull a friend's trailer, sparing me the need to dig up a ride home to New York and giving me something more appropriate to do with the gargantuan F-150 crew cab, which I'd been meaning to experience. Surely, this was better than driving it in and out of the city for business meetings.
The Triumph at DB Enterprises. (Jamie Lincoln Kitman Photo)
Still I hadn't counted on the Limited Edition. With its four doors, heated leather seating, all-wheel-drive and eye-watering $67,270 price tag, it was more truck than I needed. Towing a trailer and a Triumph (under 3,800 pounds, combined) would tax it not in the least. But I wasn't about to say no.
Who could say no to this face? (Ford Photo)
And I'd be a liar if I didn't say that it was a very civilized, high-performing machine, a luxury tugboat, that it is so much better in its field I can't really imagine improving it without entering the realm of fantasy. Unless it is one of the top-of-the-line GM, RAM, Toyota or Nissan offerings, I don't have sufficient current experience to compare, though it's hard to imagine anything of this type being dramatically better.
At the helm of the luxury tugboat. We only see one cupholder... (Ford Photo)
It's no secret that pickup trucks have been moving in the luxury direction over the last 50 years, ever since decisions were made across the industry in the late 1960s to mainstream trucks for mass consumption. But while I wasn't paying attention these vehicles seem to have made a greater leap towards the luxurious in the last few years – all the while getting bigger, not smaller. And as long as gas is cheap, it seems, nothing can slow the sales juggernaut, driven by salaried men and women, often solo commuters, as much as tradespeople.
Don Breslauer of DB Enterprises in the comparatively spare interior of the 1967 Triumph TR4A IRS. As a teenager in the 1960s, he signed on with the Virginia-based Group 44 racing team, the British Triumph's chosen American competitions arm, and spent time preparing TR4's like this one for the track. (Jamie Lincoln Kitman Photo)
The F-150 is comfortable. It would be quiet for a car, it is unbelievably so for a mammoth truck. And it rides well. Especially when you consider that for all of the 700 pounds its largely aluminum construction is meant to save, this truck still exceeds two-and-a-half tons in weight (5,236 lbs.) It's easy to temporarily forget this as you whip it around turns on its low-profile tires and enormous 22-inch rims, however. The 365- horsepower 3.5-liter EcoBoost V6 engine makes 420 lb. ft. of torque and an aggressive sound as you rocket away, with the sort of menacing bellow that makes parents tense and pedestrians cringe. But jacked up and riding high inside the truck, I got over an initial sense of embarrassment and felt the power.
Another project at DB Enterprises: An aluminum body for a clone of a very rare racing Cunningham--the marquee founded and funded by millionaire enthusiast playboy Briggs Cunningham. (Jamie Lincoln Kitman Photo)
Strategically located around the luxe cabin are numerous plugs and ports, enough to allow you to film and edit your own reality television program with room for six large cast members and almost enough space for the studio audience. The bed is large and deep but short, at five feet six inches, truncated from the working pickup's typical eight feet to give the elongated crew cab truck a fighting chance of fitting into any parking space, anywhere. There's got to be one out there.
If you share the parking space with a Smart car, you might be able to make this work for you. (Jamie Lincoln Kitman Photo)
One of your reality show's first episodes will have to be the one about the time you set out to program the Pro Trailer backup assist, and shows you turning over much of the responsibility for backing up your trailer to the truck, steering its front wheels for itself, spinning the steering wheel you've taken your hands off of as you reverse. It's still directed by you, using a dashboard knob that turns right or left, while you view the scene behind your rig through the screen of a backup camera. Loved the idea – trailer reversing is confounding for towing novices and journeymen – but in practice Pro Trailer feels like a video game that will likely take as much effort to master as learning how to back up a trailer the old fashioned way. (Here's a video of Pro Trailer in action.)
You could learn how to use Pro Trailer. Or, you could invest the time in learning how to back up a trailer the old fashioned way. (Ford Photo)
This truck and its pickup bed sit very high. So rather than expect Limited Edition customers to be extraordinarily fit, the company wisely makes sure that a giant running board extends every time you open a door, easing access. The tailgate similarly boasts a pop out ladder option to help less athletic users access the cargo hold. Hydraulically controlled footsteps help users to get at the cargo area from the side and screwed to inside panels are substantial black metal twin ramps, which can be deployed to load a motorcycle or ATV into the tough as nails (spray linered at the factory) bed. The ramps are steeply angled when attached to the lowered tailgate, though, so in this instance, some muscle will be required.
When I'd finished towing, the F-150's size started to bother me, especially in parking lots. And its thirst was considerable. To sum up: a great tool when you need it. But driving it to the grocery store, it made me feel like a tool. But I did mention that I'm from New York, an island off the coast of America, didn't I?
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NECTAR Sleep Mattress Review – Best Mattress Hotel | Your Best Sleep Now!
In both TV and Movies, there's a topic which has done well in the last several years: Zombies. This concept has made for numerous remarkably delightful, majorly outstanding, and also award-winning shows as well as blockbusters. But nevertheless it's just fiction, right?
For those who have lived for virtually any time, it's no doubt that you really have heard an individual inform you exactly how significant sleep is. It's likely that you've discovered this lesson for your own benefit, and it's also possible that you've already heard from many others who have understood it also. Without rest, we truly feel like… well, zombies.
Just as if feeling exhausted isn't already enough of an obstacle, there's a lot more to the story. When we are deprived of sleep, our human brain pretty much malfunctions. That just signifies that our brain does not function properly. The reality is, our human brain literally starts shutting down a number of areas as well as operations that are not required for survival. That being said to be sleep deprived is not merely a feeling, this really is a bodily impaired state of daily life.
Helping to make issues more severe, long lasting lack of sleep triggers over production of cortisol. Cortisol in it's appropriate volume will help us to experience some tension as well as urgency to get things accomplished. But once it's overproduced, it triggers us to feel stressed, anxious, and apprehensive on a regular basis. This can bring on even deeper medical difficulties of anxiety and depression. Evidently, sleep deprivation is damaging for any individuals.
We've all been through it. More often than not, our daily lives demand so much from us. We grant a huge amount of of our time and focus to our work as well as professions, our family and friends, and also our pastimes and activities. On occasion, it feels like there is certainly very little left, and it could be tough to be at ease and refuel your energy.
And yeah, maybe we might be able to all use much more sleep. However, what if we might be able to do greater than rest longer. Imagine if we could rest better?
NECTAR is here to help. And they help with a surprisingly simple mission. NECTAR states to be the most comfortable mattress, and that you will get the best sleep of your life, guaranteed. For a company that makes mattresses, it's quite tough to possess a more clear vision than that.
Perhaps you hurt as you get up in the morning. NECTAR addresses this on multiple levels. It starts off with using the most modern breakthroughs in mattress as well as fabric technologies, and also bringing those together in a single product. And don't stress about needing to determine exactly what degree of firmness to buy and hope that you selected properly. NECTAR has built their mattress to a level of firmness that stabilize the give and take of your entire body weight as you lay down in several positions throughout the night, letting you have the perfect level of comfort and support. To help you rest assured (no pun intended) that regardless what position you are laying in, it's the best one.
Yet there's a whole lot more to it than that. Perhaps you don't only feel aching or uncomfortable when you wake up. Perhaps your neck, back bone, shoulder blades, hips, and/or hind legs hurt. Not any more. Any time you lie on your back, NECTAR mattress gives you the correct amount of firmness to support the natural curvature of your spine. Should you lie on your side, you need your spine to maintain a straight line. Other mattresses are often too firm, and they press against that natural curvature, or too soft and let your spine sink too much. In any event, both of them are incorrect, because your spine is pushed one way or another out of position. NECTAR answers this condition, and the results are just as much of a breakthrough as the design of the mattress itself. NECTAR has completely polished the level of firmness as well as support to a breakthrough degree.
You will discover another problem that develops whenever mattresses don't breathe properly too: moisture. When air flow doesn't circulate in a mattress, it collects moisture from the air which comes in yet just cannot let it out. This notably diminishes the life duration of a mattress, because the stranded moisture starts to make the materials in the mattress breakdown. Additionally it considerably cuts down the comfort, considering that the broken down substances in the mattress do not perform as they ought to. The mattress ends up being uncomfortable, as well as keeps uncomfortable over its lessened expected life. What a waste!
NECTAR hasn't just constructed a breakthrough mattress that creates remarkable comfort. They've equally developed a quality mattress which is made up of only the top materials. You will find zero ozone depleters, PDDEs, TDCPP, mercury, or lead. And not only are they better for you, but also for the world also. They are already quickly recycled, and environment friendly!
There are actually two layers of Gel Memory Foam that help to circulate the air, as well as properly distribute your weight and maintain the natural curve of your body. These 2 layers are sizeable assisting components to the details described above. When you sleep, your quality of sleep will be supported by the best materials in the industry. I assume that could be what will happen when your vision is to create the best mattress. Period.
It's not entirely uncommon for comfort and quality to go together. Nonetheless they come with a cost. Well, most of the time. But definitely not right now.
NECTAR offers you comfort in addition to support in keeping with mattresses that cost $3,000-5,000+. With that high quality, maybe you are honestly wishing that they might be half that price, at around $2,000. Or maybe you may have your fingers crossed simply anticipating that they will be only $1,500. Nonetheless do not stop reading at this point. Simply because you won't actually be paying that.
hey don't cost $1,500 . They don't cost $1,000 . All of the NECTAR mattresses start out in the $300's . Additionally they are all under $1,000 , even for a California King ! At that price , all people at your home could sleep better for the expense of just one traditional mattress .
We reside in a world that is definitely continuously changing. NECTAR is a paradigm shift in the process a mattress is designed. The thing is, mattresses have been in existence quite a while. And much like vehicles as well as households, the way that one is constructed these days is different than it was ages before. Across just about all industries, people are always exploring as well as making innovative discoveries. From creating and also utilizing new substances, to advancing on a model or even unveiling a completely new one, the way that we carry out things transforms through time.
Traditional mattresses incorporate a set of box spring as well as a mattress. The box springs go underneath the mattress, offering an added layer of support to the mattress. The mattress is made from columns of coils all throughout to offer support. Then on top the coils is some type of "topper". In the old days, this topper was made up of a variety of forms of stuffing or padding, as well as in more contemporary years various layers of foam. There are plenty of manufacturers who have been making mattresses for decades such as Serta, Sealy, Jamison, Sleep Number, and also Amerisleep.
Yes. And they are just as completely new. Nonetheless I will spare you the facts. I will not say they are a pillow which is just as completely new as their mattresses. I will not inform you of the quilted memory foam outer shell. And also I undoubtedly won't let you know about the Tencel cooling fabric together with active ventillation meaning that you can be continuously resting on the cool side of the pillow. I am going to just simply tell you they are astounding, and every much a breakthrough in pillows as their mattresses are.
The only option to experience that you like a product is to give it a try for yourself.
Unquestionably. It's one thing when something seems reliable on paper or perhaps in a commercial, however it's a different to absolutely experience something for you. And with NECTAR, you can. Not only does NECTAR give a wonderful value, in addition to that they back it with a fantastic guarantee.
But with NECTAR, the game has entirely changed. Because they will deliver it cost free to your house, giving you the ability to give it a go for a night. And you can give it a go for a week. And you can test it for a month. And then two months. And 3 months. Where am I going with this? With NECTAR, you can try it risk free for a year! You get a 365 night home trial. They deliver it to you for free. If at all you are not 100% pleased, they will come and pick it up for free. Nonetheless I doubt you will need them to.
There is absolutely no catch. There is just simply NECTAR. Well, there's more than that. There is a far better mattress with wonderful value. There is a new paradigm in making a mattress, with ingenuity at each turn. There is the comfort and support that you simply deserve. There's pillows that broadens the comfort and ease from head to toe. There's unbelievable quality together with value. There's an incredible product, supported by an amazing guarantee. There's an end to the zombie apocalypse.


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When Complete Isn't Complete: C. Elegans Genome Gets a Makeover
Cover artwork by Daisy S. Lim
It was the first multicellular eukaryotic genome sequenced to apparent completion, but it turns out the Caenorhabditis elegans reference that's been used as a resource for the past 20 years does not exactly correspond with any N2 strain that exists today.
Assembled using sequence data from N2 and CB1392 populations of uncertain lineage grown in at least two different laboratories during the 1980s and 1990s, accuracy of the C. elegans reference genome is limited both by genetic variants and by the limitations of the technology of the time (clone-based Sanger technology). It is believed the strain may have accumulated up to 1,000 neutral mutations even before it was first frozen in 1969 with substantial genetic differences between strains in different laboratories since then.
So a team of researchers from Stanford, Cornell, and the University of Tokyo sought to recomplete the genome by performing long-read assembly of VC2010, a modern and easily available nonmutagenized derivative of N2. Not satisfied with the completeness of earlier assembly attempts, the team decided to use three sequencing technologies: Illumina short reads, as well as PacBio and Nanopore long reads.
As described in their cover-gracing Genome Research study, their VC2010 assembly has 99.98% identity to N2, but with an additional 1.8 Mb, including tandem repeat expansions, genome duplications, and more than 53 newfound genes. For 116 structural discrepancies between N2 and VC2010, 97 structures matching VC2010 (84%) were also found in two outgroup strains, implying deficiencies in N2.
"Although we do not expect this or any assembly to be perfect, the VC2010 assembly provides substantial advantages over its predecessors in both precision and completeness," the authors wrote.
The team assembled raw PacBio reads with the long-read genome assemblers Canu, FALCON, miniasm, and HINGE, yielding complementary assembly gaps from the same input sequencing data. Merging these PacBio assemblies resulted in an assembly containing only five gaps across the genome. Using Nanopore long reads, they were able to close three more, bringing the total gaps down to two.
The improved assembly "yielded features not visible in the N2 reference assembly, and has several technical and biological implications," they added.
They also suggested that more of the nematode genetic record may need to be corrected. They note that almost 2% of the putatively gap-free C. elegans genome proved to be missing from the N2 assembly, including long stretches of repetitive DNA, and said "it seems likely that most of the nematode assemblies generated over the last decade are missing some repetitive regions of genomic DNA."
Such highly tandemly repeated regions may be crucial for understanding fast-evolving gene families relevant to nematode ecology, and for identifying rapidly evolving virulence factors in parasites such as N. brasiliensis, they added.
"With the possible exception of highly reduced genomes such as Pratylenchus coffeae, long-read assembly will probably be needed to detect and resolve these systematically lost genome sequences," they wrote.
In order to ensure reproducibility of their new assembly in vivo, the team derived a highly clonal strain from VC2010, called PD1074 (available here), and used it to generate most of the genomic sequence data.
"C. elegans researchers who wish to have significantly higher genomic and genetic reproducibility than is possible with N2 are encouraged to adopt PD1074 as a new reference strain for wild-type controls, classical mutagenesis, and genome engineering," the authors wrote.
Reining in the Wild Strains
Structural variations between the CB4856 and N2 genomes and their effects on chromosomal contents
In a second Genome Research paper, researchers from Seoul National University generated a de novo assembly of CB4856, which is one of the most genetically divergent strains of C. elegans compared to the N2 reference strain.
Their study sought to determine how substantial genomic changes are generated and tolerated within a species, and to compare the wild strain with the N2 reference, as the two have numerous heritable phenotypic differences, including aggregation behavior, mating, nictation behavior, pathogen response and genetic incompatibility.
Not satisfied that the current, short-read generated CB4856 reference genome accurately represents genomic rearrangements that are longer than the insert length, and concerned that it might be missing insertions and repetitive sequences, the team generated their own PacBio genome assembly to the level of pseudochromosomes containing 76 contigs.
They identified structural variations that affected as many as 2,694 genes, and found that subtelomeric regions contained the most extensive genomic rearrangements, even creating new subtelomeres in some cases.
The high variability of subtelomeres over generations facilitates the emergence of new genes and may help to increase the fitness of organisms, the authors note. However, subtelomeres — hypervariable regions adjacent to the telomere — are highly repetitive by nature, which makes genome assembly at their sites very difficult and has hampered the study of their involvement in chromosome evolution.
The subtelomere structure that the Korean team was able to unravel with PacBio sequencing implies that ancestral telomere damage was repaired by alternative lengthening of telomeres, even in the presence of a functional telomerase gene, and that a new subtelomere was formed by break-induced replication, the authors said.
"Our study demonstrates that substantial genomic changes including structural variations and new subtelomeres can be tolerated within a species, and that these changes may accumulate genetic diversity within a species," they wrote.
The researchers said they hoped their CB4856 genome will serve as a better reference genome for wild C. elegans strains, and that the numerous SVs between N2 and CB4856 will help to better understand the effect of SVs on traits by association studies using these strains.


The concert is expected to bring together people from all walks of life as they gather to Worship God, listen to melodious and Spirit-filled tunes and messages from some of Nigeria's finest Gospel music ministers.
Artistes to minister at the concert include renowned saxophonist, The Director of Music at the Redeemed Christian Church of God.
– RCCG Praise Team and Also special appearance is the one and only Omotunde Lolo 1 of the Ogbonge radio station Wazobia FM.