text:
#include <stdbool.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include "cmdline_common.h"
#include "zephyr/types.h"
#include "hw_models_top.h"
#include "timer_model.h"
#include "cmdline.h"
#include "toolchain.h"
#include "posix_trace.h"
#include "native_tracing.h"

static int s_argc, test_argc;
static char **s_argv, **test_argv;

static struct args_struct_t *args_struct;
static int used_args;
static int args_aval;
#define ARGS_ALLOC_CHUNK_SIZE 20

void native_cleanup_cmd_line(void)
{
	if (args_struct != NULL) { /* LCOV_EXCL_BR_LINE */
		free(args_struct);
		args_struct = NULL;
	}
}

/**
 * Add a set of command line options to the program.
 *
 * Each option to be added is described in one entry of the input <args>
 * This input must be terminated with an entry containing ARG_TABLE_ENDMARKER.
 */
void native_add_command_line_opts(struct args_struct_t *args)
{
	int count = 0;

	while (args[count].option != NULL) {
		count++;
	}
	count++; /*for the end marker*/

	if (used_args + count >= args_aval) {
		int growby = count;
		/* reallocs are expensive let's do them only in big chunks */
		if (growby < ARGS_ALLOC_CHUNK_SIZE) {
			growby = ARGS_ALLOC_CHUNK_SIZE;
		}

		args_struct = realloc(args_struct,
				      (args_aval + growby)*
				      sizeof(struct args_struct_t));
		args_aval += growby;
		/* LCOV_EXCL_START */
		if (args_struct == NULL) {
			posix_print_error_and_exit("Could not allocate memory");
		}
		/* LCOV_EXCL_STOP */
	}

	memcpy(&args_struct[used_args], args,
		count*sizeof(struct args_struct_t));

	used_args += count - 1;
	/*
	 * -1 as the end marker should be overwritten next time something
	 * is added
	 */
}

void native_add_testargs_option(void)
{
	static struct args_struct_t testargs_options[] = {
		/*
		 * Fields:
		 * manual, mandatory, switch,
		 * option_name, var_name ,type,
		 * destination, callback,
		 * description
		 */
		{true, false, false,
		"testargs", "arg", 'l',
		(void *)NULL, NULL,
		"Any argument that follows will be ignored by the top level, "
		"and made available for possible tests"},
		ARG_TABLE_ENDMARKER};

	native_add_command_line_opts(testargs_options);
}

static void print_invalid_opt_error(char *argv)
{
	posix_print_error_and_exit("Incorrect option '%s'. Did you misspell it?"
				   " Is that feature supported in this build?"
				   "\n",
				   argv);

}

/**
 * Handle possible command line arguments.
 *
 * We also store them for later use by possible test applications
 */
void native_handle_cmd_line(int argc, char *argv[])
{
	int i;

	native_add_tracing_options();
	native_add_testargs_option();

	s_argv = argv;
	s_argc = argc;

	cmd_args_set_defaults(args_struct);

	for (i = 1; i < argc; i++) {

		if ((cmd_is_option(argv[i], "testargs", 0))) {
			test_argc = argc - i - 1;
			test_argv = &argv[i+1];
			break;
		}

		if (!cmd_parse_one_arg(argv[i], args_struct)) {
			cmd_print_switches_help(args_struct);
			print_invalid_opt_error(argv[i]);
		}
	}
}

/**
 * The application/test can use this function to inspect all the command line
 * arguments
 */
void native_get_cmd_line_args(int *argc, char ***argv)
{
	*argc = s_argc;
	*argv = s_argv;
}

/**
 * The application/test can use this function to inspect the command line
 * arguments received after --testargs
 */
void native_get_test_cmd_line_args(int *argc, char ***argv)
{
	*argc = test_argc;
	*argv = test_argv;
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


With the growth of online commerce and bill pay, cardholders are increasingly adding their payment information to new online accounts.
This has made it difficult for cardholders to keep track of which merchants have their card on file. When the card holder receives a new card, it is challenging to update the information with every merchant. This may cause the cardholder to miss a recurring payment or experience a decline. With Visa Account Updater Service, your cardholders can be provided with access to view the merchants that obtained updated card information through Visa Account Updater.
Many people set up auto-pay billing so they don't forget to pay monthly bills. Give your cardholders the ability to quickly and easily stop these payments. With Visa's Preauthorized Payment Cancellation Service, your cardholder can initiate a stop payment request through their banking app.


A scale reproduction of the Cranach Reformation Altar art at St. Mary's Church in Wittenberg, Germany, was blessed during a Sept. 19 service at the chapel of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod's International Center (IC) in St. Louis.
Lucas Cranach the Elder, known as "the painter of the Reformation," was a close friend of Martin and Katie Luther. Many familiar images of Martin Luther come from the brush of Cranach. Lucas Cranach the Younger was the second son of the Elder and worked with his father to complete the Reformation Altar in Wittenberg.
Cranach's Reformation Altar art, installed in Wittenberg in 1547, contains a triptych resting on a fourth panel. The triptych depicts in order, from left, Baptism, the Lord's Supper and the Office of the Keys. Prominent in these three scenes are Wittenberg Reformation figures Philip Melanchthon, Martin Luther and Johannes Bugenhagen.
Underneath these three panels Cranach painted Christ crucified, the foundation upon which the Reformation was established and the Church is built. This bottom panel depicts the congregation on the left, listening to Luther preach from the right side of the panel. Luther's one hand rests on the Scripture and the other points to Christ. Jesus is in the middle of the panel — the focus of the Word and the foundation of the Reformation.
After the service, LCMS President Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison explained the historical context of the Reformation Altar.
The reproduction, which is about one-third the size of the original, contains prints of Cranach's paintings set in wood panels. In order to construct this altar piece, Matzat crafted hundreds of feet of custom molds.
Matzat explained that the top piece, inscribed with the words of 1 Cor. 3:11 in German (which translated says, "For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ"), is one feature present in this reproduction that is often missing from other reproductions. This text is essential to the Reformation Altar, for there the foundation is established: Jesus Christ.
I just preached where the real altar was yesterday!
Astonishingly beautiful! Thanks be to God for this wonderful tribute to our Lutheran history and Reformation.
Luther Preaching Christ to the congregation is both humbling and much to the point; we must preach Christ as the center of all.
Luther preaching Christ to the congregation is both humbling and very modern: we must preach Christ as the center of all.
I am confused. Is not our church a theologically conservative body? Should not these conservative matters apply to the visual as well as the verbal? I am referencing the copy of the Last Supper painting placed above the altar in the International Center chapel. How inappropriate! What is our emphasis during worship?Focusing on our Lord and His redemptive narrative, or observing a museum work of art. Cranach's work is beautiful and would be appropriately place in the Center's museum. However, the artist's work is not fitting for a contemporary worship space. I am a conservative Lutheran (Missouri Synod) and as such, I believe solid theological advice should have been sought before placing the Cranach museum piece in the chapel.
Christians attend services of corporate worship chiefly to receive God' grace and blessing, and secondarily to offer Him gifts and sacrifices. The action in worship, therefore, should begin at the chancel with its furnishing representing and accenting the means of grace. God's pursuit spreads outward to the congregation. We respond with our gifts of praise. Therefore, it would be more appropriate that only a Cross be placed on or near the altar-table. The altar should have no embellished reredos that makes it a spectacle. It is a table that functions for the service of communion relating God's gift to His people. It is also a functional table. Anything positioned on the altar-table that does not assist the meal other than a Cross, Bible, and communion guide, is misplaced. The Cross designed and displayed properly aids in perceiving Jesus and His death at Calvary in all its fullness and grandeur. An art piece with portraits of Melanchthon, Luther, Bugenhagen, and others should not overtake an image alluding to Jesus and His glorious redemption.
A quality appreciated in a church building is simplicity. Decoration tends to draw attention to itself and distracts from worship. Nonessential objects give a confused credo when imprudently placed in the chancel. The building should be pure and genuine – no artificialities, no cosmetic, distracting ornamentation – only a clear, authentic Christian testimony. Only the three means of grace should be accented from the front of the worship space. Although the Cranach copy projects communion, it adds confusion.
The emphasis must be kept where it belongs. Our only glory is the Cross of Christ. Our swagger is not how much we love God; rather how much He loves us. Paul states: "But may it never be that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . " (Galatians 6:14a). The Christian persuasion is the belief in the Lord Christ who bore the Cross for all mankind. Thus faith finds its worth not in the believer, but in the believed One, the crucified Lord and Savior. Therefore, we do not glory in our grasp of Jesus; rather, we glory in His grasp of us. Hence, the Cross alone as an artistic expression in the chancel is a much more appropriate visual than depictions of the apostles who at Jesus' final supper did not yet understand His undertaking, plus several sixteenth century saints. Sound theology may have been overlooked in the new addition to the chapel.


VOIP, also known as "Voice over Internet Protocol" is a method for calling over the Internet. It can turn a basic Internet connection into a way to … [Read more...] about What Exactly Is VoIP?
Is VPS Web Hosting Right for My Website?
An introduction to VPS, or virtual private server web hosting, and how to know whether or not it is right for you and your website. VPS, which … [Read more...] about Is VPS Web Hosting Right for My Website?


The cruiser departs from Venice, Italy and makes a trip to Istanbul and back. You can embark and disembark the cruiser at any port included in the trip (Venice, Bari, Katakolon, Izmir, Istanbul and Dubrovnik).
"Getting to page" refers only to Venice as most participants begin and end their journey in this city. The cruiser departs from Venice cruise terminal. Make sure you have enough time to get to the terminal from the airport, bus station etc.
Information of exact terminal will not be known until the day of departure but there is nothing to worry. Once you arrive to the Venice cruise terminal (Venezia Terminal Passeggeri or Stazione Marittima) there will be MSC signs and personnel and staff who will direct passengers to the cruiser (MSC Preziosa). Venice cruise terminal is located near Piazzale Roma, which is is the last stop for wheeled motor traffic in Venice. Piazzale Roma is a square at the entrance of the city, at the end of the Ponte della Libertà. This is where land transportation arrives and water transportation departs. The square acts as the main bus station for Venice. There are bus links to Venice Marco Polo Airport and Treviso Airport. The square is close to the main Santa Lucia (Ferrovia) railway station for Venice, linked by the Ponte della Costituzione bridge.
The easiest way to reach Venice is to take a flight to the Venice Marco Polo airport. The alternative would be Treviso airport which is a lot smaller than Marco Polo and about 30 km from Venice.
From the airport you'll need to arrive to Venice cruise terminal. There are many options on how to arrive to the terminal, especially if you are coming from Marco Polo airport (water ferry, water taxi, private boat transfer etc.). The terminal is located near Piazzale Roma and Santa Lucia railway station. Directions on how to reach Venice Santa Lucia train station can be found here for Treviso airport.
A taxi (regular, land taxi) from the airport to the cruise terminal will take about 20 to 30 minutes and cost about €35.
You can also get to the terminal by Alilaguna public ferry blue line (tel. +39-041-240-1701, www.alilaguna.it). At the airport, grab Linea blu (blue) ferry, which makes its leisurely way around Venice, stopping several times and arrives at the Cruise Terminal—the end of the line—in an hour and 45 minutes. One-way ticket is €15, round trip €27).
There are also two bus options. Either the €6 ATVO airport shuttle bus (tel. +39-0421-383-672, www.atvo.it; 20 min.) or €1.30 ACTV public bus no. 5 (tel. +39-041-272-2111, www.actv.it) will take you to the end of the line at Piazzale Roma—which is very close to the terminal.
Take the Venice People Mover - small shuttle train (picture one of those terminal-to-terminal connectors at a large airport). Buy the €1 ticket at a machine; get off at the first stop -"Marittima" - less than 2 minutes later.
Hop the shuttle bus - free, and runs every 15 or 20 minutes, but usually available only Saturdays through Mondays, during cruise season, when a big ship is in port.
Grab public bus no. 6B or 6/ - (that's six with a slash after it; different from six without a slash). It costs €1.30 and gets you close—but not quite—to the cruise dock; grab the bus headed toward "Tronchetto" (not "Panorama") and get off at the second stop.
Take a (land) taxi - takes about two minutes, and should run about €5 (tel. +39-041-523-7774 or +39-041-595-2080).
Walk - it's 10 to 15 minutes along sometimes busy roads. Head away from Venice and up along the beginning of the bridge/causeway to the mainland, then turn left into the port area just after crossing above all the railroad tracks.
As mentioned before, Venezia Santa Lucia (Ferrovia) station is very near the cruise terminal, so keep in mind to get off at that station and not Venezia Mestre station. From the station cross the Ponte della Costituzione bridge and you'll find yourself on Piazzale Roma square. From there, follow the before mentioned instructions. See here for timetables and the possibility to purchase tickets in advance online.
You can use Viamichelin web site to plan your trip from your home to Venice. If you are coming by car, keep in mind that parking in Venice can be very expensive and that the Conference lasts for a whole week. Venice cruise terminal offers a car depot service (actively guarded and under video-surveillance), guaranteed only upon reservation. Located in the Port Area it is at walking distance from the embarkation point. Price for a weekly cruise is €95, more information and online booking are available here. Alternative parking option could be the Tronchetto parking, as it is quite near the terminal and very spacious (costs €21 per day).


La Pâtisserie des Rêves, true to its name, the pastry shop of dreams!
This Pastry shop from Philip Philippe Conticini opened in 2009 and was elected for the best Paris-Brest in 2010. He is a pioneer in the renewal of French pastry making and one of the rare pastry chefs to have also had a very high level cuisine career.
Walking into La Pâtisserie des Rêves is a pastry heaven experience; a special fairytale world opens up. The playfull design of the shop with a futuristic twist distinguish itself from the other parisian sharp designed pastry shops. Even the special packing has an futuristic, dreamy design and gives the buying of one of the sweet pastry dreams an extra dimension!
You'll find three take away boutiques in Paris and one choux pastry bar with a full-service tea salon with outdoor seating.


text:
T.J. Watt 'Nowhere I Want To Be' In Development, Calls It 'The Great Thing About Football'
Posted on November 21, 2019 at 1:00 pm
Don't you dare make the foolish mistake of asking T.J. Watt about how he feels about his development and where he considers himself to be. The third-year Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker has been one of the most accomplished edge defenders in the NFL this season, sitting third in the NFL in sacks and tied for second in forced fumbles, but his priority is the plays he's not making.
After answering questions about watching Bud Dupree and the progress he's made in his fifth season, a reporter asked Watt yesterday about where he felt he was. "Nowhere I want to be. I'd be a fool to say I'm where I want to be", he said.
"I'm just continually trying to maximize my potential week in and week out", the 2018 Pro Bowler went on. "There's so much film that I watch on myself week to week after games and there are so many plays left out there that I want to make. Just want to get better every day, and that's the great thing about football, is you're never gonna fully reach that potential, but you strive for it every day".
Watt is also among the league leaders in quarterback hits and in tackles for loss, and has clearly been among the most disruptive defenders in the NFL, but he also understands that even good plays in which he is getting pressure could be better, could be finished. Especially following last week's game in which Cleveland Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield was able to make a number of plays after escaping pressure, including from Watt.
Even as he laments the plays that he's leaving on the field, however, he is still making more than enough to position himself in the discussion as one of the best defenders in football right now. And Dupree's improvement this year has the duo in the conversation for the best pass-rushing tandem in the NFL.
Watt feels that their on-field relationship is a part of that, because they mutually benefit from one another. "I think that's the cool thing about me and Bud", he said. "We play similar, but not totally, so I can learn off of him and he can learn off of me, so it makes it a cool relationship".
While Dupree is due to pick up another sack or two here and there, between them, they have combined for 16.5 sacks on the year, and are on pace to become the first outside linebacker duo to hit that number since James Harrison and LaMarr Woodley both hit double digits in 2010.
Related Items:T.J. Watt
The Terrible Podcast – Talking Steelers News, Canada Hire, Rooney Comment Recap, Picks, Listener Emails & More
Rooney Won't Speculate On Contract Extension Timing For Watt
T.J. Watt On Defense: 'I Feel Like We Took A Lot Of Steps In The Right Direction'

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The Gowanus Canal was once a thriving hub for New York's maritime and commercial shipping industries. For years, however, factories dumped toxic waste, polluted runoff, and raw sewage directly into the water. Today, properties along the crumbling walls of the canal are littered with remnant garbage and abandoned structures, too hazardous and expensive to attract new development.
Like many cities, New York has a combined sewer system. During heavy rainfalls, raw sewage combines with stormwater runoff, overflowing directly into the Gowanus Canal. The contaminated water contains bacteria and toxic chemicals that endanger people and wildlife.
Even with its highly polluted water and crumbling walls, the Gowanus Canal, as it exists today, still evokes inherent natural beauty. The design for Gowanus Canal Sponge Park™ aims to enhance and showcase this beauty by creating an urban waterfront park along its banks that uses the landscape to clean the water.
The Sponge Park™ earns its name by incorporating landscape buffers and remediation wetlands that slow, absorb, and filter polluted sewer runoff before it enters the Gowanus Canal. In a process called phytoremediation, specially selected plants metabolize pollutants and heavy metals present in the contaminated water. Dirty water from the combined sewer system is captured in underground storage tanks and slowly released into the landscape.
Currently, neighborhood streets dead-end into the Gowanus Canal in a scene of asphalt pavement and metal barrier walls. The new design transforms these derelict, uninspiring spaces into street end pocket parks that offer citizens convenient and usable outdoor space with scenic views of the remediation wetlands and restored canal beyond.
An esplanade, or canal walk, connects the street-end parks and enables people to walk freely up and down the canal. This pedestrian corridor knits together a green fabric of new and existing parks and outdoor public amenities, enhancing livability for the local neighborhoods of Red Hook, Park Slope, and South Brooklyn.
By creating both active and passive public spaces, the Sponge Park accommodates the interests of all people. Public spaces include community gardens, dog runs, performance spaces, cafes, seating areas, boat launches, and exhibition spaces.
Immediate access to 7.4 acres of parkland along the canal will raise real estate values in this depressed community and spark new investment in the area. On a larger scale, treating water pollution at the source means that New York City can spend less tax money building expensive, engineered solutions like water treatment plants.
Combined sewer overflows allow over 1.1 million cubic meters of combined sewage to be discharged into the Gowanus Canal annually. New York State classifies the water in Gowanus Canal as Class SD — dangerously polluted. Fishing, swimming, and direct contact with the water are highly discouraged.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has placed the Gowanus Canal on its Superfund National Priority List. This grant guarantees at least $1 million in funding to clean up the canal.
The Gowanus Canal Sponge Park™ is a proposed plan to convert 11.4 acres of highly contaminated brownfields into an urban waterfront park. The design dedicates 7.4 acres to greenways and recreational open spaces and the remaining 3.5 acres to wetland basins that remediate the polluted landscape and waterway.
The innovative park design incorporates natural systems that use specially selected plants to filter toxic runoff water and absorb harmful pollutants before entering the Gowanus Canal.


text:
Q: Why doesn't inotify update? I'm writing an inotify watcher in C for a Minecraft server. Basically, it watches server.log, gets the latest line, parses it, and if it matches a regex; performs some actions.
The program works fine normally through "echo string matching the regex >> server.log", it parses and does what it should. However, when the string is written to the file automatically via Minecraft server, it doesn't work until I shut down the server or (sometimes) log out.
I would post code, but I'm wondering if it doesn't have something to do with ext4 flushing data to disk or something along those lines; a filesystem problem. It would be odd if that were the case though, because "tail -f server.log" updates whenever the file does.

A: Solved my own problem. It turned out the server was writing to the log file faster than the watcher could read from it; so the watcher was getting out of sync.
I fixed it by adding a check after it processes the event saying "if the number of lines currently in the log file is more than the recorded length of the log, reprocess the file until the two are equal."
Thanks for your help!

A: Presumably that is because you are watching for IN_CLOSE events, which may not occur until the server shuts down (and closes the log file handle). See man inotify(7) for valid mask parameters for the inotify_add_watch() call. I expect you'll want to use IN_WRITE.

A: Your theory is more than likely correct, the log file is being buffered by the OS, and the log writer has no flushing of that buffer, so everything will remain in the buffer till the file is closed or the buffer is full. A fast way to test is to start up the log to the point where you know it would have written events to the log, then forcibly close it so it cannot close the handle, if the log is empty is definitly the buffer. If you can get hold of the file handle/descriptor, you can use setbuf to remove buffering, at the cost of performance.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Houston 'war poet' David Brown pens survival verse
Andrew Dansby April 13, 2018 Updated: April 16, 2018 4:38 a.m.
1of8David Brown, a poet whose work is inspired by his time as a medic during the Vietnam War, feels five skulls which are tattooed on his forearm, at his home Friday, April 6, 2018, in Houston. Each skull represents a close friend from his unit who was killed. "It feels good, it feels better than when they were just inside as memories," Brown said about his tattoos.Photo: Houston Chronicle
2of8David Brown, a poet whose work is inspired by his time as a medic during the Vietnam War, feels five skulls which are tattooed on his forearm, Friday, April 6, 2018, in Houston. Each skull represents a close friend from his unit who was killed. "It feels good, it feels better than when they were just inside as memories," Brown said about his tattoos.Photo: Houston Chronicle
3of8David Brown, a poet whose work is inspired by his time as a medic during the Vietnam War, is pictured on the far left of a photo of his unit taken during the war, seen at his home, Friday, April 6, 2018, in Houston. Brown has five skulls tattooed on his forearm, each representing a close friend from his unit who was killed. "It feels good, it feels better than when they were just inside as memories," Brown said about his tattoos.Photo: Houston Chronicle
4of8David Brown, a poet whose work is inspired by his time as a medic during the Vietnam War, poses for a portrait with his new book, "Ghost of a Person Passing in Front of the Flag" at his home, Friday, April 6, 2018, in Houston. Brown has five skulls tattooed on his forearm, each representing a close friend from his unit who was killed. "It feels good, it feels better than when they were just inside as memories," Brown said about his tattoos.Photo: Houston Chronicle
5of8David Brown, a poet whose work is inspired by his time as a medic during the Vietnam War, pets his dog, "LB," at his home, Friday, April 6, 2018, in Houston. Brown has five skulls tattooed on his forearm, each representing a close friend from his unit who was killed. "It feels good, it feels better than when they were just inside as memories," Brown said about his tattoos.Photo: Houston Chronicle
6of8David Brown, a poet whose work is inspired by his time as a medic during the Vietnam War, reads from an issue of Life magazine that listed the American soldiers who were killed in Vietnam that week, at his home, Friday, April 6, 2018, in Houston. Brown has five skulls tattooed on his forearm, each representing a close friend from his unit who was killed. "It feels good, it feels better than when they were just inside as memories," Brown said about his tattoos.Photo: Houston Chronicle
7of8David Brown, a poet whose work is inspired by his time as a medic during the Vietnam War, poses for a portrait at his home, Friday, April 6, 2018, in Houston. Brown has five skulls tattooed on his forearm, each representing a close friend from his unit who was killed. "It feels good, it feels better than when they were just inside as memories," Brown said about his tattoos.Photo: Houston Chronicle
8of8David Brown, a poet whose work is inspired by his time as a medic during the Vietnam War, reads from his new book, "Ghost of a Person Passing in Front of the Flag" at his home, Friday, April 6, 2018, in Houston. Brown has five skulls tattooed on his forearm, each representing a close friend from his unit who was killed. "It feels good, it feels better than when they were just inside as memories," Brown said about his tattoos.Photo: Houston Chronicle
David Brown wrote a story of survival on his arms.
Tattooed on the inside of the Houston poet's left forearm are five skulls originally designed by the artist and musician Terry Allen based on some steps at the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza.
"Dotson, Goselin, Hill and Stefanski," Brown says. "They got shot down in a helicopter, June 5, 1970."
Topolinski, the fifth skull, was killed by a sniper.
"I prefer having them here where I can see them," says Brown, a medic with the 1st Battalion of the 14th Infantry Regiment in Vietnam from 1969 to 1970. "Instead of just letting them be memories."
Brown wrote the new poem "Liquids" as a memorial to the four killed in the chopper. It appears in "Ghost of a Person Passing in Front of a Flag," his new collection. The book is unflinching, meditative, haunting and haunted — as his work has been for over 30 years.
"Between history and a hard place." Brown uses that phrase twice in the collection, which displays a recurring interest and frustration with time and reality and the fluidity of memory. His poems are filled with vivid visuals, but they also possess some elusive quality as he tries to make sense of his experience.
D.F. Brown reads from "Ghost of a Person Passing in Front of the Flag"
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday
Where: Brazos Bookstore, 2421 Bissonnet
More details: 713-523-0701, brazosbookstore.com
"There are questions about the reliability of memory," Brown says. "You remember things so viscerally, but pulling them into language deforms them."
Poet W.D. Ehrhart, who included Brown's work in his '80s anthology "Carrying the Darkness: The Poetry of the Vietnam War," thinks Brown is uniquely able to process and express information in his poems.
"His images are sharp, striking, startling, yet when I try to write an explication I have a hard time doing it for these poems," Ehrhart says. "You come away with strong feelings that you don't understand everything. But that is the essence of war. I've never seen any other poet do this, ever, and I'm going back to Homer. Poets try to make sense of the world, and in that way, poetry about war is misleading. Because war doesn't make sense."
Knowing 'bad'
At the top of Brown's left arm is his wife's name.
The two share a studio space behind their Heights home. Brown — surrounded by books and photos of their family and friends and his "boys" from the 1st of the 14th Infantry — writes upstairs. Downstairs, Tracye Wear creates arresting art that provides an eye-catching counterpart to Brown's grid of books. Her space is populated by subtly sinuous sculpture, which he says flourished in number a few years ago when her mother died. She processed the trauma into a striking exhibit of work at the Moody Gallery two years ago. "She'd just go into the room and say she was going to throw some clay," Brown says.
Outside blooms a version of the brightly colored vision of Brown's poem "Houston Spring, 2010," with its pink tea roses, purple irises and green pecan trees. Brown is particularly proud of their compost.
"Real tomatoes are my only requirement," he says. "If life can give me tomatoes, it's not so bad."
Brown, on multiple occasions, uses phrases that establish some not-entirely-arbitrary standard for what isn't bad. Not a definition of what's good. But at 70, he's entitled to his standards. Also, he knows bad.
For more than 30 years Brown has picked at the tangled fishing line of the Vietnam War in his poetry. The thing that repels him also compels him, a weird duality for a writer whose source material both parasitic and nurturing.
"I've been accused of dwelling on things," he says. "But I feel like we're losing the past. It's going away. Writing is my way of trying to slow that down."
Brown has lived in Houston since 1988, which was four years after he published his first volume of poetry, "Returning Fire."
Here, he taught in Houston ISD until his retirement four years ago, which took place right after he collapsed one day while walking home from school. He figured he'd written his last poem. Heart surgery ensued. Then poems followed.
Brown feels stronger now. His surgeon, "Doc Sweeney," told Brown he has another 30 years. But the surgery prompted a reassessment of some of his recent work.
Brown scotched a manuscript that he felt was going nowhere and started working on eight new poems, which he sent to the Iowa Review. Last year, those poems placed second in the Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award for Veterans writing contest.
He read some of them at an event at Brazos Bookstore and caught the attention of the editor at a nascent Houston press called Bloomsday, which wanted to make his next collection its first release. The poems — more than 40 short verses and one longer piece — reach across a life, though they meditate also on unknowable things bigger than one's time on Earth. In Brown's case, that started in the Ozarks of Missouri.
Doing good things
"That's my mama," Brown says of a cursive "Billie" written on his upper left arm. "When she died, I put her on here."
Brown's maternal grandfather expected a son, which is how one ends up with daughters named Billie and Frankie. Brown's Aunt Frankie was for a time a professional singer. Country singer Lefty Frizzell was no stranger at the family's house, and songwriter Red Foley once babysat Brown.
The poet's father's side of the family were dirt farmers and cowboys in southern Missouri.
His father died when Brown was 12. His mother then went to college, and she brought home a William Blake anthology from her romantic poetry class. Brown's interest was piqued. He soon found Theodore Roethke's "The Waking," which "nailed my ass to the wall." He recites a bit: "What falls away is always. And is near."
Brown put poetry on hold to study journalism at the University of Missouri in the mid-'60s. Graduation came with a decision.
"Rather than get drafted, I enlisted as a medic," he says. "My dad had been a medic in World War II. At that time, the war was starting to smell bad. But I thought it'd be a salve to my conscience. I thought I'd be doing good things."
Snaking history
Brown's combat medic badge rests near the top of his right arm. That tattoo includes the caduceus — intertwined serpents on a staff.
Brown isn't crazy about snakes. He recalls a cobra about 10 feet long near an outhouse at a base camp. Most of his unit wanted to get rid of the snake, but one soldier said it was an asset for keeping away the rats. Brown pointed out that the anti-venom kit he was provided was for the venom of North American vipers, not the feisty neurotoxins of an Asian elapid.
"So one of the guys took his pistol down there and not long after that we heard a report," he says. "The cooks had a big pickle jar. They just coiled it inside with some vinegar."
Aside from the badge, Brown doesn't have a snake anywhere else on his arms. He does have a golden dragon on his right forearm, which represents the 1st of the 14th.
He was in camp with his unit when Brown had his sunlight-through-the-trees moment, creatively at least. A cardboard box marked "special package" served as a book dump, largely populated with genre fiction by Louis L'Amour and Mickey Spillane.
"I was late getting to the box because I was a medic, so I always had some little medical duty," Brown says. "By the time I got to the box … ."
Brown stands and goes to a 12-foot bookshelf filled exclusively with poetry.
"… this was all that was left." He holds a copy of Robert Creeley's "Pieces."
The book became crucial to Brown's being. A pair of Creeley verses serve as introductions to the two parts of "Ghost of a Person Passing in Front of the Flag."
"What truth is it," Creeley wrote, "that makes men so miserable?"
Brown served in Europe for several years after the war ended, finally leaving the service in 1977. He enrolled at San Francisco State, thinking Creeley was there, to pursue a Master's degree. Turns out the poet was in Buffalo.
San Francisco in the early 1980s nevertheless proved a nurturing environment built around the Poetry Center, started in 1954 from a donation by W.H. Auden.
Brown had plenty of material from which to draw. He says the phrase "war poet" with some degree of discomfort, perhaps because there exists a perception of war poetry as a categorical genre, like sci-fi or western novels. But poetry about war is old as words and war.
Ehrhart suggests poetry is far more suited for describing war than cinema. He doesn't even think the novel is a viable format.
"War films are terrible, and with a novel there's the possibility you might make some money," Ehrhart says. "Poets never have to worry about that. Nobody's paying any damn attention to what they say, so they can say what they want. There's a certain intellectual honesty in that."
Messages between worlds
When Brown holds up a poetry book by George Oppen, who was wounded at the Battle of the Bulge, the centipede totem on his left forearm rises.
"This is a respected critter," he says of the tattoo, "because it carries messages between the worlds."
The centipede could be seen as representing Brown's chosen function. He's taken a particular experience from the horrifying world of armed combat and delivered it to a reader. Poets can create order through meter and rhyme. Ehrhart admires the way Brown can use structure and create something "disorderly."
Brown cites his touchstones as primarily 20th-century poets. "They were battered with the idea they were theory-driven and not romantic," he says. "That's the anathema. But I draw from them because the last thing I want to be is romantic about the Vietnam War. I want to shed all the sentimentality and cliché and get straight to what is the essence of the experience, unadorned by bunting and parades."
Fittingly, then, his left shoulder bears a muted trumpet from Thomas Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49." The image is the logo for an underground mail system in Pynchon's book, a means of transferring information when more traditional means become unreliable.
Brown's frankness about the war is uncompromising. He brings up Ken Burns' large-scale documentary about the Vietnam War from 2017. He found things to admire in Burns' film, but detested the premise that the war was begun by well-intentioned Americans.
"Those were hardass Cold Warriors ready to go to war with a small agricultural country whose power was water buffalo pulling a plow through a rice paddy," he says. "All to teach China a lesson. That's not well-intentioned. The truth is it wasn't worth the blood. We lost 60,000 guys, more when you consider Agent Orange, suicide. The Vietnamese lost 3 million. We f—ed them over. We invented that war. And we owe them something. Certainly a cleanup."
Brown has his own ghosts from his time in Vietnam.
He says, "the last stress of my life is the fact that veterans are not being treated well. This country doesn't have a good record."
'A third of a man'
The combat medic's badge also has the familiar white cross on a red background. As a medic, Brown dealt with the irritating and the horrific: from skin rashes to death.
On the surface, he doesn't reveal much of the weight from the war. He cuts an artist's figure, his round blue glasses sit above his unshaven mug. He could pass for one of the country and folk singers and songwriters he loves so much.
But through his enthusiastic tour of 20th-century poetry he drops depth markers from time to time that chart rougher waters: a first marriage that came undone; the struggle with alcoholism. "Figuring out what to do with the detritus of the war," he says. "I mean, I was a medic, so I was up to my ears in s—. It was blood, guts and broken bones."
He says the one space he hasn't really visited was the year before he entered the war, when he was training in a combat hospital.
"I still don't know if I've laid the tracks to write about that year yet," he says.
He remembers his first day, when he was handed a sheet-wrapped parcel and told to take it to the incinerator, realizing halfway there that the sheets contained two legs.
"A third of a man," he says.
A year later, he was deep in the jungle. His unit set a Claymore anti-personnel mine along a trail that looked like it had been trafficked. Three men approached. The mine was detonated.
"One guy caught the mine, he was blown in half," Brown says. "One guy was hit, and we didn't know about the third guy. That was dusk. As soon as it got full dark, the second guy started moaning. Somebody wanted to shoot him, but we didn't know s—. We didn't know if they were three men in advance of 5,000. We didn't know where the third guy was. We didn't know if he had a pistol. But my Hippocratic oath was to relieve pain. And I didn't go out there. He finally died, and I tucked it away. But it haunted me for a long time."
The new poem "Night Without Hours" references dying moans cloaked in the night, but that one death is a detail in a different meditation.
"I've never been able to write about that specifically," Brown says. "I guess I got 27 more years to do it, according to Doc Sweeney. You don't know when these things will bubble forth. I guess it's what I know."
He smirks. "I'm a war poet."
andrew.dansby@chron.com
Andrew Dansby
Follow Andrew on:
andrewdansby
Andrew Dansby covers music and other entertainment, both local and national, for the Houston Chronicle, 29-95.com and chron.com. He previously assisted the editor for George R.R. Martin, author of "Game of Thrones" and later worked on three "major" motion pictures you've never seen. That short spell in the film business nudged him into writing, first as a freelancer and later with Rolling Stone. He came to the Chronicle in 2004 as an entertainment editor and has since moved to writing full time.
Andrew dislikes monkeys, dolphins and the outdoors. He has no pets.
From Alief to L.A., rapper Maxo Kream is living the dream
Mike Freedman's 'King of the Mississippi' just may be the Great Houston Novel we've been waiting for.
Rec Room stages 'Woyzeck' with teenagers
Modeling agency signs teen after his hair cost him a job at Six Flags Over Texas
Where does your bowling ball go? Get an inside look at how a bowling alley works
KPRC Houston welcomes Ari Alexander and Taniya Wright to news team
Michael Strahan of Good Morning America gets candid about Houston
Texan Norah O'Donnell takes over CBS Evening News in a historic week
Confusion reigns in line for single-stall bathrooms


This documentation explains the distribution of content and management for the LawPress - Lawyers WordPress Theme, as seen in the LawPress - Lawyers WordPress Theme Demo.
6 to 17 section comes within page builder. To edit those sections you need to login to your WordPress admin panel then visit Pages. There you will see all the pages. The home page will be marked as "Front page". Click on the edit link and then you can edit the home page.
Here we have added 2 Rows Element. Within each column of both Rows we added a Icon Box Element, a WPM Section Heading Element and a Visual Composer Text Block Element.
Within a Row Element we added a Livemesh Grid Element and under the Posts query options we select wpm_gallery.


It's crinum time in the city! My passalong 'Ellen Bousanquet' jumped right in with the crowds.
Perhaps all that rain prompted shy bloomers out there, since many gardeners report flowering at last. My mystery crinum took a few years to bloom after planting—typical after crinums are divided.
Fungal diseases sure liked that rain, too. Rows of cloudy days and humid, cool weather set up perfect breeding conditions. Daphne's gotten lots of questions about brown splotches on oak leaves.
Don't worry, she tells us. This is oak leaf blister. "The spores of this fungus overwinter on the tree, but only become infectious if conditions are right for their development. It only affects the first flush of growth in the spring, so leaves that develop later in the season won't be affected at all," she says.
Even if the leaves fall off, there's no long-term damage, and the trees will grow new leaves. Find out more about oak leaf blister.
Undaunted by rain, Texas Superstar 'Flare' Hibiscus cheered on soldiers, their families and the Gardening Volunteers of South Texas on our recent visit to San Antonio's Fort Sam Houston Warrior and Family Support gardens. That powerful segment's slated to air in November.
This week, Daphne celebrates another Texas Superstar: Moy Grande hibiscus with flowers as big as Texas—well, Texas-size dinner plates!
Developed by the late Dr. Moy at the San Antonio Botanical Garden, this one's hardy to USDA Zone 5. For us in Central Texas, it will lose its leaves in winter, but being root hardy, will bound back up to 5-6' in spring.
Thank you to Dr. Jerry Parsons, (Retired) Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service—San Antonio for the great pictures! Find out more about Moy Grande hibiscus.
Flaming bougainvillea revels in summer's heat, but what's the trick to keep them blooming?
John Dromgoole's got the tips, including watering, soil, and pruning. Since they bloom on new wood, John shows where to prune to promote flowers between resting cycles.
Iron mixed with seaweed (you're going for high nitrogen on those bracts) helps. Since they like a more acidic pH, John adds soil sulfur every 3 months or so.
Many of my neighbors plant them in the ground. Even though some got hit hard this past winter, they're rebounding! Find out more about bougainvilleas.
Healthy, pretty plants start with nutrient-rich soil. Jessica Robertson from Backbone Valley Nursery in Marble Falls goes INSIDE the box with tips for worm composting.
Red wigglers are the eager beaver composters you want.
Worms don't care how cute you make their houses.
But if you want snazzy up their homes, what a great family project! Plus, worm composting is an ideal way to spare the landfill if you don't have room for a compost bin or live in an apartment or condo.
You can even use a large plastic container, with holes drilled in the bottom and sides.
But, like us, red wigglers are picky about comfort. It's important to keep them cool in summer—out of the sun—and comfortably warm in winter. Indoors is ideal, since it doesn't smell. Give them comfy nesting material like coconut coir fiber or shredded newspaper.
Quickly, they'll turn your kitchen scraps into luscious worm castings to nourish containers and garden beds. As Jessica says, these are like hungry teenagers: a pound of worms will eat two pounds of food daily.
Check out Backbone Valley Nursery's website for upcoming classes on worm composting, fairy gardens and much more! And do sign up for Jessica's really helpful e-newsletter.
Drop in for their great plants, orchid shade house, organic products, containers, fountains, and knowledgeable, enthusiastic guidance.
Unearth more about earthworms (they all have different jobs!) in Amy Stewart's informative, fun read, The Earth Moved.
Viewer Picture goes to Charles Vaughn of his travels to Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania. See more of his pictures to entice you to visit if traveling this summer!
On tour, let's cool off in Claire Golden's soothing Mission-style courtyard in San Antonio.
When Claire bought this 1920s Mediterranean bungalow after her husband J.Y. passed away, she saw the potential of its courtyard, then a sloping half-dead lawn. Architect Don B. McDonald restored its true mission as a courtyard to enjoy from indoors as well as outside.
Don terraced the long, narrow slope into a series of rooms, bisected by a miniature aqueduct.
A pergola, entwined with many vines that flower across the year, offers a ceiling of shade in one corner room.
Even in this narrow space, Claire and her friends have their pick of intimate spaces to relax and converse.
Patterns with scavenged limestone and bricks unite the spaces with no-maintenance footing.
When Claire found a sconce in a thrift store, she asked Donald to craft similar ones to gently light the courtyard at night.
She didn't overlook a tiny "garden hallway" that leads to the driveway. Instead, she made it an inviting foyer, complete with Mission-style doors.
In front, terraced lawns host many parties under graceful old oak trees.
Walkways lead to patios, framed in leafy softness.
Carlos Cortez designed the faux bois furniture.
A faux bois bridge covers the stream at the front of the property.
Once an ugly drainage ditch, Claire's first project was to turn it into a stream. Not only does it soften the street sounds, it invites a lot of wildlife to join her outdoor parties.
Claire is one of the most charming, down-to-earth inspirational people I've ever known. So,meet her right now!


It's a rather special one this time, as the Disnerds are joined by TWO - count'em - TWO guests! We are joined by both Tanya AND Kiva, and a lovely time's had by all. There's actually even a surprising amount of Disney talk in this episode, along with Don Bluth, Dreamworks, and...Kid 'n Play's House Party??
If you enjoyed this mere half of the full episode - more soon! - let us know! You can Like us on Facebook, Follow on Twitter and Tumblr, subscribe on iTunes, and email us at disnerds@gmail.com - and, as always, enjoy!
Tanya and David's new podcast, Fresh Out of Tokens!


January 13, 2019 Rev. Dr. Donna Petter is the Associate Professor of Old Testament at Gordon-Conwell Seminary.
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. 6 For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, 7 always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. 9 But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.
You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, 11 my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me.12 Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13 while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom:2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. 5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
I just read today 1 Samuel 12:21. "And you must not turn aside, for then you would go after futile things which can not profit or deliver, because they are futile." I thought it fit right in.


The Barong Belt from Object is handcrafted from a thick vegetable tanned leather measuring 3.5-4.0mm thick with an embossed logo inside and out. The handmade gauged strap effect is finished off with tonal hand stitching. The raw edges are complemented by the contrast manual oxblood and black dye treatment. This belt has a hand-crafted distressed buckle with a metal keeper and double prong belt pin.
Due to the artisanal craftsmanship of this piece, inconsistencies are to be revered.
Object is part of the slow fashion movement. Every piece is handcrafted in their studio in the United Kingdom. Please allow up to 7-10 days for crafting before delivery during busy times.


text:
var expected = [
  // Deprecated proprietary Chrome APIs unrelated to Extensions.
  'csi',
  'loadTimes',
  // chrome.runtime is always available for chrome-untrusted://.
  'runtime',
  // chrome.test is granted for testing.
  'test',
];

var actual = Object.keys(chrome).sort();
chrome.test.assertEq(expected, actual);
chrome.test.notifyPass();