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Theatre Bristol brings Miracle on 34th Street to the Stage this holiday season
Theatre Bristol will bring a "Miracle" to downtown Bristol this holiday season, a "Miracle on 34th Street." The holiday family favorite will open Thanksgiving weekend, beginning Friday, November 29th and run through December 15th. (Weekend one; November 29, 30, December 1. Weekend two; December 6, 7, 8. Weekend three; December 13, 14, 15). Friday and Saturday evening performances begin at 7:30. Sunday matinees begin at 2:30. Adult tickets are $12.00. Senior (60+), student and children's tickets are $10.00. Reserve your tickets in advance by calling 423-383-5979.
"Miracle on 34th Street" is a tale that we want to believe in, that creates a world we seem to desperately desire, free of the blatant commercialism that surrounds us, where love and decency and generosity of spirit are their own rewards. What we want Christmas to be all about, really," so writes the Santa Cruz Sentinel of this most heartwarming holiday story. By chance, Kris Kringle, an old man in a retirement home, gets a job working as Santa for Macy's. Kris unleashes waves of good will with Macy's customers and the commercial world of New York City by referring parents to other stores to find exactly the toy their child has asked for. Seen as deluded and dangerous by Macy's vocational counselor, who plots to have Kris shanghaied to Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital, Kris ends up in a court competency hearing. Especially at stake is one little girl's belief in Santa. In a dramatic decision, the court confirms Kris as the true Santa, allowing Susan and countless other children to experience the joy of childhood fantasy.
Directing the cast of thirty is regionally respected director and longtime Theatre Bristol collaborator, Glenn Patterson. The cast features a nice mix of Theatre Bristol veterans and new comers. Kris, or Santa, is played by John Runde. The role of Susan, the seven-year-old girl who learns to believe, is dual cast with Lauren Turner and Audrey Chapman. Her mother, the skeptical and guarded Doris Walker, is played by Meaghan Gray. Michael Gerber is in the role of optimistic attorney Fred Galey. The rest of the cast includes: SaBrina King, Steve Basket, Michael Lester, Lindsay Marshall, Lily Osborne, Ginny Osborne, Daniel Osborne, Miriam Price, Lilly Price, Ian Price, Cassidy Brunson, Haley Brunson, Molly Johnson, Grace Johnson, Abigail Hill, Lacey Williams, Jacob Alvis, Torey Walk, Ethan Riffey, Rori Simmons, Iona Blackburn, Eliza McClellan, Daniel Freeman, Carson Musick and Mike Musick.
The classic holiday story was first brought to the silver screen by Twentieth Century Fox in 1947 from the story by Valentine Davies, and starred a young Natalie Wood as Susan Walker, Maureen O'Hara as her mother Doris and Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle. The 1994 remake starred Dylan McDermott, Elizabeth Perkins and Sir Richard Attenborough. Theatre Bristol will be performing the stage version that is based on the classic and adapted by Mountain Community Theatre.
For more information please visit our website www.theatrebristol.org or visit our facebook page. Call 423-383-5979 for information or tickets.
Press, please call Mike Musick at 423-383-4035 if you need additional story info or to schedule an interview.
Theatre Bristol to perform "Miracle on 34th Street", audition and show dates announced
Contact: Mike Musick, 423-383-5979
Bristol, September 2013. Theatre Bristol will bring a "Miracle" to downtown Bristol this holiday season, a "Miracle on 34th Street". The holiday family favorite will open Thanksgiving weekend, beginning Friday, November 29th and run through December 15th. (Weekend one; Nov. 29, 30, Dec. 1. Weekend two; Dec. 6, 7, 8. Weekend three; Dec. 13, 14, 15). Show times are 7:30 pm for Friday & Saturday evening performances and 2:30 pm for the Sunday matinees. Directing the cast of over 25 will be regionally respected director and longtime Theatre Bristol collaborator Glen Patterson. Tickets are $12.00 for adults, $10 for seniors (60+), students, and children.
"Miracle on 34th Street" is a tale that we want to believe in, that creates a world we seem to desperately desire, free of the blatant commercialism that surrounds us, where love and decency and generosity of spirit are their own rewards. What we want Christmas to be all about, really." So writes the Santa Cruz Sentinel of this most heartwarming holiday story. By chance, Kris Kringle, an old man in a retirement home, gets a job working as Santa for Macy's. Kris unleashes waves of good will with Macy's customers and the commercial world of New York City by referring parents to other stores to find exactly the toy their child has asked for. Seen as deluded and dangerous by Macy's vocational counselor, who plots to have Kris shanghaied to Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital, Kris ends up in a court competency hearing. Especially at stake is one little girl's belief in Santa. In a dramatic decision, the court confirms Kris as the true Santa, allowing Susan and countless other children to experience the joy of childhood fantasy.
Auditions are set for Sunday, October 6th at 3:00pm and Monday, October 7th at 7:00. They will be held at Theatre Bristol, 506 State Street, Bristol, TN. The cast includes principal roles for a young girl (age 7 and up), 2 women, 3 men and 14 supporting roles for men or women and many extras including children (age 6 and up). All experience levels are encouraged to audition. No previous acting experience is necessary. No prepared material is needed. Auditions will consist of cold readings from the script. Rehearsals will begin the week of October 13. For more information see the Theatre Bristol website or facebook page. Or call Theatre Bristol's information line 423-383-5979.


Republican Congress:Illinois' Jerry Weller, Refco, Bancafe Guatemala, Virginia Senator George Allen, Balmore Fund,Xybernaut,etc.
Worse yet,much of the hidden losses,if not most,may be due to involvement with U.S. penny stock 'investments' that certainly weren't losses for their often anonymous clients who use other sub-companies of Refco such as Balmore Funds,Celeste Trust an who knows how many more to route those worthless penny stocks back to U.S. and German penny stock markets to be sold retail to defraude investors in America or those buying these fraudulent U.S. stocks on other world markets or through boiler rooms that were operated in conjunction with and to Refco's real offshore clients who use penny stocks for 'pump and dump' fraud as well as money laundering that Congressman Jerry Weller should have been smart enough to realise.
It is no surprise that Refco has made use of Bermuda for some of its and its other shell companies' penny stock transactions and manipulations just as it has used Lichtenstein,etc. in Europe and is intimately tied to Bawag Bank of Austria as well.LOM or Lines Overseas Management of Bermuda has done the same for years and U.S. penny stock con artists such as James Dale Davidson founder of the National Taxpayers Union and penny stock cyber emporium Agora Inc of Baltimore have investe in and operated through LOM and probably its Charles Schwab and Vfin accounts.
questioinable offshore banking and securities activities and transactions is something this islan will be very reluctant to give up.
Bermuda court system has aided LOM in withholding information on penny stock transactions from the SEC and unfortuneatly the SEC in this post 9/11 era has done little to enforse disclosures of offshores who use worthless U.S. penny stocks in a pump and dump money laundering offshore industry.Strangely onshore brokers such as Charles Schwab,Refco, Vfin,etc. hold most of the information the SEC pretends to be looking for in Bermuda but the SEC of Chris Cox John Negroponte and W Bush has no intention of bothering their real constituents who are these offshore crooks as well as brokers such as Charles Schwab.
However because Illinois Congressman Jerry Weller chose to take Refco's campaign contributions and look the other way as they ran a major international penny stock fraud network with U.S. penny stock shares, Guatemalans who have nothing to do with those worthless U.S. penny stocks that yielded Refco its losses and the total collapse of Bancafe of Gutemala,are the ones suffering !
Congressman Jerry Weller of Illinois in the U.S. where Refco with its Autrian Bawag Bank and offshore client connections was allowed to go public and sale its own penny styock backed 'futures market' in the first place was a contributor to Weller and in Guatemala where his wife Zury Rios Sosa plays a significant role in running the country as a congresswoman,Refco has created an economic catastrophe that may in the end cost Guatemalan banks to lose their credit rating.
Unfortunately Senator George Allen has gone one worse and rather than just taking campaign contributions from Refco,appears to have worked with the Xybernaut penny stock scam run by known con artists,Israeli or no.Yes although Balmore Fund and Celeste Trust appear to have Israeli clients who run penny stock scams such as Xybernaut through them, Balmore appears to be controlled by Bawag and an Austrian billionaire.
'Refco is a large foreign exchange and commodity broker providing clearing and execution services for global exchange-traded derivatives including futures,'..
Illinois Republican Jerry Weller is one of the most powerful men in Congress when it comes to Latin America. His wife is the most powerful woman in Guatemala's controversial FRG party.
Their mutual admiration notwithstanding, the announcement raised a red flag. Weller, who would be the first congressman ever to marry a member of a foreign national legislature, sat on the International Relations Committee and its western hemisphere subcommittee--would his votes be influenced by Sosa?
In January 2005 Weller became vice chairman of the western hemisphere subcommittee, by far the most important committee in Congress writing legislation on Latin America and the war on drugs and overseeing U.S. policy on those issues. "The western hemisphere subcommittee has been one of the only ones overseeing U.S. drug policy, and it has been the main one making U.S. drug policy," says Adam Isacson of the watchdog group Center for International Policy. "It has huge influence." The 16-member committee also focuses on trade and democracy in the region.
Weller often talks about these issues as they relate to Caribbean and Latin American countries--but not Guatemala, even though it has 12.7 million people, a third of the population of Central America. He voted for CAFTA, the free-trade agreement that includes Guatemala, but he doesn't talk about specific trade possibilities with that country. He also doesn't talk about democracy in Guatemala, which is fragile at best, and he doesn't talk about money laundering or drug trafficking there, even though up to 70 percent of the drugs that enter the U.S. come through Guatemala. All of which raises questions about whether he's doing everything he can to address the concerns of his constituents. He's painted himself into a corner, and he seems to be making no effort to get out.
AP Photo⁄Rodrigo AbdIN 2003, THE year Weller met Sosa, Guatemala was controlled by the FRG, and the nation's president was her father's handpicked FRG ally, Alfonso Portillo. Relations with the U.S. had sunk to their lowest in years. "By all accounts corruption continues to run rampant in Guatemala," Otto Reich, an assistant secretary of state, had told the western hemisphere subcommittee in October 2002. "Organized crime, in particular narcotics trafficking and alien smuggling, is increasing. Guatemala is a major and growing transit country for narcotics, yet seizures have dropped to practically nothing. . . . Few high-level figures are ever charged or even formally investigated for corruption, and fewer go to trial." Reich also stated that "large amounts of cocaine are being transshipped through Guatemala with almost complete impunity" and noted that narcotics smugglers had "very close ties to the highest levels of government." The following month the Bush administration embarrassed Guatemala by denying a former intelligence chief a visa and accusing him of drug trafficking.
Rios Montt had been president before, having come to power in a military coup in 1982. The Guatemalan military was then at war with leftist rebels--they'd been fighting since 1960 and wouldn't stop until 1996--and thousands of civilians were being murdered. During the war an estimated 200,000 people were killed, up to 70,000 of them during Rios Montt's 17 months in office; he was overthrown in another coup. According to two truth commissions set up after the war, the military was responsible for over 90 percent of the violence. Rios Montt wanted to run again for president in 1990, but the constitution passed in 1985 barred former coup leaders from running. Four years later he ran for congress and won and was soon elected its head. When he tried to run for president that year the courts again barred him, but in 2003 he was back as a candidate.
Zury Rios Sosa, who'd started her political career in 1989 doing public relations for the FRG and was first elected to congress on the party's slate in 1995, was running for reelection in 2003--and directing her father's presidential campaign. She regularly stumped for him, saying Guatemala needed a "strong hand" and calling him her "inspiration." (She hasn't publicly distanced herself from his record or denounced the murders committed while he was president in the 80s.) In mid- July the constitutional court ruled that this time Rios Montt could continue his campaign, saying the law against former coup leaders running couldn't be applied retroactively. The country's supreme court said it wanted to revisit the issue, and on July 24 thousands of his supporters, armed with clubs and machetes, poured into the streets of the capital, burning cars, smashing windows, and surrounding court buildings and the U.S. embassy. A TV reporter chased by Rios Montt supporters threatening to douse him with gasoline suffered a heart attack and died. The rioters' actions seemed coordinated, and for hours neither the police nor the military intervened. The U.S. State Department accused the FRG of providing tents and other supplies to the demonstrators, many of whom had been bused in the night before.
"Who says that?" she said.
Two weeks later Jerry Weller, arrived in Guatemala with three other members of the International Relations Committee to discuss trade and drug trafficking.
The following summer Weller announced that he and Sosa were engaged. His spokesman said it would be the second marriage for both of them, and it's not clear whether Weller knew this would actually be her fourth. At any rate, the day after they announced their engagement they sent a petition to the Federal Election Commission asking if Sosa--who had no intention of resigning her seat, applying for U.S. citizenship, or becoming a permanent resident--could make decisions in Weller's reelection campaign as well as solicit funds for him and speak on his behalf. The FEC said the law prohibited foreign nationals from donating funds or participating in decision making related to any U.S. election, but if she worked as a volunteer she could make speeches and ask for money, though only from Americans.
Two months after his marriage Weller, ignoring calls for him to resign, became vice chairman of the western hemisphere subcommittee. It's not that he doesn't have plenty of other interests. He's also on the powerful Ways and Means Committee and on the International Relations Committee's terrorism and nonproliferation subcommittee. His record, of which he's proud, covers a wide range of issues, from eliminating the marriage-tax penalty to redeveloping the Joliet Arsenal, establishing health clinics for veterans, creating tax incentives for companies to clean up brown-field sites, and lobbying to expand the use of alternative fuels.
A thorough search of online congressional records and news reports over the past three years turns up almost nothing Weller's said publicly about Guatemala. He is quoted in a press release his wife distributed in Spanish in Guatemala City, saying, "I am a Republican and we believe our countries must work together." He wouldn't comment for this story, and in a January 2006 article an AP writer complained, "Weller refused repeated requests to discuss his marriage's impact on his work in Congress." Other members of the western hemisphere subcommittee talk about Guatemala, including the Republican chair, Dan Burton, who last year denounced "mob justice" in the country.
Weller clearly thinks he can't even talk about anything good that's happened in Guatemala, including the antiterrorism legislation sponsored by his wife. "There are some positive notes in this hemisphere," he said during a subcommittee hearing in May. "Some countries, such as Panama, Trinidad, Tobago, Jamaica, Mexico, and El Salvador, have all made serious prevention and preparedness efforts" against terrorism. He didn't say a word about Guatemala, which sits between Mexico and El Salvador.
Not only was I defrauded by Refco as far as I can tell,(the SEC wishes to protect the guilty),by way of Balmore Fund,but also a substantial sector of the Guatemalan public got taken by Refco as well.Bancafe of Guatemala or Colombia or Miami or Barbados, depending on the article you read,had a large 'investment' in Refco so I guess it was the collapse of Refco shares that got the Guatemalans with Bancafe accounts.
Does anyone understand this ? What were those losses that were transfered to other Refco related companies or shells to avoid putting the losses on the Refco books ? Were they in part or great part penny stock losses or not ? Refco and Schwab(before they sold their market maker business to UBS),WERE THE MAJOR MARKET MAKERS FOR ENDOVASC AT ONE TIME,so didn't Charles Schwab realise the fraud the were profiteering from ? Did Schwab also work for or with Refco's Balmore ?
Yes I still have so many questions because Chris Cox's SEC is so corrupt in my opinion.He could ask someone at SEC to answer my questions.
Anyway after so many years of living in Guatemala in poverty for 'investing' in the Refco-Balmore-Stanford penny stock fraud Endovasc, it is paradoxical to realise so many Guatemalans were defrauded and lost their savings just by depositing them into what turned out to be a Refco related scam.We are in this boat together and people such as Virginia Senator George Allen are among our defrauders and I see no excuse whatsoever for his helping the Balmore and thus Refco to defraud us by touting its Xybernaut pump and dump and PROBABLE MONEY LAUNDERING OPERATION.
And Charlie Schwab is still counting profits from his market makers many penny stock frauds and smirking at how smart he was to invest in W Bush's political future.Also I still believe 'Bobo' and David Patch and the sanitycheck penny stock touters know more about Refco than they pretend.Pretending to be above it all is just part of their stock fraud modus operendi just as it is in their Beltway political frauds and dirty tricks.
James Dale Davidson and the phony 'libertarians' are big fans of some right wing Austrian economist.
(Meisner ?) And Agora Inc has recommended Austrian bank accounts in the past although another bank than Bawag was mentioned.
March 24 (Bloomberg) -- Austria's Bawag PSK Bank used offshore companies to mask almost 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) of losses from bond and currency investments that nearly drove the firm into bankruptcy, bank officials said.
Bawag shifted the losses to companies including six firms on the Caribbean island of Anguilla and wrote them down over time, Chief Executive Officer Ewald Nowotny said at a press conference in Vienna today. The bank may sue Wolfgang Flottl, a hedge fund manager, in connection with failed investments, he said.
``We had considerable losses of close to 1 billion euros,'' said Nowotny, 61, who took over as CEO of Vienna-based Bawag in January, after his predecessor Johann Zwettler resigned.
Guenter Weninger, the chairman of Bawag's supervisory board, said today that he learned of the losses in 2000, when the bank was close to bankruptcy. He said he plans to resign from the board. Flottl didn't return a call seeking comment today.
The revelation of Bawag's hidden losses may have ripple effects across the Atlantic in the bankruptcy case U.S. futures broker Refco Inc. U.S. prosecutors investigating Refco's collapse have found evidence that Refco maintained accounts for Bawag that held its offshore investments, people with direct knowledge of the probe said March 15.
Bawag, which owned 10 percent of New York-based Refco from 1999 to 2004, is already ensnared in Refco's bankruptcy. The bank is one of Refco's largest creditors, and has sued the company and its former CEO, Phillip Bennett, to recover 350 million euros it loaned to him in October.
The U.S. Attorney in New York and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating the alleged fraud at Refco.
March 24 (Bloomberg) -- Austria's Bawag PSK Bank used offshore companies and accounts at Refco Inc. to mask almost 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) of losses from bond and currency investments that put the bank at risk of insolvency in 2000, bank officials said.
Bawag shifted the losses to companies including six firms on the Caribbean island of Anguilla, and wrote them down over time, Chief Executive Officer Ewald Nowotny said at a press conference in Vienna today. The bank may sue Wolfgang Flottl, a hedge fund manager, in connection with the failed investments, he said.
``We had considerable losses of close to 1 billion euros,'' said Nowotny, who took over as CEO of Vienna-based Bawag in January after his predecessor Johann Zwettler resigned. The majority of the losses occurred in 2000, Nowotny said.
The revelation of Bawag's hidden losses may have ripple effects across the Atlantic in the bankruptcy case of U.S. futures broker Refco Inc. U.S. prosecutors investigating Refco's collapse have found evidence that Refco maintained accounts for Bawag that held its offshore investments, people with direct knowledge of the probe said March 15.
Nowotny confirmed that these accounts existed. He said he didn't know whether former Refco CEO Phillip Bennett had a role in the offshore companies.
Bawag's losses came after the company invested funds with Wolfgang Flottl, the son of former Bawag CEO Walter Flottl and former head of hedge fund Ross Capital Markets Ltd., Nowotny said. Flottl didn't return a call seeking comment today.
``Mr. Flottl influenced these investments and he is to be held responsible,'' Nowotny said.
Guenter Weninger, the chairman of Bawag's supervisory board, said that he plans to resign from the board.
Bawag, which owned 10 percent of New York-based Refco from 1999 to 2004, is already ensnared in Refco's bankruptcy. The bank is one of Refco's largest creditors, and has sued the company and Bennett to recover 350 million euros it loaned to him in October. The U.S. Attorney in New York and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating the alleged fraud at Refco.
Nowotny, 61, said the offshore transactions were approved by the bank's auditors. Prosecutors in Vienna are investigating Bawag's use of the offshore accounts.
The U.S. investigation of Refco's collapse found as much as $525 million in securities linked to Bawag with identification numbers that don't correspond to registered bonds, four people with direct knowledge of evidence gathered in the probe said March 15.
Refco held the bonds for Bawag and a hedge fund called Liquid Opportunities, said the people, who declined to be named because the investigations are continuing. U.S. prosecutors have been trying to learn how the bonds were created and valued, they said. One person said Bawag and Liquid Opportunities had shares in six Anguilla companies, which in turn held the suspect bonds.
Bawag spokesman Thomas Heimhofer said March 17 that the bank severed ties to the six companies by the end of last year.
Jonathan Knight, a Florida-based fund manager at Liquid Opportunities until November 2004, said in a March 16 press release that the bonds weren't registered because they were private instruments and each had a single lender and a single borrower. He didn't name them.
``The fund's mandate included the administration of several euro-denominated note instruments contributed by an investor,'' Knight, 36, said in the release. He said Liquid Opportunities held the instruments in an account at Refco Capital Markets, in Bermuda, and had no reason to suspect they were ``problematic in any way.'' Liquid Opportunities was ``fully redeemed'' at the end of 2004, he said.
Offshore companies played central roles in the accounting frauds at Enron Corp. and Parmalat Finanziaria SpA, according to prosecutors in those cases. Houston-based Enron allegedly used subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands to cut the company's U.S. taxes and hide losses, before collapsing in the U.S.'s second-largest bankruptcy in 2001.
Parmalat, the Italian food company that in 2003 filed the country's biggest-ever bankruptcy case, inflated sales, fabricated assets and funneled debt through units in the Netherlands Antilles and the Cayman Islands, according to Italian court documents.
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Fitch Ratings comments on the recent intervention of Guatemala's fourth largest bank, Banco del Cafe (Bancafe) and the potential implications for the national banking system.
Last week, the Banking system regulator announced the intervention and planned liquidation of Bancafe, the fourth largest bank at end-August 2006 by total assets (roughly USD 1.022 billion - 8% market share) and deposits (USD 889m - 9%). The problems at Bancafe initiated in October 2005, when Refco Ltd. declared bankruptcy. This event harmed Bancafe's unconsolidated related off-shore entity domiciled in Barbados, since this had roughly USD204 million of its assets managed by one of Refco's problem subsidiaries, which have been frozen since then. While the stand-alone performance of Bancafe in Guatemala had remained reasonable, its efforts to aid the liquidity of its related offshore entity weakened Bancafe to the point of its intervention by the Guatemalan authorities.
While the deposit insurance fund (FOPA - Fondo para la Proteccion del Ahorrante) guarantees deposits for up to GTQ 20,000 (roughly USD 2,630), the banking regulator decided to distribute Bancafe's deposits among three local banks (Banrural, Agromercantil and Reformador, ranked third, fifth and sixth in the national system, with a joint market share of 23% of deposits at end-August 2006). In turn, these banks will be beneficiaries of trust certificates drawn on a trust that will hold and liquidate Bancafe's assets, as well as the liquid resources available at FOPA, roughly USD180 million. This Friday, October 27, Bancafe's depositors would be able to request or renew their deposits at the respective institution where the account was transferred to. The country's two largest banks, Banco Industrial and Banco G&T Continental, did not participate in the scheme to distribute Bancafe's domestic deposits.
While the direct exposure of other Guatemalan banks to Bancafe was insignificant at the time of the intervention, Fitch remains concerned about the potential negative effect of this situation on the banking system's liquidity and public confidence. Particularly, Fitch will closely monitor the reaction of Bancafe's depositors once they are allowed to withdraw their deposits. Since only a small portion of Bancafe's assets is liquid, the ability of Banrural, Agromercantil and Reformador to preserve these accounts, or alternatively, to honor these deposits, is a critical factor to maintain public confidence in the banking system. The Guatemalan Central bank could provide temporary liquidity support, if required. Fitch anticipates that even larger banks could see their liquidity somewhat pressured, if their off-shore banks eventually face a deposit run or a decrease in other funding sources, and they attempt to access short term liquidity provided by their related Guatemalan bank.
Fitch also notes that, while under local regulation Bancafe was the 'responsible company' of the entities comprising Grupo Financiero del Pais (including the off-shore bank), the intervention meant the dissolution of the financial group and the cancellation of any inter-company responsibility. Fitch has expressed in the past its concern about the sizeable off-shore banking activities of the Guatemalan banks. In Fitch's view, the intervention of Bancafe highlights the risks associated with these entities, which are inherently less regulated and perhaps less supervised, given the legal limitations for most banking regulators in the region regarding extra-territorial supervision. Positively, this event could over time improve the awareness of depositors, creditors and other stakeholders in regard to riskier off-shore banks. Fitch also highlights the need to further disclose financial information of the off-shore banks and the consolidated or combined financial groups.
Bancafe's total deposits at end-August 2006 accounted for 2.4% of Guatemala's forecasted GDP for 2006, while the liquid resources available to FOPA were equivalent to 0.6% of GDP. In the event that FOPA's assets are extinguished or considerably absorbed to honor Bancafe's deposits, domestic banks could be required by the authorities to make extraordinary contributions for up to 50% in excess of regular contributions (0.1% p.a. of total deposits, at present).


All regions in Mexico differ from each other, but some are profoundly different. The Yucatan Peninsula is one of the continent's newest territories, emerging from the sea roughly 60 million years ago as the result of a tremendous meteor crash.
Politically, the territory is home to some of Mexico's youngest states: Yucatan, Quintana Roo, and Campeche. In the first installment of "Mexico on the Web" in 2002 we pay tribute to some of the most interesting regional websites.
Journalist and author Jules Siegel has placed almost anything you'd want to know about Cancun on the Web. Tourists will enjoy the frank talk about beaches and nightlife. Long-term visitors will find information found nowhere else such as detailed descriptions of visits to butchers, bookbinders and botanicas.
That said, it's a great guide for English speakers moving anywhere in Mexico. Bonus sections of the site include a search engine and numerous essays that examine whether Cancun is or isn't "plastic" and how tourism officials responded to smear campaigns from abroad. This innovative site is highly recommended.
This Spanish-language supplement of the Diario de Yucatan newspaper provides the inside scoop about more than 20 haciendas, the large rambling plantations that date back to the henequen empire of the late 1800s. A combination photo gallery and history lesson, the editors explain how henequen -- an agave native to the region -- was used to produce cord and string.
Production after the Mexican revolution and collapsed after the invention of plastic. The result was the abandonment of these estates. Today, the haciendas are being converted into hotels and museums. The site also includes an index of related news items and editorials. Kudos to the Diario de Yucatan for such an attractive presentation that makes history come alive.
- State websites are notorious for being flashy, slow loading and likely to freeze your computer. Nevertheless, these sites are getting better and they offer an important archive and contact information.


Great relationships are awesome. They feed love, encouragement, joy, and meaning into our lives. That's the way God designed them. Unfortunately, for far too many, they can be a source of pain and disappointment. In this series, we will interact with the relationship principles of Jesus to discover how to take the mess out and put the value back into our relationships.
We will talk about the value of relationships, why to prioritize them, and how to maintain them. Topics will include loving yourself, building trust, the place for humility, the need for grace, and many more. We will highlight all relationships, but particularly the messy and most beneficial ones with God, family, and friends.
To learn and talk more about relationships, we encourage everyone to get connected into a Life Group. Find yours today. Download the discussion questions below. Know before you go.
Download the Bible Devotional Plan and get into God's Word 4 times a week in the area of relationships.


One of the most useful products debuted at DEMA was this amazing Aqualung Defense Dry Bag every diver needs. It's big enough to carry all your gear. When the dive is over it can be filled with water to use as a convenient portable rinse bucket. Drain plugs allow for ease of draining. Say goodbye to wet gear in your car.
Get one FREE with Aqualung BCD purchase through December 31st.
This is your chance to try the hottest thing in SCUBA! Hollis, Oceanic, Aeris Rep Darrell Bowerman in conjunction with Side-mount Instructor Richard Thomas of International Scuba will offer a DEMO of the Hollis SMS50, SMS100 and the brand new SMS75 side-mount systems. The Demo will run from 11:00-1:00pm. Experience for yourself the advantages of diving in the side-mount configuration. Space will be limited to guarantee a spot please call 972-416-8400 and get on the list.
Come out to celebrate the kick-off of the dive season.


This lovely contemporary, colonial home was built by a local contractor with family in mind. The warm character of the inside invites the natural beauty of the outside in every spacious room with well placed custom windows. The first floor includes a mudroom at entry, make a suite, den or office with French and pocket doors, a full bathroom for guests or first level living. Enjoy an open concept kitchen/dining/living area with a large butcher block island and modern, super efficient, wood stove. Walk out to a large wrap around deck from the kitchen to entertain, in the private back yard. The second floor consists of three large bedrooms, a shared full bathroom, with washer, dryer. The big master suite has a full bathroom, large shower, jetted tub, and double vanity. The third level has a very large office or guest room and second room for guests with storage or make into a fourth bathroom. The radiant heated recreation room, in basement, has custom windows with walk out!
Total Square Footage: 4,473 sq. ft.


On the way to a recent barbecue, I dropped by a local gourmet market to pick up ingredients to make my famous Korean-style ribs. While the butcher was initially thrilled with my unexpectedly large 30 pound order, his mood soured when I asked him to thinly slice the ribs "flanken style" (cut parallel to the ribs). After 20 minutes of intense slicing (and several reminders to "slice it thinner"), the meat was ornately packaged and ready to go. Then, out of curiosity – let's call it "research" – I asked if I was entitled to a volume discount since I was buying so much. Without giving it a second thought, the butcher chopped the per pound price from $8 to $6. As a consumer I appreciated the $60 savings—but as a consultant who helps businesses optimize their pricing, I wondered if the butcher realized how much of the store's operating profit margin disappeared due to his hastily-considered discount.
In my work with companies on their pricing strategies, I've noticed that virtually all managers price according to the mantra of "the more you buy, the lower the per-unit price." "Why?" I always ask. A common refrain is, "It's a token of appreciation to our customers." I agree–it's important to express gratitude in a business transaction. However, there are many less costly alternatives such as, say, a handwritten thank you card. And remember, not every customer is seeking a discount – so providing one may be costly and go unappreciated. Some managers claim that since customers believe it's cheaper to sell larger quantities, they feel compelled to provide a lower price. I understand, but since when are the specifics of your company's cost structure any of your customers' business?
To capitalize on the law of diminishing utility: The concept of "the more one person consumes within a period, the less they value a product" is a cornerstone of microeconomic theory. Convenience stores and movie theaters, for instance, understand that thirsty customers are willing to pay a hefty price for the first 12 ounces of a cold soda relative to the next 12 ounces. To entice customers to consume more, the additional per-ounce price is significantly reduced in larger cup sizes. As a result, consumers are often faced with the conundrum of calculating whether it's worth it to spend an extra 75 cents to double the size of our fountain drinks.
To compete with rivals who offer them: If your close competition provides volume discounts and you believe that by not granting similar price breaks you'll lose the sale to a rival…trim away.
To lock in customers: In highly competitive markets, volume discounts nudge customers to commit, to the detriment of rivals. If a competitor is entering a market, locking-in customers preserves market share as well as thwarts the new entrant.
To encourage a large order instead of a series of small ones: Pharmacies often offer a discount if you purchase a year-long supply of a common prescription, for instance, instead of filling it monthly. This price break yields higher profits as pharmacies only have to incur the costs of filling a prescription once, instead of twelve times.
Although it's counterintuitive, there are actually opportunities to increase prices for larger volumes as long as the premium can be justified by providing additional value. Magnums of champagne (1.5 liters) are often sold at more than double the price of individual 750ml bottles. Why? One reason is because it's more festive (and hence valuable) to show up at a party with a magnum compared to two regular bottles. Magazines, for instance, can sell collections of back issues for a premium if they provide additional value such as special packaging, rare issues, and a collection-wide index.
While there are sound reasons to provide volume discounts, most companies over use them and offer them with too little thought. The next time you are contemplating offering a volume discount, ask yourself, "Do I really have to do this?" Back in my gourmet store, I'd already committed to buying 30 pounds of Korean ribs, discount or no discount. It was a classic case of a manager extending a discount that took a wholly unnecessary slice out of profits.


text:
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Here is H. G. Wells' classic story about a mad scientist wanting to become a god amongst his own creations on an island paradise that turns into a living hell. Although the novel has been adapted into three films and countless derivations through the years, you've never witnessed a terrifying live, stage version the way only Radiotheatre can deliver it... with an original orchestral score and a plethora of sound effects! Turn out the lights and turn on your imaginations! "Invokes Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre Company!" -- NYTheatre "A SOUND EXTRAVAGANZA" -- Variety "Like Orson Welles and company, Radiotheatre has polished up an unusual and effective storytelling technique" -- OffOffOnline "This seasoned production company has done quality work consistently enough to be considered one of NY's best in the Off Off, Indie and Black Box theater category...they keep you engrossed with a kickass storyline, a lighting crew that specializes in mood control and of course a flawless sound effects professionalism that has become their signature statement at all of their shows..." -- Retrovision "Dan Bianchi is the Roger Corman of Independent Theatre!" -- NY Eye "A prime example of less is more" -- NYTimes.com
Running Time:1hr
Dates:Opening Night: March 09, 2007
Final Performance: March 18, 2007

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


If you care about athlete development, it may be time to get excited. Or at least cautiously optimistic. Why, you may ask? Let me tell you.
There is an inkling that perhaps, just maybe, we can see the thin edge of the wedge being jammed into the metaphorical trunk lid which has been sealed shut to the idea that athlete development is a performance tool.
Yes, I said it. I think it is happening. Why is this exciting? Let me give you a little backstory.
A wedge. Note the thin edge of it.
I didn't see it immediately (the relationship between athlete development and performance), but about 12 years ago a colleague of mine was doing research on our shared interest in athletic identity (still great work Andy Madden). The research suggested that athletes that have mediated athletic identities were more likely to be viewed as consistent and reliable performers. Much of the research in the field at the time noted that athletes with high athletic identities would be prone to difficulties in transition from sport (which makes sense and continues to hold true). However, the impact of high athletic identity on athletic performance - in the now - was never addressed.
It seemed like a strange gap. If we are talking about the elite of the elite in the athletic world, how in a million years are we not talking about how they perform? Coaches, general managers, owners, agents and the athletes themselves all care deeply about performance. How could they not see the value of having athletes having a healthier more balanced relationship with their sport?
At the time, many of my athlete development colleagues from virtually every league, began to talk about the difficulty in explaining the value of athlete development to their managers and bosses because it was difficult to tie directly to performance. The general consensus was if somehow we could directly tie performance to athlete development services, we'd be welcome with open arms into the performance side of the athlete management house.
Not a bad list. However, if you scrub 'athlete' from the equation and insert stock broker or insurance adjuster, it becomes more common sense. If I am more balanced in my approach to my career, suffer from less stress and anxiety and I am more open to education, I may be more likely to perform better.
Circling back to my initial statement about my cautious excitement and optimism. We are beginning to see major professional clubs and large college athletic departments look very closely at implementing services, resources and staff to help athletes excel away from the playing surface. This is a big development because it means they are beginning (maybe) to see athlete development services as a tool to enhance performance. It's sports and wins matter!
There are some caveats to this undoubtedly. We've seen development professionals hired that are really just coaches in disguise. We've also seen people hired that are woefully unprepared or not knowledgeable about the realities of working with major professional athletes. And some organizations refuse to get it or don't care (a player recently told me his team, with a payroll in the mid 8 figures, refused to hire a team masseuse for $200,000 per year - so one could wager that athlete development is likely quite low on their totem pole).
However, athlete development when done well and when tailored to meet both organizational and individual outcomes can provide enormous potential payoffs on and off the playing surface. So yeah, I'm excited and cautiously optimistic that finally, more teams are going to be drawing the athlete development arrow out of their performance quivers. Everyone stands to benefit. The players, fans, owners, coaches and communities as a whole. So maybe you can get excited too.


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Preaching for Transformation: The Ever-Widening Circle is anchored in the Acts of the Apostles and specifically on Acts 1:8. The preaching suggestions in this book are geared toward transformation and are not a complete teaching on The Acts of the Apostles. I've intentionally selected only those texts that I feel can be used to move a church to and through transformation.
Whether that transformation is for turnaround, restart, or going missional, these texts work.


text:
Фёдор Петрович Юрисонов (1915—2005) — советский военнослужащий. В пограничных войсках НКВД СССР и Рабоче-крестьянской Красной Армии служил с 1936 по 1945 год. Участник вооружённого конфликта у озера Хасан и Великой Отечественной войны. Полный кавалер ордена Славы. Воинское звание — старший сержант.

Биография

До Великой Отечественной войны
Фёдор Петрович Юрисонов родился 11 сентября 1915 года в селе Царские колодцы Сигнахского уезда Тифлисской губернии Российской империи (в советское время село носило названия Красные колодцы и Цители-Цкаро, ныне город Дедоплис-Цкаро, административный центр Дедоплисцкаройского муниципалитета края Кахетия Грузии) в крестьянской семье. Русский. Окончил 5 классов неполной средней школы. До призыва на военную службу работал шофёром на складе треста «Грузнефть».

В армии Ф. П. Юрисонов с 1936 года. Служил в пограничных войсках на Дальнем Востоке в должности шофёра. В этом качестве в 1938 году участвовал в вооружённом конфликте на озере Хасан: перевозил войска, военное снаряжение и боеприпасы, эвакуировал раненых. По окончании срочной службы остался на сверхсрочную, а в 1941 году в связи с началом войны с Германией срок службы дальневосточных пограничников был продлён на неопределённый срок. Осенью 1942 года в Хабаровске из личного состава приамурских и приуссурийских застав началось формирование Дальневосточной дивизии войск НКВД СССР, позднее переименованной в 102-ю стрелковую. Младший сержант Ф. П. Юрисонов был зачислен водителем в автороту 16-го Уссурийского стрелкового полка.

На фронтах Великой Отечественной войны
В действующей армии младший сержант Ф. П. Юрисонов с 15 февраля 1943 года. С марта на Центральном фронте участвовал в боях под Дмитровском-Орловским, в ходе которых окончательно сформировался северный фас Курской дуги. В ходе Севской операции 102-я стрелковая дивизия понесла большие потери, и Фёдор Петрович вынужденно переквалифицировался в миномётчики. К лету 1943 года он хорошо овладел новой для себя воинской специальностью и стал наводчиком 120-миллиметрового миномёта.

В июле 1943 года после успешного завершения оборонительной фазы Курской битвы с позиций под Дмитровском-Орловским 102-я стрелковая дивизия перешла в наступление в рамках Орловской операции. В течение 25-27 июля 16-й стрелковый полк полковника И. М. Павловича, овладев рядом ключевых высот и мощным опорным пунктом противника посёлком Муравчик, взломал оборону врага, создав хорошие условия для дальнейшего наступления на Дмитровск-Орловский. После упорных боёв к утру 12 августа 102-я стрелковая дивизия во взаимодействии с частями 18-го стрелкового корпуса 65-й армии освободила город от войск противника. В сражении за Дмитровск-Орловский наводчик 120-миллиметрового миномёта младший сержант Юрисонов продемонстрировал высокое воинское мастерство, истребив большое количество живой силы неприятеля.

После освобождения Дмитровска дивизия генерал-майора А. М. Андреева была переброшена в район деревни Починок-Алешок, имея задачу наступать во фланг немецкой группировки, пытавшейся остановить наступление войск Брянского фронта на линии «Хаген». В период с 26 августа по 1 сентября младший сержант Ф. П. Юрисонов в боях за освобождение населённых пунктов Березовец, Избичня и Лепешина со своим расчётом уничтожил 4 пулемётных гнезда и ротный миномёт противника, подавил огонь артиллерийской батареи, рассеял и частично истребил до роты вражеской пехоты, чем способствовал выполнению боевых задач стрелковыми подразделениями. Боевая работа Фёдора Петровича была отмечена медалью «За боевые заслуги». Почти одновременно с этим ему было присвоено звание сержанта.

В начале сентября 102-я стрелковая дивизия включилась в Битву за Днепр, продолжив наступление уже в составе 48-й армии общим направлением на Новгород-Северский. 16-й стрелковый полк действовал в авангарде дивизии. Ломая сопротивление противника, 11 сентября он вышел к реке Десне, форсировал водную преграду и захватил плацдарм в районе хутора Чернацкий. В течение четырёх дней подразделения полка вели ожесточённый бой на правом берегу Десны, отразив 12 вражеских контратак, тем самым обеспечив переправу основных сил дивизии. В ночь на 16 сентября бойцы генерал-майора Андреева ворвались в Новгород-Северский, к 5 часам утра овладели центром города, а к 6.00 во взаимодействии с частями 19-го стрелкового корпуса 65-й армии полностью очистили город от немцев. В период боёв за Новгород-Северский с 8 по 16 сентября миномётный расчёт, наводчиком которого воевал сержант Юрисонов, уничтожил вместе с расчётами 1 шестиствольный миномёт и 2 метательных аппарата, подавил две артиллерийские точки, чем способствовал общему успеху полка.

К концу Черниговско-Припятской операции войска 48-й армии вышли на подступы к Гомелю в районе Добруша. Немецкое командование силами 35-го армейского корпуса пыталось удержать плацдарм на левом берегу реки Сож, но безуспешно. Советские войска полностью ликвидировали его к 10 октября, но 16-му стрелковому полку удалось прорваться к реке ещё 7 числа. В ночь на 8 октября взвод автоматчиков, усиленный батареей 120-миллиметровых миномётов форсировал водную преграду южнее Гомеля. В числе первых на противоположный берег реки переправился со своим орудием сержант Ф. П. Юрисонов. Штурмовой отряд занял небольшой плацдарм, на ликвидацию которого утром немцы бросили крупные силы пехоты. Дело дошло до рукопашной схватки, в ходе которой миномётчикам вместе с пехотинцами пришлось отражать натиск врага личным оружием. Но десантникам удалось выстоять. На удержанный ими плацдарм вскоре переправилась стрелковая рота, которая стремительным ударом опрокинула боевые порядки противника и захватила немецкие траншеи. В дальнейшем с этого рубежа части дивизии перешли в наступление в рамках Гомельско-Речицкой операции и ворвались в Гомель. Сержант Юрисонов принимал непосредственное участие в его освобождении.

Орден Славы III степени
С ноября 1943 года 48-я армия, составляя вместе с частями 65-й армии центральную группировку Белорусского фронта, вела активные наступательные действия в междуречье Днепра и Березины, продвигаясь общим направлением на Бобруйск. 26 ноября войска генерал-лейтенанта П. Л. Романенко взяли крупный опорный пункт противника посёлок Шацилки и перерезали железнодорожную магистраль Мозырь—Жлобин. Соединения генерал-лейтенанта П. И. Батова вклинилась в немецкую оборону ещё глубже, выйдя на подступы к райцентру Паричи. Стремясь во что бы то ни стало удержать Бобруйск, немецкое командование вынуждено было перебросить на это направление дополнительные силы, ослабив свои фланги. Это дало возможность левому крылу Белорусского фронта в январе 1944 года провести успешную Калинковичско-Мозырскую операцию. В этот период 48-я армия продолжала активными действиями сковывать крупные силы врага. 102-я стрелковая дивизия вела наступление южнее Шацилок. Её 16-й стрелковый полк под командованием майора  в результате ожесточённых боёв 16-17 января прорвал немецкую оборону в районе деревни Печищи, обеспечив выход основных сил к шоссе Чирковичи—Калинковичи. В последующие дни части дивизии, заняв оборону в районе деревни Мольча, отражали до 17 контратак превосходящих сил пехоты и танков противника. В этих боях сержант Ф. П. Юрисонов, исполняя обязанности командира отделения батареи 120-миллиметровых миномётов, умело координировал работу рядового и сержантского состава батареи, обеспечив эффективную огневую поддержку стрелковым подразделениям.

В преддверии Рогачёвско-Жлобинской операции перед дивизией полковника  вновь была поставлена задача отвлечь на себя внимание противника от направления главного удара войск правого крыла Белорусского фронта. На этот раз ей предстояло наступать севернее посёлка Шацилки. 19 февраля 1944 года при прорыве вражеской обороны у села Старина сержант Юрисонов, находясь в одном из расчётов миномётной батареи (наводчик сержант , номера расчёта красноармейцы ,  и ), плотным и метким огнём накрыл позиции врага, за короткий срок уничтожив 3 пулемётные точки и подавив миномётную батарею неприятеля. Благодаря умелым действиям миномётчиков стрелковые батальоны полка с малыми потерями преодолели разграничительную полосу и, ворвавшись во вражеские траншеи, выбили немцев с занимаемых позиций, после чего штурмом овладели командной высотой 136,6. На следующий день, подтянув дополнительные силы, противник попытался вернуть утраченные позиции. В течение 20 и 21 февраля он трижды переходил в контратаку. В боях за высоту 136,6 миномётный расчёт сержанта Юрисонова рассеял и частично уничтожил до взвода вражеской пехоты, чем способствовал удержанию занимаемых подразделениями полка рубежей. Тем временем войска 3-й и 50-й армий Белорусского (с 24 февраля — 1-го Белорусского) фронта перешли в наступление и, нанеся тяжёлое поражение 9-й армии вермахта, форсировали Днепр, захватив плацдарм на правом берегу реки, который в последующем сыграл большую роль в Бобруйской операции. За воинскую доблесть и мужество, проявленные в боях у села Старина, приказом от 10 марта 1944 года сержант Ф. П. Юрисонов вместе с другими отличившимися бойцами расчёта был награждён орденом Славы 3-й степени.

Орден Славы II степени
К лету 1944 года Ф. П. Юрисонов получил звание старшего сержанта и был назначен командиром миномётного расчёта. Перед началом операции «Багратион» дивизия, в составе которой воевал Фёдор Петрович, сосредоточилась в Рогачёве, откуда ей предстояло наступать на бобруйском направлении. 24 июня 16-й стрелковый полк переправился через реку Друть западнее города и стремительным ударом прорвал глубокоэшелонированную оборону противника у посёлка Новые Колосы. Преследуя бегущего врага, на его плечах бойцы подполковника Тютикова с ходу форсировали Добосну и Олу и 27 июня вышли на подступы к Бобруйску, завершив окружение сорокатысячной группировки противника. Во время наступательных действий полка старший сержант Юрисонов со своим орудием находился в боевых порядках своей пехоты и не раз приходил ей на помощь там, где враг пытался помешать продвижению стрелковых подразделений. 29 июня Фёдор Петрович принимал участие в освобождении города Бобруйска от немецких захватчиков.

После завершения Бобруйской операции подразделения 48-й армии продолжили наступление в Белоруссии на барановичско-брестском направлении. Разгромив под Барановичами крупную группировку противника, они к концу Люблин-Брестской операции вышли в район Суража, откуда в августе 1944 года начали преследование разбитых под Белостоком частей вермахта. В ночь с 20 на 21 августа 16-й стрелковый полк подполковника Тютикова форсировал реку Малый Брок, стремительным ударом захватил командную высоту 132,7 близ населённого пункта Анжеево и, отразив яростные контратаки противника, 23 августа перешёл в решительное наступление в направлении советско-польской границы 1939 года. Под Островом-Мазовецким полк столкнулся с ожесточённым сопротивлением врага. Два передовых батальона попали в огневой мешок, и командир полка приказал старшему сержанту Юрисонову подавить огневые средства немцев. Несмотря на яростный артиллерийский, миномётный и пулемётный огонь со стороны неприятеля, Фёдор Петрович смело выдвинул своё орудие на открытую позицию впереди боевых порядков пехоты и открыл интенсивную стрельбу по указанным целям. В течение нескольких минут его расчёт заставил замолчать несколько огневых точек врага, после чего пехота перешла в атаку и сбила немцев с занимаемых рубежей. 3 сентября уссурийцы прорвали промежуточный рубеж обороны противника в районе населённого Круле (Krole) и, форсировав реку Ож (Orz), заняли северо-восточную окраину деревни Кунин (Kunin), где отразили несколько контратак противника. К вечеру того же дня передовой батальон полка вышел к Нареву западнее села Шарлат (Szarłat), и в ночь на 4 сентября переправился на подручных средствах на западный берег реки и захватил плацдарм южнее города Ружан.

Осенью 1944 года (с 22 сентября — в составе 2-го Белорусского фронта) 48-я армия вела тяжёлые бои за удержание и расширение плацдарма за Наревом, получившего название «Ружанский». В октябре советские войска предприняли попытку объединить Сероцкий и Ружанский плацдармы. При прорыве вражеской обороны у населённого пункта Свента-Розалия (Święta Rozalia) и в последующих наступательных боях в период с 10 по 16 октября старший сержант Ф. П. Юрисонов неоднократно демонстрировал образцы мужества и отваги. Находясь на линии соприкосновения с врагом часто на открытой позиции под сильным артиллерийско-миномётным огнём противника, он со своим расчётом уничтожил 4 пулемётные точки и в составе батареи подавил огонь миномётной роты и артиллерийского орудия на прямой наводке, рассеял и частично истребил до двух взводов вражеской пехоты. И хотя в результате наступления выполнить главную боевую задачу советским войскам не удалось, Ружанский плацдарм был существенно расширен в глубину и ширину и в последующем сыграл важную роль в Млавско-Эльбингской операции. За отличие в боях на реке Нарев приказом от 28 ноября 1944 года Фёдор Петрович был награждён орденом Славы 2-й степени.

Орден Славы I степени
14 января 1945 года ударная группировка 2-го Белорусского фронта перешла в наступление с Ружанского плацдарма в рамках Млавско-Эльбингской операции. 102-я стрелковая дивизия полковника Погребняка была введена в бой 20 января уже на территории Восточной Пруссии юго-западнее Алленштайна. 24 января в 16-й Уссурийский стрелковый полк под командованием подполковника  был переведён в первый эшелон дивизии с задачей преследовать отступающие немецкие части. На всём протяжении наступательных действий полка миномётный расчёт старшего сержанта Ф. П. Юрисонова следовал в боевых порядках пехоты или непосредственно за ними, помогая стрелковым подразделениям решать боевые задачи при взятии опорных пунктов врага, в том числе таких крупных как Йонкендорф, Галигенталь и Вольфсдорф. 26 января передовые части полка вышли на подступы к Вормдитту, где встретили ожесточённое сопротивление немцев. Брать сильно укреплённый город было поручено войскам 3-го Белорусского фронта, и 102-я стрелковая дивизия продолжила движение к Балтийскому морю. 4 февраля части дивизии форсировали реку Пассарге и, отражая многочисленные контратаки врага, начали наступление общим направлением на Эльбинг. 10 февраля соединения 2-й ударной армии овладели городом-крепостью, фактически отрезав восточно-прусскую группировку немцев от группы армий «Висла», оборонявшейся в Померании, и перед дальневосточниками была поставлена новая цель — Браунсберг.

21 февраля 102-я стрелковая дивизия вторично формировала Пассарге в районе населённого пункта Шендаммерау. Вместе с пехотой на противоположный берег реки под сильным пулемётным и миномётным огнём переправился расчёт старшего сержанта Ф. П. Юрисонова. Быстро установив своё орудие на огневую позицию, Фёдор Петрович в первые же минуты боя уничтожил 4 пулемётные точки противника, мешавшие продвижению стрелковых подразделений, чем способствовал захвату плацдарма. Немцы, стремясь отбросить советские войска обратно за реку, в течение дня крупными силами трижды переходили в контратаку, но всякий раз вынуждены были отступать с большими потерями, при этом теряя исходные позиции. Этому в немалой степени способствовал расчёт Юрисонова, который прицельной стрельбой рассеял и частью уничтожил до двух взводов пехоты неприятеля. Своими умелыми действиями миномётчики обеспечили общий успех боя и взятие населённого пункта Шендаммерау. В последующих боях за Браунсберг Фёдор Петрович действовал также смело и решительно и нанёс большие потери противнику в живой силе и технике. Боевая работа старшего сержанта Юрисонова получила высокую оценку командира полка. 10 марта подполковник Рябов представил отличившегося в боях миномётчика к ордену Славы 1-й степени. Высокая награда Фёдору Петровичу была присвоена указом Президиума Верховного Совета СССР от 19 апреля 1945 года.

Между тем, 20 марта подразделения 29-го стрелкового корпуса, в состав которого входила 102-я стрелковая дивизия, штурмом взяли Браунсберг и продолжили наступление в направлении Хайлигенбайля, к 29 марта совместно с частями 3-го Белорусского фронта завершив ликвидацию хейльсбергской группировки противника. В период штурма Кёнигсберга и Земландской операции 102-я стрелковая дивизия прикрывала коммуникации на побережье залива Фрише-Хафф от Браунсберга до Эльбинга. Здесь Фёдор Петрович завершил свой боевой путь. День Победы он встретил близ небольшого прусского городка Толькемит.

После войны
Вскоре после окончания Великой Отечественной войны старший сержант Ф. П. Юрисонов был демобилизован и вернулся в родное село. Без малого тридцать лет добросовестно трудился водителем пассажирского автобуса в Цители-Цкарской автоколонне. Неоднократно побеждал в социалистических соревнованиях по выполнению плана перевозок, экономии резины и горюче-смазочных материалов. Был удостоен почётного звания «Ударник коммунистического труда». После выхода на пенсию некоторое время работал охранником. Умер 31 октября 2005 года.

Награды
 Орден Отечественной войны 1-й степени (11.03.1985);
 орден Славы 1-й степени (19.04.1945);
 орден Славы 2-й степени (28.11.1944);
 орден Славы 3-й степени (10.03.1944);
 медали, в том числе:
 медаль «За боевые заслуги» — дважды (18.10.1943, 30.11.1943);
 медаль «За победу над Германией в Великой Отечественной войне 1941-1945 гг.»

Документы

Примечания

Литература

Артиллеристы Великой Отечественной войны
Полные кавалеры ордена Славы

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


A black and white photo of the Maynard High School Football Team, dated 1936 on the football.
Donated by Susan Dee of Concord, Mass, and Nancy Sealey of Maynard.
Sargent Studio, "Maynard High School Football Team - 1936," Maynard Historical Society Archives, accessed April 23, 2019, http://collection.maynardhistory.org/items/show/6032.


Square Enix Forums > Eidos Classics > Eidos Games Archive > TimeSplitters Series > TimeSplitters - General Discussion - Archive > Tournaments?
Does anyone know of a forum where I can announce tournament dates for TimeSplitters 2? Or where other people announce their tournaments so we can go to them?
I don't know, I thought it might just get lost in the flood of non-tournament related topics. In other videogame forums that I go to, they have a separate forum for posting tournaments because a ton of people throw them and even more people go to them.
When I figure out some dates with my friends for a tournament, I'll make sure to announce them here. Thanks.
I don't trust online tournaments.
why dont u trust onlien tournaments?
they're not very reliable yet. You know... sometimes there's lag time and it interferes with smooth gameplay.
If I throw a tournament, I don't want the players to be complaining about bad connections.
well i have played on wolfenstein online and it dont lag much, if peopel are to hold a tournemnt they would throw a lan party (well i would) dosnt lag at all lituraly.


text:
Threat of Obamacare Repeal Motivates Patients to Become Activists
By Charlotte Alter
Updated: March 27, 2017 2:14 PM ET | Originally published: March 24, 2017 11:47 AM EDT
For much of 2014, Tiffany Koehler had a nasty cough she couldn't seem to shake. Consumed by a grueling Republican primary campaign for a seat in the Wisconsin state legislature, she chalked it up to fatigue from the race. But after a series of tests in 2015, Koehler learned the real cause: stage four non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
At the time, Koehler had health coverage through the state insurance program BadgerCare, a program enabled by the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion although funded separately. Koehler says her insurance paid for all the necessary blood tests and chemotherapy treatments, and she's now in remission. But the American Health Care Act (AHCA), the Republican plan to replace Obamacare that is scheduled for a vote in Congress Friday afternoon, could gut ACA provisions like state Medicaid expansion and the requirement that insurers cover people with pre-existing conditions.
The prospect has turned Koehler into an activist against her own party, one of a growing number of grateful patients across the ideological spectrum who feel compelled to take a stand. "People like myself, survivors, we can't afford this new bill that they're proposing, because they want to remove mandated provisions about what can be covered," she says. "This is not what President Trump campaigned on. He said everyone would have insurance and it would be the best plan ever. And it's not."
Many of Koehler's fellow patient activists have little experience as political crusaders. They are survivors, like her, or current patients facing the scary thought of losing immediate care, and the spouses, parents, siblings, friends, doctors, nurses and others who love them. Their cause may be aligned with the seasoned protesters who flooded the streets for the Women's March or Black Lives Matter rallies, but their reasons are deeply and entirely personal.
After Laurie Merges was laid off from her sales job in 2015, the 47-year old single mother of three wasn't sure how her son would get the treatment he needs for his Asberger's syndrome. But the family qualified for coverage under Ohio's Medicaid expansion program enabled by the ACA. Had Republican Gov. John Kasich not expanded Medicaid in 2013, her children would have been eligible but Merges wouldn't have been covered. Two months later, she was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer.
"It became not just a safety net, but a lifesaver," she says of her insurance, which has covered 16 rounds of I.V. chemotherapy, 33 rounds of radiation, and a bilateral mastectomy. "I would never in a million years be able to afford this."
Merges says she had never been the type to chant and march, but she felt the threat to her family's health gave her no choice. "I became an activist," she says. "This is not just some abstract other person, these are actual real-live people whose lives are being affected."
So she started showing up. Merges went to the Women's March in Cleveland, then to Washington D.C. with a delegation from the American Cancer Society's Cancer Action Network (ACS-CAN). And in February, she sat down with aides to Republican Senator Rob Portman to explain what would happen to her and her children without Medicaid expansion.
Those visits are part of a coordinated effort by advocacy organizations to mobilize their growing army of fledgling activists. The American Diabetes Association says more than 15,000 new patient advocates have joined their effort to prevent repeal of the ACA, while ACS-CAN counts more than 12,300 new activists since January. "If you're a patient and you're relying on a state exchange plan or you're relying on Medicaid to pay for your treatment, it's not hyperbolic to say this is life of death," says ACS-CAN strategist Erin O'Neill. "It's easy to be dismissive of a statistic. It's very hard to be dismissive of a person to their face."
Major medical groups like the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, and the Association of American Medical Colleges have come out in opposition to the bill, and the threat of repeal has prompted some medical professionals to consider running for office. But the most persuasive voices against Obamacare repeal may be the sick or recovering constituents themselves.
In February, Portman joined four other Republicans from states that expanded Medicaid under the ACA––Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Corey Gardner of Colorado––to publicly criticize the AHCA for creating uncertainty for those covered by expanded Medicaid.
The fate of the GOP replacement bill depends on convincing two distinct groups of Republicans to support the measure: More centrist Republicans, who are wary of backing a bill that the Congressional Budget estimates will cost more than Obamacare while covering fewer people, and the hard-line members of the House Freedom Caucus, who think the AHCA is too expensive and doesn't do enough to roll back federal coverage mandates. Concessions to the conservative wing are likely to further enrage the growing contingent of patient activists, many of whom confronted their representatives at combative town halls in recent months.
This new activism possesses the two factors that tend to drive grassroots causes, says Marshall Ganz, a veteran organizer and senior lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government: challenge and hope. In this case, he says, the challenge posed by Obamacare repeal is a"sense of imminent loss that's not theoretical, it's experiential." And the hope comes from an established pathway to action laid out by new activist groups like Indivisible, which has created a roadmap for the Trump opposition based on Tea Party tactics. "You put those two things together, you're going to get some powerful reaction," Ganz says. "You get people to act not by making something easy but by making it valuable."
The possibility of losing her health care was what motivated Arkansas resident Kati McFarland to move from griping on social media to confronting her senator in an exchange that quickly went viral. McFarland, 26, suffers from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a rare genetic condition that causes joint dislocations, heart issues, and chronic fainting, which requires her to use a wheelchair.
Realizing that her self-described "slacktivism" wasn't amounting to much, McFarland found herself at Sen. Tom Cotton's town hall in late February, asking him to commit to replacing the ACA with an equally robust health plan. "Without the coverage for pre-existing conditions, I will die," McFarland told the Senator. "That is not hyperbole. I will die." She asked everyone at the town hall who would be impacted by the ACA repeal to stand up. Hundreds of people stood, but she could not. It was a powerful moment that quickly spread online.
This week, Cotton said he would not support the AHCA if it reached the Senate in its current form, though his primary concern was that it failed to adequately address rising premiums and deductibles.
No matter the outcome of the House vote, the Americans who feel the ACA has saved their lives are not sitting idly by as Congress debates a replacement. In Wisconsin, Koehler is hard at work lobbying every member of the Wisconsin delegation, including House Speaker Paul Ryan. She says she wants them to know her loyalty to fellow cancer patients outweighs party ties.
"I've had so many friends who have died during their cancer fight, and I feel like I owe it to them," she says. "People get sick, people need to have all the tools available to fight. This is not the time to play politics."
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly quoted Harvard lecturer Marshall Ganz. He says anti-Trump activists are driven by a feeling that their efforts are "valuable," not "plausible."
Write to Charlotte Alter at charlotte.alter@time.com.
Why a Split Senate Could Pose Challenges for Joe Biden's Health Care Plans


The fossil fuel coal plays a key role in the Federal Republic's current mix of energy sources. Hard coal and lignite together account for almost a 22% of primary energy consumption (10.9 and 11.1 per cent, respectively in 2017).
Coal also is the most important energy source for power generation. Some 37% of gross electricity was generated from coal and lignite in 2017 (lignite: 22.5%, hard coal: 14.1%).
The main consumers of hard coal in Germany are the power stations and the steel industry. In 2017, power stations accounted for 78% of total consumption of hard coal, the steel industry for 20%, and other industry, home fires and small-scale consumers for roughly 2%. The German hard-coal mining industry has been undergoing a process of restructuring for some decades. Output and the number of mines and employees are constantly falling. On 31 December 2018, the extraction of hard coal will cease in Germany when the last two mines, Prosper-Haniel and Ibbenbüren, are closed. In view of this development, imports now cover more than 90% of the supply of hard coal and hard coal products on the German market (50.3 million tonnes in 2017 according to the Coal Importers Association).
Hard coal mining in Germany (3.7 million tonnes in 2017) is unable to compete internationally and is therefore subsidised. The purpose of the subsidies is to balance the difference between production costs on the one hand and revenues generated from the sale of the coal produced on the other - coal subsidies per tonne must not exceed the difference between production costs and the average prices of coal in third countries - as well as cover the costs of mine closures. State aid for hard coal mining must be approved by the EU Commission based on the EU rules governing state aid for the coal sector (PDF: 731 KB) as decided on 10 December 2010 by the Competitiveness Council.
On 7 February 2007, the Federal Government, the Länder of North Rhine-Westphalia and Saarland as well as the German Hard Coal Corporation (RAG Corporation) and the Mining, Chemical and Energy Industrial Union (IG BCE) reached an agreement on the socially acceptable phasing out of subsidies for hard coal in Germany by the end of 2018. This process is regulated by a corresponding framework agreement concluded on 14 August 2007 between the Federal Government, the coal-mining states and the RAG Corporation, and by the Hard Coal Funding Act (only in German) which came into force in December 2007. The Act amending the Hard Coal Funding Act (only in German, PDF: 20 KB), which entered into force in July 2011, repealed the original provision for a review by the German Bundestag of the decision to phase out subsidies (review clause).
The funding provided by the RAG Corporation itself over this period will amount to 192 million euros.
With regard to the RAG Corporation's long-term liabilities from coal mining operations (pit water management, permanent mining-related damage, ground water purification), a separate arrangement reflecting the specific responsibility of the coal-mining states has been made. Established on 10 July 2007, the RAG Foundation guarantees the financing of the long-term liabilities by realising the assets of Evonik Industries AG (formerly RAG Beteiligungs AG). Should the Foundation's funds prove to be insufficient, financing of the long-term liabilities is guaranteed by the Länder of North Rhine-Westphalia and Saarland, based on a corresponding Legacy Agreement between these three parties. Under the agreement reached with North Rhine-Westphalia and Saarland, the Federal Government will cover a third of any guarantee to be furnished by these Länder, hereby safeguarding the financing of the long-term liabilities.
In terms of domestic energy resources that are available in sufficient quantities and can be extracted without the need for subsidies, lignite is the most important. The reserves and resources of lignite that are known to exist today are enough to last a very long time. In licensed open-pit mines, deposits total around five billion tonnes.
There are three areas in Germany that still have active lignite mines, all of them open-cast mines. These are the Rhineland, Lusatia and Central Germany. Extraction in the Helmstedt district ended in August 2016. Annual output has remained broadly stable in recent years, totalling around 171.5 million tonnes in 2017.
Germany is the world's largest producer of lignite, followed by Australia, Russia and the United States.
Around 90% of lignite is used to generate electricity and district heating in public and industrial power plants. It therefore accounted for 22.5% of electricity generation in Germany in 2017.
Due to lignite's specific properties, open-pit mines and power plants work together in order to exploit it commercially, close to where deposits are found. In this way, they are able to ensure maximum efficiency and security of supply. As a result, there is no international market for lignite. Just under ten per cent of the lignite produced is upgraded into solid or pulverised fuels (lignite briquettes, pulverised lignite and fluidised bed lignite, lignite coke), for use either commercially or in the home.
Lignite mining changes the landscape permanently and is constantly linked to damage caused to both human and animal habitats and to nature in general. As part of licensing procedures in relation to regional planning and mining legislation, an attempt is made to strike a balance between the interests of the energy industry on the one hand and social, technical and environmental concerns on the other. In so doing, the public - for example, citizens, specialist authorities, environmental groups - are also given the opportunity to both influence and play a part in the process.
Since operations began, around 177,300 hectares of land in total have been used for lignite mining, approximately 70 per cent of which has already been recultivated. Around 20 per cent of the recultivated area has been reassigned as agricultural land, approximately 30 per cent as forest and woodland areas and around 13 per cent has been made into water areas.


Tenon cutter-use with a slot cutter to make a 'frame and panel' lid.
Tenon cutter, TGTC 1 ½, is a box making cutter. Use the tenon cutter in conjunction with the slot cutter to make a 'frame and panel' box lid.
Specification: The tenon cutter TGTC 1 ½ is a Gifkins-modified cutter with a 32mm diameter, 8º negative shear angle, for a super clean cut.
The tenon cutter works with the slot cutter [TA700 3.2 M ½] to make mortise-and-tenon joints in lid frames. Try using contrasting timbers in your lid frame components to draw the eye! See the boxes in the gallery for ideas.
The tenon cutter is for sale separately and is part of our Ultimate cutter kit and Master cutter kit.


When a great television show nears its conclusion, it makes the imminent ending resonate from its every moment. Breaking Bad has always been a show where anything could happen, yet for a show that so perfectly maintained the feeling that no twist was completely outside the realm of possibility, it has a shockingly low body count in its central cast. No one who was a cast member in the pilot has died to date, and most of the major characters who met their end had their fate telegraphed well in advance. It was always clear Gus was going to have to die to complete Walter's ascension, Jane was set up from the start as Jesse's doomed love, and even Mike's end was clear well before it happened. What's amazing about this final stretch of episodes, and really, about the show as a whole, is the way it manages to keep the tension ratcheted up, and indeed, to ratchet it ever higher, without resorting to a lot of standard plot twists.
These final episodes are playing with our notions about the show, and with our strong desire for an ending that will satisfy us. They aren't playing the sort of games The Sopranos played until its final frame, though. Breaking Bad is continually making clear that this story will end, and reminding us in ways both subtle and explicit that this end means nothing is off the table, not even the things it has kept out of play to this point. So much has happened in the show to date that it can be easy to forget how much could happen in the last five episodes, how much story this show has saved up for the final stretch. What will happen is anyone's guess (and I'm not here to play prognosticator, at least not until the Notes section), but what the show continues to make clear is that virtually anything can happen. Except, perhaps, a happy ending.
"Confessions" draws its title most explicitly from the video Walt makes and gives to Hank after their confrontation at the Mexican restaurant (a blackly comic interlude of the sort this show does exceedingly well). The way the video duplicates Walt's introduction from the pilot is a clever bit of circular storytelling of the sort I like to see as a show wraps up, except one thing has changed. One thing is different, and that alteration tells us everything this episode needs us to know about Walt. In the pilot, Walt followed his introduction of himself with the sentence "This is not an admission of guilt." Now, he follows it with "This is my confession." When he said the first, he was a terrified man on the verge of suicide, a chemistry teacher wracked with guilt and desperately unsure of what the next thirty seconds would bring. When he speaks now, he is in control, a dying man who knows he can beat death, a kingpin who thinks he knows every possible move on the board. In that first video, everything he said was the truth, even if he was carefully editing it to obscure the exact details of his guilt. In the newest video, everything he says is a lie, but he does not quiver or shake. He has not a shred of doubt or compunction. In fact, all of the emotion that we see is a show for the camera. When the show began, Walter White had trouble with lying, bumbling when he covered things up to Skyler, and just wanting to unburden himself in what he thought would be his final moments. Now, Walter White is incapable of telling the truth, unable to stop "working" everyone around him. His first video was a tearful goodbye to his family; now he doesn't even see the people around him. He only sees pieces on a game board to be moved about as he sees fit.
Throughout "Confessions," we watch Walt run plays on everyone around him, and for the most part, at least for the moment, we see that they work. The most devastating of these is his deception of Walter Jr., a young boy who only wants pancakes and a cool nickname, who has instead become a bargaining chip in the struggle between the Schraders and the Whites. When Walt reveals his cancer is back, he's telling the truth (at least, insofar as we know. The cancer may be much worse than he lets on to his son here, but he is honest about the fact that its back), but he's doing so for the emotional impact he knows it will have. He is manipulating his son to make sure he doesn't go to see Hank and Marie. And our man Flynn is putty in Heisenberg's hands. He plays Hank and Marie at the restaurant, even though Hank has proven himself immovable. SO, he threatens to play the DEA, and it turns out Hank may move more easily than he let on. He plays Skyler with an unconvincing lie about the latch on the soda machine so he can retrieve a frozen handgun. And he plays Jesse like he has been from day one.
Walt's speech to Jesse is unbelievably patronizing, even coming from him, and that he lays it on as thick as he does proves just how untouchable he thinks he is. He tells Jesse it would be best for him to get a fresh start. He tells him to get a clean slate with the help of Saul's friend the vacuum cleaner repair guy. And even though Jesse knows Walt is lying, even though he confronts him and asks Walt to stop playing him and just be honest, Walt doesn't drop his act. He just hugs Jesse, and through the sheer will of his manipulation, he manages to get what he wants without having to lay anything on the table at all. It isn't that most of these people believe Walt's lies. Jesse, Hank, and Skyler are all pretty apparent in their disbelief. Its that no one challenges Walt, or, when they do, sticks to their challenges in the face of his trump cards. He has everyone in his life backed into corners. He's force feeding them vinegar, and making both parties pretend it tastes like sugar. This is the darkness at the core of Walter White, a man so terrifyingly evil he cannot possibly look inward. So he remakes the world to fit his lies. For most of the run of this show, those lies have been believed to Walt's betterment. Those lies have saved his life multiple times, they have made sure he has survived to fight another day. Those lies remade him and the world around him. But the castle Walt has built on that mountain of lies is on a shaky foundation. No one is believing them anymore, and while they aren't exactly in a position to do much about that yet, many of them are preparing to do things that will topple Walt's kingdom and send him tumbling down into the muck.
Jesse buys Walt's lies because he has to, and he is prepared to give the man what he wants, even as he got nothing, not even an omission that he was serving Walt's interests more than his own, in return. But then something happens. Jesse discovers the one thing that would make him incapable of buying into Walt's version of events, the one thing that brought him close to murdering Walt in the past. When he finds Huell lifted his weed, and looks at that crumpled up packet of cigarettes in his back pocket, everything crystallizes. He realizes he's seen this trick before, and his whole world clicks into place. Jesse can't get in that innocuous red minivan. He can't disappear. He's seen the face of the devil himself, and he knows what to do. For all of his faults, for all of his mistakes, Jesse Pinkman is a good man, and when faced with the devil, he cannot turn tail and flee. He has to stay and fight.
And so he bursts into the White home with a can of gasoline, fresh off his visit to administer a brutal beating to Saul, who has gotten no better at concealing secrets when he is directly threatened. Like many a reluctant hero before the final act of a story (think Han Solo in A New Hope), Jesse was about to exit stage left. But a crisis of conscience sent him back. The foe he faces has him outmatched. Walter is a man with a plan, even if he is currently desperate and knocked off his game. Yet that gives Jesse at least a potential advantage. Given time, Walter White will turn any situation to his advantage. But keep him on his toes, keep throwing chaos in his direction, never let the dust settle, and you may stir Walter White to the breaking point.
-The cold open shows us Todd is not too great at confidentiality. My guess is neither are his associates. This bodes poorly for Mr. White, whom Todd names freely and often in his war story.
-"Why don't you just kill yourself, Walt? That's what you're saying, right? That this whole thing ends when you die? Well, maybe you should do it then. Maybe you should just die."
-Hank's reaction to the reveal that Walt paid his medical bills is perfect. He was too caught up in things before, but now he is completely incapable of explaining the situation and coming out looking clean.
-"Jesse, will you let me help you? I don't like seeing you hurt like this."
-"Maybe it's time for a change...just get out of town. Don't look back."
-"In a few years, this might all feel like...nothing more than a bad dream." "Would you just, for once, stop working me?"
-"Some people are immune to good advice."


When I first thought about writing this post I never intended it to be anything more than a quick chat about six podcasts I'm loving right now and nothing more. But as I've thought more about what I was actually going to write it, I started to reflect more on why I love podcasts so much and what they mean to me.
When my youngest daughter Ruby was around the age Arden is now, I was one big ball of overwhelm. I was finding life really tricky and I was scared of myself. That sounds so strange but I got to the point that I was so afraid of my body and what was going on inside it that I was frightened to leave the house with the kids in case it just stopped working. Let me explain.
Growing up, I was always aware of mental illness because my mum suffered on and off from bouts of depression and low mood that began after she had children. Now, like any mum, I have times when I am tired and impatient with the kids but I've always felt like I have my dad's strong and sensible head, and I thought that I would be pretty safe on the old mental side of things.
Turns out, when you are breastfeeding your youngest for nearly a year and you have a six year old and four year old to care for, the mind does play tricks – and that steam you were once running on can run out.
At the time I had a monthly membership to a kids soft play centre and every week I'd take them after school to run off some steam. On one visit I ordered a large cappuccino and four finger KitKat – stick with me on this! I didn't really drink coffee and as the three shot bucket, combined with the chocolate sugar rush, hit my bloodstream – bang. There I was, a 28-year-old mum of three in the middle of soft play shaking, struggling to breathe and thinking this was it, I was done for. I don't really remember how I got out of there but I drove (whilst shaking like mad) to A&E where they couldn't even take my blood pressure because I was moving so much. It was a horrific panic attack brought on by the caffeine and sugar hit, coupled with my anxiety. I got home and went straight to bed whilst my brother looked after the kids.
From that day on I was sure something was wrong and here started 8 months of constant anxiety. I was back and forward to the doctor for blood tests and kidney scans (I could feel a constant pain in my kidneys), but thankfully nothing ever showed up. My sleeping went to pot and I'd roam the house until 3 or 4am like a banshee. David was incredibly supportive and encouraged me to take up running and to speak to my doctor, whilst promising I would be ok and that he'd look after me. I did visit the doctor and we decided that medication wasn't for me; the strong side of my brain was still there under all the fog and with time and a lot of support from David and my best friends I did get there. My sleeping began to return – and that was all thanks to podcasts! Desert Island Discs to be exact – every night I'd choose what personality I was going to learn about, plug myself in and listen to it as I drifted off to sleep. In the beginning I'd get to the end of one and head straight for another, but over time I was hearing less and less of them and that's when my sleeping returned. I still listen to podcasts when I'm going to sleep, when I'm feeling stressed, when I'm alone in the car (almost never!) or simply to relax as a treat at the end of a long day.
Congratulations if you're still with me – without further ado here are the six podcasts I currently listen to and love, and I hope now you understand why I love them so much!
1. Desert Island Discs – Where it all began and my saviour from long lonely nights! If you haven't heard of DID (where have you been?) basically every week Kirsty Young interviews a celebrity or person of importance on their life story, career etc and they choose 8 tracks that they would bring to a desert island with them. Personal favourites are Billy Connelly, Jo Malone and most recently, Stella McCartney.
2. Table Manners with Jessie Ware – Table Manners is a little like DID as in each week singer Jessie Ware and her mum Lennie interview (which is more like just a chat) a celebrity at their home and cook them a meal. I love the guests they've had including Jay Rayner, Ed Sheeran and George Ezra and the banter between mum and daughter.
3. Is It Just Me? – Presented by my big-time-female-crush Jo Elvin (of Glamour fame) and James Williams, Is It Just Me always guarantees a laugh as they chat with personalities about everything under the sun from grief to clubbing. Maybe not one to listen to in the company of kids!
4. Get It On with Dawn O'Porter – This is a pretty old one that I've went back to re-listen to. Dawn (who is married to Irish actor Chris O'Dowd) interviews her friends about their style. If you're even slightly interested in how people dress this is a great one for you.
5. Aly Talks: Build a creative business in a noisy world – I just love local whirlwind Aly Harte. She fills all my social media with her incredible artwork and her inspirational and strong messages. This year Aly has dipped her toe into podcasting about business and I for one have been loving it – meaningful and educational Aly has got it spot on!
6. The High Low – When I grow up I wouldn't mind being as smart as presenters of The High Low, Pandora Sykes and Dolly Alderton. The weekly pop-culture podcast covers all sorts of topics from the current week so expect grown up discussions with a varied range of content.
7. How to Curate Your Life – This podcast by Lizzie Evans who owns a design and lifestyle store in London is great for creatives who want to learn and pick up some tips from other creatives. Lizzie has just announced she will be back with another season very soon which makes me very excited!