text:
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A warm welcome to the studio to little brother Ru. I have photographed big brother a few times before and it was an absolute pleasure meeting his new baby brother. These boys look like angels! This is Ru's sneaky peek.


text:
James Madison and Democracy
2018-07-22T06:15:27-04:00https://images.c-span.org/Files/678/20180722062003003_hd.jpgJeffrey Rosen talked about James Madison and democratic ideals. Mr. Rosen is president and CEO of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. He argued, in part, that social media platforms work against the founding father's core values and intended cooling mechanisms on popular opinion. The James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation and the National Constitution Center co-hosted this program.
Jeffrey Rosen talked about James Madison and democratic ideals. Mr. Rosen is president and CEO of the National Constitution Center in… read more
Jeffrey Rosen talked about James Madison and democratic ideals. Mr. Rosen is president and CEO of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. He argued, in part, that social media platforms work against the founding father's core values and intended cooling mechanisms on popular opinion. The James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation and the National Constitution Center co-hosted this program. close
Lewis Larsen President James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation
Jeffrey Rosen President and CEO National Constitution Center
James Madison Memorial Fellowship FoundationJames Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation
American History TV
Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Jul 22, 2018 | 6:15am EDT | C-SPAN 3
Sep 04, 2018 | 4:58am EDT | C-SPAN 3
Sep 03, 2018 | 5:24pm EDT | C-SPAN 3
See all on Madison, James Democracy American History TV
David Rubenstein on the 1787 Constitutional Convention
Philanthropist David Rubenstein talked about what he thinks Americans should know about the 1787 Constitutional…
Drafting the U.S. Constitution
Jeffrey Rosen gave a tour of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia and spoke about the creation of the U.S.…
Presidential Health
Richard Levinson addressed three myths about presidents and their health. He also spoke about how doctors have…
George H.W. Bush and Foreign Policy
Jeffrey Engel talked about President George H. W. Bush's foreign policy legacy. Mr. Engel is the director of Southern Methodist…
JMMFF Lecture 2018
Madison is clear about the importance of civic education.
Republic and Large Colonies

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There are 16 quotes by Shea Hembrey at 95quotes.com. Find your favorite quotations and top quotes by Shea Hembrey from this hand-picked collection about art. Feel free to share these quotes and sayings on Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr & Twitter or any of your favorite social networking sites.


text:
Q: Simple ListPreference is not working. Any ideas? Could someone maybe tell me what i'm doing wrong? I'm betting im missing one small thing. I've looked on the developer site and i've read some tutorials and i'm just not seeing what i did wrong.
I'm trying to use a ListPreference to decide which sound to play on a button click.
I have this at the top:
public String greensound;

Here's my OnClick code:
case R.id.green:
     SharedPreferences prefs=PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(this);
     greensound  = prefs.getString("greensound", "gsone");
       if (greensound == "gsone") {
        mSoundManager.playSound(1);
       } else if (greensound == "gstwo") {
        mSoundManager.playSound(2);
       } else if (greensound == "gsthree") {
        mSoundManager.playSound(3);
       }
 break;

Here's my xml:
<ListPreference
android:title="Geen Button"
android:key="greensound"
android:summary="Select sound for the Green Button"
android:entries="@array/green_list"
android:entryValues="@array/green_list_values"
android:defaultValue="gsone">
</ListPreference>

here's my Settings.java:
package com.my.app;

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.preference.PreferenceActivity;

public class Settings extends PreferenceActivity {

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState){
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        addPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.settings);

    }

}

and here's my array's if that will help at all:
//This is the one I want to display to the user
    <string-array name="green_list">
      <item>Sound One</item>
      <item>Sound Two</item>
      <item>Sound Three</item>
      <item>Sound Four</item>
      <item>Sound Five</item>
    </string-array>

    <string-array name="green_list_values">
      <item>gsone</item>
      <item>gstwo</item>
      <item>gsthree</item>
      <item>gsfour</item>
      <item>gsfive</item>
    </string-array>

edit: added a logcat that kinda looked possibly related.
08-27 01:52:07.738: WARN/Resources(6846): Converting to string: TypedValue{t=0x12/d=0x0 a=2 r=0x7f090000}
08-27 01:52:07.748: WARN/Resources(6846): Converting to string: TypedValue{t=0x12/d=0x0 a=2 r=0x7f090000}
08-27 01:52:07.758: WARN/Resources(6846): Converting to string: TypedValue{t=0x12/d=0x0 a=2 r=0x7f090000}

DDMS > File Explorer > Data > Data > packageName > SharedPreferences
This is what was in there:
com.my.app_preferences.xml:
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8' standalone='yes' ?>
<map>
<string name="redsound">rsone</string>
<string name="greensound">gsone</string>
</map>

_has_set_default_values.xml:
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8' standalone='yes' ?>
<map>
<boolean name="_has_set_default_values" value="true" />
</map>

This all really confuses me more because...It looks like greedsound does infact = gsone
so.... I don't understand whats wrong its not even playing the default sound. and yes i've tested
mSoundManager.playSound(1);
mSoundManager.playSound(2);
mSoundManager.playSound(3);

all without the other code and they work great. I'm not sure what's work

A: greensound.equals("gsone")

A: I had a similar problem.  I changed my '==' comparisons to string.contentsEquals() and things started working.  I eventually ended up putting the keys and values into HashMaps.

A: The only issue I can think of is that your preferences are not getting set before you are running your playSound code. To ensure the settings are loaded include the following code in your onCreate():
/* Loading default preferences the first time application is run */
        PreferenceManager.setDefaultValues(getApplicationContext(),
                R.xml.filename, false);

Also, check through the DDMS > File Explorer > Data > Data > packageName > SharedPreferences that your preferences are getting set.
When you are using Preference Activity and creating it from xml resource. It automatically creates a SharedPreference file: packageName_preferences (eg. com.my_company.my_app_preferences). Thus to access this you need to use the following code:
SharedPreferences prefs = getSharedPreferences("com.my.app_preferences", MODE_PRIVATE);

And finally remove the following line in the xml:
android:defaultValue="gsone"

Hope this helps.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
This place is prysonMary Wellesley
Vol. 41 No. 10 · 23 May 2019
This place is pryson
Mary Wellesley
Hermits and Anchorites in England, 1200-1550
edited by E.A. Jones.
Manchester, 232 pp., £18.99, January 2019, 978 1 5261 2723 5Show More
Listen to this piece read by the author
The cell was the size of a large cupboard. There wasn't enough room to lie down. I'd come late on a winter afternoon; the light was seeping away. What light there was came through the 'squint' – the small window that looked onto the sanctuary. It was a cruciform shape and through it I could see a single candle standing on the altar. I turned on the torch on my phone. In front of the squint was an oak shelf with a dark circle on its edge where the wood had been rubbed smooth. Above it was a notice that read: 'Please put nothing on the ancient sill. This was the prayer-desk of the anchorites for several centuries.' I knelt in front of it. If the floor had been at the same height in the medieval period, the desk would have been too high for an anchorite to rest their elbows on. Had the indentation been made by pairs of hands gripping the edge of the ledge? I wondered at those pairs of hands. This cell had been a coffin to its inhabitants – once inside, they were never to come out. They may have been buried beneath my feet, in this tiny anchorhold in the church of St Nicholas in the village of Compton in Surrey.
An anchorite or anchoress permanently encloses themselves in a cell to live a life of prayer and contemplation. The word comes from the Greek ἀναχωρεῖν ('anachorein') meaning 'to retire or retreat'. Anchoritism emerged in the late 11th century in tandem with a monastic reform movement and a growth in spiritual enthusiasm that is sometimes referred to as the Medieval Reformation. In the Middle Ages in England, as elsewhere in Europe, the practice was not uncommon – there were around a hundred recluses across the country in the 12th century; over the 13th century, the figure increased to two hundred. Women significantly outnumbered men, by as much as three to one.
I came out of the church into the empty churchyard. Except for the sound of passing cars, I was alone. The anchorites who had lived in the cell probably rarely felt that. Anchorites withdrew from the world in one sense, but anchored to their church, they were at the centre of community life. Anchorholds were often situated in prominent places in medieval English towns – sometimes along the routes of liturgical processions. In London there were many cells along the old city walls. As Claire Dowding has noted, they formed a 'ring of prayer' encircling the capital.
Life as an anchoress began with a death. On entering their cell for the first time, the recludensus (novice recluse) would climb into a grave dug inside the cell. The enclosure ritual is a piece of macabre high drama. In places the liturgy is indistinguishable from a funeral service. When the moment for enclosure arrived, the anchoress-to-be would process with the celebrant, choir and others out of the church and into the graveyard, as the choir sang 'In paradisum deducant te angeli' – traditionally sung as a body is conveyed to a grave. The procession would arrive at the cell built onto the side of the church, usually – in England – on the north side, where the wind was most biting and no direct sunlight fell. Some ordines (liturgical directions) state that the recludensus should pause at the opening of the cell and the bishop should say, 'Si vult intrare, intret' ('if he/she wishes to go in, allow him/her to go in'). An antiphon drawn from the Book of Tobias was sung, concluding with the words, 'Be of good courage, thy desire from God is at hand.' The anchoress would then climb into the grave, where she was sprinkled with earth – ashes to ashes, dust to dust – and the door of the cell was bolted.
It was not only during the moment of enclosure that anchoresses were invited to meditate on their death to the world. The Ancrene Wisse ('Anchoresses' Guide') – an important early 13th-century advisory text – instructs that recluses should use their bare hands to 'scrape up the earth every day from the grave in which they will rot'. The text also prescribes the daily recitation of two psalms from the Office of the Dead, and notes that there is no difference between a 'smiret ancre' ('anointed anchoress') and an 'ancre biburiet' ('buried anchoress'), because 'hwet is ancre-hus bute hire burinesse?' ('what is an anchorhold but her grave?'). At St Anne's in Lewes, an anchoress was buried in the exact place she would have knelt at her squint in order to see the high altar, meaning, as Roberta Gilchrist put it in Contemplation and Action: The Other Monasticism, 'she would have had to kneel daily in her own grave.'
There is a body of medieval literature about the anchoritic life, as well as a wealth of documentary evidence, much of it collected in E.A. Jones's new volume Hermits and Anchorites in England, 1200-1550. It often makes for grim reading. Anchoresses were required to remain in their cells (on average 12 feet square); any windows were covered by a thick black curtain. They were tended to by a servant, or sometimes two, who brought them food and took away waste through a window that would have opened onto a servants' parlour. Some had access to walled gardens or adjoining rooms, but most remained inside a single room.
Some writers of anchoritic guidance saw the space as confined only in a physical sense. In a letter to the recluse Eve of Wilton (c.1058-1125), who lived in an eight foot cell, Goscelin of St Bertin wrote, echoing Psalm 30, that God 'has set you in a spacious place, for he has saved you from the afflictions of worldly desires … he has begun to close hell for you and open heaven for you, that you may walk with a spacious heart.' Yet many others recognised the threat of boredom and claustrophobia. In De Institutione Inclusarum, Aelred of Rievaulx describes idleness as 'the enemy of the soul', a vice that 'sows evil thoughts in the mind … kindles and inflames illicit desires' and 'breeds distaste for quiet and disgust for the cell'.
In their cells anchoresses followed a regime of prayer, and guidance literature advised that they should occupy themselves with reading, writing or activities suitable to the enclosed life, like mending church vestments or making cloth. Jones provides an extract from the 15th-century Speculum Inclusorum, which instructs that the moment a recluse's 'taste for prayer or delight in meditation decreases' they should 'immediately' read or perform some kind of manual work. If they are unable to read Latin, they are advised to read in English, French or their vernacular language.
Anchoresses were encouraged to fast frequently and to remain silent as much as possible. The 13th-century Dublin Rule recommends resorting to sign language if necessary. Even sleep was seen as a luxury. Walter's Rule, also written in the 13th century, says that recluses should vary where they sleep – sometimes standing up, and sometimes on the floor. They are advised to lie on nothing softer than a rush mat and use an arm in lieu of a pillow. This was a life of sensory deprivation, with limited light, fresh air, conversation, laughter or touch. The squint – the window onto the church's altar – became a conduit of sensation. If the parlour window was covered by a curtain, the light from candles on the altar, glimpsed through the squint, might at times be the only source of illumination. And through the squint the anchoress might hear the sung liturgy, smell the incense and, importantly, receive the Eucharist. The narrator of Robyn Cadwallader's 2015 novel, The Anchoress, learns to distinguish the sounds of different carts passing her cell and smell the changes of the seasons. I imagine they got used to their own smell. Walter's Rule advises that a recluse should shake out their clothes 'when required', but says nothing of washing.
Contact with the outside world was limited. Anchoresses might receive visitors at their windows and it seems their counsel was often sought. The Dublin Rule recommends that before speaking to a visitor the recluse should cross herself upon her mouth and not look too long on the face of the visitor lest she be tempted. Walter Hilton's Scale of Perfection, which is addressed to a 14th-century anchoress, advises her to receive visitors with grace and humility, offering words of comfort. But, should their talk turn to idle chatter, she should 'give little answer', and if the visitor is a man of the Church, she must only ask questions and never instruct him, for 'it is not your place to teach a priest.'
Of all these advisory texts, the Ancrene Wisse is the most compelling and provided my first encounter with the history of anchoresses. It was written for three sisters who enclosed themselves in the early 13th century (although textual modifications in later manuscripts show its subsequent intended audience was larger). The three sisters, whose names aren't recorded, may have been enclosed together – there are accounts of anchoresses sharing cells – but I sense it is unlikely: a later version of the text says 'Tendre of cun ne limpeð nawt ancre beonne' ('family feeling is not appropriate for an anchoress'). They were evidently genetic sisters, not spiritual ones. The Wisse's anonymous author remarks: 'you are much talked about, what well-bred women you are, sought after by many for your goodness and your generosity, and sisters from one father and one mother, [who] in the bloom of your youth renounced all the joys of the world and became anchoresses.' I have often wondered why. Were they just very devout or had something happened to these sisters to make them crave the darkness of a cell? They appear to have come from a well-to-do gentry family. Some recluses may have been of humble origin and there are accounts of aristocratic women being enclosed, but many seem to have been from the burgess and gentry class.
To become an anchoress, they would have had to apply to their local bishop. Their application had to demonstrate that they were of good character, suited to the contemplative life and were of independent financial means or had a patron or patrons. The three sisters had a male patron. The text says they have 'no worries about food or clothing, either for yourselves or for your maids'. Anne Warren's work on anchoritic patronage has shown that anchorites and anchoresses were supported by people from almost every level of society. This patronage could take various forms. Wills and household accounts reveal that money was often bequeathed. In other cases, bread or books were donated. In 1435, William Fylham, canon of Exeter Cathedral, left 'three canonical loaves' per week, for a year, to an anchorite at the church of St Leonard. A decade earlier Thomas Dunham, rector of Little Torrington, left twenty shillings and 'a book of Sunday sermons written in English' to an anchoress in Exeter called Alice.
I've sometimes wondered if the three sisters' patron was their father, brother or another family member. The text states that the permission of the confessor must be sought before an anchoress may receive visits from friends or relations. Perhaps they had no immediate family left. There are several accounts of women becoming enclosed in widowhood. Grief could drive you to seek a living death.
The Ancrene Wisse prescribes a life of privation predicated on the idea that the recluses were inherently sinful creatures. They were forbidden to touch anyone from the moment of their enclosure and were never to look at or be seen by a man. If a bishop came to visit and insisted on looking at them, the sisters were advised that this gaze should be very brief and to 'lower your veil at once and draw back'. It stipulates a virginity so totalising that even the intrusion of a person's hand into the anchoritic cell is a sinful penetration. The anchoresses' bodies became one with the cell, and thus became organs of the church that could be controlled and contained. Among the activities the text condemns are crossing the legs, affecting a lisp, arching the eyebrows with moistened fingers, certain kinds of embroidery, owning gloves, wearing pleated garments and writing without the permission of the confessor. They also had to seek permission to wear a belt made of iron or hair or ilespiles felles ('hedgehog skins'). The text says that the anchoress should 'not beat herself with these things, nor with a lead-weighted scourge, nor with holly or brambles, nor should she bloody herself … nor sting herself with nettles, nor beat the front of her body, nor lacerate herself with cuts'. These self-inflicted tortures are like treats to be rationed, and are permissible only with authorisation.
The Ancrene Wisse is unsettling in a number of ways. The experience of reading it is sensuous. Its rhythmic, alliterative language delights the ear and contorts the tongue (some of the best alliteration comes in pairs, like 'swete ant swote' or 'woh of word').
Mine leoue sustren, alswa as ȝe witeð wel ower wittes utewið, alswa ouer alle þing lokið þet ȝe beon inwið softe ant milde ant eadmode, swete and swote iheortet, ant þolemode aȝein woh of word
My beloved sisters, just as you watch your wits outwardly, also you must look inwardly and be sure that you are soft, mild and meek, sweet and sweet-of-heart, and patient against woeful words
The imagery is rich, allegorical and unforgettable. In other words, it glorifies its own aesthetic. In one passage, the author – always alive to sonic play – riffs on the dual sense of the Middle English word ancre, meaning 'anchoress' and also 'anchor':
For-þi is ancre ancre icleopet, ant under chirche iancret as ancre under schipes bord forte halden þet schip, þet uþen ant stormes hit ne ouerwarpen. Alswa al Hali Chirche (þet is schip icleopet) schal ancrin o þe ancre, þet heo hit swa halde þet uþen ant stormes hit ne ouerwarpen.
The anchoress is called an anchor, and anchored under the church like an anchor under the side of a ship to hold the ship, so that waves and storms do not blow it over. Just so all Holy Church (which is described as a ship) should anchor on the anchoress, for her to hold it so that the devil's blasts, which are temptations, do not blow it over.
This is a rhetorical pirouette – playing on the different meanings of ancre, but also of the chirch as both the physical building of the parish church and the global Church. It moves from particular, local detail (an anchor, a church building) to the cosmic battle between good and evil. The language makes the tongue take several trips: the cr-, cl-, ch- and sh- sounds half-echoing each other while the repetition of 'ouerwarpen' loops the sentences together.
The use of allegory here is typical of the text. The author is particularly fond of animal and bird allegories, describing the angry anchoress as a pelican that kills its own chicks (figured as good works) with the beak of sharp anger. In Part Four, he warns against the lion of pride, the serpent of envy, the bear of sloth, the rhinoceros of wrath, the sow of gluttony and the scorpion of lechery. Each beast has offspring which are varieties of the sins. The sow's piglets have names like 'To Frechliche' ('Too Greedily') and 'To Ofte' ('Too Often'). You can't forget the snouting, scuttling, slithering, slouching creatures of this sermon.
The tone is also unsettling. Read one way, the Ancrene Wisse is veined with hatred of women, but it is also a work of love: 'Godde hit wat as me were muche deale leouere þet Ich isehe ow alle þreo, mine leoue sustren, wummen me leouest, hongin on a gibet forte wiðbuhe sunne' ('God knows I would rather see all three of you, my dear sisters, women dearest to me, hanging from a gibbet in order to avoid sin'). These words are intimate, affectionate – 'mine leoue sustren, wummen me leouest' – but it is the image of three sisters hanging from a gallows that sticks in the mind.
It also uses the imagery of love. There is a famous passage about a lady who lives in a castle beset by enemies. A powerful king comes to her aid, giving her protection and showering her with gifts. She treats him with contempt. He visits her, he is 'of alle men feherst to bihalden' ('of all men fairest to behold'), speaks tenderly to her, offers to make her his queen. She continues to treat him with contempt. He tells her that she is in mortal danger, that she will be captured and put to a shameful death. He vows that he will die to protect her and does so, in an act of great sacrifice. It could be the plot of a romantic novel, except that the king is a metaphor for Christ.
Reading the text, I feel pulled in different directions. I'm sure that the author – perhaps a Dominican monk – thought he was writing something that would offer kindly instruction to the sisters, ensuring their eternal salvation. In spite of this, I want to condemn him. And yet I can't help enjoying his wordplay, his imagery; his text delights me again and again. I feel similarly conflicted about the choices of the women themselves. Why would you want to rend your own skin with a lead whip? Why would you want to spend decades inside your own grave? (And it was decades – a 13th-century record for a church in Frodsham in Cheshire shows that an anchoress called Wymark was enclosed there for around fifty years.) Sometimes I think that the three sisters for whom the Ancrene Wisse was written were trapped in an abusive relationship with Christ. But their choices look more reasoned when you consider that becoming an anchoress was a way of avoiding the dangers of childbirth and the misery of a forced marriage. It was also a position of authority and social standing. Margery Kempe – most boisterous of the late medieval English mystics – describes how she sought the counsel of the anchoress Julian of Norwich, spending 'many days' with her. In an all-male church, Julian's position was unusual. Anchoresses were not usually attached to a particular order, so their spiritual authority rested on them alone, unlike, say, an abbess whose spiritual authority came in part from her institution. It is no small irony that one of the few ways women could achieve autonomy and social standing in this period was by imprisoning themselves.
For those three sisters, enclosing themselves was an act of love. Bodily mortification was seen as a form of imitatio Christi – a way to experience Christ's suffering and thereby commune with him. Anchoresses were thought to be mystically married to Christ. A prayer that appears alongside the Ancrene Wisse in an early manuscript, written in the same alliterative language, begins, 'Mi druð, mi derling, mi drihtin, mi healend, mi huniter, mi haliwei, swetter is munegunge of þe þen mildeu o muðe' ('my dear, my darling, my lord, my saviour, my honey-drop, my healing balm, sweeter is the memory of you than honey-dew in the mouth'). The narrator is a woman: 'Yif that I wile ani mon for feirnesse luve, luve I wile the' ('If I will love any man for beauty, I will love you'). This prayer is anonymous, but it's not unreasonable to assume it was written by a woman, perhaps an anchoress. It is a work of passionate love and longing.
The only surviving text securely attributed to an anchoress is Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love. We know her as Julian because she was enclosed in the church of St Julian at Conisford in Norwich (although the name 'Julian' could also be given to a woman in this period). If she had another name, we don't know what it was. Her work survives in two forms: a shorter version, composed in 1373 when, at the age of thirty, she had a near-death experience and received 'shewings' from God, and a longer text written decades later.
We are not sure when Julian became an anchoress, but the description of her deathbed 'shewings' suggests she was not a recluse at that point (Jones suggests that the shorter text may have been written as part of her application for enclosure). After her revelatory experience she spent around twenty years meditating on the meaning of her visions and producing the longer work, in which she describes each of her 16 visions and gives an account of her spiritual life and sufferings. This text represents her transition from mystic to sophisticated theologian. Given the privation of the anchoritic life, it is strikingly hopeful, almost radically so. Its most famous line – 'all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well' – encapsulates her generous vision of God's love. Julian never discusses the realities of her enclosed existence. At one point she writes that 'this place is pryson, and this lyfe is penance,' but she was likely referring to her life on earth, rather than the confines of her cell. She probably saw her life as no more than a way-station on the road to heaven. Bequests made to her show that she was an anchoress for at least twenty years, if not more. The date of her death is unknown.
Alongside Julian's work there is an anonymous 15th-century text called A Revelation of Purgatory, which some scholars think may have been written by an anchoress, though the attribution isn't secure. It is a description of purgatory that reads like a low-budget horror film, in which sinners are boiled in barrels, pierced with hooks, forced to drink poison and have their lips cut off. Similar tortures are inflicted on a pet cat and dog, for reasons that elude us. As a colleague recently remarked, 'If that was purgatory, what was hell like?'
The twin poles of these two texts – one suffused with love and the other suffused with fear – get at a tension in the anchoritic vocation: it was probably driven as much by love as by fear. Love and fear are also what I feel reading the Ancrene Wisse, except that my love is not of Christ but of language and rhetorical flourish, and my fear is not of the flames of hell or the torments of purgatory, but of a centuries' old hatred of the female body that stalks the text and lives on in our own age.
Mary Wellesley's Hidden Hands: Manuscripts That Made Us will be out next year.
A Load of Ballokis
In Pope's Grotto
A Whisper of a Beard: St Uncumber's Patch
More by Mary Wellesley
Vol. 41 No. 11 · 6 June 2019
Mary Wellesley's welcome and very nuanced delight in the 'sensuous rhythmic, alliterative language' of the Ancrene Wisse notwithstanding, how disappointing to read another engagement with the Christian tradition which is blighted from the start by preconceptions (LRB, 23 May). This inability to engage, even imaginatively, with the thought-world of a Christian, let alone an anchorite, leads to the unfortunate, and unfortunately common, identification of religious desire with pathology. Wellesley offers, as explanations (read: diagnoses) of why women might choose the difficult life of enclosure, first some sinister and scarring incident ('had something happened to these sisters?'), and later 'grief', which supposedly drove widows 'to seek a living death' in the Anchorage. Another attempt to bridge the gulf between the worlds of medieval devotion and modern scorn posits the move to an eight-foot enclosed cell, sans windows, contact and bodily freedoms as a power-grab, which allows for the satisfying, if not as telling as the author seems to think, 'it is no small irony that one of the few ways women could achieve autonomy and social standing in this period was by imprisoning themselves.' An irony, it must be said, which is and always has been at the root of the Christian faith, from St Paul on.
But the most unfortunate consequence of Wellesley's insistence on her blinkered hermeneutic of oppression is that she is forced to deny to her female subjects the very agency and autonomy which are the foundations of the feminist argument she is making. None of these anchoresses is allowed to have chosen this narrow, constrained life: no, it must have been forced on her by an uncaring patriarchy. This dogmatism is pushed to quite literally incredible extremes in her statement that 'becoming an anchoress was a way of avoiding the dangers of childbirth and the misery of a forced marriage.' Talk about using a sledgehammer to crack a nut! Blithe to the fact that she has just spent half an article telling us how rigorous and unpleasant such a life was, what a punishment, what 'hatred of women' and women's bodies it entailed, she now wants us to believe that it was preferable to that most awful of all things: childbearing!
Matthew Topham
Mary Wellesley suggests that the author of Ancrenne Wisse was 'perhaps a Dominican monk'. This is a misnomer – the Dominicans were friars not monks. Their popular name is Blackfriars. Monks, at least as envisaged by St Benedict, spent their lives in a single monastery. The ministry of friars by contrast preached in public, even if they had monasteries as a base for operations.
Jon Blanchard
Vol. 41 No. 12 · 20 June 2019
Matthew Topham's ire against Mary Wellesley's 'insistence on her blinkered hermeneutic of oppression' would have been more productively expressed if he hadn't chosen to end by ridiculing the horrors of childbearing (Letters, 6 June). According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, 8.9 out of every 100,000 live births in the United Kingdom result in the mother's death from pregnancy or complications in childbirth; the latest UN statistics suggest that 303,000 women a year die in this way. These are today's statistics: I don't think it's too much of an imaginative stretch to suggest that in the Middle Ages life as an anchorite would have been an appealing alternative.
Alice Wickenden


First wedding of the new year. Elissa loves photos, Matthew is extremely patient and has a great calming manner. You make a great pair! The entire wedding was at the Emerald at Queensridge in Las Vegas. Thank you for having me, your wedding was exciting and fun to shoot 🙂 Special thanks to Jacob Bongiovanni of http://delightedphoto.com for second shooting with me.


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Home News Meet the Candidates: ANC 6D
Meet the Candidates: ANC 6D
Elizabeth O'Gorek
In the Nov. 3rd General Election, DC residents will have the opportunity to elect ANC (Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners) in their District. The ANCs are a non-partisan body of elected officials that represent local community members.
The commissioners serve two-year terms without pay. All commissioners in all wards are up for election this year. Each commissioner represents a Single Member District (SMD) of approximately 2,000 residents. The ANCs' main role in the District is to be their neighborhood's official voice in advising the District government (and Federal agencies) on things that affect their neighborhoods.
Big change comes to ANC 6D, which covers neighborhoods in both the Southeast and Southwest quadrants located south of the Mall and Virginia Avenue, including the homes of DC United and the Washington Nationals as well as The Wharf and Buzzard Point. The ANC has one race contested on the ballot, in 6D07. Although two SMDs, 6D01 and 6D02 have no candidate listed on the ballot, candidates Andrew Bossi (6D01) and Jared Weiss (6D02) have announced their candidacies as write-ins for the positions.
To vote for a write-in candidate, write the candidate's name next to "Write-in" on the ballot. Make sure to also circle-in the oval next to "Write-in" in order for your vote to count.
Hill Rag requested statements from known candidates. Below are those responses received for candidates for ANC 6D. If you are a candidate to represent an ANC 6D SMD and want your statement included, please email [email protected]
Courtesy Andrew Bossi
Andrew Bossi (Write-in, 6D01)
Andrew Bossi works in transportation as an engineer and planner, and transportation and land use are undoubtedly at the fore of his interests. He believes ANCD needs a comprehensive transportation plan that takes into account the massive growth Southwest is experiencing, as well as construction impacts. He says Southwest needs safer and more equitable infrastructure for the most vulnerable users, a more robust curbside management program to tailor limited streetsides toward what he said are the greatest needs: ridehailing & delivery spaces to avoid double-parking, especially important as COVID continues to threaten our businesses: keeping the door open to business interested in outdoor seating and parklets. The growth Southwest is experiencing is both its greatest opportunity and greatest threat, Bossi said. Developers should be pressured to not just meet, but to exceed Affordable Housing goals, even on projects where affordable housing is not required. He said the community seek protections for tenants most at risk of displacement, especially in working to help neighbors in our public housing communities to remain in Southwest as development seeks that same land, and the neighbors who wonder how they will be able to afford to remain in Southwest in the face of rising rents and rising costs. Bossi said he will advocate for growth that "doesn't turn us [Southwest] into something like a gated community, but provides a variety of homes and a variety of businesses, for the variety of us calling Southwest home." See: http://tiny.cc/6d01
Jared Weiss (Write-In, 6D02)
Courtesy Jared Weiss
Jared Weiss is running a write-in campaign to represent the area bounded by South Capitol St., Potomac Ave., 1st St. SE, and I St. SE. Weiss has lived in DC for fifteen years, and in SMD 6D02 for five of those, as an owner in the Velocity condominium. He received an undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of Chicago and an MS in Applied Economics from Johns Hopkins University. For the first part of his career, Jared worked as a consultant building models for a variety of clients, including the Social Security Administration. For nine years he has worked for AARP, where as the director of data science he is tasked with helping to empower people to choose how they live as they age by analyzing data to make predictions about the impact of decisions.
Weiss said that while the past year has been challenging for many, it has also motivated many people, including himself, to do something to help make a positive impact. His initial plans as commissioner are to continue the good work and strategies utilized by former 6D02 Commissioner Anna Forgie, who stepped down in October after moving out of the SMD. Weiss looks forward to tackling the challenge of representing the incredible diverse community by listening to all resident concerns and suggestions, and diligently working to act on them.
6D03, 6D04
The Hill Rag did not receive statements from incumbent Commissioners Ronald Collins (6D03) and Andy Litsky (6D04), both of whom are running for re-election to represent their SMDs.
Fredrica Kramer (6D05) has lived in Southwest DC for more than 40 years, and has been a local activist for most of that time. After a career in social and urban policy, Kramer is running for reelection to ANC to help ensure that the ANC remains as strong as it is, to enforce the principles in our Small Area Plan: maintaining our "exemplar of equity and inclusion," preserving our "green oases," and protecting our "Modernist gem." Kramer is focused on preserving our iconic social diversity and the need for more affordable housing and more family-sized units. Kramer believes that the community must press the Council to strengthen the laws that will support equity and inclusion, and ensure that each development project that comes before us prove its worth to our community—exceed affordable housing requirements, create meaningful common spaces, and honor the aesthetic of Southwest. No photo provided.
The Hill Rag did not receive a statement from incumbent Commissioner Rhonda Hamilton (6D06) who is running for re-election to represent her SMD.
Courtesy Edward Daniels
Edward Daniels (6D07) is an entrepreneur and the current Commissioner of Navy Yard-Capitol Riverfront and long time DC resident. Daniles has served as an ANC commissioner for two years and has worked to remain honest, transparent and to hold himself, my colleagues, and others in positions of power as accountable as possible for both their actions. As commissioner for 6D07, Daniels has worked on traffic safety and efficiency, scheduling of after-hours construction and on loop-holes that utility companies have used in order to perform 'emergency' work without ANC approval. Daniels also is engaged with 'Neighborhood Nights', a community meet and greet with himself and key local stakeholders. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Daniels brought together over 100 residents atop the new Thompson Hotel. Daniels has advocated for the health and safety of our residents and the recovery of businesses during the pandemic and remains vigilant in his request for waterfront region a comprehensive traffic plan, as we continue to grow and become a world-class entertainment and tourist destination. Daniels believes that the death of George Floyd and subsequent protests sparked my thoughts and frustrations with failed systems and has really informed my mode of operation as he hopes to enter this second term. Learn more about Daniels and his platform on his website www.EdwardforANC.com.
Courtesy Eric Blaylock
Eric Blaylock (6D07) is a management consultant and entrepreneur with a 22-year track record of service to District residents. Prior to living and working in the DMV, Blaylock served his country in the United States Air Force, planning and coordinating close air support missions in southeast Asia. He continued his service locally at Andrews Air Force Base, as a Public Affairs Officer in the US Air Force Reserves. Blaylock understands the challenges that come with community advocacy and local level representation of one of the most vibrant and fastest growing neighborhoods in the city. As a long-time city resident, he has worked with city agencies to tackle many of these challenges, such as smart development and inclusive growth, public health and safety, and transportation and parking. Blaylock said that when it comes to working with District Government, what residents want the most is a resourceful, responsible, and reliable representative who has the tenacity to fight the hard battles that often come along with getting anything done in the District. You can learn more about Blaylock and his platform at www.ericblaylock4anc.com.
Read candidate statements in other ANCs: ANC 6A, ANC 6B, and ANC 6C (running Monday at 12:39 p.m.).
Learn more about ANC 6D by visiting www.anc6d.org. Learn more about the 2020 General Election by visiting dcboe.org
#Vote4DC
Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 6D
ANC Candidates
ANC Commissioners
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German defense minister warns against arming Ukraine troops
The German defense minister has warned that arming Ukrainian soldiers to help them fight pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine would only inflame the crisis in the country.
"Are we sure that we would be improving the situation for the people in Ukraine by delivering weapons?" Ursula von der Leyen asked during the 51st Munich Security Conference in the German city on Friday.
The remarks from von der Leyen underlined an emerging rift between Europe and the United States about how to tackle the conflict.
Under pressure from some members of the Congress, US President Barack Obama is reviewing whether to provide the Ukrainian government with lethal weapons to confront the pro-Russians.
Elsewhere in her remarks, Von der Leyen reiterated the view in most of the European capitals, including Berlin, Paris and London, that there can be no military solution to the West's dispute with Russia over the crisis in Ukraine.
She made the comments as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande started talks in the Russian capital city of Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a bid to find a way to end the deadly conflict.
On Thursday, Merkel and Hollande held talks with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Ukraine's capital Kiev for a peaceful solution to the surging conflict in the country.
Relations between Russia and the West have been extremely tense in recent months. The Ukrainian government and its Western allies accuse the Kremlin of supporting pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine. Russia denies the claims.
More than 5,300 people have died in the conflict in Ukraine's eastern regions, mainly Donetsk and Luhansk, the UN says. The fighting, which began in mid-April 2014 and intensified in May, has also displaced 1.5 million people.
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/02/06/396486/German-minister-warns-about-arming-Kiev
Tags: "Conservative news", "Right wing news", 2nd amendment, conservative politics, German defense minister warns against arming Ukraine troops, gun laws, gun news, gun rights, right wing politics, Rightwing news, rightwing politics