text:
Image: The White House
HBO Max's big challenges
Good morning! This Wednesday, HBO Max jumps into the streaming wars, a new level of presidential Twitter fights, and why today's rocket launch matters.
Palantir might be leaving California, CEO Alex Karp said (from a barn in New Hampshire):
"I'm pretty happy outside the monoculture … If I had to guess, I would guess something like Colorado. But we haven't decided."
Competing with Zoom would be crazy, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield said, but maybe not for the reason you think:
"I don't think we'd get any additional revenue from that customer if they're using Slack and the calling service. I don't think it's especially, necessarily, more attractive. In fact, a version of Slack that integrates very deeply with Zoom or Meet or Teams or Cisco — that's attractive."
The Wall Street Journal dropped a blockbuster report saying Facebook has ignored solutions to the platform's divisiveness. Facebook's Guy Rosen took issue:
"What's undeniable is we've made significant changes to the way FB works to improve the integrity of our products. We fundamentally changed News Feed ranking to favor content from friends and family over public content even if this meant people would use our products less."
Joe Biden said Californians should vote down changes to AB 5:
"Now, gig economy giants are trying to gut the law and exempt their workers. It's unacceptable. I urge Californians to vote no on the initiative this November."
It's not TV. It's not HBO. It's HBO Max.
It still sounds weird to say, but AT&T is now a genuine content behemoth. There's really no company this side of Disney with a bigger library of great stuff to watch — or at least, that's what AT&T is betting billions of dollars on as it launches HBO Max today.
In a way, HBO Max is a combination of so many other services:
It's a little bit Disney+: AT&T is betting big on brands and series, whether it's Harry Potter or "South Park" or the long, long history of DC movies and shows. HBO shows are sort of its equivalent to Pixar: a library of beloved stuff that people watch over and over. Just with more sex and murder.
It's also a little bit Netflix: HBO Max wants to be all things to all people, with kids programming all the way up to the gory R-rated stuff. It has no point of view, really, other than "here's some good stuff to watch."
It's even a little bit Hulu: There will eventually be a cheaper, ad-supported version of HBO Max that puts it more in line with Hulu, and even Peacock.
The $15 a month service has a lot going for it — starting with 35 million HBO subscribers, most of whom will likely jump over to Max and get a much better service for the same price. (Remember when AT&T CEO John Stankey called it "an IQ test" whether people would switch?)
But The New York Times found that up to 20% of HBO customers are already considering quitting to save money, which means HBO Max may be competing with your wallet more than anything else.
Another big challenge: getting HBO Max onto all the streaming boxes, aggregators and dongles people use. The HBO situation is already messy, since you can subscribe on its own and use one app or through your cable provider and use another. Subscribe through Roku or Amazon? That's a whole other thing. Plus, if you have cable, you might get HBO Max for free — but you also might not.
In the long run, AT&T has indicated all these options will coalesce into HBO Max. But for now, it's a mess of logins and billing options and figuring out where to cancel and where to sign up. That could slow the pace of adoption, no matter a user's IQ.
It's all going to be a bit confusing, but I still wouldn't bet against HBO Max. It has the library, it has the marketing muscle, it has "Friends." What else do you need?
Picking a Twitter fight … with Twitter
Tuesday brought two tweetstorms from President Trump, prompting two very different reactions from Twitter.
The first: The president has been tweeting for a few weeks about an old incident in which a woman died in an accident in Joe Scarborough's office, back when he was in the House of Representatives.
Trump tweeted, among other things: "A blow to her head? Body found under his desk? Left Congress suddenly? Big topic of discussion in Florida...and, he's a Nut Job (with bad ratings). Keep digging, use forensic geniuses!"
Twitter's response? Nothing. Twitter insinuated it's making product changes to better deal with tweets like Trump's, but didn't say what.
The second was even messier: Trump said that mail-in ballots would ensure a "Rigged Election" that would include robbed mailboxes, forged ballots and more.
Twitter's response: A blue warning that now appears below the tweet saying "Get the facts about mail-in ballots." It leads to a page, curated by Twitter staff, with information about Trump's false claims and tweets to better information.
Shockingly, Trump didn't like it. "Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!" he tweeted yesterday, after accusing the company of interfering in the 2020 election.
Twitter has a special set of rules for world leaders, which gives them extra leeway but makes clear that even they aren't entirely above Twitter Law.
But what happens now that the platform's in a full-on war with its highest-profile user? This is uncharted territory.
A MESSAGE FROM WALMART
Walmart Debuts Express Delivery
With many American families sheltering in place and relying heavily on online deliveries, Express Delivery will offer Walmart customers another no-contact shopping option – one that arrives in less than two hours.
Today's SpaceX launch is bigger than SpaceX
Today's Demo-2 launch at the Kennedy Space Center is huge for NASA and huge for SpaceX. (And huge for anyone who loves rocket launches. 4:33 p.m. EDT, folks, be there or be square.)
It's also huge for the countless other companies rooting for a huge, vibrant, lucrative space industry. That's what Dylan Taylor, the CEO of Voyager Space Holdings, told me:
"The stakes are super high," he said, "because if it weren't to go well, I think it would call into question everything about private enterprise, commercial crew, all of that stuff. I think it would be a real problem."
Taylor's company is acquiring a number of companies in the space industry, with plans to integrate them all into a player that can compete with Lockheed, Boeing, SpaceX and the other space giants. "There's plenty of business for everybody," he said. "This is about just opening up the frontier."
Space was pegged to be a trillion-dollar industry by 2040, according to a prediction made by Morgan Stanley last year. Some think it'll be higher.
"What's interesting," Taylor said, "is the returns in space are every bit as high as anything else, they're just more backloaded."
He said now is the perfect time to get into the space industry, as so much is being decided and worked out — but this business requires more patience than your average VC-backed startup.
In the long run, SpaceX is Voyager's competitor. For now, it's the canary in the coal mine hoping to prove that space isn't just a government enterprise. The rest of the industry is rooting for it.
Tom Pickett is the new CRO at DoorDash. Before joining the company in March he was the CEO of Ellation (the video company that oversaw Crunchyroll and Rooster Teeth), and before that he was a longtime content executive at YouTube.
Regina Dugan is joining Cruise as the board's first independent director. She's a veteran of futuristic tech, from Google ATAP to Facebook Building 8 and all the way back to DARPA.
Allison Johnson is leaving PayPal after an 18-month stint as the company's CMO. According to Business Insider, she's leaving as the company seeks to "reduce complexity, simplify our processes, and better align with our customers."
Thanks to everyone who sent in future-of-work name ideas! I like a lot of them — "Blended Work," "Working in Place," "Location Agnostic Work Culture." My favorite came from Beverly, who suggested we call it MySpace. That brand's definitely due for a reboot. Anyway, keep the ideas coming, and thanks for sending them!
On Protocol: Big tech companies are suddenly lobbying on behalf of small businesses across America. Why? Because they need those businesses (and their money) more than you might think.
Amazon is considering buying Zoox, The Wall Street Journal reported, which would give Amazon a leg up in the self-driving world. What do you think hits the market first: drone delivery or self-driving delivery?
The House has a deal on an amendment to the Patriot Act that would force the FBI to get a warrant before studying browsing data if there was any possibility that the data it sought were tied to a U.S. person.
Google is planning to re-open its offices starting on July 6, but with only 10% of building capacity, rising to 30% by September.
Facebook renamed its Calibra digital-wallet product as Novi. The name is inspired by the Latin words "novus," meaning new, and "via," meaning way, and was intended to remove confusion between Libra and Calibra. It seems to also be a smart move to distance Facebook's (uncontroversial) digital wallet from its (very controversial) digital currency.
YouTube has been automatically deleting comments critical of China's communist party. Google told Bloomberg it was an error in its automated moderation systems.
Move over, Animal Crossing
Minecraft Dungeons couldn't have come at a better time. The new game, which dropped yesterday, feels like the perfect cure for continuing quarantine. (Trust me, don't go outside — I went out, I got sunburned, so it's back to video games I go.) The game's set in the world and aesthetic of Minecraft, but adds more fighting and strategy while still somehow feeling kid-friendly. Like Minecraft, it feels somehow very old and very new at the same time, and proves the idea that Minecraft is less a game and more of an endless virtual world. You're going to see it pop up on screens, Twitch streams and YouTube channels starting … now.
Walmart Launches a Service that Delivers in Less Than Two Hours
The coronavirus pandemic has upended life as we knew it, and also changed how customers shop – that's why Walmart rolled out Express Delivery, a new service that leverages machine learning to deliver orders in under two hours.
Thoughts, questions, tips? Send them to me, david@protocol.com, or our tips line, tips@protocol.com. Enjoy your day, see you tomorrow.


text:
Reviews | Price Search | Forum | Video Game Reviews | DVD Talk
California Trilogy
Other (International) // Unrated // December 27, 2012 // Region 0 // PAL
List Price: €29.95 [Buy now and save at Edition-filmmuseum]
Review by Christopher McQuain | posted January 21, 2013 | E-mail the Author
My age (I was born in 1976) and my upbringing well outside of any arts-inclined bohemia, meant that I first came to know of James Benning -- a towering and influential figure in the mostly museum, college, and gallery-bound world of American experimental/avant-garde/Structuralist film -- very indirectly, through the work of his daughter; he is the father of Sadie Benning, a film/video artist (and sometime member of feminist art-pop band Le Tigre) whose underground Pixelvision shorts, which created pop-culture shockwaves at right around the time I was coming of age, were boldly intimate, personal, rough-hewn, and subjective DIY-"punk" iterations of lesbian-feminist experience and thought circa the early '90s. When I was finally exposed to the senior Benning's work in 2000 at a Portland Art Museum screening of his El Valley Centro (1999), I saw that father's films lack the defiant, high-energy, pop-reference-point-laden rush of daughter's (and, just for one revelation I gleaned from the experience, the association of the two distinct, albeit blood-related, artists in my head was a superficial, shaky, and unfair one); James Benning's films are just about 180 degrees removed -- neither inferior nor superior to, but very, very different -- from the immediate, inflamed, postmodern-performative energy with which video/film work by many artists of Sadie Benning's (and my) vintage was inflected. Though Benning Sr. is rightly reluctant to align himself with any movement or single category of avant-garde film, he got his start in the structure-obsessed '70s, and his work is marked by a formalist, very precisely organized aesthetic that owes at least something to the rigorous, pattern-seeking MO of structuralism. His movies are thus not at all "cool" in the usual sense of hiply talkin' 'bout my generation, but are actually cool in temperature and tone -- literally measured for tempo of editing rhythms, with images much more often focused on infrastructural objects or landscapes than human figures (let alone "characters"), with a markedly more distanced, thoughtful, and contemplative air. El Valley Centro, for example, follows without a single digression a "rule" that says each of its 35 shots (in its case, Benning's meticulously chosen and framed views of California's agricultural Central Valley, one of the United States' main breadbaskets) is statically composed and lasts exactly 2-1/2 minutes. El Valley Centro is, moreover, the first part in a triptych of feature-length works Benning made at the turn of the millennium -- its sequels being Los (2000) and Sogobi (2001) -- that follow exactly the same principle, making them all feel authentically of one magnificent, meditative piece. These three works, collectively known as The California Trilogy, are not the kinds of things that reliably get DVD releases, but Edition-Filmmuseum, an archive-connected, highbrow German DVD imprint specializing in important, not readily available works like Benning's, has now made the trilogy commercially available on a two-disc set, to the great benefit of adventurous cinephiles everywhere.
Taken together, the three films offer up exactly 105 "snapshots" of the oft-stereotyped and misunderstood Golden State (Benning's adopted home), broken down into general types of pictorial subjects: El Valley Centro, as mentioned, contains images of the Central Valley, with its wind farms, tilled rows punctuated by migrant workers, agricultural machinery, orchards, desolate highways, rural recreations (rodeo, fishing, speedways), problematic signs of the cattle and oil industries, and economically depressed (and looking it) mid-size towns. Los focuses on L.A.: Its famously artificial "river"; its freeways, ports, and anonymous intersections; its architectural juggling of commerce, people, and cars, cars, cars; and its incongruously downscale and marginalized (immigrant, homeless, exurban) spaces. Sogobi casts the net furthest of all, displaying California's natural wonders: Ancient sequoias, snowfalls in a forest, sandstorms in a desert, verdant hills and meadows and arid Death Valley, petroglyphs on mountain stones, salt flats and inland waterways, and geographical oddities like a cliff face that appears to have had designs chiseled into it by nature over the centuries. (The credits for each film helpfully identify specifically where each shot was taken; following Benning's trail is actually a tempting proposition, and would make for a much more worthwhile Californian excursion than most tourist itineraries.) Benning sometimes shows humans in these landscapes, and more often faceless, industrialized human activity, which the stark framings and overall sequencing of the shots suggesting that the filmmaker views as problematic encroachment: Billboards, cars, oil, timber, cattle, and waste industries have long been a permanent part of this landscape, too, and must be included in what he means to be a far-reaching survey of California's vastly diverse physical manifestation(s). But those regularly interspersed images often jar, in their harsher noise and more troubling beauty, with the human-free landscapes and natural noises that surround them. In the films' most politically pointed composition, from Los -- a rare shot wherein humans are filmed close enough to make out their features -- a regiment of riot-geared L.A. police has assembled into a still, quiet formation under a sunny L.A. sky against a background of anonymous urban structures, with protesters heard vaguely chanting, offscreen, "Hey-hey, ho-ho, these fascist cops have got to go!" Unpacking the sonic and visual elements of this shot alone could be the subject of an essay, and it's only one of thirty-five at least as rich, if usually subtler, views.
The human-touched landscapes juxtaposing with the pristine ones is only one recurrent pattern that can be discerned across the three films, though; another example would be a movement that repeats itself -- whether made specifically by migrant workers harvesting down the rows of cabbage, a crop-dusting plane, a gardener pushing a lawnmower, or a mechanical soil-tiller -- wherein the pristinely composed landscape is split in a more or less straight line by an object moving toward us, into view, and then away from us, out of view, as it performs some repetitive labor or infrastructural ritual. These sorts of subtly recognizable repetitions create, cumulatively, an expansive, telescoping effect -- a layering of overlapping symmetries, recurring and gradually recognizable routines inside of Benning's imposed symmetry of shots, patterns within patterns that build up a kind of aesthetic momentum and make for a kinetic beauty above and beyond the films' often stupendous and/or striking individual views, sharply captured with Benning's extreme, precise angles. Repeat viewings would surely offer up further revelations and rewards for the attentive viewer; Benning's use of the temporal quality of film, letting his shots go on for far "too long" by ordinary standards, yields the rare feeling of being put further and further into the solid presence of what he's filming, the significance of each tiny detail of movement or activity (or absence thereof) within the frame magnified tenfold by the stillness of the context, every sound of lapping water, passing traffic, causing a feeling and response of which they're almost always completely robbed in necessarily more jam-packed, flittering and distracted storytelling films. (There is, happily, a vein of narrative movies that also partakes of this kind of restrained, intently-gazing, sonically exquisite richness that both amplifies and throws into uncanny, startling relief the details of audio and mise-en-scène: Tati's Playtime is famous for prolonging the static shot and rewarding our close attention to what's been choreographed inside the frame, and then there are Bresson's films, Antonioni's, Béla Tarr's...even Sofia Coppola's Somewhere and Terence Malick's narratively "loose" films make themselves more interesting and edifying experiences by keeping their eyes and ears more open in this way.)
Only failing to meet them on their own terms and judging the three parts of The California Trilogy on misguided expectations of the more common kinds of movie action and drama would risk leading to the false impression that "nothing happens" in these films. What they have to offer is something uniquely, extraordinarily engaging, with a form of suspense and payoff that has to do with the sensuous physicality of the images, the inquisitiveness and concentration with which they've been created, and the synchronized, regular way they've been assembled together, which both gratifies and galvanizes in a way unavailable to narrative cinema. It's strange to think that the pleasures these movies have to offer are actually simpler, more basic and solid, than the work of psychological/narrative discernment and understanding that narrative features demand of us, and it's just the fact that most of us are less accustomed to non-narrative moviemaking that might lead to Benning's marvelous pictures being mistaken for intimidating or difficult to "grasp" in some way. But, at least in my experience, there's no better way to stretch out, becoming more accustomed to non-narrative film and discovering its exclusive, essential properties, than through something with the exquisite visual sensitivity and relatively straightforward formalism of an El Valley Centro. There's nothing to fret over and everything to enjoy in Benning's work; as The California Trilogy exemplifies, they're inviting experiences that require no special powers of interpretation, just a willingness to look a little longer and listen a little more closely than perhaps we're used to in order to acclimate to the extraordinary way they have of revealing themselves (along with particular things about our world and the ways we do, do not, or should more often look at it) to us. All you need is a little sincere curiosity and patience, and the great work in The California Trilogy will leave you soothed and provoked in new and refreshing ways, feeling as if you've traveled far and wide to someplace unfamiliar (even if it is familiar to you) and truly, deeply seen it, and perhaps even enabling you to regard the familiar things in your own world more acutely and with more interest, the way Benning has used his camera to demonstrate a superb, sublime method of seeing his.
THE DVDs:
The quality of the picture on these discs ranges from more than fair to just shy of excellent. There's enough of the very particular texture and grain of 16 mm left to the images not to complain too much, but El Valley Centro in particular shows scratches and pops that may have benefited from a more thorough cleanup job, while a few spots have quite obvious haloing around sharper lines due to edge enhancement (perhaps a sign of overzealousness in applying digital noise reduction, which would also account for some bits having a more film-like look/feel than others). Still, it's an overall more than decent approximation of seeing the films projected in 16 mm, and there's nothing so egregious as to make the films feel compromised in any way.
The discs' Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtracks perfectly preserve the films' original mono soundtracks. The sound is crisp and clear, doing full justice to films whose natural, directly-recorded soundscapes, though effectively dialogue-free, are a vitally important dimension of the experience.
Nothing on the discs (Benning doesn't believe in audio commentaries or outtakes, prefering to let the works speak for themselves a they are). The packaging, however, does include a booklet, nicely illustrated with stills from the films, that features both German and English versions of a preface by Oliver Hanley of Filmmuseum, an essay on The California Trilogy by Benning scholar Claudia Slanar, and a brief meditation by Benning himself on seeing his 16 mm films finding a place in the realm of digital media, and on the wider shifts in film technology and exhibition that have found him now using digital videography for new works.
Although The California Trilogy DVD set is manufactured in Europe and released by an Austrian company, Edition-Filmmuseum, its packaging indicates a "region 0" (i.e., playable in any region) encoding. However, although computer and region-free disc drives available to me played it without the slightest of hitches, I should note for anyone interested in buying it that Sony DVD or Blu-ray players evidently will not play this region 0 disc, unfortunately. (Sony players are notorious for strict region locking and may be restricted to region 1, period, with no allowance for all-region discs.)
Three films comprised of exactly 35 shots apiece, with each shot kept to a strict (but ample) duration of 2-1/2 minutes, James Benning's California Trilogy sounds more circumscribed and rigorous than it actually is, and is absolutely a better, more immediately rewarding introduction to non-narrative film than, say, the better-known, more abstract and difficult works of Stan Brakhage (this reviewer is happy to report that El Valley Centro was my own perspective-altering introduction -- or, better put, welcoming mat -- into movies that did something other than tell a story with a plot and characters). With each film dedicated to one strata of the Golden State's rich and multifarious vistas -- its agricultural/small-town Central Valley in El Valley Centro (1999), the L.A. region in Los (2000), and its wildernesses and deserts in Sogobi (2001) -- the trilogy de-familiarizes California and its stereotypical hippie-Hollywood mythology to reveal it as an endlessly diverse, mysterious succession of strange, beautiful, evocative visions of nature, human endeavor, and the sometimes tense or melancholy ways in which they overlap. Each film consists of one perfectly framed, statically composed moving picture, almost always a landscape shot, followed by another, and then another, at a clockwork pace but in a seemingly arbitrary order (though the juxtapositions created by each film's sparing, evenly-spaced cuts are vigorously rife with potential suggestions of meaning). Benning's ingenious structure builds a truly hypnotic, uniquely even and symmetrical rhythm that has the methodical regularity of the calmest, healthiest heartbeat, and that rigorous structuring principle, when combined with his awesome eye for both innately striking subjects and how to frame them most effectively, makes for its own kind of suspense and complexity; each 2-1/2-minute interval will reveal yet another unexpected and unpredictable view, and we're invited to not only consider what's shown within each shot, but also to ponder each one's relation to the ones preceding and following it, and to the whole, with no undue, vulgar emphasis on the filmmaker's part to interfere with our immersion and participation in the experience. The pictures Benning has very carefully, with exquisite care in selection and shooting, chosen to show us are mysteries that deepen, potential significations that multiply under the sustained gaze that is the key to pulling us inexorably into and overwhelming us with each view. It's an experience whose rewards and gratifications are atypical but many: In a world of ever-increasing, assaultive cutting speeds in "major" motion pictures, Benning's unmoving, perfectly framing camera eye, with its fixed, unblinking, penetrating stare, might seem initially to try our patience, insisting that we take at least one prolonged moment to consider every aspect of each shot, from initial, overall impact to each of its details (including sound, which becomes momentous in this context). But once you get into its slow, hypnotic groove, The California Trilogy is not a trial at all, but a wonderfully refreshing re-orientation of the cinematic senses -- a purification of film's power over time and space, a bracing invitation, written in exacting but breathtaking images, to really see, to truly respond in a way we never have before, as if opening our eyes for the very first time. Very Highly Recommended.
C O N T E N T
A U D I O
E X T R A S
R E P L A Y
A D V I C E
E - M A I L
this review to a friend

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Ha-Joon Chang is a Korean-born Cambridge economist, who has popped up here and there because of his criticisms of Neo-Liberal free market economics. Mike over at Vox Political, for example, has reblogged a meme quoting him on how trickle down economics don't work, and are merely there to transfer wealth upwards to the rich in the form of tax cuts. He's also the author of a popular book on economics and the failings of the free market, 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism (London: Penguin 2010).
This book is not an anti-capitalist manifesto. Being critical of free-market ideology is not the same as being against capitalism. Despite its problems and limitations, I believe that capitalism is still the best economic system that humanity has invented. My criticism is of a particular version of capitalism that has dominated the world in the last three decades, that is, free-market capitalism. This is not the only way to run capitalism, and certainly not the best, as the record of the last three decades shows. The book shows that there are ways in which capitalism should, and can, be made better.
He is, however, very clear on the devastation that has been wrought across the globe by the doctrine of the unrestrained free market.
The result of these policies has been the polar opposite of what was promised. Forget for a moment the financial meltdown, which will scar the world for decades to come. Prior to that, and unbeknown to most people, free-market ideologies had resulted in slower growth, rising inequality and heightened instability in most countries. In many rich countries, these problems were masked by huge credit expansion; thus the fact that US wages had remained stagnant and working hours increased since the 1970s was conveniently fogged over by the head brew of credit-fuelled consumer boom. the problems were bad enough in the rich countries, but they were even more serious for the developing world. Living standards in Sub-Saharan Africa have stagnated for the last three decades, while Latin America has seen its per capita growth rate fall by two-thirds during the period. There were some developing countries that grew fast (although with rapidly rising inequality) during this period, such as China and India, but these are precisely the countries that, while partially liberalizing, have refused to introduce full-blown free-market policies.
Thus, what we were told by the free-marketeers – or, as they are often called, neo-liberal economists, are at best only partially true and at worst plain wrong. As I will show throughout this book, the 'truths' peddled by free-market ideologues are based on lazy assumptions and blinkered visions, if not necessarily self-serving notions. My aim in this book is to tell you some essential truths about capitalism that the free-marketeers won't.
Which is more than enough to give the late Mrs Thatcher a fit of the vapours.
Chang states that his goal is to empower people to make decisions and have opinions on these issues, whereas they might otherwise leave them to the experts on the grounds that they don't have enough technical expertise, and so become active citizens demanding the right course of action from decision-makers.
Thing 1 There is no such thing as the free market.
Thing 2 Companies should not be run in the interest of their owners.
Thing 3 Most people in rich countries are paid more than they should be.
Thing 4 The washing machine has changed the world more than the internet has.
Thing 5 Assume the worst about people and you will get the worst.
Thing 6 Greater macroeconomic stability has not made the world any more stable.
Thing 7 Free-market policies rarely make poor countries rich.
Thing 8 Capital has a nationality.
Thing 9 We do not live in a post-industrial age.
Thing 10. the US does not have the highest living standard in the world.
Thing 11 Africa is not destined for underdevelopment.
Thing 12. Governments can pick winners.
Thing 13 Making rich people richer doesn't make the rest of us richer.
Thing 14 Us managers are over-priced.
Thing 15 People in poor countries are more entrepreneurial than people in rich countries.
Thing 16 We are not smart enough to leave things to the market.
Thing 18 What is good for General Motors is not necessarily good for the United States.
Thing 19 Despite the fall of Communism, we are still living in planned economies.
Thing 20 Equality of opportunity may not be fair.
Thing 21 Big government makes people more open to change.
Thing 22 Financial markets need to become less, not more, efficient.
Thing 23 Good economic policy does not require good economists.
He also makes seven suggestions how you can read the book, to answer certain queries, reading selected chapters to answer such questions as what capitalism is, or if you think politics is a waste of time or if you think the world is an unfair place, but there isn't much you can do about it.
And while the book isn't an attack on capitalism itself, some of the solutions to its problems do involve an element of Socialism or worker participation. For example, in the 'Thing' about why companies should not be run in the interests of the people who own them, Chang points out that the ownership of a country by shareholders means in practice that these have less interest than traditional owner managers in it being profitable or viable, as they can always take their shares out and put them somewhere else. As a result, the countries which have some of the most stable, and hence, most profitable companies, are those which have encouraged long-term investment or encouraged their workers to have a stake in them. Such as France, where several companies are part-owned by the state, or Germany and Austria, which have a degree of worker's control through works' councils.
It's a fascinating and very necessary critique of the free-market capitalism beloved by the Blairites in Labour, and the Tories. Economics is notoriously the 'dismal science', but this is well and engagingly written for the ordinary reader, and I hope it encourages more people to criticise and bring down this deeply flawed and iniquitous system.
Mike over at Vox Political has a very interesting piece from the BBC. The leaders of the Conservative, Liberal and Labour groups in the Local Government Association have written a joint letter to the Observer, stating their opposition to the government's plans to turn all schools into academies. The stats actually demonstrate that all academy schools actually perform worse than the schools under state/ local government control. There's also a graph with the article that demonstrates this.
Mike asks the obvious question of why, if Academy Schools are so poor, are the Tories so keen to convert all our schools into them? Is it because they don't want an educated, critically-thinking electorate, but indoctrinated drones that will take low-wage jobs because they lack the qualifications for anything else? Or is it because they know that everybody else's children are more intelligent than they are, and can't handle the competition?
My guess is that the Tories are keen on privatising our schools for a number of reasons, not excluding those Mike has outlined. They firstly want to privatise them for the economic profit of their paymasters in big business, including one Australian-American media mogul, Rupert Murdoch, who also has an educational arm to his business empire. I think it's called Aspire, rather than something more suitable, like 'Despair'.
Secondly, it's carrying on from Thatcher's campaign to create a class of schools removed from local authority control. Like Mussolini, Maggie Thatcher is, to the Tory faithful, always right. Anything she does cannot be criticised in any shape or form and is absolutely correct, whatever happens. To quote the old scientist, it is very much a case of where there's a difference between theory and reality, so much for reality. Thatcher was basing her campaign against state education, and more broadly, teachers, on the popular resentment in the 1970s and '80s about teachers from the 'loony Left' indoctrinating children in state schools, teaching them that gays were equal and making them anti-racist, when they should instead have been teaching them good, hearty Tory values. Remember the clause in her education bill attacking the teaching of homosexual propaganda in school? And I can remember her also delivering a foam-flecked rant to the Tory faithful about how 'Fabians' were teaching children 'anti-racist mathematics'. At the time, there were concerns about the failures of those schools which had adopted 'progressive' educational policies. Like one school in inner London, where the teachers decided not to teach, as this would ruin children's innate creativity. There were also horror stories run in the press about Brent and Lambeth councils, and the bizarre, highly authoritarian attitude they took to education, in which nearly everything was suspected of racism. They were supposed to have altered the old nursery rhyme, 'Baa, Baa, Black Sheep', to 'Baa, Baa, Green Sheep' to make it less racist. It's been stated several times since that this was just an urban myth, and that the Sun has admitted it made it up. On the other hand, I've met people, who did go to school in those boroughs, who claimed they did have to sing it. So I honestly don't know. Given the mendacity and racism of the Scum, it wouldn't surprise me if they had made it up.
Thirdly, there was and is a strong perception that comprehensive education, which was mostly introduced by Labour, but which also had some Tory support, had failed, and that standards had fallen. The older generation in particular looked back to the grammar schools with nostalgia as institutions where standards were much higher. It looked very much like Thatcher was using this nostalgia to try and reintroduce them, albeit in a slightly different, updated form. In actual fact, the Labour party under Crossland had decided to introduce comprehensive schools because the grammar schools were elitist. Very few working-class children were sent there. Instead, they were considered more suited to the secondary moderns, where they would be taught a manual trade. Grammar schools were reserved for those set on clerical careers and the like, and so were very much bastions of the middle classes.
There were immense problems with some of the comprehensives. Some of them were too large, too underfunded, and hampered with the kind of teaching staff that have become stereotypical amongst the Right. Hartcliffe, one of the comprehensive schools in my part of Bristol, had an unenviable reputation for poor academic performance, and chronic theft and bullying amongst its pupils. It has changed greatly since then. It's been divided into two buildings, rather than a single huge one, and standards have risen markedly in the past few decades with a change of headmasters.
My guess is that the changes that occurred to Hartcliffe, have also been common amongst failing schools throughout the country. Standards in state education have risen. But this counts for nothing, as the Tory Right is ideologically opposed to state education. Tory toffs like Cameron, Gove, Osborne and Thicky Nikki seem to look back for their view of a good education system to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when schools, or at least, the grammar schools, were largely private, and the proles were given just enough education to allow them to get a job once they left school, which was at 12, then 14. Changes in industry mean that you now need a more educated, technically proficient workforce, and so they can't get away with sending children that you out to work. So the higher education sector has expanded, but the Tories would like that to be the nearly exclusive province of the monied classes, and so have raised tuition fees to exorbitant heights after they were introduced by Bliar.
And so contemporary schoolchildren are going to suffer because of a political orthodoxy that started with Maggie Thatcher in the 1980s, and has continued through a mixture of greed and ideological inertia. Oh yes, and the Goebbels-like determination to keep pushing a good lie if it gets you votes.
More information can be read at Mike's blog at http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2016/03/12/more-than-24-billion-has-been-taken-away-from-disabled-people-to-support-tax-cuts-for-the-rich-who-dont-need-them/.
The title of Mike's piece has the rhetorical question whether the £24 bill taken from the disabled is to fund tax cuts for the rich. Considering how the government is shifting the tax burden from the rich to the poor, I really don't think there's much doubt about it.
I found this piece in Private Eye for the 15th-28th November 2013 reporting the questioning of representatives of the arms trade by a parliamentary committee in that issue's 'Called to Ordure' column. It's still relevant now, after nearly three years, because of the way we are still selling arms to brutal, anti-democratic regimes like Saudi Arabia.
Please don't call them "missiles" or "landmines", and certainly not "tools of military repression". They are, according to the arms trade, "goods", and the foreign regimes that buy them are "the ultimate end users of the goods".
So heard MPs more than once when Westminster's arms export controls select committee took evidence from four "defence exporters" (to use another euphemism). Unofficial leader of this genteel quartet was middle-aged Brummie called David Hayes from the Export Group for Aerospace and Defence, a trade lobbying group which uses the acronym Egad. Egad, indeed.
Alongside Hayes: arms-trade consultant Michael Bell; Susan Griffiths from weapons manufacturer MBDA; and Bernadette Peers, from the Strategic Shipping Company, a company name so bland you might believe it was exporting nothing more dangerous than cauliflowers to the Canaries.
MPs noted that government reporting on arms dealers has been reduced, Whitehall's Export Control Organisation (ECO) now doing only an annual report of statistics instead of the quarterly updates it used to offer. The people from Egad were breezily unconcerned by this, insisting it made no difference. Hayes said there was a "very, very low risk" that less frequent reporting of special arms-sale licences wold be detrimental to transparency.
Three critics of the arms trade also gave evidence. Roy Isbister, from conflict-reduction group Saferworld, said that the reduction in ECO's reports had come as "a bombshell". You can say that again, Roy. Several bombshells, really, packed and ready for shipping. Oxfam had sent along one Martin Butcher. With that surname, shouldn't he have been on the other side of the argument?
Committee chairman Sir John Stanley (Con, Tonbridge & Malling) wondered if the arms dealers were concerned about "extra-territorial" prosecutions, under which a British arms trader may be guilty of wrongdoing if he or she breaks British law while abroad. Bell was most aggrieved by this. "We have reservations of principle!" he declared, this peddler of munitions with a highly-tuned sense of ethics.
Extra-territorial prosecutions meant that a business executive would be "subject to two jurisdictions for the same actions" and that offended Bell's strong sense of morality. Bell also had "reservations of practice" because "the only people who suffer are the compliant".
Richard Burden (Lab, Birmingham Northfield) noted that the United States had recently relaxed its arms-trade licence requirements, meaning US weapons manufacturers can now export pretty much willy-nilly to 36 countries where they would previously have faced greater government checks. Hayes argued that with one of these countries being Turkey, "American exporters are at a clear advantage over UK exporters". Western government might want to beware, because it was hard to know who would be "the ultimate end user of the goods" in an arms deal. Interesting to hear an arms trader make this argument; it is usually heard from the peaceniks.
Bell pointed out that one of the countries covered by the US's new, looser rules is Argentina. Uh oh. The MPs went a rather greeny-grey tinge. The tension was relieved only when Ann Clwyd's mobile trilled into life at high volume with a Gangnam-style ringtone. Clwyd (Lab, Cynon Valley) didn't know how to turn the device off and had to leave the room to take the call. Good to see the arms trade being scrutinised by such tech-savvy legislators.
The meeting was not just about multi-million pound weapon systems. The committee heard about the enthusiastic exporting of machetes, police whips, handcuffs and sjambok-style truncheons to troubled countries, where, presumably, democracy-hungry protestors can draw comfort from being gored, whacked and manacled by "goods" made in Blighty.
Surprise, surprise, the kingdom of GCHQ (and, er, the late News of the World) is also a world-leader in producing "anti-privacy equipment" as Stanley put it. Isbister flourished statistics about how arms licences to the Middle East recently have, er, rocketed and now form half our arms exports. Perhaps it is no wonder the government was so keen to life the arms embargo on Syria and why it has given "priority market" status to Libya, despite that country's alarming political instability.
Mike Gapes (Lab, Ilford South) had unearthed statistics on gun exports. These included 24,000 assault rifles, 9,000 rifles, 1,000 "super rifles" and 3,000 "sporting guns" to places such as Sri Lanka, the Seychelles and the Maldives. I say, Jeeves: how is the grouse shooting in the Maldives this season?
These guns were exported without much paperwork because they were listed as being required for "anti-piracy" purposes. Gapes suggested that "some of these weapons might be diverted to othe5r purposes than anti-piracy". Surely not! Sir Malcolm Bruce (Lib Dem, Gordon) said that some 40,000 firearms had been shipped from Britain under the anti-piracy label and wondered if "there is a danger a perfectly genuine concern about piracy could be a cover for getting more weapons" sold to foreign governments.
Oliver Sprague from Amnesty International was worried that such weapons were often sold to countries where there was not much "human rights training". Human rights training? Perhaps that can become the next growth area for British exports.
With the Middle East now forming over half the market for British arms exports, this explains why David Cameron was so keen to boast about having sold 'wonderful things' to Saudi Arabia and places like it in his visit to the BAE plant in Wharton, Lancashire.
This another political meme I found over on the Tumblr site, 1000 Natural Shocks. It advocates strengthening the unions, and giving working people jobs and a proper, living wage, to restore America's place in the world. The meme may come from the other side of the Pond, but it equally applies over here in Britain as well. And, apart from the country, there's not a word I'd change.
Working people of all countries, unite!
If you want to look at the original, be aware that it is an over 18 site.
I've been following the campaign of the people involved in the 38 Degrees internet campaign group to hold demonstrations and protests in Bristol against the privatisation of the NHS. They've sent me this little infographic showing where the parties stand on allowing private companies to bid for NHS contracts, and funding it properly through higher taxes.
Only the Greens and Labour wish to stop private companies bidding for NHS contracts, and fund it properly through higher taxation.
Tellingly, UKIP wish to allow private companies into the NHS, while the Lib Dems say they're neutral on it.
The Tories claim they're against, but frankly, I don't believe a word of it. They've been privatising the NHS by stealth ever since they took power in 2010. Jeremy Hunt, one of the ministers or secretaries in charge, even said he stood in favour of its privatisation, while another Tory minister let the cat out the bag by saying that the if they won a second term, 'The NHS as we know it would cease to exist'. The Tories then claimed he'd been misquoted, and that what he really said was that they would cut down on bureaucracy and cost.
But this is the Tories, who lie as easily as most people breathe.
Please bear all this in mind while voting tomorrow. And please feel free to share it, and help it spread to as many people as possible.


Published 04/22/2019 10:42:47 pm at 04/22/2019 10:42:47 pm in Baby Boy Bedroom Furniture.
baby boy bedroom furniture 23 baby boy room color ideas baby boy nursery furniture sets best baby nursery furniture ideas baby boy room idea baby boy nursery baby nursery furniture ideas baby nursery chairs new ideas room furniture decor baby boy nursery ideas baby nursery furniture.
boys grey bedroom ideas steps to create the best boys nursery room baby boy room color ideas baby boy nursery furniture sets best , , childrens furniture set buy the best furniture for kids room childrens furniture set teenage kids bedroom furniture set children furniture kids furniture online with piece on childrens furniture , baby boys bedroom furniture sixpackabsguideinfo baby boys bedroom furniture baby boy furniture pictures baby boy nursery furniture sample supreme best pictures, baby nursery furniture sets i baby boy nursery furniture sets youtube baby nursery furniture sets i baby boy nursery furniture sets, boys room decoration teenage bedroom furniture and boys room boys , boy room furniture la z boy furniture baby boy bedroom furniture boy room furniture baby , modern toddler furniture modern children furniture kids children modern toddler furniture modern children bedroom modern children furniture modern furniture for children bedroom furniture for , baby boy bedroom sets driftingidentitystationcom baby boy bedroom sets baby boy bedroom sets youth white bedroom furniture baby boy bedroom sets, boys blue bedroom furniture krishnascience boys blue bedroom furniture drop dead gorgeous kids blue bedroom furniture boys teen sets interior baby, baby boy nursery furniture mahogany wood drawer dresser dark wooden baby boy nursery furniture mahogany wood drawer dresser dark wooden crib baby patterned bedding sets white.


The Opera club at SJMSOM successfully conducted a visit to M&M, Kandiwali plant. The main objective of the visit was to get an experience of lean operations in practice.
The visit was preceded by an insightful lecture on Lean Management conducted by the Opera Club, SJMSOM IIT Bombay. This helped the students understand lean concepts better and observe the practical application on the shop floor. The session was taken by Nisanpreet Bal and Arun Chand. Both of them have valuable work experience in Operations and Lean Management.
The whole visit was a three hour affair and was attended by 26 students. The visit started with an address by personnel of the administrative section, who briefed us about the company and its operations at various locations. Subsequently, he shared some interesting insights into the operations of the Kandiwali plant. The engineers guided us through the plant and explained the various concepts of operations being implemented in the assembly line of Bolero, Maxx Pick up and their 47 variants. It was a rare opportunity for students to observe concepts like 5s, Level scheduling, Poka yoke, Kaizen, Kanban etc. being successfully implemented in a practical setup. The visit was concluded with a stopover at the body shop. At each step of the visit engineers addressed all the doubts of students with great interest to help them get a better grasp of operation concepts. Many students, who had no prior experience in a manufacturing industry, were enthralled by the assembly operations.
The field visit was followed by a Question & Answer session by the plant head, Mr Sunil Kulkarni. He offered remarkable insights into the various problems faced in the implementation of lean operations, and the current challenges faced by the automotive industry. To conclude the visit, a feedback was given by everyone and students departed with a better understanding of the classroom learning.
Wow...excellent to read this. I wish industrial visit possible for EPM batch as well. I am a student of EPM 2011-2012 - SJMSOM.
good You can likewise make use of Kodi to perform official source but we added Kodi as an App Screen Brand this is normally Kodi iPad great.
good Copy data files between several equipment. official source Mobile but necessary to the huge demand from Download SHAREit on PC nice.
good that Prisma Android os variant will get introduced "later this month." Prisma App you'll want to download an Android Emulator on it first. nice.
good whether or not Prisma isn't available in the Google Play Shop, check this site Allow me inform you right here that Prisma will not really function on every iPhone. Prisma Download App great.
good you will observe ShowBox icon on Bluestacks, click to ishowboxdownloadapp Google android users, it moves as the among nice.
good The appeal of android gadgets is millions of application 9apps download most effective recommendations of applications. nice.
good the current updates. To trigger an update, itunes download app it will try to find updates to any kind of Apple software best.
To mount applications from unknown sources apart from the showbox-apk in a location where it will certainly be very easy to find if BlueStacks.


Kaaz LSD's are the ultimate aggressive LSD.
Used on our own VAC "Silver Bullet" E36, these LSD are awesome for max performance street cars and race vehicles. Proven over years of track time to work fantastic in BMW applications.
From Japan, the home of competitive drifting, these LSDs are developed not just to work, but to hold up to abuse!
function is great out of the box: settings can be adjusted to your own preferences.
Customizing varys from initial torque settings / locking rate adjustments / plate thickness adjustments etc. and all can be done by the end user, or straight from Kaaz with help from our techs at VAC!
When purchased from an authorized retailer like us; the Kaaz LSD line offers great pricing, and most of all GREAT service: in any case they need assistance in installation, maintenance, re-builds, setup etc. you can contact KAAZ USA directly for support. All spare and optional parts are available in the USA. This means no downtime in sending the LSD's back to Japan for support.
If you are Drag Racing, Road Racing, or Drifting your BMW; Kaaz LSD's can put you in the winners circle.
Kaaz LSD will work when the slightest torque is applied inceasing drivetrain feedback.
Better transfer of power from the engine to the drivedrain with minimal loss of power.
Plate Abrasions are reduced by spreading power to more surface area on the bigger plates.
Increased number of friction plates to greatly improve abrasion efficiency and heat capacities.
All parts on the LSD have been made larger, so the overall strength of the main body is increased.
By default, each KAAZ comes setup as a 1.5way locking diff, ideal for most BMW drivers. Can be setup as 2-way for extreme drifting use for those who wish, or we can order it for you like this on request.
For a street car we recommend KAAZ Super Q line; developed for the Porsche and BMW owner, this offers quieter, smoother performance and longer life from the clutch disks in the LSD, plus no need for break in.
As an authorized retailer of Kaaz; we can help you chose and get any Kaaz product at a great price, fast! Call or email VAC.


text:
Listings >> Subway Station >>— Sinchon-dong >>— Seoul City
Sinchon Station (Gyeongui Line) [신촌역]
Reply 1994 (2013); Beautiful Days (2001)
After finding out who his real father is, Lee Sun-jae (Ryu Si-won) decides to go on a trip in episode 11 of Beautiful Days (아름다운 날들) (SBS, 2001). Understanding the seriousness of the situation, Kim Yun-soo (Choi Ji-woo) comes to bid him farewell and foregoes an important dinner invitation from Lee Min-chul (Lee Byung-hun). Sun-jae finally decides not to go on the trip and he leaves the station together with Yun-soo and they talk for a while at the taxi stand in front of the station.
In episode 4 of Reply 1994/Answer Me 1994 (응답하라 1994) (tvN, 2013), Sung Na-Jung (Go Ara) is called up by classmates on April's Fools Day that all business majors embark on a trip from here the next day and that Yonsei's basketball player Lee Sang-min will be present. Die-hard fan Na-jung, of course, goes there in the morning but nobody knows about Sang-min coming.
Sinchon Station (Gyeongui Line) [신촌역], sometimes also Shinchon Station, is a station that has been on the Gyeongui–Jungang Line since 2009, with the station number P314. It was opened as a train station in 1921 for the Gyeongui Railway Line and from the 1930s it also opened to the Yongsan Railway Line and freight train traffic. Seoul Subway traffic started in 2009 with changes also in the railway lines passing through this station. Since 2004, it's been considered as 'Registered Cultural Property' No. 136 [등록문화재 제136호 or 대한민국 등록문화재]. In 2001, when Beautiful Days was filmed, the current building hadn't been built yet. The taxi stand has also changed its place since then.
This station is located in Seoul's neighborhood of Sinchon [Sinchon-dong/신촌동], in the Seodaemun District [Seodaemun-gu/서대문구]. It is not to be confused with the station of the same name on Seoul Subway Line 2.
Geolocation of old Station building: 37.559518, 126.942844
— Reply 1994 added by Mich KDL
— Sinchon-dong
Subway Station no. P314
TAG Heuer Cheongdam Boutique [태그호이어 부티크 청담점] / Breitling [브라이틀링]
The Pan Building [더팬빌딩]


text:
"Attend the Way," short fiction by Theodore Wheeler
Heavy Feather October 22, 2018 November 29, 2022 Print Archives
Fiction: Theodore Wheeler
Attend the Way
It's because he has a train to catch that Rodney leaves his room after suppertime. He puts on dress shoes and his green suit, the one that looks good against his skin. Earlier that afternoon, the big woman next door trimmed his hair. He lives in the Kellogg Rooming House, an old brick building near downtown. It's a fifteen block walk to the train station from his room and he wants to arrive early. It's a nice evening, the lights of the big buildings downtown popping on. Rodney heads south to Leavenworth. He knows a few people on the street here but doesn't stop to talk. He doesn't even care when the boys he knows laugh at him for wearing a suit.
Two granite buildings sit on the Ninth Street hilltop. Each of them used to be central stations for rail lines at one time, but the one that's bright and clean is a museum now and the other sits empty, its exterior gray and green from neglect, The Burlington Station etched at its top. The Amtrak station is a small brick building nestled into a depression behind these old giants. Rodney's headed for Hastings, a town some hundred-fifty miles away. It will be two in the morning when he arrives. He'd have rented a car if he had a driver's license and a credit card, but he doesn't have these things. It's either the train or a bus for a man with only government ID and a clip of small bills, and he doesn't like being seen on a bus.
He'll only spend one day in Hastings—his mother's died there, that's the reason he's going—and then he'll take the train coming home to Omaha.
When Rodney wakes up, he's slumped cock-eyed in his seat, leaning against the young man who plunked next to him at the stop in Lincoln. It takes him a moment to realize where he's at, to lift his head off that shoulder and straighten, to remember he's on a train in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night. "Good morning," the young man says, an iPod on his lap. Rodney doesn't respond. He merely rubs his face and looks out the window. The young man grins, laughing softly. "Have you come a long way?" he asks.
Rodney nods, looking out the window so the kid will stop talking.
The train is due to arrive at two a.m. and as far as Rodney knows it's on-time. This must be Hastings, he thinks, the train slowing into a town. Even though his mother grew up here and had been living at the Medicaid home for years, Rodney has never been to Hastings before. Neither had his father, a man with skin darker than Rodney's who died years ago. There isn't much for Rodney to see out the window. There are some houses and some buildings, long lonely streets with cars parked here and there, faintly lit plastic signs marking off businesses that are closed for the night. It's mid-summer and even in the bluish darkness of early morning things look yellow and dry.
Rodney waits on a bench after getting off the train because he doesn't know where to go. A few others deboard with him, but they have people waiting for them, folks they sleepily embrace, who help load luggage into the back of a car and then drive off. By the time the train chugs off toward its next stop the station is quiet again, save for the shuffling of Rodney's feet and the young man he sat by earlier talking on a cell phone.
When the young man closes his phone and slides it into his pocket, Rodney approaches him, slowly, because he doesn't want to give him a fright. He asks, "Do you know how to find this place," handing the young man a slip of paper with the nursing home's address on it. It was his girl who told him about his mother, because her place was Rodney's last known address. There was a message from her in the office at the Kellogg one day, telling about his mother's passing.
"That's easy to find," the young man says and explains how to get there. "You can have a ride if you want one," he adds. "My dad's coming for me."
"I don't need a ride."
"Let us take you," the young man insists, but Rodney shakes his head no and walks off.
He likes to stroll along city streets when they're empty. And he's only thirty-seven, his legs are strong and elastic, more than capable of moving from place to place on their own power.
A few nurses are chatting at a kiosk when Rodney walks in and one of them says she can take him to where his mother's body is being held. The nursing home looked like a warehouse to Rodney when he approached it, but there was a sign in front that told him it was the right place.
The nurse talks as she shepherds Rodney down the long white hallways of the home. "Your mom had good friends here," she says. She's a big woman, in her early thirties. There's a door every eight feet or so, most of them closed, with the sound of medical equipment working inside, but occasionally one is left open, the room beyond it silent and empty.
"The body was moved to our chapel. The old timers get nervous for a few days after one of them passes on, as you can understand."
She continues to gabber, but Rodney doesn't respond. He merely smiles if she tries to reassure him or nods thoughtfully if she's describing something that sounds technical. Rodney isn't paying attention to her. He's thinking about his mother. It's been five years since he saw her last. Even before then, when he was away in the army, Rodney didn't see her all that often, and that was fine by him. He prefers a quiet, lonesome kind of life. The bustle and prying interests of family make him nervous. His mother's parents didn't like coming to Omaha when they were alive, them the only other people he knew from Hastings, and they insisted on meeting at a restaurant outside the city when they visited, near the suburban hotel they stayed in. They were all embarrassed, having to do it like that. Being around family is a big embarrassment for everyone, Rodney understands this.
When he and the night nurse arrive to the chapel, Rodney is surprised to find most of the chairs there filled with residents, ten to fifteen of them. The old people face the casket, but they turn to look at Rodney and the nurse as they near the room, waiting to see if they'll enter or walk past.
"Who are they?" Rodney asks.
"We hold a vigil when one of them dies," the nurse explains. She shows Rodney to an empty seat and settles in next to him. "It helps them. These are people who knew and will miss your mother. Some of her friends." Then she whispers, "A few of them just like to come and sit."
The chapel is bright, spotlessly clean, and besides the chairs, there's a bier draped with blankets on which the casket rests. A Chicana nurse sits beside the door and wears a pink smock and a white cap that tilts atop her hair. At the front, one of the old ladies is crying, a large woman in a loose dress who leans against the casket, her chair pulled close. It's a strange thing to Rodney, this woman's weeping, because none of the other residents cry with her. He wants her to stop carrying on and gets the feeling that the rest of the people in the room agree with him.
"I'll leave you to your thoughts," the nurse who brought him here says. "If you need anything, I'll be at the kiosk. The funeral is tomorrow morning. That's today, I guess. In five hours or so, when the pastor gets here. That gives you some time to spend with the coffin, as you'll want to do." And then, "I hope you knew a pastor was coming. It was her wish to receive final rites."
"Of course," Rodney says.
"The lid is closed, but we can open it. I'll do that," the nurse says, standing up, "so you can see her."
She starts toward the casket but Rodney stops her. She halts and looks at the blotch on her arm where he touched her. "You don't want me to?"
"No," Rodney says.
"You don't want to see her one last time?"
They stare at each other for a moment, Rodney and the nurse from the kiosk, both of them embarrassed as the old folks murmur about what's happening.
"I understand," the nurse says, although it's clear she doesn't. She leaves the room without saying another word.
No one speaks while they're here. They merely look forward, slumped in their chairs, staring at the crucifix tacked to the wall or down at their slippers, or they play with something in the pockets of their robes, or readjust a walking stick if one lay across their lap. Most of the residents are dressed for bed and Rodney wonders if they've been here all night. It's nearly four a.m., he notices, looking at a clock on the wall.
He closes his eyes after a while but catches himself before he nods off. He doesn't want to fall asleep in this room, with these people, and for a while his nervousness keeps him awake. The residents look at Rodney from time to time then nod knowingly to each other. One of the old men along the wall rests his chin on his hands, clasped over the end of his cane, and stares hard at Rodney, at the sun-baked surface of Rodney's face, at his hands crooked and shaky from holding the vibrating controls of heavy machinery for many years. They all eye Rodney, giving the impression that they've come for the sole purpose of sitting in judgment of him, this son of a woman who's recently passed. All the while, the woman at the front weeps, quietly yet persistently, and none of the other residents move to comfort her. It's this fact that makes Rodney think the others are here just to see him, to see what he looks like, to bear witness to his actions. If any of them would offer condolences to the crying woman he would feel different about it, or if they shed tears themselves while laying hands on the pine casket. But sitting in the chapel, having these old people silently watch him, it makes him feel like he too is dying, or that he should be.
Eventually, another of the women leans over and says something into the crying woman's ear. But it doesn't make a difference, she still weeps. The nurse tells Rodney that the crying woman was his mother's friend. "Very devoted," she says. "Her only friend in the world."
Over the next two hours, the residents nod off, wake up a few minutes later, and then go to their rooms in clusters of two or three. Even the nurse in the pink smock leaves, her shift over, so that by sunrise it's only the old lady at the front and Rodney sitting stiffly in his chair at the back. The old lady has quit weeping and sits further away from the casket, blotting her face with a tissue.
An administrator comes into the room soon after the shift change and sits next to Rodney. "You're the son?" she asks, resting her hand on the seat next to his. "I want to let you know that the pastor has called and she'll be here in an hour or so. That's when the service will begin and there's no stopping it then. Nurse Haskell told me about last night. If you want to have a final glimpse of your mother, now is the time."
All Rodney says is, "No." He sits in silence until the administrator excuses herself.
It isn't until then that the old woman at the front rises and walks to Rodney. She moves haltingly, resting her drooping weight on an aluminum walker. A paling redhead, her thin hair hangs loose over her ears, although it's evident that it has been curled at one point.
"I tend not to need this," she says, making a movement to indicate the walker, "but it's a long night to be here for these vigils."
"You're my mother's friend." Rodney's voice cracks, this the first real thing he's said in hours. "The nurse told me you were."
The old woman closes her eyes and smiles when Rodney says this, her red face creasing, becoming even redder.
"Come with me, Rodney," the woman says. A slight twinge of brogue sneaks out when she pronounces the beginning of his name. "Follow me."
The old woman takes Rodney to her room so he can wash his face in the sink of her bathroom. She gives him a towel and a fresh bar of soap, then closes the door behind him. Rodney lingers a long time in the bathroom, running cold water over his hands, examining the chair in her shower as he stands at the sink. When he's finished, she's waiting for him, leaning against the doorframe without her walker. The old woman is crying again and she embraces him. Her soft, wide body engulfs his skinny limbs. He opens his arms and guides them under the woman's shoulders, kind of lifting as he hugs her because he's taller and stronger. It's odd to him how he lingers, ostensibly to comfort her. Yet it's Rodney who feels a great surge of contentment rush through his body, holding this old woman.
"There," she says. She touches his face, still damp with lather at his sideburns. "Now you look presentable."
They sit together at the front of the chapel as the pastor performs the rites and then Rodney allows the old woman to stand at his elbow during the burial at a cemetery outside of town. They are the only two at the sunny plot, besides the pastor and the gravedigger, to witness the patter of soil falling on his mother's wooden box, bits of white root showing in the dirt. When the pastor takes them back to the home the old woman asks Rodney if he would like to come to her room and rest a while. "If you have nowhere else to be," she says, "you're welcome to stay."
"I took the train," Rodney explains. He remembers that his return doesn't leave until nearly three a.m. His plans are vague, at this point of the day, as to how he will pass the more than fourteen hours before the train takes him back to Omaha. It occurs to him that he might not be welcome here—if he tries catching a nap in the park he might be arrested as a vagrant. He doesn't know what the cops are like in Hastings, if they will judge him at first sight like the old people at the vigil had, or if they will leave him alone like the police at home would. Being here without anything to do could mean trouble for a man like him. So when the old woman asks again if he'll stay with her for the rest of the day, when she says that there's coffee in her room, Rodney feels lucky to have found her.
When he wakes up after napping in a chair beside the old woman's bed, she gives him the TV remote and tells him to watch what he wants. "Sit on the bed if you can't see," she says. A Cubs' matinee is on. "You're a nice boy. I have a sense for people."
Rodney feels comfortable in the room after a while, talking to the old woman between pitches. It makes him feel like a nice person. Even though he never came to visit his mother, he's not a bad man. He didn't deserve the looks those old people gave him during the vigil. It's just the way he was with his mother. If she ever felt differently about their arrangement, she never said anything to him about it.
She was middle-aged when Rodney was born; accustomed to privacy and calmness and didn't like doing for other people what they could do for themselves. There was no waiting on hand and foot to serve the men in her house, so Rodney knew the value of keeping quiet and taking care of his own business. But it wouldn't be fair to say that things were bad with his mother, like those cold stares at the vigil implied. It had been five years since he'd seen her, but Rodney loved his mother, that's safe to say, as much as he's loved anything.
The old woman seems to understand this, Rodney thinks, because she loved his mother too.
After the seventh inning stretch, the old woman opens a drawer and pulls out a grocery store cake under a plastic dome. She takes the heavily frosted German chocolate cake with both hands and gives it to Rodney, who's sitting on the bed now, before shuffling back to the drawer for a spatula, a paper plate and a plastic fork, all of which looks like it's been lifted from the cafeteria.
"Please stay off my bed," the old woman says, "while you're eating."
"They let you run out for cake?" Rodney asks.
"They'll take us to the bakery if we ask. There's a shuttle van."
"I guess that's right." Rodney remembers seeing those vans around the city before, old people in the back. He stands from the bed with the plastic dome and moves to the chair.
Rodney cuts himself a piece of cake, and the old woman tells him about herself, how her kids, the ones who are still alive, are wicked like their father was. "They wish I was dead. I don't mind knowing that. I turn a hundred this winter." She nods her head to confirm it. "It isn't like I planned on living this long."
The old woman says she moved here from Ireland, a long time ago, because her brother claimed there was a man in America who would marry her. "It was a load of bunk. There was a man looking to marry, but he wasn't like Kieran said." She tells Rodney how everyone in her family insisted she was an ugly girl and should be happy to have a husband at all, even if he did mistreat her. The man she married has been dead for forty years now, though.
"Tell me about yourself," the old woman says. "Your mother didn't say much. She wouldn't fill in the details." Rodney sits up in his chair and looks at the old woman. "Tell me," she says. "What do you do for a living?"
Rodney looks back at the television for a time, pretending to watch the game. "I'd rather not tell you," he eventually says.
"Don't worry. There isn't much that surprises me anymore, if it makes you feel better to know that."
"I don't bother no one," he says. "I live alone."
Rodney watches as the old women pops the plastic dome back on the cake and sets it near his jacket so he'll take it home later. He senses the warm feeling surge through him again as he watches this woman fuss over cleaning the spatula and the plastic fork.
It's then that Rodney tells the old woman he's a gospel singer.
"Is that right?" she asks, her voice rising with surprise. "A singer?"
"Yes, ma'am," Rodney mutters. "It's for a bunch of churches in Omaha. I do the solos."
"I don't believe it," the woman says. Rodney flinches, half-smiling to cover his nerves.
"It's true," he says.
"Did your mother know?"
Rodney hesitates and looks to the ceiling, his shoulders dropping. "I couldn't say. We didn't talk about it. Not about work. She did love to hear me sing, I know that."
"She never mentioned it to me," the old woman says, again like she's surprised. For a long time she looks at Rodney, her head crooked, staring at his mouth, his neck, as if imaging what he'd look like standing at the front of a church straining to belt out some high-arching gospel. "Would you sing for me?" she asks.
"Yes," the old woman says. "You could sing a hymn. What do you know," she asks, pinching a strand of hair between her fingertips. "Have you ever sung 'It Is Well with My Soul?' Of course you have, that's a standard."
Rodney pauses, looking back at the TV before saying, "I'm not sure."
"Well, don't you know that one?"
Rodney nods his head—and it's true, he knows the hymn. That was one thing his mother always liked to do. On Sundays, even if they didn't go to church, they would sit in the front room at the piano and sing. Rodney learned a good many of the old hymns this way, his hand on his mother's back as she sat at the piano to play the accompaniment.
"Well, if you know it, then sing." The old woman touches his arm with her long fingers. "Will wonders never cease," she says. "A gospel singer."
Rodney looks away from her before he starts singing the hymn. It's the warm feeling that makes him think he can do it—even though it's been a long time since he's tried to sing—and because the old woman asked him to.
His voice croaks when he begins, falling into a lower register, and then higher, unable to find or hold a note, until he stops to clear his throat.
"Try again," the woman says. She rises to close the door and then returns to the edge of the bed.
"When peace flows like a river, attending my way. When sorrows like the ocean roil below. I will say to my Lord, it is well."
Rodney thinks he remembers the hymn, the lyrics are mostly right, but his voice falters again. His tone is off, flat then sharp, and then he's not really singing at all, but kind of humming the tune to himself, a word popping out now and then, until his noise peters off into silence. He stares at the corner of the room, his whole body trembling.
The old woman is weeping—Rodney hears her and looks into her face to see her eyes water.
"I'm sorry," he says. "This was the wrong thing to do."
"No, no. It's a beautiful hymn."
Rodney moves to the woman and puts a hand on her back. "I shouldn't have said anything about being a singer."
"It's a beautiful hymn," the old woman repeats. She shudders when Rodney embraces her, they both do, his arms under hers again, his face on her shoulder.
"I'm glad you sang it. You've done all right."
It's six a.m. when his train pulls into Omaha. As he walks back to the Kellogg Rooming House, the plastic bubble with the cake inside held in front of him, Rodney thinks about how he'll never see the old woman again. It doesn't upset him that he lied to her about being a gospel singer, he just wanted to make her feel better. It was his mother's funeral, after all, the funeral of this old woman's best friend too.
His room looks empty when he gets back to the Kellogg, but this doesn't bother him either. Rodney takes off the green suit and returns it to the spot in his closet. He stands there in his underwear for a little while, then puts on his work pants, changes his undershirt, and lies gently on the bed, his hands behind his head as he looks out the window.
He only had a short time to grab his things and leave his girl's house this last time they broke up, before she came back from her job. Her brother stood in the living room to make sure Rodney didn't steal anything when he left.
"C'mon, man. You know I won't take nothing isn't mine."
"I know it," his girl's brother said, arms crossed over his chest. He wasn't the type to enjoy watching a man pack up his belongings and move on. "But she asked me to. She said to stand here and supervise, so that's what I got to do. She's my baby sister."
"You don't have to do nothing you don't want to," Rodney said. He kicked a box across the floor but regretted doing it. It wasn't her brother's fault that he had to watch. Things just hadn't worked out between Rodney and his girl, that was the problem.
Most all he has now are clothes and most of them are ratty. Olive work pants the city gives him, a bunch of tee shirts. Rodney mows grass in parks and vacant lots, around abandoned houses. He has a hot plate in his room, on a table next to his bed because he likes to cook lying down. There's a pine closet that sticks out from the wall by the door and his twin bed is angled so he can look out the window. His girl had a TV and paid for cable. Rodney kind of misses watching what was on each night, especially in the summer after mowing was finished. He misses lying on the couch with his girl too, even though he won't let himself miss her. Most of the time it's more comfortable to be alone, that's how he sees it. Rodney's legs are hot and he doesn't like being shut up in a room with somebody else whose legs might also be hot.
His room at the Kellogg has a big window, which is what he watches after work now, the downtown buildings reflecting the last light of sunset. And then he watches the fluorescent lights of the offices as they pop on after a while. It's a drowsy sort of happiness this gives him.
Later in the morning he sits outside on the edge of a flower box and waits to be picked up and taken to where he will work for the day. Rodney has mowed for the city a long time, fifteen years or more. The man Rodney works with has learned a lot about him over the years, but even he doesn't know Rodney's mother was a white lady, that she came from Hastings and moved east to work for Mutual of Omaha in the fifties. She held more than a few jobs for them, over three decades, all clerical stuff before there were computers on every desk. Rodney's father worked at Mutual too, that's how they met. He was a custodian. They lived together for a few years in the Leavenworth neighborhood. It wasn't such a great place to live, just as the Kellogg isn't now, because there were junkies on the sidewalks and slumlords let most of the houses go to shit. But the people who lived there would let you be. They wouldn't hassle you for doing things differently than most folks wanted you to. Rodney knew this, he understood it well.
His father left their midtown house when Rodney was thirteen years old, but he came back to visit most weekends, even when his life was running short, living alone by then in some innavigable parcel of land north of Cuming, south of Ames, east of 40th, west of the river. The man died and was buried during the three years Rodney was away in the army. Rodney could have had a furlough to return for the funeral, if he'd requested one, but he didn't. His mother had moved back to Hastings by that time too, since he was in the military and she'd retired early. She was fifteen years older than Rodney's father, and she worked a long time even after she retired from Mutual, simple stuff she was used to doing with insurance forms, for a while at the hospital in Hastings, a few years after that for a shyster lawyer.
Rodney wished someone would have been there to meet him when he came back from the army, but it wasn't a big deal. In those days men still had to drive up from base after serving, which was from Arkansas in his case. He rode with a few guys he knew that were heading his way, one other from Omaha and a couple from Sioux City who had the car. They stopped at the dog track in Council Bluffs because the two with the car wanted to gamble. The family of the other guy from Omaha was waiting outside, and he wanted to give Rodney a ride.
"C'mon, buddy. Get in the car," the man said, but Rodney shook his head and jogged after the two from Sioux City who were entering the track. "I'll find a ride," Rodney yelled back. "I'm going to bet some."
Rodney did like to watch the greyhounds run and that's what he did for a few hours, even after the guys with the car decided to head on. He sat inside the smoke-dense building with a smattering of others, men bent over the seats to study the odds. Rodney distracted himself by watching the greyhounds pound the earth on the other side of the glass, those long, graceful dogs chasing a mechanical rabbit along the rail. They went around the track and then back into a box.
He hadn't thought about it in real terms until then, that his father was dead. It made him sad that his dad died young—he didn't even know what had done it. Rodney wondered if he was a man then, since he no longer had a father.
During an intermission he walked out of the building and across the parking lot, jumped a fence near the interstate, and jogged across the bridge to Omaha. He was in fatigues still, a rucksack sagged over his shoulder. Rodney couldn't keep his breath running over the bridge and had to stop every so often to look down at the river, as if he were lost in a strange country, a new man in a lonely and desolate place.
It was that summer Rodney found the job mowing, then there was the man he worked with to talk to if he wanted. And he'd see his mother a few times each year until she was unable to travel. And then he met his girl, although that never lasted as long as they thought it would.
Rodney and the other man work this afternoon in an overgrown lot on Park Avenue. This is still his neighborhood, in his part of the city. First they roll the mowers off the trailer, then tilt the blade houses up to unwind grocery sacks and wire fencing from the blades, then they put on goggles and gloves, spray bug repellant that smells like bleach on the fabric that covers their legs and arms. Rodney surveys the yard through blustering clouds of mosquitoes, looking for objects that might break the mowers—pieces of metal, chunks of lumber, a broken suitcase—and for bodies that have been dumped. He's heard stories about corpses hidden in the weeds, girls with skin coal black from decay, their shirts torn off, skirts pulled up over their hips, but he's never come across one himself.
The address of the house is spray painted in big orange numbers across the front. This house had a fire, a long time ago by the looks of it, and was abandoned. Through a hole in the roof Rodney sees the charred frame of two-by-fours and what looks like an exercise bike missing its wheel, the slow drift of white summer clouds churning in the sky behind it. Closer to the house there are empty bottles of booze, aerosol cans, containers of isopropyl alcohol meant to jumpstart cars that folks will drink if they're cold enough. Homeless people live here in the winter, in houses like this, leaving behind piss stains and soiled clothes that can't be worn anymore.
After starting the engine, Rodney drives towards a wall of weeds and pushes it over with the mower, then, as he circles the yard, his tires etch a concentric pattern into the undergrowth, jig-sawing around the fixtures, a fire hydrant, a light pole. The engine jumps under his seat, straining to turn over as it chops up the weeds and grass and beer bottles and whatever else is in there, stirring up dust and ten thousand furious insects.
Rodney keeps thinking that he would like to have sung the hymn right for the old woman back at the home. He doesn't feel bad about lying, about saying he's a gospel singer, but he would like to have sung to her the way the hymn was meant to be sung. As he kills the engine after mowing up to the charred foundation, Rodney thinks that maybe one day he will sing to her, or to someone else, to the lowdown woman in the room next to his who caterwauls the blues every night. He used to sing all right and might be able to again. It doesn't make a lot of sense to him, sitting on top of the mower, watching the bugs settle back to the earth, but he thinks maybe one day he'll sing again.
Theodore Wheeler is a fiction writer, roving bookseller, college professor, pub quiz host, and legal reporter living in Omaha, Nebraska. He is author of the novel Kings of Broken Things and the collection of short fiction Bad Faith. His short stories have appeared widely in publications such as Best New American Voices, New Stories from the Midwest, Boulevard, The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, The Cincinnati Review, Narrative, Confrontation, and Five Chapters. In 2015, his chapbook On the River, Down Where They Found Willy Brown, was published by Edition Solitude.
Image: youtube.com
Fiction, HFR Archives, HFR Vacancies, Theodore Wheeler, Vacancies
Previous "Cthulhu Doesn't Hate You" for Haunted Passages: Sean Oscar's Critical Analysis of Apostle, the 2018 Netflix orginal film directed by Gareth Evans
Next Fiction: "The Lawn Jockey" by Dez Miller


Brand 101: Consistency builds trust.
There are few things more comforting to a business than consistency. A consistent stream of revenue, a consistent employee, a consistent sales funnel, a consistent set of goals. The list can go on. When we know what to expect, it allows us to now just do the good work.
One of the most important elements of your business's progress is having a consistent brand message and aesthetic that you, your team, and your audience can rely on. Think about it from the consumer's perspective. Every single brand that you love has a style and a language that is somehow undeniably theirs. Whether it's a giant corporation like Apple or the hottest bakery in your hometown, what they are sharing with the world is always spot-on and on-brand. Always.
Of course, most consumers might not necessarily pay attention to how consistently on-brand it is. However, they will most definitely pay attention to when it's not.
Get the words and tone right. First: If you haven't already, write out exactly what you do, how you do it, why you're different and why it matters. Your team needs this as a guiding light for talking with others, and your customers need it to help them make an informed and delighted decision. Second: Know your language style and stick to it. Are you assertive, but helpful? Light and snarky? Slick and upscale? Once you've locked down all of these elements, share it passionately with your team and the world!
Beware of logo abuse. Pay attention to the brands you look up to. Not only is their logo typically well done, but it's also used well. No blurry, squashed, off-brand colored logos here. If you see logo abuse in your company, make sure you have your best wooden ruler trusty brand style guide at close hand with anyone who's in charge of handling your logo assets.
Fonts, Colors, Textures…oh my! When building out your brand style guide, make sure you lock down your secondary font families, colors, and textures. Your secondary fonts are the worker bees that are used for every bit of copy that markets your brand. Your additional colors and textures are there to expand on your logo when you need just a little more pop.
Build out a content strategy. Once you've got all of your core brand assets created, you can now start to build out a strategy for spreading the good word about your business. Work with your team to develop a plan that can be executed on a (yes, you guessed it) consistent basis. The right amount of content to create and share might take some time to get right and you definitely don't want to overwhelm your team or your audience. Whether you start small (1 blog post a month) or large scale (multiple posts a week on various platforms), make sure you work to hit your schedule! Consistency is more important than being overly ambitious.
Don't let Perfect be the enemy of Good. Even the greatest brands out there miss the mark sometimes. If you slip and a blurry logo gets printed on a banner, don't start flipping tables. Producing consistent, quality content is like working a muscle. At first, you're sore for days and may want to give up. But, eventually, it does get easier, and you start to realize you're actually enjoying yourself. What a novel concept!
If you're feeling to get stuck or overwhelmed, drop us an email and let's chat about how to get you in the right spot.


text:
Q: How to deploy Xcode to multiple devices without connecting computer I am trying to deploy app to multiple devices in Xcode. I know how to deploy app to single device with connecting computer. But I wonder how to deploy the app to multiple devices? Is it possible to deploy app without connecting computer?

A: Use tools like TestFlight or Fabric

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Little Richard, Dead at 87, on Why He Retired From Music to Follow Jesus
Home Clippings
Little Richard in 2007. (Photo: Anna Bleker/Public domain)
ShareTweetPin It
Groundbreaking rock 'n' roll icon Little Richard has died at the age of 87. Pastor Bill Minson, a close friend of his, reports that Little Richard passed into eternity on Saturday morning.
The dynamic and often flamboyant performer was one of the founding fathers of rock 'n' roll. He spent many years living without God, but near the end of his life, he found faith in Jesus Christ.
Three years ago, CBN News reported about his dramatic conversion to become a follower of Christ. Here's that uplifting testimony:
Little Richard Rejects 'Omnisexual' Past: 'I Want to Be Holy Like Jesus'
Iconic musician Little Richard is renouncing his past rock-and-roll lifestyle of sexual immorality, saying he has repented and turned to Jesus Christ for salvation.
In previous interviews, the famous singer referred to himself as "omnisexual," revealing in an interview with GQ five years ago that he lived a life of perversion, including orgies with men and women.
But in an extensive interview with Three Angels Broadcasting Network, an Illinois-based Christian TV and radio network, Little Richard says you can't live that way and go to heaven, referring to "unnatural affections" that include same-sex relationships.
"When I first came in show business they wanted you to look like everybody but yourself," he recalled.
Continue reading at CBN
Help Keep Christian Media Diverse
In addition to partnering with advertisers, maintaining a subscription program, and exploring paid live events, we rely on the generosity of readers who see value in our work and in our mission. We invite you to join us, and keep walking with us, in our mission. Every amount, big or small, empowers us to stay the course. Here are a few ways you can join us:
We are grateful for your support. Thank you!
Tags: Clippings
FM Editors
Faithfully Magazine is a fresh, bold and exciting news and culture publication that covers issues, conversations and events impacting Christian communities of color.
Are Jesus and John the Baptist Cousins or Related in Anyway?
Paige Hilken, Wife of North Coast Church Pastor Christopher Hilken, Dies by Suicide
Free Christian Movies: How and Where to Watch Free Christian Movies Online
White Christian Dean and Faculty Pose as Gangsters in Controversial Photo
White Evangelical Churches Use 'Race Tests' on People of Color, Study Claims
Why African Christians Should Rethink Depression
Where do you live? *
Pop Quiz: 1+2=? *
Listen to Exclusive Q&As on Faithfully Podcast
Faithfully Podcast · Faithfully Podcast Select


What is Yoga - fashion craze from the East or holistic worldview system? How useful is the passion of our residents latitudes? Will the lives of all of us, or all goes as snow in May, and potatoes, bacon and bagels will?
Himselfthe term Yoga (in Sanskrit - communication, togetherness, concentration, effort) in the most general sense, means the doctrine and method of controlling the human psyche and psychophysiology in order to achieve higher mental states.
History of origin Yoga has its roots in antiquity. 2500-2000 gg BC in India, a system of philosophical thought. It is based on three pillars: the Vedas (ancient religious texts), Brahman (explanation to these texts) and the Upanishads (analytical treatises). It is with respect to these texts and shared philosophical schools of Ancient India: recognize the authority of the Vedas (orthodox or astika) - Sankhya, Mimamsa, Vedanta, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, yoga and do not recognize (nastika) - Charvaka-lokayata.
The basic principles and theory of yoga outlined in the fundamental work "Yoga Sutra", the author - Patanjali (II century. BC. E - II VN eh?). Although there is a version that the true doctrine of Yoga originated much earlier and created the sage Yajnavalkya, the author of the famous religious texts that have prepared the world for the preaching of the Buddha, and Patanjali systematized ancient knowledge and clothed him in accessible to the masses literary form.
Whatever it was, the theory and practice of "Yoga Sutras" fully withstood the test of time and has earned the right to be called the classical yoga.
The history of modern yoga began with the Chicago Parliament of Religions in 1893, where the American public was impressed by Yogi Swami Vivekananda, the spiritual leader and social activist in India.
After some time, yoga has become one of the most popular systems of physical culture and a means of self-improvement. In Slavic countries yoga came from America and Western Europe.
Philosophical ideas Yoga is based on the harmony of body and soul, the interdependence of internal and external. Meaning knowledge of these truths - in constant self-improvement through a better person in his inner world.
8. Samadhi - concentration, ie, a condition in which the contemplative consciousness is lost meditative object and the object is no longer conscious of itself.
There are many forms of yoga: yoga of action (karma yoga), yoga, faith and worship (bhakti yoga), yoga of knowledge (jnana yoga), yoga breathing orderly and correct postures (hatha yoga), yoga awakening energy in the spine (laya -yoga), the correct use of sounds and words (mantra yoga), yoga, meditation and contemplation (Raja Yoga), etc.
Yoga and modernity. So, yoga - the ancient philosophy and methods of cultivation, art beautiful, useful and ... complicated. She is credited with miraculous properties and opportunities, the number of enthusiastic fans of yoga is increasing day by day, but always a little "but": yoga - part of an alien culture, and the abundance of obscure oriental terms deter any enthusiast-European.
So what is yoga for the modern, concerned over the career and life of the flight, the inhabitants of the metropolis? By and large, we are not able to penetrate deep into the ancient teachings (mentality, you know?. ), But can use some fragments of Indian wisdom to live in peace with your body and mind. Here yoga and. "Mutated" somewhat simplified and adapted to the pace and the problems surrounding reality. European Yoga keeps the principles of yoga East, including eight stages of development. Imbued with the spirit of the European utilitarianism deprived of their metaphysical foundations, they purposefully human exposure to abide by them, and with due consideration and patience lay the foundations for a full life. Therefore, yoga - this is the best method of conscious and harmonious. self-love, anti-stress and moral garbage that so many around us, the ability to quietly enjoy a moment of peace. Regular practice of yogic exercises teach self-control, self-confidence will return, give flexibility to the mind and body will reward good posture and a healthy complexion. We can say that yoga is for you and me - is a form of fitness with a nice bonus - relaxation and harmony.
How, when and where? Start doing yoga is not too late and never too early. Yes, in the classroom feel comfortable and long-lived, and grudnichki. Restrictions on height and weight is not, by disease - too. Through yoga, you can get rid of extra pounds, and from two or three annoying sores. One more thing - these changes will not be lightning, to achieve positive results have to work long and hard. Although it's worth it: pounds gone, not to return, and chronic illnesses are concerned less and less.
In order to give yoga, do not need expensive equipment - just a smooth floor and carpet. But this does not mean that you can deal with, anywhere: exercises require complete dedication and concentration.
- Neighbors on the mat. By and large it look like patrons of the club - the future of every beginner. That's out of it and have to do all the conclusions and forecasts.
And by the way, yoga provides savings sparse finances. After completing the course, each is quite able to continue at home, without having to visit the club.
And finally, the bike of life: the author of this study with the help of a rather clumsy (excuse me, as I could) yoga exercises in six months broke up with two sizes and are allergic to everything stopped hating attendants at the entrance and reconciled with her ex-husband.
So that our lives and our because that is in our hands!