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Extract: The Benefit of Hindsight by Susan Hill
The Benefit of Hindsight is the brand new crime novel by Susan Hill, bestselling author of the Simon Serrailler series.
On the face of it, DC Simon Serrailler has had time to recuperate after the violent incident that cost him his arm, and nearly his life. He is back in harness at Lafferton CID, but is spending his spare time high up in the cathedral roof, making drawings of the medieval angels which are being restored.
Lafferton is going through a quiet patch, so far as crime is concerned, until one rainy night two local men open their front door to a couple seeking shelter. A serious error of judgement in the investigation puts Simon's reputation on the line and calls into question how full his recovery has really been.
In this, the tenth Simon Serrailler crime novel, Simon must battle his own demons as Lafferton struggles to cope with a series of crimes that threaten the very sanctity of hearth and home.
Read on for an extract from The Benefit of Hindsight!
The Benefit of Hindsight
Susan Hill
Carrie wanted to stay out longer. She had nothing else to do but she did not want to go home. She had come out of the newsagent's in a churn of anxiety about what she had found out, what was happening, and until she had processed it in her head, she could not walk into the house and face Colin.
There were cafes on either side, new and smart, old and comfortable, but all full. Someone bumped into her, someone else almost tripped her up. A man sat in a doorway on a piece of old matting, with a dog and a mug of coppers, and spat on the pavement. Her hair was damp from the drizzle, as were the sleeves of her coat and the handles of her tote bag.
She felt a surge of panic, and the need to move, to get away, though it was herself she really wanted to get away from. She went down the side street towards the cathedral, past the great west door and into the new visitors' centre which had opened just before Christmas, to equal choruses of delight and disapproval. It was cool and beautiful there, a calm place, like the ancient cathedral itself, and there were only a few people in the refectory. Carrie got her pot of tea and a cheese scone, and went to the far end of the cafe, beside a glass wall through which she could see the tiled space beyond. She closed her eyes. She did not come to the cathedral to pray, she had no particular belief, though sometimes she spoke aloud to someone, someone who might be listening, and if there was no one and she was only talking to herself, it still helped.
Perhaps she would not have to tell him, she thought, spreading butter on her scone, perhaps he would work it out for himself. No. Colin was incapable of working anything out except the figures he saw on his computer screen from early morning until late at night, the white electronic arrows moving up and down.
A woman came into the refectory, took a tray, gave her order, the sort of woman who usually came in here, a volunteer who manned the shop, or sat behind the new glass counter giving out information and leaflets, or arranged the flowers. No, not flowers, Carrie remembered that the flower arrangers came in as a group, three or four of them, clattering their trays and talking cheerily. A lot of the people who helped out in the cathedral and this visitors' centre were cheery.
She pushed some crumbs around her plate with her forefinger, and pressed them together to form a ball.
Then the swing doors opened again and there was bumping and shuffling and voices. Two young women with pushchairs. They came down the aisle towards her, and settled down at a table with a lot of fuss and chat and coat removing and chair scraping. The refectory was noisy because all the surfaces were hard. No one had thought of that. Every cup and saucer clattered, cutlery clashed, the sudden noise of the coffee machine muffled speech.
She came here for peace and quiet, a place where she could be safely herself, and sooner or later people and their racket always drove her away.
One woman had gone to the counter, the other sat with the children. A baby was on her lap, its arms jerking up and down like the arms of a string puppet, not yet within its control. Carrie did not want to look at it. She looked at it.
And then she saw the other child. It had not been taken out of its pushchair and it was turned slightly to face Carrie. She did not know how old it might be, only that it was not a baby. Children like that could be any age.
Children like that. It was still but not asleep. Its lolling head was too large and it wore a bib into which it was dribbling. Its eyes did not focus. Its face was the colour of dough.
The woman was bringing over the tray of drinks and as she set it down on their table she looked at the child and her face broke into a smile and seemed to blaze up at the sight, as if she had been bathed in sunshine. The look was joyous, a look of delight. But most of all, a look of love, unconcealed, all-absorbing.
The child saw nothing, only moved its head a little, as it dribbled and its eyes rolled up and round and up again.
Carrie left, almost knocking over her chair, startling the baby on the lap. But the child in the buggy was not startled. It seemed to be unaware of every sound, every movement around it, every person.
Outside she leaned on a pillar and felt her heart race and lurch and her mind spin and nausea rise up in her, like a creature springing out of water deep down, and she retched, but nothing came out of her mouth except an ugly sound, so that a man walking past flinched slightly, before quickening his step. She took in gulps of air which tasted of rain.
Somehow she had to find her car and drive home and, eventually, talk to Colin, tell Colin, make Colin angry or shocked or miserable. Frightened, perhaps, as she was. Her fear was deep-rooted and powerful. It was absolute, certain, real, the fear of her worst nightmares and waking terror. A fear that was growing inside her.
Enjoyed this extract from The Benefit of Hindsight? Take a look at all of Susan Hill's Simon Serrailler books in order here.
AmazonApple BooksKoboWaterstonesAudibleGoogle PlayHive
Simon Serrailler books in order
Introducing Simon Serrailler
16 must-read books for Broadchurch fans
9 crime authors pick their favourite book series
14 top crime novels set in Scotland


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ATC Aviation expands east European GSSA network with Brainway buy
L-R: Ingo Zimmer and Günter Pepl
ATC Aviation Services Group has acquired Austrian cargo general sales and services agent (GSSA) Brainway and its subsidiaries in Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia.
Brainway and its subsidiaries will join ATC, the Germany-based GSSA, from the beginning of February.
Among the airlines represented by Brainway in Austria and eastern Europe are Saudi Arabian Airlines, United Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines, NCA, LOT Polish Airlines, China Southern Airlines and Air China.
ATC chief executive Ingo Zimmer said: "This acquisition gives ATC a foothold in Eastern Europe to better serve our customers and further expand our capabilities across that area."
Brainway managing director Gunter Pepl said: "We are very delighted to join the ATC team. Their global reputation combined with our Eastern European knowledge will provide further value to our customers.
The acquisition means that ATC Aviation, representing more than 75 airlines and with an annual turnover of around $400m, expands its network in 31 countries worldwide.
ATC Aviation ServicesGSSA
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Puerto Rico's long road to recovery from Hurricane Maria
Aluminum roofing is seen twisted and thrown off buildings as recovery efforts continue following Hurricane Maria near San Jose, Puerto Rico, October 7, 2017.
The island experienced widespread damage from Hurricane Maria, including to most of the electrical, gas and water grid, as well as agriculture.
Credit: LUCAS JACKSON/REUTERS
A girl stands near her house in an area without grid power or running water about two weeks after Hurricane Maria swept through the island on October 5, 2017 in San Isidro, Puerto Rico.
Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images
Oil spill containment barriers surround sunken and damaged boats affected by the passing of Hurricane Maria in Fajardo, Puerto Rico on October 4, 2017.
Hurricane Maria not only destroyed Puerto Rico's infrastructure; it also wreaked havoc on the environment, disrupting the island's entire ecosystem.
Credit: Ricardo Arduengo/AFP/Getty Images
Debris and garbage produced by the passing of Hurricane Maria are dumped in a field in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico on October 6, 2017.
People shovel mud from the front of a house damaged by Hurricane Maria in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico on October 5, 2017.
A woman walks on a road affected by the Hurricane Maria passing in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico on October 5, 2017.
People use a rope line to cross the San Lorenzo de Morovis river more than two weeks after Hurricane Maria hit the island on October 6, 2017 in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico. Flooding from the hurricane destroyed the bridge, forcing residents to cross the river on foot or in 4 x 4 vehicles.
People cross the San Lorenzo de Morovis river more than two weeks after Hurricane Maria hit the island on October 6, 2017 in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico.
The remnants of a destroyed home stand more than two weeks after Hurricane Maria hit the island on October 6, 2017 in Morovis, Puerto Rico.
A local resident washes her hair at a pond after Hurricane Maria destroyed the town's bridge in San Lorenzo, Morovis, Puerto Rico, October 4, 2017.
Credit: ALVIN BAEZ/REUTERS
A jeep crosses the site of a bridge that was washed away during Hurricane Maria in the San Lorenzo neighborhood of Morovis, Puerto Rico, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2017.
Credit: Ramon Espinosa/AP
Hurricane-ravaged trees on a mountainside are seen more than two weeks after Hurricane Maria swept through the island on October 6, 2017 in Morovis, Puerto Rico.
A Christian altar stands on a hurricane-ravaged mountain more than two weeks after Hurricane Maria swept through the island on October 6, 2017 in Morovis, Puerto Rico.
The hurricane that pummeled Puerto Rico two weeks ago and the scarcity-marked aftermath are taking a toll on islanders' equilibrium. The Associated Press reports that the U.S. territory's government has counted two suicides among the death toll (which now stands at 34), and with many communities still waiting for power and clean water, there is concern about others reaching a breaking point.
People check their cell phones from a roadside near the top of a mountain more than two weeks after Hurricane Maria swept through the island on October 6, 2017 in Orocovis, Puerto Rico. Residents go to the high-altitude spot to check cell phones, as most of the surrounding area has no functioning cell phone signal.
Abigail Maldonado stands in her home inundated with water after a heavy rain passed through following Hurricane Maria on October 6, 2017 in Utuado, Puerto Rico.
Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Cayo Santiago
A monkey walks over the rubble left in the wake of Hurricane Maria on Cayo Santiago, known as Monkey Island, one of the world's most important sites for research into how primates think, socialize and evolve, in Puerto Rico, Oct. 4, 2017.
The storm destroyed virtually everything on the island, stripping it of vegetation, wrecking the monkeys' metal drinking troughs, and crushing the piers that University of Puerto Rico workers use to bring in bags of monkey chow - brown pellets of processed food that complete the primates' natural vegetation diet.
In this Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2017 photo, workers repair research facilities destroyed by Hurricane Maria in Cayo Santiago, known as Monkey Island, in Puerto Rico, one of the world's most important sites for research into how primates think, socialize and evolve. Mainland scientists are bringing in equipment, from chain saws to a portable pier, funded by tens of thousands of dollars raised so far from university departments and online.
A large uprooted tree is seen on a basketball court in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in San Sebastian, Puerto Rico, October 6, 2017.
A destroyed house is seen in Juana Matos, Catano, Puerto Rico, on October 4, 2017.
Credit: Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images
The remains of a highway bridge are seen as recovery efforts continue following Hurricane Maria, near Ciales, Puerto Rico, October 7, 2017.
The contents of a damaged home can be seen as recovery efforts continue following Hurricane Maria near the town of Comerio, Puerto Rico, October 7, 2017.
Damaged planes stand piled up near the airport of Isla Grande following Hurricane Maria, in Puerto Rico, October 7, 2017.
An aerial view of an area that was reclaimed by a nearby mangrove during the passing of Hurricane Maria in Manati, Puerto Rico on October 6, 2017. /
A house that was washed away by heavy surf during the passing of Hurricane Maria is seen in Manati, Puerto Rico on October 6, 2017.
Workers prevent cars from driving down a road washed out during Hurricane Maria in San Sebastian, Puerto Rico, October 6, 2017.
Kids bike in an area without grid power or running water about two weeks after Hurricane Maria swept through the island on October 5, 2017 in San Isidro, Puerto Rico.
A car pulls into a driveway in an area without grid power or running water about two weeks after Hurricane Maria swept through the island on October 5, 2017 in San Isidro, Puerto Rico.
Blacked-out buildings are seen in a tourist zone with lights only showing in buildings that have generators in San Juan, Puerto Rico on October 4, 2017.
On Friday, October 6, the U.S. Energy Department reported that just over 10 percent of customers have had power restored.
A worker repairs power lines about two weeks after Hurricane Maria swept through the island on October 5, 2017 in San Isidro, Puerto Rico.
Janette Diaz baths her granddaughter, Valentina Ramos, 2, in spring water since they have no running water in their homes following Hurricane Maria, on October 5, 2017 in Utuado, Puerto Rico.
People shower in spring water flowing from a pipe alongside a highway, in Utuado, Puerto Rico, October 6, 2017.
Ada Medina takes care of Quintin Jaca, 58, as he lies in a bed in her assisted living facility after Hurricane Maria passed through on October 6, 2017 in Utuado, Puerto Rico. Medina said she still has no electricity or water almost two weeks after the hurricane, as she cares for three patients in her home. She is hoping aid comes soon.
Daniel Braithwaite carries boxes of MREs as he helps U.S. Army 1st Special Forces Command soldiers deliver food and water in the wake of the devastation left across the island by Hurricane Maria on October 5, 2017 in Utuado, Puerto Rico.
Jose Javier Santana holds a Puerto Rican flag he found on the ground after Hurricane Maria passed through on October 6, 2017 in Utuado, Puerto Rico. Santana said that the flag, in its torn and frayed shape, is how Puerto Rico is now.
Members of the U.S. Army 1st Special Forces Command deliver boxes of MREs and water to people that were cut off after the bridge collapsed when Hurricane Maria swept through the island on October 5, 2017 in Utuado, Puerto Rico.
A man walks through a road that has been turned into a river caused by heavy rains after Hurricane Maria passed through on October 6, 2017 in Utuado, Puerto Rico.
Members of the U.S. Army 1st Special Forces Command help put a hurricane survivor's deck back in its place after it was blown over when Hurricane Maria swept through the island on October 5, 2017 in Utuado, Puerto Rico.
People collect spring water in containers from a pipe alongside a highway since they have no running water in their homes after Hurricane Maria passed through on October 6, 2017 in Utuado, Puerto Rico.
A medic checks on Kirk Thompson as U.S. Army 1st Special Force Command delivered food and water to him after he had not received any aid in the wake of the devastation left across the island by Hurricane Maria on October 5, 2017 in Utuado, Puerto Rico. The neighborhood was cut off from help for about two weeks, and there is still a need for basic life necessities after the Category 4 hurricane passed through.
Daniel Braithwaite prepares to catch a box of MREs as he helps U.S. Army 1st Special Forces Command soldiers deliver food and water to people after Hurricane Maria swept through the island on October 5, 2017 in Utuado, Puerto Rico.
Homes near a washed out road in Utuado, Puerto Rico, are seen on Oct. 3, 2017. The U.S. Coast Guard dropped relief supplies to residents who have been stranded after Hurricane Maria and mudslides washed out roads.
Credit: U.S. Coast Guard/Eric D. Woodall/AP
U.S. Army soldier Natalee Ebanks helps deliver food and water to people after Hurricane Maria swept through the island on October 4, 2017 in Utuado, Puerto Rico.
An America flag is seen in San Lorenzo, Morovis, Puerto Rico, October 4, 2017.


> Our mission is to provide a global geospatial platform which is affordable to users and enables them to operate effortlessly with Earth Observation data like satellite imagery, weather data, and similar data sources. With our platform you can easily build new data-driven products for agriculture, logistics, retail, transportation, and many others. > Our mission is to provide a global geospatial platform which is affordable to users and enables them to operate effortlessly with Earth Observation data like satellite imagery, weather data, and similar data sources. With our platform you can easily build new data-driven products for agriculture, logistics, retail, transportation, and many others.
From PVGIS the **[[http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/apps4/pvest.php|daily radiation]]** data are used to calculate the forecast for a specific plane defined by **declination** and **azimuth** at a specific **location in Europe**. From DarkSky and Wunderground the combined **cloud coverages** forecast and the **temperatures** will be used for the solar production forecast. From PVGIS the **[[http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/apps4/pvest.php|daily radiation]]** data are used to calculate the forecast for a specific plane defined by **declination** and **azimuth** at a specific **location in Europe**. From DarkSky and Wunderground the combined **cloud coverages** forecast and the **temperatures** will be used for the solar production forecast.


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Crazy Requests
When every project is a "first"
In this article, I will share an episode that attests to the on-site problem solving abilities of Kikusui's bespoke solutions team, of which I am a member. It all started with a phone call we received just before delivering a sophisticated and high-value system to one of our clients.
A last-minute change
On the phone was the sales rep in charge of the client's account.
While the client's system was originally intended to operate on a single-phase, 100V supply and a three-phase, 200V supply, the sales rep said the client now wanted their system to be powered by alone, single-phase, 100V power supply. The client also did not want the delivery of the system to be delayed. The rep said that he knew this was a tall order and said that he would do everything he could assist.
We had a situation on our hands. My first action was to talk to my team leader, who told me to put together a list of the requirements for such a system, to determine whether it was in fact possible to build it. I dropped everything I was doing to work on the problem. Currently, the system's three-phase 200V supply was powering two power supply units, both of which were controlled by external signal inputs. Replacing these with units that operated on a single-phase, 100V input meant lowering the input voltage, resulting in a smaller output current. I decided to increase the output power by connecting several lower-power units together in series. The replacement units also needed to be able to be operated by an external signal input. Because they would be mounted in a rack, the units' external dimensions were an important factor for consideration too.
After some considerations, I had decided on the new configuration. We would replace the two PAT-series units used in the original configuration with four PWX1500 units connected in series and two PWX1500L units, also connected in series (see photograph).
Next was the question of whether we would be able to source enough power supplies in time. With my team leader's permission, I decided to reach out to the client. First, I gave the sales rep the details of the necessary replacement power supplies. After making enquiries about available inventory and shipping dates, and discussing the matter with the relevant divisions, the rep came back to me and said that while he would be able to source the replacement power supplies, they would not arrive until the day before we were due to deliver the system. Our sales rep consulted with the client, and it was agreed that the work to replace the power supply units should be performed on site. I prepared the wires, signal cables, connectors and other components that would be required for the modification. All of this happened in the space of just three days!
Straight to work
On the delivery date, once the client had taken delivery of the unmodified system, I set about replacing the power supplies. I first removed the two high power, three-phase, 200V units from the rack and replaced them with the six, single-phase 100V PWX units, which we connected in series. I then made the necessary modifications to the control cables and associated connectors. After a few tweaks, I confirmed that the system operated correctly. My job was done.
This feat was only possible with the help of many others and would not have happened at all without the sales team's flexibility on schedule and much advice and assistance from my more senior colleagues. The experience made me appreciate the impressive capability of the Kikusui bespoke solutions team to meet our clients' requirements. We were indeed "Team Kikusui" and I was proud of our work. However, while the client thanked us for our speedy response to their request, my team leader was not so charitable, and told me to take steps to ensure we did not have any more last-minute surprises in future. He was right, of course: the need to make modifications at the last minute could have been avoided if I had reviewed the client's usage requirements more carefully. I had learned a valuable lesson.
When you build to order, every project is a "first"
With most bespoke orders being one-off projects, while you sometimes encounter projects that are similar to those you worked on in the past, basically, every project is a "first effort". This means that there is little opportunity to reuse tested configurations. Rather, the members of the bespoke solutions team are destined to come up with a new strategy for each new order. I therefore believe that being in this team makes you better equipped at responding to "crazy" requests. (Within reason, of course. We're only human!) We will, of course, respond to all requests received from our clients with integrity and in good faith.
Tsutomu Dohata
Solutions Development Division, Solutions Development Department
Surge testing equipment for automotive applications
Customized EMC testing systems


Is This Election Driven By Fear?
You have a world that feels like it's on fire with terrorism and conflict abroad. You still have a very high number of Americans saying the country is on the wrong track. And people are still really fearful. The level of fear in the electorate — fear of terrorism, fear of crime — is at a 15-year high. People have not been this afraid since just after 9/11. And it's gone up 20 points in the last year and a half.
Fear of terrorism is a poor third to corrupt government, and can't even beat out fear of clowns. I cut off the chart at the top seven, but even if you look at the whole thing, crime doesn't make the list at all.
So…I'm not sure that fear really explains a lot about this election. There's always something out there that makes us afraid, and God knows, Donald Trump has done his best to gin up mountains of fear this year—why else would lots of people be afraid of corrupt government, economic collapse, and gun rights infringement? But is fear in general a lot higher than in previous elections? I'm doubtful. It's sort of like the "anger" we hear about so often, but which doesn't actually seem to be any different than previous election cycles.
Maybe some political science boffin can take a deep look at the evidence and let us know. Is fear really higher this year than in previous presidential elections?


Innovative digital forensic technology that instantly identifies illegal activity over the internet could help law enforcers stem the growing threat of terrorism and organised crime across the Asia Pacific Region.
The UK-developed automatic video identification software is unique in that it can enable police to search through hundreds hours of illegal video content and digital images and identify illegal content and digital images in a matter of seconds.
The automatic video identification software is unique in that it can enable police to identify illegal video material seized on hard drives and computers. The users of the system can throughput up to 10,000 hours of video per day thus speeding up investigations and improving working conditions.
As the Asian economy continues to boom – the region has also become the focus of organised crime gangs and terrorism who increasingly use the internet to engage in their illegal activity.
The Videntifier technology promoted by Forensic Pathways (www.forensic-pathways.com) is so advanced that is can search through hundreds of hours of video content and digital images and instantly identify illegal activity that could be used in crimes against children, terrorism and drugs.
The Videntifier technology promoted by Forensic Pathways (www.forensic-pathways.com) is so advanced that is can search through thousands of hours of video content a day and report back a list of movies it has identified and whether these are legal or illegal. The technology is currently being used to instantly identify illegal activity such as child abuse, terrorism and drugs.


CLICK HERE TO SEE A 2016 UPDATE TO THIS TOPIC!
We think Bible prophecy should be understood literally and so each week we present information that corroborates what we read in God's Word.
"Many shall run to and fro" has been related to modern forms of transportation. It's obvious, isn't it, that it's just been this last century out of the seven thousand years of recorded human history that swift and prevalent transportation has been possible?
"In the days of David and Abraham we communicated with handwritten messages, we travelled at the speed of horseback, and we clothed ourselves with an agrarian economy. You can go all the way through history to George Washington who communicated with handwritten messages, travelled at the speed of horseback, and clothed himself with an agrarian economy.
The Hebrew word for "increase" (rabah) implies not only an addition of knowledge but also a multiplication – or a knowledge that is increasing exponentially.
The exponential explosion of knowledge is now. On December 27th (2009), TechNewsWorld.co posted an article titled, What Technology Will Bring to the Next Decade. ((http://www.technewsworld.com/story/What-Technology-Will-Bring-to-the-Next-Decade-68917.html)) While it mostly tries to predict it contains some amazing info on how far we've come in just a short time.
Ten years ago, we would have been blown away by a cellphone with far more computing power and memory than the average PC had in 1999, along with a built-in camera and programs to manage every aspect of our lives. Ten years from now, the iPhone and its ilk will be antiques.
Recall the personal computer, circa 2000. It likely had a "clock speed" – a measure of how fast it could do things – just one-sixth of many computers today.
Apple's 1999 iMac came with 64 megabytes of RAM – [the] memory that helps computers switch among programs. Today's iMac today has 60 times as much. The vintage iMac had a 10-gigabyte hard drive for storing digital photos and other files. Now iPods have more space than that, and iMac drives start at 500 gigabytes.
Remember dial-up? In 2000, fewer than 10 percent of U.S. households had broadband Internet… In 2008, 61 percent of homes had it.
As computers and Internet connections got faster, we enjoyed them more. In October 2002, the average American spent about 52 hours a month on a home computer… This October, the figure was nearly 68 hours a month.
We increased the ways we could stay connected: More of us got cellphones, camera phones, smartphones and the iPhone. We bought more laptops and came to expect Internet connections almost everywhere.
The following comparisons were suggested by someone who believes the earth is very old and that humans have been here millions of years. Nevertheless his stats on information doubling are fascinating.
• It took 4 million years of human existence to arrive at the "information density" of Rome in the year 1AD.
• 1,500 years later, in the time of Leonardo DaVinci and the Renaissance, that information density had doubled.
• The next doubling took 250 years, as marked by the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and the birth of democracy.
• In [only] six years from 1967 to 1973, another doubling occurred.
• By 1998, information doubling was estimated to occur every 18 months.
The fastest increasing quantity on this planet is the amount of information we are generating. It is (and has been) expanding faster than anything else we create or can measure… Information is accumulating faster than any material or artifact in this world, faster than any by-product of our activities.
The exponential explosion of knowledge is now. This certainly qualifies as the time Daniel foresaw as the time of the end. It coincides with the many other End Times predictions of the Bible, e.g., the rebirth of the nation of Israel and the technical possibility of a global, cashless economy.
…and in the morning [you say], 'It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening…' You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.
Well, we do discern the signs of the times! They are all around us.
They serve to remind us of something that needs no sign. Jesus promised He would return for us to resurrect the dead in Christ and to rapture living believers. It is something that could happen at any moment.


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Melanerpes carolinus
RBWO
MELCAR
The Red-bellied Woodpecker has a large range, estimated globally at 3,000,000 square kilometers. Native to North America and the Bahamas, this bird prefers forest, savanna, and wetland ecosystems, though it can reside on plantations or in rural and urban areas. The global population of this bird is estimated at 10,000,000 individuals and does not show signs of decline that would necessitate inclusion on the IUCN Red List. For this reason, the current evaluation status of the Red-bellied Woodpecker is Least Concern.
Red-bellied Woodpecker: Medium woodpecker, black-and-white barred upperparts, pale gray-brown underparts with indistinct red wash on belly. Head has bright red crown and nape, pale brown face. White rump, white wing patches, and white-barred central tail feathers are visible in flight.
Red-bellied Woodpecker: Breeds from North Dakota, Great Lakes, and southern New England south to the Gulf Coast and Florida. Year-round resident from the plains states to the Atlantic coast. Northernmost birds sometimes migrate south for winter. Inhabits open and swampy woodlands; comes into parks during migration and to feeders in winter.
Red-bellied Woodpecker SONGS AND CALLS
Red-bellied Woodpecker A1
Calls from a pair; raspy and "wicka" calls from female, rattle call from the male.
Red-headed Woodpecker A4
"Querr" and chatter calls followed by drumming.
"churr-churr", "querr-querr", "chuck-chuck-chuck"
Red-bellied Woodpeckers are attracted to noises that resonate. The male will tap loudly on metal gutters, aluminum roofs and even vehicles to attract a mate.
The European Starling will often evict the Red-bellied Woodpecker from its nest.
The male has a wider tongue tip and longer bill than the female, allowing him to reach deeper into crevices to find prey. Studies have shown the male forages on the tree trunk, while the female forages mostly on limbs.
A group of woodpeckers has many collective nouns, including a "descent", "drumming", and "gatling" of woodpeckers.
Gila Woodpecker
Golden-fronted Woodpecker
Samira Belous


If you're thinking about retiring early, Work Optional is a great roadmap for questions you should ask yourself prior to the decision. Even as someone who writes about the subject, there were new ideas I hadn't thought about in this book.
Written by Adam on February 12, 2019. Updated April 25, 2019.
13 min read. Financial Independence. 1 comment.
One thing I've been most excited about since leaving my job is having more time to read more. My bookshelf is overflowing already and there is no shortage of amazing new things to read coming out all the time. I prefer a mix of science fiction, biographies and anything in the self improvement section.
Self-improvement comes in a lot of forms. There are books that will help you wake up earlier, develop more grit or learn the secrets of tidying up. One area of self-improvement I don't see covered as much is around the broader umbrella of life-goals and organization.
When I was lucky enough to receive an advanced copy of Work Optional: Retire Early the Non-Penny-Pinching Way by Tanja Hester (from OurNextLife.com), I assumed I would be reading a finance book. I was pleasantly surprised to find a guide to organizing a life that incorporates a financial guide, a vision plan, and purpose-filled life. This is my overall takeaway from reading that book!
I spent about 2 weeks reading Work Optional to start my days, which offered relaxation and focused introduction to my first month sleeping in.
When you think about life hacks what comes to mind? For me, its tweaks to my daily life I can make that optimize tasks and generate more free time.
Life Hacking is a long-time passion of mine. Right when I got out of college back in 2005, one of my all-time favorite blogs was LifeHacker.com created and run by Gina Trapani. She's one of the six people who have inspired me the most in my life, and since then I've always been on the lookout for tricks, tools and processes to improve. My wife has heard the phrase "Let's try an experiment…" many more times than I'd care to admit.
When I learned about financial independence it immediately clicked for me, but I wasn't sure why. It wasn't until reading Work Optional that I made the connection between FI and life hacking.
Both focus on spending time now for a better payoff later. In the case of life hacks, it's often about systemizing or optimizing a single interaction. Financial independence is no different – it's about systemizing your relationship with money.
Career intermission – Also called a mini-retirement. Taking some time off in the middle of your career. I never did this myself (unless you count right now). I've talked to a number of people who have gone this route, including Scott from I Dream of Fire and Andrew from Shift Upwards, who both wrote about their experiences taking some time off.
Partial Employment / Semi-retirement – Rather than working full-time, choosing work part-time. Transitioning from a 40+ hour job to a 25 or under job may be possible for you. I was excited last year when my dad transitioned down to a more free schedule. That little bit more time can be huge too! In just a few months I'd heard of my dad joining a Bruce Springsteen cover band, volunteering for a local election, taking weekend camping trips and golfing an impressive amount.
Full Early Retirement – Not working anymore at all – or only working on what you want – in other words: not needing generating income. The key is the lack of a need to generate income. You still can, and many do, but it's no longer a requirement. I imagine I'll create something that generates money someday (this site doesn't right now), but it'll be driven more by what's fun and useful to create than what's profitable.
Depending on your financial situation, all of these might sound completely out of the question. Work Optional aims to portray these as possibilities, but it's up to the reader to figure out which one fits best with their relationship with work.
So let's debunk this myth right from the get-go: You do not need to be a magical unicorn with a computer engineering degree, earning six-figures in your first job, with no student debt and no kids, and with superhero-level frugality skills to be able to retire early.
I've been fortunate enough to be a bit of a unicorn (computer degree, no student debt, no kids), but I can't say our $100k/yr spending level is exactly frugal. I also only made $37k/yr out of college, so I'm a bit envious of those earning what I didn't make until I was in my 30s (good work!).
One of my favorite exercises in the book is towards the beginning – around designing your lifestyle. What I like about this activity is that it's focused around creating your own personal mission.
I stole some of this from Code School's mission, which also used the word "enliven" meaning "to make (something) more entertaining, interesting, or appealing" or "to make (someone) more cheerful or animated".
Minafi is one extension of that mission. My job at Pluralsight was another. As was my job before that at Code School, presentations I gave at user group and programming conferences and many other avenues still I'm looking to explore in the future.
Even with that, this doesn't fully describe everything I want out of life. This is only one aspect of life.
Tanja puts together an activity for you to create your own mission. Through a bunch of questions (each with a bunch of sub-questions), she hopes to draw out what's really most important for you by associating what you want with a sense of purpose.
The people who are the happiest in life and who tend to live the longest are those who have a sense of purpose.
[Day-to-Day Life] When are you happiest?
[Day-to-Day Life] What do you want to make time for every day?
[Big-Picture Dreams] What did you dream of doing when you were a kid?
[Big-Picture Dreams] What role do you want travel to play in your life?
[Legacy and Purpose] What problems in your community or beyond do you wish you could solve?
[Central Relationships] What communities are you a part of that you value most?
[Central Relationships] Who else is part of your vision?
[self-worth] What makes you feel best about yourself outside of work?
These questions are asked completely independent of money, health and any obligations. This helps get at the honest look at what role they could play in your life.
I did a similar exercise last year which led to 101 Things I Want to Know, Have, Do or Be – My Bucket, Goals and Vision List. While this list helps create some concrete ideas, the activity in Work Optional leads towards a more high-level personal vision.
In my career, I organized many (many, many many) exercises to brainstorm thoughts and ambitions and organize them around a central strategy. The takeaways from any exercise like this are dependent on how much effort you put into them.
To do this exercise myself, I created a Google Sheet (because, well, that's a good starting point for just about everything) and started answering each question. Eventually, I had answers to all 17 main questions, with a few answers for each.
Depending on how much thought you've given to these questions in the past, this might be a long activity. It took me over an hour to do it now, and that's after thinking and writing about these concepts for years.
My result was a document that looks something like this (with a column for each question and rows for answers).
At first, these weren't color coded aside from the header groups. After I filled in the answers to each question, the next step was to start grouping them. I copied a bunch of the verbs I was using into another sheet and started sorting them by the number of times they appeared. After I had a bunch of these verbs, I tried to organize them into categories.
After some toying around and organizing, I came out with these three categories: create, grow and explore. These connect deeply with me and feel right at home here.
Create – I've always loved creating things – even if they're never seen by the outside world. My failure resume is a good indicator of this over time. In order for these creations to help someone's "growth," they need to be seen by people, but creation itself is an enjoyable outlet for me. Just this past week I've been working on a major revamp of Minafi that has me waking up at night excited to work on it (I tend to get somewhat obsessed).
Growth – Personal growth and growth for others has been an ongoing theme for my life. At Code School I worked on somewhere around 50 programming courses seen by millions of people, all helping them grow and learn. I love learning and teaching. For me, learning when I know I'm going to teach is one of the ways I retain knowledge the best. I also love linking together different ideas or teaching in unusual ways to help topics take hold and become more impactful.
Explore – It's no secret that millennials (for which I'm an elder at age 36) love to explore and try new things. Embracing experiences rather than possessions has been a part of my life since I massively downsized after my mom passed away. There are few things better than exploring a new culture, ordering something off a menu I've never heard of, or getting lost in a new audiobook (which I count as exploring a story).
This isn't an all-expansive list of all parts of my life by any means. If I had another category, it'd probably be something around slow relationships – taking time to enjoy deep connections with a few friends (which, coincidentally matches up with the INFJ idea of having few friends, but deeper connections).
These three categories match up surprisingly well with my personal mission statement too!
I help empower [grow] people to transform [grow] their ideas into reality [creation] by enlivening education [explore].
The next step Tanja lays out for this activity is developing an understanding of the difference between where you are now and where you want to be. Which things on the above list are you already doing? Which aren't you doing? How can you take steps to start moving in that direction today?
This could involve subtracting things from your life or adding them – but in either case it's a matter of focus and prioritization.
The common theme from these exercises is a feeling of increased organization and control in your life. It's better to know than to not know.
Like most books and articles that tackle financial independence, there is ample coverage of the financial basics – the 4% rule, asset allocation, medical costs, budgeting, tracking spending, career hacking, safe withdraw rates, etc. If you've read Minafi and other FI blogs for a while, most of these sections may seem mostly like a review.
Whew, I had no idea that much was going to late-life care above Medicare. That's crazy.
Whew, that's an interesting one! Social Security is far enough off for many young retirees that it's impossible to include it in our plans with much confidence. Tanja leans towards the camp of letting Social Security income offset Medicare increases – which makes sense when reviewing this fact together with the chance of it not being there.
Who Should Read Work Optional?
Those just getting starting on their FI journey.
Anyone looking for alternative roles that work can play in their life.
People nearing retirement looking to find areas they might not have thought of.
As a gift for people you want to introduce to the idea of FIRE in a less-than-scary way.
You can read Work Optional today from Amazon, download the audiobook, check it out at a local library or grab it at a local restaurant.
Thanks Adam, I agree with the piece about multiple work optional lifestyles. Early on it seems so many believe that the RE is a retire to a beach type thing but as most of us know that does not really appeal to most for the long term in FIRE.


It's about fighting under the Red White And Blue and being buried with the Flag.
It is About The Flag and all the Veterans that lived threw the wars from World War 1 and 2 Afganistan Iraqi Black Hawk Down. It's about fighting under the Red White And Blue and being buried with the Flag. I'm a Vietnam Veteran 1st Inf Div Lie Khe Vietnam 65-66 . Wwe were from Fort Riley Kansas. 3 weeks on troop ships beach land Vietnam Oct 1965.
All funds go to Vietnam Vet Radio Ministry http://www.vietnamvetradio.com/ Benny Blount Owner 2 Tour Vietnam Vet.
the music here has change over the years Country to Pop but there are many people that like real Country Music Stories I o across the country performing and Recording In Nashville I'm a BMI writer Elvis L Carden Music BMI CMA member VVA American Legion.


text:
Assistant Commissioner in Bangladesh is the entry level post of field administration of the Administrative Service of Bangladesh. It is also the entry level rank of the officer of Customs, Excise and VAT. The equivalent rank for the police is Assistant Superintendent of Police. To join as an Assistant Commissioner, a person has to pass three phases of the Bangladesh Civil Service exam, and get recommendation form the Bangladesh Public Service Commission, a constitutional body of Bangladesh. An Assistant Commissioner of the administration also acts as an Executive Magistrate and can exercise vast executive and limited judicial power in their respective jurisdiction.

References

Bangladeshi civil servants

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


The Umstead Coalition, which advocates for the nearby state park, believes the lease is invalid and argues that the governments that appoint members to the Airport Authority — Raleigh, Durham, Durham County and Wake County — have final approval on any lease.
During a Wake County Board of Commissioners meeting Monday, Spooner asked the county to join the city of Raleigh in clarifying its role in the process. Raleigh leaders voted to clarify their role, though that didn't go far enough for some Raleigh City Council members who wanted the Airport Authority to reconsider its lease.
The lawsuit also argues the airport violated the state's open meetings law, The News & Observer previously reported.
RDU is expected to make between $20 million and $25 million in royalties from Wake Stone through the course of the lease.
This conceptual plan shows how two Wake Stone quarries adjacent to Umstead State Park might be redeveloped as recreational land after mining is completed. Wake Stone is proposing to lease 105 acres from Raleigh-Durham International Airport to develop the mine on the left. Wake Stone Corp.


text:
Kick off the Austrian Presidency of the EU
The motto for the EU presidency is 'A Europe that protects'.
On 1st July 2018, Austria has assumed the Presidency of the Council of the EU for the third time. The Austrian Presidency will put emphasis on three areas where the EU has a particular protective role: Security and fight against illegal migration; securing prosperity and competitiveness through digitalisation and stability in the neighbourhood – rapprochement of the Western Balkans/South-Eastern Europe to the EU.
As the Parliament's legislative period is coming to a close with the European Parliament's elections in May 2019, it will be crucial to prepare the finalisation or reach agreements on as many open legislative proposals as possible. Thus, one of the main tasks of the Austrian Council Presidency will be to reach common positions of the Council on specific proposals.
Subsidiarity is a key element for the Austrian Presidency. The idea is that the scope of action of the EU would be re-defined via a 'Subsidiarity Pact', whereby tasks, which are better handled at Member State level, would be carried out at this level, which they define as taking decisions closer to the citizens.
The Austrian Presidency plans to hold a high-level conference in Bregenz, Austria on 15-16 November 2018, the conclusions of which would serve as substantial input to the European Council meeting in December 2018.
1. Security and the fight against illegal migration
Austria will focus on a joint approach in the fight against illegal migration and of securing the EU's ability to act. At the centre of these efforts are the reform of the Common European Asylum System (the so-called Dublin System) as well as the re-focussing and strengthening of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency FRONTEX, in order to guarantee the efficient protection of the EU's external borders. This legislative proposal is politically sensitive given that it is linked to the infringement procedures brought against Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic for non- compliance with relocation obligations.
Moreover, the aim is to work more closely with third countries in order to ensure effective return policies and to provide assistance to those in need of protection before they enter the EU while, on the other hand, preventing those not in need of protection from setting off on the dangerous crossing to Europe. The Heads of State or Government will deal with these issues at their informal summit held in Salzburg on 20 September 2018.
As organised crime in a globalised and converging world is operating in an increasingly
connected way, the Austrian Presidency will advocate efficient cooperation of and information exchange between the security authorities of individual Member States (the ECRIS file and Cross-border access to and use of financial data by law enforcement authorities) as well as the interoperability of the relevant large databases.
2. Securing prosperity and competitiveness
As a considerable share of growth in the EU can already be attributed to the digital economy, the presidency aims with an intelligent policy of digital transformation to safeguard the competitiveness and sustainability of the European economy.
Completing the Digital Single Market (the Cybersecurity Act, Copyright directive etc.), modernising public administration on a broad scale and renewing industrial policy will improve framework conditions for digital business models and services.
National public budgets need to be protected from harmful tax competition and tax avoidance, and fair conditions of competition must be guaranteed for all companies. The Austrian Presidency aims at continuing the EU's work on the taxation of the digital economy in order to ensure that profits are taxed in the country in which they are generated, but this will be a tough file.
A number of ongoing complex and challenging dossiers will also feature prominently during the second half of 2018, such as Brexit, the interinstitutional negotiations of a new Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2021-2027 and the reform of the EU.
On the social side, the coordination of social security systems aiming to update EU rules on
coordinating social security provisions of EU citizens, they aim to have an agreement under by the end of 2018.
3. Stability in the European neighbourhood – EU perspective of the Western Balkans/ South Eastern Europe
During its Presidency, Austria will focus on promoting strong relationships between the EU and its neighbours and the Western Balkan/South Eastern European countries take centre stage. The Austrian Presidency will hence advocate for developing a concrete EU perspective for these states based on clear criteria relating to their individual performance and work on achieving measurable progress.
Best wishes to Austria!


DC Shawarma is a Lebanese food truck serving Chicken Shawarma, Beef Shawarma and Falafel as sandwiches on a platter. They launched in DC on October 27, 2011.
They haven't tweeted a location since June 2012, so I think they've retired.


text:
South Vinemont is a town in Cullman County, Alabama, United States. At the 2010 census the population was 749, up from 425 in 2000.

Initially incorporated as the town of Vinemont in 1961, state officials informed them the name was already taken and so was later changed to South Vinemont. However, the U.S. Census still referred to the town as Vinemont in 1970 and was not acknowledged as South Vinemont until 1980.

Geography
South Vinemont is located in northern Cullman County at  (34.233641, -86.862916). It is  north of Cullman, the county seat.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, South Vinemont has a total area of , of which , or 1.05%, is water.

Demographics

2020 census

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 558 people, 264 households, and 141 families residing in the town.

2000 census
As of the census of 2000, there were 425 people, 180 households, and 115 families residing in the town. The population density was . There were 203 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the town was 94.59% White, 0.47% Black or African American, 1.41% Native American, 0.24% from other races, and 3.29% from two or more races. 4.00% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There were 180 households, out of which 25.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 52.2% were married couples living together, 6.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 36.1% were non-families. 31.7% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.36 and the average family size was 2.93.

In the town, the population was spread out, with 22.1% under the age of 18, 10.4% from 18 to 24, 27.5% from 25 to 44, 25.9% from 45 to 64, and 14.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females, there were 90.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 94.7 males.

The median income for a household in the town was $26,806, and the median income for a family was $35,000. Males had a median income of $30,250 versus $16,250 for females. The per capita income for the town was $16,141. About 11.1% of families and 16.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 10.1% of those under age 18 and 18.2% of those age 65 or over.

Education
Vinemont High School serves 323 students in grades 9-12. Its mascot is an eagle, and the school colors are red, white and blue. Its athletics compete in the State 3A division.  It is a part of the Cullman County Board of Education.

Notable person
 Charles "Rusty" Goodman, Southern Gospel singer

References

Towns in Cullman County, Alabama
Towns in Alabama


text:
10th Anniversary: MUSIC
Ten years ago today, Madonna's Music (2000), one of her very best records, dropped into record stores. Director Guy Ritchie, to your left, was then her new man. He was advertising -- the record I mean! See the "Music" logo on his tanktop? Ever the selfless altruist, Madonna wore a black t-shirt promoting his project, Snatch (2000) which had opened the month before in the UK and was soon going to the US. It would become his biggest hit. Until Sherlock Holmes (2009) that is.
But back to 2000. Ah, the heady days of early romance. She had given birth to Rocco, her only biological child with Guy, the month before. They were married by December.
Madonna was of course, no stranger to loving alpha male movie men since actor/directors Sean Penn and Warren Beatty preceded Guy. Famously, she's now entered their realm. Paparazzi are basically snapping Madonna daily now while she films W.E. (2011) starring Abbie Cornish (see previous post). There must be a lot of outdoor shots. I suspect she wanted to do this much earlier than her first feature Filth & Wisdom (2008) -- I remember her discussing it back in the early 90s when she was still trying to become a film star and mentioned how much she loved Sally Potter's Orlando! It's curious that she didn't start with her own music videos. That career path has no stigma anymore given how many hipster cinematic giants have transferred over from music videos: David Fincher, Mark Romanek, Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze etcetera...
The videos (and movie connections) in order of release.
Is you Madonna? You babylons look less big than they do on the telly but I still definitely would.
With this video, directed by Ray of Light man Jonas Åkerlund, Madge introduced Americans to Sacha Baron Cohen before HBO's Da Ali G Show and Borat and Brüno.
The actress Debi Mazar makes her fifth Madonna video appearance. They've been friends since they were both hitting dance clubs in the early 80s (before the Fame hit). To your left is a private pic of them from Fire Island which Debi showed Wendy Williams. It's around the Dick Tracy time period since they were flying there in a private plan with Warren Beatty. Lifestyles of the rich and famous, you know.
This one comes from frequently collaborator Jean-Baptiste Mondino. It was a huge success worldwide and parodied by Kirsten Dunst and Jimmy Fallon at the MTV Movie Awards. The costumes are by DSquared and Oscar nominee Arianne Phillips. Phillips is also a frequent Madonna collaborator and is working on W.E.. There was a fascinating interview with her in the New York Times when she was promoting A Single Man (2009) that you should read if you haven't. Phillips has only been nominated for one Oscar (Walk the Line) but her filmography includes costuming gems like The People Vs. Larry Flynt, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, 3:10 to Yuma, Tank Girl and The Crow. Oscar's costuming branch doesn't regularly have an eye for iconic contemporary or genre wear, preferring superbly executed period pieces for the bulk of their nominations and especially their wins.
What It Feels Like For a Girl
The third and last official single was directed by Guy Ritchie and banned on MTV for violence. Not that banning on MTV meant anything by this time since they weren't really showing videos. But the song largely tanked, ending the singles release from Music.
The spoken word portion is by singer/actress Charlotte Gainsbourg from this scene in the film The Cement Garden (1993). As you know I thought she was pretty fantastic as the Bob Dylan-proxy's abandoned wife in I'm Not There's (2007). Other people went nuts for her recent turn in Antichrist.
This is not an official song from Music but is on some of the CDs depending on the country. It's from the soundtrack to The Next Best Thing (2000) which is why you get then Madonna BFF Rupert Everett himself -- Sean Penn introduced them when Penn had just started dating her -- on back-up vocals and dancing with Madonna toward the tail end. They were very tight and though Rupert claimed in a revealing and typically prickly interview (he can be such a handful) that they're friends again, most sources say they she did not react well at all -- in a permanent way -- to his book in which he claimed that she dropped gay friends due to Guy Ritchie's homophobia.
I've only ever read Rupert's first book Hello Darling Are You Working? Has anyone read the one that caused the rift? If you own Music are you about to put it in for a 10th anniversary spin? [tangent: I'll use it today for workout soundtrack. I've finally gotten back to the gym. But I can't be proud of it until it becomes an actual habit rather than a once a quarter "maybe this time" delusion.]
Speaking of the now... Rupert Everett will be back in cinema's next month opposite Bill Nighy and Emily Blunt in Wild Target. But wouldn't his brutal Brit wit be a perfect fit for the Sherlock Holmes franchise in some capacity? Ah well, something tells me Guy Ritchie won't be casting him any time soon. The untitled sequel starts shooting next month (?) with Noomi Rapace and Daniel Day-Lewis joining RDJ & Jude. The Guy Ritchie film will be opening for Christmas 2011. No word yet on when his ex-wife's movie will arrive.
Put the tunes in your headphones for an anniversary spin.
Labels: 10|25|50|75|100, Arianne Phillips, books, Charlotte Gainsbourg, costume design, Debi Mazar, Guy Ritchie, madonna, Rupert Everett, W.E.
Hayden said...
Thank you so much for this! I love a good Madonna post at the Film Experience.
Music is not one of my favorite Madonna albums but it's certainly an interesting time in her career (what time wasn't?). It's not as groundbreaking as Ray of Light before it or as ballsy as American Life after it, but she was SO accessible here. It's a worthy bridge between those beyond brilliant albums.
I file Music under "further evidence that nobody makes a pop album better than Madonna." And "don't think of yesterday and I don't look at the clock" is what I consider to be the beginning of her ingenious "tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock" motif.
I also think "Gone" is so underrated.
Don't Tell Me is a great song and has a great video, but this album sucks.
J.D. said...
I mostly agree with Hayden. I still don't love the album, and the title track is probably my least favorite of her '00s singles, but it's definitely interesting. Of course I view it all in terms of production: She's mostly dropped Orbit at this point, though he's got three really good songs (+ "American Pie") on it, in favor of Mirwais. It's basically a notable shift from ambient to techno, continued even more acoustically on American Life (and then what THAT didn't prove entirely commercially successful, she dropped him for Stuart Price, also a present force on AL, and went full-out on the EDM/house). [note: I'm a nerd.] So yeah, it's basically a smartly-tuned bridge between two ambitious masterpieces. But it always feels like parts of it are greater than the whole to me.
"Don't Tell Me" was the first Madonna track I ever loved, though, and I watched the video as much as I possibly could. I clearly liked hot cowboys when I was 7!?
Also: the Above & Beyond mix of "What It Feels Like for a Girl" is soooooooooooooo good. Her decision to use it in the video was ♥.
James T said...
Since this is a celebration and not a review, I'm not going to rain on your Parade :p
I, too, think Don't Tell Me is the strongest of the singles.
But, man, even if I loved the album, how can I celebrate? I feel so old! Ten years? Really?
And i actually thought that was Tom Ford in the pic of Everett.
Alex N said...
Music is one of those madonna albums that I have loved and loathed, but I think it has aged particularly well and in many ways I find a depth to it that I don't find on Ray of Light, perhaps because it was considered its sonic successor and therefore was a more comfortable flow to it. I Deserve It is one of my favorite Madonna tracks, and for a woman 17 years into her official recording career, making huge singles like Music and Don't Tell Me was further proof of just how incredible her career had been and would continue to be. In a strange way, Music was Madonna's last commercially successful reinvention as a forward-thinking artist. While Confessions had a distinct Madonna persona attached, it was retrospective by her standards.
Her promotion of Music shaped the formula for the next three Madonna albums (mini-tour club dates followed by a real tour, but the annoying press junket interviews in which she repeats herself over and over again hadn't quite kicked in yet).
I think the Orbit tracks are pointless on this album, most notably Amazing, which sounded like the gorgeous Beautiful Stranger, which controversially remained unreleased as a single in the US. Runaway Lover is a favorite of many Madonnaphiles, but personally I find it is one of her most dated and bland tracks. Mirwais was fresh and new at this point. Paradise(Not For me) is absolutely brilliant. Only Impressive Instant grates me at this point, but I think that is because so many fans began that troll talk about how she was ruining her career by not releasing it as a single because it was the best thing she had ever done. Please...That song would have tanked quicker than a ray of fudge. Music! Makes The People Come Together. And it did.
MUSIC - not one of my fave madge albums and wrong singles choices killed it dead,music was great but what about amazing totally single material my fave song is gone,i prefer ray of light and confessions for late madge.
NicksFlickPicks said...
Jeez, I didn't realize people were so down on Music. I understand that not every song works, but I love it. But then, take out the wonderful title song and I've always found Ray of Light to be a pretentious iceberg, which I haven't even been tempted to pop in for, I don't know, 10 years.
Nick, i didn't either. Track for track I think MUSIC is one of her most consistently charming efforts. I'm not big on AMAZING which to me is just a lame retread of Beautiful Stranger but i love the rest of the album. and GONE is such a great record closer.
Well I will go to the ends of the earth defending her brilliant folk (yes, folk, and yes, brilliant) album, American Life, which even serious fans like to malign.
/3rtfu11 said...
Damn it I missed your article on Erotica. Pound for pound my absolute favorite Madonna album. What can I say about Music? I love Mirwais because he's responsible for my second all favorite MAD album: American Life.
LOVE Music. Perhaps there's a bit of nostalgia attached to it since it was the first Madonna album I ever purchased (i did steal my mother's copy of The Immaculate Collection YEARS earlier).
I actually think it's a very good album. Very consistent and has aged particularly well (try saying that about more than a few other pop albums from 2000). Even if it's not the most lyrically demanding album of hers, it's so sonically immaculate and filled with tonnes of amazing, cherished moments.
The final 1 minute and 20 seconds of "Don't Tell Me" were, perhaps, the greatest 1 minute and 20 seconds in music for the decade.
How dreamy is Guy in that pic?!
Jingles said...
I can't say that I have heard Madona a lot, but I can say that she seems to be really more popular in the western countries.
Iskandar said...
I was 15 when Music came out. Remembered i skipped school just to watch the premiere of the Music videos.She was 4 or 5 months pregnant in the video.
I live in Malaysia where MTV for the south east asia region accidentally "premiered" the video 3 or 4 days earlier than the actual official date. haha. How I loved it. to be one of the earlier group of fans to watch the video. Loveeeee it.
Gosh..thanks nat.always loves a Madonna related post.
RingaGongLi said...
That was Charlotte Gainsbourg's voice in 'What It Feels Like For A Girl'?!?!
Mind --> blown.
I still love that video though.
And yes, that photo of Guy is all kinds of lusty.
Rupert Everett has already played Sherlock Holmes in a couple of BBC/Masterpiece Theatre movies. I think at least one of them is on Netflix.
Sawyer said...
Music is the Madonna album I've probably listened to the least. For me, it was dwarfed by Ray of Light. Ray of Light was so perfect that I was still attached to it by the time 2000 came around, and Music was the victim of my ridiculously-high expectations for more Ray of Light. I should have given it more consideration, and thanks to this post I will.
Another reason that Music, for me at least, was consumed by the Ray of Light juggernaut was the Drowned World tour, which combined the two efforts and I was so looking forward to her live performances of Ray of Light songs that I didn't care about Impressive Instant, Don't Tell Me, or even Music (although it totally rocked and was a great final song choice).
Well, I'm one of those who loves 'Music' and rarely listens to 'Ray of light'. I think the Orbit tracks on 'Music' are the weakest and never listen to them (except 'Amazing', which I have a soft spot for), but I love every other track. Those comments about fans loving 'Runaway lover' genuinely surprised me, but then again I guess I was never in much contact with other fans and tastes vary so much.
I also agree that 'Music' has aged very well. And I don't see it as a follow-up to 'Ray of light' at all, it's markedly different. I see it as a new brave step forward when she didn't have any need to, considering the success of 'Ray of light'.
'Ray of light' was an important album in its time, in terms of re-invention and coming back to the charts and younger people, but it sounds very bland to me, save for some of the singles maybe.
'American life' on the other hand doesn't seem to be neither a follow-up, neither a successful re-invention.
well i'm with a few others here who think AMERICAN LIFE is one of her best records. at the very least it's her most misunderstood with zero competition.
i'm still flabbergasted at the response to the record. such a good one. i assume this is because Madonna botched the launch with her hedging on the music video (damn that Bush administration related widespread paranoia) and the choice of the first single. but it's a great record.
Tom W said...
American Life is second only to the Like a Prayer album in my book (and alot of that #1 ranking for Like a Prayer is the timing of its release...right after my senior year). I really loved Nothing Fails and thought that should have been a hit...also big Intervention Fan.
Music is pretty good..I also love Gone and loved the title track until she did it on every tour since (ok... the disco inferno version was great).
Paul Outlaw said...
Madonna playing acoustic guitar on talk shows, "Don't Tell Me" and "What It Feels Like for a Girl" are all highlights of the Music period. It's my favorite of her new millennium albums, but I'm just not all that excited about 21st Century Madonna music:
01) Erotica (1992)
02) Ray of Light (1998)
03) Like a Prayer (1989)
04) Bedtime Stories (1994)
05) True Blue (1986)
06) Madonna (1983)
07) I'm Breathless (1990)
08) Like a Virgin (1984)
09) Music (2000)
10) Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005)
11) Hard Candy (2008)
12) American Life (2003)
(Actually, I'm shocked at my own ranking today...)
Oooh, a list? Let me!
1. Erotica
2. Like a Prayer
3. Ray of Light
4. American Life
5. Confessions
6. Madonna
7. Like a Virgin
9. I'm Breathless
10. Bedtime Stories
12. Hard Candy
Album-wise,
1) Like a Prayer
2) Ray of Light
3) True Blue
4) Like a Virgin
5) Erotica
6) Music
7) I'm Breathless
8) Hard Candy
9) Madonna
10) Confessions on a Dance Floor
11) Bedtime Stories
12) American Life
if we must (haha)
the crowning glories:
great records:
4. Confessions...
nostalgia factories:
lesser lights with great shining moments (this order changes all the time. don't take too seriously):
September. It's a Wrap
Streep and Roberts for "August: Osage County"
Modern Maestros: David Fincher
Unsung Heroes - The Students of "Election"
First and Last, Gymnasium
Donna Murphy is "Mother Gothel"
The Links Are Alive...
"Hit Me" Schedule and Other Programming Notes
Actors on Actors: "The Susan Hayward of it All"
"Angels in America" Celebrates 20 Years
Top Ten: NC-17 Box Office Champs
Sally Menke (RIP). Tarantino Films Will Never Be T...
Uruguay Must Choose: "Leo's Room" or "The Useful L...
Curio: Steve Dressler's Film Poster Prints
Disastrous Javier and Disaster Epic Compete For Fo...
Yes, No, Maybe So: "True Grit"
Gloria Stuart (1910-2010)
How I Feel / How I Wish I Felt
here we go again...*
NYFF: "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives"
Flashback: Olivia & Travolta
Take Three: Amanda Plummer
Justin Timberlake Wrecked My Piano. And Other Drea...
Yes, No, Maybe So: The King's Speech
Links: Social Networks, Hulk Bulges and Zombie Pornos
Foreign Film Race: Coco Martin's Winning Moves, Fr...
7 Word Review: The Social Network
First and Last, "Worth Repeating"
Crying with Juli M. Laughing with Jamie Lee. Casti...
Modern Maestros: Aleksandr Sokurov
Unsung Heroes: The Editing of 25th Hour
"God of Carnage" The Movie
First and Last, Ritual
Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Se7en (1995)
Familiar Faces: The Woody Allen Hierarchy.
We all go a little link sometimes
Haute Couture Cateure
MM@M: "The Beautiful Girls"
Never Let (This Piece of) Me Go
Curio: Show Your Team Zizzou Colors
NYFF: "Poetry"
The Master Is Dead! Long Live The Master
Actress Italian-Style.
Flashback: Maggie Cheung and... Sigourney Weaver?
The Foreign Film Oscar Race: So Much (Internationa...
TIFF: The People Speak.
Day of Rest
First and Last, 4.27
Easy A Review
Links: Cher, Cheyenne, Celestia, Carey and CQueen
Yes No Maybe So: The Fighter
Nathaniel's New York Film Festival: Coming Soon
First and Last, From the Terrible Movie Files
Modern Maestros: Alfonso Cuarón
TIFF Capsules: Passion Play, Black Swan, 127 Hours...
Unsung Heroes: The Fight Choreography of Rob Roy
And I Know That My Comments Will Go On...
First and Last, Excellent View
Hit Me With Your Best Shot. Pandora's Box (1929)
10th Anniversary: Almost Famous
Emma Stone Gets an Easy A
Lev @ TIFF: "What's Wrong With Virginia", "Never L...
Imaginary Actress Wars
First and Last, Comic
TIFF Capsules: Let Me In, Tamara Drewe, The Illusi...
Curio: Iain Hector's Animal Instincts
I Link to Link
First and Last - "River Junction"
TIFF: A Glimpse of Rabbit Hole Enthusiasm To Come?
Dame Judi is Rich
MM@M: Peyton Place (From Big Screen to Small)
Yes, No, Maybe So: Mildred Pierce (2011)
First and Last, Hugs
Take Three: Steve Buscemi
Miscellania: Claude Chabrol (RIP), Venice (Post-Mo...
TIFF (False) Day One and "The Trip"
actual e-mail received last night.
Actress & Supporting Actress. So Many Oscar Questions
Venice Awards: Somewhere, Black Swan, Barney's Ver...
Oscar Predictions Revised: Actor and Supporting Actor
Modern Maestros: Zhang Yimou
Venice Red Carpet: The Town, Potiche, Meek's Cutoff
Oscar Predictions Revised: Picture, Director, Anim...
First and Last, It's Not Easy Being Green
Links: Glenn Shadix (RIP). Plus Jones, Cronenberg,...
TV vs. Movies
Judy Garland's Clark Gable Fixation
Unsung Heroes: The Special Effects of Eternal Suns...
Old Fashioned Marquee
Foreign Film Oscar Submissions: Alexander Skarsgår...
Foreign Film Oscar Submissions: Juvenile Delinquen...
Pandora's Link and JGL's Bad Romance
Love... (The Poster)
Best Pictures From the Outside In


text:
Loving Vincent – Trailer
October 12, 2017 Published by Shari K. Green
Directed by: Dorota Kobiela
Genre: Animation, Mystery, Art House, Biopic Dorota Kobiela
Length: 94 min.
Rating: Rated PG-13 for mature thematic elements, some violence, sexual material and smoking.
Technique Oil-painting animation or feature
LOVING VINCENT is the world's first fully oil painted feature film. Bringing the paintings of Vincent van Gogh to life to tell his remarkable story. Every one of the 65,000 frames of the film is an oil-painting, hand-painted by 125 professional oil-painters who travelled from all across the world to the Loving Vincent studios in Poland and Greece to be a part of the production.
France, Summer 1891… After hearing that Vincent van Gogh killed himself, Armand Roulin (Douglas Booth), is given a letter from Vincent by his father, Postman Joseph Roulin (Chris O'Dowd), to hand-deliver to the Theo van Gogh, Vincent's brother. In Paris, there is no trace of brother Theo. Armand's search leads him to the paint supplier, Pere Tanguy (John Sessions), who tells him that Theo died shortly after Vincent, apparently destroyed by the death of his older brother. Pere Tanguy recounts how Theo helped Vincent on his incredible transformation from a down-and-out at age 28 to the new artistic sensation of Paris at the time of his death 10 years later. After hearing this story Armand believes he may have misjudged his father's friend, and really wants to know why Vincent chose the moment of impending success to take his life: Pere Tanguy has no answer to this.
Armand then journeys on to Vincent's final destination, the quiet village of Auvers-sur-Oise to meet Doctor Paul Gachet (Jerome Flynn), Vincent's doctor in his final weeks. He stays at the Ravoux Inn, where Vincent boarded for the last 10 weeks of his life, and where on July 29, 1890 he died of a bullet wound to his abdomen. Armand meets the Inn- keeper's daughter, Adeline Ravoux (Eleanor Tomlinson) and also conducts interviews with Doctor Gachet's housekeeper, Louise Chevalier (Helen McCrory), the Doctor's daughter, Marguerite Gachet (Oscar nominee – Saoirse Ronan). Down by the river where Vincent often spent his days, he meets the Boatman (Aidan Turner).
Armand gets the sense that much is being hidden from him by the villagers and is determined to root out the truth. A run in with the local police, a chance encounter with a second Doctor, and finally his much anticipated meeting with the mercurial Doctor Gachet, lead to unexpected and heart- rending revelations. Armand then finally understands and appreciates the passionate and surprising life of Vincent van Gogh.
In Theaters October 13th
Loving Vincent opens in Phoenix at Harkin's Camelview Fashion Square and Tucson at Loft Cinema on Friday
Website: LovingVincent.com
Facebook: Facebook.com/lovingvincentmovie
Twitter: Twitter.com/LovingVincent
Instagram: Instagram.com/lovingvincentmovie
Official Hashtag: #LovingVincent
Category: Trailers
Tags: bio-pic, crime, Mystery


text:
Oil Tanker Collides with Cargo Ship, 32 People Missing
In a deadly incident, an oil tanker collided with a cargo ship in China leaving 32 people missing in the sea.
The oil tanker 'Sanchi' collided with a cargo ship, 'CF Crystal', in the east coast of China. The tanker loaded with 1,36,000 tonnes of oil worth $60 million, caught fire after the collision.
It was en route to Daesan in South Korea from Kharg Island in Iran. The cargo vessel was carrying 64,000 tonnes of grain from US to Guangdong province in the southern China.
Thirty two people missing
The collision resulted in the missing of thirty two people while another twenty people were rescued alive.
The missing crew members were 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis from the Panama-registered vessel.
Tanker on fire
The oil tanker caught fire and huge smoke plumes were reported at the ship deck. The tanker was leaking oil in the sea and the officials are taking measures to control the situation.
Poor weather condition in the vicinity, and smoke from the tanker hampered rescue operation.
Eight Chinese ships are deployed for the search-and-rescue mission. South Korea has also sent a coast guard ship and a helicopter to support the relief operations.
BBC Credit Link
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[VIDEO] Fire on Windlass and Anchor Lost to Sea
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[Watch] Shark Attack! Terrified Tourists Flee Beach
 A VIDEO has captured a 10-foot shark roaming the waters of a popular Spanish beach in Mallorca, causing tourists to flee the sea to...


text:
Victoria A. Miller, PhD
millerv@email.chop.edu
Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
Director of Research, Division of Adolescent Medicine, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Associate Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy
Case Western Reserve University, PhD, Clinical Child Psychology
Brown University, BA, Psychology and Biomedical Ethics
Victoria A. Miller, PhD, is a clinical child psychologist and Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy. She is also Director of Research for the Division of Adolescent Medicine at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).
Dr. Miller has expertise in psychosocial aspects of chronic illness, child and family decision making, and pediatric bioethics. Methodologically, she has significant experience with measure development, observational methods, and qualitative design and analysis. Dr. Miller's overall research goal is to conduct developmentally-focused research that will inform questions related to child and family decision making about health-related issues. One area of her research focuses on independent self-management of chronic illness, with an emphasis on the development of decision making autonomy and competence. This line of research has underscored that the parent-child relationship is an important context in which decision making independence and competence develop. One product of this work is the Decision Making Involvement Scale, to measure how parents and children interact around decisions that need to be made. Dr. Miller's second area of research focuses on informed consent and assent in pediatric medical settings. Relevant projects have included an instrument development study to measure perceptions of voluntariness in parents making decisions for their seriously ill children, an analysis of informed consent discussions in the context of phase I pediatric cancer trials, and an investigation into the benefits of children's involvement in decisions about medical research participation. Dr. Miller has had funding from NIH as principal investigator on R01, R21, and K23 awards and is a co-investigator on additional NIH-funded grants. She was the 2014 recipient of the Penn Medicine Marjorie A. Bowman New Investigator Research Award.
Dr. Miller has served as an Associate Editor for AJOB Empirical Bioethics and was a guest editor for a special issue in 2013 titled, "Contributions of Psychological Science to Empirical Bioethics." She is a current member of the Editorial Boards for AJOB Empirical Bioethics and Journal of Pediatric Psychology. She was founding co-chair of the Bioethics Special Interest Group of the Society of Pediatric Psychology. In her clinical work at CHOP, she sees children with cystic fibrosis and their families for assessment and outpatient therapy.
 Selected Publications
2017 Journal of empirical research on human research ethics : JERHRE Miller VA, Werner-Lin A, Walser SA, Biswas S, Bernhardt BA
An Observational Study of Children's Involvement in Informed Consent for Exome Sequencing Research.
2016 Children's health care : journal of the Association for the Care of Children's Health Friedrich E, Jawad AF, Miller VA
Correlates of Problem Resolution during Parent-Child Discussions about Chronic Illness Management.
2017 The Diabetes educator Agarwal S, Raymond JK, Schutta MH, Cardillo S, Miller VA, Long JA
An Adult Health Care-Based Pediatric to Adult Transition Program for Emerging Adults With Type 1 Diabetes.
2016 Families, systems & health : the journal of collaborative family healthcare Landers SE, Friedrich EA, Jawad AF, Miller VA
Examining the interaction of parental involvement and parenting style in predicting adherence in youth with type 1 diabetes.


Today's visit to the orthopedic specialist yielded terrific news: The x-ray of my shoulder revealed that the shoulder fractures have healed! The doctor said I no longer need the sling or the swath, and I am to begin physical therapy right away.
My left arm has very little strength or range of motion after having been basically immobilized for six weeks. How much range of motion I recover depends partly on nature, he said, and partly on my determination. The doctor noted that I showed considerable motivation, and while he encouraged me to keep pushing the stretching and range of motion, he also warned me not to overdo it right away. He said I could look forward to four to six weeks of rehabilitation by the physical therapist and probably a year of continued therapy on an at-home program. I will return to the doctor for another checkup in three weeks.
In the meantime, I am allowed to return to running! I can hardly wait! No driving yet, and no weight training involving the left shoulder…but soon! And I can return to sleeping in a bed, instead of a recliner.
I am so grateful to God for this healing! The doctor had said that it usually takes six to eight weeks for shoulder fractures to heal, and I am just barely at six weeks–another indication that the OsteoDiet of 80% alkaline foods plus appropriate supplements works for bone healing. I am due for my one-year Dexascan (bone scan) in November, so in four months we'll see if the OsteoDiet has made a difference in the bone density of my hip and vertebrae.
I am greatly encouraged by today's events. I'll keep you posted as further developments occur!
1 Comment on Progress Report – Shoulder Fracture Healed!


text:
Gruffudd Hiraethog (died 1564) was a 16th century Welsh language poet, born in Llangollen, north-east Wales.

Gruffudd was one of the foremost poets of the sixteenth century to use the cywydd metre. He was a prolific author and gifted scholar. Though he was member of the medieval guild of poets and a notable upholder of that tradition, he was also closely associated with William Salesbury, Wales' leading Renaissance scholar. He is buried in the vault of the Church of St Collen in Llangollen.

One of the first Welsh books to be published was Gruffudd's collection of proverbs in 1547, Oll synnwyr pen Kembero ygyd ("The sense of a Welshman's mind collected together").

References

1564 deaths
Welsh-language poets
16th-century Welsh writers
16th-century male writers
People from Llangollen
Year of birth unknown


text:
Ceratotrocha franzi är en hjuldjursart som beskrevs av Donner 1949. Ceratotrocha franzi ingår i släktet Ceratotrocha och familjen Philodinidae. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Bdelloider
franzi


A data bank to battle cancer | Medicinezine.com - Reviews and articles in Wellness & Lifestyle, Child & Teen Health, Women's Health, Men's Health, Mental Health, Natural Medicine, Drugs and Medication, Sexual Health.
HMS faculty members Barrett Rollins (left) and Janina Longtine are collaborating on a massive, long-term effort to collect and analyze tumor tissue from 10,000 cancer patients each year. Using automated gene-analysis technology, they'll scan each tumor for nearly 500 known mutations on 41 genes.
Personalized cancer treatment has become a holy grail of researchers, physicians, and patients. By reading the genes of individual tumors, drugs can sometimes be used against specific cells, replacing the shotgun blasts of traditional chemotherapy and radiation with treatments that are more targeted with fewer side effects.
In the past several years, researchers have taken steps toward that goal, identifying specific mutations in breast, skin, blood, and other cancers and developing treatments targeting those specific cell types. Those treatments remain limited, however, leaving the majority of cancer patients still facing lengthy, draining chemotherapy and radiation regimens.
Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute are seeking to improve that. The Harvard-affiliated hospitals are collaborating on a massive, long-term effort to collect and analyze tumor tissue from 10,000 cancer patients each year. Using automated gene-analysis technology, they'll scan each tumor for nearly 500 known mutations on 41 genes.
Barrett Rollins, Dana-Farber's chief scientific officer and Linde Family Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS), said the project straddles the research and clinical worlds. It will enable researchers to understand better how different tumors behave, and it will provide an opportunity to test new therapies, even as it provides information to physicians.
Though the program is just getting off the ground, Janina Longtine, associate professor of pathology at HMS, director of molecular diagnostics at the Brigham, and head of the lab conducting the analysis, said that researchers already have issued about 100 reports on tumor types that might be useful to physicians in designing cancer patients' care.
Though the study, called Profile, will initially examine tumor genes for known mutations, it also will allow more rapid testing of new treatments by providing a database of patients, their cancers' genetic profiles, and records of what treatments have worked or not over time. If a drug company comes up with a new treatment for breast cancer, for example, rather than spending a year recruiting patients, the database could include a group of patients whose disease has failed first-line treatment, and who might be good candidates for the drug trial. Just by speeding up the process of performing clinical trials, the system aims to cut the time to market for promising treatments, Rollins said.
As genetic-sequencing technology advances and becomes cheaper, researchers hope to switch from examining tumors for known mutations to scanning tumors' entire genetic codes, which would allow researchers to look for new mutations and currently unknown weaknesses that could be targeted by future treatments.
The Profile study, one of the largest of its kind in the nation, is part of a shifting cancer landscape. Not long ago, cancers were known mainly by the type of tissue in which they originated. As medical understanding of cancer biology and genetics advanced, scientists understood that cancer cells were driven not just by the tissues from which they arose, but by the mutations that, for example, caused skin cells to transform into melanoma.
What had long been thought to be one type of cancer may turn out to have five, 10, or 20 subtypes, Rollins said. In addition, cancers arising in different organs have been shown to have mutations in the same genes, and may respond to similar treatments. A mutation in the B-Raf gene, which creates a protein involved in cell growth, has been found in 10 or 12 cancers.
While this newfound understanding greatly complicates the view of cancer, it also provides multiple avenues through which to attack the disease.
Rollins said this project is by far the most complicated he has worked on and involves 40 people. In addition to the scientific aspects, there were administrative tasks related to coordinating two major institutions (which will be joined by a third, Harvard-affiliated Children's Hospital, in the coming months). The goal is to enroll as many cancer patients at the participating hospitals as possible, something that required study intake procedures to be incorporated into normal hospital intake procedures, while still protecting confidentiality.


text:
Bronson Healthcare Will Require Vaccinations
Tim Collins Published: September 8, 2021
Bronson Healthcare Google Street View
Bronson Healthcare is the latest Michigan employer to require vaccinations as a condition of employment. In a release from President & CEO Bill Mains and Chief of Staff Dr. Sridhar Chalasani, the new policy was announced stating that Bronson is implementing an immunization policy "to ensure its workforce along with contracted personnel, students, volunteers, vendors and others who conduct business at Bronson, are vaccinated and fully protected against COVID-19 by December 1, 2021."
The rationale for instituting the new health and safety standard is explained was explained in a message which was distributed throughout the Bronson Healthcare system on September 8, 2021.
Here is that message:
"As the region's leading healthcare provider, it is our responsibility to safely care for our patients, our staff, and our communities during this pandemic. Yet, we continue to be challenged by the unrelenting spread of COVID-19 infection across the nation and across our region.
We know that vaccination provides the best protection against COVID-19 and is the first line of defense in preventing the spread of this devastating virus in the community and in our workplace. The percentage of Bronson employees who are fully vaccinated is currently over 76%. This is greatly appreciated, but it is not high enough to achieve herd immunity and the level of protection necessary to halt this extremely contagious virus.
After much input, analysis, and thoughtful deliberation about how best to increase Bronson's level of safety against COVID-19 and contribute to the greater good, we will be implementing a COVID-19 immunization requirement. This decision was made in collaboration with, and unanimously endorsed by, our System Medical Executive Committee and Infection Prevention department and will apply to all Bronson employees, medical staff providers, contracted personnel, students, volunteers, vendors, and others who come into a Bronson facility and interact with staff or patients. It does not apply to patients and visitors. This will be a minimum work requirement similar to the health system's annual flu shot requirement. The deadline date to be vaccinated and fully protected (2nd dose + 2 weeks) will be December 1, 2021.
We firmly believe this is the right thing to do. People look to those of us in healthcare to be role models, to know the science, and to bust the myths about the vaccine so that they feel confident about getting vaccinated and confident in their safety when they come to Bronson for care.
We have three COVID-19 vaccines in use that protect people against moderate to severe infection and death. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued full approval of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for individuals 16 and older reaffirming that the mRNA vaccine is highly safe and effective. It is expected similar FDA approvals will follow for the vaccines that rolled out later in the year.
Together, we must unite around vaccination to ensure we are each doing all we can to keep ourselves and the people around us healthy and safe, and to fulfill our mission to advance the health of our communities."
Other medical groups have already adopted similar policies, including Spectrum Health, Metro Health – the University of Michigan Health, Trinity Health, which owns Mercy Health, and Ascension, which runs Borgess Healthcare.
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Attendees at the NCAA games on March 16 & 18, at the Key Center will have plenty of taxicabs in waiting if Joel Giambra has his way.
With state lawmakers still trying to find agreement on legislation to expand ride-sharing beyond New York City, Buffalo's Bill Yuhnke, president of Liberty Cab, is hoping to have an agreement with the city in place to have a full stable of taxis available outside of Key Bank Center on March 16 and 18 for first and second-round action in the Men's NCAA College Basketball Tournament.
Yuhnke, who has been a leader in pushing for a level-playing field in competition with the giant ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft, and his marketing consultant, Joel Giambra, hope to have a staging area in place for as many as 100 taxis to handle the expected big crowds for the tournament games.
According to Giambra and Yuhnke, the discussions were very positive, and the hope now is to get final approval shortly to have an area outside of the Key Bank Center devoted entirely as space for taxis, which could then service visitors to and from the arena for the basketball games. Lack of space outside the arena for taxis has been a long-running complaint from Yuhnke, and others who say the cabbies are being blamed for not providing service when police have not allowed the cabs to provide service by giving them stands from which to operate.
Lyft and Uber are continuing to push to expand their ride-sharing services beyond New York City but are being fought tooth and nail by the taxi industry across the state, which fears taxis will be heavily damaged by the ride-sharing companies as they have been in New York City, where the industry has experienced a severe drop in rides.
Yuhnke, who says Liberty has 416 cabs and many more drivers who make some kind of living with the company, says he's not afraid of competition from Uber and Lyft, but he wants a level playing field, and he also wants customers to be safe, adding that without background and fingerprinting checks, there's no way of knowing who is driving the Uber or Lyft cars.
If Buffalo's taxis have a staging area during the tournament games next month, it may demonstrate that they are fully capable of competing with the ride-sharing companies if they have the same opportunity to pick up customers.
Any final state legislation may leave it up to individual cities to determine what regulations will govern the ride-sharing giants, and whether it will be the same as those that govern the operation of the taxi companies.
How backward and 3rd world are we?