text:
She had some horses.
She had horses who called themselves, "horse."
She had horses who called themselves, "spirit," and kept
their voices secret and to themselves.
She had horses who had no names.
She had horses who had books of names . . . .
She had some horses she loved.
She had some horses she hated.
These were the same horses.
-- Joy Harjo, "She Had Some Horses"
(Photos by Moose: Wild ponies on St. David's Head, Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, Wales, 7/30/10; carousel on Cardiff Bay, 7/28/10)
Labels: eye candy, travel
In the Ruins
Pembroke Castle, 7/29/10
Bishop's Palace, St. David's, Wales, 7/29/10
(Photo Credits: Moose, on her Canon G9)
Paddington Station, London, 7/28/10
(Photo Credit: Moose, on her Canon G9)
The great queer family adventure of summer 2010 is underway, my pretties! The moms and my brother Geoffrey have safely arrived in Cardiff after a smooth if cramped flight to London and a train ride that neither of the moms remembers. An extremely embarrassing yet strangely wonderful photo of the moms doing synchronized, slack-jawed napping on the train is up on Facebook. It won't be posted here, darlings. Sorry -- You get the artsy-fartsy stuff. Tired as she was, Moose thought Paddington Station looked beautiful in the early morning light and jumped off the train to snap this shot just moments before departure.
Oh, and for those of you who have been worried sick about Moose's recent battles with the fraud department of her bank, we are pleased to report she successfully withdrew funds from an ATM at Heathrow this morning. Apparently, the dudez behind the sinister patriarchal plot to deny her access to her hard-earned money have realized she may not be breeder material after all. Wooooeee! -- That was a close one, wasn't it?
Anyway, off to see the city, if we can convince Goose to stay vertical for awhile. Peace out, darlings, and we hope it's pretty in your neck of the woods. It's a postcard-perfect 66 degrees in Cardiff today.
Labels: eye candy, my moms, travel
In Which an Angry Moose Sprains Her Tongue Trying Not to Go Vulgar and Sarcastic on the Overly Vigilant Anti-Fraud Department of Her Bank
Last week in this space we very nearly talked about sex, which is pretty remarkable when you consider that most days this is a queer blog that seems as if it might be edited by Jane Austen. Today we broach an even trickier, more intimate subject: money. Go away if that makes you uncomfortable, darlings. Click over to the discussion of a prominent academic's sexy memoir that's been going on between and among Tenured Radical (part I, part III), Historiann (part II), and Comrade PhysioProf (part I and only) if that's where your head is at on this steamy summer morning. My typist has something she wants to get off her chest, and, by golly, she's going to unload it on my poor, unsuspecting readers. Welcome to the rant zone, my pretties. You have been warned.
For very nearly a quarter of a century, the moms have been loyal customers of a certain locally owned bank that shares a name with a town in Maryland and a former star of Saturday Night Live. About eighteen months ago, in the midst of the mortgage meltdown, it was announced that this "local banking icon" was being acquired by a Virginia-based bank holding company whose slogan has probably been annoying you for years: "What's in your wallet?"
Moose finally has an answer to that question: A check card I am afraid to use lest I arouse the suspicions of your overly zealous anti-fraud system. Uh-oh. Let me explain.
A few weeks ago, Moose started making reservations and other plans for the moms' upcoming trip to the UK. When she attempted to purchase theater (pardon me, theatre) tickets (because that is what tasteful queers do when they go to London, darlings), the transaction was declined. She figured the transaction looked fishy because she usually uses her check card for far less glamorous things than tickets for the hottest play in London. She immediately called the bank, confirmed that was the problem, and had a long, friendly conversation explaining that she was making plans for a trip she would be taking in a month, so please don't be alarmed by international transactions. Yes, yes, she was told, but be sure to call us back right before you go to make sure we enter the information into the system again so that you won't have any problems using the card while you are there. Sure thing, Moose replied, thanks so much for your help. My pleasure, ma'am. Have a nice day.
The very next day, Moose tried to use the card again to order some new clothes for the trip. She was feeling all virtuous for planning ahead rather than realizing the day before departure that she had absolutely nothing suitable for hiking, conferencing, and London theater-hopping. To her considerable consternation, she got an e-mail the next day from the merchant (a merchant she and Goose matronize so regularly that they argue about who should be able to order this shirt or these pants in that color) saying that the transaction had been declined. She called the bank again and was again told the transaction had been flagged as suspicious by the bank's anti-fraud system. "But I don't understand," a frustrated Moose said. "I went through this yesterday and thought we had everything worked out." "I'm sorry, ma'am, but you'll need to speak to the people who investigate suspicious activity. That is done by a third party, not the bank. You need to call them and verify these transactions." "But, but, I, but, yesterday -- " spluttered a frustrated and puzzled Moose.
It was no use arguing with the brainless automaton who could do nothing but read from the company script the highly trained customer service representative who did her perky best to assist the increasingly indignant Moose. She dutifully dialed the number she was given and spoke to a tele-dork who probably hates women and thinks theatre is for wusses a hard-working crime-prevention specialist whose only interest was protecting Moose's hard-earned money. They went through the whole rigmarole of verifying the transactions, and she made sure his office had all of her phone numbers because a piece of the story we left out in the interest of concision had to do with the fraud people allegedly having tried to reach her and for some strange reason having only the number of an office she rarely uses. She also tried to get an explanation for why, after what she had gone through the day before, her card had been flagged again. "You'll have to ask the bank, ma'am. We've got nothing to do with that."
Here are two things you need to understand: 1. Moose loves her check card. She loves the convenience of plastic and the simplicity of having charges immediately debited to her account. She doesn't care about racking up points or miles and doesn't like the idea of being slammed with a big bill at the end of the month. She is that rare creature, a pay-as-you-go liberal. Blame it on the German accountant who lives in her brain. 2. Moose is also an anxious traveler, which you probably already know if you hang out here regularly or know her in Real Life.
So, after two frustrating rounds with the bank and the fraud hacks experts, our poor Moose is dependent on her check card, anxious about her trip, and worried sick that she will not be able to used the card abroad. She calls the bank back to try to get an explanation for why the card was flagged again and to try to get some assurance that she will be able to access her money when she is thousands of miles from home. (Something else you may or may not need to know: At this point, Moose has no other cards on which she can get cash advances. I mean, for dog's sake, people, how many pin numbers is a middle-aged woman supposed to have to remember?) She goes round and round and round and round with the powerless but well-intentioned young woman who picks up her call and who, to her astonishment, cannot explain why this keeps happening. As calmly as she can, Moose asks to speak to a supervisor. (Goose, who usually handles customer service problems in our household, has trained her to do this.)
The stick-up-her-a$$ who in the blazes are you to be interrupting my day with questions about your damn money witch patience of Job and financial wisdom of Buffett supervisor makes the clever move of speaking to Moose as if she were an impertinent yet dim-witted 5-year-old and basically says that the bank's position is that any transaction, no matter how small or seemingly ordinary, could be fraudulent, whether it's for theater tickets in London or deodorant from the pharmacy around the corner. "So you're telling me I really can't count on using my card. In other words, I can't count on being able to access the money I have in your bank." (Full disclosure: As her frustration levels rose, she actually said things like, "the thousands of dollars I have in your bank," as if she were Leona Helmsley or something. Forgive her. She was trying really hard not to cuss, and if you know Moose at all you know what a herculean effort that required.)
She hung up the phone, a seriously unsatisfied and deeply anxious customer. She went out on Facebook and trashed the bank, started asking friends for recommendations on alternatives. She considered pulling her vast wealth out of the bank soon not to share a name with a town in Maryland and a former star of Saturday Night Live and putting it into the state employees' credit union after reading an article affirming that banks suck nowadays because they are ginormous corporate entities that view customers as nuisances while credit unions are small, not-for-profit, and member-owned.
And then of course, because it is summer and there are papers to be written and blogs to be redesigned, she did nothing. She went to the movies, a couple of times. She obsessed about birds that seemed to have taken up residence in the chimney. She got a haircut. And then yesterday, realizing she had neglected one small bit of trip planning, she tried to make reservations at a charming hotel in Wales. And the transaction, of course, was declined.
She called the bank. Initially she was told the charge was declined because the 3-digit security code that had been entered was incorrect. Moose didn't think that was true but kept the person on the phone while she reentered the information. Declined, again. Now she was told it was being flagged as suspicious. Further, some previous transactions had been flagged and she needed to verify those: movie tickets, the chimney service (which was called in to install a second damper to prevent future bird incursions), and, yes, even the haircut.
At this point, Moose is feeling like Offred in Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, convinced that she is being denied access to her money as part of a sinister totalitarian plot to turn her into a breeder for a brutal patriarchal regime. (Woo, yeah, good luck with THAT, fellas!) You might feel that way, too, kids, if you found yourself in the midst of a conversation that suddenly took this turn:
Moose: The hair salon? You're flagging a transaction at my hair salon? I've gotten my hair cut at the same place for twenty years!
Bank: Well, yes, ma'am, but the amount was substantially higher than usual.
Moose: Oh, for dog's sake, are you kidding? I bought product, not that it's any of your business, but I bought product! (Meanwhile, in Moose's head, which was on the brink of explosion, she is saying something like: Oh, dear bank, I do humbly apologize for being so vain as to require both conditioner and styling lotion to create the illusion of actually having any hair at all. I realize it is not fiscally prudent to expend my meager, furloughed resources on such trifles, and I will endeavor in the future to be less extravagant, but in the meantime, you deranged mother frackers, will you get your big corporate a$$ out of the way and let me spend my goldurned money!)
Goose overheard this conversation and can verify that it was as baffling and frustrating as Moose felt it was. She is sympathetic to The Handmaid's Tale view of the situation, as she is nothing if not a conspiracy theorist. She offers another view, though, which is that this bizarre episode of corporate Big Brother/Shaming Mother-ism is a small yet frightening example of what can happen when automated software systems take too much control of our lives and our ways of doing business. She may be right, but poor Moose, in the meantime, is in a dither, wondering if she should travel with cold hard cash or a stash of jewelry to sell along the way in case her card doesn't work.
She's ready, though, for her next conversation with the faceless, heartless, clueless corporate drones from the bank soon not to share a name with a town in Maryland and a former star of Saturday Night Live. Next time they ask her for the last four digits of her Social Security number and her mother's maiden name, she will dutifully spit out the number, but then she'll take a deep, cleansing, Betty White-channeling breath and calmly reply, "Blarfengar!"
Peace out, darlings, and have a pleasant weekend.
Posted by Roxie Smith Lindemann at 2:00 PM 13 comments:
Labels: cultural studies, money, my moms
The Wisdom of Margaret Soltan, on the Onlining of Higher Education:
It's now possible to see a future in which the only actual human activity on university campuses will be the buzz of sports: agents in negotiation with about-to-be-drop-outs; training sessions; games. Classrooms will be used for press interviews and police investigations.
Because, you know, even the online stuff is being farmed out to off-campus vendors.
That is all, darlings. There are painters in the house and a paper to be written in Roxie's World today. The summer of home maintenance continues, and the last precious moments of someone's leave are ticking away.
days theme sound bite Days of Our Lives sound bites
Click on that sound file and imagine if you can the sorrow of the Moose. Oh, and have a nice day.
Labels: excellence without money, higher ed
Links and Drinks
(Photo Credit: Moose, on her iPhone, with Lolo, [still] her favorite CameraBag trick, 7/15/10)
I know it's early in the day to be drinking, kids (and we certainly don't encourage wine before breakfast), but my typist has a lot to do today and has had this pic of a pleasant sauv blanc with a pretty summery label just sitting in her phone waiting for an excuse to be shared avec vous, so we thought we'd use it to set up a little midsummer reading list to keep you occupied while she works on the paper she'll be giving at the big Emily Dickinson shindig in Oxford in a couple of weeks. (Don't get confused, darlings. Moose hasn't gone and turned herself into a poetry geek. She'll be presenting a piece of her new stuff proving that every woman writer who ever mattered at all would have made one heck of a blogger. Dickinson fits into that odd paradigm rather nicely, as it happens. [See also this brief report on what she did at last summer's Willa Cather shindig.])
Oh, if you've wandered in here by way of Shakesville (which kindly included our critique of The Kids Are All Right in yesterday's Blogaround), welcome to Roxie's World! We are delighted to see you. We don't do movie reviews every day, but we try to do something fun and socially redeeming on a regular basis, so give us a click when you've got a moment to kill as you wander the Interwebz.
Anyhoo, here's a bunch of stuff we've been collecting on a range of subjects -- queer intimacies! higher ed! reading! -- likely to be of interest to our marvelously motley crew of readers. Read, ponder, discuss, and for dog's sake hydrate, my pretties. We've got another scorcher on tap for the eastern half of the US of A today.
First up for your consideration is a piece that follows nicely on our critique of the narrow, conservative terms in which queer families and intimacies are imagined in The Kids Are All Right. Queer legal eagle Nan Hunter points us toward a new study of gay male relationships that are "long-term, stable, and open." The study, led by Colleen Hoff and Sean Beougher of San Francisco State University, looked at 566 Bay area couples and found that nearly half had negotiated open relationships that allow for sex with outsiders. According to the San Francisco Chronicle report on the study, "47 percent reported open relationships. Forty-five percent were monogamous, and the remaining 8 percent disagreed about what they were." (Note to self: If you find yourself having dinner with some fellas in that 8 percent group, do not bring up the subject of dating!)
Next up are several pieces offering further depressing proof that the plan to destroy public higher education in the United States is right on track! California continues to lead the way. You might want to crack open a fruity little sauv blanc (or something stronger) before you read this report, again from the SF Chronicle, about plans to start offering "a bachelor's degree over the Internet comparable in quality to its prestigious campus program." Ah, yes -- distance learning: because we don't need no education; we just need degrees! As always, our blog boyfriend Chris Newfield has been all over this story with a series of posts on what the UC regents have been up to lately, but in this one he cites a study that demolishes the myth that online education saves money. Also, while you are torturing yourself with the grim outlook for higher ed, go read this update from the Department of Yes, Things Can Always Get Worse -- a Chronicle of Higher Ed report on how deeply screwed university systems in New York and Illinois are by the budget limbos created by legislatures in those states. It ain't pretty, kids (and that article is behind the sub wall -- sorry).
Don't worry, though -- Our neighbors to the north have decided to wreck their higher education system, too! Here is a piece by comparativist Linda Hutcheon on news this week that the University of Toronto plans to close its Center for Comparative Literature, founded more than forty years ago by Northrop Frye. It's being billed as a cost-cutting move, of course, but Hutcheon rightly reads it as an attack on interdisciplinarity.
For a little pick-me-up (and if you've been following those links you need one about now!), go read this heartwarming story from one of our Virginia pals about Keswick, a 2-year old yellow Labrador retriever who is the new service dog for Robbie Bingler, a staffer at UVA's Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities who is paralyzed below the shoulders. Robbie's previous dog Harpo, who had helped him with daily tasks for seven years and was a beloved presence around IATH, died of cancer in March. This is a great story about animals, humans, and love in the workplace.
Finally, even if you didn't just get a new iPad delivered to your doorstep, as someone in Roxie's World did this week, you'll want to take a look at this thoughtful commentary by Duke's Cathy Davidson on what she does not love about reading on devices like Kindle and the iPad. Not only did it make Moose feel a little less jealous about not being the person who received the sleek new gadget, it also sparked some important reflections on how print-based assumptions about reading are embedded in our tools for non-print reading. Davidson finds that limiting and frustrating, and Moose suspects she will too if she can get her hands on the new iPad for an extended test-read. Check out the piece and let us know what you think.
Ah, that feels better! Now we can close some of those tabs and get down to work. Happy reading, my pretties, on the gorgeous little gadget of your choice. Peace out.
Labels: animals and humans, books, Emily Dickinson, higher ed, queer stuff
Roxie's Watching: The Kids Are All Right
(Annette Bening and Julianne Moore in The Kids Are All Right. Photo Credit: Suzanne Tenner via)
First things first: Annette Bening plays good gay. Or plays gay good. Er, well. Wevs, kids. Suffice it to say we were convinced enough that we'd pick her for our softball team in a heartbeat. Julianne Moore does a fine job, too, by the way, despite her character's unfortunate foray into sex with a dude halfway through Lisa Cholodenko's vexing The Kids Are All Right, which finally opened yesterday in the DC area.
Before this goes any further, we want you to understand that we are not in principle opposed to lesbians having sex with dudes. Or to Sapphists using gay male porn to spice up the boudoir. Or double-headed vibrators. Or bickering and micromanagement within the context of intimate relationships. We are not wild about infidelity if the partners in a relationship have committed to being monogamous, but, hey, nobody's perfect. Also, we have never really gotten into composting, but we make no judgments about those who do. Finally, we disagree with our pal Jack Halberstam, who claims in an otherwise spot-on critique of The Kids Are All Right that Julianne Moore looks dowdy in the film. We think her look is a hippie-groovy southern California thing that's kinda gay, kinda motherly, and kinda the granola crumbs left over from a particular moment of mid-70s womyn's culture. In any case, all due respect, Jack, we do not believe the words "Julianne Moore" and "dowdy" belong in the same sentence. Oh, and unlike Halberstam, we've got no problem with Bening's and Moore's characters being referred to collectively by the film's titular "kids" as "the moms," because, well, that's the way we talk here in Roxie's World, too. It's a way of (affectionately, ironically) marking the otherness of parents and children or humans and animals as they negotiate intimacies-across-difference.
So, those aren't the things that bug us about this big, widely acclaimed flick about two lesbian moms and their two sperm-donor kids, played marvelously by Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson, coming of age and establishing contact with the sperm donor, Paul, played by Mark Ruffalo. No, what finally -- and deeply -- disappointed us about the film, despite the splendid performances and some pitch-perfect moments of dialogue, were what felt like multiple failures of imagination in its depictions of lesbian sexuality, long-term partnership, and queer family-building. In the end, to use a metaphor in keeping with the film's upscale SoCal look and value system, The Kids Are All Right opts to put new wine in an old narrative bottle, and the result is a vintage that looks good but leaves a nasty, corked aftertaste.
The complaint here isn't that queer family stories should offer up sanitized, positive images of homodomesticity -- you know, multi-orgasmic wonder dykes who perfectly understand and communicate with their children; cheerful, gender-queer kids who never suffer a moment of existential doubt; bio-dads who play a meaningful role in the children's lives without feeling a need to take over the family. Such stories would be limited both in their appeal and in their social or political value. Who needs a queer Cosby Show, after all?
Nonetheless, it is disheartening that "the most widely distributed lesbian-themed mainstream movie in history" depicts sexual intimacy between long-term female partners as mutually unsatisfying drudgery, shows lesbian moms to be neurotic, smothering, and insecure about their ability to parent (especially male children), and represents families as rigid, stifling entities that negotiate threat by expelling outsiders rather than re-imagining family in more flexible, capacious, and generous terms. Within the narrow terms of the film, Paul can only enter the story as a kind of Prince (or should that be Prick?) Charming But Dangerous. Without appearing to mean to (but that is part of Paul's sleepy-eyed shtick), he seduces the kids, Joni and Laser, with organic vegetables and a few easy words of wisdom about how to get out from under the maternal thumbs. He then seduces Moore's character, the insecure Jules, with -- well, what exactly? We think it had something to do with his understanding the word fecund, but that can't possibly be right, can it?
Bening's character, the uptight Nic, immediately recognizes Paul as a threat and ultimately banishes him from the family as an interloper, but not before she has been subjected to the humiliation of Jules' infidelity with him -- and not before the audience has been subjected to scenes that encourage the belief that real sex requires a penis and, hey, maybe femmes aren't really lesbians after all. In the film's last scene, Nic and Jules seem tentatively reconciled, fingers intertwined in the front seat of a car in an affirming gesture that recalls the closing shots of Thelma and Louise. "I don't think you guys should break up," Laser says from the backseat. "Why not?" one of the moms asks. "Because you're too old." These latter-day heroines avoid the cliff's edge, but they seem stuck in a landscape of phallic power not all that dissimilar from the one that drove Thelma and Louise to take the only escape route available to them. It's hard to say which female pair got the least happy ending.
It could well be that the quest to be "the most widely distributed lesbian-themed mainstream movie in history" was the undoing of the story The Kids Are All Right might otherwise have told. As the charming queer friend with whom Moose and Goose saw the film remarked, "I had the feeling this movie wasn't really targeted at me." Lisa Cholodenko, who also wrote and directed 1998's High Art, is certainly capable of more nuanced and queerer storytelling than we get here. Our feeling was that the story started out strong and funny, poking fun of the vicissitudes of partnership and parenthood and taking up tricky but worthwhile questions about what it means to be biologically related to a complete stranger. For us, though, the story ran off the rails when Jules slept with Paul and never really got back on track. In taking that turn, the film gratifies the straight male fantasy that what every lesbian needs is a good straight roll in the hay and presents lesbian relationships as cheap imitations of the worst heterosexual marriages: like them in being riven by conflict, frustration, and inequality, unlike them in lacking the almighty penis. There were obviously other narrative possibilities available, but Cholodenko seems to have been too firmly committed to proving that this "unconventional family," as Paul describes them in a toast, is depressingly like every other grim, dysfunctional, but inescapable family we have ever encountered in life or art. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em, the film seems to say -- Well, you could live without that particular model of family life actually, but it takes a bold leap of the imagination and will to make and sell stories about other ways of building families and intimacies that can be sustaining and satisfying rather than just grimly, painfully, corrosively endured.
Marriage is, as Jules says late in the game, "hard": "Two people, year after year. Sometimes you just stop seeing the other person." That's true, of course, in any long-term partnership, with or without children, in or out of sunny southern California. Still, long-term intimacies do have their pleasures -- even sexual ones, insist the ornery but discreet geezers of our acquaintance! -- and families can be strong without being insular and inflexible. It's unfortunate that Cholodenko's film, for all its strengths and all its box-office charm, doesn't have the guts to show some of those pleasures and possibilities. No, we have no right to burden artists with the demand for positive role models and happy endings, but surely we can see that the kids might do better than "all right" if we were prepared to help them first to imagine and then to build a better world.
Seriously, folks, let's skip the cliches about lesbian bed death and needy, overly protective (s)mothers. We've got a fine new wine here in the phenomenon of non-heterosexual family-making. Betcha anything it would taste better if we poured it into a beautiful new bottle. I'll drink to that, darlings, and I bet you would, too. Peace out.
Labels: film, gay marriage, lesbianism, love, queer stuff, stereotypes
Tell Us If You Felt It
That would be affirmative, WaPo. Oh, boy, you betcha. And how.
The little earthquake of 2010 that shook the Washington, DC area shortly after 5 o'clock this very a.m. was assuredly felt in Roxie's World. Both moms were startled into wakefulness by an eerie rumbling noise that shook the house for several seconds. WTF, Moose muttered, is that an earthquake? Goose of course was skeptical, because that is her nature, but she was inclined to agree with her sleepy yet perceptive partner when she realized she didn't hear the gears of an exceptionally large truck grinding its way through the neighborhood in the predawn hours, which was the only other possible explanation she could imagine for such a rattling and rolling of the usually steady world.
Here is the U.S. Geological Survey's poetically named "ShakeMap," which shows that the epicenter of the 3.6 magnitude quake was about 20 miles north and west of our ridiculously large backyard, in Montgomery County, MD:
As soon as the tremors subsided, Moose's first thought was, Hey, I should put something up on Facebook. She fell back asleep before that thought could be actualized, but when she awoke the first thing she did was to check Facebook to see if friends and neighbors had also felt a certain rumbling in the night. Sure enough, they had. Her news feed was full of comments, quips, and links to reports on the quake. It was a delightful way to get a personalized ShakeMap -- and to get insight into the sleep patterns of her friends by noting who slept through the quake and who was awakened by it. She quickly weighed in with a couple of quake-related status updates, the cleverest of which was, Is that an earthquake, or are you just happy to see me?
Note the pattern of information-seeking here, my friends. Moose didn't turn on the television or click on the WaPo website. She went to a social networking site, to get a sense of how the quake was experienced by friends and neighbors. Had the quake been more serious, that obviously would not have been the case, but this feels like a modest yet significant example of how new media tools have changed our patterns of information consumption and our ways of experiencing such events. They are personal and public, simultaneously and instantaneously. That is a big -- one might even say seismic -- shift in our way of being.
So tell us, darlings, did you feel the little earthquake? Let us know!
Labels: my moms, takoma park
Roxie's Watching: Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
Sorry to recycle an image we used so recently, but, hey, we like it, and, more to the point, we sent out a crack team of queer film critters (Moose, Goose, and Geoffrey) last night to see Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, the documentary directed by Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg. It's been out for about a month and has been widely reviewed (quite perceptively by Manohla Dargis in the Times). Still, we thought we'd weigh in, since residents of the national capital area had nothing better to do this weekend, being for some reason denied the privilege of seeing Annette Bening and Julianne Moore play gay in Lisa Cholodenko's much buzzed about new flick, The Kids Are All Right. (Sources in Chicago tell us the buzz is justified, that Bening is "to die for," and the film "pretty perfect." You heard it here first, darlings. The Kids opens in the DC area on Friday.)
Anyway: Rivers. The film is riveting and/but/if at times cringe-inducing. The camera follows Rivers for a year, starting with her seventy-fifth birthday in 2008. Stern is the daughter of a friend of Rivers, so the filmmakers have extraordinary access, though the comedian is hardly known for her high boundaries or reclusive tendencies, so one would be forgiven for imagining that the access wasn't that hard to get. Indeed, the heart of the story is Rivers' willingness to do whatever it takes to keep herself onstage or in front of the camera as the cruel ageism of Hollywood diminishes her star power. She will go anywhere, do anything, she tells us, in order to keep working -- in part to finance an opulent New York household but also to maintain a sense of being alive. She acknowledges that for her real life is what happens on stage, before an audience, in those terrifying/gratifying moments of performance. Everything else is just waiting or prepping for the next gig.
Some of the film's most fascinating moments, by the way, are those that show us how maniacally Rivers preps for those gigs, and by prep we don't just mean rehearsals or the regimens of hair, makeup, and cosmetic surgery that have made Rivers look so painfully plastic in recent years. She also gives us a sense of the strenuous intellectual discipline that has fueled her career, taking the audience on a guided tour of her study, which is a vast archive of jokes the writer has produced and accumulated over the decades, typed out on index cards and stored (alphabetically and by subject matter) in a wall of card drawers. Gazing at that wall, the researcher in Moose did a little happy dance in her theater seat, imagining the fun some lucky scholar will have some day poring over those materials to try to get a handle on the creative process and the cultural history so meticulously recorded on those thousands of cards.
The film does an admirable job of conveying the complexities of its subject without judging her, apologizing for her, or setting her up as an object of pity. It depicts Rivers' prodigious strengths and her obvious weaknesses as well as the deep loneliness and the bone-crushing weariness of life on the road. Rivers does most of the talking, though we get insightful comments from assistants, managers, and agents and from daughter Melissa, who is both generous and clear-eyed about her mother and her mother's business. Rivers rightfully boasts of her path-breaking accomplishments as a woman in comedy, but she also resists being seen as an icon because she realizes that such status relegates her to the dead space of the past. "I'm still breaking paths," Rivers insists at one point, and a hilarious recent clip of her simulation of anal sex on stage at a small Manhattan club proves that is the case. Indeed, even the historic clips of the comedian joking, for example, about childbirth or about abortion before it was legal throughout the country still sound pretty transgressive. Think about it: When was the last time you heard a really good and wholly unapologetic abortion joke on TV?
In one particularly telling moment, the audience is taken out onto the razor's edge where Rivers lives and breathes. On stage at a casino in Wisconsin, she tells an unbelievably tasteless joke that uses Helen Keller as a punchline. (Full disclosure: We laughed. And hated ourselves for it, of course.) An audience member objects, loudly, saying the joke isn't funny if you have a deaf child, which he does. Far from apologizing, Rivers turns on the guy and subjects him to a withering barrage of insults that then opens out into a defense of her brand of no-holds-barred humor. She begins by telling the man her mother had gone deaf, then passionately justifies joking about taboo or painful subjects as a form of truth-telling. She cites 9/11 as an example and ends with a bit about Osama Bin Laden that leaves her audience in stitches -- and clearly has them back on her side. The camera then cuts to her offstage talking about the moment, expressing empathy for the guy with the deaf child but also eloquently describing the challenge of managing such an interruption to her shtick. As much as any vignette in the film, this one shows us the fraught, vertiginous "piece of work" that is Joan Rivers. Tasteless as the joke may be, you have to admire the deftness with which the comedian rescues the moment and, in all likelihood, the whole performance.
In her long career, Rivers has broken paths and, yes, crossed lines of taste and political correctness, but A Piece of Work shows that the anger and insecurity fueling her performances arise from a complex sense of outsiderhood that no amount of success has ever mitigated: She is a Jew in a predominantly Christian country, a woman in a male-dominated business, a self-described ugly duckling in a looks-obsessed industry that prefers swans. And young, docile swans at that. Her rage is a rage against the cultural machineries that produce such pained alienation in those who don't fit a narrow grid of normativity and beauty. In that, it is a rage both political and in some ways queer, which perhaps explains Rivers' appeal in gay and drag communities.
We might have wished Rivers had left her face alone as a way of thumbing her nose, as it were, at the twin evils of ageism and misogyny, but A Piece of Work respects its subject for tough choices made in the unforgiving glare of the spotlight. Rivers has endured in that light far longer than most. She deserves our respect, and if she makes us squirm in our seats from time to time, well, maybe that's just what we deserve. The funny girls of Roxie's World believe that self-deprecation can be a powerful form of social critique and that making jokes on taboo subjects is vastly better than staying silent on taboo subjects.
On some blogs, Joan Rivers would get slapped with a trigger warning. Around here, she gets a face lick and a PAWS UP for lifetime achievement.
Labels: cultural studies, film, laughter, strong women
We love our readers. You know we do. But can we say that it creeps us out just a teeny weeny bit that within the past 24 hours folks have landed on this happy little blog through searches on, um,
how to give a dog a handjob,
and how to cook a human baby?!?
Really, kids, I'm thinking perhaps my typist should have installed an irony meter in the sidebar when she was doing our redesign in order to assist the irony-impaired. Please, darlings, understand that no animals were harmed or inappropriately touched in the making of this joke. And not one single actual baby was ever cooked in our baby cooker. Not a one, though there was a snowy Tuesday evening in February when the thought briefly crossed our minds.
Oh, and to the curious among you who periodically show up searching on the phrase, Marissa Coleman lesbian, we don't know, darlings, and if we did we wouldn't tell. You.
Thank you, and good night.
Labels: blogging, cultural studies
Blog Note 2: Keeping Up Appearances
Welcome to the new and improved Roxie's World, my pretties! As Moose declared on Facebook the other day, in blog years this happy little place is older than Joan Rivers, so it's high time we had a little work done, don't you think? (No, we haven't seen the movie yet, but we intend to.)
Anyway, in some ways the changes are simple. We switched to a new Blogger template that we think is easy on the eyes and will display images nicely. Please tell us if you have a different opinion about that, and we'll take it up with the team of raging, tasteful queens whose judgments we rely upon in such matters, but I gotta tell ya the resident former yearbook editor of Roxie's World is awfully pleased with the new look. If you object, she might spank you with her pica stick.
In other ways, the changes may be a little surprising to those of you who were seriously invested in the idea that a dead dog was really calling the shots around here. (Don't be sad, darlings! You know we love your ability to suspend disbelief and will work hard to bring that special feeling back for you on a regular basis.) We've added a series of tabs up top that take you to pages that give you the skinny on such deep mysteries as who my typist really is and what she does here (About the Typist). We've also added some things to help new readers find their way around the joint, including answers to (in)frequently asked questions and explanations for some of the unusual words and phrases we use (Roxicon/FAQ); something like a comment policy (Bark, Don't Bite); and a selection of some of our favorite posts from the past four and one half years (Best In Show). Click around in there and let us know what you think -- unless, of course, you can't handle the truth of certain aspects of America's favorite dead dog blog. We'll understand.
Why are you doing this? you may or may not be wondering. Part of it is a craving for a fresh look and access to some of the technical advances available on the new template. You know how technologically challenged we are, but we still want to provide you with as much fun and prettiness as we can. Part of it is the ongoing transition necessitated by the suckitude of my unfortunate demise last December. It's also related, however, to the fact that blogging has now become a significant part of Moose's professional life. She's publishing on blogging, teaching on blogging, even organizing a session and presenting at the MLA on blogging this coming January. (See that "About the Typist" tab for some of the details.) She has begun to think it's time to formalize some things and clarify others as a way of boosting her cred with the muckety-mucks or something. In truth, I think she's mostly annoyed that some readers still think Goose has some involvement in the production of this multimedia extravaganza beyond laughing hysterically and saying, "Would you please publish, dear, so we can eat dinner?" Wevs, I said. Let's just keep it funny, OK? She assures me we will.
"Build, therefore, your own world," Emerson says, and we reply, "Sure! As long as we can find the right Blogger template to help with the design, construction, maintenance, and renovation." It's your world, too, darlings. Welcome to it, and let us know how you like the new digs. As always, your pleasure is our top priority. Peace out.
Labels: blogging, English profs, my moms
Blog Note, With Holiday Snacks!
(Photo Credit: Moose, on her iPhone, with Lolo, her favorite CameraBag trick, 7/4/10)
(Photo Credit: qta, on his iPhone, with Lolo, his favorite CameraBag trick, 7/4/10)
As you can see, good times were had in Roxie's World last night, as a motley crew of loyal citizens and non-citizens gathered to celebrate American independence with an assortment of grilled and patriotic foods, including deviled eggs and red velvet cupcakes with white icing, blueberries, and, yes, sparklers, which, it turns out, are legal in the state of Maryland. Who knew? We trust that you had an enjoyable day as well and that cool beverages and colorful explosions in the evening sky renewed your faith in the benefits of liberty.
In any case, patriots, we interrupt this federal holiday to direct your attention to some changes we've made over in the right sidebar of this here little blog. It's part of our never-ending effort to make your time in Roxie's World both fun and informative. Scroll down and check out the new dynamic list(s) of blogs we read on a regular basis. We kept them in alphabetical order, but you will see the titles of the most recent post and get a rough sense of when it was put up.
We've done some cleaning up of our old blogroll, deleting some blogs we don't follow much these days and adding in others that have caught our eye for one reason or another. We couldn't bring ourselves to delete Jon Swift, even though that marvelous blog's genius author, Al Weisel, died more than four months ago. We kept Anglachel in, because we keep hoping she will start posting regularly again. We've added our good buddy, Gukira, who writes like a dream and blogs on queerness, Kenyan-ness, and other tricky subjects, and a couple of other English profs, including Bardiac and Undine. We created two separate blog lists, one -- called "Dogalicious" -- that is focused on dogs and dog stuff, and another -- called "Blogalicious" -- that is focused on, um, everything else. A third list -- called "Infolicious" -- gives you links to the web sites my typist obsessively monitors when she should be reading or writing scholarly articles in her field.
Anyway, click around, darlings, and show the members of our extended pack some love. You know bloggers' fragile self-esteem rests entirely on the number of page views we get on a daily basis, so give someone a lift today by showing up unannounced in their hit counter. Tell 'em Roxie sent you. By the way, in memory of modest Jon Swift, we are pleased to announce a liberal blogrolling policy here in Roxie's World. If you add us to your blogroll, we will gladly add you to ours. Just send us an e-mail at roxieblog@gmail.com, and we will put you on the list. It's our way of saying how happy we are to have stumbled across you in the vastness of cyberspace.
And we are happy to have stumbled across you, you know. You are the sparklers on top of the red velvet cupcake of life, and we love the light you shine in our little piece of the night sky. Thanks for being there.
Labels: blogging, eye candy, holidays
Close Reading: It's Patriotic
(Photo Credit: Susan Walsh, AP. AP caption: "James Billington, the Librarian of Congress, is reflected in a computer screen at the Library of Congress in Washington, Friday, July 2, 2010, showing a correction to the rough draft of the Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson.")
Our history pals are all doing historical posts as a way of commemorating Independence Day. (Go, Betsy Ross! Go, Chinese soldier killed in the Civil War whom we had never heard of before!) We figured we better get in on the action, lest it appear that English profs were America haters or something. Happily, we woke up to a front-page story in this morning's WaPo that gives us a perfect opportunity to demonstrate that the kinds of skills and expertise English profs have are vital to the nation's interests and security, even, indeed, its very identity. At the same time, it allows us to join in the effort to knock down an incredibly shallow and obnoxious attack on some of those skills that was published online in The Atlantic this week. Opportunities like this don't come along every day, so I persuaded the moms to stop watching reruns of Rafael Nadal's Wimbledon semifinal win over Andy Murray and come up with something pithy to say about readin', writin', technology, and, you know, the birth of the nation.
The backstory: That super-cool image at the top of this post is from coverage of the super-cool announcement yesterday by the Library of Congress that researchers had used spectral imaging technology to uncover a significant revision Thomas Jefferson made in a rough draft of the Declaration of Independence. (The WaPo story does a really nice job of explaining the details of the deciphering process. Go read it if you love a good high-tech detective story, and, seriously, who doesn't?) Scholars had speculated for decades that Jefferson had originally used the word "subjects" when he was drafting the section of the Declaration focused on the grievances against King George III that fueled the movement for independence but erased it and changed it to "citizens." A tell-tale smudge behind the word "citizens" suggested that a revision had taken place, but, because Jefferson was so careful to obliterate the word in this instance -- rather than merely crossing it out and substituting another, as he does in many other instances in the draft -- the tools of hyperspectral imaging were necessary in order for the LC's team of scientists "to bring the erased word back to life," as WaPo's Marc Kaufman eloquently puts it.
The team was led by Fenella France, who describes the "spine-tingling moment when I was processing data late at night and realized there was a word underneath citizens" in the LC's announcement of the discovery. Library of Congress preservation director Dianne van der Reyden wisely used the occasion to point out the importance of keeping and protecting original documents. The subjects/citizens revision wasn't in subsequent drafts, so the excitement here arises partly from the sense that what has been recovered is the exact moment when Jefferson recognized the political/philosophical stakes of declaring an end to monarchical rule in the United States. In changing "subjects" to "citizens," he signals the beginning of the democratic experiment that endures, despite a civil war and a botched presidential election or two, to this day. Lose or destroy the document, and you lose an important window onto that moment of transition and emergence.
Goosebumps, right, kids? Makes you want to run right out and take a look at the draft of the Virginia constitution Jefferson was copying from when he was working on the Declaration, doesn't it? Knock yourselves out, fellow citizens-not-subjects. (He uses the term "subjects" in the Virginia document.)
Now, what was that you were saying about close reading being boring? about students "almost universally hat[ing] it" because they don't really get it and should be reading more books quickly rather than fewer slowly -- presumably because being stupid about a lot of books is better than being stupid about just a few? Huh?
Here's the thing, gentle readers: Close reading, taught badly, can be dull as hell, but taught well, by someone attuned to the infinite richness of language, punctuation, and even the material aspects of texts, it can be sheer delight and a revelation. The LC's marvelous bit of detective work on Mr. Jefferson's revision process shows us the extraordinary possibilities new technologies hold for making us better -- more careful, much closer -- readers of the past. There is nothing dull or tedious in seeing how hard Jefferson worked to rid his document of the traces of the word "subjects" and to cover it over with the word and the ideal that he hoped, for all his flaws and contradictions, to bring into being: "citizens." One could learn a lot about American history by attending well to that single alteration, by parsing out the tale told by the smudge that time never forgot and technology finally removed.
This Independence Day weekend, let's raise a paw to close reading and to the fine work being done at the library Mr. Jefferson helped to establish. Read a book this Fourth of July, and read it well. Thinking well is your duty as a citizen-not-subject. Peace out.
Labels: cultural studies, English profs, holidays, politics


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Regina Opisso y Sala (n. 21 de enero de 1879 en Tarragona, Cataluña - f. 7 de marzo de 1965 en Barcelona, Cataluña), fue una escritora española principalmente de novelas rosas y cuentos infantiles entre 1907 y 1960. Utilizó los nombres de Regina Opisso, Regina Opisso de Llorens, Regina de Llorens, Rosa de Nancy, Rosa González, Teresa Guzmány Diana Roldán.

Biografía
Regina Opisso y Sala nació el 21 de enero de 1879 en Tarragona, Cataluña, España, hija de Alfredo Opisso y Viñas, periodista, historiador y crítico, y de Antonia Sala y Gil. Procede de una familia ilustrada repleta de artistas. Su hermano es el pintor, dibujante y historietista Ricardo Opisso y Sala. Su abuelo paterno fue Josep Opisso y Roig, periodista y director del Diari de Tarragona, padre de los también escritores Antonia Opisso y Viña y Antoni Opisso y Viña. Su bisabuelo materno fue el pintor Pere Pau Montaña, su abuelo materno el fabulista Felipe Jacinto Sala y su tío materno, el pintor Emilio Sala y Francés.

Casada con Orestes Llorens, traductor, tuvieron un hijo Arturo Llorens y Opisso, un escritor más conocido bajo su seudónimo Arturo Llopis.

Regina falleció a los 86 años, el 7 de marzo de 1965 en Barcelona.

Bibliografía

Como Regina Opisso
 El cuento semanal	(1907)
 La tragedia de Leonora	(1920)
 La víctima	(1920)
 Los hijos del otro	(1920)
 Pedro el "Justiciero"	(1920)
 Tú eres la dicha	(1920)
 Los locos amores de Doña Juana y Don Felipe	(1926)
 Mar adentro	(1926)
 ¡Era su madre!	(1928)
 Del cielo al penal	(1928)
 ¡Me basto yo!	(1929)
 El soto del cerezal	(1931)
 La venganza de Luisa Marín	(1931)
 La venganza de una mujer	(1931)
 Una mujer fatal	(1932)
 Flor de pasión	(1936)
 ¡Mamaíta mía!	(1944)
 Idilio	(1944)
 ¡Siempre te amaré!	(1949)
 La novia espera	(1949)
 La audaz enamorada	(1953)
 La mujer que huye del amor	(1953)
 ¿Quieres ser mi esposa?	(1956)
 Las mil y una noches	(1957)
 La alegría de amar	(1959)
 ¡Tu mujer es muy bonita!
 Delito de amor
 La tentación de Julita
 Mi honor… ¡no importa!

Como Regina Opisso de Llorens
 Nocturno trágico	(1921)
 La mujer y el feminismo	(1925)
 Cuentos del domingo	(1931)
 Cuentos holandeses	(1950)
 La modista de Montemar
 ... y el séptimo descansó

Como Rosa de Nancy
 La muchacha del Oeste	(1930)
 Elena	(1944)
 Un tesoro para la mujer	(1944)
 Ella y el mar	(1946)
 Una mujer de Hollywood	(1947)
 Su retrato en el mar	(1949)
 Ventana sin sol	(1949)
 La pastorcita Amapola	(1954)
 Libro de Fabiola	(1960)
 Así te quiero mujer
 El amor vendrá después
 La novia del mundo
 La pasajera núm. 14
 Llévame contigo
 Milagro de amor

Como Rosa González
 Lirios abandonados	(1934)
 La huerfanilla	(1936)

Como Teresa Guzmán
 ¡Cásate conmigo!	(1940)
 Cuando yo era feliz	(1944)
 ¡Mírame a los ojos!

Como Regina de Llorens
 Nuestra tia Evelyn	(1943)

Como Diana Roldán
 Malvina encuentra su amor	(1943)
 La princesita de los tirabeques

Como Lisette
 La niña del espejo	(1954)
 Las dos hijas del rey	(1954)
 Rosaura, Rosa y Rosina	(1954)

Referencias

Enlaces externos
VIAF

Escritores en español
Escritores de España del siglo XX
Escritores de Cataluña
Novelistas románticos de España
Feministas de Cataluña
Nacidos en Tarragona
Fallecidos en Barcelona

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I love my writers' group. We have been talking to one another about manuscripts and life for seventeen years now. I was always the itinerant member, living too far away to attend in person, and grateful for Skype when it enabled me to attend virtually on a regular basis.
Oh, and the tradition of handing off this license plate to one another to celebrate new publications. The plate itself has been lost and found and lost again over the years but some facsimile of it remains around to keep on traveling.
Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, Stephanie Farrow, and Katherine Hauth, thank you for all you've done for me and my work over the years. And to relatively new members of the Autodidactic Society, Caroline Starr Rose, and Mark Karlins, thanks for being there at the other end of the Skype channel with your astute comments and questions, and for picking up so readily on the spirit of this group.
For one reason and another I have not been able to make it to the annual retreat in the last couple of years. This time I'm going. I have two major projects under contract that need revision. Once again the Autodidacts will gather (in an unpublished location in the high desert of New Mexico) to share a few days together, to write, to read, to cook, to walk, to be. And I will be there with one or the other of my revisions-in-chaos, ready to find the way forward.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Autodidacts, writing group, writing retreat. Bookmark the permalink.


Join us for a group show of drinking vessels. From cups to mugs to tumblers come see the variety of ways to cheer to the upcoming holiday season. With almost 20 artists we have something for everyone. No matter if its for your morning coffee or evening cocktail our cups can make any drink special.


text:
Best Live Shows
Blues 101
Stolen Nostalgia
Altair Satellite Radio
Classic Rock Must Die
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The following conversation is one my friend Marlon and I had before I started this blog. As a matter of fact, this conversation was the original inspiration for Unknown Legends. I had bought him a rare first pressing of Queen II for $30. I thought he'd love it but he groaned when he opened it.
Groaned.
I said, "You seriously don't like Queen."
Impatient, Marlon said, "I loved Queen when I was a kid, but all you hear on radio now are three of their songs, right? 'We Will Rock You.' 'Another One Bites the Dust.' And don't even get me started on 'Bohemian Rhapsody.' The tragedy is that 'Bohemian Rhapsody' was so mind-blowing when it first came out. But now it makes you want to actually blow your head off. The sound of any Queen song on the radio now sounds like screaming babies and squeaky pencils and every annoying, ubiquitous sound you ever heard."
He took a drink of his coffee. "Here's a concept those of us born after 1980 can't possibly understand with the music industry the way it is now. In ye olden days, when you heard a song on the radio that wasn't a current release, which had been recorded and broadcast during your formative years, you'd hear it and it would take you back to that moment in time." Marlon drew his fingertips together in a "kismet" gesture. "An experience, according to those who know, that is sweeter than almost any other."
He was right. I couldn't imagine it.
"But we'll never experience that, except for the music we've discovered ourselves and haven't overplayed. Nowadays you hear any song from the late sixties through the late eighties, and you want to punch a mailman, because you heard that exact same song three times yesterday. Music no longer marks points in history."
"So you're saying that only current music is relevant," I said.
"Of course not," he snapped. He held his mug before his face and gazed out the window again. "The real problem with classic rock is that it's robbed us of our nostalgia. Our nostalgia has been stolen from us."
That, my friends, is why classic rock must die.
Listen to Unknown Legends with Nessa on Altair Satellite Radio Monday and Thursday nights, midnight Eastern, 9 p.m. Pacific.
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One dog owner was praised by a fellow dog owner for opting for her dog to wear a muzzle. I explained that this particular dog is such a sweet dog but has an unpredictable nature with "bouncy" dogs. Rather than risk an incident the owner very wisely uses a soft muzzle when her dog is likely to come into contact with others, such as in the park, woods etc.
A really enjoyable walk with our young pup client and my own dog. The puppy really loves Sunshine and the feeling is mutual.
They were playing with each other in the woods today and it was lovely to watch them grinning at each other and I could actually hear them making noises that was really similar to laughing.
Lovely when dogs are a well socialised from a early age like this.
When checking your outdoor animals please ensure that your animal has adequate protection from the cold and wind.
Remember that access to fresh water is vital for their health and welfare. Even if you have insulated bottle protectors make sure that the drip nozzle isn't frozen. I routinely check ours twice a day.
One of our chooks has gone broody for the first time. We are removing eggs almost as soon as they are laid and moving her out of the coop. She is less than keen about this!
If this continues our options are a) let her continue for 3 weeks or b) remove her from the coop entirely over night. Option b) is a little drastic, and we don't want to stress her out when she is already hormonal . However, if her general health suffers then we will need to take the second approach by the end of the week.
The sun is shining for the first time in weeks, I have met lots of happy dog owners in the park today. Even the dogs seemed relieved not to be getting soggy!
Just remember Focus Dog Walkers walk whatever the weather; sun, rain, hail and snow. Your dog always receives a towel down and a tick check (and removal, if needed) after every walk.
Make sure you know how to deal remove and dispose of ticks before your pet gets one. The easiest way is to buy a tick removal product and take it to your local groomers or vets and ask them to show you how to use it.
If you do know already, then still make sure you wear gloves while removing and disposing of them.
If you are squimish and don't feel up to rmoving the tick yourself then take your pet to the vets asap to have the tick removed. Do NOT wait for the tick to drop off.
Focus Dog Walking and Pet Sitting Services has created a page called Bradford Pet Friends Community. It's a page created to promote the health and welfare of peoples pets (dog's, cats, hamsters etc). I think my idea behind it is that people will share ideas, recipes, training tips, news about local health concerns. It will also be an opportunity for local people in the pet care industry to post information for the benefit of local people i.e special offers/promotions/discount codes/vouchers.


(1) Use the Chrome or Firefox web browser.
(2) Whichever web browser you use, make sure your browser is up-to-date.
(4) Another troubleshooting approach: (temporarily) Disable all popup blockers and 3rd party toolbars in your browser.


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HOME | MY PROFILE | FRIENDS | PAGES
He (Short Story)
Short Story Less
to get instant updates about 'He (Short Story)' on your MyPage. Meet other similar minded people. Its Free!
"He" is a short story by American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written August 1925, it was first published in Weird Tales, September 1926.
The story tells of an unnamed narrator, who has moved from New England to New York City and greatly regretted it. One night, while wandering an older part of town, he happens upon a man strangely dressed in garments from the eighteenth century. The man offers to show the narrator the secrets of the town.
Following the man to his home, he is told a tale of a squire who bargained originally for the land with the Native Americans and learned of the true face of the city full of flying creatures and mutated people. The man then proceeds to show the narrator visions of the city's past and future, and he begins to scream wildly which rouses the spirits of the Native Americans to take vengeance on the man.
The story "He" was written after an all-night tour of the remnants of Old New York; by 7 a.m. the next morning, Lovecraft had reached Elizabeth, New Jersey, by ferry, where he bought a dime composition book and wrote the story in Elizabeth's Scott Park.S. T. Joshi and David Schultz, An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia, p. 108.
Lovecraft had moved to New York City in March 1924 for his short-lived marriage to Sonia Greene. He moved back to Providence, Rhode Island in April 1926, having developed a thorough aversion to New York. The opening paragraphs of...
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Of Drink Problems and Disorderly Writing
The caption of the article "If Jonathan has a drinking problem" is framed in such a manner as to convey some uncertainty. Reading it however, one is confronted by Mr Adelakun's not too concealed confirmation that the Nigerian President has such a problem. Journalists have their sources and lay people like us are expected to lap up whatever they dish out. Who are you to doubt their sources when they present these sources thus "I have interacted with associates that have also interacted with Jonathan at close range and they say, indeed, he has a blooming relationship with a certain brand of wine." It should not matter that the evidence for this very weighty accusation is of the type I describe as "I saw a man who says he saw a man who claims he met a minister who saw the queen." Mr Adelakun has his sources and his sources must be accurate. To doubt is to be disrespectful and one must never disrespect journalists. It is also risky to conclude that Mr Adelakun does not drink – after all, among the irate crowd gathering to stone the woman caught in adultery to death in the Christian Scriptures were certainly some of her regular clients. Those without blemish and vices can hurl stones at us lower mortals with our frailties and foibles. Journalists are the conscience of the nation and spot sins which only their fine senses can behold. I have nothing against this – every profession has a right to some self-deceit.
But my questions are these – must an op-ed whose clear intention is to nail a president and diminish him also trade in stereotyping? Could Mr Adelakun not have clinched his case against the president without resorting to conveying and reinforcing damaging, outdated, irrelevant, demeaning, inaccurate ethnic smears/slurs and generalizations? Are paragraphs 6-8 of his article really necessary? What is the import of these paragraphs? Beyond revealing Mr Adelakun's own biases and ethnic affiliations, how relevant are these paragraphs to the poorly veiled and politically motivated expose on a man's supposed drinking problem? I was hoping that Mr. Adelakun would stop and challenge the whole basis of stereotypes, show how dangerous, damaging, divisive and unhelpful they are but that hope was in vain because he needed stereotypes to caste his slur on the president and the president's ethnic group. And, by the way, how accurate is this statement by Mr Adelakun – "Please note, stereotypes are not always devoid of reality but the problem is that they turn into self-fulfilling prophecies". I am reluctant to challenge Mr Adelakun's familiarity with stereotypes but if this comment reflects that knowledge, then that knowledge must be severely limited. Journalists should be familiar with the intimate links between stereotypes, prejudice, ethnophaulism and harmful actions, but not Mr. Adelakun.
And how more offensive can a journalist be in his comments on other ethnic groups? His insult on women from the SS is in very bad taste and deserves an instant retraction and apology. And how more uncritical and biased can a writer be – the stereotype for the Yorubas is slick! Slick indeed! Notice the polysemy of the word "slick" and you will understand why he chose the word in this his sad role of purveyor of stereotypes. Slick! Mr. Adelakun's effort itself is slick – could it be that this word which drips in deliberate polysemy is the best group descriptor for his people and the one he is most at peace with?
Having exercised his stereotyping wizardry in its fullness, Mr Adelakun then turns his attention to alerting his readers to the disastrous consequences of the president's supposed drinking problem for the nation! But how convincing is Mr Adelakun's effort to link this supposed problem to some governance gaps and goofs by the presidency? I find the effort unconvincing but overdone because of Mr. Adelakun's quest for the over-kill. Over-kill has a trade-off in life. That trade-off is balance. If Mr. Adelakun had adopted balance as one of his guiding principles, the arguments in his last two paragraphs might have been less puny. Assuming even that Mr. Adelakun's accusations against the president and his people are evidence based, is mockery the mature and appropriate response to it? It certainly is not. The abandonment of balance is clearly responsible for this grossly inadequate response. Balance would have encouraged him to remember that a mature and professional response to alcohol abuse, and to any substance abuse for that matter, is compassion and empathy, not the thinly veiled rejoicing and mockery one meets in his write up. Certainly to ask a journalist to recognize that substance abuse results from the interaction of public policy, biology, sociology and psychology and for him to reflect that recognition in his write up on such a sensitive issue is not asking too much. Indeed, it is to invite such a journalist to move beyond facile and simple narratives and to embrace depth. One does not need to remind Mr. Adelakun that the absence of depth in journalism leads to its death.
Journalists are the conscience of the nation. In this role, we lay people have certain expectations of them. Writing as if they were punch drunk is certainly not one of such expectations. Otherwise, we may also begin to suspect that journalists who display such traits either in their logic or choice of examples or lack of empathy could have even more damaging personal problems than those they "deign" to show up and castigate!
Tortoise, famine and the other animals
Once there was famine in the land of the animals. Animals starved. Every animal was emaciated. Hunger played music on their empty stomachs. Hungry played tricks on their minds. Things got more desperate with each passing day. The tortoise, the wisest and most cunning of all the animals, suggested that each animal kills his/her mother. If they did this, the gods would be struck by the enormity of the sacrifice that the animals were making and perhaps end the famine. Besides, by eliminating their mothers, the heroic animals would be reducing the number of mouths to feed during these hard times, tortoise persuasively argued. Some of the animals – the cock, the dove, the elephant and the bat initially objected but gradually tortoise wore down their objections. In the end unanimity was reached. Difficult times required difficult decisions; special situations demanded special sacrifices, tortoise had argued and real heroes and nationalists never hold back from making tough decisions and carrying them out. Only cowards and the short-sighted hold back when destiny beckons, tortoise pontificated. The animals all agreed. Fiam, gbam, gbum, kagbum – each animal went home and fell on his/her mum and killed her. Matricide became the sign of courage and belongingness.
Unknown to the other animals, tortoise had hidden his own mum in the skies. He had designated a spot on a hill where his mum would send a rope from the skies to enable him climb up to visit her, chat with and enjoy all the joys of a mother's love and care. And he would go up in most evenings to send her portions of choice meat from the slaughter below.
One day, the rest of the animals found out what the tortoise had done. A mixture of shame, regret and anger took hold of them and they set off to go and capture the tortoise. On sighting them, tortoise took off and started racing to the spot where his mother would normally let down the rope. As tortoise's mum sent down the rope for her son to climb up to the skies, the other animals caught unto the rope and the agile ones – the cheetah, the leopard, the chimpanzee – all started climbing up and chasing after the tortoise. Soon they were catching up with him. When tortoise saw this, he shouted to his mum to cut the rope. The mum cut the rope and all of the animals came crashing down to earth, including tortoise. Tortoise broke his back in the fall. He also got a good beating from the rest of the other animals for his deceit. His back had to be patched and stitched together in hundred places as a result of the fall and the beating that he got. This is why the back of the tortoise looks so patched up always.
The morale of the story is that people should always be very suspicious of the person or group of persons who tell you to kill your mum whilst they secretly keep theirs safe, alive and very healthy. As with Tortoise and the animal kingdom, so with contemporary politics, and those politicians who invite you to commit matricide whilst their own mothers are safe and alive.
No Principles but New Principals
I am sharing two documents we must all read. Both articles were signed by Nasir El-Rufai. One was written to President Obasanjo and the other was written to President Yar Adua
These two articles are also published in the Village Square and the link lines to them are appended below –
http://t.co/Jul5OQvtKl
http://t.co/Dtr5elKjey
In one paper, El-Rufai must have assumed that he was the front runner of all OBJ successors and that OBJ would thus so annoint him. He came up in this paper with such democracy destroying suggestions that would even make a Stalin shudder.
"The use of the unutilized power of federal electronic media in the propaganda war is unavoidable being a weapon that is readily available in the arsenals of the ruling party and therefore all obstacles to its deployment must be anticipated and removed immediately.
A strategy should also be evolved to snatch away the international wire services from the opposition. Equally important is the need to cultivate FM radio stations for effective deployment against the enemy whose dirty deals and shameful conducts the print media has been largely paid to conceal. All stringers of the international wire services resident in Nigeria and their editors abroad should be identified for engagement, neutralization or deployment against the enemy that has used these effectively.
Condition survey needs to be conducted in a good time to ascertain the PDP's popular support in all the senatorial districts before the national convention of the PDP. This exercise would pave way for the ranking of such constituencies on scale A, B, C, D and E."
In another paragraph, he stops just short of actually saying how elections are best rigged! Read this –
"The function of the core-group is to systematically coordinate the use of Police, SSS, EFCC, ICPC and other state organs as per their respective roles before and during elections based on new approaches which subject matter will be detailed out subsequently".
In the second document, OBJ has by-passed him and selected UYA and the clever Nasir is now struggling to ingratiate himself with Umaru –
"Presidential Burdens and Qualities
We learnt that you were reluctant to run for President. It is quite understandable. No normal person who understands the burdens of the office will be eager to aspire to the Nigerian Presidency. But it is vital that decent people run for the office so that the nation is not destroyed by some of the vagabonds that ran around the country 'aspiring' and annoying the sensibilities of the people. Most of the eager and early aspirants saw only an expanded domestic treasury and foreign reserves ready for looting, rather than the heavy responsibilities of running a country containing one out of every 40 human beings on earth. And in a positive sense Nigeria needs the very best leadership if we are to become a great country; you have the opportunity to provide this leadership.
We were therefore relieved when you joined the race. You have emerged clearly as probably the most honest state governor in the country. John Steinberg (1966) in writing about the American Presidency said "The President must be great, but not better than all". As Governor, you are probably better than all the governors, so what remains is for you to become a great President.
Early in this process, some of us – Tanimu Yakubu included got into real trouble because we made suggestions that you should be the sort of person to be drafted to run for President. We were essentially guided by lessons learnt at the Georgetown Leadership Seminar 2000, wherein Paul Begala, an aide to President Bill Clinton listed four qualities of a good President"
How desperate can one get? How more obsequious can we get? The same character is now strutting around, fawning and trying to ingratiate himself with GMB and APC all in the hope of landing a post for himself should the GMB/APC ticket win the race! How low can one go? El-Rufai is nothing else but a chartered and certified political jobber. Hoha, no more needs be said about him. His principles do not change. His principals may change.
"Riding the Tiger" – Kingsley Ewetuya's Thoughts on #SoldiersofFortune
Max Siollun's Website
http://theswordofdamocles.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/soldiers-of-fortune-riding-the-tiger/
Soldiers of Fortune- Riding the Tiger.
Kingsley Ewetuya read Soldiers of Fortune and was kind enough to write this review of it. Read the full review below…
During his inaugural speech in January 1961, barely three months after Nigeria attained independence from Britain, President John Kennedy said "To those new States whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom—and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside." That quote, particularly the highlighted portion kept running through my mind as I read Max Siollun's latest…
No to NaNoWriMo
Posted on November 6, 2013 by Noel Ihebuzor
Druid Life
In January, everyone should try and choreograph a ballet. In March we should all write an opera, and in June everyone should paint a fresco. Sounds ludicrous, doesn't it? And yet the idea that everyone could write a novel in November gets a good deal more acceptance. Why do we assume that, while these other forms would require skills, knowledge and practice beyond most people's experience, anyone can write a book? It drives me round the bend.
Getting people to explore their creativity is something I've always considered important, but I think that should begin with a respect for whatever form you are working in. To start by assuming the form is easy, requires no study, research or insight, is to set yourself up to fail. I don't think that benefits anyone. So, here are a few counterarguments.
Fifty thousand words is not really a book; that's rather short. Seventy…
How to Spot and Overcome Manipulation
Leaders become manipulators when self-serving goals outweigh organizational interests.
Self-serving goals require manipulation, coercion, deception, and pressure tactics. Shared goals, on the other hand, pull everyone forward.
"There is perhaps nothing more dangerous than a bad person with good people skills." Bob Burg in Adversaries to Allies.
Manipulators are skillful persuaders.
Context of manipulation:
"No" is the most obvious context of manipulation. Say no to a manipulator and experience things like:
Guilt. "If you really cared …"
Flattery. Manipulation often begins with, "I really admire your ability to …"
Intimidation. "You could lose your job."
Withholding information.
Half-truths designed to create wrong decisions. They often only tell the side of the story that makes others look bad.
(See the complete list given by Facebook contributors.)
Bob Burg writes, "… if you fail to comply with his request, a manipulator will try to make you feel bad, selfish…
I sing dandelion seeds
lines that breathe, words that perfume the ear….prose poetry!
My chrysanthemum/daisy/buttercup bouquet in a shoebox is a love poem. I open it for you, smiling, but you see only the yellows, not the asters that are my eyes. I sing dandelion seeds, each note touching your face. You brush it away, this music that is felt, that tickles, that tangles in your hair. I bring you violets and call them haiku.
6 Presidential-Campaign Themes Hillary Clinton Is Test-Driving
Starting Early!


villas at grand cypress orlando florida transportation - www.elite-transportation.com!
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Complimentary shuttle service is available on a continuous basis each day between the hours of 6:30 am and 1:00 am. There is also an hourly shuttle to the Magic Kingdom®, Epcot®, Disney-MGM Studios and Disney*s Animal Kingdom® Theme Park available at no charge.


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Examples of Debate Topics
Examples of Debate Topics. In: Gupta, PharmD, BCACP, CDCES V, Nguyen, PharmD, BCACP T, Clark, PharmD, BCPS M, Williams, PharmD, MBA, BCPS, BCACP E, Cone, PharmD, BCPS C, Desselle, RPh, PhD, FAPhA S. Gupta, PharmD, BCACP, CDCES V, & Nguyen, PharmD, BCACP T, & Clark, PharmD, BCPS M, & Williams, PharmD, MBA, BCPS, BCACP E, & Cone, PharmD, BCPS C, & Desselle, RPh, PhD, FAPhA S(Eds.),Eds. Vasudha Gupta, PharmD, BCACP, CDCES, et al.eds. Pharmacy Practice Skills: A Guide for Students and Instructors. McGraw Hill; 2021. Accessed January 21, 2022. https://accesspharmacy.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?bookid=3073&sectionid=259330396
Examples of debate topics. Gupta, PharmD, BCACP, CDCES V, Nguyen, PharmD, BCACP T, Clark, PharmD, BCPS M, Williams, PharmD, MBA, BCPS, BCACP E, Cone, PharmD, BCPS C, Desselle, RPh, PhD, FAPhA S. Gupta, PharmD, BCACP, CDCES V, & Nguyen, PharmD, BCACP T, & Clark, PharmD, BCPS M, & Williams, PharmD, MBA, BCPS, BCACP E, & Cone, PharmD, BCPS C, & Desselle, RPh, PhD, FAPhA S(Eds.),Eds. Vasudha Gupta, PharmD, BCACP, CDCES, et al. (2021). Pharmacy Practice Skills: A Guide for Students and Instructors. McGraw Hill. https://accesspharmacy.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?bookid=3073&sectionid=259330396
"Examples of Debate Topics." Pharmacy Practice Skills: A Guide for Students and Instructors Gupta, PharmD, BCACP, CDCES V, Nguyen, PharmD, BCACP T, Clark, PharmD, BCPS M, Williams, PharmD, MBA, BCPS, BCACP E, Cone, PharmD, BCPS C, Desselle, RPh, PhD, FAPhA S. Gupta, PharmD, BCACP, CDCES V, & Nguyen, PharmD, BCACP T, & Clark, PharmD, BCPS M, & Williams, PharmD, MBA, BCPS, BCACP E, & Cone, PharmD, BCPS C, & Desselle, RPh, PhD, FAPhA S(Eds.),Eds. Vasudha Gupta, PharmD, BCACP, CDCES, et al. McGraw Hill, 2021, https://accesspharmacy.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?bookid=3073&sectionid=259330396.
Low-dose vitamin K supplementation is beneficial for patients taking warfarin who have highly variable international normalized ratios (INRs).
Low-molecular-weight heparins should be preferred over warfarin for pregnant patients with mechanical heart valves.
Cranberry juice is beneficial in prevention of urinary tract infections.
Patients with diabetes should be treated to a goal blood pressure of <130/80.
Carvedilol should be the preferred beta blocker for the treatment of chronic heart failure.
Low-dose aspirin should be routinely recommended for adults for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease.
An A1c <7.0% is the preferred glycemic goal for prevention of long-term complications in patients with diabetes mellitus.
Antibiotics should be routinely recommended for prophylactic use to prevent exacerbations in patients with COPD.
Dabigatran should be the preferred oral anticoagulant for the prevention of stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation.
The goal blood pressure for patients 60 years of age or older is 150/90 or less.
Omeprazole and esomeprazole are acceptable agents for reducing the risk of GI bleeds in patients on chronic thienopyridine therapy.
The preferred management of gestational diabetes should include a combination of a short-acting insulin analog and a long-acting basal insulin over other treatment options.


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11 Days of Global Unity: Health
This week on the Evolution of Medicine podcast we are sharing a special interview that was part of the "11 days of Global Unity" whch featured luminaires like Dr. Deepak Chopra, Ralph Nader and many more. This interview was originally conducted by Rick Ulfik from We, The World. He interviews Dr. Rangan Chatterjee and James Maskell about the work they are doing, the future of medicine, the current state of functional medicine, and how we see medicine shifting in the rest of this century. It was a great session, and at the time we received so much feedback that people enjoyed it. The interview has not been available since the Summit ended, so we wanted to share it in this podcast.
Dr. Chatterjee is the host of the UK International Functional Forum hosted the Royal Society of Medicine. He is also the star of BBC One's "Doctor in the House" and was recently named the eighth most influential general practitioner in the UK. James is the founder of the Evolution of Medicine and the creator of the Functional Forum.
In this episode, you will learn:
James and Rangan's vision for transforming healthcare.
How "Doctor in the House" has spread to over 90 other countries.
What this momentum worldwide will mean for you and your practice.
Direct download: 11DaysOfGlobalUnitySummit2017-0915-RanganChatterjee-JamesMaskell-Audio3.mp3
The Power of 8: How Small Groups Can Change the World
This week on the Evolution of Medicine podcast, we are thrilled to welcome back one of the speakers from the first Evolution of Medicine Summit. She is the publisher of What Doctors Don't Tell You in the UK. She has been a writer, journalist, and activist for a few decades. Lynne McTaggart is the author of The Intention Experiment and The Field. Her latest book, The Power of Eight, looks at the power of small groups to heal. In Functional Medicine, we've seen the power of small groups with things like group visits and the work with the Saddleback Church. This book takes the idea even further, explaining how groups of people can support each other's healing and transformation.
What you will learn in this podcast:
How Lynne discovered the power of small groups through The Intention Experiment.
Why this is an important concept in the future of Functional Medicine.
How the Evolution of Medicine is planning to use The Power of Eight for growing the impact of practitioners in communities.
Direct download: The20Power20of20820-20How20Small20Groups20Can20Change20the20World.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:47am CST
The Accountability Gap: Practitioners and Patients
This week on the podcast, the Evolution of Medicine is thrilled to welcome Mark Shapiro. Mark is host of The One and Only Podcast and the creator of Winning Weeks, an accountability program for high performing entrepreneurs.
Earlier this year, our co-founder James Maskell took Mark's Winning Weeks program and learned a lot about what it takes to create accountability for himself and for his business. He will be sharing some of those wins on the podcast this week.
On this podcast you will learn:
Why Mark chose group accountability over one-on-one coaching.
How the power of the group fills the "accountability gap."
How you can take action to improve your accountability and the accountability of your patients.
Mark's TEDx talk on social media also came out this week, and you can view it below.
http://www.areyoubeingreal.com/tedxtalk/
Direct download: The20Accountability20Gap20-20Practitioners20and20Patients.mp3


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AFRL NEWS
AFRL NEWS SEARCH
Category Top Stories 711th HPW AFRL AFOSR Highlights AFRL Small Business Office AFRL/RD AFRL/RG AFRL/RI AFRL/RQ AFRL/RV AFRL/RW AFRL/RX AFRL/RY T2 T3 USAFSAM COVID-19 Tactical Autonomy
AFRL to feature key programs, innovative technologies at National Space Symposium
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AFRL) – The Air Force Research Laboratory will showcase space-related programs and technologies along with the Hack-a-Sat competition, ways to share ideas or capabilities with AFRL, and SpaceWERX, the U.S. Space Force affiliated arm of AFWERX during the 37th
AFRL announces winners of Space University Research Initiative funding opportunity
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, OHIO (AFRL) – The Air Force Research Laboratory, via its basic research office, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, announced December 17, the winners of the newly established Space University Research Initiative (SURI) program – a first step in improving
Department of the Air Force announces fourth Vanguard program
Under the Rocket Cargo Vanguard, the Air Force Research Laboratory will lead a science and technology effort to determine the viability and utility of using large commercial rockets for Department of Defense global logistics, potentially expanding the portfolio of capabilities the USSF presents to
Maui sees first U.S. Space Force officers sworn in
MAUI, Hawaii – (AFRL) Six officers assigned to the Air Force Research Laboratory's Directed Energy Directorate Air Force Maui Optical and Supercomputing site joined more than 2,400 Airmen across the nation, transferring from the U.S. Air Force to the U.S. Space Force, making them the first Space
AFRL officers transfer to U.S. Space Force in historic ceremony
KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. - Joining more than 2,400 Airmen across the nation, 13 Air Force Research Laboratory officers took the oath of office Feb. 1, transferring from the U.S. Air Force to the U.S. Space Force, in an induction ceremony held at Kirtland Air Force Base. Col. Eric Felt, director
AFRL engineer award winner proclaims a first for the U.S. Space Force
Air Force Research Laboratory senior engineer Dr. Odell Reynolds received the 2019 Harold Brown award from Dr. Richard Joseph, the Chief Scientist of the Air Force, in a ceremony held on Dec. 16, 2020 at AFRL's Starfire Optical Range (SOR) located on Kirtland Air Force Base.
AFRL New Mexico units identified to transfer to U.S. Space Force
The Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland AFB recently received news that some of their missions will transfer to the U.S. Space Force (USSF). AFRL units readying for transfer include most of the Space Vehicles Directorate missions and the Directed Energy Directorate's Electro-Optics Division.


The accepted backdrop to modern life is a vortex of change dominated by new devices, killer apps and ways of doing things – information overload. It's therefore refreshing to find that the most challenging medium of change, human thinking, is alive, well and flourishing at Ted.com.
The site is the true democratisation of a one-time tight-knit conference that only a privileged few could attend, now enabling millions of browsers access to listen to innovative ideas and discussions on a plethora of issues shaping the world that we are entering into.
Given the site's popularity – and the fact that it's a Design Week Hot 50 entry – it's likely that readers will have had some familiarity with it. If you are new to Ted, try Sir Ken Robinson's talk 'Do schools kill creativity?', an exhortation to reconsider the wider motives determining the way children are classified and processed in the education system. Heavy stuff lightly delivered with wit and verve, and also the site's most downloaded talk.
But I also confess a vested interest – Method designed the Webby award-winning website. But the real inspiration for me, the content, is still king. It's a true case of the message defining the medium.


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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


GMMS got in the crane business to help support our marine projects but now that we have all this equipment we have expanded into the drier market. We have equipment perfect for those tall hard to reach locations. We have a large variety of specialty tools designed just for cranes and their unique capabilities.


Bao, H., Ampuero, J.P., Meng L., Fielding E. J., Liang, C., Milliner, C. W. D., (accepted) Feng, T., Huang, H. Early and Persistent Supershear Rupture of the 2018 Magnitude 7.5 Palu Earthquake. Nature Geoscience.
Allam, A.A., Kroll, K.A., Milliner, C.W.D., Richards-Dinger, K.B., (in review) Effects of Fault Roughness on Coseismic Slip and Hypocenter Locations. Journal Geophysical Research: Solid Earth.
Milliner, C. W. D., J. F. Dolan, J. Hollingsworth, S. Leprince, and F. Ayoub (2016b), Comparison of Coseismic Near-Field and Off-Fault Surface Deformation Patterns of the 1992 Mw 7.3 Landers and 1999 Mw 7.1 Hector Mine Earthquakes: Implications for Controls on the Distribution of Surface Strain, Geophys.Res.Lett., 43, 10,115-10,124, doi:10.1002/2016GL069841.
Milliner, C. W. D., J. F. Dolan, J. Hollingsworth, S. Leprince, F. Ayoub, and C. G. Sammis (2015), Quantifying near-field and off-fault deformation patterns of the 1992 Mw 7.3 Landers earthquake, Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst., 16, doi:10.1002/2014GC005693.
"Tracking the Weight of Hurricane Harvey's Stormwaters Using GPS Data", California Institute of Technology, Weekly Seminar. 2019.
"Tracking the Weight of Hurricane Harvey's Stormwaters Using GPS Data", Scripps Institute of Oceanography, UCSD, Geophysical seminar. 2019.
"How Do Faults Release Strain? Insights Using Novel Geodetic Imaging Techniques", San Diego State University, 2017.
"How Do Faults Release Strain? Insights Using Novel Geodetic Imaging Techniques", California State University Northridge, 2016.
"Insights into the 2016 Mw 7.0 Kumamoto Event Using Geodetic Data: Observations of Complex Spatiotemporal Strain Release from Foreshocks, Aseismic Transients and a Multi-segment Co-seismic Rupture to Post-seismic Afterslip and Viscoelastic Relaxation." 2017, Earthquake Science Center Seminars. USGS, Menlo Park, CA.
"Quantifying Near-Field Deformation of Large Magnitude Strike-Slip Earthquakes using Optical Image Correlation: Implications for Empirical Earthquake Scaling Laws and Safeguarding the Built Environment." 2016 AGU Fall meeting, San Francisco, Calif, 16 Dec.
"Quantifying Near-Field Deformation of Large Magnitude Strike-Slip Earthquakes using Optical Image Correlation: Implications for Empirical Earthquake Scaling Laws and Safeguarding the Built Environment." Fault Displacement Hazard Workshop, USGS Menlo Calif, 16 Dec, 2016.
"Comparison of off-fault deformation along the Mw 7.3 Landers and Mw 7.1 Hector Mine surface ruptures using optical image correlation". SoSAFE workshop SCEC annual meeting. Palm Springs, Calif., Sep. 10. 2016.
"Near-Field Deformation Patterns of Large Magnitude Strike-Slip Earthquakes Using Sub-Pixel Correlation of High-Resolution Air Photos" Gordon Conference on Rock Deformation. Hanover, NH, 2016.
"Quantifying Near-Field Deformation Patterns of Large Magnitude Strike-Slip Earthquakes Using High-Resolution Air Photos." Seismological Society of America 2015 annual meeting, Reno NV, 2016.
Milliner, C. W. D., K. R. Burgmann, T. Wang, A. Inbal, D. Bekaert, C. Liu, E. Fielding (2017). Capturing Postseismic Processes of the 2016 Mw 7.1 Kumamoto Earthquake, Japan, Using Dense, Continuous GPS and Short-repeat Time ALOS-2 InSAR Data: Implications for the Shallow Slip Deficit Problem. Abstract G43C-08 presented at AGU Fall Meeting, New Orleans, LA.
Milliner, C. W. D., K. Matera, R. Burgmann, Y. Fu, D. Bekaert, A. Moore, S. Adikhari (2017). Estimating Transient Water Storage from Hurricane Harvey Using GPS Observations of Vertical Land Motion. Abstract NH23E-2832 presented at AGU Fall Meeting, New Orleans, LA.
Milliner, C. W. D., R. Burgmann, T. Wang, A. Inbal, D. Bekaert, C. Liu, E. Fielding (2017) Joint Inversion of Continuous GPS, InSAR and Seismicity Data to Constrain the Spatiotemporal Evolution of Strain Release of the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake Sequence: Implications for the Shallow Slip Deficit and the Role of Aseismic Slip. SSA Annual Meeting, Denver, CO.
Milliner, C. W. D, J. F. Dolan, , Zinke, R., Hollingsworth, J., Leprince, S., & Ayoub, F. (2016) Aerial2lidar3d: A New Point Cloud-Optical Image Matching Technique to Quantify Near-Field, Surface Co-Seismic Deformation in 3D: Application to the 1999 Mw 7.1 Hector Mine Earthquake and New Surface Offset Measurements of the 1999 Mw 7.6 Izmit earthquake. Poster Presentation at 2016 SCEC Annual Meeting. Contribution 6760.
Milliner, C. W. D., C. Sammis, A. Allam, J. F. Dolan, J. Hollingsworth, "Is the Coseismic slip distribution fractal? Abstract v. 17, 5351presented at EGU annual meeting Vienna, Austria.
Milliner, C. W. D., J.F. Dolan, J. Hollingsworth, S. Leprince, F. Ayoub (2014). Development of a Standardized Methodology for the Use of COSI-Corr Sub-Pixel Image Correlation to Determine Surface Deformation Patterns in Large Magnitude Earthquakes. Abstract T13C-4679 presented at Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, CA.
Milliner, C. W. D., J.F. Dolan, J. Hollingsworth, S. Leprince, F. Ayoub, (2014). Factors controlling shallow co-seismic deformation: Quantifying distributed coseismic deformation of the 1992 Landers and 1999 Hector Mine earthquakes. T18-272-2 presented at GSA Meeting, Vancouver, Canada.
Milliner, C. W. D., J Hollingsworth, J.F. Dolan, S. Leprince, F. Ayoub (2013). Off-fault deformation of the 1992 Mw 7.3 Landers earthquake using sub-pixel image correlation. Invited oral presentation, GMTSAR 2013 workshop, UNAVCO, Boulder, Colorado.
Milliner, C. W. D., J Hollingsworth, J.F. Dolan, S. Leprince, F. Ayoub (2013). Factors controlling shallow co-seismic deformation: Quantifying distributed coseismic deformation of the 1992 Landers earthquake Abstract-178 presented at SCEC meeting, Palm Springs, 2013.


Keeping with the spirit of good racing, here's some more neck to neck action. This time a 1 on 1 duel with Rossi versus Lorenzo. The rivalry between these 2 has been interesting. They even stopped directly sharing data and had a separation wall between their 2 Yamaha garages. With Rossi riding for Ducati this year, I really want to go to the MotoGP race in Laguna Seca… Missed it last year.