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It's a wonderful sunny day and I head straightaway to the Jason Bell photography exhibition after my university exam. Overlooking the Grand Canal, Fondaco Marcello is very simple but perfectly renovated, shining and minimalistic. During the 16thand 17th centuries it was a goods storage. This is reflected in the very basic space organization and the monumental wooden roofing. Now this space is dedicated to contemporary art exhibitions.
As I arrive they offer me Prosecco and invite me to enjoy the sun on the dock. The view onCanal Grande is stunning. I must admit that half of any exhibition in Venice is the experience of Venice itself.
There aren't a lot of visitors. I ask the hostesses and they reply that I'm the first Italian visiting the exhibition that day: "Most visitors are tourists who got lost and came here by chance. This palace wasn't meant to be reached on foot: during the 16th century, only boats could arrive. It is in fact quite difficult to find".
The photos occupy all the four walls of the single room, from the floor to the top. It's incredibly enveloping and a little chaotic since pictures are not separated but all continuous, like a collage. What I immediately notice is that almost every celebrity is caught when she or he is not looking straight at the camera. They seem naturally posing or caught in a moment of relaxation during the shooting. Léa Seydoux, in a black and white photo, is shot when brushing her hair with a hand, one of my favourite pictures. Jason Bell's ability to capture those volatile moments is breath-taking.
The exhibition was inaugurated the night before. Jason Bell was present along with Italian and international celebrities. I ask waiters how he was. "Jason Bell was great. I've never served such a polite person… Very English I would say", they reply to me laughing.
I try to find some traits of Bell's personality by staring at his photos. There's something in the way the celebrities are shot that conveys a sense of gentleness and delicacy. I feel that the photographer does not impose himself but rather reports nonchalantly. A few weeks ago when photographing the British royal family for intimate shots, he was asked, "What did you want to convey with those pictures?". "That they're a normal family, like the others".
I exit the palace and I realize that I fully understand the title of the exhibit just now. "Portraits", not celebrities. The picture of Monica Bellucci is still in my mind. For the photographer she isn't a celebrity anymore; he portrays her as if she were a wife, a mother, or a sister, gently.


This is the end of it, does not grow anymore and ants starts invasion. Apparently result of rain sticking on it, watter penetrating thru skin, hence it cracks.
Kosui variety. Anyone has expirience with other more resistat varietys ?
Btw, at this point (diameter like 6 cm + ) this thing (Kosui) has rough surface. Does it gets smooth - like the ones I used to buy in store ?


On Thursday, Radek Duda spoke to police in Karlovy Vary for the first time since he was involved in an incident with his car and a pedestrian last Tuesday. According to reports at KLH Chomutov's website, Duda's version of the events is "fundamentally different from information in the media," according to club president Jaroslav Veverka. It's not clear at this point the content of his statement, nor how the case will proceed. According to comments made by Duda's father, Duda acted angrily because the pedestrian had kicked his car.
Radek Duda. Photo: Zdeněk Špinka, klhchomutov.cz.
After 25 games in the Extraliga playing for Plzeň 1929, Duda returned to the First League club with whom he started the season, taking to the ice on the road against Berounští Medvědi (Beroun Bears) on Saturday.
Trailing 2-1 after two periods, Duda tied the score for Chomutov forty seconds into the third period, deflecting Tomáš Slovák's shot past goaltender Dominik Furch. Nine minutes later, Duda assisted on David Hruška's eventual game-winner.
Earlier this year, Duda recorded 18 points in 17 games for Chomutov, before being loaned to Plzeň 1929 in November. There, he recorded 29 points in 25 games. He will now try to help Chomutov win the First League championship and battle for a spot in the Extraliga for next season.
With the win, Chomutov has 85 points, with 2 games remaining on the schedule. They are second place and can't drop down, but could possibly still claim top spot if they win both games and Slovan Ústečtí Lvi loses its lone remaining game. Either way, they have clinched a spot in the semi-finals, where they will play either Dukla Jihlava or Olomouc.
The winner of the First League playoffs will play a best-of-seven series against the last place team from the Extraliga, with the winner playing in the Extraliga next season and the loser in the First League. The last place team in the Extraliga will be either BK Mladá Boleslav or Vagnerplast Kladno.


Mumbai, Mar 22 : The Rupee on Friday moved up by 18 paise to 68.64 against the US Dollar in opening trade on fresh selling of US Dollars by bankers and exporters, dealers at forex market said.
The domestic unit gained on weak dollar against other currencies.
The Indian currency registered intra day high and low at 68.69 and 68.52 respectively, the dealers added.


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Ex-delegate gets Diebold voting code in mail
Conrad Quilty-Harper
With all the recent blunders and whistleblower interviews about the Diebold electronic voting fiasco, it would have been easy to believe that it couldn't get any worse for Diebold Systems. That's probably what Cheryl C. Kagan, an ex-Democratic delegate and an outspoken critic of Maryland's election chief, thought before she received a parcel containing the code that ran Maryland's electronic voting machines in the 2004 election, along with a note calling for her to "alert the media." Although Diebold Election Systems claims that the code is old and does not infringe the security of the current up-to-date system, the fact that it was sent at all exposes a fundamental security flaw in Diebold System's supposed "glitch-free" setup. The only viable solution to all this -- which would make voters happy and give Diebold Systems *some* credibility -- is if the code is released in an open source form. Even though we'd like to believe that the current version of Diebold's voting code (4.6) is more secure that the leaked code (4.3.15c), the litany of security failures on Diebold's part gives us little reason to trust them.
In this article: Code, Diebold, Hacked, Hacking, Maryland, Vote, Voting
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Political philosophy inspired by a timeless wisdom
The EU-UK Trade and Co-operation Agreement
The Withdrawal Agreement – a commentary
The Political Declaration – a commentary
Fixing the Withdrawal Agreement
The Withdrawal Agreement Act – a commentary
The European Commission proposals analysed
Concrete acts
A Powers and Bodies Act
Fixing minutiae
Rules for Radicals
Judicial Review: a guide
Inside the bubble
Outside the bubble
Of the Natural Condition of Mankind as Concerning their Felicity and Misery
VE-Day: rejoicing 75 years of victory and freedom
What more can be said on such a magnificent anniversary? No current topic is equal to it – victory over a monstrous power, preservation of our nation and many others. 75 years of freedom for half the continent – it was another 44 years before Eastern Europe was liberated.
In Berlin, left in ruins in 1945, they are celebrating the day for the first time, as a moment of liberation, but the eastern half of the city and the eastern lands of Germany went straight from one bloody tyranny to another.
It is impossible for the upcoming generation to understand the moment. There those who remember it, but most of us were born long afterwards. We have been brought up all our lives with all the easy assumptions of a free country and those Millennials, born after the Socialist tyrannies of the east were swept away, can have no imagination of anything but the way the world lives today. Talk of life in Nazi Germany, or the Communist East, washes over them because things cannot really have been like that, can they – the world doesn't work like that does it? It did, and more so that can every be described.
The evil comes from the essence of man. It is not unusual across the world or history – it is our free, benevolent society which is unusual. It cannot be taken for granted.
Churchill warned, when we stood alone:
The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.
We were buoyed up by song, and while it cheered, there was no doubt about what the effort entailed, rewards to be won and the peril if failure should befall:
I'll never forget the people I met
Braving those angry skies
I remember well as the shadows fell
The light of hope in their eyes
And though I'm far away
I still can hear them say
For when the dawn comes up
There'll be bluebirds over
Tomorrow, just you wait and see
There'll be love and laughter
And peace ever after
Tomorrow, when the world is free
The world is free, and has been for 75 years, because of that intense effort and sacrifice of six, long years or blood, sweat, toil and tears. Today is really Churchill's day, so his words can speak for themselves:
Yesterday morning at 2:41 a.m. at Headquarters, General Jodl, the representative of the German High Command, and Grand Admiral Doenitz, the designated head of the German State, signed the act of unconditional surrender of all German land, sea, and air forces in Europe to the Allied Expeditionary Force, and simultaneously to the Soviet High Command.
General Bedell Smith, Chief of Staff of the United States Army, and General Francois Sevez signed the document on behalf of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, and General Susloparov signed on behalf of the Russian High Command.
Today this agreement will be ratified and confirmed at Berlin, where Air Chief Marshal Tedder, Deputy Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, and General de Lattre de Tassigny will sign on behalf of General Eisenhower. General Zhukov will sign on behalf of the Soviet High Command. The German representatives will be Field-Marshal Keitel, Chief of the High Command, and the Commanders-in-Chief of the German Army, Navy, and Air Forces.
Hostilities will end officially at one minute after midnight to-night (Tuesday, May 8), but in the interests of saving lives the "Cease fire" began yesterday to be sounded all along the front, and our dear Channel Islands are also to be freed today.
The Germans are still in places resisting the Russian troops, but should they continue to do so after midnight they will, of course, deprive themselves of the protection of the laws of war, and will be attacked from all quarters by the Allied troops. It is not surprising that on such long fronts and in the existing disorder of the enemy the commands of the German High Command should not in every case be obeyed immediately. This does not, in our opinion, with the best military advice at our disposal, constitute any reason for withholding from the nation the facts communicated to us by General Eisenhower of the unconditional surrender already signed at Rheims, nor should it prevent us from celebrating today and tomorrow (Wednesday) as Victory in Europe days.
Today, perhaps, we shall think mostly of ourselves. Tomorrow we shall pay a particular tribute to our heroic Russian comrades, whose prowess in the field has been one of the grand contributions to the general victory.
The German war is therefore at an end. After years of intense preparation, Germany hurled herself on Poland at the beginning of September, 1939; and, in pursuance of our guarantee to Poland and in agreement with the French Republic, Great Britain, the British Empire and Commonwealth of Nations, declared war upon this foul aggression. After gallant France had been struck down we, from this Island and from our united Empire, maintained the struggle single-handed for a whole year until we were joined by the military might of Soviet Russia, and later by the overwhelming power and resources of the United States of America.
Finally almost the whole world was combined against the evil-doers, who are now prostrate before us. Our gratitude to all our splendid allies goes forth from all our hearts in this island and throughout the British Empire.
We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing; but let us not forget for a moment the toil and efforts that lie ahead. Japan, with all her treachery and greed, remains unsubdued. The injury she has inflicted upon Great Britain, the United States, and other countries, and her detestable cruelties, call for justice and retribution. We must now devote all our strength and resources to the completion of our task, both at home and abroad. Advance, Britannia! Long live the cause of freedom! God save the King!
Family, faith, flag, freedom
In a sentence, Her Majesty defines us
Warre of Every One Against Every One
The fearsome state of manhood
South Sudan praying for peace
By Anthony Beevor:
Berlin: The Downfall: 1945
The End of the Holocaust by Alvin H. Rosenfeld
By Thomas Hobbes:
De Cive
The Elements of Law Natural and Politic, Parts I & II
Behemoth: The History of the Causes of the Civil Wars of England
Thomas Hobbes – Behemoth (Clarendon edition)
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Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief
Author: AlexanderTheHog
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The White House Looks South: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson
William E. Leuchtenburg
LSU Press, 2005 M10 1 - 688 páginas
Perhaps not southerners in the usual sense, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Lyndon B. Johnson each demonstrated a political style and philosophy that helped them influence the South and unite the country in ways that few other presidents have. Combining vivid biography and political insight, William E. Leuchtenburg offers an engaging account of relations between these three presidents and the South while also tracing how the region came to embrace a national perspective without losing its distinctive sense of place.
According to Leuchtenburg, each man "had one foot below the Mason-Dixon Line, one foot above." Roosevelt, a New Yorker, spent much of the last twenty-five years of his life in Warm Springs, Georgia, where he built a "Little White House." Truman, a Missourian, grew up in a pro-Confederate town but one that also looked West because of its history as the entrepôt for the Oregon Trail. Johnson, who hailed from the former Confederate state of Texas, was a westerner as much as a southerner.
Their intimate associations with the South gave these three presidents an empathy toward and acceptance in the region. In urging southerners to jettison outworn folkways, Roosevelt could speak as a neighbor and adopted son, Truman as a borderstater who had been taught to revere the Lost Cause, and Johnson as a native who had been scorned by Yankees. Leuchtenburg explores in fascinating detail how their unique attachment to "place" helped them to adopt shifting identities, which proved useful in healing rifts between North and South, in altering behavior in regard to race, and in fostering southern economic growth.
The White House Looks South is the monumental work of a master historian. At a time when race, class, and gender dominate historical writing, Leuchtenburg argues that place is no less significant. In a period when America is said to be homogenized, he shows that sectional distinctions persist. And in an era when political history is devalued, he demonstrates that government can profoundly affect people's lives and that presidents can be change-makers.
Georgia Squire
The FDR Coalition
Liberalizing Dixie
Intimations of a Coming Storm
BorderState Democrat
Scourging the Scalawag
The Liberal Nationalist
LYNDON B JOHNSON
Southerner with a National Face
The White House Looks South
The South on the Move
The White House Looks South: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Lyndon ...
William Edward Leuchtenburg
Administration African Americans Alabama Arkansas Atlanta Baton Rouge Byrd Byrnes campaign Carter Chapel Hill civil rights bill clipping Committee Confederate Congress congressman convention cotton David Deal declared Democratic Party dissertation Dixie Dixiecrats economic Eleanor election FDR's FDRL federal FEPC Florida Franklin Franklin D Franklin Roosevelt George Georgia going Goldwater governor Harry Truman historian Historical Quarterly Jackson James Jim Crow Jimmy Jimmy Carter John Jonathan Daniels Journal Kennedy Lady Bird later LBJ's LBJL OH leader Louisiana Lyndon Johnson M.A. essay March Mississippi Missouri Negro nomination North northern percent Ph.D politicians President Presidential race racial region reported Republican Richard Robert Roosevelt Russell Senator social SOHP Solid South South Carolina Southern History Southern Politics Strom Strom Thurmond Talmadge Tennessee Texan Texas Thurmond told University Virginia Virginia Durr vote Wallace Walter Warm Springs Washington White House William wrote York
William E. Leuchtenburg is William Rand Kenan, Jr., Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of more than a dozen books on twentieth-century American history, including The Perils of Prosperity, 1914--1932; The FDR Years: On Roosevelt and His Legacy; In the Shadow of FDR: From Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan; and Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932--1940, winner of the Bancroft and the Francis Parkman Prizes. He is a past president of the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, and the Society of American Historians. A native of New York City, he lives in Chapel Hill, NC.
Título The White House Looks South: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson
Walter Lynwood Fleming Lectures in Southern History
Autor William E. Leuchtenburg
Editor LSU Press, 2005


text:
Sat, 20 May 2006
New York's a city full of whisky drinkers, but most of them only think of Scotch Whisky. LeNell Smothers is on a one-woman mission to change all that...from a tiny storefront in Brooklyn's Red Hook neighborhood. LeNell's stocks more than 100 different types of bourbon and other American whiskies, and many of them are available for tasting at a store that's been honored as the best in New York and one of the world's best retailers by Whisky Magazine. Plus...Seagram pensioners get the shaft, Diageo gets new leadership in Scotland, another native Ileach comes home to take over Lagavulin...Bunnahabhain gets a new website, and it's festival time on Islay...all on this episode of WhiskyCast!
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 6:02pm EST


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Towers of Babylon, The
by Michelle Kaeser
literary, non-classifiable, humorous
Embracing the anxieties of contemporary urban life, The Towers of Babylon tracks a group of hapless Millennials trying to find meaning in a world that consistently rejects them. What do you do when you have a graduate degree and are stuck working at a bagel shop? Or you've snagged a steady, middle-income job only to find it's plunging you into a moral abyss? Or you've worked your way into the upper echelons of the finance sector, but are still (still!) somehow struggling to pull in enough to support the dependents that just keep popping up around you? What happens to your faith when the world that was promised to you is collapsing at your feet?
As the novel's four narrators pinball around Toronto--where real estate prices are hyper-inflated, public infrastructure is crumbling, and climate change is bringing on killer heat and savage storms--they each try to do what's right for themselves and for the world. Trouble is, none of them can agree on what right means.
There's chronically unemployed and accidentally pregnant Joly; her best friend Louise, a billboard marketing genius in moral crisis; Joly's boyfriend Ben, a communist/Anglican hybrid with a big heart and big hopes and a big reservoir of anger; and Yannick, Joly's brother, a private equity hotshot, overworked and overburdened and trying to shake off an encroaching depression with brute will.
The Towers of Babylon looks at a generation struggling--professionally, personally, and spiritually--to carve out their place in a civilization that may well be inching toward decline.
Michelle Kaeser was born and raised in Toronto, and currently lives in Vancouver. Her fiction and essays have appeared in anthologies, journals, magazines and newspapers across the country. She was a finalist in the inaugural HarperCollinsCanada/UBC Prize for Best New Fiction (2013); the runner-up in the Edna Staebler Essay Contest (2017); a finalist in the Edna Staebler Essay Contest (2012 and 2014); an honourable mention in the Prairie Fire Fiction Contest (2013); and an honourable mention for the Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Award (2013 and 2009).
Author profile page >
"Michelle Kaeser has written a perfect classic for millennials. She captures us in all our overeducated, underemployed, anxious glory. At once devastating and funny, whip-smart and sexy, this is the definitive portrayal of a generation shipwrecked by post-recession capitalism. It left me winded." --Sigal Samuel, author of The Mystics of Mile End
"With her absorbing prose, Kaeser captures the precariousness of our carefully constructed lives. She gets us exactly right: our secret fears and passions, our times. Unnervingly real and true, funny and provocative, The Towers of Babylon is an abnormally good book about normal people." -Emily Saso
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Home Opinion Our Opinion Wellington Made Correct Decision In 1999, But Not In 2014
Wellington Made Correct Decision In 1999, But Not In 2014
This week, members of the Wellington Village Council made an unfortunate error that could cost residents not only money, but also their health. When the council voted 3-2 to stop adding fluoride to Wellington's water supply, they put the desires of a small, fringe minority over scientific fact, and might have doomed many residents to costly tooth decay and mounting dental bills.
Water fluoridation is a controversial issue across the nation and has been since it was introduced in the 1940s. Wellington voted to begin fluoridation in 1999 after a long debate and began adding fluoride to the water in 2000. Though both sides are incredibly passionate on the issue, only one side has the support of most health officials and many scientific studies to back it up. Unfortunately, this time Wellington made the wrong choice, choosing conspiracy theories over facts and studies. Fluoridation of the water supply is important to reduce tooth decay and dental diseases that could lead to permanent damage.
This issue is most important for our children. Although Wellington has many affluent areas, it also has communities with poorer families. Considering that social programs such as Medicare or Florida KidCare — which many families rely on — do not offer full dental coverage in all their plans, too many children will go without seeing a dentist until they are older.
Even children who have access to dental care aren't always the most diligent about brushing and flossing, and having the extra exposure to fluoride through drinking water can make a large difference between healthy teeth and dental diseases.
It can even help adults who have regular access to dental care. A 2013 study done by the University of North Carolina and published in the Journal of Dental Research found that fluoride in drinking water helps prevent tooth decay in adults, whether or not they were exposed to fluoride as children. With Wellington's large senior population, many whom are on Medicare and don't have dental coverage, water fluoridation is just as important to keep their teeth healthy, and studies show it works.
More than 204 million people in the U.S. ingest fluoride in their water supply, while about 100 million lack that access. According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, water fluoridation reduces tooth decay by about 25 percent over a person's lifetime.
Communities across the country continue to add fluoride to water because it works. Fluoride was added to water in the 1940s after studies found that communities with naturally occurring fluoride in the water supply had less tooth decay than those without. Since then, this crucial public policy has helped millions of people maintain healthy teeth.
It is unfortunate that some members of the Wellington Village Council were swayed by conspiracy theories and conjecture rather than the professional opinions of medical doctors and health officials from throughout the area, many whom see first-hand the benefits of water fluoridation every day.
We hope council members will reconsider, and that residents will take this issue seriously and push for fluoridation once again.
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nyscof January 31, 2014 At 1:18 pm
You probably haven't been following this issue closely because the reason the resolution was written up was because providers of fluoride chemicals wouldn't or couldn't provide evidence that their products were safe or that they followed the legal requirements.
Wellington joins most advanced cities in the world that do not fluoridate and never did. Many of these cities have better dental health than over-fluoridated US residents.
Communities which have stopped or rejected fluoridation are here:
http://fluoridealert.org/content/communities/
Last year, both Wichita, Kansas and Portland, Oregon voters rejected fluoridation 60% to 40%. Hamilton, NZ, councilors voted 7-1 to stop 50 years of fluoridation after councilors listened to several days of testimony from those for and against fluoridation (June 2013) Hamilton joins 30 other regional NZ councils that don't fluoridate.
Windsor, Ontario, and Cairns, Australia stopped fluoridation last year. Windsor's Mayor, who has a chemistry background, explains why he voted with the majority to stop 51 years of water fluoridation in this radio interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gJcjYl_2MQY
About 30 different Canadian municipalities have voted to ban fluoride in recent years.
In Australia alone, 19 councils representing more than 30 communities and 500,000 people voted to end fluoridation in 2013
In Nebraska, 80% of the towns voting chose to opt out of a fluoridation law (2008-2010)
Israel will stop fluoridation in 2014, citing health concerns.


It is probably difficult, if not impossible, to move from loneliness to solitude without any form of withdrawal from a distracting world, and therefore it is understandable that those who seriously try to develop their spiritual life are attracted to places and situations where they can be alone, sometimes for a limited period of time, sometimes more or less permanently. But the solitude that really counts is the solitude of the heart; it is an inner quality or attitude that does not depend on physical isolation.
On occasion this isolation is necessary to develop the solitude of heart, but it would be sad if we considered this essential aspect of the spiritual life as a privilege of monks and hermits.
It seems more important than ever to stress that solitude is one of the human capacities that can exist, be maintained and developed in the center of a big city, in the middle of a large crowd and in the context of a very active and productive life.
A man or woman who has developed this solitude of heart is no longer pulled apart by the most divergent stimuli of the surrounding world but is able to perceive and understand this world from a quiet inner center.


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1. Rapper Jay-Z's 1996 debut album. Considered by many to be one of the greatest rap albums ever.
2. Legal term for when there is a plausible reason to believe that someone has not committed the crime of which they are being accused.
1. "The Black Album" was tight, but "Reasonable Doubt" is still Jigga's best album.
2. The witness was unable to place my client at the crime, therefore you have reasonable doubt annd you have to acquit my client.
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Jay-Z's classic debut album. Considered by many to be his best.
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Education + Resources
Explaining Texas v. US
On July 9, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit will hear oral argument in Texas v. U.S., the next round of litigation challenging the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The appeals court is reviewing a federal trial court's decision that the ACA's minimum essential coverage provision (known as the individual mandate) is unconstitutional and, as a result, requires the entire ACA to be overturned. The individual mandate provides that most people must maintain a minimum level of health insurance coverage; those who do not do so must pay a financial penalty (known as the shared responsibility payment) to the IRS. The individual mandate was upheld as a constitutional exercise of Congress' taxing power by a five member majority of the U.S. Supreme Court in NFIB v. Sebelius in 2012.
In the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), Congress set the shared responsibility payment at zero dollars as of January 1, 2019. According to the Texas trial court, this action "compels the conclusion" that the individual mandate ceases to be a constitutional exercise of Congress' taxing power because the associated financial penalty no longer "produces at least some revenue" for the federal government.1 The trial court went on to find that, because Congress called the individual mandate "essential" when enacting the ACA in 2010, the entire law must be invalidated. The trial court's decision has not yet been implemented. However, if the decision does take effect, it will have complex and far-reaching consequences for the nation's health care system, affecting nearly everyone in some way. A host of ACA provisions would be eliminated, including: protections for people with pre-existing conditions, subsidies to make individual health insurance more affordable, expanded eligibility for Medicaid, coverage of young adults up to age 26 under their parents' insurance policies, coverage of preventive care with no patient cost-sharing, closing of the doughnut hole under Medicare's drug benefit, and a series of tax increases to fund the new benefits.
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Hospital Medicine Clinical Investigator
The Emory University Division of Hospital Medicine (EDHM) seeks MD or PhD investigators to capitalize on its existing clinical experience and expertise to develop a robust research program. The more than 118 faculty of the EDHM care for a broad range of patients across multiple clinical sites that include community hospitals, university hospitals, and a VA Medical Center, providing an opportunity to answer important clinical research questions. Additionally, the Division includes innovative and award-winning clinical teachers. We believe that the best hospital medicine researchers are those who ask novel, important, and answerable questions about clinical hospital medicine.
Candidates with interest anddemonstrates ability in healthcare services, quality improvement, or operations research areencouraged to apply. Competitive candidates include hospitalists or general medicine academiciansand/or non-clinician PhD researchers withtraining in epidemiology, health policy, health servicesresearch or a similar field. Preference will begiven to applicants who have a proven track record in clinical research as demonstrated by a history of success in obtainingextramural grant funding.
https://careers.acrpnet.org/jobs/15957160/hospital-medicine-clinical-investigator


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MV EXCLUSIVES
FULL VOLUME
Maximum Volume Music
UFO'S Conspiracy Theory
Andy Thorley
Legend's return for album number 22
Multi-million selling veteran classic British hard rock / metal band UFO are set to release their awesome 22nd studio album, 'A Conspiracy Of Stars', recorded, produced and mixed by Chris Tsangarides, (Judas Priest, Thin Lizzy , Gary Moore etc), as a Digipak (including poster and bonus track), jewel case CD, double vinyl LP and download, on Steamhammer / SPV Records, on February 23rd 2015.
'A Conspiracy Of Stars', the follow up to 2012's hugely acclaimed 'Seven Deadly' album, (which charted at number 1 in the UK rock chart, 63 in the national album chart and 9 in the UK Indie chart), is an even more accomplished body of work than its mighty predecessor. 'A Conspiracy Of Stars', a powerful collection of eleven compelling compositions, sees UFO prove that past and present can be blended in one glorious, homogeneous whole. Arguably one of the best albums the band have ever made, 'A Conspiracy Of Stars' continues to expand on the more blues infused direction taken on 'Seven Deadly', yet also edges ever closer to the 'classic UFO' sound of late 1970's albums such as 'No Heavy Petting' and 'Lights Out'.
The album was recorded by the current line-up (for the first time) of original members Phil Mogg (vocals), Paul Raymond (keyboards, guitar) and Andy Parker (drums), plus lead guitarist Vinnie Moore, (who has been a permanent member of the group since 2003), and American bassist Rob De Luca, who joined the fold in 2012.
The majority of the new material was composed by virtuoso guitarist Vinnie Moore, whose expert, fluid licks and superb solos put their mighty stamp on every hook-laden, seductive, melodic hard rocking gem on 'A Conspiracy Of Stars'. The album also features two songs written by bassist Rob De Luca, one written by Paul Raymond, and a collaboration between Raymond and De Luca.
All the lyrics were penned by front man Phil Mogg, a man of the people who once again proves his talent as a keen observer of the human species. On brooding opener 'The Killing Kind', a punchy, no compromise statement of intent, he opines "Tell a story about love and what lovers find, a story of possession, the killing kind." On the smoldering song 'Precious Cargo', an equally subtle declaration of love, he sings "The scatter rollers coming down, summers been and turned around, it don't seem so long ago, that you were my precious cargo".
The lyrics and music for 'A Conspiracy Of Stars' were written and composed in summer 2014 at the Barn Room rehearsal studios in Kent, before UFO decamped a few miles further east to Chris Tsangarides' Ecology Rooms studio, to record and mix the album. Coincidentally, Tsangarides was working at the studio as a 14-year-old trainee when UFO recorded their debut album 'UFO 1' in England in 1970.
UFO, an unstoppable act who are clearly firing fully on all cylinders, are scheduled to tour Germany, Poland, The Czech Republic, Lithuania and Switzerland in February and March, prior to an extensive 17 date UK and Irish tour in April and May 2015. Dates are:-
Thu 16th April Norwich – Waterfront
Fri 17th April Cambridge – Junction
Sat 18th April Wolverhampton – Wulfrun Hall
Sun 19th April Manchester – Ritz
Tue 21st April Dublin – The Academy
Wed 22nd April Belfast – The Limelight
Fri 24th April Glasgow – O2 ABC
Sat 25th April Newcastle – O2 Academy
Sun 26th April Leeds – O2 Academy
Tue 28th April Nottingham – Rock City
Thu 30th April Bristol – O2 Academy
Fri 1st May Falmouth – Pavilion
Sat 2nd May Exeter – Phoenix
Sun 3rd May Salisbury – City Hall
Tue 5th May Brighton – Concorde 2
Wed 6th May Oxford – O2 Academy
Thu 7th May London – HMV Forum
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Thomas Jefferson Papers
Previous Search ResultNext Search Result
Documents filtered by: Recipient="Jefferson, Martha (Martha Jefferson Randolph)" AND Period="Confederation Period"
sorted by: date (ascending)
From Thomas Jefferson to Martha Jefferson, [October 1786]
To Martha Jefferson
[Oct. 1786]
I will call for you today, my dear between twelve and one. You must be dressed, because we drink tea with Mrs. Montgomery. Bring your music and drawings. Adieu my dear Patsy.
MS not found; text printed from a photostat in NcD; unsigned, undated, and unaddressed. This note was written with TJ's left hand, and therefore belongs to some date after 18 Sep., when TJ injured his wrist, and before mid-November, when he began to resume use of his right hand (also Mrs. Montgomery left Paris soon after this; see TJ to Mrs. Montgomery, 19 Nov. 1786). It is certain that TJ saw Martha on 5, 10, and 19 Oct., and 9 Nov. 1786, for the Account Book for the first three of these dates reads: "gave Patsy 3f"; and for the last, "gave Patsy 6f." The first date is improbable, for that was the date when TJ had returned from St. Denis "more dead than alive" and in considerable distress from his wrist and his sleepless night; the last is also improbable, since TJ began soon after that date to use his right hand (see TJ to Jay, 12 Nov. 1786). It seems reasonable to conclude, then, that the note must have been written during Oct. and perhaps about mid-month. See also TJ to Martha Jefferson, 4 Nov. 1786.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-10-02-0351
Note: The annotations to this document, and any other modern editorial content, are copyright © Princeton University Press. All rights reserved.
Jefferson Papers
Jefferson, Martha (Martha Jefferson Randolph)
Randolph, Martha Jefferson
"From Thomas Jefferson to Martha Jefferson, [October 1786]," Founders Online, National Archives, accessed April 11, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-10-02-0351. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 10, 22 June–31 December 1786, ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954, p. 499.]


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Solution to neighbourhood arguments is just a click away
Tuesday 1 June 2010
Online dispute resolution is the latest high-tech tool to help resolve disputes between hostile tenants, their neighbours and landlords.
Groundbreaking new computer software developed by Victoria University (VU) will soon be used to tackle the rising number of serious neighbourhood disputes in major cities.
Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show the number of people living in high-rise apartments has grown rapidly in the past 30 years, with condominiums now making up about a third of all dwellings in Melbourne.
An increase in the number of disputes arising from noise complaints, maintenance and rent payment is placing extra pressure on police, local government and the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT).
Developer of the new software, VU Professor John Zeleznikow, said research showed neighbourhood arguments were one of the most pervasive forms of dispute, damaging individuals and the local community.
Professor Zeleznikow said his computer program would help resolve disputes via the Internet, easing neighbourhood tensions by allowing each party to come to agreement in the comfort of their own home.
"It is often not possible for people to move away from each other after a major neighbourhood dispute, especially if you're living in close proximity within an apartment building,'' Professor Zeleznikow said.
"This new software is about using information technology to help people live better together. The way you resolve the dispute is often more important than the actual resolution.''
Professor Zeleznikow said the software, based on game theory techniques developed by Nobel Laureate John Nash, asks each complainant to prioritise their demands, assigning each a numeric value so that the sum is 100.
"Through a series of trade-offs and compensation strategies, disputants can often achieve 70-80 per cent of what they require, rather than the traditional 50-50 approach to resolving disputes. And all this can happen without the need to meet face-to-face.''
Professor Zeleznikow, whose book Enhanced Dispute Resolution Through the Use of Information Technology was recently published by Cambridge University Press, said research indicates that neighbourhood disputes are not always well managed by third party interveners such as police or local government.
"Current legal remedies are widely seen as inadequate because of their expense, delay and inflexibility when needing to be tailored to a particular dispute,'' he said. "No one is arguing that using this technology will be the norm and that we will now never see our neighbours. We are saying that in a certain percentage of cases it could be useful, particularly in difficult cases.''
Professor Zeleznikow's software is also being developed for use by Relationships Australia to help soothe the stress of divorce settlements.
For interview: Professor John Zeleznikow, Victoria University, 9505 3323 or 0432 154 217
Daniel Clarke, Media Officer
Ph: 9919 9491 or 0407 771 072. Email: [email protected]


We all have goals. Some goals are long-term and some are short-term. Some are goals we have shelved for so long they are dusty and covered with cobwebs. Some are freshly minted. However for those of us who are not as successful in life as we would wish we often despair of achieving our goals. Some goals seem out-of-reach and unattainable. This does not have to be what actually happens. We have the power within ourselves to change our lives and the place to begin is when we are setting our goals.
There are simple rules that make it more likely for us to achieve our goals and the first is to follow the K.I.S.S. principle. In other words, keep it simple stupid. The more elaborate and complicated we make our goals then the less likely we will be to follow through with them.
The best way to simplify your goal setting is to only set one goal -- the ultimate goal. After that then everything else is just details. What is the ultimate goal? What is your final destination? When you are on your deathbed and you cast a look back over your life then what do you want to see accomplished there? When you look around you what do you want to see? That vision is your ultimate goal.
We all know that having a destination in mind makes traveling easier. Knowledge of that destination helps us plan what to pack and controls our transportation decisions. The same is true when it comes to setting goals and achieving those goals. If we know our destination then we know what to pack (and what to leave behind) and we can make better decisions about how to reach that destination. Simplifying our goals to that one ultimate goal also helps us focus on that one destination rather than constantly detouring and losing our way. It also makes it easier to measure the importance and relevance of so many other decisions that impact our daily life when we have the measuring stick. If we take Path A or Path B which will be more effective in reaching that ultimate destination?
Naming that ultimate goal for ourselves is a tremendously powerful tool for our own success because so often we spend our time and energy focusing on managing the details of our lives. We are simply reacting to whatever is thrown at us by others or simply by daily life. However in order to truly achieve success and achieve our goals then we must take the lead and that means acting. Simply by setting our ultimate goal and focusing our energy and time on that goal means that instead of reacting we are now taking action. That action means we have taken a leadership role in our own success. Simply by taking that action we are taking control of our own life and that is a very powerful step toward success.
If you want to achieve more success in your life then you must set one simple goal -- the ultimate goal for your life -- and you must get out in front of the goal to take action with your life instead of reacting all your life.
We have all used a Compass at one time or another. These devices help us to find our way. Nowadays, we use our GPS to help us located places. Nonetheless, we are able to retrieve the directions to get to our destiny. Direction is important in life. No matter where you are in your life you must find your own path to success and then take the necessary steps in the right direction to get to that point. Take a few minutes to learn about direction from this video that was created courtesy of Oneword4u.


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Home CIO Hugo Boss' concession model spurs its online business
Hugo Boss' concession model spurs its online business
The aggressive digital strategy has helped Hugo Boss, the German luxury fashion brand, improve its online retail business over the past several quarters.
Hugo Boss' online business recorded 7th consecutive quarter of double-digit growth, with 16 percent growth recorded in Q2 2019. The company's retail sales grew 3 percent during the quarter, of which 1 percent came from online channels.
Hugo Boss Group reported sales of euro 1.34 bn (1.5 bn dollars) for the first half of this year, up from euro 1.3 bn last year. Online sales hit euro 59 mn (65 mn dollars), an increase of euro 11 mn.
Yves Müller – chief financial officer, Hugo Boss, said the 10 percent of the company's products are completely digitally developed and sold via digital showroom. To meet its digital transformation goals, the company plans to develop more products digitally in 2020.
Tmall and JD are their main digital businesses in Asia. The company changed their partner and appointed a new marketing agency to run the online channels. From near-breakeven last year, JD's adjusted operative income grew to an all-time high of 2.1 percent.
Hugo also selected British singer and artist Liam Payne as its future brand ambassador, the first partnership of this kind for Hugo. Liam made a live appearance at an event during Berlin Fashion week for its exclusive HUGO x Liam Payne collections. The products, which were available online immediately, recoded sell-through rates twice as high, with online revenues clearly outperforming brick-and-mortar sales, the company said.
Müller attributes this success to the concession model in online business and has announced plans to expand it further. "New e-concessions and those we initiated back in 2018 will clearly contribute to strong double-digit growth in our online business also in H2," he added.
Hugo Boss is also expanding their online business by launching exclusive websites for specific regions. In the next quarter, the company will launch a website for Irish market, which had been served by the U.K website.


Jess Knollmeyer is a digital designer with a passion for people and big ideas. Though currently residing in Australia, she is originally from Seattle, Washington and is an avid yogi. With a UX/UI background, she is well versed in both technical and aesthetic digital design aspects and brings several years of experience as well as a comprehensive creativity to work with her. Jess works for 24Digital, and her experience in the digital space led her to find Sucuri and activate effective security solutions to help her company.
I love the platform! It's been really helpful for us.
Jess is a Digital Producer for 24Digital, a small digital marketing agency founded about 16 years ago and based in Melbourne, Australia. The company focuses on creating long-term partnerships with a variety of brands and businesses. They work alongside their clients in order to create a strong online presence through digital strategy, websites and/or eCommerce sites. Their goal is to work so closely with each client that they essentially meld with the client's existing team. This ultimately improves 24Digital's ability to make qualified suggestions. Being fully conscious of how each business operates, the digital brand they create will be more effective in helping grow their each client's business.
To create quality relationships the team focuses on maximizing long-term engagement with the client. Because every business is different, it is important to acknowledge the nuances in leadership, customer base, and business operations. After gaining a better understanding of their client's unique business, 24Digital offer recommendations that are rational, necessary, on par with business goals and backed by actual data. Often these solutions are implemented to increase sales, or to expand exposure and grow the top layer of the marketing funnel.
At 24Digital, our core offering is digital strategy and web development. We focus on WordPress and Magento with some other customer development as well. Regardless of the work we're doing, we really focus on the partnerships with the people we work with. We really like to get to know them and work as though we're a part of their team within their business.
Website image, digital brand image, target market product positioning, and SEO are some of the specific problems 24Digital works with their clients to solve. To acquire the most comprehensive and accurate data, 24 completes user interviews, customer questionnaires and workshops with the client. All aspects focus on a high level of interpersonal interaction.
At a core level, most client's problems stem from not getting enough engagement on their website or not getting enough traffic on their websites. The solution is very individual. It can be looking at the content they're offering. Do they need to employ a copywriter, or a photographer who will help them with a weak spot in the business? Sometimes, it's operational. Is it design based. User experience helps improve design.
A prime example of 24Digital's level of work can be seen through the story regarding their work with Freeze MND (Moto Neurone Disease). In short, they helped this effort raise more than 2 million dollars in under a month. The full case study can be found on their blog. The ability to deep dive into their digital specialty provides their clients with a wealthy resource of experience.
At this time, the digital house actively manages 50 to 60 business websites. They are in contact with those clients on a weekly basis. In addition to those clients being actively managed, 24Digital also has a roster of up to 100 business (and/or individuals) that they assist occasionally. With only 10 people in the agency they operate very lean and have sought to maximize the efficiency of their process. The organization's key values play a large role in their operation.
We like to share as much knowledge with our clients as we can. We like to position ourselves as a team that could potentially fit within their small business as opposed to an external agency. The more knowledge that we can share about digital, about online, about internet security, it helps us create a better partnership. And, it's valuable information to our clients and makes the ongoing partnership easy.
As a digital agency, it's difficult to ignore the intersection of security with the business's online presence. Part of 24Digital's strategy is to educate their customer, and one of the domains they focus on is security. For example, Jess provided us with a summary of an actual customer experience they encountered.
It's a major flooring company here in Australia. They have about 140 stores across Australia, and we manage their website. We got a notice from Rackspace, their hosting provider. Their site was down, and we logged into the website platform only to see some crazy spikes in monitoring activity. At that point, the whole team was pretty busy and I attempted to jump into terminal. I'm a project manager-I don't do that. But, we needed to get some reports. We basically figured out that the site was under attack. It was the same day that there was a big security release for XMLRCP. Those attacks were hitting really hard from that day on. So, we really had to scramble and essentially we had to decide what we would do.
Thankfully, Jess and 24Digital had already been made aware of a possible solution that would not only enable 24Digital to continue providing their services to their client, but also would allow their client to move forward with their online business.
We'd used Sucuri before for scans, but we never used the firewall or the malware clean up services. But, it immediately came to mind. We logged onto the website, saw the firewall and said, "Quick! Let's go!". We got signed up, and get it into place, and it probably saved our skin. Immediately when the firewall was activated, the threats were stopped. The site was protected, and it saved us from a major headache over the weekend (it happened on a Friday afternoon around 5pm).
24Digital relied on what they knew to be the best, most practical and efficient solution. Sucuri recognizes that often customers don't know what they don't know. Therefore, they may need to be made aware of the significance or impact a lack of security can have on their business in order to implement the right course of action.
The problem the client doesn't know they have is the need for more information. Many times a client can come in with a very narrow view, and the idea of doing prototypes and testing... but there's a whole scope of pieces that come together that will help them achieve their goals.
To be successful, 24Digital builds a tremendous amount of trust. They do not take that trust for granted, rather they work to carefully maintain and nurture the working relationship they have developed with each and every client they have. If 24Digital's website were compromised, it would send an incorrect message that is contradictory to their brand. They, therefore, are very serious about their website's security. Not only that, but they are also serious about their customer's website security.
With Sucuri's security solutions in place, 24Digital does not have to worry about spending time with in-house website security. Rather, they allow Sucuri to provide the necessary security services for their business and their customer's businesses. This results in a low maintenance solution. Just as 24Digital's experience and ability to deep dive into their subject matter allows their clients to focus on what they do best, Sucuri's experience and know-how provides a low-maintenance, turn-key solution that alleviates customer's security concerns.


But what a wallop that little word packs.
I don't doubt it was a powerful temptation in the wilderness to give in to the "If" taunts of the devil and I don't doubt it was powerfully hard to take when that same two-letter taunt came his way while on the cross. Jesus had already asked his Father to forgive them because they did not know what they were doing but it's possible that what they did not know was the great irony of their taunts.
Because as it turned out, being the Son of God did not mean what everyone else thought it meant: namely, exercising raw power, proving your identity through some razzle-dazzle that would spell the end of pain and suffering for yourself. The truth was that Jesus in one sense gave in to the taunts on the cross—but in so doing he turned those taunts on their head. Being the Son of God meant suffering and dying. Coming down off that cross, inuring himself to harm and injury, would have been a profoundly wrong thing for the Christ, the Son of God, the King of the Jews to do.
That is what Jesus did, of course, and in so doing he turned not only those taunts on their head, he turned the whole of reality upside-down. And only by shaking things up just that much could Jesus save a world that had long ago convinced itself that up was down and black was white and might made right.
Luke 23 is where we go for "Reign of Christ" or "Christ the King" Sunday in the Year C Lectionary cycle. The cross is a strange place to go the week before we start our annual Advent trek to Bethlehem. But when you think about it, it's an even stranger place to visit to celebrate the kingly reign of someone. As Neal Plantinga famously said in a sermon some years ago, getting "glorified on a cross" is finally as nonsensical as claiming to be "enthroned on an electric chair." Such an odd route to glory and power certainly was not on the minds of all those mockers who began so many sentences with "If . . ." that day. But that odd route is God's route. It was no mistake. It led to the glory of salvation.
Thanks be to Christ Jesus, the King of kings!
But, of course, he says nothing of the kind. Instead he makes a promise: "Today you will be with me in paradise." Even on his best days Jesus did not talk much about paradise–in fact, this is the only place in the entire Bible where the word "paradise" passes Jesus' lips. Mighty strange moment to mention it for the first time!
The only time Jesus promised paradise to anybody and he's almost dead! Maybe that's because Jesus was just then closer to securing paradise for the whole lot of us than ever before. All along he'd tried to make clear that the kingdom is not what you expect: it's a mustard seed, a treasure hidden, yeast that disappears in the dough.
Above all, Jesus made clear that the kingdom of God is most concerned with the dispossessed, the lost, the last, the least, the downtrodden. So what a perfect moment to make clear one last time that the paradise of God's kingdom is for those who know they're dead without it. "Remember me," the thief rasped out. The truth is that Jesus could never forget one such as this.
As just noted, this is the first and only time in all the gospels when Jesus used that word "paradise." Why? Why did Jesus skip over the thief's mention of the kingdom? For that matter, given the sheer volume of times when Jesus himself talked about his kingdom (the word occurs over 40 times in Luke alone and mostly on the lips of Jesus), why would Jesus have NOT engaged in some kingdom-talk at this critical juncture? Since this lection is for "Reign of Christ/Christ the King" Sunday, you'd expect a little more kingdom talk from Jesus himself, wouldn't you?
First, the good news of the gospel and of what Jesus was making possible through the sacrificial death he was undergoing at that very moment is that our hope need not be pinned only to a far-off, remote future time. Those who are "in Christ" (as Paul will go on to refer to it again and again) have a security and a hope that is for right now and not just off on some misty distant shore.
Second, Jesus' non-engagement with the thief's kingdom-talk may be yet another indication that for the most part, when Jesus spoke about the kingdom of God in the gospels, he mostly did not mean it in the eschatological sense that the kingdom would exist only by-and-by at the time of the parousia. The kingdom of God is available now, albeit as a hidden reality in this world. Yes, it will fully come and flower and flourish in the eschaton to come but Jesus did not generally want people to be starry-eyed about some future kingdom. He wanted people to live in kingdom ways now by embodying lives of shalom right now, today.
"Remember us when you come into your kingdom," we sometimes want to say to Jesus. But the gospel is here to tell us that the kingdom is now and in the coming weeks when we return to Bethlehem—Advent is no nostalgia trip to make us remember something that once was but is no more. Advent, like the rest of the Christian life and its kingdom focus, is about the here, the now, and also the forever after.
Old Testament concepts of the afterlife are notoriously hard to nail down in that there appears to have been a little bit of diffuse thinking on this subject. Many Christians naively overlay the Old Testament with "pop" notions about a simple dichotomy between heaven and hell (good people go straight to God when they die, bad people go straight to the "other place"). But that is indeed naïve as the Old Testament resists easy systematizing into a consistent post-mortem schema of what happens to people after they die. At best it can be observed that Jewish ideas on the afterlife developed and were refined over time.
In the case of the word "paradise," which occurs in the gospels only once right in this lection of Luke 23:43, the word generally had three referents: the original "Paradise" of the prelapsarian Garden of Eden, the intermediate "Paradise" which was a kind of pleasant waiting area for the redeemed prior to the final resurrection of the dead (in contradistinction to Hades/Sheol, which was a rather dank and unpleasant holding cell for the dead), and the ultimate or final "Paradise" that would be the fullness of "heaven" or of God's new kingdom. In Luke 23, it is all-but certain that Jesus was using this word in its second sense of the intermediate abode of the faithful.
Some while back I was taking a walk through a neighborhood near where I work and I witnessed something that we've all seen and even participated in at one time or another. In a corner of a fenced-in backyard, four children between the ages of 4-6 were playing. And in the 45 seconds or so during which I could observe them, it was clear that one little girl was calling the shots. "OK, Billy, you stand over there and you have to watch for wild animals. Jill, you have to sit behind me and get me things when I need them. Eric, your job is to . . ." Again, we've seen this scene before. And we know what it means. In that little backyard this little girl was establishing her kingdom. And she was the kingdom's Sovereign.
In his fine book The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard claims that we all have our little kingdoms in life. A kingdom, Willard says, is any area of life where my will and my desires determine what happens and what does not happen. "A man's house is his castle," the old, rather sexist, adage says. And indeed, in our homes, at our places of work, we all have little spheres of influence, little patches of this earth where we make a kingdom for ourselves, where we try to arrange things so that what we say, what we think, what we believe determines the shape of life.
The kingdom of God is where God's desires, God's dreams for this creation, God's will and God's intentions rule. The kingdom of God is where the shape of life mirrors God's design for life.
As Willard writes, the kingdom is real and it is real now. We can see it, right now, today. The kingdom is present wherever people pray the way Jesus taught us to pray. The kingdom is present wherever Jesus nurtures certain behaviors and lifestyles that we call the fruit of the Spirit. The kingdom is present wherever people pour water over the heads of babies or take bread and wine to their lips all simply because Jesus told us that this is the way we are to act in remembrance of him.
The kingdom is present wherever a believer somewhere refuses to go along with some scheme because she believes it is untruthful and that going along with it would make her less transparent to Jesus. Whenever and wherever a woman says no to abortion, whenever and wherever a college student refuses to participate in some binge-drinking party, whenever and wherever someone refuses to cut corners on his taxes, whenever and wherever a kindly old woman brings light into a neighbor's darkness by speaking a word of peace, whenever and wherever a man sits down to tutor a homeless child, and whenever and wherever all such things are done because all these people believe there is a cosmic Lord named Jesus, then there–right there and right here and right now–the kingdom of God is present because the effective will of Jesus is calling the shots.
When the Son of God came to this earth, he announced the arrival of the kingdom. It's not pie-in-the-sky and far off in the future. It is now.
"Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." Thanks be to God, he has remembered each one of us and we are in his kingdom, now. Today.
Because Jeremiah 23 is about leadership, Americans may not have to squint very hard to see parallels between it and their current political situation. Having survived a bruising presidential campaign, they (as well as citizens of all nations) may even be ready to hear the gospel that God embeds in this text.
Jeremiah focuses such sad language, of course, on Israel's "shepherds." Yet while most shepherds tended flocks of sheep, the shepherds about whom the prophet writes are primarily Judah's kings and other leaders. Shepherds were supposed to protect and feed their flocks, keep peace within them, defend them against attackers, search for sheep who'd left the flock and rescue sheep that were in danger. They were, in other words, to promote the well-being of those whom they were charged with caring for.
God expected God's people's kings to care for God's people in similar ways. Yet instead of holding them together, these kings, God accuses them in our text, have scattered and destroyed God's people. In all likelihood, writes Elna Solvang, these shepherds include Shallum/Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Coniah/Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah.
Scholars note there's word play involved in verse 2b. Because Israel's shepherds have failed, says the prophet there, to "bestow care on," literally "attend to" (peqad) their sheep, God will "bestow punishment," literally "attend to" (poqed) to them. Because, in other words, Israel's shepherds have failed to pay positive attention to their people, God will pay a kind of negative attention to those leaders. They are as good as dead.
Those shepherds have, after all, according to verse 2, "scattered … and driven away" the flock that is God's Israelite people. Instead of looking back, this seems to anticipate King Nebuchadnezzar driving the Israelites into exile in 597 and 587 BCE.
Yet in verse 3 God seems to add an interesting twist to the source of that scattering. There, after all, God seems to take some credit for having driven Israel into exile. This at least implies that Israel's "scattering," her exile, is actually God's punishment for her rebellion. God's using wicked people, including Israel and Babylon's leaders, to carry out God's purposes and plans.
While the 21st century has few monarchs who wield much real authority anymore, its shepherd-leaders are no less flawed than 6th century BCE Israel's. As a result, those who preach and teach Jeremiah 23 may want to quickly jump to examples of the way our political leaders have exercised poor and even harmful leadership.
Yet it's even more appropriate for us to begin by admitting that about our colleagues and ourselves as well. Religious leaders, including Christian ones, must admit we've not always properly cared for those for whom God has called us to serve. Perhaps Jeremiah 23's preachers and teachers can even be publicly honest about the scattering affect some of our own words and actions have had on the people whom we shepherd.
But, of course, all leaders share some responsibility for the well-being of those we lead. Leaders of democratic governments and societies bear some responsibility for the people they lead. Even members of the church bear some responsibility for our neighbors, both within and outside the church.
Jeremiah 23 reminds us that God takes such leadership responsibilities very seriously. Where we've failed to attend to those whom God expects us to attend to, we deserve nothing less than what God gave Israel's leaders. Where we've failed to care for those under our charge, we deserve punishment. Where we've scattered rather than united people, we've made God angry.
Of course, her shepherds have mistreated Israel so badly that only a "remnant" remains to be gathered. Yet God promises to bring that remnant home where it will, in Genesis' language, live out its creational mandate to be fruitful and multiply.
Once God has done that, God promises in a perhaps surprising twist to raise up "shepherds over them who will tend" (4) God's flock. This suggests God will somehow restore Israel's monarchy. These kings will so fulfill their shepherding tasks that their people will no longer be afraid, disappointed or even scattered.
Of course, one problem with that glorious promise is that God didn't seem to keep it. After all, not long after Jeremiah made these lavish promises, Israel became occupied territory again. Zedekiah became Judah's last king. Israel largely essentially disappeared as any kind of national entity.
This coming king, insists the prophet, will be a descendant of King David. Instead of failing to attend to the sheep God gives him, he will wisely promote and execute justice and righteousness in the land. What's more, this coming king, "the Lord," Israel's "righteousness will protect and rule both Judah and Israel.
This describes something for which so many, perhaps especially Jewish people, still deeply and sometimes desperately long. In fact, elements of this text make up part of Jewish expectations of who the coming Messiah will be and what he will do.
It is that leadership that invites all leaders, but perhaps especially Christian ones, to exercise leadership that imitates Christ's. The Holy Spirit, after all, fully equips us to lead in ways that encourage and enable those for whom we care to be fruitful and increase in number. The Spirit empowers us to tend to our various "flocks" in ways that allows them to not fear, but be at peace. That Spirit also equips God's adopted sons and daughters to lead in ways that are just and right.
In her fascinating book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, Doris Kearns Goodwin says Abraham Lincoln's greatness as a leader partly consisted in his knowledge of ways to reduce sadness and stress — not only in himself, but also in others. Lincoln was, in other words, a good "shepherd" of the people he lead.
These are auspicious days in my country. We're less than two weeks downwind from our elections and we know now who our next President will be and what our new Congress will look like. During this coming week, we will pause as a nation to give thanks for the blessings we have received from God, though not all our citizens will acknowledge that God is the source of our blessings. Even fewer of my compatriots will know what I mean when I say that this Sunday is an auspicious day in the life of the church.
Today we come to the end of the liturgical year. It ends not with a whimper, but with a bang, because today is the celebration of Christ the King. We began this church year with our Advent observances, in which we looked forward to the coming of the new born King. Then we followed him to his death on the cross as the "King of the Jews," celebrated his re-coronation in his resurrection and ascension, and rejoiced in his regal outpouring of his Spirit on Pentecost. In the season after Pentecost, Ordinary Time, we focused on what it means to follow the King in a world that does not acknowledge him. Now today, we rejoice in the fact that he is King of Kings, even if our world does not seem to be under his control.
At first glance, Psalm 46 might seem a slightly peculiar choice for such a celebrative day. I mean, after the high praise commanded and modeled in our reading for last week (Psalm 98), we might expect a Psalm filled with even higher praise on this auspicious day. Instead, Psalm 46 plunges us back into a world in disarray, filled with chaos in nature and conflict among the nations. How can a Psalm so filled with trouble help us celebrate the reign of Christ over the whole world?
Upon closer examination, Psalm 46 is a perfect choice, precisely because it speaks so accurately of the world in which we live and claims with great power that the Lord is King of this very world. Psalm 46 is very honest about the two major sources of dangers in our world—nature out of control and the nations in bloody conflict. With almost daily news about earthquakes destroying cities around the world and hurricanes whipping the oceans into a fury, we can relate to verses 2 and 3 all too well. But the Psalmist is talking about more than the occasional natural disaster or even the environmental cataclysm predicted by so many scientists. He is describing the utter collapse of the continents into the sea, the return of the primeval chaos described so ominously in Genesis 1:2, the shaking of the natural foundations on which our lives absolutely depend, that is, the unmaking of the earth.
In verse 6 the Psalmist turns the camera on the turmoil caused by national upheavals. "Nations are in uproar," he says, using the very same word that describes the raging of the waters as they "roar and foam." And "kingdoms fall" or totter, repeating the word used in verse 3 to describe the quaking of the mountains. It is a world filled with wars and rumors of war, with desolate battlefields strewn with the modern equivalent of swords and spears and shields (verses 8 and 9). Could there be a more accurate description of the political instability and military escalations of the 21st Century?
It is against such a backdrop that Psalm 46 announces the reign of God, and I'm glad for that. The writer was not some dreamer looking at the world through rose colored glasses. These are the words of a realist who had a clear eyed perspective on the trouble in the world. So when he says that God is King, we know that his confession is not a denial of the reality that everyone can see. It is the proclamation of a higher reality that can be seen only by faith.
At this point in his reign, The King has not yet stilled the chaotic forces of nature completely and he has not brought universal peace to the earth, though he will when he is exalted among the nations throughout the earth. For now, what the King provides to his subjects is his presence with us– not just as a pleasant friend, but as a powerful Warrior, an impregnable Fortress and a safe Refuge. In a dangerous world, the children of the King are not alone and defenseless. We are kept safe and secure.
Some of my readers believe that Jerusalem is still central to God's saving plan, but I believe that the church has replaced Israel as the focus of God's saving work (think of Augustine's City of God) and Jesus has replaced the temple as the "place" where God dwells in a special way. As Mays puts it, "The Psalm does not invite trust in a place, but in a Presence who wills to dwell with his people." (Cf. John 1:14) The words of verses 4 and 5, then, offer a wonderful pair of comforts to God's people in the world. First, God will be with us in the future. That is, when we think we are about to fall, "God will help us at break of day." At the just the right time, when the enemy is about to attack with deadly force and we think all is lost, God will help and we will not fall.
Some of your listeners will be helped by the explanation given above. Others will stumble over the claim that Christ rules this earth because of the problem that arises in verses 8 and 9, the problem of endless war. If Christ the King is the Prince of Peace, how can it be that wars have never ceased to the ends of the earth, a direct contradiction of the claim of verse 9. What are we to make of those verses?
Well, some scholars say that wars are precisely "the works of the Lord" (verse 8a), that God uses war to accomplish his master plan for the world. They suggest that the "desolations he has brought on the earth" refer to such things as the defeat of Assyria and Babylon, the great enemies and captors of Israel. War is one of the ways God rids the world of unrighteousness. Other scholars point to verse 9, which says that the King makes wars cease, destroying the instruments so completely that they can never be used again ("burns the shields with fire"). It is not the will of the King that the inhabitants of earth slaughter each other forever.
It may be that both interpretations are correct. In the interim, as the King rules his subjects with a love that permits free choice, those subjects will do things of which the King disapproves mightily. As King he uses even their misdeeds to accomplish his will for the world. But his ultimate will for his world is that it be at peace completely. So the day will come when he "makes wars cease to the ends of the earth." Then the Pax Christus will reign.
We can calm the fears that naturally arise when we are threatened only if we do what verse 10 calls us to do. "Be still…." In one sense, that command is addressed to a noisy, frantic world. It means something like "enough, stop it, shut up," the kind of thing a parent might say to a hyperactive toddler or a spouse might say to a hysterical mate. But this command means much more than "be quiet," though it means at least that. In fact, the word in Hebrew here has the sense of sink or relax. It is used in the Bible to describe what happens to a pile of hay when it is set afire; it sinks down into itself. It describes the sun setting at the end of the day, the wings of a great bird settling in upon its body as it lands, a worker's hands dropping after the work is completed. It refers to an inner stillness in which we loosen our grip on life, let it go, let it drop, leave it alone, and do nothing.
Oh yes, there is a legitimate place for hard work and skillful speech, for taking care of your own problems and not letting people run over you. But God is saying a very profound thing here. It is only when we are still, with our mouths and in our souls, that we truly and deeply know that "I am God." I am, not you. I am, not nature. I am, not the nations. I am God.
We know all this, and yet we don't. We know it in our minds on our good days, but not in our hearts, in our emotions, in times of real trouble. Then we churn within, trying to find a solution, looking for the right words, wondering where God is, why the King isn't acting for his loyal subjects. That's why God says, "Be still and know that I am God." We won't know God, we won't find the solution, we won't get the help, until we stop, loosen our grip, let it drop, let it go, leave it alone, and do nothing except let God be God.
These are auspicious times in my nation. Especially during unsettling times of war and terror, we are tempted to place our trust in earthly powers– the military, the politicians, the nations, the academy, even the clergy. But Psalm 46 reminds us on "Christ the King Sunday" that the Lord Almighty, the God of Jacob, Jesus Christ, is our refuge, our strength, our fortress. Therefore we will not be afraid.
Let no preacher be blasé about these verses from Colossians 1. Let no one miss the punch, the power, the sheer wonder of what Paul says here. Those who have long known the fundamental beliefs of the Christian faith could, I suppose, skate over top of these verses altogether too lightly and swiftly without noticing the galactic implications of it all. Paul is lifting up what to most all observers had been an ordinary human being from Palestine and is claiming that he is THEE ONE of the cosmos, the one with all the supremacy, all the power, all the creativity and redemption there ever was or will ever be. He made everything that exists. He has redeemed everything that exists. Everything. Ta panta in the Greek. Everything from A-Z, the whole kit-n-caboodle, top to bottom and every which way.
It's an outrageous claim, of course, and it brooks no middle ground between being right and wrong. Paul's claims about Jesus of Nazareth as the Cosmic Christ cannot be just a little right or just a little wrong. It's either 100% correct and so represents the most sublime truth you'll ever encounter. Or it's 100% lunacy, the kind of claim that gets people locked up in psychiatric wards for the rest of their mortal days.
But here's the thing: the truth Paul is speaking of is not abstract. This is not theoretical. Paul makes clear in verses 11-14 that this has hands-on, practical application for the lives of the Colossian Christians. They have quite literally had a change of spiritual address. They got re-located from a kingdom of darkness and death into a kingdom of light and life. They exchanged a zip code of misery for a new land where this Cosmic Christ is all in all and in which that "all" shines and sparkles with nothing less than the glory of God.
What's more, it is a place where forgiveness is the coin of the realm, where redemption rescues everyone from what would otherwise be a miserable spiritual fate. Actually, it is very difficult to exaggerate or overstate the sheer beauty of this picture. It's the children of Narnia arriving at last with Aslan in the New Narnia where every blade of grass seems to mean more, where the most ordinary pear you can eat is so sweet and juicy as to make every pear from the old world look hard and woody by comparison, where the farther in you go, the deeper everything gets. Or it's Frodo waking up in a sunlit room in Minas Tirith only to see his friend Gandalf returned to him from the dead as the sweetness of new life and new light floods the scene and makes the prior scene of Mordor's dark terrors and hell fade quickly from mind.
But, of course, there is a bit of a catch to all this: it is available for now only to the eyes of faith. Looking around a crowded shopping mall today, it's not obvious to our ordinary eyeballs who is dwelling in a kingdom of darkness and who is a citizen of the light. For the Colossians 2,000 years ago and for believers in the 21st century now, the truths of our spiritual status are not visible. Indeed, Christians then and Christians now still pass through lots of dark valleys in this world. Death does not skip over Christian families nor does Alzheimer's or cancer or dreadful accidents. Christians needs to fix their eyes on the Cosmic Christ who has mastery over everything but they need to do that from the context of a lot of darkness that yet clings to our lives in this still broken world.
Paul knew that too. That's why this glorious passage opens with a prayer to God to strengthen with endurance the Colossians. There are things we have yet to endure and suffer through in this present world. We need infusions of God's glory for the present time because without it, we will never maintain our faith, our vision, our hope. We need a few glimmers from the kingdom of light to pierce our present darkness if we are to have any chance to embrace the outrageous—yet glorious—things Paul here asserts.
This is the (sometimes precarious) balancing act Christians have had to perform for millennia now. We don't call our faith "blind faith" because we really do have the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit that sustains and informs us. We have seen the light of Christ flicker in the eyes of even our dear ones as they die. And yet, neither do we possess the fullness of our faith and what has been promised. We see through a glass darkly, as Paul writes elsewhere, we see the things promised from a considerable distance, as the writer to the Hebrews put it in the landmark 11th chapter of that book.
Yet what we see now, what we can grasp at present, all hinges on the claims Paul makes in Colossians 1. If Jesus is The One who created, redeemed, sustains, and now holds together ta panta, all things and everything, then it's all true. The kingdom of light into which we have been rescued from this dark world is real and exists right this very moment.
We see this reflected in also the Gospel lection for this Christ the King Sunday when Jesus promises the thief on the cross an entry into Paradise that very day. It's real, just on the other side of the veil separating this world from Paradise. The fact that, as Paul says at the conclusion of this reading, all this was made possible through a bloody cross just proves that not only is the death and darkness of this world not the undoing of our hope, our hope in fact is strengthened precisely because it emerged from a deadly darkness that was then defeated from the inside out.
Thanks be to God and to Christ the King!
It's from a work of fiction and fantasy, of course, which may diminish its real-world traction, but in thinking of all this, I could not help but tumble to this scene from The Return of the King. It also captures the tension of a world of death in which our vision for the light must be maintained.


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Farm News & Views - July 26, 2022
By Bob Bragg
After hearing so many complaints about the high cost of food, I did some research at the Bureau of Labor Statistics website and found some interesting statistics. For example, from June of 2021, to June of 2022, the price of flour increased by almost 40%, while the price of bread was up only 12%. Although I've heard many complaints about the high cost of beef, and so have many cattle ranchers, I found that ground beef increased by 12% in June when compared to 2021, but beef roasts and steaks decreased by about a half percent during the same time period. Pork, with the exception of bacon and ham were also bargains, with very little inflation, while chicken, depending on what parts you bought, were up from 16% to 36%. You can go to this link for more information: https://www.bls.gov/regions/mid-atlantic/data/averageretailfoodandenergyprices_usandmidwest_table.htm
However, retail prices of beef are set to increase, as borne out by the July 2022 USDA Cattle Report, which confirmed that the cumulative effects of drought over the past two years have accelerated liquidation of the beef cattle herd. The July 1 inventory of all cattle and calves was 98.8 million head, that's 2% less than a year ago. From the recent peak in 2018, the July beef cow inventory has declined by 6.3 percent, or a total of 2.05 million head, which is significant, because it takes much more time to ramp up beef production than it does to increase production with other livestock. For example, it takes a farmer who raises chickens 18 weeks to increase the number of chickens he sells to poultry processors. Pork producers can increase the number of breeding sows in their breeding herd within about 5 months. But a beef producer who decides to increase her herd will have to grow a heifer that she has retained for breeding to about 15 months of age. She then must breed the heifer, wait 9 months for it to calve and another six months before that calf will go to market. All told she will have waited for almost 2 years to get a return from that retained heifer.
Last month, the Food and Drug Administration announced that all livestock producers who administer injected antibiotics must have a veterinary prescription for those antibiotics by June of 2023. According to the FDA, their goal is to minimize a growing antimicrobial resistance issue in humans and animals. Veterinarians are advising livestock producers to establish a veterinary-client-patient relationship as soon as possible, so that a veterinarian will be familiar with the animals that producers are raising.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature added the monarch butterfly to its "red list" of threatened species and considers the insect endangered. The group estimates that the population of monarch butterflies in North America has declined between 22% and 72% over the past 10 years. However, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hasn't listed monarch butterflies under the Endangered Species Act, but several environmental groups believe it should be listed.
Columnist Doug Larson wrote, "A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning to grow in rows."
Farm News & Views agriculturefoodbeef cattleendangered species
Bob Bragg
Bob has been an agricultural educator and farm and ranch management consultant for over 40 years in southwest Colorado. He writes about agricultural issues from his farm near Cortez, and has helped to produce farm reports on KSJD for more than a dozen years.
See stories by Bob Bragg


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