DVRC has many opportunities for sponsorship. Interested in supporting DVRC? Click on Sponsorship Application or Contact the DVRC Sponsorship Committee - info@dvrconline.com.
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During his high school years, Williams met Porter through a mutual friend and even though they were from opposite ends of North Carolina (Porter was from Fayetteville), they bonded instantly and formed their first band together. Porter's parents were professors at a small liberal arts college, "My whole family was very involved in the local music, theater and arts scene. So much of my childhood was spent in music lessons, theater rehearsals, band practice and family music making." They would go on to attend a summer session together at Berklee School of Music In Boston and then furthered their musical education at the New England Conservatory of Music majoring in Third Stream music - Gunther Schuller's conception of improvised music that took place across a wide spectrum of structures and genre-codes, a hybrid of jazz and classical. But by the time they got there the program was run by Ran Blake, and had become not a binary hybridization, but a place where ideas from any musical language, visual and literary reference points could form the basis of a musical statement. Since then, much of its curriculum has been absorbed into what is called Contemporary Improvisation and has given rise to players such as John Medeski, Aoife O'Donovan, and more recently, Lake Street Dive.
Knots and Crosses experienced some minor success with their self-released album, Creatures of Habit when a couple of radio stations in Maine and Boston started putting the record into regular rotation. They ended up selling over 13,000 copies placing them in the top-ten sales charts for local outlets of Tower and Newbury Comics, and it attracted the interest from major labels. They signed with Island Records cutting tracks with a Cajun band in Louisiana and worked with the amazing Muscle Shoals rhythm section in Alabama. "A surreal, wonderful, terrifying, bewildering couple of weeks that yielded no usable recordings," says Williams. "Right at that moment, Chris Blackwell sold Island to Polygram, and with the exception of U2, Bob Marley, Melissa Etheridge and a few others, pretty much the rest of the roster was dropped. Including us." Knots and Crosses was history.


The Breadwinner - official trailer.
Nora Twomey was 14 when she started drifting away from school. Within a year, she had dropped out. Today, however, she's an acclaimed animator, Oscar-nominated director and partner in Cartoon Saloon, the award-winning animation studio based in Kilkenny. Her most recent feature film, The Breadwinner, was nominated for best animated feature at the Academy Awards and was produced by Angelina Jolie.
And it was further education that changed the course of her life.
Twomey enjoyed working and creating, and she went from this position to a factory job for a few years. In her early 20s, her mother and sister helped her prepare an application for an art foundation year at Cork's Coláiste Stiofáin Naofa, where she learned about the different disciplines open to her.
"I found out about animation careers and Ballyfermot College of Further Education. I began to prepare a portfolio of work to get a place. I really had very little idea about what animation entailed but my tutors in Cork advised me to include as much observational drawing as possible. I did creative exercises from books like The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron and just tried to show how much I was observing and learning through my drawings." She applied to Ballyfermot and secured a place.
Ireland now punches above its weight in the animation industry with Twomey's own studio receiving Oscar nominations in the best animated feature for The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea and her most recent feature, The Breadwinner, which she directed herself and which was produced by Angelina Jolie.
There's Brown Bag Films which has produced popular cartoons Octonauts and Doc McStuffins, was nominated for eight Emmy Awards (winning three) for Peter Rabbit and was nominated for best animated short at the Oscars with Give Up Yer Aul Sins and Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty. Monster Entertainment's Earth to Luna is proving popular on Netflix, while Boulder Media has produced a number of cartoons for Disney, Cartoon Network, the BBC and Nickelodeon. The industry is a growing employer and is estimated to be worth €100 million to the economy.
It wasn't always this way, and the animation course at Ballyfermot College of Further Education, (along with that on offer at the Institute of Art, Design and Technology in Dún Laoghaire) has played a major part in building up Ireland's prowess in this area.
Whether formal or informal, education never stops, she says. "It is not something you do in your teens and early 20s and then get a job. Not anymore. You can learn anything at any moment, through any means available to you. There is no inferior or superior, there is only what feels right for you at any given time.


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The Basilica of the Heart of Jesus () is a Roman Catholic basilica located in Palmotićeva street of Zagreb, Croatia. It is dedicated to the Sacred Heart, and was designed by the Croatian architect  in the neo-Baroque style.

The Basilica of the Heart of Jesus is the second largest church in Zagreb, after the Zagreb Cathedral. It is used by the Jesuits.

History
The construction of the church is tied to the arrival of Jesuits in Zagreb in 1855. For this purpose, the archbishop Juraj Haulik gave a sum of 60,000 florins in 1860. However, political and economic conditions were not favorable for Haulik's idea, and it was revived four decades later by archbishop Juraj Posilović, who donated an additional sum of 12,000 florins. In 1898, a land parcel was bought for the construction of the church in the Palmotićeva street in the Lower town of Zagreb. The basilica of Heart of Jesus was finished and consecrated in 1902, with the construction itself taking slightly over a year. In 1941, the church received the status of minor basilica.

The church was heavily damaged in the 2020 Zagreb earthquake.

See also
 List of Jesuit sites

References

Sources

External links

Religious buildings and structures in Zagreb
Basilica churches in Croatia
Roman Catholic churches completed in 1902
Donji grad, Zagreb
20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Croatia

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Mr. Schelling says, bargaining strength, and the exploitation of this energy, for solid or evil, to maintain peace or to threaten conflict, is diplomacy—the international relations of violence. the writer concentrates during this booklet at the method within which army capabilities—real or imagined—are used, skillfully or clumsily, as bargaining power. He sees the stairs taken via the U.S. throughout the Berlin and Cuban crises as no longer in basic terms arrangements for engagement, yet as signs to an enemy, with experiences from the adversary's personal army intelligence as our most crucial diplomatic communications. Even the bombing of North Vietnam, Mr. Schelling issues out, is as a lot coercive as tactical, aimed toward judgements up to bridges. He consists of ahead the research so brilliantly started in his prior The technique of Conflict (1960) and Strategy and fingers Control (with Morton Halperin, 1961), and makes an important contribution to the starting to be literature on glossy conflict and international relations. Stimson Lectures.
Mr. Schelling is professor of economics at Harvard and appearing director of Harvard's heart for overseas Affairs.
"An exemplary textual content at the interaction of nationwide objective and army force."—Book Week. "A grim yet conscientiously reasoned and coldly analytical ebook. . . . probably the most scary previews which this reviewer has ever visible of the roads that lie simply forward in warfare."—Los Angeles instances. "A marvelous and hardheaded publication. it is going to frighten those that want to not stay at the unthinkable and infuriate those that have taken safe haven within the stereotypes and ethical attitudinizing."—New York occasions publication Review.
In Emanuel Adler's precise constructivist method of diplomacy concept, overseas practices evolve in tandem with collective wisdom of the cloth and social worlds. This publication - comprising a fresh number of his magazine courses, a considerable new advent, 3 formerly unpublished articles - issues IR constructivism in a singular path, characterised as 'communitarian'.
Even supposing the illicit palms alternate has developed over contemporary years, regardless of the top of the chilly struggle it sounds as if to be as brilliant as ever. From Bosnia and Kosovo to Angola and Sierra Leone, illicit fingers flows have performed a key function in parts of latest instability and violence. by contrast heritage, this quantity brings jointly reports of numerous key concerns when it comes to this exchange: the altering nature of the illicit fingers exchange; the origins of the Iran-Contra affair; the circulate of illicit fingers from post-communist Russia; the position of France in arming the genocide in Rwanda; the query of the position of non-public safety businesses in components of instability; and the customers of controlling the illicit alternate in small palms.
The Hawks of Peace. Notes of Russian Ambassador is a special analytical version the place Russian Deputy ultimate Dmitry Rogozin stocks his notes on personalities and occasions that formed the heritage of post-Communist Russia, believing that with out these it might be most unlikely to appreciate the prior and envisage the way forward for his state.
This edited quantity takes inventory of the nation of study and coverage at the factor of Small fingers and lightweight guns (SALW), ten years after the UN first agreed to accommodate the matter. the top of the chilly warfare originated a sequence of phenomena that may to that end come to dominate the political time table.


The work of Indian designers will be on display in Bangkok this week as Bangalore Fashion Week makes a three-day stop on its world tour.
Founded in 2009, the event is spreading its wings and introducing Indian's top talent to the global fashion industry.
Regarded as the premier fashion event in India, the biannual showings have wowed both trade and celebrities in the subcontinent's IT capital.
Organisers Dream Merchants are aiming to create new business relationships while promoting a wealth of Indian-Thai styles.
Involving more than 50 models from India and other countries, the event will showcase the creations of 30 designers from India and Thailand with a focus on fashion for the summer months.
Dressing styles vary widely across India and are influenced by ethnicity and religions. Deeply rooted in traditions, Indian costumes are known the world over for their colour and decoration.
Collections by designers Tannishtha Saha, Abhishek Singh, Geetika Suneja, Neil n Sushi, Len Nepomuceno and Abhishek Dutta are all slated for the first day, with Amrita & Kanchan, Uma Rati, Phavini Kalra, Neena, Dianna and Mona Pali showing on the second day. The extravaganza will wrap with outfits by Rupa G, Kartick Kapoor, Noynah Sunitha, Vijay Rana, Bonny and Neeta Lulla, often referred to as the queen of Bollywood fashion.
The fashion festival will also feature jewellery, fashion accessories and lifestyle products from 80 exhibitors along with seminars, presentations and workshops aimed at business professionals.
BFW World Tour – Bangkok Edition runs from Friday to Sunday at Central Live on the eighth floor of CentralWorld.
For more details, visit BFWWorldTour.in.


text:
Premium Home Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Enterprise
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is doubling down on his strategy with a new 5,000-person team
Matt Weinberger
This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.
Microsoft AI and Research Group head Harry Shum
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's new big idea is the "democratization of artificial intelligence," as in the concept that everybody should have access to AI and AI-powered technology.
But to get there, it's meant taking a lot of Microsoft's considerable investments in academic AI science, and turning them into real products that people can actually use, like Skype Translate and Windows Hello.
To accelerate that unification of research and product, Microsoft has announced the formation of the new AI and Research Group — a new organization within Microsoft that combines the Microsoft Research teams with the teams responsible for the Cortana digital assistant, the Bing search engine, and other AI-adjacent products.
Leading the new Microsoft AI and Research Group and it's now-5,000-strong team is Harry Shum, previously the head of Microsoft Research, and one of Nadella's direct reports.
"Today's move to bring research and engineering even closer will accelerate our ability to deliver more personal and intelligent computing experiences to people and organizations worldwide," Shum says in a press release.
This isn't Nadella's first big move in this direction. In early 2015, Microsoft's Dr. Peter Lee became the leader of Microsoft Research NExT, a new science organization with a mandate to take the company's academic research and apply it to tough, real-world problems. Microsoft's ambitious plan to put data centers underwater came from NExT. So did the rogue Twitter bot Tay.
NExT is sticking around under the AI and Research Group banner. The difference now is that the engineers that actually build Microsoft's consumer- and business-facing products will all be under the same overall roof, meaning a lowered time to take advantage of new advancements in science.
For Microsoft, the stakes are high: Google's own artificial intelligence is advancing quickly, as is Amazon's and Facebook's. There's a new science race going on, and Nadella is reorganizing for the long haul.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


I decided to write this piece after hearing incorrect advice regarding Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) repeated for the second time in a week. If you have – or plan to open – an IRA, like to save money on taxes, and don't like aggravation, please read on.
As various experts have pointed out, converting Traditional IRA accounts to Roth IRA accounts before the end of 2012 may be a great idea for many people, as 2013 is likely to usher in an era of higher income taxation. However, conversions can be complex, and can create unexpected tax liabilities and accounting headaches. Especially vulnerable are people who try to circumvent Roth IRA income limitations by following oft-repeated advice that anyone can contribute to a Traditional IRA and then immediately convert the account to a Roth IRA; some folks following such a strategy may be in for an unpleasant surprise.
What does this all mean? Why is there a problem? How could advice repeated so often be wrong? And how could this cost you money?
Roth IRAs are accounts that allow people to save post-tax money for retirement (deposits into such accounts are not tax deductible). Among the major advantages of Roth accounts over other retirement savings vehicles is that all withdrawals made during retirement are tax free – an extremely valuable benefit in today's climate of potential income tax increases. Roth IRAs, however, are not available to everybody; the IRS allows only people earning under a certain amount (which varies based on several factors) to contribute to Roth IRAs.
Roth IRAs were created in the late 1990s to supplement what are now known as Traditional IRAs – accounts that allow people earning under a certain amount to save pre-tax money (contributions into such accounts are deducted from income on personal tax returns). Earnings in Traditional IRA accounts grow tax-deferred – no taxes are charged on gains (interest, capital gains, or dividends) until a person withdraws money during retirement. While Traditional IRAs have income limitations as far as tax-deductibility, people earning above the maximum range for deductibility of contributions (which varies based on various factors, but can be as low as zero income in some cases), can still make contributions, but such contributions cannot be deducted from income on tax returns, and must be tracked and reported as such to the IRS to prevent double taxation when the funds are ultimately withdrawn or converted as described below.
There are also other forms of IRAs which are used as employer/business/self-employed-sponsored programs (SIMPLE IRA and SEP IRA) or hold money that came from an employer-sponsored plan (Rollover IRAs). Rollover IRAs are commonly opened to hold funds that a person withdrew from a 401(k) plan upon leaving a job at which he had contributed to a 401(k) plan.
For the purposes of this article, we will stick with basic IRA types and simple situations.
The government allows people to convert Traditional IRA funds (and some other untaxed IRA funds) to Roth IRA funds by paying income tax on any account balance being converted that has not already been taxed (e.g., the Traditional IRA balance minus any non-deductible contributions). Originally, there were income limits that prevented high earners from performing such conversions, but those restrictions have since been lifted.
Many pundits have reasoned, therefore, that since there are no income limits to prevent high earners from making non-deductible contributions to Traditional IRAs, and since anyone can convert Traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs, high earners can simply contribute to a Traditional IRA (with a non-deductible contribution) and convert the Traditional IRA immediately to a Roth IRA, thereby legally circumventing income limitation rules and taking advantage of the Roth IRA's valuable benefits. No taxes would be owed on the conversion, they reason, since the converter would be converting the exact amount that he deposited – and on which he or she has already fully paid income taxes.
Under the new conversion rules, regardless of income but subject to contribution limits, contributions can be made to a traditional IRA and then converted to a Roth IRA. This allows for "backdoor" Roth IRA contributions where high-income individuals are able to effectively nullify the income limitations of the Roth IRA. A high-income individual can contribute to a traditional IRA and then immediately convert the account to a Roth IRA. Since earnings on the contributions at time of the conversion will be near zero if the conversion is immediate, the conversion will not be taxable or only trivially. The high-income individual has effectively contributed to his Roth IRA with no special tax consequences. There is no limit to the frequency with which conversions can occur, so this process can be repeated indefinitely.
This advice is dangerously lacking, and people are cautioned to consult a tax professional before taking such action.
The IRS does not allow converters to specify which dollars are being converted as they can with shares of stock being sold; for the purposes of determining taxes on conversions the IRS considers a person's non-Roth IRA money to be a single, co-mingled sum.
Hence, if a person has any funds in any non-Roth IRA accounts, it is impossible to contribute to a Traditional IRA and then "convert that account" to a Roth IRA as suggested by various pundits and the Wikipedia piece referenced above – conversions must be performed on a pro-rata basis of all IRA money, not on specific dollars or accounts.
While some articles have warned of the consequences of this rule when attempting to circumvent income limits on Roth IRAs, many have not. And the consequences of ignorance can be painful.
For example: If a person has $45,000 in a Rollover IRA (untaxed money) and then attempts to utilize the strategy above to avoid income limitations on a Roth contribution by making a $5,000 non-deductible contribution to a Traditional IRA and then converting that account to a Roth IRA, the IRS will calculate that he owes taxes on an additional $4,500 of income – since it will look at the $50,000 in total non-Roth IRA money as it were one account, and since 90% of that balance (i.e., $45,000) is untaxed he owes taxes on 90% of the conversion amount of $5,000 (i.e., $4,500). Furthermore, after paying taxes on the $4,500 the converter will need to track that he has $4,500 of already-taxed non-Rollover money in his Rollover IRA account – which will not only complicate matters from an accounting perspective for years to come, but may also prevent him from rolling the money into an employer's 401(k) plan in the future.
Situations in which pro-rata calculations must be done for conversions are not rare; a large percentage of today's high earners started working before Roth IRAs were available and have non-Roth IRAs as result. Many left jobs and moved 401(k) money into Rollover IRAs. Others may have accumulated SEP IRAs or SIMPLE IRAs along their career paths as well.
Furthermore, the requirement for pro-rata calculations may plague not only people trying to circumvent Roth IRA income limitations, but also people seeking to convert non-deductible portions of Traditional IRA account balances into Roth IRA accounts.
Depositing all of a person's Rollover IRA money into a 401(k) plan prior to making a Traditional IRA to Roth IRA conversion may help for some people. Others may be able to roll IRA money into so called self-employed 401(k)s. But, there are plenty of complexities.
So, consult a professional tax advisor before deciding whether or not to make a conversion, or before employing the aforementioned strategy for circumventing Roth IRA income limitations. And, do not wait until the end of December to place the call; by then your advisor may be overwhelmed with requests for assistance, and it may be too late to perform all of the actions potentially needed to facilitate the most beneficial – and least expensive – conversion.


Once you move into a care home, managing your finances can be become a complicated affair. You may have money going to the care home and it may also be going home to support your partner, so it is important to know what goes where – and how much the local authority can take.
The council must ignore 50% of your occupational pension AS LONG AS you use that entire portion to support your husband or wife at home. This rule only applies to married couples. If you want to use some of your occupational or private pension to support a partner who is not a spouse, you have to ask the local authority for an increase in your Personal Expenses Allowance.
The use of savings to calculate your care home fees can be tricky because many couples use joint savings accounts. This can cause problems when it comes to calculating the costs; by the nature of a joint account not all the money would have been put in by you.
However, for the purposes of the financial assessment, any savings you jointly own will be divided equally between you. It may be possible for you to close this account and open your own savings account with your part of the funds only. But you may need to produce written proof to confirm this.
Any bonds that you own can be taken into account unless they have a life assurance element attached to them.


The Combined Defense Services exam is held twice in a year in the months of February and November. It is conducted by the union public services commissions (UPSC) and enables the aspirants to apply for Indian Army, Indian Air Force, and Naval Academy. The age limit to apply for this exam is 19-25 years. If you are looking for a trustworthy coaching institute in Delhi, then you have come to the right place. The Cavalier is counted amongst the top 10 CDS coaching institutes in New Delhi (India). The Cavalier provides a Comprehensive 45 days and 3 months written coaching and has achieved the best success rate.
A candidate can appear for CDS Exam, while he/she is appearing for 3rd year of Graduation. Both Male and Female candidates can apply for CDS Exam. Female candidates can only apply for Short Service Commission i.e. OTA. CDS Exam has three papers i.e. GK, Maths and English for Permanent Commission i.e. IMA, AF & NA and two i.e. English & GK for candidates applying for Short Service Commission i.e. OTA. Candidates with Arts/Commerce background are eligible for ARMY only.
The Cavalier has well qualified and dedicated full time faculty. Fully Air Conditioner class rooms.
The Cavalier, provides a Comprehensive 45 days and 3 months written coaching and has achieved the best success rate.


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Totally True Tales of Dana, Chapter 1
There once was a young girl whose name was Dana.
Dana lived in a big grey house with her mom, her two sisters, her four brothers, and a three-legged bulldog named Trigger. Their big grey house sat beside a dry red road made out of dirt which ran into a slightly bigger road made out of gravel. And the road made out of gravel ran into a road made out of concrete, and the road made out of concrete ran into a convergence of streets, and this convergence of streets was the town square of a place you've never heard of, right in the middle of Oklahoma, which is equally far from everywhere.
The town where Dana grew up was a curious sort of town where the dogs outnumbered the people, and the snakes outnumbered the dogs, and the tumbleweeds outnumbered the snakes, and the churches outnumbered the tumbleweeds, and nothing outnumbered the churches except tornadoes.
Now, it might seem strange to you, or wrong, or it might even seem to be a lie that there exists such a town where churches outnumber people, but in the town where Dana grew up there was exactly the right number of everything. There was the right number of people and the right number of dogs, the right number of snakes and the right number of tumbleweeds.
And truth be told, in the town where Dana grew up, all the people spent a big part of their time rebuilding churches which had been blown apart by the last tornado. The rest of their time they spent in church, on their knees, praying that they would not be blown apart by the next one.
So as you can see, in this town where Dana grew up, town life centered around tornados. They had what you might call a tornado-based economy.
This is the way it had been in the town where Dana grew up for as long as anyone could remember, which (admittedly) was not long at all since most of the older people and all of the county records were routinely blown apart by tornados.
But still, Dana, along with her mom, her two sisters, her four brothers, and of course Trigger, lived a good life and a quiet life in this little Oklahoma town. They were happy and they kept to themselves. Except for two memorable occasions, no one else in town even noticed Dana and her family were there.
The first occasion on which they were noticed happened when Dana's mom was pregnant with Dana. Back then, Dana's mom worked as a waitress in a little restaurant that catered mostly to FEMA workers. One night, when Dana's mom was nine months pregnant, a customer asked her about the father of her soon-to-be-born seventh child.
It was late in her shift and Dana's mom was a bit tipsy and for some reason, she said that Dana had been conceived by parthenogenesis. Yes, the good Lord was Dana's father.
Just like Jesus!
Well, as you can imagine, word of this miracle pregnancy shot out across town like fence posts in a whirlwind. Dana's mom became an overnight sensation, the talk of the town and a minor celebrity all around the region. And when the blesséd day finally arrived, everyone in town packed themselves into the FEMA shelter where Dana was born, and they gathered 'round and they had a look…
….and they realized they'd been hoodwinked. Lying there before them was a baby girl who was clearly half Latino, or what before that had been called Hispanic, or what before that had been called Mexican, or what before that had been called Chicano, or what before that had been called "beaner."
Now, the people of the town did not know much – their library never managed to acquire many books between tornados – but they did know a) everything but everything there was to know about tornados, and b) God was not a beaner.
So Dana's mom took baby Dana home to their big grey house on their dry red road and for a time, the family slipped back into their quiet, obscure little lives.
They slipped back into their quiet, obscure little lives, that is, until the second occasion on which the town took notice of them, which happened seven years later.
The intervening years had not been kind to the little town where Dana grew up, you see. Tornados had blown apart many churches, many tumbleweeds, many dogs, some snakes, and yes, more than a few people as well. Even the town square, where all of the streets converged, had gotten blown apart twice, and tornado season had not even officially begun yet.
But if you want my opinion, it was the blowing apart of three consecutive mayors in three months that truly brought the town into crisis mode. For it was then that everyone in town – gathered together in a newly rebuilt church to decide who the next unfortunate mayor might be – ramped up their calls for action and for change.
"We should build more churches so we can pray more!" said Mr. Coyne, who was the town carpenter.
"No! We should run a big ring of mobile homes all the way around the outskirts of town to distract the tornados," said the town intellectual, Mrs. Drozd.
"No!" said Mr. Ivins, who was one of the town morticians. "We should send the new mayor to Phoenix, where there are no tornados. He can do his mayoring from there and phone in his decisions."
But to the people of the town where Dana grew up, none of these suggestions seemed quite right, and there was much grumbling and murmuring all around.
Then, when everyone seemed out of ideas and all seemed lost, a small voice was heard towards the back of the crowd.
"'Scuse me," the voice said.
And the people looked around for the source of this voice, and they searched and they searched until finally, as they searched the very back of the room, they saw a little brown girl who was no more than seven. Why, it was none other than Dana, the Daughter of God girl, the very one whose mother had perpetrated such a horrific fraud on the people of the town so many years before.
And what did this holy little brown girl have to say that day? "The mayor can stay in my fort," she said. "Or all of you could move in, if you like. There is plenty of room."
At these words, at first, there was silence, and after the silence, there was exhaling, and after the exhaling, there was chuckling. After the chuckling, there were bursts of laughter, and after the bursts of laughter, there was much knee slapping. After the knee slapping, faces started turning red, and after faces started turning red, those same faces started turning purple, and after faces started turning purple, there was much gasping for breath.
Finally, it was Mr. Coyne caught his breath for long enough to say, "And just how long has this fort of yours been intact, little girl?" (This was a standard question in a town where restaurants put up signs that bragged, "No tornado hits in 3 months!")
"Fourteen months, sir," little Dana said. "I built it when I was six!"
At this, the laughter, which had by now begun to abate, began all over again, going through the previously-described stages of silence, exhalation, chuckling, outright laughter, knee slapping, red faces, purple faces, and gasping for breath.
You see, fourteen months intact, if true, would have made little Dana's fort the longest-standing building in town.
"Tell me, little girl," Mr. Coyne said. "Just where is this marvel of modern architecture of yours?"
And Dana, without so much as batting an eyelid, pointed out the window and she said, "It's inside that tornado that stays somewhere near the eastern county line."
Dana said, "I figured that if I put my fort inside of the tornado, another tornado could not come to my fort to blow it apart."
Again there was silence in the room, but this time, the silence was not followed by exhalations and chuckling and laughter, knee slapping and red faces and purple faces and gasping for breath.
No, instead, that was how the little town where Dana grew up came to be permanently moved into the inside of the funnel of the big tornado that stays somewhere near the eastern county line. Clinging to the inside of that funnel, intact for thirty years now, is the big grey house where Dana's family lives, and the office of the town mayor, and a library, and a building chock full of county records going back three decades, and exactly the right number of churches.
Sometimes, the tornado will move up to the north a little and hit a nearby town, sucking some slow Oklahomans up inside its funnel. And then Mr. Coyne will get to work building the town's newest funnel residents a home of their own, because it's still a tornado-based economy.
This was the last time that the little town where Dana grew up took notice of anyone in Dana's family, but though it is a wonderful story of a smart little girl, it is not the end of the story I have to tell.
After all, if this were the end of the story I have to tell, then it would be a wildly inappropriate story for me to be telling. It would be a story about the childhood of a person who broke up with me two long years ago. This is not end of the story I have to tell; no, it is just the beginning.
This was the beginning of the story of a woman named Dana.
Labels: childhood, dana, oklahoma, series 5
Bill the Butcher July 6, 2014 at 8:05 PM
Has someone made a film out of this? Has Stephen King at least written a 700-page-long horror novel called "Tornado" in which Dana has control over the storms and uses them on her enemies? If not, why not?
benni July 6, 2014 at 8:45 PM
But please not Stephen King. The rest of it (Dana controlling the storms et.al.) I like.
GOODSTUFF July 6, 2014 at 9:05 PM
@Bill - Yeah, Stephen King came to mind when I read...
"And truth be told, in the town where Dana grew up, all the people spent a big part of their time rebuilding churches which had been blown apart by the last tornado. The rest of their time they spent in church, on their knees, praying that they would not be blown apart by the next one."
The funny thing is that I read constantly but have never read a book by Stephen King.
I got halfway through "The Tommyknockers" when I was about thirteen. Then someone got attacked (in a field, as I recall) by an f-ing Coke machine and I realized I wasn't going to get anything out of the book.
So I've never read a Stephen King novel... Or a John Grisham novel... Or any of those Harry Potter books.
Your photos are almost as intriguing as your prose.
I spend WAY too much time trying to find my pictures for each blog post. Seems to be an awful lot of effort just to commit copyright infringement...
GOODSTUFF July 6, 2014 at 10:07 PM
OUTSTANDING - this is one of your best posts - goes good with morning coffee - invokes many concepts
que the X-Files theme song... Dana's Mother, the parthenogenetic implant
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
will be linking to this refreshing post (my Friday)
Thanks, GOODSTUFF. Your page is always a HUGE source of my page views. I need to up the amount of cleavage on my page to keep them here!
04:00 - getting ready for the US embassy - visa for my wife - 25 man hours already - thinking, doing a "wetback" thing would be easier
last week there were a bunch of twin tornado photos posted - that will be the photo link to this post
The illegal thing is okay so long as you stay to yourself, keep your head down, and don't drive drunk.
Don't tell them at the embassy that I said that. I might want to travel someday...
Pickleope July 7, 2014 at 5:53 AM
Living in the middle of a tornado is fine, and not to brag, but I was born in a crossfire hurricane (still have no idea what that means).
I couldn't help but picture snakes being flung hither and yon. Creepy.
We haven't heard about Dana in a while. I was beginning to wonder if all things Dana were behind you.
Are there people who actually slap their knee when they laugh? I think seeing someone actually slap their knee would make me laugh hard enough to slap my knee.
Snakes being "flung hither and yon" would be almost as bad as a sharknado, which I hear have become big problems in some areas.
I ought to do a study of odd places where songwriters claim to have been born...
A Beer for the Shower July 7, 2014 at 10:38 AM
You'd think having your town constantly hit by tornadoes would just be God's way of saying, "Yo, don't live here." But we humans are stubborn. Err, I mean resilient.
For the record, I'm Hispanic. Mainly because my relatives all come from Spain, which is what the word implies. My wife, on the other hand, is Mexican. Or a beaner. Both names that she wears proudly. If you really want to annoy her, just call her "Chicana" or "Latina" or "Hispanic American of Latin Descent", and do it all in a harsh Rosie Perez-like accent to really inflect that you're trying to identify with "her people."
There are towns in Oklahoma - Norman, Oklahoma comes to mind - where the whole town basically gets blown away every few years. I mean, I feel sorry for people who lose everything, but... at a certain point, as you say, you need to take the hint.
God hates Norman, Oklahoma.
Rupert July 7, 2014 at 2:14 PM
Is that "Paula A. R. DeAngelis, PhD" persona satirical, or a troll, or a satirical troll, or someone who belongs in an asylum?
I thought she was doing satire for a while, but I have come to believe she's the real deal.
I have requested that if she is going to insult me, she should do it in quotable ways (like the quote on the right). Sometimes she does. Usually, though, not so much.
What the fuck? This is the bitch from 2012? You need to go back and change the name to something else. That is all kinds of fucked up.
You will find that things around here often tend to be "all kinds of fucked up."
squatlo July 8, 2014 at 10:10 PM
Not sure if God hates Norman, Oklahoma any more than she hates any other town in Oklahoma, but being routinely mowed down by tornadoes would have to make a town's citizenry paranoid. Which might explain why Oklahoma is so messed up. On the other hand, a biologist was once asked what nature might tell us about the "creator", and having spent years classifying hundreds and hundreds of species of beetles, he replied, "He has an inordinate fondness for beetles." So god hates Oklahoma and loves beetles. Those are probably givens.
And for the record, if anyone gets to write this screenplay for Hollywood, it's Miss Katy. I gave up on Stephen King when he had the nerve to CHANGE NARRATORS two paragraphs from the end of a novel in Pet Semetary. Anyone that goddam lazy didn't need my attention.
It hardly seems fair: Yahweh gave us dominion over all these creepy crawly things and had them outnumber us like 10,000 to 1.
I'm not bitching. I mean, I'm not the one who had to round up 2 of each of the 350,000 varieties of beetle on Earth for the Ark.
Candy for Breakfast July 9, 2014 at 2:25 PM
Hello. I got here from Pickleope's blarg and I am so happy I did!
You sound so cool. Maybe I like you. Maybe.
I'm glad you got here, too, Lola!
I'd warn you about how uncool I am, but if you have already met Pickleope, then you're probably prepared for that...
Candy for Breakfast July 10, 2014 at 11:16 PM
Ha! I think I totally beat you in the uncool department. I was once hung from a door hook by the back of my Oh GoshP'Gosh overalls in middle school for like 45minutes before someone found me.
Deck out my blargness, if you have a moment....
At least you had some time by yourself to think about how uncool you were.
Your site has been discovered and added to feedly.
By me, I mean.
Nessa Locke July 10, 2014 at 5:54 PM
God's not a beaner?!!! Holy Crap. This is big news.
Is God also not a WOMAN??!!!
Hi, Nessa!
I am no expert on the Big Mysteries. But I once had a girlfriend who was. I asked her whether God had male genitalia, and she explained he did. After all, he created man in His image, which necessarily includes genitalia.
I can't imagine what he uses it for, though.
Brent July 11, 2014 at 8:20 AM
This always begs the question, why don't you move away from the tornadoes? Simple answer is it is home and where else would they live? The trailer park outside of town is a good idea.
I sent #2 child to OK State with my Jetta. It was an older car but still in great shape. It came back dimpled like a golf ball from hail. She moved to Kansas and the hail stones got larger. At this point it looks slightly better than a demolition derby car.
Kansas is great because in the parts of the state where they don't grow corn, it looks like the surface of the moon.
The difference in Kansas tornados, of course, is that they carry you to that place with flying monkeys and munchkins.
After reading the other comments, I just laughed to the point of tears at the thought of my right wing mother being greeted by St, Peter who was a gay Mexican with tattoos. All her worst fears in a single package.
Seems like maybe she should have asked for a sneak peak at heaven - of at least an updated book - before investing so much time to get there sight unseen.
Brent July 14, 2014 at 5:28 PM
I was just thinking having your worst fear in life be the thing that ushers you into eternity would make a Mark Twain worthy, social commentary, short story. My fear is a lawyer wanting to take my deposition.
That seems appropriate, since the biggest fear of so many people is... death, a necessary condition precedent of being ushered into heaven for most.
Death isn't that scary of a guy, though. He's sort of a big teddy bear, once you get past the obvious.
So that was the beginning?!
After reading that I feel I am ready to start the story now.
So here I wait primed and ready to read the rest of the story.
You don't really write part 2s do you?
Highlight: Ethnicity sex of God
Living in a Tornado to avoid tomatoes ahh I mean tornadoes
The look of excitement on Dana's face on her touring Europe that she's always dreamed about doing.
Besides that your "Home of Katy Anders" photo is very yummy.
Hi, Rob. I am notoriously bad at writing part twos.
This is why, despite the recommendations of so many people, i haven't tried the novel thing lately. Once I get up from writing, I'm pretty much done with it. It would be hard to write a novel in one sitting.
That having been said, my last few blog posts have taken me multiple sittings. I think the quality has improved because of it.
Lol. If that is just the beginning, I am curious to know more about Dana. This sounds great.
Hello, Lady Liilith!
I need to get on the ball and write one explaining why I am writing about an ex who broke up with me two years ago.
I do really like this post, though, so if I'm going to have one sit there at the top of my page for a while, it might as well be this one!
Chiz July 16, 2014 at 1:31 PM
I'm surprised they never figured that God was smiting the town for harboring a white/hispanic/latino/mexican girl in their midst.
Anyway, I apologize for my absence, but I'm glad I returned in time to catch the beginning of this tale. Can't wait for the next chapter to land.
Good to see you back, Chiz!
Hopefully, there are going to be little pieces of this story over the next few months, alternating with posts on other topics. It's all going somewhere, I hope.
I'm way too ambitious with this blogging thing.
Loved that story Katy. You need to do more. : )
It was even better when I had a relevant picture of Dana at the end of it, but alas, I have had to take down all the pictures of me and my family (at least for now)...
Chaos at Feast
We Need to Talk About Wayne


The total number of active listings in the Pittsburg area at the end of December was 220 units, up from 208 at the same point available for sale. The median list price of homes on the market at the end of December was $84,975.
Total home sales in the Pittsburg area rose by 37.9% last month to 40 units, compared to 29 units in December 2017. Total sales volume was $3.8 million, up 50.7% from a year earlier. The median sale price in December was $70,350, down from $85,000 a year earlier. Homes that sold in December were typically on the market for 93 days and sold for 93.7% of their list prices.


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(businesspress24) - AUSTIN, TX, USA, 19th June 2017 UltraSoC, the leading developer of embedded analytics technology, today announced that it has developed processor trace support for products based on the open source RISC-V architecture. The company has developed a specification for processor trace that will be offered for adoption by the RISC-V Foundation as part of the open source specification. In addition, UltraSoC today becomes the first ecosystem participant to offer an implementation of this functionality.
RISC-V is an open source instruction set architecture, initially developed by UC Berkeley but now being more widely adopted. UltraSoC is a member of the RISC-V Foundation, and plays an active role in growth of the surrounding development ecosystem. Processor trace functionality – which allows the behavior of a program to be viewed in detail, instruction-by-instruction – is a key must-have for software developers.
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A few weeks ago I ran my first 5k race after "training" (read: finish about 2/3 of a couch-to-5k program) this summer. It was the Tops 5K for Roswell Park Cancer Institute and it was super inspirational to run with cancer survivors and hear so many amazing stories before the race.
For my second act, I'm running the Monster Scramble 5k in October to support the National MS Society in honor of my sister and many of our friends who have MS.
If you live in the Buffalo area, Melisa and I would love if you joined our team and ran with us! If you aren't able, we'd appreciate any support you could give by donating to our team and the cause !


District of Columbia, December 20, 2018 – The DC Bar Foundation awarded $9 million to 26 DC legal aid organizations providing free legal assistance to thousands of low-income DC residents.
The DC Bar Foundation supports DC legal aid organizations working on a spectrum of civil legal issues, including housing, employment, immigration, domestic violence, access to public benefits, and consumer law, as well as family and disability law. One of the primary goals of this round of grants is to make legal services more accessible to those who need them the most.
The majority of the funding is intended to benefit DC residents living in the most underserved areas of the city, specifically Wards 5, 7, and 8. These grants will maintain court-based as well as community-based offices. Both types of offices serve as critical points of access for low-income DC residents. The Foundation is also proud to support a range of collaborative projects such as a shared legal interpreter bank and a coordinated intake and referral network for victims of crime.
The $9 million in grants is comprised of three funding streams. Two of the funding streams are appropriations from the Council of the District of Columbia through a grant from the Office of Victim Services and Justice Grants. The third funding stream is private fundraising and revenue from the DC Interest on Lawyers' Trust Account Program.
To read about the impact the DC Bar Foundation is having across the District, please visit www.dcbarfoundation.org.
About the DC Bar Foundation: For DC residents in poverty, we make strategic investments to strengthen and expand our civil legal aid network, addressing critical needs and improving our community. As the leading funder of civil legal aid in the District, we are a steadfast community partner, committed to protecting access to justice in life's most pivotal moments.
Written on June 25, 2018 .
Two appropriations from the Council of the District of Columbia make up this $1.5 million: the Civil Legal Counsel Projects Program and the Access to Justice Grants Program, established by the Expanding Access to Justice Act of 2017 and the Access to Justice Act of 2007, respectively.
Under the Civil Legal Counsel Projects Program, the Foundation awarded five grants, totaling $940,500. This new funding will add 15 new attorneys to the legal aid network who represent low-income DC residents in eviction cases, helping alleviate a power imbalance in eviction court where 90% of the landlords are represented, compared to just 10% of tenants. It is projected that 66% of those receiving assistance with these funds will reside in Wards 5, 7, and 8. With more than 30,000 eviction cases filed every year in court, this additional funding will provide much needed legal assistance to low-income DC residents.
The Foundation awarded $515,000 in additional funding under the Access to Justice Grants Program to ten projects. While the focus of each project varies, all projects work to preserve affordable housing in the District. For example, one new project will assist families in housing conditions cases, where tenants are helped in obtaining housing repairs from the landlord for things like fixing the air conditioning unit or eliminating mold that may be negatively affecting a child's health. Several organizations will collaborate on building-wide cases that involve housing conditions, barring notices, zoning, rent control, and housing discrimination. This additional funding will greatly assist the efforts of DC's legal aid community to combat the disappearance of nearly half of DC's affordable housing over the past ten years.
To view a complete list of the Foundation's grantees, visit www.dcbarfoundation.org.
Washington, DC – The DC Bar Foundation seeks applications for new members of its Young Lawyers Network Leadership Council (YLN LC). Applications for two-year terms expiring September 30, 2020 are due by 5:00 p.m. on August 3, 2018.
The YLN LC offers younger attorneys an opportunity to further the goal of access to justice in our community by working with the DC Bar Foundation—the leading private funder of civil legal aid for the District's poor and underserved. Members of the YLN LC serve as ambassadors who promote the Foundation's mission and programs by engaging in regular meetings, grantee site visits, and quarterly networking dinners. The group is also actively involved in the organization's fundraising efforts, through hosting an annual event that provides critical support to low-income DC residents in need of legal representation.
To qualify for consideration, individuals must be members of the District of Columbia Bar in good standing, under the age of 40 at the start of their term, either live or work in the District of Columbia, and commit to carrying out the responsibilities of the YLN LC. Staff of LRAP-eligible employers, or of organizations eligible to receive funding from the DC Bar Foundation, are ineligible for membership.
Interested applicants should submit a completed application form, résumé, letter of interest, and up to two letters of support that speak to their commitment to advance the District's civil legal services network. Please send all materials to Meghna Taneja, Development and Communications Assistant, at taneja@dcbarfoundation.org. It is also important to include "Young Lawyers Network Leadership Council, [Your Full Name]" in the subject line of the email. Additional information about the YLN LC is available on the Foundation's website at www.dcbarfoundation.org.
Written on December 12, 2017 .
Washington, DC – Today, the DC Bar Foundation is pleased to announce that it will award an additional $7 million in 2018 to legal aid organizations in DC focused on preserving affordable housing, defending low-income tenants in eviction cases, and assisting low-income DC residents in other housing-related legal issues. This is in addition to the $6.7 million that the Foundation already awarded for 2018, which was announced in a press release dated December 8, 2017.
This additional funding will greatly assist the legal efforts led by DC's legal aid community to combat the disappearance of nearly half of DC's affordable housing over the past ten years. Two appropriations from the Council of the District of Columbia make up this $7 million: the Expanding Access to Justice Act of 2017, which created the Civil Legal Counsel Projects Program, and the Access to Justice Grants Program, established by the Access to Justice Act of 2007. The two grant programs are managed by the Office of Victim Services and Justice Grants, with the DC Bar Foundation as the designated administrator for both programs.
Under the Civil Legal Counsel Projects Program, the Foundation will award approximately $5 million strictly for eviction defense in Landlord-Tenant Court, where about 30,000 cases are filed annually. In this court, it is estimated that 90 percent of landlords are represented, but 90 percent of tenants are unrepresented. With the funding, the legal aid community hopes to reduce wrongful eviction and keep low-income tenants in their homes, preserving the small number of affordable units remaining in the District.
The remaining $2 million is available through the Access to Justice Grants Program. These funds will be awarded to legal aid organizations working on more broad housing issues, such as matters involving housing conditions, unlawful rent increases, the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA), and the redevelopment of public housing, to name a few.
With the combination of these grant programs, the Foundation hopes to their leverage funds to create a coordinated effort among legal aid organizations to tackle one of the most pressing issues facing the District and its ability to be a thriving, diverse, and inclusive community.
The application to apply for funds will be released in late winter 2018 and will be due early spring 2018. The grant year will begin July 1, 2018. For more information and updates, please visit the DC Bar Foundation's website at www.dcbarfoundation.org.
Washington, DC – The DC Bar Foundation awarded more than $6.7 million to 27 DC legal aid organizations providing free legal assistance to low-income DC residents in a wide array of civil legal issues in 2018.
A majority of these funds provide legal assistance to DC residents living in the poorest and most underserved areas of the city, specifically Wards 5, 7, and 8. The funds maintain community-based offices, which make legal services more accessible to those living in those wards, as well as projects that are heavily supported by pro bono attorneys, multiplying funds through volunteers.
The Foundation's grants provide critical support to projects and organizations working in a spectrum of civil legal issues, including immigration, domestic violence, and public benefits and consumer, housing, employment, family, and health and disability law. The Foundation is proud to support innovative projects such as medical-legal partnerships, a shared legal interpreter bank, and projects serving vulnerable populations, such as youth involved in the justice system and people with disabilities.
The $6.7 million is comprised of three funding streams: (1) $3.6 million from the Access to Justice (ATJ) Grants Program, established by the Council of the District of Columbia through the Access to Justice Act of 2007; (2) $2.5 million from the Civil Legal Counsel Projects Program, a new program for eviction defense projects created under the leadership of Councilmembers Kenyan McDuffie and Charles Allen by the Expanding Access to Justice Act of 2017; and (3) $600,000 from the Private Grants Program, which has provided over $26 million in general operating support to DC legal aid organizations since 1978.
The ATJ Grants Program and the Civil Legal Counsel Projects Program are funded by a grant from the Office of Victim Services and Justice Grants. The Private Grants Program is funded by private fundraising and revenue from the DC Interest on Lawyers' Trust Account Program, which is administered by the Foundation. All attorneys barred in the District must place eligible client funds—those that are nominal in amount or will be held for only a short period of time—in a DC IOLTA account offered by an approved financial institution. The interest generated on these accounts is pooled to help fund civil legal aid in DC.
To view a full list of grantees, please visit www.dcbarfoundation.org.
Written on September 15, 2017 .
WASHINGTON, DC – The DC Bar Foundation is seeking nominations for the 2018 Jerrold Scoutt Prize, which is awarded annually to an exceptional legal services attorney in the District of Columbia. Nominations will be accepted until November 17, 2017.
The Scoutt Prize recognizes outstanding lawyers who work full time, or have spent much of their careers working full time, at DC nonprofits that provide direct, hands-on legal services to the poor or disadvantaged in our community. We encourage you to nominate attorneys who have not only demonstrated a high degree of skill in representing their clients, but who have also demonstrated a high degree of compassion.
Zuckert, Scoutt & Rasenberger LLP established the Scoutt Prize in 1993 in honor of founding partner Jerrold Scoutt Jr. The firm continues to provide an award of $2,500 annually, and since its creation, 28 outstanding public interest attorneys have been recognized. In 2017, Rochanda Hiligh-Thomas, Executive Director at Advocates for Justice and Education, was honored for her career-long dedication and commitment to advocacy.
The 2017 Scoutt Prize will be presented during the DC Bar Judicial Reception in Spring 2018.
Nominations made for the 2016 and 2017 prize will be reconsidered without a formal resubmission. However, those who submitted nominations in those years are encouraged to update their nomination materials.
Nominations must include the nominee's curriculum vitae. Supporting materials, like articles of interest or letters of support, are highly encouraged. Please send nominations and supporting materials by 5:00 p.m. on November 17, 2017 to: info@dcbarfoundation.org.
Written on August 15, 2017 .
The DC Bar Foundation (DCBF) is currently accepting applications from nonprofit organizations, located in the District, requesting funding for civil legal aid projects and general support. There is more than $4.5 million available for project-based funding through the Access to Justice (ATJ) Grants Program, and $600,000 available for general support funding through the Private Grants Program.
Funded by a grant from the District of Columbia Office of Victim Services Justice Grants, the ATJ Grants Program funds projects in three categories: (a) underserved areas; (b) housing-related matters; and (c) a shared legal interpreter bank. The Private Grants Program is funded by the support of firms and individuals, as well as the interest accrued on eligible client funds held in trust by attorneys in DC as part of the Interest on Lawyers' Trust Accounts program.
The instructions, guidelines, and applications for the 2018 grant programs are available online, under the respective subpage here: https://dcbarfoundation.org/grants/. DCBF will hold an information session for all interested applicants from 10:30 am to 12:00 pm on Thursday, August 24, 2017. Please email grants@dcbarfoundation.org to RSVP for the information session.
Applications are due online by 3:00 pm on Thursday, September 28, 2017. Incomplete and late applications will not be accepted. Decisions will be announced mid-December 2017, and the grant year will begin January 1, 2018 and end December 31, 2018.
Contact Director of Programs Imoni Washington at washington@dcbarfoundation.org or 202-853-9023 for more information.


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The GMA Dove Awards is Gospel music's biggest night of the year, featuring top artists from the many different genres of Gospel and Christian music. The event will be an evening of music and celebration held at Allen Arena on Tuesday, October 11, 2016.
- Tickets will be available for pick up at the Allen Arena Box Office starting Monday, October 10, 2016, at 12:00pm.
For questions about seating call the Lipscomb University box office at Allen Arena at (615) 966-7075. Hours of operation are typically Monday-Friday 8:00am-4:00pm. The "Ticket Purchaser" (indicated when ordering your tickets) must present a photo ID upon arrival at the box office in order to claim tickets.
New parking process for 2016! Everyone will be directed to two options - shuttle from satellite parking lot or Lyft car service. Shuttles will be running constantly from Woodmont Hills Church (3710 Franklin Pike, Nashville TN 37204). Once the shuttle drops off at Lipscomb, there will be signage to guide you to Allen Arena on the Lipscomb campus. We're also partnering with Lyft and accommodating with special drop-off locations (GPS address 3904 Belmont Boulevard, Nashville, TN 37204.) If you're new to Lyft, get $10 off your first two rides when you sign up today and use code DOVEAWARDS. If you already use Lyft, save 15% off 2 rides to/from the Dove Awards with code DA15.


text:
The Naked Censorship Of Liberty Lad
Posted on August 21, 2018 by Derek McCaw in Comics // 0 Comments
(originally published in the July, 1976 issue of Donald Swan's legendary fanzine Once Upon A Dime)
Though his own courage shortened his career in comics, Jackson Whitney had a keen grasp of what the burgeoning superhero field would need. In the very first Commander Courage story, "The Origin of Commander Courage," Whitney had fleshed out polio-stricken junior high school teacher Jefferson Dale's supporting cast. No mere crutches these, the staff and students of Nathan Hale Junior High would each and every one prove to be crucial to the mythos of Commander Courage.
None moreso, perhaps, than Alexander "Dusty" Dale, Jefferson's nephew and ward. Despite the already popular presence of figures like Robin, The Boy Wonder, in Whitney's friend Bob Kane's strip Batman, the doomed but brave comics creator originally intended this all-American boy to be just that: an all-American boy. Red-blooded and true blue, Dusty Dale was something every schoolboy could aspire to be, and I don't just mean an Eagle Scout.
Devoid of superpowers, Dusty had heart. Ignorant of his uncle's heroic secret identity, Dusty still fought the good fight on the home front by example.
It's quite likely that that very example led to the extreme scarcity of the third issue of Commander Courage, for that featured the classic story in which Dusty spearheaded the Nathan Hale Junior High war paper drive. What kid could hold onto that comic book when Dusty had made it clear that saving comics was just playing right into Axis hands? Our boys in Europe and the Pacific needed that paper.
When finally, nine months after the strip's creation, Whitney finally gave in and turned the youth into another teen sidekick in the superhero canon, it was perhaps a bit of wish fulfillment on his part. A justification, if you will, of the artist's desire to fight for his country himself, not just with the scathing power of pen and ink.
For of course, Liberty Lad would prove to be Jackson Whitney's last creation, an act of pulp patriotism to inspire young men everywhere just before Whitney became a doughboy and fell lifeless somewhere in the Forests of Ardenne.
As such, what was done to Liberty Lad by small-minded men is nothing less than a crime, a dark moment in the comics industry's past that sadly, few seem to care about today.
In late 1941, comics were still seen as something for kids, though many adults did read them. But they had an innocence, reflective of the time and America's willingness to still see the best in humanity in the face of great evil. Jackson Whitney had that innocence, too, and poured it into Liberty Lad.
By now, the origin of the fair-haired streak of liberty has almost become the stuff of cliché. And indeed, in later years, Julius Schwartz would borrow heavily from Whitney's classic story to allow Wally West to become Kid Flash, though to this day he denies the homage.
The story refers to "the dark winter of 1942," clearly meant to resonate with the anniversary of the day Dusty lost his father at the treacherous attack on Pearl Harbor. The plucky orphan visits his uncle at the Liberty Bell museum, where he finds the older man has recreated the very situation that gifted him with the "Mega-will" that makes him Commander Courage.
Meaning to provide Dusty with some inspiration, Jefferson Dale intones the oath he had taken on December 7, 1941, when lightning strikes twice!
The Liberty Bell tumbles from its moorings, causing Jefferson to spill the Indian Shaman Waters he carries with him at all times in memory of his Native American friends. Mixing with the electrical charge of lightning and amplified by the conducting power of the Bell, the water splashes onto a frozen Dusty Dale, who suddenly finds himself possessed of the quasi-mystic Mega-will.
(Purists will note that this is not an exact recreation of Jefferson's original transformation; perhaps Jackson Whitney felt that the presence of the actual Shaman Mystics a second time would have been too coincidental. Alas, we will never know, but it seems like a prudent choice on his part and thus, a safe conclusion to reach. Besides, comics creators rejiggered origins all the time, ignoring elements they found difficult to revisit. Witness Jack Cole's modest retooling of Lev Gleason's original red and blue Daredevil within six months of the character's first appearance.)
At any rate, now armed with the same abilities as his uncle and soon to be superhero mentor, Dusty Dale dons the famous star spangled top and trunks of Liberty Lad for the first time.
Wait a minute. Trunks, I said? But we know Liberty Lad, and he wears tightly cut breeches, not trunks, you say.
Prepare yourselves for a shock. Up until 1953, Dusty Dale went bare-legged, just like a few other boy wonders. It was only the terrible but understandable cowardice of the editor at Amazing Comics, Delmer McNeal, that caused the change. So deep was his shame that any comics reprinting pre-1953 stories corrected the art to bury Liberty Lad's original costume.
Yes, 1984 came early to comics.
The public considered comic books to be harmless throughout World War II, even useful outlets for juvenile imagination. But as the Cold War rolled over the nation with its icy grip, citizens looked to find the enemy within. And where they looked, they found four colors for a dime.
By all accounts, McNeal was a genial if not particularly creative man. Certainly nobody had any unusual beef with him. If he overworked his staff, it was only because that was the industry norm, not because of any particular toughness on his part. He edited comics, and as far as McNeal was concerned, comics don't make waves.
When comics turned darker in the late forties, McNeal was happy to follow the trend, altering even the adventures of Commander Courage and Liberty Lad. The misguided but still fascinating Crypt of Courage dates from this period.
Gruesome horror and explicit violence ran red through the pages of this so-called children's entertainment. Some publishers tried to have their cake and eat it, too. For instance, the classic Crime Does Not Pay only half-heartedly sold its title message; readers knew that the mob guys featured in its pages lived pretty well until Johnny Law caught up with them.
But after a couple of years of this macabre trend (even The Marvel Family's Tawky Tawny fought and fatally impaled a were-tiger), someone who didn't think that comics were the cat's pajamas was bound to notice just what was going on within their covers.
That someone, of course, was Dr. Frederic Wertham, who linked crime and horror comics to an upswing of juvenile delinquency and childhood psychological disorders in his book, Seduction of the Innocent.
Read Part Two of this classic article, featuring the terror of Estes Kefauver!
(Once Upon a Dime was a website created in 2003 to tie-in with Mark Hamill's directorial debut, Comic Book the Movie. Though written by Derek McCaw, this article was originally attributed to Donald Swan, Hamill's character in the movie.)
Comic Book The Movie
Commander Courage
Donald Swan
Liberty Lad
Once Upon A Dime


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I heard Dr. James Dobson on the radio the other day, and he mentioned that many people have difficulty finding him these days. Actually, it comes from the confusion that results from the fact that he is no longer with Focus on the Family.
Dr. Dobson has helped many people through the years, and one of his books is mentioned on this website. Focus on the Family has provided wonderful resources over the years. Family Talk is the name of the new radio program where Dr. Dobson is now located. It continues to provide help for families in the same way that Dr. Dobson has done through previous years.
So, now there are two ministries that provide great help for families. The focus of this post, however, is to alert people to the fact that they are not finding Dr. Dobson by going to the Focus on the Family website or by listening to radio programs by that name.
If you want to connect with Dr. Dobson, make sure you connect with Family Talk.
Actually, I think they have already taken steps to correct this. If you want to find a website for Family Talk, you will actually find it under Dr. Dobson's name at http://www.drjamesdobson.org/.