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Posted on December 7, 2018 December 13, 2019 by Lynley
The Wind Blows by Katherine Mansfield
On the surface level, "The Wind Blows" by Katherine Mansfield is a coming-of-age short story about an adolescent girl (Matilda) who wakes up one morning, nervous and tense. While the wind blows outside, she gets ready for her music lesson. Before she leaves she has a minor disagreement with her mother. She has her music lesson, goes home, meets her brother walks with him to the sea. They stand together and watch a ship in the water. Then she imagines a time in the future when she and her brother will be leaving their home on a ship like this one.
(The ship is carrying coal. Mansfield uses the word 'coal hulk'. Interestingly, these ships used to be used as prisons, as well as for freight.)
On the metaphorical level, the wind is an extended metaphor for the feelings of adolescence. It's not easy to tell whether Katherine Mansfield is empathetic to the tumultuous feelings of adolescence, or if she's poking fun. She has written "The Wind Blows" in a melodramatic tone. Critics have called this story 'the most purely symbolist of her stories to this date.. a highly sophisticated and modernist story…achieving new intensity' (Claire Hanson and Andrew Gurr).
CONNECTIONS TO MANSFIELD'S OWN LIFE
In general, it pays not to conflate characters with their creators. But In Katherine Mansfield: The woman and the writer, Gillian Boddy provides good reasons why we might read Matilda with Katherine Mansfield herself:
Clearly based on the memories she had shared with Leslie during the summer of 1915, this story has a strange power. Matilda is K.M., she used the pseudonym Matilda Berry at this time, while Bogey was the family name for Leslie, which K.M. later transferred to Murry. It gives a hint, too, of the Trowell's house in Buller Street which must have been central to her artistic development. This presumably led her to the choice of the music teacher's name — Mr. Bullen. Could her remarkable memory have failed her by one letter, was the change deliberate, or was there perhaps an error in transcribing the story from her handwriting? Is Mr Bullen another composite figure, based on Mr Trowell and her piano teacher Mr Robert Parker?
Gillian Boddy
Sadly, Mansfield's brother Leslie died only a days after this story was published. Once you know that, the admonishment 'don't forget' near the end of the story becomes darkly resonant.
STORYWORLD OF "THE WIND BLOWS"
Katherine Mansfield grew up in the capital of New Zealand: Wellington. Central Wellington. The family later moved out to Karori, which is still Wellington.
Anyone who has lived in Wellington will recognise immediately the relentless wind that drives inexorably through the story; not for nothing is K.M.'s birthplace nicknamed 'Windy Wellington'. It is also, with the sea, a dominant symbol in this story about a girl's transition into the adult world.
Unless you've been to Wellington on a windy day, it's hard to imagine HOW windy Wellington is.
Wellington in New Zealand is ranked as the world's windiest city.
The older houses make a lot of rattling noise, which soon blends into white noise as you adjust. If you dare hang washing outside on the line, it'll dry just fine, but you'll be untangling it before bringing it in. In exposed areas, trees grow sideways. Dreadlocks are a very sensible hairstyle. Riding a pushbike? Come on. You might as well just walk. Wear well-fitting hats with strings and toggles. Don't try badminton with the gymnasium window ajar. Fancy skirts? Make them long and heavy or stick to the trusty trouser.
This is the weather Katherine Mansfield grew up with. I've no doubt that after she grew older and left New Zealand entirely, windy days would have reminded her of her childhood. (I bet Mansfield would've worn her hair in dreadlocks, too, had they been a thing back for white Kiwi girls at the turn of the 20th century. She seems that kind of bohemian.)
In storytelling, when authors make a big thing out of the weather, linking it to emotions of their characters, it's called pathetic fallacy. When characters are sad it just so happens to be raining outside, that kind of thing.
When authors use the weather and connect it to human emotion, they very often write the environment as if it were alive. Super common. You might want to check out this post: How Can Setting Be Character?
The pull quotes relevant from "The Wind Blows":
It is only the wind shaking the house, rattling the windows, banging a piece of iron on the roof and making her bed tremble.
This sentence (from the opening paragraph) reminds me of a creepy-ass poem my parents used to chant when I was a toddler and wouldn't jump straight into bed at the first request.
Wee Willie Winkie rins through the toon, Up stairs an' doon stairs in his nicht-gown, Tirlin' at the window, crying at the lock, "Are the weans in their bed, for it's now ten o'clock?"
(Except I'm fifth generation New Zealander. It wasn't said in that awesome Scottish accent.)
I'm confident Katherine Mansfield would've known that poem, too, along with various other stories of bugaboos who were meant to come and get you if you didn't do exactly as you were told, "im-me-diately". (See what I did there?) Funnily enough, Matilda calls her little brother 'Bogey', which is a term used to describe creatures that come in the night. (These days in New Zealand it usually refers to that grossity plucked from the nostril. In real life, we do know that Mansfield called John Murry — her husband — the nickname of Bogey.) The character of Matilda is a fantasist type, imo. I'm reminded of the character played by Emily Blunt in My Summer of Love. That entire film has a Katherine Mansfield vibe, come to think of it.
The-girl-before-her has just started playing MacDowell's 'To An Iceberg'. There's no such song — Katherine Mansfield changed the title slightly. American composer Edward MacDowell was a favourite of hers. The song is probably "From A Wandering Iceberg".
Matilda misquotes poetry by Shelly. 'I bring fresh flowers to the leaves and showers' is based on the opening line of "The Cloud". Why the misquotation? Matilda doesn't have a great memory for poetry.
SMALLER SPACES WITHIN THE STORY
All the trees and bushes beat about her.
… outside Mr Bullen's gate she can hear the sea sob: "Ah!… Ah!… Ah-h!"
The cry appears to come from within Matilda. (This juxtaposes with Mr Bullen's drawing room, which is quiet — a haven.)
It's the bed that is frightening. There it lies, sound asleep… stockings knotted up on the quilt like a coil of snakes
Where is the asphalt zig-zag mentioned in the story?
'They cannot walk fast enough. Their heads bent, their legs just touching, they stride like one eager person through the tow, down the asphalt zigzag where the fennel grows wild, and on to the esplanade. It is dusky – just getting dusky. The wind is so strong that they have to fight their way through it, rocking like two old drunkards. All the poor little pohutukawas on the esplanade are bent to the ground.'
The esplanade is now Thorndon Quay. There is no longer fennel growing here. If you'd like to see some photos, see this post at the Wellington Steps blog.
This is the closest I can get on Google Earth.
BRINGING THE SETTING TO LIFE
Each new scene includes a sentence or two which makes it seem alive.
The wind is so strong that they have to fight their way through it, rocking like two old drunkards. All the poor little pahutukawas on the esplanade are bent to the ground.
This story was written before Maori spelling was standardised. Now: 'pohutakawa' (a native New Zealand tree with fiery red flowers)
Mansfield has set her story in autumn, partly because this is a windy month. Partly because things are changing. We often view childhood as 'summery'. We like to imagine a yellow hue cast over childhood memories. Autumn would therefore mark the end of childhood — an in-between state. Matilda feels 'everything is ugly'. Self-confidence is not exactly at an all-time high during adolescence. It takes time to get used to the image in the mirror.
HISTORICAL MILIEU
"The Wind Blows" is a snapshot of historical racism of a kind which only recently mutated into something more covert. My own grandmother used the phrase 'Chinaman' (to refer to anyone with an Asian face), and she'd say, "I'm not your little black boy!" by way of reminding us kids that we should be doing for ourselves. (The implication being: if she were a little black boy, she'd happily slave away.)
Contemporary Wellingtonians won't likely recognise the Wellington of this story:
The carts rattle by, swinging from side to side; two Chinamen lollop along under their wooden yokes with the straining vegetable baskets – their pigtails and blue blouses fly out in the wind.
No one dresses like that anymore.
In waves, in clouds, in big round whirls the dust comes stinging, and with it little bits of straw and chaff and manure. […] through the town, down the asphalt zigzag where the fennel grows wild, and on to the esplanade
The roads are not sealed and wild vegetation grows where everything is now turned to concrete.
She wears an 'ulster' — a Victorian working daytime overcoat, with a cape and sleeves.
Tenerife work refers to handmade lace from the Canary Islands.
NARRATION OF "THE WIND BLOWS"
"The Wind Blows" has a single focaliser — Matilda. This aligns the reader to Matilda. Everything we experience is through Matilda's senses.
The narration offers no definitive commentary on the specific situation of the focalising character, Matilda. We don't know what came before or what will happen after. Instead, events of a single day give readers an insight into Matilda's personality and into her complicated relationship within the family. Mansfield shows us Matilda's state of mind by presenting selected concrete detail rather than by depicting the mind of the character. Chekhov also wrote like this. There's a Latin phrase sometimes used to describe these characters who have no backstory: in statu nascendi (in the state of being born).
To the reader, it feels like Matilda is placed in a series of random situations. 'Slice of life' stories are often written like this. The 'random' slices create an unsettling mosaic but these slices are bound together by a single symbol: The wind.
LANGUAGE OF "THE WIND BLOWS"
What's with the repetition of 'wind'?
The repetition of a single word "wind" in "The Wind Blows" (five times compounded as "The wind — the wind," functions not only to reinforce, as though physiologically, the reader's sense of the intensity and persistence of a Wellington windstorm but also as a sotr of mantra for the central character, a formulaic verbal utterance that here at once invokes change and mediates against it, producing tension.
— Reading Mansfield and Metaphors of Form by William Herbert New
Mansfield juxtaposes lyrical details against base, realistic details such as the three-legged dog, the burned porridge and the dust that came 'stinging and with it little bits of straw and chaff and manure'.
Some of the details make the environment seem literally alive. There's the roaring sound from the trees in the gardens, the piece of paper flying like a lost kite.
STORY STRUCTURE OF "THE WIND BLOWS"
["The Wind Blows"] is a sharp contrast to "The Woman At The Store"; some readers complain 'but it's not a story, nothing happens.' It is a story of a different kind, oblique, episodic, with its shift in time level, and the move into interior monologue at the beginning of the second part.
In common with many children's picture books, "The Wind Blows" is the story a childlike character and begins with her waking up and ends in the evening. (Unlike in a picture book, we don't see Matilda tucked into bed.) There is a particular symbolism attached to stories that take place over 12 hours.
WEAKNESS/NEED/PROBLEM
Matilda, whose name we don't actually know until her mother calls her, is hormonal. Over the course of one day, she is at the mercy of her up-and-down emotions.
The desire in this particular story is not a burning, surface one. Characters often don't know what it is they want. Especially young characters. Knowing what you want is in itself a skill.
Matilda of "The Wind Blows" is a character going about her daily life, one small desire soon replaced by another. But under that surface, Matilda's desires are strong; she is driven by hormones and angst.
Matilda's main opponent is her mother. Mothers often bear the brunt. Mansfield has used contemporary language of the time: "Go to hell," which lends "The Wind Blows" a contemporary feel. In this story, notice how Matilda is never near her mother.
Note that Mansfield manages to portray tension without resorting to the exclamation mark, which would cheapen the prose. The verb 'shouts' does the work of punctuation.
There's also Marie Swainson, who is a vague irritation to Matilda. That said, Mansfield has done her usual trick (seen also in "The Garden Party") of presenting the two girls as equals by giving them names that begin with the same letter. That's not how Matilda sees it — she mocks Marie's shortening of 'chrysanthemum' and wishes she had more time alone with the music teacher — Marie intrudes upon her alone-time.
Stories require human opposition to work, but some commentators have said that the wind itself serves as an opponent in "The Wind Blows". It seems to be working against Matilda in a ghostly kind of way. It tears her 'best little Teneriff-work teacloth' and tries to lift her skirts. The wind bangs a piece of iron on the roof and makes her bed tremble. It causes her to wake up abruptly and 'dreadfully'.
Matilda herself has no plans for her day, which is in keeping with how the story ends. (She loses childhood and doesn't have plans for what comes next.)
In a story where the main character has no plans, they are carried along by other people's plans. Her music lesson is something she does out of habit. It's even Bogey who suggests their walk along the esplanade. Matilda isn't exactly the proactive type. She's more of a mooning type. Matilda's lack of plans are in keeping with the mood of the story — she is a ship (see below) being carried along by the tide of life.
In stories of this style, the Battle is often entirely symbolic. In "The Wind Blows", Mansfield's description of the dangerous sea is a proxy for a big fight scene. Pick out a few words from these paragraphs, and you could easily transplant them into an actual battle scene:
They cannot walk fast enough. (As if chased by something.)
zigzag (road)
(fennel) grows wild
strong (wind)
drunkards (which are actually flowers, not exactly dangerous people out on the street)
waves 'breaking', Bogey's voice 'breaking'
thump (onomatopoeia of the waves)
'the inside of her mouth tastes wet and cold' (as if something terrible just happened)
It's the light that makes her look so awfully beautiful and mysterious… They are on board leaning over the rail arm in arm.
" … Who are they?"
" … Brother and sister."
Matilda imagines she and Bogey on board the ship; in fact, they 'are' the ship. Nothing will stop these children from ploughing through the rough seas of adolescence into adulthood, not even the 'wind' – the turbulent emotions every adolescent must steam through.
"Look, Bogey, there's the town. Doesn't it look small?"
Mansfield is making use of miniatures in storytelling. This is seen much more clearly in "The Fly", which she wrote just months before she died.
GOODBYE, CHILDHOOD!
There's a particular type of Self-revelation seen in some stories — even in stories for children — in which the main character says goodbye to childhood. I say 'even' in stories for children, because a child audience can't possibly understand it fully. Children are super smart and understand a whole lot of things, but this is the one thing I can think of in which children and adults are distinct as audience members.
When Matilda says, "How many years ago!" we know that Matilda feels she is no longer a child. She says goodbye to the 'little island' (the ship), and she is saying goodbye to childhood.
A 'saying goodbye to childhood' scene is utilised to great effect in Toy Story 3, when Andy tells Woody what he thinks of him. Until this moment Woody has never known. "He's been my pal as long as I can remember…"
"The thing that makes Woody special is that he'll never give up on you, ever. Do you think you can take care of him for me?" Woody understands that everything he always wanted to be, he was. Then the viewpoint switches to Andy. Andy is trying one last time to keep hold of his childhood when he grabs Woody back from the little girl. This is the last time he'll ever play with Woody. What does that do to the audience? We all realise we've either lost our childhood or we're losing it.
Children don't cry at this Toy Story 3. This is an adult ending that was designed for both children and adults. From a child's perspective, children get their own ending, which is happy: Woody gets to hang out with his friends. They're together! For children, Toy Story 3 is happy from beginning to end. Children under about 13 don't have any concern for Andy's feelings — they're identifying with the toys. There is no Self-revelation for the child audience. This scene is so sad because most adults didn't know when we were saying goodbye to our childhood. In hindsight, it seems one moment we were children, the next we were adults. This scene allows us to weep for the loss of our own childhood.
In Peter Pan, Wendy says goodbye to her childhood when she says goodbye to Peter (who represents childhood).
Other stories with resonant 'saying goodbye to childhood' self-revelation scenes: A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck (which is the saddest thing I've read in my life), Winnie the Pooh and Boyhood, the film by Richard Linklater.
I expect the full emotional impact of the Self-revelation scene in Mansfield's "The Wind Blows" would be felt (if not understood) by a post-adolescent readership.
Although we're talking about a ship on a sea, there's a bit of river symbolism going on here. A body of water represents the inevitable passing of time, sweeping us along with it, as we get older and older, no turning back.
God, this is depressing.
Now the dark stretches a wing over the tumbling water. They can't see those two any more. Good-bye, good-bye. Don't forget… But the ship is gone, now.
The wind – the wind.
The ending is only suggestive and left open to interpretation. It's really not important what happened between the scene on the shore and the final scene on the boat or how they got there. This ending really only makes sense when you think of the disappearing ship as disappearing childhood. Think of this ending as Matilda's change in perspective. She feels alienated from other characters.
The final 'the wind — the wind' reminds me of 'Tumbleweeds' (which is a more modern trope, riffing on old Western movies, and spoofed subsequently by pop culture.)
If Mansfield were writing today, she might have ended with 'Tumbleweed' instead. Okay, maybe not, but I interpret that ending as, 'Childhood was gone now, but nothing had appeared to replace it, yet.'
Matilda has a crush on her married music teacher (well, I guess he was married, since he wears a ring), but he's way too old for her. Romantically, and in every other way, Matilda is stuck in teen limbo for a good while yet, unable to see how her adult life can get started.
Notice how Mansfield frames the main story: She begins by describing a whole newspaper wagging in the air like a lost kite. With that simple imagery she ties something from the boring adult world (a newspaper) to something from childhood (a kite). The childhood kite ends up 'spiked on a pine tree'. Childhood has been killed, basically.
WRITE YOUR OWN
A few years back I wrote my own retelling of "The Wind Blows". I had spent an entire week immersed in Katherine Mansfield, and the story flowed easily. (Not all of them do.)
"The Wind Blows" is 1623 words. I recommend you make yours about that length, too.
What season is your story set?
The story starts in the morning and ends around evening sometime.
Everything that happens throughout the day causes some kind of strong emotion. Each emotion juxtaposes with the emotion that came before — positive, negative, positive, negative. There's no external influence on these emotions — they seem random, and that's the point.
You don't have to use wind as pathetic fallacy. You might use something else instead as a metaphor for tumult: a ride at a theme park, a hairdryer, a flooded creek… Or you could use pathetic fallacy ironically. Pick a sweltering hot day and juxtapose that against the up-and-down emotions of adolescence.
Mansfield uses the girl's mother as her main opponent, but you could pick someone else. A teacher, perhaps. A best friend. A sibling, auntie.
Perhaps your character is the mooning type, in which case other characters will carry them along in their plans.
The Battle scene will be a proxy battle — a dangerous description of something rather than an actually dangerous something.
The self-revelation — in keeping with this story — may be that 'childhood has ended'. Or you might substitute with something else.
Like Mansfield, don't waste time on 'transitions', getting your character from place to place. Mansfield whips Matilda out of her music lesson and transplants her straight into her own bedroom. The transition is 'The wind — the wind'.
Mansfield has opened her story with a very particular sentence construction. She closes in this way, too. Try doing the same, see if it works. Even better, write imagery to open which reflects the Self-revelation. Mansfield used the kite spiked on the tree to foreshadow the end of childhood.
CategoriesShort Story Study TagsKatherine Mansfield, New Zealand, pathetic fallacy
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Igniting the Power of Innovation in Sri Lanka
A seminar and panel discussion on 'Igniting the power of innovation in Sri Lanka' was organized by the IPS in collaboration with the National Science Foundation (NSF) on the 12th March 2013. The Keynote address was delivered by Chief of Research and Innovation at Sri Lanka Institute of Nanotechnology, Prof. Gehan Amaratunga, while the discussion was presided over by chief guest, Hon. Senior Minister for Scientific Affairs Prof. Tissa Vitharana. Welcome remarks were made by Dr. Saman Kelegama Executive Director of the IPS and Prof. Sirimali Fernando, Chairperson of the NSF.
The Session also included an engaging panel discussion entitled, "Igniting the Power of Innovation: An Agenda for Sri Lanka," moderated by Anushka Wijesinha, Research Economist at the IPS. The Panel included Prof. Amaratunga, Prof. Fernando, Prof. Ajith De Silva (University of Moratuwa), and Ajit Gunawardena (Deputy Chairman – JKH).
A special edition of the Talking Economics Digest on Innovation and an IPS Working Paper on 'Fostering Innovation to Fast Forward Growth in Sri Lanka,' were launched at the event – with the first copies being presented to Minister Vitharana.
Media Highlights
The Island, 15 March 2013
Daily FT, 20 March 2013
Lanka Businessonline, 13March 2013

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


White Line Fever or White Line Hypochondria?
"What happens on the field stays on the field."
I'm always slightly nonplussed by this line. It seemed to be highly prevalent in both amateur and professional sport. There is a myth that someone can be a really good person when they are not playing sport but when they get on the field they get a bit of "White line fever." Even though this fever turns them into a highly competitive sociopath who has little empathy for injuries they may cause others and wants to win so badly they would sacrifice their own integrity for it, by diving, cheating or lying, we are expected to forget about that the moment the game finishes. I'm sorry but someone who quickly becomes a creature like that does not meet my criteria of a good person.
It is pretty easy to seem like a nice guy when you are having a good time in a bar and everything is going well, but that is not the measure of what sort of person you are. Integrity and character are not traits you get to have selectively. You either have them or you don't and if you do have them, you have them all the time. We can still be highly competitive without compromising our principles- think Adam Gilchrist walking when he knew he was out, John Landy stopping to help Ron Clarke get up and most recently Simon Clarke helping Richie Porte in the Giro d'Italia. Sadly this type of behaviour is so exceptional because it is so rare?
Sport is a stressor. People can't hide who they are in a tense game. For this reason it is the perfect time to make your judgements about people. People who try to make excuses for their team mates are missing the point. "He is a really nice guy off the field," is analogous to saying, "he is a nice guy when he isn't drunk," or, "he is a nice guy when he isn't abusing his wife!"
Obviously the last example is a more extreme version of what I am talking about. I certainly don't wish to trivialise domestic violence. What I want to point out is that unacceptable behaviour is ALWAYS unacceptable. That is what unacceptable means. When we make excuses like, it is ok on the sportsfield or when we are drunk, we are ignoring the fact that actually the perpetrator is fundamentally less of a person than someone not prone to such behaviour.
Imagine if this type of reasoning was acceptable in other areas of society. A soldier, police officer, teacher, firefighter, child protection officer, etc, whose friends describe him as a great bloke when not under stress, is not going to be any good at their job.
I have been honoured to know a lot of truly magnificent people. I have seen them in stressful situations (far more stressful than a game of sport) and seen how their character rises above it. For this reason I cannot look at anyone who behaves like a child or a sociopath on a sports field with any kind of tolerance or respect. If that is what you revert to when challenged, then that is who you really are in my eyes. So far from saying what happens on the field stays there, I believe what happens on the field defines you.


CABA law graduates not only promote a proper jurisdiction and impartial representation as their mission statement on behalf of themselves, but they also address their goals on behalf of members that are currently enrolled in law programs, and those that plan to obtain law degrees in the future.
Attorneys affiliated with CABA, including the board members, have all graduated from ABA-approved law schools and have dominated the bar exam. Wayne State University, University of Detroit Mercy, University of Michigan and Thomas M. Cooley are only a few of the many mentioned law schools that CABA members and associates have and will continue to graduate from.
CABA members not only include graduated attorneys, but law school students are also eligible to join the association. Members are constantly coming up with innovative ways to make contributions to and through CABA, such as offer legal advisory assistance and services to those in need of law counseling, through mentorship clinics and mediator programs that it has been offering since it was founded in 1992.
CABA members also encourage prospective law students by providing intellectuals with the opportunity to win a scholarship award. Once in law school, students are free to apply for membership into CABA. Both experienced attorneys and recent graduate members of CABA benefit by being introduced to legal representative referral programs, in addition to information on employment and networking opportunities within the Chaldean community.
Alivia Kassab, president of CABA and head of the networking events, talked about the mentorship program being her most favored experience and contribution among many that she has made to law association.
According to many of the prospective and present attorneys in attendance, there are many ways the association assists Chaldean students in law school.
Rewaq Najor, a second year law student at Wayne State University Law School, spoke of her experience with the mentoring program that the association offers to students.
Whilst Detroit experiences some gain, recent graduates have accepted employment opportunities out of state, like Brian Callaghan of Wayne State University Law School, who plans to work for a law firm in the country's capital, Washington D.C.
Mr. Paul Isso is the lead community and political journalist for www.CHALDEAN.org in Michigan . Mr. Isso is preparing for law school at Wayne State University and serves the Chaldean community by covering complex political and legal issues along with Chaldean community events held in Michigan . Mr. Isso can be reached at info@chaldean.org.


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V4 to carry flame for Balkan hopes of EU membership
As the EU suffers 'enlargement fatigue', Visegrad Four nations in Central Europe are determined to support Balkan aspirations to join the bloc — but will they make effective advocates?
12. Sep 2019 at 7:05 BIRN
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When the new European Commission begins work, it will grapple with issues threatening the very fabric of the European Union: Brexit, migration, the rule of law.
Safe to say the concerns of wannabe EU members in the Balkans will not top the Commission's agenda, according to EU diplomats.
But in an increasingly fractious Europe, officials from Visegrad Group countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) say they will champion the cause of EU enlargement within the new Commission.
Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia are all EU candidate countries while the European Commission sees Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo as potential candidates.
Related article Šefčovič continues as vice-president of the Commission Read more
"Poland is an advocate of enlargement as one of the most successful policies of the EU," Magdalena Czubala, head of the Southeast Europe and EU enlargement division at the Polish foreign ministry, told BIRN.
"We will only complete the European project when the Western Balkans joins."
While officials echo such sentiment in Bratislava, Budapest and Prague, analysts say cheerleading alone will not be enough to overcome a dwindling supply of goodwill for expansion (see box).
"We, even with the Visegrad Four, do not have enough lobbying power to push it through," said Istvan Szent-Ivanyi, former Secretary of State at the Hungarian foreign ministry and ex-Hungarian ambassador to Slovenia.
'Enlargement fatigue'
After the Balkan wars of the 1990s, EU and US leaders in the early 2000s agreed that swift EU membership was the key to the long-term stability and reintegration of the Balkan region — and therefore to the stability and security of the whole of Europe.
That decision came from a realisation that only the borders of the EU were wide enough to peacefully accommodate — and gradually transform — the nationalism that sprang up in the Balkans with the end of the Cold War.
Yet as time passed, analysts say the EU forgot its own bitter experiences from the violent breakup of the former Yugoslavia.
The drive for greater security gave way to complex reform agendas in the Balkans that sometimes seemed aimed at shutting countries out rather than welcoming them into the EU family.
Critics blame this watered-down commitment to enlargement for a revival of nationalism and populism across the region in recent years.
They also say it has weakened the resolve of Balkan countries to forge ahead with difficult reforms — in turn giving EU capitals an additional excuse to dilute the bloc's enlargement policies.
At the beginning of his tenure in 2014, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said no Balkan country would enter the EU during his term in office, making clear that enlargement was neither high on the Commission's agenda nor realistic for the time being.
Towards the end of his term, Juncker changed his tune somewhat, warning of the perils of failing to bring a "European perspective" to the region.
"If we remove from these countries, in this extremely complicated region, I should say tragically, a European perspective, we are going to live what we already went through in the 1990s," he said in a speech to the European Parliament in April.
Several senior EU officials told BIRN that the new European Commission would pay even less attention to enlargement.
Such "enlargement fatigue" stems mainly from the fact that most EU states will not even begin to consider accepting new members until the bloc resolves a growing number of internal problems.
Over the past year, Germany has done its best to keep the enlargement dream alive. In August, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Europe will only be "truly united" when the Western Balkans joins the EU.
Yet most members states openly or tacitly oppose further expansion.
While France and the Netherlands are seen as the strongest opponents of enlargement, V4 countries are now the foremost champions of the Balkan cause, officials say.
"In Western Europe, there is no real economic interest for further enlargement and parallel to that, so-called enlargement fatigue is developing in the Balkans."
French President Emmanuel Macron set the tone in June as countries clashed over who would get the EU's top jobs following European Parliament elections.
"I will refuse any kind of enlargement before a deep reform of our institutional functioning," he said.
Meanwhile, it remains an open question whether V4 states known for Euroscepticism, authoritarianism and democratic backsliding will be effective advocates for Balkan interests in the Commission.
Last year, the European Parliament voted to take unprecedented disciplinary action against Hungary for allegedly breaching core EU values. The European Commission, meanwhile, is pursuing legal action against Poland for flouting democratic rules.
Allies versus vassals
The Czech Republic, which now holds the rotating presidency of the Visegrad Four (V4), has made promoting Western Balkan accession one of the priorities of its term.
And all V4 countries have lobbied for the Commission to set dates for the start of EU accession negotiations for Albania and North Macedonia. They want the dates to be announced in October.
Analysts say much of this support is driven by self-interest.
In the eyes of the V4, EU accession could empower Balkan countries to act as better buffers against migrants from Africa and Asia trying to get into the EU.
It could also counter the growing influence of Russia, China and Turkey, which some fear could exacerbate social, political and ethnic tensions in the Balkans.
And it could help thwart the organised crime rings that the Balkans have been exporting to the rest of Europe for years.
Hungary has lately been the most vociferous V4 nation when it comes to EU enlargement. It is the only V4 country to border the Balkans and it shares a common history with countries that were once part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
As several EU officials who spoke to BIRN expected, the Hungarian nominee was appointed to cover the enlargement and neighbourhood portfolio in the next Commission, although it remains to be seen whether the government's nominee, former Justice Minister László Trocsányi, will pass muster with the European Parliament.
By appointing a Hungarian official for this position, some EU countries such as Germany want to appease Hungary and its nationalist-populist ruling party, Fidesz, while at the same time punishing it by giving it a portfolio that few other countries want, EU sources said.
Related article Juncker: I am still a great fan of enlargement Read more
Recent statements by Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó leave no question about where Budapest stands on enlargement.
"It is a hypocrisy that at the level of words everyone is frantically committed, but when it comes to making a decision, they dare not act," he said in Brussels in June as Serbia's latest chapter of EU negotiations opened.
"Enlargement would be the best response to undoubtedly existing tensions in the region. We in the neighbourhood know exactly how important peace and tranquillity are in the region."
He added that only a credible enlargement strategy could stem migration through the Western Balkans.
Hungary has backed its rhetoric with greater engagement with the region.
Since 2016, the government has subsidised Wizz Air, Europe's second-biggest budget airline, in linking several Balkan capitals with Budapest. In March, it established a 30-million-euro fund to support Hungarian investment in the region.
Related article One Union, two Europes Read more
Meanwhile, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has established close ties with Balkan leaders including Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, whom critics accuse of growing ever more autocratic, and North Macedonia's former premier, Nikola Gruevski.
Hungary drew international criticism last November when Gruevski fled to Budapest to avoid a two-year jail sentence at home for corruption-related charges.
Hungary's financial and political support for ethnic Hungarian minorities living in neighbouring countries has also stoked controversy.
"The problem is that the Hungarian government does not really look for allies but for vassals," said Szent-Ivanyi, the Hungarian former diplomat and official.
"There are attempts to interfere in local domestic politics, which I find highly risky and questionable. A politically neutral stance would be more beneficial for our long-term business interests."
Words and deeds
Experts say other V4 nations support Balkan accession for reasons ranging from a feeling of solidarity with fellow Slavs who shared a communist past to hopes of greater trade and fear of Russian mischief in the region.
In the Czech Republic and Poland, relations with the Balkans can seem rather abstract. Most links with the region are handled at the V4 level rather than via bilateral relations.
"The V4 provides a particular model of regional cooperation and the V4 continues in promoting this experience in the Western Balkans," said Tomas Dopita, a senior researcher at the Institute of International Relations Prague think tank.
Dopita said "the most palpable outcome" of this cooperation was the Visegrad Group's Western Balkans Fund, which supports regional cooperation.
Poland's relations with the Balkans came into focus in July when the Polish city of Poznan hosted the latest Western Balkans Summit. It was held as a part of the so-called Berlin Process, launched in 2014 to support Balkan accession to the EU.
"Without the full integration of the Balkans, with their beautiful traditions and cultural mix, Europe won't start to breathe fully," Polish President Andrzej Duda said during the summit.
The Polish foreign ministry's Czubala said Poland is a frequent voice for the region's strategic importance in EU forums.
"We have to support the region's development and keep it in our family, and not allow external powers to threaten the stability and peace," she said, adding that Warsaw "will fight" for the opening of negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia.
Despite a general consensus among both the political class and the general public that the Western Balkans belongs in the EU, analysts note that Polish interests in the region are mainly limited to tourism. Polish investment in the Balkans is tiny.
"The Polish involvement in the Balkans has always been tactical, not strategic: we were there to show the West that we are reliable and predictable partners, ready to do our fair share in the EU and NATO alliances," said Spasimir Domaradzki, a political scientist at Warsaw's Lazarki University.
"Polish involvement in the Balkans is about what Poland needs, not about what the Balkans need."
Slovakia keeps close bilateral relations with Balkan countries and nurtures business ties with Serbia in particular since many Serbian workers are employed in Slovak auto factories.
Related article Slovaks like the EU but they are not motivated to vote Read more
Experts say Slovak support for Balkan accession comes from a recognition of the potential stabilising effects of EU membership at a time of growing populism and extremism across Europe.
As one of five EU countries that do not recognise Kosovo's independence, Slovakia is keen to see better relations between Pristina and Belgrade.
"We don't want Kosovo to become a 'black hole' on the map of the Western Balkans," said Miroslav Lajčák, Slovak foreign minister and former High Representative for Bosnia.
But not everyone in Slovakia — or other V4 countries, for that matter — is convinced that EU boundaries should be expanded.
"When the countries join, they're going to need help and we'll all pay for it," said Petra Pavlíčková, a 35-year-old operations manager in Bratislava. "But it was the same when we entered the EU, so I really don't know if I would vote pro or against."
Lukáš Dobranský, a 31-year-old IT administrator from eastern Slovakia who lives in Czech Republic, is less ambivalent.
"I don't think we should accept more Balkan countries," he said. "Not until they resolve their own relationships, which will probably never happen."
This article was produced by Reporting Democracy, a cross-border journalism platform run by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network.
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Global Health, MPH
Recent advances in science, technology, and communications have created a rapidly shrinking planet--a global village. The Department of Global Health prepares graduates who are technically competent and skilled in planning, implementing, and evaluating sustainable health and development programs. The program focuses on an experiential model of learning, preparing students to serve vulnerable populations in developing and developed countries.
Graduates of the program may qualify for positions in nongovernmental, faith-based, and community-based organizations; county, state, and national health departments; private foundations; and public health enterprises and public health practice organizations. Graduates also find positions in government and transnational organizations, such as the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); and national assistance organizations like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Further academic training is also an option for graduates interested in teaching and research. Those with prior field experience and additional language/s proficiency (for example, French or Spanish) are generally given preference both during student admission and later when applying for jobs.
2 years (8 quarters)
NGO Country Director, Non Profit, World Health Organization (WHO), ADRA, Program Planner, Tsunami Relief Program Manager, doctoral candidate
Bachelor's degree from a regionally accredited institution, transcripts from all universities attended, three letters of reference, and official GRE scores (note: if your cumulative undergraduate GPA is a 3.2 or higher, the GRE requirement can be waived).
The following courses can be taken as pre- or co-requisites:
Tuition $30,430 $16,110
Fees $2,730 $9,020
Books & Supplies $630 $730
Instruments — —
Misc (e.g., Boards, Licensing exam, Uniforms) — —
Months enrolled 9 12
Room & Board $12,645 $16,860
Transportation $2,880 $3,840
Personal Expenses $2,070 $2,760


We are very excited about our Palm Sunday Picnic and Egg Hunt, this Sunday- April 9th! This is a fun and special time of fellowship as a church family and a great time to invite neighbors, friends and family to join us!
This will be a catered picnic (with donations accepted to help cover costs). The location will be down at the Gym after our Worship Service. You will see a sign and balloons for where to enter.
Be sure to bring your lawn chairs/blankets! We will picnic in the lawn area outside of the gym but will also have two tents with a few tables set up and some tables and chairs indoors for anyone concerned about the heat.
Our Egg Hunt will be split into toddler-3rd grade and another area for 4th-6th grade and we will have the hunt after our picnic! Be sure to bring a basket for the hunt!


US-CERT has received multiple reports of ransomware infections in several countries around the world. Ransomware is a type of malicious software that infects a computer and restricts users' access to it until a ransom is paid to unlock it. Individuals and organizations are discouraged from paying the ransom, as this does not guarantee access will be restored.
Users and administrators are encouraged to review the US-CERT Alert TA16-091A to learn how to best protect against ransomware. Please report any ransomware incidents to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).


Dixie Tavern in downtown Portland only serves beer that comes in a can, which goes perfect with their mechanical bull. This bar has a Coyote Ugly theme going on and you can often find girls dancing up on the bar. Every night this bar brings out a DJ and becomes a dance club.


A down payment of Euro 200,00 is required to confirm your reservation.
In case of cancellation we reserve the right to retain a cancellation fee equaling this amount.
The apartment will be available to you as of 2 pm on the day of arrival and until 9.30 am on your departure day.


Hi everyone! I'm going on vacation, so you might not hear from me for the next two/three weeks (but I'll be back!). I might be able to post quick travel pictures and things like that, but- just wanted to let you all know that ES isn't entirely innactive!
Gorgeous photos, have a lovely holiday!
Hope you have a good time. I love your choise of pictures. Keep up the good work.
Wow these photos are amazing!! :) lovely post!


Congressman Dan Lipinski (IL-3) was recognized today for his bipartisan leadership in the U.S. House in a new ranking of lawmakers. Lipinski was ranked 16th out of 422 members in a Bipartisan Index released by The Lugar Center, a policy organization headed by former Indiana Senator Richard Lugar and Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy.
The index ranks all Senators and Congressmen based on their sponsorship and co-sponsorship of legislation during the 2013-14 session of Congress. Members were scored based on how often bills they introduced were co-sponsored by members of the other party, and how often they joined bills sponsored from across the aisle. Only 36 Senators and 144 House members received positive bipartisan scores in the index.
"My background is in engineering, and engineers solve problems," Rep. Lipinski said. "I have always made it a priority to work with all sides on legislation that helps create jobs, improves the lives of middle-class Americans, and makes America an even stronger nation. My job is not just to complain and blame, but to propose and work for solutions to problems that my constituents and our country face. At this critical time, it is more important than ever to reach across the aisle and build consensus. I will continue working with my colleagues across the political spectrum for the American people."
"Excessive partisanship has created gridlock and hurt Congress' image and its ability to govern," said former Sen. Lugar, who served 36 years in Congress and was known for his bipartisan approach to lawmaking. "In the 113th Congress, Congressman Lipinski demonstrated his ability to reach across the aisle and seek agreements with the other party for the good of the country."
The Bipartisan Index released today compares the performance of current members to baseline scores derived from 20 years of historical data. The index scores only bills that have the force of law, not commemorative bills or non-binding resolutions.
Senator Lugar said he hopes the index will shine a light on an important but little-noticed part of lawmakers' duties - bill sponsorship - and encourage them to reach across the aisle when legislation is being introduced. It is far easier at that point to reach responsible compromises, rather than at the end of the legislative process when positions have hardened.


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Roe Jan Ramble Bike Tour
Neal Sanchez
The Original Cyclers
Team Captain
$0.00 of $200.00 raised
I am riding in this year's Roe Jan Ramble Bike Tour. It's a community sponsored event held each year in the towns of Copake, Hillsdale and Ancram, NY, a lovely corner of the world that's perfect for biking. The event supports the Harlem Valley Rail Trail, a paved bicycle/pedestrian path built on the railbed of the old Harlem Line of the New York Central Railroad that feeds into Taconic State Park.
The trail is ideal for runners, bicyclists, walkers, rollerbladers, cross-county skiers, wheelchair users, hikers and dog walkers who enjoy combining the quiet beauty of rural landscapes with healthy exercise. We're raising money to connect trail segments, and extend the trail as a public park for the enjoyment of everyone.
Won't you please sponsor my ride in the Ramble to support the Rail Trail?
Thanks for your support! Wish me luck on the ride!!
The Roe Jan Ramble Bike Tour celebrates its 6th year with a marvelous, scenic and enjoyable ride, sponsored by the towns of Copake, Hillsdale and Ancram, New York on the border of Massachusetts. This year there are 5 routes to choose from (10, 18-new!, 25, 35 & 50 miles) on quiet country roads in some of the most beautiful scenery of the Hudson Valley & Taconic foothills you've ever seen.
While our event is free, we encourage donations for the Harlem Valley Rail Trail. Our fundraising will be used to extend and connect the trail throughout our three towns, and to create an uninterrupted traffic-free trail for biking, walking, jogging & healthy exercise that extends from Wassaic, NY ultimately 46 miles to Chatham, NY.
The 7th Annual Roe Jan Ramble Bike Tour is sponsored by the Towns of Copake, Hillsdale, and Ancram, New York. This free public event raises funds to support the Harlem Valley Rail Trail Association.
The Harlem Valley Rail Trail Association (HVRTA) was founded in 1986 and incorporated in 1995 as a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to advocating for completion of the rail trail. HVRTA's core mission includes partnering with public and private agencies, leading volunteer efforts to assist with trail maintenance, raising capital for purchasing rights-of-way, and offering trail design expertise to public and private agencies.
Neal Sanchez $0.00 raised
Nathanial Sanchez $0.00 raised
Clifton Stancil $25.00 raised
Harlem Valley Rail Trail Association is a 501 (c) (3) EIN: 14-1798581 nonprofit organization


text:
Anissa Gray
via Berkley
The following is from Anissa Gray's novel, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls. The Butler family has had their share of trials—as sisters Althea, Viola, and Lillian can attest—but nothing prepared them for the literal trial that will upend their lives. Anissa Gray is an Emmy and duPont-Columbia award-winning journalist at CNN Worldwide. She began her career at Reuters as a reporter, based in New York, covering business news and international finance.
I sit on the floor and rest my back against the bed. Glance down at my watch. Six thirty. Eva will be home from work any minute. No, this very minute. There's the door.
"Hello? Viola?"
And there's her voice.
"I'm back here," I yell in the direction of the front room. I catch myself squeezing and rubbing my fingers, nervously. A bad habit. I stop and slide my hands under my thighs.
There's the quick click-click of Eva's heels on the hardwoods. She appears in the doorway. I note the ponytail, a desperate, rushed, stop‑gap styling measure. And there are the puffy eyes. She's not sleeping. Neither am I. She looks down at me, leans against the door frame, and crosses her arms. "What are you doing here?"
"I thought maybe I left a pair of shoes behind."
"I'm pretty sure you took everything." Her voice nicks, with its knife's edge. She glances around the room as if to be certain all traces of me were removed when I moved out. Her gaze rests on what used to be my dresser, which was uncluttered by ornamentation even before I left. Her eyes return to me on the floor. "Do you want to tell me why you're really here?"
I feel caught in a lie, but still I go on: "I guess those shoes could be in a box I haven't gotten to yet." In point of fact, I haven't gotten to any of the boxes yet.
"What are you doing here, Viola?" This time her voice is quieter. The knife, sheathed. "What is it?" She looks at me closely, her eyes roaming over the topography of my face, and I worry that she'll arrive at the truth. Isn't it right there in the sharp, high ridges of my cheekbones? In the gaunt gorges of my cheeks? In the squared‑off formation of a jawline that's unusually pronounced? She hasn't seen me in days. She'll notice.
I get to my feet quickly and turn my face away. "I just came for my shoes, like I said. I'll just . . . never mind. I'll go."
"Wait," she says. "You're supposed to be in Michigan. You didn't go to the sentencing?"
"I got held up. Work. I couldn't make it in time."
"You promised Lillian you'd be there."
"I know," I say, about to sit on the bed but catching myself. That bed doesn't belong to me anymore. Nothing in this room does. I lower myself to the floor again. "Like I said, I wasn't able to leave town in time." I look over at our two khaki‑colored reading chairs sitting expectantly by the window. At the books on Eva's nightstand: Written on the Body, Dream Work. At the empty nightstand by what used to be my side of the bed. "But I'm going to head up to Michigan when I leave here," I say.
"Right." Eva sounds unconvinced.
She sits on the floor beside me. Takes her pumps off and massages one of her high arches. She's short, even in heels, but she has this particular kind of stature—self‑assurance, genuine earnestness—born of boarding school and Ivy League breeding. She stretches, and I smell home: the faded flowers and vanilla of her perfume; sweat from teaching and student meetings and all the things a good academic does in a day. A good academic. A good, honest woman.
I taste the lies at the back of my throat.
A confession comes up from out of nowhere: "I saw coverage on television. I watched it—stop looking at me like that—I watched it on my laptop." Sitting there paralyzed on one of my moving boxes. With my car keys in my hand.
She gives me a look that says, It doesn't have to be this way.
"Would you like me to go with you? Back home?" she asks. "You know I will. Even with things, you know, the way they are."
"No. I'm good. It's fine."
She closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose. Typical exasperation. "Viola, if you'd only—" She stops and shakes her head. "Never mind."
"What? If I'd only what?"
If only you'd be more open; if only you'd go to couple's therapy, like I've asked; if only you'd get any therapy at this point; if only you were a little less you; if only; if only; if only.
But Eva doesn't say any of that. She shakes her head and says simply, "Your face. You look thin. I'm worried about you."
She's seen. I get up and head for the door. "I should probably get going."
"Wait," Eva says, raising her hands and wiggling her fingers for me to pull her up from the floor. When I have her back on her feet, she says, "I have mail. I was going to drop it off at work for you." She stops and examines my face closely again. "Hasn't anyone at work noticed? How thin you are?"
"No," I say. "Because there's nothing to notice. I'm under a lot of stress, clearly, and like any normal person, my diet is, well, it could be better."
She shakes her head. "I'll get your mail."
I sit on the bed, suddenly too exhausted to care about the division of formerly joint‑owned property.
"You have something," Eva says, coming back into the bedroom, flipping through the mail pile, and pulling out an envelope, "from Althea. It got here yesterday."
"Thank you," I say, accepting the pile. I look down at the envelope written out in Althea's lovely, calligraphic handwriting. I trace the letters of my name and touch upon a memory. "She taught me cursive," I say. "Or, rather, she made sure I was good at it. Did you know that?"
"No," Eva says quietly, sitting down on the bed next to me and resting her hand on my thigh, like older, easier times. "But I'm not surprised."
I nod, picturing Althea back then, when we were younger, with her Angela Davis afro, her bell‑bottoms and butterfly clogs. "She made me practice, relentlessly. And she would teach me new words, too. Simpatico. She taught me that word. Where would she have learned that? She wasn't a word person." I pause, thinking. I was the word person. I think sometimes she learned things she had no interest in, just for me. We'd sit together at the kitchen table, just the two of us. Practicing or talking or whatever. Even when we didn't have any electricity, which was a regular occurrence, she'd grab a flashlight or light candles.
"I imagine Althea was a pretty dedicated teacher," Eva says.
I'm thinking of what Althea used to say to me sometimes, as we sat together at that kitchen table: "You and me, we run together, Viola. Mama used to say that, and it's true."
"Althea was more than a teacher," I say.
Althea was sister, mother, friend, all the world to me.
"I bet she wants to make things right, Viola," Eva says, looking down at the letter in my hand.
"I don't know." Althea isn't the contrite, introspective type. The last time I saw her, no, I mean the last time I argued with her, I told her as much.
You have too many blind spots, Althea, I said, deeply upset. And I worry that, even when you're shown, you still refuse to see.
Actually, the last time I saw Althea was today, while I was sitting paralyzed on one of my moving boxes, watching that Michigan news report on my laptop, feeling something in me give way. I look at Eva. "The reporter said Althea collapsed while the judge was reading her sentence," I say. I glance down at the letter, my throat tightening. "The reporter, he counted up all the years they got. Althea got five. Proctor got seven. They weren't supposed to get that much time!"
She grabs my hand and holds tight.
"The twins. They're effectively orphans now." Just like we were.
"Viola," Eva says, "you need to get home. Immediately. Lillian must be beside herself."
I look down at my hand in hers and murmur, "She is."
"I'm so sorry," Eva says, raising my hand to her lips to kiss my fingers. I squeeze her hand and hold on for a moment. Then, I let go. I tuck my pile of mail under my arm and get up, looking again at our reading chairs by the window. Wanting nothing more than to sit in my chair while she sits in hers, both of us with a good book, like we used to. Me, blocking out crimes and punishments and the misfor
tunes of orphans.
"And really," Eva says, "I can—"
"No, I'm good. Everything's going to be fine."
"Do you see what you just did, there? Don't cut me off like that, Viola. I'm worried about you, okay? I'm worried about your family.
People, some of them at least"—she takes a beat to illuminate a truth about Althea—"some of them," she repeats, "who've been my family for a long time. Why don't you, for once, let someone help?"
"I told you, I'm fine."
We stand, facing each other, on the edge of yet another precipice. "I don't want to fight with you," I say.
Eva presses her fingers to her eyes, spent before we even begin. "Neither do I," she breathes.
"Look, this thing with Althea and Proctor, it's unexpected and terrible," I say. "But it's done. So there's nothing to do now except get up to Michigan and make some decisions about the best thing to do going forward."
Eva lets out a resigned breath. "Fine. Go do that. By yourself." I start for the door.
"Wait," Eva says. "I know I'm not in a position to make demands on you anymore, but we spent fifteen years together. I know you better than just about anybody, yourself included right now. So I have to insist: Call me while you're there, okay? Check in."
There are the chairs, together. The bed: my side, her side. My empty dresser. Our room in our dream home that we shared for three years. A condo downtown, after years of living in an actual house in the suburbs for most of those fifteen years.
My eyes find her again. "I will. I'll check in."
"I mean it, Viola."
"Promise?"
I head out the bedroom door and stop in the kitchen. I take my keys out of my pocket and look at them for a moment. I slip my house key off the ring and leave it on the cool, concrete countertop. I hug my week's worth of mail to my chest and leave. But not bound for Lillian's.
Oldham County Correctional Facility
Proctor Cochran
720 Smith Avenue, NE
Park Point, Michigan
Althea,
You okay? I' d be lying if I told you I'm not still trying to get my mind wrapped around this. So much for the hopes of first-time offenders. Yesterday, I heard this brother say, "The community wouldn't have stood for nothing less." I acted like I didn't hear him and went on about my business, but I wanted to pop him one because all I could think about was you in that courtroom, falling out like you did, down there on the floor, gone, and seeing Baby Vi back there crying in Lillian's arms and Lillian looking at me like DO SOMETHING!
And the whole time, I'm worried to death about where Kim is. I swear to God, I've never felt so useless. It brought me to my own knees inside. In a lot of ways, I'm still there, this close to popping the next person who tells me what we deserve. I know we did wrong and we'll pay for that, but you can't tell me that that judge couldn't have found something between a smack on the wrist and a beatdown. My man went for the beatdown with us, straight up.
I tried to write you the other day, right when I got back from sentencing. I started a couple of letters, but I couldn't finish them.
I was in my Darth Vader Space, all darkness and doom, writing crazy stuff. You know how I get. I tell you, being able to play the "community guitar" is truly therapy for a brother's soul. The guitar's not a Gibson, but it'll do. Your boy would play all day every day if they'd let me.
But man can't live on guitar alone, so there's the Prozac, which, I got to say, doesn't look like it's doing a damn thing. But I need to know, are you doing any better? I saw our friend up here today. He said he saw you and you were talking to him about his son and family like you usually do. He said you seemed okay. Is he right?
Anyway, I'm glad I waited a couple days to write. Guess what I saw this morning? We were finally able to get out after all that rain, and you know me, I was chomping at the bit while some people were complaining about the damp and the cold and this and that. I made it outside first and there it was, a deer standing out there past the fence on the edge of the woods. It was over on that end with the basketball courts. The deer was picking around in the brush, and there was sun coming down through the breaks in the clouds. It was the kind of thing you see on a postcard or something. Can you picture it?
And before the rest of the guys came out and scared her off, that deer raised her head and looked at me across all that distance between the woods and where I was in the yard. And I swear, this calm came over me that I get sometimes when I'm out hunting and I've been still for a long time before seeing something. It's like me and whatever I have in my sights are both part of this natural order and there's a rightness to everything. Feeling something like that when I was still so torn up from the sentencing, it was like nature was saying, There's still beauty and light, man. That's nature. That's your true nature. What do they say? The better angels of your nature?
But enough of my philosophizing. It's time for the most important thing, which is getting things set up for the girls now that we know what's what. I just can't get my head around the fact that we won't be raising our own kids. No driver's training, no prom, no dropping them off at college.
I hope this finally makes you see that you need to let the girls come up and see you. It was one thing to say "I don't want them seeing me this way" when we were going through all of this waiting and the trial. But I'm not stupid. I know why you won't see them. Well, I know why you won't see Kim. But they need to see you. You got that now, right? Especially Kim. Did you read her letter I sent you?
And I may as well go ahead and say this. It's time to stop going over and over which one of us did what and this and that. I made my choices, and I can live with them.
Before I close out, though, I wanted to tell you that that picture you sent was nice, so thank you for that. I'll give it to her, your girl Mercedes is some kind of artist, but, still, please be careful. You know crazy can't help but do crazy, so watch yourself with her,
please. I wish you' d stay away from her like I asked you to, but when have you ever listened to me?
Anyway, the picture of you is beautiful, and I'm happy to have it. I couldn't imagine a better anniversary gift. It looks a lot like you, and I see you're standing in your special place, "River Girl." There's even our tree in the background. I'm looking at the picture now while I sit here writing to you. I have it taped up over my bunk. When I look at it, it reminds me of all the things that have survived through all this. That tree was here before either one of us, and it stood right through the Great Flood. Remember that because that has to be us, right? P
+A. Can you believe we've been married 30 years? And we made us two kids. That's something we did right, isn't it?
I've had this song running over and over in my head like a reminder that things can't change us so much. Not for the bad, if we're careful. Time for the hint. And yes, I still like doing this, which means, yes, we're keeping it going, so stop trying to quit. Here we go. Hint: First time, end of time, flack.
I know I hit you with some B-sides the last couple times, but I'm taking it easy on you with this one. You know this song, young girl.
We'll see each other when we do.
From The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls. Used with permission of Berkley. Copyright © 2019 by Anissa Gray.
Poet, Artist, Erotic Muse of Mexico's Avant Garde: Rediscovering Nahui Olin
Lit Hub Daily: February 1, 2019
Anissa GrayBerkleyExcerptThe Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls
Poet, Artist, Erotic Muse of Mexico's Avant Garde: Rediscovering Nahui Olin In Diego Rivera's La creación, Nahui Olin sits among a gathering of figures that represent "the fable," draped in gold...


text:
International Society for Music Education (ISME) records
Collection 0004-SCPA
Finding Aid View
Box List
The International Society for Music Education was established in 1953 and aims to form a worldwide consortium of music educators from around the globe. ISME promotes the ability of music to enhance education worldwide, the skilled training of music educators, as well as an interconnected community of music educators and professionals globally. The International Society for Music Education records span the years from 1903-2012 with the bulk of the materials falling between 1965 and 1995. In addition to the official records such as correspondence, financial/membership records, and planning papers for meetings, conferences, seminars, and projects, the records include brochures, programs, publications, photographs, and research reports.
Majority of material found within 1965-1995
Use and Access to Collection
The collection is open for research use.
Duplication and Copyright Information
Materials from this collection must be used in the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library's Irving and Margery Morgan Lowens Special Collections Room, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm, Monday through Friday. Contact the curator for an appointment: http://www.lib.umd.edu/scpa/contact
40.25 Linear Feet
The International Society for Music Education records spans the years from 1903-2012 with the bulk of the materials falling between 1965 and 1995. In addition to the official records such as correspondence, financial/membership records, and planning papers for meetings, conferences, seminars, and projects, the records include brochures, programs, publications, photographs, and research reports.
The International Society for Music Education (ISME) was established by the International Music Council of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1953. The original goal for ISME was to encourage music education as an integral part of general education and community life throughout the world, and as a profession within the broad field of music. The first conference was held in Lindau, Germany and Zurich, Switzerland in 1955 to transact the business of the organization and to share findings based upon research and experience in music education. Subsequent conferences were held in 1958, 1961, 1963, and biennially since 1964. Ideas are shared through workshops, demonstrations, lectures, concerts, exhibitions and social events.
The Board of Directors consists of the President, Past President, President-Elect, Secretary General, Treasurer, and several additional members. Prior to 1986, three Vice-Presidents, rather than Past-President and President-Elect, were elected.
The Development, Publications, and Research Commissions were established in 1968, after which a number of commissions were created to cover areas of interest to ISME. ISME's Publications Commission oversees the publishing of the International Journal of Music Education (formerly the International Music Educator and Yearbook) and scholarly and professional materials. Since 1968, the Research Commission has sponsored numerous Research Seminars.
Other International Seminars, based upon specific topics and organized by a particular commission, have been held periodically. In 1982, commissions began to schedule seminars preceding the biennial conference in geographically convenient locations. Miscellaneous seminars are occasionally planned.
ISME has been represented in over 80 countries throughout the world by National Sections/Organizations which assist in transacting financial business and in sponsoring music education activities. In 1976, ISME Regional Centers began to be established to assist with these functions. Centers exist in Buenos Aires (for Latin American countries), Tokyo (for Asian countries), and Bonn (for European countries).
The ISME Archives are divided into seventeen record groups.
Constitution and By-laws
Financial and Administrative Records
National Sections and Organizations
Affiliations with International Organizations
Affiliations with Miscellaneous Groups
Miscellaneous Projects
Custodial History and Acquisition Information
The International Society for Music Education (ISME) records were established at the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1985. Materials have been received from Robert Werner, Ronald Smith, Henning Bro Rasmussen, the estate of Vanett Lawler (through Dorothy Regardie), Yasuharu Takahagi, Rodolfo Zubrisky, and Dr. Marie McCarthy.
Vanett Lawler Papers
Henning Bro Rasmussen Papers
Ronald Smith Papers
Robert Warner Papers
John Ritchie Papers
Rodolfo Zubrinsky Papers
Processing supported by the Rose Marie Grentzer Fund.
Music -- Instruction and Study -- Congresses
Processing begun by Elaine Phelps, 1991; completed by Sarah Lindblom, August 2013.
Code for undetermined script
Finding aid written in English
Part of the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library
http://www.lib.umd.edu/mspal
College Park MD 20742 United States
scpa@umd.edu
Search Within Collection
International Society for Music Education records, Special Collections in Performing Arts, University of Maryland Libraries.
International Society for Music Education records, Special Collections in Performing Arts, University of Maryland Libraries. http://hdl.handle.net/1903.1/1212 Accessed January 20, 2022.


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Dynamine hecuba är en fjärilsart som beskrevs av William Schaus 1913. Dynamine hecuba ingår i släktet Dynamine och familjen praktfjärilar. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Externa länkar

Praktfjärilar
hecuba

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has announced an initiative to help California agricultural producers transition to more energy efficient operations.
The initiative will make funding available for individual on-farm energy audits designed to save money and energy when fully implemented.
California is one of 29 states receiving funding for on-farm energy audits in fiscal year 2010 through the 2008 farm bill's Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). Up to $225,000 is available in California to assist up to 150 farmers and ranchers with audits.
The energy audits will be individually tailored to assess each farm's primary energy uses including milk cooling, irrigation pumping, heating, and cooling of livestock production facilities, manure collection and transfer, grain drying, and other similar on-farm activities.
NRCS California will pay for the initial audits and the associated Agricultural Energy Management Plan (AgEMP). The AgEMP provides producers a roadmap for the future implementation of energy-efficient practices.


Why to Host Your Website in India?
In this era of globalization and digitization, hosting and managing your website effortlessly, irrespective of your geographical location and the hosting server's location is well and truly possible without any hassles. You could be based in India, marketing your products to the global market, yet host the website in any preferred country like UK or US. Having said all of that, if given an option, would you not prefer hosting your website with a web host operating from your own country with locally hosted servers? The benefits associated with getting your website hosted closer to the region of target audience or where majority of your customers belong from has many benefits which are hard to overlook. In this write up, we are considering the benefits of hosting websites on Indian Web Servers, if you are an India based business with primary target market being the Indian sub-continent.
If you have an offline business based in India and you are planning to get your business online targeting Indian prospects or your website is serving the most to Indian users and the users of other neighboring countries of the Indian sub-continent, it helps to host your website in India as the closer your website is to your target audience, the faster it will load for those accessing it. The quicker response time is mainly experienced due to the less distance covered between the user and the location of the server.
The closer the server is to its user base, the lower the latency in server response. This translates into faster page load times, more responsive applications and no lag which in turn boosts factors for success such as site visitors retention, conversion ratio and repeat visits. These factors are critical for sites with media content like videos or VOIP apps or for gaming.
If you choose an Indian Web Hosting company to host your website with, you can take advantage of locally based technical support and chances are you may also get the support in your preferred local language.
It is believed that Google uses website load time as one of the many factors in calculation of your website's search engine rankings. This data is collected through your website users/visitors who have the Google toolbar installed.
Increasing competition and advancement of technology in India has resulted in competitive pricing and service level to be at par with what is offered in the US or UK as far as web hosting is concerned.
To grow ahead of the competition, Web hosting companies in India are not averse to ideas such as putting fewer sites on one server, employing quality staff for best customer support and spending more on quality hardware.
Client Awareness about Web Hosting 10 years ago and now has changed drastically as far as the Indian hosting scenario is concerned. This has made the Indian web hosting companies pro-active with their service offerings and most of them now boast of an exquisite product line with multiple offerings to help the customer choose from.
Some of the other key factors that are boosting the growth of hosting in India are the growing economy, huge investments being within the country into fiber optic networks, local sourcing of software and hardware, and significant improvement in literacy rate.


text:
Work and Climate Change Report
The green transition of work and workplaces: Research and News from a Canadian viewpoint
About the WCR
Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces (ACW)
Work in a Warming World (W3)
Subscribe to Receive Monthly email summaries
The Summer of 2019: Flooding, hurricanes, wildfires and heatwaves
Posted on September 5, 2019 by elizabethperry493
The world has awoken to the real-life manifestations of climate change in 2019, and we have been bombarded with media images of extreme weather disasters. July 2019 was approximately 1.2°C warmer than the pre-industrial era, according to a summary of international heat waves by the World Metorological Organization (WMO) on August 1. The WMO also published "Unprecedented wildfires in the Arctic" (July 29) and "Widespread fires harm global climate, environment" on August 29, including information about the Amazon wildfires. "Global heating made Hurricane Dorian bigger, wetter – and more deadly" by scientists Michael Mann and Andrew Dessler appeared in The Guardian on September 4 and "Is climate change making hurricanes stall?" at the PBS website both offer clear summaries of the climate change connection to the most recent extreme weather disaster the world has seen.
In Canada, flooding was the predominant weather disaster: In a July 2019 press release, the Insurance Bureau of Canada described the flooding events of April and May and estimated that spring flooding in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick caused close to $208 million in insured damage . In the same press release, the IBC advocates that all political parties in the upcoming federal election commit to a National Action Plan on Flooding. ( The IBC published Options for Managing the Flood Costs of Canada's Highest-risk Residential Properties in June, the result of national consultations with the Working Group on the Financial Management of Flood Risk, co-chaired by Public Safety Canada and the IBC. The report is summarized in the IBC press release and in the National Observer "Who should bear the financial risk of flooding? Report lays out three options" in the National Observer June 19 . )
In what it calls the first report of its kind in Canada to examine climate risks at the provincial level, the British Columbia government published a Preliminary Strategic Climate Risk Assessment for British Columbia in July 2019. The report evaluates the likelihood of 15 climate risk events and considers their health, social, economic and environmental consequences, concluding that the greatest risks to B.C. are severe wildfire season, seasonal water shortage, heat wave, ocean acidification, glacier loss, and long-term water shortage. A compilation of forty-six articles concerning Wildfires is available from the National Observer, and includes "'Climate change in action:' Scientist says fires in Alberta linked to climate change" (June 10).
In late June, Healthy Climate, Healthy New Brunswickers: A proposal for New Brunswick that cuts pollution and protects health was released, written by Louise Comeau and Daniel Nunes. The report describes how climate change will affect the physical and mental health of all New Brunswickers, especially children, seniors, the isolated, and those living on low incomes. The report combines climate projections and existing community health profiles for 16 New Brunswick communities, emphasizing the risks of more intense precipitation, flooding and heat waves.
Extreme Heat in Canada and Beyond:
The Prairie Climate Centre at the University of Winnipeg released Heat Waves and Health in August – a brief and practical guide to the health impacts of heat waves, drought and wildfires in Canada. The report predicts future heat waves in Canada, based on data newly updated the Climate Atlas of Canada . Previous projections were published as Chapter 4 in the federal government's 2019 report Canada's Changing Climate Report : "Changes in Temperature and Precipitation Across Canada" .
Heat is a much more widespread danger in the United States, with Phoenix Arizona experiencing 128 days at or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit in 2018 – one of the hottest and fastest-warming cities in the country, according to an article in the New York Times, "As Phoenix heats up, the night comes alive" . The Times article describes how citizens and workers must re-schedule their lives and their job duties to avoid the killing heat of the day. Phoenix is also the main focus of a lengthly article, "Can we survive extreme heat" in the Rolling Stone (Aug. 27) .
Killer Heat in the United States: Climate Choices and the Future of Dangerously Hot Days was released in July by the Union of Concerned Scientists, directed to a non-technical audience, and includes interactive maps and downloadable date here . The report offers national and regional projections and in Chapter 5, addresses the particular implications for outdoor workers, as well as city and rural dwellers, and those in low-income neighbourhoods. A more technical version of the research appeared as "Increased frequency of and population exposure to extreme heat index days in the United States during the 21st century" in the Open Access journal Environmental Research Communications .
The accuracy and sensitivity of occupational exposure limits to heat is examined in "Actual and simulated weather data to evaluate wet bulb globe temperature and heat index as alerts for occupational heat related illness". This important article, published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene in January 2019, analysed the cases of 234 outdoor work-related heat-related illnesses reported to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 2016 and concluded that wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) should be used for workplace heat hazard assessment. When WBGT is unavailable, a Heat Index alert threshold of approximately 80 °F (26.7 °C) could identify potentially hazardous workplace environmental heat.
Finally, "Can the Paris Climate Goals Save Lives? Yes, a Lot of Them, Researchers Say" in the New York Times (June 5) summarizes a more technical article which appeared in the journal Sciences Advances on June 5 . "Increasing mitigation ambition to meet the Paris Agreement's temperature goal avoids substantial heat-related mortality in U.S. cities" reviews the literature about heat-related mortality and concludes that achieving the 1.5°C threshold of the Paris Agreement could avoid between 110 and 2720 annual heat-related deaths in 15 U.S. cities.
This entry was posted in United States and tagged climate change and health, Extreme Weather Events, Flooding, Heat Stress, wildfires by elizabethperry493. Bookmark the permalink.


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Q: PhoneGap BUILD and phonegap-facebook-plugin sample I want to use the phonegap-facebook-plugin in a PhoneGap BUILD application.
The documentation here only explains how to add the plugin into the config file but does not explain how to actually use it.
More specifically,

*

*does anyone have experience with this plugin and PhoneGap Build or
for that matter any other plugin? Sample code?

*what version of the "facebookConnectPlugin.js" should I use? (there
are several of those in the project)

*during the development phase I
am testing in the browser first and then on the phone. How do I make
it work in both environments?

Thanks.

A: *

*Actually, if you go here, the author has the example of the usage there.

*The version you're looking at was deprecated. Use <plugin name="cordova-plugin-facebook4" source="npm" spec="1.4.0"> instead.

*You have to add your localhost to Facebook app settings.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
April 2022 BOOK DAY!
April Showers are a Great Time to Snuggle Up
With One of These Heartwarming Reads
THE WIDOW'S PLIGHT
The Quilting Circle (Book1)
A Sweet Historical Romance Series
By Mary Davis
Will a secret clouding a single mother's past cost Lily the man she loves?
When Lily Lexington Bremmer arrives in Kamola with her young son, she's reluctant to join the social center of her new community, the quilting circle, but the friendly ladies pull her in. Widower Edric Hammond and his father are doing their best to raise his two young daughters. Lily resists Edric's charms at first but finds herself falling in love with this kind, gentle man and his two darling daughters. Can Edric forgive Lily her past to take hold of a promising chance at love?
BRIDE BY BLACKMAIL
By Debbie Lynne Costello
A broken heart, controlling father, and intrusive Scot leave Charlotte reeling. Accused of stealing an heirloom pin, she must choose between an unwanted marriage and the ruin of her family name. With her and her sister's futures at stake, Charlotte must navigate through injustice to find forgiveness and true happiness. Eager to find the traitor who caused the death of his brother, Duncan comes to America attempting to fit into Charleston society. But when the headstrong Charlotte catches his eye, Duncan acquires a second mission—winning the lass's hand. After several spurnings, he uses unconventional ways of winning her heart.
WALL OF STONE
As the first anniversary of her parents' murder approaches, Chandra Kirby needs to get away from familiar places in order to deal with the loss. She arrives in England to take a bike tour, only to discover that she will be reunited with the only man she has ever loved, Pierce Stillwell—and with his girlfriend, Chandra's high school nemesis.
TITANIC: LEGACY OF BETRAYAL
By Kathleen E. Kovach, et al.
A secret. A key. Much was buried on the Titanic, but now it's time for resurrection. Follow two intertwining stories a century apart. 1912 - Matriarch Olive Stanford protects a secret after boarding the Titanic that must go to her grave. 2012 - Portland real estate agent Ember Keaton-Jones receives the key that will unlock the mystery of her past... and her distrusting heart. Review: "I told my wife to move this book to the top of her reading list... This titanic story is more interesting than the one told in the Titanic movie... She will absolutely love it."
MAGDELENA'S CHOICE
By Molly Jebber
Amish Historical Romance: Magdelena loves Amish life and her family, but her father insists she marry a deceitful man. Her father is blinded by Zach's sly behavior. She's in love with Toby, but her father doesn't approve. She's desperate for a way out, but she doesn't want to dishonor her father and Zach's not giving up.
THE CRYPTOGRAPHER'S DILEMMA
By Johnnie Alexander
A Cryptographer Uncovers a Japanese Spy Ring
STRANDED WITH PEARLS
By Sherri Stewart
June 16, 1962 should be the best day of Gracie MacGyver's life. After all, it's her wedding day. But the closer she gets to the altar to marry Mr. Perfect, the more she realizes she's making a colossal mistake. So she bolts and heads south or west—she doesn't really care—wherever Route 66 takes her. But the day goes from bad to worse. Instead of a honeymoon in Bermuda, she's spending the night in a jail cell in a small town in Illinois. And the sheriff seems to be enjoying her incarceration.
THIMBLES AND THREAD
By Suzanne Norquist, et al
4 Love Stories Are Quilted Into Broken Lives
Sarah doesn't need anyone, especially her dead husband's partner. With four brothers to mentor her boys and income as a seamstress, she seeks a quiet life. If only the Emporium of Fashion would stop stealing her customers and the local hoodlums would leave her sons alone. When she rejects her husband's share of the mine, his partner Jack seeks to serve her through other means. But will his efforts only push her further away?
"Bygones" by Mary Davis
Drawn to the new orphan boy in town, Tilly Rockford soon became the unfortunate victim of a lot of Orion Dunbar's mischievous deeds in school. Can Tilly figure out how to truly forgive the one who made her childhood unbearable? Now she doesn't even know she holds his heart. Can this deviant orphan-train boy turned man make up for the misdeeds of his youth and win Tilly's heart before another man steals her away?
By Vickie McDonough
Laney Dawson is desperate to leave Council Grove, KS. Her abusive father is getting out of prison soon, and she refuses to allow him to hurt her again. With few options available for a young woman, she poses as Lane, a teen boy, and hires on with a family traveling the Santa Fe Trail to New Mexico. Laney regrets lying to the kind Buckley family, especially Ethan, the oldest of the five siblings. As her feelings for Ethan grow, she knows she needs to tell him the truth, but will he leave her at the next town when he learns she's a woman?
THE SILVER SUITCASE
By Terrie Todd
It's 1939. Canada is on the cusp of entering World War II. Seventeen-year-old Cornelia Simpson has been heartbroken since the day her mother died. As a new tragedy provides still more reason to reject her parents' faith, a mysterious visitor appears in her hour of desperation. Alone and carrying a heavy secret, she makes a desperate choice that will haunt her for years. Decades later, Cornelia's granddaughter, Benita, is in on the brink of divorce when she discovers Cornelia's diary. Now the secrets of her grandmother's past will lead Benita on an unexpected journey of reconciliation and faith.
HUNT FOR A HOMETOWN KILLER
By Mary Dodge Allen
A Finalist in the 2022 Christian Indie Awards, mystery/suspense category.
"Hunt for a Hometown Killer kept us up all night. Suspense, humor, rapier wit, and a heaping helping of warmth and non-stop action enliven this delightful faith-flavored read. It's packed with unexpected plot twists. We loved it!" 5-Stars - Pages & Paws Book Review Blog
DESTINY'S WHIRLWIND
(Book 2 of the Destiny Series)
By Catherine Ulrich Brakefield
"A deathbed promise, a dashing Rough Rider, the parable of the Sower takes on unimaginable consequences. Destiny's Whirlwind by Catherine Brakefield is a beautiful inspirational love story that will reel you in and win your heart…The story is beautifully written and filled with triumph and heartbreak. I couldn't put it down…" L.S. Amazon Reader "My readers encourage my writing!" Catherine is an award-winning author of the inspirational historical romance Destiny series (Swept into Destiny, Destiny's Whirlwind, Destiny of Heart, and Waltz with Destiny) and Wilted Dandelions.
MAIL-ORDER REFUGE
By Cindy Regnier
Rand Stafford isn't looking for true love. That trail left him with a shattered heart. What he needs is a wife to care for his orphan nieces. Desperate, he places an advertisement and hopes for the best. Fleeing her former employer, a Kansas cattle ranch sounds like the perfect refuge to Carly Blair. It is her best shot at freedom. But its sanctuary comes with a price—a husband. While marrying a man she doesn't know means sacrificing her dreams, it's better than what she leaves behind. Or is it?
COUNT THE NIGHT BY STARS
By Michelle Shocklee
1961. After a longtime resident at Nashville's historic Maxwell House Hotel suffers a debilitating stroke, Audrey Whitfield is tasked with cleaning out the reclusive woman's room. There, she discovers an elaborate scrapbook filled with memorabilia from the Tennessee Centennial Exposition. Love notes on the backs of unmailed postcards inside capture Audrey's imagination with hints of a forbidden romance . . . and troubling revelations about the disappearance of young women at the exposition. Audrey enlists the help of a handsome hotel guest as she tracks down clues and information about the mysterious "Peaches" and her regrets over one fateful day, nearly sixty-five years earlier.
Posted by Mary Davis at 3:30 AM
Labels: April Book Day, Book Day, HHH Book Day
Connie R. April 30, 2022 at 7:03 AM
Wow! There are some beautiful covers and intriguing stories here! Congratulations to all of you!


As a fan of the TV Collection by Kaleigha and Donnie, I downloaded almost all of their work. Missing some great tv-series, and hopefully it's appreciated, I started from scratch and created a matching coverset for Airwolf.
Last edited by chasercovers; 27-05-2010 at 18:06.


Creating colour palettes is an essential part of the design process - let us help you define yours!
Free training for coal miners to become wind farmers - cool!
Hotel and hostel lobbies are rebranding themselves as mini retail hotspots, let us help you rebrand yours with our custom apparel and designs!
How much are you willing to give for the planet? Let us know!
Scientist invents way to trigger artificial photosynthesis to clean air - now that's what we call "air"tificial intelligence.
Loving this Pacific Ocean cleanup initiative - what do you think?
What do you think, in Vancouver should we start creating our own "Forest City"?
We got out to vote this weekend - comment if you did too!


Having a healthier hair is recognized by a lot of person as an indication of being very healthy and beautiful. Just like every other part of your body, hair also requires a variety of nutrients to help it grow and stay healthy. In fact, lack of nutrients and multivitamin benefit for hair has been linked to hair loss while on the other hand, natural factors to including hormones, age, and genetics equally has an effect on your hair growth. However, optimal multivitamin is the key. Discussed below are some multivitamin that is beneficial for your hair.
Above all other types of Vitamins, Vitamin E which is known for its powerful antioxidants properties has been recognized to reducing the damage of free radicals and equally assists in protecting your cells from harmful agents. Very well you can find the Vitamin E supplement in stores, but another interesting thing about this Vitamin is that is now added to skin care and beauty products. Since 1950s, Vitamin E has been used in dermatology to protect your skin from aging faster. It is also used to guard against damage of the sun and inflammation. Known as a fat soluble Vitamin, it's also very important for a strong immune system as well as for a healthy hair and skin. Just recently, it was found out that Vitamin E is one among the best cure for unmanageable damaged hair. It was revealed that the application of Vitamin E to your hair makes your hair fuller and shinier. Additionally, Vitamin E has the essential properties of keeping your hair healthy and your scalp healthy as well. It has been discovered to preventing hair loss, balance the production of oil and improve circulation of scalp.
Studies conducted eight years from now has shown that taking vitamin E supplement will help improve the length of your hair, most especially with person experiencing loss of hair. It is opined that with its antioxidant properties, it also help in lowering oxidative stress on your scalp. Furthermore, Vitamin E can help in improving the flow of blood which assist in hair growth and also help you create a protective guard on the surface of your skin. This protective guard assists in locking in moisture. Oil that contains Vitamin E is also best for scalp moisturize. Your hair can look very dull and frizzy once damaged but after applying Vitamin E its gives you an opposite view by reducing breakage, by giving it moisture and by guarding your hair from damaging.
Vitamin E can be used for your hair through eating a balanced diet high rich with Vitamin E food content. You also add Vitamin E to your shampoo, mask, oil as well as your conditioner. It is important to know that lack of Vitamin C, protein a well as calories can deny you of having hair growth. To get the adverse impact of this Vitamin, you can purchase the Vitamin E rich oil. Once you get it, you will have to massage it gently into your scalp before combing through with a wide comb. You will also have to allow the oil set into your hair for about 15 to 20 minutes before also washing out with your shampoo and conditioner. However, if your hair is very moisturizing, you might not need to wash it with conditioner. Undiluted Vitamin E can result into a rash or irritation of the skin and a higher dose of Vitamin E can because you weaken bones, increase in developing prostate cancer, and disrupt thyroid hormonal production.
Every cell in your body requires Vitamin A and your hair is inclusive. Hair, also regarded as the fastest growing tissue in the body needs vitamin A to stay healthier and shinier. Vitamin A has been linked to helping the glands of your skin by creating an oily substance known as sebum. This oily substance helps in moisturizing your scalp and helps your hair stay healthier. Lack of Vitamin A can result into hair loss and hair damage and high dose of Vitamin A can also result into hair loss, so you just have to balance your Vitamin A intake. Carrots, Sweet Potatoes, Spinach, Pumpkins as well as Kale are very good source of Vitamin A. You can also find Vitamin A in animal sources or products. This products include yogurt, egg, milk and in cod liver oil.
This is another Vitamin that is good for hair growth. Also called Biotin, Vitamin B is used for treating hair loss. It also as the essential properties of creating the red blood cells which helps in carrying nutrient and oxygen to your scalp and to your hair follicles, a process that is very paramount for hair growth. You can however get the Vitamin B from foods that include almonds, meat, fish, whole grains, and seafood and from dark and leafy greens. In addition, animal foods are also important source for Vitamin B.
Lack or little quantity of Vitamin D has been linked with hair loss and hair damage. Studies has proven that Vitamin D can help you in creating a new follicles which is recognized as a tiny pores in the scalp and on the skin for new hair growth. It is always believed that Vitamin D has a major role to play in the production of hair. The body however gets Vitamin D from direct contact with rays of sun. Other sources of Vitamin D can be seen in fortified foods, mushroom, cod liver oil and in fatty foods.
The adverse effect from free radicals can also result into blockage of hair growth and aging of hair. It is a powerful antioxidant that actually helps you in guarding against oxidative stress that is being caused by free radicals. Additionally, the body requires Vitamin C to develop a protein recognized as collagen. The collagen is very important in the aspect of hair growth. Guavas, Citrus fruits, peppers among others are very good sources of Vitamin C.