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MITIGATION by Becky Marietta
Posted on June 13, 2015 by adminFA in - 2 Comments
When recounting the story, she liked to tell people that it was all Harold's fault. Didn't most criminals blame other people for their crimes, especially their crimes of passion?
Harold was her husband—had been her husband for almost twenty-four years—and it had all started one fateful evening when he had asked her what was for dinner. He presented the question, the first and only words he had spoken to her since arriving home from work an hour before, in that distracted way that meant he was not listening but expecting an answer nevertheless… "What's for dinner?"—rustling his newspaper and not bothering to look up, speaking as if to the dog, or to his shoes.
Not even his favorite shoes, either.
"What's for dinner?" And Lori looked around her shining kitchen, the oven recently scrubbed with a caustic spray that took away both charred food particles from the stove and flesh from her palms, the dishes gleaming on an oaken ladder drainer, the fruits, selected for their aesthetic appeal rather than edibility, sitting red and green and yellow in their country blue-and-white stoneware bowl from Pottery Shed (forty-nine ninety-nine, plus tax), and she felt something tired switch off, replaced by a fiery blankness. She calmly walked over and lifted the bowl, feeling a sudden urge to carry it into the living room and drop it, apples and lemons and all, onto Harold's balding pate. The sound would be marvelous—a discordant thunk as it made contact with his head, a yelp of pain, and the final crashing of both bowl and fruit onto the floor, pattering like giant hailstones around Harold's slippered feet.
She tightened her fingers on the cool sides of the bowl and then set it down again. She would not waste her bowl; it was, with its sensible, understated New England style and reasonable price, a testament to her good taste and brilliant homemaking skills. "Homely" is what Lakshmi, her Indian friend and neighbor down the street, called it. "You would be written up as 'a fair and homely' girl in the marriage papers in India," Lakshmi told her once, stirring the milky, fragrant cardamom- and cinnamon-laced tea she drank every afternoon, handing a cup to Lori. "All the mothers would want to be arranging a marriage to their sons with you. Caste be damned and all that. You are an Indian-mother-of-a-boy's dream."
Lori had laughed and laughed at that, wiping tears from her cheeks as Lakshmi smiled her cool, benevolent smile. "Homely," Lori finally choked out. "That's me." She was astonished when other, sharper tears suddenly sprang into her eyes and spilled down her cheeks, and Lakshmi leapt up, tsking and fussing, wiping Lori's face with the end of a rosebud-pink silk sari. Lori regretted aloud the tears that stained the slippery pale fabric, but Lakshmi brushed her protests aside.
"This sadness comes from too many American notions of rights," Lakshmi said. "There is no mother-in-law in your house, judging you, ordering you about. You are free. Why do you knit your own chains around your wrist? Feed the man, send him to work, live your life. I don't understand your dilemma. Forgive me if I oversimplify, but there it is, isn't it?"
Lori sighed. She wasn't sure she had an explanation that would make sense. How could she tell her friend—who rejoiced every day that her own husband, a man she had not met until their wedding day and who had brought her to this country, away from the suffocation of his mother, a tiny tyrant who slapped and complained and cajoled with every breath—that when she looked at Harold, she yearned? That she sometimes glimpsed the skin of his head and remembered the curls that had once covered it, and how, when she slipped between their starched and sun-dried sheets, she sometimes remembered herself tumbling into bed next to him, naked and exhausted and twenty-three, and felt that flush all over her body again?
"I need to love him," she said, "if only because he once knew me when I was someone else. If he doesn't see me that way anymore then I am afraid I am lost forever."
Lakshmi regarded her for a long moment, silent, her face as always betraying nothing. Later, Lori tried to share the story with Harold over dinner (braised leg of lamb, tiny sweet peas swimming in a butter cream sauce, cracked wheat rolls, roasted red potatoes, and a bread pudding for dessert, perfect in taste and appearance, just like in the magazine), piling his plate high and handing it to him as she said, "Homely, Harold. And then I said, 'That's me!'" She laughed and dipped her head a bit, looking out of the corner of her eye at her husband, waiting for a response, willing it to be a flattering one—something along the lines of "Nonsense—you're still the lovely girl I married… just yesterday, wasn't it?"
But Harold had merely grunted—a sound, Lori thought, not unlike the ones the cavemen, those not-so-distant relatives of his, would have made—and shoveled another bite into his mouth. And with that guttural noise one more piece of the carefully arranged mosaic of their marriage fell away. She spooned a pea into her mouth and swallowed without chewing, feeling it roll down the suddenly constricted tunnel of her throat, listening to the clink of silverware on china plate, a grating, too-bright sound that set her teeth on edge. Despair, she thought. That is exactly one of the many sounds of despair.
Now she recognized her own despair again with that one word, barked low—"dinner"—another Neanderthal grunt, the cave-dog barking for food. She smoothed her hair, freshly streaked, cut, curled—and unnoticed—and reached for her car keys on the counter. "I have to go to the grocery store"; she said, and then, defensively, "you're early tonight."
Harold bent his wrist and looked at his clunky gold watch, crinkling his newspaper into an ungainly fold as he did so. He eyed her for a moment over the fold, and Lori could read annoyance in the crease of his forehead like a headline on the paper. She expected him to say something accusatory about why she had not already shopped for dinner, simplifying her lot in life into a laundry-list of domestic chores. (Which, in addition to keeping the house clean, and cooking, and grocery shopping, ironically did not include doing laundry—no, from the minute he was able to make an extra dollar, Harold had begun sending every article of clothing he ever wore, from his crisp seersucker shirts to his silk black socks, to the dry cleaners. Lori could have wrapped the entire outside of their 4,000-square-foot house with the accumulation of thin plastic that protected his bundles of weekly, freshly cleaned and pressed clothes. She guessed that he could trust her with his stomach but not his precious suits.) But Harold said nothing, merely sighed loudly and flipped the corner of the paper back up. Lori resisted an urge to chuck the car keys at him—she would need those—and instead left the house, saying over her shoulder, "I'll be back in an hour," banging the door loudly behind her.
The minute Lori backed her silver Mercedes out of the driveway, she felt the tightness in her chest begin to loosen. She drove fast down the winding hill into town, whipping around corners, sometimes eating up more than her share of the center lane, purposefully concentrating on the road in front of her and nothing else. In fifteen minutes she was circling the parking lot of their local high-priced, yuppified grocery store. She spotted a parking space close to the door and pulled in, and then saw the blue handicapped figure painted on the pavement. Briefly she considered parking there anyway—maybe affecting a limp?—and then she backed out, finding a spot further down the line. As she made her way to the automatic double doors of the store, which spotlessly reflected her rushing image back at her, she turned possible recipes over in her mind. Chicken Divan? They had eaten chicken yesterday and Harold had complained loudly between bites that he was "sick of poultry, damn it." He wanted some beef. So beef… Veal Parmigiana? No, that took too long to cook—besides, since watching the news special about how veal was prepared before it was veal, she could not, in good conscience, stomach the idea. She thought of the tiny bound bodies of the calves she had seen on TV, their entire existence relegated to a crate smaller than her Mercedes's trunk, and shuddered. No veal.
The doors slid open noiselessly and Lori found herself inside the too-cold, steely sanitary world of Vesper's Organic Market. She tugged a cart free from the line of carts arranged along the front wall and pushed her way to the even-colder produce area. Once there, she reached for a pale tomato, despairing for a moment the flat odorless, colorless, and (she was sure) tasteless fact of it. She was filled with desire for the tomatoes of her youth, grown in her mother's garden—plump and red the way red should be, smelling of summer sun and earth, and tasting like—oh, the taste of a real tomato. Saliva stung the insides of her mouth, hot and as painful as longing, and she dropped the imitation tomato she held back onto the stack of similar fruits. A tinny instrumental version of "Singing in the Rain" suddenly cranked into life and she stepped back, watching as water sprayed in a fine mist over the vegetables.
No produce, then. She began pacing the long aisles, up one side, down the other, turn, up another side, down the other, turn, her eyes scanning ingredients that suddenly made no sense to her, foreign letters stacked from the floor to above her head. She looked at the other shoppers, dark-skinned, sporting the sensible shoes of housekeepers, their baskets piled high with expensive foods they would cook for their employers and would never eat themselves, save a lick of the spoon now and again to test for proper seasoning. "What am I doing here," she moaned, running her fingers through her hair, combing it straight out to the sides like a mad woman, aware of the way her fellow shoppers' faces closed as they moved stolidly away from her—generations of servitude had conditioned them to ignore the craziness of the upper-class. Their shuff, shuff shoes whispered, "Not my business. Not my business. Not my business."
She watched them go. They, who were busy looking over their paper lists, making tidy check marks with worn pencil nubs, filling their baskets with confidence—and she, privileged and yet listless—she was, in all things culinary, simply out of ideas. Her shoulders slumped as she rounded the last aisle of the market. It was the picnic aisle, and she certainly held no hopes that salvation would be found there, but still on she plodded, past paper towels and plates (made from ALL RECYCLED INGREDIENTS, every sign underneath them announced in tree-green), cheery red-and-white checked oilcloths, plastic (REUSABLE!) cutlery. As she neared the end of the aisle facing the giant glass windows that looked out past the checkout and onto the parking lot, her cart still empty, she gave up. She abruptly abandoned the cart at the entrance of the store and stepped outside, barely waiting for the automatic doors to open, almost clunking into them as she moved forward. She stopped when a huge white van blotted out her view of the parking lot, its muffler growling as it trundled slowly by. It pulled into the empty space next to her car and she saw the words MEALS-ON-WHEELS painted in black on the side. She began walking.
As she neared the van, a short Hispanic man opened the door and hopped down. He was dressed in white coveralls, like a painter, and had a ball cap perched atop his curly bush of hair. A generous black mustache covered his upper lip and continued down the sides of his face, ending at his chin. He flashed a smile at her, all white teeth, the corners of his eyes crinkling at the edges. "I gotta get some milk for the Missus before I make my deliveries," he called out to her. Lori marveled at how easily he spoke to her, a stranger, as if they had been in conversation together all day and this was merely a continuation of that talk. She smiled back in acknowledgement. "I was trying to figure out what to cook for my husband's supper," she said, surprising herself at her reply. "No luck."
"It's tough being married sometimes," the man said, chuckling to let her know he was not serious. She watched as he strolled up to the market's doors, his hands in his pockets. He was whistling what sounded to her like the tune to "I Could Have Danced All Night" from My Fair Lady.
She unlocked her car and started to lift the door handle when an odor hit her, so delicious and strong that it actually made her legs tremble with desire. Her stomach responded instantly as well, a rumbling so deep it was almost painful. She hadn't realized she was hungry before, but now she felt ravenous, frantically empty. She moved over to the back double-doors of the van and stood on tiptoe, sniffing. The odor was definitely coming from the van—a rich, cheesy meaty smell. Mexican food. Comfort food. She looked around cautiously but saw no sign of the whistling driver—in fact, there were no people in the lot at all. She gripped the back windows' rims with her fingertips, and then, balancing carefully on the step bumper, pulled herself up and peered inside. Foil-covered rectangles were stacked neatly onto the van's built-in aluminum shelves, spanning both sides. There looked to be at least thirty of the food parcels, maybe more. As she stared, she saw a tiny ribbon of white steam escape from the edge of one of the dishes, and that heavenly smell hit her again.
Lori let go of the window and hopped back onto the ground. She walked to the passenger side of the van, glad to be out of sight of the market for a moment, just in case anyone was watching. She ran her fingers along the side of the van, collecting a fine skiff of powdery dust as she did so, then stopped when she reached the van's handle. She curled her fingers around the handle casually, like the automatic intertwining of the fingers of old lovers, and lifted.
The door opened effortlessly, just a crack.
Lori hesitated for just a moment, tugged a bit harder, and the door swung open all the way. She stuck her head in the door, looked past the pile of papers and carcasses of old fast-food meals littering the passenger seat, and spied the keys dangling in the ignition. A breeze blew past her and made the key chain, a miniature yellow rubber chicken, dance for a moment, swinging on its noose of metal. She looked around furtively again, and then clambered in, pushing papers and wrappers onto the floor as she made her way to the driver's seat, pausing only to reach behind her to pull the door shut.
Once settled, she rested her hand on the key and felt her fingers turn, again as if by their own volition. What are you doing? a panicked voice of reason asked, but she pushed it aside. The engine roared into life and she backed out of the parking spot. She shifted the automatic gear into forward and pressed her foot down hard on the gas. The van lurched forward and she careened away from the market. She looked in the rear view mirror, heart thumping, sure that she would see the owner of the van come running out, arms waving, anger and disbelief moving that cheerful face into something dreadful and disapproving, but the lot remained empty. She signaled left and then pulled out onto the highway. As she sped along, she checked the rear view mirror obsessively, sure that at any moment she would see flashing blue lights. When she had gone a few miles safely and unnoticed, she began to relax.
So what now? that maddeningly reasonable voice asked. What are you going to do now?
She had no answer. Suddenly the loud gravelly sound of her stomach protested its emptiness again and as if on cue, the delicious smell of the dinners in the back wafted up to the front. Her mouth began its inadvertent watering again and she looked around until she spotted a sign on the right side of the road. First Presbyterian Church it said in bold, and under that, in smaller letters: "Need a Lifeguard? Ours walks on water!" Lori whipped into the church's empty parking lot and coasted slowly to a stop near the door.
She jumped out of the van, crossing quickly to the rear of the vehicle, and yanked both back doors open, closing her eyes, inhaling deeply as the fragrance of the food hit her full-force. She leaned in on one knee and grabbed a tray of food, then settled herself on the van's step. She tugged the foil off the plate. Two enchiladas, rolled like twins in tight corn tortilla blankets, lay under a glistening red sauce. Next to that, in its indentation on the plate, was an explosion of grey-pink refried beans covered in tiny stripes of cheese, and a mound of orange Spanish rice. A limp salad of tired-looking iceberg lettuce and one single wedge of pale tomato rested in another section, and a jiggling cup of flan, its top glassy with caramel sauce, finished the meal off. She paused for a moment, considering going in search of some type of plastic cutlery, before digging first into the beans, burning the tips of her fingers as she shoveled them into her mouth. That initial taste increased rather than tamped her appetite, and she began to eat faster, licking her fingers between bites. As the last bite of flan disappeared in a slippery swallow, she turned and leaned into the van again, pulling another plate of food to her.
She continued methodically to eat meal after meal, flinging empty plates onto the ground with one hand while reaching for another, and then another, with her other hand. Her stomach began to groan in protest and she ignored it, shoveling food faster and faster into her mouth, her mind blessedly blank and quiet. Only the food spoke. Tastes began to blend and then lose their individuality as beans, corn, beef, and flan found themselves churned in her mouth, and her tongue, in a maneuver that could only be called defensive, went numb. Still she kept eating, barely hearing the clang of foil as dishes clattered to the paved lot.
It was the sudden, single blat of a police siren next to her that finally startled her out of her frenzy. She opened her fingers and let the dish she was holding join the pile at her feet. She gaped at the police car, which had materialized as if by magic next to her.
A square-jawed young man in his twenties, his hair cropped close to his scalp in a brusque, serious-looking crew cut, stepped out of the car. His eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses, and as he approached her, Lori noticed the casual way his right hand slipped to the black holster at his hip. She reached up and wiped her bean-smeared mouth with the back of her equally smeared hand, then, realizing the futility of the gesture, let her hand drop back down to her lap.
The policeman swept a glance over the open van door, leaning forward slightly. "Anyone else in there?" he asked, his voice surprisingly soft, not fitting his tough exterior.
Lori shook her head. "No, sir," she whispered.
The policeman knelt down, balancing on one knee in front of the aluminum mountain on the ground. He lifted one of the dishes, and looked up, regarding her in silence. Lori, her face burning, dropped her own gaze to her shoes. Tears gathered in her throat, and she grimly fought the urge to cry. The officer at her feet said gently, "Ma'am, do you want to tell me what happened here?"
At that, Lori gave in and began to sob, deep wracking heaves that made the muscles in her chest clinch inward, making it hard for her to breathe. The policeman sighed heavily and stood. He slipped his arm around her and half-lifted her off the van. "Come now, Ma'am," he said. "Let's get you cleaned up and then we can go to the station and sort this out." He opened the police-car door with his free hand and slid her, still sobbing, into the backseat, her feet dangling out of the open door. He moved to the driver's side door and opened it, and Lori could hear him rummaging around under the front seat. He returned moments later brandishing a box of generic-brand antibacterial baby wipes. He extracted four and handed them to her.
Lori took them gratefully. She wiped her face clean, and then worked on her hands, scrubbing to remove all traces of cheese and sauce and caramel. She blew her nose with a clean wipe, grimacing at the lack of satisfaction a moist towel against a moist nose afforded her. The officer noticed her expression and dug a packet of Kleenex out of his pants pocket. "Here," he said.
"Thank you," Lori replied, and blew into a tissue. She gathered the balled-up wipes and tissues into a pile on her lap, and then turned, putting her feet squarely onto the police car's black floor mats. She folded her hands primly. "I'm ready."
"Ma'am, do you have any I.D. on you?" the policeman asked.
"Oh—my purse. I left it in the front seat of the van," she said.
"You sit back; I'll get it," said the policeman, whose badge, she noticed, bore the name of "Rogers." He shut the door. Lori heard the automatic locks click, and she watched Officer Rogers move away from the car. In a moment he returned and handed her purse to her. She removed her driver's license from her wallet, and he examined it, writing information down on a paper attached to a small metal clip-board before shutting the door again. He pulled a cell phone out of his uniform's shirt pocket, punched a few buttons, and began speaking, nodding his head every once in a while. He snapped the phone shut, dropped it back into his shirt pocket, and began tossing the emptied trays of food into the back of the van. Lori felt vaguely alarmed watching him do this, ashamed that he was cleaning up after her. Surely she should at least offer to help. She reached her hand down to open the handle and was startled to discover that there was no handle. "Of course there is no handle, dummy," she told herself. "This is where the criminals sit." This is what she had suddenly become—a criminal who had stolen a van filled with meals for the elderly and house-bound; hell, she had not only stolen the van, she had stolen the food. The more she thought about all those hungry seniors waiting impatiently for their dinners, their dimming pale eyes watching as the clock's hand moved from five o'clock to six, and then seven…. Experience with her own grandparents had taught her that the elderly, by and large, did not like it when their meals were late, and she was overwhelmed with sorrow. She swore that she would find out all of the names of those whose meal she had… borrowed (she just couldn't stand to keep thinking stolen) and bake each and every one of them her famous Fudge-Frosty Supreme cake as penance. "Tomorrow," she said. "I will make them all cakes tomorrow."
The thought of chocolate cake made her stomach turn over lazily like an obese walrus. "Oh Lord," she moaned. She felt bile rise in her throat and she swallowed repeatedly, banging on the window to get Officer Rogers's attention. He looked over at her, and she guessed her face must've been an alarmingly unnatural shade of green because he came running. He pressed the automatic unlock button on his key-chain and yanked the door open. "Than- you" she muttered, then she propelled herself out of the car, stumbling a few steps to the grassy area beside the parking lot. She leaned forward and threw up, astonished by the amount of un-chewed food that shot out of her body and landed solidly on the ground in front of her. Her stomach clenched again, and she continued to heave, puking until the exiting food was replaced by a sour green bile, and then nothing.
Finally, after several moments of retching with nothing else coming out, she tottered back to the awaiting Officer Rogers on trembling legs. Wordlessly, he handed her a new antibacterial-wipe, which she used to wipe her mouth again. He opened the back door, helped her slide into the seat. "Just rest," he said. "I will leave the door open so that you can get some fresh air."
Lori nodded and closed her eyes, resting her head on the back of the seat. A slight breeze stirred and she began to feel a little better. She drifted into a kind of semi-daze, not allowing herself to think about what was going to come next: the humiliating ride to the police station, hoping and praying that no one she knew would spot her—imagine that—the cold voice of the sergeant as he booked her, the inky fingerprints and orange jumpsuit, Harold's horror at having to bail his wife out of jail…. There. She was thinking about it. She screwed her forehead and shut her eyes tighter, trying to recapture her previous soothing blankness.
Suddenly she heard the crunch of gravel as a new vehicle pulled off the road and into parking lot. She opened her eyes and saw a nondescript, older brown sedan of some sort coming to a stop next to the Meals-On-Wheels van. The passenger's side door opened, and the man whose van Lori had stolen stepped out. "Oh Lord," Lori said, horrified, her cheeks beginning to sting with the influx of shamed blood. She watched as he hurried over to the back of the van.
The man looked around at the empty tin platters and whistled lowly. "Mother Mary of God," he said, "someone was having a party! Who ate all the food?" He shook his head, bemused, then waved at the driver of the idling sedan, a young teenage Hispanic boy—perhaps his son? "Go on," he said. "It's okay." The young man flung a sharp, curious look in Lori's direction and then drove off.
The man looked at Lori as well and started. "You!" he said, confusion and anger making his shaggy brows arch. "This was you? But why?"
Officer Rogers set the container he had been holding down on the van's tailgate and brushed his hands together. He extended his right hand to the man. "I'm Officer John Rogers," he said. "I was the one who called you." He glanced at Lori. "Can I speak with you in private?" he asked the man. To Lori, he said, "We will be just a moment. I trust you'll stay put."
Lori nodded, and as Officer Rogers began to walk away, she called out, "Officer."
He turned. "Yes?"
Lori swallowed, then half-whispered, "Please tell him I'm so sorry." A tear slipped from her eye and she wiped it away with the back of her hand. "I'm so sorry," she said again.
Officer Rogers nodded, his expression unreadable, then he walked away. "Come over here," he said, gripping the waiting man's arm. Lori anxiously watched the two men converse—Officer Rogers saying something low and gesturing towards Lori with his chin, the Hispanic man glancing her way. The man's eyes caught hers and he studied her for a moment, then he turned to Officer Rogers, shrugged, and shook his head. After a few more minutes of quiet conference, the men returned.
"Mrs. Stewart, this is Mr. Lopez," Officer Rogers said. "He is the driver of the van. I've explained that you appear to have had a momentary lapse in judgment and he has graciously decided not to press charges against you, providing you pay for the damages."
Lori felt both relief and mortification. "Mr. Lopez," she began.
"Please—Marcos," the driver said, stepping forward, his hand extended. He smiled broadly. "Mr. Lopez is my granddad." Lori took his soft, fleshy hand in her own, and Marcos squeezed gently.
"Mr. Lopez," Lori said, her voice shaking, "I can't begin to tell you how sorry—"
"Marcos," he said again, shaking his head. "And no, please. Don't. Don't be sorry, Missus. I don't exactly know what happened here but I do know that everybody gets hungry sometimes." He looked over at the piles of gutted aluminum packets. "And Sister, you must've been running on empty."
"Down to the tips of my fair and homely toes," Lori said. And with that she began to laugh.
"I don't get it," Marcos said, and then he leaned back and joined her anyway, crowing out a wonderful, hearty, booming laugh that seemed to erupt from deep inside his belly and shake all the way up his body and out of his mouth, rolling and rolling like thunder, like summer, a chicken-pox guffaw that would not be denied. Lori kept laughing until her sides ached. Marcos, still laughing, pulled her towards him suddenly, and to her absolute astonishment, hugged her fiercely. Lori relaxed and let herself be hugged for a moment, then she pulled away.
"Thank you," she said, still chuckling. "Really. I can't believe how patient you are being about all of this. I promise you that I will make amends." She turned to Officer Rogers, who was standing apart from them and studiously smiling at the tips of his black shoes. "Officer," she said, "may I retrieve my purse from the car?" He nodded. She grabbed her bag and opened it up, rummaging around until she found her checkbook and a pen. "How much do I owe you for the food?" she asked Marcos.
He lifted his cap a little and scratched his head. "Honestly," he said, "I have no idea. I'm in charge of delivering the meals, not buying them." He tugged the brim of his cap down so that it was once again firmly in place. "How about this? You just write what you think is fair—a donation, really—and I will take it into the office tomorrow. I've already called in back up and someone is delivering supper for my route tonight. Luckily they are good at whipping together sandwiches and soup in the kitchen there."
Lori filled a hefty four-figure number into the check's allotted space and handed it to Marcos. "It's not enough," she said. He glanced at it and then looked up at her sharply, his mouth forming an "O." She shook her head before he could speak. "No," she said. "This is not enough. I need to make up for the fact that your clients had to eat sandwiches tonight, and for the fact that you had to come outside to discover your van was gone. Do you think…?" She swallowed. "…Do you think I could come in and work in the kitchen? And what can I do to make this up to you?"
Marcos smiled gently. "Lady, you don't owe me a thing," he said. "You just gave me the greatest story to share with my wife ever. And as far as working in the kitchen, well, I think that would be just great." He folded the check carefully and put it in the big pocket of the bib of his overalls. "Mr. Policeman," he called out. "I think we're done here."
Officer Rogers rubbed his chin and said to Lori, "Well, Ma'am, it seems that you're free to go." He paused, looked around. "After we finish cleaning up this mess." His small curve of a smile flashed out as he bent down, picked up a tray of food, and tossed it into a trash sack in the back of the van. "I wouldn't want to have to ticket you for littering, you know." Lori reached down and picked up a container. "Here," Marcos said. "Hold your arms out and I will stack them." She obeyed, and the three of them worked companionably in silence, throwing container after container in the giant black trash bag.
After the remains of Lori's enormous dinner had disappeared and the trash bag had been tied up, Marcos wiped his hands and said, "Well, that's that." He turned to Lori. "Mrs. Stewart," he said, "how about a lift back to the market?"
"Lori, please," she said. "And thank you, yes." She turned to the policeman. "Officer," she said, touching his forearm lightly, "thank you for being so kind."
"Of course," he said, covering her hand with his own and patting. "You take care of yourself, Mrs. Stewart. You seem like a real nice person." He turned to Marcos and clapped him on the back. "Thanks, man," he said. "Drive safely, you hear?" He climbed into his patrol car, flashed the blue lights at them once, and drove away.
"That's one of the good guys," Marcos said, watching the black and white vehicle speed down the highway. "A good, good guy." He opened the passenger door, and Lori settled herself into the seat as Marcos crossed in front the van, got into the driver's side, and started the engine.
Once they were back at the grocery store, Lori pointed to her car and Marcos pulled into the empty space next to it. They sat in silence for a moment, then Lori said, "Thanks for ride back. And thank you again for being so understanding." She sighed. "I don't know what happened. I really do think I went temporarily insane." She tried to smile. "At least I hope it is temporary!"
Marcos patted her shoulder. "No problem," he said. "I look forward to seeing you at the Center. You know, if you decide the kitchen isn't the place for you, we could always use more volunteers to deliver food." He grinned, "I mean, we know you can drive the van no problem."
Lori laughed. "You're right," she told him. "I can." She opened the door and climbed out. "Goodbye, Marcos. I'll be at the Center tomorrow, bright and early. I promise. And I will make an extra cake for you. You can take it home to your wife—a peace offering from me to her for keeping you late."
"Oh, boy! It's a deal," Marcos said.
As Lori fumbled for the keys to her car, she heard the van's driver's door open and close, then turned to see Marcos in the back of the van, rummaging around.
"Wait," he called. She stepped forward, curious, just as Marcos crowed in triumph, "Yes! I thought I saw one more!" He handed her one unopened, uneaten enchilada dinner—the lone survivor of her incredible binge.
"Marcos," she said, "I—I really can't eat another bite. I—"
"No! For your husband!" Marcos said. "When we first met, you told me you didn't know what to make him for dinner, remember? Now you don't have to worry about it!" His eyes twinkled like a mischievous boy's. "A man's gotta eat," he said. Lori laughed, imagining Harold's confused, slightly horrified expression upon opening the foil. She would pour him a glass of wine, arrange the foil container next to one of her linen napkins, lay out a silver-plated knife and fork, and if he criticized her offering… well. Feed the man, send him to work, and live her life, Lakshmi had said. She had always done those first two. Now it was time for the last. She accepted the plate from Marcos, setting it carefully on the seat next to her.
"Thank you," she said. "It's exactly the right thing for Harold's supper." She closed the door, tossed the still grinning Marcos another wave, then drove off toward home, full.
Becky Marietta's short essays and works of fiction have appeared in such publications as The Christian Science Monitor, Among Worlds, Over the Back Fence, and Weber: The Contemporary West. A resident of northeast Oklahoma, Becky is an adjunct instructor of English at John Brown University in Arkansas. She writes fiction to escape the reality of grading papers.
WHY WE CHOSE TO PUBLISH "Mitigation":
Becky Marietta delivers a piece that's both humorous and poignant. She takes what could have been a not-so-interesting story of a stagnated marriage and life become too predictable and adds elements that push it beyond the ordinary. Even then, it's a story one could believe might actually happen. We especially liked the sensory descriptions that gave added depth to the story. All in all, it's a successful piece that we thoroughly enjoyed reading and are pleased to publish.
2 comments on "MITIGATION by Becky Marietta"
Where Stories Come from 2: I Heard It on the Radio | pith, marrow, and coffee spoons says:
[…] I entered the house, poured myself a cup of coffee, and sat down at my computer, my brain itching. A new question began to form—what did the person who stole the van do with the food in it? Suddenly I saw in my mind's eye a well-to-do woman sitting cross-legged in the back of a van, leaning against one of the metal racks, surrounded by emptied aluminum-foiled containers, stuffing food into her mouth with her bare hands, her eyes vacant. A new question, now: Why was she so hungry? I began to write, following the woman from a safe distance and yet as close as my own heart, and when I was through, I sat back and read what I'd written. I'd like to say it was perfect, but it wasn't. There were plot holes, some clichés, repetition that needed to be fixed, but the bare bones were standing on their own, and I knew how to affix the flesh. I spent the next week rewriting, re-polishing, revising, then emailed the story to my darling friend, Lori, to read. She sent back the best review I've received to date, a review so splendid, I saved it and referenced it in the blog I kept at the time, not knowing that she would soon be dead of the cancer that would kill her in a span of three months, from diagnosis to death, a short summer of grief that left me a decade (so far) of pain. I sent it to several literary journals, was rejected several times, and then Fabula Argentea asked to publish it. If you're interested, you can read it here. […]
The Best Critique | pith, marrow, and coffee spoons says:
[…] I wrote my story "Mitigation"I sent it, in its rough form, to Lori to read. I saved the Facebook conversation Lori and I had […]
Issue #11--April 2015
PAPER CUTTER by Megan Fahey
EVERYONE LOVES MEAT LOAF by Timothy O'Leary
LIKE SHOOTING SKEET by Gareth Frank
OUT OF THE DOGHOUSE by Gary Beck
DOES A PARADOX BEAT THREE CONUNDRUMS? by Ulysses Q


text:
Convatec Trademark Details
Convatec was registered on Tuesday, May 31, 1983 and is currently owned by E. R. Squibb & Sons, Inc. under the registration number 1240153 . This mark is dead with a status of Cancelled - Section 8. The last case file activity for this mark occured 32 years ago on Wednesday, October 25, 1989, according to the United State Patent & Trademark Office
Dead Registered 710 — Cancelled - Section 8
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View all trademarks for E. R. Squibb & Sons, Inc.
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010 — Class 10 includes mainly medical apparatus, instruments and articles.
2 — Sec. 8 – Entire Registration
First Use Anywhere
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Cancelled Sec. 8 (6-Yr)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Islamabad: Pakistan on Monday accepted India's "proposal for a technical meeting" on the Kartarpur Corridor which will be held on April 16.
"Continuing with #Pakistan's spirit of constructive engagement, we have agreed to the Indian proposal for a technical meeting on April 16. We expect positivity from #India so that the corridor becomes reality for 550th celebrations. #PakistanKartarpurSpirit," Pakistan Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Dr Mohammad Faisal tweeted.
His comment came after India last week said Pakistan had not responded to the clarifications it has sought about facilities to pilgrims for the Kartarpur Corridor.
New Delhi had also said that Islamabad also had not addressed its concerns about appointment of "controversial elements" to the committee appointed by Pakistan to be associated with the corridor.
India had put on hold the second round of Kartarpur Corridor talks scheduled for April 2.
The Kartarpur Sahib gurdwara is significant for the Sikh community as it is here that Sikhism founder Guru Nanak Dev spent 18 years of his life and is his final resting place.


text:
Federalist Society Presents 2016 Bator Award
Mar 2 2016 Blog Post
Prof. Tara Leigh Grove, William & Mary Law School
Federalist Society
The Federalist Society presented the 2016 Paul M. Bator Award on Saturday, February 27, to Prof. Tara Leigh Grove of William & Mary Law School. The award is given annually to a law professor under the age of 40 who has demonstrated excellence in legal scholarship, a commitment to teaching, a concern for students, and who has made a significant public impact.
Professor Grove received the award at the Federalist Society's annual National Student Symposium, held this year at the University of Virginia School of Law. Mr. Jeremy Maltz, a student at the University of Chicago Law School who served on the selection committee presented the award.
Professor Grove teaches and writes about Federal Courts and the structural provisions of the U.S. Constitution. Her work has been published in top law journals, including the Harvard Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, the New York University Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and the Cornell Law Review. She is also the only untenured faculty member at the law school to receive the Plumeri award, a University-wide award given by William & Mary for excellence in teaching.
The Bator Award was established in memory of Professor Paul M. Bator, a renowned scholar and teacher of federal courts and constitutional law at Harvard and the University of Chicago and Principal Deputy Solicitor General in the Reagan Administration.
In presenting Professor Grove with the award, Mr. Maltz said that she "exhibits a passion for exploring tough questions" in the classroom. He noted that he "suspect[ed] that Professor Bator would be very pleased that this award is going to a federal courts scholar whose work is very much in the tradition of his own. He also suggested that "Justice Scalia [who had been scheduled to deliver the keynote speech the evening Professor Grove received the award] would be very pleased that this award is going to someone whose academic work has focused so strongly on the structural constitution."
Prof. Grove has received rave reviews from her students, who say she "truly fosters precise, deep, and analytical thinking" and "brings an enthusiasm to class that is infectious and makes it hard not to spend numerous hours preparing for each class period just to be able to match her level of intensity." One student remarked that in teaching the Commerce Clause, Prof. Grove's "engaging method of cold-calling and poignant, fun, examples [helped foster] a healthy and active environment for learning the most fundamental subject in our country's jurisprudence."
In accepting the award, Prof. Grove expressed gratitude for the mentors who pushed her and challenged her throughout her career, particularly Prof. John Manning of Harvard Law School, a former recipient of the award, who has become "a very dear friend" to her. "Even today," she said, "I continue to be helped by people in legal academia who are willing to take time out of their busy schedules to assist a budding academic."
She acknowledged that the award "is not simply a tremendous honor, although it certainly is that. It's also setting expectations for the future." Her hope, she said, "is to continue to improve, not only as a scholar and a teacher but also one day to serve as a mentor to future budding legal academics because I think we all need someone to show us the ropes."
Prof. Grove received her undergraduate degree summa cum laude from Duke University. After teaching English in Japan for a year, she attended Harvard Law School, where she graduated magna cum laude and served as the Supreme Court Chair of the Harvard Law Review. She clerked for Judge Emilio Garza on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and then spent four years as an appellate attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, where she argued fifteen cases in the courts of appeals. Prior to joining the William and Mary Law School faculty in 2011, she was Assistant Professor of Law at Florida State University College of Law.
Prof. Grove joins a distinguished group of professors honored with the Bator Award since its creation in 1989.
William & Mary Law School's press release can be found here.
https://fedsoc.org/commentary/fedsoc-blog/federalist-society-presents-2016-bator-award
Tara Leigh Grove
William Baude, Tara Leigh Grove, Christopher J. Walker
Luncheon Debate: Resolved: The Supreme Court Should Overrule Qualified Immunity January 30, 2019
The 2016 Paul M. Bator Award March 8, 2016
Tara Leigh Grove, Jeremy Kidd, Randy J. Kozel, Jeffrey Pojanowski, Ozan Varol, Ilan Wurman, James T. Lindgren, Saikrishna B. Prakash, Thomas H. Lee
Young Legal Scholars Paper Presentations - Event Audio/Video January 15, 2016
Tara Leigh Grove, Lee Liberman Otis, John C. Harrison, Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz, Gillian E. Metzger, Zachary Price, Daniel B. Rodriguez
The Executive Power to Not Enforce the Law - Event Audio/Video January 9, 2015


text:
Showing: Mr Jago – 'Imbolc' @ Unit London
Posted by feralthings, May 18, 2021
Returning for his third exhibition with Unit London, Mr Jago is currently presenting a new body of work entitled Imbolc. The name is derived from the traditional Gaelic festival which marks the beginning of spring and the large-scale canvases, which strike a deliberately hopeful tone, are a celebration of renewal and new beginnings. Imbolc falls at the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox and there is a sense that the show's optimism for brighter days to come is grounded in the realistic understanding of the darker days from where we've come. This is best exemplified in Brigid, which references the syncretic goddess/saint whose feast day coincides with the festival; the loose, wet-on-wet brush marks are an explosion of luminous pinks and corals and the more muted turquoise beneath can only still be seen at the periphery.
Hulking, robotic figures have been a continuous presence in Mr Jago's paintings for over 20 years. As the work evolved, first their outlines dissolved and later their bodily mass become progressively more hidden within the image until the point where they were all but invisible. The gradual move towards abstraction corresponded with an increasing focus on the dissonant relationship between nature and humanity and in that dialogue, these bodies came to represent the latter. So it is of no little consequence that Imbolc is primarily concerned with optimism and that this show is the first where these figures have entirely ceased to be present. The significance of these two things coming together at once is that it suggests that nature can heal itself if it's given the space to do so. This is an idea which has been giving credence over the last year as the lockdown-induced 'anthropause' has allowed ecosystems to begin to rebound and wildlife to return to urbanised environments; this positivity of vision is expressed in the exhibition by works such as They Grow In Clusters.
Even when highly abstracted, the robotic figures fundamentally influenced the structure of the Bristol-based artist's paintings and their absence has altered and decentralised their composition. This is perhaps no more true than in Spore 1 where sweeps of Prussian blue encircle a void of warm light in the middle of the canvas. This work is just one of several mycologically-titled works alongside Working With Mushrooms, Mycelial Network and Stoned Ape Hypothesis; the latter of which references the paradoxical theory that it was Homo erectus' consumption of magic mushrooms which caused the otherwise unexplained leap-forward in cognitive abilities to that displayed by Homo sapiens. While decidedly unglamorous, spores provide an excellent symbol for the promise of renewal after our extended period of dormancy. These cells, which are a key stage in the reproductive cycle of plants and fungi, can withstand high temperatures, humidity and other adverse environmental conditions before bringing forth new life. Taken as a whole, the paintings freely celebrate the promise of spring and demonstrate the continuing organic growth within Mr Jago's practice.
The exhibition runs until 24 May 2021 at Unit London, 3 Hanover Square, London W1S 1HD.
Photo credits: feralthings.
Discuss Mr Jago here.
Streets: JR x Liu Bolin (Part II)
Interviews / Preview: Antony Micallef – "Becoming Animal" @ Lazarides London
Interviews / Studio Visits: D*Face
Interviews / Preview: Ana Bagayan – "Flutter" @ Mondo Bizzarro Gallery
Viewpoints: Top 25 Most Expensive Banksy Works Ever
Categories: Contemporary Art, Showing, Shows & Events, Street & Urban Art. Tags: Contemporary Art, London, Mr Jago, Shows & Events, slider-featured, Street & Urban Art.


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Ed Kroft QC Bennett Jones
Ed Kroft, QC, CPA (Hon.), FRPSC represents clients in domestic and international matters including transfer pricing, treaty interpretation and tax avoidance. Ed practices in the Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary offices of Bennett Jones LLP and regularly appears on behalf of clients before various Canadian courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada, the Tax Court of Canada, the Federal Court of Canada, the Federal Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of British Columbia. Ed has been actively involved in competent authority /MAP disputes and the conclusion of advance pricing agreements and renewals. Ed is recognized as a leading lawyer in various directories. Ed was a member of the Rules Committee of the Tax Court of Canada for about 20 years and is a former member of the Federal Courts Bench and Bar Committee. Ed has received numerous practice awards including the Canadian Tax Foundation's Lifetime Contribution Award in 2016. For over 30 years, Ed has taught tax courses for the Canadian Chartered Professional Accountants Association and its predecessors and has served as an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia Law School. Since 2008, he has been the course director of tax administration and litigation for the Osgoode Hall Law School LL.M. program. Ed is also Chair of the Tax Litigation Practice Group of The Advocates' Society and a Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America.
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Email: krofte@bennettjones.com
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text:
Sweet returns for chocolate maker
The sales prove that more and more people just cannot resist Keystone
Chocolate maker, Lindt & Sprüngli, has announced that sales in 2004 topped a record SFr2 billion ($1.69 billion), driven by growth in the premium sector.
This content was published on January 25, 2005 - 09:48 January 25, 2005 - 09:48
The company said on Tuesday that the financial year had been "a success in practically every respect".
In a statement from its headquarters near Zurich, the company reported that revenues in local currencies went up by 12.5 per cent to SFr2.016 billion, its highest-ever growth rate.
The company added that sales in Swiss francs were up by 12 per cent.
It commented that slightly lower growth in Swiss francs could be explained by the fact that sales in the euro, which was trading a little higher against the Swiss franc, were unable to compensate completely for the losses incurred as a result of the weaker US dollar.
The figures beat market expectations, with analysts polled by Reuters forecasting sales of SFr1.980 billion on average.
Chocolate bunnies
Lindt & Sprüngli, which is known for its gold foil-wrapped Easter bunnies and Lindor chocolate balls, said it expected the percentage increase in 2004 operating and net income to beat that in sales growth.
The complete financial figures will be announced at a news conference on March 15.
Lindt & Sprüngli said that most European markets grew faster than in previous years.
Overall, the US market showed only marginal growth of about 1.5 per cent.
By contrast, driven by substantially increased marketing investments by Lindt and Ghirardelli, the premium segment showed "exceptionally strong growth".
Duty-free
Sales in duty-free outlets benefited from the positive trend in the tourist industry, the statement said.
And as 2004 was a leap year and various holidays fell on a Sunday, the number of sales days was higher.
The statement said that the company's strategy – launched ten years ago – of focusing on premium-quality chocolate in existing and new markets continued to secure substantial long-term growth potential for the group.
In November, Lindt's chief executive Ernst Tanner repeated the company's long-term sales growth rate of five to seven per cent annually.
The firm plans to open up to ten new US stores and is expanding into Russia and Japan to tap demand for premium chocolates.
Tanner told Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in December that he expected US revenues to increase by more than ten per cent for at least five years.
Along with Lindt's stores in Canada, North America accounted for 22 per cent of sales last year.
Sales in 2004 were up by 12 per cent in Swiss francs to SFr2.016 billion ($1.69 billion).
Lindt & Sprüngli reported a net profit of SFr122.4 million in 2003 on sales of SFr1.8 billion.
At the end of 2003, it employed a staff of just over 6,000 worldwide.
The company traces its roots back to 1845.
Lindt participation certificate
Lindt share price
Barry Callebaut issues sweet figures
This content was published on Nov 10, 2004 Nov 10, 2004 The world's biggest chocolate maker, Barry Callebaut of Zurich, has reported that sales for its full fiscal year topped a record SFr4 billion...
Cult gold bunny rings in Easter
This content was published on Apr 9, 2004 Apr 9, 2004 Easter in Switzerland is a time when one rabbit in particular seems to steal the show – a gold, chocolate rabbit that has even hopped onto four...
Lindt pulls gold rabbit out of the hat
This content was published on Apr 6, 2004 Apr 6, 2004 Swiss premium chocolate maker, Lindt & Sprüngli, saw net profit climb by more than 20 per cent in 2003, buoyed by new product launches. Net income...


text:
Tatar-Bashkir
Central/SE Europe
The Week Ahead In Russia
Majlis: Talking Central Asia
World: WTO Talks End In Failure
December 09, 1999 00:00 GMT
By Andrew Tully
Ministers from the 135 member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) have failed to agree on an agenda for a new round of talks intended to further reduce barriers to international trade. The WTO meetings ended on Saturday in the U.S. city of Seattle, from where RFE/RL correspondent Andrew Tully sends this report.
Seattle, 6 December 1999 (RFE/RL) -- Observers from emerging democracies attending the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle last week might not have been prepared for what they saw.
Activists opposed to the WTO's free-trade policies crippled the center of this northwestern U.S. city.
The president of the host country was greeted tepidly at best.
And the WTO ministers squabbled for days over an agenda for the next round of negotiations on liberalizing international commerce -- and finally admitted they could not agree.
This is exactly how open-market economies and free democracies work.
Each of the 135 member nations of the WTO has its own needs. And each needed to be heard. And for 14 months before this week's meetings, each made its case at negotiations in Geneva, the WTO's headquarters, as the organization tried to draft an agenda for the next round of trade talks.
The differences were deep, however, and the issues were emotional. A week before the ministerial meetings, Mike Moore, the WTO's director-general, announced that the negotiations had broken down. Therefore, he said, it would be up to the ministers themselves to come up with an agenda in Seattle.
Finally, early Saturday, the talks ended in failure. The ministers could not agree on issues ranging from labor standards to farm subsidies. It was left to the WTO's Moore to admit defeat, which he said was above all a setback for poorer countries. But he held out hope the Seattle meetings may still prove fruitful:
"It is enormously disappointing that we were not able to finally put together a package for the least-developed countries, because they need jobs and opportunity, and we weren't able to put together the package we want for technical assistance to the marginalized. But I can report to you that all that work, in implementation and elsewhere, is not lost."
Virtually every country was called on to compromise. The EU was asked to make concessions on the subsidies that it says its farmers desperately need. And U.S. President Bill Clinton was asked to abandon his push for tougher standards to protect workers rights.
Whatever compromises might have been made, they were not enough.
The top American negotiator, U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky, said that in the end the talks failed because they were simply too complex:
"I think that the complexity, the novelty, strained the collective capacity of delegations to make decisions. They weren't ready."
When looking back on the week, many pundits are likely to say Clinton's decision to come to Seattle to press his case for labor standards had dimmed any hope that the ministers could reach agreement. First, Clinton said in an interview with a local newspaper that the WTO should impose sanctions against countries that do not meet higher labor standards.
Then, on Wednesday, he amplified on that theme in an address to WTO ministers. Finally, on Thursday -- still in Seattle -- he ceremonially signed a UN convention that would fight child exploitation for such uses as labor and prostitution.
The measure is heartily supported by the American labor movement. Clinton's vice president, Al Gore, needs the enthusiastic backing of labor in his effort to win the U.S. presidential election next November.
Delegates from developing countries accused Clinton of bringing domestic politics to the WTO meetings.
These delegates also said Clinton's appeal for higher labor standards would impose middle-class American standards on countries whose economies are still maturing.
Further hindering the negotiations -- and almost eclipsing them for the first two days -- were the demonstrations by non-governmental organizations, or NGOs. These groups represent varying interests, from labor to the environment to women's issues.
The NGO protesters accuse the WTO of being obsessed with profits -- primarily for wealthy countries and big corporations -- while ignoring the plight of low-paid workers and industrial damage to the environment.
The demonstrators had been gathering in Seattle for weeks. As the WTO meetings approached, they staged peaceful and even good-natured demonstrations, where they professed their intention to shut down the session.
But on Tuesday, the first day of the meetings, the protesters linked arms to form "human chains," blocking access to the buildings and hotels being used by the delegates so the meetings could not be held. Some of the demonstrators grew violent.
Seattle police have a reputation of avoiding confrontation whenever possible, and this week they were initially criticized for allowing the protesters to shut down the center of the city. But by mid-week, they were being accused of using excessive force.
The protests dwindled as the week wore on, with one farewell gesture on Friday. About a half-dozen demonstrators managed to penetrate security at the convention center and stage a protest in the press center. They were quickly escorted out.
Tuesday's protests forced the WTO to cancel its inaugural session. The event would have been largely ceremonial, but the protest leaders declared what they called a major victory anyway.
Downtown Seattle was largely back under control for the rest of the week. But the possibility of further unrest had indelibly soured the mood of the WTO meetings -- and of the entire city.
Indeed, downtown shops and restaurants had expected to reap great profits from the presence of the WTO ministers. Instead, they lost an estimated $7 million worth of business.
The whole week seemed to provide participants and observers alike with a few clear lessons: Free markets guarantee nothing. Free speech guarantees nothing. They are merely free, and often turbulent.
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text:
Posted: Jun 17, 2015
New NMR tool helps scientists study elusive battery reaction
(Nanowerk News) When working on a unique lithium-germanide battery with colleagues from the National University of Singapore, scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory encountered a catch-22: They knew an exciting reaction was occurring inside the battery that increased its energy-storage capacity dramatically-but they could not observe the reaction. The researchers needed to understand the process, but taking the battery apart caused the reaction to stop.
PNNL scientist Jian Zhi Hu displays a tiny experimental battery mounted in NMR apparatus used to observe the chemical reaction inside. To solve the problem, the PNNL scientists encapsulated the battery cell in a plastic holder to allow magnetic waves to penetrate it and developed a powerful nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technique to "see" and understand the electrochemical reactions taking place inside.
The team produced a high-storage-capacity, lithium-germanide battery and demonstrated how their unique NMR "camera" can be used to examine it and gather data about reactions that can be observed only as they are happening inside a battery ("Probing Lithium Germanide Phase Evolution and Structural Change in a Germanium-in-Carbon Nanotube Energy Storage System").
Lithium-ion batteries have many uses besides powering cell phones and laptops. Developing safer, more powerful cells with longer life is a worldwide challenge, requiring deeper understanding of electrochemical processes.
Germanium can take on more lithium during the reaction than other materials-making it a promising component for delivering higher battery capacity and superior discharge speeds, because more lithium uptake means greater energy storage. Germanium is less abundant and more costly than other materials, such as silicon or carbon, but high battery performance resulting from its favorable uptake of lithium may be a factor in making lithium-germanide batteries attractive in the marketplace.
Methods: Scientists can create high-energy-density batteries by using lithium with a number of different materials. When the companion element-in this case germanium-takes up lithium, the volume of the electrode expands dramatically. It can break down and reduce battery life and storage capacity.
By using the NMR process to look inside the battery and observe this reaction as it happened, the scientists found a way to protect the germanium from expanding and becoming ineffective after it takes on lithium. The secret proved to be forming the germanium into tiny "wires" and encasing them in small, protective carbon tubes to limit the expansion. This technique significantly stabilizes battery performance. Without embedding germanium in carbon tubes, a battery performs well for a few charging-discharging cycles, but fades rapidly after that. Using the "core-shell" structure, however, the battery can be discharged and charged thousands of times.
What's Next? Scientists are testing many different materials, including sulfur, cobalt, magnesium, manganese and others, to use with lithium in making batteries. Many of these materials are potentially useful, but only those that are safe to use and offer high performance and long storage life will succeed in the marketplace. The NMR technique used to enhance the performance of the lithium-germanide reaction may prove useful to scientists working on other types of batteries if internal reactions can be observed only where they happen.
"It's all about how to engineer the battery to make it safer and more powerful with a longer life," said Jian Zhi Hu of PNNL, the lead NMR investigator and a collaborator in the project with Kian Ping Loh, the leader of the team at the National University of Singapore where the battery was developed. "To reach that goal, you have to understand the electrochemistry in the battery. Using NMR to understand hard-to-observe battery reaction phases is useful when they exist only inside the battery. The procedure could lead to additional opportunities to collaborate with other researchers."
Source: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Silica particles may lead to new treatments for obesity and diabetes
Most engineered nanoparticles enter tumours through cells, not between them
Physicists prove that 2D and 3D liquids are fundamentally different


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Elmer Crow waits patiently while a crowd of fifth-graders settles on the lawn outside the Morrison Knudson Nature Center in Boise, Idaho. One by one, the students stop squirming as they realize that the Nez Perce elder is watching them, hands folded behind his back. Crow's face is solemn but his eyes are playful. The students stare up at him expectantly.
"Am I supposed to do something?" he says finally, pokerfaced. The kids sit frozen. Crow puts his hands on his waist and grins, wiggling his hips in a little dance. "How about that?" he says, pausing for effect. The students erupt in giggles. Crow laughs, too, his leathery wrinkles deepening.
Then he reaches into a canvas bag and dramatically produces the star of the show: a three-foot-long brown rubber lamprey. The students respond to the snake-like fish with squeals of disgust.
This entry was posted on February 9, 2011 by amandapeacher. It was filed under Uncategorized .


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If Katrina was the vengeance of Allah, what
If Katrina was the vengeance of Allah, what was the point of the Pakistan earthquake?
So far, at least, we are none the wiser about why God sent an earthquake to kill so many people in Kashmir, Pakistan and Afghanistan. We can only hope that sooner or later his purpose will be made evident, so that we all might learn. Why would he torture his people so?
The mullahs have been remarkably silent. The earthquake struck during the onset of Ramadan in two of the world's most devoutly Muslim countries. It is almost unbelievable that not a single bearded cleric from this most certain and steadfast of religions has offered some sort of explanation for the appalling loss of life and destruction of property. Is it not a judgment upon the Western-imposed infidel, General Pervaiz Musharraf? Or perhaps he wishes for the restoration of the Taleban government in Kabul?
It is odd that no Islamic scholar, holed up in some dusty godforsaken madrasa, has so far advanced these arguments on Allah's behalf. Previous so-called 'natural' disasters, wheresoever they might have occurred, have provoked an immediate and righteous response from the imams. We recall the words of the fine Palestinian cleric Yusuf Abu Sneina, addressing his congregation the morning after Hurricane Katrina had laid waste to New Orleans and a goodly proportion of the US Gulf state sea coast: 'Oh, Muslims! The greatness of the USA has fallen in the face of the storm. Was the USA able to stop Allah's power and limit his will?' Yusuf was asking a rhetorical question here, of course. The answer, which we all knew, was: no, the USA was unable to resist Allah's will.
Even within the belly of the warmongering infidel whore, the cry was raised. That old Muslim battle-axe (and criminal) Louis Farrakhan clambered aboard the television bandwagon to suggest that the hurricane was nothing less than a judgment of Allah. That'll be Allah the magnanimous, Allah the munificent, then.
You will recall, too, that certain Muslim clerics rejoiced in the tsunami which obliterated parts of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Somalia last Christmas (to use an inapt and possibly offensive term). This was Allah's judgment upon Muslim countries which have allowed their hallowed soil to somehow become the playground of decadent infidel cockroaches, many averred. For those infidel cockroaches among us who have had the misfortune to travel to Banda Aceh — which bore the brunt of the tsunami's havoc — these deliberations came as a surprise and a shock: not a drink nor still less a shag to be found within 500 miles. But no matter: perhaps Allah should not be expected to be geographically precise. Maybe he meant to hit Singapore, or Hong Kong.
The leader of Sri Lanka's Muslims, Mohammed Faizeen, studied the satellite pictures of the tsunami's devastating impact upon the Indian Ocean. 'Listen,' he commanded, peering very closely at a map, 'the satellite pictures of the waves as they receded clearly spells out the name Allah. He sent it as punishment!' He was one among a very great many to see it thus.
Of course, Muslims do not have the monopoly on breathtakingly stupid and cruel, if politically expedient, divine explanations for natural disasters, although they may constitute a majority among those predisposed to such delusions. But, by way of example, first out of the blocks after Hurricane Katrina were the Orthodox Jews; a senior rabbi in Philadelphia annoyed the population at large by suggesting that the floods were an expression of God's displeasure at American foreign policy towards Israel. He took his cue from the staggeringly idiotic Israeli rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who announced, 'This is vengeance for the USA urging Israel to relinquish Gaza.'
My favourites, though, are the fundamentalist Christians: the trailer-trash Baptists, the evangelicals, the famous religious Right. The director of the inexplicably powerful religious pressure group, Repent America — a certain Michael Marcavage — thrust himself in front of the microphones as the floodwaters swilled around the painfully sanitised tourist bars of Bourbon Street. 'This act of God destroyed a wicked city! God is in control of the weather. Some 125,000 homosexuals were going to be celebrating SIN in the streets. This is what happened,' he said. So, jubilant queers brought the floods upon New Orleans.
The son of the loathsome millionaire evangelist Billy Graham seemed to agree. Commenting on the disaster in Louisiana, Franklin Graham remarked, 'This happens when we have taken God out of our schools and out of our society.' No, Frankie: it's what happens when the levees aren't high enough and the whole place is several metres below sea level.
In response to the tsunami disaster a Texan evangelical movement focused entirely on the deaths of a large number of Swedish holidaymakers. 'Praise God for 5,000 dead Swedes,' they screamed with delight — and you can check out their views on the quite magnificent website GodhatesSweden.com. God hates Sweden, apparently, because they're all licentious northern European scumbags who tolerate homosexuality and other deviations.
There is secular cant as well, of course. We have heard little from the BBC about the ineptitude of the Pakistani authorities in dealing with the tragedy which has befallen their people. Four days after the earthquake struck and there are still vast areas bereft of aid, hundreds of thousands of people desperately in need of water, food and medical supplies! Where are the authorities? Where is the army? Is the looting in Islamabad an expression of a society torn apart by its own internal contradictions, by endemic racism and poverty? Why did General Musharraf not react with much greater haste; is this not indicative of an ineffectual government, a government which has lost the support of its people?
The haste with which BBC reporters flung the ordure at President Bush in the wake of Katrina is scarcely a less emotional and even spiritual impulse than that which drove the mullahs to blame the tsunami, or Katrina, on the war in Iraq or on our penchant for freedom of speech, assembly, sexual partner, etc., etc. We may laugh at the stupidity of Franklin Graham and that moron from Sri Lanka or, indeed, Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Masri, who announced that the destruction of the US space shuttle Columbia and the deaths of the three astronauts within was the work of God. Hamza, Graham, the wacko Jews and the moderators of GodhatesSweden.com are, of course, imbeciles. But the impulse when disaster strikes is to reach for someone tangible to blame, rather than putting it down to a calamitous shifting of tectonic plates or an unfortunate weather pattern. Even stripped of the befogging and deluding strictures of religion, it seems that we still have our demons primed and ready for such a purpose, no matter how enlightened and secular we believe ourselves to be. George Bush because he is an infidel or George Bush because he is very right-wing: either will do.
The royals are done for — and it's all thanks to Diana
The conductor, a joke between friends and an orchestrated race storm
Why English footballers are so useless
We're losing this cat-and-mouse terror game
What are we supposed to say when a grooming ring comes to light?
The sad story of Oprah, the handbag and the shop assistant


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Cherries Latest
Feb 21 Brentford 3-1 AFC Bournemouth Att: 11459
Last updated : 01 March 2015 By Richie Barker
Francis returned at right back with MacDonald in central midfield after Arter's latest rush of blood.
The Bournemouth contingent sounded loud under the low roof but was no doubt fairly inaudible elsewhere, as is the normal way with these things. The Brentford crowd certainly seemed surprisingly subdued until the final minutes when they realised that they might actually get away with a win.
Brentford play in a very similar style to us, and in the first half they were doing it quite a bit better than we were, with the diminutive but technically gifted Spurs loanee Pritchard running midfield and Jota causing problems in the left-footed right winger Ritchie role. They lack a Wilson quality striker to finish off their good approach play, which didn't mater too much today as we were more than happy to help them out with some dodgy defending.
Brentford took an early lead when Kermorgant was caught in possession on the edge of the box attempting to play his way out of trouble and Pritchard found Douglas, who picked his spot calmly past the advancing Boruc.
If it's possible to have too much possession Bournemouth achieved it at times with a tendency to play one or two (or eight or nine or ten) passes too many rather than find out whether Button's goalkeeping had improved since his calamitous spell on loan with us (unfortunately it has). Brentford were more direct and moved the ball quicker and consequently looked the more likely to score. Ritchie was booked for a clumsy challenge and was lucky to escape a second yellow for an arguably worse one shortly after. Kermorgant also picked up a yellow for a dive which was hard to dispute from so far away. Both sets of supporters were unhappy with the performance of referee Mike Dean, who to be fair had done well in his previous games with us, but was bad enough to be accused of being Andy D'Urso in disguise today.
Somewhat unexpectedly Bournemouth equalised after thirty minutes. Daniels' hopeful ball forward caused confusion on the edge of Brentford's box. Pugh picked Diagouraga's botched clearance and bundled the ball past Button and against the post, with the rebound sitting up helpfully for him to tap in the equaliser. It was becoming something of a basketball game with both sides taking turns to attack, but Brentford were still looking the more likely to find the net. Boruc's hesitancy in reacting to a through ball allowed Gray to round, him but Cook got back to save the Pole's blushes with a goal- line clearance as Gray tried to turn the ball in from a narrow angle.
1-1 at half time would have been a success after a below par performance, but it was not to be. Wilson made an unnecessary challenge 30 yards out which adjudged a foul by the erratic Mr Dean. Pritchard's free kick had some dip and swerve, but it was almost straight at Boruc, who unaccountably opted to attempt to punch it away, succeeding only in diverting the ball inside the post, a body blow just before the half-time whistle.
For once manager and fans were at one with the half-time substitution, Fraser replacing the out of sorts Ritchie before the latter could do an Arter and leave us with a bigger mountain to climb. The injection of pace made an immediate impact as Fraser and Francis terrorised the fragile-looking left side of Brentford's defence and Bournemouth gained the upper hand and applied pressure for most of the second half. At least balls were getting into the box now, but Button and his central defenders dealt well with the majority of them. Pitman replaced Kermorgant, which had as much impact as it had against Huddersfield, i.e. none.
Button fluffed a clearance to Wilson who tried to lob the keeper but mishit the attempt woefully wide. Fraser came closest with a double effort, the first pushed onto the post by Button and the follow-up smashed into the side netting. The winger picked up our second yellow for diving when he was tripped in full flight just inside the box. Fraser can be gravitationally challenged at times, but this time it did look as though he had actually been fouled. To be fair Brentford fan's after the game also reckoned that Dean missed a clear penalty for them, which wouldn't be surprising as Dean's decisions were getting increasingly random, bookable offences waved on, nothing challenges penalised.
As Bournemouth threw more resources forward with time running out Brentford began to get a lot of joy from counter attacks. Jota hit the bar and was twice denied by last-gasp saves from Boruc who partially atoned for his earlier mistake (although without the error we wouldn't have been leaving the gaps for Brentford to exploit). In stoppage time our luck finally ran out as Pritchard broke down the right and picked out Long for a simple finish at the far post.
An entertaining match between two sides trying to play the game the right way despite the best efforts of the referee. Bournemouth arguably did well enough in the second half to deserve a draw, but if you concede soft goals against good sides you can't really expect to pick up too many points.
Ryan Fraser transformed the game with his willingness to attack opponents at pace, can he learn to find a final ball to match his other talents?
AFCB: Boruc, Francis, Cook, Elphick, Daniels, Ritchie, MacDonald, Surman, Pugh, Kermorgant, Wilson
Subs: Camp, Ward, Gosling, Stanislas, Fraser (for Richie, HT), Pitman (for Kermorgant, 63 mins), Smith (for Daniels, 76 mins)
Richie Barker, Leyton


text:
Q: 5.61b University physics with modern physics
$$
\sum F_{y} = 0
$$
$$
\sum F_{y} = T_{1y} + T_{2y} - mg
$$
$$
mg = (4400N)\sin{60} + (4400N)\sin{40}
$$
$$
mg = 6640N
$$
Why is this wrong?

solution
$T_{1x}$ has to be equal to $T_{2x}$
$$T_{1x} = 4400N cos(60)$$
$$T_{2x} = a cos(40)$$
$$4400N cos(60) = a cos(40)$$
$$a = \frac{4400N cos(60)}{cos(40)}$$
$$mg = 4400N sin(60) + a cos(40)$$

A: Because the force on each wire isn't the same. You can't just plug in $4400N$ as the force on each. Try balancing the vertical and horizontal components separately.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Ancient Remedies CBD
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text:
git clone https://github.com/jchang2014/phase-0-gps-1.git
> clone the repo to local

  504  ls
  > list files in directory

  505  cd phase-0-gps-1
  > change directory to phase-0-gps-1

  506  touch awesome_page.md
  > create file awesome_page.md

  507  ls

  508  git status
  > check for status change of project

  509  git add awesome_page.md
  > stage for commit

  510  git status

  511  git commit -m "Add awesome page"
  > commit awesome_page.md

  512  git push origin master
  > push to github repo

  513  git status

  514  git checkout -b add-command-log
  > create new branch "add-command-log"

  515  git branch
  > check current branch

  516  subl .
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