text:
Trump's America: Anti-Intellectual and Proud of It
Donald Trump won the US presidency with less than a majority vote and governs with a level of support that struggles to reach 40 percent. The administration's ineffective policies reflect a larger society that thrives on "an unrelenting barrage of crude and voyeuristic entertainments, most of which now center on sex, sadism, torture, murder and dreary profanity," explains author Louis René Beres, professor emeritus of political science and international law at Purdue University. The Trump administration has satisfied a public desire for quick fixes and easy answers while many Americans are markedly less ambitious to dedicate the massive amounts of time, research and hard work required – so often with little guarantee of success – to tackle major global, national, cultural or industrial challenges let alone understand them. Both conservatives and liberals, rich and poor, are deeply unsatisfied with American governance. A solution, according to Beres, is for Americans to resist giving up on improving themselves intellectually as individuals, to embrace reason and to rediscover an appreciation for serious reading, thinking and debate. Otherwise, American society will encounter more inequality, substance abuse, conflict and despair and become "a vast wasteland of irretrievably lost human opportunity." – YaleGlobal
Americans are dissatisfied, impatient with intellectual endeavors and blaming government for woes, refusing to examine their own individual shortcomings
Louis René Beres
Reality TV presidency: Donald Trump shows his own rubber mask; Willie Robertson, actor with reality TV show Duck Dynasty, addresses the Republican National Convention
LAFAYETTE, INDIANA: Even now, polls suggest that about 40 percent of Americans regard Donald Trump as a suitable president. In essence, this preference has little to do with job performance and must be explained by the nature of the wider society from which this president was drawn.
For the most part, Americans have forsaken every once-residual aspect of an authentic intellectual life. This near total abandonment of a national "life of the mind" was not fashioned in a cultural vacuum. Rather, it was fostered by an unrelenting barrage of crude and voyeuristic entertainments, most of which now center on sex, sadism, torture, murder and dreary profanity.
Surely this is not the time to expect a visit from Plato's "philosopher-king."
In essence, the incumbent US president is not familiar with the country's history and does not understand that it deserves its proper pride of place. Few Americans consider that the country's Founding Fathers, in supporting the right to bear arms, never imagined automatic weapons. Even fewer know that the early Republic was the indisputable religious heir of John Calvin, and the philosophical descendant of John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. For that matter, only a small number have ever even heard of John Calvin, John Locke or Thomas Hobbes.
In the end, fundamentally basic cultural and educational disfigurements shape presidential selections. Many of this country's cumulative political ambitions remain bound up with embarrassing simplifications and, accordingly, with stupefying clichés. The appearance of Willie Robertson, a TV star from the reality TV show Duck Dynasty, as a principal speaker before the Republican National Convention was consistent with Trump's own proud personal aversion to intellect and learning. No one seemed to have any trouble with the convention's shameless juxtaposition.
The full horror of the Trump presidency begins with the intellectually unambitious American individual, with the flawed citizen "microcosm." Significantly, the electorate can never rise any higher than the amalgamated capacities of its separate members. "When the throne sits on mud," observed philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, "mud sits on the throne."
Ultimately, every democracy represents the sum total of its constituent "souls." In the deeply fractionated American republic, however, We the people – more and more desperate for a seemingly last chance to "fit in" and "get respect" – inhabit a vast wasteland of irretrievably lost human opportunity. Within this largely desiccated society of cheap and abysmal entertainments, Americans have indeed become the "hollow men," chained to a lifetime of more or less exhausting and meaningless work.
This demeaning fate is often as true for the very rich as for the very poor. Unsurprisingly, for both extremes of wealth and poverty, many American citizens increasingly seek solace by drowning themselves in vast oceans of both alcohol and drugs. Still, even the great seas are not limitless solvents.
In essence, "we the people" now cheerlessly embrace the full range of cultural and intellectual declension. Willingly, we go down in the blithering Trump era without even a murmur of palpable resistance or visible courage. Above all, too many continue to think aggressively against history, bombastically, somehow strangely pleased that few adults care to read or learn anything important. Too many Americans are remotely concerned that Donald Trump never reads. As for the president himself, he is unashamed, even proud of this disposition to eschew books.
Few condemn this attitude. Intellectual endeavors have little cash value and hardly "pay."
To a significant extent, the presidential debility reflects a society that rejects Emersonian individualism in every conceivable form or nuance. "I belong, therefore I am." This is not what René Descartes had in mind back in the 17th century, when the philosopher had urged greater private thought and, as essential corollary, greater doubt. Without demurring, this sad credo positively shrieks that social acceptance is equivalent to one's own physical survival, and that even the most ostentatiously pretended pleasures of inclusion are worth pursuing.
Adrenalized, this crowd-centered American society proceeds imitatively, at the lowest possible common denominator. This is fertile ground for a president whose principal commitments are not to reason, intellect or logic, but instead to rancor, blame and systematic deflection.
For too many young people, learning has become an inconvenient but mandated commodity. And commodities, like the next batch of mass-produced college graduates, exist for one purpose – to be suitably "processed." For Trump and supporters this represents not an embarrassment or liability, but rather the optimal definition of an American democracy.
Though confronting genuine threats of war, illness, impoverishment and terror, millions of Americans still prefer to amuse themselves to death, resorting to various forms of morbid excitement, voyeuristic "reality shows," inedible or openly injurious foods, and the distracting repetitions of a persistently-vacuous political discourse. Not a day goes without some premonitory sign of impending catastrophe. Still, the numbed country continues to impose upon its exhausted and manipulated people a shamelessly open devaluation of challenging thought and a continuously breakneck pace of unrelieved work and emotional submission.
Soon, even if the nation somehow manages to avoid nuclear war and nuclear terrorism – an avoidance not to be taken for granted in the unraveling Trump era – the swaying of the American ship will become so violent that even the hardiest lamps will be overturned. Then, the phantoms of great ships of state, once laden with treasures, may no longer lie forgotten. Then, perhaps, we may finally understand the circumstances that could send the compositions of Homer, Maimonides, Goethe, Milton, Shakespeare, Freud and Kafka to join the works of forgotten poets, were neither unique nor transient.
In an 1897 essay titled "On Being Human," Woodrow Wilson inquired about the authenticity of America: "Is it even open to us to choose to be genuine?" The former president, then a professor at Princeton, answered "yes," but only if citizens refused to stoop and join the injurious and synthetic "herds" of mass society. "Let us remind ourselves that to be human is, for one thing, to speak and act with a certain note of genuineness, a quality mixed of spontaneity and intelligence," he wrote, adding that this is especially essential during times of shifting standards. "The art of being human begins with the practice of being genuine, and following standards of conduct which the world has tested."
Otherwise, Wilson had already understood, our entire society would be left bloodless, a skeleton, as incapable as the rusty demise of broken machinery.
The Trump presidency is merely the most debilitating symptom of a much deeper pathology. The nation's underlying disease is a far-reaching unwillingness to think seriously. Left unchallenged at this rudimentary level, such reluctance could quickly transform into the finely-lacquered corpse of a once promising American society.
With luck, the Trump presidency will end without catastrophic nuclear war, but even that "happy ending" would represent little more than a temporary reprieve.
Unless citizens begin to work much harder at changing their society's stunningly deep indifference to intellect and reason, they will recurrently face the dreadful kinds of metamorphoses that Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard famously termed a "sickness unto death." The real work for Americans must not begin with politics directly – as all politics are epiphenomenal – but with a distinctly more resolute "fixing" of our individual selves.
Louis René Beres, educated at Princeton, is the author of many books and articles dealing with international relations and international law and Emeritus Professor of Political Science and International Law at Purdue. His twelfth book, Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel's Nuclear Strategy, was published in 2016 by Rowman and Littlefield. A previous contributor to YaleGlobal Online, his essays have been also published by The New York Times, The Washington Post, Hudson Review, The National Interest, The Atlantic, Harvard National Security Journal of Harvard Law School, International Security of Harvard University, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, World Politics of Princeton University, US News and World Report, The Hill and Oxford University Press. In 2016, he co-authored a monograph in Israel, with General (USA/ret.) Barry McCaffrey, dealing with Israel's nuclear strategy and American national security.
What Trump's Foreign Policy Ignores
Fixing America: Three Lessons to Avert Global Decline
The Futile Goal of "Winning" Wars
Values Inspire Foreign-Policy Revolution Across Borders
In Search of Common Sense
Copyright © 2017 YaleGlobal and the MacMillan Center
Rebecca Bynum on October 18, 2017:
Speaking as a proud anti-intellectual intellectual, I take strong objection to your intellectual characterization of anti-intellectualism as hollow and deplorable. On the contrary, intellectuals have been the fount of a long parade of intellectual ideas which have indisputably been the actual cause of the social decay your deplore. Intellectuals have been attacking the foundation of our civilization for centuries. The Trump era promises the elevation of the family and of true religion, both of which strengthen social bonds and bring increased social harmony. He invokes the blessings of our creator at every opportunity - "In America, we do not worship government, we worship God" - a welcome return to humility and reverence in our public discourse. He may not be the most intellectual of Presidents - he is no Woodrow Wilson - rather he desires that all Americans simply have "access" to good-paying jobs and the ability to create strong, secure families. In foreign policy, he is acting to prevent the nuclear jihad we all fear. I pray he will be successful in all these efforts.
Michael McDaniel on October 18, 2017:
Rebecca Bynum, I hold onto the hope that you are intellectual in your exercise of your rationality.
A on October 18, 2017:
Americans seem to wait for someone else, anyone else, to solve their problems. The Bible verse warned about false prophets.
David on October 27, 2017:
Still best explanation of how we got here is The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby..
Harry Brooks on May 7, 2018:
I suppose that, in the next few years, we will see how "great" everything will turn out. If it doesn't turn out according to the ones pushing the agenda, we can get to see who will be targeted as blame for why it didn't turn out as touted.
handsomeolderblackcowboybrady on June 11, 2018:
And we Ontarians elected ex-drug dealer and boor Douglas B. Ford as our 27th Premier last Thursday. Mr. Ford,like Mr. Trump,is a beefy,churlish blond from a wealthy family whose late brother, Robert was Mayor Of Toronto despite his alcoholism ,crack cocaine use and thuggish behavior. During the provincial leadership debate among the three major party leaders ,Mr. Ford made a fool of himself. offered no specifics about how he would fund his platform ,and 34 of his 124 riding candidates were found to be investigated for crimes, yet we gave Mr. Ford's Conservative Party 76 Legislature seats for a comfortable majority government. Anti-intellectualism has hit Canada ,of which Ontario is the most populous and wealthiest province .
Karen Steinberg on December 31, 2018:
"increased social harmony." " A welcome return to humility." "elevation of the family" ???? Trump?? What is this woman smoking? She's as detached from reality as most of Trump's utterances.


text:
Tinker Turns 50: Celebrating Half A Century Of Student Free Speech
Mary Beth Tinker holding her original detention slip after she wore a black armband to school to protest the Vietnam War (with a replica on her left arm) during a speech at Textor Hall, Ithaca College, 19 September 2017.
February 24, 2019 marks 50 years since the Supreme Court made its landmark ruling that affirmed the First Amendment protection of students in public schools in Tinker vs. Des Moines.
Mary Beth Tinker was 13 years old in 1965 when she and a group of students wore black armbands to school as a form of protest against the Vietnam War. The school got wind of the impending protest, and adopted a policy banning arm bands in an attempt to preempt it. Mary Beth, her brother John, and another student named Chris Eckhardt, were suspended for their activity.
The ACLU represented the students and their families, and they pursued the case for four years until it ultimately led to the landmark Supreme Court decision, Tinker v. Des Moines.
On February 24, 1969, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate," meaning that the First Amendment applied to public schools. School officials could not censor student speech unless it would "materially and substantially interfere" with the operation of the school.
The Tinker decision remains an oft-quoted legal precedent.
Case Resources
Tinker v. Des Moines Opinion Oral Arguments
Mary Beth Tinker and John Tinker reflect on their early-age activism and their landmark case on its 50th anniversary for the Des Moines Register.
"We were not trying to make history, but we found out later that history is often made by ordinary people like us, doing what they believe to be right," they wrote.
Dr. Thomas Ahart, superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools, cited recent examples in which Des Moines students practiced their rights guaranteed by the Tinker decision. "It might seem odd that the losing party in a legal case would celebrate the outcome, but the lesson learned is now a foundation of the district's culture," he wrote in the Des Moines Register.
Iowa Public Television hosted a Q&A with Mary Beth and John Tinker to honor the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision.
First Amendment Watch spoke with Mary Beth Tinker about her case, and about civic engagement among youth at the National Conference on the First Amendment at Duquesne University.
"Students' Rights: Speech, Walkouts, And Other Protests"
Click here for an ACLU primer on the rights of students in public schools.
What constitutes "substantial disruption?"
The substantial disruption test is the standard developed by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Tinker vs. Des Moines decision to determine whether public school officials can discipline students for their speech.
Click here for The First Amendment Encyclopedia explainer on the substantial disruption test.
ACLU Student's Rights Tinker
Trump Settles Defamation Lawsuit Against Wisconsin TV Station
President Donald Trump's reelection campaign sued the local broadcast station in April for running an ad that made it seem like the President had called the coronavirus a hoax. The settlement does not include an apology from Trump, but one of the TV station's attorney framed it as a win for local news.
Viewpoint Discrimination
Students Prohibited from Wearing Pro-Gun T-Shirts Can Move Forward with Claims
Two students who were prohibited from wearing pro-gun t-shirts in school can now move forward with their First Amendment claims after a federal judge found that the shirts were protected speech.
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner Threaten to Sue Lincoln Project Over Times Square Billboards
To satisfy the standard for defamation, Ms. Trump and Kushner would have to prove that the Lincoln Project made false and defamatory statements knowingly, a standard few commentators think the couple is going to meet. Instead, multiple experts see their actions as an attempt to weaponize the law to intimidate critics for protected expression.
Trump Sued Again for Refusing to Unblock Certain Twitter Users
The lawsuit says that the President continues to exclude users who were blocked before his inaguration or cannot specify the tweet that provoked the block. According to the complaint, the President's staff told the Knight Institute as recently as July 20nd that the President "does not intend to unblock persons who were blocked prior to his inauguration or who cannot identify a tweet that proceeded and allegedly precipitated the blocking."

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
package com.dianping.cat.event;

import org.junit.Assert;
import org.junit.Test;
import org.unidal.helper.Files;

import com.dianping.cat.event.analyzer.EventReportMerger;
import com.dianping.cat.event.model.entity.EventReport;
import com.dianping.cat.event.model.transform.DefaultSaxParser;

public class EventReportMergerTest {
	@Test
	public void testEventReportMerge() throws Exception {
		String oldXml = Files.forIO().readFrom(getClass().getResourceAsStream("event_report_old.xml"), "utf-8");
		String newXml = Files.forIO().readFrom(getClass().getResourceAsStream("event_report_new.xml"), "utf-8");
		EventReport reportOld = DefaultSaxParser.parse(oldXml);
		EventReport reportNew = DefaultSaxParser.parse(newXml);
		String expected = Files.forIO().readFrom(getClass().getResourceAsStream("event_report_mergeResult.xml"), "utf-8");
		EventReportMerger merger = new EventReportMerger(new EventReport(reportOld.getDomain()));

		reportOld.accept(merger);
		reportNew.accept(merger);

		Assert.assertEquals("Check the merge result!", expected.replaceAll("\r", ""), merger.getEventReport()
		      .toString().replaceAll("\r", ""));
		Assert.assertEquals("Source report is changed!", newXml.replaceAll("\r", ""),
		      reportNew.toString().replaceAll("\r", ""));
		Assert.assertEquals("Source report is changed!", oldXml.replaceAll("\r", ""),
				      reportOld.toString().replaceAll("\r", ""));
	}
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Publié par Dorin Iulian Chirițoiu le 3 avril 2019 .
Great news! We developed a Two-Factor-Authentication (2FA) plugin for LimeSurvey. The purpose of this plugin is to enhance the security of your account and collected data.
We will cover in this article some basics about the new 2FA plugin and how a super administrator can enforce 2FA for each LimeSurvey user.
2FA is a way to add additional security to your account. It is called "two-factor-authentication" because two verification methods are used to access your account. The first "factor" is your usual password that is standard for any account. The second "factor" is a verification code retrieved from a 2FA application either from your computer or mobile device. For more details about 2FA and its importance, please visit the following article.
Select the 2FA authentication method. By default, five different 2FA types are provided: Google Authenticator (default), Authy, YubiKey, Authenticator Plus, Duo, and HDE OTP.
Scan the QR-code with your mobile phone. For a list of application recommendations, check this article.
Enter the confirmation key displayed in your 2FA application (by default, a six-numeric code).
Once done, click on button "Create 2FA binding".
Congratulations! You have just enhanced the security of your LimeSurvey instance!
Please go to the last option, enable Force 2FA, and save the changes. In this way, your users will be forced to create a 2FA key after their first login.
Confirm your action to delete the 2FA-token associated to your account.
Please note that you will need to re-authenticate again if "Force 2FA" is enabled from the plugin settings.
In case you cannot login anymore into your instance and you wish to reset your 2FA settings, contact your LimeSurvey instance super administrator to delete the 2FA-token associated to your account. That way, you will be able to login again into your account and create a new 2FA-token.
Try the plugin and let us know what are your thoughts. Join our forum discussion topic! We are looking forward to hearing your feedback!
Please note that all token authentication systems that provide time based hash tokens work with the plugin. For more details about the plugin, please check this wiki page.


Insects are the most numerous and diverse animals on the planet. But why are they so successful? And is it really true that insects might, one day, take over the world?
Blowflies are nature's recyclers. "If we didn't have blowflies, the countryside would be knee-high in carcasses of hedgehogs that didn't quite get across the road," says forensic entomologist Amoret Whitaker. "If you drop dead, blowflies will find you, lay their eggs on you and start feeding on you as maggots".
Amoret Whitaker uses her knowledge of the blowfly life cycle to help police investigate murder cases. "If we can work out how old the larvae are that are feeding on the body then we can work out the minimum time that that person must have been dead," she says.
How the life cycles of blowflies help work out when someone died.
The first documented case of insects being used in forensic work was following a murder committed with a rice sickle. The investigator asked all the local Chinese farmers to bring their sickles and he laid them down in the midday heat. Flies landed on one particular sickle because there were still traces of blood on it. The owner of that sickle then confessed to the murder.
Fleas are not usually involved in forensics but in the first case Amoret Whitaker worked on, they proved to be vital evidence.
Police believed a murder had taken place in a house where a carpet had been removed. The owners claimed they had got rid of the carpet due to a heavy infestation of fleas. Amoret decided to check the dust bag of their vacuum cleaner. She found some fleas but there was no evidence of a heavy infestation. The couple then confessed that their son had killed somebody in the house and that was why they had removed the carpet.
The flea is Amoret Whitaker's favourite insect because, she says, they are "beautifully designed" for their parasitic lifestyle.
"They have an exoskeleton which is very hard to crush. They are laterally compressed so they can move through the fur of their host. And they have backward pointing spines so it's very difficult for the host to get rid of them by preening themselves," she says.
Theresa Howard and the late Dame Miriam Rothschild on the jumping ability of fleas.
Insects are phenomenally successful animals. Zoologist Tim Cockerill puts it this way: "The normal way to be a complex life form in our galaxy is to be an insect".
Beetles make up roughly one quarter of all known living species on the planet. That's about 400,000 species.
Tim Cockerill says metamorphosis is probably one of the reasons why insects have become so successful. The four most diverse kinds of animal on the planet – wasps, beetles, flies and moths – all do it.
The most important things for a species to do in order to survive are to eat and to reproduce, Tim explains. "Within one species like a butterfly, one half of the lifecycle is perfectly designed – by natural selection – to take on as much food as possible as this expandable caterpillar which is just an eating machine. And then there's another side of the lifecycle that is perfectly designed to reproduce – to disperse, to find a mate and to lay eggs," he says.
"Plants are as complicated as they are partly because of insects," according to Tim Cockerill, who says that when insects first evolved, plants were more simple than they are now – a bit like mosses.
Many people would agree with Prof Brian Cox who says his "favourite property of insects is that none of them is very big"!
The longest insect, according to Tim Cockerill, is a stick insect from South East Asia which grows to over 1ft long. One of the heaviest insect is the Goliath beetle which would fit in the palm of your hand.
But why have insects never got any bigger? Tim Cockerill says one reason is that occasionally they must shed their external skeletons to grow. At this point, he says, if they were any bigger they would collapse under their own weight!
We know this because entomologists have tried putting insects into a radiation oven to see what survives!
Tim Cockerill says insects are less affected by radiation because they are not replenishing their cells all the time which means the radiation doesn't disrupt the process as much.
This is because insects' brains are split between each segment of their bodies. They also don't breathe through their mouths but through holes or tubes in the sides of their bodies. And they have different circulatory systems which means they don't bleed out through the wound as a human would.
Why are we so disgusted by cockroaches?
Jeff Lockwood explains the evolutionary and cultural influences on our view of insects.
NB: Ticks and spiders are not insects!
Like insects, ticks and spiders are arthropods (with their skeletons on the outside of their bodies) but to be an insect you must have a body in three parts (head, thorax and abdomen) and six legs. Most insects also have two pairs of wings.
Sources: The Infinite Monkey Cage, Natural Histories, The Life Scientific.
What is The Infinite Monkey Cage?
Brian Cox and Robin Ince present the entertaining and hugely popular science show. They are joined by a variety of scientists and science enthusiasts who take to the stage to discuss everything from the glory of insects to whether free will is just an illusion.
Listen: Will insects inherit the earth?
Discover extra content from the infamous duo and their guests. Never miss an episode by subscribing to The Infinite Monkey Cage.


text:
The Adonia (Greek: ) was a festival celebrated annually by women in ancient Greece to mourn the death of Adonis, the consort of Aphrodite. It is best attested in classical Athens, though other sources provide evidence for the ritual mourning of Adonis elsewhere in the Greek world, including Hellenistic Alexandria and Argos in the second century AD.

According to Ronda R. Simms in her article, "Mourning and Community at the Athenian Adonia", the celebration of the Adonia was the only evidence that was found about worship of Adonis in Athens, as of 1997. There were no temples, statues, or priests in worship to Adonis.

Athenian festival
In Athens, the Adonia took place annually, and was organised and celebrated by women. It was one of a number of Athenian festivals which were celebrated solely by women and addressed sexual or reproductive subjects – others included the Thesmophoria, Haloa, and Skira.  Unlike these other festivals, however, the Adonia was not state-organised, or part of the official state calendar of religious celebration. In fact, it was not found to be celebrated by any official cults, like the cult of Bendis, or foreign cults, whose participants were mostly non-natives, like Isis. Prostitutes, respectable women, non-citizens and citizens alike celebrated the Adonia.

Also unlike the Thesmophoria, the Adonia was never celebrated in a designated area.  Over the course of the festival, Athenian women took to the rooftops of their houses. They danced, sang, and ritually mourned the death of Adonis. They planted "Gardens of Adonis" – lettuce and fennel seeds, planted in potsherds – which sprouted before withering and dying. After the rooftop celebrations, the women descended to the streets with these Gardens of Adonis, and small images of the god; they then conducted a mock funeral procession, before ritually burying the images and the remains of the gardens at sea or in springs.  The rites observed during the festival are not otherwise paralleled in ancient Greek religion; like Adonis himself they probably originated in the Near East.

Date
The date of the Adonia at Athens is uncertain, with ancient sources contradicting one another. Aristophanes, in his Lysistrata, has the festival take place in the early spring of 415 BC, when the Sicilian Expedition was proposed; Plutarch puts the festival on the eve of the expedition's setting sail, in midsummer that year.  Theophrastus' Enquiry into Plants (Περι φυτων ιστορια) and Plato's Phaedrus are both often taken as evidence for the Adonia having been celebrated in the summer.  In Egypt and Syria in the Roman period, the Adonia coincided with the rising of the star Sirius in late July. As the Sicilian Expedition sailed in June 415, this contradicts both Aristophanes' and Plutarch's dating of the Adonia; the Athenian Adonia must have been celebrated at a different time.

Modern scholars disagree on which of these sources is correct. Many agree with Plutarch, and put the festival around midsummer, though Dillon argues that Aristophanes' placement of the festival near the beginning of spring is "without question" correct.  Some scholars, such as James Fredal, suggest that there was in fact no fixed date for the Adonia to be celebrated.

Gardens of Adonis

The main feature of the festival at Athens were the "Gardens of Adonis", broken pieces of terracotta which had lettuce and fennel seeds sown in them.  These seeds sprouted, but soon withered and died.  Though most scholars say that these gardens withered due to being exposed to the heat of the summer, Dillon, who believes that the Adonia was held in the spring, says that the plants instead failed because they could not take root in the shallow soil held by the terracotta shards.  In support of this, he cites Diogenianus, who says that in the Gardens of Adonis, seedlings "wither quickly because they have not taken root".  In ancient Greece, the phrase "Gardens of Adonis" was used proverbially to refer to something "trivial and wasteful".

The symbolism of the Gardens of Adonis is also widely debated: according to James George Frazer, the Gardens of Adonis were supposed to be a sort of ritual performed in order to promote a good harvest, that the actual crops were to grow fast like the little gardens. To John J. Winkler the gardens were meant to represent how men had very little power when it came to regeneration in either plants or humans.

Purposes of the Gardens
There have also been debates on what the woman did with the gardens. Most assume they put the gardens out on their rooftops to wither and die, in order to symbolize how Adonis "sprouted and died quickly". Simms believes that the gardens were made to be used as funerary biers for the little effigies of Adonis to be placed in. These little effigies were made so that the women could have something to focus their mourning towards, because this entire festival is supposed to mourn the loss of Adonis himself.

Outside Athens
Outside of Athens, a celebration of Adonis is attested in Hellenistic Alexandria, in Theocritus' 15th Idyll. The Idyll 15 is said to be the longest surviving account of the Adonia we have to date. The festival described by Theocritus, unlike the one celebrated in Athens, was a cult with state patronage.  It included an annual competition between women singing dirges for Adonis.  Rites lamenting the death of Adonis are also attested in Argos in the second century AD: the Greek geographer Pausanias describes the women of Argos mourning Adonis' death at a shrine inside the temple of Zeus Soter.  Also in the second century, On the Syrian Goddess, attributed to Lucian, describes an Adonia celebrated in Byblos. There is no mention of Gardens of Adonis at this festival, but ritual prostitution and mystery rites are involved in the celebrations. Laurialan Reitzammer argues that the festival described by Lucian is one that was brought back to Syria from Greece, rather than being of native Syrian origin.

The Phoenician text of the Pyrgi Tablets (western central Italy) seem to indicate that the commemoration of the death of Adonis was an important rite in Central Italy, that is if, as is generally assumed, the Phoenician phrase bym qbr 'lm "on the day of the burial of the divinity" refers to this rite. This claim would be further strengthened if Schmidtz's recent claim can be accepted that the Phoenician phrase bmt n' bbt means "at the death of (the) Handsome (one) [=Adonis]." Together with evidence of the rite of Adonai in the Liber Linteus in the 7th column, there is a strong likelihood that the ritual was practiced in (at least) the southern part of Etruria from at least circe 500 bce through the second century bce (depending on one's dating of the Liber Linteus). The Liber Linteus also seems to support the date of this ritual in July. Adonis himself does not seem to be directly mentioned in any of the extant language of either text. In the Roman world, the festival was celebrated on 19 July.

References

Works cited

Greek mythology
Ancient Greek culture
Festivals in ancient Greece

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Learn to make pizza from scratch, starting with the flour.
Enjoy your homemade pizza along the Tiber riverbank.
Meet your small group of aspiring pizza chefs and your local guide.
Make your way along the riverbank to our summer location located in central Rome and meet your small group of aspiring pizza chefs and your local guide. You'll spend 1.5 hours learning how to make pizza from fresh, local ingredients.
After bring assigned your pizza station, you will discover your pizza making utensils and begin your theoretical and practical lesson on the dough creation. You will learn everything from the ingredients to the time to rise and the two different ways of kneading the dough: thin such as the Roman style or thicker like a Neapolitan base.
From here you can choose which type of pizza you would like to create: Marinara, Margherita, Diavola or Napoli. After the lesson, you will be accompanied at your table where you'll enjoy your homemade Pizza cooked in a traditional wood oven.


This Mirrored Square Lamp Table is a brand new addition to our mirrored furniture range. Made on a sturdy frame and covered in a beautiful mirrored finish, these pieces are a stunning addition to any home. The clean lines of this piece enhance the mirrored appearance, reflecting light in all directions to create a beautiful light, fresh look.


Roslyn used defensive pressure to force Aberdeen Christian into 49 turnovers and claim a 56-18 high school girls' basketball victory at the Civic Arena Friday night. The visitors held Aberdeen Christian to one point in the first quarter and two points in the third quarter. Linda Hegemann led the Roslyn effort with 14 points and Vicky Lesnar followed with 12. Aberdeen Christian coach Gregg Hintz said that along with poor shooting, ball-handling was a major issue for the Knights. "We couldn't make any shots in the first quarter," said Hintz. "Roslyn pressed and we kept throwing the ball away in the second and third quarters." Naomi Fuhrman, Ruth Latterell and Mary Wylie led Aberdeen with four points each. Hintz said the Knights are still a very young club. "We're playing five freshman and turning the ball over way too much," said Hintz. Aberdeen Christian will be in action again Tuesday hosting Doland-Conde at the Civic Arena for a boys and girls doubleheader beginning at 6:30 p.m. ROSLYN: Karli Opitz 1 7-10 9, Christa Wik 4 0-0 8, Linda Hegemann 4 6-7 14, Kelsey Neuberger 1 0-0 2, Vicky Lesnar 4 4-6 12, Kristen Liknes 2 3-4 7, Tierra Roper 0 1-2 1, Michelle Okroi 1 1-2 3. Totals 17 22-31 56. ABERDEEN CHRISTIAN: Naomi Fuhrman 1 2-2 4, Julie Adams 0 0-2 0, Jenny Palmer 0 1-2 1, Stephanie Palmer 1 0-0 2, Jordan Rohrbach 0 1-2 1, Ruth Latterell 1 2-2 4, Emma Niewenhuis 1 0-2 2, Mary Wylie 2 0-0 4. Totals 6 6-12 18. Roslyn 10 33 44 56 Aberdeen Christian 1 9 11 18 Fouled out - Neuberger. Total fouls - Roslyn 15; Aberdeen Christian 24. Rebounds - Roslyn 33 (Wik 8); Aberdeen Christian 26 (S. Palmer 9). Turnovers - Roslyn 18; Aberdeen Christian 49. B Game - Aberdeen Christian 51-18.


text:
Animal care veterinary hospital gives dog second chance in life
Published by Farah R. | Positive Outlooks on April 24, 2019
A Shiba Inu's life almost came to an end when he was trapped inside a burning house. But thanks to the amazing team at this animal care veterinary hospital he has a second chance in life.
On October 23, 2018, 8-year-old Taka's home was caught in a fire while he was inside a screened-in porch. As much as his family tried, they weren't able to save him before their home was engulfed in flames, and they had to run out of the house.
But Taka was a survivor. He miraculously escaped from the burning house, and ran down the street. A kind neighbor eventually found him and rushed him to animal care veterinary hospital called Care More Animal Hospital in Martinez, Georgia to get him treated.
The dog was in the worst condition when he arrived at the clinic. Emily Martin, a vet at Care More Animal Hospital, told The Dodo:
"He had burns around his eyes, his mouth, his ears, his belly. We really didn't know how severe his injuries were initially, just because we had to worry about inhalation burns."
When Taka began having trouble breathing, he was transferred to the clinic at the University of Georgia, where he was hooked up to an oxygen machine. The injured pup stayed there for two days before he was brought back to Care More, where the entire team had been doing everything they can to comfort the ailing dog.
Emily, who tries her best to treat her patients equally, inevitably developed a soft spot for Taka.
"I try to treat my patients all the same, but his case pulled at my heartstrings a bit more. When he came in, he was screaming from pain … but he calmed down the moment you sat with him and started singing to him."
She spoke with Taka's family shortly after he arrived in the clinic, but they decided to surrender him under their care so his health would be properly monitored.
Emily Martin with Taka | Facebook.
Eventually, Taka got help from the doctors in VCA Veterinary Specialists in Columbia, South Carolina, where he stayed for over a month. The team there nursed the pooch back to health, and he was returned to Care More once again when he became strong enough.
Taka's story resonated with many people in the community. He began receiving endless amounts of support from different groups who want to speed up his recovery. One of them is the Joseph M. Still Burn Center at Doctors Hospital. The burn unit reached out to Care More and offered to help out with Taka's skin grafts and severe eyelid damage so the pup can blink again.
On December 2018, a team of experts and surgeons operated on Taka's eyelids and helped him with the remaining issues he got from the burns.
After months of intensive care, Taka was able to recover and blink again! As the days went on, he became more like himself. He started eating on his own and even began playing outside.
Though Emily has been extremely attached to Taka, she couldn't adopt him because she already has five other dogs and a 7-month-old baby. Luckily, one of the nurses from the burn unit, Tish Myers, decided to adopt him.
However, after a few days, Taka was returned to Care More because it didn't work out with Tish's other dog. Fortunately, another person who was involved in his care since day one stepped up and adopted Taka as her own.
This woman is Crystal Lesley, a technician at Care More. She has been involved in Taka's care since day one, and she feels confident that she will be able to give him exactly what he needs.
Thankfully, Taka was able to get along with Crystal's other dogs, and he fit well in her home as well!
Taka has really come a long way after a long stay at the animal care veterinary hospital. From being a burn victim, he became a burn survivor, and it can all be attributed to his incredible resilience and the tremendous amount of support he got from the people who truly loved him.
Just look at him smiling!
Crystal decided to create an exclusive page for Taka so she can document his progress and share it with his supporters from all over the country. You may follow Taka's Journey on Facebook to get updates on the latest about this survivor!
Check out the video below showcasing Taka's amazing recovery.
burn survivor Care More Animal Hospital Crystal Lesley Doctors Hospital dog lover dogs Georgia Joseph M. Still Burn Center Shiba Inu Taka the Shiba Inu Taka's Journey VCA Veterinary Specialists
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Shimano will provide neutral mechanical assistance to all riders of the 2019 Andalucía Bike Race. A world-class service with a huge deployment of resources.
The long experience of Shimano mechanical staff offering assistance to the best professional cyclists in the best international cycling competitions, will ensure that the Andalucía Bike Race riders have all their needs covered.
Do you know about all the participant services? Check, here.


High Road Strategies principal Dr. Joel S. Yudken was the featured speaker at the July 12, 2013 luncheon of the National Capital Area Chapter (NCAC) of the U.S. Association for Energy Economics (USAEE). His presentation, "The Economic Benefits of Military Biofuels," based on the High Road Strategies study of the same name produced for Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2), also included a review of the competitiveness and policy challenges facing the U.S. biofuels industry to reach commercial scale production. About 40-50 people attended the talk, though the presentation was live-streamed by courtesy of Climate Nexus to a somewhat larger audience around the country.
Advanced biofuels are renewable, liquid transportation fuels that can replace traditional gasoline and diesel, while creating significantly lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In the Fall 2012, E2 commissioned High Road Strategies to assess the economic impacts of the U.S. Department of Defense's program to invest in and pursue aggressive goals for incorporating advanced biofuels into the Air Force and Navy fuel mix. An affiliate of the Natural Resources Defense Council, E2 is a non-partisan national community of business people promoting environmentally smart policy. The results of this study were summarized in the report, The Economic Benefits of Military Biofuels, released November 10, 2012.
For more information about the HRS-E2 military biofuels project click here.


text:
Q: Java precise calculations - options to use I am trying to establish some concise overview of what options for precise caluclations we have in JAVA+SQL. So far I have found following options:

*

*use doubles accepting their drawbacks, no go.

*use BigDecimals

*

*using them in complicated formulas is problematic for me

*use String.format/Decimal.format to round doubles

*

*do i need to round each variable in formula or just result to get BigDecimal precision?

*how can this be tweaked?

*use computed fields option in SQL.

*

*drawback is that I'd need dynamic SQL to pull data from different tables + calculate fields on other calculated fields and that would get messy

any other options?
Problem statement:
I need precise financial calculations that would involve using very big (billions) and very small numbers (0.0000004321), and also dividing values that are very similar to each other, so for sure I need precision of BigDecimal.
On the other side, I want to retain ease of use that doubles have in functions (i work on arrays from decimal SQL data), so calculations like: (a[i] - b[i])/b[i] etc. etc. that are further used in other calculations. and I'd like to have users to be able to desing their own formulas as they need them (using common math statements)
i am keen to use "formatting" solution for String.format, but this makes code not very readable ( using String.format() for each variable...).
Many thanks for suggestion of how to deal with the stuff.

A: There is nothing you can do to avoid floating point erros in float and double.
No free cheese here - use BigDecimal.

A: From Effective Java (2nd ED):

Item 48: Avoid float and double if exact answers are required

*

*Float and double do not provide exact results and should not be used where exact results are required.
  The float and double types are particularly ill-suited for monetary claculations because is impossible to represent 0.1 (or any other negative power of ten) as a float or double exactly.

*The right way to solve this problem is to ouse BigDecimal, int, or long for monetary calculations.
...
An alternative is to use int or long and to keep track of the decimal point yourself.

A: There is no way to get BigDecimal precision on a double. doubles have double precision.
If you want to guarantee precise results use BigDecimal.
You could create your own variant using a long to store the integer part and an int to store the fractional part - but why reinvent the wheel.
Any time use doubles you stand to stuffer from double precision issues. If you use them in a single place you might as well use them everywhere.
Even if you only use them to represent data from the database then will round the data to double precision and you will lose information.

A: If I understand your question, you want to use Data Types with more precision than the native Java ones without loosing the simple mathematical syntax (e.g. / + * - and so on). As you cannot overload operators in Java, I think this is not possible.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation /
Hiring Our Heroes Continues Advocacy Work as the Year of the Military Spouse Progresses
As Hiring Our Heroes rolls through 2016, already preparing to close out a very active February, our "Year of the Military Spouse" efforts are in full swing around the country and internationally as well.
Saving the World, One Hashtag at a Time
Dale Nirvani Pfeifer is the CEO and founder of GoodWorld, a startup company that offers a platform for charities to collect donations through social media.
South Florida Teen Named Top Young Entrepreneur
Kayla Abramowitz was named the Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA!) Saunders Scholarship winner, after pitching her non-profit Kayla Cares 4 Kids.
The Best Countries for Women Entrepreneurs
The U.S. ranks first in a ranking of nations in their support of high-potential women.
Center for Women in Business
Tackling the Internet Gender Gap
In developing countries, women have 25% less access to Internet access than men. Intel's new "She Will Connect" initiative could reduce the gap.
Empowering Women Through the Global Supply Chain
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation's newest research report, From Millions to Billions: Scaling Up Women's Empowerment Globally investigates the status of women-owned businesses in Mexico.
Are Professional Rites of Passages Changing Across Generations?
What are the rites that mark a person's passage from journeyman to master in a field?
Leslie Bradshaw
Tamara Carleton
IEmpact and the Future of Entrepreneurism
America's young entrepreneurs are aggressively building a new generation of businesses, products and services
Legacy of an Ultimate Ride – Thoughts on Sally Ride
How one woman inspired generations of explorers, scientist, and dreamers
Rich Cooper
Women in Business: Gaining Ground but Further to Go
The topic of women in the workplace is certainly not a new subject for discussion, but how we look at their role and impact is most certainly changing. History has accurately recorded the foundation that women bring to our families and communities, but what about in business?


text:
Journal Browser Advanced Search Help
Ewha Med J. 1993 Mar;16(1):9-14. Korean. Original Article. https://doi.org/10.12771/emj.1993.16.1.9
Autopy Results of Clinically Diagnosed Alzheimer's Disease.
Choi KG .
Department of Internal Medicine, College of Medicine, Ewha Woman's University, Korea.
Eight hundred and eighty four autopsy brains from patients with clinically diagnosed Alzheimer's disease were examined pathologically. Six hundred ninety eitht(79.96%) of the 884 cases fullfilled histological criteria for Alzheimer's disease, with or withour additional fndings, such as substantia nigral degeneration, cerebellar degeneration, Parkinson's disease or cerebral infarcts. One hundred and eighty six cases(20.04%) were diagnosed as other neurodegenerative disease such as Parkinson's disease, non-specific cortical degeneration or Pick's disease. Degenerative changes in the substantia nigra were common in patients with Alzheimer's disease than has been reported for the general aged population. Brain atrophy was severer in presenile type of Alzheimer's disease than in senile type of Alzheimer's disease.
MeSH Terms expand_less expand_more Alzheimer Disease Atrophy Autopsy Brain Humans Neurodegenerative Diseases Parkinson Disease Pick Disease of the Brain Substantia Nigra
Copyright © 2019. Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors.


text:
Q: Question on duplicate inputs in a POST Request on Endpoint Sorry if the header was dumb, I am new to code.  I am currently trying to build a database for movies and it currently allows me to make duplicate posts of the same on a user "favorite movie list"
I cannot not seem to figure this out or know what or  how to ask....
I think the error is in here somewhere:
app.post('/users/:Username/movies/:MovieID', passport.authenticate('jwt', { session:false }), (req, res) => {
    Users.findOneAndUpdate({ Username: req.params.Username },
        { $push: { FavoriteMovies: req.params.MovieID }
        },
        { new: true }, // this line makes sure that the updated document is returned
        (err, updatedUser) => {
            if (err) {
                console.error(err);
                res.status(500).send('Error: ' + err);
            } else {
                res.json(updatedUser);
            }
        });
});

Thank you for your time and consideration!


Contracting Authorities take little or no design risk in emerging or developed markets, however, Contracting Authorities in emerging markets are more prescriptive about the required specification.
The Private Partner will have principal responsibility for adequacy of the design of the power plant. Whether or not the Contracting Authority is concerned with the way in which the plant is designed, or merely with the output / performance of the plant, will depend on whether the plant is be transferred by the Private Partner at the end of the concession period.
For a BOOT project the Contracting Authority will be more concerned with the detail of the specification as it will be thinking ahead to the time when it takes over the plant. However, it needs to be careful not to intervene unduly, as this can lead to the Private Partner seeking to limit its liability on the basis that its control of the project has been fettered by the Contracting Authority.
The Contracting Authority may be more prescriptive regarding design for hydroelectric projects within a cascade, where efficiency of the system as a whole should be maximised.
Where the project is competitively tendered the Contracting Authority will typically specify the outputs required from the plant and, subject to ensuring compliance with applicable legal requirements and good industry practice standards, leave bidders to innovate in the design.
Failure to get the minimum functional specification right for the project effectively transfers risk back to the Contracting Authority.
Where certain performance indicators cannot be met due to actions by the Contracting Authority or unforeseen circumstances, the Private Partner may be eligible to seek relief or compensation (see also completion (including delay and cost overrun) risk with respect to commissioning).


text:
from codeselfstudy import app

app.run(port=9999, debug=True)


text:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <parent>
        <groupId>com.github.piotrkot</groupId>
        <artifactId>xcompiler</artifactId>
        <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
        <relativePath>../pom.xml</relativePath>
    </parent>
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <artifactId>client</artifactId>
    <name>X Client Compiler</name>
    <description>X Client Compiler.
    </description>
    <packaging>jar</packaging>
    <inceptionYear>2015</inceptionYear>
    <licenses>
        <license>
            <name>MIT License</name>
            <url>http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php</url>
        </license>
    </licenses>
    <developers>
        <developer>
            <name>Piotr Kotlicki</name>
            <email>piotr.kotlicki@gmail.com</email>
            <organization>None</organization>
            <organizationUrl>https://github.com/piotrkot</organizationUrl>
        </developer>
    </developers>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>io.dropwizard</groupId>
            <artifactId>dropwizard-core</artifactId>
            <version>0.8.4</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>io.dropwizard</groupId>
            <artifactId>dropwizard-views-mustache</artifactId>
            <version>0.8.4</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>io.dropwizard</groupId>
            <artifactId>dropwizard-forms</artifactId>
            <version>0.8.4</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>io.dropwizard</groupId>
            <artifactId>dropwizard-auth</artifactId>
            <version>0.8.4</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>io.dropwizard</groupId>
            <artifactId>dropwizard-assets</artifactId>
            <version>0.8.4</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.httpcomponents</groupId>
            <artifactId>httpclient</artifactId>
            <version>4.5.1</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.httpcomponents</groupId>
            <artifactId>fluent-hc</artifactId>
            <version>4.5.1</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.httpcomponents</groupId>
            <artifactId>httpmime</artifactId>
            <version>4.5.1</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>io.dropwizard</groupId>
            <artifactId>dropwizard-testing</artifactId>
            <version>0.8.4</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.projectlombok</groupId>
            <artifactId>lombok</artifactId>
            <version>1.16.6</version>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.mockito</groupId>
            <artifactId>mockito-all</artifactId>
            <version>1.10.19</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-shade-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>1.6</version>
                <configuration>
                    <createDependencyReducedPom>true</createDependencyReducedPom>
                    <filters>
                        <filter>
                            <artifact>*:*</artifact>
                            <excludes>
                                <exclude>META-INF/*.SF</exclude>
                                <exclude>META-INF/*.DSA</exclude>
                                <exclude>META-INF/*.RSA</exclude>
                            </excludes>
                        </filter>
                    </filters>
                </configuration>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <phase>package</phase>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>shade</goal>
                        </goals>
                        <configuration>
                            <transformers>
                                <transformer
                                    implementation="org.apache.maven.plugins.shade.resource.ServicesResourceTransformer"/>
                                <transformer
                                    implementation="org.apache.maven.plugins.shade.resource.ManifestResourceTransformer">
                                    <mainClass>com.github.piotrkot.CompilerApp</mainClass>
                                </transformer>
                            </transformers>
                        </configuration>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>


A script delineates every visual, aural, lingual, and behavioural element needed in telling a story. It is also intended to summarise the usual elements using screenplay writing.
A script is considered a good one if it anticipates and responds to the present and future needs of its users. In making a script for a movie, it must be able to captivate the viewers and capture their emotions. Audiences are not just there to watch the film or the actors playing their roles; they also want a beautiful and passionate flow of story. The flow of the script may pertain to something personal like romance, or something socially relevant like a movie about patriotism. But as the story continues, it should become more powerful and catchy so that the viewers will not get bored in watching the film.
A conflict is always a part of the movie. It could be emotional or physical. It is something that either the hero or the villain of the story must surpass to achieve their goals. It will make your story more attractive. You can also include in your script something that could be remembered by the viewers, like "catchwords" or famous lines coming from the characters.
In the field of screenwriting, the script that you are writing should conform to the standards and must be understood by all parties involved. It must have a specific layout or format, notation, margins, and other set ups needed.


Thank you for buying the Small World Guide to British Columbia!
Through the years, travel books have continually reinvented themselves in response to a changing audience. Once tailored to an elite, wealthy clientele of high-society travelers, they eventually discovered the tourism-minded middle class and, later, the budget traveler who's always looking for bargains or seeking something a bit off the beaten path.
However, we at Small World think that there's still farther to go. A few years ago, we asked ourselves this question: if travel books are no longer written for the well-traveled elite, or for the professional tourist, why should they be written by an entire class of jaded hacks? Why should travel writers be the same old people seeing the same old things they've seen a thousand times before? In short, why should you need to have actually visited a country in order to write about it?
This was our dream, our passion: to start a series of travel books for people who've never been there by people who've never been there. We don't believe that travel books should be stuffy, 'inside-baseball' chronicles of people who have been there and back again so often that they no longer have any capacity for surprise. We don't think that a group of insiders, a professional elite, can communicate the true joys of travel to you, the first-timer. That's why we assmbled a crack staff of amateurs — novice travelers, just like you — who have never left their hometowns, let alone the United States, to assemble the Small World travel guides. They've put together a series of books doing research that's casual, just like your trip. You won't find smug know-it-alls or winking been-there-done-thats on our staff; you'll find dedicate, intellectually curious travel writers who bring you all the expertise a 1954 World Book Encyclopedia and a 15-minute Google session at the local library can provide.
So who are the Small World writers? Knowing their thirst for knowledge, love of travel, and ability to work cheap and spell words correctly, we naturally chose college students. However, in order to avoid the sort of cynical elitism found in the Berkeley Go-Guides, and to maintain our commitment to choosing writers who have never been out of the lower 48, we culled our staff from the ranks of small community and junior colleges in landlocked states. Ranging from such diverse climes as Idaho, Iowa and Tennessee, our travel-anxious team is ready to use any resource, no matter how tenuous or dubious, to tell you what the tourist might conceivably encounter. Their prize-wanting journalism tells it like it is, or could possibly be for all you know, and their articles aren't afraid to give you what other guides leave out: hearsay, innuendo, speculation, rumor, and half-truth.
And what kind of articles will you find in a Small World travel guide? Well, let's just take a look at the table of contents of this very edition — the Small World Guide to British Columbia. Inside these pages, you'll find, amongst innumerable theoretically valuable resources and factual data that's just inaccurate enough that the World Book people don't sue us, the following incisive articles: our senior travel writer's overview of Seattle, Spokane, and other cities near British Columbia; our culture editor's look at nomeansno, Kid Koala and other bands that he thinks are from Vancouver; a hotly debated point-counterpoint between two of our writers over whether the capital of British Columbia is London, because of the 'British' thing, or Washington, DC, because of the 'Columbia' thing; a special 'Getting There' section listing highways that look like they go to Canada and airlines that offer flights to Vancouver; our weather expert's tips on how she heard it rains up there all the time; a lengthy and wide-ranging discussion of how, in Canada, they have free health care and, like, treat the Indians way better than here, and they don't even have an army or fight wars or anything by our political correspondent; and a special section entitled 'Vancouver, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia: Telling the Difference'.
It's our commitment to fairness, understanding, and not telling you anything you couldn't find out in half an hour by yourself that's made Small World the ninth-biggest travel book publisher in community college bookstores nationwide. Enjoy your upcoming trip to the United States of Canada, and thanks for choosing Small World: travel books by and for people who haven't been there, but would really like to check it out one of these days.


text:
Antoinette Stockenberg's 2015 Christmas Display
My latest mantel village and its accompanying story celebrate their tenth anniversary this year, and no one is more surprised by that than I am. I hadn't intended to write so many chapters for so many years -- but it turns out that after arranging my little tin figures around my little cardboard houses, their stories just beg to be told. The funny thing is, the village arrangement comes first and the story grows from that. Isn't that backwards? I'm a writer; I should know the answer to that. In any case ... enjoy!
The Village Has an Election
The 2015 Christmas mantel. For closeups, click on the Church and each of the twelve houses.
For a widescreen version of this mantel village, click here.
Albert Pittman has had a good long run as mayor of the village. He has enjoyed the job, and the citizens have appreciated the job he's been doing. The village has become a little less sleepy in the past few years, and all because of the Mayor's drive and ambition. There was that Grand Parade for everyone to see; there is an upgraded hospital for everyone to use; there are lavish balls for everyone -- well, the upper crust, anyway -- to enjoy. All in all, a satisfied electorate had planned to vote Mayor Pittman right back into office.
But the mayor has another, greater ambition: he has become a candidate for the United States Senate. A village mayor leapfrogging into the United States Senate? The very notion has a few villagers snickering, but most are enthusiastic. Albert Pittman can do anything he sets his mind to, they say, especially with his wife's wealth behind him. What an honor for a small village to produce a senator of the United States of America! Why, before you knew it, he could be the President of the United States of America!
How to Build a Snowman (Houses 1, 2, 3, 4):
Mayor Pittman's campaign manager, banker Max Schurster, knows that for a political rally to be a success, it must provide amusements for the voters' children. Mothers and fathers will not stay long if their little ones become bored and start to whimper and beg to go home. And so he has instructed his assistants to find fun things to do for them. Mickey Sullivan, an ex-child himself and now a hard-working, self-described "ontoorpenoor," is in charge of Youth Activities. His plan is simple: roll a few miniature snowmen and have the children decorate them. (It's easier than having, say, to bake cookies for them to frost.) With some carrots from his family's root cellar and some coal from their bin, he has all he needs to conduct a class in the art of bringing a snowman to life. The children, seated on benches, are enthralled. After the snowmen are decorated -- and if the rally is still going strong -- they might even get to build an igloo with Mickey. "If that ain't enough fun, what is?" Mickey says to his helpers. (One of them is his cousin Big Billy, who is thrilled to be solely in charge of the carrots and coal, even if he isn't exactly getting paid.)
If the children were just a little older or a little taller, they would be able to ride behind old farmer Hooks, who has been hired by the Pittman campaign to ferry youngsters back and forth over the snow. He's done it before, but this time it's harder. He's old, his horse is old, and besides everything else, now Farmer Hooks has to keep a sign held to his sled. "Vote!" it implores. Well, the farmer means to do that -- but it won't be for Al Pittman. John Hooks is still simmering over a loan that was once denied him by banker Schurster, who happens to be managing the election campaign for his pal the mayor. "Yer known by the company ye keep," Hooks has told his son Johnny and his daughter-in-law Sonja. "Birds of a feather," he likes to mutter darkly.
Dorothea Sparks, nestled under a heavy blue blanket in her sleek carriage, has no such qualms about either the banker or the mayor. She will never need a loan from the bank -- no possible hard feelings there -- and she is genuinely curious to see just how far the mayor can climb. She wonders: was running for the Senate his idea, or was it his wife Lavinia's? One thing seems certain: if the Pittmans end up in Washington, D.C., then Dorothea will have the social scene in the village to claim for her own. The only thing is, does she care enough to want it? She laughs at the thought and tells her young and handsome driver, "Faster, please! We don't want to miss the rally!"
The Next New House (House 5):
Well, Clyde and Margaret are at it again: buying another house. Some people just like to buy and sell houses, and this lucky couple has no reason to stop; every house they've ever sold has made them money. The house they have just acquired isn't really one that they will live in (it's too small to accommodate their family and the nanny), but it was bought after a foreclosure and at an irresistible price. Clyde plans to rent it out. Margaret thinks that's embarrassing. Clyde doesn't understand why. Margaret doesn't want to be known as a "landlady." Clyde thinks his wife is being a bit shallow and foolish in the matter. Margaret doesn't care what he thinks.
The Election Rally (Houses 5, 6 and 7 ):
"Excellent turnout, Max, excellent." From his perch above the crowd, Mayor Pittman scans the faces below him: just about everyone in the village is there. His sees his wife's carriage approaching from one direction, Dorothea Sparks's carriage from the opposite. Thank goodness for that. The last thing he needs right now is a chariot race between them!
Turning to the banker, he asks whether the reception hall is ready. "Yes indeed," Max assures him. "Sam should have the entry swept of snow by now, and food should be inside at the ready. Hot cider, roasted fowl, cakes, cookies -- that should bring them in. You will be able to move among your constituency with handshakes and back slaps, nailing down their votes."
"You've done well, my friend," the mayor says. "I hope that my speech is equal to your preparations." Truth be told, the mayor has a case of butterflies. It is one thing to run for mayor of a town of six hundred, another to go up against a long-time incumbent who lives in the state's capital. Even with Lavinia's financial support, Albert Pittman finds himself a definite David to his opponent's Goliath. Still, if he does manage somehow to get elected, he is absolutely certain that he can make a difference. Some people ran for their own personal ambition. Albert Pittman was running because, well, because he believed in the American Dream. Every single person deserved a chance to better himself and move up in life. It was really that simple.
Behind the mayor, the musicians have been playing lively, merry tunes, all the better to get the crowd fired up. And they are, although the Woodcuts, tired of standing, have decided to take a short break. Stacking their hand-made signs against their bench, they rest their weary legs and sip strong tea fortified with a spot of brandy. "I reckon he'll speak any minute now," Mr. Woodcut ventures. "This should be good. Do you think he has a chance, missus?"
His wife, by far the wiser of the two, shrugs. "A chance, yes. But do we really want him to leave the village? He can do so much more for us here than he would be able to do down in Washington, D.C."
"Aye, you're not the only one believes that. The boys down at Sully's Pub think so, too. Still, it's good policy to show support and be noticed by hizzoner. Once we pull the curtain in the voting booth -- well, we can vote any way we want, can't we. This is America."
Saucy, pretty Alice, standing next to Mr. Woodcut, leans down to whisper in his ear, "I've heard that Mrs. Pettifore would like her husband to run for mayor if Mayor Pittman does get elected to the Senate."
Mr. Woodcut immediately passes the rumor on to his wife. The three of them stare at the back of Mrs. Pettifore, standing just in front of them with her daughter Eloise, and try to divine whether the woman really has ambitions for her attorney husband.
"No. I do not see it," says Mrs. Woodcut at last. "She would not want to share him with the public at large. She does like to keep her family tight-knit. Ah! Look who's here. How goes the battle, Mr. MacGowan?"
"Still swingin'," old man MaGowan says, approaching them. With a sigh of exasperation, he adds, "I been told to carry this dang sign, but my dang arthritis has other ideas. I strapped it to my wrist, but now it hurts worse. Alls I can say is, there better be something in this fer me at the end of the day."
"Well, in the meantime, hand me your sign and your cane and take a load off, sir," Mrs. Woodcut tells him, patting the bench beside her. "And how is your cat?" she adds, knowing how fond he has become of the stray he's taken in.
"Roamin' again," he answers. He sounds a little hurt. "She always comes back, but I don't make it easy for her, movin' from place to place the way I do. Maybe I should take up livin' in the lighthouse again. At least the little hussy would have to stay put."
"But so would you, Mr. MacGowan, and you wouldn't like that," Alice teases. Suddenly her voice turns soft. "Oh. Johnny Hooks ... over there. With his new wife Sonja. Oh, that's hard to see." Her lashes flutter down and she looks away.
Mrs. Woodcut, like everyone else in the village, knows that Johnny and Alice were briefly an item. But it was always Sonja that Johnny loved, whether the lad realized it all the time or not. Now he did. You could see it in the way he had his arm protectively around her. "What a slip of a thing Sonja is," Mrs. Woodcut exclaims. "She so tiny ... he so brawny. What an odd and yet delightful pair they make."
"Yes. They do," Alice admits with a sigh. "Oh well."
Will and Harmony are also among the crowd, though neither is holding a placard. They are happy simply to be out and about, just the two of them. They love their children fiercely, but it's still a treat to be the sole focus of one another's attention. "How lucky we are that your aunt has come to live with us," Harmony says, not for the first time.
Her husband smiles. "It is no small thing to leave a life in Canada for one in New England. But now that she is widowed, I am the only family Aunt Agatha has. She does seem to dote on the children," he adds.
"Because she has none of her own? Could that be the reason? Or is it just that she's a loving person -- as well as a perfect fit for our family?"
Will shrugs and says,"Probably a combination." He's struck anew by how far he has traveled along the path to fulfillment. He's gone from being a lonely bachelor to finding his soul mate, having two beautiful children with her, and now having an aunt he hasn't seen since he was a child come live with them. Family! It's all so much more than he ever could have dreamed.
One other couple is nearly as happy as Will and Harmony. Grace Newcomb Greene, midwife and now doctor's wife, pauses near the iron fence in search of her husband. Doctor Nicholas Greene has tried not to become involved in his old college mate's run for U.S. Senator, but that's proved hard to do. Grace has never been fond of political maneuvering and was secretly happy that her husband declined to be Albert Pittman's actual campaign manager, but he'll still be an adviser. His advice will always be worth taking; no one knows that more than Grace. She spies him at last, conversing with the men clustered near the mayor while they await the big speech. Grace's heart lifts, as it always does when she sees him. I do love you, she thinks, beaming that message to him over the crowd.
The Church (House 8):
The church, right now, is a quiet place. Within, a few elderly parishioners silently offer up prayers: for a cure, for continuing health, for someone they care about to see the light. They do not hear the buzzing crowd nearby, nor do they realize why so many have gathered on the town square. An election has little importance for them.
Just outside the entry to the church, Mildred and Joanna are making a valiant effort to practice a new hymn. It would be easier to practice inside -- no competition from the mayor's band nearby -- but the two friends do not want to rely on the interior's wonderful acoustics to make their initial effort sound better than it is. No, it's better to learn the hard way: outside. They do have the help of a violinist who has sneaked away from the rest of his band nearby. But he can't stay long, and after he leaves, Mildred and Joanna will have to rely on a pitch-pipe.
The carriage of the mayor's wife Lavinia is struggling to make its way through the crowd, adding to Lavinia's stress. She is of mixed mind regarding her husband's campaign. If he succeeds, he will have gained access to the truly glittering society of the nation's capital. If he fails, then they will remain in the village, but as political failures. She wonders whether her philanthropy can trump a poor performance.
Probably, she decides. Money does talk, after all. "Driver! For pity's sake, can you not make the crowd move aside?"
The Reception Hall (House 9):
Samuel Rickens is just finishing up sweeping the last of yesterday's snow from the entryway. Christmas is still weeks away, but judging from the frequent snowfalls, it surely will be a white one. "John Hooks was hoping to use his wagon to haul the young 'uns around today -- but no, it's the sled he's had to hitch his nag to," Sam explains to his pal Eddy. "That was more work, plus now he has to be watching for bare spots."
Eddy is bent over, pulling up one of his socks. For whatever reason, the one sock likes to crawl; it's a constant annoyance to him. "We'd better get a move on and get over to that rally," he tells Sam. "Our signs ain't doin' much good leanin' against this building. Hey, do I smell chicken?"
Sam puts his nose to the air and sniffs. "Ooh, yes to that. They must be layin' out the food. Maybe we can finagle a bite before we goes off. I'll see what I can do with Florrie."
Eddy rubs his hands in anticipation. "She's a good cook, is Florrie. Don't know why old man MacGowan ain't asked for her hand yet. The man would eat like a king."
"You make a good point, Eddy. You know what? If he don't ask her, maybe I will! Ha!"
The Joneses Have a Visitor (House 10):
Mrs. Appleby is a very distant cousin of Jack Jones, and she has known Mrs. Jack Jones since she was just Miss Bates. Mrs. Appleby's life has not been easy: taking in laundry has always been hard work, but at her advancing age, the job has become more of a strain than ever. Her back! It sometimes seems to Mrs. Appleby that she will never be able to stand straight again. And yet here she is, pulling a load of dirty laundry that she has collected from one of the better houses in the village (but one that is not grand enough to have their own laundress). It's a heavy load, and Mrs. Appleby is in the neighborhood, so she has the idea of stopping by the Joneses for perhaps a cup of tea and a chance to catch her breath. But she is disappointed; the Joneses are not home. She will have to continue on her way without that longed-for rest.
The Very Last One at the Rally (House 11):
She was late. Of course. Does she care? Of course not. She hadn't planned to attend the rally in the first place. Why encourage such folly? Albert Pittman was never going to be elected a United States Senator. You could take that to the bank. He had enthusiasm, yes; charm, yes; a wife with money, yes. But the odds against him were absurd. Senator Halfort was a wildly popular incumbent who was not about to be unseated, despite that silly little allegation about a bribe. Those are the thoughts going through Eunice Pittman's head as she tucks her hands more snugly into her ermine muff and considers the foolish path her son has chosen to take. His idealism was most annoying, a thorough waste of time. He was always doing that -- trying to make a difference. Why couldn't he be more like his older brother, who knew so much better how to play the game; who knew when to say what to whom, instead of always trying to speak plain truth? Where, after all, was the truth going to get Albert?
Most annoying.
A Kinder, Gentler Moment (Houses 12 and 13):
Miss Martha, as she is known to the village children, has decided to make handing out peppermint balls to the youngsters an annual treat. Last year, the wave of influenza that washed over the village washed over poor Santa Claus as well; there were no candies dispersed by him at City Hall, as had been the tradition. That's when Martha stepped into the gap with her home-made peppermint balls, bringing joy to the little ones' faces. This year, all were well in the village and the children would surely have their usual candies from Santa at City Hall -- but Martha was so pleased with the responses she got the year before that she decided to carry on anyway. So, armed with a basket of candies, she's made the rounds of the village, finishing up at little June's house. It's still weeks away from Christmas, but the candies will set the mood for the season and will surely be enjoyed by all.
She is surprised to see the child standing in the cold on her front porch, clutching a doll. "Oh, hello June, dear --"
"Shh-h-h!" whispers little June as Miss Martha approaches. "You mustn't frighten her! Shh-h."
Martha turns to see a sweet fawn bedded down nearby. "Oh. I see," she whispers back. "Is there a deer run that goes somewhere from here?"
The child nods gravely and says, "It goes to a deer yard in the pine trees behind us. There are bucks and does and fawns there. But this fawn is a little bit hurt. Not a lot, my daddy says. Her mama comes to check on her all the time. My daddy says that she's going to be fine. That's what my daddy says. But I'm making sure that Mrs. Jones's new dog doesn't come too near," she explains, pointing down the lane. "Is that your cat?" the girl adds, eyes narrowing.
The cat at Martha's side has appeared out of nowhere. "No-o, but I've seen her some-- I know! She's Mr. MacGowan's cat."
"I don't think she would hurt the fawn, do you?" little June asks in an earnest tone.
"I'm sure not," says Miss Martha, smiling. "The fawn will be just fine."
(But just in case, eight distant cousins are flying close overhead to look over the fawn, deciding that ... yes, she is doing just fine.)
Mr. and Mrs. Jones Have a New Dog (House 13):
By a lucky stroke of serendipity, not long ago pretty Alice happened to run into Lucas, the village shepherd, just as he was trying to bring his wandering sheep dog Boots to heel. With only one working eye, poor Boots was no longer much good at shepherding, but he had a wonderful personality and was as friendly a dog as anyone could wish to see.
Alice instantly thought of Mrs. Jack Jones and remembered how sorrowful the woman still was after losing her inseparable companion Rusty. Boots and Mrs. Jack Jones could be a match made in heaven, Alice told the shepherd. And she was right. Without losing a smidge of love for her departed dog Rusty, Mrs. Jack Jones instantly made room in her heart for the friendly, frisky sheep dog Boots.
Trotting in front of his new master and mistress, Boots shows every sign of being with people he loves. It's true that they're a bit slower than the usual flock of sheep he controls, but at least they go more or less in a straight line. He does his best to herd them along more quickly. Rof rof, he cajoles. Move along, move along now.
"We are going as fast as we can, you scamp!" cries Mrs. Jack Jones with a laugh. She is completely in love with the lively and loyal dog. What energy! If only she had a fraction of it! Her husband points out that Boots is a working dog, doing what he knows best. "And at least he does settle down at night, by the fire," he adds a little gruffly, masking his own fondness for the animal. "I reckon we can keep 'im."
Rof! Rof!
And so another year in the village has come and gone, with its usual mix of small pleasures and big surprises; broken hearts and mended fences; the newly born and the dearly departed -- all woven together in the multi-hued tapestry that we call life.
For earlier chapters of this Christmas tale, click on the links to previous mantels:
2019 Christmas Putz
Antoinette's Main Christmas Page
Antoinette's Home Page


alaTest has collected and analyzed 109 reviews of Samsung 7 Series NP740U3. The average rating for this product is 4.2/5, compared to an average rating of 4.1/5 for other products in the same category for all reviews. Reviewers are impressed by the portability and size. The design and usability are also mentioned favorably.
We analyzed user and expert ratings, product age and more factors. Compared to other products in the same category the Samsung 7 Series NP740U3 is awarded an overall alaScore™ of 87/100 = Very good quality.
A slim, light and portable laptop that plays games decently. What's not to like?
The only slight downside here is that the screen feels a little flimsy when it's supposed to be locked into position. It doesn't slip down without contact, but it often wobbles when you're using the touchscreen, which is annoying.
The Samsung Series 7 Ultra (NP740U3E-A01UB) ultrabook offers style and substance with solid performance, all-metal construction, and a 1080p touch screen.
The Samsung Ativ Book 7 has a high-resolution touchscreen display and fabulous battery life, but its keyboard will drive touch-typists bonkers.
The Samsung Ativ Book 7 has a high-resolution touchscreen display and fabulous battery life, but its wonky Wi-Fi performance is a problem and its keyboard will drive touch typists bonkers.
The Samsung ATIV Book 7 (NP740U3E-K01UB) ultrabook offers style and substance with solid performance, all-metal construction, and a 1080p touch screen.
Slim, stylish all-metal construction. Touch-enabled 1080p display. Excellent touchpad.
Reflective keys are hard to read. Only one USB 3.0 port. Small 128GB drive.
The competing notebooks are among others the Acer Aspire S7 391, the Asus Zenbook Prime UX31A-C4027H, the Samsung 730U3E-S04DE, and the Apple MacBook Air 13.
Quality, Speed, Design, Size, Weight, Beautiful Display, Keyboard and overall feel when using it.
Expensive but you get what you pay for! Make sure you also purchase screen cleaner!
SD card slot - card not flush with case when inserted. Dangling plastic cover. SSSD not big enough capacity.


text:
Q: Auto login for Ubuntu (or other Linux) without GUI? I am thinking about doing an Ubuntu installation with their mini ISO, which comes only with the barebones system without a desktop environment/GUI.
I remember being given the option to set up automatic login when doing a full Ubuntu desktop installation, but how to I enable that for the mini ISO install? Did I miss something? Also, is there a generalised way to do this on any Linux OS?
Thanks!

A: You might find some ideas in this thread of linuxquestions.org

A: All you need is the tool mingetty. Concrete example and comparison in the mythTV Wiki.


text:
Abuse and neglect of children
Pope Francis leaves his studio window overlooking St. Peter's Square at the end of the Angelus noon prayer at the Vatican, Sunday, Aug.19, 2018. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
New database documents Irish clergy linked to sex abuse
DUBLIN (AP) — An international research group launched a database Monday of Irish clergy convicted or credibly accused of sexually abusing children in hopes of pressing Pope Francis to disclose the names of all the priests and brothers deemed guilty by the church. BishopAccountability.org says the...
FILE - This July 12, 2018 file photo shows the Diciotti ship of the Italian Coast Guard carrying rescued migrants as it enters the Sicilian port of Trapani, southern Italy. Interior Minister Matteo Salvini demanded Sunday, Aug. 19, 2018, that other European countries take in the 177 migrants rescued on Aug. 16 by the Diciotti after his Maltese counterpart, Michael Farrugia, insisted that the "only solution" is for the Diciotti ship to dock at the Sicilian island of Lampedusa. (Igor Petyx/ANSA via AP)
August 19, 2018 - 11:24 am
Italy threatens to return migrants to Libya in new standoff
ROME (AP) — Italy's firebrand interior minister threatened Sunday to return to Libya 177 migrants who have been aboard an Italian coast guard ship for days following another standoff with Malta. Interior Minister Matteo Salvini demanded that other European countries take in the migrants after his...
FILE – In this May 15, 2018, file photo, acting New York state Attorney General Barbara D. Underwood speaks to lawmakers evaluating a dozen candidates to succeed former Attorney General Eric Schneiderman after he resigned amid domestic abuse allegations, during interviews in the Legislative Office Building in Albany, N.Y. Underwood's appointment to serve as state attorney general through year's end was approved May 22, 2018, and her office said Friday, Aug. 17, 2018, it is exploring teaming up with local district attorneys to conduct an investigation of child sex abuse in Roman Catholic dioceses like Pennsylvania's that uncovered widespread abuse in six dioceses statewide. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink, File)
Will other states follow Pennsylvania on church abuse?
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Attorneys general around the U.S. have been largely silent this week about any plans to conduct an investigation like Pennsylvania's that uncovered widespread child sexual abuse in six Roman Catholic dioceses, although New York's top prosecutor is an exception, saying she is...
Judy Deaven who says her son was a victim of sexual abuse by a priest as a boy reacts as Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro speaks during a news conference at the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa., Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2018. A Pennsylvania grand jury says its investigation of clergy sexual abuse identified more than 1,000 child victims. The grand jury report released Tuesday says that number comes from records in six Roman Catholic dioceses. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Oral sex, then holy water: Report documents abuse by priests
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A priest raped a 7-year-old girl while he was visiting her in the hospital after she'd had her tonsils removed. Another priest forced a 9-year-old boy into having oral sex, then rinsed out the boy's mouth with holy water. One boy was forced to say confession to the priest who...
FILE - This March 27, 2008, file photo, shows the Pentagon in Washington. The Defense Department must improve the way it responds to child-on-child sexual assault at military bases in the U.S. and abroad as part of a sweeping new law President Donald Trump signed Monday, Aug. 13, 2018. While the Pentagon began addressing sexual assault in the ranks a decade ago, an Associated Press investigation revealed that similar reports involving military kids got lost in a dead zone of justice. Child offenders were rarely held accountable _ even when they confessed _ and victims often received no counseling or other help. Under the new law, more than 70,000 students in Pentagon-run schools now receive the same legal protections as their U.S. public school counterparts. The schools also must overhaul their system for tracking and addressing assault allegations. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)
Under new law, military kids get sex assault protections
The Defense Department must improve the way it responds to child-on-child sexual assault at military bases in the U.S. and abroad as part of a sweeping new law President Donald Trump signed Monday. While the Pentagon began addressing sexual assault in the ranks a decade ago, an Associated Press...
UK inquiry: Monks hid sex abuse to protect church reputation
LONDON (AP) — A British inquiry concluded Thursday that sexual abuse at two leading Roman Catholic schools in Britain was considerably higher than is reflected by conviction figures, with monks hiding allegations to protect the church's reputation. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse...
Italian Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi, left, and his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Shoukry, give a press conference at Tahrir Palace, in Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, Aug. 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)
Italy's FM visits Egypt, first since killing of researcher
CAIRO (AP) — Italy's foreign minister said Sunday he was pleased to hear from Egyptian officials that they are committed to completing an investigation into the 2016 killing of an Italian graduate student in the capital Cairo with a "concrete result." Enzo Moavero Milanesi arrived in Egypt on the...
Documents: Youth care worker sexually abused immigrant boys
PHOENIX (AP) — Federal authorities allege that a former youth care worker at a Phoenix-area facility for immigrant youths sexually abused eight teenage boys, one of several cases brought to light in recent weeks as thousands of immigrant children remain detained around the country. Court documents...
FILE - In this Oct. 25, 2017 file photo, Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., pauses before speaking to reporters during a meeting of the National Defense Authorization Act conferees, on Capitol Hill in Washington. The Senate has given final congressional approval to a $716 billion defense policy bill that would raise military pay by 2.6 percent, the largest pay hike in nine years. The bill is named after McCain, who is away from Congress battling brain cancer. McCain issued a statement after the vote saying he was proud of the bill and humbled that his colleagues named it after him. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
Congress sends defense bill with military pay raise to Trump
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate on Wednesday gave final congressional approval to a $716 billion defense policy bill that would raise military pay by 2.6 percent, the largest pay hike in nine years. The 87-10 vote sends the bill to the White House for President Donald Trump's expected signature. The...


Maybe I'm biased because blue is my power hue, but I felt I had met my other half with this beauty from the moment I unwrapped the plastic around it. The cobalt is as bright and bold as the photos online. The Cache is acceptable for any occasion—work or play—since it is not an abnormally oversized tote and has a clean, mod look. I also like that it is sturdy and doesn't flop over on it's own. It may even loosen up with frequent use.
Also, fair warning: you feel like a trendsetter when toting this tote. I brought mine out on errands a couple times, and besides the two compliments I received, I noticed women gaze at the bag as if they were ready to pounce. I am just giddy over this bag! It comes with a removable shoulder strap and is available in black as well.
I chose these boots for two reasons: 1. I have about five pairs past excessive of black and brown, but not grey ones, and 2. Quilted moto was also missing from my collection.
What you see is what you get when it comes to the grey color, and they are durable but not uncomfortably stiff.
I ordered a size 8.5 because my other JustFab boots in a 9 had a bit too much wiggle room, which led to clunking and dragging my feet. This was a good choice for me because I probably won't wear thick socks with these like I would with a taller pair.
I'm sure all you highly fashionable BB's know just how you would style these! But in case you need some ideas, you can see I chose black skinnies, a basic top, a skull-printed scarf, and my faux leather moto jacket (yes, nice ladies can pull off biker chic!) Or, you can get even more fashionably risky and wear them with a circle skirt and cropped sweater or top and oversized cardigan! Have fun with it.
As with Fabletics in my last post, JustFab works the same way with their VIP program. Begin by taking their Style Quiz to help them determine your fashion personality and suggest items that cater to your taste, and from there you'll be able to place monthly orders at their VIP prices. Read here for full details on the program!
Disclosure: JustFab sent us these two picks for review purposes, opinions are 100% our own.
Love the quilted detail on those boots! Its those little touches that make something look designer. Love JustFab!
Love that bag and the color of it!