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Anti-Human Trafficking – Michelle Johnson Empower 225
Words from
Michelle Johnson
Case Manager/Peer Support
Empower 225
"Normal" is a very relative term. I grew up in a life where it was "normal" for adults to have sex with children. The sexual abuse started when I was an infant; I do not remember a time when it was not happening. That abuse continued into my teenage years. At the age of 16, I left home in an attempt to escape only to be sexually exploited by an older man for food and a place to stay. When I turned 18, I escaped from him and tried to get services because I felt something was wrong with me. Services were denied because I had never asked for help before. Not long after that, I was recruited by a female and coerced into sex trafficking by her pimp. Recovery did not come for me until the age of 24 when the FBI raided the hotel where I was being kept. I was so broken; I had lost all hope of any future. I lost my innocence, my education, and my freedom!
After hearing that everything I experienced was not okay and that there were people that cared and wanted to help me, I discovered a reason to live. I was able to get trauma-focused therapy to undo all the lies and direct services for my basic needs. With the help of Empower225, I started the recovery process of becoming a human being again. I was able to get my GED and driver's license, two of the many things that were taken from me. Empower225 was also there for me when I had to testify against my trafficker; that was one of the hardest things I've had to do in my life. Having the support of others reminded me of why I was doing this, and that what happened to me was not okay!
After standing up to my trafficker and years of healing and successfully working the Hope program at Empower225, I had the opportunity to join the staff when a peer-survivor position opened up. Through this position, I can pour into other victims and survivors to let them know that there is hope and that their lives can be restored. I also help educate those in our state about human trafficking and working with survivors. After two years of being employed with Empower225, I was given the opportunity and felt empowered to enroll in college. I am currently studying to get my bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice, so I can continue to fight for other victims and survivors of human trafficking. None of this would be possible if not for God, Empower225, and a community of people pouring into me and showing me what I'm really worth!
Featured Recipe: Canoe Cake
Chef Natasha St. Pierre Clement
Canoe Cake:
Andouille Crusted Jumbo Lump Crab Cake with Shaved Mirliton, Carrot & Apple Slaw, Calabrian Chili & Smoked Paprika Aioli
Chef Natasha St. Pierre Clement Sophisticated Southern Plates
Andouille Crusted Jumbo Lump Crab Cake, Shaved Mirliton,
Carrot & Apple Slaw, Calabrian Chili & Smoked Paprika Aioli
1 lb Jumbo Lump crab meat
1 Tbsp ( Creole or Dijon) mustard
½ tsp seafood seasoning
½ tsp crab boil (liquid)
½ tsp garlic salt
½ tsp cracked black pepper
1/8 cup chopped chives
¼ cup panko
Drain & pick through crab. Whisk together egg whites, mayo, mustard, lemon juice, crab boil and all dry seasonings. Fold in crab and chives. Add panko to tighten up mixture. Set in fridge for 20 minutes.
Panko & Andouille Crust
2 ½ cups panko
1 ½ cups toasted & dried andouille crumbs
Blend together in food processor for about 30 seconds to mix well.
You will need a 3.5 to 4.0 ounce round ring mold. Create a bed of half the crust mixture on a sheet pan. Placing the ring mold on crust mixture, tightly pack the crab cake mixture in the mold, topping the cake with more crust mixture, firmly pressing down before removing mold. Repeat. Set crab cakes uncovered back in fridge for 15 minutes before cooking. Yield 8 crab cakes per this recipe.
Pan fry in butter and grapeseed oil, just enough to cover the pan. Medium-High heat, 2 minutes per side.
Shaved Mirliton, Carrot & Apple Slaw
1 mirliton
Using a Japanese mandolin, thinly shave and julienne the apple and mirliton. Also, using the mandolin, thinly shave carrot medallions. Toss in bacon fat slaw dressing. Add thinly sliced green onions on a bias.
Garnish plate with smoked paprika calabrian chili aioli. Micro greens.
Natasha St. Pierre Clement, as Southern and French as you could guess, was born and raised where the sugarcane sweetens the crawfish tails. She is married to the love of her life, Chesson Clement, and together they have 3 children. She is a self-taught home cook turned small town chef with a long line of family inspiration in farming and agriculture.
With a culinary spirit as long and winding as the Mississippi, her true love is bringing elevated custom southern dishes with international flare and sophisticated, graceful plating to your table. She owns her own catering and private chef business, Sophisticated Southern Plates, specializing in creating unforgettable dining experiences for anywhere from parties of four to parties of hundreds.
Natasha was a former contestant on MasterChef Season 6 and a contestant and WINNER of Food Network's All-Star Academy Season 2 under the tutelage of Chef Robert Irvine. Some of her most recent accolades include catering to the King of New Orleans, Drew Brees, for his surprise 40th Birthday Party as well as being the only private chef invited to participate in the New Orleans Bourbon Festival! When not cooking for hundreds, she also enjoys keeping some of our beloved New Orleans Pelican basketball players on their game with healthy meal prep and local fresh inspired dishes.
You can follow Chef Natasha on Instagram @cheftasha_nola, @sophisticatedsouthernplates and on Facebook at Sophisticated Southern Plates.
For any further recipes related to this dish please contact Chef Natasha at cheftasha11@gmail.com
People of Louisiana – Business (January 2020)
KIM LEWIS
OLE ORLEANS WINERY
KIM LEWIS Owner, Ole Orleans Winery
The road to success is never easy, but it's rewarding.
No one knows this better than the owner of the winery, Ole Orleans, Kim Lewis. A single mom of four kids, Lewis's journey to entrepreneurship was not an easy road; it included a lot of blockage, detours, & potholes. But eventually, she would become a part of the 1% of Black women who would own their own wine company.
The New Orleans native wanted to do something for her city, & reflect the culture in her business. It's one of the reasons why her wine sells out in most of the New Orleans local stores, including Second Vine Wine, a popular wine store that holds classes & wine tastings.
Her wine business idea came to Lewis while she was traveling with her then-husband to beach destinations, where she compared the culture's wines with American wines. Her interests peaked, & she thought what it would be like starting her own company. "People would tell me all the time that I drink enough wine to start my own company!" Lewis recalled.
However, it wouldn't be until her divorce was finalized in 2016 that the New Orleans native would act on her idea. Lewis started doing her own research when she found that people in the industry wouldn't give her insight on how to even begin. She started calling attorneys' firms & consulting businesses to assist her with the paperwork. "I filed for my own paperwork for my business."
Next, Lewis looked up vineyards to produce the wine. Her first one was in Napa Valley, where they were open to help produce and package the wine, however, it was costly. "I didn't think to include permits & shipping when I first inquired about them," she remembered. So she moved on to Texas, where it took her four to five months to find one. When she did, it took seven to eight months for the winery to harvest, distribute, and let the wine sit to get a good taste. Things looked promising for the mother until the winery decided to halt all new customers in the middle of her distribution.
Refusing to quit, Lewis continued her search. She finally found a winery in Louisiana; the Landry's. The Landry's winery loved the New Orleans references and street names on every bottle, with its depiction of old New Orleans. So, they agreed to work with her.
In April 2019, Lewis officially dropped Ole Orleans, dedicating the business and all of the hard work to her beloved city & her kids: "I wanted to do something different, but I wanted to stand out. I've given my kids part ownership of the company so that they have something tangible." Her eldest son helps with the business; promoting his mother's company is the highlight for Lewis starting her own company. She said, "If you have a child that's proud of your brand, then you're doing something right."
Within the first year of her wine business, Lewis has done multiple interviews, has been a panelist during Essence Music Festival, and has been honored with an award. But for her, being a part of the 1% of Black women who own a wine business, is the greatest achievement of all: "I like to go against the odds. Being that 1% means that I broke a barrier down. For more than just my family, but for women – especially black women."
People of Louisiana – Military (January 2020)
Louisiana Military Family Assistance (MFA) Fund
Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs (LDVA)
Louisiana Military Family Assistance (MFA) Fund Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs (LDVA)
Governor John Bel Edwards shared in his Second Inaugural Address that Louisiana has 491 men and women in the Louisiana National Guard and Air National Guard currently deployed overseas. You may not know that, over the next twelve months, more than 2,000 Louisiana soldiers and airmen will deploy to the Middle East. We are so grateful for these military service members and pray daily with their families for their safe return.
While these brave men and women are serving our country overseas, we do not forget the strength it takes their families to serve here at home. Our Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs (LDVA) administers the Louisiana Military Family Assistance (MFA) Fund, which provides grants to eligible military service members and their families who demonstrate certain types of financial need. The Louisiana Legislature originally established the MFA Fund in 2005 to help members of the Louisiana National Guard and Louisiana Military Reserves and their families address financial hardships encountered while on active duty status. Still today, this fund covers the cost of a bus trip home for National Guardsmen and women to see their loved ones one last time before they deploy.
In 2016, the MFA Fund opened up to serve all eligible Louisiana service members, veterans and their families. Today it serves as a fund of last resort, helping to meet immediate needs such as mortgage and utility bills, some medical services and other essential expenses creating documented financial hardships for veterans. The MFA board meets each month to approve awards up to $10,000 per year for a veteran.
The MFA Fund is a state treasury fund, but is funded solely by donations (no taxpayer dollars).
Please visit www.vetaffairs.la.gov/how-to-help/ to donate today.
To apply for assistance, visit https://www.vetaffairs.la.gov/benefit/military-family-assistance-fund/.
Thank you for supporting Louisiana veterans and their families.
People of Louisiana – Schools (January 2020)
KIMBERLY ECKERT
Innovative Programs Coordinator for
West Baton Rouge Parish Schools in Louisiana
Kimberly Eckert Educators Rising
What Louisiana State Penitentiary Offenders Taught My Students and I about Great Teachers
For the past two years, I've taught a course called Educators Rising, aimed at exposing high school students to the teaching profession that our students desperately need us all to see: a means to social justice, a grantor of access, a hero training of sorts where we each figure out how best to change the world. This year, however, I knew that if I was going to teach my students about the systemic impact of poverty, and race, and disabilities on a person's educational experience, I would need to provide experiences that transcended numbers, figures, and books. I wanted to take them to the last stop of the K to Prison Pipeline so that we could retrace our steps. My students realized that in the data we viewed and the research we read, there were some voices and stories missing: those belonging to the inmates. They wanted the chance to understand a human experience from a perspective we seldom get to hear first-hand. What better place to go than to a prison where over 80% of the offenders never finished high school or any other formal education?
As we went through gate after gate, we finally got to the school building where we noticed posters hanging warning about the dangers of Extortion and reminders that Sexual Assault is an Act of Violence. These were already in stark contrast to Brusly High School's Taylor Swift Drink Milk posters warning of the dangers of calcium deficiency.
But what happened once we entered the classrooms themselves, the entire atmosphere shifted and it no longer felt like a prison. It felt like a future. Just like any classroom, the walls of their HiSET (former GED) classes were filled with posters of periodic tables, food pyramids, geometric shapes, algebra formulas, planets and even a revision checklist! I teared up when I looked at the bulletin board and saw a motivational message: Shoot for the Stars.
I couldn't help but think back to something that Gary Young, the assistant warden, had impressed on my class before we even got off the bus. He said that the penitentiary "had to start taking a more holistic approach. He said it's not just about educating the mind. It's about educating the heart. You gotta go for the heart, otherwise if they attend our school here, we'll just end up with smarter criminals"
Now… this idea of educating or nourishing the heart is at the heart of social and emotional learning in schools, but to hear it as the cornerstone of learning at a prison made for people serving life sentences gave us all a shock. Perhaps it was because this approach to teaching has not traditionally been supported in our schools. But we saw it in the classroom and we were in immediately. As my students engaged the offenders in round table conversations, we could immediately see the pride they had for their new shot at an education. One man had been trying to get his GED for 20 years and is now within arms reach of his HiSET diploma in January 2020 if he just passes reading. 20 years! That's grit! He accepted the consequences of choices that placed him in the prison system, but said that teachers here made him feel he could finally achieve something, even if it took a while.
We also heard some sadder stories, marking experiences in our education system that were devoid of culturally responsive teaching, dignity, and social and emotional care. One offender hated school since fifth grade when a teacher in the late 70's told the class that as an African-American, he was still part ape and hadn't fully evolved. Another man said his fourth grade teacher made a prediction to the class that half would end up pregnant, dead, or in prison by the end of high school. She didn't have very high hopes for the other half, either.
But the thing is, despite some of these key examples of how schools failed to keep their promise for a good education by failing to support the social and emotional learning of these men as children, two things were clear: 1) They, in no way, blamed past teachers for the terrible choices they'd made and 2) Their current opinion of school was very different today and they attributed the shift solely to their teachers at the penitentiary.
However, what's fascinating about the teachers and mentors at Louisiana State Penitentiary is that they're nearly ALL offenders! In fact, there are only three full-time, certified teachers. But every single teacher is trained on holistic learning that puts the learner at the center and ensures the emotional needs are met. The expression of these outcomes became the best professional development for teaching that I've ever had and the most powerful experience I could've hoped for my rising educators.
Every offender remarked that what was different about school this time around was discovering that
Education should be used to better help those around you,
Each teacher took the time to learn each student to find out where their potential was and
Each teacher worked with them to see the possibilities in a world behind bars that were nearly invisible to them when they lived on the other side of them.
As my students broke off into small groups to lead discussions, I heard them ask the offenders for advice they would give to anyone considering becoming a teacher. These men have life sentences in prison and are striving for GEDs but the advice was exactly what every teacher needs to hear:
Be mindful of words you use and choose around the students. They're listening, watching and "they're not dumb".
A teacher can change the direction of a life. They can make a child gain or lose a dream.
Challenge EVERY student. Not just the ones you think have the best shot.
Learn your students as quickly as you can. They desperately need you to.
Truly, these offenders were helped to understand that their job is to help society and communities, even from inside a prison. They not only benefited from incredibly high expectations but felt empowered and loved. They were being taught social and emotional skills and how self-management and resilience can make all the difference in the world.
Considering that these ideas are the very foundations of social and emotional learning, no one at Louisiana State Penitentiary calls it that. They just know that these elements have to build the foundation of their reentry program if they're to ensure their safety. By also ensuring dignity and quality of life, offenders, even after realizing they may never see beyond the barbed wire, know that they are still worthy human beings capable of making their world a better place. Back on the bus as we reflected on the experience, there were few dry eyes when one of my students remarked, "It's a shame that some of them had to go to prison to get their first great teacher. We need to do better."
That's really the heart of the matter. Long before I knew the jargon or buzzwords for social and emotional learning, I knew that my classroom had to be a safe place for students to explore, feel valued, and discover their potential. Much like the approach of the assistant warden, I realized that if I didn't ensure that education in my class involved relationship building through human connection, I was just going to churn out really smart robots who didn't care enough about any problem to bother to solve it.
Part of the power of teaching is that once we find out something exists, we find a way to harness its power so that we can give it to our kids. In this case, my Educators Rising students and I discovered that great teaching through attention to and empowerment of human beings goes a long way in delivering a true education, capable of changing the world around us. Content alone simply can't hold a candle.
This experience certainly changed more than a few viewpoints of my students who were still resisting the call to be educators. After that day, they felt a sense of hope and purpose in education. Through an authentic experience, the teachers and offenders at Louisiana State Penitentiary showed my students a different view of what it means to teach. They showed us all that if we present education as a means to change, then we are giving each of our students a life-long key to unlock the barriers around us… whether made out of steel bars, fear, or disbelief that any one of us has the ability to make the world better.
Kimberly Eckert teaches Educators Rising and serves as the Innovative Programs Coordinator for West Baton Rouge Parish Schools in Louisiana. She holds a BA in social work, an MEd in Special Education, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Learning, Innovation, and Instruction. Eckert has been teaching for 11 years, is a national fellow for Understood.org, an expert teacher for NCLD (National Center for Learning Disabilities), a 2019 NEA Social Justice Activist of the Year national finalist, 2018 Louisiana Teacher of the Year, and the 2018 Louisiana Public Interest Fellow.
Class Website: https://sites.google.com/wbrschools.net/eckertsecksperts/home
Twitter: @2018LaToy
Facebook: @2018LaToy
Instagram: @2018LaToy
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People of Louisiana – Community (January 2020)
Committed to Making A
Difference!
Do you know a strong woman (or man) who has a nonprofit worthy of recognition? Or someone who is committed to making a difference in their community by volunteering?
Please fill out the form and let us know! We would like to feature them in the blog!
FILL IN NOMINATION FORM HERE
Women's Health – January 2020
WOMEN'S HEALTH BLOG January 2020
Words from Elena Mann, M.D.
Ladies First!
Women's health is perhaps one of the most influential health initiatives of our time. Women play a vital role in ensuring others receive the care they need, but many women often neglect themselves. As we enter into the time of year when resolutions are made, resolve to put ladies first! This will lead to profound changes in women's health and family well being. As most well-intentioned resolutions are not kept, let this be a handy guide in which to refer if you get off track during the year. The key to change is to make small steps that you can build upon.
At the core of a good women's health program is you. A theme to focus upon is mind body awareness. This will encompass nearly all aspects of a successful health platform. Examine your personal and family history, your current lifestyle, and your goals for yourself and your family. Create your team which should include your physician as your health coach. It should also include support from close family and friends.
Make 2020 the year that you put ladies first—yourself included!
One primary focus should be on the maintenance of your mental health. Many women suffer from depression, anxiety, or a combination of these. Often, this is hidden or ignored. Resolve to help yourself or another woman address mental health concerns. Mental health challenges can affect your physical health and the ways in which you interact with those around you. Ensure you have a trusted support system. Develop good sleep hygiene. Finally, try to incorporate a few minutes of daily meditation or other relaxation techniques. Doing so will help create a sense of calm in the midst of the hustle and bustle of your everyday life.
Another important aspect of women's health is attention to your breast and reproductive health. This should begin in the teenage years and continue throughout menopause. Breast self-awareness involves ensuring you are familiar with your breasts and alert to any changes. Both self examinations and clinical examinations are vital first steps in breast cancer surveillance. Annual mammograms should also be a part of your breast self awareness regimen starting at age 40 or sooner based upon your personal and family history.
Many women seek care for family planning purposes. It is important for women to be proactive with their reproductive planning. Additionally, when pregnancy occurs, it is essential for your health and the developing baby's health to establish and maintain prenatal care. Reproductive health also includes having annual examinations. Your doctor will perform or arrange age-appropriate cancer surveillance, including Paps, when needed. General physical and mental health care needs are addressed at annual examination visits as well. Blood pressure and weight will be examined and recommendations made that will help support your heart and cardiovascular health. Any areas in which you can improve will be identified. Your physician will provide guidance on ways in which you can maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Two great sites to reference for more information on women's health are:
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
The Centers for Disease Control
These include facts, guidance, and current recommendations. Bookmark these as they can be valuable resources for you and your family.
Make 2020 the year that you put ladies first—yourself included! Establish a regimen that includes daily exercise and healthy lifestyle choices. If you don't quite reach your goals, try again. Enlist the support of family and friends.
Dr. Elena Mann is an obstetrician and gynecologist with South Louisiana Medical Associates and Terrebonne General Medical Center. She also serves as the medical director for the Hope Restored Pregnancy Resource Center. She graduated from Xavier University of Louisiana with a degree in Biology. She received her Doctor of Medicine degree from the Medical College of Georgia. Dr. Mann completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology from Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans and is board-certified by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. She enjoys teaching and has served as a medical school instructor, residency instructor, and a preceptor for nurse practitioners. She is licensed to practice in four states. Dr. Mann frequently volunteers with local organizations and is active in her community. She enjoys spending her free time traveling with her husband and family of five.
Louisiana Fosters – Riverside
Riverside is a small congregation of about 300 faithful souls located at 200 South City Parkway in Lafayette. What it lacks in members it makes up in love. The First Lady once said about Riverside, "We have a concern for the children in our community and this State". The real concern started back in the summer of 2016. The Acadiana area had been devastated by massive flooding, and supplies were being distributed to the people in the community, when Riverside was approached by Ms. Michelle Trahan of Children and Family services. She asked if Riverside could provide help to some families with foster children, whose homes were flooded. It was with open hearts that Riverside made every effort to see that these families got the help they needed. It was the true and caring hearts of the women at Children and Family services that brought to light the realization of just how important these children are to the community. Since then, every year, Riverside hosts a "Breakfast with Santa". Here, the gift wish lists of foster children are filled. Riverside helped 40 Foster families in 2019 in their community with Thanksgiving meals. The month of November was a blessing for Riverside as they were able to host an adoption ceremony. What a joy it was to see the children adopted into caring families. An Easter egg hunt with bar-b-que, and fun jump is planned for April of 2020, and Riverside also supplies gift cards and anything in any area there is a need.
Danny Hebert, director of Riverside says, "I have come to realize that sometimes it is the little things we do for these families, that can make the biggest difference in their lives. When you see a need that is filled, it can bring an indescribable joy to your heart. But when you are able to see a child smile there is no greater feeling in this world. I consider Riverside and myself fortunate to be able to be a part of what is going on in our great state, to help these children and these wonderful families".
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Infection control - 07/01/2021
Gene accordions as potential markers for pathogenic properties
Bacteria must react to changes in the environment in order to survive. This is partly done by adapting genetic material, for example by multiplying and shortening individual genome segments. The research group led by Dr. Simon Heilbronner from the Interfaculty Institute of Microbiology and Infection Medicine at the University of Tübingen has shown that these so-called gene accordions are frequently found in the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus.
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de:443/en/article/news/gene-accordions-potential-markers-pathogenic-properties
Lab-on-a-chip - 11/11/2020
Microfluidic platform for the best possible cancer therapy
Every tumour and every patient is different, and there are individual reactions to drugs as well as the problem of resistance. Patient-specific cancer treatments require innovative and cost-effective approaches. The TheraMe! consortium has developed a novel instrument: a combination of microfluidic experiments and mathematical modelling for use in cancer precision medicine to prevent incorrect therapy options.
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de/en/article/news/microfluidic-platform-best-possible-cancer-therapy
Atriva Therapeutics - 21/10/2020
COVID-19 pioneer drug in Phase II clinical trial – with double the power
The effective treatment of people with severe COVID-19 is a major goal during the corona pandemic. ATR-002, an oral small molecule that targets RNA viruses such as influenza virus and SARS-CoV-2, has a dual effect: it impairs viral propagation and also has an immunomodulatory effect. And what's more, due to its unique cellular mechanism of action, the efficacy of Atrivia Therapeutics' drug candidate is not reduced by virus mutations and…
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de/en/article/news/covid-19-pioneer-drug-phase-ii-clinical-trial-double-power
Press release - 01/09/2020
Strengthening the immune system with small molecules
Infections pose an increasing risk to hospitalized patients. In collaboration with a number of partners, the Fraunhofer IGB has developed a new therapeutic approach as part of the InnateFun project. Their strategy is to improve cells' ability to defend themselves against harmful microorganisms by acting on their immune receptors. The researchers' work on this therapeutic approach has reached the animal model stage.
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de/en/article/press-release/strengthening-immune-system-small-molecules
Drug counterfeiters use fear of corona epidemic
Falsified chloroquine tablets identified in Africa - University of Tübingen supports local pharmacists in the analysis.
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de/en/article/press-release/arzneimittelfaelscher-nutzen-angst-vor-corona-epidemie
Brain tumour patients could benefit from heavy ion therapy
Glioblastoma is a malignant brain tumour. It does not respond anywhere near as well to conventional forms of therapy than other tumours because it contains particularly resistant cancer cells. Scientists at the Heidelberg Ion Beam Therapy Center (HIT) at Heidelberg University Hospital and the German Cancer Research Center have shown that heavy ion therapy is effective against these cells.
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de/en/article/news/Brain-tumour-patients-could-benefit-from-heavy-ion-therapy
Dossier - 06/12/2019
Microbiome: human health is closely connected with our microbial communities
People have 1.3 times more microorganisms than body cells. This microbial community influences how we digest our food, how active our immune system is, as well as whether we tend to be more anxious or curious. A number of diseases have also been shown to be associated with a disturbed microbiome. Researchers still have a long way to go before the knowledge acquired can be used for developing therapies.
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de/en/article/dossier/microbiome-human-health-closely-connected-with-microbial-communities
The answer to antibiotic resistance may lie in the microbiome
Globally, increasing numbers of bacteria are becoming resistant to common antibiotics. Moreover, many reserve group antibiotics are no longer effective for infections caused by multidrug-resistant pathogens. Researchers in an excellence cluster at the University of Tübingen are investigating an alternative approach to combating bacterial infections. Their goal is to specifically influence the microbiome, the human microbial community.
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de/en/article/news/answer-to-antibiotic-resistance-may-lie-in-the-microbiome
Freiburg im Breisgau - 04/06/2019
Spindiag's continued road to success: Expansion of Series A with an additional 4 million euros for market entry
Spindiag, a young medtech company in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, announced today the expanded financing of its first Series A. Based on a proprietary microfluidic technology first researched at the company's mother institute Hahn-Schickard, Spindiag is developing a sustainable platform to diagnose infections and, as a first product, a rapid test for multidrug-resistant bacteria.
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de/en/article/press-release/spindiags-continued-road-to-success-expansion-of-series-a-with-an-additional-4-million-euros-for-market-entry
New edition - 24/05/2019
Tumour metastasis
Cancer is usually not curable when metastases have formed in the body. Metastases are often resistant to drugs that have successfully eliminated the primary tumour. The basic features of the complex process of metastasis are now known, but many details still remain elusive. Intensive research activities are focusing on new therapeutic concepts aimed at developing effective anti-metastatic therapies.
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de/en/article/dossier/tumour-metastasis
Tumour monitoring using liquid biopsy
Liquid biopsy, the analysis of cancer biomarkers and circulating tumour cells in body fluids such as blood, is revolutionising the diagnosis and monitoring of cancer. It has also been possible to expand circulating tumour cells from the blood under laboratory conditions. It is expected that in the future, liquid biopsy will be able to precisely characterise tumour cells at every stage of a cancer.
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de/en/article/news/tumour-monitoring-using-liquid-biopsy
Scientists to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria in wastewater
In Germany, around 1,500 tonnes of antibiotics per year are administered to humans and animals. As a result, more and more bacteria are developing resistance to common antibiotics. As part of HyReKA, a cooperative project funded by the BMBF, scientists led by Professor Thomas Schwartz from the KIT are investigating how antibiotic-resistant pathogens spread and how they can be prevented from doing so.
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de/en/article/news/scientists-to-combat-antibiotic-resistant-bacteria-in-wastewater
High distinction for stem cell researcher Andreas Trumpp
This year's State Research Prize of Baden-Württemberg awarded for outstanding achievements in applied research goes to Andreas Trumpp from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the Heidelberg Institute for Stem Cell Technology and Experimental Medicine (HI-STEM). Theresia Bauer, State Minister of Science, Research and the Arts, presented the award, which carries a monetary prize of €100.000, at a festive ceremony on December 10, 2018.
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de/en/article/press-release/high-distinction-for-stem-cell-researcher-andreas-trumpp
SpinDiag closes second financing round of EUR 3.0 million (USD 3.4 million) to complete product development of its point-of-care screening system for antibiotic-resistant bacteria
One year after its seed financing, SpinDiag GmbH closes a second financing round of EUR 3 million (USD 3.4 million) as planned. The financing will enable SpinDiag to complete the product development of its first product for screening for antibiotic-resistant bacteria and to start clinical trials. This will pave the way for regulatory approval in the EU.
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de/en/article/press-release/spindiag-closes-second-financing-round-of-eur-30-million-usd-34-million-to-complete-product-development-of-its-point-of-care-scr
Three new Clusters of Excellence for Tübingen
University takes next hurdle in the German government's Excellence Strategy funding program. The University of Tübingen is to have three new Clusters of Excellence.As part of the German government's Excellence Strategy funding forhigher education research, Tübingen will host new outstanding research networks starting in January 2019. Representatives of Germany's higher education policymakers announced the decision in Bonn on Thursday.
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de/en/article/press-release/three-new-clusters-of-excellence-for-tuebingen
With molecular diagnostics to biomarker-based personalised therapy
Diagnosing suitable biomarkers is a prerequisite for tailoring personalised therapies to patient heterogeneity. Genetic tests and genome sequencing play a key role in these diagnoses. Up until now, personalised therapy has achieved the greatest success in the field of oncology. However, personalised treatments are also gaining in importance for treating other diseases.
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de/en/article/dossier/with-molecular-diagnostics-to-biomarker-based-personalised-therapy
Future Insight Prize
Funding programme, Funded by: Merck KGaA, Submission deadline: 31/12/2020
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de/en/database/funding/future-insight-prize
Bacteriophages as alternatives to antibiotics
Multidrug-resistant bacteria are resistant to many existing antibiotics and can be difficult to treat. There are increasing numbers of them worldwide. Although novel antibiotics are being developed, there are far too few of them to tackle the rise of multidrug-resistant bacteria. In Eastern Europe, doctors have been treating bacterial infections with viruses that infect bacteria, so-called bacteriophages, for almost 100 years.
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de/en/article/news/bacteriophages-as-alternatives-to-antibiotics
Resistance, immunity and malaria vaccination
People who have survived a malaria infection often develop immunity to the disease. International malaria research is aimed at exploiting a person's natural immunity in order to treat malaria effectively and avoid resistance to previously effective drugs. These new approaches also raise hopes that one day countries at high risk of malaria may be able to eradicate the devastating disease.
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de/en/article/news/resistance-immunity-and-malaria-vaccination
Double success for Heidelberg stem cell researchers
Two awards at once, both carrying high monetary prizes, go to young researchers from the Heidelberg Institute for Stem Cell Research and Experimental Medicine (HI-STEM) at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ): Simon Raffel will receive the 2018 Walter Schulz Prize. Simon Haas will share the 2018 Otto Schmeil Prize with his colleague Lars Velten from EMBL.
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de/en/article/press-release/double-success-for-heidelberg-stem-cell-researchers
New strategies against malaria
Malaria, which is a mosquito-borne disease caused by Plasmodium parasites, is still one of the worst infectious human diseases. The parasites have developed resistance against previously effective drugs and new strategies to combat malaria are urgently needed.
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de/en/article/news/new-strategies-against-malaria
Medications that target metastasing tumours
Tumour metastases are often resistant to the drug that is used to eliminate the primary tumour. Genome-wide analyses of mutation patterns in the primary tumour and its metastases provide information on the aggressiveness of cancer and may help to find the best available means of further treatment. This has been demonstrated by scientists from Heidelberg in a clinical trial on the molecular evolution of renal cancer.
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de/en/article/news/medications-that-target-metastasing-tumours
KDM4 – an efficient target for the therapy of triple-negative breast cancer
While breast cancer survival has clearly improved in recent years, women with triple-negative breast cancer have benefitted very little from progress in cancer medicine. Targeted therapies aimed at inhibiting epigenetic regulators might offer a potential new option for the treatment of breast cancer. Prof. Dr. Roland Schüle and Dr. Jochen Maurer have discovered an epigenetic enzyme called KDM4 and come up with a new cell model that significantly…
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de/en/article/news/kdm4-an-efficient-target-for-the-therapy-of-triple-negative-breast-cancer
Antimicrobial layer expected to fight hospital acquired infections
Infections caused by bacteria that contaminate the surface of medical devices such as catheters and wound dressings are not that rare and can even be life-threatening. However, at present there is no really effective way to keep these products germ-free until they are used. Scientists at the University of Freiburg have now developed a surface coating that reliably kills bacteria, but is harmless to human cells.
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de/en/article/news/antimicrobial-layer-expected-to-fight-hospital-acquired-infections
SpinDiag GmbH – rapid test makes it difficult for pathogens
Antibiotic-resistant pathogens are becoming an increasing problem, especially in hospitals. Infected patients must be isolated as soon as possible. However, appropriate methods for testing patients upon admission to hospital and isolating them if necessary are still lacking. A young biotechnology company from Baden-Württemberg called SpinDiag GmbH has developed a cost-effective method for the rapid testing of microbial resistance in normal…
https:////www.gesundheitsindustrie-bw.de/en/article/news/spindiag-gmbh-rapid-test-makes-it-difficult-for-pathogens
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and badly regressed basic workloads on NUMA systems.
highest zone in the node.
turned out to be as indicative as a coin flip.
make it configurable and agree on a sane default.
* time the page has in memory before being reclaimed.
-	* fairness round-robin cycle of this zonelist.
* actually part of this zonelist's round-robin cycle.


Huge numbers of people tend to celebrate St. Patrick's Day because of the parades, the pub visits, and or crawls, drinks to indulge in, the parties, and most importantly, the fun! It's been celebrated like this for a long time, that nobody bats an eyelid anymore. After a tiring week of work people just like to relax and enjoy one another every once in a while, which is why many look forward to joining St.Patrick's Day activities.
St. Patrick's Day is definitely among the largest celebrations within the country. Just simply go from one city to another and you get to find floats and an immeasurable crowd that follows!
Let's stop and think for a bit on the purpose of the holiday. Who is St. Patrick? How did he become known in Ireland and the US? How did the modern St. Patrick's Day come into fruition?
Social Scene takes you back to the past to help you to see how it all began. The history will even make for a great conversation starter while you and your friends sit at your favorite Irish pub, Guinness in hand, and enjoying the occasion.
The feast day of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland is celebrated on every 17th of March. This began as an observance of the death of St. Patrick. St. Patrick was born in Roman, Britain back in the late 4th century. By the age of 16, he was taken to Ireland and was taken against his will to become a slave.
St. Patrick was able to escape his captors and went back to Britain, yet he still returned to Ireland in order to convert the Irish people to Christianity. He has then successfully established several monasteries, schools, and churches.
Ireland has grown to celebrate St. Patrick's Day with religious services and feasts because of St. Patrick's undying devotion and many contributions to the country.
St. Patrick's Day came to be hugely celebrated in the US thanks to the Irish immigrants who populated some cities and those who held political power. The celebrations that were grandeur and among the earliest to commemorate the day were the cities of Boston, New York, and Chicago.
Since the feast grew to be loved by many, a lot of people, Irish or non-Irish joined in on the occasion. It wasn't just a celebration for the Irish people, but it was a celebration welcoming everyone to embrace the Irish culture.
Things like wearing green hats, green shirts, and even using the shamrock plant as the design have become the norm. The shamrock is the Irish national plant and you're probably very familiar with it since it's the dominating plant you see on every Irish themed shirt or Irish bar on St. Patrick's Day.
Guinness is also strongly associated with the feast along with other Irish beers, some of which are dyed green as an ode to St. Patrick. Fun fact: green is a dominant color in St. Patrick's Day because of the Shamrock plant. St. Patrick is known to have used the plant as part of his religious teachings.
Foods like Shepherd's pie, corned beef, and cabbage are on top of menus and people flock to Irish restaurants for St. Patrick's Day specials too.
Many celebrate the holiday in connection with the Irish culture. However, some may forget that part of it is a celebration of Catholicism. St. Patrick was a key figure in bringing the Roman Catholic beliefs towards Ireland.
For the longest time, St. Patrick's Day was commemorated with small and humble feasts in Ireland since it was known to be the day of his death. It was not until the 1700s that people began to celebrate the holiday formally. At present, the celebration has evolved into something so much larger in scale but focuses more on Irish traditions and culture.
With the celebration, come the myths, the rumors, and the claims.
Who doesn't love some old wives tales, right? What makes St. Patrick's Day even more exciting, apart from the green food and drinks that you get to enjoy, is the folklore that comes with it.
Ireland is a magical place on its own, and no it's not just because of stories of golden treasures, lucky four-leaf clovers, and leprechauns, it's because of how rich their culture is and how they manage to keep all of these interesting Irish beliefs alive!
It was believed that a voice had spoken to St. Patrick telling him to go back to Ireland even after escaping a possible life of slavery there. This voice came from his dreams and after hearing this, he decided to make his return years later. He eventually became the Irish people's apostle.
St. Patrick was ordained as a priest and ddi return to Ireland to convert the Irish people to Christianity, it wasn't the easiest of tasks since he was constantly harassed and beaten by thugs. Shortly after his death, his memory vaguely remained with people.
The myth that revolved around St. Patrick helped people recognize him and his work. Later on, the same myths propelled him to finally become the nation's patron saint.
According to popular myth, St. Patrick is responsible for driving all the snakes out of Ireland after they attacked him while he fasted for 40 days. The snakes were believed to have drowned in the sea.
Contrary to the myth, some experts claim that the snakes were a mere symbolism for the eradication of older traditions in Ireland before St. Patrick taught Catholicism.
The three leaves of the shamrock used for St. Patrick's Day symbolizes the Christian holy trinity. These are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The real plant, shamrock, as recognized by botanists is the Trifolium Dubium. It is a wild-growing and three-leaf clover plant that can germinate in springtime.
Perennials Trifolium repens and the Medicago Lupulina might fool you into thinking that they are actual shamrocks when they are not.
Then again, people from way back when, were not as particular about the shamrocks that they wore. Experts believe that many of them just wore anything that looked clover-like. There's also no truth about shamrocks specifically growing in Ireland alone since they can be found all over Europe.
It's no doubt that St. Patrick's Day is very popular in America. So many people celebrate it that it spawned a notion that only Americans actually invented St. Patrick's Day.
In Ireland, St. Patrick's Day is actually considered as a minor religious holiday and usually, priests would acknowledge it. Families would simply eat a big meal at home and celebrated the feast religiously. This was very different from the way that Irish-Americans have taken to celebrate it.
As far as the record goes, St. Patrick's Day was both commemorated by Ireland and immigrants in America with Irish descent. Irish soldiers in the 18th century celebrated St. Patrick's Day in order to once again reconnect with their Irish roots.
Decades after, the parades came and places like Philadelphia, Chicago, and Boston were amongst the most prominent to celebrate it. This became possible because of the number of Irish immigrants in these places.
Throughout the years, the celebration isn't only something to remember St. Patrick for, but it also shows the bonds of solidarity and ethnic identity have continued to grow.
A lot of accounts state that St. Patrick never wore green at all. However, he always used the shamrock to explain what the Holy Trinity was. Druid rituals had meaning for shamrocks even before then. The shamrock represented the three prongs, the number three proved to be significant in pagan traditions.
Green was his color for a while because of the shamrock, but it was then replaced by blue. It wasn't until another group of Irish Protestants started rebelling against the British to reclaim green as the real symbol.
If you're familiar with Wearing The Green, then you probably know that it's a very popular theme song that was always used to show Irish nationalism.
Have you ever wondered why they turn the river green on St. Patrick's Day? Is it something that people just want to do or is there any meaning behind it?
As green became the official color associated with St. Patrick and the Irish people, it also became a symbol of commitment to Ireland.
Chicago is noted to have dyed part of the Chicago River green in 1962 to show solidarity. It all began with a dye stain that looked brilliant green. According to the Chicago Tribune, the head of the Plumber's union, Steve Bailey, noticed this and thought, why not use the dye to make the whole river green?
The dye was in fact used to trace sources of river pollution. There have been concerns raised about the environmental impact of the dye and according to Margaret Frisbie who was the executive director of the advocacy group, Friends of the Chicago River, it was minimal in comparison to sewage-treatment plants.
Even though dying the river green is already part of the tradition, the group hopes to change that and focus on making the Chicago River a healthy habitat for turtles, beavers, herons, and fish to thrive in.
There are so many ways to celebrate St. Patrick's Day nowadays. People can have fun in their own way and there is more than just one activity that you, your family and friends can enjoy. Here are top 10 ways to enjoy St. Patrick's day!.
A home or restaurant party may not be as big as the town party, but if you like being with family and friends on St. Patrick's Day, then this is one of the best ways to celebrate. You can have home cooked Irish inspired meals, or have them catered from your favorite Irish restaurant. Nothing beats quality time and also having fun.
There are people who have taken St. Patrick's Day to heart and make time to celebrate every year. A lot of cities in the US, whether big or small will have their own versions of the St. Patrick's Day parade. This means that wherever you are, you have a chance to partake in the occasion. This is the perfect time to wear those clothes you have in green and dance to Irish music and even get some free candy along the way.
Check the internet for an events schedule nearby or you can even call your local TV station to know about the schedule of events and the date of the parade.
If you love drinking, then this is the perfect time to go all out and enjoy as many drinks as you can. St. Patrick's Day is almost as synonymous as drinking at your local Irish pub. So many bars and pubs put out St. Patrick's Day specials that it just makes you want to try out everything!
You can go around drinking with friends or even meet new people from all of the bars and pubs that you step into. It's a fun and exciting way to taste Irish beer and food, and also to get a feel of what Irish pubs are like. More importantly, bonding with others and camaraderie is something that St. Patrick's Day advocates.
If authorities can dye an entire river green, whose to stop you from dying water in your own bathtub green? In celebration for St. Patrick's Day, you can get non-toxic bath dyes and even bath bombs that have the green color for you and your family to enjoy.
Dyes for baths only stain the water and not the skin. If you've ever tried bath bombs before, then this would be something you'd look forward to. You can be a little extra and add as much as you want such as rubber toys that relate to the occasion like leprechauns and even four-leaf clovers.
It doesn't matter whether you are American or Irish, St. Patrick's Day has been celebrated for years, and not only for Irish people. It is the coming together of people from various nations to celebrate what St. Patrick stood for and that is faith, brotherhood, and peace.
The next time you head out to a St. Patrick's Day event, you can now share some of the interesting facts learned during a hearty talk at the bar or pub of your choosing.


A pillow is the most basic and essential home accessories. Pillows are a great tool to add color accents to your living space.
The Indigo textile is probably one of my favorite fabrics, and it has been popular in Home Decor for quite some time. The dark and lighter Indigo tie-dye fabric originates from Burkina Faso.
The Baule Indigo Ikat comes from the Ivory Coast. The fabric consists of different pieces that are stitched together. Limited edition!


Cinch Connectivity Solutions has been awarded the Three-Star Supplier Excellence Award by Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems for 2017. This annual award is presented to Raytheon suppliers having achieved 95% or better performance, in both Quality and Delivery.
Cinch Connectivity Solutions was one of 66 companies recognized by Raytheon's Integrated Defense Systems business for 3-Star honors.


Unique, whimsical and minimal with a touch of retro, this print will appeal to the young and the young-at-heart. It is not only a perfect decoration for the children's room, baby nursery, home and office interiors but also an ideal gift for the animal lover in your life.
True to description and beautiful quality!
Gorgeous prints exactly as described and the communication with Chaun was just excellent. Can't wait to hang them in my office!


text:
Mandatory Fun
MilTech
MilSpouseFest
How The Thai Navy Rescued The First 4 Boys From That Isolated Cave In Thailand
The first four boys who were trapped in the cave in Thailand have been rescued and are in "perfect" health. The boys had...
By Matthew Michaels, Business Insider July 08, 2018
The first four boys who were trapped in the cave in Thailand have been rescued and are in "perfect" health.
The boys had to travel about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) with oxygen tanks, tethered to cave divers to exit. About 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) of the journey was underwater, where everyone had to wear full face masks.
Reports emerged that the trapped boys did not know how to swim. Swim lessons are rare in Thailand, where the leading cause of death for children under 15 is drowning. Over the past few days, the boys were given lessons in swimming and diving before they started their journey out of the cave.
Related: How US Troops Are Working To Help Rescue That Trapped Thai Soccer Team »
Experienced cave divers have noted how difficult the dive in Thang Luam Cave is. In addition to having no experience diving, the boys have mostly been without food and medicine for two weeks in tight quarters where oxygen is limited.
On Friday, officials warned that oxygen levels in the cave dropped from 21% to 15%, further complicating rescue efforts. A Thai Navy SEAL commander told reporters he believed there was "a limited amount of time" left to rescue the soccer team.
How they got out
For the first four rescues, two divers accompanied each boy, one from the side and one from behind. They made their way back to the entrance of the cave guided by a 3 mile rope. In total, 13 foreign cave divers and five Thai Navy SEAL divers participated in Sunday's rescue, according to Reuters.
The boys had to navigate through flooded passages that are no more than two feet wide in some areas. According to the Thai government, when they reached a spot that couldn't fit a person and an oxygen tank, the divers would take the boy's tank off his back while slowly guiding the boy through the narrow passages.
Shayanne Gal/Business Insider
The first boys exited the cave several hours before they were expected to — each leg of the journey was estimated to take six hours. Narongsak Osottanakorn, the Chiang Rai governor and head of the rescue mission, said that "today, everything was smooth."
The rest of the rescues were put on hold Sunday night while air tanks and other systems are refilled.
Racing against the rain
The boys were trapped in the cave when unexpected rains made their trip out impossible. For the last several days, crews have been trying to drain enough water out of the cave to make the rescue easier. Officials recognize that they have to finish the recuses quickly, before seasonal monsoon rains arrive and flood the caves even further.
Osottanakorn told reporters that the team had rehearsed the plan for several days, and had cleared a sizeable amount of the flooding from the cave.
The rescue has captured the world's attention, and many have offered their ideas on how to get the team out.
Rescue teams gather at a deep cave where a group of boys went missing in Chang Rai, northern Thailand, Monday, June 25, 2018.Associated Press/Thai News Pix/Krit Promsakla Na Sakolnakorn
Tesla CEO Elon Musk suggested creating a tunnel out of tubes in order to avoid diving. He also floated using a small submarine that's "Light enough to be carried by 2 divers, small enough to get through narrow gaps."
Rescuers didn't use Musk's ideas to get the first four boys out, but Musk tweeted that he's communicating with the Thai government and other experts on the submarine idea.
On Sunday, Musk posted photos and video of the "kid-size submarine" his team was testing in LA. He said they would send it to Thailand Sunday evening.
Read more from Business Insider:
The Thai Navy SEALs are posting heartwarming Facebook updates as they race to save the boys from the cave
Elon Musk posted videos of the 'kid-size submarine' he's sending to help save the boys trapped in a cave in Thailand
The cost of one of the U.S.-South Korea military exercises Trump called 'tremendously expensive'? $14 million
ISIS is trying to make a comeback by creating chaos with assassinations — the same tactic it employed before it rose to power 5 years ago
The Army's new reconnaissance helicopter might be on the chopping block
WATCH NEXT:
Matthew Michaels, Business Insider View Matthew Michaels, Business Insider's articles
How The Other Half Fights
This Afghan girl watched the Taliban execute her parents. Then she picked up an AK-47 and killed two militants herself
Gul called on the government to better protect civilians from attacks by the Taliban.
Fort Carson Units Combine Simulators And Live-Fire Training To Prepare For War With Russia
Fort Carson's 3rd Brigade Combat Team wrapped up...
Soldier billed as 'timeless example of heroism under fire' to have award upgraded to Distinguished Service Cross
His actions let his soldiers inflict "severe punishment...
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These thoughts, shared by Rachel Edoho-Eket at the inaugural CliftonStrengths Summit in July 2016, wonderfully frame up the potential for impact of strengths and coaching in schools. Edoho-Eket, an assistant principal in Howard County, Maryland, has firsthand experience in a school and in a district that is committed to building on the strengths of the entire school community. Edoho-Eket's school, and many others like it around the country, have a core belief that we should focus on what is strong rather than only paying attention to what is wrong.
Gallup theory and research lead to the idea that our greatest opportunity for growth is not in fixing our weaknesses but rather in building out our potential in areas where we have a natural pattern of strength. None of us — whether a student, teacher, parent or another member of the community — has yet fully maximized our potential. And focusing on our strengths is a great way to maximize our potential; it feels natural and therefore is more satisfying than spending all of our time trying to fix our weaknesses.
Education leaders often ask Gallup what it means to be a strengths-based school. The answer may vary based on the local situation, but schools like those in Howard County sure seem to be on the right track. The simple "Name-Claim-Aim" framework summarizes the approach.
Name: In strengths-based schools, the conversation starts with naming the themes of talent with an objective assessment of the natural areas of talent for each person in the school community. Educators and other adults can employ "strengths spotting" strategies for identifying patterns of talent in the youngest students. Students aged 10-14 can take the Clifton Youth Strengths Explorer. High school students and staff members at the school can discover their talents by taking the CliftonStrengths assessment. Gallup also encourages district administrators, parents and other interested community members to participate in strengths identification.
Claim: After identifying and naming the patterns of talent, it's important to encourage the individual to claim the results as valuable ways to think about themselves. Students and adults often report that embracing the language of strengths increases the level of confidence and focus on what's possible for the future. Claiming one's strengths not only offers an opportunity to increase self-awareness, but it also creates a common language about what is right with each person.
Aim: After discovering and beginning to internalize the language of strengths, it is important to aim the strengths at meaningful goals. Building stronger partnerships within the school community is often an area of focus. Having a common language and strengths mindset can break down the barriers that may exist between students, educators and parents. Finding out that you have a strength in common with someone else is a great way to start a conversation, build mutual understanding and invest in an important relationship. Educators who know the unique strengths of each of their students are better able to individualize and build meaningful connections, leading to student engagement and success in the classroom.
Strengths-based schools provide opportunities for all members of the school community to participate in meaningful ways. They build the capacity to sustain excellence by having internal strengths specialists and coaches who bring ideas and energy to strengths strategies throughout the school. They help to integrate strengths science and practice into professional development for educators and also help to implement strengths strategies in the classroom.
Schools experience many benefits when they are strengths-based. Staff and students report higher levels of engagement, characterized by their increased involvement, enthusiasm and commitment to the school. Engaged students and educators are more creative, efficient, productive and successful than their less-engaged peers. Engaged schools are great places to work and learn, as well as attract teachers, staff and students who want to join the thriving school community.
Learn more about Gallup's partnerships with K-12 school districts.


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Thread: Gran Turismo Sport
August 26th, 2019, 12:37 AM #1171
Rare White Ape
Junior Potato
Originally Posted by dodint
Jimmy is a neat guy, seems genuinely enthusiastic about everything.
Yeah, I watch basically everything he puts on YouTube, except for the live streams. He's definitely a character!
We All Live in a Yellow BRZ
Originally Posted by SkylineObsession
Nice, we've got a couple of racers from NZ over there, so were keeping an eye on the standings. I think the final places they got were 5th and 6th.
Did you meet Jordan Greer at all? Or Montoya?
I love New York, but i'd never drive there - or in the city. I was fine driving elsewhere in the US, but NY is just too chaotic.
And just to be different, i don't have that shirt.
Montoya wasn't there for that day, he only appeared in Friday. They kept all the competitors and background people separate from the crowd, Kaz just happened to come out into the crowd after the races were over.
Driving to NYC is alright on a weekend. It helps that I only have to go about 100ft within Manhattan between the tunnel exit and the parking deck I use.
September 11th, 2019, 08:40 AM #1173
Three more of Stuttgart's finest are coming to GT Sport soon.
First is the new Taycan Turbo S four-door next month. Second, the 917 Living Legend concept car that was unveiled back in May will be added to the game in early 2020.
Thirdly, rather interestingly, Porsche will be designing a Vision GT car for the game, to be revealed at a later date!
Dead Brand Ambassador
'Trep
There's a couple of fluorescent and chrome paints in the mileage exchange atm.
I seem to recall somebody wanting fluoro paints. Or maybe that was ages ago, and everybody has everything.
I am on the lookout for the fluoro paints. I've even followed a twitter account that posts a weekly Mileage Store update.
This is the first week they're back in the rotation, so the next month-or-so should see them cycling around again.
Hopefully R3 fluorescent will be along shortly and then I can finally release my Lark McLaren upon the world
September 22nd, 2019, 09:40 PM #1177
Expert daydreamer
Hey 359, do you have a Twitter handle?
Because I think your livery is being used here. It's worth an @.
https://twitter.com/sharegameplay/st...540506627?s=21
I don't have Twitter, and it's not mine. My livery is missing the "Lady" script on the nose of the car in front of the hood.
October 16th, 2019, 02:20 AM #1180
I've come back to GT Sport a bit this week because I'm grinding out some Mileage Points in order to buy all the frickin fluoro paint chips that are available. I've taken a long-arse break from the game this year to play other things, and those other things have mostly been other sim racing titles on the PC. Real racing sims!
Some things about GTS have quite strikingly stood out to me, after having played proper sims for a while and gotten very in-tune with how they operate, and I list those observations below. But before I get to them, I'll note something interesting about these other sim racing games; they all feel very similar. The general driving experience in these games has converged on a fairly uniform feel and sensation. That tells me that racing sims are doing something right, if they end up closely packed like this while they're coming from different approaches. That's not to say that there is no difference to each other; ISI sims like RFactor and Automobilista feel different to Kunos sims like AC and ACC.
GTS, though, feels different… in its own unique way. On to my observations!
While driving, the cars feel super-understeery. They feel nice and stable at high speed while making steering corrections to navigate gentle curves, but as soon as more serious corner presents itself, you better be prepared to wait for the front end to respond. It also feels like you've got to turn the wheel a whole lot more, but adding more steering just adds more lock to the front wheels and it doesn't seem to have any effect. I'll aim for an apex and feel like I miss it every time. It's not classic understeer caused by a lack of grip, and it's not a really low steering ratio. It's somewhere in-between.
Related to the above, 4WD cars absolutely hate any sort of throttle application if you're still winding off the steering out of a corner. The Porsche 919 with its hybrid front electric motor just ploughs terribly if you're too eager to apply even gentle power via the right foot. I have to make a conscious effort to wait a little bit, lest I end up in the gravel coming on to the front straight at Le Mans. Driving Group B cars on gravel is tricky, but you can almost shut your brain off and mad-dog it Dirt Rally-style and still be fast… if you're prepared to be cautious on the throttle.
The AI is abysmally, terribly, hopelessly awful. It's always been that way, and I'm afraid it'll stay that way. It seems as though the developer simply doesn't care about AI. For them, the challenge comes from you trying to be fast enough to catch the leader before the end of the race, while they float around the circuit, lap after lap, braking in the wrong places and being utterly oblivious to your presence, rather than actually fighting a challenging field in a decent race. Maybe that will improve with the next GT title on the Ryzen-based PS5 CPU, but they also promised better AI when the 8-core Cell processor came out on the PS3, soooo, I dunno.
Perhaps related to the above comments on understeer, a lot of the driving dynamics in the game feel really amplified. It's super easy to catch a slide, like, really quickly, and the feeling of going over crests and through dips is huge, among other things. In games like Assetto Corsa you've got to really listen to what the steering is telling you in order to know what the car is doing, and bringing that experience back to GTS makes it feel like the game is shouting the information at you. I kind of like it, but I am also conscious of it maybe making the game too easy to play. If I get used to it then it'll take time to adapt back to the more challenging PC sims.
Other random notes: why can't you adjust the FOV? Why does it take so damn long the slow down the Aston Martin Vulcan from top speed when it's basically a racing car with slicks? How come the engine sound is still terrible? It's a game that's so very unique, and so very Japanese, and so different to other racing games. It's always making odd decisions that seem to forever put it just outside the realm of achieving greatness, while also including things that add greatly to the experience. If it just did a few things a little differently it could be the greatest racing game of all time.


As Jews, it is our tradition to honor the memory of deceased family members by lighting a candle on the annual (Yahrzeit) date of their passing.
From 1938 to 1945, six million Jews – men, women and children – were systematically rounded up, transported to concentration camps, beaten, tortured, starved, medically experimented upon, worked to death and ultimately disposed in crematoria. For these people, there is nobody left to honor their memory by lighting a Yahrzeit candle.
To this day, there are those who insist that the Holocaust never happened — a denial of fact that is baseless and ignorant and hateful.
To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time…Not only are we responsible for the memories of the dead, we are also responsible for what we are doing with those memories. For the dead and the living we must bear witness.
The world must never forget the Shoah, truly the darkest period in the history of the Jewish People. It is for that reason I urge you to purchase (obtain) and distribute Yellow Candles. These Yahrzeit candles should go to all members of your congregation. In addition, the candles can be sold to other members of your community including local churches and schools as an educational vehicle, and a way of perpetuating that collective memory.
Perform this important mitzvah on Yom Hashoah, April 7, 2013.
Let us never forget. Zachor!


In quest of expanding the business, Palnar has now made her presence felt in the Middle East also. Palnar Transmedia Pvt. Ltd. was successful in winning the trust of many clients there and has started the operations in a skilled and professional manner. Palnar Transmedia Pvt. Ltd is starting a new office in Germany shortly, which will ensure more interaction and improved service to our European clients. In order to explore the possibilities in the African sub continent, Palnar has recently entered into partnerships with IT consulting companies in South Africa.


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Lessons From 5 Lawyers Who Made Fools of Themselves in 2014
By William Peacock, Esq. on January 12, 2015 12:02 PM
Happy 2015. We have many thing to be thankful as the new year begins, not the least of which is this: We didn't make this list.
Last year, we talked about the biggest legal fools of 2013 on social media, and fortunately for our industry's sake, we're going to have to expand that a bit to all of the fools: criminals, pornographers, hooker-lovers, stabbers, and photoshoppers.
Here are five lawyers who really wish 2014 didn't happen:
5. UConn Adjunct Law Professor Nabbed in Prostitution Sting.
He's not the first professor to be caught (allegedly) trying to get some nookie on the streets from a lady of the night. But Ronald Murphy, an adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law, probably wishes he hadn't followed that Internet ad and allegedly trolled for trollops at a local motel back in November.
The good news is he teaches Trial Advocacy, which might come in handy. Heh. Handy.
4. Lawyer Suspended for Celeb Photoshop Pics in Best Disciplinary Ruling Ever.
Why was this disciplinary ruling so damn entertaining? It wasn't the court's writing -- that was merely "meh." Even the conduct at issue -- putting photoshopped pictures of an attorney with celebrities on her website -- wasn't the best part.
No, it was the sheer ludicrosity of Svitlana Sangary's defense to the ethics investigation and case. Her philosophies were so deep that we wrote a follow-up post about life lessons learned from Svitlana. Remember the proverb about life, lemons, and lemonade?
"And, such lemonade tastes great. it may have blood, sweat, and tears in it, but it is so enjoyable. The more challenges, the more lemons -- the more lemonade!"
Preach, sister!
3. Lawyer's 'Torture Porn' Past Pops Up in Pa. Governor's Race.
This was less about the lawyer and more about the fact that he appeared in an otherwise unremarkable commercial for a gubernatorial candidate. But we're just saying: If you're practicing law, a side career starring in erotic horror films is probably a bad idea.
2. Husband-Wife Attorneys Arrested After Double Stabbing in Va.
Ever get frustrated with an employer? We all have. The correct response to being let go from a law firm isn't heading to the senior partner's house and tormenting him and his wife at knifepoint for hours -- the path allegedly chosen by Alecia and Andrew Schmuhl, a husband-and-wife pair of attorneys, after she was let go from Bean, Kinney, and Korman P.C.
1. Awkward: Judge Beats The Crap Out of Public Defender in Court.
Talk about a bench-slapping. When a judge became frustrated with a public defender's attitude, he challenged him to fisticuffs in the hallway. The best part? It's all on tape. The other best part? Judge John "Dred" Murphy returned to the bench after winning the fight.
Who is your favorite fool of 2014? Tweet us @FindLawLP.
L.A. Deputy City Atty. Faces Child Porn Charges, Still Licensed (FindLaw's Strategist)
Defense Lawyer Dresses as Thomas Jefferson for Discipline Hearing (FindLaw's Greedy Associates)
3 Lessons From an Elder Law Attorney's Disbarment Over Client Funds (FindLaw's Strategist)


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Kindergarten can wait
Ancient temples, Creative art and crafts, Creative tourism
We swoop around another turn in the mountains. The road gets a bit steeper, and in the January rain, a gray tendril of mist drifts over the green woods. The engine churns as our car labors uphill.
Beside me, the little boy in a car seat stares out the window. Christian Thomas is five years old and reed-thin with rosy, cherubic cheeks, and by now he has eaten about half of the chocolate donut holes contained in the 14-ounce Walmart box in his lap.
What's on his mind? Is he dreading the hike planned for today? Plenty of adults would be anxious about a 15-mile trek in a chilly downpour, hoofing it up and down on the Appalachian Trail as it rolls through Shenandoah National Park.
Or is he just mesmerized by the fat raindrops lashing at the windows?
USA, Oregon, Ashland, portrait of 6 year old Christian Rego aka Buddy Backpacker while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail near Ashland Oregon with his mom Andrea Rego and Dion, Christian will be the youngest hiker to complete the Pacific Crest Trail in a single season
Quiet, quiet, quiet. There are crinkled paper bags wadded on the floor of the car, a thrashed 1996 Jeep Cherokee, and dirty laundry is strewn everywhere. Yet somehow amid the chaos, this kid is tranquil, composed—put together. His brown hair is neatly parted. His manner is genial, and when he speaks he exudes the incongruous panache of a TV reporter delivering the news from outside a low-rent apartment complex.
"I like fog," he says in a high, fluty voice. "It's cool! When you see a person, it's like, wow, he magicked here."
Christian giggles, charmed by his own wit. Then he keeps eating donut holes and his mother turns around to peer back at him. Andrea Rego is 26, with long brunette pigtails. In her most recent job, she did office work at a construction company on Long Island. She can be feisty. Like a moment ago, frustrated, she said, "I'm gonna burn this car when this trip is done!" Now, in a sweet baby voice, she tells her son, "You can have as many of those as you want, bud. Eat up." She turns to me and adds, "I'd be happy if he ate the whole box. He needs the calories."
At the moment, Christian weighs just 46 pounds. So he keeps eating donut holes, and then, after a while, he groans.
"I don't feel too good, Mommy," he says. "My stomach hurts."
"You'll feel better when you start hiking, Bud," Andrea says, again in the baby voice. "You always do."
Dion says nothing. Almost always, Dion is silent.
We park at the trailhead, and when we climb out of the car the wind is ripping. When Andrea pulls a transparent rain poncho over Christian's jacket, it rattles in the gale. No other hikers are out. There are hardly any cars in the whole park, and it's still pouring. Being a parent myself, I think, "Now's when it happens. Now is when the kid throws a tantrum in protest."
But Christian is placid. His bellyache is gone or forgotten, and he's skipping around in the parking lot and enlisting me as a straight man for his pranks. (I'm still a novelty, having just arrived to hike with him for three days.)
"Knock knock," he says.
"Car go."
"Car go who?"
"Car go beep beep." He throws his head back and laughs, so the parking lot fills for a moment with bright peals of joy.
"How many miles can you hike in a day?" he asks me as we start hiking.
"I don't know. About 20."
"That's nothing! I did 22 miles one day and I wasn't even tired."
How far is too far? How much toil and suffering should a kid take—and what for? A generation ago, back when children roamed the streets freely, pedaling their banana seat bikes in a time before helmets, no one fretted over such questions. When a six-year-old boy named Michael Cogswell thru-hiked the entire Appalachian Trail with his parents in 1980, there was nothing but feel-good rhetoric surrounding his hike. Newspapers made light of how the little boy crashed constantly, weighted by his pack, and this magazine ran a celebratory story in which the author, Michael's stepdad Jeffrey Cogswell, waxed poetic about the trailside flora—"red trillium, violets, purple ironweed"—and lionized the little boy's perseverance as a photo showed a wonderstruck Michael drinking from an ice-skimmed mountain creek.
Any parent who loves the outdoors can find him- or herself pushing the envelope, sometimes unwittingly. I will confess that when my own daughter, now 20, was in preschool, I took her on a kayak trip during which our inflatable boat sprung a leak. Our tent and sleeping bags slipped out into the rapids and I spent a frigid, sleepless night chastising myself for being selfish and negligent. But that was just a weekend. To thru-hike the AT, Christian has had to climb over rocks and roots almost every day for nine months, overcoming challenges that defeat plenty of adults, even as his young sinew and bones are still growing.
Naturally, his parents have critics. In one recent post on a Facebook page, a hiker named Yvonne called Andrea out. "If BB's mother is still on here and viewing these posts, I want to challenge you!" she wrote. "I challenge you to take a moment, step back and ask yourself who this Appalachian Trail hike adventure and experience is all about… if it truly is about Buddy… allow him to explore, allow him stop and love the mountain views."
An AT stalwart calling himself GreyWolf took a harder line, alleging that Dion and Andrea brought Buddy hiking in unsafe conditions. "The temperature never got above the 20s and was in the teens at night. Should I call social services?" he railed.
But the family's Facebook pictures from Christian's journey on the AT voice a strong rejoinder to skeptics. Here's the boy standing atop Katahdin, his arms raised in triumph. Here he is catching snowflakes on his tongue on Christmas Eve in the Smokies. As I scroll through the images, I can't help but marvel at how Christian has experienced so much delight at such a young age. And part of me wonders: Should we really be asking if Andrea Rego is a bad mom for setting her son on such an arduous task? Is the correct question, in fact: Is she the best mother ever?
Certainly, she started from a rough spot.
When Andrea got pregnant with Christian in 2008, she was in her second year of college at Stony Brook University, in New York. She was 20 years old, overweight, and ensconced in a nine-month romance with a man from whom she is now estranged.
"I hoped Christian would bring some stability to my life," she says. The plan failed. After the birth, Andrea continued attending college for a year, but then quit to work full time. Logging 50 to 60 hours a week at the construction company, Andrea, who is 5'4", ballooned to 200 pounds. "By the time I picked Christian up at daycare," she says, "I was so tired that we just went to McDonald's or ate frozen food in front of the television. Christian wouldn't eat anything if it wasn't in a package. He was addicted to TV."
Soon, though, Andrea grew closer to her friend Dion Pagonis, who had his own unfulfilling (but lucrative) job on Long Island, working in a windowless room at Sherman Specialty, the world's largest supplier of restaurant crayons. Dion, who is also 5'4", once weighed well over 250 pounds. But he is not one to live in quiet desperation forever. He's ambitious, in idiosyncratic ways. In high school, he earned his Eagle Scout badge supervising a team that re-created a Native American village. In college, at SUNY Fredonia, he was the president of Greek life.
In 2007, Dion bought a Wii Fit and began working out three hours a day. He lost 70 pounds. Not long after, Andrea joined a gym and began working out, too. By 2011, Dion was fit enough to try the AT, solo. (He made it 200 miles before twisting his ankle.) Later, he convinced Andrea to join him for a backpacking trip in Colorado. She had never before gone on an overnight hike, and she was still smoking a pack a day. Over a weekend, they covered only 7 miles. "It was very hard," she says, "but I loved it—just being outside, away from Long Island."
The experience in Crested Butte changed the trajectory of their lives. Suddenly, the pair hoped to bring Buddy to California, so they could all learn to surf. They thought they'd like try a long distance mountain bike odyssey somewhere. They wanted to put themselves on a path toward adventure, and test their own endurance as well as Christian's. In Colorado, as the snow melted, Andrea envisioned another kind of adventure.
"Why don't we hike the Appalachian Trail?" she asked Dion in April of 2013.
Crested Butte was about to button up for the off-season. So they bought the well-used Jeep for $1,500, loaded their gear, and headed east.
It's very slow hiking with Dion and Christian, and also a little bit solemn. Both of them walk with iPods and headphones. Dion listens to rock, Christian to educational music and lessons—brainy stuff chosen by Dion. (The digital lessons are the backbone of Christian's homeschooling program.) All I can hear, moving along through the woods, is the dull thud of footfalls and the rain pattering on the dead, sodden leaves. We roll along over gentle hills, passing rocky outcroppings that open onto the gray horizon, and eventually (inspired by his music, it seems) Christian begins skipping and weaving on the trail.
"Pay attention," Dion tells him. "Look where you're going."
"I love the Octopus's Garden song," Christian says when it comes on his iPod.
"Please don't sing it," says Dion. Then he adds, "Take your hands out of your pockets. Christian! Listen to instructions!"
In downtime at occasional hotels, Dion and Christian cuddle up together and watch movies on Andrea's iPad. Out on the trail, though, the dialogue is nearly all safety-oriented during the 40 miles I hike with them. To me, Dion explains, "If he trips and breaks an arm, our hike is over." In New Hampshire, Dion made Christian a promise: "If you don't have any boo-boos when we get to Katahdin, I'll give you some money." Christian lost that challenge, scraping his knee in a crash.
Now, though, it's Dion who's holding us back. Still a bit chunky at 180 pounds, he isn't a particularly fast hiker, and he's plagued with what he calls "Fred Flintstone feet"—his arches are almost convex. At times, Christian and I drift ahead. Then, I ask Christian about his audio lessons. He's learning vocabulary words: nefarious, subvert, fetid, and encumbered.
"What's the teacher saying right now?"
He squints a moment, listening. Then he parrots the saccharine voice from his iPod: "We're so encumbered with red tape we can't get any real work done."
When we meet Andrea at a road crossing, Christian runs toward her, laughing, to hug her. We all get a moment of sweet reprieve, but only a moment. Andrea says, "I always feel like we're a pit crew in a car race. It's like, 'You tie his shoes. I'll put food in his mouth.' We're always rushing to get him back on the trail." She turns to Christian. "Are you ready for some Pringles, Bud?" Looking back at me, she says, "He loves Pringles—that's his favorite food."
The Buddy Backpacker expedition is not a well-oiled machine, and by the time I joined, there'd been a medley of calamities. On the first night of the trip, after the family rolled out of Crested Butte, Andrea left her wallet at a convenience store. As Dion dislikes carrying money, the trio was broke. They made camp after midnight near Manhattan, Kansas, in a cold wind, and struggled setting up their tent for the first time. "I was shivering," Dion remembers.
After just two restless hours, the family pressed east, toward West Virginia and the start of their hike—and the start of their controversial trail strategies. Many hikers have attacked Andrea and Dion for being loosey-goosey—and also lazy—on the AT. Sometimes when faced with a big hill, they make things easy on themselves. They drove to the top of Mt. Washington twice, for instance, so Christian could hike down each side. (He never actually climbed Washington.) When it was snowing in the Smokies, they skipped ahead, down to Georgia, then came back weeks later. They took about 90 days off, in total, enabling Dion to earn some much needed money by doing design projects. They were simply hiking their own hike, to invoke the credo that pervades AT culture, but that counted little with backpacking's grand poohbahs, who in many cases have built their lives around the AT and come to style themselves the keepers of the trail's sacred mores.
"They were sloppy," says Warren Doyle, a retired college professor who's hiked the AT a record 16 times. "They did a lot of lollygagging, and they got into trouble because of that. They were out hiking far later into the winter than they needed to be." (Doyle, ironically, has critics himself. On his Appalachian Trail Expeditions, a support vehicle carts gear for hikers, enabling them to sashay nearly all 2,000-plus miles bearing nothing but daypacks.)
Other critics questioned if they were actually on the trail at all, suggesting that Christian's parents cheated by skipping several stretches of the AT, even as they pretend-logged the miles online.
"There are some people who are lying about thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail and, since it's almost Christmas, I'm not going to name them yet," wrote a man named Tom Bazemore on Facebook. "This will give them a chance to come clean and end their con game." Bazemore, who runs a Georgia-based shuttle company, continued by directly addressing his targets: "You are certainly not the first to lie about hiking the entire trail but the fact that you are using a little child in this con is truly beyond belief!"
Seventy-one comments followed, most of them nasty, and Andrea snarled back: "I hope you all are completely ashamed of yourselves for spewing such nonsense. I can't wait until we are finished and can laugh looking back at all you haters."
I called Bazemore to ask which sections Buddy and his folks had skipped. His complaints zeroed in on a 30.3-mile stretch of trail between Newfound Gap, North Carolina, and Davenport Gap, Tennessee. "I shuttled some hikers there exactly when [Christian and Dion] were supposed to be there," he said, "and I told these people to look for a man with a five-year-old boy. They never saw them."
I called Bazemore back and asked him to point me toward other skipped sections. "Look," he said, "I'm not going to go back and forth with you on this like we're all in junior high school. I know what I know and I stand by it."
The weather clears, and when we begin hiking on the second day, after camping, Christian is in high spirits. "Isn't it beautiful out today?" he says. "The trail is nice and soft, and there are no roots, and it's pretty flat right here. It's even pretty warm." He's chatty now, and he speaks of seeing orange lizards on his AT odyssey, and turkeys, and red flying squirrels, and a rattlesnake, some wild ponies, and a moose. He doesn't know the names of the plants around us. He's experiencing nature as a small animal does, sensually, as a breeze on his back and a cold bite on his brow.
Listening to him, I think of Michael Cogswell, the six-year-old thru hiker, now in his early 40s, who recently told me, "I wouldn't trade my AT experience for the world. There's a certain purity in doing something like that as a child. You can never get that back. But there are positives and negatives. By the time I was done with that hike, I wasn't really a kid anymore. I'd walked so many miles. I'd carried my own clothes and a tent and helped wash the laundry at night. I'd had all this responsibility."
Is Christian growing up too fast? He sure doesn't seem world-weary, for he keeps begging me to tell him make-believe stories. I tell him one, finally. It's about my plastic water bottle going "home," to China. The water bottle has a hard-to-pronounce fake Chinese name that Christian loves repeating, his voice a high-pitched array of scratchy, whispery sounds. When the tale is done, he spends 30 minutes detailing the plot of the film Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Then he asks, "Should I tell you about Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2?"
Is he lonely—starved for attention from people besides his parents? Probably a little, but when I ask if he misses going to school, he isn't entirely clear what school entails. Andrea says he enjoyed preschool on Long Island, but on the trail he only conjures up one memory. "They put me in with the babies," he says with disdain. I ask him if hiking ever gets boring.
"That's a silly question," he says. "No!"
"Do you ever hate the AT?"
"Sometimes I don't like it when it's really hard. Then I just want to be done. I want Mommy to be right there in the middle of the woods and I just want to go to sleep right there."
Later, I described my hike with Christian to Dr. W. Douglas B. Hiller, an orthopedic surgeon at North Hawaii Community Hospital and a one-time chief medical officer for the triathlon at the Olympics. He said, "I doubt they caused him any physical harm. As long as it was a happy family hike and he wasn't being pushed, or made to keep going when he was limping, he should be fine. If he got some bruises and cuts, well, that's what little kids do all day long—they run around and jump and fall and get up."
I searched at length for a child psychologist who might object to Hiller's sanguine take. I couldn't find one, and I decided that the hubbub over Andrea's parenting was rooted partly in fear: Andrea is different than most AT hikers. She's from working class Long Island. She's combative at times. Yes, she and Dion brought Christian hiking on a very cold day. But what's the harm in dressing warmly and hitting the trail? Yes, Dion sometimes carps at the kid. As do many parents who steer their children toward more culturally accepted goals—piano, soccer, spelling bees. Why should hiking be any different? In fact, it's easy to see the experience in a very different light. Christian and his family are hiking America's most beloved and fought-over trail in pursuit of happiness, and they're happy most of the time. Together, they've found a way to engage with the world—to commune with its beauty and have an adventure. This is what matters.
On the last day I'm on the AT, Andrea picks us up at dusk, to drive us to the nearest shelter, where we'll camp. It's cold outside, so we savor the warm blast of the car's heater. When we park, Dion limps down the short path to the shelter. Christian leaps over the puddles. Andrea cooks us all dinner. Then the next morning, backing out, she runs over the gas stove. Under her breath, she says, "Shit!" Then she laughs and throws the stove into the Jeep and drives on.
I see them only one more time, eight months later, on a rainy afternoon last September in the small town of Trout Lake, Washington, as they take a break near the end of their Pacific Crest Trail thru-hike. Trout Lake is a forested Nowheresville, and after 11 straight days on the trail they're ensconced in drab tasks—laundry, email, cleaning out their packs. Still, as I pull up to the Trout Lake Grocery to find Andrea standing there on the porch, with Christian entwined in her arms, she exudes a certain glow. There's an ease about her, a softness to her skin. She's happy—you can tell that without even asking questions. And she's sunbaked and lean now, 35 pounds lighter than when I'd last seen her. She's been hiking the whole way this time, with both her and Dion carrying packs. The Jeep is long gone.
"We did 23 miles yesterday before four o'clock," she says, looking down. "Didn't we, Buddy?"
"Yeah," Christian says, rocking a bit in his mother's arms. He's sleepy-eyed and determined, it seems, not to take the bait. "Actually," he says, "it was 22.8."
"What's been your favorite part of the PCT so far?" I ask.
But to Christian, the unlikely peace that his family enjoys wandering the world is old news. He doesn't want to sit there and talk about it. There's a trampoline behind the store, and he keeps looking out the window toward it. Eventually, Andrea lets him go. He runs over to it, loose-limbed, his body lit with delight. He climbs inside the trampoline's protective black mesh fence, and begins jumping, giddy and laughing as he sails into the sky.
Bill Donahue has written for The Atlantic and The New York Times Magazine. With his daughter, he recently swam between remote Caribbean islands, and lived to tell the tale.
Tags:Creative art, Industrial tourism, Tourist
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