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Smuggling Grace
Publications/Poetry
Interfaith Round Table Announcement
Posted on July 3, 2020 by gracesmuggler
For the last year, I've been working as Co-Director of the Interfaith Round Table of Washtenaw County alongside Dwight Wilson. This summer, Dwight decided to retire from his Co-Director role and has instead joined our IRT Board. Beginning this month, I am now the part-time Director of IRT. I thought I'd share the announcement today. This also gives me the occasion to lift up the vision of this wonderful organization. Even as we go virtual, I think we're going to have a meaningful program year.
Image Description: Photo 1) Renee Roederer stands on a street with the fallen, purple leaves of jacaranda trees in Pasadena, CA, Photo 2) Dwight Wilson and Renee Roederer sit side by side as Co-Directors at the First Presbyterian Church Mission Bazaar, Photo 3) Renee Roederer stands near a meadow with a Colorado mountain in the distance. She's wearing a purple shirt that says "Epilepsy Awareness: Love", Photo 4) Renee is gathered in her living room with members of the Young Adult Interspiritual Community.
The Rev. Renee Roederer serves as the Director of the Interfaith Round Table of Washtenaw County. Keeping our values of respect, compassion, and dignified appreciation at the center, she believes strongly in the power of interfaith dialogue. "For 25 years, the Interfaith Round Table of Washtenaw County has hosted transformative conversations throughout our communities," she says. "These transformative conversations have invited us to deepen interfaith friendships, gain mutual understanding, and discuss the pressing issues of our day. When we come together in shared dialogue, we catalyze meaningful impacts for Washtenaw County. In this vision, we form relationships and take action for collective change."
Renee Roederer says her personal motto is, "Connection changes everything." Describing herself as a relational network weaver, she prioritizes community formation with the fundamental conviction that social connection bolsters interdependence, care, and transformative action. She believes that IRT serves as a tremendous community platform to deepen spirituality and form interfaith friendships with lasting impact.
Renee Roederer grew up in Floyds Knobs, Indiana, a suburb near Louisville, Kentucky on the Indiana/Kentucky border. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Vocal Performance from the University of Louisville and a Master of Divinity from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Ordained as a Presbyterian minister, she has served Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregations in Austin, Texas; Pasadena, California, and Ann Arbor, Michigan. In these intergenerational communities, she worked as a campus minister and pastor for young adults. She keeps in touch regularly with alumni who have moved all over the country, and more than a decade later, they are still building a network of kinship together.
For the last four years, Renee Roederer has served as a Community Chaplain within Washtenaw County as commissioned by the Presbytery of Detroit. In that role, she is the organizer for Michigan Nones and Dones, a community for people who are religiously unaffiliated or who have departed from organized, institutional religious communities. Together, they talk about faith, spirituality, and larger meaning over shared conversation and friendship. As a Community Chaplain, Renee Roederer also serves as the founding mentor for the Young Adult Interspiritual Community which includes students and recent alumni from the University of Michigan who represent a variety of spiritual backgrounds.
Renee Roederer is an advocate for Disability Justice and also works on the staff of the Epilepsy Foundation of Michigan. In that role, she practices relational care and community formation as she provides support and educational resources to individuals and families with epilepsy. As a trauma survivor and as a person who had epilepsy in childhood, her own experiences of disability positively shape her identity and vision. She brings values of disability culture, such as inclusion, interdependence, accessibility, and community care, into our life together at IRT.
In a time when there is so much upheaval and promise in our world, Renee Roederer is grateful to journey with our IRT Board, faith leaders, community partners, and every participant in our dialogues. Together, we will grow in relationship, action, and mutual support.
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2 thoughts on "Interfaith Round Table Announcement"
Sharon watling says:
gracesmuggler says:
Recent Posts: Smuggling Grace
The Call to Anti-Racism
Running From Need
The Misery of Uncertainty
Unity?
Place and Possibility
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Filling Period
Start Date (Greg) 01/01/2018 -- End Date (Greg) 28/02/2018
STU Review Period
Review Start (Greg) 01/03/2018 -- Review End Date (Greg) 31/03/2018
This program, a strategic long-term investment, aims to develop a set of scientific skills required to put the Kingdom within the group of leading countries globally, in the fields of science, technology, and innovation. The program aims to conduct high level scientific research at the cutting edge of all scientific fields, in order to contribute to new discoveries, and to play a role in building the necessary scientific pillars required to improve the research environment in the Kingdom, and achieve the country's vision of building a knowledge-based society and economy.
The program's goals include the following:
Encouraging distinguished research leaders to conduct research in the fields of basic science, according to the latest scientific knowledge worldwide.
Encouraging promising researchers to develop original high-risk research ideas.
Developing scientific skills to promote the Kingdom's position as a leading country in the fields of science, technology, and innovation.
Supporting the newest scientific and technological discoveries.
Enhancing the participation of Master and Ph.D students in the implementation of basic research in Saudi universities.
Enhancing the culture of joint research among teams in universities and national research centers, and ensure harmony amongst them.
Researchers in universities and national research centers can benefit from this program. The targeted KPIs by 2020 include the publication of 1800 scientific papers and registering 450 patents, approved in the main areas of the program, namely: natural sciences, engineering and technology, medical and health sciences, and agricultural sciences.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Do You Have Skin Changes Or Discoloration? See A Vein Doctor.
A common sign of lower leg venous disease is venous stasis dermatitis or darkening of the skin of the lower leg. The skin might appear red, brown, or irritated and may have the appearance of a rash. Skin changes in the lower legs may be a sign of vein disease even if varicose veins are not present. These skin changes are often a sign of advanced disease and should be evaluated by a vascular surgeon.
Itchy, cracked, or dry skin.
In advanced stages, the skin may become thickened and coarse.
Skin discoloration occurs when damaged veins leak red blood cells into the surrounding skin, which are then broken down by the body and cause staining of the surrounding tissues. As a result, the skin in these regions becomes discolored and itchy.
The treatment for skin changes/venous stasis dermatitis is to treat the underlying venous disease. Once the underlying venous disease has been treated, the leaky veins will be closed down and no longer allow red blood cells to leak into the surrounding tissues.


This is a social good post and I was not compensated for this posting.
September is a time for a lot of things – though some went back in August, it marks the month for back to school for many of us. It is also that one month that gives us the transition from Summer to Fall – depending on where you live, the weather isn't quite hot, but it also isn't too cool yet either. But September is also a very important month for another reason – Child Passenger Safety Week. And while we should all ALWAYS be conscientious about the child and other passenger safety; this week signifies a time that we can spread the message to everyone in mass!
This year, Child Passenger Safety Week will run from September 17-23. With more than 1000 events are expected in 45 states across the country to raise awareness for proper car seat installation and usage, this is a great time to brush up on car seat safety tips and make sure your child is in the right seat, with the right fit and installation.
For most of us, grabbing our gear and running out the door and hopping in the car is an everyday occurrence. Maybe you are headed to work, a play date, or on vacation – but we spend a lot of times in our cars. When we have little ones, we put them in their car seat and buckle them up without a second thought to whether or not they are in the right seat. We trust that they are safe – and we go on our way.
Car seats, if used correctly, can dramatically reduce the risk of fatality or injury. But over half of car seats are misused in a way that could reduce their effectiveness and 1 in 3 children killed in car crashes are completely unrestrained at the time of the crash.
I remember learning all about car seats when my first baby was born and having my car seat checked by an expert at the hospital before we ever went home. Now that he's older it's up to me to keep checking to make sure she's still in the right seat as he grows. It can be hard to stay on top of all the details by myself, so I'm grateful for resources like NHTSA.gov/TheRightSeat, which has videos about how to install car seats and booster seats correctly and guides to picking the right seat by age and size.
The week concludes with "Seat Check Saturday," where Certified Child Passenger Safety Technicians will help parents and caregivers make sure their car seats are installed correctly. In most cases, this service is FREE.
Disclosure: Life of a Southern Mom did not receive any compensation for this publication. All thoughts and opinions are my own.


Even the Sky is not the limit.
Almost a year ago, I said yes to a voluntary work that I didn't know how much would change my life.
I helped two of my good friends in organising a hackathon in AI. It was the extension of the weekend of "France is AI" and it was the first time that I was really exposed to AI topics. I can't tell how exciting everything was to me! I was learning lot of new things and new words: NLP, Deep Learning, Machine Learning, Conversational Bot. I even learned how to fill up a Machine Learning canvas!
There were only 4 women among the +80 participants. Even in the organising team we were only two.
I still laugh at this video, but this is actually how everything started!
Sometimes a simple question make you realise about the problem.
One of the mentors, Louis Dorard, who was working on a new episode for his Vlog asked me and my colleague, what we thought about diversity in AI, why there were so few women attending our event, and how we could change this. I had never thought about these issues before. That was then the idea of Women in AI first came up.
Since that day, my passion for AI started to grow. I started to dig more into different topics of AI and to attend many AI meetups, Hackathons and Chatbot after-works.
All these events had two things in common: majority of men attendees with technical background, and dominated stages by men.
One of these events was the Startup Weekend AI. It was one of the best experiences that I've ever had from a Startup Weekend. We had a great team (although I was the only woman from our team of 7!). After 54h of hard work and sleeping on 42's floor, we won the jury's special prize!
It was at that weekend that I met Hanan, who was a PhD in AI and expert in Robotics, and by far the most expert person in the room. Through our conversations, we naturally reached to the idea of a female club, "a safe place for women to talk and exchange about AI topics".
We started with a simple Facebook group with a few girls who liked the idea. That's how our initial team got together. We had some members who were very beginners in AI but were highly motivated to learn, while we had some more expert members who were eager to share their knowledge with others.
Like all technologies, artificial intelligence will reflect the values of its creators. AI uses the data that its creator feeds it and will pass on the biases of its creators.
We are deploying data driven assessment tools almost every where now in our work. If we are becoming so dependent on them, then our decision making will impact that part of the population whose data is not taken into the system. And this is the problem!
The first role of AI is to be personalized and make the life better for everyone.
Our world is made up of biases. Even with the hardest efforts, we will still be biased human beings. It is thus important that teams building the future of our world with AI applications embrace internal diversity as much as they can, in order to create an inclusive AI and represent a right image of a multi-cultural society.
That's why we need not only more Women in AI, but more diversity in general. This can extend to the skin colour, religion, education, country, family, age and etc.
In all the events and conferences about AI, like all the conferences in STEM, there is a lack of women speakers. We don't see enough women as experts and leaders on the stage talking about ideas and world changing projects.
We wanted to create an environment where women own the stage and present inspiring ideas.
The reality is that there are women experts in AI and Tech, and there are actually a lot of them (here's a directory of Women in Machine Learning for instance). But they are not visible as much as their male peers. That's why we focus on events, to put the light on those women who are great for what they do.
We organise WeTALK, our regular format of thematic meetup in different cities and each time with two amazing women speakers. We also help other events with recommending them great female speakers with specific expertise in AI from our community.
This is where the source of the problem lies.
Many women who have the expertise or the experience in the field, do not step forward to speak up. As a woman coming from Middle East, I've always been told what I can do, but more often, what I CANNOT do. Sometimes it's hard to deal with external pressure, especially when you are a woman. But it all comes to what I believe that I am capable of doing, no matter what the whole world is telling me.
Public speaking is identified as the fear number 1 in the world (event before death) by 75% the people. When it comes to the gender point of view, this percentage is higher for women.
I would never think that I would one day speak on a stage and give a 15' presentation in front of 400 people before this year (that was later at AIXprize in Nov 2017). Even the thinking of it would make me want to jump out of the window. But I did what we call it "Swallowing the frog". Surprisingly it was easier than I was expecting. I've been doing thi over and over again.
Still, I don't consider myself a speaker and I think I'm far from being a good one, but I believe the key to get there is actually to "fail".
Women want to be always perfect when they are under the spotlight, while men just fake it until make it. Sometimes we just need to swallow the frog. Nobody is perfect in this world. You can get better only by failing more.
This all come to the main topic which is "education". The whole educational system is biased. Teachers don't behave the same to girls as to boys at schools. When students reach a point where they need to choose their major, there are so many factors that makes young girl students to choose non-engineering majors compared to boys.
"My teacher at school didn't believe that I can do engineering. She was telling me that engineering is not for girls and I should study marketing or fashion. I didn't listen to her, studied engineering and today I'm the only women in our team at Microsoft", Dipty Chander, also the president of E-mma.
For this reason, we are organising field trips for teenage girls between 8 and 15, before they actually go through any major orientation, in order to help them understand the different engineering, Tech, IT career options.
The first Global Community of Women in Artificial Intelligence and we are on the mission to close the gender gap in this field.
This is mostly thanks to these great people: Hanan Salam and Caroline Lair, the two other cofounders of Women in AI, Catalina Butnaru (UK), Ewelina Wołoszyn (Poland), Alexandra Petrus (Romania) & Simona Nickman (NL), our amazing ambassadors who are doing a great job in pulling up the AI ecosystem in their cities.
If you are interested in building the future of AI, join our community, come and meet us at our net WeTALK or WAI Dinner and follow our event calendar.


By his equations, an average team carried a point spread price number of seventy. A team that had a point spread price of 71 or higher was better than average. Last year, 15 teams had point spread price averages of 71 or more. The highest handicap price for a team last year belonged to the Los Angeles Rams. They were the only team to end the season with a point spread price average above 100, they finished last year with a league high 102 point spread price.
Based on a formula established by Paul and refined by both of us over the years, the information we began publishing in 2003, were numbers Paul formulated during his college years at Cal Berkeley. A point spread price is assigned to every team before a season begins utilizing factors gained from season win totals, odds to win their division, conference, and Super Bowl.
That provides a raw opening number for each team, and that number is first massaged by the work we have done in spotting motivational trends from season-to-season and then against the opening day point spreads. Three points is assigned for home field advantage, which equates to twelve point spread price numbers.
A home team favored by three points would have the same point spread price as their opponent. If a team is favored by 2½ or less, or an underdog, they will have a point spread price lower than their opponent. If a home team is favored by 3½ points or more, they will have a point spread price in correspondence to their opponent which would be higher.
For example, last season the opening point spread price number for the Los Angeles Rams was 95 when they played the Oakland Raiders on the road in a Monday Night Football opener. The Rams ran away in the second half during that contest winning the game and easily covering the point spread, 33-13.
Even as a double digit favorite the following week at home against the Arizona Cardinals, the Rams had their point spread price drop to 93 while favored by twelve points. After clobbering the Cardinals, 34-0, the Rams point spread price only rose to 98 for their Week Three matchup against their city rival, the Los Angeles Chargers. That resulted in a third straight Rams double-digit win and the cost of betting on them rose above the 100 mark for the first time in their fourth week home meeting against the Minnesota Vikings.
The Rams point spread price was 104, a number they were only able to push as a seven point home favorite and a 38-31 victory.
In all, the Rams kicked off with a point spread price of 100 or higher ten times during the regular season, and had a point spread record of 3-6-1 in those games. In the six games the Rams were priced below 100, they were 4-1-1.
Value in the point spread is an essential edge in building an overall winning campaign, and the point spread price chart on the Qoxhi Picks site is unique to all the world.
I'd like to take credit for it, only because it is that good and Paul and I have refined it over a 30 year working relationship.
But the creation credit for this one goes to Paul, and I'm just glad we get to share it.


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20 years in Portland (part three): houses of the West Hills
Music Box Residence (Scott|Edwards Architecture)
BY BRIAN LIBBY
Although most people who are familiar with my writing associate me with this blog, I actually have made about 85 percent of my living over the past 16-plus years writing for other clients, mostly magazines. And while civic and commercial architecture often interest me the most, there are more home magazines than any other type of design publication, so over the past several years I've been given the opportunity to write about a lot of houses.
As part of this 20-years-in-Portland series, I'd like to look back at some of the single-family houses that I liked best. It's not to say there weren't some great condo and apartment projects. Some of my favorite articles for the likes of Dwell and other design-magazine clients have been multifamily housing projects: buildings by Holst Architecture, Works Progress Architecture, Hacker, Lever Architecture and others. Even so, single-family houses are interesting in their own right, because almost all of us grew up living in one, and they represent an opportunity for architects to oversee a project in its totality more than other larger-scale architecture.
At first I was going to make this a post comprising all my favorite houses from across the city, but it's a list of 11 or 12 just in the West Hills alone (and some 2,000 words), so I'm going to break it down to two posts: the West Hills (in this post) and everywhere else (in a post to follow).
One of the first houses I think of is a collaboration across the decades between the two top architects of their respective generations: the renovation of a Pietro Belluschi house by Brad Cloepfil and Allied Works. The owners, John and Janet Jay, were no strangers to Cloepfil before the project began: John, who was then the executive creative director for Wieden + Kennedy, had been part of the leadership team that hired Cloepfil for that seminal project.
Jay residence (Brian Libby)
"Brad is spectacular in his ability to articulate the idea, to be able to talk you through it," John Jay told me for a 2006 Metropolitan Home article. "You sit down and you have a conversation about space and concepts of the usage of space: 'What are we about, what are our values and how does space help to express those values?' The joke I always use with him is that he's great at nothing. He has a tremendous feel for negative space—the site lines and the feeling of spatial relationships.'"
Among his improvements, Cloepfil added floor-to-ceiling glass and horizontal overhangs in an extension of the U-shaped floor plan, deferring to but never aping Belluschi's original. "It turns the courtyard into a kind of garden pavilion," Cloepfil said in the article. "Before, it made for a dark, dead spot in the back of the house. We wanted a kind of glass pavilion where the light would go all the way through."
Allied Works and Cloepfil also designed a house from the ground up, known as the Portland Heights Residence, that is also one of my favorites, although I never formally wrote about it. Clad in cedar, the main house is comprised of a series of interconnected pavilions that are joined by concrete hearths and small courtyards, which in turn bring lots of natural light deep into the interior of the space. It's also worth mentioning that both this Allied Works house and the Allied/Belluschi house were overseen by Don Tankersley Construction, easily the city's top builder of houses: a contractor that transcends general contracting with artful precision.
Portland Heights residence (Allied Works)
Speaking of Pietro Belluschi, although there are many excellent residential works by this legendary architect scattered throughout the Portland metro area and beyond, two specific houses come to mind for me: the Burkes house and the Sutor house.
The Burkes house, completed in 1947, is now actually known as the Belluschi house, as Belluschi and his wife lived there before they passed away and now the home is owned and occupied by Pietro's son, Anthony Belluschi, and his wife Marti. Anthony, also an accomplished architect who spent the majority of his career in Chicago, oversaw the restoration of the home a couple years ago, and now it's in as good a shape as it ever has been. The date of the original construction is significant, too: it's more or less the same year Belluschi saw completion of perhaps his most significant work of architecture: the Equitable Building in 1947, the world's first curtain-walled office building.
The Sutor House, also by Pietro, was completed 11 years earlier, in 1938, and is a kind of companion piece to the better-known Watzek House by John Yeon, completed in 1938. Both architects had worked under the great A.E. Doyle, and had been greatly inspired by Doyle's modest Wentz cottage on the Oregon coast, and the way it seemed to combine local vernacular traditions like barns and farmhouses with a modern sense of streamlining. The Sutor House actually looks a fair amount like the Watzek, but that's not a matter of copying so much as a story of Belluschi and Yeon both being inspired in a similar way, not only by fusing modern and traditional, but also incorporating the influence of Japanese architecture. The Sutor may resemble a Buddhist temple even more than the Watzek. And in the Sutor's case, it has a wonderful Japanese garden that's part of it's landscape; it was buried for decades before the current owner began digging it up.
Belluschi/Burkes house and Sutor House (Sally Painter)
The Burkes/Belluschi and Sutor House projects I visited because they were being newly renovated, and that is the case with most all of the older houses I'm covering in this post. But if I'm looking back on great houses I've visited and found meaningful over the past 20 years, I can't refrain from including the Watzek House. For many years I was fairly ignorant about the Watzek. Although bequeathed to the University of Oregon several years ago, it was privately occupied until fairly recently. But I've been able to visit the Watzek several times in the last few years, and I always marvel at what a masterpiece it is.
The house doesn't necessarily seem so exquisite as one first approaches, because all you see is the garage and a wall of the courtyard. But as soon as you cross that first threshold into the landscaped courtyard, a spell begins to be cast. Once you move inside, it's immediately apparent what a collector and a lover of beauty John Yeon was, for the interior feels not strictly modern but a hybrid of traditional and modern. When I'm in the Watzek's living room I often think of that scene at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey when Kier Dullea's character is being held in a kind of gilded cage, with ultra-modern glowing glass floors but ornate pre-modern furniture as the bedroom set. The Watzek is a wonderful fusion: of not only eras but styles. And like all great design, it is decidedly greater than the sum of its parts.
Watzek House (Jeremy Bittermann)
What's also great about the Northwest Modern regional style that Yeon and Belluschi (and Doyle) started is that it inspired lots of other architects to similarly embrace this idea of wood-framed modern houses with pitched roofs and large overhangs: people like Saul Zaik, John Storrs, Van Evera Bailey, and William Fletcher.
Two midcentury houses from this period come to mind: Zaik's Feldman house and Bailey's Shaw House. While writing about the Feldman's renovation by Jessica Helgerson Interior Design in 2015 for Dwell, I was able to see a house that had been negatively impacted by a past renovation or two finally realize its potential again.
"We wanted to put back the part of Saul's design that had been remodeled out of the house," recalled homeowner Ty Milford. "We didn't want to go back exactly to the original kitchen and bathrooms," he says, but he notes that subsequent renovations had been on a budget—and it showed. "We wanted a cohesive house where at no point did something jump out as not fitting."
The Shaw house, which I visited in 2015 as part of a Restore Oregon tour, was magnificent for its butterfly roof, which, like the roof line of the Watzek, almost seemed to mimic the pitch of Mt. Hood in the distance.
Feldman House (Lincoln Barbour) and Shaw House (Brian Libby)
It strikes me that every house I've written about so far is located in Portland's West Hills. So what do I want to mention next? Two more of them! Whether it's for the easy access to the hiking trails of Forest Park or the view of Mt. Hood and the downtown skyline, a large proportion of the city's best houses have been built in this hilly topography.
One of the first stories I ever wrote for Dwell, back in 2009, was a house I hadn't know about until the magazine came to me with the assignment. Designed in 1972 by local architect Edgar Waehrer and just a few yards from the border with Forest Park, the house is a later example of Northwest modernism, on the smallish side at 1,200 square feet, but it feels spacious thanks to 16-foot ceilings and an abundance of windows that not only frame the picturesque view but also foster an openness that began with the architect's decision to eliminate all doors (except for the bathroom).
I also have always been a fan of the Richard Campbell House from 1966. Campbell, one of the co-founders of the firm now known as YGH Architecture, won awards from both the American Institute of Architects and Sunset magazine for his design.
Houses by Edgar Waehrer (Dwell) and Richard Campbell (Michael Cogliantry)
At this point I'm ready to move on from talking about midcentury houses but still have two house left in the West Hills to talk about.
The Johnson residence was completed in 2015 from a design by English architect Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, who is best known for public buildings but who knew and was approached by the local client, Gary Johnson, who had years ago worked with the architect on some furniture for Herman Miller. Grimshaw admitted to me in a phone interview that he never even visited the site. But neither did Frank Lloyd Wright visit the Gordon House in Charbonneau, and it's still a lovely work of architecture too. The Johnson house that Grimshaw designed is quite something: it's shaped like a Christmas Tree, with a wide-open great room in back with floor-to-ceiling glass and a thin little entrance at the front. A central hallway leads you straight from the entrance to the great room, with small bedrooms on either side, all tied together with porthole windows and some 2,000 steel bolts.
Johnson residence rendering (Grimshaw Architects) and view of the front (Brian Libby)
The Music Box Residence by Scott/Edwards Architecture, just off Skyline Boulevard, was a treat to write about. It's owned and was designed for two musicians named — and I'm not making this up — Jon and Yoko. The couple love to entertain, especially fundraisers, so the house has this duality: a U-shaped structure that stacks music studios and bedrooms on the sides of the house and a multi-story living room in between. "It's two boxes with a lot of glass connecting them," firm principal Rick Berry explained to me for a Gray magazine article (which naturally I titled "Double Fantasy".) "You've got kids, a family, different types of music going on. There's so much that has to go on in the space, and so there's a lot of flexibility." I also liked the long bridge, with a bamboo forest below, leading from the sidewalk to the main entry, as well as the clad in black stained siding to resemble shosugi ban, or charred wood, common to Japanese architecture.
Music Box (Scott|Edwards Architecture)
Really great houses are often very simple, and reflective of basic biophilic human inclinations. We seek in our residences a combination of wide-open volumes and cozier, smaller spaces. Maybe that's why the Music Box worked so well for me: because that duality was so clear. Really we all want what Jon and Yoko have: places to go big, and places to find refuge.
Posted by Brian Libby on May 04, 2017 | Permalink


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Q: How to bind Go functions to C calls without using cgo? In a project I'm working on I need to use a bunch of C functions from Go. The current implementation is using cgo to achieve that, but doing so has a massive performance impact, which I am trying to remove.

*

*cgo marks all C code as a syscall, causing the scheduler to allocate a new thread if needed. Since ~80% of the CPU time in my project is spent doing the heavy C work, this quickly results in having a lot of threads (500+ instead of GOMAXPROCS (= 8)), which my Linux kernel does not like much.

*Doing the usual 'limiter' approach (have a buffered channel lock the cgo calls) results in a lot of mutexes, slowing the program down.

I want to keep using Go for this project as it's a great way of managing concurrency.
Things I have tried :

*

*Comment out some stuff like entersyscall() in src/runtime/cgocall.go (didn't seem to help much, and I'd prefer to avoid modifying the Go code).

*Put my code in a .c file and call it from Go, without the import "C". No luck here - I couldn't call the function and when I wrote the function names as package·function the compiler complained about invalid characters in the file.

*Use a .s file and just write it as assembly. My asm isn't that great and I couldn't figure it out.

So, my question is: how does one use C functions from Go while avoiding the overhead of cgo?
Side note: I'm aware of why cgo marks all calls as a syscall, but in this specific case the functions I call do not block on locks or IO.

A: What you want to do is not possible. There is a reason that C code has a high overhead, which is that C code uses a different ABI (the platform's native ABI) which doesn't support the short stacks Go uses. Thus whenever Go code calls C code, execution has to continue on the threads native stack. This causes the overhead you see. There is no way to remove this overhead. Think about it: If the overhead wasn't needed, it wouldn't exist.
It's hard to say what you should do instead without knowing what your program looks like.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Based in New Delhi, Shivam pursued his graduation from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication. He has previously written for various leading media houses and joined Brandzwatch in 2018. Shivam is well-read and has knowledge on a number of industries including retail and technology and therefore, his writing niche is diverse.
Sean is a professional journalism graduate from Delhi College of Arts and Commerce. He worked for Brandzwatch as a freelancer for over a year and joined here as a full-time writer in 2019. Besides writing, he also has a knack for photography and music.
Staff Writer Diana Mathew is a connoisseur of brands and has been reviewing products since 2016. Prior to her career at Brandzwatch, she has also worked as a general reporter at several media outlets in Mumbai. At times when she is not working, she seeks solace in classic books and poetry.
A writer by profession and a fashionista at heart, Ankita recently joined Brandzwatch after having graduated from Delhi School of Journalism. From the latest news of high-end brands to street-side retails and local artisanal brands, there is almost nothing she don't know about and her writing is as eloquent.


Holiday season is just around the corner, which means much of the world is mobilizing for its annual gift-giving marathon. Regardless of one's religious affiliation — or lack thereof — the end of each calendar year is synonymous with the exchange of prettily packaged presents.
Most of the priciest gifts purchased around this time, however, won't arrive in a bow (Matt Kemp notwithstanding). Over the next few weeks, rumors will abound about Major League Baseball's premier free-agent prizes. The right catch, which may cost a club more than $100 million, can positively affect a franchise's fate for years to come. Included below are predictions as to where baseball's Top 5 Free Agents will end up. Methodology note: The following players posted the most wins above replacement (WAR) relative to the rest of this free-agent class. The order, which they are listed, however, factors variables such as age and performance/health history.
1. Prince Fielder (2011 team/WAR Brewers, 5.5): This slugger does not even have the best resume among available first baseman (that title is indubitably held by Albert Pujols). Regardless, the 27-year-old son of Cecil is out in front of what should be his prime offensive seasons. The 31-year-old Pujols, by contrast, has seen his on-base plus slugging (OPS) percentage decline over each of the past three years.
Fielder's agent, Scott Boras, is known for guiding his clients toward the highest possible paycheck. On that note, an American League franchise might be more comfortable than a National League club in signing the portly Fielder, knowing he could fill a full-time designated hitter role toward the end of the contract. One logical suitor would be the Seattle Mariners, whose general manager, Jack Zduriencik, ran Milwaukee's scouting department when the Brewers drafted Fielder in the first round in 2002. And with the decline of Ichiro Suzuki, Seattle may be ready to shop for a new face of the franchise.
Prediction: Seattle Mariners, seven years, $160 million.
2. Albert Pujols (2011 team/WAR Cardinals, 5.1): Based on past performance alone, Pujols is the best free agent since December 2000, when Alex Rodriguez signed his $252 million contract with the Texas Rangers. As such, Pujols is all but guaranteed to get the biggest contract this winter. The Cardinals whiffed in their attempts to re-sign their star last offseason, offering what many described as a lowball proposal.
The Miami Marlins reportedly offered the future Hall of Famer a nine-year contract worth just under $200 million during a recent meeting/recruiting event at the team's new stadium. Will that be enough to sway Pujols away from St. Louis? Doubtful.
Pujols' price tag will be enough to cripple any team that fails to get what it paid for. This would be especially true for the historically frugal Fish, whose newly lavish ways are a result of the anticipated increase in revenue associated with having a new ballpark. Recent history has shown, however, that a new home is not enough to maintain fan interest in the absence of a quality on-field product.
As prolific as Pujols' career has been thus far, his productivity has dropped over each of the past three seasons. This fact, coupled with (unsubstantiated) claims that the Dominican-born star is older than his listed age, could cause owners to think twice before authorizing an astronomically expensive contract.
Lastly, now is not the ideal time to be a free agent first baseman, as many of baseball's big-market clubs are either set at the spot (Yankees, Red Sox) or are unlikely to appropriate such a high percentage of its payroll to one player (Dodgers, Mets, Cubs).
Prediction: Pujols is too important to St. Louis, which will re-sign their star for $210 million over eight years. As a caveat: A rogue owner could make an offer that far exceeds better judgment. This occurred last winter when Nationals owner Ted Lerner, the richest in baseball, signed Jayson Werth to a seven-year deal for $126 million. Don't expect the Redbirds to compete with an outlandish offer; if they were willing to re-sign Pujols at any cost, they would have done so last winter.
3. Jose Reyes (2011 team/WAR Mets, 6.2): The Marlins yes, them again — reportedly offered Reyes a six-year, $90 million deal. Conflicting stories have indicated that the overall dollar value was much lower, however. Nobody seems to know the exact figure. What is clear, however, is that the Fish have not expressed this much interest in other teams' players since 1997.
The Mets, the only Major League team Reyes has ever known, have communicated with the shortstop's agent as well. An uncertain financial future notwithstanding, New York's National League club may have the resources to re-sign Reyes if the market sets his value at $100 million. Prediction: Realizing the cost of losing their star shortstop, the Mets spend the $100 million and retain Reyes for the next six seasons.
4. C.J. Wilson (2011 team/WAR Texas Rangers, 5.9): This left-hander is regarded as the top pitcher on the open market after two stellar seasons with the Texas Rangers, who are unlikely to offer their No. 1 starter the six-year, $120 million deal he reportedly wants. After all, Texas was not enthused by the prospect of offering that very same contract to bona fide ace Cliff Lee last winter. So why would it be comfortable doing so with a de facto ace (and really good No. 2 starter on a good team)?
Prediction: Enter Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim general manager Jerry Dipoto and assistant GM Scott Servais, who last week reportedly had a three-hour dinner meeting with Wilson's agent, Bob Garber. Wilson is from Orange County, and the Halos would have a chance to improve their club while sticking it to their AL West rivals. At some point, Wilson will realize he isn't worth nine figures. The SoCal native will partner up with the Rally Monkey, whose employer will offer $85 million reasons (over five years) to return home.
5. Carlos Beltran (2011 teams/WAR Mets/Giants, 4.7): What a difference one year makes. Last winter, Beltran's ability to stay healthy was a major question mark, as the former center fielder was slated to sit one game for every two he played. A move to right field turned out to be some sort of panacea, however, as the 2011 All-Star participated in only three fewer games in 2011 (142) than he did in 2009-10 combined. This year's fifth-best free agent finished 2011 with a .300 average, 22 homers and 84 RBIs. Moreover, his .910 OPS percentage was the fifth-highest among National League outfielders.
Coming off their historic September collapse, the Boston Red Sox are reportedly seeking to sign a right-handed right fielder to replace J.D. Drew. The switch-hitting Beltran would be a better option than Boston's top internal candidates — Ryan Kalish and Josh Reddick — who both bat from the left side.
Beltran played the final 44 games of 2011 with the San Francisco Giants, who acquired his services in exchange for top pitching prospect Zack Wheeler prior to the trade deadline. Teams won't typically pay such a high price for a two-month rental, but San Francisco could give the right-field job to the recently acquired Melky Cabrera, who was shipped from Kansas City in exchange for Jonathan Sanchez. The Giants like Beltran, but they may be unable to keep him with large raises looming for Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain — the team's top starting pitchers.
Prediction: Beltran to Beantown for $40 million over three years.
Zach Finkelstein is a contributing writer for YESNetwork.com and SNY.tv.


The Chamber of Secrets into the heart of Naples.
The most complete volume on the Sansevero Chapel Museum in Naples made thanks to the new and exclusive photographic campaign by Scripta Maneant. The Sansevero Chapel, that is a treasure chest of baroque beauty, fascination, and mystery, preserves the Veiled Christ, the sculptural masterpiece by Giuseppe Sanmartino (1753), displayed in these pages with a richness of details and angles that offer a suggestive experience and a strong emotional effect. With the aim of sharing the beauties of Italian artistic heritage with readers and with those who protect our treasures, Scripta Maneant has handed over the new photographic campaign to the Museum as a valid tool for scientific survey and for artistic preservation.
Marco Bussagli Art historian, is a full professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. A scholar of iconology, he was student at the Warburg and Courtauld Institute in London in 1989 and taught Iconology and History of Art at various Universities. He is credited with over two hundred publications translated into various languages. He has curated successful exhibitions such as Barocco a Roma. La meraviglia delle arti, Rome, Palazzo Sciarra (in collaboration with Maria Grazia Bernardini) and Escher (Rome, Chiostro del Bramante). He is Cavaliere of the Italian Republic for artistic and scientific merits.


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Q: Show document statistics in the statusbar of gedit? Gedit currently makes word and character counts available by going to Menu -> Tools -> Document Statistics. The popup window shows total counts, and counts for selected text.
I'm looking for a plugin that makes two improvements on this:

*

*It shows these document statistics in the statusbar at all times. Both word and character counts. Both the full counts and the selected text counts (or when text is selected, it adjusts to count just the selected text).

*It updates these counts live, or at least once every second or two.

Does anyone know of a plugin that does these? Or could someone make one?
I found the following code, which produces a live word count in the statusbar, but it's not sensitive to selected text, and it doesn't provide the character count: https://github.com/footley/gedit-wordcount-plugin
Related requests have been made before:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gedit/-/issues/8
https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/comments/skrh8q/text_editors_with_character_count/
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/237422/any-text-editor-which-list-numbers-of-words-in-a-file.
For those of us who write, this would be incredibly useful. I know that it's possible to keep the document statistics window open and click refresh as needed. But since the code that produces the document statistics already exists, it seems like it shouldn't be too hard to make an option to add it to the statusbar. BBedit does this in macOS and it's sublime to be able to glance at counts instead of clicking around. #WorkFlowIsLife Thanks in advance.


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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
 <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">

  <title>Optimod</title>
  <meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">

  <script src="bower_components/webcomponentsjs/webcomponents.min.js"></script>
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="base.css" type="text/css" charset="utf-8">
  <link rel="import" href="components/app-driver/app-driver.html">
</head>
<body>
  <app-driver></app-driver>
</body>
</html>

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


There are no scheduled Thunder Predator vs Kingao+4 matches for which you can bet.
At this moment there is no Thunder Predator vs Kingao+4 betting predictions, information about next live streams of the Dota 2 game and schedule of upcoming matches between Thunder Predator (Peru) and Kingao+4 (Brazil) teams, on which you can bet.
The last esports game of Dota 2 between the Thunder Predator vs Kingao+4 teams, which took place on April 14, 2019, 03:30 AM CEST as part of the Mekansm League Season 1 tournament, ended up winning Thunder Predator with a total score of 3 vs Kingao+4 with score of 1.
According to the bookmaker's predictions, the odds of winning Thunder Predator were 2.74, and the average bets of winning this game were 1.41. Thus, betting $100 on a Kingao+4 win, the winnings would be 274$.


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Q: Statistical tests for comparing a skewed clinical sample I recently surveyed 350 low-income families -- they were randomly split into two groups: control and treatment. One of the variables I am very interested in is the amount of savings of each family. The sample is highly skewed (see below), as the vast majority of the sample has no savings ($0), and then there are few with modest savings.
I'd like some input on what kind of stat test I can use to compare the two groups between each other pre-treatment to show that the savings rate and amounts are the same, and post-treatment to compare the change in savings between the groups after treatment has been applied.

Thanks in advance for any input you guys may offer.

A:
I'd like some input on what kind of stat test I can use to compare the two groups between each other pre-treatment to show that the savings rate and amounts are the same

You can't show they're the same, only that you can't identify a difference (which is not at all the same thing, since it might just indicate a lack of power). You might (possibly) be after something more like equivalence testing.
Assuming you just want the usual kind of hypothesis test, on the comparison of the proportion of zeroes, you'd be looking at a straight two-sample test of proportions (or perhaps a 2x2 chi-square, the outcome should be the same). To compare the amounts conditional on them being positive, you'd either looks at a parametric test suitable for a skewed distribution (e.g. a GLM for a Gamma or inverse Gaussian), or perhaps a nonparametric test, like a permutation test of the means, or a two-sample Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon.
The change in savings could either be done (similarly to the before comparison) as a two-stage thing (do they differ on the change in proportion of zeros? does the average amount of non-zeros change?) or you might looks at some kind of zero-inflated model.
(You might even consider comparing change-in-mean across the whole, say with a permutation test or something.)
Your big problem is the very small sample sizes (for those that are non-zero) involved.


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On Abortion, Civil Disobedience, the Execution of
Paul J. Hill and the Downfall of Randall Terry
Dr John R. Ling is a freelance writer and speaker on bioethical issues. In 1982, he co-founded Evangelicals for LIFE, and he is a member of the Central Committee of LIFE, the governing body of the UK's largest pro-life charity. He has recently been appointed as a magistrate.
Abortion is an undoubted horror, but how far can Christians go in opposing it? Can civil disobedience ever be justified? What about trespass, violence, or even murder?
The recent execution in America of Paul Hill for the double murder of an abortionist and his bodyguard has again raised the issue of civil disobedience and abortion. But Hill was a deluded fanatic - his tactics must be resolutely disowned, and he must never be regarded as a pro-life martyr. Similarly, the civil disobedience advocated by Randall Terry and his Operation Rescue is as out-of-kilter with the Scriptures, as is his lifestyle. Yet the irrational antics of a few must not cause us to give up opposing abortion, wisely and legally.
On Wednesday 3 September 2003, Paul Jennings Hill, a 49-year-old former Presbyterian minister, was executed in Florida. His crime? In July 1994, he shot and killed John Britton, a doctor who performed abortions, as well as his bodyguard, James Barrett.
Hill was a deluded man – he thought that abortion could be stopped by violent civil disobedience, so he became a murderer. Hill was a self-righteous man – he thought that his crime was somehow beyond the reach of the Sixth Commandment. Hill was an unrepentant man – he had nine years in prison to repent of his crime, but he refused. Hill was a remorseless man – he said he would do it again. Hill was a disgraceful man – he brought dishonour to the name of Christ.
The man and his actions sent a shockwave throughout the abortion clinics of the US. It also sent a cold shudder through the pro-life Christian community, worldwide. The day before his death, Paul Hill stood before the television cameras at his final press conference. Displaying that familiar grin, he told the world that he believed his execution would make him a martyr. Thankfully, most anti-abortion Christians will not agree.
Hill had once been a conservative Presbyterian minister, but he had resigned from the ministry. He became a pro-life activist, peaceful at first, but then increasingly crazy and violent. His church urged him to calm down, but instead he went on national television and declared that abortionists deserved to die. He was then disciplined by, and finally excommunicated from, his church because he refused to listen to pastoral counsel. He also took little thought for the future of his wife and three children. So Hill was the worst sort of rebel – he rebelled against Scripture, his church, the law and his family duties – he will therefore never be a martyr because, according to 1 Timothy 1:9-11, he was not a righteous man.
That is the private legacy of Paul Hill. But he also leaves a public legacy. Hill's violent anti-abortion activities have seriously damaged the pro-life movement. He was not the first, nor will he be the last pro-lifer to turn violent – some still believe that abortion will be defeated by invading, burgling, ransacking and bombing abortion clinics, and by threatening and attacking doctors and staff. Hill started out protesting peacefully on the picket lines of Pensacola. And when, in 1993, another fanatic shot and killed an abortionist in that little Floridian town, Hill was galvanised – he became more confrontational. Some sixteen months later, he bought his 12-bore shotgun, and a few days later, he used it. And the shockwaves rumbled across America. And the morally sensitive took fright. Nowadays, peaceful and silent protests outside abortion clinics have become a rarity. Now public protests against abortion are few. Hill's atrocious actions have scared off sensible, law-abiding pro-lifers. And who can blame them – who wants to be tarred with the brush of unfettered fanaticism? Look where it lead Paul Hill.
But Hill is not the only 'enemy within the gates' of the pro-life community. Indeed, there are too many others, like the Rev. Michael Bray of Bowie, Maryland, who has written a book justifying the murder of abortionists, or there is the Rev Donald Spitz, who maintains the inflammatory 'Army of God' website. And there is Randall Terry, another high-profile Christian leader, who has also brought dishonour to the pro-life movement. Terry is the founder of Operation Rescue, one of the first organisations to encourage civil disobedience as a means of opposing abortion. He is proud to have been arrested over forty times for trespassing and other public order offences.
Randall Terry stood as a Christian leader and was a celebrity of sorts, with his own national television programme. He was also an elder at the Landmark Church in Binghamton, New York. It was early in 1997, that his pastor of fifteen years, Dan Little, noticed signs of Terry's spiritual deterioration, anger and self-will, which manifested themselves as impurity in speech and lifestyle. Then things got decidedly worse. In 1999, Terry abandoned his wife of nineteen years, Cindy, and their four children in favour of Andrea Kollmorgan, his twenty-something personal assistant. His church censured him, but he would not listen. The church carefully followed all the steps of Matthew 18, but Randall Terry remained unrepentant and he was therefore excommunicated. He then declared himself bankrupt, an action that deprived his former wife and children of their home. Then, without informing his followers of what he had done to his first wife and their children, he sent out a fund-raising letter so that he could purchase a $432,000 home near St Augustine, Florida. Terry has said that, contrary to the plain teaching of Mark 10:11-12, the Bible does not actually condemn divorce. Again, Randall Terry, just like Paul Hill, considered that his behaviour was somehow outside the purview of the Bible. He now says that he wants to be known as a statesman!
The progression is frightening, isn't it? Firstly, there enters biblical disobedience and secondly, there follows civil disobedience, which thirdly, leads to a self-justifying way of life. It is nothing other than situation ethics – the very same philosophy that drives the abortionist. And the media know it and they love it – the downfall of Christian leaders always makes great copy. But far more seriously, such sub-Christian conduct unnerves the ordinary Christian. When our leaders betray us, we are not only bewildered, we run to ground. We become timid – we cast off our salt and we hide our lights.
For some, Paul Hill and Randall Terry have become the icons of anti-abortion activities based on civil disobedience. But why are they, and their followers, so very wrong? Back in 1990, I wrote a piece for the Evangelicals for LIFE Newsletter entitled, Some Thoughts on Civil Disobedience and Operation Rescue. It is reproduced here because the issues have again been raked up in the aftermath of Paul Hill's execution and Randall Terry's downfall.
'Should we tackle this thorny issue? After all, civil disobedience is not a problem for most. Many have not even heard of Operation Rescue. On the other hand, members of some LIFE Groups (like those in Manchester and Birmingham) are continually confronted and embarrassed by Operation Rescue's work. Furthermore, the media (including a wide spread of evangelical periodicals) have waded in and pronounced their verdicts. And by now we should be mature enough to assess and, if necessary, disagree with our co-belligerents.
Like most controversial movements, Operation Rescue started in the USA. Even today it divides the pro-life movement there. That must not be allowed to happen here.
So what is Operation Rescue? It is a movement of thoroughly pro-life people, often from the extremes of theological understanding, namely, traditional Roman Catholics and conservative evangelicals. Many of them are frustrated with seeking changes to national abortion policy by the 'democratic means'. 'Twenty years of campaigning have got us where?', they ask. Many of those in Operation Rescue either belong, or used to belong, to LIFE and other UK pro-life groups. It has a notably greater proportion of men in its ranks than other pro-life organisations. Is this a reflection of men's frustrations? Whereas LIFE women can tackle abortion at the sharp end by counselling women, do men feel isolated and left on the sidelines?
I am only too conscious of generalising. In Britain, there appears to be a wide variation within the movement. Some involved in Operation Rescue are happy to be arrested; others do no more than LIFE recommends. Not unnaturally, it is the former who have attracted media attention. Some do not 'belong' to Operation Rescue, but nevertheless use effectively the same tactics. Some are involved only locally; others regularly travel hundreds of miles at weekends to perform so-called 'rescues'. Some cooperate with LIFE Groups; other compete.
So what does Operation Rescue do? Randall Terry, its US founder, confirms that they seek to persuade mothers, who are about to enter abortion clinics, to think again and choose life. That appears to be no different from picketing abortion clinics - a practice that LIFE has been advocating, and doing, for years. But is it different? Yes. Because Operation Rescue also practises civil disobedience. They will bar the entrance to clinics, they will trespass, they will be arrested, they will spend time in police cells, they will be charged with offences like trespass and even conspiracy.
This issue of civil disobedience and abortion must first be examined in the light of key passages of Scripture, such as Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-17. We can then ask the big questions like, so what is our relationship to government and law? Firstly, God has commanded us to obey the State, meaning, civil government. Secondly, God has not set up authority/law in the State that is autonomous from Himself. Both civil government and its laws stand under the law/judgement of God. Thirdly, the State is the agent of justice, to restrain evil and the evil-doer. Are we to obey the State no matter what? No! (Matthew 22:21). The bottom line is that at a certain point, there is a Christian duty to disobey the State, as the early Christians did when the State insisted that they worship Caesar. But civil government and its laws are to be resisted only when a) it commands something forbidden by God, like idol worship, and b) it forbids something commanded by God, like preaching or praying.
Thus the Bible commands law-breaking when the State requires us to sin. But the State has NOT required/commanded us to kill the unborn. Do we then have a mandate to act against say, abortion clinic staff? No, our duty is not to compel others to do what is morally right. Can we break into and disrupt an abortion clinic? No. The violation of a proper law (trespass/unlawful entry) as a means of protesting against a rotten law (allowing abortion) is unworthy of Christian behaviour. It is the logic of terrorism. We may picket, debate, leaflet, counsel, write and protest, but violence will not work. Abortionists use it – routinely in their abortion operations, and also in their public demonstrations. Evil will not be overcome by evil. Our actions must be consistent with our Christian profession.
But does not the mass killing of the unborn of our land demand exceptional tactics? Cannot we simply break in and rescue those being led away to slaughter, based on Proverbs 24? No. This passage outlines an awesome responsibility, not a method.
Of course, this debate will continue. And if we gain no justice for the unborn in this 1990 session of Parliament – like a reduction in the upper limit for abortion from 28 to 24 weeks – it may be that exasperated pro-lifers will increasingly look to civil disobedience and hence to organisations that work like Operation Rescue. I hope not.
If I were a pragmatist, I might well support Operation Rescue. I might remind myself of how Greenpeace has heightened public awareness of pollution by its illegal publicity stunts. I might note that the Animal Liberation Front, with its laboratory break-ins and release of experimental animals did more to change public thinking and national policy concerning animal experimentation (culminating in the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986), than the RSPCA accomplished in decades.
But then I would ask myself, what if we started to block entrances to abortion clinics, what will the pro-abortionists do to us? They will probably visit every LIFE Pregnancy Care Service office and do the same. We have seen their tactics at LIFE rallies; if they can tear the door off the Birmingham Town Hall, what will they do to our LIFE offices, how will they harass our carers and clients?
And then I would recall the great ethical passages of Scripture, like those mentioned above. And I would continue to believe that we must obey God's laws, even as we resist the injustices of abortion. We must learn to temper our impatience. We must control our anger. We must look to God. We must seek His face and His sovereign will, even in this perplexing matter. And we must increase our current efforts to defend and protect the unborn.'
I still stand by these words. I do not stand by the likes of Paul Hill or Randall Terry. They want to be remembered as a martyr and a statesman – I think not! They have both disgraced the name of Christ. And far from promoting the pro-life cause, they have hindered it, by their unlawful tactics and by their shameful lives.


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Archive for Bikes & the Law
Man killed riding bike in South LA hit-and-run Wednesday night; 7th fatal bicycling hit-and-run this year
November 20, 2020 / bikinginla / One comment
Once again, a heartless hit-and-run coward left an innocent person to die on the street.
And once again, there's a $50,000 reward to bring the killer to justice.
According to KTLA-5, the victim was run down around 9:15 pm Wednesday as he was riding Main Street, just north of 120th Street, in the Broadway-Manchester neighborhood of South LA.
He was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead. He was described only as male, which could be an indication that police weren't able to immediately identify him.
The driver continued north on Main without stopping; the suspect vehicle is described only as a dark-colored sedan.
There's no other information available at this time. No word on how the crash happened, or whether the victim had lights on after dark.
Or if the driver did, for that matter.
Anyone with information is urged to call LAPD Detective Flannery or Officer Mitchell at 323/421-2500.
As always, there is a standing $50,000 reward for any fatal hit-and-run in Los Angeles, despite mention of just half that amount in the KTLA report.
At least seven of those deaths in LA County have been hit-and-runs.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his love ones.
Category: Hit-and-Run, Injuries and Fatalities / Tags: bicycling fatality, hit-and-run, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, South LA
Wicksted gets 16-years for intentional killing of Claremont bike rider, and popular wheel light maker goes belly up
November 11, 2020 / bikinginla / 2 comments
Sixteen years.
That's the price a Claremont woman will pay for running down and murdering a bike-riding stranger with her car.
Sixty-three-year old Sandra Marie Wicksted agreed to a deal to plead no contest after prosecutors took a murder charge off the table for intentionally running down 54-year old Leslie Pray as she was riding her bike in Claremont two years ago.
She was also charged with swerving her car at two other people riding bikes in separate incidents before slamming into Pray.
Wicksted copped to one count each of voluntary manslaughter and assault with a deadly weapon, along with two counts of attempted murder.
What remains unanswered, however, is the most basic question of all.
What could possibly have convinced Wicksted to try to kill not one, not two, but three total strangers for no other reason than they were riding bicycles?
We'll probably never know.
But now an innocent woman is dead because of it.
And Wicksted has thrown away what's left of her own life.
Sad news from popular wheel light maker MonkeyLetric, which is closing out its remaining inventory and going out of business, at least for the foreseeable future.
A 20-year old man was hospitalized after a driver hit his bike while riding in Canyon Country; no word on the victim's condition.
This is who we share the road with. A new lawsuit accuses an LA County sheriff's deputy of drunk driving and street racing in the Torrance crash that killed a 23-year old passenger in his car.
San Diego adopts a new Complete Communities plan, including fees for developers in the city's most car-dependent areas, which will be used to build bike and pedestrian projects in denser urban areas.
San Jose wants to know how residents want to get around in the years to come.
Palo Alto will keep two key streets carfree through next May.
Yes, please. A proposal before San Francisco's Board of Supervisors would make it harder to delay projects by filing an appeal under California's CEQA air quality laws, a process that has been abused in recent years to halt bikeways and transit projects.
Streetsblog San Francisco's Roger Rudick argues the city has abandoned Vision Zero in its cost-saving cutbacks to the Better Market Street project, suggesting it should now be renamed Bummer Market Street.
GQ recommends the best bike gear for "persnickety" bicycle riders caught up in the pandemic bike boom. Meanwhile, Gear Patrol says these bikes and accessories prove the future is now.
Next time you're in Seattle, hop the ferry to the Bainbridge Island Cycle Museum, where you can see exhibits like a rare three-wheeled lawnmower bike and a signed yellow jersey worn by He Who Must Not Be Named.
Maybe there's hope for LA bike riders yet, after Chicago finally opened a new bike and pedestrian bridge 15 years after it was blocked by a city alderman.
Speaking of Chicago, a local magazine considers former mayor Rahm Emanuel's prospects for serving as US transportation secretary.
An Ohio man was convicted of aggravated vehicular homicide for the distracted driving death of a prominent lawyer who was riding his bike, while the driver was high on opiates.
The bike-riding Virginia woman who was elected county supervisor after flipping off Trump's motorcade says it's time to heal now that Joe Biden has been elected president; needless to say, not everyone agrees.
A Colombian college student was knocked off his bike and severely beaten by thieves when he chose to avoid traffic by riding a bike path through a dark tunnel known locally as "the tunnel of death" for its high crime rate.
A London bait bike leads police to a stash of 60 stolen bikes with individual values as high as $6,600.
British bikemaker Dawes tells its popular Galaxy touring bikes to hit the road after 49 years.
An essential worker in the UK had his bike replaced by a kindhearted stranger after it was stolen while he was working.
Dutch ebike maker VanMoof agrees to hobble their bikes in the European Union, where ebikes are restricted to 15 mph, rather than the 20 mph limit allowed in the US.
Now that's more like it. A new Spanish law will restrict speed limits to 18 mph in urban areas, and just 12 mph in spaces shared with bike riders and pedestrians.
The bike boom has hit Indonesia, as well, as residents share their experiences riding in the age of Covid-19.
Join the club. A third of New Zealanders think drivers are going too fast on their streets.
Primož Roglič's victory in the Vuelta has pulled it out at the wire, beating Tour de France champ and fellow Slovenian Tadej Pogačar for the #1 spot in the UCI World Ranking for 2020, while Anna van der Breggen topped the women's list. No American made the top ten on either list.
American world time trial champ Chloe Dygert says she'll do whatever it takes to heal in time for next year's Tokyo Olympics after suffering a horrific gash to her left quad that severed 80% of the muscle. She'll be riding for the Canyon-SRAM women's team next year.
Cycling Weekly recalls ten unforgettable moments of the 2020 cycling season.
Seriously, just slow the hell down around slower or less experienced bicyclists and pedestrians. Never a good idea to punch a traffic cop, even if they did just door you.
And probably not the best idea to have your six-year old daughter act as lookout before making a bike-borne escape from a shoplifting spree.
Category: Bikes & the Law, Morning Links / Tags: attempted murder, bicycling, Leslie Pray, Los Angeles, MonkeyLectric, Sandra Wicksted, vehicular homicide
Update: Man killed riding his bike in early morning Long Beach hit-and-run; 3rd LA County bike rider killed in hit-and-run in 4 days
It's not an epidemic anymore.
It's a SoCal pandemic.
According to multiple sources, yet another Southern California bike rider lost his life early Sunday morning.
And yet another heartless coward fled the scene, leaving an innocent victim to die in the street.
The Long Beach Police Department reports the victim, who hasn't been publicly identified, was riding south on Orange Ave, north of Del Amo Blvd, when he was run down from behind by a southbound driver around 3:20 am.
Despite the efforts of paramedics, he died at the scene, his body coming to rest in the bike lane he was most likely riding in.
There's no information about the driver or the suspect vehicle at this time.
Anyone with information is urged to contact Detective Kelsey Myers or Detective Shawn Loughlin of the LBPD Collision Investigation Detail at 562/570-7355.
This is at least the 36th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the eighth that I'm aware of in Los Angeles County; it's also the third fatal bicycling hit-and-run in the county in four days.
Exactly one third of those SoCal bike deaths have involved hit-and-run drivers, including five in less than the last two weeks, and eight in the past two months as more people have begun driving again.
Update: The victim has been identified as 30-year old Long Beach resident Dannon Santiago.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Dannon Santiago and his loved ones.
Category: Hit-and-Run, Injuries and Fatalities / Tags: bicycling fatality, Dannon Santiago, hit-and-run, Long Beach, Los Angeles County
37-year old father killed riding bike in South Los Angeles hit-and-run; once again, public not informed for weeks
Once again, a man has died following a violent hit-and-run while riding his bike in South Los Angeles.
And once again, the LAPD doesn't seem to think the public needed to know about it.
According to KCBS-2/KCAL-9, 37-year old South LA resident Jorge Guerra was struck by a hit-and-run driver while riding home from the park with his two young children on July 8th.
Fortunately, his two-year old son Nathan and four-year old daughter Madelyn weren't seriously injured; their father wasn't so lucky.
Guerra was rushed to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, but lapsed into a coma after arriving; he died of organ failure on July 16th.
The LAPD places the crash on northbound Wadsworth Ave north of 88th Street at 8:40 pm, when a speeding driver slammed into the bike they were riding after turning onto the narrow residential street.
The driver continued north on Wadsworth, crashing into several parked cars before stopping just south of Manchester Blvd. He ran off, leaving the damaged car behind.
Police are still looking for the suspect, who hasn't been identified; unsurprisingly, the car he was driving was stolen. As always, there is a standing $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the driver.
Now Guerra's wife is faced with raising her kids as a grieving single mother while in the middle of a pandemic.
A crowdfunding campaign to help defray Guerra's funeral expenses has raised just under $6,000, far short of the $25,000 goal.
Unfortunately, like the death of Melvin "Peanut" Frye last month, the LAPD apparently failed to inform the public at the time of the crash — or alert them to a dangerous car thief hiding in their midst. Even though both Los Angeles and California have Yellow Alert systems to get the word out as quickly as possible.
There's no explanation for why the LAPD continually refuses to use them; evidently, they'd rather wait until the trail goes cold and people have forgotten key details before asking for their help. Which could be one reason why hit-and-run drivers continue to get away with it here.
Even though similar systems have been used successfully in other cities to bring hit-and-run drivers to justice.
This is at least the 35th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the seventh that I'm aware of in Los Angeles County. Over half of those deaths in the county have been hit-and-runs.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Jorge Guerra and all his family and loved ones.
Category: Hit-and-Run, Injuries and Fatalities / Tags: bicycling fatality, hit-and-run, hit-and-run alert system, Jorge Guerra, LAPD, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, South Los Angeles
Update: Mountain biker killed in Escondido hit-and-run; victim hit head-on during group ride
Yet another SoCal bike rider has lost his life to a hit-and-run driver.
According to multiple sources, the victim was struck by a driver at 11:52 Saturday morning on the 1600 block of La Honda Drive, just below the entrance to the Daley Ranch Recreation Area.
Reports indicated he was headed south on the narrow street with a group of other riders when he was hit head-on by the driver of a dark colored Toyota sedan, who continued without stopping.
The victim, identified only as a 36-year old Vista resident, died at the scene before rescuers could arrive.
Police later found the heavily damaged car abandoned half a mile away, on the 600 block of Aster Street.
They note the victim was wearing a helmet; clearly, it was not enough to save his life.
Meanwhile, the San Diego Union-Tribune absurdly reports that police don't know if the driver was under the influence. Which is probably true, considering they don't even know who was behind the wheel.
Anyone with information is urged to call Officer Adan Martinez of the Escondido Police Department at 760/839-4465.
This is at least the 68th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year; remarkably, it appears to be just the third in San Diego County.
It's also the 23rd fatal hit-and-run I'm aware of involving a bike rider since the first of this year.
Update: The victim has been identified as 36-year old Vista resident Kevin Lentz; the former mountain bike racer leaves behind his wife and one-year old son.
The driver reportedly was traveling at a high rate of speed on the wrong side of the road, after rounding a blind curve.
A crowdfunding page has raised nearly $52,000 in just one day.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Kevin Lentz and his family and loved ones.
Thanks to Phillip Young for the heads-up.
Category: Hit-and-Run, Injuries and Fatalities / Tags: bicycling fatality, Escondido, hit-and-run, Kevin Lentz, mountain biking, San Diego County
Costa Mesa Fire Captain Mike Kreza died, 2 days after he was struck allegedly stoned driver in Mission Viejo
November 5, 2018 / bikinginla / 2 comments
In the end, a man who spent 18 years saving others couldn't be saved himself.
News broke this morning that Costa Mesa Fire & Rescue Captain Mike Kreza had died, two days after he was after he was run down by an allegedly stoned driver while riding in Mission Viejo.
Kreza was training for an Ironman Triathlon when his bike was struck by a car driven by 25-year old Stephen Taylor Scarp around 8 am Saturday on Alicia Parkway near Via Burgos.
He was reportedly hit from behind as he was riding in the bike lane on eastbound Alicia Parkway, suffering critical wounds to the head and body.
Our brother, Mike Kreza passed away early this morning. Words alone cannot describe the immeasurable heartache felt by his friends & family, including his fire family.
No further information will be provided at this time.
RIP brother Mike, we love you! pic.twitter.com/g7IXcRDu48
— Costa Mesa FD (@CMFD_PIO) November 5, 2018
The Costa Mesa Fire Department had reported that he was unresponsive as a Sunday afternoon, and surrounded by family and friends.
Scarp remained at the scene. He was arrested on suspicion of DUI after police found multiple prescription medications in his car. At last report he was being held on $100,000 bond, pending a hearing scheduled for tomorrow.
Kreza leaves behind a wife and three young daughters.
This is made even more tragic, not just because of the families he leaves behind — both his own and the close-knit firefighter community — but because so many of us owe our lives to the men and women who devote theirs to saving others.
He died, sadly and needlessly, not in a courageous effort to rescue someone else, but as one of us.
A crowdfunding campaign for his family has raised over $126,000 in just two days, more than five times the original $25,000 goal.
This is at least the 43rd bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the sixth that I'm aware of in Orange County.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Mike Kreza and all his family and loved ones.
Thanks to Megan Lynch, Steve S and Steven Bonadio for the heads-up.
Category: Injuries and Fatalities, Violence & Crime / Tags: bicycling fatality, Costa Mesa, Costa Mesa Fire Department, DUI, Mike Kreza, Mission Viejo, Orange County, Stephen Taylor Scarp
Update: Driver arrested on murder charge for intentionally running down a Claremont bike rider
Wrecks are seldom accidents.
But they're usually not on purpose, either.
Yet that was the case in Claremont today, where a driver is facing a murder charge for intentionally running down a woman as she rode in a bike lane.
According to the Daily Bulletin, 54-year old Leslie Pray was riding north along the 1900 block of North Mills Avenue near Radcliffe Drive around 11:30 am today when she was deliberately struck by the driver of a 1996 station wagon.
Pray was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police arrested 61-year old Claremont resident Sandra Wicksted at a nearby hospital after a brief investigation.
There's no word on how — or why — the crash happened, or whether the two women knew each other.
Wicksted is being held on $2 million bond. Then again, if she could pay that, she probably wouldn't be driving a 22-year old station wagon.
Anyone with information is urged to call the Claremont Police Department at 909/399-5411.
This is at least the 42nd bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the 21st that I'm aware of in Los Angeles County.
And the first one that was, allegedly, on purpose.
Update: KABC-7 reports that Wicksted was driving in the opposite direction on Mills, and swerved across the road to strike Pray's bicycle.
The presence of skid marks on the street demonstrates her path across the road, as well as indicating she was braking as she crossed the roadway. Which is odd for a driver who was attempting to hit someone.
However, the station also says other bike riders told police that Wicksted had swerved towards them just moments before she killed Pray.
She is also suspected of being under the influence; several empty liquor bottles were found in her car after the crash.
Tragically, Pray had just started riding a bike this summer.
Update 2: A ghost bike will be installed at 7 pm today.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and all his loved ones.
Thanks to Erik Griswold and Megan Lynch for the heads-up. Photo by Erik Griswold.
Category: Injuries and Fatalities, Violence & Crime / Tags: bicycling fatality, Claremont, Leslie Pray, Los Angeles County, murder, Sandra Wicksted, vehicular homicide