May is Better Hearing & Speech Month! In honor of this year's theme: Communication Across the Lifespan, Fairbanks Hearing & Balance Center will be hosting a Patient Appreciation Cupcake Social on Tuesday, May 28th from 3–6 pm. Call or stop by the office to RSVP by April 30th.
Welcome to the Fairbanks Hearing & Balance Center!
At the Fairbanks Hearing & Balance Center we strive to provide a patient-centered approach that allows us to focus on satisfying your hearing and balance care needs, whatever they may be. Our practice will work with you to diagnose and find solutions for your hearing and balance concerns using state-of-the-art equipment and the most advanced technology.
We are a local, independent, community-oriented practice serving Interior Alaska with our Fairbanks ENT Clinic partners for over 4 decades! A strong patient-provider relationship based on honesty, integrity and values is what we strive for and we feel that this is the best approach to making sure you don't miss any of the precious moments in your life.
As Doctors of Audiology, our goal is to offer evidenced-based hearing solutions with a remarkable level of service. Our bundled hearing rehabilitation program offers complimentary office visits for adjustments and counseling as well as walk-in services to ensure your hearing aids are clean and working properly, and all packages offer an outstanding repair warranty. We stand behind our solutions with a generous 45-day trial period. If you are not completely satisfied with your purchased hearing aid for any reason, we offer various exchange options or you can simply return it within 45 days.
A variety of tests used to identify and diagnose a hearing loss.
A variety of tests used to identify and diagnose a balance disorder.
Comprehensive hearing loss solutions to improve your quality of life.
Products to protect yourself from various forms of hearing loss.
Don't delay, contact us today! We are located in the William H. Doolittle, M.D. Medical Building (previously the Medical and Dental Arts Building) in Suite 104.


India's Best Dramebaaz is back with its Season 3 after the 2 successful seasons. This is one of the most loved and one of its kind of reality shows for kids where children can showcase their acting skills in front of the whole country. The show is being produced by Essel Productions and judged by the well-known Bollywood celebrities like Sonali Bendre, Vivek Oberoi, and a famous director, Anurag Basu.
India's Best Dramebaaz Season 3 auditions and registrations have been now completed and soon the judges will bring final contestants to the stage where they will entertain us and compete with each other to win the title.
The winners of the previous two seasons got the trophy and a whopping amount of Rs.5,00,000 in cash as prize. The winner of season 1 and 2 were Aditya Singhal and Swasti Nitya respectively.
India's Best Dramebaaz Season 3 gave us several talented kids in different genre and the contestants competed each other very well. However, after beating all the participants, the little wonder, Dipali Barkar emerges as a winner of India's Best Dramebaaz Season 3. She won cash prize of Rs.5 lakhs along with the gold trophy of India's Best Dramebaaz.
We wish her all the best for her bright future.
Stay tuned with us for upcoming season of India's Best Dramebaaz!


How Does Holiday Bowling Lanes Rate?
Do not eat at the snack bar. Nothing works, and employees, do not have a clue what they are doing.
We had our end of season football party @ Holiday Sunday Nov.11. I want to say the staff did an excellant job, our children had fun, our parents had fun and everyone at Holiday went out of their way for us. Thank you Holiday, we have a great time.
I bowled in several tournaments this year... The worst time I had was at holiday. I know Mark knows how to oil the lanes so, people need to spend more money there and stop complaining so they can update their oil machine and spend out some money on their lanes. How can you work with nothing. I really think if they could make more money, they could offer better lane conditions and be the top notch bowling center in Birmingham. People need to keep bowling..
Comments about Holiday Bowling Lanes, good and bad, are the opinions of visitors to this website and do not reflect the feelings and opinions of Bowling2u.com. This section is the result of the immense feedback from website visitors who have felt a need to express their positive and negative experinces about a particular bowling center. No entry to this list will be posted until verified by a real person to ensure that NO vulgarity is posted. However, we WILL NOT censor a visitor's comments about a negative experience and invite the centers to post their response.


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The Contemporary Pacific
Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific by David Robie (review)
Shailendra Singh
10.1353/cp.2016.0036
Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific by David Robie
Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific, by David Robie. Auckland: Little Island Press. isbn 978-1-8774-8425-4; 363 pages, maps, notes, bibliography, index. Paper, nz$40.00.
Above all, David Robie's Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific is a damning indictment of the parlous state of affairs in parts of this region. The book is also a telling account of the continuous failure of leadership on a fairly grand scale, with ordinary people bearing the brunt of it.
Robie, a professor of journalism at the Auckland University of Technology and director of the Pacific Media Centre, deals with the vital issues of environmental degradation, media censorship, social chaos and human suffering (largely caused by bad governance), various types of violent and nonviolent conflicts, and colonialism and neocolonialism. Allegedly apathetic international and local media also attract some flak. Robie, who has a long record of service in the Pacific Islands, laments that a region with so much promise due to its relative tranquility, natural beauty, and richness of culture has been in such a prolonged state of decline, despite the postindependence optimisms.
That tranquility has been shattered by coups, civil uprisings, and corruption; the region's pristine environments damaged by nuclear testing, wanton resource exploitation, and the specter of climate change; and indigenous cultures threatened by the twin forces of neocolonialism and neoliberal economics. These adversities are superimposed on growing incidences [End Page 511] of human rights abuses and draconian media legislation in some countries. The looming threats of global warming and sea-level rise only complicate matters.
Robie has been reporting these trends in the Asia-Pacific region since the 1980s, both as a journalist and as a media educator, covering self-determination for indigenous minorities in New Caledonia, the struggles in Timor-Leste and West Papua, the Bougainville rebellion, nuclear testing in French Polynesia and the Marshall Islands, and the ethnically motivated coups in Fiji.
Some of these conflicts are documented in his earlier books: Blood on the Banner (1980) highlighted indigenous Pacific Islanders' struggle against the remnants of colonialism, while Tu Galala: Social Change in the Pacific (1992) depicted a continuing battle against environmental catastrophe, communal unrest, growing militarization, ongoing poverty, colonialism, and neocolonialism.
In Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face, Robie reproduces some of his previous writings as a yardstick and a backdrop for deeper insights into the Pacific's seemingly intractable problems. Reflecting on his two-and-a-half decades of Asia-Pacific coverage, Robie intones, "Sadly, not a lot has changed" (6). He adds, "Political independence has not necessarily rid the Pacific of the problems that it faces, and in many cases, Pacific political leaders are themselves part of the problem" (27). One of the more startling statistics, at least for the uninitiated, is the deaths of an estimated 120,000 Pacific Islanders in various disputes over the past quarter-century, plus another 200,000 when Timor-Leste is included (311). If the narrative sounds depressing, it is regrettably all too predictable: long-term ethnic and political tensions coupled with low growth rates and underdevelopment are usually fodder for violent conflict in fragile states (see Securing a Peaceful Pacific, by John Henderson and Greg Watson [2005]).
Robie is forthright in putting the blame for these serious issues squarely on various corrupt Pacific Island leaders, whom he views as having been part of the problem for far too long. But it is not only rogue Pacific Island leaders who are causing problems. Robie also faults leaders from developed countries for their inaction in the face of what he describes as a litany of tortures, murders, exploitation, rapes, military raids, and arbitrary arrests. Most affected is West Papua, where the brutal repression of the native Melanesians by the Indonesian security services is well documented.
The book reminds us why the Pacific is still struggling despite copious amounts of bilateral aid over the decades. It is in the interest of nuclear powers France and the United States to...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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ONE Global Activists
Samantha Singh Memorial Award
An award for young people aspiring to careers in development policy
Samantha Singh was the Coordinator of ONE's Policy Team in 2019-2020. In July 2020, she passed away aged 26. Her legacy is one of kindness. She always sought to make things easier for others, make the mundane fun, and was passionate about global development and particularly education.
In her memory ONE has established the Samantha Singh Memorial Award for young people aged 16 to 26 aspiring to careers in development policy. The award is open to ONE's Global Activists. Applicants are asked to submit an essay in English of up to 2,000 words on a policy question identified by The ONE Campaign each year.
The winner, selected by a prize committee made up of ONE staff members and Sam's family, will be awarded $1,000, a career advice session with a senior ONE staff member, and their essay will be profiled on ONE's blog and social media channels.
How to enter?
This year, the essay question is as follows:
What are the most urgent steps African governments and the international community should take to avoid a 'lost decade' in the wake of COVID-19?
The award will be launched on Sam's birthday, 5 December 2020. Submissions should be sent as a Word document by 5 February 2021 and the winner will be announced on 5 April 2021.
Submit essay
What lessons can we learn from the HIV/AIDS epidemic during COVID-19?
5 things pharmaceutical companies must do to end COVID-19
Diving into the Data: How COVID-19 is impacting remittances
An essential lifeline: Mitigating COVID-19's effect on remittances
Diving into the data: How COVID-19 could lead to years of lost learning
6 key questions about a COVID-19 vaccine


Design Within Reach is the largest modern furniture retailer in the world with more than 30 showrooms across North America and a catalog distribution reaching over 1 million design enthusiasts monthly.
DWR started in 1998 when founder Rob Forbes tried to furnish his apartment with the clean, simple classics he'd come to appreciate while living in London. He discovered that works of designers such as Eames, Le Corbusier and Saarinen were "out of reach" for anyone who didn't know the secret handshake or have the patience to wait months for delivery. By giving people access to the best in authentic modern design, the company helped put design within reach.
Jonas Wagell was approached by the DWR team in 2013 with a request to design a table light. For varying reasons the project was stalled and delayed, but when Focal Light eventually was released in 2016 a strong collaboration had been established. As a result, the next project – a complete sofa range – was therefore designed, developed and managed with both speed and pleasure.


Satoduto is multi-faceted, designed to house a retail space and coffee shop, and host exhibitions and workshops. The kitchen is placed in its own little cabin-like area, and a garden as well as a field surround the building, so you can enjoy the view during all four seasons. During the colder months, you can gaze outside while remaining next to the cozy fireplace inside. In the summer, guests can enjoy the open patio. The architects re-used over 100-year-old cupboards and storage boxes from the original space, giving the updated structure a sense of heritage.


Corrections officers received 320 hours of training and orientation to prepare them for service. Present staff members report confidence in their safety (see staff testimonials video).
How do I apply for a job at the Eastern Reception Diagnostic and Corrections Center?
To apply for a job contact Maggie House to get started at (573) 358-5516 ext. 1846 or apply online at EASe.
How many people are employed at the Eastern Reception Diagnostic and Corrections Center?
Approximately 700 employees are employed at ERDCC.
If I have problems with the website, who should I contact?
If you experience any issues with the website, contact Laura Nations (573) 358-5516.
If you have not been contacted within a reasonable amount of time, please call Maggie House at (573) 358-5516 ext. 1846.
You are provided with one free meal during your shift. You are welcome to bring your own meal to work.
There are numerous opportunities for advancement within all factions of the Eastern Reception Diagnostic and Corrections Center.


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Home » Nepal » Tengboche Monastery: The largest and the most sacred site of Khumbu
Tengboche Monastery: The largest and the most sacred site of Khumbu
Posted on: October 20, 2018 May 3, 2019 by Dolma Ecotourism
Buddhism is next most followed religion of Nepal after Hinduism. Being the birthplace of Lord Buddha himself, there are many sacred sites for Buddhists. Tengboche Monastery is also one of the important religious site for the followers of Buddhism.
Tengboche Monastery, which is also pronounced as Thyanboche Monastery is also called DawaCholing Gompa. It is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery which belongs to the Sherpa community of that region and is situated at an elevation of 3,867 meters in the Tengboche village in Khumjung in the Khumbu region of eastern Nepal.
Tengboche Monastery lies within the region of Sagarmatha National Park, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site of "outstanding universal value". So with that fact, Tengboche Monastery also falls within the trekking trail to Everest Base Camp. While trekking to the Tengboche Monastery, you will enjoy the beautiful view of mountains including Mount Everest, Lhotse, Nuptse, AmaDablam, Tawache and Thamserku. Tengboche Monastery is also in the site of "Sacred Sites Trail Project" of the Sagarmatha National Park that attracts a large number of tourist for trekking and mountaineering. It is a circular trail, which covers ten monasteries in the clockwise direction terminating in the Tengboche Monastery.
Tengboche Monastery is one of the most impressive and beautiful places in the world with its location in the height of over 12,000 feet. The buildings stand upon a knoll at the end of a big spur, which is flung out across the direct axis of Imja River.
History of Tengboche Monastery
Tengboche Monastery lies in the Khumbu region, and it is the largest monastery of Khumbu. Khumbu came under the influence of Buddhism about 350 years ago, and it is referred as a sacred site along with Rowlang and Khanbalung valleys. Lama Sangwa Dorje is said to be the founder of the oldest monastery in Khumbu at Pangboche along with other small hermitages. It is believed that his divine psychic knowledge and clairvoyant vision prophesized on establishing a monastery at Tengboche based on the footprint on a rock left by him while meditating.
But, the monastery wasn't established until the time of Ngawang Tenzin Norbu, who is considered as Lama SangwaDorje's fifth incarnation. Norbu established the monastery at Rongbuk in Tibet on the northern face of Mount Everest. He also blessed ChatangChotar (Lama Guku) to establish the monastery in Tengboche village. Then, the Tengboche Monastery was finally established at its present location in 1916. Tengboche Monastery is the first celibate monastery under the Nyingmapalineage of the Vajrayana Buddhism.
Tengboche Monastery during the Earthquake of April 2015
Nepal suffered the devastating earthquake in April 2015 which resulted in the loss of thousands of life and destruction of many historic monuments. But, Tengboche Monastery suffered only minor loss. However, looking at the history of catastrophic events, Tengboche Monastery has witnessed and suffered few of such in past years.
During the earthquake of 1934, the monastery was destroyed. The monastery was rebuilt by the successor of Lama Gulu, UmzeGelden with the strong support from Ngawang Tenzin Norbu. For the rebuilding of the monastery, the monks and local community contributed a great aid.
Then again on January 19, 1989, the monastery caught fire by an electrical short circuit destroying all the precious and valued old scripture, statues, murals and wood carvings. Only some of the books and painting was saved by the trekkers. After that fire, the monastery has been rebuilt completely with the money donated from around the world.
As in the present the monastery is constructed with stone masonry. The stone and storerooms are made large to facilitate the monks to perform the religious rites and rituals. In the main building, there is the mandatory Dokhang, a prayer hall where a large statue of Shakyamuni Buddha is located. The statue is so large that it extends to two floors of the monastery and encompasses the Ser sang LhaKhang, the first floor of the shrine. The rebuilt of the monastery is very large and impressive with the camping area in its front location, so you can explore more through camping and aid to promote ecotourism by small effort.
Festival celebrated in Tengboche Monastery
Being one of the most sacred sites for Buddhism, Tengboche Monastery also celebrates the festivals very impressively. Many festivals can be witnessed throughout the year in the monastery. But amongst all, Mani Rimdu festival is the most important to the Sherpa people,and in Tengboche Monastery, it becomes way more than other places.
The meaning of "Mani Rimdu" is 'Mani' means 'part of the chant of Chenrezig' and 'Rimdu' or 'Rilbu' means small red pills that are blessed during the festivals which are distributed to all those to who attend the festival. Mani Rimbu is a 19-day religious festival which involves ceremonies and meditation.
Mani Rimdu festival is held during the tenth lunar month as per the Tibetan calendar (October-November). The festival falls during the autumn season, the season when the Khumbu region witnesses a large number of tourist coming for the Everest Base Camp and to experience the festival as well.
The festival begins with an elaborate depiction of the mandala diagram made with coloured sand, which is extracted from only the specified location in the hills. The mandala is the centre of this festival which takes four days to draw. During the festival, there are 16 dance numbers which break for comical effect and when all the devotee's lefts, the monks perform a fire rite to dispel all the harm to the world. Then the sand mandala is formally removed with prayers for the benefit of all the sentient beings.
Other Information about Tengboche Monastery
In the initial years of Tengboche Monastery, the nuns also came and practised Buddhism. But, over the years, nuns wanted their elusive place to live and pray. Respecting this demand of nuns, Lama Gulu granted them land in a small valley called Devoche, which is locatedwithin walking distance of Tengboche. The nunnery is at the elevation of 3,800 meters and is administrated by Tengboche Monastery itself. At present, only a few nuns are staying in this place,and most of them moved to pursue studies in Kathmandu and India.
Apart from the nunnery, there are many other chortens, small monasteries and hermitages as well. Pangboche, Thame, Lawdo, Khumjung and Khunde are some of the other sacred sites.
As the monastery has gone through a few of the accidents in the past and has been rebuilt as well, there are many facilities which haven't been addressed. Safe drinking water, electricity are some of the problems. However, a "Master Plan" was developed, and it has resulted in supply of clean drinking water, also to establish a sacred land for high altitude medical herb plantation close to the monastery, an eco-centre to promote sustainable tourism, income generating schemes to sustain the local population, establish schools, toilets and accommodation for porters.
Trekking to Tengboche Monastery
Tengboche Monastery is located in the north east of Kathmandu. It is on a hill at the confluence of the Dudh Koshi and Imja Rivers. Tengboche Monastery falls en route from a mountain trail from Namche Bazaar.
Starting your trekking from Kathmandu, you will take a domestic flight to the Lukla. Lukla is popular place mainly known for its airport and the beautiful landscape views. From Lukla you will, you will trek towards Phadking in about 4-5 hours. Then after Phadking comes Namche Bazaar, a small charming town. Namche Bazaar is a popular place for acclimatisation for most of the trekkers before moving towards the higher altitude region. So, you can set a camp with your trekking group and stay for few days. You will get to involve with the people of this beautiful and charming town of mountain.
Then you will walk to the descending trail of Phungi Tenga and then comes Tengboche Monastery. You pass will through the suspension bridges, see the beautiful landscape views all around you and pass the delightful and colourful forest of rhododendron, pine and birch before arriving at Tengboche. A little downhill trek will take you to the Devouche, the nunnery as well.
If you are heading to the Everest Base Camp, then, moving forward you will reach Dingboche. From Dingboche come a small village called Labuje. Moving further you will reach Gorakshep and then comes to your destination, the base camp of Everest. Most of the trekkers chose to take a hike towards Kala Patthar, from where you will get a closer view of Mount Everest. Now, you will make your return journey to Namche Bazaar and the Lukla, from where you will take a domestic flight to Kathmandu and return home.
Posted in: NepalTagged: Festivals of Tengboche, History of Tengboche Monastery, Tengboche, Tengboche Monastery
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This past weekend I returned my sister's ashes to the sacred earth.
Melissa died 4 years ago of metastasized breast cancer. She'd donated her body to the Georgetown Medical School so we didn't receive her cremains for two years. When they arrived at my house around April, 2012, I started contemplating what to do with them.
I knew Melissa was gone. She'd left her physical body on June 30, 2010.
The ashes weren't really "her" anymore.
And I believe that we aren't really a body. The body is what we need to be in this life but it isn't who we are.
It's simply the necessary vehicle we occupy until our time on this earth plane is done.
Since she left her body, Mel has visited me often. I feel her beautiful essence dancing around me, free and happy in a way she rarely was corporeally.
But still, there is a vibration to the physical aspect of us and I had to decide where her ashes were going.
That decision turned out to be remarkably easy.
As soon as I began to think about it, the answer came to me right away.
Melissa went to college in Portland, Oregon, at Reed. And when I think back over her life, she was happiest there. She loved being a college student and she especially connected with the culture and beauty of the Pacific Northwest. Maybe it was in her blood. Our maternal grandparents were both from Washington state. Mel loved it there even though she chose to move after college. It was like she left her heart in Oregon. So of course that's where she had to come back to.
We are born of the earth and to the earth we return.
Saturday was a glorious, cloudless day. Mt Hood rose prominently over us and I smiled. I couldn't have asked for a more gorgeous day. The wildflowers were blooming, the forest was thick and lush. I could see the snow still clinging to the apex of the mountain.
We found a forest path and meandered down it.
We passed ferns and rhododendron, young douglas firs and maple saplings. We walked through a group of dead trees, standing ghost like, holding sentry. We kept going.
Eventually, the trail turned and I could see light filtering through the limbs and branches. We were on the side of a canyon. Out through the trees I could see the entire lush forest valley descending below me and rising on the other side. In the distance were more hills and valleys reaching out to the horizon. The sun was shining as a large bird glided overhead. This place was magnificent and perfect.
Melissa definitely lived her life following the road less traveled.
She was a daring, courageous soul who refused to compromise her values, lived for nearly a decade as a single woman in the Middle East, took her horse over jumps taller than I am, was one of the most loyal, loving friends and lived with cancer for 5 years.
It seemed only fitting to leave her bodily remains near a trail that is infrequently traveled.
In a place of solitude and silence where, now that she was through with it and the medical students were done with it, her body (ashes) could nurture new growth in wilderness.
In the place she loved most of all.
This is my story, tell me yours! How have you honored a loved one?
And sign up to get my weekly blog and other info.


The latest installment in the game franchise involving fierce fowl is due to be released on November 8th, and the trailers have just begun to get interesting. Rovio posted yet another trailer today and for the first time they've shown us a character which I think is cool.
If you skip to about 26 seconds into the movie you'll see what I think is a bird based on Obi-Wan Kenobi. This bird appears to use The Force to attack the piggies. Now that looks like a neat trick, unlike the blaster, lightsaber, or taser inspired characters which Rovio has already shown us.


Attach this simple addition to your bags and set your style.
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Enjoy the Trend and Get the color combination that best matches your style and choose different colors for your different purses.


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ON THE ROAD TO THE NFL WITH DALLAS GOEDERT
(Editor's Note: This is the second of several periodic columns that will follow 2013 Britton-Hecla graduate and South Dakota State University standout Dallas Goedert in his quest to play in the National Football league.)
Britton-Hecla graduate Dallas Goedert hit a speed bump on his road to becoming a player in the National Football League, but he's back on track in preparing for the NFL Combine the end of this month.
Goedert was selected to play in the Senior Bowl that was held in Mobile, AL, on Jan. 27 that showcases the best of the best in the country. But he suffered a slight hamstring pull in workouts prior to the game and returned early to his training facility in Irvine, CA.
However, he was in Mobile long enough to still attract some attention. He ran just two one-on-one routes before suffering his injury, and he made two receptions against a couple of the best defenders in the country while representatives from most of the NFL teams were watching.
"The Senior Bowl was a really fun experience," said Goedert. "I got to meet a lot of guys from bigger schools that I had seen on television. And it was nice to go out there and test myself against bigger school competition. It was a bummer that I got hurt because I wanted to show that I was the best tight end there, but it was still a cool experience."
Since returning to California, Goedert has been taking things a bit slow to make sure he is healthy for the NFL Combine scheduled for Feb. 27-March 5 in Indianapolis.
"I've been taking it slow so I don't have any setbacks with the Combine coming up, but I'm getting better every day and I'll be ready," noted Goedert. "It was just a minor hamstring tweak, nothing too serious, and I don't think I'll have any other problems with it."
Following the completion of his collegiate career, Goedert signed with Rep1 Sports, and since the end of December he has been training at Rep1's elite training facility in California with eight other NFL hopefuls. He spends most of each day preparing for all aspects of life in the NFL.
"The Rep1 agents are a great group of guys and really do a good job of getting the right people around me," explained Goedert. "They are all on the same mission - to get me drafted as high as possible and for me to have a lengthy NFL career."
A typical day may involve speed and agility work, position work, film study, interview prep, and weight training and rehab. He has been working with Ricky Proehl, a 17-year NFL wide receiver with two Super Bowl rings, on routes, and also with John Allrad, a former NFL tight end.
Meals are tailored to his body type and goals, and Goedert is seeing the results of his hard work and good nutrition.
"I can definitely see how my body has changed. I'm losing fat and gaining good muscle, and it's a good transition so far. A good playing weight for me is between 255-262 pounds, and right now I'm at 260."
A focus of workouts is also on preparation for the Combine, which includes a 225-pound bench press, 40-yard dash, pro agility drill, Ldrill, 60-yard shuttle, and position drills.
Goedert's Combine Day will be Saturday, March 3. That day will include quarterbacks, wide receivers, and tight ends and will also include Goedert's SDSU teammate Jake Wieneke. The NFL Network television channel will cover the NFL Combine live.
Team representatives also have an opportunity to do 15-minute interviews with prospects at the Combine, and Goedert expects to be busy. He is rated by some as the best tight end prospect in this year's draft and is projected to possibly be a first round pick and a sure bet to go somewhere in the first three rounds.
Goedert said the Combine is not a make-or-break deal for NFL hopefuls, with a player's body of work during his college career being a bigger factor, but a good showing can definitely raise his NFL draft stock.
"I need to prove in the 40-yard dash that I have the speed to stretch the defense on a vertical route, and I think I will do well on the agility drills. It's definitely important to check the boxes in all areas."
Goedert will leave the California training facility on Feb. 26 for Indianapolis. After the Combine he will spend a few more weeks in Irvine before heading to Brookings a few weeks before the Pro Day (similar to NFL Combine) for area players at SDSU on March 30.
After that NFL team representatives are able to come to Brookings to run him through workouts, and they can also fly him to their facilities for interviews.
"Teams will want to pick my brain a little bit and watch me working out, and it will get a little more intense," predicted Goedert.
While all of his efforts are aimed at securing a high draft pick (April 26-28 in Arlington, TX) and playing in the NFL, Goedert is trying not to get caught up in the hype.
"I want to be the first tight end drafted and will hopefully go in the first round as high as possible, but I don't get caught up in the mock drafts. They do those every year and more often than not they are not right. You never know about the draft, and I'm just concentrating on improving my game and performing well at the Combine."


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Posts Tagged 'New York Times Magazine'
Letter of Recommendation: Candle Hour
One of my best teenage memories starts with a natural disaster. In January 1998, my parents and I returned to our home in Montreal to find that a giant tree limb had ruptured our living room. What would soon be known as the Great Quebec Ice Storm had struck. It was the most catastrophic in modern Canadian history. Accumulations of freezing rain had cracked our maple tree nearly in half. It shattered our front window, glass fringing the tree limb like a body outline in a murder scene.
Outside, downed power lines sparked like electric snakes. More than a million Quebecers were left without power. Cars were crushed and impaled by fallen limbs. Because the ice could inflict violence at any moment, everyone retreated indoors, making for an oddly quiet state of emergency. Except for the distant beeps of electrical-crew trucks, all you could hear was the crack of trees buckling under the weight of the ice, day and night. Long after the sidewalks were cleared, we tiptoed past the eaves of tall buildings and kept our voices low, steering clear of icicles thick as baseball bats and sharp as spikes, primed to fall at any moment.
For seven days and seven nights, until the power returned, we lived by candlelight. We learned to be mindful of candles: how to stand them up, walk with them, nurture their light. At first it was maddening to cook dinner — to carefully carry a plate of candles to the cupboard, poke around for ingredients, then go off again in search of a knife, taking care not to drip wax into the cutlery drawer. I learned how to brush my teeth and bathe by candlelight; the light bounced off the mirrors, making the bathroom for once the brightest room in the house. In our bedrooms, we piled under blankets and read ourselves to sleep by the flickering flames.
Outside, our neighborhood descended into darkness at twilight, but if I stared hard enough at windows blurred with ice, I could just make out little dancing lights. Decades later, no one in my family remembers what we talked about, or ate, or how we spent our afternoons that week. But we all remember the candles.
The Montreal Ice Storm, 1998. (Archives de Montreal)
I've since settled in California, and last January events in the world left me with a hunger for silence. I adopted a strict information diet: no television news or social media. One evening, I didn't even bother to flick on the lights in my apartment. I walked quietly to the window and watched the last of the day, the darkness swallowing the trees along my street. Instinctively, I went looking for a book of matches in the back of the kitchen junk drawer. Opening a closet, I felt around until I discovered the remnant of a housewarming gift: a milk-white candle. I struck a match and lit the dusty wick. I commandeered a plate from the cupboard and set it on my coffee table. I nestled in a blanket, listening to the wind in the courtyard. Eventually, for the first time in too many days, I found myself surrendering to sleep.
That was the start of a practice I've taken to calling Candle Hour. An hour before I go to bed, I turn off all my devices for the night. I hit the lights. I light a candle or two or three — enough to read a book by, or to just sit and stare at the flame, which, by drawing oxygen, reminds me I need to breathe, too. I surround myself with scents and objects I like — some fresh rosemary plucked from a neighbor's bush, a jar of redwood seed pods. I have a journal ready, but I don't pressure myself to write in it. Candle Hour doesn't even need to last a full hour, though; sometimes it lasts far longer. I sit until I feel an uncoupling from the chaos, or until the candle burns all the way down, or sometimes both.
Candle Hour has become a soul-level bulwark against so many different kinds of darkness. I feel myself slipping not just out of my day but out of time itself. I shunt aside outrages and anxieties. I find the less conditional, more indomitable version of myself. It's that version I send into my dreams.
At night, by candlelight, the world feels enduring, ancient and slow. To sit and stare at a candle is to drop through a portal to a time when firelight was the alpha and omega of our days. We are evolved for the task of living by candlelight and maladapted to living the way we live now. Studies have noted the disruptive effects of nighttime exposure to blue-spectrum light — the sort emanated by our devices — on the human circadian rhythm. The screens trick us into thinking we need to stay alert, because our brains register their wavelength as they would the approach of daylight. But light on the red end of the spectrum sends a much weaker signal. In the long era of fire and candlelight, our bodies were unconfused as they began to uncoil.
Tonight's candlelight will cast the same glow on my Oakland walls as it did on my parents' walls in Montreal in 1998. I'll feel in my bones that the day has passed — as all days, even fearful ones, eventually do. The day's last act is cast in flickering gold. I'll watch the flame bob and let my mind wander, until I realize I'm sleepy. After a while, I'll lean over and blow it out, ready now for darkness — where renewal begins.
Tags: Candle Hour, Julia Scott, Letter of Recommendation, New York Times Magazine, Queben ice storm
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The Loneliest Man in Belize
Friday, May 22nd, 2015
'Rozco! Love you, hon!" cried a man in baggy jeans. His shout, insincere and taunting, was aimed at the back of Caleb Orozco, a 41-year-old man walking along a row of tarp-covered souvenir stands near one of Belize City's ferry terminals. Orozco's only acknowledgment was to walk a little faster, car keys clutched in his hand. It was a hot December afternoon, a week before Christmas, high season in the city's tourist zone. Two policemen appraised Orozco but said nothing as more taunts flew. "Saw you on TV!" a woman dressed in white jeered from her craft stand, where she sold carved wooden boats. Farther down the sidewalk, two men snickered. "Caleb! You done rub too hard!" leered a man in a blue baseball cap, pointing to Orozco's crotch.
"Batiman!" someone called from the shade of a food-cart umbrella.
In Belize — a small Anglophone Caribbean nation tucked into the eastern flank of Guatemala and Mexico — "batiman" (Creole for, literally, "butt man") has long been the supreme slur against gay men, the worst possible insult to their personhood and dignity. But now another slur is beginning to take its place: "Orozco."
Caleb Orozco. Photo credit Julia Scott
Five years ago, Orozco's lawyer walked into the Belize Supreme Court Registry and handed over a stack of papers that initiated the first challenge in Caribbean history to the criminalization of sodomy. Caleb Orozco v. the Attorney General of Belize focuses on Section 53, a statute in the Belize criminal code that calls for a 10-year prison term for "carnal intercourse against the order of nature." If Orozco won, his supporters hoped, it would establish a moral precedent across the Caribbean and even create a domino effect, putting pressure on other governments to decriminalize sodomy. But it took three years for the Supreme Court to hear the case; two years later, the nation still awaits a verdict.
In the meantime, Orozco operates the United Belize Advocacy Movement, or Unibam, the only gay rights advocacy and policy group in Belize, out of his home in a thick-walled compound on Zericote Street, where stray dogs nose for food scraps in the dirt. The walls are topped with broken shards of glass and rusty, upside-down nails. A seven-foot-tall security gate barricades his driveway. When home, he must remember to lock all six locks — two for his house, two for his office and two padlocks on the gate for good measure. Those precautions do not prevent Orozco's neighbor or people walking by his house from throwing rocks and bottles over the walls, shouting, "Aala unu fu ded" ("All of you should die"). Other residents have picked up two-by-fours and chased him in the street. People stone Orozco's house frequently enough that he rarely bothers to call the police at this point. (This being Belize, a country with a population of just 360,000, he sometimes knows whoever is throwing the rocks on Zericote Street anyway.)
Orozco's natural habitat, the place where he feels powerful and at ease, is in front of his pink laptop in his office, a squat outbuilding with barred windows. Inside these walls, no one will disparage his manner of dress: snug graphic tee, stylish camo-print shorts and black Keds that hug his feet like shapely hooves. No one will comment on the way he styles his hank of hair, with a flip to the left and some highlights that tend to come out looking gray. He greets clients and funders with a soft handshake and a wry joke — usually at his own expense. When they leave, he spends hours online in the growing dark, sometimes past midnight.
"Did you know we caused the floods in Belize?" he remarked airily, scrolling through headlines on a local news site. "There's an actual comment from a man who says so." Later he double-locked his office doors and led the way across a yard strung with empty clothing lines, dry grass crackling underfoot. He paused for a few moments, listening for unrest from his neighbor's house, before mounting the heavily sagging steps. He jerked open the sticky door. The floor tipped at an angle, and the ceiling was patched and moldy. One window had holes big enough for him to poke his head through. "My house is like my life — a hot mess," he said, making his favorite joke with a wan smile.
He is Belize's most reviled homosexual and its most ostracized citizen, a man whom fundamentalists pray for and passers-by scorn; a marked man at 30 paces. His weary face is on the evening news and in newspaper caricatures, which have depicted him in fishnets and heels. His name is now a label, one used to remind other gays that they are sinners and public offenders. Win or lose, Orozco's fight for his fundamental rights and freedoms will follow him for the rest of his life.
Americans and Europeans visit Belize for all the things that make "the Jewel" an ideal place to relax: coral reefs, paradisiacal white beaches, a green-azure sea. It is a deeply Christian country, with a Constitution that proclaims the "supremacy of God" as a first principle. Recently, it has seen a surge in Pentecostalism and other proselytizing strains of faith. Although bounded on two sides by Latin American countries with more liberal attitudes toward same-sex relationships, Belize retains a culture more closely aligned with Caribbean countries whose perspectives were colored by 200 years of British occupation. There is an ethos of "live and let live," but only as long as the gay community remains invisible. Gay couples cohabitate and quietly raise children, but without demanding legal recognition. Couples don't hold hands in public. No hate-crime laws exist to punish targeted assaults.
Formerly British Honduras, Belize gained independence in 1981, inheriting most of its governing documents from its former master. Section 53 is an artifact of Belize's colonial past dating to the 1880s. The British bequeathed similar "buggery" laws to all 11 other Caribbean countries once ruled by the crown. (The Bahamas has subsequently removed them.) Buggery became a criminal offense in the England of King Henry VIII in 1533. Of the 76 countries that still criminalize sodomy around the world today, most do so as a holdover from British colonial rule. (Britain repealed its buggery laws in 2003.) In Belize, antigay laws extend beyond the criminal code: Homosexuals are still technically an explicit class of prohibited immigrants, along with prostitutes, "any idiot," the insane and "any person who is deaf and dumb."
Much as with Lawrence v. Texas, the case whose resolution in the United States Supreme Court invalidated anti-sodomy laws still on the books in 13 states, Orozco's challenge is less about sodomy than about discrimination. Even the most zealous Christian leaders, the ones leading the crusade to keep Section 53 on the books, acknowledge that law or no law, sodomy does happen in the privacy of bedrooms in Belize — and not just between gay men, either. Despite the fact that the law is rarely enforced, Orozco and his lawyers say that the threat of indictment encourages public harassment, threats and occasional violence against many gays and lesbians, who have little recourse. The police sometimes charge hush money not to turn people in, according to Lisa Shoman, one of Orozco's attorneys. The Belize attorney general told me that he personally believes that Section 53 is discriminatory, though his office is obligated to defend it in court.
Orozco is an unlikely instigator of this challenge. He wasn't politically galvanized until he was 31, when he went to a workshop for gay men and people living with H.I.V. at a public health conference in Belize City. One by one, the men stood up, spoke their names and added, "I have H.I.V." or "I have sex with men." Orozco was bowled over. "I got up and said, 'By the way, I like men.' I realized that you perpetuate your own mistreatment by remaining silent. And I decided I would not be silent anymore."
A year later, he helped found Unibam as a public-health advocacy group for gay men. Until that point, Orozco had never paid much attention to the H.I.V. epidemic in his country. Even after one of his uncles, who was gay, died from complications related to AIDS, Orozco didn't fully grasp what had killed him. He couldn't acknowledge being gay — to others or himself — until well into his college years. "People would ask me, 'Are you gay?' And I would say stupid things like: 'I'm trisexual. I'll try anything just once,' " he recalled. "The truth was, I wouldn't try anything." He didn't have sex until he was 23, and when he did, he felt pressured into it. He has never had a long-term boyfriend. The men Orozco knows won't be seen with him. "There was one man who would only want me to pick him up after 8 o'clock at night," he said, rolling his eyes. "I think about it all the time — is this the price I'm paying? To have no love life? To be the one publicly gay man in Belize? To be the most socially isolated?"
Caleb Orozco in Belize City. Photo credit Julia Scott
Orozco did not have litigation on his mind at an H.I.V. conference in Jamaica in 2009 when he spoke to two law professors — one Jamaican, one Guyanese — with the University of the West Indies Rights Advocacy Project, which they had recently founded with a colleague to focus on human rights in the Caribbean. They had been studying bans on same-sex relationships, laying the groundwork for a test case that, if successful, could encourage similar legal challenges in neighboring countries. Belize was ideal: It had a Constitution with stronger personal privacy and equality protections than other Caribbean countries. From a human rights point of view, it was a case they thought they could win.
When Orozco heard this, he recalled, "I put up my hand — literally — and said: 'What about me? I'm ready since yesterday. How can we do this?' " But even as he signed the legal papers, litigation itself was never the point. "I realized the case was simply a tool to create a national dialogue," he said. "It isn't just Section 53. It's adoption. It's Social Security. It's not having the first say of the health of your partner. There's the dignity issues, which haven't been recognized."
The legal challenge was a controversial move in Belize's gay community, where the question of gay rights — what they are and how to get them — is a conversation that has just barely begun. Belize has never had an inciting incident to catalyze a movement, like the 1969 Stonewall uprising. There is no annual Gay Pride parade. No member of government or other prominent figure has ever come out. No gay bars or ritual "safe spaces" exist as places for people to meet, just carefully organized house parties and private encounters on Facebook. The L.G.B.T. community in Belize, with the exception of a dedicated corps of organizers and supporters, remains timid, fractured and apolitical. Unibam itself has only 128 members, in part because of people's concern that their names could be made public. "Don't ask, don't tell — that's the way with just about everything here," said Kelvin Ramnarace, a Unibam board member. "It doesn't mean progress. It's one thing to not have rights and know it. Here you think you do, because it's not so hard to live here. But we don't."
But Orozco's lawyers had reasons to hope that a softening was at hand. The tone had already begun to shift across much of neighboring Latin America, where activists were laying the groundwork for a string of victories. Today, six Latin American countries recognize same-sex marriage or civil unions. Eleven countries have banned employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, and seven countries protect L.G.B.T. citizens against hate crimes.
"Even though people said they anticipated some backlash in Belize, almost all the groups I spoke to seemed favorable," said Arif Bulkan, the Guyanese lawyer Orozco met at the H.I.V. conference. Bulkan and his colleagues spoke to a range of Belizean civil-society groups and local leaders, including those in the church establishment. He recalled an important meeting with the president, at the time, of the Belize Council of Churches, which encompasses Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists and Presbyterians. "He said they wouldn't support us openly," Bulkan said, "but they wouldn't oppose us either."
So Orozco had few reasons to think he might regret putting his reputation, and Unibam's, on the line. Today, he shakes his head like a man in a dream. "I just thought it was going to be some litigation," he said. "I didn't expect opponents, didn't expect propaganda and all that other stuff that happened." He paused. "I really didn't."
In Belize, church leaders are granted deference in the press and by lawmakers on social issues. But in large part, the ecclesiastical focus has always been on the spiritual rather than the political realm. So Orozco was blindsided by the announcement, soon after the suit was filed, that the Roman Catholic Church of Belize, the Belize Evangelical Association of Churches and the Anglican Church had together joined the case on the government's side as an "interested party," a legal distinction that allowed them to hire lawyers, file motions and be heard during the trial. More than 400 church leaders and ministries came together to mobilize their adherents in the name of public morality. In another first for Belize, church leaders founded a nationwide activist campaign, Belize Action, and began drawing thousands of believers to rallies that denounced the "homosexual agenda."
The churches also flexed their legal muscle in a pretrial motion to remove Unibam as a claimant in the case; as an organization, they argued, it had no standing to challenge the law. Their motion succeeded. Suddenly Orozco was the sole claimant. The case would come down to whether Orozco's personal human rights had been violated. He was hounded for interviews, and his name was broadcast all over the world. Someone posted a video to YouTube called "[Expletive] Unibam dis da Belize," with a photo of Orozco. He received death threats when his name was printed. Shoman, an opposition senator in the National Assembly of Belize as well as one of his lawyers, received explicit rape threats. One day, Orozco was walking downtown, alone, when a man on a bicycle, shouting antigay slurs, threw an empty beer bottle at Orozco's head. It smacked him on the jaw and cracked two of his molars. After taking his statement, "the police said, 'If you find who did this, tell us, and we will pick them up.' Why is that my responsibility?" he asked me with a sardonic smile.
Before the churches joined the case, Orozco allowed three organizations to join forces as an interested party on his side: the Commonwealth Lawyers Association, the International Commission of Jurists and the Human Dignity Trust, major transnational nongovernmental organizations with global standing, large budgets and access to the best human rights lawyers in the world. "I thought that using interested parties from the international community would have brought some kind of leverage," he told me.
But the presence of these foreign groups, even on paper, allowed Orozco's enemies to reframe the case as an act of cultural aggression by the global north. According to Bulkan, "a lot of the negative press after that was about foreigners coming in." Prime Minister Dean Barrow told a local news station: "One of the things that we have to be grateful for in this country is the culture wars we see in the United States have not been imported into Belize. Well, obviously, this is the start of exactly such a phenomenon." The United States and Europe were meddling colonizers, Orozco their traitorous pawn. Orozco's religious opponents referred to victories for same-sex marriage in California and Canada as further evidence of the true agenda at work in Belize. "It puts a lot of pressure on us," Orozco said. "When we started this, we weren't thinking about gay marriage."
Opponents made much of the fact that Unibam receives all of its budget, around $35,000 a year, from foreign governments and foundations, including the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives, the Swiss Embassy in Mexico City and the Open Society Foundations. "Is Unibam being used for a foreign gay agenda?" one news station asked. The Amandala, the nation's largest newspaper, published a page-long editorial under the headline "UNIBAM DIVIDES BELIZE." "Homosexuals are predators of young and teenaged boys," wrote the editor in chief, Russell Vellos, in a separate column. "Woe unto us, Belize, if homosexuals are successful in our court. Woe unto us! In fact, since ours is a 'test case,' woe unto the world!"
The headquarters of Unibam. Photo credit Julia Scott
Six days a week, Orozco drives to his mother's squat rental in a Belize City suburb and sits down at her glass kitchen table. Perla Ozeata, a matter-of-fact woman with the same dark eyes as her son's, serves up his favorites: steaming dark bowls of chimole, a Belizean specialty; escabeche with chicken and whole jalapeños; and her special cheesecake. Strangers have cursed her for "encouraging" her son to be gay, but she is proud of him. The first day Orozco went to court, he wore clothes his mother bought him. She ironed his shirt and tied his tie. Sometimes when she looks at him, she still sees the friendless schoolboy who played in the yard by himself, catching lizards and trying to avoid his bullies and his father's chronic disapproval. She intends to one day tear down the house on Zericote Street and rebuild, so she can move back in with him and protect him. "Somebody have to live with Caleb, because people take advantage of him," she told me one afternoon. "Caleb no fighter. He can fight out the mouth, but he can't fight physical." At one point, when Orozco was out of earshot, she said in a low voice: "Every time he walk the street, they promise to kill him. Win or lose the case, they'll kill him."
These days Orozco leaves his compound on foot for only two reasons: to walk to the bank (10 minutes) or to the market for groceries (five minutes). On good days, he can make the 10-minute walk in seven and the five-minute one in three. But even inside a place of commerce, things can go awry. "A gentleman said he wanted to push his bat up my you-know-what," Orozco told me at one point. "I was at the bank. I had my nieces with me."
He was sitting on his messy bed, his knees pressed together. His clothes were jammed into a dresser decorated with peeling children's stickers. Twice a day, Orozco brushes his teeth over the tub because he doesn't have a sink. The walls are a single run of wooden slats with holes like gapped teeth, so pests are a problem. "Compare rats to spiders, and I prefer spiders," he said.
Coming out is supposed to broaden your world. Orozco's world has narrowed to the space between these walls. Some days the tension in his neck hurts so badly that he resorts to painkillers. Other days he just feels numb. He doesn't answer his cellphone when it rings and just watches TV until he drops off to sleep. "I don't like feeling trapped," he acknowledged. "But I cannot afford to lose myself in this work. I create my own social space, completely."
Once in a while he takes a chance on a night out at Dino's, a dance club in downtown Belize City. But he never goes without a friend. At midnight one Saturday, Orozco parked near a faded billboard with a picture of a sad-looking woman and the message "ABORTION: ONE DEAD, ONE WOUNDED." With his sister Golda, her husband and a friend, he ascended a narrow concrete stairwell to a long, dark room with earsplitting Caribbean dance music. "This is what we do," Orozco said, shrugging. It's an in-joke that Belize City's only gay-friendly club is on Queen Street. Drag queens have performed as dancers and singers, but on most nights, like the night we visited, the club is filled with straight couples grinding up against the plywood walls. "Not a lot of gays here," I said. Orozco replied, "That's the challenge."
There were a lot of watchful eyes at Dino's. Camo-clad security guards, grim-faced and armed, scanned the crowd for troublemakers. Hand-painted brontosaurs and stegosauri stared out from the walls, rendered with cartoon menace in Day-Glo colors under black light. As the dancers watched one another, they took in Orozco, taller than most Belizean men at 5-foot-11, as he stood by the door for a long time in burnt-orange slacks and natty brogues, sipping a Coke over ice. He watched them back, seeming very ill at ease.
Orozco counted eight members of his tribe in the room that night. He knew all their names, professions and stories. But in four hours, only one, a contractor who had done some work with Unibam, approached Orozco and his group to say hello. Orozco approached no one at all. "I don't have many friends," he acknowledged later on. "You turn left, you have criticism. You turn right, you have indifference." He has warm relationships with his clients and colleagues, but he doesn't socialize.
Ramnarace, the Unibam board member, told me that he supports Orozco as a leader, but that others in the gay community have their doubts. "Internationally, I think he is more accepted than he is locally," Ramnarace said. "Because when he says certain things here, he doesn't always come across well." In interviews, Orozco can appear peevish or overly cerebral, seeming impatient with his interviewer or else resorting to the programmatic lexicon he uses at human rights meetings. "But still," Ramnarace went on, "he's a brave little bitch to go do that, even to fumble. It isn't easy to do, not here, not alone, a little Hispanic guy."
Orozco used to love going out dancing late at night. One memorable time at Dino's, he made out with a man in public, right there on the dance floor. Tonight, he and his small group formed a circle in the darkest part of the room. Golda began to dance in her gold sandals and light flowered dress, smiling at her older brother in an encouraging way. Her husband and their friend danced at her sides. Orozco, expressionless, planted himself near a pillar and began moving in place, gazing down at the floor. "As long as I don't see an eye looking at me, I can lose myself in the music," he said. "I just don't want to be conscious of anyone's eyes looking at me."
It has now been 24 months since the hearings on Section 53, with no word on when Chief Justice Kenneth Benjamin will deliver a decision. The Supreme Court does not have a calendar for decisions, and sources close to the case have refused to speculate as to the cause of the unusual delay. The Supreme Court Registry did not answer a request for comment. "Unfortunately, civil matters in this country do proceed at a very slow pace," Shoman said. "But I could never have imagined that something of this magnitude, a case regarding the personal liberty of the citizens, should take so long." She and the rest of Orozco's legal team have sent multiple letters to the registrar general but received no reply.
Caleb Orozco in his office. Photo credit Julia Scott
Jonathan Cooper, the chief executive of the Human Dignity Trust, is just as eager for results. "The ramification of the Belize decision will be felt across the Commonwealth, if not beyond," he told me. Because either side is likely to appeal any decision all the way to the Caribbean Court of Justice, the highest court for not only Belize but also Barbados, Dominica and Guyana, the controversy (and Orozco's notoriety) is likely to spill over into those nations as well. And then there is the matter of international human rights law. The legal groups invoked the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights in their argument, with the knowledge that should the appeals court rule in Orozco's favor on that basis, other jurisdictions would find the criminalization of sodomy very hard to justify.
After waiting so many years, Orozco has made a decision of his own. Shortly after the court hearings, he quietly stepped down as the president of Unibam. He stayed on as its executive director, but he told me that he hopes to leave that post next year. "I've come to realize that I've sacrificed my life to this work," he said. "And I wake up to an empty bed and a pillow. And what does that say about me?"
These are not the words of a Harvey Milk revolutionary, and in fact Orozco doesn't see himself in the mold of Milk, who was murdered at 48. But Orozco has believed for some time now that he won't outlive his middle age. "My larger goal is to survive to the end of my case," he said. "They said that if something should happen to me, the case would be over. I've invested seven years of my life in this thing, and I don't want to throw that away."
Orozco has come to the conclusion that the big changes he thought were within reach five years ago are actually a generation away. Living in Belize as a gay man or woman is like peering across a demilitarized zone with a pair of binoculars. If he took a four-hour bus ride to Chetumal, Mexico, Orozco would enjoy the right to marry. Someday, Orozco may tear down his house and rebuild it. He may go to law school or pick up the business-administration career he left behind. But he has ruled out leaving Belize. He loves his family too much. He hopes that with time, most of his fellow Belizeans will learn not to judge. "Our opponents have been fear-mongering," he said. "Most people could care less what I do in my bedroom."
One afternoon, Orozco took his least favorite walk, to the bank. He rose from his office chair, turned off the fan, cut the lights, locked all six locks and stepped out in a brown tie-dye button-down and knee-length cotton pinstripe shorts. The narrow downtown streets were clogged with cars short on mufflers, long on horns. He passed bakeries and pharmacies and street vendors hawking bags of peanuts and dried fruit and discount clothing stores blaring pop music.
Stoop-sitters on Central American Boulevard nudged one another and gestured. A man in a truck driver's uniform, smoking a cigarette, quietly watched Orozco go by, then spat and uttered a profanity. Two adolescent girls turned to look back at his retreating form, then doubled over with laughter. Three construction workers, legs dangling in a muddy trench, looked up as Orozco walked past. "Hey, Belize bwai!" they shouted. "Hoo da fayri, butt bwai?"
A few steps from the bank, Orozco passed two women alongside a young girl with her hair tied back in braids, wearing gold sandals and a flouncy white dress. She gazed at Orozco with curiosity. Then she looked up. "Mama," she said, "that's a batiman."
Tags: anti-gay, Belize, Belize Action, Belizean, buggery, Caleb Orozco, Caribbean Court of Justice, Caribbean gay rights, gay and lesbian, Julia Scott, LGBT, New York Times Magazine, Scott Stirm, section 53, sodomy law, Unibam
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A Wash On the Wild Side: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love My Microbiome
Sunday, May 25th, 2014
For most of my life, if I've thought at all about the bacteria living on my skin, it has been while trying to scrub them away. But recently I spent four weeks rubbing them in. I was Subject 26 in testing a living bacterial skin tonic, developed by AOBiome, a biotech start-up in Cambridge, Mass. The tonic looks, feels and tastes like water, but each spray bottle of AO+ Refreshing Cosmetic Mist contains billions of cultivated Nitrosomonas eutropha, an ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) that is most commonly found in dirt and untreated water. AOBiome scientists hypothesize that it once lived happily on us too — before we started washing it away with soap and shampoo — acting as a built-in cleanser, deodorant, anti-inflammatory and immune booster by feeding on the ammonia in our sweat and converting it into nitrite and nitric oxide.
In the conference room of the cramped offices that the four-person AOBiome team rents at a start-up incubator, Spiros Jamas, the chief executive, handed me a chilled bottle of the solution from the refrigerator. "These are AOB," he said. "They're very innocuous." Because the N. eutropha are alive, he said, they would need to be kept cold to remain stable. I would be required to mist my face, scalp and body with bacteria twice a day. I would be swabbed every week at a lab, and the samples would be analyzed to detect changes in my invisible microbial community.
Artwork by Dan Cassaro
In the last few years, the microbiome (sometimes referred to as "the second genome") has become a focus for the health conscious and for scientists alike. Studies like the Human Microbiome Project, a national enterprise to sequence bacterial DNA taken from 242 healthy Americans, have tagged 19 of our phyla (groupings of bacteria), each with thousands of distinct species. As Michael Pollan wrote in this magazine last year: "As a civilization, we've just spent the better part of a century doing our unwitting best to wreck the human-associated microbiota. . . . Whether any cures emerge from the exploration of the second genome, the implications of what has already been learned — for our sense of self, for our definition of health and for our attitude toward bacteria in general — are difficult to overstate."
While most microbiome studies have focused on the health implications of what's found deep in the gut, companies like AOBiome are interested in how we can manipulate the hidden universe of organisms (bacteria, viruses and fungi) teeming throughout our glands, hair follicles and epidermis. They see long-term medical possibilities in the idea of adding skin bacteria instead of vanquishing them with antibacterials — the potential to change how we diagnose and treat serious skin ailments. But drug treatments require the approval of the Food and Drug Administration, an onerous and expensive process that can take upward of a decade. Instead, AOBiome's founders introduced AO+ under the loosely regulated "cosmetics" umbrella as a way to release their skin tonic quickly. With luck, the sales revenue will help to finance their research into drug applications. "The cosmetic route is the quickest," Jamas said. "The other route is the hardest, the most expensive and the most rewarding."
AOBiome does not market its product as an alternative to conventional cleansers, but it notes that some regular users may find themselves less reliant on soaps, moisturizers and deodorants after as little as a month. Jamas, a quiet, serial entrepreneur with a doctorate in biotechnology, incorporated N. eutropha into his hygiene routine years ago; today he uses soap just twice a week. The chairman of the company's board of directors, Jamie Heywood, lathers up once or twice a month and shampoos just three times a year. The most extreme case is David Whitlock, the M.I.T.-trained chemical engineer who invented AO+. He has not showered for the past 12 years. He occasionally takes a sponge bath to wash away grime but trusts his skin's bacterial colony to do the rest. I met these men. I got close enough to shake their hands, engage in casual conversation and note that they in no way conveyed a sense of being "unclean" in either the visual or olfactory sense.
For my part in the AO+ study, I wanted to see what the bacteria could do quickly, and I wanted to cut down on variables, so I decided to sacrifice my own soaps, shampoo and deodorant while participating. I was determined to grow a garden of my own.
The story of AOBiome begins in 2001, in a patch of dirt on the floor of a Boston-area horse stable, where Whitlock was collecting soil samples. A few months before, an equestrienne he was dating asked him to answer a question she had long been curious about: Why did her horse like to roll in the dirt? Whitlock didn't know, but he saw an opportunity to impress.
Whitlock thought about how much horses sweat in the summer. He wondered whether the animals managed their sweat by engaging in dirt bathing. Could there be a kind of "good" bacteria in the dirt that fed off perspiration? He knew there was a class of bacteria that derive their energy from ammonia rather than from carbon and grew convinced that horses (and possibly other mammals that engage in dirt bathing) would be covered in them. "The only way that horses could evolve this behavior was if they had substantial evolutionary benefits from it," he told me.
Whitlock gathered his samples and brought them back to his makeshift home laboratory, where he skimmed off the dirt and grew the bacteria in an ammonia solution (to simulate sweat). The strain that emerged as the hardiest was indeed an ammonia oxidizer: N. eutropha. Here was one way to test his "clean dirt" theory: Whitlock put the bacteria in water and dumped them onto his head and body.
Some skin bacteria species double every 20 minutes; ammonia-oxidizing bacteria are much slower, doubling only every 10 hours. They are delicate creatures, so Whitlock decided to avoid showering to simulate a pre-soap living condition. "I wasn't sure what would happen," he said, "but I knew it would be good."
The bacteria thrived on Whitlock. AO+ was created using bacterial cultures from his skin.
And now the bacteria were on my skin.
I had warned my friends and co-workers about my experiment, and while there were plenty of jokes — someone left a stick of deodorant on my desk; people started referring to me as "Teen Spirit" — when I pressed them to sniff me after a few soap-free days, no one could detect a difference. Aside from my increasingly greasy hair, the real changes were invisible. By the end of the week, Jamas was happy to see test results that showed the N. eutropha had begun to settle in, finding a friendly niche within my biome.
AOBiome is not the first company to try to leverage emerging discoveries about the skin microbiome into topical products. The skin-care aisle at my drugstore had a moisturizer with a "probiotic complex," which contains an extract of Lactobacillus, species unknown. Online, companies offer face masks, creams and cleansers, capitalizing on the booming market in probiotic yogurts and nutritional supplements. There is even a "frozen yogurt" body cleanser whose second ingredient is sodium lauryl sulfate, a potent detergent, so you can remove your healthy bacteria just as fast as you can grow them.
Audrey Gueniche, a project director in L'Oréal's research and innovation division, said the recent skin microbiome craze "has revolutionized the way we study the skin and the results we look for." L'Oréal has patented several bacterial treatments for dry and sensitive skin, including Bifidobacterium longum extract, which it uses in a Lancôme product. Clinique sells a foundation with Lactobacillus ferment, and its parent company, Estée Lauder, holds a patent for skin application of Lactobacillus plantarum. But it's unclear whether the probiotics in any of these products would actually have any effect on skin: Although a few studies have shown that Lactobacillus may reduce symptoms of eczema when taken orally, it does not live on the skin with any abundance, making it "a curious place to start for a skin probiotic," said Michael Fischbach, a microbiologist at the University of California, San Francisco. Extracts are not alive, so they won't be colonizing anything.
To differentiate their product from others on the market, the makers of AO+ use the term "probiotics" sparingly, preferring instead to refer to "microbiomics." No matter what their marketing approach, at this stage the company is still in the process of defining itself. It doesn't help that the F.D.A. has no regulatory definition for "probiotic" and has never approved such a product for therapeutic use. "The skin microbiome is the wild frontier," Fischbach told me. "We know very little about what goes wrong when things go wrong and whether fixing the bacterial community is going to fix any real problems."
I didn't really grasp how much was yet unknown until I received my skin swab results from Week 2. My overall bacterial landscape was consistent with the majority of Americans': Most of my bacteria fell into the genera Propionibacterium, Corynebacterium and Staphylococcus, which are among the most common groups. (S. epidermidis is one of several Staphylococcus species that reside on the skin without harming it.) But my test results also showed hundreds of unknown bacterial strains that simply haven't been classified yet.
Meanwhile, I began to regret my decision to use AO+ as a replacement for soap and shampoo. People began asking if I'd "done something new" with my hair, which turned a full shade darker for being coated in oil that my scalp wouldn't stop producing. I slept with a towel over my pillow and found myself avoiding parties and public events. Mortified by my body odor, I kept my arms pinned to my sides, unless someone volunteered to smell my armpit. One friend detected the smell of onions. Another caught a whiff of "pleasant pot."
When I visited the gym, I followed AOBiome's instructions, misting myself before leaving the house and again when I came home. The results: After letting the spray dry on my skin, I smelled better. Not odorless, but not as bad as I would have ordinarily. And, oddly, my feet didn't smell at all.
My skin began to change for the better. It actually became softer and smoother, rather than dry and flaky, as though a sauna's worth of humidity had penetrated my winter-hardened shell. And my complexion, prone to hormone-related breakouts, was clear. For the first time ever, my pores seemed to shrink. As I took my morning "shower" — a three-minute rinse in a bathroom devoid of hygiene products — I remembered all the antibiotics I took as a teenager to quell my acne. How funny it would be if adding bacteria were the answer all along.
Dr. Elizabeth Grice, an assistant professor of dermatology at the University of Pennsylvania who studies the role of microbiota in wound healing and inflammatory skin disease, said she believed that discoveries about the second genome might one day not only revolutionize treatments for acne but also — as AOBiome and its biotech peers hope — help us diagnose and cure disease, heal severe lesions and more. Those with wounds that fail to respond to antibiotics could receive a probiotic cocktail adapted to fight the specific strain of infecting bacteria. Body odor could be altered to repel insects and thereby fight malaria and dengue fever. And eczema and other chronic inflammatory disorders could be ameliorated.
According to Julie Segre, a senior investigator at the National Human Genome Research Institute and a specialist on the skin microbiome, there is a strong correlation between eczema flare-ups and the colonization of Staphylococcus aureus on the skin. Segre told me that scientists don't know what triggers the bacterial bloom. But if an eczema patient could monitor their microbes in real time, they could lessen flare-ups. "Just like someone who has diabetes is checking their blood-sugar levels, a kid who had eczema would be checking their microbial-diversity levels by swabbing their skin," Segre said.
AOBiome says its early research seems to hold promise. In-house lab results show that AOB activates enough acidified nitrite to diminish the dangerous methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). A regime of concentrated AO+ caused a hundredfold decrease of Propionibacterium acnes, often blamed for acne breakouts. And the company says that diabetic mice with skin wounds heal more quickly after two weeks of treatment with a formulation of AOB.
Soon, AOBiome will file an Investigational New Drug Application with the F.D.A. to request permission to test more concentrated forms of AOB for the treatment of diabetic ulcers and other dermatologic conditions. "It's very, very easy to make a quack therapy; to put together a bunch of biological links to convince someone that something's true," Heywood said. "What would hurt us is trying to sell anything ahead of the data."
As my experiment drew to a close, I found myself reluctant to return to my old routine of daily shampooing and face treatments. A month earlier, I packed all my hygiene products into a cooler and hid it away. On the last day of the experiment, I opened it up, wrinkling my nose at the chemical odor. Almost everything in the cooler was a synthesized liquid surfactant, with lab-manufactured ingredients engineered to smell good and add moisture to replace the oils they washed away. I asked AOBiome which of my products was the biggest threat to the "good" bacteria on my skin. The answer was equivocal: Sodium lauryl sulfate, the first ingredient in many shampoos, may be the deadliest to N. eutropha, but nearly all common liquid cleansers remove at least some of the bacteria. Antibacterial soaps are most likely the worst culprits, but even soaps made with only vegetable oils or animal fats strip the skin of AOB.
Bar soaps don't need bacteria-killing preservatives the way liquid soaps do, but they are more concentrated and more alkaline, whereas liquid soaps are often milder and closer to the natural pH of skin. Which is better for our bacteria? "The short answer is, we don't know," said Dr. Larry Weiss, founder of CleanWell, a botanical-cleanser manufacturer. Weiss is helping AOBiome put together a list of "bacteria-safe" cleansers based on lab testing. In the end, I tipped most of my products into the trash and purchased a basic soap and a fragrance-free shampoo with a short list of easily pronounceable ingredients. Then I enjoyed a very long shower, hoping my robust biofilm would hang on tight.
One week after the end of the experiment, though, a final skin swab found almost no evidence of N. eutropha anywhere on my skin. It had taken me a month to coax a new colony of bacteria onto my body. It took me three showers to extirpate it. Billions of bacteria, and they had disappeared as invisibly as they arrived. I had come to think of them as "mine," and yet I had evicted them.
BONUS: Eavesdrop on Julia's conversation with The 6th Floor blog at the New York Times.
Tags: AOBiome, Bacteria, Bacteria skin spray, Julia Scott, Julie Segre, Lactobacillus, Michael Fischbach, New York Times Magazine, Nitrosomonas Eutropha, No poo, Probiotic cleanser, Probiotic cosmetics, Probiotic FDA regulation, Probiotics, Skin microbiome, Sodium laurel sulfate
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text:
Die Kathedrale ist ein Textadventure mit Grafiken des deutschen Entwicklungsstudios Weltenschmiede, das 1991 von Software 2000 für den Amiga und DOS-PCs veröffentlicht wurde.

Handlung

Der Spieler nimmt anlässlich der 850-Jahr-Feier der im Rheinland gelegenen, fiktiven Stadt Schönau an einer Führung durch die dortige St.-Pauls-Kathedrale teil, als er auf seine ehemalige Schulfreundin Dani stößt, die ebenfalls die Kathedrale besichtigt. Die beiden vergessen die Zeit und werden nach Ende der Besichtigungszeit in dem im 15. Jahrhundert erbauten Gebäude eingeschlossen. Beim Erkunden der Kathedrale stoßen sie auf ein Bündel Briefe aus dem 15. Jahrhundert, die darauf hindeuten, dass Victor Paz, der Erbauer der Kathedrale, 15 tödliche Fallen in sein Werk integriert hat, um sich an der katholischen Kirche im Allgemeinen und am damaligen Bischof Sebastian von Altenburg im Besonderen für die Ermordung eines seiner Verwandten im Rahmen der Inquisition zu rächen – es stellt sich heraus, dass Paz ein Halbbruder von Jan Hus ist. Je fünf Fallen sollten in drei bestimmten Jahren ausgelöst werden. Der Spieler muss die 15 Fallen beseitigen und dazu in der Zeit zurückreisen; neben 1992 sind auch 1881 und 1437 Jahre, die Paz für seine Rache auserkoren hat. Im Jahr 1992 steht dem Spieler Dani zur Seite, 1881 der Butler Jasper und 1437 der Mönch Daniel.

Spielprinzip und Technik

Die Kathedrale ist ein Textadventure, das heißt, Umgebung und Geschehnisse werden als Bildschirmtext ausgegeben und die Visualisierung obliegt zum größten Teil der Fantasie des Spielers. Im Gegensatz zu klassischen Textadventures, die über keinerlei grafische Ausschmückung verfügen, wartet Die Kathedrale mit einem Bild der jeweiligen Umgebung sowie einem Point-and-Click-Interface auf, mit dem sich einfache Kommandos mit der Maus erstellen lassen. Für die Referenzierung von Objekten muss aber auf Tastatureingaben zurückgegriffen werden, die von einem Parser verarbeitet werden. Das Spiel verfügt über ein Zeitlimit; nach einer bestimmten Anzahl Zügen schlagen die Fallen des jeweiligen Zeitalters zu, was das Spiel beendet.

Produktionsnotizen

Die Kathedrale ist das mittlere Spiel in einer Trilogie von Textadventures des Herstellers Weltenschmiede; Das Stundenglas erschien 1990 und Hexuma 1992. Alle drei Adventures behandeln die Themen Zeitreisen bzw. Mehrdimensionalität. Die Kathedrale ist eines von acht Spielen, die der Publisher Software 2000 als "Artventure" betitelte, wodurch auf eine hohe Qualität der so bezeichneten Adventures hingewiesen werden sollte. Der Spielverpackung von Die Kathedrale lagen sogenannte "Feelies" bei, zum Spielgeschehen passende Gegenstände wie fiktive Dokumente oder Gimmicks, die oft einen tieferen Einblick in die Spielwelt erlauben. Im Falle von Die Kathedrale wurden dem Spiel ein Poster, eine Broschüre mit der Geschichte der St.-Pauls-Kathedrale sowie altertümlich anmutende Briefe und Baupläne beigelegt, die im Spiel referenziert wurden und somit einen Kopierschutz darstellten.

1993 veröffentlichte Evers einen Roman zum Spiel, Die Kathedrale. Das Geheimnis einer Rache.

Rezeption

Seit der Entwicklung der MacVenture-Engine 1985 existierten Adventures, die auf eine grafische Benutzeroberfläche anstelle der Texteingabe setzten, und seit dem Erscheinen von Maniac Mansion 1987 erfreuten sich die Grafikadventures einer hohen Popularität und lösten Textadventures als bis dahin dominierendes Produkt innerhalb des Adventure-Genres ab. Zum Erscheinungszeitpunkt von Die Kathedrale war mit The Secret of Monkey Island bereits ein Spiel auf dem Markt, das bis in die späten 1990er-Jahre hinein einen technischen Standard für die Steuerung in Adventures vorgab. Ein Textadventure hatte im Jahr 1991 mithin einen schweren Stand, das Genre war kommerziell unattraktiv geworden. Inhaltlich gelungene Vertreter wurden in der Fachpresse gleichwohl noch positiv aufgenommen.

Das Fachmagazin Adventure Treff lobte Atmosphäre, Rätsel und Beilagen des Spiels und kritisierte lediglich die schlichte optische Aufmachung. Die PC Joker notierte "spannende Texte" und einen "verständigen Parser", eine "originelle Handlung", "knackige Rätselnüsse" und "opulente Beigaben". Das Magazin merkte das Fehlen von klanglicher Untermalung negativ an. Die ASM zog Parallelen zu älteren Textadventures von Firmen wie Infocom oder Magnetic Scrolls und bezeichnete Die Kathedrale als "anspruchsvolle Adventurekost für Feinschmecker". Boris Schneider-Johne lobte in der Power Play Story und Rätsel, monierte aber logische Fehler im Spielablauf, die er auf eine ungenügende Qualitätskontrolle zurückführte.

Weblinks

 Komplettlösung im IF-Archive

Einzelnachweise

Amiga-Spiel
Computerspiel 1991
DOS-Spiel
Textadventure

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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text:
Q: RaisePropertyChanged on Porperty updated in another thread is not called Let's say I have this class with the RaiseProperyChanged attribute from PostSharp:
[NotifyPropertyChanged]
public class MainViewModel
{
    public int RandInt { get; set; }

    public MainViewModel()
    {
        RandInt = 10;
        new Task(TaskStart).Start();
    }

    private void TaskStart()
    {
        Random rand = new Random();
        while (true)
        {
            RandInt = rand.Next(9999);
        }
    }
}

Binding RandInt to a label or other control wil result in no change of the label. This means that the value of the label will be 10 all the time because the property is changed from another thread. How to handle this strange behaviour? Doing this with MVVM Light with RaisePropertyChanged() in the setter of the property works fine.

A: This is a design consequence of PostSharp. The problem is that the method TaskStartinstrumented by the aspect [NotifyPropertyChanged] flushes the event queue in the end, but this method does not ever end.
This will be addressed in a future version of PostSharp. In the meanwhile, you can use method NotifyPropertyChangedServices.RaiseEventsImmediate(). See the example:
[NotifyPropertyChanged]
public class MainViewModel
{
    public int RandInt { get; set; }

    public MainViewModel()
    {
        RandInt = 10;
        new Task(TaskStart).Start();
    }

    private void TaskStart()
    {
        Random rand = new Random();
        while (true)
        {
            AsyncRandomNumber = random.Next( 9999 );

            // Raise the events now, because the method TaskStart never ends.
            NotifyPropertyChangedServices.RaiseEventsImmediate( this );
        }
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Мангуэ — топоним.

 Магуэ (город) — город в Мьянме.
 Магуэ (округ) — округ в Мьянме.


Why Pulse Cashflow clients affected by Carillion's demise will not suffer any losses.
When Carillion the multinational facilities management and construction services company announced it was to go into liquidation, threatening thousands of jobs, the ripple effect spread far and wide across the UK business sector.
With business interests in so many diverse industries from major public-sector construction projects to managing schools and prisons as well as maintaining rail networks the damage that their estimated £800m of debts could cause to business and the UK economy is hugely concerning.
For it is not just Carillion and their employees who will bear the brunt of this company failure, it will be the thousands of SMEs and their staff who either supply or buy services from Carillion that will find themselves at risk of damage by this high-profile failure.
Despite this, Pulse Cashflow are pleased that they have been able to reassure their clients who are directly affected by Carillion's demise that they will not suffer any financial impact to their businesses. This is because they will benefit from the inclusive bad debt protection Pulse offer with their finance solutions. For those clients using Pulse's funding solutions, monies owed to them by either Carillion or other businesses across Carillion's wider supply chain will be recovered through Pulse's bad debt protection. Pulse have also committed to supporting any of their clients who may be affected by the fallout throughout Carillion's supply chain.


text:
Ma Ying (, born 18 June 1971) is a former Chinese gymnast who participated in the 1988 Summer Olympics. She won 2 gold medals at the 1986 Asian Games: Team and Vault.

References

1971 births
Olympic gymnasts of China
Gymnasts at the 1988 Summer Olympics
living people
Sportspeople from Changsha
Chinese female artistic gymnasts
Gymnasts at the 1986 Asian Games
Asian Games medalists in gymnastics
Asian Games gold medalists for China
Medalists at the 1986 Asian Games
20th-century Chinese women


text:
Softball splits conference battle at Schuylkill
Penn State Schuylkill
Penn State Hazleton (0-0) 3 1 1 3 3 0 1 12 15 3
Penn State Schuylkill (0-0) 2 0 2 2 4 0 0 10 12 6
Linsey Fisk receives a pitch behind the plate.
Win: Cassidy Lentz (0-0)
Loss: Kaely Walshaw (0-0)
2B: Tori Rabuck; Ashley Wilson
3B: Tori Rabuck
HR: Ashley Wilson
2B: Meghan Stokes 2; Morgan Kleckner; Alyssa Gerber; Melanie Torrales
3B: none
HR: none
Posted: Mar 26, 2022
Schuylkill Haven, Pa. - Seeing their first action in two weeks, the Nittany Lions traveled to Schuylkill Haven, Pa. on Saturday for the first conference matchup of the 2021-22 season. Facing an experienced Schuylkill squad with nine games in the books already, Hazleton got the offense churning for the first time this season, tallying 17 scores on the day. Hazleton was two outs shy of a pair of wins against their PSUAC rival, but a late rally in game two by Schuylkill relegated the Nittany Lions to a two-game split.
Game 1: Penn State Hazleton 12, Penn State Schuylkill 10 - Final - 7 Innings
There was plenty of offense to go around in game one for both squads as the pitchers and defenses faced challenging weather on Saturday. Hazleton led wire to wire and scored in every inning except for the sixth but Schuylkill was hot on their tails in the bottom half of each frame. The Lions posted 11 runs in the first five innings of the game, led by freshman Ashley Wilson (East Stroudsburg, Pa.) who hit a three-run blast in the fourth inning, part of an eight RBI game for the first-year player. Wilson's production was accompanied by five additional Lions who registered multiple hits in game one including a three-hit game for sophomore Jess Lepore (Telford, Pa.). Wilson's final tally of the day came with Hazleton leading Schuylkill 11-10 in the seventh inning. Freshman Tori Rabuck (Tower City, Pa.) tripled with one out in the final frame, paving the way for Wilson to tack on the insurance score. Wilson complied with a fly out to shallow right field, plating Rabuck for Hazleton's final score of the game.
Working in relief duty for Hazleton, sophomore Rebecca Baum (Stewartstown, Pa.) fended off a pair of Schuylkill singles in the bottom of the seventh inning, retiring three straight hitters to secure the win for the Lions and earn the save in the process. Baum entered circle in the sixth inning for senior veteran Cassidy Lentz (Lehigh Valley, Pa.) who was challenged by the tough line up of Schuylkill but managed to get the outs when she needed them to keep Hazleton out front. Lentz finished the game allowing 10 runs on nine hits and 6 walks, striking out a pair of hitters for her first win of the season.
Game 2: Penn State Hazleton 5, Penn State Schuylkill 6, Final - 7 Innings
The pitching and defense picked up for both squads in game two but once again it was Hazleton to strike first and command the lead for the majority of the contest. A pair of doubles by freshman Athena Matenkoski (Drums, Pa.) and Jess Lepore gave the Lions their first score of the game and Rabuck followed two batters later with her third extra base hit of the day to plate Lepore. A costly error by the Schuylkill outfield allowed Rabuck to score before the third out was record giving the Lions a 3-0 advantage. After retiring the side in the bottom half of the inning, Hazleton went right back to work in the top of the fourth. Senior Sadie Heiney (Palmerton, Pa.) led off the frame with a single and later scored on Matenkoski's second double of the game. Lepore followed with her fifth hit of the day, scoring the freshman from second base and giving Hazleton a healthy 5-0 cushion.
Unfortunately for Hazleton, Lion's offense would come up empty in their final three at bats with Schuylkill's Sierra Santarsiero retiring nine straight batters to end the game. Meanwhile, the home squad chipped away at the Hazleton lead with single tallies in the fourth and fifth innings off Rebecca Baum, who started game two for Hazleton. A costly error in the Hazleton outfield was followed by back to back Schuylkill hits in the sixth inning that plated two more runs, inching the home squad closer to Hazleton who led 5-4 with just one out in the sixth. Senior Sky Esterly (Nazareth, Pa.) would enter the circle for Baum and end the threat in sixth inning for Hazleton but trouble quickly brewed in the final inning for the Lions. Esterly retired the first hitter of the inning but three straight singles by Schuylkill loaded the bases for Melanie Torrales. Hazleton was just a pitch away from ending the threat and escaping with the win, but a clutch double from Torrales spoiled Hazleton's plans for a series sweep. Two runs came in on the walk-off double, giving Schuylkill the win in game two by the score of 6-5.
Next up: Gotta love March in Northeaster Pennsylvania. Poor weather has forced a cancelation of Hazleton's home opener with SUNY Broome C.C. and the Nittany Lions will hope to see the field on Wednesday, March 30 when the squad travels to Wilkes-Barre, Pa. to face Wilkes University for an evening double-header.


text:
Safety first: Rideshare for women coming to Chicago
By Natalie Bomke
A female entrepreneur is driven to make the rideshare industry safer for women.
CHICAGO - A female entrepreneur is driven to make the rideshare industry safer for women.
She is developing a new transportation option on the East Coast that is expected to make its way to Chicago, and she is taking it a step further -- not only creating an environment where women feel safe in the car, but can succeed in their careers.
"Chicago is always coming up," said Kim Evans, founder and CEO of Just Her Rideshare. "There are so many carjackings that it's so unsafe and I'm thinking what's happening there, not only is it unsafe for riders, but it's unsafe for drivers."
At least seven rideshare drivers were held at gunpoint and carjacked in Chicago just last month, according to Chicago police.
Evans believes she can make the rideshare experience safer for both riders and drivers.
"Kim is definitely adding a peace of mind aspect to a lot of women and especially a lot of professional women that are ridesharing all of the time," said future rider Ashely Richardson.
The company will hire exclusively female drivers, and while they cannot discriminate against who uses the service, they are targeting women.
"So not only will you be able to get a safe, great rideshare, but you're going to be able to get other resources as well," Evans said.
The company is expected to offer incentives and bonuses to female drivers and create resources for women to engage with one another.
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The Just Her Rideshare app will host inspirational speakers, networking events and information on sex trafficking and domestic violence.
"I decided I would close the gap on the inefficiencies of our competitors to create a space for women," Evans said.
She says the fee to ride will be on par with other rideshare companies. She is hoping to expand the service to new cities like Chicago within the next two years.