Here's a half-hour video First Things interview with Patrick Deneen, the Notre Dame political theorist, about religion in a fast-changing America. At nearly the 22-minute mark, Deneen begins to talk about how the kind of America we used to celebrate in films like It's A Wonderful Life is dead. Watch: When Corporations Turned on Social Conservatives: The Indiana Affair from First Things.
There is a deeper reason for corporate support [of gay rights laws], however. Today's corporate ideology has a strong affinity with the lifestyles of those who are defined by mobility, ethical flexibility, liberalism (whether economic or social), a consumerist mentality in which choice is paramount, and a "progressive" outlook in which rapid change and "creative destruction" are the only certainties. The response to Indiana's RFRA law shows very clearly that corporations have joined forces with Republicans on economic matters and Democrats on social ones. Corporate America is aligned with the ascendant libertarian portion of each party, ensuring a win for the political, economic, and social preferences of libertarianism. In effect, there is only one functional party in America today, seemingly parceled between the two notional parties but in reality unifying them in its backing by financial and cultural elites.
What this means is that today's cultural power elite is entirely aligned with the economic power elite, and they're ready to steamroll anyone in their way. In the case of Indiana's RFRA, corporate and gay activists combined to bring to heel conservative Christians in a rural, Rust Belt state that struggles at the margins of America's global economy. The threat to demolish Indiana's economy is only a more explicit expression of a project that corporations like Apple and Walmart have been carrying out with the assistance mainly of Republicans (as well as free-trade Democrats) for a generation.
To see the glee with which liberals joined forces with corporations revealed the deepest fact about the American ruling class: politicians and corporations will join forces to effect the change preferred by corporations, change that too often damages the working class and benefits society's elites. Corporate America is willing to join any coalition that advances its financial interests and deeper philosophic commitments, at the expense of Americans on the wrong side of history, especially those Americans living in places like Indiana who aren't part of the meritocratic global elite.
Americans of both parties once believed that no center of power in America should become so concentrated that it could force its views on every other citizen. What we saw in Indiana was not just a "miscalculation" by Republicans. We saw fully unmasked just who runs America, and the kind of America that they are bringing more fully into reality every passing day. It will be an America where the powerful will govern completely over the powerless, where the rich dictate terms to the poor, where the strong are unleashed from the old restraints of culture and place, where libertarian indifference—whether in respect to economic inequality or morals—is inscribed into the national fabric, and where the unburdened, hedonic human will reign ascendant. No limits reflected in political, social, or religious norms can be permitted: All are allowed except those who would claim the legitimacy of restraint.
Read the whole thing. It's superb And do watch that video interview. In it, Deneen talks at greater length about how the real losers in America today are Democrats who believe in the rights of labor and economic solidarity, and social and religious conservatives. He says that people like the owners of Memories Pizza, the small-town Indiana pizzeria that shut down temporarily when it became the target of a grotesque national hate campaign from progressive militants, are the kind of people who don't vote anymore. They used to vote for Democrats, then, in 1980, they started voting Republican. Now, says Deneen, in the last two presidential elections, they have sat out.
Funny, I did exactly that, and for the same reasons: neither party represents me.
Nevertheless, Deneen, at 26:42, forecasting the next few years, says that as a matter of religious liberty, it is "very important" that Republicans return to the White House. Nevertheless, he says, we should not be fooled about the fact that the unwinding will continue, and "it will be an extraordinarily difficult time for people of ordinary virtue." The long-term prospects for traditional Christians are especially pessimistic, because increasingly, the liberalizing logic of both the Left and the Right requires that they be seen as a threat to the new order.
Liberal philosophy rejected this requirement of human self-limitation. It first displaced the idea of a natural order to which humanity is subject and thereafter the very notion of human nature itself. Liberalism inaugurated a transformation in the natural and human sciences, premised on the transformation of the view of human nature and on humanity's relationship to the natural world.
The first wave of this revolution—inaugurated by early-modern thinkers dating back to the Renaissance—insisted that man should seek the mastery of nature by employing natural science and a transformed economic system supportive of such an undertaking. The second wave—developed largely by various historicist schools of thought, especially in the nineteenth century—replaced belief in the idea of a fixed human nature with a belief in human "plasticity" and capacity for moral progress and transformation. While these two iterations of liberalism—often labeled "conservative" and "progressive"—contend today for ascendance, we would do better to understand their deep interconnection.
If my analysis is fundamentally accurate, liberalism's endgame is unsustainable in every respect: It cannot perpetually enforce order upon a collection of autonomous individuals increasingly shorn of constitutive social norms, nor can it continually provide endless material growth in a world of limits. We can either elect a future of self-limitation born of the practice and experience of self-governance in local communities, or we can back slowly but inexorably into a future in which extreme license invites extreme oppression.
The ancient claim that man is by nature a political animal and must in and through the exercise and practice of virtue learned in communities achieve a form of local and communal self-limitation—a condition properly understood as liberty—cannot be denied forever without cost. Currently we lament and attempt to treat the numerous social, economic, and political symptoms of liberalism's idea of liberty but not the deeper sources of those symptoms deriving from the underlying pathology of liberalism's philosophic commitments.
I don't want to overquote the piece, so read the whole thing. Deneen says we had better start thinking about what comes after liberalism, because if his theory is correct, the system is not going to survive major shocks to it. In my own view, the Benedict Option is primarily about religious life and community, but it has an inescapable political component — which Deneen writes about in these essays.
Contemporary "conservatism" does not offer an answer to liberalism, because it is itself a species of liberalism. While the elders on the political right continue to rail against "environmentalists," they fail to detect how deeply conservative (conservationist) is the impulse among the young who see clearly the limits of the consumptive economy and the ravages it bequeaths to their generation. What these elders have generally lacked is a recognition that one cannot revise one of liberalism's main commitments, today characterized as "progressivism," while ignoring the other, particularly economic liberalism. A different paradigm is needed, one that intimately connects the cultivation of self-limitation and self-governance among constitutive associations and communities with a general ethic of thrift, frugality, saving, hard work, stewardship, and care. So long as the dominant narrative of individual choice aimed at the satisfaction of appetite and consumption dominates in the personal or economic realms, the ethic of liberalism will continue to dominate our society.
Against the rising specter of engrossing statism, conservatives have grown accustomed to invoking liberty, especially liberty grounded in individual rights and autonomy. We should recognize that liberalism has an equal, if not greater, claim to provide liberty.
Even as we are about to be buffeted by countless political slogans, we need to recognize that conservatives have not cornered the market in promoting "liberty," and if that is their totem, the Progressives will win the debate, as on most fronts they already are. What distinguishes Conservatism historically is not that it believes in liberty understood as individual autonomy, but that it has always understood that liberty—understood as freedom from an over-imposing state—is the necessary but not sufficient condition for living a human life in families, communities, religious institutions, and a whole range of relationships that encourage us to practice the arts of responsible self-governance.
There is no point in pretending that the 1950s were a happy time for everyone in America. For many, the price of the limited life was impossibly high. To have been an independent-minded alderman in the Daley machine, a professional baseball player treated unfairly by his team, a suburban housewife who yearned for a professional career, a black high school student dreaming of possibilities that were closed to him, a gay man or woman forced to conduct a charade in public — to have been any of these things in the 1950s was to live a life that was difficult at best, and tragic at worst. That is why so many of us still respond to the memory of those indignities by saying that nothing in the world could justify them.
It is a powerful indictment, but it is also a selective one … Our collective indignation makes little room for the millions of people who took the rules seriously and tried to live up to them, within the profound limits of human weakness. They are still around, the true believers of the 1950s, in small towns and suburbs and big-city neighborhoods all over the country, reading the papers, watching television, and wondering in old age what has happened to America in the last thirty years. If you visit middle-class American suburbs today, and talk to the elderly women who have lived out their adult years in these places, they do not tell you how constricted and demeaning their lives in the 1950s were. They tell you those were the best years they can remember. And if you visit a working-class Catholic parish in a big city, and ask the older parishioners what they think of the church in the days before Vatican II, they don't tell you that it was tyrannical or that it destroyed their individuality. They tell you they wish they cold have it back. For them, the erosion of both community and authority in the last generation is not a matter of intellectual debate. It is something they can feel in their bones, and the feeling makes them shiver.
Posted in A Sense of Place, Conservatism, Culture, Politics, Liberalism, Benedict Option, Weimar America. Tagged politics, America, conservatism, liberalism, First Things, Patrick Deneen, freedom, It's A Wonderful Life, George Bailey.
I also live in Minnesota, and I know that the ethic Deneen describes still exists here.
That's wonderful. Really, it is.
In fact, most of my neighbors are quite conservative in their personal lives, they just aren't inclined to broadcast their piety or enlist the government to enforce their sexual mores.
In fact, most of my neighbors are quite literate in their personal lives, they just aren't inclined to act as role-models for good reading habits, or to enlist the government to promote literacy among those who didn't grow up with the same advantages they did.
Would that be a healthy attitude toward public education?
Charles Murray's Belmont/Fishtown argument, and similar arguments from Ross Douthat and Megan McArdle and our gracious host, center on the concern that while the upper middle class don't require the old morals and mores to maintain their marriages and their mortgages, many of the less advantaged have spun out, into familial chaos and economic disarray, without the old guardrails.
Are there egalitarian/communitarian parts of the South/Appalachia given to self-denial, or is it more about denying the appetites of others (whilst hypocritically engaging in the same vices)? Sadly, I suspect it's the latter.
The South is presumably full of hypocrites: after all, it's full of humans, and we're all whited sepulchers to one degree or another. And to be sure, examples of secretly alcoholic or philandering pastors and other clay-bottomed pillars of various local church communities could be multiplied indefinitely. Then again, so could grisly police blotter reports from Minneapolis (including that nasty incident with the white supremacists opening fire on a BLM rally), equally grisly foreclosure statistics for Minneapolis households headed by immigrants, and the various political inanities of the state that gave us governors like Jesse "the Body" Ventura and T-Paw. Contrary to what you may think, even in Lake Woebegone, not everyone is above average. We're all imperfect.
Now, in many communities (among them not only Southern small towns, but also minority and white-ethnic neighborhoods in big cities nationwide), various churches have been one of the key countervailing forces helping people get and keep their sh*t together, helping them trade the failing ways of Fishtown for the hope of a kind of Belmont. Should these churches spend more time on the beams in their own communities, and far less on the motes among gay people or whomever? Sure. I agree completely. But these churches are still often all the downscale folks who attend them have to cling to (well, that and their guns, amirite?), and a BenOp project to try to preserve and protect such church communities hardly seems at all incompatible with the sturdy virtues of the Scandinavian immigrants of yore. Quite the opposite in fact.
Instead, I think the better question is how long those immigrants' old values (including the socialistic ones, to which I am not at all unsympathetic, to understate dramatically) can survive as their descendants become less Lutheran, and eventually post-Christian altogether, with no comprehensive worldview standing between them and the allurements of the marketer, the union-busting pol, and all the other unsavory characters of our American capitalist culture. You can point with much justification to the success that the irreligious social democrats of Scandinavia have enjoyed in the old countries. But we see that synthesis slowly falling apart in the face of immigration from the Muslim Third World—just as even the sturdy values of Minnesota were unable to stop some elements of the Somali immigrant community there from pledging allegiance to ISIS and al-Shabaab. Your regional patriotism is honestly heart-warming. But it need not and ought not stand in opposition to something like the BenOp project, or to a concern to reject the worst dysfunctions of our wider American culture.
I generally agree with your analysis of the ways in which capitalism can wreck small communities and enterprises. But I fear that the sorts of pro-worker/pro-environment protections that would ameliorate these problems have almost no chance of passing (and the blame here can go to Rs and almost every D since Carter).
When was the last time you saw anyone advocating for stores to be closed on Sunday or late at night? When liberals/progressives do get involved in regulating the economy (recently anyhow), they often impose in the most morally sensitive areas like healthcare and education (These are also the areas where Bernie Sanders seems to have the most support on my Facebook feed).
For example, not only has the ACA hauled the Little Sisters into court, the requirements of the ACA (Obamacare) has devastated independent medical practice, which made up >60% of physicians in 2008 and now is more like 30% and falling fast. While I expect no sympathy, as there are numerous problems with our medical system that physicians haven't exactly been proactive about fixing, any Distributivist/TradCons should be dismayed by the decline of independent, private medical practice as these jobs represented the sort of locally owned, civically engaged businesses that sustained communities. My grandfather was the first specialist physician in my hometown, owned his own medical practice, owned his building, and was deeply involved in the community. Such a practice would be nigh impossible to replicate today and most physicians are employed by large bureaucratic groups. Indicative of this change is the fact that medical board exams now include large sections of Business speak–six sigma, lean, flowchart making etc.
I guess my point is that government intervention–the Interstate Highway system, Ag Subsidies to name two others–can be just as destructive as bland corporate meetings. I love to bash Republicans as much as the next guy, but there are some merits to the Fusionist Conservative critique of Big Government that shouldn't be forgotten in our rush to be the Right Kind of Conservative.
I think our best hope lies in trying to replicate the success of craft brewing. Getting people to care about quality and to consciously pick "something local" over whatever else is on tap, so to speak.
I'm also starting to come around to the idea of proportional representation–I'd gladly vote for a distributivist, Christian Democrat party.
I share a lot of Deneen's concerns, but like him, think that voting Republican is the most prudent thing in the current climate of "liberalterians". The sorts of judges appointed by someone as odious as say, Ted Cruz, will be far more amenable to the long term concerns of crunchy cons (e.g. breathing room in the blazing sun of secularism), than whatever statist liberals Hilary will appoint.
I may not agree with conservatives, but at least they have a history of understanding stuff such as greed and pride and why good intentions don't protect you from delusions.
How Libertarians got scrambled together with conservatives is beyond me–but they seem to stick together. Whether this says more about so-called conservatives or so-called libertarians I leave as an exercise to the reader.
I wish this were true. I don't see much evidence of it, outside of this publication.
If you asked most of these guys what their ideology is, you would get a blank stare, and probably wouldn't get another trip to the executive floor of the building anytime soon!
Sure Catherine, but they all keep lobbyists on the payroll to keep them free of onerous burdensome government regulation… as they preside over fictitious "persons" that exist only because our government authorized such things to exist.
Of course they're all real people. Like I said, they aren't evil, they are just filling certain roles and positions that respond to certain pressures and incentives… incentives I would like to restructure.
The epistemologies referenced in this article aren't the only ones available. We needn't choose between the ostensibly humble essentialism of conservatism, with corresponding calls to recover the best from bygone days, and the hubris of post-modernist progressivism.Viable alternatives exist, including Eugene T. Gendlin's Philosophy of the Implicit and Moshé Feldenkrais' Method of Somatic Education. The implications of the former for Christians are explored well in Rediscovering the Lost Body-Connection within Christian Spirituality.
BTW: I have no idea if Irenist accepts anonimousdr's critique of the consolidation of medicine, but I think his (her?) post really shows where the traditionalist distributist and the social democrat part ways. In other words, if decentralized, locally located, civically engaged,small-business-centered modeled of medicine leaves 30% (and growing) of the population largely outside the scope of the medical system, the social democrat response is "bring forth the bureaucratic leviathan." I am not sure a traditionalist has a good answer to this particular conundrum (even though, one might add, Catholic health systems are among the biggest players in the provider consolidation game, so I have a pretty good idea what the institutional church thinks..).
I doubt anyone thinks that. Indeed, some might opine that arranging to have oneself fellated while Yasir Arafat waits in the next room shows imagination and nerve, perhaps even a certain flair. But I hope you don't seriously believe that Clinton's "philandering", reckless and narcissistic as it was, was the worst of his character issues.
Re: the requirements of the ACA (Obamacare) has devastated independent medical practice, which made up >60% of physicians in 2008 and now is more like 30% and falling fast.
That's a trend that has been in place for years, decades even– a case of the Market doing some when government attempts to correct some of the other harm the Market has wrought– but then mischief which is then blamed on Government according to some the Market can never do no ill.
Give it time. 35 years of neo-con dominance isn't going to recede overnight, never mind 120 years of corporate political control of the narrative.
Well, all kinds of people can call themselves distributists, and some can be quite as ideological about who is and who isn't a "true" distributist as a communist purge trial, or a RINO-hating conservative.
But, there is no intrinsic impossibility in having several small enterprises federate for mutual support, and have a national government that establishes some boundaries, which make sure that there is a minimum everyone can rely on, with some insurance set up to back-stop the local enterprises.
There will always be tension, but didn't someone recently argue that we should embrace the tension rather than accept a suffocating conformity?
I agree with your assessment of health care and of the definition of Distributivism. I meant for my post to draw out some of what I see as the differences between Distributivism and Social Democracy, as I see them.
Not to wade too deep into the health policy weeds, but the ACA had some provisions (accountable care organizations and "meaningful use" of EMRs) which seemed to be designed to end independent medical practice rather than to expand access or cut costs per se. Even Canada has plenty of small/solo practices. Anyhow, I think we ought to look to Switzerland, which has an almost entirely private health system as a model to emulate. It covers everyone and has many of the advantages (short wait times, good access to tech.) of the US system, but I digress.
I'm not an all out ACA hater, and I don't think you can blame all of medicine's problems on it. I certainly don't think "the Market can never do no ill".
The ACA has hastened something that may have been inevitable, maybe not. It may be a net gain for the country maybe not. But from a distributivist point of view it has had some negative consequences.
Re: But I hope you don't seriously believe that Clinton's "philandering", reckless and narcissistic as it was, was the worst of his character issues.
The philandering is the one major sin we know about, without doubt. (I am not counting the standard arrogance and narcissism that pretty much every politician has as a besetting sin). Anything beyond that is rumor and innuendo and should be discounted as such. "The Clinton Chronicles" is not a reliable biography of the man.
They don't agree with you. What's your point? It's politics. Convince more people that your ideas should prevail. In summary, it sounds like you're upset because your side lost, and you think the other side didn't play fair. That sounds like a recipe for continual disappointment.
While I think SSM is a pernicious political diversion for us trads, I think you've made a valuable point of general applicability here, so I'd like to riff on it.
As you say, politics is persuasion. And any Christian intervention in politics, whether to abolish abortion or strengthen the safety net for poor people or to propose a less interventionist foreign policy more in keeping with jus ad bello, will be comprised of persuasion (along with the mobilization of the already persuaded).
And given the differences in ethics and metaphysics and a thousand other things between the trad and the secular modern, I don't think that the inferential gaps that must be closed before the Christian can begin to persuade are at all amenable to closure within our soundbite-driven, tribally polarized, angry and simplistic political culture: the Areopagus has been replaced with "safe spaces," Salon, Fox News, and people yelling at each other in all caps on Facebook and Tumblr.
Thus, whatever political persuasion will ever be possible will have to be preceded by cultural change. And that change will have to flow from one-on-one conversion of the heart to Jesus Christ.
Thus, I agree that, in the present persuasive desert, politics as usual remains "a recipe for continual disappointment." I will continue voting, in a vestigial sort of way, but my hopes lie not with the clericalist theocratic political folly of Moral Majorities and Christian Coalitions, but with the Benedict Option.
Agreed. Which is why I was saying to JDinSR just above that we need to work on the upstream discipleship, and the culture that flows from that, before we can hope to get solid results from the politics that flows from culture.
When was the last time you saw anyone advocating for stores to be closed on Sunday or late at night?
I used to clerk for a federal judge who had ended up on the mailing list for the Seventh Day Adventists' magazine, despite his being a Baptist. The Adventists were forever running scare stories about how the Whore of Babylon was going to inflict papist Sunday closing laws on the nation in preparation for the reign of Antichrist. (Getting the judge's mail was one of my chores. I used to enjoy tearing that Know Nothing garbage into tiny shreds every month. It was cathartic.) So at least according to the Adventists, we should be getting some nice Sunday closing laws any day now. Won't that be lovely?
Good point. But you go to social justice war with the SJWs you have. The GOP can't lift a finger to insure the poor, so "hope the liberals pass Obamacare, and ALSO hope SCOTUS keeps smacking them down on the contraception mandate" has seemed the least worst set of plausible political hopes here so far, IMHO.
the requirements of the ACA (Obamacare) has devastated independent medical practice, which made up >60% of physicians in 2008 and now is more like 30% and falling fast. While I expect no sympathy, as there are numerous problems with our medical system that physicians haven't exactly been proactive about fixing, any Distributivist/TradCons should be dismayed by the decline of independent, private medical practice as these jobs represented the sort of locally owned, civically engaged businesses that sustained communities. My grandfather was the first specialist physician in my hometown, owned his own medical practice, owned his building, and was deeply involved in the community. Such a practice would be nigh impossible to replicate today and most physicians are employed by large bureaucratic groups. Indicative of this change is the fact that medical board exams now include large sections of Business speak–six sigma, lean, flowchart making etc.
Actually, I have a lot of sympathy: what you describe is a terrible tragedy. Really.
I'm also really, really sympathetic to David Goldhill's famous Atlantic essay about lack of price transparency as THE problem in our system, and Megan McArdle's frequent, related complaint that buying insurance for expected (as opposed to catastrophic) health care expenses is as stupidly inefficient as it would be to buy"food insurance" as a way to pay for your groceries. I would dearly love to support a much more Distributist, much more market-friendly (in their proper place, markets are great!) system of universal healthcare provision. But the GOP has shown itself woefully uninterested in bothering to legislate like that. And people not having any way to pay for health care at all is far worse than people having to pay for it with the—and you're preaching to the choir here—labyrinthine, Rube Goldberg system that Obamacare inherited and made more complicated and ridiculous. So what can I do? Somebody promises to appoint David Goldhill as HHS Secretary, and I'd be really excited. But in the meantime?
Sure. +100. What I'd like is a party that recognized the need for subsidiarity as much as the GOP claims to, but with the bedrock commitment to solidarity with the poor that the Democrats claim. In the absence of that, I tend to settle (where abortion isn't the deciding issue in an election) for the Democrats advocating solidaristic policies with bureaucratic ineptitude, over the GOP not even bothering to do anything other than slash the existing programs. On health care and education, then, I agree that the Democrats typically offer worm-ridden bread, but the GOP simply offers no bread, and the poor gotta eat.
As cultural and commercial matter, I agree. I don't know how much "juice" it has in politics, though: we live in a country where national politics is frequent televised entertainment, but local and state politics is relegated to the dwindling minority who read newspapers.
Oh, me, too. But neither PR nor a CD party is going to happen in the foreseeable future. So better to focus on Church and culture, and let politics take care of itself in time.
You might be right. I dunno. What I do know is that I live in Dallas. Which means that the GOP will take my state in the electoral college and the Senate, and an African-American Democrat will be my city's Congresswoman. My vote in national elections doesn't even come close to counting. It's just a civic formality. So I usually cast "protest votes" of various sorts, but put my actual energy as a voter into things like municipal bond initiatives and local nonpartisan offices like the City Council and the School Board.
Intriguing. Can you expand a bit on this comment, please?
I don't really know anything about it, and don't plan to make time to research it properly. I'm happy to assume either anonymousdr's version or yours arguendo, depending upon which of the two of you I'm conversing with.
Well, there are answers. YMMV as to whether they're any good! I think for a lot of us Distributist types (I presume not all of us, since like any fringe movement we're full of idiosyncratic viewpoints that their holders get annoyed to see ignored, and I imagine that's as true w/r/t healthcare as anywhere), the goal would be universal coverage (the solidarity issue) but in a much more localist system (the subsidiarity issue). Like you, in the face of the supposedly subsidiarity-championing GOP not even bothering to formulate a decent "replace" to go with its obsession for "repeal," I am inclined to throw up my hands in despair of a better alternative and say "bring forth the bureaucratic leviathan." But one can easily imagine all sorts of more subsidiaristic universal-coverage utopias. None of them will get passed anytime soon, so it would be idle chitchat to outline any. But were such politically possible, that would AFAICT be the goal of most of my fellow Distributists, as it would be my own.
(even though, one might add, Catholic health systems are among the biggest players in the provider consolidation game, so I have a pretty good idea what the institutional church thinks..).
I think that might be more an example of humdrum lassitude and corruption in the Church than any outworking of a principled position in favor of leviathan. As we see with contraception offered in Catholic universities' health plans, or usury at various Vatican banks, or whatever, Magisterial theory is all too rarely embodied in institutional practice. So I wouldn't take the Church's usual human failings for an indication of what Catholic moralists of any stripe (Distributist or otherwise) think the Church and society ought to be doing.
I was with you until this point.
So, political persuasion, political compromise can only take part in our country if one accepts Christianity, accepts Jesus Christ?
So, in the country, Jews and Muslims and Christians and agnostics cannot come to good-faith agreements?
I apply no religious test to those I gladly accept as fellow citizens, democratic peers, potential collaborators in civic improvement, etc. That's one pole of a continuum.
The other pole is that, as a Christian, my utopian ideal is that every person "accept Jesus Christ as personal Savior," as the Evangelicals nicely put it.
Between the broad tolerance appropriate to the liberal democratic City of Man and the necessarily particularist focus on Christ demanded by an orthodox Catholic vision of the City of God lies the broad intermediate land of culture.
There, I expect to be most enthusiastic about cultural projects consonant with Christian values in aesthetics, morals, etc. However, there's still plenty of room for ecumenical collaboration: art shouldn't be subjugated to ideology.
Sorry; I'm thumb-typing this and it's a bit inchoate in my mind in any case. What I think I'm trying to say is that politics is about the endless negotiation of incremental compromise in the realm of the immanent, whereas Christian discipleship is about radical commitment in the shadow of the eschaton. As culture ripples outward from Christ's still, small Real Presence at the heart of the Liturgy, the Zeitgeist changes, and eventually, over long, slow centuries, the Overton Window of the political possible moves from Caligula to Constantine to Charlemagne, or from now to a new St. Benedict to something we can't imagine yet.
I have no desire to see Christendom enforced again at sword point. What I desire is billions of uncoerced conversions to Christ, one kind word or charitable act at a time. My hope is placed not in princes, but in Grace. I hope someday that all are Christians–but that work is Christ's business, not Caesar's.
I have little to add to your fantastic post, other than that I'd like to buy you a beer; I think we would have a fun conversation.
–Price transparency one of the keys to making our system better. I've argued, the best I can in my lowly state, to increase price transparency for patients in my own department at Famous Major Academic Medical Center. The chair seemed intrigued last time we talked-maybe something will come of it. I also know some people in Silicon Valley who have secured some decent cash to create apps to help patients price shop. People are working on it.
I love the David Goldhill essay (I referenced it a lot during my annual Thanksgiving debate with my socialist brothers in law), and find that Megan McArdale writes very competently on the subject as well. One of the key take home points is that with insurance we aren't really fighting about something that would improve health per se but that will improve financial security. The RAND health insurance study and more recent Oregon Medicaid study also support this.
The ACA fight was really about money and control, pitting Whigs (with Dems, Big Pharma, Big Insurance, Costal Academics playing the role of the Whig Barons) vs Tories (private practitioners, people in rural states playing the role of John Bull and the Little Sisters the Anglican Highchurchwomen) and the Tories lost.
You don't need to have a distributivist paradise in mind to imagine a very good health care system that is mostly private; just look at Switzerland.
While I'm no expert, if you are interested in learning more about the history of health policy take a look at Paul Starr's "Social Transformation of American Medicine" its an oldie but a goodie.
-As for electoral politics we are probably on the same page. I too live in a blue city in a red state. And despite my comments about the ACA I voted for Obama twice and still stand by my decision. I too prefer the real, but somewhat incompetent solidarity of the Dems over the attempts at subsidiarity by the Repubs.
I feel a bit strange actually advocating for any Republican, especially given how dreadful the current field is, but, I've been getting an earful from people I really trust about religious freedom, not only our fair host and Patrick Deneen, but also an Oxford educated Benedictine monk of my acquaintance, and a close family member who is a mild mannered, level headed, well placed, and well connected Jesuit. When the Jesuits start worrying that they will get cracked down on, well you know that things aren't looking good. These are serious people that I feel like I have to listen to.
This isn't all paranoid fantasy either–a Bishop in Tasmania has had hate speech charges leveled against him. When do the tax exemptions go?
When I become a state employee as a physician (which I think is inevitable) I want wide open conscience protections. I'm not going to materially cooperate in assisted suicide (abortion isn't part of my specialty), and I'd rather not go to jail after assisted suicide inevitably goes back to SCOTUS and gets declared a constitutional right in 10-15 years.
–Don't apologize for hectoring; I haven't been to Benediction or Adoration in a while, and it would do me some good.
I do spend most of my time and energy tending my own garden, so to speak, and trying to influence the culture ever so slightly. I just wrote an article, inspired by some of the things I've read in this blog, that was accepted in my specialty's major journal in which I cite both Roger Scruton and Matthew Crawford.
Oh, the irony of how stifled we were in the 50s, but still pine for the Pleasantville. The real irony is that the very institutions that are destroying us now were the ones before which gave society a firm structure, an anchor if you will, for everything that came after WWII. The rot has been from the inside, an incurable cancer which we didn't cut out when we had the chance. Faith in people and their institutions has been replaced by fear of them. Faith needs little in the way of objects to be strong, but fear has to be in front of you everyday, lest you forget why you need "them". Here is some news, the fear mongering on the left and the right has been incessant. NEWS is an acronym for Nothing Ever Worth Seeing. Hold onto your faith, not your fear. Fear will motivate you to do something and get ready, but only Faith will allow you to dream of the world we will need to re-establish after this is all over. Hold fast! George and the country he lived in have been dead for a long time, but the ideal of George and the country which produced a him cannot be killed.
anonymousdr, thank you for your thoughtful reply. There is A LOT about the ACA that could have been done much better. One conundrum is that when there is insurance, whether public or private, costs tend to rise, and efforts to "control costs" tend to be ham-handed bureaucratic measures that do a lot of collateral damage.
I'm dissatisfied with all the doctors I've seen, under a few years with employer funded health care, and under the ACA. The pools to choose from are identical. Its not their fault. Almost ALL the available doctors where I live are controlled by their affiliation to a hospital network, even if some of them are technically freestanding.
The worst part of being uninsured is that medical providers charge inflated "customary and usual" rates, so as to have bargaining room with insurance companies (and Medicare) who are always patting themselves on the back for "controlling costs" by bargaining the providers down. Generally, when I get an insurance statement, MOST of the money that my "insurance company saved you" is in negotiated cost reductions, not actual payment to the provider.
I'd be happy to pay a reasonable rate for services rendered, minus all that up and down manipulation, and have a hospitalization policy with modest premiums. But that isn't an available option.
…But until the Republicans in congress get their act together to design such a system that allows real freedom of choice and adequate funding mechanism, the ACA is a big improvement on no coverage at all and paying the inflated "customary and usual" fees because I lack the umbrella of an insurance company.
Thanks so much to you both for your kind words and thought-provoking conversation.


With 64 photographs placed throughout the city, this outdoor exhibition allows its visitors to discover images of four continents taken by a direct witness of turmoils that have shaken the world over the last thirty years.
The exhibition "Between War and Peace" takes a special resonance in this city that commemorates this year the 65th anniversary of the Normandy Landings and the beginning of France's liberation from occupying German troops. Yesterday scarred by war, today the city of Saint Lô celebrates peace with these images, full of humanity, life, and hope.


On Sunday we heard whispers that there was a raccoon running loose in Paul Brown Stadium as the Bengals hosted the Cowboys. Well, now we have video. Some brave soul scooped up the masked critter and helpfully escorted him out of the section.
According to the YouTube comments the gentleman had to undergo rabies treatment because he was bitten in the line of duty. And, probably burying the lede here, the raccoon was not the only special appearance at Paul Brown Stadium that day.
He played Turtleman today. I (Santa) was there to witness this.


text:
Live at Moods
(2018 – 7d Media – Europe)
https://sonar7d.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-moods
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ONsovhVdmI
The momentous mathematical polyrhythm tritone masters present you with a striking live show at Moods Jazz Club (Zurich, Switzerland) played on May 24, 2018. If you were bowled over with their last studio release 'Vortex', with producer, guitar extraordinaire David Torn as a member, then you will want this, which also features Torn on every cut. STUNNING!
'Live at Moods' has three compositions from 'Vortex' ('Waves and Particles', 'Red Shift', and 'Lookface') and one from their album 'Static Motion' ('Twofold Covering'). Also included is 'Tromso', which was originally without Torn on Sonar's debut album 'A Flaw of Nature'. And a bonus called 'For Lost Sailors', which is an ingenious improvisation by David Torn. Six showcase pieces to thrill and supercharge the audience/listener's senses. Most cuts at over 10 minutes, the CD opens with 'Twofold Covering' ( a work that was written with the guitar pattern played half as fast and two octaves below the duplicated bass line). Add the out of this world guitar soundscaping, and wizard lead of Torn, the precision Fripp-like tritone guitar genius of founder, composer, and master of Sonar, Stephan Thelen, and life is fantastic! (see You Tube link provided at top with bandcamp link).
As a five piece, Stephan Thelen: Tritone Guitar/ Bernhard Wagner: Tritone Guitar/ Christian Kuntner: Tritone Bass/ Manuel Pasquinelli: Drums/ and David Torn: Electric Guitar & Live Looping, the band has never been better. They have a magic carpet now, and these last two releases ('Vortex' and 'Live at Moods') have been one exclusive ride in the greatest of all universes. All without keyboards. Every song is done with amazing precision, full blown enthusiasm, great intelligence, and a much deserved dignity. Pasquinelli shows not only an incredible steadiness on drums, with dozens of webbed rhythms, but also a powerful ability with fills and short solo work within a maze of music (re: 'Twofold Covering'). The three tritone artists (2 guitarists, 1 bass) have a naturally honed skill to create beautifully balanced structures of music, while Torn is often given freedom to dive, dart, soar, and tangle his technical pathfinder guitar virtuoso.
It is evident that Torn has put a new spark plug into the engine of Sonar, but to be fair, the writing of Stephan Thelen, and execution of all of the members are what allows things as a whole to exist and thrive in the band. 'Live at Moods' is a topflight concert and it is a privilege to listen to it on a CD, on a fine stereo, where the listener can absorb, embrace, and enjoy this stellar performance as it was delivered. Can we all beg for a live DVD of one of these shows? HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Reviewed by Lee Henderson 12 – 13 – 2018

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Preassembled tasty TestTrees for property testing Monoid, Functor, Applicative and Monad laws.
It uses smallcheck-laws under the hood. If you don't find any runners that suite you, you can use this package as a reference to implement your own smallcheck-laws test runners.


text:
Key Martech-Focused Takeaways from Mary Meeker Internet Trends 2018
AnalyticsB2B Commerce
By Sudipto Ghosh On Jun 7, 2018
When Consumers Spend More, It Translates to Spending More for Attention to Values, and Digital Engagement and Retail Experience, Finds Mary Meeker Internet Trends 2018 Report
Climbing Mount Everest is a tricky journey.
Does it look like this?
Mary Meeker Internet Trends 2018
Do you know what this graph actually represents?
Well, if you can match the steep slope, it has to do something with the rise of Amazon and ecommerce players.
The internet is an exciting place to be, and with martech growing at an explosive rate, how could we miss the recently published Mary Meeker Internet Trends 2018.
For someone who has been watching the internet grow in the new millennium, these would be staggering –
Between 2009 and 2017, the internet advertising spend grew by more than four times to stand at $88 billion.
There is a significant gap between inflation rates of consumer goods sold offline and online.
When consumers spend more, it translates to spending more for attention to values and digital engagement and retail experience.
AI rules.
Unemployment rates are lower than the baseline average for the past seventy years…(Cheers!)
The nearly three hundred slide-presentation documented how the internet and related technologies have changed since 2015. With so much noise around personalization, data science, marketing and sales automation, data hygiene, customer experiences, and the US Tech ecosystem, we certainly believe that the latest report on internet trends affirms the role of tech innovators (mostly, first-generation immigrants to the US), and their loyal online customers.
We sat down with the top business leaders to gauge how martech community can learn from the report and what they feel makes the best sense of the report findings.
Ecommerce Is Next Only to Thanos!
Joshua March
CEO of Conversocial, Joshua March, said, "Mary Meeker points towards a few trends all coming together: ecommerce is taking a bigger and bigger share of the retail spend; social media is becoming a major driver of product discovery for ecommerce (with 55% of people buying a product after social media discovery), and messaging becoming completely pervasive as a communication channel. To stay on top of these trends it is essential that major brands are investing in the digital customer experience and capitalizing on messaging as a customer service and commerce channel."
Joshua added, "Luckily as volumes rise in messaging, developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning are getting easier and easier with all the main tech platforms releasing tools to make machine learning faster and cheaper, with enterprises increasing their spending priority on AI. The combination of increased digital transactions, messaging, and AI, will mean a future where far more customer conversations are happening over messaging, supported by bots and AI."
Have Mobile, Go Mobile…
Dave Carruthers
Dave Carruthers, CEO at Voxpopme, said, "With the acceleration of the speed of technological disruption it's clear that mobile, and mobile video, will soon be ubiquitous. If you're a brand that isn't already connecting and engaging with consumers via mobile platforms this should be your wake-up call that you're in danger of being left behind."
People-Based Approach to Identity Set to Change the Way we Look at Mobile Advertising
John Donahue
John Donahue, Chief Product Officer, Sonobi, added, "Mary Meeker's analysis on the opportunity in mobile couldn't be more spot on. The mobile market is known to be softer. This is because it has constraints that have largely driven digital investment: inability to retain cookies, inability to match website visitors to mobile users, etc."
John added, "The opportunity in mobile will be unlocked as we are able to get to a more people-based approach to identity, where marketers can be active, seamlessly, across channels. It is the reliance on other digital technologies that have driven slowness in the mobile media market, and those technology barriers are beginning to lift."
Health is Wealth, so is Health Care Personalization
Sloan Gaon
Sloan Gaon, CEO at Pulsepoint, said, "Health is personal. Health care should be too. What works for one health consumer doesn't necessarily work for another. Today, radical health personalization is a reality because of the advances in data and technology. The health consumer journey has fundamentally changed because of the shift from analog to digital and from static data to real-time data."
Sloan added, "Delivering care is changing as well. Urgent care facilities are the norm, not the exception. Wearable devices are changing how we monitor and improve health. Virtual and telemedicine healthcare is more convenient and efficient. Medical devices are now "smart". Even clinical trials are being revolutionized with real-world data. The world of healthcare is now about data and technology and the health consumer is becoming the center of this personalized medicine revolution. As the health consumer gains more control, market forces will push down costs and remove inefficiencies from the healthcare system."
There's no End to AI's Capabilities
Eric Moller
Eric Moller, CTO, Atomic X, said, "Modern AI is just in its infancy, and already can match human abilities in certain areas. This is going to have huge impacts on how we interact with technology and with each other."
Eric added, "I think most of us in North America tend to overlook this fact – but AI and general computing abilities are going to be the drivers of economic growth in the future. Politically, socially, and economically, we can't stop investing in the next steps of computing; this includes AI, Quantum Computing, and other high-potential computing paradigms."
Rick Kelly
Rick Kelly, Senior Vice President of Products & Research, Fuel Cycle, said, "The tech giants' robust AI offerings enable every company, large and small, to incorporate artificial intelligence into their products. We expect everything from CPG to finance to healthcare to rapidly adopt AI over the next two years."
2018: Infinity War on Internet Trends, as Chinese Dragon Catches On
The top five global internet companies are all based in the US. Enter Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, Xiaomi, and JD.com — the table tilts heavily towards the Chinese technology providers. What's even more startling — Chinese consumers are more willing to share their data with the companies for better benefits compared to the US and other leading tech regions. With consumers moving to smaller screens and retaining greater content from video, 2018-2020 is set to be a revolutionary phase for the brands and beneficiaries alike.
Atomic ZFUEL CYCLEMary Meeker Internet Trends 2018NewsPulsePointRecommendedSonobiVoxpopme
Sudipto Ghosh
Sudipto is a technology research specialist who brings 11 years of professional blogging and technical writing experience. He has developed cutting-edge content for over 100 websites and mobile applications. Our 'Wordsmith' is an engaging conversationalist and has done more than 200 interviews with some of the leading names in automobile, digital advertising, IT/ITES, medical technology, real estate, gemstone certification, HVAC, tourism and food processing industries. Apart from technical writing, he loves to blow off steam by chronicling stories about top medical professionals, innovators, spiritual 'gurus', gym trainers, nutritionists, wedding planners, chefs and off-beat hobbyists. The best place to find him beyond work hours— the shadiest underground gym in the city. He is an ardent sports buff and contributes with his witty live commentary too.
Customer Communication Platform Podium Raises $60 Million in Series B
PagerDuty Event Intelligence Unveiled to Improve Machine Learning-Based Digital Operations Management
Advertising and Marketing Trends on TikTok – What Brands Are Doing
Mitto Version 3 Launches, Provides Powerful Features to Data Professionals
TreviPay Welcomes Allen Bonde as Chief Marketing Officer
Rapid's New State of APIs Report Finds Surge in Usage…
Eventbrite Welcomes Ted Dworkin as Chief Product Officer
YOTTAA Publishes 2023 eCommerce Technology Index
Flaunt, the World's First Enterprise-Level Web3 Brand…
Unbabel Introduces New Self-Service and Quality Intelligence…
Murdoch's Ranch & Home Supply Extends…
A New Software That Helps Podcast Hosts Get More Apple…
Blockchain App Factory's NFT Marketplace Development…


It was yet another magnificent Slam. The weather alternated between extreme heat and pleasantly warm. There were no rain disruptions, and the wind was only a minor factor, especially in the highly enclosed main arenas. The galleries were highly engaged , knowledgeable, and eminently fair-minded, though there was occasional mimicking of Victoria Azarenka's noise-making. The balls were said to fluff (i.e., became slower) fairly quickly after new ones were introduced. Bounce speeds were moderately fast, varying considerably with air temperature. The crickets of Melbourne liked the Plexi surface, causing players often to bend over and swish them away.
Play generally reflected the modern game. Typically the larger and taller player, the one with the easier and greater power, was the usual attacker, ready to step forward quickly to dispatch any soft offerings from opponent. The defender, playing from farther behind baseline, struggled to answer with his or her own power, variety, and consistency. Some points ended with outright winners -- rockets from the attacker or counter-blows by the defender. But the fundamental advantage lay with an attacker able to sustain his or her forceful pressure while making a minimum of errors. Variants -- net attacks or drop/plop shots -- made for different patterns but seemed less frequently used than usual.
Serving counted much -- (1) the ability to deliver a strong first serve and thereby seize the advantage and (2) the ability to deliver a strong-enough second serve to deny attack by the opponent. Data from the late rounds indicated that the edge of servers over receivers was slightly less than in recent years at Melbourne or at U.S. Open.
The qualifying rounds began several days before the main tournament. Ninety-six aspiring female and 128 aspiring male stars from worldwide competed for berths in the main draw . Many of the hopefuls were relatively new to the pro wars, their names unfamiliar to me. Some were experienced pros with rankings now in the second hundred. All had invested much of their youth in developing their talents. None expected to win the championship, but all hoped for a precious career lift at the Open.
The qualifying matches (1) give younger and lesser players valuable exposure to the Slam environment and (2) provide interesting competition during the weekend prior to the start of main-draw action. This year, however, the successful qualifiers had almost no impact on the main draw itself.
More successful were members of that larger group of players who were unseeded but were accepted directly into the main draw. Eleven such males and eleven such females successfully reached the round of 32.
Probably the most notable upsetter was unseeded Romanian Sorana Cirstea, 21, who dismissed Samantha Stosur, seeded #6 and recent champion of U.S. Open 2011. Sorana showed the easier power and better movement, and was also the more consistent in avoiding errors. Tall and strong at 5-9 and 130 pounds, Sorana won in straight sets, leading in aces, serving velocities, winners, and net approaches.
Cirstea would lose in the third round to Sara Errani, also unseeded, whose greater impact in the tournament was yet to come. Two other non-seeds, Zheng Jie and Ekaterina Makarova would both upset two seeded players, as would several unseeded males.
Mikhail Kukushkin, 24, defeated seeded Troicki in the second round. Next, he parlayed a potent forehand into an five-set upset victory over Gael Monfils, who seemed to have back trouble. Mikhail was born in Volgograd, Russia but now represents and resides in Kazakhstan, having shown some excellent results in Challenger events in summer 2011. He departed in the next, the fourth round, a loser to Andy Murray.
A former Open champion, Lleyton Hewitt, now unseeded at age 30, also achieved two upsets, eliminating Andy Roddick and then the rising Canadian Milos Raonic. Lleyton's superior court coverage and avoidance of error overbalanced the thunderous serve and forehand of Raonic. Hewitt next lost to Djokovic but not before splitting the first two sets and carrying the third to a tiebreaker.
But the biggest splash of an unseeded male was that of Australian Bernard Tomic, age 19, height 6-5, who came from behind to defeat seeded Fernando Verdasco in the first round. The Spanish veteran was generally the attacker, but Fernando errored more often than he wished. Two days later Bernard defeated Sam Querrey, aided by Sam's many errors in point-winning situations.
Next, Tomic overcame seeded Alex Dolgopolov, himself a current riser, in five sets. The two were physical opposites -- Bernard tall, Dolgopolov slender with lightning-like swiftness and a rapier-like forehand. Much of the play was careful, indeed defensive, featuring long exchanges typically of backhand slices. Oddly, it was the smaller player who was the more eager to force play. Alex led in aces, first-serve velocities, net approaches, and in both winners and unforced errors. But it was Tomic's more patient, softer game that prevailed, backed by Bernard's excellent court movement and what proved to be excellent stroking power when Bernie chose to use it.
The further progress of the men's singles was largely shaped by the seemingly inevitable march of the Big Four. All three non-seeds discussed -- Kukushkin, Hewitt, and Tomic -- lost in the fourth round to Big Four members. Meanwhile the young Japanese riser Kei Nishikori, who was seeded, defeated higher-seeded Tsonga in five sets amid extreme heat. Nishikori then bowed to Andy Murray. But the greater thrills in the middle rounds of this Australian Open were produced by the women.
The surviving women's field at mid-tournament was impressive. Former champions Serena Williams, Kim Clijsters, and Maria Sharapova all appeared healthy, all playing at extremely high levels. Meanwhile younger stars Azarenka, Wozniacki, Radwanska, and Kvitova remained undefeated, the first two without loss of a set.
This prime fourth-rounder rematched last year's finalists. KIm Clijsters had won their showdown in Melbourne, while Li Na had captured Garros in June. Since then neither had shown much success. Now, from the outset, both bombarded the other with nonstop weight of shot. Clijsters seemed to generate her power more easily, but Kim's expected advantage in mobility was neutralized by an ankle injury happening in the first set. Na won that first set, and In the tiebreak game ending the second set, the Chinese star won six of the first seven points. With four match points in hand, it was hard to see how Li could lose.
But Na's play abruptly declined even as Kim simply refused to miss while maintaining her forceful play. Greatly helped by Na's mistakes, Kim managed to equalize the tiebreaker and then win it, thus forcing a third set. Kim then quickly swept through the next four games against a now-demoralized opponent, and although Na narrowed the margin on the scoreboard, the verdict was no longer in doubt.
Moscow-born, unseeded lefty Ekaterina Makarova, 23, 5-11, having beaten Kanepi and Zvonareva, became the fourth-round opponent of Serena Williams, a five-time champion at the Australian. Serena played poorly in the first set, having trouble keeping her forcing blows inside the lines. Needing to strike out in high-risk attacking, Serena seemed never to find and sustain her marksmanship.
Much of Serena's problem was in the play of Makarova, whose quickness and answering power largely blunted Serenas forceful rallying. Ekaterina's serves were soft but typically bounced low and were difficult to attack, while the young Russian's forehand and backhand strokes, often delivered from low with knees deeply bent, often either surprised Serena in their velocity or pushed Serena side-to-side in uncomfortable defense. The extreme heat, which had been absent during the second and third rounds, and perhaps too Serena's damaged ankle, contributed to the American's trials.
Serena won the first two games of the second set. But double-faults and disappointing errors reappeared, and Makarova persisted in her excellent movement and stroking. Toward the finish Serena seemed headed for one of her patented comebacks, but Ekaterina proved too solid to allow that to happen.
Ekaterina would next lose to Maria Sharapova, who had beaten the riser Lisicki in three sets and whose big game was at its best. Makarova's fine run at the Open probably assured her a place on our next watch list of risers.
Throughout the tournament to date, Victoria Azarenka had been brilliant in her sustained power to the corners and sides. It looked as if the pattern would persist, as Aznieszka Radwanska, despite showing some courageous defense, seemed badly overpowered. But Agniezska prolonged points long enough and often enough to produced Vika errors and keep matters close on the scoreboard. As the first set approached its climax, Agnieszka stepped up her own attacking, now showing power, depth, and placement. With Victoria facing a difficult Sun, Agnieska won the first six points of the tiebreak game, and promptly after the changeover an unnerved Victoria contributed an early error. It was an astonishing outcome to a set that at first had seemed hardly competitive in the opposite direction.
It wasn't that Radwanska declined amid the severe mid-day temperature. Indeed, Agnieszka continued to show improved depth and pace, sometimes challenging Vika for the initiative. But Victoria's heavy game too persisted, her errors largely absent and displaying a superb overhead and an occasional net foray. Azarenka now pulled ahead steadily on the scoreboard. Well tested, Victoria had passed the test superbly.
Kim's superb power and mobility were seldom clearer. Wozniacki, who stood first in the WTA rankings, stepped up her usually soft game, realizing that not doing so would be suicidal. But however well Caroline applied her own force and direction, Kim would be there, ready to rip back her own, even stronger, reply. Caroline kept enough balls in play to draw enough errors from Kim to keep the scoreboard respectable.
Only in the final half-hour did the Danish princess give Kim cause for concern. Caroline, serving strongly, reached a second-set tiebreaker, where the score reached four-points each, as Kim's stamina seemed to weaken in the severe heat. When Kim finally laid a rocket on a sideline for a winner, thus establishing the final mini-break margin, Kim visibly sighed in relief. For the full match, Caroline contributed the fewer errors, but Kim's non-serving winners exceeded Caroline's 35-10.
For most of the way, Kvitova's big game was too much for diminutive but muscular Errani. But for 30 minutes at mid-match, Sara unleashed a devastating run of attacking tennis accompanied by an almost complete absence of error. Kvitova, eight inches taller and far more powerful in serving and stroking, and helped by a sudden end to Sara's perfection, managed to reverse matters. It was not a reassuring victory for Kvitova.
It was a gripping if sometimes ragged three-setter. The baseline artillery from both players was breathtaking, but generally matters seemed to favor Clijsters -- the magnificent mobility and clean striking by Kim, problems of Victoria Azarenka in serving, the packed Laver Arena solidly behind Kim. But despite these handicaps, somehow it was Victoria who emerged the winner -- by outsteadying last year's champion in an emotional third set behind an ever-reliable ground game and a finally rediscovered first serve.
The rocketry was equally severe in the second semi-final. By reputation, Petra Kvitova is a streaky player, inclined to spells well below her best. The ebbs and flows on the scoreboard this day seemed to confirm that observation, as Petra recovered from poor play in the first set to win the second behind strong and accurate hitting. The third set was an up-and-down affair, neither player able to sustain her best. The end came abruptly in game ten when Petra, serving, lost four quick points, all of them gifted dismally.
The stats told a strange tale. Sharapova had five break-point opportunities to break Kvitova's serve. Sharapova won all five. Meanwhile Kvitova enjoyed 14 break-point opportunities against Sharapova's serve, but Petra won only three. Plainly, when things mattered most Petra was the weaker player. Her collapse in the last four points, which decided the outcome, also suggests fragility of nerve. She must find and develop a level of forceful play that she can sustain with confidence.
Maria played better than the score suggests. Her rockets to the corners and sides missed only a little more frequently than in her earlier outings She served reasonably well, and her mental focus stayed strong to the finish. Instead, it was the brilliance and, at times, the near-perfection of Maria's opponent that explained the one-sided outcome.
Victoria Azarenka, like Sharapova, had been born in the Soviet Union and had gone abroad early in her tennis development. Both players were tall, Vika at 6-0, Maria at 6-2, and both were assuredly power players. But in contrast to Maria's all-out, high-risk, unflaggingly aggressive style, Victoria was inclined to let rallies develop, confident in her ability to sustain long and heavy exchanges, confident in her own defensive and countering skills and her excellent ability to avoid error.
Maria had some success ripping away at Victoria's second serve. But for the most part Victoria proved capable of turning back Maria's big game, often extending exchanges until a Maria rocket missed the margins or perhaps until Vika could turn the initiative in her own favor. In short, Maria's produced her attack about as well as always, but Victoria answered Maria's strengths far better than had anyone else this week. The official stats showed both players with 14 winners, but Maria's unforced errors exceeded Victoria's by 30-12.
Victoria has now won her first Slam, and she has supplanted Wozniacki atop the WTA 12-month rankings. Her triumph was not an extreme surprise. Victoria won the tune-up event in Sydney, and she led in the first of our pre-tournament Indicators, where player results are weighted according to historical correlations across tournaments (though not in our composite of five indicators, led by Serena. At age just 22, Victoria is clearly headed for more glory.
As usual the women's crown went to the Russkayas, led by Sharapova in singles and the pair Kuznetsova-Zvonareva, who won the women's doubles. Next were Czech Republic, reflecting that small nation's first-round strength in all three events, and U.S.A.. The Americans were lifted by the mixed-doubles win by Mattek-Sands on the last day. The Russian women have captured our tally in every year starting in 2004.
The leading contributor for Spain was Nadal. Second was France, which scored nine first-round singles wins, more than any other nation. No French player reached the final sixteen, however. Third-place U.S.A. was lifted by the Bryans, runner-up pair in men's doubles. Spain has now led in the tally in three of the last five years, France and U.S.A. each having prevailed once in that period.
On the men's side, our hero was Leander Paes, the mercurial doubles artist. Leander reached the final round in both men's and mixed doubles, winning the former with partner Stepanek. Paes thus finished with ten wins -- six in doubles, four in mixed. Second place in our tally went to Horia Tecau, the strong Romanian, who won four times with Lindstedt in men's doubles and won the mixed with Mattek-Sands, making nine total wins. The Lindstedt-Tecau loss to the Bryans in the doubles semis came in a heartbreaking finish in the final tiebreak game.
Here, we compare (1) how far each player advanced in the singles tournament vs. (2) his or her seeded expectation. Two unseeded women share the lead. Sara Errani and Ekaterina Makarova both reached the round of eight. (Each thus gets one credit for reaching the rounds of 32, 16, and 8, respectively, making a score of plus-3.) Both played well in losing in their quarter-final losses, Sara losing to Kvitova, noted above, and Ekaterina to Sharapova. At age 23 and height 5-11, Ekaterina is a year younger and six inches taller than Sara, so she seems more likely to be a true riser. Time will tell.
Matters are muddled among the men, where six players scored at plus-2.
-- Kei Nishikori, seeded in range #17-32, reached final 8.
Nishikori and Tomic are the likely true risers here, both of them on our watch list of likely risers. Plainly Tomic is the world's best teenaged tennis player. But there was disturbing news when Bernard, having returned from Melbourne to his home in Western Australia, apparently in some way misbehaved with police during driving enforcement.
There were countless dramas arising daily in the tournament, from bottom to top. But the events of the men's singles semis and final towered over all else in the magnitude of their high theater.
All members of the sport's Big Four -- Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, and Murray --moved into the men's semis, just as they had at two of the preceding three Slams. Federer and Murray did so with straight-set wins in the quarters over del Potro and Nishikori, respectively. Rafael Nadal had more trouble, as Berdych, playing aggressively, captured the second set in a tiebreak. Novak Djokovic was also pressed to a second-set tiebreaker by David Ferrer, but the defending champion maintained the initiative with firm hitting and absolute freedom of error at the critical times, advancing in straight sets.
Plainly the Big Four remained the sport's elite, a chasm ahead of all others. The world awaited their show-down meetings just ahead.
It was surely among the finer of the meetings of the two giants of recent tennis. There was none of the passiveness that had often marked Federer's play in his greatest years, except perhaps in a spell just after an interruption for celebratory fireworks nearby. Rafa's play too differed from that of his early career, when he relied fully on brute power and overspin to break down opponents.
Both men played forcefully, seeking to create openings early and exploit even the narrowest openings. To offer softish, temporizing shots was to yield dominance to the other. Roger was more often the one at net, and occasionally even tried serve-and-volley forays. He managed a 61% winning percentage in forecourt -- an excellent outcome, as Rafa's countering skills remain the game's best. Rafa seemed unaffected by a recent ankle injury and an earlier shoulder problem.
Roger moved ahead early, playing brilliantly. Rafa soon lifted his game to match but failed to deny Roger the first-set tiebreaker. Set two saw Rafa produce some of his most brilliant defensive counters prior to closing out convincingly. The third set then went to Rafa, who in the critical tiebreak game played conservatively. But Rafa, after losing four consecutive points during the tiebreak, finally ended the set with a rocket to the opposite corner.
Lots of magnificent tennis remained for the fourth set -- riveting rallies, furious in their intensity, pro tennis at high level. Often answering Roger's most severe attacks were seemingly impossible replies by Rafa, reveling in his athleticism. Matters were settled in the last three games, all won by Rafa, though Roger held game-points in all three.
It went on almost without break -- nonstop heavy hitting, extreme court coverage, elation and disappointment. Djokovic took the first set and an early lead in the second when Murray's forehand misbehaved more often than it should have, the Scotsman's second serve sometimes too soft. But Andy turned matters around, his forehand gradually becoming a more reliable and deadly weapon. Set three produced spells of absolutely breathtaking play, both men fighting back from adversity, both producing dazzling movement and rocketry. The tiebreak ended suddenly, Murray now ahead, two sets to one.
Fifth set. The artillery had lost some of its weight and precision. Errors came a bit more frequently. The warriors now moved less crisply, both showing signs of leg problems. The contest had become a physical ordeal, where each man rationed his final reserves even as every point remained critical approaching the finish line. Djokovic moved ahead in games 42, then 53, Novak now serving for the set, having held at love in his last two serving games. Incredibly, it was Novak who now faltered even as Andy again found his potent forehand. Novak lost serve at love and played dismally as Andy held to 55. But the final turn was yet ahead.
Andy moved ahead, claiming three break points in game eleven. But then came the final reversal. Was it fatigue, was it nerves, or just random occurrence? Following his superb come-back of the last four games, Andy's unforced errors now abruptly began to outnumber his well-played points. Meanwhile Djokovic, maintaining a calm exterior along with his own high level of play, held on to capture game eleven and then allow Andy to self-destruct in game twelve.
As tv-talker Navratilova put it, it had been one of the greatest matches in Australian Open history.
That the tournament final could produce even higher quality and twists of plot seemed impossible. But that is what happened in the nearly six hours of epic tennis, Sunday evening at Melbourne Park.
Djokovic had won all six of their meetings of 2011, though Rafa still had the career edge. The two were almost equal in age and height, Rafa with the heavier build though Novak able to summon the higher serving velocities. Both were skilled in all aspects of tennis, but both were probably most superior in their serve-returning and court-movement abilities.
It led to a fairly similar pattern of play through most of the first four sets. Both men clearly preferred back court, even in their attacking. Djokovic was generally the more aggressive striker, but for both men, coming to net except in the strongest situations made the advancer vulnerable to the magnificent shot-making skills of the opponent. Rafa won their close first set, but after that Novak was clearly the dominant player and as matters unfolded, Novak became also the leader on the scoreboard. Djokovic led in the fourth-set tiebreak, but the Serbian star narrowly missed a fairly easy down-the-line shot that would have given him the huge scoreboard advantage 6 points to 3 -- i.e., three match points. Disappointed and perhaps shocked, Novak then gifted away the rest of the set.
Fifth Set. Djokovic now seemed spent, his legs visibly weakening during points. Nadal, who seemed the fitter, claimed the service-break edge at 42, serving and ahead 30-15. But Rafa missed an easy putaway and then added two more errors, surrendering his service-break edge. Rafa reacted in disbelief, and indeed it had been as stunning a turn as Djokovic's gifting in the previous set. Nadal still seemed the stronger player, even as Novak seemed to have forgotten his earlier fatigue. Who was the fitter?
There were more break-point opportunities just ahead. Rafa fought off one in game nine, then another in game eleven. But Djokovic would have another chance in that game, and this time it was Nadal who faltered. The last game, Novak serving for the championship, was not easy. Djokovic took the first two points but Rafa took the next three. Facing a break point that would equalize everything that had gone before, the defending champion, still playing with controlled aggression, took the last three points, finishing with a winner from forecourt.
The nobility of both men's performance, indeed those of the entire Big Four, will long stay in the annals of the sport.


For Music at King Charles, 2014 was a magnificent year. Many thanks to all our supporters, who were able to enjoy music by the Temenos Chamber Choir, the English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble, Nana Mzhavanadze (voice), Martin Fogel (guitar), Ken Aiso (violin), the Pentagon String Ensemble, Follia, Yeo Yat-Soon (harpsichord), the Dulcinea String Quartet, Ellen Smith (harp), Michael Grant (clarinet), the Schubert Ensemble, Michael Collins (clarinet), Nigel Clayton (piano), the RPO Soloists (leader Clio Gould), Margaret Faultless (violin), Kate Semmens (soprano), Robin Jeffrey (lute), Steven Devine (harpsichord), and the King Charles Singers.
Next year, 2015, already has some exciting prospects. We look forward to letting you know!
In the meantime, we wish all lovers of chamber music a very Happy Christmas.
Discount for advance booking; save £2.50 on every ticket.
A superb evening of high Romanticism awaits!
It is telling that Brahms's first mature venture into chamber music for strings came not in the form of a string quartet but in the virtually unprecedented shape of a string sextet. In contrast to the moreprogressive Romantic movement of his day, spearheaded by Liszt and Wagner, Brahms was a composer on whom the weight of Beethoven's legacy weighed heavily. He was unwilling, especially in the early part of his career, to take too readily to the genres in which his illustrious predecessor had excelled, such as the symphony and string quartet. And the significance of the opus number of the sextet, the same as that of Beethoven's first group of quartets, would not have been lost on him.
Paradoxically, the addition of an extra viola and cello creates a texture which is generally more transparent than that which Brahms preferred in his later string quartets. The composer often writes for the instruments in pairs or in groups of three, and allows himself to exploit more fully the melodic possibilities of the first viola and first cello.
With the benefit of hindsight, Richard Strauss represents something of an enigma for today's listener. In one sense he was the true heir to Richard Wagner, continuing in his mould-breaking super-Romantic vein with a series of innovative orchestral tone poems, such as Don Juan and Ein Heldenleben; then, in the second half of his career, turning his attention almost exclusively to opera, extending and refining Wagner's concept of the through-composed Music Drama with masterpieces such as Salome and Der Rosenkavalier.
Originally conceived as the overture to Strauss's final opera of that name, the sextet 'Capriccio' has achieved autonomy as a miniature concert piece in its own right.
Our concert on Saturday 14 June commemorates the 250th anniversary of the death of two French composers, Jean-Philippe Rameau and Jean-Marie Leclair. It's given by the exciting Baroque group "Follia", led by harpsichordist Yeo Yat Soon, who was brought up in Tunbridge Wells.
To book tickets at the discounted price of just £10, click here http://www.ticketsource.co.uk/date/109190.
It was on or about 23 October 1764, in Paris, that the renowned violinist and composer Leclair was found mysteriously murdered, at the age of 67. Six weeks earlier, Rameau has died of a fever. And among the other deaths in Paris that year were those of Madeam de Pampadour, Louis XV's mistress, described by Voltaire as "a beautiful woman, in the midst of a splendid career", and the Parisian poet Pierre Charles Roy, who had made an enemy of Rameau by writing a critical poem about him.
In the same year, Voltaire published bu Philosophical Dictionary, and Walpole wrote The Castle of Otranto. Mozart visited Bach's youngest son, Johann Christaian, in London. Haydn, by then vice-kappellmeister for the Esterházy family, composed his 22nd symphony. Gluck wrote his most successful comic opera La rencontre imprévu in Vienna, a few years before moving to Paris for a while. And in Rome, Edward Gibbon was deciding to write a long book.
It may seem strange now, but in 18th century Paris music and what constituted 'good taste' were the subjects of enormous controversy and national argument, involving kings, philosophers, poets and musical theorists. Perhaps little of this is evident from the music itself in isolation, but I am sure that the music of the time will be brought to life in this concert, fresh as the day it was first heard.


Bayern Park is a vast all-weather paradise with over 80 attractions for the whole family. It is located in Reisbach in the southern part of Lower Bavaria between the spa resorts of Bad Füssing, Bad Griesbach and Bad Birnbach.
When it comes to family fun and adventure, Bayern Park has been a firm favourites for years – and deservedly so. At the entrance to the park, you are greeted by magnificent floral displays that are a delight for green-fingered visitors in particular. A leisurely ride on the Bayern Park Express is the best way to get your bearings. It takes you past the horse riding area, the frog ride (children's rollercoaster) and the whitewater rafting. The swirling mushrooms and the dance of the butterflies are great fun. Other attractions include the donkey riding area, the boat swing and the wave flyer. Those looking for a gentler pace will find a whole host of smaller attractions – the children's railroad through the land of the dwarves, for example, or the piggy ride. You can visit the fairytale castles of King Ludwig II, albeit somewhat smaller than the originals! There are all kinds of animals to see, some of which you can stroke. The 'Olympus of the animals' nature trail is both fun and educational and features imaginative quiz stations where visitors of all ages will learn about animal behaviour. Children who are still bursting with energy can head to the huge trampoline area and jump up and down to their hearts' content. After working up an appetite you can get food and drink at the Hofstadl or in the inviting beer garden.
The Freischuetz catapult rollercoaster at Bayern Park offers the ultimate adrenaline rush. Going from 0 to 80 km/h in 2.3 seconds, and with a top-hat inversion, loop-the-loop and two heartline rolls, it will satisfy even the most daring thrill-seeker. The whitewater rafting is also really cool. In just under four minutes you'll experience all the fun and adventure of a twisting, turning raft ride. At around 600 metres, the ride is one of the longest of its kind in Germany and features river rapids, geysers and a waterfall. Thrilling downhill rides are also offered by the 600m twinbob toboggan run and the 350m summer toboggan run. Firm favourites with the little ones are the railway, the piggy ride, the turtle ride and the swan carousel. The Mount Zugspitze climbing wall is a real hit with all children and offers a completely safe climbing experience.


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How much does a B-17 Flying Fortress cost?
What was the range of a B-17 Flying Fortress?
What was the B-17 Flying Fortress used for?
Are there any flying B-17?
What is the blueprint for a B-17 bomber?
When did the B-17 Flying Fortress first fly?
What did the B 17 do in World War 2?
How big is the fuselage of a Saab B-17?
1,600 x 1,100 mm. The four-engine (1200 hp each) Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber, which cost over $200,000 each in 1940 (the equivalent of about $3,000,000 in today's market), was a key component of the United States Army Air Forces' (USAAF) World War II strategy in Western Europe.
It was a four engine, heavy bomber which first flew on July 28, 1935. It had a crew of ten and could carry 6,000 pounds of bombs at 300 miles per hour for a range of 2,000 miles.
In addition to its role as a bomber, the B-17 was also employed as a transport, antisubmarine aircraft, drone controller, and search-and-rescue aircraft. As of October 2019, nine aircraft remain airworthy, though none of them were ever flown in combat. Dozens more are in storage or on static display.
The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is an American four-engine heavy bomber used by the United States Army Air Forces and other Allied air forces during World War II. Today, 46 planes survive in complete form, 10 of which are airworthy, and 39 of which reside in the United States.
Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress Blueprint Related Posts: Grumman F8F Bearcat Crusader tank Italian aircraft carrier Aquila Furutaka-class cruiser Fletcher-class destroyer AirCraft > Air Force > Bomber > Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress
BOEING B-17F FLYING FORTRESS (1941). The B-17 Flying Fortress was designed in 1934, then made its first flight on July 28,1935, but wasn't ready for delivery until March 1940. Hoisting a deadly load of bombs into the frozen skies, the B-17 Flying Fortress was the United States' workhorse heavy bomber during the WWII.
Hoisting a deadly load of bombs into the frozen skies, the B-17 Flying Fortress was the United States' workhorse heavy bomber during the WWII. B-17 s served around the globe, but they are perhaps most famous for their Eight Air Force daylight strategic bombing raids on Germany.
Saab B-17 Magazine Modelar Mar.1998 This is a good clear set of four sheets to build a scale Boeing B17-G at 78 inch span. Sheets compose, fuselage side view / construction, fuselage over wing centre through top view for construction,…
How much does a B-17 Flying Fortress cost? 1,600 x 1,100 mm. The four-engine (1200 hp each) Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber, which cost over $200,000 each in 1940 (the equivalent of about $3,000,000 in today's market), was a key component of the United States Army Air Forces' (USAAF) World War II strategy in…
Come mettere pali per pomodori?
How wide is kimono fabric?


HinoMaple | Your Concierge in Tokyo and Japan!
We at HinoMaple strive to help you travel Japan with ease.
You can call on us to help you plan your trip and find your way around Tokyo. For more information on consultations and concierge services, head over to the Concierge page.
Onsen are hot spring baths in Japan. If you are worried about bathing in public, HinoMaple provides you with all of the information you need to prevent committing any faux pas.
Click and head over to HinoMaple's Blog to read how to onsens work.
Japan can be a scary place to visit for the first time. Put your fears to rest by getting HinoMaple's Guide to Surviving Japan. This guide will give you all the information you need on how to survive your trip to Japan.
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Ever wonder what you must eat while in Japan? HinoMaple suggests 10 foods that shouldn't be missed while visiting Japan. Learn more about it over at HinoMaple's blog.
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Getting around Tokyo is not easy. Let our services help you. We can help in many ways from HinoMaple's Survival Guide to Japan or from one of our concierge packages. Travelling around Japan will never be stressful again.
We at HinoMaple have created a comprehensive guidebook to help you get around Tokyo, and Japan. After reading this book, you'll have a firm grasp on what you can do in Japan. Not to mention, you will save a lot of time. Learn to do things before you go. When you step foot in Japan you won't have to worry about what you need to do.


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'Batman Vs. Terminator' Is The Best Animated Fan-Film You'll See Until Skynet Takes Over [Video]
Chris Sims Published: February 25, 2014
Tony Guerrero and Mitchell Hammond
Ever since the announcement that RoboCop vs. Terminator was getting the deluxe edition treatment it deserves, I've been thinking a lot about crossovers, and the more I think, the more I'm fixated on one of the most glaring oversights of '90s comics. Against all reason, against all logic, we never got Batman vs. Terminator. That's crazy, right? I mean, we got Batman vs. Predator three times. THREE. And yet, nobody ever sent a robot back in time to take out Bruiser Wayne.
Now, that has been corrected, in the form of a genuinely awesome five-minute animated fan-film from Tony Guerrero and Mitchell Hammond, with music by Noir Deco, and it's awesome. Check it out below!
There's a lot to really like about the details thrown in -- I'm like 90% sure that's Green Arrow and Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid hanging out with John Connor in that three-man strike team, and that tank bears a suspicious/awesome resemblance to the Batman: The Animated Series Batmobile -- but I think my favorite bit is how true it is to what we know about Batman. The fakeout of the lingering shots of Batman's "pistol" and the reveal that it's a grappling hook, meaning that he won't even use a gun on the Terminators, warms my bitter Batmanologst heart.
Also, who doesn't love Batman with a moustache?
There's a little more detail on the plot over at YouTube, but right now it's the only thing animator Mitchell Hammond has uploaded. It's a shame -- this might be the only fan-film I've ever wanted to see go on for another ten or fifteen minutes.
'RoboCop Vs. Terminator' Getting Deluxe Editions At Dark Horse
Filed Under: Batman, Batman vs. Terminator, fan animation, fan films, Terminator
Categories: Animation, DC, Video


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Chris Carter: The New Big Guy Of Ohio State Football Team
The days of "Big Hank", Jonathan Hankins are over. With the entry of Chris Carter in Ohio State 2012 football team, weighing a staggering 375 pounds, Hankins with his 330 pounds looks pee-wee before him.
Last year, when Hankins was a freshman, he weighed about 355 pounds with a height of 6 feet 3 inches. Hankins has been working hard to loose some weight and he believes that with the reduced weight he can now perform better than ever before and also that he can stand for all the four downs. Jim Heacock, the former defensive coordinator also appreciates the weight loss of Hankins. Heacock believes that Hankins didn't realize his real potential before, though he is determined to put more and more effort in losing weight and making his game better.
Heacock further said that the Buckeyes have expansive plans for Hankins in Ohio State 2012 football games. He believes that Hankins is a great player with extraordinary talent in the defensive lineup. They want Hankins to play for at least two or more downs. With the improvements and determination of Hankins, they have big plans for him.
For the new big guy, Chris Carter, Luke Fickell said that Carter joined the summer conditioning with a weight of 360 pounds, and after 6 weeks he ended up gaining 20 more pounds. The coach said: How did that happen? Later, Carter said that at this time his goal is 360 pounds and he has already loosed 5 pounds weighing 375 now.
Hankins having gone through all this helps the teammate, Chris Carter by giving him tips on losing weight. Hankins said that he told Carter that being mentally strong is very necessary.
Chris Carter and Tommy Brown
Storm Klein Dismissed: No Longer a Buckeye (brutusreport.com)
Which 2012 Basketball Player Leaving Ohio State (escoutroom.com)
Tags: Football NCAA
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Najee Murray Became a Member of Ohio State's 2012 Class
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Ryan Shazier Is A Promising Addition To Buckeyes
Ryan Shazier: Looking to Be a Great Linebacker


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Q: Amazon Web services: Why my used elastic compute cloud storage is at 8.35 GB out of 30 GB? So I am running a nodejs discord bot on AWS EC2 (free tier). I would want to stay in free range as much as possible. In the billing section I came across my usage and found that I am using 8.35 gb.
There are 2 instances linked to my account out of which only 1 is running (I used other one to host an AI app which is in stop state). Both instances are allocated 30 gb separately. I ran df -h in both instances, one reported 2.8 gb occupied and other reported 2gb occupied. So the quick question is why is it 8.35 gb when it should be around 5gb?
Attached a screenshot of bills section.

Please help. What is it that I am missing?

A: I assume you are referring to Amazon EBS Volumes, for which the AWS Free Tier provides 30GB per month for the first 12 months of your account.
This can be one 30GB volume for an entire month, or 2x15GB volumes for one month, or 1x900GB volume for one day (900* 1/30 = 30). Hence the term "GB-month", which means "Gigbytes for a month".
The fact that you are 8/30 for the allocation means that your account has consumed 8GB-month our of the free 30GB-month.
Don't panic too much -- the cost is only 10c/GB-month, so a 30GB volume for an entire month would cost $3.
Please note that Amazon EBS Volumes are charged based on provisioned storage. So, as soon as you create the volume, the space has been allocated and your account will be charged for it, even if nothing has yet been stored in the volume.
If you wish to minimise costs, then minimise the size of each volume and minimise the number of volumes. The purpose of the Free Tier is to provide a trial of AWS services -- it is not intended to be enough to run your on-going applications.

A: You are probably looking in the wrong place. When you say "I am using 8.35 gb" I assume you are talking about EBS storage, right? What you see in AWS billing, it is provisioned storage (that is, what you allocated when you launched the instance). It doesn't matter how much you are using - that's what df -h shows you inside the box. Also, it doesn't matter whether the instance is running or stopped - you are still incurring charges for EBS (if it is beyond free tier).
By the way, 8.3GB is what is usually allocated for each Linux instance; so having 8.3GB for two looks suspiciously small
UPDATE: It's not 8 GB that you see - it is 8GB-Mo. So, if you provisioned 30GB, then on the 8th of the month you will see 8GB-Mo (I think AWS updates every 4 hours). Therefore, by the end of the month you will have approximately 30GB-Mo, which is the limit for free tier.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


2013-02-09T22:01:19-05:00https://images.c-span.org/Files/f6f/20130209220248002_hd.jpgJohn Mackey talked about his book, Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business, in which he argued that capitalism did not have to be a zero-sum game. He highlighted the practices of companies like Whole Foods and Southwest that seek to increase value for their shareholders by creating value for their customers and employees as well. He discussed what he believed was a better business model with the Wall Street Journal's Kim Strassel.


Wealth is not an asset, but a drawback, for entering God's kingdom.
The first in line on earth will not be the first in line for heaven.
rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
age to come, eternal life.
Trusting God or Our Money?
then who could possibly get in!
be the first to be ushered into God's kingdom.
than for the rich to enter his kingdom!
we possess own us more than we own them.
and accountants to keep the IRS at bay.
of doing the will of God, wealth becomes a handicap and the "camel"
to be filled by God's spirit.
understand all too well. God is jealous for our affection, time and loyalties.
and money." The two are at odds and usually work against each other.
radical new way to live--embodied in suffering and the glory of the Cross.
think of yourself as rich?
Describe someone you know of who is wealthy.
What does the word "wealthy" mean to you?
In what ways are you rich?
In this text Jesus was talking literally about people with lots of money.
If so, what do you like or dislike about them?
Do you think it would be difficult to be rich? Why or why not?
Give an example of a possession that seems to own you.
there. Grace is a gift from God, but it won't do us any good until we receive it.
Explain how those statements apply to this text?
"With God all things are possible."--What are the possibilities?
Trusting God versus trusting money.
When have you made a conscious decision to do either?
Discuss the difference between being God-sufficient and self-sufficient.
How do you explain these two conflicting points of view?
The disciples left everything to follow Jesus.
Do you think Peter and the others looked and felt poor?
Were they missing anything by spending so much time with Jesus?
What do we learn from the disciples about losing and gaining?