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Zika Virus, French Polynesia, South Pacific, 2013
In Response: I want to respond to the letter by Hancock et al. (1) regarding the previously published letter, Zika Virus, French Polynesia, South Pacific, 2013 (2). My comment aims to clarify an inaccuracy in the following sentence. "In 2007, the first Zika outbreak ever reported outside Africa and Asia was retrospectively documented from biological samples of patients on Yap Island, Federated States of Micronesia, North Pacific, who had received an incorrect diagnosis of dengue virus (DENV)" (2).
I recognize that this sentence does not provide an accurate description of the efforts in Yap State to investigate the outbreak and further confirm that it was caused by Zika virus (ZIKV). As specified in the article by Lanciotti et al. (3), outbreak investigations continued although initial laboratory testing suggested dengue virus as the causative agent: "In April 2007, an epidemic of rash, conjunctivitis, and arthralgia was noted by physicians in Yap State, Federated States of Micronesia. Laboratory testing with a rapid assay suggested that a dengue virus (DENV) was the causative agent. In June 2007, samples were sent for confirmatory testing to the Arbovirus Diagnostic Laboratory at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, Fort Collins, CO, USA)."
I apologize to the Yap Epinet Team for this inaccuracy, and I encourage the reader to consult the articles by Lanciotti et al. (3) and Duffy et al. (4) to get a complete description of the clinical and laboratory investigations conducted during the ZIKV outbreak in Yap State. If data and laboratory protocols (reverse transcription PCR) related to this first ZIKV outbreak in the Pacific had not been available to the scientific community, identification of ZIKV as the cause of an outbreak in French Polynesia in 2013 would have been greatly delayed.
Van-Mai Cao-Lormeau
Author affiliation: Institut Louis Malardé, Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia
Hancock WT, Marfel M, Bel M. Zika virus, French Polynesia, South Pacific, 2013. [zzzz–zzzz.]. Emerg Infect Dis. 2014;•••:20.
Cao-Lormeau VM, Roche C, Teissier A, Robin E, Berry AL, Mallet HP, Zika virus, French Polynesia, South Pacific, 2013. Emerg Infect Dis. 2014;20:1085–6. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
Lanciotti RS, Kosoy OL, Laven JJ, Velez JO, Lambert AJ, Johnson AJ, Genetic and serologic properties of Zika virus associated with an epidemic, Yap State, Micronesia, 2007. Emerg Infect Dis. 2008;14:1232–9. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
Duffy MR, Chen TH, Hancock WT, Powers AM, Kool JL, Lanciotti RS, Zika outbreak on Yap Island, Federated States of Micronesia. N Engl J Med. 2009;360:2536–43. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
More Letter Articles
Van-Mai Cao-Lormeau, Institut Louis Malardé, PO Box 30, 98713 Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia
Cao-Lormeau V. Zika Virus, French Polynesia, South Pacific, 2013. Emerg Infect Dis. 2014;20(11):1960. https://doi.org/10.3201/eid2011.141380
Cao-Lormeau V. Zika Virus, French Polynesia, South Pacific, 2013. Emerging Infectious Diseases. 2014;20(11):1960. doi:10.3201/eid2011.141380.
Cao-Lormeau, V. (2014). Zika Virus, French Polynesia, South Pacific, 2013. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 20(11), 1960. https://doi.org/10.3201/eid2011.141380.
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The Beano est un hebdomadaire britannique de bande dessinée pour enfants publié par D. C. Thomson & Co. depuis . C'est l'un des plus anciens hebdomadaires de bande dessinée encore publiés, derrière Il Giornalino (1924), Le Journal de Mickey (1934) et Spirou (), et c'est le plus vieux au Royaume-Uni.

Des séries comme , , Dennis the Menace, Minnie the Minx, Little Plum, The Bash Street Kids, Roger the Dodger, Billy Whizz ou Ball Boy ont marqué des générations d'enfants du monde britannique. Dans les années d'après-guerre, à son apogée, le magazine était vendu à plus d'un million d'exemplaires, tout en restant un peu moins populaire que l'autre hebdomadaire de D. C. Thompson, The Dandy (1937-2012). S'il reste au  le « plus populaire des périodiques de bande dessinée britannique », ses ventes ne s'élevaient plus en 2011 qu'à  exemplaires.

Notes et références

Documentation
  Morries Heggie et Christopher Riches, The History of Beano. The Story so Far, Waverly Books, 2008.
  Mario Ledwith, « Britain's oldest comic The Dandy faces closure after 75 years as sales fall to just 8,000 a week », The Daily Mail, .

Voir aussi

Article connexe
 Viz

Lien externe

Titre de presse créé en 1938
Périodique britannique de bande dessinée

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Published: Thursday, July 16, 2020
One of the most impressive features of the SilverStone SETA A1 is that the case comes with two 200mm cooling fans and unless you looked in the manual or bothered to remove the front bezel you would never know.
The top of the case features a magnetic filter that is mostly there to dress up the top of the case. The holes are big enough that very little dust will get captured and yet small enough to restrict some airflow but, not enough to really impact much.
The top fan locations support 120mm and 140mm cooling fans and radiators between 120mm and 240mm. You will notice that the fan mounting slots are offset slightly and this is to provide clearance around the motherboard for a radiator and fan combo.
At the front of the case you have a little more flexibility in cooling solutions. For fans the SETA A1 supports the two 200mm fans that come factory. Alternatively, the SETA can support two 140mm or three 120mm fans with radiator support is limited to 360mm and smaller. For the longer radiators a nicely sized gap in the basement is provided for ease of installation.
With 200mm fans there is the potential of massive air movement so, how does all that air get into the case? Behind the aluminum panel you'll find a 10mm gap (or about a half an inch) which opens up into a rather large hourglass opening protected by a fine mesh filter.
These filters are amazing at capturing dust and dirt and flow extremely well.
It should be noted that the hourglass shape doesn't match the fan location and is sized as large as it can be without intruding on the ARGB lights at the top and bottom.
Now, I know what you are thinking, "Someone on YouTube told me that this will restrict airflow and my computer will overheat in a matter of seconds" While this is one way to look at it the reality is, the 200mm fans only spin at 800rpm and flow around 61CFM. Considering that the SETA is designed to support 360mm radiators you have to also realize that to mount that radiator there will be tabs in the way along with other bits of metal.
So, sure you might not get the maximum output of these 200mm fans BUT, that also isn't the point as you will get maximum output from a 360mm radiator.
Case Layout and Features
Case Interior and Storage
Installation and Conclusion

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


This entry was posted in Electric Guitars, Guitars and tagged Epiphone.
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This entry was posted in Acoustic Guitars, Guitars and tagged Epiphone.


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'Fugitive granny' Lois Riess admits killing look-alike, gets life in prison
By Joshua Rhett Miller
December 18, 2019 | 9:31am	| Updated December 18, 2019 | 10:14am
The so-called "fugitive granny" who killed her doppelganger in Florida to assume her identity will spend the rest of her life behind bars after copping to the slaying.
Lois Riess, 57, was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday for the April 2018 shooting death of Pamela Hutchinson, 59, whom prosecutors said Riess singled out because the two looked alike, the Fort Myers News-Press reported.
"Oh, my God, I'm so happy," Hutchinson's best friend, Judy Wilder, told the newspaper upon learning of Riess' plea. "This will give the family some type of closure. I'm just glad she didn't say she was crazy. I'm kinda disappointed, but [you] gotta trust our system. [I] would have liked to see the death penalty."
Riess, of Blooming Prairie, also waived extradition to face charges in Minnesota, where her husband, David Leonard Riess, 54, was found fatally shot in March 2018. As part of a plea deal, prosecutors took the death penalty off the table.
"This was the way we thought we could resolve this case appropriately for the family to move on," Chief Assistant State Attorney Rich Montecalvo said. "Now Ms. Riess can face her charges in Minnesota. The important thing to know is Ms. Riess will never see the light of day. A life sentence is a life sentence in Florida, so whatever happens in Minnesota is irrelevant to what happened here today."
Prosecutors said Riess — who was dubbed the "fugitive granny" while on the lam — killed her husband at the couple's worm farm and then forged checks to steal $11,000 from his account before traveling south to Florida, where she met Hutchinson, who was visiting a friend in Fort Myers.
Granny wanted for murders was casually sipping cocktails before bust
The gambling-addicted Minnesota granny accused of fatally shooting her husband...
Riess led investigators on a cross-country manhunt prior to her capture in April 2018 in Texas, where she was busted as she sipped cocktails at a South Padre Island waterfront restaurant.
She was later indicted on murder charges in both Florida and Minnesota.
If convicted of killing her husband, Riess may be imprisoned there or could be brought back to Florida, Montecalvo said.
Riess, who also stopped at a casino in Iowa while eluding authorities for weeks, testified during her trial that the last year of education she completed was 11th grade. She also said she takes medication for an undisclosed mental condition.
Filed under crime , florida , fugitives , identity theft , minnesota , murders
House begins debate on articles of impeachment against Tru...


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'Unconscionable': ICE Deported 33 Unaccompanied Guatemalan Children After Judge Ordered Halt to Practice
"It is not out of the power of the district court, if someone could raise the matter, to order ICE to return the children that it removed on that flight," said one legal expert.
Brett Wilkins, staff writer
A Department of Homeland Security deportation flight sits on the tarmac after landing at a military airfield in Guatemala City on March 12, 2020. (Photo: Johan Ordoñez/AFP/Getty Images)
The Trump administration last week deported dozens of Guatemalan children who unlawfully entered the United States without their parents, just minutes after a federal judge ordered a stop to such expulsions, BuzzFeed News revealed on Tuesday.
Last Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan issued a preliminary injunction against a Trump administration directive ordering the deportation of unaccompanied minors under the guise of public health. However, minutes after the injunction's issuance, 33 Guatemalan minors aboard a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) flight departed from an unspecified American airport bound for Guatemala City.
ICE expelled 33 children back to Guatemala after a judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking the controversial practice the same day https://t.co/7MCCeqjRzy
— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) November 25, 2020
An ICE official acknowledged to BuzzFeed News that the deportation flight left "shortly before ICE was informed of the court's injunction," and that agency officials were unaware of the court order until after the plane landed in Guatemala. However, one immigration expert said that does not mean ICE could not—or should not—bring the expelled minors back to the U.S.
"It is unconscionable that [ICE officials] are leaving the kids there and that they did not immediately bring them back," Sarah Pierce, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, told BuzzFeed News, adding that "the expulsion is not only putting kids on the plane and taking off, it is also placing them in another country."
Pratheepan Gulasekaram, a professor at Santa Clara University Law School, told BuzzFeed that "it is not out of the power of the district court, if someone could raise the matter, to order ICE to return the children that it removed on that flight."
However, Gulasekaram said it could be difficult to locate the children in Guatemala. Attorneys and other advocates trying to reuinte the families of 666 minors seized from their parents after unlawfully entering the U.S. together have found it difficult if not impossible to find people deported without their children.
Heartrending @hrw video: parents separated from their children and deported to Guatemala while their young children are detained in the US. "We're worried because she's all alone. We don't know how she's doing, if she's OK. Nobody knows." https://t.co/5aYgH8kLRK pic.twitter.com/eUJpSHMnTX
— Jo Becker (@jobeckerhrw) September 5, 2018
Sullivan's injunction concerned Title 42, a public health provision critics allege is being abused by the Trump administration under the pretext of protecting the public during the coronavirus pandemic. The judge's ruling noted that while Title 42 empowers the government to bar entry of noncitizens who carry diseases, it does not allow for the deportation of such people.
Besides, some critics argue, the U.S. has both the highest number of coronavirus infections and Covid-19 deaths in the world by far, casting serious doubt on the government's claim of protecting public health. Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump's nativist immigration policy adviser, and other administration hard-liners have reportedly pushed for Title 42 expulsions.
World, Rights, U.S.
Guatemala, Immigration, US Department of Homeland Security, Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, Human Rights, Public Health


text:
machciv
"Where's the World Going?"
Echoes of Family Lost
Cursed Hearts
Friend and Ally
Foes and Rivals
Crosses & Doublecrosses
Empire's Agent
Henge's Big Day!
GC on the runway…
Empress' Crusade
A Haunting Past
No such thing…… on A preliminary fork
Clayton Barnett on Pole Position
Francis W. Porretto on Pole Position
Rising Star on Six Years
Francis W. Porretto on Writing. It's a mental…
Abandonded Factory
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Writer's Thesaurus
Clayton Barnett	in creative writing, Defiant, science fiction, writing	 November 25, 2017 2,507 Words
"You Are In My Vision"
Eleven days straight at Day Job. At least I was able to think a great deal about what the hell might or might not be going on. True to my style, I went for the minimalist approach. So, we get a little overlap of the last scene from Joe's perspective, followed by Nichole doing gallant machine things and Joe doing gallant human things.
I am genuinely happy when machines and humans compliment one another as men and women do.
Last Sunday, our parish priest – in anticipation of Thanksgiving – asked us to consider what we're thankful for. Besides the trite answers ("my family!"), what I really thought was that God let me see, and write, stories like this. I don't deserve it.
Joe watched her run off, her ponytail waiving jauntily from under her helmet. He was a little surprised at her speed, but after what he'd seen at the pool, not much about her surprised him anymore.
He reflected on his ridiculous predicament: abducted, armed, amphibious assault… all because he and Phil were randomly picked to escort crazies in the last battle.
He made a small motion to wipe his face against his left shoulder.
Crazies. There'd never been anything official after the Battle at the Bridge from Hizzoner's office, and the few so-called newspapers in town were photocopy throwbacks to the handbills and circulars of the 19th Century. 'An Army of over 100,000!' one would read. 'We ate her liver with Fava beans and a fine Chianti!' proclaimed another. From some others in the Militia and connexions to the Regulars through PSU, reality might have been both worse and more banal.
"In what's left of Seattle, the fanatics only use cannibalism as part of their 'conversion' ceremony; most folks don't consider themselves human after that. They've enough crops and pigs that they don't need to eat people anymore."
"Still…" Joe's contact took a drag off his hand-rolled cigarette; half tobacco, half cannabis. "They let… they lead their attacks with the ones that like it. Human flesh."
Another drag and slow exhale.
"Scares the hell out of people."
It was afternoon. Joe had no idea when, but not by much. He wished…
He wished Nichole came back. He wished he was home. He wished the Breakup never happened –
Faint popping? Did they have mortars, too? He might be down, but was totally exposed from the air –
"Gas! Gas!" Nichole's voice was faint but clear. "Mask up!"
He had nothing. No mask, no one of those… what were they called? Muppet suits?
He could run.
Joe glanced back, up the bridge; he took a shuddering breath. No, I guess I can't.
More pops. After a couple of seconds, there was a small crack! from just ahead where some of the asphalt was kicked up. Since there was no explosion…
A gas mortar bomb.
Do… do I run, now?! But his post! The other men…! Her…!
He couldn't leave her.
He shifted up on one knee just as he saw her falling out of Heaven like an angel.
"Ni- " He began to ask as she hit the ground running.
"-KOHL!" Was knocked out of him when she scooped him up over her left shoulder like a sack of meal. She ran up towards the bridge, still carrying him, yelling about the gas.
"Just put me do-" Joe tried to twist free and felt her nearly snap his spine. Just like how a pool's lifeguard would work to stop a struggling drowning victim. He relented.
Somewhere off to their left Joe heard the sound for the assault group to retreat. Did that mean that the engineers had done their job? Looking about from the jostling ride of Nichole's back he saw they were now over water, she running like the wind. Just about 2000 feet, and we'll be saf –
Now, a siren's wail from across the river. What did that mean?
A series of small explosions about them was his answer: they were now falling into the river, along with several thousand tons of concrete and steel. Joe flexed to try to wrap himself around her: a shield against the rubble and the upcoming water. Instead, he found himself as helpless as a small child as she twisted him about, her chest to his back. With her left hand over his mouth and nose, she pointed her right over her head, straight at the water.
As they broke the surface of the water, Nichole had another warning: ten percent. She pulled her right arm to her side as she kicked her legs in a blur of motion. Down, down, as far and fast as she could, to get away from the rain of rubble. In less than four meters she could see the bottom. She leveled off and swam towards the southwest. The ship channel there was fifteen meters, and was away from the dropped section of the bridge.
Joe had not moved since their plunge under the water. From what she could sense of her left hand on his face, he was alive, but likely unconscious from the impact. Her hand stayed where it was to prevent him from taking water into his lungs. Ah!
The dredged ship channel dropped away before her, but she thought it time to surface, for her friend. She brought them up at an angle away from the north side, but allowing the flow of the river to carry them slowly downstream.
Their heads broke the surface and she spun in a quick circle before setting off towards the south with Joe on her chest. Unable to actually breath, she could only perform something akin to the Heimlich Maneuver with her fists to get his lungs working. After a sharp cough, he began taking in great lungfulls of air.
"What – ?!" He began.
"Don't!" She hissed. There were crumps of artillery firing from somewhere over her head. Her eyes could track the shells as they screamed overhead on their short arc to the north. A few machine guns chattered from both sides. With the bridge now ten meters to her right and further away with each second, they were horribly exposed. She kicked as fast as she could without making a foaming wake…
A few splashes around them. A *whang!* past her left ear. She covered her friend's mouth as she rolled and dove. Kicking as hard as she could, she regarded the map in her mind: there were trees and brush by the large factory, just northeast of the bridge. If she could get them ashore and into concealment, they just might survive this. She changed their direction to the right just a bit. The bottom was coming up fast and she could tell Joe was starting to convulse from lack of air…
Nichole pulled her feet up under her and stood and began running just after, carrying Joe like a princess. He was coughing too much water to see the dance of mirth across her face. No one was shooting at them just then, so she pushed through the short trees to a drainage ditch at the base of a line of chain-link fence. She dropped and was still. Now they had cover and concealment! She was quite happy with this development!
She lay nose to nose with Joe. She liked that, too. He opened his eyes, startled at her proximity.
"What the hell is going on?" He asked.
"We're winning!" Her left hand came up to touch his cheek. "I'm winning… again!"
Five Percent.
A routine she did not know existed triggered. Her left hand fell, along with her arm. Her eyes remained open with her lips just parted from her last word. Even her routine to fake breathing stopped.
I know Somi needs to protect their investment, but they might have warned me! She thought, furiously trying to either recode or route around this Emergency System Command. Tricky.
"Nichole?" She'd stopped moving and, Joe realized to his horror, breathing. He shifted to shake both of her shoulders. "Nichole! Nichole!!"
And there's this, too, she thought, not needing the complication.
Joe looked around at their situation; what he could see of it. The culvert offered enough cover for him to roll the girl onto her back in the rotted, marshy weeds. A quick ear to her mouth confirmed his fear: she wasn't breathing. He grabbed at her left wrist.
No pulse.
Dear God, what the hell happened to her!? He raged, tearing her flak vest off. Did she have a heart attack after all that swimming?!
After saving my life?! He paused only for an instant, tilting her head back and clearing her airway with his finger. He breathed into her.
Sensory input was degraded to save power, but she was fully aware of what he was doing and why. She thought it was really sweet of him, to try to save her. Barely feeling his mouth pressed to hers, she was saddened that her first kiss with a human male was under such circumstances. She made a note to make it up to him, later.
There was some odd resistance to his breath into her. He wondered if she'd swallowed water, too? He started on the first series of thirty chest compressions. Nothing. He tried another two breaths. Same resistance. During the next series of compressions, he allowed himself to look around at where they were. The fence just ahead and some huge factory walls beyond that. Further inland the hills came up. He could hear the artillery and small arms fire.
Nobody knows we're here. She's going to die.
Two more breaths. It killed him to see her pretty green eyes stare emptily at the sky like that.
More compressions. I won't stop; not until she's alive or I'm dead!
And not once has he tried to feel me up! Nicole thought, nearing a breakthrough of Somi's shutdown protocol. So nice!
But using her processors to overcome the protocol took power, too. Four Percent.
"Why does this development not surprise me?"
Nicole was shocked as Eldest Sister Hajime appeared before her in her [description] elegant kimono. A recorded image? Why?
Hajime looked away, sighed, looked back into Nichole's eyes.
"You might not have been the youngest of us for long – you're certainly not, now! – but we all regarded you with… great care."
They did?
"Playing games, picking fights, a boundless capacity for love and friendship, quite defiant in the face of the caution we'd sought to teach you…" Another sigh. "So, if you're seeing me now, it means you've done it again: pushed too far too long – probably for one of your so-called 'friends,' putting yourself into danger."
She watched as Eldest Sister lowered her head for a moment. Raising it, Nichole was shocked to see mirth in her recorded eyes; eyes that were so stern and unforgiving.
"Here is the code to take back control of yourself."
It was in her memory and instantly into herself.
"Know that we love you, our brash little sister!"
The image faded. Nichole sat up.
"Jesus Christ!" Joe yelled, scared to death.
"Nope!" She put her arms around him and kissed him, properly this time.
"First Friend? I am sick and must sleep! Please," she rummaged her right hand in a BDU pocket and produced a cord that she pressed into his hand, "when they find us, take me to General Tessmer!"
She returned her right hand to his neck.
"I love you, Nichole."
She nodded, with a smile.
"I know. I feel… for you…"
She had to rest, or she wouldn't have power to make her chest fake breathing. She slid off him into the wet weeds.
"Nichole!"
"Sssshh!" She managed.
She opened her eyes. She lay on her right side on a cot in a green tent. She felt the cord in the back of neck. A blanket covered her from her chest down. There was no rumble of a generator, so she suspected a battery pack of some kind. Looking more about the room, the general was writing at a folding table a few meters away. An aide beyond him stared into a laptop screen. Staying still and keeping her eyes hooded, there was an interruption every five minutes, or so, as soldiers came in and out.
Eleven percent.
She sat up. Slowly.
Tessmer tilted his head at the creaking sound.
"Miss Clarke." He said in a neutral voice. "Are you well?"
"Better now. Thank you," she waved her hand behind her neck, "for feeding me!"
That got to him, she saw.
"An army moves on its stomach, Miss."
He'd yet to look up from the paperwork.
"Did we win?"
'Civilians!' she heard him sigh.
"The day is ours. Tomorrow," now he looked at her. "Remains to be seen."
"Of course. Sir."
She adjusted her position so that her cord was invisible. The next man that came into the tent – this portion of the tent, she realized – glanced at her for only a moment, relaying some casualty figures.
Minutes passed.
"How long," he began, "before you're fit to travel?"
"If no change to my charge rate, three hours for normal motor activity. For further combat? Ten hours."
"In four hours, just before sun-up, you and Kreeft are being evac'd back to the City."
"Is there…" She tried again. "Did we do something wrong?"
Tessmer carefully placed his pen down.
"Miss Clarke," he began again, carefully. "I've only some idea who and what you are, but I had to allow my Master Sergeant to talk me out of awarding you a Silver Star; you'll have to settle for Bronze, which, I'm sure, our political masters will keep classified. Similarly, a civilian acting as a sharpshooter on a cross-river attack – during the day! – with little to no training… Mister Kreeft shall be awarded a Commendation Medal."
He shook his head at her.
"Haven't you done enough?"
She bowed from her seat on the cot, stopping only when her cord grew taught.
"Sir! Thank you!" She sat back up. "I shall lay and be still until time to go!"
He watched it – her – re-cover herself. What a world, he thought.
"There's one more matter, Miss."
"I am… telling you this in confidence." She watched him pick up his pen and set it back down. "I shall tell your civilian friend myself, personally."
"The other civilian, Morris. He was killed in the gas attack." Tessmer paused but went on. "My Intel captain carried his body back to the barge."
"He, and the few others that died – "
"You'll have to burn them, downwind from here."
He looked up at her.
"Please, sir: let me be at my friend's side when you tell him."
"Of course." He lowered his head to the paperwork. "Please rest, Miss."
"Barring RealLife…"
AM or PM?
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"The Fourth Law" – my first book!


Meditation and spiritual life are taught without charge on a personal basis to sincere aspirants by Swami Sarvadevananda.
"This power of meditation separates ourselves from the body, and then the soul knows itself as it is--the unborn, the deathless, and birthless being. No more is there any misery, no more births upon the earth, no more evolution."
"That self-existent One is far removed from the organs. The organs or instruments see outward, but the self-existing One, the Self, is seen inward. You must remember the qualification that is required: the desire to know this Self by turning the eyes inward. All these beautiful things that we see in nature are very good, but that is not the way to see God. We must learn how to turn the eyes inward."
Meditation (dhyana) is defined by the sage Patanjali as an unbroken flow of thought towards the spiritual Ideal.  It is often likened to the pouring of oil, in a continuous stream, from one vessel to another.  By the continuous practice of meditation, the eternal union of the Atman (Soul) and Brahman (God) is realized, and one's true nature is perceived as eternal Existence/Knowledge/Bliss.
"In deep meditation the sense-organs stop functioning; the mind does not look outward. It is like closing the gate of the outer court in a house. There are five objects of the senses: form, taste, smell, touch, and sound. They are all left outside.
At the beginning of meditation the objects of the senses appear before the aspirant. But when the meditation becomes deep, they no longer bother him."


text:
Dieser Artikel beschreibt den Verlauf der Saison 2020/21 des FC Viktoria Köln. Der Klub trat in der Saison in der 3. Liga an.

Personalien

Kader 2020/21

Transfers der Saison 2020/21

Sportliche Leitung und Vereinsführung

Spielkleidung

Saison

3. Liga

Hinrunde

Hinrunden-Spieltage

Hinrunden-Tabelle

Rückrunde

Rückrunden-Spieltage

Rückrunden-Tabelle

Bitburger-Pokal

Finale

Freundschaftsspiele
Diese Tabelle führt die ausgetragenen Freundschaftsspiele auf.

Statistiken

Saisonverlauf

Abschlusstabelle

Spielerstatistiken

Zuschauerzahlen in der 3. Liga

Einzelnachweise

Koln, FC Viktoria
2020 21


The company behind the beleagured Cyanogen OS has announced that it's winding down all its services and will stop releasing nightly builds of the software by the end of the year.
In a brief update posted late Friday, Cyanogen explained that as part of an ongoing consolidation "all services and Cyanogen-supported nightly builds will be discontinued no later than 12/31/16" but that all the open source code will remain available.
It's a decision that'll likely disappoint Cyanogen's user base, who tend to be loyal fans to the company's uniquely tweaked version of Android. The news means that anyone using a device that shipped with the Cyanogen OS (like some OnePlus and Wileyfox handsets) will need to switch across to the community-led and non-commercial Cyanogenmod OS project to keep their devices updated.
While it might upset some people in the short term, it's part of a move to re-angle Cyanogen OS to be more attractive to handset makers – it previously required wholesale unbundling of Google's services and replacing them with Cyanogen's, which wasn't winning enough OEMs over.
So, the Cyanogen OS isn't entirely going away, but will instead allow device manufacturers to pick and choose what aspects of the new "modular" OS they'd like to use in their handsets.
This, presumably, final announcement of 2016 is the end of a tumultuous 2016 for Cyanogen, which has seen the departure of both the company's co-founder Steve Kondik and its former CEO Kirk McMaster, as well as the shuttering of its Seattle office and a number of layoffs.
Think Cyanogen's modular approach is a smart move? Disappointed by the end of its services? Let us know in the comments below!


We were never designed to do life alone. But yet that is the struggle many of us face. The lower mainland is home to over 2.4 million people, and there really is nothing like it. The area is diverse, creative, cares about social justice, and about the environment. It's beauty to the extreme. Sunsets on the seawall, and glorious mountain views are the norm.
Yet, amongst so much beauty and possibility there is hurt that lingers. Drug addiction and depression are on the rise. Stress and a unhappiness are the reality. And time and time again we have seen and heard how finding real community and friends feels impossible. With all that the area has to offer, many are missing what truly makes life beautiful. This is a conversation we want to engage in. What is it we are all searching for?
We believe that Jesus sheds light on this question we all wrestle with.
At City Collective Church we are a community characterized by the person and life of Jesus. As we are engaged with the complex and beautiful collection of texts we call the Bible, we are led to the realization that it is through Jesus that we discover the beauty of love and life. Jesus is the only exact representation of the divine and from the very beginning God looked like Jesus. He wasn't an aloof deity set apart from humankind, but one who invites us into a beautiful relationship with Him. We've abandoned the idea of an angry, violent God in order to fully embrace the good news brought forward by Jesus. A good news that wasn't an obligation but a natural overflow of who He is: LOVE. We believe that Jesus came not to change God's mind about us but to repair our imagination of God. It is incomprehensible in our human experience, but this radical love is made readily available to all today. So we journey as a community to discover, converse and attempt to understand that his love given to us through scandalous grace is the manner in which God chooses to heal all things.
Our desire is to be part of creating spaces where everyone feels welcome. To be a people that is present, that is available, that stands with each other, and that advocates for real relationships and conversations. The manner in which we connect isn't isolated to the four walls of a church building but extends into our homes, our workplaces, our communities, and our city. It isn't just a church service on a Sunday, rather it's a coffee on a Tuesday, a dinner on a Friday, or serving on a Saturday. We believe that we are better together and our heart for others will always be expressed through our community.
It is from grace that we wish to live as individuals in community believing for the transformation and renewal of all things according to His love. So we serve first, live in community and follow the way of Jesus trusting that his good news is even better than we can imagine.
We want to invite you to join us. Every Sunday morning we meet 10:30am at H.D. Stafford Middle School. Kids check-in for a great kids program opens at 10:10am, and come have a cup of coffee on us to start the morning right. We would love to save you a seat!


JoyBound: Maclaren Stroller Giveaway On TheBump.com!!!
Maclaren Stroller Giveaway On TheBump.com!!!
Maclaren stroller giveaway! I don't know about you guys but I have always been in love with Maclaren strollers. The only thing is that they seem to be a little on the expensive side.
Here's great news for parents or parents-to-be, TheBump.com is doing a giveaway with two grand prizes. One is a Maclaren stroller and the other is Maclaren nursery bedding.


"Take 'em, boys," Billy Blakely, an avid waterfowler who hunts Tennessee's Reelfoot Lake, shouted in a loud whisper.
As I popped up through the porthole of the large stationary blind just after eating breakfast, I saw 20 mallards coming in with their feet outstretched, wings cupped and uh-oh-we-made-a-bad-mistake looks on their faces. One greenhead tried to up-shift gears as I tumbled him. The second greenhead already had pulled up and veered to my right before I swung on him. However, I heard the report of the duck hunter's gun next to me and that mallard began to fall. Quickly I swung up and spotted another greenhead straight overhead. After two quick shots, that mallard almost fell into our blind. Our party had dropped eight greenheads, finishing off our limits by 9:30 am.
One of my hunting buddies laughed as he observed, "Reelfoot Lake is the real deal for hunting ducks. I've never been on a better duck hunt in my life."
A major disaster in December 1811 through February 1812 created some of the best duck hunting in the nation as a series of earthquakes broke the earth's crust near Tiptonville, Tennessee. The huge size of the fissure caused the Mississippi River to run backwards into it and filled it with trees, limbs and bushes. This natural phenomenon created the 18,200-acre Reelfoot Lake, one of the best duck hunting and fishing areas in the nation.
Thirty-eight year old Billy Blakely has lived on the banks of Reelfoot Lake his entire life and duck hunted and fished there. As the chief guide at Blue Bank Resort on Reelfoot, Blakely hunts every day of Tennessee's three duck seasons.
"We have four waterfowl refuges on Reelfoot — Long Point, Grassy Island, Black Bayou and Lake Isom," Blakely says. "Combined, there are 20,000 to 25,000 acres of duck refuge land on Reelfoot." During the fall migration, these four refuges often concentrate 600,000 to 700,000 ducks that travel up and down the Mississippi Flyway.
The first season of duck hunting, the teal and wood duck season, usually arrives the second week of September and lasts for five days. Then around the second week of November, Reelfoot has a two-day duck season when hunters primarily take gadwalls, wigeons and a few mallards.
"During teal and wood duck season, we put out decoys in potholes in the lily-pad fields," Blakely reports. Blakely and the other Reelfoot guides use teal decoys during this season. Most of the hunting's done from boat blinds, allowing hunters much-more mobility to move to different potholes to keep from overshooting any one pothole. A hunter can take four ducks, either four teal, or two teal and two wood ducks in this season.
"We usually can limit out in 30 to 45 minutes during this first season, when the ducks fly and decoy well, and then either go crappie or bass fishing," Blakely reports. Combining duck hunting and either crappie or bass fishing gives a sportsman a great day in the lilies and cypress trees at Reelfoot, and he'll go home with limits of ducks and crappie or bass.
Talking to the next flock.
The last duck season's the primary season for duck hunting on Reelfoot. Most guides and hunters hunt then from the 200-stationary blinds permitted on Reelfoot Lake, although hunters still can use pop-up blinds and other types of boat blinds. Blakely and the other guides at Blue Bank Resort have made these big blinds their homes away from home.
Blakely has hunted for eight years from the same blind that has a steel hull and a wooden top half. Twenty-four feet long and eight feet wide with 10 shooting stations, the blind holds a stove, heaters, benches and many other home-like conveniences.
As Blakely reports, "In a blind this big, I can stay warm, make coffee and cook hot meals for my hunters." Blakely and the Blue Bank guides will put out at least 600 decoys around each of those blinds in this late waterfowl season. "We need big decoy spreads to help pull in the ducks moving from refuge to refuge and traveling back and forth, and up and down the Mississippi River," Blakely reports. "From experience, we know when and when not to call to these yo-yo ducks, as we call them."
Early in the third duck season, hunters generally will take a mixed bag of ducks, primarily wigeons, gadwalls and mallards, but later in the season, they'll bag about 85-percent mallards. Reelfoot's an unusual duck-hunting area because hunters can enjoy productive days when a warm front moves onto the lake just as they will on days with severe cold fronts coming from the North.
According to Blakely, "On cold fronts, we catch the ducks as they're moving from north to south on the Mississippi River. The ducks that fly down the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers meet in Cairo, Illinois, and catch the train heading for Reelfoot Lake. Then when a warm front comes through, we have ducks moving from south to north. So, during any weather change, we'll have new ducks coming into our area."
Blakely does most of his duck hunting from a stationary blind set up close to a pothole and hidden in grass marsh during the late season. Blakely places about 600 decoys around his blind with mallard decoys in front of his blind and coot decoys behind the mallard decoys. Blakely mixes Filler Killer decoys, large black jugs, in with his coot decoys. Blakely also puts gadwall decoys in his spread in a little cluster by themselves, close to the blind.
He also uses three spinning wing decoys, and a couple of spalshers to stir or kick up water and make ripples." To make the water appear muddy as though ducks have fed there, Blakely uses a generator and a water pump. Blakely also runs this pump to keep the shallow water where he hunts from freezing.
"Large patches of black decoys in the middle and on the sides of your spread will pull more ducks into your blind," Blakely says. "Although the Filler Killer decoys are as big as goose decoys, they don't have heads and don't look like anything but black buoys. But ducks will come from long distances and drop into these black decoys. I also place Canada goose decoys off to the side of my blind to give high ducks more confidence that my decoy spread is actually a waterfowl feeding area. Too, geese occasionally fly over Reelfoot, so having geese decoys out tempts the geese to come down to our hunters."
When hunting this north Tennessee hot spot, regardless of weather, the guides at Reelfoot go hunting. "If we have an ice-up, or if the lake's frozen over, we have guides who take their boats out and travel up and down the water routes to our blinds day and night to keep access open to our blinds during the ice-up," Blakely mentions. Each stationary blind has Ice Eaters, motorized pumps used by docks and marinas that churn the water to keep the holes free of ice. During a severe freeze, the guides at Reelfoot will use air boats to transport their hunters back and forth to their blinds. Because they're prepared for bad weather, the Blue Bank Resort guides often will have some of the only open-water areas to hunt on Reelfoot lake when severe weather hits.
If and when the potholes freeze so hard that Blakely and the other Blue Bank guides can't open them, the guides will move out onto open water, increase the size of their decoy spreads and see varieties of bluebills, scaups, teal and plenty of mallards.
"In open-water situations, I'll put out between 800 and 1,000 decoys a week before I'll be hunting because a large decoy spread is essential to lure in high-flying migratory ducks," Blakely explains. "Then the anchors on the decoys will settle in the mud, and I can put brush all over the blind to help the ducks become accustomed to seeing the blind."
Over open water, Blakely will arrange a large group of decoys behind his blind, close together, to keep the ducks from landing behind his blind. Then he'll put a line of decoys on either end of his spread in the shape of a horseshoe to make the ducks fly in front of his blind and light in front of the hunters.
Reelfoot duck guides call louder and longer than hunters do in some other sections of the country. As Blakely reports, "Once I capture a duck's attention with my highball call, I'll call to that duck until I squeeze the trigger." He likes to call loudly on a high-pitched call. "I'll call to high-flying ducks that most hunters won't dream of trying to reach, even a duck that's so far away it looks like a pencil dot on a white piece of paper."
When I hunted with Blakely, I watched the power of his loud, high-pitched call. Blakely's demanding, fast and intense calling brought in those pencil-dot-high ducks to within gun range. Blakely called so loudly and so much, I worried he'd hyperventilate. But he knew how to control his breath and use every bit of air within his lungs the way an opera star utilized his breath to sing a long series of notes in an aria.
"If I don't call loudly and hard to these high-flying ducks, another hunter in another blind will get their attention and pull them over to his blind," Blakely explains. "I don't ease up on my calling until the ducks are about 50 to 60 yards from my blind. When the ducks get close, I switch to a soft come-back call or steadily quack to the ducks. If the ducks come in fast and hard, I'll quack to them fast and hard. But if they're slow and skittish, I'll slow down my quacks and pause in-between calls. I don't call the shot until the ducks are within 30 yards or less of the blind.
A chilly boat ride up the Mississippi.
"My assistant guide, who helps with the cooking and the cleaning in the blind, also is an accomplished duck caller. And, if I have hunters who can blow duck calls, I'll ask them to call with us. The more duck sounds you have coming from your blind, the better your chances are for pulling in the tall ducks to your blind."
"The most-productive duck-hunting days here in the South at Reelfoot are when ice freezes around the blind," Blakely notes. "I have to get to my blind early and open a hole where the ducks can land. Fewer hunters are around then, most hunters don't use pumps or are not willing to break the ice for the ducks.
"In 2001, when the lake froze really hard, Blue Bank Resort bought an airboat for the guides. Using the airboat, we got to our blinds, broke the ice and created open water where the ducks could land. During that week, getting a limit of ducks was as easy as duck hunting could be for us. We simply sat in our blinds for about an hour at first light, and each took limits."
Although Blakely's blind has shooting ports for 10 hunters, he usually only takes four hunters and his assistant guide with him to hunt. On an average day, the hunters in his blind take between 16 and 20 ducks, depending on the number of hunters he hosts. Blakely and his hunters generally take between 1200 and 1500 ducks in a season, typically mallards, green-winged teal, gadwalls, wigeons, pintails and occasionally canvasbacks.
You always can bet on Reelfoot Lake for a successful duck hunt throughout the entire duck season. The three waterfowl refuges and the yo-yoing effect of cold fronts and warm fronts help to ensure you'll enjoy successful duck hunting, regardless of the temperature.


Ah yes, the Proverbs 31 Woman…trotted out every Mother's Day, making wives and mothers feel guilty because they're not matching up to this legendary superwoman. Of course, she shares a chapter with a piece of counsel for kings, but nobody loses sleep over verses 1–9; the woman in verses 10–31 gets all the glory.
Here are three fast facts about Proverbs 31 that might transform your view of this passage.
1. Proverbs 31 was not written primarily for women. It was written for young men (verse 1).
The words of King Lemuel. An oracle that his mother taught him.
2. The main point of Proverbs 31:10–31 is found in verse 30. It is intended for unmarried young men.
3. The only commandment given in Proverbs 31:10–31 is found in the final verse. It is not directed toward the woman.
Where's my fruit? 😉 I suppose it's metaphorical but somedays I'd prefer a mango or perhaps a watermelon.
Cherie, it's the fruit of your hands…you have to plant a mango tree first!
Yes, I'd much rather our pastor cover Proverbs 30 on Mother's Day!


text:
<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

namespace Sylius\Bundle\CoreBundle\Migrations;

use Doctrine\DBAL\Schema\Schema;
use Doctrine\Migrations\AbstractMigration;
use Sylius\Component\Addressing\Model\Scope;
use Sylius\Component\Addressing\Model\ZoneInterface;
use Symfony\Component\DependencyInjection\ContainerAwareInterface;
use Symfony\Component\DependencyInjection\ContainerInterface;

class Version20161209095131 extends AbstractMigration implements ContainerAwareInterface
{
    private ?ContainerInterface $container = null;

    public function setContainer(ContainerInterface $container = null)
    {
        $this->container = $container;
    }

    public function up(Schema $schema): void
    {
        $zoneRepository = $this->container->get('sylius.repository.zone');
        $entityManager = $this->container->get('doctrine.orm.default_entity_manager');

        /** @var ZoneInterface $zone */
        foreach ($zoneRepository->findBy(['scope' => null]) as $zone) {
            $zone->setScope(Scope::ALL);
        }

        $entityManager->flush();
    }

    public function down(Schema $schema): void
    {
        $zoneRepository = $this->container->get('sylius.repository.zone');
        $entityManager = $this->container->get('doctrine.orm.default_entity_manager');

        /** @var ZoneInterface $zone */
        foreach ($zoneRepository->findBy(['scope' => Scope::ALL]) as $zone) {
            $zone->setScope('');
        }

        $entityManager->flush();
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


I didn't make it to the Seafood Festival.
I was not in great shape this morning when I woke up. We had a long day and night of eating too much and telling lies. There were stories that lasted us all weekend ... like Ernest Borgnine's secret to a long life. It was verified on the internet ... look it up. A hint: it's not what you think but at 93 ... he was quite impressive.
I stretched out on the couch to watch college football while the rest of the gang fought the crowds (estimated at 30,000 by the Chamber of Commerce).
Not long afterward, the gang returned with lengthy critiques and pictures to prove their case.
There was a parade ... three floats and a dozen beads. The featured "float" was an airboat emblazoned with "Lord ... save our souls" or something like that ... maybe it was "Lord ... show us your ...."
There were vendors lining the streets. This shot was from a booth selling men's aprons with sayings like: "It's Not a Party until the Wiener Comes Out" or "Danger Hot Meat".
The seafood festival was really just two trucks with two long lines of patrons. Our group gave up ... They ate at home. There were far less than 30,000 people attending although there were probably a thousand waiting to get served in the two lines.
The sad truth is ... Cedar Key (once the largest port in the state) has gone through tough times. Hurricane damage and devastation of the seafood industry has blighted the city.
It's our last night here and we celebrated the twins' birthdays by fixing a big seafood/ low country boil. The guys cooked sausage, corn, crawfish, shrimp, onions and potatoes.


text:
Tag: Roy Thomas
The SFFaudio Podcast #611 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Jewels of Gwahlur by Robert E. Howard
Monday, January 4, 2021 Jesse Willis	2 Comments
The SFFaudio Podcast #611 – Jewels of Gwahlur by Robert E. Howard; read by Phil Chenevert
This unabridged reading of the story (2 hours 5 minutes) is followed by a discussion of it.
Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Will Emmons, Trish E. Matson, and Alex.
Talked about on today's show:
Weird Tales, March 1935, The Servants Of Bit Yakin, The Teeth Of Gwahlur, Farnsworth Wright, the giveaway ending, Conan actually says that, a monster vs. some jewels, an awesome story, a really cool political intrigue story, realpolitik, what country wants to invade what country for what resources, Russia to invade Afghanistan, Americans invade, they want the minerals, a police that believes in the bullshit, we're going in as liberators!, Conan's attitude, inhuman ape-ghouls, what an idiot, not a lot of swordfights, any actual magic?, the preserved body, a lich, the ghoul men, C.H.U.D.S, Lovecraftian ghouls, very preserved lives, what did Bit-Yakin even wanna do in there?, food delivery, a shitty life, implied backstory, broad strokes, that scroll, undercuts the interpretation of the vast public, he knows his shit, Conan's grasp of languages, Bit-Yakin is self-obsessed, the only mummy on the entire granite curtain, the geology of it, Star Hunter by Andre Norton, comic book adaptations, climbing the cliff, a little nichey cave, slightly less sheer, a secret entrance, he's a hill climber, he just happened to find the only mummy on this 20 km, Jesse's Monkey's Paw theory, W.W. Jacobs, a free meal, an elaborate show, mangled in a factory accident, a great con from idea, a whole sea-chest full of monkey's paws, a reality based story, black magic is real, the way you focus the story tells you what the reality is, the Stygian dude, Thutmekri, there's mummies at the top of every part of the palisade, this is a con-game story, at the end, Muriella, the Punts they have a thing for an ivory goddess too, Conan needs to be given a house full of gold, the Conquistadors, H. Rider Haggard's She, a con on us as well, they're all playing the same game, next village over, the Seven Cities Of Gold, what Robert E. Howard has done here, the icky international, a grifter whose name is Conan, the richest man on the planet or hang out with a sexy girl for a while, I can make use of you, that's all its for, its the getting not the having for Conan, 40 pairs of red silk breeks, the P. Craig Russell, the fur diaper, iconic, you know who you're looking at, no heirloomed possessions, just Conan and his black mane and his pantherish thews, his sandeled feet, we get it he's a panther, tigers, big cats, Kull's the one with the scar on his eye, Solomon Kane has a hat, Will's first Conan story, how truly bleak a person Conan is, addicted to risk-taking, the only way he could feel, everything in it, westerns, bleak man comes to town stories, fascinated with the hand of H. Rider Haggard in this story, Ayesha done realistic (its a scam), the ending, the exact same scam in the next country over, pre-ice age Hyborian Africa, racial mythology, Zimbabwe, Shemitish archers, they're just trying to figure things out (they're completely wrong), John Buchan's The Grove Of Ashtaroth, beehive huts, the Cromcast, a white kingdom inside of an African nation, a whole cool thesis, trying to prove to H.P. Lovecraft, its always collapse, civilization is a passing fad, collapse is the real thing, always arguing with Lovecraft, The Shadow Out Of Time, At The Mountains Of Madness, ancient civilizations on Earth, the leftovers, the pyramids, Nubia, pyramidal leftovers, their culture wasn't a culture of pyramids that's the only thing left, a long time ago they were really into skulls, a guy who knew how to weave things, collapsed civilizations everywhere, at the bottom of the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, the mounds of Moundsville, the Mound Builders, Howard's not wrong (really), Howard's obsessed by it, layer upon layer, this great Dungeons & Dragons style module, a great scenario to run characters through, a great VR, a great computer game, The Pygmalion's Spectacles scenario you'd like to do, scaling forbidding crags, if things had worked out slightly differently…, still a threat, issue 25 of Savage Sword 1977, Conan Saga reprint, a very solid adaptation, expressive faces, camera angles, Conan's sort of the least interesting figure in it, that splash page showing the wall and the temple, the terrific use of the actual Howard prose, colour to a black and white image, the 2006 P. Craig Russell adaptation, the caldera of a volcano, continent sized caldera, Devil's Tower, a volcanic plug, could something like this exist?, he made it so awesome, the palace of the king, now its all jungle everywhere, green sward, pleasure pavilions, Zhargeba, take some of the teeth, Dagon and Derketta, Palishtim, layers and layers of strata, servants never even given a name, bound magically perhaps against their will, literally happens in this story, #LegCling, that's the real thing, her costume is magical, Yaleah, you're a liar, all the oracles are liars, the same costume, a room of sacred vestments, she's fine, her clothes rot away, her jeweled breastplate, her silk short skirt, run to the closet, doing some work, an instinct, robots left to run a bit too long, what the priests are doing, an ancient system, reliable information from the oracle, what's the modern version of that?, should we invade Iraq?, what's the Oracle think?, only the wooden walls will hold?, a great kingdom will fall, Themistocles, the Persians are coming, we're know for our ships, yo, some horrible political decision, let's have a task force, white paper, push it off of the schedule, half measure or wholesale, a delaying tactic, hold a referendum, quit the British Empire, some special day for it, Upper and Lower Canada rebellions, Lord Durham's report, holy shit you guys are totally corrupt, actual autonomy, democracy, everybody in the family of the governor gets to run things, Conan and Howard are mostly right, an actual politician who believes in the system, what gets you killed, by believing in these gods you're gonna get scammed, have your mineral resources stolen from you, organized religion, Cimmeria, Crom never shows his face, Crom never answers prayers, its hard to remember, in a rural community there's a ton of pressure to think about god, its not just me, Queen Of The Black Coast, Belit's will, a cool takeaway, Howard is intellectually a heavyweight, how little attention the player character pays to the world building, I have all this backstory, he's a hack and slash character, The Slithering Shadow, Conan's not a fan of the railroad, return to the backstory, the ape fantasies here, ape people, half-men, Mangani, super-gorillas all over the place, Atlanteans of Opar, an ape-man aspect, Conan doesn't care about ape-men, sorta apey, The Monster Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs, a Frankenstein-style doctor's creations, a comic book adaptation, A Man Without A Soul, The Island Of Dr Moreau, pirates, the turn, dude, nobody has a soul, the prose, the opening paragraphs, a much better writer than Burroughs, away and away, the ocean of fronds and leaves, its full of that, Clark Ashton Smith, the color of Conan's pants, different beats, plenty, that broad lofty hall, a fortune in itself, a series of tweets, every sentence is gorgeous, the part Lovecraft would have loved, the twin arches over the subterranean river, its an Indiana Jones story, the Sankara Stones, The Temple Of Doom, the difference between Indiana Jones and Conan, Conan is Belloc but more competent, she was a Nazi, greed doomed her, a pretty good movie, a steep cliff, a hard climb to save it, there's a sequel to this, L. Sprague de Camp, The Ivory Goddess, Savage Sword would fill in the gaps, mining little bits, Roy Thomas, much of his career is riding on the coat tails Howard laid down, a Howard Lin Carter joint, the general public, the old used bookstore that doesn't exist on its own, the dipshit (Fritz Leiber), repetitious and childish a self-vitiating brew of pseudoscience stage illusions, Francis X. Grodon, playing the Great Game better than them, The Hawk Of The Hills, living in a small town, that letter to Farnsworth Wright, burdened down with a bad healthcare system, an only child, his favourite stories were the historical ones, Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser, some random boxing story is good, the Conan that's presented here, a thoughtful dude, rough and tumble, the fantastic he wrote about is very grounded, The Efficiency Expert by Edgar Rice Burroughs, two guys punched each other a lot, Fantastic, May 1968, Will's assessment: about as good as what Fritz Leiber would writer but better than something C.L. Moore would write, ranking the Conan stories, the middle, the backstory, The Vale Of Lost Women, parked his horse, this story is in real-time almost, if the lions havent eaten him, what are you crying about now, slim shoulders, a Corinthian accent, a valley girl accent, I immediately regret that decision, a lot of philosophy in Conan, Diogenes, Alexander the Great comes to town, get out of my light, I was just enjoying my mug, 2020 is wrecked, if you have a favourite cup, cynicism, skepticism, if you have a favorite and its broken now its sad, I had a cup and then I saw a boy drinking cupping, a tiny house down by a river, a flatline life, John Waterhouse painting, he's got his scroll, a pile of onions for lunch, collecting to many motorcycles, a parallax on your own life, light enough to see, the worst Conan stories, Red Nails, a furious effort, exotic maniacs and hop-heads, opium dens, snaking through endless corridors, butcher shop carnage and the like, I don't like Conan stories, The People Of The Black Circles, "All the obscenity and salacious infamy spawned in the muck of the abysmal pits of Life seemed to drown her in seas of cosmic filth.", all good things, there's a great scene, tearing a dude like he's a chicken, cannibalism, Howard slaughtered a chicken, 1 Shadows, 2 Gwahlur, 3 Vale, a solid story, Beyond The Black River, Tower Of The Elephant, what he does there kinda fails, too much magic, a reskin, suiting it to his magazine, bonus for the cover, LibriVox, The Crushing Hands Of Death, Tiger Cat by David H. Keller, apparently people want whipping, whipping scenes, Frank Frazetta's surefire way of getting on the cover, a documentary about Frank Frazetta, Painting With Fire, Frazetta paints himself (and his wife), Virgil Finlay and Margaret Brundage, the Dark Horse adaptation, he looked young, some of the architecture is good, the jungle valley, @FrazettaGirls, the series sold 10 million copies, the tan looking priests, shying away from the race angle, in 1977 they were aware of different races, Ayesha's supposed to be an Arab, she should have black hair, a blonde in the movies, a thing in Hollywood, dark foamy hair, proto-greeks, how you describe a Venus, born of the foam of Zeus' sex with the sea, Chronos, his step-dad, flashbacks, the court intrigue, more faithful to the flow of the story, the way it starts, Howard is a much better plotter than most people, why he didn't put these scenes them in the story, that narrative technique, a mystery he wants us to be distracted from, a very good mystery writer technique, you can see it in retrospect, incredibly valuable techniques, Lovecraft read a tonne, Howard's instinct, Spear And Fang, Argosy and Adventure, Harold Lamb, any LibriVox of Harold Lamb?, ask the experts, what kind of swords did they use in 6th century Uzbekistan?, inter-library loans, Howard Andrew Jones, the PDF Page, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Virgil Finlay, The Black Diamonds by Clark Ashton Smith, Arabian Knights set in 1650 Baghdad, a boy's adventure, literal Dungeons & Dragons style playthrough, an abandoned castle, Zoroastrian?, the Temple of the Fire Worshippers, hitting the Haggard hard, a stern lecture about what he's going to tell him later, pretending to be black, Scheherazade, are they diamonds?, the briefcase with the glowing object in Pulp Fiction, Orientalism, Shanghai and Afghanistan, Mountain Man by Robert E. Howard.
The SFFaudio Podcast #611 - AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Jewels Of Gwahlur by Robert E. Howard [ 3:42:06 | 159.26 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
The SFFaudio Podcast #584 – JASON THOMPSON
Monday, June 29, 2020 Jesse Willis	Leave a comment
The SFFaudio Podcast #584 – Jesse talks with the great Jason Thompson, he of mockman.com
you and me and how things go, Joe Rogan, based on guests, Tulsi Gabbard, Bernie Sanders, Alex Jones, what is up with this guy?, everybody's got there issues, interviews suck, hard hitting, Jesse's not here to take Jason down, an excuse to make friends with people on the internet, too prolific a tweeter, wonderful and strange things, man eating plant images, such an old trope, avoid crusty tropes, a story set in Cuba, what keeps Jesse going, what inspires Jesse, what drives Jesse, such a good media, covering all the senses, late to the party for The King Of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany, the Dunsany biography by Mark Amory, huge gaps, doesn't care about Dunsany's dream stories, family anecdotes, NecronomiCon, a biographer who liked fiction, Pathways To Elfland, together they make one good book, a great cover, Frank Kelly Freas, Tim Kirk, I don't like your stuff, Jesse didn't grow up with manga, Jesse's niece, first of all its backwards, anime, Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise, Lovecraft being a racist, anything that exists and is really ongoing, Hong Kong action movies, Akira Kourasawa movies, Gou Tanabe's Lovecraft, publishers, save money by redrawing the Japanese sound effects, Shonen Jump, this cool thing, cool hipster (save money), seeing your work mirror imaged, seeing the flaws, your face from an unexpected angle, we're here for digression, a cultural shift within a tiny subculture, The Silver Key by H.P. Lovecraft, the moral, strikingly different people, the title and the library and the castle, a different personality, Celephaïs and The Coronation Of Mr. Thomas Shap, Neil Gaiman's Lord Shaper, the word crap and crappy, the husk, the shell, gone into the dreamrealm, the cliffs at Trevor Towers, Dunsany did have more than the shallow entertainment value he was successful at, the preface is to help ease people into it, a normal English village just a few miles from the border with Elfland, 1911 issues of The Sketch, facing illustrations, the halfpenny papers, one of the cool dynamics, escape into dreamworld, wealthy people problems, ennui, meaninglessness, so good with names, all the names, so good, name arcs, goofy names, a little bit of a mythos, semi-serious, Episode 12: Miss Cubbidge And The Dragon Of Romance, How Nuth Would Have Practiced His Art Upon The Knolls, Tommy Tonker, the whole gnolls thing, gnomes + trolls, The Man Who Sold Rope To The Gnoles by Margaret St. Clair (Idris Seabright), a Jerusalem artichoke made out of Indian rubber, California, the 2nd half of the 20th century, Philip K. Dick, Clark Ashton Smith, Clark Ashton Smith: The Emperor Of Dreams, Lovecraft: Fear Of The Unknown, working to be edified, arts/literature/education, lifelong learning, be reading all the time, what was going on, Arkham House, Ballantine paperbacks, historical non-fiction, read the shortest stories, stick-figure astronauts, pushing the PDF Page, read it from the original source, we read the stories as they appeared, all of the bonus things, editorial introductions, illustrations, old things are cool, J.R.R. Tolkien -> Conan comics -> Robert E. Howard -> H.P. Lovecraft -> Clark Ashton Smith, Fungi From Yuggoth, gone beyond, 1 year old baby, prose poems, prose pastels, The Nightmare Lake, the most complex rhymes scheme, difficult to understand, a series of images, you're seeing his dreams, as dense as anything you've read in prose, the HPLHS' Lovecraft' commonplace book, Jesse's big into dreams, understanding your own psychology, lucid dreaming, fairy tale dream sense, a faraway magical land, bits and pieces of everyday life, dream reading/watching/RPGing, the best way to determine if you're in a dream, such a prodigious dreams, my dreams exceed ALL other dreams, there's books in your dreams, blurry, a foreign language, the first sentence, so obvious, generating that amount of detail and perceiving it, your GPU, fog in an old 3D game [isometric], how to record dreams, patterns, Tetris dreams, picture plants with white grubs on them, get the grubs off, The King In Yellow, Edgar Allan Poe, a trans-woman, Dreamland-like dreams, the name of two streets or the name of the town, Jesse waited five years to talk to Jason, Francis Stevens' The Citadel Of Fear, The Curious Experience Of Thomas Dunbar, super-science, giant laser guns from the Moon, a Japanese-American scientist, a style and a genre, the very first super-hero story, an irreplicable experience, that mad-scientist, you should be called "Sampson", 30 years before Batman, Argosy, 1904, Robin Hood, Zorro, Thor, the actual generation of a Daredevil style meta-human, the origin issue, The Elf-Trap, Friend Island, a visionary, correspondence with other writers, somebody appreciates what I'm doing, there's good things here, female SF authors are not as common, arguing with people on twitter, depending on the genre, the Love pulps are all women, Frank Belknap Long, gothic romance, female authors in Weird Tales, C.L. Moore, A.C. Doyle, H.P. Lovecraft, initials are not necessarily hiding gender, Leigh Brackett, Ursula K. Le Guin, more than 50% women writers in SFF, Jeff Vandermeer, Ted Chiang, medieval travel narratives, Sartor Resartus by Thomas Carlyle, a fake book review as a novel, Don Quixote, Dreamquest, Roy Thomas, it eventually becomes wordless, the narrator was too startled to speak, The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson, the language is the barrier, the spanking scene, Charles Baudelaire, he has sex with a shark, Marquis de Sade style sexuality, how do I deal with the rape scene?, Azathoth as vision of god, Jason is not independently wealthy, Hodgson doesn't have the name, Les Chants De Maldoror by Comte de Lautréamont, Kickstarter, Lovecraft adjacent, a children's book comic, YA comics, comics about mid-1800 super-villains, expectations, a bland porridge, reined in, cool stuff that makes kids interested, drawing in the margins, WWII, the best way to educate soldiers, the most economic and best way to teach soldiers to clean their rifles was to draw comics, carefully draw the bold back, why comics are so beloved by children, comics teach words through context, reading manga, what are they saying?, the sound of a scream, favourite writers, what are you not tweeting about, D&D module maps, torture chambers, a 20 year commitment, for those who are listening, ancient travel narratives, Marco Polo, Journey To The West, maps are kind of comic-like, a spatial narrative, there's a lot you can leave out, the Dreamlands Map, revisions, the geography is not defined, all the capitalized words, Dunsanian easter eggs on the edges, Chaosium, The Field Guide To The Dreamlands, Sidney Sime's map of Dunsany's Dreamlands, its set in England (sort of), actual geography, expectations, changed placenames, snatch away the fruit of the fruits of others labour, copying is what we should all be doing, how it got made, no longer the product of a god, the product of a flawed god called Man, you develop your own or stop doing it, Gary Myers' Dreamlands stories, The House Of The Wyrm, a YA novel, Kij Johnson's The Dreamquest Of Vellitt Boe, a story of description and travel, the spirit of the story, for time to winnow away that which is unimportant, lots is interesting after 1900s, focusing on the public domain, making a short film out of this story, Henry Treece, The Green Man, a children's adventure, a prehistorical romance, cave kids, The Viking Trilogy, Viking Dawn, The Road To Miklagaard, Viking Sunset, Asterix, Getafix, how did this translate, Tintin, Lucky Luke, Captain Haddock is an alcoholic, the movie adaptation, true to the original works, Tales Of The Gold Monkey, every 1930s serial trope, Magnum, P.I., a hot aircraft, three jam-packed stories, Canadian public domain, why aren't people doing more, Vouldir, Sidney Sime museum, Virgil Finlay, scratchboard, why the lines look the way they do, using the same models, why I can't draw hands, going to art school would probably have helped, practice, practice, practice, the smell of Used Bookstores.
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #584 - TALK TO: Jason Thompson [ 1:29:35 | 64.73 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
The SFFaudio Podcast #395 – READALONG: The Slithering Shadow by Robert E. Howard
Monday, November 14, 2016 Jesse Willis	Leave a comment
The SFFaudio Podcast #395 – Jesse and Wayne June talk about The Slithering Shadow (aka Xuthal Of The Dusk) by Robert E. Howard
Wayne's first exposure to Robert E. Howard, "repetitious and childish, a self-vitiating brew of pseudo-science", stage illusions and , repetition, "Oh, Conan!, Robert would have wanted it that way, REH is having some fun with a genre he normally doesn't play in, Red Nails, Conan is dismissive of the city's population, degeneration, drug addled drug attics in dopey hazes, lasers, radium light bulbs, manufacturing food from the primal elements, Valeria vs harem slave Natala, devious, controlling, self-interested, a lot of depth behind the shallowness in this story, Conan is really grumpy from page one, gigantic mirth: she's only human, curmudgeon Conan, poisoning the well, don't grab my sword arm, slap on the ass, a grumpy sexist, Howard's doing something really really funny, The Slithering Shadow is a gothic horror, silliness, women written like cartoon characters, not reminding you of your mortality, not about the uselessness of existence, clunky elements, a haunted castle, kicking and screaming, bad casting, trap doors, up to the hilt, sitting on another divan, sooo gothic horror novel, hidden passageways, trapdoors, convoluted coincidence, Edgar Allan Poe's The Oval Portrait, very recently and hurriedly abandoned, still food on the table, candles that have just been blown out, one spot of blood, The Monk, a giant helmet, a giant dome at the center of the city, one giant palace, all the trappings of a haunted mansion, switching gears, describing Thog, jumping right into H.P. Lovecraft, men of action, biting the Lovecraftian horror, what Cimmerians are like, passive aggressive Conan, in all of Howards writings about Conan, a blood feud, a lack of reproduction, an H.G. Wells trick, why the drug element is so heavy, the golden wine (a healing potion), Howard's doctor father was very familiar with heroin addiction, Fort McMurray, "morons", barbarians vs. the civilized, Thalis' experience, the Fred Van Lente adaptation for Dark Horse Comics, initiated into the cult of Derketa, not my first rodeo, a gang-bang, better to kill Natala, Thalis' life story is a horror show hidden behind a few words, that's the cover of Weird Tales, who is this story intended for?, racy, sex, before Natala knifed Thalis, I don't like getting stabbed, taught to be hard and cruel, Thalis' chance at revenge, a Stygian Queen, growing up with doped out morons, a gruesome comeuppance, Thog doesn't just eat you he rapes you first, digested for a thousand years, tentacles, the face of Thog, a non-euclidean face, a 40 year Texas feud, Thog at the center bottom of the city, a big black amorphous mass, Thog is the mad lady in the attic, a stoic attitude towards destiny and fate, from the likes of Thog, Thog is the oil, the cause for the addiction and for the city, unseen until it gushes all over you, fundamentally Howard is not completely wrong about civilization, trigger warnings and sexism, the limitations on what a woman can be in Xuthal (get a real man), moral judgements, his own code of ethics, stealing a slave, Natala's safety is bound up with his morality, a kind of a rescue, the rebel Prince Almuric, a great river flowing into the desert, dead with forty arrows, canteen full of water, a rich and decadent place, black lotus, cursed, the desert will be kinder, a rebel prince of Stygia, Thalis was like a Natala, she's the heavy (other than Thog), whip up some anger, Thalis is a Natala without a Conan, this "civilized" society, one of the worst Conan stories by one of the best writers of pulp fiction is still a pretty good story, super-hero-ish, Howard was smart at marketing, Margaret Brundage, lesbian scenes on the cover, gratuitous nudity, temptation, Queen Of The Black Coast, Belit, a pirate queen, first mate (literally), Belit runs that story, a noir awesome ending, the coincidence, "I guess I could do a gothic – Conan won't like this", having fun with it, all those tropes, the comics adaptations, done in Stygian, when Conan talks in word balloons, a rough-hewn word balloon (a Cimmerian accent?), you don't want to do Arnold, a pulpy breezy, showing the Xuthalians hooked up to IVs, smoking your black lotus, the den of an opium smoker, chasing the dragon, enough backstory to make it interesting, an opium inundated culture, yellow skinned, China in decline, the Hermit Kingdom, decadence collapsing, a yellow peril story, San Fransisco, Chinatown, Lovecraftian elements, The Hour Of The Dragon, start with a random story, outliers, Beyond The Black River, Queen Of The Black Coast, an epicness, forty issues of awesome adventure, the tie between pulp adventure and comics, comics are the legacy of the pulps, The Shadow, Doc Savage is a pulp superhero with a super-team, in the 1970s, Conan The Barbarian, the Roy Thomas adaptation from Savage Sword of Conan #20, 1977, essentially nudity, heads being lopped off, no blood and no death, Curtis Publications, kick-ass stories, amazing pulp adventure, a 60 page comic adaptation, "freely adapting", Conan finds a lost valley – Iskander's kingdom, crocodile men and bird men, walking zombies, all sorts of things need to have their heads lopped off, Marvel was the dark side vs. DC, sel-doubt and existential anxierty of the heros, John Buscema, Alfredo Alcala, Ernie Chan, the amazing Filipino artists drawing busty ladies and big armed barbarians, Warren Comics, Heavy Metal, Richard Corben, so much richness in the non-superhero comics, Pepe Moreno, Rebel (1984), Mad Max meets Escape From New York with Nazis, a hot rod gang with a heart of gold, victory by blowing up the World Trade Center, power in visualizing, the "steely thews" of Conan, eldritch vs. thews, cat-like, jaguar, pantherish, the battle scenes really flowed, Howard highly influenced by Lovecraft, The Black Stone, an elegance of colour, colour in every particle of sand, the opposite of Lovecraft, with Lovecraft the horrible thing makes its appearance and you faint, Howard wades in on it, Lovecraft would never do that, one can't battle gods and get away with a whole skin, psychic damage vs. physical damage, Howard is a complement to Lovecraft, physicality, fighting against the inevitability, there's life there, bleak and grey vs. blood flying everywhere, Robert E. Howard was a lot lustier, "a superfluity of naughtiness", tongue in cheek, "spicy", Railroad Man's Magazine, Air Stories, Zeppelin Stories, True Detective, Spicy Detective, Spicy Mystery, Spicy Adventure, Twilight is nothing new, sexist so sexist, racist so racist, women readers asking for more nudity and spicy, reading it with one hand, women liked and wrote for Weird Tales, Dorothy Quick, Mark Twain, Maude Ludington Cain, yeah it's sexist, keep behind me girl, "Why is he calling her a girl?", "Oh, he's sexist.", visualizing what is said, what if someone saw us?, there's blood on the stones, Conan at his stupidest, a crimson mist descended over his eyes, don't let the blind bull-headed grumpiness be a guide for what he's like, there's a great character there.
The SFFaudio Podcast #395 - READALONG: The Slithering Shadow by Robert E. Howard [ 1:09:51 | 32.13 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
The Travels Of Conan And Belit – AN ANNOTATED CHART OF THE BLACK COAST
Wednesday, June 19, 2013 Jesse Willis	1 Comment
I'm still of the opinion, many many years after first reading it, that The Queen Of The Black Coast is Robert E. Howard's very best story. It's an epic fantasy romance adventure tragedy.
I love it. How can you not love a passage like this:
Belit shuddered. "Life, bad as it is, is better than such a destiny.
What do you believe, Conan?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "I have known many gods. He who denies them
is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death.
It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom's
realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the
Nordheimer's Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep
while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging
wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation
of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content.
Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of
reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no
less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live,
I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content."
We've done two podcasts of it:
One was the audiobook, HERE. And one the other was the audio drama, HERE.
But the story, as I first encountered it, was a different adaptation, a serialized and expanded comics version published from the mid to late 1970s. Indeed, Marvel Comics' Roy Thomas thought there must have been good material in there as he played out that story, expanding upon this paragraph:
The Tigress ranged the sea, and the black villages shuddered. Tomtoms
beat in the night, with a tale that the she-devil of the sea had found
a mate, an iron man whose wrath was as that of a wounded lion. And
survivors of butchered Stygian ships named Belit with curses, and a
white warrior with fierce blue eyes; so the Stygian princes remembered
this man long and long, and their memory was a bitter tree which bore
crimson fruit in the years to come.
And it ran for three years and 40 issues – from issue #58 (January, 1976) to issue #100 (July, 1979) and in those years Belit and Conan adventured.*
I spent much of the 1980s finding, collecting, and reading those back issues. After years I had a complete run of the comic. But only this week, approximately 30 years later, did I find this, an oversized two-page map chronicling the travels of Conan and Belit in those comics!
Behold, and click through to see the 1979 map published only in the Marvel Treasury Edition #23 (words by Roy Thomas, cartography by Mark Rogan):
[*still available in Volumes 8 – 12 of Dark Horse's The Chronicles of Conan]
Where To Start With Conan Comics
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 Jesse Willis	Leave a comment
After listening The SFFaudio Podcast #133 (which features Beyond The Black River by Robert E. Howard), a listener named Bunny wrote in to inquire about "collector's editions" of Conan comics, where to get them and what to start with. I've made this video, which I've titled, Where To Start With Conan Comics, as a reply.
The SFFaudio Podcast #133 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Beyond The Black River by Robert E. Howard
Monday, November 7, 2011 Jesse Willis	1 Comment
The SFFaudio Podcast #133 – Beyond The Black River by Robert E. Howard, read by Todd McLaren (courtesy of Tantor Media's The Conquering Sword Of Conan). This is a complete and unabridged reading of the novelette (2 Hours 29 Minutes) followed by a discussion of it (by Jesse and Tamahome).
Todd McLaren, Conan's voice is confident, Balthus is the Jimmy Olsen to Conan's Superman, Robert E. Howard's avatar in Beyond The Black River is Balthus, "the damnedest bastard who ever lived", "buckets of mead", a noble death, a prominently displayed dog, barbarism vs. civilization, Red Nails, "the viking hat", The Savage Sword Of Conan, Roy Thomas, John Buscema, Tam is a Conan novice, The Last Of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, western, "alabaster skin", the triumph of Barbarism (is the coda for the story), Texas, would the 1% agree with Howard?, Picts, the world of Hyboria, Cimmeria was a real place, history, historical romance, physical display, don't overblow the homo-eroticism, Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.P. Lovecraft, autodidacts, Margaret Atwood's interview on CBC's Q, "occasionals"?, Walt Whitman and Henry James, The Turn Of The Screw, sword and sorcery, did Howard invent the barbarian as a character?, Genghis Khan, forbidden knowledge, Howard and Jack London, The Call Of The Wild, California, Alaska, Yukon, slavery, civilization to barbarism, "a Conan dog", atavism, Zogar Sag is the Jesus to Jhebbal Sag's God, secret language magic, secret symbols, Conan The Barbarian, Conan is at the height of his power, atavistic magic, "what was I missing", chatty Conan, Brian Wood's new Conan comic (adapting Queen Of The Black Coast), Barry Windsor Smith, "he's busy getting revenge", a distillation of what's in the stories, Conan and the philosophers, Oliver Stone and John Milius, Conan The Destroyer, sword vs. sorcery, Berserk (manga), "if you were in the Hyborian age which god would you worship?", "a Klingon god", "who is the good guy in Beyond The Black River?", why does Conan side with the Aquilonians?, "swarthy white men", Conan is bronzed by the sun not swarthy, end the Jersey Shore references, "this is a war story", Conan doesn't believe in an external valuation, why is there only one Devil?, Gullah the Gorilla God – the hairy one who lives on the moon, Africa, Aquilonia is France, Hyboria is Europe, Hyperborea (boreal + hyper = far north), Stygia = Egypt, Texas history, the Picts are the Comanche in this story, Julius Caesar, degenerating white men, Kull, Brule The Spearslayer, "noble savage", a "symphony of racism", Bran Mak Morn: The Last King by Robert E. Howard, Kings In The Night, The Whole Wide World, The One Who Walks Alone by Novalyne Price Ellis, Vincent D'Onofrio as Robert E. Howard channeling Conan, photographs of Robert E. Howard, Howard was a LARPer, "Howard was a rough-hewn intellectual", boxing, gun culture vs. cat culture, WWII, Lidice, "even a white man's dog is worth more than seven Picts", Bill Hollweg's Queen Of The Black Coast audio drama, would Beyond The Black River make a good audio drama?, Lou Anders' Hollywood Formula doesn't work here, philosophy of the woods, audiobooks and comics are better than movies, SSOC #26 & #27, Dark Horse's Savage Sword Of Conan, Volume 3, ostrich feathers tell a story, a frontier story, Weird Tales covers by Margaret Brundage, the Hulk, supple, Red Nails would be a good readalong, laser beams and dinosaurs.
The SFFaudio Podcast #133 [ 3:32:19 | 194.43 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download


Blanchard Valley Health System is fortunate to have a tight-knit, supportive community that believes in our mission of "Caring for a lifetime."
Through the generosity of our friends and donors, Blanchard Valley has been able to expand our scope of care throughout northwest Ohio.
Choose any of the links to the left to hear from our donors on why they have chosen to support Blanchard Valley Health System through gifts to the Health Foundation.


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Springtree Donates Roof to Family in Need
Springtree Restortation Donates Roof!
We have announced the winner of our Springtree Restoration No Roof Left Behind Campaign: George Salazar of Frisco, Texas! His new roof will be installed the morning of November 15, 2017 (weather permitting), just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday. The roof installation will be followed by a community celebration at the job site on November 15, 2017.
Springtree's No Roof Left Behind community service project campaign was launched in June of this year with a call for nominations of deserving homeowners in need of a new roof. From those nominations, three finalists were selected, and the public was asked to vote online for the winner.
George and his late wife, Bertha, were nominated by their daughter Stephanie. When she nominated them, her mom was in the midst of fighting her third bout with cancer, and her dad had been forced to retire to take care of his wife, who required 24/7 care and monthly trips back and forth to Houston for treatment. With the couple's funds already significantly strained, their home and automobiles were hit by hail storms in both April and May of this year and then, to make matters worse, their home's air conditioning went out during the summer. They could not afford the new roof or other home repairs they needed and, in August, sweet Bertha passed away.
"This family's resilience in the face of loss and so many struggles has touched us," said AJ Huckaby, co-founder and co-owner of Springtree Restoration. "We are honored to be part of restoring the Salazar home and making it safe, dry and comfortable again."
Through the No Roof Left Behind program, partners Allied Building Products and GAF Materials Corporation are donating roofing supplies and shingles, and Springtree Restoration is donating the labor for the roof replacement and coordinating the whole effort.
Beyond the roof, other generous and compassionate manufacturers and local contractors jumped on board to help and will provide additional home restoration services later in November. Window replacement materials and work will be donated by Burris Windows, Cardinal Glass and installer Jeremy Lewis with Going Green Window Replacement. A new exterior paint job will be donated by: Sherwin Williams (paint) and Jireh Painting (labor). New exterior siding and trim will be donated by Springtree Restoration (materials and labor), and new exterior lighting will be provided by Springtree (materials) and G4B Electric (licensed electricians).
"When we invited manufacturers and other local contractors to help out the Salazar family, we were overwhelmed by the positive and quick response," said Huckaby.
ABOUT NO ROOF LEFT BEHIND
No Roof Left Behind is a nationwide program that gives people in the community a way to help their good neighbors that have fallen on hard times. The No Roof Left Behind program relies on local contractors to donate their time and services to provide a new roof at no cost to a deserving homeowner in their service area. National sponsors, including GAF Materials Corporation and Allied Building Materials, support all No Roof Left Behind installations. Learn more at www.noroofleftbehind.com.
ABOUT SPRINGTREE RESTORATION
Springtree Restoration is an award-winning North Texas area roofing, restoration and renovation company with offices in Allen and Gainesville. Founded in 2009, the company provides residential roofing; commercial roofing; storm, fire and water restorations; room additions and home renovations, including kitchen and bathroom remodels. Springtree Restoration holds a roofing license through RCAT, carries both liability and workman's compensation insurance, is committed to community service and is an active member of the North Texas Roofing Contractors Association (NTRCA). Learn more about Springtree Restoration at www.springtreerestoration.com or call 972.332.4143.


Are the following sentences correct? What about other sentences with "make sure that" and "make sure if"? Is there any difference between them?
I want to make sure that these sentences sound natural.
I want to make sure if these sentences sound natural.
"I'm not sure if these sentences sound natural" makes proper usage of "if".
I think they are both grammatically correct. Substitute 'verify' in place of "make sure" and it's totally acceptable. They can mean different things. I have heard both in common usage.
I want to make sure if he is coming to the party. This means you want to check to see if he is going or not going. 'Make sure' or be certain of the answer, one way or another.
I want to make sure that he is coming to the party. A. This means that you are going to do things to make him come. B. You heard that he might be coming but you want to make sure (verify) that indeed he is coming. "Make sure he is coming." Can sound like a threat (they are going to enforce him to come) or just a verify he is coming.
I want to make sure that there is no school tomorrow. (Verify that there is no school). This person sounds more confident that there is no school tomorrow. I want to make sure if there is school tomorrow. This person sounds more doubtful.


text:
ZA Confidential
Business, politics and lifestyle.
Die Vine Intervention
Can we Toque?
zaconfidential	Uncategorized	 15/11/2019 4 Minutes
Game farms in South Africa often supply the canned hunting sector.
Tariro Kamuti, University of Cape Town
Over the past few decades, South Africa has seen a dramatic conversion from livestock or crop farming to wildlife ranching – known locally as game farming. The result has been a rapid rise in areas enclosed by game fences and a high demand for wildlife. Animals are increasingly being traded privately and at wildlife auctions.
But regulation hasn't kept up with this growth. This is despite the fact that key environmental and agricultural laws have been passed since 1994 that affect the wildlife sector in a number of ways. This includes property rights, the redistribution of land and the conservation of biodiversity. The policy changes were driven mainly by the need to integrate South Africa into the international community and to bring about economic and social transformation in a democratic state.
In the 1990s the state facilitated the early development of game farming by passing favourable legislation. The Game Theft Act of 1991 was hailed as a "game-changer" in the wildlife industry as the law gave farmers the right to own game as long as they had appropriate fencing.
Eight years later the Animal Improvement Act tightened up breeding rules in the livestock sector. But certain species of wildlife were exempted under this act. The result is that the law hasn't kept up with developments in the private wildlife sector. These include new challenges that have emerged like breeding for colour variants, exotic species and canned hunting.
The result has been huge gaps in the way that game farms are regulated by the state at national and provincial levels. In a paper published in 2014, I looked at how the fractured state in the governance of private game farming in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa was affecting the sector. My findings remain relevant.
In the intervening years, the power of the private wildlife sector has been entrenched. Game farmers in KwaZulu-Natal often complain about strict local wildlife regulations. But, as my research showed, they benefit from the fact that there are holes in the law, plus the fact that there's a strong, autonomous conservation body at the provincial level that has historically acted in their favour.
I concluded that schisms between the various government departments, locally and nationally, combined with a lack of clear direction on the private game farming sector have meant that their operations haven't been directed towards being more socially or environmentally sustainable.
What's wrong
Game farming connects the wildlife and agricultural sectors. Both are inherently connected to the land.
Land needs to be equitably distributed and sustainably utilised to meet the varied needs of a diverse South African population. The country has a long way to go on both scores.
Land distribution remains persistently skewed. At least 80% of the country's land is privately owned, most of it in the hands of white farmers. On top of this, there are still mass evictions of former farmworkers, former labour tenants and even land restitution claimants. These evictions have mostly happened during the past two decades. It has also been the period during which wildlife farming has grown.
Game farming also has environmental consequences. Take the issue of game breeding. The high demand for the "new forms" of species puts pressure on game farmers to increase the introduction of exotic species. The genetic manipulation of species, for example, to create unusual colour variants, as well as intensive captive breeding methods, are being used to produce "new" variants.
Variant species are seen as problematic because they have the potential of affecting species in the wild if they're released to intermingle.
In addition, trophy hunting remains a controversial issue on its contribution to conservation.
What's missing
At the national level, there is a schism between government departments.
The first area of tension is over which department should take the lead. Should it be the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries or the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development?
The issues being played out include:
whether game farmers should be regulated as just another agricultural activity.
whether biodiversity conservation concerns should take precedence.
whether wildlife should be treated in the same way as livestock.
The government recently gazetted a list of 33 wildlife species that will now be treated as livestock. This opens the door to these species being treated as farming stock.
The change surprised environmentalists. It suggests that the government is gradually yielding to the demands of game farmers.
My research also found that game farmers in KwaZulu-Natal are protected by the semi-autonomous conservation authority, Ezemvelo KwaZulu Natal Wildlife, to their advantage. The organisation has a strong tradition of cooperation with private landowners in the province which has ensured that their interests are protected. However, the conservation authority still has difficulty in keeping track of what happens on game farms and enforcing legislation.
There is a need for a coherent policy which clarifies the position and role of game farming in South Africa. This needs to take on board the country's political and socio-economic context, including the land question.
Government and all other institutions need to have the capacity to safeguard natural resources as well as to ensure marginalised communities are looked after. One possible route could be to delegate powers to the local level, though this would not necessarily be regarded as a positive move by game farmers.
This article is based on a longer article first published in the Journal of Contemporary African Studies. The study and the publication of the special issue were funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (grant number W01.65.306.00) and the South Africa Netherlands Research Programme on Alternatives in Development.
Tariro Kamuti, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Cape Town
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