text:
The Repercussions of "Super-Natural" Physics on Profane Creativity in "Frankenstein"
As a student of the Eighteenth Century Enlightenment, it stands to reason that the eponymous protagonist of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein would draw from Sir Isaac Newton, one of the movement's most lauded progenitors. Indeed, Victor Frankenstein specifically cites the English physicist as an inspiration during his collegiate shift from naturalist mysticism to empiricist pragmatism early in the novel (238), and the influence of physics appropriately haunts him throughout the work. While neither specifically Newton nor any of his laws of natural motion are expressly responsible for the catastrophes which bludgeon Victor's stillborn future, Newton's unshakable third law of motion—that the mutual forces of action and reaction between two bodies are equal, opposite and collinear—manifests in the supernatural physics of Victor's transgressions, haunting him with vicious, karmic accuracy, repossessing interpersonal potential in favor of isolated vacancy and substituting decay for fertility. Nature's mystical physics arrest Victor's profane efforts with every spiritual misdeed.
In the moment of his attacks, Nature gives way to his aggression, but after the blow, like a bent sapling, snaps aright with a brutal, inverse replication of his force. In time, all the sowings of his perverse ambitions are squelched by weeds of horror. Frankenstein's rebellion against the natural order of birth, youth, marriage, procreation and a humble death, his essential attempt to alter the processes of the Hegelian Weltgeist, results in an explosive misfire of the natural process, wherein marriage, youth and intercourse beget the odiously charnel rather than the melodiously carnal. In its initial retribution for his currish meddling, the mechanism of "super-Natural" (so spelled hereon in order to emphasize the sentience and participatory agency of the natural world through the supernatural conduit) justice sacrifices the precocious William to the tomb. Still unable to don the burden of responsibility for his genesis act by providing his miserable Adam with a miserable Eve, he condemns his own fertile matrimony to be nullified by the harmonizing momentum of super-Natural physics.
The only feasible solution for karmic resolution is the creator's own destruction—an event that comes too late for his brutalized family, and is ultimately accomplished by an act of Nature itself rather than by his own, ever-avoidant hand. Frankenstein's inability to recognize the equilibrium-bringing physics of the super-Natural Order evict him from the protection of both Newton's responsible empiricism and Coleridge's sublime romanticism. Insensitive to the cautious sense of duty necessary to abide in either camp, he is blind to their guidance and thrust into the path of a swift-returning pendulum.
As seen in Coleridge's haphazard Mariner, whose insensitivity to the critical hierarchies honored by "the spirit who bideth by himself/ In the land of ice and snow" (401-402), the British romantics were prone to extend warning to intellectuals who sought to submerge the organism of the natural world into formaldehyde, quantifying it beyond appreciation, without expecting a thrashing reprisal. Nature is not to be meddled with and is both hallowed sacrament and active agent: "Nature (for Wordsworth) and the World Spirit (for Hegel) operate in man and through man, but without acquiescence, and often in spite of man's conscious will" [emphases added] (Stuart Curran 90). Frankenstein is reprimanded in a method grimly similar to that of the baleful Mariner: both execute an act of bravado against an incomprehensible and often unsympathetic world without fear of chastisement, and are involuntarily driven to make penance until the spiritual debt has been repaid and harmony reestablished: "Since then… That agony returns/ And till my ghastly tale is told,/ This heart within me burns" (Coleridge "Rime" 581-585); "You may give up your purpose; but mine is assigned to me from Heaven and I dare not" (Shelley 184). For both fallen adventurers, the cost of insulting the scriptures of Nature is the exchange of living companions for the chilly dead and Cainic banishments on grueling philanthropic missions. Frankenstein is released with death, the Mariner perhaps not until Judgment Day (Coleridge "Rime" 577-590), but each character suffers in isolation until the debt they have amounted in the natural world can be redeemed.
Frankenstein struggles with an uncertain liability (as it is that, by his estimation, the Creature, one of a "race of devils," stands to endanger the "existence of the human race"(Shelley 144)), whereas the Mariner is shackled with a damnation which is structurally formulaic—though arresting—and born with stern devotion to the ventriloquistic agency of the World Spirit ("I pass like night from land to land/ I have a strange power of speech" (Coleridge "Rime" 586-587)), rather than frantic anxiety. Conversely, the cadaverous and pathologically unrepentant Frankenstein drags a mounting arrearage, unrelieved by communing with "goodly company" in prayer (603-606). Instead, the sullen Frankenstein is tormented as long as his mind is interfered with by consciousness or reality: "My life as it has passed thus, was indeed hateful to me, and it was during sleep alone that I could taste joy … in sleep I see my friends" (174). Paul Sherwin accords that "[Frankenstein's ambition for] transcendence is equivalent to transgression, and his presumptuous deed is invested with the aura of primal sin against nature … condemned by nature's gods to [indefinite] suffering" (883). Left to the mercy of his ordaining spirits, Victor (still in mystifying denial) finds solace in controlled personal fantasy rather than conscious remorse and willing servitude.
Unlike the Mariner, whose horrors are sunk in the harbor, and whose recompense is ritualistic though spontaneous, Victor is ravaged by his lack of control (returned only within the climate of the dream world), and fails, even to the end of his journey, to learn that this vain compulsion has all along been his ruination. Rather than being ordained to spread the gospel of his just reckoning—although he does successfully, if inadvertently, deter Walton from nosing further into the impregnable North (179)—he is captivated by the unpredictable recoil caused by his grisly genesis act. Though the progenitor of him whom he considers the epitome of evil, Victor remains convinced that he has been commissioned and blessed by celestial providers to wage justice against his creation—"a task from heaven" (175)—and fails to recognize the true villain of his story, and that it is perhaps his own soul which continues to forge a ponderous chain of mounting spiritual interest: "As the central misreader, Frankenstein is the chief victim of the text's irony, particularly cruel whenever he thinks he is addressing the super-Natural powers that oversee his destiny, for his invocatory ravings never fail to conjure up his own Creature" (Sherwin 883).
In divorcing himself from responsibility for the circumstances of his Creation, Victor also fails to realize his profound debt to him as his father and god; while Victor's life is made miserable through the extermination of his beloveds, the Creature's life is made utterly meaningless by the death of his hated adversary, and all of his vile energy is consumed in the instant of his maker's demise. Richard K. Sanderson notes that "the monster carries thoughts of suicide with him almost from the beginning. So long as he hopes that Victor will create a female companion for him, he is determined to cling to life" (54), and that "So long as Victor lives and suffers, the monster is 'satisfied', but when his creator dies, the monster loses his only reason for living" (55). Stripped of Maker and being singular as a species, the Creature's only loss, that of his neglectful father, is lethally existential. Like many Christians floundering in the fallout of the French Revolution—through its spiritual chaos and societal decapitations "at a period when Christianity was considered to be part of the law of the land" (Curran 63), resulting in a religion that served "only as … the mask and the garment by which [society identifies] the symbols of worldly power" (65)—the Creature is overwhelmed by the demise of his distant Divinity, and subjected to the philosophical crises modeled by Revolution-era Christendom. Consumed by existential angst, "rebuffed by the world" (Sanderson 55), he surrenders himself to suicide in hopes of "annihilat[ing] himself from that world."
Frankenstein is guilty of a criminal misinterpretation of the modes, purposes and attitudes necessary to yield harmonic and original creations—a critical practice devoutly treasured by Coleridge: "The poet, described in ideal perfection, brings the whole soul of man into activity, with the subordination of its faculties to each other, according to their relative worth and dignity. He diffuses a tone and spirit of unity, that blends and (as it were) fuses, each into each, by that synthetic and magical power … the imagination" (Biographia 62). To Coleridge, creativity must be overwhelmed by a willingness to submit and harmonize rather than being resistant, nostalgic or defiant. Frankenstein's creative process struggles relentlessly against the indomitable World Spirit and manufactures only mangled and misshapen products, bitter to eat and fatal to wield. Rather than respecting the specified domains of Eros and Thanatos, Victor forces them into an unholy union—a rapacious intercourse whose grotesque half-breed breaks the laws of both spirits and crosses borders simultaneously and without hesitation or mercy. By rejecting his mutated bastard, Victor enables him to react violently, tragically hating, with equal toxicity, the humanity within and the humanity without. Victor's perversion of the Yahwistic genesis act leaves him, as Anne K. Mellor notes, stranded from the support and inspiration of humanistic and theistic communities alike:
In his attempt to override natural evolutionary development and to create a new species sui generis, Victor Frankenstein enacts a parody of the orthodox creationist theory. While he denies the unique power of God to create organic life, he confirms the capacity of a single creator to originate a new species. Thus he simultaneously upholds the creationist theory and parodies it by creating a monster. In both ways, he blasphemes against the natural order. (299)
His creative options manifest themselves in Elizabeth and the Creature, respectively. Successful harmonic creative acts are modeled by his parents, whose greatest potential resides within the union between the precarious Elizabeth and their industrious first-born. This legacy falls into Frankenstein's distracted hands, and is ultimately fumbled in favor of the jigsaw puzzle of recalled body parts thrust together in the solitude of his apartment. This will be addressed momentarily, but before discussion continues, it is critical to appreciate the option of productive procreation that Frankenstein trades for what ultimately manifests in destructive impotence.
Elizabeth flies directly in the face of Victor's baleful Creation, both in the manner of her intention and composition. Like the Creature, she is a found object, whether as an orphaned cousin or an unconnected foster child "found playing" (43), and is comparably supernatural: a "cherub," "creature" and "apparition." Neither are products of their adoptive parents' sexual nature; they are, instead, products of their adoptive parents' spiritual, or imaginative, nature. Alphonse and Caroline recognize a budding, provocative replication of their spirit in the insensitively unappreciated beauty, a spirit of benevolence, charity and familial devotion. Called upon by the Coleridgean "subordination of [their] faculties," the Frankensteins spontaneously respond to the instruction of imagination—imagining her potential should "Providence afford her such powerful protection" (43)—and claim the girl as their own. This act of sensitive appreciation for unnoticed content replicates Alphonse's own imaginative investment in his wife, whom he took in as an orphan under the role of "protecting spirit" (41), whom he nurtured, and wedded. The two are claimed to have been summoned to one another through "closer bonds of devoted affection" in spite of—and in part due to—their "considerable age difference." In retrieving the flaxen Elizabeth from her disharmonic situation amongst the brunette peasants, the Frankensteins demonstrate an imaginative sympathy for potential and futurity; their concerns lie with the security and nourishment of youth and the rising generations—their visceral legacy—rather than the bygone concerns of the past.
Unlike Victor, so consumed with restoring a departed spirit to its evacuated vessel, his parents invest in the promise that accompanies dutiful stewardship. Caroline's Christological willingness to be exposed to the fever that had "menaced" "her favourite" in an effort to "preserve" Elizabeth at all costs epitomizes the importance with which Victor's parents imbued the spirit of the future (49). Like prudent gardeners, they are willing to shear the tree of their familial legacy of its antiquated features to preserve the trunk which, they acknowledge, will only be nourished by new rather than old foliage. Even in the light of successive murders, Alphonse optimistically insists that "new and dear objects of love will be born to replace those of whom we have been so cruelly deprived" (164).
Elizabeth, both parents believe, stands to offer the richest crops if maintained and cultivated with care: her permanent inclusion in the family amount to Caroline's "firmest hopes of future happiness" (49) and the "favourite plan" of the couple (163). Caroline's willing death to preserve her foster daughter underscores the cherishing nature with which both parents' value the future. They urge Victor towards a union with his adopted sister, hoping for a successful and fruitful merger of their two greatest investments. By crafting their family through sacrifice, nutriment and active shaping and aligning—chiefly through the pseudo-arranged marriage—Alphonse and Caroline have worked towards fashioning a bountiful and productive creation of the imagination, doomed though it is. With Victor and Elizabeth as their selected mediums, the Frankensteins have creatively set into action a precocious intercourse whose only foil is the destructive and nostalgic agency of the male.
Although Alphonse and Caroline have constructed a flawed patriarchal structure consisting of a fanatically ambitious male and a "masochistic [female whose self-exposure] contributes to [her] destruction" (Sanderson 55), their intentions to provide for the future of humanity are not nearly as nefarious and warped as those of their son. Where the Frankensteins seek community and partnership—a "circle … bound close by ties of affection" (Shelley 164)—Victor celebrates the rebellious individual, "shun[ing] [his] fellow creatures like one who has committed a crime" (60). Where his parents foster responsibility towards and compliance with the natural laws of industry, procreation and death, Victor strives to comingle these processes, mistranslating the code of super-Natural ethics to derive life from death through industry. His misreading of his parents' values is not entirely coincidental or entirely accidental.
Victor's relationship with his father was not wholly stable, despite his many tributes to the man whom so many horrors wrung so slowly dry. His smug resistance—true to Alphonse's charge that he had become "pleased with [him]self" (59)—to the old man's constant pleas to "think of [his family] with affection" and to communicate "regularly," bespeaks an individual sunken within himself, to whom companionship, the repartee of community and the lack of control produced by coexistence with other free agents has become noxious. Blame and resentment exist in the younger Frankenstein's lachrymose tones, subtly urging part of the responsibility from his own shoulders: "I then thought that my father would be unjust if he ascribed my neglect to vice, or faultiness on my part; but I am now convinced that … I should not be altogether free from blame" [emphasis added]. This tendency to shirk from the duty demanded by the super-Natural law only succeeds in driving Frankenstein further from the healing baths of community and into the blistering deserts of his egotistical indulgences and his infantile conscience.
Opportunities present themselves on an almost scheduled basis for the creator to own his Creation, to amass the blame, and to realign the disturbed harmonies of the super-Natural world. Justine's trial (80), the Creature's demand (128), his Irish imprisonment (154), and the time during his engagement (166) all offered opportunity for Victor Frankenstein to remove himself from the immortal role of creator-god, to assign the responsibility of civic protection to the proper authorities within his community, and to assume the fate demanded by his malfeasance in the stead of his innocent friends and family who suffer without conscious knowledge of why. Rather than commune with this supportive body energized by cooperation and commitment, Victor encloses himself within his Ingolstadt grotto, thus beginning the process of amassing a karmic debt for his failure to dutifully congress with the fragile and fleeting world.
Rather than create, as his parents did, a highway for the future, and being productive by tapping into the natural processes and dictum of an ever-reflexive natural universe, Frankenstein commissions himself to reverse the creative process—to sing the mass backwards, as it were. His endeavors only succeed in creating a repugnant perversion of the stable, rutted path of nature's unquestionable directives, as he irreverently "pursued nature to her hiding places" and "disturbed, with profane fingers, the secrets of the human frame" (58). Unlike his foresighted, progressive-minded parents, Victor plunges into the worm-infected soil, nostalgically cradling bones and cadavers in the voiceless charnel houses and graveyards—as far as he can remove himself from sentient human interaction, "[i]n a solitary chamber, or rather cell, at the top of a house separated from all the other apartments." From this Tower of Babel, elevated and defiant, Victor quantifies the mystical within the confines of his infant Dominion.
Elizabeth, dormant as she may be, offers him the chance to create through active and interpersonal procreation: the super-Natural path. His desire is, however, to resist the goading of nature and his parents, to dock his industry in the silent limbs of the dead rather than Elizabeth's womb. This selection of the voiceless over the vocal flies in the face of the Romantics' hierarchy of values, who, as enamored as they may have been with independent Byronic industry, were adamant that human expression and communion be cherished and preserved: "The real focus of the Romantics' critique of their age is on the moral and social values in whose name [industry and rationalization] took place. These social tendencies implied a redefinition and a revaluation of human nature and of the human person to which the poets were all finally opposed" (Curran 74). By declaring more value in the dissected, anatomized human carcass than in the independent, free-willed human soul, Victor joins ranks with the industrialists against whom the Shelleys and Lake Poets so violently rallied.
Choosing the charnel over the carnal, Frankenstein immerses himself in an activity whose blasphemous abandonment of human duty and responsibility is constantly applying tension upon the super-Natural process, the karmic energy of which consistently reacts with a replicative, even imitative mode of violence that goes unappreciated until he has lost all he had failed to value. The Physics of this ever-vigilant World Spirit forge Victor's perverse creation into an unshakable, inescapable Doppelgänger, whose duality transforms every desire, action and instinct into a polar and repercussive opposite. The solitary Victor is matched by his lonesome double, his "creation" by destruction, his wedding with death, and his deifying victor(y) with undeniable defeat. Sherwin posits that "the developing plot of the novel elaborates the grim psychic consequences of Frankenstein's deepening subjugation to his dark double. The Creature is cast as an active partner in what amounts to a bizarre conspiracy, rehearsing in another register the scandalous history of the creator's desire" (886). Karmic, or physic forces of Nature conspire against their self-deceiving usurper to replicate each motion of his rebellious soul with what appear to be repercussions in like, the consequences of which fail, even to his death, to awaken him from his narcissistic trance. "The elemental forces which Victor has released pursue him to his hiding places, hounding him like avenging Furies, denying him the capacity for natural procreation" (Mellor 310). Darkened to the existence of these forces, Victor mistakenly attributes the force of resistance onto the Creature, unaware that the generative force is his own.
As a romantic creator, Victor fails from the beginning, discarding the imaginative industry required. Coleridge decrees that "[imagination] dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate; or where the process is rendered impossible, yet still, at all events, it struggles to idealize and to unify. It is essentially vital, even as all objects (as objects) are essentially fixed and dead" (Biographia 62). For Coleridge, creativity must involve regeneration; it must be fresh and original, alive by essence, entirely removed from death or established works of any manner. Victor's godlike machinations are hardly imaginative or even creative, for they recycle the industry of generations and passions past. Rather than enlisting his own power for the betterment of society, he lazily dips into the resting places of the comfortably dead, forging a redundant rather than creative production, something replicative and plagiaristic. As for imagination, it flees him at an early age: "I do not ever remember to have trembled at a tale of superstition, or to have feared an apparition of any sort. Darkness had no effect on my fancy; and a churchyard to me was merely a receptacle" (56). Rather than being compelled by a desire to draw inspiration from Coleridge's primary imagination—"the living power and prime agent of all human perception … a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I am" (61)—Victor evades the perceived intrusion of this mode of inspiration, and secludes himself from meddling God and uncontrollable human alike. Mellor underscores the magnitude of this failure to appropriately imagine, claiming that:
It is … a triple failure of imagination that curses Victor… by not imaginatively identifying with his creation … by imagining that the male can produce a higher form of evolutionary species by lateral propagation than by sexual procreation, [by defining] his own imagination as profoundly anti-evolutionary and anti-progressive … in assuming that he can create a perfect species by chemical means, [defying] a central tenet of romantic poetic ideology: that the creative imagination must work spontaneously, unconsciously, and above all organically. (300)
Victor's blasphemously plagiaristic activity suggest a man perplexed by humanity, desirous to become the God of his own universe, and to populate, dictate and direct its activities: "A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs" (58). By assuming the mechanical role of God, Victor becomes unfit to assume the ethical responsibilities, and waits until all is lost to act on any sense of personal responsibility to humanity. Indeed, his passion for reanimating life is not hampered until those speechless, thoughtless cobbling of cadavers approaches him from the table, cognizant, curious, needing, and human. This becomes Frankenstein's curse, not that he has created a monster, but a man—a needful soul rather than an isolated, thoughtless drone without impulses, questions or demands.
Distancing himself from the campus of human life consumes Frankenstein throughout his journey, as he constantly seeks the lonesome silence of the apartment, the Alps and the Orkneys, frantically trying to feed his denial that he is responsible to other souls. For the romantics, solitude was restorative and invigorating but only as a conduit to intimate communion with the World Spirit. They embraced such vision quests, but only with caution for fear that "the resort to vision may cut the visionary off from the human community" (Curran 79) this self-anointment with solitude for the purpose of fleeing rather than communing with and embracing one's creation is both misguided and blatantly "dangerous." While haunted by doubts, this need to be isolated—for his actions to have isolated consequences—is repetitively proven impossible, for with each retreat from the world of humans, he returns to some tragic consequence of his behavior. Until he begs Walton to assist him in his mission (182), he has failed to enlist the physical industry or emotional support of another human being. By this time, his appeal to humanity comes too late: he finds himself immersed in a pulseless wilderness, desperately grasping onto the last human hand he could possibly encounter in the uninhabited isolation where his ambition has fittingly led him to die.
Throughout Frankenstein's Luciferian odyssey from ambitious usurper of convention to jaded exile, the physics of the super-Natural world spring back upon him without apparent affect on his sense of understanding. With each "creative" act of his hands, each being a failure to viscerally and imaginatively interact within the human campus, Frankenstein is rebuked by a destructive act of nature—tampered with and mishandled nature being personified in the hybrid Creature: part sensitive man part sublime nature. Victor's dreams of invigorated cadavers are followed by the replicative dream of his embracing Elizabeth, who reverses the order of life-to-death, degrading from a bridal beauty to a vacant corpse, specifically his mother, as though she herself were screeching a futile warning through the vision.
Physics operate on him, punishing his plagiaristic counterfeiting of the divine image in humanity, for rejecting both the responsibility and matter of his mutated bastard, and for his insensitive refusal to provide his Adam with and Eve and an Eden. His creation of an industrialized soul—birth from death—leads to the violent death of a young child, the conviction of an innocent woman, and the conversion of a wedding bed into a funeral bier. The Creature's reaction, Sanderson estimates, is entirely logical, one of elementary, even mandatory cause and effect: "when Victor destroys the bride-to-be, the monster naturally interprets this act as one more turn of a revenge-cycle that is already in motion, and act requiring a reply in kind" [emphases added] (58). By allowing himself to be consumed by voluntary isolation, Frankenstein is rocketed into mandatory seclusion by the potent super-Natural blowback from his mishandling of super-Natural physics—through trying to reorganize the plotted course of the universe, and failing to respectfully hail the sublime.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Biographia Literaria. The Creativity Question. By Albert Rothenberg and Carl R. Hausman. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1976. Print.
---. "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York, NY: Norton, 2006. 430-46. Print.
Curran, Stuart. The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2010. Print.
Mellor, Anne K. "Frankenstein: A Feminist Critique of Science." One Culture: Essays in Science and Literature. By George Levine. Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1987. 287-312. Print.
Sanderson, Richard K. "Glutting the Maw of Death: Suicide and Procreation in Frankenstein." South Central Review 9.2 (1992): 49-64. JSTOR. Web. 17 Mar. 2011. Shelley, Mary W., and Johanna M. Smith. Frankenstein. Boston: Bedford-St. Martin's, 2000. Print.
Sherwin, Paul. "Frankenstein: Creation as Catastrophe" PMLA 96.5 (1981): 883-903. JSTOR. Web. 14 Mar. 2011.
#maryshelley #frankenstein #spookyspotlight #gothicnovels
gothic novels


As with Truedialler, Truemessenger taps into Truecaller's database and find names and photos of unidentified numbers. On top of that it can also detect spam messages and divert them to a separate folder, so your main inbox remains clean. You can also report numbers, which are added to database and helps other people using the app.
The app is currently only available in India, but will be available internationally in future.


Before the changes to enhancements my arti was a pretty darn good trapmonkey, able to spot, search, and disable all but the most extreme traps. Now he's nearly worthless at traps. I did a quest with a friend and my arti was three levels above the quest level and he embarrassed himself on the traps. He was passable at disabling them, but his search was terrible and his spot didn't work at all. I know they changed trap DCs, but is this in line with what they had planned? If so, then lucky they gave us the lesser hearts because I'll rebuild him to not be a trapmonkey at all.
What race? What level? Wearing the appropriate gear? Neither of my Artificers, one human and one half-elf, have had issues with any elite-level trap in the game so far.
I have also been having problems using 'spot' recently - I'm hoping it's a bug... I mean, you put all your points into it, it's maxxed out, you have the maximum possible spot item, you even slot a dang clear gem with a wisdom item for the bonus... and traps are still not showing up reliably on elite (heroic) quests.
All of my arti splashes are having this problem; even our pure rogue (multiple lives) was having this issue.
If this is WAI, then... I guess.... spot might as well be a dump stat, as even maxxed out and devoting item slots to it, its a fail.


text:
Pizza Cucinova
10615 Fry Rd. Suite 100 | Cypress, TX 77433
Northwest Houston
A new fast-casual pizza chain has arrived near Houston. Pizza Cucinova opened its first Texas location in Cypress, bringing with it its Neapolitan-style hand-stretched pizzas, fresh salads and pastas. The sleek restaurant operates in similar style to Chipotle: craft your own pizza as you travel down the line at the counter and receive it nice and hot out of the wood burning oven as soon after you reach the register.
Choose from more than 30 toppings to make your own pizza or opt to try one of the restaurant's creations, which include options such as steak and gorgonzola, sausage and roasted broccolini, and chicken and artichoke. In the mood for something other than pizza? You can also create your own pastas and salads or choose from the restaurant's selections.
Pizza Cucinova is located in the Bridgeland's Lakeland Village Center and is open Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: C++ designing containers and managing list return I am developing a class which acts as a container for another class. In the container class I must implement a method to get all elements in the collection. My container class uses a std::deque.
Should I return a reference to the deque?
Should I return a copy of the deque? (my god tell me this is not the answer... :) )
Should I return an array?
...
What's the best practice in this context?
Thank you

A: The best practice IMHO is to use the iterator design pattern and return iterators
As far as your particular example is concerned I would do something like this:
class myContainer
{
public:
   typedef std::deque<X> actual_container_type;
   typedef actual_container_type::iterator iterator;
   typedef actual_container_type::const_iterator const_iterator;
   //etc...

   iterator begin() {return cont.begin(); }
   const_iterator begin() const {return cont.begin(); }
   iterator end() {return cont.end(); }
   const_iterator end() const {return cont.end(); }

   //you may choose to also provide push_front and push_back... or whatever :)

  private:
     actual_container_type cont;
}

A: Simply wrap begin(), end(), size() and operator[] and you'll be fine.

A: The iterator pattern is nice but you are exposing your implementation details.  It can be abused and break your class internals.  These are all bad things for an API and you should design protection against this.
It sounds wasteful but the safest way is to return a copy of your collection as a std::vector.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
The PJ Tatler
Another Obamacare Rule Delayed
By Rick Moran 9:02 AM on January 19, 2014
A rule requiring that companies offer the same insurance benefits to their top executives as they do their employees has been put on hold because the IRS can't figure out how to define concepts like "benefits" and "compensation."
The rule was scheduled to go into effect in 2010, but was delayed because the IRS couldn't deal with the complexity of corporate executive compensation. As it turns out, a "one-size-fits-all" regulation is, at this point, an impossibility.
Fox News reports:
The Affordable Care Act, commonly known as ObamaCare, says employer-sponsored health plans must not discriminate "in favor of highly compensated individuals" with respect to either eligibility or benefits, and provides a tax break for employer-sponsored insurance, while demanding employers not provide better coverage to higher-paid employees.
Yet Bruce I. Friedland, a spokesman for the I.R.S., told the New York Times that employers would not have to comply until the agency issued regulations or other guidance.
Under ObamaCare, an employer that has a fully insured health plan that discriminates in favor of high-paid executives could face a steep penalty: a tax of $100 a day for each individual affected negatively.
Among the issues holding up the implementation of regulations, according to the Times, are how to measure the value of employee health benefits, how to define "highly compensated" and what exactly constitutes discrimination against less-paid employees.
As a result, the Times reports, officials have decided to review the existing nondiscrimination rules for self-insured companies, even as they try to write new rules for employers that buy commercial health insurance.
"Under the Affordable Care Act, for the first time all group health plans will be prohibited from offering coverage only to their highest paid employees. The Departments of HHS, Labor and the Treasury are working on rules that will implement this requirement of the ACA, taking into account public comments that were previously requested," Erin Donar, a spokesperson for the Treasury told Fox News in a statement Saturday evening.
"As we continue this work, employers still have the same incentives they always have had to offer coverage to their employees as part of a competitive compensation package, and will have additional incentives under the Affordable Care Act starting this year and next."
The enforcement delay is the latest in a list of deadline extensions and exemptions to the controversial law by the Obama administration to minimize disruption from the new health care law, which is sure to play in key role in this year's midterm elections.
They've had three years to get this right and haven't even defined the terms necessary for the regulation? They had three years to construct a website and didn't come close to finishing? What is it with these guys? They're like college kids who procrastinate on that big paper and then wait until the night before it's due to start it.
It's not just aspects of Obamacare where this is evident. How about the late budgets? Other executive branch reports have also been delayed.
The House Budget Committee compiled a list last year:
The President's flagrant disrespect for budget deadlines extends beyond the late submissions of his annual budget request. The President is required to submit a Midsession Review no later than July 16 each year. The President is required to submit a Financial Report of the U.S. Government no later than December 15. The President is required to submit a plan to shore up Medicare's finances within 15 days of a funding warning by the Medicare Trustees.
Not once has President Obama adhered to any of these deadlines:
The President's Midsession Review has never been released by July 16;
The President's Financial Report of the U.S. Government has never been released by December 15;
The President has not once responded to the Medicare Trigger.
The President's failures to meet his legal obligations are symptomatic of a failure to meet his more critical moral obligation to the American people by tackling our most pressing fiscal and economic challenges
In all cases, there is a statutory requirement that the documents be delivered to Congress by a date certain. Missing the deadline is violating the law.
But rules and laws are apparently only for the little people. This latest example of presidential incompetence and mismanagement only reinforces the notion that President Obama does not believe the law binds him to a certain course of action and that he can flout the rules whenever it is too inconvenient to follow them.
Rick Moran has been writing for PJ Media for 13 years. His work has appeared in dozens of media outlets including the Washington Times and ABC News. He was an editor at American Thinker for 14 years. His own blog is Right Wing Nut House. For media inquiries, please contact [email protected].
Read more by Rick Moran


text:
Admin January 18, 2017 Authors, Book, Reviews, Short Stories
Book Review: The Girl who Ran Away in a Washing Machine by Anu Kumar
By Rajat Chaudhuri
Short stories? Who writes short stories these days? Aren't we reminded time and again that publishers are no more interested in this form? But then, isn't the novel too going to give up its ghost in a couple of hours as grey haired Cassandras predict with the regularity of automatons? Aren't we advised that narrative nonfiction and its close cousin the diary or even the memoir, is the go-to form for the author who doesn't want to be put on an artificial respirator? And just when this cumulonimbus of bad news bears down upon you, the fiction author (or the reviewer) you chance upon a book which simply says the "genre" is in safe hands and that this oldest of storytelling arts still has a lot to offer.
The Girl Who Ran Away in a Washing Machine and Other Stories is a collection of stories by Anu Kumar, published by Kitaab. The stories in this slim volume travel the distance from tony upper class neighbourhoods of Singapore to back of beyond villages of India, from futuristic urban settings with robot newsreaders to the ruins of the Indus Valley civilisation, taking the reader on a journey of discoveries that she will cherish for long. But what is definitely the strength of this book is the range of subjects and themes in which Kumar engages, without overburdening her audience.
Here you will find a wonderful story of love lost and found, a magical adventure with a ghost among the ruins of an ancient civilisation, a couple of tales where you chance upon men with weird eyebrows, a sprinkling of magic everywhere, a dash of the absurd sometimes and a wink and a nod towards science fiction. Elsewhere social evils like dowry, corruption, religious intolerance or the crisis of farmer suicides are spun into the narrative with an expert hand, imbuing those tales with a sense of urgency, without being stilted or preachy.
In the eponymous story set in rural Punjab, we meet Neha, newly married to Manjit, finding solace and a hiding place from her in-laws inside the symbolic space of a washing machine that was part of her dowry. "Washing Machine" and indeed a few other stories have an alluring quality that gives the reader the sense of drifting on a calm current as she gets engrossed by the storytelling. Delectable prose coupled with a narrative that slowly circles inwards, curling towards the beating heart of the plot, perhaps imparts this quality to Kumar's stories. But this is not to say that there are no surprises here, no spindrift or maelstrom, no intrusions of the fantastic or the absurd. In fact, surprises are aplenty and some of these stories wear the edginess on their sleeves.
"Summer in the City" is such a story that launches out like climate fiction, where the natural environment has been badly affected:
"The cloud cover, for its part, had thickened even more over the last few days. All colours had now merged to form a thick bluish-black blanket that looked the same, that pressed down unrelenting at all times, and it was now getting difficult to tell morning from night. The streetlights were switched on at all times, blinking their orange light, even as flecks of cloud broke off from the sky and floated down, leaving clumps like mud cakes on the road."
And soon a woman disappears from the top of a ferris wheel while taking a ride. Kumar writes:
"On one of the cloudiest nights the city had ever seen, when the cloud cover appeared heavier than before and even the blinking lights at the very top of the skyscrapers had vanished, a lady disappeared from her special box seat in the Ferris wheel just when it had reached its highest point."
Touching on themes of immortality, environmental damage, science and the improbable, this is an extraordinary tale and a favourite of this reviewer.
"Suspending the reader's disbelief" as Will Self writes in his introduction to The Master and Margarita is one of the "darkest of the novelist's arts" and there are two ways of practicing it, as he explains with examples from Aldous Huxley and Kafka. In the Washing Machine stories, the author shows us time and again – The Girl Who Ran Away in a Washing Machine, Summer in the City, The God that Disappeared – how this is accomplished, by whisking away her readers effortlessly from the real to the "unreal".
One is the matter of fact way to go about it as we find at the beginning of Washing Machine:
"Five years after running away, Neha received the first letter from home. Elder sister-in-law wrote to say that peace had been finally made. Her brothers had dispatched a second washing machine to her in-laws in replacement to the one they had lost, the one she had run away in." There is no hiccup here, no strain in the author's voice as she slips into the realm of the improbable.
In "The God that Disappeared", where a motorised Ganesh idol takes off from his pedestal to wander about town, finally appearing at a plastic surgeon's chamber, she takes the gradual route to the fantastic, giving us a powerful story that blends social commentary with gentle humour. Only once, in the closing scene of what is otherwise a splendid story, "The Makeover", does the technique seem to falter and the intrusion of the fantastic seems slightly out of joint.
There are a couple of tales here about love lost and found, passion and desire. Among these, "The Time Jonathan went Away" is beautifully crafted with splendid imagery and well-etched characters. One of the powers of this author (and this reviewer is familiar with a chunk of her fiction oeuvre) is her brilliant characterisation coupled with fine dialogue, which helps to conjure up vivid images in the reader's mind. Reading this collection, we can feel that the author is at the height of her powers.
There are a few proofreading issues in the book, these should be taken care of in a later edition. But that aside, this is a compelling read which is sure to transport the reader to new countries of imagination. Keen-eyed, funny and human, the Washing Machine tales prove yet again that the short story genre is bursting with energy and the possibilities for it remain enormous.
The reviewer is a Charles Wallace, Korean Arts Council-InKo (Toji), Sangam House and Hawthornden Castle Fellow and the author of three works of fiction. http://www.rajatchaudhuri.net
Posted in Authors, Book, Reviews, Short Stories and tagged Anu Kumar, Kitaab, Kitaab International, Short Stories, The Girl Who Ran Away In A Washing Machine. Bookmark the permalink.
China: Nobel winner launches prize
Jaipur blows out candles on decade of promoting Asian writing


text:
West Bradford Golf Club
Clubhouse – and course – both make the Grade!
West Bradford's clubhouse, pictured behind the 18th green, is a Grade 2 listed building, parts of which date back to 1720.
It opened as a clubhouse for the course in 1928. Inside, it has been adapted for the modern needs of golf, but outside, it retains the look and feel of an old West Yorkshire farmhouse.
The course has a par of 69 and a standard scratch of 68, providing a good test of golf for all abilities.
You need to be careful of the out of bounds which runs round the course – especially on the second, where the tee is tight up against a wall with a wood beyond and which is a slicer's nightmare – although the odd lucky bounce has come in handy.
Near the course is Chellow Dene Reservoir, no longer in use and now an SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) packed with wildlife.
You get excellent views of the lovely woodland walks around the Victorian reservoir which once supplied Bradford.
The club was started by a group of Bradford wool men in 1900 as a nine-hole course on land leased from Bradford Corporation, and was extended to 18 holes seven years later.
The course has been radically changed several times in the intervening years, but the present layout has remained largely unaltered for the past 35 years. Trees now line many of the fairways.
The club is renowned for producing some of the area's top golfers. It was runner-up in the Bradford Scratch League last year, while its juniors won the Bradford Junior League.
Name: West Bradford Golf Club
Address: Chellow Grange Road, Bradford BD9 6NP
Website: westbradfordgolfclub.co.uk
President: Keith Sutcliffe
Club pro: Warren Kemp, pictured right
Visitor fee: £30 all week
Signature hole: 14th – well-guarded par three with view of reservoir


Chicken Soup for the Soul Savory Snacks! Real BEEF!
Thank-you Chewy.com for sending me this treat for my dog Kiah. I was not paid for this review and all opinions expressed are 100% my own.
Chicken Soup for the Soul Savory Snacks Beef Dog Treats are all-natural dog treats made with real beef as the first ingredient. Inspired by the stories of special moments between pet parents and their pets, these heart-shaped treats let you bond with your pup over a delicious snack. They're highly palatable, full-flavor, soft and meaty bites that you can share with every furry friend in your family. Each heartwarming treat is made without corn, wheat, soy or artificial colors, flavors or preservatives. Chicken Soup is proud to support adoption programs and shelters across the country, which is why they feature rescue pets and their owners on every bag.
My Review: First don't let her pouty face fool you. she was filled with anticipation and excitement to try these treats. I think I need to find new ways to get good pictures of her... my sister seems to have mastered dog pictures so help me out people. What is the trick?
These small treats are a very small size which makes it easy to stick a few in your pocket for training purposes. Kiah would beg for more, one was never enough or satisfying for her- sounds like me with certain desserts. I think she liked how soft these were, no crunch. I liked these because again no fillers and they are made her in the USA. YAY!
Go make your doggy happy and get some treats from chewy.com.


text:
THE MOST DYNAMIC FUNK AND SOUL BAND FROM PERTH RELEASE FOURTH SINGLE FROM THIRD ALBUM
Randa and The Soul Kingdom are about to drop their new single - 'Is This I' on Friday Nov 12th, alongside their music video clip which has won them 'Best Music Video Clip' for Revelation Film Festival.
The music video (produced and directed by Amy Ruth Gibbs) is a kaleidoscope of colour and motion that reflects the song's questions about identity and its upbeat drive in a fun and eye-catching package. There's never a dull moment! The artwork for 'Is This I' pays tribute to Randa's Middle Eastern heritage with a depiction of the Egyptian goddess Isis, who protected women and children, and healed the sick.
"This song was created for the dance floor. It's got a driving beat that's reminiscent of Motown but with a modern twist. There's a lot of energy, it's got it's own kind of mojo, particularly with the wailing vocal call and response from the horn stabs, climaxing towards the end of the song. You can hear James Brown's influence creeping in with the vocal wailing too. I wanted to write a song that reminded me a little of On The Road from our debut album as it was one of my favourites.
The lyrics are deliberately ambiguous. It appears that the song is about a conversation between a girl and a boy, but it's more than that. In fact, it was inspired by observing animals being confused by their reflection. They have no concept of themselves. That made me think about how we as humans are often unable to recognise ourselves in our own lives. It's a comment on human behaviour and how blind we can be to our own existence." - Randa Khamis
It's been 12 years since Randa And The Soul Kingdom released their first single Not Gonna Let You off their debut self-titled album on London's Freestyle Records. The single was licensed to hit TV show 'Skins' in 2011, receiving over 100,000 streams on YouTube. This 7" and album vinyl is now a collectors item.
A European tour followed and it wasn't long before the band followed up with soulful sophomore album 'What You Need'. In the meantime, the 6-piece have not let up, establishing their reputation playing at festivals across Australia. Including television appearancesperforming live to air on Channel 7 for Telethon 2021 - broadcast nationally! As well as Triple J air time with their single 'Not Gonna Let You'. The band's raw, high- energy sets ignite dance floors, often sending audiences into a frenzied Soul Train.
In their career to date the band have supported the likes of Lionel Ritchie, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, The Cat Empire, Craig Charles Funk & Soul Show. Their first single '2048' off the new album was nominated for the Western Australian Music Song Of The Year.
Randa & The Soul Kingdom have been meticulously crafting their third album over the past four years and it is set for release in Jan 2022. Their new single 'Is This I' will be available for digital download on November 12th on all major online stores along with its award-winning video that is guaranteed to keep you dancing!
For more information on the launch including tickets click here.


Go Daddy's no stranger to having its Super Bowl commercials banned from syndication, but one ad in particular ruffled a few feathers with CBS executives and the gay community without ever being aired. Spokesperson Danica Patrick profiles a former football player named Lola, who looks to design lingerie and open a site on the domain service, all while showboating what many would interpret as feminine flamboyance. Yes, it was as bad as it sounds.


Said "Trying to figure out how to work this crazy thing!!!! (George Jetson voice)"
A graduate of the University of Alabama at Birmingham with a background in business and music.
Proficient in the areas of creative writing, poetry, article writing, fiction writing and proofreading.


Online Branding We like to tell our clients that what was once delivered is now found. What we mean by that is previously a brand's message needed to be consistently broadcast in order to reach its intended audiences.
Search .com and other extensions like .website, .online, and over a hundred more. We also search country-code domains (ccTLDs) like .ca, .co.uk, or .in. The domain name extensions page shows gTLD domain availability in a grid to make it easier to see many results at once.
Ajax Creative is a video production & social media company based in Ottawa, Canada that creates and delivers the high quality content your brand needs to succeed. Working in over 20+ countries and with over 175+ clients, Ajax Creative has established itself as one of Canada's most forward-thinking video & social media companies.
Boutique Marketing & Branding Agency. Helping businesses engage with their communities. DESIGN | VISUALS | SOCIAL | WEB | PRINT | CAMPAIGNS.
Branding strategy that works. You know your products and services inside and out. But keeping up with the marketplace may not be possible. Also, it's difficult to keep tabs on how all age groups will feel about your products and services. You might need to offer a variety of sales channels.
Online Branding Services Toronto On We are a full-service inbound digital marketing company providing content marketing, B2B marketing, online branding, SEO services, and more for companies in … Meet a branding agency in Toronto. branding agencies in Toronto have tons of talent, so you can know that they will transfer lots of importance to your activity.
Branding Services. Design Brand Print is New York City's leading online marketing company. We are designers, developers, writers, marketers, and problem solvers, who work together to create & promote winning websites.


text:
Jiang Tao (born October 1963) is a Chinese engineer who is a professor at Central South University, and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

Biography
Jiang was born in Suixi (now Huaibei), Anhui, in October 1963. After graduating from Central South University in 1990, he stayed at the university and was promoted to professor in 1991. In 2000, he pursued advanced studies at the University of Utah in the United States. He returned to China in December 2002 and continued to teach at Central South University.

Honours and awards
 18 November 2021 Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE)

References

1963 births
Living people
People from Huaibei
Engineers from Anhui
Central South University alumni
University of Utah alumni
Academic staff of the Central South University
Members of the Chinese Academy of Engineering

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Bring the whole family for dinner (adult $10.00 & kid's under 12 $5.00, menu to be announced), for a night out in Bayonne. Relax with your family in a comfortable, fun, safe environment and let the Bayonne Elks prepare your meal.
Games, dancing, and movies will be presented after dinner. Lodge opens at 5PM, dinner served 5:30ish.


This year, August brought us 8 new visitors! Welcome all!
October is an amazing month for graces and Feasts. What a powerful month of Light.
This month of October is unique in that it ends up feeling like a constant celebration because of these greater Saint's Feasts which have widespread devotion as devotees grow in affection with each new answered prayer and the relationship deepens as we are bound closer to God. I can't help but think Father foresaw this for October in His great mercy. "The more sin abounds, grace abounds all the more" right? October feels especially holy because it is a Fatima month, along with May. The great Miracle of the Sun (October 13) which is a major emphasis of Father's in the Seeing books, whereby Father reveals that He is the Sun of the miracle and that this has bearing on future imminent events. Probably this, more than any other reason, singles it out as a divine intervention Triumph of God through Mary's Immaculate Heart for God and His children, month. It promises the hope of the culmination of Her Triumph, which we were told commenced/BEGAN in the year 2000, (after MMP correction from mistranslation of the misprinted word meaning would be completed by)..hey we're human, it can happen)) through Fr. Stefano Gobi's messages, as we live through the anticipation and hope of God's full restoration and transformation in our day.
5. Bl. Bartolo Longo, Faustina Kowalska, virgin, Opt. Mem.
13. Miracle of the Sun at Fatima memorial.
16. Purity of Bd.Virgin, Hedwig; Margaret Mary Alacoque, Opt. Mem.
22. John Paul II, Opt. Mem.
Let's look at Father's guidance as He turns our eyes ever towards His Light and Love... And away from "the shadows". There are plenty of posts in the archive regarding Fatima and October along with Father's words about these in the Seeing books to revisit.
Come Abba Father and usher in Your prophesied "Kingdom of the Father".
Here is just one excerpt where Father helps us fix our hearts on Him and put aside those things which distract us or are a hindrance to our joyful lives in loving Him.
I am here, Father, and I am listening.
[I find myself sitting at a top of a hill watching the sunrise.] Let go and let God, daughter.
In all things in your life. Appreciate the relationship I have established with you. Take advantage of the gifts at your disposal. Prepare yourself to wage war on the enemy. The enemy is anyone or anything that separates Me from My children. Remember this and refer to it in the days ahead. How do I expect you to wage war? Prepare yourself for the coming of My Kingdom. Remain in My peace, daughter. Strike the chord.


text:
Don Shelby Says He's Not Running For Congress
Filed Under:3rd District, Anchor, Congress, Democrat, Don Shelby, Erik Paulsen, Liberal, Liberals, Republican, WCCO-TV
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Former WCCO-TV anchor Don Shelby has made it official: He's not running for Congress against third term Republican incumbent Erik Paulsen.
Shelby says he was asked to consider running for the 3rd District seat by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, but he says there are many reasons he wanted to stay out of the race.
Gridlock in Washington is among the most important reasons.
"When you see statements by John Boehner that says our job is not to pass laws but to repeal them, it makes you wonder who in his or her right mind would really want to get into that business, especially if they come from a background of trying to change things … trying to be helpful, trying to be a true public servant," Shelby said.
Shelby retired from WCCO in 2010 after 32 years. He'd be 67 if he won election, far down the list in seniority, and likely in a Democratic minority.
"I would come in as an older person, as a freshman, and I wouldn't have much of a voice," Shelby said. "What I would like to say are things to bring the parties together. It does not seem like the parties want to come together."
Nowadays, Shelby spends his time writing, reporting, and lecturing. He's also helped raise millions of dollars for the Washburn Center for Children, a mental health clinic.
And he continues working on climate change, an issue he says should never be political.
"Let's agree there's a problem," Shelby said. "Now, get to work on a public policy. But let's at least agree on the science."
After decades of working nights away from his family, Shelby now wants to stay close by — not in Washington.
And he's reluctant to give up a 50-year journalism career, because he says he's not a Democrat or a Republican.
"Sometimes conservatives have the facts, and then you should go with the conservatives, because that's where the facts are," Shelby said. "Sometimes the liberals have the facts. You should go where the facts are. That means you support the liberals. It's not one side that always has the right answer."
Moreover, Shelby said he's been asked by Republicans to run for office, too.


Dr. Christopher Brooks grew up in rural Central New York State (Greene, NY). He graduated with honors from Cornell University and received his Medical Degree from Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons in New York City.
He completed his training in both General Surgery and Plastic Surgery at University of Rochester before moving to Philadelphia for his Craniofacial and Pediatric Plastic Surgery fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). He then went to Paris for additional training in ear reconstruction, followed by Toronto for facial reanimation.
Dr. Brooks began practice in South Florida in 2005. He is an Adjunct Professor at the Cleveland Clinic of Florida where he is responsible for teaching plastic surgery residents and he is on staff at multiple hospitals – including the new Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital.


text:
COVID-19 Toolbox
Robert Tanner
(In Memoriam)
Jay Guin
Bert M. Guy
Justin G. Williams
Jonathan D. Guin
Hannah B. Morgan
Pay Attorney
Robert C. Tanner
July 8, 1948 - July 21, 2000
Robert C. Tanner (Bob) joined with Jay F. Guin to form what is now the law firm of Tanner & Guin, LLC. Educated at The University of Alabama, he earned a B.S. in accounting, 1971; J.D. in 1974, and went on to New York University, where he earned an LL.M. in Taxation, 1976. Bob was a Certified Public Accountant, 1972, and an Adjunct Professor of Law, The University of Alabama School of Law, 1975-1986.
Professionally, Bob was both an attorney and accountant, practicing most of his career as an attorney. He was admitted to the Alabama State Bar in 1975, and was admitted to practice in the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth and Eleventh Circuit Courts, U.S. Court of Federal Claims and the U.S. Tax Court. He was a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and Alabama State Society of Public Accountants. Bob was on the President's Cabinet of The University of Alabama and numerous other professional organizations.
Bob practiced in the areas of Administrative Law, Business Law, Business Financing, Business Acquisitions/Sales, Business Disputes, and Corporate Taxation. A large portion of Bob's practice was devoted to the newspaper business, and he served on numerous newspaper professional organizations.
Aside from his professional contributions, Bob was instrumental in raising funds for the Tuscaloosa Community Soup Bowl, Shelton State Community College atrium, Black Warrior Boy Scouts capital campaign, Children's Hands on Museum, Tuscaloosa Emergency Services, and provided support to the Tuscaloosa Public Library and Northside Lions Club.
Bob was an incredible mixture of intelligence, everyday common sense, and work ethic that combined to form a person uniquely qualified and motivated to serve his clients, as well as his community. He set the standards for service to our clients and community that will always guide our firm.
© Tanner & Guin, LLC
designed and loved by:
The act of sending an email to someone affiliated with us, or submitting information via an electronic or written form, does not create an attorney-client relationship. Furthermore, we cannot represent anyone unless we know that doing so would not be a conflict of interest, or would require us to practice law in states or courts where we are not licensed to practice or give advice. Therefore, any unsolicited communication with us may not be treated as privileged or confidential. By proceeding to email us you agree to and acknowledge the foregoing.


034: What does your sensitivity have to do with the state of the world? Everything.
A kind reviewer described it as "less self-help for your inadequacies and more of a call to action for your special gifts."
And another said it "illuminates the power of your nature in such a way that you can begin to envision yourself as having a significant role in creating a kinder and more sustainable world."
We are facing more crises now than have been faced in the last 5,000 years of recorded history. We have to think differently and act quickly. We have to return to good sense and sanity, rather than normalizing the absurd. Indifference is possibly the most harmful threat we face.
Ecocide. Attachment to privilege, comfort and convenience at any cost. Disregard for the health of this planet, and the life-forms on it. It is time to live the wisdom that indwells each of us.
Mothers' breast milk should be pure and powerful... instead it is loaded with dioxin and many other toxic contaminants.
Forests -- literally, the lungs of our planet -- should be large and thick... instead North America has less than 4% left, and we are quickly slicing through everyone else's trees, too.
Oceans, topsoil, air, 100+ endangered species a day, as well as our overall sense of well-being and contentment are all vanishing under the deadening weight of chronic materialism.
"Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumptionÉ We need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate."
Lebow's mandate disconnects us from ourselves, each other and the ecosystems that make Life possible. We should be angry that these tender webs of life are being carelessly swiped away. Alarm! Outrage! These are appropriate responses.
Empathic writers have long sent letters to editors, senators and representatives to voice their concerns. That's good, but this revolt demands more of us. Seeds of sanity -- freedom from mental derangement -- must be embedded more deeply and more broadly throughout culture.
Consumerism is not a viable way of life. Opposition to that murderous death-style has got to turn way up if it's ever going to be properly challenged and changed.
Many of the doctors in the Nazi death camps tried to help the imprisoned Jews by giving them, from time to time, an aspirin to lick. Can you see the littleness of that gesture, however well intended?
Socialized craziness requires radical revolt and resistance. Aspirin-licking won't relieve this planetary migraine.
We *have* to come together and shut the sick show down. United in sanity. Bonded in our knowing of Life. Committed to act, and to cause acts. The redeeming kind. The saving, correcting, game-changing kind. We are homo sapiens, not homo consumericus.
Start with your Burn, your holy indignation, and craft from there: songs, movies, books, articles, public service announcements, plays, TV shows, business plans, small farms, urban homesteads, community gardens, workplace outings, birthday celebrations. Allow sanity -- sound, healthy thought -- to pervade all that you create.
Embrace the pain or burden that gnaws at you. It entrusted itself to you. Your particular area of care is just that. YOUR area of care. Own it. Then assert your creative, sensitive influence into that space. Accept this match made in heaven, and express it here on earth. Let your ink flow into the very dry parts, and create, author. Citizen. Lovely, lively human.
Cultural conventions that cause cancerous, disastrous consequences have been masquerading as normal. When do we stop pretending that bagged and boxed crap will make us happy? Will we mindlessly shop 'til everything drops?
Remember how thrilling it was to play outside? To make discoveries in the natural world. To watch the flight-pattern of a bumblebee or red-breasted robin. To get splashed by fresh water from a lake, or salt water from an ocean. To eat berries and pears straight from a tree. To get breathless from a mountain hike. To get romanced by the silver light of a full moon, or energized by the golden light of the sun. To get quiet and still from the closeness of a deer. To get drunk from the scent of honeysuckle. To feel your skin extend to the green land around you. To remember when you preferred a monarch butterfly to a manic mall.
Start there. From the place of your deepest care. And write as if your life depended on the blossoming of your words, because it does.
Our sensitivity is tied to our highest calling. I believe we are neurologically-wired to lead the way in personal and planetary upgrades. Our special nervous system uniquely equips us for the global tasks and issues that require unprecedented delicacy in all of the realms that affect every living creature -- social, political, economic and environmental.
Heightened perception is both a privilege and a responsibility. Societal power structures are drastically shifting, and more and more empowered Sensitives will be needed to come forth to serve as humanitarian and visionary leaders.
lack and sickness in our bodies, minds, ecosystem and social systems.
The cannabis "industry" talks about what we DO with it.
That's cool. I'm just more interested in who we can BECOME with it.
What are its transformational effects? Let's have some real talk, friends.


text:
Jerusalem Post Israel Elections
Yaakov Litzman, United Torah Judaism
Who is Yaakov Litzman?
By JEREMY SHARON
Yaakov Litzman
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THEO FREUD)
Israel Elections 2019: Everything you need to know
Current MKs 8
Poll position 7 - 8
One of the stand-out issues for United Torah Judaism and its leadership in the next Knesset will be to guarantee the continuation of mass exemptions from military service for ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students, which was struck down by the High Court of Justice in 2018 and must now be re-legislated in some way.
During coalition negotiations after the April election, UTJ also demanded legislation that would allow gender-separate attendance at state-funded cultural events, after several high profile incidents in which such arrangements were rejected by the courts.
It is highly likely that Litzman will make similar demands in the coming coalition negotiations.
UTJ will also demand its traditional veto over matters of religion and state, which has of late also been granted to other coalition parties due to the extreme societal sensitivity over such issues.
Religious pluralism, recognition of the non-Orthodox Jewish denominations, changes to Jewish conversion, and reforms to the provision of kashrut services are all issues where UTJ will seek to block changes to the current situation, known as the status quo.
Litzman, who is deputy health minister in charge of the health ministry, has also demanded increased budgets for health services.
Litzman and UTJ leaders have repeatedly stated that they will back only Netanyahu for prime minister, but the party is renowned for its political pragmatism in order to obtain its goals, and has sat in left-wing governments in the past.
Although it says it will not sit with Blue and White co-chair Yair Lapid, if that party was the only available option compromises could be made.
Tags united torah judaism Ya'acov Litzman


text:
Vol. 5/16 of Archive out now!
Editor-in-chief Michael Weinzettl introduces Vol. 5/2016, the latest issue of the magazine.
The latest issue of Archive magazine, Vol. 5/16 has just been published and depending on where you live, some of you may already have received it, others are still waiting for it.
I always have a bit of trouble with Vol. 5. It's too late for submissions that might have been shown at Cannes already and the summer months with a lot of people away on holidays are not the best time for launching new campaigns. Still, we have managed to find 102 interesting new print campaigns, which are featured in this issue. Once again, Brazil takes the pole position with 21 print campaigns, followed - at quite a distance - by the US with 12 and the UK with 9. Next up is Turkey with a total of 7 campaigns and Portugal with 6, trumping (I have to stop using this verb: for obvious reasons its sound alone makes me sick) Germany who are featured with 5 campaigns, the same number as India.
For the very first time in the history of Archive, Kashmir makes a showing: There are two campaigns featured that come from BlackSheep.Works, the first ad agency based in "the longest disputed region on the UN's heaped platter of unfinished business...," one that holds the top slot for being "the world's most militarized zone in the Guinness Book of World Records," as Asif Amin Tibet Baqual, the agency's founder, told me when I interviewed him for an Editor's Blog a few weeks ago. "The economy is as fragile as peace," he added, "the way businesses here operate are as rigid if not impenetrable as its bureaucracy, and the red tape as sticky as Araldite. It's like going into the battlefield with the hands tied behind ones back." He also told me that a lot of the agency work is done at night, frequently the only time when Kashmir can have access to internet as the Indian government likes to shut it off during the day. Considering these hardships, it's even more remarkable they can come up with ads that fully deserve in our magazine.
As for Film, there are only 45 on view in this issue, with the US and the UK contributing 11 campaigns each, followed by Germany (6), the Netherlands (4) and Japan (3), the latter country contributing what is at present my favourite commercial, the Kenzo spot directed by Spike Jonze.
In our Digital section I talk to Christian Dahl, Managing Director of Spark44, a Frankfurt-based communications company that is in fact a global exclusive joint venture between Jaguar/Land Rover and the agency's management. They have just turned five years old, the title of the interview is "Sometimes creatives confuse effect with effectiveness." Christian selected 15 digital works from the US (6), the UK (3) France (2), and a single one from Denmark, Germany, Sweden, and Spain each.
The interview at the beginning I did with Todd Tilford, at the time of our conversation CCO of FCB, Chicago. Since then, only a few weeks ago, he's moved onto a new, more global position to according to the agency's statement "work on select clients in Chicago and partner on key initiatives focusing on creative content and design with Global Chief Creative Officer Susan Credle." I first talked to Todd 16 years ago, for the very first issue of Lürzer's Archive of the new millennium when he ran the Dallas-based creative hot shop Pyro, which had also been founded by him. The title of this recent interview expresses his belief that "Advertising, when done well, is really brain surgery."
Client: McDonald's. Agency: TBWA, Lisbon. Art Director: Julliano Bertoldi. Copywriters: Rui Silva, Marco Pacheco. Photographer. Nuno Correia. Illustrator: Julliano Bertoldi. Digital Artist: Whitelab
Client: Vixen. Agency: Ogilvy & Mather, Tokyo. Creative Directors: Federico Garcia, Ajab Samrai. Art Directors: Mauricio Cifuentes, Ajab Samrai. Copywriter: Ajab Samrai. Photographer: Ale Burset. Digital Artists: Diego Speroni, Andy Fenning


Administrators can close the feedback phase for certain Targets, but still keep it open for others. You can use the "Start or Stop Feedback for Targets" feature by following these steps below.
Expand the Project Administration section.
Turn ON the "Start and Stop Feedback for Individual Targets" feature.
Click on the "Start or Stop Feedback for Targets" icon.
Select whether you would like to Start or Stop feedback from the options.
Check the boxes next to each of the Target's names you would like to update.
NOTE: This feature is only available with the Professional and Enterprise Editions of the EchoSpan tool.


text:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;

using Craswell.Automation.DataAccess;
using Craswell.Encryption;
using Craswell.WebRepositories.Tangerine;
using Craswell.WebScraping;

using log4net;
using NHibernate;

namespace Craswell.WebRepositories
{
    public class WebRepositoryFactory : IDisposable
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// The dal.
        /// </summary>
        private DataAccessLayer dal = new DataAccessLayer();

        /// <summary>
        /// The aes tool.
        /// </summary>
        private AesEncryptionTool aesTool = new AesEncryptionTool();

        /// <summary>
        /// The passphrase used for encryption and decryption.
        /// </summary>
        private string passphrase;

        /// <summary>
        /// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="Craswell.WebRepositories.WebRepositoryFactory"/> class.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="passphrase">The passphrase used for encryption and decryption.</param>
        public WebRepositoryFactory(string passphrase)
        {
            if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(passphrase))
            {
                throw new ArgumentNullException("passphrase");
            }

            this.passphrase = passphrase;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Releases unmanaged resources and performs other cleanup operations before the
        /// <see cref="Craswell.WebRepositories.WebRepositoryFactory"/> is reclaimed by garbage collection.
        /// </summary>
        ~WebRepositoryFactory()
        {
            this.Dispose(false);
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Releases all resource used by the <see cref="Craswell.WebRepositories.WebRepositoryFactory"/> object.
        /// </summary>
        /// <remarks>Call <see cref="Dispose"/> when you are finished using the
        /// <see cref="Craswell.WebRepositories.WebRepositoryFactory"/>. The <see cref="Dispose"/> method leaves the
        /// <see cref="Craswell.WebRepositories.WebRepositoryFactory"/> in an unusable state. After calling
        /// <see cref="Dispose"/>, you must release all references to the
        /// <see cref="Craswell.WebRepositories.WebRepositoryFactory"/> so the garbage collector can reclaim the memory
        /// that the <see cref="Craswell.WebRepositories.WebRepositoryFactory"/> was occupying.</remarks>
        public void Dispose()
        {
            this.Dispose(true);
            GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Dispose the specified disposing.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="disposing">If set to <c>true</c> disposing.</param>
        protected virtual void Dispose(bool disposing)
        {
            if (disposing)
            {
                if (this.dal != null)
                {
                    this.dal.Dispose();
                    this.dal = null;
                }
            }
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Creates the web repository and returns its identifier.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="repositoryType">The type of web repository.</param>
        /// <param name="repositoryName">The repository name.</param>
        /// <param name="webAddress">Web address.</param>
        /// <param name="username">Username.</param>
        /// <param name="password">Password.</param>
        /// <param name="securityQuestions">Security questions.</param>
        public int CreateWebRepository(
            WebRepositoryType repositoryType,
            string repositoryName,
            string webAddress,
            string username,
            string password,
            IDictionary<string, string> securityQuestions)
        {
            securityQuestions = securityQuestions
                .ToDictionary(
                sq => this.aesTool.EncryptText(sq.Key, this.passphrase),
                sq => this.aesTool.EncryptText(sq.Value, this.passphrase));

            WebRepositoryConfigurationData config = new WebRepositoryConfigurationData()
            {
                Address = new Uri(webAddress),
                Username = this.aesTool.EncryptText(username, this.passphrase),
                Password = this.aesTool.EncryptText(password, this.passphrase),
                SecurityQuestions = securityQuestions
            };

            var repo = new WebRepositoryData()
            {
                Type = repositoryType,
                Name = repositoryName,
                Configuration = config
            };

            using (ISession session = this.dal.OpenSession())
            using (ITransaction tx = session.BeginTransaction())
            {
                session.Save(repo);
                tx.Commit();
            }

            return repo.Id;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Gets the web repositories.
        /// </summary>
        /// <returns>The web repositories.</returns>
        public IList<IConnectedWebRepository> GetWebRepositories()
        {
            List<IConnectedWebRepository> repositoryList = new List<IConnectedWebRepository>();

            using (ISession session = this.dal.OpenSession())
            {
                IList<WebRepositoryData> webRepositories = session
                    .CreateCriteria<WebRepositoryData>()
                    .List<WebRepositoryData>();

                foreach (WebRepositoryData repository in webRepositories)
                {
                    switch (repository.Type)
                    {
                        case WebRepositoryType.Tangerine:
                            ILog tangerineLogger = LogManager.GetLogger("TangerineClientLogger");

                            TangerineConfiguration config = new TangerineConfiguration(
                                repository.Configuration.Address,
                                this.aesTool.DecryptText(repository.Configuration.Username, this.passphrase),
                                this.aesTool.DecryptText(repository.Configuration.Password, this.passphrase),
                                repository.Configuration.SecurityQuestions
                                .ToDictionary(
                                    sq => this.aesTool.DecryptText(sq.Key, this.passphrase),
                                    sq => this.aesTool.DecryptText(sq.Value, this.passphrase)));

                            HttpClient httpClient = new HttpClient(tangerineLogger);

                            TangerineObjectFactory objectFactory = new TangerineObjectFactory();

                            TangerineClient client = new TangerineClient(
                                httpClient,
                                config,
                                objectFactory);

                            IConnectedWebRepository repo = new TangerineRepository(
                                repository.Id,
                                repository.Name,
                                client);

                            repositoryList.Add(repo);
                            break;
                    }
                }
            }

            return repositoryList;
        }
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Use a graphite pencil to write a letter (or other small figure) on one side of a sugar cube.
Place the sugar cube into a glass of water. (A white cup works best for visibility. Or you could use a clear glass and place it on a piece of white paper).
The sugar will dissolve in the water, but the graphite from the pencil will not. As the sugar dissolves out from underneath the graphite, the graphite will float the top of the water.
If you're lucky (and I'm usually not) the graphite will stay together and you'll have your letter floating on the surface of the water. If it doesn't stay together, you'll just have small gray flecks floating on the surface (as seen above).


text:
London Celebrations
The Best April Fool's Day Pranks
With 1 April coming up, it is time to channel your inner Dennis The Menace and play some harmless pranks on friends, work colleagues and family. One thing you can be absolutely sure of, though, is that the prices you see online for Special Offers in London Hotels for the likes of Park Grand Lancaster Gate are no joke, no matter the date, time or year: they are the real deal. These are some of the best April Fools Day pranks from the 1600s until the present.
Before getting into the best of the best, it is interesting to examine where the notion of April Fools Day even comes from. Unfortunately, though, there is no one answer to this, only guesses as to the origin of the day from various literature and countries.
A public service announcement: April Fools Day, or All Fools Day, or just 1 April, is not a public holiday and if anyone tells you otherwise, it is likely an April Fools prank. So, be wary or risk a very angry boss when you fail to set your alarm this fine April's morning…
1698: Lion-washing at the Tower of London
1957: The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest
2015: Draco and Harry are dating!
2019: Jimmy and Maisie give ultimate Game of Thrones spoilers
Some ideas!
If you tried to convince anyone these days that there were lions in Kensington Palace Gardens, you would be met with an eye-roll and maybe a charitable chuckle. However, back in 1698, when rumour had it that there would be lion-washing at the Tower of London, people flocked from out of town to see it (as you would have too, if you genuinely believed there were wild lions just off the River Thames!) But, as it were, this was all a tricky ruse which ended up being so successful that pranksters were printing fake lion-washing tickets for years before people clocked that this was all In case you thought this was a repeated typo, and perhaps people believed in fake lion-watching? No, no: people went to see lions having a bath at the Tower of London (to no avail, of course).
The best part about a prank being carried out by a respected BBC news show like Panorama was that you are likely to take it for its word – especially in 1957 when Fake News wasn't exactly a part of everyday culture. They had fake footage of Swiss farmers and their "spaghetti crop" after a "very mild Winter", and had viewers gasping in disbelieve as spaghetti was picked from the trees and pulled from the ground by Swiss peasants. Not only did people believe it, but they were calling up the BBC, asking for details on how one can get their hands on, yes, a spaghetti tree. To top it all off, the BBC would respond to these curious viewers, saying, "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best." It is all well and good claiming you wouldn't be tricked by such a ludicrous claim, but it is a certainty that at least one or two people out there would be manically Googling, "Does spaghetti grow on trees?" after watching the evening news with a bowl of spag-bol.
In 2015, Tom Felton really caught out some fans – especially his doting teenage girl followers. He is known on a far more wide-spread level as the actor who played Draco Malfoy in the iconic British fantasy film series which has taken the world by a storm, Harry Potter. He announced on Instagram that him and Daniel Radcliffe (ie. the actor who plays Harry Potter himself) were actually dating. Though no judgement on our part if this were the case, it turned out that a romance between Slytherin and Gryffindor would remain a prank rather than a reality.
April 2019 saw the world in the adoring throws of the Thrones, with the HBO smash-hit series Game of Thrones in full swing in its final, exhilarating season. Maisie Williams, also fondly known as Arya Stark from the series, was a guest on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. The two of them were dastardly masterminds, and acted out a bit of a scene in which Maisie pretends to "let slip" that her character dies. Fans were horrified, and the two pretended to be mortified by the mistake… She begs Jimmy to edit out the spoiler, runs off the stage, Jimmy follows her, then the two jump out shouting, "APRIL FOOL'S!" Now that is commitment.
If you really back yourself to pull off a lion-washing event, then by all means: try your luck. However, here are some of the simplest, historical pranks that have been used again and again throughout the belly-aching years.
Swapping the sugar in the sugar pot for salt makes for a very unpleasant bowl of morning cereal, and a total gag.
Sticking a note on someone's back without their noticing, saying something harmless but silly like "wink at me", so you get a confused note-wearer for quite a chunk of the day!
Turn items upside down while someone is sleeping – waking up to find your desk with the legs facing the sky is always a shock, and never fails to incite a giggle.
Make a big announcement: "I'm engaged", "I'm moving to Timbuktu", "I am quitting my job to join the travelling circus": all of these can cause just the right amount of panic to your mum prior to a jovial "APRIL FOOLS!" exclamation.
It is safe to say pranksters have been storming the streets way longer than even some Hotels close to Paddington Station or London Hotels Near Hyde Park have been around – spaghetti harvesting experts included – everyone has always been pretty down to have a good laugh on this bizarre day which doesn't even have a set origin. So remember, next time you are feeling cramped on the tube or cold and a bit grumpy, there aren't a lot of things a good chuckle and pretend lion-washing ceremony can't fix!
Previous articleMust-See Exhibitions in April
Next articleA guide to South Africa in London
How to Enjoy a White Wedding in London
FESTIVE FUN IN LONDON
HOW TO HAVE THE PERFECT NEW YEARS IN LONDON


First Russian peacekeepers arrive in Syria 5 out of 5 based on 5 ratings. 5 user reviews.
On Wednesday, Russian Ministry of Defense official representative Igor Konashenkov described Russian Army's new phase of operations in Syria.
As reported earlier, the Ceasefire Coordinating Center began work at the Hmeimim airbase pursuant to the Russian-US agreement.
According to Konashenkov, more than 50 officers with peacekeeping experience have been detailed to the new center. They have already accepted dozens of reports and telephone calls from local authorities and armed formations who desire to join the ceasefire. Thanks to their intermediation, several armistice agreements have already been signed with a number of formations in northern Latakia province. The officers began to send humanitarian aid to the areas freed from the terrorists which facilitates the return of refugees from other regions and countries.
–The overwhelming majority of Russian officers at the center have considerable peacekeeping experience under UN aegis and in other peacekeeping formats, Konashenkov said, and then advised the Pentagon spokesman, Mr. Cook, to lower his level of aggression, acquire greater modesty and professionalism, and focus on the actions of the service personnel.
In recent days, Mr. Cook for some reason undertook the functions of a diplomat and said that the Syria ceasefire is a test for the Russian authorities.
–I'll say right from the start: we intend to and, what's more, we began to implement specific and complicated practical aspects of reconciliation on Syria's territory. We expect that our US partners will shift from words to actions as soon as possible, Konashenkov added.
Russian aircraft are continuing airstrikes against terrorists targets as before. The ceasefire agreement does not apply to ISIS, al-Nusra, and other groups which the UNSC considers terrorist.
In the last two days, Russian aircraft flew 62 sorties against 187 targets in several Syrian provinces. They destroyed 10 defensive positions, killed over 50 bandits, 2 mortar batteries together with their crews, knocked out several tanks and dozens of high-mobility trucks carrying heavy weapons.
The aircraft destroyed a column of 10 heavy cargo trucks with weapons and munitions.


Russell Merry has returned to CSG UK, the importer of Cannondale, Mongoose and GT.
Russell Merry has returned to the position of MD of Dorel's CSG UK. He will also work with Dorel's senior leadership team global to "shape global IBD strategy".
Merry said: "With the continued growth of Dorel's bicycle business, it was felt that my experience would further enhance the next chapter of the company's process in increasingly becoming a global force."
Mark Broughton, previously finance director who assumed the role of interim managing director, has been promoted to the new role of finance and operations director, UK.
Merry left CSG at the end of June.
Merry has been working in the bicycle business since 1989. He and his brother, Neil, worked in their father's bicycle shop in Poole, becoming partners in the business. The shop specialised in BMX and was the springboard for a BMX distribution business, Hot Wheels. The Merry brothers sold Hot Wheels to Dorel in 2009.


text:
Society Leader
Space Availability
Wedding Officiating
Life Passage Ceremonies
Sunday Meetings
Ethics for Children
Sunday Program for Children
Ethical Action
Ethical Action Values
Food and Hunger Project
Winter Festival 2019!
December 22, 2019 @ 11:00 am – 1:00 pm
Riverdale-Yonkers Society for Ethical Culture
4450 Fieldston Rd
Most weeks, voluntary donations are split between the work of the Society and an organization whose work in the world honors human worth.
Ethics For Children Multigenerational Platforms Sunday Platform Meetings
festival multigenerational potluck winter
Join us for winter songs, a story about festivals around the world, a few holiday-themed crafts and activities, and a potluck lunch!
Most cultures and religions celebrate some kind of "festival of lights" at this time of year. We'll celebrate the underlying values that many of these celebrations have in common, including children, mystery, generosity, and peace.
Please bring a holiday dish from your upbringing or family to share for our potluck lunch.
This event is for all ages, so invite your friends!
11 a.m. is gathering time, to meet and greet one another and, as a community, set up our potluck sharing, so please come early enough to add your dish. We start the formal program at 11:15 and usually end the potluck about 1 p.m.
Stay Updated on Future Events
Subscribe to get weekly updates about Sunday programs, other events and community news:
11:00 am Yemen: Holding Faith Amidst Despair
Yemen: Holding Faith Amidst Despair
In this talk, Isaac Evans-Frantz, director of Action Corps, will tell the local story of the campaign to stop the war in Yemen. The U.S.-backed Saudi/UAE-Led Coalition in Yemen is starving the country and killing[...]
11:00 am The Elusive Right to Vote
The Elusive Right to Vote
A theme for this year of Black History Month is the story of African Americans and the vote. This year marks the 150th anniversary of the passage of the 15th amendment to the US Constitution,[...]
11:00 am Sunday Platform
Sunday Platform
Please check back soon for this week's topic. Each week, we meet at 11 am – 12:30 pm (plus time for socializing) to consider major issues of the day. 11 a.m. is gathering time, to[...]
11:00 am How Resilience Works
How Resilience Works
How we deal with trauma and grief, as well as with ordinary challenges of life, depends in large part on our resilience: our ability to bounce back. Our Leader, Jone Johnson Lewis, will reflect on[...]
Learning & Community
7:00 pm Anti-Racism Book Discussion
Anti-Racism Book Discussion
A small group including members from several different congregations and secular organizations has been meeting most months to discuss books that educate and motivate us in anti-racist work. For January, we'll be reading An Indigenous[...]
3:00 pm Coffee House @Ethical
Coffee House @Ethical
The Coffee House @Ethical brings you joy, courage, and wisdom through music the second Sunday of every month. NO COVER CHARGE. We will take a collection for free will donations to cover our costs, with[...]
Issues & Service
We are a community striving to promote ethical living and a more humane culture. We focus on actions, not beliefs. We celebrate the joys of life, support each other through sorrow, learn together, hear speakers who are both thought-provoking and action-provoking, and also have fun.
4450 Fieldston Road
Riverdale, New York 10471
Email: office@rysec.org
Office: M-F 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Sunday Meetings:
11 a.m. – 1 p.m. (with social time)
Directions to the Ethical Society
Get weekly updates on Sunday programs, other events and community news:
© 2019 Riverdale-Yonkers Society For Ethical Culture | Privacy Policy | Admin Only


In view of the shortly published second part of the Hasebe chapter of my Kantei series, I just wanted to share a certain difficulty that I face on a regular basis when doing research for this series. I will skip the greater context and details of workmanship here because they will be addressed in the upcoming chapter.
So the difficulty I am talking about is significantly differing oshigata and/or blade descriptions. The blade in question is a hira-zukuri ko-wakizashi by Hasebe Kunishige (長谷部国重) which was also introduced by Tanobe sensei in his Me no Me article series. Therein he uses it to point out that certain rare interpretations by Kunishige bear a resemblance to contemporary Nobukuni (信国) works, in concrete terms through a typically wide Enbun-Jôji-sugata and a hardening in suguha. Tanobe also explains that the standing-out ô-itame with nagare-masame towards the ha and mune and the large, roundish, and long running-back kaeri (which connects with muneyaki that continue to about the mid-blade section) eventually identify the blade as a Hasebe work. So that's all fine, case almost closed, but I wanted to find out more on that blade, in particular to see if there are more of this kind in order to work out similarities/differences between the Hasebe and Nokubuni schools.
Picture 1: Tanobe oshigata left, jûyô oshigata right.
It is very interesting to see how two experts can "read" a blade differently. Anyway, I just wanted to give you a quick look "behind the scenes" of my Kantei series and stress that picking references can be a sensitive task. So on one hand, I don't want to work through the same old blades over and over again that are found in every book but on the other hand, I also don't want to introduce one oddity after the other. Aim is to provide a good balance between very typical works and a few more rare interpretations which help to understand the variety of workmanships of certain smiths or schools in some cases. That should do it for today and I will be back with part 2 of the Hasebe chapter shortly.
I suppose that is a large problem in general when it comes to human objectivity. Not implying they're not experts in their fields, but i wonder whether 1 person could make an oshigata, say for instance first at 35, second 45 and third version at 60 of the same blade. One would assume there to be slight differences. Now do the same with 2 different people and the differences i would assume will increase.
Always been interested in oshigata, but also have some problems with interpreting them, especially when they're not full length i find it hard to visualize the sugata.