text:
Of Unicorns, Dog Sweaters and Pink Cake →
Linda Likes Sparkles
Posted on January 16, 2011 by imaginationtigers
By Margery Topper Weinstein
Linda liked sparkles, and, unfortunately, sparkles sparked nodes of pain in my brain. That Thursday, the smell of microwave-heated-up pizza and white wine from the executive farewell party in the office suite next door collaborated with Linda's green sparkle blazer to set my brain feeling like I had fallen off a diving board I had intended to dive off of, and instead had hit my head.
"Linda, why do you always wear the sparkles blazer on Tuesdays and Thursdays?" I asked her from across the cubicle aisle. "What's it about Tuesdays and Thursdays that make you think they sparkle?" I knew Linda had a sense of humor and wouldn't mind my teasing her again about her habit of wearing sparkling blazers the same two days of every week.
"I guess this time of the week—the middle—needs some jazzing up," she said without looking at me and continuing to type. "Monday is too depressing to be receptive to sparkles, Wednesday is too laborious because it's the hump of the middle, but on Tuesday you're just beginning the ascent to the middle (and have gotten Monday over with) and Thursday you're nearing the end. Friday, of course, just sparkles on its own. "
"What if your Friday involves an obligation you can't get out of? Is that necessarily better than going to work the next day?" I asked. It seemed more appropriate to me to wear sparkles on Friday since Friday to me sometimes required convincing that it was happy.
"Yes, because then it's your own fault you're suffering. During the week suffering is expected. But on the weekend it's something only overly generous people fall into," Linda said.
The sparkles transcended my panoramic vision, but I still caught sight of one of my least favorite officemates, Sanders Reynolds. He was rarely on time, but when he did show up, he spent his day divided between the vending machine (Baked Lays were a favorite), the coffee machine (Coffee Mate, Sweet 'n Low), and the bathroom (guess Baked Lays and coffee with artificial creamer and artificial sweetener don't go well together as far as his stomach was concerned).
He also wasn't a study in smooth style. Ours was a casual office (as you may have guessed via Linda's sparkling jackets), and nobody expected much, but as far as workday slobs go, Sanders was a standout. One thing that always bothered me was why his wife didn't dress him. It's passé for wives to dress husbands but Sanders needed so much sartorial assistance that if I were married to him I think I'd feel compelled to lend a hand—or, rather, I wouldn't let him go near the closet unsupervised. His colors were drab (browns and olive greens), but his greatest clothing problem was what he wore didn't fit, or maybe it was just that he didn't know how to wear any of it.
Sanders favored button-down dress shirts, but not the conventional tucked in way. He opted, rather, for the flair of the slob. The button-down shirt was left flapping loose beyond his belt buckle, all the way down, covering at least half of his rear end. It also inelegantly flapped over his paunch, which he was always bragging had been slimmed down thanks to veggie burgers and Baked Lays.
"Your sparkles, Linda, are eye-orb frightening, but I'll take them over Slob Mystique walking in," I said, rolling my eyes, and nodding my head towards the top of the cubicle aisle, where Sanders was clomping in. He was one of those balls-of-feet walkers who always walked like his shoes didn't fit. Kind of like if a person forced a mule or donkey to wear sneakers.
"Yeah, he needs more sparkle and smooth," she said, laughing. "But my concern would be misuse of sparkle. The idea of sparkle highlighting flaw. Why, in other words, sparkle up a belly?"
"Well, according to Slob Mystique, the belly has slimmed down substantially. He's always pointing to that wedding photo of him and Shirley, with her orange and purple bouquet and his widows peak hairline and his larger-than-now belly. Unfortunately, the hairline has receded along with the belly. I wonder if that's also thanks to veggie burgers?"
I think that would be enough to convince any man of mine to avoid veggie burgers and be a cave man chomping on chuck ground beef (not even the fancy kind). Once you've made the transition from meat chomping man who's civilized enough to eat meat taken off the bone and made into malleable patties symmetrical enough to fit in between assembly line bread buns, why would additional civilizing be desired? Maybe his hairline started to go because he was losing his cave man essence by eating too many veggie burgers. And what in the world was wrong with fried potato chips? It's OK to accept grease into your life. If you're going to be Slob Mystique you may as well live up to the title.
"Maybe we should ask him," Linda said. "He's so dumb he'll probably just assume we're complimenting him on his physique and new look."
"Yeah, he's one of those people who assumes everyone likes him," I noted. "There are some people who could benefit from a little paranoid schizophrenia."
It was big brown sweater day for Slob Mystique as he clomped his backpack onto his desk. He had mumbled (as he always mumbled) a "morning" to Linda and I, but we were so immersed in our critical camaraderie we didn't respond. I disliked it the way grown adults tended to wear backpacks these days, and was glad the Homeland Security people were on to them. I doubted whether Slob Mystique or any of his circle were terrorists, but the sight of a grown man with a receding hairline and paunchy belly with a backpack slung over his shoulders was gauche enough to be criminal—at least from a fashion perspective.
Of course, he also was carrying his healthy-eating breakfast of strawberry yogurt parfait and butter-less, cream cheese-less bagel. I believe I spotted some white fish layered on top of it with a tomato perhaps. "Is that white fish I see?" I asked Slob Mysique—well, I mean, to be nice, I suppose I should refer to him by the name God gave him (at least to his mother's face)—Sanders. "I thought the mercury levels in fish was troubling you."
"The latest studies show two moderate fish servings per week is OK," he said to Linda and I as we continued our busy work in our cubicles without looking at him.
"What studies?" I wanted to know. "What studies do you know about?" And that was all it took to unravel his self-confidence. "Well, that is to say, more or less, the safety of fish is not disputed so long as it's indulged in moderately," he said. Sanders always spoke (or tried to) speak like a TV network anchorman from the '50s or '60s whenever he got nervous. He added phrases like "I can say with relative certainty" or "I'm reasonably confident." Who cares if you're relative or reasonable, I always wondered.
"Have they done any studies on the 'reasonable confidence' of blazers with sparkles causing premature cataracts?" I said. "Linda here may be endangering our oracular health with her fashion choices. It sets off my brain, so I can feel it through my skin."
"Well, don't act like I'm hemorrhaging you," Linda said. "It's just a headache. And it's not my fault. It's probably just hormones."
Sanders had begun his wheezy, suppressed laughing into his white fish. He loved that he could tolerate the sparkles better than me. He at last had something to feel confident about. "Corporate came by yesterday," he said, looking Linda's sparkles up and down, and taking in my green foam frog on a wire, Alfred Alfredo, whom I had stuck to the top of my cubicle wall so he flew in the air as an amphibian flag. "They say there's a new company-wide initiative that's been launched about corporate culture and keeping our work spaces 'clean and professional looking,' so I told them I would help spread the word."
"Will you ask Alfred for immigration papers since I got him in Canada?" I said. "Just over the boarder, but I know Noisen likes to cover itself." Noisen Media Enterprises was the name of our company, and there were two things its executives were scared of—being overly generous and lawsuits. I couldn't figure out which of those two fears this new initiative had more to do with. Overly generous because it would be too much for them to allow us the freedom to personalize our cubicles; fearful of lawsuits because death by green foam frog on a wire is a possibility. Well, let's say Alfred fell from his perch and lay haphazardly on the floor of the cubicle aisle. Someone, maybe the always-wears-a-tie-even-though-he-doesn't-need-to in accounting could be on the way to the freezer to retrieve his frozen grapes, trip, bang his head, and find himself no longer able to calculate tax loopholes for the company.
"You shouldn't worry too much about that assignment," I said. "Those people are too greedy to check up on your 'work.' To cover themselves, they need to tell us to rein in the foam frogs, sparkles, pink flamingos, and the odd wooden penguin figurine, but they're too busy obsessing about their '$20 billion' company to see whether any of their 'culture' mandates have gone through."
"I don't know," said Sanders, raking his hand through his hair and sniffling into his white fish. "They seemed pretty serious this time. A couple of them—Barnaby Rocksnard and Hugh Fargle—pointed to Alfred while they were talking and said he had to go."
I wish I could tell you Sanders was only joking about being impressed by the ferocity of these HR hacks, but he was really that insecure. He wanted to make sure he was aligned to the system, whatever that system happened to be. He must have thought: "First they come for the foam frogs, and, before you know it, you're next in line." Alfred, wobbling every which way on his precarious wire, sticking up above the cubicle walls, and exhibiting a conspicuous green, wasn't suitable to our culture. But the prudent Sanders Reynolds would make the mark.
"Tomorrow there's going to be a work space review," Sanders said. Rich Hornersford from the Human Alignment department said they'll be inspected for 'professionalism and cleanliness.'"
"I wonder if my wall of candy bar wrappers is professional and clean? I licked the inside of all the wrappers, so I'm fairly sure they're clean, and I tried to line them up as well as possible."
The candy bar wrappers and Alfred were spice to jazz up the dullness of cubicle life, and the idea that I would have to conform to an image of Cubicle Ideal was disheartening. Why would I want my cubicle to look like anyone else's? We were already in "cubes," that, literally, were square and composed of a boxing in. I felt the shape we had all been thrust into was uniform enough.
"That may not be enough," Sanders said. "I think Noisen is serious about this one. The thing is they have investors coming here next week, so they want them to think we're professional."
Noisen had been trying to sell our business unit for a while, so I guess they were getting desperate. If doing away with pink flamingoes and green foam frogs would seal the deal, than that's how harsh the measures would be. This is becoming a cubicle police state, I thought to myself.
"I'm prepared to devolve for the sake of my work," I said, thinking of all the times I dumbed down my writing to appeal to our plush toy enthusiast audience, but I refused to dumb down my cubicle aesthetic since, unlike my work, I saw it as a true representation of myself. It was my habitat. "But where Alfred Alfredo and my candy bar wrapper collage are concerned, the bigwigs are out of luck."
While Sanders and I (he still going at it sloppy-style with his white fish bagel) went back and forth over the mortal threat to Alfred Alfredo, Linda was pulling open her filing cabinet draws and looking furiously under her desk. Her sparkles spinning in the corner of my eye like a disco ball chained to the desk.
"What are you doing there?" I asked her. "You're giving me motion sickness."
"I think the sparkles need to go further," she said. "I see sparkles spreading through this office so that you—they—can't escape them."
Sanders was too consumed with his white fish to bother with this latest from Linda, but I was intrigued. "Are you going to kidnap anybody?"
"No, I'm just going to show Noisen how dynamic sparkle can be," she said. With that, she hopped up from her seat as though in a dance revue, and sashayed across the room, holding a pouch of some sort. It looked like the kind of pouch some jewelry stores give you when you buy a necklace. I wondered if she had figured out where our boss, Miranda, kept her in-office valuables (if such a thing existed), and was on her way to equal the score by stealing. Instead, she opened the pouch and laid on Miranda's desk decals of sparkles, and began spreading the sparkles from the back of the phone receiver to the bulletin board to the initialed wooden box she kept her calculator in.
"And you don't think Miranda will mind this?" I asked, elated by the sparkle growth (I was so excited by her plan, apparently, that I forgot my headache).
"Well, you have a calculator in a wooden box, and then you have a calculator in a wooden box with sparkle. Which would you prefer? To do your calculations on wood or in sparkle? The way I see it, if I was calculating my assets or concerns up, and the thing I was calculating against was wood, I'd begin to think of everything adding up to the grave—on account of the fact that wood is what lots of caskets are made out of—but if I was calculating against sparkle, I'd think of bright things I was adding all my stuff towards," she said.
I thought that was prudent thinking on her part, to consider the level of sparkle against the level of wood. But I wondered what our stilted boss, Miranda, who was famous for maintaining an immobile face when she spoke and raising her eyebrows rather than smiling when she passed you by in the hall, would think. Linda may be sparkling her way out of a job, I thought to myself. Low-level to moderate sparkle was all Noisen tolerated.
As Linda darted around Miranda's office—even adding a solitary sparkle to her wedding photo—I thought of Alfred Alfredo, and wondered if I should follow suit to Linda and let him be. My foam frog on a wire could be a sentinel in our pro-sparkle resistance movement.
"When the sparkle is seen marching, the cavalry of Alfred Alfredo won't be far behind," I announced with as much aplomb as possible. Linda and I had entirely forgotten our workload for the morning—which is a good reason not to threaten worker sparkle. When what you've surrounded yourself with for the purpose of shine is threatened, who knows how you'll react, and what kind of uprisings you'll inspire in others?
Linda was still in Miranda's office, now approaching dangerous territory—the picture Miranda, who never seemed sure whether she loved or loathed herself, kept of a cartoon version of herself in a black and white striped shirt rowing a boat. I say "cartoon" because Phil, our graphic artist, had doctored it up as a joke so that Miranda's head was way out of proportion to her body, and everything else in the photo. And it was even funnier than Miranda realized because even though the photo was made to look like a real life cartoon or caricature, she wore the same stony-stern expression she always wore on her deeply Celtic face. "I think Miranda, eternally rowing on the River Stix needs some sparkle," said Linda, dabbling the adhesive sparkle from pictorial bow to stern, and up to the rower's forked (well, okay, so it was a cleft) chin. "Ha-ha, now she's done!" Linda exclaimed twirling around. I wondered if, in addition to the bran muffin and yogurt she had every morning to ward off constipation she also had popped an ecstasy pill or two.
"I wouldn't be surprised if Miranda was helping to spearhead the whole anti-sparkle movement," I said. "She's never liked your jacket, or Alfred Alfredo whose sparkle, after all, is merely symbolic."
"She may be. After all, I saw her talking yesterday to Lisa Blackenridge—you know, the six-feet-something -tall gal from accounting who's taking over our department. Miranda was saying something to her about 'taking ownership of work' and 'stepping up to the plate' and 'synergies.' She was in full-on corporate-speak mode. She was automatoning herself and loving it."
"Well," I said judiciously, "That's not saying much considering that her face and eyes rarely move when she speaks. I think she's always been an automaton, and that she has rollers under feet, which none of us can see, and that once a year she's surreptitiously rolled into Talbots to get suited up."
As we laughed with our backs curved over and our hands over our mouths, Miranda made her way back to her office. She was in red today, which was funny because I was in the midst of a color war with her. She had been trying to get rid of me since the day I got there, and when she couldn't defeat me via taxing work assignments, she resorted to mimicry—sensing my independent spirit, she homed in on copycat fashion as the best offense against me. The day before I had worn a bright red blouse (a color particularly suiting my winter coloring), so that day Miranda had on an equally bright red jacket that cinched around the waist with a bow.
"Hi!" I chirped with as teethy a smile as I could come up with. It was the right thing to smile at people, my preschool teacher told me, but it also had the advantage of making Miranda very angry. She did what she usually did when I smiled teethy-like at her—she raised her eyebrows and then looked me up and down while keeping the whole rest of her face—the parts beyond comatose dark blue eyes and dyed-yellow eyebrows—immobile.
"Hm, I see you took the liberty to redecorate," she said, walking towards her desk. "Interesting." It was a disappointment that she wasn't outwardly upset, but then that was Miranda for you. She tended more towards snotty, condescending, snide commentary and raised eyebrows than open hysteria. It was when she walked away from you that the trouble began. You suddenly realized lies had been told to the boss at your expense, set in motion by what I suspected to be her crocodile tears. It would be just like her to use menopausal hormones to bring on tears to gain the sympathy of our boss, Sara. I thought this because I had seen her many times red-faced and bleary-eyed, as though she were either working herself towards tears or just recovering from a great melodramatic performance.
"Uh, thanks?" she said sarcastically. "I think I'll tweak it a little." With that she methodically began removing the sparkling decals, pausing in front of the real life cartoon of herself out of proportion in a black and white striped shirt in a boat, rowing alone. "It'll be interesting to see what corporate thinks of this artistry," she said, nasally laughing to herself. "I think I may leave it like this."
Miranda's nostrils were flaring like an angry horse and she was fiddling with her calculator, having removed it from the initialed wooden box she kept it in. "Hmm, let's see," she said. "I think these damages come to at least a few hundred dollars."
I didn't think she would tattle on us because she liked to be seen as the "kind, sympathetic Miranda"—not a person who would lose her temper over what her colleagues would undoubtedly call "just a little joke."
"Sparkle doesn't have to be an isolated affair," Linda said. "It can spread anywhere you choose, and doesn't require special planning. It's less arduous than Sander's white fish sandwich and health regimen. Let's say I want sparkle. Well, who's to stop me from dashing a sparkle on the phone, another on the cartoon you rowing a boat as an outsize self, and another on the wooden, initialed box cover to a calculator?"
"True," Miranda said with her characteristic jerky gestures (like she was made of tin), "but sometimes there's a sparkle encroachment that needs to be pushed back."
Sanders had begun playing with a hand-held device he kept pressing at, but we couldn't tell at first whether it was a calculator or some other counting and measuring device.
"What you got there, Sanders?" I asked. Sometimes I believed he had a crush on me because he didn't dare look me in the eye, but it's also possible he thought I was a vampire. He read a lot of gothic horror stories, and I think he mentioned during small talk once that you weren't supposed to look vampires in the eye—for fear you'll turn into one yourself.
"I'm gauging the climate of our office," he said. "Every time I click this thing it gives me a reading of the temperature in the exact spot I'm at."
"Well, I'm always cold in here. What does it say?"
"72. So, it must be an imbalance of yours," he said without smiling or otherwise hinting he was only joking.
"Why does accounting need to know what temperature it is in various 'exact spots' in the office?"
"The company thought we could save air conditioning and heating costs if we knew exactly where the temperature was inconsistent with the rest of the office. If it's colder or hotter in certain spots it might mean the windows in that area aren't insulated properly."
"Well, what do you know? The secret behind Noisen's corporate debt is insulation. Maybe the new strategic plan should be a sun porch," I said.
"We need to streamline our costs," Sanders said. "And be a cost leader."
"Yeah, well, I guess that's true," I copped out, knowing he had slipped into automaton mode, and it wasn't worthwhile (or safe) to argue with him. It would be like arguing with an automatic response system in a car or on a computer in which responses are reflexively triggered by certain keywords.
"Hey Sanders, is it true Alfred Alfredo's days may be numbered?"
"'He doesn't conform," said Sanders half with a sniff, half with a smile, seemingly aware of his absurdity and yet unwilling to step back from it. He seemed to realize how ridiculous he sounded, but was stubborn about sticking to his script.
"The beauty of being a green foam frog stuck to a wire that bounces you this way and that with the least passing breeze of a passerby is you're one of a kind," I noted. "He has no need to conform. It's beneath his essence."
"I hate to tell you this," Sanders said, "but that foam frog was mass produced. I was at the conference where this lady in a booth hawking her books was giving them out."
"His interaction with me has personalized him. He's a marker for Linda's sparkle and Miranda's-Miranda's-Miranda's, well, I don't know, Miranda's funny boat picture. He lets people looking for me know I'm here."
I know I'm here, I know I'm here, I know I'm here, I said repetitively to myself, attempting to stave off hyperventilization due to a throbbing migraine and the cornering of my wired frog. Sanders, I noted, focusing on the minutia of my surroundings, had finished his white fish sandwich and was beginning his coffee machine-vending machine-bathroom-talk to wife at desk-take a stroll out of doors trajectory, and was frumping his way to the kitchen. "Frumping," a word I knew didn't exist, insisted itself to me as just the way to describe that clomping walk of his. Next he would frump out of the kitchen with his Eco-Cup of coffee and stand-slouch next to out-of-whack-on-an-outsized-boat Miranda and Miranda herself, and ask about her sprinkler system. That was Sander's contribution to ensuring his job didn't get cut. "Surely, you can't fire me. I'm not productive, of course, but then who else asks you about your sprinkler system?" I imagined him saying to himself.
"Sanders, can I ask you something?" I said. And without waiting/caring whether he thought it was OK to proceed: "When will the execution of the acrylic pink flamingos, wood-based in-office owls, rubber caterpillars, rubber spiders, stuffed geese, and green stuck-to-a-wire-above-my-cubical frogs begin?
"Well, to be in compliance with this new push by corporate for a professional workplace, I would say no later than the end of the week," he said. "Metal bins will be available later this afternoon to collect all items that are not in compliance. If you don't take it home, it will be directed to the bin for recycling. The company gets a tax write-off for recycling."
I thought about the difference between sparkle and office light florescence and thought an assembly of sparkle wouldn't be so bad. The thing is, Sanders and his bosses would assume (and we'd lead them to believe) the sparkle was being assembled for elimination, but what we'd really be doing is assembling the office sparkle for maximum sparkability. I thought the sparkle could speak in a way my verbal arguments couldn't. Now that Miranda's possessions had been sparkled, I wondered if we should add them to the pile.
"Hey Miranda," I said, wondering when I would go far enough for her to start her nostril flaring. "Can the outsize you with the tiny head in the funny boat be added to the sparkle pile? As long as it's ruined, can we have it?"
"I have to say, that's not a bad idea. You—and her—have ruined most of my office already, so you may as well put the evidence on display, and show them what you did."
Yeah, show them what we did, I thought to myself. That's what I liked about the sparkle Linda liked to throw around, and how we were assembling our out-going possessions for sparklefication. I liked the fact that it would be marked off just when the ones who wanted us to get rid of it all wanted to hide it as fast as they could. Why should foam frogs, rubber pink flamingoes, and wooden penguins go into hiding? I felt the true pink flamingoes were the executives behind the anti-sparkle ruling. Ordinarily I would mean "pink flamingo" as a compliment, but I'm saying it now as they (anti-sparkle authorities) perceive pink flamingoes, foam frogs, and wooden penguins—as menaces to the organization. I saw those executives and acolytes, like Sanders, as the true menace.
My best idea of the moment was foamy combat. It was to draft Alfred Alfredo and company into an army of animated inanimates. I arranged him, and his material kin, along a wall formed by a few cubicles, and stuck the sparkle decals on them like the medals generals wear. My thought was to station them around our "private" work stations as a buffer between sparkle dimmers and the sparkle beyond the wall comprised of our personal momentos and mindful clutter. If we could gather enough of what we had imposed on ourselves, maybe there wouldn't be room for impositions from others who were neurotic, as we were, but didn't share our particular anxieties. I liked the people who entered my cubicle to share my neuroses, or at least be sympathetic to them. In life, when you let strangers trespass into the far reaches of your cubicle, where you keep your remembrances, you have to feel secure they won't discard any foam frogs on a wire they find along the way.
"Productive, as always," Miranda sneered, looking me, and my plastic-foamy entourage, up and down with her forever-critical eye. "Glad to see you're putting your time to good use."
"Well, you never know," I said. "This work of mine might give birth to an article next issue on the pros and cons of the creative workplace, and how plush toys can help."
"We'll see," she said, punctuating her last syllable, as she usually did, with an unseen, but nonetheless tangible, period—as if to say she would be the last word on that.
I had no time to waste, and, so, concentrated on rubber alligators, as I always did when there was no time to waste. In this case, I'm referring to Herman and Chantal, two small (roughly 6 inch by 6 inch) rubber alligators I decided had an illustrious past as 1970's cocaine-loving, Studio 54-going swingers. A third rubber alligator prowled alongside them, whom I introduced simply as "The Insurgent" to anyone who stopped by my cubicle. My thought was The Insurgent was hovering nearby to steel Chantal, or in some other way disturb the particular order of their swamp. The Insurgent would now be arranged side-by-side with them, as if to face a common enemy.
Next came the ducks—stuffed, plastic, and rubber. I usually kept them in a row, to harmonize with the saying about "getting all your ducks in a row," but that afternoon, I decided to scatter them so the power of their imitation duck selves would get dispersed throughout the cubicle, and maybe even get over the cubicle wall.
Naturally, too, I had to consider The Lindas, four pens with faces painted near the tips, from which rubbery strands of hair jutted out. Linda got them as a gift at a business meeting, and so, I took them for my own, but thought naming them The Lindas would make up for my stealing them. As long as you give a thing the appropriate name you can take it (and do with it) anything you want—or that's what I've heard anyway, so I thought I'd give it a try.
The Lindas resided in a Mickey Mouse mug that I considered reminiscent of my soul—a cartoonish presence on the outside, but room for lots to drink up on the inside. I felt very much a Mickey Mouse mug. That's where I decided to stick the Lindas. If you steal something, the best thing to do is put it inside something that you feel represents yourself. That way, your stealing will be easily forgotten, as if that object or keepsake that represents you has swallowed up the other person's possession. That was the goal with The Lindas—to swallow up my co-worker's possession. To absolve myself of guilt (and knowing she's a good sport), I told this whole scenario to her, and she licensed my pilfering. But got back at me with those awful sparkles. Even as I write this I remember that moment, trying to create a bulwark of keepsakes against the Corporate Sanders, and seeing those sparkles out of the corner of my eye—in the part of my cubicle I never was able to obscure from the intrusion of the sight of others—and thinking she enjoys encroaching on me, and all of us, with her illumination.
"Your sparkles are intruding on my capacity to extrude the forced-changers," I said.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Linda replied as she finished off the last of her sparkle decals by affixing that last one to the lever you pull when there's a fire. "A fire is no reason not to sparkle. Fires glow and shine, but they don't sparkle like these marks of mine."
"Or even Repunzel and Gilmore," I said, nodding toward my plants. Repunzel was some sort of ivy plant that had grown so long I had to push her vines away to use the phone. Gilmore, descended from Bamboo, was more compact, but, nonetheless, constantly sprouted new leaves. All this despite the lack of natural light. The nearest window was probably 100 feet away.
"Yeah, I guess I can add them to my list of intra-office sparkle noteworthies," Linda said.
"And they don't need one of your sparkle decals. They wear their official badge of sparkle inside," I said. "That's, by the way, why I've never liked your sparkling jacket and even those decals. If you truly sparkle, you sparkle on your own, with no special marking up or signifying necessary."
"But what about when sparkle is submerged in florescent lighting and the absence of windows or comfortable ladies room toilet paper? Couldn't a sparkling jacket help then?"
"No, because those of true sparkle would sparkle no matter the environ, and no matter how anyone attempted to regulate that environ. That Sanders is an arranger, organizer, and categorizer. He's good at looking for things, then arranging and organizing those things, but he doesn't recognize or appreciate inborn sparkle because it isn't anything he can pinpoint by spreadsheeting it."
"Yeah, he's always trying to spreadsheet everything," Linda agreed, forgetting for a moment her commitment to the sparkling jacket I loathed.
"Nothing seems to make sense to me once it's in a spreadsheet," I pointed out, gathering the rubber rooster in my arms, and righting into proper position the alligators Chantal and Herman. "Why would anything need to be put into a spreadsheet? Can't everything just make sense, and be appreciated on its own, without taking into consideration its relation to other things? If a piece of information isn't useful on its own, I don't think I'm interested. I like points of fact that stand on their own. If you have a beautiful flower, you don't have to put it in a bouquet, after all."
My rubber rooster wasn't the only bird to be aware of. Last year one morning, in my cubicle, stuck to the rim of the computer screen, I found a cartoon of a rooster with a bubble over its head that read: "Now do you know what I know?" I never found out who stuck it to my computer, but was paranoid about it. I wondered if there was some awful secret or rumor about me that other people thought I was trying to hide. I never found out who sent it, but there was a girl with a big nose (artistic, she jokingly called it), whom I suspected. Being so suspicious was commonplace in our office. It was a place that if you weren't suspicious of cartoon roosters taunting you, you were out of whack. As I assembled my cubicle for Sander's inspection, I finally dismissed the rooster, and focused on the paper coop I found him in. "Now do you know what I know?" the rooster's paper horizon asked me. It was hard to say for sure, but it seemed like the rooster and all my other animals had spots set aside by my comfort and intuition in my cubicle, and that I alone knew exactly where they lived. The living wasn't fleshly, but then neither were the lights overhead, the processed air we breathed, or the electronic screen we used for reference in lieu of a sun on the horizon.
Sanders, who had advanced to a rye sandwich with what looked like alfalfa sprouts inside and a pink-colored yogurt parfait, strode toward us down the florescent lights cubicle lane, note pad and another of those clicking devices in hand. "What's that clicker for?" I asked him, wondering about the rubber roosters in my life.
"After I've assessed each cubicle to ensure they're all up to their professional workplace standard, I click "complete" on an electronic grid listing the number of the cubicle I've just inspected. I can also type with this thing, so I can make notes on modifications I recommended."
"What if the best modification you can recommend is absence?" I said.
"What do you mean?" Sanders asked, slouching forward with his hands rustling the keys in his pockets and his hands each getting balled up with the index finger on his left hand jutting out for no apparent reason (in other words, looking as un-artful as ever).
"I mean I've assembled my rubber chickens and ducks; I've gathered my plastic alligators; I've moved Alfred Alfredo from his watch post; and I've deliberated whether the Lindas need to go. At this point, it seems the modification you're looking for—the thing that would make my workspace 'professional'—is absence."
"Our policy is clean, professional workspaces, and sometimes, yes, that involves removing clutter," he said, softening his words with a smile at the end.
"Who's to say Chantal and Herman, my Studio 54 manage a trois plastic alligators, are clutter?"
Just then I thought, with Miranda at work in her office and Linda's attention diverted as she inspected the wall for sparkle additions, it might be time to hand Sanders a piece of synthetic animal.
"Sanders, does your work style involve any animal hommages?"
"Come again?"
"I mean, do you have any totems of any kind you plant or hang around yourself to remember a feeling that makes you feel inside yourself?"
He laughed nervously, and then shook his head. "I had a collection of spoons as a child—a spoon for every state my family visited on vacation, but I lost most of them."
"Do you think a rubber chicken would epitomize you, or would a frog of foam be more your thing?" If I could impart an animal symbol from the refuge I had created in the office, I thought maybe he would see the wisdom of being at work with animal spirits on your mind rather than protocol.
"For here or for home? It doesn't sound like something for the workplace," he said.
"It's for any and all places because the epitome of you doesn't have a location," I pointed out.
At this point, Sanders began concentrating on his clicker, glancing up and down, and taking a click or two, and then looking around, above and behind, and resuming the punching up of our personal inventory. How could he ever account for the ducks, alligators, and named writing utensils that counted toward my inner-self inside a numbered cubicle?
"OK, I have you registered as a 12," he said.
"You mean you think on the inside I'm 12?" I mostly knew that's not what he meant, but I thought I'd ask him as though I were really that naïve in the hope that he'd see his numerical designation was arbitrary—surely whatever it stood for wouldn't be as meaningful as how old I felt on the inside.
"No," he laughed, attempting to be inside my joke. "I mean you have 12 violations. Your animals and personal items are still in view."
"Actually," I said, "They're in the process of deciding where to go. They (I) know they can't stay inside my cubicle, so I'm rounding them up for transport. It's a shame keeping them at home because at home the whole thing is mine, so I don't need my animal stand-ins there. But here I have to remind myself of my menagerie."
"There's no room in a professional workspace for personal animals," Sanders said.
I imagined it also wouldn't be OK if I happened to bring my Golden Retriever, Pixie, in. I supposed the ban on animals also included three-dimensional, fleshly ones.
"OK, Sanders, I'll make a deal with you. You can haul away this box of my 'personal animals' if you promise to take one for yourself, and prop it up some place in your home—where it can be a point of reflection. And I don't mean a reflecting decal; I mean something to think about."
He looked at the rubber chickens and plastic alligators, and weighed the birds and the reptiles in either hand, moving his hands up and down as though they were two halves of a scale he was trying to balance.
"The alligator is more space efficient, but the rubber chicken can be folded up for traveling," he said.
"Yes, life is such a hardship," I said, "when you have to choose from amongst your animals, instead of enjoying them all.
Linda and Miranda were off shuttling their boxes of personal paraphernalia down to the parking lot. But the remnants of the stick-on sparkle could be seen. I wondered when Sanders would begin peeling the sparkle away.
"In the end, space efficiency always comes first," Sanders decided. "I'll take the alligator."
As I handed him the alligator, he looked down and recorded on his clicker the diminution of another of my personal items, and turned all around, finally attempting to fit the sparkle-decaled area Linda had created into his system of done and have not done; aligns and not aligns.
"The sparkle is hard to document because it isn't in any one in particular's cubicle," he said. "It's a permeating factor, and my environmental calculator doesn't make allowances for deviations that permeate."
"Maybe you should create a new factor to take into consideration widespread, endemic sparkle," I said. "It's like the sky in here; it's everywhere, but not in any one place in particular. It's just something we all work under—the various sparkles."
"New factors are out of the question," he said, looking down with regret at his clicker. "I have to fit everything into the categories that corporate programmed into this monitor."
"I guess you'll have to tell them you're in search of new factors so sparkle can be taken into account," I said. I gathered up my remaining animals and personified office supplies, and turned to walk down the hall that led to the exit, where I could figure out where to take my menagerie next.
Glancing behind, I noticed the sparkle stuck to the walls (so bad I wondered if Noisen would be fined for it by the building's owners); Sanders studying his monitoring clicker so hard he didn't see me; and me in a sparkle-overlaid mirror Linda put up last week in the hall, the sparkles across the mirror proving my reflection back to me, full of too much glint for me not to notice myself.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged boss, company, job, work environment, workplace. Bookmark the permalink.
2 Responses to Linda Likes Sparkles
What a great story, Margery! I enjoyed it so much. Can't wait for more!
imaginationtigers says:
Thank you very much, Will! I appreciate you taking the time to read it. I'm excited to start sharing my writing with everyone. Please pass along the link to my blog to anyone you think might find my story entertaining (people with a love of the quirky, I guess).


Our office and shop hours are from 7:00 am to 3:30 pm Monday thru Friday. Please call for appointments. Evenings and weekends available upon request.
© 1992 - 2019 -- Solid Solutions Inc. - All Rights Reserved.
Corian® and Zodiaq® are registered trademarks of Dupont, Inc. Gibraltar® and Earthstone™ are registered trademarks of Wilsonart, Inc.


text:
Home » Editor Choice » Breaking News – Video Interviews- Hope Street Terrace Long-Term Care in Port Hope Dealing With COVID-19 Outbreak With No Vaccine In Sight
Breaking News – Video Interviews- Hope Street Terrace Long-Term Care in Port Hope Dealing With COVID-19 Outbreak With No Vaccine In Sight
In Editor Choice, Local Views 1030
In less that two weeks, one resident has died, along with 11 residents and two staff have been infected with COVID-19 at Hope Street Terrace Long Term Care residence in Port Hope.
Dr. Michelle Albert who is a family physician in Clarington and also the Medical Director of Hope Street Terrace Long Term Care said the first case of COVID was detected in a staff member on January 1 and a day or two after a resident was infected.
Ten days later, 11 residents and two staff members have been infected along with a 103-year-old who died on Sunday, January 10.
The long-term care facility currently has 79 residents and Dr. Albert would like to the province to be more flexible in determining the areas that receive the vaccine..
Speaking with Today's Northumberland on Monday, January 11, Dr. Albert said the residents are "relatively stable" with a few receiving intensive care.
"The staff are very stressed. The staff feel very vulnerable, very worried about both their residents and their own health."
"That's why I think it's very important we offer these residents and staff every tool at their disposal to try and protect them from the devastating outbreak that has happened at other homes."
Dr. Albert said the COVID-19 vaccine should be prioritized, not just by whether they are in a red zone, but also in areas where there is long-term care homes in the initial stages of an outbreak.
"Unfortunately whether you're a long-term care facility in a red zone or not, once it gets in the effect is the same."
Even with the vaccine taking time to kick-in, having it for staff and residents it may offer "partial immunity."
"At least get the ball rolling because these people are at very, very high risk."
"I just think it should be given a higher priority then homes that don't have any cases right now."
With Northumberland County not being in a red-zone there is no definitive date when the vaccine will arrive in this area.
"It might be that the horse has left the barn and maybe it's to late, but at least we can try and offer what we can."
The residents that have been infected at Hope Street Terrace are confined to a small area, and Dr. Albert said there are there areas that currently have no cases.
Northumberland-Peterborough South MPP David Piccini said there are "multiple issues at play."
The provincial government is receiving multiple vaccines from the federal government with all of them stored and transported differently.
"So the logistical challenges took time."
Piccini said, "we're at the mercy of what we get from the federal government."
At this point the provincial government is targeting the priority regions where the spread is coming from like the great Toronto areas.
"We're moving around the clock – we just don't have the vaccines."
Piccini said what Dr. Albert is asking for is a "logistical tweak" that raises a number of questions.
"Do we prioritize (Hope Street Terrace) before an area (in the red zone)?"
"And if we shift vaccines who is going to communicate to the doctors, the nurses, the psw's in a priority red zone why you haven't got your vaccine today because we've reallocated it elsewhere."
After speaking with Dr. Albert, Piccini notified officials in government to express concerns.
"I'm part of a government that makes that call. That relies on the expert advice of physicians "
"So it's quite as cut and dry."
For staff at Hope Street Terrace, including Dr. Albert, they will go on and hope for the best.
"I will go do the best doctoring I can do in the home and pray that things go in the right direction and we don't get further spread."
Previous Post Municipality of Port Hope Announces New Alert System to Keep Community Informed During Emergencies
Next Post Cobourg Transit – Regular Hours and Cash Fares Resume Effective January 26

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Archive | April 16, 2016
IRS Agent Admits Income Tax is Unconstitutional and Illegal*
By Sean Adl-Tabatabai
Friday 15th April was tax day in America, where millions of Americans file their returns with the IRS so as to avoid being prosecuted for 'illegally' witholding tax.
However, an IRS agent has recently come forward and admitted that not only is income tax fundamentally unconstitutional, but it is also illegal for the agency to demand that citizens pay it.
Shtfplan.com reports:
Moreover, the spending by the Federal government and the role of the Federal Reserve in issuing money create overlapping levels of evil that have driven the American people into mere serfs – albeit with cool toys and great TV reception.
Former IRS Special Agent Joe Bannister explains to CNBC what he found out about the reality of the tax code:
Essentially, its many pages are a work of legal fiction, operating under 'colour of law' and used to oppress the people, and separate established wealth from everyone else.
Bannister argues that by the books, the incomes of most Americans are not subject to the tax code, but the use of intimidation and nebulous code language has prevented the vast majority from discovering the truth.
In this vintage clip, then-Congressman Ron Paul argues that the 16th Amendment wasn't properly ratified, leaving the 1913 "law" dubious at best.
Nonetheless, the use of intimidation and the custom of "death and taxes" has left millions and millions of people guilty until proven innocent, often labelled as "tax cheats" who are targeted without due process and with police state vengeance… now, they are attaining the power to revoke your passport if you don't pay what they say you owe!
Will the American people ever be free from the burden of illegal taxation?
The late Aaron Russo, who produced several classic Hollywood films, put it all out in his documentary "America: Freedom vs. Fascism."
If you haven't seen it, Russo digs into the questions behind the questions and exposes the naked fraud that is holding America hostage.
This is a must see documentary… and one to share with friends and family while they still have the nation's ridiculous and obscene tax burden on their minds.
Make no mistake – simply knowing about this information will not protect you. As Russo has noted, the system is very much like a mob. If you don't pay, they might hurt you, fine you, penalize you or even jail you. But none of that makes it right, fair or legal.
April 15th should be a reminder of how little freedom is left in the nation that so-often prides itself on being the leader of the free world – but the last thing Washington would ever do is let people be.
Tyranny of Taxation and Regulation without Representation*
"Is This The Truth About Tax's"
Bark and no Bite for Head of European Commission Helping Corporations Escape Taxation!?*
U.S. Taxpayers Now Alone in Financing Ukraine's Ethnic Cleansing*
U.K. Police Target Schoolchildren as Young as 4 with Tax Payer Funded, Transgender Propaganda*
U.S. Classifying Bitcoin as a Commodity So It can be Taxed and Regulated*
Brussels Demands extra €519m from U.K. Taxpayers*
1980 Interview: How the Tax Exempt Foundation has brought about the Destruction of U.S.*
Flint Tax Payers to foot Gov. Synder's $500,000 Attorney's Fee*
Welsh Town Tax Rebellion Uses Big Corporations 'offshore' to Avoid Tax on Local Business*
Rothschild Establishes Billionaire Tax Haven Inside America*
U.S. Sued over $280bn Tax-deductible Aid Sent to Israel*
American and British Taxes Paying for Eugenics in India*
Israel Prevents Release of Palestinian Tax Revenues*
France is Broke, but Still Reaping from the Colonial Tax!*
This entry was posted on April 16, 2016, in Humanities, The Americas, Videos and tagged capitalism, civil rights, colonialism, global governance, globalization, NWO, oppression, poverty, society, sovereignty, U.S., videos.
Norway is Kidnapping Children 'Legally'*
By Royce Christyn
A group of activists from over 30 different countries are planning mass protests over Norway's legal "kidnapping" of children
Demonstrations against the Norwegian Child Welfare Service are taking place on Saturday in what the activists call the agency's practice of "kidnapping" children from their families.
According to The Local:
After a wave of demonstrations over the past several months, the Norwegian Child Welfare Service (Barnevernet) will be the subject of a coordinated 'day of action' that could draw as many as 300,000 people, organizers told The Local.
Spurred by a high-profile case in which five children were removed from their Norwegian/Romanian parents' care by Barnevernet in November, Norway's child welfare service will be the subject of protests by those who say the agency "kidnaps" children.
On Saturday, coordinated demonstrations will be held worldwide, including at five locations in Norway.
"Protests will be held in 70 cities in 29 countries and more than 300,000 people worldwide are expected," said Czech MEP Tomáš Zdechovský, a leading voice in the Barnevernet protests.
The protests will be broadcast live by Romanian media outlets and organizers say they are aiming to set a world record as the "largest protest against human rights abuse towards children and family".
New case: Newborn twins taken at birth
Much of the protest movement centres around the Norwegian/Romanian Bodnariu family, who have become a rallying point for both Romanians and the international Evangelical community. But their case hardly stands alone.
Just this week, Barnevernet returned twin girls to their parents after authorities took the children away just hours after their birth.
The agency based the removal of the children on a medical report that wrongly concluded that the babies' 24-year-old mother, Natasha Myra Olsen, suffered from mental illness. After two psychology experts testified that the diagnosis, which was given when Olsen was just 13, was incorrect, authorities ruled that the couple would have their children returned to them. Barnevernet, however, refused to apologize for taking the children in the first place.
"Difficult for foreigners to understand"
Anders Henriksen, the head of section at the Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs (Bufdir), said that controversial child removals often have an element of cultural misunderstanding.
"The Norwegian Child Welfare is a system which can be difficult to understand for foreigners who settle in Norway. It may be challenging for them to understand that a public institution like the Norwegian Child Welfare can intervene in the private life of a family, and take over the care of the children," he told The Local.
Henriksen said that a total of 1,664 children were taken into care in 2014. Of those, 424 had mothers who were born abroad.
"The Norwegian Child Welfare Act's main purpose is to ensure that children who live in conditions that can harm their health and development are given necessary help and care. The Act applies to all children in Norway, regardless of their residential status, background or nationality/citizenship," he said.
"All children in Norway should grow up in a secure environment," Henriksen added.
Child removals on the rise
According to the Norwegian Ministry of Children and Equality, the overall number of children and young people removed increased by roughly 50% between 2008 and 2013.
TV2 reported this week that child removals are now increasingly happening immediately after birth. In 2008, Barnevernet took over the care of 16 children immediately following their birth. By 2014, that number had tripled to 44.
With the increase in cases, there has also been a rise of voices critical of Norway's child protection practices.
In an open letter, 170 Norwegian child protection professionals including lawyers and psychologists called Barnevernet a "dysfunctional organisation which makes far-reaching errors of judgement with serious consequences".
And the criticism has extended far beyond Norway. Citizens of the Czech Republic, Russia, Lithuania, India, and Brazil, among other countries, have accused Norway of abusing authority and ruining families.
So while Barnevernet and Bufdir say they are acting in "the best interest of the child", those taking to the streets on Saturday counter that Norway's "diabolical system" is destroying families.
Organizers of Saturday's protests say that Norwegian authorities remove children for highly questionable reasons, such as not properly putting away folded clothes, using too much soap on the child and dressing children too "prettily".
While he couldn't discuss individual cases, Henriksen said that in most instances, children are removed because of "maltreatment, violence, substance abuse, psychological problems, drugs and sexual abuse".
"It is required that people living in Norway obey Norwegian law [and] it is forbidden by law to punish children in Norway physically and psychologically," he said.
The Bodnariu family at the centre of much of the international attention plans to attend the anti-Barnevernet demonstration in Stryn, organizers said.
Norway Bill Would let Kids Change their Sex at Age 7*
Child Trafficking in the U.K. and the Child Protection System*
Forced Adoption: U.K. Parents Cleared Of Abuse 'Unlikely to See Their Child Again' Three Years Later*
Informants Evidence of Canadian Politicians, Churchmen involved in Child Trafficking and Ritual Sacrifices*
Major lawsuit Hits Israeli Minister, Judges, and U.S. Zionist Donors for Child Trafficking*
Arizona Child Traffick Racketeering via CPS and Doctors on Trial before U.S. Supreme Court*
Child Survivors of Nepal Earthquake Sold to Rich British Families*
The Bush Syndicate: Kansas Children for Sale*
7 Children Kidnapped by the State from Homeschooling Family to Remain in Custody*
From Child Trafficking to Head of U.N. Ops. in Haiti
Police Remove Children from Caring Parents, Gave them To a Man Who Raped them for 6 Years*
Child abduction in Peru – but who are the kidnappers?
Pope Francis Found Guilty Of Child Trafficking, Rape, Murder*
Cameron's Mother and Aunt Protest against his Cruel Cuts to Children's Services*
Whistle Blowers Incarcerated, While Queen Elizabeth is Free, but Found Guilty in Missing Children Case*
This entry was posted on April 16, 2016, in Activism, Europe, Family, Humanities, Videos, youth and tagged children, civil rights, colonialism, culture, global governance, globalization, human rights, Norway, NWO, oppression, secularism, society, sovereignty.
Stolen Documents Lead to U.S. Pull Out of Yemen*
[ Editor's Note: The Yemen conflict might have more layers to it than it has guns, and I would not want to try to count those. But brother Ferris has discovered that with the U.S. finally pulling out of Yemen the very large weapons and equipment stockpile for the CIA, 500 million worth, seems to have gone missing. Imagine that.
It is the kind of thing that keeps inspectors general up late at night on how they can cover a missing stash like that. Obama did not have any mud, or sand, stick to him on his Yemen policy when it seemed to evaporate before his eyes. As Seth covers below, it was a good place for it to happen as most of the public did not know if Yemenis were Africans, Arabs, or another species.
This is a long piece but a classic get down deep into their short Seth Ferris special… Jim W. Dean ]
– First published … April 07, 2016 –
Yes, they are using camels
By Seth Ferris
You have to scroll a long way down the list of countries before you get to Yemen. So most people don't bother, unless they already have a relationship with the country, and are therefore better informed to begin with about what is going on.
Arab Spring?
Islamic terrorism?
U.S. military intervention?
Civil War?
Yemen ticks all these boxes, but plenty of other countries also do. Unless something different happens which grabs the headlines, Yemen just gets lumped in with other countries where the same things are happening, and the Yemen situation is assumed to be the same.
This is why Yemen has become the Middle East's version of Georgia. One reason the little republic in the Caucasus became the regional dirty tricks capital is that people don't know where it is, and if you point out that you are referring to the former Soviet country rather than the U.S. state they lose interest. With nobody interested in the place, or knowledgeable about it, a lot of things which would be noticed elsewhere go long undetected due to Western public apathy.
Yemen is a long way down the alphabetical list, was two separate countries until recently and has no distinguishing feature for the general news reader. Other more notorious or glamorous countries take the headlines. So as in Georgia, the Western powers can get away with what they like because no one will notice what they do there, assuming it is merely similar to what happens in other countries.
However that may be about to change. In late March the Houthi rebels, who control the capital Sana'a and much of the rest of the country, seized a cache of files. The U.S. claims that these contain details of CIA operations and the names of agents. It also says they have been handed over to Iran, which is known to back the Houthi forces fighting the U.S.-backed government.
As few people care about Yemen, exposure of agents there is not going to embarrass the U.S. for more than a couple of days. It could have let this incident pass without comment, or denied it had taken place, and the effect on public opinion, and on the ground, would have been the same. Instead, it has responded by trying to get every U.S. soldier and diplomat out of Yemen as quickly as possible, so fearful is it of what is in those files.
The U.S. doesn't mention Iran, the pantomime villain of the Western world, unless it is scared. It is scared that this story will make the world take notice of Yemen, and undermine the reason for the U.S. being there. There is something in those files which could make Yemen famous: and based on what we already know, but few care about, there is one obvious thing it could be.
Too little oversight to be true
Last year Barack Obama hailed the CIA's work in Yemen as a "model" counter-terrorism operation. His intelligence network had worked with the Hadi government to target Al Qaeda operatives in the country, and was boasting considerable success.
We are all aware the Al Qaeda was created by the U.S. and Saudi intelligence to pursue its policy in Afghanistan, and that it formed the blueprint for several other terrorist groups inserted into countries the West had an interest in.
We have seen the trails of arms and personnel supplied to such groups, and frequently seen such influential U.S. figures as former president Ronald Reagan and Senator John McCain openly meeting with them and supporting their cause, for as long as it suits the U.S.
So if any country knows who the terrorists are, where they are and what they are doing it is the U.S. But the looting of the documents has not only led to the closure of the U.S. Embassy in Yemen, President Hadi having already fled to Aden, but the withdrawal of the last Special Operations forces in the country. These same forces have been there throughout the civil war which followed the Arab Spring, but now feel so compromised they have to leave for their own safety.
The real reason for the troops' departure has been suggested by the Pentagon itself. As soon as the U.S. Embassy closed it was announced that over $500 million worth of "counter-terrorism" equipment in Yemen has disappeared, including helicopters, drones and jeeps.
This is a very familiar scenario to anyone who has followed other U.S. military projects. The Georgia-Russia War of 2008 was a good example of a conflict in which a large quantity of U.S.-supplied weaponry mysteriously disappeared. This was actually because most of these weapons were never used in combat, never even arrived to Georgia. They had already been sold on to terrorist groups in deals brokered by the U.S., as a recent article in this journal, amongst many others, demonstrated.
"The U.S. supplied similar military aid to Iraq, but far larger in quantity. Its prolonged involvement in that country to "make this aid work" via training and support became a severe domestic embarrassment. None of this support prevented the rise of ISIS, funded by oil sold on the U.S. market and armed and staffed by U.S. trainees moved around from hotspot to hotspot on fake Georgian passports."
The U.S. has remained in Yemen whilst a civil war is going on, despite all its alleged successes against terrorists, the same Yemeni Army it trained and supplied, and its own Special Operations forces. But they have been unable to stop the Houthi advance. Could this be because it did not have the weapons to do it? Could it be that the looted files will name the same suppliers and "consultants" who have supplied weapons to Ukraine, Syria and Georgia?
Bad guy, good guy
The U.S. has been in Yemen until now because it supported the local version of the Arab Spring revolts. According to sources who were on the ground at the time, even then it was supplying large quantities of small arms to combatants in a country already awash with them, who needed political support rather than weapons.
The outcome of the Arab Spring was a U.S takeover. The president the people were supposedly protesting against, Ali Abdullah Saleh was replaced by his Vice-President, equally responsible for the crimes of his regime. This solution did not give the people what they wanted, hence the civil war which has forced that Vice-President into internal exile. But it was arranged by Washington, and we can expect that the usual paybacks were involved.
The official line now is that the missing weapons were looted by Yemeni Army units still loyal to Saleh, who have joined the Houthi out of nationalist motives. The story goes that he is using the Houthi to take power again, despite the Houthi allegedly being motivated by a desire to destroy any Sunni-dominated government, such as that led by Saleh.
Nationalist motives are claimed by every organisation regarded as "terrorist." These claims are ignored until the groups concerned are successful, or win U.S.-backing. Only then do they become nationalists, freedom fighters but not terrorists. We can recall Chad in 1982, when the terrorist FAN became the legitimate nationalist government defending the country against the "Libyan-backed" deposed president within a week of talking over, and the Taliban suddenly being treated as a political force when the Afghan government, at US urging, began negotiating with them.
If the accusation of Saleh looting is being made with the word "nationalist" attached the deposed president is being given credibility, implying he will be rehabilitated or even reinstalled. This would answer the question of where the weapons have gone. With regret, the U.S. will have to accept the inevitable restoration of Saleh due to the sheer numbers of arms he has at his disposal. The fact that there is, as yet, no evidence that he has stolen any arms at all is a small inconvenience the U.S. will forget to mention.
All eggs in the wrong basket
Further evidence that the U.S. took over Yemen to smuggle arms to terrorists is provided by the manner in which it has conducted the "counter-terrorism" campaign it has waged to justify that presence. Increasingly, it has used a single weapon – the drone strike – to attack local Islamic State and Al Qaeda affiliates, rather than pursuing the range of military options the scale of the equipment supplied would give it.
In January 2015 Obama was forced to defend the use of drones, saying that the alternative was committing U.S. troops to the area. He did not however mention that all the arms and equipment supplied, much of which is now apparently missing, was supplied so that the Yemeni Army would do what the U.S. troops would be doing if deployed there.
U.S. commanders have confirmed that Yemenis are perfectly capable of handling these weapons themselves, but political decisions are preventing them doing so. Have we not heard that many times before? The implication of this is that the army command contains many Houthi sympathisers or Saleh supporters, despite a purge carried out since Saleh's removal, which successfully replaced anyone with such sympathies and can be repeated at any time.
The drone campaign has undoubtedly claimed many civilian lives. It has been condemned by the U.N. and many European politicians, and even the Yemeni parliament, whose members owe their livelihoods to giving no more than constructive criticism to President Hadi, eventually ordered a halt to the strikes in defiance of him. In at least some cases they are also contrary to the U.S's own policy on targeted killings, as Human Rights Watch has pointed out.
The U.S. is now saying that its pullout will leave it without the connections to conduct its counter-terrorism campaign. Therefore all that missing military hardware will be lost or rendered useless. However it insists it will still attack targets within Yemen from outside the country. This will, most conveniently, make drone attacks the only option, and legitimise the previous practice by the back door, now that other weapons, including all the missing ones, can no longer be used.
The U.S. knew when it entered Yemen that the two modern states whose merger formed it had only come into existence as a result of nationalist uprisings against colonial powers: the British in the south, the former Aden Protectorate, and the Ottomans, and subsequently the Saudis who supported the native monarchy, in the north. It also knew that the primary reason these had taken place was the attitude of the colonial powers, whose only interest in Yemen was in using it as a staging post to protect other, more important interests, not those of Yemenis themselves.
If the U.S. ever wanted out, this history would give it every excuse. The locals were revolting against foreign domination again. Of course they were, there could not be another reason, it was as inevitable as the Manifest Destiny the U.S. claimed was its own when it destroyed its own native population.
But the U.S. has stayed in Yemen through an ongoing war, its client government fleeing the capital and the American embassy closed. None of these factors have made it leave. When the rebels get hold of its intelligence documents however it shuts up shop, though few would have cared about the seizure if the U.S. itself hadn't drawn attention to it.
If these documents are released we will finally have proof from within US. intelligence of what has so far only been proven or alleged by other sources. Then Yemen will become famous as the place the U.S. took over just to supply arms to terrorists it was supposed to be fighting. Then many politicians in many countries in which this has happened, and many U.S. arms manufacturers and dealers, will compete to sacrifice each other to save themselves.
Wouldn't you run away if you were the one on the ground, in the firing line of any investigation? When those who have just left Yemen have no choice but to talk themselves, we might just find the world becomes a better place, at least for a while.
Saudi Fighter Jets Break Yemen Ceasefire*
U.K. Illegally at War in Yemen*
DynCorp Mercenaries Replace Blackwater Mercenaries in Yemen*
U.S. Helicopter Failed to Rescue ISIL Leader in Yemen*
U.S. Earns $33 Billion Arms Sales in Eleven Months from the Destruction of Yemen*
U.S. Used Al-Qaeda to Blackmail Yemen*
Former Yemeni President Saleh Declares Alliance with Houthi Rebels*
Eastern Yemen Frantically Trying to get Food into Aden*
Israeli Officers Captured, Killed in Yemen*
Red Sea Deal: Are Israel and Saudi Arabia Forming a Joint Military*
U.S., Saudi, Turkey, Discuss Delivering Weapons to Terrorists against Assad*
Preparing for War or a Huge Profit? Oil Supertankers Forming "World's Biggest Traffic Jam"*
This entry was posted on April 16, 2016, in Asia, Europe, Humanities, Middle East, The Americas and tagged capitalism, colonialism, global governance, globalization, Israel, Muslims, natural resources, NWO, oppression, secularism, society, sovereignty, U.K., U.S., WWIII, Yemen.
Jewish Lawyer Banned after Telling Sex Abuse Victim not to Accuse a 'fellow Yid'*
By Tom Cowie
Alex Lewenberg, 74, can't practise law for 15 months and must take a legal ethics course after telling Jewish victim not to help police prosecute paedophile David Cyprys. Photo: Justin McManus
Criminal solicitor Alex Lewenberg has been banned from practising law for 15 months after telling a Jewish sexual abuse victim not to help police prosecute Yeshivah College paedophile David Cyprys.
The lawyer, who has represented a string of notorious clients including Billy "The Texan" Longley and Boris "The Black Diamond" Beljajev, must also take an ethics course before being reinstated.
The 74-year-old was found guilty of professional misconduct by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal last month after the Legal Services Commissioner took action over two comments he admitted making in 2011.
David Cyprys was jailed for the rape and sexual assault of young boys at Yeshivah College. Photo: Jason South
On two occasions, once while in court for a bail hearing for Cyprys and later in a secretly recorded telephone conversation, Mr Lewenberg said that Jews shouldn't help prosecute fellow Jews.
At the time Mr Lewenberg, a Russian-born Jew, was representing Cyprys, who was later jailed for the rape and sexual assault of young boys at Yeshivah College.
VCAT vice-president Judge Pamela Jenkins ordered on Tuesday that Mr Lewenberg be reprimanded for his behaviour and should have his practising certificate suspended for 15 months from June 1.
She also decreed that prior to returning to practice, Mr Lewenberg would also have to complete a course in legal ethics and professional responsibility.
Mr Lewenberg will also have to pay the costs Legal Services Commissioner of more than $55,000.
During a bail hearing at the Melbourne Magistrates Court in September 2011, Mr Lewenberg turned to the father of Cyprys and said:
"It is most disappointing when a person who has nothing to do with the case and being a fellow Jew does wilfully seek to hinder another Jew in his defence of criminal charges."
In a secretly recorded telephone call a month later Mr Lewenberg told sexual abuse victim AVB:
"I am not exactly delighted that another Yid would assist police against an accused, no matter whatever he is accused of and that is the reason why I was very disappointed," Mr Lewenberg said.
"Because there is a tradition, if not a religious requirement, that you do not assist against Abraham."
In handing down her orders, Judge Jenkins questioned whether Mr Lewenberg was remorseful for the comments after he apologised in a letter sent to AVB last week.
"Without underestimating the importance of such unreserved apology to AVB, it does nevertheless reflect poorly upon the Respondent's genuine insight into the impact upon AVB, having left making such apology until now," she wrote.
Mr Lewenberg admitted previous instances of professional misconduct as a solicitor, including being found guilty of four charges in 1989 which led to him being banned from practising for two years.
Judge Jenkins said she had taken Mr Lewenberg's prior history into account, which included three instances of "very serious offending" and five instances where he faced disciplinary hearings.
Mr Lewenberg's defence lawyers had asked that their client's age be taken into account in any sanction, as he only had a few remaining years left in his career.
However Judge Jenkins said no such considerations would be made:
"The Respondent is a very experienced mature age practitioner who is already in the twilight years of his career," she said.
"In the circumstances, it is not the function of a suitable sanction to ensure that he may yet return to practise."
In delivering her initial finding of professional misconduct, Judge Jenkins said that Mr Lewenberg's behaviour in suggesting the Jewish community should close ranks in the face of criminal prosecution was "truly shocking".
She said that Mr Lewenberg's use of words such as "moser" (a term for Jew who assists police) did not belong in the modern-day practise of law.
Abuse and Missing Pupils Cover Up Revealed at Illegal Jewish Schools in the U.K.*
Israel, Organized Crime, White Slavery, and the Sex Trade*
How Israel Treats its Own: Jewish Mother flees Israel to give birth in Palestinian-run Bethlehem
Paedophilia in Jewish Mikvah's*
The Jewish Lobby and Lord Janner's Catalogue of Child Sex Abuse*
Jewish Sexology and the Assault on Gender and the Family*
The Talmudic Roots of Jewish Supremacism*
Israel Uses Child Slave Labour to Plant and Harvest its Agriculture*
What Burning a Baby says about Israel*
Israeli Soldier Strangle-holds Palestinian Boy*
To be an Arab Jew in the West is to Say you don't Exist*
Zionism = Satanism: 'To My Fellow Israelis'*
The Rothschild's Zionist World Order*
This entry was posted on April 16, 2016, in Australasia, Gender, Humanities, People, youth and tagged Australia, children, colonialism, global governance, globalization, human rights, Israel, mental health, NWO, oppression, secularism, sexploitation, society.
British Military Expert, Israel Must Strike Iran – On Its Own*
Seeing Israel has been quite effective with its global false flag operations, Kemp may have reason to believe that Israel is "an outpost of strength" to like-minded people. Unfortunately, our world is run by such ignorance…
Richard Kemp
What Colonel Richard Kemp says below must sound like music to Zionist hawks. However his judgement is seriously amiss, as illustrated by his praise for Israel's "unique morality".
His poor judgement is further illustrated by his call for Israel to go it alone and "initiate" a strike on Iran. Such action would undoubtedly ignite wider conflict so why is Kemp calling for such action?
Is his judgement really so bad?
Some of the most vocal opponents to unilateral Israeli strikes on Iran have been the Zionist state's most senior military commanders. They know that such an operation would stretch the IDF's capabilities to the limit — with no guarantee of success.
They also know that a unilateral Israeli strike would invite an Iranian counter strike; involving hundreds, possibly even thousands of missiles, including some guided high precision weaponry aimed at high value targets such as naval and nuclear installations, command bunkers and military airfields. While Iran's Hezbollah allies in Lebanon could be expected to rain down many more missiles on to central and northern Israel.
In other words the consequences of such a strike could be devastating. That's why senior Israeli military commanders and intelligence chiefs, like the late Meir Dagan, argued against launching strikes on Iran. According to the former MOSSAD chief Dagan, a proposal for attacking Iran's nuclear facilities was "the stupidest thing I have ever heard".
That was five years-ago and since then Iran has beefed up its air defences even more, with powerful new radar stations and taken delivery of the Russian "game changer" air defence system, the S-300.
So if Dagan thought an Israeli unilateral strike on Iran was stupid in 2011, it would be near suicidal now. Ed.
David Rosenberg — Arutz Sheva April 14, 2016
Israel ought to go rogue on Iran, suggested a prominent British military expert on Tuesday, saying that the Jewish state was "an outpost of strength" that should target Iran's nuclear program.
In an address to the Gatestone Institute on Tuesday, Colonel (ret.) Richard Kemp presented some of the most serious security challenges facing the West, praising Israel as an example of "unique morality" in a difficult geopolitical situation.
Kemp, who retired from the British military in 2006, now serves as a member of the High Level Military Group, a group of international military experts and advisers.
Praising Israel's resolve and high ethical standards, Kemp lamented what he described as Europe's "spiral downward to being obliterated."
Despite much of the bad press Israel has received in the course of combating terrorism, Kemp argued that much of the criticism directed at Israel was the result of simple ignorance.
Kemp illustrated the point with his experiences at a recent Israel Apartheid Week event at New York University.
"I asked the students how many believed it was illegal to kill innocents in times of war. And I was surprised to discover their level of ignorance on that score, because all of them answered in the affirmative. In fact, it is not illegal to kill innocent civilians in times of war. It may not be nice; it may not be desirable; but it is not illegal."
"Though killing innocent civilians is obviously something we must avoid doing as much as we possibly can, our enemies hide among the civilian population, and sometimes we must risk the lives of civilians in order to destroy the enemy. Fear of doing this means that we will always lose."
Kemp was skeptical about the prospects of a negotiated peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
"I don't believe there can be a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel wants to live in peace, but what the Arabs want is its annihilation."
Among the top security threats Kemp mentioned was Iran's nuclear program. Despite last year's deal to freeze Iran's nuclear program, Kemp worried over the Islamic regime's future nuclear capacity, calling upon Israel to "initiate an offensive strike on Iran.
Whoever Controls Eurasia Controls the World*
Entrapment: Iran Lifting Sanctions and Coming Betrayal*
Reporter May be Jailed for Revealing the CIA Truth Behind Iran Plot*
Playing with Iran to Alienate Russia and Destabilize Iran*
U.S. Bishops Find Iran has No Nuclear Proliferation*
It Is Time for Iran to Tell the West 'Goodbye'*
An Iranian Leads the Coalition Assault on ISIS*
Open Letter to the People of Iran from the People of the United States*
One Country that does not Cheat: Netanyahu said He fears Iran will Honour Nuclear Deal*
Iran and Russia Officially Ditch the Dollar*
Israel Ordered to Pay Iran $1.1 Billion*
U.S. Cyber-attack on Iran Foiled*
Former US Senate candidate: Israel False Flag Attack on U.S. to Stir Up War against Iran*
Doctors Without Borders ask Iran to Provide Health Care in 20 Countries*
Desperate Netanyahu Launches Twitter Account for Iranians*
Netanyahu's Temper Tantrum over Iran deal has Obama Bearing 'Gifts'*
The Real Reasons for the Iran Agreement*
Saudi Arabia to allow Israel Airspace to Strike Iran*
A Meteorite or not a Meteorite Causes Serious Impact in Iran*
U.S. New sanctions Targets Scores of Russian, Chinese, Syrian firms over Iran*
Iran Foils Sabotage Operations at Nuclear Site*
Iran and Greece Airspace Open for Russia to Send Humanitarian Aid to Syria*
Senior Iranian Cleric Urges US to Stop Supporting ISIL*
The Beast Revealed: U.S. Celebrates Iranian General's Death at ISIS Hands*
Letter from Iran's Leader to the Youth in Western Countries*
U.S. Treasury Imposes New Ballistic Missile Sanctions on Iran*
U.S. to Pay Iran $1.7bn in Debt, Interest*
What Really Happened When Iran Captured Two American Vessels*
This entry was posted on April 16, 2016, in Asia, Europe, Humanities, Middle East and tagged capitalism, colonialism, global governance, globalization, Iran, Israel, Muslims, NWO, oppression, secularism, society, sovereignty, U.K., WWIII.
40+ Killed, 90,000 Evacuated as Japan's Hit by 2 Powerful Quakes and Devastating Landslides*
Dozens of people are feared trapped under rubble in southern Japan, as the death toll from two earthquakes has climbed to 41. The search for survivors is in full swing, while 90,000 people have been evacuated from their homes to safer locations.
Over 200 aftershocks have hit Japan following the initial Thursday tremor of 6.5-magnitude, which hit the city of Kumamoto on the island of Kyushu. Officials have warned that the risk of further strong aftershocks will linger for about a week.
About 190 of the injured are in serious condition, the Japanese government said.
Only 24 hours later the same areas was struck by a violent 7.1-magnitude earthquake. The Japan Meteorological Agency briefly issued tsunami warnings for the areas that were still recovering from Thursday's devastating tremours.
Landslide site caused by an earthquake is seen in Minamiaso town, Kumamoto prefecture, southern Japan, in this photo taken by Kyodo April 16, 2016. © Reuters
The overall death toll from the two quakes now stands at 41, with more than 1,000 people injured – 184 of them seriously.
About 90,000 people in Kumamoto Prefecture were evacuated to shelters, authorities say.
"We are aware of multiple locations where people have been buried alive," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said. "Police, firefighters and Self Defense Force personnel are doing all they can to rescue them."
Local residents look at cracks caused by an earthquake on a road in Mashiki town, Kumamoto prefecture, southern Japan, in this photo taken by Kyodo April 16, 2016. © Reuters
The death toll in the earthquakes may be climbing by the hour, Kumamoto Prefectural official Tomoyuki Tanaka said.
About 170,000 households were without electricity and 385,000 without water following the powerful quakes.
Yuichiro Yoshikado described his experience during Thursday's earthquake to AP. He was in the bathroom at the time.
Romon gate (bottom R), designated as a nationally important cultural property, and other buildings damaged by an earthquake are seen at Aso Shrine in Aso, Kumamoto prefecture, southern Japan, in this photo taken by Kyodo April 16, 2016. © Reuters
"I grabbed onto the sides of the bathtub, but the water in the tub, it was about 70 percent filled with water, was going like this," he said, waving his arms, "and all the water splashed out."
"I thought I was going to die and I couldn't bear it any longer," he added.
Among 29 casualties are two students from Tokai University
"We offer our sincerest prayers for the two," said a University statement. "
We're trying to confirm the safety of other students."
"I felt strong shaking at first, then I was thrown about like I was in a washing machine," a Tokai University student told local media, "All the lights went out and I heard a loud noise. A lot of gas is leaking and while there hasn't been a fire that remains a concern."
The quakes triggered massive landslides, which cut off roads and destroyed bridges, local media reported, adding that they imperiled rescue and relief efforts.
Meteorologists forecast heavy rain and wind, adding that the temperature is expected to drop to 13 degrees Celsius.
"The wind is expected to pick up and rain will likely get heavier," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said during a government meeting.
"Rescue operations at night will be extremely difficult … It's a race against time."
230 aftershocks hit Japan in 48hrs
The latest big aftershock came hours after the second deadly earthquake and measured magnitude 5.3.
Hotel guests gather at the lobby after another earthquake hit the area in Kumamoto, southern Japan, in this photo taken by Kyodo April 16, 2016. © Reuters
Japan has suffered more than 230 aftershocks of at least level 1 on the Japanese scale since Thursday's earthquake, Japan's meteorological agency said.
"We have already seen several in the mid to upper 5 plus magnitude range, and over the next several days and weeks, we would not be surprised to see more earthquakes of this size," said John Bellini, a geophysicist with the USGS, as cited by Reuters.
Local residents are still in shock over the earthquakes and the following tremours.
Police officers check a collapsed house after an earthquake in Mashiki town, Kumamoto prefecture, southern Japan, in this photo taken by Kyodo April 16, 2016. © Reuters
"We left my house as we could not stay due to continuous jolts," local resident Hisako Ogata, 61, told AFP, "It was so scary," she added. "Thank God we are still alive."
Mount Aso volcano erupts after 2 quakes
Hours after the second deadly earthquake, the Japan Meteorological Agency recorded an eruption at Mount Aso, the largest active volcano in Japan.
The 1,592-meter volcano is nearly 30 minutes' drive from the earthquakes epicenter. It is not yet clear if the volcano's seismic activity is connected to the quakes.
Numerous photos and videos on social media showed plumes of smoke rising some 100 meters into the sky.
Historic monuments damaged in the quakes
Several historic monuments in Kumamoto Prefecture have been badly damaged in the quakes.
The 1,700-year-old Aso Shrine in the town of Aso, one of the oldest and most prominent shrines in Japan, has been severely damaged. Some of its curved tiled roofs were flattened on the ground.
The shrine's towering gate, known as the "Rōmon" or "Cherry Blossom Gate" collapsed and is in ruins. The haiden or worshiping hall was also destroyed.
The Aso Shrine was officially recognized as one of the Kanpei-taisha – it stood in the first rank of government-supported shrines.
The quake has also destroyed another historic Japanese icon – the 400-year-old Kumamoto Castle, which is considered one of the three main castles in Japan. Its walls were severely breached, TV footage showed.
The castle's administrative office closed the structure to tourists.
"Please do not go close to the stone walls as aftershocks continue," the office announced on its Facebook page.
Fukushima: Two Years Later
1.2 million to evacuate in Japan's Mt. Fuji Volcano erupts
Against Massive Protests Japan Passes New War Bill for the NWO*
Level of Radiation at Fukushima so High, not Even TEPCO Robots can Survive*
Japan's Sakurajima Volcano Erupts 50km from Nuclear Plant*
This entry was posted on April 16, 2016, in Asia, Humanities, People and tagged environment, Japan, natural disasters, nature, society, sovereignty.


text:
Acclaim >>
Acclaim: Recent honors for Emory faculty and staff
Emory Report | June 15, 2020
Acclaim: Recent honors for Emory faculty and staff May 18, 2020
Awards and Distinctions, Community, Emory College, Health, Center for Ethics, School of Public Health, Graduate School
"Acclaim" offers a sample of recent honors for Emory faculty and staff. Listings may include awards and prizes; election to boards and societies; and similarly notable accomplishments in the wider community.
"Acclaim" is published in Emory Report on the second Tuesday of each month. To suggest items for the July 14 column, please email your submission by June 25.
Emory faculty and staff are frequently recognized for their work locally, nationally and internationally. The following is a sampling of recent accolades, including multiple leadership awards and honors from professional societies.
Honors highlighted in this column:
Abebe contributes to Ethiopia's COVID-19 guidelines
Brown adds to accolades with Lambda Literary's Trustee Award
Gold named co-chair of AJFF evaluation committee
Kinlaw to help with COVID-19 vaccine work group
Pecou recognized with South Arts State Fellowship
Memoir by Ristaino garners award for women's issues
Abebe Gebremariam, the in-country coordinator for the Emory-Ethiopia partnership, was acknowledged in the Ethiopian Ministry of Health's "Guidelines for the Management of Pediatric Patients During the COVID-19 Pandemic," issued in May 2020. He and several other leaders in global public health were acknowledged for their invaluable perspectives in planning Ethiopia's nationwide COVID-19 emergency response. His contributions were informed by more than a decade of leadership in maternal-infant health promotion and research as part of the Emory-Ethiopia partnership that was launched by the Emory School of Nursing in 2010.
Jericho Brown is the 2020 recipient of Lambda Literary's Trustee Award, given annually to an extraordinary individual who has broken new ground in the field of LGBTQ literature and culture. The awards – known as the Lammys – celebrate authors who bring necessary, urgent and artful writing into the world.
Brown is Winship Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing and director of Emory's Creative Writing Program. The poems in his Pulitzer Prize-winning collection "The Tradition" include allusions to everything from Greek myths to Phillis Wheatley, the first published female African-American poet. The book has been referred to as "a collection of masterful lyrics that combine delicacy with historical urgency in their loving evocation of bodies vulnerable to hostility and violence."
Gold named co-chair of Atlanta Jewish Film Festival evaluation committee
Hazel Gold, associate professor of Spanish and Judith London Evans Interim Director of the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies, will serve as co-chair of the 2021 Atlanta Jewish Film Festival film evaluation committee.
The committee screens films submitted by directors who hope to show their work at the AJFF, currently one of the largest Jewish film festivals in the U.S. Gold will guide discussions and lend her academic expertise as a cultural studies scholar, especially in the area of Jewish-themed films from Spain, Latin America and Sephardic communities worldwide.
Kathy Kinlaw was invited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to serve on an Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices COVID-19 vaccines work group. Kinlaw is associate director of Emory's Center for Ethics and director of the Center's Program in Health Sciences and Ethics.
Emory alumnus Fahamu Pecou received the 2020 South Arts State Fellowship for Georgia in recognition of his paintings.
South Arts was founded in 1975 to build on the South's unique heritage and enhance the public value of the arts. The Southern Prize and State Fellowships celebrate and support the highest quality artistic work being created in the South.
Pecou earned a PhD from Emory's Laney Graduate School in 2018. His work is featured in collections including the Smithsonian National Museum of African American Art and Culture, Societe Generale (Paris), The High Museum of Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Seattle Art Museum, Clark Atlanta University Art Collection and Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia.
Christine Ristaino's memoir, "All the Silent Spaces," won the IndieReader Discovery Award for Women's Issues.
IndieReader is one of the original review services for self, hybrid and independently published authors. The group launched its awards in 2011 to help notable indie authors reach more readers and receive the attention of top publishing professionals.
Ristaino is senior lecturer in Italian, teaching Italian literature, culture and language classes. Her book was noted as "a deep and lyrical memoir about how a vicious assault affected all aspects of the author's life, and how she found strength to not just endure tragedy but transcend it. This book touches on dynamics one might expect – fear, survival, mistrust, recovery – but also on themes one might not – like race, religion, poverty and politics."


Choosing the right white porcelain floor tile is no easy action to take since it is not only considering the look but additionally the event and several other activities involved in it. Everything that really needs to be viewed could considerably affect your choice before choosing to use any type of floor for your house.
But it's still thing to think about all of this before you may spend thousands or even tens and thousands of dollars and regret it in the future. But do not worry as that manual can help you in deciding on the best floor for your property so you would maybe not regret it later. Of course, you however need to think about each one of these that could match your present condition. Produce Certain that You Select the Best white porcelain floor tile.
First you will need to think about where you want to install the white porcelain floor tile since you need certainly to be sure that the floor would be suitable for that location. For instance when you want to install the floor in attic or even bathroom that has high humid then you require to ensure the floor may endure every one of the damp in the room. Or you can also believe or perhaps a way and so the flooring can withstand the humid by closing it or do some treatment to it. So really most flooring forms may be used provided that it acquired the proper treatment beforehand to make it appropriate to the room condition.
As it pertains to the white porcelain floor tile toughness, it all hangs not only on the substance applied to generate the floor but additionally how the floor is used. For instance high traffic area is likely to make the floor get tear or wear down faster compared to reduced traffic area. Additionally, you should look at whether you've children as well as pets which will highly affect the durability of the flooring used.
Ensure that the floor is going to be resistant to every one of the damage that may happen from your kids or pets. Of course some floor has concluding solution that means it is more durable, and some can be sanded to get rid of the scratch that could occur in the future. However you should contemplate white porcelain floor tile option that will not need any repair before you actually install the flooring.
But, if you have very restricted budget, you then may want to consider adding the white porcelain floor tile yourself. If you're convenient and believe that you could install the floor your self, you then should certainly decide to try it. Then it will really lower the fee that you need to set up the floor from your financial allowance and you might even able to obtain greater flooring reason behind it. Of course, some flooring is straightforward to put in but some may need to be fitted by the pros because they've the right gadgets to complete it. So contemplate it carefully before you truly choose to create it.
When you consider all of the, then you can go greater by choosing the white porcelain floor tile style that'll match your taste. The floor might is available in various style, color as well as shade in order to decide to try to choose one which will suit your house design more.
Do not forget that all floor require preservation, therefore you need to make certain that you can do the white porcelain floor tile maintenance that it needs. Of course, the amount and kind of preservation needed for every floor is significantly diffent because it's all hangs on the current situation in your room. Still there's minimal maintenance that you must do even once the flooring appears in ideal condition to help you keep the problem for a lengthy time.
Next is to think about how much traffic that would be in the area because it'll affect the floor that you use. You'll need to make sure that the white porcelain floor tile will have the ability to take care of the large traffic that is happening in your community and it wouldn't get rip or use down too fast.


R9 can tick all the boxes for your property. It is designed to replicate the flush timber designs found in heritage properties in our towns, villages and cities.
A 75mm deep window system and containing 7 chambers, R7 suits more modern homes. With a flush finish both inside and out, it is sleek and sophisticated.
A versatile colour palette; R9 has dual colour options to fully personalise to your interior designs, whilst R7 has unfoiled options for a more modern finish.
The Residence Collection is a range of maintenance free windows & doors, designed and made in Great Britain. They wonderfully encapsulate British design.
Our 'R9 Window Designer' facility helps you to get exactly what you want and create an R9 window that meets your every requirement.


One of our favorite parts of being an automotive journalist s the opportunity to get an all-access pass to the manufacturing facilities of some of the most recognized brands in the industry. Seeing and using the product is one thing, but it's an eye-opening experience to go behind the scenes and witness how that part came to be. Every facility is unique and each one goes abut their processes a little differently than the next.
One of the facilities we've yet to bring you a tour of is Minnesota-based QA1 Precision Products, makers of some of the industry's most popular shocks, struts, springs, and anything else you'd need for your aftermarket suspension kit for road, drag race, and dirt track vehicles. Fortunately, the folks at QA1, with National Sales Manager Corey Flynn as your guide, have produced a detailed walk-through of their adjoining facilities that produce their entire lineup of products.
The tour begins with a complete introduction to the QA1 brand, it's history, and how the current product lines came to exist, followed by our guided trip through the main machining facility, the shock rooms, the new fabrication facility, and the R&D department.
In addition to the behind the scenes video features here, QA1 also boats a wide array of informative tech videos and customer car showcases on their company YouTube page. For more information on QA1 Precision Products, visit qa1.net.


So, why did the Sir Ya Khan walk out and blame the umpires for not continuing? It's okay to stand up for one's rights and demand not to be called a cheat without evidence. For that matter, it's also okay to call Darrell Hair a racist cheat (and probably be fined for it). I mean it's definitely okay to protest and lose a test match in a series which you anyway have lost. It's also perhaps okay to protest and therefore ruin the afternoon for many cricket fans.
What is not okay is to say, "....Then we were ready to play but it appears that the umpires are unwilling to go ahead. We find it extraordinary. It is very sad things have come to this..." and then publish such a lame joint statement? Go read the rule book, I say.