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PodCastle 496: When You Find Such a Thing
Author : Suyi Davies Okungbowa
Narrator : Solomon Osadolo
Host : Setsu Uzume
PodCastle 496: When You Find Such a Thing is a PodCastle original.
http://media.rawvoice.com/podcastle/p/media.libsyn.com/media/podcastle/PC496_WhenYouFind.mp3
When You Find Such a Thing
By Suyi Davies Okungbowa
Yes, I know meeting my girlfriend's parents wasn't on my to-do list for the next few forevers, but it happens that Gbemi is the slyest babe I've dated, so I should've known, ba? One minute we're off on a supposed spontaneous getaway weekend she planned for us; next thing, I'm sitting under the dining chandelier at her parents' Lekki duplex, struggling to explain to her father what I do for a living.
Dr. Gabriel Oyeyemi is engrossed in the evening tabloids, which he reads on a tablet. He's still dressed in a work shirt, his graying hair seedy and untrimmed. Crumbs of the HobNobs starter dot his full moustache.
"Magician, you said?" His eyes are fixed on the screen.
"No, sir," I say with practiced patience. "Wizard. Two different things."
He looks up. "Like, wizard wizard?"
A small frown plays on his forehead. "How does that work again?"
"Well, the usual: apprenticed for three years, got my certificate from the Lagos State Paranormal Affairs Commission, blah blah. I've run the Divinery at Sura for over a year."
"No no, that's not what I meant," he says, laying the tablet down. He dusts off his moustache. "I mean, how does the…" He works his mouth as if the word he's about to say is one with a taste he doesn't recognise. "The wizarding. How does that work?" He points to the brass bracelet on my wrist. "Is that it? Is that how you do it?"
"Daddy." Gbemi sails out of the kitchen right then, lays down a bowl of coleslaw on the table. "Let Oduwa eat first, before you fill his belly with questions."
The man hmms and returns to the news. I thank her with my eyes and she winks back.
My girlfriend is a lunatic. Most unpredictable person ever. I'm here sweating over being unprepared to meet her folks, and she's winking at me. Maybe she's already done the legwork then, painted me properly, which is key in my case, where both the truth and a lie are equally destructive.
I trust her sha. Gbemi's great, crazy enough to stick with me for eight months where all babes before her have cut tail once the syllable wiz- reached their ears. I didn't tell her I was a wizard until the second month, and she didn't ask until then. The day I told her, she simply looked at me, shrugged and said, "Oh, okay."
When you find such a thing, you do anything to keep it.
Mrs. Oyeyemi comes out the kitchen and lays the main course on the table. The woman's face is a wiped chalkboard, her facial muscles smooth and unreadable, Her eyes barely rest on things with life, always focusing on the inanimate—table wipes, cutlery, her daughter's off-shoulder blouse. I try to recall her name but can't seem to remember Gbemi ever saying it with the freedom with which she said, "My father is Gabriel."
I think Gbemi's folks are just being courteous for now. Give them a few hours before the ice water drops. Mandem will quick be like this one guy I ran into at Ebeano, who recognised me from an apparition charm I'd once performed while trying to impress a client. Bro was mad shook in that confectionery aisle. He literally knocked over a shelf of gummy bears trying to put enough distance between himself and me, like if the hem of my garment touched him, some dirty power would leave me and flow to him.
"Food is ready," Mrs. Oyeyemi says, gazing over our heads.
We eat jollof rice and heavily-spiced goat meat (and when I say heavily-spiced, I mean my eyes tear and my tongue is on fire). There's coleslaw and Bama on the side to help my case. I drink a lot of water and answer a lot of questions.
Yes sir, I was born and raised in Benin City. Momsie was a primary school teacher, worked for the government until diabetes took her. Yes sir, my popsie was a banker; retired early. Pension didn't save him from cigarettes and lung cancer though.
Not a single question about what I do.
All through this, Gbemi's mother's eyes are focused on my wrist. Does she recognise this bracelet, or is she wondering about it like Dr. Gabriel? I mean, there's nothing even special about it: only a 19th century Benin Court wearable, with three imitations of the famous Benin Terracotta Head casted into it, each one equidistant from the other. Nothing special.
Then on a second thought, I realise the look is not about the bracelet. I know, because I recognise it as the same one you give someone who's farted in a crowded bus. The same needle-point look thrown at us wizards when we walk the streets, the aisles of churches, the spaces between bodies in social gatherings.
If this look is all they've got, then I'm fine with it. If you're a wizard long enough, you accept it as part of your life. I mean, our place on the Nigerian social ladder is somewhere between danfo conductors and estate agents. There's an air we carry about that people recognise right quick, like a metaphysical smell, you know? The way you see a LAWMA waste guy who's cleaned up real nice, but you know this guy's been handling people's shit all day so don't touch me, you filthy bastard.
I navigate Mrs. Oyeyemi's look, curl around its edges and hope she keeps those thoughts lodged in her throat. I occupy myself with watching her silently lead the family. The prayers, the subtle nudges, like making Dr. Oyeyemi use both the fork and knife instead of the fork alone, and asking Gbemi to pour herself a glass of water before taking any more swallows of rice. The easy General, the plane's pilot.
We do coconut cake for dessert, home-baked. Gbemi's mom munches hers in silence while Dr. Oyeyemi nags to me about Arsene Wenger and President Buhari. We clear up plates. Gbemi and her mother head upstairs straight from the kitchen while Dr. Oyeyemi drags me to an armchair in the parlour to continue his Buhari bashing.
Mid-way through this, his eyes drift to the bracelet again, and he stops short.
"Tell me, Oduwa," he says. "Explain this your wizardry thing to me."
I have to admit this is weird. No one ever takes a genuine interest in us wizards. No one ever wants to hear our side of the story. When we meet someone who does, we don't trust this person. He or she is a con artist.
"Sir, if you don't mind, I'd like to know: is there any reason for this interest?"
"I must be getting old, you know?" He works his mouth. "I mean, as a man who's lived this long, I feel I know a little about everything. But when it comes to this your…wizarding, it feels like I know something, but that thing escapes me every time. I hadn't even thought about this in years until you mentioned it today."
I rest into my armchair. "Okay, sir. What will you like to know?"
"I don't know…anything. Just tell me anything."
So, I tell him how I discovered my orhion—what us Binis call the life force that provides supernatural powers. I tell him of the day I first connected with Olokun, my Spirit Other; how it felt for my mind to warp, slide into something beyond comprehensible space and time. I tell him about performing my first charm using my first proxy—my Master's staff at the time—and how you know this shit peels away your humanity, layer by layer like an onion, but you know it's too late to go back. I explain how I straddle realms to connect to Olokun each time I channel them, in order to influence the physical space.
"This my work sir," I say, hoping to induce some empathy for myself, "is like putting your head between a tamed beast's teeth, and hoping you've trained it well enough to keep his mouth open."
The man is frowning, like he's all of a sudden starting to get it.
And right then, the orhion in me rouses, a swirl of energy circling in my belly and chest like indigestion. It stirs first, tentative, as if tapped awake from sweet sleep. Then suddenly, it swiftly becomes an impatient child, tugging on the edge of my shirt, saying stop, stop Oduwa; stop talking. Listen.
And then I sense it.
A shroud, over Dr. Oyeyemi. A charm wound tightly about him, woven delicately like a braid. The charm is layered, renewed over time to prevent the effect from waning. The residues of older charms waft about him, bubbling like ogbono soup.
Someone doesn't want this man to understand magic.
"Go on, I'm listening," Gabriel says.
I shut my eyes and breathe, then engage my proxy—my bracelet's three heads. They give passage, and the orhion flows through. I coax my orhion, push it, asking questions of the charm, trying to interpret its form, its basis. The charm's responds with a signature that is a bit ancient, hard for me to read and place. The response itself is like a sentence wrongly arranged, meaning that the basis of the charm is nothing cohesive, a mish-mash of motives no longer understood after layers upon layers of shrouding.
"Oduwa?" Dr. Gabriel is saying, puzzled.
All the while, I sense the shadow standing in the doorway from the lobby, but I don't see it yet. Only after I coax the orhion back, shut my proxy and open my eyes does it step into the light of the lobby to frown at me.
"Oduwa," Gbemi says, "I think it's time to go home."
I've never had a liar drive me home before. I might be a wizard, but trust me, it's the most human things that give me goosebumps. Like, how do you put your life in the hands of someone when you never know what they're going to do next?
Gbemi won't even look at me, staring straight ahead as if the road would disappear if she tore her gaze away. She grips the steering until her knuckles shine
"Why didn't you just tell me?" I say, breaking the silence.
"Tell you what?" Her words come out like a snapped lid.
"A heads-up that I should be careful with your father, at least."
She turns to look at me, her face tight.
"I don't get you."
"I mean, what made you think I won't understand?" My temper rises the more she pretends. "Me of all people who knows how it feels, the stigma of being a wizard. You didn't have to lie to me. Is this why you never acknowledge what I am? Why you're never interested in discussing my work with me?"
She opens her mouth to say something, but I'm already on a roll.
"And what's this deal with shrouding your father? Like, who does that to their own family? If I had a family, I'd want them to know exactly who I was, what I do. Nobody out there cares, you know? Nobody understands what we go through. The only people that should, that can, how dare you treat them like that? And you even put me in front of him and let him ask me questions. What the fuck?"
Gbemi looks like she will snort fire any minute, but at the same time, her face is scrunched up in almost genuine confusion. How good of an actor is she?
"Shroud? Wait, wait…" She slows the car down and pulls it to the edge of the next roundabout. We're right at the foot of the Lekki-Ikoyi link bridge, a weird place to stop because there's all lights and everyone can see right into your car. Most of the evening joggers take this liberty, but it's not as if my girlfriend cares.
She turns to face me. "Someone shrouded my father? With what? Is he okay?"
I bite down my anger. "Are you really going to fucking continue pretending? Feigning this useless anger?"
"What the—are you mad, Oduwa? I'm not pretending to be angry. I am angry. You shouldn't be telling my father such stories."
"I dunno." She shrugs. "I just know we avoid such stories in our house."
"I don't get."
She shrugs again. "I don't get it either. I just know we don't."
"Look," I say, sighing. "I don't know what twisted game you guys are running in your house, but don't put me in the middle of it, abeg."
"Oduwa, please what's this thing about my father?" She looks like she's going to cry. "Is everything okay?"
Alarm bells start to ring in my head. "Wait. Are you saying you're not the one who wove the shroud over your father?"
"Weave a…what's a shroud?"
I lean in, peer in her face. "So you're not a wizard?"
"What?" She frowns. "Are you okay?"
The car is too cold all of a sudden. Somewhere within me, my orhion rises and prods, tugs at my shirt again.
Oduwa, listen, listen.
I release the three heads. I know the response even before it comes.
"Turn around," I say. "We're going back to your father's house."
She's standing in the foyer, as if waiting for me. Having expended my orhion twice today and a bit more to coax Gbemi into waiting in the car, I'm not entirely sure if I have enough left to set up any defences. Her face is deadpan as usual when I approach, her eyes calculated, so that I know if she wanted to harm me in any way, she'd have done it by now.
"I always knew it will come back to bite me somehow," Mrs Oyeyemi says. "I just wasn't sure how or when."
I study her for a bit. Her face is round, slightly weathered in that way of middle-aged Nigerian women. Her eyes, now that I see them up close, are even softer and dare I say it, kinder than Gbemi's.
"Why?" I ask.
"You know," she says.
"They're your family."
She smiles. "You're so young. You were probably born after the state government had already endorsed our peculiar skillset. In my time, if someone as much as suspected you of wizardry—even without proof—it was over for you."
"But they're your family."
"Family." She snorts. "I've seen family members burn their people." Her voice has a steelier edge to it. "I've seen fathers call on a mob to lynch their sons, seen mothers throw a tyre over the neck of their daughters, call on their neighbours to come pour petrol and light a match." She stares at me, hard. "Family is not just by mouth."
I watch her fidget, watch her wonder if she really believes what she says.
"But that person in the car? That's not the real Gbemi. How can you live with that every day? How do you breathe?"
"I breathe because I must," she replies. "I love my husband and my daughter, and they love me. They're the only loves I've had in a long, long time. When you find such a thing, you do anything to keep it."
It takes a long time for that last line to stop ringing in my head.
"They'll never forgive you," I say.
Her nostrils flare. "Look at you, so stupid. Even after everything you've seen, you still believe so much in people. You think Gabriel would've looked at me twice if he knew what I was? Or that Gbemi would've considered you? Do you really believe that because the state government gave you a piece of paper, everyone will now open their arms and embrace you?"
She steps forward, into my space. "They can only find out if I'm not alive to prevent it. And I plan to be alive for a very long time."
I step back and try to process things. She's watching me for my next move.
"You didn't really come here to confront me, did you?" She smiles, something so lovely and warm it sends chills to my sternum. "You came here for yourself. To find out which path to take."
I chew on my lower lip for a beat. "Look ma, I don't want to get caught up in your family business."
"You're already here," she says. "Choose."
I work my mouth again. "You say choose, but you're not really giving me a choice."
"Then do what you have to," she says. "My family has lived and loved this way for years, so I too will do whatever I must for it to stay like that."
So, longhand for over my dead body. I sigh. "Lemme think about."
"D'you love her, Oduwa?"
The question comes out of left field. I'm dumb for a minute.
"Do you? Truly?"
"I don't know," I say finally. "I don't know yet."
"Then I guess you have to find out," she says.
Her words kick in my brain as I leave her standing there and walk back to the car.
"Mister man," Gbemi says when I get in, her arms crossed. "Thank you for keeping me waiting. Oya, start talking."
I study her readiness to go to war: messy hair, impish face, wrinkled mouth edges. Will this be a good time? I have no plans to stay late out here in the car tonight, explaining the life out of myself, when we could be back in my house, snuggling and enjoying reruns of Martin.
On the verandah, Mrs Oyeyemi's silhouette watches, waits.
I reach out and massage Gbemi's shoulder. "It's nothing, really," I say. "Can we discuss it later?"
I breathe, willing my orhion into form, into something that cloaks, that blinds. It responds, glad, spreads and wraps itself around her like a cocoon, braiding into the already present layers. It snakes about her, tightens, closes up every last space, every last possibility of breath.
Her face relaxes, succumbs.
"Oh, okay," she says.
She kicks the car into gear, and we ride off into the night.
Categories: Podcasts, Rated PG-13
Suyi Davies Okungbowa
Suyi tells stories from Lagos, Nigeria. His speculative fiction has been published or is forthcoming in Fireside, PodCastle, The Dark, Mothership Zeta, Omenana; and the anthologies Lights Out: Resurrection and A World of Horror; amidst other places. His nonfiction has appeared in Lightspeed and Klorofyl. He is a charter member of the African Speculative Fiction Society. Suyi also works in brand marketing and visual design. He lives online on Facebook, tweets at @IAmSuyiDavies, blogs at suyidavies.com and chatters at his monthly jabberwock, After Five Writing Shenanigans.
Find more by Suyi Davies Okungbowa
Solomon Osadolo
Solomon Osadolo is a copywriter, editor, and Podcaster based in Lagos, Nigeria. He's the Editor of forLoop Weekly from ForLoop Africa and is a Content Associate at Anakle.
Find more by Solomon Osadolo


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. (2014, April 24). Greener Trade at the WTO: How Shifting the Focus from Products to Processes Could Save the Environment. Retrieved from http://saisjournal.org/posts/greener-trade-at-the-wto.
. "Greener Trade at the WTO: How Shifting the Focus from Products to Processes Could Save the Environment." The SAIS Europe Journal of Global Affairs. 24 April 2014. Web. 18 April 2019.
. "Greener Trade at the WTO: How Shifting the Focus from Products to Processes Could Save the Environment." The SAIS Europe Journal of Global Affairs. http://saisjournal.org/posts/greener-trade-at-the-wto (accessed 18 April 2019).
The nature of international trade is changing. The emergence of global value chains is transforming the conventional definition from trade in goods to trade in tasks. It is becoming more difficult, and less meaningful, to pinpoint the country of origin of a product. The iPhone in your pocket may have been designed in the United States, but assembled piecemeal in Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore, China, and the Philippines. This evolution has inspired the World Trade Organization's (WTO) "Made in the World" initiative, which measures trade in terms of value added.
The same trends that oblige new measures of value also demand a more nuanced and accurate assessment of cost—both economic and environmental. The consequences of traditional, fossil fuel and resource-driven growth on the environment have been harsh, with export industries contributing a substantial share of contamination. As countries develop, governments are increasingly seeking to adopt green growth strategies and more environmentally friendly policies. Today, it is no longer adequate to consider only the environmental impact of an import on the consuming economy, but also the producing one. As environmental degradation is pushed further down the value chain, the environmental costs of each stage of production need to be weighted into the final price. In order to assess more equitably the environmental costs of production and consumption, it is essential that this final price include externalities, such as fossil fuel use and production processes. Today's environmental concerns necessitate a shift in focus from products to processes. Unfortunately, WTO rules are impeding governments seeking to adopt green growth strategies and should be modernized.
Most of the "green" policies that have been challenged at the WTO are little more than thinly veiled protectionism. For example, when India announced its National Solar Mission, environmentalists applauded such an ambitious effort by a developing nation to combat climate change. In practice, however, Local Content Requirements mandating the use of Indian-manufactured modules for certain projects seem to discriminate against foreign manufacturers of solar panels. WTO rules prohibit such preferential measures, and will continue to do so, even if they are disguised as environmentalism.
Protectionism aside, however, outmoded WTO rules are impeding governments from enacting legitimate green agendas due to two key shortcomings. First, the inability to challenge fossil fuel subsidy programs under existing WTO rules produces price distortions that favor energy-intensive exporters, handicaps the renewable energy industry, and unduly incentivizes international production networks. Second, the WTO's lack of jurisdiction over unincorporated production processes and methods (PPMs)—which relate to how products are produced and the inputs used to make them—undermines attempts by governments to adopt more sustainable production processes and misallocates emissions and environmental damages to the producer instead of the consumer. These limitations of WTO rules should be remedied in order to account more fully for the environmental costs of the international trading system.
Energy Subsidies: Running out of Gas?
From an economic perspective, energy subsidies are destructive because they cause price distortions that wrongly influence producer and consumer behavior. For example, one of the more popular programs, dual-pricing schemes, offers domestic consumers a rate that is lower than the traded price. These subsidies benefit energy-intensive industry, resulting in more competitive exports from countries with heavy fossil fuel subsidies. Cheaper fuel also incentivizes international production networks by reducing transportation and shipping costs. From an environmental perspective, overconsumption of these finite natural resources leads to excess pollution. In fact, the chief economist at the International Energy Agency estimates that subsidies for coal, gas, and oil account for half the greenhouse gas emissions that would need to be reduced in order to keep climate change under two degrees Celsius, the scientifically-accepted threshold. However, it has been difficult to apply existing WTO rules to fossil fuel subsidy programs, as only those programs under which the benefits are contingent upon export performance or the use of domestic over foreign goods are prohibited. With some careful drafting, countries can easily elude WTO scrutiny; despite the clear benefit cheaper inputs afford exporters.
In contrast to fossil fuel subsidies, renewable energy programs often violate these prohibitions and thus have come under attack in recent years, including before the Dispute Settlement Mechanism. Part of this disparity stems from the fact that many renewable energy programs are conceived by state governments, which unlike national governments may not have the capacity or sensitivity to devise WTO-compliant programs. The nature of the renewable energy sector also plays a role, as this industry trades in differentiated end products, like solar panels and wind turbines, rather than identical commodities. Furthermore, young companies with new technologies require direct subsidization, and simply setting a lower price for consumers will not suffice. As a result, clean energy cannot compete with fossil fuels. Instead of offering technical assistance to help countries design green subsidy programs to evade WTO rules, existing fossil fuel subsidies should be dismantled. By allowing green technologies to compete on a level playing field, we can bring down the price of these products and let markets allocate them where they are needed most.
According to the WTO, two tables are considered "like products" even if one was produced using fair labor and sustainably harvested wood, while the other was built by child workers and left the farmland desiccated. But which table is more attractive to consumers, and is that table worth more? Unincorporated PPMs are those that have no effect on the physical characteristics or operation of a good. While governments can control production practices and emissions within their own borders, they cannot discriminate against exports from those countries that chose not to embrace such regulations. Economic reasoning surmises that each country's environmental decisions are a product of its unique absorptive capacity, endowments, income level, and preferences; and its choices translate into a comparative advantage or disadvantage.
In reality, however, environmental degradation is not limited by national borders, and the decisions of one country affect them all. Consider the extreme case of China, where scientists have estimated that one-fifth of the air pollution released into the atmosphere can be linked to the production of goods for export. As a result, Los Angeles and other coastal areas realized at least one additional day of unsafe smog. Critics may contend that labeling schemes can remedy this issue, but such programs are insufficient because they target consumer preferences instead of reflecting real environmental costs. WTO rules should permit countries to incorporate the environmental consequences of their imports into the final price, albeit in a manner that balances the rights of members and may not be used to discriminate arbitrarily. By focusing as much on the process as the final product, we gain a more complete understanding of the costs of different environmental measures and can attribute increased emissions and pollution to the final consumer.
As international trade becomes more complex, a World Trade Organization that can recognize and confront these new challenges becomes more vital. International production networks have focused attention on processes rather than just products, and the need to consider the true cost of inputs, emissions, and environmental practices at every step of the way. WTO rules that allow for fossil fuel but not renewable energy subsidies are inefficient and counterproductive. WTO precedents that treat as like products goods which have dramatically different impacts on the environment are myopic and unjust. By modernizing these rules, producers and consumers see prices that place value on the environment, enabling markets to function and allowing green technologies and products to flow where they are needed most. Instead of hindering green growth, the WTO can and should usher in a new era of greener trade.
Tony Barboza, "China's Industry Exporting Air Pollution to U.S., Study Says," Los Angeles Times, January 20, 2014.
Timothy Meyer, "Energy Subsidies and the World Trade Organization" (American Society of International Law, September 10, 2013).
Peter Morici, "Reconciling Trade and the Environment in the World Trade Organization" (Economic Strategy Institute, 2002).


text:
package com.jeffpalm.android.tmz.model;

import android.os.Parcelable;

import com.jeffpalm.android.epg.EPGItem;

/**
 *
 * @param <I> the underlying {@code EPGItem}
 */
public interface TMZItem<I extends EPGItem> extends Parcelable {

  /** @return the underlying {@code EPGItem} */
  I getItem();
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Ren Guang Xi (Vanness Wu), a cocky law student, seems to lead the perfect life. He's the sole successor to a huge and famous business and a talented ice hockey player with good looks and charisma to boot. But in reality, his lonely life lacks joy, laughter and motivation. That is until he meets Liang Mu Cheng (Ady An), the new bento seller at his school canteen. Although orphaned at a young age, Mu Cheng does not let her past affect her and lives life with great passion and determination. A harmless bet brings the two together and Guang Xi slowly changes as Mu Cheng teaches him how to give and love.
A poor teenage girl named Shan Cai (Barbie Xu), who at the insistence of her parents attends Ying De University, a university exclusively for rich people. The university is dominated by Dao Ming Si (Jerry Yan), Hua Ze Lei (Vic Zhou), Mei Zuo (Vanness Wu) and Xi Men (Ken Chu), four rich and handsome but arrogant students collectively known as F4, short for 'Flower 4'. They are the heirs to the four richest and most influential families in Taiwan, and they donated a lot of money to the school so nobody dares to challenge them. F4 terrorizes the school by handing out red cards to those they do not like, which allows other students to bully the victims until they leave the school.
After one of Shan Cai's friends receives the wrath of F4's leader, Dao Ming Si, and receives a red card, Shan Cai stands up to Dao Ming Si and slaps him, which in turn results in a red card of her own. However, Shan Cai's persistence in standing up for what is right gradually gains F4's respect and Dao Ming Si falls in love with her. However, Shan Cai dislikes Dao Ming Si because of his constant torturing, and instead fall in love with Hua Ze Lei, who helped her when she was suffering. Can Dao Ming Si win Shan Cai's love through his cold and cruel exterior? Will their love last when everyone is trying to break them up?
Qi Yue (Rainie Yang) finally gained the courage to give Yuan Yi (Kingone Wang) her love letter. Yuan Yi didn't see her handing him the note and walked passed her. Jiang Meng (Mike He), the troublemaker, nicknamed "the devil," was the one who accepted her note. Qi Yue begged him to return the letter and told him that it wasn't meant for him, but he didn't listen. He wanted what he desired and that is Qi Yue. Even though he has a cruel appearance, Ah Meng is in fact very kind and caring, which touched Qi Yue. However, the big problem still remained – Ah Meng is the son of the man Qi Yue's mother is going to marry. Even though they aren't related by blood, what will happen when they become step siblings, how will it affect their relationship, and what happens when other lovers come into the picture? Find out by watching Devil Beside You, this drama will make you laugh, cry, and make your heart feel fuzzy.
Beside our own time-space, there are eleven other dimensions that exist side by side with Mojie, a dimension where evil resides. Mojie has taken over ten of these dimensions in a series of showdowns between good and evil. However, the inter-dimensional war for the Gold dimension resulted in a tie in which both Mojie forces and KO fighters suffered great damages. Now, the story continues in the Iron dimension where the outcome has yet to be decided.
Xiu (Chen De Xiu), was in charged of the mission to find the KO fighters' alternate selves in the corresponding Iron dimension in order to restore their powers and turn the tide against the dark forces. His search leads him to a boy named Xia Tian, Wang Da Dong's counterpart (Jiro Wang), who has the potential to become a savior of worlds, a Zhong Ji Tie Ke Ren.
Xia Tian's incredible power is sealed away by a Feng Long Tie on his neck making him essentially a Ma Gua. Any attempt to use his power would awaken Gui Long, an evil entity in him. But, Gui Long is not the only obstacle Xia Tian has to overcome to become the Zhong Ji Tie Ke Ren. His family's objections and his own lack of interest in becoming the savior of worlds are the others. However, his attitude begins to change after he meets a girl from his childhood, Han (Cai Han Cen). To save her life, he boldly goes into Mie to recover her soul. Then and there, he realizes he needs to become stronger so he could protect those he loves.
Although Xia Tian has the determination to become the Zhong Ji Tie Ke Ren, he must go through many more tests and trials that will break his bones and his heart before he could be the one.
Shan Jun Hao (Ming Dao), the CEO to a large hotel chain, is the stereotypical heir – spoiled, coldhearted, and ruthless. He meets Ye Tian Yu (Chen Qiao En), a schemer and after a series of events, Tian Yu "accidentally" runs Jun Hao over. Turns out, Jun Hao has lost all of his memories and became a kindhearted and loving person. Just when love is in the air, Jun Hao's family came looking for him and he has a fiancée who loves and misses him. Some more "accidents" occurred, and Jun Hao lost all of his memories of Tian Yu and went back to being a spoiled heir. However, Tian Yu fights for their love even though Jun Hao thinks she is a lying schemer. Will Jun Hao remember his love for Tian Yu? Who will Jun Hao choose? And who is the person causing all the "accidents"?
World-wide famous hair salon Neo-Image has just opened. The beautiful hairstyles of the three popular hairstylists (Artz, Richie and Fernando) attract huge crowds. At this time, an external official came to them for help. There was an event called "The Chinese Hairstyle Competition" and they have found a part-time working young female hair-dresser, Xiao Bei, to compete against the French stylist to help advertise the French Hair Products. As this competition will greatly affect the country's status, the three guys decided to help. Later, they find talent in Xiao Bei and trick her into working for Neo-Image, since she refused to cooperate without a fight. One day, Xiao Bei is about to be hit by a car when Artz pushes her away and saves her life. He was wearing a jacket with the number 23 on it. When Xiao Bei saw Richie wearing the jacket and assumed that he was her savior, and she fell for him. However, Richie leads a dangerous life and he lives without knowing if he will have a "tomorrow" or not. Xiao Bei volunteers at a retirement home. A coincidence occurs involving Xiao Bei and Artz visiting his grandma Li Lian at the same time. Grandma Li Lian realizes that they are the perfect couple and convinces Artz into admitting his true feelings for her before it's too late.
If you haven't seen any of the above mentioned Taiwanese dramas, I highly recommend you watch them. These dramas all have a great plot as well as an awesome cast.
Credits: Synopsis and cast members information were taken from Wikipedia. Some of the synopsis were edited by me, superzvicki, to ensure accuracy and to make them easier to understand.
Hi! I came across your blog while searching for a good taiwanese drama to watch. I see that you like Autumn Concerto and Meteor Garden. They're definitely few of my favorites. So, besides those 2 which ONE is your most highly recommend drama to watch. (btw have you also seen 'Material Queen' and 'Mars'? Those 4 are my all time favorites. Great blog btw!


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The gap between what is needed and what is provided has been growing and growing for years, and we don't talk about that very much in the IBM i base. As someone who loves big iron with lots of horsepower, I tend to look on each new Power chip rollout as a chance for the IBM i platform to capture more and more work. While this happens at a number of shops that mix IBM i and Linux workloads–and sometimes AIX, too–for the most part, the IBM i platform is a silo in the datacenter even if other applications tickle its databases over the Ethernet and the Internet.
The fact remains that customers running IBM i tend to be fairly modest in terms of the amount of compute they consume. This really started with the jump from proprietary CISC to PowerPC AS RISC chips back in 1995, when the amount of raw compute capacity tripled in one fell swoop. This was a boon to customers, who could buy lots of capacity, but their workloads grew more modestly than Moore's Law and that meant they didn't need to buy as frequently. Add in the efficiency gains from logical partitioning, which allows workloads that would have been on separate machines to be multiplexed across time on a single box, and it is no wonder that the Power Systems-IBM i combination generates far less revenue than its heydays back in the late 1990s. So do mainframes, Unix systems, and other proprietary machines–where they still exist.
The X86 server market grows some by virtue of competition–it has knocked out plenty of Unix and proprietary gear–but mostly it is growing because Windows on X86 is the platform for many small and midrange businesses and Linux on X86 is the platform for modern distributed computing, whether it is webscale infrastructure at Google or Facebook, risk management systems at a financial services firm, or simulation systems at a big manufacturer. The public cloud is also being built largely on X86 architectures, too. But the growth curves that the X86 platform has enjoyed in the datacenter won't last forever, and that is why Intel has been keen on expanding into adjacent storage, networking, and telecommunications markets with its chippery. While there is insatiable demand for compute and storage capacity, that demand is tempered by budgets and by other factors. As I have said before, at some point, the workloads can only grow so fast as the population, once everyone has a smartphone and the Internet. You can only check your bank balance so many times a week, and there are only so many of us and we only generate so much data exhaust. We are not at that point, but we will get there. Perhaps even in my lifetime.
I am comforted, as you no doubt are, by the fact that IBM actually is showing customers and partners that it has a Power processor roadmap that extends out to 2020 and beyond. We need that kind of reassurance, and it is a wonder that it is not done more publicly considering that Big Blue is very eager to reinvigorate the Power platform and have it take a bigger bite out of the datacenter. This roadmap doesn't say much, and if you want my detailed take on what this means technologically, take a look at the bit I wrote for The Platform. The roadmaps that IBM has put out, sometimes in conjunction with its OpenPower Foundation partners, are heavily focused on high performance computing, but the technology will obviously be adapted for more general purpose systems, too.
The question I have is if the Power roadmap will bear any reasonable relationship to the current and future IBM i landscape. If the future looks anything like the past, the kind of computing power and features that IBM will no doubt bring to bear may not map well to the requirements of the IBM i installed base. Let me show you a case in point.
Doug Fulmer, who is systems architect at KS2 Technologies in Grapevine, Texas, last week helped us understand what is going on in terms what machines customers are actually buying in the IBM i installed base. Like all of the dealers and resellers I know, the vast majority of the business that KS2 does is for four-core Power machines with only one core activated. This is in a server architecture that has 12-core Power8 processors that can scale all the way up to 192 cores in a single system image with 16 processor sockets addressing something crazy like 16 TB of main memory. That's big iron, and ironically, it all fits into a portion of a single rack these days because, believe it or not, IBM is still a master at systems design and engineering.
According to Fulmer, who watches data like a hawk as those of us at The Four Hundred do, the average OS/400 customer back in 2006 was using somewhere between 285 CPWs and 385 CPWs of capacity based on IBM's Commercial Performance Workload relative benchmark test. These days, on Power7+ and Power8 iron, which has only four cores and only one of them fired up running the IBM i operating system, the average customer has somewhere between 1,000 CPWs and 1,500 CPWs of capacity supporting IBM i–and this is on a core that can deliver somewhere around 9,900 CPWs of compute. So, the average machine for the SMB shops that comprise the vast majority of the IBM i installed base is running at somewhere between 10 percent and 15 percent of peak CPU.
So let's just play a game here. Let's assume IBM stays on the present course and tries to do the Moore's Law game like Intel does. Some of the process shrink from 22 nanometers to 14 nanometers will go to cranking the clock, but most will go to cores. So maybe Power9 comes in at 16 cores or 18 cores. I think 16 cores with lots of eDRAM cache and a bunch of NVLink and CAPI ports is likely. The shrink to 10 nanometers might not get us that far, maybe 20 cores. In each case, we get microarchitecture improvements and better performance per clock enhancements, too. But on the order of maybe 5 to 10 percent unless IBM does something radical. (Which it might.) So we end up with a Power9 core that maybe has 20 percent more oomph, core to core, with the Power8, and the Power10 has maybe 20 percent more than the Power9. For the same of round numbers, that is something like 15,000 CPWs per core by 2020, and a two-socket server will have 40 cores for a total of 600,000 raw CPWs of performance, with NUMA overhead maybe shaving that down to 575,000 CPWs.
Now, let's assume the workloads progress the same at IBM i shops. The average SMB shop running IBM i was burning 325 CPWs in 2006 and that rose to an average of 1,250 CPWs or so with modern machines over the nine years. That's 18.5 percent growth in CPW use per year, on average, which ain't bad mind you. The server business is not growing that fast. The trouble is, IBM i workloads are fairly modest even if they are economically vital. So if you project the same growth rate out from 2015 to 2020, an SMB shop will need something like 3,500 CPWs of capacity–in total–to run their workloads. That will be when IBM is delivering something like 15,000 CPWs per core. The gap will close a little, perhaps, but that is still only 23 percent utilization or so on that single CPU. IBM i SMB shops wouldn't need a single Power10 core–forget a whole chip with maybe 20 cores–until 2028! And they would still have a few thousand CPWs left over for headroom. Let's roll the clock back a little bit. A Power5 chip from 2004 with some of its cache crimped and running at 1.65 GHz could deliver 3,300 CPWs–twice as much as the average customer seems to need today. That was a P20-class machine, too, not a P05-class box like the Power S814 with only four cores in it.
Which brings me to my next point. When the Power8 entry machines were announced last year, this four-core machine was not part of the original announcements, and IBM was very clear to business partners that the company was not even sure it wanted to do a four-core variant. This machine, should it have come to pass, was expected in September, but was then was rushed out in June after partners and we presume customers made a big fuss. That IBM even thought it could launch only a P10-class machine loaded up with lots more cores than IBM i customers needed was a little disconcerting. A lot of the customer base is in the P05 tier, and truth be told, they could probably use a P02.5 tier based on how little compute they need.
IBM either needs to find more work for IBM i to do–and convince customers to do it, and do it fast–or make a better machine that fits the needs of IBM i customers. I will share some thoughts about what this machine might look like in the next episode of The Four Hundred. The answer I came up with will make you laugh, I think, and perhaps mesh well with what I think IBM needs to do for other customer sets as well.
SQL/Pro 5.0 - New & Improved!
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text:
Bill Paxton Joining AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. for Multi-Episode Arc
by Matt Goldberg February 10, 2015
If you're still watching Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., then you are, in the words of Stan Lee, a "true believer". You're also going to have some Bill Paxton headed your way. TV Guide reports that he'll be guest-starring in at …
Showrunners Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon Talk MARVEL'S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D., Their Two-Year Plan, Easter Eggs, and…
by Christina Radish February 9, 2015
One of the most talked about freshman TV shows is the ABC drama Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. With Clark Gregg reprising his role as Agent Phil Coulson from Marvel's feature films, the team of highly select Agents investigate the new, the …
Comic-Con: Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen Talk MARVEL'S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D., Marvel's Franchise Rules, and Connection to…
by Christina Radish July 20, 2013
One of the most highly anticipated shows of the upcoming fall TV season is Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Clark Gregg reprises his role as Agent Phil Coulson from Marvel's feature films, as he assembles a small, highly select group of …
New Details about AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.; Will Weave Between the Movies; J. August's Richard's Character to Be…
by Matt Goldberg July 11, 2013
Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will come an important point in its marketing campaign when it arrives for its panel at Comic-Con. We've seen the trailer, and it's one of the most-anticipated shows of the fall season, but there are still …
Clark Gregg Talks S.H.I.E.L.D. TV Series, the Return of Agent Coulson and How It'll be Explained, Could…
by Matt Goldberg June 6, 2013
"Coulson Lives". Clark Gregg, who has been doing terrific work throughout his career, finally found a devoted fan following for his beloved performance as S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Phil Coulson. A minor character who still managed to steal scenes with only a …
Production Wraps on Pilot for S.H.I.E.L.D.
In late January, we reported that filming had begun on the pilot for Marvel's TV series, S.H.I.E.L.D. Production on the pilot has now wrapped according to co-executive producer Maurissa Tancharoen who is co-showrunning with her husband Jed Whedon. Joss Whedon …
S.H.I.E.L.D. TV Series Pilot Begins Filming, Launches Social Network Accounts and Releases First Images
by Dave Trumbore February 10, 2015
Joss Whedon's S.H.I.E.L.D. series pilot has officially started filming today and the first images and bits of news are already starting to leak out. Though the series has yet to be ordered to anything beyond the pilot, ABC's executives are …
Marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D. TV Series to Star Ming-Na Wen in Lead Role
by Dave Trumbore October 24, 2012
It looks like Ming-Na Wen (ER) will be joining Clark Gregg (The Avengers) as a lead role in ABC's television series, Marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D. We previously reported that Gregg would return to the franchise's famous security organization as Agent Coulson, albeit …
AVENGERS' Agent Phil Coulson to Be Featured in Marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D. TV Series
by Dave Trumbore November 21, 2012
You may have already heard the exciting news out of New York Comic-Con, but Marvel's head of television, Jeph Loeb announced today that Clark Gregg will reprise his role as Agent Phil Coulson in the S.H.I.E.L.D. series. We don't know …
New Character Descriptions for Joss Whedon's S.H.I.E.L.D.-based Series
by Allison Keene October 3, 2012
Joss Whedon is developing (as in writing and directing) a live-action pilot for ABC that will focus on S.H.I.E.L.D., the peacekeeping group known well to viewers of the Avengers and its many tie-in movies, as well as (of course) the Marvel comics. The …

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: HTML file linking between directories My folder structure:
de/
    index.html
en/
    index.html
hu/
    index.html
img/
    image.png
style/
    stylesheet.css

How can I link to the css file in the style folder & the image in the img folder within the html file inside the de folder, whithout having to type the entire hostname like http://myhost.com/style/style.css?
Is it even possible?

A: ../style/stylesheet.css

../img/image.png

A: You can use a relative path: ../style/style.css

A: The css file can be link in the html file as
<link href="../style/stylesheet.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">

A: you don't have to type the domain, you should use
<link href="/style/stylesheet.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
but dont forget the first / as this will mean that the address is on the same domain as the page.
this will also save you from maintenance problems if you ever change the directory structure of your website.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Awards and Honors, Faculty News
Bennington Faculty and Former Visiting Faculty Awarded Guggenheim Fellowships
Mark Wunderlich, Director of Bennington Writing Seminars, faculty member Craig Morgan Teicher, and past faculty Paul Yoon, Ephraim Asili, Kaitlyn Greenidge, and Alexander Chee are recipients of the prestigious 2021 Guggenheim Fellowships.
Awards were given this year to a diverse group of 175 Fellows comprising writers, scholars, artists, and scientists. Appointed on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise, the successful candidates were chosen from a group of almost 3,000 applicants in the Foundation's 96th competition.
Mark Wunderlich, awarded a Poetry Fellowship, is the author of The Anchorage, which was published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 1999, and received the Lambda Literary Award, Voluntary Servitude, published in 2004 by Graywolf Press, and The Earth Avails published by Graywolf in 2014 which was a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Award, and received the 2015 Rilke Prize. His most recent book, God of Nothingness, was published by Graywolf Press in 2021. He has received fellowships from the NEA, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Wallace Stegner Fellowship Program at Stanford, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Amy Lowell Trust and the Civitella Ranieri Foundation. His poems, interviews, reviews and translations have appeared in journals such as Slate, The Paris Review, The New York Times Magazine, Poetry, Yale Review, Fence and Tin House, and his poems are widely anthologized. Wunderlich has taught at Stanford and Barnard College and in the graduate writing programs at Columbia University, Ohio University, San Francisco State University and Sarah Lawrence. As an arts administrator, he has worked at the Academy of American Poets, Poetry Society of America, the University of Arizona Poetry Center, Poets & Writers and the Napa Valley Writers Conference. He holds a BA in German Literature and English from the University of Wisconsin, and an MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts. Wunderlich lives in the Hudson River Valley and has taught at Bennington since 2004. He became the director of the Bennington Writing Seminars in August 2017.
Craig Morgan Teicher, awarded a Poetry Fellowship, is the author of three books of poetry, most recently The Trembling Answers, which won the 2017 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets. His collection of essays, We Begin in Gladness: How Poets Progress was published in 2018. He edited Once and For All: The Best of Delmore Schwartz. He also teaches at NYU and the New School and is director of special editorial projects for Publishers Weekly.
Former visiting faculty were also recipients of this prestigious award, including Paul Yoon for a Fiction Fellowship, Ephraim Asili for a Film-Video Fellowship, Kaitlyn Greenidge for a Fiction Fellowship, Alexander Chee for a General Non-Fiction Fellowship, and Melissa Thorne, for a Fine Arts Fellowship. Additionally, Michelle Grabner, a Bennington parent (Peter Ribic '09) has been awarded a Fine Arts Fellowship.
"I am thrilled to announce this new group of Guggenheim Fellows," said Edward Hirsch, President of the Foundation, "especially since this has been a devastating year in so many ways. A Guggenheim Fellowship has always been meaningful, but this year we know it will be a lifeline for many of the new Fellows at a time of great hardship, a survival tool as well as a creative one. The work supported by the Fellowship will help us understand more deeply what we are enduring individually and collectively, and it is an honor for the Foundation to help the Fellows do what they were meant to do."
Since its establishment in 1925, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has granted nearly $400 million in Fellowships to over 18,000 individuals, among whom are more than 125 Nobel laureates, members of all the national academies, winners of the Pulitzer Prize, Fields Medal, Turing Award, Bancroft Prize, National Book Award, and other internationally recognized honors.
For more information on the Fellows and their projects, please visit the Foundation's website.
Mark Wunderlich
Homepage Featured Story
Top news—Faculty


AS impostors seldom make lies to pass in the world, without putting false names upon things, such as our author endeavour to persuade the people they ought not to defend their liberties, by giving the name of rebellion to the most just and honourable actions that have been performed for the preservation of them; and to aggravate the matter, fear not to tell us that rebellion is like the sin of witchcraft. But those who seek after truth, will easily find, that there can be no such thing in the world as the rebellion of a nation against its own magistrates, and that rebellion is not always evil. That this may appear, it will not be amiss to consider the word, as well as the thing understood by it as it is used in an evil sense.
The word is taken from the Latin rebellare, which signifies no more than to renew a war. When a town or province had been subdued by the Romans, and brought under their dominion, if they violated their faith after the settlement of peace, and invaded their masters who had spared them, they were said to rebel. But it had been more absurd to apply that word to the people that rose against the decemviri, kings or other magistrates, than to the Parthians or any of those nations who had no dependence upon them; for all the circumstances that should make a rebellion were wanting, the word implying a superiority in them against whom it is, as well as the breach of an establish'd peace. But tho every private man singly taken be subject to the commands of the magistrate, the whole body of the people is not so; for he is by and for the people, and the people is neither by nor for him. The obedience due to him from private men is grounded upon, and measured by the general law; and that law regarding the welfare of the people, cannot set up the interest of one or a few men against the publick. The whole body therefore of a nation cannot be tied to any other obedience than is consistent with the common good, according to their own judgment: and having never been subdued or brought to terms of peace with their magistrates, they cannot be said to revolt or rebel against them to whom they owe no more than seems good to themselves, and who are nothing of or by themselves, more than other men.
Again, the thing signified by rebellion is not always evil; for tho every subdued nation must acknowledge a superiority in those who have subdued them, and rebellion do imply a breach of the peace, yet that superiority is not infinite; the peace may be broken upon just grounds, and it may be neither a crime nor infamy to do it. The Privernates had been more than once subdued by the Romans, and had as often rebelled. Their city was at last taken by Plautius the consul, after their leader Vitruvius and great numbers of their senate and people had been kill'd: Being reduced to a low condition, they sent ambassadors to Rome to desire peace; where when a senator asked them what punishment they deserved, one of them answered, The same which they deserve who think themselves worthy of liberty. The consul then demanded, what kind of peace might be expected from them, if the punishment should be remitted: The ambassador answer'd, If the terms you give be good, the peace will be observed by us faithfully and perpetually; if bad, it will soon be broken. And tho some were offended with the ferocity of the answer; yet the best part of the senate approved it as worthy of a man and a freeman; and confessing that no man or nation would continue under an uneasy condition longer than they were compell'd by force, said, They only were fit to be made Romans, who thought nothing valuable but liberty. Upon which they were all made citizens of Rome, and obtained whatsoever they had desired.
I know not how this matter can be carried to a greater height; for if it were possible, that a people resisting oppression, and vindicating their own liberty, could commit a crime, and incur either guilt or infamy, the Privernates did, who had been often subdued, and often pardoned; but even in the judgment of their conquerors whom they had offended, the resolution they professed of standing to no agreement imposed upon them by necessity, was accounted the highest testimony of such a virtue as rendered them worthy to be admitted into a society and equality with themselves, who were the most brave and virtuous people of the world.
But if the patience of a conquer'd people may have limits, and they who will not bear oppression from those who had spared their lives, may deserve praise and reward from their conquerors, it would be madness to think, that any nation can be obliged to bear whatsoever their own magistrates think fit to do against them. This may seem strange to those who talk so much of conquests made by kings; immunities, liberties and privileges granted to nations; oaths of allegiance taken, and wonderful benefits conferred upon them. But having already said as much as is needful concerning conquests, and that the magistrate who has nothing except what is given to him, can only dispense out of the publick stock such franchises and privileges as he has received for the reward of services done to the country, and encouragement of virtue, I shall at present keep myself to the two last points.
Allegiance signifies no more (as the words, ad legem declare) than such an obedience as the law requires. But as the law can require nothing from the whole people, who are masters of it, allegiance can only relate to particulars, and not to the whole. No oath can bind any other than those who take it, and that only in the true sense and meaning of it: but single men only take this oath, and therefore single men are only obliged to keep it: the body of a people neither does, nor can perform any such act: Agreements and contracts have been made; as the tribe of Judah, and the rest of Israel afterward, made a covenant with David, upon which they made him king; but no wise man can think, that the nation did thereby make themselves the creature of their own creature.
The sense also of an oath ought to be considered. No man can by an oath be obliged to anything beyond, or contrary to the true meaning of it: private men who swear obedience ad legem, swear no obedience extra or contra legem: whatsoever they promise or swear, can detract nothing from the publick liberty, which the law principally intends to preserve. Tho many of them may be obliged in their several stations and capacities to render peculiar services to a prince, the people continue as free as the internal thoughts of a man, and cannot but have a right to preserve their liberty, or avenge the violation.
If matters are well examined, perhaps not many magistrates can pretend to much upon the title of merit, most especially if they or their progenitors have continued long in office. The conveniences annexed to the exercise of the sovereign power, may be thought sufficient to pay such scores as they grow due, even to the best: and as things of that nature are handled, I think it will hardly be found, that all princes can pretend to an irresistible power upon the account of beneficence to their people. When the family of Medici came to be masters of Tuscany, that country was without dispute, in men, money and arms, one of the most flourishing provinces in the world, as appears by Machiavelli's account, and the relation of what happened between Charles the eighth and the magistrates of Florence, which I have mentioned already from Guicciardini. Now whoever shall consider the strength of that country in those days, together with what it might have been in the space of a hundred and forty years, in which they have had no war, nor any other plague, than the extortion, fraud, rapine and cruelty of their princes, and compare it with their present desolate, wretched and contemptible condition, may, if he please, think that much veneration is due to the princes that govern them, but will never make any man believe that their title can be grounded upon beneficence. The like may be said of the duke of Savoy, who pretending (upon I know not what account) that every peasant in the duchy ought to pay him two crowns every half year, did in 1662 subtly find out, that in every year there were thirteen halves; so that a poor man who had nothing but what he gained by hard labour, was through his fatherly care and beneficence, forced to pay six and twenty crowns to his royal highness, to be employ'd in his discrete and virtuous pleasures at Turin.
The condition of the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands (and even of Spain itself) when they fell to the house of Austria, was of the same nature: and I will confess as much as can be required, if any other marks of their government do remain, than such as are manifest evidences of their pride, avarice, luxury and cruelty.
France in outward appearance makes a better show; but nothing in this world is more miserable, than that people under the fatherly care of their triumphant monarch. The best of their condition is like asses and mastiff-dogs, to work and fight, to be oppressed and kill'd for him; and those among them who have any understanding well know, that their industry, courage, and good success, is not only unprofitable, but destructive to them; and that by increasing the power of their master, they add weight to their own chains. And if any prince, or succession of princes, have made a more modest use of their power, or more faithfully discharged the trust reposed in them, it must be imputed peculiarly to them, as a testimony of their personal virtue, and can have no effect upon others.
The rights therefore of kings are not grounded upon conquest; the liberties of nations do not arise from the grants of their princes; the oath of allegiance binds no private man to more than the law directs, and has no influence upon the whole body of every nation: Many princes are known to their subjects only by the injuries, losses and mischiefs brought upon them; such as are good and just, ought to be rewarded for their personal virtue, but can confer no right upon those who no way resemble them; and whoever pretends to that merit, must prove it by his actions: Rebellion being nothing but a renewed war, can never be against a government that was not established by war, and of itself is neither good nor evil, more than any other war; but is just or unjust according to the cause or manner of it. Besides, that rebellion which by Samuel is compar'd to witchcraft, is not of private men, or a people against the prince, but of the prince against God: The Israelites are often said to have rebelled against the law, word, or command of God; but tho they frequently opposed their kings, I do not find rebellion imputed to them on that account, nor any ill character put upon such actions. We are told also of some kings who had been subdued, and afterwards rebelled against Chedorlaomer and other kings; but their cause is not blamed, and we have some reason to believe it good, because Abraham took part with those who had rebelled. However it can be of no prejudice to the cause I defend: for tho it were true, that those subdued kings could not justly rise against the person who had subdued them; or that generally no king being once vanquished, could have a right of rebellion against his conqueror, it could have no relation to the actions of a people vindicating their own laws and liberties against a prince who violates them; for that war which never was, can never be renewed. And if it be true in any case, that hands and swords are given to men, that they only may be slaves who have no courage, it must be when liberty is overthrown by those, who of all men ought with the utmost industry and vigour to have defended it.
That this should be known, is not only necessary for the safety of nations, but advantageous to such kings as are wise and good. They who know the frailty of human nature, will always distrust their own; and desiring only to do what they ought, will be glad to be restrain'd from that which they ought not to do. Being taught by reason and experience, that nations delight in the peace and justice of a good government, they will never fear a general insurrection, whilst they take care it be rightly administered; and finding themselves by this means to be safe, will never be unwilling, that their children or successors should be obliged to tread in the same steps.
If it be said that this may sometimes cause disorders, I acknowledge it; but no human condition being perfect, such a one is to be chosen, which carries with it the most tolerable inconveniences: And it being much better that the irregularities and excesses of a prince should be restrained or suppressed, than that whole nations should perish by them, those constitutions that make the best provision against the greatest evils, are most to be commended. If governments were instituted to gratify the lusts of one man, those could not be good that set limits to them; but all reasonable men confessing that they are instituted for the good of nations, they only can deserve praise, who above all things endeavour to procure it, and appoint means proportioned to that end. The great variety of governments which we see in the world, is nothing but the effect of this care; and all nations have been, and are more or less happy, as they or their ancestors have had vigour of spirit, integrity of manners, and wisdom to invent and establish such orders, as have better or worse provided for this common good, which was sought by all. But as no rule can be so exact, to make provision against all contestations; and all disputes about right do naturally end in force when justice is denied (ill men never willingly submitting to any decision that is contrary to their passions and interests) the best constitutions are of no value, if there be not a power to support them. This power first exerts itself in the execution of justice by the ordinary officers: But no nation having been so happy, as not sometimes to produce such princes as Edward and Richard the Seconds, and such ministers as Gaveston, Spencer, and Tresilian, the ordinary officers of justice often want the will, and always the power to restrain them. So that the rights and liberties of a nation must be utterly subverted and abolished, if the power of the whole may not be employed to assert them, or punish the violation of them. But as it is the fundamental right of every nation to be governed by such laws, in such manner, and by such persons as they think most conducing to their own good, they cannot be accountable to any but themselves for what they do in that most important affair.
 Viri & liberi vocem auditam. Ibid.
 Eos demum, qui nihil praeterquam de libertate cogitant, dignos esse, qui Romani fiant. Ibid.


1. Plan the layout of the worksheet. Rows typically contain items analogous to items in a list.
A name could serve as an item in a list, and, therefore, each name could be placed in a row.
As a list grows, such as a list of employees, the number of rows in the worksheet will increase.
Information about each item in the list and associated calculations should appear in columns.
using Excel functions as opposed to relying on complex formulas.
and parentheses for negative values.
a cell to stand out from related cells and determine in what way the cell will stand out.
add an additional level of customization to the printed page.
Figure 2 – 1 on page EX 67.
Zs indicate that the selected format should instruct Excel to suppress leading 0s.
indicates the number of decimal places to use.
4. The slashes in the second column identify the cell entry as a date.
appears next to the i rst signii cant digit.


text:
Q: How do I resolve a "Fatal error" when creating a service? I'm following this Drupal 8 module development 101 tutorial. It's between 37:15 to 45:14 on the YouTube video. I kept getting this error:
Fatal error: Class 'Drupal\dino_roar\DinoServices\HelloGenerator' not found in C:\Users\myName\Sites\devdesktop\drupal-8.0.5\modules\dino_roar\src\Controller\RoarController.php on line 11
Folder structure:

HelloGenerator.php
<?php

namespace Drupal\dino_roar\DinoServices;

class HelloGenerator
{
    public function getHello($count){
        return "Gotten Hello ".$count;
    }
}

RoarController.php
<?php

namespace Drupal\dino_roar\Controller;

//use Drupal\dino_roar\DinoServices\HelloGenerator;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\Controller;

class RoarController extends Controller
{
    public function roar($count){
        //$helloGenerator = new HelloGenerator();
        $helloGenerator = $this->get('dino_roar.hello_generator');
        $hello = $helloGenerator->getHello($count);
        return new Response($hello);

        //return new Response("Hello World ".$count);
    }
}

dino_roar.info.yml
name: Dino ROAR
type: module
description: "ROAR at you"
package: Custom
core: 8.x

dino_roar.routing.yml
dino_says:
    path: /dino/says/{count}
    defaults:
        _controller: '\Drupal\dino_roar\Controller\RoarController::roar'
    requirements:
        _permission: 'access content'

dino_roar.services.yml
services:
    dino_roar.hello_generator:
        class: Drupal\dino_roar\DinoServices\HelloGenerator

The fatal error points to this line of code in the RoarController.php file: $helloGenerator = new HelloGenerator();
This is the Symfony version. I can't find it say 1,2, or 3 in this window.

A: First of all, your RoarController class needs to extends the Controller class
class RoarController

to
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\Controller

class RoarController extends Controller

EDIT
Ok now change
public function roar($count){
    $helloGenerator = new HelloGenerator();
    $hello = $helloGenerator->getHello($count);
    return new Response($hello);

    //return new Response("Hello World ".$count);
}

to
public function roar($count){
    $helloGenerator = $this->get('dino_roar.hello_generator');
    $hello = $helloGenerator->getHello($count);
    return new Response($hello);

    //return new Response("Hello World ".$count);
}

You didn't understand how use services that why I invite you to read this http://symfony.com/doc/current/book/service_container.html#creating-configuring-services-in-the-container


CITY-TAX-EXEMPTIONS ASSOSIATIONS For associations, foundations and religious communities.
City-Tax-exemption for associations (german download) download here.
CITY-TAX SELF-ATTESTATION Self-Attestation of the Professional Necessity of an overnight stay.
ALETTO GUIDE Our present for you.
CITY-TAX-EXEMPTION For school trips approved by the school management.


text:
ACCEPTED

#### According to
Index Fungorum

#### Published in
Monogr. Discom. Bohem. (Prague) 305 (1934)

#### Original name
Lachnea gintlii var. rigidula Velen.

### Remarks
null


Berlin, 11 March 2019: IT system integrators offer their customers a wide range of services as Managed Services Providers (MSP). The services include hosting services, virtual private networks (VPN), Voice over IP (VoIP), internet access and also network security. With macmon secure, MSPs now have the opportunity to further expand their competence in the area of Network Access Control (NAC). The offering includes solutions for both "operators" and "hosters" in conjunction with billing models that adapt to the current offering of MSPs.
System integrators provide their services remotely via the Internet. The offers of the MSPs also include remote maintenance as well as technical assistance by IT experts trained for this purpose. For an indi-vidually agreed fee, the customer's IT infrastructure is monitored and any problems that arise are solved by external experts. Managed services give small - and medium-sized companies in particular - the opportunity to save costs by outsourcing their IT requirements without having to set up or expand their internal IT department. Larger companies like to involve their trusted IT system house for special topics that go beyond day-to-day business.


See Pull-Down Menu below for actual pricing for your configuration.
Designaknit 8 Upgrade - If you already own a version of Designaknit, you can upgrade it to Version 8. You also have the option of adding the new HandKnit program to any of the previous versions. Make your selection from the pull-down menu at the bottom of this page.
IMPORTANT NOTE: To obtain the Upgrade version, you must return the original CD or Diskette (diskettes with the serial number written on it) to me at the store: Distinctive Knits, 322 Second St., Aurora, IN 47001-1304. Make a photocopy of the disk (ette) before you send it through the mail. An actual physical exchange must be made.


text:
Cops, Crime, criminal justice, Drugs, human services, Seattle magazine	 September 27, 2019
Justice Reform Advocate Behind Successful Diversion Program Wins MacArthur "Genius" Grant
This post originally appeared on Seattle magazine's website.
Image Credit: Hayley Young, Seattle magazine
Lisa Daugaard, the Seattle criminal justice reform advocate and director of the Public Defender Association (PDA), used to joke with her staff that she would never get a MacArthur grant—the no-strings-attached financial stipend commonly known as the "genius grant." "It has been kind of an internal joke among my colleagues and family that this would never happen to me, because I had a particularly challenging dynamic with MacArthur over how the work in the [criminal justice] field should progress," Daugaard says.
So when she got a call from the MacArthur Foundation—several calls, actually, plus a number of increasingly urgent texts—she thought, "I'll get to this when I get to it."
Daugaard was preoccupied with a more pressing problem—the latest city budget left the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program underfunded, and the PDA would have to stop taking on new clients starting in early 2020. The city has expanded the program geographically since it first started as a Belltown pilot program in 2005, but resources have not kept up with the expanding need, and the small staff is now "pinned at their desks" by staggering caseloads, Daugaard says. "We've been struggling with fairly profound questions about whether LEAD is going to make it in Seattle. … The model will collapse without some recognition that as we build enthusiasm for and willingness to use this model, by definition, we have to grow in capacity."
So when her phone started ringing, Daugaard says, "I was very preoccupied and grumpy. That morning, I was walking around thinking, 'I'm kind of done. I don't think I can fix this.'"
When she finally returned the call, "and then I realized that the only thing they needed to ask me about was whether I would accept this award, it was just one of those moments in one's life where the thing that you had absolutely, conclusively ruled out as ever possibly happening does happen, and it reminds you that you should probably stop assuming that you know what is possible," Daugaard says.
LEAD, a joint effort between the PDA, police, and other community stakeholders, is a pre-arrest diversion program that offers alternatives to the criminal justice system for low-level offenders with mental illness and substance use disorders. The program has been shown to be more effective than other approaches at reducing recidivism, reducing arrests by 60 percent compared to other approaches. Versions of LEAD now exist across the country—a testament, supporters say, to the effectiveness of the program.
MacArthur's process for choosing grant recipients is notoriously secretive. It involves following potential recipients' work for multiple years and interviewing other people in their orbit to gauge the impact of their work. "The idea that folks who have tried to steer the criminal justice field are feeling confident about this direction was kind of news to me, and very welcome information," Daugaard says.
She hopes Mayor Jenny Durkan and other city leaders are paying attention. "The people who confer about what direction our field needs to take have decided that this is a very promising direction and that this is not a risk. I hope that that is the takeaway," she says.
As for what she plans to do with that $625,000 of grant money from the foundation? Daugaard says she'll figure that out soon—right after she finishes up a couple of big projects, including training 15 organizations from across the U.S. on the LEAD model. "I think in 2020 I will be able to start stepping away and doing some writing" about the theory and practice of LEAD and why it works. She knows the program will go on whether she's actively engaged on a day-to-day basis or not. "I'm proud and pleased that [LEAD] is not dependent on any one person or any one personality and style," she says. "I'm really confident that that the same insights will be generated, and the same problem-solving will happen, whether I'm there or not."
Filed under: criminal justice reform, Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, Lisa Daugaard, Public Defender Association, Seattle Police Departmetn
The 2019 City Council Candidates: District 3 Challenger Egan Orion
The 2019 City Council Candidates: District 1 Incumbent Lisa Herbold


text:
"Motherhood Is a Refining Fire": Exploring Constructions of Black Motherhood and Fire Imagery Throughout Toni Morrison's Sula
April 19, 2019 by Essay Writer
Since its publication in 1973, Toni Morrison's masterpiece Sula has awed readers with its thought provoking imagery and themes. Sula tells the story of the Peace family, which consists of Eva, Hannah, Plum, Pearl, and Sula. The Peace family faces many hardships throughout the years, but their love for one another and desire to survive and thrive prevails. Morrison provides readers with three different views of motherhood within the Peace family. First, is Eva whom many would consider to be a stereotypical "matriarch". Eva is a self-sacrificing, strong-willed woman who arguably cut off her own leg in order to feed her children. Eva does what is necessary for the Peace family to survive, which includes putting Plum out of his misery by burning him to death, and also jumping out of a window to attempt to save Hannah from burning to death. Next, is Eva's daughter Hannah. Hannah, like her mother is strong-willed and independent, but she also displays a lot of sexual freedom which is passed down to her only daughter, Sula. Hannah also claims to "love Sula", but she just doesn't "like her" (Morrison 57). Sula inherits traits from both Eva and Hannah, but the most important and differing aspect of Sula is that she is more interested in mothering herself and establishing herself than she is mothering a child.
In the article "Revision of Motherhood, Maternity, and Matriarchy in Toni Morrison's Novels" Parvin Ghasemi argues that "while Morrison sees motherhood as an important experience for women, she does not limit women's roles in society to motherhood, nor does she restrict motherhood to biological maternity. For Morrison, mothers are first and foremost human beings with distinct identities, individuals who can have the potential—in favorable circumstances—to realize that motherhood and individuality are not mutually exclusive" (Ghasemi 27). In the novel, plays an important role when analyzing the portrayals of motherhood. Fire is not only used in the traditional symbol of destruction, but it is also used as an act of mercy and rebirth in Eva's infanticide towards Plum. As a whole, fire comes to represent Black motherhood and the societal expectations placed on women to become mothers. Eva sets fires and tries to put out fires, Hannah is consumed by fire, and the fire burns inside Sula. To begin to recognize the evolution of motherhood and fire throughout the novel, I am first going to analyze the character of Eva. Much of Eva's character can come to be understood through her love for her son Plum. When Plum was a sick baby, Eva took the last food in the house and "rammed [it] up her baby's behind to keep from hurting him too much when she opened up his bowels to pull the stools out" (Morrison 70). In this quote, Morrison uses abjection to illustrate the selflessness and love that Eva has towards not only all of her children put Plum in particular. Eva takes the last bit of food not only for her, but her other two children, just to relieve baby Plum from pain. This need to relieve her children from pain carries on into adulthood.
After Plum returns from the war he becomes an addict and reverts to a child-like stage. Eva is upset by Plum's reversion, as he was her favorite child whom she was going to leave everything to. Ultimately, Eva makes the emotional decision to murder Plum out of mercy. One night Plum opens his "eyes and saw what he imaged was the great wing of an eagle pouring a wet lightness over him. Some kind of baptism, some kind of blessing, he thought. Everything was going to be all right, it said" (47). Plum imagining the great wing of an eagle carries great symbolic weight. An eagle in the American context is seen as a bird of great beauty, and it also symbolizes freedom as it is the emblem of the United States of America. The wing of an eagle implies that through this heinous act Plum will be free, he will find freedom from his current ruined life of squalor and addiction. In addition, the kerosene or "wet lightness" comes to act as a symbol for water in a baptism. A baptism in the context of Christianity is seen as an act of obedience symbolizing the believer's faith in their salvation through Jesus Christ. It is also a testimony to the believer's faith in the final resurrection of the dead. In this scene, Eva turns into a Jesus figure, a savior, and Plum places his full trust in her action. Though many may believe that Eva's action towards Plum was premeditated murder, I believe it to be an act of mercy for her son. It can also be inferred that the flames will allow Plum the rebirth he needs in order to resurrect his original self. When Hannah confronts Eva about the murder of Plum, Eva explains: "There wasn't space for him in my womb. And he was crawlin' back. Being helpless and thinking baby thoughts and dreaming baby dreams and messing up his pants again and smiling all the time. I had room enough in my heart, but not in my womb, not no more. I birthed him once. I couldn't do it again. He was growed, a big old thing. Godhavemercy, I couldn't birth him twice" (71) In this quotation, it is important to note that Eva has room for Plum in her heart but not in her physical womb. Since the war, Plum's addiction had forced him to revert into a child-like state, which Eva recognized, and details throughout this quotation. The image of a grown man trying to crawl back up into his mother's womb is disturbing, and Eva knew that she could do nothing else to save him. Eva had already "birthed him once" and she is physically incapable of birthing him again. Through fire, Eva was able to provide Plum the rebirth and clean slate that he needed.
Though Eva lights Plum afire with hopes of saving him, Eva attempts to extinguish Hannah's fire in hope of saving her. After confessing to her friends that she loves Sula but just doesn't "like her" (57), Hannah asks her own mother, "'Mamma, did you ever love us?'" (67). This confrontation between Eva and Hannah occurs on the "hottest day anyone in Medallion could remember—a day so hot flies slept and cats were splaying their fur like quills" (70). This descriptive quote is important because it illustrates not only the sheer heat of the day which can act as a reference to fire and even to hell, but it also showcases the rising tensions between mother and daughter. Hannah led her life in a "scandalous" manner. She slept with whatever men she wanted and had her own life and individuality apart from being a mother. Ghasemi explains Hannah's situation perfectly by arguing that she "demystifies another aspect of Black woman's stereotyping as she does not entirely fit in the category of the ideal Black mother or the jezebel figure. She is just an adequate mother who takes care of her daughter's needs and loves her, as she professes in the course of the novel, but does not 'like' her, unlike the idealized mother whose life interest is supposed to be embodied in her child" (Ghasemi 5). One could say that like Icarus, Hannah flew too close to the sun and tried to have it all, that is a personal identity and a good family life.
When taking into consideration Hannah's actual death, the Icarus analogy remains relevant because Hannah caught on fire from standing too close to it: It was then she saw Hannah burning. The flames from the yard fire were licking the blue cotton dress, making her dance. Eva knew there was time for nothing in this world other than the time it took to get there and cover her daughter's body with her own. She lifted her heavy frame up on her good leg, and with fists and arms smashed the windowpane. Using her stump as support on the window sill, her good leg as a lever, she threw herself out of the window. Cut and bleeding she clawed the air trying to aim her body toward the flaming, dancing figure. (Morrison 75-76) At the end of Hannah's life, it is her own ignorance and pride that caused her demise, whereas Eva acts selflessly by flinging herself out of the window in attempt to save her daughter. The flames which make Hannah's body "dance" at first glance seem pure, childish, and whimsical, when in reality Hannah is writhing in pain from being burned alive. As an instinct, Eva knew "there was time for nothing in this world other than the time it took to get there and cover he daughter's body with her own" (77). This notion aligns with what one would traditionally associate with a self-less motherhood, whereas Sula had watched her mother burn "not because she was paralyzed but because she was interested" (78). The symbolic nature of Hannah's death by fire acts as a shifting point, or midpoint of motherhood within the Peace family. Instead of recognizing her mother in flames as a negative image, Sula rather watches in a sick interest, completely disassociated from her mother as opposed to Eva who jumps out of a window in attempt to save her daughter.
Ghasemi argues that the "patriarchal society defines motherhood as an empty function, where the mother exists only in relation to her child, never allowed to display an identity distinct from that of her children" (Ghasemi 19). When taking Ghasemi's observation into consideration, I have to ask myself, was Hannah punished with death by fire because of her attempt to have an identity aside from Sula? Unlike Plum, Hannah was not rebirthed or cleansed by the fire, but rather, she was punished for her duplicitous lifestyle. Hannah's punishment by fire could allude to fire and brimstone and God's wrath for Hannah's many adulterous affairs. The final example of motherhood within the Peace family that I will explore is with Sula and the mothering of herself. Ghasemi argues that "Morrison extends the notion of motherhood to the individual's self-creation through 'mothering' themselves" (2). Because of her neglect to mother children, Sula becomes the antithesis of a mother figure. Upon Sula's return to town Eva asks Sula, "'When you gone to get married? You need to have some babies. It'll settle you'" to which Sula replies, "'I don't want to make somebody else. I want to make myself'" (Morrison 92). This notion that Sula wants to make herself as opposed to making somebody else is rather modern. It illustrates that she is more interested in making herself the best woman she can be, without having to fall into the traditional constricting role of motherhood. Later, Sula says to Eva, "any more fires in this house, I'm lighting them! … whatever's burning in me is mine!" (93). Herein, Morrison is critiquing traditional portrayals of motherhood and Black motherhood in particular. In this novel, fire is associated with motherly love in the deaths of both Plum and Hannah, yet, instead of fire burning on the outside of Sula she is burning on the inside. Sula's internal burn acts as a self-motivator to be different and to not conform to the standards of the society and the patriarchy by becoming a mother. In addition, in this quote Sula claims her own autonomy by saying the "any more fire in this house, I'm lighting them!", because up to this point in the novel, Sula has yet to solidify her autonomy within her familial construct. Sula continues to further this autonomy when she says to Eva, "'I ain't never going to need you. And you know what? Maybe one night when you dozing in that wagon flicking flies and swallowing spit, maybe I'll just tip on up here with some kerosene and—who knows—you may make the brightest flame of them all'" (94). What this quote illustrates is that Sula in her quest for independence, does not understand that both the fiery death of her mother and uncle were out of mercy and love. Yet, she decides to threaten her grandmother with fire because Sula is incapable of understanding maternal love.
It is also interesting that Sula argues that Eva will make "'the brightest flame of them all'". This statement could refer to the fact that in Sula's mind Eva is the supposed "matriarch" of the family, and therefore has the most to lose, or that in Sula's mind Eva will pay for her sins/alleged murders. With the character of Sula, Morrison plays with the concept of female identity and shows that the extremity of Sula's self-realized character arguably goes too far. Sula ultimately dies of a fever. Her insides end up figuratively burning: "at last it covered her, filled her eyes, her nose, her throat, and she woke gagging and overwhelmed with the smell of smoke. Pain took hold. First, a fluttering as of doves in her stomach, then a kind of burning, followed by a spread of thin wires to other parts of her body" (148). Smoke from her dream of fire begins to metaphorically suffocate Sula. This notion of metaphorical smoke from flames is import to my claim of fire as societal pressures of women/motherhood, because it is ultimately what kills her. It is of value that Sula feels "fluttering" in her stomach, this could allude to the fact that her womb remained vacant until the day that she died. The doves are also important as well. Doves are a universal symbol of peace, and the "fluttering as of doves in her stomach" could allude to the fact that she has come to terms with the fact that she will never fill her societal role as a mother. In addition, the burning that had been inside of her, her whole life ended up consuming her. This burning can either be thought of as the societal pressure to have a child, or on the other hand it could be Sula's problematic individualism.
Through the different fire imagery and its effects on the Peace family, Morrison details a progression in the portrayal of Black motherhood in Sula. First, Eva the arguably stereotypical self-sacrificing "matriarch" who literally puts her leg out on the line to ensure the well-being of her children. In the middle is Hannah who provides Sula her basic needs, and lives her own risqué life but gets punished to death by fire. And then, there is Sula who decides to mother herself and defy any and all stereotypes of Black motherhood. Though these three pictures of Black motherhood vary immensely, Morrison succeeds by twisting each into their own cautionary tale through the use of fire symbolism.
Ghasemi, Parvin. "Revision of Motherhood, Maternity, and Matriarchy in Toni Morrison's Novels." Order No. 9518745 The Pennsylvania State University, 1994. Ann Arbor: ProQuest. Web. 22 Mar. 2018. Morrison, Toni. Sula. New York: Vintage International, 2004.
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