text:
Over £6,000 raised for the East Anglian Air Ambulance in memory of popular Ely man Phil Beeton
People turned out in force in the village of Southery last month to remember carpenter and father-of-two
Jordan Day
The East Anglian Air Ambulance landing in Cambridge. (Image: Geoff Robinson Photography)
More than £6,000 has now been raised for the East Anglian Air Ambulance (EAAA) in memory of popular Ely man Phil Beeton.
People turned out in force in the village of Southery last month to remember carpenter and father-of-two Phil, who was killed in a tragic collision on the A10.
More than 30 motorcyclists completed a 120-mile route from the village's Old White Bell pub to Hunstanton, and then back again.
The scenic route included the village of Blakeney where Phil and his partner, Jane Taggart, often travelled to on his motorbike.
Droves of cyclists also took on a 20-mile route to and from the pub, taking in the surrounding Fens.
The fundraising extravaganza also included a fun day and quiz at the pub, and one brave local had his legs, chest and back waxed.
Phil's family want to thank everyone who has helped them achieve the £6,040 total, and Southery SWISH for organising the day and paying for the memorial bench.
New Ely McDonalds will create more than 100 jobs - and they are recruiting now
Phil, 50, who lived in Southery but who was well known in the Ely area, was driving a Citroën Relay van when it was in collision with a tipper lorry on the A10 at Chittering last October.
His 17-year-old nephew, Jack Beeton, from Littleport, was a passenger in the van at the time.
Jack was airlifted to Addenbrooke's with serious injuries, but survived the collision, hence family and friends are keen to support the EAAA.


text:
A Tesla Model S prototype gets 3 new electric motors by Magna
- Sep. 6th 2017 4:06 pm ET
We have seen a few examples of Tesla powertrains being used in other vehicles, whether it was in conversion projects or in Tesla's powertrain program with Toyota and Daimler, but the other way around is new to us.
Magna has unveiled a Model S prototype equipped with 3 of their new electric motors – pictured above.
They took a dual motor Model S and replaced the front and rear motors by 3 of their own new E1 140-kW motors (188 hp) – one for each rear wheel and one for the two front wheels.
CNET took a test ride in the vehicle:
"Magna's test driver takes me for a short spin on the roads around the company's facility in Graz, Austria. He floors it from a stop, and I experience the car's incredibly quick acceleration. Is it quicker than the 2.3 seconds to 60 mph boasted by the Model S P100D? I'm not timing it, but it feels like it's in that general ballpark."
It's doubtful that it could actually be faster than a normal Model S P100D on a clean straight line, but there's no doubt that the torque vectoring in the back has its advantages.
It enables them to quickly correct the torque in each real wheel in order to improve handling.
The Tier One auto supplier doesn't actually plan to commercialize this particular version of its electric powertrain, but it serves as a showcase of their technology, which they offer to automakers looking to develop new electric vehicle platform.
As recently reported, it has been a recent focus of auto suppliers lately. Williams just unveiled a new lightweight electric car platform, GKN Driveline revealed a next-gen electric drive system, and several other top suppliers have also been leading similar efforts to take advantage of the industry's transition to electric propulsion.
Featured images by Magna

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Notes: Excellent condition. Complete manual.
You are bidding on a John Deere 120C and 160CLC Hydraulic Excavator Operator's Manual. Publication #: OMT188255 issue H3. Book is around 200 pages. Like new condition. This version is on 8 1/2" x 11" paper bound.
A really good tool for anyone buying a machine or operating and maintaining a 120C or 160CLC.


Installing of Joomla! 1.5 is pretty easy. We assume you have set-up your Web site, and it is accessible with your browser.
Download Joomla! 1.5, unzip it and upload/copy the files into the directory you Web site points to, fire up your browser and enter your Web site address and the installation will start.
For full details on the installation processes check out the Installation Manual on the Joomla! Help Site where you will also find download instructions for a PDF version too.


text:
"""
kombu.transport.redis
=====================

Redis transport.

:copyright: (c) 2009 - 2012 by Ask Solem.
:license: BSD, see LICENSE for more details.

"""
from __future__ import absolute_import

from Queue import Empty

from anyjson import loads, dumps

from ..exceptions import InconsistencyError, StdChannelError, VersionMismatch
from ..utils import eventio, cached_property
from ..utils.encoding import str_t

from . import virtual

DEFAULT_PORT = 6379
DEFAULT_DB = 0

# This implementation may seem overly complex, but I assure you there is
# a good reason for doing it this way.
#
# Consuming from several connections enables us to emulate channels,
# which means we can have different service guarantees for individual
# channels.
#
# So we need to consume messages from multiple connections simultaneously,
# and using epoll means we don't have to do so using multiple threads.
#
# Also it means we can easily use PUBLISH/SUBSCRIBE to do fanout
# exchanges (broadcast), as an alternative to pushing messages to fanout-bound
# queues manually.

class MultiChannelPoller(object):
    eventflags = eventio.POLL_READ | eventio.POLL_ERR

    def __init__(self):
        # active channels
        self._channels = set()
        # file descriptor -> channel map.
        self._fd_to_chan = {}
        # channel -> socket map
        self._chan_to_sock = {}
        # poll implementation (epoll/kqueue/select)
        self._poller = eventio.poll()

    def close(self):
        for fd in self._chan_to_sock.itervalues():
            try:
                self._poller.unregister(fd)
            except KeyError:
                pass
        self._channels.clear()
        self._fd_to_chan.clear()
        self._chan_to_sock.clear()
        self._poller = None

    def add(self, channel):
        self._channels.add(channel)

    def discard(self, channel):
        self._channels.discard(channel)

    def _register(self, channel, client, type):
        if (channel, client, type) in self._chan_to_sock:
            self._unregister(channel, client, type)
        if client.connection._sock is None:   # not connected yet.
            client.connection.connect()
        sock = client.connection._sock
        self._fd_to_chan[sock.fileno()] = (channel, type)
        self._chan_to_sock[(channel, client, type)] = sock
        self._poller.register(sock, self.eventflags)

    def _unregister(self, channel, client, type):
        self._poller.unregister(self._chan_to_sock[(channel, client, type)])

    def _register_BRPOP(self, channel):
        """enable BRPOP mode for channel."""
        ident = channel, channel.client, "BRPOP"
        if channel.client.connection._sock is None or \
                ident not in self._chan_to_sock:
            channel._in_poll = False
            self._register(*ident)

        if not channel._in_poll:  # send BRPOP
            channel._brpop_start()

    def _register_LISTEN(self, channel):
        """enable LISTEN mode for channel."""
        if channel.subclient.connection._sock is None:
            channel._in_listen = False
            self._register(channel, channel.subclient, "LISTEN")
        if not channel._in_listen:
            channel._subscribe()  # send SUBSCRIBE

    def get(self, timeout=None):
        for channel in self._channels:
            if channel.active_queues:           # BRPOP mode?
                if channel.qos.can_consume():
                    self._register_BRPOP(channel)
            if channel.active_fanout_queues:    # LISTEN mode?
                self._register_LISTEN(channel)

        events = self._poller.poll(timeout)
        for fileno, event in events:
            if event & eventio.POLL_READ:
                chan, type = self._fd_to_chan[fileno]
                if chan.qos.can_consume():
                    return chan.handlers[type](), self
            elif event & eventio.POLL_ERR:
                chan, type = self._fd_to_chan[fileno]
                chan._poll_error(type)
                break
        raise Empty()

class Channel(virtual.Channel):
    _client = None
    _subclient = None
    supports_fanout = True
    keyprefix_queue = "_kombu.binding.%s"
    sep = '\x06\x16'
    _in_poll = False
    _in_listen = False
    _fanout_queues = {}

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super_ = super(Channel, self)
        super_.__init__(*args, **kwargs)

        self.Client = self._get_client()
        self.ResponseError = self._get_response_error()
        self.active_fanout_queues = set()
        self._fanout_to_queue = {}
        self.handlers = {"BRPOP": self._brpop_read, "LISTEN": self._receive}

        # Evaluate connection.
        self.client.info()

        self.connection.cycle.add(self)  # add to channel poller.
        # copy errors, in case channel closed but threads still
        # are still waiting for data.
        self.connection_errors = self.connection.connection_errors

    def basic_consume(self, queue, *args, **kwargs):
        if queue in self._fanout_queues:
            exchange = self._fanout_queues[queue]
            self.active_fanout_queues.add(queue)
            self._fanout_to_queue[exchange] = queue
        return super(Channel, self).basic_consume(queue, *args, **kwargs)

    def basic_cancel(self, consumer_tag):
        try:
            queue = self._tag_to_queue[consumer_tag]
        except KeyError:
            return
        try:
            self.active_fanout_queues.discard(queue)
            self._fanout_to_queue.pop(self._fanout_queues[queue])
        except KeyError:
            pass
        return super(Channel, self).basic_cancel(consumer_tag)

    def _subscribe(self):
        keys = [self._fanout_queues[queue]
                    for queue in self.active_fanout_queues]
        if not keys:
            return
        c = self.subclient
        if c.connection._sock is None:
            c.connection.connect()
        self.subclient.subscribe(keys)
        self._in_listen = True

    def _handle_message(self, client, r):
        if r[0] == "unsubscribe" and r[2] == 0:
            client.subscribed = False
        elif r[0] == "pmessage":
            return {"type":    r[0], "pattern": r[1],
                    "channel": r[2], "data":    r[3]}
        else:
            return {"type":    r[0], "pattern": None,
                    "channel": r[1], "data":    r[2]}

    def _receive(self):
        c = self.subclient
        response = None
        try:
            response = c.parse_response()
        except self.connection_errors:
            self._in_listen = False
        if response is not None:
            payload = self._handle_message(c, response)
            if payload["type"] == "message":
                return (loads(payload["data"]),
                        self._fanout_to_queue[payload["channel"]])
        raise Empty()

    def _brpop_start(self, timeout=1):
        queues = self.active_queues
        if not queues:
            return
        keys = list(queues) + [timeout or 0]
        self.client.connection.send_command("BRPOP", *keys)
        self._in_poll = True

    def _brpop_read(self, **options):
        try:
            try:
                dest__item = self.client.parse_response(self.client.connection,
                                                        "BRPOP",
                                                        **options)
            except self.connection_errors:
                # if there's a ConnectionError, disconnect so the next
                # iteration will reconnect automatically.
                self.client.connection.disconnect()
                raise Empty()
            if dest__item:
                dest, item = dest__item
                return loads(item), dest
            else:
                raise Empty()
        finally:
            self._in_poll = False

    def _poll_error(self, type, **options):
        try:
            self.client.parse_response(type)
        except self.connection_errors:
            pass

    def _get(self, queue):
        """basic.get

        .. note::

            Implies ``no_ack=True``

        """
        item = self._avail_client.rpop(queue)
        if item:
            return loads(item)
        raise Empty()

    def _size(self, queue):
        return self._avail_client.llen(queue)

    def _put(self, queue, message, **kwargs):
        """Deliver message."""
        self._avail_client.lpush(queue, dumps(message))

    def _put_fanout(self, exchange, message, **kwargs):
        """Deliver fanout message."""
        self._avail_client.publish(exchange, dumps(message))

    def _queue_bind(self, exchange, routing_key, pattern, queue):
        if self.typeof(exchange).type == "fanout":
            # Mark exchange as fanout.
            self._fanout_queues[queue] = exchange
        self._avail_client.sadd(self.keyprefix_queue % (exchange, ),
                            self.sep.join([routing_key or "",
                                           pattern or "",
                                           queue or ""]))

    def _delete(self, queue, exchange, routing_key, pattern, *args):
        self._avail_client.srem(self.keyprefix_queue % (exchange, ),
                                self.sep.join([routing_key or "",
                                               pattern or "",
                                               queue or ""]))
        self._avail_client.delete(queue)

    def _has_queue(self, queue, **kwargs):
        return self._avail_client.exists(queue)

    def get_table(self, exchange):
        key = self.keyprefix_queue % exchange
        exists, values = self.pipeline().exists(key).smembers(key).execute()
        if not exists:
            raise InconsistencyError(
                    "Queue list empty or key does not exist: %r" % (
                        self.keyprefix_queue % exchange))
        return [tuple(val.split(self.sep)) for val in values]

    def _purge(self, queue):
        size, _ = self.pipeline().llen(queue).delete(queue).execute()
        return size

    def close(self):
        if not self.closed:
            # remove from channel poller.
            self.connection.cycle.discard(self)

            # Close connections
            for attr in "client", "subclient":
                try:
                    delattr(self, attr)
                except (AttributeError, self.ResponseError):
                    pass
        super(Channel, self).close()

    def _create_client(self):
        conninfo = self.connection.client
        database = conninfo.virtual_host
        if not isinstance(database, int):
            if not database or database == "/":
                database = DEFAULT_DB
            elif database.startswith("/"):
                database = database[1:]
            try:
                database = int(database)
            except ValueError:
                raise ValueError(
                    "Database name must be int between 0 and limit - 1")

        return self.Client(host=conninfo.hostname,
                           port=conninfo.port or DEFAULT_PORT,
                           db=database,
                           password=conninfo.password)

    def _get_client(self):
        import redis

        version = getattr(redis, "__version__", (0, 0, 0))
        version = tuple(map(int, version.split(".")))
        if version < (2, 4, 4):
            raise VersionMismatch(
                "Redis transport requires redis-py versions 2.4.4 or later. "
                "You have %r" % (".".join(map(str_t, version)), ))

        # KombuRedis maintains a connection attribute on it's instance and
        # uses that when executing commands
        class KombuRedis(redis.Redis):  # pragma: no cover

            def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
                super(KombuRedis, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
                self.connection = self.connection_pool.get_connection('_')

            def execute_command(self, *args, **options):
                conn = self.connection
                command_name = args[0]
                try:
                    conn.send_command(*args)
                    return self.parse_response(conn, command_name, **options)
                except redis.ConnectionError:
                    conn.disconnect()
                    conn.send_command(*args)
                    return self.parse_response(conn, command_name, **options)

        return KombuRedis

    def _get_response_error(self):
        from redis import exceptions
        return exceptions.ResponseError

    def pipeline(self):
        return self._avail_client.pipeline()

    @property
    def _avail_client(self):
        if self._in_poll:
            return self._create_client()
        return self.client

    @cached_property
    def client(self):
        return self._create_client()

    @client.deleter     # noqa
    def client(self, client):
        client.connection.disconnect()

    @cached_property
    def subclient(self):
        client = self._create_client()
        pubsub = client.pubsub()
        pool = pubsub.connection_pool
        pubsub.connection = pool.get_connection("pubsub", pubsub.shard_hint)
        return pubsub

    @subclient.deleter  # noqa
    def subclient(self, client):
        client.connection.disconnect()

    @property
    def active_queues(self):
        return set(queue for queue in self._active_queues
                            if queue not in self.active_fanout_queues)

class Transport(virtual.Transport):
    Channel = Channel

    polling_interval = None  # disable sleep between unsuccessful polls.
    default_port = DEFAULT_PORT

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(Transport, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        self.connection_errors, self.channel_errors = self._get_errors()
        self.cycle = MultiChannelPoller()

    def _get_errors(self):
        from redis import exceptions
        # This exception suddenly changed name between redis-py versions
        if hasattr(exceptions, "InvalidData"):
            DataError = exceptions.InvalidData
        else:
            DataError = exceptions.DataError
        return ((exceptions.ConnectionError,
                 exceptions.AuthenticationError),
                (exceptions.ConnectionError,
                 DataError,
                 exceptions.InvalidResponse,
                 exceptions.ResponseError,
                 StdChannelError))

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


How does an idea at Fractured Atlas become a thing we do at Fractured Atlas? Everyone is encouraged to speak their mind, so there are always lots of suggestions on how we can make our company and culture awesome. Whether it's a wellness initiative or a new club, if it's worth doing, we try to find a way to do it. If we can't, we ask why not.
Sometimes suggestions don't work, but most of the time they do. We look at everything people have asked for and see what new benefits will make people most happy. We're always working to make Fractured Atlas better. Have an idea? Toss it out during our monthly Know the CEO or speak with a member of the People team.


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text:
Telecom Italia Agrees to a Deal With Unions to Cut 13,000 Jobs
By Yaroslav TrofimovStaff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
ROME -- Telecom Italia SpA and Italian labor unions agreed on a plan to cut some 13,000 jobs, in a compromise that allows Italy's former phone monopoly to implement a cost-cutting program without the risk of disruptive strikes.
The accord, brokered by the government after talks that lasted several months, helps Telecom Italia and Olivetti SpA Chief Executive Roberto Colaninno carry out almost all of the 13,500 staff reductions he pledged during last year's takeover battle.
However, thanks to generous early-retirement and unemployment subsidy schemes, virtually no Telecom Italia employees will find themselves on the street. That's a crucial political issue for a country with one of Europe's highest unemployment rates -- and regional elections less than three weeks away. The accord is especially important for Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema's government because he tacitly encouraged Olivetti to take over Telecom Italia a year ago.
Italian unions claimed victory after Tuesday's deal, which came as other former and current state monopolies such as the Ferrovie dello Stato railways and the Italian Post, are negotiating similar job cuts. The Telecom Italia agreement "reinforces a model of relations based on shared social consensus," said Pier Paolo Baretta, confederative secretary of CISL, one of Italy's three main unions. "It contains a lot fewer redundancies than Telecom had wanted."
According to the plan, some 5,300 Telecom Italia staff will be allowed to retire three or four years before they reach pension age, with the company and the social-security system sharing the costs. In addition, some 2,200 younger employees will be placed in a two-year unemployment "integration" program, with their salaries funded by the social-security system. A large part of the remaining jobs will be cut by simply not replacing departing or retiring employees with new staff.


text:
Armadillidium aegaeum är en kräftdjursart som beskrevs av Hans Strouhal 1929. Armadillidium aegaeum ingår i släktet Armadillidium och familjen klotgråsuggor. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Klotgråsuggor
aegaeum

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


From this page you can access a series of activities to help you develop your writing skills.
Below is a list of sub-topics of writing. Each sub-topic contains groups of tasks and there is also a short description of each task.
Read the writing categories below.


Fitflop Rebel Wvpsawah Fitflop Ciela FLqXhy FLn7Gt - 運動休閒 - 小雨點 休閒網 - Powered by Discuz!
Incompatible devices may cause some complications when transferring data between devices. In addition, tablets are also touchscreen, so if you plan on doing a lot of typing, then you may want to consider a model that comes with a slot for a keyboard. The next factor is an obvious one and is something that just about everyone takes into consideration when making an expensive purchase. The cost will surely be an issue, and you need to weigh the cost of a tablet in relation to the features it offers. Tablets are the next generation of Web technology and are a terrific device to own if you typically rely on the Web for work, paying bills, school assignments or entertainment.Fitflop Classic If you plan on buying one, then acquaint yourself with the different types of models that are available on the market and know the specifications of each one. You can find the best tablets online with a little bit of research.
At Guitar Center, I found a spanking, handsome Gibson Vintage Mahogany Electric, with which I am sure he will be delighted to serenade me. (He had gone all Adam "Wedding Singer" Sandler on me the day we officially became a couple.) Ha! Although it's rather pricey, I can still save big on a potential guitar purchase if I use one of the online store's discount codes.I might also buy him some home gym equipment from Big Fitness.Fitflop Flat Not that he's become lazy; in fact, he is doing everything he can to stay in shape: aerobic exercises, running, swimming, playing tennis. My boyfriend is a very active guy. Only, his metabolism is relatively slower than that of most people, so he has to make extra effort to lose unwanted pounds. If I buy him a couple of barbells and a treadmill for keeping fit, then I am sure he'll appreciate that.But his best friend Ernie suggested to me something else. Something practical.Fitflop Flower And something that might help keep appointments.
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GMT+8, 2019-4-20 16:09, Processed in 0.021133 second(s), 5 queries.


The beginning of the Twentieth century created a world of continuous evolving social and technological behaviour and interaction relations. Also it brought the advent of a time of accelerating mutation, where moments of new trends come with crisis and shift of paradigms. Within this world Personal branding became critical. Personal branding is necessarily the process whereby each person and their respective careers are or can be marked as brands (identity of a specific person his "product", service(s) or business (es)), a way of supporting a self-help management planning and strategy.
As global technologies and communication, social platforms and mobile devices evolve the concept of personal development and branding has became critical. With it the digital connections, the way one related with business and brands, networking are more and more sophisticated and complex. The web, technologies and its social relations collapses the notion of personal space and time, it dissolves the concept of geographic boundaries, and it gives each person windows into each other's worlds and personal behaviours.
This is causing a massive shift in the way individuals perceive themselves, their immediate identity and the relationships with their friends, networks and communities. Also this transformation has moved the context of how persons relate to the society at large.
David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect, prognosticated recently that: "Just by increasing the efficiency of communication and reducing friction in relationships between people, particularly on a global basis, it will lead to a more integrated sense of humanity." Also this fact has moved society towards a powerful new transparency and management of data, privacy and the way we visualise work, identity, the borders between the personal and professional.
In this ever changing pace a lot of things have to be rethinked. So did you ever thought about being approached by an exceptional top talent headhunter and he comes to you and tells and knows that you are precious and offers you a dream job? Well this is not going to happen, unless you make it so! So how can you get ready to shine in your professional life! What are the necessary personal branding in a social media and technological global world?
Personal branding starts with a strong believe in you. It goes with a pragmatist approach towards understanding that no one can do the things for you! Because most of the time you may feel you have yourself in top consideration but then you don't go the extra mile to get what you want… Personal branding it is now about getting the picture, understanding what you want, and then focus in the small details, the way you manage your overall network and are open to things, people, projects… And it is mainly about making things happen without any constrains or fears. It is about understanding that success is build with trial and error. It is about understanding that failure is part of the path toward achievement.
Personal branding is not about a blind confidence in yourself or your ego. Personal branding is about the right "make it happen" approach, the necessary confidence in the details towards yourself as a person and your career. It is a conscience that in a world with around seven billion people the only way you can reach things is to make an effort to make it. It is about passion and hard work, creating value for you, through your skills, learning and adapting towards what is happening around you and going for it.
The concept of Personal Branding with advent of a social media search web where the social graph creates a visible profiling for every web is increasingly a key factor. In a landscape such as this one, any professional has to work within a scope of coherence and focus.
"The social graph is a term coined by scientists working in the social areas of graph theory. It has been described as "the global mapping of everybody and how they're related". The term was popularized at the Facebook f8 conference on May 24, 2007, when it was used to explain that the Facebook Platform, which was introduced at the same time, would benefit from the social graph by taking advantage of the relationships between individuals, that Facebook provides, to offer a richer online experience. The definition has been expanded to refer to a social graph of all Internet users.
By now for sure you have a place within this social graph profile. You must have a LinkedIn profile, a Facebook, probably a Twitter if you are more savvy and if a professional in marketing, communications you may have as well a Slideshare account.
Though the greatest part of being a genuine engager on social media must come from the fact that you have a conscience of your identity and of course that you are investing in you and inside the 100 plus people that are part of your graph!
The last decades have increasingly been brought to everyone in the post consumer world new advancements in technology, new paradigm shift with the proliferation of new amazing platforms and software. Nevertheless it is fundamental to remember that none has had the potential to empower professionals, individuals more than the web Social Media new paradigm. This new paradigm brought a massive display of instruments and tools for every individual. And with it a crowd sourcing capacity to echo skills, patterns of behaviour, profiles and expose who each one real is. in true believe social Media has brought some kind of new transparency that enlightens and obliges each person to create a true identity and in some ways it is impossible to hide now.
In this landscape the challenge is how to engage both in the business accounts, company profiles, or personal profiling. every brand wether multinational is somehow equal in the web search social graph. This of course brough a whole new list of issues such as privacy and similar. Nevertheless it gave the initiative to expand the concept of learning, re writing and speaking for ourselves. For the first time a single individual can confront a big brand or government and if well organised and if savvy enough can multiply his voice or his representative group, tribe, niche exponentially.
So now the opportunity is how to create our own brand, and with it or integrated part of it a sustainable profiling and related practice that allows a coherent voicing. An identity that creates a brand and helps us in our direction as individuals, professionals wether in the process of seeking employment or expanding network and promoting skills, projects, achievements.
These new Social Mexia landscape (an open and evolving concept) can indeed be used for redefining and expand the concept of personal brand. It can be used within a combination of learning, promoting, researching, networking and sharing. This can and should support the process of positionate us.
Building a brand is building a respected identity. Using effectively social media can help you build a following audience, learn, expand your skills and engage the people you need to, wether it is an audience or some key professionals you need to impress or reach. This array of possibilities will if well support you reaching your common interest, values and/or experiences. It helps creating value.
Life can be a wonderful adventure, but it all goes about making it happen, profiling it without any fears, completely dedicated to a notion of creating value, focus in healthy passion, dreams!
As a big tree has to be nurture with a good location, roots, natural conditions an environmental conditions the same needs to be the way you approach profiling in a global social media technological ever evolving landscape. Personal branding deals now with social profiling, know your social media web graph. Personal branding is ultimately a willingness to be a self conscious, responsible player, knowledgeable of your challenges and adapting towards crisis, ever changing layers of economic and sociological paradigms. And of course grow together with yours, family, peers, tribe, friends having a conscious of your body and mind moving forward in the hands of your own action and the one of destiny.
The quotes I used in this text came from the article 40 quotes about personal branding.


MCV has been invited to attend Drummers Call at Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. The day will feature a parade of fife & drum corps, a Muster and a twilight Tattoo.
Tickets to Colonial Williamsburg can be purchased in advance or on the day.
1 Duke of Gloucester St.


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COURT DOCS
2017 Was the Year Sexual Assault by Powerful Men Was Exposed
by Jill Stanley
In October 2017, when reports about media mogul Harvey Weinstein's long, sordid history of sexual misconduct became public, no one could have predicted what would follow. We hoped for outrage, we hoped for action but what happened next exceeded our wildest dreams (even after the tumultuous year we've experienced). Women everywhere began to speak out in a way that they had not before. Enough was enough in Hollywood, it was enough in sports, and it was enough in government. The #MeToo movement allowed women to digitally band together to say: You can no longer behave this way. And many men, with #howwillichange and #ididit began looking at their own behavior. This, ladies and gentlemen, is how we spark change.
Since Harvey Weinstein, we've seen nearly 100 men in entertainment, sports and politics accused of sexual misconduct. Highlighted below are thirty of them. However, so as not to depress anyone, let's make one thing clear, we here at PROOF believe times they are a-changin'. This whole "blowing the lid" off sexual harassment and assault in 2017 was not for nothing. The more we tell these stories, the more we keep the subject in the forefront of our minds and our discussions, the more effective we will be in reducing the number of claims and empowering victims to share their stories and demand that assailants are held accountable.
1. Harvey Weinstein
The man who began it all (and whose downfall gave us the term "Weinstein effect" in the process), Weinstein's nearly three decade long history of sexual assault and harassment included big, recognizable names like Salma Hayek, Rose McGowan, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ashley Judd, and Angelina Jolie. Weinstein was fired from his own company, his wife left him, is facing numerous civil lawsuits and is under criminal investigation in the US and UK.
2. Ben Affleck
After condemning Weinstein's actions on social media, Affleck found himself accused of sexual misconduct on the set of 'TRL' (a popular MTV show back in the day), where he groped actress and then-host Hilarie Burton's breast. Affleck apologized for acting inappropriately.
3. Oliver Stone
Oliver Stone condemned Weinstein's actions, but was also soon under fire when women began coming forward to tell their stories of his misconduct. Patricia Arquette spoke of the "weird" encounter she had with the director, who sent her flowers and got upset with her when she brought a boyfriend to an industry event.
4. David Blaine
The magician was accused of raping model Natasha Prince in London in 2004. Scotland Yard (London police department) is currently investigating the matter.
5. James Toback
The Hollywood director has been accused of sexually harassing scores of women. According to reports, Toback, much like Weinstein, had an MO (modus operandi: a Latin word, used in both the law and the rest of the world to mean a particular way of doing something) which was that he would lead women back to his hotel room under the guise of an audition, where he would attempt to get them to engage with him in sexual acts and ask suggestive questions about masturbation. The predatory behavior even affected actresses like Selma Blair, who publicly shared her story.
6. Ken Baker
The E! Correspondent was slapped with sexual harassment allegations by two women, one who claimed he asked her to sit on his lap, another claimed he propositioned her for sex and texted her that he wanted to give her a sex toy from Tiffany that had his name engraved on it. E! Is taking the allegations seriously and is currently investigating the claims. Baker denies the claims saying he was "disturbed by the anonymous allegations."
7. Kevin Spacey
Spacey stands accused of multiple acts of sexual misconduct. Most notably is the sexual assault allegation made by actor Anthony Rapp when Rapp was just 14 years old. Spacey felt quickly the pain of his actions. He was written off 'House of Cards', was replaced in the already shot film, 'All the Money in the World', and, among other things, is now seen as the disgraced former artistic director of the very reputable Old Vic theater in London (Spacey faces 20 allegations of inappropriate behavior during his 11 year tenure there).
8. Jeremy Piven
The 'Entourage' actor was accused of groping Ariane Bellamar on set and two more allegations by two other women followed. Piven has categorically denied all claims but CBS has said that amid the sexual misconduct allegations it is ending Piven's current show, 'Wisdom of the Crowd.'
9. Brett Ratner
The director was accused of sexually harassing and/or assaulting six women in a report. Those included in the report were actresses Olivia Munn and Natasha Henstridge. The report included allegations of discussing sex in an explicit and graphic manner, forcing women to perform oral sex, and masturbating in front of one woman. Ratner also was allegedly present when music producer Russell Simmons sexually assaulted a young actress, failed to stop the assault, and never said a word about it.
10. Dustin Hoffman
Actress Anna Graham Hunter wrote an essay describing the sexual harassment she endured while on set with Dustin Hoffman during the show 'Death of a Salesman'. Hoffman did not deny the allegations, but apologized for putting her in an uncomfortable situation. Hoffman has also been accused of exposing himself to a young woman in high school (she attended the same school Hoffman's daughter attended) and of sexually assaulting two other women. Two of the women have made their names public, including, Cori Thomas, the one who was in high school at the time of the assault.
11. Ed Westwick
The 'Gossip Girl' actor has been accused by two women of rape. The reports by both women are eerily similar—they arrived at Westwick's home via Uber, they drank, went into a bedrooms separate from Westwick's to sleep and then Westwick came to the room and raped them. Actress Katrina Cohen, one of the victims, describes the incident in a detailed Facebook post. Westwick denies the allegations.
12. Jeffrey Tambor
The 'Transparent' star was accused of sexual misconduct by his former assistant, which he explained away as a "disgruntled employee." Things got harder to ignore he was accused of misconduct on set by his costar, Trace Lysette, who said he made lewd comments to her while she wore pajamas for a scene and even went so far as to press himself into her while backing her into a corner. Tambor has left the hit show as a result.
13. Steven Seagal
Portia de Rossi alleged that, during an audition, the director "unzipped his leather pants" and that when she told her agent about the assault, her agent was not surprised, saying simply that she's "didn't know if he was [Portia's] type." Seagal has been accused of sexual misconduct in the past, but has not denied these claims specifically.
14. Roy Moore
Thank goodness Moore lost the Alabama Senate race, but his presence on the national stage stirred up controversy when he was accused of sexual misconduct by 9 women. Three of the women alleged that he had sexually assaulted them. Moore was 31 at the time of an alleged incident with a then-16-year-old and 32 at the time of the alleged incident with a then-14-year-old.
15. Louis CK
The New York Times published a report including the experiences of two women who alleged that the comedian masturbated in front of them, and another woman who alleges that he did so while on the phone with her. Louis CK acknowledged that the allegations were true and expressed remorse for taking advantage of the admiration the women had for him by exposing himself.
16. George Takei
The comedian and former 'Star Trek' star has been accused of groping model Scott Brunton while he was unconscious nearly 40 years ago. The LGBT activist denied the allegations with a series of tweets that called them "antithetical to his values and practices."
17. Al Franken
Journalist Leeann Tweeden alleged that Franken groped and kissed her without her consent in 2006, saying that he repeatedly tried to kiss her in rehearsal for a comedy skit. Franken resigned from his senate seat as a result of the allegations.
18. Russell Simmons
Keri Claussen Khalighi claimed that, when she was 17, Simmons coerced her into performing oral sex in 1991 and of penetrating her without her consent. Simmons denies the allegation and called the sexual encounter "consensual." On November 30, 2017, he announced that he would be stepping down from his company.
19. Ryan Seacrest
Seacrest's former wardrobe stylist accused the television/radio host and producer of misconduct, though details have not been released. Seacrest vehemently denies the allegations (and called them reckless) but apologized if he ever made her feel "anything but respected."
20. Charlie Rose
The television host was accused by eight woman of making inappropriate phone calls, groping them, and walking around naked around them. Rose apologized for his behavior, explaining that he thought his behavior was welcome, but realizes now that it was not. Both CBS and PBS, networks on which Rose had shows, fired him in the wake of the accusations.
21. Nick Carter
The Backstreet Boy was accused of raping Melissa Schuman, who alleged that Carter forcefully took her virginity in 2002. Carter denies the allegations, saying that their sexual relationship was consensual.
22. Matt Lauer
On November 29th, 2017 NBC announced that they had fired Lauer after receiving a complaint about "inappropriate sexual conduct in the workplace" that they believed was not an isolated incident. Of course it wasn't isolated and the floodgates opened with accounts of Lauer commenting about his co-workers bodies, showing his penis to women in his office, giving colleagues sex toys and detailing how he'd like them to use it, among scores of other disgusting behavior.
23. Geraldo Rivera
Rivera was in hot water for defending Matt Lauer after he was accused of sexual misconduct, but it turns out he may have been speaking from experience. Bette Midler shared an old interview where she accused him of drugging and groping her in the 1970s. Rivera denied it but apologized nonetheless.
24. Danny Masterson
Reportedly actor Danny Masterson is being investigated by LAPD after three women accused him of sexual assault. Danny Masterson has denied these allegations, but that did not stop Netflix from taking action—they wrote him off the series, 'The Ranch.' Masterson said in a statement, "In the current climate, it seems as if you are presumed guilty the moment you are accused." Please excuse us if we are rolling eyes at this one.
25. Bryan Singer
The director of 'X-Men' is currently facing a lawsuit for allegedly raping a then-17-year-old in 2003. Cesar Sanchez-Guzman alleges Singer, forced Cesar to perform oral sex on him while on a party on a yacht. Singer denies the allegations and fired back with accusations that Sanchez-Guzman is looking for money in light of his declaring bankruptcy.
26. Trent Franks
Congressman Trent Franks resigned on December 7th, 2017 after serving in the House of Representatives since 2003 following an ethics inquiry into allegations of sexual harassment of two female subordinates.
27. Mario Batali
The celebrity chef was accused of touching women inappropriately, causing him to step away from his company. Batali didn't admit to the allegations outright, saying that "the identities of most of the individuals mentioned in these stories have not revealed to me, much of the behavior described does, in fact, match up with ways I've acted." So essentially, he can't put names to the women he has assaulted, but he recognizes his behavior. Nice.
28. Mark Halperin
Political analyst and journalist Mark Halperin has been accused by multiple women of sexually harassing them while he was at ABC News. His current employers, NBC and MSNBC, suspended him pending investigations and then terminated him.
29. Morgan Spurlock
The 'Super Size Me' actor was his own whistleblower, posting to social media to say that he had been accused of rape on top of separately settling a sexual harassment lawsuit with a former assistant. In his statement he wrote, "I am not some innocent bystander, I am also part of the problem. But I am also part of the solution. By recognizing what I've done and openly admitting what I've done to further this terrible situation."
30. TJ Miller
The 'Silicon Valley' star has been accused of sexual misconduct at George Washington University. The victim's allegations are disturbing, with claims that Miller choked, punched, and sexually assaulted her. Miller denied the allegations, saying that the woman accusing him of assault has been trying to break up his relationship since meeting her in college, and that she was capitalizing on the current climate.
If this summary makes you uncomfortable or upset, you're not alone. It is hard to be let down by celebrities, politicians, and men in positions of power who might have been someone you admire or look up to. In 2018, we encourage you to look toward to the future rather than looking back in disgust. Change is coming.
If you want more details about many of the above claims, simply use our search tool (top right) and search for sexual misconduct. We've covered this topic a lot.
Harvey Weinstein: Three Decades More Than Enough
The Kardashian's DASH Store is Consistently Under Attack
PROOF in Brief
Celeb Legal Wrap-Up
Harvey Weinstein trial going forward! Jury selection set to begin January 7 and is expected to take about 2 weeks… Learn More
Los Angeles DA's office has sent Weinstein sexual assault charges to a grand jury. These claims are separate… Learn More
And in even more Weinstein news, a tentative settlement has been allegedly reached in some of the civil suits… Learn More
Former NFL players charged with defrauding the League by submitting fake medical equipment claims… Learn More
Cardi B back in a Queens, NY courtroom in connection with her strip club brawl. And although she was… Learn More
The break up was pretty ugly but working out the divorce details seem to be quite smooth between Miley Cyrus and… Learn More
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In the performance of Unfurling poems Ian Adams takes the audience on a journey reflecting what it means to be truly human- and imagining how we might help to bring good to the world. This process, he suggests, begins with us rediscovering our own sense of peace and belonging. Around the poems Ian reflects on the influences that shape him – including landscape, music, art, football and the wisdom teachings of Jesus.


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"U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!"
Bridezilla listened in rapture as her fiance recounted the cheers of Haitians every time an American search and rescue team had pulled a survivor from the rubble.
"I tell you, I haven't heard something like that in a long time--ANYwhere! Makes a man proud."
"Were you helping the search and rescue teams?" Bridezilla asked in perplexity.
"Well, umm, no, not directly. We were here and there, making ourselves useful." (By "making ourselves useful", the Weapons 'R Us employee meant "selling arms to anybody that had cash to buy them", but he could not tell Bridezilla that.) "I told you: it was classified. I can't really talk about it." And that much was true: he had gone down there at the invitation of the U.S. Marines, whose mandate was to hold the Haitians in place and docile. "We were with the Marines. I can't say more than that." They had made a fair amount of quick cash (and quick booty, so to speak) selling weapons on the spot to Haitians who had something to protect, and had made a careful assessment for weapons orders they would be shipping to the Marines for the next three weeks. It didn't bother him that these weapons might end up at cross-purposes sometime in the near future. (Guns don't kill people: people kill people!) The truth was, the whole atmosphere had given the former Marine an adrenaline rush he had not experienced in some time. "I'm so hot for you!"
Bridezilla tried not to recoil, a little taken aback by his sudden advance while she was still picturing German shepherds leading rescue workers to bloody, half-dead people buried under rubble. "Do you want another latte?" She jumped up to return to the cappucino machine in the kitchen.
"We sold a lot of those Jesus-scope rifles you like!" he called out after her, a little sheepishly. "The ones with the Bible verses etched in the sights!"
Over at the Justice Department, Atticus Hawk was meeting clandestinely with a representative from the FBI's Witness Protection Program. "It doesn't quite work like that," the FBI agent said, a little sheepishly. They were seated in a small coffeebreak room--the agent in plain clothes and Hawk adorned with a wig, sunglasses, and a false mustache. "See, you would have to testify to a U.S. Attorney first, THEN they would decide if you merit protection. You can't just come and ask us to set you up with a new life. You have to cut a deal first."
"Yeah, yeah, I know all that," Hawk said quietly, his foot tapping erratically on the linoleum floor. "But I have to be in a safe place BEFORE I testify. Look, I'm gonna have a lot of enemies in this town when I testify--a lot of POWERFUL enemies. I wanna know that my girlfriend and her son are provided for--I mean, safe--that we're all safe."
The FBI agent sipped his coffee, and some of it wet his (very real) mustache. (Hawk's mustache, in contrast, seemed to wick away moisture.) "All I can tell you is how it works AFTER the U.S. Attorney gives the greenlight."
"I'm asking as a favor, one Justice employee to another: just get us somewhere that the CIA can't find us, THEN I'll tell everything I know."
The FBI agent exhaled slowly. "Alright." He had actually done this a couple of times before. "You tell your girlfriend and her boy that you're going to a brunch party tomorrow at this address." He wrote down his own address in Silver Spring. "The U.S. Attorney will be there." He would have his sister-in-law come to brunch, and she could question the guy. (She normally did tax evasion prosecutions and loved it when he set her up for these whistleblowers.) "Don't tell anybody where you're going. Take the Metro to the station, then take a taxi, but get out two blocks away and walk the rest of the way." He would pick up some danishes at the grocery store and ask his wife to make an egg casserole. "I'll see you then." He swallowed down the rest of his bagel and left.
Several miles away, Charles Wu was staring out his apartment window in disgust. (The Hong Kong native could never get used to snow.) He was on the phone with former Senator Evermore Breadman, assuring him that the $6.4 billion arms sale to Taiwan was not a mistake. "Beijing HAS to say these things for the domestic audience." ("China suspended military exchanges with the United States and threatened sanctions against American defense companies! My clients!") "Look: it will blow over. China won't stop importing American weapons because that's the easiest--" (He stopped himself: he had been about to say that was the easiest way that Beijing could examine American weapons. Sometimes he had to remind himself that both he and Breadman were walking a narrow line.) "Look: Beijing has to crow against Taiwan for the domestic audience, but they don't REALLY care. They know the weapons are defensive primarily. Nobody in their right mind is actually afraid that Taiwan is going to attack the mainland. It's just about national pride--it's all for show. Your clients make money, the Pentagon sends a signal to Beijing that the U.S. is not afraid to ruffle Chinese feathers, the Chinese score points on the domestic front by getting indignant--everybody wins. Then things calm down a couple months later. Don't worry." ("What about the sanctions?") "It's just a cost of doing business in China." ("A big one! It's gonna cut into my clients' profits!") "Look: you've got the Prince and Prowling office in Beijing now. Let THEM get to work on minimizing these sanctions. They've got influence, too, you know." Breadman finally ended the call with Wu (Breadman needed to prepare his oil company clients' testimony for the February 2nd EPA hearing concerning tightening up allowable ozone standards), and Wu put down the phone. He really did not feel like working today, but it would be really difficult to go out in this weather and find a girl to have sex with. He wasn't sure there was anybody left in the building that he wanted to seduce, though it was the end of the month, and new women might be moving in. He decided to take his New York Times and Washington Post down to the lobby to monitor the situation.
Back in downtown Washington, psychiatrist Ermann Esse was just closing up his office when Didymus arrived. "I really need to close up, Didymus. The snow is piling up, and I need to get home." Didymus pleaded for just a half-hour of his time, then sprawled out on the couch to tell Dr. Esse about the dream he had last night.
"It was the 1930s, and Shirley Temple's studio was determined to create her own version of 'The Wizard of Oz'. But it was dark--really dark. Somebody was constantly chasing Shirley, and she was trying to escape on a magic giraffe. ("That doesn't sound so dark.") The giraffe could run very fast, but the movement was rather awkward for Shirley, and I kept thinking she was going to fall off. There were a lot of dead mice everywhere, and it all seemed so real--not like a movie at all. And she was trying to overthrow a government or something. There were real assassins after her! Shirley Temple! Can you imagine?!"
"No, I can't imagine it at all. Very unique. Have you been troubled about Haiti?" (No.) China? (No.) The State of the Union Address? (No.) President Obama's summit with Republicans? (No.) That man in the pimp-like fur coat who installed bugs in the Louisiana Senator's office phone line for some sort of right wing sting operation?"
"Yes! YES! Why are crazy people leading the Republican Party?!"
"Robert McNamara was not a Republican." (Didymus claimed to be the ghost of Robert McNamara.) "I think you are focusing on issues that are distracting you from the more important issues in your life."
"What are the more important issues in my life?"
"You tell me." Didymus remained silent. "How about your finances. You've never paid me for any of these sessions. Why aren't you paying me?"
"Because I'm a ghost! We don't have money! What am I supposed to do? Take it up with St. Peter--it was his idea!"
"Hmmm." Dr. Esse was trying to picture little Shirley Temple riding a giraffe like a horse, trying to save a mythical kingdom from dead mice and mysterious assassins. I suppose I could write a book about this fellow and make some money that way.
Out on the snow-covered window ledge, a pair of pigeon doves were staring at the psychiatrist, who was talking animatedly to an empty couch. Then they flew off to look for shelter from the storm.
Chloe Cleavage had been living in her penthouse apartment at Southwest Plaza for two months now, and she was starting to think maybe Calico Johnson had not done her such a great favor setting her up here. While it was true that she had never lived in an apartment this big, it seemed puny after spending a few days living in his Potomac Manors mansion. And though not having to pay rent had enabled her to make substantial investments in her career wardrobe, she was eating every single meal out because the kitchen cockroach problem seemed unfixable. And that was just as well, because the trash chutes were closed, and she couldn't stand taking her trash down eight floors to the basement trash room, which was too disgusting for words, so she had to take it out in tiny bags that she dumped in the lobby trash receptacle. (Though she did make the effort to take her fern plant all the way to the trash room after she had discovered mysterious white bug babies writhing in the dirt--grodie to the max!) Then there were the nightmares she had about a monster living in the parking garage beneath the building, but she couldn't tell Calico about that because he would think she was crazy. Actually, she was afraid to tell him any of these complaints because he was letting her live here for free, and when she had asked that one teensy thing--which was that she didn't like the view of the freeway, was it possible to move to a penthouse on the other side of the building?--he had looked at her with a look that almost (but this was impossible!) looked like malevolence. But how was it possible he was running the management company in this building and yet didn't know all these things before he put her in here? She decided to put him (and the ubiquitous tenant association meeting flyers) out of her mind and spend a very focused two hours surfing her dating websites.
Over at the White House West Wing, the Rahm Emanuel wannabe was also trolling the dating websites--not for a date, but because he was desperate to discover undiscovered talent for the Obama Administration. He was sick to death of looking at resumes passed along from Obama's campaign staff (who kept giving him the same two-hundred resumes month after month after month), and had decided to look for people in a different way. So far he had found a female ski instructor who belonged to an investment circle and a book club, a male restaurant owner who cooked at a soup kitchen once a week and coached his daughter's soccer team, and a female professor who taught African-American literature and liked to restore antique furniture on weekends. He was considering them, respectively, for the Federal Reserve, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Labor. And this time, when Emanuel asked him why they deserved to work for the Administration, he was going to muster the courage to say, "Because the American people deserve an Administration that's not riddled with vacant political appointments after a year in office!" If only I could persuade Oprah to take Ben Bernanke's job....
Over at the State Department, the Assistant Deputy Administrator for Hope was also spending a Sunday afternoon at the office musing on how they could lure Oprah to their team after her show went off the air. And wouldn't my girlfriend love it! Things had gotten more than a little peculiar after Eva Brown had returned from her top secret (Project R.O.D.H.A.M.) deployment in China (and Pakistan, and Afghanistan) with an adopted "Chinese" daughter (almost certainly a Tajik, in actuality). The Administrator had proposed on New Year's Eve, saying he wanted them all to be a family together, but Brown had said she loved him too much to tie him down when she would almost certainly be returning to China after she graduated law school. Loves me too much. He smiled sardonically, absentmindedly scratching the allergic rash he was not supposed to be scratching. (The doctor had said that he was allergic to his glasses because the rash was only around his eyes and the back of his ears, but it was all part of the adrenal fatigue and autoimmune collapse which gave him one new symptom after another.) Sometimes Eva spoke to the little girl in what she claimed was a western dialect of Chinese, but he was pretty sure it wasn't. I used to keep secrets from Eva because I loved her too much. He turned back to the Beijing embassy dossier on fallout in China from Clinton's internet freedom speech about how the Information Curtain was like the Iron Curtain: the Chinese authorities were saying "ideological imposition", "internet as a weapon to achieve worldwide hegemony", and "unfettered internet equals information imperialism" because developing countries could not compete with the content juggernaut from the West. But China was estimated to have 384 million internet users--the most in the world--and its "netizens" were getting fed up with the Great Firewall. They knew that the government's dispute with Google was not "commercial", as the government claimed...but that didn't necessarily mean they were ready to believe Hillary's view of the world.
A few miles to the east, at the National Arboretum, The Warrior was perched high in a loblolly pine tree, staring down at the reunion of Angela de la Paz with her long missing mother--the crazy one, the unstable one, the one they had told Angela had fallen into the Potomac River and drowned. He listened as the mother tried to explain to Angela that she had drowned, but then had been rescued and resuscitated, but then she had amnesia, and then..., and then..., and then....Angela looked at various moments incredulous, deliriously happy, confused, angry, dazed, and blissful. Dr. Devi Rajatala continued hacking invasive English ivy in suspicious silence, not ready to release the girl into this woman's custody. Angela was young enough to still need a mother, but old enough to feel the risk of looking to this woman to be it. Then there was the more practical concern, which was that Angela's mother had no money and was staying with Angela's grandmother, but if Angela returned there, they might toss her back in foster care because of the danger posed by other relatives. Angela tried to explain to her mother that she needed to get an apartment and a job--that was the only way she could get custody of Angela back--and it had to be an apartment big enough for Angela, and her mother, and her grandmother. Angela's mother looked up at the gathering rain clouds, gripped with despair; she had thought it would all be easier than this. "I could take you to Los Angeles," her mother said at last. "I know people there." Angela asked what kind of people. "You know, people." Angela looked at Dr. Raj, but Dr. Raj pursed her lips and said nothing. Angela asked her mother if abuela could go to Los Angeles, too. "Well, she's very old--I don't think she could take a long move like that." The Warrior knew that Angela's destiny was here, in battle against Ardua of the Potomac, but he was going to need Dr. Raj to deal with all this--The Warrior was clueless about how modern families could get so messed up.
"Here's the deal," Dr. Raj suddenly said, throwing her small hacksaw a little too forcefully to the ground. "It costs money to move cross-country, and you don't have any. You're not going to take her anywhere until you prove you have money. And you better get it legally! And you better show me you have enough for your own apartment, because you're not taking her to live with 'people', because that's how adolescent girls end up getting abused. If you had real friends in Los Angeles, they would send you money to take care of your daughter, and would help you get a job."
"Wait a min--"
"And if you really wanted what's best for her, you'd keep Angela here! She loves school, she loves her grandmother, she loves working in the National Arboretum--all she needs is a safe home. And right now, I'm the one giving it to her."
"She's living in your office, which is not much better than a shed! How dare you speak to me like this! I'm the victim! I've been through sufferings you cannot imagine!"
"Yes, I can imagine them! And I want to keep Angela as far from them as possible! So can you get a job or not?"
This was not how Angela had always dreamed her maternal reunion would go. She had never believed her mother was really dead, but she realized now she could barely remember her mother and didn't know what to expect from her.
The Warrior jumped down from the pine tree, and Angela's mother jumped back in fright. (He could see they were all crying now, and sometimes a man needed to take charge of the womenfolk.) Angela embraced The Warrior, and then Angela's mother realized he was the man that abuela had told her about. "The girl is staying here," he said solemnly. "She is safe here, and loved. When you have a job, you can get her. She will help you get a job." He was pointing at Dr. Raj, who had never done anything but study trees and become an arborist, and she had no idea how to get any other kind of job. "Don't worry," he said to Angela, "everything will be alright." With that, he left them as abruptly as he had joined them. Rani the donkey filled the sudden silence with a bray, then walked over to nuzzle Angela.
"You can help me here for now," said Dr. Raj, handing Angela's mother a rake. She could only pay her out of her own paycheck, and this would make it twice as hard to keep Angela hidden. "Tomorrow we'll talk about your finding a real job." With that, the women turned to the task at hand and toiled in silence, and a flock of starlings flew off to report to Ardua.
The Other Caribbean Corpses
A few hours ago, Atticus Hawk was celebrating Martin Luther King Day for the first time in his life. He had cleaned up a Southeast park with his girlfriend, Jai Alai, then they had attended a memorial service before heading over to spend the rest of the day with her family. He felt like a different person in a different life. The future held unimaginable experiences and adventures that had once been outside his orbit. Then his boss had called. Now he was the Justice Department torture expert again. Now he was the Guantanamo apologist again. Now he was...sick. "This is the man you put in charge of investigating CIA crimes?" A suit that Hawk did not recognize was pointing at Hawk and waiting for Hawk's boss to answer in the affirmative. Then the suit just shook his head. They were not even at the Justice Department: they were thirteen men and two women crammed into a bungalow living room in Tenleytown. (Hawk didn't even know the address because a car had been sent to pick him up.) "Now which of you legal geniuses is going to explain this?" He was pointing to a printout of the Harper's expose on murders covered up at Guantanamo:
http://harpers.org/archive/2010/01/hbc-90006368,
which had made Hawk so ill while reading it during the car ride that they had pulled over three times for him to barf. (He had told the driver he wasn't used to reading in a car.) "HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?"
Hawk wasn't sure if "this" was a reference to the article or something in the article, and he looked to his boss for guidance, but his boss remained silent. I did exactly what my country asked me to do. Hawk wanted to cry. I controlled the investigation. Hawk was thinking about Jai Alai, wondering how he could talk her into eloping tonight...somewhere outside of the U.S. Does her son have a passport? Will they put a hold on my passport? Maybe I'm already on the Do Not Fly list. The room was so silent they could hear the sound of Hawk's boss scratching his fingernails on a chair arm.
Hawk cleared his throat. "Well, the fact that this is being published by Harper's indicates that the testimony was not credible enough for serious journalists to publish."
"I don't give a rat's ass if it's being published in Soap Opera Digest! I want an explanation!"
Hawk cleared his throat again. "This news is going to be completely lost in the midst of the saturation of Haiti coverage."
"They are publishing the full story in March, you moron! This story is not disappearing! Now explain--"
"OK, certain elements within the military saw the election of Obama--"
"PRESIDENT Obama!"
"--President Obama as an opportunity to rewrite military history. We at Justice are still ruled by the laws of evidence and--"
"They are reporting that the CIA has a secret prison on Guantanamo where they torture people to death! Then they pretend it's suicide! We're the freaking Gulag now! How the Hell...."
Not far away, Henry Samuelson was staring out his study window after his third reading of the article. He knew exactly which CIA head was going to roll for this screw-up, and it was about time. Never send a boy to do a man's job. Nobody had ever questioned a suicide on Samuelson's watch...ever. If the CIA can't get its act together, we're going to have to take action. He fingered the Heurich Society tie clip he wore daily (even on days like this, when he stayed inside all day long) and tapped his foot angrily on the floor.
Back at the Tenleytown bungalow, another Washington insider felt the icy grip from the Potomac settling deep into his dying soul.
Quakes
"It's a waste of money: we need to do something about it!" The Chair of the Heurich Society was grim-faced and resolute. "We are looking at potentially billions of dollars diverted to Haiti--and for what purpose? The country is not viable, the women and children were already going to the Dominican Republic as slaves, there's nothing there to rebuild, their only legacy is violence and voodoo." The group remained silent. "They barely have a tree standing, for crying out loud! It was already a United Nations basket case before the earthquake hit! Every dollar going there could be better spent somewhere else! We need to take action."
"Honorable Chairman," Condoleezza Rice's voice sounded like a hiss over the speakerphone). "...even the poorest of the poor don't lie down and die as quietly and complacently as you would like."
"I'm not the one that drafted Project Eliminati!" he barked back.
"Honorable Chairman," Rice's voice was more grating this time. "...security and stability are imperative. If these people are not taken care of, there will be a mass refugee flow towards the United States. It's simply too risky. And if they stampede towards the Dominican Republic, they will be mowed down mercilessly. It's simply a situation that is untenable in a civilized world order. And need I remind you, it is imperative that the United States lead this effort because NOBODY--not Venezuela, not China, not anyone--can be perceived as the savior here except the United States. Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson may be happy to see over 200,000 Haitians die, but this situation is not going to help Project Eliminati, and it's not going to help us!"
In the corner, Henry Samuelson chewed his raspberry danish slowly. He had made three trips to Haiti as a CIA officer--two of them for assassination attempts. He remembered flying in each time and seeing the pronounced advance of deforestation because the people had no option but to keep cutting firewood. It was a cursed country--Robertson was right about that, just wrong in thinking the curse was from God. Only a few thousand people died on 9/11, but it triggered an unrelated war in Iraq that cost $2 billion/week for years. Two-hundred thousand or more dead Haitians might trigger 5-10 billion dollars, maybe not even that much. "Look," Samuelson interjected at last. "We couldn't stop most of the money even if we tried." He looked pointedly at the Chair. "We need to go where the money is going, as we always do."
"What are you proposing?" said the Chair.
"Neo-colonialism is what Dr. Rice would call it, I believe."
A couple miles to the south, Charles Wu (who would listen to the tape of the Heurich Society meeting later) was discussing Haiti with former Senator Evermore Breadman in his Prince and Prowling office. "It's a real tragedy," Breadman was saying somberly. He had already rearranged his Wall of Me photos outside his office to centralize the photograph of him and a Haitian president (though he couldn't remember which one, or when the photo was taken). Breadman looked down at the $250,000 blank check Wu had written for Breadman to forward to whatever charity Breadman thought best, and he tried to motivate himself to write in a charity name quickly, but the blank line was calling out to him like a siren. "A real tragedy," he repeated softly.
Wu had a strong loathing of earthquakes: as a man who prided himself on making a fortune through the careful collection and exchange of information, it offended his sense of fairness that anybody should suffer anything in a surprise attack. Still, he had written the check, and he disliked dwelling on human suffering because it raised philosophical, emotional, and spiritual questions he found unsettling. "I know you'll find the best use of the money, Evermore." (Breadman had told Wu to call him "Evermore", because he could never get the Chinaman to understand that he should be addressed as "Senator", and not "Former Senator".) "But you asked me here today to talk about what happened with China and Google. Basically, the Chinese got a little sloppy, to be frank." (Frankly, Wu was embarrassed that the Chinese government still thought it could run repeated cyber attacks against the most brilliant cyber minds in the world.) "It's one thing for an American company to do business with the communist party, but it's another to do business with the Chinese equivalent of the KGB. From Google's point of view, Google had to draw the line somewhere. It's a lose-lose for Google and China."
"We need to get this back on track, Charles!"
"I understand, Evermore, but Google is a proud corporation which has decided it has an international educational mission, so to speak. The Chinese government attacked both the pride and the mission, leaving Google no choice. It's going to take time to work on the Chinese government from the inside--help them understand that it's in their vital interest to fix this relationship."
"So you do think China will want to fix this?"
"No, but they need to fix this. Right now, the Chinese government still thinks it can dictate the rules, and if Microsoft and Yahoo! keep playing by them, it will write off Google. But the Chinese people are not going to accept the disappearance of Google any more than the American people would. Even with censorship controls, Google was too valuable to the Chinese people. The Chinese people, like the American people, notice restrictions on cyber power much more quickly than they notice restrictions on civil rights."
Breadman had always preached that you could make money anywhere, no matter what government was in control, but when companies with silly names like "Google" and "Yahoo!" could make a major totalitarian government nervous, he sometimes wondered if he still had a grasp on true power and control in the modern world. Maybe I'm getting too old for this? "Well, do keep me posted, Charles!" Breadman said, as he rose and extended his hand. I don't even know how to talk to my clients about this. "I don't know what I would do without you!"
I know you don't, thought Charles Wu, with a smile.
Down the hall, Bridezilla was in her office, on the phone with her fiance. "I don't know what I'll do without you!" She had not spent more than a day apart from him since their engagement. "I still don't understand why Weapons 'R Us is sending you to Haiti!" He had told her repeatedly that it was a classified project. (Sometimes he wondered if she was deliberately obtuse. Wasn't it obvious that looting would lead to rioting, and rioting would lead to civil war?) He reminded her he would back in less than a week, and she shouldn't worry, but his plane was taking off, and he had to go.) She hung up the phone, and that alone feeling settled all over her again--just like when her former fiance Wince would spend weekends toiling for Supreme Court Justice Prissy Face. Her new fiance had never shut her out like this. Why can't I find a nice doctor? Her eyes grew wide in surprise at her own blasphemous thought about her war hero fiance. She logged onto the Red Cross website to make a ten dollar donation for Haiti, then felt better.
Over in Southwest, Golden Fawn Vazquez had just finished her own goodbye phone call as her husband Marcos was preparing to redeploy on a Coast Guard mission to Haiti. She hung up the phone and stared out the window, not knowing when she would see him again. Out on the balcony, a flock of starlings stared at her until she threw a pillow at the glass; then they flew away. She shuddered, wondering what kind of demon could kill over 200,000 people in one attack. A demon that had been feeding and preparing for a long, long time.
Over in the Potomac, a jealous Ardua bided her time.
Ice Water
The uneven sheets and rafts of ice covering the Potomac gleamed with an unusual green sheen that left Golden Fawn Vazquez a little disconcerted. She was staring out the window of a Southwest co-op at the frozen river while her husband Marcos Vazquez inspected the apartment itself. The real estate agent again praised the river view--something unimportant to Marcos, who saw the river all the time as a Coast Guard officer, but important to Golden Fawn, who knew she needed to renew her fight against Ardua this year. "It's too small," Marcos pronounced simply, and when Golden Fawn made no reply, he knew that her instincts were also telling her it was the wrong one. "Let's go see the next one."
"Yeah, I know him, so what?" said Dizzy defensively. He didn't like reporters, and he wished he had been over at Urine Park on Wednesday night instead of Lafayette. Washington Post "Metro" reporter Perry Winkle tossed another dollar in Dizzy's basket, prompting Dizzy to give him an are-you-kidding-me? sneer; then Winkle tossed in a fiver. Dizzy put down his trumpet and warmed his hands in his pockets. "It was the ducks--it's ALWAYS the ducks! I keep telling you people, but nobody ever believes me!" (That guy ran up to the White House fence naked because of the ducks?) "They get in your HEAD, man! They're like zombies--all dead and controlled by that evil she-devil in the river!" (But why would the ducks make a man take off his clothes in frigid weather and run up to the White House fence?) "Why do zombies do ANYthing? It's just EVIL on the prowl--don't need to make sense. The Secret Service needs to kill ALL the ducks!" Up on the nearby White House roof, two different snipers had Dizzy and Winkle in their sights (respectively), and a ghost was whispering to them to pull the trigger. One of the Shackled descended on the roof to plead with the White House ghost to cease and desist, and then the two ghosts set in on each other. During the struggle, the Shackled reached out to push one of the sniper's guns to the right (where it would have taken out a duck had the sniper then pulled the trigger), and the sniper shivered and looked wildly around himself. Must have been the wind. (The White House snipers were always telling themselves that.)
Forty feet below, Sasha and Malia brought Bo into President Obama's study to summon him to lunch. Bo took one look at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt bobblehead (a Christmas gift from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner) and launched himself into the air to knock it off the desk. "BO!" It was too late: Bo had pinned the bobblehead body down with his paws, ripped off FDR's head, and was preparing to swallow it after a couple more chews. (Bo didn't hate FDR; Bo just hated bobbleheads.) "BO!" (Gulp.) A grim-faced, resigned President Obama told the girls he needed to work through his lunch, and they dejectedly took the dog out. President Obama chewed on his Clif's Builder Bar, stared silently for a moment at the headless FDR corpse on the carpet, then turned back to his Treasury Department explanation of why the "Christmas Eve massacre of the U.S. taxpayer" stories filling up the internet were not true. (See, e.g., http://www.benzinga.com/77007/wsj-the-treasury-department-s-christmas-eve-massacre-of-the-us-taxpayer, and http://www.taxpayer.net/search_by_category.php?action=view&proj_id=3108&category=Wastebasket&type=Project.)
Even now, Obama knew that most Americans had no idea what had happened Christmas Eve, and that the alarmists were ringing their taxpayer bell so shriekingly loudly that the only reasonable response was for people to plug their ears. A gnawing anxiety tugged at his gut, and it wasn't the protein bar stomach irritation the White House physician had warned him about: does Geithner know what he's doing? Geithner had more power than FDR had ever dreamed of. Then a more frightening thought occurred to Obama: what if Geithner DOES know what he's doing...and I don't? President Obama put down the Treasury Department briefing and again picked up the International Monetary Fund report, "A Fistful of Dollars: Lobbying and the Financial Crisis". Powerful American banks spending lavishly on lobbying are more likely to engage in high-risk lending, and their shares have performed worse than others....Lobbying by the finance, insurance and real estate sector outstrips any other lobbying activity in the U.S. economy....Firms who spend more on buying access to politicians are more likely to engage in risky securitization of their loan books, and have poorer share performance and larger loan defaults. Obama--who thought he had put the smartest guys in the room at Treasury--was losing faith.
A block away, former Senator Evermore Breadman was enjoying another fruit and sausage basket sent by a grateful bank CEO. (The idea for the Christmas Eve Secret Santa giveaway of bonuses and guarantees was not directly traceable to Breadman, but insiders knew.) Of course, some would say that the Secret Santa giveaway simply gave more ammunition to Barney Frank's Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act of 2009 (H.R.3126), but a grateful banking community was now rich enough to pay Breadman even higher fees for his 2010 services. (You never want to totally solve your clients' problems!) But first he had to telephone Charles Wu to congratulate him on his improved visa status, thanks to the cool million Wu had dropped into the regional business investment center Breadman had set up for the sole purpose of meeting the statutory requirements for foreigners to buy their way to an EB-5 visa. (Breadman hated to admit this, but the Chinese-British mongrel was becoming his favorite client.)
A couples miles away, Angela de la Paz's mother (whose path to U.S. citizenship had been much cheaper, but more difficult) was shivering on the Washington shore of the cold yet mesmerizing Potomac, trying to understand why the arduous journey that had started with her near-drowning in this wretched river had not yet led her back to her daughter.
Back at the White House, Bo whined to go outside, then promptly vomited up FDR's head.
posted by washingtonwaterwoman | 12:46 PM | 0 comments
Year of the Shark
"There were a bunch of hammerhead sharks lined up in the shallow water, right on the edge of the shore. People were tossing food to them like they were ducks or something. It was very wrong." Psychiatrist Ermann Esse nodded in encouragement. "Then there was one shark that had been stuffed into a sleeping bag and forced to stand up vertically, like a mummy." Dr. Esse frowned. "I told them, 'This is wrong! It's suffocating! You have to put it back in the water!' So they finally undid the sleeping bag, and it was just a baby shark, and I was angry. Then it swam away." Bridezilla leaned back in the sofa cushion, bracing for a diagnosis that she had gone stark raving mad.
"Well," began Dr. Esse. (He was charging $500 for this emergency New Year's Day session--he loved the health insurance plan Bridezilla had at Prince and Prowling.) "Is it possible that the baby shark is really you?" Bridezilla's jaw dropped in shock and awe. "Perhaps you know that you have not yet learned to swim with the sharks, so to speak. And the people supposedly helping you are not helping at all." Esse did not usually tell people what their dreams meant, but this one seemed too obvious, and his patient too obtuse to figure it out herself. "Tell me: do you still feel you are on partner track?" Bridezilla had not given this the slightest thought since she broke up with Wince and found her new fiance, but January was the time the hiring partner would sit down with associates to talk about their progress in the law firm. A gnawing anxiety started creeping out of the nerve endings in her abdomen.
Meanwhile, Laura Moreno--who had toiled in obscurity at Prince and Prowling for years with no health insurance--sat down to add up her medical expenses from 2009 to see if they were high enough to bankrupt her without being high enough to deduct on her taxes. She had developed three types of medical problems in her hands from the constant mouse clicking, chronic sinusitis from the bad air in the workroom, and recurrent shoulder and back pains since they had told her "only attorneys" were allowed to request wheeled carts to move document boxes around. (And Moreno--who was, in fact, an attorney--was ratted out by the paralegal-from-Hell every time she got caught wheeling document boxes around on office chairs.) The more overtime she did, the more her health deteriorated; then her doctor bills and medicine bills went up, and she had to do more overtime again. She had applied for a thousand other jobs since she started at Prince and Prowling, but apparently nobody else was interested in the unique skills she had learned here: redacting Social Security numbers with black Sharpies, stamping "CONFIDENTIAL" on thousands of pages per day, typing up a privilege log in the patented Prince and Prowling style (commas, commas, and more commas--the senior partner would go apoplectic if he saw parentheses on a privilege log, though he did not mind seeing them in blogs), telling new associates what this client's legal problems were all about....Moreno summed up the medical expenses and plugged them into Turbo Tax. She had read more of the client's documents than everybody else at Prince and Prowling put together, but nobody was interested in her assessment of the facts. Turbo Tax spat back the answer, and she sighed: a few hundred more dollars would have put her over the top. I guess I should have gone to a psychiatrist to talk about my nightmares since that contract attorney stabbed himself in the chest.
Over at the George Washington University Hospital emergency room, Golden Fawn was waiting patiently for an x-ray of her hip, which she had crash-landed on after stepping into a puddle on a Metro platform New Year's Eve. She smiled sweetly at her husband Marcos Vazquez. She hadn't even wanted to go out on New Year's Eve, but he did, and so they went to Bar Pilar, and since they were newlyweds, it was all good. They were staring into each other's eyes, and with the ice pack on her hip, Golden Fawn scarcely knew how miserable she was, but their cocoon of love and warmth was causing nausea and consternation among everybody around them. They were supposed to be looking at condos all weekend, but the hip injury was going to delay that. Vazquez didn't want to tell his bride, but he was nervous about things: first the building fire, now this. He was her husband now, and he was supposed to keep her safe, and he was in the Coast Guard, and he was supposed to keep Washington safe, and somehow, even if he spent every waking minute thinking about keeping people safe, things happened. "This town is CRAZY!" The newlyweds turned to look at an old man with what appeared to be blue mold growing in his right ear. "Two NBA basketball players pulling guns on each other in their locker room!" he said to nobody in particular. "Can't the sissies in this town just throw a punch no more?! I'm gonna move back to Chicago--people still punch each other there!"
Over on the Virginia shore of the Potomac, Ann Bishis (who was thrilled to be in Washington now, not Chicago) was tossing her New Year's Day pelican amulet into the river. It had been an exciting year working for Congressman Herrmark [whose reign as 2008 Upper Class Twit of the Year had just come to an end with the announcement that Kanye West was voted the 2009 Upper Class Twit of the Year], but she still had lots of goals for this town--lots and lots. She prayed to Hera and Glaucos--eyes closed, arms stretched out to the sky--as other members of the Poseidon Auxiliary of the Old Dominion Boat Club sipped hot coffee from their Poseidon Auxiliary thermoses and whispered about her. Their president declared it was time to board the boat, and they climbed onto the dock to repeat the traditional New Year's Day Greek voyage from Alexandria, VA, to Athens, MD. As the boat pulled away from the shore, Bishis dropped 365 pennies into the water's wake one by one.
Several miles away, Angela de la Paz's grandmother opened her apartment door and nearly fainted at the sight of Angela's mother--who rushed inside calling Angela's name. The grandmother muttered in confusion about how they thought she had drowned in the Potomac years before. "I did," she said quietly. "Where is Angela?" The grandmother shook her head and sat down on the couch.
A few miles to the south, the Heurich Society began its first meeting of 2010 with black-eyed peas and a progress report on Project Eliminati. (In short: there will be blood.) Up in the corner, one of the hovering Shackled shivered and shook: ghosts couldn't bleed, but he knew what Project Eliminati was doing. There will be blood.


text:
Lay of the Land: The Art of Florida's Cattle Culture
by Florida Humanities November 15, 2018
Past Exhibitions 0
Dec. 11, 2018–Apr. 14, 2019
Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens
The Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens is proud to announce a collaborative exhibition with the Florida Cattlemen's Association, a legacy five centuries in the making. Lay of the Land will focus on the art of the cowmen and women unique to Florida, who have historically been called "crackers" or "cowboys." The objects and art on loan come from the Florida Cattlemen's Association's vast network of members and their private collections. These Cattlemen families are rich in Florida history and include Seminole Native Americans and other minority groups who founded and helped settle early Florida.
The exhibit is open with paid admission:
Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m.
Our partner and venue:
633 Osceola Avenue
The Legacy of Lynching: Confronting Racial Terror in America
Synchronica::Framing Time
Sage Project Phase II: Hannibal Square Elders Tell Their Stories


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