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Q: Getting a label's value using select's name tag I have a system that can output 0 or more select boxes and I need to add some Javascript/JQuery validation. I am new to writing JQuery and I am stuck getting the content of the text label for the error message: Here is an example of my select boxes form:

Product options

Select Colour
    <select name="colour">
        <option value="" selected="selected">---</option>
        <option value="blue">Blue</option>
    </select>

    Select Size
    <select name="size">
        <option value="" selected="selected">---</option>
        <option value="small">Small</option>
    </select>

    Select Flavour
    <select name="flavour">
        <option value="" selected="selected">---</option>
        <option value="cherry">Cherry</option>
    </select>

and here is my javascript function which is called on form submission (the alerts are for testing):
function validateOptions()
{

    selectList = $('select').get();
    message = "";

    for(i=0; i<selectList.length; ++i)
    {

            //alert(selectList[i].name);
            selector = "for[=\""+selectList[i].name+"\"]";
            alert(selector);
            alert($(selector.value));
            message += ($(selectList[i]).prop('selected', true).val() == "") ? "Please enter a value for \r\n" : "";

    }

    alert(message);

}

A: Your attribute syntax is incorrect. Your selector should be
var selector = "label[for='" + selectList[i].name + "']";

From there, you should fetch the label's .html(), rather than .val()
Also, labels should reference element ID's, rather than names. It is also not very clear how you want your message to be formatted. You should be able to do something like this:
function validateOptions()
{

    var message = '';

    $('select').each(function() {
       if($(this).val() == '') {
          var label = $('label[for="' + $(this).attr('id') + '"]');
          message += 'Please select a value for: ' + label.html() + '\n';
       }
    });

    alert(message);
}

You could also format your error message like so:
function validateOptions()
{
    var emptyFields = [];
    $('select').each(function() {
       if($(this).val() == '') {
          var label = $('label[for="' + $(this).attr('id') + '"]');
          emptyFields.push(label.html());
       }
    });

    if(emptyFields.length > 0) {
       alert('Please select a value for:\n' + emptyFields.join('\n'));
    }
}

A:  function validateOptions() {
                message = "";

                $('select').each(function (i) {
                    message += ($(this).prop('selected', true).val() == "") ? "Please enter a value for" + $(this).prev().html() + " \r\n" : "";
                });

                alert(message);
            }

A: $(document).ready(function(){ var allSelect = $('select');

 $.each(allSelect,function(k,v){

    var thIs = $(this);
    var name = thIs.attr('name');

    if(name == 'colour')
    {
       // Do what you want to do with colour select here eg:-
       alert(thIs.prev('label').text());
       } else if(name == 'size'){
       alert(thIs.prev('label').text());
       } else if(name == 'flavour'){
       alert(thIs.prev('label').text());
       }
   return false;

});

});

A: $(document).ready(function(){
  var allSelect = $('select');

     $.each(allSelect,function(k,v){

        var thIs = $(this);
    var name = thIs.attr('name');

        if(name == 'colour')
        {
      // Do what you want to do with colour select here eg:-
    thIs.prepend('<option value="1">White</option>
                 <option value="2">Black</option>
                 <option value="3">Gray</option>');
    } else if(name == 'size'){
      // Do what you want to do with size select here
    } else if(name == 'flavour'){
      // Do what you want to do with flavour select here
    }
       return false;
   });

});


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Home » Christians & Culture » A Tale of Evil, Incompetence, & Heroism
A Tale of Evil, Incompetence, & Heroism
Dr Snyder November 7, 2017 November 7, 2017
Few people who go to church on Sunday expect to encounter mass murder. We think we are in a safe place. Yet sin abounds, and there is no place that is 100% safe. Last Sunday, a presumably safe place in a small Texas church turned into a scene of terror.
Details are now emerging about that killing spree. We see a combination of evil, incompetence, and, as we more recently found out, heroism.
The evil was in the heart of the perpetrator, Devin Kelley. We now know that he was a wife and child abuser, more than once. While in the Air Force, his actions of domestic abuse landed him in confinement for a year and he received a bad conduct discharge.
The incompetence focuses on the Air Force, which somehow forgot to enter his name into the National Criminal Information Center database, which would have disallowed him from purchasing guns.
Kelley was also an outspoken atheist, ranting against God and Christians on Facebook.
In a press conference yesterday, it was revealed that Kelley had a dispute with his mother-in-law who goes to that church, so the official claimed Kelley's actions had nothing to do with religion; it was simply a domestic issue.
If that's all this was, why try to kill everyone in the church?
No, this is deeper. This is rebellion against God and everything the Christian faith stands for. Kelley hated Christians, with his mother-in-law representing an outlet for his hatred.
The words of Jesus at the Last Supper recorded in John 15 come to mind:
If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. . . . If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. . . . All these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me.
Christians have been and are persecuted and attacked worldwide. We're only now coming to grips with what might happen in America in the future. We've felt "safe," but that safe feeling may be ending.
I mentioned heroism. It turns out that a neighbor heard the gunshots, grabbed his gun, and engaged Kelley, wounding him. He then followed Kelley all the way to the place where he apparently committed suicide by ramming his vehicle and overturning it.
The man who confronted Kelley, Stephen Willeford, is a former NRA instructor. Contrary to what some might think, that means he trained people to use guns wisely and carefully. He followed his own advice. And because of that Second Amendment right, more lives probably were saved.
Willeford says he's no hero: "I think my God … protected me and gave me the skills to do what needed to be done."
That kind of humility and dependence on God is actually a mark of genuine heroism, the kind God rewards.
Christians & Culture Air Force, Christianity, Kelley, murder, persecution, Second Amendment, Texas, Willeford
Temptation & Realism: A Lewis Perspective
Communicating Truth: A Lewis Exhortation

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting with my MPP Ted Arnott, along with some other parents of autistic children in our community. My goal was to inform and empower the MPP with information about the developmental approach and how important it is to offer CHOICE for families–especially when ABA isn't appropriate. I also encouraged Mr. Arnott to listen to the voices of autistics in policy making, such as A4A Ontario.
Thank you, Mr. Arnott, for taking the time to hear about families' need for CHOICE in supports and therapies for autism in Ontario, and how essential providing adequate financial support is for families. And if anyone in Ontario is a care provider who wants to join our cause, please sign the petition here.
The Ontario government announced changes to the Ontario Autism Program last week that caps the amount of money families can receive for their children's services. Families are concerned about this but our greater concern is the type of services that are being presented to families.
The overwhelming focus of services still revolves around behavioural intervention such as Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA). The Developmental approaches are not only more favourable to autistic self-advocates, but they are significantly more cost effective.
We will continue to advocate for developmental approach services and supports such as services delivered under the umbrella of the Developmental, Individual differences, Relationship-based (DIR) model including Floortime, which parents can learn quite quickly and be supported through parent coaching, as research demonstrates.
We encourage residents of Ontario to contact your local MPPs and advocate for real CHOICE in autism supports and services, which includes developmental approaches that focus on play-based interactions facilitating relating, communicating, and thinking over behavioural approaches that focus on compliance and shaping behaviour without understanding or addressing the cause of the behaviour.
An #ActuallyAutistic student in his 4th undergrad degree in Ontario is doing research on expertise and autism, and why self-advocates seem shut out of the conversation. Autistic people and organizations, as well as most non-ABA community organizations and providers, were categorically excluded from consultations for the Ontario Autism Program. If you were one of them, please take the survey. Please see http://www.mrcollis.ca/research for the informed consent form and questions.
Earlier today I had the pleasure of meeting with Alberta MP, Mike Lake, father of an autistic young adult and advocate for autism support. We discussed how we can bring autism communities together to improve supports and services for all across Canada and I provided him with some information about and links to developmental approach organizations. Thank you for all of your work, Mike!
Thank you as well to my MP, Michael Chong, for taking the time last month to hear about families' need for CHOICE in supports and therapies for autism when discussing a National Autism Strategy in Ottawa.


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January 3, 2017 By Free Williamsburg
click image for slideshow
Our Rating: RAVE
If you miss Northeast Kingdom — a trendsetting restaurant that helped originate Brooklyn's farm-to-table food craze in the aughts — take solace in Faro which was founded by the same restaurateurs. Faro's use of fresh, seasonal ingredients paired with their delicious homemade pastas is a winning combination. The atmosphere is without frills, but you will not be disappointed with the menu. We recommend any of their homemade pastas, the roasted beets, the wood-fired octopus, or the steak. Make a reservation since Faro recently received a Michelin star.
resy
If you spend a lot of time in Bushwick, you'll want Faro on your hit list. It's a good place for a date, and probably the best place around here to take parents or a group of out of towners, largely owing to the fact that they actually take reservations. It's not the destination that Roberta's is, but Faro serves a different purpose: it feels like a restaurant for grown ups.
"Hyper-local ingredients" are the basis for the "beautiful" Italian offerings – "excellent" pastas, "fabulous wood-fired" dishes – at this "cool" Bushwick eatery with an "innovative" tasting menu and "good wine program"; "warm" service and a "hip but homey" space are other pluses.
On to the eight pastas, which are the heart and soul of Faro. While many of them evoke Italian models, they are unique things onto themselves. The squid ink calamarati ($17) sees the chef playing a little joke. The recipe deploys a pasta shaped like squid rings, and actual squid ink generates its glossy midnight hue. But it uses no actual squid. The ink makes the pasta richer, an effect that's goosed up by a sauce of curried coconut milk. We are already in nutsy pasta territory here, but a half lobster tail and claw flopped on top makes the dish even more surreal — it's a pasta Salvatore Dali might have invented.
Avoid Ferries
Filed Under: Bushwick Biz, Italian, Jefferson, Rave, Restaurants, Special Occassions
About Free Williamsburg
FREEwilliamsburg is the trendsetting home of New York's most creative neighborhood. The website has been mentioned in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, The New York Observer, among others, and was called an "essential New York blog" by New York magazine. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Do it now, dammit!


text:
Play for Japan: An East Meets West Charity Album
May 26, 2011 | Jayson Napolitano | 3 Comments Share this Play for Japan: An East Meets West Charity Album
We've mentioned a number of ways to help the people of Japan recover from the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that occurred in March 2011. As it turns out, Akira Yamaoka has come up with yet another way, bringing together some of the top game composers from Japan and the West along with artist Yoshitaka Amano for what is sure to be an amazing project. Artists will contribute original pieces of music, and 100% of proceeds from the album will be donated to the Red Cross in Japan.
So, who's all involved? They're all listed in the press release after the jump, but to highlight a few, Nobuo Uematsu, Yasunori Mitsuda, Koji Kondo, Mitsuto Suzuki, and Hip Tanaka from Japan, and Bear McCreary, Chance Thomas, Inon Zur, and Tommy Tallarico from the US. I find it interesting to see names like Koji Kondo and Mitsuto Suzuki given that they're still in-house members of game development studios in Japan, but I'm excited about hearing their contributions.
See the press release with the full listing (including track titles) after the jump, and visit the album's website for more details and biographies for those involved. Are you surprised by any of the names that appear, and are you looking forward to the album?
INTERNATIONAL TALENT COMES TOGETHER FOR PLAY FOR JAPAN: THE ALBUM
Acclaimed Illustrator Yoshitaka Amano and 17 Top Videogame Composers Join Akira Yamaoka For Compilation of Original Music Benefiting The People of Japan Tokyo
Japan May 24, 2011 – Composer Akira Yamaoka and videogame industry charitable organization playforJapan.org are pleased to announce the line-up for Play for Japan: The Album, a collection of all-new songs created by many of the most celebrated composers working in videogames today. Says Yamaoka, "Since announcing this project, I've been honored and overwhelmed by the support I've received. For creators whose role is to inspire, it's only fitting we come together, across borderlines, for those in need."
Also lending his talent to the effort is acclaimed illustrator Yoshitaka Amano, whose artwork serves as the official album cover. Best known for his long-running relationship with the Final Fantasy franchise, Amano's work is admired by game, fantasy, and fine art enthusiasts around the world. Says Yamaoka, "All-star videogame composers and Amano-san's visual design – I couldn't have asked for a more perfect collaboration."
Play for Japan: The Album is scheduled for release in June 2011 via the iTunes store. All proceeds from sales of this album will be donated to the Japanese Red Cross.
Please visit www.playforjapan.org/album for a message from Akira Yamaoka and full-size view of the official album cover.
PLAY FOR JAPAN: THE ALBUM ARTIST LINE-UP AND TRACK LIST
Akira Yamaoka (Shadows of the Damned) | Ex Animo
Arthur Inasi (Harmonix) | We Are One
Bear McCreary (SOCOM 4) | Maverick Regeneration
Chance Thomas (Lord of the Rings Online) | Rise Up
Hip Tanaka.β (Mother) | HVC-1384
Inon Zur (Dragon Age) | Remember
Jason Graves (Dead Space) | Necromancer
Koji Kondo (Super Mario Bros.) | Super Mario Medley
Laura Karpman (Everquest II) | Pine Wind Sound
Laura Shigihara (Plants vs. Zombies) | Jump
Mitsuto Suzuki (The 3rd Birthday) | Play for You
Nobuko Toda (Metal Gear Solid 4) | Reminiscence
Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy) | Every New Morning
Penka Kouneva (Prince of Persia) | White Cloud
Sean Murray (Call of Duty) | The Temple Stone
Tommy Tallarico (Advent Rising) | Greater Lights
Woody Jackson (Red Dead Redemption) | Moshi Moshi
Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger) | Dimension Break
ABOUT: PLAY FOR JAPAN THE: ALBUM
After the earthquake and ensuing tsunami of March 11, 2011, videogame composer Akira Yamaoka heard from creators, fans, and other friends across the world, sharing sympathy and concern, and pledging support.
Inspired by this outpouring, he sought to express that shared spirit through music. The result is Play for Japan: The Album, featuring celebrated videogame composers from East and West. It is hoped this effort will in turn inspire game and music enthusiasts to show their support for those affected by the tragedy.
ABOUT: PLAYFORJAPAN.ORG
The earthquake and resulting tsunami that hit Japan on March 11th has resulted in untold devastation and a developing humanitarian crisis. Help is needed in significant amounts. The videogame industry obviously has special ties with Japan. Our favorite games are made there, our friends and family work and live there. The gaming industry and community at-large is highly passionate and can be charitable beyond words.
The sole purpose of this campaign is to communicate and channel that passion and generosity into the overall relief effort. At playforjapan.org, you'll find links to donate directly to selected and legitimate charities performing relief work in Japan. You'll also find other fundraising opportunities in the form of local events and charity auctions, as well as a spot for anyone in the industry or community to express themselves as this crisis and recovery unfolds.
Tags: Akira Yamaoka, Bear McCreary, Chance Thomas, Charity, Inon Zur, Koji Kondo, Mitsuto Suzuki, News, Play for Japan, Tommy Tallarico
Robby on July 14, 2011
I think it should be mentioned that this is out on the itunes store now. I only skimmed the article and perused the website but both seemed to just say either May 2011 or June 2011. They've got me down like a clown either way! Glad I can contribute and get some sweet music.
Actually, it's also on Amazon.com, but it's missing the Mario Medley. Dollar cheaper though.
Woops, just realized this is the old article, I was wondering where the review was!
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Welcome to Bransby Law Firm, P.C.
Just because you need an attorney does not mean you have to meet with someone who will remain a stranger. One of the things that makes Bransby Law Firm, P.C. different is we provide an informal, welcoming environment for clients. While your legal matters are taken very seriously, we understand the more comfortable you feel in our office, the more likely you are to feel confident we can help you address your problems.
Our office is in Stevensville, Montana and we provide family law, estate planning, probate, conservatorship and guardianship services. We also have experience with mediation and can serve as Settlement Master.
When you are facing a legal challenge in Missoula or the Bitterroot Valley, contact our office for help. In an informal atmosphere, we will take the time necessary to explain what you can anticipate, tell you what your options are, and help you develop a strategy for moving forward.


Sorry for the lack of blogging by life at Arrowmont is INTENSE! I can't believe I've been here over a month already! I just finished up my second class: Stencil Madness: Monoprint Gone Crazy with Jeniffer Ghormley. It was frustrating at times, but all in all a lot of fun, and I finally came up with a few prints I'm happy with.
Last week I was in Plastics and Resin for Jewelry with super energetic James Thurman. We did all kinda of crazy plastic casting and mold making. We even made layered paper "Thurmanite", which I really enjoyed. I made a few little things, which I haven't photographed yet, but I'll post them later.
This week I'll be in "The Enameled Image" with Jessica Caulderwood. I'm super excited. It's all kinds of painting and drawing techniques in enamels, which is the area where I feel like my skills are lacking.
Just one more week, and then I'm off to Peter's Valley!!!!
Arrowmont has been a non-stop blur of work and people and bugs and desserts! Yikes! The other educational assistants and I had to move our studio space last week, because there's a class in the sculpture studio this week. I've managed to get a little work done, mostly in my sketch book. It's been really difficult for me to be around so much creativity and so many exciting workshops and not be able to make work. But I've only got one more week of that, and then it's three straight weeks of art party!
I've been to the mountains only a couple times, and out on the strip (usually just long enough to get to the Doughnut Friar). I did venture out for the midnight 4th of July Parade. Talk about some crazy! I've seen a bear, a coyote, some skinks and even went across the border and stood in North Carolina for a bit. The mountains here are stunning, but I still miss the ocean.
Well, I'm off to move a Hollander beater before the fireworks start! Happy 4th!


Cash flow is critically important to every business. In this webinar, our cash flow experts will provide you with a simple, yet practical model that will help you gain a better understanding of how cash flows through your business. We will also focus on where cash can hide within a business, and how to free up that cash within the cash flow cycle.
This 30-45 minute interactive webinar will focus on building cash flow management ability within your business, with particular emphasis on how to get cash flowing smoothly.


Giant Aquatic Amoeba: Morpha is the Boss of the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time. Created by Ganondorf after he acquired the Triforce of Power, it has complete control over the water in the room in which it resides, moving swiftly through it and creating long amoeba-like "limbs". This monster is responsible for the receded state of Lake Hylia as well as the frozen condition of Zora's Domain.
Morpha itself is not the transparent muscle-like tentacle as its Ocarina of Time official artwork suggests, but the vulnerable red nucleus often safeguarded under the muck of the thick liquid. This nucleus can manipulate the water in any way it likes, creating one (and eventually two) large water tentacles as the battle progresses.
Master of the Water Temple. It has absolute control of water. Pull out its nucleus and attack it!
As Link enters the boss room, Princess Ruto warns him that the water in the room "isn't normal". As he jumps onto one of the four pillars standing in the pool of water, a cutscene shows the view of a creature lurking in the water. It slowly makes its way to Link and emerges from the water behind him. The hero looks back at one of Morpha's tentacles before it vanishes, and the battle commences.
Morpha's nucleus churns the water below and rises within the center of one of its created tentacles. While the amoebic liquid is impossible to penetrate when in large concentrations in the pool, whenever a single arm rises and latches upon the land, the liquid becomes thin enough to pierce with the spike of the Longshot. Link must hook the nucleus, and slash at it while it is on land during its Critical Point, the time in which it is entirely vulnerable and clear of any amoebic fluid. If Link is Morpha's body of water, its nucleus will charge at him. While Link is in the water, its tentacles will not appear.
Morpha eventually adapts to the battle and grows a second tentacle, using it to distract Link from latching on to itself again. Just like with the single tentacle, the second one can grab Link, swing him about, and then throw him at the spikes at the edge of the arena, causing surplus damage. It is also notable that if Link stays in the corner of the arena between the spike panels, Morpha will be unable to successfully grab him. Though the battle becomes more urgent as the second tentacle grows, the technique used to defeat Morpha remains the same: Link must continue to hook the nucleus and slash it repeatedly while it is bouncing about on land. After injuring Morpha's nucleus several times, the core bursts in a spray of water. The tentacle clings to life as long as it can by using up all of the water in the central pool, and by attempting to drain and escape through the ceiling. Once it absorbs all of the water in the pool, the tentacle culminates in a single water droplet on the ceiling and drops to the floor, splattering in all directions.
Link's rewards for his victory are a Heart Container and the Water Medallion from Ruto.
Din's Fire is capable of evaporating Morpha's tentacles.
Morpha can be defeated very easily by using the Longshot to pull it, and continuing to do so when approaching the corners of the room to avoid it escaping. Link must repeatedly slash at it while trapped in the corner to defeat the boss quickly, and often injury-free.
After Morpha is defeated, Lake Hylia is restored to its former water-filled state. However, Zora's Domain remains frozen.
Princess Ruto is the one who warns Link about the strange water in Morpha's room, not Navi. In the Japanese version, this is more evident as the speech patterns of Ruto and Navi differ, in that Ruto tends to end her sentences with the word ゾラ. Also, Navi's text is generally blue, but the text for this dialogue is completely white.
Prior to the official release of Ocarina of Time, Morpha was called "Water Spirit" on the official Nintendo website.
ChineseSI 水栖核细胞魔发 Aquatic Cell Nucleus, 魔发 is transliteration of "Morpha", means "Magic hair"
↑ "The Water Spirit shakes Link up." — Two New Boss Characters!, Nintendo (archive), retrieved March 29, 2014.
This page was last edited on 12 January 2019, at 19:48.


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The Sundress Blog
(a publishing collective supplement)
Knoxville Literary Calendar
Tag: les kay
National Poetry Month with Les Kay and John Ashbery
To celebrate National Poetry Month, our authors talk about the work that has influenced their writing, reading, and publishing goals and proclivities.
Les Kay holds a PhD from the University of Cincinnati's Creative Writing program and an MFA from the University of Miami. His poetry has appeared in a variety of literary journals including Whiskey Island, Sugar House Review, Stoneboat, Menacing Hedge, Third Wednesday, Santa Clara Review, The White Review, PANK, South Dakota Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Cincinnati with his wife, Michelle, three dogs, and their collective imaginations. His chapbook, The Bureau is forthcoming from Sundress Publications
A Brief Reflection on John Ashbery's Houseboat Days. Or, How I Became This Poet. Sort Of.
If you subscribe to the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, you'll grant me this somewhat narcissistic assertion: somewhere, in parallel, or more likely, in many wheres, I am an expert on Ashbery's poetry who successfully convinces university administration, year after year, to let him teach undergraduates an entire semester devoted solely to Ashbery's work. Here, however, I am taking a respite from writing corporate instructions to share a memory and a fantasia or two with you.
The lecture halls at the closest university are filled only with sleepy students learning integration as I return, hesitantly, to when I first read Houseboat Days. To say that nothing in my experience prepared me (a junior in college studying Creative Writing) for the book is an understatement. I was befuddled. So befuddled that I sought help from friends who lived in the basement apartment beneath mine—a Computer Engineering major and a Creative Writing major.[1] I showed them the reason I was rattled enough to bang on their front door, interrupt their approaching dinner, and beg for help: "Daffy Duck in Hollywood." I asked them both to read the poem, to help me understand the mad persona poem and its collisions of "high" and "low" art.
Both—bless them—willingly did the former; neither, alas, could manage the latter. For me, that singular experience shaped many of the reading experiences that followed. Houseboat Days is a singular book, unlike any I'd read before or since. It is a hybrid of languages—though almost all of them are English, technically speaking. It is, occasionally, an ars poetica. It is, often, an excursion into the occasional, a journey into the unconscious, and a cavorting through consciousness itself. It is, if I remember correctly, fragmentary in that it offers us glimpses of so much more.
I do not doubt that Ashbery and I would disagree, perhaps vehemently, on what that "so much more" entails, but that is beside the point. Rather, what matters is the field of possibility that Ashbery's poetics can open up. The multiple identities he helps us see within ourselves and, concurrently, in the psyches of all of those around us. This mind numbingly humbling vastness of human experience is the point, or my point. Even if, as in "Daffy Duck in Hollywood"—there is so very much experience to which I—or should I say "you"—do not have access.
And along the way, the weather changes. We change. And, here and there, we find beauty—whatever that means. This morning, while fearing the early summer flash of yellow jackets on my front porch, I reread "Daffy Duck in Hollywood." I still do not entirely know what it "means," but now I do know—thanks to Houseboat Days—that not knowing is integral to our collective experience. And that not knowing—at least not yet—belongs in poetry. Experience that poem for yourself.
[1] And Michelle Kay is her name. She married me—even after that.
sundresspublications	Admin	Leave a comment April 19, 2017 April 25, 2017
The Bureau by Les Kay Released by Sundress Publications
Knoxville, TN- Sundress Publications is pleased to announce the release of Les Kay's debut poetry collection, The Bureau.
Enter a daring dystopian high-rise where revolutionary language craves a new kind of survival. The high stakes these poems ante up beneath fluorescent heat to forge addictive identities. Imaginative traps and creeping Stockholm syndrome throughout are signed, sealed, and delivered fresh from the mail room in Kay's potent arrival.
"Les Kay's The Bureau is unlike anything I (or you) have ever read. A brilliant series of interconnected poems, it's like Kafka and Berryman drinking poison tea while discussing the new normal. Funny, strange, and horrifying. Visionary. Bartleby the Scrivener on acid. Rimbaud's appearance in these poems seems completely natural, inevitable really. Kay has his finger on the pulse of a monster here—a monster called The Bureau."
-Jim Daniels, author of Birth Marks and Eight Mile High
Les Kay holds a PhD with a focus on Creative Writing from the University of Cincinnati and an MFA from the University of Miami, where he was a James Michener Fellow. After he survived the dot-com boom of the early 2000s, his poetry appeared widely in journals such as decomP, PANK, Redactions, South Dakota Review, Southern Humanities Review, Sugar House Review, Whiskey Island, and The White Review. The two may be related. He is also an Associate Editor for Stirring: A Literary Collection. He currently lives in Cincinnati, teaching writing, caring for three very small dogs, and contemplating the distribution of systemic power and misinformation. The Bureau loves him.
You can now download your own copy of The Bureau for free at www.sundresspublications.com.
sundresspublications	Admin	1 Comment July 14, 2015 July 14, 2015
Every Book Prize You've Ever Entered
Note: Winner does not receive actual trophy.
Thank you for your interest in the It's Awesome To Win and It's Awesome to Lose Book Prize from the University of Pobiz Press. We take pride in our reputation for being the most transparent book contest in the publishing world, so please carefully review the following information to learn about our manuscript guidelines, ethical standards, and reading/judging process.
Authors who wish to enter our contest should familiarize themselves with our catalog. We encourage you to buy at least three books in each genre we publish.
We accept submissions in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, graphic narrative, and multimedia sculptural affirmation. Please note that we are not interested in translation, genre, or social issues.
To preserve anonymity, all submissions are read blind. We endeavor to avoid our colleagues to the point that we cannot recognize their work without first and last name attached. Current students, former students, close friends, spouses, lovers, and housekeepers of the judge are allowed to enter, but to ensure fairness, we keep the judge drunk on whiskey throughout the process.
Manuscripts should be stripped of all identifying information prior to submission. Entrants with immediately recognizable names will not be disqualified; instead, we will personally remove the information and pass their manuscripts to our judge, unread.
We only accept single-author manuscripts accompanied by a statement affirming the work is the intellectual property of the author or untraceably plagiarized.
We are neither copy editors nor designers and therefore expect winning manuscripts to be of the highest, publishable quality prior to entry and accompanied by print-ready cover art converted to CMYK color space at a minimum of 300 dpi.
Manuscripts should be composed on a computer running an up-to-date version of Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, or Red Hat Enterprise Linux; triple-spaced with titles in 13-point Neue Helvetica eText, body text in 10-point Adobe Garamond, and table of contents in 16-point Impact; conform to W3C's XML 1.0 specifications; and be saved in MS Works (.WPS) format.
Improperly formatted or incomplete submissions will not be read.
Due to budget cuts, we can no longer receive manuscripts via postal mail. However, you may use our secure Russian e-commerce site to pay your entry fee.
Entry fees operate on a sliding scale relative to the likelihood of the title being made into a movie, selected for Oprah's Book Club, or awarded a high-profile prize by a panel of anonymous judges who, for professional reasons, identify as cis white men.
Nonfiction fee of $45 includes $25 entry fee plus $20 for printing your electronic entry.
Fiction fee of $55 includes $35 entry fee plus $20 for printing your electronic entry.
Poetry fee of $55 includes $45 entry fee plus $10 for printing your electronic entry.
Graphic narrative and multimedia sculptural affirmation fee of $105 includes $55 entry fee plus $50 for printing your electronic entry.
51% of entry fees go toward the cost of the judge's whiskey; 23.7% of entry fees are converted to small bills and used to fan our interns when they get overheated while carrying manuscripts from our office printer, 22.3% of entry fees fund future "investments", and 3% of entry fees are spent on publishing and marketing our books. As you can see, we are committed to transparency.
You may enter more than one manuscript. Each manuscript, however, must be accompanied by a separate entry fee, as well as an additional $20 overproductivity fee.
Each entry entitles you to a 5% discount on a title in our catalog and thrice-weekly updates via our intern-staffed mailing list, from which you may unsubscribe for a modest fee.
Authors at any stage in their careers are welcome to enter. However, we are more likely to select winners with Oscar-winning performances and/or established audiences of wealthy patrons.
Semifinalists will be notified via Twitter; finalists will be notified via carrier pigeon. In the event that over 50% of our finalists are graduates of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and/or residents of a New York borough, our interns will rank manuscripts based on the authors' dexterity with shuriken and tequila limes.
Winners will receive ten copies of their book, the option to purchase copies from Amazon at a 55% discount, and anywhere between $100 to $500 in prize money, depending on anticipated royalties and the continued support of CEOs who cannot scan iambic pentameter. Winnings will be distributed biennially.
All authors are required to presell a minimum of 150 copies of their books, at least 100 of which must be purchased by individuals who are not friends or family of the author. Each presale must be accompanied by a notarized statement of relationship witnessed by a seventh son of a seventh son. The presale requirement may be waived if you pay 80% of the printing costs for your book.
We reserve the right to withhold prizes in any given year, should we deem all submissions unworthy of publication. We will not, however, refund entry fees as they will have been spent on Kentucky bourbon and Toyota Camry lease payments long before we announce semifinalists.
Thank you for your support of the University of Pobiz Press. We look forward to receiving your entry!
Les Kay holds a PhD from the University of Cincinnati's Creative Writing program and an MFA from the University of Miami. His poetry has appeared in a variety of literary journals including Whiskey Island, Sugar House Review, Stoneboat, Menacing Hedge, Third Wednesday, Santa Clara Review, The White Review, PANK, South Dakota Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Cincinnati with his wife, Michelle, three dogs, and their collective imaginations. His chapbook, The Bureau, is forthcoming from Sundress Publications.
T.A. Noonan is the author of several books and chapbooks, most recently The Midway Iterations (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2015) and The Ep[is]odes: a reformulation of Horace (Noctuary Press, 2016). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Reunion: The Dallas Review, Menacing Hedge, LIT, West Wind Review, Ninth Letter, and Phoebe, among others. A weightlifter, artist, teacher, priestess, and all-around woman of action, she is an artist-in-residence at Firefly Farms, home of the Sundress Academy for the Arts. Additionally, she serves as the Vice President and Associate Editor of Sundress Publications.
sundresspublications	Admin	1 Comment December 29, 2014 December 29, 2014
F*ck This! I Quit…Kind Of: On Poetry, Contests, and Opportunity Cost by Les Kay
Last December, I received an urgent text from my father: CALL ME. My father, like most fathers, normally reserves the use of brief text messages in ALL CAPS for important news or emergencies. Since he's retired now, well into his 70s, and his wife has been diagnosed with terminal bladder cancer—a cancer that should have been caught much earlier and should have been curable with simple resection—I assumed the worse, something health-related and horrific.
When I phoned, my father told me about an advertisement he'd seen for a poetry contest, a Christian poetry contest with a small fee and cash prizes. Instead of counting my inevitable winnings, I imagine my brow furrowed as if I'd just heard the compensation package for an adjunct teaching position. I thought immediately of Poetry.com and similar scams, suspecting that if I were to enter such a contest, the only plausible response would be solicitation of money that I, like so many emerging poets, just don't have right now.
Google and a few anonymous netizens confirmed my suspicions. I thanked my father, skirting the issue of whether or not I'd enter by explaining how many other contests I needed to enter and stressing the necessity of book publication.
"Those are the only contests I enter now."
And I sighed. A sigh meant not to be heard.
"I need to get my manuscript published to have any shot on the job market."
I then launched into a tedious explanation of the academic job market, detailing the qualifications of those who were landing coveted jobs teaching creative writing and those who teach five classes on a hotdog, ramen, and generic cola budget. I must have explained just how winding, wending, and expensive the entire process can be. How the contracting number of jobs means that hiring committees at schools so small they may be imaginary now require applicants to have a book published by a "national" press. How applicants must develop pedagogical expertise in Composition, Literature, Creative Nonfiction, and, if at all possible, time travel. How we need to fly to the MLA conference—even if we pay with an overstretched credit card—to be herded into hotel rooms while avoiding the winged monkeys and remaining on the lookout for the Tin Man's heart.
No wonder it takes time to realize that the wizards controlling our fate are mere women and men.
I'm not at all sure my explanation was clear or factual enough to help my father understand, but he told me to think about it and to keep working hard.
Then we talked about football.
About a month later, the book contest rejections, photocopied form letters announcing the winning title and perhaps a handful of finalists who wouldn't be published, started rolling in. Sometimes the letters include a beaming author photos of the one person from 300, 800, or 900 entrants whose manuscript made its way to the final judge and beyond. Sometimes the letters include information about next year's contest including the expected fee, which runs around $25, and the all-important deadline. In my mailbox, there were two from Ohio, two from California, two from Texas, one from Illinois, and one from Indiana. Sometimes that $25 gets you more than a form rejection. Sometimes if you include an envelope with postage you'll also receive a copy of the winning manuscript. Sometimes you'll receive a subscription to a literary journal associated with the contest. I have four or five such subscriptions coming to my house, though to be frank I tend to lose track.
There are, to be fair, a handful of independent book publishers that have open reading periods, sometimes without fees. Presses like Black Ocean, Milkweed, and even McSweeney's craft beautiful books often of better quality than what the contest winners of university press prizes find in their mail. Yet from the perspective of many hiring committees (and perhaps many other such committees) the "best" presses now use the contest model to find any poet not already on their list. Consequently, if you need a manuscript published—even one with a score of publications at mid-tier, university-affiliated literary journals—you feel as though you must drop $25 per entry, even if the odds that you will receive a personal response rather than a photocopied announcement are exponentially worse than the odds of an applicant being accepted into Harvard's Medical School (according to U.S. News, 4.1%).
Given such dismal odds, rampant rumors of malfeasance and nepotism should come as no surprise, even if Foetry and its epic, sometimes conspiracist, exposés on the connections between contest judges and prize winners has become a minor footnote to the history of literary publishing. My assumption, perhaps naïve, is that the vast majority of contests are now—if not wholly transparent—at least mindful of conflicts of interest and work assiduously to avoid them.
Nonetheless, some announcements still make my hair stand on end like that of a feral black cat surrounded by dogs—even when I do not submit to the contests in question. Indeed, recently Bruce Bond, a tenured professor at the University of North Texas, who already has nine well-regarded collections to his name, won the Tampa Review Prize for Poetry. That same week, the Cleveland State University Press also announced the winner of their Open Competition: Lee Upton, a tenured professor at Lafayette College. This will be her ninth published book of poetry.
Of course, I recognize that the vagaries of the publishing industry likely put both Upton and Bond in a position where they were once again without a contract and forced to play the contest game, imagine their books continuing to go unpublished, or turn to an independent press. Moreover, I'm willing to assume that the contests were run fairly, but what chance do mere mortals have when Bond, Bruce Bond, submitted a book of sonnets? Why shouldn't the Tampa Review, upon recognizing the work as Bond's, turn ever so slightly away from ideals of fairness to the many, many anonymous poets who dropped $25 in an attempt to get their first, second, or third book out there? Bond's book will surely sell better, right? Imagine an industry where those who have been successful enough to begin contemplating what their Selected Poems might look like still shell out $25 and take part in a contest. What has the publishing of poetry come to?
Let me be clear that I fault neither Bond nor Upton, nor I suppose, the presses that may have simply seen an opportunity. Every system is subject to abuse, and here, it is crucial to be mindful of the position in which university presses now, somehow, find themselves. Financial pressures—particularly in a political environment where invaluable services like food stamps, unemployment, and Social Security are being cut—lead many university-affiliated presses to search for new streams of revenue to compensate for funding their home universities may be unwilling or unable to provide. What is peculiar, at least within an American context, is the notion that such funding is necessary and that sales alone can no longer support the viability of a press regardless of the quality or timeliness of the material they publish. So perhaps we should not be surprised if, when faced with production and distribution costs, a press might turn to contests to generate revenue. Even if this is just enough revenue to facilitate the "reading" of the 900 manuscripts that arrive and to cover production costs. In other words, I want to make abundantly clear that the process and conditions under which the production of poetry takes place are not, per se, the fault of the editors who work for presses that are perennially understaffed and overwhelmed. Indeed, given an avalanche of manuscripts by people who very dearly want and need to be published for their professional well being, how could you not be tempted to turn to the work of someone you, as an editor, already know? How could you possibly give each and every manuscript half the care and attention that we expect of college students when they first encounter contemporary poetry in an academic setting? Perhaps most importantly, how do you ensure that the next book is not the last the press publishes?
From my perspective, as a poet attempting to land a few pages carved from several years of work into the hands of a less-than-ravenous reading public, everything about the process feels onerous. To the point that I sometimes swear to read books from such and such press only if they arrive via library, gift, or review copy. To the point that I've frequently wondered whether I might be able to garner more readers via one of the many self-publishing services or, better, via the middle-class friendly wonders of the Internet. Indeed, the notion of giving my poetry freely to others is deeply appealing, whereas the notion of paying for the publication, however nominal the amount, summons images of those fat anthologies from World Poetry Movement where one must pay to see one's "prize-winning" poem in print. In fact, since I began sending my manuscript to contests, I've probably paid out more cash than the "amateur poets" who fall for Internet-based poetry scams. All with the understanding that what is most compelling about those scam poetry anthologies—the unrelenting democracy of a project that documents the difficulties, pains, delights, and joys of lives lived—is precisely what is redacted, elided, and otherwise cut from a publishing experience with a more traditional poetry press.
Like so many in the poetry community, I find myself playing an elitism lottery. But it is a most peculiar form of elitism.
What then should I tell my father the next time he texts me urgently to tell me about a contest I can't contemplate? Should I explain that I am amenable only to certain forms of exploitation? Or that I happily supported presses that I admire during a winter when I couldn't afford new tires for a car that badly needed them? Or should I simply tell him that a prize like that, as opposed to a book contest, won't salve the half-glimpsed desperation that follows, like an H.P. Lovecraft monster, those of us who would prefer to teach without being contingent?
Perhaps I just need to walk away.
Book contests are now profligate. Presses that formerly had open reading periods now charge for the privilege of having your book read. So the cost to any potential poet has become more and more astounding. It may one day be subsidized by a well-taxed prize of something like a grand and a few book sales—assuming one is luckier than a beagle who, through the vagaries of quantum mechanics, finds herself transported to a Texas chili competition while all the cooks are simultaneously taking cigarette breaks.
What those costs ignore are just who those people submitting to book contests might be, just how much work and dream is fused into those explosive fifty pages, just how many people might be forced to walk away from the possibilities that poetry affords simply because they can no longer rationalize the fees that precede the rejections. Many of those people are, of course, adjuncts and graduate students who still, against almost all that is rational, believe that their next choice to "support literary publishing" will be the one that takes them further into the fatty folds of that hibernating bear…or, perhaps, its jowls.
This is a symptom not of a community that is dying but of a community that has been forced, metaphorically speaking, to eat its young. Or, as a former professor once wrote in a letter of recommendation, this is a community focused on "training the young to read its work." It is, in short, a maze of gate keeping that will lose us poets. Imagine, for example, how John Clare might fare now. How many Miltons might be made mute and inglorious simply because of fees?
Surely, there is a better way.
After all, in the United Kingdom, poets are asked to query with a sample batch of poems. They are not asked for payment. In fact, the United States is the only nation that has developed such a labyrinthine and expensive path toward publishing while still maintaining the cultural elitism that makes publishing through the burgeoning community of independent presses and micropresses an anathema to many hiring and tenure committees.
Thankfully, emerging poets have not yet been asked to pay for a single submission of a batch of poetry. We have not yet seen for-profit companies inserting their services into the long, storied, and difficult process of getting one poem to sing in front of the eyes of, perhaps, a thousand readers. That clearly would be immoral and would suggest that poetry is neither concerned with the truth nor with broadening the possibilities of who might contribute to its ongoing historical conversation. That clearly would imply that someone who must choose between paying the gas bill and eating lunch has no place in the utopia of letters. That clearly would spark fire-spewing arguments about moral obligations and financial necessity. That clearly would suggest that the community is not so far removed from its New Critical pinnacle of protecting culture from Others as I—and many others—have believed.
And that, clearly, is precisely what's happening. But there is minimal anger. Let the adjuncts, the graduate students, the visiting professors pay what they do not have to publish those who will have stable, well-paid jobs if they don't publish another word. Who cares if they find themselves thinking, I can simply eat a little bit more ramen?
Or maybe there is another way. What if we recognized that it's only poetry after all and funneled the money that would have gone to this prize or that prize somewhere, well, different?
I have books that need to be published. I'm planning to submit myself to the contest machine through the end of the year. If I'm less lucky than a Harvard Medical School applicant, so be it.
Next year starting in January, I'll only send manuscripts to venues that don't charge or from whom I can receive a slightly more expensive than normal subscription. I'll track those contests that I would normally submit to, and rather than submitting, I'm sending that money to Doctors without Borders.
sundresspublications	Admin	53 Comments October 28, 2014
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text:
Trial week in Griffin
SOCIAL HOST ORDINANCES HELP OUR COMMUNITY BY HOLDING PARENTS ACCOUNTABLE
Chantell Mixon to serve three years in connection with GPD Officer Kevin Jordan's murder
SHEILA A. MATHEWS :::
Despicable – that is the description Griffin Judicial Circuit District Attorney Ben Coker ascribes to the actions of Chantell Mixon, who stood accused in the May 2014 murder of Griffin Police Department Officer Kevin Jordan and today plead guilty in Spalding County Superior Court.
Mixon on Monday appeared before Superior Court Judge Fletcher Sams and entered a plea of guilty to felony obstruction of a law enforcement officer, public drunkenness and two counts of disorderly conduct.
She was sentenced to eight years with three years to serve in prison. This sentence will run consecutively with a sentence Mixon is currently serving.
Mixon, who is being housed in the Pulaski State Prison, was previously convicted of possession of a weapon or drugs by a prisoner. She was convicted of this crime in Fayette County, where she was being held following her arrest in connection to Jordan's murder. That crime occurred Sept. 24, 2015, and on Sept. 21, 2016, she began serving a two-year sentence for that conviction. Her maximum possible release date is Sept. 26, 2017. Upon completion of that sentence, Mixon will begin serving her three-year sentence for her involvement in Jordan's murder.
As part of her plea agreement, Mixon will be banished from the Griffin Judicial Circuit which is comprised of Spalding, Pike, Upson and Fayette counties.
In addition to the charges for which she today plead guilty, under Scott Ballard, who formerly served as the Griffin Judicial Circuit district attorney, Mixon was also indicted on a charge of felony murder. Ballard previously announced he would not seek the death penalty against Mixon, but said if convicted of felony murder, she faced a maximum sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
According to current District Attorney Ben Coker, the indictment Ballard obtained for felony murder could not be proven in court.
Based on a press release Coker issued, based on Georgia law and the evidence adduced at the trial of Michael Bowman, the state could not prove the required nexus for felony murder against Mixon, as Georgia law requires that the predicate felony must create a foreseeable risk of death.
Asked during a later interview if the predicate felony with which Mixon was charged – felony obstruction of a law enforcement officer – does not in and of itself produce a foreseeable risk of death.
"It does, but you've got to consider the circumstances – whether she saw foresaw her actions as creating a foreseeable chance of death. Her action of striking Kevin Jordan, she could not foresee that it would cause Michael Bowman to turn around and shoot Officer Jordan in the back," Coker said. "Felony obstruction in and of itself it's foreseeable that it could cause the death of another person, but you've got to look at it through the person committing the obstruction, which is Chantell Mixon. Was it foreseeable that her striking Kevin Jordan would make Michael Bowman pull out a gun and shoot him in the back, and the evidence just wasn't there."
Coker then explained how profoundly the Michael Bowman verdicts of guilty, but mentally ill effected the Mixon case.
"That (the guilty, but mentally ill verdict) makes it even harder for it to be foreseeable that he (Bowman) would react the way he did. You don't know how they're going to react," Coker said.
The decision to move forward with this plea bargain was exceptionally difficult, Coker said.
"It's the hardest plea I've ever had to take. It's one of the hardest pleas I've ever had to deal with, but we couldn't get to felony murder on her. We discussed it as a trial team and we discussed it with Judge Sams, and he agreed," Coker said, adding that Jordan's family was also party to the discussions. "They understood. They understood that since she didn't pull the trigger, getting a guilty verdict on murder would be virtually impossible."
Under Georgia law, five years imprisonment is the maximum possible sentence for felony obstruction of a law enforcement officer, but Coker said the plea was strategic to accomplish another goal.
"(The maximum) is five years to serve, but we didn't want to give her a straight sentence because we wanted her out of the circuit, and the only way I could get her out of the circuit is with a split sentence, he said. "With a split sentence, she can be banished."
Coker said this decision was made with a heavy heart, and he is hopeful it will give closure to Jordan's family, law enforcement and the community.
"Unfortunately, it's an option I had to deal with. It was my duty to take care of it," he stated. "Like I said, it's the hardest plea I've ever had to take, but based on the outcome with Bowman, we were never going to get a murder conviction on her."
Thomaston Man gets 40 years in Prison for Trafficking Meth
Published 4-12-2017
By Matt Sharpe - Upson Beacon
A Thomaston man will spend the next four decades behind bars after being sentenced in Upson County Superior Court last week by Griffin Judicial Circuit Judge Fletcher Sams.
Assistant District Attorney Michael Rogers told the Beacon, Reginald Lewis Blackmon, 45, was arrested in November 2015 and charged with trafficking methamphetamines and possession of marijuana with intent to distribute following the search of a house on West Walker Street in Thomaston by agents with the Narcotics Task Force.
Blackmon was arrested after agents found a red Budweiser bag in a vehicle parked in the yard. The bag contained over 50 grams of methamphetamine and 60 grams of marijuana. The meth had a street value of $5,000 while the marijuana could bring in $500.
Blackmom was sentenced to 30 years for trafficking, 10 years for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and was given a $200,000 fine by Judge Sams.
Griffin Judicial Circuit District Attorney Ben Coker credited the Upson office for their hard work and added his Thomaston office did a "phenomenal job" with the March term in Upson County Superior Court.
"Several of these cases were very severe in nature," said Coker. "We had 41 cases on the court calendar this term and 39 cases were closed without having to go to trail," said Coker. "As for the other two cases, one defendant took a plea deal after the state called its first witness, and in the second trial, the defendant was brought to justice for a crime he committed over 14 years ago. He received a 20 years in prison sentence."


Hi Amy, what would you say the best way to maintain a healthy weight would be?
Discipline is another word that I mentioned and can be defined as the "training that one gives one's self to accomplish a certain task or to adopt a particular pattern of behavior". If you have a weight goal in mind, then you will need to utilize discipline to consume a healthy diet that allows you to achieve your goals. As I have suggested in previous articles, a registered dietitian can greatly assist you in creating a healthy meal plan and helping you have "discipline" to stick to it. You will need to have discipline in situations where you are faced with a lot of unhealthy food choices. Some people have discipline by taking a small amount of your favorite food and chewing slowly/savoring it. Others feel that they have discipline if they avoid the unhealthy food all together. Discipline may be as simple as you telling yourself that you will always get the food you want, put it on a plate, and then sit down while eating it. This discipline will help you to avoid the hundreds of extra calories that you may consume while straightening up the work kitchen. I will say that following a healthy diet may require discipline at first, but it should still include food that tastes good, that is satisfying, and most healthy meal options can include some "junk" food as well.
Finally, planning is one of the most important things you can do to maintain a healthy weight and lifestyle. If you are constantly tempted by sinful foods, start your fight at the grocery store. Avoid purchasing these food items and instead choose an improved counterpart. For example, if potato chips tempt you, choose either baked chips or 100-calorie mini bags of popcorn. If you have trouble with ice cream, purchase sorbet or frozen fruit juice bars. Stock up on good-for-you foods that you can take to work. People are less apt to eat unhealthy foods if they feel full. Pack pre-cut veggies and hummus, fruit salad with yogurt dip, high fiber granola bars, low fat string cheese and flavored rice cakes. But, in addition to taking in healthy foods, remember that food should be "fun" too. Personally, I find indulging on a tasty treat now and again helps me better stick with my nutritious diet. And don't forget to get some exercise too. Balancing out calorie intake with energy expenditure will definitely assist you with staying at a healthy weight.


Butterfly Effect Pedals is on hiatus.
For personal health reasons I'm having to take a break from the pedals business for a while.
Of course, I'll honour any outstanding orders, and any repairs under warranty for existing customers. But I'm not able to accept any more new orders for now.
A sincere thank you to everyone for your support. I hope to be back as soon as possible.
Every time I mention that I'm building another Danger Bird, one for myself this time, it gets snapped up and bought before I get it anywhere near finished. This was my third attempt at making one for myself, but I can't really say no if someone wants to buy them from me.
The Flower of Evil. This is a highly modified fuzz face. This one is destined for a studio in Chicago.
TB-3 - a Tonebender MkIII clone with on-board voltage inverter.
The 'Buzzaround' is a clone with an on-board voltage inverter and added master volume control.


text:
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad confronts foes in rift at heart of Iran
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, has accused the country's hardline religious leadership of deliberately provoking a confrontation with the West to weaken his position ahead of forthcoming parliamentary elections.
By Con Coughlin 17 January 2012 • 8:00pm
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Credit: Photo: AFP PHOTO/JUAN BARRETO
According to Western diplomats, in one recent outburst Mr Ahmadinejad denounced advisers working for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's spiritual leader and the guardian of the country's Islamic revolution, as "a bunch of madmen".
In a series of recent meetings in Tehran, the Iranian president has repeatedly criticised policies pursued by officials loyal to Mr Khamenei, who include senior members of the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij paramilitary militia. Mr Ahmadinejad claims the supreme leader's loyalists are deliberately provoking a confrontation with the West to make him look weak, thereby undermining his supporters' prospects in elections to the Majlis, the Iranian parliament, which are to be held on March 2.
The claims come after, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, the president's personal media adviser, was found guilty on Sunday by a Tehran court of insulting Mr Khamenei.
The court sentenced Mr Javanfekr, who runs Iran's IRNA news agency, to a year in prison and a five-year ban on media and political activities for comments he made on his personal website. Mr Javanfekr yesterday denied the charge and said he would appeal against the verdict. "My adherence to the sage supreme leader is more apparent than the sun, and is backed by my record," he said.
Mr Javanfekr's conviction is the latest attempt by Mr Khamenei's supporters to silence Mr Ahmadinejad, who has accused them of responsibility for the assault on the British Embassy in Tehran in November, and the failed assassination plot against the Saudi Arabian US ambassador. He also blames Khamenei loyalists for trying to prop up President Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria, trying to provoke a confrontation with the West over the Strait of Hormuz, the main shipping route to the Gulf, and trying to sabotage ties with neighbouring Turkey.
Despite his frequent denunciations of the West, in private Mr Ahmadinejad is more cautious about provoking open confrontation, fearing that any further deterioration in relations would have a crippling impact on the Iranian economy. Iran is suffering a severe economic crisis as a result of UN sanctions imposed because of its nuclear programme, with the value of the rial falling 20 per cent in the past month.
During his re-election campaign in 2009, Mr Ahmadinejad promised to revive the country's economic fortunes but he now complains that the supreme leader's policies are making this impossible.
A Western diplomat who has recently returned from Tehran said: "Iran is experiencing a major power struggle between those, like the supreme leader, who are totally opposed to any form of compromise with the West, and the Iranian president, who wants to adopt a more pragmatic approach and avoid an open confrontation with the West, which would only further damage Iran's fragile economy."
Last week it was disclosed that President Barack Obama had sent a message to Mr Khamenei through a "secret channel" warning him that any attempt by Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz would be regarded as a "red line" by Washington and result in military action.
In addition, the Pentagon has deployed a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf and doubled the number of American troops based in Kuwait.
In an interview at the weekend, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, warned that Iran was likely to "become a greater crisis as 2012 goes on".


INLAND EMPIRE is to cult-hero director David Lynch what KILL BILL was to cult-hero director Quentin Tarentino. No expense or indulgence spared, no reins, no guardrails, and everything that makes this idiosyncratic filmmaker the...thing that he is, an unadulterated Lynch-a-thon. Never mind his "mainstream" success in Twin Peaks or even the bizarre trivia that George Lucas wanted Lynch for RETURN OF THE JEDI; this feature is the fellow back to his roots in grainy, grotesque and troubling avant-garde/experimental cinema, shooting in international locations without a completed script, having at his disposal a megabucks cast and winding up with a three-hour running time.
It was also more or less self-distributed by Lynch city by city, during its non-studio 2006 release. In Cleveland INLAND EMPIRE was booked for an unprecedented seven-day run at the Cleveland Cinematheque. Director John Ewing told me at the time that fans were coming in from as far as Pittsburgh and Cincinnati just to see it.
Infuriating, weird and entrancing in fits, INLAND EMPIRE has one foot in Lynch's previous MULHOLLAND DRIVE and the other foot (maybe two or three other feet) in ERASERHEAD and his breakthrough short THE GRANDMOTHER. The principle setting (maybe) is Hollywood, the "city of dreams" in Lynchspeak. The plot/plots come at you in disconnected fragments, flashbacks, flash-forwards, nightmares and hey! Fooled you! movies-within-movies. The most coherent stretch, poking up for just 45 minutes or so like a sandbar underneath roiling waters, concerns Nikki Grace (Laura Dern), an actress needing a comeback, who lands a lead role in a prestigious production "On High in Blue Tomorrows."
She's cast opposite a bad-boy actor named Devon Berk (Justin Theroux), married with kids but infamous for on-set love affairs. And lurking (literally) in the shadows is Nikki's jealously possessive husband, a gangsterish Pole.
During rehearsals Nikki and Devon hear the revelation that "On High in Blue Tomorrow" is actually a remake of a script whose previous production had to stop when the lead actors were killed - and that the storyline itself derives from an ominous Eastern European gypsy folklore. The metaphysical stage is set for some to go "bad wrong," as Dern later puts it, as the loose narrative sunders at the seams at the one-hour mark.
We see interludes in Lodz, Poland, in the early 20th century (the first attempt to film the script?), a woman telling a detective she's been hypnotized to plotting murder with a screwdriver, Hollywood Boulevard whores and street people, and weird omens and portents.
Nikki transforms; she's no longer the classy, mansion-dwelling `Nikkie Grace' but the battered, wrong-side-of-the-tracks floozie `Susan Blue,' again unblissfully wed to the Polish guy and complaining to a detective about a sense that time is out of joint.
It might be a clue that the director of Nikki and Devon's movie is played by Jeremy Irons, star of 1981's THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN, in which a Victorian-era tale of adultery paralleled the same thing happening on a movie set rendering the tale - director Karel Reisz translating author John Fowles' famous literary conceit of telling you that it was merely a story, yet persisting with it anyway.
Underneath all the creepy and oft-pretentious David Lynch Institute of Art film-school stuff, storytelling seems to at the heart of INLAND EMPIRE, where fictions and desire-fed dark imaginings appear to take on a sentience of their own, no less legitimate than the minds and hearts that created them ("Actions do have consequences," a witchy woman warns Nikki at the start), and cinema excels in magickally scrambling artifice and reality.
Perhaps Lynch is wondering of the dreamtime where abide unrealized Projects - such as his own never-filmed "Rocket Ronnie" and "One Saliva Bubble." Perhaps Nikki is fallacious and Susan is the truth. Perhaps we're no more real than what's on the screen (in which case some actress is getting the Oscar for her portrayal of `Lindsay Lohan').


Axis cams are securing the water and wastewater in St. Cloud, Fla.'-and helping with day-to-day operations Network multipixel PTZ cameras aren't just for security- related surveillance. Down in St. Cloud, Fla., for example, the water and wastewater treatment plants are using cameras from Axis Communications for operational purposes such as reading metering equipment, checking water levels and monitoring hazardous chemical deliveries.
Of course, the cameras also discourage vandalism or sabotage and improve safety. The network cameras are part of an integrated alarm system, in which certain events can trigger alarms to improve operational efficiencies and alert operators of security incidents.
In all, Axis network cameras have been installed at a new water treatment plant, a wastewater treatment facility and a water repump station. And, SiteSecure has begun installing Axis video encoders at other sites throughout the city where analog equipment is currently being used to provide IP capabilities during a transition phase. Eventually, analog equipment at city hall, the senior center, evacuation center, marina and the police station will be replaced with network cameras from Axis.