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ABC Religion & Ethics
Opinion A culture of knowingness: Why Jordan Peterson's cultured despisers are wrong
Andrew Gleeson
Thursday 30 August 2018 9:51am
A proper evaluation of Peterson's work is impeded by our 'culture of knowingness', whose more unscrupulous representatives have not been reluctant to vilify a good, courageous, even inspiring man.
"Comically befuddled, pompous, and ignorant ... half nonsense, half banality ... the kind of tedious crackpot that one hopes not to get seated next to on a train."
An "idiot du jour" and a "professor of piffle."
Oh yes, and did I forget to mention - a fascist.
No, these are not descriptions of Donald Trump or even David Irving. They are actual quotations from intelligent and sophisticated people about Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychologist, YouTube broadcaster, best-selling author (of Twelve Rules for Life) and Bible expositor - and no more introduction than that should be needed for readers of a website like this, or indeed anyone not living in a dungeon for the last year or so.
The extremity and dishonesty of the language used about Peterson by some people would make Joseph Goebbels blanch. Peterson provides intellectual cover for bigotry; he is a racist (this according to the former Chair of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission); he sympathizes with the alt-right; he promotes white nationalism (the Guardian); is a "transphobe" (Vice) who tends to "incite hatred wherever he goes" and is (according to the well-named online magazine, Jacobin) "full of shit." Anyone who has watched the videos of violent student protests against Peterson at North American universities can see for themselves just who is most appropriately characterized as a hateful bigot, and then savour the irony.
One can perhaps - up to a point - overlook or forgive the zealotry of the young. It is harder to do so in the case of university professors, journalists and literary intellectuals. Such as Pankaj Mishra, the Indian essayist and novelist who casually slurs Peterson by association in the New York Review of Books. To take one instance, he says (correctly) that Peterson is influenced by Carl Jung who (this is controversial) was "initially sympathetic" to the Nazis - and invites readers to draw the evident conclusion. No matter that Peterson's defining political attitudes are his classically liberal support of free speech, and his vehement opposition to authoritarianism and totalitarianism in all forms. We can, it seems, ignore all that. This has the same structure as the dubious syllogism: Heidegger was a Nazi; Professor X likes Heidegger; therefore Professor X ... - all without even the attempt to show that the ideas in Heidegger that Professor X likes have any connection to Nazism.
Peterson rejects the idea that unequal outcomes (more men than women in engineering, say) necessarily indicates unfair treatment (rather than, perhaps, different interests and choices). He thinks religions and myths contain archetypal truths that are still relevant to modern life. Put these two ideas together and we see that he must be a "fascist mystic," says Mishra.
Peterson pays close attention to relevant biological science, so he must be a biological determinist who believes nothing in society can change. He believes hierarchies of competence in some form or other are essential to society, so he must believe all hierarchies (of race or class, say) are eternal and good (he doesn't). This is the level on which Mishra's article operates.
Much of the bile directed at Peterson is, like that of Mishra, motivated by a kind of political monomania. More interesting is a species of hostility that is motivated by a certain conception of what sound intellectual life is. The pejoratives of these authors are more intellectual and academic than political: Peterson is a "YouTube crank" or "charlatan," a (money-grubbing) "televangelist," an "intellectual fraud" and an "obscurantist."
These critics are inhabited by a conception of intellectual life that exalts an impersonal ideal of objectivity and rationality modelled heavily on science. It is apt to be dismissive of anything that smacks of religion or mythology. It is uncomfortable with and suspicious of the humanities - of literature, for example - except as a diversion, or in so far as it has extractable propositional theses to be appraised by independent criteria. Its disenchanted and rationalistic worldview prides itself on the refusal to raise personal questions about human life of the sort we might call existential or even religious. (It does address "ethics" but in a sanitized form, stripped of the wider context of human life that ethics depends on.)
These questions are, of course, precisely those Peterson has made central to his life's work.
Take religion. Peterson reads the biblical stories firmly bracketing their historicity and their metaphysical implications. It is not that he is uninterested in these dimensions, but that they are not what he sees as being of supreme importance. He reads the Bible - along with fairy tales, Disney movies and many other stories - as what I would call (these are not his words) pictures of human life. (The phrase is inspired by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, who often spoke about religious pictures of the world.) For instance, consider the biblical theme that human beings are made in the image of God, or as Genesis 1:27 is rendered in the King James Bible:
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Reading this in a Petersonian spirit, we can connect it back to that chapter's first three verses:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, "Let there be light: and there was light."
Then we can plausibly see the outline of a picture of human life something like this: just as God creates - by speaking ("And God said, Let there be light ...") - order from chaos in the creation of the world, so too it is by the light of truthful speech (truthful since there is no falsity in God's speech) that human beings can bring order out of chaos in their lives. It is by truthfulness that we can make our lives, our societies, better: that we can mend broken marriages, families, friends, relations with colleagues, allies, enemies.
Truthfulness is much more than veracity. It is - inter alia - the willingness to face demons (fears, neuroses, distress, rancour) in our lives that we would rather hide from, to search for the truth, often hidden below the threshold of consciousness, of our emotions and motivations, to inspect our lives with a demanding (but merciful) scrutiny, and to live without what the philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch called "consoling fantasy," ego-centred mirages about power or sex or love or career or intellect, which blind us to our lack of justice or compassion or genuineness, to our pride or cruelty or laziness or thoughtlessness.
If we speak and live that way - in that spirit of truthfulness (the word "spirit" need imply nothing "spooky") - then we live in a way that is in accord with (in a manner admittedly difficult to elucidate) the ordered world's emerge from primeval chaos. We line up on the side of order against chaos (though not too much order, for that is stifling and self-defeating), of civilization against barbarism. (Speech, rather than action is made central in the Genesis story, and that may seem odd. But it may be because language is uniquely human and integral to much of our action which depends on speech: think of the place of conversation in human companionship, or in human institutions, and indeed of the importance of stories.)
Now one can disagree with this reading, of course, and ask all sorts of questions about it - that is perfectly reasonable. But to simply dismiss it as fatuous nonsense is a signal failure to be serious that clearly comes from a depth lower than conscious thought (I almost wrote "than the conscious reasons offered," but then remembered that typically no reasons are offered, just abuse). It is hard to understand where this depth of irrational hostility is coming from.
To try and answer this, it might be helpful to begin with the corresponding question of what it is in his work that so deeply appeals to so many other people. Peterson connects themes like that above about Genesis with his longstanding work as a hands-on clinical psychologist. Working with people crushed by life, he encourages them - en-courages, a word he prefers to the cant term "empowers" - to "know thyself," and to (as he puts it) "pick up your cross" and bear it, assuming responsibility rather than retreating into grievance and malevolence. Only that can give life the sort of meaning that will make its inevitable pain and suffering endurable.
What Peterson offers, one might say, is nourishment for people's souls. He is speaking to deep human needs that are being ignored by the mainstream culture (both popular and academic) - even by the churches - and he is doing so frankly, fearlessly, intelligently, passionately and without doctrinal baggage.
I suspect that deep down the intellectuals are embarrassed by this. While they gripe at him, to their astonishment and frustration his video-audiences grow, his book sales rocket, the queues at his speaking events lengthen. He has exposed the estrangement of their theorization and their lives from the human issues about which one might have thought (of philosophers and psychologists especially) they would have something serious to say.
The intellectual culture recoils from the kind of conversation Peterson has in something like the way we recoil from talking too honestly about death or avoid someone who has just lost a loved one. It is the subject of an unacknowledged taboo, so potent it needs to be hidden away and approached at all only under a protective cloak of cold intellectual distance. The fear that we might be personally involved, that we might have actually to deal with the needs and emotions of others and ourselves, and that we need to call on human qualities beyond those of scholarship, factual knowledge and ratiocinative agility, goes deep. Or at least, such personal involvement - however much it may be present in one's person life - is not something to inform one's academic work. To let it do so is a kind of Victorian indelicacy.
(I should acknowledge that John Kaag, a philosopher whose article on Peterson I criticize below, is perhaps at least one of the partial exceptions to this generalization, judging by reviews of his book American Philosophy: A Love Story. This just makes it all the sadder that he could be so unjust to Peterson.)
In an incredibly hostile article on Peterson in Current Affairs, Nathan Robinson's chief complaint is that Peterson is "so consistently vague and vacillating that it's impossible to tell what he is 'actually saying'." He offers as proof, for example, Peterson's aphorism that There is no being without imperfection and mockingly comments "no shit." But it is only on a banal and literal-minded reading of Petersen's statement - as if it were some sort of quasi-scientific claim - that it can appear so platitudinous. We all know that, don't we? Or as Robinson puts it: "It's not actually insight, of course; it's stuff everybody already knows, dressed up in gobbledygook."
But this misses the point entirely. Has Robinson never noticed that some people don't know this? Of course they know "in their heads" that they are not as strong as an elephant or as smart as Einstein, but do they really know it "in their hearts" - in the way they live? We sometimes say, "Young people think they're immortal." We don't mean that they would fail a biology test. We mean, for example, that in their reckless disregard for their own and others' safety - the way they drive fast cars or get into a fight or engage in dangerous sports - some young men seem not to treat the prospect of their or others' death seriously, acting as if they were "bullet proof." Or less spectacularly, in the full bloom of youth and health, and living in prosperous societies, death is such a distant prospect that thought of it is airbrushed out of our lives (as Simone Weil remarked, we are mortal, but we would rather die than admit it).
Something similar is also true for limitations generally - how often do we fantasize about our brilliant careers? Again, in the head we may know an ambition is unrealistic, but how often is this clouded in our hearts by wounded pride? (That pride is easy to see in others of course. Donald Trump, say. But do I see it in myself?)
Recognizing our limitations is actually a very difficult thing. In the mortality case, it usually takes death to loom up close to us for us really and truthfully to live with the knowledge that we will die. Death in this context is not a mere biological event, but one charged with meaning - death is the end of all our hopes and dreams, the destroyer of Iris Murdoch's consoling fantasies, the thing that recalls us to humility and compassion, the common terminus of all lives that more than anything else binds us together in a common humanity. If poets from time immemorial keep reminding us of this, it is because it is the kind of knowledge we so habitually, automatically, push away (for example, by reducing it to a platitude that we all know).
The problem is not that Peterson is too vague, but that his world is too big and too rich to inhabit unless one is willing to think in this kind of intimately personal way.
Despite having read his books, Robinson makes no attempt at all to summarize or characterize Peterson's thought and come to terms with it. He relieves himself of that responsibility by dismissing it as quite literally incomprehensible drivel. Instead, he just takes quotations from Peterson's book Maps of Meaning out of their context in the book and in Peterson's thought as a whole, and holds them up to ridicule without any serious attempt at all to discuss them (after all, you can't discuss what is incomprehensible).
Readers familiar with Peterson can judge for themselves my estimation that the passages quoted, though sometimes difficult and expressed in dense prose, are nowhere near as bad as Robinson makes out. He also reproduces hand-written diagrams from Maps in order to deride them as "masterpieces of unprovable gibberish." One might as well reproduce, without explanation, an unfamiliar chart from a book of physics or chemistry to prove that these disciplines are quackery. With a bit of effort in reading through Maps, the diagrams are, for the most part, quite comprehensible. The real difficulty in them is the difficulty in the strange (to us) mythic ideas they express, and it is really these that Robinson seems unwilling to try and understand.
Sometimes Robinson has a point, but usually it is pedantic nit-picking based on the sort of literal-minded reading on exhibit in the case about imperfection discussed above. He has a gift for picking the fleas out of elephants.
For instance, he targets Peterson's (extempore) remark that the future is the place of all potential monsters and pronounces, "The future is the place for all potential everything." Well, yes - and one will think this takedown to be proof of what a sloppy thinker Peterson is if one is not told the context. People forget about the monsters lurking in their future. They are careless about their futures. People do this all the time. Peterson made the same point on another occasion with an example from The Simpsons where Homer downs a quart of mayonnaise and vodka. Marge says, "You know, you shouldn't really do that." And Homer responds, "That's a problem for future-Homer. I'm sure glad I'm not that guy!"
Peterson relates this to his theme that humanity had to slowly learn from hard experience the utility of deferring immediate gratification to make one's life go better in the long run, a truth that supposedly "primitive" peoples expressed in stories - and practices - of sacrifice. In mythic terms, we had to emerge from the Peter Pan existence of Eden, where God looked after everything for us so we need have no fears for the future, to the real world of history where sacrifice for the future is a condition of survival. Again, one can argue about the biblical interpretation and the anthropology, but to react at the philistine logic-chopping level Robinson does is just blind.
In the same vein Robinson mocks Peterson's understanding of human life as involving a perpetual balance or struggle between chaos and order, quoting this passage:
[Chaos is] what extends, eternally and without limit, beyond the boundaries of all states, all ideas, and all disciplines ... It's the foreigner, the stranger, the member of another gang, the rustle in the bushes ... the hidden anger of your mother ... Chaos is symbolically associated with the feminine ... Order, by contrast, is explored territory. That's the hundreds-of-millions-of-years-old hierarchy of place, position, and authority. That's the structure of society. It's the structure provided by biology, too ... It's the flag of the nation ... It's the greatness of tradition, the rows of desks in the school classroom, the trains that leave on time ... In the domain of order, things behave as God intended.
Robinson then comments: "It's very easy to hear the echoes of authoritarianism, even fascism, in this." All those references to hierarchy, authority, trains running on time! Here Robinson sinks to the same level as Mishra. It never occurs to him to allege that Peterson is an anarchist - all those references to chaos! Never mind either that Peterson has declared his detestation of fascism over and over, just as he has of communism, having made a lifetime's study of both. But like so many others these days, Robinson sets the bar for being a fascist very low. Real opponents of real fascism do not use the word so lightly.
Robinson would probably say this just shows how slippery Peterson is, that he never makes an honest claim one can prove or refute, remaining always vague enough to escape accountability. But Peterson is not trying to make a moral or political claim here. Nor is he attempting to quantify degrees of chaos or order as a social scientist might try to do. He is giving a very - very - general description of the structure of human life. He observes a salient distinction we can draw in just about any domain and offering it as a tool, or perhaps an observation point, from which we can view human life sub specie aeternitatis - in one of its most elemental dimensions.
All sorts of questions can be fairly raised about this - including whether it is too general to be helpful. (But then what kind of help are we looking for? In Macbeth or King Lear the kingdoms teeter on a precipice between order and chaos, and so do the souls of the characters - like yours and mine.) But the pressing will only be fruitful if it done in the right spirit and with some understanding of what Peterson is trying to do.
So, let's return to the question of why Peterson is subject to such extreme hostility. I have already suggested that the prevailing academic and intellectual class is embarrassed at how he has captured a popular audience by speaking about things people clearly have a deep need to speak about, and which conventional intellectual life avoids. I have already said something about the intellectual class's febrile dislike of thought conducted in an essentially personal key, the preference for abstract theory-construction to protect against it, and the neglect or denial of unconscious and pre-rational forces in intellectual life.
The American philosopher Jonathan Lear has identified one of the characteristic intellectual postures of our time as what he calls knowingness. Knowingness is a kind of presumption of one's own self-sufficiency and sense of imperturbability and accomplishment, a kind of confident swagger in one's way around the world. Oedipus exhibits knowingness, Lear says, when he regards the meaning of the Delphic oracle as "immediately available to his conscious understanding," treating it not as a mystery to be awed and humbled by, but as an instrument for his advantage, something he can readily understand and manipulate: he treats it as the source of a "hot tip from a very good source." It is his knowingness that brings him undone.
For intellectuals like Peterson's hostile critics, knowingness includes an impatient confidence that there is nothing in the world - especially not in history or tradition, or in art and (horror) myth and religion - that a mind with a razor sharp logical training, abetted by empirical science, cannot, in principle, comprehend and judge, or could with enough time, resources and so on. That it might judge us is an unknown thought. The knowing mind is impatient to subsume phenomena under familiar (and perhaps barely noticed) pre-conceived intellectual schedules. The condescension towards the past, to what is merely customary and traditional and not the product of a worked-out theory, and the reluctance to admit the influence of pre-conscious forces on intellectual life, help ensure those schedules are typically absorbed from the surrounding spirit of the time. (Intellectuals are not uniquely vulnerable to fads and fashions, but they far from immune either - and they are especially talented at rationalizing them.)
The knowing mind conducts intellectual life entirely at the conscious level. There is a set of explicitly worked out "positions" and theories, and arguments for and against them, which the thinker's conscious mind constructs, reworks and appraises. Every topic, even the most basic in human life, is made an object of speculative reason, sanitised of its real human importance to make it more manageable to the self-sufficient intellect. The knowing mind is impatient for "progress" and "results" - conceived as "solutions" to "problems" - and it wants these in clear, fully explicit and articulate form.
The knowing mind habitually demands a premature exactitude that strangles subtle and complex (and not merely complicated) ideas of the room they need to grow. It is petulant and quarrelsome in its style. It displays a carping, fault-finding, "gotcha" mentality that values cleverness above anything that might approach wisdom. It prefers new discoveries to the patient recovery, study and transmission of old ones.
Of course, I am describing an ideal type here, even a caricature, and one to which there are literally thousands of honourable exceptions. But the virtue of an accurate caricature is that it can reveal a salient tendency that, just by dint of its familiarity, may go unnoticed.
Some of Peterson's most thoughtful and sympathetic commentators have been Christians. Though wary of his distancing of metaphysical and historical claims, they appreciate the insightfulness of his biblical series and perhaps envy, in a good-natured way, his reach (which is such that he can almost be credited with single-handedly reviving biblical literacy). I especially recommend the British theologian Alastair Roberts reflections in an insightful article and video discussion.
Roberts is a particularly fine observer of Peterson's palpable integrity:
Listening to Peterson speak ... one of the most striking things to observe is how carefully he weighs his words, the way he manifests his core conviction words matter and that the truth matters. People hang on his words, because they know that he is committed to telling the truth and to speaking words by which a person can live and die. The existential arising of life and death are foregrounded when someone speaks in such a manner.
We live in a society that is cluttered with airy words, with glib evasions, with facile answers, with bullshitting, with self-serving lies, with obliging falsehoods, and with dishonest and careless construals of the world that merely serve to further our partisan agendas ('truth' really becoming something that allows us to 'destroy' or 'wipe the floor with' our opponents in the culture). In such a context, a man committed to and burdened with the weight of truth and who speaks accordingly will grab people's attention.
At Peterson's best - which, I'd say, is most of the time - Roberts's praise rings true. And more than that, I am inclined to say that even when he is (say) exaggerating there is usually still more truth than error - or more significant truth - in what Peterson is saying.
For example, in one video, in which he has said that we should always strive to be truthful, he is asked about the morality of lying and whether it is ever justified - when the Gestapo come knocking at your front door and you are hiding Jews in the attic. Peterson's reply is that things only get to that stage because too many people have been untruthful in their lives, not just in the narrow sense of telling lies but in the broader sense of not living truthfully - by, say, making compromises with the emerging Nazi movement, not speaking out when the worst consequence was to lose their reputation or their job (as Peterson points out, it is nearly always best to speak out against an evil from the first opportunity - the penalties only escalate as time passes and the evil grows).
Now, of course, he can be accused here of just evading the question: Would you or would you not tell a lie to save the Jews you are hiding? And if you answer "yes" does that not contradict your original assertion that we should always try to be truthful? Gotcha! But while it is true that Peterson does not answer the question in the terms in which it was asked, his response is not an evasion but a form of pointing to what is really at stake when we talk about truth. It is, in effect, pointing to a bigger evasion on the part of the questioner. It is a way of saying: "don't try to trap me with pedantry - here is what really matters." G K Chesterton once said that truth lies in proportion. He might equally have said it lies in significance. Peterson is concerned with ideas that matter and he really is concerned with them and their implications for people's lives. He does not trifle of flirt with them.
Of course, Peterson is sometimes guilty of exaggeration, over-simplification and carelessness. But even his mistakes have a weight of seriousness in them that contrasts with much academic and journalistic careerism and flippancy (and fanaticism). As Roberts puts it later in his piece, "Peterson is declaring these things as if they really mattered, as if in his speech he is actually reckoning with reality in all of its power, scariness, and danger."
Looking at the same man I do, the philosophers David Livingstone Smith and John Kaag, in an article in Foreign Policy, see something different: an authoritarian demagogue, whose attractiveness to people is a function of Weber's phenomenon of "charismatic authority," which gulls the vulnerable by pandering to prejudice and which offers oneself as a messianic saviour with simple solutions to complex problems. They compare him explicitly to Donald Trump. So is Peterson fostering a cult of personality? Let's look in more detail at the differences and at why some of the grounds offered for regarding him as authoritarian are specious.
First, Smith and Kaag describe the view of British psychoanalyst Roger Money-Kyrle (based on study of Hitler in the1930s) that "charismatic authoritarian leaders first elicit depression and despair in their audience, then paranoid terror of a deadly enemy, before finally offering salvation though a redemptive order that abjures reasoned discourse." Just how, exactly, does Peterson attempt to "elicit depression and despair in [his] audience," let alone "paranoid terror of a deadly enemy"? Far from encouraging depression and despair Peterson's work is entirely aimed at encouragement, at helping people assume responsibility and live constructive and happier lives. Over and over again he warns against the collapse into life-resenting despair and its destructiveness.
Perhaps they think his warnings against the doctrinaire tendencies of the far left constitute the inculcation of "paranoid terror of a deadly enemy"? One can argue his concerns are exaggerated, but (to repeat) anyone who has watched the videos of student protestors attempting to shut down speakers on U.S. university campuses can hardly miss their transparently illiberal tendencies; we would be fools in the extreme to entrust any kind of power to such people. Smith and Kaag have not a syllable of criticism of that, which far more resembles inculcating "paranoid terror of a deadly enemy" (that is, Peterson) than anything Peterson himself says. To apply that description to him is just wild.
Far from "offering salvation though a redemptive order," Peterson's practical advice to people is plain, straightforward, even commonsensical often - it is the opposite of messianic. Far from the snake-oil salesman's offer of some magical nostrum to all ills, Peterson has a hard-headed realism about the difficulties of life and the ubiquity of danger, failure, back-sliding and suffering. The advice to take up one's cross is no easy bromide, and a "redemptive order" of any kind is precisely what he rejects, preferring instead self-help under cautious, prudent and moderate government.
And finally, as to abjuring "reasoned discourse," this is a bizarre way to describe a stalwart champion of free speech who repeatedly meets his critics face-to-face in open and honest debate, something I am not aware of Hitler ever doing.
Second, there is the very fact of truthful speech pointed to by Roberts and already discussed above. Trump is systematically mendacious. He treats words as tools to manipulate an audience regardless of truth. I am astonished that anyone could look at Peterson's videos and attribute that to him. One can, of course, think that he fails to understand things and is badly mistaken - but they are quite different matters.
Part of the problem here is that the prevailing individualist ethos of knowingness so elevates the value of autonomy and individual choice that we readily confuse being authoritative with being authoritarian. To quote Roberts again:
Our society has tended to shrink back from authoritative words, as such words threaten people's autonomy ('who am I to tell you what to do, man?'). Speaking authoritatively seems to shame, judge, and make claims upon people, all of which are anathema to contemporary individualistic society. However, carefully spoken words of authority can be life-giving. They can give direction and meaning to people who are lost, hope to those in despair, light to those in darkness, and clarity to those in doubt. People desperately need to hear wise and loving words of authority from people who know what they are talking about, rather than being left without authority or harangued by leaders without the depth of character to speak the words they utter.
This is profoundly true and the existence of demagogic and mercenary simulacra of such authority is no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Some people are knowledgeable on a topic because they have studied it and are deeply experienced in it. But they are genuinely authoritative about it in the relevant sense when that knowledge and experience informs the sort of serious and truthful speaking and living Roberts mentioned in the earlier quotation. Attention to truly authoritative speech and people actually builds others up to be more independent. It helps them obtain some authority of their own. (So does free speech - at least, when it is thoughtful and properly informed, which it will never get the chance to become if it is shut down.)
In the New Testament the word charisma designated various divine gifts to believers. One can argue that authority in the sense outlined was one of those gifts (Jesus was the model: "For he taught them as one having authority"). Weber's "charismatic authority" is a diabolical inversion of it. Taking God out of the picture for present purposes, and likewise any suggestion of infallibility, we can say that Jordan Peterson too is someone who has charisma in that genuine sense.
Third, the charge of right-wing authoritarianism is in direct conflict with the political value Peterson consistently and vocally announces and fights for: free speech. Peterson is a Millian liberal who has spent his life studying the totalitarian catastrophes of the twentieth century and much of his work is motivated by the fear that those events cannot safely be seen as behind us. If he fears that the threat comes at present more from the left than the right - and one can disagree with him about that - that is largely a function of his being an academic who has had to witness and endure the very real attempts by radical left students on North American campuses to silence speakers they disapprove of, including himself.
There is undoubtedly, and understandably, a personal element here. As he explains in answer to a question about this in one video, if he is more angry at the left it is because they are the ones who have come after him. This video of his talk at La Fayette University is one of the best for getting a sense of his overall political outlook, which is nothing if not centrist and moderate.
Fourth, the accusation of authoritarianism against Peterson is often levelled on the basis of what he says about social hierarchies. This concern is odd, since university professors are not noticeably chary of the prestige which comes with academic hierarchies - but let that pass. Peterson is not interested in hierarchies based on vanity and self-importance, or on political opinion. He does believe (plausibly) that hierarchies in some form are inevitable and that they are best based on competence and ability (which is one reason he opposes hiring based on other criteria like sex and race). Where these do not exist they get replaced by far crueller ones - in recent times, by one's based on political purity - and as he keeps warning, we have seen in the twentieth century where these go.
Hierarchies of competence tend to dissolve those based on other criteria like family and property, political view, religion, race and sex. Reasonable people can disagree, of course, with Peterson's opposition to preferential hiring, but it is not reasonable to demonize that view as racist, misogynistic and so on - that demonization is far more authoritarian than anything Peterson says.
Moreover, careful and fair-minded readers and viewers of Peterson will remember that he has repeatedly expressed his concern for those at the bottom of competence hierarchies, such as unskilled workers losing their jobs with the advance of automation. He has also acknowledged that the growing inequality of the economically advanced nations is a serious problem. To my knowledge, Peterson has never discussed economic policy questions in detail. While he is certainly no socialist it is far from clear that he would oppose the welfare state in all forms - for example, he has said, with reservations, that he prefers Canada's more socialised medical system to that of the United States.
More importantly, Peterson has not only expressed concern for the less well off, he has actually spent much of his life doing something tangible to help them (especially, in his practice as a clinical psychologist, those whose lives are demoralized and desperate). Smith and Kaag smear Peterson as an advocate of ruthless self-interest and Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest. But he is the creator (with others) of a remarkable online self-help course called the Self-Authoring Program that actually helps the lives of struggling students (and others). He claims that when it was rolled out for up to 7,000 students at the Rotterdam School of Management, the result was a significant improvement in grade point averages and a decrease in the dropout rate. It was especially beneficial for minority students who earned 44% more credits, and whose retention rate increased by 54%.
It is true that Peterson tends to favour self-help over government action (and again one can certainly disagree about that) and that he regards the default stance of aggrieved victimhood as catastrophically disastrous for the morale of the poor, women and minorities (though it can confer advantages on those in some better-off domains where it can be a rival to competence in the allocation of prestige and authority). And obviously, he is talking about 2018 not 1958. But this emphasis is partly a result of his background as a clinical psychologist where the professional focus is on helping people overcome the internal obstacles to improving their lives. The much-derided admonition to "clean up your room" is not a finger-waving moralism, but practical advice for wounded and sometimes broken people. Break your problems down into small and manageable bits so that they are not overwhelming. Then take your first step on the road to health by doing the simplest thing you can (then congratulate yourself) and build up gradually from there. Peterson's critics sneer at this as cracker-barrel folk wisdom, insipid hokum or whatever. The people it helps cannot afford to come from such an august height.
It is true also that Peterson advises people to put their own lives in order before setting the rest of the world to rights. His irritation with the genuinely authoritarian elements in the campus left does lead him to overstate the point - obviously, popular political protest is often of critical importance, as in the American civil rights movement of the 1960s or the overthrow of communism in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s. But he does have a point about less grave circumstances and about government policy and public administration. In government, it is actually very difficult to make things better or even to prevent them from getting worse. And it is very easy, inadvertently, to make them worse (the law of unintended consequences always applies).
A steady hand on the till is not a very dramatic virtue, but it is one of the most important in government. The simplicities of protest (I do not use that phrase pejoratively) against patently unjust laws or tyrannical rulers are of little use by themselves in this context. Ideologues are particularly liable to oversimplify and to resort to force when their armchair plan won't work as expected. Some experience and maturity and moderation are needed for good government.
Fifth, Peterson is often reviled for the strong interest in his work taken by young men, including those who feel de-masculinized and disenfranchised by the influence of radical feminism. Peterson does indeed have sympathy for their concern and he strongly dislikes the more extreme claims made by radical feminists. But the substance of his position is not anti-women or inconsistent with a moderate liberal feminism. An example will make the point here. When he is asked about school shootings in the United States, he does not respond at the level of policy (about guns and so on) but at the deeper level of human motivation - about the sickness in the souls of the young men who do these things.
One thing he says (not the only one or the main one, but the one currently relevant) is that it is deeply untrue and unhelpful to say that the problem here is "toxic masculinity." In fact, the reverse is the truth: the problem with these young men is not that they are hyper-masculine, but that they are not masculine enough. They are wimps who are afraid even to speak to a girl, who cringe from social contact, submit to and hide from school-yard bullies, and so on. And their cruel deeds are not those of men, but of cowards. The ideals of masculinity in our history are a mixed bag of good and bad, like most things, and on the good side they include conceptions of courage, honour, self-reliance and chivalry. The stew of adolescent self-pity and resentment - as Peterson rightly says, a hatred of life itself - into which these killers withdrew until the force of it erupted could not be more removed from those ideals.
Young men (especially between puberty and their mid- to late-twenties) are inclined, much more than young women on average, to an aggressive physicality, and a need to prove their courage, grit and fortitude. These impulses are potentially very dangerous: untutored they lead quickly to delinquency and a life-style that ends in prison. Which is why wise societies have always had forms of initiating adolescent males into manhood, to channel these impulses in safe and constructive directions, so that their strength is used for kindness and justice and truth, and their capacity for aggression used only when it is justified.
That initiation is best done by men, not because women are incapable of tying knots, going camping or rafting, or playing physical sports, but because (since men are physically stronger and temperamentally more aggressive) the young man needs to prove himself against, and with, other men, and he is best tutored in that by someone who has gone through the same experience. This includes exemplifying what is needed - from the man's point of view - in the courtship of a woman, and in subsequent love and marriage. He needs exemplars of a gentleman, that is, a gentle man who is also a strong man, one who can bear the burdens of life (and the same goes for women).
This is not, as Smith and Kaag try to paint it, an advocacy of men dominating women. They seem to take movies like the Dirty Harry and Lethal Weapon series - with their celebration of gratuitous cruelty if it is done by the good guys - as an accurate representation of what our society has understood as masculinity. They attribute a less overt version of this to Peterson and do everything they can to insinuate that he is a chauvinistic thug in an academic gown. They quote as damning evidence his assertions (in Twelve Rules) that healthy women want men not boys as life partners; that they want "someone to contend with; someone to grapple with"; and that, "If they're tough, they want someone tougher. If they're smart, they want someone smarter."
Fair enough that perhaps Peterson should have said "equally" tough or smarter in the last quotation, but otherwise the assertions are unexceptional truths. Ask any woman if she wants a Mummy's Boy as a life partner. Or ask yourself whether a wife having to mother a husband (or vice versa) makes for a healthy marriage. Most women and men know a certain hardiness is necessary just to pay the mortgage, feed the kids, and live as a minimally decent human being. Anything more than that requires modest heroism. By contrast timidity begets resentment which begets poisoned relationships and a poisoned world.
Saying these things is not the royal route to popularity. In particular, it is feared that this must imply some sort of deep hostility to forms of family other than the traditional one. But Peterson has gone out of his way to make it clear that he is not damning other arrangements such as single-parent families and same-sex couples. In fact, asked about this by a gay man he said: "more power to you. I hope you can do a good job of it. I think there is room in the world for a diverse range of approaches to complex life problems like having kids." What makes him unpopular with some is that he also says that single-parent and same-sex families face difficulties about providing male or female mentors, and they have responsibilities to provide for this in other ways (for example, in the case of boys, by bringing a man other than the biological father closely into a boy's life).
Jordan Peterson is not perfect. Sometimes, usually when he is angry and hurried, he falls below his own standards of truthfulness and generalizes recklessly about feminism, Marxism, postmodernism and the condition of the universities. Sometimes his passion can take on a hectoring tone. And as with any genuinely interesting and important thinker, there is much to discuss, disagree with, and criticize in his body of work as well as to learn from.
One of the most disappointing features of the current polarization surrounding him is that (to my knowledge) there is yet to emerge any genuinely constructive critique of his work, one that would enable us to get a better sense of both its strengths and weaknesses. But such a critique can only come from those with a largeness of mind and spirit that does not dismiss ideas not immediately tractable to the Zeitgeist, that is ready to find truth in what may at first seem confusing and elusive because it does not come readily packaged in a neat theory.
Such an evaluation is impeded by the culture of knowingness, and most of all by its more unscrupulous representatives, who have not been reluctant to vilify a good, courageous and - yes - inspiring man.
Andrew Gleeson is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Flinders University, Adelaide. He is the author of A Frightening Love: Recasting the Problem of Evil. He is grateful to Vlad Popescu for comments and discussions in the preparation of this article.
Jordan Peterson is wrong about identity politics
By undermining identity politics, Jordan Peterson risks leaving his acolytes with no cause for concern with the plight of minorities.
The Noble Lobster: What Jordan Peterson Understands, and Pankaj Mishra Ignores
Peterson's book combines eternal verities with insights from contemporary social science to instruct readers how to live virtuous, meaning-filled lives. To Mishra, however, it's a frog-marching manual for budding fascists.
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I am out going and not shy in front of the camera. I love meeting new people and exploring new places. I haven't recently taken a break to have my little girl but am now ready to get back to work. I take pride in everything and do and ensure I do it to the best of my ability. I smile a lot, I laugh a lot and I just enjoy be out and about.


Little Charm Bag and Tutorial.
Hello Everyone. If you are a quilter or an embroiderer who likes to do hand work, then maybe this project is for you. I really like this little Charm Bag. I designed this bag for the purpose of being able to carry a hand stitching project around easily in my handbag. It is quite amazing how those little increments of time can add up. There are times in life when one will have to wait, whether that be at sporting games, waiting for doctors appointments or maybe in a hotel room. This becomes an opportunity to create something really beautiful. While I waited for my daughter backstage when she was doing ballet, I slowly made six beautiful candle wick panels, which I later sewed into a bag. She is all grown up now and I recently gave her that bag as a memory of that time.
Of course you may find many other uses for this pretty drawstring bag. Add a beautiful hand cream or soap for gift giving.
Sew 8 of the squares into sets of 2.
Join two sets of two into two strips of four.
Repeat until you have a five sided box. Do the same with the second strip and square. Now you should have two five sided boxes. Turn one box right side out.
Insert the turned box into the unturned box so that right sides are together. Line up each side. Nest and pin the seams. Stitch 1/4″ from the edge of the top leaving an opening of about 3″ on one side.
Turn to the right side through the opening.
Pin around the top. Top stitch close to the edge around the top edge closing the turning hole as well.
Sew a second seam at least 5/8″ from the top edge. This will make the casing.
Use a stitch cutter to make two openings in the casing by carefully undoing the outside seam of two opposite corners.
Take the 1 1/2″ strip. Turn both longitudinal sides to the centre, then fold in half along the length of the strip. Sew down both sides of the strip. Cut the strip in half.
Put a safety-pin on the end of a strip. Thread through one opening of the casing for the whole circumference. Come out of the same hole. Repeat with the other strip through the opposite casing hole.
Oversew the ends of the tapes to secure them together.


Blended learning is education that combines face-to-face classroom methods with computer-mediated activities.According to its proponents, the strategy creates a more integrated approach for both instructors and students.
The terms "blended," "hybrid," "technology-mediated instruction," "web-enhanced instruction," and "mixed-mode instruction" are often used interchangeably in current research literature.However, recent researchers in the United States tend to use the term "blended learning" with more regularity.
For example, a blended approach to a traditional, face to face course might mean that the class meets once per week instead of the usual three-session format. Learning activities that otherwise would have taken place during classroom time can be moved online.
As of now, there is no consensus on a single agree-upon definition for blended learning. The Resources page contains cites to several articles that provide definitions. In addition, the terms "blended," "hybrid," and "mixed-mode" are used interchangeably in current research literature. For the purposes of AeLSNet , the term "blended" is preferred.
The goal of a blended approach is to join the best aspects of both face to face and online instruction. Classroom time can be used to engage students in advanced interactive experiences. Meanwhile, the online portion of the course can provide students with multimedia-rich content at any time of day, anywhere the student has internet access, from Penn State computer labs, the coffee shop, or the students' homes. This allows for an increase in scheduling flexibility for students.


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Houston Vs. Penn State, 2012 TicketCity Bowl: Nittany Lions Plan To Run The Ball A Lot
By Jeremy Mauss@JeremyMauss Jan 1, 2012, 3:00pm CST
Share All sharing options for: Houston Vs. Penn State, 2012 TicketCity Bowl: Nittany Lions Plan To Run The Ball A Lot
The Penn St. Nittany Lions are planning on using their running game to control the time of possession against the Houston Cougars high powered offense. The Penn State running game goes three players deep and the plan is to grind it out:
"A huge part of our game plan is to run the ball," Penn State sophomore running back Silas Redd said on Saturday. "Myself, Stephfon Green, Curtis Dukes, we're going to do our best to do that."
"They're a smaller defense," Redd said. "They're not as big as defenses in the Big Ten. But they're athletic and they can run pretty well. They've been defending the read-option and things like that. They run really well. So hopefully we can just pound these guys and go into this game with the same mentality as we did the Iowa game and just ground and pound."
Houston is aware of what Penn State is going to do on offense and their defense will need to force them into passing down situations and not allow Penn State to just hold the ball and keep their offense off the field.
Houston head coach Tony Levine is saying that Penn State is possibly the most physical team that Houston has played during his tenure on the coaching staff, and that his team can stand up to Penn State and bring their own brand of physical football.
For more on Penn State visit Black Shoe Diaries. For everything college football, check out SB Nation's college football news hub.
Ticket City Bowl 2012: Houston Defeats Penn State In Comfortable 30-14 Victory
TicketCity Bowl By The Numbers
Ticket City Bowl Preview

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
package com.s4game.core.data.accessor;

import java.util.List;

import com.s4game.core.data.IEntity;
import com.s4game.core.data.IQueryFilter;

/**
 *
 * @Author zeusgooogle@gmail.com
 * @sine   2015年5月20日 下午6:26:43
 *
 */

public interface IDbAccessor {

    public Object insert(String key, IEntity entity, Class<? extends IEntity> clazz);

    public IEntity query(String key, Object param, Class<? extends IEntity> clazz);

    public List<IEntity> queryList(String key, Object param, Class<? extends IEntity> clazz);

    public List<IEntity> queryList(String key, Object param, IQueryFilter<IEntity> queryFilter, Class<? extends IEntity> clazz);

    public int delete(String key, Object param, Class<? extends IEntity> clazz);

    public int update(String key, IEntity entity );

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Some quick items from around the web tonight.
* Quentin Tarantino talks to Mike Fleming about, what else, "Inglourious Basterds" — the movie made simply to confuse my spell checker. And, yes, once again, Harvey didn't tell him to cut it by forty minutes and it's actually slightly longer now than it was when it screened at Cannes to all-over-the-place reviews. He made suggestions, however.
* Gary Ross has been brought in to do a new draft of Sam Raimi's "Spiderman 4." Ross is a solid writer, and an okay director in his own right. He's done wonders for Tobey Maguire's career previously on both the career launching "Pleasantville" and the entertaining but kind of unremarkable "Seabiscuit." So, perhaps it's just an attempt to get a script that will work better than the highly problematic Spidey 3. Josh Wigler, however, has some concerns involving Ross's upcoming Lance Armstrong project.
* They have a director for the big, huge, enormous 3-D Smurfs movie. Do I give a smurf? No mother-smurfing way.


It's not possible to make Order for specified quantity, because your Order quantity is greater than available Offer quantity.
Check that quantity_reserved of your Reservation has correct value. This may occur when you attempt to update your Reservation.


text:
49ers Roster
49ers roster, 90-in-90 breakdowns: Eric Reid
Breaking down the 90 players on the 49ers offseason roster in 90 posts (over 90 or so days or in however long we feel like it). Today we focus on starting free safety Eric Reid.
By James Brady@jamesbradyisme May 17, 2014, 8:00am PDT
Share All sharing options for: 49ers roster, 90-in-90 breakdowns: Eric Reid
Jamie McDonald
Each year, we like to run a series of posts called "90-in-90." The idea is that we'll take a look at every player on the roster, from the very bottom to the top and break them down a few ways. This roster will certainly change, and some days we'll have more than one so it's not exactly 90 players in 90 days. At this point, it's a name we're keeping around for street cred.
More 90-in-90: Mike Iupati Alex Boone Anquan Boldin
The San Francisco 49ers knew exactly what they wanted to do last season. Dashon Goldson was always going to get paid a stupid amount of money to go somewhere that desperately needed his help, to the point that I doubt the 49ers did a whole lot of sending offers his way. Going into the 2013 NFL Draft, the 49ers knew another thing: exactly the player they wanted.
This year, there was talk that the 49ers were trying to trade up for Odell Beckham Jr., but last year I don't believe there was much talk beyond what they did: they moved up and drafted safety Eric Reid, the heir to Goldson. Reid came in with big shoes to fill, but rather than do so he instead got rid of those shoes and quickly made 49ers fans forget all about Goldson.
Reid had an excellent rookie campaign, getting high marks by just about everyone who paid attention. He graded highly by Pro Football Focus as well, with a +4.7 rating. One of his biggest issues, which is something I did anticipate, was missed tackles. Reid looked like a rookie with some of his tackles, completely missing (he missed at least 10 tackles over the course of the season) some due to over-pursuing and on others he simply took bad angles.
But he also made some very good tackles, and laid some big hits on opponents. He was also great in pass defense, snagging four interceptions and 11 pass deflections. Reid put out the production of Goldson without the penalties and, you know, injuring his teammates.
My biggest concern isn't the fact that he missed tackles. He'll come out with another year of 49ers coaching and he'll look just fine with his tackles. My biggest concern is the fact that he sustained multiple head injuries. He played in 16 games still, but at the same time, some of his tackles were a bit on the "run at this thing and hit it really hard with no regard for your own safety."
While I'm all-for the occasional cruise missile of hate and irresponsibility-type tackle, it led to Reid getting knocked out of the game multiple times. I hope he cleans up that form heading into next year. Regardless, if we're looking at Reid's 2013 campaign as a whole, he'd definitely be getting an A- or a B+ from me.
Why he might improve:
Reid came in and started as a rookie in one of the NFL's top defenses, and looked great doing it. He'll turn 23 years old later this season and the sky is the limit for him at this point. One can expect him to get even better, and certainly we all hope he can build on his 2013 Pro Bowl season with another one in 2014. There's not really any reason to expect otherwise, especially with the possibility that the 49ers have improved the rest of the secondary around him.
Why he might regress:
He's had exactly one good season in the NFL. This, of course, doubles up with "one season in the NFL at all," but it's important to note that we've had tons of one-hit wonders in the NFL. Reid would not be the first player to have a breakout rookie year only to hit a wall next season. As for some more explainable reasons as to why he might regress: he'll be playing with a new safety next to him in Antoine Bethea. Maybe Donte Whitner was just what Reid needed to succeed? Asking Reid to so anything other than what he did last season also could lead to his regression. It's not likely, but it's possible.
Odds of making the roster:
I'm going to have to return to what might just end up being a staple of this series of posts: the only way he doesn't make the roster is probably aliens. I don't know what they'd want with the 49ers of all teams, but aliens. Reid is the starting free safety, is coming off a Pro Bowl rookie season after being selected in the first round of the 2013 NFL Draft and he's got a 100 percent chance of making the roster, obviously.
2014 49ers roster, 90-in-90 breakdown
49ers Roster, 90-in-90 breakdowns: Tank Carradine
90-in-90 breakdowns: Eric Reid
90-in-90 breakdowns: Anquan Boldin


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This Guy Made an Extremely Accurate Sculpture of Eminem's Face
This takes fandom to a new level.
Kelly McClure
Poor Eminem. He didn't listen to his Mom's advice when she told him "if you keep making that face, it's gonna stay that way," and now a superfan has made it so. Aleksander Walijewski — a 23-year-old graphic design student from Poland — crafted what some might call the most accurate looking sculpture of Eminem's face ever. You can tell by this behind-the-scenes video that he's quite talented.
In an interview with MLIVE, the artist says he hopes Eminem sees the sculpture online and likes it enough that he'll want to meet up with Walijewski so he can gift him the bust.
"I was inspired by him performing at concerts, and from the beginning I knew that this pose (that I presented in sculpture) would be perfect because it's dynamic and full of energy, just like him on stage," he goes on to say. "I also wanted to show the focus and tension on his face, it's like one of those moments when he looks at the crowd that is screaming his name."
Love is blind.
h/t Complex
Tags: Eminem Entertainment Music music news sculpture


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Dragons' Den star Sarah Willingham reveals the real reason for quitting the show
Mother-of-four finally reveals why she left the hit BBC2 show.
Entrepreneur Sarah Willingham has revealed the real reason she quit hit BBC2 business show Dragon's Den after it was revealed earlier this month that she was not returning for the 2017 series along with Nick Jenkins.
Willingham, 43 – who made her fortune by investing in restaurant chain The Bombay Bicycle Club – sparked confusion after the shock announcement of her departure earlier this month, leading to the speculation that both she and Jenkins had been axed.
Were entrepreneurs Sarah Willingham and Nick Jenkins axed from Dragons' Den?
Coronation Street's Chris Harper met with sex abuse victims to play paedophile Nathan Curtis
In a candid chat with Hello! magazine, Willingham claimed that her decision to leave the show was down to her husband suffering a life-threatening cancer scare on holiday.
She said: "Life is short. You've got to grab it and live it and create memories that matter to you."
"I'd had no control over the situation, none, and that was a completely new sensation for me. And I've never wanted anything as much as that outcome in my life, ever," Sarah said.
"We completely dodged a bullet and it left me with a sense of calm inside, which I hope never goes. It also showed me how precious time is, how you've got to live for the moment and really enjoy it," she continued.
While enjoying a round-the-world-trip with her family, the businesswoman's husband Michael fell ill and was first diagnosed with colon cancer. After the initial scare, it was discovered by doctors that he was actually suffering from a common condition called diverticulitis that affects the intestine.
Another great day with @hellomaguk This time in the magical @byron.bay.nsw @byron.bay #byronbay Talking about why I've left #dragonsden And Michael's cancer scare that meant we returned home for nearly 3 months of our #roundtheworld trip #familyfirst #familyovereverything #verylucky #onelife #livelife #livelifetothefullest #lifeisshort Styling by the wonderful @pipcook1 photos by amazing @jasonierace
A photo posted by Sarah Willingham (@sarahwillingham) on Feb 12, 2017 at 1:23pm PST
Willingham – who described her time on Dragons' Den as one of the best experiences of my life – also revealed that she would have had to take a break from the family trip if were to resume filming her third series of the programme.
Deciding not to make the choice of relocating her family to Manchester for two months while she shot the BBC show, she said: "But we had made this promise to ourselves, to each other and to the kids that we would take a year to go off and see the world together and make the most amazing memories. As much as I love Dragons' Den, I love my family more."
In her original leaving statement, Willingham said: "At the end of last year my husband Michael and I decided to finally put into action our long-held dream to spend a year travelling the world with our young children.
Sarah Willingham and Nick Jenkins are leaving Dragon's Den
"Sadly this means that I've had to step down from my role as a Dragon. It's been a great privilege to be part of such a fantastic show and I wish everyone on it continued success."
Patrick Holland, channel editor at BBC2 added to that: "Nick and Sarah have both been terrific Dragons, using their nous and insight to make some great investments and produce some compelling entertainment in the process.
"As they step down from the show I want to thank them and wish them all the very best for the future."
Investor and personal finance expert Willingham became known as a successful businesswoman for her management in high street restaurants including Planet Hollywood and Pizza Express.
The mother-of-four bought Indian chain restaurant Bombay Bicycle Club while in partnership with The Clapham House Group, and was able to successfully expand it from a chain of six restaurants to an impressive seventeen. Her net worth is estimated at £12m.


Big Valley Campsite provides a superb campground with water and power supply situated in a serene valley about 10 kilometres from the renowned Margaret River region.
Surrounded by the hills of a scenic sheep farm, Big Valley Campsite offers guests all the facilities they can ask for. There are open spaces to make you feel comfortable and the pleasant staff is committed to do everything possible to ensure you have a perfect and memorable stay. Silent and peaceful, the premises is very well maintained and perfect for kids. Unlike other similar sites, Big Valley caters to pets.
Big Valley Campsite is situated on the edge of Wallis Rd and Rosa Brook Rd, Rosa Glen, WA 6285, Australia.
Big Valley Campsite has powered as well as non powered units. There is plenty of shaded space to protect you from the sun during summers.
The staff can provide you with information on the regional attractions to ensure you explore the best of what this place has to offer.
Campers must bring their own food supplies, camping gear and tents.
Big Valley Campsite's idyllic location makes it a perfect place to stay in the South West. The campground offers convenient access to world class wineries, beautiful beaches, fine restaurants and fascinating art galleries. Outdoor enthusiasts will find lots of activities to keep themselves occupied including bush walking, abseiling, swimming and canoeing. Regardless of their age and interests, every member of the family will surely have something interesting to see and do in the region.
Tariffs at Big Valley Campsite are lower than $50 AUD per tent per night.


Nu är det Bingo-dags! Japp, den här veckan spelar vi Bingo på Papertake Weekly. Jag vade mittenraden: band | valfri | punchad form. Tack till Whiff of Joy som sponsrar oss den här veckan.
Jag brukar inte planera mina kort så ofta, och även om jag gör det så blir det sällan som jag först tänkte. Så även den här veckan. Jag lekte lite med ett band och gjorde en fluga. Sen började jag leka fram ett kort med flugan i fokus. För att avsluta kortet stämplade jag en söt liten mustasch på insidan. Det gör verkligen skillnad med den lilla extra detaljen, det borde jag göra på mina kort oftare!
en liten mustasch inuti kortet.
konsten att knuta en fluga.
What time is it? It's Bingo time! Yup, this week we're playing Bingo at Papertake Weekly. My row is the middle one: ribbon | free | punched shape. Thank you to Whiff of Joy for sponsoring us this week.
I wasn't really planning ahead making this card (I usually don't anyway). I was actually just playing with some ribbon and started making a bow tie, then went on from there. I decided to stamp a little mustache inside, it just adds that little extra. I should add details inside my cards more often!
Awesome CAS. The background looks fantastic.
Spotted your card on MIM.
Very elegant card, love it. Thanks for playing along with Little Tangles.
Brilliant card, Lisa!!! LOVE that bow tie!!!!!
Fabulous Card Lisa!.. So simple but elegant!
What a wonderful creation! Thanks for playing along with the Little Tangles Challenge!
LOVE the bow on the woodgrain background. Great job, Lisa. Thanks for playing along with us in the Little Tangels challenge and hope to see you again.


At 12:45pm we cross the main road and walk past the church to the bridge over the River Alne. We pass St Nicholas church at Beaudesert and take the path in front of us. This goes through housing and past a school to lead us to a playing field. Straight across is a flight of steps that climbs a ridge. Then we cross Edge Lane and pass in front of Whitley Farm. We come to a road at The Croft. Then left and through two more fields leads to the CRAB MILL at 1:10pm.
At 1:40pm we start out again and walk to Preston Bagot and the canal. We follow the canal south as far as bridge 51, Green Lane Bridge. We take the lane on the right to a road. Right again and the road crosses a bridge over a stream. Just after this, on the left, is a stile leading into a field. This was very muddy in January, hopefully it will have dried out by March ! We cross the field diagonally to the bank of the River Alne. We follow the river north until we come to the last field in front of Blackford Mill. We should see the path crossing this field. We pass through Blackford Mill Farm and then pass the mill itself, before taking a footbridge over the river, which stands in front of the mill. The path then passes through school fields before emerging onto the main road. Right here and you come to Henley High Street. Here we can buy an ice cream and then a pint in the NAGS HEAD and WHITE SWAN before catching the train homewards.
HENLEY ICES The history of Tudor Dairies dates back to the early 1930's when two brothers Harry & Arthur Fathers, purchased the Henley milk round and small grocers shop from Mrs Hewins, who had been trading under the Tudor Dairies name since 1893.
In 1934 the brothers began experimenting with ice cream with the "know how" given to them by their mother who used to make ice cream for her shop in Rubery. Originally made by hand the ice cream was sold under the Henley Ice Cream brand.
Ice Cream production ceased during the war years due to lack of ingredients, and the parlour was used as an Air Raid Post. After the war ice cream production continued on Wednesdays and Saturdays only, due to the shortage of Cornish cream, so goats milk was used. When Arthur & Harry Fathers retired in 1959, the business was sold to Ross Foods, who changed the emphasis of the Company from a small family run business producing a high quality ice cream, to one of a large concern manufacturing bulk products for the Supermarket chains.
In February 1991 the Company changed hands when Ross Foods sold Tudor Dairies to a group of businessmen, but was placed into receivership in March 1997. It was at this time that it was taken back into private ownership by Cindy and Steve Brittan, who have the ice cream made on midlands farms to traditional recipes using only quality ingredients.


text:
Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019
Acts of the National Assembly for Wales
2019 anaw 3
Previous: Schedule
Original (As enacted) - English
Original (As enacted) - Welsh
Show Explanatory Notes for Sections
Open whole Act
Open Act without Schedules
Open Schedules only
Original: Queen's Printer Version English Language
Original: Queen's Printer Version Welsh Language
Correction Slip - 24/05/2019
This is the original version (as it was originally enacted). This item of legislation is currently only available in its original format.
(introduced by section 75)
SCHEDULE 5CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS
This schedule has no associated Explanatory Notes
PART 1Investigations
Care Standards Act 2000 (c.14)
1Insert new section 75ZB—
"75ZBWorking jointly with the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales
(1)This section applies where it appears to the Commissioner that a case which he is—
(a)examining in accordance with regulations made under section 74, or
(b)considering whether to examine in accordance with such regulations,
relates to or raises a matter which could be the subject of an investigation by the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales (the 'connected matter').
(2)Where the Commissioner considers it appropriate, he must inform the Ombudsman about the connected matter.
(3)Where the Commissioner considers that the case also relates to or raises a matter which he is entitled to examine himself (the 'children matter'), he must also if he considers it appropriate—
(a)inform the Ombudsman about the Commissioners proposals for examination of the case, and
(b)consult the Ombudsman about those proposals.
(4)Where the Commissioner and the Ombudsman consider that they are entitled to examine, respectively, the children matter and the connected matter they may—
(a)co-operate with each other in the separate examination of each of those matters;
(b)act together in the examination of those matters; and
(c)prepare and publish a joint report containing their respective conclusions in relation to the matters they have each examined.
(5)Where the Commissioner considers—
(a)that the case is not one which relates to or raises a matter that he is entitled to examine himself, and
(b)that it is appropriate to do so,
he must inform the person whose case it is, or another person interested in it that he thinks fit, about how to secure referral to the Ombudsman of the connected matter."
2Insert new section 75ZC—
"75ZCWorking jointly with the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales
relates to or raises a matter which could be the subject of an investigation by the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales.
(2)Where the Commissioner considers it appropriate, he must—
(a)inform the Ombudsman about the case, and
(b)consult him in relation to it.
(3)Where the Commissioner consults the Ombudsman under this section, he and the Ombudsman may—
(a)co-operate with each other in relation to the case;
(b)conduct a joint examination into the case;
(c)prepare and publish a joint report in relation to the case."
Public Audit (Wales) Act 2004 (c.23)
3Insert new section 67B—
"67BProtection from defamation claims
For the purposes of the law of defamation, the publication in a communication between the Auditor General for Wales or the Wales Audit Office and the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales of a matter in connection with a joint investigation conducted under section 68(2) of the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019, is absolutely privileged."
Public Audit (Wales) Act 2013 (anaw 3)
4Insert new section 29A—
"29AWorking with the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales
(1)Where the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales consults the Auditor General under section 68 of the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019 (anaw 3), the Ombudsman and the Auditor General may—
(a)co-operate with each other in relation to the matter,
(b)conduct a joint investigation into the matter, and
(c)prepare and publish a joint report in relation to the investigation."
Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 (anaw 2)
5In section 25, after subsection 1(c), insert—
"(d)an investigation under the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019 (anaw 3) by the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales (and references in this section to the other Commissioner or the Commissioners include the Ombudsman)."
PART 2MISCELLANEOUS
Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967 (c.13)
6In section 4 (departments etc. subject to investigation), in subsection (3A), for "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2005" substitute "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019".
7In section 11A (consultations between Parliamentary Commissioner and other Commissioners or Ombudsmen), in subsection (1)(b), for "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2005" substitute "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019".
Local Government Act 1974 (c.7)
8In section 34M (consultation with other Commissioners), in subsection (1)(d), at the end insert "or the PSOWA 2019".
9In section 34T (interpretation of Part 3A), in subsection (1), after the definition of "the PSOWA 2005" insert—
""the PSOWA 2019" means the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019,".
Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 (c.46)
10In Schedule A2 (decisions on reviews by person appointed by Welsh Ministers), in paragraph 7, for "the Public Services (Ombudsman) Wales Act 2005" substitute "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2005 and the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019".
Local Government and Housing Act 1989 (c.42)
11In section 5 (designation and reports of monitoring officer)—
(a)in subsection (2)(c), at the end insert "or the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019";
(b)in subsection (2AA), after "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2005" insert "or the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019".
12In section 5A (reports of monitoring officer – local authorities operating executive arrangements)—
(b)in subsection (4A), after "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2005" insert "or the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019".
Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (c.9)
13In Schedule 1B (decisions on reviews by person appointed by Welsh Ministers), in paragraph 7, after "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2005" insert "and the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019".
14In Schedule 3 (determination of certain appeals by person appointed by Secretary of State), in paragraph 7(3), after "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2005" insert "and the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019".
Health Service Commissioners Act 1993 (c.46)
15In section 18 (consultation during investigations), in subsection (1)(ba), at the end insert "or the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019".
Housing Act 1996 (c.52)
16In section 50C (grounds for giving notice), in subsection (10), at the end insert "or section 23 of the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019".
17In section 51 (schemes for investigation of complaints), in subsection (7), for "section 41 of the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2005" substitute "section 78 of the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019".
Freedom of Information Act 2000 (c.36)
18In section 76 (disclosure of information between Commissioner and ombudsmen), in the second column of the row that refers to the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales in the table in subsection (1), at the end insert "or Part 3 of the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019".
Local Government Act 2000 (c.22)
19In section 68 (Public Services Ombudsman for Wales), in subsection (3), for "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2005" substitute "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019".
20In section 70 (investigations: further provisions), in subsection (2)(b), for "sections 13 to 15 and Part 2B of the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2005" substitute "sections 18 to 20 and Part 6 of the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019".
Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003 (c.43)
21In section 113 (complaints about health care), in subsection (4)(aa)—
(a)for "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2005" substitute "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019";
(b)for "section 2(3)" substitute "section 3(3)".
National Health Service (Wales) Act 2006 (c.42)
22In section 187 (independent advocacy services), in subsection (3)—
(a)in the definition of "health service body", for "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2005 (c.10)" substitute "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019";
(b)in the definition of "independent palliative care provider", for "section 34T of the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2005" substitute "section 64 of the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019";
(c)in the definition of "independent provider", for "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2005" substitute "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019".
Commissioner for Older People (Wales) Act 2006 (c.30)
23In section 18 (power to disclose information), in subsection (1)(b), at the end insert "or section 66 of the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019 (working jointly with specified persons)".
Government of Wales Act 2006 (c.32)
24In Schedule 8 (Auditor General for Wales), in paragraph 17(8)(ba), for "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2005" substitute "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019".
Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 (c.28)
25In section 223A (independent advocacy services), in subsection (10)—
(a)in the definition of "health service body", for "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2005" substitute "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019";
(b)in the definition of "independent provider", for "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2005" substitute "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019";
(c)in the definition of "Welsh health body", for "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2005" substitute "the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019".
Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 (anaw 4)
26In section 171 (complaints about social services), in subsection (3)(a)—
27In section 177 (further consideration of representations), in subsection (4)(a)—
Data Protection Act 2018 (c.12)
28In Schedule 2 (exemptions etc from the GDPR), in paragraph 10(2)(c)(iv), at the end insert "or Part 5 of the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2019".
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Please contact Maternal and Child Health Program Officer Jane Miller for further information.
GPs undertaking antenatal shared care are expected to maintain Affiliation as an ANSC GP provider and be familiar with current ANSC guidelines and protocols. There are ongoing educational requirements for each RACGP triennium which require participating GPs to accrue at least 12 Category 2 points in antenatal or postnatal specific Continuing Professional Development (CPD) events over this three year period.
CESPHN hold regular pregnancy-related educational events and have listed available on-line educational resources (195 KB) available to all GPs. CESPHN educational activities are posted on our events calendar and Sydney Health Weekly. If you attend activities outside CESPHN, please forward copies of completion certificates and/or your RACGP CPD credit statement to the Maternal and Child Health Program Officer to update your records.


This is my first Rube Goldberg post and this is what my machine does. We have on of those circular swirly marble maze pieces taped to the desk. We will drop the marble in it. The marble will swirl around and go thought the opening at the bottom where we taped a card board tube. The marble will go through the tube witch where we set up dominoes ( jenga pieces ). The dominoes will rap around a chair and the elevate by going over video game boxes that we stacked up. It will go onto a container flipped upside down and then the dominoes will nudge a hot wheels car. The hot wheels car will then speed up do a loopy loop. After the loopy loop the hot wheels car with all its momentum will come out of the loopy loop and take a mid air jump hitting a golf ball where the car lands and the the golf ball is on a slanted hot wheels track. The golf ball will pick up momentum and hit the miniature tower with a dog treat on top and knock it over because we have placed a dog bowl behind it so I and Harley's final goal was to put a dog treat in the dog bowl. But unfortunately Harley's older brother Hunter got mad for no reason at all and destroyed everything. Harley and I are hoping to rebuild it today.
Great post! It's cool to see how different other people's Rube Goldbergs are. Also, that's annoying that Harley's brother knocked it down. I know how annoying brothers can be.


2.7 Sources of Malaysia's gain from FTA NPV 2005a a Over 2005 to 2027 discounted at a 5 per cent real interest rate. Data source: APG-Cubed modelling simulation.
inflation generates a persistently lower real GDP level.


Only 45 senators and about 209 members are returning to the federal legislature, according to the results of the elections released so far by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has 64 senators-elect so far, while the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has only 41. Another political party, the Young Progressives Party (YPP) has one senator-elect.
INEC has declared 106 senators-elect so far. Three senate seats are yet to be concluded from Plateau, Kogi and Imo states.
Daily Trust reports that the number of non-returning senators is an improvement over 2015 when 79 senators did not return to the Red Chamber.
Daily Trust reports that out of the 42 senators that lost out during the primaries, few of them did not contest for reelection, while many of them went into the contest but lost.
For the House of Reps, the number of non-returning lawmakers represents 41.9 percent of the 360-member chamber. The number is expected to rise as election results from some constituencies are yet to be declared.
However, the results released so far showed that the APC got over 200 members so far in the House, while the PDP has a little over 100.
Among the big losers is Senate President Bukola Saraki who has been in the Senate since 2011. He was defeated by Ibrahim Yahaya Oloriegbe of the APC. Saraki was Kwara state governor between 2003 and 2011.
Also, a former governor of Akwa Ibom State, Godswill Akpabio, who had served as Minority Leader before his defection to the APC last August, lost his return bid. He was defeated by Christopher Ekpenyong of PDP. Akpabio was Akwa Ibom governor between 2007 and 2015.
Another former governor, George Akume, who has been at the Senate since 2007, lost to a serving member of the House of Reps, Emmanuel Yisa Orker-Jev. Current Minority Leader Biodun Olujimi from Ekiti State lost to Dayo Adeyeye of the APC.
Two governors – Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo and Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo of Gombe – contested to come to the Senate but lost.
The results released so far by INEC showed that Senator Mao Ohuabunwa of PDP lost to Orji Uzor Kalu of APC in Abia North, while Rafiu Ibrahim (PDP) lost to Lola Ashiru (APC) in Kwara South, with Andy Ubah (APC) losing to Ifeanyi Ubah (YPP) in Anambra South.
Others are Shehu Sani (PRP) who lost to Uba Sani (APC) in Kaduna Central; Suleiman Hunkuyi (PDP) lost to Suleiman Abdu Kwari (APC) Kaduna North; Barnabas Gemade (SDP) lost to Gabriel Suswam (PDP) in Benue; Ubale Shittu (PDP) lost to Ibrahim Hassan Hadeija (APC) in Jigawa.
The results also showed that Binta Masi Garba (APC) lost to Ishaku Cliff (PDP) in Adamawa North; Tayo Alasoadura (APC) lost to Ayo Akinyelure of (PDP) in Ondo Central; Ibrahim Danbaba (PDP) lost to Abubakar Shehu Tambuwal (APC) for Sokoto South; Victor Umeh (APGA) lost to Uche Ekwunife (PDP) in Anambra Central.
Also, Nelson Effiong (APC) lost to Akon Eyakenyi (PDP) in Akwa Ibom South; Ahmed Ogembe (PDP) lost to Yakubu Oseni (APC) in Kogi Central; Suleiman Adokwe (PDP) lost to Umaru Tanko Almakura (APC) in Nasarawa North; Mohammed Hassan (PDP) lost to Ibrahim Mohammed Bomo (APC) in Yobe South; Duro Faseyi (PDP) lost to Olubunmi Adetunbi (APC) in Ekiti North; Monsurat Sunmonu (ADC) lost to Teslim Folarin (APC) in Oyo, and Ahmad MoAllayidi (APC) lost to Binos Yero (PDP) in Adamawa South.
Daily Trust reports that from the results released so far, APC has a simple majority of 64 senators, higher than the 61 overall senators the party got in 2015.
Though APC has a comfortable majority, it still lacks the two-thirds majority, which is 73 senators to pass major legislation.
On its part, PDP got 39 senators so far against the 48 overall it got in 2015. The YPP has one. There are chances that both APC and PDP may get additional seats from the three undeclared Senate seats.
Whereas 46 senators won their reelection bid this time, only 30 senators won in 2015, while 79 senators lost their return bid in 2015.
In 2003, only 31 senators got re-elected. The number dropped to 23 in 2007.
However, in 2011, the number of returnees increased by 10, as 33 senators were re-elected.
Checks by Daily Trust revealed that there will be 15 former governors in the 9th Assembly.
They include Adamu Aliero (Kebbi), Gabriel Suswam (Benue), Kashim Shettima (Borno), Orji Uzor Kalu and Theodore Orji (Abia), Ibrahim Shekarau and Kabiru Gaya (Kano), Abdullahi Adamu and Tanko Almakura (Nasarawa).
Others are Mohammed Danjuma Goje (Gombe), Ibrahim Geidam (Yobe), Rochas Okorocha (Imo), Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun), Sam Egwu (Ebonyi), Abdulaziz Yari (Zamfara), Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko (Sokoto) and Chimaroke Nnamani (Enugu).
Our correspondent reports that six of the governors are currently serving their second terms, which will end on May 29. They are Geidam, Okorocha, Almakura, Shettima, Yari, and Amosun.
The breakdown of the state-by-state seats each political party got showed that APC got the 3 Senate seats in Kwara with PDP's zero; Kebbi, APC 3, PDP 0; Benue, APC 0, PDP 3; Kogi, APC 1, PDP 1 (1 pending); Borno, APC 3, PDP 0; Jigawa, APC 3, PDP 0; Edo APC 1, PDP 2; Abia, APC 1, PDP 2; Kano, APC 3, PDP 0; Nasarawa, APC 3, PDP 0; Oyo, APC 2, PDP 1.
Others are Gombe, APC 3, PDP 0; Kaduna, APC 2, PDP 1; Niger, APC 3, PDP 0; Yobe, APC 3, PDP 0; Ondo, APC 1, PDP 2; Imo, APC 1, PDP 1 (1 pending); Katsina, APC 3, PDP 0; Ogun, APC 3, PDP 0; Ekiti, APC 3, PDP 0; Adamawa, APC 1, PDP 2; Osun, APC 2, PDP 1; Ebonyi, APC 0, PDP 3; Akwa Ibom, APC 0, PDP 3; Anambra, APC 0, PDP 2, YPP 1.
The results also indicated that APC swept all the three Senate seats in Lagos, while PDP got zero. Others are Zamfara, APC 3, PDP 0; Sokoto, APC 3, PDP 0; Taraba, APC 1, PDP 2; Delta, APC 1, PDP 2; Enugu, APC 0, PDP 3; Bauchi, APC 3, PDP 0; C/River, APC 0, PDP 3; Plateau, APC 1, PDP 1 (1 pending); FCT, PDP 1; Bayelsa, APC 1, PDP 2; Rivers, PDP 3, APC 0.


text:
Muslim students balance schoolwork, fasting during Ramadan
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) - Each morning, Hayya Khan, 16, awakes feeling energized and ready for the day.
But over the course of the day, her energy levels drop and she takes a long nap after she gets home from Parkland High School.
The difficult but rewarding schedule is thanks to Ramadan, the ninth month of the Muslim calendar and a holiday that this year runs from May 7 to Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on moon sightings Monday and how families observe the holiday. The holiday commemorates the first revelation of the Quran to Muhammad, and its observance is one of the five pillars of Islam.
Hayya has been participating in the fasting aspect of the holiday ? healthy Muslim adults are required to fast from sunrise to sunset ? since she was 10.
"It's basically very spiritually and emotionally cleansing," Hayya said. "It's a month to literally cleanse yourself completely and get rid of all your sins from the year before and the year that's about to come."
With more than 2,000 Muslim families in the Lehigh Valley, it's a holiday that families and school districts alike have to navigate.
Rizwan Butt, who does outreach for the Muslim Association of the Lehigh Valley, has been working with the Parkland School District for the last decade as a member the district's diversity committee. He's also started working with the Easton Area School District.
He advises districts that some students may struggle during Ramadan with hunger, thirst, headaches, fatigue and a lack of concentration. Reasonable accommodations would be to exempt students from gym and athletic requirements, allow them to go somewhere other than the cafeteria during a lunch period, limit outdoor activities on hot days and provide prayer space during the day.
Unlike in other religions with fasting requirements, Muslims should participate in regular activities over the course of the month, Butt said. Students may request a day off for Eid al-Fitr, the celebration at the end of Ramadan.
"We say, prepare for students to come in sleepy, they may be up late at night," he said. "But this does not mean they can be excused from exams and tests and other things that would be part of the normal routine this month."
Nicole Mehta McGalla, a spokeswoman for the Parkland School District, said that working with Butt has been helpful for the community, especially in the last few years when Ramadan has fallen during the school year.
"Every time we have a cultural awareness meeting, we come away with, 'That's so great,'" she said. "We feel good about the fact we live in a diverse community."
In Parkland, an active Muslim Student Association has made more students aware of Ramadan and the fasting requirement, which doesn't allow food or drink during the day. It also means that students get up at night and early in the morning to eat and pray.
Hayya also makes some modifications to her regular routine. Instead of going to the cafeteria during lunch time, she goes to the library for a study hall.
Mustapha Salau, a Parkland sophomore, still goes to track and soccer practice during the holiday. He said fasting doesn't affect his participation in sports, he just makes sure to stay hydrated and eat carbohydrates and protein when he can.
He'll usually wakes up at 4:30 a.m. to eat four waffles before sunrise, when the fast begins again.
Throughout the month, he thinks about how blessed he is to not eat during the day for one month, when there are so many around the world who go hungry, day and night, for weeks.
"It puts your life in perspective," he said. "I'm also thinking about practicing self-control, practicing how to self-inform, make yourself a better person, both socially in relationships with family, friends and close ones, and religiously," he said.
The holiday also makes him feel connected to Muslims around the world and the Lehigh Valley community.
Sabah Dharamsi, 12, goes to the library at Springhouse Middle School with her Muslim friends while the rest of their classmates go to the cafeteria for lunch. Her first year fasting was difficult, but now she feels more used to it, even if she's often tired.
When she was in fifth grade, one of her non-Muslim friends was shocked to learn that she wasn't allowed to drink water during Ramadan.
But she tells people: It's not as hard as they think.
"There's a lot of other people around the world that don't get to eat for many days, and I just fast for like the daytime," she said.
Her mother, Mubina Dharamsi, wishes there were more accommodations for Muslim students during Ramadan, like online courses or a later start time. She said it's not the fasting that wears on her daughter, but the exhausting sleep schedule. The family gets home from their mosque around 11 p.m., and then wakes up again at 3 a.m. to eat.
She said teachers have become more aware of their Muslim students' needs, offer alternatives to the cafeteria and ask students whether field trips planned for Ramadan need to be rescheduled.
"At least teachers are asking and aware," she said.
She teaches her children that Ramadan isn't just about fasting the body of food and water, but of exercising self-restraint with bad habits like cursing, alcohol and smoking.
"A Muslim person during Ramadan feels, although we're tired because of lack of sleep ... we feel healthier," she said. "After that our body is rejuvenated."
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Information from: The Morning Call,